@ziccarra_liafador: @tassania_pettis@selene_liafador@azure_son
"Isis, we have a new report coming in."
Isis Liafador stopped in her tracks, immediately halting the cleaning of her weapons. She and her team of Ravens had made it back to their headquarters in a partially demolished Madrid just twenty minutes ago. The Ravens were a team of fifteen hand-chosen former Cardinals, loyal to Isis and Tassi, only. Over the last year they had been hunting down rogue Cardinals, Cardinals that had proved untrustworthy. Cardinals that had chosen the wrong side in the Fall of Madrid. She was cleaning house. Because nobody else would.
And now, as she was cleaning her weapons, bad news fell upon her ears. She shoved back a strand of mink brown hair, smearing blood of her prey across her cheek in the process. As she lifted her eyes up, she saw the look of dismay on Amalia's face. Amalia was her right hand, her most trusted, her second. And she was almost shaking under the weight of Isis' gaze, something unheard of.
A heart that had frozen over beat too fast for comfort in her chest as she very carefully placed the sword that Leo had given her on the table, and dropped the cloth on top of it. "What's going on Leta?"
"It's Tassi."
Her heart halted. Froze completely for one short second as ice coated it again. Isis had four soft spots. Tassiana Pettis. Yana Porthos. Santiago Porthos. Catalina Liafador. That was it. She had frozen out anything else out of necessity, and she carried her mission like an awl around her neck. She was burdened with purpose.
If something had happened to Tassi, she feared for the fate of the world. "What happened?" she bit out.
"We can't find her, she's disappeared, Isis."
"She's with Zeon." Last report, that was where Tassi had been. Which was still so strange to Isis, but she'd have trusted Tassi to her over anybody else at this moment. Isis and Zeon were true counterpoints to one another. Both raised as killing machines, tools of complete and utter destruction. But where Isis ran cold, Zeon ran hot with rage. Her blood boiled at a moment's notice, and her fury was feared by all who had whispered of it in hushed tons.
She had to be with Zeon. Because the alternatives... they were too bad to think of.
"She's not, Isis," Leta whispered as she flinched. Not because she expected Isis to strike out, but because she too had some idea of just what Isis was capable of if she were properly motivated.
The scrape of her chair across the floor as she pushed back was the only sound heard in the cavernous room. Projectors and screens lined the walls of the underground lair, pinpointing Cardinal nests and confirmed kills. Isis ignored as she fought back the panic threatening to rise.
There was a way to locate her, to tap into the very energy that Tassi controlled, and specifically the energy that permeated the Liafador lines. Isis had always been particulary apt at hunting down particular strains. She was able to do so for any designated target, not just those in her family, once she was familiar with their signature.
Eyes that normally fluctuated between shades of hazel and brown lightened, shot through with pure threads of green and gold, as her body hummed with energy. Leta's eyes narrowed as she backed slowly away towards the edge of the room, not out of fear, but caution.
Everything around her went hazy as she focused her immense energies into herself. It was an ability that she was still fine-tuning, and one that often got away from her. There was a part of her that she kept under lock and key, a savage goddess with blood and lineage that nobody had dared before. She didn't need her today, not yet. She just needed a location, she needed to trace Tassi's energy.
What assailed her senses was an amassing of energy that could only be explained by numerous specific occurrences. Leo was present. And the Liafador-Pettis clan had congregated again. This never ended well, for any of them. They loved each other fiercely, and hated fiercely as well. They were beings of mortal emotions in the bodies of gods and goddesses, and who would relegate the earth to such a fate? Who would hold them in check? It was why she was, even now, hunting down rogue Cardinals loyal to a bloodletting legacy full of megalomania.
She was Liafador by birth, and by legacy. The Daughter of Death, they whispered of her. And she was. The Renegade Liafador, as much of a rogue as her beloved Selene, but without the turmoil of a teenager. She was cold, calm, calculated, and holding herself apart. Because she feared that one day she would be forced into a truly adversarial position to them. And she couldn't afford to have her frozen heart thaw. Already Tassi had chipped away pieces of it, and Yana, and Santi... she couldn't afford for more.
"I know where she is," she whispered to Leta, slightly out of breath.
---
It felt like her body were being torn asunder. Energy permeated her, clawing through her, burning her, freezing her. She had to cede part of herself to the power that lurked within her, but she'd do anything for Tassi, even chip away at herself like this.
White sparked her vision as her body was unmade and remade upon grounds of Luna Island's forest. Lush greenery sprouted everywhere, and the air smelled clean, felt crisp. The sun filtered through upper layers, fighting to reach the brush of the forest. She was attuned to energy signatures, to the 'feel' of things, and this... this place was so clearly not of the world she was accustomed to.
The sound of familiar voices wafted through the air. The lilt of Selene's unique cadence reached her, and she could sense the tension building. Faces became clearer as she trekked short yards through the forest. Alexis, Leo, Ziccarra, Selene, Tassi. Tassi, thank the gods. Little Tassi was here, and that alone cut down on the chances of bloodshed more than anything else would ever be capable of doing.
But still, the palm of her hand itched for her weapons as the leather-clad shadow of death cut through to the clearing where the Liafador-Pettis clan now stood, surrounding their youngest. For one simple moment, she felt as if she were an intruder. And perhaps in many ways she was. She may be a Liafador, but she had none of the goodness that the Pettis' carried with them.
Selene was worried about how much like Ziccarra she was? Isis almost let out a bitter laugh at the thought. For years of her childhood, she had been raised to be the next Ziccarra. Isis carried Liafador blood, the darkness of their legacy, and none of the lightness that was tempered by Alexis Pettis' lineage. Isis was the one who should have been worried about similarity to Ziccarra, not the treasured Selene.
"Tassi,"she whispered, standing back from the rest of them. It was a crack in her veneer, she knew it. Her heart skipped a beat as she fought the urge to run forward and run her hands all over Tassi's little body to make sure she had come to no harm.
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