Rose Tinted View

~O~

Children betrayed their parents by becoming their own people

-Leslye Walton, The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender-

~O~

Charlotte's head was spinning, so much so that she failed to notice that a few members of the Aurora Society hadn't run screaming. Ryan Stoker took a few steps back, a grimace of fear twisting his face.

"Shit, it failed!" He then whirled around to flap his arms at the men behind him. "Well what are you waiting for? Shoot it!"

The men whipped out pistols from the inside of their jackets, oddly well-prepared for what was supposed to be a simple gathering, and showered the corpse in a hail of bullets. However that didn't seem to have any effect on it as the woman just twisted around and lunged for one of the men, knocking him down. His screams combined horrifically with the sounds of her teeth tearing his throat open.

Charlotte spotted the white tails of Stoker's coat disappearing out the door. "He's getting away!"

She started to run forward but the monster's head snapped up and turned to stare sightlessly in her direction. Ciel gritted his teeth. "How can we get past that thing?"

"What if I dismember it so that it cannot physically move?" Sebastian suggested, pulling out several more knives from his person.

"Good idea! How about something like this?"

A man riding the oddest machine Charlotte had ever seen with what looked like hundreds of spinning blades suddenly flew into the room and smashed into the creature's skull. Blood, viscera and bone sprayed across the room, drenching the immediate area. Charlotte stared blankly down at her ruined dress and gloves and then back at the man.

It was the Reaper from the night before. She watched him park his machine and pull out a notebook to confirm something, and then he gaped at it in shock. "What the hell?! I knew she was already dead! I told the boss I personally collected her soul! Ugh, guess I'll just collect these guys..."

"So that's the reaper you saw?" Ciel's voice jerked her out of her blank state.

"...yes," Charlotte replied softly.

The man turned to blink at them as though he had forgotten that they were even there. He cocked his head at Charlotte and leaned over his death-blade as though trying to get a closer look at her. "Oh, I know you! You're that girl...well I have no idea what you are. And you," he switched his attention to Sebastian, "that outfit, would you be the rumoured Bassy?"

Bassy? Charlotte mouthed bemusedly while Sebastian hid a grimace behind a polite smile. "I have quite an aversion to that name, but yes that would be me. Who might you be?"

He tipped his hat with a rakish grin. "Ronald Knox of the Reaper Dispatch Association, at your service. Thanks for taking care of my senior."

Sebastian chose to ignore this in favour of getting right down to business. "You just said that these things couldn't be killed unless you smashed their skulls. Do the Reapers know something about this?"

"No, we don't know anything either," he kicked the corpse's leg gingerly as though he expected it to lunge back up. "I know it's a soulless corpse because I collected the soul of Margaret Connor two weeks ago."

Ciel stroked his chin thoughtfully. "So it's not the dead being revived, just their bodies moving. They're just shifting flesh," he said. Almost simultaneously he, Sebastian and Ronald turned to stare at Charlotte. After a moment of silence she blinked back at them.

"...no," She took a step back but they didn't say anything and they didn't stop staring. "No! I still have a soul! I'm not some walking corpse! I am nothing like these things!"

Ciel made a face that projected just how little he believed that. Sebastian voiced his opinion aloud. "You said it yourself Charlotte," the demon pointed out, "even you don't know how your body works. You may not act like these things, but you can't rule out the possibility that you're more like them than you realise."

Time seemed to slow down for the young woman. She had no idea what to think and she didn't want to think because she could see the inevitable conclusion and it hurt her like a metaphorical sword to the chest. Could he really have...? No, she couldn't dwell on it. Instead she clung to anger, blind, irrational anger. "I am not a walking corpse. I am not a monster!"

She ran blindly from the room and Ciel watched her go with a pained scowl. God why did women get so hysterical? You point out the possibility of them being similar to a cannibalistic walking lump of flesh and they start crying. He pinched the bridge of his nose but spotted Ronald's hands moving purposely to his blade. "Sebastian!"

The spinning blades came perilously close to demon's face before he managed to grab them and hold it at bay. Ronald leaned in, "if administration gets wind of there being a demon on board, you can bet they'll think I skived off work and let you eat them! I'll end up doing overtime, so why don't you just die already?"

Ciel turned to bolt after Stoker and Charlotte. "Come find me once you're done here," he barked over his shoulder and then he ran from the room.

The corridors were quiet and clean, and had Ciel not been witness to the events that had gone on before then he might have thought the whole thing was nothing more than a bad dream. He ran on, finally coming to a set of spiral staircases that went down into near-darkness. Narrowing his eyes, the young boy pulled a custom pistol from his jacket and loaded it full of bullets.

Keeping his back to the wall, Ciel made his way down the steep steps, so focused on the view before him that he didn't notice the shadow following behind him and screamed when it touched his shoulders.

To be fair, it screamed back as well and Ciel whirled around and glared exasperatedly at Elizabeth. "What are you doing here?!" He hissed and lowered his gun from where he had nearly blown a hole in her face.

Rather than being at all shaken by nearly dying, Elizabeth pouted. "I saw you run off and followed you here! You just disappeared even though I told you to wait for me. I even brought you ca-!"

There was a sound from the darkness prompting Ciel to clap a hand over her mouth and drag her down. "Hush! I'm sorry but I cannot be fussed with you right now so just go back to Aunt Frances, alright?"

He left her there and continued on. Eventually the staircase ended in a tiny area that led into what looked like a storeroom. There were crates and boxes everywhere so it could be surmised that this was where some of the luggage that was too large to be carried onto the main deck was being kept. There was an unlit lantern hanging on a hook on the wall. Ciel fished in his pocket and pulled out a lighter.

The tiny flame flared brightly behind the glass of the iron lamp, illuminating a large circle before him with orange-yellow light. Ciel walked on, peering around the corners warily until he caught sight of something large and humanoid moving in the shadows.

Immediately he whirled around, gun pointing forward. "Who's there?!" The light fell on Snake and several other of his namesakes who hissed loudly in response to the sudden flare of brightness. "Snake?! What the hell are you doing down here?!"

He held up the platter in his hand as though it explained everything. "The food upstairs was really good so I thought I'd share it with everyone. Says Dan."

"The cake was even better than the food!" Someone piped up.

Ciel nodded understandingly, not really paying attention. "I see, that might be so – wait, Lizzy?" He whirled around to gape furiously at her.

"You just left me! Again!"

"I told you to go back upstairs!"

"I just wanted you to eat the cake!" She whined and Ciel was reminded once again why he really did not enjoy the thought of marrying her. "Look, it even has strawberries! They're your favourite!"

She held up the plate only to find it empty. Just then something staggered out from the shadows right behind her, groaning loudly with arms outstretched and a mouth smeared with butter-cream. Ciel's heart lurched. "Lizzy, get down!"

The thing would have taken off her head had he not leaped forward and yanked her out of its reach. The two fell backwards and Ciel's back collided with the crates behind him. "This isn't the one we saw before! There are more of them?!"

The man stumbled closer, too close, and then something flashed out of the darkness. A long silver chain wrapped around the thing's neck and yanked it backwards into the blackness. There was a sound, a horrible snapping noise, and then footsteps.

Charlotte stepped out of the darkness. She wasn't smiling and her eyes were emptier than Ciel had ever seen them. She was also holding a scythe which was new. It had a large, wickedly sharp blade connected to the staff by long silver chain. Charlotte blinked at Ciel. "You were right."

"What?" Ciel asked, surprise and fear clouding his cognitive capabilities for a moment.

Instead of answering, Charlotte pressed something on the staff and the blade shot back to its original position. Then she picked up the lamp and lifted it, throwing light upon a terrifying sight.

Rows upon rows of dark red coffins dangled from the ceiling of the storage room, all with the same golden emblem of a bird, all padlocked shut. One began to shake, and then another, soon the room reverberated and rang with the same banging and grotesque roars of hundreds of monstrous creatures.

One padlock broke and then another. Charlotte handed Ciel the lantern with uncharacteristic solemnity. "The three of you should run. They won't touch me."

"No! I'm not leaving you! Says Goethe," Snake grabbed her arm and yanked her along with they turned and ran from the oncoming horde. Fortunately for them the narrow and crowded hallways made pursuit difficult. Whatever those things were, they clearly didn't have any form of higher intelligence. They were fueled entirely by hunger.

Hunger for what though? Ciel wondered just as they found themselves at a dead end, the only exit blocked by a locked door. "Snake, take Charlotte and Lizzy to the top of the luggage! I'll ward them o-!"

He yelped when Charlotte picked him up. She held him like he weighed nothing and then tossed him onto one of the higher ledges. "Stay put," she said curtly.

Ciel tried to jump down but Snake caught him and pulled him back up. "What the hell do you think you are doing?!" He yelled down at her. "If you think sacrificing yourself will somehow-"

Charlotte interrupted him with a laugh. It was high, hysterical, but it was the most in-character thing he had heard from her ever since this whole shitshow had begun. "For you?" She said. "Don't be absurd Phantomhive, I'm not doing this for you. I'm doing this because I hate these things with every fibre of this thing that I am. And if he thinks he can make new, cheap, fake replicas, then he can think again."

The next moments were a bloodbath. Snakes wrapped around the writhing corpses, holding them still while Charlotte carved through the mass like a demon. She fought like someone with something to prove, with fury, with so much despair that it was almost palpable through all the blood flying everywhere. The creatures fell to the ground in pieces, some missing their heads, others their legs and arms and she still kept going. However Ciel noticed something odd.

These things, whatever they were, as soon as they came close to Charlotte they slowed down. Their arms lowered a fraction and, if he could assign an emotion to them, if they could even feel much in terms of emotions, he would say that they looked confused.

"Looks like I got here late."

Charlotte paused for a moment and turned to stare at Sebastian through the blood dripping into her eyes. He stared back at her and then around the room, taking in the bodies littering the ground, the three still perched high on the luggage, the snakes, and finally the straggling creatures. He pressed his lips together and sighed. "Shall I finish them off?"

The woman blinked at him perplexedly and then she looked around as though she had just realised what she had done. As he made his way over to decapitate the survivors, Charlotte dropped to her knees and stared down at herself. Her body was entirely covered in gore but she couldn't any of feel it, just what was on her face. She could feel the stiff flakes of where the blood had dried on her skin, the sticky tangles of hair. Behind her she heard Sebastian helping Ciel and Elizabeth down from the luggage stacks and then she felt a hand on her shoulder.

Snake peered down at her worriedly. "Are you okay? Says Dan."

"Me?" She cocked her head as though she had to think about it. "No. I am not okay. I will be once we get off this ship though. Where is he?"

"Ah, about that," Sebastian yanked one of the crates open, revealing the trembling Stoker in all this unassuming glory. The man screamed upon seeing them and tried to bolt but Sebastian grabbed him by the back of his collar. "Stop squirming sir. Why not sit down and tell us your plans? We have plenty of time before we reach New York."

Stoker kept struggling. "No, we can't! We don't have time!"

"What do you mean by that?" Ciel barked. "We already took care of the corpses-"

"No you haven't! This ship has two storage units!" He revealed; his face white and devoid of any other emotion other than pure terror. "And in that one, we stored ten times as many samples as here!"

"Ten times as many?!" Ciel repeated in shock.

"B-But don't worry!" He hastened to add. "I have a machine! Once switched on it should immediately render them all dea-!"

Unfortunately for Ryan Stoker, Charlotte had taken this new revelation very badly. So badly in fact that she immediately stabbed Stoker through the shoulder with her scythe. Actually she was aiming for his chest but Sebastian had caught her movement and shifted out of the way. Stoker screamed, Ciel screeched, and even Sebastian looked concerned but that was probably because the tip of the blade had come worryingly close to his own chest.

"What the hell Charlotte?!" Ciel grabbed her by the collar and yanked her down, which was a surprise as the young boy wasn't given much to feats of strength or brute force. "If you had killed him we wouldn't have had a way to take these things out!"

She stared back at him sedately with those wide blue eyes. "His machine won't work anyway," she told them all.

"And how the hell do you know that?" He snarled in her face.

She just smiled and pulled out of his grip. The she gracefully walked over to the shaking man until they were nearly face to face and looked him in the eye. "Tell me, who gave you the idea for this?"

"Wh-What are you talking about? I came up with this on my own!"

His eyes jumped from the ceiling to the floor, to her dress. Sebastian frowned and stared down at him in surprise. "He's lying."

Honestly the idea that Stoker hadn't been the one who really create these things had occurred to Ciel at some point. The man was too much of a coward. The man had struck him as being fairly similar to the Viscount; arrogant and in love with his own self-importance but entirely willing to piggyback off the resources of others.

Making a snap decision, Ciel turned to Sebastian. "Go take my aunt and any others to safety and come back once you're done."

"Yes, young master." He waited until one of the large constrictors had coiled itself securely around Stoker and then took in the direction of the upper decks.

Ciel fixed his glare on Stoker. "Who really gave you this idea?"

The doctor tried to wriggle and squirm but stopped when the boa came close to breaking his ribs. "I told you, I came up with this myself!" He gasped breathlessly and then passed out from a lack of oxygen.

Ciel stepped forward to slap the man awake. "We don't have time for this!"

Charlotte gripped his arm to stop him. "Don't bother Phantomhive. I already know who did it."

"You do?" He frowned at her. "How do you know that?"

"I thought it'd be obvious by now," the woman turned and walked away, the light from the door casting her in a silhouette. "You said it yourself; they're exactly like me."

A quick rundown of Charlotte's 'powers'. All of her (except for her head) is made of some unknown alloy that I hesitate to call bone china which makes her stronger than the average person. She is also faster than the average person because she is virtually hollow. Finally, because she doesn't have muscles, she does not get physically tired.

Why does Charlotte hate the Bizarre Dolls? Text your answers to 1-800-DEAR-GOD-PLEASE-VALIDATE-MY-EFFORTS or just review this chapter. Also congrats to everyone who guessed scythe like that wasn't obvious I'll PM ya'll and we can discuss cameos.