Aetherland

Chapter 6: Chrysalis Reactor (part3)

Finally, Ash speaks, his voice low but firm. "...I will fulfill… my duty to the best of my ability…as always, your majesty" Just get through this. Survive. Don't give him anything. Acknowledge. Obey. Disconnect. He allows a flicker of subservient acceptance to briefly soften his features, a fleeting, calculated mask before the screen goes dark.

The connection is severed. The command room implodes into a silence that deafens, but the silence is alive—haunted by the relentless screams of ghosts.

Bastards. Bastards. Bastards. Bastards!

The word slams, repeats, ricochets in his skull, faster, harder, machine-gun bursts rattling through bone. No pause. No space. Just fire. Just hate.

His throat burns. Something tries to claw its way out, roar, scream, howl, he chokes it back. The sound comes out wrong, broken, ugly, wet. He’s gasping, gulping air in jagged shreds, like he’s drowning on dry land. His chest heaves. His ribs feel too tight, cage too small, heart pounding too loud.

Fists clench, metal bends. He doesn’t even feel the pain, only the pressure, the pressure, the pressure. Need to break something. Need to crack it open. Table. Wall. Skull. Doesn’t matter. Something must shatter.

And then…flash. A savage dream, radiant and vile. Bullets ripping, flesh unraveling, bone splintering. Bodies convulse, marionettes with strings cut, flailing in a downpour of red rain. He sees it, feels it, drinks it, iron spray bursting across his lips, hot, metallic, thick as syrup, running down his chin in sticky rivulets. Baptism in gore. Coronation in ruin. Drowning, ascending, exalting. Sweet, sweet, sweetest vengeance, ambrosia and ash, nectar laced with rot. He is laughing, oh god, he is laughing, and the sound is a hymn, cracked and holy, rapture ripped from entrails. The joy is obscene, divine, unbearable. It feels so good. Too good. So clean—

No. Stop. Stop. Stop.

Not yet. Hold it. Hold it. Hold it. Hold it.

They want that. They want the frenzy, the waste, the spectacle. Violence as theater. Violence as distraction. No. His fury is not theirs to script. His rage is not chaos—it’s a blade. And blades are not swung wildly. Blades are held. Sharpened. Waited. Then slipped between ribs when no one sees it coming.

Control.

Control.

CONTROL.

Rage is a weapon they expect you to wield against others, not against them.

Unbeknownst to him, the cunning lord chancellor, Hegel, remains on the line, his amplified voice echoing chillingly in the silent command room. The recording device, still active, captured Hegel's words now too, adding another layer of damning evidence to Ash’s clandestine archive.

"And so," Hegel sighs, a weary tone in his voice, as if dealing with a tiresome child, "The prodigal Rabenburg returns … only to confirm his prodigality. A predictable loop. A fleeting spark of promise, extinguished by inevitable decay." 

Hegel pauses, a flicker of something that might be regret crossing his face before it hardens into something bitter. "Fredrick, after… persuasion, grasped the necessity of the… reimagined Chrysalis. He understood the imperative of decisive victory. You, however, are destined to echo his… less admirable qualities. His… crippling guilt."

Realization dawns on Ash, not with a sudden flash, but a slow, creeping dread, like ice water flooding his veins. His eye widening in horrifying clarity of understanding. "It was you," he breathes, the accusation a raw, guttural sound torn from his throat. 

"You orchestrated this..." Ash stumbles back, breath hitching, pushing away a wave of nausea, his head reeling from the sheer scope of Hegel's manipulation. Stay calm. Don't let him see your shock. He's admitting it. Keep him talking. "...You manipulated Chrysalis to seize a victory we were losing! You needed the chaos, the fear, the… opportunity it created to rise!" Every death, every lie, every misdirection … it all leads back to Hegel.