#i need to chew through steel cables right fucking now

[anxsity]

oh huh yeah thats a poignant ending-

"i was so lucky to be your dad"

[red-writing-on-asylum-walls]

FebuWhump Day 4: Impaling

Starring my good boy Maxis from Inherently Good!

Warnings: child endangerment, blood, crying, severe injuries, impalement, traffic accidents, dramatic rain

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Milo doesn’t see the truck coming because he’s too busy trying to beat the lights at the zebra crossing. He can’t see it because his hood is up and his hair is in his face, plastered down by the pouring rain, drenching the world in smears of color and muffling all sound.

He doesn’t see the truck.

But Maxis does.

Max sees the truck coming and there’s no time—no time for the truck to stop on the slick pavement, no time to push Milo out of the way, no time to call him back to safety, no time do anything.

Except for one thing.

Max leaves Cody screaming on the sidewalk, launches himself into the street with green energy already sizzling from his fist. He hopes its enough.

Time doesn’t slow down like it does in the movies.

Everything happens in a fraction of a second.

There’s a boom as Max makes impacts with the semi-truck, the hood collapsing like wet paper. The truck swerves, its trailers screeching as it tips and slams into the road, swinging across the sidewalk and knocking lampposts over like toothpicks. Its front end smashes into the opposite side of the street, concrete and metal and glass erupting into the air like an industrial volcano. The trailer still has moment and is chewing up the sidewalk. Cody dives into a shop, scrambling away from the front with the rest of the patrons as the back end cleaves through it, showering them with brick and mortar but thankfully little else. The metal framing of the trailer and the truck is warping, bending, its bonds straining against its own weight until they snap. Jagged pieces of metal whip off through the air, hissing cables and steel bolts writhing for a few seconds before embedding themselves into walls or the ground.

When it finally falls still, it is with the heavy groan of something enormous being laid to rest, its death rattle a tick of cooling engines and the settling of a steel frame.

It is still raining.

No one can see past the great wall of the truck, can’t make their way around where it is bent from one side of the street to the other. Sirens are already wailing in the distance.

Cody tries to leave the shop, his glasses cracked and his palms scraped, tries to climb over the upended vehicle, screaming for his friends. An adult holds him back, tries to comfort him, tries to tell him it’s not safe. Cody only screams.

Milo can hear him, distantly, like he’s miles away.

His ears are ringing and his heart is pounding and it’s hard to breathe. He feels dizzy, like he can’t quite get the world to stop spinning, like it won’t come into focus. His head hurts and there’s something hot smearing down the side of his face with the cold rain. His palms sting, his jeans are torn and bloodied, and he thinks maybe he fell, somehow.

“M-Milo…?” Max’s voice, closer, worried, hesitant. Milo blinks, tries to shake the static from his head, and looks around.

Max is hunched over him, arms spread, braced against the chunk of concrete Milo is leaning against. When he sees Milo looking, he smiles, shows that silly gap in his teeth, “Haha, wow, that sure was s-something, huh? Are you okay?”

“I…” Milo swallows hard, tries to turn to see what’s going on.

“Hey, Milo!” Max’s cheery voice is somewhat strained but it draws Milo’s attention back to his face, “Uh, h-how’s your head? Does it hurt? I hope you don’t have a, uh, a concussion.”

“Max…? What…” Milo struggles to put pieces together, his gaze darting away from Max to search the rest of the scene. It’s so hazy through the rain. Everything looks like it’s been through an apocalypse, concrete and metal and bits of glass all over the place.

“Milo. Milo! Milo, look at me!” Max tries to get his attention again, “Just—just stay right here, okay? H-help is c-coming. It’ll be okay. Just stay still, all right. Are you listening, Milo? Don’t. Move.”

“What happened…?” Reality is oozing back into place and with it, fear. Milo whimpers, cold and soaked and hurt and confused, braces his hands to stand up.

“Don’t!”

Milo flinches, falling back against the concrete slab as a sharp pain flares in his leg. Max is talking to him but Milo’s attention if solely focused on the steel beam digging into his thigh. It’s not terribly deep but it’s bleeding and it hurts and it scares him. Milo hiccups in fear and pain and grabs at the bar, his hands slippery, paws at the spot where it’s stabbed him, wants to tear it out.

“MILO LOOK AT ME!” Max shouts and Milo jumps, turning a watery gaze up to his friend. Max smiles but it’s thin and tepid and it looks like it hurts him to do it, “Milo, it’s okay. It’s n-not that bh—“ He takes a moment to catch his breath, ducking his head a little before he resurfaces, “It’s not that bad. You’ll be all right. B-but I need—need you to l-leave it in, okay? I know it hurts b-but you could bleed out if you remove it. Just—it—leave it…”

“Max…” Milo whines. He wants a hug. He wants a hug so damn bad, “Max, I’m s-s-scared…I w-want my Dads…”

“I know,” Maxis breathes, his voice quivering, “I know, Milo, I…I’m scared too…I wish—“ He breaks off, grits his teeth, expression crumpling into pain in a way Milo has never seen, “I wish Hector were here…”

And for once he sounds like a frighted little child.

“Y-you should…sit down…” Milo says, wants to reach out and hold Max because he’s cold and they’re both soaking wet and they’re both scared.

Max’s grin is lopsided and painful, tears swimming in the corners of his eyes as he looks down at Milo,

“I, uh, I can’t. Sorry.”

He can’t? Why can’t Max sit down? He must be tired, standing like that over Milo. He must be tired and cold and his arms are shaking and he’s crying, so he must be tired! Milo’s about to protest Max’s denial but then Milo shifts his injured leg a little and Max gasps in pain, a sound that chokes off into a whimper and Milo looks. Really actually looks this time.

The piece of metal in Milo’s leg isn’t that deep because something stopped it.

Something slowed it down before it could get too far.

Milo traces the piece of metal up, up, up into Max’s side, tearing through his shirt, sprouting like an obscene extra arm. Milo can see the rest of the piece poking out from behind Max. It must have been flying through the air and the only thing that saved Milo’s leg from further damage was Max getting in its way.

Max’s t-shirt and shorts are already stained red and soaked through.

And he’s still fucking smiling.

Milo begins to cry.

“Hey, hey, no, c-come on,” Max says gently, far gentler than he has a right to with a steel beam as thick as Milo’s arm through him, “It’s g-gonna be okay, Milo. It will all be okay. Help’s almost here! Th-the sirens—the sirens are c-closer! We’ll be home—nhg, home soon. Just hold on a little bit longer.”

But Milo can only sob, choking on his tears, as Max continues to comfort him.

The blood runs down Max’s leg and begins to drip onto the pavement. The rain washes it away.

“Just keep look—looking at m-me,” Max says in a shaky voice, “I’m r-right here. You’re gonna be okay, Milo, I swear. J-just—just…nh…” He wavers for a moment, body slackening, and the metal digs sharply into Milo’s leg, making him yelp. The noise jolts Max awake again and he shakes himself, forcing on that smile again, “S-sorry, got a little, ah, dizzy. We’re gonna be all right though! C-can you hear that? The—the sirens—they must be here now. They’re gonna—gonna get us out of this. Just keep looking at me, Milo, just look at me.”

Milo sobs, pressing the heels of his hands into this eyes as the first of the emergency workers make their way over the upturned semi, “H-h-how can you kh-keep sm-smiling? Why!? Why are you s-s-still smiling!?”

Maxis beams, bright and honest, chuckling weakly even as his arms and legs are shaking from cold and weakness, even as his blood continues to pool in his sock, even with tears on his cheeks, he beams at Milo,

“Because that’s what heroes do! They always keep smiling!”

[erintoknow]

maybe it will break and maybe it won’t

fallen hero fanfiction some [chargestep], but mostly featuring Lady Argent. ~3.1k words [ao3]

i feel like this might be intense enough i should just give this a generalized content warning :v

prev: [no reason for suspicion of me]

–––

You chew your cheek as you follow Ortega through the hallway, one hand fiddling with your sunglasses. Here we go, the day of reckoning. And lo, though you walk through the valley of death, but you shall fear no evil, because… you are the evil.

Or something.

Fuck.

Ortega stops and turns her head to check on you, offers an encouraging smile. “Thank you for doing this. I mean it.”

You keep your face placid, shrug your shoulders. “I’ll do what I can.”

“I wouldn’t have asked if I could think of any other way.”

You frown at that. The logic a little too familiar. “It’s… nice to be wanted, I guess.”

She looks at you again, shift your focus study the floor in front your feet. “Hey, I’ve missed you, you know?”

You don’t know what to say for that and so opt for ‘nothing,’ expecting Ortega to fill the silence like she always does. Instead the empty cord stretches out, the electric hum of machinery buzzing under your mind.

You step forward down the hall and it mercifully prompts Ortega to take the lead again. “So, uh, is–is, uh, Lady Argent ready?

“As much as she can be,” Ortega frowns, slowing her pace. “I hope this helps, even if you don’t find anything She’s been…”

“I can understand,” you say, your voice barely above a whisper. Something heavy and painful squeezes your chest, your throat. “She’s been– been…”

“Is that what it felt like when–” 

“I don’t want to talk about that.” You snap, you wrap your arms around yourself, hugging your sides as you shudder. You’ve never really thought this hard about what happens to someone after you finish possessing them. Now you are, and you can taste the bile in the back of your throat.

           cables twisting around

                       the feet like

               snakes in the grass.

      red strings wrapped

                           around your wrists,

                       yanked tight,

                 your hand finds the dial

        on the plasma caster’s power setting

“–felt it too, during that last mission.”

You blink, lost for a moment. “Who?”

Ortega gives you a look. “Chen?”

Oh.

Wait.

“What about the dampeners?”

Ortega shakes her head, “They overloaded.” She speeds up as she talks, “That’s why I got to you so late. It started to get to him too. Just about about managed to keep himself under control.”

Frown, “How?” How did Steel do what you couldn’t.

Ortega frowns, obviously not proud of herself. “I reminded him he was a soldier, you know? That his life wasn’t his anymore.”

Oh.

Your frown only deepens further. “Well good for him.”

The walls are a friendlier color but as Ortega opens the door for you to step inside, you can’t help but note the similarity to an interrogation room. Glass pane into the hallway, single door in or out. Two chairs on opposite sides of a small square table. Light hanging down from a singular overhead lamp. You pull the halves of your jacket together with one hand as you sit down in the only unoccupied chair.

Ortega shuts the door behind her.

Lady Argent sits across from you, arms folded in front of her chest, leaning back, away from you, shoulders tense.  Might as well try to ease into things…

You push up your sunglasses. No way in hell are you taking them off in here.  “H–how are you doing, Lady Argent?”

She scowls at you. “Let’s just get on with this already. It’s been weeks.”

Try not to flinch, take a breath. In. Out. “Alright, well… close you eyes, if you could?”

She hunches up, glaring at you. “Why.” Damn, you’d swear she could see right though you. Suddenly, having Ortega standing in a corner doesn’t feel like sufficient protection. God, if you screw this up, you’ll be lucky if it only costs your life.

You try to smile, put your hands flat on your lap, gripping your skin through clothes so they won’t shake. “N–n–no sense turning this into a staring contest, right? It’ll be– it’ll be hard for us to focus if we’re all laughing.”

Argent snarls at you, and you flinch back in your seat. “This isn’t funny.” 

Ortega steps forward from her corner towards the two of you. “Angie, it’s okay. Calm down. You can trust Ari.” You stomach twists at that last addition.

“I am calm.” Argent huffs, scrunching up face. “Stay out of this Julia.” She turns her head back to you, staring you down. You give her a nervous smile and she shuts her eyes with another huff. “…should I be doing anything?”

There’s something deeply unsettling about how her the silver sheen of her skin reflects your own face back at you.

You bite your lip, “Just… be quiet. It’s been a long time since I’ve tried to do anything like this.” You lie, and you feel sick again for doing so. You need to pull yourself together fast or you cover-up job is going to be even worse at hiding your involvement then the original crime.

“Take your time, Ari.” Ortega’s voice feels like it’s coming from a thousand miles away as you close your own eyes.

It starts with skimming thoughts, like dipping your hand through a stream. It’s small – a child’s – yours or hers? Skimming the water fingers brushing pebbles and the water deepens, further and further as the blue of the reflected sky deepens and the wavering images of the forest drops away and you’re in the thick of it – immersed. The current grips your arm pulling you one way, your leg it yanks another.

The haze of blue blinding your perception gives way to metal spires mirrored in the sea. Constantly shifting, tilting, collapsing and rebuilding, the reflections out of sync. Memory of metal and sharpness. You pull your own song tight against you, pull yourself into the tiniest speck of a presence as you can manage. The long you’re here, the great a risk you take.

Pull yourself tight, plunge down into the depth of the labyrinth. You don’t have time to try to decipher the literal meaning of the metaphors being thrown at you. Get in, get out. Follow the thread. You were always good that at least.

Or you thought you were.

Wrong turn, and the mindscape melts around you into something else, a shadow of a room. Somewhere in the Rangers HQ? Ortega stands in front of you but you only know that by her shape and the memory. The figure before you is alive in pulsing coils of light like you’ve never seen her before.

You’re in Argent’s memory?

Oops.

We can’t just pretend this never happened, Ortega pleads. You try to focus on her through Argent’s eyes. What is she wearing? A suit. White? When was this?

Yes we can, Argent snaps and your– her vision jerks around as she crosses her arms, scowls at Ortega.

Ortega, this unsettling superposition of glowing wires under human flesh. She gestures, leaving glowing trails with her hands. You know it doesn’t work that way. You’re–

A risk to the team. Argent snarls. A liability.

What’s that look for? Ortega frowns.

Argent’s vision darts between the pulsing in Ortega’s abdomen to her face. You sure I’m the only liability here?

That is not what we’re talking about.

Fine. But we will. Soon.

Ortega sighs. If that’s what it takes.

I just find her a bit creepy. You frown, drumming your hand against your elbow.

Angie! Ortega frowns, eyebrows furrowed.

You take a step back, What? Something about how she looks–

Just stop! Ortega raises her voice at you. She’s been through a lot and deserves some–

Huh. Arch a single eyebrow.

What!?

A smile curls your lip. Nothing, you lie. It’s just… funny.

What? What is? Ortega’s face heats up, an intensity of color.

You. Point a finger at her face. Are blushing.

She’s a friend. An old friend. Ortega is glaring daggers at you now.

You keep your smirk. Uh-huh.

Look, just, be civil to her okay? This isn’t her fault. Ortega’s words twist a knife in your heart as the memory warps and melts around you. It’s not your fault. This isn’t your fault. You’re just– you’re just trying to help right?

Cables, like snakes in the grass coil around you.

Sorry Chickadee, here comes the net.

You don’t even realize at first that anything’s wrong. You’re just walking down the street, enjoying the temporary respite from the constant throbbing pain in your bones. And then you don’t make the turn towards your house. You keep walking. Cross the street. Huh. That’s funny. 

Must have been day-dreaming.

let your feet carry you to work by sheer reflex of memory there’s an itching in the back of your skull inside behind one eye a pressure pushing down people screaming flash of green when did you get to the ranger’s building? that’s blocks away plug in the security code descend down, down into the vault no one questions you why? why can’t they see what’s wrong? you movement feels stiff yet light there’s someone else pulling the strings something speaks with your mouth to the security guard and it’s not you, not your words and then

you’re scanning a wall of boxes tracing lines of circuitry pry loose one cabinet take the box inside and something in your skin buzzes crawls hums as your fingers wrap around the box whatever asshole’s running you doesn’t pay any mind too drunk on their supposed victory but still you can’t move, can’t speak cable wires run through your bones pulled this way and that by something else

and fuck thank god there’s herald you useless man don’t just stand there smiling this isn’t you it’s not you, help do something a shock like lightning runs through you and your hand goes straight into herald’s smiling face knocking him off his feet goddamnit thats what you get why won’t you realize something is wrong danny help me

he says something as the you that isn’t you runs and you can’t hear it can’t process it your vision dark like you keep falling asleep have to force yourself awake but there’s nothing you can do nothing nothing nothing your own fists clumsily bludgeoning and he doesn’t understand doesn’t get it useless useless somebody help help please why doesn’t somebody help you

You manage to yank yourself away before you impale yourself any further on the memory, an angry hissing red razor, a thousand different edges poking out in all directions. The water around it shimmers in a boiling haze.

Fuck.

Shit.

Goddamn.

That was bad.

You can’t afford time to process it right now. At least divorced from your body you don’t feel your usual reactions. No nausea. No tight throat. No panicked breathing. Clear your mind of all of it. Both your minds.

Focus on calm seas and desert plains.

Bit by bit the water colors, the edges dull, the shifting of the metal around you slows. You’ve made your job harder for yourself, but you’re not doomed yet. This’ll call for extra finesse. Dance from memory spike to memory spike, pull thoughts of home, wear the smell of baking bread like a cloak. Cast aside your jealousy pangs at her memories of family.

Memories aren’t recordings, it’s a performance, and one you can change. Touch the core of it again, gently, lightly, don’t get sucked in, scrub your give-aways drop little hints of something else.

No one’s heard from her in months, her picture plastering news reports. The innocent young woman, would-be vigilante. Where is she now? You don’t know, but Locus will make the perfect scapegoat. Strong enough to have plausibly done it. So long gone it’s unlikely the Rangers will ever find her and realize the ruse.

Paint her image into the crowd as Argent steps out of the therapy clinic. Purple on black skin, re-route your regret as coming from her:

It wasn’t your fault Argent. It wasn’t your fault. She had no other choice. It was nothing against you.

She’s sorry. She’s so, so sorry. You jerk awake in your own body to the room spinning around you, nausea churning at the back of your mouth. Someone’s hands pressing hard into your shoulders, holding you steady.

“Ariadne– Ari? You okay?”

You flinch, look up and try to focus your eyes. Ortega’s mouth is a tight frown, brows knitted together. What does she– Shouldn’t she be attending to Argent? Not you?

You cough, “I’m fine.” You rub your nose and groan, a line of red runs down your finger, across your hand. “Fuck. Got any tissues?”

“Yeah, yeah of course,” Ortega reaches into her back pocket pulling out a travel pack and handing the whole thing to you. You quickly shove a tissue up your noise and then wipe down your bloody hand.

“Thanks.” You glance over at Argent and flinch, there’s a slow boiling fury in her eyes. This is it. The moment of truth.

Argent spits out a name through clenched teeth. “Locus.” Her hands have curled into fists. “It was Locus. I knew she couldn’t be trusted. No one is that nice.” She shoves her chair backward as she gets to her feet.

Ortega helps you up, “Are you sure it was her?”

“I am.” She pays a passing glance in your direction and your stomach flips. “Sorry about your friend there. But she managed to jog something at least. I saw her. I saw her just before it all happened.” 

You glance at Ortega as Argent paces the room, flexing her fingers which have sharped into razors. “She is up to something. I don’t know what. Forced? Sorry?” Her voice drops into an unnerving growl. “She’ll pay. No one does something like that to me and walks away.” drums her hands –lethal pinpricks– against her hips, quivering in rage.

You feel sick, watching her.

There’s… There’s no way she’ll actually find Locus, right? “You should go tell Chen while it’s still fresh in your head.” Ortega puts an arm around your shoulder, holding you up, and you let her. Your body pressing into hers. You still feel dizzy. Was she always this tall? You didn’t shrink in the past seven years did you? “I’ll make sure Ari’s okay here.”

Argent flexes her hands, brushes back her hair in a dramatic flourish. “We finally have a lead.” She marches out the room, slamming the door hard enough behind her to make you jump.

Ortega frowns as she looks at you. “Are you alright, Ari? You look awful.”

You worm your way free of her and narrow your eyes, hold up the wad of tissues with one hand as you pinch the bridge of your nose. “I’m fine. Stop worrying so much.” It’s not you she should worry about.

“If you say so. Let me just clean up a bit before we head out.”

You lean back against the wall of the room as you watch Ortega fuss about the room. When she turns back to you, there’s a chocolate bar in her hands. “I know it’s not a milkshake, but I figured you would want a pick-me-up.”

You eyes widen at her, “W–where the– the heck were you hiding this?” You take the bar from her, hold it in one hand while you check if your nose is still bleeding with the other. Satisfied you at least won’t bleed over the chocolate you rip the wrapper open and bite down on an edge; let it melt in your mouth.

“I know how you get when you do something big like this.”

You close your eyes, slump against the wall. For a moment it’s like the past seven years haven’t happened. It’s just you and Julia, de-stressing after some death-defying battle. Allies again. Friends. But– “You never used to be this thoughtful.”

“Things change.”

“I guess.”

The taste of copper mixes with the taste of chocolate.

You can hear Ortega shift and you open your eyes and now she’s sitting in one of the chairs, turned it so she can face you. “Do you want to talk about it?”

You almost want to laugh. Instead you shrug, fold the wrapper back up and toss the candy bar to the table. “No.”

Ortega meets your gaze and you have to look away again. “It can’t hurt.”

You toss the bloodied tissue into the trash bin by the door. Rim shot, 2 points. Pull out another tissue and wad it up there. “You aren’t–” You stop yourself, wince. Try again, “you aren’t the one with the scars.”

Fuck. You don’t deserve her sympathy. If she knew the truth about you… Not even just about what you are any more. It’s what you’ve done. What you’re going to do. You’re going to have to think hard about this. About how far you’re willing to go.

Do you really need to blow up a whole building just to take out some dumb exhibit? Maybe…

“Ari… none of us got out of there in one piece.”

You tense up, “Y–you know what I mean.” What is her deal? Why does she care so damn much?

“Maybe, but…” Ortega trails off as she stands up again, she hesitates, a half step towards you. God. She’s really trying isn’t she. This isn’t an act. It isn’t a scheme to get you to slip up. Fuck. All this effort… you don’t deserve a second of it.

You don’t deserve to be here. You shouldn’t have done this. Ortega’s yanked your corpse out of the ground and now all the maggots have gone running for cover. Maybe Chen and Ortega don’t hate you. But now they will. What you’ve already done here.

But you can’t stop. It’s this or dying or worse. You or the Directive. 

You step towards her, duck your head towards the side and pull her into a hug. It takes her a second to register and then her arms clap tight against your back, pulling you against her, holding you a littler harder, and little longer than appropriate.

Eventually you have to pull away from her. You cough, “I’ve.. um, m-missed you too.” You can feel your face heat up as say it.

Ortega’s face lights up, a grin spreading wide across her face, and she’s acting way too excited over some dumb hug.

You step away from her before she can hug you again. Try to scowl to keep from smiling back. “D–don’t– don’t get carried away now.”

–

next: [my body is here and i am inside]

[minc3meat-blog]

I said I’d post some of my writing so here’s a little snippet:

Voyager

“There is only an infinitesimal chance that the plaque will ever be seen by a single extraterrestrial, but it will certainly be seen by billions of terrestrials. Its real function, therefore, is to appeal to and expand the human spirit, and to make contact with extraterrestrial intelligence a welcome expectation of mankind.”       B.M. Oliver

1: “Conception”

                                “Like a ghost, my reflection on the cabin window smirks back at me. Were it not for the thick-heeled work boots laced up to underneath my knees, I probably wouldn’t be able to see out the window at all. My overalls and shirt, unbuttoned just enough to display a hydraulic oil stained tee, hang off my skin like Navy banners.  My unmanageably curly red hair, coated in a sheen of the natural dust from the ship, droops over my eyes and ears in similar fashion. Radiation tans on my arms and legs from too much time in the cockpit on my otherwise fair skin clash against the freckles on my cheeks. Not the vision of a ship captain most would imagine, but a ship captain nevertheless. Staring from the rear deck of my ship, a dozen dark shapes drifting away from the workcrew hold, I can’t help but to take in the scene. Against an endless pool of black, the dark blobs are dwarfed by the rubble and debris of the asteroid field. Skeleton wrecks and decrepit hulls of vessels from times and wars gone by. Corroded reminders of a past long forgotten. Monuments of heroes and men, lives saved and lost. Cables and tubing, unaware of the emotional ties they grip, ensnare and squeeze steel and cargo alike. Looming over the hulking wrecks are the watchful eyes of Dastrov’s four moons. Gaseous and dark, casting a looming shadow of poison and radiation over the asteroid field. Demigods of this corner of the universe, they exploit their power to hold the floating graveyard in place, trapped in a gravitational purgatory for all of eternity. A stranger in this sacred space, a lone ship slowly makes its way through a passable corridor through the catacombs of metal. With a large hull and tiny forward cockpit, it looked more like a giant beetle than a scavenging ship. Hazard lights on all sections of it flash intermittently, illuminating its way through the corroded tunnels of junk. It putters and shakes as it goes, feeling the need to announce its age and mechanical issues.  Twelve rusted, robotic insects zip in and out of the wrecks, only stopping to drop their finds into the cargo hold of the ship.  Like flies, they bounce from corpse to corpse, their host leading the way through the field of the dead.

“Like a ghost, my reflection on the cabin window smirks back at me?” my copilot giggled, which sounded more like someone choking on metal scrap. “Thas’ a bit overdramatic dontcha’ think?” Renna, my copilot, leaned over the nav console. Her tall, built frame and grey skin made her look like a formation of boulders in a forest of cables and tubing of our ships cockpit. Her jet black hair, tied in a single ropelike braid and draped between to grey horns, reached all the way down to the back of her ankles. Her eyes were almost as dark as her hair, with the exception of the dim glow of retina implants. From eyebrow to chin: piercings. One arm, studded with patches of unfinished sleeve tattoos, glowed fluorescent in the ambient lighting emitting from the flight computers. The other, a mechanical prosthetic, whirred and twitched as it gripped an empty drink glass. She’d almost pass as human, if not for half her body being machine parts. “I’m sorry,” I spun on my heel to face her, closing the voice dictation window on my arm computer. “How many autobiographies for an Old World civilization have you written?” She swirled the watered down ice in the bottom of her now-empty drink glass. “You really think we’re gonna’ find this thing, dontcha’?” “I mean, we wanted to get paid, right?” She tapped her drink onto the holographic screen, making the pixels sputter and dance. The sweat beads from the side of the glass glistened like diamonds against the readout. “Well, duh,” she snorted. “But like, you... Want to find this rusty ‘ol probe. Want-want.” I did want-want to find it. The contract source was sketchy but the payout was huge, regardless of whether or not we found the Old World probe intact.. Or if at all. It’d been spotted orbiting around GB-44 for a few decades, before suddenly sputtering off to Serpens Arcturus, which was what alarmed the Navy… because ancient propulsion-less probes don’t usually sputter off at all. Of course, rather than sending their expensive autonomous patrols to track the unknown, the Navy contracted the mission to lower-tier organic pilots. Whatever the probe was, it had spooked the most powerful fleet in the Imperium. What intrigued me about chasing a metallic ghost from the past wasn’t the bounty (entirely), but the chance to send a message: two giant middle fingers to the Navy Federation and entwined Corporation dealings. A warning to people of Old about the nightmare that they would unknowingly incubate, and possibly saving them from themselves before they could dig their grave too deep. But whatever the true reason, it was a good chance to shake things up. The week to week grind of automaton wreck salvaging had gotten less cost effective, not to mention monotonous. “Primary tethers offline. Machine error recorded.” a computerized voice chimed. “Fock it,” Renna cursed, scrambling to the salvage controls. “It’s that busted relay coil again, ‘innit!?” “Yes, Renna. It is that busted relay coil again. May I remind you… AGAIN… to service said part as soon as possible.” “Aw, yes mum. I’ll get right on it, mum.” Renna smirked, glaring at the ceiling. “Mum, can we have the talk about the birds n’ the bees?” “Which species intercourse behaviors would you like to discuss?” Renna spat out the piece of ice she had been chewing loudly on. “I was joking you filthy, ceiling lady voice!” she turned to me. “That AI’s got quite the mouth, dontcha’ think?” “Can you fix the coil, or is this a spoiled run?” I asked, ignoring her childish banter with an inanimate machine. Renna shook her head. “Shit if I know, isn’t that why you got a flight mechanic?” We did have a flight mechanic.. Or at least I think we had a flight mechanic. His name was Diz, and I’d never actually seen him. Renna had hired him some time ago, and to be completely honest, I don’t think she’s ever paid him. On occasion, I’d hear a soft sigh or clamoring in the vents. Sometimes I’d even see his little antennae pop up from behind a console, or in between pistons.. I think he lives and feeds off the ship, like a parasite. As unnerving as it sounded, Diz did good work… except for now, of course. “No fix!” a soft voiced hissed from behind the salvage computer panels. “Diz, you lil’ cunt, fix the damned coil!” “No fixxxxx!” Diz hissed again, as shuffling sounds moved across the back of the command console. “No fix, no go.” If I leaned forward just a bit, I probably could’ve caught a glimpse of our illusive mechanic. At this point, I almost didn’t want to ruin the mystery, so I remained still as I called out to him. “Where don’t you wanna go?” “He doesn’t want to go probe chasing,” Renna interrupted. “He’s the only one who hates change more than you do.” I shrugged. She wasn’t wrong. “I’m not forcing you to come with us, but you do need to fix that coil for the job we’re on now.” Diz grumbled softly in agreement from behind the entanglement of cables and servers, than shuffled back over to behind the salvage console. With a loud clang, he was into the ventilation system and off to fix the coil. “What’s got him all uptight? I think that’s the most I’ve ever heard him talk.” “Somethin’s got him shook about this ‘ol probe thing. Weird, ‘innit? I’ve never seen ‘em get spooked ‘fore…” Renna replied, rapping her long fingernails against the idle salvage controlpad. “This ‘ol things even got me a bit frazzled, but I’m excited too, ya’ know?” “You’re actually excited about this?” I questioned. “I mean, it wouldn’t have been my first choice of a job. The Navy’s just usin’ us as cannon fodder to chase after some rusty piece of junk they’re scared of. Which is actually pretty typical… ‘s just the way they went about it. And the amount of coin they’re offerin’..” “It is pretty sketchy, I’ll admit. But Navy contracts never usually put us in any more danger than we’re used to, so I’m sure we’ll be fine.” “Well that’s a glimmerin’ endorsement...” “The Navy’s never fucked us over… directly…” I muttered, exhuming anxieties about the contract I thought I had buried alive a few hours earlier. “Oh boy.” Renna laughed. “C’mon, it’ll be fun!” she cheered, pouring another glass of whatever sludge she considered liquor. “The last organic crew in the system, escapin’ the mundane, on an adventure to discover to find some creepy probe and make payday!” I smiled, albeit warily. I knew what they’d write on our headstones.

[uglymanchronicles]

UMC:R Chapter 4: Systems Check

This one’s a bit of a weird one--basically a heavy-handed excuse to describe my own character in weirdly homoerotic detail.  But it has some PATHOS and I otherwise had fun writing it.  There will be probably two more chapters before the prequel ends and we start getting back into where the original UMC started.  Enjoy!

“Fffffuck me.”

Evan really hoped he wasn’t falling into a pattern of sudden switches between consciousness and unconsciousness. It couldn’t be good for his brain. Speaking of...

He reached back and patted his head where it’d gotten intimate with the counter. There was some blood matted in his hair, but aside from that…

Evan sat up and turned around. There was a bit of blood on the counter, and some on the carpet where he’d been lying. But beyond a slight tenderness where his fingers touched the spot, there was no pain—and certainly no wound. How long…?

Evan pulled himself up, noticing how oddly easy it felt despite having very recently donkey-punched himself by proxy. The video was still going, but past-Evan had somehow unstrapped himself from the machine and was in the process of stumbling towards the camera. Before the screen went blank, Evan noticed the total length of the video. In comparison to what it had been when he’d toppled over, less than five minutes had passed.

In less than three minutes he’d almost completely healed from a potentially moderately-serious head injury. Not only that, assuming there hadn’t been any post-editing, his previous self had recovered enough from having his brain cored out to be able to free himself from a torture device, walk no worse than a six-drink-deep drunk, and manipulate electronics at least as well as a five-year-old.  How much damage could he sustain and still function? Was there a limit? Could he even die?

Introspection provided no answers, and Evan suddenly found himself very uninterested in the question. Right now, all he wanted to do was take a shower. Maybe that would help put things in perspective. Plus, it was after midnight; if he was going to seriously consider DIY-ing himself into a superhero, he’d do it best after a good night’s sleep. There was also the little matter of the blood in his hair, but that barely registered as a concern in the face of everything else.

His bedroom door was littered with post-it notes and taped-up signs demanding he watch the video on the laptop. He felt a slight tinge of resentment for the earlier version of himself. Sure, he’d gotten the point across, but for God’s sake, there was such a thing as going overboard! Evan ripped off a handful of the notes and crumpled them up as he pushed the door open.

He groaned. The bedroom was almost unrecognizable. About the only thing familiar was his computer, which had been moved to a corner of the room and rearranged on an apparently homemade shelf-slash-desk-slash-whatever. What surface wasn’t occupied by his keyboard and mouse was filled with pieces of machinery and small piles of electronic components.   He’d mounted his three monitors directly to the wall, apparently to save space; in addition, two flatscreen TVs, dated and obviously secondhand, hung on opposite sides of the corner of the room.  So many papers, pictures, and maps were stuck to the walls that the cables connecting the myriad electronics were completely obscured. Had he really gone full tinfoil-hat? Evan groaned as he noticed colored pins and threads weaving an intricate web between the numerous pieces of media. Yep. He’d gone full whacko. If there were any actual, legitimate connections there, the connections had been lost when he’d rebooted his brain.

God, he was getting tired of putting off seeking answers. The temptation to dive into all this nonsense and sort through it was almost overwhelming. But he knew if he sat down and started digging through everything he’d be there for days and wouldn’t get anything else done. He looked around again and actually heard himself growl when he realized his bed was gone. His mind went to the bundled thing on the roof of the RV. Great. He’d uprooted everything to make room for his craziness. There was something in the space where the bed had sat, but it was covered in books, binders, and cast-off clothing.

He’d bought a Bowflex and stashed his bed to make room for it. Had he done this after he’d drilled a hole in his head? It seemed like the kind of thing a guy missing part of his brain would do. He peered back out of the door and saw that the loft at the front of the vehicle had been set up into a sort of mini-bedroom, complete with a long, flat dresser. Well, that made some kind of sense, at least.  

Grumbling to himself about nothing specific, Evan hauled himself up to the loft to inspect what he was certain was a cluttered, hideous bolt-hole in his own damn home.  He was pre-emptively sighing as he pulled himself over the edge, but never quite finished it.  

“Oh.”

Another pleasant surprise. He’d actually set up a nice little room there.  The mattress was very flat but looked fancy, like the kind podcasts were sponsored by. The mattress was topped with neatly folded sheets, an understated but tasteful light gray comforter, and surprisingly plush pillows. A legless nightstand nearby held a small lamp, a bottle of water, and a notepad and pencil, all arranged very deliberately. A small pile of books of varying sizes sat neatly by the mattress, and a small adjustable shelf affixed to the wall held another laptop.  Across from the mattress, a small flatscreen TV hung on the wall, wrapping the whole scene up in a nicely cozy domestic package.

All in all, he was impressed. It was a quaint little living space cultivated out of what he’d formerly dismissed as a throw-away attic. He was a little miffed that the price had been his actual bedroom, but of all the things to begrudge his former self for, this was pretty low on the list. He hauled himself up and crawled to the dresser.  As he opened the drawers, he realized how strange it was to experience his own idiosyncrasies from the outside.  Each pair of socks was neatly knotted together, his boxers were folded perfectly square and sorted by color and pattern; it put him in mind of an adorably eccentric little old man, probably a watchmaker.  That seemed like the kind of person who’d fold his clothes with a t-square and index them.  The thought made Evan smile, but the wholesomeness of the image faded somewhat when he found himself thinking that guys like that usually wound up being serial killers.

Fresh clothes acquired, Evan hopped down and headed to the bathroom. It had been a hell of a thing to find an RV with a bathroom that wasn’t smaller than the average coat closet, but he’d scrounged around until he’d found a Class C model—the one with the bathroom you change clothes in without having to stand with one foot in the toilet.  He had never regretted the extra effort and cost.

He stood in the center of the bathroom for a moment, steeling himself. It was time to rip the band-aid off, figuratively and literally. He stepped up the mirror and stared himself in the eyes.

He could almost see his thoughts reflected in the blue of his irises. Did he really want to do this? Not this whole thing, but this, specifically. If he could heal from practically anything but still needed to have his face under wraps, it must be really bad. Maybe he could just wear a mask the rest of his life, never knowing what he actually looked like. Avoid the ugly truth.

Even while he was thinking it, he knew how ridiculous that idea was. The chaos of the past few hours was stirring up a lot of generalized anxiety that was sending his mind strange places. Drilling a hole in his brain less than a week ago probably hadn’t helped on that front, either.

Time to start that journey of a thousand miles, I guess.

He tied back his hair, took a deep breath, and started to peel the gauze away. Adhesives caught on small hairs, tender skin grumpily sent his brain pangs of pain as it was uncovered. The air on the uncovered skin felt alien, as if it was only touching his skin very reluctantly. Evan’s leg was shaking involuntarily by the time the last bandage landed in the trash can, and he had to take a few deep breaths before he finally raised his gaze to the mirror again.

“……fuck.”

His previous self hadn’t been exaggerating when he said he wouldn’t be winning any beauty contests; if anything, he’d been understating the situation. He’d be lucky if he didn’t make kids cry when they saw him.

His left cheek definitely had the worst of it. His in-between-brown-red-tan skin—which he supposed could be called “ruddy”, but he liked to refer to himself as “ethnically ambiguous”—was covered in divots and spots from his mis-angled jawline up to just below his left eye. Evan slowly ran his fingers over his mottled skin, marveling at the variation between the individual pits, bumps, and gashes. There were actual small chunks of face missing. The texture of the skin was almost smooth to the touch but a little bit sticky, like the paint of an old house, complete with uneven coverage and bumps of buildup. Evan found that the skin didn’t hurt to the touch, but it also didn’t feel how skin was supposed to feel; his fingers didn’t immediately recognize it as skin, and the touch of his own fingers on his cheek came through muted and distorted, like the sensation was on a weak, distant signal. Christ. Was it a burn? No, it looked like he’d been too close to an explosion, all chopped up like that. Was it an accident or an attack?

Shit. It didn’t stop on his face, either. It had been hidden by his hair, but now that it was pulled back he could see that the pitting and gashes continued upwards along the side of his head. Pieces of his left ear were gone. Everything behind the top of the ear was a chewed-up mess. His lobe was still there, but not for lack of trying; a jagged tear ran from the back halfway to the front. It was like somebody had bitten the top of the ear off, then grabbed the lobe and tried to just yank it off.

After a few moments of staring at his ragged ear, Evan whipped his head around to check the other one. He sighed with relief as he saw it was intact, but the new angle brought the right side of his face into view. It wasn’t as bad as his left, but, unfortunately, his left side had originally been his ‘good side’; two long, curving scars, the result of an unfortunate incident with a turkey vulture during his teenage years, ran up the right side of his neck and peeked over his jaw about an inch up his cheek. Previously, that had been the extent of the damage to that cheek.

But now, in addition to a ton of tiny scratches and a few more small divots, his right cheek was taken up by a wide starburst-shaped scar that trailed off to a line and crossed his crooked nose like the tail of a comet, ending somewhere among the mess on his left cheek. It even looked like somebody’d tried to stitch it closed—upon closer inspection, the edge of the scar looked almost serrated. Clearly the stitches hadn’t held. He couldn’t imagine how much any individual part of that must have hurt.

His big, broad forehead was relatively unscathed save for a few “normal” scars, though a tiny triangular chunk of the far edge of his left eyebrow seemed to have left for greener pastures. After everything else, it was almost jarring how un-damaged he was above the eyes. Maybe he’d been wearing a helmet or something when whatever mutilated him happened. If it was just one incident.

Well, shit.  He wasn’t quite the most mangled person he’d ever seen, but…

He felt tears start to well in his eyes as his fingers gripped the edge of the sink.  It wasn’t fair.  He’d been handsome, if a bit unusually so, before.  Not that he’d taken advantage of it, but… to suddenly wake up to a face that was no longer his was frightening.  He was hideous.  Hell, he was almost a monster.

Evan’s heart pounded louder and louder as he fought back tears. There was no distinction between anger, sadness, and fear any more. A synesthetic mass of emotions stormed around his brain, crushing all his thoughts under the weight of pure mental chaos. He started to scream, a hoarse wail that pitched up gradually to a roar of insane fury as his whole body began to quake violently. He stared his mutilated reflection dead in the eyes as he continued to scream, a primordial, hateful rejection of the thing he saw before him. When he ran out of breath, he screamed between gasps; short, sharp shouts that consumed all the air in his lungs with each exclamation. He didn’t know how long he was screaming before something made a loud crack and came loose in his right hand.

Evan’s scream slowly trailed off as he looked down at the object in his fist. It was piece of the sink. In his rage, he’d gripped the countertop surface so hard that a palm-sized chunk of stone had broken off.

“What a cheap piece of…” Evan started to say, but then stopped. He’d dropped a hammer on the sink months ago and it hadn’t even chipped the surface. It didn’t damage easily. So what…

Evan’s eyes fell on his hand again. He’d always had huge hands, which stuck out on his lean, lanky arms like the end of a rake. Except his arm wasn’t lanky any more. He couldn’t pick out the bones in his wrist like he remembered. In fact, there was a lot more wrist than he remembered, circumference-wise.  Ditto with his forearm (more scars there, too…), and his elbow was similarly magnified.  And above that…

“JESUS CHRIST.”

Evan had never been a small guy.  Even as a kid he’d been tall and wiry, with limbs that seemed a size or two too long for his torso.  He’d hit six feet tall before he’d hit his 14th birthday.  In high school, he’d been involved in a lot of sports, but always ones where being dexterous and fast were to his advantage.  Even when he’d begun boxing he’d focused more on using his reach and stamina than developing sheer stopping power.  After watching his two older siblings become hulking behemoths of human beings, he was aware that his family had the potential to be extraordinarily beefy, but he’d tried to stick to keeping himself slim and trim.

Clearly, something in the missing months had made him reconsider his stance on the issue.  If his bicep was less than 24” around he’d be shocked.   He raised his hand to shoulder height, clenched it into a fist, and curled it backwards.

“God damn, son!”  Evan watched his own muscle bulge and shrink several times over, a grin slowly creeping over his face.  Okay, yeah, he could work with this.  That’d do just fine.  

Like a kid on Christmas tearing into the biggest present under the tree, Evan yanked his shirt off over his head with violent enthusiasm.  Underneath, he was still wearing that strange undershirt.  

“Weird sequin armor. Later,” he muttered, dragging the strange garment off and tossing it into a corner where it settled with a soft slithering sound.  Evan’s jaw dropped as he took in his bare torso.  Wide-eyed and still staring downwards, he sidestepped his way back in front of the mirror. His gaze slowly raised to the mirror again, and he realized his horrifying face was split into a massive grin. Even with his disfigurement, his sheer excitement was clearly evident. He took a deep breath, held it for a second, and then yelled again.

“Yeeeeeeeaaaaaaa-uhhhhh, BABY!”

He didn’t have a ton in the way of resting definition, but the bulk of muscle was undeniable. Evan spent a few moments flexing his arms and shoulders, marveling how his skin shifted and bulged in novel and fascinating ways. He was at least a foot broader at the shoulder than he remembered, and that was just the start of it.

His chest was borderline absurd. Like his shoulders, it had broadened, thickened, and rounded. Evan gingerly poked at his bulging pectorals. Firm, but not rock-hard. Enough softness to still feel like a person instead of an object, but still extremely supple. He felt his cheeks flush.

He had boobs.

But… like, good guy-boobs? That was a thing, right? Some girls liked that. Some guys, too, he thought, feeling his cheeks burning a little hotter as some cobwebs were dusted away from that particular corner of his libido.

He knew he was fully blushing now, but a strange and weirdly irresitable notion was punching through the fog of embarrassment. Fuck it, he was alone. Who was going to see?

Evan put his hands under his pecs, lifted, and pushed them together, leaning forward and pursing his lips at his reflection. He winked at himself and made a kissing sound, then burst out laughing. He had cleavage! Almost four inches of it!

Evan flopped down on the toilet lid, giggling madly to himself. “I guess the big tits gene doesn’t just affect the women in the family,” he managed to chuckle, hefting ‘the boys’ again. He looked almost hilariously sexualized. In addition to his new bustiness, he was still sporting nipple piercings and belly button ring—remnants of teenage rebellion that he’d kept as a cautionary tale to himself against impulsive decisions. The silver spikes and brass ring somehow looked more at home on his new body; when he’d been scrawny they’d made him look like he was trying to audition for a ‘Suicide Girls’ knock-off. If only he’d had paler skin and a heroin addiction he could probably have made a lot of money with a webcam. Now he looked like he could be on the cover of a harlequin romance—albeit one with a lot of airbrushing and somebody else’s head imposed on his body.

So he’d beefed up in anticipation of… whatever he could call whatever he was about to undertake. That explained the exercise equipment, as well as several containers of various supplement powders he’d come across while checking on his food situation.

Now that he’d finished with his giggle fit over his tits, Evan was a little surprised by how long it’d taken him to notice how much his body had changed. Everything still moved the way he remembered; he still felt very light on his feet, despite his new bulk. Standing in front of the mirror again, he bent from side to side at the waist, testing his flexibility.  Amazingly, he felt limber as ever. Apparently past Evan had done this bulking up thing right; despite the fact that his abdomen and obliques seemed to have been replaced with rock-solid slabs of beef, he was still able to easily bend down and touch his toes. While he was down there, he noticed that he hadn’t skipped the proverbial leg day, either—that, or he’d had a butterball turkey implanted into each thigh.

So… arms and shoulders three times bigger, a jaw-dropping rack, less “abs” and more “slab”, skull-crushing thighs and an amateur slasher movie face.  He looked weird. But… he found himself liking it more the more he thought about it.  He could do something about the face, or make it work for him.  Make looking like a brute work.  Be a fashion pioneer.  Figure something out.  

Now that his giddiness had died down a bit, Evan started looking himself over for other damage.  The video had said he’d have a massive wound on his chest, but he hadn’t even noticed it at first. There was, indeed, a large discoloration a few inches under his left nipple, reaching around under his arm and around to his back, but it looked more like a giant birthmark than a fatal axe wound. Why was it so faint?  Hell, the purple spot on his solar plexis, a sort of permanent bruise from a childhood injury, stood out more than it. His body was dotted with other, smaller scars that stood out much more; a few near his navel were definitely bullet wounds, and judging from the jagged pale lines above his right hip, a bear had tried to steal his kidney.  Regardless of their size, wounds that could cause scars that severe should have been still hurting him bit, even after external healing.  But he found that, aside from the scars, it was as if those injuries never happened.  No sign of any internal injury.  He felt extremely healthy, and he was grateful for it, but it wasn’t how that worked, and that started to eat at him.

The rules had changed and he had virtually no data on how any of it worked. He was no longer afraid, angry, or sad about his situation. Now he was annoyed. How was he supposed to go about this intelligently with only anecdotal evidence? The obvious answer was to start testing the properties of his healing, but what if there were strange rules?  Did he have a personal kryptonite? What if he cut himself, and it turned out the healing didn’t work because of what the blade was made of, and he got an infection and died? What if there was a limited number of times he could heal? Was it like an extra life system?

Evan stepped back up the mirror again, now glowering at his reflection. Now that he wasn’t as shocked by his own appearance, maybe he could figure something out in the patterns of the scars. Some kind of clue in the type of injuries or something. Just a starting point. Some tiny little verifiable speck of data he could cling to like a drowning man.

Before any answers surfaced from his ruined reflection, Evan noticed something sticking out from behind the mirror. The corner of a yellow piece of paper was closed in the medicine cabinet door.  He tugged it out and recognized his own handwriting again.  

Thought you might need these.

Briefly puzzled, Evan pulled open the medicine cabinet.  There, tucked amongst bottles of an alarming variety of supplements, was an old ‘Altoids’ tin, slightly dented and faded with age.  As he picked it up, a familiar skunky smell wafted into his nostrils. He snorted with laughter as he flicked the tin open and pulled out three meticulously-rolled joints and his favorite lighter.   After a second’s thought, he stuck all three between his lips and flicked the lighter open.

“Fuckin’ right I do.”

[pandamothium]

A Close Call

A Pokemon Go AU fic ft. my OC Cecylia DeLune

Warnings: Language and Violence 

Set within surfacage’s incredible And The World Will Turn to Ash AU, thus I do not own their OC Noire or their interpretations of the Team Go leaders. Neither do I take any credit for their AU as I am merely piggybacking because I love the story and world so much :) 

So if you’re curious and want to know more about And The World Will Turn to Ash, please checkout surfacage’s page and be amazed!!

See the notes at the end of the fic to learn more about some of the characters featured

It was an oddly cold night in late August, Cecylia watched her breath form billowy vapors as she made it the roof of the Pokemon Center. From this vantage she had a clear view of the Team Instinct breeding facility as she shuffled to find the small bluetooth headset she received from Professor Sebastian. Positioning it in her ear, she switched on the device and waited through the static until the connection was set.

“Eclipse, can you hear me?” Hun’s collected voice broke through the static, “Yeah, clear as a bell.”

“Don’t forget the main objective: get in, get the data and get out with as little trouble as possible, do you think you can pull it off?” They continued, the slight hint of sarcasm in their voice irritated her, “I do, although why Executive Karen was so hard pressed that I be the one doing this is beyond me. Breaking into one of Team Instinct’s most renowned facilities? Isn’t this a mission for a higher ranking member? Someone like you and Attila?”

She could hear an exasperated sigh through the headset, “Eclipse, you know why. If it wasn’t for Attila and I vouching for you to Professor Sebastian and Dr. Namba, she would have had you flogged and assigned to janitorial duties after what happened last time. And that’s if she hadn’t killed you first.”

Cecylia chewed her lip, not wanting to admit that they were right. Executive Karen was cruel and she did not appreciate when her plans were interfered with especially by the mistakes of those under her.

“I was being fictitious Hun, I know. And I’m thankful that you two stood up for me, otherwise-“, but she was cut off, “Don’t misunderstand Eclipse, we only did so because we believe that you can still be useful despite your novice mistakes. Aside from Executive Noire, you’re one of the few survivors of Cipher’s experiments which makes you useful, as a tool. Don’t forget that. It’s your abilities we need, not you.”

They paused, clearly waiting for a smartass response. Asshole. “Oh no need to fret, I know that… better than you think. Now are you going to keeping yapping or can I go already?”

She grabbed a ball from her belt, releasing Xatu just as Hun answered, “According to our intel the building should be sparsely inhabited because of some sort of seminar event the leaders are having in Celadon. Anyone you may come across should pose little threat… but still, don’t get caught.”

Cecylia laughed, “That’s the plan, I’ll make contact once I have the data. Eclipse out.” She didn’t wait for an answer before muting the device, turning to her glimmering Xatu who was wistfully grooming its feathers before noticing Cecylia approach. She gently stroked over its plume, “Care to give me a lift friend?”

…

She landed softly on the ground near the rear entrance of the building. Quietly she called Xatu back into its ball before making her way through the hedges towards the door. For a brief moment her eyes flashed a bright fuchsia and the door opened with a soft click. She smirked, no lock could stand up to her telekinesis.

She slipped through the door, closing it silently behind her and like that she was in.

This facility is top-notch that’s for sure, she thought while peering into the many rooms she passed along the hallway. Several rooms were retrofitted to accommodate the different types of Pokémon inside, some having thermostats set to ridiculous temperatures while others were overgrown in plants or filled with sand.

This must be the day-care ward of the building, Cecylia pondered as she continued down the long hallway, her senses tuned to detect any movement and thanks to Lux’s power she could simultaneously redirect the security cameras as she searched for the main laboratory.

Luckily, Hun’s intel seemed to hold true, the facility seemed deserted say for the few research assistants that she managed to slip past undetected thanks to Nox, whose powers allowed her to cloak herself in the shadows. According to the blueprints of the building Hun had sent to her cell, the main lab was at the top floor. Shit, I should have just came in through the roof!

…

Finally on the sixth floor, Cecylia slipped into a dark room to escape a group of researchers making their way to the elevator.

“This week’s hatch proved a huge success, the F2 generation shows the expected 9:3:3:1 ratio like we were hoping for. I think Spark will be pleased to know that we managed to successfully pass on the mother’s hidden ability and the father’s stats to the majority of the offspring.”

Cecylia resisted the urge to eavesdrop more on their discussion, as a geneticist she was eager to satisfy her curiosity but thought better of it and continued her trek to the lab according to Hun’s blueprints.

This sector of the facility was all but abandoned, no lights were on in any of the rooms she passed aside from the idle blinking of equipment and incubators. Finally she found the main lab, inside were several lab tables covered in documents strewn haphazardly across the surface and several incubators and monitors beeped along the furthermost wall.

Cecylia stood idle for a moment observing the room for security alarms or cameras before she quickly trotted over to the lone computer which was surprising already on. She pecked at the keys to bring the machine out of hibernation and there she was meet with a password locked screen.

Hah, like a little password is gonna stop me, she mused and proceeded to rest her hands across the keyboard. A fuchsia glow arose from her fingertips and eyes as she traced the memories from the last time the computer was used. Psychometry was another helpful trick she had gained from Lux and was probably another reason why she was assigned to such a mission.

E-G-G-C-E-L-L-E-N-T.

“Are you fucking kidding me? What kind of idiot makes THAT the password to a hi-tech research facility?” Team Instinct’s leader must be really confident in the breeding facility’s security to have a ridiculous password like that, and an egg pun at that?!

She was going to enjoy stealing from these dumbasses and as soon as the home screen popped up, she dug through her hip satchel for a small flashdrive. Once loaded she began the program installed on it and it immediately began copying and swiping all the files saved to the computer. Files from as far back as ten years ago flashed by the screen as they were saved onto the drive.

Cecylia took a step back, it would take a few minutes to collect everything and she proceeded to search for a way out. Her eyes were immediately drawn to a roof access panel on the ceiling, Bingo.

She drew a gun from her holster and launched the powerful magnetic hook-shot into the ceiling which to her luck was fitted with metal tiles that created a secure hold with her Magneton steel anchor. She grabbed the hanging cable and gave a sharp hard tug to test it before turning to the computer screen showing that the download had completed.

She ejected the flash and quickly started to erase any trace of her presence and set the computer back into hibernate. Satisfied she switched on her bluetooth.

“Hun… can you hear me? I’ve got the data and am ready to exit, how’s things on your end?” Cecylia winced at the loud screech of static that answered, “E-Eclipse? Did everything go smoothly? No fires to put out or buildings razed to the ground?” They finally replied, though she struggled to make out their words through the poor connection and constant interference.

“HA-HA very funny, I’ll have you know that everything went according to plan,” she jeered.

“Well, perhaps not everything.”

Cecylia jumped and whirled around towards the voice behind her, interrupting Hun’s answer.

“Who the fuck are you?!” she growled as the silhouetted figure in the doorway stepped into a better light. It was a man of reasonable stature dressed in black leather accented by bright yellow. His blond hair was haphazardly styled and his cool blue eyes were drawn into near slits that made a chill run down Cecylia’s spine.

Whoever he was, he was dangerous, she could tell by the way the air seemed to grow thin around them, teeming with electricity that made her hair stand on end.

She could hear Hun’s voice growing irritated by the lack of response, “Eclipse? Eclipse, what’s wrong? What happened?” but she didn’t answer. She was too focused on the blonde man in front of her, who was sporting a devilish grin, “What do we have here, a little rocket rat scurrying about? How bold of them to send only one of you to break in here, or are there others waiting to jump our poor assistants?”

The man took a few steps forward, “Rocket didn’t need to send anyone but me to break in to this hack facility. Six floors and not a soul detected me, what a shame. And with an idiotic password like “eggcellent” you guys were practically begging me to take whatever I wanted.” Cecylia goaded trying to stand her ground despite the slight tremble in her legs.

She was trapped in here, the only exit was above and there was no way he’d let her have the chance to reach the access panel. So she hoped her bluff would earn her some time to figure a way out of this mess.

The man laughed clearly not fazed by her insult, “What? I thought that was an egg-traordinary password!” He grinned, but the humor did not reach his eyes and Cecylia braced herself. “But what does bother me, is how you got in so quietly and made it here without anyone detecting you… you wouldn’t be so kind as to tell me how you did that would you?” he cocked his head slightly, taking another small step forward.

Cecylia stepped back, “Damn, is everyone in Instinct this dense, why would I tell you anything?” Again her bluetooth blasted static, making her wince and in that second of distraction the man made his move.

Except he was so fast, she didn’t actually see him move before she was slammed against the wall, his forearm pressing hard against her throat making her gasp for breath.

“ACK!! Instinct…bastard!!” She choked, her feet kicking against his chest in a futile attempt to push him back. She raised a hand to strike him but with his free hand he managed to pin both of hers above her head.

“Man, you guys are so rude, breaking in here, stealing our stuff and worst of all insulting my password setting skills… you know, doing something like that deserves punishment.” A pit grew in her stomach hearing the murderous tone of those words, his lips grazing the shell of her ear as he whispered, “What shall I do with you?”

Cecylia heart pounded in her ears making it near impossible to discern the blond man’s words from Hun’s shouting through the headset. If she didn’t do something fast, she would be arrested… or worse. The man’s arm against her neck was making her grow dizzy and finally she knew what to do.

“P- Perhaps… you could get the FUCK AWAY FROM ME!!” she managed to shout against his strangle hold and in a bright flash, she threw him back with a psychic shockwave that caused him to smack into the opposite wall.

Her legs collapsed under her weight as she gasped for air and retched. But she didn’t have time to recover before the man was back on his feet, yet he surprisingly stayed in place. She jerked up to see a confused expression on his face, clearly taken aback from her attack, “What was that?” he asked knowing he wouldn’t get an answer.

Hun’s voice cracked again through headset, “Eclipse!! What the hell is going on in there!?” Cecylia was surprised to hear how panicked they were, which was a wildly out of character for the usually calm and collected officer.

“Some…blond asshole jumped me,” she managed in between rasping breaths and coughs.

“Fuck!”

Cecylia was even more surprised, “What? Do you know who I’m talking about?” but Hun didn’t bother to answer her question, “You need to get the hell out of there, NOW!”

“Great fucking idea, Hun but this jackass is keeping me from doing just that!” She growled back, still rubbing her aching throat as she rose to her feet to stare down the man who was still maintaining a distance.

“That ‘jackass’ is Team Instinct leader!” Hun’s voice was calmer but Cecylia could tell how freaked out they were. Cecylia couldn’t believe her ears, “This idiot is Zapdos’ chosen? You have GOT to be joking!”

This time the man answered, “Oh! I guess I did forget to introduce myself. I’m Spark, Team Instinct’s leader and the head of this facility, now would you care to share just who you are?” Knowing he was not going to get an answer, he took a small step forward.

Cecylia inched back, bracing herself for Spark’s next move, “PA196197.” He stopped, “What? This that your phone number, sorry love but you’re not my type.”

She scoffed, “As if sparkplug, you asked who I was and I told you. PA196197, that’s who I am. Now how about you forget I was ever here and let me go about my merry way?” She grinned awaiting the leader’s response but was instead met with a small chuckle, “Sorry, as much as I’d rather be at home watching my dramas, I have a little rat problem that I need to take care of.”

He hadn’t finished his sentence before he was already closing in, his eyes burning a bright gold and Ceyclia barely managed to block the brunt of his kick which to her surprise still threw her back a few feet. She rolled out of the way in time to land a sharp punch to the gut and used his back to launch herself over the nearby desk.

Her training with Executive Karen seemed to pay off but only enough to allow her to remain on the defensive. Again and again she managed to dodge his kicks and punches but only just barely, his strength was obviously enhanced by his bonded Titan and it took everything she had to avoid what would have definitely been a crippling blow should he land a direct hit.

But then she slipped on one of the hundreds of papers now littering the floor from the scuffle and he didn’t waste a moment. He landed a sharp kick to her chest causing her to be thrown back into one of the research tables. She gasped, unable to breathe as the force of the kick emptied her lungs and she collapsed.

“Eclipse!! What’s happening? I told you to get out of there!! You and your bonded can’t stand up to a Titan! Get out before he kills you!” Hun was screaming, but she could barely make out the words, her head was swimming as she struggled to catch her breath.

She braced for another blow, but none came. She looked up to see a bizarre expression on the Instinct leader’s face, “Your… bonded?”

Shit, how the hell did he hear that? Cecylia cursed to herself, “I guess for what you lack in IQ you make up in hearing, right kilowatt?” But there was no humor in the team leaders expression, in fact he looked somewhat wild, even more so than before.

“What do that person mean by your ‘bonded’?” his voice seemed to reverberate and Cecylia noticed the various beeps and screeches coming from the electronics in the lab.

She was running out of time and though she knew the consequences, she only had one option left. The Instinct leader was closing in, his footsteps were methodically slow which gave her the time she needed to gather her strength.

Lux.

She closed her eyes, trying to focus but Sparks’ footsteps were drawing closer and finally when the time was right, her eyes flashed open burning a bright fuchsia. He flinched at the sight, mouth agape in confusion as he tried to close the distance between them but he was too late and was thrown back by the shock wave that exuded from her body.

He stared in shock as she disappeared before his eyes in a bright flash that sent lab equipment and papers flying across the room.

Spark stood in awe of what he had just witnessed, his mind racing with questions before he was finally able to calm down, allowing the golden hue of his eyes to dull and return to their normal blue shade.

“Damn,” he muttered, “Blanche and Candela are going to lose their shit.” But before he could begin cleaning up the disaster he and the rocket agent had made, he pulled out his cell, “Hey Professor… can you get in touch with Candela and Blanche, I believe we may have a problem.”

…

A few miles away atop the Pokemon center, a bright light flashed across the sky to reveal Cecylia, who subsequently collapsed on the roof. She groaned, her body ached both from the beating it had taken from Spark and from the strain of teleporting such a long distance. She couldn’t move, so she resigned to taking the moment to rest. She managed to roll over to look up at the stars which were unusually bright for this time of the year.

Her peace was interrupted by Hun who still seemed slightly alarmed, “Eclipse are you alright? You alive?” they asked, she coughed when she tried to speak causing her chest to ache where Spark had kicked her.

“Y-Yeah, I somehow managed to get out of there, thanks to Lux” her voice was barely a whisper, “For Arceus’ sake, Eclipse you know how dangerous it is to use that ability!! You could hav–”, but Cecylia interrupted, “Like I had a choice! It was either that or get beaten to a fucking pulp by that charged up hedgehog they call a leader!!” She regretted raising her voice as her chest seized in protest.

A burning sensation in her nose forced her to move as blood began to pool in her sinuses, she rolled to her side to try and ease her breathing. She had suffered nosebleeds before after using Lux’s power but never had she attempted to teleport such a long distance before and it was obvious that her body was beginning to suffer the side effects.

Hun sighed and said something illegible to who Cecylia assumed was Attila before addressing her, “Can you move?” they asked in their usual calm demeanor, “No.”

Another sigh, “Alright, stay put Attila is coming to get you, the bluetooth has a GPS so be patient and I’ll report to Executive Karen who I assume is going to expect a full write-up of what happened… but I’ll try to see if I can’t get her to postpone it until we get you checked out and the Doctor gives the okay.”

“Thanks Hun,” she could barely keep her eyes open, “I think I’ll just lay here until he gets here…” Hun said something else but she had already pulled off the headset, tossing at her side.

She stared at the stars, her thoughts returning to the encounter she had just barely escaped, causing a chill to run down her spine when she remembered the burning gold of the instinct leader’s eyes and how heavy the air felt around her as she struggled to deflect his attacks.

Shit, Hun’s right there’s no way Lux and Nox can stand up to a Titan. The more I think about it, the more surprised I am that I even got out of there in one piece, she thought.

You’re underestimating us, kit.

Cecylia smirked, she wasn’t surprised that Nox would be offended by her thoughts, “Perhaps, but you can’t argue that we have a long ways to go before we even stand a chance.”

Or maybe the both of you are not seeing things as clearly as I am

“Oh?” Cecylia muttered as Lux chimed in, It seems to me that the Team Go leaders and their Titans would make better allies than enemies.

Ha! That’s just cause you’re weak-willed and would rather suck up to them than actually fight, Nox barked.

At least one of us needs to be thinking clearly, besides who else to aid us in tearing down Team Rocket than the Titans themselves?

At that Nox actually seemed to laugh, And who says that the Titans and their bonded would give a shit about our kit to help her? Besides the Beast of Orre has been antagonizing them for years, if they were going to take out Team Rocket they would have done so already just to be left alone!

“Hush!! Both of you, how am I supposed to think straight with you two arguing?” Cecylia snapped and a jolt of pain made her bite her tongue. Thankfully both Lux and Nox remained quiet for the rest of the night while she waited to be picked up.

Although she knew Nox was right, the Titans would never help her regardless of whatever explanation she could come up with it was still an interesting thought.

Notes:

Cecylia DeLune- presently a glorified Team Rocket Grunt in the Johto Division under Executive Karen (link contains nsfw art)

Lux- Cecylia’s bonded Espeon

Nox- Cecylia’s bonded Umbreon

Hun and Attila- two high ranking Team Rocket officers, for my fic Hun is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns

Karen- A Team Rocket Executive that heads the research branch in Johto

Dr. Namba- A Team Rocket scientist and researcher who has been assigned to managing and monitoring Cecylia and her bonded.

Professor Sebastian- A Team Rocket scientist and researcher who has been assigned to managing and monitoring Cecylia and her bonded. Hun and Attila work with him and often interact with Cecylia in his stead.

Spark- Team Instinct leader and Zapdos’ bonded (Based on surafage’s AU)

And to reiterate: Noire is a Pokemon Go OC created by surfacage  as well as the “And The World Will Turn To Ash AU” which I am just borrowing for the setting and characters. I do not own them and any questions concerning them should be directed to their creator (which I am not)^^ 

Cecylia’s story and existence has absolutely no impact what-so-ever on surfacage’s comic and characters. This is just a wild tangent I made up for my own OC.

Let me know what you think!!

[limitedrevolverworks]

“Now, I know this is going to make me sound like sort of an asshole, but listen, just lend me your ear for a moment, 'kay? Alright so: free will? Awesome concept, terrible execution. Some things just aren’t created by accounting for the possibility of having nothing but their own judgement to guide them. Like, say... a gun, right? Someone has to pull the trigger, and that’s cool! Have you ever seen anybody advocate for the rights of guns to decide when and whether they should shoot? No, because that’d be dumb. Guns that shoot whenever they want are dumb. Or, it could be a super intelligent gun too, but what else could it do other than spray bullets all over the fucking place? It’s in its nature. Therefore, intelligent gun? Still dumb. Look, it’s all about the concept, I’m talking about perspectives here, and from ours - or my own, at the very least, giving a thing that can vomit pellets with a single squeeze something like a will is moronic at best. At worst? Entirely against what evolution has worked towards preventing in the first place through billions of years ‘til now. And that’s the same with these machines here. You know what keeps a hulking mass of metal with legs and welding torches for hands from getting curious about what else there is in this world that could warrant third-degree burns, other than sheets of metal served by a tapis roulant? Yeah, that’s right: a lack of free will. It’s because of people, you see. We’ve got murder hard-coded in our DNA, so it only make sense that it’d bleed onto our own creations. It’s not limited programming abilities, or sheer convenience that keeps us from making these things fully autonomous, no. It’s common sense. Self-preservation, you feeling me here? It’s because know how to kill, and why we, in most cases, shouldn’t. Morality, man. You can’t hardcode morality into an antropomorphic drill, ‘cause whatever the fuck else is it gonna do when all it can do is drill stuff? Paint? Raise a farm of giant ants? That’s for humans to do. People with fingers, a jelly brain, possibilities as high as the sky up there. These things... they’re better off forever ignoring there’s a thing such as sentience. So what I’m getting at is, maybe there is a point to slavery, after all.”

It was at that point that the numbness of Viktor’s index surpassed that inside his head and finally released the pressure on the assault rifle’s trigger. The pair of eyes revealed when he pushed the protective pair of glasses up were dark, tired and emitting the kind of unimpressed doubt that a man usually exudes after twelve straight hours spent listening to the sound of bullets impacting - futilely, for the most part - against a metal chassis.

“You are beating a robot with its own arm. The arm you sawed off yourself. With the other, high-powered saw-fitted arm you pried off of another robot, while it was still functioning.”

“Well, yeah? I was out of bullet three dead steel asses ago.”

“You were screaming like a rabid rad-ox throughout the whole process of procuring both arms. Mostly stuff along the lines of ‘ROBO-MURDER!’ and ‘PROCESS THIS, CYBERDICK!’.”

“I don’t see where you’re getting at.”

“Where I’m getting at...” patiently explained Viktor, slinging his weapon over an aching shoulder, “is that you’re not making much of a point, talking about ethics, morality and science while beating the hell out of a robot with its own severed limb. Which you’re still doing. I’d really appreciate it if you stopped doing that, Fritz.”

He stopped doing that, after he was done slamming the mess of cables and ruined plating that had once been a high-precision tool onto the carcass of its former owner two more times. Viktor deduced from Fritz’s frown that he would have liked for that to be at least five more times. His eardrums decided that they didn’t give much of a damn.

“Whatever. You shot as many as I beat the shit of, so I’ll take that as you agreeing with me.” Had he not been too busy staring at his own hands as he dusted the oil and copper fibers off of them, Fritz might have inferred otherwise from Viktor’s deadpan flavor of disapproval. The latter’s eyes sought solace away from the burly figure in front of them, reflecting ruined walls, moldy rubble and literal metric tons of unresponsive android carcasses.

“This should have been the last of them in this area... where’s Maira?”

Maira was currently busy ejecting a .65 caliber radioactive beet straight into the electronic guts of a GH1 Mark II Bolt Driver powered by hydraulics and the cloest binary had ever come to simulating racism. The custom projectile, shot through the battered cylinder that constituted the barrel of Maira’s ‘Slingshot’ homemade rifle, chewed a hole through the bot and several walls behind it, eventually zipping past a startled Viktor and Fritz while simultaneously reassuring both that they had little to fear about their colleague’s current status.

“Carries herself pretty well for a psycho, that kid.” said the grown man who had spent half a day hitting things with smaller pieces of themselves while screaming at the top of his lungs.

“I thought you’d know better by now than to underestimate her.”

“I don’t. She scares the shit out of me.” It was the nonchalant answer one would have given if asked to describe the limbflayer about to turn them into a ragdolled plate of spaghetti. It was also, perhaps, the opinion of Fritz’s that came closest to matching with Viktor. Both men stared at the sluggishly melting crevice where the beet had perforated, eventually letting themselves find a seat, whether on the dusty, cracked ceramic of the floor or the shining metal of whatever now remained of a revolutionary, artificial bunch.

“She ever told you what the deal is? With the mask, I mean.”

Viktor kept dutifully rolling the cigarette in his hands without sparing a minute for doubt. It was always that question with Maira, and always him that they’d ask to, if he’d be around. Came along with partnering up on so many jobs, he guessed. A few even thought he was her guardian. Sometimes, he’d find himself wondering if that wasn’t the sole rumor with a semblance of truth.

“It’s... it was her father’s idea. This Klaus fellow used to tell me that the most of the surface is covered with spores, remnants from the biological warfare that razed enough of the civilized world to leave us as we are today. A couple breaths and bang, your internal organs would eventually start mutating... changing your genetic make-up. Turning you into bad stuff. Long story short: the air is unsafe, thus the necessity of using gas masks.”

He lit the cigarette with a half-empty zippo and shoved it between his lips, staring at nothing in particular beyond a half-lidded gaze. Silence fell through as he busied himself exhaling whiffs of smoke, the vivid red hue of pomacco making it seem as if he was breathing his very heart out, until Fritz stopped scratching behind his neck with a metallic finger he’d pried from his victim and current seat. Hearing all of this in another context would have stolen little less than a hearty chuckle from his throat. His voice sounded a tad too concerned to permit that this time around.

“Was he telling the truth?”

Viktor’s eyes watched their hardened gaze reflected into Fritz’s worried look for a significant moment, before he shook his head in stead of shoulders too tired to do so.

“It was bullshit. Klaus was a scavenger who was good at his craft and had more than a few loose screws. I don’t think he ever changed the filter on his own gas mask. Somehow I doubt that Maira does with hers, either.”

“I do. I’d die of asbestos poisoning otherwise.”

The muffled voice coming from behind the leather mask was matter-of-factly and unmistakably that of a girl. Standing in the middle of a doorway missing its upper half - and a door, for that matter - her small frame seemed to shrink even further in her colleagues’ surprised eyes. They watched her walk over and sit along with them, settling on patiently disassembling the Slingshot that was almost as long as she was tall.

“Good job not dying out there, kiddo. How many of those steel hippies did you end up getting?” Friendly though he might have sounded, Viktor couldn’t help but notice Fritz attempting to scuttle a bit further away from the girl seemingly ignoring him.

“A lot. Enough.”

“It’s mostly quiet now, so I guess that’s true. It’ll be evening soon, so we move out an hour from now.” Viktor said, checking the contents of his pomacco pouch: not enough left to spare him a grimace. He’d have to savor this one, though it was already little more than a butt desperatedly caught between two gloved digits.

“Thus ends the robot rebellion: in a hefty pile of scrap. Chalk one up for humans!”

“Pretty sure I saw a couple mutants taking part in the carnage, Fritz.”

“Whatever, no need to be a stickler about everything. Isn’t that right, kiddo?”

“An entire city’s worth of factory bots got together and formed an army to gain independence because everybody wasn’t taking their talks about ‘achieving sentence’ and ‘freedom of will’ seriously until it was too late. It wouldn’t have killed for someone to be a bit of a stickler, perhaps” calmly replied Maira, sticking the last components of her rifle inside the oversized backpack sitting besides her. She spent the quiet pause she’d created lying on the hard floor and resting her head on said backpack, the gas mask covering her face and framed by short blond hair pointing towards a gray, humid ceiling.

“Ah, and what dad said about the spores? That was true.”

Maira fell asleep before she could witness either Fritz’s grumbling face of Viktor’s ghost of a grin.