Lex Talionis, Part Thirty-four
Rastaka, Valeria, AnglatiaIt must have seemed strange for the citizens of Upper and Lower Valeria in Anglatia. For the second time in seven months, a young football player had been tragically cut down even before the prime of her life and her career, and someone surely must be wondering what in the world was causing the untimely deaths of all these young footballers. Perhaps the only main differences were that this particular player was being buried in Rastaka, her hometown, instead of Hunsen, and that the circumstances of her death were much less known than those of the two players who had preceded her to the afterlife. But there were rumors, as there always were. Audra Jaakola had been Britt Hanokssen’s friend, after all, and the winger had never been the same after Britt had died in a hotel room fire in Otavice alongside her fellow Hunsen teammate and rumored girlfriend Erin Jensdottir. It wasn’t that much of a leap to think that Audra, who had demanded to be cut from the Hunsen roster to get some time to think of herself, had finally succumbed to temptation and killed herself so she could finally join her friend in the afterlife.
But there were a handful of people who knew the truth about the whole thing. Strangely, almost all of these people were from the Democratic Republic of Abanhfleft, a country which was in a virtual cold war with the Empire of Anglatia due to the former’s links with the latter’s enemy in the Nordskanian War, the Democratic People’s Republic of the United Socialist States of Pridnestrovia. And the truth of Audra Jaakola’s death was that she had been shot (by accident, but it had achieved the purpose of the ones who had engineered the situation in the first place) by the one person whom she thought was her best friend, the surprisingly-still-alive-and-kicking Britt Hanokssen. For it turned out that both Britt and Erin hadn’t actually died in that hotel room fire in Otavice; they had been evacuated to the safety of Riuwiee, the capital city of Abanhfleft, by the criminal group known as the Huesca Cartel to save them from the nefarious clutches of the Anglatian group known only as the Crows. Events had spiraled into a gang war between the Crows and the Huescas, and Audra Jaakola had become just one of many casualties in this secret war.
Britt Hanokssen was inconsolable, especially in the moments immediately after she had shot Audra and accidentally killed her. In a sick and brutal display of her power, Amelia Pena, the leader of the Huesca Cartel, had arranged for Britt and Audra to be locked in a room with only each other for company. Both had been given their own pistols, but the guns had been loaded with only one round each so that they would have no choice but to use it on the other. This was Pena’s twisted idea of lex talionis, an eye for an eye and such. The war with the Crows had cost the Huescas good people in Maricel Ocampo and Ricky Reese, and while the Huescas and their allies the Huns Motorcycle Club had managed to capture and kill some high-ranking Crows and Corsairs, Pena still didn’t feel that they were enough to avenge the killings of Ocampo and Reese. Then an opportunity to capture Audra Jaakola, all but confirmed to be the girlfriend of the leader of the Crows, Slobo Vulovic, arose, and Pena didn’t waste any time in taking it.
But just killing Audra wouldn’t have satisfied the bloodlust that had erupted to life within Amy Pena. No, Audra couldn’t just be killed. She had to suffer, much like how the Crows and Corsairs made Ricky and Maricel suffer before they died. So Pena had arranged for Audra to be locked in a room with Britt and given a gun loaded with only one round so that she would have to make a sadistic choice to escape: Audra could kill Britt and earn her freedom from the Huescas, or she would have to let Britt kill her as a message to the Crows that the Huescas could keep up with the Anglatians’ reputation for cruel and unusual punishment. Either way, one person was not going to get out of that room alive. And that person would turn out to be Audra.
After a period of being inconsolable, Britt then became furious at Amy Pena and the Huescas. And Britt wasn’t alone in her righteous fury. Bisera Haralampieva, another winger for Hunsen Loggers and former teammate of both Audra and Britt and the one who had arranged for Britt and Erin to be flown to the safety of Riuwiee which started this whole mess, was also angry at Pena for breaking her word. Pena had apparently promised Bisera that she would, as much as possible, try to keep Audra alive even though she had become a Crow, the Huesca’s newest greatest enemy. But Bisera had been too naïve to think that Pena would let such a tempting opportunity slip through her fingers, and so she had agreed to the plan to lure Audra out of hiding with a Hun who looked almost exactly like Britt, not knowing that doing so would result in Audra’s death.
During discussions on what to do with Audra’s body, opinions were divided between those who were present at her death. The Huescas wanted to either dump Audra’s body in an unmarked grave or send it to her boyfriend Slobo in its natural state. Britt had vehemently protested the idea, instead wanting to give Audra a proper and decent burial in her hometown of Rastaka. Bisera agreed to Britt’s proposal, something which didn’t surprise Pena but bothered her nevertheless. She knew that Bisera had never had the stomach to handle being actually part of a criminal syndicate like the Huesca Cartel, and yet Pena couldn’t shake the feeling that she could very well lose the friendship of two people that night.
As the other Huescas continued to debate about the fate of Audra’s remains, Bisera pulled Pena aside and said, “I know what you’re thinking right now, Amy. And right now, I’m telling you that if you want to stay in Britt’s good side for as long as possible, you have to go along with whatever she wants.”
“Whatever she wants?” Amy repeated. “What Britt wants is to give that Crow bitch a decent burial. Did the Crows let us give Ricky Reese a decent burial when they burned him up in that old abandoned building in Otavice? No, they didn’t. So why should I give this Crow who’s the girlfriend of this asshole Slobo such a thing? She doesn’t deserve it. She deserves to be fish food.”
“No, she doesn’t,” Bisera retorted. “Do you know what else I found out about Audra when she invited me to talk in Kirazi? She told me that she went with the Crows because she felt like they’re the only people out there who can understand what she’s going through. You’re pretty much the same as Audra was, Amy. You’re both just girls who fell into crime because that’s where you both felt that you were understood, safe. Sure, you went to the military first and got that scratch on your face as a mark of your service and loyalty to the country, but then what did Abanhfleft give you? A bunch of pretty medals, a pat on the back, an artificial limb, and nothing else. But when you went to your uncle’s business, you got respect and fear, which is what you really wanted all your life. I got the feeling that that’s all Audra ever wanted from the Crows too, but when she didn’t get it, she decided that she’d rather have someone she absolutely trusted and loved by her side, someone like Britt.”
“That bitch and I are not the same!” Amy hissed, but Bisera could see in her eyes that she had struck a particularly sensitive nerve. A tinge of scarlet appeared in Amy’s eyes, but then she blinked, and the scarlet disappeared. “All right, fine, we’ll give the bitch a funeral in her hometown like Britt wants. But just what exactly did you mean when you said that I better do it to remain in Britt’s good side for as long as possible?”
“Britt isn’t the type of person to forgive easily,” Bisera replied. “You saw how she was when she found out that Audra’s been with the Crows this whole time, and willingly to boot. Only something as intense as this, you making Britt kill Audra, has finally made her realize that Audra’s like one of the only real friends she ever had and now she’s gone and killed her. Right now, all her anger and rage’s directed at you, and I have to tell you that I’m pretty mad at you myself. You told me you’d try to keep Audra alive as much as you could. What the hell are you playing at, locking Britt and Audra in a room and forcing them to kill each other just to get out? What the hell happened to you, Amelia?”
“In my defense,
I kept Audra alive for as long as she was with me,” Pena said, looking directly at Bisera’s eyes. “What happened once I left her with Britt was out of my hands.”
“That’s typical of you,” Bisera snorted. “Always ready with a way out of whatever mess you got yourself in. Well, you’re not getting away from this. You’re going to arrange Audra’s funeral, and you’re not going to go through that anonymous donor crap of yours. You’re going to display your name prominently on every facet of this funeral whether you like it or not.”
Pena grinned, and the scar on her face gave her smile a sinister effect. “Of all the things you could have made me do for that Crow and this is all of it?” she asked. “I won’t even break a sweat doing this.”
So the Huescas had shipped Audra’s body to Rastaka and arranged for the funeral and burial. It was a risky move as Rastaka was crawling with Crows after all, but it was part of Britt and Bisera’s demands, and Amy Pena would just have to ride with it.
A small crowd had turned out to watch the burial of a daughter of Rastaka. It mostly consisted of Audra’s teammates from Hunsen and Rastaka, where she had plied her trade for some time before requesting to be released once again so she could come with the Crows and the Maslevs to Nordskania and assist Darya Zharkov and the State of Nordskania. And, among the mourners but unnoticed was a young girl wearing a black hoodie with the logos of Monarch Sports and Ross United on the chest. This girl was none other than Britt Hanokssen, but because the Huescas had thought that the risk of letting her go to the funeral alone was too much (especially as Rastaka was Crows city, after all), Bisera had accompanied Britt to the wake, and Pena and her friends were watching the proceedings a short distance away.
Britt had made her way right to Audra’s coffin, and despite Pena’s express orders not to let her get too close, Bisera decided to allow Britt this one last chance to see her friend for the last time. It was just as she deserved after all the shit she’d been through. Bisera maintained her distance, but she still kept herself close enough to reach out and grab Britt in case more shit went down. As Bisera prayed her own prayers for Audra’s soul, she noticed a girl wearing the neon green jacket of the Loggers weeping loudly in the row of folding metal chairs nearest to the coffin. She looked and recognized the girl as DeAria Tavaris, and Bisera was suddenly struck by an unexpected thought. Bisera remembered that Britt, Audra, and DeAria used to be
the trio running around Hunsen doing things together. DeAria had even been hurt during one of the trio’s numerous escapades.
Looking at the crying DeAria, Bisera realized that the girl must be thinking that she was the only one left living among their little trio. Audra was dead because of the war which her gang had gotten into, and before her, Britt had burned to death in that hotel room in Otavice. DeAria had no idea that Britt was standing just inches away from her, and that Britt was responsible for the death of Audra. Bisera could only shake her head at the incredible waste.
Where has our humanity gone? she asked herself.
Meanwhile, Britt stood beside Audra’s coffin. Silent tears poured out of her eyes as she caressed the varnished oak in which Audra’s bodily remains rested. The time for screaming and wailing was long past; all she could do now was live in the present and think about what could have been. She should have talked Pena into letting her come with Bisera to Audra. If that was what she had done instead of relying on these Fleftic gangsters to doing their own thing then Audra would still be alive. Sure, she’d be away from Erin, but Britt had started to feel that Erin was dating her only out of pity (although pity was a bit of a strong word for Britt’s tastes), and besides, Britt knew Audra better than everyone else. She knew that Audra had told the truth when she said that she had formed a deep attachment to her during that fateful shootout.
I should have just gone with Audra to wherever she wanted to go, Britt thought to herself. Then she would still be alive.
Out of the corner of her eye, Britt noticed a very short figure making its way towards the coffin. The figure then resolved itself into a man in a gray overcoat which looked laughably oversized compared to his small stature, and he actually had to stand on the tips of his toes just to be able to look at the coffin. He caressed lovingly the wood, and then he leaned close to the coffin and whispered, “I told you that people in our group don’t live too long. But this is your choice, and I respect it.”
“Hang on a minute,” Britt said as she looked at the man properly for the first time. “I know you. You’re Slobo Vulovic, aren’t you?”
“The one and only,” Slobo replied without looking at Britt. “And you must be Brittany Hanokssen.”
Right at that moment, Bisera appeared at Britt’s side. “What are you doing here and what do you want?” she demanded.
“Hey, I come in peace today,” Slobo said, raising his hands to chest level. “Which is probably a lot more than I can say about your countrymen, Bisera Hristova, what with the way that they’re tearing up our brothers and sisters’ homeland in Nordskania.”
“I’m only Pridnestrovian on the football field, Slobo,” Bisera muttered. “I don’t support what that country has done in Nordskania.”
“Sure, as you say,” Slobo said, lowering his hands. “As for what I want, I just wanted you to tell your friend Amy Pena that killing Audra doesn’t affect me one bit. Sure, she was my girlfriend, but we’ve never been close, you know what I mean? She’s told me everything about you and Britt, how she’s got this mental disorder which makes her attached to people for all sorts of reasons. Yes, Audra’s death is a blow to me and the Crows, but it’s not as strong a blow as I know Pena’s hoping it would be to me.” Slobo then looked up at the place where Pena and her friends were watching the funeral. He could just make out the woman in the black leather longcoat and clutching a black umbrella over her head to shield herself from the setting sun. He gave the little group a casual wave and then turned back to Britt and Bisera.
“I also have something to tell you, Britt,” he told her. “I just want you to know that whatever beef you and your girlfriend have with the Crows is now gone. Erased from existence. Gone up in smoke. Basically, I don’t have a beef with you and Erin now.”
“Wait a minute, how’s that possible?” Britt asked, not believing her ears. “Six months ago, you gave us a choice of going away and never playing football again or else Bisera gets her legs broken. Why, all of a sudden, are you telling me that you and I have a clean slate now?”
“Well, to be honest, all your problems stem from Sami Haawk and his buddies,” Slobo said, looking as if he was admitting to some grave misdeed. “Sami’s the one who’s got a beef with Erin. And Sami had always been a lackey of my father’s. Well, now that my father’s gone from the picture and Sami and his pals are marching to my beat, there’s just no reason for the Crows to go after two little girls like you and Erin. We’ve got bigger fish to fry now,” he added, leering at Bisera, who fought the urge to recoil from the tiny bastard. “Besides, you’re Upper Valerian, aren’t you, Brittany? You’re almost a blood sister. Spilling your blood would be both a waste and just plain pointless.”
“Well, I guess this is where we go our separate ways,” Slobo continued. “Right now, we part as friends of the deceased, but the next time that we all see each other, I can assure you that I won’t be as friendly.” Slobo then turned around and walked away, whistling something which sounded like “Bisera Haralampieva, it’s off with your head.” “Come on,” Bisera said to Britt, and she physically dragged the other girl away from the funeral and towards the place where the Huescas were keeping watch.
“What did the tiny asshole say to you two?” Amy Pena asked as soon as both Britt and Bisera were within earshot.
“I don’t think killing Audra had the effect you were hoping to have on Slobo,” Bisera said first. “The guy didn’t even shed a tear when he got to the funeral. Hell, he didn’t even look at the body! He even told me to tell you that things like that aren’t even going to faze him.”
“Damn it,” Pena muttered. “This is exactly what I thought was going to happen in my worst fears. The old Huesca luck’s running out, I can feel it. The Crows could kill Maricel and Ricky, and all we’ve been able to get our hands on is a useless biker wannabe and a girl whose boyfriend could hardly care if she rose up from the dead suddenly.”
“You know what?” Britt suddenly said. “If all of you had just let me go quietly with Audra then she’d still be alive now. This cycle of revenge in which you think you’re in is already affecting innocent people around you, like me. What’s it matter to you that you killed Slobo’s girlfriend? Did he kill your boyfriend or something like it?”
“The Crows killed two friends of mine,” Pena replied coldly. “It’s just fair that I killed two of his.”
“But one of those friends of his was also my friend!” Britt shouted back. “And what’s worse, you made me kill her! But the worst part of this whole thing is that there’s now no point in me and Erin remaining dead.”
“And why’s that? Is it because your friend’s actually dead now so you want to follow her to the afterlife?”
“No, you know damned well that that was not what I meant. There’s no reason for Erin and I to remain in hiding now. Slobo just told me that the Crows no longer have a quarrel with us. Apparently, we were just Sami Haawk’s problem and by extension Slobo’s dad’s problem because Sami’s some kind of friend of Slobo’s dad. But now that Slobo’s running the whole thing, he’s decided that we’re too unimportant for him to worry about. There’s no more reason for me to be dead. I want to come back to life, if you know what I mean.”
“Okay, then,” Pena said once Britt had finished her tirade. “Bisera, what do you have to say to this?”
“I say that Britt’s right,” Bisera replied. “It’s time for her and Erin to come back from the dead.”
Pena blinked furiously. “Did I hear you right, Bisera?” she asked. “Did you just say that the very two people whom you had their deaths faked should now be coming back to life?”
“I saw DeAria, Britt’s other friend, at the funeral, okay?” Bisera said back. “She was crying her eyes out. She’s at the end of her tether. She already thinks she’s lost Britt, and then now she actually loses Audra. It’s too much for her. If Britt and Erin don’t reveal themselves soon, I’m sure that DeAria’s going to kill herself just so she could rejoin her pals in the afterlife. That’s how close these girls are. I’ve already got Audra’s blood on my hands because I let her fall into your hands, Amelia. If DeAria kills herself after this then Britt and I are going to take our chances with the Crows.”
Amelia Pena knew that Bisera’s threat was an empty one; not only could she see the fear and indecision in Bisera’s face, but she knew that the woman would never forgive Slobo Vulovic for attempting to rape her. It was Britt which Pena was more worried about. Britt looked in a mutinous mood, and Bisera had already warned Pena about keeping herself on Britt’s good side for as long as possible, and even though Britt hadn’t been allowed into the inner workings of the Huesca Cartel, she still knew some stuff that would be damaging if it got into the wrong hands. “Fine,” she finally said. “Britt and Erin can come back to life. However, if they do actually die after this, you know who to blame.”
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ABANHFLEFT • PRIDNESTROVIA • OONTAZ DERT LI NG • COPPER CUPRUM • TRENDSTART • FHULGHAMOUS PENINSULA
WORLD CUP 77 QUALIFIERS: ABANHFLEFT VS REVOLUTIONARY NORDSKANIABy Malik QazizadahAbanhfleft's Kareem Dagen in action against Revolutionary Nordskania. (Courtesy of Crescent News Network Sports Channel/Andros Tasasa)
RIUWIEE - A thrilling 3-goal comeback win sealed Abanhfleft's spot at the top of Group 14 of the World Cup 77 qualifiers as they came from behind to win against Revolutionary Nordskania.
Rory Edwards saw the hosts take the lead within 14 minutes as he pounced on a punch-save from Josef Grekov to volley the ball into the roof of the net.
However, Revolutionary Nordskania's attacking trio of Ces Yoshida, Damir Dragovic-Courtial, and Piotr Vlasenko proved too hot to handle, at least in the first half-hour of the match, and Yoshida showed people why she had gotten a hat-trick against Hazard Nation when she smashed home the ball powerfully after defensive mistakes from Daisuke Ogigayatsu and Kenneth Owobowale.
Vlasenko then handed the visitors a surprise lead just three minutes when he nodded home Arkadi Zima's free kick, and Abanhfleft's attempts to restore parity within the first half were stifled by impressive defending on the Barons' part.
However, Nordskania's resistance was finally breached when Toumain Vincelot, the Patierre-born midfielder who had fled his country of birth for Abanhfleft after Anglatian forces removed the ruling Communists from power and turned Patierre into a colony, applied the finishing touch to Rory Edwards' free kick to lob it over Grekov.
Daisuke Ogigayatsu then scored his first goal for the official Fleftic national team when his head met the ball following Kareem Dagen's corner, and then substitute Tristan Lee applied the finishing touch to Abanhfleft's comeback victory.
Abanhfleft manager Ranulph Bustamante: Today, the better team wonAbanhfleft manager Ranulph Bustamante: "I'm having to bring out the old cliches by the dozen, but it has to be said. The better team won today, plain and simple. We had our tactics, and they had theirs, and we just happened to execute our gameplan better than they did."
"Maybe they were distracted by the fact that there's a war going on in their homeland. I mean, in their shoes, I'd be worried too. We all know what Pridnestrovia and Anglatia are capable of doing on the field of battle, but why are we talking about that? We're football fans here, not soldiers, although I do know that some of the players over in Nordskania had served in their armies before."
"I don't wish to say anything, but if the Nordskanian fans spent as much time cheering their team as they did booing us for being friends with Pridnestrovia then perhaps they could have done more, but that's the way things go."
Abanhfleft travels to Averyickan City for the third match in the World Cup 77 qualifiers.
ABANHFLEFT 4 - 2 REVOLUTIONARY NORDSKANIA
R. EDWARDS (14') YOSHIDA (23')
VINCELOT (51') VLASENKO (27')
OGIGAYATSU (73')
LEE (80')
REVOLUTIONARY NORDSKANIA
GK: 1 J. Grekov
RB: 2 Hadzic
CB: 3 Nadarevic (Ceran - 69')
LB: 4 Bilous
RM: 5 Afanasyev (Bojovic - 85')
RCM: 6 A. Zima █
LCM: 7 Besic
LM: 8 Sindler █ (Aguilar - 69')
RS: 9 Vlasenko
CF: 10 Yoshida
LS: 11 Dragovic-Courtial
ABANHFLEFTGK: 1 Varamoninov
RB: 2 Afolayan
█ (Popov - 60')
RCB: 4 L. Edwards
LCB: 5 Owobowale
LB: 3 Ogigayatsu
RM: 8 Vincelot
█CM: 7 Zolnerov
LM: 6 Marilungo
CAM: 10 R. Edwards (V. Zima
█ - 74')
RS: 9 Kelvin (Lee - 74')
LS: 11 Dagen
MATCH STATISTICS
PossessionAbanhfleft: 54%
Revolutionary Nordskania: 46%
ShotsAbanhfleft: 14 (7 on target)
Revolutionary Nordskania: 10 (6 on target)
CornersAbanhfleft: 8
Revolutionary Nordskania: 6
FoulsAbanhfleft: 22
Revolutionary Nordskania: 21