I glared at the woman I'd called 'Mother' for so many years. Her eyes were as wide as I'd ever seen them and I watched with hatred as she gave me the once over and then eyed Aaron with a great amount of disinterest. "Snow, you've been a bad girl. Do you know how many problems you've caused for me and your father?" I mentally begged Aisu to bring the rest of the group.
My thoughts were answered with a rush of footsteps that came from behind me. "Aaron, who's behind us?" I asked evenly, keeping a close eye on my mother in case she tried to pull anything. Aaron turned to me and smiled.
"It's everybody, Aisu, Nerr, Kallen.... who's the tall boy?" He asked, his eyes narrowed suspiciously.
"Nathan." I said quietly. "He's my friend. He's a former Enforcer." Aaron nodded before he turned to face my mother. "Guys," I said, raising my voice, "Take Aaron, and get out of here."
"...Snow, who is that woman? She looks a lot like you." Nerr said, her voice just barely drifting over to me.
"That's her mother, Nerr." Nathan answered. I tensed.
"Take. Aaron." I said through gritted teeth. "Now." Aisu's lithe form darted up to me and he looked at me with large, pleading icy blue eyes. I smiled down at my Aisu before I handed Aaron off to Kallen. "You guys go ahead..." I began, just as that boy, Blaze, materialized behind my mother.
"Mother? Is she bothering you?" Blaze said, his green eyes flitting over to me, flickering with curiosity.
"Yes, Blaze. She's caused me a lot of trouble. Why don't you help us cage the troublemaker, my boy?" My mother's screechy voice belted out. Blaze smiled at my mother with something like adoration while I simply glared.
"Thanks, mom, I love you, too." I said venomously. I gave Blaze an even look as he turned to face me, his eyes wide in surprise.
"Why did you call my mother 'mom' ?" Blaze asked, his voice hardly reaching me. I grinned malevolently and tilted my head to one side.
"Because, Blaze, she is my mother. She's the reason that I've suffered and the reason that I've lived. She is the source of my hate, my pain, my pride, and my gratitude. It was her, you see, how showed me how cold this world can be." I said, my sharp canines glistening. I laughed as Blaze looked taken aback, hiding my shock that Blaze was -potentially- my brother.
I laughed bitterly as he shook his head in denial. "It's not true! It can't be!" Blaze cried, anger flashing across his eyes. I have him a half-smile as he charged toward me, fire dancing across his palms, and erected a large wall of ice to block him. Blaze ran right into it before he melted a hole through it and I held my fist out.
Blaze's face crashed into my fist and I heard bone crunch. My arm jolted backward but I held firm. "You can't beat me, Blaze. I've seen and been part of more violence and pain that you well ever know. Give up while you can, brother." I said. The word brother had rolled off my tongue awkwardly, but I said it to shock Blaze, and it worked.
Pulling out my sword, I gave it a thick coating of rock-hard ice and swung it at the stunned boy before me. Blaze barely dodged my blade and jumped backward, his head hitting my icy wall. I grimaced when I turned and noticed that my friends were still behind me. "GO!" I shouted, dodging a rather furious fireball, "Go before it's too late! Then all this effort will go to waste!" It took another minute or so before my companions could leave.
I growled in anger and glared at the villainous woman who easily pitted her children against each other. "It doesn't have to be like this, you know." I said smoothly as Blaze came at me with a fiery dagger. I parried the blow and leaned in closer to him. "We don't have to fight." Blaze's eyes widened and I shoved him backward hard enough for him to fall. I leaped forward and distracted him with my sword, swinging close enough to force him back, but far enough that the blade wouldn't hurt him. As I took up all of Blaze's attention I shouted, "Aisu, now!"
Aisu shot forward, eating up the distance with his long strides before he jumped and landed gracefully behind Blaze and clamped his jaws tightly around Blaze's throat. "It doesn't have to end like this, Blaze." I said as he struggled with Aisu. I stepped on his stomach and pushed hard enough with my foot that I knocked the air out of him. "You don't have to die, and I don't have to kill the only part of my family that never harmed me."
Blaze gritted his teeth and HISSED at me. I growled. "What are you, a cat?" I said with a slight tone of disgust in my voice. I couldn't stand cats. All they did was scratch and sleep. Blaze's eyes widened with realization.
"Why yes, yes I am." He said, before a panther took his place. Blaze's green eyes stood out against its dark fur. I laughed.
"Is that how you want to play this?" I asked as it nodded in response. "Well then, I hope you have fun. I know I will." I said. Shifting in midair, I pounced on Blaze's back and bit deep into his throat while Aisu held down the rest of Blaze's body. "I don't want to kill you." I said, "But if you threaten my packmates, or if you try to kill me, I will kill you."
Blaze went limp under my grip and with a nod to Aisu, we both bolted for the door, the ground blurring beneath our feet. My tail streamed out behind me and I knew that the only thing that could stop us... well whatever could stop us had to be very, very large. As in a large squad of Warriors about to swing at me.
I jumped over Aisu and shifted human before I led him down a series of hallways. "Geez, all these buildings have the same inner structure!" I said, growling at Aisu. "You'd think they'd invent something ne-" My critique of the place was abruptly cut off by a trap door that fell underneath my feet. "Well it seems that the Government is a bit smarter than I thought." I grumbled as I dropped a good fifteen feet.
Moments had passed and I began to search for an exit. The walls were rough, which could help with climbing and the floor was strangely soft... With sudden inspiration, I shot large spikes of ice into the ground and tunneled into the surface before I leaped into the hole that was left behind, followed quickly by Aisu.
Grabbing the strands of ice I left behind, I quickly excavated to the surface and gasped as I hit fresh air. I ran as quick as I could to the fence with Aisu, to feel a familiar type of glove grab the cuff I'd forgotten on my wrist. I screamed like an animal (apparently 'animalistically' isn't a word...) as pain ran up my arm and concentrated in my chest. I tugged my wrist away with as much force as I could muster and stumbled forward into the awaiting arms of a Government official. I quickly unsummoned Aisu just before somebody ran him through with a spiked weapon and welcomed the sinister darkness that consumed my vision.
Sometime later, a rather loud, annoying beeping noise reached my ears. I could hardly breathe, and a ringing in my ears seemed to keep me from hearing much. "...You used to much force! How can we Sacrifice her in this state?!" A familiar, screeching voice called. I remembered when it used to be soft, melodic, and comforting. How she'd changed...
"Well I'm sorry, but would you rather not have a Sacrifice at all?!" Another voice answered. I was slowly regaining the use of my limbs, and with them, a pulsating, searing pain. I held in a loud groan and peeked my eyes open. What I saw shocked me a bit. Blaze, that adoring mother's boy, and the woman I despised eyed each other as if to rip the other's throat out.
My mother slapped Blaze with a resounding SMACK! and stalked out of the room with heavy breaths. I opened my eyes fully, watching as Blaze glared at the door angrily. "And that is what I had to put up with... except, you know, more violent." I said, making Blaze's head whip around in surprise.
"She's not always like that! It was my fault!" Blaze exclaimed. I laughed.
"Sure, it was. Shouldn't she just be grateful that you did what you were supposed to? That you helped capture me?" Blaze's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "She was the one who came up with my Sacrifice routines, how they were going to humiliate and torture me. She gave me away, Blaze. She gave a child away for money." Blaze shook his head.
"You're lying!" He shouted. I said nothing for a few minutes before I sighed.
"Why don't you ask her yourself, Blaze? Ask her to tell you what happened to Snow six years ago. Ask her what she did with her ten year old daughter!" I laughed in frustration. "She's right outside the door, so man up and ask her!"
Blaze moved to the door silently and opened it to face our smug looking mother. "Tell him, Ma! Tell him what you did with your ten year old daughter!" My mother looked a bit shocked to see me moving so freely as I stretched and slid out of the bed, greatful that my clothes had not been removed. "Tell him what you did after that man came to the door and asked for you! Tell him how you gave me away for money!" My mother laughed nervously.
"Now, now, Snow, aren't you getting tired?" I laughed in her face .
"No! I have more energy right now than I've had in a long, long time! Tell him, Mom! Tell him what you did, or I'll tell it for you!" Blaze looked taken aback. My mother floundered for words before I launched into the tale myself.
"Blaze, when I was about ten years old, I opened the door after talking to this she-bat over here." I gestured to our mother. "A tall man in a white coat came in and he asked to see said she-bat and so let him. Ten minutes later this thing... and she called herself my mom... she'd said she loved me before the man came. Ten minutes later... TEN... she says she hates me. She never wanted me. That mom I used to have, she pushed me out the door with the man in the lab coat, and I didn't see her after that.
"It turned out that for six years she came up with the routines that I had to go through as a Sacrifice, and for doing them in a particularly bloody, violent way, she became very wealthy." I said, trying to read the expression on my mother's stiff face. She raised a hand to hit me, and yet, before it could touch my skin, a hand reached out and stopped it.
"Is that true, Mother?" Blaze asked, his green eyes uncertain. Our mother struggled to find any words to speak and then slowly nodded her head before she opened her mouth.
"Yes! B-but Snow was a very bad child! She never did what I asked her to do right away! I had to repeat myself and then she'd do it slowly!" My mother said. I narrowed my eyes.
"That was one time and it was after I broke my arm! How can you expect a child to help weed a garden when they can't use one of their arms?!" I exclaimed. My mother searched for more excuses.
"S-she would never.... she always... Blaze, I'm your mother! I did this for you and for me!" I growled under my breath.
"What did I get out of this? I had a little sister that I never met!" My mother sighed.
"Actually, you two were always within the same household. You were inseparable." Blaze and I exchanged glances. "But after Snow left we erased your memories of each other." I punched my mother in the face. She stumbled back, her hands clutching her cheek as she glared at me.
"Snow, you've caused far too many problems for me! I'm going to have you Sacrificed! Tomorrow!" She screeched before slamming the door. Blaze sent me an apologetic look before he followed her and locked me in the room. I summoned Aisu.
As I looked into his worried blue eyes, I told him what happened and collapsed onto the bed in sorrow. "Aisu, what have I done?" I said softly. Aisu laid down beside me and hugged me close to him.
"Don't worry. I'm sure we'll find a way to get you out of this. I promise, you won't be Sacrificed again." He murmured. I drifted off into a tormented sleep.
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Hi! Sorry for the long wait! I'm not gonna try to come up with an excuse for this one, but I hoped you enjoyed this chapter! *sweatdrops* I wasn't really happy with the way this chapter turned out, but I'll make it up to you guys next chapter *devillish grin*
Until Next Time,
October/Fallen