Broker-Chapter 191

Sonya stepped out of the elevator and into a hall made entirely out of metal. It was not unlike the fortified interior of the Marianas Trench base. A fact that made her frown more than amuse her. The likeness was uncanny. She glanced towards Shuta who walked in stoic silence next to her as they pushed into the hall and through a series of heavy blast doors. A lot of money had gone into securing this part of the building while the structure upstairs seemed to have been designed with image and comfort in mind.

You’re annoyed, Ishtar said.

Of course I am. Sonya clipped, Look at this place. There’s too many similarities with this hallway and the Marianas Base. Then there’s that note I got about Qilin. I know it's from them. It’s like they’re watching me.

There’s no proof of that, Ishtar pointed out.

You know it's not a coincidence, Sonya said and she felt Ishtar sigh. She chewed her lip and closed her eyes, rubbing at her wrist again. It won’t stop hurting.

The doors opened one at a time to allow them entrance before closing immediately behind them. It was only through the third door that they found themselves standing in a large room that appeared circular. She couldn’t tell entirely from the way a veil of darkness hung around the rear portion, illuminated only by candle light. There was a dais set into the center of the room with a partially transparent veil pulled around it; inside she could see a bed. She sniffed at the air. Incense? Her lips thinned into a line. So far she hadn’t encountered much in the regards to the religious aspect of this group, it seemed more like a refugee camp than anything else. Here, that changed.

Her eyes fixed on a figure on the bed. Her ocular lenses clicked as she tried to get a good look at them. No name appeared though. Just obscured enough that my eyes won’t identify them. Interesting.

This is… seeming less and less coincidental, Ishtar conceded, This veil seems designed to block your eyes. That isn’t just cloth.

I noticed, Sonya said irritably, I’m starting to lean towards just getting rid of these people.

And I am beginning to agree with you, Ishtar said, Patience, though. Feel them out.

To her right, Shuta dropped to a knee and bowed his head. “Lady Setsuna, I am here with our honored guest,” he said, his shoulders tensing for a moment before he continued. “I was… rude to her at the entryway.”

Sonya chuckled and the boy’s shoulders tightened even more, his eyes fixed on the ground.

Sonya stepped past him, putting her hand on her hip. She raised her chin up to peer into the veil again, “Are you really the person in charge?”

The figure shifted, “I am,” came a melodious voice. The figure shifted again and reached forward to pull the veil aside. Shuta nearly jumped to his feet as the veil parted revealing a woman of middle-age years. Her face was an image of serene beauty, her eyes black pits that seemed to suck in the light around them. Long black hair hung around her that spread out onto the bed and spilled over her shoulders and luxurious figure. She looked up into Sonya’s face for a long moment before smiling. “Know you, do I, Chernovna,” she said in a voice like honey.

<Kato Setsuna, Awakened>

Sonya blinked. Woah.

Sonya… Ishtar warned.

Sonya pursed her lips, I’m fine. I’ve never fallen for a honey trap before and I’m not going to now.

Good.

Sonya set her expression with a frown. Her arms crossed as she tilted her head to the right. Setsuna stared into her eyes for several heartbeats. “And?” she demanded, “A lot of people have heard of me. If you’re looking to throw me off, you’re going to have to try harder than my name and a pretty face. If that walk to your doors was intended to elicit a positive reaction, you had the opposite effect. What are you trying to prove?”

Sonya! Ishtar chastised.

What? I’m not going to lie to her! I physically can’t! She shot back, ignoring the aghast look from Shuta. Ishtar grumbled something but simply retreated into the back of her mind. She knew herself well enough to know she had a bit of a weakness for the cute ones, but that changed nothing. These people knew way too much and were using her name to hide behind. They were a problem as far as she was concerned. She wanted explanations-the note, their activities, all of it.

The woman’s smile remained passive.

“Prove? No,” she said with a solemn nod, “Make clear, yes?” she said with a small laugh and shifted to place her bare feet on the ground. She looked up at Sonya meaningfully and those dark eyes became just a bit darker, “Allow me a different angle.”

Sonya narrowed her eyes. What is she-

“Let hope out and try again,” she intoned.

In an instant the woman was off her feet, dangling in the air. Sonya held her by her throat, her eyes blazing with fury as she squeezed down with her powerful fingers. All pretense of amusement gone from her face. “I don’t know how you know those words,” Sonya said coldly, “But you just made a huge mistake.” Those words. No one but those closest to me should know them. No one but those who know about the previous timeline, know my greatest secret. Words she hadn’t heard in a long time. Words that changed her life. Pandora’s words. The words that sent her to the past.

The woman gasped, her feet swaying beneath her. Behind Sonya she felt Shuta dart to his feet and draw his sword. She glanced over her shoulder at him with a scowl, “Sit down, brat,” she snarled, her presence hitting him like a wave. He doubled over and gagged, only remaining standing with the help of his sword that he dug into the floor at his feet. The walls creaked around them, the air grew denser, heavier. She looked the woman in the eyes, “You have a lot of guts using my name for your little religion,” she snarled, “I suggest you give me a damn good reason not to kill you for what you know.”

“Mother!” Shuta wheezed.

Despite the situation, Setsuna only smiled down at Sonya as she was strangled, “Meet we, at last, Ishtar.”

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For a moment, the only sound in the room was the wheezing coughs of Shuta as he recovered from Sonya’s spike of presence. She stood there, mechanical eyes unblinking, bright and spinning with absolute focus. Her lips in a thin line as she slowly squeezed down on the throat in her hand. Kato Setsuna hung a foot off the ground, feet dangling, shoulders sagging as her skin began to change color. A bubble rose up at her lips and her eyes glazed over for a heartbeat. Sonya’s lips twitched, white hot anger searing through her brain.

SONYA! STOP!

Ishtar’s shout in her mind drew her back to her senses and she jerked her hand back, releasing the woman and letting her drop to the ground in a heap. She flexed her fingers as the numbness from that spot in her wrist spread up her arm. She could hear her pulse in her ears. Was that why it was so quiet? What…? What just happened? She turned slowly towards Shuta who had gotten shakily to his feet, sword pointed in her direction. She clenched her jaw. Damn.

The source of this c𝐨ntent is freeweɓnovēl.coɱ.

Calm down, there is a time and place for cruelty. This isn’t it.

Her heart was still pounding. She didn’t know what foot to put forward now. Roll with it, Sonya. She clicked her tongue and turned away from the boy, “Put that down, boy, it won’t help you,” she snarled before looking down at his mother, “If my signature at the gate wasn’t enough, she just confirmed it. I am Ishtar.”

The woman shuddered on the ground, trying to push herself up. She was still dazed from the strangulation. Shuta’s sword hit the ground as the woman tried to look up at her, a nasty purple mark on her neck. “Then why are you doing this?” he asked from behind her.

Sonya looked down at her hand and felt that odd point in her wrist, the pain was fading but the irritation, the anxiety. It kept getting worse. I have no fucking clue, kid. I was fine for a while there. Mood swings aren’t this severe…

Breathe, Sonya.

I didn’t mean to do it.

I know. Just breathe and play the part.

She didn’t look back at him, “Are you seriously asking a Supervillain why they do villainous things?” she growled as she tried to catch her breath. She felt like she was losing control of herself. It was like every time she felt her chest ease it bubbled right back up. A rage that had been muted, numbed by the good life she’d had so far in this new timeline despite all the suffering of a more spiritual kind, rekindled in her lungs like a withheld scream. She looked down at her hands, she could feel the knife she held that day in them. The blood soaking her fingers making it hard to hold onto the handle. She could see his sneering face.

She looked back into those jet black eyes, “How do you know those words?” she growled.

The woman reached up and touched her throat and cleared it but Shuta spoke up again, “My moth-”

Sonya closed her eyes, searching the bottom of the barrel for patience, “I didn’t ask you to answer for her,” she said in a tone that dropped the temperature in the room several degrees. The boy froze as a clear and present warning that death was approaching him fell over him like a sheet. She tilted her head to the right like a bird examining a worm, “I asked her.”

The woman’s thin lips curled up into a smile again as she cleared her throat, “Oracle,” she rasped, “My ability.”

Sonya’s eyes narrowed.

Ah, according to legend the Oracle of Delphi spoke in strange ways. Perhaps it's the weakness of her ability like our own prohibition on falsehoods. Ishtar commented.

Sonya rolled her jaw left and right before plucking the note that had saved her from Qilin’s ability out of her pocket. She held it up for the woman to see, “Was this you?”

The woman nodded, “Yes,” she wheezed.

Sonya crumpled it in her palm and reached up to rub the bridge of her nose, “How much do you know?” she asked, forcing herself to calm down.

The woman swallowed and cleared her throat again, “Knowledge, I sought. Open your eyes, to my power, words to,” she said as she slowly pushed herself up to a kneeling position on the ground. “Little more, end of days, the past,” she cleared her throat again, “yet not. Your goal, I know. Your enemy, I know,” she shifted a little more, “Humanity, kicking, screaming.”

Sonya searched her face before glancing over her shoulder at the door that led into the hallway that was eerily alike to the mariana’s base. So she knows a lot, but doesn’t know everything. She used her ability to answer a specific question. ‘What do I have to do to prove that I am an Oracle to Ishtar?’ or something to that effect. Sonya reasoned. It fed her the information that would make it irrefutable. An ability that grants specific knowledge without context, of the past and the future.

An undesirable trade-off in how her words are broken, now. Ishtar commented. Interesting how she breaks up her sentences to attempt to speak more legibly. Terribly inconvenient though.

Agreed, not an ability I would want to take. Who knows if merging it with something else would get rid of the drawback? Sonya thought as her shoulders fell. The moment of deep thought had helped her clear her head a little. The fury was still there but it was muted. She looked back at the woman-Setsuna on the ground, “Why did you wait to get in contact? If we had met sooner this may have not been as tense,” she said.

Setsuna’s eyes darkened again, the depths growing deeper, “The light she brings will burn bright against the coming darkness. Patience. Await her ire.”

Sonya clicked her tongue, “A prophecy. The light being the heroes I brought with me to Japan,” she crossed her arms, “What’s the coming darkness? Otis? He’s in America. If there’s a problem, you have manpower, don’t you?”

Setsuna looked sad for a moment, “Not know, I do,” she said before gesturing past her towards the doors and the building beyond. “Sanctuary, Children of Dawn, they seek. With you. Haven. Our power-”

“If the government saw what we were capable of, they wouldn’t leave us be. Most of us are outcasts. They don’t want to fight, just to be left alone,” Shuta cut in, his words coming out fast before Sonya reacted to him speaking out of turn.

She turned to look him in the eyes before letting out a sigh and running her fingers through her hair. “Not a great first impression, lady,” she grumbled, “But you aren’t wrong in how you handled it, from that perspective. I guess,” she rubbed her neck, “I’m sorry for hurting you,” she said.

She felt weary, as if the anger that had been strengthening her just faded away, leaving her body numb and tired. She held out her palm and created three strawberries. She tossed one to Shuta and popped one in her mouth before extending the third to Setsuna. “It’ll heal you,” she said as she chewed.

Sonya…

I’ll eat a normal meal when this is done. It’s fine, Sonya grumbled and tried again to soothe her temper. Damn it. It’s like every time I finally find my groove something happens to set me off again. It’s just easier to be angry. It’s hard to be fun..

There’s nothing wrong with your rage. If there is anyone on this planet that deserves such fury, it is you, Ishtar said, I am more concerned that it is controlling you. We are becoming unstable. You-

Don’t start that shit again, Sonya shot back. I don’t want to argue with you right now. At least when I’m pissed I act more like a villain. Be happy about that.

Perhaps.

Setsuna reached out and took the strawberry reverently before popping it into her mouth. She chewed slowly and Sonya watched as the bruise on her neck faded away. The oracle’s eyes went wide in surprise as she sat up straighter, rubbing at her throat and even looking down at her legs. She reached down with shaky hands and touched her feet, squeezing them before looking up at Sonya in wonder. Sonya frowned and glanced back at Shuta who was examining his body curiously before looking up at his mother who was still rubbing her legs. He turned and met Sonya’s confused stare. “Tibial muscular dystrophy,” he said, “She can move her legs but she can’t put any weight on them.”

Sonya turned back as Setsuna got slowly to her feet, small tears welling in her eyes.

Oh don’t look at me like that, I didn’t do it on purpose, she groaned inwardly before taking another deep, cleansing breath. She gestured lazily with her hand and created a chair of hard light, the illusions of augment reality wrapped around it to give it a more real appearance. She sat down and crossed her legs. “Alright,” she said, “You caught my attention. Lured me here. You’ve survived your first encounter with Ishtar,” she leaned forward a bit and looked the woman in the eyes, “Let’s hear your pitch.”