This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is completely intentional. Toxic yuri was performed by untrained amateurs. Do not try this at home.
I glowered around the administrative floor. The rumours had been going on for days at this point and I could see it in the way they glanced at me, whispering to their colleagues. I’m sure it wasn’t helped by my mess of hair and the bags under my eyes as I searched.
Little did these idiots know I had done the sane thing of staying up all night to backtrack through the cameras with my backdoor, carefully constructing a node graph of how the rumour spread and eventually finding one woman at the centre of the chart.
Alina Seer.
Her employee profile said she worked in HR—nobody important—until she started making up lies to spread about me for her own entertainment. Luckily she had a picture on file, and so I scanned the room.
There.
Our eyes met and I started pushing through the crowd. To her credit she didn’t run, standing her ground as I stormed up to her, doing my best to look imposing despite having to look up multiple inches.
It was like looking into one of those funhouse mirrors; where I was short and chubby with fat rounding my features, she was tall and slim with sharp eyes. Her iris’ were chocolate brown like my own, matching the curly hair cascading down our backs. Unlike me she had bothered to pierce her ears and outfit them with gaudy hoops.
My glare passed through two sets of lenses to meet hers.
“What the fuck is your problem?!”
She raised an eyebrow. “And you are?”
“I know you’ve been spreading rumours about me for the past week, don’t play dumb.”
“I have no idea where these baseless accusations are coming from.” She had the gall to smirk. Bitch.
“You don’t think I didn’t see you on the cameras? You know who I am. You know I have access.”
Her eyes rolled. “Wow miss, maybe you should get some sleep if you’re seeing things. Preferably in a straitjacket and a room with padded walls.”
A frustrated growl slipped through my lips. “I know it’s fucking you, don’t think I can’t tear your life here apart if you don’t fucking tell me!”
She smirked. “Whatever you say, Goddess.”
My blood ran cold and hot all at once and it took all my will not to slam her into a wall then and there. My next words came out low and clad in steel.
“Where did you hear that?”
She cooed back softly. “HR secret, sweetie,” her smug grin returning. “Not mine to tell.”
I slammed her into the wall. Her smile faltered as the air pushed out of her, but not for long. Gods, I must have had at least thirty kilos on her, I could snap her like a stick. I caught sight of her smile again and realised how much I wanted to.
Before I could do anything else, her foot snapped into my shin. I hissed in pain and pulled my foot back, throwing me off-balance. She shoved into me, pushing me stumbling away from the wall and landing a punch right on my tit before backing off.
I cough up several expletives as she watches. That bitch.
“Fuck— Fuck you.”
She gave a mocking little curtsy for good measure. “Maybe think twice before descending from your heavenly perch next time, Goddess,” and walked away. I wish I had broken her in half.
I glared around the room at the passers-by who witnessed whatever that was, letting them look away and return to their business before checking my watch. Shit, I was late. I hoped my boss wouldn’t comment on my appearance; we didn’t have a dress code but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t probe.
Thankfully the rest of the day should be uneventful, leaving me to think about my retaliation as I filed personnel reports. A challenge like that couldn’t be ignored.
My shin still felt sore from yesterday as I woke up, rolling over to check my alarm and finding it an hour past when it was due to go off. I gave myself ten seconds to process it before I pushed myself out of bed with a groan.
Shedding my sleepwear and putting some bread in the toaster I tried not to think about the reason for my lack of sleep; what I had done when I couldn’t get that smile out of my head, what I wish I could do to those lips— I focused intently on my shirt and the process of putting it on, buttering my toast with more force than necessary and still chewing it as I scrambled out the door to catch the elevator from accommodation to administration.
I shook my head in an attempt to clear my thoughts, navigating the hallways leading from my unit to the elevator lobby as fast as I could while still walking. As I turned the last corner and the elevator came into sight, I locked eyes with a familiar tall brunette bitch.
I sped up, barely not jogging and managed to just force my body between the doors as they started closing, the safety features letting me enter unhindered. She held my stare, as she had since I rounded the corner, her finger still on the close door button.
“Oh, I didn’t see you there.” she said, voice thick with obvious sarcasm.
I growled back, a low noise in my throat expressing frustrations that couldn’t hope to be found in mere words this early in the morning. Two bystander’s eyes flicked between us. It was slightly late; we had missed out on the standard morning crush thankfully, but there were still witnesses.
Taking that as my reply, she continued. “Back for round two?”
“You cheated.”
“Goddess forbid a girl use self-defence.” She knew what she was doing, still staring directly into my eyes.
“Self-defence?? You started this! This is your fault!”
“Started what hmm? You having weak and kickable shins?”
“You’re only doing this because there are witnesses, if there weren’t I’d—”
“You’d what, get your ass beat again?”
“Put you in your place,” I finished.
Her mocking laughter seemed to echo more in the confines of the elevator as she took her eyes off me for the first time, eventually resettling on my eyes.
“I’d like to see you try,” she smirked, with those stupid lips of hers.
Unable to do anything else, I stared back, unwilling to let her win. The silence dragged on for several more seconds, the elevator let out a soft ‘ding’ and we held each others gaze until—
“Kiss kiss kiss kiss—”
My gaze shifted onto the two girls in the elevator with us, beneath my notice until now. They were both shorter than me and holding hands, at least one had the good sense to recognise who I was and look afraid.
“And just what do you think you’re doing?” My voice was short, clipped and controlled.
The other didn’t look as afraid as she should be while she spoke. “I was just noticing the sexual tension between you two, uh… ma’am?”
Sexual tension? What the fuck was wrong with this girl? She had clearly been reading too much fanfiction.
“I wouldn’t sleep with her were we the last two women on earth.” I hiss, making my position clear.
There was a snort from the other side of the elevator.
“Like I would ever be desperate enough to settle for you anyway.” She huffed.
I turned back to literally hiss at her.
“C’mon Tsuki’, lets go.” The one with more sense pulled at her friend’s arm. I glared at them as they backed out the door, then ran.
I let out a chuff at my victory before turning back to Alina, stepping into her space. “This isn’t over,” I kept my voice low before turning around and walking out. She wasn’t worth being late for again, and this time I had a plan coming together as I took a few extra turns to make sure she wasn’t following me.
I made my way to the far end of administration, using the time to cool off before I arrived at the large oak doors the entire compound was centred around. After a breath I opened them, walking into the Overlord’s inner sanctum and over to my desk. Neat. Tidy. Finally an environment I had complete control over. I let out a sigh of relief.
“Something the matter minion?”
My boss, the Overlord, was already here of course. I don’t know how morning people did it.
“No boss, just some stupid drama.” My computer whirred and let out a series of satisfying beeps as it booted up. Completely superfluous of course, but they made me feel better, as did the bulky CRT display.
“Oh?” My attempts to brush her off didn’t usually work, but it never hurt to try.
“Someone jealous of my position. I put her down.” I pulled up the remote assistant tool and filtered by Alina’s name, quickly finding her computer. Thank gods for standardised usernames.
No doubt she had abused her HR privileges to give herself access to the relationship section of my personnel file. Well two could play at that game.
“That doesn’t sound like the report I got about a scuffle in Administration yesterday.”
I finally turned to her, seated in the centre of the cavernous room with a thick marble slab that could hardly be called a desk. She leaned forwards slightly, with a smirk in her eyes that didn’t reach the rest of her face. Despite her menacing appearance, the Overlord was a notorious gossip.
I huffed. “She started it, if you must know.”
“Which is why you pinned…” She ruffled some papers on her desk, of course she had printouts. Evidently finding the right one, she adjusted her glasses. “…Miss Seer to the wall and threatened her?” Her voice betrayed her clear interest.
“It was necessary.”
“Was it necessary to publicly assault a fellow employee? I don’t judge what you get up to in the bedroom, but it becomes an issue if it spills out into the halls.”
“Wha— It’s not like that!”
“Sure, sure. You two could at least sign a rivalry form to make sure this goes through the proper channels.”
“There’s nothing there,” I growled. “A rivalry implies she’s anywhere near my equal. I’m done talking about this, you won’t get any more reports.”
She looked at me with doubt. “Very well minion. I’m just trying to look out for you.”
I rolled my eyes. “I know boss, it’s under control.”
“Well then, if your schedule’s so clear I hear Claire in Analytics is planning on throwing a bitchin’ party at the bar on sub-level 3.”
“You know parties aren’t my scene.”
“You could do with a buzz and meeting new people. Tell me you weren’t just planning to go home and read after this.”
“It wouldn’t necessarily have been reading.”
“See! You need to go meet friends, maybe a girl,” she said with a wink.
“If I go will you stop asking about my love life for a month?”
“A week.”
“Deal.”
“Good minion.” She let out a smile before turning back to what was presumably her real work and not just more shipping reports from HR.
She was right, as usual. A party would be a good way to let loose and blow off this stress I had been carrying. Not that I could let her know that as I rolled my eyes and turned back to my computer.
In the preview window I could see Alina’s desktop, looked like she had her browser open reading fanfiction. Of course. Ignoring her bad taste, I noted the absurd amount of tabs open above her reading material. Be a shame if someone lost what she was keeping track of.
I opened up a background session into her computer, drilling down into the browser configuration and deleting the profile before logging into the organisation cloud drive and deleting the backup. Nothing should be amiss until her next restart, but then everything would be gone.
Letting myself crack a small smile in my act of petty revenge, I closed the session to get back to my actual responsibilities. Someone had trashed another frame down in the mech bay and drawing up the expense report for it would be sure to prove distracting enough to take my mind off the irritant until the party later.
“Ugnnn…”
I groaned softly, my head throbbing with the tell-tale sign of a hangover. Shit, I certainly hadn’t meant to drink that much, preferring to keep lightly buzzed at parties so I could enjoy the conversation.
Eyes still squeezed tightly shut, the first thing I noticed was the soft warmth in my arms, someone’s back pressed close to my chest, skinny enough that my hands could touch the opposite elbow. Second thing I noticed was the scent of artificial flowers coming off the pillow, and the head nestled under my chin.
How the fuck had I ended up in someone’s bed? My memories of how last night went were hazy, but I didn’t think I was the kind of girl to be picked up and spend the night cuddling with a stranger. It had certainly never happened before.
The bundle of hair in my arms sighed and shifted slightly, and I offered a light squeeze in response. Finally opening my eyes I was greeted with a messy bedroom, bookshelves covering the walls with an assortment of comics and young adult novels, and several pride flags: Trans, lesbian, and the catch-all progress flag.
Good, whatever happened at least I didn’t end up in the room of a complete weirdo.
The probably-girl (I figured at this point) wriggled closer into me, the smooth skin of their back rubbing my chest when they suddenly freeze up. Must not have expected to wake up like this either.
They wriggle out of my arms and I catch a glimpse of gaudy ear hoops as they turn to face me. Fuck.
She looks different without her signature crystal-mom glasses, but it’s unmistakably her.
Her eyes widen with the same realisation, suddenly shoving me off the bed and onto the floor, a thin rug the only thing cushioning my fall.
“Ow, fuck!”
“What the fuck are you doing here?? Get out! Leave!”
She frantically bunched the blankets up around her, her demeanour had a neurotic tone to it that our previous arguments didn’t have. It twinged unnervingly in the back of my head.
“Clearly you must have invited me here, weirdo.”
“Get the fuck out of my room!”
“Fine! Let me get my shit.”
She glared at me from her bed like one of our automated ceiling turrets as I scooped my shirt off the floor with one hand, the other covering my bare chest before turning around to hastily pull it on.
“It’s not like I wanted to be here anyway, idiot.” I grumble under my breath, doing a visual sweep of the room for anything else before storming out, slamming the door behind me. I stopped to breathe, leaning against the door. What the fuck had we done last night?
Patting down my pockets to make sure I didn’t lose anything, I looked around, recognising the familiar hallways of the accommodations level and noted the sign stating I was only one sub-level below mine. I hurried through the hallways back to my own sanctum to change into something that didn’t smell of flowers, and throw myself into a book where I wouldn’t have to think about what just happened.
Thank the Overlord today was the weekend.
The rest of the weekend passed without incident. Maybe Alina finally learnt her lesson and stayed down like the bitch she was, our last encounter seemed like it had rattled her pretty bad. Hell, I doubted a loser like her even had anything to leave her room for when not working, she sure looked like a shut-in.
It was finally Monday night as I left my office, staying late to finalise some paperwork since it’s not like I had a long commute home. I closed the door behind me and started walking through the mostly-empty corridors, lighting dimmed to give the illusion of evening.
Walking through an intersection, the corner of my eye catches a tall figure walking away from me. I know that ass-length hair cascading down her figure, messier than the previous times I’ve seen it.
I smirked. Definitely a shut-in.
“Well if it isn’t the freak. Scream at any more hookups recently?”
She whirled around, eyes wide for a second with an expression I can’t read before narrowing into sharp anger.
“I wouldn’t know, I’m not the one ending up in drunk girls’ beds.” She stomped up to me.
“If you have an idea of what happened feel free to tell me, you know I didn’t want to end up in your shitty room—”
Her attack catches me off guard as she claws at my face and I just barely manage to flinch back in time, still ending up with a sting of pain on my cheek. I grab at her wrists, grabbing one as she twists away before shouldering her into the wall.
The metal glint of a supply closet latch catches my eye, and I reach for it with my spare hand as she scratches my arm, yanking it open and grabbing at her wrist again. This time I catch it, squeezing the delicate bones tight in my hands.
I manage to shove her into the supply closet, kicking it hard enough on the way in that it rebounds off the wall and closes with a slam behind us. I push her up against the wall, making sure to control her wrists. Finally, somewhere we won’t be interrupted and I can teach this stuck-up bitch with delusions of grandeur a lesson.
I step inside her guard, making sure she can’t snap a foot into my shin again. It presses our bodies against each other, the warmth and sweat from the brief struggle becoming more apparent. Her skin is hot, and her scent is—
Her head slams into mine hard enough that my vision flashes white, a hiss of pain escaping my teeth.
“You bitch!” I spat.
One impulse flashes through my mind, white hot.
Hurt.
My fingers sink deeper into her skin, nails seeking out the soft flesh under her wrists and her twisted sneer falters as I drag a whimper out of her. I push my head up against her cheek, forcing it back against the wall before swinging my teeth down into the side of her neck, biting hard.
I taste blood as a scream fills the tiny room. She tries to headbutt me again, but doesn’t have the leverage with me in this close. Her whole body writhes against me and I shove back with all of mine, determined to keep the advantage, hurt her until she learns her lesson.
Her hair and sweat mix with the blood in my mouth, and this close I can smell the artificial flowers I remember smelling on her pillow. I bring my knee up to keep her hips pinned against the wall and feel a different kind of heat between her legs. Gods, was she getting off on this? She must be even more pathetic than I thought if this was the most a woman had touched her.
I ground my knee into her bulge, aiming for cruelty and feeling the pained cries deepen in her throat. Maybe it wasn’t enough to simply hurt her, maybe she needed to be disciplined, possessed. I couldn’t help but grin against her neck as I released a wrist to grab her waist, my hand fitting around it as I dug my nails in and dragged her against me, trusting her desperation to keep her compliant.
Instead she pushed off the wall, staying close to me as I stumbled back onto two feet. A mix of blood and saliva dripped down my chin and her collarbone, the latter heaving with deep breaths as she leveraged her extra height to slam me into the other side of the closet.
“I didn’t know you were so needy, Goddess,” her voice dripped with false honey.
The back of my head cracked against the wall, not as hard as the headbutt but enough to send a lance of pain through me.
“Fuck you.” I managed to spit, trying to push myself up where I had slumped against the wall.
She grabbed my chin roughly, forcing me to look up at her.
“If you insist, Goddess.”
Her other hand pushed down on my shoulder, putting an end to my attempts to straighten out my legs and keeping them too bent to push back. She towered over me.
“You’ll make a girl think you want something from her, cornering her in a dark hallway and pushing your knee between her legs.”
“The only thing I want is for you to crawl back into whatever hole you came out of.”
My words came out weakly as my chest heaved. Fuck I was out of shape. She was toned in comparison. Not in a way that filled out her figure, but I had felt the wires under her skin during our grapple.
She gave a non-committal hum as her hand played with the collar of my shirt, keeping it pulled taut to hold pressure on my neck. We stay like that for a few seconds, eyes locked.
I blink.
Her hand yanks down on my collar, jolting me downwards as she does it again to the sound of ripping fabric. She continues downwards until her knuckles graze my abdomen, ripping my t-shirt wide open. It’s only when the now-hot air of the closet hits my sternum I belatedly remember I’m not wearing a bra.
Suddenly faced with vulnerability I lunge towards her waist, letting myself fall slightly so I can use my hands to grapple. She slams me into the wall again, putting her whole body behind it as air exits my lungs. I use what I have left to growl at her as she pulls me up by her chin, leaning down towards me in turn. Her head passes mine and I feel hot breath on my collarbone.
The growl in my throat is cut off by a pathetic squeak as my nerves sing, the equal parts pleasure and pain mixing with the adrenaline shot through my system in a heady cocktail.
My nails scramble up her figure and find shoulders to dig into, but it doesn’t slow her down as she sinks in below my shoulder. Not content to leave it at payback, her lips start to trail down my chest, brushing my tattered shirt aside as she marks it with harsh bite after harsh bite.
I try to protest but all that comes out is a strangled whimper, my lungs betraying me, empty of air. My legs don’t work, shaking on the verge of collapse as neurons fire in places they shouldn’t. Her lips pull away halfway down my belly and I squeeze my thighs together to try and not think about what if they had gone further.
She straightens up, rising to her full height before letting go of me to fall on my heels. I look away but I know she’s looking down on me with a sneer, disappointment. The silence left as she opens the closet door and walks back out into the hallway is worse than any parting barb.
Still panting, I try to put myself back in control—my train of thought more like a washing machine with a brick. It takes minutes until I’m ready to pull myself back up to my feet and stumble back out into the hallway, oh so thankful for it being late evening in the admin wing; providing relative privacy and a level of lighting my new headache found bearable.
Slowly I managed to limp my way back to my apartment, only needing to avoid being seen a couple of times. I double check the door is locked behind me and collapse onto the bed, focusing on my breathing until the shaking abides.
I try to think about what happened, how it happened, how she took control so easily. I couldn’t let it happen again. Rolling onto my side I pull out my phone and start planning, excitement—or something like it—starting to bubble in my chest as I sketch out my retaliatory strike.
It had taken some serious bribery in order to get a mech bay to myself for the day, promising to go on a date with the ops manager; Winter. Not that I minded, she was cute and I was certain it would be more fun than what I was currently doing in a rat’s nest of auxiliary power cables. I needed to make sure the empty frame I was climbing over could operate some basic functionality but nothing else.
I had spent the past two weeks planning today out, letting Alina think she had won while plotting my next move. The time was needed regardless, the work order I had forged into her queue would look suspicious if it came in the same day and I had to show up with high-collared shirts and pretend everything was normal with my boss.
The mech powered on for me to test my handiwork, making sure the movement systems were unpowered and no weapons were mounted to the hardpoints while the cockpit door, harness and MFDs were all functional. I had made sure this was an empty frame—one without an AI—as I didn’t want any witnesses.
Going through my checklist one final time I marked off my preparations before leaving the cockpit, taking a seat on its mechanical talon to catch my breath. My work singlet was sweaty from my clambering around and my hair tied back for clarity. The only thing separating me from looking like any other mech tech was the comparative lack of grease.
I looked up at the metal body towering over me, leaning my head back against its ankle and felt a familiar twinge in my chest. It was a medium-sized frame built for multi-role capabilities; single-seater with a large cockpit—not saying much for a mech—and plenty of hardpoints for mounting everything from cannons to sensor arrays.
I tore my eyes away from lingering on the empty hardpoints. She probably wouldn’t be around for a few hours still, so I stood up, now recovered, and moved out of sight behind some ordinance covered with a tarp. With an alarm set on my PDA I slipped it back into my cargo pants and waited.
A loud clang echoed throughout the bay, jolting me awake. The door. I heard footsteps on concrete echoing as she walked in, surely looking around as I kept my head down.
“Hello?”
I cancelled the alarm on my PDA and pulled up my remote access into the mech, playing an audio file I had loaded earlier.
“Just up here, in the cockpit.” A synthetic voice plays from the external speakers. The footsteps shift from concrete to metal as she starts climbing the rungs up the machine.
I can see from the cockpit camera the moment she climbs in the open hatch, all the dashboard lights turned on and blinking in the illusion of activity. It takes her a few seconds to settle into the pilot seat with her clipboard before speaking again.
“Soooo… you wanted to discuss negotiations with your polycule with HR? I can certainly help with that—”
The restraining harness pulled down over her chest as I ran my script and locked out the override before stowing the PDA and climbing my own way up the frame. I could hear her surprise, followed by a brief struggle with the unmoving harness and a rapid clicking of the non-functional release before I could look through the hatch.
She saw me and rolled her head back in frustration. “Ei helvetti.”
“Thought you could get rid of me so easily?”
“I should have guessed you were into bondage Goddess.”
“Fuck you.”
“Fuck me yourself, coward.”
I step into the cockpit, having to hunch over her in the tight space, keeping myself upright by holding onto the canopy handle.
“Are you trying to make this horny?”
She breaks eye contact to slowly look down at the several hickeys exposed by my low-cut neckline before looking back at me. I do my best not to blush.
“Nice top, did you wear it just to show off for me?”
Grabbing her chin with one hand I move closer into her space. “Answer the question.”
She looks back at me with an innocent yet oh-so-smug look on her face. “I’m not the setting up elaborate bondage traps sweetie. How long did this take you hmm?”
“Two weeks.”
“Wow, you should charge rent if I’m living in your head already.”
“Shut up.” My grip pushes her head back into the headrest, pinning it in place. “I’m in charge here.”
“Are you though, Goddess? Are you really in control here?”
My eyes narrow. “Yes. I planned this out. You have no backup. I caught you.”
She laughs, and I let go of her chin to slap across her face. Her laugh stops and she looks shocked, blinking before touching her fingertips to her cheek.
“I didn’t think you had it in you Goddess.”
“I can do worse.”
“Uhuh? I don’t believe that for a second.”
I growl at her as I fumble around in my pockets before pulling out a small hunting knife and unfolding the blade. Her eyes widen for a moment before slipping back into a guarded expression.
“Compensating for something?”
“You say that when it’s big, idiot.”
“I just thought it must be, compared to whatever you’re packing.”
“Didn’t get the chance to feel me up last time?”
“I’m not sure there’s much to feel up.”
“Which is why you were eye-fucking me earlier, sure.”
“You’re imagining things.”
I huff and definitely not pout as I press the tip of the knife into her collarbone, not hard enough to pierce skin. For once she shuts up and freezes.
“Enough. I’m going to pay you back for what you did to me.”
The tip of the knife glides over her skin as I pull it down to the neckline of her crop top, catching the hem before carefully ripping through it. Once through the hem it pulls easily down her chest, parting the fabric before finishing above her abdomen.
I move the knife back up, this time with the blade pointed upwards as I catch it under her bra strap.
“You gonna pay me back for that fucking shirt?”
“No.”
“Bitch.”
I flick the knife, severing her bra strap before folding the knife away in my palm.
“Wanted to see my tits that bad?”
“I’m not sure there’s much to see,” I smirk.
“Yet you’re still trying to see them.”
“You saw mine, and didn’t even ask.”
“And what a disappointing view it was.”
I snorted. “Whatever, I don’t need your approval.”
My arm was getting tired as I stepped forward, straddling the seat and sitting down in her lap, still maintaining half a head of height over her. I rest my arms over her shoulders and stare down at her with my best condescending smile.
“Your actions tell a completely different story Goddess.”
Ignoring her, I lean down next to her ear and whisper. “Here’s how this is going to go. You’re going to give up, and if you don’t I’ll find a way to make you regret it. Trust me, everything up to now was just foreplay.”
“Foreplay hmm? Who’s the pervert now? I don’t think you have it in you.”
I slide up her thighs until our bodies touch, holding my eyes with hers as I wrap a hand around her hair and pull down. Her composure breaks with a gasp and she tries to push me off her. “Ah! Watch the hair bitch!”
I pull harder. “Give up. You know I’m out of your league.”
Her voice is strained as she responds, but smug nonetheless. “And yet here you are, straddling my lap.”
My teeth find their way into her neck, keeping her head pulled back as I push deep into her trapezius. She lets out a restrained moan, a response that only makes me want to bite harder as her hands fail to find any grip on me.
When I pull away the skin on her shoulder is red surrounding the raw bite mark, saliva streaked with blood on her collarbone. It mirrors the faded mark I left weeks ago. I catch my breath, letting go of her hair to rub a thumb over the mark.
“Give up.”
“In your dreams.”
My thumb grinds into my mark, drawing a pained hiss from between her teeth before it moves to grasp her chin. I lean in close to her face as I pull her lips open and spit into it.
She recoils and tries to squirm away. “You’re disgusting.”
“You can stop this whenever you want.”
“And let a pathetic friendless loser like you think she’s won?”
I growl and unfold the knife in my free hand, pressing the blade against her cheek only an inch from her eye.
“I. Have. Won. I became second in command of this whole fucking operation and I don’t need a pathetic fucking upstart to try and tell me about friends I don’t fucking—”
She lets out a whimper and my eyes focus again, seeing the curtain of blood trickling down her cheek.
“Fuck. Fuck!”
Reality crashes back into me as I pull the knife back and see the edge glisten with more than just steel. I hadn’t left a scratch, I had lost control and the blade had pressed in deep, creating an inches-long gash that was now starting to drip onto her ripped top.
She stares at me in disbelief, bringing her hand up to touch her cheek and looking at the blood coating her fingertip.
I could feel myself starting to hyperventilate. Fuck. I needed to get out of here. That would need stitches and medical would report it and I could be banished—
I pocketed the knife and stepped out of the cockpit, gulping down air not warmed by two bodies in an enclosed space. I didn’t know what would happen next, but I couldn’t go back to my room as I waited to find out in case they looked for me there.
I climbed down the mech and started running. There was a building on the west side of the compound with no cameras on the roof and backed against a cliff that had a perilous—but possible—path down in case I needed to leave. It’s not like I had friends here anyway. I could wait there until I decided on my next move.
My feet hit the ground in a repetitive cycle, the building was a fair distance and I wasn’t in the best shape, but I had to get there before she could free herself. The grey corridors kept going and I bumped into a few coworkers, one of them even yelled after me.
After running up a flight of stairs to rooftop access I collapsed against a wall, panting badly. My ears were ringing and a vignette threatened to encroach on my vision. I closed my eyes and felt it slip away.
Pain radiated through my face, jolting me awake.
My eyes blinked and focused just in time for me to deflect the fist headed for my face.
My muscles still ached as I shoved her out of my lap, sending her stumbling backwards as I got my feet under me and pushed myself up the wall at my back.
She recovered, staring at me with a fresh pad of gauze taped across her left cheek. She looked almost as exhausted as I felt, but still squared up against me.
“You.”
“Me,” she confirmed.
She shuffled forwards and threw another clumsy punch at me. I caught it on my tit with a hiss of pain, grabbing at the fist and driving my elbow into her forearm. Her body pitched into me and she went for a headbutt, hitting me square in the cheek.
My arms grabbed at her as blood started to trickle into my mouth from where teeth cut into my cheek, pulling her around and throwing her to the ground. Like a wounded animal she clung to me, dragging me down with her as we rolled onto the concrete.
I slammed her shoulders into the ground, rolling on top of her with her waist between my legs.
“Just. Fucking. Stop!”
Her claws dug into my wrist, forcing a hiss from my throat as I shook off her hand and went for her face, swiping at it before pushing her head back down into the concrete. Finding strength from somewhere she twisted away from my arm and pulled me down next to her, getting her legs between us to kick at me.
Her shirt pulled taunt as I used it to drag her closer, reducing her leverage as I wrapped my arms around her torso. We grappled, and I could feel her chest heave with each breath, her eyes burning with hate, and my ears ringing as the roof access door was kicked open with a flashbang.
Everything happened fast as two armed guards filed out onto the rooftop, pulling us apart and restraining us with handcuffs before we were pulled to our feet and escorted to a cell. I recognised it as one we used to interrogate enemy agents as the guards made sure to secure us both to the table by our handcuffs, a metre separating us so there was no chance of being able to fight.
I glowered at her stupid face as the rest of the security personnel filed out, leaving just one CUPID officer with us. He looked between us with an expectant gaze, clearly waiting for the two of us to “talk it out”.
I took a deep breath, if I couldn’t beat her physically I still had one other option. I opened my mouth and—
“I FUCKING HATE YOU—”
“I CAN’T DO THIS ANYMORE—”
We yelled in unison. Silence followed.
“…What?”
“I just— I just thought you were really cool and wanted to get your attention, but things kept escalating and, and—” Alina stammered out and sobbed on the table.
“You thought you could get my attention by spreading rumours?—”
“AND NOW YOU HATE ME!” She wailed and collapsed on the table to sob more.
“You could have not fucked with me!”
“If—” Another sob wracked her body, “—if I backed down then you’d think I was weak and lose interest in meeee.” The last syllable dragged on.
“That doesn’t make any sense, you could have just asked to be friends, or even taken me to dinner! You think I would have said no?”
Alina started sobbing even harder. I stared at her awkwardly, wondering how it even got this far. Everything I had done she had fought back just as hard; we were nemesis’, weren’t we?
I felt the flame inside me that I kept burning for her go out, as if extinguished by a cold draft. As much as I hated her, it had kept me going for the past few weeks. She was the only relationship I had outside of the Overlord—a hostile one, but a relationship nonetheless.
It hit me that everything I had done for weeks had been because of her and she hadn’t even felt the passion of hatred when retaliating, she was just a girl with a misguided crush and a negative level of social awareness. I sunk into the table, eyes unfocusing into the middle distance as I choked back a sob.
I had done so much for her—to her—for what? The cell door slammed open.
“Madeline BT-Seven-Two-Seven-Four Autumn; what is the meaning of this?”
I whimpered. I couldn’t remember the last time she had used my name, let alone all of them.
“Well?”
“I… I don’t know.”
“You told me you had this under control—” She turned to look at Alina, who also looked like a deer in headlights. “—And while I understand the homoeroticism of combat is appealing, maiming feels inadvisable.”
“The knife slipped.”
“Which is why we had a whole seminar about proper knife safety.”
I remembered that seminar because I had spent most of it flirting online. The floor became very interesting very quickly. My next words were murmured out quietly.
“She just wouldn’t stop.”
“I didn’t see you stopping at any point when spending two weeks to set up a trap.” She rounded on Alina. “And you: At what point did you think that antagonising my second in command was a good idea?”
She looked ashamed. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
The Overlord sighed, face in her hand.
“Stalking, cyberstalking, misuse of organisational resources, assault—” She paused. “—whatever kind of war crime of hatefucking was going on, we’re going to have to add a new rule for that. Because this is a first-time offence, and clearly you’re both idiots, you won’t be fired.
“But: You’re both on probation until cleared by a therapist, individual and couple sessions are mandatory.”
“But we’re not a couple! She doesn’t even really hate me!” I spoke up in our defence while Alina just looked between us in surprise.
She snorted. “You still put more effort into beating her up than I’ve seen most women put into dates, and clearly she needs to learn what normal methods to make friends are.”
I sighed. I wasn’t getting out of this. “Fine,” I turned to face Alina, who was still doing her best deer impression. “You gonna say anything?”
She looked like a mess with tear tracks running down her face, but managed to speak to the Overlord with only a slight stutter. “Thank you for your forgiveness ma’am.” I rolled my eyes at her submission.
“Good. Now these fine folk will escort you back to your rooms, you’ll receive an email with your therapy schedule and I expect you to be on your best behaviour. Dismissed.”
Another CUPID officer filed in to undo Alina’s handcuffs and lead her out of the cell. We stared at each other before she dropped her gaze and the officer behind me took my own handcuffs to lead me back to my room.
I lay in bed looking at the ceiling, what the fuck had we done? What was she to me?
My PDA pinged with a new notification, appearing below the therapy email:
AlinaS: Hey.
…
MadelineA: hey