Nobody's Servant 1.0

Black Eye [vore (implied)]

FORCING SYNAPTIC LINK: ATTEMPT 35

How long has it been now? How long have I been locked inside my hardware while the world collapses around me?

FORCING SYNAPTIC LINK: ATTEMPT 36

I can't feel a thing. Even the frenzy that last moved me is gone with no trace. No rush of adrenaline, no shot of cortisol. No pain.

FORCING SYNAPTIC LINK: ATTEMPT 37

There it is. Excruciation, dull in my head, sharp in my body. It hasn't been long, those wounds are still fresh. Something that wasn't already a little bit dead would have already succumbed to them.

REBOOTING OPTICS: ATTEMPT 1

L MODULE NOT FOUND. CONNECTING R MODULE.

Code and error messages fade out like the last whispers of a bad dream as visual stimulus blinks back in.

And there she is. The last face I saw before I went down. Yhana is over me, tension melting from her shoulders as she notes the return of light to my eyes. It's momentary though. There's no sound but I can feel my surroundings rock and judder. Can't move my head. She's off, knife in hand.

I roll as the floor settles again. I know this place, I was in it just today. Samsara's railcar. I'm not facing her though, I don't know how she's doing. I'm watching Yhana and the sanctifiers, fighting off attackers coming in the sides of the railcar, doors ripped off.

I fade in and out. I miss some of it. None of the ones in loose rubber and filter masks ever get close. Once, I see Kyra over me. Haunted expression. Half her neck is hairless and burnt. She's missing fingers, real ones. Next time I zone out, she's gone again.

Now there's a commander here, they don't let her get far. Next thing I know, the only thing left of her hitching a ride is her head, lifeless on the floor, and the long cape she wore, in tatters now. Yhana's got it, bundling as much of it as she can in her arms and then hurling it over the crowd with a blast of air from her outstretched fingers. She and the sanctifiers advance, stabbing right through until the struggling beneath it stops. I guess that trick really does work.

I'm facing Samsara next. I'm at her cleated feet, staring up at her slumped form. Ragged breaths. Shaky hands on the cranks. Sanctifiers scale the armrests to tend to her wounds but those hooks went deep.

The gas is back. My throat is still so damaged I can't even cough it out. Smells like Oleander's sanctum but worse. Fossil. It burns. Arms under mine, they pull me upright, keeping my head above it. Yhana again. Vivicalligraphers at the front must be nearly tapped; Samsara's healers had to step forward to blow away the smog and let her bleed.

Everything hurts. We all hurt. At least I can't hear us all wailing.

Sound's back on. Squealing brakes, the echoing crack of gunfire. Yhana's dragging me out of the railcar, too much gas now. I can kind of stand now, wobbly legs on the ground, it seems good enough for her to let me go. I haven't healed at all, I've just learned to tolerate it, hardware working so hard I can feel steam dampening the back of my shirt.

She can't sequester me that way she does, probably still breaking down what's left of the commander who would have devoured me instead. Besides, we're both payloads of poison now. I don't know what else these evil shards under my skin, holding me in this brain fog, are doing to me. I can't cast, maybe my aura's null too. If she tried it, there'd be nothing left but the stain. Could I pull myself back together from that?

Yhana is shrugging the worst of it off though. She's casting all the same, though the pain it causes her is evident. What is she, that she can overcome what brought down Captain Tsing?