Verde's Intermission: the spaces inbetween


Generally speaking, Emmerich has a certain policy when it comes to things: he doesn't perform rescue missions, nor does he do protection detail. Those things tend to get far too complicated far too quickly. Anything that requires him to predict another human being with any care or consideration - he won't do it.

And yet. There are always certain exceptions, aren't there?

His body is aching and his head is throbbing, breath fogging in the icy hallway - literally. Literal ice. Not true ice, fortunately, for all that it appears superficially similar. It's cold, but it won't cause frostbite. It makes him sluggish, but he's just about drained of his resolve already, so having the last vestiges of his flames sucked away is - unpleasant, but Emmerich has more than enough stubborn human determination to see him through this. He won't slip as easily, since it doesn't actually melt. The surface is smooth, but it's more like marble than glass or true ice: it's slightly porous, which is why it continues to drag at his reserves, and keep them from filling up.

The damnably persistent Sun that's tagging along behind him is just an added annoyance. He hates all Suns - the entire spiritual orientation. If another Sun is ever born into the world, it will still be too many Suns who exist. He should devise something that will alter the harmonics of their resolve and turn them into something less obnoxious.

"But where are you taking him?!" the brat persists.

"Who wants to know?" Emmerich demands flatly, without even pausing or looking back. "The only thing you share with this brat is a face, isn't that right?"

"It's because we share a face that I have to look after him!"

Well, if Emmerich hadn't already known that the unconscious Sky that he's tossed over his shoulder is from an important bloodline - that would have done it. Or well - he's sure that the Sunny brat following along behind like a bad smell would feel that same way about any unconscious Sky - some people are too predictable - but after all this flashiness, there's only the obvious conclusion to draw about this situation.

Certainly, it hadn't crossed Emmerich's mind earlier, when he'd borne witness to Lelia's machine ripping a whole through reality for the purpose of manifesting a human being. He'd been too caught up in what she'd managed to do herself to worry or think twice about her test subjects.

There's a rat in the system, though. He'd known that the moment the facility had shaken with an explosion - not one felt through tremors, but Emmerich had felt them anyway: first, the backlash of some Sky having a temper tantrum, and then the Call. Or not so much a Call as a Summoning, perhaps. A demand. The requirement that all who feel it subsume to that Will.

Lelia is more or less a good scientist, with good procedures. She never would have allowed strangers on site if she wasn't certain of her containment methods. Emmerich had been moved to investigate, and - well. They may have planned to suppress a Sky, but a Sun is another matter altogether.

Truly, they're the worst: the idiots of the world that can't catch a cold for being so stupid. The ones that think they're clever are even worse than that, he thinks grievously. If he wasn't about to depend on that one, he'd arrange to have another set of assassins sent after him. He'll send as many as necessary, as often as it takes - after all, the assassins only need to succeed the once.

"Listen," the annoyance following him says, his tone dipping downward and flattening, sharpening into some kind of edge, "you must be completely drained from trying to contain Nayo's Flames. Even the strongest Lightning in the world will naturally struggle against that kind of thing. Which means that right now - you're just a man weighed down with baggage."

Emmerich stops walking, and then turns and looks down his nose at this brat. He's only a teenager with cowlicked brown hair and eyes like you'd find in any civilian. There's the promise of a broad, powerful build in store for him if he can survive long enough to grow up, though he won't ever be a tall man. He's certainly not as shrimpy as the kid who shares his face, whom Emmerich has thrown over his shoulders. It's not malnutrition, he can tell, but that kid's growth has somehow been stunted anyway.

This is more interesting than a twin study.

"Do you seriously mean to kill me?" Emmerich asks, peering down at this obnoxious upstart. "If you try, I won't forgive you just for being addled on some Sky's flames."

"I'm not addled!" he protests, outraged.

"That's a funny statement for someone who was taking point on this kid's rampage," Emmerich points out. "I watched you brain no less than three security guards, a doctor, and someone I'm pretty sure was an intern. I couldn't tell. This brat's advanced technique made too quick of work of them."

"It was because it was an advanced technique that I got involved in the first place!" The brat says, aggrieved. "That - he hasn't been trained to do something like that! Not on this scale, obviously! I thought… I thought he was going to kill himself for sure."

Should Emmerich be moved by any of this? He's honestly too exhausted to reference the materials he has to help him in times like these, when 'emotional appeals' and 'social understanding' come into play. If someone kills themselves from doing something stupid, then that has nothing to do with Emmerich.

In either case: "a guy like this won't die from using his Flames to the last scrap," he says. "If such a thing even exists for him. A normal person, maybe. But this guy, where ever he's been hiding? He's a cockroach who won't be defeated. Guys like him are the worst."

He should know. He's comrades with a handful of them. Break one resolve, and they might go and lick their wounds for a bit, but they quickly find another resolve to stand behind on no time.

"Anyway, I have no intention of hurting this brat," he says of the Sky draped over his shoulders, "and I haven't disagreed with you coming along, so if you aren't going to attack me, shut up and follow along obediently."

"But why are you taking him back there?" he wants to know, like the tiresome child he is.

"Are you some kind of idiot?" Emmerich asks. "If those others are still alive, then they should be rescued, too."

That at least shuts the idiot up, which is good timing, since they're approaching the epicenter of the brat Sky's temper tantrum. This must be the storage hall, Emmerich thinks. Their procedures were far too tight for summoning that Sun brat to be the first - he's sure he can't be the only one to have noticed that. There's confidence, and then there's the kind of almost-carelessness that comes with over familiarity with the actions.

The hallway is a mess. As it should be, coated with frozen Flames the way it is. What a monstrous, untrained brat. They'd managed to locate the storage room, the two of them, since Emmerich is fairly certain neither had been independently moved while Lelia and her pet scientists had poked and prodded and dragged Emmerich and his fellow scientists over coals, trying to determine if they could get anything useful out of them. If any of them were the types they wanted to recruit.

So, these two had gone looking for something - though Emmerich isn't sure how they would have known to go looking. The rat? Had one of the assistants slipped them some kind of note?

He could ask that Sunny brat and get an answer, but adjusting for the nuances of human experience - he'd rather guess for himself with data he's collected with his own senses than get the events filtered through that brat's eyes.

So. They'd found the storage. What about it set the Sky off, though? Naturally, any Sky that could meet Lelia's requirements wouldn't be the type to do things in a half-assed way, but for this scrawny, untrained brat to cause such destruction… Emmerich regrets knocking him out so fast, a little bit. He's not much of a combatant, so it had been necessary to do or become a part of the body count, but more than anything right now: he's curious to study the Sky he has tossed over his shoulders. It won't replace what he came here for, but it's interesting all the same.

Something scrapes against the ice. If it had been true ice - real ice - it probably wouldn't have made a noise, but the expectant hush - that's telling.

That Sunny brat hears it too, quickly putting his body between Emmerich and his burden and the door that the sound came from behind - not for Emmerich's sake, of course, but for the kid he has on his shoulders. Of course, he'd also disarmed that Sunny brat after he'd taken down the Sky, because whether or not he's a good fighter, Emmerich isn't the Strongest Lightning for nothing. Even if his Flames have been completely drained overwhelming some Sky brat having a tantrum.

(Even after all of this gratuitously frozen Will splashed everywhere, it had still taken all of Emmerich's to overwhelm that brat. Christ.)

"Who's there?" the brat barks.

Emmerich clicks his tongue. "You aren't inviting them in for tea. Go look."

Regardless of the angry glance the brat gives him, he at least listens. There's something troubling about that; Emmerich is pretty sure that for the amount of hostility shown to him, that Sunny brat shouldn't actually be paying attention to what he says… or even be tolerating him carrying around this unconscious Sky if he's really that addled by the brat's Flames. Just because Emmerich doesn't actually mean any harm to either of these brats doesn't mean they should trust him so quickly… he's pretty sure anyway. Ah. Trying to see things from other people's points of view - it's going to hurt his already throbbing head.

The brat moves forward cautiously enough, cocking his head to listen. Though his Flames have to be siphoning into the Will ice just the same as Emmerich's, it seems like he might be using some kind of Flame technique - enhancing his hearing, perhaps? He's keeping his Flame uses so minor that it falls far beneath Emmerich's ability to sense it, but that what he guesses from the way the brat moves his head and the way the muscles around his ears flex.

The way he perks is just like a dog before he carelessly swings the closet door open. Before Emmerich can even berate him about it, he sees what it is that the brat must have heard.

More brats. Just what Emmerich wanted and needed. No, that makes sense for Lelia's methods, doesn't it? A bunch of growing teenagers that might run away from home or something like that, for the ones that are actually native to this reality. It's not like she really has to hide the disappearances in the other realities, since it's likely impossible for those people to argue about it in the first place. But teenagers aren't as trained in Flame use, and tend to have stronger emotional reactions, which create stronger Flames, and usually don't have a lot of inconvenient things like 'alcoholism' or 'drug addiction' that cause them to have weird reactions to sedatives.

A Sun, of course, will burn through everything regardless. Definitely a rat, then.

The small blond brat with big brown eyes yelps from his place on the ground, cradling the larger, unconscious brat with his body almost protectively. Darts, is it, Emmerich thinks, taking notice of the debris cast a bit away from them.

"Dino," the Sunny brat says incredulously.

"D-don't come closer!" the blond brat yelps, shoving his heel against the ice and trying to drag the unconscious one with him, even as he twists, doing his best to cover him with his own body.

"No, ah-" the Sunny brat flails his hands out, dropping into a crouch where he stands in the doorway. "It's okay! We're not the bad guys! We were taken, too - I mean, me, and that guy that weirdo is carrying. Nayo wouldn't leave without everyone, so- but, ah, trying to make the way safe, we got a bit sidetracked."

That's a lie, judging by the cringe the brat makes while telling it. For all that he's definitely some Underworld brat where he comes from, it's a bit surprising to watch him continue to be so bad at it. The blond brat - Dino? - watches him mistrustfully for a long moment, still trying to protect the larger brat with his own body.

"You… you probably don't recognize me," the Sunny brat says, "since where I come from, you're a lot older than I am, so in your world, I think I'm probably… five? But you're Gherardino Cavallone, right? And that's Xanxus of Vongola."

Emmerich isn't really the sort that pays attentions to Famiglias, or who the current leaders or heirs are, but now that the Sunny brat has mentioned those families by name, he supposes it's possible. If so, then it's also possible that Lelia is a person who bares certain grudges… he's aware that she's had meetings with some Famiglias for funding and hadn't managed to go into business with any of them. That also suggests that everything she's done here, it wasn't for fun, or to see if she could. A Famiglia that funded this kind of enterprise would want to reap all the benefits for themselves… but it seems that Lelia couldn't bare to part with the results of her actions.

The young Cavallone heir scowls. "You'd know that if you'd kidnapped us in the first place," he points out. The way he's clinging to Xanxus is… strange, Emmerich thinks. Although obviously the relationship they have in this world has no bearing on their relationship in another, he didn't think they were that close. Especially with the age difference between them. Kids of that age usually have their egos get in the way, right?

Come to think of it. Doesn't Xanxus have that ultra rare condition of having two Flame types in equal amounts?

There's no way for 'human beings' to be so neat and pure as to have only one Flame type. That in itself is unusual. People aren't sterile environments and things as subjective as 'desire to live' and 'resolve' and 'determination'... naturally it's complicated. It's having those impurities strong enough to register at all that's a bit unusual. Those impurities being strong enough to register as 'different Flame types' is significant.

But of all the humans in the world alive at this moment, only Xanxus has two Flames of such equal measure that they're called something as unique as 'Wrath' - as if they're a new category all of their own instead of an equal combination of two different types.

Something like that would be highly undesirable in Lelia's work, Emmerich thinks - which is why he assumes she must hold some grudge against this world's Xanxus. For that younger Sky to be clinging so…

"Take this," Emmerich says, shrugging the unconscious Sky off his shoulders and handing him off to that Sunny brat. He pays them no further mind even as that Sunny brat yelps and flails and is bowled over under the unexpected dead weight of an unconscious body. The Cavallone's eyes widen with alarm and he cringes, trying to pull the much larger, more muscular body of the Vongola Decimo with him. Although it's unlikely that this younger Xanxus really would be the Decimo yet in their world.

Or, Emmerich thinks as he reaches out and settles his hand on the teenager's back, feeling for some kind of resonance at all - ever. He glances up at the Cavallone heir, who shakes and holds on tight, his eyes lensing with Sky Flames as he tests Emmerich's intentions.

"I see. So you've made a Guardian," he says to that blond brat. "Congratulations."

Well, he certainly doesn't seem happy about it. Actually, it looks like he might cry, and Emmerich uncomfortably pulls back from the pair while the Sunny brat makes a disbelieving noise.

"He can't!" he says, still sprawled on his back like a turtle under the limp body of that annoying Sky. "Xanxus is a Sky himself! Or-" he glances down at the Sky that shares his face and blinks rapidly.

"In a bizarre situation like this, don't be surprised," Emmerich says flatly, even as he continues retreating from the emotional Cavallone heir. Crying children, crying women - crying men. He hates all varieties. "It's almost certain that Xanxus was once a Sky, but with those Wrath Flames… if he was carelessly abused by this place, they may have permanently destroyed his Will, in a way."

It seems like Lelia has already done half of what Emmerich entertained the idea of himself - with a cocktail of hallucinogenic and a program that reconstructed an 'inner world' using a person's own memories, allowing the brain to populate it as it expected to instead of trying to use someone clever enough to construct one for them. What an efficient and terrifying process.

It's too bad that the kid who had been throwing a temper tantrum had shown a resolve that wouldn't be satisfied until the entire place and everyone in it was crushed. Retrieving the information in the data banks… if Lelia has off-site servers, then they're sure to have already been pulled and recovered when she made the decision to run away in the first place.

Clever woman. Anyone halfway intelligent would run before facing a Sky on a rampage. Despite her overconfidence in their containment measures, she'd still made plans for what would happen if that containment broke.

Emmerich wonders what it was that Xanxus had been put through that caused his Resolve to waver that way - into destruction, rather than protection. Well, he's heard that Xanxus and the Nono Vongola's relationship is rocky at best. There's no telling how that man brought up his youngest son - what must be fresher in this younger Xanxus' memory over the Decimo Vongola's.

"Oh, hey," the Sunny brat says in alarm as the Cavallone heir begins to sniffle in earnest.

"Stay here," Emmerich tells them hastily, as if they won't. That Sunny brat could carry that dead weight if he tried, but he seems unlikely to abandon a Sky in distress and a Sky in distress isn't likely to abandon his one and only Guardian. Fairly confident that they'll stay put, Emmerich returns his attention to approaching the storage area. He'll need to find them wheeled cots if they're to get into any sort of order at all before that guy responds to the call that Emmerich made when this all first began.

The brain is a funny thing, though, he reflects, making better time now that he's not carrying an unconscious teenager. It's stupid and suggestible. That someone manage to manipulate another person's Will with a program similar to a game - well, perhaps it's not so surprising. Mental illness is the same way. Although they all live in the same reality, some brains manage to make that world into something different and terrifying.

Ah. Storage pods. Emmerich pauses in the doorway, looking at all of them. This is Lelia's dark secret, then. She wanted to collect Sky Flames, but it's not as if she could do it without the Underworld taking notice and then crushing her completely, right? There must have been a Seed Sky - the first Sky that she got her hands on, in order to start things off. And look at all these failures.

Although that temperamental little Sky had started his tantrum here, he'd been strangely conscientious of his fellow experiments. That explains why he hadn't gone for the power source, despite going out of his way to target the equipment. There's clearly a sheet of frozen Will at the side of one of those pods, which has a light on it in - sprayed out in an array, where he'd stood next to it and looked inside. It's thin, and if it had been normal ice, it would have melted already. It's obvious where he'd moved away from the pod toward the door. The doorway… it's frozen open by a thick, chunky coating of Will, like a hapless afterthought, or - no. Considering that's a thin coat on the floor and not the pods, it's likely that little Sky hadn't even realized about it.

Emmerich touches the chunky ice that has kept the door open, and though it's frozen so he can't honestly feel the resolve behind the Flames, he imagines that it must be something powerful and gut-deep. Revulsion, perhaps. Abhorrence. Stepping through, he approaches the pod that had triggered the tantrum, and - oh.

"That phenotype is quite distinctive," Emmerich muses, even as he reaches for the screen to take a look at the information regarding this captive. 'Yuni' huh? Although Emmerich already intended to get Luce involved simply because of the nature of this thing… as Sky Arcobaleno, it's her responsibility, but - as long as he's known, Luce's bloodline only ever throws singular children. It's been an unbroken line. So. This is one of her family members from another world, huh?

Lelia probably would have suffered a kinder fate if she'd stayed behind and faced that temperamental child he'd subdued in the first place. Luce isn't well known for her generosity in instances such as this.

He does have to wonder, though, why this of all things is what set off that little Sky's rampage. From what Emmerich has been able to discern, it's likely that he's native to this world, and with Yuni obviously being a transplant… and Luce being the only surviving member of her phenotype, it's a bit curious, isn't it? Although, where a cockroach like him could have been hiding… it's a problem.

Still, knowing that one of Luce's family has been involved is casting certain suspicions on this operation. That rat he's been looking for - it might be from inside the system itself. Certainly, Luce's only real bloodline ability is the one that has seen her called a 'seer,' but… her ability to get along with a collaborate with other Skies is unparalleled. She's tried explaining it to him before, but since it's not anything that Emmerich has ever been able to measure for himself, he's not sure he's ever truly accepted that she's able to resonate like that. But if he accepts that as 'true' and gives the benefit of a doubt to this relative of hers, then-

Emmerich looks around the storage room, at all the dark pods - some darker than others, which isn't their natural state, he suspects. He spots the open pair of pods, which must have belonged to the Cavallone heir and the not-Decimo. But beyond that, he finally spots the last lit pod in the room, held a bit separate from the others. It doesn't immediately draw the eye, but looking at the way the room is arranged… yes, Emmerich can spot a pattern to it.

"So, patient Zero, is it," he murmurs, abandoning the Giglio Nero heir and moving to inspect the occupant of that pod so far away. Yes. If he's to presume that their containment has been like this all along, then the condition of this person inside this pod… he would say that this is probably Lelia's Seed Sky - the first one she got her hands on, and almost certainly one native to this world. Yes, almost certainly, given that there's nothing but a name given to this Sky on the display: Narcisse.

The phone in his pocket rings. Emmerich clicks his tongue and barely bothers to glance at the display to see an unknown number before answering it. "Verde," he says.

"It's that backup you requested," the slightly weary tones of the Cavallone heir say. "But - ah, far be it from me to question one of the Strongest, but have you seen the outside of this place?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well - it's summer in Italy, but - this place, it's coated in ice."

Emmerich pauses, adjusting for that. The brat never even left the halls of the facility, so how - no, the 'how' isn't important. It's obvious his resolve had been to crush the entire place and everyone in it with that fit of pique, so naturally he would have done his best to trap everyone inside. "Give me a moment, and I'll send you an escape route you can use to enter. We have a bit of a situation here."

Hanging up in order to use his phone to pull up the floor plans on them, Emmerich sighs, his head throbbing painfully. This is definitely something he can't just dump on his comrades and leave them to it, isn't it? The moment a blood-related member of the Giglio Nero got involved… yes, that was when he should have known that he'd have to abandon his plans for a time. How irritating.

Well, no. Certainly Lelia's mess with all these Skies has a higher priority than his own mission. And anyway, the trail brought him here in the first place, so maybe he won't have to abandon it entirely. Just bide his time until this mess with breaking the fabric of time-space is done with. Certainly, a bit of time won't really change the situation that thirteen years hasn't already.

He sends the floor plans and then casts his eyes out on all those dark pods. Well. So what will they do about that?

-0-


NOTES:

* Our 'Mega Crossover Au' Crew has been fully introduced! It's Tsunayoshi, Zunetto, Dino, Xanxus, Yuni, and Byakuran. Although Tsunayoshi and Byakuran are from the same main world :V which is the one they're in right now. The 'native' world.

There's no reason for someone who isn't Japanese to have a name like Byakuran, so it's one he picked out himself lmao. RIP Bya-kun. I almost named him Fiore, but I liked the connotations of Narcisse better, plus his aesthetic seems a bit French, no? Also the idea that all Flame families are in Italy is something I continue to rebel against :\ the Mafia maybe, but come on.

It's not really related, but Nana's family was French, too! France has a stunningly low percentage of Skies thanks to some historical things that happened. Nana embodies their culture of "we don't need such a thing."

* I had Emmerich mention it, but in case it got missed: You kidnap a sky, pump them full of hallucinogens, and get VR going that causes them to relive the moments when their flames ran hottest, and then harvest those flames. It doesn't require a lot from their captors since their own brain is populating the world using information it already has! The human brain is kind of hilarious that way. It fills in a lot of gaps in everyday life with what you 'expect' to see and what 'makes sense' to see, even if that's not really there. Why would VR that happens inside the 'players' head be any different?

So Chapters 1-20 was Tsunayoshi reliving his earliest moments of Flame activation, and at the end of the chapter where he tells Clan Hibari to go fuck themselves, that was his Flames being harvested. You'll remember that he describes it as 'something vital being drained out' and his 'soul being ripped from his body.'

I mean, you could probably also just torture a Sky physical to get what you want, but it's safer to sedate them, right? Less likelihood of them going on a rampage and blowing up your facility lmao.

Lelia is the worst.

* Xanxus' Sky Flame broke over bringing Yuni into this world. I'm sure he won't hold a grudge about that at all! But just to be on the safe side, let's not tell him, anyway, okay?

* RIP ME. No one mentioned until Skilvh and Shilvh did that I spelled 'Xanxus' wrong, writing it 'Xanxus' the way it's said ':.U