Transmitter Failure

[Applesintime]

Alex was going to argue, say that Claire was closer to the ladder, but then the realisation had hit him: a ladder was the same as a door in terms of entry. Like, you could only have one person on the ladder at a time. One way, up or down. It was a chokepoint, and while you could jump off the roof if you chose, there'd be like, a pretty good chance that you'd break your leg or hurt yourself, and then you'd be screwed. Having a bad injury this early on day one would just be like, a death penalty.

Anyway. The ladder was a chokepoint, and Alex didn't think they'd realised that yet.

"Sure." Heading over to the ladder, holding the spear in one hand, Alex tossed it down into the light layer of snow and began to descend with a clang. The rungs were a little slippery from all the snow but hey, he had the duffel bag to break the fall in case he slipped. The ATs always gave people duffel bags, and he-

The ladder shuddered a little, creaked. How long had it been here? Dying by having the ladder you were climbing on collapse would be an SOTF first. Citizen would make a shitty meme of it or something and Xenon would chastise him for it. Maybe the owner of the server would pop in to look at it, because the memes about death were kinda frowned upon in the main forum, which he never got. Debating about how the Zionists or the Freemasons did SOTF was OK, but making memes about people dying was a step too far?

Well, didn't matter now. When his foot hit solid ground, a feeling of relief swept over him. Partially because he'd not died from the ladder falling off, but mostly because he was in prime position now. It wouldn't be clean, and he'd probably get shit for it, but hey.

First blood was within striking distance.

"Be, uh, careful with the ladder. It'll, uh, i-it's kinda shakey. J-just take it slow!" A little bit of cheer had creeped into his voice. Leaning down to pick up the spear, wiping his hands on his hoodie to get the wetness of the snow off and maintain a good grip, Alex waited patiently. Evie or Claire. He'd take either.

[Dr Adjective]

Alex seemed unusually quick to agree on going first, a move that probably should’ve been a red flag that he’d considered something that she hadn’t, but truthfully Evie was simply glad to no longer be sharing the roof with him. Relieved, she stepped out from behind her meagre cover to cross to Claire’s side after hearing the dull sound of spear hitting snow, then the louder feet meeting metal.

The creak concerned her: Evie wasn’t exactly heavy, but she wasn’t light either with the modest muscle she bore. Claire, she assumed, probably weighed about the same or more. All three of them in turn on a ladder that could’ve been unmaintained for God alone knew how many years, that could be a recipe for embarrassing-yet-life-threatening injury. Alex seemed to agree, in an oddly chipper tone, but maybe he was just glad to be sheltered from the wind, or not to have fallen, or both?

Evie gave Claire an uncertain look, but said nothing before moving to mount the ladder. She slipped her hands back into the gloves she’d used to avoid touching bare metal on the way up, and looked down to find her footing, only to notice something a tad concerning. Her left foot hovered awkwardly above the second rung down as she hesitated to continue. Was she really about to assume goodwill from a guy she’d literally been taking cover from moments ago?

“You, um, mind standing clear? Or putting that down a sec? For my sake?”

[Dogs231]

Claire figured it would be more difficult. After all, some people tended to be hard to reason with; they'd argue over everything all the time, no matter what. Still, credit where it was due, Alex complied—in short order, no less—and went down the ladder. He didn't even give that much of a fuss over it.

That said, Claire still didn't trust him much—only as far as she could throw him. Given her strength, that was quite a short distance. Her qualms were less that the ladder would break under one of them—she was pretty sure she was the heaviest one in the group, and it'd worked fine for her—and more the idea that Alex would spear one of them as they tried to clamber down.

Claire certainly wasn't going to risk it. Still, she had to get down somehow, and Evie had already decided to start down the ladder. Again, friends don't let friends get stabbed in the back—words to live by and words to die by. So, she began to look for an alternative.

She lowered herself into a sitting position and swung her legs over the side of the roof. She let them dangle from the side, the back of her shoes kicking against the exterior of the wall. Her eyes darted from her legs to the ground, trying to figure out how far she could afford to fall.

[Applesintime]

"Uh, alright!" Alex took a few steps backwards, enough that he figured that Evie would be satisfied. It didn't worry him. The spear was long enough, and from past discussions he remembered the 21 feet rule; someone with a knife could clear 21 feet in the time it took someone to pull their gun and shoot twice. Alex had something much longer than a knife, so he probably had less space to clear.

On the other hand, Claire was opting to jump down rather than take the ladder. Alex had been hoping that she would follow suit and trap Evie on the ladder.

"Are you sure you wanna jump? I-It, uh, I think y-you might be a bit, uh, bit high."

[Dr Adjective]

Moment of truth. Evie had always been bad at taking a figurative leap. She still hadn’t come out, even knowing everyone around her would be cool with it, just for fear of making a change, transitioning from one state to another, even if the new state was a better one. She’d rather prolong the awful experience of standoff and stalemate than actually progress to safety, because safe enough was good enough for her. Even hell like this could be comfortable familiarity, once settled into.

But she couldn’t hang on the precipice forever, neither literal nor figurative. The other foot fell.

Then another, and another. All the while she was glancing over her shoulder, thinking about how much padding her backpack and winter coat really provided, wondering if Alex really had it in him to try to kill her just like that? She’d always struggled to imagine hurting someone else on purpose, she’d always wanted everyone to be happy, to like her… but then, how few people had given her the time of day over the one thing she ever took a firm stand on, being nicer to animals as well as humans? So in the end, yes, Evie was still on her guard when she neared the base of the ladder after what felt like an eternity.

With a couple of rungs left to descend, she hopped down at an angle, so as to land facing towards Alex. Not much of a defence, but at least she wouldn’t be stabbed in the back. Her arms were tense, visualising bringing her daypack up in desperate defence, praying she wouldn’t need to. Alex wasn’t going to attack her, he was a nice guy really, and she’d always been friendly with him, listened to his crazy theories and given them at least a fair consideration. Plus Claire was there too. So of course she was safe. Right?

[Dogs231]

"Nah," she said off-handedly, "I'll be fine. It's not that far—I don't think so, anyway."

Claire looked down at her feet and then down at the ground. Suddenly, it looked a little bit further than it had before. She wasn't so sure now, but she didn't have another choice, did she? She took a deep breath.

It was the moment of truth.

Claire's hands pressed against the roof and then pushed against it. In a sudden motion, she moved forward and plummeted down. Down, down, and for a second, it seemed too far to drop.

Man, it'd fucking suck if she went out like that, dying of real-life fall damage. Hit the ground, spinning like an NPC from Skyrim, and then ragdoll out on the dirt. The thought made her glad it didn't happen.

Claire hit the ground with a thud, her feet absorbing the landing. It hurt, but a little less than she'd expected, so she kept standing. She'd thought she would fall and have to get back up, but as it turned out, it wasn't necessary.

Cool. Another little victory.

[Applesintime]

Alex lunged.

[Dr Adjective]

Her arms came up by instinct.

Too slow to block.

On time to deflect.

Pain.

Alex’s spear diverted from its path to Evie’s chest, but not far. It oh-so-nearly tucked itself under her open coat and cleanly into a rib or flank instead, but by what could only be sheer dumb luck it caught for just a moment in a button hole. Not nearly enough to actually stop the spear, but it was slowed by the folding of heavy fabric against the lunging motion, pulled slightly off course.

The blade ended up dragging slowly and oh-so-painfully through Evie’s hoodie, through her shirt, and finally through her skin.

A howl of pain, involuntary, high and shrieking.

Her arms shoved forward by instinct.

While Alex’s weapon was still somewhat tangled in Evie’s layers of clothing, she attempted something between a shove and a tackle, throwing herself into him, leading with the daypack still clutched in a death-grip in both hands. The second she was clear, Evie bolted. The duffel bag swung back down to her uninsured side as she let go of it to clutch ineffectually at her flank, some memory reminding her that you were supposed to apply pressure to an open wound.

Stung like a motherfucker, but all that her mind could register was fear, the need to be not here. Water may have been her preferred medium for speed, but Evie was no slouch on land either, and soon only footprints and intermittent bloodstains in the snow remained of her.

[Evie McKown bleeds, but He Missed Her Heart]

[Dogs231]

Claire reacted instantly, a cat-like hiss leaving her lips.

She hadn't fought anyone in a long time—the last time was when she was still a little kid. Some jerk wanted to give her a hard time, just like always. It didn't matter why. She was mad.

So, she threw a right hook.

Claire wanted to rip that spear right out of his grimy, blood-stained hands; if it came down to that, she'd lay down the law with no remorse. If there was anything that made her mad, it was some creep trying to fuck with the people she cared about, and she wasn't about to let it happen. She'd stop Alex, right here, right now—even if it killed her.

[Applesintime]

Alex’s lips twitched as the spear sunk in, straining to push it in just a little deeper and then yanking it out. He couldn’t see where it has went in but he had done it and the adrenaline was flooding through him like a burst dam and then instead of collapsing or dying Evie shrieked and ran.

Shit. Shit shit that should have killed her and maybe it was like that deer he shot once that ran for a couple hundred feet before it bled to death and he’d see her in the announcements and-

And then he got fucking coldcocked by Claire.

Fortunately his glasses didn’t fly off, or he’d have a much bigger problem than not killing someone and being punched. Even still, Alex physically recoiled, taking a step back. His cheek hurt, and he stared at her for a moment.

She was too close, this was all going wrong, and he could see a million ways in which this ended up with him dead. So instead of engaging, he took another step back and ran for the entrance to the tunnels nearby. He’d either lose her or set up an ambush, he didn’t know which. Either was good.

God, this was going to be fucking memed.

((Alex Avanesian continued in Broken Angels, Wingless, Cast from Heaven's Gates))

[Dogs231]

Claire reached for the spear, and her hand was that fucking close—she could practically feel it. And then, just as her fingers grazed the handle, Alex slipped the cable.

"So much for that," she thought with a huff.

Still, she'd at least dished out a good hit. he had it coming, no matter how you looked at it. Now, the priority was finding Evie. Claire looked towards where her friend had run and saw the drops of crimson in the stark white.

Then, she followed the colors.

SO91: CLAIRE HAIG — CONTINUED IN "You Missed My Heart"