It's Raining Cats and Dogs [Antonetta, Wolfina]

"Why?"

She muttered to herself as she fingered the collar on her neck, the knowledge that at any moment her mother could kill her, the fear of Eliane dangling the possibility of getting control of it just to kill her through taunting. How come it had to be her? How come Arlette did this? Despite the nightlife going on outside of the highrise building she didn't care that much about it. She huddled a bit closer and snuggled into the shape of her cat, hands trying to take advantage of the fact that she could have it purr reassuringly in her ear.

Antonetta loved her sisters and mother, even if she suffered for it and all she got was pain, betrayal and torment. It was all her fault that she had to wear this stupid collar, all her fault that she had to endure her older sister's torments and all her fault that she had been given the job to kill her.

"I'll kill her and then it'll be fine. She'll come back and it'll all be fine. Mum will be proud and we won't have to wear these collars anymore. It can all go back to normal."

She muttered to herself while laying on the silky bed that was larger than it needed to be for her, her thoughts squarely on the documents which lay scattered about. Every single file that her mother had profiling her sister and the guy that liased for them and the Vandenreich. It's all his fault that she had to do this, sub-human trash that was a rat and rats were just toys to be tortured and killed by cats.

"We'll get her back."

Wolfina lingered at the entrance to the room, leaning against the frame of the door as she looked down at her sister on the bed. Her gaze was distant, those purple eyes clearly lingering upon something else that was beyond the two of them. Thinking of their target. The one who had betrayed them. The one who had abandoned them.

They had been given the same assignment, all three of them, though each of them had taken it differently. By her best guess, Ellie was amused, Netta was upset, but she was angry. Arlette had been their older sister, the responsible one, the dependable one. Eliane was their elder too, of course, but she used that perceived seniority to torment them and little more. Her barbed tongue found little purchase on Wolfina, but she knew there were times when it got under Netta's skin.

"We'll track her down, we'll trap her, and then we'll put her down. But I don't think we'll ever get out of these again. That's what our dear sister did for us."

Her fingers danced upon the collar at her neck, the chain that shackled her like some common dog. They had never bitten the hand that fed them, nor would they if Wolfina had her way, but now there was always going to be the thought in the back of Claudia's head that they might.

Her cat meowed in her ear before she heard Wolfina's words, the blue eyes shifting to her twin with a deflated look while her body followed to roll over and face her. It was a sound plan but she didn't want to kill Arlette. She just had to and the knowledge that her collar wasn't going anywhere. They were her daughters, not her pets, she didn't want to be her pet.

"It's all that boy's fault."

She muttered it audibly enough for it to carry in the dark room. Her eyes were hateful at the source which had become the outlet of blame, she loved Arlette and couldn't hold her accountable. Even if she denied it and tried to claim her actions as her own it was all that man's fault for taking their sister away from them, for putting her in this collar and ruining her family.

"I'm going to hurt him. I'm going to make him feel what he's done, Wolfy."

He would be the little mouse and suffer like a rodent in the paws of her cat and then she'd do it again, again again again. Every time he'd get close to death she'd find a way to make him reexperience it until he understood how she felt. It was a strange feeling, she'd never hated someone before. Everything was just work, a chore that her mother gave her but this man stole Arlette and for the first time she wanted to hurt someone for the sake of it.

"None of the reports indicate that he had any knowledge beyond his station, but getting to him will be a good way to draw her out."

Wolfina did not want to kill Arlette either. It would bring her no pleasure to watch her sister expire, but she would do it anyway because failing in this would only cause more pain for her and her sister. If this Alastair was a means to achieving that end then she would kill him too, though it would likely prove more useful to have him serve as bait and let Netta have her way. Most things went easier if she let Netta have her way and based her strategies upon that, she had learned as such rather quickly.

"We start with him. Then, if she does not show, we work through everyone else that turned her against us."

There were more names on those files, other people that Arlette had been interacting with recently. Though Wolfina certainly believed that her sister had done this of her own accord, it stood to reason that she would make contact with at least one of them. Arlette was too weak to stand a chance by herself, and she was smart enough to know that.

Beyond his station, who cared. He ruined everything and made them like animals! She wanted to watch him expire like the vermin he was as claws ran through his weak little skin and gouged out his stupid organs. Every weakness would be exploited and he'd long for death well before she gave it to him. That's what anyone who hurt her family would get but the idea that one of her family hurt the other? Now that was just tearing her apart.

"Wolfy... I want to do this assignment alone."

It lacked pragmatism, it was the wrong approach to anything related to this situation when she was the most emotionally volatile and influenced by her siblings. It was the kind of thing that only she was capable of thinking up because this was not the most effecient or effective approach. It was the one where she didn't want her twin to see who she'd be when she succeeded in getting there.

She hated dirty hands and yet she craved them to be bloody. She never wanted to hurt her sisters' regardless of what happened to her but she had to hurt Arlette. Everything she was going to do and wanted to do would sully her character and how she was perceived. Antonetta was the unassuming and sweet little sister, she didn't know what she'd be afterwards and that scared her as much as having to kill Arlette.

Only now did Wolfina finally approach, pushing herself off the frame of the door as she stalked over towards Antonetta. She stopped at the edge of the bed, towering over her sister as she lay atop the covers beneath her. Purple eyes narrowed into slits as they stared down at her sister with a familial intensity.

"She's not the sister we thought we knew. She's dangerous."

Everything Wolfina did was pragmatic, every decision she made was the best choice to achieve her goals, so it rubbed her the wrong way when her sister wanted to go it alone. Antonetta was perfectly capable of handling any number of situations far more dangerous than this. She had done so countless times without any particular oversight. But this was a different kind of beast. It was all too easy to see that her sister was not thinking clearly.

"We can't let her divide us anymore. You will be playing into her hands."

The silky sheets moved easy for her, offering very little resistance to Antonetta shifting in her spot to look up at her sister in the dark. Everything she said was right and yet she still was driven to the irrational choice, she wasn't calm or in the best headspace for decision making. Reckless even in her planning despite how hard she had worked to elucidate all the details.

"It doesn't matter. Even if I have to die a hundred times I'll make it work. I'll make her feel my pain, our pain, and the consequences of her actions. I make her to see us in her dreams until she can't run away anymore. I'll..."

Get the job done no matter what and in the most her way possible, by invading and ruining the sanctity of a person's mind and twisting it around her finger until they were the ones to take their own life or begged for it.

Perching herself on the end of the bed, Wolfina lowered herself down to Antonetta's eye level. It was dark in the room, but they had both been modified to the point where they could pick out even the most minuscule of details. They were just tools, after all, built for purpose and tailored to fill whatever niches Claudia wanted. They were entirely disposable if the collars around the necks were not indicative of that already. But there was still a purpose in their existence, Wolfina needed to believe that there was a purpose.

"She is not worth one of you, let alone a hundred. She... She chose to leave!"

She hissed that last sentence with particular venom. There was her rage, the rising storm within her chest that wanted to bubble over and ran contrary to her calculating nature. In her head, she could hear Tengerou-hime laughing. Driving her further down this path with a smug grin upon her wolfish features. Of all the sisters, she was the only one that carried the true personality of their maker on her hip. She was the one who knew her bottomless cruelty. Her apathy and her hatred. Or was that just the monster that Wolfina wanted her to be? At some point, it had become hard to tell.

She was upset, of course. The only one she imagined wasn't upset by this development was Eliane, even these stupid collars wouldn't bother her. Antonetta reached up and pulled Wolfina onto the bed and hugged her, she really didn't want her to go into a ferocious rage right now. She never did but not now of all times either, it was inconvenient and even the promise of coming back to life didn't change her natural instinct about fearing death.

"She... did. But it'll all be fine, I'll make it fine so don't worry, Wolfy."

It was probably all for naught, she had faith that even if she insisted on this being done alone that her twin would somehow interject her way into it. Made sense, right? She just didn't want her twin to lose control and make a big problem for herself. It'd make her really upset if her mother punished Wolfina for trying to help her.

Wolfina was not expecting Antonetta to pull her closer, but that was mostly because she was already losing herself in her thoughts. Still, there was no resistance to the move, so she tumbled into the embrace. Her hands slowly wrapped her twin, head resting on an offered shoulder, and gripped just a little too tightly. She didn't want to lose herself to the anger right now either.

"Sorry, Netta. I don't think it's all going to be fine anymore."

She didn't fear death in the same way that Netta did. It was the failure that came with it which weighed her down more. So she also didn't want her sisters to fail, especially not her twin. This was a mission suited for subtle infiltration and extraction, but it could always go sideways. If it did then she would want to be there for her sister, to protect her and to make sure that the job got done.