“Yeah yeah yeah. ‘We’re doomed, we’re trapped, we don’t deserve this—’ You could at least frame it in different ways, Jackson.”

Jackie twitched on the floor. Her body failing her to express her fury, as everything is exhausted.

But Maddie was leaned against the wall, tilted to the left. Still visibly singed, only superficial, the one side of her body. That, with the still pink eye she sported created a very unpleasant look.

Interestingly, the ring around her pupil—one of the signs that someone has siVis—was untouched. Still the milky-silver, a color they all sported.

River was hunched over, leaning forward on the last step of the stone stairway, barely making it down as her hazel hair hung freely. Her ruffled clothing, which was already worse than wear before the fight happened, cling to her damp skin with dark patches all over.

Tracy was in a ball, pressing her sliced open tights-clad legs to her chest as she rocked subtly. Her already doughy eyes widen into dinner saucers, her tiny mouth scrunched into a terse circle. Her red locks scattered everywhere.

Aiko was the last one to be active, forcing herself up onto her massive, ball-like backpack, leaning over it with a defeated expression. It seemed like she wanted to do way more, can’t.

Jackie just screamed into her hands more, clutching as her face as she let everything take over—the negative emotions, the psychological damage, the mental weight.

“Are you okay, fearless leader--?” Aiko croaked.

“I hope she gets okay quick—because I’m sure all this yelling and talking is gonna signal something over,” Maddie quickly added with a groan.

Jackie put her hands on the sides of her face.

“We’re leaving—”

“‘W-we’re leaving—‘?” Tracy parroted questionably.

“We’re leaving—” Jackie confirmed. “We’re leaving all of this terrible shit behind us. How the hell are we going to compete when we get knocked out like the rest of them? Somehow even worse because of how much we fucking break apart when we get there?!”

“No—absolutely—” Tracy agreed shakingly. “I f-fully support this new decision--!”

“Well, wait a second, because that decision’s going to change into something else after you blink.”

Jackie looked over, and glared at Maddie, who had her eyes closed and arms crossed.

“What do you fucking want from me, Maddie--?”

“A stable answer!” Maddie shouted. “Stable anything! Nothing fucking half baked for once! Because here’s the thing—when I call you dumb, I’m not calling you dumb because you have nothing in your meaty head—it’s because you’re the WORSE at decision making. ‘Let’s go this girls’—‘oh wait, let’s do this’—”

“You’re there! You know what happens! Stability and sanity dies during these nightmare events--!”

“Sure. But I think common fucking sense still works—and common sense means sticking to something or at least leaving it to be modified in some way. Thinking about it, for more than two seconds and still trying to make that work like it's some golden plan from Napoleon. Do we even have supplies, or something in Kobayashi-Maru's fucking pouch other than water bottles and an outdated first aid kit? You’re not giving us faith to follow through with you; and whatever my ‘tactics’ are, it boils down to—‘well fuck, im out’—”

“Guys, it seems like we have this fight almost every week now…” Aiko whined.

“Because nothing changed, more or less,” Maddie spat.

Jackie covered her face again. “This is a mess—”

“A-and we’re variations of messes!” Tracy tried to reason. “It’s best to confront the truth and—”

“Look Goodwin,” Maddie sneered at her. “Like I said before, at least be transparent—”

“SHUT UP MADDIE!” Tracy shouted suddenly.

“Alright,” she then paused for what amounted to a second. “But yeah, you keep on ass-kissing despite wanting to save your own skin, just like this—”

“YOU DON’T KNOW ME! ANY OF YOU--!” Tracy continued on.

“Gee, the skittery type who’s scared of everything—we don’t know the most about, I wonder why—”

“YOU’—YOU—YOU’RE JUST THE WORSE!”

“And at least I admit it.”

“Joy,” River cut in. “Now everyone knows you’re covered and made out of shit. I hear the world recorder people have an award with that—”

“You wanna jump into this, Brooke--?”

“I’m being just as honest as you.”

“Fine! Y-you want me to admit things?!” Tracy sounded on the verge of crying. “We’re worse than novices trying to shake up a world that can kill us on very single corner! There’s no future in that—there’s no survival! Yet we keep hedging our bets on these events that go out of control, all for some nebulous fate of the world, but we’re only measuring our worth on fucking superpowered death battles!”

There were only the pants of Tracy that filled the room.

“There!” Tracy screamed. “Laid it out! Admitted everything! So get off my fucking back, it aches enough!”

Maddie just looked at her, unimpressed.

“Everyone’s thinking that. Now try again and actually say some shit that comes from your heart—”

“You say everyone, but not me, I don’t think that—” Aiko chimed in, nonchalantly. “You and the others are the ones that only take this into a dark place—and once again—only hurts us—”

Jackie only held her head tighten, with her eyes stressed closed. She stewed in this discord.

And she was ready to burst.

“We’re too weak to matter yet too strong for anything to kill us!” she ranted. “We’re normal, fucking people that got thrusted into this shit--we’re too much of a mediocre mess to keep up and too fucking weird to go back to our old lives! We struggle to get better, to do everything we can, and we just easily lose it all! How can we just lose it all…?!”

Jackie’s voice lost it’s power. It was likely that she finally strained it…

“After all that! After nearly fucking and surviving and actually managing to! How the fuck can we cope with that?! What the fuck do we do?!”

She was only met with silence, on all sides.

Her eyes were flooded with tears.

But then her eyes became vacant.

“The only option is to just give up,” she roughly said. “Let’s finally commit to being nothing but trash…”

“Hey hey hey hey hey hey hey—” Maddie, clearly softening her tone. “Let’s not get too crazy here.”

The girl looked towards her.

Maddie sighed, rubbing her forehead. “Yeah no, I’m sorry. Like, truly. No back talk or anything—I went too far, I should’ve worded shit better.”

“Maybe you should get better at it,” Tracy glared and coldly spat.

And to everyone’s surprise, Maddie took it.

“We just got overwhelmed. We just need another break from each other and meet back to see what we all want to do…”

“We already did that…” Jackie grumbled.

Maddie raised her hands. “And we need to do it again and do it better. It’s just a process, right? All apart of it? Fuck it up first, so you can fix it the second, third, and tenth times…?”

Jackie just closed her eyes, the tears roll off her face.

“Let’s just. Let’s just rest here.”

One by one, the girls closed their eyes. Resting within a rusty, decrepit tunnel, underground.

It would’ve lasted longer. Or been actually restful.

Had they not heard the very familiar roars of N’atural Savage, echoing across the walls.