#Bite Marks ft. TEYA | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

astracora · 26 days ago

Text

EVER's Tool

Characters: Poly!LADs x gn!mc (Sylus POV/MC POV)

Warnings: Hurt/No Comfort, Angst, Talk of EVER Experiments and Torture, Violence, Gore, Spoilers for multiple anecdotes and all current story.

Word Count: 10348

Written: 10th January 2025

Notes: Established-relationship with gn!MC with all LADs, with my personal pov of the game and lil headcanons littered in. Unnamed MC, but using my personal MC's basic appearance and adjusted backstory. I take some liberties with what the game offers me. A lil AU almost, set after cat curse and turning point. I had the mental image of EVER making MC into a personal weapon, using the fact their memories reset so it's easier to manipulate them. I also think about the line that 'sincere emotions are hard to forget', and how the LADs are basically EVER's worst problem when it comes to controlling them. As a side note, I fucking hated Leon when I read the anecdotes, so so much. The creepy way of calling a child 'little bomb' just set me wanting him smacked in the face. So I'm channelling that dislike into ruining his day. The way I screenshotted so many main story things to pull into this. It's upsetting... I had to double check so much stuff cause I have a terrible memory. My final lil note is I have no idea how MC's resonance works, but there was a line in one of the anecdotes that EVER wanted it to absorb Xavier's, so I've run with the concept.) I have no idea if anyone else will care about this lil brain thread, but hey, have at ye. Will there be more? Gods only know. Now I can finally sleep its 2am and my brain refused to let me rest.

Now Playing: Bite Marks, by League of Legends (ft TEYA)

Masterlist AO3

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Missing for months now… He's reached out to every source he can find. Has sent Mephisto all over Linkon, the N109 Zone, beyond.

He has looked in every shadow, every dark hole he can find. He has searched and searched, and still found no trace of you. He has never felt this powerless, this lost, to have all the resources of Onychinus and still unable to find answers to the only question he really cares to have answered.

How can you have disappeared? Vanished on him, on them, when you have built a life together? The house has emptied, the halls are quieter, the bedroom you all share is hard to sleep in.

It is like they have acquired ghosts. Griefs that will not rest, that cannot settle… because they have no answers. No response, no way to seek you out to soothe open wounds, and apply salve to scars.

He cannot stop, he cannot stop looking. He looked for you through time, and space, he will not stop now.

If you are out there, he will find you, and bring you back home. To them.

He did not vow and share his soul with you, to lose you.

He has spent most of his days looking, and searching. When he is not forcing himself to keep being Onychinus' leader, he barely sleeps for investigating. If he stops for a moment he thinks of an empty bed, and cold sheets. Of limbs no longer tangled with his. Of fingers no longer soothing through his hair.

Sylus cannot bring himself to tremble and to crumble, he does not have time. Not when the answer has fractured his home. His loved ones.

He watches Xavier hunt, carry out his job. Kill and fight. Mindless and driven, because he wants to protect the Linkon you cared about too. He wants to keep his blade busy, so that his mind does not wander. Then, Sylus knows he searches and he looks. Under rock, across desert, in the mountains. Everywhere his missions take him, he searches.

He comes home empty handed, and tired, but never seems to sleep properly anymore. Restless and unsettled, no matter how often someone soothes his hair and holds him. Xavier sits in the cycle that Sylus knows they cannot break.

He has tried to reach out to Rafayel, the fish beached and unbreathing. He sits in his art room and stares at paintings he cannot finish. Empty canvas and snapped paintbrushes. There are days, he tears them, dry sobs in his chest, eyes burning for tears he can't quite shed. He splatters paint up walls, and stares at what remains. His hands cut and torn from violent actions.

He finds no inspiration, and he ignores all of Thomas' calls, and he sits as the doctor tends to damaged skin, and clings to hands to keep himself grounded. Whispering things that he doesn't want them to hear. Fears of it being his fault. They can only respond with tight arms, and affirmation. It is not, they're sure. It is not.

He watches Zayne pick up more shifts than he should handle, only home when forced to be. Sinking into work, and sleeping in call rooms. When he does return, he waters plants you have left behind, feeds the cats outside the house that seek you out, and keeps your things neat. He traces trembling fingers over photo frames, looks through albums, and reminds himself. So he can stop mistaking every hunter he sees as you.

His sleep is more uneven, and he trembles awake with nightmares, hands reaching out for comfort, and clinging to chests to cry. To weep, to shake. He cannot find solace no matter where he looks, and Sylus can only offer presence and love because he does not know where the solace is found either.

His home is torn and hurting, and he cannot fix it. He will not stop trying to fix it.

He has to fix it.

It is a late night, ninety-two days after your disappearance, when Mephisto's feed flashes. He watches, and he waits, and he sees a flash of familiar white hair and jagged scar down your cheek, through your mouth.

His hand tremours in front of the screen, as he reaches out with tentative fingertips. As though he can reach through it, and pull you through��

His legs force him up before he can second guess himself, before he can waver on the edge of unsurity. Before he can hesitate to long to miss you. He calls the prince, and he leaves. On the first winds of hope, since you vanished.

—-----

The prince stands alert outside the building, while Sylus breaks in. It is old and condemned, the same kind of building that collapsed down around you. Landed you in hospital as they put you back together.

It is not a place he would normally spend his time at. Yet he trusted Mephisto's eyes better than he trusted most things.

The perks of a robotic bird, that he has upgraded even further after your disappearance. Desperate, though he isn't sure he can admit that. Not without falling to pieces, as he digs and he digs and he searches.

Sylus is quiet as he ascends floors, his mist drifting up walls and through broken door frames. Seeking and searching for the familiarity he can never mistake. No matter how many floors he climbs, he cannot feel you. Cannot seek out the sparks of gold he knows so well, and the soul that cannot complete without his. He finally approaches the final door, and pushes it open. An apartment in ruins, but the smell of acrid blood hits him. Familiar and cloying. It does not appeal to his sense, nor to his hunger.

He looks at the walls, where blood has splattered, across the floor where bloodstains mark it. There is a body, throat cut, arm torn partially off. It takes him a second to assure that it is not you, but it is a second too long. The fear drops his heart before he can pick it back and place it where you placed your own.

Approaching the body, he cares little for the blood on his hands as he rummages through pockets, inspecting the wounds. Another stab mark through the temples. A dagger, curved. Familiar. He's seen it before. Designed by the fish, for you to use, adjusted lightness for the metal of your arm. Replacing the trusty claymore he used to witness you swinging with abandon.

Cleaving through enemies.

Cleaving through him.

He presses his fingers against it, assuring himself that he is not seeing what he wishes to. It would not be the first time he has caught glimpses of you in shadows, in alleys and chased the ghast. It is never you, it is always a cut into an already fragile heart, and he rights himself quickly.

To keep moving forwards.

This, however, he is not mistaken about. So he takes photos, sends them to the fish to evaluate, to the prince to be on guard. That someone is here, with your dagger. If it is not you, it has been stolen from you.

He will greatly enjoy cleaving through whoever has taken something precious to you. To lay their dirty hands on something that is theirs. His home, his family.

Footsteps approach him, and he hears a song he knows is yours. The notes though, they are buried in dust. The tune is not familiar. Your feet shouldn't make that noise, your heart is too familiar to him to be mistaken. To be misheard.

He whirls as a knife flies past his head. Stabbing into the broken sofa behind him. Sinking into moulding fabric. Releasing a smell he wishes he hadn't experienced. It fills the air as you step forwards, twirling a dagger around your fingers like he knows you've seen him do.

Like he taught you when you poked fun at him, asked him how he made it move so smoothly.

'Is it a crime lord aesthetic thing?'

'You have quite an image of me.'

'Am I wrong?'

'You just haven't looked closely enough.'

You are a flash of light, and a chill. A ghostly vision against the dilapidated backdrop. The dagger is dripping blood with each spin, splattering it against the floor and against your clothes. Black and loose. Harness over shoulder and around your chest.

You look as you should, jagged scars and crooked lips, mismatched eyes, arm of meta-

His eyes halt and hold on your form, there is no metal. He looks at the twisted carapace of a wanderer. Segmented into a limb, and long clawed fingers. Sylus feels as though he is staring at his own limb, long ago. When his claws could cut through your flesh with ease, and he could not feel the heat of your skin properly through his own.

It is black and twisted and cracked. Like a well used tool.

It is not yours.

Yours was silver, painted by the fish, well worn and trusted. A tool as well as a part of you. A shield and a weapon in one.

It could trace his face gently, and swing a dagger with ease.

This is not yours.

The chill that you bring becomes ice down his back. It feels like the cut of a sword through his skin. Tears away at flesh and bone. Your eyes are empty, there is nothing in them but the glow of a gold he recognises. The resonance lurking under skin like a serpent waiting to strike. He levels his look on the dagger, and then back to your eyes. Seeking something out. Seeking you out.

You're in there, you have to be in there.

"Did you forget to check your phone, kitten?" He manages, but his voice is weak and cracked. He wants to grab you, to tell you it's fine, as long as you're safe now. He reaches out, and barely pulls his hand back quick enough before the dagger slices through where it was.

You tilt your head, then look down on the floor, "I was curious to know who sought out my target." The smile is crooked, it's wrong, it's twisted at the edges and broken. Like the horns he cut off years ago. "You're not on my list though."

It's a dismissive shrug, and a turn away. As though he is a stranger… as though he means nothing.

He barely holds the growl, though he is not angry, he advances on you, moving himself out of the way when your dagger darts out again. "Claws out kitten? Watch it, you could hurt someone." He manages, voice low, but pulling his tone to heel. He looks down at you. Reading at the empty gold glow, looking for something. Anything.

Disgust even, if there is disgust… you know of him.

There is nothing. Empty and cool. The abyss he should recognise but it is nothing he has seen before. Like you are missing. Like your body is empty.

You look back at him, unflinching, unbothered, watching him stare at you. It is the EVER symbol on your collar, he notices, it is like a brand against you. It is the flaming fury in his chest. It is not you.

It is them.

"Are you done?" You offer, stepping back out away from him, so he grabs your arm. The twisted skin against his flesh. Warm and pulsing under, but hard as stone. It is a painful thing to touch. It is not yours.

He looks at it, stares, and as he goes to speak, you tug it away from him. Spin, and kick him in the side.

The force makes him see stars for a moment, falling to knees. He gasps before he rights his body, before he forces adrenaline into his veins to catch the next kick you aim at him. The gold glitters under your skin, as you attack, and the leg he catches shakes his limbs. Throwing it away from him, as you spin and back away.

Sylus stands, and advances as you back up further, "That wasn't particularly nice, Kitten, we were having a chat."

"You shouldn't grab someone you don't know. It's impolite." You growl back, showing canines, and narrowing cool eyes at him.

Don't know.

He almost laughs.

He knows you, more than he knows himself. He knows you because you are part of him. He has lived with questions for who he is all of his life, has struggled to decide who he should be and who he is. You? You he knows.

He knows every piece of you, inside and out. He will always see you.

This is not you.

This is them.

"Then we should get to know each other." The words burn to say, and he reaches his hand out, ready to pull you to him. With skin, with mist. He cares little. He will capture you again, and he will make you wake up from whatever nightmare EVER have placed you in.

"I have orders, you're not part of them." You incline your head. He's used to a smile accompanying such an action, a tease, a lilt in your voice. Yet you are flat.

Then with the elbow of the wanderer's limb, you smash the window… and fall back.

He follows, on quicker feet than he has ever moved, melding into mist. Over the edge of the fall, watching you fall back. He has caught you so many times in his life. On the winds, with his wings, with his EVOL. He has followed you over the edge of many cliffs.

He will follow you over any others.

As he reaches out, you twist, hand on his wrist, pulling and turning, so that his back is to the impending floor. "You're determined." You snarl, actually snarl at him. His EVOL catches the dagger you aim for his chest, pushing it back, and he grabs your other arm, keeping the claws from closing around his throat.

You sink your teeth into his hand, biting down hard enough to draw blood, tearing at his flesh like he is a piece of meat you could devour.

The pain shoots up his arm, but it's not important. His wounds can heal, and while you can kill him, you have not levelled that fiend blade at his chest yet. Getting you back is all that matters, no matter the blood seeping down his wrist. You have bitten him before. You have come for him with daggers. You have shot him in the heart. Stabbed him through his joined heart. Cursed him.

Every drop of his blood that you bleed is another drop that belongs to you.

"Want to mark me that badly?" He laughs. He can only hope the prince has rested enough to hear the shattering glass. That he is still capable of hunting.

Your resonance bursts out of the wrist he holds in his mist, shattering it, and you kick, pulling away. Reaching out with claws to grab at the building. Grooves left behind you, as you slow your descent, he watches the gold shimmer again. Watches as the limb hardens further, claws thicker, digging deeper.

Spitting blood from your mouth, as you do.

He slows, balances himself. Without wings he cannot hover, can only slow his descent by a margin. His mist reaches out to yank you back. Into arms that cage around you, tighten around ribs he would normally be scared to break.

He holds, tight, and squeezes as much as he can. He feels you writhe, an angry cat held in a grip you do not want. Clawing and scratching. Willing to draw blood to escape. He feels the jagged claws of your hand grab at his wrist, digging into his flesh, tearing. Your EVOL bursts, and shatters, but it cannot shatter his bones, and he keeps the grip as you fall with him, as he ties you to gravity with him.

"Get off!" You growl, fury in your tone, and he's glad to finally see something from you. Some spark of who you are, even if it's angry and violent and vicious.

He sees a flash of light reflected off the glass of the buildings, and then he is caught and swiftly righted. Alongside a curse, and a huff.

Sylus turns to Xavier, who makes to speak before his eyes focus on you. Yowling and clawing. He reaches out a hand, only to have it knocked back by mist, "Don't. Your wounds don't heal like mine."

You snarl, "No, go on, let me slice you up." Claws flexing against the flesh you're serrating.

He'll heal. The pain is harsh, and burning. He's fought wanderers, but they don't have your mind. The knowledge of where to slice, the strength behind your anger.

"Starlight?" Xavier's voice does not waver often, he is used to seeing things that have hurt him. He has killed people who once followed him, he has fought those that were his loved ones. He has blood on his hands that burn to feel, but can never be washed off. Now, he wavers, watching someone who wears your face, but hisses and snarls to bite and snap. To cut and rip.

You kick back, into Sylus' shin. He avoids the second one, he knows is aimed to break his leg. Squeezes harder to creak your ribs. "EVER did something to them." He manages, using the mist to move the mark on your collar so Xavier can see it. He watches a jaw tick, the muscles jumping, blue starry eyes turn to ice, and focus on the point.

"We need to get them back." The prince approaches, and Sylus tightens his arms once more. If you have to be knocked out to get you back, well he can live with that. He's done it before. Hand around your throat, watching the life flickered in your eyes. Can your disgust hurt him more than the lack of any personal acknowledgement?

It is too soon for him to think, as you let out a snap of teeth at the prince, then smash your head back into his nose. The pain jolts up into his skull, so you reach your hand up, grab him by the hair and yank, then snap back one more time.

He's fought you before, he knows you. He knows you can beat him, he's been pinned by you in a test match before. Watching the glee in your eyes, seeing the fire at your victory. He has watched you practice swordsmanship with the prince. He has seen you cross daggers with the fish.

Everytime, you are cunning, you are ready to win. Everytime joy lights up your face if you succeed. Thrilled and happy to learn and improve. Crooked smile and bright eyes as you thank them for taking time for you to clash with.

It is not joy that lights your eyes, it's savage and it's gleaming. You do not extend your hand, or press a kiss to his cheek in your victory. You let him fall away from you, as blood sprays, and then you reach out with a clawed hand to rip at the prince's chest.

As soon as both have stumbled back, you turn, and you disappear.

Sylus' patience is strong. He has lived a long time, waiting, and living, and managing. It is when he has his prize so very close, that his desperation comes through. It was moments where he asked if you truly wanted him. Voice trembling and begging.

To touch, to taste, to hold, to seek pleasure with.

It was times when he had found you at last, growing impatient to feel your resonance against him. Moving too quickly, too desperately. Seeking memories locked behind a seal. Greedy for his beloved to look into his eyes and see someone worthy of flowers again.

It is the moments where he waits for your missions to end, and the message that you are returning, that he can no longer sit still.

It is when he saw your new home for the first time, a life built where he was not a monster, a family where he had nothing. Need bubbling to the surface to paint it in colours and fill it with song.

His patience has held until the last moment where relief is in sight. That it shatters, and it demands.

As he holds his bloody mangled arm, and spits blood on the floor, it breaks into shards. As he reaches out to Xavier, checking the wound, turning his face to check for others, he tears his already torn shirt to hold to the jagged claw marks.

As his fingers tremble and he shakes at where he is holding, he reaches for where his patience has gone and finds a small boy with broken horns. The absence of his calm, built on the back of his agony, lost to the fear and the doubt that circles his head.

It is the memory of the empty eyes, and the snarl that he can still hear in his head, the warm body in his hands, even though you had not been you.

You were finally so close, and now you are gone.

A hand tightens over his, the prince pulling his focus, and reaching up through the pain to ease tears that can't fall out of his eyes, "They're alive. We can find them again." He bites out, warming the chill in Sylus' hands, and waking him from the nightmare.

He will, and he'll melt every EVER building until he does. Rip the rot out by the roots, and become what Philos sneered at him for. A calamity.

Their evil is similar, afterall.

—------

He does not find any joy or relief in the information he brings back. As he watches the doctor stitch Xavier closed. Waving off his assistant. He eases the pain with his EVOL. Part of him wants to feel it, a reminder. You were there, he had you, and he let you go.

It does no one any good for him to be useless, or deeply wounded. So while the moon is still high, he repairs the damage, pushing his nose back into place. You'd told him it was beautiful, he hopes you still thought so when you returned. As the blood stops, and his wounds close, he leaves the room to shower.

The heat as high as it can go, to sear his flesh. It leaves his skin pink, as he finally turns the water off. Seeking out clothes that don't bear the ruins of your violence. When he returns to the living room, the prince's stitches are complete and bandaged, and the fish is looking at the photos he sent.

Before you tore at him like a beautiful and horrifying monster.

Had it been you, he would have welcomed your dagger and your claws.

He will not die to EVER's machinations. They will not make you their tool.

When he dies it will be because you have chosen willfully to cut through his chest and his joined heart. It will be your choice to sever your curse, and scatter his soul to the wind like the petals of deadly flowers.

Sylus eases himself into the sofa, leaning back and taking the fish's head into his lap with ease. Fingers finding purple locks and smoothing them out as they look at the photos.

He won't comment on Rafayel's feline-like purrs. He is too tired and worn. His heart hurts more than his arm did. "It was really them?"

"It was kitten, alright… Their body at least."

Zayne helps Xavier ease into a new shirt, cool hands sliding down sore skin, and turns his head to speak, "You think EVER are controlling them?"

The fish snorts, eyes narrowing, flames at his fingertips, "Is it surprising, after everything they've done?"

"That wasn't my question. Nothing they do at this point would surprise me, but controlling a person is…" The doctor flinches, and Sylus can see it. The image of you. Cold eyes, claws extended, tearing through Zayne's jugular. Blood splattering over your face, but you don't blink, or flinch. Simply move onto the next.

"Their eyes were empty, doctor. They didn't recognise or care when they saw me or the prince. They wanted to hurt us to escape… They didn't care how."

He finishes with the shirt and rubs at his forehead, trying to ease a headache that brews. It is better a headache, Sylus thinks, than him focusing on the aching pain in his chest. The fear of someone being broken by EVER. Experiments that defy morality. That twist and snap and destroy anything worthy of protecting.

That left him with twins, bearing scars. Inside and out. Who thought death would be an entertainment worthy of hunting for great prey.

That made you a child with a broken heart and a grandmother who didn't look close enough at what she did to you. Her morality flexible, because of your broken, twisted memory.

The doctor is a moral man, who believes in the power of medicine and science to save and protect the sanctity of life. That has rejected every offer for using his knowledge to twist that boundary. Who stares into the face of loss and believes dying in control of yourself, is better than living as a ghost or beast. Who has healed every wound you have held, and stitched up every injury.

Who nurses your heart, no matter how fragile it can be, or how much work it is.

What EVER stand for is so strongly opposed to the doctor, that Sylus can watch the tick in his jaw. The pain in his eyes. The tremble in his hands. The snowflakes drifting from fingertips, and the chill arching up his hands.

Rafayel removes himself from Sylus' lap, reaching over with heated hands and takes icy ones. Easing the cold back slowly, as the doctor fights for control over an EVOL that is soothed by you. It is a slower process with the fish, but it is worth it, as the chill recedes and the heat returns to the doctor's skin.

His trembling slows before it ceases, and he removes his glasses to rub his eyes, "Thank you."

The fish shrugs, sitting down next to him, ready just in case he is needed. Sylus looks down at his hand, flexing it in his lap, as he thinks about you taking his hand, pulling him forwards. No matter who he has been or will be, your hold has not wavered. It is his job to pull you back.

"We have a target." The prince exhales after downing a glass of water, looking over at him, and he nods, thinking. He can narrow down the search, look for traces, documents, records. EVER have always been simple to understand. Their methods are outdated to gain traitors, their experiments never stopped, no matter the state of the N109 Zone. No matter what destruction they left in their wake.

So he just has to find the thread back to you. While he has no intention of bloodying the doctor's hands, he has a fish who has killed those responsible for his people's suffering, a prince who has hunted any who dared raise a blade to you, and himself. A dragon whose treasure has been ripped out of his palms.

It is a foolish mortal that steals from a dragon.

—--------

Your return to their compound is slower after you've exercised that new EVOL you had been fed. It sticks in your maw, like a bitten on bone. It is uncomfortable, untrained, and aching. Your shoulder aches, your arm is covered in blood, and you need to clean your dagger.

The door swings open as you push through, slamming your fist on the wall to find the light. It brightens the room and you look down. Muscle and flesh in the grooves of your arm, sticking into the carapace. Stuck under segments. The feeling is a violent rejection. You rip the thing from you, throwing it across the room so that it smashes an unused lamp. Splattering some of the gore across the scientists whiteboard.

It is not really satisfaction at the viscera painting pristine EVER surfaces, but it is something. Or it is until a throat clears behind you.

"Little bomb, you should really behave yourself in the labs."

The feeling turns to biting fear, before you grab it by its throat and remind it. You do not fear foolish men. You do not cower to his slimy, disgusting voice. You do not run, or hide. You are not a child.

He is nothing.

You are a weapon.

"I don't recall you being the one I answer to, Leon."

You move through the room, seeking out the sink, and splashing water over blood on your clothes with one hand.

"Is the new attachment that unpleasant?" He points, indicating the weapon you had thrown. "If you want something better, we can provide it?"

The scoff isn't entirely in your control, but it does narrow the man's eyes, "You can't provide me much of worth Leon, don't act like you have any more power here than I do. It just needs cleaning. Drop it in a bucket. I'll care about it later."

"You're in a worse mood than normal, did you even carry out your orders?"

You round, dagger in hand and flick its tip under his soft throat, the tip pricking into skin, and bare canines, "When have I ever failed a job?"

He watches your hand, the dagger, then looks into cool, icy eyes. You can feel the resonance flickering, angry, uncontrolled. It is always harder to control some days. Like the sensations and the feelings are too hard to read, too uneven. You think about it failing when that man with white hair had you in his grasp. Refusing to help you break, to make yourself stronger. The panic of being held, the anger at being weak, the fury that breathed fire into your chest.

You do not know who he is, but you will slit his throat if he shows his face to you again. Tear his throat open with your teeth and drown in his blood.

"Kitten, tch." You hiss, pulling away from the scientist watching you with fear flickering in his gaze. "Starlight… What world do they belong to?" You spit at the floor, clearing more blood that still feels caught in your teeth.

"Seriously? Can you stop that?" Leon looks down at the blood now splattered on the floor, mixed with saliva.

"Clean it up if you're so unhappy. I'm going to clean this mess off me." You push past him, heading deeper into a compound that does not feel like anywhere you want to be.

"Stop, you have another order."

"Give it to me later."

"I'm here now, little bomb. You may as well listen."

It bubbles, it burns. You despise him, you don't really know why. You looked him in the eye when you opened yours for the first time and hatred and disgust and fear, embedded so deeply in your chest that you almost threw it up onto him. Leon greets you with his greying temples, and his sickening glimmer in his eyes as he stares at you, and he calls you little bomb.

It tears at your nerve and chews at your heel.

You want to tear his throat out, but you won't drink his blood. He is sullied, and disgusting…

But you have orders.

"What is it?"

"A doctor, he's wanted to do work here."

"Then offer him money, and immortality, I'm sure he'll jump at the chance." You spit again, this time aiming for Leon's shoes.

He rubs a hand over his face in response, looking at you like he is seconds away from locking you in a cage. You want him to try. The feeling is under your skin.

'Kitten'

'Starlight'

It simmers and burns and you want to cut and rip.

If he wants to try to tame your fury, he is welcome to try. To send you to one of EVER's toy boxes. To jolt you, and burn you, to remind you who holds the leash. Maybe the pain will shake out the feeling in the back of your gut. Maybe they'll put you in a ring, and watch you fight someone else like you. A tool, a weapon. Maybe you'll let someone pierce your chest for once. Spilling blood over the floor. Seeking escape in the splattered walls.

'Kitten'

'Starlight'

It lurches in your brain, words you don't remember, and irritation that has no place. "What on earth happened out there?" Leon finally asks, watching you wary. Good. Wary is good. Wary is careful.

"Your target had friends." You snap, dagger twirling around the skin of your hand, unbothered when it catches on fingers that don't move fast enough. The pain grounds you, washes out the voices, so you run a finger over the blade, and watch the scientist. He looks away from the blood and you almost have to laugh.

He can torture you, but he doesn't want to watch you bleed on his floor.

"Did you deal with them?"

"They weren't on my list."

"If they were there-"

This time you do nic his neck, dagger fast. His EVOL is worthless, pointless, and has no way to stop you. Not like the mist, not like it curling around your wrist like warm fingers.

"I follow my orders, Leon. They weren't on the list." His blood trickles down his neck and the scent is sour. So you push him away, turning and walking off, even though he protests, hand covering his throat, "Send me the name. I'll capture him."

The walk through the compound is full of people whose names you cannot remember, whose faces you see every time your feet carry you through halls. There are rarely new faces, a close iron grip held over tools in a grand scheme. The dagger twirls and twists, and you are given a wide berth.

Unicorn, Subject 001. It is an easy title to hold. Thanks to it hanging around your neck like a noose, you are unbothered by others. It is like you are a beast that they keep their chains around, but no one is willing to feed you from their hand.

They would rather throw flesh through the bars, and run away.

It is fear and disgust, you muse. As it should be. As if any of them are better than you.

It is bitter hatred that bites at your heels, that reminds you of every experiment, of every time waking up on a cold table, chest flayed as you are dug around in. Heart pressed and prodded.

It is your orders that keep you off that table. You are useful now. If you stay useful, you don't have to wake up in a cage.

It is the closest you can get to relief here, as though the sick doesn't swirl in your stomach still. There is no one to seek out for help, you are alone.

'Kitten'

'Starlight'

Your snarl is unbidden, and you shake your head like a cat trying to shake out fleas. As if that will shake out the ghost of voices, for fools who get in your way. Bright red molten eyes, tinged in glossy tears, and star blue constellations, gazing at you in wonder.

No one has looked at you like that.

The scientists have stared at you in greed, in hunger, with curiosity. But it is not wonder, it is hungry and cruel and brings pain.

You stomach and you move forwards.

These voices will fade, you will not see red and blue eyes again, and you will forget the curling mist.

As you enter the room you have been given to clean yourself up, the photo on the side stares back at you. A man you do not recognise, but whose name is etched into the frame. Caleb, your family… You do not remember him, your memories do not summon him. He has died, they've told you. Cut out of your life by people who stand against EVER.

Your home destroyed, so now you stay here. In a compound with cold walls… and a box of a room that cannot be filled because you own nothing. Except a photo frame you have been handed, and the clothes you are to wear when working.

You think you feel grief at the concept of not having him. You think that there are moments where something aches so deep in your chest that you can't find an answer to it. Like you are missing something integral. Seeking something out, but can never find it.

Sometimes in the shadows, when you enter and forget to turn on the lights, you think you see plushies along pillows… you have seen some with them on their desks. They are not for you though, you do not even know where you'd begin to find one.

There is a cold broken feeling in your chest, whenever you turn the lights on and they are gone. Just a mirage from a mind you think is fractured by the tests. You don't know what the feeling is, but it hurts, so you move onto another job, and move forwards.

You wonder if Caleb would look at you with disgust, to see no recognition in your eyes, to see you, with dagger in hand and blood splattered over your mouth and face.

Or was he like you? A tool to be used.

It is a question that has no answer, the dead don't speak. You will never find out. You will never have a voice answer you back, questions you speak out loud, when the room is too quiet and too cold.

So you scald your skin with heat in the shower, and burn away the remnants of the memories of voices calling out for you, and the pain. As the blood rushes down the shower drain, and leaves you as close to clean as you can get.

—------

Leon is cleaning up the blood when you return to the lab to pick up your arm, it is hours later, but he seems harried. Hair falling out from where he normally slicks it back.

You debate saying something, but decide against it, especially when you see that the gore has been scrubbed from your arm. A job you did not wish to have to handle. Even thinking about it, makes you think of the feeling of muscle under your claws. The hissed pain through clenched teeth. The arms pressing around your ribs, tight but wary. Like you would break under them.

You strap it back on, and spin the dagger in practiced claws in relief. No nics, no cuts. You don't remember who taught you, you never taught yourself. It eases you though, something familiar. A motion that is practiced and quick.

"You can get a better weapon than that, you know." Leon sighs, standing, relieved to be finished removing the mess you'd spread. So that he experiments could continue on. His finger points over at the dagger in your claw and you watch as he throws cloth into bucket.

The way he looks at the dagger makes your hand clench around it, slipping it back into its sheath at your side, and glaring, baring canines. It feels like an open wound. To be separated from it. Like it is as much a part of you as… your arm…

Itching in the back of your neck, a feeling of wrongness. It is not your arm.

Silver, and painted. A beautiful red fish swimming over metal.

You shake your head, pulling away from Leon before he can get his hands near you, or near the tool at your waist.

It is yours. It cannot be replaced. "It's killed enough of EVER's targets to be a fine weapon. Perhaps you should be replaced instead."

The bite does not agitate the man, but it does satisfy the little voice asking you to snap him. A little. There is no response but you are done with him, until a question gnaws.

Like a little beast at your heel. Demanding something.

You're not quite sure what.

"Why won't the doctor join you?" You ask, pushing some equipment to the side none too gently to sit on a table.

"Stop throwing things around, we need those." Leon snaps, "Your temper is too short, little bomb."

Your laugh holds no humour, it is a choke of a noise, that means nothing, "You call me that, and expect my fuse to be long? Unluckily for you, Leon, you are the only one who doesn't fear to talk to me. So you are to bring me orders, and answer my questions. If your things are in the way, that's not my problem."

He rubs the space between his eyes, and for a moment you get a flash. Forests, and snowflakes. Drifting through branches and alighting on white petals. Blending, and freezing, then falling.

Pushing his glasses back up, he speaks, "He doesn't agree with the tests we are running."

"You think capturing him will help?"

"I think capturing him will make him less likely to help, but surely the order came for a reason."

You scoff, but shrug, "Can't imagine what they could offer him, that means enough to make him agree. I suppose all of you science types have a price though. Something they can tug at to make you abandon your souls."

His voice is cold when he speaks, and you watch the spark of irritation. It's rare, he tries to keep his calm false mask, but sometimes. You can poke and prod. Like he is a beast you want to see bite. White hair ruffled and soaked as he laughs through-

You blink, and Leon returns to his bespectacled brown hair, and brown eyes. He speaks but you don't hear, and you push off the table, waving a hand, "Whatever." You don't want to hear it anyway, whatever he has to say won't remove the scalpel. Won't ease scars that don't disappear.

Won't mean you can lay down a clawed arm of beasts that they experiment on.

You're not too different you suppose, if you were maybe your arm would have rejected your body. Demanding something closer to home. Instead it follows your demands, moves smoothly, easily. You were told it was the ideal weapon and tool, and using it has certainly made missions easier.

It does not mean you wish to see it more than you have to.

Fabric catching on the segments of hard stone-like skin. Every sensation through it feels like it's felt underwater. Distant and abstract. A picture you can't fully see.

You step through the hallways, flexing the clawed hand carefully, as you approach the testing rooms. Inside is the usual, an old man with goggles on his head, greying brown hair. Wrinkles. He pushes the goggles up as he looks over at you, "Phi, I need my check." You approach.

His chuckle is low, and he eases you. There is something about him that is familiar, against all other backdrops of the compound. This man is familiar.

Sometimes if you stare at him for long enough, you can hear his voice telling you to stay calm.

You're not sure what it means, if he was there during your hazy wake-ups that you barely remember. Just the pain of the pressure on your heart.

"The Unicorn has wandered over finally. Come on then, you're weeks late." He indicates the black reclining chair beside him.

It normally grates at you, Unicorn. It is not a name, it is a subject title. You don't remember if you've ever been called anything else though. If any other name has ever mattered to you.

'Kitten'

'Starlight'

'Cutie'

'Darling'

They swirl and then you shake, like a dog shifting water from its coat. You will not drown to voices.

The chair is cold to the touch as you lie back, but Philip's hands are steady and careful. He checks over you, scans with his tools, checks your EVOL levels. "How are the new additions?" When he asks, you can actually hear concern. It's rare… it's not offered often. He is here just to manage your health, to track it. Leon is here as your keeper.

He proclaims that he knows you best. His little bomb. His reason to be in that lab. The core in your chest is his proudest test subject.

You think about the 'additions'. EVOL's fed into your resonance, powering it, making it more useful. You think about the pain, the snarling voice that wishes to devour and swallow. You would tremble at the sensation of the heat in your core. The ripping and tearing. The gold enveloping, and the rippling power that explodes outwards.

Broken glass and twisted shards of metal.

You think about how hard they are to control.

You think about fiery red eyes watching you as you fall, and the resonance failing to come to your hand at will.

You think about heat from skin like a memory you could grasp if you tried hard enough.

You think about when it finally answered you, so you could leave the call of snapping beasts at heels behind.

Questions left unanswered. Blissful ignorance, so your heart does not shatter. You don't want to know the origin of the fever or the broken splinters.

There is nothing on the other end of the thread.

"Temperamental." You finally answer, "They're harder to control than just my resonance is. I can't call them at will."

He nods, jotting things down, as he reads. As you look at his goggles, you see a leather jacket reflected in it, but when you turn there is nothing there.

Perhaps not sleeping is leaving you as useless a tool as Leon is.

A problem to solve later, when you can finally chase out broken parts of your brain, and swallow something to ease the screeching behind eyelids.

"You need to practice with them."

You huff, turning your head away, "I didn't need to practice with my resonance, what kind of tool can't be used straight away?"

When he doesn't answer, you return your gaze to him, watching as the man frowns. Staring at his tablet, like it holds news he does not want to see, but the tablet is empty. "Phi?"

He looks up, wavering eyes, and tired bags. He also does not sleep, you remember. You've never had it in you to ask why. If he's as haunted as you are. If this place keeps him from escaping his nightmares. You could ask, or you could dig for information… You do neither.

You always do neither.

"Your tests are fine, you should get some rest though, and make sure you take your medication. Leon said you've skipped it for two days now." He extends a hand with pills shaken out into them. Suppressants, for the core in your chest. To stabilise it.

You've taken them since waking up. They taste bitter, and they stick in your throat.

You grab them out of his hand, and throw them back. You feel like spitting them back up into his face, but manage to swallow them down, relieved when he has water prepared. You down the bottle, easing the sensation of the chalky taste, and run your tongue over your teeth to clear the residue.

It's no surprise to you that Leon would rat you out. Like he thinks he is your keeper. Like he owns your soul, and your body. Not just the warden responsible for your pain. The object of your abject hatred.

The cool of the seat starts to burn, so you pull up and step away. Shoving one hand into pockets, claw loose at your side. "Anything else?" The man asks, his expression becoming warmer, a smile loose on his worn lips. The familiar feeling sparks in your chest, and you wish you could ask.

Maybe if you ask you'd understand.

If you ask, you wake up from a nightmare, and you're not sure if the outside is better.

So you shake your head, "No, see you." and turn on a heel, leaving as quickly as you can. You can't thank him, you can never thank him. He is the only one who does not treat you like something to cut open for experiments, and you cannot thank him.

Because it is a low bar to clear?

Because you should not have to thank for that?

Because you blame him too?

You do not go to find food, though there is a cafeteria. You don't need to stay here. With the cold walls. Stared at by wary mad scientists.

You have a job, you can always do some research. Something that requires the movement of your feet, and the use of your brain. Something to distract from the feelings that bubble and overflow. That leave a lingering bitterness in your mouth like chalky medication.

That make you look over your shoulder, and not focus on the target.

It is an agitation you cannot shake out, so you have to focus it.

Your feet take you back to Leon's lab, but his lab coat is over the chair, as his tools are left behind. So you dig into his pockets, and pull out his wallet. Relieved to find cash, and not just card. You could figure it out, but it's always a pain.

Instead you take all the cash he has to hand, and leave, throwing his wallet back on the table.

If he wants to demand a punishment, he's free to. If you get results, he's less likely to get what he wants.

You want to watch him chafe under the pressure.

—------

Linkon is familiar in a way you aren't sure how to word. You've been told you lived here, that you lived with Caleb in a house in a nice little neighbourhood, before it was taken from you. You've walked to the area before, and while you sometimes can feel heat against your skin, you cannot quite bring the image to mind.

Like you're staring at a static tv screen. Sometimes there's a shape you think you can make out, but it could just be the broken image, flicking so fast you've fooled yourself.

It's like desperately grabbing at something, only for it to slip further under sand. One thing you do know, however, is that your feet travel before your brain focuses. That you pass by things called kitty cafes, and hesitate for a moment. Looking through glass, and wondering what it is you're seeing. You almost entered once, before dread settled somewhere in the pit of you. Pushing you back.

A warning.

So you simply look through the windows, to watch the small creatures and the floating OTTOs that tend to them.

It is enough. Perhaps.

The acknowledgement of something that you enjoy. Or think you enjoy. Perhaps you played with Caleb.

Before he was taken away from you.

Would he be able to remind you of things you have forgotten? Records of things you should know, photos of times you'd spent together? Would he be able to spark the image if he stood before you?

Your memory just a casualty of EVER's saving your life… It is a low price to pay, you've been told. That memory can sometimes be reclaimed. That your life cannot.

You cannot help but feel like a haunted ghost though. Sparks and flashes with abstracts and feelings you can't explain or name. Things that lurk along the edges but cannot be grasped. You have nothing for yourself, but the jobs you are given, and the titles you cannot shake.

Perhaps if you keep following the path, you'll find an answer at the end of it. Even though you want to turn from it. Run the opposite direction. Would the answer even make you happier? Or would it make the feelings worse?

Could Caleb really have cared about someone Leon calls little bomb? Could a tool be more than itself? Or were you both tools?

Perhaps it was easy to exist, because neither had anything else to claim.

If that were the case, you think you could accept it. At least then you would not be alone, surrounded by things that want to twist and snap and break and bend you. Make you into a weapon sharper than a dagger.

You still await the moment they pierce your skull with a sword, so you bear the horn of the beast, they're so proud of naming you after.

It is the smell of sweets that draws you to a cafe, and you are relieved that no one bothers to look at you for your arm. Though you have passed at least three people with panda costumes, so you think perhaps, this is a low scale of concern for Linkon residents.

As you enter, money in your pocket, you rattle off as many cakes as you can read, and afford with stolen cash, and then ask for a black coffee.

You pause, and then correct yourself. Cream, two sugars.

You can see it placed next to your head on a bedside table, you can hear a snort of disgust against your neck. You shiver, the sensation of lips on the back of your neck making you scratch at it with sharpened claws.

The blood that catches at the edges, makes your panic rise, but no one is looking at you. Couples too caught up with each other, groups laughing, and people alone working. Linkon, you decide, is an interesting but strange place.

At the compound you are stared at. Watched warily. There is no step you can take where you are not eyed, as though you could begin howling and snarling at a moment. You wonder if they fear you will turn into a wanderer. Will the core in your chest make you as horrifying a beast as the Myst's that EVER manipulate? Augmented protocores giving them powers beyond understanding?

It is an interesting thought. You hope if that happens, someone will silence you quickly. Lest you lose even the semblance of you that you have.

As you find your way to empty chairs, stuffing a macaron into your mouth, hunger tearing at your edges, you feel the aggravation and sensitivity calm somewhat. The itch easing, and the feelings leaving you be.

'Food is important, sweets can fill your heart as well as your stomach.'

The voice isn't familiar, it is a whisper on the edges. It does not bite at you though. The edges softened down, no longer sharp and broken. So you stuff more into your mouth, unconcerned with the world around you. Sating the beast that purrs as you feed it sugar.

As you finally stop starving your body, though you still refuse to let it sleep. Perhaps the confectionery will do for now.

With one hand you continue to claim sugary treats, while the other flicks through information Leon had sent you.

Zayne Li, cardiologist. Highly respected, has rejected offers of work over sixteen times.

You can't imagine why he'd suddenly decide to take up EVER's offer, if he has steadfastly rejected every time they had tried. Perhaps they finally had enough money for him. Money, equipment, a curiosity. It was always something that summoned the science types into EVER's hands.

They never fought or rejected for long. Denied enough opportunities, they would come running. Desperate.

Ice EVOL, uncontrolled, appears to create backlash when used.

Ice shards, tearing through skin, ripping into flesh, and rattling air from the chest. You choke on a sip of your drink, spitting the coffee on the table as you rub at your forehead. You can feel the cold on the tips of your fingers, and you aren't sure why.

It is not one of the EVOLs that was fed to you.

Just more static, things that don't belong to you, that won't stop haunting your vision. The lack of sleep has to be the reason.

Still, to have an EVOL you cannot control… That hurts you when you do. You think of the ones that aren't yours, that have been devoured by your resonance, and you rub at the space over your chest.

The core in your chest will eat anything it can grasp.

The file gives you his main location, Akso Hospital. Kidnapping a doctor from a hospital, would likely result in more mess than you want to deal with. You'll just have to follow him to somewhere else when he leaves.

Surely he has a home.

Why it's not in the file is a question you will have to ask Leon later. You'd expect them to give you more than minimal lines.

It is not as though you will fail… failing means tests. You think of isolation rooms. Of fighting people haunted, with protocore syndrome. That shatter when you fight back. You think of the agony in your limbs when they poke and prod.

You think of shocks, and scalpels. You think of what EVER means when they make you their tool. When you are their test subject.

You think of how, even if you run, they will always be able to find you.

You think of how pointless it is to fight back, when they break you down.

You think of their buildings in Linkon, office workers who mill about with their symbols on their chest.

You think of the news reports you hear, with their technology selling to everyone you pass.

It is an encompassing web, and you are barely a fly.

EVER have reminded you, that being a tool is better than breaking.

You're unsure if that's true, but you know that death never seems to save you. You have plunged your beloved dagger into your chest, trying to cleave the core out, but woken up on a table. Unsuccessful, reminded of your place.

You are hazy, if someone stops you, if you're always being watched that they can grasp you before. You wake up though, staring around you, and it continues. You continue. Dagger in hand, EVER's mark on your collar, and given orders.

It is as you lean back, finished with your bounty, sipping the last of your coffee, that the door swings open.

"I don't think now is the time to eat sweets."

"And I know you're not feeling great, when you can say that doc."

Static.

Like in that broken down apartment building. Staring at a man who looks like a ghost to you. Slowing your dagger long enough to look.

Crackling along the edges, filtering through your vision. Overlaying so many images against the other. It is noise and it is broken images.

It is a force of a wall you cannot break through.

You look, as two men enter. Tired, drawn eyes. One you know by the file in your hand.

The other, you know by the signs and posters.

Zayne Li and Rafayel Qí.

It is an easy thing to sit and watch as the one rubs at his eyes, and the other nudges him, hand easing strain from back.

They do not know you. No matter if they pick out the symbol on your collar, there are countless EVER employees, and your face is only known to the ones you're ordered to kill.

And now capture.

Still, your eyes want to move away. Looking at them hurts. The static is loud, and the feelings are back. An uncomfortable ripping at the fabric of what's inside you.

So you stand to leave, hoping you can pull away and come back another day. It is no use tracking a man when he has company, for all you know the artist is a bodyguard in his spare time.

Complications are not worth testing with.

It is the movement of your chair, and the way you stand, grasping at your chair to push it back in, that draws their gaze to you. It sends a chill down your spine, as they look.

As forest green eyes and burning pink and blue stare at you. Wavering.

You are hit with the static, louder now, pushing down on your head, trying to drown you. You want to cover your ears, but you can't. You can't stand out. You can't be odd. Not out here. Not more than you already are.

No one has looked, or cared. So you put one foot in front of the other, and it shatters the silence.

"Cutie?"

"Darling?"

It tears at the fabric, and it rips at the gauze. The open wound in your chest. You feel the ice though skin, the water in lungs. There is a sensation of falling, and an aching where you land.

They approach, and you wave off. Claw in the ground trying to right yourself, pull yourself together. Remember what you're supposed to do. Get out, leave. It doesn't matter if they remember your face… It won't matter when you knock out the doctor and take him back.

Even if the artist remembers you, EVER can cover it up.

They've never failed to do so before.

You just have to get out. To find your feet.

Why is there so much static?

Someone kneels by you, and a cold hand touches the claw digging into the ground. It cuts through the carapace, rips at the seams. You pull away, and it gives you enough shock to cut through, to give you a door. You back up, and shake your head, "I'm fine, sorry."

You don't look at teary eyes, or stop long enough to be grasped at, you don't want to know why they looked at you, or saw something.

You don't want the static.

You just have to get back, and do your job… Then shake out the voices who call out names that settle softer than Unicorn.