This was a hard chapter to write. I don't know how many times I rewrote
this thing before I even remotly liked it. I do hope I've succeeded. My
beta-tester liked it so I hope y'all will too. Weiß und Schwarz belong to
Koyasu Takehito and Project Weiß. All other ideas are mine, with the
exepction of a few from my beta-tester.
Note: {{}} = Crawford precognitions Also, in my chapter titles, it is
supposed to be fünf, but the thingy won't let me put the umlaut over the
'u' so it's not that I can't spell, it just won't let me do so. Danke.
************************************************************************
Berlin, Germany: Six months later
"Gaaahhhhh!"
The punching bag swung back and then forward again. Crawford punched it back. "I hate this place!" He punched the bag repeatedly. All of his frustrations and hatred for this place guided each punch into the bag. With each punch, he yelled in his head everything he was feeling
"I hate this building, I hate the people in it, I hate their ideals and their thought processes, I hate the stench of this place, I hate the sounds of this place, I hate everything!" The bag swung back this time and he caught it.
Crawford leaned against the bag and breathed heavily into it. He felt a little better actually. All his frustrations out in a five-minute workout.
The first few months in Rosenkreuz were unbearable. His ex-mentor, Kensington Langly, told him that this place was a boarding school. Well, some of that was true. But the 'boarding-school' excuse was just a façade used to keep the government from shutting them down. Although, Crawford didn't doubt that there was some government help in keeping them open.
This place was a prison, plain and simple. All of the 'students' were watched like hawks. The only place there wasn't a guard was the dorm rooms, but they all had room mates, at least the first and second year students. If anything was said that the higher-ups didn't like, then you were punished. Just last week, he was talking to another student that came from Minnesota and the boy asked Crawford if he had ever read "1984". He came to find out that the boy is now in solitary confinement somewhere in the sub-basement of this place.
Crawford turned and laid on his back on the floor. He stared at the ceiling, thinking to himself, "At least he's of some value," referring the boy. He came to find that you could tell how much each person is worth to the school. If a student is of any value, they are usually just placed in solitary for a week as punishment if they receive any. If they are just there because they were recruited and really serve no purpose to these people, then they are shot on site, in front of everybody who happens to be standing there.
Crawford winced at the memory of when he first got here. He was in the mess hall eating what appeared to be food and one of the Este instructors just shot this one girl that was sitting three tables in front of him. The site of the hole in her head at the time made his stomach lurch. No one really knew why they had killed her, either that or no one wanted to talk for fear of their own life.
{{A woman walked into the gymnasium.}}
Crawford sat up and wiped the sweat from his forehead. There were all sorts of different people in the school. Plenty of telepaths and empaths. There were even healers and some teleketics. But, of all of them, there was one particular person who made him the most uncomfortable and that was the one other precog in this entire building. And of course, she was his new 'mentor'. Mentor was probably too strong.too nice a word. She was there to make sure he conformed to Estes' ideals.
The woman walked into the gymnasium. He heard the clicking of her heels on the floor. He turned his head and saw her form approaching him.
"Guten Tag, Herr Crawford," she said to him as she stopped behind him.
He sighed slightly. "Fräulein Menschenfeind." He looked up to see her smiling down at him.
As uncomfortable as he was around her, he found that kissing her ass was always a good idea. It just so happened that she was the highest- ranking person in the entire building, the dean of the school you could say. It also seemed that she had taken a liking to him, so if he wanted something, as long as it was in the bounds of Este and her own abilities, then she would gladly grant him almost anything. Though, he tried to stay away from her as much as he could.
"Are you going to get changed before you go to dinner?" she asked him.
Crawford began to get up. "Ja, I am. Is that all you came in here for?"
He was now standing up and looking at her. She said to him, "No actually, I wanted to tell you to stop by my office after the meal because I want to talk to you about a something."
Of course, she wasn't going to give any hint as to what she wanted to speak to him about. Crawford felt slightly nervous about this, but gave no indication of it. "Alright, after dinner I will stop by and we can talk."
"Gut." She turned and walked away. "I will see you later then."
He stood there looking at her back as she exited the room.
{{She stood in front of him talking.}}
Okay, harmless enough. Crawford went to get changed and proceeded to the mess hall. The sounds of voices hit his ears as he walked into the massive room. The smell of something half edible hit his nose, and he then realized how hungry he was. He drifted over to get a tray of food and found a place to sit.
As Crawford sat there eating, he thought to himself that it was amazing that these people even talked at all let alone to each other. All of there conversations were being listened to and if any of them slipped up and said the wrong thing.
This was why he rarely ever said anything to anybody. He didn't know whom to trust. He felt it better to just keep his mouth shut and he might get out of here with his life, if the curriculum didn't kill him first. The one thing he did thank that Langly guy for was he teaching Crawford to strengthen his mental barriers. So he could at least think to himself without being disturbed by the residing telepaths. He was trying to work on keeping his emotions in check though. His roommate just happened to be an empath and that guy always let Crawford know just what he was feeling. He seemed to be getting better, not showing emotion. But he still expressed it, somehow. Crawford really hated that guy.
He was thinking of asking Fräulein Menschenfeind if he could have another roommate. And now that he was thinking about it, what could she want to talk to him about? He was clueless. Crawford shoveled the side dish into his mouth, whatever it was. He was kind of nervous about what it was. Especially since it was her that wanted to talk to him. She had the power to make him disappear without a trace or to rise him up in the ranks. Rising up in ranks meant getting out of here sooner. That was definitely on his mind. He picked his drink up and took a sip still thinking about what was to come.
{{She put her arms around him}}
Crawford spit his drink out all over the tray in front of him. A couple of the other students looked at him.
"I swallowed too much," he said to them and they all went back to there meals. Crawford wiped his mouth with the napkin and put the tray in the disposal pile. He quickly walked back to his dorm room.
"Oh, that was not nice," he thought to himself on his way back. Why would she be doing that? Oh, the thought of her in physical contact with him made him shiver. Crawford opened his dorm room door and went in. "Oh good, he isn't here," he said aloud to himself.
He sat on his bed and stared off into oblivion. What should he do? If he didn't go, he could get in trouble, one: because he skipped a meeting with his mentor and two: because he skipped a meting with the dean. If he went, he could always avoid the contact since he knew she was going to do something. But she's a precog too, so she would probably see that he would try to block her and already have a counterattack waiting and he would just be screwed. He shivered at the thought.
"Okay, I'll just go and get it over with. Maybe I'm just over reacting." Crawford left the room and headed for the dean's office. He felt his hand shaking as he raised it to knock on the door. It wasn't moving, but he felt for sure that he could feel it doing so.
He knocked.
"Come in," came a voice from the other side of the door.
Crawford opened the door and walked in to see Fräulein Menschenfeind sitting behind her desk. "Please, come in Crawford," she motioned for him to sit on the couch that was in front of the desk. She rose and sat on the couch opposite him.
"Well," she began, "I'm sure you're wondering why I called you here. I've noticed that your mind seems to be elsewhere during your lessons. I am worried that this will interrupt your grasping of the concepts that we are teaching you. Is there anything that I could do to help one of our most prominent students?"
Crawford blinked. "Well," he tried to think of some bullshit story really fast, "I suppose I am bored with most of the studies because I was already taught so much by my former mentor." Hey, that story wasn't too bad.
"Ah yes, Kensington Langly. He always was a good teacher. Almost too good. It seems he did teach you much of what you will be learning in your first two years here. It is almost silly to make you do it again."
"Yes, very silly," Crawford thought to himself. Maybe that asshole was good for something.
"It would seem logical to put you in past what you have learned thus far."
Crawford nodded. "Yes, very logical. Actually, I've been thinking of asking you about possibly advancing me further up the ranks so I could learn new things and not have to hear what I've already been taught. And besides, the sooner I complete the courses here, the sooner I can serve the greater good of Este." He smiled and thought to himself, "God Brad, you are such a bullshiter."
Menschenfeind thought for a moment. "I've never advanced someone up in the ranks before. It is asking a lot you know. If I may be so blunt, I think I should receive something out of it, this request be so out of the ordinary."
Crawford stopped smiling. He thought he could figuratively see where this was going. The image of her with her arms around him came back and he shivered again. "What kind of favor did you have in mind?" he asked.
She sat there looking at him. Then a smile came to her face. "Well," she moved over and sat beside him, "being the highest ranked person here can make my job rather lonely."
"What a slut," Crawford thought. He knew exactly where this was going.
"Nobody ever comes and visits me."
Gee, I wonder why.
"So, I'll tell you what, if you.stay the night with me.I'll advance you up to a 3rd year student."
Third year! No more roommates, no more cleaning detail, no more physical labor, more freedom, a bigger dorm room, possibly not having to deal with her anymore.
"I will have to think about it." Crawford got up before she could drool on him.
She sat back into the couch and smiled at him. "Okay, you think about the opportunities of being a 3rd and not a 1st. Be here at 9:00 tonight. If you don't show up, then I will see you on cleaning detail tomorrow at 7:00."
Crawford left the room and went back to his own. His roommate was there this time. "Where have you been Crawford?" he boy asked him.
"Nowhere of any importance to you." He laid on his bed with his back to the boy. What should he do? The idea of being with her. Okay, it wasn't necessarily the woman herself, she was actually quite attractive for a woman, but it was the fact that she was this Este in human form and she walked, talked and breathed Este, and if he were to sleep with her, it would be like sleeping with his greatest enemy. But.she could make him a 3rd year student and that was too appealing to give up. Two years of torture done in one night.
Oh, what was he going to do? Continue with this hell or sleep with that woman. It then dawned on him that this would have been his first time. He never really thought about it before. He never was with anybody back home cause nobody wanted anything to do with him back home. And thank God that Langly guy never touched him. That thought made him gag. He suddenly thought it was really funny that he never really thought about sex up until now especially since it was the first thing on any other boy's his age mind.
Now he was faced with a dilemma. "To fuck or not to fuck, that is the question."
"Did you say something?" his roommate asked him.
"No I didn't say anything." He looked at the clock. Wow, 8:47. He didn't realize how long he had been thinking. He sat up and looked at his roommate who was picking his nose on the other side of the room.
That was the last straw. He got up and headed toward the door.
"Where are you going?" the boy asked.
"I am going to visit Fräulein Menschenfeind." Crawford left and walked to the dean's office. He was trying to think of good thoughts about the outcome of all of this. Maybe he could boss around the little 1st year recruits or get a dorm with an office attached to it like the higher ranked instructors. He got to her door. Now he felt nervous.
{{She thrust her head back in pleasure}}
He was about to turn around and walk away when the door opened. Menschenfeind stood there in a silk bathrobe. He didn't think she had anything underneath.
"I am glad you came. Please come in."
Crawford stood there.
"Oh, you're nervous. Don't worry, I won't hurt you." She took his hand and gently pulled him into the office. She closed the door softly.
************************************************************************
Berlin, Germany: Six months later
"Gaaahhhhh!"
The punching bag swung back and then forward again. Crawford punched it back. "I hate this place!" He punched the bag repeatedly. All of his frustrations and hatred for this place guided each punch into the bag. With each punch, he yelled in his head everything he was feeling
"I hate this building, I hate the people in it, I hate their ideals and their thought processes, I hate the stench of this place, I hate the sounds of this place, I hate everything!" The bag swung back this time and he caught it.
Crawford leaned against the bag and breathed heavily into it. He felt a little better actually. All his frustrations out in a five-minute workout.
The first few months in Rosenkreuz were unbearable. His ex-mentor, Kensington Langly, told him that this place was a boarding school. Well, some of that was true. But the 'boarding-school' excuse was just a façade used to keep the government from shutting them down. Although, Crawford didn't doubt that there was some government help in keeping them open.
This place was a prison, plain and simple. All of the 'students' were watched like hawks. The only place there wasn't a guard was the dorm rooms, but they all had room mates, at least the first and second year students. If anything was said that the higher-ups didn't like, then you were punished. Just last week, he was talking to another student that came from Minnesota and the boy asked Crawford if he had ever read "1984". He came to find out that the boy is now in solitary confinement somewhere in the sub-basement of this place.
Crawford turned and laid on his back on the floor. He stared at the ceiling, thinking to himself, "At least he's of some value," referring the boy. He came to find that you could tell how much each person is worth to the school. If a student is of any value, they are usually just placed in solitary for a week as punishment if they receive any. If they are just there because they were recruited and really serve no purpose to these people, then they are shot on site, in front of everybody who happens to be standing there.
Crawford winced at the memory of when he first got here. He was in the mess hall eating what appeared to be food and one of the Este instructors just shot this one girl that was sitting three tables in front of him. The site of the hole in her head at the time made his stomach lurch. No one really knew why they had killed her, either that or no one wanted to talk for fear of their own life.
{{A woman walked into the gymnasium.}}
Crawford sat up and wiped the sweat from his forehead. There were all sorts of different people in the school. Plenty of telepaths and empaths. There were even healers and some teleketics. But, of all of them, there was one particular person who made him the most uncomfortable and that was the one other precog in this entire building. And of course, she was his new 'mentor'. Mentor was probably too strong.too nice a word. She was there to make sure he conformed to Estes' ideals.
The woman walked into the gymnasium. He heard the clicking of her heels on the floor. He turned his head and saw her form approaching him.
"Guten Tag, Herr Crawford," she said to him as she stopped behind him.
He sighed slightly. "Fräulein Menschenfeind." He looked up to see her smiling down at him.
As uncomfortable as he was around her, he found that kissing her ass was always a good idea. It just so happened that she was the highest- ranking person in the entire building, the dean of the school you could say. It also seemed that she had taken a liking to him, so if he wanted something, as long as it was in the bounds of Este and her own abilities, then she would gladly grant him almost anything. Though, he tried to stay away from her as much as he could.
"Are you going to get changed before you go to dinner?" she asked him.
Crawford began to get up. "Ja, I am. Is that all you came in here for?"
He was now standing up and looking at her. She said to him, "No actually, I wanted to tell you to stop by my office after the meal because I want to talk to you about a something."
Of course, she wasn't going to give any hint as to what she wanted to speak to him about. Crawford felt slightly nervous about this, but gave no indication of it. "Alright, after dinner I will stop by and we can talk."
"Gut." She turned and walked away. "I will see you later then."
He stood there looking at her back as she exited the room.
{{She stood in front of him talking.}}
Okay, harmless enough. Crawford went to get changed and proceeded to the mess hall. The sounds of voices hit his ears as he walked into the massive room. The smell of something half edible hit his nose, and he then realized how hungry he was. He drifted over to get a tray of food and found a place to sit.
As Crawford sat there eating, he thought to himself that it was amazing that these people even talked at all let alone to each other. All of there conversations were being listened to and if any of them slipped up and said the wrong thing.
This was why he rarely ever said anything to anybody. He didn't know whom to trust. He felt it better to just keep his mouth shut and he might get out of here with his life, if the curriculum didn't kill him first. The one thing he did thank that Langly guy for was he teaching Crawford to strengthen his mental barriers. So he could at least think to himself without being disturbed by the residing telepaths. He was trying to work on keeping his emotions in check though. His roommate just happened to be an empath and that guy always let Crawford know just what he was feeling. He seemed to be getting better, not showing emotion. But he still expressed it, somehow. Crawford really hated that guy.
He was thinking of asking Fräulein Menschenfeind if he could have another roommate. And now that he was thinking about it, what could she want to talk to him about? He was clueless. Crawford shoveled the side dish into his mouth, whatever it was. He was kind of nervous about what it was. Especially since it was her that wanted to talk to him. She had the power to make him disappear without a trace or to rise him up in the ranks. Rising up in ranks meant getting out of here sooner. That was definitely on his mind. He picked his drink up and took a sip still thinking about what was to come.
{{She put her arms around him}}
Crawford spit his drink out all over the tray in front of him. A couple of the other students looked at him.
"I swallowed too much," he said to them and they all went back to there meals. Crawford wiped his mouth with the napkin and put the tray in the disposal pile. He quickly walked back to his dorm room.
"Oh, that was not nice," he thought to himself on his way back. Why would she be doing that? Oh, the thought of her in physical contact with him made him shiver. Crawford opened his dorm room door and went in. "Oh good, he isn't here," he said aloud to himself.
He sat on his bed and stared off into oblivion. What should he do? If he didn't go, he could get in trouble, one: because he skipped a meeting with his mentor and two: because he skipped a meting with the dean. If he went, he could always avoid the contact since he knew she was going to do something. But she's a precog too, so she would probably see that he would try to block her and already have a counterattack waiting and he would just be screwed. He shivered at the thought.
"Okay, I'll just go and get it over with. Maybe I'm just over reacting." Crawford left the room and headed for the dean's office. He felt his hand shaking as he raised it to knock on the door. It wasn't moving, but he felt for sure that he could feel it doing so.
He knocked.
"Come in," came a voice from the other side of the door.
Crawford opened the door and walked in to see Fräulein Menschenfeind sitting behind her desk. "Please, come in Crawford," she motioned for him to sit on the couch that was in front of the desk. She rose and sat on the couch opposite him.
"Well," she began, "I'm sure you're wondering why I called you here. I've noticed that your mind seems to be elsewhere during your lessons. I am worried that this will interrupt your grasping of the concepts that we are teaching you. Is there anything that I could do to help one of our most prominent students?"
Crawford blinked. "Well," he tried to think of some bullshit story really fast, "I suppose I am bored with most of the studies because I was already taught so much by my former mentor." Hey, that story wasn't too bad.
"Ah yes, Kensington Langly. He always was a good teacher. Almost too good. It seems he did teach you much of what you will be learning in your first two years here. It is almost silly to make you do it again."
"Yes, very silly," Crawford thought to himself. Maybe that asshole was good for something.
"It would seem logical to put you in past what you have learned thus far."
Crawford nodded. "Yes, very logical. Actually, I've been thinking of asking you about possibly advancing me further up the ranks so I could learn new things and not have to hear what I've already been taught. And besides, the sooner I complete the courses here, the sooner I can serve the greater good of Este." He smiled and thought to himself, "God Brad, you are such a bullshiter."
Menschenfeind thought for a moment. "I've never advanced someone up in the ranks before. It is asking a lot you know. If I may be so blunt, I think I should receive something out of it, this request be so out of the ordinary."
Crawford stopped smiling. He thought he could figuratively see where this was going. The image of her with her arms around him came back and he shivered again. "What kind of favor did you have in mind?" he asked.
She sat there looking at him. Then a smile came to her face. "Well," she moved over and sat beside him, "being the highest ranked person here can make my job rather lonely."
"What a slut," Crawford thought. He knew exactly where this was going.
"Nobody ever comes and visits me."
Gee, I wonder why.
"So, I'll tell you what, if you.stay the night with me.I'll advance you up to a 3rd year student."
Third year! No more roommates, no more cleaning detail, no more physical labor, more freedom, a bigger dorm room, possibly not having to deal with her anymore.
"I will have to think about it." Crawford got up before she could drool on him.
She sat back into the couch and smiled at him. "Okay, you think about the opportunities of being a 3rd and not a 1st. Be here at 9:00 tonight. If you don't show up, then I will see you on cleaning detail tomorrow at 7:00."
Crawford left the room and went back to his own. His roommate was there this time. "Where have you been Crawford?" he boy asked him.
"Nowhere of any importance to you." He laid on his bed with his back to the boy. What should he do? The idea of being with her. Okay, it wasn't necessarily the woman herself, she was actually quite attractive for a woman, but it was the fact that she was this Este in human form and she walked, talked and breathed Este, and if he were to sleep with her, it would be like sleeping with his greatest enemy. But.she could make him a 3rd year student and that was too appealing to give up. Two years of torture done in one night.
Oh, what was he going to do? Continue with this hell or sleep with that woman. It then dawned on him that this would have been his first time. He never really thought about it before. He never was with anybody back home cause nobody wanted anything to do with him back home. And thank God that Langly guy never touched him. That thought made him gag. He suddenly thought it was really funny that he never really thought about sex up until now especially since it was the first thing on any other boy's his age mind.
Now he was faced with a dilemma. "To fuck or not to fuck, that is the question."
"Did you say something?" his roommate asked him.
"No I didn't say anything." He looked at the clock. Wow, 8:47. He didn't realize how long he had been thinking. He sat up and looked at his roommate who was picking his nose on the other side of the room.
That was the last straw. He got up and headed toward the door.
"Where are you going?" the boy asked.
"I am going to visit Fräulein Menschenfeind." Crawford left and walked to the dean's office. He was trying to think of good thoughts about the outcome of all of this. Maybe he could boss around the little 1st year recruits or get a dorm with an office attached to it like the higher ranked instructors. He got to her door. Now he felt nervous.
{{She thrust her head back in pleasure}}
He was about to turn around and walk away when the door opened. Menschenfeind stood there in a silk bathrobe. He didn't think she had anything underneath.
"I am glad you came. Please come in."
Crawford stood there.
"Oh, you're nervous. Don't worry, I won't hurt you." She took his hand and gently pulled him into the office. She closed the door softly.