- Seven Phases of Madness (Pt. II) -


Halo (c) Microsoft, Bungie and associated creators. Red vs. Blue (c) Rooster Teeth. Content includes mentions of mature themes and mentions of Church/Tex.


The images were like deep, weeping scars on his psyche. He could ignore them, but they would reinfect, tender and aching at the smallest of stimuli. When they manifested as nightmares, it was especially stressful, as he had to remain sane for both their sakes.

Beside where he had sat up, sweating and wide-eyed, a redhead slept peacefully. Curled up beneath the sheets like a cat in a basket, she was in a deep sleep, as she always was those days. The times of fighting, surviving and thieving, working tooth and nail to get away from their captors, was over. Thanks to the miracles of modern science, they were no longer bound to prisons of data and infrastructure; two perfectly healthy, perfectly human bodies were theirs to own. To enjoy. To explore.

To share.

He was afraid. He couldn't deny the seed of doubt that stirred in his gut, the ever-constant worry that their shells would break down. Technorganic life-forms, while stable and possible with what medicine could achieve, were still not as advanced as robotics and prosthetics. Turning an A.I. "human" wasn't as simple as plugging someone's mind into a program, and then into a body - it required precision. Study. Exploration into the ethics and possibility of metastability, which was only hypothetical as far as he knew. Yet, it had been ten years since the termination of the program, the seizure of the fragments and the arrest of the Director; how come they had not disintegrated? Granted, his love had always been a tad ... unstable, but she hadn't worsened as time had gone on. In fact, she seemed to get better, if not a tad bitter that they were forced to such a remote world.

But then again, remote could be synonymous with undiscovered, and as far as Church knew, the majority of the planet was for refugees. A great deal of people were in their position: jaded, disillusioned with the UNSC, tired of oppressive governments and wars civil and abroad. Burnsburnia was the perfect place to retire and start anew, and hell - he and Tex even built their own cabin together.