>>19570282Holly’s eyebrow raised at Amy’s statement. She’d played a part in getting Priscilla control over the Dojo? The rum turned to ash in her mouth. For a moment, the blonde sits dumbly, her teeth running over the back of her teeth, her head pounding from the sudden onset of the alcohol. Amy had been played, she tried to rationalise, tried to tell herself. Sheila was involved as well with Divine? How deep-rooted was all of this? How far did it all go?
Romero’s pitiful rationalisations aside, Holly goes quiet. The game really was rigged…
Paule.
The word brings her back. A bright-eyed rookie, with a certain affliction that reminded Holly very much of Ranger Rabbit. Ranger Rabbit, the one who’d always been the best of them, who even when she’d let herself succumb to dark urges, had kept a smile and playful attitude.
Those were the kind of girls that she should be fighting for.
“I’m fighting for Paule. I’m fighting for all of them.”
“You want to reform the system. That makes you dangerous, Ash. You’re a tool of corruption, chasing after an impossible dream of reform. The only way forward… The only way to help Paule. To help Huldra and Maaike is to burn it all down. Let something new arise from the ashes.”
“‘What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.’”
Raising to her feet, Holly looked at the assembled party, “Sorry, I need to go. Amy… I-I’ll call you.”
With that, Holly left the bar, into the night. Her hand gripping at her phone in her pocket. She would make things right. She would carve a path forward. She still had friends, friends who had achieved championships without the influence of the old guard.
