Each step was a thunderclap on the tiles. Each step was heralded by a shriek of pain and rage. Devouring everything ahead of it and leaving a pale reflection of the shattered state of the mind of the Big Sister. Her feet clicked with every movement, the braces working furiously to ensure her pace wasn't interrupted by her joints snapping.
Weak. Stupid. Failure. Dunce. Reject. Pathetic.
From within that heavy helm were eyes burning so bright and so red one nothing natural could have caused them. Her breath was ripped out from her lungs and hurled into the air. Her body leaped and twisted through the halls, stretching and contorting in ways that would snap another's limbs.
Rule breaker, bad, terrible, Sisterless. The Rules screamed in her head not unlike her voice did to the halls.
But most of all she was in pain. The distance was growing and the agonising feeling of serrated glass erupting from her bones was growing. That pain was manageable. Ignorable. She had had worse wounds. What she couldn't ignore was her Failure. She had let her guard down and now Rosie was in the hands of a fucking filthy splicer. Her hands would rip his spine from his pathetic useless flesh and she'd strangle him with it. Her mouth would rip away his eyes and her plasmids would sear his flesh. A hundred ways to destroy the splicer went through her mind as she ran deeper and deeper into the halls. Where plain walls and windows depicting snow had stood now there was glass and ruin.
It felt like waking up from a dream. A wonderful dream where no angels tugged her this way and that. Where no games drilled into her body and mind. But she had failed. She had been Bad. She had let her Little Sister be captured by a splicer. She had woken up from the wonderful dream and fallen back to reality. A reality of Rapture and splicers.
She knew in her heart of hearts it hadn't been a dream. She had been free. She had escaped the liars. But with the one person she lived for gone, what else did she have? What else but to deny the reality and force it back to a lie that she had gotten sloppy.
The alternative was to say that Rapture had come back. That it had dragged itself from the bottom of Hell to come after her one more time. Better to have not escaped hell than to be dragged back.
As her feet were heralded by another screech of rage her fingers bite into her gloves. She wished she could squeeze so tight until thought was gone and only a blessed moment of pain was there. To hide those thoughts that told her her worth and made her look at innocuous objects with a hollow resignation. But she couldn't. She had to continue. To get Rosie back. To rip that splicer limb from limb until the ground was nothing but rose petals.
Taylor swallowed back bile and unclenched her fists. She could punish herself later for this. She would have to, given the Rules. But now? Now the jewel of her world was in danger. So she let the lucidity of the world and chains of guilt fall away as an animal raised its head. Thought was felled by instinct and training.
As the nightmare made flesh hunted its prey, an inferno of glass teeth and wooden talons rose behind her. Her steps became gentle things, great strides barely touching the ground. Her pose was one of calm. A dancer mid performance, the action rising as she moves to unseen notes and instruction. A halo of fire blazed from her hand to touch and bite its teeth into the storm of splinters she held. She could smell Rosie. She could almost see it, the trail of her Little Sister's pheromones. She was close.
The dancer's speed rose once more as it moved. No other dance compared to this. One dancer in a perfect symphony of movement. And the other blissfully unaware of its role and how soon it was coming to an end. The dance had only one ending. An ending performed a hundred times.
Flames grazed her second skin. The growing inferno behind her having not touched her, instead a wall of fire bared her path. It was charged through with no regard. Even as the teeth of fire bite and chewed at her second skin she felt nothing. She was a Daughter of Rapture, fire would not stop her.
Clearing the fire she was greeted by an interruption in the dance. In front of her at the end of the hall, where glass meat dreams, the prey and Rosie stood. Rosie held tight even as she screamed and kicked. Across from them what looked like a woman in an ugly hood and red suit. "Drop the kid and this doesn't end badly." The woman said, spitting orange. The orange spit landed on the ground and grew into a blazing white flame. Quickly the woman stamped it out.
She wasn't the first splicer Taylor had seen in her hunt. Several in green had told her to retreat, to give up her prey. They had tried words and when that failed, trying to deceive her into working with her saying he had tried to stop Rosie's snatcher, She had broken him across her hands. This was a place of splicers. No one would help her. No one had any reason to.
"She's mine you fuck! I found her first. Get your own. Do you have any damn idea how much I've given? I earned this ADAM!" The splicer shouted, squeezing his blood stained fingers around the body of Rosie as she beat her hands against his chest.
Taylor never slowed her pace. The flames behind her parted to reveal her cloak of death that followed her. She pushed harder, desperate to kill and cut and rip. She inhaled to scream once more, her hands raising with flames.
"Wait, don't!" The woman yelled a half moment before the flames reached the splicer. From some instinct from the devil the splicer reacted and with a flash of red was gone, fleeing like the coward he was. "Just listen dammit, we can help-"
Taylor ignored the sounds of the woman. She backhanded her without another look, sending the woman flying into a wall. Was she one of the ones who had been with the Faultline woman? The woman who had distracted her. She had others with her. A man who looked like a suitless big daddy. And a lizard looking teen.
She had broken the smaller one over her knee and threw fire at the larger one's eyes. She didn't know if they lived or not and only Rosie mattered.
Behind Taylor her cloak of burning glass and splinter's passed by the woman slashing at her arms and head but overall ignoring her. Taylor had greater prey.
Faultline had asked her such odd questions. "Do you have a tattoo?" "What do you remember?" "Have you ever seen a woman in a fedora?" The first had put Taylor on guard. She lacked any tattoo but on the back of Rosie's head, hidden by her thick black hair was a small butterfly and a one. Taylor didn't know when she had gotten it,Taylor had only noticed when combing Rosie's hair one morning. And a lack of other little sisters meant she was unsure if the others had one as well. The other questions weren't important. Taylor didn't want to talk to the woman. She had upset Rosie and Taylor's mama. Her life was near forfeit. It was only because her mama was in the room with them that Faultline had lived long enough to distract Taylor.
Taylor launched herself forward using a pipe, vanishing mid air only to reappear a dozen feet ahead mid jump. She could smell Rosie. What's more, she could smell blood. Her eyes closed for a moment, the heat from them hurting her eyelids. When they opened she saw a trail of rose petals.
oOo
Mimi tried to ignore the flames. They were everywhere. The entire facility was going up in smoke and she wasn't sure if people could get out of their rooms. Not that half the rooms had people though. The asylum had gone from a small facility to a maze of endless halls and rooms that lead to weird glass tunnels. She had no clue where her friends were and was frankly thinking that running in the opposite direction was a better idea.
She didn't want to go down the hall. The hall was covered in small licking flames that looked so weak. Flames she could raise and grow until it was a hall of burning faces and images. She closed her eyes and ran through the flames. Her eyes peaked only when she thought it was safe. She wasn't going to let the flames stop her from saving her friends. She had to do better. She had to step up.
On and on she ran, her need growing more and more. She forced herself to bite her fingers, to smack her forehead. To think about anything else but the fire.
Clearing a small channel of flames in one of the tunnels Mimi saw the form of someone moving. She vanished in a moment and reappeared in the closest flame next to the person, a few strides behind them. It wasn't Elle or Taylor or Rosie. It was… it was hideous. A man shaped thing, its face pasted and looking like it had been partly melted. Its skin was a ghastly shade of white and his arms looked like the flesh was taped onto its bones. It made her sick.
But what was more important was what was in his hands. Rosie. The poor kid was missing her goggles so the bright yellow glow was left to be seen by all. The glow somehow drowned out the flames, making them look like distant stars compared to the moon. Mimi fought the urge to try and make flames of the same color. She took a step closer. The room was filling with smoke fast and from the outside it looked like they were in the ocean.
Mimi bit her lip and scratched at her scars as she moved in closer to ambush the freak. She could burn him… but she didn't trust herself. She didn't trust herself to stop the fire at only him.
As she got closer a horrible scream was heard and she flinched back her eyes darting and her body moving in some forgotten prey instinct. Deep seated fears left over from when man wasn't the lord of beasts dug themselves up and made themselves known. A predator was here. A danger that needed to be avoided.
From a bank of smoke something from Mimi's nightmares clawed its way toward the freak. Mimi knew it was Taylor, no one else had limbs that long and thin. It didn't make her feel safe though. The freak raised a hand and a great series of flames ignited down his fingers as he nearly pressed the palm to Rosie's face. "A-another step closer you fucking peasant, and I'll burn her alive. Now… go away and leave me to my meal. Unlike you I earned this. I earned it!" Was this man for real? Was he seriously talking about eating a goddamn child and then saying he had earned it? Mimi went through a number of choice insults in her mind but said none. She had expected Taylor to act, to do something. But instead Taylor was stuck like a rod. Her hands went to her diving helmet and Mimi cringed as the sound of metal scraping metal drowned the crackling flames.
Mimi could do something though. She could use her powers and save her friends. She could do it. She would do it. Opening her eyes as wide as she could, she raised her hand.
The fire on the man's hand turned inward. The flames took the shapes of teeth and wormed their way into the man's flesh. The man screamed. All aiming upward. All going for the brain. Fire screamed in and out of the man's flesh turning it to cinder. Within a moment the flames had consumed his arm and burned into his brain destroying it.
He dropped to the ground. Dead. Mimi stepped forward forcing herself to drown out the nearby flames instead of letting herself use more. She smiled widely, half hoping for a hug or hero's welcome. Instead she was ignored.
For the moment the freak had dropped Rosie, Taylor had scooped her up. The pair had turned their eyes to the dead man and Taylor summoned a shard of glass. Her chest thumping Mimi watched as Taylor slit the throat of the dead man revealing blood that glowed.
Mimi nearly retched as she saw cute innocent Rosie, wouldn't hurt a fly and probably didn't know what one was, began to drink the blood. All while Taylor began to hack at the rest of the flesh to chew muscle and bone to reveal more of the hidden glowing blood.
The feeling of having struck down a monster vanished as the two things that mimicked humans showed what they really were.
Horrified Mimi ran. She ran and ran and ran. Her feet no longer touched the safe tiled floors of her gilded cage. But instead the brass of the watery tunnels. As she did, Elle was moved at long last and the delicate connection was severed. Trapping Mimi in Rapture.
OoO
The bathysphere was simple to hijack after a short amount of time. Armsmaster had worked fast hoping to ease the nerves of his fellow cape and the troopers. None of them had to be here, all had volunteered. Armsmaster truly hoped he wouldn't have to be knocking on their spouses door after this but if it came to it he'd do it with pride. It took a lot for someone to give up their life, especially when there was no guarantee of what they'd face. He'd make sure that if any trooper or cape died under his watch they'd get the proper respect. He'd owe them that much at least.
He didn't know why his thoughts were so fatalistic. He had suffered a setback and was feeling some nerves but planning someone's funeral before they even died felt like it might come across as insulting instead of a compliment. He gave a brief smile as he crossed one of the last wires. He'd make a note of the "funeral before you died" thought. If he worked on it a bit he was fairly sure it would be a good joke to tell Dragon or to work into a speech.
Crossing the last wire and splicing the broken handle from the original bathysphere onto the new one he rose to inspect his work. It was shoddy, ugly, and would make any self respecting tinker want to cry. But it would work and get the job done which was what he needed.
He raised a hand signalling the others to close in. Officer Duke Carmen and his two troopers Cynthia Rogers and Wyatt Cabot moved closer from where they had been watching the door and inspecting the area for any potential had gone over their files when he had gotten the small list of volunteers. Each one had served with distinction. Carmen was former Army and Rogers former FBI. All three had shown skill and reliability which he needed here. Battery was by his side in a moment having watched him for most of the time he had tinkered.
It was less from concern and more of a lack of what she could do. She'd be invaluable once they got into the bunker but for now she wasn't much help. Pressing himself to the back of the bathysphere so the others could enter he squeezed his armored limbs past them so he could be in the front, his armor the most likely to be able to take any blow that was given.
"If anyone has any concerns now is the time to say. Once we go in we aren't leaving until we have the tinker's corpse or in custody." Armsmaster waited a moment getting nothing but silence back. With that he pulled the lever down and released the clamps on the bathysphere sending them into the depths
A tunnel of blue and brass greeted them through the porthole and Armsmaster watched the signs showing their depth. 10 fathoms. A great statue in an art deco style faced them, one arm having fallen off. 18 fathoms. Armsmaster leaned forward ever so slightly to peer down. A shutter he missed slammed closed on the bathysphere sealing them from any view of the outside. He didn't need to turn around to notice how the others tensed at the sound.
A hidden projector pressed light onto the shutter. Showing off all things an advertisement. The picture was decayed and damaged but he made out enough. 'Fire at your fingertips' and 'Plasmids by Ryan industries.' His chest was thumping from expectation and nerves. Adrenaline was already going into his blood stream as he waited for some attack. Was the ad part of the cult? Some failed attempt to get investors for the act of kidnapping children?
He opened his mouth to ask for opinions only for a new image to overlay. A man if the image was to be believed, named Andrew Ryan. He began to speak and Armsmaster made a number of notes on it.
"Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?" An attempt at bringing together unrelated groups under the idea of a falsified image. Fiting with the image of a cult leader.
'No!' says the man in Washington, 'It belongs to the poor.' Using the government to be an untouchable enemy as well as lacking empathy to the less fortunate.
No!' says the man in the Vatican, 'It belongs to God.' Interesting. Less a religious cult and more one of personality. The mockery in the voice suggested a personal distaste for religion.
'No!' says the man in Moscow, 'It belongs to everyone.' Armsmaster blinked not sure on what he was supposed to gather from that. How outdated was this message if it acted as if the soviet union still existed? Regardless there was enough information here to paint a picture. A charismatic severe narcissist who believed he was morally superior to others. Likely delusional and hypocritical as well.
The message gave one more line before static choke and smothered it. Before years of lack of maintenance killed the poorly maintained recording. Before Armsmaster had his world view shattered into a thousand pieces.
"I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... Rapture." The shutter slammed away and Colin didn't see a small bunker. Or a series of tiny interconnected rooms. His jaw dropped. Behind him he heard gasps and the moving of feet to get closer.
His eyes blinked once, twice, three times. In front of him was not the work of one tinker, it had to be the work of hundreds. Something that noone could hide and no amount of powers could conceal. A city. A city with skyscrapers. So many that one having been blown in two was just a small blip on the horizon. His eyes didn't know where to look. Buildings bigger than any in Brockton rose from the deep. Shattered rails of glass connected them all together like a set of vines on trees. Monstrously huge men climbed the walls repairing the damage with all the grace of a blind bull.
He had been wrong. He had been so so wrong. This wasn't a bunker with ramblings of victims distorted. Taylor Hebert had told the truth. A city underwater. A city that according to her was filled with men and women out of nightmares. He had thought she wasn't aware, that what she saw was just a sad distortion and her way of coping. And by doing that he had come in half assed and gotten everyone trapped.
Neon lights leaked onto the waters showing where they had burned out. Along the numerous buildings some lights were still visible suggesting some people still lived. Were they fellow victims? He shook his head, how the hell had anyone managed to populate this? Thousands if not tens of thousands could live here. There wasn't a way in hell for any of this to have been done in secret. No amount of money or threats could have hidden the scale of this. Was this some lost project of Sphere?
No even before he threw away everything to be a monster he wasn't capable of this. Not without more funding than most nations' GDP. A building was one thing, but to build this deep? It takes marvels of engineering to do. The sheer scale of it was baffling. And so disturbing. There were very few reasons this could have been hidden and none of them good. Reasons that played over in his mind.
Reasons that would have to wait as the sub began to dock. Through burned out lights he saw a message praising how all good things came to this city and with a dark thought he wondered, 'and how does it look when they leave?' A child was brought here and came out half insane and transformed into something ruthless.
"Battery, start charging up. Get ready for anything. Carmen get your rifle ready." He said, raising his halberd. Everything in the mission had changed. Everything was now up in the air. This was the find of a lifetime, a sustainable underwater city untouched by Levithan and according to the victims, rich in a way to gain powers. A new atlantis. A gilded noose if the destruction he had seen said anything.
The sound of metal brushing metal echoed in the bathysphere as it began to rise up a tube. Faded ads promised power before being lost in the dark. Up they went their jaws tight and hands white knuckled. When they surfaced at last no one made a move. The room beyond was a trash heap of debris. "O-orders?" Cabot asked a chattering of teeth in his mouth before he forced them together.
Armsmaster had damned them already with his poor choice. A team of navy seals, a nuclear submarine, and dragon would have made this a dangerous and deadly mission. With just two capes and three troopers he might as well have tied them to a pyre and lit the match. He had to keep going though. They needed to find a shelter, or at worst, wait for Dragon to find them. They couldn't clear this place out with one gun, a halberd, and two confoam sprayers but they could be a scalpel. They could do this. He could do this. By Hebert's own mouth, Cassandra would fit her well for how much he had listened, two raids had already occurred and killed most of the mad defenders. He had fought a losing war for over a decade. He could handle cape junkies. The bathysphere door opened.
"We move out. Find shelter and secure the area. Once help arrives we find the tinker and torpedo the buildings into ash. Battery watch behind us I don't want any ambushes." He said moving forward to end the conversation. Blood was stained on the floor, so dried and crusted over he took it for an ugly carpet at first.
They marched forward in silence, each step taken showing more of this place. It was beautiful in a way. Artfully stunning. The amount of mutated corpses and blood took away from it though. They had paused to inspect the first few. The bodies were riddled with tumors. Faces covered by masks. Some had been bludegeoned to death, others shocked.
He didn't know what happened here but he would make it out. He was one of the best capes in the protectorate. Some starving junkies high on powers and used to preying on children? He'd have them cuffed and buried in containment foam within moments. Even as he thought this, his eyes sliding over any shadow out of place he had to ask himself, what if there were more like Taylor? Teen's with enough powers to take down trained men and utterly ruthless. Those giants covering the walls? Were those drills for show? What would he do when the containment foam ran low? There was too much up in the air right now. He had to focus on the now and not on if's.
Passing by a window he took note of the graffiti, 'Beware the Songbird'.
/\\\
Done! Much later than I wanted to but it's finished. Thanks for all the help bigbadben you rock man.
C&C welcome. Next chap will be an interlude