Her lips trembled as she slowly approached the edge of the enormous structure. Every footstep took her closer to what she could accept as a finality to everything that she had failed to accomplish. Accomplishment, she supposed, was something that could be left entirely up to one's own interpretation. There were many that felt that she had succeeded in her life's works, rising to the occasion and overcoming any obstacle.
Her previous thought, in view of those who stood against her, could easily be reworded as well to sound far less positive. The televisions frequently raved about her ruthless methods of striking down opposition and circumventing all attempts at moving the woman's decisions to a new course. She was considered a highly intelligent business woman, capable of anything without limitation, for better or worse.
This is how she came to find herself sitting down comfortably upon the precipice of the building that towered high above the others in the city of Halcyon. It meant "peace and serenity". Looking down towards the city, she could vaguely discern the images of the citizens making their way around Kajin Rala's surface while going on with their lives. It was the clouds between them that seemed to keep them separate, but in the grand detail of life itself, there was no true distinction. That distinction fell entirely to wealth and position in society.
From up high, she could relax and organize her thoughts without the chaos and demand that was inherent with her job. The event was soon to begin, anyway, and they knew their orders. Everything had already been set into motion, leaving the inertia to accelerate into a series of events that would create the greatest televised event to date. The cameras were placed properly to survey the rooftop. The microphones were specifically placed to catch every word she voiced.
The woman wasn't sure if anything was recording just yet, however. She was sure that she had been told at some point, but her mind wasn't exactly in the present. Instead, as she slowly lowered herself to a seated position at the building's edge, her feet dangling over the side precariously, her thoughts drifted to a series of events from her earlier years. She was young once, before the grey hairs had taken root, leaving her even more pressured to color her hair in hopes of keeping an air of confidence and strength for her viewers.
She was now in her sixties, which, she supposed, was still fairly young given the way most people had aged compared to her. She was neither most people, nor very aged, in the grand scheme of things. Her superior genetic structure had aged her gracefully, leaving the woman to appear at least twenty years younger than she really was. Appearances, however, didn't help combat the inner turmoil.
Her hand drifted casually to the bag at her side, long deft fingers sifting around until they withdrew, a small leatherbound book within them. Her other hand brushed her long brown hair from her face to cascade down her back before assisting her other hand in opening the book. Contained within this book was a set of recorded experiences and memories that no television could ever hope to match. She honestly hoped that the cameras were rolling, as she looked through the images within, in hopes of revealing a bit of her true self to the world.
The first image, as always, was that of her fierce and competitive oldest daughter. Ashley Rose Branford had at first been a normal girl, especially when Ashe declined to follow her family's tradition of imbuing her with a relic in hopes that she would be spared a life of pre-ordained intentions. Interestingly, her own later actions betrayed that intent, enrolling her in only the best academic programs and employing the most proficient tutors that money could buy. She wanted to give the girl everything, whatever she could to provide her with the best life possible.
Ashley Rose had grown to become a fiercely intelligent woman, working under her own mother in preparation for the day that she would take over the company and continue the business empire that Ashe herself had built. She was sometimes cold, her features taking that of a raptor staring down its prey when a goal had been set before her. She never disappointed, she never failed, and most of all, she never regretted.
She had turned out so much like her mother that Ashe could only smile sadly at the beautiful photograph in her hands of the woman who's voluptuous blond hair flowed out youthfully despite being in her early fourties herself. Ashe had encouraged her eldest daughter to marry and produce children in the event of anything ever happening to her, but she had so far declined. Deep down, a part of Ashe had sought to see her daughter seek love and happiness, but her daughter had explained to her that she loved what she did and would be happy as long as they remained at the top.
So very much like her mother.
Flipping the photograph back, she came to see a small image of a very young Ashelia Branford with her stomach bulging, a second child stored within. At her side was a young man with bright features lit up as if there was nothing else in this world that could make him happier than the moment captured within the square box in her hands. His greasy blond hair was joyfully covering his eyes as his arms held a very young and bubbly Ashley Rose up onto his shoulders. She had been so innocent back then, so naive, and so... happy. What might have bothered Ashe, if she had stopped to think about it, was that she hadn't consciously decided if she was referring to the young girl with the child resting within her womb, or the grinning child resting upon her father's shoulders.
It was sad, she realized looking back. Her eyes pinpointed those of the young man in the photograph, a man that if he walked by her today would be entirely unnoticed by her, his features so lost to time. At one point in her early years, she had naively believed that she had been in love. His ideals were so wonderful. That silvery tongue that he could employ was wooing to most girls, but in his most charismatic moments, he still only devoted himself to her.
They had met under the most brutal of circumstances, leaving them both to endure a great amount of pain and sacrifice in the name of making money, or fame, or even fortune. Their struggle was not what brought them together, not specifically, but it was a beginning. The match had been struck, and she followed through by throwing it to the straw, igniting a passion between the two that might have only lasted a single night, looking back, had it not been for the phone call that the man had received a week later.
"Hello? Ashe?" he had answered, his voice a mixture of concern and surprise at hearing back from her so soon. Apparently she had not been the only one that had been too scared to follow up, but this was one call that had to be made.
"I'm throwing up..." she had begun, not sure how to break the news to him softly. She was terrified. What was she supposed to do as a nineteen year old girl fresh out of High School? Was she going to be responsible for this on her own?
"Wait, what? It's a bit loud here," he apologized, asking her to give him a moment to step outside from the crowd he had been with. "Sorry about that, you said you are sick?"
"Yes..."
"Need me to come by and give you a lift to the hospital? I've got some packages to drop off at the moment, but then again I could always call someone up on a favor as well," he offered.
She chewed her lip nervously before just spilling it out. "Kaden, I'm pregnant."
Her ears immediately reeled at the sharp noise that jolted through her phone's headset and she swallowed tightly, a tear breaking from her ducts to roll down her cheek. She heard him in the background cursing. At that moment, she had thought that she'd truly doomed herself to being alone. She imagined that he was angry, screaming and cursing about this event that would forever change both their lives. He hated her, she assumed.
She held her phone out in front of her, burying her head into her arm as she curled into a ball, listening to absolute silence coming through before his voice came back through from the other side. "Ashe! You there?" he called.
Her head lifted back up and she brushed her dark red hair from her eyes and held it up to her ears. "Yes?" she managed through terrified gasps for oxygen.
His voice was entirely one of concern, with no anger whatsoever coming through the speaker. "I'm so sorry, I kinda dropped my phone," he explained.
She took a breath, choked for words but needing to fill the silence between the pair. "I see," she settled on, struggling with her stream of consciousness.
"No, I mean..." he began, his voice moving towards and away from the phone rapidly as he audibly trembled over the lines. "That's... wow. I'm at a loss for words," he said, clearly in shock. "But... wow."
Anger was building up within her, but she forced it back in hopes of not ruining his life as she'd ruined hers. "Look, my family can help me out, you won't be expected to deal with anything if you don't want to. If you want to visit her, that's not a prob-" she rushed quickly.
"She's a girl?"
His voice had come out abruptly, cutting her off as she looked for a response. "Yeah," she whispered, smiling despite herself. "I know its early and all, but I can just feel it inside me. You know how we can both see things that most people can't?" she explained, getting a verbal nod. "Yeah, it's like that. I just... know. And she's beautiful, Kaden, she's the most beautiful thing that has ever been conceived!" she rushed, getting slightly excited.
He laughed back over the phone. "She hasn't really been conceived yet," he mentioned, sorting through his own thoughts. Before she could protest again, he decided to comfort her. "Ashe, this is... amazing. And now that you mention it, yeah, I can See her as well. I'm... going to be a father?" he realized, his voice teetering between statement and question.
"Yeah..." Ashe whispered back softly. "And I'm going to be a mother."
He'd obviously been terrified, as was she, but he had arrived at her apartment within an hour, having dropped everything to see her. From there, the couple built a strong relationship, giving birth to Ashley Rose. The young girl had received her mother's surname upon birth since the couple had decided to hold off on a wedding until they had the money set aside to have a good one.
That day never came.
They grew so caught up in their future's that they had no time to set aside money for such a large scale event. Ashe was bulging with her second child before she realized it, the beautiful Celestial Rain Branford, as she would come to be called. Terra had helped out as much as possible, as had all their parents, but even still, they were young. Kaden did everything he could with his courier job, picking up a second job at the local police academy as well.
Money had been an ultimate argument in their life, slowly working its way between them like constant rains freezing and melting within the cracks of a concrete road. Life hadn't been entirely bad, but Ashe was young and trying to hold down a job at her age while raising two children had been a difficult task. Her clumsiness and lack of punctuality repeatedly lead to her having to search for another job, another way to help contribute money to her life.
Her family helped, of course, but they had decided to simply set any contributions aside in hopes of building a business of their own. The most damaging part had come when she was twenty three. She'd been arguing with him again and somehow, at some point in the conversation, she slipped and brought up how they had originally met.
Her hand had trembled as she poured the rest of her beer down her throat as the two were sitting at the bar, taking a night away from the kids as they enjoyed the weekend with their aunt. "It's so stupid," she mentioned, waving down the bartender for another couple beers for them.
"What is?" he asked warily. He kindly thanked the bartender and took a sip from his new beverage while paying no attention to her anger.
"We totally get shipped off to compete in some bullshit game show, but maybe he wasn't as mentally ill as we thought," she began, angrily hiding her pout behind another swig. He looked at her oddly when she snapped the bottle back from her mouth. "Don't give me that look, Kaden. I get it. I keep fucking up at work, I'm a fuckup as a mother, and you haven't wanted to touch me in weeks!" she fumed.
"Whoa, what?" he responded, his eyes growing wide. "Babe, calm down a moment," he said, trying hush her by reaching out. She angrily slapped his arms away but he clamped them down on her shoulder. "Chill!" he snapped. "Look, I'm sorry if I've been too distant lately. Work's been stressful, alright? I think we are close to getting that serial child rapist under-"
She pushed back from him, standing up and jabbing a finger at him. "Yeah, work is more important, I fucking get that. That's just it. I keep getting told by everyone what a fuckup I am!" she cried out, throwing her hands in the air as tears streamed down.
He attempted to defend himself, but she simply screamed over him, not giving a damn that everyone in the bar had turned to focus on the normally quiet couple. "Ashley Rose is in the best school that we can afford for her, but she always comes home to tell me about all the amazing things that she learned while she was there, things that I don't even know. Celes is too young to even go to school, and yet I still can't seem to keep from getting overwhelmed just trying to take care of her."
"Are you blaming the kids for the way things are?" he demanded, growing angry at her accusations.
"No!" she snapped. "I'm blaming myself! Even this new internship with the tv station seems... Like I just keep failing. I'm sick of it." He tried to interject again, but she screamed into his face. "What the fuck am I supposed to do, Kaden? I have two kids, I'm twenty three, you are working your ass off, and yet I can't seem to think that if I just shut all of it out, it would be better for all of us."
He couldn't really respond, so he took a step back in an attempt to calm himself since she'd proven unapproachable. "I don't..." he tried, getting cut off as expected.
"You're right, you don't have the answers. We try so god damn hard to be good parents, so hard that we never seem to make money, and yet some cold snake in the grass like Kai Demolic, Gregory Rogers, whatever the fuck his name was, can have a wonderful day in the neighborhood and provide his family with anything and everything they could ever want," she seethed.
"Whoa, hold up, that man was a monster!" Kaden screamed, responding to her assault. "He killed his own wife in the name of television," he reminded her.
She sat down, taking a deep drink of her bottle as the bartender watched her warily. "Yeah, well... When it's not there anymore, it's not there anymore," she finished.
By the time the fight had ended, the two had split their ways, with Kaden taking Celes and never being heard from again. He'd attempted to contact her, but she'd ignored him completely, removing that part of her life. She told Ashley Rose later that her father and sister had been killed in a bank heist. The girl grew with her mother, slowly turning to shun the rest of their family in the name of building a financial empire. She coldly worked her way up from her internship until she had finally used all the money she had saved up in conjunction with what she and Kaden had set aside for the girls to allow her to create her own television studio.
The bond the two developed was a strong one, slowly developing them into the pair that had ruthlessly cut their way throughout the networks. She was sure at this point that Kaden had noticed them and hadn't approved, but he hadn't managed to build a strong case against her yet for her obvious shortcuts and unlawful approaches to the business. What could he do? She had put money into the best lawyers in the business. If he stepped incorrectly and ruined the recital, she could simply have him done away with.
The human part of her hoped that would never happen, really. He honestly had been a wonderful father in Celes's life, from what she'd managed to see of it by way of using contacts to see them when they didn't know they were seen. When only the cameras were watching. She was delighted at times to look into the window of how her life might have turned out had she left things into his hands, but she hadn't created the fissure in their relationship over anything that he had done. She had been the problem. She had, from the start, caused everything, from coming on to him, to getting pregnant, to failing as a mother. He wasn't to be blamed by her for any of it. Celes had turned out beautiful, absolutely gorgeous.
From what she'd seen, her younger daughter had given birth to twin boys, having taken a teaching career to support her family. She'd been quite successful, inheriting her father's skills and insight into the world and genuine humanity. Her older daughter was nothing like the girl. She was all business, just like her mother.
Regardless of her methods, in this later period of her life, she was known as a success. She was the herald of a bright new future, with her prodigy of a daughter, the only one that most people even knew about, in a strong position to bring their company into the doorway of a new eternity, solidifying it for all of their children to come. She would continue the newly established family legacy and using the power that flowed through her body, even the dormant power that Ashe herself rarely exercised, she would eliminate the opposition cleanly if more subtle political methods could not be used. She had her mother and father's Sight, using it to help her gain an edge when dealing with the matters of pen and paper for arrangements.
She would be their future.
There was nothing more beyond this final event that Ashe could do to shock and amaze her viewers into keeping the ratings. Everyone knew this. Ashe would be stepping down and handing the company over to her daughter after this final season had been televised as planned. Live television had never been this good, she realized, savoring the taste in her mouth as she closed the book with a smile, rising back to her feet to gaze down through the clouds to the pedestrian covered streets below.
The cameras turned on, focusing on Ashe from the other building, zooming in to get a great view of her and the floors directly below her, while two others caught images of her side. She was smiling as she set her purse aside, clasping her hands before her. "Good evening, viewers," she began, addressing the crowd.
"As many of you know, tonight is our final broadcast on this station under my direction. I've carefully chosen my successor in a number of ways to continue our tradition of bringing you the greatest television that has ever been crafted," she droned smoothly. "Tonight will be that night, the night that we will kick off a fresh new season of the most awaited competition since Dante's Abyss so long ago."
Her fingertips gestured below her as she kneeled down, almost in honor of what was to come. Her lips trembled... with excitement. No one would see this coming, she believed. She slowly crept forward to the edge of the building and looked over, barely containing herself from throwing herself over before the cameras. She had words to speak. She wavered, the tension creeping through the air, as she gave the camera a final look.
Her arms slowly spread wide.
Her head slowly rolled back to cast her eyes upon the heaven, as she teetered so precariously upon the edge, knowing that over nine thousand planets were watching this moment in anticipation, terrified at what was to come.
What the cameras saw was always what everyone was focused on, she had learned.
It was what the cameras didn't see, until the final moment, that had the most shock value. The killer leaping in from off screen. The car that came out of nowhere to slam into the hero. The explosion from behind.
Ashe slowly took it all in, enraptured by the feeling and excitement of knowing that all the eyes were on her, waiting to see if she'd really do it. This was her moment.
In that moment, a body fell suddenly across the camera's vantage point, crossing within a brief space before the woman on camera until the cameras suddenly snapped their way down, chasing the image of the falling figure all the way down, following it story for story until he slammed lifelessly into the pavement below, blood spraying everyone within range.
The body was too disfigured from its fall to properly identify at a first glance, as all the cameras focused on it. All the cameras but one.
Slowly rising back to the image of Ashe, standing strong, her arms still spread as she smiled with tight lips at the camera. An image slowly appeared on every screen from the one camera that had been controlled remotely by Ashe herself to prevent anyone from spoiling the surprise. The image had zoomed in, catching a perfect frozen picture of Ashe coldly looking directly into the eyes of the falling Ashley Rose, the eldest daughter's eyes frozen in terror as she took in the sight of her mother, a million thoughts raging through her head as realization crept upon her of her mother's plan, knowing that there was nothing that she could do to fight the paralysis venom that had been spread throughout her body.
The cameras zoomed slowly until a tear was visible in the woman's eye. The first tear that had broken from her cold eyes since she was a small girl had been caught on camera. Ashley Rose was the future of the company, known by all to be Ashe's life investment. Everything had been placed into making sure that the transition of power and her strong daughter would be forever engraved into the minds of everyone watching. That equaled everyone.
And it did.
"Ladies and Gentleman..."
No one, not even her company, knew how to respond to this as the lone camera shifted back up to the gleeful woman. "Friend or Foe Unleashed has begun."
Her daughter had always been reported to be destined to make an impact. She had.
---
Within the helmet, a young pink haired girl of only eighteen years sobbed uncontrollably, unable to even release a sound from the shock that she was enduring. Kai, specifically, watched with interest at the events unfolding, knowing that he had forever made an impact on the girl's future decisions in one way or another.
Her previous thought, in view of those who stood against her, could easily be reworded as well to sound far less positive. The televisions frequently raved about her ruthless methods of striking down opposition and circumventing all attempts at moving the woman's decisions to a new course. She was considered a highly intelligent business woman, capable of anything without limitation, for better or worse.
This is how she came to find herself sitting down comfortably upon the precipice of the building that towered high above the others in the city of Halcyon. It meant "peace and serenity". Looking down towards the city, she could vaguely discern the images of the citizens making their way around Kajin Rala's surface while going on with their lives. It was the clouds between them that seemed to keep them separate, but in the grand detail of life itself, there was no true distinction. That distinction fell entirely to wealth and position in society.
From up high, she could relax and organize her thoughts without the chaos and demand that was inherent with her job. The event was soon to begin, anyway, and they knew their orders. Everything had already been set into motion, leaving the inertia to accelerate into a series of events that would create the greatest televised event to date. The cameras were placed properly to survey the rooftop. The microphones were specifically placed to catch every word she voiced.
The woman wasn't sure if anything was recording just yet, however. She was sure that she had been told at some point, but her mind wasn't exactly in the present. Instead, as she slowly lowered herself to a seated position at the building's edge, her feet dangling over the side precariously, her thoughts drifted to a series of events from her earlier years. She was young once, before the grey hairs had taken root, leaving her even more pressured to color her hair in hopes of keeping an air of confidence and strength for her viewers.
She was now in her sixties, which, she supposed, was still fairly young given the way most people had aged compared to her. She was neither most people, nor very aged, in the grand scheme of things. Her superior genetic structure had aged her gracefully, leaving the woman to appear at least twenty years younger than she really was. Appearances, however, didn't help combat the inner turmoil.
Her hand drifted casually to the bag at her side, long deft fingers sifting around until they withdrew, a small leatherbound book within them. Her other hand brushed her long brown hair from her face to cascade down her back before assisting her other hand in opening the book. Contained within this book was a set of recorded experiences and memories that no television could ever hope to match. She honestly hoped that the cameras were rolling, as she looked through the images within, in hopes of revealing a bit of her true self to the world.
The first image, as always, was that of her fierce and competitive oldest daughter. Ashley Rose Branford had at first been a normal girl, especially when Ashe declined to follow her family's tradition of imbuing her with a relic in hopes that she would be spared a life of pre-ordained intentions. Interestingly, her own later actions betrayed that intent, enrolling her in only the best academic programs and employing the most proficient tutors that money could buy. She wanted to give the girl everything, whatever she could to provide her with the best life possible.
Ashley Rose had grown to become a fiercely intelligent woman, working under her own mother in preparation for the day that she would take over the company and continue the business empire that Ashe herself had built. She was sometimes cold, her features taking that of a raptor staring down its prey when a goal had been set before her. She never disappointed, she never failed, and most of all, she never regretted.
She had turned out so much like her mother that Ashe could only smile sadly at the beautiful photograph in her hands of the woman who's voluptuous blond hair flowed out youthfully despite being in her early fourties herself. Ashe had encouraged her eldest daughter to marry and produce children in the event of anything ever happening to her, but she had so far declined. Deep down, a part of Ashe had sought to see her daughter seek love and happiness, but her daughter had explained to her that she loved what she did and would be happy as long as they remained at the top.
So very much like her mother.
Flipping the photograph back, she came to see a small image of a very young Ashelia Branford with her stomach bulging, a second child stored within. At her side was a young man with bright features lit up as if there was nothing else in this world that could make him happier than the moment captured within the square box in her hands. His greasy blond hair was joyfully covering his eyes as his arms held a very young and bubbly Ashley Rose up onto his shoulders. She had been so innocent back then, so naive, and so... happy. What might have bothered Ashe, if she had stopped to think about it, was that she hadn't consciously decided if she was referring to the young girl with the child resting within her womb, or the grinning child resting upon her father's shoulders.
It was sad, she realized looking back. Her eyes pinpointed those of the young man in the photograph, a man that if he walked by her today would be entirely unnoticed by her, his features so lost to time. At one point in her early years, she had naively believed that she had been in love. His ideals were so wonderful. That silvery tongue that he could employ was wooing to most girls, but in his most charismatic moments, he still only devoted himself to her.
They had met under the most brutal of circumstances, leaving them both to endure a great amount of pain and sacrifice in the name of making money, or fame, or even fortune. Their struggle was not what brought them together, not specifically, but it was a beginning. The match had been struck, and she followed through by throwing it to the straw, igniting a passion between the two that might have only lasted a single night, looking back, had it not been for the phone call that the man had received a week later.
"Hello? Ashe?" he had answered, his voice a mixture of concern and surprise at hearing back from her so soon. Apparently she had not been the only one that had been too scared to follow up, but this was one call that had to be made.
"I'm throwing up..." she had begun, not sure how to break the news to him softly. She was terrified. What was she supposed to do as a nineteen year old girl fresh out of High School? Was she going to be responsible for this on her own?
"Wait, what? It's a bit loud here," he apologized, asking her to give him a moment to step outside from the crowd he had been with. "Sorry about that, you said you are sick?"
"Yes..."
"Need me to come by and give you a lift to the hospital? I've got some packages to drop off at the moment, but then again I could always call someone up on a favor as well," he offered.
She chewed her lip nervously before just spilling it out. "Kaden, I'm pregnant."
Her ears immediately reeled at the sharp noise that jolted through her phone's headset and she swallowed tightly, a tear breaking from her ducts to roll down her cheek. She heard him in the background cursing. At that moment, she had thought that she'd truly doomed herself to being alone. She imagined that he was angry, screaming and cursing about this event that would forever change both their lives. He hated her, she assumed.
She held her phone out in front of her, burying her head into her arm as she curled into a ball, listening to absolute silence coming through before his voice came back through from the other side. "Ashe! You there?" he called.
Her head lifted back up and she brushed her dark red hair from her eyes and held it up to her ears. "Yes?" she managed through terrified gasps for oxygen.
His voice was entirely one of concern, with no anger whatsoever coming through the speaker. "I'm so sorry, I kinda dropped my phone," he explained.
She took a breath, choked for words but needing to fill the silence between the pair. "I see," she settled on, struggling with her stream of consciousness.
"No, I mean..." he began, his voice moving towards and away from the phone rapidly as he audibly trembled over the lines. "That's... wow. I'm at a loss for words," he said, clearly in shock. "But... wow."
Anger was building up within her, but she forced it back in hopes of not ruining his life as she'd ruined hers. "Look, my family can help me out, you won't be expected to deal with anything if you don't want to. If you want to visit her, that's not a prob-" she rushed quickly.
"She's a girl?"
His voice had come out abruptly, cutting her off as she looked for a response. "Yeah," she whispered, smiling despite herself. "I know its early and all, but I can just feel it inside me. You know how we can both see things that most people can't?" she explained, getting a verbal nod. "Yeah, it's like that. I just... know. And she's beautiful, Kaden, she's the most beautiful thing that has ever been conceived!" she rushed, getting slightly excited.
He laughed back over the phone. "She hasn't really been conceived yet," he mentioned, sorting through his own thoughts. Before she could protest again, he decided to comfort her. "Ashe, this is... amazing. And now that you mention it, yeah, I can See her as well. I'm... going to be a father?" he realized, his voice teetering between statement and question.
"Yeah..." Ashe whispered back softly. "And I'm going to be a mother."
He'd obviously been terrified, as was she, but he had arrived at her apartment within an hour, having dropped everything to see her. From there, the couple built a strong relationship, giving birth to Ashley Rose. The young girl had received her mother's surname upon birth since the couple had decided to hold off on a wedding until they had the money set aside to have a good one.
That day never came.
They grew so caught up in their future's that they had no time to set aside money for such a large scale event. Ashe was bulging with her second child before she realized it, the beautiful Celestial Rain Branford, as she would come to be called. Terra had helped out as much as possible, as had all their parents, but even still, they were young. Kaden did everything he could with his courier job, picking up a second job at the local police academy as well.
Money had been an ultimate argument in their life, slowly working its way between them like constant rains freezing and melting within the cracks of a concrete road. Life hadn't been entirely bad, but Ashe was young and trying to hold down a job at her age while raising two children had been a difficult task. Her clumsiness and lack of punctuality repeatedly lead to her having to search for another job, another way to help contribute money to her life.
Her family helped, of course, but they had decided to simply set any contributions aside in hopes of building a business of their own. The most damaging part had come when she was twenty three. She'd been arguing with him again and somehow, at some point in the conversation, she slipped and brought up how they had originally met.
Her hand had trembled as she poured the rest of her beer down her throat as the two were sitting at the bar, taking a night away from the kids as they enjoyed the weekend with their aunt. "It's so stupid," she mentioned, waving down the bartender for another couple beers for them.
"What is?" he asked warily. He kindly thanked the bartender and took a sip from his new beverage while paying no attention to her anger.
"We totally get shipped off to compete in some bullshit game show, but maybe he wasn't as mentally ill as we thought," she began, angrily hiding her pout behind another swig. He looked at her oddly when she snapped the bottle back from her mouth. "Don't give me that look, Kaden. I get it. I keep fucking up at work, I'm a fuckup as a mother, and you haven't wanted to touch me in weeks!" she fumed.
"Whoa, what?" he responded, his eyes growing wide. "Babe, calm down a moment," he said, trying hush her by reaching out. She angrily slapped his arms away but he clamped them down on her shoulder. "Chill!" he snapped. "Look, I'm sorry if I've been too distant lately. Work's been stressful, alright? I think we are close to getting that serial child rapist under-"
She pushed back from him, standing up and jabbing a finger at him. "Yeah, work is more important, I fucking get that. That's just it. I keep getting told by everyone what a fuckup I am!" she cried out, throwing her hands in the air as tears streamed down.
He attempted to defend himself, but she simply screamed over him, not giving a damn that everyone in the bar had turned to focus on the normally quiet couple. "Ashley Rose is in the best school that we can afford for her, but she always comes home to tell me about all the amazing things that she learned while she was there, things that I don't even know. Celes is too young to even go to school, and yet I still can't seem to keep from getting overwhelmed just trying to take care of her."
"Are you blaming the kids for the way things are?" he demanded, growing angry at her accusations.
"No!" she snapped. "I'm blaming myself! Even this new internship with the tv station seems... Like I just keep failing. I'm sick of it." He tried to interject again, but she screamed into his face. "What the fuck am I supposed to do, Kaden? I have two kids, I'm twenty three, you are working your ass off, and yet I can't seem to think that if I just shut all of it out, it would be better for all of us."
He couldn't really respond, so he took a step back in an attempt to calm himself since she'd proven unapproachable. "I don't..." he tried, getting cut off as expected.
"You're right, you don't have the answers. We try so god damn hard to be good parents, so hard that we never seem to make money, and yet some cold snake in the grass like Kai Demolic, Gregory Rogers, whatever the fuck his name was, can have a wonderful day in the neighborhood and provide his family with anything and everything they could ever want," she seethed.
"Whoa, hold up, that man was a monster!" Kaden screamed, responding to her assault. "He killed his own wife in the name of television," he reminded her.
She sat down, taking a deep drink of her bottle as the bartender watched her warily. "Yeah, well... When it's not there anymore, it's not there anymore," she finished.
By the time the fight had ended, the two had split their ways, with Kaden taking Celes and never being heard from again. He'd attempted to contact her, but she'd ignored him completely, removing that part of her life. She told Ashley Rose later that her father and sister had been killed in a bank heist. The girl grew with her mother, slowly turning to shun the rest of their family in the name of building a financial empire. She coldly worked her way up from her internship until she had finally used all the money she had saved up in conjunction with what she and Kaden had set aside for the girls to allow her to create her own television studio.
The bond the two developed was a strong one, slowly developing them into the pair that had ruthlessly cut their way throughout the networks. She was sure at this point that Kaden had noticed them and hadn't approved, but he hadn't managed to build a strong case against her yet for her obvious shortcuts and unlawful approaches to the business. What could he do? She had put money into the best lawyers in the business. If he stepped incorrectly and ruined the recital, she could simply have him done away with.
The human part of her hoped that would never happen, really. He honestly had been a wonderful father in Celes's life, from what she'd managed to see of it by way of using contacts to see them when they didn't know they were seen. When only the cameras were watching. She was delighted at times to look into the window of how her life might have turned out had she left things into his hands, but she hadn't created the fissure in their relationship over anything that he had done. She had been the problem. She had, from the start, caused everything, from coming on to him, to getting pregnant, to failing as a mother. He wasn't to be blamed by her for any of it. Celes had turned out beautiful, absolutely gorgeous.
From what she'd seen, her younger daughter had given birth to twin boys, having taken a teaching career to support her family. She'd been quite successful, inheriting her father's skills and insight into the world and genuine humanity. Her older daughter was nothing like the girl. She was all business, just like her mother.
Regardless of her methods, in this later period of her life, she was known as a success. She was the herald of a bright new future, with her prodigy of a daughter, the only one that most people even knew about, in a strong position to bring their company into the doorway of a new eternity, solidifying it for all of their children to come. She would continue the newly established family legacy and using the power that flowed through her body, even the dormant power that Ashe herself rarely exercised, she would eliminate the opposition cleanly if more subtle political methods could not be used. She had her mother and father's Sight, using it to help her gain an edge when dealing with the matters of pen and paper for arrangements.
She would be their future.
There was nothing more beyond this final event that Ashe could do to shock and amaze her viewers into keeping the ratings. Everyone knew this. Ashe would be stepping down and handing the company over to her daughter after this final season had been televised as planned. Live television had never been this good, she realized, savoring the taste in her mouth as she closed the book with a smile, rising back to her feet to gaze down through the clouds to the pedestrian covered streets below.
The cameras turned on, focusing on Ashe from the other building, zooming in to get a great view of her and the floors directly below her, while two others caught images of her side. She was smiling as she set her purse aside, clasping her hands before her. "Good evening, viewers," she began, addressing the crowd.
"As many of you know, tonight is our final broadcast on this station under my direction. I've carefully chosen my successor in a number of ways to continue our tradition of bringing you the greatest television that has ever been crafted," she droned smoothly. "Tonight will be that night, the night that we will kick off a fresh new season of the most awaited competition since Dante's Abyss so long ago."
Her fingertips gestured below her as she kneeled down, almost in honor of what was to come. Her lips trembled... with excitement. No one would see this coming, she believed. She slowly crept forward to the edge of the building and looked over, barely containing herself from throwing herself over before the cameras. She had words to speak. She wavered, the tension creeping through the air, as she gave the camera a final look.
Her arms slowly spread wide.
Her head slowly rolled back to cast her eyes upon the heaven, as she teetered so precariously upon the edge, knowing that over nine thousand planets were watching this moment in anticipation, terrified at what was to come.
What the cameras saw was always what everyone was focused on, she had learned.
It was what the cameras didn't see, until the final moment, that had the most shock value. The killer leaping in from off screen. The car that came out of nowhere to slam into the hero. The explosion from behind.
Ashe slowly took it all in, enraptured by the feeling and excitement of knowing that all the eyes were on her, waiting to see if she'd really do it. This was her moment.
In that moment, a body fell suddenly across the camera's vantage point, crossing within a brief space before the woman on camera until the cameras suddenly snapped their way down, chasing the image of the falling figure all the way down, following it story for story until he slammed lifelessly into the pavement below, blood spraying everyone within range.
The body was too disfigured from its fall to properly identify at a first glance, as all the cameras focused on it. All the cameras but one.
Slowly rising back to the image of Ashe, standing strong, her arms still spread as she smiled with tight lips at the camera. An image slowly appeared on every screen from the one camera that had been controlled remotely by Ashe herself to prevent anyone from spoiling the surprise. The image had zoomed in, catching a perfect frozen picture of Ashe coldly looking directly into the eyes of the falling Ashley Rose, the eldest daughter's eyes frozen in terror as she took in the sight of her mother, a million thoughts raging through her head as realization crept upon her of her mother's plan, knowing that there was nothing that she could do to fight the paralysis venom that had been spread throughout her body.
The cameras zoomed slowly until a tear was visible in the woman's eye. The first tear that had broken from her cold eyes since she was a small girl had been caught on camera. Ashley Rose was the future of the company, known by all to be Ashe's life investment. Everything had been placed into making sure that the transition of power and her strong daughter would be forever engraved into the minds of everyone watching. That equaled everyone.
And it did.
"Ladies and Gentleman..."
No one, not even her company, knew how to respond to this as the lone camera shifted back up to the gleeful woman. "Friend or Foe Unleashed has begun."
Her daughter had always been reported to be destined to make an impact. She had.
---
Within the helmet, a young pink haired girl of only eighteen years sobbed uncontrollably, unable to even release a sound from the shock that she was enduring. Kai, specifically, watched with interest at the events unfolding, knowing that he had forever made an impact on the girl's future decisions in one way or another.
![[Image: Ashe.jpg]](http://i1017.photobucket.com/albums/af298/symbiosychotic/Ashe.jpg)