[hr][hr][center][h3][b][color=42A9FF]April[/color][/b][/h3][img]https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/019a32b8-61bb-718f-82f1-903e3238ae55.webp[/img]
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Ever since she had started at Avengers Academy, April had wanted to win the Contest of Champions. Her parents had never explicitly set out expectations for her, but they had been implied nonetheless. She had to be great. Her father was a SHIELD agent and a powerful mutant, and her mother a brilliant doctor and avatar of a Greek goddess. She had to be perfect. She had to achieve the highest grades, excel in athletics, take to superheroics with the weight of her parents’ legacy on her shoulders. She was meant to be student body president, to score straight As, to be voted royalty at the school dance, receive offers to an Ivy League college, win the Contest of Champions, and so much more. She wasn’t meant to crumble or be ill - she wasn’t meant to hang out with the [i]wrong[/i] people or get [i]weird[/i] ideas about the world and her place in it. Under so much pressure, she wasn’t allowed to break. 

She had refused to see her parents when she was in CAGE. But in truth, she didn’t even know if they had tried to visit her. She’d persisted anyways, committing to her training, even as the lithium keeping her even made her hands tremble. She hadn’t wanted to let them down - even if she didn’t know who [i]they[/i] were anymore. 

Was she scared of letting down her parents - people who always chose her sister over her, whose faces she knew weren’t in the stands today? 

Or was she scared of letting down her friends? 

Danni and Dorian. 

Leah and Sabine. 

Andy and Percy. 

They’d all worked so hard. She hated to think about it, but they’d died for this. They’d been - she’d been so stupid, trusting Arcade. If she hadn’t wanted this so hard, so much - if she hadn’t been straining under the weight of a dream she wasn’t even sure was hers - would she have been so easily tricked? Could she have stopped it in time? Had it even been worth it? 

Had anything she’d done because of her supposed ambitions been worth it? 

Where did expectations end and she begin?

Danni had fallen. Sabine had surrendered, morally objecting to the fight. Leah followed her. Dorian - Dorian, he didn’t surrender, but her urged others to do so. Billy and Teddy. Her cousin - her cousin that was essentially a stranger to her, the side of herself she had never been allowed to explore. He surrendered. 

Was this dream about to die? 

She stood, consumed with uncertainty, as the paths diverged before her - as Andy… her teammate, but someone she couldn’t remember ever spending time with outside of training, every really getting to know, despite all they’d been through - as Andy laid her soul bare. And affirmed why she would continue to fight - why she would never surrender. 

Her heart swelled with emotion. 

Andy was incredible. 

She knew who she was. 

April wished she could be more like her - that she could know who she was, when all of the bullshit and trappings of others were taken away. And this, this moment, she had a choice. She could follow her ex-girlfriends off the field. She could say that the Contest of Champions wasn’t her dream. And it would be okay. 

But it would be a lie. 

This [i]was[/i] her dream. 

This was about more than fighting for others. 

This was about fighting for herself. 

Maybe she didn’t actually care about dance royalty or student body president or perfect grades - but she cared about [i]this[/i]. She didn’t have a family there to tell her she was making the right choice, that they were so proud of her. But [i]she[/i] was proud of herself. 

Even if they lost. 

Even if the others didn’t want to continue. 

April hit her fists together, and gave Andy a grin. [color=42A9FF]“With you till the end of the line,”[/color] she said with a wink.