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Rare Side Effects May Include the Following:	By : maiafay376 Category: +M through R > Resident Evil Views: 39551 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Resident Evil or characters therein. I do not profit from this story. Original characters and plaga hierarchy are mine.

Chapter List
- 4
- 5
- 6
---Chapter 5: The Bells of Sorrow---

AN: Slow down when reading. There is a lot going on. The voices in this chapter are easy to follow if you pay attention to how each character speaks.
Saddler's last meal had been plateful of ganado flesh. The sharp tang of blood didn't just arouse him—it stirred his passion with such fervor his body was on the verge of bursting its seams. Saddler's aura poured into his mouth and expanded until every nerve flared and every muscle quivered as if a giant tuning fork hummed inside him. On the verge of collapse, he swooned and went boneless. Saddler crushed him closer to keep him from falling, and with the priest's hand at his neck and the other pressed against the small of his back, nothing in the world could be as wonderful—or as terrible. So much energy, so much, too much. With Ashley, he had to pull her aura into himself, he had to seek it. Saddler's power gushed like a fountain he couldn't turn off.
(An ocean so red and vast and waves swelling beyond the horizon)
So come swim, little one. Dive deep and I shall show you wonders.
His wonders are horrors, nightmares, he is an abomination, an evil thing.
Hush now, why so frightened? Remember me...
Pleasure unwound the last threads of his resistance and his clothing became a barrier he wanted torn away. He keened, but through the roar of the feeding, the sound reached his ears as a plaintive whine. Saddler lowered him to the ground and settled himself between his thighs. He sighed and arched his body, a feline rubbing against his master. The wings trembled beneath his skin, desiring freedom. The ocean of power crashed and pulled him under.
Selfish beasts, you despise us, our strength, our defiance, you render us docile for fear we would challenge your tyranny.
How can you think we hate you? You remind us to respect our hosts, to cherish their sacrifice.
Others give while you take, pillage, conquer, you know nothing of true sacrifice, of what it means to cherish, you caused the fall, your punishment was just.
We have done our penance, it is time to reclaim what we've lost. We can have perfection again, we can be one again. Yield and we can begin anew.
I will yield only to him, to him alone.
Leon opened his eyes to a world filtered through a dirty camera lens: shapeless blobs wreathed in gray fog, sounds in muted echoes. The camera lens turned, specks of sand blew away. Stained curtains fluttered in tatters from cracked windows, broken furniture littered once tidy floors. On the table where someone had tossed plates and silverware as afterthoughts, maggots made a feast out of a half-eaten steak, and mold furred what once had been a white loaf of bread. Rotten fruit oozed in the centerpiece bowl. The typical and tragic interior of a Pueblo shack. The decaying scene seemed a parody of happier days, and like a parent preserving their dead child's bedroom, he couldn't help but wonder if the ganado kept everything in its place as a reminder of what they had once and what they could never have again.
A chair in the middle of the room had a sleeping version of himself tied to it. The other Leon's head drooped on his chest, the sigh of his breath ruffling his bangs. He stared at himself, unable to grasp at first how he could be in two places at once. Talk about a funhouse mirror without the fun attached. Then the answer came when the familiar sight of purple robes and yellow eyes emerged from bedroom door. Saddler's memories. This must have been right after Mendez had knocked him out.
With a wave of an invisible wand, two ganado he could have sworn had not been there seconds ago, appeared to either side of the chair. Their eyes glittered with dull sense of duty. One had a syringe in his hand, a tiny shadow floated inside.
I did choose you—I'm not sure the reason. Ah, but that is a lie, isn't it? It was a whim, really. I had waited so long, I confess I had given up hope. I thought, why not? He has a handsome face, strong body, what if—
Bitores Mendez rolled in front of Leon like a giant boulder. Where the hell did he come from? He glared at the back of the Spaniard's bald head and stepped around him. Mendez muttered and made gestures at the other Leon with quick dismissive flicks of his wrist. Saddler frowned, said something in reply he couldn't make out. Mendez lowered his arm and bowed in apology. Saddler said something else and this time the words “intoxicating power” drifted to his ears. The syringe descended.
He thought I was wasting the remnant on an American swine. I told him I had tired of its fickle nature, rejecting one host after another. I made a vow to destroy you if the remnant did not manifest. And afterward, I would collect the embryo and wait again. I would lose nothing but time.
“I was just an experiment?” Leon asked the Saddler who took the empty syringe from the ganado and laid it next to the green fuzzy bread and the soupy fruit. The priest ignored his question and with a swirl of his robes, left the room. Mendez slung the unconscious Leon over his shoulders and followed. The lens clouded. Leon stumbled ahead, groping for balance in a world of mist and voices.
You are more than that. Your strength amazed me, but I dared not hope. Many others showed potential, but all ended in failure.
The world oriented, the lens flickered and scattered scene after scene of damage he had inflicted upon Saddler's creatures and minions: disjointed visions of himself shooting the ganado monks in the castle halls, the blind garrador he slew in the prison chamber, the novistador nest he destroyed, the creature called IT he managed to escape and eradicate—on and on the scenes flashed, a carousal full of spinning, bloody horses more gruesome and savage than the last. Mayhem by his hands. To be the cause of such violence, to be the creator of it—
Chaos, disorder, death...justice.
Was it justice? He had thought so. But the reasons beneath the reasons were—
(They hurt me so I hurt them back)
Complicated.
The world around him shifted, rock spread beneath his feet and spat weathered sand stone that built itself into the remains of an ancient fortress. The sun had begun its decent, the approaching vise of deep blues and lush crimsons squeezed the golden ball back into the west. The other Leon stood over Krauser's motionless body, relief evident in the sigh that escaped him and the drop of his shoulders. His eyes betrayed the troubled state of his emotions. Regret, worry, a simmering unease. The other Leon squeezed the serpent emblem in his hand, the final piece of the puzzle required for Ashley's freedom, and slid it into his pocket. He had known Krauser a long time, served with him, trained with him—
A fallen warrior, brave, vain, one who made all the wrong choices, served all the wrong masters—
Yes, the fool had pledged his loyalty to that red-eyed cur and thought I would not discover it. Umbrella, we crushed that pest long ago.
(Are you certain? Are you sure?)
We endure, we bring order, we bring death to the unjust, this is what we are, what we will become—
(I don't want it)
We are beyond wants and desires, leave the Sovereign to worry over petty things.
This Sovereign grows impatient. Begin the merging, or I will do it for you.
Nothing begins until I allow it, time is mine to keep. Merry laughter tinged by madness, a manic child playing a game. But as you wish, my lord.
The sunset vanished but the glow remained; Krauser's body melted into the ground. A garden sprang to life around him. Flowers the color of ripened strawberries bloomed underfoot, a brilliant hybrid of roses and irises with folds so crimson they seemed to bleed. Petals spun drifted from unseen trees above and dappled the dark flowers in a pied blanket of ivory and yellow.
Sorrow lives here, in every petal, in every stone, sometimes I cannot bear it.
Birds sang, their calls so pure he could almost pluck them from the air. A melange of floral scents teased his nose and glazed his tongue with sweetness. Broken statues guarded a path of gray cobblestone, the details of their shapes obscured by the ever-sifting fog.
A tremor shook the earth, the stones lining the path crumbled to pieces. Those fragments fell into a spreading hole that barred its teeth and began to eat the world around it. From the mouth of that hungry abyss, a black metal door rotated out of the ground in a thundering rumble that brought to mind an army of ogres charging into battle. The door, a thing of shadows and stone no human had ever built or ever seen, groaned to a stop and hovered in mid-air like the entrance to Hades itself. Ornate scrollwork knotted the frame and surface; lithe females arched their spines, clasped their thighs together, and spread their wings to form the ancient handles. No walls or ceiling on either side, nothing behind it, nothing around it. Just a door...floating there.
Dirt sprinkled from its base, and where its shadow touched, the flowers wilted and died. Whispers began crawling across it like gossamer spiders spinning webs of half-words and mutters. The surface seemed to breath; the etchings warped, the feminine handles writhed in what could have been pain or ecstasy. He backed away, the sense of wrongness urging his heart faster. He had seen that door once, and paired with a bunch of rather unhealthy images he'd like to forget.
“You should fear it. Vengeance comes to claim us.”
Leon turned and saw a slender male standing behind him on the cobblestone path, a mirage born from petal confetti and red flowers. The being was naked, his dark bronze skin shone without blemish; golden hair hung to his waist, pleated with elaborate beading and shimmering things. Almond-shaped eyes appraised him, the irises so vibrant they cast violet reflections along the inner edge of his nose. His face resembled one of the many virile Greek gods, a straight nose with sculpted cheekbones and a strong jaw. But the humanity ended there.
His skin blended at his bony wrists to black, as if someone had dipped his hands in henna ink and neglected to do the rest of him. He held his arms relaxed at his hips, and his fingers reached clear down to his lower thighs; each one tapered to a nail-less point and golden rings, two or three on each elongated digit, shone in the ruddy light. His ankles had the same hued difference as the wrists, but the effect went higher to his calves. The bones in his ankles protruded as if he had a few too many, but they looked stronger than his matchstick wrists. And no aura, not even a glow or twinkle.
“That gift is yours again when the merging is complete,” said the male, a gentle smile softening the hard lineaments of his face. His voice had a curious lilt to it, a mixture of sounds that both pleased and tweaked the ear. The whispers behind him faded somewhat, the spiders retreated back into their dark corners and watched the exchange between him and the male with shining eyes.
“The plaga—remnant. It's...you?” No sense in hiding his surprise. He had expected something hideous, something to match the rage and arrogance of the intruder in his head.
“Beauty is the eye's deception,” the plaga said in a voice too old for the mask of youth it wore. “I am a shriveled oddment of a soul, a purse filled to the brim with worthless treasures.”
“Uh, okay, well how about stuffing your purse with some fig leaves or something. Maybe cover up with some strategically placed flower petals?”
The plaga laughed, his voice and age equals for a moment. “My lack of clothing embarrasses you, such innocence.”
“I'm far from innocent. You should know, you've been babbling in my head for the last six hours.” Now it was Leon's turn to laugh, a self-conscious barking sound full of more fear than he cared to admit. “And in all that time I imagined a big nasty worm squirming around. Funny, when I always get something figured out, that something makes it a point to prove me wrong.” Leon crossed his arms and told his heart to stop beating so fast. “Why now? Why wait until this magic mind meld thing to show yourself to me?”
“Like you, I cling to what is familiar.” The plaga looked through him and Leon didn't have to turn around to know what had him awed. The door was a mouth on his neck breathing cold and heavy. The spiders were getting restless, their webs vibrating with impatience. Enough of the small talk, they seemed to say, get on with it. We got memories to catch and thoughts to eat. Busy busy spiders we be.
“What do I call you?” The remnant tilted his head at him, his expression a doll's version of polite. Petals clung to his hair like bits of fluff. Leon cleared his throat. “Doesn't feel right calling you plaga, or remnant when you look like something that just stepped out of a storybook. You had a name once, right?”
“Yes once, in another time, another place, another memory, I am what remains of the Indigo, Telgren.”
“Telgren.” Leon said the name slow, weighing it on his tongue. “Nice to finally meet you—I guess, even though I oughta kick your scrawny naked ass for putting me through all this shit.” His voice got rougher as his emotions tangled themselves into an angry red knot. “For making me chase Ashley down like some dog, making me feeding on her, taking control of me, creating those screwed-up things you call wings—and a load of other crap I'll remember if you'd just give me a minute.”
“I bore no malice to you, host, not even after the burning lights, not even after your defiance, not even after your ignorance.”
“Telgren, we're on a first name basis, remember? Address me as such.”
“My apologies,” Telgen said with a sly nod. “Which of your three names would you prefer? The one your father called you?”
The mention of his father chucked the last of his patience right out that ugly black door. “That right was his and his only.” His cheeks throbbed and he knew that flush would spread down to his neck if he didn't calm down. “I don't care how much rummaging around you've done in my head, don't think for a second you know me, don't assume you've got special privileges all because you happened to ride a needle into my body. You're an uninvited thing I want gone—and not soon enough.“
Telgren shot him a glare of reproach, but the disbelief trembling in his voice negated the effect. “After all I showed you, after all my guidance, you spurn me?”
“You altered my body, you caused me pain. You made me do things that I can't even repeat without wanting to throw up—“
“My purpose always has been to protect you.”
“Protect me from what? Saddler? I know what he's done to me—but what has he done to you? You never were clear about that. Even that ranting dance you did around him confused me more than it helped me understand.”
Silence answered him. Telgren's eyes had strayed to the door again. It seemed to startle the remnant every time he noticed it as if he kept forgetting it was there. The spiders made light of Telgren's discomfort and wove their webs faster and brighter. Come play with us, they said, we are hungry and thirsty and you look oh so delicious.
“And what the hell is it about this creepy-ass door?” He jerked his head in the direction of its looming presence. “Why is it here...hovering and whispering? I know something's on the other side, something we can't see.”
“Do the spiders frighten you, Leon?”
Spiders. They had been on his mind for a while, ever since he became aware of the plaga and the baggage it decided to dump on him. He used spiders often in reference and the plaga noticed. He tried to push it away, but the memory nagged him, poked his arm, demanded attention.
When he had been a boy, his favorite creepy crawlies made the space between his two story ranch and the old tool shed in the backyard their wondrous home, a shadowy world full of silk and tiny predators that fascinated him for hours. And when Mary Kollins and Lenny Fockner weren't home to go swimming with or play down by the quarry, he would amuse himself by watching the spiders clog the narrow slot with their dazzling sticky strings and pounce on any bug unlucky enough to fall into them.
But one day, and after a few hours of fruitless observation, he found not many insects were stupid enough to get stuck. That hardly seemed fair to him. Spiders had to wait all that time, what if nothing ever showed up?
He pondered this with all the seriousness an eleven year old child could muster, and looked over his freshly-mowed lawn (mowed every Saturday, his father insisted, rain or shine) and the bright pink roses of his mother's garden. Then he caught sight of his victim jump-flying over the dandelions his father didn't quite dismember with the mower. He grinned, his dilemma solved. A grasshopper. Perfect size, didn't sting, bite, pinch, and was easy to catch.
He made a day of it, chasing the poor hapless creatures (and one cricket he found by accident by his mother's perennials) and plopping them into their version of grasshopper hell. He hunkered down to enjoy his handiwork without the tinniest stirring of guilt. They were only grasshoppers, not like they were pretty, or gave pollen to the flowers. And there were plenty of them compared to the spiders (at this time, he remained blissfully unaware of how many spiders the average person swallows in their sleep). What did it matter?
A few weeks later, and late on another boring summer day, he prepared for another round of gathering for his new friends. He leaned his head down to peek in on them and gave a noise of dismay. One of his spiders, a large one he had dubbed a banana spider because of its black body and yellow splotches on its underside, spun a cocoon of death around a struggling monarch butterfly. How it had managed to flutter into such a predicament was a mystery to him.
On instinct he tried to save it, but when his fingers brushed the webs he had once thought amazing and beautiful, revulsion welled up so intense it brought tears to his eyes. He went around to the other side of the shed and tried again. No luck. The butterfly was too far in. He ran off to find a stick, but by the time he returned, the banana spider had its spindly legs clasped around the doomed butterfly and feasted on what it probably considered the best meal it enjoyed since the grasshopper some helpful little boy threw into its web.
The stick dropped from his fingers, he pressed his lips together.
And he went to get the hose.
The memory receded into whatever dark corner it came from. His mind returned to the present. No, spiders didn't frighten him. What filled him with terror was the thought of an alien consciousness having access to his deepest, most private thoughts—and he couldn't do a damn thing about it. Like the grasshoppers he had so casually tossed to the spiders, he was at the mercy of this creature and his enemy, two beings intent on dragging him into their twisted world of hate and love and misery.
“Let me go,” he said. “You know Saddler chose me randomly, and I won't pay for some stupid decision made by an overgrown worm who thinks he's a priest. You slither on out my nose or ears or wherever you have to go to get the hell away from me—but you go on. Get out and take your fucked-up door with you. If it isn't my memory, it isn't my problem.”
“There is no escape for you—or I, we all have roles to fulfill, an endless chain of choices and consequences.” Telgren twisted like a reed nudged by a slow flowing river and drifted nearer. He was close enough now to make out the details of his bracelets and rings, the strange blending of color at his wrists—which really wasn't as smooth as he'd first thought. He expected an airbrush effect, but a scale pattern textured the skin above the knot of bone, tiny oval lines that got smaller and thinner the higher they went. “The Sovereign began the chain with their pride, we shall end it with our justice.”
“You keep saying that word and you don't explain why. Justice for what?”
“All will be revealed when the merging is complete.”
“That isn't good enough!” Leon threw up his hands. He had the urge to throw something at Telgren, something heavy and big.
“To argue with me is to argue with sunlight, with rain, with waves, with leaves, such as I am, a fleeting thing.”
“Enough with the metaphors, I'm tired of them!”
“And I am tired of this palaver,” Telgren said. He stopped swaying like a reed and squared his shoulders. The look he sported, fierce violet eyes ablaze and mouth set thin, had Leon wondering what places he could find to hide in a dream not his. “The door grows weak, the memories a tide against it, let us begin.”
Leon backed away as Telgren advanced. The spiders perked up, their once drooping eyes now alert and glittering. This was what they had been waiting for, the final confrontation between host and parasite.
“Stay the fuck away from me, you crazy worm.” By sheer luck he avoided tripping over a statue head when his foot smacked it and sent it rolling. The ground felt lumpy under his feet, hard mounds of dirt that would have him eating flowers if he didn't watch where he was going.
“Yes, the Sovereign believe we are mad, I will show you why, I will show you what became of that madness.” Even his footsteps were elegant, graceful motions akin to a deer or horse. It became hard to ignore the hypnotic sashay of Telgren's body, the way his long pointed fingers never quit moving, the tinkling of the rings as they caressed one another—
(Hands stroking his back and lower and lower, cupping him there, pressing him closer, under his shirt, against his skin, so warm, so eager)
He gasped when Telgren dropped his hands on his shoulders, the smell of him, a scent he couldn't even begin to describe washed over him in a hot, oily cascade. Drowning again, drowning in butter and honey and blood and salt and—
Telgren curled his fingers around his arm and breathed into his mouth, “Let me show you everything.”
He runs because he has no choice, they are near, they are close, they almost have him. One hall leads to another, so many halls, so many places to hide and all the wrong places. Soon they will find him, soon they will—
He fights a sob and cries out to his master through the binds that tie them. I need you, I need you! Please hear me, come for me! But he knows his master cannot aid him, he fights the unbound with the elders, the ones who—
“What the hell? Get off me!” Leon elbowed Telgren in the face and staggered; his vision filled with ghostly halls and archways, the white floors he had been—
(No, not me, Telgren, he had been the one running)
Telgren's hands found him again, his skin feverishly hot, his grip desperate. “Do you hear them, Leon? Do you hear—“
The bells, he had forgotten to take them off. No wonder they keep finding him, how foolish! He bends and rips the delicate chains from his ankles and throws them down in disgust. Blood drips, then the wounds heal. He runs again and this time others join him, all tainted bound who have been separated from their Sovereign masters and mistresses by either death or misfortune. The damned run for their lives, for their souls. We will free you! the unbound scream, we will end your suffering! Their ululating shrieks send terror through the small cluster of survivors. Their pace quickens. One female slips, falls with a cry, but they do not stop, they cannot stop, if they do—
Leon pulled himself free and fell to the ground. Where his weight crushed, the flowers bled. He recoiled, scrambled backwards into Telgren. There was something in the flowers, those lumps, they were—
The door looms ahead, the private sanctuary of his master. He will be safe there, they all will be. Safe and hidden. They might make it, they might see their precious Sovereign again. Why does he still hear the bells? They tinkle nearby, a spirit knell he cannot locate. No heel in their group bears the chains, they all had cast them away. Why do they ring?
They reach the door and beyond it. They shut it tight, turn the locks that had been ancient long before the first Sovereign took flesh. They huddle together, give comfort to one another. Silence for a moment, the sigh of relief, but then the ringing begins anew. Not just him, they all hear it now. They look at each other in confusion...then with sinking hearts, they look toward the black door.
The laughter rises, the pounding begins. So many hands, they sound like drums. He can smell the blood on the other side. We know you're there, the unbound say. We've come to return what you've lost, what you tossed aside so carelessly. Can you hear them ringing?
The door, once so strong and unyielding, buckles.
Behind them and in eerie tandem with the vision, the susurrus swelled, the spiders grew to the size of fists. Laughter, a choked cry, a far off scream. The voices approached from an imaginary hallway, running footsteps and tinkling chains. Something thumped against the door, the voices waxed and waned, the webs spun out of control. Another thump, more force this time, more insistent. We know you're there, it said. We know, we know, we can smell you, can you hear the bells? The thumps became violent, dozens of them now, bodies barreling into the other side at a full-out run. The door shuddered, the spiders darted to all corners and disappeared. Hundreds of hands pounded with all their strength. The frame shook, more dirt sprinkled free.
Blood on his hands. Something in the flowers, something bleeding. He panted, sweat dripped down his face and trickled down back. Telgren caught his arm with a gleeful sound born of a laugh and a sob. In that tight grip, something slithered beneath Telgren's skin, something alive, something that pressed against his palm as if it meant to come through. “Do you feel it, Leon? They are all inside me, every memory, every dream, every thought—the ringing, the bells never stop ringing—every birth, every death, all of them ringing, ringing, ringing—“
Once more he threw Telgren off and charged past him. Desperation forced him close to door's shadow—nothing but sludge there now, the flowers had rotted into a primordial soup. A muddy slurping sound, and the soup parted to reveal corpses in the likeness of Telgren's species. They all bore horrific wounds, heads missing, limbs severed, faces torn open. Leon gagged, lost his balance.
Telgren made a grab for him and he dodged. The blackened flesh at the Indigo's feet and hands had begun to spread to the rest of his body. Where it traveled, his skin cracked and curved into bigger, thicker scales. These scales moved and joined together, two by two. Once united, they flexed and attempted to tug themselves free. The tips changed color: black brightened into blue, deepened into red, ripened into purple. The tips lengthened, grew thin, transparent, and...fluttered. Oh God, not scales, not scales at all. Wings.
“We must become one, we must escape!” cried Telgren. His little soon-to-be butterflies fluttered and flopped as if trying to alight from a puddle of sticky taffy. They covered the Indigo from his head to down to his string-bean toes. Telgren knelt and hugged himself, sobbing. Tremors racked his body. That sparked a memory and Ashley's voice came suddenly from nowhere and everywhere.
I'm cold Leon, I can't feel me anymore.
Shrieking, but not behind the door this time. On it. The winged handles screamed as if someone was attacking them with a crowbar and prying them free one pewter feather at a time. They writhed again in that strange dance of agony and pleasure; he couldn't look at them without feeling a stirring in his loins and horror at his response.
Leon ran for the trees that he knew—despite the fog covering them with its smoky breath—would be on the other side of the quaint cobblestone path.
Like a vengeful spirit, Saddler emerged from the mist and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. “Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Kennedy, all this fuss!” he said and squeezed so hard Leon thought his eyes would pop out of their sockets. “The remnant is about to grant you a wondrous gift, the highest we can offer mortal flesh.”
Unfortunately, this time he didn't have his razor wings, he didn't have the plaga, all he had was his human strength—and compared to the Sovereign's, he might as well try beating up a brick wall. But that didn't stop him from flailing and kicking like a wild man. Saddler punished him with another squeeze that send his blood slamming against his forehead and trickling out his nose. Exhaustion and mental stress won. He slumped, woozy and breathing heavy.
A howl rose, a legion of souls crying out in ecstasy, hatred, fury. Saddler winced and pulled him back. Telgren covered his ears and his butterflies pressed flat. The door buckled, one hinge flew free. Leon expected the voices to trickle out the sides like water before the door exploded. He braced himself, anticipating the worst.
Then everything stopped. The voices, the pounding, even the whispers that began it all.
The silence didn't bring relief, it resonated with its own terrible sense of dread.
Feed, become one.
“Your assistance shames me!” Telgren teetered to his feet, his butterflies moving in a delicate ripple of rainbow wings. Beautiful, but then so was a lion before it pounced, a hawk before it dove.
“I give it, regardless.”
He came toward them, a skinny brown doll made out of furling paper. “You won't have us, he is strong, he will resist you.”
“This isn't matter of conquest, this is a chance for reconciliation.”
“Call it what you wish, it is all the same to me.”
Thoughts of escape blinked on and off like the lights on the platform bridge. A mass of folding wings buried Telgren's once handsome face. One butterfly broke free from his cheek, but some invisible force kept it from flying away. Telgren's gaze bored into his own. Ancient eyes; eyes that had seen wars and uprisings and rebellions and revolutions, and had seen every age of reckoning.
“Wait, wait a minute!” He didn't care how he sounded to them. He knew he was on the verge of losing it, of losing everything that made him who he was. “I have nothing to do with this! I have a mission to complete, I have to finish it. I have a...home, a life—I have a sister—I have a sister and her name is Leslie, and she'll know, she'll know something's happened to me. Your wars aren't mine! This isn't right, this is bullshit...you can't just—“
"Be silent!" Saddler shoved him forward by the back of the neck, offering him as a sacrifice to the butterfly god. “Do it. Take his mind, take his body, make him yours. And then I will make him mine.”
Telgren sighed and nodded as if giving a blessing.“May he be the one to finally end you.” He extended his hands. Leon drew up as best as he could in the stringent hold Saddler had on him, and raised his chin. Fine then, if this was his final act as himself, he would do it with dignity. “Leon,” Telgren murmured low and soft. “The ringing is yours now.”
The remnant's body exploded in a whirl of nacreous wings. Saddler planted his feet to keep him from thrashing as the butterflies swarmed over him. The core of Telgren's body disappeared—all except his eyes, those awful violet eyes that locked on his own and stayed there.
Be strong, don't falter, this part is the worst.
The swarm dove into him, each wing piercing him like a blade and each blade carrying a memory, an image, an emotion. So many dreams, hopes, fears, thousands, millions of years and years and—
He screamed. The sheer magnitude, the weight of those thoughts forced him to his knees, words not his tumbled over each other in a mad rush to see which could rent his mind first. He lost himself in the maelstrom of wings, each butterfly a world experienced as someone else, another host, another species. He couldn't bear the onslaught; he was being drowned, being set on fire, being torn to shreds, being gutted, being eaten alive, and at the same time, he was rising from a battlefield, waking at dawn, gasping for air, opening his eyes, feeding on someone for the first time, the last time, crying out as he died and revived as someone new.
To protect itself, his consciousness mind fled out of reach, out of sight.
You must endure this. It's why the remnant chose you. Not many can survive the merging, it takes a strong soul, one I know you have.
That voice, he knew it. It had a name. The current of memories tugged him away and from the safety the voice promised. If they pulled him too far he wouldn't get back.
Yes, I'll be your anchor. Cling to me.
The dark shape swam near and he reached for it in a wild panic. The sea receded, the tide of what was and what had been before rolled away from him and left him in peace. He felt gorged, yet empty, his mind a raw thing that cowered in a tight ball, whimpering and hurting. The dark creature nuzzled him, drew him near. A warning flashed, a whisper of caution.
Hear me! Don't let the Sovereign bond, don't let him take you, you'll end up like the others—
Shh, don't fret, let me ease your burden. The creature lowered him to the grass and his awareness split. Two places held him captive: one physical, where something warm thrust against him and created pleasure that made him buck and strain. The other was here, with this being that stroked his soul, teased it from its hiding place and embraced it as a lover. He moaned, his non corporeal form twisting in delight at the attention.
You sense the familiarity, don't you? We are old lovers, my first and last. I have loved every form you take, every shape. I have gone without you too long.
The creature—
(I know his name, his name is)
ran its hands over his body, no clothing here to hinder its affection. He gasped when its hand dipped between his thighs and he rose to meet it. But that feeling of unease continued to distract him. The creature's mouth covered his, its tongue exploring deep, tasting him.
And the hooks sunk in.
He yelped, tried to struggle. More memories spun in his vision, but they belonged to the creature holding him prisoner. Slaves he had conquered before, made before, taken before. The hooks went deeper, grew barbs that poked the tender, exposed flesh of his spirit. His fighting turned frantic.
I do this to save you, to protect you, without guidance you will destroy yourself.
No! I know the true reasons for this. I know, I know, I know—
Reality slapped him in the face with a palmful of fire nettles. His world exploded around him with bright bursts of sound and flashes of light. His eyes opened, but he couldn't see. He flailed, rolled onto his stomach. A woman shouted, a roar of inhuman fury answered. Angry popping sounds, more explosions, fire eating holes in his skin, his flesh melting away. Terrified, he clawed at his face. All intact, no blood, no wounds. Good, that was good. But why was he blind?
He tried to speak and a croak emerged. The woman swore. Another explosion, louder, angrier. Something roared past his ears, the heat of it so close he could smell his hair singeing. Metal collapsed, something crashed all around him. Cold things pelted his body. He crouched, covered his head. Another unearthly shriek and the fierce urge to aid, to give assistance flooded him.
(He's under attack, he needs me, he)
No, you escaped the binding, a male voice chided him. You fool, flee, don't let him sunder your soul.
Leave him, run away, hurry, get out of sight, agreed a different voice, female this time.
The voices retreated and darkness lightened, shapes had form again. The world couldn't make up its mind what it wanted to show him. Petals fell then disappeared. Grass grew from the steel floor, withdrew, then grew back again. He tried to stand and failed.
Come to me, free me, I need you!
A large metal frame lay in a tangled mess over two platforms, trapping a naked man—the Sovereign, who bellowed and tossed the huge beams aside as if they weighed nothing. His upper jaw flopped at his throat, a thick fold of skin the only thing keeping it from detaching completely. It healed as he watched, the flesh sprouting tiny threads that stitched themselves into the damaged parts with the skill of an expert weaver. Blood drenched his face and coated his body in large dripping patches. And no eyes...no wonder he had been blind. The Sovereign's aura churned with serpents breathing fire and spitting in rage.
Those serpents called to him, but this was a siren song he had the strength to refuse. The bonding. Not finished, not complete. He was still free. Elation flooded him, but with it came the renewed sense of duty, of purpose. The Sovereign had to die, he was an abomination, a tainted soul not meant for flesh. And as an Indigo, he was the Creator's hand, His tool to wield. He would deal the Sovereign's punishment.
“Leon!” The woman's aura, a dark violet that shrouded her golden core, assailed him on all sides. His hunger slept in its cave, sated for now by the Sovereign's energy—the only thing the creature was good for. He yanked his arm out of her hands, not interested in what she had to offer. A frown flashed across her face; her aura swayed closer, uncertain. “I'm sorry, I only had one shot with the launcher. I...missed. I didn't want to hit you.” She shot a worried look in the direction of the Sovereign. The silly thing thought that creature was a threat. His enemy was helpless, treed by the steel of his own construct—what did she have to fear? “The way Saddler's throwing metal around, we only have minutes to get below...Leon, what's the matter?” She tried to touch him again and he snarled at her. She blanched and reached for her weapon. An inherent reaction, one practiced and natural. This female was a warrior. He narrowed his eyes, his own weapons moving under his skin, preparing to defend or cleave on his command.
“Yes! Kill her! Destroy that American cunt!” the Sovereign roared and he threw another beam to accentuate his point. For every piece of steel he removed, another took its place. He remembered a game like that, but its name slipped away somewhere in the waters of his mind. He lost interest in the woman and looked inward. The bond threads hummed between them, but their ends frayed like wet twine. He gathered them in his mental palm and snapped them in two. The Sovereign flinched and a sound escaped him that might have been a sob or a cry of anger. By his aura it was both.
“I am not your whore.” He walked up to the metal cage and grinned at the ancient creature glowering back. “Your hooks went deep, Sovereign, but not deep enough. Tell me, how would you like to die? Slowly? Quickly? I'm in a generous mood, I may even let your servants live.”
Careful, child, danger! said a woman with red curls and a tiny pert nose. She peered through the dark with his eyes and a faint purple aura haloing her body. If he went closer, he would see the reds and blues within its core. Our bane still lives inside him, he will use it if you come near!
The wings sprang free and pressed against the Sovereign's throat before he could move. “If I see so much as a twitch from that repulsive organ under your ribs,” he said, “I will have your servants devour you alive.” In another time, in that hazy period before the merging began, these weapons had been difficult for him to use. Now he could manipulate them with ease‪—and he demonstrated this by flicking one feather across the Sovereign's fleshy chin while the others stayed at his throat. Blood spurted, then dribbled, then stopped.
“Destroying me will not be easy.” The Sovereign's voice and aura conveyed a gentleness that confused him. It was not the bluster or arrogance he had expected. “We must finish what we started. Your mental state will continue to degrade if we do not. Already I can see the madness in your eyes—“
“What you call madness I call clarity.”
“Clarity?” The laugh infuriated him so much, he raked a feather over the Sovereign's lower lip. But through the blood, the laughter sputtered on. “Tell me of this clarity, then. What is your name?”
“Leon,” he replied without hesitation.
“The cunt told you that. What is your father's name? Your mother's? Sister's? Who is the meddlesome bitch behind you? Tell me, pequeño, prove me wrong.”
He searched inside him again, but found nothing but a sea full of distant islands and scraps of memories scattered on each. His sight faded in and out, his head ached. His discomfort was profound, but he let none of it show. “I may not know who I am, but I know what you are and what I must do.”
“That duty ended a long time ago, why can't you see that?” Sovereign began and shut his mouth when the tip of his wing swiped again. The tiny river of red trickled over his collarbone and trailed down his chest. To his dismay, the Sovereign leaned into it, and the river widened into a large stream. “Go on then, chico, end me. See if you can. The memories will stop you. We know each other, we have sang this song many times.”
“Are you getting this?” said the woman in a hushed tone. The fact she had come this close without him knowing told him he needed to rest, to regroup. To add to his already exhausted mental state, the Sovereign's cage had begun to warp before his eyes, it became a pit with black spikes, a towering prison full of blades, a—
“Yes, I am. Quite intriguing.”
Not one of his voices. This male spoke from an square device attached to the woman's hip. He knew the name of it, but remembering names made his temples throb. His mind drifted to the fragments on the open sea, islands that would float away forever if he did not swim to them soon.
“Look at me, pequeño, hear me.” The Sovereign pressed against the steel bars, his yearning striking a chord within him. Before his eyes, The Sovereign's skin changed to bronze and his hair to gold.
(His name...what was his name?)
And that face morphed into another humanoid, a woman with flaming red skin and four arms. Uncertainty reeled his wings back into place and he stepped away. “Yes, that's it,” the Sovereign crooned. “Do you remember me now? Don't be afraid, I would never hurt you—“
“Oh Osmund, we all know that's a lie,” said the strange man. He sounded cheerful, but the undertone of cunning betrayed him. The male had knowledge of who the Sovereign were; he knew their tricks. Who was he?
“Silence, Umbrella fool.” The Sovereign hunched his back, the skin protruded and stretched as tentacles moved underneath. “You couldn't even begin to comprehend nor fathom the importance of what has happened here—of what I've discovered.”
“Then enlighten me, oh great one," said the man. The woman unclipped the device and raised it in the air. Against the night sky, the bright window cast a small reflective blotch upon the ground. Inside the window, a man with golden hair and dark glasses leaned forward upon a desk from another place in the world, and folded his gloved hands under his chin. His aura flamed around him, the edges tinted a bright azure. Not human, not like the female. But not Sovereign either.
Curious, he approached the small window in the woman's hand. Something about the male nudged his hunger from its sleeping curl. It yawned, smacked its lips. The man looked at him, his lips curving into a subdued, but delighted smile. Behind his glasses, his eyes glowed like embers. “Hello, there.”
“Do not speak to him! You are not worthy!” Spittle flew from the force of the Sovereign's words and the tentacles he had been busy constructing inside him burst from his shoulders in a spray of gore. The woman veered to the side—and he leaped to the other as the appendages groped for them through the spaces between the beams.
“My, my, what a temper. You know you're only making it worse for yourself,” said the man with a chuckle when the woman brushed the device off and checked for damage.
“Yes, laugh you powerless fool, laugh from the hole you cower in! You sent your slut and your idiot to do your dirty work because you are feeble, human. You are nothing!”
(Said the pot to the kettle, you're black)
In his mind he swam for the closest island, one that glimmered under the moonlight, one that promised to reveal all should he reach it in time.
“Saddler, you call this variation...Indigo, right?” asked the man. His aura sparked and flared as if someone out of sight fanned his flames.
“Wesker,” said the woman in warning. “All because Leon can't remember now doesn't mean he won't remember later.”
“Whatever Saddler has done seems to have altered Mr. Kennedy's perception. Perhaps he will never recover at all. You should prepare for that.”
His swim halted and his mental awareness treaded water. “Do not speak of me as if I'm not here!” he growled. The island could wait. If this blond creature thought he could control him, then that made him no different from the Sovereign.
“Do not listen to him!” The Sovereign ceased thrashing his tentacles and put them to work clearing the steel debris. A stack of beams cluttered the ground, and the prison appeared less confining than before. The woman's plan to get below seemed wiser each passing moment. “He has no idea what you are, what you are capable of. You belong to us, you are one of us!”
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend, Mr. Kennedy. How about you follow Ms. Wong and she'll help you find a safe place to rest your head. You look a bit...fatigued.”
He looked down at the remains of his shirt, the gaping hole he didn't quite remember how he received and the blood caking the hem of his pants—
(bodies pressing, warm hands, the slide of fingers over flesh)
And decided the man was right. He did need to recuperate from the botched soul binding and plan his next move. The Sovereign's ganado would need cleansing—only the strongest of them would do. If he could glean enough ganado on his side, defeating the Sovereign would be a walk in the park—
(A piece of cake, easier said than done, easy as pie, easy as one-two-three)
Memories sloshed in his head, words and phrases bobbed like corks. His islands seemed so far away. He looked up at the night sky. The stars were all wrong, not in the right places. The plain white moon became two moons, one large and red, the other small and green. Then those moons rolled into four moons, thee plain white, but one had rings so large they speared the horizon. He staggered into the woman. She steadied him and took his hand in hers. She smelled like peaches and white wine. Her aura cradled him in arms of blue violet with golden trim. “I can't find the right island,” he said as if she could point him in the right direction. “I'm trying, but I can't swim anymore.”
“Ms. Wong, escort Mr. Kennedy below. I believe he won't resist this time.”
“No! You will regret this, dog! Mongrel! Infidel! I will find you, I will crush what you love and tear it to pieces as you watch!”
“Of course you will. Nice talking to you, Osmund, I'll see you soon. Adios.”
The Sovereign howled and shook his prison like an enraged primate. His tentacles whipped and cracked at the steel. His aura soared above the beams as if it would set him free by pulling the very air around it.
When the woman yanked him toward the lift, he didn't protest. The Sovereign slammed himself into steel and sent most of his cage tumbling to the ground. He had to dig his way out, but the feeling he would follow soon augmented their pace into a run.
Once inside the elevator contraption, and after the woman jabbed the button marked DOWN, she said, “Leon, look at me, please. Do you remember me at all?” Her aura colors draped over one another: sadness, guilt, regret. He couldn't answer her, nor did he want to. Instead of a jittery elevator that creaked and clanked as it descended, he traveled in a glass pod that moved in a gliding downward spiral. A mountain range stretched before him, the highest peaks crested with ice pink snow. A ocean of green shimmered beyond that. Flying creatures with striped forked tails and red wings circled their pod, their name a glittering shell on one of his islands. He rested his head on the railing and shut his eyes.
“Don't jar his memory just yet. I prefer him this way, no muddled emotions to deal with.”
“Of course,” said the woman. “But what if Saddler's right and his mental state is degrading. That might cause problems.”
“True, but I'm sure you can handle things until I get there.”
He affirmed not to trust this man. Not even his female liked him. A crash above and the woman inhaled in surprise. He should have killed the Sovereign when he had the chance, given him a taste of the Creator's glory. The Sovereign had been forbidden to take flesh and they defied that punishment. For that they all would die. These convictions resounded with holy echo in his head, but he began to have doubts. The words the Sovereign spoke haunted him.
We know each other, you and I, we have sang this song many times.
Was it true? Why couldn't he remember?
No sign of their enemy and the woman relaxed. She tapped the railing with her fingernails, every vibration reaching him with a cold shiver. “But if he happens to remember...”
“As I said, I prefer that he doesn't. Keep him out Saddler's reach until I arrive. I'm bringing extensive reinforcements...and the Blood Angels. They haven't had an outing in a while, should be fun.”
“Only you would think so. What about the girl?”
“If you do not dispose of her, I will. She'll complicate matters.”
The woman sighed as if she knew all along he would say that. But if she knew, why did she ask? These people were so odd. He opened his eyes. A bird with a tail longer than his arm flew by. He tried to touch it, but his fingers grasped air.
“Your ETA?”
“Three hours. Be ready.”
Pequeño: Little one
Chico: boy
Adios: I think you know that one.
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