Sorry about the delay, there's been a lot of things happening recently, and writing this fic has become more and more difficult inspiration wise. This chapter was basically done a few days ago, but I just kept on modifying it. There's more and more things to keep track of while writing this fic, it's honestly getting tiring.
Experiment n13
Subject: Alpha Beowulf
Product used: [REDACTED]
Result: Experiment successful, [REDACTED] is ready to be used.
The day had finally arrived, and as Griza stood outside of the academy, watching an approaching airship, she began to feel anxious. Today she would leave all she knew behind, to enter a world that probably wasn't for her, many dangers and uncertainties awaited. But she had to do it, for it was the only way forward, the only way to achieve anything, to do what was right.
The airship was now landing, as Griza began to move toward it, she felt a hand drop on her shoulder, turning around to see the hand's owner, the face of her friend appeared.
"Before you go, there is something I found that could be useful for you." He fumbled through a small bag in his other hand, only to take out what looked like a crude device, shaped in a half circle, with protruding parts at both ends.
"Those are called headphones, it's a recent invention using wind dust to produce sounds that only it's wearer can hear, generally music. I thought it could maybe help with... you know... the voices."
"Headphones... hearing sounds... Thank you very much James, I will make sure to try them. You're making me feel really bad suddenly by giving me all those gifts while I'm just standing here doing nothing... I know ! During my travels with the operatives, I will do my best to find something nice for you, and when I will come back, you will see, I will have a mountain of presents, and you will be the one feeling bad."
While they were speaking, someone had come out of the now landed airship, and was glaring at them. This someone was of course Six, a Six that was getting very impatient.
James and Griza quickly bid each other farewell and the latter rushed to her mentor, who greeted her with a small nod before going back into the airship.
They took off, leaving Atlas, leaving mantle, heading to the horizon. The scenery passed by in front of her eye, she was already feeling bored, deciding to already try the headphones, she first tried to understand how to make them work.
After a few useless tries, she found a small instruction manual glued on the side, its inspection finally revealing to her how to make use of the strange device.
She put the headphones on her head, while examining the small box attached to it by a wire, and after a moment she pressed a switch and started to hear something.
"Hi Griza, if you're hearing this it means you've managed to make this thing work, I didn't really know what kind of music you liked so I put some of mines in it, feel free to add more. If it doesn't work, and you still hear the voices... don't listen to them. I know you did what was right, and you'll always do what you think is right."
As James's voice had said, a few songs were present the device. She could switch between them by pressing a button on the right of the box, and after randomly choosing one, Griza tried to sleep.
When her eye opened again, she saw an endless sea through the window, water stretching as far as the eyes could see. Griza was starting to feel worried, she wasn't expecting them to go this far, before this she had never even thought about leaving anima, and pondering about what was beyond filled her with excitement and fear at the same time.
Getting up from her chair, Griza began to walk through the airship, looking for Six. The airship was bigger than it looked like on the outside, something along the lines of a small house's size.
As she tried to open another random door in her exploration of the airship, she suddenly rammed into the door. After taking a closer look at it, she noticed a padlock with a password on the handle.
She probably shouldn't touch it, it was probably locked for a reason, and Six would get angry if she started going through her stuff. As she was leaving the corridor she felt something, like a small breeze on her neck, pushing into her head, and now, four numbers were echoing in her mind, 5-8-3-7.
She immediately had the intimate conviction, that this was the password, she didn't knew how she knew, how those numbers had landed in her mind, but she knew what they meant.
For a few moments she simply stood there, confused about what had happened. Should she try the password ? Listening to the voices in her mind probably wasn't a good idea, it was probably nothing, but even if it didn't worked, nothing bad would happen, on the other side if it unlocked the door, it would mean something was very weird about her.
But wait, maybe it was this, maybe she had just unlocked her semblance, a peculiar semblance for sure, but it was still better than nothing. Griza began to cautiously head back to the door, slowly taking the lock in her hands, and she entered the password.
Under her amazed eye, the door slowly opened, revealing a strange room behind it. Similar to a doctor's operation table, a bunch of metallic tools were sitting in a opened suitcase, their purpose unclear. On the wall she could see a dozen of shelves and drawers, beside it, an old clock was ticking.
In the middle of the room was a human sized table, on which she could see the faint remains of dried blood, the tool's purpose slowly becoming clear, just as a putrid stench assaulted her nostrils. The room was suddenly starting to feel really oppressive, the ticking of the clock seemed slower, the air felt heavier as it passed through her lungs. Without noticing, Griza had taken a few steps back, she wanted to leave this room as fast as possible, the clock was ticking, she had to leave, and fast, she slowly walked backwards, unable to stop looking at the room.
When she reached the door, with what seemed like an unimaginable feat of will, Griza slammed the door shut and, collapsing on it, finally managed to turn away from the room.
For a few minutes, Griza just layed there, catching her breath, her head was spinning and she struggled to move. The stench had followed her, the picture of bloodied instruments printed in her memory. Through all this chaos in her mind, she managed to recognize one sound, one important sound, the sound of footsteps.
With all the strength she had left, Griza got up, hastily fumbling with the lock, trying to hide evidences of her intrusion, the steps were getting closer, she arranged a random combination for the lock, and quickly got away from the door, just in time for the sound's origin to pass the corner.
Face to face with Six, Griza was terrified, unable to say anything, she simply stood here as the operative looked at her, suspicion evident in her eyes. A long time passed like this, silence as their only companion, eventually, slowly, Six began to speak.
"May I know the reason of your presence here ?"
"... Well you see... initially I was looking for you, but eventually I got kinda lost... and ended up here."
"I see... You didn't try to open this door did you ?"
"Of course not, I mean it seems locked, I wouldn't waste my time trying to unlock it."
"Mhmm..." Six continued to stare into her for a moment, before resuming her talk " We will be traveling for a while, and I fully intend for us to get the most out of it." As she talked, Six started bringing Griza somewhere else on the airship. "Today I will train you in hand to hand combat, but I will warn you, even if you are trained in it, you should avoid at all cost to fight with an armed or potentially armed opponent."
"Unlike what some may have told you, almost any weapon is superior to bare hands, even against someone trained or using martial arts, and while we're at it, you should actually avoid any close quarter combat when you can, you should always strive to eliminate your target from afar, before it even notices you, so that if you fail you may retreat and try again later. If you find yourself in a straight fight, you have done something wrong."
They had arrived in an empty room, its bareness making it look like a prison cell, they took place in its center, Six instructed Griza where to place herself, and the battle began.
Not willing to be humiliated, Griza immediately got on the offensive, striking at her opponent with all the strength she could muster, a straight blow of her right arm, avoiding to overextend herself.
Six slightly bowed to her left, barely avoiding the hit, and then proceeded to quickly seize Griza's extended arm, throwing her off balance by pulling it forward, a large swipe of her leg finished the job by making Griza fall on the ground with the grace of a Goliath.
"It seems you still have a lot to learn, while your guard was passable, your footwork is the real problem, you have to choose between being light or heavy on your foots, a middle ground won't do it. You seem to be more inclined to a defensive fighting style, so I would suggest to stay steady on your legs."
"In this spar's case, a light footwork would have allowed you to follow my movements and I wouldn't have been able to evade your blow. As for a steady footwork, you would have been able to resist when I tried to pull your arm, and maybe even pull it back and use my trick against me."
Six then proceeded to help her improve her pose, giving her small advices along the way, and soon enough they were sparring again.
While this one ended the same way as the other, Griza managed to hold on for a little longer. The process restated, and by the fourth try, she had managed to land a hit on six. By the end of the day, their spars could each drag on for a dozen minutes.
"You did better than I had expected, and I think that it should do, at least for now. Tomorrow I'll teach you something else, but in the meantime I've got some homework for you." Six said, while pulling out a small book from her jacket.
"Apparently you're pretty at marksmanship, so I've got this book for you "Long range rifle ballistics for beginners". Shooting like you do it now simply won't work when longer range comes into play, at this point you have to take into account things like temperature, wind and gravity, to name just a few. You'll have to finish reading this thing before we arrive, as we won't have time for it afterwards. And if you end up cursing your rifle skills and hope for all those numbers to die, have a small thought for the artillerymen."
Soon enough Griza was back to where she had started the day, with the addition of a book and a few bruises. As she finally opened the book, what she saw inside immediately sapped what was left of her resolve, she will do it tomorrow, now she was tired.
Griza soon drifted asleep under the music of her headphones, and for the second time that day, her sleep was uneventful.
The following day began with a brutal awakening, Six apparently thinking that throwing a stun grenade in her room was a good idea. Griza was convinced that her heart had stopped for a few seconds, and as they were eating breakfast she was still seeing white dots every now and then.
"Yesterday we did something funny, so today's time for the boring stuff, today you're gonna learn about operative protocol. Don't worry, it's less boring than it sounds, but still boring."
Griza followed her teacher into what looked like the piloting room, it also had some ressemblance with an office. Six opened a drawer, and rummaged inside for a few seconds before seizing a sheet of paper which she showed to Griza.
"This is our current mission, those mission are given by the General himself, and unlike more traditional assignments, in mission operatives have a high amount of autonomy in how they achieve the mission's goal, and may or may not have a defined time limit. Most of them take place outside of Atlas's effective jurisdiction, this one for example will bring us near Vacuo, to take care of a criminal having commited multiple terrorist acts in Atlas without apparent reason. Any questions ?"
"What exactly do you mean by taking care of this person ?"
"The best case scenario would be to capture her alive to be able to conduct an interrogation, after which the target will be sent to Atlas where it will be imprisoned. However, if the target ends up too dangerous to be taken alive, we'll have to eliminate it while minimizing risks and collateral damages."
"From what we know, our target is a woman around 30 years old, showing great mastery of fire dust. She has destroyed multiple towns by sabotaging their defences, and publicly burning alive some of their inhabitants, letting the ensuing negativity do the rest. A week ago we received informations about something similar happening south of Vacuo, and I've been dispatched to deal with it."
Six continued feeding her apparently random informations about their target, like that she seemed able to stock big amounts of fire dust on her person, which was probably her semblance. But after half an hour of this, Griza's attention was drifting away, just in time for Six to show her something even more boring.
Apparently half an operative's job consisted in filling paperwork, even if, Six confided, most of them tasked their apprentice or subordinates to do it for them. Surprisingly the ability to fill out paperwork was an absolute necessity for any hope of promotion in this field of work, the current operatives's director behind a 70 years old man barely able to move, let alone fight, yet he has remained in this office for the last 20 years, no one being able to best him in this field.
Griza thus passed most of the day mastering the art of paperwork, getting a lot of "practice" thanks to Six willingness to let her do her own operative homework. But as the day neared his end, a nasty surprise awaited Griza, for apparently her mentor had gotten fed up with cooking her meals, and tasked Griza with preparing her own.
It couldn't be that hard, Griza first thought as she entered the room which served the purpose of a kitchen and a living room. She had some experience preparing meat, as hunting was nice and all, but if you can't prepare what you kill, you're just an animal murderer.
But as she expected, no meat could be found, and she had to resort to using the content of some boxes that didn't looked very appetizing, it would have to do for now through. A box's content was hastily throw into a random recipient, and then put on the fire.
Griza silently stared at the food, waiting for it to be done, but at the same time she couldn't get rid of the feeling that she was missing something, and as the vegetables were beginning to take fire, the forgotten ingredient rammed its way back into her head, it was water ! How in the world could she have missed this, gods she felt so dumb as she clumsily threw buckets of water on the fire.
A wasted box later, the process was restarting, but this time with water, and after what seemed like an eternity to her, whatever she had been cooking was looking edible.
Quickly dropping the recipient's content in a plate, she sat next to the window to eat her masterpiece of cooking. The meal tasted bland, which was probably better than the alternative, Griza thought,
In this awkward situation, she found herself looking through the window, at the setting sun, in the distance she could see a flock of Nevermores, thankfully even if they tried they wouldn't be able to catch up with the airship.
It had been two days, she was in the middle of nowhere, accompanied by someone she barely knew, and heading to an unknown destination, which probably included more death and suffering. But she had seen worse, and now she had a reason to come back, she still had to repay her friend's generosity, and who knows, maybe they would end up in some kind of ancient ruins, with some hidden artifact for her to find, Jimmy sure would like something like that.
Her plate had been empty for some time now, and getting up felt less attractive for each passing minute, she just wanted to lay here for a moment, not too long, just a moment...
The time has come... it is over, no one will save you now... alone you are, and alone you shall remain... None of them are real, they're all fake, liars, each and every one of them... they will abandon you, like the others did, you can trust no one, no one but us.
We will always be there for you, even if you don't understand yet... you will learn... You cannot fight it, you need us, without us you are nobody... we have seen it, you will fall... and when the darkness comes for you... you are nothing.
Awakening with a painful yelp, Griza was surrounded by darkness, it was everywhere, it was moving before her eye, reaching for her, talking to her. She touched something in the dark, it was there ! She had to kill it, her death wasn't for now, she had to live !
Quickly grabbing her knife, she plunged it into the dark mass, and as it made contact, light returned to the world.
Griza was standing in the room in which she had eaten, her plate still on the table, as for the knife, it was stuck inside of the light switch.
Slightly embarrassed about the current situation, she finally cleaned her plate and put in back in its place. Sleepily she headed to what served as her bedroom, where she found what would grant her real sleep, the headphones.
"I know you did... what was right... will always do... what... is... right..."
I had an interesting dream last night, I dreamed that Cuba was invading the Soviet union and that a bunch of child soldiers were getting burned alive. Maybe it's god telling me to finally play Cuba in hoi4, the war crimes are probably coming from this fic.
The headphones part is definitely going to end well, oh and the semblance has been revealed this chapter, even through Griza as been using it for a few chapters without noticing. It's kinda feeling like a plot device but I will try to keep it low.
This chapter was kinda slow, but don't worry the next shall be full of murders and war crimes like you love them.
You can't escape paperwork.
I should probably start writing on a computer instead of my phone.
God I need to sleep, I'm seriously starting to hear voices.
Like always, please review and all the other stuff.