Qia
Melissa
Shin Ghost Note
Nemaisare
webboysurf
Spoopy Scary
Roman
Lord Wraith
Rockette
PatientBean
Location: Southern Plateau - PRCU
Hope In Hell #2.038: A Name Unspoken
Interaction(s): Amma @Rockette, Aurora @Melissa, Haven @Skai
Previously: Feathering the Storm and Spot The Difference
Aurora’s legs wobbled underneath her as she made a break down the sterile hallway, pulse thrumming in her ears as she escaped from the twisted version of her best friend’s garage. Adrenaline surged and coursed through her veins as she extended and contracted her legs, trying her best to keep moving despite the pain that covered her body.
She wouldn’t let him catch her. She couldn’t let him.
And then the redhead was falling, a wave of dizziness setting in, no doubt from her injured head, and next thing she knew the world turned sideways. She braced her hands in front of her as she hit the ground, grimacing as sore muscles took the brunt of the impact. The wind knocked out of her lungs and she struggled to find her breath once more, heaving.
Staggering to her feet, not daring to look behind her in fear of how close Raze followed, she willed her legs to move just a bit further as her eyes continued to spill over with tears. Her legs screamed as she moved and after a few more feet she crumbled once more, instantly noticing two figures at the end of the hallway and freezing in panic. She could see the vague outline of wings, but after she had already mistaken one dopplegänger for the real thing, she wasn’t about to take any more chances.
“Aurora?”
Haven’s voice carried through the empty hall, its pitch as wary as it was worried. She could see Aurora as clearly as if the redhead was right in front of her. Her rough appearance was as concerning as the truthfulness of her stumbling into the same space as the two women. Now, after what she’d been through, she was unsure if she could tell reality apart from the simulation.
Her heart already hurt for the early signs of a bruise showing on Aurora’s cheek, either way.
“If this isn’t true… Do you want to run or fight?” Haven asked Amma with a lowered voice. She winced as she remembered the way Amma favoured her ankle. Another part of her wondered how much slower she would also be with her limp wings upon her back. “We’re stronger together in this. I won’t run if you can’t.”
"We fight," Amma uttered, lashes fanned low on her cheeks as she marks the copper hair threaded in gold, the blemish of red on her otherwise delicate features, the fearful reproach that alighted those blue eyes nearly silver in their dread. Though Haven had spoken true and indeed guarded her back, she knew that Aurora was her friend before she was her unwilling companion; Blackjack built the foundation of friendship and trust liken to an impenetrable gate, where the spires of mutual affections warded even her cruel introduction.
Slowly, carefully, she lowers her hands, arachnid gestures splayed, palms out to coax the energy betwixt them to a brightening hue of carmine that slithers across the linoleum.
"Get up."
The redhead heard the familiar timbre of Haven’s voice, fear laced with curiosity, but was still cautious. She couldn’t let down her guard again, this Trial couldn’t be taken at face value any longer. One misstep and she was good as gone. She considered her options, shifting her body to attempt to stand up, until the chilling tone of Amma’s voice followed and stole the breath from her lungs.
Aurora could only watch as the coils of the girl’s abilities weaved and wreathed down the hall towards her. She had nowhere to run, did not believe herself to be strong enough to teleport elsewhere, so she surrendered herself to the notion that this was going to get worse. Much, much worse. She threw up her hands in front of her, blocking herself although she knew it would be to no avail.
“No! Stop!” She cried, utterly terrified, “PLEASE!” The redhead pleaded, fear palpable in her words.
The terror in Aurora’s words and body language set Haven’s pulse at a faster pace. She tensed beside Amma. Torn between running to a friend in need and remaining wary of a potential ruse. She didn’t like this game of cat and bird at all.
“I’m going over.” She decided suddenly. “I-... Just try not to hit me.”
Before Amma could hold her back, Haven allowed her heart to guide her feet. She began slowly, and then picked up the pace the closer she came to Aurora. She could hear the shakiness in her friend’s breaths. The simulation might be playing her heart against her, but if this was really the kind, bubbly friend that Haven knew, she was devastated to see her so distraught.
“What happened?” Haven asked as she drew nearer. “Have you been alone this whole time?”
The redhead tensed as the winged girl approached, moving her hands slightly to get a better look at her. There were no obvious red flags, nothing that clearly indicated that she wasn’t the true Haven. It helped her case that she looked like she’d been put through the ringer as well, her wings coated in black substance and pain noticeable in her eyes. Cautiously, Aurora shook her head, and spoke with a wavering voice, “No… Harper, Lorcán and I got separated. I don’t know how it happened, but I blacked out and when I woke up he was there.” She looked like she had just seen a ghost, his fiery gaze was burned into the back of her mind. She continued.
“He… he was Lorcán but he wasn’t. Not my- our Lorcán. He tried to trick me, convince me that Hyperion had won and had taken over. Suggested wiping my memories.” She shuddered, “He called himself Raze. He wanted me to join Hyperion’s forces, marry him, he-” The redhead’s tears continued to fall. “He kidnapped my stepfather, told me it was a wedding gift and that I should kill him for what he did. I-I couldn’t do it.”
The frown that came to Haven’s lips was brought on by more than Aurora’s tears. Haven was worried for Harper and Lorcán, and also reminded that somewhere in the labyrinth Katja and Rory were fighting their own demons. Did Rory make it out of the fire? Was there any chance he’d gotten help if he needed it? Her mind was pulled to the present as Aurora hit her with a story so wild that it had to be true.
“That’s… awful, Ror. I’m sorry.”
“A Lorcán like that lit our room on fire…” Haven said softly as she lowered herself to her knees in front of Aurora. Her back ached with the movement. “I’m not sure if Rory or Katja made it out.” Worried eyes glanced between Aurora’s watery sapphires. “Amma found me-” Her throat bobbed before she continued. “We’re just trying to make it out of here before it throws something else our way.”
Haven tried her best to give Aurora an encouraging smile, but it was too tight. So lacking in her usual spirit that it didn’t even form the dimples that usually graced her cheeks. “I’m glad we’re together now.”
From woeful pleas of mercy to such outlandish confessions of fiction, their ordeals paling in comparison to the netherworld she had endured and slain another in. That creature that bore her face, the other that revealed a spawn of reaping hellfire, the beast that loomed over heart and soul. Her power continued to twine, spooled from her gestures as she approached Aurora and Haven at a slower pace, not entirely trusting of the former's plight and her shed tears. Amma stalked the edges of their influence and kept her gaze bidden low and not once did she relinquish the leash she had on her powers, those scarlet threads mere inches away from Aurora and Haven, lax and calm- poised to strike.
"I told you: they make you weak and defenseless." With a delicate pause, Amma glanced back down where they had come, the distance made seemingly minuscule, she felt as if they had barely moved at all. For in the distance, she could see the shadows that boiled and churned, a frothing edge of bruised vermillion entranced by the coils of her power left in their wake from every panel of the wall she touched.
"They'll attack you at your lowest when you think you've gotten away far enough. When you think you're safe."
Her eyes snapped back towards Aurora, striking to the depths of her woeful eyes, and said: "What you were shown was only a small piece of what they're capable of. This Raze is likely the other of Lorcán, a name like that has only one intention: The Foundation Force. I faced... something similar."
"She's dead now."
Feathers ruffled where they could throughout the destruction of her plumage as Haven felt that seeking power lingering behind her. She turned her gaze away from her friend to look up at the raven haired woman for the first time. From this angle, and with this new information, Haven was starting to see the Amma that was given the title of Tiamat.
“Who did you kill, then?” The question was out of her lips before she could consider its consequences. Yet she continued undauntedly. There was no going back now. “Which name did you choose when you defeated your other self?”
Amma's eyes narrowed, mere slivers of glowing blue that swelled with the void that was at her eternal beck and call.
"You really ask too many questions, Haven." On a small, delicate smile that slid across her cheeks stained red and black, she continued. "You may not like the answers you get."
Haven simply pressed her lips together. Her moss and timber eyes glancing between slits of glacial blue.
Aurora’s tearful eyes darted from Haven to Amma, the latter’s chilling words alighting goosebumps underneath her AR suit. She was simply overwhelmed, the two girls' conversation igniting more dread in the depths of her stomach. All she wanted was to find their friends, their teammates, and get the hell out of this nightmare. As her head continued to pound and the pain on her face radiated outwards, she turned back to the winged female who knelt in front of her. “Please don’t leave me. I don’t want to be alone again.”
Haven tore her gaze away, only because of the sorrow within Aurora’s tone. A recognition of that sorrow within her eyes as she nodded. Her left hand flexed in her lap, phantoms of a gloved touch holding her back for a moment before she reached for Aurora. “I won’t let go of your hand.”
She shouldn’t have let go of Rory, either. The regret pierced her heart and mixed with the dread of being touched again so soon. She would not let that keep her from showing love for a friend in need.
“Let’s keep moving, then.” She looked up at Amma, a silent question in her eyes. Had the untrusting woman made her decision to believe in this version of their teammate?
Her lip curled into that of a sneer; a slight lift that exposed gritted teeth as the energy spindled from her gestures pulsed once, twice, the third quake bidden to Aurora where Haven clung to her hand, that simple act beholden to her eyes that intensely tracked over every action- processed every word, every shuddering breath.
"This could be a trap, this Raze she mentioned could be a ploy. This little damsel here could be leading us right to him."
Amma's fingers curled inwards, every nail against the line of her scars that sunk deep, those tendrils of energy slowly pulling back and writhing up her frame, settled over her arms and shoulders, reminiscent of snakes.
"But," her expression waned, a sliver of exhaustion sliding into place on her facade. "If that's the case, I'll just kill-"
Amma's words were immediately sundered, her eyes panned wide, shaken, as a terrible esoteric drone split through the corridor, an intense vibration as if rent from the depths of an unforeseen Hell. Everything shook, and swayed, the entire hall suddenly warped in encroaching darkness that bayed with an appetence that demanded only one thing - death. She didn't hesitate and snapped her gaze to both Haven and Aurora and as the sound slowly abated it was replaced with a keening wail that wrecked her down to her core.
Time was suddenly no longer on their side.
"Run!"
Haven wasted no time in hoisting herself and Aurora to their feet. The shrieking hallway overwhelmed her ears and filled her body with terror, adrenaline pumping through her veins to mix with it. She bid her legs to run; willed the protesting muscles on her back to hold her wings against her so that they wouldn’t drag her down. Aurora was added weight against her arm as she tugged her along, but it was weight that Haven would bear to ensure they all made it out alive. The trial would not claim them easily.
Aurora didn’t have time to dwell on Amma’s threat, didn’t get the chance to prove her authenticity and innocence before the darkness and dread set in. Instantly she was on her feet and was being dragged along by Haven, beginning to run once more. She tried not to trip over her own feet and gripped onto the winged girl’s hand for dear life, afraid that if she let go she would be on her own again, forced to face the perils of the Trial alone. Up ahead the raven haired girl led the way, and for once Aurora was thankful to have her there to navigate them through the sterile halls, although she was still skeptical and apprehensive of her demeanor.
It manifested first as an unassuming shape, this figment of black and red, pinpricks of silver in the risen gloom that followed after them. A hellish maw split open, a vacant hole of writhing darkness that seemingly tasted the air as if a scent hound bidden to the hunt, a chuff echoed, followed by another keening wail before the fiendish creature split into three- one for each.
A roar sounded, and with it, waves of crimson came to, lapping against the confines of the hallway that suddenly felt much too narrow, as if this was the trap lain for them now- as if waiting for them to gather as one before it hunted them down as a pack.
Amma didn't hesitate to turn left, then right, the pain in her ankle hideous and blinding, the sheer agony coiling through her nerves like fire with every second as they ran. She recognized that sound in her waking world, in her nightmares, in her own wailing heart that was starved and famished, and now it bayed and demanded subjugation, it demanded their blood.
Even still, they were not fast enough, the ruby malice and twisting shadows reached forward in terrifying waves of hate, it soiled the ground and slid beneath them, the manifest knew them now: it tasted Aurora's anguish and dread, it tasted Haven's agony and fear, and it tasted Amma's power.
It tasted their soul.
With a bellowing triumph, each infernal apparition descended upon them, demanding their ruin.
Haven heard the beasts as if they were right in her ear and knew that they hadn’t been fast enough. She’d glanced behind in time to see the two beasts position as they leaped. Their blood and metal color too reminiscent of a certain teammates power to be coincidental. Was this the simulation's trick, or were they caught in a trap laid for Amma alone? Was this Amma’s slain other back for revenge?
Putting all of her strength into her left arm, Haven swung Aurora in front of her and to the side, allowing the redhead to narrowly avoid her personal beast's snapping jaws. She spun with the movement, her own monster’s outstretched paw grazing across her ribcage as she escaped its horrible embrace. Her suit tore from its claws, the flesh beneath cracking. It felt like lightning made its way into the bone under her skin. She cried out, but did not allow her body to crumble from the pain. Instead she grabbed the leg of the beast and used her spinning momentum to throw it into its partner.
“Aurora, port us behind them!” Haven demanded.
The redhead exclaimed as she saw her winged friend mauled by one of the creatures that chased, realizing that Haven had pushed her out of harm's way and taken a blow on her behalf. The action in itself was enough to stop her tears from falling and force her to focus entirely on what was at stake here. At Haven’s command, Aurora tried to dig deep, take stock of her current state and HZE’s to determine if she had enough strength to use her abilities to transport not one but two people in addition to herself. She came up short.
“I can’t! I-I don’t think I have enough-”
A thought came to mind.
Her determined sapphires found Amma ahead of them, and the redhead reached out her hand towards her. Although they manifested in extremely different ways, the two girls did indeed have the same power type. “Amma, give me a boost! It’s the only way, please.” The situation was dire enough that they needed to work together, Aurora letting her hesitations vanish for only a moment to ensure their survival.
Amma's manic gaze snapped towards Aurora; one of the sky, the other of the sea. One of endless hope and possibilities, the other of endless depths and darkness- the unknown. Crushing azure that her glare invaded with a sluggish glow that lined her eyes, and her lashes, fanning them against her cheeks as her demented beast leaped; she felt the weight on her spine, shoulders, the invading puncture of talons in her flesh, and a ridge of bone over her shoulder. It bit down and hellfire speared through her body and wreathed her veins in searing agony. Amma bore the pain, the lightning that lanced through her, the sort of anguish that brought her to her knees and -
She better be ready.
The thought reared through her mind as she reached out, fingers splayed, nails arched, bone cracking under the sudden swell of energy she clawed through, the world always shuddered at her ebb and flow and here it cleaved forth at the seams and burned silver and black at the edges. Tendrils arose and swirled around her quivering hand, tantalizing and hesitant before it shot forward in a funnel of raw power and latched onto Aurora. It sluiced through her veins and it burned, it wove through every facet of her awaiting embrace and Amma could feel her. She felt the terrifying depths of long-hidden anguish, her fear, her pain that bloomed bright liken to a solar flare at all the wrongs the world had done unto her too. She felt everything she was and everything she was not. Felt that she was true.
And though the demented creature latched onto Amma with all the fierceness of a predator, her power shot up and rent through every whorl of darkness, felt the hot wash of blood pool at her neck, and even though exhaustion fought to reign over her being, she continued to feed her power into the connection that bound them together.
"Go. Leave. Take it and get out."
“No!” Haven shouted from where she stood. She’d placed Aurora behind her, not quite sure how the two women would share their strength together, but determined to defend Aurora again should it force her to be still while she accepted it. She’d been exempted from those lessons due to her nature. “We are not leaving Amma behind!”
The beasts amalgamated as they crashed into each other, and what turned to her and her friend now represented their current physical connection. One larger body, six legs, and two heads of vicious teeth. The monster lunged. Haven twisted herself to kick, catching it in the chest. The power within her muscles sent it backwards again. Vengeful arms clawed at her leg for grip, shredding her suit and flesh down each length of her thigh until it lost connection at her knee. Haven and the beast each howled in shared frustration, the former’s cry laced with pain. The creature skid to a stop a few feet away, its front paws leaving a trail of blood and scars along the linoleum. Its snarl filled the hallway as it began to circle its prey.
Aurora instantly knew pain.
But this was a different kind of torment. Not akin to a physical injury, but a heaviness, a crushing weight that Amma carried that she couldn’t even begin to describe. It coursed through her veins and the burden of such power, raw and unyielding, was like wildfire, incinerating everything in its path. It was unclear where it began and where it ended, an endless well that seemed to whisper secrets of suffering, agony, and nothingness. The darkness she normally bore was a fraction of what lay underneath, and the only sensation that was felt stronger in that moment was Aurora’s immense guilt.
The redhead grimaced as she struggled to channel that energy, that chaotic wreathing shadow, not used to such amounts of it at her disposal. But she managed to reign it in, form it into something she could use and looked to the other set of ceruleans intently, holding tightly onto her hand. Through gritted teeth, she spoke.
“Like hell am I leaving you here.”
She made the jump, exceeding her own expectations as all three of them vanished and reappeared behind the monster. Just as quickly as the power had been ignited, it snuffed out, Aurora’s knees buckling as the crash hit her like a ton of bricks. She swayed, and leaned into Haven, completely sapped. But her eyes found Amma’s once more, and in them lay a wordless appreciation and a mutual understanding.
Haven pressed her lips together as she placed weight onto her shredded leg, muffling the whine that escaped her throat. She could feel her pulse in her thigh, thankful that the talons hadn’t hit any arteries but also aware of the warm blood that began to trickle down her knee. She supported Aurora’s weight anyway. Her mind was trying to grapple with the feeling of porting from one place to another. She’d never traveled like that and she wasn’t sure she wanted to ever again. It felt… unnatural. Not quite the same feeling as traveling by car, or even worse by plane, but still just as foreign. Her body was tense against Aurora’s as a result. Which also left her torn ribs aching. She allowed her wings to slump behind her in an effort to reduce the pain.
She looked to Amma and could only hope that from this vantage point the raven haired woman would be able to defeat the monsters in one blow. Haven could still fight in this battered and torn state. She’d learned to push through pain like this a long time ago. The only reason she didn’t jump into action being that she didn’t dare leave Aurora alone and defenseless.
To be dragged from one place and then to the next was such a jarring swell of energy that Amma was breathless with it, the melding of the world, two halves woven together and then suddenly not, to be there and then whisked away was both daunting and extremely taxing, rendering her to her knees as her power sputtered, sparked and groaned. The dregs of her once infinite resources were slowly dwindling, having compelled such raw energy to Aurora- to allow them this one moment of triumph.
To make it count.
Amma flung out her hand and braced for the crackling whips of her power that postured over her arm and lanced forward as a bestial reaper, cores of pulsating scarlet that struck through the hellish beast that roared, those gaping maws belching an obsidian tar that frothed with death and decay. That smell of rot that burned through her veins and cantered through her life, muddied in ashen remains that stuck to her lungs with the scream that tore through her throat. Her opposite hand reached out next, summoning another funnel of pure, destructive power and bid the creature be torn apart from within. It appeared to shudder and tremble, ran through with relentless whorls of red that struck the ground, the walls, bidden by their master of chaos. A terrifying squeal splintered through the corridor and the world held its breath, beholden to the mistress that pillaged through time as the scion of ruin before it exploded.
Then silence.
Amma immediately fell, her weight caught by her scarred palms that slammed against the ground, a violent quiver pinging down her spine, her body wound taut, muscles aflame and every nerve pulsating with the spent energy that fizzled and whisked away from her shaking limbs. And though she felt nothing, she could not contain the trill of laughter that erupted from her lips, shoulders drawn in and hair fanned over her facade that splintered with a manic smile of gleaming bone and red that bled from her nose.
“Holy shit.” Haven uttered. She’d never seen Amma’s power in full force like that. Seeing those masks reduced to ash was something she would have to process later, but this display? It was unsettling to witness, but it also left her in awe. She watched Amma’s shoulders shake with laughter and wondered if it brought her joy or left her feral and sardonic to emanate such destructive force.
Had she not just been a conduit to the raven haired girl’s abilities, Aurora would have shared Haven’s sentiment. She too would have been flabbergasted and stunned by what had just occurred. But she had felt that limitless source firsthand, got a small glimpse at the sheer magnitude of the well in which she derived her crimson and ebony power from.
It was beautifully chilling, understandably haunting, and reasonably terrifying.
The redhead felt herself come back to her body piece by piece, sensation returning to her legs, and took some of her weight off of the winged girl who was worse for wear. Normally Aurora could sense the HZEs around her, warp them to her will in order to travel from place to place, but after such usage to teleport the three of them, which surpassed anything she had ever done before, she was met with vast emptiness. She needed to preserve her strength if she was going to have a fighting chance.
“We should keep moving. Find the others.” She stated in between deep breaths, attempting to calm her pounding heart.
Amma's laughter slowly subsided, her reality carefully reigning back into place by the deafening silence and both Haven and Aurora's words, her trembling gestures carved back through her hair, soiled of obsidian ash and blood with a sigh that raked from her chest and deflated on a shuddering breath.
"Yes," she agreed in a murmur, attempting to stand was a struggle in itself, her ankle nearly buckling in protest before she fell, once, twice - a third time that had her teeth slicing into the pout of her lip, every inch of her flesh sensitive, every aspect of her heart and soul suddenly raw. It was a feeling not entirely unknown, but completely unwelcome as she finally managed to rise to her full height with a pained wince.
"Maybe we can circle back around... before I found Haven, I felt someone-"
She never got to finish her sentence, never even released a full breath before the wall at her back yawned into a sudden void on the ear-splitting screech of sundered steel. There in the eternal gloom churned a ring of hellfire that sputtered and roared, a terrifying echo of a guttural below that summoned her. The ink that waved across her flesh: demented snakes and fluttering moths and decaying birds that twittered and screeched. Those hellish hands ended in grueling talons that sunk deep into Amma's shoulders and hauled her forward, pitching her into that awaiting abyss that foretold her demise.
"NO!" A cry fell, a desperate screech of rage that had her twisting, hands reaching, nails digging and clawing and scraping, her power sputtered; red and silver tried to rise to her wailing shriek, but everything she was had been spent and all was for naught as Amma struggled.
And lost.
"Tell everyone - I'm --!"
A single thread of red, a fated string, a last attempt coiled away from her trembling hand where it lazily slithered across the ground, tracking through the blackened remains of their assailant before it looped around Aurora, the last vestiges of her manifest sinking deep into the same hand that had held her and refused to let go earlier. When she refused to leave her behind.
Then Amma Cahors was pulled back into that darkness, the void closing on a peal of hated laughter, the panels warped and blackened where she once was. A disembodied voice filled the entirety of the corridor then, the voice of Torres, and it echoed, over and over and over again.
Thank you for bringing Tiamat home.
And then there was darkness, the lights in the hallway slowly going out- one by one, until only a single bulb remained alighted over them both and with it, Torres' laughter faded away into nothing.
