VI: SONS OF FATE

[lancaster]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,10,true][atrb=style, width:400px,bTable] Masking one's face was as simple as grabbing a man by the scarf and slitting his throat. The uniform belongs to a commander and doesn't quite fit her right, but she hopes no one notices. She's grateful this one hides his face; it's easier to slip through the halls, ignoring people calling for her attention. (She doesn't know about his fourteen-year-old sister, or his aging mother, or the fact that his friends will be missing him. She only knows that his armor protects her, and she only knows she has killed a human being who, in her eyes, doesn't deserve to live.) Finding Nascour was a matter of following signs and arrows. It seems Cipher didn't plan on infiltration; getting through was a simple matter of keeping quiet. Once she's there, though, she has to wonder: is he truly alone? She'll take the risk. She opens the door and steps inside. Sure enough, he's occupied, but the person standing at the side of the desk makes her freeze in her tracks. Michael. He's alive. But Lily doesn't let her guard down. She swallows. Michael wouldn't mind her being here, right? The Cipher Peon she murdered had a gun. She takes it now. "Commander Moros?" says Nascour, eyes narrowing. Lily raises the gun and tries to speak, but it's hard to do that when a Jolteon rams into one's solar plexus. She drops the gun and cries out in pain. Nascour may have been slow in noticing the gun, but nothing escapes Pride's eyes. The Sentinel pulls a knife from his pocket. Blitz keeps herself barely balanced atop Lily's chest. "Our Commander's gone rogue," Nascour muses. "It's not him," Pride says dully. "And how do you know this?" Pride pauses, and Lily can see her son standing above her now, looking down at the uniform. Blitz's body language has changed to one of confusion and worry. "I just do." It takes a while for Lily to register how, but her eyes turn back to Blitz and she gets it instantly. The Jolteon remembers her scent. Michael leans down and removes the helmet. There's a moment of silence as Michael drops Moros's helmet. Blitz screams and scrambles off of Lily, jumping behind Michael as if she's seen a ghost. Nascour's expression darkens. Lily's the first to speak. "Michael," she says, her voice breathy from Blitz's impact. "Michael, I thought you were dead--" "Nascour told me you were killed," Michael says softly. "Nascour never tells the truth," Lily spits. "You should know that Cipher isn't anything but lies and-- and--" Her heart aches and she leans up to embrace Michael, feeling the sting of tears in her eyes. "Oh, Michael--" But he smacks her hands away and she recoils, eyes wide with shock. "Michael?" His voice is hoarse, timid even: "...I can't believe you..." Her tears keep falling, but the urge to sob is gone. "W-What?" The look he gives her is empty. "...You sent me here. You sent me into this--" "Michael, I didn't--" "And now you come back expecting me to be your puppet again." Despite the empty look on his face, his tone is harsh and bitter. "It's not going to happen, Mother. I'm done almost dying for you." And Lily barely has any time to prepare before he's called out a Pokemon. destroy him, you can save us destroy him

[ryuuto]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,10,true][atrb=style, width:400px,bTable] mother knows best no no she doesn't, because she's the reason jovi is dead. she let jovi get away, she let jovi out of her sight. she let jovi onto the battlefields and if it wasn't michael, it'd be someone else, because jovi wouldn't last ten minutes on a real battlefield. and it was mother who sent him out to die, because she can't stand that cipher is better. because she can't, or won't, fight her own battles. make him a tool, make him her whipping boy-- he'll take the fall and the hate for stopping cipher, he'll be the one running for his life from enemy soldiers and watching his friends die, and she'll be back at home reading her scientific journals, saving the world off of her own son's blood. he will not be a slave to her will any longer. she stands and for once in his life he sees her fight back instead of send someone else to die for her. she matches his arcanine with her klinklang, and he laughs because he hadn't realized she even had pokemon. "i don't want to fight you, michael," she says, shaking where she stands. "then put your pokemon away," he snaps. "flare blitz, now." "wait--" she should have ordered her pokemon. she shouldn't make this so easy, because her klinklang doesn't have time to fire off a hyper beam before tiger's upon it, a bursting ball of flame and fangs. the klinklang's metal melts and the creature falls away, either dead or unconscious or however inorganic pokemon work. "fight back." "michael, i can't--" "you have no problem trying to murder me indirectly. fight back." (does he really want to hurt her? is he really that angry? and yet he feels nascour's presence, and knows that if he doesn't, they would all die. nascour makes it clear with just a look, a look he doesn't even see but feels.) "michael, it doesn't have to be this way--" "shut up." "michael--" "stop talking and fight back!" he swings his leg out and doesn't expect her to block it, then sweep his other leg out from under her. pride falls on the ground, landing hard on his tailbone and gasping in pain. it's enough time for lily to act, or so she thinks, because she turns around to grab her gun. pride doesn't let her; he grabs her legs and pulls, and she hits the ground stomach-first. she's smart, however; there are pokeballs on her belt and she releases one. michael freezes as soon as he sees it-- luna, his father's umbreon. and it's then that he realizes how much he's changed, because instead of a warm, inviting expression on the umbreon's face, the creature arcs her back and hisses, charging straight for him. it's as if she doesn't recognize him at all. but luna doesn't reach michael. blitz lets another quick attack fly, though her lack of coordination means that she doesn't do much and ends up hurting her front shoulder on impact. enraged, the umbreon whirls upon the jolteon, and there, for a moment, michael sees it: in the end, family ties don't matter. one of them, perhaps both of them will die here. he reaches for his knife, but lily's moved faster. she holds her gun to his face, breathing heavily, hair disheveled. and he looks up at her and he thought he could stop feeling. but the emotions-- they just won't stop. "do it," michael says. "i don't want to--" "do it!" he's not michael anymore. he doesn't feel like michael. but the gunfire that goes off is not from lily's gun. his mother falls before his eyes and he cries out but there's barely enough time for him to respond before he hears a second shot ring. this one hits him in the back. he could not save himself how could he save us

[nascour]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,10,true][atrb=style, width:400px,bTable] It takes four shots before the Lancasters stop moving. Alexis leaps forward and handles the Umbreon-- the Jolteon's unable to move, so Sneaky handles it well enough. The Klinklang and the Arcanine are returned before they can act; the benefits of psychic types is that they can clean things up so nicely. ...Well, not his office. His office is now a mess. Four dead bodies lay in the doorway. Nascour, however, doesn't attach any emotion to the bodies. Instead, he's thinking about how easy it would have been for Cipher to rise had he realized that playing like a movie villain was simply not feasible. And yes, he does have the ego of a movie villain. In fact, he had been planning his speech all through the fight. But now there's no anguished mother to hear it. How disappointing. But, that's the price one pays for being alive. That, and the state of one's office. The wall's collapsed from one of the Klinklang's hyper beams. Nascour glances over it coolly, then presses down on the intercom button. "May I have a cleanup crew in my office, please? Thank you." He pauses. "And if someone can identify the armor on the female cadaver in my office and find its owner, that would be lovely as well. I want this mess cleaned up by tonight, thank you. That is all." And then he stands up, stretches, steps over the outstretched arm of his nephew, and leaves the office. He's got bigger and better things to do than wait for the flies to settle on these corpses. game over