Unhappy
Ai was stunned speechless at the sudden appearance of the being who was not her Matron yet. The cultist clone was not. A part of Ai's mind actually approved of the clone's form as she drew off hand and fired without even raising her weapon in a modern 'quickdraw' that had little to nothing to do with actual combat in the Wild West. The cultist fired her heavy automatic pistol from the hip and the bullet flew true. Alley did not move as the bullet hit her center mass, went right through the Viper to no effect and continued on into the distance. The cultist stared at Alley as she fired again and again, with the exact same lack of effect. Only when she pulled the trigger and it went click on an empty magazine did she jerked and stare at Alley, her eyes actually seeing the Viper who was clearly trying hard not to smirk.
"Are you done?" Alley asked. She seemed calm, but her long forked tongue flicking in and out, betrayed her agitation.
"Oh shit…" The cultist said weakly as she fumbled for a spare magazine and her belt with all of her gear vanished right off her body! "I…" She raised her empty weapon to throw it at Alley and it too vanished! Then she set herself to charge the Viper.
"Don't be stupid!" Ai declared as Alley turned to scrutinize her. "You cannot fight her on a mental plane no matter what tricks your masters gave you!"
"Ai?" Alley said slowly. Ai looked at her and the Viper made a noise of exasperation and her face was blank as she looked Ai's way. "Time out!"
Ai stared at the being who was and was not her Matron and then she nodded, set herself and sat. Whatever else she was, she was a soldier and disciplined. She folded her hands properly and started her breathing exercises as she had been taught. If there was one thing the Matron's Cobra army knew, it was anger and its associated problems. 'Time out' was a basic technique that had originated in young children's schooling for when said young children acted out for whatever reason and needed time to calm down. It hadn't been a bad thing. Not punishment, although many had taken it as such and it had evolved in ways that had been far less productive. It had been found through many studies that such positive reinforcement was much better for the majority of students than negative reinforcement like paddling, caning, detention or suspension. It gave them time to calm down and Ai was anything but calm right now. As always, the Matron was far wiser than Ai could ever hope to be.
"Do you have a name?" Alley asked the cultist who stared at her, eyes huge. "I prefer to speak respectfully to people. Even those who hate me. From your point of view, you have every reason to hate me, although I have done none of what you blame me for yet." At that calm explanation of knowledge of the future, Ai felt fear rise, and the cultist flushed with matching fear, but both stilled at Alley's next words. "I can and have sub-divided my mind to bear this knowledge without going mad, or worse, spreading it and making even more of a mess than my life already is. This is a mental frame that you built in Ai's mind to turn her into a puppet. It is not real. I can act here as I wish without causing a paradox." Alley shook her head as the cultist stared at the Viper, rage and fear warring. "Please? My name is Alley, as I am sure you know. What is yours?"
"My name is Yǎtíng." The cultist said slowly, clearly unhappy with this whole situation.
"'Graceful'. Hmmm. That suits you. I would say well met, Yǎtíng, but this is mess and no mistake." Alley slowly coiled up beside Ai, close enough to touch, but AI didn't dare to presume. "Please. Sit. We have time, although not an infinite amount of it. Ai's colleagues are going to storm your base very shortly in the real world." At that, Ai felt hope flare, but Alley glanced at her and Ai held her tongue. This was the Matron's show. "Shrike hates Chimera for what Chimera did when they arrived in City 31 and Chimera is not composed of people who take assaults on their team lightly. Ambushing them was a serious mistake. None of them expect to die in bed, but taking two of them hostage made them all mad."
"I figured on such." Yǎtíng said slowly, sitting very carefully and holding herself so still as to seem painful. "I… Are you going to kill me?" She asked the Viper.
"That depends on you." Alley replied, still calm. "I try not to kill these days, but if I have to, I will. You are not the first the Cult has sent after me. You won't be the last."
"What?" Came from both Ai and Yǎtíng. Both flushed, but Ai bent her head and focused even more firmly on the breathing. She did not want to disappoint Alley. From how the Viper was acting, the Nightstalker had, but Ai had no idea how or why.
"Yǎtíng, relax." Alley all but begged. "I am not here to fight you. You have to obey your orders until or unless you can free yourself. I get that. I don't like it, but I have no right to take choice from you any more than Ai here had a right to take choice from Valere." The look Alley gave Ai now was warm, and the Cobra operative relaxed just a little. She approved! "I do not like what the Cult does, but I have no right in this time to demand you stop doing what you think is right." Alley heaved a sigh. "Until or unless something goes very wrong as it has now."
"I do not understand." Yǎtíng said weakly. "What did I do?"
"You didn't do it." Alley turned to Ai who froze solid as the Viper's regard swept her with no mercy whatsoever behind the cold reptilian eyes. "Ai here did." Ai did not dare move a muscle. She focused on her breathing, nothing but breathing. If the Matron wanted her life, Ai would give it. She would not resist. She could not.
"What?" Yǎtíng asked, concern rising.
"Nightstalker Ai is what she is, Operative Yǎtíng." Alley said heavily. "I messed up big time when I made her and her kin. I don't know the specifics, but I do know I made a bunch of mistakes when I made them."
"That is not true!" Ai snapped, only to freeze as the Matron's power flashed around her. "Um, I... Apologies, Matron. I will… focus."
"You do that." Alley's tone promised dire consequences if Ai spoke up again. "Operative Yǎtíng, Ai is a soldier. I apparently made her and her kind to be the best soldiers I could. I have no idea why or even when I did it, but I did." Yǎtíng was staring at Alley now, eyes huge at such an admission. "I am not a goddess and I clearly played at being one. Created life and set them off to die for my cause." Ai was shaking her head, but another glare from the Matron had her focused on breathing again, trying to stay calm. "No one will say exactly what I did for fear of causing a temporal paradox, but I know my own handiwork when I see it. I made Ai and I screwed up bad when I did it. I must have been really desperate to not think about what would happen after the war."
"Matron…" Yǎtíng started but paused when Alley shook her head savagely. "Um, You want me to call you Alley?" She asked and Alley nodded, relaxing. "This is very odd." She complained.
"Welcome to my life these days." Alley quipped and Yǎtíng relaxed a little more. "'Odd' and 'weird' are pretty much what I do now."
"What did she do?" Yǎtíng asked, still confused. "I mean, she had to fight me, us…" She paused as Alley shook her head. "What? That is why she is here!"
"No, it is not." Alley said, her tone turning stern as she glared at Ai who focused on her breathing. "As you can see, I have no trouble defending myself against your kind. You are not the first to target Valere either although now that her powers have emerged fully, the Lady is about to take steps that you lot will not like. She protects her own as well as I do."
"I…" Yǎtíng shook her head. "You knew about that?"
"Girl, my daughters Jian and Lizbeth are the self appointed guardians of this reality." Alley said in a tone that was her trying hard to be patient. "You know this. No, they are not going to just let you try to kill me no matter what the letter of whatever law may say. They are limited in what they can do, but inside those limits, they can and do act. Even if you do manage by some miracle or mad science to kill me, they will undo it to keep this reality from imploding." At that, Yǎtíng went utterly still. "After I go, leave, die, whatever happens to me in the future you came from, you can do whatever you want. Until then? No matter how you try, you can't win. You can argue with me, fight or whatever as futile as it is. You argue with any warden of reality at your peril." Alley warned. "I know better."
"So, why are you here?" Yǎtíng demanded, anger rising. "If I can't win, just obliterate me and be done with it!"
"I do not want to. I have destroyed several of your kind who left me no choice." Alley said softly. "Who took hostages among those I love and threatened to kill them if I didn't show up. I did. They tried several ways to kill me and failed. That is not a problem for me." She turned to Ai as the Nightstalker finished her breathing exercises and met the matron's eyes. "Ai here is the problem."
"What have I done?" Ai asked slowly. "Is it something I can fix?"
"I hope so, yes." Alley said softly.
"What do I do?" Ai asked, back on firm ground.
"Do as you promised." Alley said softly. "Lay down your sword." Ai actually fell out of her stance at that, shock pervading every single iota of her being.
"What?" Yǎtíng was well into the shrill range at that but neither of the others looked at her. "She is a Nightstalker! She fights! That is what she does!"
"She wasn't supposed to." Alley said very quietly as Ai fought for equilibrium. "She wasn't supposed to wake on the barge! She is too tough for her own good and apparently threw off the sedative far earlier than anyone thought she could." Alley slumped a bit. "Then, she saw Valere about to be raped… and well…" Alley heaved a huge sigh and made a face that was pure sadness. "Ai is what she is. Everything that happened after that was just her being her old self. Not the new being she wanted to be. Not the good woman we all wanted her to be."
"I don't understand." Yǎtíng said weakly. "She stopped the thug from harming Valere! Which we did not intend, by the way!" She said quickly and both other females nodded. "That man died far too quickly." That was pure annoyed female.
"On that we can agree, if likely little else, Operative Yǎtíng." Alley said with a sigh as Ai fought her emotions. Alley spoke to her, but kept her eyes on the cultist. "Ai, breathe. Don't worry about anything else right now. Just breathe. It is okay. You are safe for the moment. No need to fight now, girl. Calm. Calm."
"What is wrong with-" Yǎtíng went still and then blanched. "Oh no! No!"
"You broke into her mind and while I bet you can see it all, I would not recommend touching it as as angry as she is. If you do see her mind in all its parts, then you begin to understand. Hopefully to fear." Alley said very softly. "'Stare into the abyss, and the abyss stares back at you.' I do not know all of the facts, like I say, but I have been told that Ai stared into the abyss of the war with your masters and then the one with your compatriots. After all she saw and did, all the lives she took, blood she spilled and friends she lost, she broke. She should have gone utterly mad like so many other soldiers in history except that, against all odds, she found someone who loved her despite her flaws. Despite her madness. Despite everything, he loved her and helped her."
"What happened?" Yǎtíng asked, concern for Ai rising. "I mean, she is here. Now. I read a report that she died, but they managed to get her DNA to make me because she was the best of them."
"You Joes went after a daycare." Ai barely recognized her tone and both for the others stared at her in shock as she growled. "There were a couple of hundred kids of all ages there! You wanted them to make more of your monsters! No one else was available! What was I supposed to do?" She demanded, anger rising despite her discipline.
"Oh my god. She… Oh no!" Yǎtíng said weakly as Alley stared at Ai, worry oozing from the Viper. "What do I do?" She begged Alley of all people! "If she dies here…"
"If she does what she planned to in here, it will kill you and likely the feedback will break your masters' minds in this time before they are prepared for such. That will likely destabilize everything in this reality, probably cause a new timeline to come into being." Alley shook her head. "For better or for worse? Who knows. We won't even realize it in all likelihood if such happens. If it has happened." She made a disgusted noise. "And to think I had a hard enough time sleeping when all I had to worry about was accidentally fusing atoms in the grip of my nightmares." Yǎtíng stared at the Viper who shrugged. "Don't ask."
"Right." Yǎtíng made a face, but then focused on Ai. "What can I do? I mean, she will fight me. She has to, right?"
"I don't know." Alley admitted, shocking both of the beings who looked so like one another and could not be more different. "All I know is that she came here to 'lay down her sword'. That is what I was told, not any specifics. She has done good things here, mixed with the ultra violence that was her life." She smiled sadly as Ai. "Ai, you have done good things here. You helped Aroa and Arisha, you know that, right?"
"I… I did?" Ai asked, confused at the sudden change in emotion. She stared at her enemy but Yǎtíng did not move. "I…" She grunted as pain flared deep inside her and a horrible feeling rose within her, a lust for blood and vengeance. She knew that feeling and feared it. Berzerkers had no place on modern battlefields! Cobra's medics had caught it in time to treat her, but everyone had been worried about relapses. She had been better! Why now? Then realization dawned and Ai could have kicked herself! The Cultist had breached her mind's defenses and the battle lust's prison inside her mind. A mind that now had the Matron's Gift as a weapon! Oh dear. "I… No!"
"I can help her. I have access and I know that malady. It took many of my compatriots." Yǎtíng said slowly as Ai fought her own mind for control. "Matron! I can help her!" She stared as Alley slowly extended a hand to the cultist and Ai groaned in agony, falling to her side as the rage that dwelt inside her rose higher and higher.
"MATRON! STOP ME!" Ai begged as she writhed in agony. "I… Can't…"
"I know." Alley said sadly as Yǎtíng took her hand with only a minor tremor and both turned to face Ai's body as Ai watched in horror, unable to do anything but watch.
"Matron, you need to go." Ai voice spoke, but it wasn't her speaking. No, this was worse as something else took control of her to raise her body to its feet. Calm. Cold. Utterly unemotional as Ai beat against the walls in her mind that held her away from what was about to happen.
"I cannot do that, daughter." Alley was sad, so sad. "What has happened to you is my fault. Whatever plan I made or hoped didn't work. You have suffered for my mistakes and I fear for you, daughter. I cannot leave you to face such horror alone."
"If you are here when I release your Gift, you will be hurt, maybe die." Ai was screaming in her mind now, but she couldn't do anything but watch as Alley stared at her, shock oozing from every scale on the Viper's body.
"My 'Gift'?" Alley said weakly. "No. Oh no. Ai, no, no, no!" She shook her head savagely. "Ai! Put down the sword! Now!" She commanded and Ai quailed within her self as whatever she as confined in did nothing.
"That is not the right way to say it." Yǎtíng said very softly as she knelt and bowed her head. "I know anger. I know rage. I have been called a fanatic and maybe I am, but this? This I can help. I am not a warrior, but I am your enemy, Nightstalker Ai. Do with me what ye will, but before that, will you hear my words?" She was not commanding, she was almost begging. "I speak ancient words of wisdom from long before aliens came to earth in the guise of conquerors in Ai's case or saviors in mine. Will you slay me out of hand or will you hear me?" Ai felt faint as Alley sat down beside the cultist, still holding Yǎtíng's hand!
"Matron. Go." Ai heard her own voice snap, but Alley shook her head.
"If I am to die, I will die as I have lived, trying to help my family." Alley said quietly. "What words, Yǎtíng?"
"A quote from the New Testament of the Christian Bible. Matthew chapter twenty six, verses fifty one to fifty three." Yǎtíng said very quietly and then recited from memory. "'With that, one of Jesus' companions reached for his sword, drew it out and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear. 'Put your sword back in its place,' Jesus said to him, 'for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.' Please put your sword back in its place, Ai. I may be your enemy, but I do not want you to die even without your trap." Yǎtíng said firmly.
"You… dare to say that to me?" Ai felt the walls of her prison shake as even her berzerker rage was shaken by such a thing from such a horrible enemy. "You lying, murdering cultist scum!" Her rage was blossoming again despite everything she could do!
"I have lied." Yǎtíng said without apology. "It was war. In war, deception is permitted. I have murdered as well. Is not all war nothing but murder sanctioned by political need?"
"Don't you dare go there with me!" Ai snapped, pushing to the fore of her mind and scowling at the pair of beings in front of her. Her rage was pushed back, but only for the moment. "You and yours started it!"
"I…" Yǎtíng slumped in her place. "Yes. Yes, from your point of view, we did. We welcomed the aliens into our lives and souls, never thinking about the consequences if they proved duplicitous." Ai felt shock flare at the cultist admitting that but her rage pounded at her again and she recoiled from the Matron who was eyeing her with worry. "The Cult of Sirius hoped for a better tomorrow than endless war and instead? We made it worse. Yes, we are partially at fault for what happened in Mega Primus. Maybe saying that damns me in the eyes of my masters, but I can see the truth in what I have read and what was cut out of our records."
"I…" Ai stammered as pain flared inside her head. "I don't… No… This is… Matron?" She begged as Alley rose slowly but still held Yǎtíng's hand. "Help?"
"Put your sword back in its place, Ai." Alley said softly, but her words reverberated in Ai's throbbing mind. It soothed Ai as the Matron's mind always had. "Ai, you didn't come here to fight! Please, daughter! Don't leave!" Alley begged, all but in tears. "I can stop what is inside you, but I do not want to lose you and I will kill you if I do what I must to stop it here."
"I don't want to die, but I have to, Matron." Ai said weakly as the Matron's sorrow washed over her. "I can't fight myself."
"No. You cannot fight yourself. At least, not alone." Yǎtíng said with a tiny smile that had both of the others staring at her. "I think I understand now, Matron." Her smile turned impish. "Sneaky and underhanded to use me in such a way, but sneaky is your way, is it not?"
"Better than corpses piled high in the streets." Alley replied, holding out her free hand to Ai who stared at it like a drowning man offered a life preserver. "Ai, we can help. You cannot trust her. Do you trust me?"
"Always." Ai said very softly as she held out her own hand. Alley took and it power flared around the three of them.
"Then put away your sword."