She sighed. Her dark eyes narrowed a bit towards the ground as she watched him walk from her, leaving her with the sparse crowd at Rompas. Something felt different. She sensed that he feared her.
With good reason…
She closed her eyes for a moment…her head swimming.
She was so weary these days. Sleep didn’t come easily. Sleep was accompanied by visions….frightful dreams of bloodlust. Dreams that occasionally left her bruised, scarred, and injured when she awoke – but she suspected the origin of those ‘dreams.’ Others….left her waking up to the sound of her own screams, twisted in her sheets or on the floor…remem---
“Are you alright? You are bleeding.”
Iolanthe’s dusky eyes shot open as she heard the voice, she felt a wave of dizziness wash over her as her mind re-registered her dim surroundings of the Rompas bar. A young, buxom woman stood before her with a semi-concerned look on her face. Iolanthe sniffed a bit, and wiped a bit at her face, under her nose. It was bleeding again. The latter visions seemed to be having a more violent manifestation as of late. She smiled quickly, reassuringly.
“It is nothing. I must have run into something or some such.”
The girl looked at her strangely for a moment. Nodded, then smiled, then went on her way. Iolanthe sighed inwardly and made her way out of the lounge bar, her eyes resting on the occupants as she passed them, registering them into memory – not noting anyone that stood out for any particular reason. She exited the bar and sank silently within herself thinking as she made the journey to her Jobe apartment, crossing Omni-1 Ent District, Rome Red, Rome Green, the Platform, all the way to Jobe Harbor’s luxury apartment sector.
Her body was on autopilot, it seemed, as she made a mental check of all the things she had to get together. She had told him she’d share information. She hoped it would be mutual…. She had questions… tons of them, that needed to be answered.
She took out her Jobe Apartment access card, and scanned it – entering when the doors opened. She felt the burst of cool air hit her face as she entered. The soft scent of the herbs she kept in the main room reached at her as she passed them to go down to the sitting area, making herself a bit more comfortable as she leaned back in the round padded chair, picking up a stack of files from the table next of her and placing them in her lap. She leaned back for a moment to turn on a bit of ambience music to overpower the soft whispers that clouded her thoughts as she looked over the files. Her entire apartment had files all over them. Stacks and stacks of data reports. Journals of the Subjects. Journals of the Scientists. Graphical read-outs. Photos. The works. Her regular class Jobe Apartment was filled with file cabinets that held off-network files that had been collected for years. And there was still much that wasn’t known.
She paused a bit, as she finished the first stack, rubbed her temples for a moment, closing her eyes.
Her head hurt.
The whispers became louder. A dull melding of voices echoed throughout her skull.
The blackness of her vision ceased when awful images of disfigured faces flashed before her. Bloodied and dead. The images zoomed out to full view of the bodies that lay in a pool of their own blood.
Even though the killing blows were puncture wounds to the most vital of areas – it was obvious that was just the beginning of the mutilation of the bodies – most of degradation had occurred post-mortem.
More faces. More bodies were shown. More blood. Dripping. Pooling about the bodies. The voices grew louder. A low howl inside of her psyche.
She could smell the blood now. Almost taste it, the dull metallic flavor of it.
Her head was pounding. She could feel her heart rate increase. She forced her eyes open. She felt nauseous. She scrambled to get up. Disoriented – She fell to her knees. Her body suddenly felt quite weak.
Her surroundings were not of her Jobe Apartment.
Confused, she looked about. She was outside of Port 5, in Elysium.
Her body tremored under stress. She pushed herself to her feet quickly, dagger in either hand, pain echoed in her thigh, right side, collar bone, and head. She was covered in blood – a small portion of it in comparison was her own. Around her, were a multitude of dead bodies. Each wearing different uniforms, coloring, and various styles.
Her eyes were fixed on her opponent, whose face was masked. Her eyes were locked on his catlike ones. He looked at her oddly for a moment, then lunged for her unprotected section of her arm, going for a vital artery or to disarm her at the very least. She countered him, nullifying his attack, her muscles screamed as she absorbed the force of his attack, which pushed her back a few feet, but she recovered. She redefined her stance, preparing for another attack, taking in her surroundings, being certain not to trip over a lifeless limb.
She was wearing deep crimson purple leather uniform. There were mangled bodies of her comrades about her… she was the last of those wearing that coloring. Her opponent wore a red and black ensemble of a similar style to her own. Again, he was the last of those soldiers as well. From the situation, he seemed to have the advantage – she was wounded. There had been a greater number of the red clad warriors, at first glance. The positioning of the bodies of the skirmish had insinuated an ambush.
She growled, and reinforced her grip on her blades – she beckoned him to attack. Her eyes menacing; fierce with bloodlust.
He moved in quick, swiping at her chest, the slashing movement a bit odd for another dagger fighter. She feinted, darting her right dagger towards his neck, his dagger meeting with a vital spot, piercing between a few ribs under her arm…the pain exploded into her awareness. He ripped it out as soon as he had pierced it, going for another locale. She allowed a barely audible whimper to escape her lips.
Her other dagger had hit home, into his abdomen, piercing deeply. He let out an anguished cry as she grinned at him as she twisted the blade, picking up her petite form, and throwing her a few yards away, and then he clutched his wound.
She made a loud thud as she landed partially on the metal of the ramp and on bodies, curled in pain. She held in her hand his mask. She had ripped it off as she had been thrown. She rolled onto her back, her breathing strenuous. She tasted blood in her mouth. She coughed a bit as sat up, her eyes raised to her opponent.
She froze up. She scampered to her feet as she assumed a faux defensive position again, pulling out another dagger. Her hands shaking. Her strength failing as he stepped to her, slowly, calmly… wounded now.. she could smell his blood. She smirked a bit. She had wounded him.. the traitor. Their leader. Now she knew his identity… she remembered him. It made her all the more angry.
“Oni, I won’t kill you.”
She glared at him, lunged at him again, her daggers elusive in their destination.
“Then I will kill you.”
She quickly met with her back to the unfriendly hardness of the ramp, the fresh wound in her chest screamed. Her head spun. He stepped on one of her hands, her hand released the dagger. He held her other dagger, studying it.
“Oni – killing you would be a waste. I can’t destroy a work of art. Join me.”
She squirmed, as she labored to even breathe. She looked up at him.
“Kill me. Or I’ll kill you. You know I won’t surrender. I won’t tell you anything about any of them.”
He tilted his head a bit, the harsh light of Shadowlands glaring behind him. He spoke gently.
“I am not asking you to surrender. I am asking for a great warrior to join the cause of all our kind.”
Her body twinged a bit, her breathing heightened. She shook her head. She heard his voice again as her eyes closed.
“Oni?”
She didn’t move. She stopped breathing. He kneeled down, she heard him.
“Oni…?”
She heard him look into his pack for something, perhaps a spiral-aid stim. She made her move.
“DIE!”
She grasped the dagger that was slightly out of her hand, and jerked it upward, swinging it in an upwards arc, towards his neck, stabbing upwards…he grasp her arm, twisting it, she cried out she heard a bone in her arm snap. That set her breathing into short spasms, she lashed out with her arms as fiercely as possible. He held her down, calmly, as she thrashed under him. She blacked out due to fatigue, lack of oxygen, and blood loss.
She gasped a bit, sitting up. Coughing a bit. It hurt to breath. She rubbed at her eyes a bit, stretching a bit, leaning back again. Looking around, she became aware of her surroundings. She was in her bed in her Apartment in Jobe… she slid up a bit, against the mantle of the bed, looking around, hugging her knees to her chest. Thoughts of the dream, consuming her mind. Her body ached so much. Her side, under her arm, was so tender, and it was difficult to take in deep breathes. She coughed some more, it contained blood. She had bruises on her arm, and bandages over her body.
“So you are awake… good.”
She recognized the voice instantly, she looked to the entrance into the bedroom.
“Grec…Mind telling me why I feel like a pincushion and why I am bandaged up like a leper?”
He scowled at her. Sitting at the window, staring at her, he looked at her for an extended moment, then spoke again.
“I was hoping you could tell me what happened. I found you here. You were on the floor, bleeding badly. I patched you up best of my knowledge. How do you feel?”
Iolanthe rested her head on her knees, looking outside the window, the apartment overlooking Jobe Harbor. She grumbled.
“I feel like I’ve had the crap beat out of me. That’s how I feel. How long was I out?”
His eyes fixed on her, he frowned a bit.
“5 days… I cleaned up the files a bit. Your blood was on them… I did the best I could. What were you looking at the ORCL files for?”
She sighed a bit and straightened up and looked at him for a long moment.
“I had another vision.”
His frowned deepened.
“That was one Hell of a vision then…”
