Her First and Final Case (Ticci Toby x Fem!Reader) UNDER EDITING

Zealots

Toby's POV

"They know not who they worship. They tarnish my name and likeness. "Kill them all. Kill those fanatics."

The words replayed in Toby's mind. The Operator's tone was always monotone when giving orders, but this time, it had the smallest hint of anger in its voice. Whatever the cultists had been doing, it had upset.. no, troubled the Operator. Toby doubted that the Operator could be "upset" by things. He had speculated that the Operator was a demon, or some other dark entity. Preying on the souls of the troubled, traumatized, and mentally ill to do its bidding. While Toby was happy to be alive, part of him wished that he died.. His vision felt like it was spinning. He cried out and covered his head with his hands.

A mixture of thoughts and memories flooded his mind. He was going to die? Was that right? He had a memory of being surrounded by fire.. And then the Operator came.

Pressure. Toby felt a sudden pressure on his shoulder. He removed his hands from his head. His heart rate spiked then fell.

It was Heather.

"You alright Toby? It looked like something was troubling you." She offered him a sincere smile. He relaxed.

His mind had gone blank, like someone had erased what had previously been going on in his brain.

What had he been thinking about? Must've not been important if he forgot it.

"I-I'm okay. Thanks th-though." Heather nodded, removed her hand from Toby's shoulder, and began walking again.

He pulled his goggles down over his eyes and gripped the handles of his hatchets. He, Heather and Wilson had been sent to take down some cultists. They had been causing some trouble and injured Kate. Her leg had been broken and her face had been bashed in. Toby hadn't seen her, but Heather had told him about the incident.

"Is Kate doing- woo- any b-b-better?" Toby fidgeted with his gloves.

"She's better. Her leg is almost fully healed. Her face is only a bit bruised now." There was an edge in Heather's voice that Toby recognized. Whenever one of the younger proxies was injured, Heather made it her personal mission not only to nurse them back to health, but to get revenge on whoever injured them. She was like a mother in that way. It was comforting in a way, knowing that someone was willing to do that for you.

"She's tough. She'll be back up and running in no time." Wilson put his goggles over his eyes. The orange lens matched the ones that covered Toby's eyes. He had gotten the pair of goggles from Wilson when he'd first become a proxy. He needed someone to cover the top part of his face. He had already had the face mask that he was currently wearing. The one with the robotic-looking smile on it. Someone had made it for him.. after an accident he'd had. He couldn't recall the memory.

"Y-yeah.. Do you kn-know how much further we gave to g-go?" Toby adjusted his grip on the hatchets.

"Not too much longer. I'm going to climb up to get a better view. When I give the signal, run at 'em and kill." Heather ordered before she put her mask over her face and put on her clawed gloves. Toby watched her as she crawled up the bark of a tree like a natural. Heather was the most agile of the proxies, climbing wise. She disappeared into the trees above, silently stalking her prey.

"I guess we stand and wait now, huh?" Wilson said, looking in Toby's direction. He nodded in response and pulled his hood over his head.

Something heavy hit the ground in the distance and a coyote yipped. Toby and Wilson broke into a sprint, brandishing their respective weapons and laughing like maniacs. A shot rang out. Toby was shot in the chest. The blast sent him falling back. He stood up, ears ringing, and threw his hatchet directly at the assailants chest, impaling them and sending them back. Trudging over to them, there were no signs that he had been previously injured, besides the blood that soaked his hoodie. He did not scream, he did not cry out. He continued on.

Removing the hatchet from the cultists chest, he snapped his arm back and hacked at their body multiple times. He could hear Wilson laughing, the sounds of his bat bashing someone's body, and the sound of Heather slicing away at someone's flesh mixed with the screams and struggles of the person beneath him. Blood soaked the lens of his goggles. He felt powerful, strong. Like he could take on the world. The all too familiar high that came with taking another life.

Toby looked at the body before him. The entire chest cavity had been reduced to liquid mixed with chunks of bone. A mask covered the person's face. In a way, it mirrored the mask a proxy would wear. It had a white base, like Kate and Tim's masks and to bore the Operator's symbol like Rogue's bandana and Wilson's hood. It was an odd parallel. Both the proxies and the cultists were connected to the same being. One voluntarily, the other because of a connection they did not want or seek out.

He ripped the hatchet from the person's chest. The hatchet was stained in a metallic crimson. He wiped it off on his jeans. The color was practically embedded into the denim at this point. A permanent stain, like the scars on his body and the static in his brain.

He felt emotionally exhausted. He wiped blood off of his goggles. He hadn't noticed that they were bloody until he had come down from his killing high.

Before he could fully process it he was back home in his bed. He had changed into gray sweatpants and a sweater. His bloodied hatchets sat on his nightstand alongside his mask and goggles. The lenses had been cleaned along with his mask.

He needed to check on (Name) soon.