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Grip
by Daphne Garrido
Fortune appeared to be smiling upon Ilya’s bravery by the success of her overtake on that final corner before the homestretch. She’d finally passed the evil bitch. Her machine was throttled to maximum, cooling unit burning through, every bolt shuddering, its hull nearly falling apart after this gauntlet.
It took every bit of concerted will within her to reach this moment. Choosing herself had led Ilya back to what she’d known as her fate when she first flew here; racing in The Arbiter’s Cup was her purpose.
Sensing that rush of ground beneath her machine’s force-generators — the feeling of her control anchor’s polycarbon grip speaking each blurt of sputtered-fire from the ‘rustic’ afterburners she’d installed, the seat beneath serving as a grounding portal into the consciousness of this craft itself, hearing those whispered secrets it had to tell through absorbed vibration — it brought her right back home.
Selena couldn’t believe her eyes.
This twerp was pestering her the whole race, tailgating, flying right in her jet-stream, and now this. She’d never hated anyone more in her life.
Even if a part of her loved it, something inside waiting for this challenge, Selena’s blood boiled.
Owning this circuit was her right, she’d earned every victory of The Arbiter’s Cup for over half a decade now. This whole place was hers. She’d been known around the planet, taking every win as a badge of honor.
Selena had seen it all before. At least, that’s what she thought.
The fucking junk-heap ahead of her now was a troubling notion, clearly falling apart, with that idiot woman at the helm — if you’d even call her that; acting so the monster — she didn’t even have a real team, and her machine was an old joke. Selena hated Ilya for those terrible things they’d said.
‘Why did she say that?’ had been all she could think.
Selena wasn’t going to let them win — this was her race, her championship, her glory.
Ilya had been cast out in dishonor. Once a sponsored pilot of The Arbiter’s Cup, she’d lost it all on a shot for the front she knew as hopeless from the start, burning out her machine only fit to run middle of pack, disbanding faith in her company of companions by not only that firebomb she’d barely survived, and those wounded by its violent lashings towards the crowd, but how she completely lost her mind afterwards.
Flying that machine, racing in this series, had been the greatest and shortest-lived time of her life. She’d felt a future for herself in being part of it all. Knowing her time as pilot would soon pass, having begun so late in her years, along with that most apparent truth of where she’d come from, Ilya found peace with her assurance of a lesser role in the sport.
Yet, hoping so deeply to find a place within its structures, wishing a life around the joy she felt being near these races, to see it all burn out in such a moment of fire, gone in an instant — then to dishonor herself so deeply — she’d realized it a reflection of the way she held her presence in the first place, constantly demeaning herself for a chance to take part at all, allowing others to see her as far less than she ever was.
Ilya was born to be a champion; only fate had kept her from it.
The Arbiter’s Cup was her chance to taste it at last. Taking that failed shot at the top had always been something she’d do, along with crashing-out the way she did, because she’d have not been ready for such a thing in the first place.
It was the manner in which those support systems she relied upon fell away in her failure, how this league of humanity aligned to purposes of joyfully creative expression had shunned her, and how Ilya was then blamed quite callously by all for crumbling psychologically, stripped of her right to be here all together. That’s what forged the hurt she would wear inside forever.
That, and how things had ended between her and Selena.
She’d a monkey on her back, anger in her chest, and needed to make this comeback for herself; to be seen by these people — by Selena — known for who she was.
“I don’t need this right now.”
That’s what Selena told herself when she’d seen their message, that disgusting woman. After all this time and how clear she’d made it they were never to speak with her, they’d done it again. It was all about her feelings, like always, some disgusting attempt to manipulate no-doubt. Selena’s was heated just seeing that bitch’s name appear in her feed.
She’d done everything she could to block her out, forget what happened, how it made her feel. In fact, she might never have truly known that in the first place, so apt at holding things beneath the surface.
Selena just told her off with as little effort possible, blocked Ilya, then deleted the message.
That bitch had no idea what was going on in her life. How dare she do that, attempting to re-insert herself into Selena’s mind when she’d forgotten her at last, sending some whiny message at the worst fucking time, like always with this idiot.
Selena was fully focused on the last leg of her final circuit in The Arbiter’s Cup’s forty-fourth season. She would to be champion, but had one last race to win. It was all that mattered to her. She’d no space for losers looking to be dragged along by her coattails.
It hadn’t taken much effort to place those re-stirred memories of a poorest sap back into deep storage, that one who’d flamed out in such horrid fashion.
Selena had gotten very good at this trick over the cycles. Not one person in her life, ever, had respected the boundaries she’d set. Everyone seemed to betray her in the end. So, she made this cup her own, done it herself, and there would be no second thought to closing one out who’d attempt to repeat this transgression against her. Especially someone as pathetic as Ilya.
She’d won her race, and it was a day of champions. There was much celebration. Again, and as always, she was the run-away victor of The Arbiter’s Cup.
Then that second message came.
Its words were black, straight from the broken heart of this woman who’d now refused once more to honor her wish they disappear from her life, and they’d cut Selena more deeply than she knew words could. Because there was a truth in them, one hard to witness, regarding the way Ilya’s lineage — a woman born from an outlier settlement which was looked down upon by all — had played a role in the way she’d been treated.
Selena hated injustice. It’s what made her who she was. Yet, she’d been traumatized by people quite related to Ilya, who looked like them, and it had her see them differently than she should’ve. This perception supported her in taking part in the discarding of this woman from The Arbiter’s Cup entirely, which now made her feel sick. Still, they’d crossed her ultimate line, and more than anyone ever had, repeatedly.
They hated her for that, and they always would.
Ilya and Selena had been friends, and it mattered a lot to them both. The way things ended stained each one of their hearts in different ways. But this wasn’t right, that last message went too far.
“Why did she say that?”
All Selena knew right then, was that if she ever saw that bitch again, she’d kill her.
Losing her mind hadn’t been fun for Ilya.
This planet; Pómea, had been ravaged over its many centuries. The cities left were built within, around, and upon structures of a fallen world. Technology left behind would be used for many purposes. Yet, taking care of people was not often one of them.
Someone struggling here was left to their own devices. Told to buckle up, work harder, and figure it out. Especially those of Ilya’s tribe. They’d be looked at most harshly when struggling emotionally, judged cruelly, and made to feel wrong for how they sought to exist within this civilization at all.
There had been a severing inside — part of Ilya’s self-shattered at the loss of her dream. All this world had to offer in response were faulty boxes of understanding with which to force perception of her trauma-response into.
She’d always been a seer of sorts, able to feel people and the future in ways others may not. It’s what made her a racer. In response to all the horror of her hurt — having experienced what life in The Arbiter’s Cup would feel like, then losing all touch with it in such a dramatic flash — those parts of herself had found trauma-fueled amplification.
Much of what she felt intuitively during this time would prove to be real. Most of it, however, was not. She’d found herself telling creative stories from her stowed grief and believing them, horrid things which she’d assume as true and from some higher place. A scary thing to be — someone lost in spiritual psychosis. Yet, the way back was not a lifetime of medication and banishment. It was rest, reflection, and emotional healing.
Ilya found herself able to accomplish most of those things, even without help. The deluded inspirations she had for so long were needed, but faulty, driving her to move forward by obsession with her loss. Not only of that place she’d wish to hold within The Arbiter’s Cup, but of the relationship she shared with Selena. In all that unreleased pain, she’d lost herself to illusions of what her heart had not-so-secretly wanted beyond the friendship all along. It was a saddest time.
To face it honestly after coming out the other side was surprisingly easy for Ilya. She’d fucked up a lot in her life and found herself a reluctant expert at forgiveness because of it.
The thing which actually brought her back, remaking her whole, was telling Selena the truth of how she felt. Instead of begging for them to be nice to her, and praying they stop treating her like trash, instead of waiting for someone else to come save her; she’d finally just told them to fuck off.
It didn’t feel great, she’d rather not have felt the need to do that, but it healed her. That was in-fact needed. Even if there was untruth laced in the words, or harshness borne from the timing of their delivery, Ilya had finally acted for herself; taken back her power. Instead of basing her actions in some outcome she’d hope for, she wrote a message straight from her chest, from the angry truth held unspoken inside.
She hoped it hurt. That’s how she’d felt the whole time.
Selena was going to win this race. She could feel it while cutting out wide on the track, arcing beyond that range where Ilya might side-swipe her. The superior technology of her machine would far outclass that old piece of junk they’d entered with.
No matter how Ilya had bought themself this lead, it wouldn’t last.
There’d be need for Selena’s machine to close in towards the center-line as they re-entered city limits, closing upon the finish, track tightening back to that width of Crown City’s boldest avenue.
Ilya was going to burn-out again. Selena was anticipating it from her lowest expectations of the woman, seeing it as a vision in her mind. They’d come all this way just to take another dive into the dirt of Pómea.
That’s what this bitch always did, and Selena wouldn’t be taken with her.
Everything was rollicking in Ilya’s machine, screaming, a fury in her mind and heart like never felt before. This old ship was going to do it, nobody knew what it was capable of, and she’d take it there herself. This was always her fate, hers alone, to win this race.
She wouldn’t need the support of Selena to find her place in The Arbiter’s Cup. People were going to see her now, everyone was going to see her. There wouldn’t be a lie left told about Ilya in the end, because she’d speak for herself.
Not every bit of technology stowed aboard these machines was shared amongst competitors. The governing body which oversaw this world’s greatest racing series would hold inspections of each craft. If they met certain guidelines, they’d be permitted without need for further disclosure.
Ilya activated her low-charge heat ingestion system, watching the temperature gauge drop as it pulled broiling air from within her machine’s combustion chamber, injecting a cooling froth of synthetic micro-particles in its place. The chain reaction would steadily build until propelling the craft to speeds before unreached. It was a single shot, and a temperamental technology all others in this circuit would avoid out of fear.
Sensations of velocity wrought from the intensity of its inspired propulsion were heavenly.
The two machines powered by these women of most diametrically opposed emotion, with terrible history of hurt between them, holding such misunderstanding and anger towards another, were bearing upon the finish line.
Each passing second now felt like a miniature lifetime in itself.
Selena piloted her machine closer to Ilya’s, a needed action as they’d made towards their goal of victory in Crown City, finding herself quite aghast with the fact they were here at all, let alone in such style.
This bitch really thought they could beat her.
Ilya’s heart was singing. She felt Selena’s craft so near, carving their own path down this track now tightening toward its finish, but she’d not lose focus ever again, no matter how close they happened to get. This was for her. She would reach the glory she’d long known hers by feelings of the heart, and it wouldn’t take anything but the love of herself.
Selena had saved a tank of nitro for last, and engaged it at that exact-right moment, shooting ahead of the woman’s petty machine.
Watching this brutal movement of her rival, realizing the perfection in its timing for her own purposes, carving into their slipstream while the fusion happening by means of her craft’s cooling injections climaxed into a blast of final acceleration — Ilya swerved, only just in time, avoiding their bumper and riding the propulsion, accelerating through that path of pre-made aerodynamics to launch herself directly beside Selena’s machine.
Knowing her burst of speed had reached crescendo, and the superiority of technology in Selena’s machine would push them ahead, Ilya had quite consciously thrown the side of her craft into theirs, hoping the stirrings created in these final moments of track would err in her favor, knowing she’d feel quite proud with the bravery of her tactic regardless.
It seemed as if their machines had locked together, side by side, each passing moment breaking speed records on this course to a higher degree. Selena and Ilya had blown over that finish line, and they’d just kept going.
Selena’s pit crew had screamed the news into her ear which she’d not believe.
That bitch had done it. Ilya won.
During the time after she’d landed in her hangar, having been greeted by a completely bewildered circuit official scrambling in preparation of this podium ceremony for opening race of The Arbiter Cup’s forty-fifth season, Ilya had been in a kind of shock.
“Did I really win?” was all she could ask herself.
She was having trouble believing this after such time spent in struggle, holding expectations against herself which were completely outside her control. Conquering fears and facing all demons within herself, then having come here alone — to have now won — she’d simply not know what to do with that.
Ilya would be able to move on, let go, and she couldn’t believe it.
It was a gift she’d earned for herself through this most trying time. She’d even find a home one day in the structures of this strange sport, which people like her had been so called to take part in, but found themselves long denied. No matter if there was healing to be had with Selena, and despite who might look down on her for what she was and where she came from, she’d always know this victory for herself.
Ilya was worthy, and she always had been.
She’d been wronged, and it was unfair. Yet, she triumphed, despite her greatest failures. The way no other had lifted her up through the worst of it, and those depths of delusion from which she’d needed to find her own means of escape, proved her meddle as a survivor.
This moment was one of healing self-recognition. She’d finally known she would be making a home for herself in The Arbiter’s Cup.
Her machine was steaming, rurring in its cooldown mode. It survived, and needn’t ride with such little support ever again. She’d be held by hands of others soon, there were many who’d seen her shine through this and would come to her side because of their own heart’s callings. They would light up her life, bringing her back to who she’d always been meant to be, and support her rightful place in this series.
Even at Ilya’s age, she was going to get the chance to live the life she’d always wanted, nothing could stop her anymore.
Barely hydrated, still so wound up in her mind, not really finding space to breathe and ground into the reality of what she’d done, had been the moment they’d stepped inside her hangar.
Selena’s face was of rage. There wasn’t a single bit of hope left in Ilya upon its sight that she’d come for reconciliation.
Despite the terrible things she’d written, how deeply it painted the truth of hurt she felt, that way she slammed her machine into theirs to take this race, and how much she’d seemed to condemn the woman now before her. Ilya still prayed they could be friends again someday. She’d done it right after she sent that message.
Even as Ilya had been approached, Selena’s eyes swelling by the weight of withheld tears, some anger overtaking their ways; they’d been more beautiful than ever.
“You bitch,” is what they said as Ilya backed around her now circuit-winning machine.
She couldn't have prepared herself to see Selena again. Having hoped for it so long, to have it come this way, was a most shocking moment to befall her heart. All her anger seemed to burn away until they’d said it again.
“You dumb fucking bitch.”
That did it, brought her right back, helped her remember the way she’d been treated. How much this person meant to her, and how incredibly deeply she’d felt betrayed to have never been given the chance to speak for herself, thrown out like trash. Made to feel like she’d always been seen as the garbage her people were made out to be, left knowing quite clearly, Selena wouldn’t give a fuck how she felt either way.
Ilya would not let this woman intimidate her for a second longer.
She stopped backing up. In fact, she started going the other direction entirely. The expression Selena wore changed quite quickly, it wasn’t a transformation of fear, nor apprehension, it was only of rageful resentment, and some sick excitement.
This hadn’t been what Ilya planned at all. Nor what she would ever expect out of herself, but with that taunting look on Selena’s growing grin, all she could think is what she’d said aloud.
“Fuck you, evil bitch.”
Then she slapped Selena across the face.
It took the wind right out of their sails. That excitement was gone. They’d not ever thought Ilya could do that to them. Especially, on top of everything else.
Having never once spoken in these cycles past, there was no way they’d know what Selena had been through, how wrong this all felt from her perspective, how equally unfair. She’d stopped dead in her tracks, anger turning to hurt, as the very same was happening for Ilya; always a bit ahead in that regard, tears pouring immediately where they’d only swell for Selena.
The hurt inside, however, was more than equal. Selena stepped back, shaking her head in disapproval at this woman, once again planning on leaving her to rot in the shame of what she’d done.
That wouldn’t do for Ilya, she’d not have another horror to wear. Not one she’d only created out of defense for her honor so called into question by this woman whose opinion she still held in such high regard, despite it all.
She walked right up to her and tried to grab Selena by the shoulders. They’d thrown out their arms to tangle with her own, shouting, “Don’t you touch me!”
Ilya pulled back, but it felt like the precipice of aggression to Selena, and they’d grabbed onto her wrists, triggering old wounds of abuse she’d suffered at the hands of her family, causing the woman to go stiff as a board.
There was a tinge of empathy felt in Selena then, seeing this response of a woman so clearly traumatized, but it only made her angrier. She wasn’t going to feel sorry for this crazy fucking monster. She’d pushed her back against that joke of machine built and ridden with such false pride.
“Get your hands off me!” Ilya screamed through her tears.
Her mouth was hanging open now, weeping. There wasn’t any anger left. She realized Selena was right here in front of her, even holding her in a strangest way, and all she could feel was how much she’d missed her this whole time.
“I don’t want to fight you,” is what had come out.
“I’m sorry.”
She’d taken that momentarily borne hesitation from the shock of her words to steal her arms back from Selena’s grip, and seized an opportunity to try for the one thing she’d wanted most this whole time. Ilya wrapped her arms around her old friend and squeezed them as tightly as she could.
Selena pushed back hard.
Voice cracking, she’d croaked, “Stop it. Don’t.”
“Fuck you!” Ilya shouted, pulling her in harder.
“I’m sorry.”
There was a feeling created in this singular moment of time, Ilya would remember as the perhaps the best she’d ever experience. She couldn’t define it. Where and when it happened was most plain, however. It was when she’d realized Selena wasn’t pushing her away anymore, and that she was in-fact gripping her tighter than she’d ever been held, finally crying with her.
Selena had said it then, at longest last, that one thing Ilya most needed to hear all this time spent away from The Arbiter’s Cup, and her friend she’d missed so much.
“It’s okay. I’m sorry too.”
