53
…
The sounds of the two prototypes clash seemed to bounce off every wall within Persephone.
The call of the conflict reached Eleanor before they'd even truly left the catacombs of the ADAM reserves. Looking up in alarm as the ceiling shuddered under the strain of supporting the carnage happening above.
Eleanor had to move faster. Shaking off the remaining gloom that clung to them after their parting words with Altas was no easy task, but they could not dedicate their energy to that man's struggle when their own was reaching its climax. If they missed it, they might very well lose their father.
If Atlas had any sense he would join them and fight for what he so obviously needed.
Unfortunately, Eleanor could not force the epiphany onto him and could only hope that he might find it on his own.
Of course, if he could not be inspired by his own merits, perhaps the blood memory of Rapture that ran through his veins would give him the push he needed. Elanore would take no bets on which of the men inside that body would win the ADAM coin toss.
However, they truly doubted it really mattered in the grand scheme of things.
United the Fontaine personalities were certainly not, but aligned? Well, they may very well still be.
Granted, even if Atlas figured out how to balance himself, there was every chance he may still be too late to help them now. So, Elenore would likely have to separate the two battling titans by themselves - this was, pointedly, not an appealing likelihood.
Getting between Demo and Delta frightened them in more than one way.
Obviously, trying to stop the two war machines in the first place presented itself with a number of substantial difficulties. But it was not the struggling fight ahead that bothered most, they simply did not actually want to face their uncle nor their father, knowing how the conflict had to end.
The inevitably of it all was stifling.
Demo had been a beacon of light through their years trapped with Mother and the 'family', but now he was just another delegated to 'collateral damage'. Elenore knew that the trade would be unpleasant but they had to save father. It's what their uncle would have insisted upon, they were sure. They had to be certain in order to go ahead with the final plan.
Certainty was not exactly the sensation Eleanor experienced as they followed the echoes of violence over the leaking halls of Rapture.
Instead they only wondered, could anyone be boiled down to another tally on the list of justifiable fatalities?
Would their father have thought of the world as they had come to? A series of calculated sacrifices and losses for a singular gain?
Walter probably had… and Mother still did. But how long had they seen the world through those cold calculating eyes too?
...would Father even recognise them like this?
Certainty was what they needed - evidently it was in a severe lack of supply. Shit.
Those poisonous, doubtful thoughts were interrupted as the ground gave another heaving shudder. As if straining under the force of a great body being thrown down upon it. Eleanor would guess Demo's by the weight of the impact. They dared not wonder if it was Father instead.
Breaking into a sprint, Eleanor followed the thunderous noise as the calamity above grew louder still. Shaking the walls around them as the Titans fought it out somewhere within the labyrinth of Persephone, the force of which nearly shook Rapture's daughter right off their feet.
Terrified of arriving too late to the sounds of silence, they scrambled back to their feet even as the ground beneath continued to tremble and rumble. Regardless of if getting between two of their family was dangerous or not, Eleanore couldn't leave their father to face it alone.
And, well, if the prototypes were truly the last of Rapture's titans, then no doubt that made Eleanore the first of Rapture's olympians. And as the story went, they had to be there at the end.
…
…
As in all things, Walter was stubborn to the bitter end. Even in this new existence as Demo, the man simply refused to die despite Delta's rather firm encouragement.
Granted, there was little of Walter left in Demo's movements now. Each shot from its shoulder cannon was made with the intent to decimate its target. It was a single minded blood lust that didn't match with the heart of the man the monster had been made from.
Delta was little better, of course.
Inch by screaming inch, Delta could feel a familiar static creeping back into his mind, causing his thoughts to turn foggy and red tinged once more.
But it was only him and Demo here, now.
There would be no harm in slipping away to that blood rage, provided he could come back once more.
With his little family so far from him, he didn't see a path back to rationality this time. Sinclair silenced, Lamb and the girls beyond reach and even Atlas lost within Rapture, Delta doubted he'd have an anchor enough to pull him back.
But the edge did look so awfully tempting as he rammed into Demo once more.
His drill roared as it crashed against the patchwork job carried out on Demo with many tiny hands. The metal buckled and broke, all but shattering under the force of the drill's blow. As it came away in flesh like shreds, Demo reached for his face through the haggard remains of the helmet.
If that reach was to grab or caress was not a question Delta could stand to learn the answer for. So he jerked away, ripping the tip of the drill free of Demo's ruined chassis. With the tip he brought a long line of red blood. The man beneath the metal still bled like anyone else.
The blood did no more to stop Demo than any other injury had, however, and Delta was too close to properly prepare himself from the charge attack Demo hurled at him next. The strike of its shield striking Demo square in the chest, shoving him off his feet and back against the wall.
There Demo pinned him down with the shield, holding him in place as ever so slowly light sparked within its canons and Delta realised there was no possible way for him to get out of the blast zone when they were all but face to face. He could also not dislodge Demo's weight from him, for a moment that stretched an eternity - he believed Demo would be the victor.
And… he almost didn't mind that at all.
It would have been the end of him had Demo not been forced to reel back when something small and quick latched itself onto his back. The sudden third party appeared so silently and suddenly that Delta could not even get a good look at it before Demo had launched the intruder from its back with a strike from its shield.
But when the smaller bodied attacked struck the ground, rolling a few paces before coming to a halt on the floor, both he and Demo were able to get a good look at them. Even though the armour was unfamiliar to them, both prototype big daddies recognised their ward in an instant.
Demo seemed falter. Looking towards where Eleanor had struck. Something close to regret, at least as Demo could conjure up in this half living state, halting his assault as he stared at the fallen daughter. After all, Demo was supposed to protect the children of Rapture, Elenore above all others.
The sudden shift from object of protection to combatant clearly had taken the beast off guard and it was struggling to make sense of what to do with itself now it had laid hands on the child.
Delta on the other head suffered no such hesitation, enraged to see the Demo having taken that dreadful shield to their little girl. With it no longer pinning him down, Delta surged up and, in a moment of thoughtless anger, punched Demo head on. The force of his fist certainly wouldn't break through its heavily armoured helmet but the unexpected blow still pushed Demo off of him.
Stumbling back a few paces, Demo seemed to regain his composure some, returning its focus to Delta with an easier to understand intent to kill. Its back was to one of Rapture's large windows to the sea and already their fight had caused cracks to appear along its surface. Demo either did not notice or did not care that their continued conflict might flood this section of the city. Delta found it hard to care, himself, and so they went on carelessly.
Soon enough the submarine sinking behemoth had adopted a familiar, wide stance. Bracing as the rockets adorning its shoulders began to rumble back to life.
Delta had run from those blasts so many times before that this time when he saw the Demo powering up for a shot designed to take out deep sea crafts, he in turn braced himself.
Running away had gotten them nowhere, so he stood firm and waited. Watching for the moment the shells fired to launch out a wave of telekinesis. Just barely able to catch the rockets, and still the force of snatching them from the air heaved Delta back a few paces. Almost taking him completely off his feet, but with teeth grit and his heels digging in, he stayed upright and the rockets now belonged to him.
Something akin to surprise registered in Demo's posture as it straightened up in alarm. No doubt no one had ever caught its earth shaking rockets before, nor had it been faced with the prospect of having that weapon turned back on itself.
Delta did it one better. With the rockets still burning at the ends, shuddering in the grip of his telekinesis, Delta plucked up every harpoon he'd stocked with him. Fanning the sharp tipped weapons out around him. The ring of harpoons formed smoothly above his head and shoulders as the rockets slowly twisted back to face their original master.
Distantly Delta recognised the small step that Demo took back at the sight to be a similar fear to the one he'd felt when they first met. It seemed only right.
Who needed that damn ADAM anyway? If it had to be taken from his friend's corpse then Delta would rather destroy them both by bringing Rapture crashing down atop them.
Lost together in the water's depths. It was the best Rapture could give them now.
Before the first rocket was released from the telekinesis grasp, Delta faintly heard Eleanor screaming his name. Maybe to stop him from killing Demo or maybe just to stop him from letting loose such a destructive blow when they stood under the glow of the ocean held at bay only by glass.
But he was too far gone and his grasp over the plasmid was let go not a second later. Sending the rockets hurtling back at Demo.
The explosion quickly enveloped them all. Taking with it not only Demo's image but Delta's sight and Eleanor's body along with it. The force of the blow sent a large crack racing up the window, and it shattered under the pressure not a second later. As parts of Persphone came crashing down atop them, so too did the icy depths of the ocean.
There was nothing that the ocean could not sweep away in that moment, and were it not for the prison's designer having at least a lick of foresight, the dark abyss would have taken them all back out into its depths. Instead, what remained of Rapture's functionality kicked in and no sooner than the glass had ruptured did a second shield come crashing down to stop the ocean's rapid flow into the already sinking city.
The flood of water thinned out as it spread eagerly through Persephone, leaving a thin layer of water on the floor of every room it could reach. The decrease of water left behind the ruins of the alpha series battle. Large chunks of rebar and stone debris lay scattered around the scene as a few fortunate fish that had survived the surge of water inside followed the flow of water down to lower levels. Only narrowly avoiding being abandoned as the water thinned out.
Among the wreckage Demo lay beneath a fallen slab of concrete. While much of the impact seemed to have been cushioned by its armour, the beast was unable to heave the weight off of itself. No doubt too shattered beneath that armour to move, let alone find the strength to free itself.
While Demo lay there, trying weakly to lift its shoulders or move itself in any way, only able to shove feebly at the stone with one hand, Delta rose from the ruins.
Shoving a few pieces of rubble off himself, Delta was able to clamber slowly back to his feet. He could already feel the damage to his body. One eye shut as he bled sluggishly from the forehead where his open helmet could not protect him from the collapse. By his side one arm lay limp, dislocated or broken entirely he couldn't say.
It didn't matter anyway. All that mattered was that he could stand and Demo could not. So Delta began the agonising role of approaching the fallen prototype. Dragging with him a single broken harpoon that had landed by him in the chaos. It would be enough to finish the job now that Demo's shell was shattered.
If they could not escape this place together then they could all be buried here together instead.
However, it was not only Demo and Delta that had survived the collapse.
From where they'd landed against the far wall, Eleanor struggled to lift their head. The suit of Big Brother had protected them from the worst of the carnage, but they could feel where it hadn't been able to protect them from new bruises and abrasions.
They could still see fortunately. The shield that had come crashing down to separate the city from the sea once more still allowed the glow of Rapture's sea life to stream in around them from the open sea, illuminating their world into unnatural pinks and blues. Even some of the ADAM-grown plants had washed inside, laying nestled among the debris, lighting the way even after the internal lights had gone out in the explosion.
The soft glowing lights of the ocean helped Elanor right themselves once more, coughing as the dust and sea water drained from their suit. It was truly not one of their favourite moments in Rapture and the pickings were not stellar to begin with.
But looking up, they forgot all their aches and pains in an instant as terror lanced through them, forcing Eleanor to push themselves back up onto their elbows.
Staring over at their father as he stood over Uncle.
Recognising in an instant where his grief had brought him. What thought must have been racing through his mind at that moment.
It was an old sentiment that both their uncle and father had once passed onto them when they were still just a little girl seemingly all alone in the world.
Together. To the very end.
"Father!" Eleanor screamed, causing their father to halt at the sound of their desperate call this time. "Father, don't!"
Jolting back, Delta looked over to them and through his broken mask. Eleanor got to see eyes that they could only distantly remember seeing as a child. Scarred and changed as he was now, they recognised their father in those eyes and could have wept with joy, relief and grief all at once having seen him once again.
The weight of that emotion must have hit Demo in a similar way once the mask broke. Perhaps that was why the fight had ended with Delta the victor in the end.
No matter how desperately they wanted to fling themselves into their father's arms and demand they help their uncle out from under the debris to escape together. To be together with their family in the way they'd always wanted, Eleanor knew better than to fold to the allure of that impossible fantasy.
Their family could not exist the way that they dreamed, they could only try to protect the fragmented remains of what could have been.
But they also did not have to be buried at sea just to remain together.
"Father…" they spoke softly, imploring him to step away from the emotional ledge he was precariously close to tumbling over. "Uncle… Walter's ADAM is what you need to survive."
Delta stiffened and shook his head. Fingers not clutching the broken harpoon curled into a tight fist, rejecting the implied solution resolutely.
Eleanor found that they did not even need the summoning plasmid's mental connection with Delta to know how viciously stubborn his rejection to the idea of killing Walter just to survive himself was. He'd rather they pointlessly perish together rather than take Walter's life for his own.
It was such a stunningly pointless and illogical line of thought, one their mother never would have understood. But Eleanor might...just maybe.
They shouldn't have been surprised. Delta had shown time and time again the fabric of his character. Father didn't think like Mother, or even themselves - he did not weigh lives in a clinical way. Even now, in his clear hysteria, Delta remained more human than Elenore could even pretend to be.
Eleanor loved him dearly for it, but also wished he could be a bit more selfish from time to time.
Funnily enough, they were fairly sure that Walter had wished for just the same.
Pleading, Eleanor tried once more to reach their father before he could do something that a vita-chamber could not mend. "You need not despair Father." They promised desperately. "ADAM is the life blood of Rapture. In it we hold our memories, our wishes and regrets, who we are. Walter's ADAM might save you, but we can save him. Carry him within us, keep his memory alive."
Something shifted, Deltas shoulders turning a little more in their direction, eyes opened once more. Considering even if not entirely believing. Remaining conflicted but, perhaps, convincible still.
Delta may simply be unwilling to truly believe such reassurances after enduring so much.
After a moment of hesitation where they were unsure if any small shift might tip the dangerous balance of the scene, Eleanor got back to their feet. While they were beaten and bruised from that fall - they were nowhere near as devastated as their father and uncle. Demo could not even get up while Delta stood clearly only by his own reckless abandon.
Carefully Eleanor approached the pair, hands splayed in a motion of pleading. "Father, trust in us. As we trusted in you. Please."
Delta only lowered the harpoon slightly, little more than an inch, but it was enough for them. Eleanor approached more quickly and after placing a pacifying hand atop their father's to urge him to lower that harpoon further, they turned to Demo. To Walter.
He made for such a pitiful sight now. Unable to remove the weight that kept him crushed to Rapture's floor. But Eleanor saw strength in him still. Strength that had nothing to do with shields or canons.
This was a man who had stayed by their side for as long as Mother had, and stayed in their heart for as long as their father had.
Far fiercer in his loyalty and devotion than he could have ever known, and...in a single decision, a more loving parent to them than Mother could ever hope to be.
And in turn they repaired that love and devotion with such terrible, cut throat logic. They had thought of him as collateral.
Let their thoughts become poisoned by Mother's view of a rotting world. But they knew better now. They needed Walter with them just as dearly as they did Father. They needed to carry him with them in heart and mind in a way only Rapture knew.
To know that they rejected Sophia and instead carried their Uncle's drives, devotions and memories.
With one more careful glance to their father, Eleanor smiled as they carefully removed their helmet. Just so Delta could see their face and understand the tender care they tried to show in their eyes. To let Father know it would be alright, even if it could not be perfect.
Then they turned back to their uncle, and kept the helmet off so he too could see them as they knelt by his side. Pressing their hands gently against Demo's shattered shell, settling the man beneath with a comforting touch as he recognised it was the daughter returned to him.
"Sorry." Eleanor whispered softly.
Their memories might have been a jumbled mess even before the effects of time faded their clarity. But Eleanor had never forgotten the day they learned which of their parents truly loved them - and which of their parents only loved the idea of them.
So they stepped forward, needle in hand and gaze set on Walter.
Delta reached for them, uncertain for a moment what they intended to do. Eleanor looked at him once more with a smile that was equal parts sad and joyful. As was the nature of a loved one's passing.
"You could not have known it, father. But you raised us, you and uncle both." Eleanor explained tenderly while reaching for their father's hand, to guide it atop their own and their uncle's. There was hesitation in Delta, guilt maybe, but eventually his palm rest gently atop both of theirs.
"Stop this!"
Even with all the destruction done to the city, Mother's voice still always found a way to be heard. Water logged and brimming with static, the radios high above pushed on stubbornly as Sophia Lamb demanded to be heard only now that her best warriors were both no longer able or willing to do her bidding.
"Delta, your ignorance is one of the few virtues you have. You need not invite more suffering onto yourself by doing this. Accepting ADAM from that man will only prolong your suffering."
Eleanor's expression hardened. They knew perfectly well what it was Mother wished for them not to know, but they'd never forgotten. So they ignored her manipulative pleas and spoke only to their father in that same hushed tone.
"You taught us that right and wrong are tidal forces ever shifting. For you, mercy was a victory...you sacrificed and endured and when given the choice...you forgave. When the guilty no longer posed a further threat, you simply walked away. You and Uncle taught us what it was to love family truly, to know the difference between an unconditional love demanded and earnest love earned."
Perhaps it was a trait they and Sophia shared, the unwillingness to have the last word or accept defeat when it was handed to them. Because Lamb tried once more to dissuade them, tone desperate as she looked for the right words to get Delta and her daughter to follow her will.
"Please. Neither of you would have ever wanted to remember what happened!" Lamb protested once more, but Eleanor was not swayed.
"And we...as we are now, it would be so easy to misjudge them. Reborn as we are in this single body, the vessel of Mother's, believed the world irredeemable...how easy it would be for us to stray and close the door to the rest of the world.
We need you, father. You and uncle both - to guide us."
Eleanor displayed their needle to father, making clear that this was the final moment where he could offer any further protests. None came, instead he merely clutched Walter and their hand a little tighter. A comforting grip that gave Eleanor a strength to go on that they hadn't known they needed.
With a deep breath, they slipped the needle's edge beneath Walter's chest. Uttering softly to him as the ADAM was drawn, "Family. To the very end."
There was no register of pain. Surely the jab felt like very little to Demo now. Too tired and broken to fight as Eleanor drew the ADAM from him carefully.
Or perhaps Walter only felt the light pressure of Johnny and Eleanor's hand atop his own now as he faded. Eleanor could only hope so.
They watched as Walter slowly weakened, and began to fade. After a moment of uncertainty, Delta reached for the other man's helmet, only for Walter to catch his hand. The grip was too gentle to be that of Demo warning off an enemy and Delta didn't need to hear the man's voice to know he did not want that helmet removed.
Had he a voice of his own he might have joked then that Walter had always been vain, but even if he could have spoken the words were struggled down by the lump in his throat.
It was alright, he understood. Better to remember Walter as who he had been and not as he was now.
Walter's grip remained on Delta's wrist even as he quietly faded away. At the very least not alone at the end as he'd always imagined he would be.
When Eleanor slipped the needle free, they turned first to Delta. "It's only right." They told him softly. "That he be with you."
Delta did not protest as the needle's tip was eased into his own chest. Perhaps welcoming it now, hoping it really would be like carrying Walter with him in life still.
As the ADAM was flooded into Delta's veins, offering the mending he so desperately needed, Sophia spoke up again. Voice tight with fury and frustration.
"You sadden me Delta." She spat. "You suffer the gravest of human atrocities, standing in direct testament to the tyranny of the ego - yet you will not accept death to abolish it. So be it. Die as you lived, a martyr to the self."
Delta did not seem to be listening. Focusing instead on the sensation of raw ADAM rushing beneath his skin. But Eleanor was listening and they seethed at their mother's bold, hypocritical remarks.
"And what of us, mother? What was it you wanted your child to become? "The People's Daughter". A living vault for the genes of the best and brightest...at the small cost of our mind. Well here it is, Mother. Are we all you hoped for?"
If Lamb were to answer it was cut off by Delta buckling. Bracing himself against the ground as the ADAM finally hit him in full force. Eleanor smiled despite how overwhelming it must have been, they knew how it felt to accept old life and adopt it as one's own. They only hoped that Walter would exist with Delta in the same harmony they now existed in with their multitudes.
The memories would not be far behind.
Placing a hand on Delta's back, trying to sooth him as it came rushing back, Eleanor ever so gently prompted the memories.
"Do you remember now, Father? Can you see it? Before they put you into that suit, we were going to escape this place...together. The three of us, to the surface. Do you remember what mother chose instead after what Rapture had turned me into? Mother decided it was best we die in this city - but you were there. Weren't you?
"Do you remember that day at the vent, Father?"
At first, no. He did not.
Only a second later he had no choice but to remember.