This Is War - Jesse & Emma
All she could smell was blood. Blood and smoke. Sulfur and metal. It wasnât a matter of life and death as Emma knew all too well that it wasnât real, no matter how real it felt. But as the simulation played out around her she could already undoubtedly feel the beginnings of a welt growing along back of her skull from where her head had cracked against the ground in reality. It wasnât the first time something like this had happened to her, after all, while the simulation itself wasnât real, she still was, and one thing had led to another and sheâd somehow or another ended up on her ass, head spinning as the world shifted on its axis leaving her upside down and spinning still. Somewhere nearby the blonde was able to barely register the sound of another bomb going off, the ringing in her ears dulling into a subtle hum as she took a staggering moment to catch her breath.
Emma rolled onto her side, feeling blindly as pellets of gravel and a wave of dust coated her. No doubt she was failing this mission, or rather this exam but she never had been very good when it came to self-defense. Her powers werenât meant to defend, they were meant to destroy. Or at least thatâs all they had ever been able to do so far. Sheâd been working more and more here and there to try and find the balance between controlling her emotions and using them as fuel for her geokinetic abilities, but the two were so tightly wound together that some days it almost seemed impossible. Especially in a simulation of your worst fears. Whoever had thought that this was a good idea, putting her in a box the size of a football stadium and expecting everything to be okay either was very stupid or very brave, but that wasnât the thing that worried her at the moment. What worried her was that she knew she wasnât alone.
Emma hadnât seen who had gotten tossed into the arena with her, that was part of the test, working together regardless of differences to overcome obstacles, but the blonde had spent more time running through the city scape than she had actually spent towards fighting back. What if she lost control? Yeah, this really was a stupid idea. The dumbest. Blue eyes rolling from behind her eye lids, Emma finally lifted herself from her position on the ground, the sound of gunfire almost too close. While the simulation was virtually harmless, the sensory suit that they had the students wear was enough to draw fear into the girlâs heart, because while they couldnât physically get hurt, they could still feel the pain. And if she got shot it was going to hurt like hell.
Blowing away loose strands of blonde hair that had fallen from her braid and into her face, Emma set her sights back onto the assignment at hand and despite the colors that danced across her vision, she slid across the roof of a wrecked car and disappeared into a haze of dust and smoke, picking up pace until she was running. Muscles aching, extending, pumping and pushing her until the sound of gunfire was far behind her, and then even still until she was safe within the confines of a half burnt down office building. Her chest rose and fell heavily as she breathed carefully through her nose, her lips thinned out into a straight line to keep her mouth closed, while sweat ran down her temples, down her neck, down everywhere until she was shifting uncomfortably. The worst part about the sensory suit, aside from the fact that it emitted mind numbingly intense pain to those who got hurt in the simulation, was that they were uncomfortable as hell. And hot.
The girl pulled at the fabric where it hugged tightly to the base of her throat. She was thirsty, too thirsty, and she wondered if it was because she really was thirsty or if it was an effect of the suit. Another neat and nasty little trick, that it could induce real life problems that one could face on the battlefield. Exhaustion even when you werenât exhausted, thirst from dehydration even though you werenât, and of course hunger when you werenât hungry. Yeah, this really was the worst class ever. A thought that made her bite irritably at her bottom lip until the skin was bruised. That was when she heard it. The sounds of footsteps, and as her spine went rigid and she crouched down behind an old desk, she poured herself into the remnants of some broken glass and blindly flung it across the room, her heart in her throat and her throat tight and clenched from the heat and her thirst.
