Jan. 30th, 2008 12:36 pm
Longest Battle 1/8
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lovely_ambitionThis is going to act as a sort of preface, because I don't typically write anything above these fics. This is not a WIP. It is fully complete and I have each part divided as they'll be posted (with a little juggling here and there because some parts are nineteen pages and some are eight). I'll try not to be too mean with cliffhangers, but, I hope it's enjoyed.
This is the longest Tin Man piece of fiction I will ever write and it is both a gen-piece as well as a Glitch/Cain story. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. The existence of this piece was heavily influenced by both![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
luchia13's Fifteen Annuals as well as the Regaining Ground trilogy (by Vera, which can be read here). Without these works, this would not exist.
The Longest Battle 1/8
Pairing: Ambrose/OMC, Ambrose/Cain, Queen/Ahamo
Disclaimer: I do not own them at all.
Summary: The Witch won't rest until she has the O.Z. in darkness, no matter how she must do it, no matter how long it takes.
Rating: PG-13 to R.
Notes: This acts as an AU to the entire Tin Man series and hinges on just one question: "What if DG hadn't let go?" Fifteen annuals pass and while some things may remain the same, many is different. I will also be posting listening music with each part that helped me write it. With this, I offer Dead Queen: Espers and Catching and Killing: Youth Group. EXTREME thanks toblackletter for being a wonderful & efficient beta.
There was tale of it throughout the O.Z., in the way that whispers travelled and refused to dampen; they only grew with the enthusiasm of more and more villages passing along the narrative that would soon be a fairytale, the rate it jumped around.
Two little princesses standing in a cave. The witch, that crone, wanted the throne. But the princesses two stood strong and refused to give way.
While certain towns and settlements began to fear at the cries of a witch in the midst, most took it simply as myth and nothing more. The hazy mists of the tale were embellished as they always were and in some stories, the witch prevailed and in others, the Princesses had used their magic to obliterate even the memory of the Witch from the O.Z. There was only one account that was actually accurate and that was the story that Azkadellia had patiently told her mother as she held onto her sister’s hand that dusk in Finaqua, telling her shakily about the cave and the mobats and the Witch.
The Queen, with her two beautiful daughters, did not wish to hurry to any judgment and merely spoke in quiet passing with both her Guard and Advisors to investigate a matter of defence against the darkest magic.
If it was true that there was a Witch seeking the power of the throne, the Queen imagined she would stop at nothing to achieve it.
Ambrose was the Queen’s dearest friend, the smartest man in the entire O.Z., and it was he that the Queen took aside to speak with in the darkest area of the palace where only shadows could watch their conversation. “There will be difficult times ahead,” the Queen confessed softly, her lavender eyes as fiery as an ocean in turmoil in a storm. “Can I trust you?”
“You can always trust me, majesty,” Ambrose swore softly. He would give his life to the cause and to his Queen if that need be and with a gentle touch to his forearm, Ambrose knew that his life might be offered up sometime in the future. While towns and villages had the blissful ability of ignoring the threat that lived just outside of Finaqua, those that lived in the palace could not ignore what the princesses had seen that day, what Azkadellia had whispered to her Mother, the words the Witch had hissed.
“I have been waiting so long.”
How long would be long enough? How long would it be, the Queen wondered, until the Witch took matters into her own hands and began to employ her own servants while trapped in her dark prison. There would need to be plans set in place in order for the Queen’s reign to go on unthreatened. There were dark times ahead and none would escape without their own scars. Perhaps the only consolation was that the Queen had a realm before her willing to brave battle for their freedom and for good.
She left Ambrose in the dark halls to sit with his myriad of thoughts and to wonder just what it was he could do to help her. He paced his way down floors and maze-like corridors while thoughts plagued him and plans began to take seed.
The Queen had other plans in mind. She had her daughters to check up on and to whisper her secrets to, about the emerald and the Grey Gale and how they would always, always be stronger together.
She would not find her daughters for some time, however. She saw them, a flash in the corner of her eyes as DG ran across the halls in tears and Azkadellia chased after her in a desperate effort to find her and catch up with her sister. The Queen knew better than to intrude on this quiet session between her girls and resolved to find them later and hold them tight while singing them to sleep.
“Deeg,” Azkadellia pleaded softly when she discovered her sister clinging to a banister on one of the highest balconies of the palace. She approached carefully and crouched down to take hold of one hand to form a protective field around them, just in case; just in case of anything. Azkadellia was a careful girl, after all, not prone to the risks that her younger sister was all too happy to indulge in.
But her sister wasn’t in a mind to do anything but shake like a leaf in her sister’s grasp.
“Az,” DG cried softly. “I can’t sleep anymore. I k-keep seeing her.” She clung tighter to Azkadellia’s grasp and above them, the moon was high in the sky, refusing to give way to anything; a solid force while two suns hid until their time was to come. “I don’t want to see her,” DG protested, her voice soft and an echo of its usual determination and strength.
“You won’t,” Azkadellia promised. “So long as you’re with me, DG, you’re safe. Remember? Just keep holding on.”
That night and many going forward, the princesses of the O.Z. were tucked into the same bed by their loving mother, who permitted them to sleep with their hands clasped together, as if in protection of whatever nightmares might threaten to disturb their calm. Each night, the Queen sang softly to them until they fell into a hopefully dreamless sleep.
Two little princesses dancing in a row...
In another dark corner of the palace lay Ambrose’s laboratory for only his uses. He had long ago taught his assistants to use their own room and that this was his and his alone to invent his many delights and to improve upon the already-existing devices that the O.Z. used to work. Tonight, he sat in the corner, surrounded by his books. He was weary already and the storm had yet to even break on the horizon. The worry was slowly going to eat away at him if he didn’t do something about it and he needed failsafes in place, in the event that he lost control of his research or, worse yet, his staff.
“Protocol One Point A,” he began to narrate to the echoing loneliness of the chamber. The recording device could be enchanted by the Queen to only be accessible by certain parties and though Ambrose’s heart sank at the thought of anyone actually ever having to access these pieces of information, he knew all too well that a person was better off safe than sorry.
The storm was coming.
They were all going to be ready.
*
Zero worked in the sort of avenue that most men stayed out of. Occasionally, he’d dip down into the Realm of the Unwanted to see if anyone wanted to hire a private guard of sorts or pay him for their dirty work. He had absolutely no problem in fulfilling things that fell into the categories of hazy grey when it came to morality. So long as the deed was being fulfilled (the reimbursement usually ending up in Zero’s pocket, which was his favourite place for payment to end up), he would do it.
Lately, he’d been having some pretty vivid and dark dreams. Through them all was a silver thread to follow, jumping from one dark scene to the next.
It was a woman’s voice, Zero was sure of that much. Every dream, no matter if it took place in the mountains or in the fields, it whispered to him, using his name specifically and drawing him in deeper and deeper to the settings that surrounded him. It sounded like his first wife sometimes and at others, it was just a woman whispering into his ear about money and about power and about being a steward of a new age.
“And all you have to do, my Zero, are a few small favours for me...”
When he woke up, he’d never completely remember just what it was he had been dreaming about, but that didn’t seem important. Every morning, he’d know that he was supposed to do something for someone, a mission of sorts. While it didn’t result in immediate pay, he had the feeling deep, deep down that he would be rewarded for it one day.
That morning, Zero knew one thing and one thing only. He had to pay a visit to the Mystic Man and take him out of the picture with some vapours before he could offer too much of a warning about the impending future and the detailed histories of the O.Z.
He was off to see the Wizard.
*
“Protocol One Point M,” Ambrose tiredly narrated, rubbing at his eyes as he circled his laboratory with the steady even paces that he had come to use in perfect time, never exceeding his steps. It had been nearly a solid thirty-six hours and but for the breaks he took to keep his mind sane and in perfect working order, he had done nothing but add failsafe after failsafe, plan after plan. “In the event of...”
His speech was interrupted by a knock at the door.
“I’m busy,” he snapped towards the door. It was curt and possibly a little too impatient, but Ambrose had yet to sleep more than two hours and he didn’t have time for silly little interruptions. The knocking continued, though, not even affected slightly by either Ambrose’s tone or his dismissal. It kept on going and going and Ambrose sighed, drawing himself to his feet.
Neither the Queen nor Ahamo would dare to interrupt him in his lab.
Ambrose tried to ignore the increasing feeling of dread within him as he made his way to the door and took a moment to polish himself up; adjust his hair and his coat and make himself something less of a mess. He ran his hand over the curls in his hair one more time before drawing the door open to find not the Queen, the King, nor the princesses.
“Oh.”
“Ambrose.”
It was far worse than that. For the past four months, Ambrose had been quietly seeing one of the courtiers from the North, a blond man with a young face and a graceful step in both his walk and his dancing. Francis had been absolutely wonderful, except that he hardly understood the importance of science and wanted to see Ambrose at the most inconvenient of times. Like now. He knew that he shouldn’t be so irritated with someone so calm and beautiful, but looking into his hazel eyes, all Ambrose felt was contempt at the man for getting in the middle of his protocols.
“Francis, I’m in the middle of very important work,” Ambrose insisted. “Can this wait?”
“No. No, it can’t.” Francis looked cross, which served to highlight that he was only really attractive in his natural state of calmness. His face took on a pinched look with anger, one that Ambrose could hardly bear to look at. “You’re always giving time to your work and never to us. We’re through, Ambrose. Done.”
He didn’t even elect to wait for a response before he left the laboratory, gently closing the door behind him. Ambrose watched the latch lock and thought to himself about the four months he had spent with him, of kisses and dances in ballrooms, of the Queen’s delight at Ambrose’s happiness in the first few weeks and then her worry as the happiness gave way to a barely-visible content. Ambrose was an expert at many things and a genius in the truest sense of the word. He understood that when people lost their partner, they were supposed to be upset and were supposed to grieve.
Ambrose, however, simply went back to Protocol One Point M and thought to himself that he would have to find a new partner for the next ball.
He didn’t have time for feelings. He simply didn’t.
*
Zero had a list of names.
There weren’t many on the list yet because the woman in his dreams had yet to specify a purpose beyond the need to take the Mystic Man out of the picture and to render him incapable of being anything more than a fancy little plaything for Central City to enjoy. His name sat on the top of the list and beneath him were three more names. The next name was that of a highly-placed security advisor that worked on the Mystic Man’s detail and worked as liaison to the Royal Palace, reporting what he saw in the hearts and minds of the public. Zero had disposed of him over the cliffs of the Papay fields, watching him dangle for his life and secured by ropes. The Papay were farmers, mostly, but either they would discover the prey Zero had left for them or the long fall onto a spat of jagged rocks would kill him. Zero had forced him to field one last report with the Palace, gun to his head.
“All is well and there is little to report from Central City. However, in the light of recent stressful incidents in my life, I will be taking an indefinite leave of absence.”
The second name after this was an alchemist who put together some of the Mystic Man’s necessities in his travels. Zero would have use for someone like that and had shackled him in a prison down in the Unwanted Realm, keeping him half in the real world and half drugged on opiates to prevent coherent thought from happening. He did little more than babble on all day about chemicals and the Ozian periodic table.
The third name on the list was a highly placed member of the Tin Men with connections to just about everyone in Central City, even going so far as to knowing Zero’s ex-wife. He had an insufferable manner about him of knowing more than anyone else in the O.Z. did and Zero constantly wanted to put a bullet through his heart before he’d even been commanded to do something about him.
Wyatt Cain.
Zero had a personal interest in him. He had never liked the man through their meetings before and he didn’t think that he had ever felt anything towards him but the bite of contempt. Instead of dispatching someone to do the job for him, Zero had pocketed both a gun and a knife in his coat as he made a decision to call on the Cain family at their humble little house in the country. He had stood on their doorstep in his fitting black duster and had even knocked politely on the door as if this were a social call. Still smiling when the door was opened by Cain’s pretty little wife, he grabbed her forcibly into his arms and backed away from the door, making sure to keep little Mrs. Adora Cain in the path of any bullet that the man might fire.
“Afternoon, Wyatt,” Zero greeted. “Why don’t you put down your gun and I’ll see about letting your wife live,” he offered coolly. Cain was nothing more than a lumbering beast to him, all force and brute when it came to the way he approached the world without any finesse whatsoever. Cain pushed them out of the house, locking the door behind him. Zero didn’t care about anything but ridding himself of Cain in the creative way he had devised. He had a singular purpose and right now, he had to keep the Missus quiet and make sure that nothing strayed from the plan.
Behind him stood an Iron Suit, a clever little mobile prison that was especially good at making convicts face their crimes. Zero had procured one in the Black Market with the intention of locking up the good Wyatt Cain to keep him away from his plans and goals. If the Mystic Man didn’t have a protective detail, it would be like stealing candy from a baby to get to him.
“Put her down,” Cain threatened, careful and patient, his gun trained on Zero, though there was no clear angle and Zero had carefully made sure this was true. “Put her down,” Cain roared this time and Zero couldn’t help but think that he had awakened the sleeping lion and smiled to himself slowly. He had reinforcements waiting just in the woods in case Cain grew slightly...unmanageable, but Zero wanted the satisfaction of doing this himself. “Zero!”
“No, Cain,” Zero said patiently. “Say please. I want to hear you say please.”
Cain kept the gun steadily trained on Zero’s head and between them, Adora begged desperately. It seemed to take its toll on Cain as the Tin Man’s hand started to shake, tremble despite his youth and strength insisting otherwise. He should have been able to dispose of Zero easily, but so swayed by his emotions and by his love for his wife that he was useless. It was almost sweet. The begging never came from Cain’s lips; all Zero heard was the thick, guttural begging of a useless man who knew he was losing a war as he pleaded for her life, his for hers.
Zero didn’t have the heart to tell him that he planned on taking them both anyway.
Slowly, Zero slid his knife into Adora Cain’s back and let her crumple to the ground while his men grabbed Cain from behind, his gun falling into the marshy grasslands while they carted him off and brought him to the Iron Suit lying in wait. Zero had to imprint the events into the TDESPHTL and he did so to Cain’s screams of rage and desperate cries of Adora’s name, again and again, to the point that Zero sighed.
“Get him in there faster,” he ordered simply, setting up the machine and spiking it into a nearby post to get it playing in an infinite loop. It flickered as he walked through it and watched with a satisfied smile as they sealed Cain into the contraption and locked it up good and tight.
“You really are a genuine Tin Man now,” Zero praised, knocking on the glass partition between Cain and the rest of the world. “C’mon, we have a meeting in Central,” he muttered to his henchmen while leaving the looped scene of Adora Cain dying in his arms and sliding to the ground playing without promise of cessation; ever.
Three for three and all in a matter of days. She would be pleased with him.
*
He had been in the suit for three days, seventy-two hours, every minute a torture of watching a TDESPHTL replay a scene over and over again that he never in his life wanted to watch. Not ever. Cain raged against the suit with all of his might, nearly screaming and roaring against the iron, useless to struggle. The prison wouldn’t move, refused to give way. What was worse was that he didn’t know what they had done to Jeb. Had they simply kept moving or had they looked inside the locked house?
Was his boy crying?
What was he supposed to do without his mother? What was Cain supposed to do without his Adora? He didn’t have any of the answers and he just raged harder and harder for it. He’d yet to grow tired of screaming and shouting and though his voice was going hoarse and his throat dry, he refused to stop. His cheek was covered with three days’ worth of thick stubble and he couldn’t move his arms but to thrash around, so he made do with the room he had.
Three days and Cain didn’t know where his son was. Three days and he had watched his wife die by Zero’s hand thousands of times.
The sound of a screw slowly being removed barely occurred to Cain and when the suit was pried open with a creak, Cain staggered to his knees and barely looked up at the neighbour who had freed him, mouth parched and voice lost as he stared at the holographic display in front of him and he watched Adora fall yet again and again.
It didn’t occur to Cain to be grateful that someone had come, it didn’t occur to him to thank the gods that though they didn’t have a neighbour for miles, someone had come to Cain for a small favour and had wound up performing an unmatchable charity. Nothing mattered at that moment but his family.
“Adora,” he whispered hoarsely, reaching his palm out to her and scrambling to his feet to rush towards the sound of a screaming cry from inside the house. “Jeb!” he shouted, his neighbour – a man named Brown, Cain though, the local smith – in tow. Cain was determined to do one thing and one thing alone and that was to rip the projector from the post and throw it to the side before he nearly ripped the door off its hinges and sprinted inside to gather up Jeb in his arms and hug him tight as he could, rocking him back and forth.
“F-Fa...” Jeb whimpered softly, unable to get out a full word. Cain closed his eyes tightly as he rocked him back and forth, back and forth, letting the rhythm soothe the building rage in his blood.
He looked up at Brown, his icy blue eyes frozen over as every last emotion fell by the wayside. “I need to borrow your truck,” Cain said flatly. “I’m going to Central.” Whether he even got permission or not didn’t matter to Cain, who was on a mission. “It’ll be okay, son,” Cain whispered, brushing back the boy’s fair hair. “It’ll be all right.”
*
In order to properly distribute his encrypted files, Ambrose had to make a trip to Central City to visit dear old friends that he could trust with not only his life, but the lives of the Royal Family and every last soul in the O.Z. One of the accounts was to be placed in the hands of the Mystic Man, who was a legendary figure of intelligence and ‘magic’. He was well-elevated in the ranks of society and had the adequate protective detail to keep the tapes genuinely secure.
Obtaining an audience with the man, however, was proving to be more difficult than had even been rumoured. Ambrose had been outside his office for an hour, listening to the distracted curses and mutterings all too familiar to the Advisor, who had sounded much the same in the midst of an unsolvable problem. Ambrose was mildly suspicious of the location, mainly due to the fact that despite a confirmed presence of security, Ambrose hadn’t seen any of the men; not the security advisor, not the alchemist, and not the Tin Man.
He had a distinctly bad feeling about this.
Eventually, he gave in to his impatience and knocked on the door again. “Mystic Man, please,” Ambrose pleaded desperately. “I have to find my way back to the palace sooner rather than later.”
When the door was opened, he recognized the man who stood opposed of him, but just barely.
He wished that his mind had worked a half a second faster when it came to recognizing faces; wished it worked as quickly as it did to puzzle out theorems and solve the small trifles that plagued the O.Z. The name of the man was Zero, but that hadn’t processed quickly enough for Ambrose to escape unscathed. He should have never forgotten Zero, considering how they had met before, but Ambrose had done his best to erase that part of his past from his consciousness and here he was on the doorstep of a stranger. If he had recognized him, then maybe the fate of the future would have been different.
But it wasn’t.
“We’re busy,” the man named Zero informed him, gripping a thick, heavy wrench in his hands. Behind him, the Mystic Man looked half out of the world, mumbling to himself and puzzling out the mass of the universe. Confusion and sharp worry flickered over Ambrose’s face before the wrench was brought down atop his head.
The last thing he remembered was letting out a painful howl before the world went black.
When Ambrose was finally jostled awake, it was by the rudest of slaps from a firm hand clad in a cold wedding ring, no doubt frozen by the cool temperature of Central City at night. Ambrose thought to strike out at his attacker, but all he could muster was a painful howl as he clasped his head, squinting to figure out where he was.
“What happened?” he demanded, his vision still fuzzy. “Where am I?”
Slowly, his vision allowed itself to clear and reveal a stern-faced pale man whose features were obscured by the grey fedora he wore and the upturned collar of his coat hid the rest, including whatever intentions Ambrose might have gleaned from his face. His eyes yielded nothing but anger and pain and Ambrose found it useless to look there too long.
He accepted the offered hand and slowly searched his surroundings, stumbling in place while rubbing his head again and again and feeling something of a groove where something must have hit. “Wait, what happened?” he demanded heavily, voice fraught with panic. “Who are you?” Ambrose was nearly wild with the answers left blank. The door to the Mystic Man’s office was wide open and there looked to have been a scuffle within.
“I’m Cain,” the man with the icy blue eyes answered tersely. “I’m looking for Zero.”
“Why?”
“To kill him.”
“Ah,” Ambrose mumbled, feeling like his mouth was filled with cotton balls and he twisted his chin around as he put the pieces together. “Zero. Zero. He hit me with…with…that!” Ambrose gestured wildly to the wrench that lay abandoned on the marble floor. Ambrose still hadn’t put together why it had happened, like his memory was lapsing in and out and he couldn’t stop it. He’d have to make a stop to the medics later and see if there wasn’t a balm to help him through the pain. Ambrose gave a frustrated grumble under his throat as he rubbed at his head then took a look at the Cain-man who was scouting the room. “It’s no use,” Ambrose sighed. “Even an idiot like Zero would have found a second location.”
“Why would Zero want to hurt you?” Cain demanded and it was remarkable how little emotion was in his voice. Ambrose couldn’t even find the barest trace, nothing past that bubbling ire and rage that seemed to pool at the surface.
“I’m an important man,” Ambrose said lightly, which only brought forth the hammer of a gun being pulled back. “Oh, really, is that necessary?” he spat out.
“Father?”
As soon as the gun had been drawn from a holster, the safety was clicked on and the gun was shoved back into its hiding place as Cain swivelled on his feet to wrap his arms around the interrupting voice. Ambrose couldn’t do much else but stand there in shock, still as a statue as he saw the first genuine emotion cross this Cain’s figure and it was so overwhelmingly, achingly filled with love and despair that Ambrose might have cried if he weren’t still so confused about what was happening.
“Jeb, what are you doing?”
“Mister Brown left an’ I don’t like the truck,” the boy whispered, dark blond strands of hair falling in his eyes as he peered over Cain’s shoulder and fixated his gaze on Ambrose. “Who’s he?”
“Just a friend of Father’s,” Cain promised with a light bounce as he kept Jeb in his arms and turned to look at Ambrose and even though there was no gun being pointed his way, the glare from Cain’s eyes could have been composed solely of daggers and the child (who couldn’t be more than three) in his arms did little to stop that. Ambrose swallowed uncomfortably, searching for a way to escape without having to harm Cain or put his boy through a sight like that.
“Come with me,” Ambrose said impulsively. “I work at the Palace and it’s secure. We can talk there. You can bring your Jeb.”
Though an argument seemed eminent on the tip of Cain’s tongue, Ambrose knew he had to move fast to convince him to come.
“You’ll have an audience with the Queen if you so wish it,” Ambrose informed him curtly. “Now. Are you coming or not?”
Little Jeb’s fingers slowly entwined in his father’s hat and it was hard, then, not to look at the gun-wielding man as anything but a loving and doting father. It took this lull in the tense moments between the two of them for the man’s name to truly hit home.
“Cain,” Ambrose exhaled, staring at him with wonder.
“What?”
“You’re the Tin Man on the Mystic Man’s detail.”
“Was.
It was the last thing spoken between them before Ambrose took them back to his car and drove them back to the palace in silence and under the cover of absolute darkness, aided by clouds being out and shadowing the O.Z. from the light of the moons. When they passed through the gates and approached the Queen’s domain, Cain set a sleeping Jeb in the back before leaning in to ask what Ambrose had been waiting for.
“Who are you?”
“Ambrose,” he answered, full of pride and puffed up like a peacock. “I’m Advisor to the Queen.”
“Good for you.”
That took all the puff out of Ambrose’s chest quickly and he deflated, focusing instead of driving into the hidden scaffoldings where he could unload the guests and bring them to accommodations for the evening before he found out just what Cain wanted with Zero.
*
Ambrose had left Jeb and the man who called himself Cain inside his own private quarters while he sought out medical attention with one of the medics the Queen kept on constant detail in the event that one of her daughters came down with something worse than a mild little cough. His head still smarted something fierce and he wanted to be in full control of his faculties when he eventually sat down with Cain and discussed what Zero had done.
“I think I was hit with a wrench,” Ambrose mumbled, his words sticking together lazily as they stumbled out of his mouth. “Bastard of a man…Zero…”
The medic was making his rounds and lifting bits of Ambrose’s curled hair to inspect the bump, making Ambrose wince and hiss when every poke and prod to the area. Curiously enough, this seemed to go on for some time and the Medic’s cool fingers against Ambrose’s scalp made him recoil uncomfortably.
“What’s he done?” Ambrose pleaded tiredly. “I still have a meeting to take, just give me something for the throbbing.”
“Ambrose,” the Medic remarked, somewhat sharply. “This isn’t just a simple headache.”
Ambrose froze slightly from his fidgeting, hand about to twitch with his collar and his hair. “What do you mean?” When he got in a mood, the crisp and icy temperature in his voice could rival that deadness in the ice of Cain’s eyes. Ambrose could be warm and friendly, he could be studious and careful, and he could be cold and vengeful.
The Medic made his way around to face Ambrose, still parting his hair to poke at the injured area, causing Ambrose to give a sharp yelp and scowl of pain.
“If you do that again, I will have you relegated to treating the warts in the kitchen staff,” Ambrose threatened, far from being idle either.
“The blow to your head may cause memory issues down the line,” the Medic said, his voice strained. “Issues recalling simple facts or you might simply black out for a moment and come to, in a mental sense. Your brain capacity will continue to function, but you may have moments of fluctuation, at least, until this sorts itself out. We would have to meet again after to evaluate.”
“My brain is intact, though,” Ambrose very carefully asked.
“You’re fully able to continue on as the Queen’s Advisor. You may just have ‘episodes’.” The Medic finally took his fingers off Ambrose’s head and the Advisor pried himself away gratefully, not wanting to be poked at like an animal in a zoo. “I would inform the Queen of this recent development. I’m sure she would be lenient on an old friend.”
“I can handle myself,” Ambrose promised, panic welling in his throat as he rose to his feet and spun to his left, then to his right, not so much disoriented as he was in the middle of an attack of panic, desperation clawing at him at losing any of his capabilities because of one vile little henchman.
His walk back to his quarters was punctuated with many a curse at Zero and the heavy clomp of his boots as he wound his way back to the room.
He drew both doors open with his arms, storming into the room and demanding an audience with his presence, expecting Cain to look up immediately and, at the very least, to demur in his stance, to let him ask the questions. No such thing happened, though, because Ambrose found Cain tending to Jeb in bed, brushing a broad hand over the boy’s sandy hair over and over again, Cain’s other hand resting above Jeb’s heart so simply.
Ambrose found himself feeling guilty and swallowed thickly as he closed the doors behind him, taking a moment to compose himself and pray that no ‘episodes’ assault him just yet.
He found his way to the edge of the bed and let his hand hover above Cain’s shoulder, not quite touching, but close enough to be felt. “Is he asleep?” Ambrose whispered carefully.
“Out like a light twenty minutes back,” Cain agreed, rising to his feet and turning on Ambrose, using his larger physical presence to intimidate and back Ambrose up enough steps so that they wouldn’t wake Jeb up with their talks. “I want Zero dead,” Cain announced under his breath lowly. “He killed my wife. He’s done something to the other members of the Mystic Man’s protective detail and the Man himself has gone missing.”
“He gave me a brain injury,” Ambrose inserted his own complaint. “I’d like to find him as much as you do, but maybe death is too quick to jump to.”
“He…” Cain began to rage, as if wanting to continue on his litany of accusations.
“There are questions to ask,” Ambrose interrupted patiently. “Like why.” He couldn’t seem to pull his gaze away from Cain’s – what was his first name? He recalled the reports, he had to know it, what was it? – and they stood there for a long moment, locked in the angry look. “What was her name?” Ambrose finally asked gently.
“Adora Cain,” he answered, voice brimming with pain. “Zero is going to pay for that with his life, if I have anything to do with it. He took her life and he offered his up in the exchange, even if he doesn’t know that yet.”
Behind them, Jeb Cain slept the sleep of the young and the innocent as plans began to turn from the wisp of an idea into a firm, solid existence. “I’ll come with you,” Ambrose insisted, the panic now caught in his throat and turning to stupid bravery. “I can travel under a falsified name with the Queen’s documentation and we can find Zero and just exactly what’s afoot.”
“Jeb…”
“He can stay here with the Queen. She has two daughters who would delight in a playmate,” Ambrose noted as he glanced over his shoulder. He always had been a proponent of having DG and Azkadellia making friends outside of the palace, but their parents had always been so hesitant to let them out from under their wing. He would appoint a proper guardian who could send letters if need be.
“Nothing personal,” Cain said lowly, “but I just met you, brainiac. And you expect me to entrust my only son in your care?”
“In the Queen’s care,” Ambrose corrected. “If you want to meet her, I can arrange an audience tomorrow.”
“Fine,” Cain agreed, but to what, Ambrose didn’t know just yet. The Tin Man brushed past Ambrose on his way back to the bed, where he took Jeb’s hand within his own and glanced up at Ambrose past the rim of his hat. “Set up a meeting. Then I’ll see about you tagging along.”
TBC
This is the longest Tin Man piece of fiction I will ever write and it is both a gen-piece as well as a Glitch/Cain story. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. The existence of this piece was heavily influenced by both
luchia13's Fifteen Annuals as well as the Regaining Ground trilogy (by Vera, which can be read here). Without these works, this would not exist.The Longest Battle 1/8
Pairing: Ambrose/OMC, Ambrose/Cain, Queen/Ahamo
Disclaimer: I do not own them at all.
Summary: The Witch won't rest until she has the O.Z. in darkness, no matter how she must do it, no matter how long it takes.
Rating: PG-13 to R.
Notes: This acts as an AU to the entire Tin Man series and hinges on just one question: "What if DG hadn't let go?" Fifteen annuals pass and while some things may remain the same, many is different. I will also be posting listening music with each part that helped me write it. With this, I offer Dead Queen: Espers and Catching and Killing: Youth Group. EXTREME thanks to
blackletter for being a wonderful & efficient beta.There was tale of it throughout the O.Z., in the way that whispers travelled and refused to dampen; they only grew with the enthusiasm of more and more villages passing along the narrative that would soon be a fairytale, the rate it jumped around.
Two little princesses standing in a cave. The witch, that crone, wanted the throne. But the princesses two stood strong and refused to give way.
While certain towns and settlements began to fear at the cries of a witch in the midst, most took it simply as myth and nothing more. The hazy mists of the tale were embellished as they always were and in some stories, the witch prevailed and in others, the Princesses had used their magic to obliterate even the memory of the Witch from the O.Z. There was only one account that was actually accurate and that was the story that Azkadellia had patiently told her mother as she held onto her sister’s hand that dusk in Finaqua, telling her shakily about the cave and the mobats and the Witch.
The Queen, with her two beautiful daughters, did not wish to hurry to any judgment and merely spoke in quiet passing with both her Guard and Advisors to investigate a matter of defence against the darkest magic.
If it was true that there was a Witch seeking the power of the throne, the Queen imagined she would stop at nothing to achieve it.
Ambrose was the Queen’s dearest friend, the smartest man in the entire O.Z., and it was he that the Queen took aside to speak with in the darkest area of the palace where only shadows could watch their conversation. “There will be difficult times ahead,” the Queen confessed softly, her lavender eyes as fiery as an ocean in turmoil in a storm. “Can I trust you?”
“You can always trust me, majesty,” Ambrose swore softly. He would give his life to the cause and to his Queen if that need be and with a gentle touch to his forearm, Ambrose knew that his life might be offered up sometime in the future. While towns and villages had the blissful ability of ignoring the threat that lived just outside of Finaqua, those that lived in the palace could not ignore what the princesses had seen that day, what Azkadellia had whispered to her Mother, the words the Witch had hissed.
“I have been waiting so long.”
How long would be long enough? How long would it be, the Queen wondered, until the Witch took matters into her own hands and began to employ her own servants while trapped in her dark prison. There would need to be plans set in place in order for the Queen’s reign to go on unthreatened. There were dark times ahead and none would escape without their own scars. Perhaps the only consolation was that the Queen had a realm before her willing to brave battle for their freedom and for good.
She left Ambrose in the dark halls to sit with his myriad of thoughts and to wonder just what it was he could do to help her. He paced his way down floors and maze-like corridors while thoughts plagued him and plans began to take seed.
The Queen had other plans in mind. She had her daughters to check up on and to whisper her secrets to, about the emerald and the Grey Gale and how they would always, always be stronger together.
She would not find her daughters for some time, however. She saw them, a flash in the corner of her eyes as DG ran across the halls in tears and Azkadellia chased after her in a desperate effort to find her and catch up with her sister. The Queen knew better than to intrude on this quiet session between her girls and resolved to find them later and hold them tight while singing them to sleep.
“Deeg,” Azkadellia pleaded softly when she discovered her sister clinging to a banister on one of the highest balconies of the palace. She approached carefully and crouched down to take hold of one hand to form a protective field around them, just in case; just in case of anything. Azkadellia was a careful girl, after all, not prone to the risks that her younger sister was all too happy to indulge in.
But her sister wasn’t in a mind to do anything but shake like a leaf in her sister’s grasp.
“Az,” DG cried softly. “I can’t sleep anymore. I k-keep seeing her.” She clung tighter to Azkadellia’s grasp and above them, the moon was high in the sky, refusing to give way to anything; a solid force while two suns hid until their time was to come. “I don’t want to see her,” DG protested, her voice soft and an echo of its usual determination and strength.
“You won’t,” Azkadellia promised. “So long as you’re with me, DG, you’re safe. Remember? Just keep holding on.”
That night and many going forward, the princesses of the O.Z. were tucked into the same bed by their loving mother, who permitted them to sleep with their hands clasped together, as if in protection of whatever nightmares might threaten to disturb their calm. Each night, the Queen sang softly to them until they fell into a hopefully dreamless sleep.
Two little princesses dancing in a row...
In another dark corner of the palace lay Ambrose’s laboratory for only his uses. He had long ago taught his assistants to use their own room and that this was his and his alone to invent his many delights and to improve upon the already-existing devices that the O.Z. used to work. Tonight, he sat in the corner, surrounded by his books. He was weary already and the storm had yet to even break on the horizon. The worry was slowly going to eat away at him if he didn’t do something about it and he needed failsafes in place, in the event that he lost control of his research or, worse yet, his staff.
“Protocol One Point A,” he began to narrate to the echoing loneliness of the chamber. The recording device could be enchanted by the Queen to only be accessible by certain parties and though Ambrose’s heart sank at the thought of anyone actually ever having to access these pieces of information, he knew all too well that a person was better off safe than sorry.
The storm was coming.
They were all going to be ready.
*
Zero worked in the sort of avenue that most men stayed out of. Occasionally, he’d dip down into the Realm of the Unwanted to see if anyone wanted to hire a private guard of sorts or pay him for their dirty work. He had absolutely no problem in fulfilling things that fell into the categories of hazy grey when it came to morality. So long as the deed was being fulfilled (the reimbursement usually ending up in Zero’s pocket, which was his favourite place for payment to end up), he would do it.
Lately, he’d been having some pretty vivid and dark dreams. Through them all was a silver thread to follow, jumping from one dark scene to the next.
It was a woman’s voice, Zero was sure of that much. Every dream, no matter if it took place in the mountains or in the fields, it whispered to him, using his name specifically and drawing him in deeper and deeper to the settings that surrounded him. It sounded like his first wife sometimes and at others, it was just a woman whispering into his ear about money and about power and about being a steward of a new age.
“And all you have to do, my Zero, are a few small favours for me...”
When he woke up, he’d never completely remember just what it was he had been dreaming about, but that didn’t seem important. Every morning, he’d know that he was supposed to do something for someone, a mission of sorts. While it didn’t result in immediate pay, he had the feeling deep, deep down that he would be rewarded for it one day.
That morning, Zero knew one thing and one thing only. He had to pay a visit to the Mystic Man and take him out of the picture with some vapours before he could offer too much of a warning about the impending future and the detailed histories of the O.Z.
He was off to see the Wizard.
*
“Protocol One Point M,” Ambrose tiredly narrated, rubbing at his eyes as he circled his laboratory with the steady even paces that he had come to use in perfect time, never exceeding his steps. It had been nearly a solid thirty-six hours and but for the breaks he took to keep his mind sane and in perfect working order, he had done nothing but add failsafe after failsafe, plan after plan. “In the event of...”
His speech was interrupted by a knock at the door.
“I’m busy,” he snapped towards the door. It was curt and possibly a little too impatient, but Ambrose had yet to sleep more than two hours and he didn’t have time for silly little interruptions. The knocking continued, though, not even affected slightly by either Ambrose’s tone or his dismissal. It kept on going and going and Ambrose sighed, drawing himself to his feet.
Neither the Queen nor Ahamo would dare to interrupt him in his lab.
Ambrose tried to ignore the increasing feeling of dread within him as he made his way to the door and took a moment to polish himself up; adjust his hair and his coat and make himself something less of a mess. He ran his hand over the curls in his hair one more time before drawing the door open to find not the Queen, the King, nor the princesses.
“Oh.”
“Ambrose.”
It was far worse than that. For the past four months, Ambrose had been quietly seeing one of the courtiers from the North, a blond man with a young face and a graceful step in both his walk and his dancing. Francis had been absolutely wonderful, except that he hardly understood the importance of science and wanted to see Ambrose at the most inconvenient of times. Like now. He knew that he shouldn’t be so irritated with someone so calm and beautiful, but looking into his hazel eyes, all Ambrose felt was contempt at the man for getting in the middle of his protocols.
“Francis, I’m in the middle of very important work,” Ambrose insisted. “Can this wait?”
“No. No, it can’t.” Francis looked cross, which served to highlight that he was only really attractive in his natural state of calmness. His face took on a pinched look with anger, one that Ambrose could hardly bear to look at. “You’re always giving time to your work and never to us. We’re through, Ambrose. Done.”
He didn’t even elect to wait for a response before he left the laboratory, gently closing the door behind him. Ambrose watched the latch lock and thought to himself about the four months he had spent with him, of kisses and dances in ballrooms, of the Queen’s delight at Ambrose’s happiness in the first few weeks and then her worry as the happiness gave way to a barely-visible content. Ambrose was an expert at many things and a genius in the truest sense of the word. He understood that when people lost their partner, they were supposed to be upset and were supposed to grieve.
Ambrose, however, simply went back to Protocol One Point M and thought to himself that he would have to find a new partner for the next ball.
He didn’t have time for feelings. He simply didn’t.
*
Zero had a list of names.
There weren’t many on the list yet because the woman in his dreams had yet to specify a purpose beyond the need to take the Mystic Man out of the picture and to render him incapable of being anything more than a fancy little plaything for Central City to enjoy. His name sat on the top of the list and beneath him were three more names. The next name was that of a highly-placed security advisor that worked on the Mystic Man’s detail and worked as liaison to the Royal Palace, reporting what he saw in the hearts and minds of the public. Zero had disposed of him over the cliffs of the Papay fields, watching him dangle for his life and secured by ropes. The Papay were farmers, mostly, but either they would discover the prey Zero had left for them or the long fall onto a spat of jagged rocks would kill him. Zero had forced him to field one last report with the Palace, gun to his head.
“All is well and there is little to report from Central City. However, in the light of recent stressful incidents in my life, I will be taking an indefinite leave of absence.”
The second name after this was an alchemist who put together some of the Mystic Man’s necessities in his travels. Zero would have use for someone like that and had shackled him in a prison down in the Unwanted Realm, keeping him half in the real world and half drugged on opiates to prevent coherent thought from happening. He did little more than babble on all day about chemicals and the Ozian periodic table.
The third name on the list was a highly placed member of the Tin Men with connections to just about everyone in Central City, even going so far as to knowing Zero’s ex-wife. He had an insufferable manner about him of knowing more than anyone else in the O.Z. did and Zero constantly wanted to put a bullet through his heart before he’d even been commanded to do something about him.
Wyatt Cain.
Zero had a personal interest in him. He had never liked the man through their meetings before and he didn’t think that he had ever felt anything towards him but the bite of contempt. Instead of dispatching someone to do the job for him, Zero had pocketed both a gun and a knife in his coat as he made a decision to call on the Cain family at their humble little house in the country. He had stood on their doorstep in his fitting black duster and had even knocked politely on the door as if this were a social call. Still smiling when the door was opened by Cain’s pretty little wife, he grabbed her forcibly into his arms and backed away from the door, making sure to keep little Mrs. Adora Cain in the path of any bullet that the man might fire.
“Afternoon, Wyatt,” Zero greeted. “Why don’t you put down your gun and I’ll see about letting your wife live,” he offered coolly. Cain was nothing more than a lumbering beast to him, all force and brute when it came to the way he approached the world without any finesse whatsoever. Cain pushed them out of the house, locking the door behind him. Zero didn’t care about anything but ridding himself of Cain in the creative way he had devised. He had a singular purpose and right now, he had to keep the Missus quiet and make sure that nothing strayed from the plan.
Behind him stood an Iron Suit, a clever little mobile prison that was especially good at making convicts face their crimes. Zero had procured one in the Black Market with the intention of locking up the good Wyatt Cain to keep him away from his plans and goals. If the Mystic Man didn’t have a protective detail, it would be like stealing candy from a baby to get to him.
“Put her down,” Cain threatened, careful and patient, his gun trained on Zero, though there was no clear angle and Zero had carefully made sure this was true. “Put her down,” Cain roared this time and Zero couldn’t help but think that he had awakened the sleeping lion and smiled to himself slowly. He had reinforcements waiting just in the woods in case Cain grew slightly...unmanageable, but Zero wanted the satisfaction of doing this himself. “Zero!”
“No, Cain,” Zero said patiently. “Say please. I want to hear you say please.”
Cain kept the gun steadily trained on Zero’s head and between them, Adora begged desperately. It seemed to take its toll on Cain as the Tin Man’s hand started to shake, tremble despite his youth and strength insisting otherwise. He should have been able to dispose of Zero easily, but so swayed by his emotions and by his love for his wife that he was useless. It was almost sweet. The begging never came from Cain’s lips; all Zero heard was the thick, guttural begging of a useless man who knew he was losing a war as he pleaded for her life, his for hers.
Zero didn’t have the heart to tell him that he planned on taking them both anyway.
Slowly, Zero slid his knife into Adora Cain’s back and let her crumple to the ground while his men grabbed Cain from behind, his gun falling into the marshy grasslands while they carted him off and brought him to the Iron Suit lying in wait. Zero had to imprint the events into the TDESPHTL and he did so to Cain’s screams of rage and desperate cries of Adora’s name, again and again, to the point that Zero sighed.
“Get him in there faster,” he ordered simply, setting up the machine and spiking it into a nearby post to get it playing in an infinite loop. It flickered as he walked through it and watched with a satisfied smile as they sealed Cain into the contraption and locked it up good and tight.
“You really are a genuine Tin Man now,” Zero praised, knocking on the glass partition between Cain and the rest of the world. “C’mon, we have a meeting in Central,” he muttered to his henchmen while leaving the looped scene of Adora Cain dying in his arms and sliding to the ground playing without promise of cessation; ever.
Three for three and all in a matter of days. She would be pleased with him.
*
He had been in the suit for three days, seventy-two hours, every minute a torture of watching a TDESPHTL replay a scene over and over again that he never in his life wanted to watch. Not ever. Cain raged against the suit with all of his might, nearly screaming and roaring against the iron, useless to struggle. The prison wouldn’t move, refused to give way. What was worse was that he didn’t know what they had done to Jeb. Had they simply kept moving or had they looked inside the locked house?
Was his boy crying?
What was he supposed to do without his mother? What was Cain supposed to do without his Adora? He didn’t have any of the answers and he just raged harder and harder for it. He’d yet to grow tired of screaming and shouting and though his voice was going hoarse and his throat dry, he refused to stop. His cheek was covered with three days’ worth of thick stubble and he couldn’t move his arms but to thrash around, so he made do with the room he had.
Three days and Cain didn’t know where his son was. Three days and he had watched his wife die by Zero’s hand thousands of times.
The sound of a screw slowly being removed barely occurred to Cain and when the suit was pried open with a creak, Cain staggered to his knees and barely looked up at the neighbour who had freed him, mouth parched and voice lost as he stared at the holographic display in front of him and he watched Adora fall yet again and again.
It didn’t occur to Cain to be grateful that someone had come, it didn’t occur to him to thank the gods that though they didn’t have a neighbour for miles, someone had come to Cain for a small favour and had wound up performing an unmatchable charity. Nothing mattered at that moment but his family.
“Adora,” he whispered hoarsely, reaching his palm out to her and scrambling to his feet to rush towards the sound of a screaming cry from inside the house. “Jeb!” he shouted, his neighbour – a man named Brown, Cain though, the local smith – in tow. Cain was determined to do one thing and one thing alone and that was to rip the projector from the post and throw it to the side before he nearly ripped the door off its hinges and sprinted inside to gather up Jeb in his arms and hug him tight as he could, rocking him back and forth.
“F-Fa...” Jeb whimpered softly, unable to get out a full word. Cain closed his eyes tightly as he rocked him back and forth, back and forth, letting the rhythm soothe the building rage in his blood.
He looked up at Brown, his icy blue eyes frozen over as every last emotion fell by the wayside. “I need to borrow your truck,” Cain said flatly. “I’m going to Central.” Whether he even got permission or not didn’t matter to Cain, who was on a mission. “It’ll be okay, son,” Cain whispered, brushing back the boy’s fair hair. “It’ll be all right.”
*
In order to properly distribute his encrypted files, Ambrose had to make a trip to Central City to visit dear old friends that he could trust with not only his life, but the lives of the Royal Family and every last soul in the O.Z. One of the accounts was to be placed in the hands of the Mystic Man, who was a legendary figure of intelligence and ‘magic’. He was well-elevated in the ranks of society and had the adequate protective detail to keep the tapes genuinely secure.
Obtaining an audience with the man, however, was proving to be more difficult than had even been rumoured. Ambrose had been outside his office for an hour, listening to the distracted curses and mutterings all too familiar to the Advisor, who had sounded much the same in the midst of an unsolvable problem. Ambrose was mildly suspicious of the location, mainly due to the fact that despite a confirmed presence of security, Ambrose hadn’t seen any of the men; not the security advisor, not the alchemist, and not the Tin Man.
He had a distinctly bad feeling about this.
Eventually, he gave in to his impatience and knocked on the door again. “Mystic Man, please,” Ambrose pleaded desperately. “I have to find my way back to the palace sooner rather than later.”
When the door was opened, he recognized the man who stood opposed of him, but just barely.
He wished that his mind had worked a half a second faster when it came to recognizing faces; wished it worked as quickly as it did to puzzle out theorems and solve the small trifles that plagued the O.Z. The name of the man was Zero, but that hadn’t processed quickly enough for Ambrose to escape unscathed. He should have never forgotten Zero, considering how they had met before, but Ambrose had done his best to erase that part of his past from his consciousness and here he was on the doorstep of a stranger. If he had recognized him, then maybe the fate of the future would have been different.
But it wasn’t.
“We’re busy,” the man named Zero informed him, gripping a thick, heavy wrench in his hands. Behind him, the Mystic Man looked half out of the world, mumbling to himself and puzzling out the mass of the universe. Confusion and sharp worry flickered over Ambrose’s face before the wrench was brought down atop his head.
The last thing he remembered was letting out a painful howl before the world went black.
When Ambrose was finally jostled awake, it was by the rudest of slaps from a firm hand clad in a cold wedding ring, no doubt frozen by the cool temperature of Central City at night. Ambrose thought to strike out at his attacker, but all he could muster was a painful howl as he clasped his head, squinting to figure out where he was.
“What happened?” he demanded, his vision still fuzzy. “Where am I?”
Slowly, his vision allowed itself to clear and reveal a stern-faced pale man whose features were obscured by the grey fedora he wore and the upturned collar of his coat hid the rest, including whatever intentions Ambrose might have gleaned from his face. His eyes yielded nothing but anger and pain and Ambrose found it useless to look there too long.
He accepted the offered hand and slowly searched his surroundings, stumbling in place while rubbing his head again and again and feeling something of a groove where something must have hit. “Wait, what happened?” he demanded heavily, voice fraught with panic. “Who are you?” Ambrose was nearly wild with the answers left blank. The door to the Mystic Man’s office was wide open and there looked to have been a scuffle within.
“I’m Cain,” the man with the icy blue eyes answered tersely. “I’m looking for Zero.”
“Why?”
“To kill him.”
“Ah,” Ambrose mumbled, feeling like his mouth was filled with cotton balls and he twisted his chin around as he put the pieces together. “Zero. Zero. He hit me with…with…that!” Ambrose gestured wildly to the wrench that lay abandoned on the marble floor. Ambrose still hadn’t put together why it had happened, like his memory was lapsing in and out and he couldn’t stop it. He’d have to make a stop to the medics later and see if there wasn’t a balm to help him through the pain. Ambrose gave a frustrated grumble under his throat as he rubbed at his head then took a look at the Cain-man who was scouting the room. “It’s no use,” Ambrose sighed. “Even an idiot like Zero would have found a second location.”
“Why would Zero want to hurt you?” Cain demanded and it was remarkable how little emotion was in his voice. Ambrose couldn’t even find the barest trace, nothing past that bubbling ire and rage that seemed to pool at the surface.
“I’m an important man,” Ambrose said lightly, which only brought forth the hammer of a gun being pulled back. “Oh, really, is that necessary?” he spat out.
“Father?”
As soon as the gun had been drawn from a holster, the safety was clicked on and the gun was shoved back into its hiding place as Cain swivelled on his feet to wrap his arms around the interrupting voice. Ambrose couldn’t do much else but stand there in shock, still as a statue as he saw the first genuine emotion cross this Cain’s figure and it was so overwhelmingly, achingly filled with love and despair that Ambrose might have cried if he weren’t still so confused about what was happening.
“Jeb, what are you doing?”
“Mister Brown left an’ I don’t like the truck,” the boy whispered, dark blond strands of hair falling in his eyes as he peered over Cain’s shoulder and fixated his gaze on Ambrose. “Who’s he?”
“Just a friend of Father’s,” Cain promised with a light bounce as he kept Jeb in his arms and turned to look at Ambrose and even though there was no gun being pointed his way, the glare from Cain’s eyes could have been composed solely of daggers and the child (who couldn’t be more than three) in his arms did little to stop that. Ambrose swallowed uncomfortably, searching for a way to escape without having to harm Cain or put his boy through a sight like that.
“Come with me,” Ambrose said impulsively. “I work at the Palace and it’s secure. We can talk there. You can bring your Jeb.”
Though an argument seemed eminent on the tip of Cain’s tongue, Ambrose knew he had to move fast to convince him to come.
“You’ll have an audience with the Queen if you so wish it,” Ambrose informed him curtly. “Now. Are you coming or not?”
Little Jeb’s fingers slowly entwined in his father’s hat and it was hard, then, not to look at the gun-wielding man as anything but a loving and doting father. It took this lull in the tense moments between the two of them for the man’s name to truly hit home.
“Cain,” Ambrose exhaled, staring at him with wonder.
“What?”
“You’re the Tin Man on the Mystic Man’s detail.”
“Was.
It was the last thing spoken between them before Ambrose took them back to his car and drove them back to the palace in silence and under the cover of absolute darkness, aided by clouds being out and shadowing the O.Z. from the light of the moons. When they passed through the gates and approached the Queen’s domain, Cain set a sleeping Jeb in the back before leaning in to ask what Ambrose had been waiting for.
“Who are you?”
“Ambrose,” he answered, full of pride and puffed up like a peacock. “I’m Advisor to the Queen.”
“Good for you.”
That took all the puff out of Ambrose’s chest quickly and he deflated, focusing instead of driving into the hidden scaffoldings where he could unload the guests and bring them to accommodations for the evening before he found out just what Cain wanted with Zero.
*
Ambrose had left Jeb and the man who called himself Cain inside his own private quarters while he sought out medical attention with one of the medics the Queen kept on constant detail in the event that one of her daughters came down with something worse than a mild little cough. His head still smarted something fierce and he wanted to be in full control of his faculties when he eventually sat down with Cain and discussed what Zero had done.
“I think I was hit with a wrench,” Ambrose mumbled, his words sticking together lazily as they stumbled out of his mouth. “Bastard of a man…Zero…”
The medic was making his rounds and lifting bits of Ambrose’s curled hair to inspect the bump, making Ambrose wince and hiss when every poke and prod to the area. Curiously enough, this seemed to go on for some time and the Medic’s cool fingers against Ambrose’s scalp made him recoil uncomfortably.
“What’s he done?” Ambrose pleaded tiredly. “I still have a meeting to take, just give me something for the throbbing.”
“Ambrose,” the Medic remarked, somewhat sharply. “This isn’t just a simple headache.”
Ambrose froze slightly from his fidgeting, hand about to twitch with his collar and his hair. “What do you mean?” When he got in a mood, the crisp and icy temperature in his voice could rival that deadness in the ice of Cain’s eyes. Ambrose could be warm and friendly, he could be studious and careful, and he could be cold and vengeful.
The Medic made his way around to face Ambrose, still parting his hair to poke at the injured area, causing Ambrose to give a sharp yelp and scowl of pain.
“If you do that again, I will have you relegated to treating the warts in the kitchen staff,” Ambrose threatened, far from being idle either.
“The blow to your head may cause memory issues down the line,” the Medic said, his voice strained. “Issues recalling simple facts or you might simply black out for a moment and come to, in a mental sense. Your brain capacity will continue to function, but you may have moments of fluctuation, at least, until this sorts itself out. We would have to meet again after to evaluate.”
“My brain is intact, though,” Ambrose very carefully asked.
“You’re fully able to continue on as the Queen’s Advisor. You may just have ‘episodes’.” The Medic finally took his fingers off Ambrose’s head and the Advisor pried himself away gratefully, not wanting to be poked at like an animal in a zoo. “I would inform the Queen of this recent development. I’m sure she would be lenient on an old friend.”
“I can handle myself,” Ambrose promised, panic welling in his throat as he rose to his feet and spun to his left, then to his right, not so much disoriented as he was in the middle of an attack of panic, desperation clawing at him at losing any of his capabilities because of one vile little henchman.
His walk back to his quarters was punctuated with many a curse at Zero and the heavy clomp of his boots as he wound his way back to the room.
He drew both doors open with his arms, storming into the room and demanding an audience with his presence, expecting Cain to look up immediately and, at the very least, to demur in his stance, to let him ask the questions. No such thing happened, though, because Ambrose found Cain tending to Jeb in bed, brushing a broad hand over the boy’s sandy hair over and over again, Cain’s other hand resting above Jeb’s heart so simply.
Ambrose found himself feeling guilty and swallowed thickly as he closed the doors behind him, taking a moment to compose himself and pray that no ‘episodes’ assault him just yet.
He found his way to the edge of the bed and let his hand hover above Cain’s shoulder, not quite touching, but close enough to be felt. “Is he asleep?” Ambrose whispered carefully.
“Out like a light twenty minutes back,” Cain agreed, rising to his feet and turning on Ambrose, using his larger physical presence to intimidate and back Ambrose up enough steps so that they wouldn’t wake Jeb up with their talks. “I want Zero dead,” Cain announced under his breath lowly. “He killed my wife. He’s done something to the other members of the Mystic Man’s protective detail and the Man himself has gone missing.”
“He gave me a brain injury,” Ambrose inserted his own complaint. “I’d like to find him as much as you do, but maybe death is too quick to jump to.”
“He…” Cain began to rage, as if wanting to continue on his litany of accusations.
“There are questions to ask,” Ambrose interrupted patiently. “Like why.” He couldn’t seem to pull his gaze away from Cain’s – what was his first name? He recalled the reports, he had to know it, what was it? – and they stood there for a long moment, locked in the angry look. “What was her name?” Ambrose finally asked gently.
“Adora Cain,” he answered, voice brimming with pain. “Zero is going to pay for that with his life, if I have anything to do with it. He took her life and he offered his up in the exchange, even if he doesn’t know that yet.”
Behind them, Jeb Cain slept the sleep of the young and the innocent as plans began to turn from the wisp of an idea into a firm, solid existence. “I’ll come with you,” Ambrose insisted, the panic now caught in his throat and turning to stupid bravery. “I can travel under a falsified name with the Queen’s documentation and we can find Zero and just exactly what’s afoot.”
“Jeb…”
“He can stay here with the Queen. She has two daughters who would delight in a playmate,” Ambrose noted as he glanced over his shoulder. He always had been a proponent of having DG and Azkadellia making friends outside of the palace, but their parents had always been so hesitant to let them out from under their wing. He would appoint a proper guardian who could send letters if need be.
“Nothing personal,” Cain said lowly, “but I just met you, brainiac. And you expect me to entrust my only son in your care?”
“In the Queen’s care,” Ambrose corrected. “If you want to meet her, I can arrange an audience tomorrow.”
“Fine,” Cain agreed, but to what, Ambrose didn’t know just yet. The Tin Man brushed past Ambrose on his way back to the bed, where he took Jeb’s hand within his own and glanced up at Ambrose past the rim of his hat. “Set up a meeting. Then I’ll see about you tagging along.”
TBC
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And you made Ambrose fully capable of Glitch-ing. NO END TO THE LOVE. Also that scene is the entire reason you get The Crowbar. I love your Zero. Okay, I love HATING him but that's still a form of love.
AND THEY HATE EACH OTHER KIND OF! And Ambrose is SO egotistical. This is great.
POST FASTER. ♥
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And OF COURSE there had to be some Glitching. It's just no fun without.
Heeee, I will post as I can (seeing as I had to re-re-re-read this a couple times) and I can promise that Ambrose gets the wind knocked out of him. Literally, a couple times.
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And I can completely understand the Jeb thing. I had to make him slightly happy and not Mr. Spoon-Torturer-I'm-In-A-Bad-Mood-Let's-Go-Sword-Zero. BUT A BABY JEB. SO CUTE OMG. 15 Annuals has made my Jeb love know no bounds, so I am very excited to see widdle Jebby play with Az and DG. And hopefully get the snot kicked out of him via magic. :D
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They're sadly VERY nice to him. ...even if DG tends to torture him. And then they make him dance, which gets him back to that sulky spoon-torturing place. And makes Ambrose go "GEE I GUESS IT RUNS IN THE FAMILY" loudly and sarcastically.
And then, like I said, suddenly he vanishes and it's all-Azkadellia-all-the-time.
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Cain's a superhero with a child, haha. I love that juxtaposition and can't wait to see what foibles it produces. I understand his need for justice. Which, I suppose (in some ironic theory) might actually make him a villain rather than a hero. Ah I guess I'll find out later.
Ambrose is just as I pictured him before he was Glitch: A mastermind devoted only to his work, very little time for the self-realisation process that so many feel they must go through in order to really experience life. This is expertly exhibited by the thwarted, under-appreciated Francis. Somewhere along the line, I have a feeling Ambrose will succumb to the road that traverses his heart. But a man with that kind of devotion, he will have to make a sacrifice. The passive heroes do.
Ah, Zero. I have a soft spot for Zero. (Most of my drabbles at tinman100 are about Zero.) He has such a wayward sense of subordination, it makes me chuckle. He follows orders to fulfill his own brutal greed. I know his anger is a bit hollow, but my only misgiving about this chapter was Zero's hatred for Cain being a bit ... abrupt. It's probably an issue developed over the next chapters rather than explored in this single spot.
You have a way of manipulating reality with words, m'dear!
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As for Zero, I really hated that the POV sort of limited me, because from here on out, it becomes mostly Cain or Ambrose (with one exception in part 7). Basically, what's driving him is his own welfare. And a little bit of a cruel streak, but mostly his own good. The hinted backstory is mostly that Cain has always been in Zero's way, stopping him from getting his goal one way or another, always flashing his Tin around and (this is all in my head, I'm not spoiling, promise!) had a little wedge of a something to do in the separation of Zero and his first wife.
Thank you thank you thank you for reading!
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Ooooh, wow that's interesting! Yes, I can't wait to see what happens there! And POV can be quite hard. Switching POVs can work if you write a book out like Dan Brown does, as a screenplay, but for a novel it's a lot harder to do and still maintain sensible rhythm. Oh believe me, I understand! But I think you did a fantastic job with it in this first part.
Your icon is love. :) I'd recognise that smile anywhere. *sighs dreamily*
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Thank you! I do love all my icons!
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Just out of curiosity... Why would you have to stop?
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