She wasn't paying attention to where she was going, and abruptly stopped when someone called her name.

"Mercy?!?! What are you doing here?" Mercy looked up to see Meredith and Zeke. They were in the middle of some sort of training, and Mercy had run right into the middle of it.

"Um, dodging Orion. You guys haven't seen him, have you?" Mercy suddenly looked worried and there was a very urgent tone in her voice.

"Actually, no." Meredith was anxious to get back to her training, and still was upset at Mercy for the beating she had taken. "But the longer you stay in one place, the easier it is for him to find you." Meredith's voice was icy as she tried her best to be civil. It wasn't working too well.

"Fine. I'll leave. I can tell when I'm not welcome." Mercy felt the bad vibes, and felt they were completely undeserved. She was a Jedi, and she couldn't ingore that, at least not at the time. She had been too torn. "I've given up being a Jedi, for the Game at least. I hate that I had to. I was doing fine with both. Consider that your fault." She was talking over her shoulder now as she walked away, and that last comment had nearly been spat out.

"Oh no you don't." Meredith was losing control, and Zeke went on his guard. "That was all you. We all had to give up things to be here. You think I enjoy the complete lack of sunshine here? Or how about all the boys I left in Cali? Heck, before this Game started, I was a normal girl! I flirted, I went to school, I had fun. Now I'm here, doing stupid training and working my bum off so that I don't get beat up again because you decided not to fight!" Her voice had escalated and was now loud and powerful. Mercy had spun around to face her at the start of this tirade, and Meredith was now about five inches from the girl's face. Both girls' auras began to flare.

"I was a Jedi Knight. That's important. You left nothing of consequence behind. Flirting. School. What stupid things to miss! I-" Mercy was cut off as Meredith decked her and sent her spinning.

"How dare you!" Meredith pulled her sword and her facial expression changed from Meredith to Rapath. She waited for Mercy to stand up again. When the girl rose to her feet to face Meredith, she drew her lightsaber and the blade sprang to life.

"No no, my friend, how dare you." Mercy charged, and the girls' swords clanked and hummed. They were pretty evenly matched, and the fight lasted quite a while. But Mercy was tired from her run, and Rapath's resentment and anger had been building for a while now. She finally got the upper hand and began to beat Mercy up pretty badly.

-------------------

"Dang it all!" Orion had landed in Konan country when he went through the portal, but Mercy was nowhere in sight. It had taken him a while to figure out where she had gone, but Konan was a huge place, and she could be anywhere by now. He focused in, trying to locate her through the Connection.

Then the Feeling came. It kinda hurt, but not like the buzzes he had felt before. His arm suddenly began to throb, and he fealt weary. His focus shifted from Mercy to his pain, and it instantly disappeared. Then he realized what was going on and took off in a dead run.

When he got there, he saw Zeke standing helplessly by, anxious at the fight, but knowing that he couldn't interfere. He ran up and screamed at him.

"What are you doing just standing there?"

"We can't get involved. Don't try to stop them; it's against the rules."

"Screw the rules." Orion was very upset; Mercy was not doing well, and he couldn't just stand around and watch her get hurt. He dove in to the fight, but Zeke grabbed him and held him back. "Let go you--"

Zeke clamped his hand over Orion's mouth to keep him from distracting the girls. Mercy was still trying to fight back, but Rapath was too fresh, and had improved her skills greatly by all the training.

"I won't let you interfere. You've let your emotions cloud your judgement. Rapath can't kill her. They've got to fight, you know."

Zeke's soothing voice and time calmed Orion to the point where Zeke could let him go.

Rapath lost all interest when Mercy stopped fighting back. She had no desire to leave her bruised and bloody beyond her capacity to fight back. That was so tacky. All she wanted was the surrender, and she had it now. "My life made more sense than you'll ever know. I just chose to hide my accomplishments and not make sure the world knew how grand I was. Have fun with Orion. You gave yourself away by picking a fight." With that, Meredith stalked off, and Zeke followed.

Orion was instantly at Mercy's side. "How bad are you hurt?" He was eyeing a small cut on her forehead, and reached out to clean it.

"Get away from me, you jerk! I need to not deal with your tenderness and love right about now. I've got more importnat things to worry about, like how your feelings are affecting your job as Guardian, and my bruises. I saw Zeke holding you back. You were going to interfere, weren't you?!" The tone in her voice was so accusatory and full of hate, that Orion pulled back, confused.

Mercy stood up and slowly walked away. Orion followed, lost in his thoughts. "Do I really love her?" he thought. "Is it possible to love someone who hates you so deeply? Maybe I've just spent too much time with her, or maybe I just got too involved with my job. It's hard to protect someone you don't feel strongly about. But it seemed like love..." Images began to flash through his mind, and at first he thought it was Mercy, but realized it wasn't. He remembered being young and in love. "She left me..." Orion thought. "But that's not what's bothering me so much." Then it hit him. The physical resemblance was almost uncanny, but the differences were distinctive. Mercy looks like her! He gasped, and Mercy turned around and gave him one of the evilest eyes he'd seen in a long time. No, he didn't love her... he was holding on to the memory of what she reminded him of. Kissing her wasn't going to get it back, and he hated the idea of begging her to love him. If she hated him, she hated him. He stiffened. "I'll be her Guardian, but I'm not going to be made a fool of again!"

Mercy finally stopped and began to make camp. She noticed Orion's demeanor had completely changed, and he was abrupt and cold to her. "Good night," he had simply said as he laid down to go to sleep. Mercy was baffled at the change, but determined not to question a good thing. At least now he wasn't trying to kiss her or make her love him. She went to sleep, her mind blanking out because she was so tired. Sleep was feeling sooo good...