Nightshift 28: Main Hallway, 1-Center
[[From here]]
Allen struggled to keep Sanji from falling over as they walked further into the institute. The halls were so dark without the portable lanterns, it was difficult to see much going on in front of them. He didn't like it, but there wasn't much he could do about it for the time being.
"Whatever is close I guess," Allen replied to Sanji ( Read more... )
Allen struggled to keep Sanji from falling over as they walked further into the institute. The halls were so dark without the portable lanterns, it was difficult to see much going on in front of them. He didn't like it, but there wasn't much he could do about it for the time being.
"Whatever is close I guess," Allen replied to Sanji ( Read more... )
He'd barely decided to ask her to repeat herself--something about Daemon--when he felt a powerful surge of the Black almost on top of them. "Mother Night!" he exclaimed as River sprang for the door. He reached for her arm, but didn't quite reach it, instinctively reaching downwards to throw a Black lock on the door to the Sun Room so it couldn't be opened.
And swayed from the draining effort. His Jewels weren't here! But Daemon's were? He couldn't hold it longer than a few moments, so he had to use what time he had effectively.
"River, lady, don't! You don't understand the kind of power he has if he has his Jewels." Speaking was an effort, but he had to do so. And at the moment, he was more concerned than angry.
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She whirled about, closing her eyes as her chest rose and fell rapidly. Hearts pounding like heavy fists on a door. Every number added up into something it shouldn't, and here she was.
For a moment, the sky cleared. A moment in the clarity Schuldig had given her and the peace she'd found in Miranda. River's eyes opened, and her breath steadied.
"I understand. Know my part in this better than he'd think," she remarked calmly, addressing Ren and Daemon's father. "Not always clear, not always able to help it, but I know. I know more than you think. Have to go in there. They've taken his mind for the full night's moon, and there are going to be a lot of people made stains on the side of the road. Gotten one in his web, and he's sleeping now." River looked each of them in the eye, a single tear rolling down her cheek. "They did this to me. I have to go. Even have half a functioning plan. Ren knows."
The plan being to break the finger, punch him in throat, and knock him unconscious. Only 34% chance of success, but it was something. And something was everything right now.
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Turning to Saetan, Ren took River's words to mind and tried to make the explanation as brief as possible, not knowing what Saetan already knew and what he didn't. "Apparently they alternate between experimentation and a form of thought control depending on the night. Tonight's got to be the brainwashing. I've been told that despite whatever's been done, he'll have his full abilities back for one night only. He'll come back to himself in the morning, but will be an enemy until then." "They did this to me." Just pawns to menace the other prisoners, another puzzle piece that clicked into place.
He risked a quick look inside, a peek of a few seconds and nothing more. River was obviously trying hard to explain herself, but he needed some kind of visual. There was unnatural light. Just the light, and nothing else. No one else. He didn't feel like Saetan or River did, but he still knew better.
If that room was empty, then all of his instincts were lying.
"The idea," Ren continued blankly, knowing full well the 'plan' and what crap it was, "is that River-san wants to try and bring him down."
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It was worse than he feared.
Saetan pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose, trying to keep hold of the lock, just the lock, but he couldn't hold it. He knew it.
"Is there any possible chance she can? If..." He drew a long breath as the block collapsed on itself. Silently, he hoped, for he needed a moment more to try to dissuade these children from adding to the blood on Daemon's conscience. "If he's against us, even I would have trouble stopping him at my full strength, which I don't have right now. River is a remarkable young woman, but she's not a witch. Even if she was..."
He shook his head, hoping that River wouldn't call his bluff on the lock and barge right in anyway. But he was failing to wrestle his anger down, and as it flared, he grew colder. There were still depths within himself he could reach even without his Jewels, and his anger at the Institute--at the doctor who controlled it--fueled his descent. His son, his child, being manipulated to hurt his own friends.
"He can kill with the blink of an eye. Do you want to do that to him?" The question was for both of them, these beautiful children whose blood he could easily imagine freezing on the walls of the Sun Room. A deep chill descended around him, lightly frosting the edges of the door.
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"He won't kill. We're conditioned not to," she whispered quietly, pleading in her eyes as she exposed the naked truth of it. River had crippled a man and almost mortally wounded two more with barely a thought or notion set in the way of it. But they were not allowed the gift and the curse of death. Daemon wouldn't kill them, and she had to see.
"The river's run this course. We can face him, and it won't be swept from us. Our breath won't be stolen in our sleep because he can't. Won't let him." To Saetan, to Ren. There had to be faith, illogical and faint whisper of reality that it was. "Please. Can't do it alone. Saetan. Nii-san. We won't die. Promises, but I have to go. I need to see him."
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To Saetan's other question, he gave a simple, "I don't know," and looked at River's set face. His true thought gave a simple, resounding 'no', but that was also something he kept to himself. Optimistic assumptions could be foolhardy, but pessimistic ones were best kept silent in the face of determination. River's determination, to be precise.
"I guess I'm going," he said airily, a half-smile on his face. "Though, River-san, if or when I tell you to, I want you to look away and close your eyes. No hesitating. Cover them up. That's my one condition." The doll looked to Daemon's father, because if the man chose to come along and leave the door unguarded, he'd also need to do the same.
The servant knew a lost battle when he saw one. Unless he knocked her unconscious, the girl River was going to approach their unlikely foe, and to do less than that meant that Ren would have to be there too.
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Yet Saetan couldn't think what they could possibly do. He knew others here had different magic than Craft, but there was none of that in River except the sparkle of her strange soul. He didn't know about Ren. Ren, like the strange girl he served, was one of the ones who seem to have some psychic depth but he was unable to measure or assess the nature of what he was. He'd go in there to face the Warlord Prince with more than his bare hands.
There was so much he couldn't explain. He'd never seen Daemon exercising his full strength, just heard stories, stories enough to chill him, who also wore the Black. Yes, Daemon's relative youth had once left him in awe of Saetan's better trained abilities, but the son had long surpassed the father. They were mirrors yet, but Daemon reached deeper into the Black. That depth terrified Saetan, more than he wanted to admit. His fear, for himself and the children and Daemon, layer upon layer of fears it seemed, helped pull him back from the edge. He hadn't the strength to kill that way any longer, but he did have his snake's tooth.
"Very well," he grated. "If you insist, I'll have to help you." His deep voice felt and sounded like he'd swallowed a mouthful of ground glass. He expected to cough up blood. "There are many things he could do that fall short of killing, but are horrific none the less. I heard from his brother what he used to be like in the Courts of Terreille." He didn't know those stories were just the vaguest details; he'd never danced with the Sadist. Nor had Lucivar, who'd told him the tales, but he thought he understood. "And, if your other plan fails, we have one other possible weapon."
He held out his hands, spreading the fingers wide to display the slightly long black-painted nails. "I'm also a Black Widow. Not natural like Daemon--I was the first male Black Widow and High Priest of the Hourglass Coven among other things--but I have a snake's tooth as well. I don't know what they've done to it here, but there is still venom in it. I would be able to tell if there wasn't. If you fail, I may be able to get close enough to use it."
Perhaps a trio of opponents whom he couldn't kill would keep Daemon off balance. Saetan could only pray to the Darkness that it was so.
"The door is unlocked."
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She'd just have to fight with her eyes closed.
A small hand rested on the door, pulling it open slowly and stepped inside.
[[ into the lion's den here. ]]
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