07-14-2020, 07:49 PM
What You Want Of Me (Olivia Pierre Part 4)
Unknown Location, Lauchenoiria
14th July, morning
Olivia Pierre sat curled up in a cell alone, shaking. After they’d finished taking pictures of her, and a video in which they spoke Spanish in a rather threatening tone to whomever they planned on sending it, they’d locked her up again, alone this time. If they’d taken Jia, as they originally suggested, would it have been her they’d threatened to kill? It was a frightening thought, and while she didn’t regret protecting the two Chiu, she was also terrified of what they’d do to her.
She took deep breaths, and tried to calm her breathing, but nothing worked, and nothing had worked since she’d been left alone. Her stomach grumbled, they hadn’t fed her since separating her from Xia and Jia. Closing her eyes, she forced herself to ignore the gnawing pain of the emptiness of her stomach. It could be worse; if she’d been arrested by her own people only two years ago, it would be far worse than this. All those children her family had taken and trained to be Auroras went through worse than this when they were captured.
When the door was unlocked, all her techniques went out the window and she curled up in the corner like a prey animal faced with a predator, staring at the opening door with her eyes wide open. Her posture would have made anyone who worked with animals wary of approach, but her captors weren’t remotely affected, and quickly went for her before she had too much of an opportunity to fight. Not that she would have been able to beat them; she was hardly trained for this and they’d faced much trickier prisoners.
Olivia wouldn’t make it easy for them, though. The whole time they dragged her down a corridor, she was struggling, and her vocabulary of Spanish curses was greatly increased. Eventually, they forced her onto a chair, restraining her and gagging her mouth when she tried to scream. She could move her head but not much else, so she looked around the room. It was larger than her cell or the place they’d photographed her, and there were a number of people walking around looking at devices or chattering in Spanish. It was about 80% men, she noted.
Eventually, two of the men came to stand behind her, one holding a small pistol in his arms as he took position slightly to her right behind the chair. Her heart rate increased. A third man put a laptop on a table in front of her. She squeaked a questioning sound through her gag, but was ignored. The man with the laptop appeared to be setting it up to either film something or… no, he was setting up a video call. But with who?
When a connection was established, Olivia saw a face she hadn’t been expecting. If they were going to ransom her, she guessed it would be the Council, or her family. But in front of her was the Lauchenoirian Prime Minister, Josephine Alvarez.
“Buenas tardes, primera ministra. Gracias por atender nuestra llamada. Como puede ver, tenemos a la hija del concejal Pierre. ¿Asumo que recibiste nuestras demandas?” said the man to her left in a calm voice. Olivia understood only the greeting and her own surname.
“Miss Pierre, uh, Olivia is it? I’m so sorry, I’m going to do my utmost to…” Alvarez began, but the man at the laptop muted her so Olivia couldn’t hear, though she could see the Prime Minister’s lips continuing to move.
“If you have our demand, you know to help her,” the man behind her to the left said in a strong southern Lauchenoirian accent, in his broken English. The laptop man unmuted Alvarez.
“Gabriel Fleming is charged with a number of crimes, including torture and treason. He will not be released from prison under my watch - and even if I wanted to, I do not have the power to compel law enforcement to release him,” Alvarez almost snarled. “Release the Pierre daughter now, and perhaps you will be given shorter sentences when we find you.”
“We not release her, you release Fleming or she dies.”
At that, the silent man on her right held the pistol up to her head, pressing the cold metal to her skin and causing Olivia to almost wet herself in fear. She closed her eyes as unbidden tears came to her eyes, her fear clearly visible on her face. She attempted to scream through the gag, the tears escaping from her closed eyelids as she struggled against the restraints. To Alvarez, she would’ve looked terrified and not the least bit brave, but she didn’t care.
“No,” said Alvarez firmly, the word like a blow to Olivia’s stomach. “I will not release that traitor.”
“He catch Auroras, you let them go free. You are the traitor.”
“Fleming broke Lauchenoirian law by extrajudicially imprisoning a number of women, and subjecting them to techniques that can be classified as torture. He will face justice, as will all those who continue to support his warped xenophobic ideology.”
“Then the Pierre girl die. Her mother has her Auroras, but she never have her daughter again.”
NO! Thought Olivia, though all she could do was make vague noises, as loud as she could. One of the ropes holding her wrist began to cut into her skin but she continued to struggle, pulling against them as if sheer willpower would let her escape. As she struggled, she heard the man with the gun remove the safety, and she struggled harder.
“I will not release Fleming,” Alvarez said, almost sadly.
“Then she die.”
Olivia opened her eyes briefly to fix a pleading gaze on Alvarez, or to view the world for a final time, her vision blurry through all the tears, when suddenly all the lights went out.
In the darkness, she felt the metal move from her head as something whooshed past her and crashed into the man holding the gun. Then there was the sound of a gunshot as the man to her left called out and was suddenly silenced. From where she sat, she heard the sounds of fighting, people calling to each other in Spanish only for many to be silenced one by one. She heard things - bodies - falling, but there were no windows and no light sources at all.
Then someone was cutting at her restraints and whispering softly to her.
“It’s okay, there are more of them but I have a route out. We need to go and fetch the other two.”
The accent was hard to place, it was Lauchenoirian for the most part, but with a significant Kerlian undertone that made Pierre think of the refugee children who were taken from Kerlile as children and once or twice would return to the Matriarchy as adults, though such things were rare. Was this a Kerlian refugee taken to Lauchenoiria who rescued her now.
The woman took her arm after the restraints and gag were removed, pleading to her to remain quiet and began silently but quickly leading her through the darkness back in the direction of the cells she had been held, and which the Chiu pair were likely still kept. They had almost reached the corridor out of the wide open space they’d been in when suddenly something slammed into her rescuer, and the gentle hand on her arm vanished.
*
One moment, Veronica was guiding Olivia through the dark, the night-vision goggles strapped to her face allowing her to see her way, when the next, something silent crept up behind her and pulled her to the ground, knocking off the goggles. Shocked, she spun over to prevent the figure landing on top of her and grabbed something that felt like someone's arm and twisted.
A grunt of pain was a rewarding vocal confirmation that she had made contact, but the unseen attacker responded by striking back at Veronica with a swift overhead chop to her wrist to break the hold. Another unseen assailant moved to pin her arms from behind. Veronica could hear more footsteps, then a scream from Olivia that was abruptly cut off.
Veronica threw her weight against the assailant who had grabbed her from behind and kicked the first one, unknowing what part of them she'd hit. Using her momentum she broke the hold and ran back in the direction she'd left Olivia, but in the darkness she couldn't see. Damn, she thought.
The footsteps that Veronica had heard rapidly faded away. A crunch sound reported an unfavorable ending for her night-vision goggles, which had been on the ground. She suddenly found herself alone, her attackers fleeing in the direction Olivia’s scream had come from. Whatever the attackers’ intentions were, it was becoming clear that Veronica was not their point of interest.
The other prisoners, she thought. She was outnumbered, if she tried to go after Olivia she would be caught or killed. She had to cut her losses. She felt her way down the corridor to the cells she'd seen on the blueprints for the building Alvarez had given her.
When she heard sobbing, she stopped, took the keycard she'd swiped from a guard she knocked unconscious on her way in and opened the cell. She took out a torch and lit it.
"Xia and Jia Chiu?" she asked.
"Please don't hurt my daughter," Xia whimpered.
"I won't hurt your daughter, don't worry," she said, letting her voice fall into her childhood Kerlian accent to try and seem comforting. "I was sent here to rescue you."
"Oh, thank the Goddess!" cried Xia. "Have you found Olivia, too?"
"I had her, but... it's a long story, we need to move. Now. Come on," she said, handing the very heavily pregnant woman a torch and leading her out the route she'd planned. The place was eerie, deserted almost. Something very strange had happened here.
*
A few minutes later, a group of men in black combat gear emerged outside, quickly dragging Olivia to a van. Before she could struggle, she heard a voice next to her. “Don’t resist or speak, or this will go very badly for you. Cooperate and you will be unharmed,” the voice demanded in a commanding tone.
The voice was speaking English, but the accent was definitely neither Kerlian nor Lauchenoirian. It was not immediately clear to Olivia what accent it was....but the tone was troublingly familiar.
A black mask descended over Olivia’s head, cutting off further conversation. The black-clad men hustled her into the van, which rapidly sped off into the night.
OOC: Jointly written with… you’ll need to wait and see.
Unknown Location, Lauchenoiria
14th July, morning
Olivia Pierre sat curled up in a cell alone, shaking. After they’d finished taking pictures of her, and a video in which they spoke Spanish in a rather threatening tone to whomever they planned on sending it, they’d locked her up again, alone this time. If they’d taken Jia, as they originally suggested, would it have been her they’d threatened to kill? It was a frightening thought, and while she didn’t regret protecting the two Chiu, she was also terrified of what they’d do to her.
She took deep breaths, and tried to calm her breathing, but nothing worked, and nothing had worked since she’d been left alone. Her stomach grumbled, they hadn’t fed her since separating her from Xia and Jia. Closing her eyes, she forced herself to ignore the gnawing pain of the emptiness of her stomach. It could be worse; if she’d been arrested by her own people only two years ago, it would be far worse than this. All those children her family had taken and trained to be Auroras went through worse than this when they were captured.
When the door was unlocked, all her techniques went out the window and she curled up in the corner like a prey animal faced with a predator, staring at the opening door with her eyes wide open. Her posture would have made anyone who worked with animals wary of approach, but her captors weren’t remotely affected, and quickly went for her before she had too much of an opportunity to fight. Not that she would have been able to beat them; she was hardly trained for this and they’d faced much trickier prisoners.
Olivia wouldn’t make it easy for them, though. The whole time they dragged her down a corridor, she was struggling, and her vocabulary of Spanish curses was greatly increased. Eventually, they forced her onto a chair, restraining her and gagging her mouth when she tried to scream. She could move her head but not much else, so she looked around the room. It was larger than her cell or the place they’d photographed her, and there were a number of people walking around looking at devices or chattering in Spanish. It was about 80% men, she noted.
Eventually, two of the men came to stand behind her, one holding a small pistol in his arms as he took position slightly to her right behind the chair. Her heart rate increased. A third man put a laptop on a table in front of her. She squeaked a questioning sound through her gag, but was ignored. The man with the laptop appeared to be setting it up to either film something or… no, he was setting up a video call. But with who?
When a connection was established, Olivia saw a face she hadn’t been expecting. If they were going to ransom her, she guessed it would be the Council, or her family. But in front of her was the Lauchenoirian Prime Minister, Josephine Alvarez.
“Buenas tardes, primera ministra. Gracias por atender nuestra llamada. Como puede ver, tenemos a la hija del concejal Pierre. ¿Asumo que recibiste nuestras demandas?” said the man to her left in a calm voice. Olivia understood only the greeting and her own surname.
“Miss Pierre, uh, Olivia is it? I’m so sorry, I’m going to do my utmost to…” Alvarez began, but the man at the laptop muted her so Olivia couldn’t hear, though she could see the Prime Minister’s lips continuing to move.
“If you have our demand, you know to help her,” the man behind her to the left said in a strong southern Lauchenoirian accent, in his broken English. The laptop man unmuted Alvarez.
“Gabriel Fleming is charged with a number of crimes, including torture and treason. He will not be released from prison under my watch - and even if I wanted to, I do not have the power to compel law enforcement to release him,” Alvarez almost snarled. “Release the Pierre daughter now, and perhaps you will be given shorter sentences when we find you.”
“We not release her, you release Fleming or she dies.”
At that, the silent man on her right held the pistol up to her head, pressing the cold metal to her skin and causing Olivia to almost wet herself in fear. She closed her eyes as unbidden tears came to her eyes, her fear clearly visible on her face. She attempted to scream through the gag, the tears escaping from her closed eyelids as she struggled against the restraints. To Alvarez, she would’ve looked terrified and not the least bit brave, but she didn’t care.
“No,” said Alvarez firmly, the word like a blow to Olivia’s stomach. “I will not release that traitor.”
“He catch Auroras, you let them go free. You are the traitor.”
“Fleming broke Lauchenoirian law by extrajudicially imprisoning a number of women, and subjecting them to techniques that can be classified as torture. He will face justice, as will all those who continue to support his warped xenophobic ideology.”
“Then the Pierre girl die. Her mother has her Auroras, but she never have her daughter again.”
NO! Thought Olivia, though all she could do was make vague noises, as loud as she could. One of the ropes holding her wrist began to cut into her skin but she continued to struggle, pulling against them as if sheer willpower would let her escape. As she struggled, she heard the man with the gun remove the safety, and she struggled harder.
“I will not release Fleming,” Alvarez said, almost sadly.
“Then she die.”
Olivia opened her eyes briefly to fix a pleading gaze on Alvarez, or to view the world for a final time, her vision blurry through all the tears, when suddenly all the lights went out.
In the darkness, she felt the metal move from her head as something whooshed past her and crashed into the man holding the gun. Then there was the sound of a gunshot as the man to her left called out and was suddenly silenced. From where she sat, she heard the sounds of fighting, people calling to each other in Spanish only for many to be silenced one by one. She heard things - bodies - falling, but there were no windows and no light sources at all.
Then someone was cutting at her restraints and whispering softly to her.
“It’s okay, there are more of them but I have a route out. We need to go and fetch the other two.”
The accent was hard to place, it was Lauchenoirian for the most part, but with a significant Kerlian undertone that made Pierre think of the refugee children who were taken from Kerlile as children and once or twice would return to the Matriarchy as adults, though such things were rare. Was this a Kerlian refugee taken to Lauchenoiria who rescued her now.
The woman took her arm after the restraints and gag were removed, pleading to her to remain quiet and began silently but quickly leading her through the darkness back in the direction of the cells she had been held, and which the Chiu pair were likely still kept. They had almost reached the corridor out of the wide open space they’d been in when suddenly something slammed into her rescuer, and the gentle hand on her arm vanished.
*
One moment, Veronica was guiding Olivia through the dark, the night-vision goggles strapped to her face allowing her to see her way, when the next, something silent crept up behind her and pulled her to the ground, knocking off the goggles. Shocked, she spun over to prevent the figure landing on top of her and grabbed something that felt like someone's arm and twisted.
A grunt of pain was a rewarding vocal confirmation that she had made contact, but the unseen attacker responded by striking back at Veronica with a swift overhead chop to her wrist to break the hold. Another unseen assailant moved to pin her arms from behind. Veronica could hear more footsteps, then a scream from Olivia that was abruptly cut off.
Veronica threw her weight against the assailant who had grabbed her from behind and kicked the first one, unknowing what part of them she'd hit. Using her momentum she broke the hold and ran back in the direction she'd left Olivia, but in the darkness she couldn't see. Damn, she thought.
The footsteps that Veronica had heard rapidly faded away. A crunch sound reported an unfavorable ending for her night-vision goggles, which had been on the ground. She suddenly found herself alone, her attackers fleeing in the direction Olivia’s scream had come from. Whatever the attackers’ intentions were, it was becoming clear that Veronica was not their point of interest.
The other prisoners, she thought. She was outnumbered, if she tried to go after Olivia she would be caught or killed. She had to cut her losses. She felt her way down the corridor to the cells she'd seen on the blueprints for the building Alvarez had given her.
When she heard sobbing, she stopped, took the keycard she'd swiped from a guard she knocked unconscious on her way in and opened the cell. She took out a torch and lit it.
"Xia and Jia Chiu?" she asked.
"Please don't hurt my daughter," Xia whimpered.
"I won't hurt your daughter, don't worry," she said, letting her voice fall into her childhood Kerlian accent to try and seem comforting. "I was sent here to rescue you."
"Oh, thank the Goddess!" cried Xia. "Have you found Olivia, too?"
"I had her, but... it's a long story, we need to move. Now. Come on," she said, handing the very heavily pregnant woman a torch and leading her out the route she'd planned. The place was eerie, deserted almost. Something very strange had happened here.
*
A few minutes later, a group of men in black combat gear emerged outside, quickly dragging Olivia to a van. Before she could struggle, she heard a voice next to her. “Don’t resist or speak, or this will go very badly for you. Cooperate and you will be unharmed,” the voice demanded in a commanding tone.
The voice was speaking English, but the accent was definitely neither Kerlian nor Lauchenoirian. It was not immediately clear to Olivia what accent it was....but the tone was troublingly familiar.
A black mask descended over Olivia’s head, cutting off further conversation. The black-clad men hustled her into the van, which rapidly sped off into the night.
OOC: Jointly written with… you’ll need to wait and see.
LIDUN President 2024 | she/her | Puppets: Kerlile, Glanainn, Yesteria, Zongongia, Zargothrax