The black form of Scorpio was visible in the eastern mountain range. The captain squeezed himself into a crack on a mountain, far too small for him. Only the tip of his head was visible. He was apparently having a nap. The wolf hag wondered how he could feel at ease in such a claustrophobic place. Sleeping in such a confined space made him an easy target for insectoids and other threats of the Ravaged Lands.
She walked toward a large warehouse, hundred or so meters away from the tent city around the hospital. Two guards in shining power armor allowed her through the gate. The first floor was filled with rows upon rows of new power armors. New gear finally arrived for the army. Power armors that resembled Aranea's power armor, but some were clearly intended for normies and others for wolfkins... and one power armor looked really weird. It was built for wolfkin, yet it had openings for claws only on one hand, on another hand, it had in-built claw-like stumps on the wrist. The suit itself was bulkier than regular power armor, and the helmet had no openings for the mouth, nor were there any claws on the legs. A folded energy gun was behind the left shoulder of the suit. Instead of lenses, this suit of silver color only had a green visor.
"Sure could have found a use for these beauties yesterday," mumbled Aranea as a tired-looking engineer led her downstairs. She smiled with an apology to the man as he turned back with an annoyed look, "Sorry for acting like an asshole. You had your fill of work as well, I can see that."
"My brother lost his hand yesterday," The engineer shrugged, wiping sweat from his brow and calming himself, "I, too, wish "beauties" had been deployed sooner. But safety comes first. Now we are sure that none of them will explode."
The man led Aranea downstairs, to two large metal doors. Carelessly gesturing at doors, the man walked back upstairs. Aranea walked inside. The new room was round in shape, and the walls were made of solid metal. This warehouse was constructed from scratch, after reinforcement came. Yet, looking at it right now, Aranea could have sworn that this place had existed for months already. Cables were hanging from the ceiling, an array of mechanical hands, having an uncanny resemblance to insectoids in ambush, were patiently waiting on the ceiling. Monitors, currently turned off, run across the walls. Only one monitor was still on, with a weird message, "PROJECT WARLORD. Test subject's physical status: full recovery from the operation. Test subject's mental status: Sane, extensive therapy courses are advised in order to prevent degradation of the personality." Could be seen on the monitor. Aside from the message, the monitor showed metal parts, shaped after a wolfkin form.
Several tables were placed in the room, surrounded by strange devices. Marco, looking like he was about to die from exhaustion, was sitting on the steel chair, looking at how Till Ingo was working on the body of a young woman. Leila, her wings still locked to a mobile support frame, was sitting on another metal chair. The jacket, crimson in color, was over her shoulders, the back of the jacket was torn to allow wings to come out. The eyes of Marco were filled with red veins, the left corner of his right eye was filled with utter red, his arms, however, were utterly calm. He smiled and gestured to Aranea.
"No offence, Marco, but go and have a sleep. We have other doctors, you won’t help anyone if you do yourself in during the work." Aranea shook her head in disapproval.
"That’s what I keep telling him," Till Ingo said, without breaking contact from his work. A set of mechanical arms from the ceiling moved to the ground level and connected to the back of the doctor. "Instead, he is hogging drugs to stay awake. Idiot." Six long limbs run across metal parts of the patient, taking something out and causing sparks to fly as they work.
"I will not let you operate on prisoners without supervision. Not after what you have done with Olesya." Marco folded his arms om his chest stubbornly. His voice betrayed a hint of anger.
"What have I done to her exactly?" Ingo spoke with deadly calm, unbothered by the tone of his fellow doctor, "Wolf hag Olesya is alive and well. Her body is whole now. In time, she will thank both me and Svetlana. There is a bright future that awaits her."
"Olesya was hurt, right? You treated her? Can I see her?" Aranea asked in a worried voice. She had no idea what happened to her friend, doctors refused to disclose the information, the only thing she knew for sure was that Olesya was no longer in the hospital. For a while, Aranea was afraid that Olesya could be dead.
"Alas, no. She specifically requested that no one see her other than us, the warlord, and Svetlana," Marco said with shame and anger, "We should not accommodate this request. But it is, how it is, with her mental state as fragile as it is, I do not wish to stress her any further. Olesya has asked me to tell you that she will find you in a few months and explain everything over a drink."
At least she can speak. And drink. Aranea nodded, relieved that her friend was alive and seemingly well enough. No matter how grievous her scars are, or how badly wounded she is, they will get through it. Aranea walked to stand behind Leila, looking at her critically. The half-wyrm turned and smiled:
"What?"
"Why are you not in hospital?" Aranea still saw red on the back of Leila, in the place where Chort had run her through with a bone blade.
"Told ya before, wyrms are built different. For us, these wounds are child's toys. Others needed space in hospital…"
"You are not a wyrm."
"See these beautiful scales on me? It's good enough..."
"You should be lying down and recovering!" Aranea put her paw on Leila’s shoulder, half of the mind to drag her out by force.
"Eh, I am not allowed to train my team by the warlord’s order until my full recovery, not allowed to train… I will go mad if I am once again locked in four walls. I had something that I needed to discuss with good Till here. Oh, and I also found a source of new stories, so everything is good." She nodded at the prisoner.
"I hate everything about this," The woman on a table said. The left side of her body was covered in bloody bandages. Her body was almost pale, a sight unusual for people born in the Ravaged Lands. Well-developed muscles could be seen underneath her skin. Her right arm and leg were missing, replaced with metal prosthetics, huge lumps of steel shaped like an arm and leg. The right side of her body was also covered by steel, part of her ribcage was replaced with an implant. Her eyes were still natural, however, looking at people around her with barely held back fear, despite the poison in her words, "And I hate you too, you winged monstrosity. And you look like an ugly walking mutt who disguises herself to look like a human."
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
"Ignore the insults, our prisoner is naturally a bit annoyed by her situation," Leila advised to Aranea, "She answered most of my questions about the history of her tribe."
"Is she a Bento tribe member?" Aranea raised her brows in surprise. Janine drilled into her the rule to utterly ignore outsiders from the tribe who insult you in the open. The wolfkins often worked with the natives of the Ravaged Lands and quite a few of them disliked the Wolf Tribe, calling them names. Minor racism aside, locals were to become future members of the state, thus some moderation was in order. Usually, after the wolfkin help a village deal with dangerous local beasts or with insectoids, all insults were quickly forgotten. Olesya, however, liked to start a banter with locals, but to Aranea's knowledge, never allowed herself to hurt normie.
Yes. Damn idiot that she is," Till said, as a metal hand removed part of the metal from the side of the woman. The prisoner threw a panicked glance at the missing part, "Look at this shit. It blocks blood circulation, causing flesh to slowly degrade around the area of the implant, which would have resulted in her having to undergo new operations in the future. Bento's implants are meant to give reasons to install even bigger implants in the future, all because of how crude they are. Barbaric."
"Mister Ingo..."
"Just call me Till."
"Mister Ingo," Aranea said stubbornly, remembering the bots that he sent at her and the beating that she had received, "Why are you here? If this is not confidential, of cou..."
"Originally, I came to Chokepoint A because of the power armors of the Regulators," Ingo once again cut off Aranea, continuing to work on the prisoner, "Why are their armors able to withstand the amount of heat that could boil our troops? Where could they get such advanced technology? Could such an alloy of enemy armors help us overcome the climate of the Living Lands? But since I am here, I can help in other ways as well."
"Wait, but we just found out that their armors could do it," Aranea frowned, "How are you arrived here so fa..."
"Be silent, filthy invader," The woman tried to speak calmly, yet hints of panic were in her voice. Terrified, she continued to look at the removed piece of metal, "I have no need of your accursed help. The union of flesh and metal is the greatest honor that a human can achieve and the greatest gift that a human can receive. Kill me if you want but stop violating my sacred metal flesh." She swallowed in fear, trying to sound brave and defiant.
"The union of flesh and machine is the greatest thing," The scientist nodded eagerly, removing another metallic part from the shoulder of the prisoner, "But only when they work in perfect unison. Organic beings made technology to help them, not to hinder them. When merged together, one is not allowed to hurt another."
"Bento tribe believe that it is futile to try and revive the land. They aim to create the perfect human. In their opinion, a perfect human means uploading a personality of a human being into a chip, thus eliminating all need for flesh parts in a machine," Leila enthusiastically started to explain, showing notes that lay on a table near her, "Almost all Bento tribe members receive knowledge and training on how to assemble prosthetics, sometimes even from scratch. They make faulty parts on purpose, to ruin their own bodies even further and receive new implants as life goes on. If someone fails to adapt to implants, well, too bad in their opinion. The prisoner right here, who sadly still refuses to tell me her name, was a tribal medic. This means that she is one of the selected few who speak with outsiders, who treats the wounds of other people, since Bento usually does not treat their wounds, they just slap new implants on and go on about their lives. I also learned that Bento is ruled not by a single individual, but by a council of elders…"
"The prisoner here was captured in the eastern mountain range, earlier this morning. She was assigned the task of starting to treat our wounded in preparation for a future prisoner exchange. She saved a few of our troops, but the resistance lost, and this idiot here tried to hide in caverns, only to be found by insectoids. You can probably still feel their scent on her body if you sniff her hard enough. Soldiers managed to find her in time before she could be devoured. After I treated her wounds, I saw that implants in her body were killing her slowly, and thus I had no choice but to ask for help." Marco added, cutting off Leila’s speech. The doctor nodded at the angry-looking Till.
"Why is your body being so ruined! You are what, sixteen, seventeen years old at best, and your body is already nearly done!" The old scientist angrily snapped, lights shining from underneath his forehead while he looked at something in the metal arm of the prisoner, "Generator is leaking! Why are you using oil, instead of…? No wonder you had to replace your lung! Enough of this, drastic measures are required," The mechanical arms took out steel leg and arm from the sockets on the body of the prisoner, and her eyes became filled with horror. Mechanical arms raised prosthetics in the air, allowing the scientist to look at them, "Botched job, but for a novice without proper education, not half bad, I will admit this much. You pass." Mechanical arms moved, taking apart steel leg and arm piece by piece before the very eyes of the Bento's medic.
"No! I can’t end up as a cripple! " The prisoner howled in pure horror. There were no restraints on her, yet she could only move her neck and head, her body was immobilized by some medicine, "Not the cripple! Please, I beg of you! Kill me! I can’t assemble new limbs with just one arm! I can’t live as a cri…"
"Oh, shut up already, you broken chatterbox," Ingo responded in an annoyed voice as two prosthetics were lifted down from the ceiling. These were elegant looking arm and leg, made from plastic and metal. Six metal arms of scientists began working, connecting new limbs to the prisoner’s body. The process took a few minutes, Till still had to replace some parts from the body of the prisoner, but soon the limbs were connected, "You will not be crippled or killed, you idiot. The world needs all the bright kids it can get, so we will ship you out of this land to one of the colleges in the Core Lands."
"Is this plastic?" The woman tried to look at her new limbs, her face looking in disgust at her new limbs, "I am not a child. Where is proper steel?"
"Now you acting or picky, huh." Leila chuckled.
"Children are the ones meant to be toying with plastic. I will not be..."
"Behave, or I will replace your lost parts with vat-grown flesh and limbs."
"You would not dare…" The woman looked at the scientist before taking a deep breath and saying, "You can do anything you want with me, invader, but I will never help you. I will never betray my people." The prisoner tried to sound arrogant, despite her fear at the last words of the scientist.
"I am in no need of help, thank you very much. Help humanity instead by living a proper life," TheA needle was unleased from one of the mechanical arms. Till pierced the prisoner's skin with it, injecting something, and her eyes quickly closed, "Well, all done here, she'll sleep for the next six hours. We have two hundred prisoners from Bento tribe, right? Once I am done with this wolf hag here, I expect all of them on my table, pronto."
Mechanical arms unhooked themselves from his back as the scientist allowed Marco to check the patient.
"First thing first, I want to congratulate you on your survival, I heard it was hell out here," Ingo critically looked at Aranea from head to toes, "According to data from your armor, you suffered minor damage to your muscles from using the rail gun. This can only mean that I did a botched job. Follow me, I have to adjust your armor."