This chapter came up relatively faster than usual. It's mostly a filler chapter though, so it was much easier to write. Please leave a comment below!
Chapter Eleven
"Lukas."
It couldn't have been more than a few months, yet it felt like it had been forever since someone had called him by this name.
"Lukas, are you okay?"
"Go mind your own business, Emil." His voice was raspy, as if he hadn't used it for years, and he felt like a sulking child.
Emil did not budge from his doorway. "Something's wrong, Lukas."
A flicker of concern was squashed down as his gaze shifted to his younger brother, who watched his lazy posture with furrowed brows. "What is?"
"You, Lukas. Something's wrong with you."
The concern was replaced with insult, and his jaws clenched. "There's nothing wrong with me."
"Everything is wrong with you. I barely know you anymore."
"People change." A lame excuse, and they both knew it.
"Not like this." Emil took a daring step forward, leaving faint footprints in the layer of dust that covered the wooden floorboards. "You have to stop this, Lukas."
"I don't have to stop anything."
"Stop acting like everything you're doing is right!" Emil snapped, but Lukas remained unfazed. His hands moved methodically with practiced ease, dull blue eyes trained onto the wall of peeling paint opposite of where he sat on the musty bed sheets.
"Stop acting like you know what's wrong and what's right."
"You're chasing after a dead man's dream. There's nothing right about that."
"How come?" Lukas challenged, turning to face his brother properly. "Is a dead man's dream a dead dream?"
"It's not your dream," Emil bit back, but then his expression softened. "There's nothing wrong with it, but it's not right when you twist it to your own expectations. This isn't what he wanted."
"You don't know that." It was a dead man's dream, after all.
Lukas turned away again, observing his hands as they monotonously polished a blade. He scrubbed at a bloodstain on the hilt, rubbing over the spot thoughtfully with one thumb.
"Yes I do." Emil gestured around the room: the peeling paint, the flickering lights, the dust that dominated the entire apartment. "He wasn't like… this."
Outside the window, the Boston Underworld base smoldered, water spewing from fire trucks dousing the last of the flames and sending smoke and vapor blasting into the gray sky.
"You sacrificed everything to finish what he had started, but this wasn't what he had in mind. This wasn't what he wanted."
Lukas sighed imperceptibly, throwing down the polishing rag, dust billowing as he slid from the bed and onto the floor.
"He didn't want to destroy everything, he wanted it rebuilt. He wouldn't want you to obsess and destroy yourself over this."
He stalked past his younger brother, who spoke desperately, almost begging. He smelled of musky death and fresh blood, burning bones and frozen screams. The knife glinted in his hand.
"Don't do this, Lukas. You're not fulfilling anything. He wouldn't want this." It was rare for Emil to show so much emotion, yet he found himself stoic and immovable even at the sight of bright tears streaking down the boy's pale face. "Please come back."
The door had been left open by Emil, but the lock was broken anyway, the handle rusted and loose.
The boy was on his knees now, his clothes and hands dusted gray. He was begging, but Lukas was deaf to his words.
"Mathias wouldn't want this."
He slammed the door behind him.
It was an undeniable fact that Raivis Galante had a crush on Lilli Zwingli. In fact, Eduard was almost certain that it was love at first sight, although Raivis liked to deny everything in an awkward stammer while blushing from head to toe. Both Lilli and Raivis arrived in the lab at around the same time a year and a half ago, her less than a month later than him. Raivis, at the time in charge of tending to the prisoners' barest needs, met her early on and they became quick—and secret—friends.
From the very beginning, Lilli was special. At first she was only held in custody: leverage over her brother, Eduard had whispered to him one time, and the ten-year old girl cheerfully told him about how her brother had tried to escape with her from the Underworld, only to get caught. They spent a few days in Prison, and then they were visited by a pretty lady with beautiful green eyes and a charming smile. The woman had used a smooth, silky voice to make her brother beg, and the next thing she knew, she was here.
Half a year later, the lab was graced by none other than young Peter Kirkland, led into the hospital by a beautiful woman who smiled and greeted everyone by name, and had affectionately ruffled Raivis' hair as she swept into holding rooms, observing each cell before stopping—with Peter by her side—in front of Lilli.
At the sight of her, Lilli began to cry, but she was ignored.
"What about her?" the woman asked Peter, and he turned an ugly smile onto the little girl behind bars.
"I'll try not to kill her."
The woman was called Magyar, Raivis later discovered through Eduard, and she was the woman who had given Lilli her scars and forced her brother to plead for mercy with his head bowed to the ground on both knees.
It took two men to drag Lilli, kicking and screaming, away from her cell and after the boy, and two days later, Raivis had been sure that she was dead.
Raivis was four years older than Lilli, but when she came back in the middle of the night on the third day, she had aged five years.
Lilli at fifteen years old was still beautiful, despite her waxy complexion and the shadows under her dull eyes and pooling into her hollowed cheeks. She had lost the roundness of childhood, and the innocence Magyar had broken before Peter shattered completely.
The next day, Raivis was told that Lilli Zwingli, Subject Number 68, was dangerous, and she was isolated to a room, clasped in old-fashioned chains to prevent her from raising years of her life to Heaven and stopping the world from turning.
When Vash Zwingli discovered what had been done to his sister, he nearly lost his head. It took several threats of shooting Lilli in front of him before he takes her place in front of the barrel to make him stand down. Why Magyar bothered to keep him alive was a mystery to Raivis. She had never been so merciful before.
If the white lines crisscrossing up the young girl's arms and ugly burns peppered across the span of her back and sides, with the addition of a long, brutal slash that stretched from the base of her neck to just above her bellybutton could be considered mercy.
It took a long time before Lilli smiled again, and when she did, Raivis nearly wept with joy and relief.
One year was barely enough for her to heal.
And it was foolish, and he knew it. Because sometimes he would have dreams, where he was a knight in shining armor leaping into the fray of battle and adventure to slice away her chains, sweep her from her feet, and carry her away from this hideous world.
It was a ridiculous dream, but it was soothing nonetheless, and he thought that if the dream was to ever come true, she would smile just as brightly and hopefully as when he rushed into her cell and began picking open the chains, stumbling over his words to tell her that she was leaving this place and she was going to see her brother again.
Raivis wasn't Rome or China. He wasn't Gilbert Beilschmidt or Arthur Kirkland or Mathias Køhler or any one of those heroes and powerful characters that Lilli told him about as she portrayed stories from the rise and fall of Heaven and Hell.
Raivis simply wasn't cut out for greatness.
But perhaps he could learn.
Lovino Romano Vargas was not a patient man. He was born with impatience colliding with his natural gift of laziness to form his outstanding personality, and he wasn't about to start being patient now.
Especially not now, when the clock was ticking.
"What kind of stupid boy is he?" he grounded out, even though Mathias was humming to himself and tapping his foot to the beat, not paying attention. "Is more than ten minutes not enough to find a girl?"
More than ten minutes was an understatement. Fifteen minutes were over and gone, twenty minutes nearly up, and still there was no sign of Raivis.
He was just about ready to storm out the room and terrorize the hospital when there were two brisk knocks on the door. Lovino froze, but Mathias called cheerfully, "Come in!"
There was a pause outside the door, then a head popped in, eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Are you two alone in here?"
Once again, it was Mathias who answered brightly, "Yup!"
"Where's your guard?"
This time, Lovino made sure to speak before his companion could say something stupid like, 'He went to help us find someone we have to escape with so we can bust someone else out of the Underworld Prison!' "He… had to use the toilet."
Mathias frowned. "He did?"
Lovino made sure to flash his most charming smile at the nurse who watched them with a skeptical glare, waving dismissively in the direction of the blond oaf beside him. "He's not very bright."
The nurse was unimpressed and did not seem to buy it for a single second, but she just gave an exaggerated sigh and gestured at the two to follow her closely before spinning on her heels and stalking away.
They were led away from the room and down the hallway before the nurse started talking. "I suggest you two not to do anything rash." She pinpointed them with a look, a sharp glint in her eyes that was strangely bloodthirsty. Lovino felt himself grin. "You will regret it."
Not a nurse at all, it seemed.
She marched them around two more corners, and down a flight of stairs, the hallways eerily silent and empty the whole time until the nurse was knocking on an office door and a voice was calling, "Enter," when a curly head peeked around the corner and caught Lovino's eye.
Raivis was gesturing desperately at them, pointing behind the corner and mouthing, 'She's right here.' The nurse was ready to usher them into the room where a scientist-not-doctor sat waiting behind a desk, and that was when Lovino acted.
If the nurse was anything he speculated she was, she would not be deterred by any form of physical attack, but no one was ever prepared when Lovino grabbed Mathias and did his little trick.
Lilli Zwingli was a pretty girl with a slight build and golden hair framing her face in a hairstyle much like her brother's. Her bright blue-green eyes were wide, pink lips shaped in an 'o' when Lovino and Mathias materialized in front of her.
"Took you long enough!" Lovino snapped at Raivis, who cowered slightly, but then recovered enough to give a shy wave to Lilli, who in turn smiled sweetly back as Lovino grabbed her hand.
"Eduard has a car outside," Raivis told them in a rush. "Just in case."
"Bye, Raivis!" she called before they were whisked away into a whirlwind of blurred lines and muddled colors. They were deposited in an indiscreet hallway that looked identical to all the other corridors they had passed. How in Hell do you get lost in such a small hospital?
"The exit is that way!" Lilli pointed to her right, where there was a short flight of stairs towards the lobby. They were about to take off running when the little girl took a hold on Lovino's sleeve and looked up with pleading, wide doe-eyes that threatened to melt him into a puddle of feels in the middle of an Underworld lab-in-disguise. "Can you please do that thing you did just now, sir?"
With a sigh of resignation, Lovino allowed her to loop her arm around his and clamped a hand on Mathias's shoulder, and with a deep breath, the world once again dissolved into unrecognizable blurs. They hit Lovino's range just outside the hospital doors, and there was a moment of confusion and panic as they scanned the parking lot.
"There?" Mathias pointed at a car that was flashing its lights for no apparent reason. Then it honked, and the driver – a stranger – waved hurriedly at them, and the trio barely hesitated to launch themselves into the backseat. The car backed out of its spot, and was on the road within seconds, just as figures appeared in the doorway where they had been moments before, wielding dangerous objects that should not be present in a hospital, but they were soon out of sight.
Everything was happening so quickly that Lovino felt like he had left something behind in the hospital. He was still in a daze, barely able to listen when the driver – a young man with neat blonde hair and lightly-colored eyes hidden behind a pair of rectangular lens – introduced himself.
He was Eduard Von Bock, the guy who had been in charge of the cameras, and now their chauffeur. He was a hacker, but he did minor business in the Black Market and had an experience of sniping. He was an associate of Vash Zwingli, and had agreed to help with the escape of Gilbert Beilschmidt.
The words ruffled by his ears, barely registering them until Mathias punched him in the arm with a delighted expression. "He knows me too!" the blonde exclaimed.
Lovino rolled his eyes. "Everyone knows who you are."
"That is very true," Eduard Von Bock said, "although most people would deny you being alive."
"Why is that?"
"That's because three years ago you got executed. Everyone in the Underworld knows that!" Lilli piped up, regarding Mathias with an interested, almost adoring gaze. "My big brother told me all about you. He called you a hero."
Mathias beamed, while Eduard chuckled. "Vash? Doubtful."
"He did!" Lilli insisted. "He said you were very noble even though you instigated a civil war, although that shows that you're also kind of stupid." It was difficult to be offended with the young girl repeating her brother's words in such a cheerful manner. "He said it was a pity that they killed you."
"But I'm alive?" Mathias seemed thoroughly confused.
"That you are," Eduard agreed. "I didn't believe it when Tino told me at first, but it seemed like it's true."
"Tino Väinämöinen?" Lovino was mildly surprised. "Isn't he a scientist?"
"Who's Tino?" Mathias asked, trying to shake off or perhaps relieve the sense of familiarity of the name, even though he couldn't by God attach a face or any memories to it.
"He wasn't an actual scientist, never studied anything to do with science, inside or outside the Underworld." Eduard's voice was troubled. His blue-green eyes flickered to Mathias on the rearview mirror for a moment before focusing back onto the road. "You really don't remember him, do you?"
Mathias shook his head.
The driver's shoulders sagged. "Tino said as much. He was ecstatic when he discovered that you're alive but then…" He glanced at the forgetful teen again.
"But who is he?" Mathias pressed.
"A sniper," Eduard answered quietly. "And a mighty good one at that. We worked together for some time, and it was extremely inspiring; he was one of the best, so it was something of a pity when he ran off with Berwald Oxenstierna."
"Tino hates Berwald," Lovino criticized.
"Tino loved Berwald," Eduard answered. "He was very scared of him at first, but after a while, they were willing to move heaven and earth for each other and together. Well," there was a pause, "Tino was. He followed Berwald more faithfully than he followed Mathi- I mean," he broke off with a small cough. He seemed suddenly flustered, and he kept glancing at Mathias, who listened with a childish interest. "He followed that blundering giant more faithfully than anyone else, and even after the civil war, he followed him to Australia, into the labs, which went against basically everything he valued."
"I've been to Australia!" Mathias exclaimed, but Lovino was concerned about something else.
"What do you mean 'loved'?"
"The Australian lab was destroyed quite a few months ago." It was Lilli who replied. "All the scientists were talking about it, right?"
Eduard nodded. "Tino and Berwald didn't make it," he said sadly.
"What do you mean destroyed?" Lovino demanded, a note of panic in his voice. "How? Who died?"
"We don't have many details," Eduard told him in a placating voice, "but Natalia Arlovskaya was the only member of the staff present during the explosion who survived. We don't know anything about the experimental subjects, but from what authorities were able to gauge from the final communication signals they've caught, there was a break-in and people were trying to help the subjects escape."
"Australia was nice," Mathias commented. "We went to the dentist's."
Lovino ignored him. "Did they succeed?"
"I don't know. But if you really need to know, you can ask Gilbert Beilschmidt after you get him from the Prison." The car swerved, and they were suddenly surrounded by thick green foliage. "He participated in the heist. I'd say that they succeeded to a certain degree—that's why they wanted his head so badly."
"Speaking of Gilbert—hey!" Lilli was peering out the window. "I think I just saw somebody walking down the road."
"Impossible," Lovino denied. "You'd have to be a madman to try to walk to the city from the Prison. But right, speaking of Gilbert…" He looked at Lilli, curious. "What exactly can you do?"
But Lilli just offered him a mysterious smile. "It's a surprise."
The trees broke off into a clearing and the Prison loomed.
It was quite a surprise, and Lovino thought that it'd be so much better if Lilli Zwingli had decided to activate her abilities sooner.
When they arrived at the Prison, it was surrounded by guards, who pointed their rifles and guns at the incoming vehicle, never faltering as it eased into a parking spot. Mathias spotted Vash amongst the ranks, stationed near the entrance, and he waved. Unsurprisingly, he was ignored.
Everyone, save for Eduard, exited the car, and a shout went up amongst the guards.
"The Prisoners-!"
"—escaped—!"
"Why did they come back?!"
"Don't let them get away again!"
But before a single bullet left the barrel, Lilli smiled sweetly, and as if she was lifting something onto an alter, she raised her hands, palms facing the sky, and Lovino felt a muffled breeze ripple from the girl. The grass bowed away from her, the forest sighed, then stilled.
The world went silent.
Yeah, pretty uneventful. Next chapter will contain a lot more action though, so it'd be fun! Although I have no idea how long it'll take me to write... Thanks for reading, and please Review!