Interlude: Sarah #1

A gruff male voice breaks through the radio "perimeter secured"

Sarah reply's in a robotic voice "Confirmed, sending in thralls."

The entrance to the church is ragged and torn with bullets. Civilian corpses are littered throughout the street, stinking and bloated. Their faces are etched with their final moments of fear, eyes wide and poses stuck in desperate positions. Some have their hands on their doors, but are slumped over. Killed by the Raiment's stray bullets. Others are like statues, bodies perfectly preserved and picturesque. Blood only marring their pales skin. Killed by various gases and neurotoxins.

The goldbrick had they been here wouldn't even bat a eye at his supposed citizens gruesome deaths, If pushed about it he would reply "more sacrifices for the greater good" and put a bullet through your head. But he's not here, this is only a small conflict to the SPOT.

So Sarah's in charge. There isn't a tooth grinding moment she doesn't regret what she allowed to happen. But she was following orders from the heads of the raiment.

She watches as the inhuman teams close in on the church. The focal point of the battle. Dark blood red sky behind it, if Sarah still had the words for it she would call that beautiful. But they took half her brains a long time ago, replaced them with obedience implants and thought correctors.

The mutants are lucky in that regard. Though they are deprived of nutrients and knowledge they are free. Their unique biologics serving to reject and consume any implants placed in them. It's why they could never be fodder or rather "civilians."

The fodder are picked from the ground by Sarah's collectors. processed within the units and then released. The cheap seeded crystal implants driving them to swarm the church. Ignoring the mutant's through their RFID and focusing on anything with heat in the building.

A cost effective way to repurpose the filthy cattle.

As the goldbrick says "Even in death you will serve."

Sarah remembers this tactic was developed from a rogue dungeon. Every servant and regiment of raiment they sent in would come back out. Stumbling, drooling, and hungry. Once they broke it's diamond core they found the blueprints for such a thing. It wasn't as one of the heads had thought a plague or memetic spell. Instead it was a type of parasite. Of course that parasite's print was reassembled into a chip and used to implant all of the old graveyards. The cattle protested at first, but after many prunings they obeyed. Of course most obeyed in the first place, but they needed to be taught a lesson.

That was all before she was turned into what she is now. She used to be one of the heads. But the goldbrick suspected her of treason and had her hallowed. She was a loyal member of the raiment. How dare they!

The units under her control turn red for a few seconds.

[Treason detected... Thread asphyxiation deployed.]

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

The units turn blue again. Sarah's previous thoughts destroyed.

It takes her a few moments to regain her wits. But by then it's already too late. All of the thralls have stopped responding. Her robotic voice cracks through to the mutant team's radios.

"Abhumans, Threat escalation detected. Thralls subdued. Deploying heavy containment units."

The vehicle containing or rather supporting Sarah's reduced vitals has modules mounted to it's sides. Black boxes. They drop, landing on their knuckles and feet. They get up and march to the building. Dwarfing the ruined and smoking civilian houses on their sides.

Unlike the other units, these are fully robotic. Connected to Sarah via neurotransmitters. Camera feeds streamed directly through her implants and into her brain. What she see's is marvelous.

Human captives fused onto the walls. Living and breathing, but moaning in pain. Her thralls organic tissues still intact. Possibly because the tissues were already dead. Just moved and abused by the chip in their brains.

A massive pod sits where the oratory stand would be. Instead of a priest there's a pulsating red chrysalis. Rebirth under the god's view Sarah muses.

[Heretical thought detected... Emotional and stimulatory pain deployed]

The thought makes her cringe.

The mutants trail on either side of her. Two of them abyssals. She'll have to keep a thread on them in case they try something. The other their leader. A elysian mutation. Instead of being groomer for a theological position he's suffered a mutation. The god's hate mutants.

His power she remembers is to enhance machines. Maybe that's why she feels so good around him. The other two like typical abyssals are adapted to vile means. One malformed and ungodly, he can withstand extremes of heat and vacuums. The other looks like a typical woman, however instead of blood she bugs crawling through her veins. A parasite that preys on parasites and a lazy idiot that can tolerate anything.

She gives them a severe shock. The Buffon responds a little, not entirely immune to the sensation. The other writhes on the ground screaming. A little part of Sarah feels the only emotion she's been allowed to have besides pain.

"Sadism detected... Enjoyment deployed."

schadenfreude.

However she leaves the elysian alone. He isn't like the abyssals. He still technically has rights under the goldbricks orders. For what reasons, she doesn't know.

She turns back to her task.

The moaning human walls are purified by the boney abyssal mutant. While the parasite sucks the sac dry. Recovering from her wounds faster and faster.

The elysian watches, detached.

"Heavy unit eradication." The mutant's spring away. Recognizing the code for "I'm shooting" as half of the eastern wall is blown to bits. A distortion taking shape. Red billowing smoke coming from a typical priest. The archpriest.

His uniform however is stained with blood, and his cheeks are up to his eyes in a smile. Seemingly satisfied with the slaughter he enacted for his patron. Tendrils and fluids leak out of him as he claps. Never uttering a word as he ducks, dodges, and leaps out of the way of Sarah's attacks. Occasionally those attacks happen to land. His biomass is blown to the floor in a writhing mass. But that same red smoke takes the place of anything she destroys. Regenerating his body.

Eventually just as she manages to line her targets on his head, a hand rips her head off. Unit powering down without a implant to control it.

She did manage to get a glimpse of what did it. A second version of the mad priest. His elysian powers seemingly letting him clone his self in his fallen state.

It was a stupid move, but she just can't think the same way she used to be able too.

[Failure detected... Unraveling]

She'll really suffer for this.

Hopefully the mutants will be able to survive.

The heads will probably demote her further.

More implants to come she suspects.

It's so hard to think.

Bad girl.