I wasn't kidding when I said that I was back, no monsoon season nor pandemic are gonna hold me back!
Disclaimer: Still don't own Freezing, just the OC's
Satellizer would take her time getting dressed, even though she knew her Volt Texture could easily replicate her uniform and allow her to finally settle things between herself and Rana. The Tibetan-born woman had been a constant annoyance in her budding relationship with Kazuya Aoi, and the overtly flirtatious gestures she had witnessed between the two would often lead to conflicting feelings of jealousy and hurt.
"We may not share the usual connection that most Pandora do with their Limiter's, but that's what makes Kazuya special, he understands that there are just some lines I can't cross..and he still accepts me for it." She would sigh, remembering the last conversation she had brought up such a scenario: while she had advocated for standing up for herself against the third-year Pandora and their bullying ways, her brother Abel had instead elected to side with her tormentors and justified his actions by stating that they needed to work with them for the greater good of humanity. "He's so different now, nothing like the kind-hearted boy I knew back then."
Other things may change us, but we start and end with the family.
Satellizer would shudder quietly, trying to stay brave in the face of her ailing mother even as her brother Abel did his best to tend to whatever needs the woman would allow him to handle.
"Abel dear, can you please give Satella and I a moment alone?" The blond-haired girl would look to her sibling, watching as he diligently filled a glass of water for Noelle to swallow her medicine safely. "It's a woman's issue you see, I'm sure you wouldn't want to hear about such things. You're a good boy after all." Noelle's face would soften slightly, hoping that he would take the hint and walk off.
"..I think I'll go check on the linens ma'am, I heard it was going to be cold tonight." Abel would blush nervously before exiting the room, the poor boy was so embarrassed that he couldn't even look at her as he left.
"Mom, we don't have to stay here, do we?" Satellizer would do her best to keep her courage from faltering, even as her mother's expression soured into one of doubt and concern. It was enough to break the poor girl's heart and consider putting off the conversation for another day, but that meant having to also endure another night of Louis's unwanted presence in her room. "We can go live somewhere else, can't we?" The younger Satella would wince as she watched the ailing older woman process her words, a sad smile forming on her face.
"What brought this on my dear?" Noelle would let out a sigh of relief as she felt the warmth of thee sun hitting her face, a small blessing in a day that was filled with pain and sickness inside the house of her highborn lover. "Aren't you happy that you have two wonderful siblings your own age to play with?"
She would bite her lip nervously, knowing that such a question hit at the root of her current problems. "W-well, even though we don't play together that often, Abel is always nice to me." Satella always felt bad for her brother, unlike her he wasn't a child of Howard L. Bridget by blood often led to him being treated no better than a servant by her step-mother, and her other brother would often go out of his way to bait him into attacking the other boy. "But I..I don't want to play with Louis anymore, he keeps doing weird things to me..like he'll stroke me..and touch me. It gives me goosebumps and I hate it."
"What are you saying?!" Noelle would lash out violently, knocking down a vase near her hand and startling her young daughter in the process. "That boy is your little brother, isn't he?! I'm sure he's just trying to be friendly, that's all! Can't you tell that's what he's doing?!"
"Y-You're wrong mother!" Satellizer would do her best to stand strong even as her mother bit her lip to quash some pent-up emotion she couldn't fathom, wondering if she had made some grave mistake in facing her mother. "Louis isn't..it's not like that!" The young woman could feel the goosebumps raise upon her skin as she felt the ghosts of his perverted touch, even though she was in the normally comforting presence of her own mother.
"Whatever he's doing, you just need to bear it!"
These words would shock the young girl to her core, not expecting her mother to allow such an atrocity to stand.
"Do you think I want to stay here?! Stop being so selfish! If we leave and something happens to me, you'll be all alone!" Noelle's body would shudder in pain as she struggled to continue speaking, the sad smile that had once adorned her face had long since twisted into one of agony. "If Louis asks you to do something, you need to listen to him and do as he says. You're his big sister, that is your responsibility." Before she could say anymore, her body would be racked with violent spasms and coughs. Satellizer would quickly snap out of her state of shock and run to the door. "Someone! Anyone! Mother needs help!"
Later that day Satellizer would be holed up in her room, having been ushered out of her mother's room by the mansion's staff and forced to dread the coming night as she watched the sunset from her window. A knock on her door would set her nerves further on edge as she nearly dropped the book she had been reading.
"Sister, it's me. May I come in please?" She would breathe a small sigh of relief as she recognized the voice of her kind-hearted brother and do her best to regain her composure before opening the door for him, although she was shocked to find that he was now nursing a noticeable bruise on his cheek. "I just wanted to let you know that the doctors have stabilized Miss Noelle, though I'm not sure what else they said after that. They started using big medical words I couldn't understand." Abel would calmly start to close her door when she would stop him with a single shake of her head gesturing for him to come inside instead.
"That bruise looks awful; it was Olivia again wasn't it?" Satellizer would look to him for a response, only to be rewarded with a nervous smile even as he was no doubt in a good deal of pain. "Why do you put up with such violence? Surely you could just run away if it ever got too bad, you don't have to stay here." She would talk as she dampened one of her hand towels with cold water, hoping that it would ease a sliver of his pain.
"And leave you alone with her and that little monster she calls a son? What kind of brother would I be if I did that, forget Violet never being able to forgive me, I would never be able to look myself in the mirror again!" Satellizer would watch him wince in pain as the cold hand towel made contact with his injured cheek, she would immediately start to pull it away but Abel would calmly place his hand upon hers and hold the towel there. "You're my sister, I would rather die then abandon you to the monsters of the world."
His touch was markedly different from Louis's, while her half-brother's touch made her feel violated and unclean, her body immediately freezing up in a state of fear and apprehension. Abel's was rough but firm, it was the kind that made her feel like there was a tiny spark of hope left in her world.
"What if I were to go with you?" Satella would bite her lip as she awaited his response, remembering how her mother had pleaded for the young girl to endure her other sibling's actions lest they be forced to be homeless like common trash. "I may not be good with hard labor like you are, but I can cook, and clean, and anything else we need to learn we can do it together!" Her heart would flutter slightly as she imagined the two of them living side by side, sure it would be unimaginably hard and they would probably fight from time to time, but Satellizer knew that Abel would never hurt her like Louis had been doing.
"Satellizer, take it from someone who came from the streets: We wouldn't make it past the week if we were to leave the mansion right now." He would frown deeply, his body trembling as if remembering some horrible incident in his past. "Even if we were lucky enough to avoid being found by the police or one of our father's agents, there are some real monsters out there. I've seen what they would do to a pretty girl like you and it's..it's..!" Abel would begin sobbing quietly, leaning into the embrace of the girl who would later come to be known as the Untouchable Queen.
"Abel.."
Satella didn't know what to say to her troubled sibling in that moment, were she to admit the truth of her situation then he would surely lash out at Louis and earn nothing but a prompt exile from a warm and loving home. Not to mention that once he recovered, Louis would only redouble his actions against her, maybe even take it too far the next time and leave the fair-haired young woman with more than just a bad case of goosebumps.
"I guess I will have to endure this, because it's not just about me anymore." She would force a smile before wiping his tears away and be a strong big sister, just like her mother asked her to be.
Pain changes people, it makes them trust less, overthink more, and shut people out.
"Volt Texture, equip."
Satellizer would sigh as she felt the familiar touch of the West Genetics uniform as she placed her glasses on her nightstand, the power of her Volt Texture making up for her usual myopic eyesight.
"I guess Marrakesh truly is a hell all its own, after all, it took a kind-hearted boy who just wanted to protect his sister and turned him into a cold-hearted pragmatist." It was hard for her to recognize any trace of the kind-hearted Abel from her childhood as she pictured the rose-haired young man he had become, no doubt a side-effect of whatever experiments had resulted in him gaining Pandora abilities. "I may have been unable to protect you when it counted, but I won't make that same mistake again. There's still a chance for me to make things right with Kazuya!"
Giving herself a final look in the mirror and forcing her troubled heart to calm down and focus on the battle ahead, she needed Rana out of her way once and for all.
"Well you certainly took your sweet time getting prepared, although I suppose that's to be expected of someone who uses their body to get what they want yes?" Rana's biting words were a harsh greeting to Satellizer upon exiting the second-year dorms, under normal circumstances these would be enough to at least warrant a snarky comeback but now wasn't the time for her to be losing her focus. "I've seen those eyes before, like a caged tiger waiting to be let loose. Although it was a much different circumstance then, with a more kind-hearted individual." The blonde-haired Pandora would watch skeptically as her rival's expression became wistful as she looked off in the distance, wondering what could be going through her mind.
"Come on if you still wanna fight then we need to get going. The training center is going to close soon." Satellizer would begin making her way toward the building in question, leaving the azure-haired girl to try and catch up with her. "Honestly, it's as if this whole thing were nothing more than a game to you." The Untouchable Queen would furrow her brow in annoyance at the actions of the Tibetan-born Pandora, especially when it came to how forward she was around Kazuya.
"I assure you that this is far from a game to me, your actions have corrupted the sacred Tears of Kunlun that you were fortunate to bear." Rana would say this with a cold seriousness that was in sharp contrast with the flirtatious and bubbly nature that she had displayed thus far. "You claim Kazuya Aoi as yours, yet you deny him the rite of Baptism, instead you leech upon his abilities without giving him the respect a true partner deserves!"
Before she could properly respond to the other woman's accusations, Satellizer would see two Pandora exiting the training center and level a cold glare at the two of them. "I hope you two weren't planning on leaving, we need to use the Simulation Room." The blonde-haired Pandora would stand tall and glower at the two women menacingly, things were way too far gone for the two of them to postpone the fight for another day. "That's not going to be a problem, will it?"
The more I see, the less I know for sure.
Abel would awaken with a gasp, automatically readying to parry an attack from Creo only to find himself once again in the infirmary of West Genetics. "This is starting to happen way too much for my taste, almost feels like my Stigmata can't handle what I'm asking of it." He would furrow his brow curiously as he tried making a fist, even throwing a few practice jabs just to test his muscles. "Well, nothing feels broken or out of place." He would smile to himself being calmly removing the various electrodes hooked up to his body, he was well-versed in how to do so without incident thanks to how often Parcé demanded that the male Pandora be scanned back in Marrakesh.
"Of course not you little buffoon, you merely exhausted yourself and overworked your Stigmata trying to fly too close to the sun again!" The lavender-haired scientist would be standing at the doorway to his room, her eyes focused on the diagnostic pad in her hands as the tone in her voice was harsher than normal. "For someone of such an affluent upbringing, you fail at the basic tenants of listening to your betters. There's a reason I restricted you to the theory of High-End Skills, your Stigmata haven't been properly optimized to handle such massive outbursts of power!"
"So, there are a few bugs in the system, that's to be expected from an experimental system remember?" Abel would calmly get up from his bed and throw a few kicks to further test his durability, surprised to feel a slight twinge of pain every so often but dismissing it as nothing. "I'm sure with a little practice time, my Stigmata will adapt to using Acceleration Turn, or maybe Creo-Senpai is right and I really am a Tempest type. Imagine being able to make an army of me to fight the Nova, talk about evening the odds in battle!"
Parcé would simply roll her eyes in disgust as she glanced down at the diagnostic pad and gave a tiny smirk as the camera feeds for the entire school were now at her beck and call, she would quickly begin scanning for any sign of either Satellizer or Arnett. "Read my lips you little imbecile, at your current skill-level you wouldn't be able to generate enough copies for a threesome." Her eyes would briefly stop upon the Third-year's dorm, catching sight of Elizabeth Mably in a state of undress and feeling herself salivate. "Such an immaculate specimen, it's a shame that she's already bonded to someone. Imagine what I could do with the funding of the Mably Group!"
"Uhh Doc, you're drooling on your special pad. Doc?" Abel would wave his hand in front of the older woman's face, receiving no reaction before calmly taking the pad from her hands and giving the screen a good wipe down before peeking down at what she'd been salivating over. "I always wondered what she keeps on this thing." The first thing he would see is Elizabeth having a conversation with her Limiter Andre, much to his surprise the woman would be fully nude and quite nonchalant about it. "Well that explains the drool, I bet she really does keep a spank bank in here somewhere."
Letting his curiosity decide to go wild, Abel decided to dig deep into the scientist's notes only to find that damn near everything he wanted to investigate was secured behind a password. "Unbelievable, it's as if she expects to be hacked while we're here. I doubt even Gengo Aoi himself would be able to crack this thing if he wanted to!" Feeling despondent at the lack of information he could glean from the mad scientist; Abel was ready to return the diagnostic pad to its owner when he noticed a common coming from inside the training center's camera feed. "I didn't think the Center was usually open this late, it seems like a really intense simulation run!" The male Pandora would watch on curiously as two Pandora fought tooth and nail against one another, his brow furrowing nervously as he saw no signs of a dummy Nova anywhere near the battlefield and instead felt his heart begin to race as he recognized the two Pandora locked in battle.
"Oh no.."
In a battle, all you need to fight is a little hot blood and the knowledge that it's more dangerous to lose then win.
Satellizer had never faced an opponent like Rana Linchen before; the woman was ruthless in a fight, exploiting even the slightest opening to inflict pain upon the Untouchable Queen.
"She's fast, I can barely dodge her attacks!" The fair-haired Pandora would wince in pain as a punch connected with her cheek, causing her to backpedal to gain some distance from the martial artist. "I need to get in close and take her down in one shot!" Satellizer would be forced to dodge once again as her opponent began to rain down blows from above, gritting her teeth as she realized what needed to be done to win the fight. "No more holding back!" With her resolve firmly in place, she would activate Accelerating Turn and finally score a cut upon the azure-haired woman.
"Now to take back this battle and finish you off!" She would smile as she continued to pepper Rana with slashes from Nova Blood, seemingly having the Tibetan-born Pandora on the ropes and preparing for a final strike when she felt a rather strong force blast her back into the wall behind her. "What was that power?"
"I must commend you Untouchable Queen-san, to force me to have to tap into the Holy Gates like this just to even the battle proves how formidable an opponent you are." Rana would smile as she threw another punch at the Untouchable Queen, her eyes shining with mirth as the blonde-haired Pandora was sent flying back to the wall once more. "Truly you had me at a disadvantage with your tremendous speed. However, no amount of speed can compensate for my Air Fang technique.
"Air Fang?" Satellizer would furrow her brow in thought as her mind tried to come up with a counterstrategy, deciding to test a theory and gain some distance from the other woman as she prepared to Accelerate once more. "Every technique has its limits, it's just a matter of finding hers and working around it!" The British-born woman would leap back once more, seemingly satisfied with this approach before feeling another blow to her stomach, followed by a kick to the face that sent her flying.
"Did you really think that just because I'm newly transferred to this school that I didn't have any High-End Skills of my own? I believe you call this a Tempest Turn." True to her word, Rana would strike once more with a crushing kick to the ground as a second copy of the Pandora following up with a sliding kick to her opponent's ribs that sent Satellizer spinning toward the walls of the Simulation Room. "I highly suggest you surrender and cease your advances toward Kazuya Aoi, he is mine and I am his. Our bond is one destined by the Goddess Kunlun herself and you have no right to stand in the way of it!"
Satellizer would grit her teeth in defiance at Rana's words, using Nova Blood to help get back to her feet and ready herself to fight once again. "I don't..give a damn about your destiny, and you can tell your so-called Goddess to go to hell!" She would use her Accelerating Turn once more, using her anger to focus and push herself past her limits to Accel once again and deliver a brutal slice to Rana's left shoulder. "I refuse to surrender Kazuya to someone like you, I'd rather die than let that happen!"
"Guh..! Well..that can certainly be arranged yes?" The other Pandora would spit a trickle of blood from her lip and gesture for Satellizer to attack, it seemed she was willing to die for these strange beliefs of hers. "So be it, we battle to the death!"
Choices made, whether bad or good, follow you forever and affect everyone in their path one way or another
Abel could stand to watch no more, seeing his sister battered and bruised was enough to awaken the small part of him that still believed in the old Satellizer, the little girl who treated him kindly despite nothing connecting them to each other.
"I have to stop this before those two kill each other, I may not have been able to hear one word of what they were saying but I've been in enough battles between Pandora to know that look anywhere!" Abel would fling the pad at the wall furiously, snapping his lavender-haired keeper back to reality as he looked at the window to his right. "Volt Texture, Equip!" He would find little comfort in the feel of the male Genetics uniform manifesting onto his body, instead preparing to take a leap of faith that would no doubt land him in some serious trouble.
"And just where do you think you're going, I just told you that your body can't handle anything strenuous." Parcé would give an exasperated sigh upon noticing her diagnostic pad embedded into the wall in front of her, dreading what kind of horrible condition it was in. "You do realize that machine technically counts as government property don't you, I doubt even being the bastard son of Chevalier's lead financial benefactor would get you out of whatever charges you just committed. Oh, pardon me. I forget that it's your mongrel of a sister who's the bastard in that scenario. You're just a filthy street urchin who lucked into his pity!"
He wanted desperately to snap her neck in that moment, to put an end to her antagonistic quips and mundane lessons on theory. To silence that honey-laden voice that spouted enough lies to give Lucifer a run for his money. "So what if I'm just a street rat who got lucky, that was back then when I was too weak and too scared to make my own decisions!" The rose-haired young man could feel the hum of power beginning to course through his body in a way that scared even him, but as he looked to his ring finger and saw the familiar sapphire ring resting in its usual spot he knew what to do next. "But I know who I am now, what I am now, and where I truly belong."
The older woman would roll her eyes in disgust as she worked hard to free the diagnostic pad from the indentation it had made in the wall, wincing at the broken screen in front of her. "Word of advice dearie, if you leave this room now then I'll be forced to consider you a deserter of Marrakesh." She couldn't help but shudder at the heat radiating off his body, no doubt his Stigmata were working hard to compensate for this newfound show of spirit. "There are Pandora representing the Chevalier stationed here, and they won't hesitate to beat the fear of God into you little boy. So do the right thing and follow orders Abel Reinhardt, stand down and return to your bed this instant!"
Abel wouldn't bother to look back as he kicked through the window of his room, smiling sadly as he felt the rush of cold night air hit his face. "Then consider this my final act as a Pandora of the Marrakesh Branch." He would flip the scientist the bird before leaping out the window and using an Accelerating Turn to make a less than graceful landing as he hurried off to the training center, leaving behind the woman who had made the last few years of his life a living hell. "My name is Abel L. Bridget, and from now on I make my own destiny!" The rose-haired young man would continue running off into the night, leaving behind a smugly smiling Parcé who simply giggled to herself in anticipation of what would come next.
"Up ahead..isn't that- Aoi! Kazuya Aoi!" Abel would slow his pace as the dark-haired Limiter in question turned to look at him with a curious expression, no doubt curious as to how he knew the young man's name. "Look, I know you have zero reason to believe what I'm about to tell you but please..you're the only one who might be able to help me stop the two of them from killing each other!"
"What the? What are you talking about, I'm just a Limiter. I can't stop anyone from fighting even I wanted to." Abel couldn't blame him for giving such a straightforward and honest answer, the two of them had barely interacted with one another since their first day at West Genetics. "Wait a minute, aren't you..?"
"Please help me Aoi-san! You're the only one who can stop my sister Satella from making a terrible mistake!" The male Pandora would fall to his hands and knees, bowing his head low to the ground to both hide his tears and convey just how desperate he was to receive the Limiter's help. "If we don't hurry to the Training Center then Satellizer L. Bridget and Rana Linchen are going to kill each other!" He bit his lip to keep from sobbing out loud, mostly out of his pride as a man and the silence of Kazuya Aoi was rattling his nerves.
"Get up. If what you're saying is true then we don't have time to be doing this, I knew that they had some disagreements but to take it this far." Abel could hear Kazuya's footsteps running toward the Training Center and thank the gods above for the other boy's trust in him before running in after him, only to feel his legs giving out and sending him tumbling to the floor once again.
"Dammit, not now. Not when I'm this close!" The rose-haired young man would force himself to crawl forward, thankful for the little bit of Limiter training he had received prior to accepting Parcé's Faustian bargain of power that had taught him both the basics of sidearm usage and how to move about in a combat situation. "Never thought I'd see the day where I'd have to resort to combat crawling like this, but I guess I should be grateful that I'm able to even move at all."
He would look ahead to the inside of the Simulation Room, letting out a sigh of relief that the fight between the two Pandora had ceased. "Whatever Aoi-san is saying to them must've really hit home, maybe now they can sort this situation out peacefully and-" Whatever relief Abel felt was immediately shattered upon seeing Attia Simmons enter the Simulation Room, followed by Creo and Arnett a few seconds later. And while the Lightning Hammer seemed relaxed and ready to do business as usual, Arnett's body language came off as primed to kill whoever dared to get in her way.
"Oh God, this was all just a set up for one of Attia's traps! And I just led an innocent man into the crossfire!"
I'm grateful to everyone who's been reading and enjoying this fanfic, you've all been wonderful when it comes to leaving your reviews and even asking questions in a PM here and there. Of all the fandoms I've interacted with on this site, Freezing has been the most welcoming and respectful, and I hope you'll continue to enjoy the rest of this story as well as the future sequel that spawns from it.
Wow, I just noticed that the poll on my profile has been up for THREE YEARS! Get those votes in while you can folks, because it's almost closing time.