CabbageAngel

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

Umbri forced herself still against her aversion to being wrapped in strange tiny hexagons until everything took on a tinge of blue. Aegis squeezed her shoulder, she saw the humanity leech from Jemma's eyes, and despite her stomach dropping she knew this wasn't her stepping off a cliff. She'd already done that yesterday. This was her still falling. The time for regrets was long, long past.

“Administering pain relieving agent now.”

Umbri snapped upright and wiggled as a tentacle slipped under her jacket and up her back. The base of the tentacle pulsed. Something tingling passed through her skin. Nothing followed. She watched her arm be swallowed into the maw, and wished she'd looked away, like she'd have the sense to in any other medical procedure. Medical procedure. It was hard to connect that concept to what was happening to her as the mouth widened and its shadow crested over her head and -

She was inside. Fangs rested against her bobbing throat. It was wet in here, and cold, it shouldn't be so cold in a dog's mouth. It smelled artificially sanitary, and... ancient. Like the waiting room at the dentists. Her breath was loud in this cavern. The tingling resurfaced across her whole body and a cloud fogged up her brain. When instructed to move her leg, she was amazed that she still could.

"Beginning procedure."

Please don't do this to me!

A dull pressure sunk into her neck. Umbri's body jerked. Her crutch fell to the side. The neon veins that had been choking out her body were pumped with ink, throbbing and turning a necrotic black.

It wasn't painful. She felt more pain from the tattoo on her wrist, but she could still feel it. She could hear it. A million worms weaving under her skin. Thick and cold as they released into her, like a vaccine. Her fingers twitched against the cilia in the maw. Struggling between making it end, and reaching for the cure that was just a moment in time away. Stop it stop it stop it stop it I'll die I'll DIE I won't I won't I won't it will kill me stop it stop it the monster will kill me STOP this is how I LIVE.

A rumbling. A voice from outside and within Umbri's pod interrupted her fight.

"Note: Patient and Surgeon will experience temporary nervous system synchronization. Surgeon requires synchronous communication between Ink and Patient Nervous system to coordinate proper antivenin distribution and acclimation."

"What?" Umbri dribbled.

"Patient may speak through Surgeon, Surgeon may speak through patient. Surgeon apologizes. Sincerely unforeseen requirement. [PROMISE] remains unbroken.”

Umbri blinked, dragging herself through the brain fog to make sense of what was happening, and the only thing she could do to protect herself was a fearful, "No-"

And it was quiet.

She was floating in a calm sea. She couldn't even feel the sludge taking over her body, or mind the imposter in her head. She was safe, everything will be fine, she was doing great... Then everything began to rush up. Like water surging up to a fissure. Like static. Like the heartbeat in her ear against a pillow. She felt herself fall at the end of a dream as her mind and Jemma's well and truly clicked.

Umbri woke back up in reality gasping. Only, this wasn't hers.

She didn't know how long she had been here. Yesterday, she was dead in a ditch. Tomorrow she was a kid with dirty hair playing in the gutters. Today it was black, and it was black before and black forever. Nothing else existed beyond it, no time, nothing, this was it, forever. But something touched her, something from beyond the black - something - [RESOLVE-UNCERTAINTY-small-CONCERN]. He had a name and a face, but Umbri couldn't reach for it now, there was a spot he occupied in her memory that was now a glowing mess that leaked everywhere and smelled good.

"What is happening?" She rasped. The sound rumbled all around her, as the creature she was being consumed by parroted her. And other voices - other voices beyond the black. She tried to call out to [Fury]. He burned close and smelled like a thunderstorm. But it was impossible to tell where he was, not while being trapped inside the black and cocooned in maddening [worry-intrigue-focus-purpose-APATHY]. Umbri's eyes rolled back, as she turned them inward.

"It wants to

Eat

But

It [PROMISED]."

They spoke almost in unison, overlapping. Vocal cords tightened and flexed in Jemma's body to find Umbri's voice. In that word, [Promise], in the way it left Umbri's mouth, she knew innately for reasons beyond her that there was power in it. It settled on her tongue like the low thud of a boulder underwater.

A shape pressed on Jemma's skin, coming from the inside, a face.

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

"... buuuut I could just replicate and synthesize an anti-venom!"

"You can?" Umbri blurted. Jemma saw, for a flash, her hope succeed her fear. Her plan had been to present the snake and its new venom sac to the Doctor, but now, her cure was coming at her at a startling rate. This is the right decision, a phrase that repeated in her mind, the strength of it tested against the horrifying process the creature rattled off. Her legs were already numb, and an iceberg sunk in her, a cold sensation starting in her stomach and spreading to her limbs. Those tendrils. Moving through her... meat stuffs. Umbri's face was turning green.

Temujin stared long and hard at the maw that gaped and loomed over Umbri. He expected a barrage of gurgling and slimy noises, but the only sound that came was the trickle of ink, stark and eerie in the quiet of thought. “This is insane…,” Temujin opined, clinging to resistance despite the weariness of his voice. He broke his stare to glance at Umbri. ’The only person she’s yelled at.’ It… brought him some comfort. For reasons he couldn’t fathom.

”...But I’ll trust you,” Temujin resigned aloud. He looked past the maw, scrutinising Jemma herself. ”At least, I’ll trust that staying alive is in your best interest.” He kept the ’aberration’ silent, this time.

Umbri's lips pressed together in a line, holding in the anxiety that was about to manifest in either a scream or pile of vomit. "I don't want..." sputtered out. She swallowed. She badly wanted to not feel everything that was about to happen to her. But numbing muscle relaxant... she was already putting herself in a position so insanely vulnerable. If things went wrong, and she couldn't move? "The numbing venom. I don't want too much. I don't want to be asleep for it, and I want to move," she asserted. A happy medium. ... She might as well have just gone without it. This was going to sting.

"Aegis?" she called for the superhuman in the room with them, but it felt like another futile request. He had restrained her with his powers, but what exactly could those powers do when she was already in the beast's maw, and those inky tendrils were slurping out her fluids and leaving behind an Umbri skin sack? Well, even if it was empty, she was desperate for reassurance. "If things go bad... will you be able to stop her?"

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

Temujin glowered at the monster woman, the expression on his mask directly reflecting his soul. Yet he had lost the argument, and he would hold his tongue. For now.

“Right. I could, technically, become this… thing. But, this isn’t quite enough of a … Let’s call it a biological blueprint, yeah? For me to work off of,” She murmured, trailing off thoughtfully before she continued. “I… do have a way of counteracting that lack of ‘blueprint’. But, uh, it’ll be severely uncomfortable for you, and everyone else in the room. And will probably make ’street-sam’ over there super upset.”

Temujin scoffed. "More than I already am?" He couldn't help himself.

Umbri listened to this ‘Jemma’, the stinger still held out firm even as she wondered on ‘severely uncomfortable’. Whatever primal wince she felt for a ‘severe cause of slight pain’ could not stop her from chasing it. And... ah.

Her name.

It wasn't Doll. Lady. Sugar. Hooker. Sex worker. A certain awkwardness took her at the question. An avert awareness for somebody in the room that had dumped his traumatic cyberninja history on her before ever wanting her name like she was on the clock. She could be a nameless civilian to Aegis. You'd think with him they were a few saved-asses past that.

"I'm Umbri," she said. She'd not once strayed a glance from the shifter's eyes since she'd presented her the stinger. Nothing else seemed so important. They held the key to a future, and to look away would be like taking your eyes off a Grizzly Bear. "It's nice to meet you, Jemma." It felt the most natural for her, between the two names. The stinger faltered down as she shambled her body toward the shifter and whatever she was thinking. "Whatever you need to do, for whatever price it's worth. I'll endure every discomfort." She was bold with memories of who to be brave for. But a smaller Umbri spoke next, "Tell me what happens."

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

(Jemma’s) head whipped back around to glare at Koba and Graham, temporarily ignoring Alex for a second. “Y’don’t leave a fuckin fixin’ MID SURGERY! That’s SO BAD FOR LITERALLY ANYONE!”

Koba and Graham shrunk, the latter scratching his head sheepishly with his toes. For someone so small, Jemma had a voice like thunder.

Temujin watched as Jemma's form roiled and twisted before him. She grew and twisted and shifted from form to form, shape to shape, embodying aspects of a myriad different creatures. It was like a fever dream, or at least, how he understood what fever dreams to be.

"What… what the hell?" Temujin's sensors honed in on her. His eyes saw what they needed. But his ears… they dug deep beneath the surface. And found more than they bargained for. "Oh, FUCK!" A whirlpool, a death-rattling choir, a thousand pages turned and ripped, blended in a ghastly cocktail that overwhelmed his sensors with static.

"Hey- Hey, Sex Worker! GET AWAY FROM THAT THING!" Temujin screamed and flailed his useless stumps, quietly realising that he had never asked for her name. "These readings… I know them." There was a seeth to his voice. He cross-referenced the data with a recent encounter. 90% match. "I fought this aberration outside the Stoneworks. It's dangerous, unstable, and should be contained!" He declared, directing that last part towards Alex.

Umbri breathed heavily as she gazed back into the woman's many eyes. The shift she'd gone through was everything she had felt to expect yet absolutely incomprehensible all at once. She stretched over her. Umbri flicked her eyes to her mouth and the needle-like fangs within it, subconsciously. The feeling of being in the position of prey was inescapable, no matter the woman's assurance that she was not.

Temujin's warning pulled her back. But despite the knowledge that he'd encountered the shifter before, there wasn't anything else Umbri didn't know from just looking at her. Dangerous. Unstable. Should be in containment. The way she was kept by the fire warden? She shook her head in a sudden jerk, banishing Temujin's assertions.

"Temujin, for once, can you not run your mouth?!" She barked at him, not taking her eyes off the predator. The idiot was going to send the shifter spiraling if he kept rambling. She sucked in a thin breath, not completely believing the words she muttered out, "You heard her. She doesn't want to eat people anymore."

"I don't trust it! The risk is too great. What's not to say it will change its mind and-"

"TEM!"

She exploded. She glared over her shoulder, her eyes wide and showing their whites, their desperate and furious message unmistakable - Do. Not. FUCK. This. For. Me.

Temujin hung his head, his mask glowering with quiet, yet begrudging submission. Umbri composed herself as she turned back. Her fingers wrapped around the integral piece to her plan. It was a long shot. About a thirty-feet longer... shot. One that she didn't even know if the shifter had the capabilities for. She tried not to place too much hope in it, but it was hard not to, when the plan involved approaching a giant, inky cannibal.

Some things just had to be worth it, or you'd lose your mind. Things like everything she had gone through to be here, putting her hope in the aberration.

Umbri took out the stinger and held it towards the shifter's face, taking care to turn the sharp point towards herself, like an offering, not a threat. The Thresher hissed in her ear, creeping closer and flicking out its tongue to taste her in the air, shivering and wet and huddled with the cyberninja in a puddle. Her will hardened.

"Can you turn into what this was?"

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

Umbri held a vial up to the light. A jiggle, and the pearlescent fluid swirled, the shadow of a pill bobbing just under the surface. She had no idea what she was thinking when she stole it. "It'll stay with you forever. Most drugs only make you feel powerful. This one shows you what it's like to be a God." "GIFT is a blight on the streets! We need to destroy it all!" "GIFT being spread around down here feels like the biggest middle finger you could throw at the upper city you hate so much." All these voices shook around in her head like the pill in its bottle. She glanced back at the hallucination of Stabby-Rat trapped in the mirror. It panted, whole twisted form shuddering as it looked - through broken red goggles and one non-punctured eyeball - at the drug, daring her.

To do what? Put a drug distributed by the Mother of Monsters in her blood, to save her from the venom that came from one of the very own monsters he mothered? There wasn't any guarantee that the substance would unlock anything in her that would help. It was a roulette. Laser eyes or whatever that blue stuff was that Aegis had would not save her.

The truth was, she didn't steal it in that moment because she thought it was useful. She knew that miniscule chance it had to be useful now was barely worth considering. She was just -

A shriek cut through her transfixed state, coming from outside the workshop, not within it. She blinked. Stabby-Rat no longer shared her mirror, and the vial lost its tempting lustre. Umbri swept up both the vials and stashed them away in a rush.

---

The only thing Umbri had done about her 'naked' feeling was throw her jacket back over her bikini and thong and fix her asymmetric wig back to her scalp, before she walked back into the workshop on crutches. Temujin's corner was cut off from the rest of the workshop by a screen stretched between two poles, giving the armourless torso some semblance of privacy. Whatever a robot would need that for. Especially now, in this... unnervingly dead workshop. Everyone had been banging around in here just moments before, and now they were gathered in a black and orange blob outside.

"Did you offend them?"

"Everyday," Temujin answered without missing a beat. He looked up at Umbri. Her eyes were puffy and damp, with the whites nearly as red as her pupils. "What happened?" He asked, a tinge of emotion bleeding through his voice. He lowered his head, deepening the angle of his glare. "Did Aegis make you cry?"

Umbri's head whipped away from trying to figure out the commotion outside to look at him, baffled that the robot had it in him to be so astute or even care. "What? No," she snapped, then shook her head and glanced away, flinching. "No, I was- I was just working."

"What?!" He yelped. "There? In your current condition?" He did a double take down the corridor she came from.

"Holographic, remember? All of this made me miss a date so I had to tell my client not to kill himself."

Temujin stared. And stared. "Maybe he should just kill himself."

"Maybe. But I won't get paid for that." Her nonchalant air darkened with a sigh. "And he never will anyway. He gets off on it. Pretty woman sobbing on her knees for him."

"Huh," The ninja grunted. "That feels…" He sought the right word for a moment. "...Degrading." Temujin shook his head, wishing he had hands to wash the thoughts off him. He glanced up at her, his curiosity peeking over his disgust. "How do you deal with that?"

She shrugged. "It just piles on." Her crutches groaned as they carried her over to his table and she sat on the end of it. "In the meantime I put on a different wig and think of who I do it for." She caught her distorted reflection on the bench, the neon green invading her face. "I could die soon. Can we not talk about work?"

"Sure," he replied. Shit. His mind raced to search for topics, scrolling through the dialogue they had. Small talk was not his forte, unless it involved poetic justice and the flaying of one's enemies. "So Aegis didn't make you cry. But he didn't make you feel any better, either."

Umbri bobbed her head, musing, "Well I am dying. That's a hard ask for anybody."

He shrugged. "I do expect too much from paragons. They're supposed to turn water into booze and piss all-curing rainbows." Umbri responded with a half-hearted laugh. "But seriously. What do you think of Shieldtown's premiere superhero?"

She was quiet for a bit as she mulled it over. "For a settlement's 'Alpha Rogue'… he's a bit insecure, isn't he?"

Temujin tilted his head. "Is he? I hadn't noticed," he said, with a tone that beckoned elaboration.

"It's a woman thing, I suppose." Umbri squinted. "... You don't like him."

"What?!" Temujin shrieked. "That's… that's not true! Aegis has saved me plenty of times. Plenty!"

Her eyes crinkled with suspicion as her lips turned up. “So you do? I didn’t think you had it in you. But you still thought he made me cry, and tried to pry gossip from me, so…” She cocked her head. “Hm. You’re jealous.”

Temujin scoffed. The spirit hushed from his voice. "That's ridiculous, why would I be jealous of him?"

“I haven’t figured that part out yet,” she replied. “You’re both defenders of settlements. The Hero of Shieldtown, the Red Oni of Northbridge… just…” She thought of the chatter she overheard while first entering the workshop. The fangirlish way civilians gossiped about their great protector. “Does it bother you to be so feared in Northbridge, your vigilantism looked on like a bloody stain on our settlement, while Aegis is so loved and celebrated here?”

Temujin considered her words. Does it bother him? He was ready to shout his denials in an instant. "Fear is sharper than any blade. Fear keeps evil in its cage. Fear…" He stared straight into her with those pitch black eyes. "Fear… saves lives." Temujin glanced out the roller door, towards the town that prospered beneath its shining sun lamp. "Even here, the hope that binds the people only came forth out of fear for the monsters that plague its walls. Aegis inspires hope… but it is fear that keeps the peace."

Umbri shook her head at the end of his spiel. She’d been leaning back as she listened, and looked on him now with sympathy. “No. It just keeps people afraid.”

Something burst from a door in the workshop and crossed the floor to the entrance before they could continue their debate on philosophy. Umbri caught a flash of orange and brown. “...Can I ask for some privacy with them? I promise I’ll probably explain my shit later! To everyone, maybe. Just, not right now! Thanks!”

Three sets of heavy footfalls joined the scampering. Umbri froze up behind the screen. She looked at Temujin with urging eyes and lips that mouthed 'What's happening?' He looked back at her with a permanent scowl that could mouth no answers back. Conversation started. Conversation she had the prickling feeling that she shouldn't be privy to. But her mobility was hindered, and her crutches too loud, so she stayed planted. Rooted in place for the wildest conversation she'd ever eavesdropped.

A kidnapping. A murder. A ritual. (A giant fish tank? Unimportant.) A resurrection. A warden who controlled flames. Ink boiling under skin, cannibalism, Templars, Rats, holy shit, cannibalism. SOMEBODY BEHIND THE SCREEN HAD EATEN PEOPLE. She shared (or at least assumed to share) a bewildered look with Temujin all the while, until it became too much, and she had to peek around the screen at the owner of a mouth that had chewed human flesh.

A little woman, with a soft face and warm skin and thick coils of hair. Nothing like the monstrous figure she'd envisioned - what the fuck. A substance like black tar bubbled up on the woman's face, shifting her features around. From those black pools sprouted eyeballs, like meat floating to the top of a stew. Temujin could not see it. But the expression on Umbri's face demonstrated the horror quite sufficiently. She pulled away from her crack between the screen and the wall with a hand over her mouth.

“What? What is it?” Temujin asked her, fidgeting in his stand.

Thud. Thud. Thud. Anxiety rose up in her. Aegis seemed accepting of this creature with open arms and familiarity. Umbri had seen mutants in Northbridge - people who had been altered on a biological level as opposed to Chroming up - albeit less shifty than this one. Maybe she'd be more receptive to whatever the hell was going on if she hadn't just heard about all the people she'd eaten, and which ones tasted best. She shut her eyes and willed her heart down.

Thud... thud... thud.

An idea, hatching in the back of her mind and more hopeful than solid, was made clearer as she calmed down. Her hand slipped into her jacket pocket and brushed the tip of the stinger. She looked to Temujin and gestured her head past the screen. 'I'm going.'

“Hey!” Temujin hissed, containing his shouts in whispers. “HEY! Don’t you leave me too!”

Umbri raised a brow at the serial-killing Rogue's abandonment issues. 'Ok, ok!' She placated him and looked back at the screen. She wanted to go, she didn't want to leave him behind. With a thrust of her hand, she pushed it over.

Thud.

The barrier between her, Temujin, and the secret meeting flopped down. She swallowed and tried not to look guilty. She knew her condition was visually one hell of a lot worse. Leaving her room might not have been appreciated, let alone eavesdropping. She lifted her hands from the grips of her crutches in a show of submission, following her first instinct to quell the erratic cannibal. She nodded towards their three companions. "It's ok. They know me. And I'm in no..." she huffed and strained herself as she hobbled over the screen. Cold sweat dribbled off her chin. "Mmgh, position to do you harm. Nobody's..." a wince, "Going to eat anybody."

Hot pink bangs framed a tired glare. "You're a shapeshifter," she stated. Not a question. She'd understood that much from her story. The only question that mattered to her was how far the woman's abilities went.

"Can you show me?"

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

Umbri splashed her face, wiping off the cold sweats and an odd feeling. Being alone for the first time since... it must have been since she was last at her apartment, making the decision to run back towards the monster - it was sobering. She shook a tube of eyeliner and leaned in to apply it, striking a thick black line out to her temple. As she dotted highlighter on her nose and outlined her lips, she would pause occasionally, to make a face. She coloured her lips in glossy blue. She checked how she looked when crying.

She didn't find any kind of satisfaction with herself before she forced her focus on the stinger. She ran it under water, deshelling it from the crust of gore on its point. She sniffed. The water sprayed violently on the edge of the sink. As she pulled her hand back from under the stream, it was trembling just as fiercely.

She shuddered and leaned back, propping her elbows on the sink's rim as she lengthened her back out. She didn't want to, but she thought of the snake. The sound of its roar right next to her ear. The resistance that shot up her arms as her axe bit into its tail. But mostly the terror. The feeling of being hunted still gripped her body, terrorized by both monster and machine. It wasn't going to pass anytime soon. Not unlike the sudden burn in her throat -

"Bleughhh! Huhk...! Ough.. bleh... pah... ah... ah..." A completely undignified string of splutters and groans accompanied the splashing in the sink. She came out the other end shaking and whimpering. A puddle of glowing sick confronted her at the bottom of the basin. She looked up. Strands of it hung from her lips, and lightning bolts of the radioactive sludge throbbed underneath her skin, creeping in around her temples and cheeks. Her vision blurred, tinged with the same green.

The light overhead flickered for a second. When it came back, a visitor joined her reflection. Stabby the Zombie Rat, standing right behind her. She didn't flinch. She hunched over the sink and stared. Goo dripped from their snout not dissimilar to her own.

This was it. This would kill her, or she would mutate.

Both were bad. Maybe neither had to be. Maybe this Freya would get here in time. Maybe she'd poke her a bit then call another friend. Or maybe...

Her eyes slid to a pair of identical vials she'd set on the other side of the sink.

---

She didn’t have the time to process what she saw before Shanks jumped. The moment his feet left the carriage, everything flipped. Umbri’s sense of gravity lifted and took her stomach on a ride. They were drawn down, headfirst. Then they passed into the other carriage. Down was up again. His boots slammed down on the floor and Umbri was thrown down with the safe. It toppled, bursting open, and Umbri’s double vision settled onto two shimmering vials that rolled free within arm's reach.

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

There was probably a moment where Alex became a deer-in-headlights before shaking his head and giving a shrug. “Too late now. Besides, you needed a friendly face more than staring at a helmet.” He gave her a smile before turning to the doctor. Both shared a look after hearing the confirmation of this potentially being Apex venom. “If that’s everything you can do I need you to listen carefully. I need you to go into the other room and ask Miss Ako and the full-borg to get in contact with Freya if they can. Explain the situation. I’ll yell if anything changes.”

There was a pensive look from the doctor before giving a curt nod. Rummaging through his bag, the man pulled out a much more sophisticated medical “gun” and set aside a few pills.

He held up the gun for Umbri to see first. “This is to help slow down the venom.” He then pressed it to one of her arms. Micro needles were supposed to be less invasive and painless, but that didn’t stop it from hurting regardless. The pills were then handed to Alex. “Make sure she takes those with water after she eats.” He then hurried out the room.

Alex looked back to Umbri after watching the doctor go, less worried now. “Ok! Good news, we should be able to fix all of this. Bad news is we’re going to be having to call in one of my friends and which means more waiting. Worst comes to worst, I’ll carry you to meet her.” He rummaged in his bags with his one free hand and pulled out a canteen. Keeping the one with the pills open and towards Umbri. “In the meantime, I play nurse. Which means you will unfortunately have to continue to deal with my terrible bedside manner.” That smile might have been a bit dopey, but it was genuine.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Umbri blurted, just recovering from an almost-panic attack to scramble after all the hustle and bustle that suddenly erupted around her. She was also just now registering that something had stabbed her in the arm. Her blood sample had stopped whizzing and was just left behind in the machine and they were calling somebody else? She put the sandwich down and lunged up, using Alex to get her there. “You’re not carrying me anywhere,” she asserted before calling after the doctor, “I have something!”

She grabbed it as she hopped her way outside to the doctor who’d stopped in the hall. “What’s happened? Why can’t you do anything?”

The doctor sighed and rubbed his cracked glasses on his shirt. “It’s Apex venom that’s in you, dear, I have nothing for that. And I can’t take more blood from you, not in your condition.”

Umbri nodded and thrust her hand out. “You won’t have to.” She forced something large, sharp and rough into his hands. The stinger. “That’s it. That’s the thing that stung me,” she rushed out and stepped back, looking at it like it would just… magically… do something. “Will that do it?”

“Uh… hm,” he turned it over, fixing his spectacles back on his nose. Umbri stared intensely. “Mmm. Yes. You didn’t happen to harvest its venom sac too, did you?”

“What are you talking about.”

“...Ok. Two things. Without the sac, there isn’t… that much of a sample here, and beside that, the sample… is this the Apex’s blood?” He pointed to the gunk smearing the tip of the stinger.

“No, uh, that would be from the, (cough), zombie?” Umbri’s voice became smaller and smaller with every word of that unbelievable sentence. The sound of red goggles shattering rang in her ear. The doctor handed the stinger back to her.

“It’s contaminated.”

Umbri didn’t really hear anything as the doctor gave her his sympathies, beyond something about painkillers, and the end there “-and call Freya.”

She almost burst a vein. “Who the HELL IS FREYA?!” She shouted after him, frustrated at no concrete path to survival, that her life was in the hands of calling yet another someone, and the doctor didn’t fucking reply to her and she was wobbling her way back to the room. Inside, she glanced at Aegis, her confusion and mixed emotions over the useless stinger almost making her blind to his presence for a second.

“I feel naked,” she murmured, “Can you wait outside?”

Alex looked like he wanted to say something. And maybe he should. “Yeah, ok.” He looked a little deflated at how things were going as he grabbed his helmet and bento. Leaving the water and pills. “Just . . . Sorry if this is becoming more confusing and complicated to you. I- Nevermind. I’ll give you your space.”

He turned on his heel and went for the door. “For the record, Freya is a super healer Rogue that just lives a little bit away. Figured it would be better than you having to deal with any more needles.” He spoke over his shoulder as he passed the threshold. Despite everything there were still attempts to try and keep her comfortable. Though maybe part of that was him having a fear of needles. . . Despite having Kevlar skin.

Umbri nodded with an attempted smile to comfort him back, then pressed the button to let the door slide closed. She stayed at the door, looking at the same place Aegis must have been behind the screen.

Not feeling. Just standing.

The quiet crept in.



A c-shaped clip kept Temujin in place atop one of the workbenches. His armour plating had been stripped and put aside, exposing the human-like musculature beneath them, canvassed by seams and marred with damp, gaping tears. Ako sat in front of him, one hand scratching behind her head as her brows furrowed with a single thought. “Where in Boswell’s Blue Moon do I even start?”

The Doctor’s hunched shape emerged into the workshop’s main area. Temujin’s head turned towards him in an instant. “How is she?” Ako followed suit. The Doctor shook his head.

“I did all I could, and that isn’t much. We’re going to call in for that alternative medicine.” He was obviously displeased by the prospect. “I was told you would have the contact for Fre…”

The question drifted off, as several people dropped their instruments at once. Shouting once muffled by the clamour of the workshop became clear, accompanied by the retching of something… not natural. The chaos caught. Murmurs erupted. Bodies were nudged and equipment abandoned as the shop started to clear out, everyone rushing outside.

Temujin whipped his head towards the sound. “What? What is it now?” He wiggled and darted his gaze everywhere. “Where is everyone going- Ako! AKO!! Don’t just leave me-!” Ako turned towards him, amidst the sea of orange and black, and shrugged. Then followed her curiosity.

Exclamations of horror morphed into joy, until the shouts reached deep into the workshop, all the way to Alex outside of Umbri’s room -

“Dove’s home!”

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

They were greeted inside the room by neither sound nor movement. A body was stretched on its back over thin, fold-out bedding, still dewy from a recent shower. A wet pink jacket and wig dripped dry by a heater. Sports tape unravelled from a swollen ankle, angry and black as a storm cloud.

Wires were tangled up in Umbri’s short black hair. Her chest rose and fell with irregular breaths and a crease formed in her brow. Something glistened down her cheek. In her sleep she was crying.

Ako's expression softened into a frown. "Poor girl… that shower musta' been a long time coming."

Alex took in the sight before him. It wasn’t hard to grasp the amount of hell the woman had to have gone through to get like that. “Here’s hoping we can get her fixed up. How the hell did she even get this thrashed? Couldn’t have been just the Thresher.” He almost reached up to pull his helmet off. Almost.

He turned to Ako. “I can’t say I recognize her. Any clue where she came from?”

Ako did a double take. “You’ve been invincible for half your life, you musta forgotten how it felt to be like us little guys.” She leaned forward to take a closer look at Umbri. “Threshers haven’t been in Northbridge in forever. She survived that, then came through the train at Theta Station. Y’know, the one sprayed from wall to ceiling in Rat guts? You heard about that yet?” Ako huffed. “Cargo’s stolen, people are dead, and Temujin ain’t tellin’ me nothin’.” She threw her hands up and backed away.

“I would correct that I’m not actually invincible, but that’s not really important right now.” Alex looked down at Umbri. Thoughts he had really been trying to keep out of his head starting to crawl back out. “Why is it always fucking Northbridge. Either no rogue wants to bother, they have obligations already, or they just get killed.” He shook his head. Trying not to feel like he could be the next one to try.

Wait a second. “Rat guts, What the hell? Was some asshole offing them again?” The cargo being stolen was a given honestly. It was just looking like that week. “Next thing you're going to tell me there’s been a Ki- uh Lab Rat spotting.” Saying the Mother of Monster’s name wasn’t exactly bad luck. But most people weren't stupid enough to tempt fate when it came to that particular psycho.

Ako let out a full-body cringe. “I’d rather not think about that. The rumours are scary enough.” She turned around and walked away. “Anywho, I better get back to the shop. Gotta do the diagnostics on Temujin, give him a quote on his bills.” She sighed. “He hasn’t paid for the last one, either. I swear, at this point Riko’s gonna cut her losses and dismantle him…” The door opened and shut behind her, leaving Alex and the Doctor inside.

Letting her go with the last word, Alex stuck around but opted to give the doctor space. Pretty sure nobody wanted to have a glowing armoured giant looming over them, regardless if they were conscious or not. Though he had already been queuing up his “last resort” in his contacts if things took a turn for the worst. Despite himself, Alex glanced back at Umbri. “You look how I feel. I just have the luxury of not having anyone able to see it.” He muttered mostly to himself. The Doctor either wasn’t paying attention or didn’t care as they worked.

Umbri’s nose twitched as the Doctor came into contact with her arm. He laid his equipment out beside her on the bed, a thermometer, blood pressure monitor, needle… A mirage flickered over Umbri, opaque and flickering, of a different self. One with long, bubblegum pink hair, black knee stockings and mascara flooding down her cheeks. The doctor reached for her arm again. The mirage gasped. Underneath its shimmer, a red eye snapped open.

In a blink the doctor’s coat was yanked forward and Umbri’s fist was launched across his jaw with enough force to send him over, if she let him. Instead he was thrown to the ground with her whole weight behind it, launching herself off the bed with him. Alex saw the metal spine embedded in her flesh and veins of neon green rippling across the muscles of her back. She jerked her head up from the little balding doctor to the closed door. She was going to punch him again.

“Oh we are NOT doing this right now.” Alex clapped his hands together quickly, and there was a flash of blue that encased everything in the room but Alex and the doctor in hardlight. Umbri screamed. Ok, bit overkill. He wasn’t used to this kind of energy level. Still, Umbri was restrained and unable to thrash about. Doc didn’t seem that worried. Whether that was due to Alex’s presence or that he was used to violently startled patients was anyone’s guess. Alex didn’t really see any doctors that often.

“Lady, you’ve been through hell and back in what sounds like less than twenty four hours. You're safe here. But I’d advise not hitting the doctor trying to help save your life.” Despite the edge of frustration, Alex spoke softly. The excess light around the room faded out leaving Umbri still loosely restrained by telekinetic force. “Now, I’ll let you go if you're willing to let us help you. You do still have Thresher venom in you and I really don’t want to just let you die after all this crap.”

Umbri looked frantically around the room, between the shut door, the bruised doctor and his cracked glasses, towards the sound of that voice she couldn’t turn her head to see the owner of. She was taking it in, she was becoming aware of her situation, and she was still in a closed room with two strangers, one with freaky superpowers, and the other of which had been touching her in her sleep. “Tem?” she tried, “TEM!!!!!”

Beyond the thick stone walls, within the main hall of the workshop, Ako scribbled into a clipboard in front of Temujin. “Okay, so with all the damages to account for, plus the service charge, plus taxes and shipping, everything comes up to…” Ako tapped her pen three times on the board. “900 Clat. On TOP of your 32 000 IOU.”

Temujin’s mask was locked in slack-jawed horror. “MotherFU-”

… No familiar face was coming for her. Umbri shut her eyes and curled in her lips, holding back shaky breaths until they dropped little by little and she could ask the doctor calmly, “What were you doing to me?”

“I was just taking your blood pressure,” the Doctor wheezed his defense, Umbri’s weight still pressing down on the wispy man’s ribcage. Umbri nodded as much as she could, and even though she couldn’t move, her shoulders deflated just enough to notice.

“When you let me go, will you let the door open?”

“Sure, but you might kill yourself if you start freaking out more or running. Still have venom in your blood.” He was getting way too used to dealing with people acting irrationally. With a flick of his wrist, Umbri was lifted off a few feet while Alex got the doctor off the floor. Even without the hard light she was frozen in surprise as she hovered.

When the poor man was brushed off, Alex went and opened the door then looked back over at Umbri. “Call me Aegis. Welcome to my town by the way. Not like I run it though. I just live here.”

He put his hands on his hips. “Now I’m going to let you go, but it’s really easy to grab you again without hurting you so please don’t do anything stupid.”

Umbri tracked Aegis as each heavy metal boot clanked their way around her, her eyes inching wider as she took in just. How. BIG. the Rogue was. An almost seven foot tall and proportionally wide legionnaire with glowing eyes was in the room with her and magically had her bound with his brain. Her heart was hammering to get out of the claustrophobic blue glow and she was ready to agree to almost anything. This was the first time she knew she'd encountered any kind of powers and of course they were being used against her. He could definitely grab me again WITH hurting me too, her nerves warned her. Be careful.

"You have bad bedside manner."

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

Through the roller door and away from the sun-kissed warmth of Shieldtown. The air here was thick with the scent of steel and dust. Fluorescent lights hung over tables strewn about with all sorts of limbs; hands, arms, fingers, an entire leg. Some resembled little more than bones made of metal. Others were more intricate, layered like muscles, and painted to imitate real human skin. A blacksmith hunched over a grindstone a few metres away, with a tattered apron over his bodysuit, his head of unkempt, ginger mane seeming aglow against the sparks. A heavyset woman walked past him, sighing as she wiped the sweat from her brow.

“Ugh. Screw Jean, I’m stuck here covering for his ass whilst the Big Man has his hoedown!” The blacksmith did not divert from his work, his eyes squinting from the sparks. “Why bother? You’ve seen it yourself, Aegis wins every time. Where’s the fun in that?” he mumbled beneath his overgrown mustache.

“Hey. Hey, Graham! Where did you put the remote?” The woman shouted, having bolted over to a nearby, wall-mounted TV. Her voice was positively high with glee. “Didn’t you hear that roar? Oh man, it sounded like Scarhide! We need to put on the livestream!!”

The man's gaze flicked over for a second. “I don’t think there’s one this month. Haven’t you heard 'bout what they found at the station?”

Umbri passed through the lively conversation. To her left were screens that shone with cyan light and looped various texts, spreadsheets, and anatomical charts. And to her right, a series of shelves, displaying all manners of cyberware floating in glass cases, a holograph of a human skull and some text flickering to contextualise their placement and function. Infrared eyes, reinforced eardrums, a replacement frontal lobe… and just over the corner of the shelf, a framed certificate of ethical business and licence, approved by the Texas Medical Board, dated all the way to 2030.

“Here we go,” Ako exhaled as she bent down and helped Umbri to a seat, in front of a table with a flesh-like arm that had been opened up and inlaid with chrome bits. Clicks followed as Ako opened up Umbri's harness, her brows knitting at some straps which had gotten tangled up. "Koba! Come over here and help me out."

A shape sauntered behind the wall, with limbs that reached below his knees. Thick, coarse hair grew around his hands, feet, and an elongated, simian face. He looked between Umbri and Ako, grunted, and lurched over to grab Temujin. The ninja flinched. "Careful, hey! Watch the spleen!"

“I’ll get you some sweet tea, okay?” Ako said to Umbri, wiping the blood and sweat off her brow with a cloth. Koba set Temujin on a table across her, his back propped against the wall. The ape-man rapped his knuckles against the ninja's chestplate, then walked away.

Temujin slowly turned his head towards Umbri. "I can't believe we actually made it here…" He hesitated for a moment, then added, "...Good work. Seriously." Still begrudging. Still sincere. "...And thank you. For not leaving me behind."

Umbri tore her attention away from all of the Chrome surrounding them. To her, it felt like she was stuck in the Chrome equivalent of a meth lab. She pushed it down and gave him a drowsy smile.

“Thank you,” she returned. “You saved my life. It might not be a big deal to you, you’re a Rogue and it’s just the job, but it’s - I would have died. That’s massive. You know, even sharks stay by your side if you free them from a hook.” She shuffled in slight discomfort, chin dipped. “I don’t think I’m done owing you."

Temujin scoffed. She could hear a smile in his voice. "That's generous of you. Most people never give it a second thought." He glanced away, and his voice softened. "And I never expect them to." Temujin stared into the distance, reflecting. A corpse slumped against a dark alley. A field of red and dust beneath a foreign sun. "I did horrible things for Ares. I don't remember them, but I… know I did." He scoffed again, more bitter this time. "I'm not naive. The lives I saved won't make up for those I took, especially…"

Silence. Any further thoughts he had were stopped in their tracks. Temujin slowly lowered his gaze and shook his head. "...Hmph." He buried those thoughts within him, and buried them deep. “I have regrets too,” Umbri said, knowing full well how pathetic an attempt to connect it must’ve sounded without the context she wouldn’t give. Her mistakes hadn’t been the result of being brainwashed by a tyrannical corpo. She glanced around the room of tinkers and tech that had Temujin sorted and asked, “So who’s going to fix me?”

Temujin stiffened. "I can't give you a name. But Ako knows who to call." He bowed his head. "You didn't survive two Threshers, a train full of zombie Rats, and Lockdown for nothing. I promise you that."

Ako returned shortly with a tray. On it was a sandwich and a glass filled with a honey-coloured, reddish drink. A collage of ice cubes and lemon slices floated near the top. "Okay, my great aunt's Southern sweet tea." She put the tray down and looked at Umbri with furrowed brows and a polite smile. "How are you feeling? You must be famished."

“... Yeah. Thanks.” She took an unladylike bite of the sandwich and sculled the tea so ferociously it dribbled down her neck. Within seconds she was crunching on the ice. “Did you call a doctor?”

Temujin stared at Umbri, in a shock-still posture of disbelief. Everybody complained about Ako's sweet tea. It was more sweet than tea, yet Umbri downed it as easily as a fish drinks water. Ako gave a hesitant shake of her head. "I called Aegis, the Alpha Rogue of Shieldtown." She narrowed her gaze at the poison glowing in Umbri’s veins. “There are loads of talented people in this city - craftsmen, mystics, medicine men… all of them live under the looming shadow of the Threshers everyday. But I wouldn’t trust just anybody to treat a wound that severe.” Ako gestured to Temujin. “Temujin and I, we’re little more than tourists around here. Aegis knows best.”

Umbri made a face. "Or he might call someone else."

"He would!" Ako agreed with much gusto. "But whoever it is will fix ya right up, no doubt about it." Temujin glanced aside and mumbled, "Maybe we should have just asked Stake to suck out the poison… if you don't mind looking pale and batty by tomorrow."

Umbri's neck almost creaked as she turned back to him.

"You son of a bitch," she snarled. All the sentimentality from about five minutes ago was dumped in a ditch. "You got me to bring you here, and the best you have for me is some guy who might know a guy?! This was your plan the entire time?! You used me!"

"'Used you'?!" Temujin snapped back. Ako backed off with an "Oh geez". "Would you rather I leave you in Northbridge? The doctors there can barely run a bath!"

"Leave me in Northbridge. Leave me in Northbridge? ON WHAT LEGS?!"

"Ohh!" Temujin seethed. His arm stumps waggled in impotent exasperation. "Ako! AKO!"

"Don't yell at me."

"Get me my spare legs, and I'll walk this hoo- this sex worker back to Northbridge RIGHT NOW!"

Umbri’s jaw dropped. As her lips pursed back together, her anger evened out into a simmer. “Ako, is it.” She addressed her without taking eyes off him.

Temujin's mask was glaring right back at Umbri. Ako raised a timid hand. "That's me… Temujin's long-suffering mechanic."

“Is there a room I can get a bath and somewhere to sleep? I want to rest before my hero gets here.”

Temujin turned up his chin. "Your hero-?!" Ako straightened up with a smile that reached her eyes. "Yeah, of course!" She beckoned Umbri to follow, eager to separate her and Temujin before things went flying. "Sometimes a deadline demands that we pull an all-nighter. We keep a couple of rooms just in case."

"Wait!" Temujin wiggled on the desk. "Get back here! We weren't done! YOU-!" The cyber ninja fell forward, face planting off the workbench onto the cold, hard floor with a 'thunk'. He heard Umbri’s laugh bounce around the workshop on her way out. To her that was better than getting a last word in.

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

[Sector 7 - ARES Justice Square: 07:22 AM]

High up in the boughs of the upper city, somebody else had made it to her long desired destination. Combat boots crunched down from jumping a fence in the ARES owned skyline and bounced to music pumping from earphones. The little figure tugged a hood over her head and looked up at the grinning faces of happy Ares employees, pasted on the wall and selling the latest, most fashionable, she couldn't read that. She tossed around a coffin backpack and jumped to set her phone on a stand. A livestream icon flashed, a single comment in the corner followed shortly after. She rattled two spray cans, shook a bug from one, and spun them effortlessly across her palms before squeezing the valves. An explosion of red and blue obscured the wall.

Somewhere below, a briefcase exchanged hands.

Not too far from the trade, another briefcase was dropped on the cafe table of a lawyer finishing his breakfast. He did not look for the source of the gift, but did not appear surprised by its appearance. He placed his unfinished croissant down and took up the case, leaving his own case of work by his seat.

Pairs of polished leather lined up side by side, converging in on the square before the ARES Courthouse. Rolex watches, leather boots, black suitcases. The monotony of grey suits and passionless strides completely contrasted the boogie getting down on top of the neighboring building. The girl grooved her way through a cloud of colour, paint everywhere, on her hoodie, her schoolgirl skirt, the caution tape around her thighs.

The numbers below multiplied, in the screens of phones capturing the action as they crossed through each other in diagonal lines - disciplined, practiced lines. "Is it a flash mob?" somebody asked in the eager crowd. More comments popped up across the girl's livestream. She pressed herself against the sticky paint like a hug, leaving her imprint.

The lawyers stopped. In a pattern, one not discernable quite yet. They looked on with blank faces. Then all in identical motions, they lifted their suitcases up, and dropped them open, for the crowd to see.

2… 1.

Right before they exploded, it looked as if they'd woken up.

The girl pulled her earphones off and looked over her shoulder. Screams and wails were coming from below. The livestream could hear them too, given how the chat was popping off. She jogged towards the chaos, reeled back for the phone, then leaned with it over the edge of the building to take the sight in below. Just a few seconds passed before she clicked the livestream off.

She stared at it alone now. Some unlucky few who had been close by disrupted the scene with their remains, but the main picture was clear. Where every lawyer had stood, the blood that remained spelled -

D I E A R E S

"Oh no..." the girl brought a hand to her mouth in horror. "That's... really lame."

A/N

This is a prologue for Sepokku's adventure when she drops in and won't really budge until her character speaks to the quest giver! Just to keep in mind if this is a storyline your character would be urged to pursue.