Hello everyone.
...Sorry.
But hey, one of the worst periods of my life is over (almost)! I can start actually writing again (maybe)! I know this is a disappointingly short chapter, but I promise to update soon (not)!
Warnings: swearing. Boring chapter.
Chapter Twenty
Elizabeta Héderváry—more commonly known as 'Magyar'—was a legend. A living myth. Trained by the Magician herself, right hand of China, a thousand times victorious, capturing the Viking himself in the Siberian tundra. Twenty-seven years old and already destined to be remembered for generations to come.
And yet, for reasons she herself could not fathom, her own life was not in her own hands.
Of course, in the Underworld—a world of backstabbers and murderers—your life was never truly in your own hands. All it would take was one unguarded moment, and you might find yourself bleeding out in a gutter somewhere, just another mysterious death in the records of the incompetent police.
But for the first time in her life, Magyar understood an inkling of what the Viking might have felt in the last days of his former life:
Dread, because the Underworld was vast, so vast that you could not see the edges, or there were no edges, and it just blended into the real world, or maybe it was the real world;
Small, because you were one person against an unfathomable force, and it felt like an ant facing an elephant;
Insignificant, unimportant, a tool to be used and discarded, a toy for entertainment and destruction, a puppet whose strings lead ultimately onto a path of death.
And this was the reason why, Magyar, Elizabeta Héderváry, knew that she was going to die.
She did not want to die.
She was going to get married, goddammit, she was not going to die. Not the way the Magician of the North had died, not the way Mei had died, not even the way the Viking had died—which, arguably, was not true death, though it made the Viking no less gone.
"Kill him," said the masked man. His eyes were scarred, empty sockets in the eye-holes of his mask. His nose twitched, and she knew he was smelling her fear, her horror, her refusal, her decision. "Shouldn't be too difficult for the right hand of China. You are well-known for getting rid of the things in your way."
He smiled the murderer's grin. "He is in the way."
Magyar—Elizabeta Héderváry—was a legend in the Underworld, and she was powerless.
"I was afraid that you would refuse," said Sadik Adnan, traitor turned experiment turned traitor to his own values. "It's best to come prepared."
Elizabeta understood. This was how they wanted her to die. She wanted to laugh.
No, no longer powerless. This was not a death that could kill Magyar.
"Let me tell you what I'm going to do," she said. "I have three knives and one gun, which I will use to kill everyone in this building—" Dead silence fell. She had not realized that her surroundings had not been completely silent until everything ceased to move, to breathe, to think. It seemed that it was the world against her. "—and then I am going to find the Viking, and then I will tear you down."
Adnan leaned back in his chair, coffee in one hand, a strange device—no doubt something to alert the entire Underworld base if the necessity arose—in the other. "You underestimate us."
"Oh, no," whispered Elizabeta. "Never."
As if this man knew the Underworld better than she did. She practically created this organization; she would never underestimate it.
"You underestimate me."
One might wonder what one woman can do against an entire troop of trained killers. Well, if the woman was Magyar, then the answer was simple: survive. Survive, and leave behind a house of bodies. It was not yet time for her to die.
"Problematic," she murmured. Sadik Adnan was ultimately only a messenger. To think that she had wasted a bullet killing him—not that it changed anything. "I was quite fond of this jacket."
This would become the first of many attacks on the international corporation UDW, not that Elizabeta knew or cared. For now, as she started the fire and stepped out onto the streets of Lyon, France, all she cared about was getting back to her hotel to change, and then booking the first flight to Boston, USA.
And then, as she had promised Adnan, find the Viking.
It had been just over one day, but the truth was that it took less for the world to change completely.
Thirty-one hours after they called Magyar, trying to strike up a bargain with Magyar to trade her fiancé for Lukas, there came a knock on the door. The people in the living room—Emma and her two brothers, Gilbert, Lovino, Emil, Mathias, Vash, Lilli, and Roderich Edelstein—fell silent.
The knock came again, two crisp raps on the door, and Edelstein said, in a voice that sounded neither overjoyed nor relieved, merely pleasant, sophisticated, "That's Eliza."
"How do you know?" snapped Gilbert.
"I know how she knocks," Edelstein replied. "And I don't think anyone can imitate it quite so perfectly."
Vash, on the other hand, looked on the edge of panic, Lilli perched anxiously on his side. "What the hell is she doing here?"
"Why don't we just ask her?" Nathan suggested as his sister waltzed to the door and threw it open.
"Welcome, most esteemed Lady, to our humble abode." Emma curtsied with a flourish to the legend of the Underworld, who stood unimpressed at the doorway.
"Humble is stretching it." Magyar barely spared a glance to Emma, nor to Nathan, who had accompanied his sister in bowing somewhat mockingly. Her eyes locked immediately on Edelstein, who had stood up, a pleased little smile on his lips.
"Hello, Eliza," he said.
Elizabeta Héderváry smiled as well, brilliantly and beautifully and sadly. "Roderich."
"Where is Lukas?" Mathias demanded. In the hours after the phone call, he had seemed to withdraw into his mind, seeing and hearing nothing, only occasionally speaking up to nobody in particular.
"Tino," he had said once. "His name was Tino."
Gilbert had been present, and had given him a semi-pitying glance.
"And Berwald." This name came in a whisper, and the rest of his words were lost in the wind of his breath.
But now, the sight of Magyar seemed to bring him back out into reality. "Why isn't Lukas with you?"
"I couldn't bring him," Elizabeta answered regretfully. "Not without getting us both killed."
"What do you mean?" His voice rose. "This was supposed to be a trade."
"Not with me." Elizabeta, on the other hand, was perfectly calm. "You wanted to trade with me, for Roderich. I would have done it without hesitation. But Lukas is not in my hands. I was simply a deliverer, and so it is the Underworld who has him. If you want him back, you must trade with the Underworld."
"Don't you represent the Underworld?" Vash seemed to have found his voice, though he was still unconsciously hiding Lilli behind him and there was a noticeable quaver in his tone. "You do all the dirty work."
"The Underworld is big. I myself cannot make decisions for the entirety of the organization. If you were wondering, I did send your proposition to the others, but of course, they didn't agree." Her jaw tightened. "They told me to kill Roderich."
"Is that what you're going to do then?" Lovino drawled, tone mocking. "Kill your own fiancé?"
"No." Bitterness was clear in Elizabeta's expression, but her voice remained steady. "As a matter of fact, I killed them."
Silence fell as the occupants of apartment number 502 paused to digest that.
"Killed..." Nathan was in slight disbelief.
Elizabeta thought for a moment, as if wondering how best to phrase it, "Everyone in the Lyon base."
"Shit." One would have gotten a less dramatic reaction if one had punched Gilbert Beilschmidt in the face. "All of them?"
She shrugged. "Sure, why not?"
"Brilliant." And nothing could have pleased him more. "Lizzie, you're the best. Doesn't make you any less of a bitch, though."
"I see that nearly dying in Prison only served to make you more of an asshole," countered Elizabeta.
"Wait." It was almost a shock to hear Roderich Edelstein speak. His cultured accent and mild tone felt extremely out of place in this apartment. "What about Mister Lukas, then? Perhaps this is none of my business, but the assumption was that the Underworld wanted Mister Køhler. Is that still happening, or is my fellow hostage going to be disposed of instead?"
Elizabeta smiled wryly and held up her phone. "Guess who messaged me on the taxi here."
They had just under ten hours. Ten hours to fly to fucking Denmark and either hand Mathias over—which would admittedly be the easiest option—or create some miracle to get Lukas out.
It was perhaps the most fortunate thing, then, that Magyar was with them.
"Stop panicking!" she had snapped at a certainly-not-panicking Emma and Nathan.
"Stop saying there's not enough time!" Her fire matched that of a fuming Mathias, plus a Lovino who had latched onto the tense mood and had started ranting incomprehensibly in Italian. "We have ten hours. That's more than enough time!"
"Ten hours!" wailed Emma. Tim just sighed and patted his sister on the back.
"Poor Mister Lukas," murmured Lilli, tears in her eyes.
"Would it be fastest to call Alfred and Matthew?" Elizabeta looked down to find Emil, solemn and small, yet unbelievably strong, cradling his ruined arm to his chest.
"Yes, Emil." Elizabeta had always liked the boy. Lukas was more similar to her in appearance and strength, but Emil's countenance brought back memories that Elizabeta had deemed to painful to delve on. "I've already called them."
The boy nodded, expressionless yet serious, numb and determined at the same time. "Then let's go."
"I've called Antonio." Gilbert was an asshole, but he was a strangely dependable asshole. "He's not far, and he says we have full access to his stores."
"Mathias," called Emil, and attention was given without pause. Emil's smile was small and a miracle by itself. "Everything will be alright."
And that was Emil Steilsson: two sides of a coin was still the same coin. Tiny, quiet, almost invisible in this world of larger-than-life beings; weak, crippled, unable to do anything, yet the most determined, his faith unwavering despite his despair. To Elizabeta Héderváry, a larger-than-life being, powerful, confident, the key to victory, it felt like a beautiful yet cruel existence.
"Everything will be alright," whispered Emil again, in a voice filled with painful hope.
Oh, Laila, thought Magyar. How precious is your blood.
The plan was simple: the most basic of all plans.
Only 'relevant' people were present on the plane flying towards Denmark: Elizabeta, Mathias, Emil, Lovino, Gilbert, Antonio, and Francis. Everyone else had been left behind, for the sake of efficiency.
"You killed through an entire base of Underworld killers, did you?" Gilbert said. "If you can do it, I can."
"Are you sure you want to take that battle axe?" Antonio appeared seriously concerned as Mathias hugged the weapon close. "It's not exactly discreet."
"We don't need discreet." Elizabeta said. "We need efficient."
"How do you know they haven't moved him? And what if they decide to kill him immediately after we barge in?" Emil asked.
Elizabeta smiled grimly. "I locked him in. With an unbreakable lock."
"What?" Francis exclaimed.
"That's why it's not Francis' job to unlock doors, it's Lovino's," Elizabeta explained. "Francis is in charge of shutting down all defense systems in the base. Gilbert and Antonio are in charge of backing him up. I'm in charge of leading the way, and Mathias is in charge of clearing it."
"And me?" Emil had to ask, even though he could already guess the answer.
"Your job," said Elizabeta, sensing the rising protest and crushing it with a single sharp look, "is to stay back and pray."
They had touched down in Taastrup, Denmark, when Emil finally found the courage to ask a question that had been nagging him ever since Ms. Héderváry (because though he knew she was Magyar, it was difficult to call her anything other than Ms. Héderváry when facing her) had said that she had locked Lukas in with a lock nobody but her could break.
First of all, he did not understand the concept of an unbreakable lock. Sure, it sounded pretty straightforward, but it was difficult to believe that in a world of killers and hackers, there was nobody else who could unlock the door to Lukas' prison.
But Ms. Héderváry just laughed.
"I am a teacher," she said, "and not just your homeroom teacher."
But his second question hesitated on his tongue.
He didn't know what exactly held him back. It felt like the answer would be something he would rather not know, even though this was one aspect of the plan that he—and only he, it appeared—did not understand.
Because if Lukas was locked in and, according to Ms. Héderváry, drugged heavily enough to be unconscious for at least one more day, why were they so desperate to finish the job when there didn't actually seem to be such a huge risk?
It wasn't Ms. Héderváry who answered his question however; instead, it was Gilbert.
"All Lizzie did was make sure that if he was killed, he would die a more painless death, with his entire body intact." He paused. "Hopefully. I don't think they'll try to blow everything up."
Emil's gut was right. He shouldn't have asked.
Please review! I'll probably update faster if people actually bother to review, but... well.