Seeing Red: A Hysteria Short

Hetar
Wasteland
VS Battle

Zelda leaped back with her scimitar in hand, looking up to see Victoria racing towards her with her own weapon. Zelda released a huff and moved to the side, managing to trip Victoria. The other would have ended up falling if not for Zelda harshly yanking the blonde’s hair. Victoria bit her lip.

“Well, well – look what we have here. TL scum,” the twin taunted. Victoria refused to say anything and Zelda tightened her grip, making the Leader of TL hiss lightly in a mix of discomfort and pain. “No pipe-wielding shits or any of your other ‘friends’?”

“They took pity on you,” Victoria sneered. Zelda’s scarlet eyes gave a flash and she shoved Victoria down, planting a heeled boot on top of the other’s chest.

“Want to say that again, scum? Oh?” She dug deeper and Victoria gasped, “What – can’t breathe? Learn how to control that mouth of yours?” she growled.

That was Zelda’s shining moment of hubris: her excessive arrogance usually led to her defeat. In her taunting, she didn’t realize that Victoria was still holding onto her rapier.

The more Zelda dug her heel, the more Victoria’s irritation grew.

Zelda didn’t see it coming. 

The lack of object holding Victoria’s arms down aided Victoria; the leader of Team L moved her arm quickly. In a flash, Zelda had stumbled and fallen, clutching the side of her face. Upon sitting up, Victoria was pleased to see blood tricking from the wound.

“You bitch–”

“Don’t let yourself get too cocky,” Victoria replied calmly, twirling the rapier in her hands. Slowly Zelda got back up with an even angrier look in her eyes.

Their eyes locked – green against red – and at once, they charged.

* * * * *

Earth
Sacrum Cor
The Confrontation

“Stop it,” Theo hissed. “The more you let her irritate you, the more out of control you’ll get. You’ll be sent to the office. Do you want that?”

“I want to bash her head in,” Verena hissed. Theo shook his head in displeasure and pulled her away, Alessia staying behind with Ritsuko. Amidst her irritation, Verena could hear Alessia already snapping at the dark-haired Lizbeth. She felt that Ritsuko was doing her best to hold her back from doing anything rash.

“Can you hear me?”

“I can hear you loud and clear, Wyatt,” she snapped. Theo merely lifted a brow and glanced at her, seeing Verena now leaning against the wall with her arms folded over her chest. Her mouth was set into a deep frown. “I didn’t fucking start anything. It was her. I don’t see them holding her back,” Verena spat, and Theo put his hands on her shoulders in an attempt to sate her.

She shook his hands off.

Theo’s neutrality took a small stumble, and he tried his best to not look hurt. It seemed that Verena didn’t notice the sudden change in his demeanour.

“What’s up with you? When they confront you like this, you usually do your best to not give a shit at all. And that does the trick,” Theo pushed. Verena kept silent. “So why suddenly feel the need to blow up and actually attack now, Herman? What’s wrong?”

“I can’t always bottle it up!” she shot back. Theo blinked as she pushed herself off the wall, getting up in the Eyes’ face and gritting her teeth angrily. “You think it’s fine for me to stay back and listen to them ridicule and insult Alessia? For them to tease Ritsuko behind her back? I can take it if it’s for me – they make fun of you too, you know,” she exploded. Theo’s eyes narrowed.

Yet he kept silent and listened to her.

“I’m tired of keeping it in. I want to fight back. Because it’s so goddamn tiring to just let them come, taunt, and then leave believing that they got the upper hand. Well. Not this time,” Verena fumed. She suddenly spun on a heel and began to walk back to the classroom where the alleged confrontation had occurred.

But Theo grabbed her wrist.

“You idiot. Look at me, will you?”

“Did you–”

“Did I just call the most level-headed and usually rational female I know an ‘idiot’? I did. Sue me.” He looked into her eyes and Verena stared back, the latter expecting to see light grey.

However, what he met was an intimidating and hot-headed hue of scarlet.

With that, his grip on her grew tighter.

“You’re not going back there.”

“What?”

“Are you deaf? I said that you’re not going back,” Theo told her harshly, pulling her away and away from the hallway. “You’re going to go out and you’re going to calm yourself down before things get much, much worse. Do you understand?”

“I’m not a child!” Verena argued.

“Then stop acting like one and follow me.”

Verena knew that she had the option of jerking away and going back into the classroom. She knew that she could give the other girls a piece of her mind.

However, she also knew that if she would do that, all the angry words and bitter thoughts she kept deep down would come and resurface.

All those months of acting like nothing was going on would go to waste.

All those months of keeping them under lock and key would go to waste.

So she followed Theo, kept her mouth shut, and let him take her outside of the school’s restrictive walls.

Back inside the classroom, Ritsuko and Alessia stared the five girls down. Lizbeth looked unaffected, Radelle mildly upset, Ling disapproving of what happened, Kira furious and Nova apprehensive. The last of the five anxiously tugged at the end of her ponytail, wondering what exactly had happened.

“This is going out of hand,” Ling finally started.

“I agree.” Ritsuko replied. She met Ling’s gaze, “There was no need for additional conflict us – between both of you,” she added, then looking at Lizbeth. “Please don’t make things worse for us. For all of us.”

“It has to stop.”

“And who gave you the right to dictate things, know-it-all?” Kira taunted. Ritsuko cringed under Kira’s withering gaze. At the same time, both Alessia and Lizbeth told Kira to ‘shut up’.

Shocked, the smallest in the room kept her mouth shut.

“We haven’t been doing anything to you,” Alessia’s eyes scanned over each of the five, finally falling on Nova last. Nova nearly shivered at Alessia’s gaze. “Pro tip: don’t scare off your newest recruit. Once she sees how you truly are, she’ll be afraid as well and would want to back out. Do you want that, Liz–?”

“Thank you for the advice, Moretti.” Lizbeth spoke sharply.  “We’ll keep that in mind in the case that one of us gets a little too mouthy.”

Alessia rolled her eyes and grabbed Ritsuko’s wrist.

“Walk your talk.”

The two then left, leaving a divided mess inside the classroom.