D2 :: Wilder Zombi

i'm a different type of beast
but it's okay
feel so good
good to be alive

All the rumors are true.

Wilder is a sword-wielding, gun-toting, dumpster fire-mouthed, dumber than your dog, gayass bitch and she will kill you for looking at her the wrong way.

For the record, in this particular situation looking at her is defined as setting up a spy cam in the girl's locker room and kill you is defined as hexing your practice sword with the unparalleled focus of a heart surgeon pressing their scalpel into a loved one's chest. It totally might be a coincidence that the next time you touch that sword, you fall on the blade and gut yourself in a freak accident that will go down in training center history as some of the dumbest shit anyone has ever seen. But, like, sure. Feel free to fuck around and find out.

His corpse should just be glad he messed with Wilder and not her sister, otherwise everything he ever loved would be ashes now, not just him, with no mantel left standing to hold the urn of dusty remnants containing the cremated micro-dick his mommy will cry herself to sleep over every night for the rest of her life.

"Shit. That was mean. Whatever, I'm not apologizing to a sex predator for insulting his dick's ashes." Wilder flops onto her dormitory bed with all the grace of a sack of splay-legged potatoes. "Or his mom. Even if she is a milf."

"Wilder?"

"Huh?"

"Know that I'm saying this with the utmost adoration for you: shut the fuck up." Her roommate crawls further beneath a pile of blankets in search of solace. "It's two in the morning. There will be plenty of time to talk shit when it's daylight again."

That is incredibly untrue — her training schedule starts promptly at sunrise — but Wilder scoffs and rolls over anyhow, exhausted from a seemingly endless interview with a series of peacekeepers. Not a single one of them had the decency to be hot. She'd never been more bored in her life, getting yelled at for drumming on the table or for letting them in on the mustache rankings she'd resorted to in order to keep herself awake for being asked the exact same questions over and over.

They all wanted to know what her relationship with Dead Kid was like. I hated his scum-clogged guts. I hope he spends the next century in hell having angry wasps and pineapples shoved up his —

Inappropriate, they chided.

Why ask, if they didn't want to hear it?

They all wanted to know if it was true that she started applauding when Dead Kid impaled himself. Obviously. Hadn't they seen the camera footage? With the test set-ups for the filming of the upcoming tournament there were at least half a dozen different angles to choose from.

Yes, they'd seen it. That's why she was brought in to the station.

No one answered why they bothered asking her about stuff they already knew, they just moved on to asking why she would behave like that. Of course then they told her off again for resuming detailing the extremely long list of things she hopes the devil is personally shoving up Dead Kid's butt.

Turns out they didn't want to hear about that, even though they kept asking.

So why bring me in?

Because she clapped for his death.

Well, yeah. Like I said, that's because —

They went in circles for hours, itching over the footage of her glee over the gruesome scene and just as angry that the footage exists because it means they have at least half a dozen angles of Wilder sitting on the team's bench, at least twenty feet from the bloody sword and self-mutilated body.

Despite their best efforts, turns out it's not illegal to be inappropriate.

Hey! Tell his mom I say... 'sup. They told her in no uncertain terms that they would not.

Probably for the best. Wilder's still underage. Maybe they'll cross paths next year. Besides, odds are she'll appreciate the ass compliments more when she's not in mourning.

"And Wilder?"

"You told me to shut up."

"He's dead. Stop fantasizing about revenge-fucking his mom."

It's suspiciously silent as Wilder grins at the ceiling.

Her roommate groans. "I said stop."

"I couldn't promise that even if I wanted to. I mean have you seen —"

"You're the worst person I've ever known."

Wilder scowls, bitterness twisting in her gut. There were twelve other girls in the showers when they discovered the spy cam. Wilder is absolutely not the worst person her roommate has ever known. She grabs a jacket and storms out, only realizing she's barefoot when a piece of glass lodges itself in her heel, four blocks out from the dorms.

Peacekeeper lights paint the sidewalk where she hunkers down to pick at her bloody foot. If it gets in much deeper then she can kiss her tournament odds goodbye. Even the smallest of injuries could jeopardize her finesse. As it is, it doesn't make any kind of sense for her to be anything other than a brute force athlete. She knows better than to mess with what she doesn't understand. Her body is a delicately balanced murder machine with a lot of mystery buttons that no one has yet had the courage to press, while her brain is just a bear in a thrift store bomber jacket constantly doing jazz hands to distract everyone from how she has no real idea about what she's doing. Ever.

"What are you doing out at this hour, Miss Zombi?" Wilder has never been called miss in her entire life and she's pretty sure the extremely hot butch of a peacekeeper staring her down knows that.

"You weren't at the station." Wilder drops her foot and runs a hand through her hair, blood and gutter filth dirtying where she touches. "Officer —" Leaning back on her palms, splayed legs kicked out into the street and feet twitching with the promise of sexual tension, she squints at the fresh-out-of-school badge chatting her up. "— Lawless?" The cackling is uncontrollable. "That's the worst peacekeeper name I've ever heard."



"I didn't choose it."



"Accepting is a kind of choosing." At this rate she could get herself taken back into custody for any number of things, but the keeper just looks amused, flicking her nose with her thumb in order to hold back a chuckle. "Or, like, get yourself any other job outside of law enforcement. A name like yours or not, you gotta admit that's just solid advice right there."

A white boot presses down on a piece of loose gravel. "It's past curfew, you know."



"Sure do. Even I'm not dumb enough that I can't recognize when it's two in the morning." She swipes a naked foot out to tap the boot with her toes, nails colored with bruises grisly enough to distract from the blood still dripping from her fresh wound. "So, hey. You know who I am, but how come? If you weren't at the station today, I mean." The world's cockiest grin seizes control of Wilder's mouth. "You a fan or something?"

The first response is a shrug. The second is: "Bright enough to tell time, but not savvy enough to know that the mirror in your interview room had people on the other side?"

"Ah, sure. That. I guess. But then, like, how come you didn't stop in to say hey or something? I was dying of boredom. Aren't women supposed to look out for each other and stuff?"

Laughter finally bursts into the air as the white boot pulls away from Wilder's filthy toes. "Didn't know you were in danger. Obviously. Besides, you don't seem like someone who needs looking out for..." But even as the peacekeeper says the words, she knows they're untrue. Wilder doesn't exactly look well cared for, particularly in this moment. Kids who grow up on the wrong side of town can always recognize each other, even after they attempt to move on by parading around in crisp white uniforms while doing their damnedest to pretend they've forgotten their old block.

"So why tail me then?" The officer's face blanches. "Whatcha lookin' for if you're not lookin' out?" It's quiet for a long while as Wilder stares, unflinching, grin dropped and gaze leveled.

"Someone died today."

"Nobody worth mourning," she hisses unapologetically, because it's true. Death isn't always sad and it's pretty fucked up to instruct a victim to weep for their aggressor. Wilder furrows her brow and clenches her hands into fists so tight that her fingernails break skin.

"His family doesn't share your sentiment."

"Oh!" Burying the disappointment of yet another failed attempt at voicing the truth of the situation, Wilder repaints her face with more shallow emotions. "So you met his mom then!" There's a faint choking sound as the peacekeeper tries to regain her footing in the sudden shift of conversation. "Total milf, right?" The silence that follows confesses: YES. I TRULY COULD NOT BELIEVE MY EYES. Because clearly it's a truth that cannot be denied, but confirming the obvious isn't a real option either.

"I think it's time you get home."

"Is that an offer for a ride?"



"Absolutely not." The last thing Peacekeeper Lawless needs is her name attached to one of Wilder's rumors.

Smart.

"It's cool. Maybe next time."

"Next time?"



"Sure. I mean, you guys are gonna tail me for more than a day, yeah? So," pulling herself up like she always has, Wilder resigns herself to limping back to the dorms, "don't forget to say hey next time." She winks. "Catch ya at sunrise, Lawless." Halfway down the block she turns back to yell at the white car, tinted windows rolled down to observe her trek back to bed. "Don't worry! The sky makes it all worth it!"

what type of x by jessi.