Snippet #1285776

Citrine barely registered that Vermillion was speaking, let alone what he said, so it would be fair to say that his inarticulateness, similar to her own, went largely unnoticed. She was far too enraptured by the final image, that even now lingered on the screen. The bodies of a family of three; a mother, father, and young child. The girl could not have been more than nine or so, but somehow the tormented repose in which she was cast made her seem older, perhaps twelve or thirteen. Their bodies were all mauled, flesh rent from bone, blood staining the ground beneath them.

All her life, this was what she had been told she must stop, must prevent. Civilian deaths were the reason LIMIT existed. They were to fight the MagiSpawn, to protect the sacred entity that was human life, no matter what it cost them individually. They were to be guardians, the sentinels of the city, the last defense when walls and traps would not keep the beasts from their prey.

Was it all truly a lie? Citrine ran a hand through loose blond hair, leaning back in her chair and pinching the bridge of her nose in her fingertips. Could Spectrum- could her father really have sanctioned this at the same time as he told her about the duty to protect?

The painful realization did not waste time in dawning on her. No, her father had not lied to her. He really believed in looking out for people. But the man in that office, the one who called himself not David Solomon but Spectrum- that man was not her father. Not anymore, at any rate. What had once been a dream to see the people of the world protected had become twisted in the mind of whomever the megalomaniac in that office was and transformed into this. Probably at about the same time as LIMIT had transformed from a collective of brilliant minds working on engines to the organization that killed the MagiSpawn of their own creation. Probably about the same time as her mother had died.

Gritting her teeth, Citrine removed the disk and replaced it in her pocket, taking a deep, slightly-shuddering breath. She was beginning to feel feverish; it was a miracle the entire building wasn't on fire right now. But she couldn't afford to lose it; not with so much at stake. The thought that it could all be false, that Azure could have somehow fabricated everything, flitted across her mind, enticing with honeyed promises of an easy resolution, but she ignored it with the same iron determination she'd always had.

Instead, she removed the cell phone and placed it on the table; the one Azure had said she could use to contact him. In truth, the idea of giving a mute a phone was amusing, but she supposed she could always text. Still, she was not precisely certain that was what she wanted. To cooperate with Azure would mean in some way sanctioning the action he had taken by kidnapping Sable, and that was not something she wanted to do by any means. In fact, she found the entire idea of a rebellion less useful than what she was considering, but it was possible that her fevered mind, wracked with a nameless grief as it was, was missing something important.

Thus, she decided to put it to Vermillion and see what he thought. At this point, he was probably the only person she could trust; the expression on his face and the thoughts in his head were enough to confirm that he'd had no knowledge of this either, and the way he was reacting to it meant he too was appalled at what he had seen. That was good enough for her.

Azure gave me this as well, she explained, meeting his eyes as steadily as possible given her present state. He says it can be used to contact him but... I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that idea yet. Perhaps it would make more sense for us to help put a stop to this our own way... though I suppose I'm assuming you think something should indeed be done. I think I am safe in the assumption, mind, but if i am not, please do say so.

At any rate, those seem to be our choices, unless you can think of something else? Citrine was genuinely uncertain of the best path to take; understandable, given that a good chunk of her worldview had just been turned on its head. Hopefully, Vermillion would be more certain of... something.

*****

A horde of MagiSpawn seventy strong flooded through the city, sending civilians panicking into their homes. For once, however, the beasts took no note of them. All eyes were fixed on the one who led, a tracker-beast with a trail. The one called Sable smelled unlike anything it knew, and thus it was easy to follow the scent.

It was not long before they had all reached the area outside of the hideout, where the trail suddenly stopped. The tracker growled deep in its throat; such a thing could only mean that she had gone aground, above, or through water, of which there was none present.

The utterance set off a chain reaction, and it was not long before the horde was emitting a cacophony of growls, snarls, and wails, the music of the damned. Wherever the target was, there would be no mistaking that they were coming, and all who stood in their way would perish.