Chapter Text
The cells were no five star hotel, but they weren’t so terrible that Loid couldn’t get some decent rest.
If the situation was different, he’d have stayed awake and formulated ways to escape while keeping an eye out for opportunities to snag some useful tools and supplies he could utilize.
That was what he had done every time he got captured in the past.
Twilight acted alone with no partner and no backup. So if he got caught, he only had himself to rely on.
But this time, he wasn’t alone.
When an assassin, a telepath, and a clairvoyant were working together, there was nothing they couldn’t achieve.
And so, Loid leaned back against the wall and allowed his body to relax despite the cold permeating these cells. It was almost March yet the weather in Berlint still showed no sign of the approaching Spring. Thankfully, Loid had put on his coat before being taken away, and he always had gloves on, insulated ones in the Winter and breathable ones in the Summer.
Being surrounded by SSS agents always gave him stomach cramps, but it wasn’t so bad this time. Even when sleeping, he didn’t let down his guard. A fraction of his mind was constantly on the lookout for possible danger while the rest of his mind and body rested up.
It was precisely because of this that he could distinctly hear the noise coming from the other cell.
Click. Click.
Like an analog clock with a broken arm that kept trying to tick past a certain spot, the clicking sound continued on for exactly two hours and thirty-four minutes, grating on Loid’s ears like it was trying to compete with Karen’s screams for the Most Annoying Sound Award.
It was around two in the morning that Loid finally decided enough was enough and asked in a tired voice, “Yuri, can you stop?”
“Shut up and go to sleep” was the response.
“I can’t sleep when you’re being so loud. What’re you doing anyway?”
“I’m trying to get this…DAMN door open!”
The clicking sound grew louder to balance the rising frustration in his voice.
“Where did you even get the tools?”
Both of them were searched thoroughly and had all their belongings confiscated prior to their captivity.
“I have a bobby pin my sister gave me when I was seven. I've kept it in my hair ever since.”
Even the SSS probably weren’t expecting Yuri, a man, to be wearing bobby pins. There was nothing wrong with a man wearing them, but it still wasn’t a common enough occurrence for them to check his hair as well while frisking the rest of his body.
This was the one time Yuri’s obsession with his sister worked in their favor. Though, Loid seriously doubted that this would work. These locks weren’t the type that could be opened with bobby pins. And even if they were, what was he planning to do after escaping? Had he even thought out an escape path?
“Why are you so desperate to escape?” Loid asked.
“Why are you not desperate at all??” Yuri asked, “Aren’t you worried at all about my sister? About your wife!?”
“What does this have to do with Yor?”
“What– Are you dumb!? Obviously cause they’re going to use us as hostage to capture her! Since she’s……y’know!”
“I doubt it.”
“The SSS– I mean, we aren’t stupid, okay!? We have the resources and manpower to find–”
“Oh, I’m sure they’ll find it if you finish that sentence.”
That shut him up effectively.
But the silence didn’t last.
Half a minute later, the clicking sound began again.
Loid let out a loud sigh and banged his head against the wall behind him.
“But what if they do know? They would take her in as well and who knows what they’d do to her? I can’t let that happen. If it turns out that Sis has been suffering while I’m sitting here doing nothing, I’d fucking kill myself after I kill all the bastards who made her suffer.”
“Calm down Yuri, things aren’t as bad as you think.” Yuri’s escaping would ruin all the plans Loid had come up with, so he couldn’t let that happen. “I’ve known about Yor’s…situation longer than you have. She’s stronger than you think. Do you really think someone who can embed a fork into a wall would choose to suffer because someone took her loved ones hostage, or would she tear down anyone standing in her way and save us instead? Which one is the more likely option?”
“...The brute force one.”
“Exactly. That’s the kind of person she is. She may not be the brightest bulb in the shed, but she makes up for her lack of strategic thinking with her physical prowess. If she wants something, she’ll get it using the most straight-forward and brute-force method available. Suffering in silence because someone has leverage over her is just not like Yor.”
Perhaps this was the exact reason why it took him so long to find out that she was an assassin. He’d expect someone who had survived this long in this kind of career to have at least an above average intellect. They didn’t have to be at his level, since he was the best of the best (not bragging if it was a fact), but they should at least have a certain level of intellect in order to hide their identity and avoid suspicion for so long.
Who knew one of the best assassins in the country would be this dumb and clueless (endearing)?
“So you’re saying she’s coming to save us?”
“I never said that.” The walls have ears, Yuri. Watch what you say. “No one’s taking us hostage, no one’s threatening her, and we aren’t even guilty of the crimes we’re charged for, so there’s no reason for her to barge in here unannounced and try to bust us out of these cells. Just go to sleep. You know your guys. They would release us once they realize we’re innocent. Like you said, they have the resources and manpower to find out the truth. You have nothing to worry about.”
Perhaps this was enough to convince Yuri, or perhaps not. Regardless, there was no more clicking sound for the rest of that night.
Saturday passed by uneventfully.
The SSS’ notorious interrogation tactics may be downright savage, they sure treated their captives alright once they were in the cells.
Three meals a day, and the food wasn't even rotten.
Loid was enjoying every bite of the food.
But Yuri? Not so much.
His grumbling could be heard from miles away as he chewed through his food at the speed of one morsel per minute.
Finally, Sunday arrived and Loid woke up early like a child excited for a school trip.
Leaving his fate in the hands of others never failed to fill him with consternation, no matter how much trust he had in them.
But this time, he was experiencing more anticipation than anxiety. There was no more fear of failure and leaving his family with the news of Loid Forger’s passing, or any agitation at the thought of them finding out about his real identity.
Nothing was weighing him down because all the secrets were out. It felt good to come clean with the lies, and it felt even better to still have his loved ones’ unadulterated support after they found out the truth.
It was with this mindset that Loid welcomed the fateful day.
The scene Bond showed Anya was scary, but Anya wasn’t so stupid that she’d let fear make her forget to look out for details.
Details were what helped her save Papa from that bomb many months ago.
And this time, details would be what helped her find Damian.
“Okay, think Anya, think.”
Bond was currently running in a random direction, which wouldn’t work.
So Anya tried to recall the details in that scene.
There was the car crash at the enter section. There were road signs but she couldn’t memorize the words, but she remembered a garbage bin placed near a road sign. It had a bag of garbage right next to it. Weird how someone would take out the bag of garbage and leave it there instead of throwing it away, but oh well.
There was also a hotdog stand on the other side of the street. A man wearing an overall was grilling the sausages, and an old lady was eating a hotdog while sitting beside a shopping cart full of cans and bottles.
This is it!
Hotdogs!
“Bond! Run towards the hotdogs!”
At the sound of the last word, Bond’s ears perked up and he skidded to a stop, turning his head, which now looked like a peanut cause it was all wet, to look at Anya. His beady eyes were blown wide open in shock.
“Not dogs! Hotdogs! Y’know, the food! Meat! Uh… Barbecue! Run towards the smell of barbecue!”
This time Bond got it.
The mention of food and meat and barbecue got his mouth watering and he began sprinting, flying down the street so fast that his spit leaked out of the corners of his flappy lips and hit Anya square in the face along with rain and whooshes of wind.
Anya: “......”
Damian and Demetrius had been following their mother for more than ten minutes but they were still nowhere close to figuring out her secret. There were no distinct patterns in the direction she was heading towards either. Usually if someone were to go to a certain location, they’d follow a street and keep walking until they reach the intersecting street that would lead them to their location.
But Mother didn’t follow such logic.
She seemed to be walking in completely random directions.
She’d walk down a street, turn right and walk until an intersection, turn left and walk until another intersection, and then turn left again until she arrived at the same street she was walking on before and then she’d turn right and continue following this path.
What was the point of making so many turns if she was just going to walk on the same path?
Damian couldn’t understand.
And from the look on Demetrius’ face, he couldn’t understand either.
“What’s Mother doing?” Damian asked for the fifth time after Mother made an unreasonable turn.
“I’m just as clueless as you, Damian,” Demetrius replied, “Perhaps we’re missing something. There must be a pattern that we have yet to notice.”
There was no pattern. Damian could swear there was no pattern.
But he still watched her carefully and tried once again to catch something he might have overlooked.
“Damian, describe her to me. Sometimes when a visual examination fails, changing our method to an auditory examination can help.”
Damian seriously doubted it, but Demetrius was an Imperial Scholar for a reason, so he decided to trust his big brother on this one.
“She’s…um…walking. Normally.”
“And?”
Damian squinted his eyes. The rain was still pelting down and acting as a curtain between them and Mother, so he had to squint to look at her movement carefully.
“Her head is down. Her hands are in her pockets. Her strides are larger than usual.”
“So she’s in a hurry but doesn’t want others to know she’s in a hurry.”
“How can you tell?”
“Normally if you want to walk fast, you’d simply walk at a faster pace. But instead of doing that, she’s widening her stride, which can also help her walk faster but it’s not as obvious to the onlookers as the former option.”
“Onlookers? You mean us?”
Who else could it be?
“Maybe. Or maybe…” Demetrius’ eyes narrowed and he discreetly glanced to the sides without turning his head.
“Or maybe what?”
Demetrius shook his head, causing water droplets to fly everywhere. He was soaked to the bones because he gave his raincoat to Damian.
“It’s nothing. Keep describing her to me.”
“There’s nothing more to describe.”
“Then…describe it as if it’s a scene from a movie. Don’t just describe her person. Describe everything you’re seeing.”
Damian rarely watched movies. He was always preoccupied with his studying or spending time with his friends. If he wanted to experience a story, he’d read a book.
Perhaps he could describe it as if he were reading a book?
Brows furrowed in concentration, Damian tried again.
“It’s raining. Mother is wearing a see-through raincoat and walking on the right side of the road. There are trees on her left side by the road. There’s a garbage bin every few trees. There are a row of shops and restaurants on her right. She’s walking symm- symme-”
“Symmetrically.”
“-symmetrically down the mi– wait, she’s leaning to the left side more. There’s an intersection up front. It’s Garten street and 5th street. The street we three are walking on is Garten street. There’s a hotdog stand on the other end of the pedestrian crossing up ahead but it has no customers. Next to the stand is a tree with what looks like a rope tied onto it. Above the rope are two hori- horizon…tal para- parale grooves.”
“It’s Girdling. They’re trying to kill the tree.”
“Who’s they? The government?” Damian shrugged and continued describing. “A man wearing an overall is putting down a box and taking out a bag of cheese. Directly across the stand on the left side of the street is a road sign for this intersection. At the base of the road sign is a garbage bin with a bag of garbage placed beside it. Ugh, why haven’t they collected the garbage already?”
While Damian was describing, he noticed Demetrius observing each sight carefully. His older brother walked closer to the trees on the left to ruffle their leaves, he looked into each garbage bin he passed, and he even peered into the windows of the shops that had yet to open.
“Found anything?”
Demetrius scratched his head.
“The trees are well-maintained.”
“Good observation. I didn’t know that,” Damian said, rolling his eyes. “Anything else you want to point out, dear brother?”
“The garbage collectors clearly aren’t doing a good job. They forgot to empty out some of the bins.”
“Ah yes, Mother’s secret clearly has to do with garbage. What’s next? The onlookers are secretly watching her from the shop windows?”
Demetrius didn’t seem to take offense at the sarcasm practically dripping in Damian’s words for he calmly explained, “No. I didn’t see anyone. But…”
He trailed off again. But this time, it didn’t look like he was suspicious of something. With the way his eyes blanked out instead of narrowing, he seemed to be concentrating on something that didn’t have to do with his sight……perhaps it was auditory information?
Damian waited a few seconds before asking, “What did you h—”
“Shh.”
Demetrius shushed him while keeping his eyes trained on the path before him as they continued after Mother, who had reached the intersection and was looking left and right before crossing the road.
“She’s crossing the street and walking towards the hotdog stand. Perhaps she’s hungry?”
It was at this moment that Damian too heard something. A sound that was gradually growing louder by the second, and it seemed to be coming from both ahead and behind.
It was a sound he was extremely familiar with, for he was the son of a wealthy man and he had more than his fair share of experience with them. But realizing what the sound was didn’t mean he could immediately realize what this could imply.
And like every other instance where shit went down, it happened in an instant.
Two cars coming from opposite directions on Garten street crashed into each other in the middle of the intersection. Neither drivers seemed to have pulled the brakes, because there was a clear lack of the distinct sound of tires skidding on concrete. The one that sped past Damian was going so fast that all he saw was a red blur.
Before he could even register what happened, the red car got sent flying from the collision and landed…
…right on top of his Mother.
For a second it felt like Damian was the one getting hit by the car, because his heart throbbed so hard it felt like it could explode any second. Every other sound became muffled except the quick gasps coming out of his mouth, ridiculously loud against his eardrums. He struggled to take in his surroundings, for he could only focus on the way Mother’s trembling hand reached out from beneath the car, as if she was calling for someone, calling for him.
All of a sudden, sound rushed back into his ears and it was all so loud. Fire roared as it fought fiercely against the onslaught of rain and howling wind. A pinging sound came from an engine, malfunctioning but still running. The telephone pole hit by the other car was barely held aloft by the telephone lines connected to it. Those that had snapped under its weight were hissing electricity, bright white sparks of high voltage crackling dangerously above ground.
“Mother!” Paying no mind to the danger in this situation, Damian bolted towards his mother who was crushed beneath the burning vehicle, almost tripping over his own feet in the process. “Mother!” He cried again, falling to his knees and pulling on her arm. “You need to move! Get out of there!”
Mother didn’t look at all surprised. She must have already known he and Demetrius were following her.
“D-Damian…” She muttered, her voice so weak it didn’t even sound like hers. “Leave me. It’s already too late.”
Damian’s heart shattered.
“No! I can still get you out of here!” He pulled as hard as he could, but there was a limit to what a six-year-old’s body could do. Dammit. Where was Demetrius when he needed him? “Demetrius! Goddammit! Come help me get Mother out!”
Demetrius finally snapped out of it. But just as his older brother began running towards the burning red car, Damian felt tiny hands grabbing his midsection and suddenly, he was on the back of a skinny, white, familiar-but also not very familiar-looking dog along with a pink-haired girl as they ran away from his mother.
“W-What do you think you’re doing!?” Damian yanked Anya by her hair, ignoring her yelps and yelling, “I need to save my mother! Get me off of this damn mutt!”
The thought of leaving behind his mother, who was always there for him, to suffer alone filled Damian’s eyes with tears.
“Stupid Syon Boy!” Anya yelled, throwing a punch at him to make him let go. Damian leaned back to avoid the punch and almost slipped off of her dog if he hadn’t grabbed a fistful of soggy white furs.
The dog whined.
“I don’t want you to die!”
The way she said it, like she actually cared about him, had Damian loosening his grip on her hair and her taking the chance to jerk her head away.
“I’m not going to–”
Whatever he was about to say was swallowed by the deafening sound of an explosion somewhere in the distance, the shockwaves sending tremors into the ground and almost causing Damian to let go of the furs and fall off of the dog’s back.
It took him a few seconds to realize (it always took him a few seconds too long to realize) that it was the red car that exploded.
The car that was crushing his mother.
His mother.
Damian’s heart sank to his stomach as he stared at the wreckage in disbelief, his mouth agape and a knot beginning to take form in his chest. Black and gray smoke gradually rose in the curtains of rain and clouded his sight.
He couldn’t see Mother any more.
Mother was gone, just like that, and he was right there yet he couldn’t do anything.
Because he was weak.
Damian’s fists trembled by his side as tears rolled down his cheeks.
The knot in his chest began morphing into something else, something far more violent and destructive and unstoppable.
His anger at his own weakness became fuel for his resolve, a blazing resolve that had taken root deep in his heart and would forever change the course of his life.
He couldn’t save Mother because he was weak.
So he must get stronger.
He must acquire power, be it physical or metaphorical, more power than he could even imagine.
Politician? Businessman? Whatever could bring him more power, he’d take it.
This was the only way he could protect his family and save them when their lives were in danger.
He was only six. He had plenty of time.
With his wealth and connections, there was nothing he couldn’t do if he put his mind to it.
It was on this day that Damian Desmond swore he would become even more powerful than Donovan Desmond himself.
