Your Darling Sister (Has No Lips To Tell You) [Wolfina, Eliane]

Eliane had failed to return with Netta. She had failed to return at all. What a suboptimal performance. Wolfina had known from the instant that she had reawakened that something was not right with this version of her darling sister. Maybe Claudia had too, which was why she had been sent here alone to oversee the mission with extra security precautions.

Arlette was the reason for their failure, Wolfina knew that much. That was why she had gone to ground and waited for an opportunity to strike back. Listening in on secure communication channels, and hacking into secure networks, it was all rather mundane to her and yet it still irked her having to wait whilst her true sister remained in captivity. It was a slow, methodical process and one that suited her perfectly. She was the planner, the organiser, and the strategist of the team. A team of one, now, she supposed as she reviewed her inventory one last time.

Arlette's compound was too secure for a solo infiltration, she would have to draw her out of hiding by some other means. Antonetta was being held in a holding cell buried beneath a hornet's nest of Vandenreich operatives after that botched rescue attempt. But there was chatter on the network about another Ovide sibling that appeared to suggest that Eliane too was being held captive. However, she was being treated a little differently compared to her sisters as far as Wolfina could tell. It did not sit well with her that she would have to rescue Eliane first, but together the chances of overall mission success increased drastically.

It took a while to track her down and work out where exactly she was being held, even more time to investigate the soldiers that were assigned to her guard detail. Then it was a simple matter of tracking those guards until an opportunity presented itself. It was one officer's birthday, so most of the detail was going to be out celebrating and the graveyard shift was going to be made up of a few agents running double shifts on the same day. That was all the chance that she would need.

Tengerou-hime was already sated by the time she made it to the room where Eliane was, a trail of bodies left in her wake as Wolfina carved a bloody but efficient path straight through the building. The lower half of her face was hidden behind a mask, burning purple eyes scanning the interior of the chamber for a moment before she kicked down the door with a single brutal crunch. The gears whirred as an autotuned, yet eerily motherly voice spat out her message from behind that guard.

"Are you still operational, Eliane? If not then Wolfina will terminate you to prevent further suffering."

"It should, but here I am nonetheless."

Wolfina's eyes locked upon Eliane with an intensity that was typical for her, taking in the sight of her sister in this state. It was immediately apparent that something had happened since she had last seen her, from the way that she was speaking to the way that she now carried herself. It was like she was a different person, though that could not be right as they were not truly people. That smile alone would have been enough to furrow her brow, as her grip on her weapon tightened.

"Let's relocate. This area is not secure. Then you can debrief me on what happened to Antonetta."

Eliane was certainly telling the truth about one thing, she was not in her best condition. If these cryptic responses persisted then she would have no choice but to incapacitate her and go back underground to wait for another chance to rescue her other sister. She would have preferred to have the drop on her in such a situation, but, in the absence of that, she was still confident in her other abilities to give her an edge.

They did not have the time for this, every second that was wasted increased the likelihood of a squadron of Vandenreich soldiers arriving to investigate. Wolfina had only been able to do so much to knock out communications, it would still eventually raise some alarms.

"I see. You have sided with Arlette then. How illogical."

The break-in had been far from easy, even with all the work that Wolfina had put into scouting out the guard routines and mannerisms she had still been forced to truly exert herself to deal with them in a timely manner. To say that she was tired would mean that she was truly capable of such, but enough energy had been exerted that she had no desire to mince words. Dropping into a combat stance, her grip on her dagger shifted as she prepared to engage. She would never admit it, but she envied her sisters for their schemes and plots. All she really knew was violence.

"We will always be tools. You are just defective."

Darting forwards with a sudden burst of speed, she rushed Eliane head-on and intended to simply tackle her and smash them both through the wall behind her. That would likely not be able to knock the wind out of her sails, but even despite her words Wolfina seemed to be subconsciously refraining from bringing her weapon to bear offensively and retained it only to defend herself should any strikes be thrown her way. Was it the idea that she too held no love for their progenitor, or mercy to spare her sister from the wolf's maw? Her ideals were yet to be so tested.

This was hardly the first time that the two sisters had fought. All four of them had been forced to train against each other endlessly, as they all quickly became far too dangerous for normal fighters to spar effectively with and it was much more efficient for them to simply brawl amongst themselves. That wasn't to say that Wolfina knew exactly how Eliane would fight, but they both loved to get right up close and stay there until they were the last one standing. She had initiated with the wall-smashing takedown, but there was no particular escape attempt as Eliane wrapped her legs around her and kept them intimate.

"So that is your excuse. What did you do to yourself?"

It was left unclear if that question was targeted at her altered and repaired physiology or the other Eliane that Wolfina had travelled here with and was a far cry from the one she was staring down with daggers for eyes. Her other dagger, though, was held in place as a hand grabbed ahold of the wrist. Unlike the legs, there was resistance here as Wolfina laboured to wrench her arm backwards whilst the joint was slowly being crushed by that impressive force that both of them shared. They were quite evenly matched in that regard, so the struggle continued whilst Eliane's head collided with her own. It was a savage blow, and one that she would give credit for, but her lower face was supported by the collar and muzzle so the shock was quite well dampened and the younger sister was left with her brow bloodied.

"I am a good soldier, not a deserter. My intellect is irrelevant."

She hissed that last remark through the filter, her disdain for Eliane's newfound humanity all but written across those eyes as she rolled her head back and returned the favour with a bash of her own. Her other arm pulled back before punching down to hammer into the woman's gut, prepared to deal blow after blow to this area. If nothing else, she would content herself with going through Eliane rather than around her.

“It was you that revelled in your own destruction, not mother. She could have simply stopped giving you bodies but she didn’t.”

Of course, Claudia’s motivations for keeping Eliane around were far from benevolent. Wolfina knew that just as well as the others, but it didn’t make the statement any less true. If she had wanted to no longer have Eliane around then it could have easily been done, but there was a value in such an unhinged tool that even Wolfina could not overlook. There was a reason she had come here rather than focusing her efforts on Antonetta alone.

“If you continue to resist then I will be forced to break this precious new body of yours and end this charade.”

She could imagine well the hardships that their consciousness must have endured to arrive in such a state, but that only seemed to irritate the younger sister more as the pair continued to struggle on the floor. Her grip upon her weapon was slowly being worn down, that hand crushing her wrist with impressive force, but her other arm coiled back again as she was all but ready to deliver another gut punch. Eliane’s final little comment drew a momentary pause from the raging wolf, though. It was hardly long enough for her to leave herself open to a surprise attack, but to someone as perceptive as a Ovide then there was a clear moment where the mention of Antonetta paused the rampage.

“It is all I need to be. Netta understood that far better than you or Arlette.”

Again her balled fist came crashing down onto the other woman’s stomach as the battle for dominance continued.