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sondrox · 2 days
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Hazbin Hotel Writing Prompt #2
"Those who arrive hell by suicide find themselves dissapointed and hurt by the realization there is an afterlife after all.
Yet new attempts of ending their life results in them waking up back in hell, over and over again.
But then, they find about the exterminations. A chance to die once and for all. Eternal death. Eternal slumber.
Those who come to hell with the sole objective to die again are called 'stopovers' and they are some of the most targeted objectives in hell. One who will not fight back. One who will let others walk over them. One who will do anythig to stay under the radar.
One stopover in particular arrives in hell, right a day after the extermination ends.
Now if he wants to die again, he'll have to wait 364 days until he has his chance.
There is nothing in hell that could make him change his mind.
All he has to do is wait and stay out of trouble.
Simple enough, right?
Right?"
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sondrox · 8 days
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Infernal Tales Ch. 9 - Happier Untitled
FFN: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13958950/9/Infernal-Tales
AO3: Infernal Tales - Chapter 9
Synopsis: Something else I wrote on a rant or else I would fucking explode.
Charlie knew it as soon as she opened her eyes that morning.
That day was not going to be her day.
She didn’t know why and she couldn’t just shake the feeling of it, despite she couldn’t wake up in a better way.
Wrapped tightly, arms crossed, next to the best girlfriend in all of creation, just right in the place where she could fulfill her biggest dream yet.
Contrary to her habits of being the first to get up off bed, springing out like a bunny to get ready with her day, Charlie just laid there.
That on its own was nothing strange, sometimes she just stayed in bed a little longer just so she could see Vaggie sleep and so she could be the first thing she saw in the day. More often than not the mere thought of doing that was enough to make her giggle like a little girl.
But that day her eyes stared past her into an empty spot in their room.
She zoned out for who-knows-how-long, only returning to herself when Vaggie roused her.
“Hun, are you alright?”
Charlie coughed a few times as she recomposed herself. “Ye-yeah! Just, you know, finishing booting up!” She ran her fingers through Vaggie’s hair with a smile she had to consciously form up.
“Heh, right. Let’s get started. Last thing we want is for everyone else to oversleep.”
The couple walked together into their bathroom, as it was their habit. Despite the seemingly spicy scenario. For both of them it couldn’t be further from that.
And for the first time in a long time, it was…rather mundane, not to mention how quiet it was.
Vaggie was the first of them to catch up on this, and the fact Charlie was not singing something or even humming a melody, despite her girl’s mind was an endless stream of artsy ideas. One Vaggie had had to learn to keep up with, and to some degree, she enjoyed it, despite how troublesome and taxing it may, and actually is sometimes.
The second thing Vaggie caught as off was when they had their breakfast together.
Vaggie cooked for the both of them. When your significant other has more money than you can spend, your options to show your love language are narrow, but if Vaggie’s learned anything from Charlie is there is always something that can be done about it.
Their usual breakfast would consist of them discussing their schedules for the day, while Charlie praised Vaggie, telling her she was better than a five-stars, Michelin star, star in the sky, star anything, chef in hell.
But right now, Charlie could only stare at the plate in front of her.
“Did you hear me?”
“What!?” Charlie rose up her head suddenly, almost falling off her chair.
“I said, since extermination is no more for now, a lot of sinners should be willing to give the hotel a try. Surely you must be excited.”
“Oh!” Charlie cleared her throat and tried to muster her best smile, but she could only raise her cheeks. “Yes! We are gonna be drowning in guests any time soon.”
“What?”
“Swimming! I meant swimming. Ha-ha. Nothing we can’t take together.”
For the first time in that day, Charlie strived for something and reached her hand to grab Vaggie’s hand and squeeze. Vaggie reciprocated, stroking her thumb over Charlie’s palm. The hellborn felt she could melt right then and there, but Vaggie then withdrew her hand.
“About that, I’m going out with Angel and Husk. We are going out to get supplies for the new wave of guests. As you said, they are coming here any time soon, last thing we want is…”
Charlie couldn’t really hear anything else afterwards. Next thing she knew Vaggie was leaving, and Charlie was left with Alastor and Niffty at the hotel.
Left was a pretty accurate word, as shorty after the trio left, Alastor left her to fence for herself under the excuse he needed to catch up with a few “old friends”, and Niffty rushed at the speed of a bullet to chase and kill insects, not before telling her that some of the new guests that had arrived after the extermination day had not come for breakfast at the dining room.
Charlie gave herself the task to prepare the rooms for the upcoming new guests, while at the same time checking on those guests.
Normally she would be bouncing with excitement as she went through each room. Preparing and making sure every little detail is perfect. Decoration, notes of encouragement on the most unexpected places or leaving a welcoming gift, which included but was not limited to food, a phone, and a ticket for them to invite anyone they wanted to the hotel. A “bring-a-friend-to-redemption” kind of coupon.
But right now, as Charlie sat on her desk, she struggled to even write the most simple and generic notes she could think of. Simple things that could easily make her day failed to spark the slightest of emotions within her.
A simple “Good job” was too much for her to believe.
But when it came to checking on their current residents, Charlie couldn’t not find them.
She tried knocking on their doors, and when they didn’t answer she entered as carefully as she could, only to find each room raided and left ramshackle.
Everything that could be taken off the ground and carried was gone. The bed sheets, pillows, blankets, bathroom products, most of the furniture. The decoration Charlie had set up was gone as well or broken and torn apart on the ground.
Charlie would have thrown herself to the ground in a corner as inconsolable crying ball of sadness. But that day, all she could think of was she knew this kind of events was a tangible possibility. Many of the sinners she took in would only use the hotel as a means to get free food and shelter, and just leave without a second thought after a while.
Vaggie had warned her of that, Alastor had told her he expected just that. And there was a time where the thought of Angel being a potential perpetrator of just that floated in a corner of her mind.
“Niffty?” She whispered bluntly and in a second she appeared crawling over her. Charlie simply grunted and picked her up by her sides. “Think you can…clean this?”
Nifty said something she couldn’t make of it as she nodded frantically and got to work.
After a while, Vaggie, Angel and Husk returned. Charlie broke it down to her girlfriend with surprising calm, trying to make it sound like no big deal.
“Did they try to hurt you?”
“No.”
“Did they steal anything else?”
“No.”
“Are you okay?” Vaggie grabbed her by her shoulders fondly.
Charlie blinked puzzledly.
“Yeah. Don’t worry. I…we will just try harder with our new guests!”
Vaggie’s eyes grimaced as her eyes deviated for a second. “Sorry hun, we didn’t get anyone to join us today.”
Vaggie prepared herself for an awful reaction from Charlie, she would tell them they could try together another day. Maybe even letting her try one of her musical ideas, if that’s what it took to spare her the—
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah, it’s not a big deal.”
“Charlie, is okay if you get upset once in a while.” Her brow frowned. “Are you sure you’re okay?” She run her fingers through Charlie’s hair, but she stopped her as gently as she could. “Charlie…”
“Do you mind if we call it a day?”
Vaggie, unlike Charlie, was fluent in silence. When the hellborn closed the door and they saw each other face to face, Vaggie understood what she had to do.
Charlie, of course, didn’t. She walked to the kitchen and began to prepare their dinner like it was their habit at the end of a long day of having their work not being reciprocated by no one.
No one, except…
Vaggie took Charlie’s hands and forced her to put down the knife and plates.
Her not questioning her and her adamant reaction just gave Vaggie proof Charlie needed to clear her head.
She walked the two of them into their bed until they two laid down.
Before Charlie could say anything, Vaggie extended her arms and wrapped them around Charlie’s head, bringing it closer to her chest so Vaggie could rest her own head on top of Charlie’s.
“Vags…?”
“Shh…it’s alright.”
Charlie thought Vaggie would try to rationalize how this day had been a good day. Truth be told, they knew that was not Vaggie’s strongest suit, and she would end up laughing to not make Vaggie feel bad, ending up with her being the comforted one with tickles and affirmative words, when Charlie needed to be the comforted one.
They spent the next twenty minutes in that position in silence, only with a calm, yet heavy breathing and rickety pants and gasps filling the room. Vaggie didn’t try to kiss her, look at her face and tell Charlie everything would be okay, or pull away, all she did was wrap her up in her arms, without an ounce of selfishness in it.
She just held the person who deserved heaven more than anyone in this pit until her muffed gasp calmed down, and before she knew it, she had fallen asleep in between her arms.
Vaggie chuckled to herself at the thought of Charlie insisting tomorrow they should have changed clothes to sleep, but that was a trivial issue for future Vaggie. For the time being she limited herself to put Charlie down on the bed and she laid next to her looking at her until she fell asleep too.
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Can you guess the quote I sneaked into this chapter? That quote and shit happening in life inspired this.
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sondrox · 2 months
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Through Rocks and Snow Ch. 19 - The Core
FFN:https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14146784/19/Through-Rocks-and-Snow
AO3: Through Rocks and Snow - Chapter 19
19. The Core
Prompt: Intend
Celia stood at the edge of a cliff at the deepest caverns of Mountain Celeste. Waves of lava clashed at the stones below her feet. Her shadow behind her quavered like a soft leaf.
It had been a little over two hours since she last saw Madeline. She had insisted to dive into the caverns that led directly to the heart of the mountain.
Any new visitor to the mountain would have advised doing such thing was not necessary, or even a resident that had not spent as much time at the mountain as Celia.
But she knew the mountain and she knew the red-spirit girl.
There was one thing they had in common, if anything else.
They were two forces of nature to be reckoned with, and as such, it was unwise for them to go against their flow, just like boats in the sea, or birds in the sky, they fly with the wind, not against it.
So what would happen when one clashes against the other?
Celia stared at the large rivers of lava, they flowed as fast as they were hot. Yet she saw with a disinterested amusement, like a kid in a classroom staring through the window.
Then, the rivers flew faster. The sound of lava flowing bounced on the rocks filling cavern after cavern, Celia’s ears along with it. Her shadow still stood behind her, its silhouette vibrated stronger as the lava flew wilder.
In certain moments, the lava clashed with such fierceness it leaped countless meters into the air, almost touching the ceiling. Celia’s shadow disappeared and returned just as quickly.
Did she react? Or even flinched so far? No.
That did not stop the mountain from creating even bigger waves of lava. They struck against the old rocks and the ground at Celia’s feet shook.
Quickly again, lava splashes rose high in the air, Celia’s shadow extended as well behind her. Tall, deformed, vastly unproportioned. Its silhouette covered almost the whole wall and entrance Celia came from.
As if such thing would have not been unsettling enough for anyone else, the shadow remained at its place after the lava fell. It moved on its own, even after the lava had calmed down It expanded larger, like vines and roots overtaking long-abandoned buildings.
Celia didn’t pay that much attention to Necia. Not now, not like this. Necia came for Celia, not the other way around.
Before Necia could reach Celia, she stopped. Celia stopped her. As if an unbreachable wall had manifested between them.
Still, that did not mean she could leave Necia unattended.
She was a sister to her, in some way, a little one at that.
Funny enough, she could have stopped her from almost the very beginning. What was happening so far only happened because she allowed it.
When one lived in a mountain as a hermit, zealous-like, one had to use whatever was at their reach to not lose their mind. Keep it sharp.
This cave had been named “Heart of the mountain” for a good reason. Long ago before, before even Celia had put a foot into the mountain for the first time, decades ago.
As such, and as hearts were hot, fiery, zealous, so was this cave. A rocky embodiment of fire, whereas blood ran through a heart and its veins, lava did the same everywhere Celia could see.
For the great fire there was in the mountain, there had to be an equally great cold to temper it.
Tame it, yet let it roam free. Never lose it out of sight.
Too much cold, and there would be no effect.
Too much fire, too much short-sightedness and one could…
She just hoped Madeline did not forget that.
Having enough, Celia sauntered away from the edge into the soft shadow the entryway to the cavern. She sat down with a deep, tired sigh and waited for Madeline to return.
Madeline was far beyond anyone’s reach. Almost, anyone’s reach.
Like a drop of water falling into a well, Madeline dived deeper into the cave as fast as she could, past the gaps, past the fire, she burned brighter.
Too bright. Too hot.
But she was only human, ascending above lava quickly rising, but only human, while the mountain was beyond flesh.
Her determination may be comparable to steel, yet steel could bend, break as a leaf.
Despite she had returned to the mountain, despite she had adventured to find that part of herself again. She had not had such luck.
Edges to climb and move up grew thin and scarce the more she climbed. The lava rising ever so swiftly.
She remembered the times when she believed she didn’t need Badeline.
When she believed everything wrong that had happened to her was her fault.
The truth was, some of it, had been her fault. The fault had been hers as much as had been her own.
Badeline only did it in order to help her, in the best—only—way she knew.
She screwed up. Badeline screwed up. There was no denying that.
“I hate you.” Madeline one night threw into the air with a flat tone back at her apartment.
“A part of me will always hate you. It’ll even wish you had never existed. It’ll always wonder what could have been of me if you never existed. I know you did what you did seeking what was best for me, but you fucked me up. I don’t know if I can forgive you. I don’t know if I even want to. A part of me will always keep you tight and close to me, because you’re the only one who knows what it feels like. The only one who will ever know, and I hate that of you. I can’t get rid of you. I truly can’t.
“But…”
Madeline leaped off the edge she was holding to. There was nowhere else to go.
“I’m tired of bearing this burning hate inside of me.”
Her arms extended as far as they could. Her fingers numbed.
“If you once sought what was best of me…”
She began to fall down.
“Could you help me do it again?”
A pale cold hand reached hers at the last second.
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I truly, TRULY didn't know what to make out of this chapter. It is a popular opinion among the game community that The Core is perhaps the least liked chapter in the game, competing very closely with Celestial Resort for that title.
Another popular opinion I've saw, and I share, is...what the fuck is the core about to begin with? Why does Madeline seeks the heart of the mountain? Or why Badeline only appears once in this chapter. Especifically near at the end of the level. I couldn't help but feel I was trying to achieve a task that was flawed at its core...no pun intended, but yeah, it felt like trying to do something a bit impossible, but I managed.
I had serious trouble to make justice for this chapter, so much, I decided to seek help by re-visiting the fanfic that inspired me to write this in the first place. Echoes of the fallen, a hollow knight fanfic. The most important thing I re-learned is that changing POVs is a powerful tool. At first, Madeline would have it fully, but uh, let me check again how that went out...
Anyways, giving the POV to Celia was a great choice. Writing her really makes me want to write even more. I see her as an extreme version of Madeline. Really makes me want to write a prequel to Celeste, but that'll take an awful amount of planning and forethought.
Another problem I had was, what I wanted to make out of this chapter, related to the next ones. I realized my biggest problem was the way I wanted this chapter to be connected to the future ones and with each other. I don't know exactly what to call it or how to word it.
Nearly all previous chapters are standalone chapters, gotta say, looking at that as a whole, it makes me realize it gave me quite some liberty.
There was, or there is this over all theme I want to carry across all chapters, and I think that is my problem?
Sigh, I will be able to talk more about it the more chapters I complete.
That's all for now. See ya.
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sondrox · 3 months
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Through Rocks and Snow Ch. 18 - Epilogue
FFN: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14146784/18/Through-Rocks-and-Snow
AO3: Through Rocks and Snow - Chapter 18
18. Epilogue
Prompt: Driving
Once Madeline returned from the mountain, Granny and Theo were already waiting for Badeline and her to throw an improvised party with what Granny had on her cabin.
“Hey Mads,” Theo said.” You I take you for a special girl and all that stuff, but…”
The cheerful, happy environment got snuffed out like a fragile snowflake floating in the air. Madeline’s heartbeat became heavier and gulped down just as heavy.
“But...?”
“Why in the trending heck you have strawberries in your backpack?!” He exclaimed opening her backpack and showing dozens of them.
“Oh, that.”
“Yes! ’Oh that’ is what I said in my way down. I thought I was carrying rocks here, man! How did you even managed to climb this wacky mountain with these in the first place?”
“I had already felt I carried more weight than what my body could bare my whole life. Having a backpack barely made a difference and I didn’t want some small extra weight to stop me. Like…Like if I had this drive inside me, unwilling to give up. Clinging myself to that drive felt relieving. More relieving than what I have been in the last year.”
Silence filled the room afterwards. That awkward silence when there was nothing to say, or a lot instead; Madeline didn’t know which one was appropriate right now.
“Also they felt lonely and I did too.” She added with the slightest hint of hurry.
“Yeah that makes sense!” Theo went back to his carefree attitude.
“You don’t plan to take them home with you, do you?” Badeline asked.
“If you do, you can say you made new friends. Ha! Ha! Ha!”
A small drop of sweat fell through Theo’s face. “I’m standing right here, you know.”
“You could bake,” Badeline suggested.
“B-bake?”
“Come on, it’s been so long since you last baked.”
“Because last time I did, I almost burned mom’s kitchen.” The shame in Madeline’s face soon turned into suspicion. “You didn’t have something to do with that?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Badeline turned away trying to look natural. “On your defense, Mom shouldn’t have left you unsupervised. That’s on her.”
“It would be nice if you play…well, nice with people.”
Badeline rolled her eyes. “I don’t have to play nice with anyone if I don’t want to, including you.”
“Oh, so it was you last time I baked?”
“I can’t confirm or deny it.”
Person and reflection chased each other with words in the following minutes until Badeline walked off busted, leaving Madeline alone in the kitchen.
Not wanting to think about it, Madeline got herself to work on a pie using the strawberries, but sooner than later, her mind wandered. She just didn’t understand!
After everything they’ve been through…after everything she’s been through! Why she insisted on staying in their old ways? Weren’t they supposed to be past that? Why couldn’t she put up with herself? Literally! Or keep her under control? She was so-!
“Breath, Madeline. Willing reminders. Not intrusive thoughts.” Madeline knew it. She was slipping once more.
She imagined in her mind the feather-breathing tecnic Theo taught her.
Dark clouds and purple tentacles invaded her mind. The walls fell over her. Imagination and memories started to blend with one another.
“No! Focus. She…I…can…don’t…”
“Need help, kid?”
Madeline opened her eyes wide and lifted her head like she had woke up from a bad dream and turned around abruptly. She found Granny standing behind her with that perpetual smile of hers like she knew a secret about her.
“N-no. I’m fine, I just-”
“You’ve cut yourself.”
“What?” Madeline checked her body in a rush with her hands, finding at once the source of Granny’s intervention. Madeline had a cut in her index finger. When had this happened?
“I’m gonna get something for you.” Granny walked to the bathroom and pulled an old small first kit. From inside she pulled some bands and handed them to Madeline once she returned.
“Take it. Last thing I need is you bleeding all over my kitchen.”
“Sorry,” Madeline muttered as she took the bands and avoided Granny’s stare.
“Stop saying sorry for everything.”
“So-I…it was an accident.”
“Accidents happens. Like little unplanned kids. Little brothers, little sisters.” Granny half-closed her eyes and raised her eyebrows in amusement.
“Are you saying Badeline was an accident?”
“You’re an only child, aren’t you?”
Madeline blinked a few times confused. “Er, yes, but what-?
“That means you have a sister all of a sudden, like any other only kid.”
“Okay…but, what am I supposed to do with that?”
“Deal with it.” Granny did not laugh, but her smile hinted she had every intention to do so.
Madeline waited Granny continued rambling about…whatever she was talking about, but they stood in a questionable silence until Madeline spoke again.
“That’s it?”
“Yes.”
“But…what does it mean?”
“It means what it means.”
“I don’t understand what to do with that. Or wi-with her at all!”
Granny threw a few chuckles. “Welcome to sisterhood. Eventually you’ll learn to play nice between the two of you for good.”
“Even though we started with the wrong foot?”
“Especially because you with the wrong foot!” Granny burst out a loud laugh—Madeline was not sure could stand it much lunger—Eventually Granny stopped and recomposed herself.  “Stop taking yourself so seriously, you’ve come a long way to keep doing it. That’s what sisters do.”
Only wordless grunts and stutters came out from Madeline’s mouth before Granny cut her again.
“No one is supposed to know what to do when a sibling enters your life, and you find yourself with the fact you just have to accept it.”
“Does everyone else has also had to accept the fact this sibling is a doppelgänger that came out of a mountain and is essentially your shadow self?”
“That’s a good one! Shadow self! Amusing what you young people invent nowadays!
“We did n-“
“And before you keep asking me stuff,” Granny added, in a more collected tone. “You don’t have to have all the answers at night. You’ll figure it out yourself. Don’t you dare stop, the alternatives are much more undesirable.”
Hours passed by between chattery and pie. As the night grew older, a shored dreading thought grew on Madeline. Due to Granny, the farewell wishes between all of them were short and straight to the point.
“Are you sure you don’t want a ride?”
“Nah,” Theo said nonchalantly. “I’m good as new, Mads. Alex will come pick me up. She won’t believe it when I tell her everything that happened!”
“Don’t forget to write us from the asylum when they lock you up,” Badeline jested.
Person and reflection got in their way shortly after. Despite Badeline turned away with a genuine smile, her eyes were empty as their walk was silent. At some point her smile withered away.
Nothing stood in their way once at Madeline’s car. Nothing but nothingness and quietness ahead for miles on end. Badeline sat on the co-pilot seat. Eyes lost in the trees, she rested her chin between her ashen fingers.
“So, I guess this is goodbye.” Badeline addressed the elephant in the room with no intention to sugarcoat it.”
“You-we, don’t know if you’ll disappear after we drive away from the mountain.”
“You don’t know either I won’t. Then what?”
“Then…you’ll always be a part of me.”
Badeline turned her head with unenthusiasm to Madeline. “You already said that.”
“And I meant it. Even if I don’t actually hear you. I know you will be there to help me when I need you. Like you always wanted to do. And if I return to the mountain-“
“WHEN you return to the mountain!” Badeline’s eyes widened for a moment when she realized she had shouted. She turned away back to the window.
“You want me to return? Eventually?”
“Wha-of course I want you to return! What if I lose my body?! What little we have gained? You wanted to throw it all away?!”
“No!” She assured. “No…is just, I’ve been thinking on doing this for so long, I never thought what I’d do after.”
“Then?”
“There are some areas on the mountain we didn’t explore. Granny told me about this cave that goes directly to the heart of the mountain.”
“Mountains don’t have hearts, darling.”
“And people don’t talk to literal parts of themselves,” Madeline’s tone grew irritated.
The person waited for the reflection to snark back, but instead, Badeline whispered something only Madeline could have heard, since it was her own voice.
“If I disappeared and you never heard from me again…you promise me you’d never forget me?”
“I promise.” Madeline smiled at her as she ignited the car’s engine, she stirred herself to that part of her until they could meet again.
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One step less.
You thought this was over? Hell no we still got a long way to go.
Originally there was going to be a chapter before this one, based mostly on a discarded idea about Mads and Bads on their way down the mountain, as shown in the credits.
At the end I couldn't get nothing good enough out of that idea, however I never deleted it, since I thought it could still be useful in the future.
The idea was to re-use that concept and adapt it to this series and finish it. The chapter's prompt would be "searching", as that was the story's main concept and what was built on. Not exactly randomly generated, but as I said, rules were meant to be broken.
Since I was using an old document, techincally the majority of the chapter was already written.
This is called "recicling your writing".
Still, again, I could not get anything of use out of it. Not only because it was too redundant. but because, once I made some progress with the following chapters what I wrote there did not fit with the over all theme I wanted to get aboard on in the next chapters.
Is possible I publish that unfinished chapter once this series is finished. I dunno.
Speaking of, you have no idea how much I complicated myself with the next chapter's order. I'm confident there was no need to trouble myself that much over that, as it was easier to figure out than I initially thought.
I think that's all for now.
If you liked it, leave a comment, it'd make my day.
See ya.
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sondrox · 3 months
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Infernal Tales Ch. 8 - Few love and lots, lots of hate
FFN: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13958950/8/Infernal-Tales
AO3: Infernal Tales - Chapter 8
Summary: Vaggie and Angel dust have a complicated relationship of love and hate...mostly hate sincerely...
If it wasn’t because Angel was their star patient, Vaggie would have thrusted her spear into Angel a long time ago, right through where the sun doesn't shine. And with more than enough reason, according to her.
“How many times do I have to tell you that you can't have sex in the hotel?! You know well that your treatment involves dealing with your sex addiction-!” Vaggie continued scolding the spider demon after catching him in bed with a resident who was trying to get dressed as quickly as possible. Once he did, he walked past Vaggie like Pedro through his house and almost ran out of the room.
"I'm getting sick of your shit!" Vaggie continued. "If I catch you having sex with anyone else again I swear I'm going to throw you out the window! Isn't it possible that-you-what are you doing?" Vaggie stopped, confused.
“Seeing if the height is worth it,” Angel responded looking out the window.
“Can't you be normal for once?!”
“Bitch, define 'normal' will you?”
“You're not even going to bother pretending to care about this?”
"Why? Do I get extra points if I do it or what the fuck?
Angel's commitment to the hotel was often questioned.
Vaggie and Charlie were at the doors of the hotel with a not at all peaceful countenance.
“He should have arrived half an hour ago,” Vaggie said with her arms crossed as she tapped her boot on the floor incessantly.
“I'll go make some tea.”
"Thanks hun."
Charlie stood up from his seat and went back inside.
Vaggie checked the time on her phone for the tenth time since she left. He let out a big sigh and massaged his temples.
“Screw him. I-I mean…ah, what does it matter?” She got up and just when she was about to enter the hotel, she saw a wandering demon coming down the street from the horizon, he was pushing a shopping cart with some boxes and something else that Vaggie couldn't place what it was.
“What the…” was the first thing that crossed her mind. The surroundings of the hotel and its nearby grounds were not meant for beggars, not only because of the nature of the hotel, but because Vaggie had made sure to scare away such lowly demons.
When the vagabond arrived at Vaggie, the wandering demon pushed out the entire contents of his cart, among the several bottles of alcohol that fell, an Angel Dust, half asleep, rolled out of the cart, straight to the floor with a stoned expression and tongue in the air.
The vagabond burped as a greeting, or that's what Vaggie wanted to think. Angel Dust grunted as Vaggie was the first thing he saw when he woke up.
Angel Dust stood up clumsily and almost falling over under his own weight, at the same time he cleaned his clothes as best he could, or rather the few clothes he had. His hair was a mess, his white suit was open, exposing his prominent voluptuous fur, his mini pants were pulled down to his feet, thank God he still had underwear on.
“Thanks man, I'll call ya if I need a ride again.” He turned to the homeless man, who responded with another burp.
“How did you pay him? I know well that you haven’t had money for weeks.” Vaggie stared at him with a dumbfounded face, the homeless man had a swarm of flies around him that he had to concentrate fully on not smelling him even by accident.
“Who said I paid you with money?” Angel just cleaned his mouth with his arm.
Other times his outbursts were childish.
“Angel is just a damn sandwich!” Vaggie yelled at him in the dining room.
“I refuse to eat this shit!” He said pointing to heel on his sandwich “There are limits, you know?!
“It's just a goddamn heel!”
“I'd rather starve!”
"Great! You would be doing the world a favor!”
“Don't play dumb, bitch! You more than anyone would miss all of this!” He shouted pointing at his posing body for a moment.
Vaggie let out another exasperated sigh, her desire to put up with Angel 's nonsense and shit was running out. For his own good, she let his typical transgressions pass and remained silent. When everything seemed like it was going to calm down again, Angel had to open his damn mouth.
"Y’know? I'm willing to fuck you if that takes away your bitterness. I mean, I don't expect it to wear off, but at least then I can brag that fucked you.”
“So, are you going to tell me how you got into the world of prostitution?” Vaggie asked in personal therapy with Angel.
“Well, I needed to not starve, duh, and unfortunately all the stores near where I lived had already taken precautions so I couldn't steal from them…or get close.”
“You know that stealing is a crime, right?”
“Not showing this great body to the world is also a crime and I don't see you bitching!” Angel swaggered over himself while posing over the couch. “I mean, yeah, I see you bitching. Everything I do is a crime for you.” Angel spat out that last word tiredly.
Vaggie tapped the tip of her pen against her notebook hard and fought the urge to press her fingers against the pen. Their session fell into an awkward, but grateful silence. Vaggie 's sight fell on her blank page, unlike her mind.
“Where I come from there was always a lot of crime.” Her voice did not denote any particular emotion. “If it wasn't me or someone in my family who was attacked, it was a friend or an acquaintance. Where I lived it was 50/50 if you didn't see someone again next week because they were murdered.
“What people never imagine is that your mother is the smuggler people tell you to be careful for.”
Angel, who had been using his phone, froze for a few seconds and turned to look at Vaggie reluctantly.
If Vaggie noticed Angel's gaze on her, she didn't show it, as her one eye remained lost in an empty spot in the room.
“Eventually a robbery goes wrong, and they caught her and took action into their own hands. I remember how my father took me away from my house so that I wouldn't hear my mother's screams just a few blocks away.”
“Your dad?"
“He was the opposite of my mother. Honest, kind, friendly.”
"Sounds familiar."
Vaggie nodded absently. “Maybe that was the reason they were together…until they weren't.”
“What happened I mean, her?”
She grimaced with reluctance. “A preview of what happens down here.”
Silence fell upon the room, and Angel joined Vaggie in staring into blank space. Memories flashing in both of their eyes. An unspoken, shared pain.
“I guess your folks can really screw you over.”
Vaggie knocked hard on a room door for the fourth time.
“Frank! It's time for the group therapy session! Get out now, everyone is waiting for you!”
"Fuck off!" A voice shouted from inside.
“Don't give me that shit! If you want to stay inside the hotel you will have to stick to the rules!”
“Why don't you get stick to my member?! You should!"
“Okay, that’s it.”
Vaggie opened the door and entered, in a few seconds she threw Frank out of the room and ended up rolling on the floor to the door of the opposite room. Vaggie came out pointing her spear at him and placed the tip on his neck.
“If I say come out you co-Aaahg-!“ Frank pulled Vaggie's spear, making her lose balance for a second, and grabbed her by the neck. He took advantage of the grip to stand up and put Vaggie against the wall.
“No one tells me what to do, skank!”
“Hey!” A voice shouted next to them and before they could see who it was, Angel Dust stepped between the two, separating them. “No one calls my skank a skank!”
“And what the hell do you care what I do, bitch?/Angel, what the hell are you doing?”
“What do you think? I’m doing you a favor.”
With his six arms, Angel Dust held Frank by his arms and legs, lifted him off the ground, between screams, profanities and a sudden cry for help, Angel took him inside his room and threw him out the window.
Then Angel came out calmly, wiping his hands and patting himself on the shoulder. His winning attitude faded as he saw a perplexed Vaggie with her hands in the air, as if she were grabbing something and squeezing it very hard.
"The. Fuck. You. Did?” She blurted out angrily.
“Don't worry, I just threw it into the garbage container, where he belongs, though I didn't see if he fell inside or not,” He said without much importance. Vaggie 's gesture of wanting to crush something in her hands grew stronger. “Relax your crack, the height wasn't enough to kill him, although I wish it were.” He said that last part quietly. “By the way you’re welcome.”
Vaggie was about to call him out on it, but stopped before the mouths came out of her mouth, as much as she hated to admit it, but for once, Angel was right.
Angel Dust was making progress.
Sometimes.
Once he found that Angel Dust discovered alcohol hidden in some tenants' rooms.
“Listen to me, you useless brainless dwarf, you can't drink alcohol outside the bar and especially at this hour, so take advantage of the empty space in your head you use to get your cheap drugs and remember the rules of the place, or what? Next you’ll tell me is your parents are cousins?”
Vaggie had watched it all, she'd be lying if she said she was impressed.
“Wow,” Vaggie said from behind Angel.
"What can I say? I'm fabulous, duh.”
“And the alcohol? If they brought alcohol into the Hotel, we must keep it with Husk.”
“Don't worry, I already took care of that,” He said patting his stomach smiling.
This week for Vaggie had been a disastrous one, to say the least.
Husk and several tenants had taken to gambling by playing cards late at night, all generously sponsored by Alastor.
Charlie would have helped her, but recently she had had to focus on the hotel's public image, leaving Vaggie alone to deal with the internal problems.
Throughout the week, the amount of sleep Vaggie had been able to accumulate could be counted on her fingers and toes, and to make matters worse, when Vaggie had managed to convince Husk and company to quit on their illegal activities, Charlie thought it was a perfect opportunity to throw a party to celebrate everyone's progress.
During the party, Vaggie broke her no alcohol rule, all in an attempt to stay awake. A few hours was all she needed, but her mind struggling to be in like three places at once didn't help at all.
Between the music ringing in her ears and the flashing rainbow-colored lights and so on, dancing with Charlie sent Vaggie on an express trip into a world of nausea, forcing the moth demon to sit away from the action.
She didn't know how or when, but somewhere between her lack of lucidity Vaggie had joined Angel, Husk, and a group of tenants in a game of spin the bottle.
Vaggie could discern between their distant voices the explicit dares bordering on the lascivious, from spending seven minutes in paradise, to drinking shots of someone's bodies, Vaggie was so out of her mind that she couldn't care more than staying in one piece about her chair.
Just as the last of her strength was escaping through her breath, she could see how Angel turned the bottle in his turn, and ended up pointing it at her; Everything around him turned black and he fainted.
Coming back to herself and opening her eyes, Vaggie felt as if someone had stabbed a knife into her eye, but despite the pain, the first thing Vaggie 's routine mind did was recap everything that had happened the night before, to the point that she remembered with whom, where and how she had fallen asleep.
Vaggie's body rose from the couch like a spring and saw the-
Wait, she was on the couch?
Vaggie scanned her surroundings and sure enough, she was sitting on a couch near the main room where Charlie had organized the party.
To her surprise, instead of finding the place upside down, everything was immersed in an eerie and unusual silence, with nothing but her own company, and that of Angel lazily looking up from his phone. A mischievous smile appeared on Angel 's lips while Vaggie stopped seeing double.
“What-what happened?”
“Pff, relax, you just passed out. Have you never been to a rave? Do you really not remember what happened?” He asked in a mocking tone.
“I swear I will kill you if you or anyone draws on my face a di-“
Vaggie's anger stopped when a tremendous urge to vomit rose up her throat. She rushed to the nearest bathroom and vomited as soon as she knelt in front of the toilet.
Vaggie breathed heavily for a few minutes, then when she regained her strength she checked herself, discovering that those idiots-
They hadn't really done anything.
No drawings. No pranks. She actually found herself better than last time she saw herself in a mirror.
She opened her mouth to question Angel, but as soon as she did, she felt like vomiting again and once again she knelt in front of the toilet.
To her surprise, a hand gently rested on her shoulder, and she heard Angel talking to her.
“The quicker you get it out of your system, the better. Take it from me."
Vaggie reluctantly accepted his advice and the next few minutes were spent on nothing but vomit until she got better.
Meanwhile, Angel posted a photo of him with Vaggie sleeping on his fluffy chest on Voxtragram with the headline:
“Everybody loves me”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I could say me updating this is my christmas gift for all of you, or because its been almost a year since I last updated Infernal Tales, but truth is all of that is nothing but a coincidence.
I should get to work on my other projects...
Oh well, at least I got this out of my way.
Happy christmas!
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sondrox · 7 months
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Cops and Thugs Ch. 2 - Water and Oil
FFN: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14242641/2/Cops-and-Thugs
AO3: Cops and Thugs - Chapter 2
Summary: Vagatha tries to recover from her last encounter with the biggest mobster's daughter in Pentagram City, but her efforts will be found destroyed by an apparently innocent call into duty.
Since the first day Vagatha had returned to the field, she had made sure to keep a low profile when performing her duties. One advantage of her line of work was that: If you don't see evil, you can do almost no shit all day long.
To her unfortunate luck, and just as she had been warned, she and Arackniss had been forced to stay together on their shifts. If one was seen without their partner they would suffer disciplinary consequences.
For the first time ever, Vagatha was grateful for Arackniss’ lack of sense of duty. Since she had returned, they had wasted time visiting Arackniss's friends at various places throughout the city on an almost routine basis.
Or rather, Arackniss was visiting his friends while Vagatha stayed in the patrol car behind a closed window to prevent the stench of the bar she was parked in from making her vomit.
Her current, still in-recover state exacerbated her discomfort and disturbed her ability to relax, as she frequently checked the car's rearview mirror for Charlotte or her matón or whatever criminal Charlotte might hire.
Vagatha's radar alarm should have gone off when central called their radio at exactly five o'clock. Maybe he should stop drinking that morning coffee that could only be drunk in large gulps.
“Central to all nearby units, we need an 11-10 in avenue Moises 1522 over.”
"Central, this is X-22, we'll go investigate," Vagatha reported.
She knew that place. In fact, she could see it at the end of the street through her rearview mirror.
An old school left in a decaying state. It had been abandoned for so many years, undergrowth and plants had grown out of control to the point of turning the place into a small jungle. The roots had spread through the walls and between the cracks that the building had.
Vagatha knew that this alert was too simple for anyone to have any business in there. But Vagatha had thought the same of the other alerts she'd received in the two weeks since she'd returned.
The thought of not making anything of course crossed her mind, due to her injury—but her excessive caution told her that she could only use that excuse so far.
She ignited the car's engine and her foot hovered over the accelerator, when she stopped it a few inches above it. Vagatha sighed heavily before opening the car window and pressed her horn.
“Arackniss! Get your ass in the car before I take you out!" Vagatha yelled. A pang made her double over herself as she leaned against the door frame and held her hand against her abdomen.
The longer Vagatha waited for Arackniss, the more noise came from the bar across the street.
It started with heavy footsteps followed by shouts and curses. Shortly after, Vagatha heard glass breaking and tables being thrown into the air. Like the tables, the doors to the premises were flung open and Arackniss was thrown through and tumbled down the stairs.
Half a dozen people in various states of intoxication chased Arackniss down to the car with every intention of getting their hands on him, until Vagatha drew her gun and pointed it at them.
"Back off or I swear I'll blow the heads off of every single one of you, you brainless assholes!" The drunken men seemed to get the message and slowly walked back. Vagatha cocked her pistol and they all ended up running as fast as they could in different directions.
Arackniss got up awkwardly from the ground and reached heavily for the handle of the car, dragging himself to the passenger seat.
Vagatha didn't even bother to comment on the situation and drove away.
"Hey, thanks for, HIP, saving my ass." His head rested against the window next to his seat.
"I did not." Was all Vagatha bothered to say before briefing him of the request central had gave them as she drove to the abandoned school and parked in front of it.
"I'll go investigate, you'll stay in the car in case Central or the sergeant calls —" Vagatha caught a glimpse out of the corner of her eye as a drunken Arackniss had every intention of leaving. " Hey! Hey! What the hell do you think you're doing!?” She asked as she tried to sit Arackniss back in his seat while the policeman waved his arms around like a child playing catch.
“Stop-BURP-touching me! I'm going to kick this jerk's ass so hard he’ll wish he was never born!"
“You'll only end up getting hurt! You're so frus— ! ” Vagatha stopped herself before relapsing into the routine bickering the two of them had. A poisonous sensation burned in her throat as she suppressed the bitter words from escaping her lips.
While Arackniss was busy getting his shit together, Vagatha did the same, discreetly checking the rearview mirror. She could feel her skin crawling at the thought of her police patrol making her an easy target.
“Why…don't you just watch over the place in case the suspect comes out? I'll go investigate and you can…” Vagatha stopped her words when she saw how Arackniss was falling asleep on his seat until his mouth was half open and his body was soothed. “…do that." Vagatha wasted no time in getting out of the carriage and shutting the door as quietly as she could. She looked around for a door or opening in the fence surrounding the place.
Vagatha couldn't help but feel like she was walking into a trap. That was not what bothered her, but who had prepared it. She was already beating herself up for falling right into an obvious trap built specifically for her so easily.
Her suspicions were not built without foundation. During the two weeks that she was away from work, dozens of messages had arrived on the phone she received about a week ago.
A buzz disturbed what little peace Vagatha could have for herself in the middle of the night. She was only accompanied by the sound of a fan being turned on in her apartment.
Vagatha checked the phone and saw a message notification on the screen.
Private number: Are you okay? :)
That message and much more were left unchecked. Vagatha had no intention of giving this woman what she wanted.
And yet here she was in that place, doing exactly that.
After exploring, Vagatha came across an old padlocked door covered in rust. She first tried to shake her. When that didn't work, she decided to kick her, when she tried she could feel how the wound in her abdomen wanted to tear itself open. Vagatha doubled over herself again, breathing heavily as she held her wound until the pain subsided enough.
She searched through the brush near the place and found a large enough rock, picked it up and smashed it against the padlock and until it opened and fell to the ground along with the chain on the door.
She was so distracted by her discomfort that she didn't notice the fresh marks in the dirt, caused by the door whenever it was opened. Vagatha adjusted the lock and chain so that they appeared to be intact.
Walking into the courtyard of that abandoned school, Vagatha thought she had entered a horror movie through the playground once full of children and life. She continued exploring until she found the entrance to the school through the playground through a white wooden porch, dirtied by the passage of time and nature, giving it an almost post-apocalyptic aesthetic.
The wood of the white door creaked as Vagatha pushed it open, even with the utmost care she could muster. Her hand was already resting on his gun on his belt as he entered, but she found a desolate playroom, except for abandoned and dilapidated toys, just like the rest of the place. The entire place was shrouded in almost complete darkness, except for the dozens of holes of different sizes in the ceiling, allowing some small amounts of light to filter in. Some so small that only a snake could get inside and a few more, sparse and as big as if a SWAT team had broken into the place.
Her hand left her gun for a second when she heard a flutter fill the room. Vagatha drew her weapon in a quick draw and aimed it directly at the ceiling, only to catch a glimpse of a flock of birds flying from the place.
She sighed tiredly and placed her hand against her forehead. She squeezed her hair between her fingers as she tried to calm down; she could feel all her stress concentrating on her left eye where she still had the scar from the knife—Vagatha swore that one of those days all that stress would make her eye burst.
It didn't take her long to realize that the first floor of the school was filled with nothing but decay. Vagatha thought that perhaps she had seen things where there were none, but as she approached the stairs that would take her to the second floor, she heard notes from a piano and a voice singing.
“♫They’ll never…alive~♫ ♫We’ll live like ta-tata ta-ta, they’ll…a masterpiece~♫
Before Vagatha knew it, she was already climbing the stairs. The closer she got, the more she could make out the piano notes traveling through the empty halls and corridors.
Her mounting stress played tricks on her mind and senses, to the point that she could no longer tell where the music and voices were coming from.
Left? Right? Behind her? From the roof?
Vagatha could do no more than wander among the dim rays of sunlight that filtered through the holes in the ceiling. She found to a theater with a few rows of chairs on each side of the room, and at the end of the long room, Vagatha found the source of the sound that was driving her crazy:
At the end of the theater, lit by a large hole in the ceiling, stood a blond woman with tangled hair in garters and a red tuxedo and pants that seemed tailored, as did the black shoes she wore.
Charlotte Morningstar. It was evident that the woman had not noticed Vagatha's presence, for she continued to sing for her own amusement. The imprecise lyrics were accompanied by a set of skilled, almost masterful finger dancers on the piano keys that were their ballroom.
Vagatha approached the particular scene as close as the darkness allowed her without revealing herself. She was absorbed by the astonishing scene that almost crossed the line dividing darkness from light. She was almost drawn to the light like a stupid moth to a flame.
She was barely backing up to a safer point in the dark when she tripped over her own foot and the wood on the floor creaked under her weight.
The music stopped and silence fell on the room as Vagatha's heart dropped to the bottom of her chest.
“Husk? It's that you? Have you finished checking the kitchen? I really don't know how any child is supposed to eat healthy in such poor conditions. Oh! Do you know what that reminds me of? We could do some workshops for that high school that's under the highway. I know you didn't like it the last time we did it, but from those workshops we found that impr— ” Charlotte joined the silence and her gaze was lost in the darkness. Her face had a curious infantile calmness as the smallest hint of a smile flickered on her lips before she said:
"Officer? Is that you?" She asked in no particular direction. "I swear I'm not armed this time!" She said using his palms like a megaphone.
"Maybe not, but I am," Vagatha stated. The barrel of her weapon emerged from the darkness, aiming at Charlotte before she did.
"Hello," Charlotte squealed in embarrassment and a nervous smile as she held up her hands.
"Hello," Vagatha replied in a cold tone and cocked her pistol.
“I'm so sorry I shot you! I swear I don't know what happened! I don't know when my finger got on the trigger and I don't even—”
“I don't give a shit about your excuses. You kidnapped and tried to kill a police officer, I'm going to enjoy putting handcuffs on you and putting your ass behind bars for the rest of your life." Vagatha's anger prevented her from catching the slight blush on Charlotte's flushed cheeks, as well as a tiny whisper of something Vagatha didn't catch.
As Vagatha stepped forward to put her hands on Charlotte, a huge arm wrapped around her neck. Vagatha raised her pistol at the burly figure, but the figure acted faster and grabbed her hand to pull the pistol away.
In the middle of the struggle a bullet went off, the birds on the roof flew up in fright, and an Arackniss still sleeping in the patrol car startled, his eyes widening for a moment before falling asleep again.
The fired bullet left a small hole in the wooden beam above the piano Charlotte was sitting at. The hooded figure snatched the pistol from Vagatha's hands and subdued her by seizing both of her arms with one arm, while with his free hand he tucked Vagatha's pistol inside his hood.
Being so close he could see the figure dressed in a large brown trench coat and he could only deduce that it was Husk. She countered by elbowing him in the abdomen taking advantage of the difference in height, but the bodyguard barely flinched at the blows and restrained both of their arms using only one arm.
When Vagatha stopped fighting out of her restraint, Husk forced her to walk up to face Charlotte at the piano.
"I know…" Charlotte cleared her throat. “I know this looks bad, but I really wanted to see how you were after our last…meeting…”
"And?" Vagatha's lie detectors began to go up.
“And…I need to ask you a super duper favor. I wouldn't be asking this of anyone else if it wasn't super urgent."
“You're a loose end,” Husk said.
Vagatha's brow furrowed as the gears in her brain spun. "You want to blackmail me, is that what this is all about, eh?"
Charlotte whimpered in disagreement. “Blackmail is such a strong word. I prefer to say we have 'shared interests'.”
"Ha. Too bad you two have nothing that could interest me.”0
“ I'm soooo sorry to say it, but that's where you're wrong,” Charlotte put her fingers together and played with them. "You see, your police patrol was reported missing two weeks—"
“I found out when I woke up in the hospital after you shot me.”
“Right…well, after 'that' happened, I asked Husk to bring your car to Angel's residence. You know, I couldn't let anyone know what happened to you…and the problem is…we kinda still have it?”
” So what? What do they want for it? Money?"
Charlotte giggled. "No no. Not at all. Money is the last thing we need.”
By now, Vagatha was no longer sure what this encounter was about. “You want to return it to save my ass and that I owe you one?”
"No, that's the problem!" Charlotte took one of the chairs in the theater and sat in front of a restrained Vagatha. “I would love to return it to you for the…inconvenience…”
"Bullshit..." Vagatha snarled against Husk's arm.
“…but, the thing is: Who the hell does that in this city!? We can't even just casually leave it lying around as it could link back to us! Ergo, you." Charlotte waved her arm at Vagatha.
"If your father is who you say it is, and if he’s so damn powerful...Doesn't he have people who take care of these things?"
“My father doesn't know that our 'meeting' has happened at all. I'd like to keep it that way, and I think you would too. We can help you if you help us.”
"And what the hell do you need me for in the first place?"
“It has to do with one of the three V's . I—“
"No," Vagatha shook her head. "I’m not going to do it."
"Could you at least listen to me before you say no?"
“I don't give a shit what it's about or what you need me for! Let! Me! Go! Maldición!" Vagatha struggled to free herself from Husk's hold, but the old bodyguard held his ground.
Seeing that tossing and pulling was going to do little good, Vagatha nudged Husk's leg with her heel, which jarred the hooded man enough that he increased his efforts to restrain her. In the middle of their tug-of-war, Husk's trench coat fell open where she could see the outline of his gun and she pulled it out.
Husk noticed what she had done and immediately let her go as he pulled out Vagatha's gun out of his coat—It was only then that Vagatha realized that she had grabbed Husk's gun.
Police and bodyguards pointed at each other until the former realized that Charlotte was standing in between them like a statue trying to pretend to be invisible by not moving.
Vagatha rushed towards her and pinned her arm against her back while continuing to aim at Husk.
"Drop your gun!" Vagatha yelled. But Husk remained adamant. "I said drop it!"
Charlotte still had one arm free, and she waved her hand at Husk to keep his distance and nodded to him.
Only his pupils moved in his immutable posture towards his boss, who continued to nod fervently. Husk lowered his gun, slow as clockwork.
“Don't try any smartass shit or anything like that. Drop your weapon.”
Husk complied, though by throwing his pistol away from the three of them, falling between the rows of chairs in the theater facing the stage. Vagatha cursed under hear breath, but figured out that was better than nothing.
"Now turn around and get on your knees!" Vagatha ordered, but Husk seemed not to hear her. "I said on your knees!" Husk and Vagatha stared into each other's eyes, not even daring to blink. Vagatha knew exactly what he was doing, he was reading her expression and her emotions to predict her next move. She was doing the same thing and this was a game.
And if Vagatha was honest with herself...
She knew she was going to lose.
Husk stepped back and Vagatha immediately shot the wall behind Husk in retaliation. “Don't try shit, you big sack of…shit! I will not give you a warning shot!”
Despite the oxymoron, Husk tried to move again and Vagatha fired once more.
CLUNG CLING CLANG
Vagatha's bullet ricocheted multiple times off objects and metal surfaces around the theater. The police let the mobster-on-the-rise go to find a place to take cover; she and her bodyguard did the same, finding cover by crouching on the stage stairs.
Vagatha hid behind the piano as the bullet flew all over the place, a great buzz filling her ears.
The three watched with tense attention as the bullet embedded in one of the wooden beams in the ceiling above the piano. As the situation seemed to escalate down, Charlotte was the first to break the silence.
“Oh, thank goodness nothing bad happened. For a second I thought—"
A cracking sound killed the brief silence in the room, coming from the ceiling in the same place where the bullet hit the beam. Cracks spread across its surface quickly until the beam split in two, as the supports broke shortly after.
Vagatha could only see a shadow growing above her head while she was stunned to see the beam fall on her head as if she was seeing the arrival of Armageddon.
"Nooo!" Was all Vagatha could hear before she caught a glimpse of Charlotte's figure. She pushed her out of the impact area before the Beam crushed the piano and smashed the wooden floor in two, as if earth itself cracked in two.
The remains of the piano took the brunt of the blow, releasing a myriad of musical notes in a thunderous wave of sound. Said sound wave and impact shook the building's foundation, and escaped its walls into the nearby surroundings to alert anyone nearby.
Anyone nearby, just like a sleeper Arackniss swayed, arms flailing like a child just awakened from a dream of falling off a mountain. His head turned in all directions searching for the source of the sound until his eyes fell on the abandoned school. His right hand went to his pistol on his belt and he stepped out of the police car.
Meanwhile, inside the school, Vagatha and Charlotte were lying on the brink of unconsciousness. They were in the main area of a library, looking around Charlotte saw that the fall had crushed several tables in the room. Some book pages were flying around.
Charlotte was the first to her feet, but a bruise on her right shoulder numbed her muscle in a jerk. The blonde mobster let out a quick, piercing whimper before falling to the ground again.
She only gasped in pain one breath at a time before gruff hands lifted her off the ground.
“Get up,” an equally rough voice rang in her ears. Charlotte could feel Husk put her injured arm around his shoulders. As Charlotte dragged her feet across the floor, she opened her heavy eyes to see Vagatha still lying on the floor with a few pieces of debris on her body and a little bleeding in her hair.
"W-wait!" Charlotte limped in the opposite direction Husk was going, before he jerked her back roughly.
"What do you think you're doing?"
"We-COUGH-we can't leave her like this!" Husk tugged on her arm hard, but Charlotte tugged harder. She limped until she reached Vagatha and found her breathing ever so slightly.
"Shit! Shit! Shit!" She whispered between screams. "Officer, please wake up!" Charlotte removed the pieces of debris from her body, but she could only use her left arm. She shook Vagatha from her shoulders while gasping for air.
Husk wearily reached for his boss and saw that his pistol was lying a few feet away from an unwilling Vagatha. Husk retrieved his pistol and put Vagatha's back in his trench coat.
The police opened their heavy eyes and saw Charlotte with her hand gently cupping her face. Vagatha slapped her face and crawled away from Charlotte. Despite her disadvantaged situation, Vagatha refused not to be ready to throw hands if necessary. She saw Husk standing next to Charlotte and reached for her pistol in her belt, only to find it empty.
"Easy, easy. We're just here to help."
“Stay away! I won't warn you twice!"
Charlotte was only a few paces from Vagatha when the library doors were kicked open and Arackniss strode through the doors, pistol drawn, ready to fire.
The first thing he distinguished with his double vision were the figures of Charlotte and Husk next to Vagatha's on the ground. In a second, three bullets flew through the dusty, lightly brushed bookstore, piercing the tense calm Charlotte tried to build.
Arackniss's bullets struck books on the shelves at the back of the library. Books fell from their shelves and frames alike. Husk immediately pulled Charlotte to take cover between the aisles made up of tall and long bookshelves.
Husk forced Charlotte to duck as he pulled out Vagatha's pistol and handed it to her, then pulled out his own. "Stay here. Use it if you have to." He cocked his pistol and leaned out of his hiding spot. Another bullet hit the wood of the shelf. Husk growled and cursed to himself. He went in the opposite direction to the end of the aisle of shelves until he came to a long corridor that connected all the aisles to each other.
The collapsed ceiling prevented Husk from reaching Arackniss using those same corridors. He would have to go through the bookstore and get to the other side, and that would mean exposing himself.
Husk walked to the back of the bookshelf hall, as far from Arackniss as he could get. He stood in the corner of the last shelf facing the central area of the room. He could hear footsteps approaching. “Like duck season.” Husk grabbed a book and threw it into the open.
BANG BANG
Arackniss fired at the book, or rather, at the already bulleted wall. Husk noticed how the bullets weren't even close to connecting with their target.
Husk grabbed another book and tossed it the same way. As soon as he heard another shot, Husk countered by firing back, forcing Arackniss to stagger his way to cover. The bodyguard wasted no time running to the other side of the room into the other set of hallways and corridors. Despite his old age he made good and quick use of his opportunity and ran as swift as any man on his thirties.
As soon as Husk got to cover, he fired two more shots to keep Arackniss in cover while he gained ground. As Arackniss walked down the hall/refuge, he knocked several books off their shelves with his stagger, a few of them falling near Charlotte, sitting on the floor in the hall next to Arackniss. Charlotte held Vagatha's pistol in a tight grip with one hand, while the other covered her mouth and breathed hard and heavy.
As Arackniss hid, Husk took the opportunity to get his hands on Vagatha and a chair, dragging the two into a hallway, out of Arackniss's sight; a hallway perfectly aligned with the one Charlotte hid on the other side of the library.
Husk tied Vagatha to the chair and covered her mouth with a rag Husk had in his coat. He readied his pistol pointing at the entrance to the hallway as he heard footsteps getting closer and closer.
His gaze inevitably fell to a sheltered Charlotte, watching attentively his every move. Once she figured out his intentions, she shook her head fervently as she looked at him. Husk cursed to himself and put his gun away.
Arackniss entered Husk's corridor and saw him standing with his back to him.
BANG BANG BANG
Arackniss fired until his magazine was empty. The next thing he knew, a book was heading straight for his face. Arackniss’ gun It flew from his hand before his body fell unconscious to the ground after spinning a few times from the blow.
A hoodless Husk dressed in a dark blue sleeved shirt sighed with a heaviness as great as his age.
Husk returned back to the restrained Vagatha in an attempted fetal position as he tried to take cover from the bullets, which missed and impacted around her. Husk took his hat from her head and his trench coat from her shoulders respectively and got dressed again.
“Phew! Good thing that's over!" Charlie heaved a sigh of joy as he came out of hiding and returned to Husk's side while stretching his badly injured shoulder. "Thank you Husk. I owe you one— ” Charlotte was severely interrupted as Husk grabbed her arm and forced her to walk beside him. “Aw-aww! Husk, wait! My shoulder is still sore!"
"This was a bad idea." Husk swore as they walked to the exit; in the distance police sirens could be heard.
Charlotte wanted to stay for at least two more minutes to make sure the officer was okay, but she knew she had already upset Husk enough that day. She managed to take one last look at Vagatha, still tied to the saddle, and her heart sank.
"No, it was not."
Meanwhile, in another part of the city, a pink van drove through the poorer and dirtier streets of the city where homeless people and abandoned buildings became the fashion. In its painting was drawn an a symbol of a heart with wings and demon horns surrounded by thorns with black and white tones.
The van pulled up to one of the few decent buildings in the area. A brothel, and a big one on top of that. The van parked around the back and the first person to get out was a woman in her late twenties with multifaceted brown hair streaked with blonde and white tints. His skin was marked by a light, but clear tan. Her off-the-shoulder crop top and skinny pants complemented her truck look, as did the way her group of fans dressed in the van.
One of her hair strands was lit in a tiny little flame, but she didn't pay much attention to it.
The prostitute workers in the place immediately noticed her presence. They all stepped aside as the female leader of the group walked towards the office of the owner of the place. The door to said office was protected by two bodyguards. The woman walked in without bothering to say a word as if it were her house and opened the doors with a big push.
Two people in the office stopped their conversation, one on each side of a desk, there were three chairs, two in front of the desk and one behind. Currently only the owner's chair and one more in front were occupied by a man and a woman. As soon as the two of them recognized who had entered, they continued a little further before bothering to pay attention to her.
The man behind the desk raised his top hat slightly from his face, in his hand was a lit cigar emanating red smoke. “How did it go with that big fat pig?”
“Better than expected. Those idiots never knew what hit them. They were already killing one another when we arrived."
The man inhaled on his cigar and blew the red smoke up his nose. "And their leader?"
"Just like you said, he disappeared at the first sign of trouble, us," A mischievous smile spread across her face. “We took every penny. My boys are already unloading the van.”
The man at the desk looked through a series of televisions on the wall, each showing a different location of the brothel. He saw the girl's thugs carrying wads of cash out of the van, as many as their arms could carry, into the brothel’s warehouse. He noted how all his new money was clean, free of blood—spotless even—he inhaled on his pipe before speaking again.
“That was a quick operation, even with a mole inside.”
“Vortex is that good.” Verosika scoffed, but not as much as she would have liked. “Though we know he was busted. When we arrived he was nowhere to be found and he doesn’t answer his phone. The rest of my guys still have plenty of use."
"My guys."
“My. Guys."
The woman sitting in front of the desk spoke for the first time. Her tone was comparable to opening a crypt abandoned after years. The tanned girl spoke her mouth to retort, but refrained from it.
"Yes, Madam Velvet," she said in a weary tone as she lowered her head.
"Atta Verosika!" Her tone brightened and she jumped from her chair to the mattress to sit next to her best henchman. “Isn't she the best, Valentino, my tipsy Val?
"She better is or else…"
"Well of course! She better remains the best or she knows she's going back where she belongs!" Velvet grabbed Verosika's shoulders as if she was playing around. She laughed in a hauntingly innocent tone as Valentino smiled at Verosika, and to her it was as if his face had been deformed into a grotesque dung sack stored in the pretty container that his red suit was. Verosika shuddered under her skin, but she managed to hide it. "Is our oh-so-important-doll-he-couldn't-come-today-prepared?"
“He better is. He requested a stupid amount of money for this operation and he’s been busting my balls for weeks. I'll tear his off myself if he messes this up and doesn’t get his shit together."
“Oh, believe me, he will." A suppressed but wicked smile spread across Velvet's face as she extinguished the flame in Verosika's lock by clenching her fist in her hair.
Later that night, after all the fiasco at the school and after the reinforcements have arrived, Vagatha and Arackniss wrote up the report of what had happened.
Vagatha lied about today being the first time she had seen the man and woman Arackniss had described. They had not been able to identify them, but they received a search and capture order with a description.
Vagatha's minor injuries had been treated and she was able to go home.
The first thing she did when she got to her apartment was take off her uniform, toss it in the corner of her room, and change into her short shorts and gray tank top. Then she went straight to bed, face down first towards her pillow with all the intentions of forgetting that shitty day, but her mind wouldn't let her.
Everything in her dreams were fleeting visions. All so fast and then so slow, then black.
The beam falling on her. Then her falling.
But she could also see Charlotte running towards her. Perhaps…for her?
Before the beam fell on top of her, Vagatha awoke, her eyes snapping wide open, her skin clammy with sweat.
She reached for her gun under her pillow and pointed it into the darkness in her room and found…Charlotte—sitting across from her bed in one of her living room chairs. Her neat figure was barely visible in the city light streaming in through the window.
The two women startled back slightly and flinched at the other's reaction and it was only after the initial shock that Vagatha realized that her pistol was not in her hand, but in Charlotte's lap.
"Oh, thank God I listened to Angel!" Charlotte exclaimed with her hand on her chest as she took a deep breath and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand holding Vagatha's pistol.
“How the hell did you get in!?” Vagatha fought the urge to pounce on the intruder. Instead he searched blindly through the darkness until her hand came across the switch for the lamp on her nightstand.
“Angel helped me by pushing me onto the fire escape stairs outside the building.”
“You do know that it is illegal to trespass on private property!? A police officer’s on to top of that?!”
“Angel and I argued quite a bit about the pros and cons of having this arbitration on the way here.”
Hearing that name made Vagatha frown as she could feel the familiar pain of a migraine sensation entering her brain. "Is he here? That asshole who called me dead weight?"
"I mean, he's down the street waiting for me, but I swear he didn't mean it. He can be…a bit frustrating when you first know him, but with enough time he can-are you alright?"
Vagatha massaged her forehead in a circle with her fingertips. "It's too early for this shit." She looked at her cloak next to her bed and saw it was 02:12 am in red letters.
"Oh! I thought you’d say that! And that's why I bought you this! You like it black, don't you?" Charlotte grabbed a plastic cup of coffee on the floor next to her chair. She removed the plastic lid and blew out the boiling smoke. "Here, it's still warm." She extended the cup to Vagatha, but the officer stared at him with a suspicious and confused frown on her brow.
"Drink first."
"What?
"Drink first."
"It's not spiked!"
"Then drink first!"
"Alright! Don't have to shout at me!"
Charlotte swallowed a mouthful of her coffee out of sheer courage. Once finished he strutted to Vagatha with a "Hmm!"
"I won't drink it anyway."
Charlotte swallowed the coffee in one gulp. "What!? Please! I even bought it from the same place you buy it every morning!”
“How do you know where I buy my coffee?”
Charlotte’s face became whiter at the realization she was busted, if that was even possible “I…er, I meant it when I said I wanted to know how you were doing.” Charlotte tilted her head avoiding eye contact with Vagatha.
"And the best way to find out was to stalk me?"
“Okay, first of all, stalk is a very strong word. Second: I couldn't just show up out of nowhere and say hi, could I?
"You just did." Vagatha said with a dead tone of voice.
“Okay, that's a good point,” Charlotte waved her finger at her. "Counter argument: I didn't come here just to say hi."
"That's not a good argument, or a good idea at all."
"It's better than not having any." Charlotte said in an unexpected reprimed tone. The kind of tone Vagatha knew someone was trying to contain a lot of emotions within oneself. Charlotte fought a burning sensation crawling through her body. Her fists clenched and she had to take a deep breath and focus solely on letting them clench.
"Why don't I show you a better argument?" Charlotte grabbed the pistol resting in her lap and handed it back to its owner.
Vagatha grabbed her with some hesitation and care—as if the gun was covered in thorns—nevertheless, she pointed her pistol at Charlotte; not in an act of fear or hate, but because honestly didn't know what else to do at the time. "Why?"
“Because I've been wanting to ask for your help, for two fucking weeks! Sorry if I curse! I don't like t! But I'm getting sick of this city and its shit! Why must it be so hard to give some goddamn help!?”
Vagatha blinked slowly as the gears turned inside her head. “What you said at school. You were serious about that … what? Rebuild?"
It seemed that Vagatha had hit the right nail. At his question, Charlotte seemed to realize her little tantrum and slowly pulled herself together.
“Actually…I prefer the term 'reform'. I know that if I kickstart it, someone well-intentioned will take care of the rest. It's pretty simple, or at least that's what I want to believe."
"And how do I know that you won't abuse those places or something like that in the future?"
“Could I take you on a date if you already know the answer?”
“Wh-WHAT?”
Charlotte laughed openly as if the two were at a sleepover being friends for years and had confessed their crushes. Vagatha could very well have been pierced through the heart. The night shone brighter and her breathing grew heavier as she struggled to hold her position in the moment.
“I figured you'd react like that, and to be honest, it wouldn't be the first time,” Ella teased.
“ W-what did you say?”
“I-I mean-what I said about reforming. Surely you have already heard in the news about it. It's not like I want to show off or anything like that."
Vagatha's scowl eased as it darkened, and shock was replaced by an odd feeling of shame crawling across her skin. "Actually, I was sent to investigate an anonymous person leaving packages of money in random places around the city, which led me to—"
Charlotte hummed in agreement with her. "Clear. I guess I was getting ahead of myself and stuff like that. Do you mind if I…?” She pointed to the bed, whose owner moved a little to the right to give her space without much opposition.
Vagat expected her unexpected visitor to sit next to her, but instead Charlotte lay on her back looking at the ceiling as if they had been friends for years; for some reason that didn't bother Vagatha.
“It's just…How can I not help when I know I can? When I have proven that I can!” She sighed heavily and turned to Vagatha. “Do you think I should do something different? Something else?"
Having Charlotte so close stunted Vagatha's mind like static on an old telly. Her brain disconnected from her mouth and words escaped her lips with hardly any thought.
“You could send someone else to send to make the deliveries. Patterns are everything for police investigations.” The words flowed from her mouth like water from a broken faucet, as if someone else was speaking, someone stupid whose brain was turned off. “Expand your inner circle.”
And it kept getting stupider.
Charlotte looked at her with the same eyes she had in the theater before a smile flickered at the corners of her lips. She breathed out a single laugh through her teeth and her smile widened a little.
“Would you like to join?”
“Wha—”
“Before you say 'what' again. Don't worry, I would never ask you to do something you didn't want. You don't need to stop being an officer because of me…although that's more or less the reason why I wanted to ask for your help.”
At that moment, Vagatha returned to herself, at the same time that she could feel her defenses bristling. “One of the three V's .”
"Yes," he said heavily. "Vox Hamill ."
“Does it have something to do with the upcoming elections?”
"Chingada madre. This is worse than I thought."
"And it probably gets worse." Charlotte's tone turned heavy for a second. “Something you should know is that tomorrow your sergeant will tell you that you will go to the party that Vox is having in one of their penthouses.”
As she had said, Vagatha’s sergeant invited her, not to say forced her, to go to the party that Vox was organizing to collect votes. Whether or not a party for that purpose was legal escaped Vagatha's knowledge—in the end she figured that didn't matter anyway—the final straw was that she found out that Arackniss was also going along with her.
“That sounds like a lot of important people. I don’t even have something decent to wear.”
"I'll think of something!"
Later that same night, Vagatha received a "gift" in the same way as she received her new phone.
“This is an embarrassing thing to ask, but do you think you can reply to my messages, pretty please?” Charlotte wrapped her hands together and mustered her most pleading smile.
After she received the package, Vagatha would go to a seemingly random spot in her living room. She was removing one of the wooden floorboards and took out the phone that Charlotte gave her.
“What if someone checks our phones?”
“No one will find anything suspicious in two friends talking. Though, just in case, let’s be just a little…ambiguous.”
Vagatha watched the parade of messages left unchecked that Charlotte had sent her. All simple enough so that she could understand them, but at the same time cryptic so that any curious person could not understand what their conversations were really about.
At the end of the chat there was a new message sent ten minutes ago. It consisted of a dress emoji, a heart, and a question mark.
Vagatha: what?
Charlotte: Did you like my present?
"Okay, I guess, but what is your plan about?"
The next few days flew by and Vagatha was mortified to find herself walking to the entrance of Vox's penthouse.
Vagatha wore a blue dress that left her shoulders bare and exposed and reached almost to her knees, combined with some blue jeans she wore under the dress. It wasn't exotic or revealing at all and yet Vagatha couldn't help but feel naked. She had pulled her brown hair up into a huge ponytail that looked almost like a mane on its own.
"Where the hell did you get that dress anyways?" Arackniss asked mockingly. He would be laughing at her if he hadn't been forced to come too.
“Not today, Arackniss. And not fucking now."
"I'm still waiting for a 'thank you' for saving your ass before."
"I didn't need you to save me!" She turned to face Arackniss face to face. "And you almost killed me because you couldn't see shit, drunk asshole!"
"Hey! If it wasn't for me, those guys would have sold you to the first pimp they came across."
"You don't know that."
"AND YOU DO!?" He yelled getting too close to Vagatha, who instinctively took a step back.
“Don't make a scene! What the hell is wrong with you!?" Vagatha pushed Arackniss into a less crowded corner to calm him down, but he refused.
“That's none of your fucking business! He pushed her aside and headed straight for the open bar Vox had organized, leaving Vagatha alone until…
"There is something you haven't answered me." Vagatha said. Charlotte asked what it was. "Why do you need me?"
Charlotte tilted her head slightly sympathetically. "I thought I had already answered that."
"No, why me? Why a cop? There's nothing that makes me relevant enough to get involved in all this.
"That's kind of the funny thing," Charlotte giggled and patted her arm repeatedly. “You are a policeman, yes, and you can do so many things that not everyone can. I-I don't mean just because you're an officer. You can do so much even when the world doesn't notice you exist.”
“You want to include me because I'm a nobody? If I disappear, who would notice? I'm a nobody that you can use."
Charlotte's nervous smile trembled a little and fell. Suddenly the silence of the night grew in the room, with the urban noise turning into static filling his ears. "I would notice."
"What did you say?"
"I-I said...that's not the way I would put it."
"That's the way it is." Vagatha stood up from the bed with her hand in her hair. “Fuck…I won't be able to sleep anymore anyway, give me that shit.” She grabbed the coffee Charlotte had bought her and took a gulp and failed to keep from making a disgusted face.
"Better?" Charlotte asked trying to sound as unobtrusive as possible. “The way I would put it is that I am also a nobody. Almost no one knows that I exist. It's not that I want recognition, or anything like that. In fact, I prefer to remain anonymous. I'm sure you can understand why.
“It's just that…I see you're like me, and…I don't know, I thought you might understand what it's like to want to help even when no one appreciates you. You have it easier than me, they can thank you and even a nice plaque to hang on your wall. I would like to settle for knowing that I could help someone even if they never know me.” Charlotte gave a single sad laugh. "Sorry, surely I’m not even making sense."
Vagatha stared at Charlotte with a half-open mouth. No words could come out of his lips.
Would she really consider helping the people she was supposed to imprison? But for one thing, she only had to do it because her job told her to.
Vagatha had seen what corrupt authorities were capable of, but when had she seen another reality? She didn't believe in shortcuts, but what if shortcuts were the only chance for change?
“Okay, but first. Can I wear something blue?”
"Looking for someone?" A voice said from behind Vagatha. The officer turned and found a Charlotte. She was dressed in a black tailored shirt with white tones on her chest, her arms rolled up halfway. She also wore thin black pants that hugged her slim, slender figure. Her hair was arranged in a similar fashion to Vagatha's, except that it looked shinier and much better groomed compared to Vagatha's.
Charlotte offered her hand while holding her other arm behind her back. “Will you grant me this piece?”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to me! Happy birthday, dear Sondrox! Happy birthday to me!
Well, isn't actually my birthday, but close enough, this is the third anniversary since I published my first fanfic. Curiously enough, each time I celebrated by posting something, it's been always something about Chaggie. Weird.
Here is Cops and Thugs' second chapter. I hope you liked it. The further I wrote this chapter, the more I realized this story needed to be bigger, similar to the first chapter. I still don't know how much bigger this will get, but I'm sure I'll have so much fun going down that rabbit hole. I'm excited for what I have planned for next chapter! Also me practicing fighting scenes and now shoot outs scenes. Experience will be much needed in future stories, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. I'm looking at you!
That's a mirror.
Oh.
I don't think I have much to say right now, unlike usual. Kudos, bookmark, comment (<-- please do) It will make my day.
See ya.
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sondrox · 9 months
Text
Through Rocks and Snow Ch. 17 - The Summit
FFN: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14146784/17/Through-Rocks-and-Snow
AO3: Through Rocks and Snow - Chapter 17
17. The Summit
Prompt: Rigid
Before that day, Madeline’s relationship with herself, and by extension, with Badeline, has been nothing short of a wretched one.
Now they’ve had made amends, their relationship had become rigidly tense. Tense as in “Meeting a new distant relative” Tense. Still, climbing the mountain had never been more exciting and Madeline has never thought of herself as more capable than ever.
Trees, undergrowth and sky grew in abundances as they reached the surface. Madeline and Badeline were climbing their way out of the caves just as fast as they have fallen.
In a moment of catharsis, both person and reflection spun into one being. With the determination of Madeline and the power of Badeline, time froze for a second as Badeline launched Madeline through the skies. Everything around around became a blur of snow, sky and sunset where Madeline floated despite the unparallel speed she climbed with.
The moment she reached the forsaken city, Madeline noted something different on the place.
The buildings lit bright and sunlight shone through the window frames and what little broken glass remained attached alike.
The once suffocating sensation of space became as old as the buildings Madeline now traveled through running with the chill wind hitting her face and her pink fluttering free as her.
Did the city change or had Madeline changed instead?
Not so long ago, change may have been the scariest thing for Madeline whereas now excitement and adrenaline rushed through her blood for her and Badeline to spring once more into the sky with the power of the mountain.
Even with her newfound vigor, Madeline couldn’t help but feel uneasy at the place she met the other part of herself, even if her relationship with literally herself was in a whole ‘nother world in comparison, the red-haired girl couldn’t shake the feeling of their lukewarm first encounter they had.
She noticed Badeline also carried mixed feelings in one of their breaks when Madeline had to rest and figure where to go. The person turned to her reflection reluctant. She could feel Badeline stare on the back of her head burning; Just like she felt on the city behind them.
“You’re thinking about too, right?”
Badeline pressed her lips together in a curved line and shied her eyes away from Madeline into the giant view of an once great city. “I just don’t know how to feel. I always thought we would be nothing more than enemies or allies at best, always trying to control everything about the other. Is so…complicated to put all that in words.”
“You don’t need to.”
Madeline’s word pulled Badeline out of her head, startling her as if she had just woken up from a bad dream.
Madeline smiled with smiled with shame and a tad of laughter seeing the same confusion and empty headedness that plagued herself since forever. “You don’t need to explain. I feel the same.”
Badeline opened her mouth but no words came out. Her breath stopped midway before shame invaded her and her lips pressed together in a twisted S form. “I’m sorry,” She whimpered with half closed eyes filled with tears on the edge.
“I know and it’s okay.” Madeline opened her arms wide.
“Are you seriously asking for a hug right now?” She asked between small coughs trying to contain her cry.
“I’m trying to do something nice for us.” Madeline’s tone grew irritated. Slowly but surely, Badeline accepted the hug. They stayed in that position until Badeline’s breathing soothed.
After a while they arrived to the backdoor of the celestial resort, expecting to find Oshiro as soon as they put a foot in. The storage room they entered was surprisingly clean of dust and webs.
“I remember this place in a lot worse shape,” Badeline said to the air as she idly grabbed a bag of food for birds with disinterest.
“Badeline.”
“What? Is true. That old weirdo forced you to do his job. It would not be the first time.”
“He needed help.”
“You needed help. Help I tried to give you, by the way, and you ignored me for the umpteenth time.”
“This time was dif–“
“This time was no different than all those times you ignored what was best for you.” Badeline teleported behind Madeline and grabbed her by her shoulders to turn her to the nearest exit. “Please.”
The new, cleaner and far more spacious Celestial Resort allowed person and reflection to get out of the large storage room in a matter of minutes, and before they knew it, the vast and colorful scenery of the golden and purple ridge filled their eyes. As soon as Madeline exposed to open air, wind fluttered against her hair and the cold breeze froze her red cheeks.
“This place was always this quiet?” Badeline asked upon materializing above Madeline.
“Er, sort of. I suppose that’s why I went here after…”
“Yeah,” She said irritated.
“Yeah,” She said ashamed.
“What is it with you running away like that whenever trouble appear”
“Were you not the cause of those impulsive ticks?”
Badeline stopped her “walk” mid-air. “Hey, don’t throw me under the bus like that.” She growled with her nose and some cold air could be seen coming out. “If anything, I was the one who learned that from YOU after you…kicked me out.”
“Sorry about that again.”
“Don’t care, didn’t ask.”
Madeline couldn’t help but notice the wind in the ridge blew stronger than last time. She soon became aware if it wasn’t for Badeline, she wouldn’t have made it to the Mirror Temple.
The once dark lit temple now was illuminated in almost every surface and corner. Madeline stopped to contemplate the temple, now in all of its magnific. “This is all my doing?” She asked to the large space in the room.
“This WAS your doing,” Badeline rectified. “I told you, the temple reflects your mind, but you didn’t listen to me, as usual.”
“Okay, okay, no need to gloat about it, what do we do now?”
“Miss problems asking for help? I thought I’d never live to see this day.”
“Don’t jinx about it,” Madeline poorly mimicked Badeline’s voice being done with it all.
“Okay, okay. Just listen to me and keep your mind calm.”
And so she did after Badeline returned to Madeline and her hair turned pink again. All she had to do was listen to her instincts and everything would be okay as her reward.
The full weight of her journey fell upon her head when she realized she had climbed what took her two—almost three days—in a couple of hours.
Strong and aggressive breezes of wind hit her body. They threatened to freeze her bones and hindered her every move rigid and tense. Madeline knew she could fly away if she was not careful.
Amidst the excitement and joy inflating her chest, Madeline couldn’t shake the feeling of shame. How much else could have she gained and achieved from the beginning, only if she had not been so messed up.
Madeline would always wonder about the “what ifs” and “coulds”, “woulds”, and of course, the “only ifs” alike. How could she not? What laid inside her had been the reason she almost gave up and now it was that very same thing the reason she was achieving her goal.
Right there, in the verge of reaching the summit, how could she forget?
She could not. She would not.
Not as an intrusive thought as before, but as a willful reminder.
And what a willful, cherishable reminder she’d have as her steps in the chill snow reached the red flag at the very top of the summit. Madeline could catch the sunset hiding in the horizon painting her skin in a dim orange tone and witness the view of her whole journey since she started at the very same drive that almost stopped her.
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sondrox · 9 months
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Through Rocks and Snow Ch. 16 - Badeline Boss Fight
FFN: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14146784/16/Through-Rocks-and-Snow
AO3: Through Rocks and Snow - Chapter 16
16. Badeline Boss Fight.
Prompt: Tic
Badeline had seen with her own eyes how one of Madeline's main traits in recent years has been run away from her problems.
Those moments never failed to make her laugh.
Except when they did.
Badeline never imagined that Madeline would run so fast and so far that she would finally leave her behind. Rejected her. Left her to be alone forever. Badeline was an apex predator who had been pushed to the bottom of the food chain when her prey escaped her clutches.
More than once Madeline had considered herself a parasite that sucked and drained all the life and joy from those around her. All thanks to Badeline.
Badeline had told her all of that. Badeline had told her that she was selfish, she was broken, she was cruel. She was all the things they might had said to her too.
But in reality, Badeline knew the truth. More often than not, it was usually simple and direct.
She was projecting.
Of course. Badeline now understood. She really was everything that was wrong with Madeline.
So this was what rejection felt like? Knowing that your whole being was wrong.
Unworthy. Useless. Unlovable.
While Madeline had been rejected in the past for trivial and mundane things, Badeline couldn't say the same. Madeline had rejected her because of everything she represented to Madeline and to the mountain.
Now she understood why isolation felt good. It was a sign that it was over. No one could hurt her if she was alone. Alone with her thoughts. Intrusive thoughts. Thoughts that would not leave her alone. Thoughts that wouldn't shut up. Thoughts they would be nothing more than constant reminders of why she was here. Constant reminders of why she was rejected by the other part of herself. Constant reminders of why she was going to stay down there. Constant reminders that they wouldn't leave her alone and–
Badeline sighed heavily and hugged her knees in a fetal position. "Calm down, it's over. Who would be crazy to come down here anyways?” Badeline stared up at the tall, sprawling, green grass-covered spaces across the gigantic caverns.
Stillness was as scary as it was comforting. Knowing that everything would never change.
But on top of all that, it was something else for Badeline:
It was freaking boring.
With nothing but the clothes on her back, her never-ending thoughts, and a set of supernatural powers, there wasn't much she could occupy her mind with. The best thing he could think of was to take a walk. That is if you could count levitating over the whole place as walking to begin with.
The deeper she dived into the caves the more paths branched off into different trails.
Now in true solitude, Badeline had time to put her effort into something more than trying to keep the thankless part of herself out of trouble and danger; but then again, if she was all that was wrong with Madeline, then maybe that wouldn't be the case for her anymore.
The silence and the great views in that place gave him the opportunity to understand in part the reason for Madeline's need to climb the Celestial Mountain.
It was better to have something to prove to herself than to have no reason to get out of bed, to put it that way.
But her reason for getting out of bed belonged to Badeline as much as it belonged to Madeline. And now that Madeline had rid her of her, exploring caverns forgotten by the world was all she could do.
Was staying on the mountain all that was left to her? Become a delusional ghost like Oshiro? Go bat-crap crazy like that old woman?
All she knew for real was that if Madeline wanted her out of her life so badly, there wasn't much she could do.
At least the loneliness felt good. At least silence meant no trouble.
And trouble was getting closer as the sound of footsteps became clearer as they bounced through the caves, intensifying in their direction.
The tightness in the bottom of her chest was enough to tell him who was coming.
"What do you want?" She asked her other redheaded part without regard.
“Listen, I was wrong to say that I didn't need you. I had not realized that I was in such a bad state that I would end up abandoning myself of all people.”
Badeline's eyes filled with sharp disgust. "I am not you! I-I…” Her tongue went limp and she tripped over herself. Her eyes were lost looking at nothing and at the same time seeing everything just like Badeline in those damned caves. "I'm worse. Just leave me alone. You made your point clear. I can't change who I am. I was wrong and you were right. You were always right. Is that what you wanted to hear?" Fawn.
“You don't have to change who or what you are in the same way that you weren't always wrong. Now I understand that you only wanted to protect me."
Badeline's eye twitched for a moment. “Protect you?” You abandon me and throw me out of your life as if I were nothing more than a rock and now you want me to return as if I belonged to you?
"That was not what I meant!"
"No. You never say what you want. You don't even know what you want. Why are you here? Why am I here!?” Her purple hair began to levitate like maligned snakes. The short grass around them began to stir slightly.
Madeline took a timid first step forward and Badeline immediately levitated off the ground with her hands clenched into clenched fists. "Don't go near it or you'll regret it!" Fight.
Another cry for help. Cries that Badeline was never sure if Madeline ever listened or not.
But this time she did. Badeline's heartbeat hit cold as she realized the realization in her chest for both of them.
Madeline's more confident second step increased the keen presence of danger, again, for both of them. Madeline's muscles tensed like a cat ready to pounce and attack its predator.
Small light blue stones scattered around rose from the ground, slowly floating gravitating around person and reflection. The larger stones and fragments of similar sizes trembled impatiently wanting to follow suit.
Badeline could feel the stress and tension in Madeline's muscles, threatening to snap them in two if Madeline didn't jump off the edge of adrenaline she was on. A mixture of doubt and fear filled the person's body, and the reflection could sense how one did NOT complement the other, but instead encouraged Madeline to try to reach Badeline.
A second step turned into a third step, a fourth, fifth, sixth, until Madeline picked up enough of a run and dove for her like a bird hunting for food.
Badeline squealed back as if she were standing before the utterest lifeless abyss and backed away moments before Madeline could get her hands on it. Flight.
In his mind a clear and definitive order dictated her instincts:
DON'T LET HER GET CLOSE.
Badeline followed that order like someone scratching an itch. She couldn't help it. She just couldn't. It was like a habit, a tendency of his, a tic.
Madeline was Badeline as much as Badeline was Madeline, and by extension, she had most if not all of her tics, such as running and running away from her problems, wanting to run away from everything.
Madeline continued to chase Badeline between devastating lasers and purple fireballs—all while one part of self tried to put sense with the other part’s head.
"I did you a favor."
Driving everyone away.
"You aren’t a mountain climber!"
So why bother sabotaging her?
"I’m just trying to help you!"
Keeping her safe.
“We don't have to fight! I don't think we can go any deeper!" Madeline exclaimed.
"I can keep digging. I could pull us down to the center of the earth." Badeline laughed, but her laugh was an oxymoron to the disastrous state of her mind obsessed with the idea of the two of them doing just that.
Them two. Alone. Calm. Safe.
But why? Did Madeline want to cut her out of her life so badly?
Badeline continued to run. The constant use of his magic was beginning to take its toll on him. Running away was becoming as exhausting as the stones his anger hurled were heavy.
Madeline was getting closer and closer with each attempt and with each cavern they traversed. Red and purple mixed intensely until…
Badeline pushed Madeline as soon as they made contact and the reflection moved as far away as it could before falling exhausted to the ground breathing heavily. It wasn't just tiredness and annoyance.
She was done.
She was sick of everything.
Would anything ever go in your favor? Could it all not be her fault? Was there anything she could do?
No, there was nothing to do. There was nothing I could do. If in any case she was too tired to keep fighting for unattainable things.
Badeline could hear Madeline's footsteps on the grass coming closer. She could try to escape one more time. She could fight, She could do something…but she couldn't even bring himself to face her. Freeze.
He could just accept her fate. Being so…useless… so…helpless…If only I had a little more…
The footsteps stopped behind her.
“Fine,” Badeline sighed. "You win. I guess you don't need me after all." Her voice was starting to crack and get smaller. "If you want me to go away, I'll try."
"That's not what I want. I need your help now more than ever. Please, let's work together."
“Work together? You’re joking, right?"
“Is oaky to be scared. You don't have to be scared of me."
"You still don't understand," Badeline blurted out heavily. “I'm not scared of you. But me…but if I'm scared of me…then I'm scared of you? I do not know how any of this works." Badeline was about to hug her knees, but Madeline stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.
“I…I don't know either, but that's what we're for each other. We are all we need."
Badeline was silent, she wanted to turn to see Madeline but she couldn't turn. "You really think that?"
"I believe it." Madeline put her other hand on Badeline's other arm before wrapping her in a hug. For a moment Madeline could feel her reflection wanting to pull away, but the redhead kept her grip strong until Badeline slowly stopped struggling and with slow, heavy breaths let herself fall into her arms before Badeline reciprocated the hug by extending her own arms. "I believe in us."
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sondrox · 10 months
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Cops and Thugs Ch. 1 - A bad shift
FFN: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14242641/1/Cops-and-Thugs
AO3: Cops and Thugs
Summary: Vagatha Jiménez is a police officer that one day finds herself face to face with the daughter of the biggest mafia boss of Pentagram City, a dangerous and criminal city to the core. Vagatha will be trapped in a forced alliance if she wants to stay alive and maybe, in the process, profit from the whole situation with the help of Charlotte Morningstar.
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“Central to X-22. Report status. Have you located the suspected dealer? Over,” The radio of a police cop called to the driver and a woman of black complexion and hair.
“Central, here X-22. We are following a tip from our informant, we’ll keep looking, over.” Vagatha lied. In front of her police car she could see her police mate Angel collecting the share for drgus from a local dealer.
Vagatha found herself parked in an abandoned alley where she knew no one would bump them by mere accident. She made sure a third time in the day her police uniforme remained neat and took a particular focus on her plaque hanging on the left side of her torso.
She pulled out a grey with red smartphone from her pocket and opened a chat she had with her girlfriend, Charlie. The history chat displayed a list of compliments, flirts, cheering up phrases, lots of emojis hearts, dogs and rainbows and a myriad of colors from the sender, whereasg Vagatha tried to play along as best as she could.
In that instance she limited herself to send an emoji of a bird, a cloud and a green check.
Vagatha allowed herself to relax after sending that message and let her view get lost at nothing at all, until her eyes fell in the rear-view mirror between the driver and copilot seats. She saw herself and the criminal situation she carried on. Though it wasn’t the most correct per se, she had convinced herself it was the best on the long run.
To that day, she still had doubts about how she had ended up in a relationship with the daughter of the capo of the biggest mafia in the city.
Vagatha remembered It all had started when she caught in a dealer with pounds of cocaine in his car. She had turned him in, but in a matter of days he had been set free and Vagatha sought an explanation.
FIVE WEEKS BEFORE.
“Come in.” Her sergeant said when she knocked his door.
“Sir, I wanted to ask about the dealer that I…we turned in. Bastard’s got plenty of packages on his car. Why had he been set free?”
“Bail.”
“Say what again?”
“Someone paid his bail, didn’t you hear?”
Vagatha blinked a few times confused. “Sir, it had come to my understanding he had been denied his right to pay for a bail.
“What you want me to do? Junkie’s got persuasive friends. Get the fuck out of my office, Jiménez and do something of use for once.”
The woman cop could distinguish a couple bottles of alcohol in his shelfs.
Vagatha didn’t find funny at all when the same guy was arrested two weeks later as he tried to sell small packages of cocaine hidden beneath his shirt.
Vagatha had been assigned with the task to patrol the streets in search of other dealers like the one she arrested to find clues in the product’s origin. But observing from afar had never been her strongest suit. So instead she walked through the city streets trying to lure the least attention to herself possible. As much as she could with her police uniform on.
It had been several hours already and the most excitement she had found in her day was the verbal fight she had with a driver who had overstayed at the parking meter and she gave her a fine. She almost wished the situation had escalated to put his ass in the ground and put him inside her car. Anything to make her day any less blant.
It seemed the angel  hear her prays Meanwhile Vagatha rested her stare, she found a tall women with a brown smoking that was surely equivalent to one month on Vagatha’s salary. She had been hawking at her and her blonde hair fluttering against the wind for more time she was willing to admit. Her mind had gone blank.
And it would had have stayed that way, but Vagatha managed to catch how that woman received a yellow package from a hooded man from head to toes with a large grey hat, hidden in the insides of an abandoned buildings before he disappeared. Vagatha immediately recognized what kind of envelop that was. Some senior cops had confiscated a similar package from a small group of criminals of the Morningstar mafia.
All happened in less than a second and the woman continued walking with package at hand without saying a word and they walked separated paths.
She opted for following that woman and discover what the hell was her deal. She couldn’t follow her from her police patrol or she would call too much undesired attention, so, with pistol at her holster, Vagatha opted herself to carry on her feet as fast and discreet as possible.
Despite her efforts to follow that woman and discover what was her damn deal, there was always that impeded her to reach her. Bumps with people, trips, traffic.
After following her for several streets Vagatha managed to peek how the woman entered a dog shelter she knew well. More than once she and other cops had received don’t for robberies or even discussions that had escalated into violent brawls.
Whenever she was nearby and her job allowed it, Vagatha passed by and checked out everything were in order and nobody wanted to screw over Sr. Pentious, the shelter’s owner.
Vagatha’s alarms kept tuned when she saw the woman coming out of the shelter just as quick as she entered. Her mind went to the worst-case scenario at once. Right after the woman had walked away far enough, Vagatha entered the shelter kicking the door open with her pistol at hand ready for the worst. A couple of puppies sleeping nearby the door ran away scared in different directions with clear cries of fear. To her not-so big surprise, quick and loud steps as thunder strikes alerted her of the first person to receive her, a man in his thirties with black hair falling down to his back with a blue dark jacket and an old and dirty yellow shirt beneath. He charged into the reception with a shotgun in his hands.
“Get away from my babies or I will blow your fucking blow your h-! Pentious stopped right where he was upon seeing the cop at his reception. “Oh, is just you, Ms. Vagatha. What may I do for you in this fine evening?” All the hate and panic in his voice had vanished in a matter of seconds but he Pentious still held his shotgun at Vagatha.
“First, put that thing away.” The woman showed herself undeterred to Sr. Pentious and his shotgun. Right where he couldn’t see, Vagatha’s hand trembled tense and still behind her back just in case she needed to use it. Just. In. Case.
“Oh, my most sincere apologies, Ms. Vagatha. Mi paternal instinct warned me of the terror invading my little creatures and I abided my duty as father.” Pentious finally put down his gun and went to a back room to store it back.
“I need to ask you about the woman that just entered. The one with an classy suit and long blonde hair. Why she came here? I need information, and I need it fast.”
Pentious stretched the neck of his yellow shirt. “Is not I don’t’ want to help you-“
“Then you will tell me what I want to know.”
-But you know better than anyone that kind of information is expensive…more than one can imagine. Today is it you who comes through my door seeking answer, but tomorrow, good god, I don’t want to imagine.”
“If you tell me what you know I will pretend I didn’t see the shotgun you just aimed at my face, for which I’m sure you don’t have a license to hold and that I don’t know how you got a hold of.”
Pentious cried out to the ceiling and kicked out like a kid for a few seconds before he recomposed himself. “Alright. I don’t know her name, but she comes once a month to leave…a payment.”
“A payment,” Vagatha repeated, hoping she heard wrong.
“Yes.”
“A payment…of…money.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Why would she do that?”
“How I’m supposed to know!?” Pentious threw his hands to the air and shrugged his shoulders. “She was the one who came to me. I thought someone finally became interested in my personality and heart. Do you have any idea how tedious is to be father to thirty dogs on your own alone?”
“Pentious, focus.”
“What I want to mean is, if you find a dollar in the floor, you don’t ask yourself how it got there. You just grab it and carry with your life a little less miserable.” One of Pentious’ dogs came out of the shelter’s kitchena d ran to his owner and bit his pants pulling them until the small puppie teared them with a clear ripping sound Pentious only exhaled without doing nothing to stop it. “Those were my last intact pants.”
Vagatha’s brow frowned a bit. “If I were you, I’d make sure no one is looking for that dollar. How much are we talking about here?”
“Not much actually. Just some ten…yes, ten grands a month.”
If Vagatha had been drinking water, she would have spitted out in Pentious’ face. “Ten thousand a month for a dog’s shelter?”
“If you will stay here to criticize my every life decision, my mother already does that for me!”
A gut feeling advised Vagatha there was little else of use she could get out of Pentious. She left the shelter and resumed her search for the unknown woman.
To her good luck she managed to spot her before she turned around a corner in a street and hastened to follow her.
Vagatha could let it go. She could be not so impulsive and keep an eye on Pentious’ shelter, waiting for her return or go to the police for a way to identify her.
Maybe it was out of boredom or her impulse for a merit with which stand out. None of those options sounded good enough for her.
Her mind was so busy justifying itself she didn’t have time to react to the hand that grabbed her by her neck, lifting her off the ground to immediately after stomp her against the pavement like a ragdoll. Vagatha’s body hit the hard concrete and her view became blurred for a few seconds. For a little while she could see smells and hear flavors. The hit had stunned her and deafened her. She couldn’t stand.
Vagatha couldn’t tell if she didn’t hear anything around her because of the hit, or because she didn’t realize she had walked into one of the city’s abandoned streets where barely any homeless vagabond lived, if any at all.
When she finally returned to planet earth, the first thing she saw was the blonde woman standing in front of her. If her eyes were working correctly once again, she could swear she had seen some trail of…preoccupation?
But before she could confirm anything, a figure emerged over her. Covered in a brown hoodie from head to toes and a grey fedora hat on his head. It was the same figure who had given the woman that package full of money.
Cop and hooded figure stared at each other, as much as they could with Vagatha on the floor managing to tell the man was in his forties, face filled with some wrinkles in his goatee beard. His expression one of few friends and one filled with the full desire to kill someone: Her, most likely.
Over time, sound came back to Vagatha and could catch some of the discussion between woman and man.
“You went too harsh on her!” The woman shouted at him, wanting to help the cop, but she didn’t know if she should or how to even do it.
“So?” You told me to take care of her.” The man answered back as simply as the woman did exalted.
“Not to almost kill her! She’s not a-a-a-a junkie or…a stoner or something worse!”
“She followed you like one.”
“That’s not the point! The point is…” The woman sighed and inclined her back to Vagatha. “Er…Hi, are you okay? I’m sorry Husk was so hard on you,” The woman pointed at the hooded man with a wave of her hand. “He was doing his job…and I think you were just doing yours too…anyways! Name’s Charlotte. Yours is…? “Charlotte realized the floor maybe was not the best of places to carry a conversation on, she asked Husk with an eyes signal to help her stand up.
Husk complied, lifting her with the same effortless move with which he tackled her down with and put her back against a wall and kept his hand at her shoulder firmly.
“Again, I’m really sorry, I-we had to be sure you wouldn’t cause us any trouble, er, Officer.” Charlotte cleaned some of the dust in Vagatha’s uniform.
Only then Vagatha had returned to herself fully and had only grasped fragments of her encounter and the situation she found herself in. Her brown hair had turned into a mess and now covered one of her eyes. The one uncovered eye became filled with a fierceness Husk identified in an instant. The will to fight with whoever on had in front of them no matter how injured one could get.
For two whole seconds those were Vagatha’s intentions until Husk turned her around and stomped her face against the wall and grabbed one of her arms against her back. Such defenseless position only exuberated Vagatha’s rage, but Husk didn’t let her move one inch.
“Husk, please,” Chalotte said, almost begging. Husk eased up his clutch on her but still held Vagatha against the wall. A little more relaxed and having an easier time to breath, Charlotte said: “I don’t want to cause you any harm Officer, I hope just you understand it…worried us, that you were following me, and…we had to be cautious. Nothing more.”
“I’ll give you a reason to be! Who do you think you are and why you have that package full of money!?” Vagatha spoke for the first time, only being able to see Charlotte in the corner of her eye.
Upon hearing such question, Charlotte played with her long hair as she laughed, unable to look at Vagatha. “Unfortunately, I don’t think I can answer that? If my father finds out, I don’t want to imagine what would happen…especially with you. He will maybe send you to sleep with the fishes.” She thought out loud that last part, only realizing the such words escaped from her lips and her eyes opened up wide in terror. “¡Is not like he will do that!” She raised up her hands in front of her. “I hope not,” She whispered to herself. “Well, he won’t as long as he doesn’t find out I found out you found me out. So we can…simplyyyyy…” Charlotte begged with her eyes to Husk to step in with a solution as she tried to give her most confident smile lacking of nervousness.
“Kill her.”
"Let me go."
"No!" Charlotte squealed before she covered her mouth with her hands, as if someone was going to hear them, despite the fact that she knew there was no one around them.
She couldn't help but fall silent as a sign of her recurrent stress in the situation, or any situation considering her…line of work.
Charlotte couldn't let her go. If she did, she would run the risk of having these police come back from her, only to trap her and use her as a weak point in her father's criminal world. And she would not return alone.
Her, the entire police force, every crime boss she could name, and God only knows how many more.
Blood. It would end in blood. Blood on her hands.
And if Charlotte killed her, she would end up with her blood on her hands.
Did she always have to end in blood?
Was there no other way?
Those same questions ran through Vagatha's mind out of survival instincts and impulsive temperament.
"We must hurry or Don Morningstar will be upset if you are late." Husk broke the silence.
Vagatha found herself strange at such a statement and at the mention of a mob lord, only beginning to understand that she had walked down the wrong shit hole, or she thought so, that she was beginning to understand.
"Who the hell are you even to have anything with Don Morningstar?" Vagatha asked as she tried to keep her face away from the grime of the brick wall she was stuck to.
Charlie forced a smile as she inhaled and sighed, then rubbed her neck. “I'm sure he'll understand if we explain the…situation. Nothing to worry about."
"So I kill her already?" Husk pulled Vagatha away from the wall and drew a knife from her trench coat, placing the tip of her blade into her neck as he now held her stomach. The police instinctively tried to get as far away from the knife as possible without much success.
"No! Wait! Why did you give money to the owner of the animal shelter!? Where did you get the money!? What other illegal businesses do you have!?” By now, Vagatha was asking more out of desperation of never knowing the truth if she died than out of a true sense of justice or duty.
Husk snarled at her questions and pressed the blade harder into her skin. The two connected eyes with each other with intense desires to kill the other. Vagatha gritted her teeth, preparing herself if she had to throw punches and for the worst when-
"Why would not?" A voice interrupted her silent desire for blood. Charlie's voice.
Cop and thug looked at her confused. Her expressions filled with an expression of: "What do you mean?"
“Why wouldn't I give money to a dog shelter when I can? It's the least I can do, after all he's done. Besides, if I don't do it, who will? Charlie was unable to look at Husk and Vagatha and only looked to the sides.
“What the f-Who is “he?” Who are you?" Vagatha was getting fed up with this situation, and not just from his knife against her throat.
"The truth is that I hate pulling this card but, I was referring to Lucifer Morningstar." Charlie pressed her lips together as she rocked her head slightly from side to side, as if she was choosing her next words carefully. "He's…well…he's my dad." Charlie tried to make it sound like the most natural thing in the world.
Vagatha blinked uncertainly, unsure that she heard Charlie correctly, unsure if she should believe him in the first place. There was very little they knew about Lucifer Morningstar for sure, so Vagatha could only assume that if someone made such bold statements, they either had a death wish or were telling the truth.
Somehow Vagatha believed both options applied to Charlotte.
Cold sweat broke out on her brown skin. She almost wanted to want to laugh. Almost.
Morningstar? A daughter!? She had only been a cop for a few months and she already knew shit that only criminal bosses should know! This was like knowing the biggest secret of her worst enemy. The kind of secret that could get her killed by for knowing! Except this was ACTUALLY the biggest secret of her worst enemy, for fuck’s sake!
And now if Vagatha managed to get out of this disaster alive with the intention of telling of her discovery, Charlotte's two options would apply to her as well.
She was probably seconds away from death and yet the same insignificant question filled her future empty head: "What does Pentious have to do with all this?"
"I beg your pardon?"
“Pentious. Why him of all people? Do you use his shelter as a money laundering business?"
Husk growled once more at her intrusive questions, but Vagatha didn't care as she believed she was seconds away from dying.
"Oh no! No no no! On the contrary! He was the one who told me that he wanted to open a dog shelter."
Vagatha's lie detector skyrocketed to the sky, but she at the same time she could see the conviction with which Charlotte backed her words. But then Husk interrupted them.
"If we don't come back soon the boss will shit on us."
"I'm sure if I-we... explain the situation to him, he won't."
"He'll shit on me."
Charlie swallowed heavily. “We can't leave her here. That just leaves me with the option of bringing her with us to see what we do with her. And definitely not…kill her.” Charlie whispered that last part to herself.
"The boss won't like you dealing with a cop."
“Let me be the one to deal with him,” Charlie said with a smile, a sudden boost of confidence.
Husk grunted to himself and the three of them headed deeper into the alley they were in until they came upon a sleek white car. Vagatha didn't know much about cars, but she could guess that it was a carefully preserved old model.
Husk tied Vagatha from hands and legs and blindfolded before throwing her into the back seats of the car and taking the driver's seat and Charlotte the passenger seat. Vagatha could hear them arguing, probably over what to do with her, but Vagatha was too busy trying to free herself from her restraints and remove her blindfold.
Husk started the car and the three of them drove out of the alley onto busier streets in the city. After several minutes of spinning around like a twisted worm in the back seats, Vagatha managed to remove the blindfold over one of her eyes. She immediately tried to see through the window as she lay down and was only able to recognize the silhouettes of the buildings for a short period of time before the car entered parts of the city she was unfamiliar with.
At a certain point, the natural light was decimated as the car entered a place Vagatha couldn't tell exactly where it was, once the car stopped Vagatha could only assume that the discussion between Charlotte and Husk about what to do with her had only been postponed. for later.
Vagatha lost sight of them as they got out of the car, but she could still hear one of them approach the back door of the car Vagatha was staring at and saw their shadow rise from the car window, immersing Vagatha's silhouette as a prelude to her destiny.
Shit! She could see when she was supposed to be blindfolded! Even if she didn't know exactly where she was she could guess an approximate and that could end up killing her.
The car knob began to move to open.
"Okay. This was it. All or nothing. I will fight until I find a way out like I always do,” Vagatha thought. "And that old bastard is not going to s-!"
When the door opened, Charlotte was on the other side. Each looking at the other in a frozen response. Vagatha found herself on the verge of getting into a fight as Charlotte thawed into a fawning response as she put Vagatha's blindfold back where it was supposed to be. Most of Vagatha’s self-preservation anger de-escalated, leaving just enough for a sense of alertness and wariness.
"Who's the dead weight?" A male voice asked between laughs as Vagatha felt her legs and arms being tied to a wooden chair.
"Angel! Not today please don't start! She's not dead weight."
“She soon she will be,” Vagatha heard Husk say.
"OK!" Chalotte took a deep, quick breath. “You two, enough! No one is going to die unless I say so!"
“Tell that to my mood for a good night. I had a guy I had to extort for money and then suck his dick, but youuuuu had to bring this thing and ruin everything!"
“This thing has a name and it's official Jimenez for you, you bunch of morons! All of you and your poor asses are about to end up in jail for the rest of your miserable lives! Starting with you, asshole!” Vagatha exclaimed still blindfolded.
Nobody answered.
"I'm talking to the wall, aren't I?" She sighed in a defeated tone and then received a few pats, almost smacks, on the back of her neck.
"I'm here, sweetie." Angel taunted her from behind. Vagatha tried to stand up and defend what little dignity she had left, but any effort of hers was decimated by Husk's heavy hand keeping her in her place. Such reinforcement only spurred Vagatha to try even more.
"Can you stop fighting for a minute?" Charlotte raised her voice clearly fed up with the situation. "Please? She's just a police officer and not our enemy. In any case, she has done more for the city than all of us put together.”
Angel laughed profusely and let out a great breath of joy. "And why would I do that? The only thing this city has ever done for me is be a pain in the ass. And not the pleasant one.” Vagatha didn't need to see to know that Angel was smiling.
"Eeeh, I think we should kill her," Husk muttered drunkenly with bottle in hand, Vagatha could guess from the weight in his words and the sound of bouncing liquid.
"Thanks for agreeing with me, honey." Angel purred moving closer to Husk and hugging his arm as he placed his hand on his chest.
"I fucking didn’t!"
"Then what are we going to do, ‘Her Majesty’? If she is not an enemy to us, then what is she?"
Charlotte ignored the nickname she hated for being lost in thought about her until her face lit up with the distinctive expression of having had a new idea.
“How about we make it one of us?” Charlotte proposed with the same naturalness with which someone orders in a restaurant.
This expression was received by different reactions by those present in the room.
Indifference. Inconvenience. Confusion.
"You mean a traitor?" Angel asked.
"No! No. She was thinking more of a-"
"Traitor?"
"No."
“Liar?”
"No…"
“Two faces!
"I meant a double agent!" Charlotte yelled raising her hands.
For a few seconds Angel just stared at her without saying anything until he burst out laughing. “And what is she going to do!? Bring you donuts and coffee!? No, no, no. Wait! I got a better one! You will make her arrest people over stepping flowers!” Angel continued to laugh so hard that he began to double over himself for a while having the blast of his life. Eventually his laughter gradually ceased as he wiped the tears from his eyes. “Well, I think I've had enough fun here. Let me know when it's time to take out the trash.” There was nothing Vagatha wanted more at that moment than for her to kick the huge, stupid grin off Angel's face. The mocking criminal dragged Husk to go with him to another room, leaving Vagatha and Charlotte in an uncomfortable silence which made Charlotte sadder despite being the one with her hands not tied behind her back and her eyes blindfolded.
After verifying they could have some privacy, Charlotte removed the blindfold in an attempt to make the best of the situation, although she couldn't deny that she backed down a little when Vagatha still had that fierceness instilled in her face, contrasting against the expression Charlotte's fearful and evasive expression as she played with her hands unconsciously.
“Look, I know you don't have many reasons to trust me, or…none at all. But, you can trust me when I tell you that I have no intention to harm you."
Vagatha's eye narrowed in contempt. “Why should I have the same sentimentality when I walk out of here and kick the door down with a full SWAT team!?”
Charlotte looked down at the floor with a reluctant smile. “Yes, I can understand why you would want to do…that…after…this.”
"Yessss! And 'that' is just!-" 
The sound of an incoming call interrupted Vagatha. The tone was that of an excessively colorful musical that got Vagatha off the hook. She didn't need to wonder who was calling after Charlotte answered with a: “Hi Ma!” calmer than she could pronounce.
"Lilith Morningstar." Vagatha's mind makes sure to note if, and only if, what Charlotte has said so far is true.
Seizing the opportunity in her new solitude, Vagatha rocked in the chair until she fell under her own weight to the floor. A grunt later, she searched the room for something to cut her bonds with until…
Bingo! Vagatha saw a knife on the edge of a shelf in what appeared to be a compact little kitchen. "Of course! Thank god for the stupidity of these buenos para nada.”
Her path to the kitchen was like that of a worm: embarrassing and slow. She couldn't stand up or even roll into the kitchen because of the chair on her back. Eventually Vaggie managed to position herself just below where the knife hung. She rocked her body so that the chair hit the furniture and the tremor dropped the knife.
The bladed weapon wobbled but not enough to fall. If she hit harder she could draw everyone's attention back to herself. But if she didn't risk it, Vagatha would make sure she stayed trapped there, so Vagatha did what she did worst and was to face the odds against her.
After stronger blows, the knife ended up falling under her own weight over the precipice.
The sharp end of it landed on Vagatha's cheek, opening a small wound and causing it to bleed slightly. Vagatha grunted for a moment before her face was filled with the first sign of real joy of the day.
Ok, maybe of the week.
Her knife bounced a few meters away from her and Vagatha rolled as far as she could with a chair on her back until she managed to grab the handle of it with her hands tied behind her back and lay on her side. she.
Slowly but surely, Vagatha cut her bonds and with her free hand she finished freeing herself from the chair.
Her first thought was to escape from that damned place. But the side of her most eager for recognition of her prompted her to search the place for something she could use as blackmail material against Charlotte. Or at least use as confirmation of the big fish she claimed to be, or her connection to one.
While exploring the place, she came across a warehouse full of garbage and plastic crates with a large wooden table at the end of the room against one wall. On that wall Vagatha found a mural with several photos connected with a red thread. Vagatha acknowledged that all the photos were of relatively recently renovated places from last year and recent months.
On the same mural he found photos of abandoned places, consumed by dirt and neglect, connected by a light blue thread.
Why were these places points of interest to this woman and what were her intentions?
Curse! She if she only had her phone to take photos as evidence, but she had left it in her car. Only if she still had her police car that hadn't been stolen or vandalized.
Vagatha shook her head. "It doesn't matter. I need to get out of here to-"
CLICK!
One moment Vagatha was looking at the series of photos on the mural and the next she had turned to the source of the sound which turned out to be Charlotte, pointing a gun at Vagatha in her hands, her grip shaking from it.
“Ok, I know this looks bad. But I REALLY needed you to listen to me for five minutes before I-"
"Before I do something I regret?"
"Before I do." Charlotte cocked her pistol. The gun killed the silence before the bullet did.
"You don't know what you're doing, so let me tell you that a-"
BOOM!
Her ears went deaf for a second followed by a gasping sound. A trail of smoke passed through the room. Vagatha felt a brief, hard push. Her hand was slow to respond when she wanted to put it on her stomach. She suddenly felt sticky and wet, and lifting her up in front of her face she could see it covered in shocked red until it all faded and she received another reality check instead.
"AGGHHH!"
"Oh my God!"
"WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!"
Charlotte's pistol fell to the ground at the same time as Vagatha's body with a heavy thud. She didn't know at what moment she found himself in Charlotte's arms while she was bleeding at great speed while she was screaming something and…she was dragging her? The cold enveloped her and she did not know what to do. Her arms moved without her control. They touched everything within her reach, looking for something to cling to without purpose.
The next thing she remembered was more screaming and a great urge to vomit. Flickering lights and a head world filled her senses, and then, darkness.
The next thing he remembers is opening his eyes to an annoying light from which she couldn't hide. As her eyes adjusted to the new, annoying lights, Vagatha found herself lying in a hospital room bed in the middle of the night.
It took her several minutes to realize that she was connected to only-God-knows how many monitors and an IV. A nurse stopped her from removing it and informed her that she had received a gunshot wound to her abdomen.
Vagatha immediately tried to get up upon hearing that, but she got a horrible cramp inside her. As if someone had opened her wound, had reached inside and crushed her organs from inside her until they turned to a thick red mush. Vagatha fell back onto the bed limp and sighing heavily. Subsequently, Vagatha probed her stomach with her fingers and found a large patch on the left side of her abdomen.
The nurse told her, not to say she ordered her, that she should rest until she was discharged. Worst of all, she was not told when that would happen.
"Who brought me here?"
“Your friend, and I think her grandfather. Do you think you can contact them? It would be nice to have them as a support system until you get better, they left before we could get their information."
Her heartbeat quickened at that moment. Proof of this was her heart rate monitor. “…They…will be leaving town soon. But I have people who can…help me. I am a police officer. I need to notify my superiors of my…mishap.”
The nurse complied and gave her a phone with which she called her police sergeant. The first four minutes consisted of pure yelling and cursing, Vagatha tightening her grip on her phone with an urge to throw it out the window as her blood pressure rose by the minute.
But the real worst came the next morning after her scolding when Vagatha received her first visit from another male police officer with a goatee and a similar complexion to Vagatha's.
Relief was one of the last sensations that Vagatha felt when she saw him. One of the reasons for her being hers, having abandoned her to her fate in her turn —to mention a few of hers. Another reason being that she knew the only reason she and he were together was because of forces beyond her control.
“You look like shit,” was the first thing he said upon seeing her.
"Eat shit, Arackniss."
"Yes whatever. When do you think you'll be able to get your ass out of bed? The sergeant has been bothering me because you-"
"You've been fucking missing!"
“-been missing. He 'asked' me to investigate the activities of a person who has been leaving packages of money at random locations and see if there is any connection. Don't you happen to know something?" Arackniss looked out the window as if the streets were a thousand times more interesting than her mate before turning to see her. “Ah, why am I asking you? I'm sure your ass was glued to the police car seat. Oh by the way, they stole it from you.”
The conversation between the two ended shortly after. Vagatha had proven more than once that talking to Arackniss was just as productive as talking to a brick wall.
Vagatha was released after a few days of observation—no more visitors, but she was taken off work and forced to take a two-week vacation.
She spent the first week on alert peering through the tall windows of her curtained apartment looking for the car in which she was kidnapped as her main pastime, apart from an old TV whose signal sometimes failed. Usually Vagatha spent her free time at the shooting range or exercising, but with her gunshot wound she couldn't leave the house and do any kind of minimally demanding physical activity hurt too much.
She jumped exalted whenever she heard a sound outside her apartment, forcing her to look through the peephole of her door into the hallway, distrusting every shadow and figure that caught sight of her.
In the middle of a night, one of the few in which she went to bed, Vagatha couldn't stop tossing and turning between the sheets with the worldly sounds filling her brain with background noise coming through the window. But then, through the distant sound, she could make out someone's footsteps in the hallway. She wondered who could come to her house so late at night as the sound reached its crescendo as it reached Vagatha's door. She expected the footsteps to recede into the distance and disappear, but instead the sound stopped immediately. Vagatha's pupils went in the direction of the door.
For a moment she Vagatha thought that maybe she was just overanalyzing him and that she needed to go to some damn sleep, but then she could see the shadow of a person coming under her door. still. She could see how the shadow crouched over the door, but she couldn't guess exactly what it wanted to do. Then the shadow moved away from her and with it the silence returned, failing to reassure the sleepless police.
Vagatha lay tense with one foot off the bed; just in case you have to jump into action. Her heart pounded in her ears waiting for things to go to shit, only to have her heart beat even harder when it never did.
She only dared to move after several minutes when her body could no longer bear the stillness and agony. She pulled her pistol out from under her mattress. One that she had supposedly lost "In action" on one of her shifts.
She walked as close to the wall as she could, reaching the door wearing only a white tank top and gray shorts. Vagatha put her ear against the wall looking to hear whatever the person outside was up to, but she heard nothing.
She pulled the door open just enough to pull the barrel of her pistol out of the small opening. Even finding nothing Vagatha kept her guard up. She closed the door briefly before removing the chain and opening it fully again and immediately ducking around a corner at the entrance to her apartment and she pointed towards the door holding her pistol firmly with both hands.
Vagatha checked both sides of the corridor quickly, finding nothing and no one in the proximity, but when she had started to explore beyond her door, her foot collided with a small box on the floor.
At first there was no clue that could tell her who the sender might be, though due to the fact that it was the box it was neat and ordinary she did give him a clue as to who she might be.
Her curiosity mixed with her insomnia almost prompted her to open the box just then, but the nuts in her brain turned at the right time and she remembered who it may have come from.
Vagatha immediately went back inside her apartment and put the box on her kitchen table as soon as she could. The thought of calling Arackniss or her sergeant crossed her mind sooner rather than later. Doing this alone was perhaps the most sensible thing to do, but then she would have to explain why she received that package, and thus her encounter with probably the daughter of the biggest mob lord in the city, how and why she had made it out alive and…
She shook her head when it began to spin due to the mental overexertion in digesting and processing the situation at such late hours of the night. She taped several forks at the ends and crafted a long stick with a knife at the end to open the box from a safe distance.
By the time she managed to open the box hidden behind a table with her homemade elongated stick, Vagatha waited a couple of minutes in anxiety, excitement, and sleep depravity. After nearly falling asleep, Vagatha forced herself to check the box herself.
Inside she found a phone. A much better one than the one she had. Taped to the phone was a yellow note taped that read: “So so Sorry to shoot you! I hope these gifts help you feel better. Get well soon! ^_^”
Vagatha read the letter several times hoping to find some secret message or clue that would tell her the location of the eccentric woman, but she found nothing.
After the eighth reading, she realized that the letter mentioned "gifts." Vagatha had only found the phone. Checking the box, she realized that it was too big and heavy to hold just a phone, not to mention that she could feel something crashing against the cardboard as she shook it like a child going through her Christmas presents to guess what they were.
She cut a hole in the bottom of the box with the same makeshift long knife and could make out something green in the hole she made. She expanded the gap with her hands and suddenly her eyes froze at the sight of the unmistakable green of bills peeking through the cuts.
She removed the lid that covered the bills completely and discovered that the entire bottom of the box was full.
It was then that she understood. Like a bucket of cold water falling on her without warning.
They were bribing her.
Or…were they trying to? She hadn't accepted the money yet…but she had already taken it…and it was inside her apartment…
She tried to find clues on the smartphone that she found in the box for clues to contact Charlotte.
No apps. No numbers. No messages. No secret codes.
Then the second bucket of cold water fell on her head.
They were going to contact her. Not the other way around.
That woman was more intelligent than she had anticipated.
She had received a one-way ticket to the criminal mob world and they did not accept refunds.
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This idea originally came from a Pinterest prompt, I had the intention for this to be a one-shot, but the more I wrote it down, the more I had to add and solidify for this whole story to make sense, and by the time I realized it, this was getting too long for a one-shot, not to mention that I was liking it too much and I was realizing the potential that this story had, so now the idea is to divide it into a few chapters.
Not gonna lie, I feel a little guilty pleasure writing this story since I should be working on other projects that I have pending, but I think I can make the best of this situation.
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sondrox · 11 months
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Through Rocks and Snow Ch. 15 - Reflection
FFN: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14146784/15/Through-Rocks-and-Snow
AO3: Through Rocks and Snow - Chapter 15
15. Reflection
Prompt: Wretched
Ignorance is bliss, but knowledge is permanent.
Ironically, both can be used to wash doubt away. But once you know something you can’t unknow it. You may forget it; its meaning may change. But it will stay there. Always.
Celia knew this. She figured out the best she could do was to make herself comfortable with her demons.
Ignorance is blinding, so knowledge is permanent.
To forget it is to invite trouble. And troubled always arrived at one’s doorstep. Always.
When it does, it causes a commotion. A commotion such as the one Celia felt first in the air, then at her feet. The mountain spoke a language her demons taught her. A language of pain and fear.
Such language lured lost souls into Celeste Mountain whether they understood it or not. Especially if they didn’t.
Such as it did with that red-hair girl and even redder spite. It had been a long time since Celia had seen someone so hot-headed. She knew for a fact that may be as well the sole reason she had made it thus far.
Until then. Celia could feel it.
The mountain told her. That stubborn girl had tried forget.
And fell she did because of that. She fell long and hard. Deeper than she’s ever seen someone fail only to throw the towel and leave the mountain.
Trouble is like pain and fear and life: It finds a way, Celia remembered well as she made her way down into the deep caverns of the mountain. She knew where to search and it was not where Madeline fell.
Why search on the only place she knew she won’t be at? She knew that girl was too stubborn to settle with defeat; she recalled the look filled with determination when she first saw her at the feet of the mountain.
It was funny to Celia how Madeline carried her struggle now so deep in the mountain in contrast to back then. There was a fine line between determination and stubbornness. Stupidity and braveness. But it didn’t matter to know which one was which at the end at the eyes of fear and pain—in a blizzard all snowflakes came from the same breeze of wind.
Celia found Madeline fed up with her failure, or rather, Madeline found Celia at the deep and never-ending blue and colorful caves after the older woman descended in an elevator.
It was even funnier when she heard Madeline was unable to address her problems to herself and created this whole story about how “someone” threw her down there. Experience told her this was all Madeline’s doing.
The icing on the cake was Madeline not realizing she meant the mountain as a whole and not just where the two of them found each other at.
“This girl you’re talking about. It sounds like she’s holding you back. Talk to her. Figure out why she’s so scared.”
“You think she’s…scared? I guess I never thought of it that way.”
“Stop wasting both of our time and ask her. What have you got to lose?”
Celia may have lived many years in solitude in the mountain by now. Her way to update herself of the world outside was to learn from adventurer visitants through the years. It amused her to know things haven’t changed much.
Yes. She was aware her advice to go and “find yourself” was one of the most—if not the most—regurgitated piece of self-help advice out there.
She was also aware Celeste Mountain was unlike any other place; so were the rules that dictated this place; so were the ways in which one interacted, failed to follow…and bended its rules.
Celia’s wretched knowledge didn’t make it any less applicable.
Ignorance is unapplicable. That is how knowledge is permanent.
Still, ignorance was durable as long as one wanted. Celia had saw previous climbers who believed by reaching the summit, all of their problems would be magically solved.
They were so encaptivated in seeing the forest they forgot to see the trees.
A journey’s last step was as important as any other.
“A glimpse at the truth is good for people. Even if most can’t accept what they see. There’s no shame in running back to your car and driving away. Someday you’ll be ready and then you’ll come back.”
Madeline looked at the elevator next to Celia with a dreading temptation. Her breath became heavier for a moment before she shook her head. “No. I’m going to see this through. No more running.”
“I thought so. Good luck.”
Madeline breathed in as deep as she could and exhaled. Her eyes got lost in the distance deep into the caverns. Her expression turned cold as snow and hard as rock. She was seeing something. Celia was convinced of it. But she was not one to ask such things.
“How can you stand living here? Isn’t hard to deal with this all the time?”
“It’s true, you never really get used to it. But it keeps me sharp. I like that about it.”
Ignorance is dull. That is the way knowledge stays permanent.
“But the mountain is so…confrontational.” Madeline gulped down as memories of recent days flashed in her eyes. Celia could tell it did.
“Sure, it doesn’t beat around the bush. Celeste Mountain is a place of healing, dear. The first step of healing is confronting the problem. Is never easy.”
Madeline’s face filled with an expression of being done with it all. Except she wasn’t. “Tell me about it.” And with that, Madeline went to chase shadows.
So Celia didn’t told her about it. She didn’t tell her the second step of healing was to hurt.
To hurt her comfort zone? To hurt her limits? To hurt the fragile calmness?
To hurt all her non-sense problems she dealt with?
All of the above. In the eyes of pain, they were all the same.
Celia didn’t tell her the third step was to hurt until she shattered herself, so she could rebuild herself from the broken pieces, like a broken mirror. If Madeline made the mistake of arranging the broken pieces in the same place, then they would break in the same way in the future.
As Madeline walked away, the light coming from the hole above Celia flickered due to a blue bird passing by covered the light. Celia’s shadow silhouette flickered along for more than a single moment, and then the shadow detached itself from Celia’s body and positioned itself next to her, who reacted only enough to acknowledge its presence.
The shadow started to spread like a small mass taking form and growing taller until it shaped itself into a replica of Celia, with wrinkles, cane and a tan almost as white as snow. The two of them stared at the red-haired girl disappear in the distance.
“You truly believe she’ll make it?” The shadow asked.
“Is a matter of time before we find out. The girl’s got spirt I’ll give her that.”
“That’s why you insisted on helping her that much?”
“Yes. And no.”
Her shadow understood in a mild disinterest and disappeared back into the ground back to follow Celia’s steps. The old woman turned back to the elevator. Even though it was only a few steps away, the effort took her breath away. In her way up to a much higher area she stretched the muscles around her shoulders as the nuts and bolts turning filled the silence.
Her shadow once again left her body and manifested itself next to Celia. “It was fun while the girl lasted.”
“It was.”
For a moment the elevator trembled, Celia used her cane for support until she could stand just fine. Both of them smiled in amusement. “Kid must really have a grudge against herself to have such effect.”
“That reminds me of the time you threw me off that cliff.”
“Ah yes. I had to drag you from the ridge all the way back to the cabin.”
“You gonna apologize for what happened to him?”
“Don’t tell me about it.” The shadow mimicked Madeline’s voice and the two of them laughed their breath off until the elevator reached right at the main entrance to the caverns and walked to a small outpost there.
Inside the cabin Celia found the frame of a photo of herself when she was younger next to a man in a suit with a small mustache and the mountain behind them. The black and white colors denoted its age. Celia rubbed the wrinkles in her face softly with her fingers.
“You think she will have something similar like what happened to you?” The shadow asked seeing how Celia took the frame with her.
Celia endeavored until she reached a chair outside the outpost to rest, upon sitting she left a deep sigh and making herself comfortable in her chair and waited. “Don’t know. Don’t matter. Either way she’ll come around, then we can take it from there, and then she’ll do as well.”
“You think “he” will have something similar like what happened to him?” The shadow asked again with her attention now at the entrance. Small trails of snow went into the cave until they disappeared in its depths. “This it’s not for him.”
“No. If that boy is different than this old fool, then there will be nothing to keen about. I trust him, he seems like a good man.”
“He. Seems.” The shadow accentuated her words.
“That’s enough Necia,”
And the two of them laughed.
Ignorance is ignorant. That is why knowledge is permanent.
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Granny's chapter is finally here! I waited a long time to write this out and I'm extremely happy with the results.
Just in case you're wondering, yes. Celia is Granny's name. Funny enough, it was not only half way in the chapter I realized if I was writing this from Celia's Pov, then why the hell I was calling her Granny?!
Anyways, I wanted to make this one chapter a bit special.
I'm sure you can tell the reminiscence of past chapters in this one. That was what I talked about in previous chapters about the topics I wanted to ilustrate in here. It's all about sides of the same coin, I'm not talking just about Granny and Madeline, but Theo and Oshiro, even Badeline too. You see, I'm still fixated in wanting to show you what the game couldn't and that lured me to the question why they came to Mountain Celeste in the first place.
Why Oshiro and Celia stay?
Why Madeline and Theo don't?
What is Badeline to the mountain?
What did Theo's grandpa did in Mountain Celeste?
Among other questions, the most important of them all:
What do they ALL have in common?
What do they all have in common to have come to the mountain in the first place?
Madeline and Granny are not meant to be depicted as two sides of the same coin. Madeline is meant to be depicted as her turning to the same side of the coin Granny is in.
Also, the idea of Granny having her own "Badeline" was one I had for a long time. But I failed to notice I should have given some hints about just that sooner. There is this tip in writing that says that your readers being able to predict a plot twist or a sudden revelation doesn't mean you're too predictable, it means you gave off enough hints to make the something believable, and that, after all, is the main job of a writer.
Anyways, I failed to do just that, so...can I justify narratively Madeline had been just starting to understand the magnitude of the powers of the mountain and she was too busy with her journey to notice such thing? Anyways this little rambling here is nothing but a reminder to myself to not make that same mistake again in the future with other releases.
I kept myself to my word and I wrote as much as I thought needed to be written all for the chapter's sake, but still, the question of whether I should have done a novelization instead of these prompts-based chapters floats around my mind as I write this. Again, this gives us the benefit to explore sides of the game we could have never seen otherwise, but I have to remind myself this whole series of chapters, besides of a distraction of my other work, was meant to be an exercise to capture atmosphere in small spaces.
To polish my skills or to explore the unknown. To be or not to be.
I think that's all the rambling I have for now. You know what's coming next and by just thinking about it I'm having mixed feelings. Don't worry, the right kind of mixed feelings.
That's all, see ya.
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sondrox · 1 year
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Through Rocks and Snow Ch. 14 - Mirror Temple Inner Reflection
FFN: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14146784/14/Through-Rocks-and-Snow
AO3: Through Rocks and Snow - Chapter 14
14. Mirror Temple Inner Reflection
Prompt: Pet (Peeves)
This was not what she was supposed to be doing. But then again, what else was she supposed to be doing with her life?
She was not to be lost in between dark and dead-alluring rooms looking for an exit. Not when she had so many places to see and so much to explore. So much options at hand and this was the one thing she chose to do?
Disgusting.
She hated it.
And she hated herself for allowing this to happen.
Things didn’t have to go this way. Things didn’t have to end this way.
And now the best thing she could do was to make catharsis out of scraps.
Hoping one day it will be enough.
If only she could use a fraction of the spite she had for herself into something more useful, maybe she wouldn’t need to prove herself with such ridiculous feat as climbing a mountain, knowing damn well she wouldn’t even bring it up to anyone after she was gone from here. Either alive or dead.
In the end there would be no difference for her and she knew it.
But in the meantime she could only daydream with the day where she could truly rest forever. She accommodated the backpack over her shoulders once more and continued her path.
This was uncomfortable. Confined to be in such small space for unbearable amounts of time before he got a chance for real freedom.
Was he always this whiny? Oh but he would stay like that, of course. Had he no better thing to do than lose himself in the lives of others because he didn’t want to fix his own?
What there was to fix when he didn’t even begin to deal with his life in the first place? He knew he had not and still he carried on with a restless itching to keep digging on soft ground with his hands, hoping to find something which justified his efforts to be worth it.
And for what purpose? He knew he was not going to be that one-hit wonder in the internet. At most he was going to be a passing amusement to people behind a screen. Will anyone ever going to look up to him like he looked up to his own idols?
Everything he did was not a masterpiece. All of his work was nothing but the best of the worst in a pile of always-burning trash he always sought to fuel with more and more. He hated the mere thought of not having and he’d have no idea what to do without it and such idea only incited him to go deeper, and deeper, and deeper.
His work was not unique or special. Anyone could replicate what he did and do it even better. This had no meaning. This was not meant to give a message. It was a shout to the void where no one heard him.
He sought to be a timeless masterpiece when all he would end up being was a loss in time.
Just like he was right now trapped in that crystal prison. He could only rest his head against its walls and close his heavy eyes.
This was a vile pile of thoughts. That’s was what anyone would say if anyone looked inside her head into her mind.
Still, she’d cling herself close to them as if her life depended on it. It did to some extend and without them, she had nothing and she was nothing.
So much brainpower and the exclusive benefit to live in a mind. All to use it to create almost nothing and what little she created ended up in the dark away from peering eyes.
She felt like she was throwing a bouncing ball to a wall and every time she threw it, the ball always ended up hitting her head. Then the ball would roll far away from her, she would tiredly stand up, retrieve it and throw it away once again.
She would laugh if she was not tired by the amounts of contradictions she had over her being. Sleepy and insomniac. Grumpy and calm. Calculating and eager. Thinker and empty-headed. Always wanting to touch but always refraining herself to watch in the distance.
Oh, now she’s having second thoughts at the idea of having something new? That was not what she wanted? To be oh so wonderfully marveled at the exploration. She was not scared of her mind. She was scared of others seeing inside. She didn’t seek to be understood. On the contrary, she enjoyed the alienation her line of thought gave her as much as she hated it, as long it fueled her belief of being somehow special. As if solitude and darkness were her natural habit.
What kind of sense was that supposed to be? She herself couldn’t even tell. Nothing new under the sun she rarely saw nowadays yet she yearned and loathed so much. So, she only did what she did best. Watch from afar and ruminate about it.
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Because spite can get you much further in one night than fear in a month.
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sondrox · 1 year
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God Of War Ragnarok Writing Prompt #2
It is said there's a god at Asgard who doesn't feel pain, but there are actually three.
One who does not feel pain by curse.
One who does not feel pain by choice.
And one who does not feel pain by pride.
What could go wrong in a room with the three of them together, before they are mandated in a mission by their father?
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Which god doesn't feel pain by whatever option is your choice, but I have my own opinions.
If you are willing, Odin may be the fourth god who does not feel pain by fear.
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sondrox · 1 year
Text
Through Rocks and Snow Ch. 13 - Mirror Temple
FFN: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14146784/13/Through-Rocks-and-Snow
AO3: Through Rocks and Snow - Chapter 13
13. Mirror Temple
Prompt: Reward
Madeline didn’t believe in karma, or whatever name one gave it to things outside their control.
Karma, retribution, cosmical intervention, odds, luck.
Except when it was bad luck.
If good things happened to her, it was mere luck followed by guilt. If bad things happened to her, she deserved it.
Madeline couldn’t see through the fallacies of her thinking. For if she believed bad things happened to her for a reason, it was nothing but the reward of her actions or inactions.
If she learned anything so far, was that the mountain amplified whatever problem she had.
She worried something would go awry at the gondola and the mountain infested her mind with the worst-case scenario, only ending when Theo pulled her out of her crap, and now she found herself in a temple that would make the gondola incident look like a roller coaster in comparison.
It was irrational, she was aware. But she didn’t choose to climb the mountain to be rational; she chose to be mindful in mindless matters.
Method to madness, as Theo told Madeline at the resort when she said she wanted to help Oshiro, since apparently she knew enough of ignoring one’s problems.
it was all the same, it all lead her to the same ending. Ignorance or unawareness. Or worse, willing ignorance. Choosing to stay in the dark, such as Madeline was doing stepping into the temple, following Theo when she knew she shouldn’t, but as she did, Madeline intellectualize her way through like a bot in a game, mechanically and logically acting for the best outcome.
Reference point. Eyes sharp. Ears even sharper. Careful steps. Mental map.
All as fast as her mind could think. No room for second thoughts—despite she used her mind at high efficiency.
All for being mindful in a mindless situation.
Madeline didn’t catch the fact she could only carry on for so long before she got distracted and her act fell apart, either by herself or by something else. Which one would be worse was hard to choose.
She didn’t get lost before she knew it, on the contrary, she knew she was, and just like she feared she didn’t know when she got lost.
When did that happened, again?
What was her line of thought?
Madeline had…forgotten. Mind had slipped away.
Now she was left alone in some dismal corner of this place, with the occasional drop of water echoing through chambers from somewhere beyond her reach as her only company.
This was her reward for her actions, her own stupidity if she will, and of course she would. Madeline’s talent to do the best of efforts and gain little, next to nothing, shone the most now.
She couldn’t even cradle herself at this occasion with the thought of “nothing ventured, nothing gained.” For Madeline ventured way too much. All calculated risks, she told herself, but man, she was bad at math.
Her roaming eventually led her to find Theo’s smartphone on the ground, next to a large mirror. Although she saw her actual reflection for the first time since she stepped into the mountain, a shiver ran down her spine.
Her mind roamed into the worst-case scenario at once again, all in order to be always prepared, not knowing her restless mind was the very thing that set her off. Madeline was her own cause and consequence. That thought tasted not unfamiliar on her tongue, and left a bittersweet flavor on it she tried to dissipate by swallowing heavily.
She picked up his smartphone and saw if there was anything she could help her find Theo, but Madeline could do little more than stare at Theo’s smartphone with the same curiosity the blue bird had that she found earlier at the mountain.
Or the bird found her?
She used it as a flashlight before she returned it to Theo if she found him.
“When I find him.” Madeline corrected herself, forcing herself to believe in that outcome. She could not believe in anything else. Madeline chose to turn a blind eye into the unthinkable. She turned away from the mirror to avoid seeing her reflection.
Just because she was mindful in mindless situations didn’t mean she couldn’t be mindless in mindful situations. Whatever approach she could take, it would lead her to the same reward, the temple would see to that.
The same constant drop of water still echoed through her ears and started to get on her nerves, but Madeline did not realize that drop would be soothing after she encountered the creatures lurking in the shadows in areas far ahead. Each one of its multiple eyes upon Madeline, annoyingly waiting.
Badeline felt her in the temple like a cricket in the middle of the night, she couldn’t wait to find where she actually was and made it shut up, once and for all.
And by “shut up” she meant dragging her ass out of this forsaken place.
For all the impulsiveness Madeline could have for noble actions with doubtful results, Badeline compensated it with patience for unhinging acts.
It may not be the most rational course of action, but Badeline believe this time would be different, solely based on the fact SHE was the one doing it this time, with plenty of experience gained from Madeline’s mistakes, as if that would allow Badeline to avoid them, unaware of the fact that if things were as they were, it was for a reason.
Understanding was still far from her grasp, and it would only come to her as soon as she tried to change it, and see she could not do so. Not when the objective she was aimed to was to make Madeline quit.
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Well, this time it didn't take me a month to update. Hooray me.
About what I said at the previous chapter about Badeline's point of view, I believe it was the right decision Madeline had it here. Badeline's version of this chapter was a tad darker.
Also I have taken a decision about the word limit, and that is I will not let it limit me. I will let the chapters be as extensive as they need to be. If they have to be 2k word long, so be it.
I felt this chapter in particular to be little more than pure introspection. Though I said previously I wanted to avoid right that, I think it's fine now. I'm not thrilled to write about the Mirror Temple, it ironically leaves me in a darker spot to write than Celestial Resort did, but I think I can help myself with that by using the next chapters to solidify the topics I want to explore, which I hope I'm ilustrating appropriately.
I'm doubtful about what should be the next chapter, though judging the pattern of scenarios the chapters have, you should be able to give yourselves a hint about where things are going.
I think that's all for now. See ya.
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sondrox · 1 year
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Through Rocks and Snow Ch. 12 - Purple Ridge
FFN: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14146784/12/Through-Rocks-and-Snow
AO3: Through Rocks and Snow - Chapter 12 - Sondrox - Celeste (Video Game) [Archive of Our Own]
12. Purple Ridge
Prompt: Thought
After finally gain a corporeal form and control over her actions, much has not change after getting out of HER mind for Badeline.
Ugh, the mere thought of her name still left a bitter taste in her mouth.
But her statement was true, as always, of course. Much has not changed in her routine, which was to observe and influence.
Observe to keep an eye on her other self, and to influence whenever she was about to do something irrationally stupid.
Like the gondola Madeline was watching with a maddening curiosity.
Badeline tried to tell her. Tried to warn her not to get on that rusty old antiquity. If something so old broke apart and Madeline fell to her certain death falling countless meters off the ground, would Badeline save her then? Hell no, right?
Right?
As soon as Madeline stepped into the gondola, Badeline tried to convince her to get out of there in the only way she knew.
Inducing thoughts of fear. Screaming to the void Madeline’s mind was and be left hoping this would be one of the times Madeline heard her.
But it didn’t work. She would opt for more direct communicative methods like she did in that old site place, but there weren’t any mirrors or reflections nearby. She could only be the intrusive thoughts Badeline has been her entire existence.
Badeline could only do as much as Madeline’s mind allow her. Fear was one of her main means to act and for such actions to be effective; Effective meaning Madeline did as she implored.
Once the gondola started to raise up, Badeline sat over the ceiling sitting on the gondola’s edge. Badeline didn’t really need to be…there. But she has been her entire life without a physical form she wanted to use it as much as she could, even if her gateway for such opportunity was Madeline’s fear. She had a thing for these. It gave her a subtle hit of adrenaline she enjoyed much.
As ever expected, the gondola had problems midway when it shifted heavily in the cable it hung on.
Badeline found the opportunity she was looking for. She could feel in her body and in Madeline as well. A window.
At first she gave Madeline an itch. One not too strong to harm her, but neither too weak to let her ignore it. After being a though, that was all Badeline was used to be. An itch. A constant, persistent itch that never went away, resting in the back of her mind, always overseeing and never-resting.
The gondola shifted harder. Both Madeline and Theo almost lose their balance if they hadn’t grab onto something for support fast enough.
Badeline could hear them talking. Shortly after, Theo tried to stop the gondola by pulling the lever back, but it broke and it flew off the abyss below them after he applied too much stress on it.
Even without the small, quick and suppressed screech Madeline gave off, Badeline could feel her fear growing, followed by every what if question about what could go wrong.
Badeline was going to teach her what could truly go wrong.
Through the connection they had imbued with the power of the mountain, Badeline could see what Madeline saw. And she changed it to her design.
White clouds turned into dark, foggy walls. Golden rays of sunlight turned into purple tentacles and the pit below them turning a pitch-black abyss, one in which if Madeline fell into, she would never climb out of.
This was what happened when she didn’t listen to HER warnings. When she didn’t do as she said. What Madeline knew anyways?
Right, nothing.
This would teach her to—
“Wait, what is that guy doing?” Badeline asked.
Why was he kneeling next to Madeline?
“What he thinks he’s doing?!” Now she shouted, even though she knew it was in vain, they wouldn’t listen to her. They couldn’t.
The turbulent atmosphere Badeline had created for Madeline vanished away by the second, all thanks to some cheap breathing exercise Theo was teaching her to do. Badeline could only watch in a growing exasperation. “Hey! Stop!” The sky was getting brighter and the dark clouds drove away.
Madeline was sitting on the floor, eyes lost in thought, at everything and nothing at the same time while controlling her breaths very, very slowly.
Badeline shouted. Screamed. Wanted the world revolve around her, but her efforts quickly vanished into nothingness, just like the eureka feeling when one had the greatest of ideas, for it to be immediately forgotten the next second.
Badeline was being reduced to nothing but a thought again, and then even lesser than that.
She hated it.
She loathed it.
A silent yet untiring dread that consumed her being, she wanting nothing but to get rid of it, but she had no way. While her counterpart was back on her feet, literally and figuratively. She was left in the dark, again, literally and figuratively, left, in the depths of the prison her mind was.
When her screams were not enough to break free. She tried to break her body and hit the walls of her prison trying to find a mirror to break through. Every hit shook the dark purplish world around her. She carried on until the numbness engulfed her fist, Badeline did not quit on her effort whatsoever. Her violet hair came to life and raised like tentacles striking down the wall.
She was so blinded on her abhorrence when the wall broke. She could not see it, only feel it, if ever so lightly like a feather touching her hand. Then, instead of letting herself go free into the unknown, Badeline fell into it.
And fell she did.
Badeline only realized she had hit the ground once the adrenaline and rush wore off.
The new walls she found herself in were as familiar as they were unknown. Purple and lonely, but never alone. Not for the other part of herself and the guy who accompanied her. They were long gone.
Or was she the one long gone?
Mirrors. Mirrors all around her. At every direction she turned to, she saw her every move replicated countless of times by countless copies of herself overlapping each other and merging until they were unrecognizable. A deformed kind of jellyfish with as much tentacles as Badeline had fingers. Despite she did not know what she was looking at, she was inclined to get closer.
Unlike the rough force she used early, this time the mirrors splintered with a mere touch.
The creature immediately spotted Badeline with its multiples eyes and charged towards her with a chirring scream.
Badeline did not faze at its approach, and when the two purple beings made hostile contact, Badeline absorbed it. A shiver runs through her backbone that slowly turns into a small tickle.
For a while, Badeline feels nothing different, except for a strange sense of something living inside her. The very same creature she fused herself with. She could feel it at the very top of her fingers. As if she could summon them.
And summon them she did. Many of them.                          
Summon them, command them, bend them to her will and make them near perfect device and make them be an extension of herself.
Next Badeline would reform those dark and wild surroundings onto her image and likeness. Along with whoever dared to invade her newfound domains, such as her counterpart standing on the entrance of that temple, perceiving her so small she might have passed as an afterthought. Badeline would make sure to transform her into just that until she was nothing but a memory, distant and dim.
Just like Badeline herself had been forced to live for nearly the entirety of her existence.
Until today.
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My first idea for this chapter was to give the main POV to Theo. I believed it was about time since I had ignored him for a while already. But soon I realized doing that would be little more than Theo reacting to the accident in the gondola and Madeline's panic attack.
I tried to balanced it giving this chapter to both Theo and Madeline. And while that was not such a bad idea, about 85% of the way done, I realized what I was writing was nothing you couldn't think or imagine for yourselves in fifteen minutes and that would be boring. So I had to get rid of it and start over. Hey, at least starting over is better than starting again, am I right?
Anyways, for a short time I considered skipping this part altogether and go straight to the mirror temple, but that didn't set well with me.
Now that it seemed giving Badeline the point of view in this chapter the best idea, I still have a few problems with it.
Main one being, I can say pretty much the same about the next chapter, and the next one, the next one not, the next one, the next one, the next one, the next one, the next one not, and the next one and some more, to not spoiler the things I have planned away.
What I want to say is, How can I give you something new you haven't seen, and at the same time follow Madeline's journey? And Madeline herself? Sure, technically I'm doing that, but at the same time not, you know what I mean.
Again, I'm ignoring the word limit and I'm still undecided whether that's good or bad or something I should be more strict with. In one hand I'm exploring a new side of the game otherwise we might have never see, at least in this format. On the other hand, i'm ignoring my own guidelines.
Still, with all of my complains, I liked this chapter, if this was one of my bed stories before sleeping I wouldn't mind.
Also, at the end of the day, I know I don't have to say this, but I'm sorry it took me so long to update, I don't want to bore you with details, but let's just say life has caught up with me, so to speak. But still, this whole thing is one of my still remaining refugees. There's seldomly a day where I don't think about what I'll do here.
I think that's all for now. See ya.
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sondrox · 1 year
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Sick and deadly. What else you want?
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Hideous new girl
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sondrox · 1 year
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Through Rocks and Snow Ch. 11 - Golden Ridge
FFN: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14146784/11/Through-Rocks-and-Snow
AO3: Through Rocks and Snow - Chapter 11
11. Golden Ridge
Prompt: Unfasten
Madeline has been let loose to meander on her own after her fiasco with Mr. Oshiro. Just like him, she wanted to be left alone. Sadly, once the Celestial Resort disappeared in the distance, she found the old lady in a cabin with a small wooden elevator, serving as a resting point nearby the ridge’s entrance.
“Oh great, you again.” Madeline struggled against a huge urge to turn around and walk away from her; she would have done so if her paralyzing anxiety wasn’t stronger.
“Well, well, I didn't expect to see you up here! I'm glad you're still in one piece. I see you made it through the hotel, did you meet Mr. Oshiro?”
Madeline intended to give her the shortest of summaries to the old lady, but sooner than later she ended up rambling more than she would have liked to, earning a solid laugh from the lady.
“Oshiro is a lost soul, dear. That place is more than just a hotel to him. You can’t change that. Everything we do is to feel safe. No one is exempt of that.” There was again that unexpectedly wise and for some reason good-natured woman Madeline met at the foot of the mountain. Or at least the woman Madeline thought she met if she had not been so nervous about going to the mountain.
Safe. That was a nice feeling, but…
“Don’t you get lonely in that little cabin?” Madeline inquired.
“I have friends, dear. I may be crazy, but I'm not a hermit.”
“Sorry…I didn’t mean to assume.”
“When I was younger I couldn't imagine staying in one place this long. But then I found this mountain. I knew right away that it would be my home.”
“What's so special about it?”
“The mountain shows you who you really are. Whether you're ready for it or not. It keeps me honest.”
Madeline cringe at herself a bit on the inside upon hearing that last part. She knows she has not done that a lot recently. It was not that she was bad at dealing with her problems. She didn’t even allow herself to deal with her problems at all!
Madeline got mixed feelings once she was alone again with her thoughts. That is what she wanted, right? No one to judge her and quiet.
No one to accompany her and too quiet.
Hell, what was she thinking? No, seriously. What was this train of thought?
She tried to focus on the here and now. She tried to put the whole Celestial Resort matter behind her. It was already behind her. So it was the old lady. She didn’t need her. She didn’t need anyone. She was all she needed.
She was all she had.
Was that comforting or terrifying?
Comforting were the clouds she found she could actually…jump on them? Madeline was so…numbed…by everything that had happened. She didn’t question those clouds too much. She didn’t have the energy or the mood to do that anyways.
She heard insanity was repeating something over and over again waiting for a change. A concept she was sure familiar with. But maybe so it was being fine with unfastening what she knew as possible or capable?
She was safe. She knew that. Relatively safe.
She could be grateful she didn’t have it worse, right?
At some point Madeline reached high ridges of purple rocks and orange skies abounded with sporadic blizzards hitting her with all the strength the mountain could gather. Madeline could only counter it a tad using all of her own strength to simply not get pushed back nor be dragged away from the walls she held onto when wind blew deadly. Her feet were loose on the ground against the strong wind, always slipping at her every step.
The snow covered her face to the point she could not see at times. As if blindness was not bad enough when climbing a mountain, the freezing blizzards started to numb her skin and fingers. Moving so nimble as the mountain demanded more and more effort from her.
Her body became sloppy and heavy. Holding herself to the walls was much more difficult and she had to double her efforts to keep her grasp in the rocky walls where she would fall to bottomless pits otherwise. Her endeavor was such, Madeline could feel small cuts in her fingertips from the pressure she applied when clutching the rocks—Should have thought of buying gloves.
Madeline had barely managed to climb up to a platform dragging her body over the edge in a sloppy manner, like she herself was but a lifeless puppet, before laying down on the ground with her eyes lost in the yellowish and orange skies. Her strengths were so worn out her hands quivered from the strenuous task Madeline put herself into and no longer from the cold environment.
She could sit down for a while there. Give herself a break and catch her breath.
Dammit! She could take some water out of her backpack!
But the mere thought of doing that made her want to throw up. The fainting exercise she just did surely had nothing to do with that last thing.
Madeline had had her mind empty for longer than a few seconds and the accident in the Celestial Resort already popped up back in her mind. Madeline tried to distract herself focusing on the next batches of abyss and obstacles in front of her and already put her mind in working how to solve them; she was not even half way doing just that when she stood up and cleaned the cold sweat off her face.
“I deserve this,” Madeline said to the air, not having the strength to care if someone listened. Unbeknownst to her, someone did in fact. The sharp chirp of a blue bird in a high ridge let her know that. Madeline sighed. “This is what I get for being useless.”
She just wanted to help Mr. Oshiro. But in doing so, she did what she did best. Ruin everything. This was barely enough punishment for her stupidity.
Madeline had reached what seemed to be a small cave that served as a refugee from the freezing blizzards. She grinded her teeth seeing herself protected. If that was because of stress or for her shaking body, she couldn’t tell.
But she could tell the feeling of loathing anger burning inside her heart. She clutched at said feeling, not caring it may warm her now, at the price of leaving her cold in her grave. Such grave being Mountain Celeste. But contrary to a burning hell, Madeline submitted herself to endure yet another blizzard, taking directly with no attempt of protecting herself and continued through the ridges with golden skies.
There Madeline was again. Letting loose on herself over more problems to not deal with the ones she already had. She didn’t want to deal with the problems she put herself into—mindly!—to avoid the OTHER problems she ran away from in the first place.
How many problems unfastened would be enough?
She eventually reached what appeared to be a gondola at the edge of a large pit in which she could appreciate the entrance to an old structure at the other side, high up above, but before she could inspect the gondola, a voice broke her solitude.
“Madeline! Wait up!
Madeline looked up and found Theo at a higher boulder. As if she had not traveled across the freezing torture the golden ridge was, Madeline put on a friendly mask and put a smile on her face unfastening herself once more from her problems, and certainly attempted to unfasten from the cold shaking her body carried.
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And next to my least favorite level in the game is my favorite level in the game! I wanted to add a little extra effort for this ocassion. That, and because I want to approach this chapter and the following ones with the same perspective I talked about in the previous chapter. Making you see what otherwise you couldn't see. I hope I achieved that in this chapter.
This perspective which I'll call the "Something More Method", or SMM, is based on the Daft Punk song, Touch. "Tell me what you see, I need something more." Maybe I'll talk a little more about it in the future.
Anyways, I'm actually pretty happy with how this chapter turned out, but I don't think this has the effect the SSM is intended to give. Is a lot of introspection and extrapolating, and sure, that's fine, that's fun even. But I don't want to just introspect and extrapolate, I want to create. I want something more. Although Golden Ridge is my favorite level, I believe this chapter shares the same problem with Theo Old Site. I just couldn't find enough material to build something new, something more.
Are you still keeping up with me? Good.
A fun fact about this chapter I read on youtube. Golden Ridge and The Summit are, arguably, the only two chapters in the game where you are actually climbing the mountain.
A not so fun fact about Golden Ridge I read on youtube: Madeline in Golden Ridge is pushing herself to her body's limits against the cold wind because of what happened with Oshiro. That's some heavy self-punishment there.
I seriously considered giving Granny the main POV in this chapter. But I didn't because if I had, I couldn't build this chapter around the concept of the not so fun fact. Besides, based on the prompt of this chapter, writing Granny's POV would have been difficult, to say the least.
Second fun fact: If I had given Granny the main POV, this would have been the fifth chapter in a row where Madeline doesn't actually has the main POV since Badeline Chase.
Again I surpassed the word limit, I'm considering either delete it, or not care that much anymore whether I stay within it or not, and more than a rule, use it like a guide.
I think that's all the rambling I have for the ocassion. See ya.
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sondrox · 1 year
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Through Rocks and Snow Ch. 10 - Mr. Oshiro Chase.
FFN: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14146784/10/Through-Rocks-and-Snow
AO3: Through Rocks and Snow - Chapter 10
10. Mr. Oshiro Chase
Prompt: Damaged
A great many things have been damaged in a short span time, besides of broken and drained. Oshiro’s patience among them.
He didn’t want to say it or even think out loud, but he was convinced the causes of his most recent problems have been caused by Ms. Madeline’s arrival.
The stress made him relapse into his ostentatious civilized and distinguished self of a host. The one that had allowed the hotel to be of great renown. But his actual efforts had been either ignored or been made mockery of. Oshiro just wanted to do his job, however Ms. Madeline was fixated on making her own way and Oshiro meant it. Ms. Madeline went through staff-only areas and made of them a living nightmare for Oshiro far and wide all through the hotel.
That had to be the only reasonable explanation for the hotel’s poor state. It had to be.
Maybe he was not doing a good job. Maybe this was Ms. Madeline’s way of asking—if he could call it that—for a better service. Oshiro had to use his best card. The presidential suite.
Right when Oshiro believed he had convinced Ms. Madeline of the quality and elegance his hotel had. His newest client ignored his efforts and continued to carry on with her own way.
He was so focused in making sure Ms. Madeline were not unsatisfied he didn’t find strange when a purple floating copy of his client emerged from the body-size mirror with a loud thunderous sound and the mirror broke into hundreds of small pieces falling to the floor. Despite Oshiro floated as well, the mirror breaking almost startled him to the floor, and after that, his first thought was to clean the fragmented glass pieces off the floor.
“Madeline, sweetie, forget this loser.”
“Loser?”
“You’re in denial, old man. This resort is a dump. No one would ever want to stay here!” She reproached with more fierce than necessary before recomposing herself and laugh at his face like nothing. “Someone had to say it.” Like nothing.
Oshiro trembled for a few seconds before he fell over his knees on the floor with his hands on his head.
Oshiro could tolerate many things. He could tolerate birds invading his hotel and disarrange every room they went through. He could tolerate guests making his job unnecessarily more complicated than it needed to be. He could even tolerate people making fun of him and his Japanese descent, squinting his eyes and pretend to speak Japanese when in reality they babbled nonsense, which, obviously, didn’t cause Oshiro a trauma that he remembered such a specific taunt directed to himself.
But what he couldn’t tolerate was people making fun of his hotel, and overall, damaging it, like the Ms. Madeline’s doppelgänger just did causing a hole in the ceiling of the presidential suite before floating through it and leaving the room.
Ms. Madeline went after her shortly after, leaving Oshiro alone with his recurring thoughts and a question.
Why?
Why had she abused from his hospitality? Why had she pretended to be good with him if at the end he was just going to mock him and leave?
Oshiro followed Ms. Madeline through the hole in the ceiling upwards. He had to know. He just had to.
“She helps people to feed her twisted ego. She never cared for you. You’re both pathetic.”
Oshiro’s left eye twitched upon hearing that. He returned his hands over his head and closed his eyes strongly.
“Pathetic? You just came here to humiliate me! I won’t grovel at your feet any longer”
His vision turned blurry like if he was in the middle of a blizzard and all he could discern was Ms. Madeline’s silhouette. And he only wanted to do one thing.
Damage.
Damage her before she could damage him.
Before she abandoned him…
“Like the others!...Like Charlotte…
“No! They didn’t abandon you!”
“Where were they when I slept alone that night?”
“That was your fault!”
“Exactly!”
“ENOUGH!”
The next minutes passed like a fuzzy blur before his eyes. He only could distinguish some flashing moments of himself trying to catch Ms. Madeline while they traveled far and wide the hotel’s rooftop. Once arriving at the end of the road, Oshiro cornered his objective at the edge of the awning they stood on above the hotel’s back exit.
“Mr. Oshiro, wait! I just wanted to help!” was the only plead Ms. Madeline could voice before Oshiro damaged the platform they were in and stomped it with ferocity, cracking it in several pieces and falling to the ground.
Only after that hit Oshiro managed to return to himself abruptly, like a person that breathed heavily after being seconds away from drowning on the sea, kicking and looking for something to hold onto. Like if he had woken up from a bad dream. And in the same way, his first thoughts were to worry more over the hotel than himself.
“I’ve decided to close the hotel for repairs. Please just leave me alone.” Oshiro turned around and encaged himself back into his hotel to deal with his problems in the only way he knew, leaving Madeline alone and free to continue his journey through the mountain.
Once he returned to his solitude, Oshiro floated tense with a paralyzed expression on his face towards his office full of boxes scrapping the ceiling and a broken picture window that Oshiro had told himself he would fix sometime soon. Boxes and…those…red spheres spread all over the room, doing nothing but taking space and worsening his problems. Problems…he did cause. He, the boxes, the spheres themselves. The hotel.
But for the first time in a long time, Oshiro didn’t pay mind to them and sat on his desk filled with papers. Papers like inventory, bills, but also, thank you letters from old clients in their stay. Letters he did rejoice himself having and that he read from time to time when he doubted his work.
Letters. Old letters. Old papers. An old hotel, empty and full at the same time in the worst ways possible. But overall empty. Very empty.
Too empty.
Not the right kind of empty.
Oshiro took all the papers scattered across his desk and threw them into a small trash can next to his desk.
A full trash can.
The right kind of full.
Now he just needed to focus on one thing at once and give his office the right kind of empty.
A blue bird entered through the broken window and rested upon Oshiro’s desk looking curiously at the ghost. Oshiro extended his hand to pet it but before he could touch it, the bird chirped at him and flew away, returning where he came from.
Oshiro’s face remained frozen still except for a small and single laugh and what seemed to be a tiny outline of a smile. He had food for birds in the basement, did he not?
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I may or I may not have graze a never again with this chapter. As always, improvised scenes end up being my favorite such as the one at the end.
Something I re-discovered writing chapter 7 and 8 is that, you are not here to read what you already know. You want to see what you can't see. Know what you can't know. That, and I wanted to copy the end of Badeline's chase giving Oshiro a private scene with himself.
Once again the word limit cuts my creativity, although in this ocassion I ignored pretty hard, but I suppose rules are made to be break, or damaged, even. Trust it won't be the last time. I'm seriously considering giving Oshiro a standalone story. Something sort of "It's for him" For him if you know what I mean. The entirety of Celestial Resort was my least favorite level in the game, but these two chapters maybe will change that, and easily these chapters will enter in my top 10 list.
Anyways I think that's enough babbling for today, see ya.
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