(A/N)- The Whumptober prompts this year inspired some more from the Aldnoah fix fic AU, predictably in the form of me exploring Inaho's time as a "guest" of Saazbaum's.

For newcomers, hi, the relevant alterations of the fix fic universe are are follows:

1. Slaine did not get shot down in Episode 7, he joins the Earth resistance and is present by Asseylum's side for the assault on Saazbaum's landing castle.

2. Saazbaum took Inaho with him as prisoner when he fled the landing castle, after forcing Asseylum to leave him behind to save a wounded Slaine.

This, ah... is not a fun time for Inaho. But it's perfect for Whumptober, so let's get right into it.

Prompts used this round were: No. 16 No Way Out: Mind Control/Paralytic Drugs/"No one's coming.", and Alt. 6 Sensory Overload

Warnings for unwanted surgical body modification, and some ableistic and dehumanizing language on Saazbaum's part.

Disclaimer: Oh boy let me contain my salt at not owning Aldnoah.


SOS

Count Saazbaum stepped through the hissing doors to the observation deck. A steady hum of activity buzzed around the room. Technicians at their stations did not pause at his entrance, continuing to work diligently, a well-oiled machine of effectiveness.

Stopping in the middle of the chamber, Cruteo's cane tucked under his arm as if it was his own, Saazbaum cut a trim figure as he looked out the large window, stretching from end to end of the room, facing towards the starry void outside. In the distance, the blue orb of Earth hung still and quiet in space. Nearer at hand, amid the asteroid remnants of the shattered moon, flashes of gunfire and missile flares weaved in and among the rocks.

He observed the display for a moment, watching a particular silver blip as it streaked about.

Stirring, he made his way to a particular bank of consoles. These men were concentrating harder than most others, carefully fine-tuning settings on their panels, moving camera drones in closer or further with joysticks so they could gather more data and observations.

He stood over them, watching them work.

"How goes the test flight?" he asked.

One of them stirred to respond. "Connection is holding steady at 85% synchronization, Milord," he said.

"What about lag?"

"Kataphrakt response approximately two seconds behind remote input."

Saazbaum's mouth flattened just a fraction. "Hmm. We can do better." Waving vaguely at the observation window he said, "Once those gnats are dealt with, we'll bring the Tharsis in and adjust the transmission settings."

The technician nodded. "Of course, Milord."

Satisfied, Saazbaum moved off. He walked across the length of the observation deck to a side door. This hissed open for him to reveal a neutrally-lit hallway. From there it was a short trot to the transreceiver room.

The light from the hallway spilled into the dim interior, illuminating a single upright metal chair and its current occupant.

Saazbaum lingered in the doorway for a moment, before stepping into the room. Leisurely steps tapped on the cold tile floor, letting his prisoner have plenty of time to savor his presence.

He observed the boy as he circled around the chair.

Kaizuka Inaho was pale, and a bit thin from the previous lack of food. His hazel-red eyes stared straight forward, at the viewscreen wall in front of him, tracking the image of the Tharsis from the camera drone feeds. His hands, latched to the armrests of the chair with thick metal cuffs, curled slightly, fingers twitching and tapping as if manipulating the sticks of children's toy. The movements seemed to correspond to specific actions taken by the kataphrakt on the screen, which zoomed and zipped around asteroids, firing its basic but powerful projectile rifle at the swooping green fighters currently engaged with it, scout ships or prototypes from the United Earth Forces. Since the defection of a handful of the thirty-seven noble houses, who'd chosen to remain loyal to the princess once she'd revealed she was alive, the Terran military had been busy reverse-engineering the advanced technology the traitors gifted them, creating new weapons and spacecraft. Children playing with toys far too advanced for them.

But Saazbaum had his own new weapon, sitting in the chair now. The genius pilot that had caused them such headaches in the early stages of the war, now putting his tactical mind to use for the Versian Empire, not that he'd been given much choice. He had been cleaned up significantly, hair combed, tattered pilot's suit replaced with a proper standard gray uniform. After all, he was a Versian asset now. He may as well look the part.

Saazbaum marveled once again at the work of his surgeons and technicians. The bionic eye that replaced Inaho's organic one, installed in his left socket, was truly a masterpiece of technology. Compact, powerful, wired in very carefully to the boy's ocular and cochlear nerves and various parts of his brain, extending from the front of his skull to the back, with a plug-in port for the transmission cable that ran up into the machinery above under the short strands of his hair. The eye sent commands up the cable, and the moon base's powerful transmitters relayed them to the kataphrakt, directing it remotely.

Inaho could only handle one for now—and his steering was still awkward and clumsy, Saazbaum noted as he watched the Tharsis move on the screen—but the count was hopeful for more. Imagine, a whole army of mighty Versian war machines, without the hassle of their pilots, whose arrogance and overconfidence had more than once led to embarrassing defeats for their forces.

Saazbaum watched the skirmish on the viewscreens. The boy's attacks were methodical and precise, as expected. He kept distance and tested the defenses of the Terran starfighters, picking at them, figuring them out. Popping out from behind an asteroid, a burst of shots spewed from the Tharsis's rifle, and Saazbaum smiled faintly.

But Inaho didn't stop firing.

Curious at the change in strategy, Saazbaum observed the screens. Inaho was firing towards the Terran fighters, but not at them, seemingly in a bid to get their attention rather than attack them. That struck the count as odd. He turned from the screens, noticing that the shots were made in time with the boy's left hand, making hard taps on the chair.

Saazbaum frowned as he watched the tapping fingers. They drummed steadily against the edge of the chair's arm, seemingly random, but as the count watched a distinct pattern emerged.

Tap tap tap. Tap... tap... tap... Tap tap tap.

What was that? That was some type of code wasn't it? Saazbaum racked his mind to recall history lessons of bygone Terran eras, and then he fumed.

Morse code.

A distress call.

The child was calling for help.

Swiftly he raised his cane high and brought it crashing down on Inaho's fingers, hard enough to crack bone.

SMACK!

"Aah—!" Inaho gasped in pain, startling out of his concentrated trance, losing sync with the kataphrakt out in space. Wide terrified eyes flicked up at Saazbaum, who sneered down before leaning in.

Saazbaum gripped Inaho's chin tightly, fingers mashing into his cheeks and jaw and neck.

"What were you doing, little pilot?" he mocked, a tight, cruel smile on him. "Did you think someone was going to hear you?"

Inaho's eyes glanced past him towards the viewscreen. The uplink synced again and the kataphrakt came back to life, skimming away from the Terran fighters, retreating.

"Pay attention!" Saazbaum snapped, jerking on Inaho's chin.

Inaho's eyebrows pinched in concentration, and a cry of alarm rang out from the bridge down the hall. Saazbaum turned his head over his shoulder in time to watch the Tharsis skid all the way back into the hull of the moon base at full speed, mangling the back of the mech. A thruster sputtered and died, losing its flame.

Saazbaum's lips pursed in displeasure. The Terran scoutships pressed their attack, but Martian reinforcements had already arrived. As the forces clashed, Saazbaum waved a hand to disconnect the viewfinder's feed, ending the test flight.

"Wrecking a perfectly good kataphrakt will not save you," he warned, focusing back on the uncooperative pilot. "And it is certainly not a good way to convince me to keep you alive." He leaned in closer, loomed over the boy, shoulders stiff, displeasure in the lines of his face.

Inaho's eyes blinked back to lock with his, frustratingly blank. Saazbaum would have expected at least a defiant glare, an unsaid challenge. But it looked like Inaho was retreating behind his stoic mask again, not allowing Saazbaum the pleasure of a sufficiently passionate opponent.

"Well?" he demanded icily. "What do you have to say for yourself, Terran?"

-AZ-

Inaho struggled to speak. It had felt like a barrier was lodged in his throat, blocking his words, for a long time now, since he'd woken with the Versian transmission device and bionic ocular implant replacing his left eye.

It still throbbed inside his skull, cold and unfamiliar. He was hyper-aware of it with every blink, every breath, every thought because it just would not stop feeding him data on command. His mind buzzed with too much noise.

With effort, he projected what he hoped was an approximation of spite at the count. Snide remarks about the effectiveness of the Tharsis, the many technical flaws of Saazbaum's remote control system, they swirled through his mind, attempting pull through the barrier that prevented his speech. He should say—he needed to say—something heroic, something that would annoy the count, at least.

Instead, what came out was:

"Hydrogen's atomic weight is 1.008 g/mol."

No! he wanted to scream at himself in frustration. Why was he always saying the wrong thing?! Inaho tried to think of a clever follow up, like, "The weight of your crimes is ten times more.", tried to deliver it to his mouth, but came up against that block in his throat that would. Not. Dislodge! So he just sat there struggling, neck tight, fighting against himself.

Saazbaum stared at him a moment and then released his chin. The right arm folded across the count's chest, cane clutched loosely in hand.

"It must be fascinating inside that head of yours," he said, patronizing and snide, leaning a cheek on his fist like Inaho was some kind of amusing puppy. "It's a wonder anything useful comes out of it at all."

Inaho's teeth clenched. He gripped the edges of the armrests, the cracked bones in his left hand grinding tightly.

I'm not broken, he protested inside his own head. My brain just works differently. Yuki had always told him that. Any time there was some bigger kid that didn't understand and tried to bully him, she would be right there with reassuring words and his favorite snacks.

A sob broke up through Inaho's tightened chest. Saazbaum was worse than any schoolyard bully he'd ever faced and his sister wasn't here.

Saazbaum paced away from him, going to somewhere in the corner. "You understand, of course, that I can't let you deliberately damaging the Tharsis slide," he was saying.

Inaho swallowed down a lump of dread that was starting to form. He'd known and calculated the risks of sabotaging Saazbaum's test flight... but it had been his first potential opportunity to contact the outside world in months. Even if it led to more severe restrictions on him, or more time thrashing on that torture table, it was a logical risk he had to try and take.

The count had returned to his side, was holding up a thick, ominous-looking syringe filled with liquid, of a color he couldn't identify in the dim light. His eye made a scan, bringing up the molecular structure and properties and Inaho stiffened in terror.

"I wasn't originally going to use this," Saazbaum said, "but if this is what it takes to keep you functioning like the obedient tool you are... so be it."

Inaho squirmed, pressing back against the chair, kicking out, wrenching his hands in the restraints. The cable going up to the ceiling wobbled as he shook his head frantically.

His struggles amounted to naught, as Saazbaum neatly slipped the needle into the tender skin at his neck, emptying the liquid in a cold trickle into Inaho's carteroid artery.

Inaho's breaths shortened and hitched as he felt the paralytic agent begin to take effect. A numbing sensation spread from the injection site, moving slowly up towards his head and then back down into his chest.

"Potent, isn't it?" came Saazbaum's voice, drifting from the corner. Inaho already couldn't even turn his head to see, his muscles locking up and freezing in place. A strained noise of fear came through his throat.

Saazbaum returned to him, setting Cruteo's cane aside for a moment.

He leaned in and seized Inaho by the hair, yanking his head far back to expose his neck to the ceiling. Inaho gave a strangled grunt.

"Listen well and good, boy," Saazbaum hissed. "No one is coming for you." The fingers were tight in Inaho's hair, pulling right at the roots. Inaho was forced to look straight up into Saazbaum's cruel dark eyes. The man sneered down at him, cold fury behind his expression. "The only way you stay alive is by staying in my good graces, and that means..." he continued, "...becoming my perfect little attack dog and weapon." He leaned in so close his breath was on Inaho's skin. "Do you understand?" he asked, chillingly.

Inaho couldn't speak, the paralytic combining with the block in his throat to render him completely mute, but he trembled minutely, eyes frozen wide.

Saazbaum released him, letting Inaho's head tilt back into place. The numbing sensation continued to move down his body, taking his already-limited mobility even further away. The count retrieved his cane and paid Inaho a final smirk as he left, steps fading towards the door.

"I think I'll give you a few hours to contemplate your options," he said.

Inaho's mind twinged with a jolt of panic. Hours? Like this? Thin breaths strained through his throat as felt his body completely lock up, unable to move. Not even his eyes could look around, stuck staring straight ahead at the blank viewscreen.

"Have someone come in and wrap his hand," Saazbaum was saying to someone outside the room, and then the door hissed closed, leaving the room in darkness.

Inaho was trapped inside his head, nothing but his scattered, overstimulated thoughts to occupy him, a feeling like static feedback rolling constantly through his ears.

And all he could do was sit there and feel the tears dripping numbly down his face.


(A/N)- Don't worry he does get out of this... eventually.