[Fic] I Hear My Voice And It's Been Here
Title: I Hear My Voice And It's Been Here
Characters/Pairing: April, Jonas, brief mention of Thane
Word Count: 1734
Rating: PG-13
Summary: After falling through the green rift, April had quite a few years to grow up.
Notes: Okay, I'm not saying this is the best fic ever, but I really really didn't want to write an epic about these years, because they're mostly not very good, so... you get a slightly disjointed weird unbetaed fic. :P
Disclaimer: April is mine. Thane is magi's. Jonas is sort of magi's in a theoretical way.
She has just enough time to see his face before she falls.
It's not really falling, just stumbling backwards a step, with the first step being in one time and place, and the second being in another. Her shoulder and her thigh are burning from the bullets, and the expression on his face twists just a little more, and she feels hear heart break for all of them.
And then she stumbles back and she's in an abandoned city, bleeding and alone.
*
They found the girl eating wild berries by the lake.
She was out of the proper human-residency zone. She wasn't registered and she had two untreated gunshot wounds. So they detained her, cleaned and bandaged her wounds, and put her in a little white room with no windows and one door.
The sight of it brought back memories of white walls and white gowns and needles and pain, and she started screaming, out loud and in their minds. They had the presence of mind to get her locked in the room before staring at each other, rather shocked that a human had that strength..
She curled up and cried for six hours before the door opened again. A First. She coolly had her assistants restrain the girl, cuffing her to a loop in the wall apparently made for this purpose. They didn't seem to care that the girl had raw, scabbed-over marks on her wrists already, just where the cuffs would be. Didn't care that she cried out softly when her shoulder was twisted.
She didn't fight them this time.
Two days later, the First sent for a "consultant", someone experienced in the restructuring of minds.
*
For years, she sleeps.
It's not a true sleep - buried in her own mind, under the programming they brought up and structured securely. There's nothing to break through, no weak spots where she might fight her way out. She's not the uncontrollable berserker she was the last time her programming took charge, she's what the Alliance wanted her to be. She's ruthless but controlled. She's a tool, and she knows that, and relishes being the best. She can play the innocent little girl well. She has control over her powers and can use them like another weapon. And when they send her to the refugee camps, she doesn't leave a single leaving creature behind when she's done.
'Kali', they call her. And April can only watch, stripped of her name, her life, everything. She can only watch as Kali slaughters hundreds, thousands of innocent people. Kali isn't emotionless, like April always thought she would be. No, she takes pride in her kills, gets joy from the bloodlust. She's never so happy as when she's killed a family from oldest to youngest, forcing the little seven-year-old girl to watch her parents and older siblings killed before gleefully slitting her throat as well.
And April, trapped below any level of consciousness, sobs.
*
Kali was their most valuable weapon. There were rumors, among the refugee camps and the dissidents, of a great beast that the angelic forces possessed. A monster fallen through the Rift, a Behemoth in service to them, a great warrior. No one escaped the camps to warn them of the little scarred blonde girl.
The system was good. They pointed her in the direction of a known camp, dressed her in torn and worn-out clothes (always finished off by the black leather jacket they'd found her in, as it was one thing she refused to part with), and let nature take its course. Once she was integrated into the camp, she would slaughter them. Most got killed in their beds, because too many awake and running could lead to escape. But she'd leave a last little contingent to hunt, and the angels allowed her that. They couldn't do what she did without losing their wings.
They let her do their dirty work, and she relished in it. Unstoppable and fearsome.
Until one day, one camp, when something innocuous sparked a memory - just a tiny one, and only just for a second, but it was long enough for a curious psycic to poke a tiny bit through the crack in her defenses, and see the bloodshed and the killing instinct underneath.
Five of them died before they managed to knock her out, and they took great care to restrain her before she woke up.
*
It's been a long time since April was really able to make out the world through the haze of being trapped beneath the programming they so carefully constructed for Kali. She doesn't know how long it's been since she fell through the rift from that little room in an abandoned building in Chicago.
But then she hears Kali screaming. Feels the structure crumbling. She's not sure how long it lasts. Minutes, days, weeks. Maybe years.
And the structure completely collapses one day, leaving April the most broken she's ever been, but gasping for air and crying out in a mixed painterrorhorrorhate as she feels Kali fall into her. No barriers keeping them apart. Nothing to keep her sane. Not enough structure to remember who she is or where she comes from, or why this is bad and painful.
But she's herself, and she knows that's good.
*
It took three psychics and a Poludnica over a month to break her, but they did. That wasn't to say she was safe, precisely, but she didn't have a mission anymore. She didn't want to kill them, for any reason. So they finally got to leave the little temporary camp they'd set up, and took her to the main camp. There was a lot of argument over what should be done with her - whether it was safe for them to keep her, whether the angels would be able to find her, whether she might snap and kill them all.
And while they argued, a man who went only by Jonas sat down with her, and held her, and by the time the argument was over for the day, she had curled up in his arms and refused to move.
So they gave him the task of helping her while the Poludnica tried to put her mind back together in a way that wouldn't lead to all of them getting killed in their sleep.
*
Kostya calls her Malyshka as he slowly puts her back together - "little one", since she doesn't know her own name. She likes it. It reminds her of something that hovers just on the edge of her memory. Kostya and Jonas become her most beloved friends, though Kostya's a demon (and a self-professed "asshole") and Jonas says he's not a good person, really. Her powers are difficult to control at first, projecting her emotions and picking up on other peoples' emotions and looping it all so it builds out of control. But eventually she manages to control it more, and while she'll never be able to completely keep everything blocked out, she's able to keep herself from projecting, able to keep herself from picking up all but the surface thoughts of the people nearest and closest to her. The growing control seems to help the process of restructuring her as well, much to the relief of everyone involved.
Kostya is killed in a raid a little over a year after he broke her. She snaps a little, and takes out three of the archangels before Jonas drags her out only half-conscious. That's the day she learns that Jonas can't die.
*
The next camp Jonas found for them had a few familiar faces, but the general consensus was that Malyshka was just a young woman who had been broken by the angelic regime. They don't settle down for a good three years, travelling across the country, further south where it was warmer, and she was less likely to get ill - her health hadn't quite been the same since they broke her. Somehow it was all intertwined, in complex ways that even Jonas couldn't quite articulate, though he did better than most.
*
They're all the other has in the world, really, and when she kisses him, half-innocent and half-offering, he takes the offer. Gently and slowly and with every opportunity for her to change her mind, but he takes her, and afterwards she curls against him with a faint smile on her lips, and that becomes part of their life as much as the travelling and the bad days and the patched leather jacket she refuses to leave behind.
She's a big girl, she reminds him when he starts to feel guilty, at least twenty-one or twenty-two, probably older. She can make these choices. He always responds that he's just a bit older than her, and she laughs as if this is the best joke of all. No one quite knows why it's so funny. They're an odd couple and no mistake, but you look at the way she watches him, and you can't help see that she adores him. Maybe it's true love, maybe it's just that he's the only person who can take care of her, but she loves him. Three years pass like that, finally settled, as content as it's possible to be in a situation like theirs.
She's almost happy.
*
They were walking. Just walking, a little bit away from the camp, so they could be alone, talk, murmur, kiss, fuck. Malyshka liked the quiet, the solitude of the woods. Jonas couldn't help but watch her with a faint smile. For all that she'd gone through, she could still be remarkably young and innocent sometimes. Usually only with him, but he was the only person she really trusted.
She was walking backwards, and didn't see the shimmer in the air behind her, the sudden glow of green light. Jonas lunged forward to grab her wrist, keep her from stepping into it - through it, because he knew what that green slash in the air was, though it had been centuries since he'd seen one. Her eyes widened a little, and she started to turn around to see what had him looking so afraid. The momentum carried her into the light.
Jonas was left standing alone in the woods, the only indication there had been anyone else there a small set of footprints that suddenly stopped and didn't return.
Characters/Pairing: April, Jonas, brief mention of Thane
Word Count: 1734
Rating: PG-13
Summary: After falling through the green rift, April had quite a few years to grow up.
Notes: Okay, I'm not saying this is the best fic ever, but I really really didn't want to write an epic about these years, because they're mostly not very good, so... you get a slightly disjointed weird unbetaed fic. :P
Disclaimer: April is mine. Thane is magi's. Jonas is sort of magi's in a theoretical way.
She has just enough time to see his face before she falls.
It's not really falling, just stumbling backwards a step, with the first step being in one time and place, and the second being in another. Her shoulder and her thigh are burning from the bullets, and the expression on his face twists just a little more, and she feels hear heart break for all of them.
And then she stumbles back and she's in an abandoned city, bleeding and alone.
*
They found the girl eating wild berries by the lake.
She was out of the proper human-residency zone. She wasn't registered and she had two untreated gunshot wounds. So they detained her, cleaned and bandaged her wounds, and put her in a little white room with no windows and one door.
The sight of it brought back memories of white walls and white gowns and needles and pain, and she started screaming, out loud and in their minds. They had the presence of mind to get her locked in the room before staring at each other, rather shocked that a human had that strength..
She curled up and cried for six hours before the door opened again. A First. She coolly had her assistants restrain the girl, cuffing her to a loop in the wall apparently made for this purpose. They didn't seem to care that the girl had raw, scabbed-over marks on her wrists already, just where the cuffs would be. Didn't care that she cried out softly when her shoulder was twisted.
She didn't fight them this time.
Two days later, the First sent for a "consultant", someone experienced in the restructuring of minds.
*
For years, she sleeps.
It's not a true sleep - buried in her own mind, under the programming they brought up and structured securely. There's nothing to break through, no weak spots where she might fight her way out. She's not the uncontrollable berserker she was the last time her programming took charge, she's what the Alliance wanted her to be. She's ruthless but controlled. She's a tool, and she knows that, and relishes being the best. She can play the innocent little girl well. She has control over her powers and can use them like another weapon. And when they send her to the refugee camps, she doesn't leave a single leaving creature behind when she's done.
'Kali', they call her. And April can only watch, stripped of her name, her life, everything. She can only watch as Kali slaughters hundreds, thousands of innocent people. Kali isn't emotionless, like April always thought she would be. No, she takes pride in her kills, gets joy from the bloodlust. She's never so happy as when she's killed a family from oldest to youngest, forcing the little seven-year-old girl to watch her parents and older siblings killed before gleefully slitting her throat as well.
And April, trapped below any level of consciousness, sobs.
*
Kali was their most valuable weapon. There were rumors, among the refugee camps and the dissidents, of a great beast that the angelic forces possessed. A monster fallen through the Rift, a Behemoth in service to them, a great warrior. No one escaped the camps to warn them of the little scarred blonde girl.
The system was good. They pointed her in the direction of a known camp, dressed her in torn and worn-out clothes (always finished off by the black leather jacket they'd found her in, as it was one thing she refused to part with), and let nature take its course. Once she was integrated into the camp, she would slaughter them. Most got killed in their beds, because too many awake and running could lead to escape. But she'd leave a last little contingent to hunt, and the angels allowed her that. They couldn't do what she did without losing their wings.
They let her do their dirty work, and she relished in it. Unstoppable and fearsome.
Until one day, one camp, when something innocuous sparked a memory - just a tiny one, and only just for a second, but it was long enough for a curious psycic to poke a tiny bit through the crack in her defenses, and see the bloodshed and the killing instinct underneath.
Five of them died before they managed to knock her out, and they took great care to restrain her before she woke up.
*
It's been a long time since April was really able to make out the world through the haze of being trapped beneath the programming they so carefully constructed for Kali. She doesn't know how long it's been since she fell through the rift from that little room in an abandoned building in Chicago.
But then she hears Kali screaming. Feels the structure crumbling. She's not sure how long it lasts. Minutes, days, weeks. Maybe years.
And the structure completely collapses one day, leaving April the most broken she's ever been, but gasping for air and crying out in a mixed painterrorhorrorhate as she feels Kali fall into her. No barriers keeping them apart. Nothing to keep her sane. Not enough structure to remember who she is or where she comes from, or why this is bad and painful.
But she's herself, and she knows that's good.
*
It took three psychics and a Poludnica over a month to break her, but they did. That wasn't to say she was safe, precisely, but she didn't have a mission anymore. She didn't want to kill them, for any reason. So they finally got to leave the little temporary camp they'd set up, and took her to the main camp. There was a lot of argument over what should be done with her - whether it was safe for them to keep her, whether the angels would be able to find her, whether she might snap and kill them all.
And while they argued, a man who went only by Jonas sat down with her, and held her, and by the time the argument was over for the day, she had curled up in his arms and refused to move.
So they gave him the task of helping her while the Poludnica tried to put her mind back together in a way that wouldn't lead to all of them getting killed in their sleep.
*
Kostya calls her Malyshka as he slowly puts her back together - "little one", since she doesn't know her own name. She likes it. It reminds her of something that hovers just on the edge of her memory. Kostya and Jonas become her most beloved friends, though Kostya's a demon (and a self-professed "asshole") and Jonas says he's not a good person, really. Her powers are difficult to control at first, projecting her emotions and picking up on other peoples' emotions and looping it all so it builds out of control. But eventually she manages to control it more, and while she'll never be able to completely keep everything blocked out, she's able to keep herself from projecting, able to keep herself from picking up all but the surface thoughts of the people nearest and closest to her. The growing control seems to help the process of restructuring her as well, much to the relief of everyone involved.
Kostya is killed in a raid a little over a year after he broke her. She snaps a little, and takes out three of the archangels before Jonas drags her out only half-conscious. That's the day she learns that Jonas can't die.
*
The next camp Jonas found for them had a few familiar faces, but the general consensus was that Malyshka was just a young woman who had been broken by the angelic regime. They don't settle down for a good three years, travelling across the country, further south where it was warmer, and she was less likely to get ill - her health hadn't quite been the same since they broke her. Somehow it was all intertwined, in complex ways that even Jonas couldn't quite articulate, though he did better than most.
*
They're all the other has in the world, really, and when she kisses him, half-innocent and half-offering, he takes the offer. Gently and slowly and with every opportunity for her to change her mind, but he takes her, and afterwards she curls against him with a faint smile on her lips, and that becomes part of their life as much as the travelling and the bad days and the patched leather jacket she refuses to leave behind.
She's a big girl, she reminds him when he starts to feel guilty, at least twenty-one or twenty-two, probably older. She can make these choices. He always responds that he's just a bit older than her, and she laughs as if this is the best joke of all. No one quite knows why it's so funny. They're an odd couple and no mistake, but you look at the way she watches him, and you can't help see that she adores him. Maybe it's true love, maybe it's just that he's the only person who can take care of her, but she loves him. Three years pass like that, finally settled, as content as it's possible to be in a situation like theirs.
She's almost happy.
*
They were walking. Just walking, a little bit away from the camp, so they could be alone, talk, murmur, kiss, fuck. Malyshka liked the quiet, the solitude of the woods. Jonas couldn't help but watch her with a faint smile. For all that she'd gone through, she could still be remarkably young and innocent sometimes. Usually only with him, but he was the only person she really trusted.
She was walking backwards, and didn't see the shimmer in the air behind her, the sudden glow of green light. Jonas lunged forward to grab her wrist, keep her from stepping into it - through it, because he knew what that green slash in the air was, though it had been centuries since he'd seen one. Her eyes widened a little, and she started to turn around to see what had him looking so afraid. The momentum carried her into the light.
Jonas was left standing alone in the woods, the only indication there had been anyone else there a small set of footprints that suddenly stopped and didn't return.