Madness: DxD

Incident: Erudition

The harsh fluorescent light of the armory buzzed at sixty hertz. I stood behind the stainless steel workbench, caressing my knuckles. Across from me sat Issa, currently staring at my waistline with a look that belonged in a vice squad report.

Rias leaned against the doorframe, her crimson hair spilling over her shoulders, her eyes tracking my every movement with a subtle, unblinking intensity.

You should gouge her eyes out. She's staring at your hands again. I could skin her alive before her crimson hair even hits the floor.

Y/N: Focus. We aren't reviewing my midsection today. We're covering chemical warfare. Specifically, how toxins and neurotoxins kill you, how to manufacture them, how to avoid swallowing them, and what to do when your lungs inevitably start turning into pink foam.

Issa: Aww, but your midsection is where all the action is! Besides, if I get poisoned, can't I just have a pretty lady perform mouth-to-mouth on me? Rias, your lips look like they have a very high survival rating. Want to practice CPR on me right now?

Rias shifted her weight, a faint blush dusting her cheeks, though her gaze flicked back to me.

Rias: Issa, please. Pay attention to Y/N. Though... I must admit, Y/N, your posture today is exceptionally commanding.

I want to tear her tongue out through her neck. Tell her to leave. Tell her we're going to be alone forever.

I exhaled slowly through my nose, filtering out the smell of Rias's perfume and focusing on the task.

Y/N: Neurotoxins function by interrupting the electrical and chemical signals that your nervous system relies on to communicate with your muscles and organs. Organophosphates, for instance, inhibit the enzyme acetylcholinesterase. Without that enzyme breaking down acetylcholine, your neurotransmitters fire continuously. Your parasympathetic nervous system goes into overdrive. You sweat, you salivate, you tear up, your bowels empty, your muscles spasm violently, and then your diaphragm paralyzes. You suffocate in your own fluids while fully conscious.

Issa: Continuous firing, huh? Sounds like my kind of party. Does that mean if I sip a little sarin, I'll just be in a state of permanent, agonizing ecstasy? Rias, if I go out spasming, will you hold my hand? Or better yet, hold my boobies!

Y/N: You won't be feeling ecstasy, Issa. You'll be choking on your own tongue while your sphincter fails. It's thoroughly unglamorous. Now, manufacturing them is insultingly simple if you have basic organic chemistry. To synthesize a basic organophosphate like Tabun, you start with dimethylamidophosphoric dichloride, react it with sodium cyanide in an anhydrous solvent, and introduce absolute ethanol. The real trick isn't the chemistry. It's atmospheric containment. If your seals leak by a fraction of a millimeter, you end up a twitching corpse on your own linoleum.

Issa: Mmm, absolute ethanol. Sounds like a great date night. You take me out, buy me a drink, we mix a little cyanogen chloride in the bathroom...

Y/N: Prevention is painfully straightforward: don't touch things you don't recognize, don't breathe air that smells like boiled mustard or fresh-cut grass in a desert, and wear a M40 respirator with a CBRN-rated canister. If you suspect exposure, atropine and pralidoxime chloride are your best friends. The atropine blocks the acetylcholine receptors to buy you time. The pralidoxime reactivates the acetylcholinesterase. You jam the auto-injector straight through your denim into your outer thigh. Hard.

I picked up an empty auto-injector training prop and slammed it into the table. The sharp clack echoed off the concrete walls.

Issa: Oh yeah, jam it right in there. Harder. What if I need you to inject it in my ass? Do I get a lollipop after?