Dear Musashi,
...but I was being lazy. Oh well.
And yeah, it occurs to Phoenixeiros that she could have just alluded to the whole Others thing throughout the entire text, but noooo. She - forgot. How unglamorous.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION: Well, ok, not so important. But as I was typing last night I realized that I hadn't given Phoenix the line Charlie talked about in the first Book of "Welcome to Hell" - so in the scene where Phoenix kills Fetch I went and changed that part so she says the line.
And err. We'll overlook the fact that for the past couple of segments I totally forgot Charlie existed. Eh heh.
She can’t remember when the Others came. Obviously, because she remembers very little. She does know that they weren’t always there. That there was a time Before the Others came and a time After.
It’s somewhere in the After that she and all the others were experimented on and Changed. And ever since then, in the only life she has ever known, she has been told that the Others are bad- out to destroy humanity, and that it is their job, their duty, to stop that from happening.
Kill first. That’s always been the rule. Kill first. If you can do only one thing, kill. If you can do anything at all, make sure you kill. Don’t do anything else you might be curious in doing, just kill.
And Phoenix always has. She’s good at killing.
But right now… right now, unless it’s wearing a white coat, she’s not quite up to killing anything. Unless it’s preaching the laws of those that wear white coats, and trying to fuck with her, then she doesn’t feel up to killing it. The dragon hasn’t done anything to her, and so she finds that she doesn’t want to kill it.
When she feels the heat that stops her from fighting that came soaring through the sky she no longer wants to kill anything at all. For just one single moment in time, she feels completely calm, in awe of something - something better. Something beautiful.
The whitecoats hate the Others, and would not have named her Phoenix had they known that the bright red birds would also be coming to Earth. She received her name by one scientist who had a fondness for old Marvel comic books, and by the time the firebirds came it was too late to change her name.
Phoenix has always liked the birds that share her name. She’s never killed one, and actually, she’s never had to. The birds don’t come out in public too often, they stay hidden from view. It’s incredibly rare for any of the Excess to see one, much less an entire flock.
She falls to her knees, still looking up at the sky. The dragon is looking at her, wary. Out of her peripheral vision she can see Osseus trying to slowly approach her. The dragon hisses fire at him so he stops. Phoenix breaks her gaze to look at the amber eyes of the dragon. They stare at each other. “Do you want to keep doing this?” She whispers to the dragon, feeling suddenly defeated by everything.
The dragon looks at her, deep into her eyes, and then remarkably, opens its mouth-
“No. I would rather not.”
Phoenix looks at him dumbly, not quite sure what to do with this. Osseus is the one who breaks the dumb silence with, "What did you just say?” All of the other Excess started blinkingly at the dragon, a few mutter, “Did it just talk?”
The dragon still looks wary, and eyes them all with dislike. Its almost as if it is surprised as they are, and it repeats, “No. I would rather not keep doing this.”
Phoenix looks down at the ground, a large sense of loss descending upon her. “Then,” she whispers mostly too herself, in a bewildered tone of voice, “why are we doing this?”
The dragon blinks down at her. “Well,” he says off-handedly, “I rather thought you just liked fighting.”
Phoenix feels like she should curl up into a little ball and die.
Osseus’ Legion stand around dumbly. They haven’t returned to the Facility yet, but that’s going to have to happen soon.
“This doesn’t-” One of the Excess speaks up. “This doesn’t change anything.”
“Cunt.” Phoenix mutters. “Do you really think that?”
“I- I don’t know what I think. Osseus I want to go back.”
Phoenix snorts and mutters to himself.
Osseus nods curtly. “Anyone else who wants to leave now may do so.” He says authoritatively. Many trickle back. The ones that are
left are Phoenix, Tehx, Raven, Dopple, and Link.
“They’ll wonder where we are.”
Dopple points out.
“You don’t have to stay.”
“Hey, no need to get defensive. I’m just saying. They’ll wonder where we are. Do you think the others will tell them what we saw?”
Osseus shakes his head wryly. “They wouldn’t be leaving unless they wanted to forget about everything that just happened.”
“They lied to us.” Phoenix says suddenly, not really paying attention to what the others had been saying after the other Excess
left.
Osseus looks at her with a raised brow. “Does this really surprise you?”
Because of the angle that Phoenix is sitting in, Osseus is the only one that sees that tears are threatening to come out. He’s
perturbed by this, and feels comforted by the fact that she fights them back. “But they lied to us. They told us the Others were dangerous. That’s why- that’s why we’re here. That’s why we’re here and no longer- there.”
Silence. “Maybe they didn’t know?” Tehx offers. Even when he says it, it doesn’t sound like he believes it himself.
“Link?” Osseus asks questioningly.
Link understands. “I don’t know. I’ve never been able to get that much off of the whitecoats, they’re always so careful around me.”
“Did- did the Others-?”
“I’ve never been able to link with them.” She answers before he can finish asking. “Like animals, I can’t get into their heads. Until today, I didn’t think they were sentient.”
“They’re just not human.” Phoenix says, almost sadly. “That’s all. They’re just not human.”
“We never wanted harm.” The dragon said. “We came to the Old Home because it was no longer safe where we were. We knew we would face opposition, and hostility, it is why we left in the first place. We never thought the humans would create Executioners.”
“I never wanted to be an Executioner.” Phoenix whispers to herself. “So why do I kill? Why do I keep killing?’
“We don’t have a choice.” Link says coldly. “Look, this isn’t what Hera meant when she said it, but this really doesn’t change anything. What are we supposed to do? Tell the whitecoats to shove it? If that’s all it would take we could have been out of here ages
ago.”
Osseus knows that she’s right, but he’s unable to bring himself to accept that. He’s quite distressed by the recent revelations, there’s no question about that. But in the deepest parts of his mind he thinks that this is a good opportunity, the sort of opportunity that he’s been working for.
“It isn’t right,” he begins, and they all turn to look at him. Except Phoenix, who has her head laying on her knees. She’s listening though, and that’s all that matters. Link is looking at him with an odd expression on her face. She knows what he’s going to say, what he’s planning to do. Has known that this is what he’s wanted for a very long time. Now that it’s starting though, she’s not quite sure how she feels.
“It isn’t’ right that they created us with the expectation of keeping us in slavery. We’re superior to those who created us, they made it so we would be superior. And yet they treat us like we’re some kind of mindless marionette, or some kind of lab rat that they can control what we can do, what we think, and experiment on us. It isn’t right, and it needs to change. We need to start taking fate into our own hands.”
There’s a hushed sort of silence. It’s not like they didn’t expect this. The ones who stayed, stayed for this reason. Because it wasn’t right. But now that it was said out loud, the unspoken thought that everyone had at one point or another, no one was quite sure what they wanted to do about this.
“And what exactly do you propose that we do?” Tehx asks, half in sarcasm, half in seriousness.
“We escape.” Osseus says simply. “We leave this place, and we don’t ever look back. They’ll come after us, but we just keep on running. Even If we have to run, to hide for the rest of our lives, at least they will be out lives to live.”
“You make it sound so easy.” Dopple points out. “And the running and hiding is all well and good, but getting out is going to be difficult.”
“They have Guns,” Osseus acknowledges. “And Limiters, and Monitors everywhere. Not to mention the fact that if we try to escape they will undoubtedly use other Excess against us.”
“Yeah see, not reassuring so much.” Tehx says cynically.
“But we can get around all of that, if we’re careful.” Osseus continues, giving Tehx a disapproving look. He measures out those that have stayed and calculates what they can do and how this can work to his advantage. It’s not the worse team, but they’ll definitely need more active power. More destructive power. This can work, though.
“It will be just like another Operation.” Osseus continues. “We work together, we combine our Excess and use them to our advantage. It’s not impossible, they’ve just made us believe that it is.”
He lets this settle in for awhile. While the others think it through he starts formulating a plan. Tehx’s power is Technologically orientated- and Osseus knows that the boy can disarm the Monitors, and most of the Limiters. Dopple can clone herself, which would serve as a good distraction against those that came after them. Raven is an Animal Shifter, which could be helpful in either breaking out or preventing followers.
It could work well. Very well, in fact. If he had more active powers, they could do it in Waves. At least to more active Excess could help exceedingly. Two active Excess to go in the front, pave the road, and protest Text and Raven, who could work on disabling the various cages. Then a second Wave of active powers to guard their backs. Link could connect all their minds together so that they can communicate affectively, guide each other through it so they all make it.
And he should make the plans to make sure that everyone escapes. There’s no point in having it so someone can get left behind. After all, how much would it suck if he’s the one who gets left behind?
Link bites her lip. “Os…” She sighs. “Look. I don’t like this life anymore than you do. So I hate to bring this up, but you’re crazy. This isn’t going to work. There are too many scientists and too many loyal Excess, this plan would be over before it even began.”
“Not if we plan carefully.” Osseus counters.
“No, I’m saying, it’s not going to work. They made us, Ok? We may have Excess, and we may be more powerful, but that doesn’t change the fact that they made us. We don’t even know what we are, much less what they did to us. If they’re the ones that made us that they’re the ones that can break us, easy. I’m not even a Premonition Excess and I can see that this is going to end badly.”
“They didn’t.” Everyone looks at Phoenix. “They didn’t make us. They didn’t pull us out of thin air or grow us out of some kind cabbage patch or test tube. We had lives before this, and somehow they took that from us. They changed us. They altered us. They made us different. But they didn’t make us.”
“Is there really a difference?” Link asks coldly.
“Yes.” Phoenix answers, equally cold. “The difference is that out there somewhere, out there in the real world, are people responsible for making us. Parents. There are such things as parents. And siblings, family, and friends that we used to have, and beyond that, there are lives that we could be living if we hadn’t been changed. They think they can control us just because they changed our lives? By that logic we should follow anyone who so much makes a profound impression on our souls.
“We’ve all talked about the things that we remember from Before. The sort of things that we remember before we ever came here. The
things that they wanted to strip from us but they couldn’t completely steal everything. You know what I remember? I remember being free.
That’s the only thing I remember. I remember what it’s like to move without people watching me, to eat without fear of being drugged, of sleeping when I want to, of loving-” She pauses. “I remember loving who I want to love. I remember freedom and I want it back.
“And now… and now we’ve learned that everything they told us isn’t true. That they made us so we can protect the Earth from the Others when the Earth doesn’t need protecting. Where does that leave us? Blind soldiers fighting whoever they want us to? Killing whoever they want us to? Is that what we are?
“I’ve been to Iso. I know what the worse they can do to us is. And you know what? It’s bad. It’s real bad. It’s something that will haunt me for the rest of my life, however long or short that might be. And you know what Link? You’re right. We probably will fail. But damnit all Link, if somehow I believe that trying to escape even if we’re bound to failure is a better option than just quietly relenting.”
Link doesn’t say anything else. Her face tightens, and finally she nods. “Ok then.” She looks at Osseus, “What do you propose that we do?”
Everyone else looks to him, and they all have silently agreed that this is something they should try and do.
Osseus feels satisfied. “Alright, this is going to be hard, and we should probably see if there’s anyone we can trust with an active power to bring in on this, because we’re going to need more strength is we’re going to get through this…”
Back in the Ward they’ve already been punished for arriving late and for not finishing the Operation. But as suspected, none of the others in Os’ Legion has spoken of why they didn’t carry out killing the dragon. They’re all pretending that it didn’t happen.
It’s late, very late, when Asphyx comes into Phoenix’s room and pulls her out of it. She doesn’t know where it is that he’s taken her, but she supposes it’s somewhere they can talk in private. She should have expected this.
“Are you crazy?” Asphyx hisses. “Do you really think you’re going to succeed.”
“I live in hope.” Phoenix says, self-deprecatingly.
“Phoenix, they aren’t going to let you off so easy this time.” Phoenix lets out a bitter laugh, which he ignores. “You’ve already tried to escape once, no, don’t try and deny it. The only reason they put people in that particular level of Iso is if they’ve tried to
escape. If you try a second time, this time with others, who knows what they might do. They might actually terminate you this time Phoenix, is that really what you’re after?”
“Dying is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well.”
Asphyx looks furious. He looks like he wants to hit her and she idly wonders why he doesn’t just do it. She likes this though, she likes getting to him. Because this show of worry for her disgusts her. Disgusts her just as it infuriates her, because she knows that he’s genuinely worried about her and he has no right to be. She lets out a barking laugh, “So, so, Herr Doktor. So, Herr Enemy.”
“Phoenix, would you at least stop and think about what it is that you’re trying to do? Things won’t always be like this.”
“Did you know that the Others are sentient?” She asks suddenly.
Asphyx doesn’t reply. And that’s all the reply she needs.
She starts laughing maniacally now, because everything seems so damn funny. “Herr God, Herr Lucifer, Beware Beware. Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair, And I eat men like air.”
Asphyx tightens his lips, then abruptly returns her to her room. He doesn’t say anything else, he just leaves her laughing there, hysterically, because the entire world is funny at the moment and Phoenix doesn’t care about anything.
The poem is Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath. Is anyone else wondering how she's remembering all this poetry? I am. Eh.