Chapter 12: The Burden of Command

In his mind, he could see the whole world burning.

Sitting on his command dais towering over his staff members, Helper T Cell squirmed and sweat as streams of data flooded into his mind by way of his seer-helmet. He was no neuron, but his headgear, which was attached to long strands of wires connected to neural mainframes, fed him real-time updates on the multiple battles all coinciding across the world.

What he saw made him want to throw up.

Reports of defeat after defeat kept coming in and his command could barely handle the situation without breaking down. The command center buzzed with frantic activities of troop movements, losses, and desperate pleas for reinforcement. Everyone was at their limits especially when they gave orders to units in the field that they know would surely be their last.

Helper T clenched his hands like vise-grips on the sides of his chair as he tried to control himself from yanking his helmet out of his head.

"Unit 227, do you hear me?!" he shouted. "For crying out loud Unit 227 respond! Respond!"

He need not voice out the command. His seer-gear was more than enough to convey his thoughts, and yet he still couldn't help but switch to his audio interface to contact his teams on the field directly.

If those under him were indeed about to die, the last thing he could do as a commander was to hear their final screams before their doom.

"Damn it!" he slammed a hand into his armrest. "Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!"

He could feel his mitochondria beating furiously inside his chest. Anger simmered inside his organelles.

Why?! Why have you forsaken us?!

He let out a curse under his breath aimed at the Consciousness for exposing their world to such a horrific virus in the first place. He could recall the mad antics of the neuron who chastised his colleagues for going 'overseas'. Personally, he didn't know what 'overseas' mean, but based on the hysterical reaction of the neuron, he could only surmise it was anything but good.

He inhaled a lungful of breath to calm himself.

How could the Consciousness do this? From the moment he was taught in the Thymus academy, he was always reminded of the benevolence of the entity that governed their world. He was always thought to respect and sing praise to the one all cells in the world owed their existence.

It is better to die for the Consciousness than to live for yourself…

Such were the words ingrained deeply into his mind, but would it really be better? He had seen hundreds of his friends bleed and perish with the name of the Consciousness uttered in their final breath and yet the only gratitude ever shown for their selfless sacrifice was a passing remark in the Thymus registry of their serial numbers now available for reassignment.

Do they all mean nothing? Were they indeed just automatons like those antibiotics the world often times receive?

Would an entity that 'knowingly' endanger the lives of trillions of individuals even deserve their reverence and praise?

He sniffed and realized his vision had started to go blurry. He thought his glasses had fogged up, but then he felt tears trickling down his eyes.

Helper T closed his eyes shut.

Why… Why is this all happe-

He stopped mid-thought as he felt something warm pressing on him.

He opened his eyes and saw Regulatory cell leaning on his sitting position with her hand resting on his chest. Her smooth, rosy cheeks rubbed with his, and he could hear her soft breathing near his ears.

"Courage, my love," she whispered. "The world needs you at the helm with all your strength."

He felt his chest rising and falling with anger, but the tender touch of Regulatory cell abated some of it.

He closed his eyes again as he wrapped back his own arm around her waist. He needed this. He realized how badly he needed the warmth of the one cell he had formed a bond with.

"Thank you, Regulatory," he sighed. The rage inside him had cooldown low enough for him to gather his wits and form a more rational assessment of their situation. "Thank you."

Regulatory cell moved slightly away from him so that the two were now staring directly into each other.

Helper T swallowed as he felt shame for losing his cool when his partner was trying to remain composed despite the rapid destruction of the world.

Regulatory's face looked tired and spent. Her jeweled green eyes seemed to convey to him a sense of sadness and pain.

He averted his gaze from hers. "Regulatory, I..."

But she never gave him the chance to finish as she suddenly pressed her lips with his.

Helper T's eyes widened with surprise at the unexpected kiss. It came out of nowhere, and a hundred thoughts suddenly swirled inside his head.

But he ignored them all, pulling instead Regulatory closer. Her lips felt soft and sweet, and he savored them all in his response.

For a couple seconds, their world stopped moving. For just a brief moment of their lives, he allowed himself to experience the eternal bliss of their love. Nothing matters outside them… The world did not matter, the war did not matter.

Helper T cell wished they could stay like this forever. To hell with the Consciousness and Lady Em. To hell with them all.

Only the two of them, wrapped in each other's loving embrace, with their tongues intertwining, mattered.

But alas, all good things must come to an end. Despite his desire not to care anymore on anything, his partner knew that would never happen.

Regulatory cell finally moved away from him, her face still flushed and red. Her chest rose and fell in a synchronized rhythm with her panting. A strand of her bangs fell down from her forehead, covering her left eye, and giving her a tired but seductive pose.

Helper T cell also heaved lungfuls of air to catch his breath. He could feel his mitochondria now booming in his chest from his partner's sudden kiss.

"That should help you to calm down my love," she placed a hand on his seer-helm, giving him a faint smile. "Do not lose hope, I will always be here by your side."

Helper T adjusted his glasses as he smiled back. "Forgive me Regulatory, I just… I just lost myself for a bit."

"I know your burden is heavy," she whispered. "But you are not alone… I will help you carry some of the weight."

"Thank you," he nodded, his eyes once again started to tear up.

He was never a firm believer in fate despite the multiple lectures from Lady Macrophage. However, if such a thing as fate does exist, then he was truly grateful that, of all the trillions of cells living in this world, he was able to meet the one he could fall in love.

A stream of urgent thoughts suddenly buzzed inside his head, notifying him of an incoming call. The augmented display in front of him indicated the source of the call, and it took all the self-control he had not to rip out his headgear and murder the cell on the other line.

Regulatory saw he now needed to focus back on his work, and so she stepped aside to leave him be.

Helper T cell sucked in a mouthful of breath to calm himself down before he pressed a button on the side of his seer-helm to activate the vox line.

"Dendritic cell, you bastard," he fumed. "Where the hell have you been?!"

-0-0-0-

One Hour Ago...

His hands dripped with crimson cytoplasm and behind him lay the corpses of his former allies.

They never suspected a thing. To them, they thought he was still one of them, a cell bound by the fate to serve a tyrannical entity who abuse and mistreats those it ruled.

But now, no more. He was now liberated and free to pursue his own desires and the feeling of betraying those who called him a 'friend' only made him widened his lips to form one sinister grin.

He was chosen… They were not.

He had ascended… They had not.

"This is how to live life!" he laughed. "Won't you agree my dear?"

Beside him lay a wounded KT cell with pink hair knotted into pigtails. Cytoplasm had pooled around a gashing wound on her side.

The dying immune cell wheezed for air, but with her back broken, she could no longer move or feel her legs.

In a few more minutes, she would be dead.

He knew that.

In fact, it was he who had inflicted the fatal blow even though she did put up a good fight. Admittedly, she had proven to him that he was definitely out of shape considering that she did manage to scratch a tiny slither on his cheek. Still, he bested her despite the help of her comrades.

"Bastard… You will not get away from this!" she growled through seethed teeth. "We will kill you!"

"Yes, yes, even at the point of death you lot are still incredibly stubborn," he dismissed her with a wave of his hand. "For once, think rationally and join the winning side!"

He knelt down beside her as he yanked her hair to her back to force her to look at him in the eye. "What do you say, my dear? Would you want to joi-"

She spat out a globule of cytoplasm directly into his face. "Never! Just kill me and be done with it! I'll never join you!"

He stared directly into the eyes of the dying KT cell. The sight of her defiant face only made him shiver with excitement.

"You know, for someone about to die, you certainly have a rather poor choice of words," he pulled out a small dagger from tucked on one of his boots, placing it beside her. "I will not be the one to kill you…"

The downed KT immediately grabbed the blade with her hand and proceeded to take a swing at her attacker.

He merely seized her wrist to stop the knife in midair.

"Unhand me!" she snarled as she tried to pull out her arm from his grip. "There's a special place for traitors like you, Dendritic cell!"

The mention of his name made him chuckle. That was what he was called back when he was still a slave to a tyrant.

Yes, he was a dendritic, an antigen-presenting cell who acts as a messenger between the adaptive and innate immune system. He also holds the key for activating immune cells and boosting their powers for a short period.

However, aside from his work, he also had another function, one that he had never used before until now…

"As I said, my dear, I will not be the one to kill you, I will give the honors to yourself."

He leaned close to her ears as he started to whisper.

"KT cell… Kill yourself."

Suddenly, she felt her body stiffened. To her horror, her hand moved on its own, pointing the dagger directly into her eyes. She tried to claw open her fingers to drop the knife down to the floor, but her hand simply refused to obey her orders.

She stared at the blade's tip and finally felt fear taking all over her.

"No…" she muttered, shaking her head. "Bastard! What are you making me do?!"

Her hand began to tremble. She mustered all her arm's strength to resist at whatever control Dendritic cell had on her, but her hand remained firm, and her neck had frozen still so she couldn't evade.

Dendritic cell gave her one big smile before standing up to walk away from her.

The last thing he'd heard was a loud, terrifying screech followed by a sudden eerie silence.


A/N:

And we finally get to see our third and final couple in the story. The good thing about Helper T and Regulatory is that they're just honest with their feelings, unlike a certain tsundere couple who just couldn't be bothered to show some little honesty. ^^

And speaking of that tsundere couple, we have another artwork from my friend ToxicStar and this time, his work showcases NK and MT with new outfits from Warhammer 40k. NK in the pic is supposed to be an Inquisitor while MT is definitely a Commissar in an apparent homage to CIAPHAS CAIN! HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!

Oh, and another good news! I've now uploaded the first chapters and a gallery on Wattpad yey!

If you wish to look at a larger copy of the book covers I used, I suggest going to Wattpad, and search my name, ViktorChild in the search box. You should be able to see my published stories. If you can't find it, just give me a PM and I shall give to you the link. ^^

Lastly, an announcement... For the Christmas month of December, I will only be releasing one chapter for this story and one other surprise for later in the month. XD Just stay tune for more updates. XD


Revision History:

- Originally published on Dec. 5, 2018