Combust [closed/solo]

Summer colors were fading into autumn shades as July dimmed into August. The cold had already caught up with them up here, stripping the trees and blanketing the forest floor in a quilt of gold and red and yellow, slips of brown leaves crunching beneath beat-up sneakers. She'd bounced out of her dorm right before dawn so she could catch the sunrise from the rooftop. Kayla just leaned out on the railing for a half hour or so, watching that pinprick of light that flared up from the mountain peaks, a thin golden light that blossomed into streaks of rosy pink. The world held its breath, shedding a red radiance over the slopes that stretched down into campus below, and the sun rose, and she left.

She skirted down the stairwell, stalking through the courtyard at dawn, picking a few wilting marigolds and anemones, and out into the woods as the last wisps of morning mist dissipated into dew. Kayla killed a few hours skipping rocks across the lake, blowing wishes on dandelions, and laying against the roots of a crooked oak with half a hundred initials and messages carved into the bark, listening to the birds sing. The winding dirt path narrowed into a fox-track, and then nothing at all, through lanes of untrodden tall grass between brambles and honeysuckle, until she'd lost her way completely.

It was dusk by the time she'd made it to that hill, shadows lengthening from between the trees as the first stars blinked out from behind the clouds. Kayla hunched her shoulders up against the cold, hands stuffed in her jacket pockets with her breath billowing out in clouds of frost, and that's when she found her. There wasn't any need to turn around to look at her just to know. She wanted to say she felt her presence before the first hissing words slipped out from between her lips, an icy vacuum that sucked all the life and oxygen out from the forest, but maybe it was just the sudden silence that fell over the trees as all the birds stopped singing.

"Katherine, did you think you could hide all the way out here?"

Yeah. Maybe. Kayla didn't move, not moving her gaze from the thin threads of gray cloud that stretched across the moon. She dragged her shoe through the wet grass, tiny sparks flashing at the tips of the blades and leaving a black streak through the green field. "Can't you just kill me instead?" she asked after a long silence, her voice barely above a whisper.

The voice seemed another ten feet closer when it spoke again. "Oh, Katherine, how I'd love to." Every syllable grated against the inside of her skull, like nails on a chalkboard. Sparks flickered out across her shoulders. "But we made an agreement. And unfortunately that's not a solution for anyone."

I didn't agree to shit. She clicked her tongue against her teeth, pushing the sigh through clenched teeth. Dying was easy. Dying would let her get out of this so easy. But she couldn't die yet. Why not? Why couldn't she just punch her way out of this like she always did before, and then forget about it all? Then she could head back to her dorm, start going to class again, laugh with Preston, skate by a few years as best she could, graduate with the stupid cap and gown—...

Shades of L̛aín̶ imprinted themselves on the backside of her eyelids, filling her head every time she blinked, any time she tried to sleep. They'd taken her and she'd left her, for a whole fucking year, and she'd just shut her out of her head and tried to forget the deadline rushing up to swallow her. She really was fucking selfish.

A dead end. Kayla shifted on her heel, raising her gaze to the girl with blood red eyes, and for a heartbeat the world held its breath. Then she pivoted, spinning, whipping her arm out from her jacket pocket, electricity coursing up the back of her hand and to her fingers, ballooning out in a bright bulb of light that blasted away the darkness. The sphere swelled at her fingertips, distending, surging and blowing out in a spiral, loud as a shotgun blast.

She only saw her coming in flashes, a black shadow dancing through the hot flashes of white and blue and yellow, until those blood red eyes were inches from hers. Kayla slid back through the grass, twisting at the hips to try and avoid the hard strike chopping toward her waist. Needle-sharp pain exploded out from her side as the hit connected. It was like taking a sledge hammer just below the ribs. Crying out through her teeth, she fought to maintain her balance, pinwheeling her arms,  but the woman's leg swept out to catch her just behind the heel.

The stars lurched out above her head in blurred white streaks. She hit the ground, sliding down the slope and into the bushes before she could even recover her breath. Kayla batted the hot tears from her eyes as she pushed herself to her knees, panting for air.

"I'm weary of the games, Katherine." The woman with no name looked down on her with her dim eyes narrowed into slits. "You know this is futile."

Kayla staggered to her feet, pounding at the sharp pinch in her side with her fist. She had a whole year to game plan for this moment, and yeah, she hadn't thought of anything better than this, but she couldn't just submit with her head bowed... There was no way she could just cave in.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

She pressed all her weight into the sole of her foot and shot forward up the hill, clawing her hand through the air, sparks magnetizing around her fingers and coalescing into a bubble that surged out from the center of her palm. Kayla swiped at the her, relentless, and the woman with no name danced just out of reach, her face emotionless. They circled around each other, close as dancers, Kayla slinging punch after electrified punch, and the girl with the red eyes dipping and ducking and dodging, as fluid as water. All at once, the woman with no name stopped in place, and Kayla finally connected, slugging her fist square into the girl's abdomen. Light burst out in a blinding white splash as the energy building in her hand finally dispelled.

It was like smashing her hand into a marble slab. The girl with no name took a step back, shifting her center of gravity, and her hand shot out quicker than she could react, closing around her throat. Kayla seized up, electricity cracking down her legs as icy cold fingers wrapped around her windpipe, lifting her a solid inch off the ground. "Do you just intend to self-destruct?" she whispered.

Vertigo. Her whole body whipped around, limp, as the girl rotated and slammed her back toward the ground. She felt herself hurtle down, but when she should've smashed against the grass, she kept falling, through leaves and foliage and into a dark pit, with moonlight beaming down from the gap in the ceiling. Kayla hit the water with a splash, like hitting cement, sinking two, three feet before her body slowed to a stop against the smooth cavern stones.

For a moment, a heartbeat, a minute, an eternity, she felt ensnared there beneath the dark pool, tied down by invisible steel wires, but the paralysis in her limbs loosened as the shock faded from her body, and she shot to the surface like a drowned rat, gasping for air. The fuck...? She glanced up toward the sky, where the woman's silhouette stood shrouded at the cavern lip. Her vision fuzzed with static, pain spreading up her spine.

"Amazing, truly amazing... So it does lie here after all."

Kayla stirred up all the strength she had left in her chest, kneeling in the water, trying to channel the electricity back down toward her fingers as she flipped a coin out from the inside of her sleeve, bracing herself for the impact. Her nail clicked against the steel, sending it flipping up into the moonlight... and back down again, plopping down into the water.
"What...?" she murmured to herself, staring down the length of her arm. No buzz, no blue currents snaking down her elbow, no hum of electricity in her ears, just the cold whistle of wind through the hollow cavern.

There was white muzzle flash, followed a split millisecond later by the crack of a gunshot. She felt the glance of a bullet, hot and sharp, graze past her cheek, smashing into the hard stone behind her. All the vitality flooded out from her body. Kayla flopped back into the shallows, completely powerless.

"Katherine," the voice resounded through the cavern, "would you do anything to make sure Lain stays alive and safe?"

Don't say her name... Her chest heaved. A cold numbness started to spread up her legs, down her fingertips. "Yes."

"Do you want to stay alive?"

"Yes..."

"Then you'll come with me?"

She swallowed the pain, her whole body shaking on the cavern floor. And after a long silence, she answered, yes.