Chapter Text
Which road was this? Did it matter? Definitely not to the driver of the dark blue muscle car that was tearing down the dark road on this stormy night. Its driver is one Maria Calavera. One especially angry Maria Calavera, hence the twenty-mile increase over this back road’s speed limit. The mad Maria kept her lead foot down while grumbling angrily as she nursed the black and blue mark surrounding her left eye.
“Stupid, Dumbass, Idiotic… Uh… Idiota!”
She complemented each word with a hearty smack to the steering wheel. She was a little upset. But hey, you would be too if you had the month Maria had. Starting with the lowest of blows with her father. He was an older man for sure, Maria knew her time with him was always going to be short. Still, he put up one heck of a fight in his old age and accomplished a lot, including spending what time he had with Maria growing up.
He was a decent father even if he and Maria did grow a bit distant later in life. Still, he did a good job, especially when you consider the fact he only ended up a father after a rowdy night with a very reputable lady of the night in Mistral. Said reputable lady then ended up playing a round of ‘ding dong ditch’ with Maria’s cradle at the doormat for her father’s apartment a few months later.
A part of Maria was always curious about her mother. Not with any malicious thought or anything, just legitimate curiosity. After all, it takes a special kind of person to willingly leave a baby basket on a doorstep in south Mistral with the assumption it’ll be fine.
But thoughts of finding her mother soon faded after a certain phone call at the beginning of this month. For a man who founded a company based on war and violence, he had a surprisingly peaceful exit from this world. At home in his bed. Turned the lights out and they never came back on.
He lived alone in the big fancy apartment he had in Vale. Only reason he was found so soon was thanks to his neighbor, they played cards together almost every night. Maria was hesitant, leaving him alone in that place. But he was in stellar shape for someone in his early eighties and he insisted Maria move out with her then-girlfriend.
And whooo boy was that then-girlfriend, (Maria refused to utter the woman’s name even in her head,) a real piece of work. A crocodile Faunus she met during her and her father’s move to Vale. Or was she an alligator Faunus? Oh who cares!? The point is she was her girlfriend. Her first real relationship and it ended about as poorly as a relationship could end. But Maria refused to take the blame for how they split.
There wasn’t much of a funeral for her father, he didn’t want one and there weren’t that many people he was close with to justify a big fancy send-off. So, a rather emotional hour of cremation at the Vale County morgue later, and Maria, alongside her girlfriend, returned home empty-handed. He didn’t even want to be put in an urn or anything. It didn’t make much of a difference to Maria. She already had everything she needed to remember him.
It wasn’t going to be easy or anything; her father was about the only actual family she had. And now she was expected to deal with that loss while also picking up and helming her father’s defense company on such short notice? Sure, she was an employee at her dad’s company but that didn’t mean she knew anything about how to run it. Heck, she didn’t even want to work there in the first place! She only did it because she knew it was one of the few reliable ways to spend time with the rapidly aging man.
Maria prided herself on being an emotional rock in most situations. Unshakeable and usually level-headed. But an event as big as this would shake anyone’s core. Surely she’d be forgiven for wanting to take as much time as she could get to herself. Which is why when her ‘absolute angel’ of a girlfriend offered to use her business degree to take over the company while Maria grieved, she agreed.
That was her second big mistake. Her first was succumbing to that sociopathic, semiaquatic seductress’s advances last year! Suddenly, in about two weeks’ time, Maria stopped getting the automatic alerts on her scroll informing her of the status of the projects she worked on in the company. She did, however, get an email informing her about being laid off.
Laid off? From the company her dad built? A company that, despite her hesitancy to work there, she still excelled at!? That following night when her girlfriend came home, Maria had some… Choice words for her partner. The ensuing verbal battle went back and forth between the ex-lovers like a vitriolic game of tennis. Maria wasn’t too proud to admit that she threw the first punch. Normally, Maria believed herself above starting physical confrontations over just a bunch of words. But at that point, Maria was little more than an emotional time bomb. She still felt like she was.
Not that her swinging amounted to anything. Her vision was blurred by the tears, rendering all her time spent kickboxing useless. Besides, her girlfriend was her main sparring partner anyway. So, Maria ended up with a black eye, probably a fractured rib, a bruised ego, and as cliché and sappy as it sounded, a broken heart.
Her ex-girlfriend was clever in all the worst ways. The apartment was in her name, she now had near total control of the company, even the savings account they ‘shared’ actually belonged to the Faunus. The only thing Maria was able to walk out of the relationship with was her scroll, the clothes on her back, and her car, which she promptly hopped into and took off down the road in no particular direction.
At least that car meant a lot to Maria. Without any of the physical photos she had with her dad, (they were all in the apartment,) this car was now the only thing she had to really remember him by. She and her dad restored this old two-door muscle car when she was just out of high school. Her dad’s enjoyment was limited to a handful of activities, such as training or running his company. That’s what made this project so special to Maria. This car and the time they spent together restoring it were some of the fondest memories she had with the old man. The only time they worked together on a shared goal they both were passionate about.
But that was the end of their lovely little bonding time. After the car was done, Maria took it to college and didn’t come back until she graduated. At that point, her dad was already up there in age and he had almost totally thrown himself into working on the company. They never bonded the same way again, no matter what Maria tried. She didn’t know if she wanted to be mad at him or frustrated with herself for how detached they became. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.
Either way, this car remained important to Maria. And she would do everything in her power to keep and maintain it. She planned to start the process of maintaining it after she got far enough away from her ex. How far was far enough? Well, the urban sprawl of downtown Vale at some point turned into an endless sea of trees and bushes, so she must have made some decent progress.
Maria’s left eye started to ache again. She rubbed the sleeve of her hooded black windbreaker over her eye, attempting to relieve the dull pain from the bruising. Between her black eye, the rain, and the hidden moonlight of this dark night, Maria could barely see where she was going. Most normal people would take this poor visibility as a sign to slow down. Maria wasn’t exactly in the headspace of a ‘normal’ person right now, so she kept her foot down even if she knew she shouldn’t have. That choice was about to bite her rather abruptly.
“BOOM!”
A flash of blinding light and the rumbling of thunder echoed throughout the entirety of the surrounding woods. Maria slammed on her brakes as a lightning bolt struck a tree ahead of her and toppled it into the road. Her tires squealed violently against the wet pavement. All of her car’s traction vanished as she careened off the road and into the grass on her right, straight into another tree as she blacked out from the impact.
Maria stirred back into consciousness slowly, painfully. The beeping of her car’s hazard lights and other dashboard warnings grated on her already fragile mental state. She pushed the pale airbag off of her and leaned back to assess her physical damage. She looked down at herself and was surprised to see… Not much damage. Other than a small drop of blood from her nose and a soreness all over her body, she was otherwise okay from the crash.
Her car did not fare the same way. She didn’t need to get out to know the front end was crushed, the check engine light was kind enough to inform her that it might need a little TLC in the future. A fresh problem for the future. First thing she had to do was get out of this rain. Every window in her car shattered from the impact, so she couldn’t stay here without getting hypothermia. With a few pained groans and grunts, Maria undid her seatbelt and forced her driver side door open.
She stumbled out the car and had to stabilize her dizzy head by putting her hand on the roof of the car. As much as she wanted to assess the damage to her beloved car, the darkness and the rain would make that pretty difficult. With a hesitant sigh, Maria limped her way over to the road. Either some god was messing with her emotions or she was having a pain-induced hallucination, but she saw something down the dark road. A small flicker of a yellowish light on the left side of the road. The light was unmoving, which ruled out the possibility of it being a car. Maybe a gas station? Whatever it was, Maria started down the road toward it while pulling the hood of her windbreaker on over her head.
The rain decided to pick up as she walked. The speed of the droplets kept agitating the soreness she felt all over. The windbreaker with her dad’s company logo on it was about the only thing she had on to combat the rain. Her jeans and dark blue sneakers weren’t exactly doing their part to keep her warm and dry.
Whether the rain inspired her to pick up the pace or if it was her internal grumbling that made the time go by quicker, Maria soon found herself at her destination. Her destination was no gas station. No, Maria stood dumbfounded in front of what looked like a massive old mansion, straight out of a horror movie. The lights she saw were two very rustic light fixtures hanging on either side of the large double doors that made up the entrance of the building. Tall stained glass windows went around the first floor of the building with metal bars securing all the windows, adding to the creepy factor of the place.
Another lightning strike made Maria jump. Spooky mansion or not, Maria wanted out of this rain. She climbed the few steps that led up to the doors and looked for a doorbell. Not finding it, she opted for the less elegant method of frantically pounding on the door with her fists. After five minutes of getting no reply, she accepted that the place might be empty. Stepping back from the door and looking around, Maria found another option.
A great big garage sat connected to the mansion and Maria could see a row of small, rectangular windows that went around the side of the garage. Those didn’t have the jail-style bars securing them. Hopping down the steps and jogging over to the garage, Maria looked up and figured she’d be able to climb through the thin garage windows if she broke them. Wouldn’t be the first time Maria committed a B and E, and certainly won’t be her last. Right now, though? Breaking something might ease some of her frustrations and provide some relief.
Snatching up a nearby rock, Maria stepped back and pitched the stone straight through the window shattering it instantly. Maria couldn’t help the satisfied smile and little celebratory hop she did. Breaking stuff was just so much fun. Another boom of thunder reminded her why she broke the window. Not wasting anymore time, Maria reached up for the thin window and pulled herself through.
She wiggled her shoulders into the opening and dragged herself across the opening and into the garage. Sadly, she didn’t account for how she’d get down to the floor of the garage safely. So she did not get down safely. After getting most of her torso through, she fell into the garage and bounced off a sturdy wood workbench; she flopped down to the concrete floor below. Now Maria knew she was having a painful hallucination. The concrete actually felt soft and comfortable, as if she could drift off into the land of dreams, and so she did.
When in reality she simply blacked out from the pain… Again. Well, at least things can’t get worse for her. Physically anyways.