Present day

March 22, 33 AE

The first thing that Elsie noticed was that she was very, very hungry. Her second realization was that her head felt heavy and foggy, as if she partied too much the night before. The third was that every single muscle in her body was stiff and achy, and while she was able to move, it hurt to do so.

"Ow," Elsie groaned without meaning to, then was surprised at the rough sound of her voice. She coughed a few times to clear her throat, but immediately regretted it as her ribs began to throb and her skin felt like it was being pulled so taut it was going to tear. "Shit. Ow."

"Oh, thank goodness you're awake," a voice said. Or, at least Elsie thought that's what she heard, but she couldn't really tell over the high pitched ringing in her ears. "How're you feeling?"

Miserable, Elsie thought as she continued her painful coughing fit. But she had trouble voicing her opinions at that moment and she struggled to push her upright with shaking arms. The other person thankfully noticed, and helped lift her up by her shoulders. After a minute, the coughing subsided, and Elsie took the chance to finally get her bearings.

Her first thought was that she was in a basement, if the darkness and concrete decor were any indication. The only source of light was a small ball of fire floating in the middle of it all, flickering weakly. Wait... fireballs?

Elsie's mind finally caught up with the present. She was just at the Games, watching the awards ceremony, when... fireballs? Flying balls of fire? Flying towards her? And then... falling...

"Great balls of fire," Elsie muttered incoherently, trying to erase that memory from her head. If she thought about it too much, she felt like she was falling all over again.

"Uh... sorry, what? Oh, that? Sorry, it's not much, but it's the best I could do at the moment. Besides, I wouldn't want to burn up all the oxygen in here either, you know?"

Elsie almost forgot she had company as she turned dazed towards the sound of the voice. Belatedly, she realized she should've known who it was, based on the sound. Plus, the last person she remembered seeing was Camilla, so it would make sense if that's who was besides her. But Elsie supposed she was having a rough day.

But one look at Camilla told Elsie that something was seriously wrong, because whoever it was definitely looked like Camilla, but their face wore an expression of genuine concern and sympathy. Directed at her. That couldn't have been right.

Elsie looked around them, trying to see if anyone else was seeing this, but they were alone with nothing but concrete rubble and rebar surrounding them. It was a small space, about three times the size of an elevator, and filled with a swirling cloud of dust. There wasn't even a door.

"Yeah, it's not the most ideal situation, but we can make it work."

It took a moment for Elsie to realize that the oddly optimistic voice was Camilla's. Did the other woman hit her head or something?

"Where... are we exactly?" Elsie asked tentatively. She already had an idea of what the answer was, but she needed to hear it from someone else, even if that someone was Camilla.

"We're under the stadium," Camilla said, looking around them. "Or inside it, depending on how you see it. We're under the stands, but it's still technically part of the stadium."

Elsie was somewhat familiar with the typical layout of Games stadiums, and she knew that hidden out of sight were dozens of locker rooms, a couple press conference halls, and multiple offices. Under the field were enormous tanks to supply the materials to build the terrain, and there were several floors of walkways running between and around them for maintenance access. Elsie guessed that's where they probably were, deep below the surface. Thankfully, she wasn't claustrophobic, but several years ago, she wasn't afraid of heights either.

"I didn't do this on purpose, you know," Elsie clarified, remembering how she said those exact words several weeks ago too. She hoped this wasn't becoming a regular occurrence.

"Why would I think that?" Camilla asked innocently.

Elsie looked to Camilla to see if she was serious, but there was nothing in Camilla's expression that indicated she was joking.

Feeling useless and slightly self-conscious on the ground, Elsie took a deep breath before trying to push herself to her feet. Camilla, who was being oddly caring towards her, held her arms in support.

"Careful," she said. "You got hit with some of the force and heat of those attacks. I don't think you're hurt too bad, but just take it easy, okay?"

"Why are you being so nice to me?" Elsie suddenly confronted her. She didn't know what game Camilla was trying to play, but she wanted no part in it.

Camilla stared at her, wide-eyed, before smiling hesitantly. "Why shouldn't I? You don't want me to?"

"It's weird," Elsie admitted. "We're not in public. No one else is stuck with us in this shithole, right? You can drop the act, I don't care."

Camilla continued to smile, and it bothered Elsie more than she expected. "Act? Why would I do that? Besides, silly, you're the actress, not me. "

"Well, you sure as hell wouldn't be nice to me without a good reason."

"Can't I just be nice without having ulterior motives?"

"And why start now?" Elsie was furious now, and she ignored the aches from all over her body as she shook off Camilla's hold from her arms. "Besides, what was it that you said? 'We're not friends. We never were.'"

Elsie got a brief moment of satisfaction in seeing Camilla's infuriating smile vanish, until it returned as quickly as it left, only strained ever so slightly.

"That was a long time ago," she said, brushing it off. "Let's... can we just focus on getting out of here?"

As much as a part of Elsie wanted to fight it out right there, she knew it probably wasn't the best thing to do just then. Begrudgingly, she nodded, and Camilla clapped her hands together.

"Great. Now, let's get to work."

Before Elsie had woken up, Camilla had been looking for a way out. If it weren't for the limited supply of oxygen, Elsie would've chosen to stay where they were and let the experts dig them out. With more energy and enough concentration, Camilla said she could probably figure out how to break apart the carbon dioxide they exhaled and reform it into oxygen, but that was far from practical. And since they were too deep and surrounded by concrete for her phone to work, and Elsie seemed to have lost hers in the chaos, they could only rely on themselves to get out of this mess.

Thankfully, Camilla at least had been able to examine the walls for any weak points or portions that weren't load-bearing. Their options turned out to be limited, and their best bet was to widen a small hole in one of the piles of rubble that was barricading them in.

Unfortunately, in her weakened state, Camilla's range wasn't long enough to tell what was on the other side, and they could very well be walking into an even worse situation. But, surprisingly, they both agreed it was worth a try, and Camilla would go first to test the waters, hopefully metaphorically but possibly literally.

Before they got to work in removing the rubble, Camilla took her Team USA jacket and ripped off the sleeves. With her abilities, she managed to collect some of the moisture in the air, and they tied the dampened scraps of cloth around their nose and mouth. Elsie had to admit it was a smart idea, considering that her throat already felt scratchy from all the coughing she accomplished so far, but she didn't want to say that out loud.

The hole they made was narrow and just low enough for Elsie to jump up and pull herself through. Camilla, on the other hand, was shorter and in power-saving mode, so she attempted to find her footing to climb up the pile of rubble. After a few painful seconds of watching her struggle, Elsie folded and gave her a boost to the exit. Camilla's small frame helped her squeeze through with ease, only stopping for about a minute with her feet still dangling out by Elsie.

"Can you see the other side?" Elsie asked.

It felt like a while before Camilla answered, and when she finally did it was a terse and muffled "no" before she continued to move.

A couple minutes later, Camilla gave the all clear, and Elsie squeezed through the hole after her. It wasn't exactly comfortable against her bruised ribs and raw skin, and one of Elsie's hands got in something warm and sticky, but it could've been worse. She emerged on the other side intact, and wiped her hand on the fabric cushion of a stadium seat that was in the rubble pile—if whatever she put her hand in had fallen from the stands, she was better off not knowing what it was.

On the other side of the wall, Camilla had started a new fire that floated gently above one of her hands. Through the small opening, the light from the first fire faded to nothing, and the flame in Camilla's hand slowly grew brighter. In comparison though, it was much dimmer than its predecessor, but it was enough to get a decent look at their new surroundings.

It was a much bigger space than their last residence, but the sight still wasn't very comforting. To their right was the walkway's normal concrete wall that appeared relatively intact except for the occasional daunting crack that stretched across it. The "wall" to their left looked to be a continuation of the pile of rubble they just came through, and it ran almost parallel to the wall on their right.

As they followed the path, the widest sections would've allowed Elsie to comfortably lay perpendicular to the walls with her arms stretched above her head; the narrow parts looked like only one of them could squeeze through at a time. Above them, the ceiling was a patchwork of the stadium's roof that had fallen and was now balancing precariously at a variety of heights. Thankfully, most of the time it was a comfortable distance away, but occasionally Elsie had to crouch down to avoid slicing her head open on a jutting metal slab.

"There should be two elevators on both the north and south sides, and one each on the east and west sides," Camilla said as they walked. She sounded a little exhausted by this point, but her voice was still too peppy for Elsie's liking. "Since we fell through at the halfway point of the south side though, we probably missed one of the elevators already. But as long as we can keep following this path east, we should see at least one maintenance elevator before it starts bending north."

They carefully continued down the gloomy path in silence. The only sounds came from their footsteps, Camilla's small, flickering fire, and the occasional shifting of rocks. It was the last one that set Elsie on edge. She was not a big fan of silence, and she disliked dealing with Camilla, but she hated listening to the reminder that the ceiling could collapse at any second. Since complete silence was not an option, Elsie chose the lesser of the other two evils.

"Who do you think that was?" Elsie eventually spoke up after ten minutes of tense silence. "That attacked us."

Camilla, who was walking ahead of her, didn't answer immediately, and Elsie briefly wondered if she was being ignored. That worked out, because Elsie was fine with talking to herself.

"They were attacking you," Camilla finally said. Her voice was strangely calmer than before and lacked its previous cheer. The sudden change was both alarming and a relief.

"Which is weird, right? What metas would have anything against me?" Elsie then quickly added, "besides you, that is."

To her surprise, Camilla didn't try to deny her accusation again.

"I don't know, but they're definitely guardians," she said instead. "Their attacks were air-based. They had to be Class 2's, minimum."

"Not necessarily, right? Like, what if they didn't want to be guardians?"

Camilla shook her head. "It doesn't matter. Class 2 metas and above aren't just eligible to be guardians. They're required to be, regardless of what country they're from. It's an international law."

That was news to Elsie. "What if they're not very good at it?"

Camilla lifted her right shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. "Then they get assigned light duties, like security patrols or assisting in clean-ups. Legally, they're still guardians. They could still be sent out to fight. They just usually don't have to."

Elsie couldn't imagine being forced to fight and potentially hurt other people. Her personality wasn't cut out for it. And there were probably metas that felt the same but didn't have a choice. She had no idea that was an actual law, and it was a disturbing revelation that she didn't want to think about just then.

"So why would guardians be out to get me?" Elsie changed the subject. "The only connection I have to them is one movie I did, like, fifteen years ago. Okay, and maybe the one I'm supposed to start working on in like a week. But they're both pro-guardians, sort of. What have I ever done to piss them off?"

Coincidentally, Camilla remained silent.

"Could they have just picked me out at random? Except..." Elsie patted down her pants in search of her phone, until she remembered that she had lost her phone and her pants didn't even have pockets. Sometimes, she hated fashion. "Someone was calling my phone just before the attack. I moved away from the stands because I thought I couldn't hear them with all the noise, but... I don't think there was anything to hear. I think they were just trying to get me alone."

Elsie was having trouble wrapping her head around the possibility that someone would want her dead. Sure, she had done some stupid stuff when she was younger, and maybe she had made an ignorant comment here and there. But she was human, and she made her fair share of mistakes, just like everybody else. She didn't think she had ever done anything to warrant her being killed. The thought that someone wanted her dead was jarring, and she hated thinking about it.

Fortunately, her thoughts were interrupted when Camilla suddenly stopped walking.

"What is it?" Elsie whispered, just in case Camilla was concentrating on something. "Is something wrong?"

Camilla didn't answer and stayed frozen in place. Not even her stoic expression in her eyes gave any hint as to what she was thinking. Then, a few moments later, she suddenly staggered sideways into the rubble wall, clutching her left side.

"Shit," Elsie hissed as she rushed to Camilla, catching her as she began sliding down the wall. "What's wrong?"

Again, Camilla didn't answer, too busy breathing heavily to reply. Elsie's gaze followed down to where Camilla's hand was pressed tightly into her side. The light from the fire was too dim to see anything on Camilla's dark clothes, but the faint smell of iron was enough for Elsie.

Her mind flashed back to squeezing through that small tunnel, and how Elsie stuck her hand in something warm and sticky. She was beginning to think that mystery was solved.

"How bad is it?" Elsie asked, trying to remember the slightest bit of first aid she might have picked up over the years, but she wasn't sure her time as a guest star in a medical TV drama counted. Especially since she had played a patient. "What do you need me to do?"

Camilla's arms suddenly went tense under Elsie's hands.

"Get off of me," Camilla grunted, her voice strained but her push strong as she shoved off Elsie's grip.

"Camilla, wait, I just want to help," Elsie began, but Camilla kept stubbornly shoving her hands away. "I wasn't trying to—"

Camilla held a hand out to her, glaring, and Elsie felt a sharp pull on her clothes jerk her backwards—Camilla was using her powers on her.

"Okay, no, you know what?" Elsie snapped. "I'm sick of this shit. No, let me talk for once, okay?" she added when Camilla looked like she wanted to interrupt. "I'm going to talk, and you're going to listen.

"I just want to help you. That's it. I'm not expecting anything in return. In fact, I'd be more than happy if we never saw each other again, but the universe seems to get a kick out of throwing us in the same room together.

"But whatever shit is going to happen in the future, I want to help you now. Because, yeah, you and your magic hands are the best chance we have at getting out of here, not gonna lie, but also because you're still a person. And if you think for a second that I would let you, or anyone else, suffer and not try to do something about it, then you don't know a goddamn thing about me. So please, please, just trust that I'm only trying to keep you from dying, and nothing more. No payment. No exchanges. Nothing. Okay?"

For what felt like ages, they stood there in silence. Finally, Camilla nodded once, slowly.

"Fucking finally," Elsie said. "Now, sit your ass down so we can look at what we're dealing with."

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