Chapter Fifty Seven: New Beginnings

Several hours later, Ronin sat on his roof again, staring out at the city beneath him, deep in thought.

His VUI informed him of an incoming message and he tapped it to listen.

"Ronin...I think we should meet."

The message, unusually brief, had come from Angel, the last person he'd expected to hear from at this point, though he was interested in seeing her in person.

Moira spoke gently into his mind, "The message was delivered from Old Central Park…"

"Think it's a trap?" he asked aloud.

She shook her head, something he couldn't see, he just knew, and said, "No...I'm not sure why, but I get the feeling that we can trust Angel right now."

He chuckled a bit at her reference that they could trust her right now and said, "Why don't we meet her down there then?"

A message composed itself in his VUI as Moira responded to Angel, "We'll be there shortly. Where do you want us to meet you?"

Almost instantly, they received a response, "I'm in Old Central Park."

Within an hour, Ronin stood beside the entrance to the massive crater that lead to Old Central Park and said, "Hopefully this is easier than the last time we were here."

Following the stairs down, Ronin listened for the sounds of digging and excavating, pleased to hear silence.

"I guess whatever they were looking for, the Cathols found…"

From further into the hole, Ronin heard a voice say, "They were looking for a gate."

"Meonin," he asked curiously?

 She responded, "Yeah, me and Angel are down here, next floor down, the door's open."

Ronin looked down the spiralling staircase to the next landing and saw that light was leaking out onto the steps.

Picking up his pace, he soon found himself at the doorway to the level they were on and pushed the cracked door open further, only to find Meonin hunched over a set of consoles she'd set up.

"I was wrong," she started, "The Cathols weren't looking to finish a gate...they were repairing one."

Ronin stepped closer and asked, "How do you know?"

 A voice came from behind him, a deep feminine voice with the barest hint of menace tracing her every word, "The day you met up with the Hidden Truths, I got a massive spike of energy, like nothing I'd ever seen before...it took me some time to track it down, but it brought me here. Meonin filled in the details for me."

Meonin pulled up a hologram of the room far below them, the circle on the ground bringing back painful memories and refreshing his frustration with Liliana.

"It would appear that the crystals were growths strategically placed to stop the circle from being able to activate," Meonin said, her voice small and afraid.

"What's on the other side?" Ronin asked, almost afraid to.

The voice from behind him said, "A place referred to as The Consortium, the home of countless species of monsters. It's the kind of place parents tell their children stories about to stop them from misbehaving."

Turning to the woman, Ronin said, "Is that even possible?"

She nodded as Meonin said, "Remember, the Drae'Gyn could open gateways to entirely different worlds. Their technology was so advanced that we can still only barely scratch the surface of what we've found, and we have reason to believe that everything we've found is out of date.

Shrugging, the woman in front of Ronin said, "Luckily, they're gone for good. The monsters on the other side of the gate though...they're still very much alive."

Suspecting he knew already, he asked, "And who are you?"

Her eyes narrowed and Ronin felt as though he couldn't breathe, the feeling getting more intense as she walked closer to him, each step constricting his lungs more and more.

Alarms rang out loud in his head as Moira desperately tried to get Ronin's vitals under control, her panic intensifying his condition exponentially.

He tried to move, only to find that his feet felt rooted to the ground, his arms hanging at his side as though they were made of lead, too heavy to even flinch, let alone move.

Trying to look away from her, he found he couldn't break her gaze, her eyes glowing bright yellow until she raised an eyebrow and they changed to black.

Suddenly the pressure was released and he could breathe again, something he did with desperation as she giggled and said, "It's me, Angel."

Walking past him, she leaned over Meonin's shoulder, looking over her data as Ronin asked, "What the hell was that?!"

Pointing out some mistake, she said, "You want to make sure that's correct, we're going to be trying to turn off something pretty powerful, don't want an explosion to level the city."

Still gasping, Ronin said, "Angel...Angel, what the hell was that? Who are you really?"

Without turning back to him, she replied, "I'm pretty disappointed, to be totally honest."

Looking up at her, Ronin asked, "What?"

 Finally turning back to him, she rolled her eyes and shook her head so hard her light blonde hair flounced around, her bangs shaking back and forth as she said, "I'm dis-a-ppointed," enunciating herself sharply to show her disdain.

"Marcus made it sound like you're some combat god, but if you can barely stand up to me, you've got no chance against Jet, that's for sure."

Glaring at her, he said, "I don't know how you did that, but you took me by surprise. It won't ever happen again, I assure you."

Cocking her head at him, she raised up three fingers and started counting down to one until she had a closed fist. Her eyes twitched slightly and Ronin was sent flying out of the room, slamming into the metal railing so hard it bent outward and left him gasping for air.

She spoke, her voice distant to Ronin's ringing ears, "I can't put a dent in Jet. I'm sure you're going to get tired of hearing this, but you've got no chance against him."

Coughing into his hand, Ronin pushed up from the railing trying to clear his head as she continued, "Your friends Mira and Azue have better odds, but they're only half there, none of you are ready, and there's no time to get you ready."

Checking his hand for blood, he said, "Then what do you propose I do?"

 She shrugged and said, "Honestly? Go ahead and die. It'll be easier than just suffering as you watch your friends become corrupted and die."

"What?" Ronin shouted angrily.

She smiled sarcastically and said, "Honestly, if we can't get this gate closed permanently, I don't know exactly what any of us are going to do. Compared to what this is sealing away, Jet is nothing."

Meonin totally unconcerned with Ronin asked, "Is it that bad? The Consortium?"

 Shaking her head, Angel said, "The Consortium itself isn't all that bad. Thriving culture and everything up until very recently. It's what's in there now that's the problem."

Hobbling back to the room, Ronin asked, "And what's that?"

 Looking back at him again with a serious expression, she said, "All of your worst nightmares and worse."

 Thinking back on the dead walking, Ronin said, "Somehow I doubt that."

Angel stood and walked to him, the top of her head barely reaching Ronin's shoulders and said, "With all the things I'm sure you've seen, Ronin, the Unclaimed, I assure you, you haven't seen anything."

Meonin spoke, her voice quiet, almost saturated with fear, "Noel...you were wrong…"

Angel shifted her glasses on her face, the round lenses catching the light and glinting in the dim room as Ronin asked, "Who's Noel?"

Angel turned toward Meonin as she said, "Me. That's my name."

Meonin tapped her computer rapidly and the three of them were surrounded by a full room hologram that flashed rapidly through dozens of images in a matter of seconds.

 Caught off guard, Ronin missed a lot of them, but managed to catch a glimpse of a woman on her knees her black hair draped around her face to the ground while a man stood over her ,his hands glowing bright with white water that seemed to be flowing as it sat still.

Turning around, Ronin saw a man wrapped in black fire with a hopeless expression on his face when suddenly the room flickered to black, the only light a painfully bright blue shimmering from the woman.

It stayed like this for several moments until a river of white water flowed over her, dragging her to a place that looked like earth, where, just barely visible, dozens of red lights flowed over her until there was only one and her bright blue was tainted with traces of red and black, barely flickering compared to the overwhelming brilliance before.

The hologram disappeared as Meonin asked, "What does this mean?"

 Noel's face was dark as she said, "Nothing good."

Ronin shook his head, still trying to figure everything out as he asked, "What does this mean for us?"

 "If we can't get this gate shut for good? The end," Angel said.

 Looking inward, Ronin was concerned to see that Moira was silent, her quietude laced with fear and sadness.

"Holiday."

Looking up, Ronin asked, "What?"

 "Holiday," Angel said, "My name is Noel Holiday. It looks like we're going to be working together far more than I'd intended, we may as well be on a first name basis."

Before Ronin could ask anymore questions she said, "Between this issue with the Cathols and getting this gate closed, looks like we've got a lot on our plate, doesn't it, Meonin?"

 Ronin looked past Noel and saw that Meonin was busy sending data to one of her servers and said, "Which is more important?"

Sighing, Noel said, "They're both equally as dangerous, but it looks like she set this stuff up with the Cathols to mask what she's doing."

 Raising an eyebrow, Ronin asked, "Who's she?"

"Who else could set this all up in a way to tie my hands so definitively?" Noel said dismissively.

Looking at her with a blank expression, Ronin shrugged and said, "I've got no idea."

"Ugh. Marcus said you were smart, Ronin. I'm going to kick his ass," she said as she crossed her arms.

Meonin spoke as her fingers flew across the keyboard, "He hasn't been here long enough to really know anything about the Cathols, Noel."

Looking back at Meonin with a raised eyebrow, Noel said, "Fine. You get a pass because Meonin vouched for you."

Rolling his eyes, Ronin said, "Gee thanks."

Noel looked him dead in d, "It hasn't been easy to find since there doesn't seem to be any information on her outside of the city, which is crazy weird, all things considered. She's a genius in traditional sciences, a veritable master of Aether, but she transcends belief when you start looking at her progress with alchemy. Masters all over the city refer to her work to make their own work more stable, use fewer resources and improve their overall ability."

"Noel, who is she?" Ronin practically shouted.

An image of a woman cloaked in white appeared on the wall from Meonin's computer and Ronin's heart skipped a beat as Noel said, nonchalant despite the audible irritation she felt, "Her name is Eve. Eve the Forsaken Alchemist."

On the wall was the woman Ronin had condemned to death, the woman whose treachery had catapulted him into the position of Director. A woman who he'd not even given a second thought, who he'd assumed dead and done with. The picture of her stared out at him with a cocky glee, taunting him with her very existence.

He dropped to his knees as the weight of this revelation weighed down on him, all the lives lost, all the harm done to so many innocent people.

One of his closest friends was corrupted and killing even more people with every day that passed and one of the women he loved was slowly drifting into a murderous insanity.

He looked into the eyes of his single greatest mistake, and with an empty fury, as much at himself as her, he spoke, his voice hollow in the silence of the room.

"Fuck."