I stayed up until 4am writing transgender transhumanist post emotional death cult yuri that's technically not smut if anyone cares.
Another mediocre run, the vandal shell thought to herself as she crept through the tall grass between algae and complex. Nothing too much to note besides her own purple shield and some half decent salvage she needed. Second to final exfil, a minute left, no time to spend anywhere else. A shame for how quiet of a round it had been, for night marsh no less. But a clean run was hardly something to complain about, even if something still didn't quite settle with her.
Probably just the quiet and the dark getting to her. Using a vandal shell for as long as she had, it was hard to tell how much of the paranoia was hers, let alone how many shells ago it started. Either way, it wouldn't be the first thing to change since leaving her more human one behind.
Though maybe that was just Charter starting to get to her. VIP 60 had the both of them on fairly close terms, at least as ‘fairly close’ as one could be to the enigmatic speaker for the cult. Enough communiques congratulating her on shedding her former self death by death, and you start to believe it a little. It was never a pleasant experience, one she hated. At least at first she did, harder to tell these days. Death had almost become an old friend of hers, visiting only in the briefest of moments. Taking with it a small piece before she’d find herself back in the databank. Senselessly feeling a little lighter in the interface, and a little better on her feet planetside.
It was the little things at first, the ones you don't notice. The face of her friends, distant relatives. Things she noticed much later. After she realized she’d started using her shells' name in her head over the one her body had. It was easier that way, she’d slipped into it one run without noticing. A few hundred deaths eroding away her subconscious preconceptions of self just enough for it. She’d told herself it was less confusing for her teammates, it would fix the last 15% of neural sync ONI insisted would come with time. It would make her better, it had to, why else would you start seeing yourself as a girl.
It didn't help with keeping who she was. Selfhood and sense grew even more fleeting when she most desperately clung to them. Every death another distant memory drifting away. She remembered the day she forgot her name, unable to recall it in the midst of a sortie. She wanted to scream, to claw at her shell until she could pull herself back out. No matter how hard she tried, the wounds still bled blue. No matter how much it felt like skin.
Enough time spent in the shell and it's more real than anything you’ve ever felt, not that you can really compare it at that point. There were still other memories she longed for. She missed the intimate ones the most. The feeling of touching another person's skin. The warmth of a body against another. It didn't matter now, not really, it had been a long time since then.
She felt good. She felt better than everything she’d lost. She was sure. There was no way it couldn't, no matter how hard it got to compare. No matter how much she felt like someone had her in their scope any time she walked into the open. Surrounded by UESC halogen searchlights on shiny white printed polymer, living rent free in everyone's crosshairs. Most of the time she was wrong anyways. Just a programmed hunch.
It wasn't today. A harshly learned lesson via high caliber sniper fire to the back of the shoulder. It hurt, badly, a white hot javelin of pain pinning through her shoulder. Seeping blood with her elevated heartbeat and staining the clean white plastic a deep blue. just barely enough of a miss to give her time to slide into the shadows within the building. While she struggled to see through the gloom herself, at least she was safe in the dark.
It felt like everything had gotten louder as she limped through the claustrophobic hallways. Heavy breathing, the concerningly quick drip of blood on prefab flooring, synthetic adrenaline pumping through her veins, her hands fumbling around printed fabrics for her last depleted patch kit. Just enough noise for her to miss the creeping footsteps behind her.
The sleek arm of a thief shell wrapping around her chest, and gripping her shoulder was harder to miss. Her hands were cool to the touch, gentle and delicate, but still firm. A touch she recognized. It hadn’t been the first time she’d ran into the thief. The one who got her into all this in the first place. She didn’t entirely remember her name either anymore despite how much she looked at the Arachne leaderboards, it was different from the one she remembered remembering. But the feeling of her front pressed against the vandal's back was far more signature than anything else could be. She didn't get much of a chance to struggle before the cold steel of a knife pressed into the small of her back, ripping through polymer fibers and lab grown tissue. Effortlessly parting between the meticulously laid threads along the edge, and ripping through soft organ tissues at the tip.
The slickness of her own fresh blood dripping down her back was hot and the firm hand staying her shuddering body against the knife was comforting at this point. Intimate in a way mortal love could never have been before abandoning herself. The warning lights and pain are a clearer declaration than words could be. Her steady motion of driving it deeper, knuckle deep and still firmly gripping the blade’s hilt, the tip tenting out the soft plastic on her belly. A few more excruciating moments with warning alarms blaring in her skull before the soft rip of it piercing through cut them short. Everything seemed quieter now, distorted, as the blade blossomed from within her flesh. And despite it all, she felt loved in moments like these, more than any time back on mars. She felt truly alive, and couldn't help but tilt her head back and grin at the irony of it all. At the one person who cared enough to love her.
To love her at its most carnal, as it truly is, when you take everything else away. it’s bleeding out onto the blade of her only friend in this cold world. It’s whispered as a broken thank you on final breaths in ragged tones. It’s to be held clutched close as you grow limp and your consciousness ejects. A parting gift, it always has been, and always will be. The gift of taking, so you may become who you were always meant to be, who you truly are. Piece by piece.
