Chapter summary: A 'hails of arrows' later, and suddenly the Civil war is over. And Lyall is struggling with her identity.
Notes: The letter is very important for later in the story – don't forget it!
Plus, I have this very weird feeling saying I've mentioned something at the start of a recent chapter that something later makes both of them make no sense. I seem to not find it, so please point it out if you could! (^.^')
Sorry about uploading the same chapter twice in a row... whoops? I thought I uploaded this one!
Go
My bro Abraham,
I suppose that normal letters start off with the line 'how does this letter find you' but I can't be bothered to do so. Please, when you write back, don't do it in your fanciest writing – I won't understand a lick of it!
In a fit of 'being' stoned, I've decided to drunk text you, but it would be more like 'drunk write.' Just so you know, that report on me appearing on the lines near Atkinson and killing a man dressed for outside of the battlefield paints me in a dark light so I've spontaneously had the urge to explain it to you, as your faithful soldier to her president of the North and later America.
(We will win, I will make sure of it.)
So the raid started off as normal; shoot, hack and slash. Blah, blah, blah, blood, guts and gore. Then, a strange wind blew up and the Southern soldiers cheered even after I shot a few of them dead. In the time span of a snap of my fingers, fire exploded. I won't go into the gruesome details, but that well-dress lad? That was Pixie Princess. Freak – or mutant, however you view it – much like me, but didn't have an invincible body or common sense. Cheers for another kill!
The rescue men got an eye full of my legs – half-way up my thighs! – because Pixie melted my skin and muscle off during our five minute fight (idiot) and in the end, as well as my clothes. Luckily, my healing factor kicked in and saved me and I ripped off his shirt to cover my parts.
So, now you know of the truth. Have fun trying to make sense of my 'messy' writing!
Tata,
Colonel Howlett, the first female in the American army.
PS: I'll miss you when you'll die. Please know that it wasn't me – I wouldn't kill my friends in these dark times! I only fear that your assumption of the possibility of me defying death even by old age is true. A human, even a mutated one, can't handle loneness. At least Victor will be there! :D
[x]
"Grant is coming!" I shout, and flip down from my high perch on the oak tree. "Prepare for battle!" I dodge forward, claws jumping out from my knuckles, and raced towards the advancing troops.
My secret of my claws had gotten out (oops) because not all men when I'd battled Pixie had died or at least had been knocked out. Thus, they'd seen my 'epic' and 'long' battle with Princess; it wasn't long before I was confronted. Long story short, Victor's and I's mutant abilities were discovered and soon well-known on both sides.
"It's the freak!" someone shouts as I start hacking at everyone. Instantly, the amount of enemies multiplies by hundreds and I laugh, waving my hand. Beside me, a man's head explodes as a bullet enters and leaves. Man, I feel so good, I hate guns. Nah, the claws are the best way to go!
It takes a while for the other North's men to catch up – believe me, I run fast, a big improvement from my last life – but when they do, its mayhem. Finally when the Southern's retreat horn sounds, we all collapse in exhaustion as the South slowly, all relaxed, walks away, confident that nobody would shoot them.
Howling whistling wind shrieks in my ears and I freak out because the sound is flying to me and a bunch of men were crowded around. Jack, the same one who gave me Kyren's letter dodges around the dead bodies and sweaty alive men.
"General Grant wishes you to join him when he meets Lee!" he yells, excitement written on his face, and I fear for him. He was only 15 (as I'd found out) and still needed a life but he was getting closer to me and the fucking arrows –
When he reaches me, I tuck him under my body and Jack automatically curls into a ball. His face scrunches up in fear and I lurch forward from the force of all the arrows biting into my back. I cough up blood next to Jack's face and choke back a rattling gasp for air.
Silence falls and I roll off Jack, his face is engraved by pure terror and his hands uselessly hover around my back. One arrow lodged in my elbow twangs with poison, and I growl with annoyance. The arrow gets dug out with the help of my fingers and I wait for the injury to heal – but it isn't holy shit what the fuck – but after five seconds of panic, it closes up like something zipped it up extremely fast.
I inspect the arrows, frowning when I realize that it's not Southern arrows or Northern origins. There is a third party out for my blood, and that really unsettles me. But I can't worry about that know, Jack is here for something, right?
"So," I say, turning back to Jack as I stretch, arrows hitting the ground with a twang as they fell out "what does General Grant want?"
Jack took several shuddering breaths but got it under control. Even other men looked a bit green at my supposed death, my marled back already looking pale and smooth as a new born baby.
"Uh, Lee had requested a meeting with General Grant." Jake says, face flushing with anticipation, last minute's excitement forgotten. "Many think he's surrendering."
I huff tiredly, shoving my long fringe back, fingers getting caught on several knots. I rip them out, along with several strands of hair, making a face at the feeling of my hair growing back in seconds.
"Great. Where do I meet him?" I sigh, rolling a few strands of very dark, but on absolute, black hair between my fingers before flicking it over my shoulder. Another hair tie gone.
"He's waiting for you back at camp; he wants to leave as soon as possible."
"Tell 'im I'm coming. Sometime. Soon. Hopefully." I yawn, feeling suddenly exhausted and tired – not that the last few years of restless nights had been helping. Grimm perked up, bounding around Jack and through him like he wasn't there.
Time to go.
[x]
Malice toward none … charity for all screams the newsletter for the 16th of April. I drop my china cup, snatching the paper out of Leroy's hands from across the table.
"Abraham's dead," I blink, flicking through the pages with skill. Lincoln's dead! Northerns scream for blood! "That fucker, I told him to live longer than me." The men around me wince at my choice of words.
"Look on the bright side," Alfred says far too grimly for what he just said "the wars over, we can go home to our families."
"My family is here." I rise my eyebrow, eyes flicking down the table to a very loud, aggressive Victor. "But I could go back to my mother in Canada who views me as a freak."
"You're from Canada?"
"I shouldn't have said that."
"No, why don't you tell us more. Say, what the weather like?" General Marth leans forward, picking up the newspaper I'd thrown on the table. I would morn Abraham's death later.
"Fuck if I know. Ask Victor, I was stuck in bed all the time I was that sick."
"You?" Leroy scoffs, leaning back on his chair. "Sick? We're all talking about the same person, right?"
"Yeah, you've been the sewers and back without getting sick, three times. That's not luck, that's your healing ability." Alfred adds, nodding, picking at the rice cracker on his plate.
"She was sick alllllll the time. I swear, she was allergic to even air!" Victor joins in out of nowhere, sliding his arms around my neck gently. "Lyall couldn't get out of bed without hacking her lungs up."
"'sept when Thomas killed father." I dipped my head forward, eyes flicking upwards as I vaguely remember the night from over 15 years ago.
"Except then." Victor nods, and then I realize everyone's staring at us. "Is this seriously the first time we've talked about our past?"
"Yes." Everyone answers.
"Huh, look at that." Victor grunts, taking my alcoholic drink from my table. I stole one of his cigarettes instead. Hey, if I can't have alcohol, I'll have the next best thing; smoking. "Hey, do you still have those books you wrote in for a year?"
I blush and duck my head. Everyone starts to egg me on to revealing them and they were slightly suspicious when I gave in so easily. The books are battered, torn almost to shreds and well-loved. When I set both of them down, they crowd around them, faces falling when they couldn't understand them.
Stark was the only one to get through the Gnommish code, because I pointed out a few words thinking they'd still failed and what do you know, they did. Not five minutes after that the topic moved on to what everyone would be doing after the war was truly over.
Leroy would retire and return to his family on the farm and work there for the rest of his life. Alfred would do the same, only work at the family restaurant, Stark would continue inventing and visit his descendants every now and then and General Marth would stay in the army for as long as possible because his sons had already grown up.
"I plan to give my title to you, Lyall." He smiles at me, and it leaves me stunned. Logan clearly never got this high in ranks, and how the bloody hell did I achieve this? I wasn't cut out for it, hell no, I wasn't for planning and goals, I'd made that clear to my teammates from the moments after Kyren's death, yet why –
Leroy, Stark and Alfred congratulate me, and Victor starts another round of 'three cheers for Lyall' as I debated heavily on Marth's decision, but I was swept away when boisterous laughter broke through my thoughts.
Later, General Marth pulled me aside.
"You may not know this Colonel," he sighs, rubbing his hands as we watch the flame in the fireplace burn – my skin oh what lovely bones I have – "but you radiate safety. Men, woman, even children, are drawn to you because the utter protection aura you give off. You've already done it, but you'll form friendships that'll leave everyone else scratching their heads and asking how? Your perfect for this job, but if you don't want it, I won't force it on you."
The depressing thoughts weighed heavily on my mind and Grimm bounced out of the fire randomly, circling around General Marth. Its long time since I've tried to break out of depression, and the time now is good to start again.
"Okay," I breathe, calming my shaking hands cupped around my glass "I can do this. I can. I can?"
"You can Lyall." General Marth's hand rests on mine and it is so achingly like the future I barely remember that it's rude to touch a girl when you're already married. I sniffle, the small desire to return to my old family suddenly springing up and bursting out of me.
"I want to go home." I sob, softly so Victor doesn't hear me. "I want to go home, to Emma, to mum, to dad. I want to go back to 2015."
Ever so quietly, I crack about my memories and General Marth doesn't pry to the information of the future. He coxes me to a heavy sleepiness, tears long dried by his hankie and finally after 2 and a half fucking years, I fall into a sleep filled with dreams about my past life and nothing more.
[x]
Kyren.
I shot up, claws drawn and positioned.
Victor reacting accordingly, also jumping up from his bed on the opposite side.
"Whoa," Victor blinks and relaxes, sitting gently next me on the outrageously fluffy bed. "Don't worry, we're at Stark's home. He offered a place after the party."
"What party?" I croak, and I gape at Victor when I remember about General Marth – holy shit I've never told someone about that before – and I rip the covers off me. I hit the side of the door with full force, launching off the cement/wooden walls without a second thought.
The Stark mansion is still a mansion even in my thoughts, used to the magnificent Japanese styled houses over in traditional Japan. Sometimes I could Victor calling my name from just around the corner and the boom; he's calling from the other side of the wing.
His voice is full of wonder, a touch of eagerness and fear. It makes sense, I guess, to a mind who's never, ever, experienced the massive size of the world – the universe, for this tiny, when compared, building resting in an seemingly-unlimiting ocean of vibrant green grass, it is massive. To the mind of someone who's never seen or even known the man-made Great Wall of China, which you can see from space, the building is the greatest thing ever.
To the mind of someone who's never physically been to these places, but has the memories, the knowledge, the gut feeling of yes, I have, it's just a mansion, nothing big.
My legs pause in their frantic running and I stare down at my bare feet. My feet from my last life was pale, barely tanned from my sock line down, but grew winkled and fragile as my age advanced. Nearing 35, age lines should've been making their home and presence on my face, and ignoring that, I should've been dead ages go since my first fight on the battlefields – heck even when I was learning to control my mutant ability in the forest I should've died from when the bear attacked me.
I sank down to the floor and poked my feet. This 'age-less and unkillable' was starting to catch up to me, and it was frightening. To live on when everyone I know is dead. To live on when everyone dies from prematurely, or natural causes. Oh my god –
"Amy."
My head whips around and my hair follows. Stark is standing there, arms crossed. I stand shakily, hoping to hell he didn't say what I thought he said. I rake at my face to grab at the hairs stuck in my face.
"I know, Amy that you know of the future." Stark trots forwards, eyes still in contact with mine. I was too horrified to tear them away. "I'm a fictional character? You're a fictional character? What a dreadful lives my descendants will live along with you."
He stops in front of me and kneels down. His skinny hands rest on my shoulder and he sighs.
"Please, protect them as best as you can. I don't want Tony to die of his own foolishness." Stark takes out my two books and lays them on the floor. "Lyall."
He stands, gives me one sorrowful look and leaves. Moments later, Victor comes around the corner. He's not used to the oiliness and it obvious as the way he tried to slides to a stop but continues past the corner, swearing and cussing.
I laugh at his attempts, and quickly stuff my two books into my jacket. Victor runs into me, arms rapping around my upper body as soon as he makes contact. One hand comes up to rub the top of my head and I sniff.
"Don't worry; I'll get us out of here, where ever the bloody fuck we are." Victor grumbles into my ear.
"I ran into Stark." I mumble.
"I don't trust Stark. Too fascinated with his guns and shit too be bothered with anybody else. I smile when I recall what just happened. This just proved that Starks do love and worry about their family, and just don't have the social skills to do it themselves, as seen with Howard.
Tony would defiantly hear about his great-as-fuck-grandfather, I will make sure of it.
I laughed again and teased myself out of Victor's arm. He let go reluctantly. We followed Stark's smell, now much stronger than anything before. He must have not visited this area much, but I could see very well why.
We arrive at a huge hall, almost like the Great Hall of Hogwarts, just with one very long table with a multitude of seats tucked neatly under. There's cutlery for each and every seat, absolutely no dust and Stark is sitting at the head seat. Beside him is a very beautiful (and I would say hot but being bi isn't accepted yet) woman and beside her is a younger man, obviously a son of the woman.
The son is nothing like Howard, his tiny moustache resembling little of his father and soft curve of his cheeks almost a mirror of his mother.
"Hello," Stark says, head dipping in acknowledgement "this is my wife, Josephine, and my son Hermann Einstein. He has decided to take Josephine's maiden name, for my older son has taken my last name."
Shit. The Starks were related to Albert Einstein – Tony would so totally dig on it.
"Uh, hi?" That was a question, and I winced visibly at it. "Not to be rude or anything, but how did we get from the party to here?"
"General Marth came up to me and requested for me to take you in for the next few nights. I agreed and here you are." Stark waved at the two seats next to Hermann, and I tried to gently lift the seat up so it wouldn't scratch the valuable floor, but Victor didn't do it so a horrible, ear-grating noise clawed at everyone's ears when he dragged it back. The Stark's wince but I ignore it. It's far too like battle field noises for me to get affected.
Waiters and waitresses gracefully dance out of side doors with small silver plates of food. Their stiff and prom faces don't twitch when I quietly thank them.
"Please, eat." Mrs Stark daintily picks up her fork and cuts neatly into the steak, while I do the same, just a lot more messily and everywhere. Victor – ha, don't get me started. Living 32 years in etiquette-lacking conditions rewarded him with no manners, just mess. Please, just don't look at him when you're looking for someone with grace.
The dinner continues on quietly, and before I know it, I'm cornering Stark before we go to bed. He takes us to his study, a homey place with lots of books neatly lining the walls. A grand chandelier hangs silently above the ostentatious desk, a fascinating design meant to capture your attention carved deeply into the wooden frame.
"I, uh, got the idea from the door on the Colonel room in Base 3. I take it you like it." Stark rounds the desk, drawing the basic wooden chair out from the desk, sitting snugly into the chair. "I'm not here to draw information out about the future or this world's future. What am I going to do that'll affect the future?"
"Many things." I retort, still standing in front of the desk. The light from the chandelier reflects thousands of different shapes and sizes on the golden grain, creating particular and wondrous patterns. It takes my attention for a second before Stark speaks again.
"Oh yes, many things that I'm too old and too settled to deal with. My sons on the other hand… but I'm not going to involve them. In fact, they've already formed and developed their own beliefs so it's far too late." Stark pauses and I catch on.
"You're aiming for their children. Why? I'm just a freak, far more than my race."
"You are a fascinating person Colonel Howlett. Fascinating. But it's not the only reason. As seen by this 'tag' on 'A – Oh – 3,' something along the lines of 'Howard Stark's A+ Parenting' our family has a hard time expressing our feelings."
I stay silent, feeling the weight of this already settling on my shoulders.
"We're a very selfish family, and we have a long and dark history to prove it. I really want to say 'don't take this task if you can't' but I can't - I worry for my descendants and its freaking me out honestly." Stark takes a breath and rests his head in his hands; worry crawling out on his body.
"Please, please, look after our family. I'll pass the word onto my grandchildren; you'll always have a safe haven in our arms, please." I stare as Stark's head thuds against the desk, a sob or two escaping him. I rush forward and try to lift it.
"I was going to anyway." I bark, going into Colonel Mode. "Get your head up soldier, the army has no tolerance of baby tears or crying. So I fucking swear on my life, I will do my fucking best at keeping every single person here, in the future, past, ally, neutral or enemy the safest as I possibly could help." Stark lifts his head to stare at me, a light sheen to his eyes.
"What's the point of knowledge of the future when you don't use it to protect everyone else?" I bark, wrenching my hand back to my hip.
Stark bites his lips and smiles.
Later that night, I lie in my bed. Victor's curled up in the bed next to mine covers tussled and thrown everywhere, dead asleep. My finger taps the softer bed as I try to get to sleep.
I'm certain depression isn't an issue here, but the slight grumbles Grimm makes is a tad annoying.
It's the legend, the expectations, the movie the comics and the dreams that I've signed myself up to. I could've given up on entering the army and waiting for the future to come all dressed in dainty clothes and zilch fighting experience. Heck, I could've forgone all the fighting and stayed at the Howlett mansion and never gone out to find out what the gunshot was.
But that excitement, that anticipation, the offer of a better life after a mundane existence nobody needs to know, drew me in. I couldn't go back now – no, that's too late, get over it Lyall. You've gotta deal with it, starting with the fact you shouldn't hide your Australian accent.
Logan would've ignored Stark, as he would've joined Victor in Base 12, and lived on not knowing that he could've achieved Colonel, no, General, but never did. He probably lived on, not knowing about the fact he could've made a connection with someone and get safe houses all around the world for the future.
All because of a sex change.
Oh yes, even if I have the memories of the future, fem!Logan would've achieve a life very similar to the one I'm living right now. The reason why it's not vastly different is because I'm afraid to bring my memories into this. All the designs are based on the life I'm living now, as Lyall.
Amy wasn't me since the moment I was reborn. The five years of building my own personality with only the vague knowledge of something greater touching me had built Lyall, not on top of Amy. I wasn't 'Lyall but secretly Amy' I was 'Lyall + a few bothersome memories from Amy, someone I'm not entirely.' All the decisions I've taken has drawn knowledge from Amy a tad, but Amy didn't decide Lyall's life. Amy was someone entirely different from Lyall.
I wasn't Amy.
I was Lyall.
If I was Amy, I wouldn't have continued on killing, I wouldn't dive head first into fights without a thought.
But I couldn't forget Amy. Her knowledge saved me many times, gave me a vague idea of what to do in the future and would save many more lives. I needed Amy, but she was just an impression, personality, beliefs and ideas gone, leaving only raw knowledge.
Taking a deep breath, I kick off the quilts, stumbling over to Victor's bed and collapsing next to him. His breath cut off, and relaxed when he realised it was me by smell.
"Hey," he grumbles voice dry.
"Shut up. Let me sleep with you." I curl my arms around his body and rest my head on his stomach. Okay, this was something I could take from Amy. Resting with your blood was something I could get used to, and Victor better as well.