The Promised Neverland AU

By: FunahoMisaki

(A/N: I own nothing and read last chapter)

"Okay so you came from the future. What can we do to help you with whatever you came back in time for?" Don asked cutting right to the chase as he looked at Emma who did look a bit older than she really was if he looked closely. It wasn't immediately obvious or obvious from a quick glance…but the way she held herself. The way her eyes seemed to be a bit older than the other kids, as if she had seen things that would no longer make her a kid.

"First let me start by getting the shocking and hard to believe part out of the way…this place isn't an orphanage. It's a farm. A farm where we're the cattle." Emma said flatly and everyone was dead silent for a moment.

"Wh…what?" Gilda asked staring at Emma wide eyed.

"Think about it. The tasty feed that seems to satisfy everyone, the pure white clothes that are easily dirtied, the way the latticed windows have the screws stripped so that there's no way to remove them…the heavily structured lives we've been raised with. This place is a farm where they grow human children to be fed to demons. Mama is the farmer, Sister Krone is here as added insurance because Mama knows that someone went to the gate and saw what happened there…what happened to Connie." Emma said and she closed her eyes in remembered pain and horror at seeing her baby sister, her adorable precious little sister, laying dead in the back of the truck.

"Connie? What happened to Connie?" Don demanded as he stared at Emma, focusing on that.

"She's dead. She was killed and shipped off to be food for a demon. Norman and I saw her body." Emma's voice was cold as her eyes opened, showing that they were just as cold as her words.

"You…you're lying right? This is just some sick joke?" Don asked staring at her wide eyed and horrified and looking a bit green around the face as well.

"I don't lie and I would never joke about this." Emma's words were cold and sharp now as she glared at Don hard for daring to suggest she'd lie about something like this. Don's mouth snapped shut and he trembled a bit as he fought back tears, Anna and Nat already crying and Thoma and Lani were in tears as well. They all knew that Emma didn't lie. If she didn't want to answer your question she'd tell you straight up that she didn't want to and therefore refused to answer the question…but she'd never lie.

"So then…Everything…Mama is…it's all a lie?" Gilda seemed to struggle with the question and Emma's face softened a little bit.

"Not…not everything. Make no mistake that Mama really does love and care about all of us. She makes sure that any child she ships out are either asleep or unconscious so that they don't feel any pain and don't even know what's happening. For them it's actually a painless and peaceful death, they never learned the truth. That's more than what can be said for some of the other farms." Emma said and her words were softer now too. She knew that Mama loved them all, she just couldn't afford to show it or get too close to those she couldn't save.

"Other farms? There are others?" Anna focused on that and Emma nodded her head.

"Counting Grace Field, there are four other Premium farms where we're all high quality merchandise for only the rich demons. Added to that however there are countless Factory Farms…there the children are attached to feeding and breathing machines. They are…they're the cheap mass produced meat honestly. They don't know how to walk, they don't know how to talk, they don't know how to think. To be honest they're little more than shells." Now all six of the others looked green in the face or horrified at that and Emma couldn't blame them. She had been physically sick when she had first learned about those farms.

"Also there are experimental farms such as Lamba. It's a farm where the children are experimented on. Most of the children in that farm live past the age of twelve, unlike those of us in Grace Field and probably a few of the other premium farms as well, however most of them have seizures and other dangerous conditions as a side effect of the experiments that the scientists and all ran on them. Make no mistake…we lucked out being in this farm with Mama." Emma said and the others could only nod slowly with wide horrified eyes. It truly did seem like they had drawn the lucky straws when they had been placed here.

"As I was saying though…Mama really does love us…but she feels as if she has no choice. Think about it. Mama wasn't always an adult, wasn't always Mama. She showed me her neck the other day when she told me that one day I might be able to come back to this farm as a grown up and be a Sister or Mom myself. She had numbers on the side of her neck just like we do." Emma said and immediately all of the kids tensed and it seemed like they had lost all ability to speak at the moment.

"Mama used to be raised in a farm just like we were…in this very same farm actually. When it was her turn to be shipped out at the age of twelve though she had met the criteria needed to be considered a Mom candidate…they gave her a choice. Either be killed and eaten by a demon like most of the other children…or live and strive to become a Mom of a farm. Tell me Anna, Gilda…if you two were twelve and had only just now learned you were raised as cattle and were going to be eaten…but were offered a way out of that fate even if it meant becoming like Mom…what would you do in that moment?" Emma asked staring at the other two girls who swallowed heavily.

"I…if I didn't know beforehand…if I didn't have any other way out…then I'd…I'd probably chose to live and become a Mom or Sister." Gilda softly admitted after a moment while Anna merely nodded silently in agreement.

"That's exactly what Mama did. She didn't have any way out, so she chose to live. I don't think anyone here can blame her for that choice." Emma said sweeping her stern and serious gaze over the boys as well and making them shake their heads in the negative. No. They really couldn't blame Mom for choosing to live.

"But make no mistake. Even though she was allowed to become an adult and became a Mom in both terms of having kids herself and being the head of the farm…she's just as much cattle to them as we are." Emma said and Nat frowned for a second.

"Mom has kids? Not just ones she takes care of like us but her own flesh and blood children?" Nat asked staring at Emma who nodded.

"To become a full fledged Sister or Mom…a woman has to give birth to at least one child of their own. From what I understand they never see their baby, never get a chance to hold their baby…never know what numbers their baby has…which means that even if a Mom's child was on the same farm as her most of the time they'd never know and the Mom would end up shipping out her own child." Emma said and both Anna and Gilda looked like they were going to be physically sick with Don not too far behind. Thoma and Lani and Nat just looked horrified at that.

"Some Mom's or Sisters are lucky and they had girls…Girls who when they grow up have a chance to survive and become Sisters or Mom's themselves even if their mother never knows about it or who they are. Mama…is both unlucky and lucky." Emma said her eyes sad as she thought about how Mom must have felt last time around when she had only one child, at least as far as Emma knew of, and it was a son on her own farm and she knew who that son was but couldn't dote on him or openly love him or get attached because she knew she'd have to ship him off to be feed.

"How?" Thoma asked curiously and quietly.

"Mama had two children, pretty close together…within the same year actually even though it was dangerous not just because of the timing but also because Mama was only nineteen when she had them both. She knows who one of her children, her eldest one, is because of a certain song she hummed to both of her kids when she was pregnant with them…a song that both of her children remember and she overheard her son humming one day when he was six. Like I said, she's lucky and unlucky. She knows her son, she can get to know him and spend a bit of time with him…but he was born a boy. That means that he'd be unable to become a Mom candidate no matter how much she might wish for him to live. That means that Mama couldn't get emotionally attached to her son because she knows she'll have to ship him out to die…and she knows exactly when that will be as well." Emma said and all six of them looked horrified again. They couldn't imagine how Mom must feel, knowing her son but unable to get close to him because she knew she'd have to send him to die.

"Bu…but what about you? Mom is really close to you, she treats you as if you're her daughter! It's not very obvious to most people but it's obvious to at least us older kids that Mom favors you out of everyone!" Gilda asked staring at Emma who gave a humorless chuckle that sent shivers down their spines.

"Yeah…she was like that last time as well but things were a bit different last time. Like I said earlier there have been some differences to the last time I lived through this. For one…last time Mama didn't have two children, although she did still know who her son was. She also didn't favor me as obviously as she does now…hell compared to last time she almost has a sign around her neck that says who her favorite is. The reason for that though is simple…this time around she has two children and she knows one of them is a daughter. That means that she knows one of her children might survive and become a Sister or Mom…in fact the person in charge of all the Moms and Sisters, 'Grandma' as she was called, told Mama when I was brought to the farm that if Mama did a good job on the farm then she'd get to meet her daughter when she turned twelve and if her daughter became a Sister or Mom then she'd work on the same farm as Mama. Which means Mama has something to look forward to if she does a good job with us cattle children. Getting to meet and work with and get to know her only child that would live past the age of twelve." Emma said and gave them a few seconds to think about that and analyze what she had said so far.

"Also, as I've already stated, there is a certain criterion to be a Mom or Sister candidate. First is obviously that you must be a female. Second would be the scores on the daily tests and all. You have to have a high enough score, most likely perfect marks on almost every test, to be considered a Mom candidate. She thinks I was asleep when she came back from delivering Connie to the gate that night but I was still awake when she came in. Since she couldn't know who had been the one to go to the gate then Norman and I had to act like we normally did, which meant I was sleeping in Mama's bed like usual…when she got into bed…she was crying." Emma said and the others were once more stunned. Mom…was crying? They'd never seen her cry before…

"She was crying and saying sorry over and over for not being able to save Connie or many of our other siblings who've been 'adopted' over the years. She was crying and saying sorry because as of that time… I was the only one she could save." Emma said and she heard the six of them draw in ragged breaths.

"That means that…" Don trailed off as his gaze went to Gilda.

"Right. Gilda's scores are just a little too low for her to be a Mom candidate, she still has time to pull them up of course but right now there's too low…whereas mine are perfect which means I'm an obvious choice for a candidate. In other words the main reason she favors me…allows herself to get close to me emotionally is because right now I'm the only one who'd survive." Emma said and she saw how they all took several minutes to process this.

"Not just that but she started suspecting the other day that either Gilda or myself is her daughter. That's why she seems to be paying even closer and more attention to us right now but me specifically. Because we're the only ones who could possibly be her daughter on this farm and she knows that her daughter is here." Emma said and she saw as everyone's eyes began to widen at that as they stared at her.

"Yeah…Mama really is my mama and she isn't sure yet if I'm her daughter or not…you'd think it'd be obvious because while dark hair is common, no offense Gilda, purple eyes definitely aren't." Emma said and she had a point that even Thoma and Lani could admit made sense. After all they had plenty of siblings that had dark hair like Mom did…but…Emma was the only person they knew of beside Mom to have purple eyes, even if it was just one eye in Emma's case.

"So then…what…what can we do?" Don asked swallowing thickly and wanting to know what they could possibly do to escape from this farm before they lost another sibling.

"I'm glad you asked…Don and Gilda…Norman will be approaching you two within the next few days to bring you in on the escape plan. He'll tell you that Connie was sold to bad people by Mama, I want you both to act like you believe him. Don't let on that you both know the truth yet…you can punch him and Ray both in the face for lying to you a little while after you're brought in on the plan by them. Don, I want you to start working on your physical fitness and aim. Try running laps or climbing trees and try throwing some rocks at targets to work on your aim. You're going to need it." Emma said and Don nodded his head with a serious look on his face as his fists clenched.

Emma knew what she was talking about and he believed her. He would follow her orders and train so that they didn't lose anyone else they cared about. Whatever hellish future she came from would not happen this time.

"Gilda, you're one of the best at multiple things. For now focus on being faster and sneakier. I want you to be able to sneak up on anyone or sneak away from anyone. After that work on tactics and planning, a bit of medical knowledge would help too." Emma said and Gilda nodded once in determination, she'd also probably see if there were any books on military tactics and units that she could read up on. Emma was obviously the commander in chief, had apparently been so in the future given the air of a leader she was exuding with ease…so it'd make things easier on Emma if they were able to train up like a military squad.

"Anna you were the best we had at medicine. I want you studying any medical texts you can find and learning all you can about it. Even ask Mama if she can teach you basic first aid, say you want to be a doctor when you grow up or something. Learn everything you can about medicine and how to treat injuries." Emma said and Anna nodded, being a bit relieved that she wasn't being tasked with physical training or learning something as advanced as tactics and planning ahead.

She could help her family out by being a medic…that couldn't be too hard right?

(A/N: Speaking as a Nurse Assistant…let me just say…Poor naïve Anna. Being a nurse or doctor is a hell of a lot harder than people think it is and they don't get enough appreciation until something like this pandemic happens)

"Nat. I want you on plants. Learn all about them. Which one's are edible, which ones are poisonous, which ones have healing properties. Make sure you bring Anna's attention to whichever ones you find have healing properties. Learn how to grow them as well, grow them and cultivate them and harvest them. Try to get Mama's permission to start up a small garden, say you want to be a farmer or gardener when you're older or something like that. Just do what you can to learn all you can about them." Emma said and Nat nodded his head determined. Plants. Okay. He could do that. Besides if he learned which ones were edible and which ones weren't then it'd help if they were out in the wild.

"Thoma, Lani…for now you two just keep running around and building up your stamina okay? Help out where you can, whether it's getting rocks and setting up targets for Don or helping Gilda run for longer or helping Anna find certain books or practice things like bandaging up wounds…or even just helping Nat in the possible garden he'll start and learning about plants. I want you two to just help where you can okay? I don't want you two specializing in anything just yet so try to learn a little bit of each thing from the others alright?" Emma asked smiling softly at the two youngest ones, the brave little six-year olds who grinned widely at this and near jumped on her.

"Alright Mama Emma! You can count on us!" They chorused up at her from where they were now in her lap. What they didn't say was that they were going to silently take up the mission of making Emma happy and keep her from getting too serious or stressed.

After all even they can see that she's the leader and they needed her in tip top shape right? If she's too stressed then she's not at her best.

For that the two boys were more than prepared to do anything they could to help wherever they could and be the comic relief.

"Thank you boys. I also want you two to read the Ugo Adventures book a lot and try to remember as much of it as you can. It contains hints and clues about the outside world within the stories. It'll be handy for more than just me to know those stories." Emma said and the boys grinned. So they got to help out a lot just by reading an adventure fantasy book?

Awesome.

"So that's why you read that book so often and always asked Mom to read it to you when we were little." Gilda said in realization as she recalled what book Emma was talking about.

"Yeah, making sure I memorize it…well that and cause despite me knowing the truth and having known since I was born…Mama's voice is really soothing when she's reading or humming." Emma said and then glanced at the clock in the library. They had five minutes before lights out…and she usually slept in Mama's bed when there was a new baby in the house.

"For now we'll break and get some sleep. I always sleep in Mama's room whenever we get a new sibling so we can't talk anymore tonight and we have to be careful not to let her, Sister Krone, Norman, or Ray know about all seven of us meeting like this and knowing about the truth. If you all need to ask me about something or get new orders then just ask if you can help my training in the morning…but not tomorrow." Emma said as she began to give a slow evil smile.

"You're taking Sister Krone and Mom with you while training tomorrow morning right?" Nat asked making Emma nod.

"That's right. Mama indirectly threatened those of us who knew the truth of this place, Norman, Ray and I, when she went to get Nayla from the forest. She pulled out her pocket watch and indirectly threatened us with the trackers in our ears, don't worry about those right now, that she wouldn't let us escape and that we had no way to escape from her." Emma said but she didn't look bothered while the others began to feel their ears, stopping when Emma said not to worry about them right now.

"Since Mama wanted to indirectly threaten us with how she can track us…I'm going to indirectly threaten her and Sister Krone with how strong I am. Enjoy the show tomorrow because their faces should be rather funny." Emma said with a near maniacal grin as she looked at them…they all began to picture the looks on Sister Krone's, Mom's, and their other siblings faces at seeing Emma easily tote the two older women around as if they were children…and then as one they began to grin with Anna and Gilda giving darkly amused giggles.

That was certainly one way to put the fear of orange haired heterochromatic girls into someone.