Edit: Yet another delay, caused by work. I'm basically working two jobs at the moment, and one of them is night shift, meaning my schedules are all out of wack. Trust me, this is NOT the only thing I'm behind on : P
26
Persephone / Hall of the Future
Once the last bullet was fired, and the Hall of the Future fell silent, Father Wales limped back into the wing. He moved without haste, letting the doors open unceremoniously for him.
The wing smelled of gunpowder, blood, and burning fibers. He was greeted with the sight of a mound of bodies, and more scattered all across the floor of the large room, one even hanging from the ceiling, her wrist caught in the handle of her hook. Father Wales stepped over a body, examining those that littered the floor. He was curious to see which member of the Family was the one that smote down the Pretender.
He had listened along closely to the sounds of the battle. He heard the Pretender cry out several times in pain – a good sign to Father Wales. He knew the Pretender was capable enough of defending himself for a certain period of time, but he also knew that the Pretender would easily become overwhelmed without the help of the girl.
At the end of the room, right in front of the mural with its little blinking light, there was a large quivering mass of bodies. Blood oozed out the bottom of the pile. Father Wale's toes were easily touching the pool of blood when he was still several feet away from the actual pile.
Father Wales curiously approached the mass of bodies, all of which appeared to be Children of the Lamb. He heard a few muffled words from under the mass, and grinned proudly.
"Child of the Lamb…" Father Wales said loudly to the quivering mass. "… ye will be rewarded kindly for yer efforts and sacrifices." He glanced around the room, gesturing to include all of the cooling corpses. "Ye all will! But thou are a soldier of the Family, and an angel of faith."
Father Wales watched as a bloodied hand worked its way out of the pile. He raised his own hands towards the ceiling. "And may ye be born again in the blood of thy brothers and sisters, and the tears of the sinner!" He cried loudly, his palms open to the ceiling.
The hand pushed further out of the pile, and Father Wales watched as a wrist and a forearm soon came into view. At that, he let his own arms fall to his sides heavily. He stared with an open mouth as a second hand emerged, and a figure pulled itself out of the pile.
With his hair plastered to his scalp, covered in blood, the man with the tattooed wrists and the knitted sweater struggled out of the heap of bodies. He staggered to his feet on the backs of those who had died on him, and straightened his back, breathing heavily. The light from the mural behind him flickered continuously, but Father Wales saw nothing but heavenly light shining behind the man, illuminating him with a golden hue.
Slowly, Father Wales fell to his knees. He stared up at the man, completely enamored, mouth agape. "My Lord…" He breathed in a mixture of awe and fear.
Jack carefully made his way down the pile of Splicers that he stood on, almost slipping on someone's arm. The taste of blood had somehow gotten into his mouth, and the smell of it invaded his nose. Regardless, he breathed in heavily, feeling suffocated from lying under the pile of bodies.
He stepped in front of Father Wales, who still watched Leon with an expression that confirmed to Jack that Sinclair's plan had worked. Jack even saw tears brimming the man's eyes.
Gently, he placed the palm of his hand on Father Wales' forehead. "You…" Jack panted, cracking an emotionless smile. "… are forgiven."
With that, he hobbled away, hearing Father Wales let out a low, remorseful moan that continued until the doors to the Hall of the Future closed behind him.
Jack wiped his hands off where he could on his pants, pulling the mailbag off his back. His service radio crackled on as he pulled an ADAM syringe out of the bag.
"Well, sport!" Sinclair's voice echoed out of the radio. "That was certainly a treat to watch! Are you going to be OK?"
"I will be in a minute…" Jacked grunted, pushing the point of the needle into a vein. Sure, he managed to survive that fight, but he was bleeding profusely. He had been nicked many times by bullets, hooks, and pipes. He was just lucky that the big brute of a Splicer hadn't gotten a hold of him when it was able to do real damage. If it weren't for the shotgun that Sinclair had sent him through the Pneumo, he knew he wouldn't have made it.
"You did it, sport." Sinclair continued, sounding carefree and unworried. "I think that was the last you'll see of our friend Father Wales."
Jack let out a slow breath as he felt his wounds healed. After a moment, he nodded. "That's what I'm hoping for…" Jack tossed the syringe to the floor, walking away from the wing in which he had just been fighting. "That was a sure waste of time."
"You aren't wrong."
The PA speakers crackled on as Jack tiredly made his way back to and down the stairs he once rushed up. He didn't act surprised.
Sophia Lamb's tentative and edgy voice echoed throughout the dilapidated rooms. "Your way of preserving peace is very candid…" She drawled, sounded somewhat defeated. "I don't know whether I should resent you for that, or praise you."
"Whichever one helps me get to Sapphire." The Ryan answered curtly.
From his belt, Sinclair loudly added "Alive."
"She's no longer in Persephone." Lamb answered without enthusiasm. "If she knows what's good for her, she'll be on her way out of Rapture. If her priorities are skewed, she's going to try to reclaim her throne. That is, if it hasn't been destroyed in her absence, yet."
"The one who overthrew her is more interested in destroying Sapphire than the throne itself." Jack responded dully. "Did you see which way she went?"
"She took a train back to the main body of Rapture. I have no jurisdiction there, so I can't say where, exactly, that she is now."
Jack let out an exasperated huff, heading back in the direction of the bathysphere he originally arrived in. "So then this was just another huge waste of my time…" He muttered.
"Not entirely," Lamb grudgingly denied. "Had you not stayed long enough to change Father Wales' mind, I have a feeling he would not have been very far behind you in your travels – and not in a reassuring way, as I'm sure you've gathered."
"You should get going, sport…" Sinclair interjected, reminding Jack of his priorities. "It's about high-time you got out of here."
"For once, that's something we both agree on…" Sophia Lamb commented airily. "If we find Ingrid Sapphire in Persephone, we'll be sure to… deal with her." With that, the public announcement speakers cut off, leaving Jack to slowly approach the bathysphere docking station with the voice of Augustus Sinclair hooked to his hip.
Jack walked carefully into the middle of the station. "I guess I should thank you for the help."
"Only if you're taking that bathysphere and going right back to the lighthouse to leave." Sinclair chuckled somewhat ominously. "If not, then you're still going after Sapphire. That's all I need to make this a worthwhile endeavor."
"Oh, don't worry…" Jack sounded just as determined as he did when he initially came back to Rapture. "I'm not letting her get away, again."
"Where do you think she is, now, sport?" Sinclair asked, sounding genuinely curious.
"My guess is that she's where she thinks Holly and I will look last for her."
Neptune's Bounty / Rapture
A loud crash followed the sound of Jack letting out a pained cry.
He had been jumped by a couple of Spider Splicers. He got one of them, but the second one had evaded his shots well enough to still be able to lunge at him with her rusted hooks slashing. Though Jack had barely managed to jump out of the way to prevent himself from being gutted, the Splicer still hit a shot on his left forearm, surprising him, sending him crashing into a couple of stacked fish crates.
As the Splicer practically ricocheted off the wall opposite of him, Jack's injured arm shot out, hitting the Splicer with a blast of electricity. Her muscles contorted, and she practically dropped from the air, hitting the floor heavily. She slid to a painful stop near Jack's feet, where he quickly took her out with a single shot to the head.
Letting out a tired breath, Jack got to his feet. "I'm getting real sick of all this…" Jack muttered, stepping around the Splicer as he continued on his way.
Somewhere not too far away, Jack heard several gunshots and the sound of heels clicking and thudding against the wooden docks. He hurried to a railing that overlooked a walkway of docks, not entirely sure what he was hoping to see.
But he would have been stupid to not look.
Below him, running across the wooden docks, was a familiar brown-haired woman in a deep blue dress. She stopped where the deck had collapsed, kicked her heels off, snatching them off the dock, and jumped down onto the muddy surface.
Jack stared in shock for a moment, surprised at the accuracy of his own theory. After the initial surprise, he jumped over the railing, landing unsurely on the somewhat-slick surface of a slight overhanging. "Hey!" He barked, crouching and setting a hand on the ledge to jump down. He raised his gun at her once he had landed safely.
Sapphire didn't even look back as she ran. She just disappeared out of Jack's view after climbing onto the other half of the dock. Jack cursed darkly, running up a fallen plank to the deck's top and quickly followed the muddy footsteps, trying to make as little noise as possible.
The footsteps led into, but not out of, a large storage room. It was filled with large boxes, crates, and storage totes that had been stacked and organized. It was fairly dark, as most of the lights had blown out. The biggest source of light was coming from the open double doors that Jack stood in front of, casting a disfigured shadow on the floor. Once he closed the doors, pushing several nearby metal totes in front of them, the room became even darker, the lights sparse and well-spread out.
The only way out was the double doors and a large, chain-operated industrial garage door. With the double doors blocked, both exits would create enough sound for Jack to hear if Sapphire was trying to get out.
Jack made sure his pistol was loaded, raising it readily. "I know you're in here, lady." He called into the darkness, slowly moving forwards. "Just give up. I've got you cornered, and we both know that I can do this all day." His steps echoed in the shadows of the storage room. He stepped carefully beside some boxes, peering carefully around the corner, searching the darkness. He frowned kneeling slightly.
A pair of dark blue pumps lay on the ground, one of them knocked over carelessly. The muddy footprints around them were diminishing as the grime on Sapphire's feet was being pulled off one step at a time. She was playing the cat and mouse game. Jack didn't know if he was the cat, or if he was the mouse.
He straightened his back, rushing to the next stack of crates, peeking around the corners. "I don't know what you said to Father Wales that made him change his mind, but I'm sure you didn't get the results you wanted…" Jack continued into the darkness, relying heavily on his hearing. "You have too little faith in me."
The sound of fabric being lightly brushed against something sounded to Jack's left, and he quickly raised the gun in the direction, squinting into the shadows. He couldn't see anything in the dark lighting other than the crates and totes that were stacked in that aisle. He didn't want to use his Plasmids to light up the darkness, either – it would make him an easy target.
Jack said nothing, already sensing the trap that Sapphire was trying to set. She was a fairly bright woman. She wasn't just going to make a stupid mistake like that when she knew her life depended on it.
He slipped his own shoes off, keeping his back to the wall as he continued down the aisle he was first walking, continuously scanning the shadows. He dashed from stack to stack of each of the storage totes, moving around the edge of the room carefully, glancing behind himself constantly. He frowned, staring into the last aisle. He didn't see her. Could she have gotten out somehow without making noise?
Still glancing down the aisles as he moved, Jack quietly turned the last corner so that he was back in the front of the room. He stopped in front of the closed doors, frowning even further.
"Alright," He called loudly, turned around. "Stop playing these ga—"
As he turned, something shot out of the darkness, wrapping around Jack's ankle and pulling his feet out from under him. He fell flat on his back, almost losing his gun in the process. He felt himself getting dragged into the darkness. Desperately, he grabbed onto some nearby crates, pulling them with him, rolling as much out of their way as he could. Most of them fell forwards, towards his legs, but one of them clipped his shoulder painfully.
Somewhere ahead of him, Sapphire let out a yelp, and the sound of someone dully hitting the concrete floor followed. The grip on his ankle disappeared.
Jack rushed to his feet, raising the gun, and snapped the fingers of his free hand, using Incinerate! to light up the dark room. Sapphire lay on the ground barely a few feet away from where he had been laying, surrounded by sealed crates that had fallen on her. "Are you done playing hide-and-seek?" Jack growled, aiming the pistol at her.
She sat up heavily, putting a hand to her head. A large cut just below her hairline was bleeding quite profusely. "This is exactly why I tried to reason with Father Wales…" She hissed, not getting up from her spot. "I needed some time to get to Holly. I knew that I would never get that done with you hounding me down."
"I'm his 'messiah'. My word trumps yours."
"You're not a messiah, you're a petri-dish with legs."
"So you keep reminding me."
Sapphire wiped blood off of her brow. "OK…" She started slowly, looking up at Jack with what he assumed was supposed to be puppy-dog eyes. "… let's think this through. Killing me won't help you, any. I know Holly the best. I know how to get back to my private building. And I know how to use the controls in that building. Controls that I need to get back behind."
Jack scoffed. "I bet you do."
"I do!" She snapped angrily. "I need to dispense a new batch of Plasmids! Without it, the people here are going to start reverting."
"And what do you plan to do when you get to Holly?" Jack growled, keeping the gun trained on Sapphire. "Talk her down? 'Cus you sure as hell don't have the guts to kill her."
"Kill her!" Sapphire exclaimed, wide-eyed. "Nobody's killing her! She's angry and betrayed, but she doesn't deserve to be killed."
"And what about you?"
Sapphire paused, again wiping the blood from her brow. It was still bleeding badly, showing no signs of slowing down. "I… I've done some things people might say are wrong or inhumane, but I don't deserve to be killed."
"Says you."
"Yes, says me. But take into account that all those things I did for the betterment of someone else."
"Lying to Holly?"
"I…" She trailed off, staring down at the blood on the back of her hands. "I lied to her because it was just easier this way."
"Oh, stop trying to convince yourself that you're some… selfless, caring… beacon of hope." Jack rolled his eyes in exasperation. "You may fool the people here, but you don't fool me. I've seen it too many times before."
"Well, I'm certainly not getting any profit!" Sapphire was started to look somewhat pale – more so than she was before. "Look around you, you big dupe! We're in a city under the ocean! In our few years on the sea floor, we've achieved technological, medical, and biological feats that simply weren't possible on the surface. Can you imagine what might've been if the people of Rapture weren't so sickly engrossed in that power Fontaine brought in? This place could've been great… I'm just trying to reinstate that dream."
"It's a fool's paradise, lady, and you know it." Jack retorted, watching her wipe her forehead again. "There's nothing you can do for this place. It's falling apart at the seams, and it won't get any better."
"You have some mighty fine opinions for someone who's never seen Rapture before Plasmids hit the shelves, or before the so-called 'Great Chain' was gospel…" She narrowed her eyes. "I was here... I got to see it. It was… wonderful."
"The damage is irreversible. You can't fix what doesn't want to be fixed."
Sapphire slumped to the side slightly. She was still bleeding. "Fine…" She breathed. It was as though she was struggling to speak. "… kill me. Just remember that… control over Rapture is inevitable. Each time you kill the one with the crown, it creates… a power vacuum."
Jack watched her limply fall over, her eyes half-closed. A trickle of blood snaked out of her nose, dripping off her top lip and onto the concrete floor beneath her cheek.
It took Jack a moment to realize what just happened. He cautiously lowered the pistol, staring at Sapphire with a furrowed brow, half-expecting her to lunge forward and attack him once his guard was down. She just remained on the floor, still bleeding.
Jack stuffed in his waistband, still holding a bright flame in his other hand. He gripped one of Sapphire's wrists, feeling for a pulse.
She was still barely alive.