[ As the last mechanical golem falls, she hears Caspar let out a whoop of triumph. It's premature but he's irrepressible and Edelgard might go so far as to assume he has missed the physicality of fighting for the cause, though perhaps not the war itself. The three months that have passed since the defeat of the Immaculate One, the end of the more public side of the war, have been a different kind of challenge for all of them: rebuilding and restructuring, diplomacy and negotiating. But always searching the shadows for those who slither in the dark.
There are few effective ways to keep a secret from the most secretive people she has ever known, especially when Lord Arundel's presence is so prominent in the Empire's affairs. Especially when the enemy could have stolen a trusted face. The operation was meant for her strike force and supplemented by a select handful from her army, every one of them made fully aware of the danger ahead, but the sheer size of this underground stronghold is more than anyone of them imagined.
There is no real joy for her in killing but that doesn't prevent her feeling cold satisfaction when her axe finally carves without hesitation into Thales's chest. He no longer wears her uncle's face and his last words are bloody and gasping, spit out as though he believes himself somehow at an advantage even in death: You were always a double-edged blade but you didn't strike quickly enough. You will never get to enjoy your victory.
Quickly enough for what? As much as she tries not to let his mind games affect her, the thought chills. She had high hopes for this battle to more or less rip the Agarthans up by the roots and salt the ground where they once flourished. A strike too true, too deadly, for them to effectively heal. What has she missed? What have they not accounted for?
The answer becomes clear soon enough, when Ferdinand calls out a warning from the corridor behind her. More hooded enemies rush toward them, one of them assisting an unsteady figure who should look more familiar than he currently does. She hears Dorothea gasp Claude's name and that can't be.
(But it can be and she knows that, and fury coils around her chest until her lungs feel constricted.)
It should not be. Pushing forward to better see for herself, her shield half-raised before her, she calls out. ]
[Claude is never one to let his guard down, even with Edelgard's word that she would not pursue him so long as he made good on his word to leave Fodlan-- and he was fully intending to do just that, to return to his first home and build towards his goals from there. He wouldn't be coming back in triumph like he'd wanted, but that he'd be coming back at all was a victory in itself, and there was still much he'd learned from his time in his mother's home country. Lessons he might never have learned back in Almyra.
It hadn't mattered, in the end. He was injured and outnumbered, and they knew exactly where to find him. Poor Anisa, his oldest companion, dies trying to protect her rider and he's easy pickings after that.
There are questions he's had since his days at Garreg Mach that are inadvertently answered by his captors-- they're with the Empire, or more accurately, using its seats of power for their own ends. For some reason, they think he'll be good collateral against Edelgard in the event she turns against them. At first he's just a prisoner, which definitely isn't a great time but it's better than being killed, right?
And then the experiments start.
He's long lost track of the days spent underground, the number of failed escape attempts. He wakes up on the floor of his cell one day to find that his hair, which has grown long enough to hang in his face in gently curled strands, has gone stark white. It's a horrific realization that explains quite a lot, about Lysithea and Edelgard both. And the experimentation doesn't end there. They're interested in testing the limits of his Crests, particularly the healing effects, but they've also learned from their previous attempts-- they want better control over their latest weapon.
He doesn't make any of it easy on them, and it makes it all the more disturbing when they finally succeed. It's a deceptively simple-looking thing, a thin but strong band of metal clasped into place around one wrist, and an order spoken with a matching ring pressed against it. The effect is-- terrifying. His consciousness shoved out of place, body moving beyond his control to fulfill it. All of his cunning and skill at his disposal, but none of his own will.
They keep him weak with malnutrition to cut off his escape attempts, because it doesn't matter when it comes to their orders. His body will push itself to any limits to complete it, and the healing properties of his Crests will keep him alive long enough to do so. He knows Edelgard must have made her move when a bunch of the hooded bastards burst into his cell and drag him to his feet, with a frantic, almost panicked energy he's never seen from his captors before.
The theory is confirmed when he spots not just Edelgard, but the entire Black Eagle Strike Force. Given their surprise, none of them knew he was down here. A distant, hurting part of him wonders if anyone realized he was missing. He meets Edelgard's fiery gaze across the room at her proclamation, and damn if he doesn't want to believe that.
And then a hand closes over his wrist, a voice hissing in his ear, 'Kill them all', and his gaze goes dead-eyed and empty. Someone else shoves a strange bow into his arms-- it's not Failnaught, but it doesn't feel so different to it, pulsing and alive with its own eerie energy.
Claude fights the control harder than he ever has before. A killing shot aimed between Hubert's eyes is nudged just a hair to the left, held back just a split-second more, allowing him the chance to dodge after he's dispatched one of the hooded figures.]
[ She can hardly believe her eyes. Claude has never seemed so slight, never seemed so physically weak, and now... now he looks so much as she must have when she was first released from the darkness of her cell beneath the palace. Hollow-eyed, hopeless, frail. She has always wanted to make sure this would happen to no one else.
Was it just him? Were other Deer taken? Does the Crest of Flames burn him from the inside as it burns her?
She doesn't have time for wondering. Just as she and Byleth begin to bark out orders, Claude's entire stance changes. With a bow in his hands he has always been a force but she almost doubts he will able to hold it steadily enough to aim... until the humanity drains from his eyes.
He could have hit Hubert. She knows that, and from the speed with which Hubert moves she knows he is well aware as well. ]
Incapacitate him! [ There will be no working around Claude. Not as long as his arrows are aimed at them. At least the rest of the plan is still straightforward: ] Kill his captors!
[ With her shield still intact, she makes a prime candidate for approaching Claude; she spares the briefest of nods to Byleth, trusting the Professor to have her back, and starts to plow ahead. ]
[Any time they've faced each other on the battlefield before, whether it was during the mock battles of their school days or across his own besieged city, Claude almost seemed unable to help himself when it came to exchanging verbal taunts as rapid-fire as his arrows. Now he's eerily silent, and brutally strategic with his targets. He aims for other ranged fighters and healers first, keeping as much distance as he can.
He notices Edelgard's approach-- it's impossible not to-- but the shield does its job well. He can't fight the orders he's been given, he has to keep trying to kill her, even as his twin crests are the only thing keeping him standing upright and shooting straight. He has to get around that giant shield somehow...
If attempting to do just that puts him in a position to be cornered should Edelgard make the right move at the right time... it's the most he can manage, as a prisoner of his own body.]
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There are few effective ways to keep a secret from the most secretive people she has ever known, especially when Lord Arundel's presence is so prominent in the Empire's affairs. Especially when the enemy could have stolen a trusted face. The operation was meant for her strike force and supplemented by a select handful from her army, every one of them made fully aware of the danger ahead, but the sheer size of this underground stronghold is more than anyone of them imagined.
There is no real joy for her in killing but that doesn't prevent her feeling cold satisfaction when her axe finally carves without hesitation into Thales's chest. He no longer wears her uncle's face and his last words are bloody and gasping, spit out as though he believes himself somehow at an advantage even in death: You were always a double-edged blade but you didn't strike quickly enough. You will never get to enjoy your victory.
Quickly enough for what? As much as she tries not to let his mind games affect her, the thought chills. She had high hopes for this battle to more or less rip the Agarthans up by the roots and salt the ground where they once flourished. A strike too true, too deadly, for them to effectively heal. What has she missed? What have they not accounted for?
The answer becomes clear soon enough, when Ferdinand calls out a warning from the corridor behind her. More hooded enemies rush toward them, one of them assisting an unsteady figure who should look more familiar than he currently does. She hears Dorothea gasp Claude's name and that can't be.
(But it can be and she knows that, and fury coils around her chest until her lungs feel constricted.)
It should not be. Pushing forward to better see for herself, her shield half-raised before her, she calls out. ]
Claude, we will free you!
yesssss
It hadn't mattered, in the end. He was injured and outnumbered, and they knew exactly where to find him. Poor Anisa, his oldest companion, dies trying to protect her rider and he's easy pickings after that.
There are questions he's had since his days at Garreg Mach that are inadvertently answered by his captors-- they're with the Empire, or more accurately, using its seats of power for their own ends. For some reason, they think he'll be good collateral against Edelgard in the event she turns against them. At first he's just a prisoner, which definitely isn't a great time but it's better than being killed, right?
And then the experiments start.
He's long lost track of the days spent underground, the number of failed escape attempts. He wakes up on the floor of his cell one day to find that his hair, which has grown long enough to hang in his face in gently curled strands, has gone stark white. It's a horrific realization that explains quite a lot, about Lysithea and Edelgard both. And the experimentation doesn't end there. They're interested in testing the limits of his Crests, particularly the healing effects, but they've also learned from their previous attempts-- they want better control over their latest weapon.
He doesn't make any of it easy on them, and it makes it all the more disturbing when they finally succeed. It's a deceptively simple-looking thing, a thin but strong band of metal clasped into place around one wrist, and an order spoken with a matching ring pressed against it. The effect is-- terrifying. His consciousness shoved out of place, body moving beyond his control to fulfill it. All of his cunning and skill at his disposal, but none of his own will.
They keep him weak with malnutrition to cut off his escape attempts, because it doesn't matter when it comes to their orders. His body will push itself to any limits to complete it, and the healing properties of his Crests will keep him alive long enough to do so. He knows Edelgard must have made her move when a bunch of the hooded bastards burst into his cell and drag him to his feet, with a frantic, almost panicked energy he's never seen from his captors before.
The theory is confirmed when he spots not just Edelgard, but the entire Black Eagle Strike Force. Given their surprise, none of them knew he was down here. A distant, hurting part of him wonders if anyone realized he was missing. He meets Edelgard's fiery gaze across the room at her proclamation, and damn if he doesn't want to believe that.
And then a hand closes over his wrist, a voice hissing in his ear, 'Kill them all', and his gaze goes dead-eyed and empty. Someone else shoves a strange bow into his arms-- it's not Failnaught, but it doesn't feel so different to it, pulsing and alive with its own eerie energy.
Claude fights the control harder than he ever has before. A killing shot aimed between Hubert's eyes is nudged just a hair to the left, held back just a split-second more, allowing him the chance to dodge after he's dispatched one of the hooded figures.]
no subject
Was it just him? Were other Deer taken? Does the Crest of Flames burn him from the inside as it burns her?
She doesn't have time for wondering. Just as she and Byleth begin to bark out orders, Claude's entire stance changes. With a bow in his hands he has always been a force but she almost doubts he will able to hold it steadily enough to aim... until the humanity drains from his eyes.
He could have hit Hubert. She knows that, and from the speed with which Hubert moves she knows he is well aware as well. ]
Incapacitate him! [ There will be no working around Claude. Not as long as his arrows are aimed at them. At least the rest of the plan is still straightforward: ] Kill his captors!
[ With her shield still intact, she makes a prime candidate for approaching Claude; she spares the briefest of nods to Byleth, trusting the Professor to have her back, and starts to plow ahead. ]
no subject
He notices Edelgard's approach-- it's impossible not to-- but the shield does its job well. He can't fight the orders he's been given, he has to keep trying to kill her, even as his twin crests are the only thing keeping him standing upright and shooting straight. He has to get around that giant shield somehow...
If attempting to do just that puts him in a position to be cornered should Edelgard make the right move at the right time... it's the most he can manage, as a prisoner of his own body.]