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xantchaslegacy · 1 year ago

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Keen Sense and Curiosity

Some more Phyrexia happenings; check out the story on Ao3 too if the spirit moves you ;)

The cavern was empty.

As empty as any place could be on a plane where even metal lived, and tunnels of living flesh laced through the world from surface to core, and back again.

Walls of matte metal enveloped the cavern, carved smooth in some places by patient hands, and elsewhere patched with stretches of rougher-hewn, and more frequently, unhewn steel. Pools of varying depth and size blotched the cavern floor, brimming oily fluid; a mixture of effluvia that seeped in from the Hunter’s Maze above, and runoff from the labs that pumped in through meat-pipes from the Surgical Bays below.

The liquid churned, filled the air above it with the thick scent of life. It glowed, reflecting the false sunlight of the Hunter’s Maze that shone through tunnels of mirrored steel, flooding the space with a placid light. The fluid hummed in many low notes, a liquid choir that sang, just then, for no-one.

Even absent the creatures of Phyrexia, the cavern was active.

Active, but empty.

Two predators stalked into the cavern.

Glissa and Vorinclex prowled through the space. Side by side, elf and hulking praetor, scanning for danger by sight and smell and sound. Watching each others’ flanks with the practiced instinct of packmates.

Glissa tapped her scythe against the porous steel of the cavern.

Nothing of concern, as far I sense.

Vorinclex growled, low, and lumbered forward.

I smell nothing alarming. Stay alert.

Glissa sniffed her concurrence and fell back to the shadows, watching her companion as he went.

Phyrexia’s tongue was efficient, but the language of beasts had a guttural elegance that script and speech wanted for. That the "civilized" coveted.

Vorinclex sniffed the air once. Twice.

“Prawn.”

Speak of the devil .

Jin-Gitaxias strode into the cavern through a rounded tunnel that sloped upward from the Surgical Bays. Two chrome-capped cronies accompanied to him, chattering in their sanitized tongue.

“Hm.” Jin turned his head at the sight of Vorinclex. “You aren’t tardy.”

“As agreed.” Vorinclex’s voice, guttural even when he displayed the full and disarming range of his articulateness, rolled from his throat at a growl in Jin’s presence. “Brave of you to saunter out of your sterile little bunker.”

“As agreed.”

This cavern was a compromise of a rendezvous. One of many pockets between the Hunter’s Maze and Jin’s Surgical Bays that had formed as a semi-organic side effect of the intentional terraforming that had created the layers of their new Phyrexia.

The place had proven of interest to both factions so far, exacerbating the developments of predators in the vicious swarm, and (by the accounts of the Progress Engine) expanding the scope of Jin’s research with equal explosiveness.

It was one of the precious few, if not only, places in Phyrexia where the Vicious Swarm and the Progress Engine dwelt in equal measure, and felt equally comfortable.

Or equally un - comfortable, Glissa mused . Depending on who’s around.

“Vorinclex.” Jin-gitaxias’ voice, metallic and self-important, rang through the chamber like a bell. “It is surprisingly civilized of you to leave your attack dog behind.”

G lissa only sneered from the shadows at that. It was impossible that Jin-Gitaxias did not now she was there.

Vorinclex snorted. “We are praetors. We do not fear to fight our own battles.”

“Battle…? This is a simple trading of knowledge to benefit both our factions in the work to come. I understand if such a complicated notion frightens a simple brute. If you prefer to turn your tail...”

“I would not waste a chance for Phyrexia’s evolution,” Vorinclex spat. “Though I doubt I’ll find anything useful to the Swarm in the body of some sulking cell-scraper.”

“I am equally skeptical,” Jin replied, “that the mass of flesh that transports your meager brain will prove of any interest to our synthesis. Still, Norn will insist we work more collaboratively sooner than later. What she wishes, we must actualize. Better we begin such efforts in advance. In any case, further exploring the opportunities this space has to offer for our experimentation is worth a pointless hour of diversion.”

“Your portion of this space,” Vorinclex corrected. “The properties of these pools will be a boon to accelerate the development of the swarm’s best predators.”

“That is the agreement,” Jin said. “Wasted as it is on you and yours.”

Glissa scowled. The arrogance of the Engine’s Praetor was a sort of grating that only the self-proclaimed “civilized” could manage.

“That is part of the agreement.” Vorinclex prowled closer to Jin along a strip of metal ground that divided two of the pools, and sat up on his haunches, lording the few inches of height his current body had over the other praetor. “Sharing this space. Are you ready to share your secrets as well?”

“For the good of Phyrexia,” he added, smirking with his voice, if not his actual maw. He dislocated his jaw, and spat something at Jin’s feet. A red-white blur bounced once with a dull clatter then lay still on the cavern floor.

A phyrexian’s head and upper body, red-muscled and clad in plates of white porcelain steel.

“A souleater,” Jin observed, in his dispassionate way.

“One of Norn’s,” Vorinclex said, picking at his teeth with a finger on his smaller limbs. “A lurker. She may approve of our cooperation, but I will not suffer her eyes and ears where they have no business.”

Glissa smiled grimly. The cavern had been cleared of members of the Swarm and the Engine alike in preparation for this meeting, in some cases by force. Those efforts had revealed this member of Norn’s Machine Orthodoxy sects, lurking about the sub-layer. She had personally beheaded the agent herself and eaten its body with Vorinclex.

Jin-Gitaxias stooped slightly to inspect the half-corpse at his feet. “Norn will be displeased with her servant’s dispatching.”

Vorinclex licked his chops. “Are you displeased?”

“I serve Phyrexia’s greater ends. I have no opinion on small matters.”

“So it pleases you to come here for Norn’s benefit?”

“There is every chance our Great Synthesis could benefit from this exchange,” Jin replied. His jaws hardly moved as he spoke. Glissa wondered if his vocal chords even required motion of the mouth to communicate, with all the modifications he’d made to his body. “Allow the two most advanced specimens of our respective factions to examine each other and find how our best qualities can be shared between our...separate efforts to advance Phyrexia. It will certainly benefit your blind efforts to learn from us, and Norn will undoubtedly want you operating at a greater capacity than you do now.”

“Our glorious, ineffable leader,” Vorinclex snarled.

It’s good he speaks like that all the time, Glissa thought. Otherwise his scorn for Norn would be a more open secret.

“Our flawless mother.”

Jin-Gitaxias was harder to read. Glissa wished dearly to know what he actually thought of their self-proclaimed ‘mother.’

V orinclex spat into the pool. “ Your flattery would be wasted even if she was here to hear it .” He tilted his head, appraising Jin. “Shall we begin, or would you like to waste more time with words?”

Jin held up a closed hand, then raised a single index finger.

“I will insist on taking my observations first,” he said. “If you can contain yourself that long.”

“Please.” Vorinclex spread his arms wide, and his shadow fell on Jin’s toadies as well as the praetor himself. “Observe. I know you can’t wait to see what a real phyrexian looks like.”

“It is not eagerness, simply concern is that your own clumsy analyses will damage my instruments before I can take your measure.”

Vorinclex huffed, and lowered his arms to his sides while Jin turned to his attendants, who were busy pouring steaming liquid into a basin. Jin dipped his fingers into the stuff.

Sterilizing, Glissa realized. The acidic smell was powerful, even at a distance . Since the Swarm and the Engine had begun making joint use of it, each had introduced elements to the odor of the place, and while the acidic curdle of the Progress Engine's experiment pits did permeate the place, it usually melded queerly well with the more vital, vibrant scents of the Hunter's Maze, making a smell that was inoffensive to a hunter's nose, and even invigorating, at its best.

“So much ceremony,” Vorinclex observed. “I could inspect you twice over in the time it takes to complete your pageantry.”

“At least one of us needs to approach this exchange seriously.” Jin raised his hands from the bowl and began cleaning them on his apron, wiping each digit with a slow meticulousness that seemed maliciously deliberate. He looked to Vorinclex, still squatting on his haunches. “Will you lie supine for me?”

“Guess.”

“Hm.” Jin snapped, and his transcriptors snapped to attention. “Prepare to take notes.”

They chattered in affirmation.

Jin’s hands, those massive, long-fingered things that made Glissa think of blightwidows, began probing at Vorinclex’s shoulders, tracing along the massive spiked plates that protected his upper body. The light scrape of chrome on bone-steel rang like a chime through the cavern.

“Grand,” Jin remarked. “Such ostentatious plumage is likely effective in scaring off other simple beasts, I presume. I doubt our synthesis has much need for...bony shoulders.”

“Still,” he added, “It has a certain animal charm. It suits you.”

"When you find yourselves in the wilderness of a new plane, with nothing but your test-tubes and little needles to defend yourselves against the incomple at , you'll feel different."

Jin made a dismissive *click*-ing sound. "I have faced the strongest among the incompleat and triumphed." his hands trailed down from Vorinclex's bone-spurs and dragged way across his collar and breast. another crisp metallic note sheared the air. "This robust musculature, on the other hand…" His fingers splayed over the chest, probing at intervals with prods that brought soft huffs to Vorinclex’s breath. Jin’s other hand began taking measurements of Vorinclex’s arms, working its way from shoulder to arm to wrist to-

-Vorinclex seized Jin’s fingers, and lifted the arm above his head with a casual tug.

“A practical demonstration,” he growled, cutting Jin off. “Strength like this emerges through the struggle of life against life and death. Something that doesn’t happen in your test tubes and operating tables.”

“Untrue at its premise,” Jin replied, mildly. “In any case, the structure of your muscles can be examined, and reproduced by construction or artificial growth.”

Vorinclex cocked his head by the slightest degree. “I’ll believe it when I see it. How will you learn the structure of my flesh?”

“Our oil and research have yielded have many ways to examine what lies within. Lenses that can see past base matter. Magical tracers injected into the body and tracked with external scanners. However-”

Jin’s finger thinned, a subtle and silent shifting of the metal in his digit that Glissa might have missed if not for her eyes, compleat with a hunter’s acuity.

“I prefer to look for myself.”

Glissa tensed. Jin meant to cut Vorinclex open. She would allow it, of course, so far as Vorinclex was prepared to allow it, but would be ready to spring to his side should the need arise.

Jin, however, simply stood, half hanging by his wrist, looking at Vorinclex with his sharpened digit raised.

“Well?” Vorinclex sounded vexed by the pause. “Will you or won’t you?”

“We civilized people call this ‘waiting for permission,’ Jin said, enunciating the last three words with an insufferable deliberation.

Vorinclex barked a laugh, and released Jin’s hand. “When does the great butcher prawn wait for any thing’s permission? What sort of Phyrexian waits and does not just take what it intends?”

Jin ‘tsk’-ed through grit teeth. “Discourse between praetors should have more weight and social depth than the intercourse of beasts.”

“What do you know about the intercourse of beasts?” Vorinclex shifted, closing the distance between them. “Fine. This is permission to take whatever measures and make whatever cuts you need to slake your idiot thirst.”

“Whatever measures? I will remember that.”

Jin’s blade sank into Vorinclex’ upper arm with a disquieting ease. The muscle there was dense, as Glissa knew from hunting and scrapping with her companion. If the lack of resistance gave Vorinclex any pause, he showed no sign.

Nor did he look bored. He was watching Jin intently as he drew the blade down and lay open the topmost layer of Vorinclex’ skin and steel-twined muscle.

“The musculature...” Jin pulled aside Vorinclex’s hide and sliced deeper into the limb. Red and green and black dribbled in oily clumps from the cut. “...Impressively dense, as expected. Supply. Pliable. The proteins comprising the circulatory system...”

He trailed off, muttering and slicing. His unsharpened fingers working aside the fibers inside Vorinclex. Every few seconds he pulled a needle of silver from his knuckles and sank it into the flesh, marking a spot in the meat. Vorinclex’s gaze followed Jin as he moved down the arm, exhaling to punctuate each piece of Jin that was slipped into him.

"You've let the growth of your organics guide the development of your mechanical components," Jin observed. "A common thread in the Swarm specimens I've explored."

"They work in harmony," Vorinclex replied, as if explaining nursing to a newborn. "These components want to work as one, so there is no need to meddle in the finer details. A creature need only to act, and the instincts of the oil will guide the organic and its modifications to the best natural conclusion."

Jin scoffed. "Without adequate guiding intelligence...without intent, you are wasting time and resources with an uncoordinated approach."

"Oil is intelligence. Where you see only a vector, there is a guiding natural brilliance already present in the oil that outstrips the capacity of any sapient mind. Even yours, prawn. You say I waste resources? I say you waste time trying to bend the direction of an already perfect path to compleation."

“That’s as good as an admission of complacency,” Jin replied.

“It’s efficient use of our energies.” Vorinclex reached down and tapped one of the needles thrust through his upper arm. “unlike this.”

Jin only scowled at that.

After the arm came an incision along the back, then a cut along Vorinclex’ backmost thigh, down to the knee. The muscle within was vivid red and a maroon cocktail of oil flowed down the limb to the ground, where it soaked into the floor and trailed off into the pool behind him.

With every prod and pin from Jin, more of these fluids leaked down Vorinclex’s body in minute rivulets.

Still, Vorinclex stood as high on his haunches as he had at the outset.

“Another beast might have fallen from being cut open in this way,” Jin remarked.

“A lesser beast,” Vorinclex replied.

M ore cutting. More needles. Jin chattered away all the while as he cut deeper and deeper, until his probing found Vorinclex’s internal organs.

“Some actual efficiencies,” Jin murmured, shifting aside steel-mesh sacks and crocus-flesh enhancements, “And more than a few vanity organs that I presume let you play at being king of the beasts.”

“Not a king, just an aspiring apex.”

Jin fell silent after a period of further muttering and poking. His fingers ran the length of Vorinclex’s splayed-open leg, flank, and arm, tracing the patterns of muscle fiber within.

After a minute of this silence, Vorinclex stirred.

“Is something displeasing you, prawn?”

“The lack of something has me...intrigued.” Jin ran his sterilized digits through the fibers of Vorinclex’ arms. “It is known you boast a prodigious healing capacity, and yet I see nothing at work-”

“Watch your fingers,” Vorinclex said, interrupting.

The meat of his arm began joining with a sudden, soft, squirming, sucking noise so low and quick it barely registered to even Glissa’s ears. Jin withdrew his hands, but the closing muscles bunched around the longest of his fingers, and the digit came away trailing a gobbet of Vorinclex’s flesh.

Jin held up the stringy chunk of shuddering meat, turning it over in his fingers.

“A healing that must be triggered consciously. Interesting.”

“A healing that can be subdued intentionally,” Vorinclex cut in, as the rest of the cuts began sealing all along his body. “Aren’t scientists not supposed to jump to conclusions?”

J in ignored the question. “I will take this as a sample.” He held his hand out, and one of the transcriptors scuttled forward, producing a jar with a black seal about its lid. Jin popped the seal off and dropped the meat into the jar. H is minion shuffled back away, nearly tripping as Vorinclex growled at it, spattering the ground with spittle.

Having deposited most of the flesh. Jin wiped the rest from his fingers into a smaller tube, and examined it by the light; a series of metal tunnels reflected the false sunlight of the hunter’s maze down into the caverns; more than generous to see by.

Satisfied by what he observed, Jin tucked the test tube away in a slot in his flank. He spread the remaining smear of oily tissue onto Vorinclex’s arm, along the line of the now-healed cut. His other hand hovered above the healed-over incision on the leg.

“My pins are still inside your-”

“They are mine now. Carry on your examinations.”

“In that case-”

With a deft movement – a pull at the leg and push to the chest so subtle Glissa barely registered either, Jin unbalanced Vorinclex and flipped him into the pool. Vorinclex was too large to submerge fully in the fluid, and he displaced enough of the humming green stuff that Jin’s transcriptors were obliged to shuffle hastily backwards from the splash. Vorinclex let out an angry yelp, but Jin strode into the pool in two smooth steps and, straddling Vorinclex’s waist, grabbed his head in one massive hand. Jin continued vocalizing his examination as if nothing at all had happened.

“These teeth,” Jin murmured, his voice dropping in volume as he leaned in close to examine Vorinclex’ mouth. “Ingenious in form for affecting lethal lacerations in prey, though they are not especially well-rooted. Prone to falling out in the process of your...consumptions, I’d hypothesize.”

“Teeth break,” Vorinclex growled back. “Better to get good use out of them a few times and have a robust body to push new ones into place.”

“Wasteful.” Jin loomed closer. Vorinclex would have a front-row view of the blue praetor’s pristine, regular rows of chrome teeth. “Better something that lasts.”

“How long would it take you to replace those trinkets in your mouth if I savaged you right now? I can push out new teeth in seconds. I don’t need to go crawling back to a lab to replace my fierce parts.”

“You’d break your teeth a dozen times on mine before you even scratched my mouth.” Jin moved his face bare centimeters from Vorinclex’s, as if he meant to test his hypothesis on the other praetor there and then. “So savage away. But not until I’m finished with you.”

Jin’s fingers ran leisurely down Vorinclex’s side, fingers curving around from chest to back, probing his musculature and carapace with minute twitches, before coming to a rest on hips, where groin met thighs.

“Powerful legs. Claws and teeth that could render steel to fragments. You have excelled in your advancements toward animal perfection.” Jin dragged two fingers back up along Vorinclex's flank, the chrome making a surprisingly soft sound as the tips trailed over the metal-shod bone and exposed muscle.

Vorinclex snorted. His voice spoke dismissal of Jin’s comment, but he seemed, to Glissa’s eye, to almost preen at the comment, like a wolf showing off its coat.

“I am testament to the Swarm’s success. We have taken life that once barely subsisted and hobbled along among tangles of rust and created an ecosystem of thriving, ever-improving predators.”

Jin grunted at this newest failure to provoke Vorinclex. It was such an annoyed, base sound that Glissa had to suppress a giggle.

“Regardless of this...low success,” he said after a pause, “I hypothesize there might still be shortcomings in your Swarm.” Jin’s left hand snaked under Vorinclex’s gut, while his right slithered down Vorinclex’s thigh.

“And I would hypothesize those weaknesses might be reflected in your own...form.”

“You’ve seen me inside and out. Look as long as you like, you’ll find nothing resembling weakness.”

“We will see.”

Jin continued to inspect Vorinclex’ chest and neck. He kept up a constant monologue of numbers and measurements, his transcriptors at rapt attention. Neither had materials for writing. Sound recording devices built into their skulls, Glissa mused.

“You will be the first to attempt traversal across planes,” Jin commented after a while. “Our research to date suggests this will be a catastrophically traumatizing experience for your body.”

“I look forward to new hunting grounds.”

“There will be immense pain and an almost complete immolation of your form.”

“Is that all?” Vorinclex affected a yawn. “Good to know. I’ll bring my rubbers.”

Jin grumbled again. “It is regrettable Vrig failed to divine the secrets of Memnarch’s soul-traps...we might have achieved Phyrexia’s interplanar ends without such needless agony.”

Glissa stifled another giggle. It could not have been plainer Jin was hoping the comment would lead for a chance to expand on his tedious science.

“Research and development? Limited?” Vorinclex’s feigned shock was somehow more and not less pointed when growled. “Imagine my surprise.”

“It takes astoundingly little imagination to imagine you surprised,” Jin’s fingers darted suddenly to Vorinclex’s thigh, forefinger and thumb pressing into the veins below the hips.

Vorinclex grunted once. A soft bark that indeed betrayed surprise.

Glissa tensed, again.

“Curious.” Jin’s fingers had paused along the inside of Vorinclex’s thigh. “I would have suspected this organ here might be rendered obsolete by a...properly evolved creature.”

Vorinclex did not squirm. He was too proud, to perfect for such a thing. But he did shift noticeably under Jin’s observation

“Such a novel shape the tissues have taken.” Jin’s hand shifted under space where Vorinclex’ hind legs met. “The Grand Evolution is abundant with its own surprises. This feels like...an advancement of the Crocus blooms, yes? Grafted onto...no...grown from your body?”

Vorinclex did not shy away from Jin’s gaze.

“Some creatures among the swarm yet benefit from physiological stimulation to encourage breeding.”

“It yields rapid generations and equally explosive improvements in biology,” he added, sounding as defensive as an apex predator of Phyrexia could.

“The father of machines disdained such methods of reproduction,” Jin mused aloud. “Much of old Phyrexia did, at least on the nine spheres.” His hand had disappeared up to his first elbow, and it did not escape Glissa’s notice that the fingers on his right hand were running through the fur on Vorinclex’s back, caressing the spine. “‘Grow’ is our watchword. Not ‘breed.’”

“The father of machines failed,” Vorinclex spat. “And perhaps he disdained procreation because he was too preoccupied with writing into the scriptures his own sad failures to acquire the mate he desired.”

“And who have you been mating with?” Jin inquired. “Beasts? Elves? Wurms? I would have guessed you and yours were too busy trying to eat each other and preening your muscles and metal at one another to find time to breed.”

“I will take a sample,” he added, gripping tight onto Vorinclex’ fur.

“Don’t waste breath talking about what you will do. Do it.”

“Mm.” Jin withdrew his hand from the spine with a jerk and a sound like a canvas torn in two, pulling out a clump of spined hairs from Vorinclex’ back.

Vorinclex tensed and growled.

Jin’s other hand came away from between thighs, and Vorinclex jerked this time. Jin held between thumb and forefinger a strip of tissue.

“I presume your healing is as robust in your crocus organs as it is in your muscle?”

Vorinclex rose up, though not to his full height, dripping pool-fluid. “Prodigiously robust. You can inspect closer, if you dare place your head where your hand was bold enough to wander.”

“Regardless,” Jin replied, clinically smug, returning his hand to Vorinclex’ leg. “That the most advanced among the Swarm...the apex of phyrexian evolution, even, would possess such an organ...” He trailed off, and made a series of soft clicking “tsk”s. “I would think that you might think it...weakness.”

Vorinclex lunged toward the edge of the pool. Jin, not expecting the move, was thrown forward and landed in as semi-sprawled position in the shallows. Glissa suppressed a laugh to see the praetor so prone, his little skirt and apron askew about his legs.

“You are losing focus, prawn.” Vorinclex's voice was dangerously low as he prowled forward to loom over Jin. “I am ready to take my turn.”

“Impatient,” Jin clicked. He pulled back the skirt, perhaps to keep it from getting wetter, though it was thoroughly soaked from what Glissa could see. The fluid of the pool also, had shifted in color, while they stood in it, from an acid green to something more like the blue-green light when Lyese and the Eye of Doom both broke the horizon together.

“Worried that I’ll break you?”

Jin hummed, a raspy vocalization of frustration . “Not at all. My concern is that your clumsy pawing will not yield the data your swarm need s to adequately better itself.”

“Never mind my paws, Jin. I have my other ways of taking your measure,” Vorinclex rumbled. His maw thrust forward, to within inches of Jin’s neck. From her place, Glissa could hear his breath. See it steam along the metal of Jin’s jaw.

“A predator can probe by scent and taste alone.”

“Bestial senses,” Jin scoffed. “Your means of analysis are as crude as those you use to advance your evolution.”

Vorinclex responded by placing his forelimb across Jin’s shoulder, pushing him down into the shallows of the pool, and sniffing further down the other praetor’s neck, approaching his shoulder.

“Hm.”

He stopped there, inspecting the metal of Jin’s collar in a slow circuit. Jin seemed unsure what to do with his head as Vorinclex probed, and opted to remain still. Vorinclex moved almost painfully slowly, and Glissa could not help but wonder what was driving this uncharacteristic display of patience.

V orinclex’s breath continues to fog on Jin’s chrome surface as he moved, leaving a misty, matte trail on the shining body that faded quietly as he wandered across Jin’s form .

Jin kept silent for several more minutes as Vorinclex probed further down, inspecting chest and shoulders. Every few seconds he would adjust his fore-paws, never pressing down on one stretch of Jin’s body for too long, but never taking off enough weight to allow him to rise, either.

“How are you recording this?”

Jin’s voice was strained, the already metallic voice reverberating as if spoken through a funnel of steel. Almost as like he’d run a long distance.

Vorinclex paused at the question. He was just then running the edge of his snout along Jin’s elbow, and he made a slow, deliberate trail of Jin’s head as he re-positioned himself to look Jin in whatever portion of his face would best correspond to eyes.

“Recording?”

“Yes.”

“I will remember, of course,” Vorinclex placed a broad paw over Jin’s midsection. Maroon-muscled digits closed around Jin’s silvery, snake-like spine. “An apex’s eyes miss nothing. An apex savors every meal it takes the measure of.”

“You intend to eat me, Vorinclex?”

“If I ate you, Jin-Gitaxias….REALLY ate you, I would not get to see the despair in you when the Grand Evolution crushes your Synthesis, and all the other fool dogmas of Phyrexia under its heel. When all is one with our mighty Swarm, when all are free of sapience and weakness...perhaps on that day I will eat you. But no sooner.”

“But since you brought it up...” Another paw closed around Jin’s corded spine, though Vorinclex kept his weight on his hind legs so his weight did not crush the other. “I can’t think of a better use for you than nutrition to fuel the Great Evolution.”

“Can’t think, that is one among many defects,” Jin rasped. “No imagination. No critical thought. Nothing beyond instinct. Fitting traits for a king of beasts.”

“Your opinion,” Vorinclex growled, shifting forward so his shadow fell of Jin. “Me, I like my current position.”

“You don’t dispute it?”

“I wouldn’t want to waste your time debating with a mere beast.” Vorinclex’ jaw shifted into something only a few would recognize as a smile. “This spine of yours...” He pressed forward slowly, and Jin sank further into the pool, a glowing mix of oil and other fluids washing over him. “Strong. Stronger than it looks. I’ve torn apart wurms with less durability.”

“The result of rigorous research and development,” Jin said, the pride tangible enough that Glissa could detect it even in his metallic monotone. “Not the sort of strength one could just evolve through blind-”

“And yet,” Vorinclex continued, pressing down further. “Even with such a strong support, I suspect there’s no real backbone beneath it. That must be why your posture is so slovenly.”

“Ah-” Jin started to say something, but whatever it was caught in his throat, and instead a low, tinny buzzing noise came from his chest. his fingers found the hollows in Vorinclex’s forearms. The same forearms that held him in the pool. His fingers wove their way into the space, gripping onto the other praetor’s limbs.

“Ah, it looks like I’ve found something.” Vorinclex, if it was even possible, leaned in closer, bearing down on Jin. “This can’t be where air flows through, so I can only assume I’ve hit a nerve.”

“How-ah!” Jin cut off again into more buzzing.

"I'm gleaning more than you know." Vorinclex' hands were almost entirely submerged in the pool, but it was clear from the movement of his arms that he was probing the length of Jin's spine. "I'm intrigued by how you've arranged your nerves to run the length of this tube-body of yours. Incredible use of space, but not without its tender spots…As for your form..you could have a raptor’s grace, if only your limbs were not so inefficient in proportion to-"

Jin’s hand jolted up Vorinclex’s arm, and pressed at a spot just below his jaw, where head met body. Vorinclex’ weight shifted suddenly to one side, and Jin used the momentum to roll the both of them sideways, splashing through the pool, which hummed with tripled vigor.

Jin rolled atop Vorinclex, and for a split second Glissa’s leg’s fell into a crouch in preparation to strike his head from his body-

But Vorinclex, using the sheer advantage of his weight, carried the roll another turn, and pinned Jin beneath him, once again half-submerging his chrome form in the fluid.

They remained that way for long seconds, Jin humming hoarsely, and Vorinclex’s arms tremoring.

“Very clever, little prawn,” Vorinclex said, finally. “All that time spent studying was not entirely wasted.”

“Your evolution has granted you some low advantages,” Jin conceded in his tinny rasp. “I am beginning to re-evaluate my chances of thriving in your death-trap of a home.”

The pool fluid around Jin was slowly turning a more metallic sheen, a mixture of blue, purple, and black metallic. Where it dispersed into the blue-green, it became more muted, but seemed to churn with a thick urgency

"Of course you would not survive in the Maze. Your form has been molded to fit into your filthy operating theatres."

“So I should simply remain in my labs in perpetuity?”

"I didn't say that. You and your meat-molders are more than welcome among the Swarm. I'm intrigued to see how perfect your form could be if you let the oils of the Maze shape you into a true predator."

"You said I would not survive."

"Because you would never embrace it. It isn't in your nature. If you could come down from your chrome pedestal, and hunt and adapt like any other beast, you could be something tremendous."

“You underestimate me.”

“That was never a problem. That you overestimate yourself is.”

“I am capable of cooperation and collaboration, it is others who are too insular or insecure to take full advantage.”

“I’m taking full advantage now, or didn’t you notice?”

“You have lingered unusually long on my spine.” Jin shifted his grip on Vorinclex’s left arm, his fingers moving closer to the shoulder. “It is an unparalleled example of compleation, but I wonder how useful the time you are spending on it is now.”

“Lower then.” Vorinclex shifted his grip, and his attentions, to where Jin’s skirt began. If you insist.”

“‘What is planted below will determine what flourishes above.’”

Vorinclex paused, one of his fore-paws beginning to pull back apron and skirt. “Poetry?” He asked, scorn clear in his growl.

“One of Sheoldred’s prophecies,” Jin replied. He kept a grip on the nearest of Jin’s paw’s. “One I have been pondering at length when my schedule allows. Her counsel and her company have been more useful than seeking cooperation from you or the furnace-rat.”

“Sheoldred.” Vorinclex spat the name as if it had been a bone lodged in his throat. “A waste of your time. If there’s one thing more useless than your science it’s prophecy and soothsaying. The only reality you should care about is the reality of flesh and fangs.”

“They have proven exceptionally useful, her prophecies,” Jin replied, almost sing-song through the grate of his voice. “She has been my most fruitful partner outside the Engine.”

Vorinclex grunted, and leaned further into Jin. The chrome praetor sank another few inches into the pool.

Jin's own arm shifted as Vorinclex's did, his fingers still clinging to the hollows in the other praetor’s arms.

Vorinclex seized Jin’s shoulder in his maw and, with a quick thrust of his head, tossed him further into the pool. Before Jin could even conceive of rising up, Vorinclex was looming over him again, this time with a massive limb planted to either side of the chrome Praetor’s head.

“Enough talk. I’m not done knowing you.”

Keeping his left paw planted, Vorinclex cradled Jin’s head in his right. The muscle of his arm began to distend and lengthen. Moments later, branches of flesh were snaking under and across Jin-Gitaxias. Vorinclex’s lower arms began to distend as well, and resumed the probing at Jin’s legs.

An exasperated sigh escaped Jin as the upper-arm tendrils splayed his arms out, binding his limbs to the ground and tethering b etween his long fingers.

“Silence is a waste. I have plenty of additional data I might gather from observing your clumsy pawing.”

“Speak to your toadies if you wish. I don’t mind your noise.”

V orinclex pulled back Jin’s skirt in one swift motion, and a rip cut through the humming as his skirt tore along one side, revealing sleek legs of chrome.

“The leader of the Swarm is notably and conspicuously preoccupied with my lower anatomy,” Jin said, conspicuously loudly. Louder at least than his trascriptors would have needed him to speak to hear. “His probing, already indelicate, becomes borderline frenetic as his bestial sensory organs take account of the perfection of my form.”

The distended muscles around Jin’s upper body tightened audibly. He did not abate in his monologue, but the fluid around him grew more intense with it’s churning, and deepened in its dark-metallic tint.

“-seems completely capable of processing auditory information, even when preoccupied with pursuits of base interest-”

Vorinclex bared his maw, and something not dissimilar to his distended arm-muscle snaked out. It was not a tongue exactly, as sapient creatures of flesh might understand it, but a sensory organ modeled after crocus organisms Glissa had perfected with compleat frogmites.

Just now, this organ took the measure of Jin’s legs, probing the knit of cable and struts that joined below the waist, extending into chrome-capped knees.

“-searching perhaps for an equivalent anatomy to his own, not appreciating that, unlike the cumbersome designs of the Swarm, creatures of the Progress Engine make use of modular bodily components that may be included or exempted from certain activities based on their applicability to the situation at-”

The tendrils about Jin’s chest began to writhe, and pulled his arms from a T-formation to up above his head, dragging him further up along the bank.

“-ah-”

Vorinclex’s secondary arms moved up again to Jin’s core, leaving the explorations below to the tongue. His palms rested along the segmented coil enveloping Jin’s spine.

“-feeling to measure the reactions of my nervous system to his probing and brutalization. A simplistic approach, but showing more attention to detail than one might expect from-”

Jin’s ankles and feet received more lingering examination. Vorinclex tested the durability of each digit with his snout, pushing them to the extent of their flexibility. The construction of Jin’s heel seemed of particular interest.

“-most likely having discovered yet another anatomical superiority his own faction lacks in-”

Two tendrils wound a spiral around Jin’s neck.

“-a curious maneuver. What sort of response he hopes to elicit is a mystery, as even he must know respiration in a specimen as advance as myself is-”

Jin cut off suddenly as both tendrils slithered into his mouth and down his throat, writhing all along their length as they went.

Vorinclex gave no outward sign he was conscious of what his arms were doing. Glissa had no doubt he was enjoying the opportunity deeply regardless.

The opportunity, and the rasping, muffled sound of Jin attempting to continue his monologue.

Vorinclex brought one of his smaller arms up to the side of his head and tapped around where his sheltered ears lay. He favored Jin with a shrug.

Jin’s muffled attempts ceased suddenly, and a rattling vibration started up in his chest.

“His tactile limbs navigate the obstacles of my internal organs with unexpected efficacy. A lifetime meandering through the unorganized hazards of the Tangle and the Hunter’s Maze have helped develop a low cunning useful for-”

A voicebox somewhere on his body, built into the chest, maybe. Glissa smirked from the shadows. Leave it to Jin-gitaxias to build in redundant systems to make sure no one could ever shut him up.

Vorinclex’s maw had returned to Jin’s midsection as his tendrils lifted Jin’s arcing spine out of the fluid. His tongue traced over each coil of the segmented spinal spikes that fanned out around Jin’s back.

“-that he can carry out so many parallel probings of my form is astounding, especially given the thoroughness. It is of course a shadow of the theoretical network efficiency our faction has already accomplished with the vedalken mindmeld, but nevertheless-”

Vorinclex released his grip on Jin’s spine, but his body remained bent over the surface of the pool, as if straining of its own volition.

“-able to contort my body from within using his tendrils-”

That he can keep rambling on with several tons of muscle and steel shoved down your gullet is incredible enough, Glissa mused.

“-tendrils prove resilient to the acids of my stomach and the abrasive metal components of my internal-”

Tiny offshoots of Vorinclex’s arms, thin fibers of metal and crocus-perfected flesh, w o rked like roots into the crevices of Jin’s upper body. The fluid all around them was properly churning now with the combined effects of their movement and the essences leaking from both of them into the pool.

“-provided his brain is capable of such memorization, the beast should have explored enough of my innards to form a rudimentary map of my major external organs.”

“A fair exchange of information.”

Glissa almost started at Vorinclex’s voice. He’d been silent for nearly a half-hour.

Jin shuddered and tsk-ed. “This is...not equitable...I did not explore you nearly as deeply with my dissections-”

“I can feel your pin-probes working their slow way through me, collecting information,” Jin cut in. “Spare me.” He moved his face closer to Jin’s. “What is your conclusion on my own research technique, hm?”

Jin turned his head. “You were studying my actions. My reactions. Taking note of how I grapple with you, and my stimulus response to your aggression.”

“Obviously. This is how a predator learns.”

“Learning...what use is learning to you?”

“Everything learns.”

“Your evolution is a mindless charade. You mean to tell me you have a use for the scientific process?”

“You misunderstand the Grand Evolution, and you do degrade it by comparing it to evolution writ large. Even at it’s basest, evolution is not a process of becoming the biggest, the strongest, or the most fang-filled-”

“As if any of those things are prized or rare in our Phyrexia,” Jin observed.

Vorinclex made a rasping sound that Glissa knew to be a chuckle. “Evolution simply rewards whatever creature can rut and breed best. What makes a new generation that survives to do the same in perpetuity wins.

“Our Grand Evolution is more than just evolution as the flesh knows it. We see a process failing, we see a useless limb or vestigial encumbrance, and we remove it there and then. A jaw formation fails to aid a predator in its hunting? The jaw must go. A venom fails to kill outright from a single bite? The glands that produce it must be replaced. A creature like you-”

Vorinclex leaned into Jin, his voiced dropped to a strained snarl. "You are s quandered potential. You've coated yourself in such potent metals. Hacked yourself and your septic underlings into such ingenious shapes. But now you languish in front of vats and corpses, those clever bodies untempered and untested against real strength."

J in barely stirred at the commentary. “Your approach is both more scientific and more reckless than I thought. No concern for long-term consequences. Short-sighted and slapdash modifications.”

Vorinclex pulled his head back. “You got me talking again, silver-prawn. You’re such a fool I forget how clever you can be.”

“More flattery than I anticipated.” Jin raised a hand and brushed the side of Vorinclex’s jaw. Vorinclex leaned into the gesture, almost imperceptibly.

“Interesting.” Jin’s hand came away, and he inspected something along the back of his thumb. “Heightened levels of adrenaline, even compared to your baseline.” He wiped the thumb on Jin’s forearm. “I will take samples for my research.”

“Don’t let me stop you.”

Jin half-rose to a seated position, long strands of Vorinclex' arms still draped around his shoulders. He looked to Glissa like one of the vedalken draped in their bulky suits.

With the same hand he’d caressed with, Jin flexed, and the middle finger elongated, thinner than the scalpel-finger had been, until it was needle-fine. One of the transcriptors waded into the shallow of the pool, and affixed a clear container to the back of Jin’s hand.

Vorinclex carried on tasting the air about Jin’s neck and face all the while, arm draped round the other praetor’s back.

As the Transcriptor waded out again, Jin slid the needle into Vorinclex’s collar with a smooth deliberation. A snake slipping into a burrow. Vorinclex showed no overt sign of feeling it, though he kept steady, even as his probing increased in intensity about Jin’s chest. If Jin's instruments were as fine-tuned as he claimed, they were sure to have picked up on the rumble within Vorinclex' chest, mixing with the sounds of the fluids in the pools.

The glass vial on Jin’s hand began to fill.

“Under the fallen father, Phyrexia developed many variations of oil, as you well know.” Jin leaned forward into Vorinclex’s shoulder. “Substances found in the artifacts of planes explored during our many years of exploration, powdered powerstone, the fluids of the many lesser creatures whose bodies we mastered...we produced glands to resist acid and fire, to fuel sleepless hulks and unailable plague vectors.”

A fluid, clear and green-tinted, and laced with golden filament, filled the glass. More still poured into the container at a thick flow.

“The oil is an art we have all benefited from and contributed to. Even you beasts of the swarm.”

“I’ve touched the inside of you, prawn. Your oils are not more impressive than mine, just different.”

“Did you enjoy their taste, Vorinclex?”

Vorinclex laughed – a thundering rumble from his gut.

“I should be asking if you are enjoying the taste of me right now.”

“Ah, yes, I forgot you were in there.”

Jin bit down, hard, severing the tendrils Jin had shoved down his throat.

“Ah-”

Vorinclex pulled his hands up, tearing the thinner cords of sinew and steel. His fore-arms re-formed in full with a sharp, violent sucking sound, and he pounded back down into the pool, dousing them both.

Jin, for his part, vibrated with a grinding noise from inside his chest. His needle had snapped off in Vorinclex’s neck.

“Now that is what I would call fair exchange.”

Vorinclex spat into the water, and stalked back up out the side of the pool, shaking out his coat as he went, splattering the walls and floors with the fluid of their exchange. Jin clambered back up the bank of the pool, reclining with an arm balanced on his knee.

“You’ve ruined my skirt.”

“I’m sure you’ll find a nicer one somewhere.” Vorinclex stretched out his forelimbs. “Was that useful for you, prawn?”

“It was not entirely unproductive,” Jin replied. His transcriptors approached him from behind, still muttering away.

“I could learn even more if we had our entire network of caverns and pools at our disposal.” Vorinclex’s claws flexed. “If you were willing to let me hunt you through the space, I could glean multitudes about how you tick...if such a thing interested you…?”

“Guess.”

“Hmph.”

“A moment.” Jin turned to his transcriptors and, with a single deft swipe of his hand, separated their domed heads from their bodies.

The heads never hit the ground; Jin plucked them out of the air with his other hand, and tucked them into a compartment at his waist. The bodies slumped in place, sagging but standing upright.

Vorinclex sniffed. “Failed in their recording?”

“Succeeded, which is why I will be taking their knowledge into myself. It is an unnecessary risk to have such valuable data wandering around inside beings so susceptible to bribery or abduction. Here-” Jin waved a hand over the bodies, and began collecting the jars and other vials they had assembled. “A gift – you may eat those. I have no more use for their ambulatory parts. These were grown from samples of myself; they can be your consolation prize, since you cannot have me.”

“A waste of resources.” Vorinclex looked down on the bodies with disdain. “Phyrexia is still a closed system until Norn can break through to new hunting grounds. Can’t your research make use of them?”

Jin looked up at Vorinclex, but did not answer right away. He continued to collect the samples the transcriptors had gathered.

“Most likely,” He said at last. “It was only a goodwill gesture.”

“I eat only what is worth being eaten. Those septic corpses are worth nothing.”

“Hm.”

“The exploration of your form is goodwill enough,” Vorinclex rumbled.

“I will offer something else then.” Jin made a strange gesture; a movement of the hand from chest to side. “We are, despite valid criticisms, among the pinnacles of our factions. Your crocus creations-”

“Glissa’s Crocuses. They are the fruit of her labours.”

Jin clicked irritably. “The crocuses are, despite their crudeness, well suited to aiding the sort of newt and germ generation the progress engine has perfected. We might then make children from our respective materials-”

“Yours and mine?”

Jin paused, but Vorinclex pressed on.

“You and me, specifically?”

“It is a proposal with immense promise.”

Vorinclex tilted his head. “I would be...curious to see what comes of it.”

Jin leaned forward, and Glissa imagined for a moment she saw his jaw clench into a smile. “An understandable position. We have this space here, and Norn will approve of anything that could add such potent forces to Phyrexia. If you would only-”

“I won’t,” Vorinclex cut in, with a sudden, unmistakable edge.

“...why?”

“What does it matter ‘why’? I said no.”

Jin hummed in exasperation. “We have already seen great leaps and bounds in our respective factions’ grand designs. Why not join our own materials to see what can be made anew for Phyrexia? Urabrask and Sheoldred have their own project underway, and even the tangle has a fine specimen resulting from your proximity to the Furnace.”

“Norn will have no children of mine.”

"The swarm is already committed to her expansion. To our expansion. What does it matter whether they are of your direct lineage?"

"There is no singular "Swarm" to be committed. Glissa and I don't limit where our hunters range, and I won't deny them whatever killing grounds the Orthodoxy open for Phyrexia. They're free to join Norn's conquests whatever way they please.”

Jin hummed with irritation. “If they are free, then...I ask again, why not-”

“If a phyrexian I spawn chooses, they may follow Norn. If a predator can make itself mightier on the flesh of the planes she wishes to open up, I welcome the chance. If the creatures our factions collaborate on here are meant for her schemes, so be it. What I will not do is personally sire for the sole end of adding to her legions. I won't give my own brood to be her tools. She has you for that, prawn."

Silence. Jin turned away, and busied himself with extracting the vials and other samples from the bodies of his transcriptors, tucking them into a bag at his waist, and several slots along his back.

“It’s a wasted opportunity,” he said at last, not looking up. “This space has already proven useful to our efforts beyond measure. I foresee much great progress being made here.”

“That’s why we were here to-” Vorinclex’s gaze swept the cavern. “Yes. That’s why we agreed to this.”

“I am trying to discover the way forward for all Phyrexia. Not just for Norn’s benefit.”

“Then you should look up from your dissection tables, Jin, and see the world Norn is making with clear eyes, and how you contribute to it.”

“As you do.”

“I know what I am contributing to, and how I am contributing.”

Jin hummed. “I am not ignorant.”

“You don’t have to be ignorant to fool yourself.”

Jin hissed at that, so low it was almost lost in the humming of the cavern, but still he hissed. He turned away from Vorinclex.

From the transcriptor’s bodies, Jin extracted two more vials – long, empty lubes of glass. He waded out into the pool, and knelt.

The fluid was much changed by their activities. From acid-green to blue-green, to something that seemed to Glissa’s eye like colored quicksilver, shimmering form purple to blue to green to black to purple again. It sang a markedly more complex tune now than the humming of the fluid in the other pools.

Slowly, Jin tipped the vials into the fluid and filled them up, stopping each with a plug of gummy black material.

“I will test incubating my next batch of larvae in the fluid from this pool,” Jin said, tucking the vials into compartments in his breast. “It has absorbed some of my own essence, which should at least...counterbalance any defects you might introduce.”

“I’m sure the notion does not make you uncomfortable,” Jin added, somehow baring even more of his teeth than usual. “I do not fear to create life for Norn’s Phyrexia.”

Vorinclex said nothing, but regarded Jin for a few seconds longer.

Then, still without a word, he lowered his maw into the fluid of the breeding pool, and began to drink.

And drink.

Jin just stared. Glissa realized her own breath had caught in her chest.

And still, Vorinclex drank deeply of the stuff, and the humming of the fluid shifted, chords of sound rippling through the cavern as he sucked the glowing stuff up into his maw.

When he at last lifted his head, minutes later, the gaze of every other person in the chamber followed the movement.

He merely licked his chops, and stretched out his shoulders with what Glissa knew to be intentional effect.

“Meager,” Vorinclex noted at last. “But, if I cannot eat you, that’s the next best thing. Maybe you managed to leak a useful mineral or two into the pool.”

Then, with a deliberate grace, he looped out of the pool, leaving Jin to watch him go in silence. Iridescent, humming fluid dripped from his sides onto the spongy metal floor, which soaked the liquid up with a greedy haste.

Glissa smiled at Vorinclex as he rejoined her, then back at Jin, shooting the latter praetor a tight smirk and sneer.

Your scientist has been pleasantly rattled.

Vorinclex grunted.

He’s not mine. And now I’m liable to be sick.

Glissa snorted a laugh.

They began their climb back to the Maze. As the breeding pools disappeared behind them, Glissa patted at Vorinclex’s flank, where Jin had cut into him and delved inside. He rumbled his appreciation, but when she went to wipe the fluid from his jaw, he pulled away.

She let him be. There was much work being done, and yet to be done still. This diversion had certainly been trying enough on its own.

As the light of the Hunter’s Maze began to fill the tunnel, Vorinclex’ tongue slipped out the corner of his mouth.

Almost absently, he began to lick traces of fluid from his chops.

"Keen Sense and Curiosity” is unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Fan Content Policy. Not approved/endorsed by Wizards. Portions of the materials used are property of Wizards of the Coast. ©Wizards of the Coast LLC.

#mtg #phyrexia #jin gitaxias #vorinclex #mtg fan fic #glissa

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