So Much To Lose

Ch.1 Guilt

"Surely it couldn't have been nothing-"

The rapid clicking of Mic lowering her gain sounded like a sickening crack through her headset. Taco's heart dropped, fidgeting with her only line of communication with Mic, without having to run into a field of contestants and hosts who despised her, hoping that it was a tech issue, a malfunction.

She knew it wasn't, deep down, she had heard Mic disconnect from her before, knew that she would have no way to make her listen to what she had to say in return to her confrontation. But it didn't stop her from trying to fix her connection.

She wanted to defend herself, say how Pickle never had any issue with her actions until the finale, she didn't set out to hurt him, it was just the nature of the game. Nothing personal.

But I made it personal.

She thought, a wrench shoving its way into her chest, remembering her last conversation with Pickle, tearing down any hope in him that she cared, now or then. How the look on his face had dropped in an instant.

She could imagine that same look of dumbfounded confusion, mixed with sadness, and in her case guilt, plastered across her face. But this hurt so much more than when she lashed out a Pickle.

Taco had known that she would break away from Pickle at the end of the game. Win or lose, she had no intentions of sharing her winnings with the sad excuse for a vegetable. She had been prepared to cut the line, albeit only if she won.

And it would have been a perfect send-off indeed! No revealing her tactics, no pain caused (directly) by her, all Taco had to say was she was going to grab a gift for him, or go buy them food for a picnic with her newfound riches, then disappear into the forest.

It didn't matter what he would have thought of her after that, because she'd be so far away he'd have no hope of contacting her anyway. It was simple. It was clean. And of course nothing can ever be simple.

Taco never had a plan for what to do if she lost to make a clean getaway. She had no clue how the money would be handed over, where the finished line would be in relation to the woods, so she winged it.

Maybe it was her anger at a plan not paying off.

Okay scratch that - It was DEFINITELY anger at her plan not paying off, and in the moment the fit of rage felt right, making sure the idiot knew she never associated with him in any way past a tactic, that he never knew her, that they weren't friends.

Yet it still didn't hurt. Not in the way she did now.

Because when she dropped Pickle, even in the worst of circumstances, it was inevitable. Part of how she was playing the game.

She never actually intended to drop Mic. Not anymore.

When she was picking out a contestant to be her puppet she did, admittedly, consider how easy it would be to leave them in the dust and take the whole prize and yet... By the time they were found out by Knife she threw the idea away.

Yet at the same time, Taco realizes, she never made that clear to Mic. That she had any intention to be more honest. Sure she said she would, yet she never followed up on it.

She kept her temptations to fix the past with Pickle in the lab to herself, belittled Mic constantly. Because she had to!

Taco thought that if she had made herself more vulnerable, abandoning her facade and goals Mic would just assume she was pulling the same stunt as last season. Keeping up being what everyone thought she was, a manipulating, lying and brash cheater just came with the package.

All the plans she had presented to Mic had been altered by Mic herself, to be less direct, less violent. Somehow Taco never noted that. Never saw that as refusal rather than adaptation.

Taco gulped with that realization.

Mic did give her a chance to change, every challenge. A chance to play unfairly yet nice at the same time.

This last challenge I did the one thing she told me not to, I ruined my last chance.

It was at that point that Taco noticed how heavy she was breathing, how fast her heart was beating. She was alone now, honestly and truly.

She always had a chance to talk someone into trusting her before, to gain that. She had a chance to gain Mic's trust.

Now with Knife the only one left on the field with insight on her, she knew no one would be willing to help her, hell, even talk to her.

"I became what they thought I was."

Taco made a B-line for the elimination podium, Mic would be safe this challenge, maybe when she left she could talk to her, apologize, for everything she did.

To her. To Pickle.

Taco walked up to Mic smiling at Knife and saying goodbye.

Saying goodbye but she's-

And she walked through the portal, Taco's jaw was dropped but she couldn't tell. Her face was the epitome of guilt in the way her eyes dilated smaller and her eyebrows scrunched.

Everyone was going to leave the area soon, and see her like this.

She needed to go.

She needed to think.

Taco entered coordinates to the center of perilous forest into Mepad, and sent herself teleporting away.

She could see Hotel OJ in the distance from the tree they both landed in, Taco struggling to pull the unconscious Mepad up onto a branch.

Taco needed a third plan, but this time, it wouldn't have anything to do with the show.