Unconscious Consciousness

By VivaGlam

A Vignette

A/N: Sorciere, luv, this one's for you, from me 'n Ewan. ;) Enjoy!!

Warning: Graphic violence. Don't say we didn't warn you.

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Suzuka groaned softly, coming to consciousness slowly, before her eyes opened. Her consciousness stayed, floating, on what she sluggishly assumed was the point right before a person opens their eyes when they wake up. A soft, warm, comforting darkness enveloped her, and she snuggled into it, pulling it like a warm blanket around herself. However, it was only when she did try to move that all sense of peace and security vanished, as a sharp pain shot up her arms, causing her eyes to fly open, and Suzuka herself let out a small yelp of pain.

She took a moment to orient herself, gazing in confusion around at the room she was currently in. How did she get here? And why did her hands- "OW!!" She cried, again, as she inadvertently yanked her hands once more. Turning around, she saw that the source of her aggravation was a glaring line of red on both her wrists, from chafing at the pair of tight metal handcuffs that were holding them securely in place, chaining her to a pipe, thus constricting her freedom of movement.

What the hell?

Just as suddenly as the pain had come, startling her awake, the images and memories rushed back in a torrent, flooding her mind, and clouding her vision with red, as she slowly grew angrier and angrier at what had happened.

Captured. She was a captive of the Shadow Alliance. And the traitor, Jhonen. Unable to restrain herself, Suzuka swallowed as much air into her lungs as she could, and let it all out in a scream of fury. "Jhonen, you traitor, I'm going to KILL you for what you did!!" She twisted and turned, furious, doing her best to break free of her bonds.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the single door leading into the room, unbeknownst to Suzuka, stood a wavering Jhonen, and a silent Laetitia. She looked at him, seeing the strain of having his former teammate hurl death threats at him, and decided to warn him. "Whatever you do, don't go in there. Especially not by yourself. The mutation-suppressing drug is about to wear off anytime soon, and it's going to be especially dangerous, with Suzuka in a blood rage like that. You're unarmed, and not equipped to handle a berserk Suzuka. If anything happens, alert the rest of us, and don't do anything else, do you hear me?"

Jhonen paused. He had intended to go in and talk to Suzuka once Laetitia left, orders be damned. But now, he wasn't sure. Suzuka was furious, and was after him. He'd seen her in action before and it was frightening. But he had to talk to her, had to explain what had happened. "Yeah, ok." He nodded, without looking at Laetitia. He watched Laetitia scrutinize him intently, for a few moments, out of the corner of his eyes, but then, she seemed to think that everything was alright, and nodded, placing a hand on his shoulder in a surprisingly commonplace, yet intimate gesture, before leaving.

Once he was sure that Laetitia was gone, he took out the keys and started to open the door. He had to talk to Suzuka. She wouldn't hurt him. He was sure of it.

Inside the room, a dehydrated and exhausted Suzuka hung her head in defeat. How long would she be stuck, in this hellhole, like this? And when would the mutation-suppressing drug that the Shadow Alliance had given her wear off? She wanted to get out of here, NOW. Just then, she heard the door click open, and she looked up, fearful, the adrenaline pumping through her system pulling her from a sleepy drug-induced stupor to full alertness in a split second. To her shock, it was not the menacing figure of Laetitia, the devil incarnate, but instead, the one person she had least expected to see.

"S-Suzuka?" Jhonen stammered out, softly.

"Jhonen." Suzuka spat out, the rage boiling through her again, consuming her, mingling with the rush of adrenaline to give her a sudden rush of strength.

"Suzuka, I-I just wanted to say that I didn't want to betray you. But you were going to kill Blade and Jordane, and…" He slowly walked across the room, making slow step after step, getting closer to Suzuka each time.

"Shut up." Suzuka hissed, furious.

"Suzuka, you have to understand, I didn't want to go on fighting for humans anymore, I-"

"I SAID SHUT UP!!!" The roar just burst out of her, and stunned Jhonen into a shocked silence. Unwittingly, he took a step back, away from Suzuka. Laetitia was right. He shouldn't have come. He shouldn't have tried to talk to Suzuka at all. He started to edge towards the door, trying to get away from Suzuka.

Seeing what he was trying to do, Suzuka snarled. "What, running away again, coward? Yes, coward. I'm calling you a COWARD!!" She saw a brief flash of anger in his eyes, before that was once again replaced with fear. She hated weaklings. She hated the Shadow Alliance. She hated Laetitia. And she hated Jhonen.

She tugged at her restraints, ignoring the pain, wanting so badly to leap up and tear Jhonen limb from limb. The grizzly bear. The grizzly bear could do the job. And sure enough, slowly, she started to grow larger, muscles elongating, body expanding, as she started to shapeshift. One part of her mind- the logical part that still barely functioned, reasoned that the mutation-suppressing drug must be starting to wear off, that was why she was able to shift.

Jhonen watched, not only fascinated, but also paralyzed with fear, as Suzuka changed into one of the most formidable creatures that walked the earth right now. The grizzly. She's changing into the grizzly bear. His breath caught in his throat as Suzuka changed, more and more, the slow transformation almost complete. RUN!! His instincts told him to run for his life, but he stood, rooted to the spot, transfixed on the scene before him.

No. Suzuka, Don't.

The transformation was now complete. In Suzuka's place stood a huge grizzly bear, angry and bellowing, red in its eyes. The creature started to advance towards him, but the handcuffs stopped it, the tiny things cutting, painfully, into the creature's huge wrists. With a loud growl and one strong yank, the chains connecting the handcuffs to the pipe broke, and the grizzly raised itself onto its hind legs, towering at a full 8 feet, glaring down at Jhonen. It paused, and Jhonen looked, shocked into its eyes. He didn't see Suzuka in those beady, uncomprehending eyes, nothing but the thirst for blood. And as the bear let out a loud roar, the seeming spell that the situation had held on him snapped, and he turned around, making a dash for the door.

The bear dropped to all fours, and charged at the fleeing Jhonen. He tried opening the door, but somehow, it had locked itself. He turned around to see the bear almost on top of him, and he screamed, right before he was ploughed down by 600 pounds of massive bear.

Blade's head jerked up, as he heard the shrill cry. The faint telepathic ability that he had been blessed with told him that it was Jhonen, and that his life was in danger. Yanking out the two magnum pistols resting in their holsters under his arms, he flew up the stairs, heading towards the source of the sound, worry for the boy pushing him to greater speed. He reached the door, and rammed his lean body against it, trying to get it to open.


However, what he didn't know was that Suzuka had heard him coming, and stopped, moving to ambush whoever came to help the now badly wounded Jhonen.

When ramming against the door didn't work, Blade decided to use his pistols to shoot the door down, and he kicked it open, before slowly going in, guns raised, safety clicked off and at the ready for any sign of trouble. Blade was fast, skilled, and lethal in combat. He was prepared for anything, and he was definitely in his element.

But he had not counted on himself being ambushed.

The low growl of anger was his first and only warning that he was in danger, and that was quickly followed by a swipe of Suzuka's massive paw, bloodstained claws slicing effortlessly through the air. Blade had hardly any time to dodge the attack, and instead of having his hands slashed beyond repair, he just had his magnums batted from his grasp. Before he could get slip out of Suzuka's reach, she had picked him up with one massive paw, and in one very unbearlike gesture, drove her claws into his spine, twisting them, and with her massive claws, snapped Blade's spine in two.

His shriek of pain rang out into the night, piercing through the air. She tossed him aside like a rag doll, and he flew across the room, landing near the wall, a large pool of blood starting to collect around his prone form.

Suzuka!! No!! Don't!!

Jhonen stared in horror at what Suzuka had done, and cowered down in the corner. Since she had been interrupted by Blade barging in on them, Suzuka hadn't been able to finish him off, and so he'd been relatively unharmed. He slipped a glance in Blade's direction, and saw to his intense surprise, that he was moving. Blade had managed to roll onto his back, and was slowly reaching a hand into his coat. Jhonen looked back up at Suzuka, who was almost upon him.

She paused before him, and looked into his eyes. A low growl rumbled from deep within her cavernous chest, but instead of coming out as a roar, all that came out was a simple word. "Traitor."

What?

"No." cried Jhonen softly. "No, I'm not a traitor…" He shrank back as Suzuka raised her paw, and closed his eyes, waiting for the blow to come. "Please, Suzuka, NOOOooo…."

No!! NO!!

Blade raised his head at the final, long scream, and closed his eyes when it was finally cut short. Rest in peace, kid. He paused for a moment to gather up his strength, before looking over at Suzuka. "Looks like you haven't finished your job, bitch." He whispered, and smirked over at the grizzly bear, which had turned around at the sound of his voice. "Come and finish what you started."

Unknown to Suzuka, Blade had a pair of his guns in his grip, covered loosely by the cloth of his loose overcoat. His vision blurred, as he watched the beast advance, slowly, towards him. I don't have much time left. He could feel the stickiness of his own blood seeping through the black cloth, and smiled grimly, knowing that he would die of blood loss sooner or later. He'd already lost all sensation in his lower body and knew that the darkness would soon follow after. Even if he did survive, he thought to himself, he'd be paralyzed for life. He couldn't even feel the pain anymore- it was just numb emptiness now.

Blade smirked. Suzuka had done a pretty good job- she just hadn't done it well enough.

When she was close enough, he used the last of his strength to pull his guns from under his coat, holding them up at Suzuka, and smirked. "Die." He pressed the trigger, and started firing both guns simultaneously.

NOOO!!!

Suzuka's snarl of pain echoed through the room, and twined with the sound of the gunshots, as hard metal tore through soft flesh. Shot after shot rang out as Blade continued shooting, mercilessly. When at last, the cartridges were spent and the bullet chambers clicked empty, Blade dropped his arms, unable to hold them up anymore.

Suzuka's 6 feet of grizzly bear stood, stopped in its tracks by the barrage. Then, slowly, shaggy brown fur started to melt into smooth pale skin, and Suzuka slowly transformed back into her human shape. Her empty gray eyes stared blankly ahead, as she stood, rooted to the spot. Then, slowly, she fell forward, landing at Blade's feet with a dull thud, dead.

Blade coughed, hacking up a great deal of blood in the process. He turned his head to look down at Suzuka, and smirked, one last time.

"If I die, then at least you'll die, too."

He then looked straight up.

"Cretes."

No! No! NO! NOOOOOOOOOOO-

"NOOOOOOOOO!!!" Ryan sat up, arms flailing wildly, sweat plastering his hair to his head. "AHH!!!"

The door burst open, and Diana, Deirdre, Kyle, and Prue ran into the room, eyes wide with shock. "Ryan! Ryan, what's wrong?!" Diana placed her hands on Ryan's shoulders, and shook him, hard, while the others stood back, worry for their leader weighing heavy in their eyes.

Ryan paused, trying to remember. "Dream. Dream- it was just a dream… all a dream." He breathed, running a hand through his hair. He leaned back, recalling the fear and horror that he'd just experienced. Closing his eyes, he covered his face with his hands, feeling the tears of relief flow down his face. "Shit." He sobbed softly. "Oh, shit. What've I gotten us into?"

Diana watched Ryan, pain in her eyes, and pulled him close to her, and enveloped the man in a hug, shedding a tear with him. The others stood, silent, and hung their heads, and listened to the sound of Ryan Cretes crying his heart out.

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Coming up: *Ehem* This might seem slightly confusing, but it's gonna work out just fine...I hope. Anyway...coming up is Viva's third vignette (she was kind enough to write one more ^^), and then chapter 35, and the 6th interlude, all of which will take place simultaneously. Confusing? Hopefully, things will clear up a bit when the chapters are posted...O.o