Union

twenty

August 2nd
0144 EST

I'm being taken somewhere. My head hurts. It's pounding like a thousand drums. It's dark and cold. It's so cold. Shivering. I can feel my body tremble. I don't know where I am. I can't think. My head. So much pain. Where am I being taken? Where's CJ? What happened? Oh god, what's going to happen to me? Wait, I hear something. I hear...a voice.

~ ~ ~

Slowly, Bristol's eyes fluttered open. The darkness was shattered by the open door before her, and while light filtered through. It was bright enough to make her head throb even more.

Bristol winced, flinching away. Her head ached intensely, sharp pains pierced behind her eyes with each movement. However, when she tried to fight against her chains, she noticed that they had disappeared.

A flare of hope erupted within her, and Bristol held out her hands before her, as if she couldn't believe the fact that she was more or less free. Taking a deep breath, she stood, gripping the wall for support.

The normally locked door before her was ajar. Light flickered in from behind the door itself, and part of Bristol thought that she was dying. Maybe this was the light at the end of the tunnel.

And yet she found herself walking towards it. She stretched her fingers out before her and gently pushed against the door, watching it swing open.

What she saw astonished her.

Headquarters. She was inside of headquarters.

Bristol's eyes filled with tears as she emerged from her cell, looking back every so often to make sure that she actually had left her prison. She quickly turned back around and walked further into the cortex.

"CJ?" She called, her voice catching on his name. "Tristan? Avi? Anyone?"

She stood before the training platform, wondering where everyone was. Her heart pounded in her chest. Something wasn't right. It was almost too silent. A menacing laugh echoed in the distance.

"Oh, my dear girl," The voice became much louder, as if it was right in front of her. "Your mind is so easy to manipulate."

Bristol whipped around, facing the hallway that filtered into the cortex. She looked around wildly, flashes of a masked face darting out of her vision as soon as she saw it. She flexed her palm, expecting to feel the familiar sensation of her abilities kicking in, but they didn't.

"Your powers won't work here either, I should mention." The voice drawled, as if she were nothing but an incompetent child with no spectrum on how things were.

Bristol took a shaky breath, but everything was blurring before her. "W-what do you want with me?" She managed, spinning around as she tried to face the man that was speaking.

He chuckled, only angering Bristol. Eventually, he materialized out of thin air, but he was cloaked in shadows.

"Not you specifically, Bristol. I want to see the fall of the Union. You seemed to be the weakest link." The man said simply.

At this, Bristol grit her teeth. "Well, you thought wrong." She spat.

If the man wasn't made of shadows, he might have been smiling. "Perhaps," he paused. "Maybe I should have captured your little boyfriend. He seems to have his own inner demons. Or maybe the robot girl? The ice boy?"

Bristol's eyes widened as an image of CJ in pain flashed through her mind, followed by Avi and Tristan until she couldn't bear it anymore, She took a shaky breath. "No!" She exclaimed.

"No?" The man asked.

Bristol glared daggers at the man. "Do what you want, hurt me, kill me, I don't care. But don't touch him. Or Avi, or Tristan! Or I swear to God, I will destroy you myself."

She almost surprised herself with the confidence in her tone, but she didn't let it show. The man appeared to glare right back at her, and the shadows began to fall away as the room began to spin. Bristol yelped as the blood roared in her ears. She collapsed to the ground, her breathing becoming labored. The pain behind her eyes turned dangerously irritable, and her vision was starting to blur.

The shadows had fallen away from the man, and seemed to collect in his hand in some sort of mask. With another sharp pain, Bristol recognized the mask, the symbol of their enemy, but she couldn't make out any details of Rune himself. All she could pinpoint were his piercing blue eyes, blonde hair, and tall stature.

Rune stepped towards her slowly, his mask of darkness in his hand. As the room spun, he walked casually as if the chaos revolved around him. Which it did.

He leant down towards her, his blurry icy blue eyes gazing into hers. For a moment, Bristol felt a sense of familiarity. She stared intensely into his eyes, irises she recognized but she couldn't place from where.

  Bristol knew she was missing something. Something that would turn the tables instantly in this war she and the Union were fighting and losing.

Her eyes goggled at the realization of why they were so familiar. She shook her head in disbelief at her deduction.

"Y-your eyes," She said flabbergasted. "They're just like--"

But before Bristol could say the name her head began to spin, and the throbbing intensified. She cried out in pain, her hands flying to her temples.

"Lights out, my dear. Prepare to choose." He said, a soft tone laced in his voice that almost disguised the venom.

With a sickening brightness, the fluorescent lights of headquarters melted away into darkness. Before Bristol lost consciousness once more, the last thing she heard was Rune's villainous chuckle, reverberating around her skull.