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(Vespa, the first time I ever saw you was the most exciting day of my life.)
There’s an itch under Buddy’s skin.
(Well. That day started off rather terrible, to be quite honest.)
Metaphorical, obviously, but that doesn’t change the fact that she’s restless and impatient and quite simply bored to death. She is going to pass away, here, in the very same prison she was born in, from sheer ennui.
(I’d been cornered into coming along on one of my father’s ghastly “inspections,” you see, and I was despising every second of it.)
They’ve been going from sector to sector of the prison as part of the regular checks, which is apparently part of her responsibilities now. It’s been going on for so long that she’s actually starting to regret the six-inch heels. Her father does most of the talking, checking each of the facilities, posturing in a way that would likely disgust her if she saw it from anyone else.
Actually, fine, it disgusts her already, why deny it? Palomine Aurinko stalks around the prison like he doesn’t just own it; like it’s his ridiculous kingdom, taking vicious pleasure in his place at the top of the food chain. It’s unbecoming. Buddy tries to keep her disdain off her face, mainly because she does not have the energy for a squabble at the dinner table tonight.
Eventually they end up in the head office again, talking while her father works— well, if you could call feeling inordinately pleased with himself working. He interrogates her on how the prison is run, the people she should know, and a dozen other terribly mundane things she’s already had memorized since she was at least fourteen.
It’s his only version of small talk. Buddy’s foot is tapping a steady groove into the floor.
(Life up until then had seemed so dreary, so pointless.)
“Well, then,” he’s saying, in a voice that may as well be white noise to Buddy’s ears, “what do you say? You think you can handle this sort of—”
A loud clang interrupts his spiel, coming distantly from behind her, and Buddy twists in her seat.
(And as I was sitting there in my father’s office, trying to think of a passable reason to leave, there you were.)
“What is that?” she asks before she can stop her mouth. She stands up. “What’s going on?”
Her father shoots her a cold look, which means he has no idea. “Probably a brawl,” he says dismissively. “The guards will take care of it. It’s nothing worth your attention—”
(Stirring up a storm the size of Saturn’s rings just a few corridors away.)
There’s another crash, even louder than the last one, and an incredibly dramatic cry of pain that sounds like someone getting injured. Buddy turns instinctively towards the noise, and when she turns back her father is outright glaring.
“Buddy,” he snaps, tone dangerous with warning. Honestly, she hasn’t even tried anything yet.
She is about to, though.
“Don’t even think about—”
Buddy throws a file cabinet into her father’s path and bolts for the door.
(I was so intrigued I didn’t even care to make up an excuse.)
“Buddy Aurinko!”
She feels the laugh bubbling in her throat before she’s even slammed the door in her father’s face. He’s bellowing after her, and she will pay for it dearly in a matter of hours, most likely, but for the moment she is running through this ugly gray hellhole with a grin on her face, her heels kicked off somewhere between the previous sector and the stairs.
(From the moment I knew you, Vespa, you’ve been making me let go of all my pretenses.)
Whatever commotion is brewing at the end of the corridor, it’s on the verge of boiling over. It doesn’t sound like a regular prison brawl, whatever her father says— she can hear guards yelling and shouting orders that don’t seem like they’re being carried out by anyone, going by the continued noise and clatter. Other guards half-heartedly try to stop her as she breezes by, but clearly their attention is split.
Is it a breakout? Goodness, she certainly hopes so. This is the most excitement she’s had in at least a month. Her blaster slips into her hand almost on instinct, and she swings around the corner just in time to see the blade sink into the lower warden’s neck.
(I’ll never forget the way you looked, standing in the middle of that prison.)
The woman holding it has shocking green hair that stands out like a satellite, and eyes as sharp and lethal as the knife in her hand. Buddy’s breath catches in her throat.
The guards, who had been thundering forward with guns raised— rookies, really— all fall back now, unsure what to do without a supervisor to give out orders, and more than a little afraid. It’s not quite a standoff. The prisoners in the cells are watching, shouting a mix of taunts and encouragement.
Buddy should say something, take charge of this situation, prove her goddamn worth—instead, her eyes trace and retrace the knuckles wrapping around that bloodied knife, the shift of muscle in the woman’s shoulders, the tense line of her jaw. The blaster in Buddy’s hand doesn’t do her much good, as it turns out, because her grip on it has weakened so easily she may as well have slid it across the floor and offered herself up as a willing hostage.
The green-haired woman is holding the warden’s body in front of her like a shield, something hard and ruthless in the curl of her mouth. Buddy can see her scanning the row of armed guards for an exit. Then the woman’s eyes slide to the cells of rioting prisoners, and when her mouth splits in a vicious grin Buddy realises what she plans to do a split second before she does it.
(Cornered and surrounded, at least fifty-to-one, with nothing but a knife, and still grinning like you knew a secret.)
It happens in an instant. The woman wrenches the knife out of the warden’s neck, and between the spray of blood and the howling crowd Buddy picks out the low hum of heating plasma.
The blade, now changed to a dangerous blue, swings down onto the lock of the nearest cell. Buddy feels like it’s her who’s been set aflame.
(You barrelled into my world like a gunshot.)
The metal shrieks. Prisoners spill out into the corridor. Buddy thinks she catches an actual laugh on the woman’s face, smug, knowing, gorgeous— a blaster goes off, the first fight breaks out, and by then the guards are a little preoccupied.
(Did you know you cut down six of my father’s highest-ranked security that day?)
In the ensuing chaos, the woman melts into the crowd.
Buddy’s feet are moving before she realises it. “Wait,” she says, but the word comes out too slow, dulled at the edges. She doesn’t think anyone even heard.
A guard catches her arm. “Miss Aurinko, please stay back for your own safety—”
“Who was that?” she demands, in her best I’m-in-control-here voice. “How did she get the knife past the checks?”
“We—we don’t really know, ma’am, it was just some pickpocket—”
Pickpocket who could outwit a roomful of alert, armed security? Preposterous. Buddy shoves the guard aside and weaves through the mob, stunning anyone who tries to get too close to her. Somehow even more cell doors have opened.
(And after you left, the prisoners you freed easily took care of the rest.)
There’s only one possible exit from this side of the prison, but the woman’s gained a lead too wide for Buddy to catch up even when she’s gotten free of the riot. Her lungs are burning with exertion from the chase, her skin cold with sweat. She thinks she sees the flash of green hair a few times, the arc of a blue blade, but every time it’s like a meteor, there and gone again.
(That was the first time I saw you, love: The day they tried to back you up against a wall, and in return you cracked open my father’s prison like it was nothing.)
Buddy runs so fast the soles of her feet hurt, but by the time she steps onto the pavement, breathless and barefoot and shot through with adrenaline, the woman is in the wind.
Damn. Damn.
(I didn’t meet you then, of course.)
She can’t wipe the smile off her face.
(Though if you must know, I did try.)