Big Sister's shrill shriek scrapped the insides of Atlas's skull.

The horrific sound reverberated off the leaking walls and even Delta took an unsteady step back as the force of the cry hit like a physical blow. Sonic boom had some catching up to do if it wanted to hold a candle to that.

Despite being forced back that small amount, Delta kept himself between Atlas and the monster. Steadfast as his drill powered up. Roaring to life, the sound was answered with another howl from Big Sister and a moment later she flung herself at Delta.

Many a splicer had done just the same, in a blind rage, they'd all been cut down with the drill with an unsettling level of ease. Their insanity their greatest asset and simultaneously a deadly vulnerability.

Big Sister had no such vulnerability.

Lithe and precise, she struck Delta dead on before the big daddy could land a hit on her. Atlas watched on in horror as she all but scaled Delta, perched atop his chest and gripping his helmet. Holding Delta steady as her needle flung back. Her intent clear in Atlas's mind, if she got the chance she'd run that pointed metal straight through Delta's porthole. Atlas didn't know if her equipment was strong enough to pierce Delta's armour, he wasn't waiting around to find out.

Scrambling to his feet, Atlas's knees barely left the ground before his hand was out, fire surging up through his veins even though he knew he ought to avoid it. Every lick of flame around his fingertips was another fire that Fontaine would use burn him out. But what choice did he have?

"Aye, bitch!" he called in hopes of distracting her with his voice if his hands weren't fast enough.

Atlas's efforts only got the smallest twitch from Big Sister. For the briefest moment, Atlas thought she might have looked at him, but that didn't stop the sharp descent of her needle towards Delta. Maybe that twitch was enough as the heat left Atlas's fingertips and soared through the air, striking Big Sister's helmet in an explosion of sparks and smoke.

If it was the heat or the power of the blow that pushed Big Sister to retreat, Atlas wasn't sure. But regardless, he wasn't getting a strong 'I forced her back' feeling from the way Big Sister purposefully leapt off of Delta. The movement was too fluid and as she landed, it seemed that she was only repositioning herself to better handle the pair of them.

This did not inspire great confidence in Atlas.

The smoke cleared, the final wisps that had clung to her helmet evaporating as that single glowing eye fixated on them once again. At Delta's side Atlas felt about as useful as he had when sprawled out on the ground. There was not a great deal to feel confident or useful over anymore.

They'd come this far and been struck with a dead end.

At his back Eleanor's bedroom sat, empty, and to their front Big Sister stood, ready to shred them for daring to get this far.

Neither behind, nor before him, Delta still stood at his side. The wind kicked up by the spinning of his drill the smallest comfort Atlas could garner in that moment. Delta was a force to be reckoned with, he'd hand the great, big lug that much...but he wasn't sure that he could keep up with the smaller, stronger monster that had been sent their way.

Atlas didn't have a strategy of attack on hand for this. The method they'd used against Meltzer required they have the element of surprise. Hitting hard and fast with little room for the big daddy to get his bearings. They didn't have the luxury of a surprise attack here. They couldn't even fall back on Delta's brute strength with this one, a drill charge would have him hitting a wall before it hit her.

"She's too quick for you, kid…" Atlas muttered to Delta, tense and waiting for the moment Big Sister would come back at them. "Took quick for you, too strong for me...fuck."

Wait her out, wear her down, brute force, agility, surprise attack- None of these were viable options anymore and Atlas was rapidly running out of other ideas to pluck from thin air.

Big Sister on the other hand didn't need time to think up new plans. All she had to do was move in on them and that was exactly what the young monster did. Launching herself from the spot she'd landed, Big Sister came at them head on, the sheer confidence of it still managed to stun Atlas though he did try not to let his nerves make him slow and stupid. Gun raised despite how flimsy pistol bullets felt in that moment.

After having been hit once before, Delta was prepared and this time when Big Sister lunged for them, he was ready. Body once more set between Atlas and the monster. His drill still spinning when Big Sister hit. The horrible sound of metal scraping and shredding exploding from their collision. Larger than Big Sister, Atlas assumed that Delta would come out of any direct attack with an edge.

Then Delta was thrown back and that assumption crashed to the ground along with Delta.

A cry bubbled up on Atlas's tongue as he turned on instinct, as if to reach out and catch Delta though his body couldn't hope to support Delta's weight once he was flung off his feet. The cry that would have been Delta's name was cut short as Big Sister's attention turned onto him and Atlas's veins chilled under the glow of Big Sister's red spotlight.

The bullets he fired seemed to bounce off of her armour and Big Sister did not so much as flinch away from each fire of Atlas's pistol. His own reflection shone back at him in her porthole and Atlas knew how small he must have looked to her in that moment, how easy he would be to crush.

Big Sister had similar tricks to Delta it seemed and in an instant there was pressure building between them, bits of debris being plucked from the ground and drawn to Big Sister in a flurry of motion. The little trick Delta pulled with his harpoons was a parlor trick in comparison to the storm that Big Sister created.

In that moment it appeared as though every leak in Rapture rushed to her. Those leaks becoming a violent torrent of water she curled around herself along with the broken parts of Rapture that lifted from the ground.

She was running damn circles around them.

Atlas could only stare at the display that had his heart sinking right into the soles of his boots. A whirlpool whipped up into the sky around Big Sister, a display of ADAM mastery that he had never seen before. As she stood in the centre of a self-made storm, Atlas realised with some distant sense of horror that this was the end game. If splicing had a peak, this monster was it.

Congratulations, Rapture. Everything the city had ever done had culminated to this creature. Rapture's very own daughter.

He hoped Ryan and Fontaine were fucking proud of themselves.

When faced with the violent show, briefly Atlas's mind threw itself back to his encounter with 'Ava,' when she too had tried to crush him under rocks and metal beams. Big Sister's storm put Ava's powers to shame, and that woman's scorn had been nothing to scoff at.

Fair enough. He'd always been fairly sure it would be a woman that killed him in the end.

But at the time when Ava had been the one controlling the storm of stone and metal, there'd been EDEN in his blood and kindly ghosts surrounding him.

He felt abandoned now.

Reggie's voice didn't play in the back of his mind with steadying hands to guide his aim, neither did Jacyln's protective hands appear to shield him as she always had when called. Atlas didn't call for them now, for fear they wouldn't answer this time. He was the only one left now, his supports long since having crumbled away.

Maybe if Big Sister crushed him under one of those stone slabs he'd go to join them again wherever they were now. Maybe there'd be no where to go at all and that would be just the same. Part of Atlas, a traitorous, exhausted part of him was almost content to just stand there and let Rapture's daughter crush him under the weight of the city.

He need only keep standing there. It would be such an easy end and so very, painfully tempting.

Distantly Atlas could hear Fontaine screaming something in the back of their consciousness. If Fontaine was the part of him that fought to survive no matter what, then perhaps this act of simply shutting his eyes and waiting was enough to spite him as a final act.

So he closed his eyes and listened to the carnage of Big Sister's storm, thinking it would be a better thing to listen to at the end than Fontaine's far away shouting.

Those were the two things he listened to now, too exhausted to try and remember something nicer at the end, so when someone else's voice came cracking through the air Atlas was startled out of that moment of dangerous self pity.

"Big sister, no!"

Then all of a sudden, there was a body between himself and the apocalyptic storm. A tiny, fragile body.

A little girl.

For Atlas, time did not slow and allow him time to figure out everything, but rather a thousand different things clicked into place all at once and became a chaotic mess of whitenoise. And in the noise Atlas all but lost himself.

Through the mess of information the first thing they realised was that the girl in front of them was in harm's way. For Atlas, he knew it was Beatrice. He recognised her instant, could mistake her for no other and it helped that he did not doubt for a second that she, being the sneaky little brat she was, was just the type to sneak her way out of Tenenbaum's care and come all the way here. Only to place herself between himself and an oncoming death sentence.

For Fontaine, things were not quite so cleanly cut in the noise.

It wasn't Beatrice he saw when looking at the girl stood before them, her little arms stretched out in front of them like she alone could protect them from Big Sister's wrath. When in reality, she was just as fragile as she looked. Something that both Atlas and Fontaine were acutely aware of.

However, where Atlas saw Bea for who she was, with her little purple dress and rich skin, Fontaine saw a different little girl. Dressed in red with fine blonde hair that he couldn't forget no matter how he might try.

Ultimately, their reaction to seeing the little girl standing there was all but the same.

"Bea!" Atlas screamed, hand outstretched to grab the child from harm's way. Knowing that he would be just a few inches too late at this distance but tried in vain regardless.

But his control was jerked away from him so violently that Atlas did not even recognise that Fontaine was no longer the unheard voice behind the scenes, but the one with outstretched hands.

Under his skin plasmids flashed past rapidly, flicking in and out of the main role slot, each prickled under his flesh for just a moment before darting away and being replaced by another. Each as useless as the last. The girl was too close and anything he might use would no doubt have her caught in the crossfire.

Briefly, ever so briefly, electricity danced through his veins. It could freeze Big Sister for just a moment, it might buy them some time if nothing else. The crackle of energy promised lightning at his fingertips, but Atlas didn't let it loose either. Knowing that with all the water Big Sister had kicked up that a shot of electricity would definitely strike the child. He never could control it as pointedly as Jack once had, and it felt like lightning didn't truly belong in his hands.

If only he had ice at his fingertips. To be able to protect the child he saw the same way her mother once had.

But all Fontaine had was his own two hands and his words. In that moment all he could do with his hands was to wrap the girl up in them tight. Pulling the child tight to his chest, violent gaze locked with the monster over the girl's shoulder and with his voice, shout in his own voice.

"Don't you fucking touch my kid!"

He saw the moment when the Big Sister tried to stop.

Jerkily halting in an attack that had been building for so long it was all but impossible to fully stop. Although the monster did try once the little girl had stepped between them, gravity had its way with things.

Big Sister had summoned all that water and cement up, and now it had nowhere to go but down when her control of it slipped. Torn by the unexpected third party in all of this.

Even now the monster tried to protect the young ones. Little sisters or saved little girls. It didn't seem to matter.

It gave him time enough. With the child held close, pulling her out of that ridiculous attempt to protect them and curling her protectively against his chest, Fontaine could finally use a plasmid.

What came out of his finger tips are a blast from sonic boom. Thrown out at Big Sister and her avalanche of debris. The worst of it was picked up and hurtled back. A large chunk of cement striking Big Sister's shoulder and taking her off balance into the backwards blast in the process.

Water and a few remaining bits of rubble rained down onto them and Fontaine took the brunt of it with Beatrice carefully caged in his arms.

Only then realising that it was, in fact, Beatrice in her little purple dress and not the ghost he had seen clad in red. That little girl was long since dead and his mind had played tricks on him in a moment of panic.

Fontaine had never been much for crying, but for just a second he might have considered. If only out of frustration.

With Big Sister left strewn across the hall, Fontaine was able to focus again, noticing the girl he had unwittingly protected was shivering and clutching at his shirt for dear life. Terrified despite that ballsy stunt she'd just pulled. Granted, she might have actually saved their skin back there. He wasn't about to thank her for it.

"You sound weird." Bea told him matter-of-factly.

Her hushed voice was tiny and trembled. She sounded so unsure of the man that stood over her now. He didn't sound anything like the Atlas she knew after all. Fontaine didn't bother correcting this.

"Yeah. I know, kiddo." Fontaine rasped. "I know."

What a thing to damn himself over.

And yet his arms still tightened a little bit around beatrice, cradling her closer as he caught his breath. Apparently his mind had not perfectly settled since the memories returned. To still have little lapses in sanity like that and see such hallucinations.

What awful timing...

Yet, outing himself early was still better than having been crushed under Big Sister's attack. That thought brought his attention back to the monster in question. Slowly sitting herself back up after that tumble, gathering her bearings now that a child was on the scene.

And as it was Fontaine's eyes set on the creature with the child in his arms, other key points from that white noise surfaced more clearly.

He was looking at the empty cage on the monster's back when the memories came to him. The memory of talking to Beatrice by Valery's final resting place after Atlas had laid her leather jacket over the still body.

He recalled Beatrice's voice, still tinged with the unnatural trill of a little sister, tell him confidently, "Sister sent me."

There were flowers woven between the bars of Big Sister's cage. Held in with little ribbons tied in bows. They had seen flowers just like this before. Recently. When talking to Beatrice about what she'd been sent to leave with Valery.

A discussion, of gifts and flowers.

"Big sister Eleanor wanted to give her a gift!"

Oh.

Atlas's search for Eleanor had not been a deadend after all, but instead another complication.

"Ya own daughter, Lamb?" Fontaine muttered under his breath as he watched Eleanor right herself. And, without even pausing to consider the gross hypocrisy of the statement, went on to say, "Guess family don't mean a damn to you."

Then he was carefully loosening his hold on Beatrice, though her tiny fingers only tightened their hold on his shirt, begging without words for him not to leave her there alone. That desperation sparked frustration in Fontaine. The brat shouldn't even be here, if she didn't want to be alone then she should have stayed with the rest of their family and not come out here looking for him.

"The fuck were you thinking?" Fontaine growled without thinking himself before speaking.

Little Bea flinched when the curse was directed her way. Fear and upset showing clearly on her face for a moment, though after a second she seemed to come to a conclusion and put on an angry face instead.

"What were you thinking!" she shot back with such startling veracity that Fontaine actually recoiled in shock. He wasn't expecting such force to come out of that kid's mouth.

While he was reeling from the shock of being scorned by a god damn toddler, Bea worked herself into a sort of a fit.

"You said you'd be okay." Bea reminded angrily, little tears threatening to fill her eyes and overflow. "You said you'd be home soon! You lied!" she accused and Fontaine sighed.

"Yeah, we do that." he muttered more to himself than to her.

Despite the conversation, his gaze had landed back on Big Sister as she collected herself, watching them like a shark. Navigating around the problem that Beatrice's presence posed. Fotnaine decided that this couldn't be allowed to go on any longer.

He was definitely busted already wasn't he?

There was no way that Tenenbaum wasn't watching all this through Delta's camera. And hell...maybe he was just sick of being quiet.

"Look. You can harp at me later. Alright, kiddo? For now, do us a favour and cover those ears of yours."

Bea looked at him blankly and so Fontaine took her hands, guiding them over ears. Still she looked confused, little brows furrowed together as she looked up at him. Her hands just barely lifted from her ears, undecided on what to do.

"Don't need you parroting me, Bea." Fontaine told her quietly, voice conspiratorial before he pressed a finger against his lips in a signal for silence or secret keeping. "Let the grownups talk for a tick, then you can scream at me all you like, yeah?"

"And you won't lie again?"

Well now. That didn't sound very likely.

"Only one way to find out, bucko. Now cover up them ears."

And with that Beatrice's hands closed over her ears and she squeezed her eyes shut. Fontaine got back to his feet, still pointedly stood between the girl and the monster Eleanor had become.

"How did you manage that, Lamb?" he called into the air, knowing full well the queen bitch must be watching the show like everyone else.

They did have so many spectators in Rapture, he preferred to be watching from a safe distance rather than being in the thick of it like this. But he'd make do.

Lamb didn't leave him hanging for more than a few seconds. "So, the deadman speaks with his own tongue. Tell me, Tyrant, are you impressed to see your own work perfected? Perfected and used for the good of the people rather than the good of the self."

God this witch always had been so fancy with her spiels. Her and Ryan had a lot to bond over in hell once he was through with her.

He'd asked just to confirm, but when Lamb answered him Fontaine's blood burned hot with anger. 'His work'. That's what she called it. He didn't bother to correct her by pointing out he only commissioned WYK and a laundry list of other codes that they'd programmed into Jack. That was the good work of Tenenbaum and Suchong. The correction would be a shallow one. He'd paid for that work after all.

Now here it was, bastardised in Sophia Lamb's own flesh and blood.

To be perfectly honest, Fontaine didn't fancy the Frankenstein monster hybrid that he watched now. In part because it had nearly crushed him and the brat back there.

"Not particularly, no." he answered in a growl. Able to hear Delta gathering himself somewhere behind his back, but he dared not look and give Big Sister an opening that, in all honesty, she probably didn't even need.

"It is nothing I did not fashion from your remains, voice of the people."

Lamb's voice purred back, a sickly poison that crawled its way into his mind and dug its claws in. But the roots those words laid provided a small hope.

His remains, huh?

Atlas looked right at Sophia Lamb's pet monster and decided to see how much of his corpse they'd used to make her.

"Would you kindly stop tryin' ta kill us."

Big Sister jolted like she'd been struck by a bolt of lightning. Then she was screaming again and Fontaine felt Beatrice huddle in closer to him. Glancing down he saw how tightly her hands were clasped over her ears. Truly fighting to keep the horrific sound out once Eleanor began screaming.

However, her eyes were open and they were terrified. Looking at Eleanor in horror. Not afraid of the big sister so much as scared for her. Kids were a bit weird like that.

Erratically, Big Sister began to jerk and stumble. Shrieking all the while. Her hands coming up to her head, a terrible mirror to how Bea covered her own ears to keep the sound out. But Eleanor couldn't keep out orders already in her mind.

Conflicting orders.

Fontaine didn't feel victorious in the slightest. He just waited for Lamb to speak. For as much of a lunatic bitch as she was, he knew she couldn't be so short sighted with her stolen tricks. Sure enough, when Lamb spoke again, her words all but instantly overrode his own. Fontaine watched on as Lamb instructed her daughter to calm, to ignore the lies of the world and listen only to the good of the people. He observed the way Eleanor gradually stopped shrieking and became passive once more.

It wasn't the trigger phrase that Lamb had ingrained in her own daughter. It was simply her voice. Any and all orders fell under it.

Would You Kindly, was just as Lamb had described it. A relic.

Nothing more than some old abandoned code still imbedded in thousands of new lines of script.

"Did you think my daughter would be so easily swayed, Tyrant? She is the daughter of the Rapture. A true champion of the people that casts a shadow over your shallow imitation from years past."

Her arrogance was all but unrivaled. Fontaine did not correct her either. Let her think she'd just somehow ruined his plans with that. And take a few cheap shots at his expense while at it.

By now Delta had joined them. Listening to every word with a slow dawning horror.

That was his little girl over there. Under Lamb's spell and barely sane. Maybe not even really alive under that suit. For Delta it must have been like looking into a horrible generational mirror. His daughter made into a beast just like himself.

Fontaine turned slightly to look at him, frown etched on his face. Opening his mouth to speak he barely got out, "Kid-" before Lamb spoke over him. Filling up the air with her own calm cruelty and overriding Fontaine's own.

"Delta, I ask you this, and implore you ask yourself too - why were you chosen? Why won't Rapture let you rest. All of the other original protectors are savage mindless beasts now. From Alpha to Omega. Why not you? Why not yet?" Lamb needed no answer, but even if she had, Delta couldn't have given it. His stare hadn't moved from Big Sister even once as Lamb spoke.

She came to her own conclusion. "You resist it still." Lamb told him in a tone just shy of pitiful. Like she truly did feel for the monster they'd made of Delta. That pity manifested in cruel ways.

"Allow me to show you the futility of that, of your continued struggle. You must be so very tired Delta."

Realising that their time was almost up again, Fontaine tensed his stare shooting down to Beatrice where she remained gripping his shirt and hidden against his side. The kid being here was going to make things ten times harder if it all got violent again and Delta didn't seem to be in any state to fight rationally now. There was every chance he'd have another break down and that would leave Fontaine as the only person around able to do anything.

Panic began to grip Fontaine as he grasped just how out of their depth they were.

Before he was able to try and divert the situation, Lamb provided Delta with the 'mercy' she believed he needed.

"I shall send a friend to ease you of that pain. Eleanor, come back home."

The order registered in Big Sister and immediately she was turning to leave. That broke Delta from his trance and with a painfully broken sound he tried to run and reach out for Eleanor.

Perhaps he could have caught her, but Lamb had said she'd send him a friend and that friend got between father and daughter in a violent way.

Fontaine heard the rocket launcher before he saw it. Barely a blip from the corner of his eye but he could hear the sound of the air ripping past it as the rocket flew and he acted fast.

Living in Atlas's shoes for so long might have rubbed off on him somewhat and it felt almost natural to protect Delta. If he had to think about it beyond instinct Fontaine could write that knee jerk reaction off as survival instinct. He needed Delta as a glorified bodyguard and it wouldn't do to let his greatest asset get blown to pieces by a rocket.

So again he utilised sonic boom and this time directed it at Delta. Knocking him clear out of the rocket's range just before it struck the ground were Delta would have stood barely a second later.

At his side Beatrice screamed in terror and clung with both hands to him now. Through the smoke and dust, Fontaine saw Eleanor respond to that scream.

Pausing briefly in her retreat, a glance thrown over her shoulder. Hesitation despite her programming. But then the orders won out and she was vanishing from sight. Running and vanishing in the cloud the rocket's explosion had filled the air with.

In her place stood a larger figure. Big daddies were well known for being walking tanks but this thing defied expectations. Fontaine stared at it through the slowly clearing smoke and realised that its monstrous design was one he knew.

That was...that was the Demo?

Fontaine had never seen one in the flesh before, so to speak. Big Sister was Rapture's daughter and likely the strongest monster to its name, but hell if Demo wasn't only a rung or two lower on that list.

But most of all, it fit the bill didn't it? Lamb had sent Delta a friend to play with while Eleanor escaped.

"You have got to be fucking kidding me…"