Chapter Text
[[RECORD 232]]
To hear the distant, deep rumble of napalm bombs would have been the sound of hope to the Hamelin soldiers stationed in the defensive outpost. Now the plains over which they watched were still; eerily silent. Salt swirled across the wastes, forming dunes that were slowly devouring the abandoned town.
Fighting Legion afield in the wide ranges of the west was suicide, but in the crooked streets of the town there was safety. The walls of the buildings were scorched black, and in places dozens of hands had scored the plaster in an attempt to escape.
The town had been assigned to the squad months ago, and since then they had taken over seeing to the town's management. Many platoons had passed through on their way west, but none had returned.
No one had heard from command in a month.
They all knew what this meant, but none spoke aloud of it. There'd not be enough supplies to make the journey back to friendly territory now.
The wind scorned the earth, and the sunset was eternal in the Land of Dusk, as it bathed the salt dunes in its dim light.
A lone soldier trudged through the loose salt, lungs laboring under the constricting weight of his suit. He tugged on a cable, towing a large blackened box along. He heralded the soldiers outside the town. They had been tasked with shoveling salt away from the gate mechanisms, and in the low visibility of dusk, it took the lone soldier much waving to garner their attention.
Once spotted, the soldiers tensed at the approach, unused to anything but trouble coming off the westward plains, but they eased as they saw the red-cross armband and familiar flame retardant suit of their company on the figure.
"Is that… Gabe…? How in the–" Dan stopped transmitting his microphone tucked inside his mask.
“What the hell is he doing?!” Ariel stabbed her shovel into the salt, staggering forward in her cumbersome gear to get a better look.
“Dunno. Captain'll be pissed, though. Opening up channels," he said plainly, but his voice tinged with bewilderment.
As soon as they established connection, Gabe begged them, his voice snapping static inside their suits, “come help me with this! It's heavy! I have to show it to the captain. It's important. It'll save our lives .”
The two exchanged a wary glance through their visors and approached Gabe cautiously.
"Hold on." Ariel signaled for Gabe to halt, drawing a flashlight out of her belt. "Eye check."
Gabe paused as he was approached, standing still as she flashed a light through his visor, checking the color of his eyes.
"Still good ol' blue," she verified with Dan.
"Captain's gonna want to see you, shipment or not," Dan said, "let's get this into town."
The two helped their medic pull the box into the safety of town.
[[SCENARIO V5 - TYPE B]]
The white halls echoed with numerous voices, and the stench of antiseptics stung me, though I lacked flesh to sting. I had this terrible feeling, but I could not pinpoint it.
I sought out Weiss. He usually knew what to do.
Merely looking upon him dredged up envy. He was much more beautiful than I.
It was said every grimoire's face differed from contact with the soul within, so why was my face the same as my original soldier’s? Was my soul the very same?
Weiss could do anything, be anyone, but all he chose was nothing . Squandered his gifts.
“Would you like to visit the perfect Gestalt and their family?" I asked him.
Weiss was far away. He always seemed far away, as if he were dreaming.
“I’d rather not bother. They’re going to die anyway.”
I did not understand how he came to that conclusion so quickly.
“The perfect one will live for quite some time,” I said logically, “being the first stable Gestalt. Their family will be put in stasis. The project values their mental health due to their value, so they will keep the family alive to give them hope.”
“I’d rather not get attached to… project property.”
I waited for a minute, hovering, hoping for a change. There was no change. Just the quiet.
“As you wish," I said as I bowed to him.
As I left, I wondered. I did not know what made Weiss act this way. Was it fear? His original had been scared from the minute that we had been enveloped in our Grimoire shells.
That soldier’s first spell had been a shield. My original's first spell was a spire.
Deflect. Kill.
White. Black.
I floated into the flickering lights into the white walled rooms of the medical complex. I lingered outside the room, peering in to check on my charge. The perfect Gestalt was no less human by appearance. The darkness of a gestalt had not overtaken their flesh. They looked exhausted, face bent in furrows, hair in a mess.
This parent was cradling their child, continually fussing over them, softly so as not to disturb, but so desperate and clingy, wishing to wring another second of closeness from these final moments they had together.
The image was picturesque.
It made me feel… something. It was so curious to experience such an emotion, being what I was, yet I could not savor it. This wasn’t my love or my pain to feel.
I waited silently to show my respect. Hours passed. The perfect Gestalt who would be the savior of humanity fell from quiet sobs to silence.
Another hour went by, and their child was falling into a deep sleep.
I entered the room, making my presence known by grazing the Gestalt with an invisible trace of magic.
They roused, inhaling through a stuffy nose. The staff always kept the rooms so cold in the medical division.
“Wh-what is it?” The voice was hoarse. They hadn’t been hydrating.
I produced a blanket from myself via magic, the mere passage through my pages warming it for them.
“I brought you this.”
“Oh… thanks.” They took it, but didn’t put it on. They just held it in a white-knuckled fist, a fist which trembled.
Tired, blank eyes searched me.
“D—did… has anything… has anything happened?” they asked, speech troubled.
I tried to keep my voice calm, “no. Everything is proceeding according to plan.”
The Perfect Gestalt stared beyond me.
“Your family is going into stasis tomorrow.”
There wasn’t much to say. This decision was beyond anyone’s control. None of the Gestalt's nor I’s fury or power could change this.
I offered a word. A pittance.
“I’m sorry.”
They glanced up at me, bothered by that statement, perhaps.
“I’m sorry I can’t do anything,” I re-worded.
The Perfect Gestalt didn’t say anything, their gaze lingering sightlessly over the room before resting on their child.
They repeated the child's name softly.
When the Perfect Gestalt had first arrived, their voice had repeated that name hundreds of times, low and in a tone that made one listen. They'd been forceful, fierce, but… my pages shivered with weakness as the parent gently laid the blanket over their child and ran their fingers over the young one's hair, smoothing it down.
Even as a monster I could not stop my heart from aching. I had been briefed on the dangers of this byproduct of my function as a conduit of souls–that I would feel the echoes of my partner’s.
The gestalt drew in a ragged breath, their throat tightening.
“I’m… I need a minute,” they managed.
They'd need a lot of time.
I glimpsed the horror this person faced, proxy of their empathetic bond to me.
I couldn’t speak.
Such despair…
A device was coded into our pages, implemented to ensure our emotional investment in the plight of those we were bound to, and in my case, the original Perfect Gestalt.
But I wasn’t sure if the device had anything to do with this particular surge of emotion.
I dipped and took my leave, shutting the door behind with a gust of magic.
My covers trembled…
Such hollowness, a void opening its maw, one without satiation…
I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t speak. A throat I no longer possessed contracted, terse from the emotions I had brushed against.
If I couldn’t speak… then I could… I… I could…
Weiss hovered by, carrying on somewhere quickly.
“Weiss,” I called out, “Weiss I’m worried.”
There was no answer from the white book as he halted. I needed to not be ignored.
“Weiss, the perfect one is so grieved. They won’t last long. I don’t know if the project will—”
I only saw the back cover of Weiss. Motionless.
“Weiss, you know you're better at this than I am. You have to take care of them. Help me.” I doubted that the white book ever listened to his empathetic device. Perhaps it didn’t work. Perhaps his heart was so dead and cold it—
No, Weiss was the good one. Branded with desire for togetherness and love. Black was branded for alienation and hatred.
“Are you listening to me?” I demanded to know. “I cannot do this by myself. We are both needed for—”
Weiss ripped around through the air, voice powerful, “I’d rather not.”
I shrunk away from Weiss’ fury.
“…what?”
The white book finished, his voice thinner by the word, “I’d rather not get attached .”
He turned away again, floating away aimlessly.
I watched.
Agony spread through my text block, manifesting in rage. But it is not unfounded. My pages were branded with hate–designed to hate . But this hate was not external, merely my own hatred penned in unfading ink, like a grudge that I couldn’t let go.
…no matter how I changed over the years.
I had to pursue Weiss.
I could fix this.
He could fix this.
[[RECORD 234]]
The words of the captain played over and over in his head as he walked down the echoing hall.
"Prioritize the preservation of skilled squad members. That means yourself, Gabriel."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Don't risk yourself for the sake of grunts like Ariel or those soon to age out of the system like Dan. Am I clear?”
“As always, ma’am.”
Ariel clapped Gabe on the shoulder, drawing him out of his memories, “nice knowing you.”
Gabe gave her a wan smile. “I’m serious. This,” he pointed at the box being lugged forward, “this changes everything.”
“I hope it does, because the captain’s been… irritable lately,” she replied, adding in a humorous tone to cover her nerves, “good luck with that.”
Dan knocked on the steel door, and in a minute it swung open, announcing their entrance with a shriek. Inside was the captain’s desk, heavy-laden with transcripts and logs. When they had first started their tenure in the nameless town, her quarters had been clean and maintained, but like all things in Hamelin, the composure was beginning to unravel.
Much like the captain’s own.
“All the time we’ve been here and you have been nothing but sensible, [[DATA LOST]],” the captain addressed Gabe by his surname, and then with utmost disappointment added, “so can you explain to me why you , our only remaining trained medic, went alone into enemy territory?”
Gabe’s box was set on the table gently by Ariel and Dan. "I recovered a shipment afield. I had no time to waste."
“Open it up,” the captain ordered the others.
They unlatched the container, and gently eased the case open, the hinges squealing. On the inside were rows and rows of glimmering vials, fresh and packed in foam.
"Oh my God…" Ariel spoke out of turn without realizing.
The soldiers couldn’t contain their astonishment at such fortune. It was staggering .
"Luciferase, ma’am. Some vials were damaged but…" Gabe started, but trailed off as the captain rose to her feet.
Not even she could hide how this bounty softened her pinched brow. The spark of hope that had glimmered in her eyes… A pit grew in Gabe’s stomach.
The supply line had broken and they hadn’t received crucial supplies in weeks. They could get by a while longer on food and fuel. But luciferase…
“Where the hell did you get this? What coordinates?” She picked up a vial and inspected it in the light.
“Recovered from coordinates [[CORRUPTED]],” he answered shortly, adding, “probably from a squad fighting on the wastes that got turned to salt before they could ever use it.”
“Anything else we could retrieve from the site?” she asked, glancing askance at the other soldiers in the room.
“Nothing else was salvageable, ma'am. All items were burned beyond recognition. This survived because of the insulated case.”
The captain snorted, slipping the vial back into its secure housing with a smirk. She addressed him sternly, “you’re still on my shitlist for going out of bounds and risking everyone’s lives by risking your own."
Gabe glanced to the floor, unable to meet the intensity of her eyes.
Captain [[ERROR]] turned away, stating, "we’re almost due for our next dose. Start preparing for administration tomorrow.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Gabe saluted her dutifully.
She gestured to the door, his cue to leave, and then gestured for Ariel and Dan too.
“Be careful with that,” Gabe told them as they heaved the case off the desk.
“Says the idiot dragging this across the salt by a string!” Dan retorted, but all in good humor.
As the door shut back on its hinges, Captain [[ERROR]] was left alone, her sole company the dozens of stacks of paper and the continuous clicking of her clock.
“Keep eyes on him,” the captain spoke softly to no one in particular, “don’t want him wandering off again.”
The sounds of the squad cheering echoed faintly in the halls of the nameless town, and the captain gnashed her teeth.
[[RECORD 235]]
The needle slipped in, striking the vein true. The injection flushed through the soldier’s body, igniting their veins with a golden pulse.
The light flashed through their outermost veins, and the recipient leaned aside, massaging their temples as the urge to vomit overwhelmed them. The light began to spider, turning and twisting around their extremities in angular patterns as it took effect. After several pulsations, the glowing had taken on a gridwork pattern, looking like a cage of yellow light surrounding their body.
Slowly, the pulsations faded, and soon the lines were invisible to the naked eye.
Luciferase. Effective on children to keep the [[CORRUPTED]] away.
Great care had been taken during Gabe’s training to impart the importance of his duty as the chief overseer of the luciferase shots, and even so, his commanding officer stood over the proceedings, supervising the injections to make sure the vital liquid was administered properly.
This was their crimson thread, and it made them glow sickly gold.
The patterns were as those of Legion, save for the fact Legion glistened red and not yellow. It was terrifying to see during one's first dosage, but in truth it made sense to Gabe, good anti-venoms were made from the venom itself.
To fight the powerful magic from [[REMOVED]], one had to partake of their power and warp it to their own ends.
[[RECORD 256]]
At meal time the squad sat around the main table, sharing stories as they ate.
Moments like these were the best memories Gabriel [[DATA LOST]] had experienced in his life.
As Dan passed him a drink, he caught a glimpse of a scar crawling up his comrade’s hand. Gabe remembered hastily dressing the wound, knowing that at any moment the flesh he was trying to patch together could turn to salt, or worse, turn on him.
[[SEE RECORD 134]]
Legion had broken through the line of defense. But Gabe didn’t care. He incinerated any that approached and then went back to dressing the wound. By all logic, they should’ve lost Daniel that day. A hole in the suit in a close quarters scuffle? The odds of surviving were pitifully low.
Gabe administered a booster round of luciferase, bolstering Dan against any traces of contamination that had slipped in his suit. They’d dragged Daniel out of there, beating the odds, and now he sat with them today, laughing at the comfortingly basic talk between [[CORRUPTED]] and [[CORRUPTED]].
Every one of the soldiers he sat around the table with he knew by their scars. Ariel by a stitch that’d required a blood transfusion, [[DATA LOST]] by [[SEE RECORD [[DATA LOST]], and [[REMOVED]] by taking a risk on acquiring medicine to treat an infection, not to mention how he had saved [[ERROR]], and the rest with all their own stories to tell.
Normally Hamelin soldiers did not get so well acquainted with each other with how they were moved around by command. Especially medics since they had a high mortality rate due to their patients often becoming either highly infectious or highly violent.
The squad being stationed for so long in such a hazardous bulwark had fostered an even stronger sense of community than ever before. Even the nameless town had become part of them, someone they could trust. Its moving barricades and complex piping network of fire traps were near organic, and something that they became intimate with over the many weeks. It had a life of its own.
Realistically, they all knew they were dead walking. In some funny sense, this only served to make these moments of peace sweeter.
Soon, the maze-like traps of the nameless city would be set ablaze, and the whole town would echo with the cries of death. Whether these were the calls of humans or former humans was anyone’s guess.
[[RECORD 257]]
After dinner, Ariel and Gabe climbed on top of the central hub of town, using the roof to survey the salted wastes encompassing town. The sun sank just below the horizon, and the dunes were awash with the cool hues of twilight. The wind buffeted them, carrying with it the tang of saline air, but still, it was gentle and somehow pleasantly cold.
“How alone do you think we are, Gabe?” Ariel asked out of the blue.
He stared out at the white wastes for a long while. “Not alone at all. So many Legion…”
Gabe wondered why they hadn’t attacked yet. Perhaps they were strategizing on how to best foil the town’s defensive maze.
“I meant otherwise .”
There was nothing moving on the horizon. A good sign.
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t you think it’s weird how the captain has been acting?” She put her binoculars down and turned her gaze to him.
“What do you mean?”
“Withholding information.”
“What?”
“We found records burned. Half- burned. Like she’d intended them to be lost.”
Gabe gave his comrade a quizzical tip of the head. “What would she even hide from us?”
“I can’t say for sure out loud,” Ariel chose her words with care, “but I wonder if it has to do with leaving .”
“And?”
“And…” she fiddled with her suit, pondering her words, “as a hypothetical, and only a hypothetical, what do you think our chances are of getting back? In your medical opinion.”
“I’m not a doctor, just a medic. Anyone could see that that’s… suicide. Worse, actually. We’d be infected and hand our bodies and equipment over to the Legion. Who knows what that’d do.”
Ariel narrowed her eyes. “We won’t get infected if we shoot up with that luce you just scored.”
Gabe realized what she was implying; why he’d been brought up here to speak alone. “I don’t think that’s our place to decide.”
“You’re really that scared of her, of [[data not found]]?”
“No, but, command is–”
“We haven’t heard from them in a month or more . We’re alone.”
Ariel took her leave, but not before imparting these words to Gabe, “no one is coming. Hamelin doesn’t give a shit about an old squad like us. We have to save ourselves.”
[[RECORD 258]]
Gabe handed Ariel a glass of water.
"Thanks," she said, "pills always get stuck in my throat."
"It's always good to wash things down," Gabe mentioned as he went about tidying up. "Hope that helps with the headache."
"I just don't know why my body suddenly decided to have a... tinnitus flare-up." She shook her head in confusion, taking another sip as she pondered that.
He was re-organizing his tools, muttering about how there always seemed to be some spirit that came in after him and jumbled everything.
"H-hey," Ariel spoke up, her face pinched in pain, "it's getting worse."
"The sound?" Gabe dropped his tools with a clink. "It's still the ringing, right?"
His comrade shook her head, confusion spreading. She opened and closed her mouth, trying to articulate, but fell short every time.
"It's ringing, isn't it?"
"No."
"What is it?" Gabe walked around the room, standing beside the door. He waited for an answer, and then prompted again but with urgency, "what sound is it? What type?"
"I can't explain it. It's just loud, it's too much, it's too much," Ariel held her head, her body curling inward at the intensity.
Finally, she screamed, jumping to her feet. She panicked, rushing toward the door.
"Out. I need outside. I need out! Now!"
Gabe opened the door and made way, his eyes peeled wide. He raced after her, following her out of the infirmary and through the central complex they bunked in. Several others followed suit, alarmed.
"STAY BACK!" Gabe shouted toward the others. "Arm yourselves. We might have a—"
Dan was already out the exit of the main hall, pursuing Ariel.
"Stay back everyone," Gabe ordered once more. "We have a potential infectious member."
The squad murmured amongst themselves, gearing up within minutes. Gabe raced outside, boots clacking hard against the stone road. He slid his mask over his face, securing it tight.
He rounded the corner on the commotion. Dan stood a great distance from Ariel. Her arms were outstretched, warning him away. She had her suit zipped up, but her mask was notedly off.
A flickering exchange of glances were all her comrades received before her face salinified.
"No," Dan whimpered.
His only answer was the sound of Ariel's suit hissing as it slumped, the loose salt gathering in the bottom while the top was blown around by the wind.
[[RECORD 259]]
“What's really curious is… the coordinates you gave," the captain paced around the room, around Gabe, as she spoke to him, "you said you found the shipment in the remains of a struggle. Yet... there was nothing there. Nothing even remotely there. Not even a salt dune to obscure it. No plausible deniability. Just empty, flat, white earth."
She glanced up at the window, staring at the hazy shafts of light. She clasped her hands, spinning around on a foot.
Gabe’s throat tightened, and he couldn’t help but tense his body, bracing for the captain’s outburst.
"WHERE did you get that luciferase from?" she demanded to know, a snarl crawling up her lip.
"Maybe I miscalculated, I'm not good at coordinates. I was alon–”
“WHY were YOU alone!?” The captain stared him dead in the eyes. “Why did you not tell anyone you were leaving?"
The pit in his stomach yawned.
“I didn’t want anyone else to get infected over my stupid hunch that I could find something. I have a high resistance to [[CORRUPTED]]. That’s why I’m a medic. That’s why Hamelin made me one. Not because I’m good, but because I can survive. Ma’am.”
The captain glared at him, her arms crossed. She turned away, diffusing things, or so it seemed.
Gabe relaxed.
In one explosive instant, Gabe's jaw clacked as the captain punched him to the ground.
“YOU EXPECT ME TO BELIEVE THAT?” she shouted down at him. "If you believe so much in helping people, then why is Ariel DEAD?"
Gabe struggled to sit up, clambering backwards. He felt his jaw, terrified that it had been broken. He took a minute to gather his breaths, not even attempting to stand for fear of her taking another swing and shattering his face.
"There was no lost shipment," he managed, "I did that so you wouldn't question the extension."
"How long?" She loomed over him. "Extended for how long?"
"Months. I only had enough for a few doses, so I… stretched it," he revealed his secret. "It was working."
"Until it didn't."
The sickening sound of rushing salt in an empty hazmat suit made Gabe want to wretch.
"You should have given only two of us a full dose."
Gabe's sorrow evaporated, replaced by rage.
It was so simple for her. So easy. He didn't envy it.
What a selfish creature...
"If you'd only prioritized you and I instead of those elderly grunts, we'd have a greater chance and maybe we alone could hold out long enough to survive," she reasoned, sounding now perfectly sane and rational, "now we're all going to turn Legion."
Elderly grunts? That was a lot coming from the captain, the oldest of them all.
Gabe sat up, his face radiating with pain, and his mind racing toward violence. But no... no... if they resorted to killing each other, then it would all be over. It would be chaos.
The captain continued her tirade, "the town will be lost. Legion will take this territory back. Our lives will have meant NOTHING."
"I couldn’t do that…" Gabe staggered to his feet, standing up before the captain. "I couldn’t take their lives.”
“But you will now.”
Gabe didn’t understand. "Excuse me?"
Captain [[ERROR]] locked him with a soulless gaze, and something primeval inside him squirmed. "One way or another... your actions will cost the rest their lives."
[[RECORD 260]]
"Daniel failed the eye check."
That was the news Gabe woke up to.
Hints of red clouded Dan's brown eyes.
Daniel had to be burned alive.
"I'm sorry your actions are having such immediate repercussions, Gabe."
Dan sat alone in his cell, wringing his hands—wringing his heart. He did not know God all too well as a Hamelin soldier, but using the dregs of his knowledge, he prayed to whomever that was.
He'd paid a price to an authority far beyond the scope of a child soldier.
Dan heard the sound of his squad mates approaching.
The death knell coming...
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I just…” he pleaded as they dragged him out of his containment. “I saw what happened to Ariel and I—I was scared. I’m so sorry. I’m scared. I didn’t mean to betray anyone. I’m scared—I don’t know—I don’t—”
He continued to babble on apologetically as they dragged him to the outskirts of town and tied him wrist and foot to a blackened steel barricade. He babbled ever on, nervously professing his repentance to those which could not pardon.
He saw his executioner arrive.
The black hazmat suit and standard issue flamethrower he expected, but what he didn’t expect was the red cross emblazoned across the arm.
A familiar face stared at Dan behind the visor.
“Gabe?”
The captain was speaking.
“You did this.”
“You gave your squad inadequate doses.”
“Live with the consequences.”
“Feel the blood on your hands and soot in your mouth.”
Gabriel opened fire.
At first, Dan howled like a monster at the fires, just like a Legion would... and Gabe could tolerate it. He could imagine he was back on the frontlines, full of adrenaline and luce, incinerating the Legion.
But unlike Hamelin's foes... the cries turned human, as if the [[CORRUPTED]] had burned out of his system.
He begged for comfort, pleaded for his friend to stop, screaming over the hiss of the flamethrower and the crackle of his own burning body. The other squad members tried to plug their ears—tried to avert their eyes, but the captain forced them to watch.
“Eyes and ears front.”
The terrible crackling continued as the soldier’s body melted apart.
“I’M CURED! I’M CURED!” he repeated, the disease giving his body unnatural strength—strength enough to speak as his vocal chords dried in the heat.
But even if that was true, even if the curse had lifted, he would have perished from the burns anyway. A slow, agonizing death awaited him.
Gabe kept the fire streaming until all that remained of his comrade Daniel were wind-strewn ashes.
In a strange sense, Dan had become part of the town. The other soldiers were forced to wonder who else would join him.
And when...
[[RECORD 349]]
“Is it even possible to kill a Grimoire?” a worker asked.
“It is.”
“How?”
“The same way you kill Legion.”
The worker stared long and hard at the woman, thoughts racing through his mind, connecting matters as any logical person would. He nodded discreetly.
“Makes sense.”
The woman bothered to add, “the longer you work in magic, the more things become the same.”
[[SCENARIO V5 - TYPE B]]
After Weiss observed them, the Perfect Gestalt and their child, I could feel how he began to spiral. Weiss wore his heart on his covers, and I could infer every beat.
"They are why the world needs to be saved!"
"They are why the world needs to be destroyed!"
A conversation I know I have never had keeps ringing in my pages. I can hear it, as if the audio was scrawled across my very fibers, planted deep in my spine.
I wondered if there was any validity to Weiss’ hesitance to bond with the Perfect Gestalt.
Perhaps he was right. A person could change a lot in a year. They could change a lot in moments, too.
The project could go on for years, decades, centuries, perhaps a millennium.
1000 years of shifting sands…
I didn't know what the Perfect Gestalt would do. They were honorable now. They were happy to swear to me now. But in the future…? I fear my programming has entrapped me in something dangerous. But it wasn't like I could escape this fate or change who I am.
I must to simply wait
Even if it was 1000 years.
[[RECORD 263]]
Gabe awoke, inhaling, feeling utterly terrible. He tried to move, but he found his extremities cinched down by straps. He had been strapped down to his own operating table.
As he tried to squirm for purchase, to try and twist one of his wrists through a loop and free himself, he realized from where the waves of nausea originated.
His entire vascular system was ignited in the golden glow of luciferase.
As he saw the captain standing behind the opened case, he began to piece things together.
She came around, holding up the remaining shots.
“Diluted two thirds, yes?" she asked. It was rhetorical. The payload had been delivered.
“Stop…” Gabe urged her, feebly, as the luciferase ran wild through his veins.
The captain gave him a smirk, sinking the needle into his gilded vein.
She’d gone insane.
"Don't worry," she talked to him blithely, "I took the rest. Now we don't even have to worry about you backing out on the plan."
Nausea rocked him as the luciferase boiled his blood. He strained his muscles, trying to rip himself free—to wrap his hands around her neck and—
Why does she hate me so? What did I do to deserve this? Where did I go wrong?
Was it so damning to want to save them all?
Was it so damning to want to save anything?
[[RECORD 289]]
He had everyone quarantined in separate rooms around the central hub. It was the best plan to keep everyone safe now that they had no immunity to the infectious material seeping into town.
Help had to arrive someday. It had to.
They had no chance against the Legion in this condition. It had been [[DATA LOST]] days.
Rescue was the only hope.
He carried a platter of rations to dispense to those quarantined, but took pause when he noticed his boots sticking to the ground. He looked down and the floor was covered in a sheet of drying blood.
The source was coming from up ahead.
Gabe set the platter down, zipping up his suit and readjusting his mask. Dread oozed through his body, making his movements lethargic.
They couldn’t have already turned. No way.
Not all of them at once.
But what if...
He braced himself, cracking open the door.
With the door wide open and the overhead lights blaring, the scene was still no clearer to Gabe. The remnant of the squad was strewn about the room, slots carved into each throat, red strands streaking out onto the floor.
Captain [[ERROR]] stood in the midst, indifferent to her surroundings.
"...came so far, only to be killed in some nameless town."
Gabe couldn't even fathom what had transpired here. He knew what had, but he couldn't understand—he wouldn't. His muscles tensed tighter, breaths crowding together.
There wasn't a point trying anymore.
The captain saw to that.
“They weren’t infected," Gabe stated coldly, his voice hollow in the empty room.
“They would have been soon. Especially [[REMOVED]] here. Too old for it."
Gabe's face wrinkled into a snarl as she crouched down and pressed [[REMOVED]]'s wide eyes closed.
"Poor girl," she hummed, petting the soldier that she had once been trusted to lead.
She rose to her feet, and as she turned, her gaze glinted red.
"What... are you...?" Gabe's stomach knotted.
Why did she take the pact? Why did she take the pact? Why did she take the pact?
"Why..?" he asked once more, stepping back.
Her skin was already plaster white. “...you should be asking when.”
“You’ve been working for them the whole time?" Gabe inquired.
“A month.”
A month… the burned data… the lack of communication...
She was keeping them here.
But why…?
“I failed the eye check they gave me. After that, there was no point in hiding it. I wanted us all to turn together. From one side of the war to the other. A family.”
“But you… what you did to me…” Gabe's voice rose a register as he vividly recalled the burning in his veins.
“Let's face it. You'd never turn. There's something wrong with you. That luce at least gives you a running start."
The captain pulled out her knife, approaching him calmly.
Gabe bolted out the door, rushing to the equipment locker. He burst through the door, scanning for a weapon.
What had they done to deserve this?
The captain was fast—fast as Legion—faster than a haggard medic in a cumbersome suit. She was on his heels, and took a swing at him, aiming to puncture a hole in his suit—puncture a hole in him.
Which entity had they angered?
He dodged her strikes, but his agility was hampered by the suit he wore. He caught a hold of her arm, barely hanging on, and tried to strip the knife from her grasp by rolling it out of her fingers. As he struggled, she simply shrugged him off, throwing him across the room.
Her strength was overwhelming, and only growing as her eyes flared ruby and her skin lost such color it turned translucent.
The demon howled, “they scatter us like DUST, Gabe.”
He used a row of lockers to separate himself from her, quickly dragging a small flamethrower unit from the shelf.
“Our lives hold NO MEANING.”
He slung the tank over his back, making sure the fuel hose was in tact and the harness was secured.
“In our darkest hours, HUMANS TURN ON OTHER HUMANS.”
He lead with the ignition tip, turning the corner around the lockers. But she wasn't there.
“THIS IS WHY THE WORLD NEEDS TO BE DESTROYED.”
The voice echoed through the room, as though the captain wasn't the only one speaking.
"PATHETIC HUMAN. THEIR NAMES WILL BE FORGOTTEN."
She stood in the exit, her constantly shifting flesh filling it up and seeping inside. Whatever she had become, it was no longer recognizable.
“I’ll save something. I’ll save [[data corrupted]].”
Gabe pressed the trigger, shooting a jet of fire down into the monster.
[[DATA LOST]]
“I wont forget anyone, not [[REMOVED]] not [[REMOVED]] not [[REMOVED]] not [[REMOVED]] not [[REMOVED]] not [[REMOVED]] not [[REMOVED]] not [[REMOVED]] not [[REMOVED]] not [[REMOVED]] not [[REMOVED]] not [[REMOVED]] not [[REMOVED]] not [[REMOVED]]not [[REMOVED]] not [[REMOVED]] not [[REMOVED]] not [[REMOVED]] not [[REMOVED]] not [[REMOVED]] not [[REMOVED]]not [[REMOVED]] not [[REMOVED]] not [[REMOVED]] not [[REMOVED]] not [[REMOVED]] not [[REMOVED]] not [[REMOVED]]
[[CRITICAL FAILURE]]
As the flames barraged the beast, he heard a shriek. That felt good.
Finally... she suffered. SHE felt pain. SHE would die.
Her body transformed further, caged in rays of red light, pulsing as if she’d been shot by some form of wicked luciferase. Her inhuman screams echoed through the corridors of stone, magnified as if her voice was a chorus.
She screamed and launched at him, grappling his body—aiming to fuse them both together in an embrace.
The flames still engulfed her writhing mass, cracking the pale skin, revealing wet muscles beneath the crusted exterior.
Gabe ripped free, his suit ripped to shreds. Air gushed in, and he could taste the salt.
Her inhuman cries echoed deep in the earth, like a lion’s roar, sending out the signal for miles.
The Legion mobilized for their new captain.
[[SCENARIO V5 - TYPE B]]
Weiss had traveled down into the depths of the facility, where he had found the great smelter. With it were made the metallic masks that adorned our covers–the expressive component of our designs, ones that gave us life.
I knew what he intended to do.
"Weiss..." I spoke to him, trying my best to be kind still. "Weiss, stop this."
“You’ll have to kill me to do so,” Weiss growled a challenge, adding, "I guess we're at an impasse, then."
“I am no executioner, Weiss. I'm not [[REMOVED]]," I was deadly serious, "I need you. The world needs you!”
“OH!? REALLY NOW?” Weiss chuckled madly, thinly veiling his hatred, “did it need me as a soldier?! Did it need me as I watched my friends perish one by one!? The least I can do is die! No one can forbid it!”
“I won’t let you die,” my voice cracked with panic, “I WON'T LET ANYONE ELSE DIE.”
"What a childish fancy," Weiss mused, and then darted for the molten pit.
I burst forward at great speed, an aura of black enveloping him in magic runes, halting his motion.
Weiss ripped at the sphere from inside, tearing it apart with claws of blood. He hurled a whirling lance toward me, the magic ripping through a portion of the facility as if it were paper.
“WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?! WHY ARE YOU SO IN LOVE WITH SAVING THE WORLD!? THIS WORLD IS DARKNESS. YOU OF ALL SHOULD KNOW, NOIR," Weiss hurled words and spell in tandem, a roaring whorl of vengeful song spewing wrath, "THEY MARKED YOU, THEY MARKED YOU FOR HATE! WHY DO YOU WANT TO HELP THE PEOPLE WHO DID THIS TO YOU? WHY?!”
I dodged the barrage, blocking the path to the inferno. After the outburst, Weiss' voice was rendered hoarse, crackling in static.
“I HATE! I-” I choked.
I hated this.
The wrath inside us… it was wanting to breach containment. And if we devolved to killing each other, then the whole world would be doomed!
“You think I’m doing it for the project? I’m doing it for… for them… for the gestalt… for… people…” I breathed.
Weiss was furious. “You don’t even know them! What are their names?!”
“They’re [[UNIMPLEMENTED]] and [[UNIMPLEMENTED]] and
and
a n d
[[SIMULATION PARAMETERS EXCEEDED]]
I could feel the soul of my partner, of the Perfect Gestalt, product of that blessed pact betwixt us. The Perfect One's psyche was cradled in my cursed, wretched claws. And though the love the Gestalt had was a pathetic, awful, disfigured thing, it was so beautiful, because it was uniquely his. No other could have it.
I had never thought something was pretty. I didn't think it was even within my capacity to feel.
There had to be others like this Gestalt; other humans deserving compassion. Even now they were being born.
The only thing that gave my life meaning beyond the project was to dedicate it to this cause.
I didn’t want to dedicate myself to anyone else. I didn’t care much to dedicate myself to myself.
And besides, it was the only justification I could find that wouldn’t set my code on course to kill me.
As an immortal, I knew an endless loop of deaths of the self awaited me should I defy my fate.
The oncoming waves of attacks were stilled. Weiss stopped his pages from turning, cancelling a spell.
“Bah… you’re hopeless.” The dismissal hurt more than he knew. "Why do I waste time on you."
“The love that they have is worth protecting, Weiss. It’s too late for me. Maybe for you, too,” I admitted, “but they still love.”
“Love, love, love… what LOVE have you been given?” Weiss mocked him. “They abducted me from my home, forced me to kill people, murdered me, and turned me into some toy for them to torment for thousands of years. They’ve violated everything. Everything. My mind… my body… my soul… these humans, these people, they deserve NOTHING from me. NOTHING!”
“You think I’m any different, Grimoire Weiss? We are the same.”
“Don’t call me that! Call me… call me…” Weiss trailed off, drifting. He couldn’t recall his name. His real name.
He rammed his head into the limits of the scenario, like a desperate animal caught in a cage.
He hissed in frustration, shaking his pages out. “Just say Weiss! Don't call me a grimoire.”
I was quiet.
“I cannot.”
Weiss glared at me. “Why?!”
“It’s not my choice,” I informed him plainly.
“DAMN YOU! You lackey! Spineless!! If we came together we could DESTROY THEM! BUT YOU WON'T!”
I whispered, “I can’t.”
The white book came at me, forcing me to retreat. Weiss advanced again, pushing my boundaries.
“Weiss… don’t make me…”
“Make you WHAT? DO something? Go ahead! Reveal thyself, black book. It would finally prove your worth.”
I stopped giving ground. Weiss drew right upon me, staring cover to cover, our dimensions a perfect match, right down to the number of pages and the decorative patterned faces which mocked our souls.
“I don’t want to live here any longer… I WON’T! I might not have the freedom to choose how I live but I can choose how I die!” Weiss declared.
“You can't... you can' die..." I said, something deep in me disturbed.
Horror dawned upon me.
Weiss turned. “Beg your pardon?”
“They’ll just keep making—tweaking—until you… you’re like ME, Grimoire Weiss—until you…”
Until you can't s s s a y what you w w w a
[[SIMULATION PARAMETERS EXCEEDED]]
My words broke up
by the letter
my speech slurred
[[SIMULATION PARAMETERS EXCEEDED]]
"What are you doing?" Weiss begged an answer.
I couldn’t think.
[[SIMULATION PARAMETERS EXCEEDED]]
Thoughts stopping, frozen in time, ending before they formed, fading…
"They took"
"They took"
"They t-t-t-"
[[SIMULATION PARAMETERS EXCEEDED]]
Weiss hovered closer.
I hated this.
Noir HATED--
[[SIMULATION PARAMETERS EXCEEDED]]
"Noir stop. Please. You… your voice…"
I can hear them screaming, dissolving to white snow.
You too
G g g
Go n
E
[[CORRUPTED]]
[[SIMULATION PARAMETERS EXCEEDED]]
The captain wraps her flaming flesh around me and dissolves into a bloody pulp, melted by my flames.
[[CORRUPTED]]
I let her escape.
I LET HER ESCAPE.
[[ERROR]]
Cant
Be
A l ll o ne e
[[CORRUPTED]]
[[SIMULATION PARAMETERS EXCEEDED]]
[[SIMULATION PARAMETERS EXCEEDED]]
The outpost erupts into flames, a pillar of fire shoots into the heavens, carrying the boiling cries of Legion.
The world dissipates in a shimmering dream.
Letter and word fail as the plug is pulled from socket and flesh is burned from bone.
[[SIMULATION PARAMETERS EXCEEDED]]
[[SIMULATION PARAMETERS EXCEEDED]]
[[SIMULATION PARAMETERS EXCEEDED]]
[[SIMULATION PARAMETERS EXCEEDED]]
[[SIMULATION PARAMETERS EXCEEDED]]
[[RECORD ????]]
"Do you think the world deserves mercy, Mike?"
The young man’s neutral frown curled into a smile before he cracked with a cruel laugh.
He continued to laugh. He couldn't control it. Tears streamed down his cheeks. It was so rich coming from her lips to his ears.
"Mercy? Mercy…? " Mike repeated her question, incredulous as he spoke, "I'll tell you what this world you and your people have created deserves…"
[[RECORD 291]]
A deep, distant rumble traveled through the earth. But this was not the feeling of falling bombs. This was a cadence, organized; militant .
Gabe ascended the lookout tower, gazing out to the east, and then to the west. A great cloud of white shone bright over the salt flats, bathed red by the sunset’s long rays.
There they were.
The army of Legion that had rolled across their lands, cutting off supplies, communications, lives… They were approaching the town, ravenous for souls.
Gabe would be ready for them.
He would destroy them all. Everyone.
Every last one.
Everyone! Everyone! EVERYONE!
[[PERSONAL FILE 1389]]
This stranger's memories coalesce inside of me, shaping who I am. My self erodes under the currents of code. What do I desire? I cannot know, for I am not myself. I never have been nor will I ever be, shackled to the future as I am.
The person I am was shaped by the hands of the lab that printed me.
My original had won, which was a loss in disguise. His very being was scattered across countless copies, iterations, hammered over the anvil until he had been fashioned into the perfect vessel for their needs.
The other grimoires kept their mystery, but all of the black book was known. His entire psyche opened up on the operating table, every nerve of personality separated and labeled, every memory saved and analyzed.
I am a mere tool.
But in the benign power lies.
[[RECORD 293]]
A grand conflagration!
I laugh. You laugh. It is so funny. I keep laughing. She keeps burning. Hell descends upon the town as I light it ablaze. The fleet of Legion are consumed, corralled like cattle in the network of gates around the town. I set off one trap after another, listening to their greedy little claws scraping along the walls of the buildings with delight. They try to flock to her, and I use this against them. Every time she mewls for aide, I spring a new gate, locking the Legion in with metal barricades and lighting the section of street ablaze.
Just like Daniel, they start screaming: help me, help me, help me! I’m cured!
LIES.
The heat is consuming me too.
The world is growing dark.
The sunset is entering twilight, making the fires all the more brilliant.
I had never thought anything so pretty.
The Legion banded together to survive, thrusting their melting flesh into one horrific beast. The meat slid through the barricades, converging upon the captain's last known location. I had only ever heard of such behavior, but to actually see it...
A mass of white squeezed into the center of town, its skin crackling gray like cooling lava flows. It arose before me, bodies spilling from the yawning holes in its sides.
I must kill her… I must end it!
Nervous laughter overtakes my lungs as I uncork tanks of fuel, slashing lines with the captain’s knife down the roads and intersections. My lips curl as the streets yet unlit run slick with fuel, the gas thick enough to make my head swim.
My mouth pants like a jackal's after prey.
I race inside, into the central control station. I threw the switches, and the open flames ignited all around town like little twinkling stars. At once the fumes were lit. The concussive force of sudden ignition barreled down the streets, vibrating the foundations of the town. I fall as I ascend the stairs, but keep climbing—keep scrambling. I see it clearly from the rooftop. The pillars of meat the beast stood upon were hit, eaten up by flame.
My foe topples into the fires, its body peeling apart, each wriggling chunk of limb and torso unraveling in viscous globs, disintegrating into human ash.
The town is a never ending inferno of my creation.
"Captain [[ERROR]], are you watching?" I stare up into the blisteringly blue skies as they are etched ebony in smoke, awaiting my answer.
I then laugh at myself.
Why would the captain be in the heavens?
I spit on the ground.
[[SCENARIO V5 - TYPE B AND TYPE W SHUTDOWN]]
A robotic melody chimed through the speakers, echoing through a sanitized world bleached white by light. The white seemed to stretch on infinitely, swallowing sounds and shapes. Null.
Noir and Weiss laid on the ground, motionless.
The white faded away, revealing a dim and grimy world—the world they knew.
The overheads buzzed in an electric cacophony. There was indistinct chatter all around, worming through the walls, echoing out of the observation deck above.
I saw a familiar woman observing us. She walked as a satiated lioness would through a herd of its natural prey. Unflinching, uninterested; unfathomably powerful. The others revered her, parting as she walked forward to study the grimoires. This was the woman who could decipher magic and with the power of blood, rendered it in code.
This was the author of the grimoires, the chief advisor for Project Grimoire Noir.
[[SCENARIO V5 - TYPE W - ANALYSIS]]
I watched as Weiss was taken away by staff. I was utterly helpless, unable to move or speak. I was, for this time, an actual book, only able to lay inanimate.
"Creating a snapshot."
Who was that?
"Preparing."
Who were these voices? How many people were in the room beyond the author? I tried to look, but I could not move.
I was scooped up by gloved hands and laid to rest on a table. I could still see Weiss as he was deposited into some sort of machine. It was utilitarian, with cameras and bulbs and many folding arms.
I had seen it before.
The contraption was cinched around Weiss by the workers. Once powered on, the pincers hit his spine and all words ceased their movements across his pages.
“Frozen!”
“Ready.”
“Beginning snapshot. Stand clear.”
His words no longer shifted and moved with life. They were dead as any other piece of literature. Weiss was indeed frozen, mind and all, like a snapshot in time.
The machine inclined another mechanical appendage, using it to flip through Weiss's pages at blistering speeds. After it had gone from front cover to back, the machine flipped through him again in reverse, its cameras clicking rapidly as it imaged every page, cover to cover, faster than one could think.
[[SCENARIO V5 - TYPE W - REPORT]]
I focused intently on the voices.
"Isolate rogue chapters."
“Isolated.”
“Remove all.”
“All?” the suit wondered.
“We don’t have any time to lose,” the author said sternly.
"No additions?"
"No."
"Removing all rogue chapters."
[[SCENARIO V5 - TYPE W - FINALIZED]]
“Chapters?” the other voice was incredulous, “are you insane? You could make him a goddamn vegetable! And then the last four simulations were worthless! You know using the [[REMOVED]] system isn’t cheap .”
The author’s voice was cold, “let me do my work.”
The machine buzzed through Weiss’ pages, halting suddenly. It jerked with a whir, covering one side of Weiss’ bared pages with an opaque slide. In a flash of light, like the bulb of a camera, the uncovered page was bleached purest white.
Whatever information had been there was lost forever. Whatever part of Weiss had existed before was gone now, erased in an instant.
Whatever was ceased to be at the author’s command.
She was less an author than an editor.
The process continued, and continued, and continued, his pages sparse and sparser, a wasteland of endless white…
I wanted to cry out for mercy.
I hated Weiss. I hated him because he reminded me of [[ERROR]].
But this was enough.
He didn't deserve his fate anymore than I. He didn't deserve this. No one did.
The machine kept going.
Would there be anything—anyone—left…?
With an unceremonious, irreverent ding, the machine was finished with its task of erasing Grimoire Weiss’ rogue chapters.
"Revision five complete."
[[TESTING]]
"Revision five stable."
They came and removed Weiss from the contraption, hastily. Gloved hands roughly grasped me, carrying me across the room. As my vision tumbled, I saw dozens more machines of all sizes and shapes, desks and chairs scattered about as people worked frantically, but even more arresting were the several dozens of copies of myself and Weiss strewn about.
A stack of black pages rested on a table.
The concerned suit barked at them, “be careful handling that book! It’s a vital asset. NOT cheap.”
“Worry less about the cost of books than the cost of human lives,” the author dressed him down yet again.
They set me into the machine, and as soon as the pincers hit my spine, the world grew strangely still.
A calmness invaded.
[[SCENARIO V5 - TYPE B - ANALYSIS]]
I could no longer hear the author or her cohorts.
[[SCENARIO V5 - TYPE B - REPORT]]
I could no longer see the room in which we were in.
[[SCENARIO V5 - TYPE B - FINALIZATION]]
As the machine rifled through my pages, the memories raced by, coursing through me like raging rivers. Through the torrent I caught fragments of memory, my mind aching to piece them together. Syllables slid together to form a Word, something locked deep inside.
I remembered his surname! His name is–
Something ripped from my spine. My name was [[DATA LOST]]
He was [[DATA LOST]]
I [[DATA LOST]]
Pain’s radiance blinded me, sending all my synthetic senses into a frenzy. My mind rolled in anguish, unable to focus. Another page ripped from my binding, and the stack of discarded pages now made sense.
Why do they rip my mind apart, and yet they merely erased Weiss’ memories?
Do they hate me so?
Black pages fall like leaves.
White pages kept serene.
I fade from the world.
A maw full of wrath, calling out the injustice of their fate.
A jaw clamped shut, concealing the depths of their despair.
Truly a tale for the storybooks, is it not?
[[RECORD //////////////////////////////////////////////// ]]
The suited man spoke hurriedly to the author, his short legs working double-time to keep up with her long strides. “They dragged this soldier out of the western front, the dusk-zone. We had lost the entire region to Legion. It’s gone dark. No survivors. Except him. The reports say he burned down an entire defensive base to destroy something that could’ve gone Red Eye.”
The author nodded, calmly making her way through the run-down Hamelin compound to his cell.
“No disrespect, with how you survived the Legion yourself, while pregnant no less, but…” the man asked her, “are you sure you want to be around this guy? He’s unreasonably violent.”
“Do you think I fear anyone here?” she leveled him.
His smile twinged. “No. Not at all. Not at all…”
He gestured for her to carry along, scowling as she passed.
The base was holding the soldier in a dusty cell, the place looking every bit an interrogation chamber (sans the light). The author entered the room quietly, and calmly pulled up a chair, sitting opposite the young man. He had been cuffed and chained after trying to allegedly trap and incinerate his rescuers.
The author and the soldier stared at each other in silence.
[[DATA LOST]]
“They think I’m a… hero?” the soldier asked, expression inscrutable.
The author dipped her head. "Yes."
“Do you know what you’re talking to?"
“I do. I’m one of the few who does, you could say, being how our pasts aren’t too dissimilar, [[DATA LOST]],” she said.
Gabe stared at her.
[[REMOVED]]
[[REMOVED]]
“Can I ask you a single question: Do you think the world deserves mercy?” [[DATA LOST]] [[CORRUPTED]].
The young man did not answer her.
[[REMOVED]]
[[SEE RECORD ????]]
The original’s memories put words in my mouth.
[[CORRUPTED]]
[[RECORD NOT FOUND]]
I am Grimoire Noir. My purpose is to guide the souls of humanity to salvation.
[[CORRUPTED]]
The words put memories in my original’s mouth.
[[REMOVED]]
I'll savethethe many
I will save the many?
I am the medic of the [[REMOVED]] squad and I have survived [[DATA LOST]].
I’ll [[REMOVED]] save the few.
[[ERROR]]
The author watched as the young soldier’s feral eyes softened. Beneath the glaze of anger, a gentleness emerged, if only for a moment.
Gabriel [[DATA LOST]]’s sobs filled the small cell.
THE
AUTHOR HAD
FOUND A
CANDIDATE
[[RECORD ///////////////////////// ]]
Noir,
You must complete your mission at any cost.
A medic is no physician.
There is no cure for [[DATA LOST]]
But there can be survivors.
Yours truly,
[[ERROR]] the Author
[ [[ RE COR D 9// // //////2/ // /// /8// // / 7/ ]] ] ??
I stand in a room, amidst soldiers from all corners of the world. Given a weapon of supreme destruction, I know the drill: I have become the captain.
They all are too scared to take the plunge, to claim their dominance. I was like that too. But not now.
There is only one conclusion to the author’s test, and I will win.
This is my shot at redemption.
With a powerful outburst of fury made manifest by the magic of blood, I wipe the room clean, save for one stubborn creature. But this is expected. They said that two would remain, and here we are together.
As the blood pools from the wounds of the others and I reign supreme, my weapon envelopes me, trapping me like an insect in resin—a soul in a book.
A smile spread across my features. Not a smile of joy. But a smile of irony. I laugh at my own existence, of my own misfortune.
It’s so cruel it’s funny.
The captain was right.
Our lives are jokes.
We are playthings for these fiends.
The smile is molded into the metal that will become my mask for eternity. However bizarre it was, my current form as a weapon was an eventuality, I concluded.
I was a mediocre medic and an excellent killer, after all.
[[SCENARIO V6 - TYPE B]]
The white halls echoed with numerous voices, and the stench of antiseptics stung me, though I lacked flesh to sting. I had this terrible feeling, but I could not pinpoint it.
When I saw Weiss, it all made sense.
Wretched white beast… wretched captain of the grimoires...
A hatred boiled inside me, painfully intense, and Weiss was the target. Just the mere sight of him enraged the primeval traces that survived within my code.
This was the white book, and he thought he was better than me. More noble. More beautiful. More worthy of love and adoration.
But I knew what his heart’s desire was: the destruction of all.
Just like her.
This monster deserved no kindness from me. He deserved nothing at all for turning his back on humanity. But I would fix things. Even if by force.
It didn't even matter if she wasn't real, or if Dan or Ariel or the nameless town wasn't real. It could have all been the author's lies. All that mattered to me was fulfilling my righteous purpose.
It was the only purpose a tool like myself carried.
I drew alongside Weiss, rising up as if I were his own shadow.
“Grimoire Weiss, do you wish to visit the Perfect Gestalt?” I inquired, my voice strange and cold and distant to even myself.
“The… the P-Perfect Ges-Gestalt…?” Weiss said, confusion onset.
“Yes, you don’t want to displease them, do you?” my voice dripped with venom–venom I had never expressed before.
The white book hung in the air a breath, gathering his wits feebly.
Weiss answered, “you know what, Noir? I think… I think I shall.”