Editing Bound Fate (Warhammer High) (section)

===The Smell of Betrayal===
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Furia smirked to herself as she revved Gorechild, tearing out one last burst of speed before Bullshit High came into view. The look on Roberta's prissy face played out in her head over and over again, and she could practically hear those idiots on the bus laughing while they pointed at her. Gorechild throttled down reluctantly and yielded to her direction, pulling around to the protected parking area. 

The Primarch's daughter coasted her rumbling monstrosity easily into the motorbike section, settling uncomfortably close to Hana's comparatively small chopper. She hopped down and took off her helmet, revealing hazel eyes and finely scarred features. A hand slashed through red hair to let some air circulation back in, then rummaged through her bag, setting her blue skirt in motion. The untucked shirt swayed and moved along with the increasing fervor of the search, sleeves rolled up to the elbow in the manner most IH students preferred.

Furia's features began to twist in frustration. Her nose–thin, straight and pointed–twitched. She grunted, and her healthy lips broke free of their grimace as the digging finally ended. A match flared to life on Hana's bike, lighting up the lho-stick and illuminating a broadening grin.

"Pretty good fuckin' day so far." Furia muttered around the tightly rolled bundle of smoldering tabac fronds, inhaling deeply.

''Have a smoke with Coby, put away my shit and try to stay sane 'til lunch.'' She nodded smoothly at the inventory of her daily goals, another hard drag nearly burning out the feeble paper, then ambled up to the school entrance. The helmet received her gentlest treatment, a short free-fall to hard ground, as Furia leaned up against the rockcrete wall. After a few minutes she looked around, then flicked her smoke out into the lot structure before lighting up another.

''Where is that dumb bastard anyway?'' Furia started the fourth lho of the day, then scratched her chin, a sure sign of her steadily increasing annoyance. ''Stumblefuck probably forgot to set his alarm.''

Furia waited a few more minutes, scratching her stomach absentmindedly. She began to pull out yet another smoke, then decided against it, feeling a sudden urge to take a leak. Rough, slender hands scooped up the scratched headgear and pushed the door open, her eyes barely glaring at the seething horde of teenagers. Furia's reputation preceded her, as usual, and the idea got chalked up in the pro list. Some small part of her was satisfied that people went out of their way to avoid pissing her off.

She got to her locker and pulled it open. The lock had disagreed with Furia once, a couple years ago, and, after a few kicks, came to see her point of view. The school had decided to simply let her keep the locker, wisely reasoning it cheaper than giving her a new one to ruin every year. The locker was checked and everything was exactly as she left it last week. ''Have to be a fucking moron to take any of my shit.''

The jacket was hung gently next to a stack of papers and books, the helmet wedged into an almost perfectly shaped dent in the upper corner. Furia's memory kicked into overdrive at the sight, wave after wave of 'stuff, slam, tug'; of the helmet's predecessors slowly forcing the necessary impression onto the thin metal before they broke or were lost. The Lady Primarch shoved a pair of books into her bag, barely remembering to check if they were the right ones, then slammed the door closed before wending her way to the nearest girls' bathroom.

She looked down to her bag, deciding she might as well have another smoke while she was here, and opened the door, too preoccupied to notice the telltale hat hanging on the outside handle. A lho-stick ascended to Furia's mouth, the paper roll sinking cozily into the natural part of her lips. She struck a match on her pleated school skirt, then brought the light up with both hands, cupping it as she tenderly stoked the flame into being. Furia inhaled again, the last scrap of fresh tabac scent giving way to scorched leaf and heady pleasure. 

She wrinkled her nose. Furia was by no means as sensitive as her cousin, Freya, when it came to picking out smells, but something was... sweaty. Pungent. Cloying. Even as she heard the voice, Furia realized what that smell was. ''Victoria.'' Equal parts honey and smoke, her cousin's throaty laugh sang out between heavy, evenly spaced breaths.

"You think she's still in here?" Victoria continued to breathe rhythmically and Furia focused, rage building.

''What the fuck is daddy's little slut doing in my bathroom?'' The male's breathing became clearer now, as he struggled to keep himself in the game.

"Ooh, come on, baby. Yesss." Furia couldn't help but cringe at Victoria's cheesy, fake-sounding line. Or at how well it worked. The heavy male breathing jumped up a notch.

"Oh, don't do that, baby, I'm having a hard enough time as it i-nnnnnghh-ahh yeah."

Furia stopped dead in her tracks. She recognized that voice. 

“See, I told you it'd be good.” A distinctive note of satisfaction rang through Victoria's voice.

“Why'd we have to do it here, anyway, Vic? You know this is Furia's bathroom, she'd be pissed if-” Coby's voice quavered until Victoria cut him off.

“Who cares what that little Slide-shooter thinks. Aren't you more worried about me?”

Furia felt hot. Her eyes suddenly began to wet. Something crisp rang through her head, like the clean snap of a glass rod breaking. She began to inhale.



"So, anyway, I was saying we should just go ahead and get it out of the way tonight. No reason to put it off until the end of the semester, you know?" The other girl nodded sagely, as if her two weeks' experience in high school qualified her perfectly on the matter. She opened her mouth to reply, but something exploded. An inarticulate roar thundered from the restroom, followed shortly thereafter by the room's door and a worn-looking hat. More screaming, the crunch of shattering wood and drywall, followed by a bone-jarring stomping. A quivering mass of crimson anger burst forth and in its wake stumbled a young man, curly dark hair bobbing as he shuffled awkwardly, trying to fasten his fly back together.

"Don't be like that, baby! I wanna fuck you, too!"

The entire hallway went still. There were no noises, no extraneous movement as every eye slowly turned to stare at Coby Trelan. Although a professed “aspiring engineer,” Coby was a landed Martian noble scion. He relied more on the influence of family and friends than any great intelligence to ensure a comfortable career after college. Still, the undeniable stupidity of his own statement slowly dawned on Coby. Just in time not to be surprised when a pale, freshly scarred fist threw him bodily into the wall, narrowly missing the emergency fire alarm. Coby sputtered and tried to verbally backpedal, years of crude guile and hyperbole leaving him torn between avoiding, outright lying or possibly just apologizing. He decided, and an insincere apology began.

"I didn't mean it ''that'' way-"

Instead, it turned into a wheeze as Furia's foot solidly connected with his muscled abdomen. She kicked a few more times, halfheartedly, and the anger began to dissipate, saving the young man from any serious injury. Furia staggered back out into the hall, trying to work herself up to another burst of anger, anything to avoid the betrayal and abandonment etching themselves slowly into her mind again. She stalked down the hall, kicking an open locker door off its hinges.

A trashcan, cast from plastic to resemble tasteful limestone, rocked just slightly as she walked through it. Her hand shot out instinctively, lifting it while her right leg swung upwards. The mangled garbage can soared up at a sixty degree angle, catching in the subtly disguised drop ceiling, where it teetered as the girl walked underneath. After she passed it finally gave way, cheap mineral fiber underneath the tile's veneer crumbling and falling alongside its wounded compatriot.

Word of Furia's fresh rampage spread quickly and the hallway parted seemingly as one being, none daring to get within arm's reach of Angron's daughter. The haze started to lift and adrenaline faded, but her heartbeat seemed to speed up, blood flowing from her unclenching hands to her swimming head. Furia's breathing grew more ragged, each exhalation threatening to turn into a sob. She looked down, hand over her eyes. A short blonde girl stumbled and tripped as she tried to get out of the way.

''Who the fuck does he think he is?'  Furia thought. ''Stupid, never should've trusted that asshole, always so goddamn smiley. Shoulda stayed with that chickenshit... what was his name? Calvin?'' So entranced was Furia in her self-loathing she didn't even notice a bulky backpack glide into the middle of the hallway.

At least, not until she ran into it. Furia's face contorted, brows knotting with rage, teeth clenching impossibly tighter at the affront. Her eye twitched, and her mouth curled into a sneer. 

"Oh, I need this."

The brown-haired boy started to turn, wondering who bumped into him. Before he could see, though, a foot smashed into the backpack, momentarily exposing his lower back. Furia's fist plowed into tissue and flesh, throwing the unsuspecting senior into the row of lockers, back arched at a disquieting angle. She turned away, her expression a fraction less enraged than it had been moments ago.

Furia began to move again, left hand already rooting through her bag, trying to find the small pack of lho-sticks. But she stopped short and looked back, her countenance wrenching into outrage as she saw the target of her aggression shake his head, still standing. Furia latched onto his left shoulder and two more blows hammered into his back. Almost smiling now, she cocked her arm for another uppercut when it finally happened.

"FUUURRRRIIIAAA!" Dean Yarrick's voice boomed from around the corner. Students began ducking into classrooms, now more interested in avoiding the former commissar's wrath than seeing the spectacle unfold. Students moved towards the nearby Biology door while Furia turned toward the heavy clomp of her nemesis' boots. She released her grip on the erstwhile student, who sagged heavily into the still open locker.

"WHAT THE ''FUCK'' DO YOU WANT, SEBASTIAN?" Furia looked at the dean, ignoring the slow, steady breathing of her latest punching bag. Even in the hall the exchange quickly became all but indecipherable, a mass of screams and flying spittle. An observant and experienced viewer would notice the gradual change in Furia's eyes, as the fight-or-flight response trickled away and she began to lose steam. It took Yarrick a moment to notice and drop his own voice accordingly. 

"Furia, do we really have to do this ''again''? How many times do I have to catch you beating another student to a pulp before-" Yarrick gestured at the hobbled student. He turned to emphasize his point and stopped dead. The student was regarding him over-shoulder with a mild, curious look as he pulled books from his locker, then stuffed the heavy backpack inside. Furia couldn't help but feel a little amused as the old soldier's single eye grew wide with confusion, then narrowed in indignation. Dean Yarrick turned and grabbed the student roughly, oversized claw scraping crazily against the lockers as he pivoted.

"YOU."

"Yes, Dean Yarrick?" His voice was modulated, even pleasant. An eyebrow crooked up, as if he couldn't possibly be aware of what the administrator needed.

"Name. Now." Yarrick's face quickly regained composure, despite the fresh anger creeping up his neck. Furia could see the veins beginning to stand up there, ready to pulse to life in a literal heartbeat.

"Douglas. Douglas Hanlon." Douglas stretched out his right hand, then apologized quickly with a glance at the power claw, before exchanging it for his left. "Sir."

Yarrick shook the offered hand harshly. "And you expect me to believe she wasn't just laying into you?" The Dean's glare intensified, his eye boring into the young man.

"Well, we did bump into each other, but, I assure you, nothing untoward happened. In fact, I was just about to apologize to miss...?" Doug turned and looked at Furia questioningly.

She glanced at him, then at Yarrick, then back at Doug. Her eye twitched threateningly as she realized the implication of his words. Furia wasn't angry that he didn't know who she was, she could care less about that. But, while Remilia prided herself on her soccer-playing and Venus on her swimming, Furia took great satisfaction in illustrating her physical ability as bluntly as possible, generally with her fists, and his apparent shaking off of her blows displeased Furia. With a supreme act of will she managed to control herself and force a small smile.

"Furia. Lady. Primarch. Furia." She noticed movement and saw that his hand was now hovering placidly in front of her. Her jaw clenched, but Furia saw Yarrick's steely gaze turn back to her and reluctantly gripped the hand. So hard, in fact, that the boy's knuckles popped and whitened, the blood within forced out through overwhelming pressure.

"Doug." He withdrew his hand. "Strong grip." Doug smiled, amused at his small joke, then coughed when he saw the furious looks on the pair facing him. "Is there anything else, Dean?"

"No, that will be all. Furia, my office. NOW." Yarrick grabbed Furia by the collar and drug her away, the sound of a lone locker closing followed them, chased by the patter of fast steps down the hard floor. She sighed, knowing that Yarrick would be ranting for at least ten minutes, and she'd come out of it a month's allowance lighter in her wallet for the damage to school property.



Fifteen minutes later Yarrick finished his speech, the veins on his neck finally boiling down. He and Furia glared at each other in silence for five more.

The Dean pulled out a silvery flask, understated filigree resolving briefly into the Imperial Army's skull-and-wings icon before the angle changed. He took a long pull and paused, still staring. After another minute he nodded and passed Furia the flask. She threw her head back, taking fully half of the ash whiskey down, then handed it back and nodded in turn. The liquid traced a thin, warming line down her throat and into her stomach. 

Soon enough the edge started to wane, the anger and other feelings started to subside. A quarter pint of ash whiskey would be more than enough to send the average seventeen year old into a stupor, and even most of her cousins, far more resistant to the effects of alcohol than baseline humans, would be buzzing right now. But Furia was a step above even them, and in the short time she'd known about tabac, alcohol and other things had gone a step further.

She felt only the faintest bit of warmth in her head, the precursor to a buzz. In minutes it would be gone, but the feeling was enough to drive off the violence-need for now. Yarrick began to organize paperwork as Furia stood, a little calmer, and adjusted her bag. “Thanks, Sebastian.”

He sighed and stood as well, “Just... just keep it together, kid. You ready?” She nodded contritely before following him out.