Chapter 46 - Side

Iris

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Valkyre was running. His footsteps echoed loudly on the steel-plated floors, ringing around and around his head along the narrow hallways and the closed-off plaster and metal walls.
This lab was even larger than the last, sprawling out over the ground in a twist of hallways and floors that overlapped and built on each other, creating a downright impossible-to-navigate maze of steel and glass.
But he'd found his way. The angel had felt it; he'd felt just the slightest pulse, just the faintest brush of aura. Iris was here, somewhere.
He had to be.
Around another corner, his boots almost slipping out from underneath him as he whirled around, feeling like he didn't even need to touch the ground, sure that if he could only get there, stretch ouf his wings, take to the air, if he could only reach the end...
A pale hand shot out in front of him, making the angel skid to a stop.
Raguel suddenly appeared in front of him, shaking his head.
"Quiet," he whispered. The ruby and pale yellow eyes glanced behind, at the end of the hallway.
"Careful. Eire and Rheis... they might still be about."
Valkyre paused, then nodded in agreement. He'd been foolish to want to run ahead, with such utter disregard to common sense.
They proceeded slowly now, careful to remain silent. On the ground, there was a littering of glass off on one side from a smashed-in window. Ahead, there was a faint flickering of light.
Valkyre felt his heart beating faster, and he tried to sift through the things he felt right now, trying to find something that would tell him that Iris was here, that he could save him. He'd been so careless, so stupid, letting him get captured again. If only he had the time, if only he had the chance...
Valkyre brushed at a stray hair that'd blown across his face. His fingers touched his skin, felt nothing, coming away empty.
The angel froze in his steps, staring down at his gloved hand, where for just a split second of an instant, he'd seen...
A glimmer of silver.
There had been no hair over his face. It'd been...
Thead.
"Raguel!"
The half-breed glanced over sharply, startled. "What?" he asked, both of them still speaking in hushed undertones.
Valkyre paused, shot a glance down towards the end of the hall.
"...Corryn."
Raguel blinked back, confusion written on his face.
"What?"
Valkyre paused, then remembered that Corryn... well, that he didn't really have a name. Rather, none that Raguel would acknowledged.
The angel contemplated trying to say something more, but then only shook his head, deciding it would best to simply let the matter drop.
Valkyre stepped forward again, this time with much more caution. However, he knew that the careless act had already been done, and chances were that Corryn already knew they were here. Along the walls, when one looked carefully enough, were thin, impossibly light lines of silver mimicking the scratch-marks and lines on the impeccable steel walls.
The interior of the room was visible now, nothing more than a few crooked tabletops scattered with papers and various electrical machines, all long-since broken down. However, a light bulb somewhere up ahead was sill fizzing, flickering on and off.
Valkyre paused at the entrance, glancing all around. Nothing moved. Slowly, carefully, cautiously, he stepped inside.
The floor was tiled a marbled gray-white, even and smooth.
Over in the corner, a white shape lay, sprawled out on the ground. Valkyre's heart skipped a beat, seeing the crumpled white. Over the light, faded-polished floor, a stain of dark red blood splattered over the marble white.
He stepped inside further, then stopped, seeing the long, wavy white hair that swirled itself around the figure, wreathing it as if with a gauze.
Eire.
The angel felt himself breathe out a sigh of relief.
Until he realized there was another figure, crouching by Eire's head. A tan hand was reaching down, dirty fingers tangled in the white, white limp hair.
Corryn.
The other glanced up, golden black-ringed eyes sharp, finding him instantly, centering on him. A grin cracked apart the pale lips, flashing the whites of the teeth.
"One little birdy fell out of the nest, angel."
Valkyre moved his feet slowly, stepping fully into the room. He glanced around, quickly. No one else in here. No windows. No way out.
And Eire was quite clearly dead.
Corryn paused, fingers briefly tightening their loose grip around the silky-smooth hair, then let it go. He paused, then moved over a little, actions slow as well, careful and gauged.
"She's still smiling," Corryn commented.
Valkyre studied the other carefully. His tanned, scarred back was bare, the dark hair falling over the eyes and shoulders, fingernails short and chipped.
"...Did you kill her? Eire?"
Valkyre whirled around. Raguel had silently entered the room, standing still within the doorframe. His dark ruby and yellow eyes were hard and cold.
Corryn only shrugged, then grinned.
"You can decide that for yourself," he replied, looking away. "It doesn't matter to me."
A pause, and then he was fixing his gaze back in Valkyre.
Corryn moved slightly, taking a step to the side. It was only for a moment, but the angel saw the other's side. A large, angry red scar flowered out like bright, hot blood from Corryn's chest, where Valkyre's blade had dug clean through and bit into the soil. It was a wound that reminded the angel of Asher's, one that had been meant to kill but never quite accomplished its goal.
"...What are you doing, Valkyre, with... him??"
Corryn's golden-black eyes darted over to Raguel, making no attempt to mask his spite and venom.
"I..." Valkyre started to speak, then stopped. He didn't honestly know. But Raguel... no, he couldn't be trusted, not really, and yet...
"Valkyre. Angel."
Valkyre blinked, looking back. Corryn had stepped closer, still keeping an eye on the half-breed, still keeping his distance.
"...I've thought things over, Valkyre. I want to ask you..."
Suddenly, he lept up onto a tabletop, clinging against the edge, rocking slightly to and fro. Raguel flinched, crouching down just ever-so-slightly, but Corryn paid him no heed.
"Angel," he whispered, "We've more in common than you think. You even know that... he, he's going to kill Iris. And you know I won't."
He leaned closer, golden-black eyes serious, narrowed.
"Let me help you. You can do whatever you want. I just... want... Iris. Safe. You know that."
He paused, glancing sideways again at Raguel, shiftily regarding him out of the corner of his eyes.
"Valkyre."
Corryn hesitated, obviously having trouble deciding. Then, slowly, tentatively, he held out a smudged, tanned hand, almost grudgingly.
"I... I know," he said, "that Iris... likes... you. And I don't want... to hurt him."
His fingers began to curl up, then spread open again.
"I want to help him," he said. "Will you... let me?"
"Valkyre!"
Raguel called out suddenly, sharply. Corryn hardly flinched.
The angel paused, frowning. He held up a hand, silencing Raguel, staring into the golden black.
Corryn? Join with him?
Of course, Corryn wouldn't kill Iris. That made him, in one sense, safer. And he was simple, honest. Unlike Raguel, swathed in so many layers of black and grays and red and yellow that Valkyre could never hope to peer down into his soul, to understand his motives.
Valkyre stared at the hand proffered. The fingernails were caked with dirt, short and blunt. He was nothing more than a lost child, after all. Broken, wanting the only thing that meant something to him. He'd do anything to get Iris back... To get Iris...
Valkyre looked up into the golden-black-ringed eyes, meeting them fully.
He shook his head.
"...No."
Corryn blinked, hand drooping, taken aback.
"...Why?"
Valkyre sighed, shaking his head.
"I know you too well," he said. "You only want Iris. And right now, you want me on your side, because you want to eliminate Raguel. You won't take him on alone, not with me as well."
Valkyre paused, glancing between the two. "But," he added, it's not exactly as if I'm on his side. I'm not... on either."
The angel sighed, then looked back at Corryn.
"I'm sorry," he said, "But I know that your interests don't really lie there. You'd just kill me afterwards."
The other blinked back, expressionless.
"And besides," Valkyre added, "Iris isn't even here. I... I'm searching for him."
Corryn flinched, eyes flashing. And then he was pulling back, shaking his head.
"Traitor," he hissed. "You're a fool, angel. And you'll die like the rest of them. Like broken little dolls."
He was circling around them, golden eyes flashing.
"You'll kill him," he snarled. "You'll kill Iris!"
And then he was leaping towards the doorway, and in a moment he was gone, swallowed up by the shadows.
Raguel had done nothing to stop him, only looking to Valkyre and shaking his head.

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AN: Oh holy~!
This is officially deemed the shoottiest chapter ever. OFFICIALLY.
I'm so goddamned sorry. But I just... I tried, so many times, but I just couldn't get this chapter to come out in any kind of decent way at all.
So this is all I've got. I'm sorry.
It's terribly, impossibly hard to be working on two stories at the same time, because the styles are so unbelieveably different, and my writing style itself has changed so much.
So, I apologize muchly, muchly. The next chapter will be pretty much the same crap, but I'm hoping that a few scenes down, the interesting stuff I really want to get written down will finally solidify decently.
Until then, please bear with. I'm sososo sorry. :<
Thank you all~ ::cries::

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