Day Twenty-Nine: That's All? Easy
Characters/Pairings: Jake/Rose; Lao Shi
Rating: T
Content warnings: blood; character death(s); suicide mentions
Don't forget that you can find me on tumblr: we - are - all - of - legend - now and that my ao3 account is wearealloflegendnow (even though I haven't posted there yet)!
~TLL~
Jake winged his way through the streets, trying to fly as fast as he could possibly go. They had found one of the Huntsclan's training centres and Jake and Gramps were immediately en route. Anything that they could do to disturb, disrupt, or destroy anything of the Huntsclan's. Their power had been growing steadily over the past several years and Jake was tired of being on the defense. It was nice to do something offensive for once.
Gramps had beaten him to the perimeter and Jake landed softly beside him, transforming back into a human to attract less attention. The Huntsclan had been very clever and had hidden their training facility in plain sight, much the way they had with the Huntsquarters or how Gramps had with his shop. Jake sat in silence beside his grandfather, just watching. The building stayed suspiciously dark. Jake knew there had to be people in there.
"Tinted windows?" Jake guessed and Gramps nodded with approval.
"What's the plan?"
"Inflict as much damage as possible and don't die in the process." Gramps' tail flicked in distaste.
It was the unfortunate reality of the job that, sometimes, lives had to be taken and by them. It wasn't all the fun shenanigans that Jake had experienced in high school, when Gramps had taken most of the burden on himself. It was something that chipped away at Jake's soul and he knew that if he didn't have Rose to hold onto, he would have lost it completely by now.
Gramps gave the order to wait until they were likely mostly in bed and Jake settled down for the wait, keeping his eyes trained on the door for movement, though there hadn't been any so far. Gramps went to the other side of the building and Jake let his mind wander to Rose. What was she doing now? He hoped that she was thinking of him. He imagined her in her room, laying in her bed while listening to Broadway musicals, dreaming about the life they were going to have.
Jake was going to marry Rose, eventually, but he hoped that someday came soon. They had been dating since they were teenagers but always secretly, so secret that not even his best friends knew about her. According to Rose, she had the most domineering parent on the planet. From the way that she would show up to their rendezvous, Jake thought her father was just downright abusive but she hadn't let him do anything about it. Jake knew that he could take the guy but that wasn't exactly how he wanted Rose to find out that he was a dragon. He would tell her after they had runaway. He wasn't going to wait as long to tell her as his mother had waited to tell his father.
It was well after two am when Gramps came back, interrupting Jake's fantasy of what it would be like if he knew where Rose lived and could just turn up to her room and have a very different kind of night.
"One more thing, before we go in," Gramps rumbled.
"Yeah?"
"If the Huntsgirl is in there, we must kill her. The Huntsman will be crippled if he loses his right hand."
"That's all? Easy. Pshh." The bravado wasn't even entirely false.
Jake hated the thought of killing. Anyone who didn't were the only ones who deserved to be killed, in his opinion, and the entire Huntsclan fell into that category. The Huntsgirl most of all. She had been Jake's rival since his very first transformation and he was not interested in showing her any mercy. She certainly had never done it for him.
It was never easy to get into a Huntsclan facility but Jake and Gramps always managed. Gramps took out the first guard before he had a chance to sound the alarm but it meant they were on borrowed time. Huntsclan members were heavily monitored and he would be missed. Gramps headed downstairs to destroy what was likely the equipment while Jake went upstairs to see if the upper floors were offices or dorms.
The Huntsgirl was waiting for him in the hallway.
"Trespassers will be killed on sight," she announced.
"Dare you to try."
It was the only words that they exchanged. The stairwell became slick with blood as they both went for the other's throats. The air was thick with dragon fire and Jake wondered how she could see, let alone breathe. He was tiring and worried about Gramps and was too determined not to let her see any of it. The Huntsgirl didn't look worse for wear at all. Jake swiped at her, her staff came down, and she stepped backward to try and balance herself. Her heel went into a puddle of her own blood and the Huntsgirl slipped, cracking her head on the floor. Her eyes were open and she was still moving but, for the first time, she was disoriented.
Jake didn't hesitate. He yanked her weapon away from her and threw it down the stairwell. He grabbed her by the throat, pinning her down against the stairs, even as she struggled to kick him, bite him, do anything to get free. There was finally fear in her big blue eyes because she knew what he knew. This was how she died.
"Goodbye, Huntsgirl."
Jake let his claws puncture her neck. The Huntsgirl let out one more pitiful wheeze as the blood rushed from her body and over his dragon's claw. She turned her head toward him and then her eyes dimmed and her breath stopped. Jake kept his paw tight around her neck for another few moments, making sure that she was dead. He went to leave her but morbid curiousity overtook him.
Jake went back to the Huntsgirl's body and then pulled the mask from her head.
"Rose?"
Jake blinked, sure that his mind was playing some sort of trick on him. It was just that the Huntsgirl was blonde and blue eyed, just like bus Rose. The blood was making it hard to see clearly. The air was thick with smoke and fire. It wasn't Rose. It couldn't be. But when Jake frantically untied the Huntsgirl's braid and let it float around her still face, he was left with the inescapable truth of the fact that he had just killed Rose.
Jake let out a long cry, so full of anguish that he couldn't believe he had made that sound when it came bouncing back at him.
"Rose!"
"Jake!" Gramps' hand was on his arm, pulling and yanking but Jake was frozen.
So, this was the secret all along. The reason that they couldn't be together. Jake wondered what would have happened if they had told each other all of their secrets and his heart broke with all the answers he would never get now. Because he had killed his Rose.
"Jake, we have to go."
Jake felt completely powerless as Gramps forced Rose's body out of his arms and then bullied Jake out of the burning Huntsclan training building. The Huntsclan members were too frantic to put up any real fight as the dragons fled. Jake didn't know if he had it in him to hurt anyone else. Tonight or ever again.
They were in the air, heading toward home. Except Jake's home was supposed to be Rose and their future and he had killed it. God, at least she hadn't known who he was. Gramps drifted over to Jake.
"Congratulations," Gramps said proudly. "You did it! You killed the Huntsgirl!"
"It wasn't worth it," Jake mumbled, but his words were lost to the wind.
The only thing Jake wanted to kill now was himself.
