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Tracy holds her umbrella out over her bot, controller in her free hand. The bot leans forward and snips roses from the bush, and Tracy smiles, pleased, even though she’s getting soaked. As long as her bot’s alright.
It’s been a month since she and Helena have started dating, and it’s been one of Tracy’s best months to date. Of course she wants to celebrate their anniversary!
Tracy is often one for forgetting dates and details unless they really matter to her, so she took extra care to write this all over the place. William had seemed amused even though he had to ask Tracy what she wrote down every time.
She’s actually almost done, red roses held in the bot’s grasp. Tracy can ask William for help taking out the thorns when he comes around for lunch. Helena likes how the petals feel and how the flowers smell, but it’d be horrible if she pricked herself. Tracy had hurt her hand grabbing a rose earlier, hence why the bot was doing all the flower picking now.
Guiding the bot to come with her, Tracy begins to head back inside, gaze transfixed on the controller in her hand. She’s gotten the hang of this quite quickly, so she doesn’t take very long.
A deep, friendly voice shakes her from her trance. “Hello, Tracy! Are you alright?”
Tracy startles, but her tense shoulders immediately relax as she realizes it’s just William. “Will! Yes! Can you help me out here?”
“Yes, with what?” William asks, tightening his headband before looking back down at Tracy.
It’s nice that he likes helping her out; never a silent competition to see who’s smarter, like with Luca--which isn't bad, but sometimes all Tracy wants is a friend and not too much to think about.
“It’s our one month! D’you know how to dethorn roses? I hurt my hand, so, um…”
“I’m pretty sure there’s some fancy tools, but we don’t have to worry! Let’s not bother Emma or Emily over this. They’re really nice, but they’re busy. I’ll get some bandages. Can you please get a knife?” William seems to count on his fingers but never casts his hands a glance.
“Yep! I’ll be back. Watch over my bot!”
~
Tracy and William spend a good half hour trying to dethorn and arrange the roses to look as nice as possible, but their period of floral expertise comes to a rather abrupt end as a bell rings lowly and the cool, feminine voice of Miss Nightingale seems to fill the air from above, below--essentially everywhere.
“Tracy Reznik, Helena Adams, José Baden, and Mike Morton. Please report to the main lobby for your match.”
“WHAT?!” Tracy blurts out, mouth gaping open as Will stares blankly.
“...Did you not read your letter this morning? I saw it in your room.”
“I was sleeping in my workshop, thinking about me and Helena! I don’t have… I don’t have time for a match--”
“Calm down,” Will cuts Tracy’s fretting off, placing a heavy hand on her shoulder.
Tracy nods halfheartedly and forces herself not to clench her fists as she twirls a yellow rose in her hands delicately. “I should… get going. I’m not happy ‘bout this at all… ugh…”
“At least you and Helena are together, right? Give her the roses at the start of the match and cipher rush whatever hunter thinks they can four-man you.”
Will stands up and pats Tracy on the head before holding out the boquet to her.
“Thanks--wait! Do I have any ribbon or string?”
“Um?” Will pauses, then seems to brighten as he remembers. “Yes! You do!”
He crouches down and opens a drawer, delicately sifting through the countless items crammed inside before proudly brandishing a thin, shiny green ribbon.
How did he remember that was there--
Brushing aside her usual shock at William’s eye for detail, Tracy extends the roses and lets Will tie a lumpy bow.
“Thanks! I’m gonna get going now. I really shouldn't be late.”
“I was gonna say,” William chuckles, watching Tracy pocket her controller and break into a sprint. He wonders how long that sprint will last for just a moment before he turns back to Tracy’s workspace, planning to clean up the mess they made.
~
Tracy slows to a walk about halfway through, but speeds back up into a jog at the second calling for the survivors. She makes it to the lobby last, barely in time, and spots four seconds left on the clock.
She doesn’t even have time to greet Helena as darkness sweeps her and the other three away.
~
Tracy finally comes back to reality in Red Church, and immediately brings her robot to life before heading to look for the nearest cipher.
It’s not raining here! The sunshine brightens her mood even more.
After a moment’s thought, she decides to apologize for her tardiness.
“Sorry…”
People can say whatever they want in matches, except certain phrases are heard across the entire map while others are restricted to face-to-face conversation. ‘Sorry’ was a map-wide term, so Tracy knew she’d been heard.”
She speeds up her walk again, and finally finds a cipher tucked behind some walls in the corner of the map, near the abandoned wedding.
The dungeon sometimes appears here, she recalls, already beginning to decode with ease. She calls out her progress and grins with delight.
“Don’t move, I’m coming!” Helena’s soft voice is audible, and Tracy stays put, decoding eagerly. She’s already made a bit of progress.
When Helena rounds the corner, deftly tapping her cane, she smiles at the sound of keys tapping and slams her cane into the ground.
Tracy glances over and grimaces at the limp figure of a Dream Witch follower, illuminated in red.
“Oh. Let’s hurry up. But! First!”
Tracy holds out the roses to Helena. “Flowers, for our one month.”
Helena gasps and gingerly takes the flowers. “Really? Thank you… I asked if Demi could cook us a meal to share at dinner to as a favor she owed me, and she agreed, so we can enjoy that later…”
Tracy yanks her girlfriend into a hug. “Yay! We both remembered!”
Tracy leans in to gently kiss Helena’s cheek, but the heavy sound of a bell causes Helena to go stiff as a board as Tracy freezes, lips barely brushing Helena’s skin.
José… was terror shocked.
The rescuer.
The sunshine feels more like a taunt than a compliment now.
Tracy’s eyes flit from Helena’s face to the figure of the puppet, illuminated red through the walls.
Miss Nightingale’s voice fills the air again.
“Successfully leeched onto a survivor.”
Tracy swallows hard.
“U-um, Helena, let’s get decoding. Mike can rescue, r-right?”
Helena seems much more collected than Tracy, and she nods as she takes Tracy’s hands, palms already sweaty, into her own dry, warm ones.
It doesn’t do much to ease the instinctual distress tormenting her insides, but Tracy appreciates the sentiment as Helena goes over to the cipher, boquet tucked neatly in her pocket.
Tracy brings her doll over and sets them in front of the cipher before she joins Helena, helping the process as best she can despite the trembles wracking her entire body.
“Successfully leeched onto a survivor.”
...It’s on--
“Helena!” Tracy shrieks. “Get out of here!”
Cowardly nature coming to front, Tracy leaves her bot to fail a calibration as she runs off, the ‘humph!’ of a follower audible as the child rises from a puff of purplish smoke.
Helena runs in the opposite direction, and the puppet lopes off after her.
Tracy feels even worse than before. She has to keep decoding--
Trying to calm her fragmented breaths, Tracy sets her doll back on the cipher before beginning to run again. She plans to go to the cipher on the opposite side of the map.
A bell rings as Helena is hit. Tracy almost falls as she missteps from pure panic.
Since when was José rescued--
Mike takes a hit as well.
Tracy’s the only one not injured.
It feels like the world is closing in.
Tracy moans in distress, backing up against a wall and slumping down as she begins to control her doll again.
Decode, decode, deocde.
75%.
5 ciphers remaining.
The doll’s about a quarter gone.
Mike is downed.
4 ciphers remaining.
Tracy stops controlling her doll and hopes the Dream Witch has finally left Helena alone.
“...F-focus on d-decoding…”
“Cipher machine decoding process 13%.”
Tracy exhales slowly as she hears Helena’s calm voice.
She has to keep going.
“Don’t move, I’m coming!”
José sounds confident despite the shakiness at the end of his call.
“Successfully leeched onto a survivor.”
Tracy assumes it’s on Mike.
José will rescue, Helena will decode, Mike will kite, Tracy will…
Decode.
Pushing herself up on weak knees, Tracy begins to head towards her target cipher.
A bell rings and Tracy realizes her bot is downed.
Okay, she can deal with that in a minute.
Trying to control her breathing like Helena taught her to, Tracy finally begins to decode, fingers shaky. After a moment, she brings her doll to help, and they’re about fifty percent through when José is hit right as he rescues Mike, activating his Tide Turner.
He took too long, so Mike’s dead on chair. José will be halfway if he’s chaired, and Helena and Tracy are okay.
Tracy can’t bring herself to say anything, only weakly attempt to convince herself everything will be okay. Her lips form words, but no sound escapes.
Her bot fails a calibration, so she moves to control it again, and a scream barely escapes her lips before a pickaxe sinks into her side.
Terror shock.
Jose’s Tide runs out, so he falls too.
Tracy can’t control her bot while incapacitated, so she just lays there and tries to heal herself.
“Focus on decoding!”
Helena and Tracy say it at the same time.
“Cipher machine decoding process 69%.”
Mike’s decoding, at least.
“Cipher machine decoding process 87%.”
Helena is decoding.
José is picked up and placed on a chair.
Tracy’s healed, so she brings her bot to heal herself completely.
3 Ciphers remaining.
“Successfully leeched onto a survivor.”
Tracy notices the follower a second too late, and her bot’s hit and finally destroyed conpletely. Despair swallows her up, but she begins to run despite it all.
The puppet follows her, but Tracy keeps running.
Go, go, go go go--
Tracy’s exhausted, but she hears another cipher pop. It motivates her to run a bit faster.
She sees the golden light of a Blink from the corner of her eye, and she’s downed once again. She can’t self-heal anymore, but at least the follower’s gone.
2 ciphers remaining.
“Don’t move, I’m coming!”
Two different people: Helena and Mike.
To two different people: Tracy and José. Respectively. Tracy thinks.
She turns out to be wrong.
Mike’s tall figure rounds a corner, and Tracy looks up at him. “S-sorry… I’m...”
“Don’t worry about it,” Mike grins. “I’ll get you up and decoding! Just gimme a bit…”
He crouches down and starts to patch up her cuts, and Tracy can’t do much more than sit there.
“Didn’t wanna let Helena rescue, but since I’m out if I’m downed, it’s probably best if ‘s’me healing you.”
“P-please tell me she’s safe,” Tracy stammers, trying to stand up before Mike ushers her back down.
“I’m sure she will be. She’s hardier than she looks, honestly!” Mike stands up and dusts off his hands as Tracy’s finally back at full health.
“Sh-should I… heal…” Tracy feels her voice die in her throat, unable to look up and look Mike in the eyes. She doesn’t feel comfortable around anyone that isn’t Luca, Will, or Helena, and with everything going on, this really isn’t--
“No, no, let’s decode! Only two ciphers--”
Tracy clamps her hands over her mouth in horror as Helena is downed and José flies off.
“S-stay, I-I-- Don’t move, I’m coming--”
Tracy ignores Mike’s slowly rising voice, telling her to Come back! and Let me do it!, unwilling to see Helena suffer. She doesn’t want anyone to fail Helena. Only she can do this, right?
She’s capable, right?
Right?
“Cipher machine decoding process 24%.”
Mike listened.
2 Ciphers remaining.
Tracy opens a chest with trembling hands and almost doesn’t realize she’s crying as she pulls out a flare gun.
Okay. Good pull. Okay. Good pull. Come on, Tracy.
Tracy runs toward the illuminated chair, gun cold, heavy metal in her hand. She’s gonna rescue Helena and they’re gonna make it--
“Successfully leeched onto a survivor.”
Mike is downed.
No.
Tracy feels her throat and lungs burn from how dry they are, from swallowing air as fast as she can. She runs even faster, wondering how hard she’ll sleep and how sore she’ll wake up.
Helena doesn’t notice Tracy until her raggedy breath grows close enough to be heard, and then she smiles as softly as she can. Tracy smiles back as best she can, reaching out to free Helena, and--
Terror shock.
Mike is chaired and flies off.
Tracy can’t help it.
With the puppet staring at her, its red light bathing her own torso and Helena’s legs, Tracy begins to cry.
“I-I’m sorry, Helena, th-that our anniversary is s-so t-terrible, a-a-and--”
“Tracy,” Helena tries to interrupt. “Tracy--”
Tracy’s crying too hard to notice, blindly feeling for the boquet she hears hit the ground.
Feeling her blood pool around her knees, soaking through her pants, Tracy clutches the boquet to her chest and curls up on her side.
“Come on,” Helena coaxes, “let’s surrender, and let’s get this over with.”
Tracy agrees, eyes burning as snot dribbles past her lips and onto her chin.
2 ciphers remaining.
“The survivors have surrendered.”
Tracy doesn’t want to hear that bird lady’s voice for a long time,
~
Tracy can barely open her eyes, but whatever she’s on is softer than the packed dirt ground of the Red Church.
“Tracy? Traaaacy? Miss Reeeeeznik,” Luca’s voice calls, and Tracy groans lightly as the rough material of a glove pokes her cheek.
“Wh… aah…” Tracy barely manages to form words, and she feels a hand on the back of her neck and stiffens.
“Do you want helped up?” William asks, and Tracy squints as she tries to focus on his face before nodding.
It hurts to sit up, but it’s okay once Will has her back against the bed frame. It’s not Emily’s office, which is a plus.
“You took quite a lot of damage, Tracy,” Luca comments, and Tracy manages a glare at his comically thoughtful face.
“Duh. It hurts.”
“At least you don’t need a lot of wounds to fall down, so there are less injuries to heal,” William offers, seeming a little helpless considering the content of his compliment.
Tracy sighs. “Thank you for trying to help. Is my bot--”
Helena.
“Wait! Is Helena okay? Oh, no, I totally have to--”
Tracy swings her legs over the side of the bed in a rush, but collapses right next to the chair Luca’s sitting in with a strangled cry as a low but fierce ache begins to burn in her left side.
Will stands up so quickly his chair almost falls over, and Luca stares down at Tracy like he’s been caught red-handed.
Like, he has been, though, so it’s not totally improbable, right?
Tracy doesn’t have the energy to struggle as Will helps her up, leaning over so that her arm can sling over his neck.
“I gotta check on Helena--”
“She wasn’t hurt too bad, Tracy! Let me bring her here!” Luca stands up and waves his hands in front of Tracy’s hands to get her attention, and Tracy feels the hairs on her neck rise from the static Luca gives off.
Will nods in agreement. “Well, hurry, then. I don’t think Tracy’s in the mood to wait much. There’s only so many hours in an anniversary, you know.”
“Anniv--geez!” Luca seems shocked for a moment before he dusts unseen dirt off his shirt and hurries off, loose tools clanking together in that huge toolbelt of his. “Be back soon!”
Tracy sighs, trying to keep the match out of her head, but it replays over and over.
‘Come on; let’s surrender, and let’s get this over with.’
“Will, she’s probably so disappointed…,” Tracy mumbles, shame creeping up her neck and making her face burn in a different, maybe worse way than her injury.
“No, you both tried your best, Tracy. I spectated, and I think you both made a really valiant attempt.”
Tracy lets her forehead fall against Will’s bicep. “Thanks, but that doesn’t change the fact I failed her…”
“I don’t think she’s upset. Really. It’s gonna be--”
“HEY! Brought Miss Adams back!” Luca calls, entering much more slowly than he left.
Likely to accomodate for, well. An injured person.
Helena clasps her hands gently, cane still held in her right hand. “Thank you, Mister Balsa. I appreciate you coming to get me.”
“Sure, sure! Glad to help you or Tracy out!”
Will chuckles a bit, then helps Tracy back on the bed. “I’m gonna give you and Helena some time for yourselves. Ask her about the match; I’m sure she’s okay with it all.”
Tracy feels worry submerge whatever happiness she’d felt bloom in her gut, but she nods and clenches her blankets in her fists. She notices the stupid match notification letter, finally, untouched on her crowded desk.
“Luca, let’s leave them be for now. Come on,” Will prompts. “We can go practice with Martha and Naib; they want to do a custom match with Galatea.”
“Oh, she’s vicious,” Luca complains, but follows Will out the door with no qualms, bumping it shut behind him.
The door shuts with a click, leaving Tracy on the bed and Helena in the middle of the room.
“May I join you?” Helena asks, voice soft as always.
Tracy notices some yellow blooms sticking out of her pocket and swallows hard in an attempt to push back the sudden lump in her throat. “...Yeah.”
Helena makes her way over to the bed and settles down gingerly, fingers brushing over the blanket gently until she find Tracy’s hand and gently curls her fingers around it.
Her hands are still so warm…
“I’m sorry, Helena!”
Tracy ignores the pathetic crack in her voice.
“It was s-so s-stupid of me to fail you! I sh-should be reliable, right? I should be reliable, a g-good girlfriend, but the s-second something like that happens, I--I fail--fail you and run, b-but when I come back I fail you again a-and--”
“Tracy,” Helena interrupts, squeezing Tracy’s hand gently, and Tracy only just notices Helena’s lower lip trembling.
Tracy wonders briefly how terrible she can come to feel in just one day.
“It’s okay. I promise. What Will said was right. I’m not mad at all. Are you too hurt to stand?”
Tracy tries to collect herself and calm her breathing, but all she manages is a shrug.
“It’s okay,” Helena soothes, setting her cane aside and folding Tracy’s shaking hand between her own. “I’ll ask Demi to bring dinner here. Our anniversary isn’t ruined because of a game. I still love you and you still love me. That’s all we need, right?”
“...Right. Right. Sorry, ‘Lena…” Tracy leans in and kisses Helena’s cheek, but without some morbid interruption (formerly courtesy of the Dream Witch) this time.
Helena smiles. “No need to apologize. Are you thinking of anything in particular for dinner?”
“You like chicken noodle soup, right? Let’s have that. And some bread.”
Tracy feels herself smile, tears mere streaks on her face now as Helena gasps lightly. “You remember!”
“Of course!” Tracy chimes, feeling the illness clutching her heart loosen its grip. “Of course, ‘Lena… should I get more flowers for us, too? The ones in your pocket are a bit beat up.”
“No, no… I think they’re wonderful. Do you have a glass of water?”
“Oh! No! I’ll get the water, you get Demi to make the soup--how’s that sound?”
Helena’s smile totally lights up the world--and much more efficiently than whatever Tracy or Luca or anyone could build. “It sounds perfect. Let’s go, Tracy.”