Sage remained at the table after Belle left, stewing over the things he had said to her. In a sense, she was shocked. The two hardly spoke, and the boy couldn’t possibly know very much about her, and he had somehow... gotten through to her. His advice was also maddeningly right - she wanted to say ‘helpful,’ but it was, in fact, intolerably inconvenient.
She sat, a hand on her chin, propped up on her elbow, which rested on the table. The girl stared at the wall across her, and then shut her eyes for a moment. It wasn’t what Belle had said that was burrowing in the back of her head, she decided. She picked the entire conversation apart and that wasn’t it. As she mulled over it again, she could feel herself becoming more and more agitated at this seemingly unsolvable puzzle.
And then, she suddenly perked up. Her eyes went from listless to surprised in a flash, and the sheen of ennui immediately vanished - if not but for the moment. It wasn’t what Belle had said that mattered. It was so obvious, and it took her nearly a half hour staring at the wall to figure it out. He simply hadn’t treated her like... like... damaged goods.
Everyone else in the bunker: Ashe, Sophia, Kaden. They were all so very nice to her, and they were good people, but they all treated her like a child. Like... - she could feel the anger rising, like stifling heat in her chest. Back home, after her incident, they always called her a special case, like that was a nice way of saying ‘we’ve given up on her.’
She didn’t blame her friends for acting the way they did. They were just trying to be nice, in the same way that someone might go out of their way to be extra pleasant around a cripple, or someone with some kind of mental disability. Something she, herself, was guilty of, too.
Sage knew it was a horrible thing to think, much less say aloud, but she resented it. To be put on the same level as... as some retard was... insulting! Humiliating! Very little made the hybrid angry. Even less actually caused her to manifest that anger. But this unintentional marginalization boiled within her, as it had for as long as she could remember.
She remembered taking solace in it, at first. That people would reach out and comfort her, to remind her she was still part of the world around her. But eventually, she realized that this same outreach had cut her off from a normal life, and by the time she had realized it, it was far too late to turn back the clock.
Eventually, Sage accepted some common truths. She couldn’t function on her own; that’s what her sister was there for. To protect her. But even this seemed... inadequate somehow. Suddenly, Sage wasn’t sure what to think. How could a conversation with... with some illiterate simpleton change her entire world view in minutes?! No, it couldn’t. Belle didn’t tell her anything she didn’t already know. So, obviously she was just overreacting. It must have had something to do with still getting over the changeling’s death. She nodded as the thought went through her mind. Simple. She was just stressed out. Everything would make sense again after a good night’s sleep.
- - - - -
A massive headache greeted her, along with the sensation of movement. Rapid movement. She was being jostled around, and hanging halfway upside-down. What the hell?
She tried to open her eyes, and immediately squeezed them shut. Oh, God, her head hurt. It was bright. Shading her eyes, she tried opening them again. Blurs and shapes sped by, and as she blinked the fog away, a seedy marketplace quickly faded into view.
Sage groaned, realizing she had been thrown over someone’s shoulder. She craned her neck around and caught part of the face of the man carrying her. “Aurry?” her voice gravelly from grogginess. “Where are we going?”
“Not much further now,” came the reply. Hesitantly, he added, “Just trust me.”
She nodded, and closed her eyes again. In spite of the throbbing pain in her skull, she embraced sleep. She would feel better when she woke.
“Of course,” a voice suddenly echoed from the blackness. “That wasn’t the case, was it?”
“Huh?” Sage replied. She looked around, but could see nothing in the intense darkness. Finding herself on the floor - she thought it was a floor, anyway - she pushed herself to her feet, and continued desperately searching out a source of light. “Wh-What is this?!”
“Oh, come now. Do try to stay in character. You don’t develop your stutter until after all this is over. I wonder if it’s because you decided to stop talking for three months. Haha, wouldn’t it be weird if it was your fault you sound so stupid when you speak, now?”
“Who’s talking?! Where are you?!” the girl shrieked, backing away from where she thought the noise was coming from.
“Don’t-” at the sound of the voice coming from behind her, Sage released a sharp gasp before whirling around to see only darkness. “-tell me you forgot what I sound like. We were together for nearly forty days.”
“You’re not real! Xenia killed you! I w-watched your ship explode!!” she was in tears, still backing away, in hopes of finding a wall to press up against. “You’re dead! You’re dead!”
“Did you? Did you see me? Or did you just assume I was consumed in the blast? You did watch your sister murder your bodyguard, after poisoning the poor man. After rendering him helpless.”
“He was responsible-”
“Was he? Was he responsible for the actions you allowed to be taken against him? As I recall, he was brutally tortured in secret by a pair of sadistic teenagers.”
“You’re the one who caused all of this!!”
“Aha! And I suppose the slow, agonizing death of Aurelius, and the murder of my entire crew is justifiable. After all, you were just trying to get back at me,” the voice chortled. “I don’t suppose you’ll go after the ‘me’ in this timeline, as well, or if you’re just hunting for revenge, for the things I did to you,” a sinister laugh reverberated all around her. “It wasn’t deliberate, you know. You were supposed to be a hostage, to be used as a bargaining tool for some kind of deliberation or another. Interstellar politics are so boring.”
“You led a mutiny against your captain-”
“I sure did. And the rest is history. ...Or, it will be, anyway.”
“N-No. I’m not going to let that happen again.”
“So, you’re going to come after me, after all? After so many years, and you haven’t let go of the hate?”
“Sol!! Don’t try to diminish what you did!!” Sage screamed as loud as she could. She was only answered with a cackling laugh, as the darkness around her swirled and began to take shape.
- - - - -
The azure haired girl was standing in a clearing - mercifully, not the same clearing she had butchered the changeling in - across from-
Belle.
“...You okay?” he inquired, tilting his head. “You look really bad.”
Sage nodded, averting her gaze from the boy. Just a dream, just a dream, just a dream, she shook her head and ran her hand down her face. Her eyes were bloodshot, and she was shaking like a leaf. She really must have looked terrible. “So... they w-want us to fight, I guess.”
Belle shrugged, though Sage didn’t see it.
“I... don’t know if I want to,”
“Well,” came the redheaded boy’s response. “I don’t think we get to not fight. Didn’t Kaden just get done telling us that they’ll just control you? I’m not gonna stand around to get controlled.”
“W-Well, I told you. I... have to win this competition,” the girl squeezed her eyes shut. This game was not real. “I could...” she let out a ragged sigh, unsure how to propose the awful plan she was formulating. “I could... make it... quick for you. It wouldn’t hurt, I promise; I’m...” she raised her head. “I’m a doctor.”
The guiding principles of her profession and her entire life could be ignored once in a while, right? She felt sick.
“I’m not just gonna let you kill me!!” Belle shouted. Sage nodded, and sat down against a tree. Belle didn’t move. Sage expected as much. From what little she knew about him, she didn’t think him likely to come at him. He seemed... uncomfortable around women.
- - - - -
“...This isn’t getting anywhere,” Damon suddenly grumbled, leaning over Audric’s shoulder. “How can we... speed this up?”
“Well, I could install a mod for Belle’s program. Just swap Sage’s model for a guy. Maybe have him hear a badass one-liner or something. He should be pretty comfortable beating her up after that,” the programmer cracked his neck, and opened a window, already working to copy the new code onto the old.
“No, no. I have a better idea. That name she screamed in her sleep. What was it...?”
“Sol?”
“Yes, that’s the one. Can you make it so she thinks she’s seeing Sol, instead of Belle?” Damon grinned. He knew it could be done; asking was just a formality.
“Yeah, I guess I could do it. It’ll be kinda tricky since I don’t know what it looks like, which means we’ll have to extrapolate it from her memories. It’ll just take a minute.”
“Do it.”
- - - - -
“Belle?” Sage leapt to her feet. He was... flickering. “What’s happeni-”
Suddenly, it seemed like the entire world vanished, replaced with a vast, blue nothing. Even the dirt she stood on was... gone. Yet she still stood as if on solid ground. Just as quickly, everything was replaced, only...
“You!” Sage’s eyes hardened. A tall, lanky man, pale, wearing thick stubble and a leather jacket stood where Belle had been. The monster she had nightmares about was standing in front of her. Damon Dukes was a sick bastard, indeed.
“...What?” he finally answered, pretending to sound genuinely confused. “What about me.”
“Stop doing that!!” Sage viciously retorted. There were so many things she wanted to say. So many things she wanted to do. And then suddenly, a massive energy blast sailed straight for her.
Belle watched as the hybrid inexplicably dove to the ground, before rolling up to her feet. She seemed enraged, yet... confused.
Furious at the surprise attack, Sage manifested a cloud of frigid vapor around her, while a virtual tidal wave made from ice chased after her. Spears of ice struck up from the earth as the frozen wave covered them, chased by a furious arctic storm. In less than a minute, Sage had converted the forest all around her into a frozen wasteland.
If Sol wouldn’t let her speak her mind, then so be it. She didn’t need to ask her questions or make her accusations here. She would have to track him down in the real world - outside of Dante’s Abyss - anyway. She would make him take the time to answer for what he did then.
“I’m going to find you when this is over,” she hissed, before a series of frozen spears materialized out of thin air. Suddenly, Belle found spikes of ice crashing down all around him as he jumped, ducked, and weaved around them, sprinting across the frozen earth.
Surprisingly, Sage gave chase. Frozen blocks fell like meteors, smashing into the ground around Belle, while jagged spears shot up from below, furiously lashing out in an attempt to impale the red haired youth.
Sol evaded the maelstrom, leaping into a tree, before one of the meteors slammed into his back, shattering, and hurled him onto the ground below. He was on his feet quickly - too quickly. The spear that would have shot through his gut missed him by a hair, tearing uselessly at his clothes instead of his flesh.
Belle could see the fury in her eyes as a massive gust of wind, carrying glittering flakes of snow blasted past her. Somehow, he knew this was bad, and ducked behind a tree as the razor sharp snow clawed uselessly against the bark.
Although she tried to fight it, she could feel the emotions she had accidentally lifted from Vad’s mind bleed into her own. It was easier to fight than this, usually. But... not now. She didn’t even feel the usual twinge of regret as the frozen claws encased her hands. She would carve Sol to bits.
Leaping forward, Sage cleaved the large spruce tree in two, charging after the fleet footed Belle, who immediately burst into a sprint away from the psychotic woman behind him. Familiar with the woods, Belle figured he would lose Sage through the trees.
Instead, the blue haired girl simply carved her way through them as he wound his way around the most difficult brush he could find. His rapid, careful route was no match for the straight line Sage hacked through the forest after him.
Finally, Belle leapt up, and with a thunderous kick, felled a massive tree, hoping to have it fall right on top of the girl. Instead, she leapt up and clawed it to bits. With a groan, the red haired boy found he had put himself between Sage and the stasis field.
“You can’t run from me, Sol,” the girl’s eyes burned with fury, and her voice dripped with venom. “It’s different when I can fight back, isn’t it?”
“What are you talking about?!” Belle shouted, exasperated. “I’m not this Sol guy you keep going on about! I was there when you were talking about him!!”
Kaden was crazy. He said Belle was crazy for not trusting girls. Well, Kaden wasn’t the one freezing his ass off while some crazy girl with frozen hands tried to kill him!
“I’m not going to let you confuse me,” Sage retorted. The red haired boy looked about himself. Running perpendicular to those gigantic claws would get him killed, and he wasn’t about to beat up a girl.
Finally, he saw a compromise. Leaping backward, he landed just behind a large rock as Sage slashed out at him, raking uselessly through the air. Just as she proceeded to follow through, Belle heaved the boulder up over his head, and hurled it at the insane Valium addict.
Sage leapt out of the way and Belle broke out in the opposite direction. Furious at yet another attempt to escape, she raced after him. Belle did everything he could to slow her down, picking tough terrain, knocking trees into her path. She just ripped everything that got in her way apart. He just hoped she was tiring out faster than he was.
Eventually, finally, he lost her. Sage just obliterated anything that stood between him and her, but he was simply the better tracker. It didn’t take much to confuse the girl amidst all the dense forest. The darkness all around them helped out a lot, too.
The blue haired girl stood with a slouch, her open mouth curled into a snarl, and her eyes almost feral with hate. She didn’t move, instead she took the moment to catch her breath. At least, that’s what Belle thought she was doing.
Instead, a thick, heavy fog crept into the area, rolling up from behind Sage, before it shrouded her in it as it marched forward. Knowing it was unnatural, Belle tried to outrun the obscuring cloud, until he found himself up against the wall of the stasis field again.
“Shit,” he breathed.
Steeling himself as the blanket rolled right at him, he held is breath until it enveloped him. As if it wasn’t already hard enough to see.
She sat, a hand on her chin, propped up on her elbow, which rested on the table. The girl stared at the wall across her, and then shut her eyes for a moment. It wasn’t what Belle had said that was burrowing in the back of her head, she decided. She picked the entire conversation apart and that wasn’t it. As she mulled over it again, she could feel herself becoming more and more agitated at this seemingly unsolvable puzzle.
And then, she suddenly perked up. Her eyes went from listless to surprised in a flash, and the sheen of ennui immediately vanished - if not but for the moment. It wasn’t what Belle had said that mattered. It was so obvious, and it took her nearly a half hour staring at the wall to figure it out. He simply hadn’t treated her like... like... damaged goods.
Everyone else in the bunker: Ashe, Sophia, Kaden. They were all so very nice to her, and they were good people, but they all treated her like a child. Like... - she could feel the anger rising, like stifling heat in her chest. Back home, after her incident, they always called her a special case, like that was a nice way of saying ‘we’ve given up on her.’
She didn’t blame her friends for acting the way they did. They were just trying to be nice, in the same way that someone might go out of their way to be extra pleasant around a cripple, or someone with some kind of mental disability. Something she, herself, was guilty of, too.
Sage knew it was a horrible thing to think, much less say aloud, but she resented it. To be put on the same level as... as some retard was... insulting! Humiliating! Very little made the hybrid angry. Even less actually caused her to manifest that anger. But this unintentional marginalization boiled within her, as it had for as long as she could remember.
She remembered taking solace in it, at first. That people would reach out and comfort her, to remind her she was still part of the world around her. But eventually, she realized that this same outreach had cut her off from a normal life, and by the time she had realized it, it was far too late to turn back the clock.
Eventually, Sage accepted some common truths. She couldn’t function on her own; that’s what her sister was there for. To protect her. But even this seemed... inadequate somehow. Suddenly, Sage wasn’t sure what to think. How could a conversation with... with some illiterate simpleton change her entire world view in minutes?! No, it couldn’t. Belle didn’t tell her anything she didn’t already know. So, obviously she was just overreacting. It must have had something to do with still getting over the changeling’s death. She nodded as the thought went through her mind. Simple. She was just stressed out. Everything would make sense again after a good night’s sleep.
- - - - -
A massive headache greeted her, along with the sensation of movement. Rapid movement. She was being jostled around, and hanging halfway upside-down. What the hell?
She tried to open her eyes, and immediately squeezed them shut. Oh, God, her head hurt. It was bright. Shading her eyes, she tried opening them again. Blurs and shapes sped by, and as she blinked the fog away, a seedy marketplace quickly faded into view.
Sage groaned, realizing she had been thrown over someone’s shoulder. She craned her neck around and caught part of the face of the man carrying her. “Aurry?” her voice gravelly from grogginess. “Where are we going?”
“Not much further now,” came the reply. Hesitantly, he added, “Just trust me.”
She nodded, and closed her eyes again. In spite of the throbbing pain in her skull, she embraced sleep. She would feel better when she woke.
“Of course,” a voice suddenly echoed from the blackness. “That wasn’t the case, was it?”
“Huh?” Sage replied. She looked around, but could see nothing in the intense darkness. Finding herself on the floor - she thought it was a floor, anyway - she pushed herself to her feet, and continued desperately searching out a source of light. “Wh-What is this?!”
“Oh, come now. Do try to stay in character. You don’t develop your stutter until after all this is over. I wonder if it’s because you decided to stop talking for three months. Haha, wouldn’t it be weird if it was your fault you sound so stupid when you speak, now?”
“Who’s talking?! Where are you?!” the girl shrieked, backing away from where she thought the noise was coming from.
“Don’t-” at the sound of the voice coming from behind her, Sage released a sharp gasp before whirling around to see only darkness. “-tell me you forgot what I sound like. We were together for nearly forty days.”
“You’re not real! Xenia killed you! I w-watched your ship explode!!” she was in tears, still backing away, in hopes of finding a wall to press up against. “You’re dead! You’re dead!”
“Did you? Did you see me? Or did you just assume I was consumed in the blast? You did watch your sister murder your bodyguard, after poisoning the poor man. After rendering him helpless.”
“He was responsible-”
“Was he? Was he responsible for the actions you allowed to be taken against him? As I recall, he was brutally tortured in secret by a pair of sadistic teenagers.”
“You’re the one who caused all of this!!”
“Aha! And I suppose the slow, agonizing death of Aurelius, and the murder of my entire crew is justifiable. After all, you were just trying to get back at me,” the voice chortled. “I don’t suppose you’ll go after the ‘me’ in this timeline, as well, or if you’re just hunting for revenge, for the things I did to you,” a sinister laugh reverberated all around her. “It wasn’t deliberate, you know. You were supposed to be a hostage, to be used as a bargaining tool for some kind of deliberation or another. Interstellar politics are so boring.”
“You led a mutiny against your captain-”
“I sure did. And the rest is history. ...Or, it will be, anyway.”
“N-No. I’m not going to let that happen again.”
“So, you’re going to come after me, after all? After so many years, and you haven’t let go of the hate?”
“Sol!! Don’t try to diminish what you did!!” Sage screamed as loud as she could. She was only answered with a cackling laugh, as the darkness around her swirled and began to take shape.
- - - - -
The azure haired girl was standing in a clearing - mercifully, not the same clearing she had butchered the changeling in - across from-
Belle.
“...You okay?” he inquired, tilting his head. “You look really bad.”
Sage nodded, averting her gaze from the boy. Just a dream, just a dream, just a dream, she shook her head and ran her hand down her face. Her eyes were bloodshot, and she was shaking like a leaf. She really must have looked terrible. “So... they w-want us to fight, I guess.”
Belle shrugged, though Sage didn’t see it.
“I... don’t know if I want to,”
“Well,” came the redheaded boy’s response. “I don’t think we get to not fight. Didn’t Kaden just get done telling us that they’ll just control you? I’m not gonna stand around to get controlled.”
“W-Well, I told you. I... have to win this competition,” the girl squeezed her eyes shut. This game was not real. “I could...” she let out a ragged sigh, unsure how to propose the awful plan she was formulating. “I could... make it... quick for you. It wouldn’t hurt, I promise; I’m...” she raised her head. “I’m a doctor.”
The guiding principles of her profession and her entire life could be ignored once in a while, right? She felt sick.
“I’m not just gonna let you kill me!!” Belle shouted. Sage nodded, and sat down against a tree. Belle didn’t move. Sage expected as much. From what little she knew about him, she didn’t think him likely to come at him. He seemed... uncomfortable around women.
- - - - -
“...This isn’t getting anywhere,” Damon suddenly grumbled, leaning over Audric’s shoulder. “How can we... speed this up?”
“Well, I could install a mod for Belle’s program. Just swap Sage’s model for a guy. Maybe have him hear a badass one-liner or something. He should be pretty comfortable beating her up after that,” the programmer cracked his neck, and opened a window, already working to copy the new code onto the old.
“No, no. I have a better idea. That name she screamed in her sleep. What was it...?”
“Sol?”
“Yes, that’s the one. Can you make it so she thinks she’s seeing Sol, instead of Belle?” Damon grinned. He knew it could be done; asking was just a formality.
“Yeah, I guess I could do it. It’ll be kinda tricky since I don’t know what it looks like, which means we’ll have to extrapolate it from her memories. It’ll just take a minute.”
“Do it.”
- - - - -
“Belle?” Sage leapt to her feet. He was... flickering. “What’s happeni-”
Suddenly, it seemed like the entire world vanished, replaced with a vast, blue nothing. Even the dirt she stood on was... gone. Yet she still stood as if on solid ground. Just as quickly, everything was replaced, only...
“You!” Sage’s eyes hardened. A tall, lanky man, pale, wearing thick stubble and a leather jacket stood where Belle had been. The monster she had nightmares about was standing in front of her. Damon Dukes was a sick bastard, indeed.
“...What?” he finally answered, pretending to sound genuinely confused. “What about me.”
“Stop doing that!!” Sage viciously retorted. There were so many things she wanted to say. So many things she wanted to do. And then suddenly, a massive energy blast sailed straight for her.
Belle watched as the hybrid inexplicably dove to the ground, before rolling up to her feet. She seemed enraged, yet... confused.
Furious at the surprise attack, Sage manifested a cloud of frigid vapor around her, while a virtual tidal wave made from ice chased after her. Spears of ice struck up from the earth as the frozen wave covered them, chased by a furious arctic storm. In less than a minute, Sage had converted the forest all around her into a frozen wasteland.
If Sol wouldn’t let her speak her mind, then so be it. She didn’t need to ask her questions or make her accusations here. She would have to track him down in the real world - outside of Dante’s Abyss - anyway. She would make him take the time to answer for what he did then.
“I’m going to find you when this is over,” she hissed, before a series of frozen spears materialized out of thin air. Suddenly, Belle found spikes of ice crashing down all around him as he jumped, ducked, and weaved around them, sprinting across the frozen earth.
Surprisingly, Sage gave chase. Frozen blocks fell like meteors, smashing into the ground around Belle, while jagged spears shot up from below, furiously lashing out in an attempt to impale the red haired youth.
Sol evaded the maelstrom, leaping into a tree, before one of the meteors slammed into his back, shattering, and hurled him onto the ground below. He was on his feet quickly - too quickly. The spear that would have shot through his gut missed him by a hair, tearing uselessly at his clothes instead of his flesh.
Belle could see the fury in her eyes as a massive gust of wind, carrying glittering flakes of snow blasted past her. Somehow, he knew this was bad, and ducked behind a tree as the razor sharp snow clawed uselessly against the bark.
Although she tried to fight it, she could feel the emotions she had accidentally lifted from Vad’s mind bleed into her own. It was easier to fight than this, usually. But... not now. She didn’t even feel the usual twinge of regret as the frozen claws encased her hands. She would carve Sol to bits.
Leaping forward, Sage cleaved the large spruce tree in two, charging after the fleet footed Belle, who immediately burst into a sprint away from the psychotic woman behind him. Familiar with the woods, Belle figured he would lose Sage through the trees.
Instead, the blue haired girl simply carved her way through them as he wound his way around the most difficult brush he could find. His rapid, careful route was no match for the straight line Sage hacked through the forest after him.
Finally, Belle leapt up, and with a thunderous kick, felled a massive tree, hoping to have it fall right on top of the girl. Instead, she leapt up and clawed it to bits. With a groan, the red haired boy found he had put himself between Sage and the stasis field.
“You can’t run from me, Sol,” the girl’s eyes burned with fury, and her voice dripped with venom. “It’s different when I can fight back, isn’t it?”
“What are you talking about?!” Belle shouted, exasperated. “I’m not this Sol guy you keep going on about! I was there when you were talking about him!!”
Kaden was crazy. He said Belle was crazy for not trusting girls. Well, Kaden wasn’t the one freezing his ass off while some crazy girl with frozen hands tried to kill him!
“I’m not going to let you confuse me,” Sage retorted. The red haired boy looked about himself. Running perpendicular to those gigantic claws would get him killed, and he wasn’t about to beat up a girl.
Finally, he saw a compromise. Leaping backward, he landed just behind a large rock as Sage slashed out at him, raking uselessly through the air. Just as she proceeded to follow through, Belle heaved the boulder up over his head, and hurled it at the insane Valium addict.
Sage leapt out of the way and Belle broke out in the opposite direction. Furious at yet another attempt to escape, she raced after him. Belle did everything he could to slow her down, picking tough terrain, knocking trees into her path. She just ripped everything that got in her way apart. He just hoped she was tiring out faster than he was.
Eventually, finally, he lost her. Sage just obliterated anything that stood between him and her, but he was simply the better tracker. It didn’t take much to confuse the girl amidst all the dense forest. The darkness all around them helped out a lot, too.
The blue haired girl stood with a slouch, her open mouth curled into a snarl, and her eyes almost feral with hate. She didn’t move, instead she took the moment to catch her breath. At least, that’s what Belle thought she was doing.
Instead, a thick, heavy fog crept into the area, rolling up from behind Sage, before it shrouded her in it as it marched forward. Knowing it was unnatural, Belle tried to outrun the obscuring cloud, until he found himself up against the wall of the stasis field again.
“Shit,” he breathed.
Steeling himself as the blanket rolled right at him, he held is breath until it enveloped him. As if it wasn’t already hard enough to see.
![[Image: Sage.jpg]](http://rebecca.florizone.com/sig/miscsig/Sage.jpg)