From the Dorm Hallways to the Boiler Room, Saturday Afternoon
Alice
It seemed none had the least idea that Alice was not one of them. Had they forgotten her transformation? More the fools them. She glided through hallways, avoiding the light. Was she the only beast in this wonderland of prey? The scent of blood was intoxicating.
Another scent led her further. Zack? Was her dear puppy the innocent-faced hero, or was he stalking his kill? Perhaps they could hunt together. Or perhaps she could break him once more. Either sounded like a very delightful way to spend an afternoon.
Zack
Zack was peering out into the hallway from behind his door, wide-eyed. There was light in the hallway, here and there. Broken rays scattered by windows. Nothing like back at Town Hall, with the curtains drawn tight.
It was intriguing. He really couldn't resist holding his gloved hand out into the sunshine, teasing the light, feeling the warmth through leather gloves on his fingers.
It smelled like food, here. No wonder the breathers were so bent on keeping the vampires out. They wanted it all to themselves, didn't they?
"Not fair," he murmured to himself, and then reached his arm a little farther, into the sunbeam. Just long enough to watch his skin start to smoke before pulling it back into the shade. "They get all the cool stuff."
Alice
"Not all of it," Alice purred, delighted to see her puppy was himself. She crept forward carefully, keeping to the shadows and trying her best to disregard that burning sensation where she failed. "I can think of a few tricks we ourselves have. Hello, darling."
Zack
"Aaaalice!" Zack perked almost immediately at the familiar face. "You managed to get in, too? I never thought I'd get inside without at least pulling somebody's arms off until they gave me an invitation inside, and then the next thing I know, I wake up and I'm in here."
He pointed down the hallway, his arm smoking again as it passed through the sunshine.
"Down there, actually. I'm here now, but I wasn't when I woke up."
Alice
"I was three floors up," Alice said. "I seem to only have light singes for my trouble. I, too, awoke here. Do you imagine we should seek refuge in darker spaces? Once night falls, we'll be locked in the candy shop."
Zack
"But darker is so bor--" Zack froze.
And Zack blinked. It self like something was reaching for him, announcing its presence and asking-- No, not asking, telling him to seek it out.
"I gotta go."
Alice
"Go?" That was not how this conversation went. She had her puppy-turned-killer and they had a dorm to explore. What could be more important?!
"Where are you going?"
Zack
"You know," said Zack as he tilted his head sideways, turning and starting to walk down the hallway, heedless of the occasional sizzle, "I don't really know? But I think I have to. I think she wants me to."
No, he had no idea who 'she' was. But 'she' seemed very insistent that he find her, and that was good enough for him.
Alice
She? Alice was liking this less and less the more Zack went on.
"And what if I asked you to stay?" Alice cooed, reaching out to brush a hand along Zack's cheek. "I can think of many entertaining diversions, dear heart."
Zack
Zack paused mid-step at that, turning to look at Alice curiously, and then letting his lips twist into a toothy grin.
"How entertaining?"
Look, it never hurt to ask, right?
Alice
Alice ran her fingers over Zack's lips, her own smile cruel.
"We find an innocent," she said. "Someone young. We break her. We break her faith in everything she believes in. We kill her slowly, telling her that no one she loves will come for her. We turn her, and send her after them for their betrayal."
If you were going to do something, do it completely.
Zack
"Sounds like..." Zack smiled a little, and then opened his mouth, thrusting his head forward and snapping his teeth at her fingers. His teeth were still clamped down when he spoke again. "... A Saturday."
What? It was playing. That was what Saturdays were for.
Alice
"Can your other errand wait?" Alice pouted, wiggling her fingers inbetween his teeth. "We could make one cry. And lick the sweet tears from her warm little face."
Zack
It could wait. Couldn't it? His tongue ran lazily over her fingertips, and then he closed his lips around them and sucked thoughtfully for a moment.
Something inside of him didn't seem to like that hesitation. It twisted, lurched, and a short whine slipped from his throat as he opened his mouth and stepped backward, confused and even a little shamed.
"It can't," he insisted. "She wants me."
And then he was turning and making his way down the hallway again.
This way. She was this way.
Alice
"I see," Alice said, hoping her voice didn't reveal how vexed she was.
She sulked for a few moments before following after him.
"Might I be invited, do you suppose? Anyone that wants you seems like a very good person for me to know."
For more reasons than one.
Zack
Zack's lesson had been learned, now. He was considering while he walked. Bare arms were chapping and peeling and altogether unhappy as he made his way, now painfully aware of the rays of light that seemed bent on cutting into him every so often along the way.
A pit-stop, then, in the room he'd woken up in. To grab a sheet from the bed he'd been asleep in, to throw over his head. Another for Alice. His sire. He was her blood, after all. Her pet.
The call was from down, and the lobby was on the way.
"You might like her," he decided, pressing onward down the stairwell. He had no idea if Alice would like her or not. He didn't even know who 'she' was. "I think I do."
Alice
"I can't wait," Alice said, keeping her thoughts to herself on that matter. She held her hand out as though she was hoping he might offer his arm. "Shall we?"
Zack
Zack nodded, offering Alice a smile that seemed to sit about three steps to the left of sanity, and he took her arm, careful to make certain that she was well-covered by the sheet he'd grabbed as he led them onward, through the lobby.
"Let's."
She was calling.
Jenova
Patience was for immortals. Minutes ticked by like seconds, hours like minutes, as she waited.
Liquid shifted slowly around her; delicate strands of hair being strung out and waving-to most eyes, the hair was all that showed life about her until other uncertain, barely there shifts of movement…
And her eyes. Those were alive like little else of her appeared to be while submerged in nameless fluids and surrounded by machinery that trapped her, confined her. Reduced her.
(But never controlled her.)
She drifted. Her voice like a nightmare's whisper, drifting and wending through her son's consciousness. A steady litany of demands. Jenova never asked. Her son would come.
The cells that lived in his body belonged to her. He was hers to demand things of. He would come. He would do as she wanted. That was not in question.
Jenova floated in her containment, her vile prison, and waited for an answer to her summons.
He was coming. Closer... closer...
And not alone.
Zack
Closer... Closer... and--
Zack popped his head into the doorway, looking into the boiler room with wide eyes. What had been calling him became clear as crystal all at once, and he found himself pulling in a completely unnecessary breath at the sight laid out before him.
It was beautiful.
"Here she is," he murmured, stepping into the room and walking over, pressing his hand against cool glass. "She was calling me."
Alice
"She was?" Alice asked, raising an eyebrow. "Are you quite certain? I'm not sure she looks capable of calling anyone. Perhaps this is some sort of breather trap."
Ever since he'd heard whatever call this was, Zack had been acting strange. How vexing.
Zack
"Breathers are too dumb," Zack decided, while his other hand reached up to press against the glass. And then he proceeded to mush his face up against it, too.
Look, you couldn't get a good look unless your face was mushed against the glass. It was law.
"Anyhow, I think she's different. Like... Like I'm hers almost like I'm yours. Like part of her made me. Maybe before even you did."
Alice
That was not something Alice wanted to hear. She was nearly scowling.
"Darling," she said, hoping her voice didn't sound forced, "if she made you, then she made the happy, warm puppy that I introduced to a new truth. I opened your eyes to darkness and the joy of the feed. Would you really want to return to those beginnings?"
Alice had made him. This freak in a tube did not get credit for her hero.
Zack
Zack gave his head a slow, deliberate shake at that.
"No, no not that part," he replied. "Something newer."
He wrinkled his nose a bit, and then took a step back, turning to grin at Alice.
"What they put into me. For SOLDIER. That's what she feels like, but all over!"
Jenova
Her acknowledgement of the two-her son and One Other-was less in words and more in subtle mental pressure as her attention shifted, refocused, and settled on the others in her domain.
One boy (expected) and one-girl (not called, not wanted here). Who was very distinctly not pleased.
Jenova's whispery laugh slithered through their little minds. She was aware, yes. She was awake.
Now her son was here. There was much that could be done now.
<
The girl was ignorable. She was, to Jenova, little more than a fly at this point. Her son, on the other hand, was a very useful vessel.
Zack
Zack bit his lip, then, fangs driving themselves deep into flesh. It would heal. He ignored it.
"She's a part of me," he murmured, turning back to the figure before them. "Like... Like another sire. Only different."
She'd spoken to him. Called him son.
"I'm here, Mother."
Alice
"Your mother?" Alice said coolly. "Delightful. How is it that you never told me your mother was a strange blue woman trapped within a tube?"
She was Zack's sire. She had broken Zack's sanity. Zack was not to become a puppet of this ... thing.
Zack
Zack blinked, and then looked at Alice over his shoulder.
"I didn't know," he reported, dutifully, and maybe looking slightly abashed. "Mom was my mother, you know? But she's in Gongaga with Dad, and they're both just meat and they didn't come for me even before here, you know."
That was said with a sort of rhythm to it that suggested that he was reciting words that had been drilled into his head time and again, yes.
"They don't care like you do." A pause, and he looked back again at she who had beckoned him. "Like Mother does."
Jenova
He already was. Hardwired into his cells were the flags of her presence-and as long as that remained, well, he was hers. No one could remove them. Jenova cells.
Hers.
The girl nattered on about inconsequential things.
<
She hadn't. Jenova's patience-nearly infinite-had seen to that.
<>
True enough.
Zack
Zack fixed blue eyes on the figure suspended in the liquid in front of him, regarding her with an awe-soaked reverence that suggested that he was struggling, to some degree, to dig up his last vestiges of sanity so that he could pay this newfound Mother her proper due.
And then, all at once, he closed his eyes and pressed his cheek against the glass. Cold flesh against her cold prison.
His fingers trailed carefully over the surface of the tube.
"You called and I came, Mother. What do you want from me?"
Alice
Oh, how perfectly Oedipal. Perhaps next Zack would begin humping the glass casing.
It wouldn't do to let her temper get the better of her. Far more advantageous to smile and play along. Even if her smile was a touch forced.
"Yes, what is it you would like?" Alice asked, her voice doing an impressive job of 'curious' and not 'seething.' "If you need to feed, there are countless witlings in this building who are ripe for the devouring."
Perhaps they could work together. At least for now.
Jenova
<
A world on fire, a world torn apart. Billions screaming, dying, not even enough time to run. No time to hide from the destruction she sought. Her power, unrestrained, could do that.
This world was not that world. She wanted it destroyed nonetheless.
She wanted out.
Zack
What was freedom?
Zack was practically purring as he opened his eyes again, looking up toward this new figure, this new Mother, before looking at Alice again. Smiling. Proud.
He'd found her, see? All by himself. And she wanted calamity.
It sounded glorious.
"How do I help?"
Alice
"No," Alice said, reaching out to brush the backs of her fingers along Zack's cheek. "How do we help? I shan't let you have all the fun of causing calamity without me."
Calamity sounded delicious. Not letting the freak in a tube get sole control over Zack sounded even better.
And it seemed good to remind Zack that she was far more amenable to physical contact than that other Mother of his.
Jenova
<
He was her son. Calamity ran in his veins.
<
The girl might be useful. For the moment. If she ceased to be-well, there were ways to take care of that.
Zack
Zack opened his mouth for a moment, about to speak some sort of brilliant reply. Mother wanted someone who knew things! And that meant...
Uh.
It meant...
He looked at Alice, wide-eyed, pleadingly. He had no idea which meat might know something like that around here.
Alice
Alice pretended to be thinking about that, very solemnly.
"You don't suppose Jen would know, do you?" she said. She shook her head again. "I heard her say something the other day about secret research the breathers had been doing, but she was wary of eavesdroppers and changed the subject. It may have been nothing."
If she had pushed the idea very hard, the Mother-imposter would have smelled a rat. Especially since she had invented the story out of whole cloth.
Breaking Jen was a pet project of hers. If they weren't going to accomplish calamity by exploding buildings and stabbing toddlers, then she had to find her fun somewhere.
Jenova
Jenova's level of destruction ran higher than buildings and toddlers. She thought in terms of countries and continents.
<
She didn't care what they did along the way. Who they broke. What they wrecked. The sky would rain fire and rock and coat the world in dust before she was done with it. Let the children have their toys.
<
That wispy shuddering laugh of wire and liquid again. She'd never been human, even before they'd put her in her restricting temporary--always temporary--and her eyes all but glowed through the liquid.
<
Zack
"Yes, Mother," Zack replied, heaving a soft sigh as he nuzzled the glass for a moment more, and then stepped back, twice. Enough so that he could look at both individuals in the room with him.
"I'll make you both proud," he decided.
Jen. Jen. Right.
... Who?
[All kinds of establishy! Preplayed with notyourpawn and flowering_mind, who are lovely and made of win and who managed to creep the hell out of me while playing this out, omg.]