Chapter Text
Part Four (Cont’d)
The storm was blowing all around as New Sunek stared across the wooden deck, where Old Sunek stared back at him. If either was unnerved by what was happening, they didn’t let it show.
“Talking to yourself, Sunek?” New Sunek snorted, “How many signs of madness is that now?”
“Yeah, fair enough, this is a bit weird,” Old Sunek begrudgingly agreed, “But I can take weird. I like weird. I can definitely live with weird.”
A booming thunderclap rang out above the ship. New Sunek looked around through the swirling gale and the spray from the writhing sea.
“So, what the hell is all this? You want to practise meditating in the middle of this storm again?”
“What storm?”
Old Sunek looked back at his doppelganger in confusion, seeing nothing but the peaceful tranquillity of the Voroth Sea. From the dull, boring meditation technique from his youth.
A ferocious gust of wind blew across the deck in front of New Sunek, drenching his unruly mop of hair and whipping it around in the cataclysm.
“Never mind,” New Sunek grimaced, “You’ve got my attention, now what?”
“I want my mind back. Cos, honestly, you kinda suck.”
The deck pitched up as the boat crested another wave and slammed down on the other side. Or at least, it did for one of them. For the other, it laboured in the stillness.
“Psh,” New Sunek retorted, “You’ve seen what Doctor Sevik did. Why we need revenge—”
“I’ve seen what Sokar showed you. I mean, showed me—Showed us. Whatever. But I’ve also just seen him straight up murder an unarmed woman, so I kinda think it might be a good idea to get a second opinion on some of this stuff, y’know?”
“Psh. She was a V’Shar agent! She was just trying to stop us.”
“Of course she was! And she also said Doctor Sevik is dead!”
“Lies!”
Another flash of lightning illuminated New Sunek’s fiery eyes. Old Sunek stood firm in the placid sunshine, not seeing anything of the violent storm that swirled and crashed above his counterpart’s head.
“Shouldn’t we at least check that? And besides, whether he’s alive or dead, he’s just one crazy doctor! How is razing half of our homeworld from orbit the right idea? Don’t get me wrong, I hate the place as much as the next laughing Vulcan, but this isn’t the answer. And all this definitely isn’t you. I mean, me. I mean—”
“You know,” New Sunek growled, trying to shut himself up as another burst of lightning flared in the sky, “It’s true what they say about you, Sunek. You really are tiresome.”
“See, that’s why there’s no future for you inside my head. I’d never use the word ‘tiresome’.”
“You just did.”
Satisfied he’d won their latest bout of verbal sparring, New Sunek didn’t wait for his duplicate to formulate another retort. He charged across the ship. He charged at himself. Sunek and Sunek collided, and crashed down to the wooden deck below them. They grappled together, one slipping and sliding across the rain-soaked deck, the other one basking in harsh sunlight.
As they broke apart and got to their feet, New Sunek aimed a punch at Old Sunek, who anticipated it, because that’s how he would have aimed a punch if he was in New Sunek’s position. He dodged it and fired off a punch of his own, which New Sunek evaded with equal ease.
The scuffle went on like that for some time, each version of Sunek predicting the other’s attack, and dodging or parrying it. Neither able to lay a finger on the other. A literal stalemate.
“This is ridiculous,” New Sunek shouted over the cacophony on his version of the boat, as he evaded a swing of his opponent’s left hook.
“I dunno,” Old Sunek grinned, squinting through the bright sunshine hitting his half of proceedings and spinning away from a low attempted kick from his adversary, “I’m kinda enjoying myself.”
They grappled some more, as a wave crashed onto the deck, soaking New Sunek in warm saline water. In close quarters, both aimed a flurry of punches at each other's midriffs, connecting solidly and firmly each time.
But even though they were finally landing, each punch still worked to cancel the other out in a different way. As this phase of the fight went on, they both tired at exactly the same time and were both forced to back away in order to get their respective breaths back.
New Sunek grimaced, then tried to channel more of his anger and rage into proceedings, the power that Old Sunek had no access to, to overwhelm him.
His sneer was back. Even in the storm. Or perhaps because of it. Feeding off the anarchy of the tempest.
“You’ve gotta see this is all wrong,” Old Sunek managed to get out, still panting deeply from the exertion, “What Sokar’s doing? And if that wacko doctor really is dead, then—”
“You saw how much Sokar suffered,” New Sunek countered, “All of Vulcan is complicit in Sevik’s actions! They’ve always had it in for anyone who dared to explore their emotions, to deviate from the norm. You know that as well as anyone!”
Sunek recalled his own childhood. The work that his parents had put in to helping him control and repress his emotions. Counsellors, therapists, meditation. All to ‘fix’ his pesky emotions. Granted, they had never done anything anywhere near as extreme as what Doctor Sevik did to Sokar. But he still knew what it was like to be pitied, to be ostracised or made to feel like an outcast just because of the way that he felt. Or the fact that he felt at all.
It had been a miserable time for him. Until he had found the V’tosh ka’tur. Until he had found Sokar, and the others.
And as he got caught up in recalling his past, he faltered. And New Sunek didn’t.
Filled with the cyclone’s violence, he rushed forwards and slammed Sunek back against the edge of the boat, the low-hanging wooden rail around the edge of the deck now all that existed between them and the ocean.
Old Sunek wheezed as the air was knocked completely out of him. Now confident he was on top in the fight, New Sunek squeezed harder, sandwiching Old Sunek between himself and the rail and constricting his adversary’s body beneath his own.
“Still enjoying yourself?” New Sunek hissed, as he felt his counterpart weaken.
Old Sunek felt his vision start to blur around the edges. He didn’t know if he could die, because he was no longer really sure what he was, or where he was, or how he was, metaphysically speaking, but he definitely felt as though his consciousness was fading.
“You’re—We’re not a killer,” he strained to choke out.
“You don’t know until you’ve tried,” New Sunek shot back with his cruel grin.
Old Sunek stared back at his own face, a twisted version of his reality. And as his vision began to fade, he saw something in his counterpart’s eye. A reflection of a raging storm.
And then he realised where New Sunek was. And what he had to do.
With his final few ounces of strength, he grabbed New Sunek around the waist, and forced his own body up, allowing New Sunek’s crushing weight to carry them both up and over the rail. They both tumbled overboard, into the Voroth Sea.
One into a frothing, merciless tumult, the other into clear, pure serenity.
* * * * *
Even at the best of times, Jirel had to admit that didn’t have much of an idea what was really going on in Sunek’s head.
But as he stared back at his unmoving pilot on this occasion, he really would never have guessed the inner turmoil that was going on inside the Vulcan. Nobody in the room could.
The fight between himself and himself may have gone on for some time, but to everyone else present around the Tolaris’s cloaking device, it looked like he was just momentarily daydreaming.
“Sunek!” Sokar snapped eventually.
Sunek was roused from wherever he had been. He shook his head to try and refocus, blinking a few times to clear his head.
“We cannot let this delay us any longer,” Sokar continued, pointing at Jirel, “Now…kill him.”
Sunek looked down at where Jirel sat crouched next to the body of Not T’Prin. The unarmed Trill stared back at him with fear, but also defiance.
“Sunek, come on now, you’re not really gonna…”
Sunek felt confused. He felt strange. He felt like he was gasping for air, like he was drowning. He felt everything and nothing.
He looked down at the disruptor pistol in his hand.
“I said, kill him!” Sokar repeated, more angrily.
“Sunek,” Jirel tried again, the fear overtaking the defiance, “Please, don’t do this—”
Sunek didn’t listen. He lifted the disruptor.
And he fired.