#human weapon

[linecrosser]

Febwhump 2024 - Day 20 - Human Weapon (Alt Prompt No.4)

Teenage MBJ having a blast for once, just being his demon self. This does not go well for SQH, who is definitely not used to the rough handling! Luckily he only suffered bruises, no breaks.

[whump-in-the-closet]

“This way they’ll know what their place is. A weapon to be drawn or sheathed as I will it.”

“You— you branded them.”

[whump-place]

Living weapon Whumpees that were conditioned to think that that was just how the world saw them. As monsters.

And that the only way to redeem themselves was serving their owner.

After all, Whumpee was just a weapon, a mere object that couldn't think or do anything right on their own.

And humans were the smart ones, they had brains, and neurons, and all of those things that made them rational. Humans always knew the best way to use Whumpee.

Humans got to do anything they wanted to Whumpee, because that was the right thing.

Right?

[the-dump-of-whump]

Weapon whumpees in their last moments of sanity asking, begging, to be killed so that they can’t do anymore damage, so that they can’t hurt anyone else, so that they can’t be used anymore.

Better yet if there’s something stopping them from doing it themselves and they have to plead with caretaker to kill them.

Does caretaker do it? Does it hurt worse for whumpee to be dead or to see the wreckage they cause, the pain in their eyes? Does caretaker forsaken them too?

[emptycalories-splitlip]

The weapon kneels, dirty, blood covered, shaking

Fingers find the pulse in her throat, counting, observing

It's far too quick, the skin too warm

But the task is completed. Mission over.

Something in the handler wants to break

They want to hold the weapon, not in a grip meant for battle but one of comfort

They want to kiss her

Apologize to her

But, no. No, the tool has to be kept just that.

She is equipment. She is cold steel.

But she's shaking and bleeding and the flow of blood under her hot skin is still there

She needs them.

So the fingers leave the pulse, snap so she stands and follows.

There's a bath waiting. She could do it herself, but the handler chooses to help. It's only fair.

Blood turns the water pink around the weapon.

She dozes in the steadfast hands of her handler as they clean wounds, scrub tangled hair, massage aching muscles

She does not wake when she is lifted and wrapped in a towel. A quick check reveals a still beating heart and an exhausted but working pair of lungs.

The weapon is stored away, tucked carefully into her place, a bed far too large for one being

She'll be ready for the next fight. Of course she will.

It is her purpose. She is their weapon.

But for tonight? She is small and tired and weak.

The handler lays their lips on her brow, feeling the fever

"You're safe." They promise

"You did good."

[kabie-whump]

♡Febuwhump Day 26: "Help them." + Human Weapon (alt) ♡

@febuwhump

A combo post? Sure.

Content: betrayal, human weapon whumpee, sleeper agent whumpee, blood, left for dead

︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵

"Why are you all just standing there? Help them!"

Leader's grip is firm as they grab Caretaker's shoulder, stopping them from running to Whumpee's side.

"That's not Whumpee," Leader says.

Whumpee, lying curled up on the floor in front of the team, lets out a pitiful sob. There's a puddle of blood under them and it's growing too fast but no one is doing anything and Caretaker wants to scream.

"What do you mean?" Whumpee tries to sit up but fails as they put weight on their clearly broken wrist. They settle for staring up at Leader, eyes wide and full of tears. "It is me. Please, I need help!"

Laeder's hand is shaking on Caretaker's shoulder.

"This is what Whumper does," Leader says, their voice haunted. "Whumpee doesn't even know it, but there's a monster planted in their mind, and it's already taken over. It's sleeping right now but it'll wake up the second we take them inside and then we're all done for."

"But they're hurt," Caretaker insists. "We have to help them. We don't know that they're going to turn on us."

"Why else would Whumper just give them back to us? I'd rather not wait until one of us is being stabbed in our sleep to find out."

Whumpee is outright crying now, something Caretaker has never seen them do so openly. "I won't! I promise I won't! I'll be good. Please, I just wanna go home. It hurts so bad."

Leader turns away, pulling Caretaker with them. "Trust me," they whisper. "I've been down this road before. It's not worth it. They can't be saved."

"But-"

"Whumpee's dead. That's a ghost."

︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵

[gingerly-writing]

Prompt #3425

"You use [sidekick] like a weapon! You ask for more and more and more and you're going to get him killed."

Hero looked away. "This is a war. I need weapons-"

"Weapons don't fall in love with you!" They stared, waiting for a reaction, but nothing came. "Oh. You know. You've always known. And you've been using it."

"I..."

"Encouraging his love, even. That's incredibly cruel, even for you, when you don't love him back."

[just-here-with-my-thoughts]

Day 22: Human Weapon / Worked Themselves to Exhaustion

@febuwhump prompt Alt 4: Human Weapon @badthingshappenbingo prompt: Worked Themselves to Exhaustion

Fandom: The Bad Batch Characters: Omega, Crosshair, Hunter Set when they are all living happily on Pabu Word Count: ~2440 Read Here on A03

Synopsis: Omega wants to celebrate her friend's birthday, and finds out Crosshair's thoughts on the subject.

100% inspired by the fact I baked cupcakes for Season 3 launch day

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Crosshair leaned against the kitchen counter, watching Omega through eyed narrowed in suspicion. The clone girl was up to her elbows in ingredients, packets and boxes discarded messily around her as she focussed with forceful concentration on the large mixing bowl.

Omega’s hands, arms and apron were all streaked with powdery white debris from where she had tipped the bag of flour with too much enthusiasm, and she spread the mess to her face when she tried to wipe her hair out of her eyes with the back of her arm.

“I don’t know why you’re going to all this trouble,” Crosshair said with a deprecating edge of boredom to his voice. “What’s the point?”

He reached out and snagged a party snack from a nearby platter, cubes of cheese and pineapple skewered neatly on wooden cocktail sticks. Omega smacked his retreating hand with the back of her mixing spoon; he grinned unrepentantly and held her gaze whilst devouring the dainty snack and turning the cocktail stick in his mouth like a toothpick.

“Crosshair! Those are for the party guests!” Omega scolded, putting down her current utensil and whisking the platter out of Crosshair’s reach.

Crosshair merely shrugged, licking the batter residue of her assault from his hand before folding his arms.

“And the point is, it’s Lyana’s birthday! We’re going to celebrate. I told Shep I would make the cake.”

“You don’t know how to make cake,” said Crosshair bluntly.

Omega grit her teeth and returned to her bowl, starting to mix again. “That’s why I’m following a recipe,” she told him, in the tone of voice one uses with someone struggling to grasp a simple concept.

Crosshair scooped up a broken eggshell and inspected it. It had taken Omega five minutes to fish the remnants of the shell out of the cake batter earlier when she had misjudged the force needed to crack the egg into the bowl.

“Still don’t see why you’re bothering,” he said, turning to toss the eggshell into the bin with precision accuracy. “It’s not like Lyana’s ever going to do something like this for you.”

“Why not?” said Omega grumpily.

“You’re a clone,” was Crosshair’s flat reply. “Clones don’t have birthdays.”

Omega paused in her task, looking up at him with wide brown eyes.

“Birthdays are a stupid nat-born tradition,” continued Crosshair, glaring about at the mess in the kitchen. “All this fuss over one day. They get older every day, and yet make such a noise about marking this one day in particular.” He jabbed a finger in Omega’s direction. “You don’t have a birthday. Lyana is never going to make cake for you. So why bother doing this for her?”

For a moment Omega just stared at him, mouth hanging open in shock as she processed his unexpected diatribe. Then she returned to her mix with renewed ferocity, scraping the spoon along the edges of the bowl and scooping the batter out into the waiting cake tin.

“We get decanted,” she said, a little crossly. “That’s like being born.”

Crosshair barked a bitter laugh. “What are you going to do, celebrate your decanting anniversary?”

“I could!” Omega snapped back, fixing him with a glare before returning to levelling the cake batter. “We all could! Some of Echo’s reg friends from the 501st do. I heard him talking to them about it. They invited him to Coruscant, but he couldn’t go because Tech was upgrading the Marauder.”

Crosshair sniffed and tightened his arms across his chest. Omega didn’t miss the defensive movement, or the way his shoulders rose towards his ears with ill-concealed tension.

Taking a deep breath, Omega shook her thoughts and concentrated on the next step in the cake procedure. She carefully sheathed her hands in the protective heat-mitts before opening the oven, and even more carefully lifted the cake tin down onto the wire shelf.

When she straightened up she took the mitts off and threw one of them at Crosshair.

“Why don’t you want to celebrate your decanting day?” she asked, in that special voice he knew she saved for when she wouldn’t back down from a fight. “What’s so bad about it?”

“For starters, I’m an elite clone commando, not a child,” Crosshair drawled, and the second mitt followed the first. Crosshair dodged, but didn’t break a smile. His face had settled into a familiar frown that they had been seeing less of of late, and Omega paused and walked round to stand beside him instead.

“You can tell me, Crosshair,” she said, leaning her shoulder against his side. He didn’t respond immediately, so she let her head rest against his upper arm as well. “Why don’t you want to talk about your decanting day?”

Crosshair huffed and shrugged her off, so she returned to standing, looking up at him expectantly. His gaze was fixed straight ahead, teeth clenching hard around the toothpick as he chewed on his answer.

“I don’t know about the regs,” he said at length, voice soft and sibilant above the hum of the oven, “but for enhanced clones, your decanting day anniversary was a day for the Kaminoans to take you and test you, measure you, make sure you were developing as expected…” He trailed off, shaking his head sharply as though it could dispel the memories. He scrunched his eyes shut, head dropping forwards. “It was a convenient day for them to check you were on target. If you weren’t performing adequately, or if they found a defect…”

When he trailed off Omega reached out tentatively, trying to rest her small, messy hand over his. Crosshair flinched his hand out of reach.

“We were designed to be human weapons,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “Decanting day was when they performed their quality control checks.”

Omega could see the tremor that had set up in his tall frame, and made another attempt to capture his hand. This time she twined her sticky cake-batter fingers through his, taking his arm from where it was folded across his chest and letting it drop between them as they stood side by side, both looking forwards at the messy kitchen counter rather than at each other.

“I’m sorry that you had to be scared of that, Crosshair,” she said softly, giving his hand a gentle squeeze as she spoke.

Crosshair’s fingers twitched in return. He didn’t return the pressure of her hand, but it was something, and at least this time he wasn’t trying to pull away.

“We’re on Pabu now,” Omega continued, her voice lighter. “No more tests. For any of us.” She gave a small smile. “Just Lyana’s birthday party.”

Crosshair grunted a noise that might have been agreement. Then he took his hand back from hers, wiping the stickiness off on her shoulder.

“Ew, Crosshair!” Omega protested. “I’m wearing an apron for a reason!”

“You should clean up this mess before Hunter gets home,” said Crosshair, gesturing at the kitchen. “Maybe wash the flour out your hair too.”

Omega heaved a sigh, brushed her hands down the front of her apron, and began to clean up.

*

“Crosshair, the cake… it’s stuck…”

Crosshair peered over with feigned disinterest. Omega shook the cake-tin hard, only for the top of it to break away and land in a fragmented pile on the cooling rack, whilst the base stayed resolutely stuck inside the cake tin.

Omega gasped in dismay and turned the tin over, inspecting the damaged remains of her baking attempt. Crosshair picked up the datapad she had been using, skimming the recipe.

“Did you remember to grease the cake tin before you poured the batter in?” he asked drily.

Omega groaned, covering her face with her hands. “I’m going to have to do the whole thing again.”

“Looks like it.” Crosshair checked the chrono on the datapad. “Better hurry it up, too. You haven’t got long before the party.”

Reluctantly, but with a sense of urgency, Omega began to retrieve the baking ingredients and equipment she had so carefully stowed and washed up. Crosshair watched with the faintest smile as she began the process again.

*

Lyana’s birthday party went late into the night. Long after the children were dozing the adults sat and talked and drank and laughed.

Omega curled up at the end of Lyana’s bed, both girls chatting before conversation lapsed into sleepy yawns, and eventually quiet. Omega was vaguely aware of the door opening, and being lifted from her position on top of Lyana’s covers and held close against a warm, familiar torso.

“Kid’s tired out,” came Hunter’s voice, his usually gruff tone softened with a smile.

“Worked herself to exhaustion baking two birthday cakes,” came a snarky, sibilant reply, and Omega smiled into Hunter’s shoulder at Crosshair’s presence.

The gentle swaying motion of being carried against Hunter’s body was enough to keep her lulled at the edge of sleep, but the cool night air tugged at her consciousness to stop her dropping off completely. Omega nestled closer to Hunter’s chest and kept her eyes closed as she listened to the brothers talk.

“Omega wants her own birthday celebration,” Crosshair told Hunter after a while. He sounded dubious as he said it.

Hunter breathed a snort. “What for?”

“That’s what I said. She said we should celebrate our decanting day anniversary.”

A ripple of tension passed through Hunter’s body. Omega stilled her breath, listening to the way his heart-rate spiked. Her fingers curled a little in his scarf, and she hoped he hadn’t noticed she was awake.

“Hardly a day to celebrate,” muttered Hunter.

Omega felt them slow to a halt. She risked peeking one eye open, trying to see what was happening. Hunter was staring distantly at the dark ocean around the island, and Crosshair was stood beside him with one hand on the back of his brother’s shoulder, thumb rubbing soothingly up and down the nape of Hunter’s neck.

“You’re still here,” he murmured. The hand stilled, then squeezed his shoulder.

“Almost wasn’t,” breathed Hunter softly.

Crosshair’s voice was neutral. “I know.”

A few moments of silence. Then Hunter drew a shuddering breath and started walking again.

“So Omega wants a decanting day party.”

“Yeah.”

A short head-shake.

“I don’t know. It brings back a lot of memories.”

They stopped again. Now Omega felt herself being lifted from Hunter’s arms, before Crosshair gently laid her down on a bench.

She opened her eyes and watched as Crosshair returned to his brother, folding both arms around him and drawing him into a close embrace. Hunter buried his face in Crosshair’s shoulder, hands grabbing fistfuls of his brother’s shirt, and Cross stroked one hand through Hunter’s hair, humming soothingly.

“We’re on Pabu now,” he whispered, and Omega recognised her own words. “No more tests. For any of us.”

*

Crosshair tilted the mixing bowl towards Omega, an annoyed scowl on his face. “Is this mixed enough?”

Omega rolled her eyes and pushed the bowl back to him. “No! Look, you can still see lumps of butter, and all these sugar crystals. It has to be beaten properly.”

“What does that even mean?” growled Crosshair in annoyance.

“It means mix until smooth and fully combined,” Omega told him patiently. “When that’s done, you can add the eggs.”

“At least I’ll remember to grease the tin,” the sniper muttered as he returned to beating the mixture. Omega leaned her elbows on the counter, watching him with a smile.

“Why did you decide you wanted to learn to bake, anyway?” she asked cheerily.

An uncharacteristic flush spread across Crosshair’s cheeks and he narrowed his eyes, concentrating fully on the task in front of him. “No reason,” he said, a lie so obvious it made it hard to question.

Crosshair’s impatience was clear as Omega talked him through the rest of the recipe, including turning up the temperature on the oven in the hope that the cake would cook faster. Omega rescued the situation when she smelled the charcoal scent of burning batter, turning the oven back down and opening the door to let the curling smoke escape.

Crosshair glared at the finished cake, blackened round the edges, as it cooled on the wire rack.

“It’s awful,” he declared in annoyance.

“It’ll be fine once you cut these bits off,” said Omega, sawing at the burnt sections with a knife. “Or, you could start again–”

“This one will be fine.”

*

Crosshair tracked Hunter down to the docks, where the former sergeant was helping unload the fishing vessels as they came in. He grabbed his brother without explanation, pulling him to one side.

“What’s the matter, Crosshair?” asked Hunter, concerned, a feeling which only grew when Crosshair refused to meet his eyes.

“I made this for you,” muttered the sniper sullenly, extending a shallow card box about a foot across. Hunter took it with a puzzled look.

“Open it then,” snapped Crosshair, turning away and folding his arms. His frame was written with the kind of tension that spoke of protecting vulnerabilities, and Hunter raised his eyebrows in soft amusement.

Cracking open the box lid did nothing to ease his confusion. “You got me a cake?” he asked, then recalled his brother’s words. “You… made me a cake.”

He lifted the lid all the way off, inspecting the trimmed edges, still crusted with a small burnt sections here and there. The top of the cake had been messily iced with an uneven layer of buttercream, but on top of that in a contrasting icing colour was a very precisely piped version of his familiar half-skull tattoo.

“It’s stupid,” said Crosshair quickly, like he needed to insult his own creation before Hunter could. “But I thought…”

He trailed off, then fished a toothpick out of his pocket and chewed on it anxiously.

Hunter waited for him to continue, and when he didn’t he prompted, “What did you think, Cross?”

Crosshair huffed in annoyance, glaring out over the sea as he spoke. “It’s your decanting day,” he muttered. “I thought… maybe if I made it special, maybe if you had a cake, like a nat-born birthday… then it’d be a nicer thing for you to think about than remembering the year you were almost decommissioned.”

Hunter looked at the cake for a moment, then up at his brother, a soft smile touching the corners of his lips.

“Did you bring a knife to cut it with?”

The relieved exhale Crosshair gave released some of the tension from his frame. “You… you want to eat it?”

Hunter grinned and nudged his shoulder to his brother’s.

“Yeah,” he said, “but only if I can share it with you.”

[blackrosesandwhump]

Febuwhump Day 9: Human Weapon

Based on this writing challenge.

CW: sick whumpee, fever, forced transformation

Ren felt weak.

He stood swaying a little in front of the bathroom mirror. His reflection stared back, disheveled, flushed, eyes dark-circled and exhausted. His last fight had been two weeks ago. So why did he feel like crap now? Even the scar on his cheek hurt. Everything hurt. Everything felt like—

“Ren? We’re waiting for you. Need to debrief on the next job…” The voice—Cassidy’s voice—trailed off and morphed into concern. “Are you okay?”

No, no, I’m not. But Ren’s voice wouldn’t work, and he grunted a vague reply instead. I think I—I think I have a fever.

The world tilted, and the floor tiles rushed up to meet him, cool against his hot forehead. Something inside him was yelling, screaming at him to listen, to get the damn words out of his mouth and tell someone, anyone, what was happening to him.

It was just the like the man had predicted: his body was rebelling, because it was—

Because it was turning into a weapon.

[secret-bug-pain-blog]

Febuwhump Day 28 - ALT PROMPT - Human Weapon

You can also view this on Ao3, here. This took us long enough to post that we feel fully justified in getting it beta read and such before posting. This work is a ship of Theseus compared to the original we had done in February because we kept revising the outline for the main work this is based off of. At the very least, we think it's solid now.

Thanks to @wormlette for beta reading this for us, and we hope you enjoy.

In the first few hours after getting the tattoos, he isn't thinking.

There are more things to worry about than what the things stabbed into his skin mean, at that point. He's stuck in the back room of a place he doesn't know, shaking with the remnants of a paralytic he can't identify and grappling with the aftershocks of the most pain he's ever felt in his life, with an ominous list of instructions rattling around his head and no idea if he'll even be capable of leaving.

He's not thinking straight, and he knows it, but he's too thoroughly in shock to do much about it, so he doesn't. He sits on the dingy bench in the back of the room, and he stares at the lines inked into his hands, and he listens to the tallman tell him care instructions as he tries not to think about the way a single slip of a sleeve could get him jailed for life.

There are runes etched into his skin. There's dark magic inked into his flesh. There's a person talking just over his shoulder who tells him that he'll need to pay her back for the procedure, because even if his friend vouched for him, her expertise doesn't come cheap - and he's stuck with a bill he needs to pay, for a procedure he never wanted, and the creeping awareness that the sounds of beasts fighting from just beyond the wall are just a bit too human for it to be just normal monsters.

The tallman that she called his friend walks in, and the moment that he recognizes him the blood roars in his ears with the bitter, bitter memories of betrayal.

And then he's trapped in a room, with a curse inked into his skin, and a man who tried to feed him to monsters barely a few feet away.

It is a very, very small mercy that Laios manages to find him here. He's astounded that he even managed to find him, honestly - tracking things on cobblestone is difficult enough with half-foot senses, let alone tallman senses. Still, presence is one thing, and actually helping is another - and Laios merely being there does nothing to stop the tallman in the room with him from picking him up by the ankle and holding a jack-knife to his throat.

The pulse of magic that runs through his body is new. The pain flooding his senses is not.

Something in his body shifts, joints pulling out of alignment in a way that sets off alarm bells in the back of his head. He dangles, abruptly, a few inches lower, his spine crackling and popping like sand in the delicate gears of golden machinery, and every inch of the runic tattoos spread over his skin lights up with the sensation of being stabbed with thousands of needles. He thrashes, some instinct in him saying to kick out, and-

When the pain clears, he's toppled over on the floor, every inch of his body itching with something new and wrong. The tallman who signed him up for this is dead on the floor, his head nearly three metres away from his body in a quickly-spreading pool of blood, and Laios is staring at him as if he's never seen him before.

His hands are covered with deep brown fur. His stomach feels like it's been abruptly overrun by starving beasts. When he looks down at his feet, he finds himself looking at an entirely too long set of rabbit's paws.

It takes him a bit longer than he's comfortable admitting to realize what it is that's been done to him. Laios reaches out to help him up, tentative in a way that he's never really seen from him before - there's a snide remark welling on his tongue about it, something barbed and bitter and colored by years of being manhandled before then this is what finally makes someone think twice about hauling him around as they please - but the words die on his tongue, caught in a throat that can no longer form words and drowned in the overwhelming pain that flares the moment he tries to pick himself up.

His body aches.

Searing pain rolls through his muscles every time he moves, like he's been boiled in oil again and somehow left alive. Every motion he makes only seems to make it worse - the burning rolls along any limb he tries to move, searing deep into muscle and bone. The first hint of weight on his feet erodes his nerves as if they've been dipped in acid, and even just trying to walk is, if anything, worse - like trying to walk with red-hot spikes imbedded into his soles.

This form feels alien, strange, wrong- and it takes all too long before he figures out how to make himself turn back.

The rabbit form withdraws back under his skin, bones shifting and flesh warping in a halting, agonizingly slow display he has to force himself to keep going through. The magic subsides. The pain does not.

Muscling through the sort of soul-deep agony that the transformation inflicts is far, far easier said than done. Thinking coherently, when he's grappling with consciousness through a haze of pain that makes it feel like he's dying every time he moves an arm, is even more so. Knowing this doesn't make it easier to think, nor does it make it less horribly, horribly embarrassing when he realizes that he's got nothing on but the thin, flimsy, tallman-sized dressing gown he was wearing when he first woke up.

The realization that he's been trotting around in a bathrobe so oversized that it makes him look like an actual child would, in any other circumstances, be just about the worst part of his day. This situation is already far past horrible on so many levels that at this point, it barely registers.

At the immediate moment of time that he notices it, it's also largely overpowered by the realization that there are slits in the back of the dressing gown, and the fact that he's horribly, horribly humiliated himself in front of a party member, badly enough that his most remote chances of it being forgotten are as good as dead.

It's a unique kind of awful, even without the curse bands on his wrist, to realize just how much of himself might've been bared against his will. It's even worse when he thinks of how the other races tend to view half-foots, and the way that rumors tend to proliferate between adventurers, and the fact that it's Laios, of all people, who came across him. Laios, who couldn't keep his mouth shut if his life depended on it, who talks about monsters like no one else he's ever known, who's just seen him turn into a monster-

Chilchuck takes all of five seconds before his pain-wracked brain finally catches up with the facts enough to foretell the imminent end of his adventuring career, at which point his joints finally decide to give up the ghost, and he narrowly stops himself from falling face-first into cobblestone, just to put the cherry on top of the entire awful ordeal.

He's about five steps past even being capable of dragging his thoughts together enough to try and think of some way out of this horrible situation, to the awful modifications stabbed right into his body, to the idea that whatever's been done to him has run deeply enough to behead a tallman without even consciously trying, when Laios offers him one of his spare shirts and he's forced to come to terms with the realization that the world has simply decided to stop making sense entirely.

He's battered, exhausted, and grappling with enough awful revelations to choke a nightmare to death on the bad dreams alone. He's on his hands and knees in a room that belongs to someone he doesn't know with arterial spray spattered on his skin and a soldier's strength curse stabbed into his body. He's too far past done to try for more than the barest hint of dignity, still stuck in a dressing gown so fine it's nearly transparent, and...

Well. He's not really sure he even has enough left in his brain to try and get himself together.

He takes the shirt.

He tries not to speak, while he shuffles it on. He's painfully aware of just how bad the situation is, and every movement he makes feels like he's exposing himself all the more. The way his skin burns every time something so much as brushes the new-laid tattoos doesn't help in the slightest, and the slide of coarse fabric over skin is almost more painful than the idea of leaving himself bare - but he's not willing to go that far, not yet.

The blood on his skin makes the fabric stick uncomfortably. Every movement makes it cling different, prickling at his whiskers and pulling at the tender lines of ink that make up most of his abdomen by now, glued to his sides in disgustingly tacky red. He doesn't think he's ever felt so humiliated before in his life.

When the woman who stabbed the curse into his skin in the first place comes back, it just feels like the punchline to the overly long joke that's become his life.

He checks out through the bulk of the speech she makes the moment that he registers she's retreading the same treatment instructions that she gave to him. Nothing makes sense and everything is wrong. He stares at the brilliant red lines on his arms, his ears flattened to his head, and he barely registers it when whatever conversation Laios has with the tallman woman putters out.

His legs dangle entirely too far above the ground when Laios picks him up, but his complaints sound dull and useless, even to his ears. After tonight, he has very little in the way of dignity left to lean on. He and Laios both know that he won't be walking out of here, anyways. Not when trying to put weight on his feet makes them hurt so much he threatens to pass out.

Somehow, knowing that he'll have to submit to being carried for as long as this takes to heal makes him dread the coming days more than anything else.

His clothes, thankfully, are still intact. There's running water somewhere in the cranny of the dungeon they're in, but the tallman doesn't acknowledge it, simply directing them back the way they came. He doesn't want to stick around long enough for one of the resurrectionists he spots on the way out to get to his old "friend", anyways. At this point in the night, he's too burnt out on everything to bother getting blood out of multiple items of clothing.

Tallmen have a lot more gore in them than any reasonable creature should.

The lines on his palms burn with every bit of contact they make. He shouldn't be surprised that the ones up his back are the same. Laios carries his pack, and he's trapped between being grateful for it and hating his own lack of ability more than he hates nearly anything else that's happened since he woke up on a damn table.

There's a lot going on in his head. He struggles to work through the pain enough to make it make sense.

At some point between the arena and the campsite, he passes out.

Considering the circumstances, it shouldn't have been possible to hide it. Considering every prior encounter he'd had with Laios, he shouldn't have been capable of keeping it a secret for an hour, let alone a day, let alone the rest of his life-

But in the morning, Chilchuck wakes up in his bedroll, bandages wrapped around nearly every square inch of skin he has, to an elf fussing over his bedside, a plate of dry rations set just within his arm's length, and, though some unbelievable stroke of luck, no sign that they even know what happened on a single party member's face.

He's still alive. The world doesn't end. He hasn't been submitted to the canaries.

Somehow, that feels worse than if he had been sent off for dark magic.

At least, when Laios corners him to ask if he can tell Falin about his new condition, it feels more like normal than anything else in his life right now.

For all that means, anyways.

The tattoos spread over his back. There are rings inked into his skin, cuffs of ancient runes like shackles around his wrists and ankles, circles of runes on his heels that sting like the devil every time he sets a foot down just slightly too hard. He washes them every day that he can, unwilling to deal with either infection or whatever consequences that fucking with the magic in it might bring. He's lost enough weight from the initial spellcasting that he's not allowed to skip meals anymore, even if they buy his excuse that half-foots simply need to eat less. All of the padding over his ribs is simply gone, everything standing between him and his own organs thinned to near-nonexistence - he doesn't have enough body mass for a healing, let alone a resurrection, and it shows.

He looks like he's been starved halfway to death in the space of a single evening.

It's the least dramatic change in his body in the past forty-eight hours. It's the only change that his party's been able to see.

He's not sure he wants to know what they think of him. But he can't stay ignorant without blinding himself to nearly everything they do.

Marcille sneaks him extra rations, and Namari asks after hauling his bow, and Shuro makes pointed comments about how close they still are to the surface, and all he can think of is how frail they must see him, now that he's forced to rely on them for everything.

He hopes that they won't think less of him. He's not naive enough to really believe it.

Three weeks to fully heal, according to the arena tallman. At least a week before he can try walking on it, according to Falin. Laios asks if he wants to turn back now, but he refuses - they may be only a few days from the surface, but that's still a few days from the surface, on an expedition where their party still hasn't found anything of note - leaving now would just waste their progress and leave them all off worse for it.

They have the supplies they need to delve deeper. They just need to find the guts to do it.

Chilchuck might be dead weight, but he's less weight than if it happened to anyone else, and he, at least, can try to do his job even when he's stuck being carried.

Being stuck in a dungeon without working legs is a death sentence, but a dungeon has less people willing to question a mysterious injury, and his chances of being able to get by on the surface without someone poking too far into his cover are so small they might as well be nonexistent. Half-foots have only survived as long as they have through community, but there's no such thing as privacy in a half-foot den, and he fears the death he'll face at the hands of the Canaries more than he fears the death he'll face at the hands of the dungeon.

He doesn't mention the latter half of his reasoning. No one knows what's inked into his skin yet, not besides the Toudens. His party doesn't need to know how likely he is to wind up as one of the criminals who treat the dungeon as their home, and so he's not about to tell them. He still has eyes and ears and expertise, and they're all blind and deaf by his standards anyways. He can survive a week, as long as they can work like a proper troupe for seven days.

And if he dies, then it'll be quicker than old age.

Laios agrees to the plan surprisingly fast, for all the concern he's directed Chilchuck's way since the day in the arena. Suspiciously so, even. Falin's willingness to back his decision is, Chilchuck thinks, the only reason the other party members don't veto it on the spot - he's infirm and unstable right now, and as far as all of them are concerned, he might keel over at any minute. He's hardly dungeon-delving material right now, and all of them know it, but Falin is the most accomplished healer out of them, and most of the party has enough affection for her that they'll bend over backwards to fit her word.

The door they need to map is on the sixth floor, more than a month deep. If Chilchuck were at his best, he'd be able to shave weeks off that time. As he is now, all he can do is offer insight from above and pray that his party won't be stupid enough to get themselves killed anyways.

The decision goes through, and everyone looks at Laios like he's lost whatever few screws kept his head on previously, but they let the decision slide.

Objectively, it's a stupid choice to make. His party must think he's gone mad. Right now, Laios is the only thing standing between him and a lifetime behind elven bars, and he knows he should be grateful for him for listening to his pleas, but-

He doesn't voice the suspicions he has.

He knows the way that Laios looked at the fighters in that ring, even in passing. The love that the tallman has for monsters is so poorly-veiled it barely even counts as a secret - he's surprised it hasn't come up more often, now that he's part monster himself, but he's not blind enough to think that Laios's pet obsession doesn't have a part in this - he wants more time to examine the monstrous rabbit half stitched onto his bones, and he's so bad at hiding it he might as well not be trying at all.

He's... not sure how he feels about it.

He knows, already, that Laios is... odd. Strange. Out of place. His habits are an anomaly even among other tallmen. He can speak for hours upon hours on monsters that no one else would spare a second glance to, dedicating endless time and energy to fields of study so niche that Chilchuck could swear he's the only person he's ever seen show the slightest interest.

He's oblivious to social mores, more interested in rambling on about living armor or kelpies than the tired expressions of his peers. He's unable to go a single day without talking of some obscure beast from the depths of the dungeon, yammering about its biology with more enthusiasm than some people announce their engagements. He cares for the beasts more than he cares for his own teammates, Chilchuck thinks.

He understands monsters more than he does the people he interacts with every day of his life.

And now Chilchuck is one of those.

Chilchuck doesn't have much more to do than watch, while he's stuck being lugged around like a sack of flour. Laios notices... more, now. He's more attentive. More careful. When his carrying abrades more than usual, he readjusts at the slightest hint of discomfort, sometimes before Chilchuck notices himself - he doesn't realize how unnerving it is to not have his feet on a solid surface now until he spends an hour being hauled around by Namari and has to pull himself off halfway through. Walking makes the scabbing on his feet burn like fire, but it's easier to tolerate than the awful fear that rises in his chest with every second he spends with his legs dangling in the air.

He's picking up habits that he didn't have before, and they fit in so seamlessly that he barely even realizes until someone points it out.

Too much meat turns his stomach. He can hear better, whispers that he once could have tuned out now louder in his ears than even a normal conversation would. His heart beats faster than before, nearly two hundred and fifty beats in a minute - he worries, when he notices, that it'll give him away, and it only beats faster at the thought. He nearly forgets how little the other races can hear. It's only hours later that he puts real thought to how little it took to nearly drive him to a panic.

There's a stranger in his skin who isn't him, who isn't even human - something etched into him in bone-needle pricks and searing, boiling-oil agony - and he's the only one who knows that it's anything more than just a few odd habits.

He, and Laios.

And isn't it strange, to be sharing something so delicate with someone so indelicate?

Laios, he thinks, still probably knows more about his new monstrous biology than Chilchuck himself does. He can't say that his feelings on it are anything less than... mixed.

Chilchuck doesn't know much about artificial beastkin. It's forbidden to know about, illegal to even try and research - he's not stupid enough to go poking at things better left buried, much less to put himself in the line of fire for long-lived races who'll put him in jail for the rest of his natural life. Still, he's heard gossip.

He knows, if faintly, that the spell was created for the sake of enhancing soldiers. He doesn't remember where he first heard it - some bar somewhere, maybe, or an offhand comment from a former teammate - but the fact floats in the back of his mind when he thinks of it, faint and damning. He can see its echo in the spurs sprouting from his heels, in the leg muscle he's never worked to get, in the speed and acrobatics that come horribly naturally to him, in the thump of rabbit's legs against a neck-

The first thing that he ever did with this new form was take a man's head off. And all he can think of, when he looks back at it, is how easy it was to do it.

Chilchuck never would have gone anywhere near the arena, if he had a choice in the matter. He wouldn't have paid for the spell inked around his wrists, much less be put into an unknown amount of debt over it. He doesn't need a body made for fighting - he doesn't need a body so obviously inhuman, so easy to dismiss and dispose of. Half-foot tails are cropped for a reason - he doesn't need to be farther from the other races, doesn't need to be even more of an other.

Laios carries him from place to place, unfalteringly attentive to whims he didn't even know that he had as the soles of Chilchuck's feet heal from the tattoo needle. Laios tells him about monsters, and animals, and rabbits, more than he ever thought was possible to know. Laios... looks at the curse etched into his skin with a sort of longing that he doesn't know how to put words to.

He wonders, as he washes the still-healing ink by the river, if Laios wishes that he were the one with black magic forced under his skin.

Chilchuck isn't perfectly observant, not with people, but he knows how to interpret at least some of it. He might've been half-conscious at the area, but he's not blind enough to not see how Laios looked at those beastkin fighters, and he's not blind enough that he can't see the way that the tallman looks at his curse marks. It's a strange mix of emotions, something like flattery curled around something slimy and squirming in the pit of his stomach. He's got a spell etched into his body that'd get him thrown into an elven jail to rot for the rest of his life, and Laios...

Laios, he's beginning to think, would have wanted this body. Would have wanted to have someone stab a soldier's supplement written in a curse tongue into his shoulders. He cares for monsters more than humans, beast body language more than simple common - hell, Chilchuck's seen first-hand how massive of a gap there is between his common communication and whatever he has with monsters.

Laios is an actual combatant, the kind of person who signed up to swing a sword - sturdy enough to take a few knocks, chubby enough that transforming probably wouldn't make his stomach scream like it's trying to eat itself, knowledgeable enough that he wouldn't be struggling to figure out a whole new set of rules from first principles. Chilchuck has spent so long being himself that trying to adjust to a whole new body this late in life is being thrown into the deep end without a paddle - but Laios, he suspects, knows monsters' bodies better than he knows his own hands.

...if their positions were different, he thinks, then Laios would have handled this far, far easier than him. And he's not sure how to handle it, when Laios seems to envy him for a curse that was forced on him against his will.

Chilchuck is a locksmith. Chilchuck makes his living in traps. Chilchuck is a noncombatant, who has never really wanted to become a combatant, who was stuck with this body against his will, who'll have to scrounge up the money to pay for it, who has no need to behead a man in a single kick, no need to cut through flesh like butter, no need to leap with enough strength that he knocks Laios stumbling just from using his pauldrons as a kick-off.

The body he's been given is made for spectacle. For loss of humanity. For violence. It's modified for death, for flashy sprays of arterial blood in the coliseum. Rabbits don't have spurs on their feet, don't have a kick that decapitates - don't dent armor from lashing out on instinct, let alone have instinct to go for someone's neck when threatened. Rabbits don't have legs strong enough to break solid oak to pieces - half-foots might not keep them as livestock, but he's lived in mixed-race settlements for years, and Laios has been murmuring facts about them into the backs of his ears for nearly two weeks now-

Rabbits can break their own spines with the force of their kicks.

And he didn't know, before now, but he has to know now, because he might be the same way - and that makes it feel all the worse when he has to find it out from an offhand comment from Falin, because it's something that she knows that he doesn't, because it's another reminder of the landscape full of landmines he's struggling to navigate, because it's yet another thing that the Touden siblings seem to know like the back of their hands where he-

He doesn't know the slightest thing about this.

About what he is now. About what he's supposed to be. He doesn't know anything, and every time he speaks with them, it gets hammered in more and more. There's a gap of knowledge so wide that it might as well be unbridgeable between him and them, because there's half a world of difference between him and tallman farmers who've dedicated half their lives to farming an animal that he only knew by tangential proximity before it was stabbed into his soul.

And that's the problem, isn't it? His own shortcomings, in the face of people who feel so much younger than him, who he has to rely on for his own well-being. Who he has to lean on, if he wants to get anywhere, and who he's becoming more and more aware are more suited to bearing this sort of thing than Chilchuck ever has been.

This has never been a life that Chilchuck wants. If there isn't a way to break the chains shackling magic to his body, then he'll be stuck hiding parts of himself for life - either forced to hide the spell well enough to pretend it doesn't exist, or locked away in some elven prison somewhere until he forgets his own name. He doesn't want to be a monster, he doesn't want to be a tool, he doesn't want to give another excuse to treat him like he's disposable-

But Laios, he's beginning to think, would rather be a monster than human.

He can't claim to understand it. He's spent too long watching what people do to beast-men for that, too long watching how people act with anything they think they can mistreat - beast-men are a level below the rest of humanity, and he doesn't even want to think how something like him might rank. They're inhuman, illegal - he's seen half-foots taken away for as little as looking into the wrong books, he has no doubt that it would be worse if the elves caught wind of someone altering their body with magic. Who would want an enchantment that guarantees they'll need to spend their life hiding?

Laios would, apparently. And he hasn't the slightest idea how he's meant to handle that sort of want turned towards him, towards something he had no choice with.

He has the rest of this dive to avoid answering it. After that... he doesn't know.

The scabs, he knows, will heal eventually. Will set into his skin, like any other tattoo, probably settled to the same rusty red that the tallman who gave them to him had, if the way they've been healing is any indication, and then... well, he doesn't know.

He can't be seen with them by anyone, not if he wants to keep himself from going to jail for the rest of his short life. He can't ever take off his gloves in someone's company again, can't wear his hair short - the length it's grown out to now only barely hides the diamond-shaped rune that caps the array on his scalp, and it's a small miracle that no one's looked too close at the outsides of his ears yet. He can't hide these, not like he can hide anything else about this.

Paranoia's had him double-looping his cowl around his neck to hide the markings, and he's seen the other party members look twice at it, heard them absently discuss it even through the walls. His hearing's never been sharper, and they're far from oblivious - discussion of just what he's doing with the Touden siblings, discussion of what he's doing with Laios, makes up more dinner talk than he'd prefer under any circumstances.

He's not entirely sure what to make of the fact that something like half of the party appears to have jumped directly to the hare-brained idea that they've been having relations, even after Chilchuck set down the very clear base rule of no inter-party romance.

He's not sure if it's better or worse that the idea seems to be working to get them off his trail.

It'd be a decent cover, for someone else. Plausible, especially in parties with similar no-relationship clauses - when you're skirting the rules, you tend to dance around your other party members. But it's a wrong impression, directed to the one member of the party he's least likely to fall for - and worse, it makes him seem flaky and ingenuine, going back on his own rules the second he sees a pretty tallman. It stings to know they think so little of his self-control, and it stings more to know he can't say anything against it without incriminating himself in an entirely different way.

He hates the situation he's found himself in. He hates it with every ounce of his body, every bit of his breath - but he can't do anything about it, and that just makes it worse, if anything.

Maybe, at the end of this, he'll be able to go back to normal. He'll be able to cover up the tattoos crawling over his skin and brush off the allegations of a relationship with Laios. He'll be able to go home to the guild and make believe that he's fine even to a room with dozens of pairs of listening ears pricked for gossip. He'll be able to pretend nothing has changed.

But he won't be able to make things be the same.

There's a second body bound to his, made of muscle and bone and blades. There's a living weapon lurking just under his skin, waiting to be used, and he can't make it go away no matter how much he wants to - and that scares him, maybe even more than everything else does.

Because the rumors, no matter how bad for his career, are temporary. Because talk can be forgotten about, or fade into obscurity, or fail to take off the ground more than a handful of whispers. Because even if laws have been changed or forgiven before, if the laws around artificial beastkin were lifted today, he still wouldn't be able to be the same-

Because this, whatever it'll wind up meaning to him, is permanent. And it's that permanency, more than anything, that terrifies him.

He washes the tattoos. He rewraps the wounds. He returns to camp like nothing's ever changed, even though the rabbit's soul still itches under his skin.

He's been changed. He's not wholly human anymore. He'll never be the same again, and the proof of that is seeping into his very soul with every moment that passes, no matter how much he tries to dig his heels in. His body isn't wholly his own, and the only person who even knows is a freak who wouldn't understand social graces if they bit him on the ass, and-

Everything's different. And yet, almost nothing's changed.

A human weapon sits at a campfire. His party sits around him.

One more job. One more floor. Just one drawing of the runes on the door, then a return trip to the surface. Just a bit more time to let his wounds heal.

He won't be able to hide this forever. If things keep getting worse, then he probably won't be able to even keep it subtle for much longer.

But for now, he can play at normalcy, and given the givens, that's more than he ever expected to get.

[cuteangsty]

Whump prompt #5

A Human weapon whumpee was trained to kill/ kidnap people with a face reference. So when he is rescued, they avoid looking at anyone, always turning his back and not wanting anyone to approach them. They have been looking at that list o faces for so long, killed so many of those... Sometimes they still sees those faces in other people's bodies. They are trying to get in control of themselves, but they are afraid they might see an "enemy face" and trigger them to attack.

Bonus if whumper is a supernatural creature

Like a wolf, a vampire or a doppleganger

Werewolf whumpee in this situation would be trying their hardest to never transform, or hold the transformation in a more harmless stage

They would also probably avoid eating meat, it reminds them of the bodies they ate.

Vampire whumpee begs to be blindfolded before feeding from someone.

Both enticed and extremely repulsed by the smell of blood. They seem to almost puke but then start to salivate over it.

Doppleganger whumpee starts to shift into different people (his past victims) by accident whenever triggered.

I can also imagine this working for robot whumpee

They have a specific word/ sentence/ alarm/ switch/ button that trigger them.

They can only be brought back to normal with a password/switch/ button.

Face recognition failing

Probably asked for face recognition to be deactivated entirely, so whenever they look someone in the eye, they don't know who they are, they see them and maybe able k vaguely describe their features, but cannot tell who they are or if they have ever met.

(tho they might have other ways of figuring it out, like through their voice/ clothes/ digitals/ etc...) (Or no...)

Yes this was based on 🍌 🐟

[mj-iza-writer]

SP Special Containment part 4. Human Weapons Whumpee

If you want to get a reminder of how this story is going or need to be caught up, use the hashtag #sp special containment. I'm sorry this has taken so long to post.

The director gave an odd look when Caretaker, Agent Mcgee, and Andy entered their office. He eyed the ice pack.

"It didn't go well I take it", the director sighed.

"Aramais threw slippers at my head, and I had to be rescued", Andy sat in a chair.

Mine threw her lunch at the cameras and told me to leave before they lost it", Agent McGee leaned against the wall.

"Whumpee said my heart was beating out of my chest", Caretaker sat in a different chair, "they get spooky when they know something isn't right."

"You didn't tell them anything?", the director sat back.

"I didn't have time too, she said I smelt like secrets, and needed to leave", McGee frowned.

Caretaker sighed, "I told them I wasn't at liberty to talk about it, they shut down completely, and had no interest in me."

"I made a mistake and left the speaker on while we talked. Aramais knows something is up. He is demanding a meeting with you and the other two weapons to be present. He says he wants you to tell them that they shouldn't know what's going on. He gave a warning that a cornered weapon is a very dangerous thing to play with", Andy paused, "he is refusing to eat until you talk to them."

The director groaned, "great."

"We have decided this is far to dangerous for them and us", Caretaker spoke up, "I suggest you explain to them what is going on."

The director sighed, "can we force feed Aramais."

"If you want to try be my guest, I'm not getting anywhere close to him to force a tube up his nose", Andy looked at him angrily, "I took slippers to the head. You need to talk to them now."

The director eyed the three of them, "okay fine, bring them to the board room. Let's get this over with. Each of you bring two guards with you as well. We've never had them together in a room before, I don't know how this will go. I'll be in shortly."

They all grabbed the wheelchairs and went to get their human weapons.

Andy peaked into Aramais's room.

"I don't have the slippers, what did the director say?", Aramais frowned.

Andy pulled in the wheelchair, and grinned.

"Well, first they mentioned to force feed you, but I told them not in a million years am I attempting that", Andy locked the chair into place, "they have okayed a meeting, the other two are being grabbed right now."

Aramais stood and walked to the chair, "full offense, the director sound like an idiot."

"We were joking saying we should have them take care of you three for three separate days", Andy started to strap in, "tell you guys to be on your worst behavior."

"I'd do it, I'd chuck the slippers at him", Aramais waited patiently as he was strapped in, "speaking of, can I wear those please, my feet are cold."

"I'd record the whole thing in the monitor room to watch later", Andy laughed as he put the slippers on Aramais.

Aramais looked around as he was wheeled to the board room.

"I think this is my first time out of that room", Aramais sighed.

"You were considered high risk do to your rank", Andy stated as they wheeled the chair down the hall close to the room, "you were supposed to be given two caregivers actually, but one of them didn't make the cut. You seemed to like me enough that they left it at one."

"You didn't annoy me that's all", Aramais muttered, "plus you're good to me, and I appreciate that."

Andy saw the room ahead, "here we are. I enjoy taking care of you if that helps."

Aramais nodded, "thankyou, I appreciate you taking care of me."

They entered the room.

"Oh no, you're here", Aramais laughed, "who let Jaimie in?"

"I was about to say the same thing", Jaimie smirked.

"Is this a problem?", Agent Mcgee jumped up, "we've never had you three together, and we are a bit on edge."

The guards also stood at the ready.

"No, we just like to pick at each other", Aramais laughed, "Jaimie and I were classed in the same level so we were teamed up quite a bit, we're friendlies."

Jaimie nodded, "it was for our entertainment, and it annoyed our trainers."

Caretaker rushed in, "sorry we're late, Whumpee wasn't wanting to come out at first, then they wanted to look out a window for a few minutes."

"We have Whumpee here to", Aramais grinned.

"Is that okay?", Andy sighed.

"Everyone gets along with Whumpee", Jaimie smiled.

"I had no idea it was you two that were being held here", Whumpee smiled.

"They've been keeping secrets", Aramais stated, then eyed someone as they walked in, "I bet you that person is the reason", Aramais whispered.

"Good we are all here", the director smiled weakly, ignoring Aramais' comment.

Caretaker, Mcgee, and Andy stood behind their charges as the director climbed up the podium steps.

"Hmph", Aramais sighed.

"I'm sorry?", the director looked at Aramais.

"I don't think you are in any position to stand above us and talk down to us, any of us, our caretakers and the guards even", Aramais stated in annoyance, "I know only one of us has actually seen you. You haven't earned any of our respect, and you're keeping secrets."

The director sighed, "you're a hard one, so the rumors are true."

"Not hard, just not a pushover", Aramais came back, "you have to earn my respect. Just like Andy did."

The director stepped down from the podium, "very well, your point is made clear."

Jaimie grinned.

"So we might as well get right to it. I didn't want anything said until it was fully confirmed, as in people are triple checking paperwork. Their is a chance one of the trainers evaded capture, and we don't know where they are", the director glanced at each one of them, "we didn't want to make you three uneasy. Especially if there was an error."

Aramais frowned at the news. He glanced at Jaimie, then at Whumpee.

"Who is it?", Aramais looked back at the director.

"It's uh, it's Whumpee's trainer", the director looked down, "I'm sorry, all of the holding facilities are on high alert. We started the moment we found out."

Whumpee gulped loudly.

Aramais and Jaimie both looked at Whumpee.

"That's a problem, a very big problem", Aramais gritted their teeth, "he was one of the harshest trainers their, Mitch was a living weapon himself. He was above my level even."

The director sighed, "that's why I didn't want you to know, I'm hoping it was an error."

"You don't make errors", Whumpee almost whispered, their mouth dry, "it's not an error."

"Whumpee?", Aramais frowned.

"He's here already", Whumpee looked down, "I haven't said anything as I thought it was my imagination."

"We don't know that", the director stepped toward Whumpee.

"I've seem him, I've smelt him", Whumpee squeezed their eyes, "they're here."

"You know for sure", Jaimie looked at Whumpee.

"Yes, the day in the cafeteria. Right before the sedative took affect, I saw him, I thought it was because of my blackout, my brain was imagining him", Whumpee looked at the director in tears, "he wears a guards uniform."

"You smelt him even", Caretaker leaned over the wheelchair, "are you sure?"

"Yes", Whumpee cried out, "I know that scent."

"You weren't going to tell us", Aramais looked back at the director, "you were just going to let this slide, and while you did that Whumpee was being targeted."

The director couldn't even speak, 'what now?', was his only thought. A lump sat in his throat as he watched Whumpee fighting panic mode. 'WHAT NOW?'

Taglist. As always please let me know if you want to be added or taken off of the list. It's not a problem at all. @villainsandheroes @the-beasts-have-arrived @sacredwrath @porschethemermaid @monarchthefirst @generic-whumperz @bloodyandfrightened @freefallingup13

SP Special Containment tags. @written-by-jayy @notpeppermint

Thankyou to those who gave me a push to finish this. Part 5 is in the works and hopefully won't take two months. I hope you enjoyed.

[tired-of-being-nice]

weapon

febuwhump day... whichever. went with one of the alt prompts for this! human weapon time babyee >:)

cw: referenced violence & injury, blood, human weapon (i mean. obviously), conditioning

Coren is a weapon. And they're good at it. They are sharp, and fast, and quick, and ruthless. Relentless, even. They are pointed in a direction and told go and they go. They attack. They don't think twice, they don't think about who it is they've been told to take out this time, they just go.

And they're good at it. They like it. It's fun, really! They have a fun time! It's so good at being a weapon.

Which is why it's strange that this time, it just felt...off.

They did an excellent job, of course, like they always do. And honestly, they didn't even hurt her that badly. She was being very silly, trying to escape from the Company that Coren loves so dearly, and they simply explained to her the flaws in her reasoning. Loudly. And while wielding a knife. 

And she'd been so rude as to bite them, and attack them, and she'd said–

She'd said–

What had she said? Something, surely. Something strange, to make them feel like this.

"What the fuck is wrong with you, Coren? You used to be my friend!"

Coren shudders at the memory and then frowns at themself for it. What's so upsetting about that? They are friends. They're still friends! It's just that sometimes friends are wrong, and then their other friends have to help them not be wrong.

...Why does that make them feel weird?

It glares at its friend, who is currently lying unconscious on the ground. "This is your fault," it tells her. She doesn't respond, of course, but it makes them feel a little better.

With a sigh, they lift her up and start carrying her back to where she belongs. 

---

Once it's handed her off to the people who can patch her up in time to get her ready for work tomorrow, it leaves again. Normally it'd stick around and wait to be assigned its next job, but...it still feels weird. And hey, the best weapon in the whole company should be allowed to take a walk if it wants to, right?

...They're still covered in blood. Some of it is theirs. Some of it's probably hers. 

They're often covered in blood, theirs and other people's. They don't understand why it's bothering them this time.

They could go back, and tell someone. They're sure someone could do something, tell them something or give them something that could make this bad feeling go away.

They don't go back. They walk, and walk, wandering until they're not even sure where they are. At some point it starts to rain.

Coren sits down on a bench and huddles into themself, staring dully at their hands. There's still blood on them. Maybe if they wait long enough, the rain will wash it off.

taglist (!!):

@whumpsoda

[emptycalories-splitlip]

(human weapon whumpee, multiple whumpers, whumper caretaker)

Uuugh I'm thinking about how my human weapon was trained/conditioned and I'm leaning towards borderline torture. Her trainers/medics were strict and near sadistic with their methods. Forcing her to run until she literally collapses, then leaving her in darkness and silence for days on end with just enough food to get by.

Then, when she's nearly crazy with loneliness or hunger, her first handler is sent in to feed, nurture, care for her so she begins to associate them (handler) with comfort and safety. So training continues. Running, obstacle courses, shooting and sparring drills, injury after injury, pushing her mentally until she nearly breaks. Then the handler is there to pick up the pieces, to soothe this weapon as she is molded. They hold her, keep her breathing, keep her on the right track with a gentle, steady hand.

Deep down, the weapon knows the handler is enabling the pain. Deep down she knows that they'll send her back to the agony, the fear, the chains and icy water and blood. But she also knows that this is as close to comfort that she is going to get... so she stays quiet and lets them bandage her wounds.

[thethistlegirlwrites]

Liars

The truck’s engine roars, sand flies from under the tires, and the rope behind it snaps taut.

Sierra raises her rifle to her shoulder, but it’s much too late.

The heavy plywood silhouette slams into her, knocking her backward into the sand.

“Too slow,” A voice as rough as the gravel under her snaps. “This isn’t poppin’ coyotes in the backyard anymore.” 

Sierra sighs. “Point made.” The cardboard prop she was using to simulate a rifle is now a crumpled mass in the dust next to her hand. A similar stake is resting next to it. Neither of them had reached a deadly position before she was bowled over on her ass.

Every new recruit, she’s told, is put through the same test. 

Choose a weapon. Face down the silhouette vampire on its track, pulled by the pickup that simulates the speed at which they might be facing down a rush attack.

And see whether they’d live or die.

Sierra’s first two choices of weapon were no good. And she’s never shot a handgun in her life. Picking that would have been suicide.

“Now do you see why the rules of engagement are bullshit?” 

Sierra pushes herself to her feet. “Because I’m standing out in the open in the middle of a track where even if I did get my finger on the trigger or my stake in position, my spotter would never see it in time to tell the driver, and even if the driver put the brakes on right then, I’d still get bowled over by the momentum?”

Weaver, her de facto instructor, gives her an approving, if frowning, nod.

“You’re pretty sharp, kid.” 

“I grew up with street racers. I’ve been driving with them since I was tall enough to reach the pedals. I know when something is designed with the sole intent of frustrating and pissing off the newcomers.” 

She’s not stupid.

She is angry.

But not because of this rigged training exercise.

“When is someone going to tell me what I actually came here to learn?” 

“When you’re ready to do something about it.” 

Weaver’s giving her an odd look. There’s something no one in this compound is telling her. When she told them about the journal and the date of the last entry, it was like she’d dropped a match in gasoline. 

Someone knows something about her dad’s death. And it’s something big. She has no intentions of waiting patiently for it, but these people don’t keep records of any kind. Whatever they know, it’s locked up in someone’s brain.

Weaver’s in on the secret, from the way he’s been watching her. 

“You promised you’d ask around. Said someone here ought to know something. I just want some answers about the vampire who killed my father.”

“That. Not who.”

Sierra nods. “The vampire that killed my father.”

“Right there is why you’re not ready.” Weaver leads her over to a table full of weapons. “You still don’t see those things for the monsters they are.”

“My dad is dead because of them. I think I understand just fine.”

“You ever killed something wearing a human face before?” Weaver asks. 

Sierra shakes her head.

“I did. Used to work for those spineless shills that call themselves hunters. But I learned real fast we were losing too many people because we weren’t fighting these things on their own terms.” Weaver picks up a silver-loaded shell and flips it through his fingers. “What don’t you see on this table?”

Stakes. Knives.

“Close combat weapons.”

Weaver nods appreciatively, again with that unreadable look. 

“Forget everything you've seen or heard about fighting these things. Stakes just finish the job and make sure they stay down, but that's never going to be your first strike. The vampire is an ambush predator. Ambush is the only way to hunt them back.” He picks up a modified rifle. “If they see you first, you’re as good as dead. But no one at the agencies understood that. Waved that baseless treaty in my face when I tried to make them see reason. It’s a sham. Can’t make an agreement with something that ain’t even human. Or alive. It’s as stupid as making a treaty with a damn virus.” 

Sierra can’t argue with that. 

She picks up a rifle of her own. Lighter, leaner than Weaver’s, but with the same complex night-vision scope bolted to the top of the barrel. “Did you know my dad?”

“Knew a lot of hunters. That journal wasn’t exactly a gold mine of clues.”

Sierra already knows that. The most she could gather was that her father had worked for some sort of vampire hunter organization in Amarillo. He hadn’t mentioned names, aside from his sibling and teammate John, but that name is a dime a dozen. Mostly, the journal was a scattering of clumsy poetry, random musings and observations on life, and first drafts of what appeared to be press responses to vampire incidents that must have been big enough to hit local news. Cover stories to keep people from learning the truth.

Maybe it’s inevitable, once you get wrapped up in this shadow world, to tell lies and obscure the realities. 

Because Weaver, and half the people here, are lying to her. 

Telling her they’ll ask around to see if anyone knows something. That she’ll get answers when she earns them. While dragging her around on a short leash because for some reason, they want to hang onto her. 

Maybe it’s just because if she went lone wolf, she’d get in the way of their own operations. It’s probably good tactical sense to keep all the vigilante vampire slaying in the area under one umbrella. 

She doesn’t believe that’s all it is, not for one second. 

But this is still the most likely place for her to find the answers she needs. She’s hit dead ends everywhere else. So for as long as it takes to get the truth out of someone, she’ll stick it out here.

Even if it means putting up with their heavy-handed training tactics.

No matter how many vampires she needs to kill before she gets to the one she really wants.

She highly doubts she’ll just happen across her father’s killer. In fact, he might be long gone by now. But maybe she can stop someone else from sharing her dad’s fate. She might as well be doing this as spending another night trying to drown the knowledge she can’t just box away again with adrenaline and alcohol. With the pedal to the metal on an empty street or a stranger’s hands tangling into her hair. 

And unlike her racing, it’s not even illegal.

Or at least, she doesn’t think it is. It can’t be murder if the thing you’re supposedly killing isn’t even alive in the first place. 

“Remember, those parasites will show no mercy, so don’t feel bad pulling the trigger.” Weaver adjusts Sierra’s grip on the rifle so her finger rests along the guard, then nods toward the practice range where a set of printed targets with comically exaggerated fangs are set up against bales. “They ain’t human, after all.”

(You can read this story and more from this universe on my WorldAnvil here!)

@catwingsathena @nade2308 @the-one-and-only-valkyrie @telltaleclerk @ettawritesnstudies  @writeouswriter 

[waywardwizzard]

Once upon a time River had been something (a brilliant dancer, a sister, human) Now all she was, was a weapon.

Spinning on her heal, she cut through the nearest Reaver, not caring about the blood matting her hair, staining her skin red red red (didn't look better in red, never meant to be red)

One of them tore at her back with dirt encrusted fingernails, tearing through layers and layers of fabric and skin, scratching her open for the world to see (open your eyes, what do you see?)

She could feel Simon's faltering heartbeat behind her own thundering one and she danced to their intertwined beats (two sides of the same coin, forever and always together, she who sees and he who hears), her feet spinning faster and faster on the bloodied metal grill, the blade slicing through the air in wide arcs.

Maybe she was human after all. Weapons only killed but humans killed for their families.

And River would let the world burn if it meant that her family would be safe.

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Author's note-

When I first saw this prompt I was like 'I have the perfect idea for this!' Of course, then my brain decided to nope out and here we are. I'm sorry this sucks but it'll get better. I hope.