Chapter Text
The figure stalked forward in silence. It didn't have a problem with a tightening lack of noise, was in fact strangely comfortable with it. It itched along its back as it made careful progress, picking its way through the vast yet rudimentary cavern, aware of an unseen watcher that analysed its progress through the upturned rocks and pieces of harsh stone and earth that made up the floor of its current abode. It traced the jagged sides and carefully placed one foot after the other, carefully; a word that it definitely did not often prescribe to during its former life.
Thinking of that moment, of its reawakening, had sent chills and shivers through it every time, and though it was becoming used to controlling its body's reaction to the harsh thoughts that overwhelmed its mind, it still found a small measure of comfort in identifying and basking in the all too natural feelings of memory.
There had been darkness. Endless bliss, neither joy nor pain, hatred or love. It was. And the absence of feeling, of anything, was so strong that it felt like a presence all on its own. Then the light, the harsh glaring red beams of light that tore through its improved optic nerves and sent searing tendrils of hate and power through into its brain. It rubbed absently along the sides of its arms as it remembered how it had thrashed and turned, tried to fight the invasion of its mind and how useless it had felt resisting the force behind the light. Its eyes had opened, it had awaken and memories and feelings had raced through its body and mind. It languished and twitched as hyper-sensitive nerves sparked and triggered for the first time in years and it didn't know whether to resist the sweet stabs of pain or to bask and take in as much of it as it could.
It was left to crawl out of its gestation pod under its own power, struggling to its feet as liquid nutrients and redundant fluids coursed down over its naked body. It was. It knew, memories and experiences that gave it personality and character, turned its thoughts along a single prescribed path. There were gaping holes, empty as the cavern that it currently traversed, and it wondered with a detached curiosity whether there had been anything vital stored in those parts of its brain or whether it had been something that its masters did not want it to recall. Either thought brought echoes of discomfort, only echoes, for it realized immediately that any signs of turning against its master's will would shut down its body and send mind-numbing pain rampaging through its system. Pain was a familiar friend, but one that it did not want to get too familiar with.
Mechanically, it dressed, pulling on unfamiliar paddings and armour, jet black in the flickering, artificial light and it wondered why it was that the light always flickered in places such as this. Surely they had the technology and the resources to create a simple source of light that didn't have to cast nauseating shadows over itself and its surroundings. Perhaps it was part of the mind games that its masters enjoyed, if creatures such as that could ever be said to enjoy anything.
It had stood solemnly just outside the chamber that it had been born in, feeling neither heat nor cold and certainly not hunger. The feeling was something that it remembered, it had happened too frequently during the past and it knew that it missed the accompanying feeling of consumption and fullness that would follow. But its body did not need that, only needed the barest of anything in order to survive and though the thought pained it unexpectedly, it derived a perverse satisfaction at its other thought, it had survived.
Pain blossomed in the front of its mind, shattering its thoughts in the wake of a single word that was so loud, it was surprised that the walls hadn't collapsed and that its head was still intact from even experiencing the voice in passing.
Come.
Its feet had moved of their own accord and it cursed the fraction of control that it had over its new body, knew that somewhere in its past it had revelled in freedom and had taken such things as indecision, creativity and the unknown for granted. And so it went as the voice directed it. It was inwardly surprised though, at the amount of latitude it was given in its head, the freedom that it was granted in thinking and expressing its thoughts and wondered if this was one of the differences between it and the past, failed experiments its masters had performed. It knew, as instinctively as one such as it could know, that it was the product of a different process, of a new and tentative experiment. And it knew that its masters would want very much to test their new tool to assess its effectiveness.
It reached the end of the hall, walking beneath a crudely fashioned portcullis of sorts, a door that reached up into the depths of the ceiling and disappeared into darkness. Its purpose was unknown to the figure, but it knew that it had never encountered anything like it before. The sheer size and scope of the doorway should have been enough to tell it that the door's purpose was to protect and keep safe the figure that resided behind it but it was sure that there might have been another purpose to have a door that was almost a kilometre thick, blinking with lights and mechanisms.
Come. Now.
Without thought, it bunched the tightly woven bio-mechanical fibres in its legs that served as muscle and released them in a startling burst of speed, turning into a liquid blur as it raced the rest of the way toward the compelling voice before it. The enhancements had granted the creature tremendous advantages in speed, reflexes, strength and durability, but it all came with a price. If it exerted too much, those parts would drain too much energy from its frame and shut themselves down while they waited for the area to cool down and restart themselves. Those moments would leave it vulnerable, and it knew without doubt, that it hated being vulnerable.
It closed the last hundred metres in a second, coming to a complete halt so abruptly that it ground tiny divots into the rock and felt shards of stone spray out in a short fan before it. It took a deep breath and clamped down on the burning signals that its legs began to send to it, signalling to itself that it may have overtaxed its extremities so soon after emerging from its forced hibernation. It walked carefully again, blocking out the pain that wound its way through its body and looked up in awe at the thing before it.
It was monumental, multiple points frayed out from its main body to give it support and a vaguely diamond-shaped body that spanned kilometres and was elegantly raised up off the floor and almost touched the ceiling of the chamber. Huge tubes trailed through the thing's superstructure and linked it to certain ports located within the walls, either feeding something into it or sending something out, it wasn't sure. As a counterpoint to all the jet black metal, it was framed by delicately blinking lights, some white, some a soft blue, but everywhere, light. It was a Reaper, Sovereign-class in size definitely, and it was facing the figure directly. The Reaper was its master.
Observe.
From the main oculus, a comparatively tiny red beam emerged and started to whirl around, sending a complex and detailed hologram playing across the empty air of the chamber. The figure folded hands behind its back with delicate precision as it watched the sight that its creator wanted it to see.
It was the rest of their fleet, stationed within the Sol system and hovering protectively over a tiny, five-pointed star that floated innocuously over a bright, green-blue gem of a world. Earth. It felt nervous fingers twitch in surprise and wondered whether it would be part of the final strike into Earth. It watched the image more closely; no, it didn't think so. The planet looked devastated and there were more than enough forces present to dominate the entire system, let alone one miniscule, overpopulated orb. There had to be another reason why it was present for this.
A bright... something, caught its attention and it watched as the tiny star began to shift and turn and it wondered if it was another form of Reaper, whether its masters had created an entirely new weapon that they wanted to test on the unsuspecting planet. Suddenly the star glowed, brightly enough that it cast everything else in stark shadows, turning the hologram into a block of brilliant, ruby red. The figure felt traces of apprehension as it watched but could no more look away than it could turn around and leave the chamber against its master's will. The light seemed to drawn into itself, seemed to gather at the middle of the glowing star, and with the poignant suddenness of a blink, flashed out in an omni-directional blast that left the shattered hulks of Reapers steaming in its wake.
It was struck by a sudden realization; this was not a weapon created by its masters, this was a weapon that the sentient races of this cycle had managed to complete and use against the Reapers and it felt panic at the thought of being consumed in the voracious light.
The hologram winked out, there was nothing else to see anyway, and its master settled its bulk more comfortably on the floor of the chamber as a deafening, clanging boom filled the air, echoing through the chamber. The figure flinched and cast its eyes around in desperation, the blast had reached them and it didn't want to die, though a quiet part of its mind analysed the cowardly reaction and knew that something was wrong with the thought. It swivelled around, intent on dashing through the door again and finding the deepest, darkest hole it could find, but turned to see only empty walls. There was nothing. It was only then that the figure realized that the sound it had previously heard was the sound of the doors closing. Then another realization hit.
They were blast doors. It's master had intentionally created this refuge while its brethren had been scouring the galaxy of life and was intending to see if it could ride out the storm. Somehow it had extrapolated the situation and prepared contingencies for this eventuality and the figure stared in mixed admiration and dread at the towering colossus before it while it returned a look of bland, mechanical indifference.
Suddenly, a keening too loud to hear, split the air like a knife and it couldn't stand, couldn't think anymore as the chamber seemed to collapse in on itself and it felt the very strands of its being as it was pulled apart and frayed into nothing as the once comforting darkness rushed to embrace it again.
It breathed a grateful breath as it tiredly beat back the retreating nothing that had smothered it, what seems like months ago but may in fact have been days or even hours. It was difficult to have an accurate sense of time buried in this tomb. It was facedown on the floor, breathing in the dusty debris and it coughed once, pathetically, as it struggled to stand, pushing tired, bleeding hands against the cold, hard floor and willed itself to forget the pain. It raised its head and looked up at the vast, dead bulk of its former master, the halo of lights dull and, in some cases, shattered. It turned and paled as it took in the twisted remnants of the vast door, watched as burnt out pieces of metal shuddered and failed miserably against the walls and caved in to land gracelessly on the floor. It sighed and tried to make its way out of shattered chamber but found that its feet would not budge.
That was strange. Its masters were all dead, gone, the thrall that they had over it should have been lifted and freedom should have come rushing back in a familiar euphoric wave. Perhaps that was something its masters had been experimenting with, and it tried repeatedly to shift its legs forward when a ravening pain exploded in between its eyes. It dropped to the floor and screamed as the feeling burrowed its way into its brain, serrated spikes thrusting through the soft flesh underneath.
Abruptly, the pain flared and died and it lay there taking shuddering breaths as it tried to remember where it was, tried to recover some semblance of posture and place. The best it could do was turn its head ever so slightly to the twitching arms of the Reaper as it slowly came back to life, lights flooding back into the construct through the tubes that covered it.
The experiment is successful. Preservation has been accomplished. Now, we will begin.
Suddenly, all lingering aches and tiredness was banished from its body as it felt its master activate bio-mechanical functions that sped up healing and drowned out pain in a wave of endorphins and adrenaline. It could also feel the tiniest bit of its master strength coursing through it and it revelled at the feeling, the almost unbearable amount of power that flooded its system. It leapt back up to its feet and turned smoothly to kneel before its master, one hand braced on its knee while the other lay palm down on the floor, against the other knee that was already resting there.
The Reaper's red lights flickered ominously, and the figure could only imagine what thoughts were streaming through the Reaper's processors as the figure knelt there, head bowed down in subservience.
Proceed with the parameters of your mission. Disobedience will be punished and failure will be rewarded with oblivion. You will not fail us. Begin.
Despite the threat that lingered in the air, the figure couldn't help but grin as it nodded its head eagerly in acknowledgement. It was time to get moving, time for action, and it felt its jaw ache at the thought of finally moving and getting itself out there into the new, shattered galaxy that it had left behind.