Author's Note: I just wanted to say that Obelisk of Light is writing again, and after a long hiatus, is working on her story - Power Play: Realms in Flux - again, and just updated a new chapter. Go check it out and leave a review! And now, I return you to your regularly scheduled programming.
Olivia stood alone, trembling outside the infirmary, feeling a painful scream building inside her throat as she stared at the blood caking her hands all the way to her shoulders. It smeared across her face as well, and only her steadily flowing tears washed any part of it away. But that scream remained. It wouldn't quite escape her - couldn't - and with each second it remained inside of her the pressure steadily increased with no relief valve to stave off the impending explosion. It only made her shake harder.
"Olivia, můj sladký anděl," Tomas said sympathetically.
Olivia looked at him and then felt her face crumple into an ugly, weeping mask when she looked down at her arms again and saw the drying blood. Still there. Still real. This was Reiko's doing. She fell to her knees amid the growing crowd of curious onlookers. Crumpling into herself, she released a choking sob, knowing that she, just like her father, belonged to the ruin the General had caused that day.
As she wept on the floor, thinking of how Reiko had only just begun exacting his revenge, Tomas dropped to her side, wrapped his arms around his niece, and pulled her close before he began rocking her to comfort her. Occasionally, he planted a few reassuring kisses on her hair. Both of them simply ignored the people gathering in front of the infirmary, including Prince Jiayi, who looked at both Lin Kuei warriors with cold, calm amazement.
And still she couldn't find her voice.
She wanted to shriek the most blood-curdling scream as she sat there, crying against her uncle's chest. Just a gut-wrenching howl ripped from her scarred throat, lifted to the ceiling and the skies beyond. She wanted to yell every swear word her father taught her not to say. She would've settle for a cut-off whimper, just so long as some kind of sound came from her lips, something that could adequately express her frustration and rage with Reiko's cunning.
"Livy!" she heard her brother, Tommy, yell through her thoughts before she caught a glimpse of him and Jamie, his twin, dashing towards her over her uncle's shoulder. Sam was hot on their tail, and Morgan not far behind them.
Uncle Tomas squeezed her more tightly then, then bowed his head down to whisper in her ear. "Time to put on your brave face, můj sladký anděl," he murmured as he lifted her to her feet.
His statement proved to be the proverbial slap in the face she needed in order to get a grip. She was the eldest sibling, and with that firstborn position came an unspoken vow to protect and care for the younger ones during dark moments. She knew that - she'd always known that - and accepted it gladly. With their father barely clinging to life and their mother fighting to save him, Livy's brothers and sister needed her to be their rock. She was stronger than this, she reminded herself. Strong like a glacier carving away at a mountain. She could not let them see her melt into a puddle at the first sign of adversity, especially with someone as dangerous as Reiko loose in the world.
Olivia nodded her understanding and swallowed the last of her tears before she pulled away from Tomas and quickly wiped her face dry.
"Livy!" Tommy cried again as the Cryomancer took a long, shuddering breath to calm her frazzled nerves. When he reached her, he took in the sight of her and then gasped. "Jesus Christ!" he yelped. Then the seventeen-year-old Hydromancer took a cautious step towards his big sister. "Livy, what in the hell happened? Are you hurt? Where's Dad?"
"Oh, my God! Livy!" Sam's melodic voice yelped only moments later when she and Jamie joined them. "Are you okay?"
"We heard that Dad's hurt bad," Jamie now said.
"He is," she finally managed to say, swallowing hard. Her voice sounded unusually small to her own ears. She looked up to Tomas, who solemnly nodded, and then back at them. "He's in the infirmary. Mom's taking care of him. I...I don't know if he's going to make it. He's in really bad shape."
"But if Mom's taking care of him, there's nothing to worry about," Sam said, rather optimistically, Olivia thought. It was quite annoying at the moment.
"Let's hope so," Tomas told her, and now he patted her shoulder and flashed a reassuring smile. Olivia suspected that he, too, wanted to be their rock right now. "He is in quite capable hands," he said.
"Who did this to him?" Jamie now asked. He was scowling.
"General Reiko," Jiayi said, now stepping into their conversation.
"Who the hell are you?" Tommy asked him, wrinkling his lightly freckled nose in confusion. "And I thought Reiko was dead." He looked from Jiayi to his sister. "Didn't you kill that jackass?"
She nodded, and the painful scream crept into her throat again. She was ashamed as soon as she thought of the General. Their family was in danger - their father was dying - because of him. And somewhere deep in her heart, she knew it was her fault. She'd bested Reiko, but first she'd humiliated him. And now they would all pay the price.
"Apparently, I didn't kill him enough," she told them. "Someone resurrected him." With that, she gave them a quick summary of the last twelve hours to get them up to speed. And when she was finished, she looked to their guest. "This is Jiayi," she said. "The Crown Prince."
"And I need to return to my people," he anxiously told her as her siblings half-heartedly mumbled their greetings.
She exchanged a look with Tomas as she heard Xinyi's voice echo through her brain: Reiko could not get free without help. And then she remembered how Jiayi had attacked his younger brother only hours prior, accusing him of betraying his people because he had escorted Olivia - the half-blooded Cryomancer abomination - around the city. Many of the pure-blooded Cryomancers were not thrilled with the idea of letting go of past prejudices, and in spite of what Xinyi said about the younger generations wanting things to change for the better, she knew his brother was not one of them. What if, she wondered, Jiayi was so disenfranchised with the way Mòhé politics were going that he'd done something foolish...something rash...to put an end to it? Something like letting Reiko loose from the Seidan bonds that he couldn't slip without help…
Olivia almost opened her mouth to tell Jiayi he was now the Lin Kuei's prisoner, but she quickly stifled it. She had no proof that he was involved in this yet, only her suspicions based on his behavior. She would have to gather actual evidence against him and build a case before she took the Crown Prince prisoner and risked a war with the Cryomancers over him. At least, she reasoned, that is what her father would counsel.
"We'll send you back as soon as possible," she told him diplomatically to hide her distrust. "But it's not easy forming a portal to Outworld, especially if Raiden is preoccupied with helping the others in Mòhé like I think he is."
That was a lie and Olivia just hoped Tomas didn't contradict her in front of the prince about it. She glanced at her uncle, then, and he oh-so-subtly nodded his head. Good. He may not have understood her line of reasoning, but at least he was going to play along. If they wanted to trap their prey, they had to proceed with caution.
"My people need me," Jiayi said, clearly unhappy by her declaration. "I must return."
"Hey, I'm not happy about this either," she replied, throwing up her hands in exasperation. "Our people are still stuck over there, in case you hadn't noticed. But before my father fell in battle against Reiko, he did tell them to assist with the rescue efforts because he knew there would be a lot of casualties. So they'll gladly be helping your people."
Jiayi narrowed his eyes at her. "How quickly can I expect Raiden to return?" he asked her, his tone dropping.
Now Tomas cleared his throat. "Prince Jiayi," he began, crossing his arms and facing him, "surely I'm mistaken, but it almost seems as if you're eager to get away from us." He took a step closer to the Cryomancer. "But I'm certain that's not the case because as you and I both know, that would be downright insulting to the Lin Kuei."
Jiayi tensed. "I mean no disrespect to any of the Lin Kuei," he replied. "I am only concerned for my people's welfare. Who will guide them through this tragedy if not me? They must see their prince working to comfort them in their hour of need."
"Xinyi is still there," Olivia reminded him, now crossing her arms as well.
He inhaled deeply and nodded almost petulantly. "Xinyi…" he trailed off, bitterly scoffing as he folded his hands behind his back and turned away from them. "Well, let us hope that Raiden returns me to Mòhé quickly."
Olivia bowed her head. "We can hope," she replied. "In the meantime, please, make yourself comfortable."
"I do not intend to stay here very long," he replied.
"All right, be uncomfortable," she shrugged. "It makes no difference to me either way." Annoyed by him, she now faced Tomas. "Uncle," she began, "you should probably fill in Cyrax and the other Masters as to what happened. We need to figure out a line of succession if my dad doesn't pull through, and also a plan of attack."
The Enenra raised an eyebrow. "Well, look at you," he faintly smiled. "Perhaps your father is rubbing off on you after all." He smirked. "I will gather the Masters, and I will contact Bi-han," he told her as he rested his cybernetic hand on her shoulders. "We must develop a strategy in case Reiko comes to Earthrealm. But the line of succession is clear, Olivia. Your father named you to be his replacement."
She shook her head. "No, Uncle, I'm not anywhere near ready for that," she protested.
Tomas glanced over to Jiayi and then back at her. "Well, neither was your father. But, we can discuss that later," he told her. "In the meantime, go clean yourself up." Now he looked at the crowd milling around outside the infirmary, waiting for a glimpse of the action. "And all of you need to go find something else to do than stand here like a bunch of rubbernecking cows before I make all of you do burpees in the snow!" They didn't need to be told twice. Tomas never joked about such things. Immediately, they all dispersed, unable to get out of there quickly enough.
"I'm going to help Mom," Sam declared, now walking towards the door.
"No," Olivia told her at the same time Tomas said, "You don't need to go in there right now."
"But Uncle-" she protested.
"It's…" he trailed off and sighed. "Just no, neteř. Not unless your mother calls you to assist her."
"That isn't fair!" she yelped.
"As you will undoubtedly discover many times over the course of your life, Samantha, life isn't fair," he retorted. "Stay out of the infirmary or you and I will have a problem."
Olivia watched her little sister's face fall into an unhappy scowl, clearly not understanding why she'd been forbidden to help their mother heal their father. So she pulled Sam to her by the elbow and rested her forehead against hers. "Sam, please just trust me on this. You don't want to see him," she whispered. "Dad is in really bad shape. Just look at me! That should you give you some idea of how bad it is."
"But I can help, Livy," she argued.
"I know you can, little sister," she said. "But Dad wouldn't want you to see him like that, especially if Mom can't…" She trailed off, that scream building in her throat again, filling it with a sharp ache. She swallowed hard as tears prickled at her eyes. "Well, he wouldn't want that to be your last memory of him. So Uncle Tomas is right. Unless Mom comes out and asks you to help her, don't go in there."
Sam wrenched up her face, and Olivia knew she'd gotten through to her. "All right," she grumbled, wiping her own tear-filled eyes now.
"Promise me?" she asked, now looking deep into Sam's lavender eyes to coax out a vow.
"I promise," she muttered, still unhappy about this whole thing.
"Good girl," she said, planting a kiss on Sam's cheek. Now she looked at the others. "There's not much we can do except wait, so I'm going to go clean up."
"I'll find you if there's any development," Tomas told her. He looked very old, then. Old, and tired.
She nodded and then grudgingly left the infirmary and her family, finding it difficult to pry herself away but knowing she had to if she wanted to sell her siblings on the tough girl act. It didn't take her long before she was in her private quarters and in the shower, watching her father's blood trickle off her body and swirl down the drain in a pink stream. At the sight of it, and the memory of finding the Grandmaster in a dying heap on the throne room floor, Olivia began to sob once more, her tears hot and heavy. She turned up the water heat to conceal the feel of them from herself, until it was almost scalding.
Olivia wasn't quite sure how long she'd been standing there, sobbing, before she finally decided to get out to get dressed and perhaps take a nap if she could. Now that the adrenaline was fading from her blood, she realized she was quite tired, having been awake now for an entire day. Crying like an infant for the better part of the last hour hadn't helped much either. So quickly, she tousled her hair with her towel, wrapped another one around her body, and stepped into her room to get some clothes.
Unexpectedly, Jiayi was standing there, waiting for her.
Though his presence startled her, she refused to let this Cryomancer weasel know it. In her snottiest tone, she said, "Prince Jiayi, I realize that in Mòhé, men operate under the assumption that women are their property, therefore they feel as if they have the right to invade a woman's space." Now she scowled at him as she walked towards her wardrobe. "But here in Earthrealm, in the Lin Kuei Temple, men do not come into a woman's space unless she has invited him first. And I do not recall inviting you into my quarters."
Olivia thought her comment would infuriate him, but instead, the corners of his mouth turned up in the faintest smile. So faint, in fact, that she doubted she saw it at all.
"You told me to make myself comfortable," he countered, crossing his arms.
"Yeah, anywhere but here," she growled. She turned back to her wardrobe and found a clean outfit to wear - black yoga pants, a black tank-top, and a baggy white t-shirt to go over the top - before she marched back to her bathroom and started getting dressed.
"You and I both know that Raiden has no trouble forming portals across the Realms," he called to her. "So that begs the question, why are you delaying me from returning to Mòhé?"
"I'm not intentionally delaying you," she replied as she pulled on her clothes. "Raiden told me - yesterday, in fact - that gods don't answer to the whims of mere mortals. I'm certain he'll be along soon to find out what happened, and when he comes, I'm equally certain he'll take you home." She quickly brushed the tangles out of her long white tresses, and then she walked back into her room. "And the sooner, the better."
"You don't like me," he deduced.
"Oh, don't take it personally," she replied, putting her hands on her hips. "I don't like anyone that thinks I'm an abomination."
Now he laughed. "Is that what you think?" he chuckled.
"What am I supposed to think, given how you treated your brother last night on account of me?" she shot back.
He nodded his head but didn't argue, and then he glanced to his left and pointed at her dragon egg on her desk, its shell black as night with streaks of cobalt blue cutting through it like shooting stars. "That is an ice dragon egg," he said. "Where did you come by such a treasure?"
"I didn't steal it, if that's what you're implying," she hissed. "It was a gift. From Kotal Kahn."
"The Emperor holds his court in Z'Unkarah," Jiayi began as he walked to her desk and lifted it from its three-pronged stand. "Z'Unkarah is very hot and very far from Mòhé and the Bīnglěng Dì Dìyù where the ice dragons roam free. I wonder how he came by this egg."
"Tsai Bing gave it to him," she said, not liking his arrogant tone. "And he gave it to me. It was a thank you for killing Reiko."
"Seeing that Reiko did not stay dead, perhaps you should think about returning it," he said, casting an expectant glance at her over his shoulder.
Olivia couldn't stop the seething exhalation that escaped her at his smugness. "I froze him to death," she replied, unable to resist the challenge. "And then my father smashed his body into a thousand pieces like glass. His resurrection is not my fault. I'd just as soon he'd stayed dead." With that, she snatched her egg from Jiayi's hands and cradled it close to her.
"It's never going to hatch, you know," he said, nodding at it. "It's too warm in your quarters."
"It's not going to hatch at all," she scoffed. "It's petrified."
"According to whom?" he challenged, raising an eyebrow.
"According to the Emperor," she replied.
Jiayi chuckled again. "And you believed him?" he asked, shaking his head. "He is not a Cryomancer, Lady Olivia. He wouldn't know."
"But Tsai Bing would," she countered.
"Doubtful," he said. "Tsai Bing is adept with a great many things. Zoology, however, is not one of them." Now the Prince sighed. "Give me your hand," he commanded. "I'll show you." He extended his hand for her to take, and she looked from it to him suspiciously. Her reluctance prompted a small chuckle, and he said, "It's just a hand, Olivia. I'm not going to hurt you."
She quickly weighed the pros and cons of taking his hand in her head, but finally the pros won out. He was, she decided, for all intents and purposes, a prisoner in the Temple, with no place to go. He wouldn't dare hurt her here, in her home. He'd never get out alive. He may have been a pompous ass, but he wasn't a stupid ass. With a reluctant sigh, Olivia gingerly rested her hand on top of his. She didn't know what she should expect, but it certainly wasn't for him to take her hand and place it on the egg's hard shell, covering it with his own.
"What do you feel?" Jiayi asked her.
Olivia shrugged. "I don't know," she replied. "It's hard...like stone."
"Cold?" he pressed.
"I guess," she agreed. "Nothing out of the ordinary. It is petrified, after all."
"No, that is what an ignorant non-Cryomancer would say," he spat. "What do you feel?"
Olivia indignantly frowned at him and then inhaled deeply. At first, there was nothing, so she knitted her eyebrows together to concentrate harder. It took several long moments, and impatiently, she was about to admit defeat like she really was an ignorant non-Cryomancer like Jiayi had said.
But then, she felt it. It was cold. Not the flat chill of an ordinary rock, she realized, but a frozen chill that any but a Cryomancer would find painful. It was like walking through Arctika in a blizzard, when, in the falling quiet, there was no sky or earth, only snow lifting in the bitter wind, frosting the window glass, chilling the Temple, deadening the world. Beneath her fingertips, she felt a fine layer of frost start to bite at her skin, though there was nothing there that she could see. Intrigued, she lightly traced her fingers across the comets in the shell, burning blue. Cobalt blue; Arctic blue. Whipping across the blackness like a dragon's tail. Something within the egg abruptly jerked at her touch, as if it sensed her as well, and then it stretched and twisted like a cat wanting a good belly rub. In spite of herself, Olivia laughed at the sensation.
"Well?" Jiayi pressed.
"I...I think it's alive," she stammered in disbelief as she looked at him with a smile. He met her gaze with his own, and he was smiling back, pleased she'd felt what he hoped she would. But then, Olivia remembered herself, remembered how dangerous he was, and quickly pulled away from him.
If he noticed her sudden apprehension, he ignored it and said, "If you want it to hatch, you should take it outside and bury it in a snowbank." He pointed through her large windows to the frozen plain outside. "Otherwise, it'll stay dormant like it has. Which, I believe, is a cruel fate for a creature such as this."
"I have more important things to worry about right now than hatching an egg," she replied, though she knew he was right. "My father could die."
Jiayi nodded. "I am sorry about what happened to him," he told her. "You can tell much about a man just by looking at the men who serve him. And women," he said as an afterthought. "The Grandmaster's men are loyal. And his family loves him." He looked at Olivia. "I believe he is a good man. He did not deserve this fate."
"Yes, well, I owe Reiko some payback," she grumbled as she placed her egg back on her desk. The tears threatened to come again. She sniffed, but stubbornly willed herself not to cry. "And I also owe some payback to whomever let that bastard out of his chains." She whirled around and faced the prince. "When I find out who let him out, I'm going to gut that son of a bitch like a fish."
Jiayi noticeably tensed but merely nodded. "That is your prerogative," he agreed. "But that might not end how you expect. I counsel caution. Reiko's allies are arguably as dangerous as he is."
"Undoubtedly," she said, glowering at him.
"I am well aware that you defeated him once," he began. "But he is a cunning fox and he adapts quickly. You are not likely to beat him a second time. Especially now that he has help. He will not make the same mistake twice."
Olivia started to ask him what mistake he was referring to, but at that moment, there was a knock on her door. Without waiting for her to answer, it opened and Jamie peeked in. He took one look at Jiayi and scowled.
"Are you okay, Livy?" he asked, now fully entering her quarters.
"Yes," she replied. "Prince Jiayi was just leaving." She glowered at the prince, silently dismissing him. He frowned back but nodded his acquiescence as Olivia looked back to her brother. "What is it?"
"Raiden's back with the others," he said. "Including Aunt Miyuki. They're all at the infirmary."
At the mention of the traitor, she scowled. "Oh, I have a bone to pick with her," she growled. And without another word, she stormed from her room back towards the infirmary.
As her brother had said, the squadron was there with Raiden and even Xinyi, but it was not them that she focused her attention on. Her eyes honed in on Miyuki like a laser, and just as the older Cryomancer began to greet her, she was cut off by a fearsome two-handed shove to the chest powerful enough to hurl her into the nearest wall. Olivia was practically on top of her before the bricks finished crumbling to the floor around them.
"You have a lot of nerve coming back here!" she shrieked. Her uppercut did not merely lift Miyuki off her feet, it sent her hurtling up and back with enough force to shatter the table she landed on where she finally fell. Wood splintered and glass broke under her weight. By the time she'd struggled to sit, her jaw already a mottled purple, Olivia had closed the distance and wrapped her hands around her aunt's long, slender throat.
"Traitor," she growled, her very voice ice.
"I'm not a traitor," she gasped, trying futilely to yank Olivia's hands from her neck.
"Olivia, let her go!" Tomas yelled at her before he tried to yank her off her aunt. He only succeeded in getting her to release her throat.
"No!" she shrieked, lunging for her throat again. "She let Reiko go! Coward!"
"I couldn't go after him!" Miyuki cried.
It was too much for Olivia. She slapped her aunt. "You saw what he did to my dad!" she screamed. "And you let him go! You should have stopped him." She slapped the woman again.
At that point, Tomas wrapped his arms around Olivia's waist and hoisted her off Miyuki. Morgan, meanwhile, pulled Miyuki back and then lifted her to her feet. Her eyes bewildered and wounded, she looked at her raving niece fearfully as she wiped the blood from her nose. Olivia shouted several words in several different languages, and even though many of the onlookers didn't recognize them, they hardly needed fluency to tell that the words were furious curses.
"You don't understand," Miyuki now gasped, sobbing. "I was...I was scared." She dropped her head in shame.
"Coward!" she shrieked again, now trying to wriggle from Tomas' grip. "And you're a liar! I know what you've done! You just wanted my dad to die."
"That's not true!" she yelped, her face pleading with Olivia to believe her. "He's taken care of me. And far better than I had a right to ask for."
"Then you were scared of Reiko!"
"I wasn't afraid of Reiko," she wept, now meeting her niece's eyes. "I was afraid of myself!"
Olivia stopped struggling against her uncle for the briefest of moments and looked at Miyuki skeptically. "Like I'm supposed to believe that," she scoffed.
"It's true," she said. "You think you know who Frost was, but I promise you that you don't." She sighed. "I'm not afraid of Reiko. But if I went after him, then I would have to become her again, and I can't. Because once I do, there's no going back." She shook her head apologetically. "I can never fight again. It's too dangerous."
"Olivia, she's telling the truth," Morgan told her, and now the Cryomancer noticed that her best friend had an iron grip on Miyuki's wrist.
"She's still a coward," she spat, now throwing off her uncle's arms. Then she pointed at her aunt. "Start looking for somewhere else to live," she hissed.
"Olivia, your father meant for her to stay here," Tomas gently told her.
"Yeah, well, my father could die," she snapped. "No thanks to her."
"Olivia Sullivan," Raiden at last intervened, "when anger enters, wisdom prepares to leave."
"Stow it, Raiden," she growled. "I'm not in the mood for your fortune cookie kernels of wisdom right now, in case that wasn't immediately apparent."
"Indeed, I can see you would much rather fight with the entire world than think about your problems logically," he shot back.
"Look here, you-"
The unkind words Olivia were about to deliver were abruptly interrupted by the infirmary door opening and Anya peeking out. Her scrubs were stained with blood and she looked quite pale, almost translucent like a ghost. It was a side effect of healing such gravely wounded people, the young Cryomancer knew. Olivia refused to think it was because her mother was suffering from shock because her father had…
"Mom?" she tentatively asked as she stepped towards her. "Is Dad-"
"I healed him," Anya answered, nodding emphatically.
"Oh, thank God," she muttered as she threw herself into her mother's arms and held her tightly, crying now. To cry was to release the ugly little pressures and tensions that she'd been holding in since she'd found her father laying on the throne room floor. Like waking out of a long, dark dream to a sun-filled day. In a moment, the twins and Samantha joined her, and they all stood there, crying like children over the good news.
Her mother returned their embrace, but looked around, beyond, gazing at Tomas. Finally, when she spoke again, it was just a simple phrase, but something Olivia found in retrospect to be horrifying: "I think something's wrong."
MKDemigodZ-Warrior, don't be so silly, of course things are going to get worse. ;)
Obelisk of Light, hey, don't rule out an MKX comic book massacre. I am a fan of those LOL
Luishunter65, I planned on it, but in a very limited capacity.
The Titan's Shadow, hehe thanks :)
Daniel Barga, thank you for reading it. This chapter didn't deliver as much action, but you can bet upcoming ones will.
Westcoast Witchdoctor, of course he's gonna be okay. For now, anyway ;) Frost definitely has a lot of fears to overcome, so it'll be interesting for me to write that evolution. Do you know how hard it is to not make her a homicidal bitch? As for Reiko's buddy...you should worry about him.
en-lumine, I don't know if I'm on a roll, but I definitely appreciate the vote of confidence. But you've known me for how long and still can't believe I'd leave it on that cliffhanger? It's like you don't know me at all LOL
ROCuevas, thank you. But it's only been two weeks since I last updated, and every week before that LOL I guess I can take it as a compliment that it feels longer to you.