2021-03-14: The Poison Had a Cure
- Cutscene: The Poison Had a Cure.
- Cast: Pearl
- Where: The Temple of Leviathan, Bikanel Island
- Date: 2021-03-06
- Summary: Pearl bares her soul to the Fayth of Leviathan, and reflects on who she was and who she is becoming.
Note: This takes place during The First Not of Yevon so read that first.
Despite the Fayth's incredulity, Pearl stares back at them. She can't just dismiss it, but... Sin they know how to fight, as futile and cyclic as it seems to be. She has no ability to fight her enemy. "I am not sure if they are man or something else. Or if he has something else behind his power." Information she could sorely use.
She feels the Fayth's memory in this resonation, who they were, what drove them to fight. Her reason feels small in the face of the seas, but it still feels important.
Pearl's own memories rise, clear, crisp, and full of woe.
A dark night, she can't remember where, or when, but she remembers the night.
Two bodies- a man and a woman- lay on the ground in front of her. Their blood covers her face as she tries to back away. She can see where their faces should be, but they're just a blur.
The horrible things that came after.
A figure in a mask grabs her by the throat, and lifts her feet off the ground. She kicks, but can't reach.
Tears and blood mix, as she weakly cries out. "Mommy... Daddy... Help..."
The figures on the ground do not respond, and her last sight before she blacks out from lack of oxygen is the man in the mask.
Her great, overwhelming, unending fear.
Her next memory, she is encircled by children with black garb, adults standing over them.
The black uniform sits ill on her, and she shivers with fear. Sitting and watching is the man in the mask. A girl with long green hair walks in front of her. She's taller, older by a few years, and Pearl looks up at her.
She's not sure what she's supposed to do. She doesn't know how to fight.
The masked man holds up a silver medallion and speaks. “If you have skill, strength and the ability to learn, you may one day wear one of these. Those of you who don’t will die. These are your only options. Thrive or die. Do not try to escape. There is nowhere on Lunar you will be beyond my reach. Begin."
It's over in seconds.
Pearl feels the worst pain she has felt in her young life. Just a taste of what was to come. The green-haired girl delivers two blows. The first is a blow to her solar plexus, and Pearl feels all the wind knocked out of her as tears fill her eyes. She doesn't see the next blow, but she feels it as she drives deep into the ground. The pain of her nose breaking badly, blood running down her face.
The voice of the green-haired girl reaches her ears. "Better luck next time."
It's only a few seconds of that pain before the darkness comes.
A decade later, when pain no longer mattered. She could feel nothing but hate and anger. Anything else was consigned to the darkness, making her an unemotional statue of a woman. With her were the closest people she had to friends.
Dara, an arrogant and violent killer, a man whose skill she respected, if not his personality.
Ouka, a woman who had mastered the shadows, who could disappear easily and strike from anywhere.
Garr, a Beastfolk Boy younger than the others, but with the skillset closest to her own, and an expert infiltrator.
They were standing in front of the Master, his impassive mask viewing all of them. He speaks one word: "Begin."
earl makes her assessment instantly: Dara will go instantly for Garr, and Garr will rise to face him. What she couldn't do is let Ouka get away. She moves quickly, grabbing the brown-haired woman's arm, and locking her other hand around her mouth, to prevent casting. She could only hold this for moments, so she had to make it count. She channels the corrosive ki into her hand, her goal to make the mouth too wounded to move.
It works, and Ouka tries to escape. She slips Pearl's grip, but Pearl is already moving. The silver-haired woman drives a sudden knee into Ouka's spine, and then sweeps the leg, before driving a heel into Ouka's throat with the full force of an axe kick.
Ouka was dead.
Pearl changes her focus, Dara is bearing down on Garr, it's a matter of time before he kills the boy- Dara is stronger, and more skilled. That's why Pearl has to act now: She drives a palm into Dara's back, lining up with his heart, and once again channels her ki in a perfectly executed Shadow Dragon Palm. The large man coughs up blood, and falls to the ground.
Dara was dead.
This leaves Pearl to face Garr. His right arm is broken, so badly the boy can't hide it. One of his eyes is closed, and the tip of his horn is broken. Her assessment was correct. She stares down Garr briefly, and Garr charges her with his good arm. His final act. Pearl exploits it and finishes the job Dara started, grabbing Garr by the throat, driving him to the ground, and crushes his neck with her hand.
Garr was dead.
Pearl turns to face her Master, and bows. He walks over to her, and hands her a silver medallion. "You have triumphed, and earned your place. I have your next mission."
She feels nothing.
She had been away, preparing, when a messenger came to her in the night. A child, maybe ten, and yet an adherent to the order. He couldn't kill her even if he got the drop on her, but he could wound her. "We are alone. Speak."
The messenger nods. "The master wishes to inform you of a development. Jean attempted to flee the Shadow Dragon cult. The Master executed her. That is all." With that, the boy vanished into the night.
Something surges up in her, subtly different from anger and hate. A feeling of betrayal fills her utterly, and she slams a fist into a nearby tree. It cracks and splinters under her strike, but doesn't fall. Not tonight, at least. There is something else in there. Something she hadn't thought she dared to feel. The complete and total loss of hope. Every hope she had lies dashed upon the forest floor. She lets out a roar of anger, startling the birds of the night.
"You selfish coward!" She spits. "What was the point of all our suffering if you were not going to slay him!?" She strikes another tree, this time with a solid kick. As she storms off into the darkness, it collapses behind her.
It had been an intense two years. A human girl coming into the encampment of wolf men, demanding they teach her. She piqued their interest with her story of martial artists that had killed her family. She proved her mettle by surviving their attacks, trying to show potential without showing mastery. They made her claws of silver for her hands and feet, and even a large silver fang to replace the three teeth she had been missing. The wolf men had treated her as one of their own, though they had been three times her size. But she had kept up. This had most impressed Master Fang.
He had taken Pearl aside one day, to privacy in a small spring in the mountains. She bowed before him, as she always did, and he returned it, if not as deeply. "Pearl. The only human to ever learn the arts of the Wolf Style. You have shown intelligence, cunning and ferocity, the three traits that embody the Wolf Style. You have adapted our techniques to your small body and shown ways of using them none other than you would have developed." The old wolf man closes his good eye, and smiles. "In two years, you have shown mastery that other students would take a decade. You learn quickly, and adapt strongly. I do not believe there is any more I can teach you."
Pearl bows deeply again, her face impassive. "Thank you, master." She looks back up at him. "Does that mean...?"
The wolf man gives another firm nod. "Seek your vengeance, young Pearl. Make them pay with every single one of their lives. If you need my aid, just ask it and it is yours."
And then they both sense something. Pearl moves first, and catches the dart aimed at Master Fang's throat. It has a tiny strip of paper, and Pearl unrolls it. "A challenge? A threat? Face us yourself, coward!" Master Fang moves in the direction of the dart, placing his back to Pearl. The note has one word. 'Now.'
"Goodbye, Master Fang." She gathers the energy into her hands, that corrosive purple ki, and forms a sphere.
"Pearl!?" He turns, and bares his claws. "Why!?" Fang starts to charge her. He never gets an answer.
Pearl forces all the energy forward in a wave, and it encompasses Master Fang's body. It burns and tears at him, rending flesh and burning away fur. He lands on the ground at Pearl's feet. She turns, and walks back to the encampment.
There was still work to be done.
"Guardswoman Pearl!" She stood to attention when she heard her commander's voice. He sounded angry. The mess hall was small, and uncrowded, but the few stragglers fled into the night.
"Ma'am." She responds, flatly and unemotionally.
"Do you mind telling me why you are out of uniform again?"
"Because it inhibits my ability to do my job, ma'am. I am supposed to be striking down the violators of Althena's Law. I will not be stopped from that because a uniform restricts my movement." Insubordination was new to her. She could almost call it a thrill, if she felt thrills. "Captain Danton agreed that it was the best method for me to do my duty." Pearl had grown irritated at this woman, this Captain Marla. She had had everything organised.
"Captain Danton is dead, and I am in charge now. That means you will wear a uniform, like every other soldier here. Understood?" Captain Marla had never liked her, and Pearl had neither understood nor cared why. But this was nothing. Not compared to what she had lived through.
Pearl responds sharply. "Yes, ma'am!" This was a problem. Not insurmountable, but a problem nonetheless. But she would endure, until an opportunity came. "Am I dismissed?"
"Not yet." Captain Marla leans in close. "I know you've been in my office, you little sneak. You think you're untouchable, but Guardsman Ro knew you weren't at your post last night." She sneers. "You're done, wolf girl. Say hello to the prison guards, for me!"
That posed a bigger problem. She looked around the room. All the doors were closed, and the Guards were conveniently elsewhere. She just needed to find a blindspot. She saw a convenient place, where the candles had melted down. She started walking, and Marla turned to her. "I'm not done, you little feral!"
Eight steps. Turn. Rummage around in her gi top. "Tell me, Captain Marla." She pulls out a handful of papers. "How quickly do you want your wife to find out about your mistress?"
Captain Marla blanches, and runs towards Pearl. Pearl throws the letters in the air, and Marla stops to try and catch them. Pearl delivers a roundhouse kick to the side of Marla's head, and slams it against the wall. As Marla starts to slide down the wall, not yet able to pull herself up. Pearl grabs the woman by the side of the head and slams her three more times, then takes Marla's legs out from under her. Finally, Pearl speaks.
"I had thought I could simply blackmail you. But you have proven too stupid even for that. I will eliminate you now." She starts dragging Marla towards a window, and checks it's clear.
"You won't... won't get away with this." Marla managed to squeak out. Pearl sneered at her, and shattered Marla's shoulder for no other reason than she could. Marla cries out weakly, but no help comes. Pearl opens the window, and grabs Marla by the shirt. The silver haired woman looks into her captain's eyes. There is nothing but cold disdain.
"Captain Danton said much the same," Pearl starts, feeling a cruel satisfaction as Marla's eyes widen. "But there is a difference here. Captain Danton died because he was incorruptible." She grips Marla's throat. "Whereas you died because you were a petty idiot." And then she crushes Marla's windpipe, and throws her out the window. She hefts the dying woman on to her back, and leaps to the rooftops.
She would have to come back for Guardsman Ro.
Slowly, but surely, something else rises from the depths of Pearl's soul. Positive memories. Memories not of darkness and cruelty. Memories that, alone, were like pebbles against a shield wall. They were never going to have broken through against the person she was. They are small things, comparatively, to what she thought truly lay in her heart. The darkness should have covered them all, and yet... Here and now, they mattered more than anything else.
"... I'm glad you two are safe." Pearl had thought nothing of the words the first time. She assumed it was performative, that the shepherd was lying, as she was lying to all of them. And then she had sought Pearl out when she had been avoiding the healers. She had shown kindness. She had even tried to teach Pearl how to hold a baby lamb. Someone responsible for lives, as a healer and has a shepard, had tried to befriend a heartless killer.
And yet, somehow, Pearl cared.
"You're one of our strongest." The tall, noble beastman had trusted her. That would make it easier to manipulate him, as far as she was concerned. He was trusting and foolish and gullible. He was also kind, and compassionate even if his religious fervour drove him to see red. And he cared. He cared about his men. He mourned for everyone he lost, and strove to fight with honour. He was the kind of commander one might have always desired, but she had never deserved. He was a hero, and she was a murderer.
And yet, that trust bore fruit.
"...You should have been my responsibility."
"Your responsibility was to stand atop our corpses and END him! You ruined the only chance of any of this ever stopping!"
When she'd seen the green-haired woman alive, betrayal and fury burst up inside her. She'd tried to kill her and her apprentice that night. And again, when Pearl had stolen the children of Taben's peak, and Jean and her friends came to retrieve them. But it was only when they had faced each other in the arena that night, on that attempt to kill Lunn, that Pearl let her true feelings loose. And then she drove Jean to try to kill her. That was her mission, and only death awaited, success or failure.
And yet she still drew breath. Jean had taken her out of the city, and nursed her wounds. Pearl did not understand, could not understand. She had fled back to the Shadow Dragon, and wiped out an entire sect in order to survive. An entire sect except for one girl.
And then Pearl and Jean fought. Over, over and again. And slowly, she understood. It was guilt driving Jean, and Pearl hated it. She hated that Jean would not do what was necessary, would not become strong again. And then one day, they didn't fight. They spoke. It was tense, but there was an understanding.
And suddenly, Pearl had hope.
"But yeah -- just say the word, I'll join any fight you want to get into."
Pearl had written him off as an idiot. She had fooled him with a doctored version of her past. An awkward, dark haired young man who put his foot in his mouth frequently. But he could fight. She learned the hard way he could fight. And he was honest, at least for an assassin. And when pushed to face Pearl's biggest threat, he fought to save his sister than flee in fear, or become a member of the Shadow Dragon Cult. He was brave, And when they encountered each other again, kind. He had departed the Guard by then, but nonetheless offered her help.
Would Ivan still feel that way now?
"That doesn't explain why I'm here."
The image of a young, red-headed girl sulking as she is dragged along to the festival. A girl that had tried to kill Pearl twice, and that Pearl had spared twice. The girl she took on as her student. She had skill, stealth and strength. But somehow, her will had not been broken like the rest of the cult. The sect that raised her had... deviated from the cult's training methods. So why had Pearl taken her on? Had the girl's strength impressed her? Or had she seen the option to prevent another Pearl, and decided to take action. An old, angry part of her couldn't believe herself at the time.
But right now she worried if Amy was still safe on Filgaia.
Members of the guard gathered around her in the medical tent as she recovered, despite their misgivings about her plan. A small onion creature sits at the end of her bed. Others come to see her, congratulate her, instead of success on a mission being a simple 'here's your next task'. Approval, from a woman she'd tried and to kill and nearly died for her efforts. It was a strange feeling, and selfish, but Pearl liked it. Even if many of the knights didn't trust her. It was nice to matter enough to people that they'd confirm she was well.
How long would they continue to do so?
And then come the memories from an unexpected source.
"If you were not working towards becoming a Summoner, I would say you would make a fine Guardian."
The Summoner Belize, the person standing next to her right now, rose from her memories. They had never dismissed her, they had always been supportive. The two had fought side by side, and Belize had tried to protect her. They showed concern for her, and tried to give her confidence.
And then Pearl betrayed them. As she had betrayed so many people, as she would so many more. She was a creature of betrayal, and it should not have mattered. But it did. To some small part of her it did, and she hated that feeling.
And yet, even now, Belize was giving her a chance. A chance that could change her destiny. Not just her own, but the world's.
She would forever be grateful.
"Take heart from the Fayth, Ena, but... it is a summoner's duty to care for their own hearts, as well."
The advice from Lady Yuna that afternoon in Guadosalam. Before Yevon attacked Besaid. It was strange, despite it all she was Lady Yuna in Pearl's memories. The woman seemed such a font of kindness, and understanding and willpower. She should have hated it but... She respected it. She respected that drive to go to her death in order to accomplish her goal. She was idealistic, driven, noble. Traits Pearl thought she hated. She hated it in the knights of the Guard. She'd hated it in Leo, once.
Despite that, her few brief meetings had given Pearl something she lacked, even if she could not put words to it.
The followers of Yevon, escorting a caravan to Guadosalam. She had kept a watch out, seeming for all the world like a nervous novice who didn't know what she was doing. A cheerful young Al Bhed, encouraging her to make up for the shortfall provided by the excommunication of the crusaders. A severe mage in a black dress who had wondered about Ena's conviction, but had let her go forward anyway. The dour scribe and the willful one-handed warrior monk who had fought hard with her in training. And of course the severe older Guado, who had pushed her and pushed her to succeed, as though he would have been her Guardian.
With the exception of Gon Guado, they were good memories.
The Fayth asks of her what future she seeks. It takes her a few moments to speak. "I want him dead. I want everything he has done unmade. I want all those who chose to follow him to pay for their crimes. I want the Shadow Dragon Cult to be purged from the memory of the world. I want my vengeance." It takes her a few more seconds. "And I want what happened to me to never happen to any person ever again. I want to free all of those still held in his grip. Those that can still change to have a chance. I want them to have freedom. Friends. Childhoods."
She sounds surprised to be speaking those words, but even more so that they're genuine. Is this what it is like, when you can't hide your true self from someone? Is this her true self?
No, surely not.
There's no way a monster like her can be kind and noble.