A/N: I really like the Black Queen. Specifically the version of her in the Black Queen stories, which this fic is very loosely based on.
Title is from Rampage by Nicole Dollanganger.
Enjoy!
Alison had grown to resemble her father more in the past twenty years.
In her youth, she looked more like her mother, and still quite did — almond-shaped eyes, thick hair, small, flat nose, and full lips drawn into a pout — but she grew into her father's features. She had his pallid complexion, his sunken-in eyes, his bonier features and tall forehead. Her gloved fingers were long, like his, and she'd been given her father's height as well — towering over those around her, the large boots she wore only serving to intimidate more.
But for it all, she was still not her father — though they, on paper, had the same cold demeanor, the lack of care and emotional responses that were a point of intrigue on her father's file and a warning in hers, Alison was fallible. Human and breakable, even after the atrocities she'd committed, even after she'd tried so hard to act otherwise.
Her coldness was not her father's. It was forced — which felt obvious to Gears, but the girl's threat file seemed to describe her "sociopathy" with complete earnest. She was not born cold, nor had she been molded that way like him — her coldness was her own making, her genuine attempt at emulating her father, at emulating the personality needed to carry out the atrocities she had: it was unnatural, and he saw the cracks in that facade easily.
But perhaps that was only wishful thinking on Gears' part — the emotional part of him that had been picked free from beneath layers of repression upon seeing his daughter's face again. He saw her and saw that same little girl he had left twenty years ago — grown into his face, sure, but still a small, dark-haired child that belonged nowhere near a Foundation containment site.
Blood splattered the floor, and the thick, clunky wrench in her hands. It was hard to separate it from the red of everything else — the shrill, harsh sirens bathing the facility in red, their wailing waiting for no one, pausing not even when the rest of the world seemed to, continuing to shriek and pound Gears' head as he stared down his daughter.
They didn't know who she was. There had been no name attached to the enigmatic Black Queen, even through extensive analysis of the grainy footage she'd sent the Foundation of two wayward Agents being brutalized. The few times she leaned into frame, her face had been obscured by a scarf — Alison Chao was not yet a name the Foundation knew, or at least, not one that appeared beyond a note on Gears' file.
She seemed determined to change that. There were no wily disguises now, or fake names, or any attempt at anonymity as she'd broken into the Site after dispatching guards by the window she'd come in from, armed with an AK-47, grenades, and whatever else rested at her belt. This was a planned attack — she'd been a thorn in the Foundation's side for the past several months, but only took things she caught in her web, done things in her reach... until now, the Black Queen's final act of vengeance.
He was unsure what her goal was, now that she was here with him, and felt no desire to ask. He knew Alison, and he knew the Black Queen — two separate entities, one might say, but that was untrue, they were closer to two sides of the same coin, it would be more efficient to say, he knew her as his daughter, and he knew her as the threat that had been harassing the SCP Foundation for the past months.
Blood flecked her boots, and the edges of her long black coat. It looked wrong on her — the little girl Gears had played chess with and thrown up high into the air just to hear her giggling didn't belong covered in blood, but she nonetheless wore it confidently. Weapons of all kinds were kept at her thick belt, guns and daggers, even a rope tucked through one loop, as a semi-automatic rifle hung from a strap around her shoulder — a one-woman army, prepared for this very moment, ready to use them on anyone who crossed her way.
Bodies littered the hallway. Gears didn't know where the task forces were, what cruel happenstance let the girl's massacre last this long, but he felt it was fate. She had to see him — and it would be the first and last time either of them would. Either she'd redirect the wrench in her hand to Gears' skull, or the door would be kicked in in the nick of time to subdue her — regardless, this was the only moment they had, and both parties found themselves wordless.
Alison's lip quivered — not out of pain, or sadness, but visible frustration as her grip on the wrench hardened. It was an expression Gears recognized, and one he had long since grown used to: the unspoken, say something, give me fucking anything after all I came here for.
"I killed your assistant."
Her first words to her father in twenty years came out in a spit, her teeth bared like a lioness, as Gears' expression didn't change. He knew. The body was crumpled to the ground, writhing in its own blood — even a trained field agent went down quickly when taken by surprise, his hand only having time to reach for his holster before instinctively flying to cover his head as the Black Queen broke his fingers first, and then his skull — before Gears' eyes.
Slathered in gore and bits of brain and bone, Alison gestured the end of the wrench downwards — to Lament's body, as she shook with rage, stepping over it to close the distance between herself and Gears, who made no motion to pull away.
"I could have used the gun, but I wanted it to be slower. For you." Her voice was level, casual, in a stark contrast to the malice on her face and hatred in her heart that must've led her on such a crusade.
Her long black hair fanned out as she suddenly lurched forward, teeth clenched hard, dark eyes bulging in fury, her face twisted into unimaginable anger that only increased for every second Gears didn't move — but her voice, when she spoke, remained steady, even with the traces of her anger.
"It was all for you. You know that, don't you, Father?"
Something had twisted in Gears' gut for the first time in years when he saw her enter the building, when he heard the stomping of her boots through the sirens, closer and closer to his office — she came here with a destination, and the bodies in her wake were only collateral — or perhaps, spite. The Site was put on red alert, personnel ordered to hunker down and stay there — to arm themselves, if able.
He'd known, from the beginning, that it was all for him, and knew as he grabbed the service pistol from his desk — the one that had been used to fell two people very important to him who died not knowing so already — that he would very well have to use it to put a bullet in his daughter's head.
"Your friends, too. Associates. I wanted to kill them first." She shook her head, teeth still bared. "So you'd have to live with it."
Every second Gears didn't respond only stoked the Black Queen's flames. It wasn't as if he doubted her — no, no, the blood on her coat was clear as day, as was the ash on her face, and Lament was on the floor, dead as could be. He wouldn't put attacking others for the crime of knowing him past her — acutely, his mind wandered to any coworkers he hadn't seen much of lately, or ones that stood between the window she'd crawled in through and his office.
Thinking on it, the only one Gears had any doubt she could do anything to was Clef, and... he was away — for work on 231, Gears suspected, thinking grimly about how the man would be leaving one nightmare and entering another upon his return.
"They called it a pinpoint assault in my threat file. I got my hands on that, too." A cold chuckle escaped Alison's throat, with no humor in it — only a smile that was all teeth, closer to a predator baring its fangs than anything resembling amusement. "I have my ways."
The unspoken question in the air was obvious: aren't you scared? Aren't you scared that someone with no restraints, no heart, willing to kill and cheat and possibly even die to get to you, at any cost, who has spent years plotting the best way to rip your life apart, whose every cell in her body lives only with the intention of finding you, has just killed your bodyguard and now stands before you with an arsenal of deadly weapons?
Isn't it terrifying to be so obsessed with? To know someone watches your every step? To know someone will rip apart everything you hold dear just to get the satisfaction of making you cry? Are you not scared, knowing not only that this is the end, but that you've brought down everything you hold dear with you?
Gears should have been. He felt that fear the same way he felt everything else — detached, floating, even now. Fear accomplished nothing in his line of work — a steady caution, at most, but fear only led to missteps, and a misstep was something Gears could not afford even as he stood down the girl he'd brought into the world, who would now surely take him out of it.
The only winning move, to use an idiom Alison would appreciate, was to not play, and so Gears stood, still as a statue, as she heaved with exertion, adrenaline making her hair stick to her face with sweat, hardened eyes wide as they glared into her father.
She was more impatient than him. Her eyelid twitched, before she shifted the wrench in her fingers, wound her hand back, and struck Gears in the temple with a crack audible through every corner of his head.
"Fucking say something!"
He felt his skull burst open, blood splattering the metal in Alison's hand, glasses cracking as his head only fell to the side — limp as a ragdoll. Pain exploded from the fresh cut, and as Gears looked back towards Alison, he could already feel the hot blood against his skin, dripping into his eye and clouding his vision.
"It's all because of you! Don't you fucking get it?!" Her voice pitched into a scream, her free hand grabbing his collar and roughly pulling him closer to her. His blood joined with his late assistant's on the glistening edges of that wrench, which she raised in preparation to strike again.
Gears' breathing grew labored from the pain, his voice only coming in an involuntary half-moan, and Alison's face twisted further as she violently shook his shoulders, slinging blood from his cracked skull to the floor, the fluorescent lights of the ceiling and red screaming alarms only bringing his head more throbbing.
"Answer me or I'll blow your damn head off!"
A tiny part of Gears knew it was a bluff. She could hurt him, and those around him, all she wanted — but she wouldn't kill him, not when she'd come this far for her answers. Maybe she'd cut off a finger for every second he kept silent, but she wouldn't kill him.
He was all she had to live for, after all.
Iron could be tasted in the back of his mouth. His stomach felt like it was devouring itself inside out from the pain, but he made no move to recoil or wince. His eyes drifted to her face, her own gaze wet with furious tears, and there she was a little girl again: an overgrown toddler who missed her father, willing to bring the world to an end to get him back, and here she wouldn't even get that.
When his mouth opened, the iron taste grew stronger, muddying Gears' voice as he finally spoke, voice thick, almost nasally — like he'd been nursing a cold. "Why?" He asked, simply, so much so that Alison visibly recoiled at the word. "What is the purpose of this?" Blood made Alison blur and redden, and Gears finally brought his sleeve to his head to wipe it away, leaving a dark, spreading blotch at his wrist. "A message?"
For once, his daughter seemed surprised, and in the beat of silence, Gears wondered where the help was — if she'd killed them all, if they'd lost track of her, or if they were focusing on the SCPs misplaced in the attack... the lattermost felt right, Gears would realize with dawning horror, if he could feel such a thing anymore: the Foundation prioritized containment over its men, and many more would die at their hands than Alison's by sheer neglect in the face of this disaster.
"Revenge." Alison finally answered, with a small nod and an edge of finality. "They took you from me," her voice cracked, finally betraying the tears in her eyes, "they took my father from me and left this shell in his place."
Each letter of shell was drenched in venom, and Gears could easily tell why. He'd adapted too well — the Foundation molded him, as he would mold people in turn — there were no tears at this reunion, no groveling, nothing rewarding Alison's body count and destruction of her own life and every life around her except for an empty, bloody stare.
"So I took everything from them." She repeated, that seeming to be her day's mantra, as her fingers curled around Gears' coat. "I'm going to find the O5 Council. I'm going to find a way to destroy this building. I'm going to release everything in containment and kill everything and you will have to watch."
Finally, the word entered Gears' mind — delusional. Powerful as she was, the Black Queen was only a single threat. At most, she had funding from unknown sources — countless weapons at her disposal, and the steel in her spine to take out anything in her way — and it had taken her a long way, but the Foundation would not crumble to one girl.
Gears sniffed, trying to clear away the blood. His vision blurred, then unblurred, as he felt his heartbeat in the throbbing of his cracked head. "You won't," was all he stated as he blinked, slowly, and her jaw set with anger.
"Look at what I've done, Father." Alison pulled back, eye contact with him breaking for only a moment to look around at the crime scene Gears' office had become. "I've turned your pretty Foundation into the site of a massacre. And they haven't killed me yet."
Her lips curled into a smile — an evil grin, innocent in the way a bratty child was innocent. She thought she could do anything, riding the rush of taking lives, feeling on top of the world because she was the one with the rifle and the grenades and the knives and the wrench — kicking others down to feel taller herself.
She really was a little girl, still, and she threw her head back with a dry laugh — "I'll kill the O5s one by one and make you watch. Maybe I'll carve their numbers into their eyes. Maybe I'll make them release everything in containment before I blow this Site to shreds." She sneered, Gears able to feel the hard crescents of her fingernails digging into him through her gloves. "Just because you said I can't."
It'd make him smile, if he could.
"The Foundation will not level to one girl, any more than it will level to me." The blood on his face was beginning to dry, the red sirens stark against Alison's dark clothing — the drab she intended to blow up a Site in. "If you drop me now and turn yourself in, they may not even terminate you."
"Is that your way of caring?" Alison asked, not even really a question, as her wrench poised to strike again. "Because you're awful late."
"I want no one to die here." Gears responded — and that was it, simply. He didn't want Alison to die any more than he didn't want to die — because that would be inconvenient, ultimately. She could make a valuable asset, and even failing that, her motives were worth learning, surely more complex than just revenge on those who 'took' her father — too valuable to simply shoot in the head and bury with a cover story.
"Again," Alison raised the wrench, seemingly tired of talking, "awful late. It was good to see you again, Father, but the Black Queen has her final executions to carry out..."
Striking once more, this blow took Gears' vision, on top of leaving another dent in his head — she was not going to kill him, and as he drifted off into unconsciousness, Gears knew that was her plan.
"...and she intends on keeping every promise she made you."
As Gears fought to stay awake, Alison brought his limp form into her arms, picking her father up with surprising ease. He was unsure what she intended on doing — someone at the end of their rope, prepared to do anything if it meant causing her father pain.
She'd 'promised' to torture and kill the O5 Council, and he knew she'd be stopped before ever reaching that point — if she knew where they were, something even he was not privy to — but she'd killed many before now, many even before today, and the halls were unsettlingly quiet save for the siren: enough so that he could tune out the wail and let the pain and blood loss pull him under, letting Alison take him wherever she pleased.
The floor met his head a third time, jostling him awake two minutes later under the screaming of a field agent as he felt his cranium burst and watched his blood pool against the tile, only just mustering the energy to bring his blurred gaze to the sound of a gunshot, where the Black Queen jerked and fell to the ground after a bullet broke her own skull into a red mist.
Gears should have felt a paternal twist of pain at the sight, but knew since long ago that his heart had no room for such things — if he felt anything for Alison, he wouldn't have left, and it was that simple.
Should he have been thankful, then, to see the threat put down?
He wasn't. The fight didn't feel over — because his head had been cracked open three times now, and he felt himself bleeding out on the floor, unable to writhe or scream or make himself known to the task force that had terminated the Black Queen, unable to call for help as they shouted orders into their earpieces.
Bleeding out, merely a broken object on the floor, Dr. Gears was nothing more than another body amongst the carnage of the Black Queen's rampage, and no one would even know her true motivations — save for that of a madwoman with a vendetta against the Foundation.
Gears realized that he'd felt safer being bludgeoned half to death than he did in this hallway. The Foundation he'd poured his life into, the one thing he could say he truly cared about through it all, did not care back as combat boots stepped over him, as incomprehensible words were thrown back and forth between the surviving task force, leaving him to bleed.
He couldn't feel the true pain of it — but he knew, as the world went dark, the metal hold on his heart even now not letting him do or say anything despite the adrenaline in his veins and the cracks in his head screaming out, that this was a worse torture than anything the Black Queen could've devised.
A/N: I think Gears is a super fun character, as is Alison, and this fic was me wanting to play with the following:
- a hypothetical scenario where she gets what she wants
- a character study into how Gears would view her in this state
- how Gears' 'can feel things, just can't react to them/act on them' thing can be played to a... dark extreme
- how the Foundation, at least not in the tales this is based on, doesn't know who Alison really is
- ...me just being edgy and wanting to write about murder, as I am ought to do
Hope you enjoyed! Reviews and the like are appreciated3