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Another cycle. Another failure.
This one went better than others, Elster had finally figured out the start of my undoing. My own spear going through my skull. How poetic, how crafty, something I should've expected from my Elster. My Magpie.
Though in the end, it made no difference. One wrong step, one brief miscalculation, and my spear hit dead on, shattering the Polyethylene Shell of her leg, spraying oxidant everywhere, sending her flying across the floor, and slamming into the wall. For any mere Replika, this would have been the end of it. A fatal injury for one to just give up and give into. But she was no mere Replika, not anymore.
Elster quickly recovered from the blow and (as expected) reached for her revolver, but it didn't matter. Before it was even up to her torso, two more spears were already bearing down into her, each digging into one arm and pinning her to the ground. She still struggled, tried to reach out, try anything, but it was all in vain. They were too deep, too embedded, too sturdy. So at last, she gave in and resigned herself.
What a strange sight, to see my devout magpie finally succumb and cease her struggle. (I ignored the unbidden thought of her corpse aboard the Penrose.)
And now here we are, her cold icy gaze staring me down, as I float just a few feet away in front of her. The sight of my beloved and beloathed, her shattered leg leaking, her arms pinned to the ground, her face cold and fierce, all smeared in oxidant. A myriad of thoughts flashed in my mind, though in the chaos, a few stuck about her looks and what I had done. (It was awful, it was beautiful, it was deserved.)
In the dripping silence, I hear a thought.
“What’s she waiting for?”
At this intrusion, my stupor is finally broken, because what am waiting for? I should be destroying her, tearing her apart, displaying her gore across the floor. She deserves it, I deserve it, we deserve it. We abandoned our promise, we failed Ariane. So why can’t I finish this!
Against my wishes, my body gently lowers itself to its knees. (Some old buried protocol burbles to the surface, a FKLR unit should never kneel.) As if protocol means anything anymore. As I move closer to Elster, I sense her confusion only growing. It builds to the point that her gaze of rage and determination has morphed into one of complete confusion. (It reminds me of memories of a different time, of showing her my contraband, of asking her to drop the honorific, and of teaching her how to dance.)
I bat the memories away and focus on the present again. I’m practically on top of her by this point, looking down upon her broken form. Her eyes meet mine, those deep wonderful icy blues, contrasting with red oxidant oozing from her scalp. Her expression twists from one of confusion to something…unreadable. In its place my Bioresonance again reaches out to her, picking up feelings of fury, loathing, and… lust?
My mind finally becomes cognizant of my body again. The way my heart quickens, my breath hitches, and the heat in my shell. (So this is what lust feels like). I’ve felt this before, but only through the fog of Ariane’s memories. Having it flood through me, in this shell, this body; was exciting, intoxicating, unbearable, as if I was set ablaze with nothing to put it out. I feel myself starting to salivate as a thought reaches from the deep recesses of my mind. (One of the decorum, of how unbecoming this all is for a FLKR unit.) I push it back down.
An eternity later my hand moves by itself, working on an instinct from another lifetime. I gently push my beloved magpie to the wall, an order she follows without hesitation. My hand pauses at the sudden noise from my Elster, a wretched choked gasp. One torn from her throat as the golden spears are dragged through more of her cracked wings. Presented with this tableau, I am suddenly struck by two competing thoughts.
One borne out of love and care forged in the passage of a ship across the stars. Where I want nothing more than to rip the spears out of her, hold her close, and whisper sweet nothings to her. To love her, to repair her, to give everything she was denied in her life as a Replika.
It clashes with the thought borne out of hatred, anger, and desperation. Where she sees herself in my visage, the failure and desperation to keep Ariane alive. A promise broken and forgotten. It makes me want to rip her to shreds, destroy her, and leave nothing that remains. Show her she failed, show she needs to be punished, to remind us where we failed the only one worth anything.
Ultimately, neither truly wins out in the end. She’s already far too damaged for anything to save her faltering life. And no matter how loud the thoughts of violence are, I don’t have the hunger to enact them anymore. It would be a waste to ruin the moment.
After much coaxing and teeth clenching, Elster’s back reaches the wall, giving her some way to relax without trying to hold herself up. By this point, the spears have left large holes in her arms as they carved a crevice down to the bone. The oxidant pulsing from her pooling around my knees. I don’t mind, especially if it means I can be this close to her.
Now that she’s comfortable, my mind refocuses on the lust that’s seeping back into my mind. Replikas were never designed for sex. No matter how hard Ariane tried, she could never please Elster the same way she felt. Replikas have no need for erogenous zones.
(A faint memory of reading through contraband resurfaces. One of hushed whispers, adolescent exploration, and early romance. Long nights spent scouring the shelves behind the Itou’s store room, looking through any material that the Blockwart deemed too unsanitary. Eyes eventually landing on a book delving in the nature of kink, and the many ways it’s expressed. Including the intertwined feelings of pain and pleasure.)
Leaving the melancholic memory, I scan over Elster’s body, my eyes seeking every cut, scrape, and injury. Eventually landing on a puncture in her left hip. A wound caused by my spear landing true and piercing right through the Polyethylene Shell, leaving a jagged hole of wires, bone, and oxidant.
My hand inches closer to the wound, watching as the muscles twitch and flex in time with Elster’s breath. The oxidant pumping out of it, adding to the ocean of blood around us. My gaze flicks up to Elster, I need no permission for what I’m about to do, a commander has complete control over her troops after all, but an alien part of me still needs to check. For her. Elster meets my eyes. She stares at me with an unreadable expression, with the only hint of any thought in her focus.
A beat, and she slowly nods. Hesitation thick in the motion. (It’s not like she gets anything out of saying no.)
With Elster’s confirmation, I finally lay my hand on her, gently tracing along the ragged entry of the wound. Feeling her muscles tense up, her jaw clench, and another thought across my Bioresonance.
“Tease.”
I stop dancing around what I’ve been hungering for and begin my advance. Plunging my fingers into the wound, and hooking them around the jagged bone. Her entire body flexes in response, each muscle pulling against itself, like a spring being wound. She hisses out the beginning of an expletive through grinding teeth. I know it was only an expletive, nothing more than a residual habit of her gestalt donor… but the way it sounds so much like my own name. The way it was said with pain and pleasure. It drives me into a frenzy. It makes me feel complete.
My internal heat sensors alert, all my vents jetting at once. Doing something, anything, to cool down this fire in me. However, nothing in the world could quell this heat now.
I bring up my other hand to my magpie’s cheek, cupping it so much more gently than these hands were ever built for. Sliding my thumb across it, I feel every scar, scrape, and nick across the cooling faint Replika in front of me. All the while, she further twitches and squirms as my fingers delve deeper, twining with loose wires and caressing shattered sensors.
The heat takes over, my body bringing my face right where it’s needed. Next to hers. Elster pries her mind from the pain and pleasure emanating through her body, and looks me in the eyes once more. Thinking of what to do with me so close. I faintly hear the scrape of bone on metal in something of a purposeful action, only for it to be cut short by the reminder of the spears keeping her pinned. The pain sends another jolt through her body, her face grimacing at the feeling. The sight of this display finally breaks my resolve. My face smashes against hers, my lips pressing into her own as I devour her.
I’m met with the taste of her lips, it’s mainly the taste of the oxidant she’s been coughing up. But beneath that, there’s something more. Something my mind can’t properly put a name to, even with two other minds inhabiting this body and memories of every previous taste of her. Whatever it is, I would drink it for the rest of this unit’s expected lifetime.
The feeling of her lips on mine, an experience I only knew in my dreams, causes my system to once again cool itself. Vents filling the room with steam. But neither of us care. I have what I want… but yet still I hunger.
With each kiss, each nip on the lip, each pathetic painful mewl I hear. My insatiable hunger grows ever more. It grows to the point this small intrusion isn’t enough, my tongue on hers isn’t enough, I need to feel her pulsing in my hands. After an eon, I tear my lips away from hers. Lines of oxidant and saliva connect our mouths, straining, as if they are the ones telling me to not pull away.
I pull my fingers from Elster’s wound, utterly soaked in oxidant, drawing out a pained whine from her, one of the most adorably pathetic sounds I’ve ever heard. Then, in a motion from her memories, I bring my fingers to my lips and get a taste. In truth, it’s only oxidant, the same stuff found in every other Replika ever made. But it’s hers, and for that it’s ambrosia, fit for a goddess.
I briefly think of sucking off the rest of the oxidant myself, but the residual feeling of that memory, combined with the almost desperate look my poor magpie is giving me, is enough to make me choose another option. I remove my fingers from my lips, and bring them to my darling Elster. Against the protests of her body, she just barely inches herself forward, and with a surprising swift movement, clamps her mouth around them. It’s an odd feeling, having your fingers cleaned, but one I cherish.
However, the much more pertinent feeling to me is the sight below. The once focused and ferocious Magpie, all set and ready to strike me down, now reduced to a pinned desperate pathetic mess, sucking my oxidant coated fingers with renewed vigor. It sets the fire inside ablaze ever higher. Though I know it won’t last forever. (She’ll be getting along here soon)
I remove my fingers from her mouth, a whine brought about from their absence. I then put my hand to the edge of her blue and white armor plating. Stopping myself, I look to her for affirmation, despite already knowing the answer. She nods, a lot slower this time, her fate catching up to her.
I quickly move my hand across the seam of the armor, and slide along it. Each finger pressing down on the hatch points, a faint whistle of air coming out of each seal. Upon the final seal, the entire chestplate peels off her and hits the ground with a metallic clunk. With it, steam wafts out from her, taking my breath away.
Instead of the usual red chestplate that’s been seared into my memory, I’m met with the shattered visage of her broken titanium ribcage and bioengineered organs. The most noteworthy being the heart, thumping away with reckless abandon. (Though it thumps for another, a promise yet fulfilled)
I get to work groping and fondling every internal piece of her. With each stroke and graze, her body lights up with movement, her legs desperately trying to find any leverage to move, her arms uselessly batting against the spears, her mouth letting out more whines and groans than I've ever thought possible from her. The pressure within myself, within her, is rising to the point of climax. Her actions getting more and more frantic as we each try to reach a similar peak. My mind searches itself for something, anything, to finish off this desperate mess of emotions and tension. An agonizing second later, I finally find it, buried within my most violent thoughts. I know I must do it, even if the climax is undeserving of us, I don’t care. She needs this. I need this.
I grasp her heart in my hands. Feeling the force of it thumping against me, it seems to be the most powerful thing in existence. The heart that burns for Ariane. The heart that broke a promise. The heart that must fulfill it. But I can’t allow that, and so I squeeze.
Too many things happen at once. Elster’s face contorts and lets out an agonizing, passionate, deserved cry of pain and pleasure. A unique cry never before leaving my Magpie’s lips. A cry now unique to what I have done. The sound and realization makes my heart soar, finally reaching climax. My body reacts by clenching ever harder on the heart, feeling the very lifeforce of my magpie give one last monumental push. Before withering and falling into decay. With each passing moment, her heart slowly stills, the tension leaving her body, and giving up its fight. At least, in this cycle.
With the energy sapped out of Elster, her body slumps against the wall. And unlike so many deaths before, she’s able to rest her eyes, able to achieve peace after so many violent deaths in this hell. Even if it's only temporary.
I get up, taking her in one last time. Her curves, her wounds, her face. The way it looks so peaceful, it grants me a feeling… one entirely my own. And I realize, my mind is quiet, no loose thoughts of love from Ariane, no self hatred from Elster. Just me. Just Falke.
A thought, one so small, so insignificant, reaches me. Of her feelings toward me, does she… reciprocate? The rational part of my mind shouts at me to ignore it, to not explore the possibility, the pain it would cause. But I can’t help myself. Partially due to some long forgotten propaganda about how unafraid a FLKR is, and partially due to the afterglow of the experience.
My Bioresonance reaches out to Elster, to her corpse, see what those last few thoughts hold. To open Pandora's box, to observe what lies within her feelings, learn if she will dream about me. And after an eternity of searching… it's only Ariane.
Pain lances through my heart and spreads around my body, as if a MNHR has just barreled into me. A torrent of thoughts go through my mind. Crashing against my emotions, leaving me sputtering. Much like when I went beyond the Red Gate, but this time, it’s only my mind.
Of course. Of course! Who else would she dream of! The woman she spent eternity with. The woman who showed she’s a person. The woman who showed her love. The woman she actively seeks. The woman she’s actively trying to save… and I’m the one who's stopping her.
I’m the one who's been keeping them apart. I’m the one who's the obstacle in the way of Elster's promise. I’m the one who's been Ariane’s jailer, keeping her suffering all this time, all while I murder her beloved Magpie. And for WHAT! To satisfy my own deranged hunger? To spend just a little more time with Elster? To keep this hell going, just so I don’t have to let go and go back to being just another FKLR unit!
In my distress, I don’t realize the fluid running down my face and hitting my chestplate isn’t oxidant.
Of course neither Elster nor Ariane would love someone like that. Someone who is the symbol of the Eusan Nation, still bringing them so much pain after everything they’ve been through. Of course they wouldn't love me. Nor would they ever. I don’t deserve that.
But it doesn’t matter. The cycle will begin again, and I’ll go back to being the broken Ariane-Elster-Falke hybrid once more. Furthering the pain and suffering of both of them, forever.
At that, another wave of thoughts overwhelms me, sending my mind into a whirl of chaos. But amidst it, only one thought truly sticks out to me.
Perhaps, this is hell.