Crocodile Two
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It's here.
The pain.
I'm... Still alive, huhh?
While they say, that what doesn't kill you makes stronger...
I have to concur, as in my case it makes me a cripple...
Something is writhing within me, as weird as it sounds. Stirring, shifting, whirling inside. Tearing me asunder again and again, only to piece it together and repeat the whole cycle. It's horrible... And here I though Soma's training session was hell itself... Heh...
Make it stop already.
I can't help, but wince as it continues not heeding my weak plea.
MAKE IT STOOOOP!
Another nightmare, which I'm awoken with a jolt. I'm... somewhere, in a bed and... someone's life is scarred until his or her demise, seeing as my clothes were changed and stuff...
What? It's not pretty, at least the state my body is in... You know... Oracle Cell infection and stuff...
Not counting my stupidity, my entire body is in tatters, my eyes so heavy I can't even begin to muster strength to open them. If it weren't for the searing pain on my left and the scary numbness on my right side of the body, I would have probably joked away my situation with a 'Did someone see the number of that building that hit me?'.
Wait, does this count?
I mean I did bring it up, on not bringing it up?
I try to shake my head, but couldn't even move my body. Well doesn't matter, at least I can't be screaming off my lungs with the absence of working vocal cords, still fear started to creep into my mind. The source of it was the sensation in my body, or it's lack in a part of it.
Doesn't matter now... So I wonder, if I still have my arms or not.
Trying to stir again, doesn't really work. I hiss mentally as pain erupts from my left and in response to that I wince... Which I shouldn't have done as it only brings more of the pain and I can't stop, but to scream soundlessly into the world.
"Didn't knew you're a masochist, Sierra." The mocking voice of C pulls me back from even trying another attempt on moving.
"Before you start wondering, you're back at the Branch." Then with a snicker she add, and I don't realize why she did that until finishing her next sentence.
"In the medical ward."
Great...
I try to form a grimace, but pain stops me from doing so. Although that doesn't stop the pale girl from laughing at me, which stops abruptly and I can feel her sitting on the side of the bed I'm laying in.
"You did good." Is all she mutters and silence fells on the both of us. It takes a while for me to register she had left and I didn't even notice it.
I wake up after another nightmare with a start, feeling even worse than yesterday. Or at least I think that was from yesterday, my body is still too weak to move without a painful reaction so I give up on that.
"At least you're learning." C chuckles nearby me.
Is she some sort of a ghost? Vanishing or appearing without notice, or what?
"Sakuya is already running missions with Lindow since the last week." I can hear some sort of a clicking and clattering noise as she is probably fumbling with something in her hands.
What?!
Ah, right... I forgot, Irregular and stuff.
"Both of you had gotten pretty banged up after the encounter with the Cocoon Tail... However unlike you, Sakuya has a strengthened body of a God Eater and she recovered in a few days." C starts her explanation and I can't wonder how the hell does a name for a monster like that come from. Was it because it was a mixture of the Ogretail and the Cocoon Maiden?
"Though you don't have to worry about meeting any of those any more." Her voice turns grim, recalling the beast we've faced.
"Yeah... You did good." The girl stands up, placing her hand on my forehead, repeating herself before leaving.
"You did good."
Uhm... What?
The days pass, I'm not getting any better at all and interestingly only C comes to see me when I'm awake, to much of my annoyance I sleep a lot. Mostly because of my weakened body, but also because I can't get a good amount of rest because of those damn nightmares. Something doesn't let me sleep normally, and I don't know what...
Drives me crazy.
"Sierra..." One of the days the pale girl starts talking, well most of the time she is silent even when present, so I'm turning my full attention to her.
"I'm... sorry..." She sighs, then stops.
"Get better soon, I'll get you answers later." With that she leaves.
Days turn into weeks. A month. Then two. It's been close to three months, since I've been incapacitated and rendered a semi-permanent guest of the medical ward. The time I've spent lying around, combined with the amount of damage my body accumulated debilitated my body beyond my belief. While I could open my eyes after a few days and relief swept over me that I still had my arms, my body could still barely move. Although some of it started to recover over the next two very slowly passing weeks... Well, things changed. Drastically...
I can't get it out of my head, that day on the second week when the Director stopped by, to tell me. I recalled the even multiple times a day, still hung up on it...
"Sierra, good." The Director steps into the room, his voice unreadable. However, I can feel it. Something big will happen.
"You're awake." He notices a chair nearby and decides to sit on it.
"Here." I get a tablet handed to me and I recognize it's the one C gave me, the only with the voice module.
-I'm in it deep, huh?- Although my left hand is a little shaky and causes me some pain, I manage to tap in my question in a short amount of a time.
"You're in..." The Director looked like he was in a battle of searching for words, when he finally spoke up.
"Quarantine." His head dropped with a sigh, something was weighing on his shoulders.
"I'm sorry." Blue eyes met mines and I could read some of his genuine feelings from them.
-Figures.- I nod in understanding.
-Why else would only C come to see me, while everyone else doesn't come. Albeit I wonder, why was she allowed in here if this is a quarantine?-
"Because we've gotten the antibody from her. Which..." The mans voice trailed off, getting lost in his thoughts.
-Well... Director Schicksal.- I start typing a bit hesitantly and he turns towards me.
-Seeing as I've gotten my first visitor outside of C, does that mean the quarantine is lifted?-
"Not quite, you'll have to stay until you manage to recover. Then the rehabilitation of you will commence."
-It's about my arms, right?- I turn my gaze towards my right which is still unresponsive, while holding up my left.
"Yes." The Director frowns.
"There is also the matter with your God Arc and..." He hesitates for a moment before continuing.
"Your infection has... changed."
-How exactly?- Somehow I'm getting a rather frightened feeling, something happened and I bet that I won't like the answer to that.
"Let's take things in order then." The Director sighed and fixated his gaze on my eyes. A sudden chill ran down my spine.
"We had to operate on you, to remove your God Arc from your..." He stops for a moment, to correct himself.
"Your Chupacabra was fusing with your hand and in generally... you, Sierra."
-So...- I blink, trying to comprehend what was just said.
-I'm not feeling my right arm because, it's not mine anymore or what?- My gaze sweeps over it, however it looks normal. Nothing out of the ordinary, for my eyes at least. Not counting the fact that I can't move it at all.
"It's not like that." C's voice comes from the door and we both turn towards her as the pale girl steps in.
"You see Sierra, you became the owner of an Irregular God Arc while you also possessed a slowly acting, yet lethal infection. When your Chupacabra tried to merge with you, a far larger amount of Oracle Cells flowed into your body and started to change your cellular structure." She walks towards the Director and whispers something into his ears, the man eyes her for a moment then leaves.
"Which interestingly enough would have made you more like a regular God Eater in the first place."
-Would... So what did it do me then? Come on tell me! This is nerve-wrecking!-
"You've been attacked by the Cocoon Tail before you could remove the core of that Aragami. Granted that very attack let you draw the core out so the beasts body collapsed back into a pool of Oracle Cells it didn't came without a price." She sat down the chair the Director occupied some minute before her, facing towards me with a serious face. Well at least that is what I could feel, as most of her face is covered up anyways.
"A secondary infection contacted you from the Cocoon Tail, as it struck you on your left shoulder. Your system in order to counteract the sudden invading Oracle Cells did something unthinkable in normal circumstances. Fusing your cells with your God Arc to mitigate the effects of a secondary infection."
-So? Speak english damn it!-
"In short? You're body contains more Oracle Cells than a regular God Eater now, though we don't know yet how it will affect you in the future."
-So why the quarantine then?- I bring up something that the Director revealed before.
"In normal circumstances, should an event transpire like with you, Sierra... A God Eater would turn into a Deusphage." C exhaled slowly. The name she spoken sounded rather ominous, giving me an uncomfortable feeling.
"A monstrous Aragami that even the most skilled God Eaters would have problems on dealing with, as it's practically invulnerable."
-I'm turning into a monster?- My eyes widen with shock.
"No." The pale girls head slumps in defeat.
"You're turning into something that this world isn't ready." She stands up pulls back her hood, underneath it I can see her features. Her braided hair just as earlier I saw glimpses of it is blue-ish. What really got my attention wasn't the dark mask that covered most of her face upwards from her mouth, but rather two things. Two grey horns sprouting from her head, arcing forward in a slight arc.
"Something... like me eventually."
-What, are you?- Now I understood why she could take so much punishment, the strange skin color.
-What's under your mask?-
"That's not something for you to know." With that C pulls the hood back on to hide her features and leaves the room.
"What you only need to know Sierra, is that you'll become something more than any human or Aragami can ever be." She calls back from the door before closing it.
Until the end of my confinement, aside from the one time the Director came by only C visited as usual. Though I tried to get more out of her, she clamped up with a scowl. In the end I gave up trying to get anything out of the pale girl and focused on getting better. Since as it was pointed out by her, I'm still a God Eater.
Well, an Irregular still. While these months slowly trickled away during my rehabilitation, C informed me of the changes that happened to me. First and foremost, I'm still as fragile as ever. There are two major changes to me, one of them is my arms. The left arm, which suffered the most due to the multiple simultaneous infections became rather sensitive to Oracle Cells. In fact, for some weird reason I could tell whenever a God Eater was nearby.
I would feel a tingling sensation arcing throughout my left arm as I got closer to the source, which was rather weird and took a rather long time to get used to. My right arm on the other hand, regained the ability to move just like before however it felt to me lifeless. Like it was something completely alien to me.
Also, both of my arms diverged in color from my normal skin color in patches and spots, which made me look like some victim of a foreign disease. Well, technically I was with the Oracle Cell infections and stuff. Anyways, my left turned white-ish. Not as much as C, who is completely pale white, but rather in the middle of a healthy skin color and grey-ish white. On the other hand, my right arms skin was covered in a pitch black materia. Very much like my Chupacabra.
The second change was my hearing and sight had improved, though I found out that my sense of taste and touch degraded in that matter. The last visual changes I've gone through was that the inner purplish circle of my eyes expanded greatly. Now they covered the inner half of my iris, giving it a very unnatural sight. Then there was my hair, which was originally golden-red, but now had here and there completely white stripes mixed in. Which, I have to admit looked cool in contrast to the other changes.
FINALLY!
I've cheered mentally, as I got the date of being released in two days. I've had more than enough of sitting around and doing nothing, but physical excercise or scanning the NORN Database for anything and everything. I did gather any and as much info on Aragami that I could possible get a hold of, and to be honest I kinda was waiting the oncoming missions or even the 'Hell training' with Soma.
C walked in, seeing me grin like some mad man in my solitude and raised an eyebrow, but didn't follow up with anything snarky. I noticed her only when she stepped forward and handed me something small, black and curved. I blink at her, still unused to how can she sneak around that much, where as I pretty much can feel the presence of everyone else through my left arm.
"Put it on." She gestures to the side of her head.
"I've modified an ear piece, although it's not perfect yet." With a smile she nodded and I've put the thing on. The small device then clamped on my ear and I raised my arm in surprise trying to remove it, but the pale girl stopped me from doing so. Then she spoke in moonies and sometime later the device on my ear used the same electronic female voice my tablet sounds to form a sentence.
-Not! You do not need to keep it, just fix itself.-
As I stare at her in confusion, C couldn't help but laugh.
"Well, figures. It's not perfect." She shook her head and pointed towards the small device.
"It's a translator, sort of... What I said was 'No! You don't have to be vary of it, it is just fixing its position.' Or at least that's how you translate it anyways normally."
-Thanks C.- I take out the tablet to answer her.
-This still beats blinking stupidly while the moonies is going on.-
"I've got to finish the translation program before it becomes reliably usable, so if you excuse me. I've got some work to do." Once again I get left alone, but this time I didn't notice it. Already browsing the NORN Database once more and getting myself signed up in advance for a training mission. Even if that definitely will be with Soma...
Okay, I've been released finally!
After returning to my room and depositing the tablet, I head down to the lobby. I head down the stairs to check in with Hibari, when I notice Sakuya is there and watching something on the TV intently. I walk closer and pick up the translation of my new gadget.
-Fenrir draw attention to increase the supply, strengthen your defenses and increase the uptake.- I grimace upon hearing the translation and shake my head.
Translator? ... More like trans-failer.
Sakuya notices me, just as the broadcast ends and walks to me. I do have to admit, she is looking still as good as before we got into that trouble months back. I so do envy a God Eaters regenerative capabilities...
-...They do not applaud win meet.- I catch the latter end of her sentence, but it's not like I can really make out anything from it so I just smile at her and nod. The medics voice turns more silent as she continues in a sad tone.
-But, uh ... try not to take yourself too, right? After all ... the greatest of God Eater die young ...- Well this almost even made sense now.
-So, I will have a long life. Are you trying to say?- My translator, I mean trans-failer decided to decode also Lindow's words as he neared us scratching the side of his head with his right arm.
-As usual hours of executors?- I can't stop, but smile at the constant failures of the device on my ears. Although, it does sorta help me in piecing together what is going on around me.
-Of course, because I am the executive.- He says with a emphasis on the latter part, well at least in moonies trying to joke it away if I understand it correctly.
-All right, you guys have a fun day.- He turns towards me and back to Sakuya as he starts a debriefing.
-Today we'll be three of us. I front, rear Sakuya.- To this the medic responds with a 'Roger.', then our leader turns to me.
-Sierra, do not force yourself. In turn, bring your best.-
I nod in understanding, well I don't know if they know I can sort-of understand them, but whatever. Lindow's phone beeps and he pulls it out. Both him and Sakuya look a bit grim as he surveys the message he had gotten.
-Any else?- Sakuya questions and our leader looks up with a 'hmm'.
-Well, uh ... Do not die, right?- He adds with a smile.
-Thank you for your very thorough precepts, Big Boss.- Sakuya responds with a joking tone. Lindow simply shakes his head in turn. The three of us then walk up the stairs in order to prepare for the coming mission.
Well... I can't say I'm not getting pumped.