A/N: Well, long hiatus was long.
Chapter Twelve:
Blood and pain and more pain, he remembered dully, white bright lights stabbing into his eyes, ropes biting into his torso, his legs, his arms. That was at the beginning, when he'd fought them tooth and nail, swearing and screaming until his throat bled and seared. Later, when the accumulated aches had taken their toll, they'd taken away the restraints. They didn't need to hold him down any more; he was so weak he couldn't move.
Always the same voices, always the same questions. Vladimir was sick, sick and tired of it all. Where did they go, who helped them, why did you stop us, do you know the implications of your actions, repeated a million and one times, until they rang in his skull even after his interrogators had left to do whatever they did behind his back.
He didn't know how long he'd been kept here, wherever this was. Minutes had blended into hours, bleeding out into days and nights, perhaps even years. They'd done - - he didn't know - - a lot of things in the meantime. He hadn't eaten or drunk for what seemed an eternity, but that was the least of his worries. His left eye burned unceasingly, as though his cornea had been ripped, and his right was so swollen he could see nothing at all.
But he wouldn't give. Wouldn't tell them anything – and they'd done the worst to him they already had, or could. Vladimir was dying slowly but surely, but he would not give Avalanche the information they needed. He would win this round. These – these fools would not vanquish him. He'd make sure of that, at the very least. The head of Intel wasn't going to go down without a good fight.
Nibelheim HQ swarmed with WRO agents, troopers and SpecOps veterans alike. Several of her old colleagues back in the days when Sab was a rookie charged past, barely even flicking a glance towards where she and Weiss crouched, discreetly cloaked by Oblivion's shifting shadows.
"I was hoping," Weiss muttered, "that you'd have a better idea than this." He gestured at the materia, "I mean, that's all very well, but it isn't going to stop them from noticing us for very long. And did anyone miss the part where I said that this was a very bad idea?"
"We kill Ryden," Sab stated, "And then we can leave. But not until then."
The plan sounded deceptively simple. But then it was always the simplest of ideas that got people killed, mainly because they were also the hardest to talk people out of, since they were so easily digested and absorbed.
Kjata help me. Weiss rolled his eyes. He didn't particularly mourn the loss of Deepground – Nero had been the only one in the elite programme he truly cared about – but the obedience his office had warranted back then, now that was something he could do with right now. Having to take orders from someone else chafed, and he could sense Omega stirring, feeding off Oblivion's restlessness.
Alien thoughts, vast and incomprehensible and ancient flitted across his mind too swiftly to be grasped, disorientating and disconcerting all at once. It was like having someone else in his head, muscling in on his consciousness and trying to drown his own thoughts out – and in a way that was exactly what was happening; the indistinct muttering in Weiss' skull growing in volume and intensity, Omega rousing itself from dormancy at long last.
Weiss focussed, struggling to wrest some semblance of control. I'll be damned if I'll be made a fool puppet again –
The WEAPON lashed out at him, a spiked mind-thought slashing at neurons and sending nerve impulses stuttering to a halt.
Enough with your petty folly, human. So much corruption – I can feel it, all around me – all the taint in Oblivion, sullying everything it comes into contact with. This filth must be cleansed, Oblivion purged. We have much to do.
No, he thought fiercely, but Omega tightened its grip, and a white-hot flare of pain exploded in his head.
You will listen. There are some things that are far greater than your tedious causes, and this is one of them.
Weiss snarled, eyes watering under Omega's unforgiving onslaught. His head ached, a savage burn that made all resistance impossible; dimly he registered his knees buckling traitorously under him, sending him reeling, helpless, to the floor.
Fine. We'll do this your godsblasted way, but after this I'll –
"Weiss. What the fuck are you doing!" Sab hissed, wrenching him up, but it was too late. Their cover had been blown.
Alarmed shouts were ringing out along the corridor, "What was that!" and "Intruder alert!" and various other voices gobbing off in WRO-speak, accompanied by the not-so-reassuring flare of attack materia and the unmistakeable sounds of various weapons being unsheathed and unholstered.
Weiss staggered, blinking the spots out of his eyes, and Sab made an irritated tsking sound, "We don't sodding have time for this."
There was no conceivable reason for the sudden appearance of a Deepground soldier in the WRO compound, especially if this intruder had simply stepped out of thin air. Try as he might, Weiss couldn't see how they were going to get out of this one. Neither did Artimieva, judging from the agitated scowl on her features.
Weiss looked ashen. His face glistened with cold sweat, and he swayed gently, as if finding his feet for the very first time. Side effects of mako exposure, Sab decided. She'd never experienced it herself, but they'd all seen the failed SOLDIERS, crippled or driven insane by the intrusive experiments conducted on them, or worse, the Deformed – nightmarish hybrids of man and machine, mindless, mute and raging at the world –
It doesn't matter. Oblivion rasped. We have much to do. Blood for blood. The dark will rise again, and this time there will be no one tostop us. Kill them. Kill them all.
Yeah, she could do that. She spun to face them, and let the shadows go.
Oblivion was hungry, and alive – or at least, as close to alive as it could be, after so many years of forced dormancy. It had found a willing host, at long last, and it would feed to its heart's content. So many souls here, so many pulsing pinpricks of life around it, all calling out to be quenched and devoured.
It was so easy, it mused, so very easy to bend the wills of mortals to meet its own ends. Just a little taste of power and an empty promise of more to come, and they were hooked, impaled by their very own desires.
Nero had tried to fight, but Oblivion had consumed him in the end, darkness absorbing flesh and bone and the tattered, bloodstained remnants of his soul. It remembered the satisfying crunch of bone giving way and the snapping of ligaments as they were forced out of shape, the sharp burst of flavour his still-beating heart had afforded, copper-bright, how sated it had been after. If it had a mouth, it would be watering. No matter. I will have the girl, after Omega is dealt with. And then the planet itself, and the skies beyond. Where Jenova had failed, Oblivion would succeed. Let it be dark, and there would be night.
"Lieutenant-General," Ryden growled dangerously, "just what the fuck is going on?"
"I don't know, sir." The hapless trooper admitted, hoping Ryden wouldn't pick up on his agitation through the intercom system. He was a pen-pusher, not a fighter; but that hadn't mattered to his superiors when they'd nominated him for the post. Officers didn't need to be smart. What the Board had looked for was unquestioning obedience, and Lieutenant-General Drew fit the bill exactly.
Drew was sweating. One moment it had been business as usual, the next the alarms had gone and it was every man for himself. And then there had been the screaming, loud and terrible and agonised, and then a dread silence that was somehow even worse than the anguished cries.
Fingers shaking, he fumbled for the surveillance feed display. A sweep of the corridors revealed nothing. It would have been perfectly ordinary, except thatrooms bustling with personnel bare seconds ago were deserted.
"Sir!" A regular burst through the door, wide-eyed and practically whimpering, "There's a, a, shadows everywhere, sir, everyone's dead, came so fast I didn't – blood all over the floor, they're all gone, gone, I don't –"
"Calm down, auxiliary." Drew grasped for normalcy like a drowning man. He was floundering. It wasn't supposed to go like this. There was a procedure. Orders to be taken, executed. That sort of thing. This was ridiculous. Everyone knew shadows were harmless. Maybe it was some sort of nerve gas that caused people to hallucinate. Yes. That had to be it. A terrorist attack of some kind.
"Shadows, you say?" Ryden's voice had lost its earlier bite. Now he was pensive, and the only time Drew had seen the Director this thoughtful was usually when heads rolled.
"Sir, you can't be taking him seriously – " Drew began uncertainly.
"I wonder..." Ryden said slowly, ignoring him. Then, "Yes. I am. Send up the elites. I'll be in the containment chamber."
"But sir, the evacuation – " Drew tried desperately. Was the Director mad? This was a threat; it had to be dealt with as such, not ignored.
"Will not commence. I have this under control, Lieutenant-General. You have your orders." Ryden snapped, in a tone that suggested that if Drew didn't comply, he wouldn't remain an officer for long.
"Yessir. I'll deploy the squad at once." The beleaguered trooper muttered sullenly, caving to his superior and trying to ignore the unease niggling at the back of his mind.
