>LMlink COMlink proximitySet (LSDF-ST-AMX-002);
>>LSDF-ST-AMX-002... Link Established. Host name; A-W-1
>LMcom A-W-1 LifeS pressureControl (Set 300%);
>>Warning! Cabin Pressure Set To 300%! 200% Over Exterior Pressure.
>LMcom A-W-1 PowerS reactorSet (Startup);
>>Reactor system now online, QNC primed start successful.
>LMcom A-W-1 FlightS cpuSet (Launch);
>>Flight control systems online, set to launch mode.
>LMcom A-W-1 FlightS wepSet (Active);
>>Integrated weapon systems set to armed status. >>>Warning! Capacitor relay charge at 28.92% For optimal integrated weapon function, please allow for capacitor charge times, indicated in LSDF-ST-AMX-002 User Manual, page 47.
>LMcom A-W-1 SensorS externalSensor (Full Spectrum Scan);
>>Compiling scan data, conducting sensor sweep of 1AU radius.
>LMcom A-W-1 SensorS externalSensor (Full Spectrum Scan rangeMeters300);
>>Compiling scan data, conducting sensor sweep of 300 meter radius.
>LMcom A-W-1 DefenseS shields (Activate projectiondistanceMeters2.5);
>>Shield systems online, projection distance from exterior of unit, 2.5 meters.
>>Warning! Proximity and contact warning with obstacle! Deck Warning! Adjusting field projection.
>LMcom A-W-1 flightS cockpit (Open);
>>Cockpit opening.
>>>Warning! Overpressure of cockpit! Atmosphere decompression! Exercise caution when attempting to enter cockpit!
The sight they'd been given replaced itself. This time, it was something most of the crew hadn't set eyes on yet, given the only ones present during the first showing were missing or dead. Like a tape casette giving that satisfying click as it met its beginnings, this was the first memory. And then she pressed play.The shot switched from what felt like camera to camera, following Merril one-by-one as she stumbled down the hall. Deprived of an arm, she bled silver, smearing thick gleaming white over walls: splashesslopping thickly all over the floor.
"I C-can't. . . Don't want to. . . I'm. . ." she could be heard whimpering as she rounded the corner. The camera switched - and it was the rec-room. "No.. NonononoNoNoNoNoNONO. . . GetoffgetoffgetoffGETOFFGETOFF!!"
Her one good arm attempted to pull the GUST's mask away. No good. She tore open her locker and slapped aside workout clothes and a book on knitting that went skittering across the floorTaking out a metal needle, she jammed it beneath the edge of the mask, wedging it into the gap: levering it to try to pry the metal armless octopus of face off her own. She felt it digging into her own cheeks painfully but kept going. She had to.More silvery strands rose up but she didn't see them: enveloping and rushing: taking the carbon-fiber tool and then her, to take it into her being.
Merril had to try something else. Anythign. Frantic. Tight. Nerves. Shot. Gaze sweeping and skimming, she ripped a medkit off the wall. The thing spilled its guts everywhere, sharp plink-dash of metal and glass over the floor. On her knees she hunkered down, hands shaking, searching as if she were on the dark, frantically scurrying to scrape up what she possibly could. Pulling herself aside, with quivering hand she patched her stump, though the leathery gleaming wet strand of flesh connecting her hand still remained.
And then she turned. And a funny thing happened. She saw the most perfect fruits she'd ever seen. Bigger and juicier than any she'd set eyes on, in her entire life. And a hunger that came with that sight. One she'd never felt before in all her days.
A sharp flash as the shot cut to another camera. The same from before. But things were different.Young eyes gazed at the gargantuan woman before them. Sun beating down from behind. A massive silhouette.
They passed by a pool. Took a peek. Green eyes and white hair, cut short to represent her youth, reflected.
The image warped. Day to sundown. Dirt path to stone.
They reached a pen connected to a rocky cave. A large hand shoving her forwards. Something stared, glared from the darkness. Stumble backwards. Grounded.
Muffled words arose.
"They are only an animal. You are stronger."
But still, the beast watched.
Cut.Feet heavy and tired rolled and thundered, stumbling through a dumbell-set: a metallic clunk as the discs were knocked aside. Gaze searching, she saw the plants. The fruit was gone. And the weights. Not all but some. Had someone taken them? She felt robbed but not for that reason: The thought sending a burning sense of disgust up through her stomach. What had happened?
Voices. Presences. Not heard but felt.
Instincts that weren't hers commanded motion through her legs. She bolted.
Even running, she'd the attention to see the stump had become smooth, bone and other strangeness seemingly sanded and blended: a procedure which ordinarily took hours. Bloodied sheets. Bloodied cat. But no wounds. Not anywhere.
On the other side, Korro was waiting for her. Where it began she didn't know, but there was something she knew. Something she absoloutely knew.
"I can help!" the survivor told the medic. But Merril had only one response.
"I want to heal!"
"I have somewhere for you to be safe, to hide! Be alone! Be armed!"
But the words weren't said. Nothing was. They never came. But somehow, they were there, hanging in the air with only the warmth of fairy-lights.
Stalking through the claustrophobic heat and tinfoil tight shine of the vents, feet, knees, hands and unknowns drumming - hammering - against the hollow walls she paused, freezing in place. Part of the vent wall was unscratched, almost polished. She saw herself, eyes catching glinting light within only to see something else. Though the dinted surface skewed her, she could make out that what she saw was not how she normally appeared. That what she was looking at what not a person. But what had been alien was now kin. Familiar. Self. She was now something else. And something inside her came to terms with that.
Merril felt memory tugging at the corners of reality. Her vision wobbled like water as it came into focus; images bent like a reflection in a dinted car door or fractured mirror. She could see the past spilled out infront of her. It mingled with arms and legs, blending with the present in a perverse expression of time.
"We've got at least another week before rescue comes. You're gonna have to fuckin' eat because most of the supplies were burnt up in the crash," she saw her former self say to two meek looking recruits, standing at the edge of her bed in the present.
"B-but. . . That's. . ." one blubbered, staring at something just outside the edge of the memory. Merril was disgusted. She grabbing him by his collar, slamming him into a tree that managed to sneak its way into the room. He had to understand. Survival was more important.
"MEAT IS MEAT!! The dead are DEAD! You gotta do what you gotta to survive, ya... You... You punk! You shit! You lousy sack of fuck! You gotta earn the right to live on the ones that don't make it!Y'think they'd want you die?! Do you? Do you really? Answer me!"
Merril's cinema of the self faded. Her attention was ripped down by the otherness that had once been her captor. That arm: One healed after the wreckage from before. And then the same: A fusion of bizzare weaponary and armor.
Fresh flesh to replace the old, right?
Her shoulders came about step as she glanced back at the mirror behind herself. Her face, the plate of empty split down the middle like a lizard's lids, peeling back to reveal something more familiar. Clear inky sickly looking tones met piercing greens, blinding like lasers or cats-eyes in darkness.
Her foot met sometihng. A metal case. Small. Fingerish talons squeezed: cracking it open. Curiously, she knewnot to disturb the contents. And she looked. Photographs of herself. Her family. A young L'manel by the name of La'al who'd idolized her for years. The Va'haar that bore the beginnings of her aspectation, serving as her template. The other animals she'd trained for aspecting with others...
Her talons ran over her horns. Remembering where'd they'd came from.
She snapped the box shut, carefully sealing the edge. Watching herself side on, her jaw dropped: distended with a crunch as she forced the box inside. It disappeared down into her body easily. A snake eating a mouse. Safe-keeping.
Merril, or what was left of her, was done here.
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