Chapter 9

William looked around the table, at his teammates. He'd made a point of never talking about his family, and their history, so this was going to be a first for him. But Y'sh had shown that she was willing to trust them, and it would be terribly unfair of him not to do likewise.

Besides, he knew he could.

"So, as you all know, I'm a Telos. The Telos Foundation goes back three generations, and it started out as a fairly small-scale medical supplier. My great-grandfather founded it in the aftermath of the Great War, to try and heal the damage done by people, and Grimm. He just wanted to be able to leave the world in a better state than he'd seen it growing up."

He smiled, sadly. "That ideal only lasted a generation. After he stepped down, my grandfather took over, and expanded the company almost to the level it is to this day. He made lien left and right, and it seemed like he was actually going to improve the state of medicine across Remnant. And then…"

A shadow crossed William's eyes. Dahlia gulped, audibly, at the apparent chill coming from her team leader.

"My uncle, my father's older brother, the heir-apparent… Developed a terminal illness. In his fear, my grandfather turned his attention to unlocking the secrets of life itself. He wanted to defeat death, so that he would be able to save his favoured son." His teammates gasped, Y'sh even releasing Dahlia's hand to raise her own to her mouth. William's lips twisted as he continued. "Yeah, he actually confirmed that was how he felt. Of course, he failed, but that didn't stop his obsession. Instead of curing his son's terminal illness, he became devoted to the idea of making himself immortal, so he would never have to hand over the reigns to anyone, my father included."

Rust opened his eyes, wanting to ask, but afraid of interrupting his leader's flow. They had all listened to Y'sh's explanation without comment, even as they grew concerned, but this…? He could only guess based on their expressions, but he knew that he was facing a growing horror.

"After I was born, my father refused to allow his own father to deny him what he felt was his right. So he engineered a corporate coup. Or, hostile takeover, if you will. I think some of the Board hoped that he'd take the Foundation down another route, one that could actually earn some money from the development costs, so they didn't oppose him.

They were wrong.

My father spread the influence of the Foundation, to the point that it became the front line in medical development, from drugs to treatment plans, technology to education. On the surface, it was all above board, and he even managed to prevent any of the rumours that surround the SDC from forming within it. There was no overt mistreatment of employees for their specific race, or gender, the contracts were apparently fair…

But the devil is always in the details. Complicated contracts, hidden clauses, all to give the Foundation various rights, under certain specific conditions. Conditions that required an entire division to… 'Deal with'."

Y'sh looked confused by the dark tone William had used with his last sentence. She opened her mouth to ask, when Dahlia spoke.

"He means that the division was there to engineer those conditions happening. To make sure that people found themselves fulfilling that obscure piece of their contracts."

William nodded, frowning. He hated that the company his great-grandfather had made had become like this, and he hated that he knew so much about it. "Ignorance really is bliss, huh?"

"The worst part is that those clauses were for signing away the rights of not only the holder, but their immediate descendants." He ignored the muffled gasps from Y'sh and Rust, and tried not to feel the glare coming from Dahlia. "My father, for all his outwardly pristine reputation, was still trying to unlock the secrets of life itself. He devoted everything he could get away with into research and development, specifically within the realm of biological manipulation and anatomical analysis. Which meant that he was always in need of… Research materials…"

The silence around the table grew, as each of the members of Team WYRD translated what William had said into plain language.

"Yes. Exactly that. Trust me, as horrified as you are right now, I'm just as much, if not more so. Turns out, I wasn't even meant to be a member of the family. I was just an experiment myself, to find out how my father's genetics would work with a sample from a woman with an unusual Semblance. All to see if he could produce something that could be used for the propagation of his plans."

"Why did no one speak out against any of this?" Whispered Y'sh, through her hand. Her eyes were wide with horror and disgust, shock lacing every syllable.

"Because by the time anyone found out the details, they'd already been complicit in a lot of it, unbeknownst to themselves at the time. And no matter what, none of them were willing to blow the whistle if it meant that they'd be hanging themselves along with everyone else."

"And how, exactly, do you know these details?"

William flinched at the icy tone Dahlia used. He could tell that she was trying not to lose her own temper at what he'd been saying, and the implication that she'd come to. For his part, he'd been doing his best to keep his own voice clear of the disgust and rage that was filling his heart, but his teammate's question shattered that control.

"Because my father decided that he wanted me to take up a more active role in the Foundation once I graduate Beacon, as a public endorsement from a Hunstman is always good for business." The once-calm voice of their leader was now shaking with barely-restrained hatred. "I couldn't believe what I'd been hearing. This man, the man I'd called 'father', the man who I thought was trying to live up to the ideals that the Telos Foundation had been built on… Was nothing more than a monster wearing human form, and he wanted me to join him in his depravity…"

Dahlia looked into William's eyes, and past the tears of pain and rage, she felt that she could almost see the scene he was describing. The song of his soul was screaming in anger, and she almost flinched back from it. But she could also hear his resolve, underlining every note.

"I punched him, harder than I'd ever hit someone before. I tore apart his office as he tried to get away from me. And I just. Kept. Swinging. By the time I finally came back to my senses, I was probably only a few more away from actually killing him." William's jaw clenched at the memory. "For all that he'd done, that he was still planning to do… I couldn't do it. I couldn't bring myself to actually… Kill him, with my own hands. So I left, and I told him that I would never aid him in his sick designs. I would not shy from my name, seeking to uphold the memory and honour of the man who made it synonymous with healing. And that if he ever tried to bring me back into the fold, I would go to every news source on Remnant and tell them everything, and damn the results. I think he realised then, that no matter how much of his genetics I had, I would never truly be his son…"

A heavy silence now hung above the quartet. One of them opening up with some revelations had been bleak enough, but William's confession made it seem even darker. Rust and Y'sh were thanking the fates that they'd at least had childhoods filled with compassion and acceptance, for the most part. They couldn't imagine what it must have been like for William, discovering all of the things he'd just shared with them.

Dahlia glared at the surface of the table, trying to come to her own decision. The songs around her were filled with sorrow, fear, pain… And she was loath to add to it with her own, but…

"If you don't want to share, Sparky, you don't have to." She looked up at William, who was trying to regain his characteristic smirk over a nickname. "I mean, it's not exactly fun to bare everything like this, you know?"

She shook her head, frowning. Everyone else at the table, her friends had opened up about their respective pasts. She wouldn't be able to look herself in the eye if she refused here and now.

"No, I want to. I need to, to tell you what my story is. But… It's not as viscerally horrifying as any of yours. It's just… Sad."

With those words, Dahlia took a deep breath, and braced herself to tell her teammates just why she hated her family name, and the people it represented…