Alix slowly blinks becoming a bit more aware of the real world. She finally realizes that the her surrounds have changed slightly.
'What is this?' Alix looks around with dull eyes. She was just in front of the lever to open Nuka's cell, right? The switch and the buttons are gone so she must not be there anymore. How did that happen?
Though, does it even matter right now? Even if she was still there and did could have manage to open the cell...
What would she have really done? Save Nuka? What about Mo? What about the rest of these monsters that this woman's been using as experiments? Could she confidently say that she would have managed to save everything here and get out safely?
'No...I couldn't.' Alix bent her knees and hugged them tightly, burying her face in her own legs as the spiral began again. 'There are too many unknowns! Too many things that could go wrong and not enough time to weed out the negative outcomes! There's just too much at stake and too much to be worried about!' Alix's heart was beating out of control once again but, now it felt like it was beating even louder in her head.
Why did it sound so clear?
"Hey, are you awake over there little dolly?" Francis's voice called out to Alix mockingly. Alix shifted her shaky gaze to the woman who was crouched with her arms pressed to her cheeks while resting her elbows on her knees. "You are awake! That's fun! Now do you mind telling me how you got out of your cage over there?"
Francis gestured to the melted cage that Alix had just escaped from. "Those bars are made of Keradine. That absorbs mana and disperses it to negate its effects. It's very powerful and difficult to work with even for the best crafters and smiths in the world and yet somehow you burned and melted it with ease. How did you do that?" Alix continued to stare thoughtlessly at Francis to the dismay of the older woman's curiosity.
"Fine!" Francis stood up from the ground, stretching as she had been crouched for longer than she would have liked. "Be that way! I was honestly just a little curious because the only person that should have been able to do that is the bird right next to you." Francis gestured to Alix's side where Alix finally noticed that Nuka was laying.
'Am I in Nuka's cell?' Alix thought to herself but didn't really dig too deep into it. She felt...overwhelmed with everything. Not just current things but things of the past as well. It was all finally becoming too much for her to deal with.
"Oh, I have a surprise for you, Alix! Look here!" Francis squealed like a step-parent getting ready to give their step-child a gift for the first time. Alix didn't look. "Oh come on! I brought him down here because I thought you missed him! The least that you could do is acknowledge his presence!"
'She brought him here?' Alix lazily moved her eyes to Francis. The alchemist was presenting a small, round, pink fish to Alix with a beaming grin.
"See!! I brought Po here!" Mo looked at Alix from outside of the cell and could instantly tell that something was wrong.
"Lexi, are you okay? Did something happen?!" Mo called out but Alix didn't answer. Her lips were locked up as tightly as she was holding her legs. Francis lowered Mo with a disappointed look on her face.
"Well, what the hell is this? You had all of this fight in you just a few hours ago yet, now you're just sitting there like your whole world's crumbling down? Did you break?"
Alix sat in silence.
"Well, shit! You've taken all of the fun out of messing with you! And here I was about to tell you about my grand discovery about Mo's species but you clearly don't care!" Francis peered at Alix to see if her words triggered any sort of reaction.
They did not.
The woman sighed and shifted her gaze to Nuka with a sinister smile. "I guess that means that you two get to experience my girl's favorite pass time!" Nuka's eyes widened.
"Wait, you don't mean-
"It's time to take a nice, cold, salty shower of sea water!" Nuka's face instantly filled with dread which only made Francis's smile bigger. "That's the look that I was going for! You know, you could learn a thing or two from Nuka, Alix." Francis marched over to the control console that Alix once stood at in a panic. She hit the big orange button and grabbed onto the lever.
"Allie! You have to wake up! She's gonna flood us!" Alix still didn't move even with Nuka's urging. Though, Nuka's screaming did make Mo begin to panic.
"WHAT? SHE'S GONNA FLOOD YA?! I-is there anyway to stop it?!"
"DON'T LET HER PULL THE LEVER!!" Nuka yelled at Mo. Mo nodded and started to squirm in Francis's hands.
"Hey, WOAH! Stop moving so much Po! I'm gonna-" Mo continued to shake in Francis's hands when she suddenly threw him at the ground.
"OOF!" Mo grunted as he slapped against the stone. Francis breathed out. "I told you to stop, you made me drop you. Now, let's continue!" Mo's eyes went wide as he tried to flop over to Francis to stop her.
'Ugh, I'm really missin' the Abyssal Sea right now!" He flopped against the woman's calf which made her look down but did no damage to her.
"Well look at you, so desperate to protect your owner that you're even ramming against my leg! That's so cute I could just-oops!" Francis "accidently" pulled the lever slowly lowering the wall in the back of Nuka's cell.
The instant that the wall started to sink, water started to flood the cell. Nuka was carried away from Alix by the sudden wave while Alix's body was knocked over from the force of the water.
"Well, isn't that just an unfortunate turn of events! Now I have to watch those two struggle for dear life!" Francis speaks in a blatantly sarcastic tone. She scoops Mo back up in her arms and stares into his glaring eyes. "Let's enjoy this show together, Po!"
Alix was forced out of her mind as she was pushed face first into the rising water. "What the hell is going on?!" She pulled her face out of the water and frantically scanned her surroundings. She had been so trapped by her own mind that she didn't even realize the trouble she was in until it was too late. And now...
"NUKA!!" Alix screamed when she saw Nuka helplessly screeching and flapping her wings to try to get out of the water. "I'll get you out, Nuka! Just hold on!" Alix swam over to Nuka as fast as she could.
Luckily, it wasn't very difficult with the current assisting her movements though, she did have to try her hardest not to be completely overtaken by said current. Alix swiftly arrived at Nuka's side and embraced her. The water continued rising as the two held each other.
Alix felt her panic rising again but tried her best to keep focused by searching for some sort of exit. "There has to be a way out!" Alix's eyes took in every part of the cell as fast as they could before landing on the, now open, back wall of the cell. "There!" She announced aloud.
'That'll be our only way out! I can make it, I just need to push!'
Alix held Nuka up as the amount of air they had left was almost out. "Take a deep breath in, Nuka. Quick, okay?" She said softly to her bird friend. Nuka was struggling with the water even more than Alix, likely because she was a fire affinity monster. Nuka weakly looked at Alix and nodded. Alix and Nuka both took a deep breath in before the water completely submerged them.
"Wow, look at that! It seems that Alix wants to try to escape from the back!" Francis said with a wide grin on her face. "That's a pretty smart plan but, it isn't very exciting for our viewing gallery. Oh, I know!" Francis ran over to the lever and pushed it up, starting the resurfacing of the wall.
"Now you're on a time limit! This is way more exciting!" Alix groaned in her mind as she noticed the wall start rising back up.
'I need to move fast!' Alix focused on her connection with Mo and tried to summon the Abyssal Sea. Upon summoning it she realized that the Abyssal Sea was actually much weak and more difficult to control than normal but she would just have to make do. She didn't have enough time to try anything else!
Alix used the Abyssal Sea as a sort of boost to help her glide through the water faster than she normally would have. She held Nuka tight in her arms and swam as hard as she could while the wall continued to rise. Francis and Mo watched the situation with anticipation as Alix got closer and closer while the wall was also getting close to closing.
Alix felt nothing but pain as she swam. The salty seawater stung her hope filled eyes, the power behind her kicks propelling her forward was causing them immense strain due to her lack of ability to use her arms, and the headache from earlier was splitting through her skull right now.
But she couldn't stop, if not for herself then for Nuka's sake. 'I can't let Nuka down! I can't let Nuka down!' Alix chanted these words of motivation in her head. She was almost there! The exit was right there! Alix, in a final push, pumped her legs full of Lis and tried to force her way through the narrow opening.
'Almost...'
"BAM!" The water shook as the wall slammed shut. Alix's outstretched hand gently touched the now closed wall as all the hope that the girl had drained from her body.
"Hahahahaha!!" Francis began to cackle like a mad woman. "Look at her face, Po! She really thought she was gonna make it! HEH HAHAHAHAHA!!!" While the alchemist laughed cruelly at the girl's failed escape attempt, Mo could only feel a deep sadness as he watched Alix's hand slowly slid off of the wall.
Alix's eye were wide.
'I...didn't make it...' Her mind started to go blank but stopped as she remember that Nuka was still struggling. She pulled Nuka from her chest to check on her only to see that the bird had fully lost consciousness. Alix felt tears well up in her eyes but the water made it difficult to discern whether she was actually crying or not.
"Knock! Knock!" Alix heard Francis's muffled voice call out behind her along with the dull sound of banging on the glass. Alix turned and saw the woman's cruel smile.
"It's a shame isn't it? You almost got out but you just barely missed the margin! HAHAHA" Alix's face twisted at the muffled cackles of Francis Aeouli.
'What happened to this woman? Alice called her an angel but all I can see is a damned devil relishing in the pain of her victims! She's no angel, she's just like all of them!' Alix's mind, despite the pain that she felt within her lung and head, flashed back to the day of her father's execution.
This time, however, she was in her father's position with Nuka by her side. She was being drowned in front of a crowd of people that all laughed as the two of them tried to save themselves. The faceless crowd then began to shift into Francis Aeouli, several of her, all pointing and laughing at the pair.
"You tried your best but it meant nothing in the end! All of that Insolence of yours led you here! That's all you'll ever be, kid! An insolent brat that tries and tries but can't do anything even with the help of something as precious as Demon Beasts!" Alix felt her heartrate quicken as an intense fury started rising within her hurt.
She glared daggers at that devil of a woman! 'How dare she do this and then laugh?! What is there to laugh about?! Others are suffering due to her actions and she's celebrating!! Such vile filth does not deserve any sort of respect!!!" Alix unconsciously sent her words to Nuka.
In that moment, she felt close to Nuka again. No, she felt closer to Nuka than she had ever felt in her life. Alix used what little energy she had left to propel herself at the Francis or, more specifically, the glass that was in front of her and hit it with her fist. The water shook from the force of the girl's punch but the glass didn't even crack from it.
Francis flinched back a bit. She locked eyes with Alix. The girl's eyes were blazed with a deep resentment and her face contorted into a look of pure wrath. Alix unclenched her fist and rested her hand, nails digging into the glass, against the cell wall.
"Hah!" Francis nervously chuckled. "What are you gonna do? Claw through the glass like the filthy monsters that you hang around? You're nothing kid! All of that resentment that you have is never gonna reach the likes of me! You hear me! You'll never break through this wall!!" Francis raised her voice as she became enraged.
This kid was trying so hard to save some bird and a fish, and for what? Why was she so passionate about these monsters? Why was her will not breaking yet?
*SCREEEEEECH*
Francis winced from the suddenly loud screeching. She tried to cover her ears but it was far too loud. 'What the hell is that?' Francis looked back up at Alix and saw something that she never thought that she would see.
Alix was dragging her hand across the tempered glass, leaving deep scratch marks in the glass as her hand moved but that wasn't all. The scratch marks seemed to be glowing and she could swear that past all the screeching she could hear some sort of cracking?
Then, these strange runes started to appear imbedded into the glass as well. "I-is that supposed to be intimidating?" Francis questioned brazenly but her voice was trembling discrediting any bravado that she was expressing.
Alix didn't care about the woman's foolish display of bravado. She just continued to claw into the glass filled with a deep, burning rage. A rage that didn't seem to be her's alone as memories of Francis that the girl had never experienced started to appear in her head. It seemed that even unconscious, Nuka's own hatred for the woman was flowing into Alix.
Alix's nails bled, tainting the water around her with red as she finally pulled her hand away from the glass. She slammed her bloodied hand against the modified tank and the runes popped off of the glass. Alix then yanked her arm back, kicked off of the glass and released Nuka allowing the two of them to float parallel to each other.
The glowing runes gathered around Alix's forearm and she extend her palm out at Nuka.
Alix felt all of her own pain but that wasn't it! She was also feeling Nuka's pain and it was just too much to bare alone.
So, Alix decided that she would no longer let Nuka bear this deep pain alone.
The runes around Alix's arm began to radiate with power as she evoked the name of her spell within her mind.
'Omnia Nexus!'
The runes flew out and attached themselves to Nuka. The water around them churned as Nuka and Alix both began to glow. The water filled with a bright silver light as suddenly the string that connected Alix to Nuka became fully visible to the world. The color of the light in the water and the string shifted from silver to pink and the light began to glow even brighter. Francis and Mo had to shield their eyes due to the intensity of the glow.
"Just what the hell is up with this girl!!" Francis screamed as the water was churning like the sea in a storm and the air was cracking full of mana making the surrounding area far too loud to even hear ones own thoughts. The pink light within the water took form then enveloped Alix and Nuka in a sphere of pink. The sounds of rampant waves and crackling mana ceased, instead replaced with what sounded like a heartbeat.
Francis uncovered her eyes and looked back in the cell where she saw the large sphere of pink energy pulsating with power. The two viewers looked at the sphere in awe with theit thoughts linking up for just a second.
'What is that thing?' That was the thought at the top of both of their minds. That is, it was on their minds until, the sphere pulsated again but grew suddenly in size this time. Francis flinched but didn't move as she thought she was imagining things. Then the sphere did it again growing even larger this time.
Francis's eyes went wide. "I've gotta run!" She didn't know what was happening in that sphere and she honestly couldn't care less right now. All she knew was that something within her senses told her to get as far away as possible and she was not going to disobey her flight response.
Francis rushed up the stairs and out the front entrance of the lighthouse to a boat that was docked along side the structure. Sure, she preferred to use the tunnel but she always had a boat ready for if she needed it.
And right now she needed it!
Even after Francis left, the sphere continued to grow. Within a few seconds the color began to shift again as green mixed in with the pink energy. The green the caught aflame even though it was still completely surrounded by water. The green flame engulfed the sphere as it continued to expand at an even greater speed than before.
It expanded, then it shook, and it expanded again until the sphere was pushing against the see-through walls of the cell.
Then, in an instant...
The sphere exploded.
The sturdy glass walls of the cell shattered, the makeshift prison was flooded with flames that then raced up the stairs and down the tunnels completely engulfing everything that was in its path.
The flames burned through floor after floor until they finally reached the top of the lighthouse, taking out the light, the herb garden that was up there, and the entire roof of the lighthouse.
Now freed from its containment the flames continued to soar through the air at an infectious rate eventually burning high enough and bright enough that the entire city became bathed in the green light of these flames.
The green light of the Flames of Torment raging for vengeance!!