A/N: written for AllBingo Apocalypse: Arenas/Thunderdomes.

Zoe staggered away from the decapitated corpse, machete gripped in her right hand and blood smeared down the right side of her face. If she was to escape this hellish nightmare alive, something had to give. Whether it was Carnivore relenting that she now held the title of champion, or her acceptance of his offer, there had to be a way out.

"Bloody Mary, ladies and gentlemen." His cold, calculated tone echoed across what was once a sports stadium with a lush green field. Now, with the constant heat waves and lack of rain, the grass had died away to reveal the dying soil beneath it. "This lovely woman has been with us five years, but still she has not managed to steal the champion's trophy from our Huntsman."

Deep inside her, buried beneath the pain and terror, beneath the constant well of rage that fuelled her life, something pinged in recognition. Huntsman. The man once known as Jack West Jr to his friends and family was now nothing but a doped-up adrenaline addict with pinpoint pupils and scars covering more than fifty percent of his body.

They'd been crossing the Nullarbor at the time in a small truck with a backup fuel system and a large supply of water rigged to the tray. Lily, asleep on a mattress behind the seats, had been the first to wake when they reached Cook. Once an old rest stop for the staff of a train that used to cross the country from east to west, it'd been reduced to nothing but a small group of brick buildings with their roofs caved in and the walls half-collapsed by the time the bombs finally stopped falling.

Jack had been asleep on another mattress next to her, till the dirt gave way beneath them and the truck tipped over. He was thrown against the driver's side door and Lily went with him, while Zoe sat with her hands still clutching the wheel as if she were still trying to correct the wheels.

They arrived within seconds of the cab landing on the ground. Men with masks and scars, and if she had to guess, those had been radiation burns lining their arms and legs.

Lily was taken first once they smashed through the front windshield, dragged kicking and screaming from the truck and hauled into one of the buildings. Zoe next, although she managed to kill one of them with her bare hands after clawing his eyes out and driving his nose up into his brain. The two were promptly knocked unconscious and laid side by side on a worn out luggage trolley. Jack, on the other hand, had shattered his collarbone and passed out from the impact of the crash.

"The question remains, however," God, she hated that fucking Russian accent of his, "can she defeat our young Huntress?"

Zoe looked towards the gate between the two sections of stand where the rugby players would've once entered the field from. In the distance, she could see a tall somewhat muscular figure clutching something in their right hand. With each step, they drew closer, till Zoe could make out cropped dark hair streaked with fluoro pink.

Five years. Five years of training, of being forced to fight for food, of nightmares wondering what'd happened to their daughter and if she were still alive.

The answer, it turned out, was yes.

"Lily." Zoe's breath hitched in her throat when she saw her bionic right arm. A matte black mass of mechanical beauty and power was now attached from her shoulder down. They'd cut her right breast away to make room for the plates and bolts required to attach it, along with where it was presumably connected to her nervous system. "I'm so sorry."