The Purity of Life

"Nnngh!" A coarse grunt crashed against the walls of a cramped supply closet as Raven writhed atop a cold steel table. Three layers of glistening mystic chains wrapped tightly around his body, holding him fast as spasms and bursts of electricity shot through his limbs. To his left, Eve shifted her hands rapidly between her console and a soldering iron, plunging her hands deep into the open core of Raven's left arm. Each time she fused a circuit or altered the arm's programming, a massive shock flowed out into Raven's shoulder and spread throughout his body. Sweat rolled down his neck and face as his limbs thrashed and rattled about, threatening to break through their brittle bindings.

"Hold him down! I cannot finish if he keeps moving!" Eve turned to Aisha, her voice crisp and commanding. Standing at Raven's feet, Aisha stood clutching her wand, pressing it into the ground and wavering as the chains holding Raven began to snap. Frantic, she turned aside to Elsword and glared fiercely.

"Elsword, give me a hand here!"

Eyes wide and sharp, Elsword released Raven's right arm and rushed over to Aisha's side, slamming his hand on top of hers and concentrating on the binding sigil. Within seconds, a swirl of light encircled the chains and they doubled in strength, holding Raven in place as another pained gasp escaped his clenched teeth. Seeing Raven's body wracked with pain, Elsword glanced over at Rena uneasily.

"Hey, is he gonna be alright?"

"Nng... I'm fine." Raven raised his head for a moment before another jolt threw it back against the table with a loud thud.

"No, maybe we should take a break for a while." Standing at his side, Rena looked over his face, its features twisted in agony as a thin trail of blood ran out from the corner of his mouth.

"No!" Raven gasped and panted heavily. "Keep going!"

Still working at a furious pace, Eve nodded to him and carried on. After a few moments, she set her tools aside and held her hand out over the exposed circuits in Raven's arm.

"I need to reboot the processor. Please stand back." A small, crackling orb of swirling energy gathered in Eve's hand, casting a sea of shadows across the wall. As everyone else stood clear, she thrust her hand down into the open guts of Raven's arm and the room went dark.

Two hours earlier, a cloud of dust and grime swept across the ground as Rena and Raven made their way through a dim, cluttered corridor. For the past few minutes, all they had seen were dirt-caked cords and small piles of rubble and wire scattered throughout the halls but now, as they neared a narrow intersection, an unearthly glow rose from the ground and bathed them in a veil of blue. As they neared the light ahead, the faint echo of light footfall rang out through the air and Raven stopped. Dimly in the distance, the pale gleam of ivory approached. Raven glanced to his right and Rena nodded, propping herself up against the wall and drawing her bow as Raven readied his sword and raised it toward the darkness. Soon, a pair of golden eyes cut through the shadows and glistened brightly, moving forward with a steady, level gait. Just as Rena took aim at the ghostly figure before them, a lively voice called out to them.

"Hey, Rena!" Elsword waved aimlessly as he stepped into view. "What're you guys doing out here?"

Rena smiled brightly, a devious glimmer in her eyes. "Well, you two were taking your time. We thought maybe you had eloped."

A quick cough issued from the shadows, followed immediately by a nauseous gasp. "With him!? No way!" Aisha's adamant protest wafted through the air, filtered through a cloud of silver dust that billowed out across the floor and over Rena's feet. "We found somebody though. She said she'd show us the way out." Another round of coughing preceded a thunderous sneeze as Aisha made her way through the mist of grime that fell from the walls. Following close behind her, a regal figure of ivory and jet glided effortlessly into the light. The dust and dirt that hung in the breeze fled in her presence, retreating to the corners as though it had been forcibly denied entry into the very air around her. With her arms crossed and her eyes fixed on Raven's left arm, the Queen of the Nasod stood silently in the midst of the wavering shadows as Aisha hurried alongside to introduce her.

"This is Eve, she's- ah-" Aisha's face wrinkled up tightly as she fought off another sneeze. Next to her, Elsword stifled a laugh and Aisha turned to glare at him.

Taking note of their new discovery, Rena lowered her bow and pulled herself forward, leaning down to meet Eve at eye level. "Ah, I didn't know there were nasod this cute~" A warm smile spread across her face and Eve blinked uncomfortably. "I'm Rena."

Eve nodded awkwardly, unsure of how to respond to such an affectionate greeting from a stranger. Just a few feet away, the atmosphere was far colder.

"That's a nasod?" Raven kept his blade steady and held his ground as he glared at Eve, drawing out the latent tension in the air as he stood ready to strike. "What makes you think she's not an enemy?"

Elsword and Aisha hesitated. In truth, there was no proof they could offer him, nothing that would convince him of Eve's trustworthiness other than their intuition and Eve's anxiety.

Rena reached to her side and grabbed the flat of Raven's blade. "Pointing your sword at her isn't going to help either way."

"It is alright." Eve lowered her hands and studied Raven's left arm. "I understand your suspicions. It seems that you have had encounters with the nasod in the past."

Raven cast is eyes aside and returned his weapon to its sheath, but the chill in the air remained as he scowled bitterly at the machine grafted onto his body.

"Hey, can we do this later?" Elsword grumbled just a bit louder than his stomach and his brow furrowed. "We need to get out of here."

"Wait." Eve circled around and stopped in front of Raven, looking up at him calmly. "I want to examine that arm."

Raven gazed down at her skeptically. "Why?"

"If it is causing you pain, I may be able to stop it..." Eve's voice trailed off abruptly, a whirl of doubts spinning through her mind. "And also... I did not program the Core to perform experiments on humans. I did not program the Core to produce nasod for battle. I need to know why that arm exists and who made it." In her unyielding eyes there was a spark of frailty, a streak of worry that infected her resolute words. Raven stood firm for a moment, refusal lingering on the edge of his lips. When he glanced to his right, however, the look of calm assurance on Rena's face cut through his caution and wore down his last stubborn defense. Even Elsword and Aisha were staring at him with a mix of impatience and goading, wondering just why he was being so unreasonable when offered a solution to his suffering. Discarding his apprehension, Raven nodded sternly.

"Alright. What do you need to do?"

"We will need to access its processor and memory." Eve blinked once and turned, pointing down a narrow side passage. "There is a supply room up ahead where we will find the necessary supplies."

Without hesitation, she walked off into the dark, the path ahead lighting up beneath her feet. Everyone else followed quickly though at nowhere near as steady a pace. With clouds of filth blocking their path, Aisha and Rena soon found themselves several yards behind Eve and making little headway. After a fit of light coughing, Aisha waved her hands briskly in an attempt to clear the air.

"Rena, can't you just blow all of this away or something?" Pinching her nose tight, she fought another sneeze as she guided her feet over a pile of rusted scrap metal.

"There's too much dirt in walls and the ceiling... It would only make it worse." Rena lean over on the wall and raised her injured leg, pulling her boot off and adjusting her bandages.

"Is it doing any better?" Aisha looked to her uneasily, her voice higher and softer than usual. Smiling carelessly, Rena pushed herself from the wall and draped herself over Aisha.

"Yup, a little bit, but I still can't put any weight on it. Can I lean on you for a little bit?" She leaned her head onto Aisha's shoulder.

"Of course!" Aisha nodded earnestly, both shocked and flattered as she slid her arm around Rena's back. Just as they began to set off, Aisha heard an irksome grunt behind her and she realized that Elsword and Raven had fallen behind. Looking back over her shoulder, she found Elsword tangled up in a mess of dangling cord, his legs and his sword hopelessly bound in a nest of lithe wires.

"What are you doing back there? Hurry up!"

Elsword glowered at her and struggled fiercely, wrapping himself ever more snugly as he tried to break through his bindings with brute force. "Just give me a second, alright?" He yanked and pulled against the wires again and slipped, falling against the wall and shaking a cloud of dirt down onto his head. Next to him, Raven frowned awkwardly as he assessed Elsword's condition. He turned back toward Aisha and Rena promptly.

"Go on ahead. This could take a while."

"Are you sure?" Aisha asked pensively, her eyes drifting toward Raven's left arm.

"Yeah, we should go see if Eve needs any help." Rena smiled warmly and nudged Aisha onward, setting the two of them in motion down the hall along the glowing path that Eve had left for them. After another minute, they had gone far enough away that Elsword and Raven's voices melted into the subtle hum of electricity in the walls, though Eve was still nowhere in sight. As soon as they were audibly alone, Aisha paused.

"Is it really okay to leave Elsword like that?"

Rena smiled lightly. "Tied up like that? I think it'd make him easier to carry around, actually."

Aisha gave a short, awkward laugh, "No, I meant, with Raven."

"Oh, don't worry." Rena grinned slyly. "I don't think Raven's into younger men, so you don't have any competition there."

"That's not-!" Blushing, Aisha pouted and huffed, furrowing her brow as they carried on down the corridor. Humming softly, Rena leaned over and lowered her voice a bit.

"What do you really think of him though? You don't still hate him, do you?"

"Well, no, but..." Aisha kept her eyes forward, holding her words uneasily in her throat. "He has some moments when he's kind of cool, and he's not a bad person..." Her voice quickly rose and gained a sharp edge, "But then he always acts so rude and stupid and he still doesn't listen to anybody!"

Gazing at her fondly, Rena giggled. "That's true, but he's still in the middle of growing up. In a few years, he might be completely dashing."

Aisha scoffed and scowled. "Never. He will never, never be a proper gentleman."

"I wonder..." Rena stared off into the distance with a bright, cheery gleam over her face. Aisha's flustered frustration lasted only a moment, however, and soon she had her mind set back onto another matter.

"Do you really think Raven won't try to fight with us anymore?"

A grey fog of rust and dirt poured from the wall and covered their feet as the static buzz of frayed wires swirled around them. Closing her eyes for a moment, Rena's smile faded and her voice grew solemn. "I don't think so. Not now that he's off his ship and away from his soldiers. He seems like a good man, and someone who honestly doesn't like fighting at all... but to be honest, I think that if he was still on that ship, he might go back into battle right away. The sort of revenge that he's been carrying out, it's more addiction than retaliation. Killing the people he sees as his enemies is all that's been keeping him going for a long time, but it's also been keeping him stuck in the past. I don't know if he'll let that go, but for now, I think he'll be just fine, especially if Eve can keep that machine on his arm from messing with his head."

Soaking in Rena's words, Aisha breathed out slowly and shifted her arm across Rena's back. "I can't say I understand it all completely, but if you think he's alright, I think that's good enough."

"Thanks." Rena leaned over and rested her head on top of Aisha's. "By the way, weren't there some boys behind us a while ago?"

A couple dozen yards back, Raven carefully pulled and twisted a handful of wires as Elsword finally pulled his foot from their grasp, free after a long struggle against their stranglehold. Grimacing, her glared up at Raven and his eyes narrowed.

"We could've just cut through them."

"They're power cables. If we cut the wrong one, the lights could go out." Raven spoke plainly and without affect, though in truth the path lite below their feet was all that kept them from wandering aimlessly through a labyrinth of dust and debris. Though Elsword knew this and didn't argue with Raven while he was helping him get free, he still scowled and crossed his arms stubbornly. Without a word, they set off down the hall in pursuit of Aisha and Rena. After a few minutes in an awkward, tense silence, Raven glanced over at Elsword sharply.

"Is something wrong?"

Elsword scoffed. "Nothing's wrong. Just don't expect me to act friendly with you after you tried to kill us."

Raven turned back toward the dull lights darting off into the distance, his eyes dim and weary. "That's fine then. You've got every right to be suspicious of me, after what I've done."

Still shooting Raven a critical stare, Elsword lowered his arms and relaxed his shoulders a bit. "...What're you gonna do when we get out of here then?"

Raven's mouth turned down as guilt piled onto his shoulders. "The El that was on my ship... it belonged to your village, didn't it? I'm going to help you all get it back."

"And what if you go crazy cause of your arm again?"

"I'd stop myself before that happened." Raven locked eyes with Elsword, his voice solemn and stern as stood tall against the flickering shadows around them.

"..." Elsword glared harshly, questioning Raven's sincerity with a coarse scowl. After a moment, however, his scowl faded. "You won't have to go that far. I'll take care of you myself if that happens."

Cracking the slightest of smiles, Raven gave a short, faint laugh and Elsword's grimace reappeared.

"What, you don't think I could take you?" He backed away and reached for his sword but Raven merely lowered his face and shook his head.

"No, that's not it. I laugh because you're probably right. I've just never met a kid your age that could swing so hard. I can still feel the bruises on my back from where you hit me."

Elsword grinned wryly. "You should've given up earlier then."

Raven chuckled again, just a bit stronger than before. "You're right... I should have."

After a few more minutes of navigation, they arrived at a small store room where Aisha and Rena were busily sifting through the rust-ridden shelves as Eve fiddled with her console in the corner. As soon as they entered, she looked up and pointed toward the large steel table in the center of the room.

"Clear the table. You will need to lie down while I access the arm's visual memory."

Elsword thought to question Eve's orders, unwilling to start running about just because some 'kid' told him to, but since Raven had already started sweeping away piles of ash and debris and there was nothing else for him to do, he got to work begrudgingly. Once the flat, dull steel surface of the table was completely vacant, Eve approached and sprayed its surface with a foul smelling mist from a dust covered canister. Rena reached over and wiped the table down just as Aisha finished stocking a small cart with an assortment of small tools and wheeling it over to Eve. With everyone assembled and the operating room prepared, Eve motioned to Raven and he climbed atop the table, laying on his back and and offering his left arm to Eve as though it were a rotten log being rolled into a bonfire. Grabbing a pair of pliers and a small metal probe, Eve began peeling back the outer shell of Raven's nasod arm and uncovering its innards.

For a time, nothing happened. Eve continued stripping away layers of covering and casing, attaching electrodes and wires to the arm as it lay motionless atop the table. A small spark leapt into the air as she wound a final wire into place and a faint crackling spilled out of Eve's console. After a few keystrokes, a large screen appeared in the air around them, displaying what seemed to be a bright, spacious workshop table covered with small electrical components and bright new tools. As the perspective of the screen shifted and curled inward, they could see the unfinished upper half of Raven's nasod arm, its wires and circuits exposed and its shoulder still unattached to any human body.

"What... what is that?" Aisha stared curiously at the translucent screen as the view continued to shift erratically.

"The sphere in the palm of this arm is actually a camera." Eve looked down toward Raven's left hand and the bright, smooth orb fixed in its center. "It seems to have started recording its surroundings once it was activated and has been feeding these images back to somewhere within the core."

"Wait, so it's... an eye?" Elsword grimaced, more than a little disgusted.

Before Eve could clarify, the screen flashed rapidly as the arm entered a new chamber. Rolling on a cart of some sort, it passed by a row of large metal gurneys, each hosting a pale, blood-soaked corpse covered in a clear plastic shroud. At the end of the hallway, the arm turned into a small room where another body waited upon an operating table. Unconscious and badly wounded, Raven lay at rest and breathing heavily as the arm slowly approached his left side. As a pair of nasod entered the room, Raven stirred and groaned in his sleep, his eyes fluttering as he gradually awakened.

One of the nasod at Raven's side looked up through the ceiling and called out monotonously, "It is almost awake. Please recommend further action."

A booming thunderclap rang out as a deep, imposing voice delivered its answer. "Sedate it at once and begin the operation. It will resist, so keep it strapped down while you perform the amputation."

"Understood." The nasod turned to a cabinet on the wall and retrieved a large syringe, plunging it into Raven's neck and emptying its contents into his veins. The pain and shock of the injection jarred him from his sleep and he rose wearily, just in time to see a large hand saw touch the surface of his left shoulder.

The screen vanished just as an agonizing scream filled the room and everyone stared in horror. Eve stood at her console, her eyes lost as she stared down at the open circuits and wires in front of her.

"So that's when it happened." Raven's voice was calm and blunt, unmoved by the image of his arm being rent from his body. At his side, Eve was not so serene.

"I... am sorry that this happened to you." She cast her eyes aside and lowered her face, crossing her arms tightly across her chest as her voice quivered across her ears. "I did not program the Core to make nasod like that... I do not know... what has happened..."

"H-hey, it's not like you had anything to do with it..." Elsword turned to her and stammered out an awkward consolation, though Eve did not seem reassured in the least.

"It doesn't matter who did it." Raven turned to Eve and looked straight into her eyes. "I just want to know if you can take away the electric shocks and get it out of my head."

In the face of Raven's calm determination, Eve quickly regained her composure. "Yes. I will alter its core programming to allow you full control over it." She turned to her console, her face somber as she read through a dozen lines of code. "It may be very painful."

Raven turned back to face the ceiling and closed his eyes. "That's fine. Pain is temporary."

Eve nodded and turned to Elsword and Aisha. "I will need you to hold him down."

"Hah..." Raven let out a heavy sigh as he sat up on the steel operating table. Holding his left arm out, he flexed each finger of his claw in turn, twisting his wrist freely and bending his elbow back and forth. Beside him, Eve closed her console and returned her tools to the cart at her side.

"I have removed all autonomous functions of the arm and stripped away its internal programming. You should be able to control all of its movements and actions now, including the weaponry built into its core."

Sweat dripped from Raven's chin as he looked over the machine that once held him hostage in his own body, now moving at his behest. Still gathering his breath and steadying himself, he turned reluctantly toward Eve and nodded. "...Thank you."

Eve nodded in return, silent as she packed her tools into a small metal case. At the edge of the room, Aisha and Elsword sat back against the wall, exhausted from a marathon of spell casting and still unable to tend to their grumbling stomachs. At Raven's side, Rena looked down with a reassuring smile.

"Good~ Now you don't have to go around talking to yourself and trying to cut your arm off."

Raven glanced aside, a bit embarrassed by the memory of his previous desperation. "It- Yes."

Rena laughed and coughed lightly. "Are you feeling well enough to get moving?"

Closing his left arm into a tight fist, Raven pushed himself off of the table and up to his feet, his eyes keen and determined as he stared off into the darkness beyond the door.

"Yeah. Let's go."