Post by Magdalena Lockheart on Dec 20, 2021 19:45:10 GMT -5
::: 6/10 Studios Presents :::
MML.2021.023 - Final Fantasy
San Jose, California
When Magdalena Marie Lockheart finally had the strength to raise her head; enough to peer out along the street with her mako-infused emerald eyes, she sighed.
"Ugh."
Behind her, a dilapidated warehouse known as the infamous San Jose Facility. The outer shell of the edifice was as neglected and weather damaged as any other abandoned lot on the edge of town. The building was known to play host to the less fortunate, the substance addicted and the criminally maligned. However, beneath the façade, it also housed something far sinister. Occupying the very core and permeating the facility with its technological presence lies a facet of a rogue, sentient, cybernetic string of algorithms tied to the once human brain that was used as the foundation for its creation.
And the damn thing nearly folded reality in on itself and blinked us all out of ever having existed in the first place.
Clearly, if you're still here watching this, thankfully that didn't happen.
But what did happen, as Lockheart noticed, as she walked towards the street with her clothes and her hair still soaked in her own blood, was that a few minutes prior here on the outside that there were all sorts of alarms sounding like the inside of the building flashed, shook, and nearly crumbled with her still inside. Her Uber must've decided that his own life was worth at least a little more than a 10% tip. So, of course, he skipped out on the danger.
"Figures."
There was nowhere left to go and nothing left to really do, except admire the moon and what stars she could find in the California night sky as the light in twilight waned more into pure darkness. She didn't have her phone, nor her purse. Both of these were still probably sitting on the back of "Robert M.'s" Prius while he was booking it back into town.
The only thing she brought with her when the fight was finally finished and the nightmare room had served its one and only true purpose was her half of the steel JENOVA mask still clutched in her hand. Among many other things that Ichabod had just changed in her life, irrevocably, was the fact that the mask itself would never be whole again. Surely, like all things metal it can still be welded, but even with the most expert craftsman or blacksmith working to hide the imperfection, much like us as people the scars would still remain even if only beneath the surface.
She plopped her ass down on a curb outside of the warehouse, surrounded by prickly weeds growing from the cracks of the concrete and this soot-like gravel that was mixed with the glass shards of broken pipes and beer bottles, gathered by previous rains. Figuring she was all alone, as quiet as her surroundings were, at least this would give her time to process all that just happened. Ichabod. CJ. Rogan and Lucy. The two JENOVAs finally standing toe-to-toe, eye to eye within the perfect harmony of REUNION.
...and as quickly as it happened, it was all over. Parts of the battle made her feel like everything had changed. Parts of it made her feel like nothing ever did. Yet regardless of the conclusion she'd settle on later, the one thing that was certain was that it felt final. Horizons XV determined the Fate of a Legacy. What happened next was going to be a new journey, with its own, unique horizon.
She wondered how long she'd have to wait to know the direction of her next first step-
"Rogan?!"
It startled her so badly that Maggie nearly jumped out of her inked-up skin.
A bright flash, and a concurrent whooshing sound, like a portal or a vortex being opened and slammed shut blasted through the San Jose night behind her somewhere just outside the Facility's front door. It was exactly the same way she was allowed to exit the Nightmare Room just moments prior: kicked out back into a reality where not everything was indeed possible.
Maggie could tell that it was Lucy's voice, though.
"Rogan, are you out here?" Wylde called into her moonlit surroundings. The Buick, Rogan's Buick, remained parked where they had left it but it wasn't showing the signs of life that she was hoping for. So far she had no idea where the Traveler could have gone, or furthermore, when he would be back.
"I didn't see him," Maggie replied, her voice still breathy from the war she had just fought; her eyes not once leaving the visage of Earth's celestial glowing companion. "Did he make it out?"
In earnest, Lucy had not yet realized that Maggie was sitting there curled up on the curb, lightly shivering as a light breeze kicked up. Lockheart wasn't her first priority, or even one further down on the list right now. But the older, original Jenova, the one true inspiration for the Black Legacy, had business with her younger counterpart that she knew wasn't yet finished.
Wylde approached from the rear, with a haunting gait just a tick slower and more methodical than her normal footfalls. In Lucy's hand was the other half of the Jenova mask, equal yet opposite. One might even call one half a mirror-image reflection of the other.
She stopped behind Maggie without saying a word.
"You gonna go back in after him?" Maggie asked.
"Doesn't work that way," her voice as chilly as the air now swirling around them, "Once one door closes-"
"-another opens?"
Lucy shook her head.
"The rooms in the Facilities are meant to serve one purpose. They're created solely for that purpose, and then, once that purpose is fulfilled, it is closed forever."
"Shit, you mean there's more than one of these things?"
"Ichabod gifted the San Jose Facility to Rogan years ago," Lucy said as she moved to stand next to the seated silver-haired girl which was now stained with crimson lust. "But they're typically safe. Care to explain why we had to go shut the door from the inside?"
Maggie turned her head just enough to look over at Lucy's knees. She rolled her eyes upward as much as she could to meet her former mentors.
Maggie shrugged.
"I dunno- damn thing scanned me right as I walked in. Then shit started goin' all crazy... some ghost of this little girl that I think was a past version of me kept running around and killing all the hologram Ichabods until the real one showed up..." Lockheart buried her bloody face in her equally bloody palms. "It's fucking crazy. I know."
"It's not as crazy as you might think," Lucy reassured her. "How are you feeling? Are you injured at all? Does your head hurt?"
"Like Ichabod suplexed a freight train on top of it? Hell yeah." Maggie's disgust in the pain was evident. "But at least it's not a migraine... and for some reason, I don't think I have the gash I had on my forehead from where the barbed wire cut me."
"Let me check."
Lucy went to one knee beside her; moved Lockheart's matted, disheveled hair away from the clots on her face. She ran her fingertips along Maggie's hairline, her forehead, and over the bridge of her nose.
"I'm not seeing anything here," Wylde concluded, "How about your other injuries... how do your ribs feel?"
Lockheart inhaled cautiously, taking in and noticing the rather musky, industrial essence that gave this shithole it's 'charm'.
Surprised, "Seems fine to me," she muttered.
"I wonder why that is," Lucy grunted, knowing full well it was one last 'present' from the Engine of Calamity, Ichabod.
"I still feel like I've been through hell, though. Weak, tired..."
"Well, you know who you have to go see about that," Lucy reminded her.
"Gordon's not going to see me. Besides, his office is 2000-some-odd miles away in Indianapolis."
"I didn't mean your douchebag brain Doctor, genius," she spat back, "I was thinking more of Morrie. You know, the man that loves you and just so happens to be a damn good caretaker. One of the best I've ever met."
"Oh, great," Lockheart matched Lucy's sarcasm with her own, "Maryland. That's so much closer to San Jose, why didn't I think of that?"
“You do remember what just happened in there?” Lucy replied, pointing back at the facility behind them for good measure. “And maybe you didn’t know, but I got here in a Buick that somehow skipped about two-thousand miles in mere seconds.”
Maggie looked up at her and shrugged again.
"You want me to get in... that?" She laughed, "After all, I heard with what you and Rogan did in the backseat-"
Lucy rolled her eyes.
“Anyway, ain’t no one getting in that thing till Rogan gets back. But the point still stands, you should go see Morrie. He misses you.”
"Whatever happened to that being your house now... again?"
"Maggie," Lucy stopped her. "CJ's gone now. Like, really gone. And I never wanted to relive that part of my past anyway. It was nice to meet Morrie and pick up a few of my old things while I was there. I tried. I really tried to make the best of it, but the longer I was there - The less I felt like it could ever be my home again."
"Ohh... then why didn't you tell me that when I signed the deed back over to you?"
"Because I wanted to give it a fair shake. I did love that place once upon a time, and I guess I hoped that I would have been able to love it again. But it’s tainted for me now. The place was a museum of everything I wanted to forget."
"That's fair." Maggie nodded but turned her face away. "There's a lot of things I wish I tried harder on. Maybe things woulda turned out a bit different in some ways. I don't know."
“But... Being there gave me perspective. This whole year gave me perspective, but being in that house again drove home who I really wanted to be. At the end of the day, I needed to go back there in order to get to where I’m at now.”
"Now you're starting to sound a lot like ol' Choady in there," Lockheart smirked with what little energy she was still clinging to. "Fate. Destiny. Prophecies."
Lucy chuckled. “Says the bitch who’s been spouting Legacy, legacy, legacy for the last year or so.”
Maggie rolled her eyes. "That's different. It's just a goal, something I've aspired to live up to. Nothing predetermined... preordained about it. I could have failed at any point. In a lot of ways, I did fail a lot of times in a lot of points, so..."
“Did you though?” Lucy asked, taking a quick glance over at Maggie. “I mean, it seems to me like you accomplished exactly what you set out to do.”
Lucy held her half of the Jenova mask up between the two of them.
“You wanted the real me, and you got her Mags.”
A baited pause. A faint siren echoes through the hills in the distance.
"No, I wanted to be you," Maggie replied with a sharp exhale. "I've always wanted to be just like you. Even before I started fighting. Like I said, you're my hero. You always have been and you always will be. Like it or not. And like it or not, your ex-husband knew that, and he used that against me. He molded me into his perfect little pawn just to finish his game for him."
Lucy shrugged her shoulders. “Yeah, he did. Was it a shit thing to do? Absolutely. Did he have his reasons? Yeah. But in some fucked up way, he gave you something to fight for when you weren’t even sure who you were and in doing that, gave me the ability to stop being ashamed of who I am. But you weren’t just a pawn to him, Maggie. Just know that.”
All Lockheart could do was sigh into the night. There was a lot still left to process from all of this. A few nights' rest would do her mind and her heart a world of good.
"At least he's at peace now. He better be." Maggie clenched her fists. "Everything he ever asked out of me, he just got. His last domino finally fell. You're okay, I'm okay, and Ichabod finally got what he deserved. I can only hope CJ headed towards the light... cause I ain't fucking dealing with his shit ever again."
"You do realize, Ichabod and CJ would have made a perfect couple if either of them could get their heads out of their asses. Two egos fueled by their brilliant vision of the bigger picture yet bent on trying to fix it, change it, making it to what they think is better." Lucy was calm and confident in her assessment. "Neither of them knew when to just... let it go. And when push came to shove, neither of them could swallow their pride and do the one thing that matters more than any of their self-fulfilling prophecies."
"...and what's that?" The silver-hair girl asked.
"The right thing."
Lucy held out her hand. At first, Maggie went to grab it as if Lucy was helping her up, but Lucy pulled back and shook her head. "No," Lucy muttered and pointed towards Maggie's half of the Jenova mask.
The Black Legacy looked up at Jenova quizzically.
"Speaking of-" Lucy said as she motioned once more for Maggie to hand over the mask. "CJ gave you something that didn't belong to him. It belongs to me, and I'm taking it back."
"What? Why?"
"You still have a life outside of this. You have your own legacy to tend to. I suggest that you do the right thing in this instance, and not force me to make that decision for you."
Maggie's eyes widened. She knew what Lucy was capable of; that much was established at Keeper of the Keys. But she had thought, even though their friendship might never fully recover, that at the very least she had earned the right to keep her half of the mask. She was Jenova's Black Legacy, even if Jenova herself didn't want to see it.
Or maybe, she wasn't... and she never was.
Head lowered. Guilt and shame flooding in. Lockheart lifted her half of the mask up to Lucy's waiting hand. "Here. Take it." she pushed it into Lucy's hand. "It's over. If that's what it needs to be... so be it. But I don't know where I'm going to go from here. I don't know what I'm going to do."
Lucy held the two pieces of the mask together. Side by side, they almost looked whole again.
"You'll go where you need to go and do what you feel is right," She replied. "You'll figure it out on your own terms, and whatever it is that you decide to come up with, I'm sure I'll be damn proud of you regardless."
"You will?"
Maggie peered up at Lucy once more. Lockheart's eyes were shrink-wrapped in tears.
"Of course. But like I said, go home to Morrie. Apologize. Rest. Let him help you."
"But that isn't my home anymore Luce. I have no home."
Wylde cocked a sharp eyebrow at the ex-Jenova Legacy.
“Don’t let Morrie hear you say that shit. Besides, I have it under good authority that the new owner would love to have you back.”
Now, Lucy held out her hand for Maggie's.
"Come on." Jenova commanded, "Back on your feet again."
The sound of boot heels clicking against the pavement could be heard. Lucy turned quickly, but Maggie only looked down at the ground and smiled.
Rogan MacLean walked across the San Jose property. Lucy smiled gently at the Dark Man, whose eyes were wild and shifty.
“I knew you’d find your way back,” Lucy said, still smiling. But, as he got closer, her smile faded. Rogan looked around cautiously at the facility and the property, then at Maggie and finally Lucy.
Lucy could see in his eyes that something was off. He looked frightened, like a cornered animal. He looked exhausted. And, for a brief moment, he looked old, as if he had aged inside that door that he walked into.
He got to her and, briefly, Lucy wondered if this was her Rogan or some impostor that had escaped and left hers behind. But, the way he looked at her convinced her that no, this was in fact her Rogan. He stopped and stared at her for a long time. Lucy smiled and reached out for him.
But Rogan fell to his knees. As he did, tears filled his eyes, still staring up at her in what looked to be disbelief. Lucy knew then, wherever Rogan had ended up, he didn’t think he would be back here. He didn’t think he would ever see Lucy again.
He wrapped his arms around her waist and lurched forward, and he wept. Lucy was startled. She had never seen Rogan like this. She placed a comforting hand on his neck and whispered to him that it was okay. But he wept.
Finally, he stopped and stood back up, and Lucy grabbed his hands. The tears somehow made his green eyes brighter, Lucy thought. He finally smiled at her, and she smiled back, pulling him in and embracing him.
“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” he said, trembling.
But at that moment, something clicked in Maggie's mind. She pushed herself up onto her feet.
She knew that she had to go.
Western Maryland
The Wylde house had seemed all-too-quiet recently. It's like the winds had shifted; something outside these walls had changed.
Fall would give way to Winter in just a few short days. Then it would be Christmas. The trees that surrounded the heavily-wooded property were mostly barren. Seemingly lifeless specters. Guardians of tomorrow's promise but empty today.
Inside the historic farmhouse, Gary Morrison kept busy by the chores he set out for himself. Washing the windowsills. Maintaining the houseplants. Ironing his own clothes. Old-school as always, his khaki pants stayed perfectly creased down the center of each leg. His button-down polos meticulously free of any wrinkle. His white sneakers tied in neat little bows; rabbit ears of meticulously balanced length.
And like clockwork, it was already time to savor his second cup of coffee, except he wasn't enjoying it as much lately. It was like something was wrong with the machine. The brewed concoction seemed lukewarm and watered down. Even the pick-me-up it usually offered was lackluster.
The silence, and listening to the clock tick by every drawn-out second was agonizing and miserable all the same.
Morrie sighed. He glanced over to a favorite picture of his. He had put in a frame he had found in the attic. It was a selfie of CJ and him smiling as they spent quality time together watching wrestling. In the frame, Morrie was leaning over CJ's shoulder with his arm outstretched while CJ was maneuvered to sit up in his bed...
"You tried to warn me, didn't ya? ...old friend." Morrison took another empty, bitter sip from his mug. "Changes do come... That they do indeed."
It was Morrie's house now, at least it said so on the paperwork. CJ left it to Maggie and died. Maggie left it to Lucy and split. Lucy left it to him... and well...
There wasn't a speck of dust left in the house. Wasn't a picture frame on a single wall not perfectly level. The stairs that used to whine and creak had bad floorboards replaced. Railings that were once loose were now fastened tight and secure. Everything Maggie had done, and then Lucy had done, seemed like it took away more than it added. All Morrie could do was tend to the house like a curator at an exhibit.
...and it all felt to him like putting fresh flowers in a mausoleum.
"I wish..." Gary peered into CJ's smiling eyes through the lens of the photograph, "I knew what it was you wanted me to do now."
But there was no voice from the ether; no ghastly presence to comfort him. No invisible hand to be placed on his shoulder. No unseen-
"What do you want to do?"
Gary dropped his mug. It shattered spilling shards and black coffee all over the kitchen table.
*Click Clack-*
Morrison reached for his gun. A 9mm service pistol he brought back with him from the war.
"Who's there?" He called out with gun drawn. He rounded the corner with his finger firm near the trigger. The front door was wide open.
*Thud*
A suitcase drops from the fingertips of a figure in the threshold. He didn't hear it enter, even in the vast emptiness of a dead home.
Morrison squinted at the target unsure of who or what it was. But then his eyes opened and his barrel dropped the moment that he saw her peer up at him through bloodstained silver hair, with faded green eyes.
She took one step into the house, her legs quivering like the last leaves that have yet to have fallen. She drops down to both knees and falls forward. Morrison slides down on his knees to catch her just moments before her face would have smashed right into the floor.
"Jenova?"
He turned her over, laying the girl on her back in his lap. She had looked like she had just come from a warzone, like one of Morrison's original patients.
She shook her head barely. Her lips were dry as a bone. She could barely eek the words out:
"No... Maggie... just Maggie..."
She fainted in his arms.
