A/N: TW — violence. If that makes you uncomfortable, I'll have a TLDR at the bottom. (I'm gonna start doing these, and hopefully, go back to older works and do that as well)
It was the sounds of harsh voices that woke her. Guttural. Different from anything she'd heard before.
Upon opening her eyes, Melia's vision was hazy; browns of the environment blurred together. Blinking through her grogginess, she waited for her vision to clear. Gradually, the colors separated, forming into distinct shapes and her eyes focused. She was in a small canvas tent.
How had she gotten here?
A sharp ache bounced through her head at the thought and she shut her eyes, waiting for it to pass. She swallowed, then stopped. Her eyes flew open. Adrenaline shot through her veins, jolting her fully awake.
She was now acutely aware at the rag stuffed into her mouth and tied around her neck. Cold metal encircled her wrists, which were handcuffed behind her, to a wooden pole.
Captured. She had been captured.
Her pulse quickened. Straining, Melia pushed herself to remember where she was before.
It all came rushing back. Surviving in the forest during the rain. Making shelter. Foraging for food. Then...Ellison. Trying to talk to him. But he — the Telethia — attacked her and her she had defended to save herself. Then he flew away and she...fainted.
The last thing she remembered was falling to her knees and the world going dark.
Melia swore. She must have been taken while she was unconscious. How stupid. How idiotic of her. She had put herself in danger thoughtlessly. And for what? Absolutely nothing. Ellison didn't know her. He was gone. Lost.
Now she was as well.
Tears dotted the corners of her eyes, and her skin flushed. Fear thumped on top of her heart, threatening to punch a hole through it and break her. No one knew she was imprisoned, much less missing. No one would come looking for her. She was at the mercy of her captors.
What did they want from her? Information? If they were Ganglion, no doubt that they would want to know who she was, what her relation was to the High Entia, and any sort of information about Alcamoth that could give the Ganglion a tactical advantage over her people. Given what she knew about them, they would take no issue with extracting information from her in a violent means.
A chill ran down her spine. A lump grew in her throat.
She had to escape. There was no other option. Her ankles hadn't been tethered together. That could be a point in her favor.
A very small point.
Forcing herself to concentrate over the blood roaring in her ears, Melia strained to hear the conversation outside the tent. She leaned forward as far as possible and the handcuffs' metal pressed into her wrists, cutting into her skin. But she didn't care. If she could learn anything at all, she would take the pain.
The voices continued, but no matter how she tried, she couldn't make out any words; the language was foreign to her. Frustrated, she slumped back against the pole, tears pushing against the backs of her eyes.
She was alone. Alone and at the mercy of an unknown enemy.
Images flashed through her mind of what was to come. Everything made her shudder, quiver. Her heart skipped a beat and a strangled sob escaped her throat, muffled by the rag.
How could she be so foolish? Her desperation to save her brother had blinded her to the clear dangers of Mira. Tyrea would berate her for her weakness.
Gods what she would give for such a tirade instead of the situation she found herself in now.
She'd been trained to survive imprisonment and interrogation until rescue came, and yet Melia couldn't seem to remember a single lesson. Except for the first one: maintain calm.
Taking a deep breath, she inhaled and exhaled, struggling against the scratchiness in her throat and the panic deeply rooted in her chest. With each breath she took, her heart slowed a beat, and the dread began to retract, receding into a tiny ball then disappearing into nothingness.
After a few minutes, her breathing returned to almost normal.
Calmer, Melia began to assess her options. Escape was the first priority. Without her wand, she couldn't completely harness her ether and would have to rely upon hand-to-hand combat until she could recover it. It would take extra effort to channel ether appropriately if she used it without the help of the wand. Effort that she may not have.
Before she could continue her train of thought, the tent flap opened. A Prone soldier strode in, holding an assault rifle. Two more filed in after him and unbound Melia, pulling her to her feet.
Her stomach sank. It was coming.
Terrified, Melia threw a punch at the Prone who unchained her. Her fist connected with his jaw and he stumbled backward. Pain shot through her knuckles, but she didn't register it with pure adrenaline plunging through her blood.
The Prone with the assault rifle barked out an order and the other Prone grabbed Melia's arms, restraining her.
"You can't escape." The Prone stated. "Don't bother trying."
Melia glared but did not respond.
With a laugh, the Prone strode out of the tent. Her captor shoved her forward and she stumbled out.
The sun blinded her with its harsh light and she winced, squinting her eyes. Nevertheless, her training kicked in. The next lesson: study her environment. Look for any potential escape routes or resources that could aid her.
As her captor pulled her along, Melia scanned the scene. Prone soldiers strode across the landscape: polishing weapons, talking, repairing transport vehicles, and packing supplies. It was some sort of base. But not one in the rainforest. There were no trees to block the sun. They must be on the higher planes of Noctilum.
At least she hoped it was Noctilum.
The Prone led her to a portable shipping container and shoved her inside. The space was small and cold: black walls on all sides of her. In the center was a single silver chair.
The Prone shoved her into the seat, then rounded her and shackled her wrists to the armrests and her ankles to the chair's legs.
Melia's heart skipped a beat. An invisible weight pushed down on her chest and she felt the walls start to close in.
There was no escape.
Another Prone soldier strode in, taller than the rest wearing purple and green armor as opposed to the plain black battle suits the others wore.
He leaned forward and stared directly into her eyes. "How is the prisoner today?"
It took every ounce of strength for her not to shirk away. She tried to move her facial muscles into a glare, but all she could manage was keeping her expression neutral.
The Prone who shackled her pulled the rag down from her mouth roughly, scraping her chin.
"Who are you?" The leader said, crossing his hands in front of him.
Melia didn't respond.
"Answer or don't. It doesn't matter to me. I'll make you talk one way or the other."
Still, Melia remained silent.
He shrugged and turned away from her.
Though her nerves bounced around in her diaphragm, Melia willed them to freeze and began to steel herself for what was to come.
No doubt he would have some sort of strategy to coax information from her. What would it be? Her mind raced, trying to quickly assess. Would it be through a constant verbal onslaught? Breaking her down through emotional manipulation? Or would someone hurt—
He whirled around and smashed his fist into her jaw. Melia screamed in surprise and pain burst at the area of impact. Electricity jolted through her head and shocked her brain. Everything stung, throbbing up and down the sides of her face. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to ignore it, but it was unbearable.
"Again. Who are you?"
She could feel the bruise on her jawline begin to appear. Her fear mounting, Melia stared at him square in the eye and chewed on her lip. Though she didn't want to get hit again, Melia would not surrender.
So she said nothing.
"I'll wait." The Prone said indifferently.
And he rammed his fist into her cheek.
"Fuck!" Tyrea yelled and tossed the cracked communicator into the grass. "How are we supposed to find her now?" She grunted again and stomped a few feet away.
Fiora picked up the device, holding the machine delicately in her palms. Hesitant, she asked, "Are you sure this is hers?"
"Yes." The High Entia snapped, whirling around, her face full of fury. "Now we have no way to track her."
"Maybe she's hiding? She left it behind to throw someone off her trail…?" Reyn trailed off. But even his tone of voice revealed that he knew it was a stretch.
The group was scattered around their cruiser on the Noctilum plain, just south of the Roost. They had followed Melia's communicator's signal to its point of origin and had found the communicator. But no Melia.
An invisible fist punched Dunban in the sternum and his body exploded in fear. She was missing. Kidnapped. Or dead.
No. He couldn't think like that. She was alive. Most likely taken hostage by the Ganglion. They knew there were Prone camps around the rainforest. He needed to focus on finding any piece of evidence that would suggest where her captors took her. That was the most important. He wouldn't allow himself to be distracted by worst-case scenarios.
"Spread out. Search for any signs that she's been captured. If they wanted her dead, they would've left her here."
"Assuming that that thing didn't just eat her." Tyrea snarled, pointing at the Roost.
"Do you want to assume that your sister is dead?" His voice was cold, unnecessarily so. But he wouldn't tolerate Tyrea's spiral. They had to focus. Every second Melia was in the hands of their enemies was a second less they had to rescue her.
Tyrea opened her mouth to retort but stopped. Instead, she spun around and began searching the area.
Good.
Silent, the team worked quickly, covering ground in all directions. Seconds passed into minutes, which ticked to half-past, and finally slid into an hour.
Out of the corner of his eyes, Dunban could see his team one by one losing hope, stopping in their tracks with expressions of discouragement painted on their faces. They met one another's eyes in a silent question of "What now"?
Everyone save for Tyrea and Riki.
The two were in whispered conversation, Riki pointing wildly at the ground and Tyrea nodding, gesturing for the Nopon to get to the point. Tyrea closed her eyes, whispered something, and a stream of orange burst from her fingers, turning into a cloud of dust. Riki's mouth curved into a big 'O' as the dust cloud clustered over the spots that Riki pointed at, revealing tracks within the dirt.
"Over here!" Tyrea shouted.
Dunban was the first to reach them. The Nopon looked up at the captain and pointed excitedly. "Riki see tracks." He danced between his feet. "Riki see the smallest cracks in the grass."
"What did you do?" Dunban gestured to the orange cloud.
"It's a small spell that can show something that was washed or wiped away," Tyrea smirked.
"A time spell?"
"Something like that."
"Alright. Let's go."
One by one they hopped back into the cruiser. Tyrea stood in the front passenger's seat, casting her spell over the grass while the vehicle followed the revealed path. The speeder cut through the field, passing over the imaginary threshold into the rainforest as the path dove into the dense greenery.
Without the dense grass, the remnants of the tracks were visible to the naked eye. Tyrea dropped her hand, the cloud of orange dust dispersing into nothing, and lowered herself into her seat. Dunban saw Tyrea heave a large sigh, and narrowed his eyes, concerned. Tyrea spotted his stare. Lips pressed into a line, she shook her head and turned away.
Dunban gazed out at the forest. The spell had drained her. He didn't remember seeing Melia tire when using her wand. Was that device a mechanism to help with controlling magic? He'd ask her later.
Assuming they found her.
His stomach dropped at the thought and he shoved it out of his mind. Instead, he directed his thoughts to what he would say to the BLADE leadership when he returned from this unsanctioned mission. He was not looking forward to that.
A few hours later, they began to see the edge of the forest.
"Slow down, Shulk." Dunban murmured.
Nodding, the driver decreased the speed of the vehicle and it moved at a crawl as it reached the border. Ten feet from the border, they saw it.
Just past the border between the forest and the open plain was a large hill. On the crest, they could see a large wall with a patrol tower.
It was a base of some kind.
Shula backed the cruiser up and drove into the brush, giving them ample cover.
"She's in there?" Fiora squeaked.
"We need to do a perimeter check. See how many entrances there are." Tyrea said.
"Or how huge it is. I mean...she could be anywhere in there." Reyn added.
Dunban nodded. "Tyrea, Fiora, Shulk, scout to the right. Reyn, Riki and I will go to the left. Meet back here once we're done. We don't have a lot of time so be efficent."
As they split up, one thought ran through his mind:
Hold on, Melia. We'll find you.
"I'm surprised how resistant you are to sharing." The Prone wiped his bloody knuckles on a handkerchief. "Most females by now would be pleading for it to be over."
Melia's head lolled to the side. Pain pulsated in her temples at a steady rhythm. Hot blood trickled out of the right side of her mouth and the sting from the gash above her left eye electrified her nerves.
Her body was ablaze. The kicks he delivered to her abdomen had broken ribs. Nausea threatened to overtake her and it took the last shred of willpower not to vomit right then and there.
The leader circled Melia, massaging his fingers, not bothering to look at her. "This whole ordeal could be avoided if you cooperated."
She coughed, blood swishing around inside her mouth, and replied, "You would kill me anyway. So why help you do so?" Each syllable scratched against her esophagus, her voice raspy yet defiant.
With every hit he had delivered, her fear of dying climbed. Simultaneously, also did her determination to not crack under the pressure. Even if it did kill her.
"You'll break. They always do." The Prone stopped in front of her and bent over. He grabbed her cheek and stared straight into her eyes. They were cold, lacking emotion. Almost as if she were staring at a machine.
She spat at him, drops of blood splattering across his nose and eyes. He hissed and recoiled, releasing her chin with a jerk. Then slapped her so hard that her ears rang.
"You will regret that."
"I should hardly think so." Tyrea would've had a wittier comeback.
"Why are you pushing your luck?" He asked, using the handkerchief to wipe his face. "Do you want to make me angry? To hurt you?"
"Why do you do their bidding?" Melia shot back. "Why would one as strong as yourself obey another?"
Ideally, the longer she could get him to the talk, the less amount of time he'd have to hurt her. And perhaps she could gather some information of her own.
"I have nothing else to do."
That wasn't what she was expecting. "What about your family?"
"We live. We die. It's all meaningless."
Melia wasn't sure how to respond. She needed to keep him talking—
"I'll be back in an hour and we start again. That is, unless you change your mind and wish for a merciful death." He pivoted and strode out.
Lurching, she groaned and keeled to the right. Vomit gushed from her mouth, spewing onto the dirt floor. The smell of acid and sour food filled the air. She was glad he'd left the door cocked open. The wind could blow through and carry the smell out of the garage.
Coughing, Melia sat upright and leaned her head back. Was she truly going to die here? Was this the last she'd see: four black walls and the face of a hateful Prone?
Would she never see her brothers again? Tyrea? ...Dunban?
There was so much she wanted to say to the latter two. So much she'd never said that she'd been afraid to do so. Why had she held herself back? Why could she not be more open and true to what she wanted?
It was too late for any of that now. All she could do was stay strong until the end.
Then voices reached her ears. Low, but enough for her to understand what they were discussing. Dragging herself to sit up, Melia closed her eyes and leaned in, focusing all her energy on the conversation outside the garage.
"Boss wants us to join up with the squadron in the east. Oblivia."
"Why?"
"They found it. The VITA."
Melia's ears perked up. What was the VITA?
" I'll finish with her and we'll be on our way."
The voices stopped and footsteps receded, moving away from the garage. Melia's lungs contracted, the air sucked out of them. The clock was ticking and she needed to escape before her time was up.
"We need a distraction if we stand any chance of getting inside and finding Melia," Dunban said.
"Or we sneak in. It's almost dark enough." Tyrea countered.
"We don't know the layout of the base. And we don't know how many soldiers there are. We could easily run into them by mistake."
"And a distraction might cause them to surround Melia and keep her from escaping."
They'd been arguing for the past ten minutes on how to best help Melia, given what they now knew about the base. And they hadn't gotten anywhere, except for Dunban and Tyrea butting heads over strategy.
"Guys." Fiora interrupted, taking a step between them. "We don't have time to argue. We all want to save Melia, but this isn't helping."
Dunban sighed and nodded. Tyrea crossed her arms over her chest and pursed her lips, but did not bark back at his sister.
"Okay, thank you." Fiora reached out and squeezed their arms simultaneously. Dunban gave her a smile.
"Alright. Let's start over. What do we know?" Dunban asked the group.
"The base has a fortified wall all the way around, about twelve feet tall." Shulk supplied. "The only entrance is the front gate." He pointed in the general direction of the base as the sun was falling fast and taking its light with it.
"If we had skells this would be no problem," Reyn sighed. Fiora glared at him and he held his hands up in defense. "Just sayin'."
"We've seen them send out patrols over the last few hours. We can guess that a few will return in the next hour or so and trade places with others." Shulk added.
"Let's take stock of our weapons. What did you bring?" Dunban glanced at Tyrea.
With a smirk, Tyrea opened the trunk the cruiser. A pile of guns and daggers met his eyes.
"How did you get this into the city?" Fiora exclaimed.
"If I told you, what would be the fun in that?" She answered and pulled out a line of what looked like grenades. "If we're going to do your distraction plan, then these will come in handy."
"Yo, we've been driving around with mini bombs?" Reyn's eyes bulged.
"Obviously they're safe until you want to use them," she rolled her eyes and picked up a line of what looked like bullets. "Now these wonderful little ones are some of my favorite weapons."
"You have favorite weapons?" Reyn gaped.
"Don't you?"
"I mean...I got one…"
"How pedestrian." Tyrea scoffed.
"Hey!"
"Anyway, what are they?" Fiora interrupted before the exchange could go any farther. Dunban was thankful that she had taken over. His mind was working on a plan.
"A paralytic. One hit with one of these and you drop like a rock." Tyrea grinned. "And then you have to watch everything that happens."
"That's...evil." Fiora wrinkled her nose.
"Is it? I just like to think it's a taste of their own medicine." Tyrea rolled one of the bullets in her fingers. "They last for about an hour."
"Good. We're going to be much quicker than that." Dunban said, his eyes studying the small cylinder.
"What are those?" Shulk pointed to a bag of what looked like crystals tucked away on the side. He reached for them.
"Not important for now," Tyrea lightly smacked his hand away.
"Is that a crossbow?!" Reyn grinned and picked up the sleek, silver weapon from the top of the pile.
"It's not my favorite."
He rolled his eyes. "Can I use it?"
"Sure. It's Zain's so I don't care if you lose it. Or it gets destroyed." She laughed, though the sound was empty. Artifical. Then she waved to everything else. "Underneath is all of your stuff."
"I was wondering…" Shulk mused.
"Alright." Dunban clapped, bringing everyone to attention.
"Given our supplies and resources, we have enough firepower to create a distraction and cause a large amount of damage to the base." Reyn fist-pumped and Dunban continued, "But as mentioned, we don't have nearly the numbers that they do. We'll need a distraction so we can sneak in." Dunban pointed to the grenades. "Those will be our distraction." He pointed to the bullets. "Those we will use once we infiltrate." He gestured to the cache of guns and daggers still in the trunk. "We'll put four machine guns in the trees outside of the gate and use them to remotely shoot at pursuers when we leave." Then he looked at Tyrea. "You can fly, right?"
"Is that even a question?" She glowered.
"Can you carry someone?"
"Melia?"
"We don't know what...state she'll be in." He said, grim. He didn't want to think about her injured or worse. "If she's not able to walk, we need to get her out and carrying her while running will slow us down."
"Well, you're lucky you have one of the best pilots in the High Entian army then."
"Good." He looked at each team member. "We don't have a lot of time to prepare. Let's move."
"Are you going to cooperate or are you still holding out?"
She struggled to open her eyes — both were swollen from the beating she had just taken. The Prone was peering down at her. Still blank. Still indifferent. Still...unemotional.
It was unsettling.
Maybe it was easier to give up. Or maybe it was better to let go of holding on from someone to save her and die. Maybe things would be simpler if she let herself bleed away...
But a small voice inside of her told her no. She had to wait. There was a tiny possibility, a spec of possibility that she would escape to someone would figure out where she was and rescue her. She couldn't give up hope no matter how the darkness threatened to close in and consume her.
"You High Entian are all so proud despite everything you've done. You think you're better than the Ganglion but you're dirty like everyone else." He said it as a fact. No malice or bitterness in his statement. It was just the way things were.
A tactic to get her to share information. Make her prove that the High Entia were good people.
"No. We are nothing...like...you." She struggled to respond. "We would never exterminate people like you would."
"You truly believe that. A shame. Whoever lied to you did a good job." And he grabbed her hair and wrenched her head back.
Melia yelped, feeling strands of her hair ripped from her scalp. Tears fell down her cheeks, intermingling with the sweat and blood streaked across her pale cheeks. She no longer cared to pretend she was not in pain. It would not change the fact that she refused to give him what he wanted.
Despite the burning sensations prickling her head, his words ran through her mind. What did he mean? What did he know that she didn't about her people?
No, he was lying. Trying to get a rise out of her. Deceive her into revealing her identity and fully break her. No, she would not rise to the bait.
But what if he was telling the truth?
"I admire your resistance. Not many are as strong as you." He grabbed the back of her chair and flung her to the ground. She cried out, landing on her shoulder and bumping her head against the cold floor. Still tied to the chair, Melia whimpered, the fresh wave of pain compounding the already existing ones that sailed through her every few moments.
"You think there is a purpose to our lives? There is none." He whispered in her ear, his breath hot against her skin. "You tried to escape us. You tried to outrun us, but you could not. You found a false haven and we tracked you down. There is no use anymore. It is over for you."
He grabbed her neck and squeezed. The pressure around her throat startled her and she twitched in his grip. She tried to use her wrists to pull her hands away, but the shackles kept them in place. Choking, Melia felt more tears fall down her face and she writhed in his grip. Strangled sobs emerged from her. Spots colored her vision.
"It's time to say goodbye."
Then a BOOM reverberated outside, shaking the ground.
He stopped squeezing her neck. Listening. Another BOOM went.
"This will have to wait." He released her and she slumped to the floor. She inhaled and gulped in the fresh air, filling her burning lungs. There wasn't enough air that she could breathe in.
"Until next time." He said and stood.
"There won't be a next time, asshole."
A squish and a gurgle. Melia blinked to see two swords protruding out of the Prone's back and he dropped to his knees. The swords retracted and he fell to the side, a puddle of blood growing around him. He shuddered, then stopped moving.
Tyrea knelt down, filing Melia's view. "Melia. Melia are you there?" Hesitant, her sister reached out and touched her forehead.
Melia managed a weak nod. The world began blurring, her senses losing focus.
"I'm getting you out of here."
Melia felt the restraints come off of her arms. Then her ankles. Tyrea picked her up and Melia leaned on her sister, swaying back and forth.
"I've got you."
Melia barely nodded, trying to stay conscious. But everything was muddied. They were walking out of the garage, then a swosh of wind...they were in the air? She could hear more explosions, more shouting. Then gunfire. Underneath…
Solid ground once more. She stumbled, but someone caught her...
"Tyrea!"
"Oh my god, Melia…"
Squinting, she could just make out the cruiser. But her head ached and her body became overwhelmed by the pain and constant onslaught of sensation on her senses. It was too much to bear. Too much to perceive. Too much to take in...
"Oy! Time ta go!"
"Riki run fast!"
"Shulk, now!"
There was a roar of what she thought was an engine…
"Melia?" A soft voice, one that she had wanted to hear…
Then darkness.
TLDR: Melia is tortured, but Dunban et. all save her. And Melia overhears about the VITA.
