Eclipse - Act 1 - The Healing

Chapter 20 - My Enemy

Winter

The pain rattles through her head, across her temple and it even feels like it is in her teeth. Whatever that device was it managed to shut down her aura instantly or block it out for a few seconds. The fuzzy feeling seems to give her the sense of pins and needles in different parts of her body, slowly rising up as she looks around. Blurry vision slowly returning from the darkness of unconsciousness. She presses her hand to where the pain throbs, looking around slowly, to see Eryka still unconscious inside of the cell they have been locked inside of. She can also hear the faint cries of Dulcis in his cage, jumping and swinging his wings as he tries to get out of there.

Then she sees him sat outside of their prison cell, holding some kind of metal ball in his hand, one that he is shifting the pieces on its outer casing over and over again. Like some kind of brain tester, using just one hand as he does it, thinking away as he shifts the pieces. His onyx coloured eyes glance round when noticing her moving, and as he takes a breath it is extremely raspy, so he uses his other hand and squeezes the trigger in the device...pumping the drugs back into his respiratory system that keeps him alive.

He throws the ball up and catches it as he looks at Winter, who glares at him with gritted teeth, reaching for her sword, only to realise that they have confiscated it. "Welcome back to the land of the living, Specialist Schnee." Killian says to her, not showing a smirk on his face at all, just staying straight faced as always. She groans, shuffling back and pressing her spine against the cold metal wall...feeling the vibrations of its engines.

"Where are we?" She questions with fear.

"The Shadow of Broken Promises, my dear. Shortly we will be departing Beacon and returning to the Black Gallows." Killian answers as he juggles the ball around from hand to hand, before catching it in his right hand, resting that same arm on his knee.

"Why...why haven't you just...killed us?" Winter questions, touching the purple bruise on her head where that soldier smacked the rifle against her head to capture her.

"The Black Gallows are not against the safety of Remnant, Winter – we are here to ensure its survival at all costs. That does not mean we leave bodies in the wake of every location we go, kill every single person who has tried to dig up our secrets. We lock most of them away, and kill those that have no use to us or the world." Killian explains, and it seems like his morality just gets greyer and greyer...soon there will be no morality left in the man.

Just duty no matter the cost.

"So...what? You're just gonna lock us both away in some maximum-security prison in Atlas somewhere?" Winter presumes, since the Atlesian Wildlands would be a smart place to hide. Nobody has ever gone there and come back to tell the tale, and the amount of Grimm that lurk around there make it even harder.

"Interesting hypothesis, but you will find the truth soon enough." Killian assures as he crosses one leg over the other, staring down at her where she may lay.

"If you ask me, it would be easier to shoot us." Winter states, making him chuckle.

"Do you want me to?" He asks her curiously.

"Not particularly, but I'd rather that then have to stare at your men for the rest of my days." She huffs, rolling her large blue eyes. He chuckles, leaning forward and pointing to some of his men stood across the way from him.

"Do you know who my soldiers are? The majority of them anyways?" Killian asks her with true inquisitiveness in his voice. Winter looks at the two soldiers standing guard, as if they have lost all humanity in them.