Headsman

"Don't scream."

After receiving such a blatant and monotone warning he thinks he is not at fault for actually yelling instead of screaming.

The day started as any other when one is under such an observant eye as Accord's. He showered, made sure to cut any hair on his face and head and dressed smartly and properly. Couldn't have a fibre of his suit out of place or he might be the one being plucked out.

Seeing himself in the mirror was no longer a pleasant an experience as in his youth. His once mighty muscled figure has longed succumbed to the detriment of age and a life no longer as active as before. A nice fat gut now existed where once a six-pack capable of making Heracles jealous once was. His arms still had the same musculature has before, however, his role as his mother country's personal cape executioner gave him a reputation that even his solitary life couldn't keep away from, so it was always necessary to have the strength to pick up his old rocket launcher, just in case.

Having said reputation once one was replaced with a new shining model was even worse, so he was forced to escape from Russia, jumping island to island, until reaching Alaska. After that there were only confusing, tiresome, and snow-ridden memories until he reached Canada and from there it was a simple life of making use of his axe skills as a forester. Of course, he should have known better than to stop running away.

Damn capes.

Fleeing to the US was not in his original plans, there was a lot of empty emptiness in the wintry forests of Canada that he could enjoy, but he was still found time and time again. Like a dog with a bone, his pursuers wouldn't let go. So, he had to find a patron that would make this chase no longer enjoyable for his pursuers.

He knew of Accord only by reputation. He had read the file his country had on him from his few Endbringer evacuation plans the country's government had paid him to design after that disaster in Moscow. That is why when he remembered that where such an intelligent man existed there might be a few people that needed to lose a head for annoying said intelligent man. He might find use for such an old headsman, and he was in high demand for someone who might protect him. Unfortunately, the crew sent to hunt him down was competent in its job and he ended up even more wounded than before.

It was a difficult couple of weeks of being under the Ambassadors mercies while he was kept in custody.

But he always believed in his own worth.

So, after he proved that to them, he was granted entry into their group. Especially after it was revealed why he was forced to escape. His country thought him a Thinker. Unfortunately for them, he was not. From the many fights he enjoyed it was only a matter of time until some screw was loose in his head. Accord, the meticulous man he his, found that he only suffered from synaesthesia. He heard sounds when he saw things and sometimes colours with the sounds. When he reported it to his superior's they thought him a cape and ordered him replaced and killed. Couldn't have their cape executioner be a cape themselves, after all. But he was no Thinker.

He only had a screw loose.

But he wished he was.

God above, he wished he was.

No matter how puny a power, capes had a strength all but enviable.

They had been found worthy and given power.

In one of his early meetings with Accord he had confessed such feelings.

Accord agreed. Despite his powers many annoyances he too found to be a certain aspect to capes that made other humans envy them. Perhaps it was how larger than life they were. No normal human could look to Alexandria with anything but respect and awe, even her enemies, who were capes themselves, could not look to her in any other way.

Accord informed him that despite having no powers his mental abilities his loose screw gave him plus his long list of heads he cut off made him a good candidate to become his enforcer. He only needed his physical strength back. Another thing that his fights had taken from him.

Accord saw no problem with this. He gave a contact number to a promising up-and-coming tinker in a nearby city who could correct such problems. Her designs according to him were remarkable and also reproducible. Which meant two things: thing number one, to receive such a compliment from Accord the tinker in question might be the new Hero; and thing number two, this tinker was also the next Dragon. Therefore, to receive the attention of this new tinker was a blessing from the Heavens.

The voice from the phone was young but spoke firmly and assertively as if they were sure the angels themselves would grant her the path to Heaven if she would only but ask. He could see the small gravelly sound her voice made when it hit harsher notes, the visual cue he came to associate with the scarring of the throat of those that had screamed beyond exhaustion had.

He remembered still, their screams.

After breakfast, they set off to Brockton, only to arrive shortly after lunch.

The city they arrived to was clearly dying but he has seen worse. The misery of Russian winter when one has nothing but a blanket and the clothes on their bodies. The despair that gave birth to capes, all but enhanced after Behemoth's passing.

In comparison? This people still had roofs over their heads. What does it matter if that roof was leaking a bit? In this world, no roof was waterproof.

After wandering for a while, they found the club indicated. Its outsides were clean and the building look practically new in contrast with its surroundings.

The Last Drop.

A good name. He thought to himself.

The body that received him at the back entrance to the Tinker's lair made that voice sound appropriate. But also made whatever expectations he previously had vanish. The girl- no, woman he saw carried the strength of blood and character, so few people had. The type of woman his aristocratic mother would have subtly pointed and made note of in her little black book. A worthy one, she would say.

She was tall, muscled but not too much. She had little of female charms, but she had a sculpted physic that few women could master. Her suit was white and black with purple highlights, her half mask was of copper and black with purple liquid vials that possessed a light of their own. Her black hair cascaded behind her masked face like a waterfall of ink. In her waist he could spot a weirdly shaped gun. She wore fingerless black gloves of silk and her two fingers of her left hand were mechanical. She had a cane in her hand, decorated with a handle of a bird skull.

But her eyes.

Her eyes glowed in the early afternoon.

Shined with purple bioluminescent light.

They seem to have a life of their own.

Small details that his trained eyes noticed followed. The way she seemed ready to take her gun and shoot him. The way her eyes followed his steps like a hawk watched his quarry. How her back was straight but not taunt, ready for movement. The way she put only a small amount of weight on the cane, that suggested old battle wounds that she was still recovering from. The way all her subordinates seemed to unconsciously look towards her in guidance and the way they all seemed prepared to defend her.

A warrior queen.

He acted as if she were another Accord, and by that he means he acted as if she could kill him with but a thought for a small transgression only she could see.

He bowed as perfectly as he could, despite the apparatus he was sitting in, just like his mother taught him and introduced himself.

"Good afternoon, I am Uri Gherlorot and at my side is my companion Othello, who serves as Accord's representative for the continuation of our stay."

"Good afternoon. Accord sends both his greetings and his regrets for not being here personally and hopes he has not offended you for letting a representative come in his stead." He heard from the masked butler at his side.

"Good afternoon. I am Duchess Sera, leader and co-founder of the Nation of Zaun, and I welcome you both to my home. I warmly receive Accord's greetings and I hope you deliver to him a message of hope that one day we will meet each other face to face." The woman speaks slowly and methodically, like Accord but unlike Accord, her mask carries a mechanical sound, and her tone of voice is full of poison and her bite full of venom. You can see the colours pulse with such a commanding tone being uttered. It is eerie and uncanny. "Until then, I welcome you here as his representative. Now, let me introduce you to my Chem-Barons: this is Tattletale." She points to a blonde girl wearing a purple cat suit. "She oversees our communications and information; this is Spitfire, she is in charge of our base;" She points to a girl wearing a black and red suit. "And this is Grue, he is in charge of our offensive decision making." She points to a large black leathered man with a motorcycle helmet.

There are others in the large roster of parahumans and unpowered humans, but since she only presented to you these three, they might be her main lieutenants. Or, perhaps, only the ones hospitality obligates her to introduce.

Her attention turns to him, in his wheelchair.

"So." She looks at him up and down. "You are my patient, then."

"I am, Duchess."

"Come, now that introductions are over, we have much to do."

"Very well. I am at your command." He says obligingly.

He follows the woman into a cargo elevator. Half her contingent stays while the other accompanies her to the elevator. Othello, the Ambassador assigned as your companion, also came into the machine.

After a small ride down, he is presented with a large hallway filled with copper vats whose contents seem to be purple and green liquids. The hallway is well lit but despite that he can still see the light that the vats emanate.

"This is the special liquid that will be necessary for you to keep in hand." She points at a green vat. "Just like a car needs petrol to run, your mods will be powered by this liquid. I already reached an agreement with Accord that a vat of this size per week plus one will be given to you at the end of each month. I theorise you will only need three per month, but it is better to have a surplus then have to send emergency vats your way. Thankfully, this formula has a long shelf life." She explains as she walks.

"This is my office and lab." At the end of the corridor, she opens a door.

The office reminds you of your old boss's office. The old Russian general sitting behind a desk of hard wood in a room of cold decadence. This one however was underground and instead of a row of French windows on each side it had two labs. One resembled a lab taken science fiction movie; the other is taken straight from a hospital. Behind a great mahogany desk, there is a commode where on top there is a small vitrine showcasing three skulls. Beneath each of them there is a small name tag identifying whom they belonged to.

"You shall lay there in that bed while I work to modify you. I must reiterate the warning I gave you on our second call: the procedure will be extremely painful. Since you only paid me half in advance, I do hope you prove resilient and survive." She simply stated, looking at the hospital lab.

Despite feeling a bit speechless at a person that said such obvious but rude things so casually, he still went inside her lab. With a bit of help they stripped him of his clothes and her men were able to raise him up to the bed. Othello sat himself comfortably in a armchair indicated by one of her lieutenants.

She prepared herself by stripping herself from her coat, took off her gloves and put her cane in a corner of her lab. She put on a white lab coat and, after washing her hands thoroughly, put on some purple latex gloves.

"I shall put you to sleep for the first part of my work. After that, you must stay awake or the chemicals will not work, understood?"

"Da."

She handled a small vial filled with translucent liquid with a needle at the end. She put it in his arm and emptied it inside his body.

"Now, do me a favour. Count me down from 100."

"100, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94…" He counted in Russian. "…83… 82… 81."

He fell asleep.

Darkness.

Dreamless sleep.

Suddenly he was no longer awake.

"Don't scream."

And that was how he was woken up. After receiving such a blatant and monotone warning he thinks he is not at fault for actually yelling instead of screaming.

"Ah, fuck!" He yells.

"Currently…" Says the woman, who's lab coat was stained red. "… It's 18:30 of the first day of surgery. You have no right arm from the shoulder down. You also have no legs from the hips down. My first plan was to do away with everything below the waist, but someone told me some men might take offence to that. We are currently proceeding to the second part of our procedure. It will be done without anaesthesia, so we will give you something to bite down on."

While she was telling he noticed the odd feeling of calm from the drugs disappearing and the pain in his body making itself slowly but undeniably known. A hard wooden cylinder wrapped in cloth was put inside his gasping mouth and he made sure to bite as hard as he could.

"Now it will be extremely painful. But don't worry. Think of it like birthing pains. You are becoming something new. The pain is the act of becoming." Her purple eyes glitter and shine. "All I can tell you is to think of something important and focus your mind." She advises. She inclines her head a bit, as if in consideration, and adds: "And pray."

She picks up a tube connected to a purple vat with one hand and a pair of tweezers on the other. The pain he was feeling was increasing and at that point he lightly felt the tweezers push skin and flesh away only for the tube to suddenly go all the way inside his stomach through one of the holes where one of his thighs used to be.

Suffice to say after that point he barely remembers anything but pain and muffled screams. He tries to follow her advice, but he feels his mind escaping at random times. Whenever he does concentrate, he thinks of the future he will have, the power he will wield. He thinks of the open fields of his youth, the streams of cold water, his grandmother's fond grumbling, his father teaching him how to skin what he hunted, his mother's focus on decorum while his sister sneaked him a cookie.

His entire life passes through his mind, him joining the military, the first parahuman, the special hunting squad, Behemoth, all the faces of those he prided himself in executing. All the moments that led him here. The escape, the running, that fiery hunger to be more than himself.

It does nothing for the pain, though.

But it does help somewhat.

At some point a breathing mask is put on his face. Instinctually he breathes through his nose all while attempting to scream. He feels something hot enter his lungs and the pain somehow doubles. After a while his lungs are no longer burning, and he feels he can take a bigger lungful of air than before.

After what seemed like days they stopped.

He was sure he lost consciousness at a few points, but never for long, whatever the liquid was kept him awake through most of the surgery.

They let him rest, at least.

After a while, he hears someone approach, and the woman's masked face shows up in his field of vision.

"Good. You are well rested, then?" She says with an air of anticipation. "It's 01:45 in the morning of the second day of surgery. We are currently going to start the third part of the procedure, which is to actually install your mods. First it will be your arm, then your legs. Since I will give you the mods you asked for, the fourth part of the procedure will take place somewhere else, so I can give you the… more exotic additions to your body." He can hear her smile. "Don't worry this part won't be as painful. Let's start, shall we?"

It's barely less painful than before.

But he doesn't lose consciousness at any point this time.

Whenever he focuses himself away from the pain, he can see her connecting wires to his flesh and rounding up her bundle of wires through rounded metal caps that she fit in his stumps. Sometimes she would connect empty tubes that started somewhere in his body to the metal caps, where small screws were bolted. A small part of the empty tubes went a bit further than the metal caps. One for his arm, another for his right leg and another for his left leg.

"There! Done! You know, this was far more extensive work than what I am used to. Last time I had to connect nerve endings was to make my prosthetic fingers, and I did never connect chem-tech tubes to it. It was rather enjoyable." She appears in your field of vision, wiping her hands with a clean cloth. "Well, I'll need a refill for my tox-mask but I'll be with you shortly so we can continue with this." She makes a gesture outside of his view. "My men will take you upstairs where the mods I have been working on the last three days are. Othello will accompany you. Then we will begin the fourth and last part of this procedure."

He feels the bed stutter, a sound of a spring being uncoiled, and he starts being moved while still on the bed.

Othello was the first to show up fully in his field of vision. He could see silhouettes of other people around him, but none appeared close enough that his pain filled, and drug addle mind could concentrate on.

"So, you survived. Well done. You were worthy of being one of us, so I shouldn't expect anything less." The masked butler says in polite tones.

"I…" He breathes out roughly. "… never doubted." He coughs, breathing in more from the mask on his face. "I… was always worthy."

"So, you are." Othello responds simply.

He can now see the roof of the elevator you entered through. A short upwards ride later the view from his bed started changing.

A few moments later the low ceiling opened to a high roof with various light and fog machines.

"Put him up." He hears from his left side.

The bed starts to rise while leaning onto where his feet would be. He then felt the distinct rough feeling of rope around his waist while another went beneath his arm. With a pull he felt himself rise from the bed.

"So, with this its easier to put you in position to finally connect you to the mods themselves." He heard Duchess's voice although he couldn't see her from this position. His vision was still really badly focused. The pain and the drugs had done a bit of damage, although he could already see a noticeable difference in improvement from before. It was probably only a matter of time until his vision recovered even better than before, if Duchess's sell pitch was true.

He felt himself being slowly dropped from his previous height and the skin of his waist touch something cold.

There was the sound of a woosh and bubbling from the pipes around him.

A sudden loud clank.

A burst of pain followed by a burst of energy, like he just drank his father's spiked coffee.

He felt something hot inside his mask and he was forced to breath it in. Pain wracked him a bit more. He could hear the sounds of metal against metal, something mechanical and the wound of a welder. He had closed his eyes and focused his mind.

After a few more moments he could feel the same sensations coming from his stump that used to be his arm. The same motions and the same feelings repeated.

He heard a laugh.

It was loud and joyful.

A bit of the madness in it accompanied by the sheer relief.

"Finally." Duchess's voice came still carrying notes of laughter. "It's done! Put up the mirror! The customer needs to see what he is paying for!"

He opened his eyes.

His vision was no longer clouded for he could see better than ever before. A picture perfect image as if in high quality video feed.

He looked down and saw black and grey metal beneath his gut.

He looked away from the sight and dredged his eyes upwards to his front.

There was a large mirror.

The image that the mirror showed was terrifying.

It was a hulking shape, with six mechanical legs and many guns, flesh and metal fused perfectly as if such a mechanical monster was a natural occurrence from the wilds. This thing was the new him. The him that the pain gave birth to. With but a thought, like he never changed legs to begin with, he was able to turn around in his new massive form. His inspection revealed the chemtech-filled tubing that his body was riddled with and the solidly massive gun that served as his new arm. His mask glowed as it vented pure alchemy into his lungs, and he breathed it in deeply.

"Rejoice, Mr. Gherlorot. You survived my pure formula." Said the woman, who despite looking smaller to his eyes than before, in his mind had grown into a giant. "With this you are no longer an outcast. You survived. You are worthy."

She puts a hand on one of your mechanical spider legs. She strokes it slowly and looks you in the eyes.

"Have you thought of a name for yourself?"

"Urgot"

He said with surprising clarity.

"My name is Urgot."