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[Lafayra Rue]

Raissa continued to limp through the snow, seeming to ignore the words directed at her. In fact she had heard it all,but only processed certain bits. 'A broken doll...' one half of her mind spoke the words with pain and a desperation that told you she didn't want it to be true. The other half spoke it in a disgusted sneer.


'He's right, we are broken, useless to ourselves and everyone else. We can't communicate unless we're angry and the second someone so much as brushes our skin we break like a porcelain doll.' This side of herself kept them walking, despite the pain of the bullet wound and recovering from the poison. Her other half started to shrink, curling in on itself, sinking into a deep pit of pain, self-loathing, and depression.


Raissa was still shaking but now that her better half was wallowing in the oppressive feelings that weighed them both down she could manage it well enough to keep moving. She held on tighter to the gun reflexively.


'I'm no fool,' she thought in response to the action. 'this gun won't do a damn thing to either of them, but if you need to be fooled into thinking it'll protect us, then I won't throw it away.'

[Thugren]

there is a loud growl, like the growling of a great dangerous beast that makes you stop cold.

 

The elder dragon stares directly into your eyes as you turn, and all strength leaves your limbs.

 

Sadness, age, self loathing, all hit you at once as the elder dragon drapes a heavy parka over your shoulders without touching you.

 

 

"We all have our demons, we all have our quirks. But this is war girl. And you fired the first shot. So stop running. Stop hiding behind sarcasm ."

 

He removes his helm, revealing vertically irised, reptilian eyes. "Dragons know exactly when the people they talk to are lying ....To themselves and the world."

 

your father is carried into the apc as leah watches from afar.

 

Around you the snow begins to steam, and you notice an intense heat coming from the old man. Beneath his booted feet, the ice melts , and startlingly, life begins to awaken.

"Now open your ears and listen. Refrain from your sarcastic defense mechanism, and let a tired old man talk for once. There is a war coming. A war of gods, men , and monsters. Nightmare is coming, he will bury us in tides of undead and he will consume this world. You carry the weight of what was done to you. I can see it in your eyes. A beautiful girl shouldn't carry that darkness, but you do. But you cannot act like your life, your trials are any worse than anything anyone else here experiences.  What you did, that experiment you completed, set fire to the keg. My son will tell the world of what you created. And the war of sins will begin.. Millions will die when those weaponized soldiers will awaken, and more families...More little girls will be like you. Forced to take on responsibilities they cant understand...Forced to take care of fathers wounded or mentally broken by war. This war, is your war. You fired the first round, and you have to be strong enough to face whats coming...Its what your mother would've wanted."

 

The elder dragon stands.

 

'Sir.."

 

Leah interupts, trying to cut him off.

 

"Your mother was named Raina Korekevo.....Head researcher for inhoteps shadow sector. SHe developed the cure to the deadblight affliction that plagued us before you were born....She was also murdered shortly after your birth in secret. Necessary culling.....Is waht inhotep told us. The disease was allowed to be rampant to thin out weakness. Your mother disagreed. That process that you used to create krausus? She developed it, she precursor-ed the procedure to remove and pacify rampant ghoul organs to develop a cure to this disease, and after her death the consensus of iron was written. No country not ruled by inhotep can make an odin project without Ho siht approval."

 

He turns to you, motioning for you to stand.

 

"WHat you did wasnt random..What you did wasnt chance. This was a carefully concocted plan by Himmler to throw the world into world war. And he will succeed. Unless you help me.

[Lafayra Rue]

Raissa fell with a soft thump into the snow as her legs gave out, no strength to even flinch as the parka touched her shoulders. She didn't like the feel of it, nor the smell of the man that had worn it. He didn't smell bad, but it was strange and uncomfortable to be practically buried in a coat that didn't smell like her. She shifted awkwardly as she listened to the elder dragon. It wasn't until the first shot comment that she looked up from the snow and she kept her gaze steady with his after that.

 

Raissa was not afraid of the man in front of her. It was never people that she was afraid of. It was her inability to defend herself against their actions, but she could read his eyes just as easily as he could read hers and she knew he was going to do nothing but talk. Her calm went out the window the second she heard mention of her mother. Hatred exploded from a deep buried seed in her mind, but still she listened, whether by choice or compulsion she wasn't sure. It was quiet only a few moments after he had finished that she spoke.

 

"You needn't tell me her name. It was the only word I ever heard from that damnable man's mouth in the five years I cared for him, and only rarely while he slept. I don't want to hear about that woman, not now, not in the near future. You of all people know that time is one's only perspective and at current I don't give a damn about her accomplishments. I was five and I....he needed her. All I saw was a woman that had abandoned her family." With a large amount of difficulty she swallowed her malice. With a struggled sigh she broke eye contact and looked at the green grass seeding under her hand. She fought her anger down as she spoke.

 

"I am far from the first shot, Mr. Dempsey. The first shot is never heard, never seen, but it creates more, like the splitting of a cell. You get more and more and more until you find the one that changed, mutated to create something that shouldn't be there. The first shot happened long before fate set me on this path. 'My project' as you call it, is simply the one that will be heard around the world." She stood shrugging off the parka and holding it out for him to take. Raissa looked up at the man again. "You know much better than I do, Mr. Dempsey, that men like Krausus aren't made, they just are." She stared at the coat for a long while and let out a strange sigh. "I'll help...partly because I can't get anywhere after shooting myself in the leg, but I won't do orders. This may be war but I am not anyone's soldier. You ask, I'll make it." She holstered her gun and started to limp back to the apc. "And Mr. Dempsey? If possible, keep the bitch away from me."

[Thugren]

Alduin looks at leah harshly.

 

"GO handle The black Enders....I want their heads by the end of the week."

 

ELah nods and bows, moving quickly out of sight from the fierce dragons gaze.

 

Two black clad warriors come forward and put a fresh jacket on you.

 

"Now.....You are getting somewhere miss raissa......Come. You and i have much to discuss..."

 

He leads you back into the building where the bodies of the zealots that had guided you are piled high.

 

"I want you to help me develope something....SOmething Augustus Cain could only dream of. But i need you to make it a reality."

[Lafayra Rue]

Raissa still shifted uncomfortably, even under the cover of the new coat. She stopped at the door and took in her surroundings. Her lips pursed into a hard white line. "I need to understand something....Why are you treating me like this? You treat me like I'm normal....like I'm actually a human being." Her voice caught in her throat and she swallowed hard, she couldn't believe she was about to cry over something so...

 

'Important.' Both of her halves spoke at once. That had been happening more often. She hadn't ever realized how much she wanted to be normal, to not fear other people and what they would do to her. Her breathing had become fast and shallow and she swallowed down the threatening tears.

[Thugren]

The old man smiles warmly. His peppered hair seeming to enchance the effect of a simple smile.

 

"You are a person....Somone who should be afforded all the comforts and amnenities of being as such. You arent a machine. You arent a ghoul. YOu are a woman who deserves the same respect i demand of my men."

 

He reaches into his shirt and pulls out a toffe.

 

"would you like to sit? and eat? maybe listen to a story an old man has to tell?"

[Lafayra Rue]

Raissa frowned at the candy. "I don't do sweets, but listening I do very well." The tremor of potential tears still shook her voice but she sat on a bench that ran along two walls of the complex. This old man had his opinions, but did she really deserve the things he said she did?

[Thugren]

"when i was young....Drachen blut had maybe.......50 members...We were struggling...Starving."

 

He lifts himself onto a chauir and looks at her.

 

"We took minor jobs to stay afloat..Until my father died. Abnd my brother killed himself. And i was left alone."

He chews the toffe slowly, looking into her eyes.

 

"I worked tireslessly...From the age of fourteen....Every day, working until my feet were frozen....Taking any job that came my way...But you know what kept me going throughout those years?"

 

He smiles and pulls out a bright red candy.

 

"These bad boys right here.."

[Lafayra Rue]

"I have read the Drachen Blut history extensively, sir. I know the facts of your history." She reached out and carefully took the wrapped candy from his hand. The light reflected into her eyes as she spun the toffee between her fingers. "You found something to help you through your hard times, it let you hope that things would be better." She handed it back to him with a rueful smile. "I didn't make that choice. I decided to hurt myself, mask the pain inflicted upon me by inflicting it on myself. At least I had control over that. I can't even fathom finding hope in my situation...I'm just not that kind of person...or rather that isn't the person I became." Her hand clenched into a fist several times reflexively. "That isn't why you brought me here though."

[Thugren]

The elder dragon smiles tiredly.
 

"Im here to give you hope. TO give you back your fangs .....TO set you free from all of this. If you help me there is a way out for us. YOu just have to get your hands dirty to do it."

[Lafayra Rue]

Raissa shifted again, not feeling right in her own skin. This man, what he said, how he treated her, made her uncomfortable. It was an unknown to her and she did not like not knowing things. "I'm not a stranger to dirty, sir. It's been my job for a long while now, but I will ask you to not over estimate my abilities. I'm not as skilled as everyone seems to think I am." She fidgeted with the buttons on the borrowed coat. "What is it your wanting me to do?"

[Thugren]

the dragon taps his chest.

 

"i need you to release the inhibiter on m,y mutagen. I need you to set the pyroclasm mutagen free. Its about tim e that this world gets a fire...One that wont go out...On that the people can look to in this dark time and hope for."

[Lafayra Rue]

A perturbed look scrunched Raissa's face. "That's wonderful in theory, sir, but the Pyroclasm mutagen is not my area of expertise. The pyromancers aligned with the Nazi regime refused to work with me so I haven't studied them much. You're also asking me to preform a surgery on you, and I have no knowledge of how your body works. In my last surgery I was quite familiar with both of the men I was cutting into. I know their average heart rates, how quickly their bodies process chemicals, their individual bone structures and densities, and their measurements down to the last millimeter." She put a hand to her face, massaging on top of her cheekbone in small circles.

 

"I need information, or I could end up killing you."

[Thugren]

he smiles and nods.

 

"I have everything you will need...And there is a reason why the nazi pyreos never worked with you....its becasue they were not true pyro mancers."

[Lafayra Rue]

"Right..." She rested her chin on her hand, staring at nothing in particular while she thought. 'You trust him?' The voice in the back of her head spoke softly.

 

'Don't you?' She thought in response. 'I figured you be all over this save the world stuff. Right our wrongs, do good deeds. Besides, you should know better than anyone that I don't do something without the knowledge first. We'll study, ask questions, then make a decision.'

 

'But we have questions already.' Raissa shook her head physically and sighed. "My father, where are you taking him, and Sethis and Krausus, I suppose they will have an agenda else where for an undetermined amount of time?"

[Thugren]

Your father is going to my home. An old man shouldnt be in this snow. Both the boys will be sent for....But what they do i their own choice.

 

He smiles warmly.

 

"Do you like pies?"

[Lafayra Rue]

The question fully throws Raissa off her train of thought, strangely bringing up a flashback of when she was working with Krausus for the first time. It had been when she was making the bodysuit for him.

 

Raissa woke with a start, the small storage room in her lab having been converted into a bedroom. She grabbed her watch off the dresser, checking the time. It was four in the morning, Klaus wouldn't be in for another hour and Krausus wasn't supposed to start his test until 6 a.m. but someone was in her lab. She slipped quietly out of bed, deciding against clothes other than a fully buttoned up lab coat. The lights were already on when she opened the door.

 

"Gods, you even sleep here? They really did partner me with a damn hermit." Krausus Kronen sat at the long island filled with beakers, test tubes, and other lab equipment that Raissa used on a regular basis. He grinned at her in a way that Raissa hated as he gestured at the table. "You like pie?"

 

Raissa stood abruptly, frowning at the memory. "I'd like to get started with the material you have...now...and alone....if that isn't a problem."

[Thugren]

alduin smiles and nods.

 

"COme dear. We will take you to my home. YOu will get a good bath and a hot meal. Thwen you can get to work ok?"

 

The elder dragon smiles warmly, nodding his head with a smile.

[Lafayra Rue]

"No...no food...I've lost my appetite, but a shower and fresh clothes would be pleasant. I just...really need a little time alone to think." Raissa felt so strange around this man. She felt awkward and didn't like how much her social ineptitude was impairing her ability to interact with him.

[Thugren]

Adolfo nods and leads you to the apc.

" cmon lets go."

He leads you to the apc and it begins its low rumble home.

After several hours you pull up to the cabin, behind it is a massive camp. Drachen blut soldier ers work on establishing a camp and in the center of it, a massive mansion sits.

The apcs doors open and you are lead inside where a woman is shouting

" I swear if you scuff my floor I will roast you alive!"

The woman wears white drachen blut plates and growls dangerously. White hours of flame bust from the mouth holes of her helm as she shouts and Alduin laughs.

" Buriases mother, Mary....she's lived here with me since she and Adolfo separated