(And now, a look into Archer's ever so elusive past! Whose ready for a shocker? Btw, I did warn you it would be sad. SO NO SAYING YOU HATE ME FOR IT. Lionkid that means you.)
*Time skip by my new kitten Moses, who just jumped on my laptop and demanded my attention.dsfkadddddd (See?ASffffffkdskafkdsjdkjkf)*
"Katidara," A familiar voice whispered in the darkness of my dreams, "Katidara.... Where are you? Where is my little cousin, where did you go? I miss you so much..." It was a kind voice, one that made my heart go completely frigid from grief and sorrow, and my eyes to lose any warmth they contained. I began walking towards the voice, but a large bishop pawn, roughly the size of the Empire State building, slammed down in front of me. Cracks began to form in my dream scape, and the whole thing shattered, as I fell down and down, hearing someone yell my name once again, a hand reaching out towards mine.... And it was gone.
I started awake in my room. Moonlight threaded through the curtains, and Yuki was snoring softly, sleeping on my head and tickling my nose with her tail. Sneezing quietly into my sleeve, I noted, to my relief, I was still in my day uniform and not in my pajamas. Removing Yuki from my head and placing her on the pillow beside me, I stretched, now feeling wide awake. It was then I remembered the object in my pocket. Lighting the candle by my bedside, I took it out of my pocket and studied it under the flickering orange light. The previous tiredness and bleary eyed look was immediately wiped from my face as I saw what it was. However, it was not to its usual emotionlessness. Instead, a genuine smile was plastered on my face for all of three seconds, and then a frown of the utmost sadness and grief. It was the necklace my older cousin had given me.
Now, I'd never had an older brother, but Reagan (Ree-gan) came close. I loved him like a brother, and he treated me like his little sister. He'd always been kinder than my other family members, and he'd lasted the longest as well. For once, he hadn't been one I'd had to kill....
"Reagan," I whispered, but the name held no emotion. For a name was just a sound, a word, and it did not have feelings or emotions, and it could not give warmth. It was as cold as the day the owner of the name died, and every time I thought back on it I felt as though I were tearing my heart anew. Clutching the necklace to my chest, as though it could fill the void Reagan had left behind, I curled into a ball on my bed, staring past the wall of my bedroom to that fateful Autumn night...
Tell tale signs of Autumn whispered in the cold air and the blood red and crimson of the season painting the leaves, as I crouched behind a bone white, skeletal tree. Its clawlike branches reached out to the stormy gray heavens, as though begging for the mercy it hadn't recieved in the previous storm, as one could see from its bark tigerstriped with char. In the distance, there was a literal fortress, quite like the archaic ones seen only in ancient yore. It was made of rough hewn stone, age causing its once magnificent walls to crack in intricate, spiderwebbing patterns, and yet it still had the kind of dignity and intimidation it did when it was first built. There was a moat of solid ice around it, and it also had some modern innovations, including the newly mounted machine guns on the parapets and the bullet proof glass. Ferocious looking dobermens patrolled the area around the forest, a few passing by me unknowingly in my all black ninja outfit. The only visible part of me were my eyes, glowing an icy blue as I searched the impressive fortress for any weaknesses. Occasionally, they faded to a blue-green, as I lost my focus, and had to shake my head to refocus. One misstep, one miscalculation, could lead to certain doom.
And yet.... I regretted having to skip out on Reagan. I'd had no time to cancel our katana match to see once and for all who was the better swordsmen, but duty- aka the President- called. As much as I wanted to hurry and get this done and get back to him, I couldn't. Like I'd mentioned, one misstep and I would die. My custom katana, with a black, sheenless blade and a black sheenless hilt, was the perfect weapon for this job: Get in, kill their leader, blow up the base. Not as simple as it sounds, believe me. Finally, the moment I'd been waiting for occured: The sentry change, which would give me a short window of exactly three seconds to get up the wall and into the base. Yipee.
Inwardly sighing, I quietly sprinted over to one of the walls of the base, climbing up the uneven walls like a spider monkey and bolting through an open door, leaning into the shadows as the sentries exchanged pleasantries and switched places. My blue eyes scanned the walls for... ah there was a vent. One of my inside resources had given me a blue print of the vents, and I'd memorised the path to the boss's study and also the fastest way out. This would have to be a stealth job, in, kill, out, run like hell. Again, more complicated then it sounds. Swiftly, I sheathed my katana and popped the vent off, climbing into it and appreciating, for once, my nearly annorexic build. I slowed my breathing, closing my eyes as I pictured where I was: The fourth guard tower. Then I imagined the map, and matched it.
"Okay," I thought, opening my eyes and twisting so I was completely about face. Then, I began crawling as quietly as humanly possible down the rats maze of echoing tin, watching my breath and heart rate the whole way.
It took me less than five minutes total to get to the boss's study. It was expensively decorated, with a fur carpet and the various mounted heads of endangered and now extinct animals. (Guess why he's wanted?) My nose wrinkled in disgust as I saw him polishing the blood off a silver plated rifle, diamonds and rubies studded all along it. There were five armed guards in the room, all wearing sunglasses and sporting bald heads, but I knew them all by heart. We could've been old friends from what I knew about these men: Rico Valdez, recorded school yard bully, 5'2", unmarried, mecenary, wanted in seven of the world's biggest countries; Adolf Schweeds, murdered his step father when he was five, 6'7", wanted in all big countries except France, oddly; and so on, all having criminal records and no living family. I'd have no remorse for what I was about to do. Eyes cold and devoid of any emotion whatsoever, I jumped down and the killing fest began.
Valdez recieved a shuriken to the head; Schweeds was decapitated; the remaining bodyguards had their hearts stabbed completely through; and the boss was completely, gruesomely cut in half, just as a scream was beginning to pass through his lips. It made an odd, gutteral choking noise, as all life passed from it. The corpse, anyhow. To me, when a person dies, they become an it, with no gender or thought or feelings, just a single word: the unfeeling, unsympathetic it. An it couldn't hug their kids, and an it couldn't provide for their elderly grandmother. They were just packaged into a box, glorified one last time, buried, and mourned over. Death was just another excuse to find weakness within oneself, to cry for a loved one. I hadn't cried those tears before, especially not after my parents died, and I didn't plan to do so ever. Plans, I have discovered, have a high probability of going awry.
Going through the vents was exneyed as I discovered that the remaining loyal staff started flooding it with poisonous gas, locking themselves in the air tight command room as they tried to suffocate me. Unfortunately for them, I knew this brand of poisonous gas: It was just, if not twice, as explosive as the c4 in my other pocket. Not bothering with a timer, I lit the bomb, threw it behind me, and jumped out the window, rolling as soon as I touched the ground. Even as I felt the heat of the explosion, I kept running. The smugglers on the inside had known their boss was alive, but it was not the case for those on the outside. As expected, they began running after me, their dobermens snapping at my heels, hungry for the kill, hungry for the chase. Just like their masters.
Eventually, I couldn't run anymore. There had been a bullet imbedded in my thigh for at least an hour of running, and it was finally starting to take its toll. My pain tolerance may have been extremely high, but this... this felt like the fires of hell were coursing through my veins. My entire pant leg was soaked in blood, and one of my arms was completely dead, flopping uselessly at my side. Try as I might, my thoughts were beginning to cloud and fog, my vision blurring as I balanced on the thread of a line between unconciousness and probable death, threatening to plunge either way at any time. Most the men chasing me had either given up or had been shot as I fired with deadly accuracy behind me. Only one person was left, and I could sense that they were nowhere near tiring.
"They cannot be human," I thought decisively. At this point, I had a few choices: Run into exhaustion and die; wait for the inhuman to get bored of the chase and just catch up and kill me; or turn and fight, with only a slim chance of living. I chose the latter. Turning abruptly on my heel, I put away my gun and prepared to face whatever was running after me. Hopefully, I could kill it and get to a hospital before I died of bloodloss.
"Humans can be so annoying," A flamboyant voice said, and I snorted, pulling out my katana out of its sheath on my back. An inhumanly beautiful creature with deathfully pale skin emerged, smiling a fanged smile. "I had such a great deal with that guy: Do some bidding and get to feed off of whoever I killed. Plus extra." The person had shoulder legnth, wavy gold hair and a chisled chin, their eyes a brighter crimson than roses. With their frilly clothes and ancient vibe, one could easily mistake him for Prince Charming escaped from the pages of a fairy tail...and then get too close and get the blood drained from their body.
"Remus Dracarus," I said coolly, running my thumb over my katana's blade. "The vampire council doesn't appreciate what you've been doing, lately. You've been feeding on too many humans, too indiscreetly, causing a panic in areas close to the White House. I've come to kill you and your master, though the latter's already taken care of, as you've noticed. You're all I have left to kill, and then I can just go home." Eyes frigid, body numb for bloodloss, I took up a fighting stance as Remus walked a bit closer.
"Eh? So you're the Prez's eagle?" Remus grinned devilishly, "This'll be fun, then. I can't wait to kill you and mount your head on my wall as a trophy."
"Good luck with that," I scoffed, tensing as he wasn't there anymore.
"Aw, you really think I'll need it?" Remus whispered in my ear, patting my head with a clawed hand, "Sweetie, I'm one of the oldest vampires in history, I can't just be killed with a little-" Turning quickly on my heel, I drove my katana into Remus's stomach, pulling it out immediately afterwards and leaping away. "Shit!" Remus hissed, clutching his stomach in pain. Now it was my turn to gloat, if not just a little bit.
"Black iron, good for killing vampires and werewolves, and twice as potent as crosses or silver." I tapped my katana. "Not many people know that now adays, I just randomly discovered it when I stabbed a werewolf with a black iron dagger."
"That hurt, you little-" In his rage, Remus didn't finish, he just rushed towards me, grabbing my throat with his hand and throwing me against a tree with herculean stregnth. Oh how it hurt, it hurt so, so badly. It felt as though hellfire were coursing through my bones and marrow and blood. No pain I'd ever felt before hurt so much. Brilliant lights danced before my eyes and blood blossomed from my chest like a gory, exotic flower. Faces flashed before my eyes, and voices echoed harshly in my ears, before I fell to the ground, my mouth opening and closing as I tried to breathe but couldn't.
"Well, now look at the little eagle. Did a mean old bat clip your wings?" Remus chuckled darkly, madly, the laugh turning into a high cackle that rivaled any witch's. "Ah, your blood smells nice." Suddenly, he was by my side, caressing my purple face as I struggled for air. "Mind if I have a taste?" Licking his lips, Remus began to lean down towards my neck, eyes glowing hungrily, when a silver katana flashed, seemingly out of nowhere, and made him jump back with a hiss. Gently, a figure pulled me up and away from the ground, leaping back and holding me in their arms at the same time. The arms were strong and gentle at the same time, the same ones that'd often carried me home after I'd fall asleep reading at the school library.
"Re-agan," I managed to croak.
Reagan pulled me behind a tree, dark raven contrasting against the one streak of white in his ruffed, feathery hair. His face was all sharp and chisled angles, both as pale as death and angelic, my 'fallen angel of a cousin', as we'd so often joke. He wore a ninja outfit like mine, but his head was not covered.
Reagan put a finger to his lips, mutely motioning to his neck.
"I can't breath very well, no," I signed, my face, I assumed, a now dark plum color. Frowning, Reagan pulled a familiar herb out of his pocket. "Coltsfoot?" I signed, looking at him curiously. Reagan ignored this, at first, crushing the little plant in his fists, but when I repeated he responded. Making a dismissive motion with his hand, Reagan forced my mouth open and made me swallow the bitter polituce. (Don't try this, it doesn't actually happen.) Immediately afterward, I felt air rush into my lungs, and I coughed and spluttered, taking in oxygen as an individual would after drowning.
"Better, no?" Reagan chuckled, noogieing my head. "Really, taking on a vamp by yourself? Usually, I wouldn't reproach you, but as injured as you are.... You. Are. An. Idiot." He tapped my nose with each word, causing the corners of my lips to twitch up into a faint smile. "Let's get you outta here, little sis," Reagan swung me into his arms bridal style, but I shook my head.
"No," I stated, my voice stronger now that I was actually able to breathe. Wriggling out of Reagan's arms, my eyes went cold and icy as the snow that was beginning to fall. Catching a few snowflakes in my hand, I produced a dagger out of nowhere and began walking over to Remus, who was doubled over in pain and gasping out his last breaths. "No matter how injured, an eagle must always finish off their prey."
"You've really left the light behind, haven't you sister?" I could feel Reagan's eyes on my back, boring into me with the sharpness of the knife in my cold, numb hand.
"No," I stated, walking closer to the dying vampire, "Light burns brighter after the darkness. I have chosen to embrace that white hot light that everyone chooses to ignore, the light that hurts and burns, but it is still my light: That ever frigid Noth Star, guiding me through this darkness." Without another word, I prepared to drive the dagger into Remus's heart.... As I've said, plans always seem to go awry.
The vampire reared like a cobra about to strike, his smile a sadistic and mad one, the last of his stregnth pored into the glowing red malice in his eyes.
"Die you little bi-" Once again, he didn't finish, rushing forward towards me, wanting my life to end with his. My own dagger was gone, suddenly in his cold hand, plunging towards me as the life began to flood out of his eyes like water from a container. Everything seemed to slow down as I realized this would be my killing blow. The voices returned, and I realized they were the dying calls of the people I killed. Cries to gods, cries to family, to friends, to lovers.... they were all there, echoing and swirling around me, and, as my eyes overloaded and glowed a brighter blue than ever before, I saw them all dancing before my eyes, wailing and screaming pitieously. My death was forgotten as I relived all of theirs, as I felt all their pain, as I saw all the hopes and dreams they'd wanted to fulfill.... when it suddenly stopped. Remus's body lay cold and still upon the ground, his blonde hair slowly turning to ash, and eventually his whole body, swirling away on the frigid wind as the first snow of the season began to stick to the ground. I turned my head to look for Reagan, but when I finally found him my body went completely frigid, any warmth I'd felt in the past eradicated within one sighting.
That night, two corpses recieved unmarked graves beneath the snow and fallen leaves, their blood causing an odd mosaic across the wintry hills. A sole corpse had a sole mourner, if not for half a second, before emotion was wiped from their life completely. Any emotion thereafter was faked or strained, until the person met a childhood friend once again. Happiness sparked and then flamed to life, and yet the death still lay heavily upon their heart like a fresh wound upon their skin. Every autumn, the leaves continued to rain down upon the unmarked grave, unsympathetically, and then, to add insult to injury, the snow came as well, until there was not a trace of the individual. The corpse was devoured by worms and moles, their once smiling face crumbling away to dirt.
A tree grew over that spot, one with blood red leaves and bark as white as snow, and it grew and grew until it's branches seemed to reach the azure sky. Each year, on a certain night, at a certain hour, a boquet of black roses was lain at the roots of this odd tree. As these roses wilted and rotted, the tree soaking up their nutrients like a vampire greedily lapping up blood, a new letter appeared on the tree's previously unmarred bark, until, years later, a sentence was formed.
"Here lies my brother," Simple words, and yet elegant and beautiful all the same, a testiment to the elements that raged around the tree, not touching it as though respecting the words carved upon the smooth bark.
"Death is meaningless," My own voice echoed around the room in the Phantomhive manner, and yet my lips did not part to form the words. "It is merely the living turning to a corpse, the corpse to dirt, the dirt to new life, the new life to death, and so on, in an endless cycle in this world of ours."
"Yes," I agreed emotionlessly, mechanically, the memory fading from my eyes and the emotion sparkling within them as well. Eyes blank and cold as those of a puppet, I brought the little trinket up to my face. It was of a dark blue stone, the same color as Reagan's eyes, with dark gray and black speckled across its surface. The stone was carved in the shape of a horse rearing on its hind legs, and, though it was simple, it brought back memories that threatened to break through my facade. But I wouldn't allow them to. Slipping the black cord over my head, I slipped back under the covers, not feeling the warmth of the covers on my numb and cold body. Sleep did not seem to want to come, shying away from the corners of my mind like a timid animal frightened at the creature I'd become. It was only the small, comforting weight- much a contradiction to the unspoken, unthought oath I'd just sworn to myself- of the necklace that lulled me to sleep.
"I will not feel again."
Promises were made to be broken, plans to go awry, oaths to be unraveled, darkness to be outshone, and alliances to be switched.