EbonyDanger asked 'What if Captain Dance had captured Robert instead of Olalla?'

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"Find them!" Captain Dance demanded upon his Vetala, and sent them scurrying along the floorboards, scuffing at them with acute interest. "They must be here". Robert breathed, watching the shadows above them move, every step one to their capture. With wary eyes, Olalla put a finger to her lips and pushed one of the floorboards up slightly to see their attackers. It was as she had expected; she had seen these creatures around Tenebrae, their skeletal forms usually seen around the borders of Tenebrae's land. Captain Dance looked on, his face twisted into hate. They had been running for a long time, their father had made sure that it would take time. Time that Captain Dance didn't have. Beside him stood Taylor Steinhauer, more professionally known as the Cutter, one of Keres's human-animal experiments of late. He snarled, his speech mute from the various trials conducted by the senior officer. Olalla knew they would get caught eventually, it was just a matter of when. No one could run away from Captain Dance forever. Looking across to her brother, she looked at him with terrified eyes. She would have to give herself up; he was the one everyone wanted. The precious boy-child. Maybe if she let Tenebrae take her, they would spare Robert. Maybe she could finally make her father proud. Because that was all she really wanted to do; she had no aspects really, not as a Hyde. Perhaps Tenebrae would give her a better life than what she would have otherwise. After all, who could ever love a monster apart from a monster?

She had to take this chance. This one, last chance to please her father. Even if it meant not ever seeing him again, he would be proud, right? He may have been hard to make proud, but surely her own freedom meant something? The Cutter had started his attack, pummeling the floorboards with his mutated arm until they wavered and broke. Crawling past her brother, she followed the light that flooded through the newly created cracks in the boards. It burnt her eyes, almost to temporary blindness, but she carried on. Peering her head over the floorboards, she gulped slightly as her eyes scanned the room. These were the creatures she was allowing to take her in, a room of criminals, killers, the writhed and the lab rats. All searing with hate, and pain, and anger. She knew what she was letting herself into, and when, or even if, she saw her father again she wouldn't be the same person. They'd twist her until she broke and the woman walking away would not be the same as the frightened girl trying to make her father proud. There would be no going back. Looking back towards her brother, a small smile crossed her face, and she murmured into the cloud of dust, "Bye, bye, Robbie".
The heightened hearing of a Vetala picked her up immediately, tracing it to her, and scurrying towards it. With bony fingers, it took her by the arms and ripped her away from the cavity. Clicking in its own tongue, its head swathed from side to side trying to work her out. Dance smiled, coldly.
"Amazing what you catch fishing", he quipped and order the Vetala to drop the blonde. The officer approached her, hands behind his back, and bent down so they were at eye level. "Where's the other one?"

"Dunno", she replied with a sugary sweet voice. "Where's my daddy?" Dance smirked at the urchin's stubbornness. Just like her mother.

"He's gone, Olalla. Left you to the wolves yet again", he replied, returning to full height. "I'm surprised as to how you stayed so loyal, since it obviously seems he is not returning the favour". He turned away from her towards the now stopped Cutter. "Keep going. Don't stop until you find him. Tear the place apart if you must; we can't take any chances. Not this time". With a malignant smile on his face, the Cutter tore up every floorboard keeping Robert from Tenebrae.

"No!" Olalla cried. "Don't take Robbie, take me". Dance's head lifted, and a certain silence filled the room, then he turned.

"You think I want you, sweetheart?" he asked, lifting her chin like he wished to punish her for speaking against him. "Then you are wrong. What power do you have that I cannot find in a bottle?" She had no answer, what answer could there be when he was right?

"I- I... Please...", she stuttered, and Dance tilted his head.

"You really care about him, don't you?" Dance spat, with a wicked smile on his face and his voice quietened dangerously. "Well, we'll see about that... Tell you what, I won't touch your 'Robbie'. Not until I make him kill you. Slowly. In every way you fear. I'll burn out every shred of compassion he has for you, I'll darken your memory until it's shadow, and I won't stop until all that is left is a monster. Call it a punishment for you and your father; for betraying us, for betraying Tenebrae. Make sure it sinks in". Olalla looked on with frightened eyes; the threat that this reptile had issued was indescribable. He wouldn't be lying either. It wasn't in his nature to make empty threats, as her father had told her.

Yes, she was utterly terrified. Helpless even. But there was an underlying feeling of anger at Dance's cheek of threatening her family. With a new-found determination, she rose from the ground to her feet, and clenched her fists. "I'll stop you", she answered. "I'll stop you all". The officer laughed, with eyebrows raised at the child. In the corner of her eye she could see a Vetala pulling Robert from the floorboards and escorting him out of the barn, wide-eyed.

"I'd like to see you try", Dance chuckled, and took a pack of matches out of his pocket. Lighting one, he flicked it across the room into a bundle of hay that had flooded into the cavity where they had been hidden. It lit immediately, a lick of orange flame crossing the straw. "I'm giving you one chance, Hyde. Run now, and I promise, I won't follow. Even better, stay out of my business and I won't stake you over a fire and give you to my Vetala".
Gritting her teeth, Olalla smirked. "I'd like to see you try", she quoted Dance, and stepped forward. Stalemate. Running towards Dance, she jumped up, hands clenched into fists and attempted to hit the captain. However, since he held a three feet advantage on her height, it didn't take much effort for Dance to take her by her dress collar and lift her from the ground. She kicked, landing her feet into the Tenebraen officer's shoulders and face.
"Stop that", he spoke calmly, casting his eyes over the flame that had now spread up the barn's structural planks. It wouldn't take long for the entire building to collapse. But, take the girl or leave her?

"Make me".

"Wrong choice of words", Dance replied quickly, and with all his strength, threw the girl away from him, so she skidded across the floor and landed in the cavity of the floorboards. He nodded, realising he had answered his own question. By the time she had escaped, the building would be in cinders. Taking one last look at the child, he tipped his hat towards her and walked away from her.

"Wait! No, don't go!" she called, a child-like desperation in her voice. "Please!" She looked around, looking around the cavity, and attempted to escape. Burying her bare foot into the slits of the wooden walls, she tried to grasp onto the top, but all she felt was flame-licked straw. The heat reached her hand, causing her to cry out and slip back into the darkness. She was going to die here. There was something that told her. What would save her? Who would save her?
The crack of the ceiling supports pulled her away and her eyes sprang up to see the sky tearing through the wood. Light flew in for a moment, before being devoured in smoke and orange blaze. The charred wood fell around her, like the bars of a jail cell, locking her in, and destroying the one last chance she had of escaping. Smoke filled the barn, bringing with it hot embers that floated on the air currents and singed Olalla's skin.

She could hear the building crying out, its legs being taken from underneath it, and the sound of wood sliding from their places in the roof. They fell through, falling, falling, crushing Olalla as they fell. "I'm sorry, Daddy", she spoke quietly, as if someone would hear her through the chaos. "I'm sorry I'm a disappointe-ment". She actually thought that no one would come for her. But someone did...

A voice came into her head, one similar to her own, but twice as determined.
"I'm awake", it said, and Olalla knew who it was. She had never heard them before, but her father had told her of the person, of the danger they posed to society. And how she could never trust her. "Let me take over. You know what to do. I can help".

"Daddy told me not to listen to you".

"But where is he now? I'm the only shot you've got at survival". Gulping, Olalla knew she was right. Everything her father had said had to go out of the window now he wasn't here. She had to let Hyde take over.

Taking a large shard of wood from the planks that surrounded her, she dug it into her side and roared. The power of Hyde filled her veins, the metallic taste of blood filled her mouth and she hit out at one of the columns of wood, making it shatter. Everything seemed easier. She was more powerful, more agile; she could feel her breathing relax and her heart beat more slowly. Using the planks as a climbing pole, she clung to it and reached out for the next one, and the next. Burning embers fell from the roof and hit her back as she scurried out of the cavern, healing almost immediately to silver scars. She looked at her surroundings, or what was left of them. Tenebrae were gone, along with her brother. They could have made miles from the time she took to escape, and she was kicking herself for it. They'd torture him, turn him into one of their own... And it was all her fault. Running from the ruins, her feet burned as they hit the sun-baked sand. What was she to do? Where was she to go?

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Ten years later

Olalla looked at her, like it was the first time she had ever seen her. It seemed everyone did when their loved ones were passing, just clinging onto this world by a cotton-thread. She was rasping for breath, the only family that had bothered to stay: Maggie.

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Olalla had spent the last ten years searching for anyone who'd take her in. Some did. When she had scrambled out of the desert, alone and on death's door, someone had taken pity on her; a leather-making family living on the edge of Tenebrae's empire. Well, she thought of it as 'taking in', all they really saw in her was cheap labour. She was only six years old at the time; Hyde was only starting to emerge whenever she was in dire pain or danger.
Which just happened to be why they threw her out, the first family of many. Her Hyde didn't hurt any of them, but they were afraid, terrified even. And when they had fear, they thought for Olalla a wish was the same as an action. Putting her on the streets with a few days rations, they quickly made their way, leaving her, again, alone.

She felt like a cuckoo, going into others' lives, but she never hurt anyone. Their fear was no fault of hers, nor of Hyde's. She kept on for the next five years, going from family to family, with lengthy spells of homelessness in between. Tenebrae would still be after her; she spoke against Dance. The girl would be lucky to have a peaceful death.

But then she found Maggie. Well, it took five years, so perhaps it was more searched for Maggie, but she took her under her wing. Helped her, healed her to health, gave her a... family.

It was perfect.

For a while. But then Tenebrae came back. With their greatest weapon now trained in their arsenal: her brother. She didn't recognise him the first time he came to the house, his irises raging Hyde blue, his eyelids veined blue and red. He carried a knife in his hand and, though only sixteen, he carried it with confidence and a merciless grip that would slaughter those that opposed his masters. He kicked down the door, splintering it. We never even saw him coming. Maggie was screaming; she thought she had left that life behind, that Hyde was all in the past. Little did she know she was housing one. Olalla had done her best to hide hers from her grandmother, did everything to stop her arising. And it worked. She had managed to sedate her, helped by the doses of green monocane she gulped by the bottle when Maggie's back was turned. Didn't want her asking questions. Especially when the answers could kill.
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"Don't go", she said, remembering those were her words to Dance, and those were what put her in this mess. "I don't want you to go". A tiny smile came to her grandmother's face, and she held out her hand for Olalla to hold.

"Look after your brother for me, both of him", she answered in a frail voice. "Do whatever you can, but bring him home, please. He's not a monster".

"He's your murderer", Olalla cut in, in a bitter voice. She knew where Hyde was: back in the Tenebraen headquarters. A car had driven past and sedated him, pulling him into the backseat. She didn't know if she could bring Jekyll back; maybe he had just been killed by Tenebrae's lengthy experiments.

"I'm not dead yet", Maggie replied, in a chuckle that broke into a wheezy cough.

"But you are dying, and..." she started, thinking what the end of that sentence would be. Sighing, she knew what she had to do. If this was to be Maggie's last moments, she was to be told the truth. She'd at least have that. "There's something I need to tell you".

"Sweetie, I know you're a Hyde, if that's what you're trying to say".

"I- uh... How did you know?"

Smiling, Maggie shrugged some of the rubble off her sleeves where Hyde had thrown her across the room. "You're not the most subtle of people".

"Thank you. For not throwing me out", Olalla commented. "Hyde has a tendency to freak people".

"Go and find your brother for me. Find Robert, and bring him home from the shadows", she whispered, rasping for breath, before peacefully closing her eyes.

"I'll try".

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