Dedicated Chapter Song: Towards The Sun - Rhianna
Turn your face towards the sun
Let the shadows fall behind you
Don't look back, just carry on
And the shadows will never find you
(The Elites)
16 Years Ago:
The four children, clutching to their writhing selves cried in agony in that rusted and broken down warehouse. Only one out of the four was calmer than the others. "R-Ruby..." Rosaline Lariviere crawled on her stomach towards her baby sister, who was no more than five at the time. Ruby was curled up into a ball, screaming and crying for their mother.
The toxic injections they'd been given had begun to change them physically, inside and out. Their bones grew stronger, and some small or large detail on the outside changed for all of them, marking them as products of Violet Experimentation. That man would be back in a few short hours to collect them if they managed to fully survive the injections. No one really knew what to do until then except mourn.
"Hey..." Anna reached out to the boy who hid in the dark corner of the warehouse. "Please..." he sobbed, laying his small head into his arms. "... don't come any closer. It's all my fault..." he wept, fearful of his life and fearful of any other human contact. Anna made sure to be gentle with him, as she'd known to do with her own baby brother whenever he was in trouble.
"No, I don't blame you," Anna slowly approached him, getting down on her knees. She knew to be patient with him. "My fr- um...I was kidnapped by someone I trusted...and I was sold out here. How did you get here?"
"My older brother," the teenage boy snivelled. "my twin brother....he... he's one of the high-ranking Elite members...he enjoys killing people for a living. He says if I don't start doing it, then he'll kill me too." the boy began to bawl again.
"Hey," Anna reassuringly placed her arm on his shoulder. "I'm not gonna let you die, okay?" she glanced over her shoulder at the Larivieres. "I'm not going to let any of us die." Rose took a fistful of her sister's hair in her hands, staring at it in horror. "We're going to do whatever it takes to get out of here." she turned back to the boy, who'd removed his head from his arms. Anna sucked in a breath at the sudden appearance of his face. "Wait a second. I know you..."
"You're the girl who saved me from the explosion the other day..."
“Yeah, that's right...” Anna nodded slowly. "Your eyes were green, last I checked."
"And your eyes were blue." he pointed out.
"Are they not still?" Anna reached over and picked up a broken mirror shard, staring at her reflection. "My eyes!” she shrieked. “What...is this?”
"Are we going to be like this forever, Rosie?" Ruby sobbed into her sister's chest. Rose did her best to comfort her but had no idea how in this kind of a situation. All she could do was hold her sister close and sing to her in French, the only language she could speak properly at the time. She was perfectly fluent in English but when stressed, could barely form words in it.
"No," Anna rose to her feet. "We're going to make it through this. As long as we stick together, come hell or high water we'll make it out of this dirty, disgusting place and live peacefully on the surface. That's a damn promise!"
"Life on the surface..." Rose deadpanned. "Is that... even possible anymore?”
"Look, we might have to get our hands dirty and stained but we can't live if we don't fight. It's like my father once said; 'You can't always win by playing nice. One day, you'll have to get your hands dirty and disgusting. But someday all that hard work will pay off in the end’." Anna said, hopefully. "We'll get strong and we'll kill every last person who ever wronged us!” she grabbed the vials up from the floor and smashed them, soaking up the liquid with nearby trash so that the serums— what was left of them— couldn't be used on anyone else.
“While we're at it,” she spoke softly. “We'll also figure out how to kill the Titans so that we, and the good people of Humanity can rest peacefully!" she turned to Cullen Gretzky with an open hand and a determined expression. "Whaddya say, boy? Want to be my partner in crime?"
Cullen stared up at the girl in awe. She was his savior. His goddess. His will to live. This girl saved his life twice in the same week without knowing him or even expecting something in return. All his life Cullen had been abused by his older brother Myles both verbally and physically.
Whatever this girl was seeing, Cullen would be sure to stand by her side to see it with her. And in that moment as he reached out to take her hand he felt his heart thump in his chest, pounding ever so loudly. In that brief second of his skin touching hers, he knew, he would love this girl before him forever.
4 Months Later
“And for my final test,” crooned Samuel Fritz, sitting on his “throne” overlooking the rotten training grounds that the Masqueraders fought in. It was no stranger to anyone forced into this disgusting gang to be forced to fight for their lives at least once. That day would determine who holds the high position of the newest Elites, as half of the old ones had been captured and executed by the Military Police.
What was left of them fought against the Rooks, the level of expertise and fighting skills below the Elites. That consisted of Anna, Rose, Cullen, Ruby, a girl named Emily, a boy named Sebastian and his sister Milah, a boy named Hunter, and a few others that Anna refrained from interacting with at all.
The remaining Elites were a woman named Victoria Damon— the woman who just so happened to be present at the time Anna was given up and when they'd all been poisoned—, a trickster by the name of Jade Adkitson who happened to be Hunter's older sister, a sly thief called Garrett and a murderous lunatic named Maier.
Maier had several charm bracelets running up her arms, each having a different charm for every person she ever killed. Anna had counted five full bracelets of ten charms each at one point.
Rose, Ruby and Cullen had all miraculously passed, defeating Jade, Garrett and Maier, exclusively in such order. It came down to Victoria and Anna. Victoria was known to be the most brutal and blood thirsty fighters ever. If Anna wanted to win this fight, she knew her hands had to be stained.
The crowd roared with rowdiness as the two women entered the fighting arena. Anna raised her head and locked her heterochromia eyes on her pale-headed target. Victoria's bright red eyes like her “father”'s sent chills down the brunette's spine. She looked to her friends for comfort.
Rose and Ruby had fled after Ruby had a massive freak post killing Garret. The young child was so haunted that her sister was afraid of letting anyone else close to her. Cullen was the only one there watching her with a reassuring smile. ‘Remember your promise,’ he mouthed.
“My promise...” Anna whispered, taking two silver daggers up from the line of laid out weapons. ‘That's right. We're all going to get out of here one day. We're going to live above the surface. All we need to do to get there... is to fight.’
“Ugh, you're so boring,” Victoria groaned, twirling her staff about in her hands. “Are you gonna advance or do I have to do it? Piece of shit girl..."
Anna once more glanced at Cullen but this time with a smirk. Her bright eyes were saying ‘watch this’. With a simple twist of her right dagger in her palm, Anna began to advance. “Do you really think you're the best, Vicky?” she crooned. “My friends have already slaughtered yours. What hope have you left of defeating me, the one with Ackerman and Kasahara blood?”
Victoria spat. “Ackermans are weak compared to me! I'll destroy every last one of you!” Anna's eyes flashed with interest, a burning fire deep inside those blue and gold pools. “Is that so? Well...then, I guess we'll see how that goes,” she calmly crooned, throwing her left dagger at Victoria, snagging the cloth of her shirt. It barely nicked the woman's skin but was enough to distract her as Anna rushed in and took advantage of her distraction to seize up her right dagger and slam the
jagged edge of it into her shoulder.
The blade slid along her fingers thanks to her inexperience using them and holding them properly, slicing them open but Anna did not feel the pain; just the sticky crimson liquid spilling across her fingers. Victoria jerked back, but more in surprise than pain; the gear she wore protected her.
Anna tapped into her sixth sense; that special Ackerman power that she'd been told she had. She slashed the dagger down harder, this time into her thigh, and when Victoria reared back, she drove her other elbow into the woman's throat. Victoria went sideways, choking, and Anna rolled, pinning her under her as she yanked the bloody dagger free of her leg and grabbed the other one from the ground, placing it behind Victoria's head. She drove the right dagger down toward the pulsing vein in her neck—and stopped.
Boss leaned forward, his red eyes gleaming with delight, his sharp fangs smiling at his prodigy. “Kill her.” he ordered. Anna looked at him, then back down at Victoria. The resemblance in those demonic red eyes was haunting. But that's not what concerned Anna.
What concerned her was that she could see the woman's “fang-like” teeth. She was laughing. Victoria lay under her, and she was laughing, her laughter vibrating up through her own body. Her skin was spattered with blood—Anna's blood, dripping down on her, and her own blood where she had been cut, her snow-white hair matted with it. She let her
arms fall to either side of her, outstretched like wings, a broken angel, fallen out of the sky. “Finish her.” Boss ordered again, more demanding this time.
Anna slammed her blade down. “No.”
Victoria cast her eyes to the side to see Anna's dagger right next to her ear, sticking in the dirt. Anna climbed off the woman and stood up proud and tall, despite having disobeyed direct orders. “You're pitiful, Victoria. You're not even worth giving the sweet relief of death like the friends you sent to die. I'm going to let you live. Not out of mercy or kindness but out of the satisfaction I'll get from seeing you suffer, knowing that I, Anna Kasahara, defeated you in combat.” she turned away towards Boss, who clapped at her.
“That is my Queen of the Masqueraders.” he held out a lace black mask. Anna reached out and took it, placing it on her face and tying the ribbon underneath her hair. She turned to her friend Cullen, who was given his own solid black mask that covered the upper half of his face.
“Masquerade! Paper faces on parade . . .” chorused the remaining Masqueraders, each raising their special masks to their faces, singing to their anthem. “Masquerade! Hide your face, so the world will
never find you!”
Anna proudly raised her head as she took a stand behind Cullen, taking his hand in her good one and raising them. “Masquerade! Every face a different shade . . .Masquerade! Look around - there's another mask behind you!”
Behind The Scenes:
“Marry me, Anna,” Cullen clung to her legs. Anna tried to shake him off but was unsuccessful. “Eeeeek! Get ooooff!”
~•~
“Boss, look!” Victoria hugged Anna in a tight bear hug. “I caught the Ackerman!”
“Hysteria...erf...off me!” Anna groaned.
“Love me, An-An!”
“Why are we related?” Anna sighed at her actual sister.
~•~
“MASQUERADE!” Anna screamed happily to her favorite song from her favorite play. “HIDE YOUR FACE SO THE WORLD WILL NEVER FIND YOU!”
“Except, the Scouts found you...” Samuel groaned. “You little shit.”
“Just wait until I kill you.”