WARNING: Brutal violence, blood, murder, execution, allusion to rape.
Thetis and Sorrento's Interlude
As catastrophe had struck Earth, similarly had it transpired in Atlantis. Poseidon's defeated men had been astonished by the spectacle of Athena's voice and Cosmos long ago, apart from the subsequent fall of their Lord. In their retreat, they scattered far surpassing the perimeter of the Pillars, into plains of sediment ever more surreal with each meter traveled. Sanctuary's warriors convened around the Saints in Poseidon's temple, and therefore no more point in hiding remained.
Several minutes elapsed following the announcement of their defeat, and so these faraway, misty lands fell eerily silent. It was in an incredibly remote area, to a point where the light of Atlantis began to darken, that a deathlike song faintly echoed, the single source of noise thereabouts. Between mounds of sand, the reddish boots of the Mermaid Scale landed softly, leaving footsteps wherever its owner walked.
Invariably, Thetis had been attracted to music rather than the cowardice of her defeated subordinates. Sorrento was found there, omitted from curious sights, and it took him seconds to interrupt the playing as a welcome to his sisterly friend. For whatever motive, his gaze did not meet the woman's bloodied view recognized in the periphery, but Atlantis' changed landscape in the brightened distance instead.
Exhausted from the constant warring, the ups and owns of her soul, Mermaid idly turned and looked into the shadows afar. Her friend focused on the obvious regardless, lamenting: "To think our home would be so disgraced…"
Finally Thetis looked back to the same view. "Atlantis covered in blood…" she muttered, Ares' fearsome warning materialized before her, all this despite Heaven's absence. Her comrade turned inquisitively, and she continued "… I had convinced myself it wouldn't end up this way, but how else would it?"
"All war spills blood," Sorrento soberly remarked. "For the Pillars to fall till none remains, that is something special."
When the woman's eyes returned to his face, his melancholic stare yet suffered that alien picture. "Though you took the last pillar yourself," she assumed with a high degree of certainty; there was no denying a flute had demolished the North Atlantic, the nearest of the Oceanic Pillars to where they were. Siren shut the eyes hearing this. "That's how I learned you hadn't died at the South Atlantic. You sided with the enemy. What for, Sorrento?"
"To stop Poseidon's madness," he argued, such language a reflection of his newfound alignment.
Rather, Mermaid's alignment was more rigid, and she countered with another question: "Our Lord, mad?"
"He is dead, Thetis." Finally the young man's eyes reopened to confront her sorry state, a woman who wildly distributed death, even in the risk of her own. Guilt pierced a place buried in his chest, a feeling he would need long to healthily process, but he went on. "So is Julian Solo. Let us discuss their deeds — our deeds — in reasonable terms for once."
Again, Thetis' stare to him was an echo of her stiff ideology: bemused, of one witnessing absurdity. It was in account of how precious that man was to her that she entertained his words. "We are Marina!" she exclaimed. "We serve Atlantis and Lord Poseidon, we do as we're told! What are you thinking?"
"Is that really how you see things?" he genuinely asked.
The other Mariner frowned and looked back to the destruction, waving a hand at it. "Atlantis took us when we were lost. They tended for us, offered us haven compared to Earth's hostility. Not even Lord Poseidon's choices can change this, and for that, I have no regrets," she spoke.
"In that you are right," Sorrento agreed, "though when our forces are used to threaten the lives of innocents, I cannot stand by it."
A chuckle nigh immediately slipped from Thetis' lips. "Innocents now?" she doubted, whereas the man sighed through the nose, expecting her tirade. "Another prey of Athena's rhetoric, though I had warned. To think you, of all people, would call the Earthfolk innocent…"
"Do you feel no guilt?"
"I carry no guilt in threatening filth! Filth is what they are!" the Mariner raised her voice, though it didn't last. As this thought was rationalized, her words tread carefully. "Sorrento, you… you have been violated by them. By that…"
Thetis grunted, feeling unable to freely speak out. He, in the other hand, subtly nodded the head left and right, trying to meet a human glimmer in her eyes. "Do you feel no guilt for the innocent who drowned?" he questioned. "The good and kind, or the clueless children as we once were." Ultimately she was silent; she worried more for him, whose tears rared to run down his cheeks, than to be right. "After what that woman did to me, I swore death to humanity, denounced my Earthly blood, and assisted a cataclysm against them. I let her evil poison me, body and soul."
To that Mermaid protested: "You did nothing wrong!"
Meeting her assiduity unfettered, Sorrento almost seemed content then. "Oh, I did. You are a kind woman, Thetis, so I am sure you care," he said, left the flute beside him, and stood hither. His hands hovered close to her features — soiled by viscerae — as if to frame it in his blame. "I know you like no other."
"Sorrento…"
The man's hands wandered down to grasp her gauntlets; he flipped her palms and admired them with loss. As a tear dropped onto it, smearing dry blood, she realized her unbecoming looks. Those otherwise unassuming fingers had seized the lives of many undeserving of pain.
"You hide your vendetta behind duty, but there is no more point," Siren told, thus turning the woman's palms towards her. "Look, hatred has left even your delicate hands so impure…"
"Please, stop," her voice was now muffled, tremulous.
"How could I allow hatred to bloody you so?" the man insisted on weeping, breaking down again. "How could I?"
His hands weakened as he quietly sobbed, but her eyes could no longer escape the war hidden in those palms. Not only Saints, soldiers, and amazons were slain by those, she remembered well, a civilian once did too.
Sorrento's tears solemnly mirrored her grimy skin. Thetis' mind regressed to her teenage years, when they were fledgling Marina, and when no threat of conflict yet loomed. Despite this, she had not traveled along the Atlantean city, nor the temples; she swam up to the Earth's surface, leaving a sea she was unfortunately intimate with.
From beside a lighthouse, the armored Mermaid spied a building she once would've called home, the conservatory that adopted their orphaned talents with promise of normalcy. She went down to stone paths and gardens that divided the compound from the Mediterranean, yet she vanished amid shade of trees and bushes, such that the handful of folk nearby could not notice her.
Her light leaps brought her into the corridor, into shadows that could occlude her from a handful of musicians passing. Their voices were like leaves in the wind, pleasant, albeit uncharacteristic; in another circumstance, perhaps she would have wondered whether she met those people in her childhood, though by then, she never bothered. These were now strangers, and her voice was of a singer no more, rather of a woman bound to kill.
She hoped to find the target in the same spot she always slept in. Once the corridor was clear, she slipped out of darkness and back to light, the sun casting heavenly rays through rows of windows. Her face, even more youthful back then, turned to study what was behind ere continuing. Little time was required, but it was time regardless.
One of the doors was identified as the destination; daintily she turned the handle, helping herself inside with minimal sound. Details aside, the bedroom looked the same, and white veils partially blocked the sunlight, so the place was dipped in moderate darkness. She crossed through the corridor, wondering what it had felt like for Sorrento, so young, to have been trapped therein. Each second that she imagined what had been forced unto him made her angrier. Orphaning aside, that was the genesis of her beloved friend's hell. As far as he was concerned, it must've been hell itself.
From the corner of the wall, Thetis met the sight of the madam, now somewhat older. Her dress was as flowered, as elegant as ever, and so was her hairdo, expensive perfume wafted in the air. In a hand she held a mechanical pen, used to write on a partiture on her desk. The Mariner needed not see her face, since all else assured her of the woman's identity.
The ultimate choice was crafted, therewith the girl exited her hiding to menacingly accost from behind. Her penumbra loomed and made it impossible for the madam to read what was written, so she faced her soon-to-be assailant; that face was undeniable. There she was, Sorrento's devil.
"Huh?" Seeing such a relentless approach, she got up and brushed the chair aside, forcing her hip to the desk. "Who are you? What are you…"
Thetis inexplicably stopped the march. She stood there, dangerous, rising an aura about her. She took off the helmet and revealed those long, luscious blonde locks; her face had matured with age, despite yet being youthful, but even back then she had already become quite beauteous. The madam studied her form, the eyes, the hair… that face, too, was undeniable.
"Thetis!" she exclaimed, and surprise gave way to ecstatic laughter. "You are alive! Thank God, all along you were alive, so this means… this means he…"
The unexpected visitor raised a leg and stomped the boot harshly against the flooring ahead, cracking the smoothed panels. "DEATHTRAP CORAL!" she shouted, minding no longer that she was to be heard. When others came to find her victim, she would no doubt be dead. Stony, colorful structures rose from beneath the foundation, fast approaching the floor, blowing through it in a loud bang, then through the desk to launch its contents aside.
Those things, like claws and tentacles, enclosed the madam's legs as a matter of course, up to her waist and chest. After putting the helmet back on, Thetis helped her back to the wall formerly inaccessible, by virtue of the thus destroyed table; her fingers led her throat until the nape rested against an obstacle.
Once came a point where she could have let her go, for the coral held the neck too, though she hesitated. The surprise in the older woman's eyes were apparently awash in ecstasy. "He may be alive," she commemorated. "He is, is he not?"
Mermaid swallowed spit, yet there was no fighting that dryness of the mouth and throat. "No thanks to you," she murmured in drowned hatred, "but don't die with clear consciousness. You killed something precious in him, and that debt is long due."
"Alive, he is alive!" the lady joyously cried, and there were authentic tears in her eyes. "My Sorrento, he lives! My Sorrento…"
Disgust spread from Thetis' guts to the rest of the body. She growled as if invoked with a spirit unknown, and her arms moved with instinct, swinging violently against the madam's head. "He's not yours!" she yelled. Her victim spat blood, though she could barely move; not fed by Cosmos, the corals started to wither, and curious voices called from beyond the hallway outside.
"My Sorrento is alive, my Sorrento…" the lady's voice was thus mumbled, drunken, stuck behind the blood of her teeth.
"HE IS NOT YOURS!" Thetis screamed and struck her again, for she could bear her sickened delusions no longer. She grabbed her by the top of the hair, fingers entwined in fury, and slammed her skull against the wall behind. "He is not yours! Sorrento is not yours! He was never yours! He is not yours!" she repeated at the same pace she forced the madam's head back and forth. The back of her cranium split, so blood and matter naturally burst from within; it defaced the teenager's fingers and face the longer it went.
The woman had to be long dead, if not at the verge of death. Slightly out of that tantrum, Mermaid peeked and saw the target's eyes were atilt. She could not make out if it was the animal in her which felt a sense of horror, though there was some fierce feeling, some warrior instinct that encountered satisfaction. The deed had been done. The devil had been vanquished.
But the devil yet dared look too human for her tastes. The madam's name was called from outside, whether by a student or a colleague, the girl did not care to think. She flexed a spear hand behind herself, firing up more Cosmos. "You never owned him, and now you own nothing," the Mariner whispered before striking one last instance. Fresh blood openly splashed across her stunning features, painting her as Sanctuary's invasion once would in years to come.
In succession she stepped back and watched the madam's corpse dangle due to the coral's wilting. "Is everything alright in there?" an unknown voice called from the corridor. After a last look, Thetis hurried with a blast of energy, launching herself past the veils and out the bedroom window.
As she escaped from the central gardens to the ceiling, then down to the back gardens, then to that lone lighthouse afar, she heard squeals of shock coming from the scene. She simply could not bring herself to care. Her senses converged elsewhere.
She reached that edge, near where the sea crashed against rocks. Turning back, she saw the conservatory and recognized no home. Surrounding her, the skies, the clouds, the buildings the flowers… those were never home. Behind her was the closest to such a thing, the Mediterranean Sea, where she returned to. Thetis leapt and let her body drop to the waters.
On the way there, she saw how fresh blood trailed her path, and stared at both scarlet-tainted hands. Even as the ocean took her, this blood was not easily washed. Even the most ephemeral traces of violence took long to disappear, she noted.
Awakening from this memory, her eyes had also accumulated an abundance of tears. This act had never been revealed to her beloved friend, and she wondered whom she had committed it for; whether him, herself, or civilization at last, she never managed to argue it in her head. Once power and freedom was offered to her, she did it, and that had been enough until then.
Those bloody hands were not over a single life now, but many more. Indeed, he was correct, she hid behind a sense of duty, yet killed without repulse out of hatred alone, a most passionate emotion. Once she raised the eyes to meet Sorrento, she also broke down and sobbed.
No matter if the venom of hatred was incurable, right there stood what mattered most, a thing they had both neglected. She embraced Sorrento protectively, then leaned his head to her neck, where his tears could be carelessly drained. "Stop, stop…" she asked, no longer a cold order, more a melody to ease the pain.
"I've let you become so…" he restarted that ruthful complaint, which she cut off.
"It doesn't matter, Sorrento," Thetis said. "It doesn't matter anymore." Her breaking voice could seldom speak, and she buried her chin and nose in his hair for comfort. "We'll care for one another like we always did. Things will be right."
Their crying went on, nestling suffering in fraternal love, while the remainder of Poseidon's forces retreated further. With few exceptions, ruins in temple courtyards had become naught but a dire leftover of Athena's crushing victory. These sights of death and destruction were quiet thus, echoing only the chants of victory in the distance.
Gradually the chants waned as well, and the North Atlantic heard no sound. Its column, downed by one of Sorrento's caprices, crushed both its guardian and the priest who once cursed the Earth's rains. Their blood is what stained the layers of marble and other stones.
However, rubble shifted in an exhibit of animation. An armored hand came from betwixt shards, coated in sweat, blood, and dust, then grasped a large piece for rescue. When its fingers firmly pressed around the solid, it was clear that someone was yet full of life.