Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter 1

A sawing sound in and out of his cranium that chirruped and clicked like some malign, infernal locust swarm. Like bone saws, he decided, scraping against a fibula or tibia, one of the larger bones, scraping and cutting more abruptly and cleanly through the soft flesh and muscles, parting those soft, fleshing strings with ease. It hissed, clicked and realigned itself as it scraped against the insides of the cold plastic helmet. The lenses on the right fizzed out again due to the blood clogging it up and the overlay in front of him blurred sympathetically as it tried to mimic the red, sticky liquid on the front of his helm. He reached up with a hand and wiped it with his gloved hands to not much avail. He reached down and ripped fabric from the body near him. It worked. He banged the optics which by now had seized up, then realigned the vision to the top right of the returning interface. Something clicked and his vision cleared. The sawing stopped. The blasted sound stopped.

“Amiya, report in. What did I miss?”

“Nothing, Doctor. Fallback points A and B holding. Enemy drone resistance currently approaching. Light to none operator injuries. Chokepoints 23 and 17 encountering fierce resistance. Armored units shifted to priority. Caster team A26 rotated to aforementioned chokepoints. ” A slight pause, a tilt of her head, a shift in her posture: “ Do you need to rest, Doctor? Please don’t push yourself.” The little Cautus girl turns to him. Amiya’s too-large coat waves slightly. He wonders if it was one of his coats. Her clear zircon-like eyes twinkling with concern in the roaring flames. Hands held behind How ironic. Such an innocent image in a war.. “I’m fine, Amiya.” He was glad his mask shielded the tautness of his jaw, the sweat rolling down his temples, the scrunched, single eye. He judged his own outward appearance under the mask at that moment: a very normal, dull obsidian, save for the flecks of gold, the other a shattered, milky lens with dirty gold fractures running from the center. “If you say so, Doctor…..” the worried expression never disappeared, the concern smearing her innocent face; but she waited dutifully for his commands. Firelight undercast her in some impressionistic painting.

No matter what, the mission had to carry on. “Continue with current operations. Move roadblock. Rotating formation gamma, maintain until drone wave designation 1-2-6-5-7 is neutralized. Switch to beta immediately, allow a 2 minute error margin. Sniper team B7 prioritise enemy casters. Defensive cordons at this, this and this place. Medics, treat wounded at Team C2 and A7. Prepare to start evacuation when aforementioned targets eliminated. Operation estimated to end after points 36-47 clean up stragglers.” A wave of affirmatives lapped in from the vox. Warbled. Explosives. Roars of flame and operators alike accompanied by the sound of screaming through broken teeth and frothing blood, screaming as his intestines spilled out in fat ropes, knife sliding out from the 3th and 4th rib, downward arc gutting through it into the target behind him, sliding upwards from below the chin to drive into the “You've been out for precisely 6.3254 seconds, Doctor.” A melodious, electronic voice cut in his gory train of thoughts, laced with what his cold cogitator-like mind cut apart as code deciphering itself as concern for his ailment. He shook his head to clear the bloody vision, smears of red filters flitting into the recesses of his vision overlaid with the HUD overlay on the environment. “I’m fine, PRTS. Just give me a moment.” It was what he could condense through gritted teeth, drooling out in clumps of pain-fuelled speech. The pain subsided. “Was that you? If so, thank you.” A slight stutter, a fumbling for words, like someone caught off guard. “........i-it was nothing.” She – he preferred to call PRTS a female by her voice – was always a little odd when it came to praise and recognition. She terminated the communication link after a scrambled string of junk data, almost akin to a comical black clump of string in a word bubble. He wondered if AIs were supposed to be this emotional. Perhaps.

It amused him how rapidly his non-mechanical mind ran, his bionics racing just to keep up with his train of thoughts that branched like binary code or infection veins across his mind, each fine thread of thoughts holding half a dozen tactical exploitations, situations, preplanned gunfights, chances of survival, combat skirmishes, wide-scale annihilations and all the such. His minds were diverted into 2 parts. There was a core in him that looked at the world with a detached, clinical cut, while the other pieced all the info together at a superhuman rate and fed him all the instinctual driven words, strategies, master strokes to battles, strategic cuts, suggestions, advice, tactical key points, environmental advantages, assassination targets.

It felt odd, to take advice from oneself.

His mind took this apart as nonsense, telling himself that it was merely his experience and memories of a thousand battlefields.

He could remember nothing of that.

He looked back at the field, outlined in green and red, tags and words filling the edges of those objects, operators, pre outlined and determined strategies, skirmishes, allotted error margin, kill-count, casualties, mortis signs, all the such. Data flowed down his right field of vision, supplemented by environmental factors, suggested countermeasures, potential breakthroughs, successful and failed scenarios replaying themselves according to his mind, chemicals in the air, humidity, temperature, fluctuations, and the such.

What was this for? He did not know; he could not know. How ironic. The tactical objective was clear in his mind; floating beside his kill counts, tallies, sub-objectives. He knew what part of the enemy was present, how this impacted on their current plans and rough estimation of their objectives; how many seconds could be bought; the percentage of the enemies’ current known tactical data and how this contributed to the purging of the opposing force. Why was he doing it? Whomst was he doing this for? When would it end? He should be the one who knew all this the best. Yet he did it, without a particular aim or belief, numbly running through the actions.

The world is indeed comic, but the joke is on mankind. He laughed with it.

Chapter Text

“I do not trust in you. Amnesia? Do you expect me to believe that, Devil of Babel? Is this another one of your games? Do not expect me to place my faith in your words. Can you truly wash those reddened executioner’s hands and forget all the souls that you have annihilated? You seek for victory and nothing else. Amiya respects-and favors you on many levels. Interpret that however you want. Theresa believed in you. I do not. Your commands bought Babel victory, but they are the bloodstained laurels built from the bones of the sacrificed. Tests, diagnostics, scanning. Do not think I will be lax on this matter nor any matter regarding you. I do not think Amiya would lie to me, but neither do I believe you have forgotten.”

Green eyes glared back at me, lime green receding into a darker olive green. Her eyes flashed darkly; brows furrowed just slightly, eyebrows curing ever so slightly in utter distaste as she spat out her reprimand with the minimal motion of eyes and mouth. Her hair was a snowy white with a hard glint of green at the edges; eyes reflecting off my jacket clad reflection. She wore a lime green dress, with curious transparent parts on the lower part of her dress. A doctor’s jacket was worn casually; the coat was pulled below her shoulders, a black armband with the crossed strips of the Medic Department similarly wrinkled, A stethoscope coiled around her neck. A watch curled itself around her right hand, the emerald surface reflecting the harsh clinical light off. The watch handle, made of brass-or gold? I wasn’t sure.

Her name was Kal’tsit. Head of Rhodes Island’s Medical Department. Classification: Medic Operator. Confirmed Infected status. I glanced involuntarily at the twinkling black crystals on her right shoulder that somehow had a shade of olive glazing the reflected, jagged facets. Race: Feline. Combat experience: 3 years. Activate ID_username_Doctor_clearance level_highest authority_Rhodes Leadership team_ running unmasking program_….processing…._clearence level insufficient, access barred. I suspected the answer lay far between those simple single digits. Physical evaluation: normal. Physiological endurance: normal. Combat Skill: normal. Originium adaptability: normal. Tactical planning: [REDACTED ].

She turned her back. “Out.”. A single word. So much vehemence. So much hidden truth in a flash of blood, a single thrust, so much pink and red and white and a single ebon flash with the light glinting off it in a champagne-red cast; a smile; weak hands gripping an onyx coat as they slide something like an explosion sounded in my head; the snick of a knife; the rustling of fabric. I gripped my head, but resolved not to show my pain. Veins popped up with the white of my knuckles against a large, scarred hand, the black veins surfacing in serpentine lines. My face was already an unhealthy pallor of white. My jaw still felt oddly disconnected; as was my right eye. Stinging, old pain boiled over the odd, detached feeling that blanketed uncomfortably over my joints, as if this were a muddled, walking dream. The pain was real enough.

The small syringes in my bottom left pocket were a tempting solution. I shut the door behind me, an odd reluctance to anger her. The migraine laughing in my head certainly did not help. I had deactivated PRTS; too much data fed in almost always caused his thinking to think in lagged compartments as one part of my thinking fell off the other. Splintered. Jagged black crystals punctured through, awash with blood, tears flowing down in harsh limelight, a low growl followed by a scream of desperation, disbelief my torso gripped: there were scars all over a mapwork of war and leathery experience. It hurt at exactly four points. Entry points: frontal. Locations: right pectoralis major, punctures through ribcage sections, lower parts of left pectoralis major and serratus anterior; two wounds covering an uneven puncture covering parts of both rectus femoris and vastus lateralis on both legs. Partial backwards fracture of femur in both wounds. Wound status: healed, minor patches of discolouration on skin. Edges uneven, orginium crystal in extremely small splinters once present. Since removed. Analyze type and origiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnzzzszzszzz tiiiiiimestamp of injuryyyyyyyyiiiiiiiikkkkksszzz they grimaced and pulled, so very slightly on muscle bundles and puckered skin, barely at the edge of one’s perception before this.

Now they flared up. I force-quit my pain receptors, the painful rictus of my teeth grinding slowly receding away, leaving a mere sensation of scraping teeth. A gentle chime, a reminder from PRTS. It was not a good thing to force-quit parts of my nervous systemmmmm when I could understand so little of myself. Parts of my biology didn’t make sense; organs seemingly spontaneously changing shape/size in spans of seconds: bone was malleable, horrifying so. Wounds barely left a scratch on me, gashes that stained my coat a dark wine red healing over, skin crawling macabrely and horrifyingly sewing shut, a slightly pale patch all that remained. Bullets were chewed up and melted as slag; arts were dully absorbed almost comically. Yet at times I was frailer than a child: paper cuts, stitches bursting open and strength completely fleeing my limbs, too many eyes and too many senses I could not understand. Then there were the mechanical cores of my body: too old, to be of modern industrial make: too advanced and intricate, barely understood by closure. He recalled the image of Closure bent over his torso, laid bare with bone-clamps and surgical clamps, tools strewn all around her, gloves stained with dark red and black smears. It hissed and clicked at barely audible levels; always, always in the backdrop, the sound of vials and clinking, dripping, scraping. Steel rapports groaning in sympathy with my bones. Pistons hissing shut or extending alongside muscle bundles both biological and fabricated.

I returned to my office. Boots clacked against the clean floor. They were a pair I had pulled from the crates of daily necessities free for employees to take a pair. It was quite well made for the price they fetched. …How did I know the price of something at a glance? A barebone place, white sterile walls. Black chair. A gray office table. A steel gray computer that sat at the center, thin-backed, with two identical monitors attached to the sides. Two piles of documents sat neatly in a stack, the borders arranged to exacting measurements that it was inhuman. Too neat, too exact. A bookshelf, barely filled with one to two books that sat in the dust. A fine coating of dust covered everything; swirling in the slices of sunlight pouring in. The room was illuminated by soft overhead lighting strips, indeed: but in this cut of monotonous, industrial efficiency, they seemed harsh, the shadows being thrown out as inky black, slanting outlines. A small door led to the left; his personal toilet. The same excerpt of the same depressing chapter of an office. Gray toothbrush, cement-coloured toilet bowl, a gray comb, black tiles. He shut the door. He wondered-I wondered why I swapped perspectives so often, so detached, as if some spectator. Perhaps. So many questions, so many questions, but no answers, never answers.

Nothing else was in the office. Another door on the right led off to my bedroom which contained nothing but a small desk, another identical computer setup, and a thin, white bed on steel frames, belonging more to a prison than a personal furniture. A small, white bookshelf contained a small, palm-sized, leather bound book embossed with gold leaf. Elaborate and exquisite gold leafs ran down the spine, curling like wisp around the borders, falling down in auramite curls. The center was a single word in an unknown script. I recognised it, somehow: I could pronounce it, formulate it in my mind, yet the syllables could neither be heard, nor could it form anything more than a jumble of nonsense in my head. A slight rise in the whirring of my cogitator-spools as they worked to process this maddening script, as if the meaning had been ripped straight out of my train of thoughts, forcibly decapitated and barred access. I tried speaking it again: TRUENAMEPLACEHOLDER–Indeed, nothing could come out of this inky morass of syllablesssssssssssssssssskkkkkkkkkkzzzzssaaaa-Initiate-thought_process_termination_immediate urgency_data_purge_commencing_A small, white bookshelf contained a small, palm-sized, leather bound book embossed with gold leaf. Elaborate and exquisite gold leafs ran down the spine, curling like wisp around the borders, falling down in auramite curls. The center was a single word in an unknown script. The book was plain, slightly yellowed paper, bumpy to the touch, much like watercolor paper “I didn’t know you liked to paint, Doctor.” “Takes my mind off war. I did gardening and cooking, but the damned lynx refuses to let me in those places, even if it’s for the kid.” Two , one low, too low to be human, and hoarse, the other gentle and melodious, as if some inside joke shared between them both. “Try painting me, then.” “Why not, my Majesty?” “Please, no formalities, my dear Doctor.” “Maybe I could be a court painter for—--he dropped the book. Some shard of memory, from a distant place. My head felt like it had splinters of glass in it, both metaphorically and physically. Terminations were useful, but no matter what part or how large of a system was shut off, it always left me with a splitting migraine.

He collapsed on the bed, not bothering to take off his jacket, his mask-could he take it off? What part of my face was remaining? What did I look like? Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiii___

Dreams claimed me.

Chapter Text

Seeing the Doctor work was always something else.

His eyes, the most obvious part, were normally warm, soft, welcoming, half-lidded almost sleepily. They were welcoming, friendly, beckoning for a hug, or a pat, inviting casual conversation and generally very comforting, especially the way he looked at you as he praised you, almost melting, a very gentle smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, a large, scarred hand consoling and patting me, congratulating me. It reminded me of clouds over a gentle day, or the way clouds with the barest hints of warm sunlight peeking through and layering the decks and rooms with windows or viewing panes in a comforting blanket, the normally steel walls and decks a fuzzy warmth, a reassuring hand, a mental, cooling salve amidst the chaos and clutter of my work. 

When he worked, he looked so focused-concentrated,.....cool. 

His eyes hardened, sharpened, glaring, his eyes locked onto his interface, eyes darting everywhere and absorbing information at a superhuman pace, raw data pulled up from the machines, vox-channels, information-streams, cameras, drones, operator cameras, reports, calls, point-of-views, cogitator banks, and more, all done by one man. The pupils contracted into hard, flinty points, one eye a white orb with a black and bronze rims staring intently with the other, white-masked orb as if someone had spilled milk over that eye lens, both a fierce predator’s sight, zeroed in on his targets, hands a manic dance of orchestration and coordination on his terminal, working his plans with near-miraculous speed, a whirling, calm eye of the storm that spun and spun out threads of an intricate grand scheme. His eyes glowered at the screen and a sort of deep sentience sat in the epicenter, murky orbs quite akin to a beast’s ferocity. Many describe him as fierce or determined, but it is almost a hunger for victory, a deep thirst to be satiated, a desire more than anything, a base nature to bring about victory. That unblinking fervence so unlike yet so representative of him…..

That was when he commanded from afar. When he was on the frontlines, which most operators disapprove of, out of many reasons I could understand and sympathized with, such as Miss Schwarz, it is more akin to a surging, explosive center in the midst of the battlefield compared to his brutal, frenzied silence as a commander. 

So cool, so….handsome. 

His face was almost as white as marble, the scars replete over his skin and torso, large wounds spreading over his back. His clean face, not too arrogant, not too lax, mostly an expression of carefree softness on his handsome face, eyes not too large yet of the most exquisite The way his muscles pulled contracted and relaxed, the way they bulged and moved, his unique, knife-like concentration in the sparring rings, the way sweat shone over his curves and contours of his white skin, evenly muscled yet not bulky. When sweat ran down, they curved, dipped and dropped.

Ehh?! No, no, you’ve got it all wrong! I just saw it by coincidence when he was in the training rooms, totally not doing it every time he goes to the gyms! No! I’m not obsessed!

Please stop, Miss Blaze…..

Eh? You understand how I feel? W-wait, I can’t do that with the Doctor! No! That’s too indecent!