#but it burns through ammo SO fast and the runners don’t even die when I torch them

[seerofmike]

31 Days of Apex: Day 3 (Mercy)

pairing: (non-romantic) Loba & Bloodhound

tags: paranoia, mentions of past character death(s)

word count: 1.5k

fic summary: Loba runs, and runs, and runs.

More importantly, she runs into Bloodhound.

ao3 link

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Her ankles hurt.

A lot of things hurt, and a lot of things are going wrong—her bracelet is overheating on her wrist from overuse, having taken her halfway across the map while her teammates fell dead to the demon who had taken her parents from her. Her R-99’s clip is empty, and her Mozambique is a joke next to the demônio's Devotion, so she had ran from him, taking sharp breaths that filled her chest with pain—but most of all, her ankles hurt. From running. In pumps.

She wants to take him out, but a woman must know her limits, and have a sense of dignity. She refuses to die to that monster with no ammo and no plan—but currently, she can not stop running.

Loba swears she can hear him behind her—the squeaking metal of his frame that almost sounds like creaky bones, the deep, guttural rasp that makes up his voice. She thinks it might be her imagination, a part of this nightmare, but she keeps running anyways. Runs across the desert terrain that makes up this damned place, half of it which she had sunk into the ocean not so long ago.

Her trained eye spots the glint of high-quality armor through the window of a distant building, and she tosses her bracelet without a second thought. When the jump drive activates, she is now standing inside the blissfully cool building, shielded from the sun’s rays, and she takes a brief moment to cool off. 

She hates this place. Truly. She has sand where sand should not be, and she thinks to herself that had she not gotten emotional that one time, she could be back in her sand-free penthouse right now, enjoying a Mai Tai and exchanging a pleasant back-and-forth with Jaime. But no, she is here, dealing with the consequences of her own actions. And deal with them she will, but with disdain.

Loba swaps out her armor, and finds a Prowler on the ground and some heavy ammo, which she gladly discards the Mozambique for, but what she is in desperate need for is a syringe—everything hurts. Her skin burns, her shoulder has been shot through with bullets, and her ankles still hurt. She is tired of running.

But she knows she has some more distance to cover when she hears the familiar, animalistic shriek of a certain hunter. Not to be unladylike, but they are a bitch to fight alone, and she’s torn up enough as it is (and rather likes this outfit), so she sets off across the desert again, towards the very cliff she had created herself some time ago.

She jogs, each step sending a sharp jab through her legs, but she keeps running. She hears them behind her, she thinks—and something else. More blood-curdling creaking, that of which brings to mind bones and ancient evil. Loba knows he is some three hundred years old, but he seems somehow older. Rooted like a yew tree in this world, which she intends to take him out of, but if she doesn’t pick up the pace she will instead be the one buried six feet under, and she refuses to let that happen.

She spots the place they call the Salvage, hundreds of meters ahead. From there is a zipline to a Jump Tower, and she can place herself as far away from him as possible until she can face him with the full means to take him out. 

He is getting closer, she can feel it—the hair on the back of her neck stands up, and her teeth grind. She removes her bracelet from her wrist once again, and it almost feels like it's vibrating in protest in her fingers, but she throws it, as far as she can. Her father used to lament that he wished he had a son to play catch with—she feels like he would be proud of this particular toss.

The memory of him twists—she is suddenly looking down at his dead body, and in that moment, she is teleported.

The image of him bleeding out in her arms, the pain in her ankles, the way she lands—it all leads to one misstep. One misstep on the edge, and suddenly, she is falling. 

Karma, Loba supposes—falling to her death in the mess she had created—but instinct takes hold of her. Just like there is no dignity in dying to the demônio with hardly a fight, there is no dignity in falling off a cliff, even if it is her just desserts.

She twists in midair, pulls out her staff—she is too far from the edge to grab it herself, but with lightning-fast speed, she extends the staff as far as it will go, and swings her arm upwards. The wolf’s head catches on the edge, and her shoulder aches in pain from holding up her weight one-handed, but she is still alive, and that’s what matters.

She needs a moment to catch her breath, and then needs another moment to calm herself down. Her other shoulder is the one shot through, so she cannot feasibly climb up her staff, and even if she could, there was the risk that she would shift it by accident, and she would again be falling to the rushing waters below. She could reach up and snap the bracelet off her wrist, but she doesn’t know how good her throwing will be with this injured arm.

She’s about to take her chances when she hears them—familiar boots hitting the ground above her, and the deep, filtered breaths of the hunter.

There are worse people to die to, she figures. The scientist tends to play with his food, the soldier has a stick up her ass, and the runner is an idiot, so he’s an embarrassing one to be defeated by—but the hunter is dignified in their own way, much like Loba is. They have honor while others do not. She knows for a fact that they will pull her up this cliff for a fair fight, and then proceed to put a bullet in her skull.

It’s more than what others would do for her.

Loba looks up, and sees their mask—and she swears their eyes are burning red behind it, but she is sure it is her imagination. It’s fond of nightmares.

Wordlessly, they reach down, grip her staff, and use it to pull her up the cliff. She admires their strength, pulling her up with only one arm, and she rolls onto the ground, giving her shoulder a break. In the next second she is on her feet, ankles still hurting, and says the first thing that comes to mind.

“Thanks, beautiful,” she says to Bloodhound, who looks down at her silently. “Or would you prefer handsome?”

“Félagi is fine,” they respond.

“I’m not sure that’s an indicator of attractiveness.” Loba unhooks the Prowler from her back, and takes a few staggering steps away from them. She glances around, looking for their team, but they seem to be alone. They pulled her up to give her a fair fighting chance, so she decides to let them draw their weapon before she fires to return the favor, but they never do. Instead, they hold out a med kit, and she is reminded of her ragged shoulder.

She doesn’t take it. “I don’t understand.”

“Revenant is still alive,” they say, and she feels an involuntary shudder at that name. “I’m aware that he took your team’s lives—and you would not be running from him unless you had no other choice.”

She doesn’t like the way they speak—like they know her. She respects them more than anyone else in these godforsaken Games, but they seem to see right through her, and she doesn’t like it. Hates it, in fact.

She almost wants to turn her nose up at the med kit, but she is not a fool. So she snatches it from them none too lightly, and jams the syringe into her wrist. They touch their Longbow lightly, as if to reassure themself, but they don’t draw it. They take a few steps back from her, on the bridge that connects the Salvage to the desert.

Her shoulder is healed now, but aches slightly. She could fire her Prowler more reliably if needed, but the hunter still does not draw their weapon.

“You should go,” they say after a long moment of staring, in which she feels once again that they are seeing right through her. “I will not have such mercy in the future.”

“I would feel insulted,” Loba says, and removes the bracelet from her wrist. She trusts them to not shoot her in the back, but she’s still paranoid. She tosses it in the direction of the zipline, this time aiming well away from any edges. “I owe you one.”

Perhaps, the next time they are teamed up, she will give them the high-tier body shield first. She may even take them to dinner if she can kill the demon this match—but for now she just wonders why, as she moves along the zipline.

She thinks she can see them from this high up—just a dot on the landscape, but they are moving swiftly. She still does not understand what just happened, but she can think about it later.

For now, she has a nightmare to kill.