"You could at least give me a heads up before you... Shit, right. Sorry. I forget you two are normal sometimes." John put the gun away and helped John up. He looked him in the eyes.
"Do whatever bullshit you need to to believe me. You didn't have a choice. The Council Leader forced your hand. It was stupid of him to push you anyway. He just wanted to make sure that he couldn't be tried for his crimes. He was an evil man." He tried and tried to make John feel better and then just settled on wrapping a blanket around his and Selena's shoulders and leading them out to the car.
The world was a blur. Time didn't feel like it was flowing, and then it would lurch forward suddenly. John felt like he was floating. He had killed a man. He watched him die by John's own hands.
Time lurched forward again and they were parked at the Council building. Leon led the two of them in and then set them next to each other. Selena clung to John and he clung to her. They both cried, neither exactly sure why, but they both had enough reasons to that they just accepted it.
The Council was yelling something and Leon was shouting something back. Something about an emergency hearing. Having a blanket around his shoulders and Selena holding him, helped John to calm down. He felt safe and comfortable here and that feeling fought against the guilt and shock and horror that was pumping adrenaline through his veins.
After a while of this, a large amount of people started crowding into the building. Leon came up to the two of them. "I'm so sorry to do this to you two, but I really need at least one of you to help me. Selena, can you make him forget about what happened?"
She looked offended, but then thought about John and saw the look on his face. She looked into his eyes. He wouldn't let himself jump into those pools. Never again. No more mind control.
She spoke. "Accept that the killing wasn't your fault John."
John felt like he had just woken up. His eyes were wet and his mouth still tasted of vomit. He looked up at Leon. "What's going on?"
Leon nodded to Selena. "Good thinking. Thank you." He turned back to John. "I ordered an emergency hearing. Without their named ones, they can't stop us. They summoned everyone, but now we will have to convince everyone to trust us enough to overthrow the Council and go down to the lab to see the evidence. "
At the mention of the lab, John remembered the rage that was flowing through him about what they did to Selena down there. Now that the guilt wasn't clouding his mind, he felt like putting it to some use. "I'll handle it, just tell me when everyone is here."
Once everyone had arrived, Leon gave John the signal and he focused. Just like he had pushed the command to the named one, he pushed a memory to the entirety of the Eld. It was like trying to lift a car. He let the memory get more specific, just being about the lab, and let the adrenaline that was still coursing through him help him push harder. He couldn't quite get it, until he felt Selena wrap her hand around his. She pushed all of the memories of the lab and of the horrible things that the Council Leader had done to her out to the Eld and with both of them, they managed it. When they opened their eyes, the rest of the Eld did too. It was like they were all waking from a shared dream.
One of the immortals that were closer to the Council leapt up and tackled one of them. It was a man that Selena had a memory of visiting her in the lab and taking advantage of her. No one stopped him from beating the man until Leon stepped up to stop him from killing the man. One of the men in the back stood up with an air of authority, a group of soldiers entering from the doors behind him.
"On behalf of the Eld, I am declaring the Council guilty of crimes against humanity. They will spend the rest of their days in our prison. It still won't make up for the horrors that they have caused." A single man stood up.
"Not to defend them, as they should definitely be arrested, but how exactly is what they did a crime against humanity?" The man asked nervously, obviously not wanting to set this mob on himself.
The soldier or general who had spoken before explained. "We have been investigating the Great Purge for some time. Some of the documents that Jerry and Leon had read through and thought were unimportant were actually damning evidence that was coded with a common Council cryptogram. They were a series of memos that my team is going to find down in the lab in order to get the whole story. Please stay here while we go down, it will save us the need to call another hearing where we can try them in front of the Eld."
The soldiers flooded in, cuffing the Council. One tried to run and a soldier put a bullet through both of his kneecaps. "Corporal! Easy on the violence. I know everyone is feeling pretty strongly about the council, but don't let this get out of hand. One kneecap would have been enough." Leon said to the soldier.
About ten minutes later, the men came back carrying boxes of papers. For the next hour, they went through each one and decoded it, then reading it to the Eld.
Stevens,
We have reports that the witnesses to the preliminary stages of Project MKULTRA are residing in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We could not catch them at the airports. The Japanese government is clearly not about to hand over men to the Americans and the Eld there are not willing to hand them over. We know that they witnesses have had contact with at least one of the Eld in Hiroshima.
They read another.
Official Notice of Duty
The fruits of the Manhattan Project are to be demonstrated on the targets of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Allies will stand with us and agree to this, or they will see the same fate as the Axis powers did.
After that, the letters carried bits and pieces. The cities had been leveled. The Council was quick to push all governments involved to claim that innocents were given warning and evacuated. The Council told the Eld that they had evacuated the area and use the weapons to kill the prisoners of the Council. In reality the prisoners had already died long ago, used as test subjects in the lab. The soldiers found more and more evidence.
Finally the general that had taken charge spoke up once again. "Until a new Council can be instated, I am calling a vote to follow the guidance of Leon Wilcox, assuming the continuations of current Council regulations such as the requirement of a hearing of the Eld before major decisions."
Most of the Eld raised their hands. "Congratulations Leon." The man said, throwing an arm around Leon. "It's about time I paid you back for saving my ass."
Leon made a short speech and then allowed the Eld military, which turned out to just be members of the Eld who happened to be in the normal military, full control of the gathering of evidence against the Council and the capture and punishment of them.
He dismissed the Eld and then came up to John.
"Looks like I am going to be a very busy man. This is a hell of a mess to clean up." Leon said.
John nodded. "You can handle it." He turned to Selena and then turned back. "Thank you for helping us out Leon. We will stay in touch, but if you don't mind I want to go back to my normal life for a while and I think Selena would like the chance to try out having a normal life too." She nodded.
John smiled. "I suppose I can't blame you for that. I will see you around."
Over the next few days John went through all of the things that you go through after a day like that. Even with all of the struggle, he also tried to look after Selena. She seemed to be going through the adjustment worse, but it was also more of a positive adjustment for her.
After that John finally went back into the office. He had tried his best to keep in touch, but besides letting them know that he was still alive, he hadn't been able to do much work lately. When he got in everyone had a small celebration. "You're finally back!" Claire yelled.
"Sorry I was gone for so long. I found an amazing new hire and had to do whatever it takes in order to win her over for our firm. She doesn't have much experience but she is a very quick learner." John explained and introduced everyone to Selena.
It took a few days, but Selena did manage to fit in well at the firm. Everyone was very friendly, which helped, but she also worked as John's assistant, so when she did slip up and let out the fact that she didn't know how to use a phone, it was normally only John that heard her. After a while, John saw that she had a special gift for drawing. Apparently she had practiced drawing things from one of her lovecraftian horrors while she was in the lab. John helped her learn what she needed to to become one of the architects at the firm and not just his assistant.
On Selena's first day at her new job as a junior architect, John surprised her with a gift. Leaning up against her desk, wrapped up in a pretty little bow, was a brand new bike with a helmet and everything.
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