The Finale: Verity vs Fabio:
With his bloodied sword in hand, Fabio finds his way onto the Hovercraft far too easily for his liking. He looks around at the pristine and perfect Capitol architecture almost in awe. He takes a few steps forward before he hears the laboured breaths of someone. Fabio twisted his head to the side and cocked his head to the left. He didn’t expect what he saw.
One of the main things that Verity had learned in her time in the Arena was that there was always something bigger and scarier out there than the petty obsessions that ran through her mind, uncertainty was a fact of life and as she made her way up the ladder into the hovercraft she swallowed her fear and digested it, letting it sit uncomfortably in her stomach as a centering focus as she came to meet Fabio who stood before her as beaten and bruised as she was.
“Surprise bitch.” Verity spoke with a twisted grin on her face before swinging her own sword. “I bet you thought you’d seen the last of me.” and in fact Fabio had. He was expecting to see Damon here if anyone, but Verity had triumphed over him, but not without her fair share of injuries. But injuries or not, she was a strong girl and he would an absolute idiot if he were to underestimate her. He stood in front of her; a few metres separated the two of them. It wouldn’t be long until one of them was dead, and the other was going home alive. Fabio just hoped that it was going to be him. He looked down at her near fingerless hand and saw that blood was practically dripping from her hand and he was actually perplexed as to how she was still standing. But, if there was one thing that he had learned from this whole pageant - it was that determination and the will to survive was one of the strongest things in the world.
Noticing that Fabio just wasn’t moving or saying anything, she smiled and started to circle the boy. He was as broken and bloodied as she was, but just in a different way. Fabio circled Verity as well, keeping an eye out for what she was hiding. He had fought the girl on the first day and knew that she was anything but stupid.
“What are you hiding Verity?” he smiled at her a little and swung the sword in her direction and charged at her after sussing where her weakest point was. Although he kind of felt bad for exploiting her injuries for his own benefit, he knew that he had to if he was to win – if he was to go home. He swung the sword to her right knowing that it was her weak spot, but Verity was better than that. She ducked out of the way of his sword and swung her sword above her and the sound of clashing metal reverberated in the hovercraft. Fabio pressed forward, pushing the girl further and further back. With practically one hand – weak from blood loss – he knew that it wouldn’t be long before he could overpower her and put her out of her misery.
“Enough!” Fabio finally roared pushing Verity backwards as he realized that he’d inadvertently underestimated Verity, who whipped her sword towards him in the space between them. Fabio closed in, his hands gripped around the tip of his poisonous dart as his footfalls sent metallic rings through the Hovercraft. Swinging the sword at Verity, he caught the girls upper arm, connecting to open a sickening slice that bled along her pale limb but before he could strike again, the Hovercraft spun sickeningly in the air to loop around on itself, the two tributes losing both their footing and their bearings, the centrifuge slammed them both into the hard metal walls eliciting pained noises from each of them - The Capitol obviously weren’t ready to see an end to their twisted games yet.
Verity could feel the centre of balance shift again inside of the hovercraft, the wall that Fabio was pressed against now rising up towards her as she felt gravity push her backwards, the wall she was leaning against slowly becoming the new floor of the Hovercraft that now flew sideways in the air. Fabio looks around – genuinely troubled and perplexed at the change in the gravity and struggled to get a grasp on it. He gripped his sword again, gripping onto whatever handhold he could find to time his drop onto the Candor girl that looked so small opposite him as he hung above her. Verity could see what Fabio was going to do and in her adrenaline fueled frenzy she thought that she may have figured out his plan before it had formed in the Dauntless boys mind, slowly and surely so that it was inconceivable to Fabio - clinging onto the girders that ran up the side of the vehicle and dangling precariously above her - she managed to slip her good leg beneath her, giving her leverage for when she would need it.
He gripped on and looked for Verity who was now coming towards him not letting the zero gravity get him in the way of her Victory. Fabio lost his grip on his sword - nearly dropping it - as he went towards her and it gave her the time, even if it was just for a split second, to attack him off guard. She stabbed her sword down at his leg but he managed to move away, kicking at the wall as a way of propelling away from Verity – but it caught him, giving him a deep gash on his leg. He grabbed onto it instinctively nearly dropping his sword again and as soon as Verity was close enough to him, he quickly spun to his side, and grabbed onto the arm wielding the sword with both of his hands and snaps it with his brute strength so she dropped it. Verity let out a screech of pain and smashed her head forward – head butting Fabio causing his nose to break before she backed away from the Dauntless boy knowing that he had the upper hand.
Fabio watched, swinging his feet backwards and forwards to build momentum so that he could crash down on top of her with his sword and end this, when he felt prepared, the boy released his grip on the bar above him and let the laws of physics take over as he barrelled downwards towards the severely injured Verity, catlike in his precision, the opposite wall-turned-floor of the hovercraft rushed up to meet him and with a movement faster than he would have granted the Candor girl, she was gone the spring loaded leg barrelling her out of the way of his attack. Verity’s precision and patience had paid off as she pushed her good leg painfully underneath her, the effort causing her to roll awkwardly out of range of the falling Fabio. She felt the impact of the Dauntless boy hitting the wall spot she’d just been in and listened to the sickening crunch of bone as Fabio was unable to stop himself crashing painfully into the hull of the ship.
Bile rose up in his throat and it was almost as if the pain from his head was radiating throughout his whole entire body rendering him weak. With Verity’s body pressed against Fabio’s she wrapped her legs around his hips and using all the strength in her hand and wrapped it around his neck choking him. He fumbled for the dart in his back pocket and tried in vain to stab her with it, but she quickly squatted the dart away - pulling it away from his weak and feeble hands - along with his chance of leaving this this hovercraft alive disappeared.
Verity rushed Fabio as he tried to gain his footing on the teeter tottering craft, her messed up hand flicking the poisoned dart away from the Dauntless leaders reach before he could retrieve it, the impact had given her the opportunity, but now she was ready to finish this. Fabio struggled to his feet his eyes quickly scanning for the poisoned dart that he couldn’t locate until finally he trailed up Verity’s body to see the steeled determination on her face. The wall of the hovercraft shifted again, turning the floor into an incline as though the Hovercraft had comically braked in mid-air, the manoeuvre sent Verity towards Fabio but this time she’d learned and adapted from the first couple of tricks that the Capitol threw at her.
Wrapping her good arm around Fabio’s throat as leverage as the hovercraft continued to spin and gravity became an obsolete concept, Verity pulled herself on top of him, her thighs wrapping around the boys skull where she anchored herself so that she sat on the tall boys shoulders. Fabio retaliated by throwing his sword above himself in an effort to stab the Candor girl who sat on his shoulders the way a child would with a Father, Verity instinctively brought her almost useless left hand to counter the swing, the loss of blood and severed nerve endings barely allowing her to register as what was left of her hand split in two and Fabio’s sword stuck tight in the bone of her forearm. Blood spilled out into the room, floating like a fluctuating solid the way that it would out in orbit, the spinning hovercraft’s movement simulating the atmosphere of space.
With the absolute blinding pain that was threatening to take him under, made him unconscious from his head. He knew that he couldn’t give up now. Almost every fibre, every part of him just wanted to give up, give into death so he could be with Dorian, and with Isa, Melodee, Damon. He wanted that so bad, to be a coward but he just couldn’t. He wrapped his remaining hand around Verity’s neck and squeezed it as hard as he could before kneeing her in the stomach and getting her off of him. With one last glance at the bandannas tied around his arm – he knew what he had to do. He had to do it for them, because if he didn’t, then they all would have died for nothing and he couldn’t do that to them. He was so close to the finish line, so close to home and so close to the justice that they deserved.
The elbow of Verity’s severely injured arm pressed against his forehead to keep him in position as her good hand released his hair and pulled out a small white contraption that Fabio didn’t recognize. As he looked up Verity’s torso into her feral face, he watched her put the cap of the gadget into her mouth and snap it away. Verity’s legs constricted tighter around Fabio’s neck as she pushed the white plastic ball towards his lips, her elbow pushing his head further and further backwards to get into his mouth. Fabio’s now empty hands grasped out for the sword - that Verity had removed from her arm - was now floating through the room along with the dart that had made a reappearance, once he knew that wouldn’t work he curled his hands into fists and began to pound on the girls legs that had shifted quickly, the sinewy muscle behind her shin now pressing against his chin while her arms seemed to be embracing his head, in an odd change of tactics it was as though she was hugging Fabio’s skull in a strange semblance of apology for them fighting but awareness pushed it’s way through Fabio’s conscious and he knew that Verity was forcing him to keep the device in his mouth.
Verity knew when the smoke bomb had began to release it’s fumes into Fabio’s body as he coughed and rocked underneath her and she focussed on keeping the Dauntless boy’s mouth shut tight under the pressure of her arms and legs. The small gaps at the corners of Fabio’s mouth began releasing smoke and his nose billowed like an enraged dragon, the twisted plumes escaping into the hovercraft. Verity and Fabio floated through the air in a strange weightless ballet, prima and danseur intertwined awkwardly in a final embrace. Verity softly reached down to Fabio’s face as he continued to beat against her, with an almost gentle gesture her fingers pinched the boys nose to cut off the final escape for the chemicals invading his lungs expanding them more than they could hold until his chest swelled.
Fabio could feel the end as he drowned slowly without water, his body bucking violently as the last thing that he was was Verity’s angelic features twisted into that of a monster above him, his lungs burned violently as the alien gas pervaded and stole the life from him. With the last amount of strength he carried, Fabio reached for something as it floated by and stabbed it into Verity’s leg. Her eyes widened as she spotted the dart sticking out of the appendage that was wrapped around her enemy’s neck. She looked down at Fabio in shock, and although she could not see, he emitted smoke from the twisted smile on his face. It was a final ‘Fuck you.’ Not only to Verity for taking his life, but to the Capitol, because now it was a race against time. If they weren’t quick enough then they would have no Victor.
Eventually, Fabio’s body stopped convulsing below Verity and the hovercraft crashed them both to the floor, Fabio limp in death and Verity still from the exhaustion of the final fight as the poison coursed within her veins. In the last moments before the announcement confirmed her victory, Verity was unsure of how Fabio had died. She couldn’t tell whether his lungs had given up from the lack of oxygen in his body or if the gas had simply overfilled the capacity of Fabio’s lungs causing them to rupture in his ribs. Unfolding her cramped legs from the dead Dauntless boy’s neck, Verity lay next to him, fascinated by the last stray plumes of smoke that vortexed up before disappearing into the air around her. Her eyes closed as the medics rushed in to ensure her survival. After all, she was their victor.