#ptn chameleon | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

nomorefstogive · 5 months ago

Text

Our Dearest Sin Chapter 4: To Fix A Problem (Crossposted on Ao3)

Hello all, this is a copy paste of the newest chapter of my PtN fic on Ao3, as well as my way of letting all of you know that I am in fact, still alive.

Summary:

She was born to do this, to fix the mistakes of others so that those she serves could prosper, and now she once more donned that most dreaded of masks to fulfill her horrific duty, all to insure that the woman she loved would be safe. After all, she was born and made to fix problems.

Notes:

Hello again everyone, I am sorry for the rather lengthy delay that has occurred with me posting this chapter, and for my lengthy silence on tumblr, I was working on a variety of other projects, not just my other fics…namely the 40k plus word chapter for my Azur Lane fic, but also a subreddit that has cropped up that I am quite fond of, r/PrimarchGF. Before we begin, let us offer our thanks to JimBoReee for braving this mess of a fic and acting as our Beta for this chapter, they are a wonderfully talented and creative person so please go and check out their works, you will not be disappointed. A link to their profile: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JimBoReee/pseuds/JimBoReee That said, today we are going to take a slight detour from the wholesomeness and humorous atmosphere of our previous posts and instead take a few steps down a much darker path. I invite you one and all to take a moment to steel yourselves as this will be quite the departure from has been established as the norm of this story, I will attach some trigger warnings below for what this chapter will contain. TW: Murder. Torture. Attempted Murder. Attempted Suicide. Suicide Coercion. Blackmail. Abuse. Mental Torture. Psychological Torture. Hurt No Comfort. Yandere Themes. Shalom Being Angry. Non Consensual Touching, mentioned in one portion. Racism Against Sinners. Implied Homophobia. Manipulation. Mental Trauma. Physical Trauma. Etc. For those of you who are still here, then we welcome you one and all to this newest act in the play of this fic, with that said- Let the show begin!

To Fix A Problem

There is an old saying that goes, “When it rains, it pours”, and as the young man sat at the candlelit table, blood trailing from weeping gashes and narrow cuts as tears that gleamed ever so faintly amidst the light of the flickering flames of the twin candles that sat upon the table before him, eyes so empty as to be mirrors of the Void itself regarding him with cold disdain, he knew it well to be the case of the saying being more than true.

Dimly the man thought of how this had come to be, how it was that was sat at this table of exquisitely carved mahogany wood, his blood and tears seeping into the plush velvet lining of the chair he sat within as he watched the figure across from him take in his suffering and horror, his cries and screams and blubbered pleas falling upon the sepulchral silence of the room and unflinching face of the one across from him as water upon a duck’s wings, failing to do not but display how futile such actions were in the face of the Absolute before him.

Eyes heavy lidded with caked blood and stinging with tears shed and un-shed, rested upon the case before him, polished onyx metal of origin unknown casting not the faintest reflection of light and instead seeming to hungrily devour it with grandiose delight as it waited with baited breath for what it knew would come to pass.

As his trembling fingers began to move to open the container, many times failing to pop the latches that held fast the case like the teeth of some abhorrent maw despite the almost anticipatory ease with which they popped open when he did manage to lay his fingers upon them, the man recalled with another heaving sob how all of this had begun.

It felt like days ago that waking had come to the man not with gentle caress of promises and wonders unseen, but with the bitter stinging whip of pain, a fog of agony such that it tinted the vision white and black as one neared the precipice of oblivion’s sweet embrace once more that would have served to engulf him whole once more were it not for the sudden jostling of the world around him, his bound hands unable to offer any aid as he was flung upwards, an already battered head connecting with solid metal, causing yet more constellations of agony to form.

Tears had slipped unbidden from his eyes, wetting the dried blood that had crusted them near to shut and allowing for the man’s narrow field of haze ridden view to expand somewhat as he his mind sluggishly tried to process just what it was that was happening, though such thoughts and questions were soon vanished as yet once more the world went white with agony as his body was jolted once more, something which prompted broken bones and cuts that had gone mercifully numb to once more sing out in a choir of hellish agony.

The exquisite agony of what felt to be a hundred-hundred razor thin cuts and several snapped and shattered bones should have made the man scream out, wailing like a child holding fast their parents hands amidst a blazing inferno, and yet instead there came but a low and wet groan, vocal chords unresponsive as the man came to be aware of an unnatural feeling of sluggishness that had seized him fast, the feeling having been hidden away behind the sensation of waking and the pain that had soon accompanied it.

His heart had begun to hammer in more than just pain, a sensation of dread enveloping him as a rapidly spreading slick of oil would upon the sea, lungs tried and failed to take fast breaths as each sudden motion caused supernovas of agony to envelop him, forcing him to slow his breath and to try and still his heart, a whimper slipping past the young man’s lips as he tried to take stock of the situation, though his thoughts were in too much a state of disarray to be anything approaching coherent or cohesive.

Clarity came but ever so briefly, waves of frigid terror enveloping him in an all consuming grasp of such force that the breath he managed to take in left his lungs entirely during theme moments, gasps of horror and despair slipping from torn lips that parted into silent sobs that soon bled way to gasps of pain and then back into whimpers of agony as the clarity vanished once more under the tide of misery.

Why was he here?

What was going on?

Why was he so badly hurt?

Why were his hands bound?

What was he in?

Where was he?

Again and again these question had come to him during those brief moments, though they were ever left unanswered as the man languished in his misery, his silent sobs growing as the jostling became more and more frequent, his body being cast against what felt to be walls of cold metal, his vision soon went black once more, oblivion swallowing him as a particularly hard jostle sent his head colliding with the wall behind him with such force that consciousness fled him.

As yet another latch upon the case came undone, the man thought to himself that it was far too kind that the striking of his scalp upon the unfeeling metal had not delivered him unto the merciful embrace of the most kind Oblivion, and had instead merely been the briefest of interludes for the pain to come, for soon enough he had been awoken again, the jostling having yielded way to the sound of metal doors being cast open.

He had not had time to even open his mouth before hands reached into the space he was housed within and seized him, his body crying out in agony as the towering figure tore him free of the container, manacles snapping under the strain with which they had torn him from them as he was cast into the mud, the Blue-Rain caressing him with frigid needles as he tried and failed to move away from the being that loomed over him, his movements stopping when he felt a hand seize him by the ankle as the figure began to drag him through the mud, his sobs of pain being drowned out amidst the downpouring rain.

His vision swam, dried blood and fresh mud now blinding him such that he could not discern where it was that he had been taken, only that around him loomed monolithic buildings and streets adorned with cracks and gaping wounds of craters and shattered windows and walls, the stench of filth and mud field his nostrils and the taste of dirt and blood flooded his mouth as he tried and failed to cry out for help before his captor began to haul him down the street, dragging him with a lone hand as though he weighed not but a twig’s burden to them.

Faintly he thought he not only heard his captor speaking, their voice oddly muffled as they spoke into what must have been a phone for a moment before they were silent once more, but that he also saw figures moving amidst the shadows of the buildings that loomed around him, empty windows and doorways seeming to form mocking sneers and cruel smirks that regarded his torment with perverse glee, yet when he blinked the figures were gone and only the iron grip around his ankle that drug him over cracked and shattered streets remained.

At times he thought he smelt something over the rain and filth of the streets he was being hauled down, something almost floral that seemed to mock his senses with its ever faint presence, though such a thing was swiftly banished from his mind as his captor paused in their march to lift a heavy hand and bring it down upon a door of cold metal that lay nestled in the shadow of a building.

After administering but a single knock to the door, the towering figure cast open the heavy construct of cold steel with deft ease, the same ease with which they suddenly flung him into the building, his ribs crying out in agony as a series of sickening cracks and pops sang out from within him as an agonized choir, the loudest and most vocal of said agonies there came when his flight at last ended, his body slamming into a metal pillar, the blow making his world turn white as his mouth parted in a silent scream once more.

As the white left his vision, and darkness began to creep in once more, his blurred vision faintly registered the form of his captor, weeping eyes alighting upon a towering figure clad in what seemed to be some form of uniform odd metal contraptions resting on their arms, and a sneering mask covering the lower part of their face, their visage made all the more horrifying by the baleful crimson scar that burned across their face, the glow of which reflected like hell-fire amidst their baleful eyes as they advanced once more.

Oblivion claimed him with the blow of a boot to his head, and the faintest sound of mocking chuckles echoing from the shadows that now loomed to devour him.

*Tap*

His reverie was broken by the sound of a single manicured nail tapping the wooden table, a look of disapproval flickering into those abyssal eyes as the figure across from him regarded him with glacial apathy, yet beneath that apathy and within that void that swirled were a soul should be within their eyes, he saw the faintest flicker of something that bid his trembling hands move with due speed, trembling fingers fumbling the latches once more before he at last managed to pop yet another open.

A flicker of a smile graced the face of the one across from him, sharp and cold, the edge of a scalpel ready to peel through his flesh and let him bleed across the floor before her…no it’s arctic gaze as the figure watched with cruel anticipation as yet another latch came open before the man paused once more, yet more plaintive cries and whimpers beginning to form on his lips as he saw the light of the candle ever so faintly reflect off of a dark amethyst gem that lay embraced in a band of silver.

The sight of it making his heart begin to hammer once more, tears beginning to trail from his eyes as he fought the urge to fall to his knees and beg and plea to the figure before him once more, he had long come to realize that even the most desperate and humiliating of please and cries for mercy would fall upon ears that seemed to be cast from the same glacial stone that the figure’s heart had been for all of the good that they seemed to do.

Indeed, all said please had ever managed to warrant from the figure was a disapproving look before they beckoned towards the towering woman that stood behind him, hands strong enough to pulverize bone lifting him up and then slamming him into either the pillar she had been leaning against or the floor before she tossed him back into his chair, a snarl of seemingly apocalyptic fury scorching its way from her throat as she seemed to be held back from taking his life by some unseen hand or order as she left him there before returning to her post.

Again there came a loud snap to fill the otherwise silent room, the shadows seeming to come alive as they writhed and danced in an obscene serpentine manner, tongues of darkness caressing his body and vision as her looked at the final latch on the case, faintly he thought there came, from depths unseen, a chorus of voices, mocking and derisive, so potent their disdain and contempt for him that his blood ran as ice, though with but a blink the looming darkness and mocking words vanished as his hand hovered over the final latch.

Swallowing down a wave of vertigo and nausea, the man looked up at the figure across from him, bloodshot eyes of dark oaken brown caked in bruises and mud meeting glacial light purple eyes, as the man forced himself to speak up once more, his gaze flickering from the figure’s eyes to the ring that it had sat before it.

“Y-you promise…” He coughed up a wad of blood and flem that landed on his pants, a moment being taken to catch his breath before he lifted his head once more to continue his final plea to the figure before him.

“You promise me you’ll leave them alone? They…they had nothing to do with this…this was all me and those dumbasses, leave my family out of it.” His voice, hoarse and yet oh so faint, weak to the brink of shattering and yet resonating with the last few strands of great strength the man could summon forth filled the room, the stillness that followed his words seeming fit to crush him under its weight even as it deafened him with its intensity.

For a moment there was only the sound of the the creaking of the attire of the figure behind him as he watched the thing in human skin across from him tilt its head in silent thought for several moments, light purple eyes looking down at the ring in contemplation before the figure at last spoke up, that haunting voice, the dulcet tone of the Devil as he purred in your ear, broke the silence as well.

“As I told you before, I will not lay a hand on them, nor will any of my subordinates. So long as you keep your end of the deal, then nothing will happen to them, but should you fail… then I cannot vouch for their safety.” The thing finished its statement with that faux smile, something that would not have looked out of place on a mannequin of porcelain and plaster, yet upon the face of a human did not but lend to it a visage of something alien and horrific, a perverse mockery of human life so naked in its debauched falsity that it was sickening to behold.

With a heavy sigh of relief, the man took a deep breath, the tranquil calmness of someone who knew that they now stood at the end of their journey enveloping him as he popped the final latch of the case, taking a single moment to take in a breath before he opened it and let his eyes behold the contents of the case.

In the same vein as the exterior of the case, the interior was made of a stygian material designed to gently envelop and shield the contents of the case, said contents being little more than a single vial, barely the size of his index finger and yet seeming to be as large as the very planet itself as it say there before him, the dark crimson liquid semeing to radiate a glow of baleful scarlet so intense that it cast some of the shadows of the room aside, the darkness seeming to flee the encroaching light as though it was the scythe of Death itself.

Faintly, the man noted how the scarlet light seemed to have a mind of its own, tendrils and garlands of dark crimson and brighter scarlet energy hungrily caressing each exposed inch of the room that it could, wisps of energy caressing the towering figure behind him as a master would an obedient pet, with a similar gesture being granted unto the figure that sat before him, the crimson glow seeming to cast upon those light violet eyes the glow of hellfire.

Still enveloped in the tranquility of finality did them an reach out and pick up the vial, sparks of a sensation not electric or searing or frigid, yet some perverse amalgamation of each of them racing through his skin and into his very blood like a tidal wave of jagged glass that cut and tore and shredded all it touched, leaving behind mangled wounds that soon found themselves smoothed over in a deluge of scarlet power that twisted and made mockery of the very nature of the human soul.

His hand was no longer his own.

Of its own accord, as though possessed of a will more ancient and malign then the hideous expanse of the cosmos that seemed to swirl and churn around the Scarlet Moon that had crested over the Broken Frontline in that very moment, did his fingers gently pop the cork off the vial, ever so carefully bringing it to his lips even as his body unconsciously tried to jerk away from the vial before him.

Those same hands that had nearly snapped him like a twig now lashed out once more, fingers seemingly formed of granite and rebar in their unyielding might digging into his face as his mouth was forced open, gloves dense enough that his teeth could have done not but ever so faintly tickle skin beneath keeping him in place as they and that was once his own brought the vial to his mouth and began to upend it.

As the first drop touched his tongue the man realized that he had been wrong, it was not liquid, more some form of semi-solid gelatinous mass, perhaps more likable to plasma than anything else found in nature or crafted by the hands of man and monster alike, began to flow down his throat, the same alien sensation that had engulfed his hand now enveloping his body entirely as waves of agony like nothing he could ever no washed over him again and again.

Faintly, he realized that he was seizing, his body rebelling with all that it had, each and every base cell and molecule warring against the horrific might that now began to dig into him with ravenous fury, frigid and molten glass shards tearing him apart over and over again as liquid tides of molten agony assailed him at the same moment clouds of scarlet suffering flooded his lungs, choking his cries before they could leave his lips.

At once his body felt full and empty, as though each drop of blood, each minute molecule had gained great and terrible weight one moment, only to flicker out of existence and leave him adrift in a senseless shell of misery the next, with the constant fluctuations of sensations tearing at his mind, razored claws sinking into succulent flesh as the fangs of madness began to gnaw hungrily at his mind, pits of madness beckoning ever so sweetly-

“Stop.”

Yet to him was such mercy denied, for there came over the agony that drowned out all else a voice that was not a voice, a weight and sensation that forced itself into his mind with the might of an avalanche, power so suffocating that it left his breath frozen in his lungs as his bodily functions ceased in obeisance to the order.

A triangular mark filled his vision, parting the sanguine and onyx haze that had so mercifully enveloped him the silver white glow of the mark burning with such radiance that he could do not but attempt to flee its encroaching blaze, though to no avail was this mental flight, for garlands of ivory enveloped him as razor wire, pulling him into a realm of burning light and searing agony, his mind bound and shackled fit to do not but linger at the whims of the Mark.

“OBEY.”

Words yet not words, sensations yet not sensations, thoughts not his own and yet born in his mind echoed within his head as the Mark seared itself into him, nameless terror enveloping him for reasons he knew not as he languished in the unyielding grip of the Mark and of its horrific Will, though more there came for yet another voice low and soft, like the most gentle of spring breezes came into his ears, words unknowable to him mixing with the scorching orders of the Mark.

At last there came reprieve, when he felt the most tender of touches upon his chin, his vision flickering to see a new pair of eyes, their color so eerily reminiscent of the Devil’s and yet somehow worse in the cruel delight that gleamed in them as that soothing voice purred into his ears once more.

“Sleep now.”

His world went black.

For how long this lasted he knew not, only that when he at last came to his senses it was to yet more pain, his body crying out in a thousand-thousand different tongues as he lay sprawled across an ochre floor of an empty room, table and chair and case and Monsters gone, leaving him alone in a puddle of his own blood and bodily waste, bile forming a halo around his head.

With a whimper of the agony of flayed and torn nerves did the man try and force himself to rise, his bones feeling like shattered glass that cut and tore at him from within as he tried to force his arms and left to obey, only to fail as he fell down with yet another cry, tears flowing freely down his face as he desperately called out for mercy, though mercy there came none, for alone he laid in his own waste and tears.

How long had he laid there in misery, hours, days, weeks?

He could not say, only that there came at one point amidst the agonized delirium that had enveloped him a caress so saccharine in its gentleness that he could not have ignored it even had his mind not been on the brink of total annihilation, and so it was that as that most delicate of caresses swept through his very soul that he found the resolve to once more try to rise.

It was agony, near to the absolute most sublime in its totality and might, yet still it was less than what had once assailed him when he had tried to force himself to rise, and thus it was that he could grit his teeth till he heard them crack as he rose from the floor, a joyful cry slipping past his lips as he did so.

His arms braced around the pillar that the Beast of the Monster had once rested against, the man felt tears begin to slide down his cheeks once more, though these were not just born of the agony that assailed him, but also of the joy that filled him at being able to move, to walk, to live once more.

He had thought the Devil had meant to kill him with the poison in that vial, some form of sorcery born of land’s unknown no doubt, or perhaps even the result of some form of Witchcraft of those Abominations that were corrupted by Mania, perhaps it had been too weak compared to his own will, perhaps the pain had been the fullest extent of it’s promise of suffering.

A low chuckle, delirious and maddened, slipped past his lips as he began to force himself to move through the building once more, each step prompting flashes of white hot agony to assail him, though even such misery could do nothing to stop his smile from growing and his heart from singing.

Yes, the Devil had failed to kill him, and now he had the chance to go back to his family, this time wisened by his agony and suffering, at last ready to heed the words of wisdom his wife had spoken to him and try a new lease on his life.

He would go home, hold his beloved and kiss her as if his life depended on it, then he would hug his children and kiss their foreheads, sure they would have to move, perhaps even leave Dis itself if that Devil’s words about what it and its fellows had discovered was true, but all of that paled to just being able to be with them again.

‘I never should have let that dumbass talk me into it,’ he thought to himself as he braced himself against the wall he knew to be near the door, ‘fucking idiot couldn’t even do the job right!’

A flash of irritation tore through him at the final thought, his hand clenching into a fist before it struck the wall, tears beginning to fall once more as he thought of all he would have to do to protect his family now, the company so long built up would have to be liquidated, their assets joining it before they left Dis, their names, perhaps even their faces, needing to be changed to avoid being found by the Snake and its pets.

All he could do is hope that the Devil kept her word and that the rest of the Snake’s Monsters did not find before him and his had managed to flee the city, but he-

There was something on the door.

He blinked in confusion as he saw a piece of white paper held fast to the door, perhaps by tape or glue he could not tell, the immaculate white paper standing in stark contrast to the dark metal of the door, and making it seem as bright as the sun to him as he walked towards it, drawn by that ever so delicate pull.

With a final pained groan he managed to get before the door, his hands braced on either side of the metal door as he lifted his head to look at the paper before him, a single word staring at him in simple print.

A word that made his world go white.

The word in question?

Hush.

Line Break

He blinked as he came to his senses once again, his head throbbing such that his vision was not but a flickering haze of agony, objects being near one second and far the next,each of them enveloped in a haze of grayish white that left him unable to fully process just what it was that was going on around him, let alone where it was that he was.

Unbidden he tried to take a step forward, his footing giving out in the next moment as he landed upon his front, his chin striking solid wood with force enough that he felt his teeth crack within his jaws, blood beginning to drip past his lips and onto the ground as he let out another low whimper of pain.

For several moments he laid there, his vision darkened near to total blackness as he tried to make sense of what it was that was going on as he rolled onto his side, curling into a ball as he tried to wait for the pain to fade enough so that he could try to rise once more, something which seemed to last several moments of laying amidst a pool of his own blood and what felt like a stick carpet that clung to his body.

What must have been a few hours passed before the man was able to force himself to rise once more, his vision swimming in agony as he tried and failed to brace himself against what he could only assume to be a wall, with his hands failing to grasp the material due to an odd wetness that clung to them, with him falling down once more, though this time he was able to stop himself before he could fully fall his slick fingers digging into the carpet with as much force as they could as the man tried to force himself to rise to his feet once more.

Once more did he wait for several moments before he rose again, this time crawling froth on all fours as he looked up, a glimmer of light passing through what seemed to be a cracked door beckoning him forth as once more there came that saccharine pull, this time it came as a spreading of morphine, dulling his pain enough so that he could rise to his feet and stagger through the door, the light blinding him for several moments.

How he wished it had blinded him forevermore.

The first thing he noted when his vision came back to him was the mirror that rested before him, his eyes alighting on a mud and filth and blood caked face as though it was the visage of a stranger, his eyes were so bloodshot that he could not even discern the original color of them, only the paths blazed by his tears revealed his fair skin and the freckles that adorned it.

‘I know everything about you. Who you are. Where you come from. Where your family came from. Where you work. Where you had your first kiss. Even where and when it was that you made love to your wife for the first time.’

A chuckle slipped from his lips as he leaned down, turning on the sinks taps to pool water into its basin to splash on his face, a sigh of bliss slipping past his lips as he watched more and more of his face, of himself, become visible as more and more of the mud and blood and grime fell into the drain, staining the once cleaned ivory to near black, though he paid it no mind.

‘I also know where your children go to school, who their teachers are, who their friends are, and where said friends and their families live. Your eldest son, Marquel needs to brush up on his mathematics, a C- at his age is quite a poor showing, even your youngest Gabriel is doing better than him with a B+.’

Groaning in bliss he reached out to grab at a towel he saw resting near the mirror, savoring each moment it touched his yet tender flesh as he dried his face, a moment spent basking in the softness of the material of the towel before he removed it from his face and tossed it aside.

Yet as he tossed it aside, something caught his eye, something that to most would have been the most innocuous and meaningless of things, and yet to him was as monolithic in its imposing grandeur and the terror that it managed to stoke in him, such a small and fragile thing that made him turn to the door and begin to tear free from the room even as pain assailed him in full once more.

The plastic soldier, standing at attention beside the small toothbrush as though it were its nations flag, caked in blood such that the whites and blues of its armor were drowned near to brown, watched him go with dead eyes even as the pain tore at him with ravenous fingers, the saccharine pull vanishing as a cloyingly sweet laughter rang out in his head, the agony joining it in a chorus of mocking misery.

‘A snap of my fingers, a word spoken in a single ear, and all that you love and know can and will vanish into the aether as if it never existed in the first place…A threat? Huh, I suppose it is fair to assume that you would not understand the severity of your situation, perhaps this can help you understand things.

*Clink*

The jeweler lied to you by the way, the diamond is nowhere near as pure valuable as she led you to believe, I believe hse overcharged you by about 235.23 Discoins, though that is not taking the changes that taxes have undergone since you purchased the ring into account.

I assume you understand me now, correct?’

His shoulder slammed into the wall with enough force that the drywall gave way to form a small hole that snared him in place for a moment before he was able to pull himself free and begin to race down the hallway, or rather try to race down the hallway as once more his footing gave out on him and he fell onto his front, carpet burn assailing his face even as he tried and failed to rise once more.

Tears had begun to fall as rain from his eyes as his heart thundered such that all other sound vanished amidst the roaring backdrop of terror fueled adrenaline, his lips moving in incomprehensible cries and gibbering pleas that failed to rise above whimpers and groans as he forced himself to move down the hall once more, crawling his way forward once more, mad hope and terror fueling his flight.

‘I’m glad to see you understand the weight of my words now Elliot, but you don’t need to be so afraid, I am well aware that you were not the only guilty party in this situation, in fact your role was quite minor, but it still warrants punishment.

Though if that punishment involves your loved ones or not is up to you, if you do what I ask then your family will be spared any attacks by my hand, and I will do the best that I can to mitigate the actions of my fellows, though the most I can promise is a head start to escape them.

Do you want to hear my offer?’

Elliot could swear that there was laughter echoing amidst the agony, mocking and coy it haunted his every step as he tried and failed to force himself forward once more, his strength failing him as he fell down into the sticky carpet once more, though this time he was able to see just what it was that had made it so sticky.

‘All you have to do is take responsibility for your deeds and show that you are willing to earn your second chance, and while this may sound daunting, I assure you that it is not as difficult as you think.’

His eyes widened to the fullest they could, a sob slipping past his lips as he began to cry in full, a soundless shriek leaving his lips as he beheld the scene before him, his already frayed and tattered mind beginning to tear at the seams entirely, though merciful madness was once more denied to him by twin mental grips, forcing him to remain aware and cognizant of what it was that lay before him.

Heaving sobs slipped past his lips as he began to blubber, his tears blinding him, though doing nothing to lessen the horrible clarity of vision that plagued him as he beheld the scene before him.

‘All you have to do-’

At last Elliot found his voice, at last he found himself able to speak, and speak he did, a low whisper of a mind on the verge of shattering and yet denied such merciful oblivion, a word that once made his heart swell with joy but now tore at him with talons of burning ichor.

“Mel-mela-melanie?”

‘-is Die.’

His wife’s severed head stared back at him.

Distantly Elliot noted that chunks of her scalp had been torn away to reveal the white of her skull, which had similarly been fractured and torn in many an area to reveal the pinkish hue of her brain, as though by the maws of some great beast, her eyes, once the most wonderous shade of sea-foam green he had ever seen had shared in her brains fate, as they seemed to have been torn free of their sockets, with not but ichorus tears to flow to mark where the eyes had once been.

Lips adorned with the light blue lipstick that she was so fond of had been torn and split such that her teeth would have been visible in many spots even had her mouth not been fixed into an expression of horrid terror and agony even in death.

Her body…was everywhere.

Draped over the ceiling fan and across the chairs and couch, caking the walls and ceiling and carpets and even the table and TV, was her body, her skin and bones and blood and organs all laying in a chaotic mess that field the air with a fetid aroma that he was only now aware of, his senses having gone blind to it until he focused on the scene before him.

With all the strength Elliot had left in his body he forced himself forward on his hands and knees, delicately lifting his beloved’s head to into his lap as heaving sobs tore from his him, filling the silence of the room, cries and anguished howls soon joining them as he found his breath returning to him as quickly as it left his burning lungs.

Distantly he recalled the words Melanie had spoken to him nearly a week ago, when she had pulled him aside from their construction company’s meeting with that…Thing from the MBCC.

‘I don’t care what you think about Sinners or about her! If this investigation goes well for us and we get the job, then we can have more doors open to us than ever before, so keep your mouth shut, smile and play nice or you had best be fuckign ready to sleep in that car of yours!’

As Elliot held his wife’s head close to him, his world becoming nothing but the howling cries of anguish that slipped past his lips and the warmth of what blood had yet to dry seeping from her mangled stump and onto him, he could not help but recall how he had thought her to be mad to even consider playing nice around such things as that woman and her pets, but now he knew better, his wife had been right the whole time.

As he cradled Melanie’s head he thought to himself of how it had come to this, how stupid he had been to even consider that fucking stupid plan to be anything more than the ramblings of a delusional fool spoken amidst a shared drunken stupor.

A moment of joy at seeing a figure collapse to the ground in agony as a bullet tore its way through her chest, two cones of ice cream falling to the ground as she did so all while his cousin remarked how disappointed he was that they didn’t take her alive, was not worth the price of his beloved and his…oh…oh God no…

“Ma-Marquel? Gab-Ga-Gabriel?” He managed to choke out, a whimpering sob barely above a whisper at first, though soon he managed to force his lungs to cry it out louder, hoping beyond hope for a reply, though none there came.

Tears spilling from his eyes, Elliot delicately set his Melanie’s head down on the ground as he forced himself to rise, his eyes roving over the living room and thankfully not alighting upon the mangled corpses of his children, though of little comfort was this when he was once again faced with the viscera painted walls of his living room, bile barely held back from spilling past his lips as he forced himself to turn and-

Something clattered on the opposite end of the hall…right where his sons shared room was.

It could barely have even been called a plan, being born of his anger at losing such a lucrative contract and his wife’s misplaced anger at him, alongside of his deluded fool cousin and his own hatred for both the Things that the Snake used as it soldiers and the Thing that lead the organization, her refusal of his advances, and the sickness on her face when he had tried to touch her, along with the punch she had given him, having only solidified his disdain for her to the point of the fools idea.

Without a thought he began to race towards the hall with as much haste as he could muster as he called out his son’s names once more, barely averting falling face first onto the carpet several times as he did so, his mad dash ending when he rammed into the wall at the end of the hallway, his shoulder screaming out in agony, though he paid its desperate cries no mind as he turned to the doorway

Barely had the noise begun to grow before he had lunged forward, smashing aside the door with all the force that he could muster, the wood giving way under him with much greater ease than he thought it would, though he paid this little mind as he lifted his head to see what it was that had caused the commotion.

The first thing he saw was his children, their faces soaked in tears and mucus as they huddled together in a corner, Marquel having taken up the metal baseball bat he had given him as a birthday gift in defense of his brother, uncaring of the blood dripping down from a weeping gash upon his brow and what seemed to be a shattered arm as he stood before the trembling form of Gabriel, the youngest of his sons having closed his eyes and covered his ears as he wailed.

The second thing that caught his eye was what it was that loomed over his children, and what was currently lunging at him, scything blades for claws aimed directly at his throat even as a maw of needle like teeth opened with a howling shriek to tear out his throat should the claws fail to do their mission.

With a cry Elliot leapt backwards, narrowly avoiding the claws that came within a hair's breadth of his neck, the fetid reek of unwashed flesh adorned with scars and pockmarks that hung loosely from its unnatural form filling his nose as soulless white eyes set upon a field of sanguine tainted eyes met his own, hunger and hate beyond all sane comprehension burning as hellfire within them as the creature moved forth again.

Yet helpless prey he was not, for with all the fury he could summon forth to protect his children he lunged forward meeting the beast charge with a shoulder check that sent it sprawling against the base of the bed, the creature barely having had time to right itself before Elliot was atop it, a wordless roar slipping past his lips as he seized its arms by the wrists, his head meeting its own with a headbut that made his vision blur, but prompted the beast to cry out as its head flung backwards.

“RUN NOW!” Elliot yelled out to his sons, barely having time to register the sound of what he assumed to be Gabriel racing past him as his brother cried out for him, the smaller child fleeing past his father and down the hall, with his eldest following him as soon as the beast let out a roar of its own and began to fight back, a snarl slipping past its lips as it slammed its own head forward in full, the headbut being made more damaging as the beast’s fangs sunk into the tip of his nose, the creature throwing its head back as it tore the chunk of flesh free from his face with a cry of pain.

Though soon the pain faded as adrenaline seized him in an iron grip, his vision tunneling until he could see not but the creature before him, his hearing becoming not but the sounds of his thundering heart and the shrieking howls of the beast as the two fought, furniture being flung aside and shattered as the two grappled, Elliot narrowly avoiding the needle like fangs as he held the beasts hands by the wrist so as to avoid its claws.

For a time their battle seemed to be a stalemate, neither gaining nor losing ground until at last an opportunity came for Elliot to gain the upperhand in their struggle, as one of the boys stray socks, something he had reminded them time and again to pick up, was caught under the beast’s foot with the creature slipping backwards as Ellito took advantage of the space made to relinquish his grip on the beasts arms as he lifted his leg up and brought his foot down as hard as he could onto the creatures head.

A loud crack filled the room as the beast’s head met contact with the hard wood of the dresser, a whine that soon bled into a shrieking cry slipping past the beast’s lips as it tried to rise and lunge forward once more, only to be denied the chance as Elliot lifted up the closest object he could find, in this case Marquel’s computer monitor, and brought it down with as much force as he could on the beast’s head.

The first blow seemed to stun the creature as it fell backwards once more, its hands lifting up to shield itself from the following attack as Elliot rained down strike after strike, the monitor cracking and fracturing as he brought it down again and again, acrid brown blood that reeked of rot and decay tainting the monitor and the beast’s arms and the ground around it as the broken glass of the monitor, shattered after a hard blow, bit into its skin.

Howls and cries slipped past the beast’s lips as it fought to defend itself, one clawed hand slipping from over it face to grasp a handful of dirty clothes that it cast at Elliot’s face, the sudden act making Elliot lose his momentum as he had to swat aside the clothes, only to be met with the beast ramming into him with full force, the blow sending him crashing into the ground as the creature took the chance leap past him, cries of agony slipping past its lips as it fled in the same direction as his boys had run.

A roar slipping past his lips, Elliot forced himself to his feet as he grasped the broken monitor once more before he tore out of the room, slamming into the door to his and Melanie’s room as he did so, any thoughts of racing inside to acquire the hand-gun he had under his bed being tossed aside as he heard a commotion near his front door, adrenaline and rage driving him forth to abandon all logic as he raced down the hall to where he could see the beast trying to claw open the door, one hand hanging limply at an off angle and the other so slick with blood it seemed to have given the door a new paint job.

Seeing a chance to finish this battle, Elliot raced forward, the monitor raised high as he prepared to-

*CRASH*

The wall beside the door erupted in a shower of drywall and plaster, a hulking form lunging forward with speed that it should not have been able to possess,one hand, the size of Elliot’s own head seizing the monitor and tearing it from his grasp before he could bring it down, the titanic hand seizing his wrist with a bone breaking grip as the other collided with his face with all the force of a sledgehammer, his vision swimming as darkness lashed hungrily at the edges of his sight for a moment before the figure brought another blow directly into his stomach, the blow nearly making him vomit as he staggered back before being jerked forward and hit once more.

The last sight he saw before darkness claimed him, was the creature that had butchered his wife and nearly torn apart his sons as well, seeming to flicker and shimmer, its form distorting and changing before his eyes at impossible speeds as soon he saw the form the creature had taken.

His wife.

His Melanie caked in her own blood, a broken hand being held to her side as figures adorned in full black armor pulled her from the home.

Armor adorned with the symbol of a silver double-headed serpent coiled around an M.

Line Break.

How long ago had that been…the passage of time had become so distorted to him that Elliot could no longer tell whether it had been hours, days, or even weeks since the day when his world had been torn apart.

He could only recall in vague distorted flickers the way that he had awoken in a brightly lit room, his arms and legs restrained as he sat bound to a chair, a woman with aqua colored eyes that seemed fit to glaze over in permafrost from the sheer intensity of the frigid glare she had fixed upon him, standing across from him, her fingers clutching a clipboard so tightly that he thought it might snap in twain under the strain of her grip.

Vaguely, he noted how her lips were moving, each syllable seeming to come through gritted teeth as she spoke to him, yet her words were unintelligible, as though spoken through great volumes of water, with only the emotion present in each word reaching him, for no matter how hard it was that the woman tried to maintain the facade of a professional there was only so much she could prevent the seemingly ever growing fury that had taken root within her from seeping into her words.

Dimly he noted that she was not alone, his eyes were barely able to pick up the presence of two other figures standing with the woman, one whose gender he could not discern stood with a shield attached to their arm, their blue eyes were narrowed near to slits as visibly restrained themself from taking action.

The third figure was one he could not fully see, only vaguely registering that there was a figure steeped in the shadows in a corner of the room, a gaze as sharp as a razor blade fixated on him, with all the lethality of the same blade being drug across an exposed jugular, as the figure silently watched the going ons.

Faintly, he thought he smelled something floral…something familiar though he could not tell where from, when he focused on that corner.

“*** *** ******** ** **!?”

The aqua eyed woman snapped at him, the words were yet still unintelligible, though the sheer weight of the frigid anger that coated them in permafrost made all too clear that whatever it was she had said was something that required his attention, though he knew not how to respond.

But Elliot could not respond, his mouth refusing to move under his command, no words he wanted to say leaving his lips as the woman visibly grew yet more angered at his silence, with her seemingly at last losing the battle with her patience as she moved to stand before him, the weight of her glare increasing till he felt he would be ground into dust beneath it were she to not avert it soon.

“******* **!”

Again she spoke, and yet again he could not understand her, the distortion that enveloped her words seeming to mock him as he struggled to try and discern just what it was that was happening at this moment, his mind and body weighted down yet still by some form of torpor which served to only further hinder him from responding to the woman or making sense of what was going on in the room.

The woman seemed to only grow in her fury at his silence, her teeth visibly gritting against themselves for a moment before she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, an ominous stillness, like that before a great storm broke, enveloping her form before she turned about on her heel and began to walk away, seemingly calling out to the figure by the door as she moved to leave the room.

Desperately, Elliot raged against whatever force it was that held his tongue still, trying with all of the might that his enfeebled body possessed to try and speak up, to try and plead for answers to what was going on, where he was, and why he was bound…

And this time his body acquiesced to his demand, though not in the way he wished.

“She deserved it.”

At first he did not know where the words came from, for he could not believe that he was capable of speaking words so heavily coated in frigid acid as the those three words had been, but when he saw the woman go still, the eyes of her guard widening as their lips parted in surprise, he knew that they had come from him.

But he had not spoken them, Elliot knew that, he had not thought those words, nor had he tried to say them, so why was it that they had-

“What did you just say?”

At last the distortion passed, the words emerging from the depths of some sea of unintelligible gibberish to grace his ears with the frigid fury of a blizzard as the woman turned her head to look at him, the lone aqua eye that was visible seeming fit to catch alight with a flame of arctic frigidity as she gazed at him.

Beside her, elliot noted how the guard’s jaw had clenched their arms visibly straining with the effort it took to hold themself back from lunging forward and hitting him with their shield with all of the strength that they could muster, something they were prevented from doing but by their own professionalism.

Though that thin strand was in danger of soon snapping as their own temper began to grow.

From the shadows across the room there came shuffling sounds as unseen figures clenched their weapons and readied themselves to lunge should the order be given or their tempers boil over too much.

Though none of this horrified Elliot more than the realization that it was not so much his body could not speak, as much as it was that he could not speak through his body, his form moving of its own volition as it spoke once more, his struggles against the words that began to slip past his lips being drowned out by the flicker of a blazing triangle and a wordless command that echoed as thunder in his mind.

‘OBEY.’

And obey his body did, as words began to pour forth once more, each syllable prompting the horror Elliot felt to grow, his eyes kept from widening in terror only by the commands that seemed to have seized fast his body in an all consuming grip.

“I said that whore you call your ‘Chief’ deserved what happened to her, all she had to do was spread her legs for someone like she does for all of you freaks and none of thi-” His words died on his lips as something struck him across the face with enough force to cast himself and his chair to the ground, blood beginning to drip from a split lip across his cheek as hands clad in leather gloves seized him by the collar and lifted him up as the shadows violently shifted and stirred, whispers of malice baying for blood held firm by a silent order from another.

Elliot looked up, his eyes meeting the aqua colored eyes of the woman who had eben interrogating him a moment earlier, her eyes were wide and her pupils shrunken to pinpricks as she held her clipboard before her, ready to swing it with all the force she could muster, though it was not her who had stuck him, for such an honor belonged to the third figure, who now stood before him in full.

A lengthy cane of silver metal was wordlessly lifted up to allow for the figure, a woman clad in a white hat with a feather upon it, a white coat, which hung loosely from her shoulders, a purple shirt with a dark plum colored tie, a chest harness, and a gray skirt and high black boots, to wipe away the blood and saliva that lay atop its base with a handkerchief held in black leather glove clad hands.

With an unspoken command she directed her only visible eye, a green that seemed to have been engulfed in the frigid malice of the 9th circle of hell itself, to the guard who had stood beside the door, the figure offering a silent nod before they stepped forward, the crunching of the ground under their boots and the way the light cast their form in shadow as they loomed over him only serving to make Elliot’s heart hammer yet louder still as he braced for the attack to come.

Yet no attack came, instead the guard moved to seize him in an iron grip, self-control of near divine proportion battling with an inferno that burned within their eyes, waves of hellfire coming alight and threatening to sear away his flesh and bone and even his very soul should that control fail, though for now the rage was throttled, held fast in place by will and restraint alone as she sat him back up, pausing but to direct their gaze at the cane wielding woman after she had done so.

“Cinnabar, would you please take our little Songbird and go and get some rest,” her words were delivered in a tone that brook no dissent, steel as unyielding as it was sharp forming each words as she moved to stand before him, bidding the guard, Cinnabar, to move aside.

Again his lips opened of their own accord, words of hateful condemnation forming atop his tongue and readied to spill out yet again, though this time it was upon his own tongue they died for just as the first few slurs had begun to slip past his lips had their gazes met.

The fly looked into the eyes of the Spider.

Elliot felt his heart freeze, blood turning to glacial water as eyes of frigid emerald bore into his very soul like the fangs of a spider, faintly he noted the scar that rested above one her eyes, though he paid it little mind as the longer he stared into those eyes, the more he thought he felt the sensation of spider legs crawling upon him, strands of silk binding him fast as he tried and failed to get himself free from a suffocating grip as the woman watched him writhe.

Salvation from the terror that had seized him came in the most unlikely of forms as a voice spoke up from behind the woman.

“Director tha-” The Adjutant was cut off by the woman rapping her cane on the ground, a small series of spider-web cracks radiating from where the metal tip had struck the concrete below them, her hat now covered both of her eyes as she took a deep breath before she turned to look over her shoulder at the Adjutant, aqua meeting emerald as he silently awed at the Adjutant enduring the stare without flinching, let alone quaking as he did.

For a moment their gazes were locked, with the somewhat smaller woman nodding her head at last as she turned to allow for the other figure to escort her out, though just as she had begun to walk away, and the woman’s gaze had turned back towards him, the smaller woman called out once more.

“Director.” The taller woman turned her head just enough to both keep an eye on him and to look at the woman over her shoulder, the smaller woman pausing to take a deep breath to steel herself before she spoke once more.

“Should I send… them in?”

Again there came a brief pause, stillness such that Elliot dared not to even breath for fear of disturbing it enveloping the room in an all encompassing grip, a silence so deafening that even the thundering of his heart seemed to be swallowed amidst the cacophony of total silence.

And then the silence broke, words spoken with such naked cruel delight that Elliot could not fight the whimper that tore from his lips the phantom control of his body allowing for the action seemingly out of mockery of his plight as the woman turned her gaze towards him, her lips curling up into the smile of a victorious predator.

The smile of a spider seeing a particularly juicy fly caught in its web.

“Go ahead, the more the merrier.”

The aqua haired woman offered a nod before she and the guard left the room, barely a few moments seeming to have passed before he once more heard the sound of approaching footsteps, the cane wielding woman that had been called ‘Director’ by the aqua haired woman not bothering to turn as a truly titanic figure entered the room.

Hair like midnight fell around eyes of burning silver, a sneering mask-

Silver eyes glared down at him from above a demonic mask, veins of blazing scarlet spread across the figure's face like fingers of hellsfire reaching out to caress them with a lover’s possessiveness.

No.

No, no, no, no-

With but a pair of swift strides the woman had entered the room and moved to take her place beside the door, her eyes watching him like a ravenous beast would a cut of choice meat, bloodlust and hunger seeming to be held at bay but by the grace of some form of unseen restraint-

She leaned against the pillar behind him as he looked at the case before him, her gaze the silent promise of a guillotine blade as he fought down his sobs and terror as he tried to steady his trembling hands enough to open the case before him.

If she was here…if this beast was here then-

“Well, this is quite rare, Director Langley.”

A voice that would haunt his nightmares till the day he died filled the room, soft and gentle, so delicate that it seemed as though a stray breeze could silence it forever, and yet that fragility did nothing to lessen the terror Elliot felt as a woman entered the room.

Black heels clicking on the floor as a figure clad in a white dress and large coat entered the room-

His face was smashed into the stone floor with such force his vision swam, blood filling his mouth as a silent cry of pain slipped from his lips as he was made to prostrate himself before the figure sitting before him, his pain filled gaze and humiliated state reflected back at him from the mirror sheen of those shoes as the frail figure gazed at him with the weight of black holes behind her empty eyes.

Light purple eyes met his own as rose colored lips curled into a small smile-

She watched him with a gaze more reminiscent of a statue than that of a human, no flicker of anger or joy, sorrow or fear, pleasure or pain daring to cross her features as he looked at the wedding ring she had laid on the table before him.

“Normally, you can’t stand to be in the same room as me, let alone work with me.” That ever so delicate voice spoke up once more as the woman moved to stand with this Director Langley, a small smile on her face as the other woman regarded her with an expression of such faux joviality a blind man could have seen through it.

“Don’t get used to it, Hush.” The way the Director spoke that name, Hush, it was as though it physically made her ill to even utter the first few syllables of it, let alone the whole word, something which the smaller woman seemed to pay no mind to as she patiently waited for her to continue.

“I just want to make sure we get as much as we can out of him and your… talents alongside of our dear therapist will make sure that we get everything we need and more.” Again there came a tone of disgust and displeasure, her smile slipping into a thin scowl for but a moment before she turned her head towards the other figure that had entered the room.

A woman holding a golden pocket watch stepped forward, her long hair flowing with every step she took, the coat she wore over one shoulder doing nothing to hide her form from his eyes, though it was not her beauty that made Elliot gaze at her, no that honor belonged to the look in her eyes as she drew nearer to him.

The anticipatory look of a predator who has cornered their meal at last.

“Well then,” She spoke up, this new woman’s voice was the epitome of calm and elegant, and yet there was beneath that veneer of civility something else, something which made Elliot yearn to wrest control from his body and flee as the woman drew nearer to him even as the the grip on him-

‘OBEY.’

- yet firm remained.

For a moment he thought he saw one of the white clad woman’s eyes gain a marking, a white triangle amidst a spreading field of crimson, as her small smile grew ever so slightly into one that was both ever so gentle and yet ever so cruel as she looked at him.

The Director wordlessly lifted her cane up, allowing for Elliot to watch as she calmly tapped a hidden button on the top of it, allowing for a small compartment to slide open, a small black cylinder was removed from the compartment, with the woman opening it to reveal a syringe and a thin vial filled with an ochre colored fluid.

As the Director filled the syringe with the liquid, the newly arrived woman stepped forward, her long blond hair seeming caught in a spectral breeze as she ever do delicately reached into her own coat pocket to retrieve a golden pocket watch, the light glinting off of her glasses as her lips curled in vicious glee as Elliot trembled within the confines of his mind even as his body raged against his will.

The curses and slurs fell from his lips as water until he felt the sharp sting of the syringe being stabbed into the side of his neck, emerald eyes watching with unspoken delight as his vision began to swim and blur, spectral hands reaching out to hold him fast as words once more became distorted as reality swam around him.

The final words he heard before oblivion swallowed him were-

“Shall we begin?”

Line Break

Shalom smiled as she saw the man before her, his body coated in sweat as tremors wracked his frame, his eyes bloodshot with pupils shrunken to not but a pinprick of darkness as his terror held him fast in an unyielding grip, his chest heaving as sobs and gibbering lunacies spilled forth from his lips in place of please and curses and slurs, the nonsensical babbling bringing forth no small amount of delight within the Hush.

Idly, Shalom turned her head to inspect her compatriots, watching as Chameleon wordlessly tucked her pen back into her coat pocket alongside of her notebook, a series of notations regarding both the efficiency of their method of extracting information and an analysis of what could have been improved adorning it in the psychiatrists’ normal elegant penmanship.

On the other side of the room was Langley, the Spider having taken a seat as she cleaned off her cane once more, wiping away small amount of blood and mucus that adorned it’s base after the man had made a rather tasteless remark concerning their Chief’s sexuality, the Spider and Rahu’s reply being something which had made Shalom exceptionally grateful for the absence of Schorl, though she wondered if the price she would be made to pay would be worth such an opportunity.

For a moment, her thoughts flickered back nearly a week ago, to when she had been leaving her room to visit her Chief as she rested in the Hospital Wing, to when she had heard the sound of footsteps approaching her, the form of her little Christina causing a small smile to cross her face as her detective walked in silence with her for several moments, Shalom feeling quite grateful for the silence as it allowed her to try and clear her mind and focus on-

Christina began to hum, her lips did not move much as from her throat there came out notes of a delicate and gentle song, tender and full of compassion, a lullaby that would bid even the most stubborn into the sojourn of dreams…a song that Shalom had heard long ago…a song that had haunted her nightmares since she had heard it.

Her eyes had barely had a chance to widen before her Schorl fell to the ground, defenses failing in but an instant as onyx quartz cracked on impact with the ground as Christina continued to walk forward, even as Shalom stood rooted in place, the detective turning to look over her shoulder at her with a small smile before she beckoned her to follow her.

A low chuckle slipped past Christina’s lips as Shalom moved to stand beside her, the detective reaching out her hand to entangle it with Shalom's own, though the Hush reacted in a way she would never have done to her Detective, with her tearing her hand free as though the skin, a perfect mirror of her detective’s own, was a vice of scalding iron, a look of disgust crossing her face as the woman beside her paused to look at her with a hurt look on her face.

“S-Shalom? What’s wrong? D-did I do something w-wrong?” Christina said, her voice trembling with hurt as her lips curved downwards into a trembling frown, her eyes beginning to grow moist, a sight that should have made shalom feel the urge to reach out and embrace her detective, yet instead only made the feeling of visceral disgust she had felt upon her realization grow.

“Stop. I told you not to wear her form around me.” The Hush growled out, her lips thinning as her eyes narrowed into a cutting glare at the woman who stood beside her, there was something she so rarely displayed in her words coating them, a sincere and honest emotion called forth from the very depths of her being, said emotion being a feeling of such deep seated disdain that it left her body trembling as it enveloped her, her rage only growing as the thing before her dropped it’s mask of faux hurt, lips curving upwards to release a laugh that normally would have made Shalom feel at ease, and yet now only made her feel dread.

“ Alright, alright my dear, ” The voice was wrong, it did not belong to the woman before her, low and sultry, velvet coated in saccharine sin that dripped and pooled around the young woman, each word perfectly designed to cause a haze to form in the minds of those who heard it, the unnatural allure that coated them enough to make anyone submit, though for Shalom it only made her disgust grow.

“No more games.” In less than a blink her detective’s eyes had changed, an unnatural blue that seemed to burn with an internal light of unknown origin gazing into her own with such inscrutable intent that it left the Hush feeling the urge to take a step back and flee, though she was able to easily overcome the faint voice that bid her to run as she locked eyes with the…thing that was wearing the form of her detective.

“Let’s talk, shall we Shalom?” Those eyes had burned her, scorched and seared and froze and tore at her very being even as they soothed and cradled and mended her, the words echoed in her head as though the thunderous shout of the Almighty itself, something she often thought to be not far from the truth as the entity before her turned to look at her in full, a warm smile that left chills racing down Shalom’s spine gracing its face as it spoke up.

“ Let’s talk about how I can help you clean up this mess. ” Spoke the Devil to the Hush.

A sigh slipped past Shalom’s lips as she came out of her reverie, the Hush calling upon all of her experience to bury the unease she felt into the depths of her being, the dread at what the woman had done to blind the all-seeing eyes of Paradeisos swept aside in her desire to see the threat to her Chief removed, perhaps there would be a price to pay later on, but for now she would do all she could to insure that her Chief was safe, and should the price be high then she knew that Coquelic, Rahu, Christina and Langley would be able to see this mission through to the end.

After taking a slight breath to steady herself, Shalom gently took out her tablet and began to make some amendments to her notes, sifting out old and new information automatically, even as her mind wandered to how all of this had begun, to when-

A warm hand entangled with her own, platinum eyes meeting hers as rose colored lips curved upwards into a smile that made her have to fight down the urge to pull out her camera and immortalize the scene in one of her many albums.

Dimly she noted how she had been pulled to what she noted was some form of cafe, with the platinum eyed woman pulling out her chair and helping Shalom to sit at the table, the frailer white clad woman smiling up at her beloved Chief as she leaned down to place her lips to Shalom’s brow, the pair sharing a low chuckle as both of their eyes drifted shut, with them pausing where they were, Persephone basking in Shalom’s presence just as she did the same.

Though all good things must one day come to an end, and in this case they came to an end with her Chief pulling away from her as she went to head into the cafe, wordlessly smiling at Shalom over her shoulder before she entered the building, the Hush taking the time to calm her own beating heart as she silently cast her gaze on a part of the crowd where she knew she felt ever so familiar eyes on her.

Today was supposed to be her day with Persephone, but she knew it was too much to ask for her ever so loyal dog to not follow her, though she did admit it was amusing watching Rahu attempt to contend with the various men and women that were ogling her and attempting to flirt with her, Rosa, who had somehow been roped into this surveillance mission, seemed to be rapidly losing her battle with her own humor as Rahu once more whirled around to look at a trio of blushing and giggling young women.

A small smile crossed her face as Shalom shook her head for a moment at the scene before she heard her Chief call out to her, the Hush turning in her chair to see the Chief staggering towards her, seemingly battling with a pair of untied shoelaces and the inability to set down the pair of ice-cream cones she was holding, her battle with gravity seeming fit to nearly end with her triumph as she drew near to Shalom, a smile on her face-

*CRACK*

Something wet and warm splattered across Shalom’s face as she saw her Chief stagger, the frozen confectionery slipping from her hand as she swayed for but a moment before she fell to her knees and then her front, a pool of crimson beginning to-

“Shalom!”

She jolted to her senses, her eyes wide as she took a single low breath as she regained control of herself, her mask flickering back into place as though it had never faded in the first place as she tucked her tablet into her coat once more before she turned to look at the woman that had called out to her.

Rahu’s eyes raked over her face, picking apart every microscopic detail that they could as she tried to discern what it was that plagued her Mistress, with the answer seeming to come to her as she offered a low sigh of her own, barely audible behind her mask as she moved towards Shalom, the clicking of her heels on the concrete flooring being the only sound in the room, aside from the gibbering of the fool bound to the chair.

A brief sweep of the room revealing the absence of Langley and Chameleon, the Hush taking a moment to mentally berate herself for having allowed herself to lose herself in recollection, the gradual restoration of her emotions must have been taking more of a toll on her than she thought was what swept through her mind as she felt Rahu’s hands come to rest on her shoulders.

“The Spider and that Lizard have gone to get everything set up to go after the rest of this group, I told them you were busy thinking over everything and would join them in a few minutes.” Rahu said as she looked over her lady, a small smile from Shalom and a single step forward being all the prompt her ever loyal hound needed to give her a brief yet tight embrace, a much longer one could wait until later on when their current business was concluded.

“Thank you my dear, please go and let them know I’ll be joining them in a moment, I simply need to verify some information before I do so.” Shalom spoke up to her faithful guard, allowing for her hand to delicately cup her cheek for a moment before she let it fall to her side as she turned around, Rahu moving to fulfill her request as the the steady rapping of her heels gradually faded away until the door was at last shut and she was alone.

Or rather, she would have been alone were it not for the whimpering hype of flesh that sat before her, the sound of their pained cries would have made her feel something akin to pity were she not aware of the source of it, as such in the place of pity there came something approaching cruel delight in the form of a low hum that slipped past Shalom’s lips.

With a languid stride born of the desire to delight in the scene before her for but a moment longer, Shalom stood before the trembling form of Elliot, her lips finding their usual shape of an empty smile as she delicately reached out her hand and seized the trembling man by the chin, tilting his head to where he was once more forced to meet her gaze.

A part of her felt disgust at the way she felt such delight at the man’s cry of dread, knowing fully well how her Persephone would view such an action should she learn of it, but as she had done so many times before, and would do many times more, she hushed that part of her into silence.

After all, what Peresphone did not know would hurt no one’s heart.

‘What’s one more lie, to keep seeing that smile?’ Was the thought that allowed Shalom peace of mind, the knowledge that her actions, no matter how abhorrent, had brought about safety and stability for her beloved and those she called dear to her own heart, was more than enough to grant her a clear conscience as she did what she did best, what she was born to do.

Fix problems.

“To tell you the truth, I was trying to leave this part of me behind,” Shalom began as she lifted up her hand, ever so delicately cupping Elliot’s cheek in her hand, her tender grip did nothing to conceal the malice that swirled within her eyes, darkening them near to pitch as droplets of blood began to trail from where her nails pierced his flesh.

No words slipped past Elliot’s lips, merely another pained whimper that soon trailed off into a groan as Shalom’s other hand delicately reached up and wrapped itself around his throat, the Hush feeling nothing but cold satisfaction as she felt the man’s pulse thundering beneath her grip.

“But people like you always find some way to drag this part of me back out…” She trailed off for a moment, allowing a weary sigh to slip past her lips before her mask returned to its natural position as the Mark flared into existence, the symbol reflecting in Elliot’s eyes as the man went rigid in her grip.

Chameleon’s subliminal commands and manipulations would insure that the man before her remained unable to say a word about what had happened to him to anyone, and her own Mark would further reinforce the indoctrinations to the absolute of their control over the man, alongside of insuring that only the persona that had been crafted by Chameleon and herself would remain to see the light of day, while the true Elliot remained a prisoner in his own body.

Of course, she was not completely without some facsimile of mercy, his family would live to see a bright future, as she had promised him, though the mental scars would linger for many years but in time she was confident they would heal, and that none of them would go on to attempt the same foolishness their former patriarch had, plans already in motion to put them firmly under her gentle grip.

Well, gentle so long as they obeyed that is.

Likewise, she would insure that Elliot also got to live, perhaps he would even be able to see his family sometimes, and not the monsters that his other persona would claim them to be whenever it saw them, though his inability to tell them the truth of what had happened to him, along with the trauma of his actions and the revelation of his part in the attempt on Her Persephone’s life and the potential backlash they could face were it not for her mercy, would keep them from fully trusting him.

And now here she held the man, letting but one last flare of the Mark carve itself into his mind as she offered a final layer of subliminal messages and commands to insure that the man before her would never again no the beauty of a clear mind, or the warmth of the sun for that matter, ever again.

Those thoughts should have made her feel sick, to feel nauseous as she supposed was only right for someone committing so great a cruelty, yet instead it only brought her a vague sense of satisfaction at a job well done, and a sense of…well…she was not quite certain what to call the other feeling, some form of exasperation perhaps at the fact she had to do this, or perhaps it was a sense of justification?

She would have to sit down and sort out her emotions when she got the chance, perhaps she could even enlist the aid of Coquelic in this endeavor, the temptation of Flower Cakes and some new seeds for her little botanical garden should do the trick in buying her aid and silence, or perhaps she could approach that Flower that her Christina cannot help but wax poetic over.

But such matters could wait until later, as she at last allowed Elliot to slip from her grip and fall to the ground, the man curling into a ball as Shalom walked away, pausing but to offer one last glance over her shoulder at the shattered man behind her before she left him to the guards.

That the guards showed as little mercy to the man as Rahu had when she had found him, gave Shalom a sense of satisfaction, truly her Chief had chosen the most loyal of subordinates to stand at her side, the screening the Spider and her had put them through only ensuring these most loyal of souls were there to defend the one so dear to them.

Now she just had to hope they didn’t decide to introduce Elliot to any of the other Sinners before they got him to his cell, granted it would be no true loss to her if they did, but it would be quite inconvenient to have to clean up the ensuring mess and make certain that the Adjutant did not rat her out.

And speaking of the Adjutant, there she was, leaning against the wall of the hallway that lay between her and the room where her Rahu was waiting for her alongside of Chameleon and Langley, the aqua haired woman’s eyes meeting her own as she spoke up.

“I don’t know what you did to him, and for the sake of my peace of mind I’m not going to ask.” Nightingale spoke up, a sigh slipping from her lips as she reached into her pocket and pulled out a personal phone, her fingers ghosting over it for a moment before she spoke up again.

“Persephone’s vitals are improving, but she is still unconscious. Dr. Iron thinks she’ll need a few more days in that pod before she can be transferred to a normal bed, but she still can’t say when she could wake up.” Another sigh slipped past Nightingale’s lips as her fingers twitched once more, a flicker of moisture glazing her eyes before it was wiped away.

Shalom stood in silence as she processed the information, her mask slipping enough to allow for a small frown to cross her face as she kept her gaze fixed on the woman before her, allowing for the adjutant to take a moment to compose herself before she spoke.

“When was the last time you slept…Nightingale?” It was one of the very few times she allowed for herself to say the other woman’s name as opposed to her title, the other woman blinking at her in confusion for a moment before she offered another tired sign, her hand reaching up to rub at her eyes as she spoke up.

“I…I don’t know…maybe 2 days, but I can’t say for certain.” Shalom tilted her head for a moment, a small sigh slipping past her lips before she walked towards her rival, allowing for her hand to rest itself on her shoulder, a small sense of amusement slipping into her heart as she saw Nightingale jolt slightly at her touch as she looked at her in confusion.

“Go and get some rest,” Shalom spoke, a rare hint of compassion for the woman that had so vexed her upon her arrival at Minos and her attempts at gaining such a spot of favor with Persephone as the aqua haired woman held.

Nightingale said nothing for a moment as she looked at Shalom, before she let her head fall back against the wall, her hat wrinkling under the grip of her hand as it tightened for just a moment before it relaxed near to the point of letting it slip free as the Adjutant let her eyes drift shut for a few moments before she pushed herself off of the wall, allowing for Shalom to step back as she put her hat back on.

“I’ll be with Persephone, maybe I’ll be able to sleep if I can see that she’s alright.” The adjutant sighed as she began to walk away, a small sense of amusement flickering in her as she saw the way Shalom re-affixed her mask the moment the words slipped from her lips, a sure sign of her hiding her annoyance at the words.

“Give her my regards and tell Coquelic to get some sleep as well, some of her Flowers can fill in for her.” Shalom spoke up as she turned and began to walk away, though her steps were halted as she heard the Adjutant call out to her once more.

“Shalom.” Nightingale said, pausing as she looked over her shoulder at the woman behind her. “I know that you have some way of making sure that none of this will reach Persephone, that nothing you, Langley and Chameleon have done will reach her, hell maybe you even have a way of making the Sinners forget the things you’ve done, or at least keep quiet about them.”

Shalom said nothing, her silence being all the answer Nightingale needed before she turned her head and spoke up once more.

“You can trust Wynn, she’ll do everything she can to help keep Persephone safe, just don’t make her get her hands too dirty…she’s got too good of a heart for the kind of things you and the others have done.” Shalom nodded slightly at the words, already aware of the gentle heart the young woman possessed, something which reminded her of her Christina, and as such endeared her to the Hush in its own way.

“Shalom…Hush…” Nightingale continued, pausing for a moment as she took a deep breath before she continued-

“Give them Hell.”

The silence that enveloped the hall was all the answer she needed, the adjutant continuing her walk away as The Hush gazed over her shoulder at her, lips pulled into a thin frown as she made adjustments to her mental profile of the woman for just a moment before she resumed her own walk.

Perhaps there was hope for the Adjutant to become a truly worthy aid to the Chief afterall, but that was something she could ruminate over later on, for now she allowed for her mask to firmly fall into place and for the mindset of The Hush to overtake that of Shalom as she headed off to continue her work.

Though, before she let that fledgling humanity, so long ago lost and so recently regained, slip away she allowed herself one last emotional thought, accompanied by a small chuckle as she opened the door to see Langley looking over her terminal as Chameleon cleaned her glasses and Rahu looked up at her.

‘Ah, the things we do for love.’

Fin.

Author’s Note: Well, here we are everyone. We hope you enjoyed this merry mess of a chapter and that it lived up to the standard we have set for this fic.

We apologize beforehand if it is not up to par with our previous chapters or if it has made any of you uncomfortable in reading it, admittedly this chapter took us quite a while to do as we had to try and get into the mindset of what someone like Shalom would do when angered, a task which is exceptionally difficult given not only her complex nature but also the state of her sense of humanity and morality, or rather her budding sense thereof.

Part of us feels we failed to deliver simply by not being able to adequately reflect our own take on the dreaded Hush and how she has changed for both better and worse in the setting of this fic, that being her growing morality and humanity being mirrored by her growing attachment and fixation on Persephone and her willingness to do truly horrible things to protect her and the rest of those she loves.

In such a verse we felt it easier to explore her anger, and the ramifications of earning it, from both the point of view of the recipient of said anger, and then end with the point of view of Shalom herself as she thinks over what she did and why she did it.

Please feel free to let us know what we did wrong and how we could improve in the comments below, as like we said this one was a tough one to write for the reasons listed above and several more, among them being this chapter taking a radically different approach than what we originally had in mind for it.

With all of that said, stay safe and take care all.

14 notes · View notes