As she anticipated, she didn't get much sleep that night. For a long time, she had trouble quieting her mind enough to even try. On top of that, the guards checked on her once an hour, and they didn't bother being discreet about it. The one time she did manage to fully fall asleep, she was awoken shortly after by nightmares. She didn't bother trying again after that.
Breakfast was dropped off early, but she was too sick to her stomach with anticipation to eat any of it. Instead, she paced. She wasn't much given to pacing usually, preferring more productive ways to occupy her mind, like tinkering with crystals. But since that wasn't an option, she found that the repetitive motion helped slow her racing thoughts. So that's what she did until Captain Swift entered the room carrying a box. He set it down on the desk, took one look at her, and announced, "You look terrible."
"Good morning to you, too," she replied flatly.
"I'm told you didn't sleep."
She shrugged.
He glanced at the breakfast tray, "And I see you haven't eaten. You're not starting a hunger strike, are you? You don't look like you can afford to skip many meals."
"No, I'm not."
"Good. Those never end well. Nerves, then? We can hold off on lunch until after the signing if you want, but you'd better eat then."
She nodded her agreement, and he knocked on the side of the box, "Alright. Come unload your stuff."
She unpacked the box, finding everything she asked for, including the kohl.
"You decided the taxpayers could shoulder the burden, after all?"
"What can I say? You were right. You look about twelve without it."
She glared at him, "I do not look twelve!"
"If you say so. So how old are you?"
"I am fifteen."
"Is that a real fifteen, or are you rounding up?"
"I'm not going to dignify that with a response," she said loftily.
"You don't have to," he said with an amused and knowing glint in his eyes.
Turning her attention away from him before he could goad her further, she picked up the newspaper. At the top of page one, in giant letters, was the headline: PEACE AT LAST?
Below the fold, another prominent headline read: STORM HAWKS NAMED ATMOSIA'S NEW OFFICIAL SQUADRON
"Really?" she sneered. "What happened to the Red Eagles?"
"They're disbanding. They haven't been the same since Carver's betrayal, and then when Atmosia fell, it was the final nail in the coffin. So, they're calling it quits."
"Well, isn't it lucky that the Council has the heroes of the hour to fall back on?"
"That didn't sound at all bitter."
"I don't care if I sound bitter," she said, hating the petulant note she could hear creeping into her voice. "They ruined everything!" She slammed the newspaper back down onto the desk.
"Well then, I hate to be the bearer of more bad news, but one of them is going to stop by later to make sure you haven't been tampering with that cuff before the treaty signing."
That did make her anger burn brighter.
"You can tell Piper that she needn't bother! Not only have I not tampered with it, but she also knows full well that I haven't! You can't draw power from a leech crystal. They're resistant to it. Even if they weren't, they don't contain enough energy to be useful for anything, even if you could draw it out of them, not until they're at the point where they're ready to explode, anyway. She made sure that I saw her ridiculously overwrought key, so I know that the lock is too complex to even try to pick without a professional set of lockpicks, which I don't have. And she somehow managed to fuse the crystal to the metal, and there's nothing in this room that's going to let me pry it free! She's just coming here to annoy me! That's what the Storm Hawks truly excel at. Annoying me!"
Captain Swift merely nodded along during her tirade. At the end of it, he said, "All I heard there was, 'I've spent a great deal of time thinking about how to tamper with this cuff; I just haven't figured out how yet.' I'm still going to let someone more knowledgeable on the subject than me double-check."
Before she could respond, there was a perfunctory knock on the door, and Lory the Medic let herself in. Captain Swift met her at the door. "Enter at your own risk," he said lightly. "We're not having a good morning."
Lory looked past him to her, "I see. Well, that's not unexpected under the circumstances. Please, sit."
The reexamination went quickly, with Lory telling her that it wasn't uncommon for sleep and appetite changes to occur with a concussion and that stress was exacerbating the problem. She and Captain Swift left soon after, and she kept busy by reading the newspaper.
An hour later, her clothes and the treaty were dropped off. She opted to get ready first. It had nothing to do with avoiding the contents of the treaty, she told herself. Not at all. Piper would be stopping by soon, and she just didn't want her to see her looking scruffy. She had an image to uphold, after all.
Once ready to face Sky Knight and Sky Knight Council alike, she sat stiffly at the desk and began to read through her copy of the treaty. It was every bit as painful as she had suspected it would be.
The Cyclonian Empire will accept full responsibility for the hostilities between it and the rest of the Atmos. She will be forced to abdicate. She, Dark Ace, and any other Cyclonian commander who can be hunted down will stand trial for war crimes.
Next came the punitive economic measures. Half of Cyclonia's crystal mines will be seized, their resources divided among the terras that make up the Free Atmos. In addition, Cyclonia will pay whatever reparations necessary to resettle the populations of the nine terras it destroyed and repair any damage done to the terras it conquered during the past six weeks. All prisoners of war and political prisoners are to be freed immediately, and restitutions paid to them in the amount of 25,000 marks per year of imprisonment, with an additional 25,000 marks per year tacked on if they were used as slave labor during their incarceration.
Then came the decimation of her army. The Talons will be disbanded, and a new, smaller military force will be formed that will be dedicated solely to the defense of Cyclonian terras. All Talons will be required to renounce their original oath of enlistment and either retire or re-enlist under the new defense force. Any Talon who refused will be imprisoned until they choose to comply. Any Talon who initiates violence against the Free Atmos after the signing of the treaty will be detained indefinitely as unlawful combatants. Terra Zartacla and its sister terra Seraph will be ceded to Atmosia, and Zartacla prison overhauled to be used as a military prison for the recalcitrant Talons. All Destroyers and battlecruisers will be forfeited to the Free Atmos, their value assessed by an independent committee and credited toward reparations, and all factories will transition to peacetime production.
Finally, an occupying force will be sent to all Cyclonian terras to ensure that surrender conditions are met. The current government will be dissolved, and an interim government installed until a new one can be established by the Cyclonian people.
She huffed a humorless laugh. What did her people know of forming a government? All they had ever known was being ruled by a Master Cyclonis. Her family's sovereignty stretched back centuries. Each individual terra had a governor, but each governor was appointed by the Master, existing only to oversee that their will was being served. It was more a position of prestige than power. They could be facing years under Atmosia's thumb before they developed a system a fraction as effective as what they had. It was impossible to say how long it would take to pay off the reparations in total, but no doubt that would take years, even decades. And obviously, they intended for Cyclonia's military to remain crippled indefinitely. Maybe she never should have agreed to this. Perhaps it would have been better to let the empire burn than suffer this slow death. Of course, she could still refuse to sign.
"No."
She started. She had been so focused on the document in front of her that she hadn't heard Piper come in. She leaned back in her chair, crossing her legs so that one ankle rested on the opposite knee and locked eyes with the other girl. "No, what?"
"You're not that hard to read," Piper said, taking a seat atop the desk. "I don't know what the Dark Ace said to you yesterday that convinced you to agree to surrender, but you did. You gave your word. No backing out now."
That did make her laugh, darkly amused at Piper's continued naiveté. "I had no idea you put so much faith in my word of honor."
Piper's mouth thinned into an unamused line. "I don't. I just thought that maybe I could…."
"Shame me into doing the right thing?" she finished for her. She smirked, but it faded quickly as she picked up the treaty. "Have you read this?"
"Yes."
"And?"
"And I understand why you're not happy."
"That's an understatement."
"But you know what?" Piper went on as if she hadn't spoken.
"What?"
"Too bad! Everything in there is designed to make Cyclonia clean up the mess it made, that you made, and make sure it doesn't happen again. It didn't have to be this way! You could have left us alone. You could have just been happy ruling over what you already had. But you chose not to. So, sorry if I don't join your little pity party, but all this is entirely your fault, and I don't feel the least bit bad that you're having to deal with the consequences of your actions for once in your life!"
She stared at Piper, dumbstruck.
"Nothing to say? That's a shock!" Piper said, amber eyes still blazing with righteous fury.
"Ouch?"
The heat faded from Piper's eyes, and her mouth twitched slightly, but she quickly schooled her features back into a stern frown. "You're impossible."
She looked away, staring out the window as she contemplated whether she really wanted to renege on the deal she made yesterday or not. It didn't take her long to come to the same conclusion she had when it was the Dark Ace, instead of Piper, who called her out on her self-indulgent impulses. However betrayed she feared the Cyclonian people would feel by her capitulating to Atmosia's demands was nothing compared to how they would feel if she allowed them to be wiped out entirely.
"I told the Council that Cyclonia surrenders, and I meant it," she said, looking back to Piper. "I have every intention of signing the treaty."
"Good." There was a beat of silence, and then, apropos of nothing, "You're welcome, by the way."
"Oh, this ought to be good. What is it you expect me to thank you for? The destruction of my terra? The ruination of my life's work? My impending condemnation?"
"The Dark Ace."
"What about him?"
Piper seemed surprised as she said, "Don't you know what you almost did? You were Binding way too much energy to him; if I hadn't blasted you back and broken the connection, you would have killed him!"
She frowned. That couldn't be right; she would have known if she were overloading him. Except…she had been furious and very desperate to win that fight. Looking back with a clearer head, replaying those last few seconds before everything had gone terribly wrong…Piper, watching her closely, saw the exact moment realization hit her because she exclaimed, "You really didn't know! Now I definitely think I deserve a thank you. At the time, I thought you knew but just didn't care. You seemed a bit…unhinged."
"I wouldn't deliberately kill the Dark Ace."
"Well then?" Piper said expectantly.
"I'm not going to thank you," she scoffed. "And neither would the Dark Ace if he knew. So, he's not going to find out."
"You expect me to believe he wouldn't be grateful that I saved his life?" Piper asked incredulously.
"Saved it for what? Dark Ace is a warrior. Not just a soldier," she emphasized. "A warrior. That man lives for fighting. I'm not going to be the one to tell him he could have died in battle instead of whatever the Sky Knight Council has in store for him."
That took the wind out of Piper's sails. She sputtered for a moment before huffing, "Even if that's true, it still doesn't explain why you're not grateful."
"I didn't say I wasn't."
"I will never understand Cyclonians," Piper said when it became clear that she wasn't going to say anything more than that. She looked and sounded so irritated that Cyclonis had a hard time keeping a straight face. Getting under Piper's skin really was fun.
"Let me see the cuff," Piper ordered, finally remembering why she had come here in the first place. The fun and games over, she let her foot drop back down to the ground and leaned forward slightly, extending her arm. Piper took her hand, surprisingly gentle, and she swallowed uncomfortably. Her fingertips prickled where they pressed against Piper's hand, like a jolt of static electricity had passed through them, and the sick, nervous feeling that had plagued her all morning redoubled. Which was ridiculous. What did she have to be anxious about? She hadn't tampered with the cuff, and even if she had, what was Piper going to do about it? Piper carefully studied the leech crystal before turning her wrist to check the lock, looking for any signs of tampering.
She pulled an eye loupe out of a small pouch she wore at her hip and took a closer look at the crystal, studying its integrity on a structural level. Then, satisfied, she put the loupe away. "I half expected you to figure out a way out of this, despite my best efforts," Piper confessed.
"It's been less than a day. Give it time."
"That wasn't a challenge."
"Everything is a challenge."
"It's that kind of thinking that got you into this mess."
"As if you don't have the exact same mindset. Or are you suddenly not a part of the youngest Sky Knight squadron to ever exist, and a self-taught crystal mage of prodigious skill?"
Piper seemed flustered, though she wasn't sure whether it was because of the comparison or the compliment. "Oh, and Piper?" she continued.
"Yes?"
"Can I have my hand back?"
Piper dropped her hand as if burned, her cheeks darkening.
She cocked her head and studied the other girl with a slight smirk. She certainly wasn't expecting such a strong reaction. She scarcely had time to wonder about it, though, before Piper spoke again. "I'm not like you."
"Aren't you?" she drawled. "Surely, I don't need to point out the similarities."
"No, there are similarities. There's no denying that. The crystals. The powers. The drive. You're right; I do like a challenge."
She grinned at the admission, but Piper went on, all signs of her earlier discomfiture gone. "But none of that's important. What really matters are the ways we're different. I could never do the things you've done. I wouldn't be able to live with myself." She hopped off the desk. "And I'll never understand how you can. I'll see you at the treaty signing." And with that, Piper turned and walked out, leaving her frowning at the closed door long after she left.
They were brought to the Council Hall half an hour early, their shackles removed before entering the room. A table was placed in front of the Sky Knight Council dais, behind which two chairs had been set. Two copies of both the Articles of Surrender and the Declaration of Peace sat on the table. The sitting members of the Council were in their usual places, while the Chairman stood at one end of the table with the Storm Hawks. She and Dark Ace moved to the other end of the table.
"I don't suppose you received a copy of the surrender?" she said quietly to the Dark Ace, who shook his head. She retrieved the Cyclonian copy from the center of the table and handed it to him to look over as other squadrons started to trickle in and take their seats as witnesses. She ignored the other squadrons, dividing her attention between Dark Ace, whose face was a thundercloud as he read the document, and the Storm Hawks at the other end of the table. They were dressed differently, in coordinated uniforms of navy blue and red, with much higher quality armor than they usually wore. They looked like a proper Sky Knight squadron, which she supposed was appropriate since they finally were one.
Dark Ace snapped the portfolio closed and offered it back to her once he was finished reading. "Are you going to sign it?"
"Unfortunately," she answered as she took the document from him. "It's better than the alternative."
She replaced the document to its place on the table, and they waited in silence for the proceedings to begin. Once all the squadrons had arrived, and a small band of journalists had congregated at the back of the room, the Chairman stepped forward to give a speech. She adopted her best head-of-state-politely-listening-to-another-head-of-state expression and promptly tuned him out. Honestly, she had never been a fan of official state functions, and she liked this one least of all.
She watched the crowd as he spoke instead. Their attention was centered on the Chairman, but many of them cast occasional, hostile glances her way. Most of them quickly diverted their eyes when they made eye contact, but a few of the braver ones held her gaze longer before ultimately being the first to look away. Was it petty to be pleased by that? Absolutely. But she couldn't help but appreciate the fact that these people still feared her. It was especially gratifying after the past twenty-four hours of dealing with people who were not, or at least acted like they weren't, intimidated by her.
Eventually, the Chairman finished his pontificating, and it was time for the signing. They took their seats at the table, and she read through the Articles of Surrender one more time while the Chairman signed his copy immediately. The tension in the air grew noticeably more palpable at her procrastination.
"Sign it," the Chairman said through his teeth.
Taking her time now just to annoy him personally, she picked up her pen slowly, uncapped it slowly, and ever so carefully signed the document with her full name and title:
Calandra Lark Cyclonis, the 22nd Master Cyclonis
They swapped copies, signed again, and then moved on to sign the Declaration of Peace. Finally, Aerrow collected the documents and handed them up to the rest of the Council for safekeeping, and with that, the ceremony was officially complete.
As the squadrons got up to mingle and celebrate the newfound peace, she and the Chairman discussed the next steps.
"We expect your declaration of abdication to be drafted, signed, and submitted to us by the end of the week."
That was in two days. "You're not wasting any time."
"The sooner you step down, the more likely it is that we can have a peaceful transition of power."
She huffed a laugh, and he frowned. "You don't think the transition will be peaceful," he said.
"It's unlikely."
"Then you will address your people and urge them to abide by the peace treaty without resistance. Prepare your speech and submit it for approval with your abdication. Once approved, you'll record the message, and we'll send it out."
"That will only do so much," she said. And by that, she meant 'nothing'. Once she was gone and the governors learned that they were being replaced, they would fight not only to retain their status on their own terras but to seize control of the entire empire as well. It would be like the time she left Ravess in charge but on a grander scale. Nothing she could say would change that. But that was Atmosia's problem, now.
"By week's end," he repeated, undeterred. "In the meantime, a list of charges is being compiled, and a tribunal formed to oversee your trial. I anticipate being ready to move forward with that sometime late next week or early the following one."
"So soon? Are we having an actual trial or a show one?"
"It will be a real trial. We believe in the rule of law here."
She smiled skeptically, which he didn't seem to like.
"At least you're receiving a trial, which is more than you offered to any of the people you threw into your crystal prison to rot for eternity," he said sharply.
"All known threats to the security and sovereignty of Cyclonia."
"Just as you're the greatest threat to the security and autonomy of the entire Atmos. It's a shame the crystal prison was destroyed. By your own standards, you'd be a prime candidate."
"This from the man who just claimed that the outcome of my trial isn't a foregone conclusion," she smirked, standing.
"Where do you think you're going? I'm not finished speaking with you."
"I'm finished speaking with you," she said with a dismissive wave of her hand as she turned and walked away from him. Dark Ace still stood at his place at one end of the table, arms crossed and scowling at anyone who dared to come within a meter of his personal space. "I'm bored," she told him in passing. Letting his arms drop to his side, he followed her.
Unfortunately, the press corps was still stationed by the door. She was inundated with questions the moment she got close, the reporters talking over one another in their haste to have their questions answered first. She ignored them, not even gracing them with a curt, "No comment." Still, having to push past them slowed her down long enough that the Storm Hawks were able to catch up to her and Dark Ace just outside the doors.
"Umm, you weren't supposed to just walk out of there on your own like that," Aerrow said, grabbing her shoulder to stop her. She shrugged his hand off, and surprisingly he let her. She turned to face him.
"I signed the documents. That's all that was required of me. I'm not obligated to stay for anything else, so I am opting to return to my room."
"Well, Chairman Tern seemed pretty angry. He sent us after you to stop you from escaping."
Beside her, Dark Ace snorted.
"Escaping!" she said incredulously. "With them waiting out here?" She gestured to the six soldiers standing guard, overseen by Captain Swift. "And the building crawling with Sky Knights? What he's actually angry about is that I walked away from him," she finished, crossing her arms.
Aerrow sighed, "Well, you might want to go back in there and smooth things over."
"I'm not doing that."
"Fine, then I'll walk you back to your room. Junko, you're with me. Piper, go let the Chairman know that everything's under control."
Piper and the other two Storm Hawks went back into the meeting hall while the guards cuffed her and Dark Ace. Two of the guards stayed behind while the rest escorted them away.
No one spoke as they walked, but she could feel the wallop's eyes on her. Giving him a sidelong look, she could see he looked pensive.
"Spit it out or stop staring," she told him.
"Oh, uh…I was just wondering…I don't know if you'd know the answer," he said hesitantly.
"It would help if I knew the question."
"Right. Well, I started wondering when you guys were signing those papers if Terra Wallop was considered a part of Cyclonia. Since, y'know, they fought for you."
"No. Like Bogaton, Wallop allied with us, but they never officially joined the empire. I imagine they'll work out some separate agreement with Atmosia."
"Oh, good. Thanks," he said, sounding both relieved and genuinely grateful for an answer.
"I don't think Terra Wallop has much to worry about," Aerrow added. "I think they, like Bogaton, already learned their lesson about allying with Cyclonia."
"Alliances are temporary. They should have fully submitted to me by joining the empire. The fact that they didn't marked them as a future threat, and I had to treat them accordingly," she said unapologetically.
"Do you always have to be so calculating about everything?"
"That's my job. To assess risks to Cyclonia and act in its best interests. As a leader, you should understand that."
"Sorry, but as a leader, I think there's a big difference between acting in the best interests of your people and crushing anyone who doesn't kowtow to you."
"Spare us the self-righteous lecture," Dark Ace finally spoke up, his tone caustic, and she smiled. "She leads an empire. You lead a piddling band of children. They aren't comparable."
"It was that piddling band of children who managed to take you down," Aerrow boasted as if they needed the reminder. She could feel a scowl darken her features, her expression mirrored by Dark Ace, who clenched his fists as Aerrow continued. "So maybe-"
"That's enough, all of you!" Captain Swift stepped in, both verbally and physically, placing himself between them. He pointed to Aerrow, "Don't rile up my prisoners. You'll just make my job more difficult."
"Sorry," Aerrow told the captain, sounding like he meant it.
Captain Swift nodded and then pointed to Dark Ace. "And you, act your age."
Dark Ace looked affronted, but Captain Swift didn't wait for a response before turning and walking again. "Keep moving."
They walked the rest of the way to Dark Ace's room in renewed silence. Once he was locked back in his room, they moved on to hers. Once inside, she offered her wrists to Captain Swift to be uncuffed, but he shook his head. "Not yet."
"What do you mean not yet? Why?" she demanded.
"I'll be back soon," he said.
"That's not an answer!"
But the door clicked shut without any further explanation, leaving her alone.
After a short wait in which she got to dwell on why she was still cuffed and come to no good conclusions, the door opened once more, and Captain Swift walked back in followed by the Chairman, who didn't look like he was in any better a mood than he was when she had last seen him.
"What are you doing here?" she asked shortly.
"Ensuring that we come to an understanding," he replied. "You see, I have gone out of my way to treat you with all the dignity someone of your station could hope for under the circumstances. You have a comfortable room." He picked up the newspaper that was lying on the desk and held it up. "Privileges that you did not have to earn. You have good food, medical care, and the most even-tempered jailer that I have ever personally known." Here he waved the newspaper in Captain Swift's direction. "You have not been unduly humiliated or mistreated in any way. Do you disagree?"
"No," she answered warily.
"Good. With that said, let me make something clear. Disrespect me or any of my fellow Councilmen again, and all that goes away. Walk through another doorway without being escorted by your guards, and it all goes away. We'll see how you enjoy a cell in the Stockade's solitary confinement unit and attending your trial in a prison jumpsuit and chains. Now then, do we have an understanding?"
She grit her teeth as he spoke. What happened in the Council Hall was, as far as she was concerned, not her fault. She had voiced a legitimate concern, he had responded with snideness, and she had walked away out of frustration before the conversation could devolve further. And now here he was, accusing her of disrespect and thinking he could bully her into submission with threats of taking away some creature comforts? Did he think that just because she was royalty that she was soft? That she was afraid of a little hardship? It was insulting, and every instinct within her screamed to challenge him, to force his hand, to deny him the satisfaction of thinking her cowed.
But then, he'd like that too, wouldn't he? His antipathy toward her was apparent. It was plain in the way he had forced her surrender the day before. It was explicit in his words to her earlier that day. And it was clear in his tone now as he spoke of how well she was being treated, the hint of distaste he allowed to slip through to let her know that he didn't believe that she deserved it, but that he offered it to signal Atmosia's vaunted virtue. He would happily follow through with his threat to see her brought low.
He won either way. The best she could do was choose not to lose any worse than she had to.
"Yes, you've made yourself quite clear," she told him. It was a struggle to force herself to sound docile, but she thought she did a halfway decent job. Good enough to placate him, at least.
"Good. Then we will finish our conversation."
He took a seat at the desk and pulled the pad of paper toward himself. "Come stand where I can see you," he said, gesturing with the pen to a spot against the wall. She stood where he indicated, and he said, "Commanders Ravess and Snipe were conspicuously absent from the fighting these last few months. What can you tell me of their whereabouts?"
"Nothing. They were banished from Cyclonia for their repeated failures, and I've heard nothing from or about them since. You can check the Wastelands for Snipe. That's where I had him dropped."
He peered at her over the top of his glasses, "That does make bringing them to justice more difficult. Well, assuming they're alive, they can't stay hidden from us forever. We'll find them eventually."
She shrugged. Their fates were of no concern to her.
Pen poised over paper, he continued. "I need a complete accounting of each Cyclonian terras current governor and your assessment of how much trouble each one is likely to cause us in the coming weeks and if there is anything we can do to minimize it."
She found herself surprisingly amenable to the task, partially because she was loath to see any of them succeed in winning her throne, partly to watch the Chairman die a little inside as she dashed his hopes of a quick and peaceful transition.
It was well over an hour before the Chairman stood, stretching his back. "I appreciate your cooperation," he told her honestly. "Now, there is only the small matter of your punishment to address, and I'll be on my way."
"What?" she exclaimed, as close to shouting as she ever got.
"It's more of a disincentive than a punishment," he amended. "Your brazenness in walking out on the proceedings earlier still does not sit well with me."
"I wasn't trying to escape!"
"Maybe not at that exact moment. But I do not for a moment believe that you won't attempt to, should the opportunity arise. And I do not put it past you to take extraordinary measures to do so, if necessary. A successful escape would doubtless require weapons. Crystals."
"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked, even though she knew exactly where he was going with his train of thought. She had already reached the same conclusion yesterday.
"You're a pragmatic woman. You'd trade a hand for your freedom. Your non-dominant hand, at that, I noticed." He studied her shrewdly for a moment. "But not both, I think."
She could feel her heart sink.
"Piper made a second cuff," she guessed flatly.
"Yes, as a backup in case something happened to the original," the Chairman confirmed. He walked over to the door, opening it to address the guards outside. "Has it been delivered? Excellent."
He was handed a small leaden box and returned to the desk, setting it down and opening it. Then, picking up the cuff with one hand, he grabbed the chain of her handcuffs with the other, holding her in place while he closed the cuff around her wrist.
As the lock clicked into place, a red-hot wave of rage rose within her chest. She tamped it down, not wanting to lose control and give him the satisfaction of knowing that he had gotten to her.
"There. That was painless," The Chairman said as he withdrew the key and let her go. His tone was a little too bright, his gaze a little too knowing, and she realized she wasn't hiding her emotions as well as she hoped. That only made her angrier.
He gathered up the notes he had taken about Cyclonia's governors, nodded to Captain Swift, and left the room without another word.
"Did you know about this?" she asked the captain accusingly. "Is that why I'm still in these?" She jerked her cuffed hands up in front of her face in illustration.
"I knew as soon as I heard the Sky Knight tell you what the Chairman had said to him that there would be repercussions," Captain Swift said. "I thought it best to be prepared for the worst, for everyone's safety. You're lucky; it went much better than I thought it would."
Hearing him call her lucky made her anger burn brighter. He approached her with some caution. No, she was not fooling anyone with her attempt to look calm. He took her by the elbow and walked her over to the corner farthest from the door.
"I'm going to take off the handcuffs. You're going to stand here until I've left the room. I want you to breathe in for a count of four, hold your breath for a count of seven, and breathe out for a count of eight. Do that until you feel better. Okay? We'll do one together. In for four."
She let him lead her through one cycle of his breathing exercise. He nodded encouragingly, unlocked her handcuffs, and made his way to the door. "Keep it up," he told her, and then he was out of the room.
She did so, breathing through two more cycles before her gaze fell on the leecher cuff, and her rage swelled anew.
Breathe in four.
The smug face of the Chairman as he put the cuff on her flashed through her mind, and she kicked the wall with her heel.
Hold seven.
His threats echoed in her ears, and she slammed her back against the wall with a satisfyingly audible thud, but she barely felt it.
Out eight.
She couldn't believe her hope of escape, already such an unlikely prospect, had been dashed so easily. Clenching her hand into a fist, she smashed the side of it into the wall. That did hurt, but not enough to distract her.
It felt as if those very walls were closing in around her. She tried to take another deep breath in but only got to the count of three before she couldn't draw in any more air.
All the anger she felt over the events of the past twenty-four hours, all the sorrow, all the shame surged to the surface, breaking through the dam she had worked so hard to keep it contained behind.
Whirling, she punched the wall. Far from being the cathartic experience she had hoped it would be, it only made her rage grow. She hit it again, bloodying her knuckles. Her only reward was more anger.
With a wordless cry of pain and rage, she turned her blind fury upon the rest of the room.
When the first animalistic scream of rage came, only slightly muffled by the closed door, Captain Swift was not surprised. He had seen it building in her, knew that the breathing exercise he taught her had only a marginal chance of staving off a violent outburst.
What really surprised him was that it hadn't happened sooner. Dark Ace had thrown his own fit the evening before, punching a hole in the wall and overturning the heavy oaken desk.
It had been a brief flare of temper that ended as quickly as it had begun, and he hoped for the same here.
But when the ruckus coming from Cyclonis' room hadn't died down in one minute…two…three…he knew that they weren't going to be as lucky with her as they had been with him. This was a full-fledged meltdown.
Squaring his shoulders, he reached for the doorknob.
"Sir?" Wit, one of the two guards stationed at the door, said. "Shouldn't we just wait it out?"
He shook his head. "Part of the job is making sure she doesn't hurt herself."
The second guard, Martin, scoffed. "I'd rather have her hurt herself than one of us."
Captain Swift raised an eyebrow. "She's 45 kilos soaking wet, and I know what I'm walking into. I'll be fine. You two stay out here unless I call for you."
Cracking the door open, he checked to make sure she wasn't right on the other side of it before slipping inside and closing it behind him. Looking around, he quickly assessed the damage. Unlike the Dark Ace, she hadn't managed to punch any holes in the walls, but the smears of blood that decorated several different spots along them told him it wasn't for lack of trying.
The armchair was overturned, its cushion lying on the ground on the other side of the room. The desk was displaced, with one end dragged away from the wall. She had tried to flip it over as Dark Ace had done, but the thing had to weigh at least as much as she did, so she had settled for yanking the desk drawer free and smashing it on the ground instead. The papers, books, and radio that had sat atop the desk lay scattered on the ground around it.
And now she had the chair from the desk hoisted, looking for all the world like she planned to smash it against the wall.
"Drop the chair!" he ordered in his most commanding CO voice.
Instead of dropping it, she turned and threw it at him with another angry yell. Fortunately for her, it fell short of her goal, clattering to the ground in front of him.
"Absolutely not," he thought aloud. Kicking the chair out of his way, he strode over to her, watching her carefully so that he could react to any move she made.
A flicker of awareness seemed to finally break through the red haze because she had the sense to try to evade him. It was a clumsy effort, though, and he quickly grabbed her, first by the shoulder and then by the scruff of the neck, marching her to the middle of the room and dropping her with a controlled kick to the back of the knee.
"You want to take your frustrations out physically? Fine. But you'll do it productively. Push the floor until I get tired!"
He quite liked that one. He'd learned it from a drill sergeant buddy of his. She seemed less appreciative, trying to push herself back to her feet with another angry, inarticulate shout, but he drove her back down with a boot between her shoulder blades.
"Nope, you're not getting up until I say you're getting up."
She pounded the floor with a fist, once, and he clicked his tongue. "You're not listening! I said push the floor, not hit it. Did no one ever teach you how to do a simple pushup?"
With a growl, she planted her hands on the ground and performed one quick, shoddy pushup. He was impressed. He'd never seen someone infuse a pushup with quite so much petulance before.
"Your form is terrible," he critiqued. "Why is your grip so wide? Tighten that up, tuck in your elbows, keep your back straight and keep going. I'm not letting you up until you do twenty real pushups or calm down, whichever comes last. We have all day."
Still clearly upset, she nonetheless did as he said, and he watched with crossed arms as her anger carried her through a good twenty-five pushups before she faltered. First, her knees hit the ground, then her elbows, and finally, she pressed her forehead to the floor, shoulders shaking as the first sob tore out of her.
About time.
Without a word, he walked over to the window and stared out at the courtyard, giving her at least some small amount of privacy while she cried.
He wasn't sure how long they stayed like that, but eventually, she fell silent behind him. He waited another minute before turning to face her. She had sat up but kept her head bowed. He walked over to her and offered her his hand. She took it, and he pulled her to her feet. He tried to look her in the eyes, but she refused to meet his gaze. "You good?" he asked. She nodded. "Then go clean yourself up and get back out here to pick up this mess."
She went into the bathroom, washing her face before cleaning the cuts and scrapes on her hands. Then she wordlessly began setting the room to rights. While she did that, he went into the bathroom and doused a washcloth with soapy water before lightly wringing it out. Once she was done, he handed her the washcloth. "Clean off the walls," he told her and supervised as she scrubbed the bloodstains off the walls and rinsed out the cloth.
"Come here," he ordered once everything was done. She came to stand before him. "Look at me," he told her, and she met his eyes for the first time since she had calmed down. Her eyes were red, and she looked uncomfortable and deeply embarrassed.
"You sure you're good? I can leave and trust you to not tear the place apart again?"
"Yes," she said, sounding sincere enough.
He nodded, keeping his expression stern. "Well then, let's get one last thing straight before I go. If you ever try to hit me again, I'm going to be a lot less understanding about it than I was today. Is that clear?"
She gave a short nod of understanding, and, with a nod of his own, he left the room. Wit and Martin looked at him expectantly. "What a day," he told them, shaking his head. "I need a break. Things should be quiet around here for the rest of the afternoon. I'll be back later to check in." With that, he walked away, resolving to take an extra-long lunch.
When the door closed behind Captain Swift, she went over to the bed and flopped down atop it so that she was lying back, staring up at the ceiling, feet still planted on the ground. Then, with a groan, she covered her face with her hands.
What a wretched experience.
She had always prided herself on her control. She very rarely lost it. And when she did, it was never to the extent she had now. This had been…unseemly, to borrow a phrase from her grandmother. The woman had always been very cognizant of maintaining appearances, and she tried to follow in her footsteps, though it wasn't always easy.
Like now when she had failed miserably by making an utter spectacle of herself. She wasn't sure what she was embarrassed by more; there were so many things to choose from. The temper tantrum? The crying? The ease with which Captain Swift had manhandled her and forced her to do pushups as if she were some insubordinate Talon recruit? The fact that she actually did them?
All of the above. Though if she wanted to be perfectly honest with herself, it was probably the tantrum. At least the pushups and the crying had made her feel…well, certainly not better…but at least they had numbed the anger to the point where she could think properly again.
And now she was left feeling wrung out and exhausted. Sitting up just long enough to remove her boots, she curled up on her side atop the covers and was out almost immediately.