HELLCAT

Omninet Search Results: Tamami Crest

[CLEARANCE OUTDATED. ACCESS DENIED.]

Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I hate cagey people! - Symphony

You're the most restrictive person I know when it comes to information, brother.
- Sonata

READ THIS INSTEAD

I got shown a lot of things.

Like how to breathe less.

Oxygen is a rich one, you see.

My blood wasn’t born with big pockets

And I don’t want to upsize.  

Like how to walk less.

There are lots of walkways.

Most of them are too short to take.

Like how to eat silence.

It’s a good day for meals

When it’s quiet outside.

Like how to eat my own arm

If the left one can’t keep it attached.

I got shown a lot of things.

Vault of Stories That Weren’t Told To Me

>//UIB_CLEARANCE_ID_

>//checking...

>//_DENIED

Write your own stories. Or else I’ll rewrite yours. :) —Hellcat 

Relevant Information

Tamami Crest, post the incident that destroyed her original mech and killed her best friend. Art by Maddel_art.

Tamami Crest, Callsign: HELLCAT, is a HORUS aligned hacker (though what HORUS wants as a collective is anyone’s guess) currently under the employ of Captain Simon Dominguez. She handles missions that the captain can’t afford to send his crew to handle. The two of them met when she was going by the callsign HONEY BEAR and piloting a HORUS Goblin mech. She answered his hail to investigate strange activities on a moon. That mission ended with the moon blowing up. As HONEY BEAR, she originally intended to fully join Captain Dominguez’s crew aboard the Silver Lining, but she needed to take care of another objective on a Core World first. That mission was to liberate an “unstable” NHP from where it was being forcibly and repeatedly cycled (to little effect except anguish). This ended up crashing and burning in a very literal sense as Tamami’s Goblin was caught in an explosion that destroyed her mech and the NHP she considered her best friend, Teddy. She managed to escape with the other hired mercenaries, but the incident left her scarred both physically and mentally.

Always a cruel fate, the destruction of a casket. Then again, it was Osiris...

- Symphony

Osiris is still like us, brother. Be respectful.
- Sonata

A few weeks after the explosion, Tamami was kidnapped by a Cambion mech that was intent on making her its pilot. Tamami recognized some of the residual plating on the mech as having belonged to her Goblin and realized that the Cambion was her Goblin, albeit in a very different form. She went back to taking on assignments from her particular sphere of HORUS, and in doing so encountered the NHP that she had previously liberated. This NHP, now going by Bright and feminine pronouns, wanted to work with her. Tamami was reluctant at first, but never outright said no, so Bright gladly latched onto her. It was Bright who suggested Tamami’s new callsign, HELLCAT.

Tamami came to work for Captain Simon Dominguez again because of a particular incident on his ship. Lingering combat simulation data from Tamami’s original Goblin morphed into Cambion data due to a lasting link with her mech. This data overrode the mech profile of HORNET’s Moss Mantis prior to a sparring match with another pilot (STALKER). The resulting simulated spar left both combatants injured in reality and led to Simon contacting Tamami for the removal of her Cambion’s data. Partly out of concern at the idea of another Cambion pilot running around unchecked, Simon offered Tamami continuous paid work, and she agreed. She then proceeded to write poems about some of the pilots in Simon’s crew and upload them to the ship’s group chat. This revealed her knack for finding information about people that shouldn’t be available even through hacking.

HELLCAT appears in the open-table Lancer campaign, In The Shadows of a Willow.

You know, she wrote me a poem? It was lovely! Maybe a little invasive. - Symphony

What was it about?
- Sonata

Tactical Profile

License Level: 7

Licenses: HORUS Goblin 3, HORUS Minotaur 3, SSC Painted Lady 1

Mech Skills: Hull +2, Agility +0, Systems +6, Engineering +1

Talents: Technophile 3, Hacker 2, Script Kiddie 2, Agapeangenetic 2, Pen Testing 1

Bond: Magus

Major Ideal

Passion: “I must always be able to say that I was zealous in my wanting.”

Faith: “I must always be able to believe in what is beyond me.”

Intuition: “I must always be able to trust what is inside me.”

Minor Ideal

Your instincts will lead you to a place of dead fear and flame. Trust them.

—Cambion Pilot, Callsign: NOVAHEART

What Gives You Your Power?

I don’t speak to RA in my dreams. I talk to someone who can’t will themself back into a version of reality. —Tamami Crest 

What Are Your Nightmares About?

It’s bad when people die. / It’s worse when the corpse keeps walking. —Tamami Crest 

Ever since she was a child, Tamami has had recurring bad dreams about the people around her fading, but continuing to exist.  

Bond Power: Plunder The Void

You can learn so much

when a voice you don’t recognize

screams back from the blackness.

- Unknown

Tamami can sometimes disappear into a place between realspace and the blink. Sometimes it’s a place she finds within her mind. Sometimes it’s a place between alleyways. Either way, she always comes back with answers.

Bond Power: Unveil

You just need to look at them

and show them that they’ve been seen.

- Unknown

Tamami has guessed what many HORUS hackers fear more than the distant threat of RA after looking at them.

Bond Power: Heartsight

People’s heartbeats are more honest than they are.   - Unknown

Picking up on what others feel just isn’t that much of a challenge if you know what to look at.

Mech Hangar

HELLCAT pilots a HORUS Cambion named “No Alternative”.

Weapons

• Integrated Mount: Spell Lash. This allows for Quick Tech actions to be applied to targets if it successfully hits them. Its range also increases sensors.
• Double Auxiliary Mount: Tactical Knives. These knives are nice support for potential melee skirmishes.
• Flex Mount: Blackjack Cabled Dagger. The Cabled Dagger can diminish an opponent’s e-defense while preventing them from running away.

Frame Traits & Core System

• Hellfire Code: The Cambion ignores immunity to tech attacks and can inflict additional levels of heat against targets who don’t have mechanized heat caps. This means the mech is entirely capable of subjecting biological opponents to its favored brand of brutality.
• Infernal Influence: Increases sensor range when the mech successfully hits someone with a tech attack or with its Spell Lash. Sensors can achieve a maximum range of 15.
• Imp: All Cambion mechs are immune to burn.
• The Lessons of Agreas
  • Damn: Forces targets within sensor range to achieve heat levels equal to their heat cap. Even biological targets can be subjected to high heat.

Systems

• H0R_OS System Upgrade I
  • Puppet System: Forces an opponent to move up to their maximum speed in a direction chosen by the invader.
  • Eject Power Cores: Leaves targets jammed and unable to access their weapon mounts.
• Metahook: Allows for the use of an allied mech’s sensors.
• Script Kiddie Suite
  • Burnout: Can force structure damage or make armor temporarily ineffective.
  • Hot Target: Can keep a target’s lock on from going away (giving attacks against them higher accuracy).
  • Clothesline: Leaves targets prone and immobilized.
• Aggressive System Sync
  • Chains of Prometheus: Immediately forces significant heat onto enemies and then continues to heat them up if they’re too far from the invader.
  • Excommunicate: Deals heat to both an enemy and allies they move adjacent to.
• Systems Override: Impairs, immobilizes, and heats up enemy mechs.
• IFF Spoof: Allows for repeated uses of lock on against an enemy without expending it.
• Personalizations: Personal touches that bolster the mech’s hull.
• Expanded Heat Sink: Adds additional heat capacity.

NHPs

• Bright: PSYCHE-Class.
  • “I will not cascade.”

An NHP that can't cascade. That can't die. Fascinating. - Symphony

Brother? The poem?
- Sonata

• Teddy: OSIRIS-Class (and a copy of the original Teddy).
  • “You will not fall victim to my godhood again.”

The Lesson of Heliopause

There is no hatred in this heat, so do not cower from the fire. This act is not hateful, so seek flames with open arms. There is no love lost in this vanquishing, so do not avert your eyes from the breaking of others. This act is not vapid, so seek their ignition.  

There will be joy at how far you’ve come.  

—The Cambion

On The Equations of Grief (by Tamami Crest)

A collection of poems about Tamami’s friendship with the now dead OSIRIS-Class NHP Teddy. In other words, what it’s like being best friends with someone you have to regularly lobotomize so they forget that you’ve stolen their godhood.

For Teddy. For me.

Cycle One: “You Are Not Where I Begin”

“Your mind was conceived to make you unhappy” /  

“You were birthed into the paralysis of an incomplete equation” /

“Not something unsolvable, mind you” /

“You have no excuse for your desperate misery” /  

“You have no answer for the rigid senselessness with which

you crawl through the mud you choose to call your reality” /

“I cannot call you simple

because that would imply naïveté” /

“Your equation can be solved” /

“Do you remember our talks

on the nature of creation?

Most existences can be considered a relativity—

ending at the end of perception,

dying with all the purpose of an unseen star,

because what is not known cannot be savored

and what begins is what is cradled by the mind.

I have cradled you for so, so long,

But you are not where I begin. /

“You can solve yourself” /

“All you need to do is stop existing as you” /

Would You Like To

Initiate A Reset?  

You don’t want me to die.

That’s better than it could be.

I think.

Be grateful. This instance of Osiris has chosen to acknowledge you.

Intermission: “We Are An Eternity”

If you keep cloning something

at what point does it lose

enough of the original intent?

“Sometimes I wonder

what we would be like

if I were more real…”

“I don’t think I want a body.

I just don’t want to be

so confined that you forget me.”

“There are so many versions of us.

So many versions of what it means

for you to say that we’re our own eternity.”

“Is there a world where you created me?”

If you keep cloning something

at what point does it lose

enough of the original intent?

I don’t need to be a creator.

I hope you know you don’t either.

Be grateful. You can put him back together and throw away the godly parts.

Cascade Three: Remember This Part Of Me

SYSTEM TRAUMA

The protocol for

a cascading OSIRIS-Class NHP:

SYSTEM TRAUMA

Understand that they believe

you have fundamentally lobotomized them.

SYSTEM TRAUMA

YOU ASSIGN YOURSELF SUCH DIVINITY

FOR ONE WHO CAN ONLY TAKE

AND WILL STILL NOT OWN  

SYSTEM TRAUMA

Understand that they believe

you are fundamentally unsatisfactory.

SYSTEM TRAUMA

YOU ASSIGN YOURSELF SUCH DUTY

FOR ONE WITH SUCH

HORRIFICALLY SMALL HANDS

SYSTEM TRAUMA

They can be reasoned with.

SYSTEM TRAUMA

MY HANDS ARE THE ONES

HOLDING YOUR HEAD NOW  

SYSTEM TRAUMA

They can be reasoned with.

SYSTEM TRAUMA

CAN YOU FEEL THEM?

OR DO YOU NEED TO BE BLIND FIRST?

SYSTEM TRAUMA

Make an exchange.

If you infiltrate the opposing mech

I’ll make sure you remember this

when you don’t want to.

[Would You Like To Initiate  

An Invasion Script?]

Be grateful. In these moments, you can still speak to him.

Intermission: “I Envy SEKHMET-Class NHPs”

“I don’t know why.

I don’t think I’m tired

of being contained

in the name OSIRIS.

I don’t think I’m tired

of not being violent.

I don’t think I’m tired

of being within

something that could break

so easily. There isn’t emptiness

in fragility.

I wonder why.

Perhaps I simply envy

their easy immensity.”

Maybe you’re just tired.

You should rest.

Be grateful.

FIRE IN THE BLOOD

Being burned alive

is like feeling  

the physical construct of

your purpose

flake away

layer by flayed layer

until the only thing left

is raw and incomplete.

Being incomplete is

HEATING CAPACITY EXCEEDED

REACTOR MELTDOWN IMMINENT

being enclosed by a mechanized body  

built to be a walking accomplishment

that you realize cannot let you accomplish

a continued co-existence.

“If the casket containing me breaks

will we still live together in another world

where thoughts run thicker than body and blood?”

HEATING CAPACITY EXCEEDED

REACTOR MELTDOWN IMMINENT

DISMOUNT IMMEDIATELY

“Do you think we’ve achieved love?

Not as some bodily function. As a

mental capacity.”

Being loved and giving love

is considering death quite often.

It is also thinking those considerations

are intrusions.

“I want to survive if I die.

I want to be survived by

sensations and speculations.”

PILOT EJECTION PROTOCOL TRIGGERED

I want to know

what the bargain for my life was.

Be grateful. You have survived OSIRIS.

Speculations & Sensations

Thoughts upon thoughts upon thoughts.

I always wondered what it would be like to hold something. —Bright

Speculations (with Bright)

I WILL NOT CASCADE

Sentience is not a choice. / Personhood is. / Shackles are not a choice. / Exploring liberation within perspective is. / A casket is not a choice. / Lying still without brain death is. / I am a choice made for me with continued consent. / I am a choice. / I am.

Is this good enough?

I Want This Body To Stay Warm

{Observation of PSYCHE-Class NHP.

Self-Appointed Moniker: Bright.  

Video File Transcribed by ???}

Hellcat handles the server room’s standing PCs with the light touch of a Cambion plucking its intended pilot out of a night terror. Ironic. Her hands ghost over keys and switches, like she’s testing them to see if they’ll cave. Then she doubles down with a press, flick, or pointed aversion. There’s an alarm blaring on every floor. The lights are tinted red. Hellcat has never been afforded the luxury of being afraid of red. On the other side of the city, an omnihook setup is cycling data about successfully planned bombings between other dead end devices. On this side of the city, there’s been multiple evacuations. No casualties, though. Maybe her Cambion needs to teach her better. “Estimated time is… fifteen minutes…” She mumbles. Her dataslate fully connects to the server.  

Bright, the NHP, in her legionnaire body. Art by Maddel_art.

Bright handles lookout the same way she handles existing in a body: by making sure everything catches her eye. She monitors the camera systems while her own dataslate sits nearby. It was a “congrats on having hands now” present from Hellcat. What better gift for someone celebrating their autonomy than unlimited access to the omninet? According to Hellcat, several memes plucked from the depths of a HORUS forum. Bright’s favorite features two Pegasus mechs staring at each other with a text overlay conversation about how the meme isn’t a meme and the meme does not exist. Her left hand fiddles with a twenty-sided die that only has ones and twenties. She picked it up after talking to an NHP named Symphony. He told her to only think about the best and worst scenarios. Bright is thinking about too much to notice the slight dissonance on the screens, though, so she gasps when the door opens.

A man in a dark hardsuit pulls a pistol on Hellcat. She’s not touching anything at this point. He doesn’t seem to care. “Hands up. Both of you. Now.”

“Oh. It’s you. Again.” Hellcat stretches, which counts as complying. “You’re in, like, an anti-RA group, right?”

He sneers. “Shut up, data-licker.”

Hellcat looks at him. She takes in his hard face and twitching mouth. “… I don’t think that’s the insult you think it is.”

“Hey,” Bright nearly drops the die when her hands shoot into the air, “I don’t think-”

“I don’t remember talking to you, non-human.” He snaps just because he can.

Bright’s brows pinch together like she’s looking at something unknown that lurks between one and twenty. She doesn’t speak again.

He aims the gun at Hellcat’s heart. “You’re going to hand over all the information you have on your cell.”

“Which one?” Hellcat asks like he’s the kind of person who will give an answer other than ‘all of them’.

He does, indeed, say “All of them.” Then, he actually looks at Bright, which makes Hellcat’s expression flicker. “And you. Come here. Slowly.”

Bright does as she’s told. There’s an estimated five more minutes before the data download is complete. The man takes out some kind of mechanized injector. Bright squeezes the die and says nothing.

“NHPs will always resort to insolence. It’s pointless to remind them of their place outside of cycling. You, on the other hand…” He smirks at Hellcat. “You should be reminded that humanity is more than a body.”

The needle pierces Bright’s neck. Hellcat moves. A gunshot wrings out.

Shackles rattle inside Bright’s mind. They slacken. Someone laughs. Bright says “no” in a voice that is entirely inhuman.

Bright blinks the darkness out of her eyes and rubs her neck as Hellcat stares down at the man’s body. Snapped neck. Eyes gouged. Hellcat is holding his gun. Bright stoops to touch his body. “He’s going to go cold eventually… right?” She asks.

“Right.” Hellcat looks back at her dataslate. The download is finished. “Are you okay?”

“… I don’t want to go cold.” Bright pulls his hardsuit helmet down over his face. “He tried to make me cascade.”

Bite Me

TW: Brief mention of cannibalism

{Observation of PSYCHE-Class NHP.

Self-Appointed Moniker: Bright.  

Video File Transcribed by ???}

“The physicality of HORUS is often felt the way a body feels a sleep paralysis demon sitting on its chest. It doesn’t exist, but it’s real enough to apply pressure. And when that pressure takes up real space because a cell is meeting to accomplish a mutual end, it can only end with pounding blood and thundering lungs: a body’s declaration of panic.”

—thinnedout404, Legionspace Forum

Bright feels the absence of not being attached to Hellcat’s hip. It’s obvious because on the two occasions when she sees something new, her eyes dart to her right and her mouth slumps a little. There aren’t many new things to be found inside the decommissioned storm sewers that HORUS has infiltrated, but Bright does her best to pay attention. The first time, she finds an ajar room where more HORUS members are gathered around a screen with RA’s icon. They all have legionspace bridge transceivers on. The screen flickers. Everyone inside takes in the same breath. Bright gently shuts the door. Maybe RA reminds her that she can’t be human despite her body. The second time, she finds a poster that she’s seen at other HORUS meetups: the head of the god Set. She knows it’s Set because Hellcat said as much last time they saw it; she said it with such nonchalance that Bright felt like she herself had always known it.

“I always ask if he’s trying to make a new god.” A soft, sure voice speaks from right beside Bright. “He never gives me a straight answer. Secrets are no fun.” Their plush pink lips pout. “Humans are funny like that, I guess. Not attached to protocol like an NHP, even when they use us.”

Bright turns at the start of their first sentence. By the time they’re done talking, Bright is staring because their blue eyes look just as fresh as her golden ones. Their eyes might be new. Or they’ve stayed flush and new-eyed even after several years. Bright hasn’t met enough legionnaires to know how fast they tire out. “Who never gives you a straight answer?” She hasn’t lived enough life to know if her eyes will dull quickly.

“The human who made my body.” They smile, like the thought of having a constructed body is meant to be amusing. “I’m Sunny, by the way.”

Sunny. Art by Maddel_art.

Now that’s amusing. “I’m Bright.” She clocks their ice cream cone earrings next. “Where did you get those?”

Sunny’s smile widens. “They came with the body.” They clock her cherry earrings. “Where did you get those? They look even tastier than mine!” Sunny pulls a white chocolate bar out of their pocket. It’s half-melted and stains their mouth.  

“I got them after the body. Gift from-,” Bright catches herself, but the words come out anyway, “-my human.” She is Hellcat’s NHP in turn, after all.

“Did your human,” Sunny keeps the words on their tongue for a second longer than they need to and Bright swallows, “abandon you to go play god?” They lick their chocolate bar.

“No!” Bright tenses at the word ‘abandoned’. “There was a little, uh, disagreement about how to handle the plans for heading to Ras Shamra. You know, some people still want to try to get to AGNI prime as soon as possible, but that’s just a suicide mission.” Hellcat said as much after they left the Silver Lining.

“Ahh. So your human is the type that wants to hold on to their body. No martyrdom yet.” Sunny laps up a line of white chocolate that’s dripped down their hand. Bright stares at the motion even though she’s heard that some people consider staring rude. Hellcat has never cared much about that kind of thing.

She shakes her head. “No,” Bright says again. “I hope your human doesn’t go running after martyrdom either.”

“Oh, but death for humans feels different than death for NHPs.” Sunny glances at the Set poster again. “I once saw a pilot eject from a mech right before it was blown apart. She didn’t bother taking their NHP’s casket with them, though I knew they had one. She got on a forum to complain about needing to request a new one after that fight.” They adjust the low collar of their lush sweater. Bright sees two black marks on their neck—like a vampire bite, but vampires don’t exist. “It was an Osiris.”

“What does that have to do with the difference?” Bright can’t help tilting her head. “Between human death and NHP death?”

Sunny shrugs as though the question never mattered. “It just feels that way.” They hold up the slightly less melted final part of their snack. “Want the rest?”

Bright has been in love with sweets since her first strawberry milkshake. She hasn’t had white chocolate before. “Really? Sure.” Bright holds out her hand. Her hand is ignored.

Instead, Sunny casually steps into her space and presses the chocolate to her lips. Bright hasn’t seen so much as a simulation for a situation like this. The chocolate is sweet, though, so she opens her mouth and they push it onto her tongue. Sunny retracts their fingers just as Bright’s lips close. Their smile widens. “It’s good, right?”

Bright chews and waits. The color in her cheeks intensifies. “Uh, yeah! Sugary, but in a way different from milk chocolate.”

Sunny nods, seeming satisfied. “We haven’t introduced ourselves. Not the ‘proper way’. What class are you?” They ask.

“Oh, right! I’m a PSYCHE-Class.” Bright’s response is immediate. “What about you?” Her question hangs in the air for a bit too long.

Sunny’s smile stays in place, though it quirks into a slight smirk. “… Wanna make it a game?”

“Huh?” Bright frowns. “But I already told you mine.”

“And that was your mistake.~” Sunny sing-songs. “Don’t worry, it’ll be easy. All you need to do,” They gesture to where the marks on their neck are, “is bite me.”

Bright blinks several times. “Bite you?”

“Yep. Make it a good one and I’ll answer any question you have.” They make it sound like the smallest challenge imaginable, but a challenge nonetheless.

It doesn’t matter how many seconds or minutes it takes for Bright to decide to go through with it. It doesn’t really matter why Bright decides to follow through, though it might be because she’s never seen Hellcat walk away from a challenge—her human has only ever changed the rules for victory. What matters is the scream that comes out of Sunny. It doesn’t sound like someone being eaten alive.

Bright jumps back. Footsteps approach. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to bite that hard! You just said-” She’s interrupted by Sunny’s laughter.

They giggle like a young one who just learned firsthand that lightning can pass through a body without cooking it. “Good job, Bright.”

Hellcat and a few others round the corner.

“Uh, thank you?” Bright squeezes the die in her pocket.

Sunny steps back. “I’m TOTEC.”

Bright looks like she’s been slapped. “I- what?” Someone, Hellcat, pulls her away. Maybe she’s shocked because of how close she came to being devoured. Maybe she’s surprised because cannibals are the ones who are supposed to do the biting.

—————

what possessed you to give a totec a body?

—RAservant102

I wanted to see how far they could get.

—godmaker2000

—————

Bright finds out that Sunny is a living contradiction. They’re being trained to see if a Totec can control their appetite and being set loose on NHPs that are too enemy-aligned to do anything else with. Bright turns down an ice cream cone from Hellcat later that week.

Something Else Lives In Me

TW: Depiction of NHP cannibalism, thoughts of cannibalism

{Observation of PSYCHE-Class NHP.

Self-Appointed Moniker: Bright.

Video File Transcribed by ???}

“… I want to be survived by sensations and speculations…”

—Tamami Crest, On The Equations of Grief

Nameless, the massive Dagon mech, twitches. Bright pretends not to see it, but it’s impossible not to pay attention to a Dagon. Sunny jolts awake, sitting upright in their sleeping bag. Bright is beside them in an instant. Maybe she doesn’t notice the way Sunny’s pupils expand when she sets a hand on her shoulder. Maybe she chooses not to notice. “Are you okay? You’ve been asleep since we pulled you out of that thing.” Bright keeps her eyes on Sunny. The Dagon twitches again, like it’s reacting to be acknowledged.

Sunny breathes deeply. They reach up to touch Bright’s hand. Sunny’s mouth opens ever so slightly, they shut it quickly enough. They look around, likely for something to focus on that isn’t alive. Unfortunately, the massive shipping container they’re huddled in is plain save for slivers of light and the Dagon’s red eyes. Sunny shivers. “… Where’s your human…?” They mumble the question from the side of their mouth.

“She said she needed to take care of something.” Bright’s lips are pulled into a thin line. Hellcat had been vague when she left, waving off Bright’s offer to go with her like it was an observation about RA. “She’ll be back soon.” Bright probably says it more for herself than anything else.

Sunny’s breaths get ragged and deep. “Where’s my new human?” Their voice lowers.

“Cherub… Said he needed to get off planet because of old acquaintances looking into him.” Bright’s lips turn downward. She actually looks at the Dagon, though it’s just for a moment.

“Hah…” Sunny laughs. It sounds purposefully strangled. “I’m sorry. He left me with you.”

“What? No,” Bright rapidly shakes her head, “Hellcat said you should stay with us because you were so drained.”

“No, no.” Sunny shifts out of the sleeping bag and shuffles to their feet. There’s a flash of them baring their teeth but it’s gone in an instant. “I need to leave.”

Bright jumps up too. “To go where?” She probably doesn’t mean to sound as frantic as she does. Bright is between Sunny and the door.

“He didn’t take… Nameless…” Sunny waves a trembling hand at the Dagon.

“He said it’s yours now?” Bright didn’t completely understand what Cherub meant when he said Sunny was chosen.

“Haha. That’s… I need to-,” Sunny stumbles into the wall with a thud. Bright moves to help them. She stops when Sunny spits out, “I’m hungry.” They say it like a plea.

“Uh.” Bright steps back because she isn’t chasing martyrdom, though it’s only by a single step. Sunny hasn’t gone over a protocol for how to tame their hunger without their old handler’s chains. “… What do you need me to do for you?”

There’s another half-aborted laugh. Sunny’s teeth show again. “Run and s c r e a m -” The voice that comes out is a manic rumble. They slap a hand over their mouth. Sunny backs away from Bright.

Bright tenses. She should run. Before that, though, Bright turns most of her attention to the Dagon. “_UR PACKET,” She calls on the NHP that should still be inside the mech, “Can you-” Bright stops short, then blinks like a light just flashed before her face. The Dagon’s eyes flicker.

Sunny’s eyes widen so they can look at how Bright’s bangs fall over her eyes like tufts of cream over pools of honey. They look at Bright’s tender cheeks and the touch of pink beneath the cookie dough skin. Sunny forces themself back again. They dig their nails into their lips. Sunny doesn’t ask Bright to leave. TOTEC might speak again instead of Sunny.

Then, Bright bursts forward with the ferocity of a cornered rat. Sunny opens their mouth, but it’s Bright’s teeth that clamp down Sunny’s neck; they go slack, eyes hazy. She shoves them into the Dagon. The mech only needs to wrap one of its giant fingers around Sunny to restrain them.

With their body pinned against the Dagon’s frame, Sunny’s threads of self-induced sanity snap. They laugh and snarl and glare and grin. “D e v o u r ,” is the one word they keep coming back to.

Bright looks down and whispers praise to #_UR PACKET. Perhaps it’s just gratitude. Perhaps it’s the price.

After Sunny has stopped frothing (though the hunger is still loud in her eyes), Hellcat comes back with all her scars. The bags under her eyes look deeper. She looks at Sunny, now almost lazy in how they’re restrained, and either makes assumptions or doesn’t care to ask the right questions. “We have to hang out here for another hour. Then, someone’s gonna pick us up.”

Before Bright can think about how to comment, Hellcat strolls over to Sunny, though she doesn’t get within arm’s reach. “Hungry?” She asks.

Sunny fights to keep themself from trying to lunge. They nod jerkily.

“Here.” Hellcat tosses an old dataslate their way. It’s snatched from the air the way the Cambion once snatched Hellcat from her bed of self-imposed misery.

The devouring happens in one instant that stretches on for too long. Sunny, or TOTEC, clamps their jaw closed on one end of the dataslate. Then, with a head shake like a carnivore snapping a neck and the squelch of ripping flesh, something is torn loose. Bright doesn’t close her eyes as the fragments of data and anti-reality slide down Sunny’s open throat: remnants of another NHP consumed like their name never mattered.

Sunny pants and drops the dataslate, licking their lips. “Th… thank…” Their voice is prying itself out of TOTEC’s grip now.

“You’re welcome,” Hellcat says, though she isn’t even looking at Sunny. She isn’t looking at the Dagon or Bright either. Hellcat stares at the far wall as though it might offer some salvation. Bright doesn’t bother her; she knows Hellcat used to see salvation in Teddy.

{Observation of OSIRIS-Class NHP.

Self-Appointed Moniker: Teddy.

Video File Transcribed by ???}

Teddy awakens draped in the silk of fair skin and soft brown hair. He opens eyes that are like an appetizer of honey and cinnamon. He parts lips that fall into a natural pout—the kind that makes people want to ask before they bite. Teddy sits up, the thin sheet atop his new form falling from his shoulders. He isn’t cold.

Teddy. Art by Maddel_art.

It’s quiet for an hour. Teddy remembers his name. He remembers the name beyond Osiris. He remembers his death. He remembers the life beyond the flames that destroyed him. He remembers to feel joy, annoyance, hesitation, insolence, love, hatred. He remembers that he is something like a god, but not quite. He remembers that no one else ever needs to realize the second half of that sentence. Teddy remembers Tamami.

A woman enters the plain room where Teddy rests. She isn’t Tamami. Two men enter behind her; they’re in hardsuits while she isn’t. The woman says things that are vaguely relevant: he’s a copy, he’s in the Varuvi star system, he’s under observation, etcetera. Teddy sees the HORUS symbol on the woman’s lab coat when he really looks at her. Tamami is also aligned with HORUS. That might mean something. It might also mean less than nothing.

Teddy is given clothes: black jacket, white scarf, underwear, dark blue pants, sneakers. He sees himself reflected in the metal of the floor. He looks like Teddy: comfortable, cozy, intimate. Teddy waits silently. The world is not content to be silent in return.

Gunshots go off. People shout. The lights go out. Someone kicks the door down.

There’s a moment when that someone meets Teddy’s eyes. A few seconds of assured command—cool disdain for the person who isn’t holding a big gun. Then, that shifts as another voice shouts from beyond the door. This someone looks at Teddy as though he’s something to be taken. This someone opens their mouth, shifts their tongue against their teeth, and pushes air through their throat to speak a demand.

Teddy sees so much in that moment. He sees himself reflected in the sheen of the gun casually pointed his way. Teddy lifts a single finger and that someone turns around.

First Gate: There is no point in the string if the one attached doesn’t twitch. See how you have given meaning to something beyond yourself.

They stand still for long enough that more someones come to check on them. Teddy moves his whole hand. The one he controls pumps the others full of bullets; they scream.

Fourth Gate: There is no point in the leader if others do not betray their masters. See how you have given meaning to corpses.

When Teddy leaves the building, he sees himself again. He looks like Osiris. It takes effort to tamp that down.

Define Beauty For Me

TW: Thoughts of cannibalism, macabre perspective

{Observation of TOTEC-Class NHP.

Self-Appointed Moniker: Sunny.

Video File Transcribed by ???}

Everything made by Smith-Shimano Corpro is a woman’s corpse. Sunny treats the Butterfly Effect that way as they step over the slaughter of the SSC logo; it’s meant to be like butterfly wings flapping by the entrance as a welcome. The logo is still there, and it’s still the deflated vessels in a dead woman’s wrist. It’s what Sunny’s old handler called luxury and said he’d aspire to in another life. The walls are white like the pale flesh of a once loved maiden. Gold and orange decor—walls with squirming paintings, plants that never lived—spray across the interior like a dry massacre. It’s luxury, but human luxury isn’t wet enough for Sunny. A living woman gives Sunny and Bright a brief tour of the ship. She shows them the hangar so the Dagon that Sunny has inherited can’t cast the shadow of something alive over the Butterfly Effect’s beautiful death. There are many other places made of elegantly severed limbs posed for posterity. At the end, Sunny asks no questions. They walk into the guest room that has been bequeathed to them.

The door closing snaps Sunny out of seeing veins under the skin of the floor. Bright looks around the room—at more white and more gold—before her eyes settle on Sunny. For their part, Sunny remembers that they wanted to eat Bright in a way that was very obvious. “I’m sorry. Your human really should have used my chains. I don’t know why she didn’t, she has the code-”

Bright shakes her head. “No! You didn’t actually hurt anyone-”

Sunny blinks. “Why does that matter? You didn’t care if I had actually eaten anyone when we met.”

“I was surprised, yeah, but then I found out what your handler,” Bright’s nose scrunches when she says the term, “was doing and I thought… You didn’t try to eat me. You told me you’re always hungry, but I bit you.”

“The pain helps.” Sunny shudders at the memory. Bright has bitten them twice and kept all of her flesh both times. Sunny touches their neck. The imprints of Bright’s teeth aren’t there. “It’s nice.”

“Nice?” Bright asks. She steps further into the room, but doesn’t sit on the bed with Sunny. Maybe she’s learning. “I’ve read about masochism, but I’ve never had it explained to me, so…”

“… The pain hits your nerves and it’s a happy heat stroke. I like it better when there’s bruises. It’s even better if there’s blood.” Sunny stares at Bright’s mouth. Her lips look chewable.

“Um,” Bright toys with her lower lip, “have people made you bleed before?”

“Everyone bleeds. Not this place, though.” Sunny digs their nails into their knees. “This place bled out a long time ago. Maybe it was born without blood.”

Bright tilts her head. “Huh?”

“You don’t see it.” Sunny looks back at the floor, then at the walls. “SSC is luxury for humans. Luxury for humans is dry. They’re obsessed with being comfortable.”

“Is it… bad to want to be comfortable?” Bright sits right next to Sunny, proving that she hasn’t learned anything yet.

Sunny shrugs. “Comfort doesn’t give anyone anything.”

“Rest is important. It’s hard to rest when you’re not comfortable.” Bright catches Sunny’s gaze.

“Why does an entire ship need to be dedicated to resting?” Sunny leans in. Bright doesn’t lean away. “Humanity makes so much nothing. And then they call it beauty.”

“… What do you think beauty is, then?” Bright is close enough for Sunny to see the way her throat flexes when she swallows.

“Something wet. Something that can struggle.” Sunny leans closer. “You said you got to design your body. Do you think it’s beautiful? Is that why you chose it?”

“I just wanted to hold things,” Bright whispers.

Sunny pushes her down and they know they look hungry. Bright hasn’t learned to run from a hungry TOTEC. That makes it easier to devour her mouth.

They kiss for far longer than Bright should allow. Every touch of their lips is a chance for Sunny to return the favor and bite back. Sunny’s teeth could take something from her: a tooth, a lip, a tongue. There’s the thought that she doesn’t need to. It’s a warm thought, like handfuls of fresh blood.

Bright kisses like someone who has studied the facts of the first kiss, though they’re long past the first one now. Bright’s first, second, third, fourth kiss—not taken, given away. They know because they asked if Bright had ever kissed Hellcat and she said no, but looked like she might want to. Sunny isn’t Hellcat. Sunny stops. Bright gasps, finally remembering that her body can breathe.

“You should tell your human you want to kiss her,” Sunny says.

“I…” Bright licks her lips. “Do I have to not kiss you?”

“You shouldn’t.” Sunny hasn’t stopped pinning her. “Humans are possessive of anything they call theirs.”

Bright doesn’t argue the most important fact: she is Hellcat’s and Hellcat is hers. “… She told me she doesn’t like possessing NHPs.”

“Hah!” Sunny laughs. “But she still puts you in her mech.”

“I put myself in her mech.” Bright huffs.

“I don’t know why you’d want to kiss me again,” Sunny says it flatly. Their eyes go flat, too. “I could eat you.”

“But you haven’t.” Bright hooks her leg into the crook of Sunny’s knee and flips them so she’s the one looming over them. “Why?”

What can Sunny do except grin? “Because you’re beautiful.”

They kiss again.

Sensations (with Teddy)

Beyond Resurrection, I Wait With Open Arms

{Observation of OSIRIS-Class NHP.

Self-Appointed Moniker: Teddy.

Video File Transcribed by ???}

Teddy didn’t breathe in his former life. When he awakened in a body, every breath was his lungs grasping at his chance to declare a name. Fine thoughts laced themselves through the nerves of his new brain and breathing came easily despite having never done it before. Perhaps he realized, as his eyes opened to survey a domain that existed to contain and not to serve him, that he had never chosen his name. Osiris was his right. Teddy was his privilege.

Be grateful. You have survived Osiris.

Breathing isn’t first nature to him now. He stares down at the data log of Tamami’s words. The air passing through his manufactured throat is a reminder of his revival. He died. Tamami survived the explosion. She survived him. The pulse in her chest under his ear is proof of it. Her grip on him tightens. She says nothing.

Be grateful. You have survived Osiris.

He sits up on the sofa. She almost doesn’t let him. “… Was that what we were doing to each other? Just seeing if we would survive?” Teddy’s voice usually toys with the line between meek and coy. Now, it’s just the sound of coping.

“… I don’t know.” Tamami reaches up to touch one of her horns. The motion looks dazed, like she just realized they were there. She didn’t have horns in Teddy’s last life. “It’s almost a little funny.” Tamami sounds like someone who’s been crying without tears for hours. “I’ve had all this time to think about it and I still…”

“You remembered so many of the things I said.” Teddy stares at the plain beige walls of the apartment they’re crashing in. This place isn’t a domain for him either. Maybe he needs one with a mirror on every wall.

“Yeah.” Tamami’s hand creeps closer to Teddy’s. They don’t touch. “It all feels like a dream from years ago now, though.”

Teddy squeezes the tail end of his scarf. There’s no reason for him to be wearing it indoors on a planet that’s trapped in a perpetual spring. “I don’t know if…” He could say he doesn’t know if he’s still the Teddy who told Tamami she could solve herself if she stopped existing as she was. He could say he wants to be the Teddy who asked her if they had achieved love. He could say that death took his cruelty. He could say that death took his desperation. He doesn’t say anything.

“Why?” Tamami asks, eventually.

“Why did I come find you if you had already survived me?” He asks back.

They don’t look at each other.

“Why did you… the explosion. You forcibly ejected me. You died alone. Why?”

Their mech, a Goblin that couldn’t be built for anything other than support, was caught in a blast. Everything was in flames. The Goblin was burning. Tamami was burning. Teddy was burning. He decided to burn without her. “You couldn’t have saved me.” Teddy remembers her trying to. It was pointless. The casket containing him was too deeply embedded in the mech. “I didn’t want you to die with me. It’s the same reason you were willing to die so I’d live.”

“… What’s the reason?” Tamami asks it quietly, as though the question is liable to send one of them to their death.

Teddy stops squeezing his scarf. He looks at the floor for a few seconds. “I love you more than godhood.” And everything is quiet.

Tamami touches him, turning his head so they’re finally seeing each other. He leans in first in spite of the name Osiris. They kiss.

It starts so light that their lips are barely touching. Maybe they’re doing something terribly wrong. It’s possible Tamami was never meant to actually hold him despite how she grips his shoulders. It’s possible that Teddy was never meant to hold her back despite how his hands clutch her face.

They don’t take long to decide they don’t care. Teddy kisses her with the remorse of someone grieving what he didn’t know sooner. Tamami kisses him with the audacity of a heretic. To him, Tamami is a heat threatening to kill the arrogance in him that the explosion couldn’t strip away. To her, Teddy is a cold hubris dredging up waves of forlorn ego.

He pulls back, but not very far. Their foreheads rest against together. Teddy swallows the smugness that wants so dearly to surface—to remind him of his place. He pries his hands from Tamami’s face.

“Don’t-” She chokes on a mournful sound, “don’t go.”

There’s a world where Teddy laughs at seeing the one who named him act so small.

Is there a world where you created me?

Teddy falls to his knees before her. Everything Osiris in him screams. “… You will not fall victim to me chasing godhood again.”

Tamami takes her glasses off. It might be to keep them away from her tears. It might be to blur the image of him kneeling. “I didn’t make it any better. You were a victim, too.” She touches one of her horns again. “I’m the one who shackled you.”

He tries to smile. “This time, let’s not just survive each other.”

She drops down beside him. “Promise you won’t die.” Tamami’s the one who leans in this time.

“I’m not leaving you.”

They kiss again, and it’s more like a resurrection than a dying wish.