Chapter 7 – No Waking from the Nightmare.
A/N: I will give a warning here and now – this chapter is possibly the darkest thing I've got written on the site so far. It has tones that may not be suitable for younger kids – heed that T rating if you're not already doing so. Apart from that, the reviewers:
HHH – Good question, what will happen to Seraph when Lien realises. Hope the answer will surprise you!
Ri2 – Umm, the whole sex drive thing, it's not that desperate. Hopefully this chapter will show how Seraph is immune to feminine beguilement. And yes, Kragok is a dangerous Mobain…
DH – This chapter is the main one where the illusions are lost; hopefully you'll see how the title fits in. Interesting point about Seraph being killed – how do you kill what's already dead? (Read the chapter to understand more fully!)
TH – Continuation received, and updated. Hope you enjoy it!
The date of this entry correlated with a day before her own first writing; just after Enerjak had finally emerged from the steel womb that had contained the Central Dogma; with his assistance, the two twins had finally been able to make serious headway in getting Necronopolis functioning and the Legionnaires within it defrosted again. The first real night of rest either of them had ever had, and now this was the result; Lien read down, too far gone for tears now, all emotions eaten by shock and, as she read the next few lines down, utter revulsion:
XXX
I could have done it earlier; he had appeared, his injuries were great. Lien was screaming for help, she couldn't do what he asked alone – no real change there then; she's never been able to do anything important off her own initiative, always needs help and reassurance from someone. I should have finished it; shot her and left Dimitri to die where his dreams had led him – in the gutter with the dirt on the floor. But I couldn't; for now I need Dimitri to get this shack online – from there, there'll be other opportunities.
XXX
In the darkness of the bedroom, it suddenly made so much sense; Kragok had been in shock at the sight of their great-grandfather when he'd reappeared, back broken after his final fight with Amy Rose; only, according to this unmeant confession, it hadn't been shock. He was; she shivered, skin turned to ice by the unfeeling sociopathy displayed in these words; he was working out if it was worth killing us then – he would have shot me.
The knife in her heart was twisted further; the brother she had schooled with, trained alongside and maybe even admired, was an illusion; the Kragok she knew was nothing more than a cunningly wrought mask, hiding his true self behind a veneer of untruth. A true self that, it seemed, cared for nothing beyond it's own hunger for power, craving for gain; muttering a silent plea that she knew would go unanswered, Lien allowed her inner steel to strengthen her for just a little longer as she sought to understand just how deep this power slavery went. To her relief, the next few pages were sketchy; it had been a busy time, but even so, there were still some disturbing passages to be read:
XXX
The politics are potentially a good idea, but there is little military strength in Necronopolis now. I pointed this out to Enerjak, as he is called now, and he admitted this was deliberate. There's no need for war now – that's a stupid thing to say; I read a passage from the world below, from one of their famous generals. I agree, blood and iron is the only way to settle a grievance as deep as mine is with the guardians.
XXX
The words chilled her still further; blood and iron; from the way he was speaking through this book, it sounded like Kragok would like nothing more than to kill the Brotherhood of Guardians, but that was wrong. Their earliest memory, the very root message of the Dark Legion, drilled into the recruits before and beyond everything else, was the first commandment; thou shalt not kill. There was always a better way; Enerjak had told her he had a plan to deal with the guardians but had never exactly mentioned specifics; he had a plan though, that was all she needed to know. A picture was forming in her mind, the form terrifying but as yet uncompleted; much as she was screaming for this to end, she needed more information to make that noxious mental painting complete. Her fingers, so nimble and precise normally, now fumbled and shook, trying hard to grip the corner of the page; they succeeded and the next leaf fell; immediately her sight was gripped by words written with so much rage they virtually smouldered:
XXX
Curse him! Curse him for a fool, a thousand times a blinkered idiot! He had Angel Island in the palm of his hand and he let it slip away!
The guardians were divided, he had limitless numbers of drones at his disposal – the victory should have been assured. To hell and beyond with his noble talk of salvation; there should have been no margin for error; a battle of attrition, a war that would have ground our backwards cousins to dust. The feud should have ended there and there alone; now because of his misguided attempts to save everything and everyone from death we are so badly weakened it'll take everything I've got to steady this sinking ship. Once upon a time in the land below, you could shoot deserters and cowards; if that were the case I'd have cause to execute my senile great-grandfather – letting your foes beat you, snatching defeat from the jaws for victory – there's a crime that should be punishable by death.
XXX
Hot, burning tears clustered at the corner of her eyes; her brother was disappearing before her helpless mind, melting away like candle wax on a hot plate to reveal something else, something poisonous and evil hidden in the soft mould, something that had only ever been seen in glimpses and out the corner of the eye before this. Battles of attrition, fighting to the death; such things revolted her, but to hear them from the heart of her own twin, someone she had been duped into believing would have protected her with everything he had, was a crushing attack; now she could believe that, had she been in the firing line, Kragok would have been egging someone to actually shoot her and reduce his competition; because that's what I am to him.
She was smart enough to put two and two together; he talked openly to his diary about killing both her and Dimitri and there was only one reason he sought to do that – Kragok wanted to rule the Dark Legion alone and with no rivals. The only question was now, why did he want to rule the Legion in the first place; to corrupt it. That was easily answered, she brushed away some tears, preventing them smearing this hateful confession as she knew what had turned Kragok; she knew in her heart, a heart now pouring blood as the dagger of betrayal was ground further and further into the grievous wound it had torn open, why he was obsessed with being the leader, but still she needed to convince her head of the same reasons. In this sea of uncertainty she clung to the raft of her science; she needed to read it, hear, as it were, the words from his own mouth to prove beyond all doubt what her brother had devolved into, had let himself become to sate his own appetite for power. With a soul of lead, Lien let her weary, aged eyes return to the rest of this passage.
XXX
If it had been me there, just one chance like that, it would have ended there and then, forever; with the Bloodstone at my back and the drones to conquer all before me nothing could have stood in my way, let alone some pathetic thing from the lands below. The Brotherhood would have been sundered forever, their remains delivered as a warning to Echidnopolis; cut off the head, put down the hardest sons of bitches you can find and the rest just fall into line.
The invasion should have been simple; the drones could have taken out the EST HQ and the main council buildings. There's no need for ransom; everything could be taken as and when I deemed it necessary. There's only one choice; fall into line with me, or die.
XXX
He's gone mad; Lien's eyes swept the pages again and again, trying to overturn a hidden stone but unable to; the message was brazenly in full sight and she could not unsee what had been written so clearly. Kragok wasn't interested in the Dark Legion, they were merely a means to an end; he wanted Echidnopolis as well, willingly or otherwise; going by this, she would have bet money that this devil who had somehow perverted her brother to this state of megalomania would have preferred a bloodbath, slaying those who dared raise a protest to break the spirit of the other echidnas, helpless before the military might of the Legion's drones. And after Angel Island; her entire body trembled, visions of a world she barely knew of, had never even seen, burning in the fires of war, eternal and vicious as, under Kragok's generalship, the Dark Legion massed to bring the rest of the world to heel; he'd go after everything else, and once he had it, he'd never let it go.
How had she not seen this; how had Kragok been able to fool so many, including her great-grandfather, to advance as high as he had within the Legion, spread his nefarious influence over so much of the Legion? His shadow now loomed large over so much of the internal structure of the organisation, there was no facet out of his reach, nothing he couldn't touch with his venomous fingers, no Legionnaire he couldn't influence with honeyed words and poisoned lips. And, as his own words testified, he was beginning to make progress despite, as he saw it, Dimitri's unneeded interference.
XXX
I thought it would come to this; the mark of a failing leader, one who lacks the courage to make tough decisions and accept the need for sacrifices. Since the loss of his precious Bloodstone he's fallen into timidity, a trait that must be wiped out forever; only the strong survive in war, and there should, there will be no room for weakness within the Legion when I take it over. Dimitri must fall before he has a chance to spread the rot of compassion, the stink of tolerance, any further; the Legionnaires must understand there is only one way, our way – every other creed must either submit or be stamped out.
The loss of the Bloodstone is a blow, even more so as my idiot relation can't remember where the Master Emerald is located; one strike there and the scales of war would tip back in our favour. With it I could have ended this affair much more quickly, but every cloud has a silver lining; Dimitri has weakened greatly and has lost a lot of face; the story that he was defeated spreads quickly. The troops won't follow someone who's been forced to kiss dust; a couple of words in the right places to the right people and there's a fair grumbling of discontent in the ranks. I know Xenin sympathises with me, Rykor also to a lesser extent; both of them are so reliant upon me for further enhancement that it's almost too easy. A few more toys for them and they'll be mine forever.
XXX
It was like he was three, not two, separate personalities; the Kragok she knew was a mask, little more than a disguise that could be, and would have been had the time been right, thrown aside much like Seraph's borrowed robes. The second facet, that of a sympathetic listener to the common troopers and, more crucially, the sergeants and lieutenants that led them, was also false; between the lines of encouragement lay subtle snares and delusions, designed to sway them from Dimitri's pacifist regime and towards a call for militant action against the EST and the Brotherhood. But this, the Kragok speaking to her from the heart of the book she now held in her hands, was the core, the filthy little secret at the heart of the web of lies he'd weaved about himself. Even the subtlest spider could leave a loose thread, and now it was Lien, the one who had been most beguiled by the serpent's hypnotic dance, who had inadvertently breeched that protection to see the truth. And as she turned the page again, emotions deadened by the shock and terror she felt now, Lien knew that Kragok had reserved his most caustic comments, his most toxic venom, for the one who he should have understood more completely than any other creature walking this earth today.
His own twin.
XXX
Lien-Da would be useful; her knowledge of cybernetics would allow the indoctrinations to carry on with minimum effort, but she's too stupid to think for herself and see what I'm offering. For someone who's been bed-hopping as often as syphilis, she's so innocent; one drop of blood and she starts hurling, so much as a hint of betrayal, of thinking beyond Dimitri's foolishness and she goes running to great-granddaddy, all weepy and needed love and affection. She sickens me, but I can't underestimate her; she's discovered something useful on the world below, something about a machine having sentience. I need to know more about what she's doing now; there are a few people I know in her research team. Just twist a few arms and I'll get what I need.
XXX
The date was important; she'd known what had come next a few days later. Kragok had led the team that had recovered the only piece of technology she'd ever found a cause to hate. Visions of Metal Sonic, what she'd managed to recall last time she'd seen into his hard drive and the chilling, gleefully relished promise of 'permanent disablement' he'd so nearly meted out to a girl on the surface had nearly driven her to tears, had given her the strength to pre-empt Dimitri's orders and install the Non-Aggression Programme into his software. Well she remembered that harsh parting; having been repaired with his original protection newly refitted, the robotic hedgehog had been led to the gates of Necronopolis, the desire to maim those who had dared treat him this way, emasculate his ability to fight, all but steaming from his bodywork as he was unable to. His CPU was dictated by the NAP; he could not allow himself to strike at any of the echidnas flanking him as the gate opened. He hadn't waited for Dimitri's final warning, merely triggered his thrusters and taken off, rapidly becoming a speck in the distance; Lien had watched him leave from the side of her great-grandfather's impressive metallic mass, regarding the spectacle with detached pleasure and silent pride as she knew she'd safeguarded at least part of the future from the deranged attention of the bitter, destructive robot.
Kragok had publicly agreed whole-heartedly with Dimitri's handling of the entire affair; however now, privately, Lien was let into a very different point of view.
XXX
To take the emotions from such a perfect weapon is sacrilege. The reports say it in black and white; this robot could be the bane of any who cross our paths; it can be reprogrammed to strike our target. It's a perfect assassin; even with all the backing of the EST, Remington would be easy prey for this device; we could assassinate each head of the guardian's bootlickers as they were chosen until they'd be too afraid to step forwards. Fear breeds discontent, discontent breeds anger, anger breeds dissention and that leads to deserters, heading to us as protection. I can save them from Metal Sonic; a few words into scared ears and they'll melt into pliable material; I can mould that into the soldiers I need.
But no; sadly the Legion isn't mine yet and officially, all we're after are the emotions. The grand unveiling is tomorrow, Lien having finally got off her backside to do something remotely useful, and then we'll see if my display can sway any opinion. I doubt it, but with a little luck, I can get Metal to talk to me; I can deal with him later – primarily, we can work together to further each other's goals. He can scratch my back, I'll stab his.
So, that went well.
Metal is gone for now, but Lien's sure he'll be back He better be for her sake; that ceiling was a calculated risk…
XXX
Like lightning the thought slammed back into the female echidna's brain; Metal had been contained, she'd created the force-field herself to his personal specifications – if he'd so much as touched it, it would have triggered his internal processor to shut him down in response to the sudden electric shock. But still, the blue robotic doppelganger had been able to escape Necronopolis; for a long time she'd blamed herself even though there'd never been an official investigation; the shield generator on the roof of the conference hall where Metal Sonic had been resurrected had failed for some reason, and he'd wriggled through the breech in the safety net. But I was wrong; she snarled, knuckles whitening as she threatened to tear the book apart with a wave of anger-gifted pain; the generator didn't fail – it was never installed in the first place. Kragok made sure of that – he made sure Metal escaped and the blame was on my shoulders.
Her growling died suddenly, breaking down into a half-strangled sob; there was no way rage could conceal a hurt as deep as this. Kragok was now dead to anything beyond his own wants; he would do everything, hurt and risk anyone, to ensure he would rise above the rest and be seen as the next leader of the Dark Legion. He'd set Metal free and as such had nearly slain two perfectly innocent Mobians, released a twisted killer back into the world, and he'd done it with a smile on his lips. And the worst was yet to come.
XXX
Thankfully the emotions weren't all there; apparently there are only the most dangerous negative ones present in the software Lien managed to rip out his system. An unexpected bonus; maybe there is some use for emotions after all – soldiers that can only be programmed to hate their opponents, loathe them without pity or compassion – a powerful force indeed. Maybe my armies would be allowed to keep some of their emotions after all, just those that make them more efficient killers.
The rest, forget them; love, compassion, no good to anyone. The future world won't need them; when I seize control, I'll make things in my image. Don't worry gramps, I won't kill anyone more than necessary; after all the dissenters have been put down for good, I'll put the rest through the surgery to make them perfect; immortal, uncomplaining and maximised for whatever function I say for them. The perfect slaves programmed to obey me and me alone.
That's why I'll succeed where everyone else screws up; I've read the works of the great tyrants before now and they've all got one thing in common; they all had opponents. Not just those who fought them, but dissenters within their own ranks, who weakened the resolve of the rest. Failing to exterminate them was the main cause of defeat; I will not make the same mistake. I can go one step further than Big Brother; don't control what people think, reprogram them so they can only think what you want them to. Cut out free will forever and, once I've assured my own immortality, I'll be king in my own eternal paradise; I can do what I want; I won't even have to rule, they'll do it all themselves, I won't give them a choice in the matter. I think I'll reprogram Dimitri as my own personal table, or a throne; maybe I'll let him have the emotions of despair and doubt; he can live forever with the knowledge that I won, I'm the greatest, I succeeded where he failed. Lien, she can be a doormat, so I can wipe my feet on her every time I feel like it.
XXX
She could read no more; the cover of the book was slammed back down, the hideous truths it contained blocked from her sight for the moment. Balancing it in her lap, running every scenario described in those few, poisonous pages through her head again, Lien let her head sink into her hands, a few tears falling as she was unable to contain them all. In her mind and in her memories, she allowed the veil to slough away; for the first time in her life, she saw the truth; her brother as she remembered him, was dead; no; she shook her covered head, body convulsing with silent sobs as she corrected, was forced to correct, herself; no, that's wrong – he's not dead. He never existed in the first place.
This was not her Kragok; this was a megalomaniac dictator, a paranoid psychopath who cared for nothing beyond his own ego, his own thirst for power and his own dreams of greed and conquest. He would create his own personal, perverted paradise; a nightmare where everyone was immortalised into mindless serfs, slaved to his will and his will alone; there would be no love, no joy and no hint of rebellion in this sterile, bleak heaven. Kragok would have the world, and he would do whatever he pleased with it, for there would be no-one left to stop him. And; guilt and fear, a fresh wave making all that had gone before it seem as small as ripples compared to a tsunami as the last, greatest and most terrible truth became manifest before her eyes, drowning out all else in a wave of solitude; it's all at his fingertips.
With a whimper of absolute terror, Lien-Da trembled and collapsed on the bed she sat upon, curling into a foetal ball as her mind blanked and she, unknowingly, began a desperate struggle; the truth was a great burden, and now it sought to snap her sanity forever. Her mind, the mind she was so proud of and so grateful to have as her own, was under a ceaseless attack and was all at once the weapon and the victim of Kragok, the real Kragok's, deadly secrets.
XXX
She walked alone in the orchard of solitude and despair; the vicious trees and straggly plants that existed there tearing at every scrap of her personality, pointing at her naivety, her reliance on other people, every fault she had was examined and exaggerated, her innermost self put on the rack before the penetrating beam of her foul twin's bionic eye as she had no choice but to see it, see the monster Kragok had become, and how well such an evil thing had deceived her. With the illusions gone forever, there was only guilt and blame; she should never have been fooled as badly as she had – with her perfect hindsight, there were so many opportunities to see where she'd gone wrong, so many times she could have broken the conspiracy. But she hadn't; Kragok had spread his perverted desires through the Legion like a virus; he'd wanted the Bloodstone, but as that had been broken forever, he'd been forced to take his path for conquest by a slower, more winding route; he was accruing support from Legionnaires who still desired to fight, unknowing what awaited them if their words allowed him to wrest control of the Legion from Dimitri.
The world as we know it would end; a portal opened and the full horror of her brother's polluted, diseased mind rushed through; Lien was thrust into a possible future from a lunatic's nightmare – a place of empty shells and dreams undreamt, as there was no-one left who had the capacity to dream them. Everything was gone; creativity, love, innovation, the spark of the things she cherished from this world crushed forever beneath blank, mindless servility to the one who had made it so. Everything that was green, growing and good had ended, burnt eternally and ground into the dust by her brother's unfeeling claw; Kragok ruled his world with an iron fist, gloating unceasingly of the triumph that was his, the creation of his nirvana. And worse, from here it could spread; with the finest minds of the world; she whimpered, tortured by the thought that, much as he may loathe her, she could be one of them, one of the tools he'd use to continue his evil quest. His banner would carry on, into space; he would ensure his immortality, there was time for this to occur – millennia would roll by uncaringly as his armies amassed to conquer, control and finally extinguish the stars themselves. In the end, if his will was great enough, if he went unexposed for too long, there would be only one light in the galaxy, and its bale redness would preside over an existence of nightmares and sterility. And the mind behind that red light would smile, for what it would see would be good; a fate worse than death to everything else but him.
XXX
She stayed there forever, silent, walking alone through the twisting, winding paths, heading towards the fork in the road where her destiny lay; she could stay here, a cowering wreck destroyed by the malice and hate of her brother, or she could rise and try to build from the ruins. Her own head was a war zone; she scrabbled around in her memories, searching for some hint of a good deed she had performed, only to find that spark of praise crushed by guilt and self-doubt as the monstrous betrayal reminded her that she had let this slip unseen past her eyes, that she had let Kragok dupe her with his mask of lies. The struggle raged on, the visions of that wasteland etched into her soul for all time, blasting her with what she could have started, what she could have let begin; but it's not mine!
It was the truth, a whisper from the darkness that swirled around her, threatening to swallow her whole into a nightmare of living death. But the visions were alien to her; she could see them, and she was repelled by their evil; she was repelled! This is not what I want; the whisper became a low shout, goading the rest of her mind to action, to accept this one, small truth; I will never want desolation like this – I'll never wish for this. Kragok wants to destroy everything in his way but I don't. I am not like my brother!
She felt her eyelid move, a conscious acceptance that the doom she had seen was not the same as what was actually going on now, would never be the same as long as she could try to resist it. The breath stirred her nose, she felt the light sensation on the rim of her nostrils, feeling her conscious begin to spread down once more, her soul fighting off the darkness that had imperilled it from seeing the deranged future her brother cherished. In that second, at the final judgement, she decided her fate; Kragok and I are united by birth; her lips moved and she pulled them into a snarl, surveying the nightmare beneath her with contempt, struggling to look away, see something else to deny this possible future; but we are nothing alike in spirit. Nothing…
There was a scuffling sound, her hand reaching down slowly to her pistol; she would stand against the demon who would make this world his own hell.
Nothing…!
More violent her struggles grew as she ghosted over the phantom prison; she had lingered long enough to be repelled by this maniac desire – she had to return, to see justice done and punishment meted out. And the first in line would be the one who had betrayed her, her family, her legion and her very beliefs in such a callous and wanton manner.
NOTHING!
XXX
The bedpost cracked as her foot hammered against it; Lien convulsed as she drew in a deep breath, momentarily disorientated as she looked to see, not the fires of a burning world, the low, listless moans of enslaved ghosts, unable to see anything beyond their own function, but a barely lit room, tiny and, most importantly, safe. Safe from her now-insane brother and his mad machinations; a place where she could, would have to, begin anew. After a second of lying down, hunched over as she was, she decided that sitting up would be a good place to begin. This wasn't as easy as it sounded though; she was shivering, weak as though she'd just recovered from a virulent plague; she had to rest as she sat up, the blood pouring from her skull back to her body dizzying as she put a hand on the nearest bedpost to steady herself. I must have fainted; she put a hand to her head, feeling exhausted by also strangely elated as well; something important had just happened and that much was certain, but what it had been she couldn't say; all she had left were vague snatches of fevered hallucinations, brought about by the shock of her faint and the revelations that had caused it. A circle of fire, immortal things craving a release and Kragok, grinning crazily as he ruled over a benighted world; she shook herself; she couldn't let such visions distract her now. Not when she remembered where she was and, more importantly, who she was here with.
The book in her lap, toxic and maleficent as it was, had to be kept; as a scientist she knew she would have to dissect it again, read those terrible truths once more and see what could be done to stop them occurring. But not now; now she had to get as far away as possible; she couldn't stand to be part of the Legion now, not where Kragok could see her, or talk to her, or touch her…the shivered, repulsed by the very thought of someone that at the start of the day had been her closest confident and friend now being within a thousand miles of her. He was a poison, and he had affected her once already; it had nearly broken her to purge that poison from herself and she swore, in that dim and miserable room she swore a binding promise that, no matter what the future held, she'd never be beguiled like that again. She sat for a second still, gathering her strength before, with a heave, she stood up, holding herself steady as gravity took a hold of her again; she swayed for an instant before standing straight, exhaling calmly as she reached down for her light. Lucky the bulb didn't shatter; such a normal thought made her smile, though in truth she could see little funny in her current predicament and, as such, quickly dismissed it; I have to get out of here and…where's Seraph?
XXX
Her first shock came when, having swept the beam around the room his leather failed to be picked out by the beam; her second came when the power line was illuminated, the black snake draping down near enough over the bed she had been huddled on. In that second Lien blessed her lucky star; if I'd kicked about too much that would have…wait; something one the floor showed up in her wavering torch beam; she followed it up to see with a jolt of warm surprise that the fact she hadn't been touched by the swinging cable had nothing at all to do with luck. Seraph had not, as Lien had first suspected, deserted her here in this base; he had, in all probability, saved her life at the cost of his own well-being; there was a partially melted patch on the abdomen of his suit, fused into a new form by the power surge. He was sprawled against the wall, not moving but, then again, Lien wasn't about to take it at face value that he was actually unconscious; he certainly wasn't dead as she saw his chest rise and fall. He was before her, helpless, and she watched on, undecided about what to do next.
An hour ago; the irony of the situation wasn't lost on her; I'd have slit your throat with your own knife for hurting Kragok; the name was painful, but it was a pain she had to endure and even smile through as she added; now I only wish you'd hit him harder. So much could change so quickly; for a few minutes she stood there still, not sure what to do next before, with a certain amount of inevitability, her scientific curiosity got the better of her. Stepping forwards cautiously, ready to make excuses at any stage and keeping her approach as careful as she could in the circumstances, Lien approached the slumbering angel and, after a few minutes deliberation, squatted in front of him. He didn't so much as twitch when she flicked her hand in front of his eyes, or where she guessed his eyes were in relation to his mask, so she logically concluded that he really was unconscious. In that case; she moved her hand to his shoulder, feeling the rough leather under her hands as she pulled slowly, tentatively; let's find out what this is. The light shone down; Lien elevated it for a clearer view, enough to see down the back of Seraph's leather suit. For a second it didn't make sense; it was only when she saw the top of his shoulder blades, where the skin met the leather, that she understood, or she thought she did. Seraph's unconscious form landed back against the wall as Lien pushed it, looking at what counted as his face as though questing for answers; you've got wings? What kind of messed up creature are you Seraph?
She had to admit it was a darkly ironic choice of name; Seraph for a guy with wings, but that still didn't explain much. Naturally she'd assumed her most hated friend had been an echidna; why should she have expected different, but an echidna with wings? She'd never heard of such a thing and none of the journeys she periodically leafed through had ever described such a phenomenon; she had to assume that he was a different species from the land below, one she didn't know about. That said, she didn't know much about the land below at all; were there lots of Mobians like him down there? Well, maybe not like him personally, but of his species? So much I don't know, so much I want to find out…; she quelled the thought for her light picked it up – it was just under his mask, on the side of his face. Part of the leather had been pushed upwards by a swelling underneath it, probably caused by impact on the wall; it looked nasty if she could see it through so much material. Without any other real thought, and for once seeking only to do the right thing, Lien reacted to the complaint without a second thought; though the zip was small and difficult to locate, she managed to do so. With a slow, deliberate movement, especially careful as it appeared the release mechanism traced over the injury, the deed was done; with a last tug, Seraph's mask slid free, exposing his head.
XXX
In this, the first time she would see the dark angel unmasked, Lien would remember nothing for one very simple reason; as she probed the swelling caused by the bruise, a hand shot up and seized her wrist. The grip was tight and strong; she realised he was awake again, but had a valid reason for invading his privacy as she had. With a smile, one of sadness rather than her normal, arrogant sneer, she looked down,
"Welcome back to the…"; it was at that point she tailed off as not one, but two realisations made themselves very plain in her sight. The first one was that nothing Seraph had done in the past they had shared was an act of any kind.
The second was that, no matter how great her loss, how keen her sense of betrayal and pain that her brother had been using her for his own ends; no matter how much that hurt, there were some losses that made all she had suffered worth precisely less than nothing.
In those bottomless pupils, black as the river Styx, Lien lost her breath, then her courage; she held onto everything she had – her dreams, aspirations, memories, even her most recent trauma, because it was her, every individual part of that great collection made up a part of her that collectively was called Lien-Da. As their eyes met, Lien found herself lost in that endless void, a black hole of emotions that nothing existed in or escaped from; in desperation, she searched furiously for something she could relate to; a scrap of pain, a drop of memory, but found only a void, purged of everything that made life worth living. She was ensnared by the implications of his dead eyes; the window to a sundered soul that lacked the capacity to care for anything, hardly even itself. All that existed, the only thing that drove this remorseless hunter on, was the simple fact that to carry on as he was, in his unliving life, was just as easy as giving up into the arms of death. In that moment, when a wounded yet still burning life met and linked briefly with something that made the prospect of death more comforting that existence, Lien-Da knew, for the second time in under thirty minutes, that she had found a second fate worse than death.
Camouflage breeched. Face known to innocent. Security risk now existing. Deal with injury sustained first.
Something was pulled from her free hand, she let it go without reservation; she could almost see his thoughts dancing in his brain; as if his eyes were transparent, lacking the ability to conceal anything. He blinked, standing in one motion, knocking her over as she couldn't bring herself to stand up or move out the way, still stunned by what she had just seen. Nothing was there; she thought back to her earlier guesses an the feverish delusions she still had following her recovery from her faint; I know Kragok desires nothing less than control, total and utter control; she watched as Seraph moved over to the bed and casually ripped a strip of fabric from the covers, winding it around his hand as she shuddered, unnerved and unsure of the question that was now posed to her; it is an evil thing to want, but is having a dream like that better than having no dream at all? To exist by logic and thought your whole life? There's nothing in there; for a fleeting second she wished she'd never done what she had, that those hideous, ensnaring eyes had remained shielded by the impassive mask that was by comparison a thousand times more merciful to look upon, but at the same time, seeing what could become of her if she gave up, let Kragok's poison break her mind like it had come close to doing; there was an incentive like nothing else on earth.
It's good I can feel; for the first time, reminded of her own gifts and senses for possibly the first time in her life, Lien was grateful that she even had a body, could feel emotion as she could. Suddenly everything she took for granted had been restored to the status of a biological miracle; she was blessed with good health and senses; I could be like him; suddenly, as the resentment and anger at Seraph had drained away, Lien felt something else well up for him, alongside the respect his incredible skill demanded – the emotion of pity. She tried to put herself in his shoes, imagine what it would be like to feel nothing, have no memories but she couldn't, she couldn't bring herself to consider it, the gulf was far too wide. To feel nothing, not love, not anger; she saw him standing, holding the mirror on Kragok's bed table in one hand, the Sypder in his other – she realised his intention a second too late, seeing at the knife edge bit into the side of his face, the heart of the swelling tissue. His previously white glove stained red as the fingers pressed the edges of the mound, deflating the bump as she watched his reaction – nothing, not a widening of the eyes, not a wince, not a tremor, nothing; not even pain. She shook her head, frightened as she drew an invisible line between the Mobian before her and her brother's rabid dream of conquest and corruption; Seraph is everything Kragok wants his people to be; he replaced the mirror, pressing the torn fabric to the cut to staunch the blood flow as he reached for his mask; but he follows his own code, and that code is not evil.
XXX
"Seraph", he turned, halfway through restoring his camouflage; Lien looked down, not wanting to see his flat, emotionless eyes again as she finished, taking the first step on her opposition of Kragok's plans, "I need to borrow the Spyder". His lips twitched, the words spoken in, she realised, the only tone he could manage due to his lack of feeling,
"Reason?"
"There's some stuff in my room I need; I gotta get it and a change of clothes, it's too cold for these damp ones now. Believe me, after what I've just…you are not my enemy".
Truth. Chance of a lie virtually impossible; sincerity difficult to fake. Delay necessary to heal injury. Ensure security risk followed.
With a deft movement, he threw the retracted blade to her; she caught it and hurried across the hall, flicking out the business end of the Spyder at the same time as heft the diary in her other hand. She ran through the list of what she had to get from here; thankfully it wasn't very long and she had a convenient bag that would carry it close by in her wardrobe. She quickly broke the lock, one of her own inventions, and hurried inside, hearing the soft footfalls in the other room as Seraph finished treating his injury. She threw the door to her wardrobe open, throwing out the bag and randomly stuffing a few items of clothing into it as time was of the essence; she had to get away before anyone in the Legion tried to come back here, launch a search party. She threw herself over her bed, rolling to her feet to get to her work desk and quick throw open one of the drawers, grabbing her diary and placing it and, she snarled as she had to handle them both, Kragok's as well in with the clothes. It was then she reached back for the last thing she needed, the one thing she had that could, if used properly, negate her insane twin's quest to crush all light and life from the world.
It was a data disk, no different from any of the thousands others used by the Legion on a day to day basis; but what it contained, what was on this disk, was something that would have made her great-grandfather the happiest echidna alive. She had worked upon it in her free time, the odd moment here and there; it wasn't much, but it was a start; working with the flawed data she had downloaded from Metal Sonic's software, she had begun to convert the emotions he could feel into a full package, a true, complete replication of all the emotions a living creature should feel. It was the greatest goal of the Legion, tangible in her hand, the release from death into a metal shell; she gasped, the visions of robotic slaves before her once more, uncomplaining, mute, disallowed their free will as Kragok perverted the good intentions of her great-grandfather. There has to be another way; still she sealed the disk in the safest, most secure region of the backpack; but if there is now I can't see it.
As soon as she had the zipper done up, she slid her garments from her, using them to towel any lingering water from her fur at the same time as strip a new set of warm, dry clothes from her collection. She paused for a second as her door opened, instinctively covering herself as she saw Seraph enter, only to drop her arms a fraction of a second later. The memory of those uncaring eyes returned and she continued getting changed, no seduction in her mind now as she realised, with a sudden pang of sadness inexplicably for his sake that nothing she did would ever be considered sexy to him; he just doesn't understand it. With a sigh, she finished stripping and began to get into her new kit quickly, seeing him impassive out the corner of her eye, looking at her once or twice as if she were just another part of the furniture. One guy I'll never get; the thought made her smile sadly, there was little room for comfort now in the face of the bleak future ahead of her.
Security risk ready. Evacuation recommencing.
Lien followed him to the head of the stairs and spoke softly,
"We'll have to fly…"
Security risk upgrade to extreme danger.
"…I could fall otherwise". She didn't complain as she was swept up, off her feet; there was a sense of slight vertigo as she felt him push off; now with this knowledge of his gift, she knew the reason her fall into the generators had been as gentle as it had. He carried me; she stayed still for the few seconds they were airborne together, not complaining as he shifted his grip and threw her over one shoulder, running for the exit. She had more important things on her mind – in the few minutes she had, Lien-Da had to come up with a reason to convince someone who had no sense of compassion or bribery to help her run away from the organisation that had, until a recent, earth-shattering betrayal, been her life.
A/N: Right, I need to know about this. Was Kragok's diary believable – could you see that vision of nightmares? Did you really believe it could happen? Was Lien's reaction plausible, or could it have been done better? I want to put more of these sorts of scenes into future work; I need to know honestly – answers in the review section please :-).