Chapter Text
Julia tol Evander, who had served Emet-Selch with distinction since before mortals rediscovered how pleasant civilization could be, watches as the who's who of the New Garlean government file into the meeting room. The crowd was an eclectic mixture of surviving senior military and exhausted functionaries of the reformed republic. The former, in her opinion, were barely worth the boots they wore. Gone were the steel-eyed generals who had once held so much of the Star in their grip, other than a few worthwhile outliers, all that was left was the surviving dregs who had managed to hide during first rebellions and then later cowered while the capital was mutilated by the mad prince. The latter were at least spirited, though idealistically foolish in her opinion. Mostly made up of surviving Populares who had crawled from the woodwork and younger members of the military who were sick of the old ways. They'd dusted off the old laws of the long dead republic, and tried to cobble together something of a nation, trying to keep civilians warm and fed... noble goals she supposed, but it didn't stop the hemorrhage of people fleeing the carcass of Garlemald. They compromised too much in her mind, slowing down every effort to actually get things done.
Dregs and idealists, she'd worked with worse before. And over the past five years since the fall of the Empire she had worked to try and hold the fools together. Discrediting one Legatus who had wanted to uproot all, civilian and military alike, and make an ill-fated attempt to reconquer a warmer land. Giving a 'strong motivation' to retire to a former Popularis who wanted to start paying reparations to formerly conquered nations right away when the surviving Garleans could barely feed themselves. Encouraging and supporting those who had any talent, and stone-walling idiots. Mostly these days she found herself having to babysit the surviving old guard to keep them from self-destructing.
It had all started when, barring any new orders from some jumped up whipper-snapper-Convocation-seat-holder and in lack of anything better to do, she had decided to do her damndest to keep the Garleans, well what was left of them, alive. The impact of two disasters on the proud Imperial's homeland had left them a ruin. Sure the Alliance was, surprisingly, sending aid instead of rolling in to crush what was left. That was still a mildly pleasant surprise.
When Julia stopped to rest, and didn't have work to distract her, sometimes she'd wonder why she bothered. What is the point of this? The point of anything?
She'd remind herself that, while Emet-Selch never would have admitted it, he'd loved these fools. He'd raised them up from being the lowest of the low, pushed into the very edge of habitable territory by the other races, to be a power whose presence was felt throughout the world. Certainly he'd see them inflicted with the disasters from the coming Rejoining like everyone else, his 'duty' called for nothing else. But that wouldn't stop him seeing to it that whatever survived the calamity wouldn't die out in the aftermath. And for that, as for other societies over the years, he'd turned to her services. Julia liked putting things back together... and he had known that tasks that involved tearing things down had... not been good for her. And so Julia, as she was currently calling herself, had set herself up quite nicely a couple decades ago with this identity per his orders. Enough time to have served under Solus with distinction and have respect of the old guard, but not rising so high in rank as to be a threat.
The rebelling Legatus Maximus had been a very useful tool for dealing with the said old guard. The man was a rabid zealot, convinced that he, and he alone, upheld the ideals of 'true Garlean virtue.' Which, to him, involved attacking Alliance aid convoys and even some of his own people if the moron decided they were collaborators. Everyone hated him! It was fantastic. Every time one of the old fools she had to wrangle had kicked up a fuss against a rebuilding effort she approved of, she had just had to kick up rumors that they were a sympathizer to the Mad Legatus and they settled right back down. Often they even actively helped out for a while to prove their innocence. They'd actually managed to get something city-esk enough to be called New Garlemald built with a minimum of grift or interference thanks to the distraction Maximus offered. She rather wishes she could see the man one last time to tell him that to his face, before shooting him herself.
The whole issue had been that ol' Maximus started being more of a problem than he was worth. It was one thing when he was occasionally attacking convoys, at least those were armed. But then she'd gotten word of more... subtle... things. Not directly traceable to him, but she'd seen enough of a pattern to theorize that the fool was going to try something a bit more ambitious. Parts for one of the old heavy-duty artillery cannons, the type that could take out chunks of the new capital, were going missing. As were a suspicious amount of supplies of the sort to support biological research. Fearing that Maximus was going to, say, attempt to recreate that ghastly Black Rose, it seemed prudent to finally snuff him out.
And that was why she was stuck in a meeting before the sun had properly risen on the shambling husk of what had been the Garlean Empire. The final touches were being put together on a joint operation between the... sigh... Republic of New Garlemald and the Eorzean Alliance to work together and take he and his men out. She'd leaked the location of the madman's bunker to the right people and now she simply had to sit back and watch the fruits of her labor unfold.
A part of her feels like it is set ablaze when she watches the last of the Eorzean contingent walk in. Oh of course they had brought their pet hero. The Warrior of Light, savior of the world... murderer of Emet-Selch. Damn him for killing her Hades, damn him for surviving the act. Damn him for being someone who mattered to her friend, her family, her Emperor so she couldn't even make his life miserable in revenge. Damn him for everything.
Damn Hades for never telling her he was Tempered. Maybe... maybe she could have helped him... saved him.
Damn her for never asking him that question herself. Damn her for failing him...
She grimaced to herself. Thoughts like that were pointless these days. As always, there was work to be done. It was better than doing nothing at all.
*****
Far below the smoldering ruins of Maximus's bunker Julia kicked an offending piece of rubble in mild frustration. What a thrice-damned clusterfuck this had turned out to be. She'd let that bloody Legatus Maximus run rampant far too damn long and now she had to clean up the mess the bastard had left behind.
The joint Alliance and New Garlemald forces had made a right wreck of Maximus's bunker. Well, she supposes that isn't quite fair to say, the holdouts had detonated explosives hoping to take out allied forces once their leader's head had been taken. Damn zealots, they were only useful when they were on your side... and even then, only to a point.
She chuckled to herself a bit at the last thought; you know if an Ascian is calling you a zealot, you are kind of going a bit overboard.
But still, the explosions had buried the deepest part of the underground complex, including their research and development level. If there was Black Rose being developed she needed to handle it, even if it was buried down here, some idiot could come and dig it up again. Just because the damned stuff was once a key part in one plan for the failed plan at an eighth rejoining didn't mean she wanted it popping up again and causing a ruckus.
Okay, fine, she just hated the stuff and is glad it wasn't used. Not that she plans on admitting that any time soon. She'd been loyal, damn it. If perhaps a bit more loyal to her Uncle Ha... to Emet-Selch than the Ardor... well, she isn't going to admit that.
So here she was, teleporting into the creaking ruins of a research level, hoping the ceiling doesn't give out and crush her to a pulp since, well... she has been there, done that and it hurts. At last she finds something useful down here. While some of the data terminals have been smashed, those that are in one piece should still be functional now she has the backup power for this level going so she can at least figure out how far they got...
Hmm...
Hmm?
...
What in the seven hells?
Well... at least it looks like they weren't researching Black Rose here. That is... something. Instead the merry butchers were apparently attempting to create for themselves a super soldier program. Using the experiments used on that rabid dog Zenos as a blueprint. Apparently the procedures didn't take in adults, with messy results. Very messy. So instead the next round used children, just like what was done to ol' Zenos. That apparently took quite a bit better, but then someone had the bright idea to attempt to introduce the Resonant into that batch. Where had they even gotten the research on that? Just one survivor by the end. Shit. Shit. Shit.
As she reads through the descriptions of tests and procedures, well... there are days when she understands Emet-Selch's disgust at the Sundered.
She tabs through the reports, which lead up to the day of the allied attack. Subject number O-fifty-four, age five, still alive.
Another reason to be glad the crazy Legatus was dead. Didn't the man have a child of his own the same age? She remembers hearing someone fished some brat called Claudius out of the wreckage above...
Julia scowls into the darkness of the half collapsed research level. She hadn't planned on looking for surviving researchers. If she'd found Black Rose research she'd planned on ensuring there were none by completing the collapse of this floor herself. What they had been doing here was almost worse and letting any evidence of research like this exist to potentially see the light of day is a bloody bad idea. But... damn it.
She'd always been just a tiny bit too soft. Hades had pulled her out of work leading up to Rejoinings after she'd reacted... badly... to the fall of Allag. Sure the Allagan Empire had turned into a cesspit by the end, but for centuries before that it had been glorious. He'd been kind about it. He'd always been kind to her when he could afford it. He'd always been just a little sentimental, just like her. And she was damn good at the rebuilding work, but she'd always been bitter about failing him there.
She creeps through the ruined labs like a shadow despite her Garlean armor. She'd been at this a long, long time after all. It doesn't take her much time before she finds what she is looking for. A surviving researcher, bathed in the flickering light of an emergency ceruleum torch, is desperately trying to hail anyone on the radio. Julia watches for a while. Eventually he stops, instead tinkering with the device to try and boost the signal. No one will be coming of course; all of those who'd be listening for him are either dead or prisoners. The room is filled with small containment bays, most are empty but one holds a small blonde girl. The child is silent. Just watching the man work with an oddly blank expression.
Eventually, she makes her move. "Hail and well met, good to see a loyalist survived this catastrophe."
The main jerks back, dropping the radio on the ground. "Who, what? Oh, glory to the Empire, how did you get down here?"
If he could see her face under her helm, he'd see a toothy grin. "State secrets my good fellow. Secrets of one loyal to the principles of the founder of the Empire."
The best part about things like this was doing it without technically lying. A nice little professional touch in her opinion. "Now the question you need to ask yourself is, what can you offer me to expose those secrets and get you out of here, hmm?"
"Oh, oh yes of course. You represent an ally of Lord Maximus then?"
"You could say that. His work has certainly been instrumental in the success of many of my own endeavors. I do have bad news for you, your master has perished in the fight above."
"Oh no!" Honestly in her opinion the man doesn't actually look that distraught. "Whoever will continue our great work here?"
"Why don't you tell me all about this work of yours, perhaps some friends of mine would be interested? I know of many people looking for good, clever allies."
"Yes, yes. May I present specimen number fifty-four of the O-series of experiments, designation O-LIV. She has taken to all the enhancements like a champ! Why with what we learned from her, and her compatriots that didn't make it, I think we are looking at a far greater success rate going forward."
"Does O-LIV have a name?"
"Oh goodness no. She was born to one of the earlier specimens that was brought in gravid by our collection teams. And really, I've found it counterproductive to name specimens that just will end up on the vivisection table. The goal you see is to find a way to apply these enhancements to fine, experienced soldiers of Garlean stock, who will..."
Enough of this.
Julia's gunblade glints in the ceruleum torchlight as it sweeps through the air with unnatural speed. The researcher makes a faint gurgling sound as his hands reach up to his throat where his lifesblood is beginning to flow. She cleans her blade as the man falls to his knees, a confused expression still on his face.
She looks down at him as he claws at her boots, lying in a pool of blood in his final moments. "It was a boring conversation. Anyway..."
Julia starts to clean her blade and looks up. The child is looking at her. Still uncannily calm for a kid who just watched a man die... but... she has probably already seen plenty of death in this place. There is emotion there, just well hidden. A hint of fear in those eyes.
She knows in her borrowed bones that the kid will be trouble... a dangerous little thing with what has been done to her. And there is no way to get her out of here without tipping her own hand. At the same time... who the fuck cares? It isn't like she is working for a great cause anymore. It is just her. Her and her own decisions. Her own sentiment.
And, well, if she'd not let this mess with Maximus last for so long... if she hadn't let the man be 'useful', maybe there would be more than one victim left.
She carefully sheathes her gunblade. Takes off her helmet. Smooths back her short lavender hair and does her best to smile with her old, worn Garlean face. Sits on the floor in front of the kid's enclosure.
A quiet part of her whispers that she is a coward and that she should call it what it is... the kid's cage.
"Hey kiddo, sorry about that nasty business. You want to get out of here?"
*****
The kid didn't even flinch when Julia didn't bother to unlock the cage door, just teleporting in, and then both of them out of that entire place. She'd go back later and see the place destroyed. She'll probably even enjoy the act.
For now, she takes the kid to one of her older safe houses, a quiet little place in the middle of bumfuck nowhere that she keeps stocked with food, medical supplies, and enough ceruleum to run a generator. A little hidey-hole that she has used over the centuries to heal up a battered body she wasn't ready to let go of yet. Or when she just needed to not see people for a while.
The latter has been a necessity more and more of late.
The food available isn't even all that good. She has no idea of what they've been feeding little O-LIV here, so she sticks with something simple. A lukewarm cup of a mint tea Julia favors and bowl of oatmeal, with an offering of various dried fruits or honey if the kid wants to sweeten it. After tentatively trying both, it's a bit of a relief to see that the kid is still enough of a child to crave sweet things. She watches her dump as much as she can into the oats with a very slight and indulgent smile.
Now for the real question, what in the seven hells to do with the kid? Julia would do her no favors at all in raising her. She doesn't have a parental bone in her body. Oh she enjoys teaching bright kids, typically as part of her work building civilizations back up after the last Rejoining knocked them down. But there is a fair difference in being a teacher, a mentor... and being an actual parent. Especially when you are ancient body-hopping-soul playing at being mortal.
Perseus, once one of Elidibus's favored servants and possibly one of the few of her peers she might consider a friend is one option. He apparently likes kids enough to have a few of his own these days, and a bloody wife too to boot, now that the Ardor is no longer an option. She'd be bitter about his lack of dedication, and his new little alliance, but... she has enough of an idea of what happened after Zodiark's fall to know it's a lucky thing that he is alive at all. Even if that involves playing at revering a dead primal with that weird little shrine of his and acting like the damn Warrior of Light is a fucking Paragon. He is still a friend, and by the Star she knows that all the surviving Ascians are a little crazy.
She watches the kid, who is currently attempting to inhale her food and sighs. And apparently she, the ten millennia old monstrosity that she is, is no exception to the madness of Ascians either.
Julia gently pokes the kid on the shoulder, which causes the damn girl to freeze and stare at her. Well, fuck. Julia tries to smile, "Eat slower, or you'll be sick."
The girl is deathly still for a while, and, just when Julia is about to say something more, finally starts eating again almost excruciatingly slowly.
Yeah, she has no idea of how to deal with this tyke.
Ugh, first she should figure out a better name. "Hey, kid. Do you have a name you want to call yourself? Something other than O-LIV?"
The kid just stares at her again, though at least she keeps eating this time.
"Luca? Marie? Siobhan? Used all of those myself, not bad picks any of them."
Silence.
"Okay, let's go with the easy one for now, not like you can't change it later. Olivia work for ya kid?"
That at least gets a different reaction. A tilt of the head. A tiny shrug. Good enough for now then.
Right then, well, before she potentially dumps the kid on Perseus she should at least see how much damage those researchers did to her. She never got a good look at others with the Resonant, like Zenos or that Fordola kid. But she does know it involves somehow imprinting some version of the Echo on a person. At the cost of the lives of many others.
What she was about to do had been a little dirty secret between her and Hades. A little something that couldn't be taught. Not to say she hadn't picked up a good number of tricks her so-called peers amongst the other black masks didn't have thanks to Hades's tutelage. Far too many thought some of the ascended convocation's tricks were tied to their seat. Some were, but, a lot was just that the ascendance gave them power and memories of how to use it. She might not have as much power, but ten thousand years of life was enough time for her to pick up the knowledge the hard way.
The tiny Ancient child that had been sister to Hythlodaeus may have perished in an age long since past, but Hades had enough sentiment in him to see that the fraction of her soul that he'd found so, so long ago at least had a reasonable education after all. And that child had shared in her brother's gift. And so the Ascian who currently called herself Julia had a tiny little touch of it.
Oh at first, before the Rejoinings really got started, there hadn't been enough to work with. Even now, seven times Rejoined, her gift, the talent tied to her very soul, was a tattered mess of what it should have been. She remembers Hades would look at her with such pity sometimes, lay a hand on her face and tell her that her legacy had been stolen from her. But each calamity, each bit of soul returned, healed that wound. And she had hoped, oh how she had hoped, that one day she'd be strong enough to take more of the man's burdens.
But now he was dead. And she'd not even been able to say goodbye.
Of course, it was pointless to dwell on that. There wasn't even a grave for her to grieve at. And if she let her eat away at her she'd be looking for her death just like Perseus had for a time.
Using the sight would cause her pain of course, a headache that would linger for a day or more. And what she could do with it was limited, even with more than half of her soul. But it would be enough to get a good look.
The sight inflicted upon her is horror, but for none of the reasons she expected.
Certainly, the Resonant curls upon the child's spirit in an unsightly and unnatural way. But, given time, even that will smooth out and integrate. No, it is the far, far older scars that raises the bile in the back of her throat. She knows those scars. She knew the one who had borne this soul last.
She'd taught many leaders of men during the great work of the Ardor. Given them the knowledge to lead their people well, but with the faint poison that would ultimately bring their civilization to ruin once it was needed to bring about the next calamity.
Julia had had her favorite students over the years of course. And the soul before her had had so much potential before she'd made a tyrant of him. He'd brought forth the glory of Allag that had lasted a thousand years. Who knows what would have happened without Ascian influence? Would it still have fallen, would it still have indulged in conquest? Would it still have rotted from the inside out at the end?
And then of course, that wretch Amon has dragged him back to life, unknowingly bringing forth the herald of Allag's fall. She'd looked upon the scars on this soul when they were freshly wrought from the so-called resurrection and felt horror back then. She hadn't been able to bear the ruined sight of him leading up to the Fourth Calamity. Hadn't even known he'd survived, buried in his own throne room, until the Crystal Tower had risen again in this age. And then of course, once again, the Warrior of Light had cut down another threat to the world.
The five year old reincarnation of Xande, the First and Last Emperor of Allag empties her cup of tea, and Julia, slowly so as to not startle her again, refills it.
She pushes back the white hot rage. Hypocrite that she is, she'd have still sought vengeance against those who'd tormented the child. They should be grateful that their deaths had been so clean.
Julia had promised herself that she would care for the Garlean people in the name of Emet-Selch. A tribute to his last great work. But this... this would be for herself. This time, she would teach this little soul properly.
Perseus wouldn't do anymore, alas. Too many complications. But she had an idea of someone who would do. Someone who knew of rulership, had made mistakes and learned from them. Who could provide their own lessons. Someone who even was known for taking in children and was situated in a place rife with possibility, and a lack of ruling class, should the child seek a role of leadership again. It would be a little personally dangerous, but what was life without a little challenge?
It was time to pay Gaius Baelsar a visit.