I nearly lost my leather jacket as well. A young man grabbed me by the collar, pulling me back into the pillow fight. I slid out of the left sleeve and twisted away, dropping my pillow. I clutched the jacket with my right arm down the sleeve, finally ripping it from his grasp. Then I snatched up my pillow and ran again, now flinging the leather jacket around in front of me like a propeller.
I wasn't fast enough.
@horsehead cut me off.
She stood in front of me with my gravity hammer loosely gripped in her right hand, its head resting on the floor.
She looked like chaos, with feathers stuck to her sweaty face, her blonde hair a mess flowing behind her, blood dripping from a cut on her lip. She was wearing an athletic black tank top beneath an oversized dark brown v-neck t-shirt. The words "Wild Ride" were printed on the front in big white letters. I dare say she looked attractive. If she wasn't a little too into her horsey thing and wanting to kill me, I might find her cute.
Oh, and she was clearly evil. She had taken my gravity hammer and fondled me inappropriately. There was no redeeming her from that.
She neighed again, a high-pitched cacophony, her face pointed to the sky in mimicry of a horse (of course). After her neigh, she squatted to all fours, shaking her butt like she was flicking flies with her tail. I laughed when I saw that she had actually fashioned a fake horse tail to the back of her black wide-leg jeans. Her hip gyrations sent the tail in circles behind her.
When @horsehead was finished with her display, she took a wide battle stance, staring me down, and did a swirly thing with her tongue, licking blood from her split lip.
"Care for a ride?"
I blushed thinking about it. "Can I pull your tail?"
"You better!" she whinnied, popping her eyes wide.
"You bray like a donkey," I retorted, readying myself for battle.
That set her off. She smushed her eyes angrily at me. "I'm gonna hump your dead body so hard you'll reincarnate as a pussy."
I hoped she meant pussycat, but I doubted it. I shook my head at her disapprovingly. "Seriously? What the fuck, @horsehead. We're having a pleasant little back and forth, and you have to get all nasty."
She held out the gravity hammer and bounced in place, like she was humping a dead body. I won't lie. It was utterly distracting. I almost turned around and reentered the pillow fight behind me, the laughter still echoing around us. It was either that or see how much fun I could have while she murdered me.
I shrugged. "I can't pull your tail if I'm dead."
"I can't hump your dead body if you're alive."
And that was it for the pleasantries.
At least I could kill her. I could kill as many of the Thrusters as I liked with barely an afterthought. I had managed not to kill any of the Itokawans so far. The pillow fight was a huge help on that front, but I didn't need to hold back now. I couldn't, or she'd turn my head into horse manure.
She lifted my hammer into attack position, holding it easily with one hand. She would carry it in its most lightweight setting and then toggle it to infuse the hammer with the force of gravity. That thing could shatter my face in a single blow.
I tossed my leather jacket down at my feet, knowing she would smash me if I tried to put it on, and readied myself for battle, holding my pillow firmly. I had to make every move count. I needed to either stay out of range or get as close to her as possible, within the handle length of the hammer.
My brain quickly laid out two scenarios. Attack first or let her attack me first. In 69.1% of the scenarios, when I attacked first, @horsehead was able to position herself for a critical blow from the hammer. That was worse than the 54.7% of letting her attack me first. So I studied her posture and waited.
She started with a forward thrust. That was wise. If she had raised the hammer high, I would have rushed her to close the distance.
I should have seen that coming, I thought to myself, as soon as she jabbed the hammer forward.
I had been prepared to rush forward, my muscles tense, waiting for the first sign of attack. Since she attacked straight forward instead, I knew I didn't have the split second I would need to shift my muscles and dodge left or right. So, I did the most logical thing. I dodged up.
I jumped forward, using my hands to push my pillow down into the top of the thrusting hammer, timing it with the moment she triggered its gravity force. I hit the full weight of the hammer, using it as a springboard to fling myself higher and farther forward. I needed to cover the distance as quickly as possible.
@horsehead made the hammer near weightless again and flung it up to smash me, but she was too late. I landed on top of her, my weight bringing both of us to the ground. She let go of the hammer, trying to brace herself, and I heard it zip by overhead and clank to the floor somewhere behind us.
As we hit the floor, I pushed down to force her head to make solid impact, and I somersaulted, rolling forward with my pillow and back to my feet. She was stunned from the blow to the ground, and I used that to my advantage. I raised my pillow and pummeled her with repeated blows to the face.
I should have abandoned the pillow and gone straight for her throat.
She rolled away from me in a rapid series of spins, tugging at her pants. I watched closely, moving toward her, ready for the next round. I had the advantage this time. I had a pillow, and she had only her bare hands.
Or so I thought.
She sprang to her feet, and I saw that she had torn the tail off her pants, revealing that it wasn't just a horse tail. It was a belt of sorts, and now she held it out, gripping the fluffy tail, lashing it back and forth as a very real and dangerous whip.
I needed reassurance, so I taunted her.
"Nice undies."
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Tearing off the belt had left her pants hanging low at her hips, exposing the top of an adorable pair of underwear, pink with white rabbits on them. The rabbits had little smiles and big bright eyes.
She lashed me across the face with her whip, drawing blood.
"You should pay more attention."
The slash from her whip sank in, yielding a sharp stinging sensation, followed by intense pain. My left cheek was on fire. My eyes teared up, but I was happy to realize I still had both my eyes.
"That was a compliment. I thought you'd be flattered," I said, wincing.
"Let me whip you a bit, and you'll see just how flattered I can be," @horsehead replied, her voice low and dreadful.
We circled each other. She wagged the whip back and forth, echoing the rhythm of her swaying body, poised to attack.
She launched the whip at me again, from an angle I wasn't expecting, but I have high dexterity, and I was able to block it with my pillow. Just like fighting against the hammer, my tactic for the whip was to close the distance to get inside the arc of its reach.
I rushed her.
She expected that. She kicked me solidly in the groin with one of her cowboy boots. Then she elbowed me in the back, forcing me to the ground, and in the same movement, she raised her whip and brought it down across my back, tearing through my hoodie and shirt. It could have been worse, but I could tell she drew blood. I groaned and struggled to get back up.
"Mmmmmm," @horsehead moaned, "that's the spirit. You need to be broken in."
She hit me again, slicing viciously. The pain in my back felt like a knife cut from my shoulder to my hip. I closed my eyes and tensed my body as she hit me again, ripping through the hoodie. By the fourth fierce slash, I was feeling more numb than anything.
I knew what I needed to do then.
I rolled over, yelping as my back hit the ground, pillow raised in front of me.
She stopped, eying me closely, beads of sweat dripping below her hairline, her bloody whip dangling at her side, ready to lash out again at any moment.
"What are you going to do to me?" I muttered through the pain.
Her eyes narrowed on me, and she lowered to her haunches. "You have no idea," she rasped, squatting above me.
"I have some idea," I said. I slowly planted an elbow to raise myself, easing the pressure on my wounded back, and I extended my other arm, presenting @horsehead with my hand.
"I'm not helping you up," she said. "I like you where you are."
"No, no. Lick my hand," I said, trying to distract her. "I licked yours."
She scowled back and hrumphed, standing up to ready herself for another attack. "You're not dead yet."
I rested back on both elbows. "Then kill me already."
I braced myself.
Dust and feathers flew through the air as time stopped. Moments before death can do that to a person. I saw everything clearly.
@horsehead brought her whip back for another lash. She let out a feral scream that cut through the laughter of the pillow fight behind us. I heard the air whistle as the whip came toward me, a violent strike.
But I wasn't completely vulnerable. Lifting my torso up on my elbows meant I could more easily drop down. I threw myself backwards, trying to ignore the pressure of the floor against my back, pulling my legs up to create momentum, and whirling myself into a backwards somersault.
The whip cracked hard against the floor, and the sound made me wince. But she had missed me. I breathed a sigh of relief.
Her scream became a flurry of cries, intense and unrestrained now that her prey was on the run again.
But all I had managed to do was awkwardly get to my feet, dizzy and unbalanced, backing away from her. @horsehead swiped the whip sideways at my feet, and I couldn't jump in time. She tugged, and I yelped, hanging in the air for that moment before I hit the floor.
"Aughhhh!" I couldn't help but shout a frustrated grunt. The pain in my back was horrible, and I could hear the gross squishy sound of my bloodied hoodie against the hard floor.
No sooner had I landed than @horsehead pounced on me, tossing her whip aside. She landed on top of me, her messy hair flying about as she squirmed and dug her knees into my sides to try to immobilize me.
Which presented me with the perfect opportunity. I tried to grab a clump of her hair. She battered my right arm away with her left elbow, but I snagged some with my left hand and pulled.
@horsehead's face came toward me. She used the pull to try to pound my face with her forehead, but I was able to lurch to the other side. Her face impacted the floor, and she oofed in pain, but it wasn't strong enough to do more than frustrate her.
"Stay. Still," she uttered, as she recovered and tried to pin me down with her elbows.
I gave up, letting her pin me down. She was so close that her hair hung down around the sides of my head, obfuscating my view of the pillow fight and cackles that surrounded us.
It made for an awkward moment. She blew at her face, trying to get strands of hair away from her eyes. The blood from her split lip caught some of her hair, but she couldn't use her hands, or I'd wiggle free. @horsehead growled at me, and her eyes shifted from brown to green to blue.
Did I trick her?
Sure. Of course, I did! I didn't want to die.
Do I feel bad about it?
Kind of.
I realized in that moment that this was the closest I had physically been to a woman in decades upon decades. Years of isolation in space sank in. Part of me acknowledged that I wanted this moment with @horsehead, as odd as it seemed, as irrational as it seemed. It occurred to me that I didn't want to fight her. I wanted to know more about her. Her favorite book. Her favorite music. Her favorite food. Maybe I even wanted to take her on a date.
My brain was telling me that she wouldn't have made me lick her hands if she wasn't attracted to me. We were just on different sides, with different objectives. @mirrorbird, I knew, could be a good friend. What about @horsehead?
Yep, that's what I thought. Because I'm an idiot. There was something appealing about her erratic behavior, if I could just get through her Thrusters facade. Or maybe I was just attracted to women who wanted me dead. I wondered what might have happened if we had met under different circumstances.
But first I'd have to kill her.
"I'm not dead yet," I struggled to say, with her weight crushing my lungs.
"I can fix that," she responded, gritting her teeth, putting firmer pressure to keep me in place.
When I didn't fight back, she shifted her arms so she could put her warm and sweaty hands on my throat. The smell of her greasy fingers returned to my nose, but masked by a strong scent of soap or hand cleanser. My back was burning and bloodied. I grimaced and tried to disregard the pain.
"You don't have to," I said, staring at her.
@horsehead squeezed my throat, but her fierce intensity softened. I saw the flash of a smile. It was a cute and pretty smile that she had been hiding behind years of Itokawan survival. The force of her body against me softened as well.
"Escape with me," I ventured to say, knowing that would be a terrible idea.
"No," @horsehead giggled, a genuine little giggle with just a touch of sinister insanity. "You're going to die."
She didn't need to say it. We both knew we weren't going to walk away from this. One of us was going to die. It was the way of things, especially here on Itokawa.
However, she may not have realized that I had the advantage now.
I head-butted her in the nose, stunning her and freeing my jugular.
My pillow was at my side. She hadn't noticed me grip it tightly in my right hand while she was struggling to pin me down. I was just waiting for my opportunity to strike. I clumsily twisted, our bodies entangled, using my heavier weight to roll into a position above her.
@horsehead looked at me angrily, realizing she had missed her opportunity. The violence came back to her, and her eyes went dark.
She tried reaching for my throat again, but I slid the pillow in between us, over her face, and pressed down with all my strength, smothering her. I held her down. She lurched with her body, trying to escape, but we were inseparably linked. She had made sure of that when she pinned me in the first place.
Feelings of sadness ran through me.
I die a lot, yes. But I have killed many people. That's the job of a Wavepilot. Go blow things up. Don't worry about the people inside the spaceships. They'll be reanimated. Quick and painless death. Blow up a ship here and there, and it's just another day in the office.
Taking someone's life like this was different.
I wanted to stroke her hair and tell her everything would be all right, that the world was a wonderful place full of love, laughter, and pillow fights. I wanted to bring her blankets when she was cold, make her tea when she wasn't feeling well.
Instead, I continued to choke the life out of her, my brain crying all the while.
I eased up when she went still, cautiously, to see if she was still conscious. She panted, her chest rising and falling as she heaved deep breaths of the dusty air in the corridor.
Maybe I don't have to kill her, I thought.
Then she tried to stab me in the side with a knife that she had tucked away somewhere.
I flicked the knife away with my left hand. She had so little strength left that it was a wasted effort on her part.
I sighed, looking down at her, and issued a sincere smile.
@horsehead shrugged. Or, at least, I think she shrugged. The hint of a smile touched the corner of her mouth. She knew what was coming and accepted it. I had won.
I kissed my fingers, and I touched them to her sweaty forehead.
"May you remember," I said somberly.
Then I finished snuffing the life out of her.