Uploading early due to author excitement! YAY!
Here comes... The Reveal.
~Angel and Hel~
Chapter Twenty: Nightmares
-.-.-
She woke up. It was all black. She frowned, looked. Peered. Nothing… nothing…
Her heart rate was accelerating. That was bad. She - she remembered that, that - that was bad. Bad bad. Black. Blank spots? No, not spots. Nothing.
Don't move, pretend to be asleep.
Nothing. Still nothing.
She couldn't do it. Her chest raised and fell as she started hyperventilating. Her wings twitched, her limbs were jittery. Soft. Soft bed. Soft bed was new, was different, was unexpected.
Expectations were everything everything everything without them nothing was certain nothing was -
"Please, try and calm yourself. You're upsetting the weaver." An even, measured voice. Smooth, deep. Not gruff and scratchy. "Miss Helia?"
The tone. The tone was the different. The same. The lines blurred between Miss Helia and Subject 13-H.
She would have screamed. But she didn't know - didn't know how - how they would react, how long she could keep it up, what it would do.
"Miss Helia! You are a Huntress. Please, control yourself." A sense of anger, not just in the voice, but in what surrounded them, a roiling mass of it, like someone asleep and trying not to wake up. "I know this is difficult and disorienting, but please. I'm here to help you. I'm here to help you."
Her muscles tensed. The voice was closer that time. Everything was wrong. A touch - the lightest brushes of feathers - of skin on skin - she shot away, slamming her back into corner and shivering as she ripped off her blindfold, pulling out hairs - more wrongness, it was all wrong nothing was making sense -
Blur. Bright. Too bright. Too much. Too much everything. She couldn't calm herself. It felt like another Test. Only crippled. Her only keys to completion taken from her. NO senses no -
"Weaver, can you give her something? She isn't used to - "
A clearing. A clarification. Not what she knew but -
"Thank you." A man with dark hair smiled at her. He wore a suit. "Hello there."
She could seeeeee. She could see too much. Everything. Nothing she hadn't seen before but not in clarity in destruction in - "H-h-h," her throat locked up as she hid, shaking, behind her knees. I-Ironwood. He looked different. Her eyes cleared, she saw him herself for the first time.
"How're you feeling? Can I get you anything?" He sounded - concerned. Like he actually cared.
But… he did care. He had cared. In his own way. Her shaking intensified, forcing her to wrap her wings around herself. Like a cocoon. Too small. Not enough to blanket her from the world. She remembered it differently. When she was smaller. Something… motherly about the action.
She shook her head, paused. Nodded. But she couldn't speak.
"Could you tell me? Could you write it, or - show me, somehow?" He looked up. "Weaver, a little help, please?"
Slowly, a pen and paper slid into being in front of her, like snow pushed by a shovel. It didn't move. She frowned, glared at it. It refused to move. She scowled. Tear it. Move it. Why. Wasn't. It. MOVING.
Nothing… nothing made sense. Nothing was normal. Wing. Wing was healed. Nothing… was real?
She reached out, grabbed it with her hands, stared at it.
…
She'd never learned how to write. Answers… how to… "A-answers…" she pushed out, her voice quieter than a whisper.
"Of course. I'd always planned to give those to you. And - an apology. One long overdue, I think."
Overdue…
Her eyes narrowed. She looked away, down at her feet. Curled up into a ball again. Don't think about - don't -
"I'm sorry. What was done to you was monstrous. Truly monstrous. To think he could have - done what he did. It appalls me. It sickens me. To know that I didn't know about it, that I, through ignorance, let this happen. That if I hadn't put the pieces together, it might still happen to others. That - that a man I thought I knew, that I trusted - " He clenched his fist, hissed air out through his teeth.
She stared at him. Using her eyes… it was different. Clearer- no, not clearer, more defined. Sharper.
"Rest assured, that it will never happen again. No-one will suffer like you did. I promise you that. If such experimentation proves… if it has to happen, it will happen to volunteers. Real volunteers."
He spoke as if he expected his word to be taken as law. They didn't care. They would never care. She knew. She'd seen it.
"I can't stop the project though. It's - "
"Necessary progress."
She surprised herself. Lacking sight was affecting her more than she realised. She didn't like surprises. Surprises were bad. Surprises were pain and laughter and hurt.
"I suppose it is. I can make it better, though. Make it… worthwhile."
"No pain no gain."
It was something they had told her. Surprise Tests before food. If she got through without pain she was obviously strong enough to do more. No need to waste food unnecessarily on her. Hurting herself didn't work, either.
She shook her head, trying to clear the vivid pain from her mind. Look - look to the future. Not the past.
"There can be gain without pain. For the innocent at least. Let those - jaded and bruised by the world take the pain. We've got enough already." He smiled a little at that.
She didn't.
She saw Grimm, everywhere. A giant tunneller she didn't - couldn't know the name of, cruising through the school, out the side of the mountain, fading away just like the pen and paper had faded in.
She saw them decide to follow it.
"Why?" she asked. She left it up to him to discern what she was asking about.
"This? Because soldiers can't have innocence. They can't be - wide eyed and frozen. They can't be simple souls. They have to know what it's like. What this war is, if they're going to fight in it. If they don't… it'll eat them alive. I don't expect many of them will decide to join, after this. I don't blame them."
The mountainside collapsing. The big lion-cat-thing. She couldn't remember much. The big flaming roaring mad person. "None of them will trust you."
"No, they won't. I'll have to prove myself worthy of trust, like I have with every other year. And… maybe them not trusting me is a good thing. We've had too many tyrants, and I have too much power not to be wary of myself."
"Power does go to one's head…" she muttered, knowing it all too well herself. Bullies. Arrogance. Wanting to tear Aphoth's head off for threatening the one thing she was willing to suffer to have. Being forced through Tests for the amusement of her 'betters', not for the much vaunted 'Greater Good'.
So much happening, so quickly. Some dying, some raising armies, some simply fighting, for it was all they knew. Bright lights and loud noises. Time. Time time time.
"How did you get away? I know his security. What he makes. I'm - impressed." Ironwood looked over at her, a giant over a burning city.
Ghosts. When did her perspective change? There was a room, then there was not. A void, scouring the world of everywhere unobserved. Observed. The sunlight was glaring in her eyes.
"Very, very, carefully." She shuddered. "I'm not going to tell." She'd found her voice again. Her resolve. She was happy, she'd missed those. So difficult to retrieve. "I'm not going to let you fix it," she hissed. "N-not - not going to cripple the others."
Not alone. Never alone. Always watching. Always watched in turn.
"I wouldn't do that." He sounded hurt. Not the real gut-hurt she'd been, but the fake hurt they used when she wouldn't lie still and let them cut and cut and cut - "I told you. I want to change it. I will change it."
She clung to herself tighter, glaring at him over the tops of her boney knees. "You never said how. You never said what you'd change it for. What you'd change it to." She could see it in his eyes. He wanted to be good. He wanted to - to -
He wanted the Grimm gone.
"As I said. Volunteers only. Full understanding of what they're volunteering for. No more invasive procedures. Full surveillance of the good doctor - "
"HE IS NOT GOOD."
Oh, if only - if only she could just rip and tear him to shreds for even thinking -
Ironwood looked genuinely scared for an instant. Then his face settled. "I'm sorry. It's - it was his codename. I should have thought. Full surveillance of Dr. Polendina to make sure he doesn't attempt any experimentation like this again."
She froze at the name.
For - for the greater -
No no no no no nO NO NO -
Ironwood wasn't like them he was good he was good he was for change, for progress for -
For -
For the greater good…
She could see it in him. He saw the suffering but he was removed from it it was not his responsibility all he will do is give a smack on the wrist and another chance because he knows he knows there is no other way forward the dark is coming the dark is coming the dark is -
The Darkness is already here, my pretty little angel.
Never - never again.
"Helia. Miss Helia!" He was shouting. "You have to stop! If you wake the Weaver they die!"
The world is shivering and shaking, and she can't care. It's all just - snowflakes and dust. Specks. Remnants. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, Dust to Death. There was no winning there never was -
"Winter will die, the neural feedback will be too much! Stop this!"
Kill her. Kill them all. Every single one of them even HE will be trapped in here never to bother you again we must act we need to -
Her heart wouldn't calm. Her breathing wouldn't either. She thought of Winter. Of her Winter.
Was it ironic that she was legally the property of the heiress? An unopened birthday present, resting on a desk. Little more than a note and deed. An unfathomably specific share in an enterprise.
Distraction… distraction...
She would open it, dismiss it at just another attempt to get her into the family business. She'd refuse it. Try to. Her father would refuse. It was a gift. You can't return gifts if you didn't like them. You could destroy them but it wouldn't matter. The deed would just return to the enterprise and Winter would have gotten nothing.
She'd read it. Read it properly.
She imagined the reaction it'd bring. Shock. Horror? No, righteousness. Old Winter wouldn't have taken issue with a worthless servant - slave a slave she'd be nothing more than a slave-
No. New Winter, her Winter… different. Different to the core. She would - wouldn't rip it up. Wouldn't treasure it. Would… would gift it.
Freedom. A key to her cage.
"Helia. Helia. It's okay. I'm sorry. I didn't know his name would - I will observe him. Make sure he can't do this again. No slap on the wrist. A full on manacling. Does that sound better?"
Fighting. Always fighting. Infighting. Temper, temper, don't let the pot boil over. Bubbling rage and simmering contempt. Vindication. Approval?
"Y-y-you c-can't f-f-fix it."
Another tunneller. Bigger than the rest. Bigger than all of them. Eat them all up one by one until all the morsels are gone.
"I can try. Isn't it better to try and fail than not try at all?"
Try. Succeed and be rewarded with another day of Tests. Fail and be forced through more anyway. Try to escape be rewarded with freedom… fail and… and…
She didn't want to think about it.
"S-sometimes… it i-isn't."
Sometimes it was just better not to upset the status quo.
Ironwood sighed. "I have to try. For the sake of my own conscience, at the very least. What's the point in saving Remnant if it's at the cost of people like you?"
…
Maybe he wasn't…
"You'd let Remnant fall… for me?" she asked, trying to keep the foolishly hopeful tone out of her voice. The- the thought that someone would want to sacrifice, for - for her.
"I don't know. I don't know if it'd be worth saving a Remnant that couldn't stop what happened to you. I want to prove that Remnant isn't like that. That we aren't like that." He looked so solemn. "There will be a price to save Remnant, but it should be paid by those who know it, who can shoulder the cost. Not by you. Not by children."
Not by children… not by her…
She hugged her knees tighter against her body, rocking back and forth and watching. Just watching. The tunneller and the flaming thing had finished their fight. There was a new army.
So many dead. So many dying.
"She could have killed them, you know," she murmured, staring intensely at the figure that emerged from the rose of ice and snow. "The big lady."
"Myrrha was nearby. Should Miss Reindottir have done anything too dangerous, she would have intervened. And believe me, Myrrha is more than capable of beating any five hunters."
"Not quite fast enough."
Winter was damaged. She'd carry that pain for longer than either of them realised.
"No. Aphoth's actions surprised me. They shouldn't have, but they did. I understand them, given her past, but she'll be - hard to teach. Very hard." Ironwood frowned. "And her Semblance… it's caused me enough problems already."
Bright lights loud noises pain pain pain -
"She brings back the dead."
She didn't need foresight to know what they were - what they had been.
"Yes. In a sense. A derivative of what her Semblance should be, given her blood."
Blood. So very very red. Like rust. Like pain. Like anger.
"Her blood is her own."
She should know. She'd spilled it.
"Yes. I suppose it is. Though given one of the other trainees… " Ironwood chuckled. "He's got an affinity for blood. You might get on with him, actually. You're both - very angry at the world. Very angry."
"I can enjoy the moment…" she mumbled, looking away guiltily. Winter did make for the softest, warmest bed she'd ever remember. She had seen something, wreathed in red and pink. Not just a red path. "Our methods differ," she added dryly.
She surprised herself again.
Why did she sound so mature?
She wasn't.
"The dead weren't real. They were... dead. But only briefly. I couldn't harm them, not for something that was simply meant to evaluate them so I could test them with - this." He gestured at the city. At the shop, blazing with fire and corpses. Some weren't disintegrating. "Volunteers. From my students. Brave, brave boys and girls."
"Men, women." she corrected. "They aren't young. They aren't innocent. Not after what you put them through."
The loud died down to silence.
Ironwood nodded. "Yes. Brave men and women. I'm sorry."
The screaming began again.
"Not after what you're putting them through."
More war always more war the fighting never stopped never ended the -
Winter wouldn't be the same. None of them would be. They'd be left on edge forever.
"I explained why. I'm not a good man, but I'm trying to do good."
A moment. A moment is all. A moment is nothing.
"Making the necessary sacrifice." She couldn't look at him. Couldn't drag her eyes away from the devastation. "For the greater good."
The bright and the red, one too injured to go on, the other torn to pieces. Swell, burst, burden gone, crimson everywhere.
Ironwood's face was downcast.
Fight. Fight to your last breath, never uttering a word. Roar for your freedom as you fall.
"I suppose so, yes. Though - I'll try to be more honest. More open."
Reach a crescendo of chaos with fire and flame and lightning and thunder -
"Share what information I have. Not be so much like - others that I know."
Knowledge was everything and you couldn't fight what you never knew.
"Minimise the sacrifice, as much as I can, make sure it's done by people who can take it, who will take it and run with it as far as they can."
The sacrifice makes the difference all the difference in the world it was never it was always worth it never -
The loose cannon found its spark.
Left Winter alone. So, so alone.
Withering under her own burdens and self.
Ironwood sighed, looked up at the slate sky. "This will all end soon. Is there anything at all I can do for you?"
She thought. There were many things.
But one…
Helia looked at him with dead eyes. "I'd like to fly."
-.-.-
Her ribs were paste. Her guts poked through her side. Every breath was a phlegmy burst of laboured, bloody agony. The burns, the scrapes. The fire edging closer. It was so cold.
Yolona was still fighting. Winter could hear her in the shop below, roaring and shouting. She'd outlast them all. Just like she'd thought she would.
It was so quiet up here. So calm. Maverick's dead body lay beside her, its skull shot away, and everything was calm. Titian's paled face was a mask of contentment. The sky was so peaceful. So large and welcoming above her. Grey and shining. The Grimm up there were all gone, for the moment. Just her and the clouds, the rain. Falling on her face.
There was a bird, too. A big one. Wearing a dress? No, that was the blood loss talking. Probably a seagull.
It was a good death, Winter decided. As good as deaths got. Even if this was - what had Maverick said? She was cold. So cold.
A flash of light hot enough to sear her eyes. She tried to roll and shield them, but all she could see was the bird coming closer - Helia, still wrapped in Aphoth's dress. But her wings, huge and golden, sevenpaired, flapping in a halo around her. Ready to take her away.
She was - she was ready -
-.-.-
We'd love to hear your thoughts on the story, this chapter in particular. In hindsight, we did let it drag on far too long (a whole ten chapters XC oops) and it might not have had enough hints that it was a simulation the whole time but... surprise!
One thing in particular we'd love to know is how to improve this for the re-write, because I know we could be doing better but as one of the authors I don't want to cut any parts out T_T the constant dilema of "Too much?" verses "Is this enough?"
We don't want to gloss over things, but we don't want to drag it out so much reading it becomes a chore.
Either way, things will lighten up immensely over the next few chapters.
Thank you so, so much for reading. We love each and every one of you, promise!
~Angel and Hel