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Mara lay in wait. Cara had her assault rifle at the ready, and Mara could hear her footsteps, quiet and cautious, as she searched the corridors. Searching for Mara so she could end her life and win the killing game.
She held her breath, and listened to Cara walk right past the janitor's closet. When her footsteps faded away, she got to work - hands trembling, pouring bleach into a bucket. She couldn't die now, not after everything. Not after Orias had sacrificed his life for her, giving Mara the opportunity to run and hide in this closet. She couldn't let his life go to waste.
Mara gripped the knife in one hand. She shook. For a teacher's aide, Cara was surprisingly strong, disciplining children coming from troubled backgrounds. Despite her small stature, she could easily beat Mara in a fight. Although she was tall, Mara had spent all her life crouched in front of a laptop, drawing endlessly. Her mother always told her she should stretch her legs, do some exercise so she could be big and strong. Pushing her to make friends, go outside once in a while instead of writing comics. She suppressed a shuddering sob behind one hand. She missed her mother so much. She missed her friends. She missed Orias, who had been so sure the three of them would escape together. Before Cara had betrayed them both.
The bucket was ready. There was no more time to waste - not when Tozu was expecting a death soon. So she grabbed her kitchen knife tight, and knocked over the tiny metal stepladder in the room. She tried to still her shaking hands, and waited, muscles tense, for Cara to appear. Seconds later, Cara's footsteps were heard nearing the door. The door swung open, light spilling into the room - and the bleach poured on her head. Cara screamed, dropping the gun on the floor. And Mara lunged, pinning her down with a yell, stabbing her over and over with all of her strength, even as Cara clawed at her and struggled violently. Lost in a haze of fear, Mara stabbed her again and again until her arm grew sore and the sticky warmth of blood spread across the floor. She felt a tap on her shoulder, and Mara crawled backwards, looking at the wreckage of what used to be Cara Koskinen. Dead.
She...she just killed someone. Slaughtered her like some kind of vicious animal, before Cara could even say a word-
"My, my...what a turn of events."
Mara flinched at the noise. To her left, Tozu stood, looking oddly proud of her. Drinking up the sight of Mara, covered in blood, hand trembling. Savouring the sight.
"You had me thinking this was going to be an easy fight." he continues, eye smiling. "But your little plot with the bleach bucket...it exceeded my expectations."
He leaned in towards her, and Mara scrambled away, holding the knife out in front of her. Pointing it at Tozu's mask, although both of them knew she wasn't going to do a thing.
"But you and I both know you can't escape here. No, not with your little rule violation earlier."
Mara's blood ran cold. She didn't want to have to break that rule - but Orias had been bleeding out, and she'd broken the chair trying to hit Cara with it, scrambling for a weapon in the dining hall. She didn't mean to. Mara shook her head desperately, tears budding in her eyes.
"However, you did win fair and square." Tozu said. "So your death is not on the cards. But neither is your freedom...at this moment."
He held one hand, clad in a red glove, out for Mara to take. After a brief moment of hesitation, she took it, and he pulled her upright. The knife was heavy in her hand, blood caking her fingers, splattered on her pastel blue skirt. Her eyes, unconsciously, trailed to Cara's corpse on the floor. Eyes closed, sweater stained with blood. Mara gagged, covering her mouth - unknowingly smearing her face with blood, the metal stench unbearable.
Tozu opened one of his secret passageways, leading her inside. There, inside a secret room, he informed her of his expectations. Mara would not leave here today to see her family. Instead, she would stay here and work for him. And when the next group of Ultimates inevitably came to 'Eden's Garden Academy', she would be the new enforcer.
Mara shook her head. Her, an enforcer? Wielding guns and weapons? Tozu genially reminded her, when she didn't budge, that she was still far from home. Her mother, still at risk. He could snap his fingers and have her killed.
Tozu, at last, promised that if she enforced to the end, then she would escape alongside the survivors. Whether there was one, or two...or no survivors at all, Mara would get to be free. All she would need to do is become a living weapon to serve him.
She couldn't say no. Not when her mother's life was at risk. Not when she didn't even know where she was, or why she and the other fifteen Ultimates were trapped. So Mara nodded, feeling sick. He allowed her go back to her dormitory, where she washed her clothes and threw up and sobbed in her shower and threw up once more. Lying in her bed, she cried herself to sleep, the memory of Cara's last moments plaguing her mind.
Mara woke up in a bed she didn't recognise. Clothes that weren't hers, placed on her bed. An animal mask. Red contact lenses. A written note, warning her to be ready for training in half an hour. Mara soon realised she was moved to yet another facility - only this one was designed for her to push her body to the limit. She gained muscle, and learned how to shoot. She learned how to disarm people with weapons - how to dodge blows, how to block punches. She woke up sore and exhausted every day, and cried herself to sleep every night, but there was no escape from this place, too. There were guards watching over her, and the few times she had tried to even look for an exit, she'd been rewarded with a blow to the face. A paralysing electric shock, from that Tozu Trinket that still never left her arm. She lost track of the days and months she had spent trapped away, and the unanswered questions ate away at her. Why did this happen to her? What did she do to deserve this? How can she get out of here?
One day, Tozu walked into her room, as if nothing had changed. Telling her that it was time. The new group of Ultimates were ready. And so was she.
She returned to Eden's Garden Academy. Opening one of the rooms and checking the calendar, she saw the month: September 2024. Nearly two years from when she had first woken up in the courtyard, Orias by her side. She goes to his door - and sees the name Diana Venicia where Orias's name should be. All the nameplates had been changed - the one on her door, reading Eloise Taulner. Cara's door had someone named Grace Madison. The walls inside a light blue, white visors sitting on a desk, instead of notebooks and ballpoint pens, and the camel-coloured wallpaper Cara had always liked-
"We don't have all day." Tozu reminds her, and she flinches away from the door, before walking back to his side.
It is strange, being on the other end. Watching the Ultimate students wake up through the cameras, meet each other. Some outwardly acting brave, others not so much. She watches them find Cara's fake body, listens to the little girl scream and tries to ignore the discomfort in her stomach. When a woman - Grace, she thinks, recognising the visor - attacks Tozu, enraged, she aims her gun, barely skimming the golfer with her bullet. She stumbles back in horror, and all of the students stare at Mara in terror, as she emerges from the shadows.
This is new. Never had Mara been someone to cower away from as they are now. Never had she ever invoked such fear in people - not wallflower Mara, who could barely look people in the eye, unable to finish a sentence without stuttering. Now, they avoid her eyes, unnerved by her weapons. Tozu announces the killing game, and despite the lawyer's best efforts to calm them, voices of dissent inevitably rise. As they leave, they make sure not to even go near her, as they whisper encouragements to each other. Trying to build some sense of fragile peace that will never last.
Mara feels sick to her stomach.