Small hands, palms like porcelain cups--too delicate to hold much. You stretch each finger slowly, one knuckle group at a time, carefully wriggling your pinky.
Good, you think. The feeling is still there, sharp and swift like razor wheels rolling across your nerves, but you're grateful for the pain. It's an honor to suffer for the burden of greatness. It's supposed to hurt, what they're doing to you. How they're changing you.
(This small comfort alone sustains you, bolsters your pride even as the effort to move your hands proves too costly. Your arms drop with a dull thud, touch cold metal.)
"Your latest modifications are performing beautifully, Shaolin." The voice sounds muffled, distant, though you know--can sense--that the speaker is just to your right side.
You try to turn your head. Can't. There's something keeping your neck in place. Probably best.
Blinking, you will your eyes to open. Shadows and shapes blur between the shutter-stop-motion of your eyelids. Your throat feels full of grit and fire when you open your mouth. You think you might be smiling, or at least, you're trying to.
(Hard to tell when every breath pushes your senses into an acid bath wash of pain. Covers everything, corroding the finer details.)
"We just need to run a few more tests.."
They don't ask if you're ready or able. It doesn't matter if you aren't. If you can't endure this, you have no reason to exist in this world.
White fire pushes through the tubes in your arms and lights your bones. You hear something crack, but you fade out of consciousness before you can taste the blood from the juncture of teeth and tongue.
--
Your hands are bigger now, though they're still weak. They shake as they grip into the side of the table, every ounce of strength devoted to keeping you (mostly) upright. Curled in on yourself, your eyes squeeze tightly as another shockwave emanates from your spine. Tears gather in your lashes, though you ignore them.
(Just a physiological response. Doesn't mean anything.)
When you open your eyes, you're staring at fresh blood on your drab gown, and the soft din of the monitoring equipment around you begins to escalate.
(You're not supposed to be awake yet. Not when they're still molding you. The operatory is dark outside of the glow of the machines around you, but you know it's not truly empty. They're be here soon, your makers.)
Dazed, short legs unsteadily try to reach the polished floors, wavering as bare feet touch cold. Wires and tubes pull taut in protest, restraining you like icy hands.
But you stand anyway. Take a step. The next electric spike rattles your nerves, makes you forget what it is to be upright. The ground rushes to meet you, or so it looks that way from here. Red blossoms from your nose as you crumple, and softly, so softly, you curse.
You need to get stronger.
--
You are no longer her (and she was never you).
A girl of no more than fifteen--if that--stands in the center of the arena, electrode stickers down the length of her arms, across her nape. Her head is down, her balance wavering as she shifts from heel to heel. There's blood trickling from the corner of a grim set mouth, splattering softly, softly on the white floor below.
Her last opponents lay in a broken mess to the side, three of them--each visibly older and larger than the girl herself--with scarcely a heartbeat between them.
(Just canon fodder. Probably Westies. She didn't ask.)
She stretches her fingers out, one knuckle group at a time.
"Very impressive, Sui Feng," a voice booms down from the observation deck above. She doesn't respond or seem to notice it.
"You can rest now--"
Her head lifts sharply, sterling silver gaze narrowed on the murky windows too high for her to reach. Sequestered in an otherwise featureless white room, she must look like a dark stain of red and black from their vantage point. ]
No.
[ It's said like a command, harsh and certain. She lifts her hand up, wipes the blood from her mouth on the heel of her palm, black hair sticking to her with a layer of sweat and grime. She's been fighting for a while. ]
I can do more.
[ There's a pause, stillness settling over the medical colloseum before machines break the silence. Bots move forward, gathering the corpses like unwanted snow. Pushing them to the corners.
"That's exactly what we like to hear," the voice says again, a section of the wall pushing forward and above to reveal the rest of the research facility.
Her next opponent--you--waits at the opening. Sui Feng smirks, a red-tinged expression, and meets your eyes. There's nothing but murder on her otherwise childish features. Mindless hate funneled into clenching hands.
OTA
Small hands, palms like porcelain cups--too delicate to hold much. You stretch each finger slowly, one knuckle group at a time, carefully wriggling your pinky.
Good, you think. The feeling is still there, sharp and swift like razor wheels rolling across your nerves, but you're grateful for the pain. It's an honor to suffer for the burden of greatness. It's supposed to hurt, what they're doing to you. How they're changing you.
(This small comfort alone sustains you, bolsters your pride even as the effort to move your hands proves too costly. Your arms drop with a dull thud, touch cold metal.)
"Your latest modifications are performing beautifully, Shaolin." The voice sounds muffled, distant, though you know--can sense--that the speaker is just to your right side.
You try to turn your head. Can't. There's something keeping your neck in place. Probably best.
Blinking, you will your eyes to open. Shadows and shapes blur between the shutter-stop-motion of your eyelids. Your throat feels full of grit and fire when you open your mouth. You think you might be smiling, or at least, you're trying to.
(Hard to tell when every breath pushes your senses into an acid bath wash of pain. Covers everything, corroding the finer details.)
"We just need to run a few more tests.."
They don't ask if you're ready or able. It doesn't matter if you aren't. If you can't endure this, you have no reason to exist in this world.
White fire pushes through the tubes in your arms and lights your bones. You hear something crack, but you fade out of consciousness before you can taste the blood from the juncture of teeth and tongue.
--
Your hands are bigger now, though they're still weak. They shake as they grip into the side of the table, every ounce of strength devoted to keeping you (mostly) upright. Curled in on yourself, your eyes squeeze tightly as another shockwave emanates from your spine. Tears gather in your lashes, though you ignore them.
(Just a physiological response. Doesn't mean anything.)
When you open your eyes, you're staring at fresh blood on your drab gown, and the soft din of the monitoring equipment around you begins to escalate.
(You're not supposed to be awake yet. Not when they're still molding you. The operatory is dark outside of the glow of the machines around you, but you know it's not truly empty. They're be here soon, your makers.)
Dazed, short legs unsteadily try to reach the polished floors, wavering as bare feet touch cold. Wires and tubes pull taut in protest, restraining you like icy hands.
But you stand anyway. Take a step. The next electric spike rattles your nerves, makes you forget what it is to be upright. The ground rushes to meet you, or so it looks that way from here. Red blossoms from your nose as you crumple, and softly, so softly, you curse.
You need to get stronger.
--
You are no longer her (and she was never you).
A girl of no more than fifteen--if that--stands in the center of the arena, electrode stickers down the length of her arms, across her nape. Her head is down, her balance wavering as she shifts from heel to heel. There's blood trickling from the corner of a grim set mouth, splattering softly, softly on the white floor below.
Her last opponents lay in a broken mess to the side, three of them--each visibly older and larger than the girl herself--with scarcely a heartbeat between them.
(Just canon fodder. Probably Westies. She didn't ask.)
She stretches her fingers out, one knuckle group at a time.
"Very impressive, Sui Feng," a voice booms down from the observation deck above. She doesn't respond or seem to notice it.
"You can rest now--"
Her head lifts sharply, sterling silver gaze narrowed on the murky windows too high for her to reach. Sequestered in an otherwise featureless white room, she must look like a dark stain of red and black from their vantage point. ]
No.
[ It's said like a command, harsh and certain. She lifts her hand up, wipes the blood from her mouth on the heel of her palm, black hair sticking to her with a layer of sweat and grime. She's been fighting for a while. ]
I can do more.
[ There's a pause, stillness settling over the medical colloseum before machines break the silence. Bots move forward, gathering the corpses like unwanted snow. Pushing them to the corners.
"That's exactly what we like to hear," the voice says again, a section of the wall pushing forward and above to reveal the rest of the research facility.
Her next opponent--you--waits at the opening. Sui Feng smirks, a red-tinged expression, and meets your eyes. There's nothing but murder on her otherwise childish features. Mindless hate funneled into clenching hands.
She'll prove herself over your dead body. ]