Chương 20: Change Brings Chaos
Janeway appointed Chakotay to the task of assigning quarters to Pedira and Syrala as well as figuring out what to assign the doctor for a duty shift. Schooling for Syrala would be mostly done by Pedira, but Janeway offered to help if she wanted it. Tuvok was asked to come up with a couple of different strategies in case we were attacked and some extra security measures to monitor transmissions from the ship.
Although she had included me in the discussion in her Ready Room, I hardly paid attention. My mind was still stuck on the warning that my other side had given me. When I had first gotten these powers, my emotions were difficult to control and getting angry would often cause flames to appear on parts of my body. When someone that I had been extremely close to was killed in front of me as he saved my life, I had a meltdown and murdered his killer with black Soul-Flames which was what had given me the Soul Burn mark above my right eye. It had been Raven who was able to brave the flames and calm me down because we already had a deep connection, so my flames did not hurt her despite my lack of control. The fact that the electricity had hurt her made me worry that I was starting to lose control yet again.
"You seem distracted, Rebecca," Janeway remarked as she climbed the two steps up to the seating area.
Hearing my name snapped me out of my daze and I realized that both Chakotay and Tuvok had left the room. "Sorry, I am."
"Yridian tea and coffee, black," Janeway ordered from the replicator.
I sighed with appreciation since it was a little surreal to be this close with Janeway. She was still fairly reserved with the crew, even her Senior Officers, so it was clear that she considered me a friend. I walked up and sat on the couch while she came over with our drinks.
"Something tells me it's not the Vidiians on your mind," she said as she handed my tea and sat down.
"No, that's a straight up problem; fight or flight," I replied with a sigh before taking a sip of my drink. "My problem is related to my returning power. When I first started learning, or I guess re-learning, my abilities, I had difficulty controlling them and would often have my shoulders and arms covered in flames when I got angry or was threatened. It's been over ten years since my emotions were enough to cause some kind of reaction, but a bad dream set me off minutes before Katye's page and I hurt Raven, not badly, but... it's not a good sign. I've lost control before, which can be very dangerous for anyone near me and why I can't keep this from you. Both times were brought on by the death of someone very close to me and both were my fault since they were only in the situation because of me. I'm not a true danger yet, but the potential is there."
"Do you need time off to focus on your training?" Janeway asked.
"I'm not sure. I haven't had the chance to talk to Katye or check our databanks for information that might explain why it happened," I replied.
"Take the time that you need, Rebecca. Things are fine for the moment, so focus on yourself."
"Thank you."
I had another sip of my tea before setting it down and excusing myself. While I probably should have gone back to the Shuttle Bay, I headed for Holodeck Two. In the show, most big, holodeck scenes took place there, so I had paid attention to the schedule of it and found that it was usually unoccupied in the mornings. Thankfully, as I had hoped, the holodeck was empty, so I selected a simple, preset program.
Walking into the holodeck, there was a beautiful black grand piano with a light above it. Everything outside of a three-foot radius was dark and undefined, but that did not bother me. I walked over and sat down on the bench, placing my fingers on the keys. Gently, I pressed the keys and got lost in the song that I had learned as a child. It was one of my favorite pieces done by Beethoven, Moonlight Sonata, and its melody was so enchanting that it was easy to be consumed by the emotions of the piece.
"Raven told me that you played piano, but I had no idea that you were so talented," Katye said from behind me.
"I guess," I sighed without looking away from the piano. "Did she tell you about earlier?"
"She did after I got back from Sick Bay. I tried paging you, but I guess you didn't hear me because of the music. Do you want to talk about it?" Katye asked, sitting down on the bench next to me.
"Not really, but that obviously won't help things," I grumbled and pushed the piano away. "I had a little chat with Dystina and she warned me that 'our Chaos' is returning. I always thought that 'Natfaya' and my 'Black Fire Demon' form was just because I could not control my emotions, but now, I think it was from my Chaos."
"That's not exactly right, but it's also not exactly wrong," another voice said that sounded like my own, but it was not me who had said it.
Katye and I both looked towards the piano where the voice had come from. Sitting on top of it, there was a copy of myself with an identical uniform to my own and even the Soul Burn over the right eye. I sensed absolutely nothing from her, not even her presence, but that just confirmed my suspicion of who she was.
"Mimic?" I asked.
"It's nice to see that your Self Image finally reflects your new appearance, both of you," Mimic chuckled.
"Mimic? As in the goddess that you said controlled our Soul Trial back in Eden?" Katye asked.
"That's right," she replied with a taunting smile.
Seeing that look on my own face made me angry, so I snapped, "Why the hell are you here?"
"Aside from the pleasure of bothering you, I'm here to do my job. You want to know why you are losing control, right?"
"Are you actually going to tell me something this time or are you just going to toy with me until you get a rise out me?" I growled.
"As tempting as it would be to do both, your Soul isn't stable enough for me to do much without getting in trouble with the big boss," she chuckled.
"Why isn't her Soul stable anymore?" Katye asked, placing a hand on my shoulder before my temper got the best of me.
"Because her Chaos is getting stronger at a faster rate than her Soul. Her Dusa form was enough to suppress it for years, but that little boost is starting to run out."
"How do we train our Souls then? I've asked Fae about it, but she says that she has no information on empowering Souls," Katye asked.
"You don't. Souls can only be tampered through trials and tribulations. I told Istar that this 'world' would be useless to you because of its central idea of 'peace'," she said with a mocking tone.
"What's wrong with peace?" I asked.
"It's nothing more than a fancy name for stagnation. Life is an endless struggle. Without challenges and obstacles, there is no way to grow. The few challenges that the Voyager did have in their path, you've circumvented with your knowledge rather than facing and overcoming them. Change is coming, and you know it, so subconsciously, you're tapping into your true power because you fear that you're not strong enough to protect the people you care about."
"So... 'I' am the cause of it," I said softly.
"Is there anything that you can do to help?" Katye asked.
"That's why I'm here. I can cast a seal over your Chaos power, but it won't be a permanent fix and the more you try to tap into that power, consciously or subconsciously, the quicker it would be undone. You also should avoid negative emotions because they are a trigger for you, as I'm sure you've noticed," Mimic warned.
"And when it finally fails?" I asked.
Mimic hopped off the piano and replied, "Hope that no one is too close to you, and that these humans can beam you off the ship before you pop. The seal will give anyone near you a one-minute warning by turning a seafoam color, but you won't be able to do anything as the secondary effect of the seal will be to put you into stasis for that minute. It's the best window I can give you under the restrictions that Istar has placed on this 'world'."
She did not wait for Katye or me to say anything before she placed a finger on the center spot between my brows. I felt a massive amount of mana invading my body, but I did not fight it. The energy sunk deep into me, but it went deeper than my body, wrapping itself around a part of my Soul and cutting me off from it. When I opened my eyes again, Mimic was gone, and Katye was looking at me with a complicated expression on her face.
"What is it?" I asked.
"I think you should see for yourself. Computer, can you create a standing mirror?" Katye asked.
The computer chimed and created a simple full-length mirror next to us. I looked into it and sighed. The left-side of my body now had a chain of tiny symbols that were arranged to look like abstract waves that all interconnected together. Each rune was a kaleidoscope of different shades of blue, further emphasizing the water feeling. It circled around my left eye, with streams disappearing past my hairline, down to a full river that led under the collar of my uniform. Even my left fingers and toes, as I would learn later, were not spared as that also had their thin streams, and thicker 'rivers' on my arms, legs, and torso.
"While I may have liked tattoos in my past life, it loses something when another person does it," I remarked, looking at the detail on my hand and forearm.
"Rebecca..."
"I know. This has to be my explanation when we get back, including that I have been hiding things from Raven and Echo; I asked you to keep it quiet, after all. I didn't want to tell them right away because I didn't want them to be scared of me, or look at me differently... Honestly, as usual, those decisions are going to bite me in the ass because I have to tell them the truth; they are already shackled to us."
"It might help if you were a bit less melancholy about it when you explained it to them. It wasn't like you were doing this out of any maliciousness," Katye replied.
"Just like leaving them out of the fight against the Disciple?"
"It's not the same with this."
"You're right; I've just been hiding the fact that I'm going to destroy everything because I'm ashamed and scared," I scoffed.
"Becca..." Katye sighed.
"It's the truth, Katye. There is no point in denying it; I can't fool myself, especially with the new constant reminder," I said, wringing my three real fingers on my left hand, then stood up. "Let's go. Putting off this conversation any longer is pointless."
Katye stood up as well and placed a hand on my shoulder. "You're not alone. You always have me, and this isn't going to scare off Raven and Echo. We've done a lot of crazy things over the years, and they've stuck with us through it all."
I smiled weakly and nodded my head. "You're right, as usual."
"And don't you forget it," she chuckled softly, linking her arm with mine.
We left the holo-deck after shutting down the program and headed for the Shuttle Bay. We passed a few people in the corridor who noticed my change in appearance, but none of them knew me well enough to ask what happened. That did not apply to Raven and Echo, of course, so I had to explain... everything.
"After I killed Cadogan during the Final Test, Tori appeared and 'unlocked' the memories of my past life, or rather, of the final battle where Alkatyenia died originally. My other self decided to commit everything that she had left to completely killing the murderer of their first child, but when she did that, she had a breakthrough with the nature of our power. She changed from being the True Dragon of the Chaos Storm into the Embodiment of Chaos itself.
"The problem is that, that power is literally Chaos. It can't be controlled, only matched. If she had continued to exist, the unchecked Chaos would have infected the Endless Firmament, where our souls originally came from, and likely destroyed it. What she did instead was... rip out her soul and seal it before entrusting it to Istar.
"They both believed that only Alkatyenia had the potential to match Dystina. Istar was able to find her True Soul and brought it here to his Inner Realm with my own. When he felt that she was as ready as she could be while still safely inside his domain, he wiped our memories and let us be born on Earth to have simple lives without any access to mana to give us the chance to develop on our own without the influence of the nature of our powers. You both know what happened after that," I explained softly as we sat on the couches in the lounge area.
"And the new markings?" Echo asked.
"Mimic, a goddess that works for my brother, appeared while we were in the holo-deck and placed this seal on my Chaos. It's not permanent and will eventually break, but it should stop any accidents like earlier and give us a warning system. Before it breaks, the seal will change color and put me into some kind of stasis for a minute which will hopefully give the Voyager the chance to beam me off the ship, so I don't hurt anyone or the ship."
"That would kill you!" Raven snapped.
"It's not the first time that I've been thrown into space and, if we don't, I have the potential to do enough damage to the Voyager that would kill all of us. What if I saw you get badly hurt in Engineering and lost control? If I damaged the warp core, there would be no chance for anyone to survive. This is Tori's universe, so even if I do die, he has already brought Katye and I back to life once before. Do you really think he can't do it again?"
"But..."
"No 'buts' Raven. I don't want to be responsible for killing you, Echo, Katye, and everyone else on the ship. I have enough blood on my hands after Lincoln and Finn. Do you really think I could live with myself after that? If I was the one that killed you by accident?"
Raven hung her head and looked down at the ground, unable to argue. Indirectly, it had been my fault that both of them had been killed and it took me years to accept that without allowing my self-hatred to get the best of me. If I truly was responsible for harming any of them, it was doubtful that I would ever be able to come out of the rage psychosis which had followed the death of Lincoln and Finn.
"I still need to tell Janeway about the changes and what to do if I start losing control," I sighed.
"Go. I need a shower and Echo and Raven are going to be late for their duty shifts if they don't get ready soon. We can talk more about it tonight," Katye said.
I nodded my head and stood up. Raven stood up as well and pulled me into a deep kiss. It was good to know that nothing had changed between us, but I was a little surprised when Echo did the same, though a little tamer. We had a unique relationship and, while I did not doubt that she loved me, displays of affection were few and far between.
"Thank you both. I know that I've kept this from you, but..." I started.
"Just shut up, fool. Your only mistake was worrying that we would fear you," Echo said.
I smirked and nodded my head. "I guess you're right. I'll see you all tonight."
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