You/Are/Yourself

Her final words were drowned out by the gunshot.

Aurora was shot from above, straight through the heart. She fell dead instantly.

Amber glanced at her body. Gone, unmoving. She took a look at Lloyd, and everything made sense. This whole thing was his idea to get rid of Gemma and frame someone else, and she fell for it. She looked at Lloyd, his fake confidence dropping by the second.

"Lloyd!" She roared, the shadows of the room coiling around her, several people falling to the floor as she did so. Lloyd took a step back. For the first time, he had genuine fear etched onto his face.

The shocks from the watch penetrated her body, feeling like electrocution followed by knives. The grips on the shadows loosened, and she fell to the ground.

"Okay, just in time." Kalea panted. "Okay, everyone. The last few days have been hectic, but it's time to-"

"No!"

Kalea and Leonie watched as Amber stood up, the shocks visibly rippling through her body.

Amber couldn't explain it. Something deep in her body was screaming at her. Telling her to go through the pain, and deal with whatever came afterwards later. Consequences were irrelevant, the only thing that mattered now was Lloyd's death.

Lloyd watched as Amber collected all the shadows in the room, as her eyepatch started to…glow? No, he was getting tired, and more importantly, he needed to dodge this.

Amber sent a wave of shadows towards him, all jagged and moving in to kill. Leonie barely managed to stop them by jumping in front of Lloyd, thrusting her hands in front of the tidal wave. The shadows bounced off an invisible barrier she managed to create, while Kalea locked on to Amber's back, grabbing her under her arms and slamming her onto the ground.

"Get off me!" Amber demanded, as Kalea held her head down. Ambers shadows coiled around Kalea instead, aiming for her back.

"Give up." She demanded back, as Leonie stopped the shadows from hitting her. She looked like she was putting genuine effort into making sure nothing hit Kalea, with genuine sweat. Very out of character. It took a while, but the shadows blended back into everyone stopped, and Amber fell unconscious.

The remaining fourteen were all scattered around the room. Ulrich was breathing heavily, which Valentina noticed.

"Ulrich, are you okay?"

"Yeah." He panted, desperately clinging to his podium. "Just need some time to…adjust." And as soon as he finished his sentence, the entirety of the last few days caught up to him, and he fell to the floor unconscious.

"Well, that's unfortunate." Huang mumbled. "I'll carry him back to the rooms, don't worry."

Once back in the rooms, Eric lay down on his bed, letting out a huge sigh of relief. Nobody important died, or at least nobody important to him. He lay on his bed, ready to go to sleep, even it was only eight in the evening.

Then he heard a knock on the door.

It probably wasn't Huang, so Vanessa looking for Huang, maybe? He opened the door, and Valentina was standing in an otherwise empty hallway.

"Hey...can I help you?" He asked quietly. He quietly glanced around the room looking for someone else. Nobody.

She let herself into his room without a word, her metal arm melting and sealing the door shut.

"What are you doing?" Eric asked, slightly panicked. He drew orbs of water out of his fingernails.

"Relax, relax!" Valentina yelled hurriedly. "I just need to talk to you."

"About what, exactly?" Eric replied, looking at the door, mentally begging Huang to report whatever was happening.

"Look, this is going to sound really weird…but were you ever with the Novas?

"Excuse me, Novas?" Eric spluttered. "No! I hate those guys! Corrupt bastards, all of them!"

"I mean as a child. Because that thing you said during the trial. 'Escaping the Novas is so easy a seven-year-old could do it.'

"I said six-year-old, Your point being?" Eric replied, chuckling nervously, continuing his staring contest with the door.

"Well, you would be nineteen, right? And an elemental. And black. It just so happens that someone with all those qualities escaped the Nova houses twelve years ago."

"What, are you saying that was me? No way, lady!" Eric replied, getting into a fighting stance. "Besides, I'm pretty sure that was a girl, anyway."

"So it was you." Valentina gasped.

"Valentina, are you fucking dense?" Eric yelled out. "A girl escaped, and I'm a man!"

"Nothing about this got out to the press." Valentina replied. "There was no way for you to know it was a girl. So, I feel the need to ask…are you…" She hesitated slightly before asking. "Emilia Seraph?"

"I, I…I was." Eric responded, defeated. Hearing that relic of words made something hit him spiritually, like his ribs closed in on his heart slightly. "But my name is Eric now. Always was. I've made sure nobody forgets that and I'm not stopping that now."

"Alright, Eric." Valentina replied with a soft smile, before going in for a hug. Eric stood in silence for a few seconds, before hearing sobbing from his chest.

"Are you okay?" Eric asked slowly.

"Do you remember me?"

"Uh, yeah." Eric replied, scratching his head. "But hey, you had two arms back then."

"Ignore that part." Valentina replied. "But you. You're a man now."

"Always was." Eric replied quickly, taking another look at the door.

"Oh right, clearly. On that topic, can I ask you something? About you being transgender."

"Uhh, sure?" Eric responded slowly.

"What was the process?"

"Process?"

"I need to know these things to reach the people better. Being unfairly branded a criminal or not, I'm still going to rule Nova City, and that's why I need to know about you. Actually, is there some paper in here?"

Valentina searched Eric's wardrobe and cabinets for a few seconds, finding a sheet of paper with a blank back to it. She took a pen out of her back pocket, sat down on Huang's bed, and started the interview.

"So, what's it like?"

"Being trans?"

"Yeah, the whole…realization process, I guess."

"Oh boy, how to phrase this?" Eric mumbled, scratching his neck. "It's like…a bunch of chains being attached to you. You don't know where they come from or how to get rid of them, but it's slowly strangling you. And then one day you kinda realize what you are, and it slows down a little. The chains creep back onto you, and it takes a while for them to go, but they eventually do. I guess that's how I'd put it."

"Got it." Valentina nodded, putting down notes on the paper. "Thanks for that." She gave a quick glance towards her watch, and then undid the seal, and the metal made it's way back as her arm.

"Okay, so I need to leave for something else now. I'll see you later."

"Sure thing." Eric nodded. "And good luck with the Nova takeover, I guess."

Amber lay in her bed.

Aurora was dead. And she was a thousand coins richer. She tried to find her to see if she could get the poison out of Cyrus system so that Ulrich wouldn't get killed. And when she found Aurora, Andrei was lying on the ground, and Gemma had a knife, ready to strike in the smoky room. Without thinking, Amber shot a shadow through Gemma's heart, and she fell to the ground, dead. Amber stuck her knife in her neck to not make it immediately suspicious, and then left the crime scene.

But it didn't matter. Lloyd got them. Lloyd got Gemma and Aurora killed, and he was still kicking. She needed to make sure he wouldn't survive the next challenge.

And then she heard a knock on her door.

She opened it, and there were two guards outside it. Decked out in guns, armour, the works.

"Do not be alarmed, miss!" One of them yelled immediately. If Amber wasn't so tired, she'd have shot every shadow from the hallways into these guys.

"Mind putting the guns down, then?" She asked bitterly, her attempt to remain calm clearly failing.

"One of our hosts wishes to meet with you!" The guard yelled out, clearly nervous behind all that armour. "Please let us escort you!"

Amber did as instructed, walking alongside them. One got an inch too close for her liking, and she coiled a shadow around her fist.

"Do not worry, miss." The other guard started. "I can assure you that you will survive this conversation. Just don't do anything reckless!"

"Very reassuring." Amber sighed blankly.

The three of them went to the Black Halo. It's dingy look and broken sign not exactly conveying the greatest conversation was about to take place.

"You are wanted at the top of the building, miss." Guard two instructed politely.

Amber walked into the stale feeling building, walking on a piece of toilet paper as she went up. She peeled it off her shoes before she went into the smoking area, where Kalea was waiting, smoking a cigarette while looking over the neon painted streets.

"Good night." She said, looking just as tired as Amber.

"Where's the other one?" Amber asked, taking a glance at the ceiling.

"Relax, she's dealing with something else." Kalea sighed. "Want a smoke?"

"Didn't take you for a smoker."

"Me neither." Kalea sighed. "I'm just here to congratulate you on making it to the halfway point."

"Excuse me? We're only a quarter of the way through."

"Yes, but our boss has taken an interest in you. He wants you to make it as far as possible, with what you've shown today."

"What, with how I didn't fall from the shocks?" Amber asked.

"That's one part. Your eyepatch started to glow. According to the boss, you're close to something called an awakening, and he's hoping to see that from you by the end of the game."

She dropped her cigarette on the ground, taking a piece of paper out of her pocket and handing it to Amber.

"There's the guide to the next five challenges. I've been told there will be penalties for sharing that information, so keep that in mind."

Amber opened the paper, and it didn't exactly tell what would happen. Just vague hints like 'Stay near the back' for tomorrow and 'Block 4B will not collapse' for the day after that.

"You get it?" Kalea asked calmly, looking at the starry sky above them, under the layers of glass.

"Yeah. So am I working next to the mole you guys have?"

"They won't know of you, but if you find them and wish to work alongside them, we won't stop you."

"Got it." Amber replied, stuffing the note in her shoe. "So can I go now?"

"You're free to." Kalea nodded, walking back with her.

Kalea waved her off as she walked back to her room, while the guards were called back to where she and Leonie were sleeping. As she walked back into her room, she went in, seeing Leonie pace back and forth through her room.

"Is everything okay?" Kalea asked calmly.

Leonie grabbed Kalea by the shoulders forcefully, with her almost falling over.

"Kalea, the train challenge is tomorrow!"

"Okay, and?"

"And?!" Leonie screamed, tightening her grip on her shoulders. "Everyone is gonna be gunning for Lloyd! If he dies tomorrow, do you even know what's gonna happen? The boss is gonna kill us!"

"Wait, for real?" Kalea replied, before Lloyd's second name flashed into her mind. "Oh, you're probably right. But…he was never gonna leave this place alive. He was confirmed to be dying after the halfway point."

"Yeah, but if he dies tomorrow, the bounty is worthless! And we're gonna have to pay for that!"

"Okay, relax." Kalea replied, ducking down to get Leonie's hands off her shoulders. "We'll survive. I'll think of something by morning, you can go to sleep and work on getting someone else taken out."

"So are we rigging it? Whose getting taken out?"

"Someone low on the polls, I guess. Trust me, Lloyd is gonna survive this."