Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, Chapter #35: Ghosts of the Past. Another explosive chapter just passed on the horizon about a month ago, went and had a vacation, which was a great reprieve from thinking about fiction twenty/four seven. I went and had college orientation, have my classes for my first semester as a freshman in college selected, and there's been business with that. Back to the story, Robin nearly died, everyone besides her, Snake, Corrin, and Marth are in the sewers to some capacity, and Sheik is Corrin's daughter. Review replies!
Mr. Squirtle6- Our conversation last night was lovely about this story. Ah, Corrin has officially fallen from grace... surprised, you've always been an adamant supporter of her. Operation Canary seemed like it, but I don't think Robin has it in her to wish death on anyone, so I'd not be afraid of that outcome. That is a very nice connection to pick up with everything, of parents and things of the like. Lucas is Shulk's child, as is his unborn child, and where he is Corrin's, Roy is going to be Ganondorf's whether he likes it or not, and of course, Sheik.
Metroid-Killer- Shulk is a mixed bag. On one hand, he's not extremely complex, but at the same time... he is? He's sympathetic, I'll say. You can't help but pity him. You think the death of Robin would've been something that Sheik orchestrated? Interesting. And you think Midna will die by Ganondorf's hand? Even more interesting. Yes, Sheik was abandoned, and it is a slight bias for all this chaos, but it is not her entire line of reasoning. All will be revealed in due time.
SeththeGreat- Sheik does have an ire towards Corrin, yes. Did you suspect she was the daughter? I'm curious to know that. You already know the answer about The Needle regarding Corrin. You've always known. Ganondorf has his own reasons for his things, again all will be revealed in due time. Robin and Snake, I couldn't kill the single purest person in the story. A lot of characters in a cesspool of sewage... sounds great, doesn't it?
This chapter might not be as necessarily long as the others have been, it probably will be the shortest chapter for the arc, but there's some juiciness that's going to happen. Enjoy Chapter #35: Ghosts of the Past.
This is what the good life must feel like. The one always paraded around on the television screens, where men and women on planes hold glasses of coke in their hands, smiling, tossing their heads back, and light jazz music plays on the wind. It's what every little boy and girl dreams for, to live the good life, and yet here a silverette is doing just that; she's fulfilling her wishes back in the day when her father denies her the remote and her brother denies her a single quarter. Not to say that Corrin does not already have experience living the good life, but this moment right here is truly the kingpin of them all. It is sunny in D.C, a warm and comforting eighty-five degrees if her phone does not lie. She is sitting out on a terrace overlooking Pennsylvania Boulevard, sipping mint juleps, stirring the straw around the glass. Yes, she had a martini on the flight from Detroit, but there's never enough alcohol in her blood. It's the best advice that Link Collins ever gave her, great, a drunk politician, and it is her mission in life to use his words for good given the smearing shit trail Link left behind with his uncouth death. Besides, with what has transpired in the last few hours, perhaps the face of the country being drunk is going to be the easiest for them and her citizens.
She's lounging in a reclining chair, sweating underneath all of her fabrics, sweating underneath all of her gray and black, eyes covered by sunglasses so no one, should they ever intrude see the happiness reflected in the gaze swimming away from all the darkness. Being in Detroit, while the infrastructure collapses, it'd be so dreary and she does not have the time for it. The White House stands in its usual perch, gorgeous with the brand new coat of blizzard-white paint, so striking that it has its own glow, like the moon when the sun is behind it.
Yes, she knows the science behind moonlight and that the light is not truly the moon's, but she digresses and wants to pick and choose what she believes. There's never been any harm in that. It's what she's always done. When she inadvertently sends Fiora Roberts to her death, even whilst knowing about the pregnancy, it's for the greater good. She does it because she sniffs the rottenness from a mile away; Fiora is Denmark all over again, garbage falling off of porcelain skin and porcelain and there's no need for stragglers or rule-breakers in Syrenet or in her administration. Yes, it is tragic, and the president weeps over the gravestone, but only to be seen by the cameras. The disobedience of one of her best is inexcusable, a martyr, sure, but Corrin knows the truth. That Fiora wishes to rebel, and if she cannot keep her fledglings all in the nest, what's to say someone questions this on the campaign trail just a few years later.
You can have a sandcastle in your hands, but eventually it'll crumble regardless, given the composition. All Corrin has to do is start over again.
Back to her happiness, Corrin sits on her private balcony, with a waiter at her beck and call to fill up the glass should she feel lonely. She could've taken someone with her, instead of being by her lonesome, instead of being surrounded by faceless men in black suits and white ties, all nameless, all incompetent, all irrelevant. Corrin cannot picture anyone with her, however. Robin is not necessarily too fond of drinking, but she does it when the time calls for it, or when the knife nicks her barely underneath her chin like Corrin herself does back in the motel bar off the side of the road just three days ago.
Her vision clouds for a moment. Something must've happened back in Detroit. She's being told, she hears Robin on the other end of the call breathing heavily, that Operation Canary is underway. She waits, she anticipates the gun shot and she'll still mourn the loss of her best friend, the person who's been the most loyal to her - no, Robin Wyndel has undermined you every step of the way. You know who is the most loyal. He with the hair as bright as corn - but... business is business. Corrin hangs on precariously, and there are indeed gunshots. Not just one, though, like she expects. Multiple. And they sound deadly. Robin's screaming, Robin's crying, Robin is yelling at someone to get away from her, and Corrin recognizes the voice on the other end.
"It's me... Robin... it's me..." Snake's voice comes shakily through the phone speaker, before the call is dropped.
Corrin wants to chuck the mint julep off the balcony. Damn him! Damn him to hell! Nothing is going the way it is supposed to be. She snorts, for a second, always expecting it. She didn't remember that Snake is going to be by her side twenty-four seven, like a hawk watching its prey, and when she's put in danger - Robin, that is - the viper will follow.
But that's where Snake is wrong. He thinks he's the viper, purely because of his name. He's not lethal. He's just a harmless mimicry of me. I'm the viper. Tall, ominous, poisonous, my bite is lethal, and he rattled the wrong rattler.
She can hear the soothing tones of his voice through the phone, they reverberate through her skull, again, causing her to scoff. As if Snake would've ever said those words of 'it's me...' to her, in bed, like he probably wanted to. Who wouldn't want to court the President of the United States as a companion? That's quite an honor; Snake Karlo deserves no honorary of any sorts. He should burn in hell like all the others who have gotten in her way.
Yes, while it is shocking, Operation Canary is a fail-safe. It's why she cries, thinking about it on the plane, because it means her vice president's imminent death. The guise had been established long ago. Operation Canary is the last resort to have Robin be removed from a political situation surrounded by troublesome events. It is not out of malice, but to save her, to save the canary so something else, something actually wanting to hurt her does not break the bird's neck before it tries to sing from its cage. Remove Robin from the equation as collateral, remove her so it is not some leverage her enemies can use later. It's clean. A single gunshot wound to the back of the head is being better than tortured.
It gets her out of the way, not because Corrin is afraid that the vice president will ruin anything, but so it does not affect her. It's completely selfless, yet Snake does not see that, and it's stupid. She does not have a way to do anything about it sitting here drinking juleps, however Corrin will make her move when the chess table becomes clear again. All she has to wait for is Shulk's phone call.
She looks back over at the White House from her seat. It's empty today, by executive order - hers - due to the problem happening in Detroit. Rebels or the new city-state could try to destroy the symbol and all within it. A insatiable itch sits over Corrin's skin last night, in the tub, brushing away grime and dirt, that something could very well happen in D.C. The place is cleaned out. All top secret files taken, anything not stored anywhere else, most of the computer equipment and paintings and furniture... everything placed somewhere safe in case someone wants to try and make her losses their gains, and she's not having that.
Not a single soul inside, too, just to be safe. Even if a single janitor inside gets blown up, she'll feel guilty. There's no plan like with Robin about any of that, some are just plain innocent in this war of attrition, this war that is politics. The White House is not her legacy, she understands this, it took her awhile to figure that out. When the British sacked Washington D.C back during the War of 1812, when Dolly Madison, James Madison's wife, the First Lady fled, the spirit and symbol of America went with her, and that famous portrait of George Washington. Should Corrin lose it today, which she will, the spirit does not die. She thrives on, she continues pushing forward.
What matters now is Detroit. She cannot try and end Robin now, with the fail-safe actually failing, it'd make her look desperate. She has to let matters run its course, and if Corrin loses her vice president, she can always find another one. Everyone's replaceable, unfortunately. It's a lesson that the silverette knows only too well. Father figures, lovers, secret service agents, AI Units, vice presidents...
Even yourself, Madam President. You're replaceable. Even more so, you're expendable. I hope that hurts you to acknowledge. I take gleeful joy in that.
Will the demons in her head ever rest? She's not quite so sure.
With Detroit on the horizon, the game has to meet a bitter end somewhere. She has yet to resort to nuclear power throughout the entire ordeal, but perhaps if she had used it such a long time ago, maybe even back in Oklahoma City, all of the turmoil that has happened wouldn't exist. Better yet, she does it when Fiora goes away on her final mission, but before Corrin sends her, then all of this would not exist. No Council of Thirteen, no deranged Shulk Roberts falling into her bed with psychosis matters that she's always known about but has never done anything for. She needs him. He's a good fighter, better communicator, he'd be useless locked in some psychiatric ward with cotton padding and straitjackets. He'd be a liability, and ultimately she'd pull the trigger; anything to propel and maintain the safety of the United States of America Corrin commits to. After all, she took an oath.
She does need to get back to Detroit soon enough, or Chicago, or a city close enough to the city-state where she's not put in danger. Shulk's phone call meaning Operation Glass Ceiling has been executed is the kill switch, and then Syrenet can sing kumbaya and have enough manpower to finally be able to kill the roaches plaguing the red, white, and blue banner. There will be casualties. Corrin expects that the winged technician - oh God, what is his name again? - and one of the commanders, perhaps Shulk, maybe Ike... they won't last the ordeal. The rest will be changed, and they might have to go away quietly forever while the silverette sits on a throne of ashes.
Actually, Corrin Etch has run a lot of things through her fingers, felt a lot of material touch her pale flesh. There's been instances with pretty much every substance on Earth, except those detrimental to her health since she's been advised not to by doctors everywhere. Doctors say to drink water, excessively, yet when she does, all Corrin gets is bloated skin and wrinkles in her forehead, the much their word of advice did. A lot has gone through her fingers, a lot has slipped right through.
Velvet, silk, the blood of a fresh kill, sand, gravel, any sort of coarse stone. There's a time, desperate and depressed, but all the evermore true, where Corrin feels her dreams slip through her fingers, where it is a phantom touch, a phantom-like kiss that barely grazes the flesh, enough to keep her warm, but it is still a miss. If she does not land on the bulls-eye of the target, it is a failure, regardless of how close. She's touched velvet, silk, blood from animals, blood from men... her dreams, even, perhaps on a dose of narcotics, but never ashes.
Never ashes.
What does that feel like? She has no idea. To sit there and have someone's life and soul, or your figurative hard work just slip through flesh and fall to the ground. Corrin is determined that it is a final straw sort of method. Nothing like that will happen under her protection, most certainly not. People would have to be out of their damn mind. Perhaps she is out of her mind. She's considered that possibility.
The shadows that speak to her, the sideways glances that she thinks her staff are giving her, when actually they're of sympathy... they build and form a wonderful relationship. Paranoia does its work, and she's one to believe in that sort of thing.
Corrin reaches into the breast pocket of her jacket. There's a saying that she's thinking of now, sitting under the sun, drinking with a carefree attitude like no one's business, and not having a true care in the world. Of course, she cares, but not as much as she'd ever let on.
Something is inside, almost in the shape of a lighter, but who is she kidding, she does not smoke. That's never been in her itinerary, to smoke. She still has that dreadful, awful taste of the cigar Link gave her lingering in the back of her throat, where it mixes with the saliva of Cloud's whiskey breath while he bemoans about senatorial bills and congressional meetings. It clashes with the fieriness that is Shulk and his entire persona, a lightning storm in the clouds, clouds filled with shards of amaranthine stain-glass, with locks of blonde hair dancing in the wind like a messed up pair of Marionette dolls.
Corrin views herself to be her own sort of Marie Antionette. A guillotine is coming for her, while she indulges in cake and eats all the fineries, but if something is going to kill her, it might as well be herself, which she hopes. Corrin Etch, to herself, is her worst enemy, and her greatest asset, yet she has not figured out the way to tie everything together. A master plan out there, and currently Option B is resting in her pocket.
She slides a thumb over it, the material smooth, like the cap to a stick of lipstick. Painted black, most likely, to arouse suspicion, because if you're the president and you do not have fifty pairs of eyes looking over your way, you're doing something wrong. This could be a game changer, to push Syrenet to its maximum limits, that the rebels would dare do such a thing to the President... and she's sitting in the ashes, feeling them for the first time, laughing, laughing contently like she has never laughed before in her life.
The silverette can picture their faces. All of them. Robin, in her moments of confusion about what has transpired breaking down entirely, crystalline tears staining her cheeks. Snake's jaw locked in place, fingers desperately typing away at cell phone numbers for arrangements and missile strikes. Ike, swallowing gin, wincing, not because of the gin, but because of all the curses she knows he has yet to say to her. Roy, shaking his head, frowning to himself... their conversation on the rooftop about fakery and fakeness, it should put the puzzle pieces together slightly for some. Then, at the end there's Shulk. Not crying. Not saying a word. Pure silence. Pure... pure agony. Surely there must be a feeling of some kind to express, undoubtedly, but actually, Corrin is not so sure.
She's used him, granted, but he's had a taste of the heavens, where the streets are painted gold, and sitting in God's golden chair is her, arms outstretched, telling him how good of a job he's done, if he does this last one thing.
If she does this one last thing, then the faces will become a reality, certainly.
Corrin slides her thumb over the cylindrical object in her pocket, flicking upwards, and the cap falls off.
She takes the object out of her breast pocket in her jacket, and she stares at the foreign item in her hands. There's a single object underneath the cap, a button, blinking red, connecting, connecting, tissues that connect to organs, organs that connect to an organ system... it is now or never.
The silverette takes a deep breath. The President of the United States takes an even deeper breath. Corrin Etch takes the deepest breath she has ever taken in her life.
Down, her finger presses.
The White House across from her, in a flurry of noise, deafening to the ear, the empty mansion in all its glory, the symbol of the country and its power... it explodes in a blast, fire lacerating into the sky, incinerating the clouds.
Corrin's heart soars, and the elixir of euphoria flows through her veins.
The reflection of the explosion is in her eyes, as she drowns in the feeling.
It... she cannot describe it.
It is beautiful.
The fifth light to the left from his head is broken, blinking haphazardly. Marth has pressed the button to call in the nurse over a thousand times at least to get someone in his hospital room to fix it, yet no one has arrived. No one answered his plea then, and no one is responding now, as he calls out weakly over the scrambling noise. Something is going on, he has the intuition to know that in the least, given his military experience and acute senses. Outside, in the city, there must be turmoil, and the hospital is evacuating all of its patients out to be airlifted.
Where? Marth has gotten not a clue.
Since Ike's visit, where the ex-commander wishes death on himself, Marth has laid in bed, been fed applesauce, and watched reruns of old sitcoms on the television screen placed in the far back of the room. When he's able to, by voice command, ask Lucina to awake herself from the slumber of being an AI Unit, since an AI Unit has a lot to do, that fills his time while he talks with her. Over the last few days, since being shot, he's had doctor after doctor explain his situation. There's a solution in sight, and the bluenette does not necessarily know if it means he's going to be put down like some sort of dog or rather be put back together, like a shattered China doll.
Something erroneous has been happening for the last hour. The hospital room shakes, some plaster falling, and he's been told by panicked nurses that he'll be moved immediately when the patients are evacuated in the order. Evacuated from what, though? What has also been weird is that Lucina's functions, as his AI Unit, have been diminished. He's unable to physically speak with her, where she cannot appear in holographic form on the disc, a foot tall in stature, so he's left communicating with the open air.
Ike leaves a gift. A communicuff which has direct linking to many of Syrenet's personal cell phone numbers and Lucina's disc. The communicuff is his only way of speaking to his AI Unit now, awaiting something similar like a text message to anything he asks.
"Lucina, any progress?"
Negative.
"You can't reach of the any AI Units?"
Negative, Marth. Lucas reads offline, Lyn is turned off physically by Ike, and other communication pathways are blocked by the signal of Detroit's Needle.
Marth frowns to himself. A commander can personally turn off their AI Unit, which is what he's done plenty of times when he needs peace and quiet, but this is something different. Lucas being read as offline means that Shulk did not choose to turn the disc off normally, or something compromised the technological integrity of the device, which is unheard of.
"How about cell numbers?"
Ike, Corrin, Robin, Snake, Roy, Shulk, and Pit all go straight to voicemail. Mac and Midna's say that their cells are unavailable.
If this is the perfect time to leave the commander completely confused, his companions have picked an amazing opportunity to do it. From what he can hear, the world is going to shit outside and he can't get in contact with any of his friends or co-workers. That is not worrying at all.
Marth places his head back on his pillow in frustration. A nurse had just come by to say that he's the next to be evacuated, and the bluenette chalks it up to a natural disaster. A volcano sounds pretty out of the ordinary for the mainland America, and it's what he picks. Laying by himself has proven to be quite odd where his only real pastime is his thoughts. Everything he had feared about, opening to Ike, and opening up to Pit in the library, it came true when that rebel severed his spine with a bullet.
He does not want to die, not yet. His statement comes from anger, which is understandable, but also because Marth is used to looking at things through the narrowest lens he can find, no matter how detrimental that effort may actually be to him. It is not healthy, he knows. It must be soul crushing, if Marth placed himself in his best friend's shoes, to be told that someone who is practically sewn in at the hip to wish to die... how demoralizing that must be, how awful.
The room shakes again, and Marth grips the side of the hospital bed for support. "Nurse?" he calls out again, his voice rising slightly in panic, then aloud to Lucina, "What is the structural composition and its state? How we doing? In fear of collapse?"
None, Mr. Lowell. Structural state is at 85%, and it lessens by not even one-third a shake. We'll be fine.
Marth looks around his room again. When he's forced to leave, the nurse will need to take Lucina with him, and the gun sitting on the counter. Via a whole lot of arguing and threatening, Corrin is able to persuade the hospital to allow Marth to have a gun in close proximity, just in case some rebels wish to be all sneaky and attack him after an attempted murder earlier. It is not the weirdest precondition he has heard, and there's been plenty.
He freezes, hearing something down the hall.
"What was that...?" he asks warily, but Lucina does not answer. The AI Unit must still be in the dark, too.
Then he hears it. A woman shouting, a nurse most likely, demanding that someone has to get out. From what it sounds like, there's two people in the lobby, and the nurse wants them to leave. There's something else, unintelligible to Marth's ears, and then gunshots. He jolts in his bed, head whirling to the pistol placed on the bedside table. The nurse screams, and then the sound falls silent... she's dead, and someone just shot her, and that means they are not friendly. The proximity is very, very close to his room.
Though he cannot walk, Marth can move his body sideways and the complete dead weight that is his lower half by lifting himself off the bed and moving over with his hands. He strains, collapsing back onto the bed after moving an inch or two. Sweat breaks down his forehead, arms already starting to ache. He's out of shape, beyond out of shape. Now he can hear the sound of shoes hitting tile, footsteps, and those are the sounds of dress shoe heels. Service men, political men. Serious men, without a doubt. He hears one of them talking, low, but not low enough where he can still hear them.
"About to execute Operation Falchion, Madam President..."
Madam President? Operation Falchion? Corrin?
Marth strains over again, now as close to the side of the bed as he can get. He reaches out with his left hand, luckily not hooked up to any IV on that side. The pain is unbearable with his right arm, wires and needles poking and being pulled out. The footsteps are getting closer, softer, quieter... these people must be here for his room. His fingers ghost over the butt of the pistol, and just out of his grip before the gun falls to the floor in a clatter.
"Fuck!" he swears, not caring that his mouth is extremely crude.
Another nurse further down in the building pauses from pushing away an old man on life support down the hall toward the helipad when she hears the first gunshot. It is faint, followed by the scream, but it sounds, to her, to be the A.C unit kicking back on, or another tremor from the bombs outside. Two more gunshots follow shortly thereafter, and apologizing immediately, she takes off towards the noise. She's crazy, she's defenseless, but those are her patients potentially in danger.
The noise comes from Room 52A, and she skids in, before a scream breaks from her throat.
Two men are laying dead in the center of the hospital room, bullet holes in the center of their heads, copper spilling out onto the tile. Looking over in the corner, another yell hitches itself in her throat at the sight of Marth Lowell, a worker of Syrenet, crumbled in the corner between the bed and counter, laying on his back against the wall shakily, legs deadweight, holding a pistol in his hands, that are visibly trembling, the barrel smoking.
He takes a deep breath, swallowing. "You want to help me get out of here, beautiful?"
The gun clatters to the floor, Marth resting a hand over his heart.
"Let's not do this again..." he says.
Agreed.
He smirks at Lucina's response, before frowning.
Someone just tried to kill an incapacitated, now paraplegic ex-commander of Syrenet, and by the way their dressed, in fine suits and ties and their earpieces... they aren't rebels. Are they Secret Service? And why did they say... 'Madam President'?
If Corrin is not the one to ask for a hit on his life, who would it be?
The banter fills the dining room comfortably, the glow of lit candles illuminating shadows onto the wall where kids make shadow puppet movements with their hands. Shulk smiles to himself, seeing a toddler stand up on the booth to the protest of his parents, playing with his shadow. Soon enough, that feeling of adorableness will be his. Eventually, one day, he's one lucky man. One last trimester and then there'll be a squalling, red-faced life form in his hands that he can claim as his child, with his wife smiling at him from her hospital bed... his heart fills with joy. There's so much on the horizon for them.
He spots her from the hostess stand, shimmying with the expert movement of a line dancer through the chairs, muttering apologies and 'excuse me' past tables and waiters before standing firm at his dinner table. She is already sitting down, a glass of water on its dainty coaster, a white sheet thrown over the table, a tall vase of roses placed in the corner next to the salt and pepper shakers. Likewise, similar to all the others, a candle rests in the center between them, but it'll take more than that to break the feeling of love between he and her.
His wife, Fiora, smiles up at him, and she stands up, throwing her arms around her husband in a warm vice. It's been four days since they last saw each other, on business matters, strictly business matters, and now she's here and they're having a dinner, all expenses paid by the restaurant... it's a miniature sliver of paradise on a silver platter. He kisses her when they break from the embrace, holding her by the shoulders.
"You look lovely tonight, Fiora," he says.
"This old thing?" she smiles abashedly, gesturing to the backless and body tight fuchsia dress accentuating her curves. "I just pulled something random out of the closet," a warm kindling emanating from her eyes. "You look great too, Shulk. You always do."
He presses a hand to her extended belly, the feeling of life spreading throughout his palm and to the tips of his fingers. "How's the baby?"
"Kicking, alive and well," Fiora answers, looking down. Her bump is rotund now, with there not being all too long now. It'll be the changing of a season, their child here before they'll even know it.
"I sometimes can't believe we'll be parents..." he says, almost wistfully.
She raises an eyebrow, patting him on the shoulder. "Settle down there. Let's get to the birthing stage first, then being parents after that."
Although her chair is already pulled out, Shulk goes over to it and extends it further enough so she can sit back down while he scoots her in, giving another peck on the back of the neck because he can. He takes his seat, scooting back up to the table so he can hold hands with her even over the open flame. He'll dare to do it, he's not scared of it or anything. The blonde unfurls the rolled up silverware, placing the cloth in his lap while orderly lining up the silverware in the same manner he does every time. The fork and knife is closest to his right hand in case he needs to use it for defense purposes, and the spoon closest to the spices so he can dish himself out the right amount if his food order amounts to needing more salt or pepper.
"I was surprised to get your call," Shulk opens the conversation, straightening the napkin in his lap.
"I figured a dinner date was long overdue," Fiora's hair is long and down tonight, like the extensions of a sunray's reach or the pouring of a fresh glass of lemonade. "When was the last time we had a real meal together? When's the last time we didn't eat by ourselves, didn't eat fast food, or two-week old leftovers?"
"I thought your meeting with the president was supposed to take longer. You called me around five, when I thought you weren't supposed to be done with business until seven."
Fiora locks her jaw for a second, so fast a normal human wouldn't catch it, but he does. He sees everything his wife does, and she sees everything her husband does. They do not share secrets from each other. It is an agreement to one another when they first meet, let alone before they exchange vows surrounded by pale silk. "We finished early. Corrin didn't have much to discuss."
Shulk frowns, sitting back up against his chair, which creaks under duress. Part of it is due to her strange behavior a brief moment ago, but the other is that he's trying to catch her in the light of the candle, to illuminate her in just the upmost perfect way. He takes up drawing specifically for her, and there are way too many self-portraits in their house of her, but that's because it's all Shulk seems to be able to draw. She notices this, the way his eyes get a bit smaller, since he's focusing.
"What are you doing?"
"Looking at you in the light..."
"People will stare," she whispers.
"Let them," he shrugs. "I don't care. I wish I had my camera so I could take a picture and draw this later. You look incredible."
Fiora blushes. Their relationship is so sweet, it would definitely kill a diabetic, but sometimes even his flattery is too much, no matter how much Shulk says it is all deserved. He tilts his head to the left, eyes widening like he's tasted a morsel of Pandora's box... and... there. With his head at what he garners to be a forty three degree angle, the way the candlelight flickers under her chin, bringing the glow up to her eyes, accentuated by the swathe lines of eyeshadow and application of blush, and with the strands of her breaking past the shoulder, there she is. His own, personal Mona Lisa, one that is way better, one that makes Leonardo Da Vinci weep into his pillow cover at night.
Before he forgets, Shulk pulls his phone out of his pocket. He hesitates, thinking about taking a picture of Fiora with the phone camera, but it is not the same quality in any respectful means the way it'd be with something fanciful; he needs the best of the best for his fair lady in order to capture her flawless essence perfectly. The phone rests the side of the table, close enough to fall to the floor if he's not careful, but careful is Shulk Roberts' middle name. It is there for business purposes only, should the president or vice president demand their help or opinion or anything of the sort.
Her eyes flit to it briefly, darkening some. She swallows, tucking her head in closer to her chest. "You've seen the news, I'd take it?"
"You'd have to be a hermit not to," Shulk answers, rubbing his chin. "Detroit?" There's a glass of water next to his left elbow, which she must've ordered. The two have taken personal vow off of alcohol given their almost there newborn, since it is unfair for him to drink and tempt Fiora which could be damaging for the baby. Thank god neither one of them smoke. He takes a sip, the beginning bit of the black straw vanishing behind a curtain of white teeth.
Fiora stirs the cubes in her glass, placing a hand underneath her head, eyes slightly glazed over. Shulk frowns again, scratching his arm. What's up with her? She's never been this... this demure about anything. "Yeah, Detroit..."
Shulk sits upright somewhat, crossing his hands together. A comforting movement, it's what he does when he's troubled. "Has Corrin made any developments on what we're going to do? Diplomatic force? Militaristic force?"
His wife gives a grimace, going to sip her water. Where's their waiter? "She wants to drop a bomb. Nukes, most likely, by her vehement word choice. However, we can't do that..." her lips release from the straw, Shulk watching her swallow. A heavy swallow. Why is that? "The municipality of Detroit itself... there's three fourths of a million people there. Then, the metropolitan area makes it the second most populated city in the Midwest."
"How many people there?" Shulk asks.
"2.8 million."
"Shit..." the commander of Alpha Squad whistles. "That's-"
"A lot of people," Fiora finishes for him. "You can't just drop nuclear bombs or any sort of firepower like that on nearly four million people. The ramifications of that amount of loss of life alone is- I can't even begin to imagine it. Then, not to mention, they're all U.S citizens. Legality of it, alongside the moralistic views... we can't use hard militaristic action, at least not the way Corrin wants too..."
"Do we have a different solution, then? It won't be fixed by itself," he comments. "Either we do something, or Detroit secedes away from the Union as a city-state and they become a country smack dab on the border of Canada. Talk about screwing worldwide politics..." Shulk scowls into his ice water.
"We do have a solution..." she responds to him, her hands running down the length of her arms, during which Fiora sits back away from her seat, her voice tapering off. Shulk sits up, noticing the tonal shift. A complete cloud of darkness has passed over his wife's face, an emotion he's seen only once before and that had been with the death of her younger brother to cancer.
"Honey?" he asks. "What's wrong?"
She looks away for a moment, not saying anything. "Shulk, I-" but she can't bring herself to finish the statement,
Shulk shifts some, grabbing his wife's hand, pressing hard, squeezing. "You can tell me, whatever it is. Please, Fiora, you're worrying me..."
Fiora swallows, again with heavy movement, before closing her eyes, not opening them until her next sentence is over. "Corrin's plan is Syrenet. Specifically, me."
If there is supposed to be a gravitas moment, he misses it. Shulk raises an eyebrow, not following. "I don't think I understand. What do you mean?"
She takes a shaky breath. "I'm being sent to Detroit to stop their rebellion."
Whatever thought processes are going through Shulk's head come to an immediate, grinding halt. He has one hand around the base of his ice water glass, and by the force of his squeeze, it'll shatter sooner than later under the pure brutishness that is his grip. He must've misheard her. There's no way Corrin Etch, the President of the United States, with all her advisors, with all of her expertise, with the smartness inside her... is considering sending his wife, his pregnant wife... to Detroit. To stop an entire city, now by Fiora's answer, a population of near four million people from breaking off the Union's boundaries. One woman, a single man army, against four million. He needs to pinch himself. He must be dreaming. This sounds insane. It IS insane, more likely.
He stutters a nervous laugh. "I'm sorry... what? Say that again, Fiora. You're going to Detroit? Corrin is sending you to Detroit as the response for this mess?"
Fiora has brought her hands to her mouth, to bite down on her fingernails, but she hesitates, every swallow as if she's enduring a mountain passing down her throat. "I wish I was joking, I-"
"Did you happen to mention that you're... oh, I don't know, six months fucking pregnant!" Shulk demands, raising his voice a bit.
"Of course I did," she snaps back. "What do I look like to you? A wench? Of course I said that. I mentioned how I'm in the last trimester..."
"And even with all of that-"
"She's demanding I go."
Shulk sits back, tapping his fingers against the table. His perfect view is gone, her hair blowing by some invisible wind, a sour taste building in his mouth. No, something's wrong. Names had to have been pulled out of a hat or something, there's- there's no way... he scoffs. This is supposed to be their night, away from Syrenet, away from the silver viper, away from all the problems the outside world has been putting on their shoulders, but no matter how far he runs it comes back to him. "Why didn't you refuse? Why didn't you hold your ground?"
"I tried," Fiora protests. "Corrin was adamant, Shulk! Besides, what was I supposed to do then if I disobeyed her? You know what's in our contract! She'd conscript us, she'd send me there whether I agreed or disagreed. I'm trapped in this; I have to go."
"I have to go with you, then," he argues.
"You can't. She says you're not allowed to-"
"I have to get permission from Corrin while my pregnant wife is going to be in a war-zone? Oh, I don't fucking think so!" Shulk exclaims, pounding a fist on the table.
Fiora closes her eyes. They're making a scene. She can sense the eyes bearing into her back, the hushed whispers, and how it makes her skin crawl. "You have your own missions to worry about. She needs you in Mexico, honey."
"Drug cartels and human trafficking can wait. This is more important!"
"I'm not saying it isn't, but you can't. She'll force you to stay home, violently if she has to. I'm going alone," she says, almost with resolve, as if she's writing away her own demise.
"Why can't any other squads go? Why only Alpha?"
"If she takes out the squads that are resting from their injuries or last mission, it's a breach of contract," Fiora answers at length, fiddling with her hands, unsure of where to place them. "If we take out any team currently doing work, New Zealand's Prime Minister is assassinated, someone blows up half the continent of Australia, the oil reserves in Saudi Arabia fall into terrorist hands, and the most dangerous Mexican drug cartel in the country's history suddenly rules Mexico," she argues.
A feeling like being stabbed places itself in the middle of Shulk's chest, right between his pecs. He glares at his wife, an expression he can count on one hand the number of times he's ever done. "Do not guilt trip me into performing my mission."
"You took an oath to your country, as did I!"
"I'm going to think that the stupid Syrenet oath is going to be trumped over by my wife's paramount safety, Fiora!"
She raises a hand, before falling into it with her forehead, closing her eyes, taking a deep breath. "I'm not trying to argue with you, Shulk. I'm just letting you know that this is what's going on. It's why I wanted to have dinner tonight, so I could tell you."
"You ruined the evening," he spits at her bitterly.
"That wasn't my intention."
He sits back again, taking another sip, exchanging glances across the restaurant. They've still not been received by a waiter. That's odd, too odd for his liking. "Please tell me you're not going alone. If you are, I'm marching right down to Corrin's office, and I swear to everything I'm putting my fist through her throat."
Fiora places her palms on the table, and he sees that she's starting to sweat. "I can't go with everything. She's letting me borrow the Monado sword, and I get a team of fifteen guys with me. Syrenet suit, and customizable AI Unit..."
Shulk closes his eyes, chewing on the inside of his cheek. It isn't enough to him, but sometimes wise men do not make demands of kings, or queens for that matter. It is still better than nothing. Even by herself, and even pregnant, Fiora is an adept fighter, better than him, he'll admit. She has not been in many physically demanding missions since her announcement of being with child, but her marksmanship is by far the best in Syrenet. She'll be fine, he has to tell himself, to even be able to keep the nerves at bay.
He hates this.
The commander of Alpha Squad runs a hand over his face. "I don't like it, Fiora, I really don't."
"I don't either."
"What exactly is your mission? How are you doing whatever it is Corrin is making you do?"
Fiora takes a deep breath, her shoulders rising and falling. "I have three missions, wrapped up in one. I have to dismantle the entire rebellion itself, try and bring it to a standstill or destroy it entirely. All thirteen members on Detroit's self created council have to be eliminated, executed in any way I see fit, and I have to turn something they've built called The Needle to our advantage."
"The Needle?" Shulk raises an eyebrow.
"Some sort of telecommunications tower that the city built a few months ago. Apparently... it does... something, and I need to try and reverse it."
"So, you're doing a covert mission?"
She nods, gamely. "I'm sorry, Shulk, but... my hands are tied."
"You could still say no, Fiora."
She makes a sad noise in her throat, eyes going downcast towards her glass of water. Fiora presses her lips together in a thin line. "You know that's not truly possible."
He leans back in his chair once more, placing a knuckle in the space between his lips and his nose. "When- when's your flight?"
"10:00 PM..." she says, after a stasis of silence, where the candle cracks, and Shulk's heart falls.
"That's not even three and a half hours away, Fiora. We weren't even going to eat, were we?" by the look she gives him, Shulk is going to pummel something into the window they're sitting at. He laughs bitterly. "Whenever we think we're out of Syrenet's crosshairs, we're sniped again. Dammit..."
Fiora checks her phone in her pocket, making a face that he's unable to read. "It's getting late, Shulk. I- I need to get ready for my flight..." she stands up, and he does too likewise.
Before she has the chance to do anything, he has her arms wrapped around her. They must hug for three or four minutes, his face against her shoulder, breathing in the lavender aroma of her hair, hands resting on the small of her back, fingers plaiting at the spine, the swell of her stomach distending his some, as he whispers pretty nothings into her ear. Sometimes, he can't even believe she's real. Sometimes, he can't even believe she's his, with the way things go on between them. When his wife returns from this mission, knocking Detroit down nine pegs or so, safe and sound, he'll be a father, and then she can be his forevermore, away from Syrenet and its branch-like claws, from the emerald-eyed stare demon in the dark, who hisses like a snake, who has the sweetness of a toddler and the killing abilities like Jack the Ripper.
He places a kiss against the side of her temple. "I love you, Fiora. I love you more than anything in this world."
When she looks at him, there's tears in her eyes. She never cries. She's never cried for something as municipal as a goodbye. "I love you too, Shulk."
Then, she briskly walks off, his gaze following her, the pride of seeing the swell of her stomach, the bitterness that there is no dinner plans, and the fact his wife is out of his grasp again when he had just had her.
Even now, with years of thinking, Shulk Roberts never imagines that this is the last time, that the last words he truly does say are 'I love you' before she's taken from him and she dies.
His ghosts of the past are coming back to haunt him.
DRIP, DRIP
It is silent in Ganondorf's underground sewer chamber, the shaking having ceased, no more booming noises echoing around the walls. It is silent, save for the occasional drip-drip that is the noise of blood droplets landing onto the ground, the ruby red wake coming from Roy's shredded pinkie finger on his right hand. He looks at it emptily, no emotion in his gaze, as he watches the blood from his finger glide unceremoniously. The pinkness of his flesh is split down the middle, embedded about an inch deep is a wire running through his pinkie to the knuckle, the flesh wound still hurting some, his screams long abandoned to the pipes.
Ganondorf sits back, admiring his work. As he cuts away and tears away, and while Roy pleads for him to stop, the agony being unbearable, there'll be wires through every finger, to each knuckle, then in his chest, down his spinal cord to his feet, and embedded into his brain, while the color leaves the redhead's face. This is not what he signed up for, and he should have never thought to take the cyborg alone. What is he thinking? Roy hopes he does not die doubting himself, in this dark prison cell. It'd be an awful way to go. He's being tortured clearly, not just by having bits and pieces inserted into his body, but at the speed it is done to him. The cyborg is above him, straddling him in the most uncomfortable position ever, digging in with blades and scissors, taking his precious time, just to gloat. To call Roy his creation, his influence, his inspiration, his niche, his muse... on and on he goes, while all Roy sees is the blinding white of agony.
"You already look much better than you did before..." Ganondorf admires his first step. "One single wire, but now you're already being connected to the Syrenet mainframe..."
"Burn- burn in hell..." Roy says weakly, struggling again, with whatever the metal holding him in the chair had been.
The councilor quirks an eyebrow. "You and your whispers... sometimes I forget you're even here," Ganondorf turns back around to the array of tools, and he picks up the next wire. "You're doing remarkably better than Fiora. She fainted with the first incision, and came in and out of consciousness. You're still awake. In pain, but awake..." When he turns around, placed in his hands is a spool of wire, but not like those for electrical outlets, more so copper wire. Roy's eyes widen. "This is for your spinal cord, helps conduct electricity and keeps the nodes alive and functioning all the time. Sensory overload." If that goes in his spine, Roy's dead, flat out certain. "However," Ganondorf says, and for a brief solace of thirty seconds, he's relieved, "Since your body is recovering from my first insertion of cyber technology and wires, I can't just go drilling into your spinal cord. I have to wait for a recursive period."
This dynamic the two have, Roy's never seen anything like it. Ganondorf is evil, no doubt in his mind, and especially twisted, like a modern-day Frankenstein, but yet he talks and laughs and giggles and chortles, and maybe there's a loose screw somewhere. What is he supposed to say? Thank you? "I think you're insane..." the Syrenet worker moans weakly, shifting around in his bondage some more, still unable to get loose. None of his exertions while being in pain did anything, where actually the metallic bindings got tighter, constricting airflow and bulking the veins to the surface so he bled more.
Ganondorf smirks to himself. "Insane, Mr. Arcadia? No, I'm not insane. I like to call myself a visionary," he crosses his arms. "You know who's insane, don't you?"
Roy frowns. Is this monster of a half-human really trying to have a conversation with him when he's about to be mutilated? It seems like a serious case of bad-guy syndrome. He raises an eyebrow, and because, maybe, if he keeps the councilor talking, it'll prolong the inevitable just in case someone somehow saves him and Shulk completes his mission at the Needle. Keep the villain talking; Roy's always been a good talker. "No..."
"Your president, Corrin, is. She's insane," the cyborg answers. He sneers. "I hate her with every fiber of my being."
"You're not the only one to."
"I hate her for a whole different reason though, Mr. Arcadia," Ganondorf runs the spool of copper wire over his fingertips, olive green skin colliding with the flair of red, a stunning red, a blood-red. Roy's hair, Midna's hair, Fiora's blood clinging to the wire... and a burning anger inside the Syrenet worker's stomach. "She pretends I don't exist. Do you know what she did when we met? Before I murdered the council and everything?" Roy cannot understand the angle that Ganondorf is striving for here, but he frowns at the mention that the two had met before. When would they have met? "Your valiant bitch of a president looked me in the eyes and said she didn't recognize me. I knew she was a politician, but not a liar to her own goals, either."
"What are you talking about?"
"She's the reason I exist, Mr. Arcadia."
Everything comes to a screeching halt in Roy's mind. None of this is making sense. Wait- wait a minute. What? Out of the blue comes this cyborg freak meshed with technology, killing the other political leaders, and there's supposed to be a bridging connection between all this? His mouth goes dry at the notion of what he's about to say. "You're half-human, half-machine. That would mean there was a human testing component to the Syrenet program and-"
"I was the first volunteer," he replies smugly, walking up to Roy's chair. He grips the other redhead by the jaw, forcing him to look into his eyes. Roy groans in pain at his right hand being flung around, and he tightens against the restraints. "I volunteered for human testing and she observed me get poked, prodded, torn apart, and turned into this... like I'm doing for you. However, she decides to stop it all together and the project is only half-done. She tosses me here to Detroit and forgets about me. We met, and she simply forgot!" Ganondorf tightens the pressure on Roy's jaw, so much that his ears pop, and he hisses through clenched teeth. "Since she isn't here for me to bestow my gift, you're gonna be her fall guy!"
He's got to be lying. There's no way what Ganondorf is saying to be true at all. That's impossible. It means cover-ups, scandals... things that Roy would've never imagined or dreamed. "You're lying!" he yells back in the cyborg's face, mustering as much strength as he can through the pain. He is intimidated by Ganondorf, but underneath the chrome, metal plating, is someone who never got their way, and is making Syrenet's losses, his gains.
Ganondorf releases Roy, giving a shout of anger, pacing the room. "Lying? Lying? You accuse me of lying, Mr. Arcadia? I was the beginning of her empire and she discarded me like trash!"
"Corrin may not be the best, but she certainly wouldn't associate herself with you?"
The cyborg pinches the bridge of his nose, resting down on the work bench, holding the pair of scissors, the metal stained a putrid crimson with the blood of Roy's hands. He chuckles lowly to himself - Ganondorf does, a chuckle that is from the darkest abyss, the deepest trench - while moving the scissors back and forth. "I want to send these into your skull so badly right now, but I can't do that." Roy's heartbeat begins to quicken. Perhaps engaging with the enemy in a discourse that is hostile is not the best plan of action. Ganondorf tilts his head to the left, like a cat's. He tries another angle. "You know what Shulk is doing right now? What the Needle truly stands for?"
Roy has an idea. Not a good one, but an idea, since the blonde's orders weren't exactly foolproof or fully explained. "Enough to beat both you and the rebels."
Ganondorf spins the scissors around his pointer finger on his left hand through the larger of the two hoops. He tilts a head upwards. "The Needle, since I was here when it was constructed, is a telecommunications resource. It can spy on anyone in the world, connect with any satellite in outer space, and much more than that. Why would Corrin want to use something like that, with Operation Glass Ceiling? What would it gain her?"
The other redhead tries blocking his words out. All Ganondorf is trying to do is instill seeds of doubt in Roy, to turn him against his friends, his co-workers, his boss, and family... and all he has to do is not faint or die by technological surgery, kick Ganondorf's ass, beat back the rebels, and he'll be fine. However, something tickles at the back of his mind. Something Corrin had said to him, while they were camped out on the rooftop, but he couldn't remember what it had been; his memory fails him at the worst times. Roy bites down on the inside of his cheek, deciding to humor Ganondorf. "It'd make Corrin see anything and everything. She'd rule not just the country, but the world, wouldn't she?"
"She would," the cyborg nods. "Would you be surprised in knowing that when Fiora had come here, back when things were full blown to shit, her mission was to activate the Needle?"
"And you stopped her?" The rest goes unsaid, but Roy thinks it in his head. Killed her, mutilated her, murdered her unborn baby, left Shulk wifeless, childless, soulless... you'll burn in hell, you bastard.
"I did," Ganondorf admits. "Partially because of my own desire, and because I was ordered to. By President Corrin herself."
The air in Roy's throat seizes up, and he coughs, choking on his spit. "You're lying..." he hisses out, once more.
A small cooing noise comes from the other man's throat, as he dances with the scissors in his hands. "Am I though?" He advances back up to Roy, scissors in hand, and the Syrenet employee starts to tremble on instinct. "Your gears are turning, trying to figure out if I'm telling the truth. But it's pointless, because you know I'm right..."
If any word that Ganondorf is saying is true, then that means Corrin has orchestrated herself a dynasty... that Fiora learns about the Needle and its power, confronts the president, she's sent to stop a rebellion, killed, and now the chance happens all over again. Roy doesn't want to believe it, but it's the way Ganondorf says it, where there's no real sense of a silver tongue or persuasion. Just talking, hard, cold, facts and truth.
Roy shakes his head. "Corrin would never- Shulk is-"
"Fiora was eliminated because she got in the way," Ganondorf lifts his head triumphantly, smiling. "She reached out to me to help her do it, but I don't think she expected me to take it as far as I did, killing the child and all, but there is to be no loose ends after all. It was simple. Murder Fiora, and Corrin acts like it was an act of war, a scapegoat used for Congressional power, which she's yet to execute..." he places a hand on Roy's shoulder. "However, when I did what I was supposed to, she left me again. Left me here, to rule this stupid country, and she doesn't extend me gratitude..."
"You sound unbelievably childish..."
"SHE ABANDONED ME!" Ganondorf roars, and in his fit of rage, punches Roy square across the jaw. The redhead goes sprawling backwards, spitting blood from his mouth. God, that guy can slug a hit. The chair with its strange metallic ropes pushes itself back to a square position, the cyborg resuming his pacing. "That bitch left me here to rot! She came back, and I decided I wasn't going to be hers anymore. When I'm done creating you, I'm going to go and remove Shulk's head from his body, as you watch your friends die! I'm going to kill her, destroy her, as she watches what could've been a legacy make it all go down in flames. You're going to help me do it, Roy, you're going to help me do it..."
None of this makes any sense. Roy doesn't- Roy doesn't believe- fuck, Roy believes him, somewhat, half-heartedly, deep down... he believes him. He doesn't know why, yet, but he has to make face about it, about it all. He's been left in the dark on most of what has been happening with Syrenet, since all he does at face value is listen to orders, shoot weapons, and hope for the best, but all of this is changing the game around. That means, if Ganondorf is remotely even telling the truth, Corrin has been lying to everyone. Not just Robin. Not just Snake, or Shulk, or to himself. She's been lying to the American people, which is pretty damn inexcusable.
"You're lying," he spits, copper following his spray. "About the Needle. About Corrin. About Fiora, about Shulk... you're lying about all of it. I know you are. There's no way... you're just pissed that she left you here, when I know you weren't created by her in the first place."
"What would I gain from lying to you?" Ganondorf tilts his head. "I've told you all of this because I felt like it. I murdered the Council of Thirteen just like how your precious little president wanted Fiora Roberts... to get them out of the way. Sooner or later, to do what I want to do against the Etch administration, they'd need to die as is. I can say for certain Fiora is in the same boat, Mr. Arcadia."
"You're lying because you want to-"
"I want to, what?" Roy doesn't say it. It's a foolish idea, the moment he even thinks of it, but it's got to be the truth. Better than the lies being spewed, one hundred and fifty percent. "Say it, Mr. Arcadia, or I'll slice into something that isn't your hands or legs..."
"You want to turn me against them... my family..." Roy whispers.
Ganondorf laughs. "You don't need my help to do that. Corrin's been doing it, long before you ever arrived, Mr. Arcadia..."
"I still don't believe you."
Ganondorf gives Roy a ghastly smile, a smile that chills the other redhead to the core. "I know you believe me. Deep down, deep down in there, you know I'm right. Corrin murdered the wife of the lead commander because she tried stopping her, and here she is again, about to achieve an-all consuming power, and none of you believe me..." he makes a clucking noise with his tongue. "Shame, Mr. Arcadia. I thought you were smarter than all that. Forgive me, then, for what I am about to do-"
Roy does not get a chance to ask what that means before Ganondorf launches forward, scissors in hand, diving them straight into his right bicep. He howls in pain, scarlet spewing everywhere. In the flash of pain, something glimmers, the gemstone maybe, then a sheet of whiteness, the agony becoming unbearable.
Then, with the snap of someone's fingers, his world turns to black.
Let's say, first and foremost, that this was a hard chapter to write, especially this ending, and I don't think I executed it very well, to be perfectly honest, but I've been at the bit for quite some time with it. This was Chapter #35: Ghosts of the Past, for Syrenet, ladies and gentlemen... and here we are at the breach of 300000 words for this story, oh my god. 300000 words is an unbelievable number, where this story is twice as long as my original longest piece of 141k+ and I'm sitting here close to tears, I mean it. There's a lot to discuss, but it's mostly just what Ganondorf has told Roy at the end with this section, one of the three plot twists left in this story. The official half-way mark of the last arc is here, and there's only so much more downhill we can go before rock bottom.
With Ganondorf's explanation of events, it would mean that Corrin founded a human experimentation group, with Ganondorf being the first and only test subject actually operated on and she sweeps it under the rug. The Needle is built, she wants to use it for her own good, Fiora finds out, she's send to stop the rebellion in Detroit from happening, Corrin gives special instructions to Ganondorf to kill Fiora to get any opposition out of the way, and Shulk's wife is brutally murdered. Fast forward three years later, Syrenet is backed into a corner by the rebels, and this is Corrin's last straw, use Shulk to get the powers of the Needle, but for more than what meets the eye. My question to you, is, and think hard about this answer with as much context and content from thirty-four chapters of material...
Is Ganondorf lying, or is he telling the truth? What would that realistically mean, in the end, then? Do you believe or not believe him, and why? Ganondorf has nothing to lose, if you think about it, by telling Roy, if he's going to turn Roy into a cyborg who follows his orders, as is. The rest of the chapter is important clearly, with Corrin blowing up the White House and all, but this is the nail in the coffin.
Who's the ghost of the past? It's a lot to handle, I know, trust me, trying to keep it all straight has been difficult. Any takers... but I digress for too long now. I am very happy to have gotten to this point with the story, this chapter has been exhausting to do, written in four hours, and a bit over it to spare. We're in the final stretch now, with Chapter #36: Hurricane of Detroit. Please review, I'd love all of the crackpot and everything. Thanks for reading! I hope to see you all again very soon! You guys are the best! Love you all! Bye!
~ Paradigm