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It had been a few days since the balance beam challenge, and Teardrop was on edge. She didn’t know what, but something had changed. The way she interacted with the others… the way they interacted with her. It was like they were against her specifically. It wasn’t like her being on her own team had ever affected the others before. Not till-
Oh. Right. Two had mentioned that if she lost a challenge, she would be eliminated out of proxy, as she was her own team. Now that they’d said that, she’d be an open target to the other teams. Whatever today’s challenge was, she’d have to watch out.
“Good Morning! Today’s challenge is a Battle Royale!”
Teardrop sees the expressions of a few specific members shift. Specifically, Eraser, Fanny, and Tree. Black Hole also seemed tense, but he didn’t have an expression to shift, so there was that, she supposed. Two turned to Black Hole, and pointed at him.
“Don’t worry, Black Hole! For obvious reasons, you’re not participating!”
“Oh thank god…”
Two claps their hands together as Black Hole drifts off.
“Awesome! With that out of the way, let me explain how this works!”
They pull out a whiteboard from god knows where. On it, is a rather long list, split into two sections for length purposes.
“Each team, as well as each team member’s death and kill counts will be displayed right here! The 3 teams with the highest kill count at the end will be safe! I have also hidden various weapons around the map, so have fun! I’ll be right here to revive any killed contestants, so they can keep playing!”
Two snaps their fingers, and Teardrop is suddenly on the roof. Ah. She sees a giant timer, counting down from 10. She guesses that’s fine. She knows she has her ray gun. She doesn’t need anything else. Just one hit instantly kills someone, so it’s her best bet. She walks to the edge of the roof, seeing contestants already fighting outside.
Tree just got killed by Price Tag.
Oh- wait. Pillow just ripped Price Tag in half.
Okay. Geez, it’s barely been a minute and things are already going insane.
No wait- Pillow is going inside. And-
The elevator door opens. She turns to see Winner standing there. There’s a gun in their comically placed hand.
“Hey TD! Uh, I kinda have to kill you. No hard feelings, right?”
Teardrop aims her gun. Winner steps back into the elevator frantically pressing the buttons with the gun dropped.
“OKAYYY Maybe! SOME hard feelings! That’s o- “
Teardrop starts shooting. In the blink of an eye, Winner’s gone. Teardrop goes towards the stairs, ready to kill her next victim.
She gets to the third floor before she spots someone else. Golf Ball and Gaty seem to be battling it out. Gaty has what seems to be… uhhh… knives. Attached to shoes. Well, Two had to have some kind of idea for the armless contestants, she guessed. She doesn’t think they’ve noticed her yet. Gaty kicks at Golf Ball and- oh, that’s a stab wound. Oh, Golf Ball’s down. Gaty turns to her now. Teardrop motions towards the... shoes.
“Huh? Oh, yeah. That was my idea. Two couldn’t think of anything for the literally unarmed contestants.”
Okay, that explained it. Teardrop shrugs, starting to fire. Gaty runs at her, dodging most of her attacks. Then, when Gaty jumps to stab her, Teardrop shoots. And-
—
She reappears at the recovery center, standing next to Gaty. Gaty no longer has the shoes.
“Oh. Dang. Uh, i’m gonna go kill Marker. I saw him by the pool earlier. I’ll see you later!”
Teardrop lets her walk off. She’s above spawn-killing. She walks over to the whiteboard to look at the teams. Team8s seems to be in the lead. Then Are You Okay, then Just Not, and then…
Oh. She’s 4th. She’s so close to barely making the mark. She just has to kill another person to tie with them, and then another to take their place. Now how much time-
. 4 minutes??? Shit. She needs to go.
She runs back to the hotel, planning her next actions. Marker was going to get killed by Gaty, which put her team at an advantage. Which, was fine. They were winning anyways. She just really needed to avoid getting killed by a member of Just Not. Which… hey, is that Book?
She sees her running through the amusement park (No, Teardrop will NOT call it the a-two-sment park.), with Eraser chasing her from right behind He- oh, he’s just in a car. A whole vehicle. That would be hard to beat. Unless she had like, acid or something. She runs over. Book was easy enough. Plus, she could rub it in Eraser’s face if she took his kill.
Approaching the two with her ray gun out, Eraser spots her.
“HEY!”
He swerves to go towards her instead. Shit. She hadn’t thought of that. Book was getting away! Was Eraser seriously going to let go of such an easy kill, just to take her down? What did it matter that she was automatically eliminated if she lost? Did he hate her that much?
Did he hate her that much?
Hey, no. She didn’t need to think like that. He speeds up his car. She decides to go after Book, who has started to run towards one of the tents to hide. It’s likely that Eraser would end up crashing if he tried to drive through the amusement park, right? Right! She hops the fence, running after Book. Book seems to notice, as she swerves out of the way of one of Teardrop’s gunshots. Teardrop looks behind her for a moment- she could never be too careful. Eraser has gotten out of his car to chase her on foot, and is holding a hammer. Seriously?? He could have run over so many people with that truck. And he abandons it to chase her?
Did he hate her that much?
No! Stop thinking about that! She turns to look back at Book. A hammer could only be used if Eraser got close enough, and she’d hear if he was close enough. She sees Book start to climb up one of the moving ferris wheel cars, holding… oh, a ninja star?? Seriously? She wants a freaking ninja star!
…wait. Eraser would be an easy kill. He’s chasing her, right? Just like Gaty earlier. But Eraser has arms. She turns to him, and he’s smiling.
“End of the line, TD!”
Don’t call her that. She prepares her gun, and aims.
“Our rivalry ends right here! It was nice knowing you!”
She shoots, He dodges, She’s so close to him, he might be able to land a hit soon.
“Uh, actually, that was a lie. I didn’t know you well enough for that.”
He swings. She shoots.
She’s still standing in the same spot. And he isn’t anywhere to be found.
Okay! One more kill. She turns back to the ferris wheel, and Book is chasing her too now. She turns to the timer. 30 seconds left. She blinks, and her gun's too out of reach to grab.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. FUCK-
She looks into a nearby tent. Maybe to hide? She spots a green vial of liquid. It’s labelled ACID.
Fuck.
She runs inside, grabbing the flask tightly. Book is too far away to throw the acid. What if she missed? A moving target was never good if the shot wasn’t bound to kill, no matter where it hit. If she hit an arm or the weapon, that’d just dissolve by itself. It was a complete chance if she actually killed Book. If she didn’t. she’d lose, and be eliminated. She’d rather kill herself than lose to something as stupid as that.
She’d rather kill herself than lose to something as stupid as that.
She’d rather kill herself.
Oh!
Deaths didn’t matter to the leaderboard. If she had enough kills, she’d be safe. As simple as that. Besides, she’d be brought back, right? It wasn’t forever. It was a better chance at staying safe than trying to kill Book.
5 seconds.
She unscrews the cap of the acid. Was she really going to do this? It’d hurt. Literal acid down her throat, burning her alive. But if she did it now, she’d be brought back. If she did it later out of frustration after being eliminated, she might not be as lucky.
4 seconds.
Book throws one of her ninja stars. It hurdles towards her. If she was going to do this, she’d need to hype herself up (god that was stupid). She couldn’t just… do this, could she? She had to get into her own head, as much as she hated to do so. She thought of every time someone had made it oh so obvious that they hated her. Everything she could think of that’d make her okay enough to do this.
She wasn’t a real contestant.
She was so viscerally terrified of the idea that one day, someone would hear her voice.
Pathetic.
She was an easy target.
Eraser hated her, apparently. Soon, others would join him.
She’d end up alone, and this time it wouldn’t be her own making.
3 seconds.
She lets all of the thoughts she’d tucked away pour from her mind.
She lets the acid pour down her throat.
The effect is immediate. She didn’t even know what started to hurt first, the second it spread it was too painful to tell. She could feel herself melting, like the time she’d evaporated but she was in the fire itself. She didn't even feel herself hit the floor. The last thing she saw before her vision fully blacked away was Book running towards her.
1 second.
—
When Teardrop comes to again, she is immediately met with the other groups surrounding the area. Two was standing right next to the whiteboard.
“Well, that’s a wrap! Let’s see who won!”
Teardrop spots Book, who’s staring at her nervously. She takes a step back.
“In first place is Team8, with 6 kills. In second is Are You Okay with 4, and in third is Teardrop, with 3 kills!”
“Huh. Didn’t think killing yourself counted…”
Book mutters. She slaps a hand over her mouth. Teardrop looks at the floor, but can feel eyes wander to her.
“Ahaha… uh… anyways! That means Death Pact Again, Just Not, The S!, and The Strongest Team On Earth, are up for elimination! Vote in the poll for who you want to be safe!”
Teardrop hears others speaking. She hears footsteps wander away, and the conversations passing her by seem to wander too. Her brain won’t focus. She’s still back in that one amusement park tent, feeling the bottle. Letting actual acid pour down her throat.
Oh.
She remembered why she never got too into her head.
She couldn’t get out.