Triple Crown

[loyal]

[What did I say? Don't you dare doubt for a second that nobody is reading this, 'cause I am and I like it. I was in the hospital, but I'm back now and if you don't finish, I'll die of suspense! Rargh!

Oh, and :( :'( >:( Luke died. I liked him! So now all of my favorite characters are dead, and I want ALL OF THE REVENGE!]

[Sonmi-451]

Don't worry, I have no intentions of not finishing this novel, now that it's almost done, and I'm glad you like it so much. I'm sorry to hear that you were in the hospital, but it's good that you're out now. And I guess, with Luke being gone, you'll just have to find a new favorite character... and hope that one doesn't get killed off too. xD
Anyways, more added.

“This is it,” I murmur to myself, my eyes locked on the steel door in front of me that, in a few moments, will open and let me loose on the city of El Nieve and, more importantly, Rush’s mansion and all of the Protectors surrounding it. “This is my chance to avenge Luke’s death.”
“Don’t get too caught up in the avenging part, Lizzie,” Max tells me, and I look over at him to find him watching me with almost sorrow in his eyes, like he thinks I’m going to be killing myself out there instead of Rush. I suppose that wouldn’t be so bad if I did die – I mean, then I wouldn’t have to put all that effort into killing myself – but my primary goal is to kill Rush, and show El Nieve that it cannot take something from me without expecting retaliation.
“After all, if you go so crazy with the avenging thing that you kill half the city, then you’re no better than Rush.” Max meets my gaze momentarily, and I nod my head in understanding. I definitely won’t let myself be like Rush – I think I’d probably have to kill myself if that happened – but I’m definitely going to avenge Luke’s death too, because that might be the only thing that will make the pain in my chest a little less severe.
“This is a chess game that I’ve almost won. I’m not going to lose so late in the game because I let my emotions get the best of me,” I say in reply, almost staring him down, and Max nods his head almost begrudgingly. I guess he doesn’t really believe that I’ll be able to do it, and restrain myself; I’ll just have to prove him wrong then.
“Don’t let your anger get the best of you, Lizzie,” Max warns as the door begins to creak open, and I nod my head impatiently, the only thing I’m able to think about how I’m going to attack Rush’s mansion as soon as that door completely opens.
When the door’s about halfway open, I can’t hold myself back any longer, and run towards the exit, a fierce smile on my lips. I will get my revenge at last, and then I will be the one who got the last laugh.
Max calls out to me, just as I raise my arm – I have my supersuit on; after all, even though it probably would be much more rewarding to take out the Protectors and Rush with just my bare hands, even I’m not reckless or self-confident enough to try that – and begin to shoot down the mob of Protectors waiting for me, with Rush’s pure white mansion glistening in the sunlight and calling me to come destroy it and its owner, “Just remember that there is nothing in this world worth losing yourself for!”
Then the door shuts, and I’m left alone with an army of Protectors to take out and plenty of rage to do it with.

Coughing slightly and telepathically ordering the helmet to retract from my face, I peer around at the room I just blasted into to find Rush, who’s more amused than surprised as he looks at the rubble around him and the film of dust covering what’s left of his possessions – the room I blasted into is his bedroom apparently – standing about fifteen feet from me. You would think that, after fighting through an army of at least a thousand Protectors and killing them all, my anger would have all been used up, but a wave of rage washes over me as I see him and I cross the gap in between us with five long strides to pick Rush up by his collar and slam him into the nearest wall.
“You killed Luke,” I snarl, my faces inches from his. It’s not a question; no, it’s a statement I’m daring him to deny.
“Oh, the bomb that got dropped on the city square?” he asks in reply, still not looking perturbed at all. “I didn’t order that.”
“Yes you did,” I shoot back, dropping him and taking a few steps back to sling the bow off of my shoulder – I figured it would be most symbolic to take Rush’s life with the weapon I’ve killed so many others with – draw an arrow, and aim it straight at his heart. “You have ten seconds to tell the truth,” I tell him, staring him down with as much anger and force as I can put into my gaze.
“I didn’t order the bomb dropping,” he repeats. “I mean, you and I both know I’m not above killing large amounts of people to get my way-” – his mouth twists into a sardonic smile for a moment – “-but why would I give the order to bomb the square when it was mostly my own people? I don’t believe in such pointless killings.” If Rush didn’t give the order, then that means...
Something seems to be lodged in the back of my throat, and I can’t breathe for a second. “I don’t believe you,” I finally whisper, my mouth so dry that it’s hard for me to speak.
Rush tells me, his black eyes locked on mine, “Miss Lightning, I thought we had agreed to be honest with each other.”
At that exact moment, a band of rebel soldiers, led by King herself – who, up until this point, had been mercifully in a different part of the battlefield – bursts through the wall to my left.
A fraction of a second after the dust clears, King seems that I still have an arrow aimed at Rush’s heart and screams at me, “Lightning, end this now!”
Slowly I turn my gaze back onto Rush to find him standing there with a hint of a smle on his face, and I then look down at the bow in my hands and back up at Rush. All I have to do is release the bowstring, and the Sections’ checkmate of El Nieve will be complete. But here I am, questioning the principles of the game by wondering if white is really white. Are the Sections really worth saving if it turns out they’re as ruthless as El Nieve?
After a few long moments, I finally tear my gaze away from Rush and murmur, “No.” I then turn to face King and aim the arrow straight at her heart – she doesn’t, apparently, have the sense to wear armor into battle – and tell her quietly, “I will not be your queen any longer.”
My fingers let go of the bowstring, and all hell breaks loose.

[loyal]

[*squeals* ooooooh! A twist! I love twists where people I don't like get killed!]

[literalsunshine]

Whoa. I did not see that coming. I would've though Lizzie would definitely kill Rush.
I hope Rush ends up dead anyway, though.

[Sonmi-451]

Don't doubt Lizzie's abilities to be completely and utterly unpredictable. xD
More added.

I make it to the entrance of Rush’s mansion before I’m finally overwhelmed by grief, misery, despair and rebel soldiers. Five of them hold me down, me squirming wildly against their grip the whole time, while two others do their best to handcuff me. Once that’s done, and I’ve fully tested the strength of the handcuffs by driving my wrists into them so hard that I begin to bleed, they allow me to get to my feet, with that same escort of seven soldiers hovering around me to make sure I won’t do anything stupid.
Unfortunately for them, doing stupid things is almost a hobby for me at this point, and I focus all of my lingering anger and energy on creating a tornado right in front of me that will suck up all of the rebel soldiers... to have nothing happen.
My eyes shoot open wide in shock and fear as I realize why, and I turn my head to get a better look at the handcuffs. Sure enough, they’re the exact kind I used to use on immortals that strips them all of their powers.
Suddenly a familiar face comes into view, and I look up to find Jackson, a bloody sword in his hand and shock painted across his face, standing in front of me after fighting his way through my escort. “Lizzie, what did you do?” he asks me wildly, his eyes locked on mine almost fearfully. Obviously he knows I did something stupid – I mean, I wouldn’t be in handcuffs if I hadn’t done something incredibly stupid – but apparently he doesn’t know how stupid or bad it was. I suppose that’s good for the moment, considering he might have strangled me out of pure exasperation if he knew how bad what I did is.
“I killed the right person, Jackson,” I murmur quietly in reply to his question, returning his gaze calmly, and, as he reads the mind of one of the soldiers around me, he sighs deeply.
“Lizzie, that was an incredibly stupid thing to do,” he tells me quietly, and I can’t help but smile bitterly. Does he honestly think that I don’t know what I did was stupid? Although, now that I think about it, it might almost be better if I were ignorant to my stupidity, because that would mean that I wasn’t so completely uncaring about whether something’s intelligent to do or not.
“I know. It was the right thing to do though,” I repeat stubbornly, and he sighs again, this time more than a bit of anger entering his tone. In fact, I think the only thing that kept him here with me and mostly stable was the fact that I might be executed soon for killing the rebel president and that he thinks he has to stop that from happening.
To be perfectly honest, I would be almost happy if they executed me – I mean, that would save me the trouble of taking my life myself – but I can’t think Jackson would be too thrilled about that, with his irrational care about my well-being. I mean, you’d think that, after seeing how little I care about myself, that eventually he’d stop caring about me too, but I guess that isn’t going to happen; unfortunately, he’s too damn dedicated and determined for that.
“Mr. Carter, I’m going to have to ask you to back up from the prisoner,” one of the soldiers stammers from my left and Jackson’s right, and Jackson turns his blazing golden gaze onto him with anger and annoyance rampant across his face.
“And why is that, sir?” Jackson inquires in a tone of mock politeness – it’s mock politeness because Jackson’s anger, so very thinly veiled, is easy to see in his burning eyes and his thin mouth and his almost quivering voice – as he stares down at the soldier, who has the misfortune of being at least eight inches shorter than Jackson.
“Because I have to inspect her, Mr. Carter,” a voice from behind Jackson comes, and Jackson whips around to find Lars standing there with an expectant look and a small, friendly smile on his face.
Jackson, with a scowl on his face, then begrudgingly steps aside, and Lars turns to the guards and tells them, “Remove her handcuffs, please. They’re not doing either one of us any good.” He gives me a smile as he does so, his eyes taking in every aspet of my not-so-good appearance.
“It looks like you blew up a building Lizzie,” Lars comments with a smile that falls some when he sees my left hand and the fact that it’s twitching violently, which I don’t really care about so I don’t bother to stop it.
“I kind of did,” I say, and gesture to Rush’s half-ruined mansion behind us. As I fought my way into his quarters, I got impatient and just began shooting through walls to make a shorter path. It worked reasonably well, since it only took me five minutes to be standing outside Rush’s door, which I then blasted down too.
Lars looks at the mansion for a few moments, his scruntinizing gaze taking in every detail of its appearance, before turning back to me and telling me, a friendly grin accompanying his words, “Well, you certainly are quite the accomplished demolition crew.”
“That’s not the only thing she destroyed,” Jackson mutters to my left, and I turn to him to give him the coldest gaze I can muster.
However, Lars isn’t perturbed by this comment at all, and turns to Jackson to tell him with a smile, “And I will find out about what else she destroyed later when I interview her.”
“Interview me?” I question, staring over at Lars like he’s gone crazy. What does he want to interview me for: to find out how much my mind got screwed up by the Triple Crown and all of the stress after it?
“A psychic evaluation, really,” Lars amends, with an almost sad smile, and I can’t help but roll my eyes. So he really does want to get inside of my head and figure out exactly how screwed up I am.
“Well, let’s get this over with then,” I say briskly, and, without waiting for Lars to say or do anything else, walk past him and Jackson to board the helicopter that’s landed outside of the mansion and presumably dropped both of them off. I then stop, just as I am about to go into the interior of the helicopter, to turn and look and Jackson and Lars expectantly, and have them both sigh and then follow me, which brings a small smile to my face. Unfortunately, it might be one of the last I’ll ever smile.

[loyal]

[HOLD THE PHONE! Did Rush not get killed at all? Or did the rebels kill him anyway? He better be freaking dead!]

[literalsunshine]

Please tell me the rebels killed Rush or something! Not that I exactly liked King, but I still wish Rush dead very much.
Keep writing please! ^-^

[Sonmi-451]

Well, you'll just have to see if he is or not... xD
More added.

“Why did you kill King instead of Rush?” Lars immediately asks me after we’ve sat down on the sparse furniture in his bedroom, which is currently functioning as an interview room.
“Rush, even if he was an evil guy, was at least honest. King was dishonest and evil,” I answer clearly, returning his gaze with an intense stare of my own.
“Rush told you that the rebels bombed the square, didn’t he?” Lars asks me, and I falter for a moment: could that have not been the truth?
However, a moment later, I shake my head slightly to clear all doubting thoughts out of my mind – I read Rush’s mind and evaluated his emotions and wasn’t able to find any hint that he was lying, so I know he wasn’t, because something would have shown up if he had – and answer, “Yes, he did, which I know is true.”
I look at Lars expectantly, waiting for him to confirm or deny this, and, after a long moment of having a miniature staring contest with me, he sighs and says, “You’re right. That was King’s order, not Rush’s.”
After a half-second of silence, during which time I work really hard at not completely crushing the pen I’m playing with, Lars adds, “She thought it was worth the sacrifice of a hundred rebel soldiers to take out two hundred Protectors.”
“She was wrong about that,” I immediately say, and, much to my surprise, Lars nods his head in agreement.
“I know,” he says softly, his eyes on the ground, and I look over at him in amazement. I guess, even though I know that he’s a very reasonable guy and a doctor who likes saving people to boot, I thought he would side with King, her being the president of Seceding Sections and all that crap.
“Rush is dead, right?” I murmur, my eyes locked on Lars’ questioningly.
“Yes. The rebel soldiers escorting King killed him after you killed King,” Lars tells me, and a small wave of vindication washes over me. Well, at least in the end, both Rush and King got what they deserved.
“She did it to get rid of me too, didn’t she?” I ask Lars quietly as the realization comes to me, and he nods his head almost wearily. Maybe he’s getting tired of telling me about all of King’s terrible decisions.
“She thought you were a threat to her power-” – Lars begins, to have me immediately interrupt with a muttered, “Well, she was kind of right about that,” – “and she thought that you could jeopardize her efforts to get elected president of all of El Tiempo once the Sections took El Nieve.”
“So basically she killed Luke for the sake of power,” I murmur, my eyes shooting open in realization and my hands balling into fists so tightly that the joints in my fingers pop and my bones creak, and Lars nods again, even wearier this time.
“She didn’t exactly understand the value of human life,” Lars says, to have me add on, with a slight, triumphant smile at the fact that I won and King lost, “Or the fact that I couldn’t be killed with a bomb.”
Lars nods his head a third time in agreement and says, “Yeah, that too.” Our conversation then lapses into silence for a few moments, the feeling that I truly did the right thing by killing King washing over me even more as I sit there and think about it, and we could have sat there in silence for much, much longer if it weren’t for Lars.
Looking up at me and meeting my gaze seriously, he asks me, “You also killed her in an attempt to kill yourself, didn’t you?”
I freeze at his question, not knowing how to reply. If I say yes, then I’ll be letting him know that I really am suicidal and will make him worry about my mental state even more than he already does. However, I have a feeling he’d see right through any lie I could tell him, so I finally just decide to tell him the truth and nod my head, the weariness that seemed to have overtaken Lars now spreading to me. “Yeah, I did,” I say quietly, my eyes on the ground.
“And that’s perfectly understandable, given all that you and Luke had gone through together,” Lars tells me, which causes me to look up at him in shock. I thought he would be telling me that it’s completely unacceptable that I want to die, and that I need to get happy right now. “Luke was the person you loved, the person who had become a good chunk of your world and a person that you probably wouldn’t be alive today without, so it’s perfectly understandable for the depression over him dying to be so severe as to make you suicidal.” Lars meets my gaze compassionately, and I sigh in relief. Finally someone who kind of knows what I’m going through and actually understands why I’m acting the way I am!
“I miss him so badly, Lars, that sometimes it feels like I can’t breathe,” I tell Lars quietly, my gaze locked on his almost pleadingly, like I’m begging him to save me from my grief and myself. “I feel like I should be the dead one, that, out of both of us, I’m the wicked one, and that it’s wrong that he paid for my sins by dying instead of me. He should be the immortal one, Lars, and I should be the dead one.”
“You make it seem almost like you hate your immortality,” Lars says, staring me down, and I nod my head instantly in confirmation.
“Well, after all that I’ve seen and done and all of the hatred I’ve experienced and the whole world telling you that you shouldn’t exist and being more than willing to make it so that you don’t exist, it’s hard not to hate yourself,” I murmur, my gaze on the tile covering the floor of Lars’ bedroom. After a few moments of just staring at the floor for guidance, I look up at him, meet his gaze and say, “I’m unnatural, Lars. I shouldn’t exist, and, to be perfectly honest, I’m not so happy that I do.”
“But your immortality is a great gift, one that many humans would kill for,” Lars tells me, and I shake my head and sigh. He just doesn’t get it, does he?
“Immortality is great for like the first eighty years. Then all of your mortal friends start dying, and your family is probably dead by now too, and you’re left alone in a world that’s forgotten you exist and never really wanted you to exist in the first place.” I sigh, and, after a half-second’s pause, continue, “It’s much better to just die when you’re eighty, so you don’t have to see your world fall apart around you. I mean, sure, in a hundred years, I could still look seventeen, but what does that matter if everyone I care about is dead and I’ve got nothing left in here?” I raise a hand to tap my chest, and Lars nods his head in understanding.
“I guess I should be grateful that I will eventually die then,” Lars says, with a half-smile, and I nod my head gravely in agreement.
I tell him, which I remember I told to Luke once – was that really only two weeks ago? It seems more like two hundred years ago – “Value your mortality. You have the ultimate escape route of death that I would give up all of this immortality-shapeshifting-demigod-princess crap for.”
“You’re actually a princess?” Lars asks me in amazement, and I can’t help but laugh. It’s amazing how alike – even if it is stupidly alike – men can be.
“Is that really all you got out of what I just told you?” I question incredulously, and here Lars gets a sheepish smile on his face.
“Sorry. I just didn’t realize you’re actually a noble, with all that you seem to despise authority.” He gives me a knowing grin here, and I can’t help but smile back.
“Yeah, I don’t particularly like being noble. I’d much rather be a peasant, if I had a choice in the matter.” I meet Lars’ gaze, and he nods his head in understanding. After a half-second of silence, I add, with a small smile, “Royalty is so overrated.”
Lars grins again too, and a few more moments pass by in silence, neither one of us really knowing what to say.
However, I can’t keep my curiosity at what Lars is actually trying to accomplish here in bay much longer, and finally it gets the best of me and I look up at him to meet his gaze again and ask him clearly, “Lars, what are you trying to accomplish with this psychic evaluation?”
“To see if you were sane when you killed King,” Lars tells me, and I’m almost excited about what that implies: I’m going to get tried for murder, with the potential of execution as a punishment, even if that is a very unlikely punishment – after all, I think the Sections still kind of like me, even though I did kill their leader, because I basically saved them.
“We both know the answer to that already, Lars,” I reply quietly. We both already know that I was completely out of my mind with grief and rage over Luke dying when I killed King; in fact, I haven’t been in my right mind for a moment since Luke died.
“Yeah, I suppose we do,” Lars agrees quietly, and his tone is almost sad. Maybe he, being a doctor that does it to save people rather than for money, doesn’t like seeing me wasting away and trying to kill myself.
“Can I go then?” I ask, placing my hands on the edge of his bed so I can push myself up if he does dismiss me.
“Yeah,” he says after a moment, his lips pursed in worry as he does so. However, I ignore his expression and silently rise to my feet to cross the room. I have pulled the door open that will release me to the rest of the hospital Lars has set up shop in and am just about to walk out when Lars’ voice stops me and causes me to turn around.
“Take care of yourself, Lizzie. I would hate to read about your death in the papers,” Lars tells me quietly, his eyes locked on mine, and I nod my head almost unwillingly. He and I both know that I will continue to try to kill myself until we find Luke alive or until I die, but I might as well agree with him now to avoid the extra hassle.
I have turned and am about to leave again when Lars calls out to me and I turn around to have him say softly, his eyes sad behind his glasses, “Goodbye, Lizzie. I hope this is not the last time we see each other.”
I nod my head again and say quietly, “I hope it isn’t either,” before finally turning and leaving, with both of us knowing that it probably is going to be the last we’ll see each other – alive, at least; Lars might be called out to examine my body if it’s found.

[loyal]

...until we find Luke alive...

[pleasepleasepleaseplease be foreshadowing!!! O.O

...I mean, in the 'preliminaries' of the triple crown, people died and came back to life and stuff! Rargh!!!

LUUUUUKE!!
(While you're at it, make Winston come back to life too.)]

[literalsunshine]

I agree with W o l f e h, please tell me you were foreshadowing about the Luke thing. XD