Station 2-14: Chapter Thirteen
Round Two: Ley vs. Jax
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Chapter Thirteen: Round Two
The three rules of the Games:
Contestants cannot push opponents with their minds.
Contestants will not burn or blind opponents.
Contestants will win through knockout or if their opponent crosses the boundary line.
The doors open onto a stadium that was now strangely familiar to Ley. She had only briefly been on the ground for her last match but she’s now watched so many hours of footage and studied every inch of the room, that she felt like she could walk out to her starting mark with her eyes shut.
Against her will, she follows her instructions from Voss and waits for Jax to step out first. The plan was to make her look as feeble as possible. She waits for Jax to move with Voss’ words replaying over and over in her mind: Everyone thinks Ley is weak. We should use that to our advantage. But as she watches Jax saunter over to his starting mark, she starts to worry that his plan was a mistake. She wasn’t weak. She had eight bands of power; she was the strongest in the Station. She didn’t want to be weak and go for boundary.
She wanted to knock him out.
She forces herself to take a deep breath before she walks onto the stadium floor; she needs to trust her team. All around her, the audience is bathed in the deep purple of Jax’s merch - not a single flash of red supporting her. In some ways, she can’t blame them, her last match was over before she had a chance to start.
But losing again wasn’t an option.
Whatever story they wanted her to tell, there was only one ending: she was going to win. And if no one in the audience believed she could - she was about to make fools out of a lot of people.
Ley spies her team filing into the box above as she steps onto her starting mark. The floor glows green around her joining the halo of green on the floor around Jax at the other side. And then the countdown starts.
Three.
Two.
One.
The siren sounds and Ley dives into the match, determined not to be pushed across the boundary line again. She rolls along the floor only to bounce back to her feet and calls her weapon of choice into her hand with her mind. The staff flies silently into her hands as Jax steps off his mark and stalks towards her.
She can clearly make out the lines in the floor showing the different segments that will soon begin to move. They had mapped out the different parts of the floor from the footage of Jax’s earlier match. She knew that the larger sections were in the centre of the stadium while the smaller platforms surrounded the boundary. There was no discernible pattern to the way they moved, so Ley hopped from platform to platform, making sure to keep in the centre of each one to avoid it pushing her off balance.
The seconds were passing quickly as she slowly creeps towards Jax who’s stopped just inside the boundary to wait for her approach.
When she crosses the half-way line, Jax makes his first move. He copies his last opponent and sends one of the rubber balls in Ley’s direction. She bats it away with her staff.
Pathetic.
The second siren sounds and the floor begins to move. Ley steadies herself in the centre of her platform and Jax takes his moment. He grabs a spear, his weapon of choice and sends it flying at Ley. She pushes it aside with barely a thought and lets the floor take her into the air.
She’s barely in the air for a moment before the platform sends her whirring back to the ground. Jax continues to throw ball after ball, hoping to catch her off guard, but she deflects them with a wave of her hand like they were flies, sending them this way and that with a flick of her wrist.
Her pushes forward until one of the balls slips through, catching her in the stomach, she falls to the ground with a thump - just short of the boundary line.
The crowd jeers as she lands. She was still in the game but it was too close for her comfort. The threat of the loss sparks Ley’s rage and the stadium floor begins to rattle. Not with the movement from the match but with the energy that she can’t contain. Furious, Ley struggles to her feet. She wants to throw everything at Jax and win. She wants to scream and shove Jax over the boundary line.
She was supposed to seem weak, to hide her power, but it quickly becomes clear that the tremors in the stadium are coming from Ley herself as they cascade out around her in waves. Jax looks about him, trying to think but the longer he takes the more her fury consumes her. She was supposed to look less than this?
She draws her rage back in, ready to push it all out in a targeted attack. Jax watches it all, frozen by the fear of what’s to come. The ground jerks to a halt, as Ley snaps her power inwards ready to explode.
But she hesitates, her breath catching in her throat.
She goes to push out her power and send it flying towards Jax like a scream but nothing comes. It sits just out of reach. She would have access to it all, if she could only think of the word to call it.
She can’t breathe.
She had never fully understood how her TK had worked, it was as natural to her as her heart beating in her chest but now, with nowhere to go, the energy bottled inside her threatens to rip her apart.
She can’t breathe.
Her hand grabs at her chest and Jax realises that she’s no longer in control. He sends every weapon that he can lift with the little power that he has. She can’t get hold of her breath, so she can’t control her TK. She stumbles out of range of each weapon, but each one gets closer to her than the last, pushing her nearer still to the boundary line.
In a final effort, Jax sends a spear flying straight for her nose. She’s not quick enough to move and reaches, desperately, for any ounce of her power to stop it. She throws her hand up to shield herself and feels it coming to a halt, inches from piercing her skin.
A wave of relief washes over her as a glimpse of control returns. She gasps for air and tries to send the spear back at Jax her but the effort forces her to her knees.
There’s a tense silence; all eyes fixed on Ley. The camera flies in for a close-up as Jax grabs her staff and goes to push her across the boundary line. Ley feels the floor vibrate beneath her - it’s about to move. Just as Jax steps onto her segment, she rolls off it and out of his reach as the floor whirls him into the air.
She looks up to Jax from the edge of the boundary line, she had nearly lost it all.
Again.
Jax starts waving to the crowd while he waits on his podium in the air. As if this match was already won. Ley forces herself to focus on her breathing, she can’t lose now. She closes her eyes, shutting out her smug opponent and thinks of her mother waiting for her. She imagines her mother’s gentle hands wrapping around hers as she breathes in deeply and slowly lets go, reminding herself of why she’s there.
She opens her eyes with a steady breath to find Jax watching her from above, waiting for her to notice him. He waves to her on the ground, which sends a ripple of laughter through the crowd. But it didn’t matter. She doesn’t need the crowd to like her.
She just needed to win.
Jax turns his eyes back to the adoring crowd, while Ley switches her sights to the ground. She searches for another platform to take her to his level. Jax is on the only segment that’s up in the air but from her position, she can see the gears turning beneath the floor. Not only see them, she can hear them working underneath the roar of the crowd. The gears grinding into place to turn the podium that was keeping Jax aloft.
It was just a machine.
A machine that could be controlled.
Her plan quickly falls into place as she finally catches her breath. Her body was weakened by the attack but her mind is clear. While Jax plays up to the crowd, Ley rolls onto her hands and knees and reaches out to to the gears underneath the floor with her mind.
At first she can’t tell which spoke controls which part of the floor so she reaches out and takes hold of the gear closest to her. She holds it in place as easily as the grains of sand back in the penthouse, ignoring the mild pressure of the gears pushing against her.
As she holds it in place, she reaches out for the floor on top. The one part that doesn’t immediately move to her will. As Jax blows a kiss to the crowd, Ley pushes down on the floor beneath his feet, crashing it down to the ground in her iron grip.
A ripple of shock runs through the crowd and before Jax has a chance to react, she sways to her feet and grabs her staff from his hands. His eyes grow wide and she strikes him across the chest and pushes him across the boundary line.
The siren sounds.
The crowd goes wild. Ley has won her first match.
Pangere walks out to meet Ley, smiling to the adoring crowd, this was her win as much as Ley’s. But behind her smile on Pangere’s face is a quiet rage as she grips Ley’s shoulder tight and turns her to face the crowd.
‘Smile,’ says Pangere, as she waves to the audience. Then through gritted teeth she shares a whisper, a vow just for the two of them: ‘We can talk about this tomorrow.’
Ley goes to explain, to defend herself.
She knew that she hadn’t listened to them or followed their plans. But she had still won after all - isn’t that what they all wanted? But from her words, she knew that somehow what she had done was worse. And as much as she tried, she couldn’t use her words. As if the very air had been wrung from inside her that would allow her to voice them. She pushes against Pangere’s grip and finds the strength to breathe the word:
‘Sorry.’
Pangere’s hand on her shoulder loosens and she pauses mid-stride, considering her for a moment. Her smile breaks as Ley tries to summon another word to follow but nothing comes. Pangere gives a curt nod and ushers her out of sight.
Hey, it feels like it’s been a while. This was great!