T-05-51, F-01-37 & Proving Oneself

My old senior did an oopsie and died. Too bad! Good news: I'm still alive and kicking! Ready to extract EGO, energy and whatever my scary boss orders me to! Why did I join this Wing? I'm a spy! I'm to find out the truth for the Head, so I guess it's only appropriate I end up working for the person who used to be an Arbiter.

"Fabb. Your presence is requested at the new Architecture department." My good friend Multiple told me.

The final department of the facility! Architecture! The first will of everything! Employees, Abnormalities, Sephirah… you name it! Infinite possibilities shall bloom by the will of the one who faces and the one who listens… At least, that's what the description says, but in reality, it's just the place where the manager works at.

Yup! You heard it right. I'm visiting A boss. Haha. His name is funnier if you know he has to pick such a codename to dodge the Head. If only he knew the plans the Head had for today!

Ordeals were going to be… a little bit more special from this day forth. Selected agents will invade the facility with the intent to pluck the entire Wing. If the Fixers fail… we will eventually receive a most interesting guest.

"Listen well, rookies! This place is all about the abnos! You need to work with them to produce the energy."

"The manual said something about work types, but how should we approach T-05-51? There's no info on it yet."

Hm? I checked the employee that asked. They reminded me of someone, but that was probably just my imagination. If I learnt something in the little time I had been around, it's that newbies are cannon fodder, so I decided not to waste my thoughts on them.

"Good point. We used to have an 'Inspector'. They joined the investigating team of clerks to find out everything needed about new abnormalities. They even had a pupil… whose whereabouts have become a mystery lately…"

"What happened to the Inspector?"

"Dead. They survived since day zero… and failed to reach the end. What a tragedy. But life is not meant to be nice, is it? So, chop, chop, everyone! Who wants to have a go with this little abno? It looks like a TETH, so you will probably do fine as long as you trained your virtues to level 3!"

Nobody volunteered, so I just picked the one who spoke with me. I felt like they could probably do the job right. Call it a hunch.

Bloodbath. My first abnormality. A skin-covered bathtub. It had a large pair of closed eyes. The shower head was replaced by a hand, which dripped blood constantly. The bathtub was filled with blood at a constant level that never overflowed, no matter how long I waited.

I got overwhelmed by a depressive feeling. A blood-filled bathtub. Those who had the luxury to get depressed over trifling matters had the choice to cut their wrists inside a bathtub, letting their blood flow out. More often than not, those people suffered from things other than hunger or sickness. I... can't believe that's a thing.

I would go in completely naked, but Lobotomy's rules prevented me from showing things on camera that would require censoring later. After all, our genders are meant to remain a secret. The few employees who didn't lose their genders to the Smoke War had to keep theirs a secret. The reason? Functionality. We are not required to be men or women in Lobotomy. Here, we are nothing but workforce. At least Fabb had the decency to introduce us to our new depressing environment.

I heard [REDACTED], but there was nobody there. Once I got into the tub to perform Attachment work, I noticed [REDACTED]. Was that supposed to happen? There was a [REDACTED] reflected on the surface of the blood. [REDACTED] was crying, so I tried saying something comforting.

As a side note, Attachment was probably the right approach. [REDACTED] needed that. Repression would… make something bad happen, so I wasn't willing to test that possibility.

After I handed in the report at the manager's office, I stared at him in silence. I still reeked of blood, so I wanted to give him the idea to grant me some time off duty to go have a shower at my quarters.

"As always, good job with your reports. Angela, if you may, please send this document to information."

The manager's helping AI obeyed his request and disappeared in the bat of an eye.

"Go back to your station. We just received a report that the other new abnormality has trapped one of your teammates. Please, go rescue them."

I frowned. I knew it was my first day and I could do some pushing around to get into the swing of things, but this man was abusing me way too much! He had me take five baths in a row! Now this?

"Forgive my bluntness, but couldn't you just send a senior? I'm not your only employee, you know?"

"Please, just go. Everyone else is busy handling their own tasks. The Magic Girls are acting up again and Little Red is going around killing everyone. Soon, the Mountain of Smiling Bodies will break free. I have no time to waste hearing your complaints.

He really looked tired, so I took a bit of pity on him.

"Fine, I'll bite, but, please, don't forget to grant us some EGO equipment for tomorrow. If we are to survive, we will need the right gear."

His lack of answer upset me a bit, but there wasn't anything I could do, was there?

F-01-51 was a woman with frozen skin. Her disembodied head had no neck. On it, a long, ornamented crown rested opulently. It had blue and white plates, with a snowflake pattern adorning the center and black antlers the sides. She wore a long white robe with a dark dress. Large ice shoulder pads, resembling snowflakes. Her hands held an upside down sword with a light blue blade, with a grey handle and blue gem.

Next to her, my teammate was trapped inside a block of ice, their terrified expression hinting at whatever happened earlier. The abnormality pointed her sword towards me, revealing what was about to happen. At that point, I wondered whether I was paid enough to put up with such a thing on my first day.

During our duel, I heard the sound of struggle outside our chamber. There was a Red Fixer fighting some of my seniors. When the invader was defeated, it shot a powerful laser blast that almost got me split in half. Some of my seniors weren't as lucky and took a great deal of damage.

Another victim to the laser was my icy opponent. Defeated, she approached me empty-handed and gave me a kiss on the cheek. The ice melted and my teammate ran away from the chamber, only to find the massacre landscape that awaited outside. Since the manager was going to give me more tasks once I finished there, I decided to stay at The Ice Queen's unit for a while longer.

Weird. [REDACTED] was there too. [REDACTED]. It was nice to receive someone's gratitude, for a change. The manager could take some tips from this [REDACTED].

Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die, you fucker! DIEEEEEEEE!

Oh, hey, everyone! Your Head spy is still alive! How ironic is it that I must defeat their agents in order to win the manager's trust? Ah, la vie est drole!

The Red Fixer hurt a lot. If not for Qwerty's quick intervention, that amplified fighter would have caused many a trouble for everyone. Izzy noticed how the White Fixer tried to reflect the damage dealt to them in time. How dumb would it have been if we died to hitting it overzealously? The Black Fixer was trickier since we ignored them for a while. It summoned Meltdowns. Multiple had him covered, though, so it was no biggie.

Ah… it hurt quite a damn lot when that Pale fucker decided teleport behind me and stab me in the back. Twenty-eight stab wounds! If not for Neal's support, I would have definitively kicked the Bucket. Haha. Get it?

Oh, is it not a good time to crack a joke? I mean, the manager summoned every remaining fighter available to Central Command. After all, we were about to face our greatest enemy: The Claw.

A tall man in a business suit with a large iron claw-like gauntlet on his hands. He had three differently colored syringes on his body: orange at its elbows, blue at his shoulders and green at his head. He had a helmet that looked like withered wood. Each did a different thing… and I knew it all too well. The orange one enhanced his fighting prowess. C Corp got it from their connections in R Corp. The blue one was a dangerous liquid produced by W Corp. It allowed him to warp around and smash distant targets in a quick succession. The most bothersome syringe was surely the green one: K Corp and it's abhorrently inconvenient healing capabilities.

It was obviously a dangerous foe, but we followed the manager's orders. The Claw's mistake was allowing the manager to stop time. We dodged his dangerous attacks and we unleashed ours. It didn't take too long to defeat him.

With this… I am one step closer to gaining A's trust and uncovering his end goal!

Multiple caught me by my arms and dragged me back to the Record Department. Hokma wanted to speak with me.

"I know who you are and why you are here."

"You should. After all, I couldn't be here without your approval." I retorted, a bit scared by the sudden exchange.

"I shall answer your every question, then."

"Really? Then-"

"If you agree not to stop us."

"Aaaah, there had to be some kind of trick to it, hand't it? Okay, I accept. I've worked my butt off here to protect Lobotomy Corporation from the Head anyway, so I might as well see from the front seats what happens here. Beholders care a lot about information, you know?"

Multiple helped me up and looked at me weirdly.

"Are you really a Beholder of the Eye?"

"I may be one or I may not be one. Beholders are quite mysterious people, Garcia."

"Well, we heard your conspiracy theories the other day, so you owe to us some cool and –actually interesting– anecdotes."

"Deal!"

What am I, really? Am I just a cute little Fabb with twenty-eight new stab wounds? Or am I a scary spooky skele- er, a Beholder? Stay tuned for the next chapter! Wait, I don't appear in it?! Balloney!