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Twenty one years old and Ezekiel Belgrass is about ready to give up on ever joining Hydra. [break][break]

It's a fantasy, he knows. There is no cure for whatever cursed cards he has been dealt—this is life, as his mother would say. Only she's not there to say it, and he's given up hope on things other than her ghost, and he rounds the corner to his home, dead eyes and anxious heart.[break][break]

(There is a version of this story where nothing happens. A version of this story where Ezekiel Belgrass returns to the same home, same smell of whisky, same dead end life.)
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Except, the door opens and nothing is as it was.
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The house has been turned upside down—the sofas kicked aside to make room for a cirlce drawn in blood, some man tied to a chair, half his guts on the ground.
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And a woman—she spins her head around, a flurry of white and black hair, red with blood, the same on her face, none of it hers.
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God is real. That's what you're thinking, isn't it? Ajax asks. [break][break]

"Name's Ada, but they call me Electra . You must be—"[break][break]

In her hand is a kitchen knife, impromptu, and all around her are various assets he vaguely recognizes as coming from this house: a hammer, a wrench, something that looks like a baseball bat.[break][break]

"Ezekiel Belgrass?"
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The chameleon within is smiling, Zeke can tell. He thinks he's smiling, too. The woman certainly is—her grin is a shining streak of white, like the highlights in her hair. He smiles instead of saying anything.
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"Nice to meet you, love." She gets up, spinning around to fully face him. He has never seen anyone more beautitful. "I'm your handler."
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And so she was.
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He blinks. The scene renders again in his mind—the man's shallow breathing, the hermetic symbols on the ground. The man is his father. He knows this, it's a thought in the back of his mind. It doesn't seem to be important. [break][break]

"Know that the first principle of alchemy is?"[break][break]

"I—" he begins, but the woman waves a hand at his hastiness.[break][break]

"Equivalent exchange."[break][break]

He takes his time them, taking it in. He knows enough about his myths to know what a handler of Hydra does—he knows the principle at play, at least in theory.
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"A life for a life?" Ezekiel summarizes. [break][break]
She laughs. "No. A wish for a wish."[break][break]

He considers it, for a moment. His weight shifts onto the other leg. So no, there is no God. But Hydra answers his prayers anyway.
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After all, his wish is clear: end this life—Ezekiel Belgrass from Delphi's alleys, son of a nobody, son of man with too much easy blood on his hands. A life lived in horror, a life lived in fear. He understands his wish clearly; he's worshipped it too close.[break][break]

"What's yours?" he asks.
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The boldness doesn't seem to phase Electra, though she watches him carefully, as though for a reaction. Their eyes meet, silver and gold, a pirate's tale for the ages.
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"I'm going to bring back the Leviathan," she says, and that's when he sees it— a mania in her eyes he'll grow to be familiar with, wary of, and share in himself. Hydra are fanatics, he remembers his father say.
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Unconsciously, his voice sounds a little similar when he says, hesitant: "The Leviathan is—"
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"Dead, yeah, heard that one before," she says. She doesn't say anything else, just grins at him until he's laughing, awkwardly at first, not sure what else to do...
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...Oh, right. His father. That all feels so far away now.
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The man is mumbling something—he has been, this whole time. Neither Zeke nor Electra have paid him much heed, his words turned to gibberish through the cloth tied to his mouth.
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He doesn't know what to think of his father. He grabs his hair and pulls back, his father's neck limply follows. He stares, puzzled to be met with so little resistance.
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The truth is, he simply yanks that hard without realizing it. The truth is, he has thought about this too often to be surprised by it. But his yellow eyes flicker to the side, at the assortment of tools Electra has left him with. She's been through the rooms of this house, he realizes. Some of the weapons he even remembers.
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He doesn't remember what he uses, or which he spares—only the look of the light vanishing in the eyes, the sputtering, the spit, the begging, the whining.
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And then it's over.
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Or rather, it begins.
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Electra's voice has slid behind him now:

"Fun, isn't it? Bodies are fragile little things."
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That's true. He's never killed a man before, though his dreams and wishes have been plauged with death for far too long for him to consider himself a stranger to it. There is a strange emptiness where he had imagined nausea (and, on better days, imagined regret).
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He feels next to nothing, only strangely lightheaded, as though in that moment he could do anything. As though he were floating.
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He turns, or tries to, but she comes out of the corner of his vision, and he adjusts his body by degrees and inches to always be facing her.
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"Step inside."[break][break]

The circle, that is. It is drawn with blood and salt and materials he cannot name. He steps into it gingerly, afraid of altering its geometry, assuming its holiness even before he's inside it.[break][break]

Electra's lips quirk in amusement; he does not miss the sight of it.[break][break]

"Did you...want me to...?" He's already bending one knee, and it hits the ground soon enough—an uncertain kneeling posture forming from the body of an uncertain offering.
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He's not sure, after all, how he could ever hope to revive the Leviathan, to grant Electra's wish. But he tries nevertheless, he—
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She laughs, loudly, as though reading his thoughts and calling them ridiculous. He flushes instantly to hear it, but can't think of anything else to do, and he prevents himself from sputtering.[break][break]

"That's a good one, Ezekiel Belgrass," she says, still wheezing. "Remember it for later." [break][break]

She unsheaths a sabre from the holster at her hip. [break][break]

"Now get up. I'll let you die on your feet, like a real man."