Chapter summary: There's magic in the field, and everyone is looking at Lyall to stop it. Meanwhile, Lyall has to deal with a certain mental illness…
Notes: Thank you for reading, leaving kudos, commenting, and bookmarking it! Even if you didn't, thank you for trying!
Atkinson is just a town I randomly choose from existing towns in America today. I don't know if it was around back then.
Warning for swearing.
We all made that promise to free anybody four years ago, and the Union's attempt at banning slavery was finally paying off. It was 1865, I knew, and I knew, this was it. The last year, one more fucking year before I could take a few decades off murdering in cold blood and rest.
Even those who didn't know the future could foresee it. The South's army was growing weaker and weaker with every blow we trade, and more and more states are siding with the North.
The name of Colonel Howlett derived different emotions and reactions; Yankees drank to my name for protecting my men, the Rebs coward in the presence and both sides spat on it.
JJ's Be r, the place where I'd first met Kyren, had cleaned itself up in the years I'd gone. I'm not sure where JJ got the money from, but it replaced the gritty mugs and filthy wood with fashionable shiny cups and well-polished oak benches, and JJ himself had cleaned up his appearance, to even go as far as to trimming his beard. Wow.
But it's still the same old JJ, and he whips out my favorite drink in the time I step through the door. I thank him, enjoying the far better conditions everything was in. My inner mum had gone nuts every time I'd step in here, and she'd finally shut up. Ahhh, inner peace at last.
Alfred and Leroy slide onto the stools on either side of me. They're out of battle uniform so it's just plaid polyester pants and a high-grade button up shirt with sleeves long enough to make me wince.
Leroy has recently shaved his beard and sideburns off clean, a style that's becoming quite popular now that I think about it. I am quite thankful of it anyway; I couldn't look at some people in the army and not burst out laughing at the ridiculous beards they've grown.
"Hello Lyall," Alfred boredly sighs, flicking his fingers at JJ then at one of the bottles behind him. With a snap of JJ's arm, a glass appeared in front of Alfred and Leroy in between my blinks. The men laughed, and drank it all in one go.
"Why are you guys here?" I peer at my pseudo-friends, swinging around on the stool so I resting my back on the bar. It was quite early in the evening, as in 3pm, and you could tell by the small groups of men quietly enjoying their drink before getting completely stoned later. A small layer of chatter seemed far too likely the nights I meet up with Kyren, even with the new look. If I close my eyes, the pain starts hurting and I can see the black dog again.
"We have news from the front lines." Leroy grimly explains "it's a part where General Marth doesn't want you going for whatever reasons."
"So?"
Alfred and Leroy exchange looks.
"They've been tales of magic-like abilities. A man who can control fire on the South side has been pushing back our lines too fast for anybody's comfort but the enemy."
"…General Marth wants me to go?" I guess, tracing the rim of the glass with my index finger as I shuffled back to face JJ.
"No, we want you to go. Your… factor may help in the fight." Alfred finally speaks up, grimacing as he does. "We could ask General Marth, but I fear he won't let you for some time." And let more people die because of someone who doesn't believe in paranormal actives? No way in hell am I going to let that happen.
"Sign me up. It's not like this is the first time I've flown past his radar." The two Colonels blink at the unfamiliar choice of words but shrug it off. "Give me a map and I'll call in for some more leave." Alfred picks out a small square of paper and I roll my eyes at the preparedness of it all. They know me well.
They leave, paying JJ their drinks and all I've drunk so far. I roll my eyes at their kindness, blocking the want to dump all my money in front of them, far more than anyone here could imagine (and that's saying much about the economy).
I leave at 6:30pm, picking up the map on the way out and flipping it open. Tonight was supposed to be 'fucking cold' to humans, and the weird looks I received because of my shirt and small pants drew attention.
Five backstreet fights later, I finally exited Brooklyn, the emptiness of sound, objects and lights evolving into a buzzing in the back of my head. It was also a full moon, and on top of the stars, the map was piss easy to read. As it was an army chart, the thing was detailed to hell and back, so much I could tell how many bushes I will pass on the way to the lines.
Patting my food pouch, which contained a bottle of water and bread, I figured I was set. Time to fight pixie princess.
[x]
The rumors of the magical ability originated from the front lines a few miles from a monotonous town called Atkinson with a population a tad over 100. The last sighting or report of a fiery and hot dead was only three days since I'd set off, so a week since. Not only did I walk, but I'd finally decide to let my legs rest and catch numerous trains to places everywhere.
Atkinson was made up of indecent rows of rotting houses being hold together by strings of gum and rusty nails. The men there watching me with one eye while they chatted darkly with their mates, and the woman gritted their teeth at my army uniform – obviously my name had reached their ears.
A white fluffy dress with an equally blinding cape stood out from all the rest straight away and it drew my eyes. Hang on – that was Mary! I smile, taking quicker steps towards my friend's wife. But, something was different. There wasn't the usual spring in her step, the wondering of her shoes and brilliant smile that could light up even Victor's emotions.
"Mary?" I say, once I'm behind her, debating to touch on her shoulder but remembers that that's not right in today's society and it drops without a second thought. She turns around and I take a second to double take her face and expression.
Last time her face was practically the second sun, glowing with a warm light you'd wish you were cold-blooded for an excuse to bask in the heat. The slight baby fat still existed, cuddling her face comfortably and her emerald green eyes sparkled like gems they were coloured after. Her hair was in a lovely beehive style with the bottom half down, pooling around her neck and shoulders.
That very same strawberry blond hair was a mattered mess with little order. Her chubbiness was stolen, replaced with hallow and high cheek bones, the eyes now a dead, moldy colour.
"Colonel Howlett," Mary grits out frostily, and turned away. Guilt stabbed my heart – I was a monster to her, to myself. I lower my eyes to the dirt, taking a sudden and great interest in the grimy red dirt under our shoes. "I need to talk to you, outside of town."
I listen to her trod off angrily, half-listening to the men bicker around me about the growing prices and nearing war lines to Atkinson, worrying about my appearance in this dingy town.
With my super eyes, Mary's foot prints stand out very clearly, the unique pattern of her personally-made slip on shoes quickly being erased in others. Darting around the sudden boom of people because I have to get to Mary, I have to tell her how much I think I am a monster myself and Kyren's last words. I have to, I have to.
She waits a far distance from the town of Atkinson, the last few buildings just a dark swab of paint on the horizon. I don't ask her how she could get here fast enough and last the walk with the delicate shoes because said shoes are ruined and I can see the scrapes and injuries inflicted by just walking here.
"Mary," I start, and scratch my head in what to say next "… I think myself as a monster as well."
She doesn't move. The unwashed, even by today's standards, blond hair doesn't sway in the dry wind.
"I didn't know that you were on the opposite side. Kyren did express his hate in slavery, in several ways to be exact, and I thought…"
I trail off, sniffing, rubbing my hands at my eyes because the tears won't stop. The salty drops stream down my cheeks and I wail loudly. Oh my god, Kyren I'm so sorry. Mary I'm so sorry. I can't forgive myself.
A click.
Mary whips around to shove a gun at my heart. There is no life in the dead eyes, and I'm shocked into silence.
"Shut up Muderer." She snaps, and pulls the trigger.
I crumple into the dirt, hair spraying everywhere as blood poured out of the hole in my heart. My eyes unfocus and refocus on Mary as she runs away, leaving the rifle next to my 'dying' body. Already the wound is closing up, the blood flow screeching to a halt. But I pass out anyway, because it's my fault.
[x]
The first thing I notice when I come to is slobber threating to drop on my face. I launch back, body fully healed even the hours spent under the boarder-line desert sun. Twisting around, I notice it's nighttime, the chill getting to my bones.
And that's not the full recount. The temperature was at least below 0°C, and all I can hear is howling wind, far greater than daytime. The sand, however, isn't moving, and there's something in the wind that gives me jitters. A whistling sound so fucking high pitched it sets my teeth on edge, and yet soft enough it seems like it comes from all around me.
A dog with scarlet-ruby eyes glittered from just above my knees, the horrifying sight staring at me with hungry eyes. Twisting around its hind legs is wisps and vapors of solidified abyss, eating everything, and widening to larger, angrier clouds rumbling, tumbling and forming out of nowhere. It sickens me, because I know what it means. But I won't say what it is. No, never.
"Get away from me!" I yell, kicking at the dog. My leg passes through the mentally made illusions like it wasn't there, and the Grim grinned. Panicked, I scrambled to my feet and ran towards Atkinson, the darker smudge clearing in my automatic night-vision.
The dog skips beside me, the clouds not far behind either. It's impossible to escape them, I found after several long hours in the desert, so I stubbornly ignore them and start off to find pixie princess again, not entering Atkinson again.
It only takes till sunrise, which I'm guessing was about four hours, to spot the distant flags whipping in the wild wind. The guards carefully eye my uniform and badge before the on-site Lieutenant, Maldonado, to recognize me from the last base 3 to base 7 meeting, a group he was previously assigned to. He welcomes me formally and then personally once inside his tent. The friendship between us if overly familiar faces, unlike the other three colonels, so I'm off to the next camp to recover lost information on pixie princess.
It's at the third camp I visit that Commander (a rank above Lieutenant, meaning he's the eyes and ear for the general area) Sosa actually gives it a think and quietly whispers about strange fires breaking out on the fields, and then a sudden great gush of a firenado wiping out 10 at a time. It was deemed too freaky for anyone beyond the area to know of it because only if you see it did you actually believe it.
(One of my many questions is how Leroy and Alfred actually got the information in the first place.)
Grimm, my invisible dog, growled and snarled at the mention of pixie princess although I don't know how he could understand us at all. Maybe through me? Commander Sosa didn't know anything more, but did direct me to where the magic occurred the most since it started, a camp that curiously little men inside.
Imagine my surprise to find a Captain holding the camp, Captain Rogers to be exact, a very skinny but with that commanding air about him that nobody else but the General Marth and the Rogers bloodline could achieve.
"We're going on a raid tomorrow, you're welcome to join. The paranormal activities have been sighted much more lately, probably because of the rumors of you going around here." Captain Rogers says, biting his too thin lips in thought. Captain Rogers of today – he wasn't holy fuck another Steve! but more of a hey, that hair kinda looks like Steve and so does that jawline… he does scare me. What if the MCU is real, but that means I have to save Coulson because he doesn't need to die, yet Bucky has to get captured by HYDRA so Steve as at least one friend but Bucky didn't deserve to go through it however how else would Bucky last 70 years – holy fuck I just realized how long that is – without aging? What about Tony? Does he absolutely need to go to Afaganwhatever to snap out of the Obie-induced haze of bloody creation oh my goddddddd what am I going to do!
Deep breaths Lyall, deep breaths, no need to bother your fellow soldiers around you with your 'delusional' thoughts, deeeeeeeeeeeep breaths.
The sharp, sudden tang of gun powder and heated metal bullets grounded me, my head clearing in an instant. Not far from me green clashed with murky red, a deeper and darker shade of red coating the muddy ground with ease on both sides.
Then – a strange gale froze the fighting. The green side cheered, raising their guns above their heads and grinning like fools even as my shots blew holes in several enemy men with ease. Then screams erupted across the battlefield even on the enemy side along with brilliant mix of orange, red and yellow flames the sizes of medium Tokyo skyscraper. The blue-tipped edges licked the burning tress and charcoal grass, humans screaming as the heat took over and burnt to a crisp, leaving only smoking bones still dancing in the wild flames.
It was a horrible sight.
Within it all was the eye, a misshapen and malformed circle with a panicking man inside. I stepped as close as I could, sweat swept up in the wind rushing upwards to cool itself down.
"Don't move! Just wait for this to stop!" The man inside jerks to face me, terror printed and carved onto his face. The shreds of green uniform barely hung to his body but he didn't show a touch of distaste of my red or long hair features. He stepped forward, a touch of questioning in his stance but he got too close and the fire happily ate him up, his pained and petrified face bringing nightmares to anyone.
And then suddenly the cold rush of bloody cold wind froze everyone. A loud crunch behind me and the North's front 'line' cracked across the battlefield after 10 tense seconds. I relaxed my body and I slumped, face mushed against the sooty ground, feeling the ghastly sensation of cooked blood soaking onto my face and clothes. Slowly but surely my body fixed itself, smoothing burns, hydrating my mouth and destroying any infections.
I struggled to get up after the bones in my legs finally weren't fragile as hell. Soft white snow fluttered and twisted around me, melting as soon as they touched anything or got too close to the ground.
Another loud crack, closer to me than before. Then something whacks my head to the side, throwing me to the floor. I try to turn over to see who did it, but a heavy weight on my weak rib bones left me gasping for breath on the dirt.
"So, the infamous Colonel Howlett, left for nothing more on the dirt in front of me. Oh, the future Yankees will be singing my name instead of yours." A voice, far too higher pitched to be naturally allowed, snickered above me. I caught a glimpse of a ratty brown boot before I was forced to the ground again.
"Who are you?" I rasp out, "What do you want?"
"She speaks!" the man laughs, and I have to force myself not to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all "I am the Great and Mighty Luke, controller of all things fire."
"Well then Luke, mind if you take your boot off my face?" I snap, and I must say, bones healing themselves from outrageously weak to preposterously strong is one weird feeling.
"Sir Luke! And no, my boot will stay where it is – on dirt." Pixie princess snarls and I chuckle – I just couldn't help myself.
"Okay, I can say you got warned." And then I whip out my arm and dig my nails into his leg. The foot is lifted, accompanied with a girly yelp. I twist over to my belly, smoothly transitioning to crouching in seconds.
Luke is the equivalent to a body builder in 1860s. His chest is about a mile wide and his limbs about half. His head is very, very small, very baby-like face, with little muscle just chubbiness. The white blond hair is a very neatly combed side split with about a litre of gel mixed in. He's not wearing the usual South uniform, instead wearing the gentleman clothes you'd find in a high-end tea party or walking down Rich People Avenue, a long dress-coat and pressed pants that threated to rip. It looked inertly out of place in the battlefield filled with burnt and foul green and red uniforms.
"Unlady-like!" he snaps and scowls, although it more looks like he's about to throw a hissy fit. I cough, and bring my hand up to cover it. Luke screws his face up.
"Is that the best insult you can think up?" I huff, standing up fully, still in defense position. I need to delay him as long as possible so my body can reset itself. "Oh, I've got one! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!"
Luke looked extremely confused, looking like a stupefied baby.
"Never mind then! So, what do you want?" A shudder runs through my body as the valuable and essential internal organs of me reassert themselves and the coolness of the cold touches deep inside. Luke grins and my animal instincts stands up and screams. I flinch and take a step backwards… and Luke's body erupts into a flaming charcoal with facial features.
"To kill you!" His voice booms across the battlefield and the fire swirling around his body burst out, my cloths catching fire, burning away in seconds. The heat cooked me, I couldn't breathe without hacking up my lungs and I couldn't move and my skin vanished into the hungry fire too fast to grow back and holy shit that's my fucking bone there's my claws attached to my forearm and wow, never thought I'd see a skeleton this way, fascinating how I can still move my fingers even when there was no skin or muscles to hold them together and –
[x]
Twice in one week I found myself to see Grimm literally in front of my face. His head is held up by his front paws, hind legs neatly tucked under his belly, a stance you see many dogs hold when they fall asleep. Grimm's eyes blinked open and he yawned, huge, white teeth a hair's breadth from my eyes.
Bones for a hand lied under Grimm's jawbone, and I twitched my hand only to be horrified when the bones responded instead. I lifted my hand to watch in fascination as ash developed from nowhere to attach to my arm and regrow as new skin. Just to creep myself out, I touched my face to see what bone felt like and man do they feel different from my claws. They're far smoother than them, but a slight touch of rigidness, cold but warming up to the touch and a strange texture I couldn't explain in anyway.
I rose shakily, feet testing their new skin, vaguely noticing that I wore no clothes over the fact I was alive. Holy hell, only comic-Wolverine survives this, and that's only when he's got his metal bones in place. My breath cuts off suddenly when I realize Pixie Princess (his title just got upgraded) is sitting without a care not far from me, back to me. My claws slide out slowly and I take a few steps forward, years of tracking game taking over as I avoided the small and vulnerable items such as charred… things… that could easily break and notify Pixie.
Thank fuck the sun was in Luke's eyes – that way my shadow didn't fall over Pixie. He was stupid to do so, but nearly anyone in this era lacked any common sense; I needed to end this without any more damage. With a silent take, I lunge forward and bury my claws into Pixie's heart. He chokes and I slash upwards, taking care to cut through his spine and bury my other claw in his brain. He dies an abrupt-pain-then-none, nothing compared to what others had experienced, if my reaction a few minutes ago was any proof (and that's not counting my high pain threshold). I rip my claws out and tear off his overcoat. It's ruined from my damage on Luke, but I shrug it on anyway as I could hear the sound of reinforcements coming.
Later that night, after I've been thanked many times by soldiers North and South alike, I rest on my bed after tugging on the clothes left by long gone men. Everybody had blushed but then I realized that the over coat only reached mid-thigh and even Victor refused to let me wear anything shorter than knee length.
I sigh, and rest, melting into the hard hay-stuffed bedding. I'm almost asleep when I'm suddenly awake yet dead tired. I desperately need to go to sleep, but I can't, no I'm not worthy wait what am I thinking what the hell go to sleep Lyall but no Kyren is a sleep, I can't do that I killed him.
My thoughts get mixed and I couldn't think straight for a couple of hours. Looping around and around the temptation to sleep was battled by guilt and oh dear, I can't delay denying this.
I'm drowning in depression.
End story notes:
I hope I've gotten the depression right! Please, if you can tell me about depression or anything, that'll be an amazing help. I just want to improve my story…
Yay, I'm starting to study WW1, get ready for the years in between.