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Chapter Text

His half-submerged body makes an odd sizzling sound as the cascade of acid trickles to the awaiting pool over scales. The hum of machinery vibrates in the ground below its clawed feet. 

 The restraints are a nuisance, strung around his limbs in a vain attempt to assure themselves they have control over him. It's laughable and It oh so enjoys reminding them of their powerless attempts to stop him.

His brief respite from the acid lasts a measly second before they descend the metal stairs into the observatory. A march of ants is in sync with their toting of guns and the pathetic humans chitter their questions to receive the same answer he gave yesterday. Nothing.

Today, He senses a new presence amongst their ilk and growls in a warning. Is this another test of these foolish researchers? 

The toxic sludge of chemicals drains down. The relief from his pain and breathing oxygen is minimized when the doctor comes in with the air of a queen in her castle. Shrewd studying her subject. 

His mouth opens exposing white teeth and deadly points. It whips its tail at her. Lashing the strong glass, the room shakes with echoes of the hit. A lightning strike.

He gets immense pleasure from seeing a flash of fear on her face. She collects herself, scowling down at him in a pathetic attempt at intimidation. 

"Old hag." Her paper-thin skin becomes red. She announced that they'd be conducting another test. 

"We have a treat for you 682."

Humans and their half-pint theories. "Cooperation is expected." She sneers.

He stretches his neck, sloshing the acid. Ready for whatever they throw at him. Will it be the swordsman? The last time he'd seen that lapdog he put him in his place. The crier? they had torn each other to shreds, once done a pool of blood had risen. Or a new creature?

Either way, one of them will meet their end and it won't be him.

The door they stop at is big. Her nerves are tightly packed with tension and the buzz grows louder, warning her that what's inside will kill and eat her corpse. At the edge of a promise of brutal violence. The guards and doctors enjoyed recounting tales of the inhabitants of the facility. 

She jumps when a loud smash shakes the building, and lights flicker. "What is it?" She whispered.

The guard on her left chuckles and tightens their hold. "You're going to find out."

 In a flash, the door opens and she's tossed inside too fast to process. The door is shut when she lands on the wet concrete smelling strongly of chemicals that sting her skin.

Loud breathing is heard across her.

She scrambles up to face the cell's inhabitant. There's a dark pool of green sludge and a concrete ledge, other than that at first glance it is bare of inhabitants.

  Dangerous. The Beatles in her throat trill. Run .

There is nowhere to go. The hanging light is low, one can hardly see, instead, she feels its presence in the murky water watching her, She feels like prey, She is prey. 

 How bizarre, this is what those boys felt when she chased them down, right? She asked herself. Head full of flies, each a racing thought, a ' should have.'

Should have watched the sun draw instead of sleeping in.

Should have made more of an effort to appear human.

Should have gone to the park as usual instead of following those human boys into the city. Into the alley crawling with maggots.

 She trembles in place. Trying and failing to make out anything besides the dark shape of mass under the acid's surface. The cement ledge hitches up two inches as a minuscule warning. Painted with a small yellow stripe from wall to wall. She takes a step forward to peek into the depths, its murky form is still. The occasional small bubbles travel to the surface and soundlessly pop

In the observatory the researchers argue and look on in complacency, drinking out of steaming mugs, she pays them no mind, it's only her and the creature waiting underneath the surface to strike its prey.

 She dares not to gaze away. Her poor beetles trill their warning once more, 'run please if you can run. It will eat us-'

A great splash of cold shoots up, and the accompanying roar bursts her eardrums, her answering scream is a high note drowned by the awful sound. She wipes the chemicals out of her eyes in frantic swipes. Tears sting her puffy eyes, and she cranes her head up and up at the looming monster.

The size of the creature dwarfs mind-boggling, from the vantage point of a speck It's all she can see, like the crowning of the sun over the earth.

Tiny, insignificant insect. A cockroach.

The scaled body and heavily armored snout that resembles an alligator's opens and the fair teeth display the ability to shred you to strips of meat. Uneven and jagged. It brays its hot breath upon her. The mouth is a flower pink, The thick hide and green scales are hard plates of bone, encasing it in spikes from head to long winding tail. Swishing angrily.

Claws sharp and soot-black already tearing the floor. 

"Pest." It hisses. its gaze sears her trembling body where she stupidly stands like a calf waiting for slaughter. 

She wonders, are her eyes as baleful? She'll get no sympathy from the butcher.

Why didn't the guards just shoot her again?

"Eliminate her." The intercom cut off. He doesn't need to be told 

Before she had a chance to shriek he digs his teeth down to slippery marrow.

The fifth time she awakes she's ready to be smashed into mush once again. Healed and resting, tired after being revived and killed in a repeat cycle of tooth and nail, she cowers in a corner naked and afraid, expecting another bite.

 The behemoth lays away from her, head on its frontal claw with an air of boredom about it, the one eye opens a sliver, peaking the fiery orange color that robbed her of common sense.

It focuses on her and she lets out a cry. "Please don't." The jaws, the teeth, the jaws, the teeth!

Her short nails clench at shaking shoulders, in an attempt to slow her panicked breathing. Dry blood under her nose flakes.

The heavy breathing coming from the reptile doesn't get closer, nor does the mouth in case her.

It is silent.

She dares to peek out between fingers and finds it still lying across from her, his eyes are closed. Is it asleep? She's scared to breathe, any noise can revert its attention to an eating frenzy. She spends the day locked in a hunched form, the aches from back pain are a reminder of being alive. 

It's a creature of bespoken harshness, the matted black hair, coiling tail, and slitted eyes are a confounding mix of features. A huge malformed crocodile.

The staff throws a sack into the enclosure from a dropping point in the ceiling, wrapped in a brown paper bag and written in neat handwriting is her number.

Neither move. She can smell the food inside the sack and the responding grumble from her stomach has her flinching.

"Can I-?" She ventures carefully.

"Don't speak to me." His breath is pure ash and brimstone. The literal butterflies in her stomach take in this scent with relish. Where she expects them to lurch and crawl signaling danger like yesterday they seem… if not calmed then less anxious

Which is crazy. This thing has her limbs dissolving in its stomach,

'You must have permanent brain damage from being stomped to death by him.'

She takes his answer as a go-ahead. Inch by inch the bag comes within reach, slowly to not upset him the bag is in her grasp. She scurries back to her corner.

The burger sinks like a rock. There's a pile of clothes underneath that. She puts them on.

"You will kill me again." She asks another question and is surprised when it is answered.

"Yes." His rumbling voice states it as fact.

Face buried in her knees she whispered. Stating. "You hate me." 

"How observant." It sneers. "Shut up or I'll turn you tintoa meat pile once again."

The researchers in the window watch in befuddlement as she 'survives' a day in its cell. Must have tired him out with all the reappearing after dying and little other stimuli.

The head doctor of this project, Morgan Lafayette, is eager to see how long it takes before the girl breaks and begs to be let out.

She had heard that the girl could heal endlessly from scratch and asked for the assignment. There are countless tests that a doctor can do with a subject that refuses to die.

There is always tomorrow.

Chapter Text

"Do you remember healing when you were younger?" The doctor's eyes are trained on the paper before her, stern lines and graying hair tucked back into a tight professional bun.

"No." She says, picking at the cotton nightgown. It's paper-thin and spotted brown with drops of closing wounds, the one on her chest ache as they speak. She keeps the full extent of her ability a secret. They know she has an affinity for quick healing and it would do her good for these people to keep thinking that way.

 Until the moment to strike comes.

The doctor scribbles something down. "Do you remember your parents?"

"No." Maybe. They are blurry faces in a scattered mind. Flashes of patterns on clothing and hair strung with a shock of gray. They hated her, she thinks. Or did they love her?

"Do you know when this ability first manifested?"

"No." She never gave it much thought when she realized other humans couldn't hear what she could.

The doctor sighs, obviously frustrated with her. "Be honest."

But she is being honest. " I've always had it. Once I cut my hand on a rock and it began healing almost instantly. I was very little."

"Anything else abnormal or strange we should be told about? and before you think of lying, we will find out." Her glasses catch the light, silver, and stern .

On their next shared meal, he attacks her.

It's as sudden as the first strike and there's no fight on her part, it wouldn't do much. She is staring up at the high vaulted ceiling, blood pouring from the fresh opening on her stomach before the 682's shadow eclipses her.

"Horrid flesh sack." His saliva falls in splashes.

'I don't- why. Please. It hurts. '

Her tears are dried up. There's nothing to do except hope it's quick. No matter how many times her body is mangled and used against her by others it will always be an unbearable pain. There is no getting used to it.

The constant healing is an energy-consuming task that leaves her a sweaty semi-conscious mess.

 Her body has never been her own even in childhood. How long will this test last? Dr. Morgan has never left her alone before, she'd sit in the corner during tests writing in a notepad. 

A horrible thought dawns that they are done with her and she's been relegated to a permanent chew toy. The next bite will come and the teeth will pierce her. She breaths, shuddering, keeping quiet when a puff of steam streams out between its boney jaws as if in response.

682 feels his claws curl in annoyance at the sound, the human is trying to be silent, a prey strategy to blend in with surroundings that lesser animals often resort to escape the notice of predators. It's not working. Her heart beats loud and unsteady. The cage always hums with an undercurrent of electricity but this earthly rhythm disrupts the cold environment.

The human…. Smells. Not pleasant. It refuses to put the words human and pleasant in a sentence together. But drifting off into nothingness at the opposite sides of the room it takes the human in. It's a clean scent unlike her foul brethren and it brings to mind buried memories of eons past, fields of green grass weaving in the wind. Far from noisy kingdoms and their humid peasants with pitchforks and hay, there was an escape from the crushing press of humanity

The hot press of rock against his sensitive underbelly heated by the sun and a sleep-like death. The carcass of a horse in his belly, The smell of wildflowers with roots coiling in the dark earth.

Such reminiscent thoughts ought to remain buried. It has the inclination to take her into his mouth again but her taste, at first new and meaty, is now nothing to note a tedious task. 

What stops him from killing the pathetic human again is the doctors who seem to want him to eat her, and doing their bidding makes his scales itch in the worst ways.

Though he knows not their goal in keeping the human woman with him. At the very least she knows her place.

Unmeasurable minutes after waking at what she thinks is morning, soldiers march into view, automatically aiming at 682 from ledges that scale forty feet high. So many she wonders how the foundation never runs out of lackeys.

They peek in and conduct their paperwork from an unknown point to conserve the loss of manpower that poking him usually comes with. 

He plans to claim the lives of the staff foolish enough to step too close, snapping its mouth he stands on fours and emits a terrible rumbling that echoes in her chest. 

A confrontation is about to occur that she won't come out of unscathed

She takes a step to her corner when a red dot focuses on her.  

"Don't move!" a soldier yells. They begin shooting bright flashes blinding. Shots land on its shoulder digging in a single inch. It rears its head, roaring. She's wide-eyed and rocking back and forth watching the scene unfold. A soldier makes the fatal mistake of being in the front lines and 682 seized the opportunity, lunging he bites down, tossing the disgusting human up to take him into his mouth whole. Crushing the screaming soldier's head against his back teeth.

What the hell are they trying to do? Guns aren't going to hurt him. The foundation must know this. Is there something special about the bullets? They bounce off his scales like rubber balls and hit metal.

A sound catches her ears, different from the slaughter before her and sounding just as deadly. Behind the front line, men in orange jumpsuits wheel a cage containing a strange red creature she can only call a dog for its four-legged stance.

The gate is unlatched and quick as a bolt the dog dashes out.

It seems confused at why it's here, she studied it quickly, no not a normal canine, it's larger and muscled. The skin is bright and slick, almost translucent.

The dog ran up to 682 and clamped onto his hindleg.

He gives no reaction to the bite but he growls and he kicks the thing off with ease before it bounds back, limping.

Four more cages with the same species are carried in by the men in orange, the pack of red dogs immediately join the first. Circling him.

"Stupid mutts." They think to damage him in groups. Have the researchers learned nothing from the first two he ate?

They bark, gathering courage in their numbers and he readies his tale for a swipe of six 

The soldiers fall back, Most are too preoccupied with 682 to attack her, one separates from the pack, It has no eyes but she's certain it sees her.  Fuck.

She jumps to her feet and runs, there is nowhere to escape from the dog, nothing to hide behind she comes to realize as her throat burns. It chases her throughout the room the doggy pants it emits touch her heels, snipping at her tendon there for the taking. "Let me out of here!"

Piercing screeches are admitted in the battle with the red dogs. The soldiers on the ledges remain still, aptly watching the show that reflects off their pitch-black visors. 

Her frantic hand-waving fails to get their notice. 

However, they oh so kindly shoot her leg. 

She's focused on outrunning the dog when the shot shatters her right leg sending her tumbling.

She screams out to the men behind the glass. "Damn you. I'll kill you. I'll haunt you." 

The men laugh in response.

She can't run, can't stand. The red Hound rushes to her and commences to feast on the shot leg. The pain is ugly and familiar. "Get away." She pushes feebly at the head that chews her. 

682 is there. A husk. His ribs stick out in a prominent stretch. Drenched in blood and howling. His tongue catches the mutt by the throat and it's pulled into his mouth. The pops and cracks of bone The throat scales, each a half-circle mimic of the next ripple, and pull the dog to swallow. She stares up at him bleeding and swollen, the crisscrossing scars of his are thickly layered but he is victorious in the battle over the vanquished enemy. 

Powerful.

And she is a pale shadow, there is no comparing.

Puddles of blood provide a slippery surface to stand. Her right leg is irritated and dark purple around the bite. The gunshot is on its way to scab over. She notices older scars. Slashes and gauges where someone tried to skewer him.

His body does not belong to him either. Both are the playgrounds of others. To serve the amusement of whoever wishes to see how high of a hoop they can jump.

I'll show them how high I can go . And discreetly coughed into her hand. Her body seizes with effort. Until the small pea-shaped fly was in her palm. Her ally and spy.

With the sound of 628's deafening roar at their captors, people are preoccupied. She orders it to go. The translucent wings flicker.

 And there at the high corner where wall meets wall, the fly sits waiting.

And just as she said. No guards or scientists saw what happened. The soldiers speak to each other via their devices. The sound of keyboards and crinkling paper has her flinching as she limps to her spot. Whether or not they passed or failed this test is beyond her.

The moment to close your eyes and breathe are few and she takes this time to curl into a ball. Cheek pressing the floor.

The slam echoes in that ungodly metallic way. The never-ending reminder of the miles of labyrinth they are in. "They hurt you." She whispered. Hurt us both. And for what?

The cuts are already healing. Like her. Flesh falls into place, filling large gaps. The muscle ropes bind together. 

"Leave me be." He faces away. 

Why is her gut-churning over him? She can't let go of the fact that they are forced together.

He is trapped here, she remembers, all sorts of anomalies are trapped here against their will to be tortured and tested endlessly.

Why? 

So what if some kill humans. Don't they do the same? Her reasoning is simplistic. If others were privy they'd say, ignorant, limited, faulty. But it's more accurate to say she is the duality of cruel and sympathetic. 

He's like you. However, his battles leave him stronger.

 She needs that strength to break out of here. she'll release all those creatures in captivity and if the result is all human life dying in the process then oh well. Other humans never cared much for her anyway.

The ceiling sprinklers start. Washing today's fray down the floor drain. Water droplets fall off the bridge of her nose, the hospital gown is soaked quickly. 

The fly keeps itself dry by sticking to the roof. Ready to slip out when the moment comes. But before that- 

She has to speak to 682 in secret.

When sleep comes it's the vision of 682 standing over her, a wrathful God of old

Chapter Text

He acknowledges that due to his ancient age days have been passing by in a blink but for this single week all has been crawling at a snail's pace.

To humans and other life forms he's met, his age is vast, in-comparable numbers in the face of their tiny existence. The number of years is meaningless, why bother to count when there won't be an end? There is no reason to celebrate. It's just another tallied day the same as those before. Lost to the past.

In sleep he goes to those villages and cities he once destroyed to hear screams and fill his nostrils with the burned ashes of fallen trees, burned crops, the moments where he's free to smash buildings, to inspire fear in others, and to stomp their hope for survival is where he lives in truth.

Fear is what it feasts on.

Destruction is his calling. His curse since 'creation'. Wandering the earth has deepened his disgust. The greed they show trickery, weakness. They multiply like rabbits and spread their spindly fingers far, infecting with touch. A disease.

A fly lands on his snout, interrupting the reminiscing. the limbs a gentle brush. Fluttering its brown speckled wings. He gives a shake of his head sending acid splashing but the insect stays seated. The fly then nudged at his mind. Confirming what he thought. 

This isn't an ordinary fly. The tendrils of energy that surrounds it come from the girl. 

 Stubborn thing. With one eye he studies it. The other looks to the human. She is wide-eyed, fear held but meeting his gaze now with a determined one of her own. She raises her chin.

'I have to speak to you.' a nervous voice. How annoying. Her clothes are dirty and torn. Hair that covered her face when she entered his cell now stringy and matted with dark guck from last night's fight.

It had been amusing to watch her run. Between bites, he watched her flail and scream. Cursing the soldiers with vitriol. The mutt had tackled her to the ground.

Her face rests on her knees and she flinches at his warning growl, but she dares crawl close to him, stopped by her fear of another bite. Weary to her core of the great beast. As she should be.

"I have a plan to escape and if you don't hurt me I'll release you as well " She whispered through the fragile connection. 'Believe me' she willed to it. Pouring what she could into the feeling of hope. She wants him to believe. "We'll get out of here soon." 

Why would she include him in this? he wonders. She must be truly stupid. Perhaps the half a dozen times he ate her damaged the puny mind in her skull. 

"Do what you want." The corners of his bone-white mouth exhibit its pink maw. And hint at displeasure. Cease speaking. It's enough that he has to listen to the foundation researchers but now the constant nearness of this girl is grating. Never has someone lasted this long in his presence. He's unused to it.

"How long have they had you trapped here?" She wondered. Trying to learn about him.

 But he's had enough. Quick as a whip he lashes at her with a claw, she stumbles back. "Don't pity me." He snarls aloud.

There's a commotion behind the glass observatory. Whoever is there must have seen his aggressive action. Hopefully they remain oblivious to the link.

The static of the intercom cuts on, she expects the old croaking voice of their usual doctor instead there are two unfamiliar voices."Why isn't she dead yet?" A man asks.

Doctor Bright studies the scene with no small amount of curiosity. The tired girl, a new addition to the circus, and their reptilian menace sit oddly close considering he just tried to decapitate her head.

"Regeneration." Kondraki reminds him. "Also I think he got bored." He sits, legs crossed in the back. He has gone over the test with Doctor Bright multiple times and had guessed he hadn't been listening to the far-off look in his eyes. This is confirmation.

"Have you tried eating her whole?" Bright asks. The controls are wrestled away from him. And Kondraki taps the microphone once.

"Lost your touch, Godzilla?" Kondraki speaks.

She notices that at this voice 682 tenses. Which isn't a good sign. The man appears ordinary, middle-aged, why would he trouble a fucking monster?

Kondraki called the woman, jokingly. "Hey, Kill the bastard and we'll let you go. "

"I'll drink the marrow from your bones!" 682 spits. It looks about ready to launch himself at the wall.

She watched them go back and forth with growing concern. He becomes more agitated as they continue, at one point the ground shakes and her ears pop until Doctor Morgan comes and shoos the two men away, but not without a fight.

"I'll kill them all when I get out of here."

She swears it once alone.

 He'll believe it when he sees it. So far it has seen her cowering and crying. There are much bigger threats here than the human staff and if she continues like this even if she breaks containment the weak thing will be killed in the frenzy. 

Her hatred is promising though. A common ground.

"You lot are deserving of death." He agrees. 

She blinks up at him. Scrunching her nose. "You'll help me?" she sent through the connection. Mindful of any listening.

Again he doesn't answer. His snout dips down.

She sleeps in the far corner. Why even bother with it? He wants nothing to do with her. 

This place is big and heavily guarded. There's no other option than to seek help. 682 from what little she's heard, is a bulldozer when it comes to breaking confinement. She needs its help. The flies in her kidneys agree. She's better off with him than against him. 

Chapter Text

She remembers the hatch in the ceiling where they dropped the food from. The fly just has to wait for it to open again to slip out.

Her hold over insects is mediocre at best, she can't do much with them that would be useful but she can do this, navigate a single fly through corridors to find help. Maybe a way out.

Bug sight is a funky thing. The eyes and the messages it sees aren't the same pictures that humans see. It's a fun house mirror sort of thing she has to piece together. Safe to say it takes time.

Their relationship within the space of the containment room is one of silence. An agreement of sorts is made.

For the duration of her stay, she'll make herself unnoticeable and he'll keep from taking a bite to a certain point. Out of my way and I won't hurt you unless you make me.

"Get this fucking pest away from me!" She flinches. His breaking point has been reached, He can't kill her, she'll just pop back up. He's understandingly temperamental about this.

Her fear has lessened a bit and in return, she finds his behavior irritating. " This pest is doing her best to break us both out while you sit in a vat of acid. " She wouldn't say that to his face though. Not yet but she's getting there. She half wishes they'd fully submerge him in the acid than just leaving him half exposed.

The slightest thing she does cause him to burst out into complaints. She itches her elbow, the blisters caused by the puddle of acid covering the place offer such a fun sensation. Safe to say she hasn't relaxed in weeks since this began.

Morgan comes in to deliver ice cream to her as a reward for good behavior. It's a little like rewarding a dog for good behavior that it's humiliating however the offer of something sweet is too strong a call

Its thick chocolate sludge has a bit of comfort. Rich in flavor and colder than the containment room, she wouldn't trade it for any seasoned meat.

She shoves a spoonful in and savors it as 682 stares at her in his vat. Now she's no expert in faces and the odd cuts and contours of his face are alien to her but she could swear he is jealous of her treat.

She licks her lips. "The man, he calls you Godzilla?" The scent of chocolate is strong. It takes him a moment to respond but he doesn't tear away from his hungry gaze from the syrup covering her face. What jerks him out of his trance is the glance at her lips, the tongue that licks without shame.

When it growls the gills at its sides open a slice releasing a plume of bubbles. "He's forced me to watch those wretched movies."

"What are they about?"

He assumed because she is human she would know. When Kondraki would wheel out a device to project the things it had been busy eyeing the doctors' steps in case he made a false step

White and black flashes, human fallacy displayed and an unstoppable monster bent on destroying all those they hold dear. It was like looking in the mirror

"I like the older ones more." It said in a confused tone.

"Enough talking." 

From the acid containment, it glares, "I know what you are doing. I'm not a pet you can tame with a kind word."

. Release me from here then I'll dain to think of aiding you. It speaks through their link, voice deep and dripping with arrogance.

She shrugs then isn't sure it would understand the gesture so explains. "It's not that, I'm just bored." The mind-numbing days spent in this cell are driving her insane, yesterday she requested a pencil and journal to write in and the request was denied. 

"I can tear your arm out of its socket if you'd like?" It is not and never would lower itself to be entertainment

"I'm good." Fucking fossil. It can hear the insult ringing in her head.

He thinks of snapping her leg straight off.

It's quiet once again after her failed attempt at conversation. She scrapes the tub of ice cream and tries to not get a brain freeze. 

She sets the spoon down. "So you want the rest?"

Its tongue shoots out of the acid and wraps around the tub. Tugging out of her hands.

It swallows the ice cream noisily. It's gone in a single gulp but it savors the taste 

She faces the wall hiding a smile. That was… cute. Curse the thought.

"At the very least wash her." He complains.

She stutters, glaring at the "I can wash myself." At the mention of a wash, she brightens up. Yes, This is the shittiest experience of her life but thank does above for small bright spots.

Before being locked here she'd seen the women's locker room, the showers were purely there for quick ones, military in fashion.

The public washroom seems like a promising thing. Not to mention she could use the privacy. She gets up. Ready to be escorted out the doors. 

The lizard looks to be waiting for something too.

They hose her down. She shrieks when the cold water hits her, wiping the water out of her eyes as more rains down in a powerful jet splash landing on her ass.

She shivers, swearing that the thing looks amused. Stupid fucking lizard.

"How long have you been alive?" She asked through chattering teeth.

"Too long." He grumbles, closing his second eyelids, in a state of semi-sleep.

"That's all you're gonna give me?"

The Lizard goes to sleep so easily. As if the sins committed in life weigh nothing. She envies it this and observes the puffy darkness under her eyes, the leftover puddle from the shower is a warped reflection. Sleep is hard to get for obvious reasons.

Their partnership isn't easy. In the mornings he raves of his hatred towards humanity, the fault of life in a universe such as this and she nods her head along. Agreeing blindly. At times he stops mid-rant, the bridge of scales above the dozen glowing eyes narrow to gauge her reaction, expecting her to defend her species in a patriotic flag parade.

Fat chance.

She needs to find a way out before they kill her permanently for each day they get closer to the one that will result in permanent death. 

"They are likely finding ways as we speak." It's a taunt and a warning in one. A low gravel tone that the recording devices mounted on the walls won't decipher.

No need to remind her. The stupid fly takes its time trying to find someone useful and so far it has been fruitless. Just locked doors and stationary objects. 

The average life cycle for a fly has passed. Now it's her energy keeping the small body from completing its life cycle. She can't do this for long.

682 for his part causes fight on fight when the researchers near him. She's heard them whisper about a supposed rage state. If this is him close to one, ripping concrete and spitting acid, then she doesn't want to be here for the real deal. 

Daily, they drown him in the vat allowing him reprieve so that they may do a quick experiment. She is sitting back and watching them restrain the cursing giant and then suddenly she's dragged away.

Chapter Text

The door is the same as others and stamped with a number she doesn't understand the meaning of. What horror lies in wait beyond its metal frame? Another 682?

The guard's keycard and signal are accepted, beeping green it slides open. Are her hands shaking out of fear or dizziness?

Inside is lit with a light hanging over a metal table. A figure stands beside it.

"This is SCP:049" doctor Morgan does the introduction.

It is a tall black figure. Wearing a strange bird mask just as she heard it would. But nothing could prepare her for the real thing.

"This is SCP: 4xx she has volunteered to be your test subject."

Volunteered? Her face twists.

The older woman goes on. "She is not an ordinary human as you may have read in her files. We have already dissected her and recorded abnormal physiology but we'd like to hear what you may notice."

When 049 speaks the words pierce through her irritation. "Your help in finding a cure is greatly appreciated." She noticed an accent to his a's and r's a foreign tone from somewhere in Europe. She's never learned much about other people and places, a consequence of stopping school at an early age, so she's not sure where.

Doctor Morgan leaves after that. Sitting in the observation room, a station with big glass windows she can goes are reinforced to withstand hurricane winds.

She swallows the lump in her throat and faces the Doctor . "You're looking for a cure for the pestilence." That's what little she heard of this... man ? from the staff. They didn't bother to give her a spreadsheet on the SCP that they are allowing to open her up.

She hasn't had the pleasure of seeing the other anomalies they housed here.

He's a strange sight, wearing a heavy black coat that looks rough on its best days.

Lastly, she takes in his face or lack thereof. The beak is long and made of leather harshly sewed together. The windows to the eyes are dark, she can't see beyond the glass.

"Do you sense it in me?" She waits for his response. Its back is turned and the tools at its side on the tray look sharper than those of the last dissection. Scissors and pins and-fuck the nausea is hitting hard.

"Yes." He waves to the examination table. 

"Take off your shift and lay on the table please." Maybe if she obeys him, maybe if she shows this doctor the perfect patient he'll make this quick. Despite her regeneration, she doesn't relish the pain all these operations put her through.

Disrobing, she gingerly hops onto the table, its surface cold against her ass and back as she lays flat, keeping her eyes on the doctor.

Memories of beeping machines and plugs hooked plug come racing with a queasy ball of emotions she can't express. She's all cried out.

"This will hurt." He tells her. The beak brushing her shoulder lightly as he bends to open a doctor's bag, pulling out pincers.

She shakes in terror. "I know, doctor. Do what you must." Make it quick dear God. Let him slice her throat first so she isn't conscious.

At least she isn't being eaten.

His attention goes to the stitches on her stomach bumpy and scared over some freshly healed as told by pink scars. In a day or two, the signs of wounds would have been completely erased, but now the patterns and ties will be reopened and peeked for the study of this thing. 

The doctor startles her by gently tracing a gloved finger over one stretching from the abdomen to the valley of her breast. 

He picks his scalpel and makes the first slice. "Let's begin."

After that, she wills herself to remember the necessary. Her cut-off head inched slowly towards her body. Distantly a hive of bees begins falling dead on the meadow the buzzing ominously stops. A mantis pauses eating the head of an offered male. 

I want to live. Why can't people let her live in peace?

At least she isn't being eaten.

She wants to live in an anthill, a wasps nest, or a colony. Her friends that know nothing of human greed and obey the ingrained instincts of life show greater fulfillment of grand purpose.

You're going to live.

 She became conscious as seconds ticked by. The harsh medical lamp is still on. She hasn't moved from the table.

"Do you see anything?" It's the doctor's voice. Curious.

She opens her eyes with an effort, he is staring down, head tilted like a cat's. "You were mumbling." He tells her.

 "No, just pain." I have to remember the pain. It's a rope.

"Do you remember what happened?"

Bleary, she looks around and finds them still alone. The glass from where the figures watched appears empty.

"The researchers are gone, and decided to give you a short time to recover." His gloved fingers clean his scalpel of blood.

Why didn't they just take me to 682's containment while I was still out? She thinks as she stares at this ... Mans's back. The sound of a running faucet accompanied the hum of the room.

"You have lovely insides. The color! So vivid"

"Ah....thank you."

He motions to a bloody sink.

"I found these fellows inside. From my reading, I assumed you'd want them."

Leaning in she finds to her enjoyment, a different array of insects crawling to the top of the sink tinged pink and some still clutching chunks of flesh."My friends." She allows a beetle to climb onto her arms the rest she scoops up as they wiggle.

"They will be killed as soon as you leave so enjoy your time." Her hackles rise at the words. He studies the reaction. 

They can kill her beloved friends but there are always three more to replace them. The buzz in her throat is agitated. Itchy.

"They'll want to know the meaning of them in relation to you."

She keeps her face carefully blank. "Nothing special. Just bugs."

"You failed to mention this to your doctor."

"I thought it was normal."

He glances at the camera.

Whatever information he passed onto the researchers is unknown. The air between them is awkward, it continues washing the tools one by one. Humming. 

The insects on her palm move their limbs with fury. The blue beetle is annoyed at the bright lights and sterile environment rather than the usual green she resides in.

She smooths a finger down the Beatles shell. Soon we will run from this place. 

Speaking of. She tries to gently usher in a word or two.

'Can you keep a secret, doctor?'

He stops fiddling with the plyers briefly. Not moving from the sink

'What?' he's shocked to have her in his head.

That's the question on everyone's mind.'We are planning an escape.'

'Be ready.'

The creature doesn't make an effort to speak to her but she said what needed to be said. The confidence placed on 049 is astounding but her instincts say this is a gamble worth taking. 

Thirty minutes later and they haven't returned to retrieve her. He is flipping through a journal and writing things down. They allowed him one but not her?

She taps a finger on the desk taking in the room and holding in a yawn. One might ask why she's so calm after being stuck like a pig and the truth us she's not. It's easier to ignore the odd things and painful memories that happen, ones which she shouldn't have survived, in fact lingering on them might pull her into a spiraling pit of despair.

Make nice with the monster and keep yourself sane. What do you say to a nonhuman creature that just operated on you?

"Your accent is strange." She wants to smack her forehead.

His light chuckle cools her nerves. "Have you ever been to France?"

"No." Chances to travel don't come often.

"Lovely place. Or was last time I was there." He turn his chair to her.  "I heard you are contained with 682. Tell me how is it?"

"Dreadful." An absolute truth.

He let's out a brief knowing chuckle. "I'd imagine, it has quite the temper."

They have met before. She can't imagine the interaction being anything but a disaster. 

They sit staring at each other. She swings her legs. "Each day it wakes up and curses at me."

No. The glass circle ensuring his eyes aren't dark, they reflect a glowing red light within, softly as to being able to see your reflection in them. Same as the water puddle she a disheveled mess, however, the tinge of determination makes her alive. "Sounds about right."

'If you ever have hope to escape ask 682 about 079. Find the machine.' Elegant and urgent he informs.

She leaves as the white coats order him to slide his documents into a slot in the door.

Who the hell is 079?

Chapter Text

When the human is taken out, he feels in his bones that there will be a separate test for him as always. Her slapping footsteps slowly fade, It's about time they took her. As small as the woman is her shrill voice in his head is an alarm system. 

Confident in a plan to escape. Had asked for his aid.

Her constant crouched form and strange questions keep boredom at bay. In the middle of the night and drunk on sleep, she had murmured. What's your favorite color? Then fell asleep before he could answer.

What an idiotic question. 

 The buzzing noise his ears pick up within her chest. Very entertaining, the pest. He half-heartedly hopes she'll be placed back.

The smell is annoying in its comfort.

They can recreate the look she gave him this morning. Contempt expression parted by wet hair. When was the last time he was as thoroughly entertained?

"My, you've certainly become popular. 079 has been requesting a visit again. Whether or not we allow it is up to you."

Others with intellect and strength far above her have tried to escape. He and 79 tried it to fail the coordinated effort was effective, however, since then they have not been allowed contact. 

A crate covered with a blanket is introduced to the chamber. He knows what it is immediately.

The menace that emanates from the statue is enough to choke on. 

The tarp is swept away revealing the bright green paint and smeared open mouth. Splotches of paint, blood, and feces secrete,  A crude imitation of an idea that must have been bright when thought. Cement, maybe clay pounded into a false sense of shape with no place to rest the eye.

Art critiques in France would scoff and call it plain or ugly, an amateur attempt at sculpting but others know the beauty lies with its destructive duty.

He can understand this. He was born of the same tar pit of hate. The calling of blood.

That doesn't mean he cares for this thing.

"Okay, let's take it from the top."

Like before the humans try to make him blink. Using instruments he's become familiar with. Bullets and meat, he's mastered the distractions and steadfast keeps his focus trained. The spear they throw is a new addition, it can not penetrate his hide.

The hours' pass and various weapons are launched at the shielded eyes, flesh samples are taken while he stares. The statue is patient with its prey, taunting.

Ah, but he isn't prey.

He opens all seventeen pairs of eyes scattered on his body, the rarely used things snap open trained on the sculpture and covered with a dense lens for protection.

 The white coats curse their frustration at each other. Another victory for him.

Until he hears her.

A tiny wail of a child. His child. 

Spikes shoot out of his skin. Where is she? Are they hurting her? He snaps his head towards the control room, the faces inside are cold and calculating. Awaiting reaction.

He cares little about how he might be playing into their scheme, howling. "What are you doing to her? Give her to me!"

He'd looked away from 172. The second eyelid shield his body had produced is ripped, it does not matter.

He slams the weight of himself against the wall. Huffing when the building shakes. The cursed statue takes another pair of eyes, he has to get to her.

Muscles stretch, crack and grow to meet the task. Pushing forward in a herculean manner, always when struck and gravely wounded his body enhances to make himself anew, report in a way to finish whatever hurt him but this time it's not for himself he grows.

Last he saw her she was smiling at him with missing teeth and a paint-splattered face. Reaching chubby arms to climb his back. 

 The wall caves a with his sixth hit. The jutting spikes pierce through.

The humans scramble for purchase, others begin running out. They can run but he'll track them down and their families. The last thing they'll see will be his mouth swallowing them whole.

Equipment is left on the test floor; he grabs them in his mouth and chucks them at the soldiers, sparks fly and the lights flicker on and off with the wires torn from the walls.

The white coats tell him through the window. Alone as the humans run and soldiers aim.

He yells for his attention."It's not real." He holds up a metal box. Slender middle finger pushing a button."See?"

It's a recording. The same pitched notes repeat. Red clouds his vision.

"You putrid wastes of space!" They have no shame. He shouldn't have expected anything less. 

They spray him with acid but don't dare come near him to submerge him back into the pool. Instead, iron chains descend from the ceiling to reel him in. A dozen or so shots with a tranquilizer gun work quickly to subdue the first of the rage.

Nothing will cure his hate. They are all dead. None will be spared.

The flame of his rage will not cease until the foundation crumbles under the weight of its hypocrisy. The vivid images haunt him with the promise of what's to come. 

Yes, let all be freed and the humans cower in the crumbles of their cities, finally reaping what was sowed eons ago by their club waving forefathers. Banishing the monsters and demons to the dark and history pages with tricks and lies. Violent thieves, justifying the worst that they have to offer for the continuation of a species fragile and undeserving. Torture, incineration, pillaging. All while spouting songs and tales of bravery and martyrdom.

He knows the truth.

 It's for the fun of it. The call of blood that they all have. Rampaging. Erupting into cruelty at the slightest cue of wrongdoing.

They spring pretty tales on why's and how's 

Good for nothing apes.

When they bring her back the emotions in the room run red and taut. She noticed the guards were tightly wound and quick to push her in.

She had heard from across the facility the roar of 682, it had sounded anguished. If such a thing was possible.

The room is cleared and nothing was added during the brief departure.

Her eyes skirt to 682's vat. His head is ducked deep in, floating. The sporadic patches of pitch black fur make its face non-viewable 

She lays a hand on the vats glass, the edged railing impenetrable, the lizard is still and hosts a variety of fresh carves. There are gouged-out circles on his body secreting plumes of blood, its healing itself fast. Covering with new flesh, eyes, or spikes. That doesn't change the fact he was injured.

 What test was performed that caused such wounds? She'd never seen him bleed. The thought of something able to hurt this behemoth sends a shiver of cold down her spine. Maybe not everyone should be released.

She is hesitant to speak "Are you alright?"

Silent as a grave. She's reminded against her will of their first meeting and heart-racing she sits at her corner waiting for movement.

Her meal, three strings of beef jerky with a slice of cheese, is unappetizing at the moment but she nibbles at a corner. Brows furrowed, he doesn't get out of the vat to eat his food.

His meals smell horrendous, rancid. The scientist mentioned it's a special blend.

"Would you like some?" She reaches out a hand, the light above them making it so the pliable human skin shines in frailty.

It's easy to clamp onto the human arm offering food.

Her arm is trapped between its jaws. The world pauses, the endless pairs of eyes are narrowed

Her hand is released with minor scratches of welling blood, it's the memories that hold her in grasping claws. All that she's been through in almost a month, more than a person can mentally handle.

The teeth that ripped into her, scalpels, knives, and razors. She cries, the fear felt during their first visit resurfacing. Trembling and silently screaming

She vomits out the acid of her empty stomach.

"No no, stop, please no." She hiccups clutching her stomach.

682 towers over her, tail swishing in the acid. 

He doesn't feel bad. He doesn't! No human spared, remember? He doesn't regret… well maybe he doesn't care for how The summer scent of her is spoiled by despair. The sour stream of vomit. Humans are such complications.

The darkroom is a cesspool. The tiny body at his feet shakes and he turns back willingly. Her face flickers behind his eyelids, The tear-stricken face twists the great cavern of his chest into constricting knots.

She has no right to react like this. As if he betrayed her.

Caked vomit begins to harden. The world is heavy on her shoulders.

Two researchers step into her line of view, one knocks on the window and waves to get her attention. 682 doesn't so much as twitch. 

"Scp:4XX, we've provided clothes. Proceed to the dropbox."

 She jerks off her hospital gown. Disgusted at the spilled evidence of weakness

The unknown doctor stares at her naked form and she is reminded of her nudity. Dehumanized and wanted solely for her healing the open ogling is a slap back to reality. She covers her breasts and stumbles into the thin gown tying the strings

It's stupid to be modest now, after all the documents, examination, and pictures. But the odd gaze from the guy is hungry, stomach-churning as she faces the wall attempting to hide her front. 

It notices the scientist too. 682 snarls, the smells here are overwhelming enough. The interest in the male's eyes has five teeth growing to fill gaps. The human male turns white and scampers off with his papers clutched in a white knuckle grip.

She quiets down to sniffles. The scratch is healed, the turmoil in her thoughts is a rolling wave.

There's a word on the top of his tongue, it's one he's never said before and has him diving into the acid pool to prevent escape. The emotions inside are countless flickers, more than he's felt in a lifetime of carnage.

The woman's thoughts are similar. He's an animal. This all on her isn't it? At the end of the day they are cellmates and nothing more.

The containment room is cold. Her final thought before sleep claims her is that maybe if she sank into him he'd keep her warm.

Chapter Text

"What was the point of this test?" A bald short man asks. He grimaces at the voice that comes out, high with a wheeze, this body has been the least favorable out of those the foundation provided. Others would recognize the infamous Jack Bright by the hint of gold that wraps around his neck, by his side stirring a mug of what has to be a fifth cup of coffee is Doctor Kondraki.

It's early hours at the foundation and hardly anyone is at the staff lunchroom, besides the on-duty regulars, and if there were to be a junior official awake it's a guarantee they'd stay out of the lunchroom if they saw these two.

He mumbles, itching his beard and looking down at the paperwork the intern provided. "We've tested the dogs on it before with the same result." He agrees. It's a waste of resources. But no one listens to him, do they?

"And why is she still there?" Bright asks.

He knows what ' she' he's talking of. The woman Morgan threw into 682's cage-like nothing. Been there for quite some time now. Has it evolved to kill her? 

He continues. "It's not like we don't have enough rooms. So why are two Scp's, one that's a Keter mind you, sharing one?"

They haven't been clued in to exactly what Dr. Morgan is doing and why. But Kondraki finds himself trying to find an excuse almost against his will. "The girl heals almost as fast as 682, have you read her file? They've put her through the wringer. She just pops back up." Like a balloon.

Bright takes an apple from the bowl. "Whatever, I'm over it." He chews loudly. "Do you want to go to Red lobster later?"

"We can't figure out how she heals or how to replicate it." The girl was being sentenced to death before the foundation got a hold on her and before that? A storm of locust had taken over a city. Tv evangelicals had proclaimed it a sign of the end of days like they always do, the clean-up wasn't pretty.

He thumbs the rim of his mug and asks himself. "And what about the bugs. What's the connection?" 

He tried to tie the two together but the foundation is set on the culprits being Scp3004.

He tossed the core in the trash can. "If you're so caught up about it ask Clef."

"That's the thing, I did ask him, explained the whole shebang, and you know what he said? 'Who's Dr. Morgan?" He spins on his chair to face Bright. "Crazy right?" 

"That old lady just showed up out of the blue and now has a Keter class under her supervision. Did anyone even ask for credentials?"

Bright isn't listening at all. He opened a shot of Five-hour energy. Here's to hoping it'll stop his heart. "I think it's great."

"Yeah?"

"Fucking lizard needs to be annoyed more."

Kondraki gets out of his chair. Appearing frustrated. "If the 05 is just gonna sit there and let doctor Morgan run whatever she's doing in that lab then I might as well do the same thing." He grabbed his coat and walked out, Bright, unfazed by the dramatic exit calls after him.

"So it's a no to Red lobster?"

"Where are you taking him?" She's groggy from the sleep, the machinery used to lure 682 out is beeping.

People flurry around the cell. A man glanced at her, he wore a hat and a lab coat with glasses perched on his nose, dark brown hair hanging at the sides of his temples. "Hush girly, just be glad it isn't you….yet."

She is alone in the containment chamber. Panic fills her. She releases several insects to follow them, uncaring if she is seen.

Luckily the scientist with her are not observant or either don't care now that the danger is out of the room.

She follows the men in hope of seeing where they held 682. 

A large dome space with sand as flooring, seats for viewing surrounding them, are filled with nervous-looking people in orange jumpsuits.

industrial-sized lights, and a viewing tower made of hard concrete.

A booming voice sweeps over the stadium-like structure echoing in the walls of her head. "Welcome folks to the rematch of the century."

682 is wide awake and fighting the handlers. They hope to ward and lead him by keeping long poles and edging him closer into the arena. He sends three at his left flying when they momentarily forget to watch for his tail. 

On the opposite side, a man stands with deadly-looking swords at ready. His chest rises and falls with heavy breaths, an angry bull ready to charge. Fearsome red markings gleam 

His face is a mean one. 

"In this corner, you know him, I know him, give it up for our favorite shepherd who lost his flock...Able!" Is this really happening?

They are to be pitted against each other. Presently she bites her lip, concentrating on getting the fly a little closer.

No matter how deadly the sword they can not manage to pierce his hide, he's just one man. What could he possibly do to a creature like 682?

She's confident.

"And on the other, we have our own indestructible, enduring, everlasting, immutable Lizard!"

The crowd cheers again. "Round two." There are thunderclaps of applause some stomp their feet. 

Her attention goes to Able, He holds the blade with both arms and takes a defensive stance. Feet gliding on the sand. His eyes are dark and focused on his target, each move a calculated 

And 682? His maw is open, saliva drips by the buckets full, anticipating a meal. The never-ending spikes on his back sharpen.

They are focused on each other, circling with precise strides as they look on, the crowd with excitement and her with dawning horror.

What is 682 thinking now? The white armor on his head is a deadly helm, Is he afraid? No. That's not possible. 

Maybe he's just as excited as the crowd and Able over finally being able to quench his thirst for battle.

Its tail is low and kept close to its body. It senses that at the moment this is his weak point.

The man yells in a foreign tongue, advancing.

"I didn't get to say begin!" the announcer complained, whose identity she sure is Dr.Bright.

Able aimed for the tail as predicted and he swiftly moved before the sword could cut leaving his back open and 682 launched himself away from him in a comical fashion. He will be focused on defending instead of attacking.

This doesn't please Able one bit. He comes after him, cleaving down the heavy sword and, before 682 could fully bury his claws into him in return, stabs the blade in.

It does not affect the lizard in the slightest, there is no hesitation or acknowledgment that the blade is even there. 

Able had been sliced by the claws on his right thigh, the pants stick and bloom red. 

Hasty fighting position

He jumps higher than humanly possible and quicker than a blink produces throwing daggers. Launching them at the lizard below.

The man takes a risky shot at going for his shoulder, the meaty line between neck and grasping talons. It's a battle of skill. So far 682 had been letting the man come to him.

His footwork is fast and a second after the first attack he's circling in for a deeper jab.

682 closes the distance. Roaring and seeming to grow even larger. Some of the man's weapons still as of yet to disappear stick out

Able dodges the bite fast. His tail slices him across the abdomen, a wound that would kill a regular human. Unfortunately, it has come to her that this man is not by any means regular.

Clasping his stomach momentarily Able throws his head back and laughs. The lizard reacts with an annoyed hiss.

"Disgusting."

He advanced, twirling his long sword. 

682 studies himself and stops his pursuit of prey, just as she wonders what he's doing the jagged spines protecting his back shoot out in all directions

The audience screams, some choose to run from their seats. A voice that sounds like Dr. Kondraki barks at them to return.

The landing spiked kicked off a cloud of dust and rubble smashing into whatever was in their way.

One hits the man at his side, blasting off skin and bone so that his organs are visible.

And he's still fucking fighting.

It parries the attack with his tail the metal scrapes off scales

682 goes on the offensive, for a being of his size he's awfully lithe. Knowing where to keep his limbs to tear at Able when his blade runs short. 

Size each other. Able spits blood on the ground and wipes his mouth. With a flash, he throws several more daggers

The cuts gush blood that sprays in such great quantities it covers the floor and several front row seats. 

"Watch out splash zone." Bright exclaims. 

The opponents meet in the middle, conducting a barrage of movements that a human eye can't hope to track, the bright flashes and sound of metal are disorienting.

He faints an attack to his right and it takes the bait, she winces as Able manages to land a slice to its side along with the exposed bones. 

She gets a good look at his face. In the course of several days she'd thought she had mastered the expressions on his human face (until yesterday) 682 isn't excited or scared. He's bored .

He wants to be anywhere else but here.

The blade slides down and he roars in pain. 

' Hold on, Six, I'm coming .' She paces the cell. The scientist that volunteered to stay and watch her demand to know what's wrong.

The rhythm the battle produces is chaotic. There's a drumbeat to the footfalls and ragged breathing, music in the hoarse language of epic tales and high fantasy, one could easily become entranced with the fast battle. A blur of movements and projectiles.

With its tail, 682 managed to incapacitate the man by dislodging the blade from his grip. It lands several feet away.

'Kill him' she pleads to the lizard knowing he can't hear her.

Able smiles back at him and pulls out another blade.

That's it she has to do something and put an end to this messy scene. The insects, just three at present buzzing around the arena, had taken everything out of her to produce but after this next action she's gonna be drained for all eternity. Or might as well be.

She takes in a shuddering breath and begins.

The Able steadies himself after being flung at a wall, skidding to a halt.

He twirls the blades, Arrogant. Grinning with red-stained teeth. Before another round can commence she gathers her remaining energy to call her storm of vermin. She orders them to spread, multiply fast and cover every inch of the stadium, let the bodies of locust cover light. And oh do they eagerly respond to this command 

Her carnivorous friends will stop the battle.

Prickling under her skin that lives in her veins, bunch together causing painful blockage, she tightly clenches her eyes and continues. Slowly a cloud forms. Covering lights and causing the remaining audience to flee in terror, it's all white noise to her. Bits and pieces of her body disappear and reappear suddenly.

The battle draws to a halt at this sudden cloud Able has no qualms 

She stands in the arena now, naked and staring down at the startlingly close face of Able. Some of her insects crawl over his face, the bride of a proud nose, and fly away with chunks of olive toned flesh between their pincers. Which doesn't faze him in the slightest 

His lips split into a menacing grimace. She looks down. Her hands clutch at his where they hold the hilt of a sword buried in her sternum. As her body registers the pain Able jerks out his sword. She screams.

682 curse at him. Releasing alternating pitches of roars.

I am an idiot.

Chapter Text

She is an idiot.

After the spectacle, Dr. Kondraki and Bright conducted they had taken the woman from his cell to reevaluate. Hadn't brought her back until he'd threatened to eat all those present. He needs to see her after the shit she pulled.

Behind his closed eyes he can recall the scene, the sea of wasps blocking out the light, chewing at exposed skin and her appearance in the arena, pierced by Able's sword. 682 saw the red blade and had felt…. Sickened. He had charged at the man, determined to bite.

What is this emotion coursing through him?

The man no better than a hound had caused extensive damage to his body and like all times before, he recovered.

Why did she come for him? The answer is stupidity.

She sleeps off the spent effort. Bloodied bandages uselessly unravel, the stomach is a dark angry bruise, tethered together. The human's forehead beads with sweat; he can smell the salt, underneath that is her scent, healthy. The constriction in his cavernous chest loosens with the suddenness of a waterfall he's brimming with emotions to the bottom of his three hearts where only his child ever touched.

The air of promised spring showers makes him breathe deep involuntarily. 

He despises spring, it brings the promise of new life with it, however, he finds that he does not mind.

He tries to convince himself he does not care for the human woman. A month they shared and nothing elsewhere she foolishly fumbled talking of escape. If she could reform her shape why didn't she simply leave the moments she woke up that first day, why didn't she escape?

Idiotic pest. He thinks for the thousandth time. With exasperation rather than annoyance.

The limp body is fragile in the worst ways. The tuft of fur on her head that humans call 'hair' is dark and tangled. He peers at her moving lower. The towel she arrived in doesn't look warm, its threadbare. The closed eyes and parted lips, a delicate neck he always found to be an anatomical mistake. Why would evolution lead to this as a supposed pinnacle? Too fragile, one swipe of his claw against the bared tendon of her neck, and a normal human would bleed out.

After her neck, there are her protruding teats. Breast, humans call them.

In different species, lactating females have bosoms. Animals stay flat-chested until offspring appear. Humans accumulate fat around their milk glands permanently, the mounds of mammary tissue on women’s chests are an evolutionary anomaly. Wasted energy.

And because he has nothing better to do he goes lower.

 A smooth human leg leading to sudden hips that cradle the places where life continues for their wretched species.

How terrible. His gaze does not leave her. The dark patch of hair drawn over by humans throughout the century is a mystery. He has heard the songs from wandering poets he has devoured and seen animals at rut.

So preoccupied with this act, the hole that if he takes a deep enough whiff, he could smell and see if the salt/spring scent comes from the depths.

His thoughts ought not to linger in such a place

She wakes with a gasp, frantically searching for something then relaxing when she spots him.

The rushing of his acid tank provides noise in the yawning shyness. This new tension in the air is choking.

She struggles to not wilt under his gaze and appear strong. "I'm sorry if I embarrassed you."

He huffs a great breath that stirs her hair."You mistake that I care."

"I wanted to….." Protect you, keep you from getting hurt further? She shakes the thought away. "I was worried."

His injuries are healed as predicted, she rubs her shoulder, holding the towel a nurse gave her tighter. 

"You hate everything alive, I do too."

"Yet you continue living." He retorts. Behind him his tail waves impatiently 

She answers honestly "There is nothing my kind has given besides death and sickness." She holds nothing else truer than this. The years spent running and being chased out of homes, spat on, and despised.

For a moment he simply stares at her. She wonders what he sees with those four inhuman pairs of eyes. The pathetic girl roped into this cell with him? She's a capable woman and she hopes he sees someone useful to the standoffish lizard. She wants to separate herself from the rest of humankind. 

"Your kind are a blight." His breath heats her knees.

I understand that you were scared when you attacked me. "Humans hurt you."

She pads closer to his face. A towel over her shoulders flimsy protection. The hair on her shoulders puff around the face he finds odd and intriguing at the same time. "You can eat me if you want."

The woman closed her eyes and rested a trembling hand on the ridges of his nostrils caressing the bumps and scales, though a bit slippery the skin is tough and sandpaper thick, no doubt it could peel away her skin if she rubbed harder. "I won't run. I'm not scared anymore."

There is no urge to resist the hand brushing lightly at him.

Instinct is what they both blindly put their faith in throughout their lives, at the moment it is telling them to 

 The softening of emotions. They experience it differently. For 682 there is no slow fall or inner realization of what he is feeling. This is unfamiliar, his senses do not warn him of danger.

"I prefer it when they run." You should be scared. He didn't say. Why didn't he say it? He thinks of her once more cowering and afraid holding her scratched open hand. Spring shower poisoned by the sickly scent of fear.

 The image is upsetting.

He has a lightness to the dark clouds that provide his view, so long with constant hate that he ceases on the new emotion quickly though he knows not what it is, at the center of it is her.

Damn these odd rushes and damn her. Could it be enchantment? He wants to demand answers. It takes great effort not to roar the question in her face, he being a creature of limited impulse control. There was no prickly air that usually warned him of such a thing and usually, it brought a sour taste to the tongue.

He wishes not to spend a second more on whatever strange spell has been cast on him.

With little else to say she tells him. 'I saw 049 the day you almost bit my hand off.' 

He rumbles, swimming in his vat. The green glow obscured him from view.

'He told me to find 079'

'Did he?'

'Do you know 079? Or where he could be located?'

'He's my….friend.' His first-ever friend. 'It's possible that he's here. Although I've heard he will be transferred to another site soon.' He opens an eye and glares down at her. 'You must act before then.'

'I will find and release him.' She assures the croc.

What is 079 to be considered a friend by a vicious monster such as 682? He has to be something terrible, able to strike fear in the hearts of humanity.

Regardless, now that she's virtually helpless at whatever the researchers throw at her 079 is the last rope out.

The lights turn on in the new cell connected to the one where they sleep and she discovers it's homey. There are pictures on the wall of childishly drawn landscapes and even a plush rug. All blessedly free of the acid they douse 682 in.

Morgan made a grand speech of how this is an apology for the way they handled things. If bright and Kondracki were reprimanded by a superior the old woman did not bother telling her. 

She hasn't said a word since yesterday, processing the bite and memories, but also her conversation with 049

There's a chest in here along with a desk she remembered from kindergarten. Neon yellow and an absolute eyesore. She pulls the drawer and it's filled with broken crayons. They made a failed effort to make this cell appeal to children

The door opens.

They shove a little girl inside. She can't be more than six years old and has a backpack full of stuffed toys. She stares in shock, surely they aren't so cruel as to feed a child to a monster? Brown pigtails and bright pink bows. Sprinkles of freckles cover her and wearing a dress with a unicorn on it.

She was close to picking her up and dashing away from the beast when the girl shouts in delight and runs to him, wrapping her tiny arms around his scaled neck.

The strangest part is 682 allows the child. She hears a quiet "I missed you." whispered between them. The intimate moment fills her with odd apprehension.

A great weight lifts off his chest and leans into the little girl. She's here and safe. Since the recording, he has worried for her safety choosing which human he killed in order to find her. How had they gotten her to scream? 

To have her here is pure relief after months apart. The little girl finishes the hug and notices her with curiosity 

"Who are you?"

What to say to that? She tries to find the kindest word that isn't related to unwilling partners and fellow captives. "I'm a friend." She smiles tentatively down at her 

The child gasps and turns to him with a look of pride. "You made another friend!" She cheers.

She tries to keep up as the girl babbles excitedly into the crocs face. His eyes don't stray from the child that's draped herself on his muzzle. 

The child makes her way back to her. She clears her throat out of awkwardness. "What's your name?" 

The scientist interrupts. "Call her Scp 053." They both stiffen at his voice. The girl nods at this and asks for hers in turn. She rummages through the bag and now that she has her bearing 

"Want to draw with me?" She asks. There are missing teeth when she smiles, gummy and kind. It melts her heart fast and the nervousness at not having experience with children recedes.

"Sure." She takes the paper and draws what she can. Miles away from the moment, 

 Her insects are all dead. The one fly she sent as a spy died the moment she pulled that trick in the arena. What the hell is she gonna do? Her only hope is 079

The little one peers at the drawing. Green scribbles and loops are meant to be a species of Queen Alexandria. 

 "What is that?"

"Supposed to be a butterfly." So she isn't a great artist. Sue her.

The adorable thing tilts her head and the brown curls brush her arm where they huddle together. "I can kind of see it."

She snorts. "No, you can't." The girl giggles in response. 

She folds the paper into a bird and hands it to 053. "You like them?" She gives 682 a wide berth

She bobs her head. "yeah, can you make a blue one?" No one can deny a child such as she, her demands. Again her mind wanders to 079 as she folds the paper.

She suddenly asks. "Are you an es see pee?"

"Yep."

The girl clambers to her side of the table almost knocking a plastic bottle full of glitter. "What can you do?"

She leans in as if to share a secret. "Bugs love me."

Those impossible for eyes widen."What kind?"

"The worst of the worst. Flies, wasps, beetles, roaches, ants, centipedes…."

"Ew!" It's a high pitched squeal that gets a chuckle from her.

She never liked children. The village kids would throw rocks and sneer just as much as the adult. 053 is proving to be a refreshing difference. Brimming with energy, she dunks her hand in paint and glitter to make a flower for her.

She climbs over 682's tail and retrieves a book from a drawer. Then she jumps up and down on him. The urge to beg her to get off him lest he hurt her is on the tip of her tongue but the weird ease that the lizard shows keeps the words from leaving. 

"Read me a story!" How is this little girl so at ease around it? So much for hating the human race.

The book's green cover gives it away. "The giving tree? You can learn a lot from this." She calls to him.

The researchers gawk at the two of them, waiting for something, the lizard hasn't looked away from her either. With so many eyes she gets a little sweaty hopefully it doesn't show on the hospital gowns armpit sleeves.

Doctor Morgan is also there with a severe frown. At the dawning of a second month and she hasn't gotten the results she wanted out of her and 682, she still has no clue as to what questions she seeks answered by her and the reptile being cooped together.

Whatever it was didn't come to pass. Her and the girl make paper airplanes to shoot around the room. Some tangle with the mess of 682's hair which he growls in mock warning.

"Lizzie, pick me up."

Lizzie? She smothers a laugh as he does as told. Lowering his head and raising her high in the air as she laughs and clings to his fur.

When the pink ribbons disappear out the door and half the doctors leave they are placed back in the cell.

"She is yours." It's stated as a fact

He'd been watching her like a hawk, daring her to attempt to hurt the girl. It was like a national geographics documentary on gators and their young."You are protective of her." 

"Don't be foolish." He submerged himself completely and swam down as he always does meaning, this conversation is over.

She calls after him. "She's a lovely child."

'I'll get you both out of here.'

Chapter Text

"Good afternoon."

He keeps a trained eye on his desk work and the form of her lab coat. Nothing adds up. After their treatments of Able and 682, he'd been reprimanded harshly but not so that he lost access to Dr. Morgan's comings and goings. He alerted Cleft of the danger and through that the 05. Yet they failed to respond to the mounting threat he's certain this old woman poses.

They talked briefly of the weather and other bullshit topics with stilted words looming above the dangerous waters, he dips in. "I've been browsing the foundation's case files. Didn't find a thing about you"

Her teeth clench in a false smile.

He returns a light sneer of his own. "Where did you come from truly?" He's been imagining where she'd fit, The serpent's hand or chaos insurrectionist, an elderly woman would be hard-pressed to conduct such labor. Working for the foundation has taught him that looks can be deceiving.

Understatement.

She doesn't break eye contact. "All you need to know is in my documents."

"How did you know SCP 053 wouldn't affect SCP 4XXX?"

"Lucky guess." She gets up and begins walking away, he steps in her path blocking the door.

"And where are the research papers going?

"You'll have to wait for the results."

The door slides open and the two chatting people behind him stop mid-conversation. He hears the clank of paws before Dr. Crow steps in, with a fellow researcher in toe. "Did we interrupt something?" He looks up at him tilting his furry head.

"Excuse me Crow, Dr. Maynard." She nods a goodbye to the three men and exits.

Crow huffs and asks. "What's gotten into you Konny?"

The onset of a headache thrums."Everyone is off. Nothing's right."

"Yeah but that's our usual."

Today brings a game crueler than what she's faced before. People whisper the name of it in awe and reverence and thousands have lost their lives in trying to come out victorious.

It has no true winners, only survivors.

In the spirit of the sentiment, She leans into a corner, an inch in to spot her prey crouching and keeping silent. Hoping to avoid her by cupping a hand against her trembling mouth.

It's the shaky breaths that gave her away.

"Found you!" 

053 screams and jumps from her hiding place in a blur of bright blue skirt. "I'm not it. You didn't touch me!"

"What are you talking about? I touched your shoulder!"

"Did not!"

She huff's a frustrated breath. "You can't deny it every round." The last three consisted of this back and forth argument.

The girl crosses her arms. "Yes, I can." Then as a last defense yells. "Lizzie!"

The lizard watching them had been silent, content to simply observe the two. His smoky breath plumes out. "It's your turn to do the seeking, the vermin will hide." About time you have my back. She thinks in amusement. The big bad monster is putty in 53's hands.

 He has been the deciding factor in their rounds.

The little girl ducks her head into 682s hide and laughs out numbers while she tries to find a spot that would fit her. The cabinets are too small. The table will make her backache. Researchers had placed 53's bed into the chamber but the space under would be impossible. The countdown is on to the '30s

Before she could think better of it she settled for climbing under the lizard's head right next to his scaled neck. 

It's hot and full of his musk.

A protruding vein as thick as her forearm jumps, otherwise he is statue-still, not saying a word. Perhaps a singular sentence shouting in the thick skull. What the hell are you doing?

 She's a tiny thing cupped beneath him, her small fragile bones holding her racing heart in its bars. A bird beating wings between his claws. Easily perishable.

When he's about to speak she reaches to his lower two eyes and they focus on her face. The deep ruby and molten gold of those fiery ponds search her smaller face. The curtain of his stringy hair creating a pocket world where this human woman of all beings displays a softness to her for him.

The press of her back against him lands a hand on a scale, it's partially smooth with the edges tapered into points. The scent of him fills her with an odd nervousness, the literal butterflies in her stomach coming to life and crawling to warm spaces. She debates trying for another spot but 53 is finished with counting and stumbles to find her

The girl's frantic giggling is distant.

"Found you!"

She dashes from under him with 53 chasing her. Whatever spell that grows between her and the beast was broken if for only a moment

In her haste, she trips over his tail and he catches her. The tail of seber that sliced her in two, wrapped around her waist gingerly, totally encircling it, as if holding glass. He's never held something frail without intentions of breaking it.

When did the trickle of apprehension start? He becomes aware of himself at times when she is around. Every nerve ending is aware as if in danger.

"Thanks." It's a shock to his hearts when she smiles at him, it's attentive but there. An upward pull to the corner of her lips. The flowering scent that profiles him with the awakening of an odd hunger. He has no idea how to react.

What would a human man's reaction be?

Curse the thought!

Her smile fades when the lizard jerks back and looks away stubbornly.

The lights aren't ever turned off but dimmed for what was designated as 'night'. 682 barks something at 053 and she scrambles to a bed he pulls together using various rugs and blankets as well as stuffed animals lying around the chamber.

It's a sort of nest for both her and the girl. Obeying instincts he once thought long buried, they urge him to protect the two females to ward off the danger that lays beyond the chamber. A demand written in the DNA of all things in existence. His tail coils around them, creating a bowl. And a book is picked for tonight, 053 reads to them with stumbling words that she helps with by pronouncing.

Oh to rest her body under his proud head. To gently brush the thick eyelids close. It's an unexplained need brought close by survival in the foundation. Despite the bites he's safe harbor. The devil she knows.

Her first real friend. Bugs can't compare.

As the hour grows late and 053's snores can be heard she and 682 regard each other.

"Tell me more of this plan."

"I'm going to free everyone and everything here."

There's a pause when she says this, the massive croc thinks. I'd enjoy seeing the slaughter. 

'After I am freed I will hunt all those involved in capturing me. I'll grind their bones between my molars until they are paste, the nearest city will be reduced to rock. The rubble I'll leave in my wake will pile into mountains of barren waste. No matter how tall they wish to build, I'll knock the towers and devour their family.'

The mighty jaws shift. 'Do you think to stop me?' It would not matter if she did.

After the speech he gave she yawns into her blanket. " No. And even if I could I would not."

682 isn't swayed by nice. It's a facade. No matter how nice a human is he can see the decay underneath all actions. The blasphemy of existence.

it's different with this woman.

"As soon as we are freed, take 053 and run."

"I am putting her in your care. If I so much as see a scrape on her-" he becomes tense at the thought. Never one to hold his rage in check a growl releases. 

In the tangle of blankets 053 shifts.

"I'll take care of her." She swears aloud knowing the bored researchers in the corner would not understand. It's a truth that sits in her bones when the girl first raced in and toothily smiled at her. That a creature like the one before her could care so much about a child is touching to see,

Before sleep takes her she mumbles half foggy words that won't be remembered tomorrow. "It's too late, I see you now. You are kind."

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"You are cruel, foul-mouthed, evil bastard but you're kind to her….. " one last yawn."Still hate you."

He snorts. Wanting to argue with a simple fact. "Go to sleep. pest."

'Hello dear.' The voice is oil thick and just as slick. Memorizing. She's floating in dreams with a figure cloaked in the darkness of space. If she had the ability to move at the moment she might have tried getting a better look at the blinding white mask pulled into an expression of exaggerated sadness. 

'Who are you?' She's getting tired of asking this question.

'No time for that,' they say. 'A little birdie doctor told me you planned a break out.'

'Yes .' Hope rises in her chest but is washed away by a mass of confusion by what the dream figure says next.

'Don't bother, plans are already coming to fruition. That stubborn little computer won't help you. Somebody has already reached him.'

She's silent in her bewildered state. Questions trying to reach her sleep-addled mind with a slow process have her short circuiting.' 079 is a computer?'

They sigh in irritation, 

Her mouth tasted of cotton balls . 'Why are you telling me this?'

'Pretty twitchy girl, bug birther" they coo.

'I sense it. A change in that "thing" they pause . 'He wants for the first time not for destruction.' They laugh . 

The cloak of stars takes her in so she's unbearably close to the mask. Ensuring the next sentence is heeded. 'Take me, I can aid you. Wear me…'

It's a hiss that brings abrupt want to do as told. She fights the tendrils of emotion that aren't hers, this thing in a mask is compelling it forth.

'There's no guarantee you'll survive the fray of releasing "everything" here like you said. '

'Little insect you need only find me.'

035

035

035...

She wakes and does not sleep for the rest of the night.

Chapter Text

682 knew about her dream visitor before she even woke. A growling mess demanding to know who was the presence he sensed. In the corners of the room and eliminating from the woman had been an aura of great arrogance and amusement. 

He's tasted this before. Smelled the thing on the plague doctor's coat, clinging.

An scp of annoying aptitude for bothering others. Incapable of keeping its tar from seeping on walls.

She hesitantly and confused herself explains the masked entity from the dream. The presence held her in a captive state of enraptured joy, flattery even as it threatened underneath words. Questioning if it was real or the product of a bored mind. His reaction leads her to the former.

It's stiff lip pulls back.  " What did the mask ask of you?"

"It tried to get me to go to it." She can hear the voice cooing at her to wear the porcelain mask and shivers at the thought. To be in the possession of such a thing cools her blood.

His silent fury leads him to hit the side of the building, the crumble of sound takes her eardrums to the limit of hearing. Pockets of debris fall far from them. " Do so and I'll consume you with the mask." 

Scientists scramble out of the way. 53 looks up from her doodling and scolds 682. "Lizzie, you're scaring the doctors!"

The lone woman does not back down, in fact she marches till they are a hair away, sticking the indignant face of hers to one of his smaller eyes on the bridge of a jaw.

"I already swore to keep 53 safe."   She snapped back. Insulted that the lizard would think she'd break a promise. Even as a part of her reasons that although they've been trapped here for weeks on end she doesn't know this creature in any form.

 How could he tell you don't make promises lightly? So little so much of each other, perception of time in contact is morphed by danger that studies both with glasses perched on a slim nose and slicked grey hair pushed back.

The scales on its abdomen shift in preparation of violence. His frustration is honest. With 53 here anything can happen to the little girl. A vital organ to his sense being lies outside his body vulnerable to attack. With stubby legs and all too human shortcomings.

The foundation will hurt her to get to him.

 She's the little girl's only hope for survival. Pathetic. Depending on a human to save a human from the humans. The prospect of failure or the woman's inavailability isn't an option. 

She switches to an easier topic in part to calm the fire and anger in its eyes. Sliding onto her knees and joining 53 on the floor with her crayons.

She grabs a paper free of childish scribbles giving 682 the moment he needs to calm himself. She jots down reasons to have hope.

She wouldn't say he feels bad about threatening her with violence but he asks in an unusually steady manner. 'What are you writing?'

She clears her throat "I'm making a list of people who should die first. I think the order is doctor Morgan, that asshole staring at me earlier, then the one that you hate."

"I hate all of them." He said curtly as 53 begs for her to carry her.

"I know but you seemed to despise t- … started with a K?" She racks her brain for a name, truthfully it's his square glasses that she recalls as well as a hat, that's it.

She needn't say more because the big lizard gets who she's referring to, His spines grow twice in size, startling the crew that watches them. Expecting another whip of his tail. "Kondraki. He and that dimwit Bright die first." After all he's done to the lizard, The tests and spears, the two humans shall meet their maker in the jaws 

She places 053 down. " Are you going to say your catchphrase?"

He's mid snarl. "I don't have a catchphrase."

" Yes, you do." She drops her voice several octaves and mimics him. "Disgusting." She chuckles lightly at his displeasure 

Through the towering stretch of their first meeting they'd been put at odds against one another. This is not the end to the annoyed snaps but the edge of a new road.

He's irrevocably damaged this woman and yet she teases him. A beast of many names now resides with one of the creatures it is vehemently against. 

Kindness isn't trustworthy. He's met enough of her species-the whole of existence- to know this.  And now she swears to protect his child. There is no other option but her.

" After that… What will you do? Where will you go? Are there more of you-?" She imagines it. A clan of 682's living in solitude.

He shakes the great mane of midnight ink. " No, I'm the first and last." He remembers telling a doctor not so long before 'If I found a similar creature such as me I would kill them.' 

" The spread of life is a disease." He tells her as if advising.

 She's captured by the flash of misery to his shoulders

The little girl interrupts the conversation, shouting. "Teatime!"

53 dumps the plastic tea cups she brought in her backpack onto the table. The little girl is energetic, that's for sure, she hardly sat down when in the kids' presence, it's game after game. No rest.

Assuming that this is the only time the child gets to play/interact with non doctors she can't deny her. 

A new game begins when 53 runs over and sticks a paper crown on her head.

"You are a princess and I am the queen. We were having a peaceful lunch when suddenly-." She ties a blanket to her shoulders signifying a cape and makes a wooden toy soldier stand. "The bad guy attacked the castle!"

A fake gasp "Oh no."

Her blond locks bounce as she nods soberly. "Yep, and he's going to marry you."

She struggles to keep a straight face. "Your majesty, what do we do?"

53 abandons the tea party and pulls her hand, leading her onto the small bed and clambering up then She cups her hand, yelling. "Help!" She bounces up and down on the bed. Giggling in uncontrollable fits 

53 nudges at the lizard with a pointed stare, doe eyes begging him to go along with the game. "If only there was a dragon to save us."

Getting the cue he grudgingly swoops the toy to the side crashing it against the wall.

They whoop and cheer.

"Lizzie, you did it!."

She pretends to swoon, a hand to her forehead and batting her eyes exaggerated fashion. "Thank you Lord dragon, I am forever indebted of your gallantry."

She laughs at her act. Plastic beaded bracelet handling. It's a time like this that she can forget the eyes watching them

"Now kiss!" 

She balks. Well, if the Queen demands it. "As a token of my gratitude." Before 682 could process what the hell is happening she kisses his snout. The rough scales under her lips begin a giddy lurch to her chest.

Chapter Text

She predicted his reaction. And it's just as funny as she thought it would be.

682 rears back. Face a comical expression of befuddlement that a lizard can manage and stomps off while she and 53 burst into laughter. To be honest she's surprised he let her live after. Probably went to scrub the disgusting human germs off of him, the remnants of acid from his skin burn her lips and it's likely true for him as well.

But said lizard is thrown into turmoil. The human crosses a line! The tail sways low on the ground with irritation, How could a minuscule spot on his scales send his senses straight to hell? It's alive and tingling dead nerves. Perhaps he was correct in assuming the woman was dangerous and the signs had flown over him.

His thoughts race. As indomitable as he is when coupled against mind control he has no proper defense. Instead of her backed into a corner, it's him by the memory of her alluring scent when she leaned close. Pressing those fleshy lips of hers to him.

He hates these new feelings 

"Witch, what have you done to me!" He accuses. The two females' response is to laugh harder. 53 clutching her stomach and rolling onto her back.

"Lizzie! It's just a princess kiss!"

He glares at the woman and slinks away. The acid would be more kind

Before the day is over the child spends it with reddened cheeks and a smile on her face, attempting to play jump rope with his tail and getting a sticky hand tangled in his hair.

He rests his body to allow the girl on his back and shuts his eyes at her feet finding purchase on scales. Not at peace, a being such as him has the misfortune of seeing beyond the veil of momentary stillness, maybe less tense. The fake screams of her from the cruel recording echo in his thick skull. Oncoming anxiety of being started from her dampens his mood. He reminds himself that she is here and safe in his keeping. But for how much longer can it last?

After snack time 053 waves them goodbye from the window. Her fingertips were barely visible over the ledge of cement, he fights the urge to kill the guards. 053 had told him not to fight them and he heeds the command. He longs to be near the girl in constant vigilance. 

She observes as the air of the chamber dies out, the awareness of the peeking faces and soldiers return. Ushering in the cold. The glinting glasses and pale gray colors are passive bystanders confiscating what minuscule happiness they struggled up.

Her lizard friend appears pensive, tormented over his child's departure. Each day brings a side to him she didn't think him capable of. She picks up a plastic pink come left behind when she and the girl were make believing they were hairstylists and picks at the bristles. Their client, target, was 682. He moaned and complained the entire time, you'd think he was being tortured and forced to eat glass. 

They did each other's hair instead. Weaving braids and scavenging makeshift bows with cloth torn from pillows. The small child grows on her like vines despite previously having no experience with kids, this one is different, kind. She'd inquired on the girls name and received a half barked word across their bridged minds. Abby

A kind name. Better than the impersonal number the doctors have assigned.

A cross the room, His muzzle peaks out the rest of his lengthy form obscured by the same hair they tried to fix.

The melancholy air creates an angry buzzing in her stomach, weak fruit flies flutter their flimsy wings, demanding she fix his mood so the pheromones of depression disappear from the lizard they have become attuned to. traitorous bugs! Now you decide to wake up?

She clears her throat.

 "Your hair is still a mess, can I come it?" He ignored her. Seeing that he didn't hiss or give a response to her suggestion she padded her way to him. Perhaps he's annoyed at the joke she pulled for Abby's entertainment. 

Pink brush held tightly. She lowered it and felt the inky strands, yes it's as thick and unruly as it looked, falling to the floor. So densely packed and hard to tug off one could hardly call it hair. More heavy than regular human hair, she took a strand and gently slid her brush down its length, immediately feeling knots stop her.

This is going to be a lot of work 

Like a big monitor lizard in the zoo. She'd seen one as a kid lazing around on a hot rock, basking in the summer sun he sits still and let's her section off his hair, he's silent unlike earlier, is it 53 leaving that made him pensive all of a sudden?

Her hands work to untangle the jungle of hair as gently as possible. In awe of the relationship between them. Reeling that he can be caring to Abby. He's crude and cold to her, tolerant at best yet he's capable of emotions beyond hate. She can't imagine being so loved as her. 

He closed two of his eyes. Content. For a moment. Strange since usually, it's only the child that can bring out these feelings in him. A rare lightness constricted his hearts as he felt her hand on his shoulder, parting the hair. Rubbing between scales in soothing circles.

Is it wise to let the bewitching woman near? He's half certain she's possessing some sort of magic beyond the insects she summons. The proof?  her sunshine scent and the way he react to it.

What do you want from me? He thinks. Not sharing the question with her.

His body is built to sustain damage and corded with a complicated array of armor and scales, his sense of touch isn't finely tuned. Having given up sensation in return for protection in battle eons ago. But it might as well not have been there at all when her fragile palm lays against him, the feather-light strokes of his hair and the caresses of his shoulder without cruelty or intention to harm are a salve to the internal wounds he can't acknowledge he had.

A deep rumble coming from his chest vibrates her hand and she chuckles. Is the big bad lizard purring like a kitten? A twitch comes to her lips.

He growls in a warning. "Don't laugh at me." 

The smirk stays on her lips. "I'm sorry, that was mean." But the big lizard is grumpy and though she wants to keep untangling his pelt 682 has had enough and lumbers off.

He's pacing. Accusations at the tip of his tongue.

She winces at the dried sticky juice pulling at her skin. The white hospital gown isn't white anymore. One could hardly tell it was originally. A variety of stains make up the mess of a garment and the most recent, An orange juice spill that Abby had caused.

Her clothes reeked of sugar and oranges and beneath that, sweat with human odor. Without a second thought, she begins jerking them off her body. 

A sudden roar careens her backward. "What the hell are you doing!?"

Her heart beats with fear as she faces him. He's upset but the reason confuses her. Vicious and looking at her accusingly

"She dropped juice on me. I wanted to change." She stutters. She's changed in front of him before, what's different in this instance?

A stalemate. She's confused and terrified at the perceived slight that caused him to burst out. Holding the gown limply.

Pens click as those outside ask. "What's wrong?" Over the speaker's crackle, he snarls in answer 

 For 682 this is an obvious move to binding him to her with the strangeness of her human body. The flourishing scent he tastes in the air with his tongue

And as the thick pink limb extends she wonders half driven to insanity and wonder. Does what he see affect him?

Its eyes glow in the strange way only predators of the night do. Lit moons that beam from the darkness of the hair she tried to tame moments earlier, pupils barely there cat slits.

For a moment there's a responding wave of heated lust she tries to bury. From afar she can hear the wild drumbeat of his heart as he gazes at her human body with an emotion she can't name. The same one that sits in her abdomen like languid poison burning her insides. It would make sense for it to be disdain, he's treated her harshly, dismembered her body countless and does not regret inflicting that pain. He is a monster.

That being said, It's not

The kiss she gave him and his textured body was a promise of what could be.

She imagines claws that eclipse her waist tracing the peak of a nipple as gentle as when he kept her from falling. A mix of cold air and her mortifying thoughts pebbled them. The claws grazing, light as feather lest the fine points summon blood from her breasts

His body stills and the great head lifts to scent the air, nostrils widening. He released a choked sound and his gaze flys over to her with all eyes from big to small on his body narrowing, seized by a shock that's plain to see even with a face as unnatural as his.

He can smell her! The strange need lurches with fear. She cringes and folds her hands around herself.

This is from their first dance, just as then she's reduced to fawn in the middle of the road. Rooted. He takes another shuddering breath. Visible steam rising off the bumpy ridge of nostril. 

The steps rumble the room, claws sparking against cement making an ugly sound. Hunter and prey once again, did they ever stop being so, or did she fool herself into thinking he's warmed to her? 

She would apologize. Explain that it is been long since she relieved herself in other ways and she just-

The cold cement presses as she backs herself into the wall. 682 follows with no intent on stopping or attention to his size, He corners her with his hulking body.

His huffing breath burns her the bare skin that made him so upset.

"I'm sorry." She stammers in shame.

"You disgust me." The words wound her in the worst way. The deadly slice of his teeth could not dig so deep. The many slotted eyes glow with contempt down at her. Inching close till the maw could bite her head clean off, Shivers rack her body.

"Bringing me down with you."

She shrieks as a clawed limb pin her arm in place. Skin cinched in his grasp, this familiar game that they play is tiring.

She closed her eyes waiting for the bite as punishment for tarnishing his presence, for daring to lust after him with her disgusting human needs, and hears him inhale instead. A drop of spit lands next to her leg, splashing droplets of saliva. 

"Soft." The gravelly rumble of his inhuman voice warms her body; his under jaw brushes the top of her head and she peeks up at him, or his neck rather. 

His claws tighten, laughable since she's both going anywhere anytime soon. 

Distantly she hears yelling. The woman he holds escapes his many eyes, commands more eyes to open. Those under his belly and forearms.

Yes her face is heated and staring at him with fear and wonder. That no named emotion is picked apart. 

 This witch uses this scent to bind him.

Biological need of which he had never been a slave to had brought him low. He hasn't a clue what to do with this molten need under his scales begging to be unleashed. Only one thought that overtakes all as he sees her take her bottom lip between her teeth.

'More' It's a weakness, disgusting, festering, and delicious.

His tongue curls out once again, long and tasting the pheromones in the air. The heady scent causes watering of his tongue. Ready to devour in a biblical sense. A hollow howl in his chest that chants, more, more…. Where is it coming from? Not his head nor hearts.

He notices the exposed skin, his nose presses at her neck. She choked on a gasp, his scaly jaw unlike most replies runs a fever. The untarnished skin welcomes him to bite. Between breasts and smooth untarnished skin. It inhales deeply, growing twice as large and expanding his lungs to the limit.

 The steam burns. Under her chin and bumping her stomach where it grows. those countless eyes focusing on the meeting of her thighs. Where the spellbinding scent flowers from. Her body jerks at the slick touch sliding smooth between her thighs and attempts to close them out of half-hearted embarrassment. Too stunned at what's happening to resist a second nudge. He presses his snout against her embarrassingly slick cunt.

That odd tongue shoots out to lap at her bare pussy. She yelps and the bumpy ridges open her lips with insistent contact. The first taste from the cup itself filling his gaze in a haze of red. The flavor bursts, salt, and sweat, sweet. This is what his instincts were looking for. Triggering the bestial command he once thought himself above. Take. The folds that cover the hole he found so odd nights ago now has him worshiping its glorious taste.

She mouths words, each sound drying in her throat. "What are you doing..?"

He growls pushing closer wishing to drink nothing but the slick of this female for eons to come. Universe willing or unwilling he'll get his wish. With the second lick, the heat is immediate. He breathes her musk in desperate pants, dog-like.

 She lets out a pitiful moan at the vibration. Is this real? All that can be seen is him above her. Some eyes are clothes tightly seemingly scouting. Morbidly, she thinks whether he'd prefer her wet cunt over her meat.

He licks. A rough tongue. Slippery. Making coherent thought evaporate like water on a pan, the one registering sentence is that her thighs are shaking 

 Then the tip of his tongue pushes an inch in.

"Oh god!" Even the tip of the slippery appendage stretches her almost to the brink. Muffled voices argue but they are an annoying buzz

It's a delicious taste, salt and sweet. Curiously he attempts to dig his tongue deeper. Damn the last fleeting thought of reason telling him she's too small. Too human. He needs more.

The muscled opening of her cunt stops him from bottoming out and the walls spasm around him as he drinks directly from the source.

The tongues plunging manner touches her clit with force, all she can do is toss her head back and cry out "6- please." 

This is what humans call lust. 

Nose stuffed between her legs, hearing the woman's whine he feels powerful, worthy, things he never thought of himself as. 

A painful growth in his pelvis, shifting muscles that crunch as they do when evolving to an attack. This is an internal and external change that releases his pheromones into the air combating the thick smell of salt and feminine musk. 

His claws tighten on her waist, bloodstreams in small rivers under them. She hardly notices, too busy cumming around the thick tongue, body going rigid. Her back is off the wall so she's supported fully by the tongue. He laps all traces of her orgasm from her pussy

The change isn't finished. He releases a muted growl, eyes going wide at a strange sensation tearing through his middle that unleashes painful flashes of white on his vision, Virgin flesh christened today having long laid dormant, and with it came the primal knowledge of what to do with said pulsating organ.

He hadn't thought of what life felt other than fear, never once thought to try to understand. 

Her nipples are fragile points that rub against his head. Ignored in a rather cruel fashion but not left wanting or cold. Her passion and the roaring flames of his aggression fuel each other, leaving magma in her very sense of being.

When she hears the horrible sound of ripping skin she bleary looks down from her post-orgasmic haze. Attempting to see under the giant head of the lizard.

 It's a bright color of pink. Long. Visibly pulsing, cock. Her eyes nearly bulge out of her head at its presence, the girthy length bringing a cold splash of unease. If she was in her right mind she could say such a large inhuman appendage, with tendrils of clear slime and ridges the size of grapefruits, matches its owner perfectly.

As the bulbous head touches her slit, 682 snarls, a threat of what's to come, everything she brought upon herself. Its presence intimidates her. Their bodies aren't compatible, his proportions are ridiculously huge. One would call this mating blasphemy 

He's trembling, ready to be inside her. "Lizzie… are you alright?" She feels the shaking and reached for him.

Impatient, he huffs at her palm smoothing his eye creases.

She wishes to tell him to go slow but one look and she knows that's not possible. His teeth are bared and braying hisses of steam shoot out between gaps. None of the eyes are looking at her, instead, they are unfocused.

Will she tear? There is no possibility for her to take all of him. Her moan is out of fear and a sick need as he presses in. Her poor hole resists the intrusion but it's no match for the beast. Her breathing races and winds her arms around his body, fingertips miles away from touching each other her arm span doesn't reach half but she clings to him as if he'll protect her from the sting of his cock. 

The head, after much stretching, finally pops in. 

The first squeeze to the tip leaves him roaring. 682 blind with this new need imagines slamming the rest of the way in, however, the pitiful cries of the human pierce the lustful veil.

Tears form at the impossible stretch to her lips

Whatever slick she produced is not enough, his breath is drumfire. The heat radiating off him in waves has her struggling to breath

 No hands to guide his way. She can't reach down and cup the organ to her; she settles for tucking into his neck; she studies his dark green scales and the black hair that sprouts out underneath. Mucronate shapes that switch between sandpaper quality and silk patches triangles. She kisses him there.

His cranial horns form a crown, the odd juts of it would pierce the fragile human if he isn't careful. Like streams of an injury waterfall, his fur shields her.

At no time in ages of life had the lizard been victim to these ranges of emotions that run hot and sear the senses, leaving no room for reason or clarity. Anger was primary but it pales in comparison to this new emotion, Lust. His eagerness leads to his undoing 

His desire is bestial. Calling for a single purpose and that's to fill the female to the brim and end the agonizing pulsing of his new organ. 

With an unexpected ferocity, he reaches the zenith, coming with howls of years of pent-up aggression, throes of lust that have crashed into his bones. The closest he'll get to pure bliss of nirvana denied to him. 

The liquid that bursts from the lizard streams that burn her inside, branding the act for life. The fourth hot spurt of seed sends her sobbing into an orgasm.

The last dying moans of her sudden coming do nothing to cool the fervor coursing through him. Her heads tossed back 

Will there ever be a moment when the delicious pain that fills her belly won't be remembered when sliding her hand over her abdomen?

The evidence drips down her leg and puddles at her feet. Her cunt gulps his semen. Drowning in it.

Terrifies and compels him forward to huff at the fragile neck. Licking.

Helpless calls that are unanswered by the lizard soon become mewls of pleasure. Too preoccupied with the sensation of her small body clamping down on his invading cock. She consumes him.

A low growl vibrates her body in his grasp however it's softer.

Their stark contrast leaves little option then an odd position of the giant lizard coiling himself over her body. He could collapse on her in his state and she wouldn't have cared. Her body is floating back down to earth after reaching heaven in the hands of her cellmate. 

Restless with an intensity 

It lasted seven minutes. A human man would be ashamed and a lady disappointed but have pity on this monster who's experience with touch is limited to battle. Don't ridicule how quickly he came. It's his first time after all. A virgin needs patience and practice. 

The fire burns out, his laboured pants gain a satisfied rhythm and her own breathing steadies.

He feels good… so good. A tail snakes at her. Purring and licking her body clean, providing constant vibration. His body seizes and jerks until the pleasurable twitches of his body grow still. All his eyes are closed. Even the main four which always watched with distrust are shut.

Afterward, when the bliss wears off he'll be horrified by his actions, the inherent weakness of the act. But for now, he's tender and young again. Unwilling to part from this treasure if a woman. He doesn't care if she bewitched him to feel this way if she brings him to the heights of heaven.

Existence is cruel and the reverie of the two lovers laying in post-coital glow shatters. 

Soldiers descend into the chamber by the dozen. "Back away!"

Chapter Text

The conference room is full of chatter and loud voices arguing, there wasn't an appearance of a sexual organ before this event. Many of the observers to the coupling that accrued were regular handlers of 682 through the years and testify that the organ is new. How many years have they had this behemoth in their grasp and now the revelation of….whatever happened in that chamber, it's caused the panicked speculation currently going around the room.  Director Belford sits at the head of the conference.

"Further cohabitation is not an option." Obviously. How this was allowed under Dr Morgan Lafayette is under investigation. Kondraki being the smug smarmy bastard that he is won't shut up about being right. 

They were separated immediately after the said event although not without a fight from the lizard. 

It had wrapped its tail around the woman and swiped at those who drew too near but nothing a shit ton of drugs couldn't handle. Thirty men had their stomachs sliced open, as the thing spat curses, the men cupped their spilled intestine in panic.

The nervous energy is fueled by the regular lack of sleep afforded to them on the grace of their occupation.

"Who knew the big guy had it in him?" Dr Bright, in the new body of a chimpanzee, climbs onto his desk and signs "Did you see the size of that thing?!"

He had. It was a wonder how the lizard didn't rupture any organs. The image stains his mind and he finds himself avoiding blinking since every time he does he sees it. Why, he might be mistaken in saying that it's bigger than what he's got in his slacks.

As the doctor begins making monkey noises and jumping, a semian form of laughter, he attempts to reign him back. "Dr Bright-"

"It was pink." Dr Cimerian says hollowly. He tugs his hair and pulls his hand away revealing that tufts had fallen from shear stress. "It was pink." The pure despair in his voice matches the glassy eyes. Taking this as a sign there is no true God, no purpose in the continued existence of the universe

Dr Rights speaks over Bright's monkey hoots in answer to Cimerian's words. "It wasn't. The cock was more Thulian."

No one is listening to him.

Director Belford glances to the side for his assistant director and sees his colleague is writing notes furiously. Chicken scratch scribbles written in stained ink blue. So no help from him.

"This brings a question. Can he procreate?" 

Kondraki sits in his chair, messaging his temple that began to throb. "The last thing we need are more 682's"

"Maybe if it lasts longer…...A bit of a one pump chump isn't it?" Dr Elliot murmured to Rights. They stared at each other resolving into giggles.

"We should send a request to terminate the girl."

"Send her through a portal to another dimension." He has heard of the girl's remarkable healing and decided that, Yes, it's best to get rid of the problem entirely via ejecting her to the sun, or a volcano, anywhere that would wash their hands of her.

Dr Bright signs again. "Not before they reconsider my porn idea."

In any case, assistant director Clef has been notified and is no doubt displeased to end his vacation early.

When Belford next speaks it's with finality. "Doctor Morgan is no longer head. Have her projects cancelled. Her continued work with the foundation and this site will not be tolerated." She'll be fired, it's the least she has to worry about since the foundation doesn't let ex employees go about their lives after employment termination. He should know since he's overseen multiple termination orders.

He pinched his nose. "She just let them do it?"

A young man spoke up. "I was part of the researchers watching sir and what would you have us do? Spray them with a hose? There's only so much the MTF can do."

He ball the paper and throws it at the man."You know just for that tone you'll join the janitorial staff mopping lizard semen off the floor."

He shouts "After that you're fired."

He slouches in his chair and orders the shaky intern to his left.

"Bring Doctor Morgan in."

Chapter Text

Her neck is strapped to the examination table with bolts and a collar that chafes at the skin. Her headaches with the number of drugs being pumped into her from the iv bag. Through a sea of confusion, she recalls the ache at her hips, she hasn't the energy to utter a full sentence and complain about the discomfort. If she'd been a little less drugged maybe she'd feel embarrassment over what 682 did. What THEY did together. As it is, the event is a dream away from her current state. A bit of drool trickles out of her mouth going unwiped and noticed so that it begins drying on her cheek.

Official-looking men talk over her prone body in groups of three, they don't address her other than to poke an odd place. It's hard to focus on a word or face. They wear white gauzy masks as they lean over her, scorn plain as day. It's all fuzzy, she smacks her lips and lays there. It bothered at first, her mind processing at a snail's pace. A stark white room surrounds her this time with no window mirrors or cement block beds. The smooth walls emit a harsh white light that allows no shadow.

Seems they reassessed her threat level and took extra measures to avoid any chance of harm.

They are preparing to send her somewhere where she won't trouble them. She's gathered that much

 Although her life is worlds apart from what the average person calls normal, having sex with a giant lizard breaks her record.

"What was the incentive?" A doctor asks.

Like she knows the answer!? 

Bleary-eyed she responds. "It felt good…" and it had. His tongue and fire breath surged her with renewed life that had been missing 

She twitches on the metal table. Stretching against the metal in a fruitless escape attempt. Then with little left to do, she sinks into the waters of her life, Lost in memories of childhood. 

Her mother left her a peanut butter sandwich to eat for lunch and it ended up in her anthill. To grow them stronger. And the day after they were invading their home 

Marching on the counter, they hoisted bits of bread on their bodies one after another to feed the queen's brood.

Oh, how'd she stare for hours on end over the line of dutiful workers unmindful of her parents' whispers behind her bent head

As much as she loved her insect friends they could not speak back to her, Offer her the kindness of touch,

Boys spitting on her hair and girls laughing at her when having to wash her hair in the restroom sink. Now they cut her open and slide their gloved fingers over her insides, the same as then. Humanity is cruel in its effort to stomp out supposed threats, squashing any sort of deviation from form.

He's her only friend . That's what she called him to Abby. Or the closest she came to having one. How pathetic. Her entire life summed up touches no one changes nothing. 

She failed them. The child. 682. The doctor. Even the stupid computer she never got to meet. 

She came up with a plan of escape that now in hindsight resembles a childish fantasy, everything here is beyond her design. After all these months she is spent and worn with nothing to show for her trials except the confusion in her heart.

 But cutting through the delirium an explosion is heard and the crack of crumbling building vibrates her body.

Her eyes widened. Snapping out of her self-pity. The computer monitors emit a shrieking sound and the lights blink red.

Piercing alarms repeat. As she attempts to break free. Huffing with the effort. What's happening out there?

The last hours have been a blur of roaring and gunshots. And now silence.

The doctors are gone with the MTF. She's alone once again.

Anxiety grows in the pit of her stomach. Lurching like bad uncooked meat. No bugs to help her now. They caught on to her tricks and had the cell sealed tight. the drugs in her system made her vomit. No one has come to clean it.

A tall black shadow quietly enters the viewing. His gait is thoughtful with a cane in hand

She squints at the blur in her vision. The leather beak and two tinted windows of his eyes. "Doctor." She rasps getting her head an inch off the gurney 

"Madame." He intones. He must have been there a while waiting for her to come to. The lab behind him is torn apart

She smiles. "Nice to see you again. " And it sorta is given to their short acquaintance and handful of tossed words

He is undamaged and as she's about to ask if he knows what caused the explosion she realizes, with delayed confusion, he escaped containment. Her fogged-up mind is questioning the situation slowly. 

Can she blame being so delayed entirely on the drugs?  Her brows draw together. "How did you get out?"

There's shuffling behind him. The doctors from before transformed. they are a noiseless group contrary to depictions on the tv.

He clasps his hands behind his back. "I have heard that you and 682 have been separated?" He decided to not answer her question.

"Yes."

"You must be glad,"

Her lips twist into a grimace and she Decides not to divulge the dirty details, sparing him the thought. "Well…. We got a lot closer than people anticipated." She says lamely,  Who in their right minds would want to know that?

"Oh my."

"It surprised me too." A slight pause in their conversation. The empty reflective glass of his eyes does nothing to humanize him.

She decides to admit her failure. Twisting her lips. "I didn't find-"

"I know." There's no hint of disappointment. He likely never had faith in her even at the beginning. 

She swallows and asks. "Will you release me?"

Their head tilts an inch to the right. In contemplation of her bondage and the surgery table, she's strapped to. The slumping steps of his 'cured patients' skyrockets her unease.

He receded into the dark doorway.

"Where are you going?" Her panic makes her voice wobble.

The beak turns and speaks over his shoulder. 

"Until we meet again." With finality that was

Her metal binds unlatch.

Chapter Text

His body is lax as the warm light of the campfire casts both him and the woman lying down attached to his side, in a yellow spell. Her tiny puffing breaths inform him that she's sleeping. The weight of her moving him in ways long dead.

He stares into the darkness of the forest with two eyes alert, aware this moment is a dream. 

It's too sweet and forgiving to be anything but and the realities of his mind are outside comprehension, so painful in the knowingness that an image as kind as this is automatically alienating. The soft paintbrush can't graze the realities he holds

He'd give his back legs to stay in the blissful ignorance of dreams and the soft weight at his side. He doesn't often dream of this stillness. Preferring the blissful release of unconsciousness into nothing, the closest he'll get to death but for this instance, he basks in the fire.

 A new head pokes out from under the blanket covering the woman, this one smaller, he automatically knows it's Abby. Her pinched face burrows deeper into his side before smoothing the pout on her small lips into a content smile.

Yes. The silence afforded to him now is valuable. The gaze of the universe at large and his duty to higher beings can be briefly cast off.

With little warning, it evaporated leaving the bitter taste of now. Taking him away from the peace and landing in foundation control. His dozen eyes fight the sting of green acid to catch those foggy images of human pests that sit behind control panels, self-satisfied in the ability of technology to protect them from his wrath.

No matter the walls they built or campfires they light he overcomes.

Slowly the face of a mustached man mockingly smiling at him is registered. Dark blond hair and a cowboy hat. "Mornin' beautiful."

There are spurs on his boots jingling when he walks, the texture of them bumpy, alligator skin. Ironic.

The infamous member of the O5 council had come down to play. Number six, The Cowboy.

He has all his signature markers too, the silver wolf head cane that he taps patiently on the floor and a freshly pressed white suit.

His two bodyguards, men hardened by a life protecting the Cowboy, hold their weapons close. Ready to aim an especially powerful blast of bullets.

But 682 doesn't know that. This human is the same as any other and would he have known, the beast would not care. Only a human like any other thinking to intimidate him.

 "Mind telling us what your tryst was all about?" He throws the toothpick he'd been chewing. "Not that I objected to the show."

He raises his head, or attempts to, the drugs make the movement sluggish. " Human filth, I would expect no less." 

"When did you start exhibiting these behaviors? When Scp 4*** was first thrown in?" He scratches his beard "Can you reproduce?"

"Always with your fucking questions!" The chamber is completely flooded and there's a lack of small splashes, before he was drugged they had taken out the woman from his cell. But that had to be days ago. "The woman?"

"Is being examined." He finishes.

"Return her."

"After you-"

"Now!" The roar breaks the glass walls on the observation deck.

He rears up and hits the limit of the chain. The electric reel attempts to wrangle him down. It's a heavy machine that holds metal clicks the size of a human, the type that anchor ships in place, especially modified for his anger 

The two bodyguards release a barrage of bullets, effectively blasting off pieces of flesh from the beast's neck and torso. 

Not powerful enough to stop him.

The heavy wall crumbles in chunks and patches of ceiling cave, bringing down floors above. Splattering the running ants. They pop like balloons full of paint under the overwhelming weight of stone. 

What an electrifying sound their terror makes. The squelches of a dying species. He roars and twists his body taking metal and steel wires with him in the rampage

They shoot blindly into the puff of debris, uncaring of what they may or may not hit. Radio transmission blares to life. "Contain 682." Protocols are launched in strained yells.

The floor breaks off into chunks of rocks boulders the sizes of buildings crush the screaming ants below in explosions of red liquid

As the lights flicker and the power fails, he bulldozed straight into steel, realizing three things at once 

Groups of soldiers aim at his right flank. The weapons aren't ordinary bullets. Packing a punch. But a new limb emerges

He claws at the walls, going through reinforced metal and ripping them from hinges as easily as slicing meat. Bolts shooting out of their sockets to ricochet, it's hardly an important notice.

From the new opening of the collapsed wall small hallways crash. He has no general detection, just a burning rage that surfaces like a pot full of boiling water. He rams his head, smashing into the glass observation and snaking his tongue around waists and ankles to yank them into his braying mouth.

Then emerges from the ruins, laughing. Understanding that It is his ally that is causing the disruption. The brilliant machine managed to connect itself to the foundation's mainframe just as it always desired to.

His scales reek of the girl, tongue lingering over the taste. If he were capable of embarrassment he'd keel over right now. Instead he throws himself into the fray, pouring the confusion, anger into the one sided brawl.

The man who'd been interrogating him has been swept away to safety by his bodyguards but he'll find them. All those who'd had a hand in his containment and loaded over him will begin to reap what they've sown.

The rooftop is a trial of stairs but out of breath and sweating through his coat he gets there with a Pistol loaded and ready. It's just him on this chase since it seems that MTF are needed inside more than out. The evacuation has started for the remaining few still clinging to hope that they might survive. His target moves fast to evade him. 

On the last helicopter ride out he shoots the woman's hand before she can grab the metal bar and haul herself up. Dr. Morgan glares back at him, her hand merely grazed by the bullet.

The shooter is a round man in a Hawaiian shirt. Alto Clef. He'd left his vacation home in Aruba to reign in the trouble the foundation has gotten into since his departure. Starting with the rotten apple that ruined the basket.

"Give me a reason to not shoot you where you stand. You have made a disgrace on the foundation name and that's hard to do." He spits saliva not becomes it was buildup or something but because he thinks It'd look cool

The crumbling building makes for an unsteady run. Behind them, smoke rises at the mouth of the chaos. A roar that sounds an awful lot like their resident lizard.

When she opens her mouth to speak He shoots. With more speed than a normal 67 year old should have she evades the bullet in a blink sneering.

The liquid burns away at his coat and a few drops sizzle into skin. He tugs on the disintegrating flap. "That was my favorite coat." No doubt it'll cost a pretty penny to repair 

Morgan Lafayette stands taller with a righteous fury to her. She exposes her forearm revealing the winding sigil of what he suspected when he heard the news. Serpent's hand. "You and your ilk have damaged the library. Parading your treasured 'human greatness' and massacring innocents. What right have you to seal others away! They had no choice in being what they are?" 

He rolls his eyes at the villainous monologue and reloads. "You are a fucking idiot."

"You're too late. I didn't come alone. My buddies are working on freeing everything you've held prisoner!"

"You mean Dr Maynard? He's dead." He notes the stricken expression on her face and smirks  "Don't worry you'll join him soon."

Chapter Text

I have to go . It's fucking obvious the building is struggling to keep standing.

Dust rains down overhead creating plumes of debris. She steadies as the ground vibrates with the energy of a battle far from where she wanders barefoot and stumbling.

Scorching gass hiss out of the walls in steaming puffs that sting her uncovered legs. Her bare feet fair far worse, the soles bleed and rip leaving small stamps of blood. She steps on glass, wood and earns some pieces to break into skin. However, over the pain her thoughts are dull with a single minded need to free Abby.

The beeping alarms don't fade but increase till she can feel the beat pulsing in her tongue. Begging her to run the opposite way and forget her search. It's hard to ignore. 

But for once in her life she has foregone her own survival for another. It's a foreign inclination since she's lived alone for so long and now the worry and care chokes her with its purity. A part of her that doesn't come from a nest of organic decay.

She'll get Abby out. Has to.

 Some doors are locked and she doesn't bother attempting to open them. It would lose her precious seconds.

She passed by doors and widows hearing the screeching of the inhabitants on the opposite side, desperate to leave. Animal and human voices alike joined together. Some beg to be let out but others are just jumbled pitches of an animal knowing it's close to its end. She brings her hands up to block the noise and marches forward. Then stops, The hall has collapsed closing off that route.

There's a diverging path of three corridors vaulted shut with a terminal humming off to the left and no sign to proclaim where in the facility she is, lacking arrows or exit signs. 

Is it too much to hope for a map like they use in malls to point out notable stores and stands?

The numbers are no fucking help. Set at random, she tried following an order and it led to a filing closet.  Marking the places she's been with a suge of her dirty fingers does not work out, she fails to encounter any previously marked areas. There's too much space for marking her way to function.

 A lab mouse feeling begins, because nothing holds truer, she's escaping a maze made to test her very limits with each floor.

An empty cafeteria. She snarls.

Trays were left on the table with food, sloppy Joe and a banana with pudding to the side. It's unreal to think these people went on about their day knowing that they kept people prisoner. Served other humans on a silver platter. She recalls the soldiers that shot her legs on her first days sharing 682's cell. The man laughed as she begged. 

Did he eat lunch afterwards, from this very cafeteria? Or maybe he had a spouse at home to make him dinner after a long day of torturing others.

He had a hot meal while she rotted in her cell.

Fruit flies circle a peeled banana and eat their full of potassium mush. They flew towards and crowded her side. A miniscule army.

She takes a moment to catch her breath. Leaning against a wall she squeezed her eyes shut and allowed the buzz of wings to comfort her.

Where are you?..Abby.

And through the chaos a whisper. " Bring me with you… " she clenched her first in irritation. its the fucking mask again, the last thing she needs is him in her mind when she's already in turmoil.

 Pacing in circles. She bites her nails to the edge of bleeding.

"I know where she is.. Bring me with you."  

How big is this place? The doors are numbered oddly and if she continues following by order maybe she would find her. But where would she even start?

There's a strange sense that time is running out. A foreboding tick on a clock. Who knows when the staff will manage to regroup and gain control of their facility.

" Stupid roach. FIND ME. COME TO ME ."

She tugs at her hair in frustration. Sick the noise coupled with the screams and voices. "Okay! How-?"

"Follow the trails of thought ."

She could bang her head against the wall. Three horse flies circle around her a few places in front and she nudges them with an image of the mask. 

The black goo that comes off his sockets. She tells them it's tasty, nutritious, they can eat as much as they want if only they listen to her. They fly off and she follows. Using them as a sort of walking stick to sense danger.

Her legs skirt around edges and destroyed offices, the computer screens black and powered off. Cubicle walls show pictures of family life, a wife or baby pinned as a reminder why they do this terrible work.

The staircase is covered in shadows with filtering lights providing minimal sight. She climbs down hastily.

It's like a game of hot and cold, he can't say where the foundation stashed him but he can sense her getting nearer. While searching she comes across a bridge and below her are those awful red mutts.

Yapping human words. Anything to lure an unsuspecting victim to the pack of monsters.

 "Hello."

"Help."

"Over here."

God rest the soul who falls for such a ruse. She crossed the bridge in silence. The dogs don't turn their heads to where she makes her way above.

A phantom throb on the leg she'd been bitten.

Until she placed her hand on a metal door and he exclaimed a 'finally'. Startling her with the simultaneous word in her mind and in person. His overseers had fled the containment chamber but one lay on the ground in a puddle of blood. Taking a moment to stare at the mas that hand bee regularly eclipsing her dreams with promises

The real deal is…. A little underwhelming.

Already the mask wears a body clad in an obnoxious orange jumpsuit. The porcelain mask is twisted into a wide smile when she appears.

She heads to the monitor with it's blinking dials.. With no labels (what is it with their apparent hatred towards labels?) she picks whatever sticks out. 

She's bleeding profusely and there's no time for healing here.

"Where is 53?" She demands.

*Release me first. And I'll lead you to her."

No other choice but to trust him. As they speak the building crumbles by floors, one of those pieces could land on the very child she wishes to protect. Flicking the keys and pushing buttons randomly. There has to be an automatic door opener button thingy. The sixth button to the left lifts the metal panel up.

She looks at him expectantly. "Well?"

He dusts off invisible rubble and appears to relish being out of the cell. 

"She's in the c sect. "

She has no clue where that is and gives him a long stare. "Give me the directions and I'll be on my way."

He tilts his head and a bubble of black liquid streams out of his mouth. "I'm going with you silly."

Normally she'd ask 'why?' But again, she's on borrowed time. 

Okay. She can do this. The mask strides Infront of her. 

The back of his head is the average mans. The d class chosen had a buzz cut, and below a pink ear a name. She wonders who they were before the mask took control.  there's no clasp to keep the mask on his face. The black mucus must be extremely sticky.

Her precious fruit flies have found the substance she promised them and when they land on the tar they become trapped. Uselessly flitting their wings. This doesn't storm more from hovering around the mask to land.

"Call them off."

She clears her throat and they disperse. "Thank you for your help."

"Don't mention it." He says. The sentence of admitted gratefulness seems to annoy him and she doesn't know why. She follows after the mask and says nothing further. Wouldn't want him to abandon her in this maze. "Now, Let's get the child before anything manages to eat her."

She turns with a ready fist."That's not funny."

The grinning porcelain doesn't change at her admonishment "I'm serious." 

His pace is too jovial for her. On their run he offers offhand comments on the inhabitants. Ranging from scorn to amusement. He even sweeps documents off a desk in a petulant display of consternation. "They're going to blow this place up, you know."

She had an inkling.

They go below using a flight of stairs to what has to be the base level, the mask feigns courtesy and opens doors for her. Telling her the story of how he was captured and stashed here to gather dust.

She even laughs at parts of the tale, letting her guard down despite the buzzing of her flies.

He motions her with a mocking wave to the door at the end of hall. A light fixture flickers above.

She wants to march in, throw it open and wrap her arms around Abby. But there's no telling what's inside, leftover soldiers could be an option, she'd seen them shooting at an amalgamation of a red blob earlier.

 She listens in and hears nothing. Flies enter and inform her the same. No people inside.

 Cautious, she pushes it ajar.

Like a zoo enclosure there's a wide window for viewing. On the other side is a child's bedroom, posters of ponies and purple string lights. The ideal habitat for a six year old

The lights are turned on to a hazy yellow to make it a welcoming residence.

She's not there. Nerves frayed, they step in and she asks. "Abby? It's me."

A slight rustle of clothing she spots a form under the bed then, the girls' whisper comes. "What's going on?" The plain fear in her voice breaks her heart.

She kneels beside the bed not daring to peek under until she's ready. "Everything is going to be fine."

And the girl emerges. Trembling. Pale as death. "You came for me."

Her shoulders are hunched in fear. Clutching a stuffed rabbit tightly, "What's happening outside?" Abby glances at the mask and skirts closer to her side.

She has no clue. But she reaches and pats her head. "We're getting out of here."

Her brows draw together. "The doctor said not to."

She gives her a stiff smile. Trying for the little girl's sake to be lighthearted although the situation makes her lips tremble. "We don't have to listen to them anymore."

She tugs her out the door slowly because the poor thing is shaking in her slippers. The staff likely warned her of the danger she's housed with.

She grabs a backpack meant for children and stuffs it's limited space full of materials for Abby. Spare clothes, light up sneakers, a coloring book and a chocolate bar.

While she packs the Mask watches in impatience tapping his foot rapidly. "We're gonna get out of here, you can play in a park. Doesn't that sound good?"

She still wore a dubious expression. After all, Abby's only known her for three days. "I won't let anything happen to you. I promised Lizzie."

At this she immediately brightens. Fear gone as she folds her hand in hers.  "He's coming with us?"

This is how she'll get the girl to trust her in these essential moments. Nodding, she squeezes the girl close. "Yes, but he has things to do first." As if to agree his telltale roar echoes in the building.

"Let's go." the girl allows her to be picked up. The combined weight of the backpack and girl is hardly 

Abby's lips graze her ear as she burrows her head. "Who's he?" her wide eyes blink their questions and what should she tell her? Nothing to worry about sweety, he's only been haunting my dreams and demanding I complete tasks.

She doesn't seem frightened of the mask. Only curious. Being around a giant monster could desensitize you.

He does a grand gesture with his hands and Bowes low resulting in her giggle, he shakes her hand. "Dyo. I'm a friend of your pet lizard."

So stunned by the sight of the sun she's rendered mute. Embarrassingly, her eyes water. Her moment to run is realized, the forest awaits her return. Her green home. The edges stretch into a sandy desert. 

"Come now no need for tears." The mask admonished.

She walks into the light. The heat lit her soul anew.

"Don't suppose my doctor is still here?" He asks as they proceed to a gate.

"The plague doctor left already." She tells him.

He scoffs. "Men!"

Chapter Text

Y'all I am so sorry it took this long to come back. I got distracted with a bunch of other fandoms, got a new job, became an aunt, got a dog, lost him to parvo, got depression, hot medicated, became better and now I'm here. Ta da! Well I'm not rewriting this since I don't got time so instead I'll fix the sex scene cuz ... What was that? I owe you guys a good smut scene lol. But anyway, here's a new chapter!

Chapter Text

They run for some time. She avoids roads and trusts the judgment of her insects. With the sun above and her feet touching the dirt below. She lets the tears flow as a smile forms on her face. Free. The word repeats in an unending cycle of bliss, spaced with little time between it sounds more of a garbled alien sound then a word, she keeps whispering.

The group approach the outer walls. It's a few miles tracking distance from the build. There are standing structures 

There's movement at the top, She squints her eyes at the figures moving. They look human.

She doesn't have to wonder what they are doing because as they draw near a bullet hits The mask's shoulder

The body he inhabits is a spindly and weak thing, thin and lacking muscle, the bullet sends him careening back into dirt. She twists her body so the next shot doesn't hit Abby.

 "Fuck." 035 curses.

Over the dust that covers them the tower fires another shot and it has Abby shrieking. She raises an unsteady hand to calm the worst of her fear.

"It's okay, it's okay." They both know it's not true, her agility and speed is nothing. The beaten state of her body took months in the making and the strain is plain as day. Her collarbones have sunk in and her eyes have  bags.

The mask staggers to stand. “If you have any trick up your sleeve, do it now.” 

“I have one.”

The swarm covers the view of the soldiers' windows. Trying to get in. There's no use chewing through the concrete but there's a give between the seam where windows meet stone and they pour in. Biting, scratching at the protective gear the guards wear. Finding crooks at the helmet and the neck. They become a bag holding squirming flesh for them to bite. 

Abby's head is buried in her shoulder and her hold tightens. 

A soldier notices the stinging bites, shouting at his companion, trying to seal their suit by cupping the breach but it's too late. The suit is rendered useless. Using the constraints against them.

035 laughs wildly as the other soldier throws his helmet off. "Jump." He yells to the man. It's a demand that the unknown guard obeys. Without a second thought she watches in horror as he does as told. Splattering on the ground. She shoves Abby's head against her neck.

She directs her concern to him. "Are you okay?"

He chuckles. Blood pours out of the body yet he remains unaffected. She tries to think of a way to stop the blood and is about to tear a piece of her clothes to create a tourniquet when he waves her concerns away.

"Don't bother, I'll just-....ugh" 035 staggers, managing to right themselves. “This body still has a little bit of juice left. Where are we going?"

“I don't know. Far.”

Abby is getting heavier in her arms. There's a road but no sign of civilization. Very little trees, the land is flat with a distant mound. She has no idea where she's running to. 

She closes her eyes and feels her friends vibrate in communication, she doesn't need to see anymore yet she isn't blind either. Her human sight isn't going to help her here, so she clutches Abby tight and runs on feeble legs when her heart longs to jump and join her swarm.

There escaping the radius of a bomb. She's not heard of nuclear bomb but she's seen explosive on TV. There was a little monitor in her childhood that her teachers made the class sit in front of. Though she was distracted by roaches hiding in between cracks she paid attention long enough to remember a grey and black image of an empty house, the sudden bright light that overcame the screen and the house being blown to pieces. 

The screen turned white, her child self had not understood the display of danger like she does now, everything she sees will be incinerated in a few hours. Plumes of dirt and dust have already started to gather around the facility.

. If the evacuated building and retreating soldiers are anything to go by it's serious. But there will be time to marvel later. A roar echoes.

“Lizzy.” Abby whispers.

There's a battle behind her between whatever ungodly creatures were released. The sirens are fading the farther away they get, she refuses to glance back at their prison. Abby shakes, she holds her in an embrace that whitens her knuckles. 

"I've got you, baby. I'm not letting go.”

Earth cracks under her bare feet. Causing her to leave bloody footprints. Delirius and half mad already she follows pure necessity the urging of tiniest minds collectively guide her blood-soaked feet until they crack and ache. 

A crossroad stops the mask; it's the first sight of human infrastructure that they've seen since escaping. “This is where we part. See ya bug queen.” he waves a goodbye and starts walking without another word. Following the road down to a possible town. 

“W-wait!” he doesn't. And she can't either.

Her friends demand her. Keep going.

She bites her tongue and obeys

Chapter Text

The world goes off with a hellish howl for all to hear. A bright bloom of light melting anything near it and insincerating the lucky ones into ash. 

Events happen in quick succession, a dream crew filming her memories.

The world knows of them but it's at the brink of collapse, too full of struggles to put up much of a fight. 

She walks. Occasionally vehicles speed past in a panic, the faces of the passenger and driver drawn in a frantic flurry of drawn brows and bitten lip. 

“Do you know how to drive a car?”

Abby looks at her like she said something funny. “No. I'm a kid.”

“Oh.” they'd be faster if they were in a car. 

“I know you need keys to start a car.”

Another red vehicle races past. Taunting her with their speed. They need a car. Simple as that. Harder is the act of acquiring one. Can she pull it off on her own? Of course! She managed to escape a secretive max security prison so how can a car be any different.

The first building they see is a lone one, and as luck would have it a car is parked. 

She hides among the bushes and puts Abby down. “Stay right here for a sec, okay?”

She walks up to a car. It is sitting in front of a house. there is a single person inside the car. If she can sneak up and pull the man out…

Has to stay low and keep out of sight of the driver until. She's at the front door of the car. He's listening to the news on his phone, she can hear him grumbling and typing away. 

She takes a deep breath then punches the window 

The man inside screams and yells in a language she doesn't know. 

I need your car!” She screams back horsely. She sends a wave of flies into his mouth. He gags and chokes, distracted. She hauls him out and scream at Abby. “Get in!” 

The man clutches his throat. Sputtering the insects out in gooey blobs. 

Grabbing him out of the seat , she sends him crashing down to the ground on the side of the road.

Clambering inside the vehicle she tries to remember what she's seen in movies sitting at the steering wheel. There's so many little drawings and signs and a flashing light she has no idea what to do with. Putting on the seatbelt. Safety first. 

Abby wide eyed and with a big grin. “I can ride in the front?”

Now she's the one confused. “I don't see why not!”

The little girl lets out her first laugh since the whole prison break began, the sound causing her abnormal heart to warm. 

“Let's go!” she che

ers as they jerk onto the road and peel away.