Chapter 17: Of Fates & Roots
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Madison gets a little too emotional and in-character during a visit with the Argents. Meanwhile, Theo makes a shocking discovery...
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[General POV]:
At the Argent house, night hung heavily in the sky. Allison slumbers in her room while, downstairs, a semi-intense discussion was taking place between her mother, her father and her aunt.
"We still don't know who the alpha is, Christopher," Victoria expressed, much to Chris' silent deliberation. "It could be anyone."
Chris remained silent, thinking.
They had been going over what ideas and looking into many possible culprits in their search. They've even asked around town for anything suspicious and asked their contacts if they heard anything about it.
They've still come up short, though.
Whoever the alpha is still eludes them.
"We know who they aren't," Kate said, offering her two sense. "The Hale boys aren't alphas — They're betas, while the Hale matriarch still remains in a coma and her brother is still in a psyche ward. In other words, we can cross out the Hales."
That caused Chris to side-eye his younger sister, eyebrow raised. He had noticed that ever since the Hale fire — maybe even before it — she has had an obsession with that pack. He ignored it before, mostly because he figures it wasn't important.
Chris was beginning to wonder if there was a story there — A relationship he wasn't seeing.
However, her randomly mentioning them once again brought up the painful memories of knowing that there were children in that house of wolves — Some were wolves, yes, but many were human beings – children, who hadn't been able to grow up.
Without anything to go on, Chris studied his younger sister's face, but she gave nothing away.
Figuring to put away such thoughts for later contemplation, Chris Argent decided to re-focus on the task at hand.
"Our only lead seems to be Jackson Whittemore," Chris pondered aloud.
"Yet we can't seem to even get close to him," Kate argues. "His friends… Brown Eyes — the McCall boy — seems too close to him to give us a chance, and there's always someone with him. If it isn't Scott, its the other one with the strange name…Stilangski or something like that."
"We need to figure this out," Victoria tried. "We need to—"
WRRRMM!
The power suddenly came off. Chris instinctively pulled out a spare gun from his belt. Kate followed suit, as both hunters looked around, taking in their surrounding environment despite the darkness.
VRRRRM!
VRRRRM!
Suddenly, the house's emergency light flashed on and the trio gasp at the figure that had appeared before them.
The figure was dressed in all-black — From the pants to the boots to the longsleeve collar button slim fitted retro Mandarin shirt, its sleeves going down to the middle finger in an integrated glove. The figure wore a red, blue and black Kimono vest, pink and blue printed flowers printed on crimson and black silky cloth. And, upon her face, the figure wore a blue, red and white Kabuki mask, which completely covered her face in full. Her auburn brown-red hair was pulled back in a bun, held in place by a tree-shaped, silver hair pin.
[Reference Image]:
This was Lady Kabuki.
Upon seeing a figure appear in their living room, Kate and Chris wasted no time, aiming their guns immediately at the sudden intruder — However, before either of them could ask a question or even fire, the figure waved her hands and, as if attracted by a massive magnet, all guns on both hunters and within the room rose up, pinning themselves on the ceiling of the living room.
The move startled Chris and Kate, who had never seen such an ability before. The three hunters were all equally shocked, their eyes widening in their surprise, Victoria included. In all their time as hunters, they had never seen someone wield a psychic power to this extent outside of exceptionally rare occurrences — Like when they had to make a deal with the head of the Hewitt family many years prior, particularly the Patriarch.
But this was him.
This was someone — something — else.
"What... what are you?" Chris asked, still slightly stunned. "Who are you?"
"I am Lady Kabuki, Lady of the Night, Guardian of the Great Tree & Keeper of The Nemeton," Madison spoke while vibrating her vocal cords with telekinesis, causing her voice to naturally echo and distort as it multi-tone itself. "House of Argent, I have chosen you to servant my will."
Internally, even as she spoke, Madison had to fight the urge to roll her eyes at the utter bullshit coming out of her lips. Still, to remain in character, she kept up the act. She needed to establish a clear upper ground in hierarchical order for what she had planned and figured a mythological setup would be a most optimized way of achieving this.
"I am no one's servant," Kate seemed enraged by the mere suggestion of becoming anyone's servant. She then surged forward when a crushing, invisible force lifted her off the floor 4 feet in the air. It felt like her lungs were being suffocated as an external force was crushing her bones. "Whgh...?"
She tried coughing, but whatever was actively crushing her lungs seemed to be crushing her windpipe.
"I don't like you, Kate Argent, nor do I like your tone. I could crush you with a thought if I so choose. Your own secret deeds with the Hale family still disgusts me. If it were up to me, you would've died that night," in her fury, Madison accidentally revealed a bit more than she initially wanted, but Derek's story has always ticked her the wrong way — And actually living through it as she had just brought out the anger from within her.
In canon, the Hale house fire was started by Kate. In this world it was the same.
It meant that every last Hale who died after it — Every Hale who fell after the catastrophe, every single one, died because of this one, pedophilic predator before her. It ticked her off and made her more than wanting to kill the woman.
Without Kate, in canon, Thalia Hale wouldn't have died, allowing her alpha spark to travel to Laura, who wouldn't have become a target for Peter. The Hale pack wouldn't have died in the fire and Derek wouldn't have to deal with tragedy after tragedy his life became.
In this world, Madison saved many of the Hales, yet, because of unseen circumstances, Thalia remained in a coma, her alpha spark travelling to Laura, who was coincidentally hunted by Peter, who is now, like in canon, the current big bad.
And, all the while, Derek is left stressing again — And it was all this bitch's fault!
In her emotional turmoil, Madison hadn't realized she was shaking the entire block, nor that she was very close to crushing Kate Argent to death. If it weren't for her unrivaled willpower trait, she would later realize she would've actually crushed the woman in her telekinetic hold.
"Ple-plea-se..." Kate managed to get out.
"Let my sister go... Please," Chris said, making Madison look his and Victoria's way, seeing their distress faces — Madison realized what she was doing and let Kate fall down in a heap on the ground, watching as Victoria rushed forward, alongside Chris, to check on the huntress' condition.
Madison watched, her auburn, red-brown hair pulled back in a bun, held in place by a tree-shaped, silver hair pin. She watched them care for the huntress and felt sick in her stomach at the fact that they clearly didn't know what kind of monster they were harboring in their family.
'Her time will come. Her life isn't mine to take,' Madison thought to herself. 'She's Derek's and Auntie Thalia's to take care of... Focus Madison. What did you come here for?'
With a wave of her hand, she teleported a large, grey plastic tub into the living room. The lid strained against the amount of weaponry it contained.
"These are thermal-based weaponry — Automatic weaponry that fire either superheated crystallized bullets or hypercold laser blasters," Madison explained as she watched Chris pick up the blaster and Victoria study the pile of weaponry before them, even as she tended to Kate. "You will distribute these amongst the hunter clans — Solely for storage until such thing as what I have foreseen comes to pass."
"And what exactly have you foreseen?" Victoria narrowed her eyes in suspicion.
Lady Kabuki turned to her.
"What else could cause an ancient cosmic nature spirit to awaken after thousands of years?" Kabuki deadpanned at the straight bullshit coming from her lips. "Global extinction from something sealed long ago. I have a survival plan for the world, but it requires your subservience."
Silence overtook the room for a few moments as everyone digested her words. Until, finally, Chris spoke.
"What do you need?" he asked.
Though no one could see it, Madison was grinning beneath the mask.
Lady Kabuki made a few stops after her discussion with the Argents. She visited government agencies, security firms, law enforcements and other hunting clans — Globally.
Of course, distributing these weapons, she didn't give any of them the freedom that she gave the Argents. Many got mind-wiped of weaponry knowledge after the deals were made and location placements were secured. They wouldn't even remember that there were state of the art weaponry until a trigger — such as Apocalyptic conditions, demon invasion or global emergency — jolts the memories back into their accessible memories.
This prevented greedy, war-mongering individuals from kickstarting their own extinction.
Madison was not an idiot.
She knew that, even in a world of werewolves, kitsune, hellhounds and demons, humanity's biggest threat was itself. And she had no intentions of letting that threat become reality, not if she could help it.
She needed to prepare the world for a global extinction level, apocalyptic devil invasion. She was not going to pre-start the apocalypse through human touch. She was thorough in the memory suppression, installing various safeguards and parameters and situational triggers to ensure the mental seal and its proper release worked according to design.
When she finally returned to her warehouse, washed up and changed, she made a decision.
'Its been days since I let Hazel surface,' Madison pondered privately as she watched her clones work. 'And, while I've been busy, I can't forget what I'm doing this for. Her peace... I get stronger the longer I sleep with her at the wheel, and, since the Winter Formal is when I intend to go after the Dread Doctors, I'll need as much strength as I can muster. It is probably best for Hazel to take the wheel... At least until that night.'
Decision made, Madison made a few more preparations, ensuring her clones were fully autonomous even while she slept deep within Hazel, so production goals were still being met. Then, after taking care of a few more matters, she teleported to her room, fed Little Miele four large, juicy mice and got into bed, clasping its tiny body as she switched places with Hazel, the moon/star mark on her forehead giving way to an orange sun.
Meanwhile, in a space between dimensions, a space of endless blue, cloudless sky, where, despite no sun, the skies remain day, Theo Raeken's unconscious body floated horizontally, as his mind — his consciousness — was traversing the annals of time.
He saw how his life would've been — He saw his fate — Or what it would've been.
He saw his early life — His sickness, the repeated hospital trips, the Dread Doctor's grooming. He saw how he left his sister/cousin to die in a cold creek of hyperthermia at the dread doctor's convincing. He saw himself take Tara's heart and the doctors turning him into the First Chimera.
He saw years being brainwashed by the psychotic trio — Groomed to succeed, taught to not fail and conditioned to succeed. His education, his infiltration of the McCall pack, his killing of Scott and the defeat by Kira's hand.
He saw Hell, or his time in it. He died over and over there, time as fluid as it was debilitating. One hour in the real world felt like weeks in that place — And he stuck in there for months.
He only survived due to his mental strength and resolve to survive, hammered into him since he was turned into a Chimera by the doctors themselves.
He saw Liam rescue him from the place — And everything afterwards. He saw himself fall for that man over and over, even despite the sharp jabs and bloody noses they exchanged.
He saw it all — And not just saw, He felt every surgery, every modification to his body, every death by Tara's hand, every punch exchanged with Liam and every bullet taken to protect him.
He experienced as much as he saw — And he often found himself thanking his lucky stars that Madison had saved him from these futures. It made him sure and certain that she was special.
After all, she didn't exist in any of those timelines. Only his.
That only widened the mystery surrounding her in Theo's book. He made a mental note to thank her for her continual help.
While his mind was drifted across timelines, his physical body remained floated in endless skies — Watched by a pair of ginormous, yellow, wolf-like eyes that shifted from wolf-like to lizard-like every few seconds.
The eyes watched Theo, studiously, seeing in ways that transcended reality.
"Learn. See. Feel," a deep voice seem to say. "Become."
Theo's face twitching, tensing slightly in strain, was all the response received, but, for these eyes, that seemed to be enough.