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"Stay!" Marrow pointed his fingers at me while I was mid leap at Weiss dressed in white and blue. I saw the white and blue but the words for the colors deflated. I saw Ruby dressed in crimson and black. The colors became an obscure thing. Sight was an abstract. It was just another one of man's inventions. Color and sight were an absurdity.

As I tried to hold onto them they gave way to a deep transparent uneasiness. Try and hold a color in your hands and watch it slip through your fingers. A circle is not absurd. It's the locus of points equidistant from a middle point. But a circle isn't real. Colors were. They were absurd. But try to grasp a color as tightly as you could and become a futility.

This moment was extraordinary. I hung motionless yet plunged horribly into motion sickness. The vertigo of my sudden stop was overwhelming, frightfully so. My hands were frigid as I was dropped into horrible ecstasy. I could move only my crying eyes and take in those appearances of my friends.

The shock. The betrayal. It shamed me. It stamped across their faces. The shame was real. It wasn't absurd. I was turning on them again. Agony traced it's gentle hand through my body. Like the caress of a lover it touched the bones of my spine.

I pushed desperately against it but I may as well have been pushing a cliff face. It was more likely that I'd be able to pick up the whole academy and carry it on my back than to be able to resist this.

It was inside of me. I was becoming.

I saw revelation in Ruby and Weiss's eyes as they realized. I became realized, too. I understood the motion sickness. I possessed it. I was rushed from place to place by a swift hand on the small of my back, pushing me.

I was blurred right down the line. I saw Weiss. I had to obey. I had to kill her. I think therefore you are. You are, Mother.

What was freedom?

This place was free. The people before me were free. But I was a remnant of something subversive and black with ooze. I was fascinated by my own condition. I think therefore Mother is. Something was listening in on my thoughts. It was hearing me think and suddenly I was afraid of my own thoughts which were at this moment betraying me. And in my heart I was superfluous, amorphous, vague, and sad.

I could feel myself breaking the things I had built up here and I couldn't stop myself. I shattered and became sharply edged with many faucets like some horrible crystal. I would like to tear myself from this atrocious joy but I didn't think that it was possible. Not for me. This was it. I was doomed. My mind was compromised.

At what cost did I lift my eyes and see the incredulity on Yang's face. Blake was firm with resignation, she had seen this coming. Well done, Blake. Ruby's sharp tears lacerated my body and the fear in Weiss's eyes stung me like a thousand hornets.

My hopes were swept away and I grasped at my dreams like a blind man. This wasn't something that could be imagined and fought. It seized one suddenly like the tide and washed one out to a deep dark sea under which no shattered moon shone and no light touched.

Would that I could forget. My soul for a minute of forgetfulness. I didn't want to exist but I couldn't help myself. I was thinking. I was being. And the thing I was being was a monster. I was revolting. But the water was fine.

What were they to me? Weiss and Ruby and the others. Were they more or less than little flashes of pink sunlight on a cold blue sea.

"Help your brother, my little darling pets."

I trembled into the voice from behind me.

I heard the retort of a familiar weapon and Marrow flinched. Saphron shot Marrow who was pointing at me and I could move again, just in time to dodge a fishing line which sought to entangle me.

Unshaking I swept my sword in a tight arc before me. Harriet Bree stepped into my guard with her mechanical exoskeleton in a blur of yellow lightning and punched me in the face. I stumbled back. There was a purple flash of electricity which rushed past me and Violet tackled her. Harriet rolled to her feet to match Violet. They stared at each other for a moment, then the two speedsters took off in flashes of yellow and purple down the hallway to the left of me which Weiss and I had come down.

Saphron landed next to me and did a slicing flip at Clover with her long dagger. Shots whizzed past me from my other sisters as well. Then Iris rushed past me with a ball and chain spinning over her head and she engaged Elm, sidestepping that hammer and whacking her using the spiked ball with a flick of her wrist.

Lily blitzed past me and began to fight Vine. She fired a machine gun at him that transformed into a long hatchet. Lavender paired off with Narrow but she kept switching with Saphron whenever Marrow would pause her. The two kept acrobatically flipping between Clover and Marrow and keeping them ever on their guard.

The twins, Juniper and Kolumbine stopped shooting and ran up to Yang and Blake.

For my part I swung my weapon at Weiss and Ruby blocked it. The deja vu was sickening. I couldn't help but to think of Nora and Ren as my actions spiraled out of my control.

"Cloud!" Ruby shouted in my face. I had to listen. I was a prisoner in my own body. I had no choice but to hear her words and see her face fall into a glorious despair. Her lips turned in anguish, her eyes wide, her brow furrowed in focus. I saw it all as I brought my weapon down on her small body. I had to see it. I had to bear witness to her agony.

My own face contorted. She took a swing at me but it was timid and experimental. Even more so than back in Anima where we spared and she was concerned about breaking me. Those were good times. They hurt to remember.

I batted her heavy scythe to the side with my hundred pound weapon which weighed as much as she did or more. Weiss darted forward so I could see the consternation and focus on her face as she stepped up and jabbed at me with Myrtenaster. She meant it more than Ruby did but she was still pulling her punches by a wide margin. I was going to do it. I was going to kill them both.

"Stop me," I pressed my weapon down on Weiss. It came out as an agonized hiss. There was a slight half mad contest to my words. Like I was threatening her and challenging her at the same time. I wasn't sure which side I was on. Just that it wasn't theirs.

Weiss shook her head and tried to push me off of her. Ruby slammed her whole body weight into me feet first at high speed, enough so that I was sent stumbling back. She swiped at me with Crescent Rose and clipped my legs out from underneath me but I just hovered and hit her with the long blade like a bolt of lightning. She was rocked down the crowded hallway.

I stood and dropped my hands one over the other and held my sword out from my waist. A tentacle set itself gently on my shoulder. A little reminder. A push to go over. A friendly caress.

"You're doing well… kill the winter maiden. Take your place by my side, child."

I quivered at the kindly touch. I nearly convulsed at the grotesqueness that it inspired in me. It was all too much.

I charged at Weiss and just before I brought my weapon down on her I made myself pause. I gave resistance to the devil inside of me for a half second and Weiss managed to block my weakened strike and ripost right into my face with the tip of her rapier. She looked on in trepidation at what she had done.

"That's right," I encouraged. I babbled like a maniac because it was all I could do. Even that sapped strength from me to resist her alien will. Reviled, I revolted as well as I was able.

She looked on in abhorrence. It twisted the beautiful scar on her face into something awful. I think she could tell how much pain I was in because she was crying. Tears streamed down her wonderful face from her crystal ice blue eyes. Her cheeks were flushed red but that could have been from the exertion of our fight. Her eyes flared with the power of the maiden. A glyph opened behind her and a storm of icicles rained down on me.

I tried not to block. I resisted the urge to shield myself and dance into her range and hit her with all the force I could muster behind my gigantic broadsword. I managed to take some on the face, weaved in, and hit her like a truck instead.

In conjunction with her partner, Ruby hit me with two fifty caliber bullets. Then when I swung at her she disappeared in place, reappeared, then hit me with three rapid spins of Crescent Rose all of which tore into my aura like a blender.

I went to swing at her but I mustered my strength at the last minute and held back. It allowed her another quick four free shots while Weiss slowly got back to her feet. Weiss let the revolver on her blade rotate and cast a wave of fire straight at me and I shielded behind my sword as the flames broke over me.

I might be able to beat either one alone, but together they could take me. They had a real shot at this. I just had to hope and pray to whatever gods were listening that they would have the strength enough to do it.

I would rather die than hurt the ones I loved. Only this thing that had crawled inside of me and wore me like a suit didn't care about my wishes or dreams. All I could do was scream as I was puppetted and it floated behind my face and eyes.

Inside of me. It was inside of me just under the surface of my skin. It made me want to cut myself. My fingers itched and the overwhelming desire to hurt myself grew stronger. I was jumping out of my skin while still being trapped inside of it. I felt like I was armor somebody else was wearing. I felt like there was a stranger's face just behind my own donning my visage like a mask. I wanted to peel my eyes out with my fingernails.

I wanted it to stop.

For the love all gods listening I just wanted it to stop. Even if that meant dying. Especially if that meant dying. And I was sorry to put this on them but I wanted my girlfriends to do it. In their hands, they had to understand, I didn't want to take the long way around.

"Just hang in there Cloud!"

I was in such agony. How could some people so empathetic not get what I needed from them. I needed to die. I needed to tear the flesh from my face and reveal that thing beneath me buried under the surface. If they saw that, they would be repulsed and know what I had been all along. They would know I had been telling them the truth about what I really was and they would kill me without hesitation because they were hunters and I was a monster.

I wish that I could go back to before I knew I was this thing. To the halcyon days at Beacon when I was crushing on Weiss or out camping with Ruby in the middle of the forest. Back then I was so blissfully unaware.

I swung at Ruby with a mighty clang. She struggled against me.

Could they deliver? Now in the time when I needed them? They wanted me to live but that was impossible for me. I was a mad dog.

Late nights spent between the three of us poured all through my body like a mighty river. But it didn't provide me the strength to break free. It was serious but I just started laughing. It was high and crazed to my own ears and touched with sadness. Late at night we were never going to work out quite right. Oh, what a dream that had been!

The motion sickness was offensive as I attacked with heavy great swings of my broadsword. I grabbed Ruby by the throat and threw her mightily into a wall. She landed neatly on her feet and came swinging at me with her scythe. She was one of the few that actually outranged even me but my weapon was heavier. Weiss's weapon was the smallest and most sprightly and she kept trying to step into my range and cut me with the tip while Ruby countered me from further away.

Whenever I tried to get in on Ruby she would vanish and shoot me, taking no risks. And everytime I'd try and bring it to Weiss and whale on her, Weiss would step inside where my momentum was countered and Ruby would support her.

They worked well together.

They'd be fine without me.

I had to behold Ruby crying as she fought. I felt like I was seven hundred miles away from them despite that I was meters away.

It was then that I knew the unfairness and cruelty of the gods. So close yet so far away. Impossibly far away. I had all this strength and no freedom. The irony was palpable. My torture was roundabout as well as direct. It was twofold. I was a captive and I knew I was a captive.

Detained in my own flesh prison, I cursed the gods and my Mother and everyone else just for good measure. There was no way out except death. A final and insurmountable sleep. No more kisses, no more sadness, no more mercy. I craved it. It was the only fate I could hope for which would allow me to escape this pain.

Weiss stabbed me in the stomach then darted away again. My semblance activated and the blue flames coalesced around my body. Strength surged through alien muscles. My manikin's body became stronger.

I hesitated.

I was wracked with agony like a dozen lacerations for not moving forward. A step forward and I would be rewarded with everything. But I refused and once more I couldn't breath. And still I hesitated. Ruby knocked me down the hallway. I didn't get up. I didn't breath. I was still as a statue wreathed in pain.

"Get up. Go. Go!"

The monster's voice hissed at me. But I didn't move. Soon my world pulsed between black and white as I still refused to so much as breath. If I was going to die then so be it. Let me choke on nothing to spite my Mother! I felt my face turning blue. The motion sickness roared through me and I almost vomited.

I revolted with all the strength in my soul and mind and my body. I thought of the pink sun setting on Atlas. Let me set too. And let the setting of my soul be pink as well.

Things alternated between black and white faster and faster until white went everywhere and I faded to black.

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-WG