Little Secrets

Marie: Once Upon A Fight

All I could think about was that urchin. Ever since she had gotten here, she had been able to annoy me in some way, or make some snide comeback, and my free time was spent arguing with her in my mind. Arlo, conveniently my best (and only) friend, had taken to her nicely, and just after she had met me, she had insulted me. And Arlo hadn't even stood up for me! It was obvious what she was up to.

My face was buried into my pillow, and I knew my cheeks were red from stress and frustration. Every time I imagined her face I just felt like exploding.

A few minutes later, I grunted as I heaved myself up from my pillow, its sheets impressioned to show the basics of my face. I could see it: The oval-like head, and a fist shape in the bottom corner. It was pure white, and for some reason the obvious color choice angered me. I tied my boots with ferocity, and I stomped out of my room in a worse mood than usual, but luckily for me, the common people wouldn't be able to tell the difference. To them I was just the angry bully anyways.

I was on my way towards Combat Training with Agent Nathan. He was a wacky dude who was always suspicious of everyone trying to kill him. It had become a challenge among the training agents to startle him. I had gotten myself hurt many times trying to sneak up on him, and eventually the majority of the class had just given up on trying to catch him off guard. It was impossible.

Along with our Combat agent's weird antics, I was in the class with most of the girls from side B and Arlo, which made things a little more hectic. One of the girls, Cassie, had a heck of a lot of sass towards anyone and everyone in the class. Some of the boys, including Arlo, seemed to have a habit of trying to bug the girl. If that sewage rat, Emmy or whatever her name was, ended up joining our class, she would probably find some way to mess things up and fit in with everyone else.

Overall, the class regularly wasn't that bad, but if that twit was going to be in the same room as me for a whole hour, this was going to get interesting.

Agent Nathan had just announced that we would be fighting each other today. My eyes swept the classroom looking for a victim, and I was just about to decide on Jessica, my roommate, when I spotted a gleam of gold hair trying to slip through the door. I didn't even have to search for her eyes to know who she was, her shrinking and elusive body posture gave her away.

"If it isn't the new girl," I said loudly, my eyes locked on her. There was no absolute way she could escape me now.

"I haven't gotten to properly meet you yet. That, in street urchin language, means I want to fight you to test your capabilities. I hope you won't mind if we do that here in Combat today?"

It wasn't really a question, more like a command to have me beat her to a pulp, and I didn't take my eyes off her the whole time. I could see in her eyes that she wasn't happy with the situation, and that made my day a whole lot better.

"I'm pretty sure you have met her Marie, it's just you want to have a flair for dramatics."

Cassie moved from her position at the front of the room to stand by the girl protectively. Her hazel eyes locked into mine with a fierce edge to them. I didn't look away, my eyes squinting so deeply that I could see the dark outline of my eyelashes in my peripherals. I knew that the urchin couldn't say no; it would make her look rude, as well as stupid in front of her crush, but it would mostly damage her pride and ability to stand up to me. Either way, it was a win-win situation for me.

"Why don't we duke it out instead?" I tore my attention away from Ember a second more to look at the speaker: Cassie, her body rigid with pent up anger. "I'm tired of you picking on Em. Besides, last time we fought in here we tied, didn't we? I suppose we should settle a score while we have the time."