Alice, Alice, heart and soul, Fell into a rabbit hole.
The wrongness of her situation had wrapped around her like a shroud, enveloping her, isolating her senses. Every step she took felt like walking through mud, the edges of her vision blurred as if she’d just woken up, yet sleep evaded her, every breath she took choked her, refusing to go down or come up, there was a pounding in her head and she failed to grasp even a tendril of sense.
Then there was that ever present feeling of Déjà vu, that she should be aware of what was happening around her, that she knew what was going to happen,
It doesn’t make any sense.
She thinks, the base of operation is an abandoned, depilated farmhouse, with its roof and few walls collapsed, baring them to the environment, the weather is warm and sweat dots her neck and forehead, the few stands of hair that have escaped her claw clip curl around her face due to the humidity, unease prickles at her spine, a result of years of working in her field of employment.
The scars marring her face itch, particularly the one going diagonal on the bridge of her nose, she resists the urge to scratch them, well aware the of how delicate the skin was after nearly eight years, in a place like this, far away from civilization—proper civilization, she was aware the Military City a few miles east was nothing more than a Slaughterhouse— not to mention the scrutiny, lack of a controlled environment meant she could not create a salve effective against Werewolf inflicted scars.
Keeping her hands to her side, wand in its holster, she listens in on her surroundings, watching a few people ambling around, Farley talks to Cara, who types Farley's message to her superiors, they sit across what once was a main room, near the door, in a small room, but Zoya still hears them.
Magic worked in funny ways, she had learned over the years, it enhanced a few senses, dulled others, killed some of its hosts, made others invincible, her hearing and sense of smell had sharpened over the years, in a pace that she never realized it, it had also taken one of her few capabilities she was proud of, she had always been quick on her feet, would never trip even on a wet, uneven space.
Back when life was simple and she still studied in a Muggle school, she’d been a force to be reckoned with in Dodge ball, and then later on, her steady feet had saved her life many times, spinning out of way before curses could hit, could hurt, could kill her.
But then, shit had hit the fan and she couldn’t take a few steps before tripping, feet twisting on their own accord, accidently turning an ambassador into a pumpkin headed geese in front of the Department of Time was enough once, and now three years later, unconsciously her mind was always on her feet, waiting, hoping they don’t twist, and she doesn’t fall.
She glances at her shoes, rising a few inches above her ankles, one of her friends—Damian— had suggested a way to not allow her ankle to move, restrain it in a space it could only move up and down, not twisting sideways, it would be uncomfortable but better pain than death, right?
His husband—Aldrich— had just looked at them, resigned to a fate of a life surrounded by lack of brain cells, and had proposed embroidering steady feet runes on her shoes. Her hand falls to trace the runes etched on the cracked leather with a purple lotus silk thread, still pristine like the day they’d been embroidered, hidden to the untrained eye by the various leaves and flowers surrounding it, her father being the one to embroider them.
She closes her eyes, the magic of the rune pulsing beneath her finger-tips, a reprieve, from the lack of Magic surrounding her, she exhales, feeling her own warm breath against her skin, focusing only on the heat of the rune, the magic is small, miniscule in presence, but it’s enough to reduce her headache.
Only when the metal door of the farmhouse bangs against the walls does she focus around her, she can hear footsteps, human and dogs coming near, Shade—a contact of the organization in the Military city, Corvium— red-faced, huffing surrounding by Cris and Little Coop, codenames, two scouts on lookout duty.
“Scatter,” Farley snaps, voice carrying across the farmhouse.
They know what it means. They know where to go.
A hurricane moves through the farmhouse, taking everything with it. The guns, the provisions, their gear disappears in a practiced heartbeat, shoved into bags and packs.
“Is there something I can do?” she asks, standing, right wrist twitching, ready to snap her wand into her hand’s grip, Tye nods, “help us pack”, she moves, collapsing the tents, the motion quick and practiced from her own experience, placing them in their bags.
Shade tells Farley to go immediately, that there isn’t much time, she internally agrees, giving the group coming near a generous maximum of three minutes to reach the farmhouse, Farley snaps her fingers twice and everyone drops whatever they have, abandoning whatever isn’t packed.
Zoya’s own belongings are in a small bag hidden beneath her shirt, an undetectable extension charm placed on it. Farley snaps again and everyone—excluding her, Tristan and Shade— scatter, any other time, she’d have stayed, but the prickling in her skin tells her to follow the others, tells her to help them get out, some go out the collapsed wall, others through the door, she follows the latter, running behind them into the forest, twisting around the branches, sprinting through tangled roots and brush.
She can hear the dogs howl behind her, hounds, ready to tear apart their flesh and drag them to their Masters, even the branches twitch around them, twisting, moving, growing, they move coming to trip them, behind her she hears Tye yelp, a hound, the size of a pony, saliva dripping down its chin, mere feet away from her, with a flick of her wrist her wand is firmly grasped within her hand, another flick has her casting silent ‘Levicorpus’ on the hound, which lets out a howl as it jerks upwards, being thrown into the higher branches.
Tye stares at her, and the metal wand clasped firmly in her grip, eyes wide, a blur passes by them, moving around them, circling them, it isn’t difficult for her to reach out and grab the man by his throat, green eyes stare back at her, wide in shock, he hangs almost two feet above the ground and Zoya is not nice enough to be gentle, instead she throws him into the nearest blur coming at them, they collide, falling back into a tree’s trunk, dropping unconscious when they collide heads on.
Who knew chasing after her Godson would become such an asset?
She grabs Tye’s hand where she stands shell-shocked, sprinting towards the river, so that the hounds may lose their scent. She keeps her wand arm loose, swinging it at the branches, hounds, the wind-like human blurs hunting them. They run, Big Coop bleeds from his head, but he shoots at the hounds, running ahead one moment, the other he falls to the ground, a hound reaching for his neck, the next the hound lies a hundred yards away, Cara reaches for him, helping his stand up, Zoya quickly slices the branches reaching for her with a flick of her wand.
“What the fuck!” Big Coop says, but Zoya raises her hand. “Not the time, we need to get to the river.” The branches around them stop, before rushing towards them, Tye takes out a knife, from—from somewhere and both of them start slicing them down, slowly making their backwards.
A scream tears through the otherwise quite forest, surrounded by two people, dressed similarly to the two men lying unconscious next to a tree trunk a few hundred yards away, Rasha floats a few feet above the ground, a branch wrapped around her throat like a noose, face starting to turn blue.
She’s a lost cause now, given how the three silently move back, horror and hatred plastered on their face, aware there wasn’t something they can do. “Can’t you shoot them?” she asks, and Big Coop shakes his head, out of ammunition.
Rasha’s own rifles like abandoned on the ground, Tye tugs Cara behind her, but Zoya pays them no mind, moving, she grabs a rock from the mess of roots and brush, the edge of the rock is sharp and she throws towards the woman who seems to be controlling the branches, it hits her straight in the face, crushing her nose, the branch lets go of Rasha who falls to the ground, clutching her neck, the man next to the women turns towards her, a few branches race towards her, but a simple flick of her wand and the branches cut, soaring to lie to the ground before her.
The three have already started to run towards the river, instead of wasting more time fighting the man she casts a silent ‘Confundus’ and helps Rasha up, grabbing her rifle as they move. “What” she breaths out, voice raspy, “the fuck.”
The two chasers behind them stare ahead, confused, but only for a few moments, they’ll come back to their senses soon, her left hand is firmly clasped around Rasha’s waist, while Rasha’s hands is thrown over her shoulder, with more chasers still around the forest, they wouldn’t be able to run far without trouble, and Zoya despite her lack of hesitance was truly not fond of breaking the Statute of Secrecy any more than necessary, but they needed to get away now, she mentally sighed, twisting on her feet, apparating, appearing right into the river half a mile from the farmhouse.
“I'm going to pretend this didn’t just happened.” Rasha says, before falling to her knees, Zoya kneels besides her, their clothes wet, heat dissipating in the cold river, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She answers with faux innocence, hand rubbing circles on the woman’s back.
Rasha waves her hand. “I'm fine,” she sits straighter, baby hair too small to stay in her braids stick to her face, “help the others,” Zoya nods, standing up, apparating back into the forest.
Half an hour later, when Farley and Shade make their way to the river, Shade’s hand wrapped in a bandage, they are met with the sight of all Farley's soldiers sitting on the rocks, Tarry's gun and Tristian’s rifle firmly directed towards Zoya, who has an amused air about her, like a wolf watching puppies threaten it.
Farley furrows her brows, eyes falling on the people oathed to her. “What’s happening here?” she asks, coming to stand besides Tye.
“She—” Tarry hisses but is interrupted, Cara talking over him, “Saved us.”
“She’s a Silver,” Tristan may have been a twitchy man, but the rifle in his hand never wavers, it stays pointed at Zoya, “How do you explain what she did?”
Farley stares at her men, momentarily glancing at Shade, remembering what had transpired between them, ‘Could Zoya be like him?’ she thinks, the woman in question sighs.
“For the last time Tristian, I'm not a Silver, I'm a witch, and I bleed red” she widely motions her hand around her, “I didn’t even know Silver-blooded humans existed, I literally thought silver was a metaphor for the elite, like blue-blood is used for royalty, but it doesn’t mean their blood is blue.”
Witch an audible click Tristan turns his rifle’s safety off, and Tarry hisses. “Stop lying.” Zoya stares, unimpressed, but the edge of her mouth twitches in a grin. “I'm pretty sure of the color I bleed every month Tarry.”
“Lower your weapons.” She says and watches the way Zoya’s eyes widen. Tristan opens his mouth to speak but she beats him to it. “We all remember the Storm.” She says not elaborating, and excluding Shade everyone’s eyes darken, remembering.
The sky overhead, moments before empty of a single cloud, sun shining, a blinding dot in the pale blue sky, now darkens, clouds rapidly forming, each one heavier and darker, the winds howl and even the trees shift, trunks bending, bowing to the storm.
The Guard stops and stare, weapons cocked, expecting an ambush, instead, the clouds shift, circling the small beam of golden light falling down, rain pelts sideways and lightening flashes in the cloudy mass, turquoise, emerald, red, orange, black and tens other colors they’ve never imagined, racing across the clouds.
The center of the clouds grows, and they move in tandem, shifting, circling it in an unnaturally fast pace, the lightning flashes are accompanied by thunder that shake the very ground they stand on.
The howls of the wind scream around them, singing, if they listen closely, they could hear voices harmonizing, singing in a foreign language, above them the clouds charcoal and chalk, ranging from blinding white to drowning coal, covering the entire sky as far as their sight can see, split, the golden light falls on them, around them, and—
The center of the clouds is a sight incomprehensible, surrounded by charcoal clouds greets them the night, stars and galaxies twinkling and shifting, the universe split open, spilling over into the Earth,
and from the center falls a glowing orb, pulsing, radiating warmth even they can feel, it shift and expands, slowing its descend as it nears the ground, the orb stops two feet above the ground, taking the form of a human, it falls and the storm stops, the trees straighten after one final bow, the clouds dissipate, withering to whence they came.
In seconds the storm came and in moments it disappears, the only evidence of its existence, is the unconscious woman lying a hundred meters from them.
Tarry lowers his gun, Tristan is more hesitant, but his own rifle moves to his side, remembering how they’d meet her, how they trees shift, branches moving to face her, how the flowers bloom, petals bursting with color and how the animals, tiny and low in numbers flock her of their own accord, how to her the change doesn’t even register, so unconsciously done, not even the most powerful of Greenwardens or Animosi could not reach such fine display of power.
Looking at her always seemed to bring the stories whispered to them in the few flickering moments of peace by their elders, stories carried over the centuries, tales predating the calamities, of children of the forests, beings shaped from wood bark and sea glass, where flames flickered into roaring beasts, where in the water resided creature who could change their form.
For some reason a part of their mind whispered to them that she felt as if she belonged in those tales, and to leave the questions related to truth about her existence, for they’d possess secrets intended to be forgotten by humanity.
THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE HAS BEEN DECODED CONFIDENTIAL, SENIOR CLEARANCE REQUIRED
Day 34 of Operation RED WEB, Stage 1.
Operative: Captain REDACTED.
Designation: LAMB.
Origin: On the move.
Destination: RAM at REDACTED, COMMAND at REDACTED.
-Leaving CORVIUM, heading to DELPHIE. Stopping at WHISTLE points along route.
-Plan to be in Stage 2 within a week.
-Advise CORVIUM operation that CORVIUM officials believe there are “bandits and deserters” in the woods.
-Enclosed is detailed information about Air Fleet grounded in DELPHIE, procured by newly oathed operative Aide B (designation: SHADOW) still in CORVIUM.
-Suggest Corp E be oathed as well.
-I am and will remain SHADOW’s SG contact.
-SHADOW will be removed from CORVIUM at my discretion.
-CORVIUM overview: Killed in action: Zero (0).
Missing in action: Zero (0).
Silver casualty count: (3) Greenwarden (2) Anmosi (1)
RISE, RED AS THE DAWN
THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE HAS BEEN DECODED CONFIDENTIAL, SENIOR CLEARANCE REQUIRED
Operative: General REDACTED.
Designation: DRUMMER.
Origin: COMMAND at REDACTED.
Destination: RAM at REDACTED.
-Air Intel good. DELPHIE Operation in motion.
-Train transit online between ARCHEON and City #1.
-Begin 3 week countdown for Operation DAYBREAK.
RISE, RED AS THE DAWN.
—Your girl has balls. —DRUMMER—
—The girl will get our people killed. —RAM—
—Worth it for her results. But her attitude leaves something to be desired. —DRUMMER—