Title: Tear Down the Sky
Summary: AU, "Daisy Fitzroy was not a woman with whom you trifled with. If you were dead, you better off dead."
Disclaimer: "Bioshock" and all things related are property of Irrational Games.
"Booker!" Elizabeth's voice sounded above the chaos of turning gears and gunfire. Lowering his gaze from the tower he watched as she raced up the stairs, propelled by some unforeseen event. His head still ringing, he followed after her, the dots peppering his vision forming a tiny little arrow that guided his path to the obvious destination.
Barely upon the precipice of the stair's top, he could hear the low tones of Fink trying to talk his way out of a situation. Booker barely caught took in the shape of a top hat and arms raised in surrender before there was a flash and pop.
Elizabeth screamed and dropped to the floor like she'd been shot herself, hands covering her mouth to muffle her noises.
Fink's blood splattered across the gated glass like it belonged there all along. Booker watched his body hit the floor and reveal his executioner. Daisy Fitzroy stood over her victim, skin peppered with flecks of his remains. His boy sat on the floor screaming and sobbing, scared for his life, scared for his dead father. Daisy was a statue for all but a breath before she turned to regard the boy; reaching down she grabbed him by the scuff of his jacket like a dog and forced him to stand upright. "Fitz- Fitzroy, don't!" He could hear himself scream.
Daisy barely regarded him before she shoved the boy off into the shadows, a boot to his ass as motivation to move faster. The boy scampered off a weeping, soggy mess. Booker felt the tightness in his chest elevate and return all at once. Fitzroy's hand was on the glass where Fink's blood resided and swiped it violently. The ruined hand was dragged across her face, branding her with the blood of the enemy and the symbol of her freedom.
Her large brown eyes bore into Booker's and made a dramatic sweep of the space before with her bloody hand. "Blood for blood, Booker; ain't nothing afflicted that goes unpunished," Her voice boomed over the loud speakers. She lifted her gaze heavenward and she shouted. "Kill the imposers, burn the bodies when you're done." Booker watched as Daisy disappeared into the shadows, a gun in one hand and a pair of scissors in the other. His head pounded as another memory came rushing to the forefront of his mind. Bodies burned to ashes couldn't come back from the dead, couldn't be possessed by demons. "Shit."
Climbing the final two steps, he kneeled down and grabbed Elizabeth by the arm. "Find someplace to hide, now!" There was a two second delay from Elizabeth before her body jerked into action. The war cries of the Populi echoed all around them; Elizabeth scrambled to her feet and headed for the highest wall within her reach. Gritting his teeth, Booker reloaded his pistol; his fingers twitched, a trail of feathers stood upright from beneath the scales on the back of his hand for an instant.
The heavies dropped down from the ceiling and rushed him headlong as the others began to flank him; knowing better to than to stay in one place, he fired off a random round and rolled out of the way when a wild swing came at him from the left. He raised his hand, his arm jerked violently as a pulse of energy was sent throughout the room. The Vox fighters were ripped from the ground and frozen in mid-air. Aiming with this pistol, Booker prepared fire his pistol.
"Booker, look out!"
Booker made the mistake of turning in Elizabeth's direction; her large blue eyes looked past him, her hand was stretched as if to try and stop whatever that was coming for him. He shifted his gaze to the right, a murder of crows bombarded him - sent loose on by the hand of Daisy herself, come out of nowhere in a hail of black feathers. He cried out as the birds picked at his body, puncturing his skin in the face of his frantic attempts to scare them off. His pistol fell from his hand at the sensation of a prick in the center and back of his wrist. He fell to his knees and birds ascended upward. Fitzroy never gave him time to recover; she closed the space between them in an instant and kicked him square in the face.
"Booker!"
His head snapped back, the edge of his tongue was clamped between his teeth, the taste of blood filled his mouth. Booker hit the ground head first and proceeded to black out. Time blurred, his eyes rolled about in his head as he tried to come to his senses.
Fitzroy and her duplicates danced a merry circle around him; she stood over him, hip cocked the left with her pistol aimed right at his head. "I abhor y'all's moon juice, but it would seem one must use filth to take down filth," She sneered, regarding her feathered hand.
"Booker, no!" Elizabeth tried to reach him. Launching herself forward she prepared to leap onto the back of Fitzroy only to be blindsided. A heavy knocked her off her feet, her body sent stumbling sideways, she couldn't gain her footing. The man grabbed her right arm and twisted it; she cried out as her arm was pushed upward and her body slammed against a wall. "Don't hurt him! We're not imposters!"
"You must take me for some kind o'fool, girl," Daisy hissed, never taking her eyes off Booker. "Booker DeWitt is dead; his body ain't even been cold seven days in storage, you expect me believe this… imposter, is the martyr of our cause?!"
"Yes, yes, he is!" Elizabeth grounded out as her arm was pushed against again. "I swear to you, he's is Booker DeWitt!"
"Words don't mean much from a girl who ain't 'posed to be here anymore," Daisy pressed her finger against the hammer of her weapon. "You're gonna have to prove it."
"I can! I can prove it, ah!" Elizabeth closed her eyes against the pain spreading across her shoulder blades. "Please, let me go, I can prove it!" Daisy knew better than to take her eyes off Booker to acknowledge the girl; keeping her weapon trained on the Pinkerton she used her free hand signal her man off of the girl. "Let her go," She said. The heavy was slow to respond to the order; he dropped her arm from behind her first then moved away completely. Elizabeth tried to control her breathing as she moved her throbbing arm forward. She looked down at Booker on the floor; he was still reeling from the kick and the blow to the head, but he kept absolutely still.
"Start talkin', girl, you've got a short fuse. And no lies; you lie, he gets a new peephole."
"We- we were going get Mr. Chen's tools from the station when I noticed a tear-"
"A what?" Daisy quirked an eyebrow, this time turning to meet Elizabeth's gaze; her men moved in and trained their weapons on Booker.
"The fuzzy objects or portals scattered around the city. I can will them into existence, so to speak," Elizabeth watched the expression on Daisy's face go from skeptical and aggravated to skeptical and insulted. Acting quickly Elizabeth surveyed the area; high above her she could see a turret flickering on the edge of a platform. "Look, you've seen it before. Watch," Raising her hands above her head she focused on the turret.
Daisy watched the girl's arms tremble from exertion, her eyes wandered upward, in no real hurry to see the girl prove her innocence. The turret flickered like something out of the visual contraptions she saw in the Comstock House, finally coming into existence with a flash of white. What she saw was something she couldn't dismiss with accusation of parlor tricks.
Elizabeth lowered one hand and pressed another to her nose. "That's what I did; only I used the tear to bring us to another reality, your reality; where Booker died for your cause. The one we came from, we were still trying to help you with the revolution," Elizabeth explained. "We're not imposters. We're just not from here."
Barring the violence that continued around them, all of was silence among the group. Daisy seemed content with merely staring Elizabeth down, but young girl held her ground, fidgety as she might've been. There was a gleam in the leader's eyes that frightened her; scheming, so it was. Daisy's large brown eyes expressed a multitude of things she'd never reveal with words. "The Vox could use someone like you in our employ," Daisy stated, more to herself than anyone.
"I won't kill innocent people," Elizabeth declared.
Daisy snorted. "Innocent?" She shook her head, approaching Elizabeth with slow deliberant steps. "No, girlie, these people lost the right to claim to innocence when they chose to come after us."
"You don't have to- you should try to talk things out-"
"They wouldn't listen to us, fool. For years, the Vox spoke out against the Founding Fathers; use naught but words, but those words scared 'em. Wasn't before long they came knocking down our doors and dragging us from our homes. Most of us got public executions, the others just disappeared; you were lucky if you got a finger as a keepsake.
"Me and my people, we was supposed to be free, masters of our will. But instead, we are treated the same. I was taken up into city against my will by Fink, forced to work in your daddy's house and framed for his wife's death. All these people you see around me-" She spread her arms out, Elizabeth looked about; the Vox seemed to occupy every space in the warehouse now.
"-The Natives, the Chinese, the Irish; we all the same to you and your people. But no more; I will not stand idly by and watch as our lives are snuffed out by Comstock and his constituents. Whether he likes it or not, we ain't his to control. We ain't his flock, I ain't his scapegoat." Daisy turned her back to Elizabeth and approached Booker. "And this Garden of Eden, well, that ain't his no more either. Fact, way I see it, it ours all along, so you are gonna help us, otherwise, we gonna have some problems on our hands."
Elizabeth's chest heaved; her eyes flickered from Daisy to Booker. The man was on his knees with his arms grappled between two men while another stood behind him with a gun aimed at the base of his neck. She wanted to him to tell her "don't do it", don't give into their demands.
"Just do as they say, Elizabeth," He said, grunting when the barrel the gun was pressed against the base of his neck. Elizabeth felt her throat go dry and her eyes widen. "Booker-" She started to say.
"We do this, then we'll get the airship. Our deal still stands, right?" Booker regarded the leader with suspicious.
"We ain't ever had a deal, DeWitt. Our business was concluded when you died," Daisy remarked. "Whatever deal you had with other me, well, I don't have to abide to that. But, seeing as I ain't you, yeah. You help me, I send you on your merry with an airship."
"And the Vox?"
She shrugged. "You don't shoot my men, and they won't fire back. I can't promise your safety if you decide to go against me and mine," Daisy answered. "Doesn't do well to bite the hand that feeds, if you understand me."
Daisy snapped her fingers. "Get 'em on his feet, we got work to do."
"What about the kid?" One of her men asked.
"What kid?" She looked toward the box room confined by glass; the boy she chased off moments earlier remained on the ground, sitting next to his father. "Leave 'em," She sniffed. "We'll deal with him later... if there is a later."
Fink Manufacturing fell to the Vox; Elizabeth watched as the neighboring cities were overrun with the angry soldiers of Fitzroy's revolution, helpless to stop it. As far as Daisy was concerned they were a means to an end, a tool and nothing more. Anyone who wasn't for her and the Vox's cause were an automatic enemy; there was no neutrality in the fight for their freedom, splitting hairs would earn you an early grave. Daisy Fitzroy was not a woman with whom you trifled with. If you were dead, you better off dead; the Booker of her was quite the testament to that.
Their help for the airship; that was the new deal, one they had to deal with. Booker, of course, was kept under lock and key. Helpful as Elizabeth attempted to make him, Daisy already got what she wanted from him. "Ain't nothing he can do my people can't do themselves. He ain't a messiah and we ain't lambs in needs of his particular guidance," She said. He was kept in the cockpit, arms, hands, legs and feet bound and wrapped so as to prevent escape. Fitzroy's friends kept a close eye on him whenever she engaged Comstock's forces on the commandeered security zeppelins.
Up on the First Lady's zeppelin Elizabeth watched led her regime of the people further into the streets and paint the town red with symbol and blood; it wasn't before long the fires seemed to spread from building to building. The people on the receiving end of their wrath weren't pushovers in any regard. Supporters of Comstock entered the arena with as equally as much or more firepower. Some took Fitzroy's rebellion as a sign of validation on their opinions of the Blacks, Chinese and foreigners. Comstock's vision of doom was merely supported by their actions and so they fought back in the name of their prophet.
Tugging at the heavy leather jacket around her shoulders, Elizabeth adjusted the bandanna around her neck and made sure the belt around her waist was tight enough to maintain the pants. It wouldn't do for a lady to walk about in a school dress and fight a war, so Daisy supplied her with the clothes she needed when she was thrown into the thick of it. Cut her hair too, so much so that she likened herself to a boy on the edge of puberty. The breeze at her neck wasn't something she could get used to just yet.
Tear us a way into the Comstock's Emporia, Daisy wanted the head of Columbia's leader; she wanted to see him suffer for their affliction. Columbia, whether it was their choice to come there or not, was their home now and Daisy was in the mind of spiriting away anyone who much as dared harm her people. The mere thought of it frightened Elizabeth; what good would it do to segregate themselves from the people that harmed them? Couldn't they just talk things out?
"Ain't nothing to talk about when minds been made up; they want us under their heel, we just want to be left alone," Daisy rebuked, affronted by her nativity. "Ain't nothing gonna change that."
The tears she'd already made in the name of advancing their campaign were taxing on an ability she could barely control in the first place. Most of it was for resurrecting weapons from other worlds, doorways into places present already. The Vox did the rest and were, as Daisy insinuated, capable of bringing down facet after facet of Comstock's men.
"How ya holding up?" Booker, for all his abilities, seemed unable to do much except sit cooped up in the cockpit with Fitzroy whenever she was aboard the First Lady. There were times she allowed him a little freedom, albeit under armed guard, and to Elizabeth's frustration, he cooperated with her; probably under the stipulation of her harm.
Elizabeth just shook her head. "I'm adaptable," She lied, scratching the back of her neck. "I hate this."
"I don't like it myself, but we've got to barter with Fitzroy until we can get the airship," Booker mused.
"I could just- if I opened a tear, I could get us out of here, wipe her out of existence," Elizabeth whispered. "We don't have to do this."
"No- no, I'm not fixin' to walk through one of those things any time soon," Booker's response was eerily quick; she watched as his hand started to reach up toward his face but stopped at the last second. "We might end up someplace a little worse than a revolution." That was his reasoning, but Elizabeth knew he was just afraid of getting mixed up like those men he killed; understandable on some level, but a severe detriment to their escape. "I don't even want to face Comstock; I just want to go Paris, see the sights."
"You will, we just got to do this thing for Fitzroy and her people," Booker assured her. "We'll get you to Paris."
Elizabeth started to respond when she saw Daisy step inside the cockpit. "You're needed on the deck; got some boys who need tending to," She said. Elizabeth frowned at the leader; Daisy paid her no mind and headed to the wheel. "Go, on, best not to keep them waiting," Booker nudged her. Elizabeth remained where she was for a moment, her gaze shifting between Daisy and Booker; finally, with a bow of her head, she moved on. Booker waited until she closed the door behind them before speaking. "You're not doing that girl any favors by putting her through this; there's no need for her to fight when you've got people like me."
"People like you is why we here in the first place, DeWitt," Daisy deadpanned. "'Sides, she's already in it, helping you fight us and what not. If figure educating the girl ain't gon' do much except make her smarter should she choose to open those eyes. Besides, we need her more than you."
"So then I take it you're not letting me out of here?"
"Can I trust you not to turn on me?"
Not really, no, was what he thought. Instead he said, "Yes, you can." Daisy, however, seemed less than convinced; she regarded the hired man with extreme suspicion, her braids obscured everything except her eyes. "Is that right?" She turned so that her back faced the steering wheel of the ship; folding her arms she asked, "So if I was to just let you out of this room, no armed guard, you wouldn't try to rabbit with the girl?"
"N-no, I wouldn't," Booker reaffirmed.
"You take me for some kind of fool, DeWitt?" Daisy sniffed. "You might be from "another world", but you ain't changed. From the get go you told me; all you wanted was that girl. Even as you lay dying in front of me, you told me all you wanted was the girl. Didn't care much for me and mine; you're here for you and I don't see much difference from the one that died. So, please, don't try to a fool a woman who's worked at the back of a man the same as you."
Booker grimaced, unsure if he was more bothered by Daisy's accuracy or his other self's frankness with the woman. Either way, she hit the nail on the head. "Look, I don't want no part in Comstock's death; that's your business. I just want to take the girl and leave this place, you can have it."
"Well, I'm so glad I got your permission to do as I please," Daisy smiled bitter smile. "Fact still stands. You ain't goin' nowhere until I have Comstock's head."
"Comstock House is on the other side of the city, how do you expect get there without that giant bird thing catching you? It's lookin' for her as we speak!"
"I know all about that songbird, DeWitt; I've seen what it can do, what did to my people, what it does to Comstock's people," Daisy fired back. "Don't you worry about what I plan to do; you just behave. And maybe, once we reach Comstock House, I'll let you off early."
"You goin' back on your word Fitz?"
There was a flicker in Daisy's eyes, an emotion that passed far too quickly for him to register properly. He assumed, merely from her posture, that it was anger. "Hardly, DeWitt. I'm a woman of my word; I'll do right by you if your girl do right by me."
Maintaining a one-sided view on Daisy and Vox Populi's revolution wasn't hard; Elizabeth thought they were wrong, plain and simple. But in the company of the some of the wounded soldiers, young and older woman, it wasn't so easy to dismiss why they were attracted to Fitzroy's cause in the first place. Elizabeth shared a common foe with them in Comstock. But that's where the commonalities stopped. Alongside Songbird, he was her gatekeeper, but until she got older, she never saw her world as such. The tower was always home, Comstock was enigmatic man she and everyone in Columbia could look up to.
For them, he was a gatekeeper of a different kind; no matter how loudly they declared their autonomy, they were nothing in his eyes but servants to his and Columbia's will. He was a monster and Daisy Fitzroy was their savior, one who rejected, physically and mentally, all that Comstock and his people stood for. She still didn't think this was the right way to go about though; there had to be better ways of achieving their freedom from Comstock's tyranny. Perhaps the right tones of voice, a more placating manner, less militant. Anything but what she was doing.
"There you go, that should hold you over," She pattered the boy on the arm. "Thank you kindly, miss," He gave her something of an appreciative look before his gaze was drawn upward. Elizabeth turned and saw Daisy at the end of the room, conversing with one of the women. Swallowing her pride she approached the two women in a slow casual pace. They stopped talking to each other long enough to regard her with a dubious expression; Daisy placed a reassuring hand on the young woman's shoulder, a move that was returned with equal affection before she moved on. Elizabeth watched as Daisy's expression changed drastically; going from soft to hard in moments. "Got a problem?"
Elizabeth decided to be direct. "Me helping you won't make killing these people right," She said, raising her head so that she looked down on Daisy. The leader of the Vox Populi laughed; her expression harbored no offense, just a weary sort of amusement. "Real easy to preach morals when you ain't lived as we do," She said. "Just how many people you kill by helpin' him, hmm?"
Elizabeth frowned. "That's different, it was self-defense," She claimed.
"And this ain't?" Daisy snorted as she walked away. "Me and the Vox, we're protecting our people from your ilk. The people we kill, they take up arms and sick monsters against us."
"And the civilians? The people who don't attack you caught in the crossfire?"
"Causalities, of a sort; saw a lot of townships own by my people burned away unprovoked because we chose to do better for ourselves; only they were called aggressors, uppity Negros who don't know they place. Women and children were killed, tortured in ways you could never dream of. You don't get judge me and mine for defending ourselves, you don't have that privilege Way he told it, you were trapped, just like the rest of us. I figure you'd want Comstock dead as much as anyone, but you think you better than us because you don't hold the gun your hand and pull the trigger?"
"I'm not killing people in cold blood!"
"You would see it that way, wouldn't ya?" Daisy's observation ended as the alarm from one of the security zeppelins sounded across the way. Daisy paid the young woman no mind; she turned her back to the young woman and dashed toward the cockpit. Not one to be ignored, Elizabeth followed, not quite finished preaching her piece. "What is it?" Daisy inquired bursting through the front door.
"See for yourself," Welch stepped away from the steering wheel and handed her a telescope.
Daisy aligned herself accordingly, following the space in which her second-in-command was pointing towards. Off in the distance she could see the outline of several zeppelins among the stormy clouds ahead; Comstock's envoy was on their way to greet them and they weren't even that close to Emporia. Lowering the telescope from her eye she regarded Welch with a shrewd look. "Get 'em ready, looks like we gonna fight our way through to Comstock," She said.
"Would ya have it any other way?" Welch inquired with a trace of humor in his tone. Daisy remained unamused by their circumstances as she replied, "Not particularly, no. Go on, now." Welch raised his sky-hook in affirmation and headed out of the cockpit. Elizabeth watched through the windows as the commandeered Zeppelins of the Vox Populi began to form a protective circle around the First Lady's airship and surged forward.
"We've come a long way my friends, now's the time pay our Father Comstock a visit."
Arrival to Emporia was as rough as she expected; Comstock's security didn't let them pass without a fight, downed at least two of her zeppelins before she and her people set a pretty flame to the underbellies of the ones they chose not to commandeer. In some fool move of desperation most of the soldiers leapt from their zeppelins to save themselves; shame about the fall, though. There was nothing that could save them from a plummet like that.
The men and women on the First Lady were quick to make their way to the neighboring zeppelins and dropships; the time to abandon it to the uses of DeWitt and his charge were drawing near as the city came into clearer view.
"Daisy, some of the others already made it into the city, they's just waitin' on your word," Welch announced over the loudspeaker. Manipulating the controls, Daisy veered the First Lady out of the way of a rogue bazooka shot from below. "The word is given, Welch; tell 'em to make for the stations and warehouses, and don't stop for anything," She relayed.
"You're crazy, you know that, right?" DeWitt's voice boomed over the explosion that shocked the airship as it descended toward the landing. Daisy regarded the bound man crammed up in the corner with Elizabeth with some mirth. "Depends on what you mean by crazy, DeWitt," She responded with a grin. She released her grip on the controls, moved toward the door and unlocked it. Elizabeth and Booker were throwing forward as the airship swung violently toward edge of the island.
"What are you doing?!" Elizabeth cried as she scrambled to reach the controls.
"Making good on our deal; Lady's yours, DeWitt."
"Fitzroy, wait!"
Without a second thought to their reaction, she leapt across the threshold and landed on the ground in a low crouch. Winded, she climbed to her feet, dusted her red jacket off and readjusted her sash. News of their arrival had spread faster than she anticipated; already they were people running down the streets with their bags and belongings in hands, the Vox hot on their tails.
Behind her she could hear the First Lady struggling to come back into full quarters under the girl's control, it sputtered away from the edge of the city. Pulling her pistol from its holster she rushed headlong into the sweeping chaos of the city.
Halfway into the diamond tipped Emporia, the bird came screaming down from the storm clouds. Against the backdrop of a setting sun, orange-red and warm against her skin, it was a sight to behold. At this point, Daisy had relinquished the First Lady airship to the embittered DeWitt and the girl.
On the ground, she barely dodged the creature's drive towards the ground; its feet cut at the concrete, carving a literal pathway of destruction in its wake. But instead of attacking them, it straight for the airship; most of the Vox opened fire upon its back in reaction to its earlier attempts to kill them.
"Hold your fire. It wants the girl, not us!" Daisy had to repeat herself a few times, but they stopped and long enough to gawk at the bird's claws rip into airship. Even she had to watch as the airship went down, the bird straddled to its side, determined to snatch the girl from the Pinkerton's grasp. Turning her back, she and her men hurried their way up the path into the city.
As long as Dewitt kept the bird occupied she had a greater chance of accomplishing her goal; it would be tight, the Vox were spread out below as they were above, but their numbers should've been substantial enough that a little stretch wouldn't hurt their goal indefinitely. Comstock's army came flushing out of the expected holes, headed by the Order of the Raven and a gaggle of civilians.
Daisy fired first, bringing down one of the heavies with a shot to the kneecap. He caved beneath of the weight of his body and the warring parties spurred forward. In the confusion, Daisy and her men pushed their way through the soldiers, Ravens and civilians, leaving a bloody trail of busted heads and bleeding bodies. Her white shirt was a little less glowing when she emerged on the other side, a rifle in one hand and her pistol in the other.
In the corner of her eye she saw a limping man was brought down to his knees with a tackle and subsequently beaten with his own weapon. A spiteful kick to the ribs left him on the ground and the Vox membered moved on, headed up to the stairs on the far right. Shaking her wet braids from her face, she holstered her pistol and continued onward.
Entrance to the city was momentarily blocked; the thunderous pounding of bodies thrown against the doors and use of confiscated patriots granted them entrance into the transit hub; civilians and soldiers alike ran to gain higher ground and advantage, leaving their belongings behind. Daisy and the Vox killed anyone in their way and commandeered the gondola route for their own.
Riding up in the gondola she could see the city beneath her already burning with the fires of revolution, black smoke billowed up from the clouds, mixing and churning of black and white. The image was a true clam before the storm, if such a thing even existed now. Welch and a few men were left to guard the primary gondola leading to Comstock house in the eventuality of any unwanted interruptions from a certain Pinkerton. The less trouble they had from the better.
Reaching the city's power points weren't any great difficulty; aside from the resistance, they tore through the cities like a hot blade through butter, ransacking the government buildings and dragging out the fat cat politicians from protective huddles and secret service. They were big men when under the impression noting could hurt them, but down on their knees, begging and bartering for their lives, they weren't so grand and quick to goad.
Instead they could only snivel and bark out, "Comstock was right about you people! You don't know your place! And you're gonna burn for what you've done to this city. Devils all of ya," Cornelius Hopkins, arguably the richest politician in Columbia, was the first to go down. Reloading her pistol she aimed and fired on his chest; she screams of his wife echoed in the background as she held down and prevented from moving forward. It set off a chain reaction of screams, cheers and sobs echoed around her.
"Not so fun to beg for your life, is it?" The Vox taunted them as they gathered around the rest, blades unsheathed. Daisy left them to their devices; statues erected in Comstock's image were torn down bit by bit and chipped away at the ankles.
"Now what, Daisy?" She shifted her gaze toward a young boy who bore the blood of the enemy on his skin and the jacket of the Vox on his shoulders. He was shaken, not quite prepared for what he was seeing; which was to be expected of anyone his age. Daisy pointed toward the highest point of Emporia. "We head for that point; Comstock House is waiting and with it the Father himself," She told him.
As evening light evaporated into the night, the fighting lost none of its momentum. There was still plenty to bring down around the streets of Columbia, plenty of pillage and plenty to burn. Overhead her zeppelins and gunships rained fire down onto the city, dropping off reinforcement and evacuating wounded soldiers.
Despite her active participation, Daisy seemed to walk through the chaos like a ghost witnessing the fire of her and other angers. When she lost a rifle, a pistol was there to take its place - the same could be said of the club she confiscated from a soldier; weapons came and went from her grasp quicker than she could calculate how many bodies were left laying at her feet.
Rain came down from on high to put out the fires and awash the streets with paint, blood and debris. Daisy welcomed its cool touch as she and the people marched closer and closer to Comstock. The streets cracked beneath their rage, parts of the city seemed to separate from the force of their bombardment and aerial combat with the remaining zeppelins under Comstock's rule. Whole neighborhoods hung haphazardly from the street it was once connected to creating dangerous branching pathways that were more treacherous to cross because of their instability. Yet, the Vox Populi would not be stopped. They continued to spread through the city, occupying the police stations scattered throughout the city and commandeering pharmacies and warehouses for their wounded.
The ones young enough to understand what was going on around them made it their business to herd the their group in separate housing for rest and before rejoining the fight; the rest made it their business to clear a path to Comstock.
Entering the hallowed halls of Comstock's house once again brought back sour memories for Daisy. Even in the sea of her and the people's revolution, she couldn't take satisfaction from standing on the ornate rug. Memories of hours spent on her knees scrubbing the floor until the tiniest speck of dirt weren't traceable by the eye came rushing back and collided with the elevated status of self she created in her mind.
"Daisy, somethin' wrong?" Mona's voice drifted out from behind her; Daisy felt herself being jostled as the Vox Populi flooded past her and into the rooms. Through the stain glass windows she could see the hints of sunlight seeping through and wondered, just for a moment, how long they'd all been fighting since they reached Emporia. "Thought you'd be long gone with your sweetheart, whatshisname," Daisy remarked.
"Geoffrey," Mona corrected. "And I was, but I told him I wanted to see this through with you and the Vox Populi."
"You left him behind?"
"No, no. He's somewhere in the city. We're supposed to meet in Battleship Bay."
Daisy wasn't one for changing folk's minds; whatever Mona's reasons, they were her own and she couldn't stop her if she wanted; she was seeing Geoffrey after all and she was in extreme disagreement with that considering his stance on the Vox Populi. "Got a weapon?" She asked her. Mona raised a small revolver into her line of sight.
"Gonna need something a little bigger."
"I can manage with this one," Mona objected.
Comstock appeared to be waiting for her when she arrived in the quiet of his spacious office. He stood at his window, watching the fires from the zeppelins cascade down the frame of his mansion and his own airship crumbling into oblivion as it plummeted from the sky. Daisy stepped into the light of the window, pistol at the ready. "I must admit I was not expecting you'd get so far, Fitzroy," He turned to face her; he looked older than she remembered his beard was now completely white and without a single trace of what his short-lived youth. His was wrinkled; his face almost appearing to turn in on itself to hide behind the mane and the thinning hair on his head.
Adjusting her grip she snorted at his demeanor. "Must not make you for much of a prophet then, does it?"
He raised his hands and offered a shrug that was more dismissive than it was hapless. "On contrary, I merely meant to imply that something changed and that I underestimated your…" Comstock's eyes squinted as he smiled patronizingly at her, "Your good fortune as it were."
"Same difference, more words," Daisy deadpanned as she walked casually past the desk. "Where are your men?"
"Outside, dead, I suspect," Comstock answered just as calmly as the last time. "You've seen to it that my prophecy has come to past and my followers laid to waste. And here I thought I would be put to rest by my daughter."
"That girl and your false shepherd… they long gone from this place if they know what's good for them."
"If the songbird still lives, then everything is as it should be," Comstock rebuked. "She won't get far. My daughter will stop you."
"You seem to be talking in contradictions, Comstock. Your daughter ain't here to save you."
"When I speak of my Elizabeth, I don't intend to imply she'll stop you through force. Far from it; from my death she will be rise to take her place and pull Columbia back from the edge of hell; in effect, from your people, Fitzroy..."
Neither party said much for a long time. Comstock remained where he was, hands behind his back, Daisy standing rigid with her arm extended. His arms moved, perhaps too quickly for her tastes. She pulled the trigger. Comstock's head snapped back, blood spread across the window behind him. He fell to the ground like a puppet cut from its strings; Daisy walked up to the corpse and kicked its foot. Comstock didn't move. Blood was pooling around his head from the exit wound. Kneeling over she set her pistol on the ground and pulled her knife from her sheathe and pressed it against his neck.
The light of the sun bore down hard on the aftermath of the battle; Ravens, Vox, civilian's alike lay scattered across the ground dead, bathed in the blood that ran down the streets. Statues of any great significance to Columbia's symbols of power lay on the ground in ruined heaps of stone and painted over in red and graffiti. Propaganda posters were burned from the walls, "whites" and "Blacks" signs were torn from the walls and thrown into a pile wherever they could find them.
All the while the evacuation of Columbia continued. The former civilians, the ones who chose not to fight, fled back down into the clouds on their airships. Fighting boiled down to skirmishes between the remaining groups within the Order of the Raven and what remained of Comstock's men. There was still a great deal of the city to deal with, even with pockets of the Vox stationed everywhere throughout Columbia; their victory over Comstock, now a mere garden ornament, made the task far less daunting.
Daisy sat on the rail of the balcony and watched as Mona attempted to gather the children into one group, trying to dissuade them from burning anymore of Comstock's clothing. Across from her, Geoffrey stood and watched with an uneasy expression on his face.
Few rebellions and revolts of the past were successful; the ones that were examples to follow and look up to. When all of this began, Daisy wanted to be among the successful, no matter how much fate wanted to dictate otherwise. And with the help of a white martyr it would seem her and the people's goals were coming to a head.
Folk praised God and thanked him a dozen times over for Daisy in song and dance as they celebrated their victories. It was a little early to be declaring absolute freedom just yet, but a mission such as this succeeding as well as it did was immeasurable. True to their nature there would be songs, oral spinning their bloody revolution in a tale of David and Goliath or true its nature.
"We've done it, Daisy, we beat 'em," She remembered Mona told her when she emerged from Comstock's office, her shirt drenched in blood.
"We ain't beaten nothing yet, Mona," She said. "Still fires to put out and miscreants to put to an end. Comstock might be dead, but we still need to get rid of the weeds of his order. You don't take a white kingdom and declare victory without some consequences, so we got to be prepared for the backlash."
FIN