“I’m not confirming anything or denying anything, Roza,” he said instead. “All I’m saying is that there is, for everyone, more to this world than just what can be seen. I just...” he shook his head before fixing her with a serious stare. “Rodessa, I’m warning you to be prepared. Just like when an innocent civilian gets dragged into the life of the underworld, once the veil of ignorance is removed, nothing will ever be the same. You can’t go back to seeing life the way you once did. With Pandora, you’re going to experience things you never have before, a world both beautiful, yet ugly, alien, yet familiar. You need to keep an open mind. Or at the least have the right ammo.”
Rodessa’s face flushed. Slamming her hands on the dresser, she rounded on the communicator.
“I’m being serious, Hue!” she snapped. “Things are-”
Her voice cut off as she stared at her partner’s face. Not a sign of jovialness, no sign of a joke. The face she knew better from mission briefings than everyday life. Lifting his head, he fixed her stare with his own, amber eyes gleaming.
“As am I.”
---
Huxian stared at the scene of the communicator, meeting Rodessa’s gaze with utmost serious. As much as he didn’t want to break all her expectations of the world in one go, if he let her go thinking the whole thing was a joke, she would end up getting herself hurt, or worse. He knew Rodessa. Sure she was an extremely competent assassin and, if one ignored her penchant for property damage, even a skilled FBI agent. But as a new Pandora Agent? Letting her stick to the illusion that the world was exactly as she thought….If she ended up facing something dangerous, something like himself (if he was serious) or worse…
No. He wouldn’t allow that. He couldn’t.
At the same time, he couldn’t just tell her every secret he was keeping, or every little thing about the Mystic world. For one, it could take weeks to fill her in, if not years, on the things he knew about that world. For another….well, Rodessa was stubborn. If he told her everything now, she would dismiss it all, grow angry at him for playing a trick and that will ruin everything, including the sense of trust between them.
A balance between. Enough to convince her that she wasn’t being played by Pandora, but not enough to overwhelm her into running.
“Listen, Roza….Rodessa,” he corrected, hoping the use of her full name would pull her up short, considering how often he used nicknames usually. “This isn’t a test, or something to mess with your mind. There are things out there that aren’t easily explained and for the most part stay hidden. That’s why you don’t often hear about them as fact. But….people being spirited away and are never heard from again. Planes that just go missing, with no explanation that even the signals from a black box could find. What starts ‘fairy tales’ to begin with. All these things have to have a source, even if it’s not one that seems ‘logical’. It only seems that way because it’s not in the public eye. Just the same way as underground drug rings, mafia gangs and even human trafficking are usually dismissed by civilians. Its because they’ve never seen it, so they don’t believe it to be true.”
“That’s probably because it usually is ‘underground drug rings, mafia gangs and even human trafficking etcetera!” Rodessa blurted, fingers gripping onto the blankets, expression mulish. “Gangs, terrorists, traffickers….you said it yourself, they’re everywhere. Bedtime stories don’t abduct people,” her lips twisted into an almost patronising smile. “Or are you going to tell me aliens are real too?”
“Who knows, I’m not a Conspiracy theorist,” Huffing, Huxian narrowed his eyes, almost feeling insulted at the accusation if he didn’t know that she was likely grasping straws to keep her worldview intact. “My sights have always been focused on this planet only. Stars and heavens I’ll leave to Astronauts and the gods. All I want to do here is make sure my partner doesn’t end up getting eaten or dismembered by things she’s never encountered before masquerading as humans.”
“What, like the big bad wolf?” Rodessa teased flippantly. “Or are you saying I’m going to get bitten by someone covered in glitter?”
“Are you trying to insult me with that kind of stuff now?” Huxian curled a lip at the mere thought of something like that existing. “I’m talking about actual monsters, not someone’s fanfiction.”
Ugh, this isn’t getting anywhere!
Rubbing the bridge of his nose, he decided to change tactics. “Alright then, how about this. What if….hypothetically, what if someone you were close to, someone you liked… have feelings for, maybe, was actually part of the mystic world? Perhaps, secretly, they aren’t human at all. What would you do if you found out?”
...Well, at least it wasn’t outright denials, but the expression on her face still wasn’t quite what he wanted. It was still more incredulous, though there was a hint of something he noticed as she crossed her arms and huffed, an expression that, had he blinked, he would have missed. Nervous. Ah, so she wasn’t quite as unphased by it as he thought.
Mind you, she had been saying she had seen weird things over where she was. No, she wasn’t as skeptical as she was trying to portray. She just didn’t want to make the things she had seen real.
Heart picking up pace, he pressed on.
“No answer? How about this then,” He leaned forward a little, never taking his eyes from her. “Sorry to bring this up as an example, but...you had amnesia as a child, right? Or at least, from the little you told me when we first met, once you knew you could trust me. You have grown up always knowing you were human, right? But what if in those lost memories, you knew other things? Maybe you had seen something and had your mind wiped? Maybe you came into contact with the mystic and forgot from the shock. Or maybe it wasn’t anything like that at all. But what if, in that lost past, you’re not as human as you think? What would you do then?”
Whipping her hair to look back at the communicator, her eyes narrowed a little. “What are you getting at, Fluff?” She raised a brow, hand to her chest. “Are you implying that I - I! Rodessa Hunter, am part of this mad house? Oh, Hue, no. No. That’s too tinfoil even for you. I am human. My blood is red. My mortality imminent! I’m on the slow march to death like everyone el-”
“I’m not implying anything,” Huxian cut in, frustration leaking into his voice. “I was giving examples so you would use the brains I know you have and think. I’m trying to help, not make you feel like a fool. I’m asking - no, I’m begging you to have an open mind about this!” He grabbed the communicator, eyes blazing. “I don’t want to find out one day that all that’s left of you is some bloody smear on the ground because you aren’t taking a threat seriously!”
“W-what?”
Rodessa jerked back a little, eyes widening. Ah...she wasn’t used to seeing him like that, he realised. They had been on all kinds of missions together that had their lives on the line and he had generally maintained the same flippant attitude. The only times he had really gotten serious was if things truly were serious. For something like this, that she was trying to find anything to prove what she had seen was some joke, it was probably like a slap to the face.
It took a long moment for her to regain her voice. Even then, it sounded like weak protests to his ears.
“I...there’s no proof that this shit even exists, Hue,” she objected. “If I don’t see it, hear it, touch it, then I can’t...I can’t?”
Sitting back, noting her shaken resolve, he pressed on. “And what about the monster you saw at that temple you visited? Why don’t you explain that one to me, if you please?”
Silence.
Got you
Lips quirking in a humourless smirk, Huxian hummed. “You can’t, can you?”
Speechless, Rodessa stared at him, mouth moving soundlessly, before finally, she latched onto something, anything, that still made sense.
“You were speaking to Violet?” she accused. “Both of you act like you know what’s going on….all of this….all of this is-”
“Roza!”
Clapping her hands over her ears, she shook her head sharply, panic gripping her voice. “Don’t you dare yell at me!” she snapped. “This isn’t normal, Hue! This can’t be! Because if it is-!”
Agh, this is what he was trying to avoid!
Gritting his teeth, Huxian’s mind raced, trying to find something, anything short of transforming there and then that might convince her. Hell, he wasn’t sure transforming would convince her either, other than to make her accuse him of being in cahoots with Violet to make some stupid film or illusionary smoke-and-mirror magic trick to play a cruel prank on her. If she believed that, then he’d never convince her. Worse, she would run off on her own and definitely end up getting killed by something - he’d heard rumours of some of the mystic types in that area. Not to mention things he learned during his time with Engetsu.
Dammit all, this was a mess!
Why is it that I have to be stuck here dealing with these damned Jiangshi. He thought wildly, Every minute I’m stuck here, duty or not, it another that Rodessa is in danger from things she denies even exists.
“You don’t get this world, little girl, you don’t. The mystic world is ruthless, relentless! Don’t you think that doesn’t make me panic every time I realise what you could encounter without my presence warding them off!” He clenched his fists, feeling his claw-like nails biting into skin enough to draw blood. “And now? Now you’ve seen them. You remember you’ve seen them. And now you have, you’re marked. You’ll see more. You’ll see more than you ever want. You won’t be the Rodessa Hunter you think you are any longer…You’ll reawaken and-”
Gods, please…please...let me be there when it happens!
“Reawaken…?” Rodessa blinked, as if that word alone had cut through her rising panic. “Wait, you...you’ve said that before. What are-”
Crap.
“I…” Huxian started, before stamping on the urge to blurt out everything. He couldn't. It….he couldn’t. Not now. He’d already said far too much. But if he said nothing, it would only serve to make things worse.
He compromised.
“I…” he licked his lips, before pressing on. “Not yet. I can’t say yet but...just...this isn’t the first time. You’ll...you’ll know soon enough.” Straightening, he locked eyes with her. “You said that if you can’t see, hear and touch it, you wont believe its true, right? What would you do if there was something I could show you, right now, to prove to you what you saw, what I’m saying, is all true?”
Not even waiting for her answer, he pulled himself to the bedside table and grabbed the Pandora issue devices that all agents were required to wear, if only so that, should the worst happened, there would be records of the agent’s fate. Quickly, he connected it to the communicator and began to type rapidly, searching through the file to find something that would guarantee she would know to be true - ah, engagements with the Jiangshi before he exhausted himself tossing foxfire and putting up barriers - finding out he was capable of using magic, never mind being a mythical fox might be too much right then. That done, he raised his gaze back to her, expression determined.
“They say seeing is believing,” he told her. “Prepare to believe.”
With that, he hit send.
[END]
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