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Post by aegis on Jul 1, 2016 7:55:28 GMT
 The helicopter brings him to the closest Spectre base, and even that almost isn't close enough. His right leg is a sodden wreck of blood and ruined muscle and flesh, bits of dark metal breaking through his skin like some twisted forest of shards. There's barely an inch of clean space. His healing factor only keeps him alive enough to feel himself dying.
He blacks out between the helicopter landing and being transported into the base, being strapped to a table beneath bright lights, a circle of horrified faces.
Jesus christ, what the fuck is this, someone says, Get the doctor, fuck, get everyone we have who can deal with this, if we lose him that's 70 years of work down the drain.
He closes his eyes and takes refuge in the black. He bites through his lip until he tastes blood, and then someone is pulling his mouth open, shoving a gag inside.
Someone slides a needle into his arm. He drifts. The sound of carts wheeling back and forth, the bright white heat of the lights, the slow and steady drip of drugs into him, the kind strong enough to even knock him out, and he goes under silently.
Faust
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Post by Faust on Jul 3, 2016 3:22:49 GMT
 the doctor could only do so much; it was going to be a different practice that would be required. it was sometime after the initial arrival that faust received the summons; a knock, a hurried voice, a direction to head towards. it took a moment to surprise her light smile at the prospect of getting to put her knowledge into a practical test of sorts.
it was unfortunate, then, that it was happening to one of her favorite projects. she remembers the original mess of a man they were brought, those many, many years ago. she fondly recalls the way she got to weave bone and sutures and blood and pain into him, the way she got to apply her own theories and excavate out her own work into him. he is filled with her signatures, signed on bone and mind alike. she surely hoped to appear in his nightmares, if he were capable of such a thing.
she enters, the room is a hectic mess of quiet concentration. some of the people she has respect for - medical peers, so to speak - are hard at work, coated already in human sweat and fanatic work, trying to salvage the weapon on the table. faust moves forward, practically gliding, her eyes taking in the damage. the leg could certainly use some work, but the rest of the body seems to be a mangled mess from the stress the damage is causing to his entire system.
seems we have some work to do, she whispers in an old tongue, unspeakable, eldritch. faust gives the head doctor a look, a small, polite smile, as if asking him to move his shopping cart out of her way so she may reach for her produce. the medical staff temporarily backs off from him, and she waves her hands over the near-corpse, wisps of blue at her fingertips. she must ascertain how much flesh is still workable.
he will do just fine, she imagines, if she gets to work now.
closing her eyes, she leans her head back and opens her mouth. her hand pulls forward, then into, then lightly grabs her tongue. there is a sickening squish as she splits it apart, reaching in and pulling out a bloody gem from within as her tongue slowly seals back into one. dripping with blood and saliva, she pulls it out and, with an unexpected swiftness, crams it into the ruined leg, as far as her fingers will allow.
another hand is moving, waving over the part, tugging up streams of blood and seemingly forcing it back into the leg, little by little; not enough to prevent a death, of course, but enough for her to get to work, for her to get a canvas ready. she opens her eyes, finally, at last, to reveal that they are empty sockets, a skull's sight, with only light blue flames that seem too far away to provide any real source of light. she can see it all, though.
with a moment's effort, she rips off her forefinger of her right hand; there is no blood, but instead bone grows up, up, into a scalpel-like protrusion, dripping marrow before she begins to cut into the leg, etch ruins, etch sigils, leaving her own tainted blood within, taking deep breaths as her body begins to take on its own kind of glow; not viewable to any human eye, but should any magical spectre be within range, she would be a night light of activity, of furious magics, of something dark and ugly.
she works like this for hours, for the entirety of the night, alone, with only the senior medical staff within, who keep his vitals steady and the stream of drugs coming. faust is not known for sedating her work. they ensure that he isn't awake to remember the process.
eventually, she finishes for the time being. he is not complete; he is not fully repaired. he is, however, going to live, and faust considers that a victory, a stopping point, as she scrapes parts of flesh and metal back into place with her fingers. she is covered in his blood. it is exhilarating.
aegis
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Post by aegis on Jul 4, 2016 9:16:33 GMT
The years are long gone in which he was human and whole enough to remember them, but Aegis always dreams. He dreams in the ice. He dreams on the missions where he's out long enough to need to sleep, although he is capable of functioning at optimal performance for up to 83 hours without it.
He dreams without understanding. Dreams of gold, untarnished to his eyes by war or hunger, poverty or blood. He dreams of his hundreds of kills, the atrocities he's committed with his bare hands: this child's neck snapped, this one shot, this woman strangled in her bed, this one left to die and rot in the blazing sun, her life and death reduced to nothing more than a political message.
Tonight, he dreams in black and red. Even in his dreams he cannot escape pain. The landscape is painted in stark contrast, and he throws himself against the walls of the cage again and again. There is no mercy here.
On the table, he makes a small noise of discomfort. One of the techs checks his signs on the readout.
"He's coming around," she says, her eyes glued to the screen. It's all she can do to keep her voice from shaking; she can't even pretend like she's capable of looking Faust in the eyes. She'd heard--she'd heard but she'd never imagined anything close to the truth. She's not sure Spectre is worth all this. "Should we let him, or do you need him down still?"
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Post by Faust on Jul 4, 2016 9:33:06 GMT
her voice breaks the art of silence she is weaving, the way she can almost hear the blood bubble up at every loose end, his pained breathing, sounds, gasps, she was creating a hymn of it all and her speaking ruined it. she does not stop.
as she is informed of aegis' status, she moves her two fingers together. she is leaned forward, rebuilding the leg in a meaty, ugly process by grabbing at veins, at nerves, at flesh with her fingers, multiple bone protrusions helping her hook at what shes tugging pulling rebuilding. she feels the matching leave her fingertips, rebuilding it carefully. faust is confident that she is one of the only people to be capable of this; it is not magic alone that allows this. she has dedicated, to memory, every anatomical layout, structure, odd and end. she can rebuild his leg from this mess of organic matter with her two bare hands.
it helps that she is pumping parts of her own putrid blood and body fluid into him via her finger tips, she lightly licks some of the blood from her lips. she cannot remember when that got there. a soft, matronly voice leaves her parted mouth, a german accent - one she has tried to lose, and almost has - still lacing her tone.
"let him awaken. my work is easier when i can gauge whether or not he is in pain." she leans up, pulling her hand up to her face. blood drips down her excuses for hands. "unless one of you would like to offer a leg for this cause. it would make this easier to work with... existing structures."
faust stares down at aegis leg, lightly moaning in amusement. once he awoke, it would begin to become fun.
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Post by aegis on Jul 5, 2016 1:59:08 GMT
The tech nods at the order to let the project come around, and then realizes that might have been taking as assent to volunteering her leg. The blood drains out of her face and she busies herself bending over the body on the table, adjusting the straps that keep him in place in a desperate attempt to avoid looking at Faust.
Aegis comes awake with a jerk, straining against his restraints, eyes wide open and rolling, the whites showing like in a hunted animal. The gag in his mouth keeps him silent as he settles into himself, the tech murmuring orders to him. He lies quietly after a moment, even the involuntary desire to twitch beneath Faust's touch mastered.
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Post by Faust on Jul 8, 2016 7:31:53 GMT
she waits, entirely still, watching aegis come to the waking world. anyone watching her would be aware that she wasn't breathing - at all. she seemed to, at times, involuntarily breath out of old habit and ease for others, but now, watching her project, she was still.
once he seemed up and awake, she paused her work to move up to his upper body, his face. faust puts a bloody hand on his forearm and purses her lips, speaking lightly in german. "<dear, dear. what did you go and do? the toy soldier played too hard, and now i have to put you back together.>" she moves her hand up and with a small blue glow to her fingers, unhooks the gag.
faust pulls it away, leaning close, putting both hands around his head and stopping as her face neared his, whispering a soft open and pressing her mouth to his. once she found purchase, she force a saliva-mixture into his mouth - it tasted rancid, it tasted like ash, and it would have sucked itself into his tongue, his mouth, his throat as it found skin and gum and teeth and flesh.
her own little biological mixture that would give her an insight into his bloodflow, his receptions to pain, at a level that cries could not. she pulled back and gave aegis a singular touch to the cheek before going back down to his leg, fingers digging away at the muscles once more.
aegis |
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Post by aegis on Jul 24, 2016 7:36:38 GMT
He's limp and pliant under her touch, opening his mouth without reservation when she orders him. He tenses only once, as the mixture seeps into his gums and flesh, the taste bitter and unexpected, exploding like fireworks on his tongue; he rarely gets nutrients or medication orally.
Faust is different from the rest of his handlers. He doesn't remember her name, but he remembers that.
"Mission report?" he asks thickly, through the ash and soot in his mouth. The tech stifles a gag behind her hand.
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Post by Faust on Jul 27, 2016 1:40:37 GMT
the blood that slowly spilled from his legs had changed from dark shades of reds and rust to a browner color; whatever she had added to his body had changed something about it, and now she was able to control it with more fluidity, more elegance, and she stitches up the muscles in his leg with the nonchalance of a grandmother with her crochet.
"<irregardless. your perfomance, my child, was all i could ask for. but you got hurt while playing, my dearest, and i am almost done putting you back together so we can play some more.>" thick german, heavy german, and some of that rancid mixture of brown and red slips from her teeth and over her lips. she doesn't bother cleaning it off. she raises her head for a moment - just longer enough to eye one of the doctors - and speaks in her english, "give him the field report. i don't care for it enough to read it to him." as she's staring at the personnel, she tugs free a ligament and then places it in its new home. a spatter of blood along her neck. she'll clean up later.
she finishes the skin, and waves her fingers over, closely, carefully, removing what would become scar tissue, damaged tissue, and it looks new, looks good, looks ready to be destroyed again.
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