The night had arrived, everything you had done up until this point had been in preperation.
You had expected to feel excited about this moment, knowing that you were about to set off and rescue the man who had given you reason to live again. Instead you felt dread, apprehension. You didn't know if this was such a good idea anymore, knowing that if you were injured that your nature would be betrayed.
You would have worried about how you knew nothing about him ultimately, about how this could all be a mistake had it not been for how you had came to the conclusion that you were going to take things as they came, to do the right thing when it was required of you instead of doing what was asked of you. You wouldn't start him on that thousand year cycle again unless you were certain that it was the right thing to do.
Your hands trembled as you attempted for the hundredth time to straighten your hair, as you watched your fear stricken features in the mirror. You were no soldier, you were no warrior, you were no hero. You were an ordinary girl who had fallen in with the wrong crowd and had never learned to swallow her fear, to fight on against all odds. That was what set you and Eurochkoles apart, the fact that he was able to fight on against overwhelming odds without faltering despite how he was a peaceful person at heart. You knew that he had inferior regeneration, that he couldn't steal the very things that made that what went bump in the night special from it.
You couldn't fail him though, you couldn't afford to do such a thing after what he had done for you. You couldn't simply sit back while the Clockworkers rescued him, you wouldn't be able to bring yourself to face him, to tell him that you had sat there safe and sound when you claimed that he meant so much to you.
Firey hair was tied back as you looked down at the garments that you had aquired for this night. Boots, trousers, an armoured undershirt, a hardened leather vest and a loose fitting cloth jacket. The few other people going tonight had been provided with much the same you had been told by a representative of the Clockworkers, who had informed you that they were authorised operators, able to control the mechanical men you were using tonight. It was all about using them to their full effect, they had told you, though you weren't interested in the how or the why about it.
You just wanted this over with.
As you dressed yourself, as you prepared yourself for this battle you knew that there was one thing that you had to take care of before you left. It was both a means of coming clean and providing additional insurance on your return should the Clockworkers see you injured and get ideas. You had to come clean with the guild master, you had to tell him about what you were, about who you were.
It wouldn't do for you to be captured while rescuing Eurochkoles, for him to have to launch a rescue effort to recover you, after all. You stared at your reflection in the mirror as your appearance slowly shaped up, as you went from that trembling and afraid woman to what could almost have passed off as as a mercenary of sorts. The armour you had protecting your torso only afforded you basic protection, though it was light enough not to restrict or encumber you to any noticable degree.
At least not yet.
You had no idea if this would change the moment you found yourself in the midst of battle, if you would find that protection of this sort was a worse choice than if you had gone unarmoured. You pulled the jacket on over the armour you wore, taking note of the small cog embroidered on it. You almost felt dirty bearing the emblem of the people who had terrorised what had once been your people, knowing that these were the same people who took your kind away and imprisoned them. The same people who had made a few of your kind disappear entirely.
You knew that they had the prisons, that they held the Enlightened they captured there for a period of time, that those that you hadn't rescued eventually vanished. You would have to try a few inquiries into this matter when everything had quietened down. Maybe they had found a way of curing the taint in those they captured, turning them into the people they were before Pride touched them.
You knew you were becoming something of a dreamer, taking the slightest hint of hope and praying that it was more than it was. It didn't hurt to dream though, as it gave you new things to strive for, new things to hope for, new reasons to live every day. You flicked your hair back, taking a deep breath as you picked up a ribbon, tying your hair with it in a sensible manner at first. Sensible wouldn't do though, no, you felt like having your hair tied back sensibly was boring, that it didn't reflect the true range of what was you.
It took several attempts, some swearing and a second ribbon before you were happy with the result.
Your hair dangled in twin braids over your back, the ends of them tied with ribbons. It wasn't sensible, it wasn't practical. It was you. You didn't care if you got raised eyebrows or comments about the impractical nature of this choice, you were an individual and you were going to celebrate that individuality.
You locked the door to your room behind you as you started on your way to the guild master's office, knowing that this was your last chance to come clean with them. You could offer any amount of information on the enlightened as means of an making this deception right once this was over. Once this was over. You wouldn't be brow beaten into submission by a cranky old man, forced to talk before Eurochkoles was safe and sound.
You ascended the stairs, several of the Technomancers clearly doing their best to avoid getting in your way as they passed by you. As you had yet to recover the firearm you were going to use for this from the workshops, this betrayed how the Technomancers were not just children who liked flashy explosions, but that they were easily intimidated too. They were used to the sight of you going everywhere with a machete on your back, the same one that Eurochkoles had left in your possession, one that you now considered to be your own.
They were not however, used to the sight of your dressed for war.
You reached the guild masters office, letting yourself in as you searched for words to express what you had to say, as he looked up at you, assuming that you had come to say goodbye. You froze, unable to find the words that would express what you wished to say, unable to bring yourself to say how you were sorry that you had decieved them. You were sorry, you knew that you had endangered them by being here, you knew that you had put them in an awkward position even with them believing that you were simply human.
This was a lie that you were going to put an end to.
"You're afraid you may not come back, aren't you. I'm sure you'll be fine, I'm sure that the upgrades we applied based on Eurochkoles work will make those infernal machines able to stamp out the enlightened without you getting hurt. I'm sure whatever they did to him, he'll be right as rain within a week."
"I... Fear of death isn't why I came to talk to you," you started, biting down on your lower lip as you did so. "This is... This is hard for me to say though, none of the words I find are the right words. I... I..."
"I'm sure whatever it is you have to say can wait until your friend is safe and well."
"No!" You cried, you couldn't wait, you couldn't simply wait until it was all over as you would never express how you were sorry for this deception then, you would never inform them of what you were. "While I cannot find the words, I can show you."
You reached for one of the pens on the desk, running the pointed nib of it over your thumb briefly as the guild master pushed an inkwell towards you, assuming that you planned to draw or write down what it was that was bothering you so greatly. You placed one hand down on the desk, looking at the inkwell briefly as you shook your head, knowing that he had no idea what you intended to do. With a swift and forceful motion you swung that pen down at the hand that rested atop the desk, biting your lip as you supressed a cry, as you felt it force its way between bones in your hand, cracking some and breaking others as it slammed into the desk beneath it.
The guild master looked shocked, horrified.
That expression faded to one of fear as he saw ichor leaking from the wound.
"This... This is what I am, I'll recover from this injury... I'll recover from any... Injury... I have been hiding what I am, as I was afraid, as I am hated by the Clockworkers and the Enlightened alike. If I return from this, if Pride does not kill me while I attempt to rescue the one man who has shown me that I am better than what I had become, then I will tell you whatever I can about the enlightened and then I will go, so you do not have to bear whatever shame will feel having been... associated with me... I am... Sorry..."
With those words you pulled your hand up over the pen that impaled it, clenching it as you felt flesh knit and bone set, as you turned and you made your way out of the now speechless guild master's presence.
Without another word you made your way down to the workshops, picking up the shotgun that had been built for you based off Eurochkoles work. One that had what appeared to have a large revolving drum of sorts to fire from. You didn't quite understand how it worked, or how you'd reload it. You felt that you didn't need to know however, as you disinterestedly listened to the person that had provided it telling you that it was ready loaded, that it was loaded with something that they had knocked up to take the Enlightened off their feet.
You felt nauseous as you slung the shotgun over your shoulder, starting towards the reception hall now, knowing that just outside the guild house was the waiting automaton army. The nausea you quickly realised, was due to your fear, your apprehension, and your anxiety. You would have laughed at this had it been any less of a serious situation.
You blinked back tears as walked down the hallways that lead towards the reception area, feeling that almost overwhelming terror rising within, wanting to turn, to flee, to hide in your room until this was all over.
You shouldn't.
You couldn't.
You had to face your fears, you had to face your order, you had to face him. How could you ever expect him to take you seriously, as anything more than that burden he had to protect if you ran away from this?
As you made your way out of the reception hall and into the outside world you found yourself staring down the stairs that lead down to the main city at a sight that sent chills through you. The assembled numbers of mechanical men were all turned to face the guild house, all looking up at you as they stood ready.
You could see their operators with them, two men dressed in similar garb to you, men who were armed with simple revolvers. The lack of additional people here told you that these machines likely didn't require the human operators, that the operators were there merely as for precatuionary measures or to issue on site repairs if required. This meant that they planned to use the machine men to recover any Enlightened they captured, most likely.
You couldn't find the words to express that you were ready as you walked down the steps to join them, merely nodding as they gave you inquiring looks, as they waited to see if you were ready so they could get underway.
It was surreal marching alongside the Clockworkers creations, listening to the heavy and almost uniform sound of their footfalls, their glowing eyes piercing the darkness and their freshly forged casing shining in the darkness as moon and starlight caught it. Those things that you had once been attacked by on sight were now assisting you in destroying your old life, in tearing down what remained of who you had once been.
A small grin crossed your features as a childish thought came to mind.
Why not make a make a mockery of these things?
"Is it possible to ride on the shoulders of one of these things?" You asked, turning towards one of the operators as you did so.
"I could order one of them to permit it, they wouldn't normally allow such however. If your feet are already hurting from those boots though, you have other problems than just-"
"I require a vantage point, and the distraction of watching my surroundings so I don't trip over something. Unlike you, I have perfect night-sight, I can more effectively watch our surroundings mister brown eyes and crooked teeth if i am able to pay full attention to them."
The man was unsettled as he realised that you could see his features in the dark more clearly than he could see the outline of your body in the moonlight. He hurried to the front of the column of mechanical men, his words drowned out by the steady clanking of metal as he relayed orders to it. You almost grinned as you watched the mechanical man turn from the front of the column, as it fell back until it was alongside you, as it lifted you and placed it atop it's shoulders and rejoined that formation of bronze soldiers.
Eurochkoles wouldn't believe it when you told him about this!
The journey went without issue as you watched the creatures of the night slink away at the mere sight of the mechanical men. They clearly knew better than to attack so many at once, that there were just too many things here for them to have even the most remote a chance of survival.
As you arrived at that manhole cover that betrayed the entrance to the hideout of the Enlightened the mechanical men assembled a moderate distance away in four rows of five. You were about to ask why, about to ask if anybody had considered the fact that these bulky automatons were unable to fit down a narrow shaft like the one that lead down there. This question died before it left your lips as you watched one of the operators approach it, taking a metal cylinder from his pocket and removing the manhole cover as he ordered the automatons to take cover.
As they, with you atop ones shoulders marched around the corners of the various derelict buildings here you watched the man lean part way down the shaft, twisting the cylinder visibly before he, at least you assumed, slipped it between the wall and the rungs. With that done the man hurried for cover himself, running around the nearest corner as he visibly mouthed what you took to be a countdown.
The roar of that device exploding filled the air, while a purple plume of fire and smoke shot skyward, high enough for you to see it above the building you were hiding behind. You slipped from the Mechanical man's shoulders, hurrying towards the gaping hole in the ground where the manhole had once been, dust and debris raining down as you peered down into the hole.
It was a fair drop, but it was one you could shrug off, given that there was a pile of rubble to drop down on now. You slipped your shotgun from your shoulder as the operators cried out for you to let the automatons go first, though their cries fell upon deaf ears. You had to do this now, before your nerve faltered and you resigned yourself to following those mechanical men into battle at best.
The cool air of London's night gave way to the heated air of that tunnel, the chemical stench of the explosive that had been used filling your nose as you gagged, as you felt it burning your lungs with every drawn breath. You were certain that the fumes from it were mildly toxic too, though this didn't both you, this was something you could keep atop of without issue.
This was something the Enlightened could keep atop of, too.
Rubble skittered down as you landed atop the collapsed mass of metal supports, concrete and cobblestones, your eyes watering as that lingering acrid and chemical agent from the explosive assaulted them. There was no chance that the Enlightened hadn't heard this, so you'd have to be ready to deal with them.
You half slid, half hopped down the pile of rubble that you stood atop as you made your way past the old cells in the entrance area, shotgun raised as you kept an eye on the door that lead into the guard room. You weren't disapointed, as predicted the Enlightened prepared to rush out, blades at the ready to deal with what they took to be simple intruders. You fired a shot off, expecting that warning shot to slow them down so you could give them the chance to surrender before you pumped them full of pellets.
You never got the chance.
Your eyes widened as a spray of purple and red crystal slivers sprayed from the barrel of the gun as you loosed that shot off, the echoing boom of what you assumed was the purple crystals detonating as they tore chunks out of the approaching men filling your ears given how the explosion that had opened this place had been purple.
That meant that the other effect this had, had to come from the red ones.
With gaping holes in their body and with their bodies ablaze, the front three men dropped, a screaming and gurgling as they rapidly lost consciousness to these injuries. These were the kinds of injuries that took longer to regenerate, this weapon was loaded with those childrens toys. For once, you found yourself appreciating the obsession the Technomancers had with researching things that had little application in daily life, as this had turned a normally powerful weapon into the most deadly thing you could imagine having your hands on.
A second shot struck two of the men who faltered having seen their brothers fall like this, their own screams filling your ears like music as you watched a sixth turn and flee back through the door they had come from.
You ran towards the door, kicking it open as you chased that man, hopping up onto and running across the table in the middle of the room as you chased him into the main tunnel, a shot ringing out as you sent him tumbling, screaming and burning to the ground. You advanced towards the junction, knowing that the office off to the right was only going to have one man at best, that the cells to the left would have plenty of people, that Eurochkoles was somewhere deep in that area.
If was the door directly ahead that worried you however, as Pride was rarely alone in the chapel.
You paused, twenty feet away from the junction as you listened to shouting coming from the chapel, from the cells, telling you that things were about to get messy. Adrenaline pumped as you felt your heart racing, as you watched the chapel door begin to open, as you watched your brothers and sisters, fanatic in the service of Pride start to rush from it.
You opened fire on them as you watched them pour from the open doorway.
Again, and again.
And again.
The stench of chemicals, burning flesh and ichor filled the air as you watched them falling like flies, yet they didn't slow in their efforts to overwhelm you, despite the terror in their eyes. They were willing to charge blindly at you in Pride's name, but it wasn't pride that you were here for.
You turned to the right, running up to the office. You justified this by telling yourself that you couldn't leave that one person there to approach you from behind while you were dealing with the others on the way to rescue Eurochkoles.
"Not again!" cried the voice of the brother huddled behind the desk as you kicked the door open, prompting a brief look of confusion from you before you squeezed the trigger, a wave of heat washing over you as the round detonated against his body much closer to you than it had with the others.
As his twitching body was scattered about the office you turned your attention back to the cell block. You were suprised that Pride hadn't left the chapel himself, to gloat as he paraded about like the fat bastard he was while telling you that he was somehow better than you. It was no suprise he was fat, with how much he had the order hunt for him.
You could see more of your brothers and sisters rushing out from the cells now as a boom echoed from the guard house, telling you that the mechanical men were blasting their way through, that soon enough they would be here to mop up after you.
After you. You, the one who had so far single handedly taken down everything between you and the one you had come for. You charged down the tunnel as you raised the shotgun, only to trip as something wrapped about your ankle, pulling you off balance.
That something was a long suckered tentacle, one that started dragging you towards the chapel as you watched the shotgun skitter from your grasp, your hands going to your back as you grabbed the machete, unsheathing it and hacking wildly at the appendage wrapped about your ankle.
A deep roar of pain echoed from the chapel as the tentacle slipped from about your ankle, while you dropped your machete and scrambled for the dropped shotgun. You were suddenly glad that you hadn't decided to go into the chapel, as whatever Pride's new pet was, you didn't want to be the one to deal with it. A second boom echoed from the direction of the guard house as the wall blasted outwards, spraying rubble down the tunnel leading to it, the reverberating explosion causing the Enlightened before you to falter, giving you the chance you needed to grab the shotgun before they reached it, before they reached you.
Your hands closed about it as you struck the ground hard, almost knocking the wind from you as you rolled over, as you got onto one knee, firing into the bewildered crowd. As they dropped their expression of bewilderment turned to terror, while the clanking of heavy metal feet against the hard floor echoed in your ears.
The Enlightened turned, fleeing back into the cell block as they tried to escape your wrath. It was to no avail though, as even their turned backs proved just as favourable a target for you. Your former brothers and sisters would have shown you no mercy in putting you to death, so you saw no reason to show them mercy.
You were distracted and overconfident, caught up in the moment and it quickly turned your moment of glory to one of peril. You were pulled off balance suddenly as a tentacle ensnared your waist, the shotgun batted from your hands as you were pulled backwards, unable to gather your wits in time to grab the machete you had dropped when diving for your shotgun. You were hauled backward, into the chapel and bought face to face with some vast and mishapen beast that stuck to the ceiling.
"Call them off!" boomed a voice in your head, a voice that you quickly realised was the voice of Pride. This... This thing was pride?
"What are you?" You stammered, while the thing hissed, dripping ichor and slime from many unseen orifices.
"I am Pride, foolish child, and you have brought the enemy within our sanctum. Call them off!"
"Or else what, you'll kill me?" you huffed, struggling against the tentacles that ensnared you. "You were going to do that anyway. I wouldn't call them off if I could, I told them where you hid so they could come and destroy you once and for all!"
The thing that was Pride quivered, though you couldn't tell if it was in rage or fear as it brought you closer to one of its many luminous yellow eyes.
"If I am to die, I shall take you with me. You will become a part of me, sharing in the agony of my final moments!" the thing snarled as it tossed you about in the air, from one tentacle to another as it moved you towards one of its many mouths. The booming sound of the chapel's doorway being blasted open filled your ears as Pride faltered, as you slammed into the floor of the chapel with a heavy thud, choking as you felt several of your ribs cracking.
You could feel that you'd broken one of your shoulder and your hips too as you started to claw your way towards the door with your good arm, while mechanical men marched into the chapel, blasting pride with what seemed to be the same mixture of explosive and incendiary shards, Pride's howling filling your ears as burning chunks of flesh rained about you.
Even at a time like this Pride couldn't go without taking a final stab at you, in both a figurative and literal manner as he impaled you with one of his many tentacles, flicking your body at the automatons as they fired upon him. You slammed into the unyeilding surface of one of those bronze machines, not even hitting the ground as he lashed out once more, slamming his tentacles into the row of machines as he crushed you against the one you had impacted against, as he propelled them out of the gaping hole that had once been the doorway.
You knew that your wounds were horrific, that you had broken bones and punctured organs throughout your entire body. It had been like getting struck by a giant swinging a tree trunk, after having a gaping hole punched in your torso by... By... You couldn't even think of something that compared to this, to the agony and horror that these wounds caused you to feel.
You could feel ichor gushing from that open wound, see it splattering against the ground before you as you coughed it up. You could feel your grip on consciousness slipping as darkness closed in on the corners of your vision. It was the worst pain you had ever felt, yet you couldn't allow yourself to succumb to it. You didn't care about Pride anymore, you didn't care if you were able to die from the wounds he had inflicted upon you, you had to save Eurochkoles.
Your good arm grasped at pipes as you hauled yourself slowly upright, ignoring the way your body screamed in pain at you, ignoring the fact that you should have realistically been dead as you hauled yourself towards the cell block, ignoring the occasional clang behind you, the roar of gunfire, the howling of Pride as he fought the automatons without respite.
Try as he might to stop them, they wouldn't stop coming until he had destroyed them.
Every inch you hauled yourself forward felt like an agonising journey that took an eternity, every foot was your own personal hell.
You could hear gunfire before you, gunfire behind you, the howling of Pride growing steadily weaker while the sound of gunfire before you steadily grew louder, you could feel every laboured breath burning like fire as your body fought to stay atop the damage inflicted, while you briefly wondered just how you would deal with any of the enlightened remaining inside the cell block before you.
That question was one that you never had to answer, as a figure bearing a shotgun stepped from the doorway, a figure covered with grime made from a mixture of what was likely blood, sweat and dirt. A figure who stood there wearing little more than the ragged remains of trousers, a figure who had fading marks that could have only been inflicted by whipping over their body.
A figure that prompted a bright smile from you despite the pain as you wondered if you were deliriously seeing things. Your bright smile did nothing to prevent a look of horror crossing that figures features as you giggled, as you raised your broken arm and waved weakly at them as if to get their attention.
"Hello darling," you barely managed utter as you coughed ichor up, before sinking to the side, your hand no longer able to hold you upright against the pipes. Your body tumbling to the side as your eyes closed, and darkness took you.
End of Part Two
Author
Topic: They told me I could be anything... (Read 79199 times)