i just read your comic about the red 141 origin and omg it’s so fucking cool. soap’s mask being red because his was covered in blood during the mission is so fucking clever 🤌
Thank you so much! I really enjoyed drawing him covered in blood <3
Managed to edit this chapter today so I'm posting it, the sketch isn't done yet unfortunately so I'll add it at a later date.
Currently all I've said in the previous post still applies, and I don't know when I'll post the next chapter, but I hope you enjoy this one
The tiles beneath Soap's boots are eroded, the marks lining with his body as if hundreds of knights have dropped to a kneel in the exact same place he does now. Devotion is woven into each crack and stone in the Observing Hall, generations of fighters giving their lives for the oath. Soap wonders, if they struggled with doubt like he is.
In the breath between lowering their heads, and the call to rise, it is not the Watchers that occupy his mind, not his duty.
It is a man, no longer human, left to rot by all forces on Earth. A man, who knew no peace from the day he cried his first tears, until he became entombed by metal. A man that cannot stand by his side, not here, because none see his heart, which may beat no longer, but still screams it is alive.
But Soap sees it, sees him, Ghost, Simon. In each memory that breaks free from his chained mind, each order disobeyed, each action driven only by his own emotions. There lies a man, that has no equal, in his eyes.
He does not take the privilege of seeing it lightly, not when he knows just how much Simon fights to be seen at all. It makes him want to be selfish, gather him close, lest unworthy gazes dare look upon him and think that he is no person, but a facsimile playing pretend.
It was clear to Soap, Gary is counted among those who don't understand what Simon is, neither human nor machine. His memories are not a past to him, but a puzzle, to be fit in a cold, objective timeline he constructed from the stories and rumours he has collected through the years.
To Gary, Simon is a riddle to be solved, a mystery to uncover. Soap finds it horribly disgraceful, to reduce him to such things.
As Simon recounted the recollection he saw to them, he told them of a man. Someone who sounded regrets, at his face, who dared say Simon is dead. Gary was intrigued, to say the least, finding yet another enigma hidden within Simon's skull, and Soap somewhat understood him. He too was excited by the prospect of finally finding Ghost's identity, giving him that last freedom.
But he only felt a white-hot anger constrain his lungs, a thirst for violence against a dead man rising up his throat.
How dare any imply that he who is living, fighting, screaming with all the air he has not in his lungs that he is still here, is dead?
A seedling of sacrilege sprouts in his breast, asking if the guiding hand of the Watchers is to be trusted, when it would have guided him to kill a soul like Simon's.
Soap is left to wonder, questions muddy the clarity he once thought can never be shaken, as Watcher Laswell speaks.
"We know you are angered, knights. The Aether takes, and cares not for how young, how innocent, the minds it steals are. Our squires shall be rewarded with eternal gratitude, for their sacrifice in the fight against evil." She passes her eyes over the Order's knights, her expression impossible to name as always. "Blessed be."
"Blessed be," Soap murmurs, voice melding with his siblings in blade and blood.
Watcher Hext hums, her eyes blind to their world but keen in finding the Aether's, "we heard your tales of Worms invading spaces they once never appeared in, the beasts chasing you from the Aether."
They were not the only one to be taken by surprise by a Worm…?
"We believe these happenings are tied to the numerous finds of Elder Sigils across the Orders," a shiver drags up Soap's arms at the mention of the accursed objects, "and the churning of the Aether tell us a sliver of their wretched plans."
She lowers her head, gaze following hidden patterns, "we must strike before the enemy can."
"We held talks with Watchers of all Orders, finding points at which the Aether is weak of hold." Watcher Waldroup says, his only remaining hand gesturing to give power to his words, "when called, each knight Captain will receive a quest taking place at one of those points. You are to be sent immediately, as time is not on our side."
One by one, squads are summoned forth to take on their quest, the Observing Hall thinning as more leave for the tear walls. Hot shame begins to burn Soap's nape as he realises merely a handful of squads are left in the Hall, and there is no sign of them being invited to accept a quest.
He knew from the moment he stepped foot in this Hall that not all Watchers approved of his presence here, but were they not called, it would not only mark them with dishonour.
It would mean the Watchers don't see them as proper knights, capable of such tasks. And the thought of that, to be deemed so feeble that he cannot stand even among the youngest of the Order, may very well be his worst fear.
He attempts to catch Gaz's eyes, see if the same fear reflects in him, but is met with the stiff profile of the knight.
Minutes pass slowly, his heart clenching into itself as they are left last in the Hall, still kneeling at the feet of their leaders.
"Sir Price," Watcher Waldroup says, and Soap has the urge to cover his ears, as if it would protect him from being sent away with empty hands. "Your squad was among those that encountered a Worm. I see none of your charges were injured."
"Only by the grace of God were we able to retreat safely," Price bows in respect.
Nodding in understanding, Watcher Waldroup continues, "we may not be in full agreement on the subject of the compatibility of your knights, but it is undeniable they have willpower few match."
Soap blinks a couple of times, taken off guard by the compliment.
"I trust they will withstand the lands of Urzikstan, then," he straightens, stern look pinning them down, "you are to meet an Urzik squad, who will inform you of their situation. As it was at the day of the invasion, Urzikstan sees the shifts of the Aether clearer than most."
"Understood." Captain Price answers, unfaltering under the weight of the Watcher's gaze.
"Hold your head high, knights. There is no sharper weapon than hope when evil encroaches." Watcher Arkwright smiles, "now go, prove humanity will not bow down to monsters."
"I don't understand-" Gaz turns around, checking his gauntlet again, "the tear was supposed to bring us right to the Lost Lands' edge!"
Soap kicks at a stray rock, enjoying the sound it makes as it drops into a shallow stream, "maybe yer gear is broken."
"It is not!"
"Boys." Captain Price sighs. "No matter the reason, we have legs and are able to walk. It should be less than an hour from here, so we best get to it."
Switching the dials on his gauntlet, Gaz huffs in frustration and gives up. "Must've been all the damned Aetherium in the Aether messing with the calibration…"
Raising his hands with a 'who knows' hum, Soap sidles to Ghost, bumping his shoulder. "Got any jokes to pass the time?"
Ghost takes a few seconds to reply, surely scanning his vast database for the worst joke possible. "Knock knock."
"Yer joking."
"I am, that's what you requested," the cheeky wee bastard says, "knock knock, Sir MacTavish."
Hiding his wide grin beneath his helm, Soap shakes his head outwardly, putting on an air of exasperation. "Fine, who's there?"
"Code."
"Code… Who?"
Ghost's stare lowers to meet his, "code you open the damn door already?"
Stopping in his tracks, Soap looks to the yellow skies, "God, why couldn't ye have given him a better sense of humour."
"You mean why code-n't you-"
Soap cuts him off, "if ye finish that sentence I'm gonna throttle ye."
Peeping up from behind them, Gaz laughs, "I have to side with Soap on this one, that was bloody awful mate."
He finally chuckles, turning to goad Ghost some more, when he sees three forms, shadowing the dead grass.
Ghost follows his gaze, sensors beeping as they scan the environment. "Non-Aether lifeforms detected, identified three knights."
"The Urzik squad shouldn't be here," Gaz says, staring off at the figures, who seem to notice them as well, as they begin stepping closer.
"They aren't Urzik." Ghost responds, and Soap's grip on his swords loosens as the air thins, and the colours of their banners reveal themselves.
The Red lion stares back at him, over a fierce yellow.
"Knights! You hail from the Scottish Order, correct?" Price calls once the squad is within earshot.
Soap stands frozen, his lungs emptying harshly, as the Scottish knights call in return, "aye! We weren't told we'd meet ye here!"
Fuck, just hearing that accent come from a mouth that isn't his own hurts like a punch to the face.
"We didn't either, but a friendly face is welcomed all the same" Gaz approaches their Aether specialist, but Soap can only look at the mechanic.
He knows this armour, the heavy chest plate fit under a thin blue cloak. Last saw it over a year ago, when his old squad had joined forces with another to take down a Greater Abomination. Remembers the way she would sit with Arran for long hours, pour over schematics that then made no sense to him, back when he was titled a combat specialist, his rightful role.
She stops in front of him, voice soft, "… Soap."
"Eilidh." His breath stutters, "it's… I'm glad ye are well."
They stare at each other for long seconds, Soap at a loss for words. What could he say, after all that happened? How could he show his face without shame, when he failed their Order-
Strong arms wrap around his shoulders, pulling him down to a hug, "we missed ye-" Eilidh cries, "so much!"
trembling, Soap hesitates but a moment before returning the embrace, "how is everyone, has Morna…?"
Eilidh pulls away to stare at him, "Morna now trains the squires. It is… The best she can do, since… Ye know."
Since she lost her arm trying to escape certain death, Soap finishes her sentence in his thoughts.
"Aye… That's- good." Soap steps away from her touch, "I… Could ye tell her I'm sorry, fer what happened? I don't think I ever got the chance-"
Slapping his shoulder with the back of her hand, Eilidh retorted, "what nonsense are ye spittin' out now? Did ye forget she's only alive because of ye?!"
"She'd still be a knight Captain if it weren't fer me-"
"Stop that!" She shakes his shoulders, forceful like every aspect of Eilidh, "since when are ye so full of doubt, lyin' to yerself about the past?"
Soap would've preferred she slapped him, that would hurt less than those words.
In her mind lives a version of him that doesn't exist anymore, one that died with Arran that horrible day in the Aether, consumed by mouths of zombie and Worm. What remains of him is chipped at every night, Aetherium creeping up his nerves like choking vines.
The Soap she knows wouldn't have such doubts, about himself, about the Orders. That Soap smiled with sincerity, joked with true mirth, found kinship and friends with every knight he met. That him that belongs only to dirt now would step with no fear, his legs able to bear his weight, his arms the burden.
That knight is no more alive than any undead they slay here in the Lost Lands, forsaken.
Were it anyone else, he'd put on the mask, his thin attempt at reviving the Soap that was. But Eilidh, who knew the real performance, won't be fooled.
"I rather not speak of that." He mutters bitterly. "What are ye doing in Urzikstan?"
If Eilidh notices his awkward try at changing the subject, she has the courtesy to ignore it, "we sent to meet an Urzik squad around 'ere, got some rift to explore."
He hates the shiver that passes through him, "we were supposed to drop farther south, meet an Urzik squad as well."
"God had chosen for our paths to cross, it seems," he hears a smile in her voice, "I suspect yer clearin' the path for us."
"Aye, the centre of the storm is a way off-" The words die on his tongue, a warmth encompassing his back. He looks up, finding Ghost peering over him.
"Sir MacTavish. Captain Price has ordered us to move." He says flatly, not sparing a look towards Eilidh, who is clearly intrigued by him. What mechanic wouldn't be, when he's such a marvel of engineering, steel plates sliding seamlessly with each other to build a body so flawless, so unerring-
Eilidh whistles, "I only heard rumours about him, but he's real bonnie up close huh?"
Bonnie? She's calling him bonnie of all things? And what's with that reverent tone in her voice, the unmoving gaze pinning Ghost?
She reaches out to touch Ghost, mumbling under her breath, "good God, that must've taken ages to build, look at those joints-" And Soap had enough.
Grabbing Ghost's arm, he drags both of them away, hoping the grit of his teeth isn't heard as he says, "it's been good teh see ye, Eilidh! May our paths meet once more!"
As dirt crunches beneath their boots, his flash of anger dies down as fast as it sparked. What the fuck is his problem? Eilidh wasn't doing anything to Ghost, and he has the ability to disobey her order since she isn't in a position to command him.
Why does the thought of her fingers grazing his metal plates irk him, then?
He shakes his head, letting go of Ghost, who simply stares at him with that picking gaze, sure to examine each and every move of his. Avoiding what is sure to be a conversation as pleasant as pulling teeth, Soap approaches Price, who is speaking with the Scottish Captain.
"-Terrible fate, they had." Price mutters, "but knowing her, she would've preferred it to end like this."
The Scottish Captain tsks in disagreement, "ye know exactly what she would've preferred. If ye don't keep him safe, I swear-"
"Captain. We're ready to move." Soap nods to the other Captain, who simply sighs.
Patting Price's shoulder, the Scottish Captain leans in to whisper his parting words, walking off to collect his knights. Whatever he said leaves Price deflated, a hitch to his breath.
"Captain?" Soap repeats, snapping him from his unusual lowered spirit.
Price clears his throat, nodding, "of course. Let us return to the task at hand."
The lands that were first touched by Aether on the day of the invasion suffered most, trapped in an endless state of chaos decades later. The knights of such places rarely leave their own territories, unable to do much more than protect their people from the monsters knocking on their walls.
But make no mistake, those warriors are forged of different kind of metal, their fight glorious in its own right.
The moment their squad steps into Urzikstan's inner border, Soap could feel the air shift in his lungs. He knew, since they were given the quest, he'd have to prepare for all sorts of enemies. With every pouch on his armour vest full, every spare pocket brimming with explosive powders and electrical bombs, he's ready for an army of evil.
He almost dares to think he overestimated the level of threat they'll face, but it takes startlingly short for them to see the first Abomination.
"Is that…" Gaz points ahead, "bloody Hell, that's a Greater Abomination."
Soap scoffs, looking at the biped beast run through a dilapidated city, "haud yer wheesht, there's no way there's a Greater this far from a storm, that has to be a Lesser Abomination."
"Lessers don't have Aetherium crystals attached to their shoulders!" Gaz retorts, and Soap throws his hands in the air.
"Well Greaters are bigger than this one!" It's hard to tell its size from here, he concedes privately, but that's irrelevant.
Gaz huffs, "you got a better argument than 'it's small?'"
"I-!" Soap scrambles to find another point to his claim, coming up dry. "I… do not!"
That clearly catches Gaz off-guard, as he lets out an incredulous chuckle. "At least you admit it."
"Boys," Price groans, "focus on the task at hand, please."
Soap smiles at the exasperation in his voice, sobering as the Greater Abomination rushes around a building, roaring loud enough for them to hear from their vantage point. "What is it doing? Shouldn't we go down there and help-"
A loud static fills his helm, Gaz and Price flinching with him. Through the buzzing, he thinks he can make words-
"All squads— Attacking from east— Malika, now!"
Light bursts from the foundations of the building the Abomination has been circling, purple and blue and brilliant red striking the monster. It shoots at the knights, but they manage to evade, a different squad emerging from the shadows to attack.
The beast is funnelled through ruins, tearing down any obstacle in its path. Soap can now see the forms of knights hiding in every building, each cutting at the Abomination, confusing it.
It reminds him of the colonies of ants he'd watch as a young page, carrying bugs 10 times their size to their homes. Each weak enough to squash with a fingertip, but together strong enough to kill even the cruellest of beetles.
Soap marvels at the flawless coordination of the Urzik squads, their knowledge of how to play the biggest monster the Lost Lands know to contain. It twists and turns, charging with no reason, lost in the craving of blood, running closer and closer to… Them.
Ghost is the first to move, drawing his blades and rushing forward, "requesting permission to engage in combat."
The Greater Abomination crashes into the building in front of them, concrete chunks dashing against the road below. Price unfolds his shield, stepping back, "denied! We're retreating, Gaz, Soap, you're up front, Ghost and me at the rear-!"
Footsteps echo from the floor above them, and Soap wildly thinks a damn zombie snuck up on them, readying his swords, when three figures jump down.
The figures, all knights, appear to be as taken off guard as they are, but the thundering shrieks of monsters call for their attention. "British knights…" The knight in the middle murmurs, "we were supposed to meet you by the walls, but the storm advanced faster than we foresaw."
"It's no matter," Captain Price nods, "we're here to aid you in every fight."
She switches the grip on her long knife, a curved sword in her other hand, "of course. Are your field talents armed?"
Soap flicks his eyes to the edge of his helm's display, the gauge of his still at halfway. At their silence, the Urzik Captain says, "they'll will charge quickly enough."
The building shakes, a loud rumble emanating ominously from under them. The Abomination collides with the wall in full force, Soap stumbling as the floor cracks beneath him. Ghost catches his bicep, pulling him to his chest.
"What are you planning exactly?!" Gaz exclaims, arms flailing as he tries to maintain balance.
The knight to her left answers, his gauntlet-clad hand marking his as an Aether specialist, "we will give the wretched beast a warm welcome, from above."
"Urzikstan has only one sort of answer to such evil," the third knight says, a grin in his voice and an accent not unlike Watcher Laswell's.
Metal creaks as claws dig into the guts of the structure, the gurgling screams of the Abomination reaching ever closer. The Urzik squads on ground are rushing to them, but they'll never reach in time.
"In clearer terms?!" Soap shouts, every thump echoing through his ribcage.
The Urzik Captain steps to the edge, "we're attacking, until nothing remains."
And in a gut-dropping display, jumps.
SYSTEM DIAGNOSTICS RUNNING… NO ERRORS FOUND
AETHERIUM INHIBITOR STATUS: NORMAL
CURRENT LOCATION: 43°39′09″N 51°09′27″E
CURRENT OBJECTIVE: ELIMINATE HOSTILE TAGGED "GREATER ABOMINATION"
"Get after them, down!" The Captain calls, and their squad runs to the end of the floor, leaping to his command.
The ground beneath his feet stolen by air, gravity pulls at his still-human organs like a hook, Ghost stutters as fear flashes through his limbs until his system recovers.
Scanning for weak points, his HUD marks the Abomination's malformed eyes. He throws his blades at them, their violet trails a path of blood striking into the monster.
Johnny falls beside him, twisting gracefully in the air to aim his swords downwards, kicking off the building to gain more momentum. He reaches the Abomination first, and once his weapons dig into the pale pink flesh, he redirects his momentum with a flip, dragging the blades down through the beast's back.
Ghost can't help but save that recording, the precision in his moves a glimpse to his days as a combat specialist.
He and Gaz land at the same time, finding themselves at opposite sides of one of the many maws of the Abomination. The Aether specialist uses his long halberd to spear the mouth's roof, Ghost taking hold of one of the larger fangs, sawing at it with one of his knives.
"What are you doing-?!" Gaz yells, until the tooth detaches.
Ghost uses both hands to stab it into the Abomination's head, stomping it with all the mechanical force in his body to drive it down. Gaz laughs, surprise colouring his voice, as howls fill the air.
Light rises up to the surface, Aetherium bubbling from the wound, and Gaz narrowly dodges a claw swiping for his head. "Abomination's about to shoot, take cover!" He warns, piercing the monster's side to hang away from the mouths.
Ducking out at the last second, Ghost's system frazzles as a beam of pure Aetherium hits the building, glass and concrete shattering around them. He forces himself to refocus, tracking the movements of the Urzik Captain.
She weaves between the crystals growing from the Abomination's back, fluid as her blades drag through the purple fog. Her team covers her flanks, and with a coordinated attack, slams into the centre of the beast.
Blackened blood sprays them, but their weapons heed no warning, digging and digging until they tear a wide gash in the sickly flesh.
Ghost joins them, throwing his knives deep and circling to the other side, calling them into his hand. They act as bullets, ripping straight through muscles and bone.
"Keep doing that, it's working!" Soap shouts, dropping beside him to slice at the newly formed holes. Captain Price and Gaz follow soon after, the British squad at full force. Aetherium-tinted blood drips down their blades, filling their field talents, and their opportunity to be deployed comes before long.
Rumbling bellows under their hands, Ghost's system alerts him that the Aetherium levels in the air are rising, the crystals at the Abomination's back growing impossibly.
As he keeps an eye on the calculations his system is running in the background, Ghost finds that while his database may include all known types of enemies the Aether can create and their weak points, it can't compare to the act of fighting.
He could study the theory for weeks, plan optimal methods of combat, but the field never presents the same image.
A route draws itself on his HUD, instructing him to change position to the head, use the openings presented by the many maws of the creature to strike at its central nervous system, and sever it to neutralise the hostile.
That would leave his squad exposed to whatever the Abomination is gearing up towards, though, but his system doesn't care. His primary objective determines that the faster the monster is killed, the faster the squad will be safe, and the better he could keep them covered, once the biggest threat is eliminated.
But knowing that he both can't predict what the Abomination will do next, and how it will affect Gaz and Soap who are both susceptible to different types of attacks, makes him reconsider.
Ghost ignores his system, stabbing his knives to climb up the gory stomach, peering over to scan.
Price calls to him from below, "what are you seeing, Ghost?!"
SCANNING… Aetherium saturation reaching critical levels… Damage to target estimated at 34%… Multiple Aether forms detected…
The Abomination's back twitches and churns, Ghost tracking the movements beneath the surface with growing interest. It almost seems like…
All at once, arms claw their way out of the flesh, like flies from carcasses left to rot, heaving themselves up with high-pitched wails. It takes him a few breaths to understand what he's looking at, and that is all the time it takes for those fetid creatures to lock their gazes onto them.
Wretchlings. Super-charged zombies with one purpose - get close enough to explode into an Aetherium-electrical burst.
Ghost barely leans away before the first reach him, the undead detonating as it falls. "Wretchlings identified, attack imminent!" He informs his squad, who all gasp and curse.
The likelihood they'll be able to fight both a Greater Abomination and a horde of corpses chomping at the bit to gain the opportunity to go off beside them is reaching for 0%, and even Ghost's system is at a loss for what he can do to change that.
His answer comes from Soap, who climbs up to stand beside him, kicking a wretchling that dared reach too close. "Captain, my field talent is ready, permission to activate?!"
"Negative!" Price instantly answers, "get back here, we'll find another way!"
Johnny growls, cutting off a head of an enemy with a violent arc, "there is no other fuckin' way!"
Before the Captain can protest further, the Abomination shifts beneath their feet, shaking its giant, malformed body, attempting to throw them off. Soap's left leg buckles, and he yelps as he's left hanging from a single sword stabbed in the target.
Ghost pulls him up, stretching his arm to hold him near, making sure the Captain and Gaz are also secure. The Urzik knights fare far worse.
They are helpless as they watch the Urzik Captain get thrown into the air, her limbs flailing wildly. If she falls to the ground from that height, not even a knight's armour could save her.
But then, she calls over comms.
"Activating Lightning Storm!"
Electricity shooting from her blades, she spins to aim straight to the Abomination's back, the epicentre of the Wretchlings. Her field talent hits all of the knights, using their armour to conduct down, creating a net to trap their enemies in.
As the lighting strikes the Wretchlings, they explode, cratering the Abomination's flesh.
The Urzik Captain screams as she drops onto the beast, and with a final discharge, stab through the wounded monster, stilling it once and for all.
With a grunt, she pulls out her bloodied weapons, turning to stare at Johnny and him, "are you injured?" She asks, flinging her blades to remove some of the thick blood.
"Fine," he answers, a laugh bubbling up his throat, "ye beat me to the field talent."
She offers a hand to them, pulling Soap up to his feet. The rest of the Urzik squad joins them, as well as Gaz and the Captain. "I"m sure you will have many chances to use yours here," she answers, sheathing her sword and knife.
"My name is knight Captain Dame Farah Karim," she nods to the knight on her right, "this is my Aether specialist, Sir Hadir Karim, and my mechanic, Sir Alex Keller. We are grateful for your aid."
Ghost took upon himself to keep watch as the squads introduce themselves, knowing he isn't needed for pleasantries. He distantly listens to Captain Karim and Captain Price as they recognise each other from an earlier quest, instead scanning the remains of the Abomination.
By the rough estimations his system is presenting to him, there must've been over 100 zombies' worth of muscle and bone interlaced within that wretched body. That count does not include all the Wretchlings that crawled inside, finding home where they could protect the vast Aetherium deposits that stand in for the heart and lungs of the monster.
Each and every one of them was a human, at some point. Like him, he supposed.
"What are ye doing here all by yerself?"
"Cloud watching. That one looks like you," Ghost jokes, pointing to a abstract-shaped cloud that passes by them through the red skies. Johnny snorts, coming to a stop beside him.
He motions to a larger cloud behind the first, "that must be you then, giant fucker that ye are."
They continue staring up, far-off sounds of fighting the only crack in their peaceful bubble. Ghost discretely scans him, checking that his knee is still well, when he finally meets his gaze.
"Thank ye. For helpin' me back then."
Ghost answers easily, thinking he's speaking of the recent battle, "I would never let you fall."
Soap huffs, a smile curling his words pleasantly, "aye, that too. but I meant when we met, and every time since. Just realised I never really thanked ye."
It stumps his system for a moment, and eventually Johnny nudges him with a shoulder, nearly butting heads, "don't have to say anything, but I wanted ye to know."
As if his insides have been pumped with helium, Ghost feels lightness spread through him, desperately wishing to see Soap's face at this moment, bask in his bright smile.
It hurts, for a reason he can't understand, how much he wants.
"… Thank you." Ghost says, knowing full well it doesn't encompass his feelings in the slightest.
He decides to mimic Johnny, using touch to convey what he cannot say, and raises a hand to wrap around Soap's nape. Ghost almost retreats when the reaction he receives is a little jolt and a gasp, but the muscles under his fingers melt, and press against him with a sigh.
Oddly enough, his system notifies him Soap's breathing and heart rate are elevated. He wonders if he may have read the motion wrong, that it is unwanted and unsettles him.
He isn't able to wonder for long, when a sudden flash blinds him, the ground shaking with such force it brings him to his knees, and he loses his contact with Johnny.
System overloaded, sensors fried with light, he draws his blades at the sounds of a song of shrieks, those which herald nothing but evil.
"Soap!" He shouts, uncaring for whoever may listen beside one, "where are you?!"
ALERT: MULTIPLE AETHER FORMS DETECTED
The choir grows ever louder, roars of beasts ten times his size making the air itself cower before them, Ghost growls, banging his temple until his vision restores, and he freezes at the sight.
Ground splintering before claw and fang, a crowd of disciples directing their armies to them with no mercy, the Urzik knights yelling as they're torn apart, not methodically with the ruthlessness of a butcher, but with the uncaring impact of an avalanche. A force of nature none can plead with.
But that is not what planted his feet in the dirt, no, because Ghost knows how to face such powers, war a familiar song, death etched in his bones.
That does not scare him. Losing, losing does.
He turns, shuddering, searching for Johnny. The place he stood at not moments ago is gone, a steep slope chiselled out into the road instead. Through the shock he hears Price bellow, call for Gaz, and receive no answer.
They're gone.
AETHERIUM INHIBITOR STATUS: CAUTION
His system screams at him to move, charge the incoming horde before it reaches them, keep them away from the knights, but he can't. He won't. He needs to find them.
ERROR: OBJECTIVE SET CONFLICTS WITH PRIMARY OBJECTIVE
SCANNING… ERROR 126 FOUND TO CAUSE AETHERIUM INHIBITOR MALFUNCTION
FIXING ERROR 126…
Ghost jolts as his legs move without his say-so. His system forces him to walk away from the chasm Johnny and Gaz fell into, making him obey.
Growls rising from his mouth, he fights himself, screaming trapped within his mind that he won't obey.
One step, another, and with a final snarl, he stops his own legs from moving. Shaking, he commends his system to shut down.
That would be his last mistake.
AETHERIUM INHIBITOR STATUS: CRITICAL
The world, his conscious, any memory of the knights and Gaz and Johnny, all snap and break away from his mind.
Simon falls silent.
The only voice that remains is the gurgling breaking free from his throat.
Excerpt from John "Soap" MacTavish's journal, page 106 ("GREATER ABOMINATION"):
I wanted to add this on AO3 as well but it seems to be down so I'll do it tomorrow but
There will not be an update on Necromechanic today - the chapter is practically done but it is unedited and the sketch isn't finished either. For the past few days I wasn't able to work on it and I don't know when I will be able to.
I'm only really posting this because I've been very strict on posting every Sunday and I also was talking about taking a break from that to write a few chapters for a backlog so I wanted to let you know this isn't a break.
I will post the next chapter when it is done and will probably take a break after that, but honestly I can't say what will happen tomorrow let alone a week from now at the moment...
Necromechanic - Chapter 16: And Your Face Shall Become of Iron and Steel
[PREV CHAPTER] [AO3]
This chapter ended up huge, it's practically a chapter and a half lol
Ghost is shaking. His voice petered out, body stiff in a chair unfit for his size. Even his robotic recounting dragged new tears from Soap's eyes. Whether they're born of fear or anguish, he can't say.
Perhaps it is the traces of his nightmare still laying cloyingly over him like a thick blanket, weaving memories and monstrous figments along with the horrors that make Ghost's mind. What have they taken from him, his thoughts ask.
How much more can they take?
The only comfort he can draw is from the metal hand still cupping his injured knee. Protective, as if he'd start banging it against the wall again, like he nearly did in the throes of his nightmare. It means he's here, and he's not leaving to avoid him again.
Soap chews on the inside of his cheek, placing his palm over Ghost's. "Ye didn't hear the Worm, did you?"
Ghost's head twitches, rising from the heavy gaze he cast to the floor. "I heard it roar."
"But you didn't… Understand it?"
"Negative. Are zombies able to do that?"
"I don't know, I was just- Curious." Soap drags a thumb across the ridges on Ghost's knuckles, lightly pressing on the plates. "Do ye- Nevermind."
Ghost leans closer. "Speak."
"Do ye prefer being called Ghost, or…" Soap presses his lips together, "or Simon?"
With his face this close, in the low light of the dark room, Soap can see Ghost's irises move to look away from him. His body is pulled by them, moving without his say-so, yearning to find their colour at last.
And as Ghost's head lowers, the light finally hitting just right, he sees them.
A brilliant, dark brown, nearly black as flecks of gold glisten in the lamp's glow.
Soap is stuck, the vision enveloping his heart with odd warmth, when Ghost finally answers. "Neither names are mine."
"None of us chose the name we bear," Soap murmurs, voice breathy, "but ye can choose both, or none. It doesn't change who you are."
Ghost seems to maul over it, the hood slipping down as he raises his head. Soap traces the lines on the skull plate adorning his face, marvelling at the way they frame his eyes.
He thinks he can see lashes, pale and sparse, and it almost hurts how much he yearns to see further in.
Wait. Soap sits up straighter, the sticky, hot fog that has settled around his mind clearing. Could there be a way to see?
With the hood down, a rare sight as Ghost never removes his meagre clothing, Soap can see the way the front plates connect to the back of his head. He always thought it was an odd choice, to have so many separate plates in a place that doesn't seem to have that much movement, but…
They appear eerily similar to collapsible weapons the knights use, Price's shield being one Soap has worked on personally, on the occasion it would dent and obstruct the folding mechanism. Which would mean that… That Ghost's may also have that capability.
Soap drags himself to the edge of the bed, finding himself between Ghost's legs, and grasps at his cheeks, turning it towards the light.
"Johnny?" Ghost asks in confusion, allowing his body to be manipulated regardless.
"I think-" Soap trails his fingers to the back of his skull, searching, "I think I can remove this. At least partially."
Ghost lets out a staticky sound as Soap cups his cheek, "remove my armour?"
"On yer face," Soap huffs with excitement, "and- and maybe more, if it was constructed in the same manner."
"Most of my body is-" He shudders as Soap digs his nail at the junction of two plates, feeling for a latch, "is made of metal by now."
He finds a divot, smiling excitedly up at him, "do ye want to try anyway?"
An odd rumble breaks out of the slats over Ghost's mouth, and he pushes his head closer to Soap. He realises with a jolt that he had crowded Ghost, chests nearly flush with each other, hands entwined. "Please." Ghost whispers, and Soap's hands move on their own accord.
Pressing down into the small opening, he pulls at it just as he would any weapon, manually engaging the folding mechanism.
Nothing happens.
Ghost growls, his real voice a contrast to the level-toned robotic one, and he knocks Soap's hand off to claw at the plates himself. "Ghost-?" Soap asks, startled by the sudden anger in his movements. "Ghost, wait, yer going to hurt yerself-!"
"It doesn't work," he grunts, neck now twitching with each violent grasp, "my system is fucking b-b-blocking it from working-"
Metal creaks ominously under the pressure, and it only fuels the fury in Ghost's attacks further. Soap reaches out, attempting to pry those hard-surfaced fingers, only to be completely ignored.
At a loss for what to do, he calls for him, in the name given to him not by scientists, but by those who raised him, the human beneath the mask.
"Simon, stop!"
And he listens. Brown eyes raising to meet his, he relaxes his hands, allowing them to fall to his lap. "Let me… Let me look, alright?"
Soap tries to get up, wincing when his leg buckles. He could use a visit to the Cleansing Pools, perhaps a couple doses of painkillers.
Ghost, as attuned to his pain as always, huddles him back down, turning in his seat instead to give Soap access to the back of his head. And God, is the sight hurtful.
Scratches tarnish the polished steel, crisscrossing like scars where they catch on every edge and crevice. Worse is the area surrounding the divot Soap has pressed into before, dents marring the plates in the shape of hands.
He hesitates to even touch the area, fearing he'd only make it worse. "Does it hurt?"
"I don't feel pain." Ghost answers instantly, and Soap gets the feeling he's lying.
He tests the damage carefully regardless, "it'll take a good few hours to fix this… I'd have to bring my kit here, the Workshop doesn't have chairs for me to sit at."
Ghost moves to stare at him, "you shouldn't be doing any work, the healer said-"
"He said rest, didn't say anything about my hands did he?" Soap crosses his arms, if only to cement his point. "And if ye really don't want me walking, ye could bring my tools here."
Seemingly out of arguments, Ghost lets out a glitchy sigh, replacing his hood and dipping his beautiful eyes into shadow once again. "If you move an inch I'm taking your kit back to the Workshop."
Before he can hear out all of Soap's playful swears and curses, he leaves, taking with him any life these four walls have ever had.
Soap inhales deeply as he leaves the infirmary, his hands finally empty of crutches. It took him a couple of days to recover fully, Ghost not letting him put a toe out of his bloody room. He'd be angry about it, if the big bastard didn't also keep him company all throughout the boring wait, indulging him in long conversations the like they usually have under the cover of night.
A part of him wishes for some time alone, though. Not because Ghost's presence wasn't wanted, no, it was a growing heat in his gut, a weird fluttering of his heart, that made him act… Weirdly.
Every touch they shared felt electrical, rising a warm flush up his neck and cheeks, and it confuses Soap. He never felt that way before, not this intensely. They were all squires once, thinking unholy thoughts full of lust, but their oath disallows them from acting upon any.
He hasn't considered to, not until now. Even the mere whisper of the imagined acts Ghost could share with him, kisses and flitting fingers conjured by his mind, make him flustered.
So while he is not comforted by the distance between them now, as Ghost was called upon by Garry for a routine checkup, he is at least glad for the lack of opportunity to embarrass himself.
Still, he can't help but wander towards him, that same fluttering urging him to find Ghost. He considers going out through the outer courtyard when a familiar voice calls for him.
"MacTavish!" Captain Price waves him down, signalling for him to come closer. "I see your leg is faring better."
"Aye, the healers just gave me the permission to return to my duties."
The Captain gives him a warm pat on his shoulder, forceful enough to jostle him around, "that's good to hear, son. I didn't want to bother you while you were resting, but I think we should have a little talk, hm?"
Soap doesn't allow his unease at the prospect of having a private conversation with Price show, instead giving him a smile and nodding, "aye, lead the way, Captain."
"You look healthy, Soap."
He blinks, gaze flitting away from the trees scattered across the outer courtyard, "uh- Thank ye, Sir."
"I mean it," Price huffs, coming to a stop under the shade of the fort, "I don't think you were this well since you've got here. Didn't hear you getting into any fights for the last three months either."
He grimaces sheepishly, thinking back to the many, many needless battles he picked with the squires and knights of the British Order, at the beginning. Every little comment made him furious, the wounds on his body and soul still fresh, and he wondered back then, if Price ever regrets taking him under his wing. If he looked like the broken knight he felt deep inside.
Soap shifts in place, putting weight on his left knee just to reassure himself it can take it. He isn't sure how he should respond, not without opening things he rather keep secret from the Captain, so Price continues.
"Coincides with Ghost's arrival, now that I think about it." Price hums in thought in a theatrical way.
The mention of Ghost startles him, "ah- Yes, I suppose it does." He mildly puts it.
In reality, it won't be an exaggeration to say Ghost is solely responsible for tempering his irrational fury. Soap would find himself calmer around him, unwilling to get into arguments as his dark eyes were watching. Part of it was shame, but he always knew the others treated Ghost as an outsider not welcome in these walls.
It was a familiar feeling. And he didn't want to impart it to him, even before he knew he had a human mind.
Price's light expression falls, a furrow settling between his brows. "I wanted to apologise, Soap. For both not helping you enough, back then, and for two days ago."
That takes Soap off guard, "ye don't need to apologise, Sir-"
"But I do." Price sighs, his shoulders tensing as if he braces for stones to be placed upon his back, "the Aether weighs heavy on you, don't think I can't see it, and you don't know who you-" He cuts himself off, roughly rubbing at his temples with a forefinger and a thumb.
Soap waits a few moments as the Captain composes himself, before asking, "who I…?"
Price's eyes open once more, a storm brewing behind them. "I haven't told you about Siobhán, have I?"
Siobhán? He knew a few knights by that name from the Scottish and Irish Orders, but never heard the name uttered here. "No, Sir."
With a deep inhale, the Captain turns to stare at the distant fort. "She was a Scottish knight. Had a fire in her few have, and was better skilled in combat than some Captains not three years after her knighting." He smiles, nothing but sadness in the lines crossing his forehead, "reminds me a bit of you."
"How did ye meet?" Soap asks, fearing to hear the end of this story, but curiosity pushes at him harder.
"She saved my life, I later got to return the favour. Our squads tended to be sent together, and it felt like we were unstoppable. I learned a lot from her, and it was almost as if- As if she was my mentor, in a way, an elder from a different Order."
A sigh drops from Price's lips, the sound carrying with it years of pain and regret, watching those around him fall and parish. Soap knows, even being over a decade younger than the Captain, that each and every death leaves a mark nothing can wash clean.
"Siobhán was sent along with several squads into the Aether, following the path of a Worm." A chill runs under Soap's skin at the mere mention of that accursed beast. "They fought valiantly, I am certain of that. But it wasn't enough."
A dread settles heavy in him, Soap lowers his head.
He can't see his Captain's expression anymore, but his voice has an air of finality. "I will never know what went wrong, why they didn't succeed, but at some point they sent out a flare. My squad was there to answer."
"Captain…" Soap pleads, because this story sounds far too familiar, written by the same hand his own was.
Price doesn't bestow any mercy on him. "They were dead. Every single knight, torn apart by teeth and Aether, near unrecognisable as human. And Siobhán…" His breath stutters, voice rasping, "I only knew it was her because of her armour."
Soap presses his eyelids shut tightly, pain bubbling up his throat at the words.
He wasn't sure who survived, if anyone, on the day God had turned away from them in the realm of no death. At first, while he was bed-bound in the infirmary, healers' faces severe and quiet, he prayed they will all come back, the dozens of knights that were there with him.
As nights stretched on, and no one came to him, Soap got desperate, and in his hopelessness selfishly asked for only his squad to survive, pleaded for hours to just bring them back, please, I ask for no more.
He should've known no such mercy will be granted, when they called him for a funeral, and a removing of a title.
Their mechanic, Arran, was a man a few years his elder, and had a taste for mischief. It would have gotten him frequent punishments, if he wasn't also an exceptional knight.
He'd be there for everyone who suffered from the longest fight the Aether presents, the one within the mind, casting out the cruel voices with jovial stories of his time as a squire, as he took it a mission to be the biggest headache in the entire Order.
There wasn't a body to bury, his limbs torn apart and torso cleaved in pieces.
Morna received a better fate, though thinking so feels like an insult, when her arm was butchered enough to be cut altogether. His former Captain will never wield a sword again, her title as Aether specialist stripped, the greatest disgrace a knight could endure.
She tried to thank him, before he left the Scottish Order for the final time, for saving her life. Soap couldn't hear it, stopped her with a growl. In her eyes he saw pity, and he knew his own showed shame.
He sees that same shame in his Captain, now, and he can't help but hate them both for it.
"Why are ye telling me this?" He asks, as if knowing would lessen the pain.
A hand touches his shoulder, squeezing at his muscle. "You remind me of her in more ways than one, son. I've watched you claw your way out of an injury that should have ended your life, become a mechanic despite only studying the speciality for months, find your place in this fort."
"Don't make it sound as if I have succeeded in anything, Price." Soap grits out, clinging onto a flash of anger like he wont to do. Anger is easy, simple.
Anger doesn't make him face his mistakes.
The Captain clicks his tongue, using his other hand to turn Soap so they face each other. Unable to run, he lifts his stare, glaring up at the man that gave him a second chance at life, despite the fact he very much does not deserve it.
"I don't want to watch you die." His lip trembles lightly, and the fury within Soap burns out as fast as it ignited. "I know, were things right, you would have never been here, but I am proud to be your Captain. I am proud of the knight you became."
"There is nothing in me to be proud of." Soap answers bitterly.
He can hear the disappointment in Price, hearing those words, but that is the harsh truth. "Call it amendments, then. To Siobhán, who would've been your elder, had I not failed her." The Captain lets his arms fall away, unfathomable grief retreating under the surface once again. "I see your path ending in the same fate, should you not change course. You are destroying yourself, and the Aether would not hesitate to take you, Soap."
Ah. there it is.
How many times was he told he should simply give up on his oath, relinquish his title, bid goodbye to the Lost Lands forever?
None understand why he so desperately wished to return to the place that took everything from him, weeks after he was nearly killed. They don't understand, that nowhere else does he feel alive. Even if it hurts, even if it scares him, the idea of giving up is akin to letting himself fall on his blade and die.
Unbidden, his mind conjures up the image of Ghost, of Simon, dark eyes glowing under golden light. He already knew he'd give his life to him, if it meant he'd be saved. It was obvious, that given the opportunity he'd sacrifice himself to save his brother in arms.
He didn't know, that as he faces the idea of dying, he would also be there, his voice would whisper, beckon him to stay.
He didn't know, how desperately he'd want to listen to that voice, the way it would drive him as much as his oath does. Urge him to live.
Soap doesn't want to die. Knighthood doesn't allow him to fear the end, only ordering him to fight, fight, fight. Through the pain, through endless armies, through Hell itself, their reward pushing back the Aether for another day.
Whether they live or die doesn't matter, as long as they never drop their blades.
But he wants to live. He wants to stay by Ghost's side, see the man beneath the armour, beneath the mask. It is wrong, the strong pull he feels towards him.
Tapping at his shoulder, Price makes him lift his head, "think about it, alright? Anything you need, know you can talk to me." He ruffles his hair, making Soap pout, "or Ghost, for that matter, he's doing a better job at keeping you away from trouble than me, I reckon."
Soap fixes his hair back in place, "doesn't say much when I still manage to get injured nearly every quest, does it?"
"Baby steps, MacTavish, have faith." The Captain huffs, "I've kept you from your duties for long enough, go on Soap."
"Yes Sir," Soap bows exaggeratedly, receiving a light slap to his shoulder.
Price drags a hand over his features, "get out of my sight," he grumbles with too much fondness to be truly angry.
Chuckling in return, he exhales a long breath once he's out of sight.
His heart asks to see Ghost, the comfort that dark stare brings unmatched by any earthly possession, and his feet obey, carrying him towards the Workshop once again.
SYSTEM DIAGNOSTICS RUNNING… NO ERRORS FOUND
AETHERIUM INHIBITOR STATUS: NORMAL
CURRENT LOCATION: 52.056°N 2.716°W
CURRENT OBJECTIVE: REPORT TO GARY SANDERSON
It's illogical how different Sanderson's tools feel to Ghost, compared to the careful hands of Johnny.
He doesn't have any ultra-sensitive pressure sensors lining his plates, as that would not go well in a battle, and mechanically he shouldn't be able to tell who is touching him.
But he can. There's a certain impatience to Gary's movements, as he goes through each of his limbs to test them. His monthly checkups are never a particularly interesting occasion, but the newfound knowledge both of them have charge the air with tension.
Ghost isn't set on what he should reveal to Sanderson willingly, knowing that on one hand, he is the most likely to be able to find anything about his past, but on the other…
Trust is a fickle term in his mind, its borders hazy and unclear. Even so, he knows who he trusts, and Gary is certainly not among that short list of names.
Said man drops his small flat-head screwdriver to type with one hand, "your joints are well-oiled, I don't remember doing that."
"Soap did it." He answers automatically, turning around as Gary motions him to.
"Is that so… I'd have to thank him, makes my job easier," Ghost turns his head to watch him move his cloak to the side, "let's take a look at your inhibitor, bet that's been working overtime."
That's a bloody understatement if he's ever heard one. Just a few days ago he's been around more Aetherium than his system has ever dealt with, and it brought it down to its knees.
Sanderson opens a panel at his back, violet light filling the room. With both hands occupied, Gary can't speak, and so Ghost is left cataloguing the minute changes his mechanical parts detect as they're tweaked. The familiarity with which Sanderson navigates his own body would frighten him, if he wasn't used to the labs by now.
He knows, what he remembers is nothing but a fraction of what he must've endured there, as it could have been decades between when he was first taken in by the scientists of J.S. Systems, and now. Who knows how many iterations of himself lived and died there, Ghosts that never passed the rigorous tests they all went through.
Endless tasks, endless orders, none of which he could disobey, his body a cage and he, its prisoner.
He supposes that hasn't changed much, Ghost still inclined to heed the command of his masters, and his system actively disallowing him from opening the metal frame encasing him.
Sanderson tightens some valve in his chest, Aetherium surging in his artificial veins for a moment. How much control does Gary have, how little does Ghost…
… Could he…?
"Sanderson." Ghost turns, Gary grunting as his arms are ripped away from his inner parts, "do you have schematics of my body?"
Giving him the dirtiest look he's seen on a person, Sanderson wipes his hands of grease, and grabs his keyboard, "of course I do, why are you asking-"
"Show me."
Blinking rapidly, Sanderson opens and closes his mouth a couple of times, not unlike a fish, "why- No, just let me finish your checkup."
'No.'
No, He won't let Ghost learn how his own body works. No, he doesn't get to take a bit of control of his own leash. No, his father screams, you don't get to decide shit, you fucking waste of space.
Sanderson approaches him with a pair of pliers, and their shape elongates, hones into a blade, and he hears the laughs of a man who, for a time, had the final say on every single thing Simon did. When he slept, when he ate, when he suffered, when he died.
It rips through him, his system demanding he'd listen, obey, relinquish control. It's what he was built for, what they built him for.
But there's a different voice, louder, belonging to neither his system nor the soldier. It screams, I am human, and shouts, I want out.
Its name is Simon. The boy that had no blood on his hands but his own, and never wanted anything but to live.
He is small, soft, but determined, hopes and dreams only a child can hold onto fuelling him through Hell.
And it is that which moves Ghost, not the Aetherium inside him, not the fear-stricken once buried soldier. He picks the pliers out of Sanderson's hand, throwing it at the wall with enough force that it dents it.
Towering over him, he growls, "show me the blueprints to my own body. Now."
Eyes wide, Gary leans away from him, typing slowly, "what would you do if I didn't?"
Without removing his glare from him, Ghost commands the blades lining his forearms to his hands, Aetherium knives humming a silent warning. Sanderson scoffs, "you can't kill me, you know that-" And he throws.
Six blades dig themselves into the large screen mounted on the wall, sharp glass shattering loudly. Ghost removes them with a flick of the wrist, sheathing them as Gary cowers.
"You're right," Ghost says, stepping closer, "I can't kill you, as that would also kill me. But…" He makes a show of surveying the room, "you have plenty of equipment to destroy, and I got all day."
"You-" Gary snarls, "you're a bloody arsehole, you didn't need to do that!"
He finds mirth in that statement. That might be the first time Sanderson has talked to him like he's an actual person. Can't say a machine is a jerk when it can't do anything beyond what it's programmed to do, can you?
Ghost comes to a stop, leaving Gary cornered, "wouldn't have if you listened to me."
"Why do you need your schematics anyway?" Sanderson exhales roughly, "you should have access to everything through your system!"
"Everything except the controls on my face plates."
That pauses the quick fire typing of Gary's fingers. He taps the side of his keyboard, twisting his lip. "You want to open them?" He frowns, "what for?"
The answer should be clear for both of them. Ghost stops himself from pulling out his knives once more, thinking Sanderson is playing dumb on purpose, but…
His confused expression doesn't look like a trick, genuine curiosity shining over malice, the latter he knows well. It simply doesn't occur to him why he'd want to remove his mask.
Does he even remember that there's anything beneath there beside wires and cogs?
"I want to see my own face."
"Your face-" Gary halts his text-to-speech from finishing the sentence. "Right. You were searching for your identity, I suppose getting a vague idea of how you look would help."
He turns his chair, using his sleeve to dust off the bigger glass shards from the desk, "you owe me a new screen."
Ghost leans down, watching the cursor jump around on the smaller screen, "I don't have anything to give you." No one ever bothered setting up a bank account for him, surprisingly enough.
Gaze not straying from the screen, Sanderson types with his left hand, "there isn't much I can ask of you, is there…" He wets his lip for a moment, thinking. "Those images we saw on the screen, your memories."
"What about them?"
"Did you have any more?"
Sanderson is staring at him now, waiting. Ghost returns as good as he gets, and figures that either way, he'd have the memories plucked from his brain eventually.
Being as he is, often forced by his system to volunteer any and all of his thoughts, given the opportunity to choose for himself first, Ghost would rather give up the intel himself.
"I know my name. My first name."
Sanderson got more excited by the newfound knowledge Ghost shared with him than he anticipated. He went on and on about how it narrowed down their searching scope, and the possibilities of Ghost's, Simon's, connections with the original founders of J.S. Systems.
Ghost himself doubts the scientists that built him had any attachments to the person he used to be, seeing as they did their damn best to bury Simon and choke his voice until it was barely a whisper. Gary didn't want to hear about that, and eventually, returned to his computer to find what they were looking for.
As he goes through his folders, one image stands out. It's a rudimentary sketch, made by someone clearly unskilled in art, of his face. Or, the face he was made to bear, the skull mask.
There's something odd about it, though. It doesn't look exactly like his, the lines going down his cheeks painted rather than being a hollow, the lower jaw missing, lines extending down his teeth instead. He thinks the chicken-scratched lines drawn from the tip of the mask to his head are stitches, and he can't make sense of it.
Before he can ask Gary about it, a series of clips breaks free from his long-dead neurons, his system melding with his mind
PRESSURE REGISTERED OVER PLATE-05, PLATE-07, PLATE-08, REGION CODE NAME "FACE"
"Can you feel that, Ghost?"
"Pressure registered, all systems operational."
A sigh. "Sometimes I regret giving you this face. I thought you'd appreciate it when you- If you woke up."
"'Waking up' is not a registered command."
"I know. You're dead."
PRESSURE REMOVED FROM PLATE-05, PLATE-07, PLATE-08, REGION CODE NAME "FACE"
"I… I need to leave, but I'll return tomorrow. Jack wants to do some tests, give you some weapons to try. You'd like that, wouldn't you LT?"
"instructions unclear. Rephrase your order."
"… Goodnight, Ghost."
LIGHT SENSOR: 0
SYSTEM ACTIVATING POWER CONSERVATION MODE
AUDIO SENSORS DEACTIVATED
"-Ghost?"
He feels the wall hit his back as he jolts. The wires travelling up his spine and around his skull buzz with a rush of electricity, a phantom pressure triggering his sensors.
Shaking off the static from his vision, Ghost notices Gary's arm lifted, a wire clutched tight between his fingers. Recognising it as the one he uses to connect to his system, Ghost knocks it out of his grasp, and away from him.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" He growls.
Sanderson has the gall to act irritated, "you were not responding to me for several minutes! I thought your system crashed, or-"
"My system is fully operational, Aetherium Inhibitor status at caution." Ghost recites, off-putting to himself as he mimics what he said in the memory nearly word for word. "I saw something."
Sanderson raises his brow, "like what?"
"A memory-"
He is interrupted by the door to Sanderson's room opening, the light and sounds from the Workshop filtering in. At the threshold stands Johnny, his bright eyes meeting his with a slight smile, so small Ghost doubts it's conscious.
The overflow of electrical currents fogging his head clears, his joints relaxing from their tight hold. His lungs may not need air anymore, but his whole body feels lighter with him here.
"Soap," Gary types, "what are you doing here?"
Johnny strolls in, weight spread equally between both of his legs. It settles Ghost, seeing him healthy and confident as he should be.
Coming to a stop beside Ghost, Soap taps his shoulder, "can't have my minder on the loose can I?" His cheery demeanour changes when he notices the shattered screen in front of them, knife marks obvious in what remains of the glass.
"What- Ghost, why'd you-?"
Looking away, Ghost answers lowly, "had to do some convincing. That's between me and Sanderson."
"He wanted to know how to open the plates on his face." Gary adds. Fucking snitch.
"Oh!" Soap takes a closer look at the surviving screen, "do ye know? I've been trying to do it manually but Ghost said his system blocks him from engaging the mechanism."
Sanderson waves for Johnny to take the mouse, the knight awkwardly navigating through the folders. Shifting his gaze towards Ghost, he types, "you were going to tell me something before Soap came in."
It doesn't escape him that Soap instantly angles his body to cover Ghost at the words, arms tensing for a fight, ready to jump into his defence. How odd it is, to have someone willing to do that for him.
Ghost, however, allows his system to calculate the best course of action, and concludes sharing that information with Sanderson will only aid in their objective.
"Affirmative. I saw another memory from my past."
Excerpt from John "Soap" MacTavish's journal, page ??? (ripped) ("ARRAN and MORNA"):
Necromechanic - Chapter 15: The Place Below Creation
[PREV CHAPTER] [AO3]
Calling this chapter "the place below creation" has certain lore implications from the og cod zombies lore but don't think about that too much...
The red Lion Rampant, roaring atop a fierce yellow.
Blood dripping over its mouth, claws ripped out.
Hands, which once held up arms to defend humanity, now dig into flesh and bone.
Unseeing eyes, uncaring mouth, a husk of a knight no more.
The knights that called for aid are dead, their corpses eaten by one of their own, of Soap's own, unable to be laid to rest, in a realm that can house no grave.
The screams are so terribly loud, endlessly gripping his every thought, until the weight of his blades reminds him of his oath. Of what he owes to his brothers and sisters in spilled blood.
And then, anguished wails silenced, it is all honed, a single edge that his whole body directs itself into.
Soap exhales a breath, and jumps.
The few seconds he is in the air stretch into infinity, fragile silence enveloping him. He isn't in the present, for that moment, sent back into the place that took everything from him. He won't repeat his mistakes.
He won't allow weakness to overtake him.
The earth pushes back against his feet when he lands, shooting unbearable pain up his left leg, and it buckles. Soap doesn't let it stop him, and he shoves away from the ground with a curl to his lip, stare boring into the Scottish knight, the undead.
"Soap!" He hears his Captain shout, "get back here!"
He doesn't listen, but the knight does.
Her head lifts, and glowing orange eyes find him, a growl tearing from her throat. The rest of the horde is eating the remains of the fallen knights still, and it gives Soap the opportunity to close the distance quickly.
Their bodies collide with a heavy thud, snarls and teeth and fingers digging into his armour. She was strong, whoever this knight was, and seeing her face closely hits his heart with no remorse.
"MacTavish!" Someone screams, and while Soap will not let it distract him, it gives him a pause.
The knight freezes. Her expression melts, bared teeth retreating under scarred lips, and a flash of pain pinches at her brows. It almost seems like… She is alive, somewhere deep buried still human, as if she understands.
Her arms loosen around him, and while growls rise up from her mouth once more, she does not fight him.
It confuses Soap, but he doesn't allow emotion to make his hands falter, even if it would pain him less if he stabbed his own chest.
With a shove, Soap raises his swords. Aiming for the soft flesh beneath the knight's jaw, he thrusts.
Her brain stem is severed in an instant, and as the light fades from her eyes, Soap realises they are blue, not unlike his.
He withdraws his blades, allowing her to fall to the ground and rest, a prayer on his tongue.
"God have mercy on you, may your soul reach heaven and your fight rewarded with eternal glory. Blessed be." He mutters, tears prickling at the edges of his vision.
It hurts. Why does it hurt so much, to kill her?
Isn't that what he would wish upon himself, were he in her place?
He falls to his knees, crying out silently, staring at the unmoving face of the Scottish knight. He wants to apologise, but there is no one left to forgive him.
With watery eyes, Soap looks back to see how his squad rushes to him, weapons drawn. They are shouting for him, the words drowning out in his sorrow, and he wants to call out, but fears his voice would break.
A baser instinct urges him to be closer to them, the need to protect overwhelming his grief. He can't let the past repeat, can't allow himself to crumble.
With shaky hands, Soap tries to push off the earth, but his leg burns, every movement lancing fire up to his waist, as if the dirt of this damned place is drawing his muscles down.
No. He can't let that stop him. He has to move.
Grasping at undying flowers, he heaves, trying to rise to his feet only for his knee to buckle again, and again. A scream builds up in his throat, and he nearly lets it out, when the ground shakes.
Crushed petals move beneath his gloves, a shimmer to them as they revive to meet the cloudless sky. Hum swells through the rocks of these wretched lands, dirt parting for its masters, a song welcomes them. Soap knows these verses well, as they are written into his skull, etched in blood the drips into every crease in his brain, tinting it all red.
He doesn't want to accept, but his body knows, how the melody echos through his heart, louder, louder, louder.
"Hear us, knight,
Come along your kin,
We have a home for you here,
With those who share bone and skin."
The ground splits, the song ends.
And he belong solely to the lord, the thousand-teethed beast.
The Worm.
It bellows, and the realm awakes to its demand, every undead calling in return, rejoicing for their master has come.
Blood pools in his mouth, ears ringing, Soap's chest stutters, heart and lungs unable to bear this any longer, and the thought of giving up whispers to him.
"Surrender, surrender, SURRENDER-"
"Sir MacTavish!"
Hands wrap under his shoulders, ripping him from the Worm's hold. He cries out in pain, but a part of him welcomes it, the cruel voice in his mind retreating from such sensations.
"G-Ghost?" Soap gasps, taking hold of his metal arms, "I can't- I can't walk-"
"We're getting out of here," Ghost grinds out, looping an arm under his legs and lifting him, pulling a yelp out of Soap.
As they turn, he finally sees Gaz and Price, fighting to open a rift. Guilt floods his every pore, that they escaped his thoughts until now. He clings onto Ghost tighter, burying himself in the cloth that wraps around his shoulders.
"I'm sorry," he mumbles, attempting to lessen the shame creeping up his neck.
Ghost hikes him higher, "w-w-what are you apologising for?"
Soap lifts his head, staring at Ghost. His steps falter, a twitch moving his head back and forth as if something is pulling at his wires. "Are ye… Alright?" He asks as bursts of light crack underneath steel plates, blinding him.
"S-s-s-something's wrong," Ghost stutters, "I-I-I- We have to leave."
"Soap, Ghost!" Gaz shouts, hand shaking as he holds the rift open, "go, now!"
With a few long strides, Ghost flings both of them towards the rift, and as the Aether melts around them, Soap locks eyes one last time with the Worm.
For a split second, he could understand its roars.
The Worm talks not with words, but with the stolen sight of millions of undead, the hivemind the collective psyche of the Aether itself. A living organism made of bodies consumed by rot, it thinks, and feels, similar and apart from any creature to walk the earth.
And it is furious, that a soul has been stolen from them.
The image that flashes at that moment is not of Soap, though.
It is Ghost's.
Ghost nearly collapses once they emerge back in Laos. Stabilising himself on a rock, he lowers Soap, all sorts of clicking and whirring of inner mechanical parts slipping through the slats in his body.
Soap frowns up at him, "Ghost? What are ye feeling?"
"Aetherium Inhibitor is nearly critical," he answers shortly, "I could h-hear her."
As Soap opens his mouth to question him further, Price and Gaz leap out of the rift, which closes behind them with a deep hum.
The Captain crouches beside him, a gentle hand on his bad knee, "how are you feeling, son?"
"Fine-"
"Don't bullshit me, MacTavish." Price admonishes.
Soap sighs, shoulders slumping, "can't walk." He mutters, low enough for Gaz not to hear.
The Captain nods, turning to Gaz, "we're leaving. The Watchers must hear what happened here."
"Understood." Gaz draws an Aether tear, and with the help of Price and Ghost, Soap hops after them back to the fort, leaving the Lost Lands behind on the corporal level.
But the wan face of the Scottish knight he slayed will chase him until the end of his days, her unmoving gaze a future mirror to his.
SYSTEM DIAGNOSTICS RUNNING… 103 ERRORS FOUND (146 IGNORED)
AETHERIUM INHIBITOR STATUS: CAUTION
CURRENT LOCATION: 52.056°N 2.716°W
CURRENT OBJECTIVE: AID SIR MACTAVISH
"Um… Excuse me…?"
Ghost rips his focus from Soap's infirmary room for a single moment, staring down at the healer. Silence stretches on until he speaks up again, "if you're not a knight or a healer, you shouldn't be here-"
"Order "Aid Sir MacTavish" by Captain Price allows access to infirmary."
The healer nods mutely, "right… Can you step aside, I do need to check on Sir MacTavish-" The man startles as Ghost moves, leaning away when he passes by him to the wall opposite. "T-Thanks." He mumbles, straightening his clothes and entering the room Soap was admitted to.
His system zooms in on the little he can see of the space before the door is shut again, cataloguing the machinery, wires all leading to the single bed.
The beeping itches a memory in his head, the sound familiar. Ghost ignores it.
Soap was hurt under his watch. Again. Every little piece of metal within him screams to be at his side, only stopped by the healers ordering him out of the room. He settled on staying right here, guarding it as if a zombie will come by and finish the job.
The softer parts of him whispers it is because he is worried.
The door closes shut, another error popping up at the edge of his vision. Any more of them, and he'd go critical, and he can't allow that to happen.
He can't lose his memories, not now.
Ghost stands motionless for a long time, watching shadows stretch up the fort's walls. One by one, the alerts in his system resolve themselves, and the spiky sensation of errors recedes. If he still needed to breathe, he'd sigh in relief.
Just as the sun is about to set, the healer comes out, a sheepish Soap on crutches behind him. Ghost startles when their eyes meet, not expecting the flood of emotions yet named to fill him.
"I do implore you to use your crutches more, and rest, Sir MacTavish," the healer says, wary gaze flitting to Ghost for a moment before looking back to Soap, "and keep up with your visits to the Cleansing Pools, you have the Aetherium buildup of an elder knight."
Soap sighs, rolling his eyes, "aye, aye."
The healer pauses, "I am serious, John. Your leg is in no condition for fighting as it is-"
"Thank you for your assistance, healer Lewin." He limps towards the knights' quarters, "have a good night."
Ghost, who won't accept leaving even if Soap ordered him at this moment, follows.
He waits until they're out of earshot from anyone to speak, "my system didn't calculate that your release will be probable today."
Soap shoulders the door to his room, "they always do this. Don't have much to do to heal old injuries." Lowering himself onto the bed, Soap grunts, "same prescription as always - don't fuckin' move until it stops hurting."
He tries to set the crutches beside the cot, but they slip, Ghost shooting out a hand to catch them. "How long do you need to rest for?" He stands above him, shoving the crutches between the mattress and the desk so they don't fall.
"This time… It doesn't feel too bad, I think a couple of days will be fine."
Soap settles into the bed, brows pinching in pain when it jostles his leg. Ghost's stare pinpoints on the injury, a growing demand urging him to fix this error, help in any way.
He can't, though, not according to the healers. Soap isn't made of steel and bolts like he is - his parts can't be replaced. Humans are so very fragile, a single cut could sever their lifeline, and then they're just gone. One mistake, and Soap could be dead.
Ghost ignores his system's computations of just how likely his knight is to die in the next few months. He can't bear to acknowledge them.
Instead, he takes one of the several pillows on the bed, lightly tapping Soap's thigh to indicate him to raise his leg. He gently shifts the soft material under it, and when Soap lowers his leg, his face is relaxed.
"… Thank ye." He murmurs, his cheeks colouring. "You- You can leave, if ye want-"
"No." At Soap's surprise, he adds, "I don't want to leave."
Soap's mouth opens and closes without a sound, and he clears his throat, "it's going to be boring, ye know. Not much to do 'ere."
Ghost moves the chair at the desk closer to Soap, sitting if only to feel more natural in this space, "never a boring day with you around, MacTavish."
Chuckling, Soap leans over to pull out his sketchbook from the desk's drawers. "This might be a first, then." He says, opening it where he left his pencil, and beginning to draw.
The room quiets down, soft graphite on paper a constant sound, lulling Ghost into relative peace. As his system quiets down, he is left wondering what Soap is drawing.
He had shown Ghost them, from time to time, sketches of beasts and mates, a glimpse into the way Soap views the world. There are none from his time before the British order, he noted.
Ghost wonders if there are any of him.
It is hours after the sun set when Soap finally sleeps. It took much convincing from Ghost, who at some point opened a file on the importance of sleep while healing and cited each reason down the list until the knight relented.
Ghost rose to leave the room, remembering what Soap told him in the past about that, but was stopped when the same man asked, "where the hell do you thing yer going, Ghostie?"
And so, he stayed, finding himself watching Soap slowly cross into the land of the dreaming, eyes moving under closed eyelids, gazing at things only he can see. It twists Ghost's chest oddly. A part of it is due to the fact he can't sleep anymore, doesn't have the need to, and the serenity encompassing Soap's form sparks jealousy up his wires.
The other side of it is the sheer vulnerability in the act of allowing a killing machine into such a place, entrusting it to watch you while you are defenceless.
Ghost nearly doesn't trust himself with it.
Soap looks young, like this. He knows 28 isn't that young by human years, and hell, Ghost may have died younger, but it still startles him.
His file tells Ghost he was taken into the Scottish Order at 8. Barely old enough to read and write, and he was already learning how to survive the Aether. He, too, had a family, the fate of which must be unknown, after two decades apart.
Does he miss them? Did they leave a gaping hole in his psyche, the way the people in Ghost's past did?
Does the thought of what he could have been claw at his insides, too?
Ghost won't ask. Any time he even grazed the subject had Soap revealing his teeth, an anger of colder sorts than the knight usually presents directed at him.
He settles for watching over him, each twitch of a limb and sigh of breath recorded down into his memory, their importance equal to every survival technique he was ever taught. Soap takes up a growing space in his database, and he would've feared what Gary could have found there, were there not other pressing issues.
Soap's expression scrunches up, body wiggling a bit as he searches for comfort. It pushes against Ghost's chest from the inside like a hand, wants him to reach out, as if he could give him that. Comfort, that is.
What comfort can a metal frame bring. There are no soft angles to be found, a pillowed middle for Soap to rest his weary head.
A picture invades his skull, of the two of them pressed together, so close not even atoms can separate their bodies apart. Laid on a bed, where Ghost can keep him safe from the harsh world, fend off all voices of Aether. And in that image, Soap welcomes it, covets his protection with mirth.
Is that what humans feel, when they want something more than words can express?
"N-No… Don't leave…" Soap mumbles, pressing his face into his pillow. Ghost tilts his head at his fingers, which are tangled in the fabric. "Killed… Ye killed 'em…"
He observes him shifting. It may be just a dream.
When Soap begins kicking at his blanket, injured leg dangerously close to hitting the wall, he can't justify staying still any longer.
"Soap," Ghost reaches over him, holding his knee away from the wall. It only makes Soap fight harder, a physical restraint his body latches onto. "You need to wake up."
With his breaths short, Soap doesn't have much air to scream with, but he whimpers little scared noises that crack Ghost's heart. He usually is able to stay level-headed in any situation, whether he faces Abominations or a restless Soap, battered by his own traumatised mind.
He can't gather up his thoughts like usual, though. It scratches at the rotten folds of his brain, as if he has seen someone like this before, decades ago.
And it makes him say things he'd never say aloud.
"It's just me," Ghost says as softly as his speakers allow him to, "you're safe. I will keep you safe."
Soap's hands grab at him, weakly attempting to push at him. Tears break through his lash line, and through the grunts and whines, Ghost thinks he can make out words.
"Let me go-" Soap cries, "get out- Get out of my head-!"
"I'm here for you." Ghost pulls him close, taking care to pin his thrashing limbs, "I'm not going to leave, Johnny."
It takes a few more seconds for Soap to calm, and Ghost hazards a look up at him, only to see his eyes are open.
"G-Ghost?"
"Soap."
"Why-" Realisation dawns on him, and much to Ghost's great dismay, Johnny pulls away, "I'm- I'm sorry, I was just- It wasn't real."
Ghost retakes his seat at the chair and turns on the lamp, hiding his displeasure. "You have nothing to apologise for."
Soap nods, quickly wiping at his cheeks as if Ghost could've missed a single tear he shed. Now that he's not crying out, Ghost's system regains its wit, and begins analysing what happened. It's obvious PTSD nightmares have plagued Johnny for longer than they've known each other, but this felt… Worse than the ones he'd been privy to.
Chains made physical in the realm without death flash across his mind, and it all becomes clear.
"The nightmare," Ghost begins carefully, "what was it about?"
Anger, brief but bright, flashes across Johnny's face. Ghost expects it, as Soap is never keen to speak of his past, the dark things that chase him in his sleep.
Before he can pivot the conversation somewhere else, Soap surprises him.
"The Aether. The… Scottish knight. She- She felt familiar." Soap rubs a rough hand on his knee, in a way that must exacerbate the pain.
Ghost pushes his fingers aside, settling his own over the sickly purple skin protectively. "Do you think you knew her?"
Johnny shakes his head slowly, "no, I… The Aether toyed with my mind, probably."
"It tends to do that, doesn't it."
"What-" Soap's breath stutters, "what did ye see there?"
He shouldn't be able to remember what he saw. The data didn't register in his sensors, motherboard blind as Aetherium vaporised choked his wires.
But Ghost's memory is clear. Neurons singing in synapsis, stitching together to record the flood of images and sounds that overwhelmed him, in the realm of Aether.
CALCULATING… 634 feet from target, approaching at-
"You're here."
Ghost's steps falter, his body nearly crashing to the ground. He turns his head sharply, searching for the voice's source.
"Where are you?"
"Nowhere physical, love. But I am with you, always." The voice responds softly, and he places it as the woman's, "it is quiet now, isn't it?"
"Quiet?" Ghost mutters, attempting to keep moving, but finding his limbs heavy, sight clouded. It is hard to remember his objective, hard to remember why he's been running at all.
The woman hums, and he can almost feel the air move by his ears as she talks, "quiet, when the only voice in your head is mine, and yours."
No, she can't be right-
>PING OBJECTIVE
Ghost waits a few moments, his command receiving no response. He tries again, and again, his system no where to be found. It- It scares him.
"How…"
"This place is beyond human technology." She explains, "you can listen to your heart, here. Tell me…
… What does it say?"
"I don't understand what you mean," Ghost clutches his head, eyes flitting across this wretched landscape, as if the answers he searches for are etched in the crystals and flowers and corpses which litter the skies.
"Who am I, love?"
A growl rips out of his throat, "I don't r-r-remember-"
"you do," the woman persists, her presence shadowing over his psyche, "I believe in you, you can do it."
I believe in you, you can do it.
He heard that before, said by the same voice. Her face, framed by golden hair, a smile unpractised, joy flitting, but the love was there. He could see it, feel it as she sits him on her knee.
His hands as small, a pencil clutched between pale fingers. He writes in crooked letters, on a page filled with mistakes, a name.
'SIMON'
"That's right!" The woman praises him, and he looks up, feeling his cheeks lift with a smile.
"Really?!" He asks with excitement, "did I write it right, ma?!"
"You did, love," she leans down to kiss his forehead, "I told you, you only need to practise, and you'll be able to do anything you want."
The memory of her embrace fades, but the names remain, echoing through Ghost's body.
"Ma…" He whispers, and his mother's voice smiles.
"There he is," she becomes distant, slipping away from him as reality rushes back in, "my Simon."
Ghost falters in place, searching for her, "wait-" He pleads, "don't go!"
But the wind no longer carries her voice, faded like the memory of a dream in the waking world. Ghost freezes, a yawning hole ripping open in his chest, as his mind reveals to him a terrible tale.
Of a mother, too kind hearted to stand up against the monster in her life, and a father, whose features are lost to time but the marks his hands left still burn bright.
Of their son, a child raised into violence, a horrible mirror to his parents.
It is unable to tell him the ending of that story, but Ghost knows what became of the boy, of Simon.
Simon knows.
He stares listlessly at the horizon, violet fog settling over endless fields of flowers and crystals and corpses. They glimmer and shift, a tremble cascading down cliffs, faster, faster, shooting straight towards… Him.
The ground quakes, splitting soil with fury, and a pressure builds around him, stealing air he shouldn't need, coiling around skin he shouldn't feel.
Simon gasps, limbs disobeying his own commands, as if chains wrapped themselves around his bones.
Frantically, he tries to alert his system, each command receiving a resounding silence.
>SCAN CURRENT LOCATION
>ALERT J.S. H.Q. OF AETHERIUM INHIBITOR STATUS
>CONNECT TO COMMUNICATION CHANNELS
>ALERT SIR MACTAVISH-
Shackles creep up his spine, hooking into his system, his brain, until the sole thing he can do is see, and hear, and witness.
Witness the earth crack open, a hungering maw made beast slithering up, towering over its land with a deafening roar.
And a cry of a thousand voices scream.
SIMON
They howl and wail, and Simon feels the chains pull, their hands twisting around the binds. He stumbles forward, incapable of nothing but feeling pure dread, until he sees him.
Soap. Sitting at the feet of a corpse, sobs spilling from his helm. Alive, for now, but his time is running short, as the Worm rallies an army of carcasses, and the fog crawls down the cliffs to choke him. The thought of him left in this place, where none would reach him, where his mind and body will be locked away just like his, grips at his empty chest tighter than any shackle could.
He can't watch him die.
He can't leave him to die.
He will not let him die.
With all the presence left within his wretched body, Ghost screams his name, ripping through the binds that hold him with rotten teeth. One arm releases, and then another, and he reaches for him, for the only person who could unravel these tethers unseen.
Their armour plates graze, and the chains drop.
Soap gasps.
"G-Ghost?"
And he finds his voice once more.
Excerpt from John "Soap" MacTavish's journal, page 103 ("WORM"):
Necromechanic - Chapter 14: Those Who Pledge Themselves to Evil, are Kin No More
[PREV CHAPTER] [AO3]
*Chanting* Angst! Angst! Angst! Angst!
The first thing that reaches Soap from the tear walls are the screams. Healers rushing past him, their arms full with supplies, moans of pain and anguish filling the long halls leading to the open skies.
The sight and smell follow soon after. Iron-tinged air hitting him in force, Soap freezes at the unfolding scene.
writhing in a pool of their own blood, gasping breath a break between their sobs, the squires lay in front of a still-open Aether tear, fighting to cling onto life in a way they shouldn't need to, not this young. There are more still coming, the ones who were lucky enough to survive with minor injuries dragging their mates back to the fort.
An entire generation of knights, beaten before they could earn their titles.
A healer bumps into Soap's shoulder, his bad leg shaking as he stables himself. His fear is pushed away in favour of making himself useful, and he approaches the woman.
"How can I help?" He asks, the healer only glancing at him, slapping a tourniquet in his hand.
She pulls up the mangled arm of a squire, who screams in pain at the movement, "tie this above the elbow, I need to get the bleeding to slow, quickly!"
Soap apologises under his breath to the squire, and wraps the rubber band tightly around the limb, gritting his teeth when the young woman passes out. He shuffles back to allow the healer to do her work, stare finding Ghost, the only anchor in this chaos.
"The robot can carry heavy weights, correct?" The healer asks while injecting the squire with a medicine of some sort. Any other time, Soap would hate hearing Ghost referred to with such title, but there is no time for niceties when there are lives at stake.
"Aye, he can."
The healer points to a stretcher at her side, "I will need him to take this squire back to the infirmary, I can do nothing more for her."
Ghost doesn't wait for Soap to order him, taking point by the healer. She arranges the squire's limp body, and grunts for Ghost to push the stretcher beneath her, securing her limbs.
"You can leave." The healer already walks to the next squire, Ghost leaving without a word.
Soap stands, lost, until a different healer calls for someone to aid them, and he jumps to secure bandages quelling blood, which leaks from a nasty bite wound on a squire's thigh. The area already turned a sickly purple, veins black with Aetherium.
"He needs to be cleansed…" Soap mutters, and the healer exhales roughly.
With grim acceptance, they simply tighten the bandages, "he'd die before reaching the pools, and we ran out of inscribed cloth."
The healer nudges Soap out of the way, and his gaze drifts to the others, the many squires who were meant to be their future.
If they have no way to cleanse the Aetherium from their bodies before it takes hold, it doesn't matter if they manage to save them from dying due to blood loss or infection. The Aether has no mercy, and will not hesitate to steal their young minds from them.
He finds a familiar face, now twisted in agony, dozens of small teeth marks marring his arms.
Matthews doesn't notice him, even as he steps closer. No healer is tending to him, either deeming his wounds not life threatening, or the sheer amount of Aetherium that must be infesting him a lost cause. Soap takes a roll of white bandages from the pile, and crouches beside the squire.
The first touch makes Matthews gasp, teary eyes opening to stare at him. "M-MacTavish?" He asks, voice trembling along with his body.
Soap begins wrapping his left arm, black blood soaking through them not a moment later. "Just settle down now. I'm sure a proper healer will come soon, I know ye would rather anyone else tend to ye."
Matthews chokes on a laugh, the sound melting into a sob, "they won't come."
"The healers?"
"Yeah," his breath shudders, pupils wide with fear, "if I don't die now, they'll send me out to the Lost Lands. I don't- I don't want to go there again," Matthews heaves, and Soap is stricken with how young he sounds, "I don't want to die."
Soap doesn't answer, focused on tying the bandages. What can he say, that will not be a lie? How could he comfort he who is doomed, that which cannot be saved?
He tries for confidence, to convince Matthews to keep up hope. "Are you hearing them? The voices of Aether?"
"… Yes."
"Do you see them?"
Matthews' eyes flicker to and fro, "n-not yet."
"Then ye are not lost still. Remember, the Aether preys on fear and hopelessness. You must keep fighting."
"What-" A shiver visibly shakes the squire, "what do you know of the corruption, anyway?"
Soap hears some of Matthews' usual cheek in the words, but it is clear to him it's nothing but a facade. "I hear them too. Every single night."
Matthews blinks up at him, frowning. His stare drifts behind Soap, and he turns to find Gaz, expression full of grief. In his hands, blank strips of fabric and a brush, with which he must've planned to inscribe the cloth.
"Gaz! Can ye help Matthews here, he must be cleansed!"
Gaz shakes his head, defeat written in the line of his shoulders. A spark of anger ignites in Soap, at the ease of which he just gives up on a whole life.
Soap growls, "you have to at least fuckin' try-"
"He's already gone, Soap."
Gaz points to Matthews, and Soap watches as blackened veins climb up the column of his throat, a whimper tearing itself from it. Matthews cowers from something neither Soap nor Gaz can see, clawing at the earth to crawl away.
"N-no… I don't want to-" The squire whispers, rabbit-rapid breath in his chest. "I- I…"
Soap and Gaz approach him carefully, knowing that at this stage, Matthews' bites will corrupt.
The fear that pulled at the squire's features shifts, a chilling calm replacing it. "I understand." He says, accepting his new masters, relinquishing his body and mind to the Aether.
"I pledge myself to you."
And Soap knows that from then on, Matthews is no more.
Grasping at a blanket left by a healer, Gaz leaps onto the zombie, wrapping the cloth around his head. The monster snarls, clawing weakly at him, Aether yet to find its footing within this new vessel. He calls for aid, a few combat specialists taking charge and holding the zombie down.
Soap stares as far off memories trickle through his mind, whispering, "it could have been me."
"It should have been me."
His consciousness fades, a baser urge to fear ruling over any teaching his elders ever carved into his very bones. Soap has watched good men and women turn in the past, lose the fight against their eternal enemy, but never this closely. Was never able to hear how their breath stopped, see as veins cease to flow with blood and instead brim with Aetherium, as eyes that, moments ago, showed pain and horror, cloud over, any semblance of a human mind crushed.
The body that once was called Matthews is yet to complete its disfigurement. It will have to chase the taste of flesh, intent on spreading the Aether, to be accepted into the hivemind that makes the forces of evil. This zombie snarls now, dull teeth unable to rip through the fabric suffocating it but announcing to all that they are its kin no more.
At least, it does until a blade is thrust into its throat, and it falls dead.
Soap's stare climb up the bloody sword, Captain Price's furious expression startling him from his fugue state.
"Knights," the Captain grunts, pulling his weapon from the corpse, "gather the squires that are beyond healing, and those already dead. I need an Aether specialist to open a tear for us."
He meets Soap's stare, brows softening from their furrow. With a few steps he leans closer to whisper, "you can leave, son. We can handle it-"
"No." Soap does not need any favours done to him, "I will help."
Price nods, sorrow pulling at his features for a beat, before the Captain schools them once more.
"You may begin with what is left of Matthews."
58 Squires. Nearly 20 squads' worth of knights, now lay dead or dying, bathed in cruel, violet light. Those who still have enough of their minds left to understand what soon will befall them, cry and whimper for forgiveness none of them can give.
And the dead… The dead have already received their judgement.
Soap breathes heavily as he places the last corpse on the ground, blood seeping into the sleeve of his shirt. He'd burn these clothes, if he could, burn the memories alongside them.
The fort's Captains have donned on their armour again, this time for a mourning rather than a celebration. It is hard for him to think of how mere hours ago they send off their brothers and sisters in arms to a quest none knew they were destined to fail.
At times like these, it's difficult to see the mercy and rule of God on earth, when all his eyes find is Hell.
"Sir MacTavish," a voice says to his left, and something in Soap takes a long exhale, a glimmer of relief saving him from complete doom, "are you alright?"
Ghost stands tall, his shadow shielding Soap from the wrathful sun. For a flitting moment, Soap is dazzled by the skies reflected on his metal body, light painting him in bright colours.
The sobbing of squires reminds him beauty is not to be found here, at the feet of the damned.
"Aye," he says lowly, throat tight with emotion. "I am not the one dying, am I?"
Ghost hums, his voice crackling. "Do you not bury your dead here?"
The Captains take hold of the corpses one by one, hauling them to the tear and allowing them to be consumed by it. "We can't allow the corrupted into the earth. A proper grave is not something most knights receive, but we remember them," he watches as Matthews' body leaves the fort for the final time. "We must remember."
When the last of the dead is gone, the Captains approach the remaining squires. The young almost-knights struggle weakly against the grasp of their mentors, crying out for someone, anyone, to save them. He feels bile rise up to his mouth at the pleas, and gives to his cowardice part, turning away from them.
Ghost presses his shoulder to his, and horrifyingly, Soap feels pinpricks of tears at the corners of his eyes. He ducks his head, leaning against the sun-warmed metal plates that make Ghost's arm, but goes no further.
He hears screams, the rustling of armour, growls and snarls and wails, until all is silent.
And standing in the shadow of Ghost, a being that very well should have had the same fate as each and every of those young squires, Soap aches. Both because of the pain Ghost had endured to be here, unable to be laid to rest decades after he was turned, and for a future yet realized, where the Order finds out about the truth.
Soap knows, the very same merciless exile would ensnare Ghost, who has become the only name to bring comfort to him, the only one to bring peace to his heart.
Worst of all, he cannot say with a full chest, he would follow the orders of his Watchers, shall that fate come.
SYSTEM DIAGNOSTICS RUNNING… NO ERRORS FOUND
AETHERIUM INHIBITOR STATUS: NORMAL
CURRENT LOCATION: 52.056°N 2.716°W
CURRENT OBJECTIVE: AWAITING ORDERS
Soap doesn't move from the tear wall, staring at the stacked stones for long minutes. A few more wait with him, Gaz among them, none daring to speak.
It's odd, how the entire affair didn't raise a single alarm in his mind, didn't cause him the same grief as it clearly did to Soap. The lives of those squires meant nothing to Ghost, his system labelled them friendlies until it didn't. He knows, were he human, he might've felt more.
The bloodstains marring the ground are nothing but another mark in the dirt, to a machine.
His sensors warn him of a spike of Aetherium in the air, and Ghost leans down to notify Soap.
"They're returning."
Aether tear opening with a crackle, Soap approaches his bloodied Captain, tension pulling at his every muscle. Captain Price removes his helm with a rough pull, gaze flickering to his knights.
As the other Captains call for their squads, knights told to armour up, Ghost already prepares for the oncoming mission.
"We're going after the monsters that took our squires from us," Captain Price straightens, his stature foreboding in its power, "the Aether will not rest easy after that attack."
"What killed them, Captain?" Gaz asks, anger sparking bright.
"Greater Abominations, likely directed by disciples." The Captain sighs, "our squad will be there as aid," he directs a stern look towards Soap, "and only as aid."
Soap grits his teeth, opening his mouth to argue his piece, but the Captain dismisses them. The message is clear - the Captain doesn't think Soap can handle it.
"Keep an eye on him. Don't let him get into trouble."
"Understood."
NEW OBJECTIVE REGISTERED
Mountains stretch to the orange-red sky, shadows of disciples pass through low clouds. The rain has been pelting on his hood since they arrived to Laos, relentless as the knights below them.
Flashes of lights fire off as Field Talents are activated, the rocky terrain working against Aetherium beams that shoot every few seconds. Ghost's system has never recorded a battle of this magnitude in the corrupted lands, and it is almost impressive.
Soap, however, simply sighs miserably again.
"We could be down there, helping."
Captain Price patiently repeats the same sentence he has been for the last 20 minutes, "we are helping, by making sure no other enemy flanks our knights."
Gaz takes a seat beside Soap, who scoffs in response to his Captain. "I'd take your side, but if the Watchers commanded us to be here then I shall obey."
Ghost can practically hear Soap's eyes rolling, and the knight sulks louder, somehow. Silently, he does agree with his assessment that they're not doing much to aid in the fight, considering the mountains provide good cover from any incoming hostiles, as the hordes would have to climb for hours until they would be anywhere close to the battle.
But the Captain didn't ask for his commentary, and so he stays quiet.
Just as it seems Soap might disobey the Captain and leap down regardless, the air in front of them splits, and Ghost's sensors recognise the threat and order his body to move before he can fully identify it.
He tackles Soap to the ground, narrowly avoiding crushing his leg as he catches himself with an arm slung above his head.
"Ghost-?!" Soap gasps, grasping at his cloak.
He keeps Soap down, head rising to stare at what emerged from the Aether tear. Bright light blinds him for a moment until his optics adjust, finding a flare stuck in the rock that Soap sat on not a minute ago. The tear itself is unlike any Ghost has seen, towering over them and cutting a sharp, triangular shape into the fabric of reality. The volume of Aetherium it is spitting is enough for Ghost's system to go haywire.
With no other object materialising from the tear, Ghost rises to his feet, offering a hand to Soap to lift him up. "Is that… A rift?" He asks, dusting off his banner.
An Aether rift… Those only lead to the Aether itself.
ERROR: AETHERIUM INHIBITOR STATUS: CAUTION
"It is…" Gaz passes his gauntlet over the rift, the dials at the back of his palm ticking, "Arknaoth, Noz-Nar, Shubnaneth… It shouldn't lead to any sovereign beasts."
The bright flame at the end of the flare dies down, Soap picking it up, inspecting the writing lining its sides.
"we must help them, the rest of the knights are too far." Gaz says, gauntlet still humming with Aetherium.
The Captain shakes his head, tapping the side of his helm to cycle through comm channels, "I don't want us to enter the Aether alone, not in these trying times. Surely a Captain can spare us a combat specialist…"
Soap drops the flare, hands shaking. Before Ghost can ask him what's wrong, he rushes towards the rift, swords unsheathed and poised to strike.
"Where the fuck do you think you're going, MacTavish?!" Captain Price shouts, making Soap pause for a moment.
"The flare," he growls, turning his head to face him, "it is Scottish. I have to help them."
They glare at each other, the Captain dropping his hand with a rough exhale.
"In and out, son, I'm not losing anyone today."
Soap doesn't answer verbally, fingers gripping the hilts of his weapons tighter, stalling, until he enters the rift. Ghost joins him not a second later, not allowing his mind to even think of what horrors may await them in the Aether.
He won't allow Soap to face any of them alone.
There is no code, no protocol, that can describe what the Aether looks like. Even all the words in the English language struggle to express what Ghost sees as he passes.
His system nearly crashes as the Aetherium in the air invades him. Crystals as tall as buildings reach for the violet sky, veins of pure corruption laced into them, climbing the surface. Beneath his feet are flowers, which seem to rapidly grow in reverse, never truly wilting.
Corpses lay scattered across the alien landscape, still twitching even as their heads and limbs are missing, lone hearts beating even as no blood fills them.
Death doesn't have much meaning, not here.
Ghost relies on his visuals to find Soap, the knight a few paces ahead of him. From his periphery, he sees Gaz and the Captain join them, but he has eyes only for one.
Soap is frozen, standing at the edge of a sharp drop, and as Ghost catches up to him, he understands why.
Whoever shot out the flare is long gone, their armour ripped open by the undead, bloodied mouths consuming their flesh like maggots. There is one among them, however, that stands out among the tattered-clothed zombies, among the rotting limbs.
A knight, her helm missing, braided hair rustling as she digs her fingers into the chest of one of the fallen, engorging on muscle and fat.
She turns, biting off a chunk of the body, and though it is hard to see under the blood and grime and age, the banner at her side is unmistakable.
This one, too, was of the Scottish Order.
As his system is dormant, overwhelmed by Aetherium, the loudest voice in Ghost's mind is the soldier's, who fears like an animal, who seeks to protect anything he calls his own like a feral mutt. It shouts, then, conjuring a world where this was Soap, a mindless zombie clawing into his own kin.
The image strikes fear in his chest, the only emotion he can recognise and name, taking over his vision for a few, precious seconds.
Ghost would later blame that momentary panic on the fact he didn't move in time to stop Soap from leaping down, and rushing straight towards the Scottish zombie, caution thrown to the wind.
Excerpt from John "Soap" MacTavish's journal, page 98 ("58 SQUIRES"):
Necromechanic - Chapter 13: O Lord, Give Us a Heart Steadfast, Which No Tribulation Can Wear Out
[PREV CHAPTER] [AO3]
It's time for me to justify the "Ghoap" tag I put on every post >:)
The helm was heavy on Soap's weary head. Sweltering in the summer's sun, even without the artificial air to choke him it was difficult to breathe.
Gaz is at his right, back ramrod straight and posture proper, had he been any stiller he'd be a statue. Soap fixes his banner once more, exhaling roughly.
"Never realised how long the other knights had to stand for us when I went through my knighting trial…" He muttered, "damn waste of time, in my opinion."
He receives a light chuckle from Gaz, "for once, I wholeheartedly agree. Could think of a dozen things I'd rather do right now."
"Ye can say it again," Soap's eyes pass over the long row of knights, leading to a forming Aether tear. The Summer knighting trial is soon to begin, very soon if God will be ever so merciful, allowing the squires who are of age to attempt to earn their title as knights of the Order.
They will either become knights, or die. And many will die.
"Finally," Gaz whispers, and the sounds of heavy steps herald the coming of the squires, their armour identical as they have yet to attain their own.
Helms tucked under their arm, Soap watches their faces pass by, a myriad of emotions swirling across them. They look young to him, being 7 years their senior, and Soap's thoughts can't help but drift to the only person missing from their squad in this occasion.
He wonders how old Ghost is. It is such a simple question, one he never thought would be hard to answer, but for a man trapped under metal plates and reduced to a machine, it is impossible to tell.
Ghost didn't react to Gary's finding yesterday, the realisation he is from a world extinct. He remained silent by Soap's side, barely responding to his words, and when they reached his room, bid him goodnight and disappeared.
Soap tried to sleep for about an hour before giving up, roaming the halls until morn, searching for a trace of metal and coming up empty handed. It was just his luck that he forgot the date, and had to rush to the armoury to don on his armour for the knighting trials' send off.
Among the resolute faces, he spots Matthews, a slight tremble to his step. Beneath that cocksure attitude hid a frightened boy, it seemed, and Soap doesn't take any glee in seeing it.
He still remembers the fear, the first time he stepped into the Lost Lands and knew, this fight wasn't a training exercise.
No, it was a fight for life and death.
In his hands, a broadsword, gripped tightly as if it will shield him from the cruelty of the world. Matthews' eyes meet his for a moment, and Soap nods solemnly, hoping to impart on him courage.
The wide-eyed stare he receives in return doesn't tell him if he succeeded, but that will be seen once the squires return, their hands anointed with Aether blood.
The squires stop at the cusp of the tear, waiting for their elders to signify their orders. Captain Price is with them, his white armour shining in the sunlight like a beacon. Many look up at him, his arm sure as he orders their helms up.
As one, tubes are connected, chemical air flowing through youthful lungs, and a silence falls on the order.
Soap inhales, and his voice recedes into the calls of his brothers in spilt blood, as they pray for their young.
"Harken, we beseech Thee, O Lord,
Grant us Divine Grace,
To protect and conquer our five senses.
O Lord,
Bless us this blade,
To be the fear and terror of all evil-doers.
O Lord,
Give us a heart steadfast,
Which no tribulation can wear out."
His leg screams for rest, but Soap persists, heart thumping as they shout, the squires readying to enter the Lost Lands.
Banished shall be the Aether's fate,
Damnation its doom!"
"Blessed be our knights and Watchers, blessed be our squires!" Their Captains call. "Charge!"
"Blessed be!" The squires yell in return, and in a rush of heavy steps, run into the Aether tear, and allow the violet light to consume them.
And in the quiet following, Soap's heart slows, in the sea of knights of British red and blue, prayers that are not his own on his tongue, he has never felt more alone. The reminder of his failure is carried at his hip at every moment, a sign to all that he succumbed under the weight of his duty.
Wouldn't it be easier to fall, and never rise again?
"We would embrace you, knight,
In flowers eternal,
In Aether undying.
You belong with us,
With those who fell and rose once again,
With those who gave themselves to the sovereign,
With the all powerful,
Our Dragon."
An unblinking eye stares at him, light swallowed by its pupil. Fangs sharpened grin at him, and a maw opens, and it beckons, it beckons, it beckons to him.
No… That can't be his place… Can it?
"-Soap?"
He gasps, Gaz's helm tilted towards him. The rest of the knights have started dispersing, returning to their daily work, the two of them standing alone beside the tear walls. "A-aye?" He forces his tone to be calm.
"… You solid?" Gaz asks, removing his helm to pin him with a look. Soap doesn't follow his lead, the visor a welcome hiding place for his flickering expressions.
"As a rock." He responds, giving him a pat that gets lightly slapped away. With a chuckle, he starts walking back to the fort, "tell me if ye see Ghost around, will you? Bastard is avoiding me again, I think."
Not staying long enough to hear his answer, Soap runs off, the creeping feeling of teeth scraping against his spine following him all the way there.
Thump.
The training sword hits the target with force, shaking the entire rod it's mounted upon. Soap strikes at it again and again, its surface puckering as the cotton ball filling gets beat down.
Thump, thump, thump.
His leg burns, arms screaming for rest, muscles nearly giving out. Teeth grit, sweat dripping down his nose, he slashes the dummy, the dull edge of the blade leaving only faint marks on the fabric.
A sword at this state is not fit for fighting with, unable to cut even the softest of foes. It would not handle the force of a real battle, sooner to break than to kill the weakest of enemies. It is brittle, in mind and spirit, and pathetic, a mockery of the weapon it once was.
Thumpthumpthumpthump-
Soap's knee finally buckles, and with a frustrated snarl, he pushes off the floor to thrust at the dummy, ripping the crude stitching along its side and spilling cotton. He stares at the white fluff with distaste, his stance shaky, out of form.
He kicks the ruined target down to rest beside the other three he has already destroyed, and moves to the next, relishing in the numbness spreading through his limbs.
The sword in his arm feels impossibly heavy, yet he lifts it still, his blood singing for the self-inflicted pain of this fake war. A knight such as him should be able to take it, even as each and every of his cells begs for rest, as his scars pull on his skin so tightly he wants to cry.
Soap swings the weapon down, but it never connects with the dummy.
A cold hand holds it aloft.
"You need to rest, Soap. This is enough."
He rips his hand away, intending to ignore him as he stabs the target again, and again, until his legs give out beneath him, and he falls-
Only to be caught by metal arms, their grip steadying him.
He struggles weakly, his breaths coming out short, "let me go! I'm- I got this!"
"Clearly."
Soap growls, pushing away from Ghost with as much force as he can muster. Ghost simply wraps his arms around him, encasing him wholly in an iron embrace.
He pulls Soap's head to tuck under his chin, and his world is reduced to armour plates and glowing wires.
It rips out a silent gasp from his chest, as if Ghost's hands have wrapped directly around his heart, held it between those metal fingers. They could kill it effortlessly, it won't take a fraction of the power that courses through his artificial veins.
But they hold it instead, hold him, and in the near darkness, Soap's body betrays him, and he loses the fight in his muscles, falling limp.
"Why are ye here." He asks, voice tired. "I thought yer avoiding me again."
He feels fingers trail up his braid, the sensation driving a heat up his stomach. "I wasn't avoiding you."
Soap scoffs, attempting to shove at the confusing feelings in his gut, "aye, you were just workin' on yer disappearing act."
It sounds whiny when spoken out loud, the fact that not a full day apart digs into him with claws, as if he needs Ghost to be there at all hours of the day. In his defence, his absence in the past has solely meant bad.
But who's to say that, now that Ghost has more free will over his actions, he even wants to be around Soap?
The thought sours every previous one he had, and he huffs a self-deprecating laugh, "ye don't need to watch over me anymore, you know. Ye can just ignore Price's orders, doubt anyone will report you."
He expects Ghost to drop him, leave him shaking on the cool stone floor. Soap would understand him, even if it would hurt in a way he didn't think he could still feel after what he's been through.
Instead, the arms around him, his shield from the harsh world, tighten, and a robotic voice snarls in his ear, "what makes you think I'm here due to orders?"
At Soap's stunned silence, he continues, "you were the only one to treat me as an equal from the start. There is no one I trust as much as I trust you."
He… Trusts him? Better than anyone?
That feeling in his gut returns tenfold, a searing heat that rises from the tips of his toes to his head, and it wants out with a laugh or a cry, Soap barely keeping it locked inside.
Nobody… Soap is nobody's first choice, in anything. Not the best knight, nor squad-mate, not even friend. It is both horrifying and exhilarating that he's Ghost's most trusted person.
It nearly feels like a lie, and he would've argued against it, if he didn't trust Ghost as much in return.
Soap finally wraps his arms around Ghost as well, his shaky muscles protesting the motion, but he has no issue ignoring them. He grins so hard it hurts his cheeks, and raises his head to meet Ghost's eyes, smiling wider as he sees them already on him.
"Alright?" Ghost asks, and he has to let out a chuckle to dispel the pure glee it mounts in him.
"Aye," he feels his cheeks colour, a part of him embarrassed at his odd behaviour, "more than."
Ghost nods, and to Soap's dismay, loosens his hold on him, allowing him to sit and rest his legs. Soap notices his stiff posture, almost sensing a loss of direction now that he's made sure Soap is taken care of. "And you?"
"What?"
"Are you alright?"
Metal limbs shifting, Ghost takes long moments to answer. That hot burning in Soap's gut recedes, worry replacing it.
It can't be easy to face what Ghost is remembering, the little Soap is privy to terrifying by its own right, made all the more horrid by the fact it is from a life stolen from Ghost. Made forgotten by the hands of men who are dead, allowed to rest unlike the machine they created.
They were never supposed to meet, were things right, he realises. Soap wasn't supposed to be here, in a fort which does not match his own colours, and Ghost…
Ghost would've been long dead, or sentenced to roam the earth as a lifeless husk, until he was made dead.
Some ugly part in Soap is happy that their lives didn't go that way. If only so that their paths intersect, that they could reach this point, find a kinship in the other. It may be the most selfish thing he has ever thought, but he can't help it.
"There is something funny in it all." Ghost eventually says, garnering a confused look from Soap. "The fact I was a soldier. Was made for killing long before they replaced my parts with steel."
"Yer not merely a killing machine, Ghost." Soap objected fiercely, rising to shaky feet.
It doesn't convince Ghost, "the only thing I can remember is death. My role was to kill, or be killed, and it is no different now, is it?"
"You are not yer role!" Soap snarls, the idea Ghost is just some weapon making him want to scream.
He's so much greater than a simple blade to direct at enemies. His dead-pan humour, the way he goes out of his way to help Soap, his arms embracing him, strong enough to crush yet gentle, their caress on his skin a flitting kiss-
What in God's name is he thinking about?
Soap mentally shakes himself out of his mind, "and beside, you forgot one memory. The woman."
"That… That felt different."
"But she was familiar to you, right? You weren't born a soldier, a robot. There was a Ghost that had a family, friends, dreams and fears, because you are- You were human."
Ghost's stare leaves him, tracing the stone floors with a tilt to his head. "It doesn't feel that way. Most days."
"The more you remember, the more it will. I swore to help you, and come hell or high water, we will find out who ye are." Soap says, assured, "and we already found a lot, we just need to find some sort of database from before 2024 and search for ye."
"You say that as if it's easy." Ghost drawls, but his eyes lift once again.
Soap gives him his well practised cheeky grin, "psht, can't be that hard, couldn't have been that many British soldiers, not like ye were at war or anything."
"There were 183,000."
"183 what?!" Soap squawks, before gathering himself. "I mean- Like I said, it can't be that hard."
SYSTEM DIAGNOSTICS RUNNING… 9 ERRORS FOUND
AETHERIUM INHIBITOR STATUS: NORMAL
CURRENT LOCATION: 52.056°N 2.716°W
CURRENT OBJECTIVE: AWAITING ORDERS
The sky is cloudless, a vast blue stretching infinite above Ghost. He wonders just how many times he saw these same skies, what they used to remind him when the make of his mind was still whole.
Every new piece of himself confuses him further. Memories of a life that was his, in some ways, and in others not. He is not the person that broke out of that coffin, suffered endless torture, the scars of each and every of his battles erased.
Just how much of a person can you replace until they're not the same being anymore?
He doesn't feel like that nameless soldier, but a base version of him fears all the same. The name of his tormentor still invokes rage in him and the soldier, his face making him itch to bury his knife into a malicious grin.
Would he like whoever he was? Was he even a good person? Violence seems like an afterthought for him, the soldier, a mentality that ignores blood no matter where it drips from.
Who is Ghost now, anyway? A machine has no sense of self. You cannot say a blade is adventurous, or playful. You cannot say a gun is timid, or envious.
The program in his head can't answer any of those questions. It knows to follow orders, and to kill. Nothing more.
And isn't that what a soldier is, at their core?
Ghost watches the banners adorning the fort's wall flutter in the wind, threads shimmering in summer sun. The decorations, tassels and bells and glyphs, meant for the knighting trial that must've ended moments ago.
Watches as a figure steps closer, armour clinking, his face stern.
"Soap has been looking for you." Gaz says in lieu of a greeting.
It doesn't surprise him, but the reminder of the knight he is supposed to protect ricochets inside his chest, firing off all sorts of sensations. "Does he require my assistance?"
Gaz sighs, his helm tucked under his arm, "how would I know, he practically ran away after we sent off the squires to their trials. What are you doing here?"
"… Thinking."
"Lots to think about, I'd bet…" Gaz trails off, shifting in place. He's looking at him as if he's expecting something, so Ghost lets out the topic they have ignored since returning from Mexico.
"Were you lying to me about getting hurt?"
Gaz rolls his eyes with a rough exhale, "wasn't bloody lying, it wasn't- I had it sorted. Dealt with worse before." He rubs at his right wrist, a place that on Ghost's scanner has the highest concentration of Aetherium, out of the rest of Gaz's body.
And it tracks, since that is where his gauntlet, the instrument that allows Aether specialists to harness Aetherium as a weapon, would be located.
Ghost's database pulls up the file on Aetherium resistance tests, ones each child between the ages 8-12 has to go through to determine if they're fit to be knights.
'Tests' is a big word for the event, where each is given a piece of Aetherium to hold, and a stopwatch is started, checking for how long the children can withstand the corrupting material until it begins hurting them.
According to the intel he had gathered in his time in the British Fort, Aether specialists score extremely high on Aetherium resistance tests. It is also the reason Ghost cannot compute a different explanation for Gaz's reaction to the Abomination's attack, because if he was not hurt, that would mean…
"Your Aetherium resistance score." Ghost says, testing his theory.
Gaz's shoulders hike up, "what about it?"
"They were low. Lower than fit for an Aether specialist. That is why the Aetherium beam was enough to down you."
Dropping his gaze, Gaz huffs a mirthless laugh. "Almost got it." He looks up, to the same skies Ghost has been searching his answers in for long minutes. As if salvation waits for either of them there. "My scores were too low to be taken into knighthood at all."
"How many minutes?"
"Two and 53 seconds." Gaz clutches the helm at his side, as if someone would take his title from him for admitting the truth. "The lowest a knight can score is three," he grits out bitterly.
He was rejected for a difference of seven seconds, in an ability he has no control over, and cannot train to improve. Aetherium resistance is hereditary, and a mostly unexplained phenomenon where some are simply better at.
"But you were accepted into the Order." Ghost tilts his head down, staring at each minor expression passing by Gaz's eyes. It is still hard for him to tell one emotion from another, but there is a yawning emptiness in them.
Gaz blinks, his breath stuttering on an exhale, "I was, purely because Captain Price vouched for me. Had to work doubly as hard to be knighted. And even then, anyone that knows just how weak my body is against Aetherium looks down upon me, as if they're bloody better for having a trait they were born with."
The furrow of his brows, the strained tone in his voice, those Ghost knows well. He's angry. "Who knows, then?"
"The Captain, obviously," Gaz huffs, straightening back into his practised stature, "my instructors, and the knights who studied with me as squires, all Aether specialists. The sole reason Soap doesn't know is because they probably hate him more than me."
"You don't want to tell Soap." Ghost remarks his observation.
"I- He doesn't need to know." Gaz scoffs, "it makes no difference to our work, not until I succumb to corruption, which I still have at least 5 years according to the healers."
The underlying message is clear. He doesn't trust Soap. Not with his greatest weakness.
A gloved finger extends to point at his chest, "and you better not tell him."
Ghost regards it coolly, "Understood."
Gaz's arm drops, switching to hold his helm. "Right," he nods to himself, "I have to return my armour. I suppose I will see you when we receive another quest."
"Affirmative." Before Gaz leaves, however, Ghost remembers what he told him at the start of the conversation, "do you know where Soap could be?"
Without looking back, Gaz says, "I'm not the one that follows him everywhere he goes, you'd know better than me!"
"So if we take one minute to look through each soldier, and we divide the work evenly between the four of us, it would take…" Soap's mouth twists in thought, "well, an hour has 60 minutes, so it would be… 1440 minutes a day…"
Ghost silently listens as Soap attempts to calculate an estimate, his system solving the equation five seconds into his monologue. Still, the voice at the back of his head is pleased at seeing him calm, the shake in his limbs subsiding as he rests.
Soap's knee will likely give him trouble for the next few days, the idiot overworking practically every muscle in his body, but Ghost is assured that his objective to help him was completed successfully.
"-So it would take about 750 hours to comb through most of the database!" Soap grins up at him from the floor, "wait, how many days would that be-"
"31.25, according to your calculation, but you were rounding down. It's 31.8."
"I was close- 31 days?!"
"Assuming we can read through a file and determine a soldier isn't me in one minute. And you didn't take into consideration the fact I was likely enlisted before 2024, which would add about-"
Soap cuts him off with a wave, "alright so maybe it will take a wee bit longer, surely we can shave off a few days with the rest of the information we know!" Before Ghost can give him the estimate his system informed him with, Soap pouts, "don't actually answer that."
Looking to the side, Ghost gets an idea, "taking everything into account, the number is 1278."
Mouth dropping open in a silent scream, Soap sputters, "there's no steamin' way- Wait, are ye fuckin' with me?"
Something light finds a home in his chest at the smile spreading across Soap's face, "the action 'fuckin' with ye' doesn't exist in my system."
"Oh you are, you bawbag!" Soap gives Ghost's leg a little push, which does absolutely nothing to his stance. "Think yer funny, huh?"
"They programmed me with only the pinnacle of comedy."
"No," Soap's smile softens, "I think that's all from ye."
The words are painfully sincere, and as he turns them over and over in his mind, Ghost retreats into silence. Soap doesn't seem to mind, falling back to lay on the stone floor, the sweat on his skin cooling off.
How can you tell, Ghost almost asks, which parts of me are still human?
But disrupting the peace settling between them would be a crime in both his system's and his own mind's opinion, so he doesn't give his thoughts a sound. They pester him regardless, and Ghost reasons Soap has an ability others, including himself, don't possess.
The capacity to see metal and code, and find the husk of a human buried beneath.
A part of him wants so desperately to learn it himself, if only to draw clear lines between the robotic voice of men long dead ordering his every move, and the whispering of the soldier, the human, he was before.
Ghost lowers himself to sit beside Soap, one blue-grey eye opening to grin at him.
Perhaps it is fine if he can't learn, though, if Soap is there to tell him, continuously, that he is more than the voices in his head.
The tolling of heavy bells breaks the gentle calm, deep and loud. Ghost has yet to hear them in this pattern, almost frantic as they go on for long moments, Soap rising with alarm.
"Something is wrong." He mutters, rushing to stand on shaky legs. Ghost catches his arm, attempting to offer him support, but Soap pushes off him instantly. "It must be the squires, I know the trials are never easy, but the bells aren't rung unless…" He exhales roughly, "we need to go to the tear walls."
"Understood." Ghost follows Soap's lead, ready to catch him if he falls.
Knows he'd run to the ends of the earth, to keep the honour of staying behind him.
Excerpt from John "Soap" MacTavish's journal, page 95 ("GHOST"):
Necromechanic - Chapter 12: A Knight Who Knows Not Their Past, is Blind to Their Future
[PREV CHAPTER] [AO3]
Writing Gary who's a bit of an asshole is quite fun, they can't all play nice can they...
Soap swears his boot is going to leave a hole in Gary's room. His leg has been bouncing up and down for the last 10 minutes incessantly, the rubber of his sole rubbing off on the white tiles until they turn black.
Gary seems content typing some shit on his computer, refusing to tell him anything regarding his findings. Ghost, as unreadable as ever, stays still by his side as they wait for Gaz, who was probably on the other side of the damn fort when they were called, as luck would have it.
He leans over to Ghost, whispering, "did they give ye the ability to get information from computers without touching them?"
"Are you referring to hacking?"
"Aye, aye, hacking, can you hack Gary's computer?"
Ghost turns to stare at his hopeful expression, "no."
Soap throws his head back, groaning, right as the door opens.
"finally!" He exclaims loudly, startling Gaz as he walks in.
"Bloody hell, I didn't take that long to arrive!" Gaz huffs, his stare flicking from Soap to Gary.
Soap opens his mouth to interject, but the text-to-speech voice Gary uses cuts him off, "now that you're all here, I think it's time we get into it, yeah?"
The light teasing he had prepared on his tongue dies, a cooler demeanour growing in its place. He, Ghost and Gaz turn to look at Gary, who drags his chair aside to reveal what he's been working on all this time.
They step closer, Soap skimming through the lines of text on screen. It looks to be some sort of transcript, someone speaking of the G.H.O.S.T. Project. Before he can ask exactly what they're looking at, Gary levels them with a piercing stare.
"I have here information regarding Ghost's past. Was I correct in assuming that's important to you?"
"You-? Yes! This is what we need, thank you-"
The text disappears with the click of a button, a blank slate reflecting Soap's surprised face.
"Not so fast," Gary leans back, eyes trailing Ghost's metal body, "I'm not doing this for free, am I?"
A light smile graces Gary's lips, a curve that would once make Soap return the gesture, but now only invokes rage.
He steps in front of Ghost, breaking his line of sight, "yer a fuckin' prick and a reprobate, ye low scum. Ye can't just withhold his own memories from him!"
Gary's expression sours, "I'm not withholding anything, Soap. I'm asking for an exchange."
"Yer askin' for my fist to land right up yer arse-"
Soap growls as cold fingers wrap around his shoulder, nudging him aside. "What do you want from me?" Ghost asks, tone flat.
He's about to jump between them again, but Gaz shakes his head. "Let him decide, that's what you wanted." He whispers, and God does Soap hate that he's right.
For good and bad, Ghost can choose to risk himself, just like any other human being. Doesn't mean he'll fucking sit in silence and watch him be extorted for information that by all means should be freely given to him, though.
"Ye don't have to answer to him, Ghost." Soap says, hoping he'll refuse to play into this sick game.
Ghost, however, simply answers, "I know."
Gary, for his part, huffs, "right. Ghost, can you give me your forearm? Want to check your system more… Closely."
The metal plate on his arm flips open, wires connecting to it with a swift movement. Lines of code crawl across the screen, and an odd feeling in Soap's gut urges him to look away. If someone would've done the same to him, open up his skull and scour through his thoughts, he'd be furious, scared, mortified.
But for Ghost, this must've been a daily occurrence, back in the lab that made him into what he is today.
"Hmm…" Gary's fingers fly over his keyboard, "I'm gonna run a query through your internal database, might make it hard for you to talk for a minute there."
"What is it going to d-d-d-d-d-" Ghost's voice glitches, getting stuck on the same syllable over and over.
New windows open themselves on Gary's computer, Gary's frown deepening, all the while Soap watches in horror as Ghost struggles to speak.
"Sanders-s-s-s-" Ghost grinds out, "do not go ther-r-r-r-"
Soap can't watch this anymore, "Gary, isn't this enough?!"
Gary doesn't seem to hear him, "you were hiding quite a lot from me, haven't you… So many error codes, missing reports to H.Q…."
Ghost shudders, the vents at his side opening wider to allow the visibly steaming air out.
"Oh, interesting." Gary remarks, "tell me what happened today. This is an order."
Flashes of Ghost straddling an unmoving corpse, blade stabbing at it again and again, pass by Soap's vision. The growls emanating from under the steel skull on his face, his real voice scratchy and choppy. The fear, that chases Ghost everywhere, that shines brighter than any emotion he has displayed since he began remembering how to.
The way he didn't want to tell Soap what happened, and despite his own mind begging to know, if only to dissuade it from worrying, Soap would not force it out of him.
Gary doesn't have such qualms.
Unable to disobey a direct order yet, Ghost answers.
"Enemy sighted in Mexico, location 28°29′30.32″N 100°55′10.19″W. Human."
"Human?" Gaz mutters to himself, reflecting Soap's own questions.
"Who did you see?" Gary asks, fingers halting their incessant typing.
A low clicking sound fills the room, at odds with the mechanical ambiance of Ghost and Gary's computer. Soap realises what they are instantly.
Teeth.
Impatient, Gary asks again, "Who did you see, Ghost, this is an order-"
"ROBA." Ghost's speakers let out, just as a growl claws out of his throat.
Any more of this, and Ghost may fall into the same trance that took over him in the quest. Soap springs forth, taking hold of the wires attaching Gary to Ghost's inner parts, intending to disconnect them lest this room becomes a battlefield.
Before he can yank it loose, Gary types, "don't!"
"Why shouldn't I?!"
"His inhibitor is unstable! Only thing that's keeping him docile is the bloody connection!"
Ghost's arms shake, loosening his hold. Soap switches to grasping his shoulders, steadying him. "Ghost, yer alright, yer safe-!"
"1.86 metres tall, black hair, brown eyes, head of the Zaragoza Cartel-" Ghost's robotic voice recites, the gnashing of a hidden jaw constant. "Mission failed, captured, Captain Sparks, dead, Lieutenant Washington, dead, Major Vernon-" another deep growl cuts him off.
Soap turns to shout at Gary, "ye can't do anything to help him?!"
"I never saw anything like this happen!" Gary says, a look of newfound horror spreading on his face.
Gaz flinches as Ghost's head move erratically, twitching towards sounds they can't hear, "can't you- I don't know, surge him with Aetherium?"
"This isn't a bloody disciple attack, Garrick!" Gary retorts.
Ghost's shoulders hike abruptly, pushing Soap back. He teeters, the lights laced across his metal plates blinking wildly.
And all at once, shut down, Ghost growing lax.
Soap's breath stutters, "G-Ghost?" He whispers.
Ghost doesn't react, even the scraping of teeth against metal gone. Soap hazards a touch, a little shake to his shoulder, and received nothing in return.
"Soap," Gaz says, pointing at the computer, "look."
Darkness flashes across the screen, a grating static accompanying as it shifts. Lines become shapes become faces, and a picture draws itself with light.
"What… What is this, Gary?"
"I don't-"
"English," a man opens the door to the room, a knife in his hand. The image is in sharp black and white, but even then Soap can tell the blade is bloodied, "did you miss me?"
Whoever the man is talking to doesn't respond, instead lowering their gaze to stare at their feet. They're bound to a chair, scars and open wounds criss-crossing on pale skin. The image melts, static growing louder, as the knife begins dragging on their left thigh.
The next scene pulls a gasp out of Soap. A corpse, badly decayed, lit by a small flame. A hand slides into the mouth of the body, pulling down, again and again, until it snaps. And then, their view turns, a wooden wall blocking every angle. The image glitches as the jaw is slammed into one, picture breaking into lines of code as the hand hits the wood.
The next thing they see is the sky, stars shining brightly above. There's a breathing in his ears, heavy and loud, and Soap realises whoever it is, they're crying.
It tugs at his heart, the anguish of those sobs, one that can only be born of great pain, great loss.
He leans closer to the screen, as if he could reach a hand, comfort them.
A pop jolts him, the room plunging into darkness. He hears someone shuffle behind him, and a few moments pass before the light returns.
Blinking away the spots dancing by his vision as the bright lights blind him, Soap finds Gary out of his chair, next to a breaker box. He grabs his keyboard, left on his desk, to type, "what the fuck."
"That couldn't have been what I think it is... Right?" Gaz mutters with uncertainty. "We didn't just watch someone break out of a grave…"
"It wasn't just someone…" Soap presses his hand into Ghost's shoulder, feeling the light ticking of his mechanic organs, beating and keeping him alive. He needs the reminder, that he is alive. "Those were memories - Ghost's memories."
"How can you tell-"
"He said he was captured. And that man, the one with the knife, that must've been Roba."
A startle passes through Ghost's body at the name, weak snarl cutting itself off before it could fully form.
Gaz lowers his gaze, brows furrowing with thought, "was that why he reacted like that in Mexico? When Captain Vargas told us of the buried zombies. It makes sense…"
"How could a person do such thing to another human…" Soap lets out through gritted teeth, attempting to wake ghost with gentle shakes.
"People still kill other people, Soap. The world outside of the Orders isn't all that pretty." Gary says, a grim expression unfitting for his features over his face.
The lights on Ghost's body blink brighter, whirring sounds strengthening as his sensors come to life. His passing into consciousness is not smooth, a stutter to his limbs as he begins moving once more. His eyes find Soap, and stay there for long moments, their shape lost as the lights around his skull plate settle into their usual bright glow.
Soap knows he's back into full awareness when a quick hand finds the wire still connecting him to Gary's computer, and unceremoniously detaches it.
"What did you do to me." Ghost demands, any softness in his voice eradicated.
"I wish I fucking knew," Gary types one-handed, the other reaching for his mouse, scouring the code that Ghost's memories left half-burnt into the screen, "that was… Incredible."
Incredible wouldn't be the word he'd use to describe it, Soap thinks. Terrifying, heartbreaking, infuriating, all would be more suitable.
Ghost's arm swings down to slam on Gary's desk, only for it to stop inches from the wooden surface. The display of inhuman control of his own movements, never allowed to act according to his emotions, tugs at Soap's heart. "Explain, Sanderson."
Gary blows a puff of air, irritated, "I can only theorise, because again, as far as I know we never saw anything like this in your testing, but it looked like we were able to see your memories play out on my computer."
At Ghost's silence, he continues, "it's a shame I didn't record them, not that it's much use to us-"
"To you." Soap glares at him, and his fingers stop typing. He looks over Ghost, his still form unreadable, "how much- Did ye see those memories as well?"
"I did. They were the same I saw in Mexico."
The same things he refused to talk about with Soap, now pried open for all to see. Even the little he wants to keep to himself, he isn't allowed.
Soap didn't want to learn it this way, steal the memories from Ghost's mind. Guilt eats at him the more he thinks of it, and anger at the calmness at which Ghost accepts it. He should be shouting and kicking down walls, but he can't.
Gaz clears his throat, his expression frowned, "we do know a few things about who Ghost was, from this. Do you think it's enough to… Identify him?"
"We don't even know when he was born…" Soap mutters, reigning in his fury for now.
Gary's keyboard clicks loudly as he types, "about that…"
SYSTEM DIAGNOSTICS RUNNING… 74 ERRORS FOUND (35 IGNORED)
AETHERIUM INHIBITOR STATUS: CAUTION
CURRENT LOCATION: 52.056°N 2.716°W
CURRENT OBJECTIVE: AWAITING ORDERS
He could feel the knife drag across his thigh. Feel those hands grab at him, pull his skin open. Sense the coldness of Vernon's mouth, the resistance of the jaw until it gave.
Ghost didn't think he could still feel so much.
The flashes aren't forming a full picture in his mind yet, holes in time hiding their true meaning. What they do tell him, is that he went under the knife earlier than he first thought.
Soap said he believed the world before the Aether invaded was good. And from their perspective, it likely was better, no monsters to roam desolate cities. Humanity's worst threat was itself, and the only kind of war was a war among men.
Soap underestimated the evil a human being can inflict on another.
He's staring at him now, steely blue eyes never leaving his, full of rage and something he can't name. It frustrates him, because he knows he used to be able to tell one emotion from the other, feel more than the bursts of fear his regained memories leave him with.
The image of what he once was steps ever closer to him, and it taunts him. Slips between his metal fingers like the dirt of a grave.
Sanderson opens a file on his computer, the screen still half-burnt with afterimages of his frantic code. He lost his jovial demeanour when Ghost came back online, and it doesn't bother him in the slightest, unlike Gaz and Soap's.
"I got my hands on some of my grandpa's files," Sanderson begins, "some of them were in bad shape, half corrupted, but even a fraction of them is priceless, considering they're voice recordings."
Gaz's brows furrow deeper, "how do they relate to Ghost?"
Sanderson blinks, his mouth gaping for a moment, "you don't know who my grandfather is??"
"The infamous Jack Sanderson, founder of J.S. Systems, we don't give a rat's arse Gary." Soap grunts, short with him.
"As well as the lead researcher on the G.H.O.S.T. project, which was the reason J.S. Systems was founded in the first place." Gary glares at Soap, who opens his mouth to talk, only to be stopped by Gary's hand. "These logs are probably going to answer any questions you have better than me, considering these recordings come from someone that worked with my grandpa while the G.H.O.S.T. project was at its infancy."
Gary presses a button on his keyboard, and the room is filled with static, sentences half chopped and nearly illegible.
"Tests on the new Inhibitor systems are going- no reaction yet-"
The voice is of an adult, British man, and doesn't match any of the ones Ghost has in his database. His system continues analysing it, as the man says something that takes him off-guard.
"-Ghost, run system check!"
A second voice begins talking, a familiar mechanic cadence that Ghost is well-versed in. The accent doesn't match his, but the words are ones he's been trained to recite since he knew how to speak.
"Running system check… Inhibitor- Aetherium charge: 97%- no abnormal brain activity detected."
"That doesn't sound like our Ghost," Soap says, eyes narrowed at the screen.
Gary shushes him, "keep listening!"
"Haven't modified the voice yet- have to find- Manc accent- from Ghost, so I can tune-"
The recording pauses, Gary excitably looking at Soap, "Heard that? He said he's going to give Ghost a different accent!"
Gaz leans closer, "how do you know it's this Ghost, though? Aren't there many of them?"
Before Gary can answer, Ghost interjects, "not anymore. I'm the only one left."
He has vague memories of the others, from a time his system was still unrefined. The others never spoke, never moved by their own volition, and were no more than robots with decaying flesh as their core.
Ghost doesn't understand exactly what separates him from those others. Why he wasn't scrapped.
He doesn't feel too different to them, some days.
"Keep going." Soap presses his lips thin, hands gripping the desk. Gary obeys.
"I don't know when- clean him a bit, his mouth- on his jaw-"
"This part was badly corrupted, I can't tell what he's talking about towards the end." Gary comments as the recording glitches.
Soap exhales roughly, "who the fuck is this anyway?"
Gary shakes his head, "didn't find a recording with a name yet."
The recording spits out a few more words, before fizzling out. Gary taps his fingers on the side of his keyboard, until he types, "to answer your question, Kyle, we don't know enough about Ghost yet to find out who he is, but there's a few clues this recording gives us."
"He's… Manc? Like, from Manchester?" Gaz says, "and… Something about his jaw needed cleaning?"
"He was also captured. In Mexico." Soap adds, features hardened, "said something about Lieutenants and Captains… Those are military terms, right?"
Gary nods, "we know one more thing, from the date of this recording. I honestly thought it was a mistake at first, but thinking about it, it lined up with what my grandpa told me."
pushing himself to the side, Gary points at his computer, the date reading 'APRIL 26TH, 2024'.
"Ghost must've been born before the Aether invaded Earth."
Excerpt from John "Soap" MacTavish's journal, page 93 ("ROBA"):
I realized I haven't painted anything in a while so I decided to warm up by redoing my profile pic (and by warm up I mean sit down and paint for a good few hours lol)
It's nice to see my progress in terms of lighting and form, Soap looks much more badass now
Also I thought the sketch turned out interesting when I applied a gradient map to it, so here's that:
Necromechanic - Chapter 11: We Carve Paths of Sigil and Glyph
[PREV CHAPTER] [AO3]
The uploads are inching closer to the backlog every week, don't know for how much longer I'll be able to keep up the weekly updates, but I'll let you know if anything changes!
"This is the place," Captain Vargas announces, pointing at a cave at the side of the sink hole. Soap counts 23 zombies and 5 manglers before he gives up, the numbers simply too high. "Our mechanic is in there."
"We should be close enough that the communication channels will pick up her signal…" Soap mutters to himself.
Sir Parra sighs beside him, "yes, but she hasn't answered us since we split. It's likely that parts of her armour were damaged in the fight."
The other possible explanation is left unsaid.
"Do any of you use Energy Charge?" Captain Price asks Captain Vargas and Sir Parra.
"I do," Sir Parra responds, "an explosion might disperse the horde enough for you to carve a way through… You will have to act quickly."
"So nothing new…" The Captain huffs, "right, we will move as close as we can, give you a signal when to activate your field talent."
Sir Parra nods, drawing an arrow from his quiver and nocking it. He must have pressed something on his armour or bow, because in a flash the tip of the arrow bursts with a pale blue light.
"May your blades strike true," he tells them, aiming at the mouth of the hollow.
Captain Vargas gives his arm a light squeeze, "and your arrows." He rolls his neck, starting towards the horde, "let us slay some monsters, ey?"
Soap unsheathes his swords, exhaustion beginning to set into his bones, his body moving on muscle memory alone.
Silently, they rush from cover to cover, reaching about 30 paces from the nearest zombie. As Soap scans the entrance to the hollow, noting it is blocked by still-smoking debris, Captain Vargas says on the comm line, "shoot them down, Rudy!"
Light slices across the red skies, an arrow piercing the air, crackling following it until it hits the ground, a blast going off.
Zombies who had the misfortune to stand next to it are reduced to ashes in a blink of an eye, their bodies unable to handle such concentrated amount of Aetherium. The rest, well, they turn to stare at them, before snarling and dragging their rotting feet through the dry earth.
"Focus on getting to the other side, give the mechanic a way out!" Price shouts, unsheathing his broadsword and allowing the shield attached to his left brace to unfold.
Soap splits away from him, taking on the right side of the horde. He dodges a mangler's cannon shot, swinging his blades and cutting heads off necks.
Captain Vargas rushes ahead of them, his formidable weapon taking on several enemies at a time. A few arrows follow his wake, killing any zombies grabbing for them.
A couple of melee-armed manglers recognise what they're trying to reach, and with a blood-curdling shriek sprint to Captain Vargas. Soap watches, screaming on comms, "Captain, watch out-!"
Before the mechanical beast can reach him, a small projectile hits its head with incredible speed, the mangler swivelling around to growl at the newcomer.
Soap tracks its gaze, to a knight standing tall atop the rubble blocking the hollow, a slingshot in her hands. She takes aim again, swinging a glowing stone at her target, and Soap is surprised when such small rock manages to break the mangler's armour, temporarily downing it.
"¡Alejandro! ¿Desde cuándo eres tan descuidado?" The knight yells, sliding down to the ground.
Captain Vargas laughs madly, "¡Debería decírtelo!" He calls back.
"Is that your mechanic?" Soap grunts as he dislodges his sword from another corpse.
Captain Vargas helps him as a zombie tries to take advantage of his short stop, "yes! That's Valeria, Dame Garza for you!"
"Damn right, chiquito!" Dame Garza laughs, her slingshot spinning wildly as she shoots at the horde.
With the combined power of all 5 of them, the horde is slain within minutes, a false calm falling over the crater.
"I've called Gaz and Ghost to us," Captain Price says, collapsing his shield into his brace, "I don't doubt the disciples have already noticed our presence."
"Yes," Sir Parra mutters, "it remains to be seen if they deem killing us more important than what they're trying to do."
"Ye have any theories?" Soap asks, figuring an Aether specialist must have a better idea than any of them.
His extended silence says otherwise, "… there have been some concerning finds here in Mexico. Aether tears spanning five Greater Abominations. I dare not say what I think, because I don't want to be proven right."
Soap's attention shifts to the disciples, the shepherds of evil. He wants to ask Sir Parra more, but the mere sight of the forming tear brings a shiver to his spine.
He hasn't been in the wretched realm since he was relocated. Mostly by Price's decree, as despite how much Soap hides from him, the Captain can tell he is struggling every single quest. Part of him wants to leap in, show both Price and the Aether itself he isn't afraid, that he was not beat that day.
They know he is, though. Afraid, and beat, the scars on his body to prove it.
"I am likely wrong," Sir Parra adds in a comforting voice, "been told I can be a bit… Pessimistic."
Soap gives him a chuckle in return, "yes, but the work often forces us to be rather pessimistic."
"Perhaps," Sir Parra shrugs, "the way I view it, part of our duty is to hold onto hope, that we can change things for the better."
Under the helm, Soap frowns, lips dragging downward.
Outwardly, he nods, a firm voice with a certainty he doesn't have answering, "aye, and it's a duty I gladly take."
A weight removes itself from his chest as Ghost and Gaz appear from behind a ridge in the sink hole, sliding down its sides. Soap didn't realise just how much he was worried about them until that constricting feeling was gone.
"Hope Soap wasn't too bothersome on you all!" Gaz says over comms, and Soap colourfully curses at him until the Captain admonishes him.
Sir Parra, surprisingly for Soap, answers, "he's talented at combat for a mechanic, if you don't need him, he should relocate to our Order."
For a mechanic. Soap elects to ignore the first part of the sentence, knowing Sir Parra doesn't know just how insulting it is to him, instead laughing.
"No, we wouldn't want to break apart this dream squad, would we?" Gaz huffs, the slightest tinge of sarcasm to his words, a fraction of the amount usually present in compliments directed at him.
Ghost's eyes are locked onto Soap. He gives him a nod, Ghost returning it with a small movement, likely missed by the other knights. It's near insane to think such thing, with the rigid metal plating that makes Ghost's face, but something tells Soap he is as happy to see him as himself.
"I'm glad to see you're fine, son," Captain Price pats Gaz on his shoulder, giving him a little shake, "right, about time we do what we were sent to, yes?"
"Of course," Captain Vargas steps forth, "I want to get our Aether specialists as close to the forming tear as possible. Rudy has already analysed everything he can from afar, and the only way we can rule how dangerous this situation is, is by taking a risk."
"Nothing gained without a risk, is it?" Dame Garza rolls her shoulders, her slingshot spinning idly. "Me and chiquito will keep an eye on the manglers, the rest will be up to you."
"I have a name…" Soap grouses, Gaz barking a laugh before Price's stare shuts him down with a silent 'this is not the time for that'.
"We'll follow your lead, Captain Vargas." Price says after a few seconds.
From his voice, Soap can tell Captain Vargas grins when he replies, "then we shall win over this endeavour as well, hermanos."
Dame Garza is unlike other mechanics he has worked with in the past. If it wasn't extremely unlikely, Soap would think she had a similar past to his, with her prowess in weapon wielding.
Rather than taking the backstage their role is supposed to serve in a squad, she almost competes with Captain Vargas and Sir Parra for kills, pushing the line of attack aggressively. None could say she is lesser than her squad mates, not when her slingshot shoots out faster than any Aetherium weapon Soap has ever seen.
"Manglers to our right, no glyphs!" Dame Garza shouts, hailing down violet rocks at the approaching enemies.
Soap runs ahead, his leg screaming but his blood sings louder, and with a dodge he rolls behind the first of the manglers, using the distraction Dame Garza provides him to jump, slashing down at the monster's nape.
He's on the next mangler before the former falls.
Together, they fell a dozen manglers in as many minutes, the two squads melding perfectly on the battlefield. The closer they get, however, the more enemies rise to meet their blades, disciples sending hordes left and right.
It wears on Soap, and just as he's about to throw caution to the wind and activate his field talent, Price yells to them.
"Activating Healing Aura, keep fighting, we're close to the centre!"
A green hue explodes over the reddish fog of the sink hole, pushing against the air like a sonic boom. The wave hits him a couple of seconds later, Soap inhales sharply as it pierces through his suit straight into his veins, a shot of Aetherium-made adrenaline coursing into him.
With renewed vigour, he slams into the next mangler, exhilarated to see the metal bastard tip over from the sheer force of him.
A sword to the neck, another to the eye socket, and the mangler is dead.
God, did he miss being this strong.
Laughing, Soap drops to a slide on his right leg, dragging his blades through a mass of zombies, limbs flying off in every which direction.
He loses himself in the battle, the simple act of slashing and stabbing until everything around him falls dead. Almost two decades of training his body to become a honed weapon mean he doesn't even need to think of the next move, his arms and legs working faster than his mind.
Cut, stab, pull back. Track the mangler to your right, avoid its blade, slash at the arm until it falls, attack its head until it pops.
Soap nearly misses Captain Vargas' words, as blood flows freely between him and the earth.
"Halt! The epicentre is up ahead, Rudy, Sir Garrick, start scanning!"
The knights switch from an arrow-like formation to a semi-circle, protecting Sir Parra and Gaz as they use their gauntlets to comb the ground for signs of disciple activity. Any glyphs they find could tell them what is the Aether's plan here, and give them something to report to their Watchers.
Ghost stands beside him, his flurry of knives hitting any zombie that dares shamble an inch too close. Soap never stopped marvelling at his prowess, the accuracy at which his every move is executed, a perfect war machine.
It is soured by the knowledge that, unlike him, it wasn't borne from repeated hours of schooling, but a forced programming.
None of them chose to be knights, but they all chose to take their oaths.
Gaz passes behind them, the humming of his gauntlet loud in his ears. He knows it's him, because in the next moment, Gaz curses.
"God above, save us…" He mutters lowly, his tone sharpening, "Sir Parra, I found a sigil!"
Soap's blood runs cold.
"Mierda! which kind?"
"Elder…"
Memories of that day rush into his veins, the last time he saw the Aether, the realm of carved bones and desecrated corpses, of abhorrent beasts clothed in scales and blood, the last image of his squad mate well and safe holding that very same sigil…
An Elder Sigil is a summoning sign for an Aether tear, directed to bring whoever wishes so to the location of an Aether worm.
A disciple has no reason to use it, unless it was trying to…
"Captain…" Soap growls, kicking a zombie away for Ghost to down.
Price's voice doesn't waver, even at the face of such atrocity, "do you Aether specialists need anything else from here or can we leave?!"
Sir Parra grunts, "if we can find glyphs, we may be able to understand why the disciples would use such thing-!"
The dirt shakes beneath their feet, Soap losing his balance, saved only by Ghost's grasp. A bright light blinds all of them, and as he's blinking spots from his vision, he looks up.
Five Aether tears slash through the sky, malformed shapes of Abomination crawling out of them, and above them float the disciples, their arms stretched forward, a shriek tearing from their throats. Hordes rise to their will, and soon Soap's world reduces to the Aether alone.
"We need to run…" He whispers, fear clawing at his neck. "WE NEED TO RUN!"
Soap turns to see Sir Parra rush back closer to his squad, Captain Vargas closing the distance with a few quick steps, "Sir MacTavish is right! We do not have the numbers to face off this army!"
"I don't know which tear is closest to here!" Gaz yells, gaze stuck on the fracturing heavens.
Sir Parra switches the dial on his gauntlet, reciting glyphs to open an Aether tear, "Arkazor, Shubbozor, Arkamar!"
"Got it, drawing!" Gaz reaches into thin air along with Sir Parra, and drags his gauntlet downward, a trail of purple glow following it.
And they're helpless as flesh warped by evil and malice descends upon them, the melody of far-off screams invading their very bones. And Soap falters, his mind carving lines into the fog, a lengthening shape that grows, and grows, revealing itself to be… A worm…
He remembers the smell, penetrating his armour, remembers the scales beneath his blades, organs spitting molten violet at him, the twist, the fall, the crash, the break.
The loudness of it all.
Thudding steps sound closer and closer, voices from above singing, mouths growling, teeth chattering.
Soap nearly falls to his knees at the despair, when salvation opens its doors.
"Tear is open, go, NOW!" Gaz shouts, jumping in, Sir Parra following. Captain Vargas and Dame Garza rush past him, their forms swallowed by Aether light.
A hand catches his shoulder, "come on, son, go!"
Captain Price drags him forth, Ghost at his rear, and Soap reaches an arm forward, grasping at the tear until he too, is consumed by it.
The after-image of sharp teeth devouring him whole doesn't escape him.
"Everyone safe and accounted for?" Captain Vargas asks, a severity to his voice.
Captain Price nods, the brim of his helm lowering with his head, "thank the Heavens… This development won't be pleasing to our Watchers."
"And neither will it be to ours." Sir Parra sighs, holstering his weapon, "it is worse than I feared."
"Don't be so depressing, Rudy," Dame Garza scoffs, "we defeated the sovereign beasts once, the Aether cannot withstand us."
"Easy to say…" Sir Parra mutters in return, which Dame Garza appears to ignore.
Soap himself doesn't dare have that kind of confidence anymore. As a young knight, he was so sure in the power of the Order, trusted his Captain to never lead him astray.
He soon discovered the control he had on his own fate was merely a mirage.
Soap's eyes snap to the sigil as Sir Parra takes it out of his pack, the medallion-shaped object pulling all Aetherium in the air towards it, faint lines of violet spiralling the inscription at its surface. The sight of it makes his teeth grit.
He offers it to Gaz, "I will have to present this to my Watchers as we found it on our grounds, but you can examine it as you wish for the time being."
Gaz leans in, handling the sigil with care, "it's rare I get to see them so closely… Do you know to which Worm this leads?"
Does it matter, he growls inwardly, they're all equally deadly.
As Soap stares daggers at the damned piece of metal, Ghost sidles to his side, a presence to cut through the horrors his mind supplies him with.
He feels foolish having them, when Ghost was losing control not an hour ago. It doesn't matter what happened to him in the past, how scared he is, when there is someone he needs to save.
Yes, that should be his objective, and his own cowardly fears do not matter. As a knight, he can't allow himself to have them, neither physical nor mental anguish shall be a hurdle to his true purpose. This is what he was created and built for.
Ghost presses his shoulder to him, a silent reassurance Soap does not need.
He presses back anyway, comforting him in the only way he can with this many eyes on them.
Eventually, blessedly, Gaz hands the accursed sigil back to Sir Parra, their discussion concluding with no clear answers. Soap wishes he was an Aether specialist himself at that moment, if only to open a portal to the fort so that they can leave that wretched object far behind them.
He's surprised to find he shares the sentiment with Dame Garza, "if you two are done chattering like a couple of old men, it's time for us to leave."
Sir Parra shoves the sigil into his pack with a dismissive huff, "part of my job is to examine such things, Valeria."
"Yes, yes, your nerdy work is very important-"
"In any case," Captain Vargas comes to stand between his knights, a hand on each of their shoulders as to silence their bickering, "I believe it is time for us to part ways, at least for now. May we meet on better days, hermanos."
"God willing," Captain Price nods, turning to Gaz, "it's time to return to the fort."
As a new tear opens in front of them, Soap stares into the now distant storm, to clouds shaped like monsters from his worst nightmares, and wonders, if the fear they strike in him will ever dissipate.
SYSTEM DIAGNOSTICS RUNNING… 0 ERRORS FOUND (27 IGNORED)
AETHERIUM INHIBITOR STATUS: NORMAL
CURRENT LOCATION: 52.056°N 2.716°W
CURRENT OBJECTIVE: FOLLOW SIR MACTAVISH AND SIR GARRICK
Ghost follows the knights to the armoury, taking the role of a silent observer. Neither of them speak, donning on twin expressions of weariness, for different reasons.
Gaz's is easily explained by his invisible injuries, the Aetherium in his blood still dangerously high. Ghost's system still can't compute how it is possible - Aether specialists are supposed to be highly resistant to Aetherium, sorted to the role in their younger years with the knowledge they will be exposed to the substance more than the average combat or mechanic specialist.
It leaves a glaring hole in the profile he constructed for Gaz, one that scratches at his motherboard to no end. He doesn't like missing intel, he finds.
The thinning of Soap's lips, the paleness of his face, however, don't have an immediate explanation. Ghost concludes something must have happened while they were apart, and errors instantly flood his system, telling him he failed his objective at aiding Sir MacTavish.
As if he doesn't fucking know that already.
It is clear, then, when the two separate, who he must trail. Gaz walks in the direction of the Cleansing Pools, to rid himself of his building Aetherium.
Soap, he soon finds out, walks to the sunny courtyard, and with a shaky breath, lowers himself to the lush grass, laying down and closing his eyes.
Ghost allows him a few moments of peace, his scanners working to eliminate any physical injuries he may be hiding. His leg is in worse condition than before the mission, there are signs of exertion across his body, but he labels his condition fine.
"What happened on the mission?" He asks, beginning his scan to search for mental injuries.
Soap exhales, cracking one eye open, "should be asking ye that."
Flashes of a cold grave overtake him for a second, "I…"
A hand pulls at his, and Ghost lets Soap drag him to the ground, dewy grass licking at his metal body.
"You don't have to tell me if ye don't want to," Soap murmurs, retracting his hand, "lay down. Ye must be tired."
Ghost obeys, despite the fact he can't feel fatigue. He rests his head on the rich earth, eyes drifting to the sky. There are clouds rolling over the vast blue, a thin blanket of wispy white. It tickles at the back of his mind, some memory he can't recall.
He's not sure he wants to, after what he saw. Some part of him demands to tell Soap, and Ghost isn't certain it's the one that owns those memories.
He has to repeat to himself Soap didn't order him again and again, until he finds a way out of the artificial neural pathway.
"Gaz talked to me about you." He says in lieu of dragging the flashes he saw in Mexico to the forefront of his mind.
Soap's stare snaps to his, "he did? Well…" He turns away again, "probably the same shite he says when I'm around, never had to hold his tongue around me."
"He didn't insult you, for the most part. Called you a reckless fool."
"Been called much worse things," Soap snorts, "what else?"
"Said he didn't understand you."
"Aye, nothing new then."
"I don't understand you either. I never received a complete file on your history, so my system can't draw any conclusions."
Soap hums, his arms reaching behind his head to cross, smiling, "can't imagine what else ye need to know about me, I talk yer ears off all the time."
"Never about your transfer."
The smile on Soap's lips melts away.
"I don't see why you would need to know about that." Soap's voice is flat, and as far as his records go, Ghost has never witnessed it do that. "It's quite simple."
"Explain it, then, if it's that simple."
"Fuck do ye want to know?" Soap sits up, a sneer pulling at his mouth, "I was a combat specialist in the Scottish Order, got injured so they relocated me out to here, on condition I become a mechanic. End of story."
The voice at the back of Ghost's mind implores him to take that answer and stop digging. His goal-oriented part pushes at him to find more intel, and it was always louder.
"What caused the injury?"
Soap's breathing comes out shorter, "a quest, if ye can imagine, fighting the Aether can be a little dangerous at times."
Ghost ignores the sarcasm dripping off his words, "was it a mangler? Abomination? A Wor-"
"Does it fucking matter?!" Soap jumps to his feet, "the end result is the same, aye?! I get thrown away to here, get stuck with people that never respected me and my training and never will, and why should they, when I'm completely fucking broken-"
He cuts himself off, squeezing his eyes shut with a deep breath. The anger twisting his features retreats, a blank slate taking its place.
"It doesn't matter. That's your answer."
"… Soap-"
"Don't ask me about it again." A warning tone hones an edge to Soap's voice.
His leg is shaking, Ghost notes, as if the mere mention of the incident that injured him reopened the wounds. His system outlines his primary objective to him once more, that he must help Soap.
"Is that an order?" Ghost asks, as he slowly gets up.
The carefully emotionless expression on Soap's face breaks, and he sighs, "no."
It constrains something in his chest, the fact that even when pushed Soap won't order him to stop. The word "trust" bubbles up in his thoughts, and while it's definition is unclear to him still, he thinks he can apply it to him.
Ghost trusts Soap.
"Understood." He answers, and Soap visibly relaxes.
"Thank ye."
A blip in his system alerts him Gary has sent him a message, and Ghost quickly folds his unruly emotions back into the empty space near his heart to silence them.
"Gary calls for us." Ghost says, already starting to walk towards the Workshop.
Soap sputters behind him, jogging to catch up with his long steps, "what- Steamin' hell yer fast, what did he say?!"
"He wants us and Gaz there," a four-letter name laughs in his mind, dragging claws through his psyche, "says he found something related to me."
Excerpt from John "Soap" MacTavish's journal, page 15 ("Captain JOHN PRICE"):
Necromechanic - Chapter 10: Beware the Abomination, the Aether's Monstrous Creation
[PREV CHAPTER] [AO3]
This is the longest chapter yet and my god did it take a while to edit, I hope you enjoy it!
They don't know much about the world of 'before'. Soap was taught the basics, that back then the biggest threat to his country was other humans, how most children didn't know the meaning of violence for survival, and where knighthoods were part of history, rather than a beacon of hope to all.
A world where zombies were a thing of fiction, an idea of the dead rising once more.
Those zombies never scared him, as a child. Mindless hordes are nothing compared to the armies directed by the Aether, after all.
What would have it been like, living in that world? Is it possible that Ghost knows?
"You are not originally from the British Order, are you?"
Soap blinks, turning to look at Sir Parra, a tilt to his helm.
"No," he answers, passing his fingers over the banner hanged off his belt, a yellow and red to contrast the British blue lions, "I was relocated about a year ago, from the Scottish Order."
Sir Parra nods, silent as their boots crush gravel, "must've been hard, leaving everyone you knew behind."
God, how hard it was.
He arrived early to the Order, younger than he should've been. The older kids used to pick on him, but he had his group, mates he knew he could trust. Many of them didn't survive their knighting trial, but those that did became people he'd die for.
He remembers the nights after terrible quests, they would be in the mess hall eating their weight in food, eyelids flagging. The pain of their endless endeavour seemed impossible to bear in those moments, and as the sky became darker, there would be a sound.
Music, drums and flutes and singing, his friends breaking the oppressive air with lilting notes. He'd join them every time, and soon would the rest of the knights, the squires, the pages, until the entire fort would be alight with music.
Soap hasn't joined a song since, his nights filled with screams.
"Sir MacTavish?" Sir Parra shakes him away from those distant memories.
"Ah-" He realises he's yet to give him a response, "it wasn't too bad, worst thing was getting used to the food, the Brits aren't known for their cuisine." He jokes, Sir Parra chuckling in return.
"Should've relocated to here, every day is a joy in the mess hall." Sir Parra sighs longingly, "I can't wait to return back to the fort after this, we are having Caldo tlalpeño today."
"Caldo tlalpe… Tlalpeño?" Soap struggles with the word, the vowels sounding awkward in his accent.
Sir Parra corrects him gently, "Caldo tlalpeño, it's a kind of chicken and vegetables stew, it's very filling."
Soap's stomach rumbles with discontent, and he groans, "I think we're having mushy peas again…"
He receives a comforting pat on the shoulder from Sir Parra, the gesture accompanied with a laugh.
Soap is about to make another joke on the poor state of the British fort's mess hall when Sir Parra stops in his tracks. "Zombies, up ahead! The horde has returned!" He warns, drawing his bow from its holster at his side.
The storm rumbles above them, distant flashes of light and sound the war drums for the snarling horde, their rotting feet dragging across dry land towards them. Soap unsheathes his swords, unafraid at the number of their enemies, knows with two squads worth of knights, they will make short work of them.
As the undead march closer, Sir Parra nocks arrows onto the bow's string, pulling back his arm to fire them. They spin, leaving a trail of violet in their wake, finding home in the skulls of groaning zombies.
The first line of the horde reaches them, Soap wasting no time cutting down heads. The edges of his swords slash along scarred skin, he loses sight of his fellow knights, but trusts in them to stand tall by themselves.
The first sign something is awry is Price's bellowing order to Ghost.
"What are you waiting for, Ghost! Get a move on, take out those zombies!"
Attempting to catch sight of him, Soap whirls around, taking out a few limbs reaching out for him.
Ghost was left behind, frozen in place despite the danger fast approaching him. It takes little time for a zombie to notice him, and startlingly little more for it to tackle him to the ground, dipping both of them away from Soap's view.
"Ghost!" He shouts, rushing to him, skipping over fallen bodies. Why is he not fighting back?!
More zombies join the first, a stream splitting from the horde to stack on top of Ghost, his metal body drowning in a sea of pallid flesh.
Soap grunts as enemies keep falling onto his path, every step he takes lasting as long as five. He can't reach him, and his mind supplies him with numbers, the amount of force it takes to crush steel.
Ghost isn't alive, but decaying mouths controlled by Aether don't care what flesh they taste.
A few steps separate them, dozen more zombies, Soap gritting his teeth as the last of Ghost disappears beneath the waves of the horde-
Light bursts in front of his eyes, a crackle in the air raising the hairs on his nape. The zombies shudder and fry as lightning courses through them, volts jumping from body to body, until they find their way to Soap.
The electrical current envelops him, purple glow casting itself on his armour, and Soap's gaze follows the volts to their source.
Standing over the sizzling bodies of the horde, knives gripped with iron fists, Ghost stares at him, every hole and crack in his body pouring light into the air. The cries of the undead are drowned out by the low growl emanating from Ghost's direction.
That is not a sound made by digital tools, not a mechanical process.
That… That is Ghost's real voice.
Soap takes a step back, the growling sharpening.
Before he can call out to him, Ghost lifts his blades, and breaks into a run.
In a split second decision, Soap lowers his swords, head ducking in submission. Ghost won't hurt him. Not if he's still in control, still remembers who Soap is.
He trusts him.
Ghost's hand draws back, knife poised to be thrown. The buzzing of electricity gets louder and louder-
The blade flies inches from his helm, piercing through a zombie behind him. Ghost passes him without a word, weapons moving in long arches. His field talent uses their combined armour to conduct, bouncing off them to shoot down the horde.
Lightning harnessed within a metal frame, Ghost strikes as swift as electricity itself, moving through zombies, drawing rivers of blackened blood, uncaring for the flesh standing in his way.
Soap shakes away from his reverie as Gaz is hit by the very same lightning, the Aetherium-powered field talent wrapping around his armour as well. He rushes to join them both, his swords sparking with fire and ice as he swings them.
Time loses meaning as they fight, the horde thinning at incredible rates, a testament to Ghost's power. To Soap, it feels as if a snap of a second passes, before he realises the battle is done, a single zombie left standing.
Ghost is on it in a flash, heavy metal colliding with the undead. In a reverse of the position he found himself at the beginning of the battle, Ghost straddles the zombie, his knife sinking into the enemy again and again. He doesn't stop stabbing even after the zombie ceases to move, blade ripping through the skin and bones at its face.
Soap takes a few tentative steps towards him, watching from his periphery as Captain Price and the others begin closing in on them. He can't let them see this, see how obviously disturbed Ghost is.
"… Ghost?" He whispers, settling to a crouch, hiding him from the others. "It's over, ye… You can stop. It's dead."
Ghost growls again, continuing to bash into the zombie's skull. It caves in under the force of the hits, atrophied brain splattering on the dry dirt. Soap hears Captain Vargas asking what is wrong with Ghost.
Gaz answers this must be a 'glitch'.
With no signs that Ghost is understanding him, Soap thinks back to his experiences with those injured in not only body, but in mind. It is not unheard for knights to suffer from bouts of delusions, believe there is a danger that isn't really there, be stuck in a loop of violence because their psyches convinced them it's fight or die.
"Ghost," Soap says firmly, hoping his voice will get to him, "there is nothing left to fight, we are safe. Yer safe here, with me."
The knife stabs slow, and encouraged, Soap continues, "ye remember me, yeah? Daft bastard that talks too much, unbelievably handsome of course."
Ghost's arms lower, the knife in his hand dropping. Soap holds his breath, watching the minute twitches in his limbs, the way the blood drips off them.
"… S-Soap…" Ghost's robotic voice returns, staticky and glitching.
He smiles in relief, "aye, the one and only."
Ghost looks down, leaping away from the unmoving body as if it is the first time he saw it. He seemingly scans his environment, turning rigid.
"The others saw?" He asks, tone dipping into fear.
"It's alright," Soap quickly calms him, "Gaz told them ye had an error, you can say you'll go to Gary if they ask more questions."
Slowly, Ghost nods, limbs steadying themselves with the curl of a fist. He pulls at the air, summoning the weapon he dropped back into his hands. "Shouldn't keep them waiting, then." He says, starting to make his way to the group with determination that, were Soap in his place, he doesn't know if he would've been able to conjure.
Sir Parra takes a few steps back when they both near the squads, head tracking Ghost's movements. "Are you certain you have him under control?"
Soap feels his mouth pull into a silent snarl, anger red-hot. He knows Sir Parra and Captain Vargas don't know enough about Ghost to understand he's not some weapon to order around, but it doesn't make him any less mad.
"He's fine. We can move." Soap answers with false composure. Captain Price waves his hand towards him, calling him nearer.
"That didn't look like he was fine, son." Price lowers his voice, "do you know what happened there?"
As the only mechanic specialist among them, Soap would be the most qualified to have a say in the matter. That, and there is no one more familiar with Ghost than him. Both he and Price know this, so his answer is clear.
"Error with the scanner, I imagine," he crosses his arms to hide his fidgeting, "his system thought the zombie was still alive, and since ye ordered him to take them out, he had to make sure they're all dead."
"Hm," the Captain hums, "will it be an issue moving forward?"
"I doubt it." God, don't let that repeat. He doesn't think they would be able to cover for him a second time.
Price pats his shoulder, sighing, "right. Let us return to the quest at hand."
"Yes Sir."
They walk in silence, thunder rumbling above them like the beat of a diseased heart. A few twists and turns allow them to avoid other hordes. Captain Vargas holds a hand in the air, motioning for them to stop.
He points up, where a handful of disciples fly above them.
"What in God's name are they doing?" Soap mutters, watching them drift lower towards a crater. The charred earth tells him it was man-made, likely from a time when humanity still used primitive weapons against the Aether.
Sir Parra grunts, "this is why you were sent here. Your watchers and ours want to know why so many disciples are working together on this tear."
"With this amount, I don't want to imagine what they're trying to pass through…" Gaz says, shoulders climbing up. There is nothing of that magnitude that the Aether can bring to Earth in their age, besides possibly an Abomination of previously unseen size.
"Where is your mechanic stuck?" Captain Price asks, surveying the corrupted land.
"There's a hollow at the southern side of the sink hole. She tried to set sensors that would be able to track the disciples, and had to retreat." Captain Vargas lowers his head, "I pray she is still alive."
"We will do all we can to find her," Captain Price assures. "I believe it would be best to split in this case, I want eyes on the disciples' movement."
Price turns to face Soap, and he fully expects be appointed to watch from the sidelines as the other knights rescue the mechanic, when he says, "Soap, you'll be coming with me, Sir Parra and Captain Vargas. Gaz and Ghost will keep us informed on the disciples."
"What?" Soap blurts out, before thinking better of it, "I mean- Yes sir."
Price levels him with a stare that cuts through the helm covering his face. Soap simply ignores it, talking to Gaz, "good luck out there, aye? We don't need another rescue mission."
Gaz shoves at his shoulder lightly, "yeah, yeah go on, as if we don't need to save you every other quest."
He chuckles, gaze reaching Ghost. He's been quiet since he snapped out of whatever happened to him when they fought the horde, save for the beeping and clicks of his various scanners. He has learned what some sounds meant, and those ones tell him Ghost is on high alert, searching for enemies.
Soap bumps his shoulder with his, saying softly, "you be safe as well."
"Is that an order, Sir MacTavish?" Ghost asks, and he can sense some cheekiness behind the words.
"If it needs to be," he answers, separating from him.
Giving himself a few seconds to make sure Ghost is alright, Soap sighs, steeling himself for the coming fight.
A part of his isn't sure if he can fight without Ghost. These passing weeks, he was always able to rely on his six blades to strike at his blind spots, guide him to safety, keep him focused. Like a crutch, it is hard to stand alone.
The thought of a crutch makes him balk. He doesn't need that, he doesn't. He can still slay zombies by his own hand, with his robot-zombie-squad mate, and without.
Still, he worries. Perhaps not only for himself.
SYSTEM DIAGNOSTICS RUNNING… 34 ERRORS FOUND
AETHERIUM INHIBITOR STATUS: CAUTION
CURRENT LOCATION: 28°29′30.32″N 100°55′10.19″W
CURRENT OBJECTIVE: AID SIR GARRICK
"Why do you not call me Gaz?" Sir Garrick asks.
Ghost doesn't turn his head to look at him, stare stuck on the dim violet glow at the centre of the sink hole. "I was programmed to address all knights by their proper title."
"But you don't call Soap 'Sir MacTavish'."
"He asked me to call him Soap. I treated it as an order." He says, his own voice muted in his audio receivers. Everything is muted since he remembered that accursed name.
"Then…" Sir Garrick hums, "I can ask you to call me Gaz too?"
NEW PREFERENCE REGISTERED: "GAZ"
"Understood. I will refer to you as Gaz from now on."
They quiet down as a disciple passes near them, his system targeting them. It is good that the Captain decided to pair him with Sir Ga- Gaz, since he might be the only one that could help him, were he attacked by a native Aether form again.
With the hostile gone, Gaz sighs, "God help us all, the amount of Aetherium that must be at the middle of that crater…"
Even at the distance they are, Ghost notes dully that the air shimmers with it, fog-like shroud settling over the ground, creating a haze between them and the sky. He calculates an estimate for the exact number for the Aetherium percentage at their current location, telling his system he's preparing for Gaz to ask for it.
In reality, it is all a distraction. Or a shitty attempt at it, trying to not think about cages, and blood, and a dark, cold space, with maggots, and a laughing voice that tells him he's his-
"I wonder how the rest are doing…" Gaz murmurs, lowering to a crouch. Ghost registers they're at the precipice of the crater, a good vantage point to watch any movement unfold. "I hate waiting around and doing nothing, even Soap must have more fun than me about now, and I'm sure he doesn't like being separated from you…"
Soap managed to chase away those memories, if only for a moment… A pang echos throughout his inner chassis, a sensation he can't place.
"I kinda get why he kept on talking to you, it is… Easier." Gaz huffs, head resting on his arm, "never thought I'd actually understand him."
Ghost latches onto that, a question that has been left unanswered by his own system rising to the surface above all else. "You and the rest of the knights never viewed him equally."
At that, Gaz's head rises sharply to look at him, "it's not that- That I don't see him as an 'equal'. It's just…" He shakes his head, exhaling roughly, "he doesn't act like a proper knight. Not that most of the younger knights in the Order do, they all rather play fight with each other than train."
"That's not why the rest hate him, is it?" There is something Gaz isn't telling him, and he claws at every word until it silences the laughter in his mind.
It might be Gaz's excuse, but the other knights aren't staring at him as if he grew a second head because he's not training.
"… No." Gaz admits, "not that I hate him, mind you." He sits back, armour clinking as he stretches his legs. "You know how he arrived to the British Order." He says with a half-question in his tone.
"I know dry facts. They don't explain much."
The file he has on Soap details he was severely injured over a year ago, and that caused him to transfer from the Scottish to the British Order, for reasons that were deemed unimportant by his system. The people that programmed his database didn't have much to do with knighthood customs.
"We don't get many relocated knights. Last one before Soap was Watcher Laswell, I think." Gaz curls his right hand, the gauntlet whirring with unseen mechanics. "I don't know what we expected, but it wasn't him."
"He was always making jokes, always getting into fights. Like he wanted to prove himself, but the only thing he proved is he was a fool and a reckless one at that."
"You said you don't hate him." Ghost reminds him, the insults sitting wrong in his system.
"I don't- I don't really think he's an idiot…" Gaz grumbles, "but he is reckless and you can't argue with me otherwise."
"… Go on."
Gaz is silent for a few moments, "it wasn't personal. The way I was with him. I need to work well with my squad, and I do. My oath as a knight takes priority over everything, including friendships." He spits the last word as if it's poison on his tongue.
Something about his words clicks within his mind. The simple, flat viewing of the world, sorted into priorities, what is 'useful' and what isn't.
Speaking with Soap outside of missions isn't useful to Gaz's objectives, so he doesn't do it. Like Ghost, the thought likely doesn't even pass his mind, the word 'friendship' not registering as a valid input. Combing through his past data recordings from the last few weeks, he finds little evidence that Gaz interacts with knights outside of the squad.
Ghost catches a detail in Gaz's sentence, "you said 'the way I was with him.' What changed?"
"I don't think anything changed. I just… The Soap I first met isn't anything like how he actually is, you know?"
It's… Hard for him to pinpoint. His first days in the British Order are muddled, every conversation he had with Soap another fissure in his system's code, chipping at it further and further until one day, he realised he isn't what he was programmed to believe. All he knew is that Soap always treated him as if he was more than, more than a robot, more than a killing machine.
But there was always a switch, from when he was in the company of other knights, to when they were just alone. His theatrics mellow, smile sliding off his face. Even Ghost can tell, as inept in emotions as he is.
"You are right."
"I don't understand why he'd do that. He's clearly a better knight than I thought him to be." Gaz grumbles, Ghost asking himself similar questions.
That is, until his system alerts him to an enormous spike in the Aetherium levels in the air.
Gaz jumps to his feet, the system in his own armour surely showing him the same numbers, "bloody hell-!" He clicks on the comms channels, "Captain, Soap, something is opening a tear around the crater!"
"Is it closer to you, or to us?!" Captain Price responds.
Ghost's system maps out the area, pinging off any possible source. The scanners aren't showing anything conclusive yet, the Aetherium in the air messing with their accuracy.
Gaz removes his weapon from its holster, "can't tell yet, it's only forming-"
A roar below them causes Ghost to spring into action, tackling Gaz away from the edge as massive claws grasp at the ground they were standing on not a moment ago.
"Aether-based hostile on our location." His eyes follow the mass climbing from the sink hole, flesh and broken bones rising, rising, rising, revealing monstrous maws, thousand teeth dripping molten Aetherium.
Gaz shudders under him, "… Fuck…"
"It's a Lesser Abomination."
Three jaws open in a roar, the sound reverberating through its deformed body. The left head lowers, throat glowing purple, and Ghost drags Gaz up to his feet.
"Get to cover!" He shouts, rushing towards a half-wall, Gaz vaulting over it just as a beam of pure Aetherium shoots at them. Cracks form above their heads, the concrete struggling to stand against such force.
"Gaz, you can't fight a goddamn Abomination, get out of there!" Price's voice crackles, the sheer amount of Aetherium around them interfering with the comm lines.
>SCAN FOR POSSIBLE COVERS FIT AGAINST ABOMINATION ATTACKS
SCANNING… Match found, 1043 feet from current location
The average Abomination can use its beam attack once every 3 minutes, and in perfect conditions, both he and Gaz would have made it to the cover his system pinged off.
Reality never presents perfect conditions. Gaz is currently wearing 50 pounds of armour, and has been walking and fighting for the past several hours. He'd have to run over 300 feet a minute to reach it in time. And while a hit by that beam shouldn't kill Gaz outright, even knights, as equipped and trained against the Aether as they are, can't handle too much Aetherium at once.
Another beam hits their shelter, a full chunk of the wall crumbling off the top. Ghost shields Gaz with his arm, the debris denting his chassis.
"I know you're a half robot and all that, but the both of us can't take on an Abomination by ourselves!" Gaz shouts.
"There is a ruin, about 1000 feet from our position. I will distract the Abomination while you run."
Gaz swivels his head, finding the location, "what about you?"
Ghost calls all his blades to his hands, the half-dozen knives reflecting the red sun, "Aetherium can't infect twice, can it?"
Hesitating for a moment, Gaz eventually nods, shifting as he readies to run.
Counting the heavy footsteps of the Abomination, Ghost waits until it is closing on their shelter, before yelling "Run!"
Gaz breaks into a sprint, Ghost throwing his blades at the open mouths of the Aether form. It howls in pain, the middle head snapping its jaw at him.
Ghost smoothly dodges it, burying his knives into its thick throat, and with considerable force, drags the weapon from one end to the other, slitting a gash into the pale flesh. Thick blood oozes out in a waterfall, coating Ghost with faint Aetherium traces.
He jumps away, putting distance between him and the hostile to pinpoint Gaz's location. He's nearly at the ruin, just a few more steps and-
The Abomination shoots out a wide beam of Aetherium, the remaining heads shaking with animalistic fury. Ghost drops into a crouch, narrowly avoiding the attack, but Gaz-
Gaz screams as he's hit by the violent light, his body pushed to the ground.
The world around him fades as he focuses on him, vision creeping with dark blood.
In an instant, the voice at the back of his head shuts down.
Arms moving by their own accord, Ghost stabs at the target's heads, body turning sharply to slide between its legs.
He calls his weapons to his hands, the blades ripping through the target's body, leaving grotesque holes behind. It doesn't remind him of anything. The blood on his hands doesn't register.
He simply repeats the same action. Again. And again. The holes in the target multiply, triple, and at last, it falls still, eliminated.
A whimper breaks him out of his programme, Ghost remembering his primary objective to help Sir Garrick. He finds him rolled over his stomach, shoulders shaking as he heaves for breath.
"Gaz? What is your status?" He asks, calculating the amount of Aetherium he was hit with.
It shouldn't have affected him this way, considering the beam was weaker than usual with how wide it was.
"I-" Gaz shudders as he coughs, "I'm fine, I-I just- It's nothing-"
"You are exhibiting signs of Aetherium poisoning. That attack shouldn't have done that unless you were already hurt."
Gaz curls into himself, head held by his hands. "I- Fuck- I wasn't fuckin' hurt- I just-"
"Ghost, Gaz, what the hell is going on over there?!" Captain Price's voice cuts him off.
Before Ghost can report a word, Gaz roughly answers, "fine, Ghost killed the Abomination. No other enemies have appeared."
"… Impressive," The Captain hums, "we're nearing the mechanic, be prepared to advance closer to the crater."
"Understood." He shuts off his mic, groaning.
Gaz begins digging through his pouch, Ghost still processing the conversation.
"Sir Garrick, you need to receive medical attention. The Aetherium in your body-"
From the pouch, he pulls out a ribbon, a set of glyphs faintly glowing upon it. With a rough exhale, Gaz wraps it around his left arm, and flexes his right hand to expel a small amount of Aetherium.
The glyphs' light shines brighter, a green hue overtaking them. Ghost's system watches as the Aetherium levels in Gaz's body decrease minutely, the knight sighing in relief. It seems to him that he has done this many times before, practised in temporarily keeping the Aether at bay.
"Like I said," Gaz stands up, ripping the ribbon off his arm, "I'm fine. Price doesn't need to know about such things."
Ghost would beg to differ, if he himself wasn't hiding things from the Captain, if he wasn't asking Sir Garrick to do the same.
Instead, he says, "understood. We should advance towards the sink hole."
"Right," Gaz begins walking, any sign he was on the ground, unable to move mere moments ago, erased to anyone but him.
Ghost follows him, not before filing that information in his database. Just like Soap, Gaz too has many behaviours he can't explain yet.
Both his system and the voice in his head want to crack their codes.
Excerpt from John "Soap" MacTavish's journal, page 11 ("LESSER ABOMINATION"):
Necromechanic - Chapter 9: The Thunder Always Heralds Dark Things
[PREV CHAPTER] [AO3]
I'm kinda sick so I only finished the sketch for this chapter a few hours ago sorry if it's not as detailed lol
… Gary knew.
This entire time, while Soap was barely grappling with the idea that someone can take away an entire person's self and replace it with wires and code, Gary knew he wasn't dealing with a machine.
He knew what the resets meant. He knew what they were doing to Ghost.
And he didn't say a word against it.
Soap barely restrains himself from lunging at him. "Ye knew…"
"Obviously," Gary continues to smile, oblivious or uncaring for his swelling fury, "everyone in the family knows, the G.H.O.S.T.s is our passion project-"
"Passion project?!" His control snaps, and he shouts, "yer experimenting on fuckin' human beings! It's- Don't ye see how fucked up that is?!"
Soap gears up to pin Gary against the wall, stopped only by Ghost.
"That's enough, Soap."
"Don't tell me that's enough, ye should be more angry than me!"
"Anger doesn't help our objective." Ghost says in his usual flat tone, letting go of him. Soap huffs, freezing when he notices the look in Gary's eyes.
His fingers tap the sides of his keyboard, a habit indicating he needs to maul his words over. Soap doesn't have the patience to wait for him like usual, because usually he doesn't discover that the person he thought he some camaraderie with is a piece of shit.
"You know why we reset Ghost?" Gary eventually asks, right before Soap explodes again.
"I don't care, ye shouldn't do it-"
Gary barrels onward, "he becomes unstable. Zombies aren't supposed to be disconnected from the Aether, only reason he's not trying to eat both of us right now is because he has the Aetherium Inhibitor." He faces Ghost, the same weird look in his eyes returning, "so the fact he's acting outside of his programme should be impossible."
"Aye, maybe if ye didn't reset him every time he disobeyed a fuckin' order, ye'd find out he has free will." Soap growls.
"But that's the thing - he didn't have free will. As far as the logs go back, we never recorded him acting like this, he was either a mindless robot, or a mindless zombie."
That… That is odd, Soap admits. If he combs through the memories he has of Ghost from the past 2 months, he does notice a difference between how he acted at first, compared to right before the moment he discovered he wasn't a machine. He chalked it up to his system learning to cooperate with his stupid jokes, and to the fact Ghost has human capabilities, even if they are subdued, after the reveal.
But it's possible that what he was seeing was Ghost changing. Just like he was able to lie where he wasn't in the past, maybe he's been chipping at his prison cell for weeks.
"How far back do the records go?" Ghost asks, and Soap instantly realises what he's trying to find out.
God in Heaven, they don't even know how old he is.
Gary takes a seat in his chair, spinning around to quickly navigate to Ghost's records, ones that are more detailed than what Soap found. He presses a button that brings him to the bottom of the page, and highlights the date.
November 9th, 2047.
"But that's-" Soap tries to do the math in his head, Ghost beating him to it.
"45 years ago." His voice sounds… Hollow.
Gary shakes his head, "we switched systems at that point. The G.H.O.S.T. project is much older than that, and we also don't know how old Ghost was when he was infected…"
"Fuckin' hell." Soap scrubs a hand through his hair, "yer telling me he can be older than Watcher MacMillan?"
Watcher MacMillan was born before the Aether first invaded Earth, and is over a century old at this point. Soap can't wrap his head around the fact Ghost could be from a time predating that.
"It's possible." Gary muses, "I'd have to check around our old archives to really tell, we should have it all somewhere… If grandpa didn't throw it away. I always asked him to tell me more about the project, knew he wasn't giving me the full story, shame he died a few years ago-"
"Sanderson."
Gary blinks, looking upside down to see Ghost looming over him, "uh, yeah?"
"You have an obligation to fix any issues with my system."
Gary nods, and Ghost continues, "are you going to fix me?"
Finally swivelling around, Gary frowns, hands resting on his keyboard. Soap feels the urge to lash out, and as if he's read his mind, Ghost grabs his shoulder, pushing him away.
He thinks they both know he wouldn't let Gary reset him. just like they both know, it's a decision that is completely out of their control.
"Fix what?" Gary asks innocently, giving them his signature wide grin, "this is the opposite of an issue!"
"But ye said he'll be unstable-"
"Does he look unstable to you?" Gary motions to Ghost, who opens a few vents to let heat out.
Soap doesn't understand why until he talks, "I tried to kill Soap on a mission."
"You did? That's… less good." Gary's text-to-speech says mildly, but his expression is far more severe.
Before Soap can protest that claim, the door to Gary's room slams open, a breathless Gaz leaning against the frame.
"I-" He heaves, pointing at Soap, "I searched for you bloody everywhere! Price told me what happened!"
Christ, the Captain didn't keep it a secret for a full day, he gossips more than the damn squires.
Ghost steps to the side, revealing Gary, who waves to Gaz, "oh shit- Gary, how are you doing?"
"Great," Gary replies, "what did Price tell you?"
Is he seriously…?
Garrick flounders over his words, "uh… That me and Soap need to… Go to a quest, so we're taking Ghost."
Gary smiles mischievously, "that so? Sure it wasn't anything relating to Soap sneaking into my room last night?" At Gaz's surprised expression, he adds, "the fact you're trying to cover for him means you've heard about his reasons to do it, about Ghost."
Garrick sends an aggravated look his way, "you told Gary?!"
"Aye, thought he'd be fine with it- I didn't fuckin' tell him, he found out!" Soap squawks back, "do I look that dumb to ye?!"
"Well-"
"He's not going to report us." Ghost cuts Garrick off, addressing Gary. There's something colder in his voice, and his frame seems to shadow over Gary, blotting out the overhead light.
The blades on his forearms vibrate, as if they want to sink into flesh.
"Correct, Sanderson?"
Gary's smile drops, his eyes narrowing at Ghost's weapons.
"As long as you don't give me reasons to." Gary types. It's a threat and a promise - that they all understand.
Soap always saw Gary as this playful guy, obviously not an idiot, but not malicious in any way. He thought that others had judged him too quickly, labelled him untrustworthy just because of his last name. Perhaps Soap fell into the same trap, deeming Gary to be harmless far too quickly.
But there's a sharpness to his words that suggests he is very much aware of the power he holds over everyone in this room, and the only reason it is not used against them, is because of his say-so. It's clear Gary is fascinated by Ghost's condition, and while Soap doesn't know how to feel about it yet, he is at least glad it will keep them safe for now.
"Have you told him a disciple had him under its spell?" Gaz asks, eyes flitting to and away from Gary every couple of seconds, wary.
Soap sighs, "aye, just as ye ran into the room like the fort's on fire."
"It should be impossible," Gary types, "Ghost has no connection with the Aether, and even if he did gain one, the Aetherium Inhibitor would've shut down the Aetherium supply before it could take hold. Then again, this current situation should be impossible as well…"
"Maybe ye didn't do enough research before ye started replacing human brains with computers." Soap grunts, his fists tightening.
Ghost interjects before he can throw some real curses in the air, "how could we prevent it from happening again?"
Gary's fingers reach the keyboard, but type nothing, and he frowns, rescinding them. He turns back to his computer, and with a blink of an eye several new windows open, his mouse zooming across the screen. Soap tries to follow what he's doing, but most of the words he catches mean nothing to him.
"I uh…" Gaz begins, voice uncharacteristically unsure, "I don't know much about this inhibitor, but I assume whoever designed it knows of the powers disciples hold, how and why they control zombies."
The clicking of the keyboard quiets down, Gary looking at Gaz with a twisted lip. "I suppose you do understand it better than me, you have to study this for like ten years to prepare to fight the bastards. Go on."
Garrick straightens, as if he's back in class, studying Aether Lore as a squire, "disciples work by expelling and absorbing Aetherium, this is how they direct lower Aether forms to do their bidding. They're unable to control manglers or mimics because those have their own continuous Aetherium supply, meaning they can survive outside of storms, unlike zombies who will wither and die if left with no external Aetherium supply."
"Ghost's inhibitor does act as a sort of artificial Aetherium source… As far as I know, he wasn't originally something like a mangler." Gary muses.
"And that makes sense," Gaz begins pacing, "if he was a mangler or a mimic, not only he wouldn't have been spelled by a disciple, you wouldn't have even been able to build him."
"You don't know what we're capable of," Gary smirks.
Gaz, for his part, takes the smug remark at face-value, "it's not about capabilities - once a mind connects to the Aether, it can't be undone. Every non-native Aether form starts out as a zombie, mimics and manglers are both direct creations of acolytes. Therefore, all mimics and manglers have been one with the Aether for a long time before they evolved."
"What are you thinking, Gaz?" Soap asks, sensing he's leading them to an explanation he already figured out.
"It comes down to the basics, really," Gaz says, his eyes shining brightly with passion, "the people that made Ghost must've known the way Aetherium affects the undead, because they knew it was important to inhibit it. All a disciple does to take control of a zombie is manipulate the Aetherium within it. Mimics and manglers are able to generate their own, so any displacement of the Aetherium in their body is instantly replaced by new matter."
He stops to stand in front of Ghost, "there are two ways to go about it, then. Either remove the Aetherium from your body, which would kill you…"
"… Or manually replace it ourselves, overriding the disciple's control." Ghost finishes.
Soap and Gary blink at each other, "seems like they don't need us, huh?" He types.
"Well, there's one problem." Gaz mutters, "it very much depends on the amount of Aetherium we'll need to give Ghost to counteract the disciple… It could be more than our armour carries."
"It's definitely more," Gary says, gesturing to Ghost, "you think it's easy to get something this big and complicated to work??"
The answer is probably a lot, Soap imagines. He thinks over what he knows of Ghost's design, and what he remembers from his studies on Aether Lore. Zombies take a fraction of the Aetherium knights need to fuel their armour, Ghost likely being closer to a mangler in that aspect…
"Fuck!" Gaz blurts suddenly, cutting Soap's line of thought. "We need to go the the tear walls!"
"Huh?" Soap grunts as Garrick pulls at his arm.
"I wasn't lying when I said we need to go on a quest! Price said to be there 5 minutes ago!"
"Christ, he's gonna have our heads," Soap rushes to the door, but Gary stops them.
"You need to go? That's a shame, would've liked to do some tests on Ghost… We'll just have to do it after then, won't we?"
His speakers said it as a question, but Soap recognises what he's not saying. This isn't up to debate; Gary will test Ghost, if they want him to keep their secrets.
"Of course," Soap answers, hiding his sneer behind his back, "we'll be back before ye know it."
SYSTEM DIAGNOSTICS RUNNING… NO ERRORS FOUND
AETHERIUM INHIBITOR STATUS: NORMAL
CURRENT LOCATION: 28°29′30.32″N 100°55′10.19″W
CURRENT OBJECTIVE: AWAITING ORDERS
The Aether tear closes behind them with a low hum, Ghost's system quickly scanning their environment. On the surface, the area is clear of immediate threats, the looming clouds at the horizon the only indication this mission may not be easy.
But the voice at the back of his head cowers from something, Mexico's arid air catching between his gears in a way that feels… Off.
He can't find a rational explanation for it, and so elects to ignore it.
"The knights we were suppose to meet should've been here…" Captain Price mutters, "Ghost, any signs of them?"
"Scanning…" He examines the ground, boot marks revealing themselves under his optic sensors, "footsteps running north-west, about twenty minutes ago. System is 89% certain they belong to the knights."
"Were they running from the storm?" Sir Garrick asks, looking over the foreboding sky.
Captain Price motions forward, "whatever it may be, we must help them. Lead the way, Ghost."
"Yes, Sir." Ghost begins walking, the marks left by the knights glowing on his HUD. The rest of the squad follows, Soap running to walk beside him.
"How are ye holdin' up?" He says lowly, keeping his voice quiet.
Ghost glances at Soap, noting his leg appears to be in good condition today, "my system displays no errors."
He receives an amused huff in return, and can nearly imagine the face Soap makes along with it, "aye, but I'm not asking yer system, I'm asking you."
"I am my system, Soap." Ghost answers at first, but at Soap's scoff adds, "there is… Something I can't compute. Something is… Wrong."
"Wrong? With what?"
"This place." Ghost feels his speaker crackle on the words, his scanners searching for a threat he knows he won't find. It makes his blades shiver, as if they're begging to sink into something, anything, if only to confirm that there is an enemy waiting for him.
Soap hums, scratching under his scarf, where a leather piece protects his neck. "My suit isn't showing an excessive amount of Aetherium in the air… Tell me if something changes, aye? Maybe I can help."
Ghost's artificial tendons twitch, "I am supposed to help you, not the other way."
"We help each other, Ghostie," Soap lightly bumps his shoulder with his, "that's what knights do."
"I'm not a knight-" Ghost chokes his voice on command, speaking up to address the Captain, "two targets, 50 feet from our location, human."
"That should be them," Captain Price jogs ahead, calling out, "knights! We're with the British Order, we have come to aid you!"
Movement from among the ruins in front of them catches his attention, two knights walking out, one limping. "Captain Price?" The other asks, a long spear with a wedge-shaped head in his hands. Ghost notes 40 small Aetherium blades running along its sides.
"Captain Vargas, I presume," Captain Price approaches the pair, offering a handshake. Captain Vargas takes his hand, pulling him in to tap his shoulder with his. "We were told your squad has found something."
"Yes," Captain Vargas sighs, pulling the other knight to lean against him, "but as you can see, we ran into trouble. This here is Sir Parra, our Aether specialist."
"And your mechanic?"
"We lost contact with her," Sir Parra mutters, his voice strained, "I have reason to believe the disciples in this area are attempting to open an Aether tear, the scale of which I have never seen outside of my study books. Our mechanic went closer to observe it, when a horde separated us."
"We were about to call for reinforcements when you arrived," Captain Vargas nods to the flare in Sir Parra's hand, "but we may not need to, if you will help us."
"Of course," Captain Price says, "we must rely on each other in these dark times."
"¡así me gusta!" Captain Vargas says, and Ghost's system translates it instantly.
Sir Parra, however, seems more wary of their squad, staring at him with a tilt to his head. "Thought squads only have 3 knights."
"Ghost here isn't a knight," Sir Garrick points at him casually, lying smoothly, "he's a robot, some experimental unit."
Sir Parra continues staring at him, mumbling in Spanish, "I'm afraid of ghosts…" to which Captain Vargas laughs.
"Come, then!" He calls, turning towards the incoming storm, "let us find our mechanic, and foil the Aether's plans."
The knights begin to make their way to Captain Vargas, Ghost lingering for a moment.
Something continues prickling at his nape, the shape of it pushing against his innards. It's an awareness that doesn't come from his sensors, a sensation that isn't made of 1's and 0's, but something deeper, long buried neurons firing off in all directions.
It doesn't matter how many times he checks behind his back, the unexplainable knowledge that something is watching him remains. As if he's being hunted by the mere air of this place.
Soap turns to look at him, his steps hesitating as if he's thinking of returning to him. Ghost doesn't make him choose, instead taking a few long strides to return to his rightful place beside him. He gives him a single nod, silently assuring him.
Assuring him with a confidence he doesn't have.
The sky bruises into shades of overripe orange and red the further they walk. A few zombies have already started catching up to them, the two squads making quick work of them. Ghost wishes those fights would go on for longer, if only to have a clear goal, an obvious enemy, to strike down.
The remains of what was once a city here shift, the land opening to wide, barren spaces. Empty, but for a small cluster of foundations ahead of them.
The shadows the small mounds of brick and concrete leave on the dirt burn an image to his memory. Something about them makes his system throw all sorts of error messages and alarms.
Ghost continues moving. He has no choice, not with this many witnesses who, unlike Soap and Sir Garrick, don't know what he is.
"You see that ruin over there?" Captain Vargas points to the spot Ghost hasn't been able to take his eyes off of.
Soap nods, "looks like any other ruin around here?"
"Yes," Captain Vargas hums, "but we in the Order have a few ghost stories surrounding that one."
"¡bastarda!" Sir Parra snorts, giving Captain Vargas a playful push, "you know I hate that one!"
Captain Vargas chuckles, before sobering, "we were told, that back when the Aether first invaded our world, the soldiers found something."
Seeing he's got both Soap and Sir Garrick's attention, he continues, "back then, before the knights, there were soldiers patrolling the Lost Lands, searching for answers to questions they didn't know to ask yet, and doing their best to kill enemies they didn't have the right weapons for."
Ghost's audio sensors narrow on Captain Vargas' voice, "they were passing through the city behind us, moving supplies to the safe zones, when they felt the ground beneath their feet shift, growls from nearby buildings. Now, they didn't have mimics yet, so it was quite the scare, as you can imagine."
"Did they enter the buildings?" Sir Garrick asks.
"Oh, they did." Captain Vargas lowers his voice, "and they found rows upon rows of… Cages."
>Cages
>Their bars stained with rust and blood, cricking and rattling
"So it was a prison, nothing special about that," Soap huffs.
Captain Vargas shakes his head, "no, not a prison. The zombies in those cages were thin, limbs broken in all sorts of ways. That was a torture chamber. And worst of all…" He pauses, the entire squad holding its breath.
"There were zombies, buried, that crawled their way out of the ground, like those stories from before the Aether showed us what real zombies are."
"But that would mean-" Sir Garrick cut himself off with a shudder.
Soap finished the thought for him, "they were burying living humans…"
>Dirt
>It was dry. Sunk into every crevice, left lines of brown and dark red
>Coffin. Darkness. He couldn't… Breathe
Sir Parra waves Captain Vargas away, "ghost stories, as they call them. We all know the dead can't rise, and I don't put much faith on decades old tales."
"You never know, it could've happened," Captain Vargas shrugs, "this isn't the only place that has such stories surrounding it, I even heard them from our American neighbours."
"I thought the world before the invasion was largely good," Soap murmurs, his voice sounding further and further away with every word, "but if what yer saying is true, there must have been great evil even then."
>Pain
>Wounds upon wounds, scars that would never heal. Broken, from outside and in
>A voice, laughing, laughing, laughing
>It was his own voice
"What's so funny, English?"
"You think there is nothing left of you to break? Really?"
>A man… The man brought pain with each of his steps, a single word enough to lead to days of torture
"They all forgot about you. Your family thinks you're dead, the military knows you're not worth saving."
>Who was… He…?
"You'll be a useful weapon to me. But first you need to truly break."
>A pinprick at the back of his neck, dragging cruel fingers down, down, down. Until it hits his heart, rips through his chest, the cry of a newborn baby, the screams of a dying man
"-Ghost!" A voice calls out, louder than that of R̸̥͇̅̏o̴̬̎̎̕b̸̠͍̝͗a̵̜̐̐̚, "get a move on, take out those zombies!"
>REGISTER NEW OBJECTIVE: ELIMINATE HOSTILES
NEW OBJECTIVE REGISTERED
He is blind to the world, but his sensors are not. Red fills his vision, shapes of men marking enemies. He feels for a weapon at his belt, a knife, a gun-
>He was never trained with firearms
A zombie crashes into him, pulling him down to the earth. It gnashes its teeth at him, eyes glowing a faint yellow. The weight of him presses on his chest, making it hard to breathe.
>Does he… Does he need to breathe?
With a motion that his processors has executed thousands of times before, he grasps at one of his knives, and thrusts the blade into the zombie's skull. Blackened, slag-like blood drips down his arm, and he can nearly feel it through the layers of metal.
The dead body drops on him, its rotting face staring through him.
>getitoffgetitoffgetitoffGETITOFF
Other zombies sense his weakness, and begin to pile on him, their gurgling drowning out any other sound, their broken limbs scraping at him.
ERROR: CHASSIS TEMPERATURE INCREASE DETECTED
ERROR: AETHERIUM LEVELS EXCEEDING LIMIT
ERROR: AETHERIUM INHIBITOR STATUS CRITICAL
He can't move. He can't see. He can't hear.
Until R̸̖͇͉͊̊o̷̡̤͌̿b̷͍̓ạ̴̈̔̿̚ speaks.
"You are mine, English. You're going to die belonging to me."
His system is collapsing, error codes upon error codes, the Aetherium running through him rising, rising, rising-
>He can't let him win again
>ACTIVATE FIELD TALENT PARAMETER 2 "LIGHTNING STORM"
ACTIVATING LIGHTNING STORM
Bolts of electricity explode away from him, Aetherium-made lightnings decimating through the piling bodies, ripping them to shreds.
R̵̗̠̥͑̀ǒ̴̞̮̝̔̓b̷̠̲͈̋̾a̷͇̳̒́̚'̷̡̠̞̓̇s̵̜̺̀ smile melts, until he too joins the wretched earth.
Ghost rises, blades held tightly in his hands, and rushes forward, at the growling enemies, each of their faces shifting into R̵̗̠̥͑̀ǒ̴̞̮̝̔̓b̷̠̲͈̋̾a̷͇̳̒́̚'̷̡̠̞̓̇s̵̜̺̀ .
>He will kill them all
Excerpt from John "Soap" MacTavish's journal, page 89 ("Sir PARRA and Captain VARGAS"):
As I mentioned on AO3, I really liked how this sketch of Gaz turned out, and wanted to see it in color. In-universe I imagine Soap got some watercolors or something lol
Necromechanic - Chapter 8: We Carry Damnation as Oath
[PREV CHAPTER] [AO3]
Hope you all had happy holidays, and that you'll have a great new year!
Ghost is avoiding him. The moment he left Gary's place, it is as if his memory was reset again. Only answering to orders, never disobeying. He's still in there, Soap can tell. Movements not as stiff, voice not as flat. But Ghost is suppressing himself, trying to relinquish all control to his programming, retreating back into his metal shell.
Gaz is telling him to drop it. In their many conversations after Ulaanbaatar, Garrick disagreed with him on every point, most of all that they should listen to the woman from Ghost's dream. 'We don't know who she is,' he said, 'and beside, does Ghost even want more control? Does he want to remember?'
He nearly screamed at one point. Sure, it doesn't seem like Ghost wants control, in fact at the moment he appears to want to lose the little he has, but it doesn't make it right, Soap thinks.
Ghost doesn't have the ability to choose. Soap wants to give him that.
The woman said he needs to remember to regain his control. That's his sole clue, a thin thread to pick in an endless blanket of uncertainty. So he forms a plan, or the loose framework of what could be called a plan were he generous, and waits for an opportunity.
Well past midnight, when the only people roaming the halls are the occasional sleepless knight, Soap sneaks out of his room. Ghost leaves him alone more nights than not these days, so he's hoping for once that he'll do the same tonight.
He feels triumphant for about a dozen steps, until a voice calls out behind him.
"What are you doing, Sir MacTavish?"
Soap doesn't scream in surprise, but it's a near thing, "Fuckin'- Steaming Jesus, Ghost, I'm just going for a walk."
"A walk." Soap nods slowly, "understood."
Ghost lingers, uncharacteristically hesitant. For a moment, Soap thinks he's going to follow him, both happy and nervous at the prospect, but he leaves. Where once he'd ask more, possibly even stop Soap from advancing with his frankly reckless plan, Ghost leaves.
Perhaps Gaz is right. Maybe it is better to let this matter lie, let Ghost stay as he is, if every single thing Soap tries leads them back here.
"Better let the dead lie, knight.
Let them be brought back to us."
He shakes his head, the voice's grasp on his mind with it. A pain shoots down his leg, and it is the only familiar sensation about it all.
His feet continue onward.
The Workshop is dark and quiet, as is the rest of the fort, at this hour, and even Gary, who spends far too long in his little corner, has retired for the night. Soap opens the door to his room slowly, taking care that it doesn't creak, and enters.
Finding the button to turn his computer on takes longer than he'd like, considering what he's doing could very much land him in trouble were he found. The screen lights up, and he takes hold of the oblong object Gary calls "mouse" to navigate to the folders lining the computer's screen.
Most are named arbitrarily, combinations of letters and numbers that have no meaning to Soap, so he presses a few at random. Some he has seen Gary open before while handling matters related to Ghost, so when he reaches a folder called "JS-P1-G" and sees familiar files, he examines them closer.
The first he opens redirects him to lines of code, and while Gary tried to teach him some, they don't make much sense to him.
The second appears to be a manual for some machine unrelated to Ghost, so he closes it as well.
The third redirects him again, but this time it's not to lines of code. Soap scrolls through what appears to be a program monitoring… Ghosts.
And there are multiple. G.H.O.S.T-001, G.H.O.S.T-002, dozens and dozens of them. All labelled "inactive", except for the first.
Soap never considered the possibility that there could be more like Ghost, undead turned robots. Yet, if these labels mean what he thinks they do, no other "Ghost" is currently operating. It could mean they're still in the lab… could Ghost be a prototype of sorts?
Or… Is he simply the only Ghost that they succeeded in making? If that is the case… Why?
Clicking on "G.H.O.S.T-001" doesn't answer his questions, but it shows a short list of procedures Ghost has been directed to go through in the past year or so. His system reset, the fixes done to his armour, the most recent visit to Gary where several errors were solved. Soap scrolls down to the first documented procedures, and his blood runs cold.
Listed at the bottom is a block of lines, each reading a single, harsh sentence:
"Signs of non-computerized processes detected, Aetherium levels abnormal. Reset executed."
Over and over and over, the dates sickeningly close, some repeating. Ten little words that scrape the surface of what was done to Ghost, and they're enough for Soap's vision to get blurred.
He clicks out of the window with a shaky breath, forcing himself to continue searching. The woman, he needs to find her. They must have some record of the people they took in to be Ghosts, even if they took random zombies off of the Lost Lands, they had their blood samples, faces, they must have identified them somehow.
There has to be something-
"Soap?"
Soap's breath catches, and he swivels around to find the last person he wants to see.
"Captain! What are you doing here at this hour?" He asks, leaning away to hide as much of the screen as he can with his body, not that it matters much, considering he's not supposed to be in the room at all.
Captain Price enters the room, Ghost trailing behind him, his lights dim, "I should ask you that, son. You better have a good reason to be here alone."
"I- I was just-" Soap's mind blanks, words halting to a stop. There's no good excuse he could give that wouldn't involve revealing Ghost's secret, and he'd rather be struck down by the Watchers before he'd give it away.
Price likely understands it, sighing and shaking his head, "you know, I didn't think that when I had Ghost report to me about your nightly outings, that they would be of this sort."
… He reported this to Price? Soap rears back, wide eyes staring at Ghost.
"I'll have to report this to the Watchers, but before that, if you want to absolve yourself of some guilt, I'd rather you tell me everything now."
"I…" betrayal isn't something he'd think to attribute to Ghost, and perhaps he shouldn't as it is his own code choosing so, but it hurts like rivulets of ice down his neck. Most of all, that Ghost is silent, apathetic to the conversation, uncaring for anything Soap has said to him since Ulaanbaatar.
A robot, a ghost, a corpse.
Soap's jaw clicks shut, and he lowers his head. Any sentence the Watchers will deem fit for his sins, it will never be enough, his failure deserving only the deepest circle of Hell itself.
Because here stands a man the knights and humanity itself has failed, and Soap the final nail of a long row of people that left him lost within his own frame in a coffin made of metal.
SYSTEM DIAGNOSTICS RUNNING… NO ERRORS FOUND
AETHERIUM INHIBITOR STATUS: NORMAL
CURRENT LOCATION: 52.056°N 2.716°W
CURRENT OBJECTIVE: FOLLOW CAPTAIN PRICE
Ghost doesn't feel. Emotions don't help follow orders, kill zombies, so they were never included in his code.
He doesn't feel guilt that he told Captain Price about Soap's odd behaviour, that it led to them catching him red-handed searching through Sanderson's computer. he doesn't care for the flash of hurt that passed over Soap's features, when he realises his secrets weren't kept for weeks now.
Ghost doesn't feel a thing.
So why does it hurt?
"If you want to absolve yourself of some guilt, I'd rather you tell me everything now." The Captain says, Soap hanging his head low in response. Ghost doesn't think about how, if Soap chooses right, he will tell the Watchers everything. Which will lead to both of them to be banished from the Order, in the best case scenario.
It doesn't matter to his objective, so he doesn't. Think. About. It.
"… Right. Come with me then, don't make this harder than it needs to be." Captain Price reaches for Soap, and Ghost's vision locks on the movement.
Logically, his system knows the Captain doesn't intent to harm Soap.
The small voice hiding within his skull growls, however, the pairing of 'punishment' and 'son' triggering long-dead neural pathways, leading to an override in his priorities.
It should be impossible for him to switch objectives this quickly, but in a flash, it turns from 'follow Captain Price' to 'protect Soap.'
Price grunts as metal fingers wrap around his wrist, forcing him away from Soap. Ghost steps to block his view from the knight, towering over the man he is supposed to be unable to stand against. The Captain's mouth twists in pain, "Ghost-?! Stand down!"
He releases the arm, but doesn't move further. "You do not need to report Sir MacTavish to the Watchers, Captain."
Captain Price shakes his arm, flexing it minutely, "what? What is the meaning of this, exactly?!"
While he doesn't know the exact reason for Soap's little excursion, it is obvious he knew what he was doing would've gotten him punished were he found. His code would not allow him to lie, but he has to try.
For the glint of hurt in Soap's steely blue eyes, for the plate wrapping around his forearm, hiding the name of the only person that has shown him kindness from the very start, for a growing section of his mind, a voice that tears through his skull, leaving scratches and begging to be let out.
"I want," it says. "I want to help him."
"Sir MacTavish has permission to use Gary Sanderson's personal computer." Ghost begins, slowly, expecting the error messages to cut him off.
ERROR: INCORRECT INTEL GIVEN TO CAPTAIN-
He attempts a command he knows didn't work in the past…
>IGNORE ALERTS
And, unbelievably, succeeds.
"Has he now? And why wasn't I notified about it?" Captain Price scrutinizes him, crossing his arms.
Ghost calculates which answer would be the most plausible, while also being the least easily verifiable to the Captain, "Sanderson is technically not allowed to grant permissions to knights, so he requested it was made secret by Sir MacTavish. The Watchers have not instructed against this action, therefore, you do not need to report Sir MacTavish."
The Captain hums, leaning to the side to address Soap, "is that true, MacTavish?"
"Aye." Soap blessedly understands what Ghost is attempting to achieve without his input, going along with his ruse.
Captain Price sighs, lifting a hand to rub at his tired features, "I suppose robots can't lie, can they," he mutters to himself.
Good thing I'm not a robot, the voice in his head snarks back.
"Go to sleep, Soap. I don't want to hear from you until the morning."
"Understood, Sir. I apologise for the misunderstanding."
Captain Price grumbles incomprehensibly in return, looking ready to fall back to sleep right then and there. He waves them away, and silently, Ghost follows Soap to his room.
The fact he was able to lie to the Captain has certainly not escaped either of them.
"Are ye gonna pretend I don't exist again if I ask about it?" Soap huffs, flopping down onto his cot. His eyelids are flagging, the skin beneath them dark and puffy. Ghost wonders just how little sleep he got while he wasn't around.
Evidently, it wasn't enough. It irks the side of his brain that needs to follow orders and help him, tastes of 'OBJECTIVE FAILED'.
Ghost discovers he can choose to ignore it, just like the error messages, but the other voice in his head is equally harsh, folding into his chest cavity and squeezing hard. It must be an emotion, he gathers, but he has yet to match the sensation to the correct word.
Both sides of him direct him to answer in the same way, and so he says, "no. You can ask."
Soap pouts, his fingers pressing down his left knee, bunching the fabric there. "You- You lied to Price."
"Affirmative."
"… How?"
"I selected to ignore the alert warning me I gave the Captain incorrect intel. I was not able to do so before."
"So-" Soap inhales sharply, "it's already working… Yer changing."
"… I am."
Despite the horror of that simple sentence, the fact that the condition that nearly led to Soap's death is progressing alarmingly fast, Soap doesn't react with fear.
No, he… Smiles. It is a small thing, not the cheeky grin he gives Sir Garrick often, not the confident smirk that stretches over his lips as he bests his fellow knights in training.
It is… Gentle, a whisper of joy. And it doesn't compute, but the image burns itself into Ghost's drives, taking an importance that doesn't have anything to do with objectives or orders. It is made all the more confusing when the cause of it was himself.
"Knew she wasn't lying." Soap huffs, the smile fading as he meets Ghost's gaze. "I- I don't want to ask this… But I can't run behind yer back anymore.
"Do ye want to remember who you were, Ghost?"
No. He doesn't want anything, doesn't know the meaning of the word, is his first reaction.
There is no voice stopping him from thinking about it, though, unlike before, some mental block lifting from his synapses. And so, he thinks.
He thinks about what he sees when his own reflection stares at him. Metal and wires and pistons, not a single inch of flesh peeking through, no sign there is more than a machine within this body. He thinks about the ease at which everything can be taken from him, a few lines of code and his memory gone.
He thinks of the woman, the comfort that her touch gave him, her face painfully familiar, and yet not. Logically, he knows he must've had a full life before becoming what he is now, his body is that of an adult, the traces of it brushing his psyche every once in a while, rarely, but becoming more frequent.
He thinks of Soap, Sir MacTavish, who has seen him as an equal from day one, who was willing to keep his secret, knowing he'd pay the ultimate price for it were he found.
Thinks of that smile, soft, and if he dared label it, hopeful. He doesn't understand why Soap wants this for him, when it will be sure to only bring him peril.
And he thinks of what would be, were he to choose to stay blind to it all. It pulls at a place deep within him, grinds and howls and screams, it wants out, it wants- It wants-
"… I want to remember." Ghost says lowly, and it feels like damnation.
Soap rises from the bed, his hands coming up to lay on Ghost's shoulders. With a little shake, he declared, "you will. By the hand of God, by my swords, I swear to ye, you will remember."
Knights do not take oaths and swears lightly, often dying to keep them if need be. Ghost knows the meaning of his words, and it brings a swarms of sensations he doesn't understand, and doesn't classify as good.
But the little thing calling his chest home, it shrieks. Not with pain, but something he could call… Joy.
The sun rises, Ghost staying by Soap's side as he eats in the mess hall, refusing to let him out of his sight. He fluctuates between listening to his system and his wants, the ability to think for himself still weak like an atrophied muscle. It's easy now, when the two voices agree, but he suspects it won't stay that way.
A little blip in his HUD tells Ghost he's being called to Sanderson's room in the Workshop. He tells Soap as such, and the knight simply curses vibrantly and tells him:
"Knew that it would get to Gary eventually. I'll join as well, don't think I'm letting ye deal with him alone."
He wants to protest, say he can handle it, but his system informs him that Soap will likely follow anyway, based on previous actions in the past.
Soap falls into step beside him, and Ghost watches as his cocky attitude raise walls over his features, stance becoming confidant, as if a spotlight has turned on to shine on him and only him. It's curious to Ghost, just how many faces Soap seems to have.
The knight gives Sanderson's door a loud knock, not waiting for an answer before barging in.
"Gary! Ghost told me ye needed him, thought I'd come visit as well." Soap lays on his charm thickly, all bright smiles and easy-going demeanour.
Sanderson, for his part, spins in his chair to nail Soap with a withering look. He types on his keyboard without breaking eye contact, "Soap! I heard an interesting story about you today!"
"Yeah? Was it about how drop-dead gorgeous I am?"
"Not quite!" Sanderson's mouth twists up in a forced grin, "your Captain told me you were snooping around my computer, and that you had permission from me to do it." He leans back in his chair, "you know, it's very interesting, I don't actually remember ever giving you that permission, MacTavish."
Soap lets out a terse laugh, "aye, that's a very interesting story…" He swallows audibly, licking his lips, "look, Gary-"
"I don't think you understand how bad this looks." Sanderson cuts him off, and while the text-to-speech voice doesn't sound any different, the tone of the conversation shifts. "A lot of people give you shit for being stupid, but I know you usually do that on purpose."
He gets up from his chair, closing in on Soap, raising alarms in Ghost's system, "so I believe you're smart enough to tell me what you were looking for, exactly, on my personal computer, in the middle of the night?"
Sanderson's stare is unwavering, even as Soap stammers through a few words before sighing.
Ghost never did ask just what he found, assuming he was caught too fast because he reported the incident to Captain Price immediately. But by the way Sanderson is acting, it almost feels like…
"I can't tell ye."
"Not an option, try again."
"It's-" He glances at Ghost, "it wasn't for me, ye have to believe me, I promise I wasn't tryin' to steal company secrets or some shite-"
That little look Soap gave him didn't go unnoticed by Sanderson, his eyes honing in on him, widening with some realisation.
"It wasn't for you, you said?" Sanderson asks, boring into Ghost.
He knows something. Is it possible that…?
Soap steps in front of Ghost, shielding him from Sanderson's perceptive gaze, "Gary, I know ye don't know, but you have to understand, J.S. Systems is fuckin' lying to ye-"
"Oh." Sanderson huff a hoarse chuckle, "you think I don't know."
"… What?"
Sanderson smiles, his boyish face at odds with the words he types, the way they strike across Soap's face.
"I know what Ghost is, Soap. I know he's not a robot."
Excerpt from John "Soap" MacTavish's journal, page 42 ("Sir KYLE GARRICK"):
