Sandalphon

Nikolai shrunk back further into the soft seat of the chair as the man stepped forward, looming slightly over his even more diminutive frame. In between the lack of quick means of escape and the loss of those precious feet-and-few-inches of height, he cursed the uselessness of the pathetic nubs of flesh that connected to his hips. Instead, he bared down momentarily, ready to strike if the need for it came. however, rather than that, the man simply made his way around the contraption, grabbing at the handles with a motion that made the confused feral child jerk forward slightly. Nikolai tilted his head back, preparing a loogie to hawk at the intruder but electing against that decision when he heard the other's proposition. Here? He's here, isn't he... That's good, I think. I hope he won't be too disappointed by all this... "Please...bring me." He finally said, his voice slightly uncertain at the prospect of trusting this intimidating force of nature to take control of his one means of locomotion, "but... gentle-like, ja? Please do not keelhaul into depths of space or my ghost will haunt shit out of you."

Nikolai's eyes narrowed as he heard a new voice enter the med bay. He immediately felt his stomach sink, possibly ready to make good on his half-baked promise as he was met with the terrifying cleanliness dispersal man. This time, however, it was clear he had no means of escape, helpless as he desperately tried to decode the mysterious dialect the man was using. He was certain it was... English. If English had been thrown into a blender, mixed with two parts vodka and one part mint, given to a nervous possum and vomited back up into another blender. "What is... swagman? Matilda?" He groaned, almost croaking like a strange new species of particularly repugnant toad, "I do not... understand. Please speak... English? Deutsch? Human language? " He found himself shrinking into the chair, as if subconsciously trying to make himself smaller to the incomprehensible soap-scented predator that had found him hiding in his little hole. His eyes darted around the room, seeking anyone at all to help him make an escape. Oh god... where is Tarquin? He would know what to make of Ockers and Yabbers. If I have to fight one of those, I am surely fucked.

Cool. It almost hurts. Almost. The air felt cool on Nikolai's skin as he shivered slightly, his skin still tender and soft. The sensation seemed foreign to him as he inhaled, as though he'd been born anew in a strange alien world despite the fact that this was still, for all intents and purposes, his own. Goosepimples prickled as he rubbed his arm, the feeling of skin and downy hair contrasting with the raised keloid scarring of his burns, almost healed by his tenure in the fishtank. As unpleasant as the artificial womb had been, he was vaguely thankful for the advance in medicine, knowing fully well that without it he would probably be dead. He took an inventory of the situation. His body felt heavier now, burdened by gravity in this brave new world where everything seemed too loud and vivid, where there was too much light and noise. The antiseptic pod had muted everything, softened the corners and blurred everything to a comfortable numbness which was now unpresent, replaced by stunning reality. He squinted into the light, the filter of blurry eyelashes almost making the tableau of sterile white light and reflective chrome tolerable. His lungs filled with the pungent scent of disinfectants as he breathed, unassisted, for the first time in what seemed like forever. He made as if to try to stand before his mind caught up to him, reminding him exactly why that would be a bad idea. He caught himself before he pathetically flopped onto the cold hard floor of the medical bay. Oh right, no legs. No legs means no standing. That would've been funny. Like stupid little fish taken out of fishtank, I flop too. He settled into the wheelchair, an expression that was almost a wry smile twisted onto his face as he let himself sink into the padded seat. This would be troublesome to get used to. He allowed his eyes to open fully once more, slowly and hestiantly facing the light. "If any fucker is here," he said, speaking as loudly as he could considering how clumsy and ill-equipped his lungs and vocal chords were outside his little amniotic sac of curative slime, "I am unfortunately awake. Tell me what the fuck is happening right now or else I scream and maybe vomit on floor again for sake of old time."

Above and Beyond Nikolai ruminated on the doctor's words, his mind both painfully awake at all times and drearily wrapped in a fog of exhaustion. It was a strange feeling, being incapable of doing anything but floating in his fishtank. Usually, he wouldn't have the time to think at all, too busy with whatever survival-related task required his immediate attention, but now that he was helpless, now that survival was being taken care of for him, all he could do was think. He was effectively all alone with Nikolai. Nikolai the experimental weapon. Nikolai the broken doll. Nikolai the discarded carcass of a human being, picked clean and left to decay in a biomedical sewage tank. Who the fuck was Nikolai if he wasn't able to fight, to kill at a moment's notice, to keep the few things he cared about safe and free from harm? Had he ever been anything to begin with? The closest thing he'd ever had to a purpose was as something that existed to do everyone else's dirty work, to kill so their hands stayed pristine as his got drenched in mud and blood and terrible deeds. Had that been what Above and Beyond meant? What then, did the future hold for things that never had a reason to exist? He didn't trust anyone to ask, he didn't even really trust himself. Instead, he made a gentle humming whimper and hoped that would be enough to communicate his discontent to whoever would be in the medical bay at the moment.

Nikolai's eyes were glassy and heavy as he looked at the blurry figure of the doctor on the other side of the fishtank. Despite how clearly her voice cut through the mire, her actual body seemed to Nikolai as though it were miles away. For what seemed like the first time in his life, he was exhausted. Usually he would always be slightly alert, ready to serve his purpose as a weapon of war and dispenser of chaos, but as the doctor said... the future was complicated. It was clear that he had been rendered useless, unable to play the role given to him by the dramaturge of life. There were no scripts for this situation, only an endlessly long collection of blank pages. He was truely a blank slate now, and the thought terrified him. He was exhausted, and to simply sleep and float in his fishtank felt incredibly tempting. But impossible. Despite everything, despite how hopelessly lost he was, he had made a promise to live, albeit one made before he realised how utterly fucked up he was. "Do as you want doctor..." he said quietly, his head lolling back as the slits of his eye closed once more. "Am used to being... lab rat. Pulled apart. Put back together. If you want to pull fake organ out, pull out organ. pull out sadness. pull out anger. reach in my head and just pull out nikolai. build new legs. build new nikolai. does not matter. if you can make me useful once more, then do. if not, then make me useless instead. such it is, this life."

Everyone's alive. You too. Thank god. A warm shudder of relief ran through Nikolai's veins as he listened to the doctor's voice. It was strangely sharp and clear through to headphones, so different to the soft muffled slurry of noise that had been his sensory input in the biomedical bath. Refreshingly real, to be quite honest. "Is no time like the present doctor..." he said in his half-whisper. His breathing steadied slightly as he took some time to compose himself slightly, to ensure that he wasn't wasting words, as though there was only a finite amount of air in those lungs of his. "Is not like I have anywhere to be. Is not like I have future. I not even have legs."

Nikolai had almost gotten used to the muffled silence of his amniotic coffin, the gentle ebb and flow of fluid around him blocking out most of the sound of the external world, peaceful and warm. A semi-living state, a sort of Schrödinger's life: simultaneously dead and alive, floating in and out of consciousness in his cocoon. He'd heard somewhere that before metamorphosis could occur, the pupa would eat up the creature inside, tearing it apart and rendering it down to its most basic essence inside the chrysalis before transforming it into something else. Was that what this was? Would he somehow exit the tank transformed into something fully realised? He wasn't sure. His skin was still fragile and raw, but bathing in the biomedical slush seemed to have made the angry red flesh harden in a criss-cross pattern of keloids and scarring, still tender but definitely harder than it had been before entering. Perhaps this was the exoskeleton then? No, it could not be. Vertebrates never had things inside out like this. His orphic state made figuring things out quite difficult. Even as the headphones were gently secured around his ears and the breathing mask had been fitted with a new attachment, he could not be certain if it was real or not. It was almost frustrating. "I am thinking so" he muttered, his voice hoarse and raspy, barely above a whisper. Every word strained his lungs, as though each syllable was ripped from his raw throat and heaving chest by grasping and violent hands. "Is the fucker dead? where... is? Is he okay?"

Nikolai opened his functioning eye a little more, barely capable of opening the slit of light more than a few pathetic milimetres. He felt vulnerable, his senses dulled by the heavy medical fog, by the fluid submerging him, by the cocoon of scar tissue and raw meat that was his body. In the blurry haze in front of him, he recognised figure in a white coat, a doctor, and someone else, someone smaller. Two shapes in the blooming bright light. Both strangely alien to him, but still familiar enough to be slightly comforting. His memories were still far away, misty and blurred as though they were being viewed through a curtain of tears. It can't be hell (not yet). The doctor (an ally?). The ship (home?). Then that must be... A Friend Of Mine. I was protecting him. I am glad. I am afraid. I am glad. I am wrong. The smaller figure's body language seemed simultaneously childlike and rigid. A tiny soldier made of tin, gears turning little mechanisms that made it walk and shoot like a real soldier. Similar to him and yet, different too. Nikolai wanted to reach out and touch them, the creatures on the other side of the fishtank. His friend, who seemed so small from so far away. He could not. His arms were still too cumbersome, too heavy, to weighed down with pain that streaked across nerves and etched new grooves and canyons into his form. Instead he slowly shook his head in a laboured movement, his chest still heaving with every breath as he tried to accompany the movement with an affirmation, only to let out another strange inhuman whimper instead. Not dead. Not certain. Not the dirt.

Thin strands of singed hair stuck to Nikolai's forehead, plastered to the delicate skin by the copious amounts of semi-fluid around him. He shuffled slightly, his chest heaving with the effort as he let out another gentle moan, something akin to the sounds of a whimpering infant. In a sense, he truly felt like a newborn, tender and small and malformed as the heavy medication kept him wrapped in a blanket of haze and amniotic fluid. He only wondered if this was what it was like to exist before one existed, to be a frail and nascent thing. A runt whose legs had been chewed off by a confused and disturbed mother rat in a laboratory cage. (Legs, none of them. Wrong Wrong Wrong.) He wanted an explanation, anything as he tried to make out the blurry shapes behind the glass, behind the veil of swollen and damaged eyelid from his one slit of functional eye. He didn't quite know when he would be able to speak, but perhaps he could get someone, anyone, to tell him what was happening to him, when he would wake up from his nightmare, if this was heaven or hell or life. If he'd died or not, if he was the sole survivour or an iconoclast... If there was still a place for a tool that could no longer serve its purpose. Please notice. Please. I'm afraid.

Nikolai continued to float, gently, on his tiny paper boat on the river Styx. If we died, why is this body still so heavy? Why is there so much violence in your chest little boy? No, dead things don't breathe. Dead hearts don't beat. We must be alive despite ourselves. Unless Hell is more of the same, it wouldn't be a surprise would it? His thoughts layered one on top of each other as he felt the soft jostling of something moving his body. A great big something moving his body, a strange supernatural thing perhaps, shoving the limp ragdoll of his physical body with ease. He was just a ghost haunting a children's toy. A toy that had been broken by large and violent fingers peeling him apart. A single eyelid flickered enough to let in a thin slit light. He felt a viscous fluid pool and form around his body as he was submerged in the healing gel. A brand-new amniotic sac, a womb in which he would somehow be reborn, a naked and frightened frail little chick where once stood a mighty pheonix... or something like that. The image of a pheonix felt too grand for him... rather, maybe he would be another little lab rat put back together all wrong. Wrong. WRONG. Nikolai's conscious, bleary and confused, slowly started taking an instinctive inventory of his functions. His skin still felt raw and open, nerves exposed and vulnerable for anyone to grind salt into. An eye, still incapable of opening, the butterfly's scales of his eyelids having melded together in a raised filigree of scarring. He desperately tried to move his limbs. WRONG. A finger twitched, like the leg of a smashed spider. The most minute sign that his brain still somehow had control of the functioning of the arms and their periphery. The other hand, his right one, was a more difficult task. Pain sang through the nervous trail of meat as he managed another fragment of a twitch. (Arms, two of them). But there was a strange hollow feeling as he tried to move lower. Nothing. No response. Only pain. The aparatus in his head clamped down harder, tightening, contracting like the tightening in his chest. Where are they? (Legs, two of them?) WRONG WRONG WRONG SOMETHING'S WRONG. He wanted to scream, but it seemed impossible as the air got caught in his raw throat. The only thing that came out was a gentle, pathetic groan instead. He missed the dirt.The Dirt was certain. This was fucked.

Floating again. It was a curious feeling. Nikolai was certain that he'd felt his body, so heavy and cumbersome, had landed on something vaguely soft. A mattress of dust and dirt, gently kicked up around him and filling his lungs. We're floating now. The ebbing and flowing thing that vaguely resembled Nikolai's consciousness tried to make something out of the hazy, milky darkness. It was clear that he'd been roused from the earth, removed from the earthen womb and exposed to the air. He couldn't quite bring himself to open his eyes, not that it would be possible with the one that had seemingly fused shut. Sparks of cool air stung the naked, vulnerable nerves that had been dragged to the surface of his form as he felt the world move under his back despite himself. It's okay, we're going to wherever my psyche's going to be best tortured to make up for everything I need to take responsibility for. It tastes like iron. There's blood in my hair. My fingernails hurt. Yes Nikolai, I think we're dead even if we tried. He missed the dirt. The dirt was certain. This was fucked.

The first thing Nikolai saw was the light. Bright, blinding light. Beautiful light. Holy light. The second thing Nikolai saw was the gentle unfurling of flame, starting from the chest of the mechanical angel, blooming red against the pale frame. A flower placed in his tomb. His mind had yet to process what was happening. It was all slow and still and quiet despite the screaming of the alarms, the choir of mechanical alerts around him, singing a single shrill note amidst the rising percussion of the explosion. Merging with the memory of a scratchy LP on a turntable in blindingly bright, pristine hospital where a scrawny young boy sat, rapt at the first song he’d ever heard. Ave Maria gratia plena Mariagratia plena Mariagratia plena Ave ave dominus, dominus tecum And yet, it was all still and silent as Nikolai gently floated in his mind, green eyes wide and full of wonder. For the first time in a long time, there was no squeezing throbbing pain in his head, no pounding heart in his ears, just… stillness. Stillness and the plume of smoke rising around him, billowing, filling the cockpit and his mind. Gravity was slow. Time was slow. His hand flew forward, smacking the emergency release in a last-ditch effort, the final mayday of his sinking ship. The light around him was so beautiful and warm as his palm hit the mechanism. He wasn’t certain if he’d hit it in time, but it didn’t matter as he watched the metal around him warp into an abstraction of form. A shape in space, compact but expansive at once. The irony of him wondering about just what it would be like to watch the metal fold and contract around a dying person was not lost on him. He felt a twinge of bitterness in his heart, that was probably what he got for bothering to try to think about these things. Above his station, they were. Also incredibly pointless as his body lurched forward, limp and helpless. A Ragdoll torn asunder by forces beyond anyone’s control. He felt the searing heat of the fire on his skin, the pain of metal scraping along skin, along muscle, along bone as the emergency eject system desperately tried to expel him from the colossal mechanical death trap around him. He hardly registered anything anymore as the blinding bright light made it’s way to a dark shroud of silence and darkness. Real silence. Real stillness. No Alarms. No Surprises. No flames from below coming to engulf him and drag him to the place all lost souls go to die. Just a peaceful darkness and the operetta in his mind gently rocking his tired soul, his tired body, to rest at last. It hurts so much. It doesn’t hurt at all. I’m afraid. I’m tired. I wanted to try something new. I wanted to find somewhere nice. I wanted to find the Monet. I wanted to find the water lilies. In the darkness, a gentle streak of bright red, bright red and pale blue. I’m afraid. Was this what it’s like to die? Were you afraid to? Is this just a bad dream? Will I ever wake up? I wish I’d found happiness. It’s not fair. It’s not fair. I want a mother. I want a father. I want a friend. I want a life too. I wish I'd had a life instead of...this. The feeling of a smile. The concept of a poem. The dark lines on white paper that were words. The saltiness of regret. The softness of finger tips. The gaudy lights of the normal people’s shopping centre. “You don’t want to die, do you Nikolai? Then don’t. Go back. It will be difficult, more difficult than ever Nikolai, but go back now.” Gently, a scarred, broken thing hit the ground with a dull thud. Lifeless and burned, the thing was almost recognisable as a human. The thing’s chest gently rose and fell with laboured breaths. Despite everything, the thing was still alive. for now.

Nikolai said a fuck word. He shouldn't have, but he did it anyway. With the Reise in a less prone-to-exploding-via-pew-pew-shooty spot, things were looking more optimistic. Not that Nikolai was ever prone to optimism ever. He was special like that. Niko assails, focuses, moves to (12-13), bunkers #2

Nikolai casts Assail and Focus, moves on over to (17,11), attacks Cress 6 with I-field bunker (a bland post until my meds kick in and I can do brain things good)

There was a strange monotony to the experience, Nikolai figured, as he wrenched back from his previous assault on the enemy, only to see another mechanical titan take the place of its fallen comrade. He found himself wondering what kind of person was in that machine, now little more than smoldering wreckage. Sure, they had attempted to murder him a few seconds prior, but if that was the standard then he'd been doing much of the same. In the end, they were deadlocked in an endless volley, a cycle of shoot-or-be-shot. Did the being that was now little more than seared meat in a twisted metal prison have friends too? Did Nikolai even have friends? He figured he did, or at the very least, people who relied on him to continue living. Therefore, what had to be done was clear: keep shooting. Always keep shooting. Ignore that pounding, squeezing thing in his head and keep shooting lest he lose himself. Nikolai holds position, attacks Hyperion 5 with I-Field Bunker. Explosions ensue, and he does Not Look At Them. Would this be the last time? Probably not. But for the first time in a long time, he kind of wanted it to be.