Welcome to Embedded, my newest fanfic and fresh muse fodder.
Embedded: A Tale of Weakness
An older man stood over a lab table, his face flush with nervousness.
He worked for the Speedwagon Foundation in the Archives Department over in America, though he was in Egypt now.
He was nervous because of what he was examining.
Part of a metal arrowhead. Detached from its shaft, it had been found several miles from the mobile base he was in as of right now.
The dust and sand filtered from the air outside, he could finally breathe.
The old Nissan van looked normal on the outside aside from the sand tires it had on, along with raised suspension.
The scientist finished bagging the specimen.
He was wearing many layers of protective clothing. If this thing cut him, it could be disastrous.
At least that's what the higher-ups had told him.
He was so done with this job. They'd had him futilely tracking fragments of these arrows across the world for almost a year.
This was the most complete arrowhead he'd ever come across. All of the others had only been a few millimeters in size. Some of them had been dull, and unable to cut unless sharpened.
"This one could be dangerous, though. For sure," he said, sealing the packaged arrowhead in a fireproof safe behind the driver's seat.
They never heard them coming.
Bandits.
There was gunfire, then the splattering of blood.
Death.
The life of a prominent scientist, as well as a father of two, annihilated in seconds.
Men stormed the van.
The sound of a safe being cracked open echoed throughout the desert.
A young man smirks, before tucking the arrowhead into his own pocket. His red hair and freckles are indicative of a foreigner. Clearly the leader of this operation, he turned to them. Speaking to them in twangy American English, he smirked; "All of the hired guns are dismissed. I have what I want. Your payment will arrive in the mail."
The moon is a waxing crescent, and our journey has only started.
aaaaaaAaaaaaa
Two years later, and the young man that stole the arrowhead is on the run from police in his hometown. All of his possessions have been packed up in two suitcases on top of his car.
Ramming his car through a back alley, a fence-post catches on one of the suitcases.
Only being held on lightly, the band holding the suitcases on fails as a cop car pulls into the alley at full speed.
"Oh shit!" Eamonn swore, while flooring the gas pedal.
He left his suitcases behind.
Something sharp juts out of the bottom of one of them.
The arrowhead.
The moon is once again a waxing crescent.
A light turns on across the alley, as a young man wakes up to the fading sounds of a police car.
He barely manages to shove his prosthetic leg on.
He stumbles to his bathroom inside his mother's apartment.
He looks at the clock above the toilet.
It reads 4:32 AM.
"Well damn. I guess I might as well stay awake," he mumbles.
He is 17 year old Brandon Carmichael, born in the year 1970 to mother Maria and father John.
Proud owner of one leg and eight fingers, as a result of a car accident that happened when he was four. The metal shrapnel from the gas explosion took off the ring and pinky fingers on his right hand.
As well as a sizeable portion of his right leg.
But the damage was below the knee entirely so his life is relatively normal.
Aside from his dead father, who died in the same accident.
Dawn was quickly approaching. Baltimore was slowly waking up, the night owls were finally going to bed.
Brandon started the coffee pot, and as he sat in his armchair in the corner by the plate-glass window there was a loud banging at the door.
Brandon sighed. Being a white family in a gang-affiliated area had its vices.
"STOP YOUR BANGING! I'll be over in a second." Brandon shouted in the direction of the door.
There was a slight pause in the banging, a click, and then there was a gunshot through the door.
Brandon whipped his head around from the table, where he'd hurriedly been gathering up the protection money.
He ran over to the door. Opening it, he yelled at the two young people on the other side of the doorway.
"What the fuck! I was just getting your money together!" He said, poking his finger into the man's chest.
The two of them quickly showed how little they cared when they grabbed him and threw him down the stairs.
He was then dragged outside to the back alley.
In the dark, he was flung at the ground.
Brandon saw stars and a flash of white light crossed his vision as he fell onto something.
He felt a sudden pain pierce his back.
And then he passed out, as he was nearly beaten to death.
His mother found him, bloody and bruised, the next morning.
Calling an ambulance, she could never have seen the faint glow around her son's right arm.
After all, she didn't have a Stand.
But it seemed like her son did.
His stay in the hospital was to be brief. Aside from his blatant problems with anorexia, he was mostly fine.
They had shaken him up well and good, but he was to be just fine.
The nurse took down a report about a peculiar object that had been removed from his back during the ambulance ride.
A rusty silver arrowhead.
Speedwagon Protocol #459 was automatically put into action. Multiple phone calls were made, and within five minutes, an alert was out to all American Speedwagon personnel.
Its message?
"Retrieve the arrowhead. If left to the hands of the public it could cause a catastrophe."
aaaaaaAaaaaaa
Brandon woke to a slight pain in his right hand. It was like pins and needles, but worse. It felt hot.
His hand was emanating heat.
His hospital room was noticeably warmer than what was comfortable.
Brandon was covered with a fine sheen of sweat. The BSN assigned to his case by the Speedwagon Foundation was making sure he was as comfortable as the situation would allow.
As he awoke, the first thing he saw was shimmering.
And a nurse taking a phone call, her back to him.
Her hair was black, and she seemed rather tall.
She seemed worried, by her tone of voice.
"What am I going to tell him? I can't both keep him comfortable and tell him the truth!" The nurse, whose name was still unknown to Brandon, exclaimed in response to some unknown conversation.
"Put me on speakerphone, woman. That is, assuming he's conscious by now."
And that was exactly what Nurse Davis did, as Brandon could see her nametag now.
"He is."
*bloop*
"Hello. Is it on?" The unknown man spoke out, loud and clear.
"Yes sir. It is," Nurse Davis responded.
Now that Brandon got a good look at her, she was stunning in her own way.
Too old for him, of course. He was really too tired to examine her more closely, but she was clearly deep into her twenties.
She looked right into his eyes.
"Hello, Mr. Carmichael. I'm afraid I had to lower your IV painkillers to wake you. Please bear the pain for me. Me and my colleague," she said gesturing to the phone mounted to the wall, "will be asking you some questions. Can you do that for me?"
Brandon suddenly felt his pain pick up.
As the pinpricks escalated in intensity, the room started heating up slightly.
"Yeah, but what's with this heat? Open a window," Brandon said, gesturing at the window, which had its tan curtains drawn.
"I'm afraid that we can't do that, for security reasons. No one can know about your… condition. Also, hello. I am the temporary head of the Speedwagon Foundation. I cannot disclose my actual name. Also for security reasons, as I'm sure you understand."
The temporary head was forthright.
"We don't have much time for this. We cannot keep you here. We're sending you back home as soon as possible. Nurse Davis here has a glove for you to wear over your right hand. You are to keep it on in all circumstances. It should, with a bit of luck, keep your little heat problem under cont-"
"Hey can I talk now?"
Brandon blurted out, cutting him off. The nerves in his arm were shrieking at him.
There was a brief pause, and a sigh.
"...fine. Go ahead. I'm sure you're confused enough," the man said, allowing the young man to speak.
"What is wrong with me?" Brandon managed to get out, drawing out his words awkwardly.
There was silence on the head's end of the phone. Nurse Davis said nothing, opting to instead adjust her blouse, which was becoming dotted with damp blotches of sweat.
The shimmering around his hand and arm increased. The nervous air in the room was becoming more strained by the second as the temperature slowly increased.
"...You're developing a supernatural power which is powered by your soul itself. We don't have a technical name for it, but it does have a functional one. You are developing what we at the Speedwagon Foundation like to call…"
You could hear a pin drop in the room in the small silence between his words.
"...a Stand."
That was the last thing Brandon heard before he blacked out.
He felt only one thing before he blacked out. Not the pain in his hand.
Not the oppressive heat.
Not the sweat covering his exhausted body.
It was his heart breaking. Something was wrong. The sound of a gunshot echoed through his head.
At 7:12 PM on a Sunday, Brandon's mother died.
She was shot for not paying the week's protection money to the local gangsters. The same ones that she suspected beat her son.
She refused to give them the money.
One slammed her into the wall, as the other steadied themselves.
As she looked up, all she could focus on was the gun barrel she was staring into.
When Brandon came to the next morning, there was an odd man sitting at his bedside. Two of them, in fact. But the one he noticed first had a much more demanding presence.
They noticed him wake up.
"Well then, young man. I'm afraid we meet in terrible circumstances. Normally, I would take a while to introduce myself and my colleagues, but seeing as I am to be on the other side of the world shortly, I will be upfront."
There was a pause as the man's eyes glinted in the morning light. His grey hair seemed to glow with the sunlight filtering in from the window, whose curtains were now parted.
"I am Joseph Joestar. And I am the temporary head of the Speedwagon Foundation, though I'd rather they'd picked someone else. I have to say, the news I have for you isn't good."
The tone of the conversation shifted.
The air seemed to grow thicker, and the shadows on Mr. Joestar's face now seemed ominous to Brandon.
After looking back to his colleague, with the other man nodding back at him, he shivered before blurting out:
"Your mother is dead."
At that very moment, as the first reactionary thoughts formed in Brandon's head, Nurse Davis entered the room.
She was the first to notice Brandon's tears forming, as the two men had the grace to look away, both of them being incredibly uncomfortable.
Nurse Davis froze in place.
"You two just told him, didn't you?"
The tears stayed where they were, as Brandon's mind desperately tried to internalize his anguish.
"Men aren't weak. Keep it together."
Then, he spoke to no one in particular.
"Oh. Wow. Um, I…"
He zoned out.
Darkness enveloped his vision.
The span of several heartbeats passed before he felt another heart near his own.
Nurse Davis was holding him.
He didn't know that; in fact, his mind was just about shutting down.
All that he knew, as he fell deeper into the grip of anguish, was that someone, anyone, was there.
Their presence was almost… comforting. Loving.
And then he knew nothing.
aaaaaaAaaaaaa
He felt…light. It was odd.
Wherever he was, it smelled like home.
Home.
Brandon's eyes opened, and believe it or not, he was home.
It was warmer than usual and the lights were mostly out, but he was home for sure.
He looked around. His heart jumped at the sight of someone walking down the hallway. And it definitely wasn't his mother. His mother wasn't that thin.
"W-Who's there?!" He shouted, attempting to stand up fluidly; but he overshot his approach and fell over.
Her footsteps quickly moved into the room.
"Oh damn it," he said, the woman now standing right in front of him.
He looked up.
And then her face came into focus, in the light of the lamp.
Nurse Davis, in more casual attire. Pajamas, to be specific.
"Calm down, Brandon. Let me help you up," she almost breathed out, very quietly.
He let her brace the underside of his shoulder to get him up.
She moved him the five or so feet back to the couch.
As she laid him back down, he asked the one relevant question.
"What are you doing here?"
She adjusted his pillow to be more centered under his head before stretching in a rather feline way and responding.
"The Speedwagon Foundation has released you into my care in the absence of a proper parental guardian. You would normally be under the care of the state, but taking care of you for Mr. Joestar isn't so bad. It's not like I'm not being paid for this." Her eyes were dark, he noticed for the first time. She grimaced, anticipating his next question.
"So. She's...really gone." Brandon breathed out, staring off into the darkness.
The light suddenly glinted off her eyes explosively.
Brown light covered the room.
"Yes. And I need to emphasize this point. She's not coming back. And you are in enough danger that the Speedwagon Foundation enlisted me to protect you while you're vulnerable," she spoke in a broad, intense voice.
Chills went down Brandon's spine as the light pouring from her eyes shaped itself into a pair of large, translucent big cats that encircled her tall frame.
"This is my Stand. Brown Cat," she remarked, her mouth crookedly smiling.
Both of the vicious looking animals growled low.
"Of course, they won't hurt you. They are entirely under my control. What isn't under control is your developing, newborn stand. It doesn't know what it wants to be, and it's like you in that way. You don't know what you want to do with your life. At all. Not that I blame you," she quickly backtracked, her Stand disappearing, "You are a teenager, after all."
Brandon's mind was full of questions. But the one most prominent about the state of his life quickly appeared at the forefront of his mind.
"What is going to change?" he said, rubbing his head, with its close-cropped blonde hair. He was crying, the grief coming out of nowhere.
"Plenty. But...you still have to go to school. So get to sleep, and I'll make breakfast in the morning." Her eyes were sympathetic.
He was surprised when she drew in close, wrapping her arms around him lightly.
She kissed his forehead.
"Rest. Please. For me."
She was clearly tired, too. If he had looked more closely, he would have seen the dark circles under her eyes.
And so he laid back.
Brandon Carmichael closed his eyes.
aaaaaaAaaaaaa
He woke up to the smell of bacon.
He heard it crackle and sizzle, too.
A welcome sound to his ears.
The room around him was dark, but there was a light on in the adjacent kitchen.
There was a glove on the end table.
Without even thinking, he put it on as he got up, sore as could be.
"Damn… my shoulders ache like something else, for sure."
The house was getting noticeably cooler by the second.
Nurse Davis stuck her head around the corner at the perfect time, getting a look at Brandon's eyes in the lowlights.
They were blue, like her father's had been.
Plain, but familiar. She felt surprisingly at home and at ease.
"Well good morning. It might be a little early for you, but this is when you get up now."
He looked at the clock on the stove. It was 5:30.
"You," he said between yawns, "certainly rise early, Nurse Davis."
She flinched. Gritting her teeth slightly, she turned away from the food.
"Please. My name is Sonya. Not Nurse." She seemed annoyed.
"Not gonna poke that tiger." Brandon thought.
"Okay, Nur-Sonya. Sonya."
She turned back to the food with a wry smile hidden on her face.
"Much better. Now take a seat at the table, and I will explain to you what exactly a Stand is. And why you having one is such a potential problem."
aaaaaaAaaaaaa
Brandon understood more about Stands than he would have ever liked to. His head hurt. But at least his stomach was full, and Ms. Davis was happy.
Ms. Davis was quite knowledgeable, as she had been the subject of several studies studying Stands.
And then as soon as the conversation changed topics, she was suddenly much more quiet.
She seemed almost awkward.
She spoke abruptly.
"Go to your room and get ready for school. I'll get dressed in the bathroom. So please, go now before I get in there."
She took care of their mutual dishes, gently putting them into the dishwasher.
It rumbled quietly as she walked towards the guest room, where she was staying.
aaaaaaAaaaaaa
He was in her car, as they sat outside his school.
He was about to get out.
The car had great A/C. But that did little to help the tense atmosphere.
They both wanted to say something. But neither of them knew if it would be weird.
Actually, both of them knew it would be weird.
So they said nothing.
But Sonya did reach out. She held his un-gloved hand for a moment, and squeezed it.
He left.
aaaaaaAaaaaaa
She really had nothing to do during the day, so she practiced her Hamon breathing that she'd learned from Mr. Joestar, along with some more advanced meditation techniques.
Her Stand seemed more playful than usual after she opened up her chakras.
She smirked to herself. "What a good use of my time."
aaaaaaAaaaaaa
"What a shitty use of my time," Brandon thought.
He was in the locker room before his gym class. To be fair to Brandon, he wasn't too small of a guy. He was about 150 pounds and maybe 5'8 with shoes on.
A little underweight. But he was constantly trying.
He closed his locker after he finished changing, making sure to keep the glove on.
And before he could think, he was flat on his back.
"Fuck. Derek."
"What's wrong, Carmichael? You're less energetic than usual. You know that I like trying a little. I'd hate to hurt you worse than normal because you didn't put up a fight."
"Give me a break, Derek," Brandon said, getting up and dusting himself off, "my mom literally just died."
Derek flinched a little. But only a little.
"Sorry to hear that. But life will go on. And I will continue to beat your ass as usual until you learn some respect."
His words echoed throughout the locker room.
Everyone heard them, but no one acknowledged them.
No one messed with Derek, unless they were real hard-asses.
Brandon sighed, and rubbed the back of his head with his gloved hand.
Derek saw his hand and raised an eyebrow;
"What's up with the glove?"
"I don't really know to be honest. Some science shit that neither of us would understand."
Derek's eyebrow went back down. Unamused.
That explanation clearly wasn't good enough.
"Give me the glove, if it's so important." His glare was unwavering.
"Um. I'm sorry, but I'm not allowed to. Mr. Joestar said that I could really hurt someone if I took it off." Brandon said, just sheepish enough to satisfy Derek.
He actually laughed outright.
"Yeah right. You, hurting someone? You're about as dangerous as my mom's cocker spaniel."
Derek said, leaning forward.
"Yeah, right, it's totally crazy, right?" Brandon said, shrinking further into himself.
Derek was preparing to beat Brandon up, cracking his knuckles, the whole nine yards.
"Time for class. Get moving."
Literally saved by the bell. Or the teacher, in this case.
aaaaaaAaaaaaa
When Brandon was late in coming outside after school, Sonya quickly got worried. She knew that the thugs that beat him up before patrolled this area, too, but she wasn't just going to sit back and let him get hurt!
"Damn it, kid, making me care," she said, undoing her seatbelt.
Something out of the corner of her eye caught her attention.
He was finally approaching her car.
His face was bloody.
Her teeth automatically gritted.
She took a deep breath to steady herself.
Her Stand internally growled.
He got in the car. There was a mutual silence between them.
They were both angry, but for different reasons.
She was angry because someone hurt Brandon.
He was just angry at Derek.
The only thing in her mind came bursting out, as suddenly as the thought itself had appeared.
She revved the engine to life and throttled it.
"Who the fuck hurt you, Brandon?" she shouted at him, then. Her eyes blazed with intensity.
"W-Whoa. Sonya. I'm fine. Calm down," Brandon said, attempting to reassure her.
It didn't work, and they were quickly home because of her recklessly fast driving.
An angry driver is also a fast one.
Author's Note: Thank you for reading. Please review. Expect more soon!
