Origins of an Icer

Chapter 22

Forgotten level, Iron Maiden

Wren groaned, finally on the ground floor on his hands and feet, Akifa swinging down on the chain with a loud cheer as he landed on Wren's shoulders.

"Boom! Nailed the landing!" Akifa chuckled, grinning down at Wren who rolled his eyes.

"Well, whatever they did to you, obviously didn't change your sense of "We might be in danger." Where do we go from here?" he asked, bucking lightly as Akifa slid into Wren's tail, chuckling before getting up onto his feet.

"These places are all forgotten, she made sure to basically wipe any and all maps of the Iron Maiden; this used to be the Archives." Akifa shivered, his tattoos casting a red glow around them as he led them into the abandoned room. Slowly going around the tall shelves, traces of blasts and demolition lingering everywhere. Wren's ears picked up creaking and crackling all around them, his nose sniffing up traces of chemicals and fuel along the walls.

"They did everything to destroy this... I hope no one was down here." He glanced around as Akifa held up a palm, showing a black silhouette of a person along the wall.

"Not likely... We did have people working down here to keep the Archives organized. I doubt they got warning... I can't help but feel this is partly our fault. Mine for the video..." Akifa sighed, leaning against a shelf as Wren gently petted the silver hair, kissing his cheek.

"We opened everyone's eyes to her true treachery of keeping a primal creature locked up and tortured for energy and power to this ship. I don't think anyone would blame you or I for what we've found, especially if we manage to break her free," he replied, nuzzling against Akifa's cheek as the pilot gently tangled his hand into Wren's hair, scratching at the scalp.

"I fucking missed you... every day, it hurt worse and worse knowing you weren't going to be by my side. I can't do that again..." he whispered, glancing into Wren's mismatched blue eyes as his hands gently cupped his face.

"I missed you too, my love. I found a new place to rest, but it wasn't home really without you. I woke up every morning, training my ass off to make sure I got back to you, and taking you away from this horrible place. Now, let's find that damned engine room, and blow this place up for good..." Wren growled low, dipping down as he kissed Akifa gently. He gasped softly, Akifa wrapping his arms around the Icer's neck to pull him in tight before deepening the kiss, tugging on Wren's hair with a low growl.

(Akifa, time and a place!!)

(Fuck you, I've fucking been tortured and killed for this, I'm getting all of the attention I've missed...) Akifa's eyes grew dark as the tattoos glowed brighter, his strength increasing before pulling Wren to his body, pulling from the kiss to attack at Wren's neck. Wren hummed, nearly submitting when he heard a crash outside the room, pulling Akifa into the aisle as they landed in a pile, Wren trying to hold his partner still.

(You're making this difficult...!) Wren almost snarled but it came out too weak as Akifa ground their hips together, sucking hard on the pale neck, ripping open Wren's jumpsuit to nibble lower onto his chest.

"Shut up... and just let me get this out of my system...!" Akifa growled, pinching Wren's bottom as he jumped, his tail popping across Akifa's in reaction.

(Focus! We could get caught, or killed down here! Can we p-please hold off on this?) Wren groaned loudly as his thoughts unraveled at Akifa's teeth and sucking, his nails cutting into Wren's skin. The Icer groaned, almost closing his eyes when he noticed the ceiling coming closer before he spread his wings out, pushing him to roll with Akifa shielded in his arms to the side.

"The whole place is coming down! We have to get to the engine room and finish this now," Wren whispered, almost hissing as he noticed Akifa's skin looked flushed, his eyes dilated too heavily. Wren furrowed his brow, leaning in close as he watched Akifa's eyes, noticing tiny twitches and rapid eye movement, gently pressing his fingers to Akifa's neck for his pulse.

"Love...? What's wrong? Hayati?" Wren whispered, gently sitting up with Akifa to his chest as the pilot sniffed, turning to look at the Icer before sinking a dagger into Wren's stomach.

"I'm... I'm so sorry... She won't let me..." Akifa closed his eyes as his arms swung, Wren rolling back as the blades glanced off his wings. He winced at the noise, noticing the tattoos sparking in specific areas before Akifa moved, following the movements of the electrical current.

"Where are you plugged?!"

"It's not external... That thing you pulled out of me, was just a casing. It implanted bio-organic controlling nanomites into my brain stem, goes directly to her GLASS. I can't stop, but maybe by closing my eyes I can keep her from killing you..." Akifa whimpered, feeling the sharp shocks to his eye lids as Wren scrambled over, dodging the knives.

"She'll blind you at this rate! Those shocks are going to grow stronger!" Wren snarled, keeping the blade in his wound as his tail wrapped around it to cinch tight, keeping the blood flow minimal. He growled low, exhaling a blast of ice to form on Akifa's feet as the pilot yelped out of surprise.

"Hey that's cold!"

"You're trying to kill me! I'm trying not to kill you in self-defense!" He ran over, knocking the knives out as he stomped on the blades, shattering them under his claws as he gently cupped Akifa's face.

"I'm so sorry, hayati..."

"When... when did you learn my language? I only spoke that language during prayer..." Akifa asked, slowly opening his eyes as Wren cupped his hands over them, pressing his forehead to Akifa's.

"I taught myself over on the Nevermore, language programs... They download into a chip that I got planted with when I was taken back to Doc on that ship. She overrode the controls, and essentially it's a computer for languages I use now. Akifa..."

"Just go... I'm sorry, I can't get rid of this without surgery, and you need to run now. My body's already trying to struggle out of this hold. Please, Eiwren... I love you, but you have to go now... I refuse to kill you willingly." Akifa pulled Wren into a deep kiss, tugging on his shoulders one last time as Eiwren snarled, knocking out Akifa with a quick chokehold before running from the room.

He raced on all fours down the hall, sniffing the air before he came to a pair of doors, bolted and locked shut. Pressing a hand to the metal, he closed his eyes, reaching out with his mind as ice began to seep from his touch. He felt the Night Mother struggling to communicate, the room echoing sounds of screams and machinery hissing and roaring as the ice pushed into the metal, crackling and quickly destroying the doors.

Striding into the room, he held out his hands as the steam transformed into icicles quickly lodging themselves into the droids guarding the room, silencing the calls and commands before he stood in front of the ghastly tank once more, his heart aching at the sight. The Night Mother was now fully wired in through the lack of arms, her heart revealed fully as the machinery had cracked open the ribcage, letting Wren see her lungs had been replaced, the wiring now circled and penetrated the heart. Her skin had gone paler than his own, pulses of blue light going through the wires inside her body, twitching hard at thick pulses travelling through the circuitry. Raising a hand, he pressed it to the glass as the corpse turned to face him, her mouth sewn shut and her throat slashed with no vocal chords for him to see.

(Oh Mother... forgive me for abandoning you. Please talk to me, tell me how to free you of this terrible purgatory once and for all.) Wren pleaded with her, his heart breaking at hearing her spit out binary ones and zeroes, muttering incessantly in his head about commands and messages throughout the ship before her mouth fell open, filled with sparking wires.

(Kill me...)