User blog:MockingJester/From the abyss

He sits by the edge of his couch, confounded by the revelation, yet beholden to no true shock. The amulet blinks in starvation of color, once in a black pitch, devouring the natural reaction of a man unknowingly feeding every ounce of his essence into it. Is that what ended his parents? The way they moved...the way they spoke...devoid of passion, replaced by monotone movements....until one night, quietly in their beds, without notice...

His hand brushes it from the palm, fingers clutched around it, lifted for his eyes to behold. Eyes withdrew from light, empty save for the most basic function of sight. The gray irises reflect the gnawing amulet of a singular iconography featuring another eye glaring down a stream.

The next reaction of one bearing an item devoted to eating the flavors of life would be to fling it far enough to see it shatter over a wall. A wall of metal previously chosen by Malcolm as an unremarkable domain for one such as him to inhabit. A place missing much of the vibrant colors one would make use for gushing life at home. His walls reflect the same lifeless eyes of his.

But he doesn't, his dull mind not beyond reminding him of where he stays. A place surrounded by monsters. The air becoming their own. The shops, flooded by monster courtesans. The streets, filled with their atmosphere. Surrounded by enemies who had conquered this place, this amulet had been his only shelter. But now that he had uncovered the steep price for such a thing...

His placid thoughts fade away, unable to muster the fealty to remain under external sources, the present one being a series of knocks at his door. A door mimicking the walls of metal, dull and listless. Any semblance of reasoning in his mind dies, returned to still water, only periodically disturbed by drips of attempts at emotion.

"Intervention squad, open up!!" A voice shouts from the other side, one of a woman masked with stern authority.

Silence remains the sole driving force of Malcolm's home, his head shifting to a room beyond his bedroom, one with a door still open to spill the content within. A room dedicated to machinery featuring robotic arms and computers, wires and energy cells. At the heart of it all; an exosuit.

"WS-002, Storm, initiate" His monotone voice calls out, igniting the machine with light. A light that dances atop and over it, to spring the machine through life. Or rather, an imitation of it, a poor one, considering its user. The suit of metal and light takes a step forward...

...and a second. Before it leans forward, it's back open from within. A back well prepared for cushioning a man within. Malcolm, within.

First, his feet. Then, his arms, and finally, his head, all embedded in the second flesh of metal and light. Wires and electronics. Effectively isolated from the outside world, as his heart is from emotion.

The hyperactive sensors in the WS-002 pick up the distinct tone of voice from the sound knocking at the door a second time, with added force to this time "We know you are here, open up, or we'll be forced to breach!"

Once again, the other side receives no word nor act from the man within, as he sits by the couch, waiting. His hands join under the metallic chin, breathing no life from without as he is from within. His act, motivated by the most basic of thoughts, his education through the eyes of zealous parents. The instincts of distrust of those present.

The same who breach the door through serrated heat. The molten metal leaking from the aftermath, a direct touch from the frontal salamander clad in riot armor, amply suited for her form, as the lizards' and backup group's members are. Black and pink, sturdy in leather within, metallic without, all under a layer of a personal shield, shimmering against the breach's debris.

"Intervention squad! Put your hands where we can..." Her instincts are assailed with the all-too-common sense of absence. Be it the walls, the atmosphere or otherwise, all pungent with a cold emptiness. An emptiness that, even for a veteran in this matter, could never be a feeling taken to be used to "...Ohh, this place..."

"It's like the others..." comments one of her point gals flanking her from the left side "Whoever is here has been forsaking his sense of self for a long time. Since childhood?"

The salamander's plight turns to outrage. A creature like her and her fellow, emotion is at heart of their lives, be it in combat or otherwise. To place their utmost in anything they seek out. Being in a place so callously disregarding the life essence is blasphemy to the group, the leader, prompted to slam her shield on the side of the wall "Damn those order zealots! Again, their cursed amulets are claiming another life in solitude! Squad! Search the rooms! Whoever is in hand of this cursed pendant can't be far!"

The squad diverges from each other, a hovering light at their side flashing the dull walls of metal that paint the surface of the house, their quick and unnervingly accurate sweeping motions the only thing brimming the room in colors and sound in a place devoid of such.

Outside, a perimeter stands, featuring more intervention members. Shrouded in darkness, besieged by the misty rain of twilight, the glimmer of their outfit, the only light piercing the black. Spellcasters hold their hands unanimously, reflecting a dome of an inward sphere. Others, carrying yet more shields, stand before them, weapons armed. Tanks, armored vehicles, and a helicopter make their presence known in a way to blot out whoever they may be trying to apprehend. --- Far from the darkness of the outside, and between walls of knowledge, books, numbering in the hundreds fill the space of legion after legion of stacks.

Meticulously arranged in the alphabetical order, they fit the gaps, well-used, yet well maintained. Dusted and cleaned, pulled and shafted. A dim light illuminates a section to accommodate the night's hold on the city.

Further within, a lamp lights the surrounding, featuring the same shade of blue that accompanies the hovering crystals serving as luminescence. A book lies open on the wooden hull of a table. Notes are scribbled all around in a crimson dye, one matching a crimson vial of ink, as it lays beside another vial of black ink, from which the main writing populates the book. A draft from an enthusiastic hand feebly writing on the other half of the pages.

Bluewings tethered to the hips, blue hair, blue horns, blue irises. A fan of her natural colors, Cloe's outfit revolves around the shade of the blueberry. From her sweater to her glasses' frames, all the way down to her legging replacing a pair of pants, with a small gap form the skirt underneath her top.

A cup of warm coffee lies by her empty hand's side, the cup reflecting the blue nail work on the surface. The radio plays a receipt from a television show intended for an auditory audience.

The quill in her other hand currently fills the ever moving gap of her teeth, a victim of her pondering mind. Blurry imagery with no words to bridge the picture "Perhaps I should go with a more direct description...no, no, no, this is supposed to be an impactful scenery, but what to go with?"

Her eyes wince upward, seemingly contributing in her tireless search, her ear given to what sounds like the climax to whichever audio show they're attuned to "A direct description might go well. Ohh, but it would be glossing over this revelation. I know the gradual build-up is what would suit this part, but--"

Her lips part as her pointed ears catch wind of a shift in her miniature radio "Huh? I don't remember switching..." Her immediate attention to the box yields a warning "--And we urgently demand that any and all citizens busy in the affair of nightly hobbies cancel their time outside and remain indoors! Contact with our newscaster will be soon live! Again, we urgently demand that--"

Cloe's attention diverges from her writing session to the radio. The book yields its pages shut, yielding to the force of her mind. The radio finds its way to a middle between her arms and her chest. She cuddles to the nearest window folded by her wings and tail, gazing outside where rain plights the exterior. A growing worry grumbles in her stomach... ---

The helicopter is accompanied by a demon sitting outside of it, a mic tethered on her head. Her cloth is dissonant from the intervention squad and the pilot, clad more in a semblance of a news anchor. Her wings constantly re-adjust to keep her in stability, a miniature camera hovering next to her. Her voice lights up the raindrops, broadcasted to the faithful of eyes and ears "And welcome back to the Late Night broadcast! I am as ever your host, Veronika! Here, we present to our viewers and listeners a most unprecedented news feed of an intervention squad apparently in the process of apprehending one bewitched by the much-dreaded 'Empty Oath' amulet. An amulet that subjects its wearer into wandering the world as...nothing more than a living corpse..."

The camera which highlights hers at its center changes motives and begins surfacing the lower segment, where the perimeters are, guided still by her voice "As many of you will remember, the Plague of the Empty has been a blight ever since the arrival of our denizens, the last fetch attempt by those of the other side to martyrize this very place we now share with our beloved halves. Orphans left to wander the streets and homes, crying for their deceased parents who had seen our arrival as an omen of doom. Men and woman locking themselves shit within, only to be discovered passed away from the irreversible effects of the amulets..."

The newscaster ends her words for but a brief moment. Being one mirroring the moniker of 'judging a book by its looks alone', her sense of empathy takes over, fed the overwhelming amount of distress felt by any monster kin watching or hearing of her words. Merely speaking about it prompts her to clasp her two fingers on her wedding band, crimson irises wincing in a search of comfort.

"Lands of empty where one or many had died under an atmosphere of lifelessness. Many of us had to bear the days, weeks and months of chipping away at this...plague before the life could be returned to those we would soon call our tender halves. Those who would sire our children..." Her ringed hand, beholden to this remembrance, is prompt to seek shelter on her belly, masked by silk and sturdy, form which twice has life been given, a comfort to remember, an act never to take for granted. Children who at this very time, are likely pleading their father to read them a bedtime story in the oncoming twilight.

"These times of trial, once surmounted by our collective hands, have left a chip of their devastations. In this very house, there is the supposed presence of an individual bearing one of those cursed amulets, condemned to a short life of utter emptiness. The intervention squad is currently sweeping the rooms seeking the cursed individual out in a process to--hold on! We're getting a new feed!"

The camera, once sweeping over her presence now consolidates its focus on the streets. Several of the intervention squad members backtrack, their ammunition flowing from their firearms with a pinkish resonance. Silver bullets shimmer through the darkness of the rainy night, all piercing and puncturing the wall directed within the house.

"It would seem that whoever suffers the plight of the amulet has but the most basic instinct to resist those that came flocking to his domain. Likely a hidden individual beheld to Order propaganda and--hold on! Getting another feed!"

The leader of the squad is seen and zoomed at, backtracking with another member on her back, obviously injured. Her personal shield generator radiates a fiery aura as it burns every shot from the inside that comes in contact with her. Her second shield is battered and cracked, punctured and stained with burnt spots, chipped and in tatters. The injured one continuously pumps shell after shell into what sounds to be the individual.

"Medic!" She yells out, daring a mighty jump just as a flight of red-flared projectile seeps out the hole previously made by her. They flight upward and crack under the payload buried within their casting, detonating in a gray light. Miniature missiles with the power of regular ones, now falling upon the squad.

The shield-bearers from the outside quickly rush inside, raising their shields to make a communal single. The generator humming inside is kicked to life, sending forth a swath of counteracting power, bearing opposition to the destructive force upward.

"Ladies and gentlemen, it would seem the wielder of the Empty Oath has somehow acquired the means of firepower similar to our intervention squad. The likes not seen since the end of the Plague of the Empty. Despite his volatile actions, bear in mind he is likely bewitched by the only memories of indoctrination taking hold over a lifeless mind. Someone somewhere must be taken by this being and--We have visual confirmation!"

Slowly, a foot steps out of the smoldering wall since long devoid of a door. Then another. The smoke recedes, pelted by rain and whisked away, revealing an exosuit. One with a hand lifted midway, responsible for a flight of storm around itself acting as a shield. Lightning crackles around the arm, profuse with spuds over it. On his left flank, a weapon with the barrel pointed down.

"We have confirmation that the individual bearing the Empty Oath is, in fact, the armored one contesting the firing squad. Judging by the outfit he hides under, it can be said that this one has been living under our radar for quite long as--hold on! Helix security?!"

The reporter's astonishment is but a reflection of the epiphany of the intervention squad now taking Malcolm's sight to his whole. The salamander, in particular, her voice pungent with confusion "Wait! This guy is from Helix?! What the---how?! Since when?! This kind of firepower in a husk..."

A chorus of voices joins her in confusion, just now seeing a man affiliated with a renown international company dealing in the state-of-the-art technology and security, mostly in the shape of exosuits. Moreover, this one had been, for the years prior to this very moment, the responsible for border security, an elusive sight for even winged monsters. The one who patrols around the city by himself in Helix's name. A flawless service, if his sight was but rumors for most of the citizens.

And now, the same individual stands against them, his mindless body acting upon values of the previous tenants of this place. The shield-bearers of the intervention squad move forward, instinctually prompted by Malcolm second hand rising, pointing a beam rifle in their direction.

Thunder crashes, a promise to destruction from two oppositions, the silence unnerving. The squad, switching their weapons for more potent incapacitation castings. Castings imbued in demonic shielding to dampen the energetic nature of a force field. The bullet, pure demon silver with a concentrated head in the same material, its nature intended to shred any metallic components while yielding to the flesh, unwilling to terminate whoever it was shot at. Within, a distilled amount of demon silver powder, aiming to strike with the force of a demon silver greatsword, aimed at rendering whoever suffering under its shot, incapable of combat.

Malcolm, however, had none of the same mercy. his beam rifle, aimed at disintegration. His missile pod mounted on his shoulder, to seed destruction on a large scale area. His havoc arm, the one casting the barrier between them and him, his greatest offensive and defensive artifact.

And yet, none of this would ever come, for the flight of one had come, ignoring the safety procedures broadcasted at every moment a bearer of the Empty Oath was sighted or rumored.

"Wait..." Her voice gnaws desperately at the thunder and rain, conflicting both in their choruses, struggling underneath.

"Wait--" Her voice picks up strength with her decreasing distance. She folds her wings, only to spread them in a spring momentum for a burst of lift atop the white vehicles stationed behind the black armored personnel carriers.

Her pants are as relentless as her pace, soon highlighted by the helicopter as the sole individual outside of the perimeter, a sight easily noticed by the reporter "Ladies and gentlemen, it would seem that one of our compatriots has discarded the urgency to come seeking the tragedy of the joust depicted before our very eyes".

"What the--who just left a civilian wander anywhere near here?!" The salamander swiftly moves in the path of the winged woman splattering the water beneath her heels, a radio cluttered between her chest and her arms.

Her crimson body once again comes back to Malcolm's view, aligned behind the rifle that adorned his flank "Stay behind me, this one is--

"I know him!" she shouts under the rain, casually rolling aside the squad leader in spite of her attention.

"Hey! No! You don't get it--" Her voice is cut short, a whisper in the wind overtaken by the buckling of her shield below the concentrated array of the sundering beam, one strong enough to push her backward.

Cloe's run comes to a halt by the dying light of the rifle, its barrel now solely turned against her. Her arms squeeze around the radio, her overbearing strength squeezing the box at its utmost limit, denting it with cracks and fissures. Her eyes and lips wince at the thought of seeing the man aiming at all at her, let alone with a finger wrapped around the trigger. Her leg takes still another step forward, hushing under the monsoon "Malcolm? I-It's me. Do you remember me? We're friends."

The hum of the barrel, once scorching for another array, slowly winded down as the weapon felt discarded of the pressure from his finger, temptingly hesitant. The succubi's voice, filtered in his encased suit, forced a glimmer in his hidden gaze.

The rest of the group watches in astonishment, hearing of the rare phenomena recorded. None of them dared a moment, including the squad leader, the latter swiftly re-positioned for a firing volley. A time of elusive clarity flowing in the bearer's cognitive matter, where the fusion of a hollow mindset and the overwhelming indoctrination of the Order's tutelages would crumble and falter if called by someone intimately close to them.

"No way..." The salamander lowers the heavy shotgun on her side, in utter disbelief at what plays before her. A civilian, carefully, yet steadily approaching the man in the machine in a distance neither she nor her squad could.

Cloe's voice digs through to the presumed inexistent emotions of Malcolm, his armed...arm lowered, the head-up display zoomed in on her. The woman takes another step, moist with water "You remember me. It's been a while, has it not?"

Another step, eyes winced to the side "I guess I now know why you've stopped coming for a bit..." Her voice lowers still, barely picked up by the cohort, fulled transmitted to his augmented auditors "...though it must have meant something if my change hadn't dissuaded you still..."

Her voice lulls down, drifting in thought, her body subtly following the thoughts once placed in the corner of her minds. Among them, a sense of worry manifested with a stronger squeeze of her radio, deliberately squeezing its content outward.

Prone to repetition, her eyes wince and drift to the side "I suppose I now know why the distance has widened between us..." With another step, Cloe gradually lifts her stare back at his, masked as it was. Closer still, bite by bite, remembrance as her outreaching hand "I remember the times we spoke of our small hobbies. Then I had accidentally slipped a note about some story bubbling in my head..."

Privy to his expression to all, Malcolm's fleeting sense of self is briefly kindled, prompting his hand to reach the top of his head, his empty hand, at least. A jolt springs his embedded chest in a unique motion, almost as if to laugh. One scarcely witnessed under the dark and rain. Cloe's distance allowed her to recognize it, responding in her ever bashful manner of wincing in a self-aware way "...you laughed while dancing around with the notes, refusing to partake of them. At least, not until I made a promise to commit to those into a full-fledged story. Back then, I didn't really feel the appeal you saw in them, seeing as it was a backward tale featuring a..."

Her bashful look fails to disallow her to take yet another step forward, playing in his remembrance to tether closer. His hand had now left the cranial segment of his armored head to lay on his chest, filled with yet another bodily pulse. A mimic of laughter, one shriveled down. Cloe utters a tiny giggle, the sensation of embarrassment returned to her as well "...a warrior princess going in a reversal rescue novel...featuring a fabled shining knight at the clutches of a dragon..."

Her timid giggle turns wholesome laughter, her teeth subconsciously exposed over this sudden burst of hilarity, one that quickly turns to another wholesome simper merged in embarrassment "...thought it really was about that small companion of hers..."

Her smile simmers down, reduced to a fledgling "I remember the people who gave clamor to this small, small tale of mine. A simple premise with an easily spotted twist. Yet, it was enough to convince me to build a path to a writer's career. All thanks to your teasing..."

Another step ahead, one seeing her look back at the man in the suit, spotting his lowering arm, devoid of a guard's clench. His eyes, yet depleted, began moving. Her voice still seeks his auditory senses, speaking his thoughts "I never really let you read a sample, did I? I'm sorry I couldn't. But..."

Another step. Close enough for her to feel the ambient heat of his beam rifle, Cloe's cracked radio, long beyond its functionality, begins to gleam in a bath of violet sparks, one spurning forth Malcolm's only true hold on any sense of self: the indoctrinated one.

His empty arm begins surging with lightning, prompting the intervention squad to raise their arms. "Stand down!" orders the salamander, expressive of her words with a shield broadcasted toward her mates.

"Boss, this one turning hostile!" One of the carriers bellows, inching on diving on the suit bearer.

"It's fine, it's fine! Look at her, she obviously knows the guy wrapped under this cursed amulet!"

"But boss--

"Stand! Down! Your acts will only make things worse!" The salamander turns to the rest of the squad, but only with a glance "This goes for the rest of you! Only on my word!"

The female variants unconditionally give in to this demand while the men groan in reluctant agreement, unable to see the same manner as their counterpart did. The struggle underwent with one so emotionally removed from existence, this city's poison.

Particles flow from his in-built weaponry, the overwhelming sense of paranoia clouding his mind from the diverged gaze from his interloper. Everything focuses on the shift behind her arms, ambient with energy spikes. The hollow man's dull instincts prompt him to backstep a pair, arms raised in her direction.

His eye close for but a second, yielding still to the need to combat dryness in his oculars. A split second, one enough to see one pull the trigger. And yet, in the interim of that half a second, her arms bore another item, dethroning the now shattering remnants of the radio as it falls to the whims of gravity and the incessant water flowing to the closest water canals.

Behind the machination of metal and wire, light and synthetic, the hollow man's eyes widen, they widen against the hold of the Empty Oath, a bead noticed by the exosuit as a small blinking light periodically points him to.

"No way..." an electronic-filled voice comes out of the WS-002 as nothing more than a whisper, his typhoon arm banished of the substance gathering but a second ago. His vision centers around a small book, focused by his eyes, focused by his head-up display.

The frame of the tome is coated in demon silver, sheltered from rain by the bearer's magic, making evaporation out of any droplet foolish enough to try to moisten the pages. The inner fold of the front is a delicate pink, featuring a woman knight adorned with a tiara over the decorated helmet she bears aside a man carrying an oversized bag with everything short of an actual kitchen. One of her hands carries an elegant rapier, the other, subtly intertwined with the baggage man's own. His expression is unnoticeable, turned away for none to see. Hers, however, is a fervent blush hidden under her helm, blatantly ignorant of a man dressed in similar nobility in the process of a kidnap attempt by a dragon.

The man of the Helix security goads further defiance by the flourishing remembrance of this topic they had in their teenage years, before Cloe's gradual change. Before his resignation on emotion. Emotions from the past breaching the void of a hollow mind.

"I didn't...think...that..." Malcolm becomes the one to take a step forward, dropping the weapon so entrenched in his arm. The same arm reaches out in empty space, unaware still of the distance between them. Of the dot flashing in his display concerning his chest cavity.

Space filled by the leather-winged woman with her book still in her arms, close enough for his isolated fingers to touch the bare surface. A barely restrained joy in her voice seeps out "I did! Your continuous pushes helped it become real! The people here love it, Malcolm, they love it!"

"Ladies and gentlemen, the previously mentioned unidentified has somehow managed to lull the hollow individual back! As I speak, his ongoing recovery of humanity is making itself more potent, leaving his arm behind for the intervention squad to start safely approach the two. A rare moment to see indeed, an ending I think we could all use more of!"

"But...Malcolm..." Cloe's triumph simmers down, carefully placing a hand on his exosuit's chest. Her expression shapes back to a lamenting one, glazing her voice in the same somber spirit "Malcolm...I wanted to bring you a copy...no, read it to you, to us both, together..."

Her eyes rise to meet the formation of metal and light where his head should be, burning the look of melancholy in his mind "I can't do that, Malcolm. I can't! Not with this...blighted! Blighted thing you suffer under! Not like this! I don't want to read it with a man devoid of what makes him!"

Her hand begins coiling around the chest cavity of the exosuit, slowly denting the very space where this cold sensation is felt. A grin of apathy grinds through her teeth, one solely directed at yet another piece of misery that spilled through the cracks of the Curse of the empty, in such a fashion where she'd rip it off him and crush it under her palm...if she could.

Instead, a soaking pair of fingers gently lay over her palm, robbing the sheepish succubi of this flight of anger. Her eyes once more lift to meet Malcolm's...helmet. A head taller than her, before the suit, the decreasingly hollow man leans but barely to spare her the effort. His voice, unbelievably warm "I know...I...know...I want to..."

"By the Lord, she actually did it..." The salamander takes a slightly more relaxed stance behind her shield, whim to the hearsay and cheers of her compatriots. Her voice rises in authority "All right people! It looks like the target is safe to be escorted back! Bring the ambulance!"

The dome disassembles and the shield bearers make space via approaching the two in a guard stance as the white vehicle makes its way to the center, opening the back doors with hazmat men in white seeping out, almost as isolated from the world as Malcolm is.

Cloe's hand climb in height to meet the side of his helmet, cold to the exterior, by rain and darkness. His cheek, however, welcomes the sensation extended by her subtle prowess, the touch of a close friend augmented as a creature craving and displaying closeness. The metal hindering her touch could hope little to actually deny him the warmth in her palm. Her voice aids to this de-escalation "Malcolm...I'll be coming to keep you company. These people are going to get you the help you need. Please...let them..."

His hand comes to meet her. The light in his eyes, even if barely present, had begun to dig its way back up, vehemently defying the pendant that now overdrafts itself in an effort to suppress the flourishing emotions gnawing at it. Of course, he would remain still---

A crack fills the sound within his suit. A blaring warning reaches his ears. Not as quick as the overwhelming pain surging through his body, a sight the men in white could see even barred from the actual man "His amulet! It's overloading on the guy!"

"What?!" spouts the salamander, just taken to voice instructions to a still struggling Malcolm, now embroiled in gripping his chest, backsteps in pairs.

"What? Malcolm!!" Cloe's feet drive forward...abated by the salamander leader taking hold of her as the book she held up to this point drops to the gravely street "No, no! Let me--Malcolm!!"

Purple lightning begins seeping out the exosuit, crippling the man inside as it courses through his outer and inner shell. "The hell do you mean it's overloading?!"

The hazmat men clash their hands to awake the devices in their gauntlets, siphoning apparels. One of them turns to the backing leader "It's as I've said! These Order goons decided it would be a good idea to input the core of these amulets with an overloading protocol. A last dish effort to wipe out the bearer AND the monster seeking it off of them! Shit, it's going critical!"

"Damn it" Squad--" The salamander's hands keep a stronghold on the distraught succubi constantly fighting her way out. Her shield hums with radiance, bracing for impact "Squad! Present shields! Dome! Everything!"

Malcolm's painful strife with the amulet comes to an upheaval behind a dome of storm surrounding his exosuit solely, effectively isolating himself further. A dark violet stream bounces inside, unable to seek a breach. It lashes back at him for this defiance, unable still to prevent the man from backing up further, at all hands' astonished stare. A voice questions "Wait! Is he...?"

Veronika, the news anchor, places a hand on her chest, her eyes laced with an unbearable melancholy. This behavior isn't the first she saw, nor heard of. Her breath comes off charged with a powerless sigh "Ladies and gentlemen...it would seem that this confrontation is about to reach a somber tone..."

"Malcolm...!" Cloe's futile struggle loses momentum behind the overpowering rupture of the medallion puncturing the man's exosuit. A bright, yet dark amalgamate of energy breaks out of Malcolm's armored chest, briefly polluting the ambient space.

The fleeting life of the blast, even as it already gasps under dying breathes, further ingrains damage unto the bearer of the medallion, forcefully pushing him backward in his domain with sweeping damage at every corner. From the living room to the kitchen, to the back room, Malcolm smashes into, his suit losing parts and bits of his armor, halted but by the last wall of his domain, a similar metal.

Cloe's eyes line with abject horror, unable to contest this violent burst of hollow energy literally puncturing a hole in his chest, to claim him in the darkness of the broken household. Laced with hysterical tears, the succubi turns unsatiable with grief "Malcolm!!  I'm--I'm--

"Hold on, we don't know what the sitrep inside--" One of her wings swaths directly in the salamander's face, intended for but a concise distraction, one enough to slip through her captor's arms.

"I'm coming! Malcolm!" She springs, her vision blur by the aftermath of watching her close friend possibly die before her eyes. Her bones vibrate under the inaction of her stillness, head buzzing, erasing whatever link her words had barely begun to gestate between the two.

She runs across the still smoldering remains of the house's innards, ignoring every obstacle placed in her way, if not outright running through them. Fragments of wall tossed aside, furniture stomped to further pieces.

Her watery sight, blurred by rain and tears, finally set aside the obstruction as it meets the crippled remains of an exosuit nestled over debris. A large smoldering hole is clearly visible among the gray texture of the metallic lining.

"Malcolm..." Cloe spares no time plunging to her knees,  her hands around the inert helmet, the inert man within. His vision dwindled and dwindling still, it encompasses every inch of her approaching face, droplets falling on the surface of his crippled helmet.

One that sunders under her grip, bouncing off away like a piece of rubble. His face could barely feel the pounding rain falling from her eyes, his grip on the waking world, weakening. A horrifying sight for Cloe to behold "Malcolm! Malcolm, don't go to sleep! Stay with me! Stay with me!"

She clings to the fallen man, unaware of the approaching squad, including one of the hazmat men. One of them carries a kit with him "Good grace, his suit' chest cavity has been blown off! Quick, the vehicle!"

They toss the debris aside, watching the white vehicle force itself inside the confines of the broken domain. Slowly, the salamander leader places her hands on Cloe's, gently taking her attention while removing them. A rigid reaction from the succubi, barely soothed by her voice "Come...there's nothing more to do. They'll take him away to the infirmary..."

"But...but he--

"It's alright" The crimson lizard embraces the bewildered librarian, trembling in full force. Her trembling gradually withers, giving way to an unabated wail. A wail clinging to her closest, taking it in as a patron of the same suffering. Another witness of a loved one lifeless within, in near-death outwardly. A curse lasting in this city, a hated hex left by the previous occupants of its walls.

Soon enough, the ambulance leaves. It leaves with the broken body of Malcolm. His shattered suit. His returned hollow mask. All of it, leaving Cloe to weep, a quiet weeping falling deaf in the sky and under the rain striking her form. The salamander's as well communed to this shivering sensation, once wailing in another's arms from the sight of her own's limp state. Tears splashing, crying against the bleak remnants of what was his domain...

"What?"

"Well..." the hospitaler's voice rings of glaucous resonance scratching the walls it travels "It was a miracle he survived that blast to begin with, likely due to his suit. The true damage, however, is due to the sudden reflux of emotions suppressed for so long have wrought memories he cannot bear, as it was with many others..."

A surgeon finds himself gazing back in the round glasses of a succubus who had discarded her timidity in a flight of worry. A worry descended from the dread of loss. Her hands join to her chest, braced for the string of ill-fortune following his wake "...you may go speak to the patient. However, be careful of what you bring up. Should you re-awaken a past trauma...well, the human mind has ways of dealing with things it doesn't want to remember..."

"I'll be wary. Please...I want to see him. It's been days..."

"Alright then, right this way..." A door opens at the press of a button, allowing Cloe to step in the room. On her hip, a book. Her tail sways with little momentum, a basket in its grasp. Her wings remain folded on her back, almost unnoticeable in her entrance.

Immediately, her eyes lie on the man stranded on the bed, fixated on the window, a window to the outside life. The white and gray walls do little to broadcast the clear skies and rays of sunlight, either prone to absorb or deflect the glow. A morose sight for anyone, a rotten sanctuary for those afflicted with the Empty.

"Hey, Malcolm" Cloe rushes to meet his stare with her basket in her hands, barely lifted in front of her face. Eyes mirrored to a blank stare slowly invigorated as the increase in his vocal decibels "Oh hey...you came. I didn't think you'd make space among the book reading you seemed to have picked up".

He chuckles in a reserved tone, still reaving from the scars, weeks past. Hearing his docile tone places a furious reserve on the bespectacled succubus, hindering her eyes further through the handbasket, diverted to the left. "Oh? You brought sweets, huh? That never really changed with you, did it?"

Watching her squirm imperceptibly brings a great deal of giggling from the seated man wrapped in bandages, who gestures toward the basket "Oh, alright, alright, I'll stop. Mostly because I'm starving for something sweet right now".

A faint smile etches on her face, expending to her otherworldly appendage which gently drops on the mini-table between them before working its machinations to rip open the foil covering the top. A bounty of sweets meets him. Surprise filters his tone "Wow, you REALLY didn't change a bit, did you?"

"Technically...I kinda did..." her wings cease their fold and spread outward alongside her forked tail nursing the curved horns stranded on her head.

"You know what I mean" he dismisses, easily pointing back to the basket "I mean, geez, you must huff down two dozens every day if this is what you brought".

Timidity assails her, re-directed to her hand on the cusp of grabbing one of the cookies. Her munch is one treading in careful balance, all sundering under Malcolm's laugh as he joins in to pile on the same wealth of sweets.

Despite all of this, her heart beats with the drums of joy, gratitude to hear the essence of his personality in his teasing voice. Itself was a parallel she yearned to blister under, a link to the book she had carried with herself, forgotten in this simple bliss... --- A sight of gratitude from the warrior woman, to witness her trusty companion muster himself back from the abyss of treatment. Her pristine hands sheltered in snow-white hands encircle his neck, binding her body in a fierce caress, her voice spilling words of relief.

Her untouched hands against his rough caramel pigment, she utters gratitude. His voice speaks a returned mimic, yet his hands remain far from her, turning this as a one-sided hug. His weakness of recovery...compensated by her overbearing. Her knightly strength, her devotion, promised to him in the heart of their rescue endeavor. No matter how small, no matter how benign... --- Time passes with the overseeing of Malcolm's room slowly furnished with apparels of Cloe's belonging. His recovering interval spent to watch her accommodate many things around his figure. If her time was churned in the labyrinth of her books, then the other half was to be spent here, watching over him. Helping him. Nursing him.

"Malcolm?" Her timid voice echoes from the relatively close gap of her makeshift desk and his bed. Lots of convincing was made to allow her to make such arrangements, such as the desk from which she drafts and erases. The same one from which she whispers to the infirmed man.

" Yea? What's up?" The glint in his eye was shaped differently, a mixture she couldn't quite grasp. The mask of his bombastic personality returns over it.

"Well..." Her hands move from the desk, placed on her chest "...well, you've been staring aimlessly for a bit. Perhaps, well, if you want, we could...outside or..."

"Nah, don't worry about it. Your presence here is enough for me. I--

"But, it's fine. I can continue this later..." Cloe's grasp on her quill and ink lessens completely, returned to the man wrapped from head-to-toe.

"No...Cloe! Seriously, it's cool, you don't need to exert yourself for a proverbial---ok, Cloe? You're not listening to me right now. Cloe". The round bespectacled woman's ears filter out his dismissive complaints. A hand under his armpit, his arms over her shoulders. She lifts him off the bed to his feet, with no qualm about having him cling to her as crutches as opposed to his actual crutches laying on the other side of the bed.

"I...I was told you don't go around that much and...well, I was thinking--

"To kidnap the crippled man to your heart's content?" His words come in structural hostility, though his voice feeds her with anything but "Hehe, I didn't think you'd retain that persistence. Alright, but let me get my crutches..."

Cloe nods, her steps leading his wounded feet. Close to the door, close to his apparels. Closer to the door, closer to his apparels. Closer still to the door, close to his apparels. Facing the door, far from his crutches.

"Hum, I don't know whether you noticed, but unless you feel like carrying a man twice your weigh, I suggest we reimburse course"

"It's--it's fine! I don't mind..." Her voice, strong as a lion, immediately lowers under her reclusive timidity. Her words spoke no lie, the strength of a monster amply able to make the trip back and forth a dozen times over.

The broken man relinquishes his position of argument, feeling his 'guide' press her far right hand on his plaster chest with a promise of a much more comfortable walking position. Or rather, floating, the tendons of her wings fuelled with her mind to live workings.

The sensation of motionless hovering is a new director of experience from Malcolm, the origin being a different one than his exosuit. Far from this place they fly, under the scrutiny of a paired duo, both flushed in white. One of them hurriedly pressing arms on the window "Wait, what?! Who lets a visitor spirit away one of the patients?! Patient 002, no less!"

"It's no big deal..." the other approaches the panicky former, her hands dwelled in her blouse's sleeves as she makes her way to the window "Patient 002 hasn't been out in a while, clustered away in his room. I thought some outside air would do him well for recovery..." Her visage is as dull as any lich bears, though her voice sings a different tune, a relief aftertaste laced in her otherwise neutral tone.

"You went against my direction and advised his momentary leave?! you know patient 002 isn't physically able for this sort of expedition!"

"Which is why she's going for the hovering protocol. You know succubi are better flyers than given credits for, especially with a close one. Really, though, anything far from a gray solitude is bound to do great for his recuperating psyche..."

The male doctor turns to his colleague with an unconvinced expression "You just let her go her way because she signed your book did you?"

"Did I?"

"Did you?"

"..."

"..."

The lich turns and wanders off, a palette in static flight besides her. Her emerald irises, however, align on the opposite direction, where a small pocket book lays open for her. The cover is hard-signed with a wing on both sides of the signature. A lovely pen work.

Cloe's flight bring the two far from the towering city of a hundred towers, their atmosphere painted in a luscious brightness, one only a bright demon realm could hope to offer and then some. A scenery of foliage and trees dressed to be visually feasted upon, dancing in colors of blue, an unsurprising favorite place of Malcolm's overly enthusiastic guide nesting him to a hill with a broad view.

"Heh, this place...first I actually get a closer look" He comments, his mind absolved of any clear imagery, still battling the lingering effects of his Empty Oath amulet.

Cloe's confusion quickly turns to a shriveled sense of empathy, reminded of his occupation at the outer borders of their city. The cursed pendant constantly robbing him of his small moments of amazement, the things brought from afar from the arriving beast kin in a city once mired by a stark absence of visual stimulus. White walls, gray streets, a void of nature's touch, at least until the dryads came about.

Her hands keep on the injured man, slowly and gently aiding him down on the side of a tree's bulk, a series of tall trees overwatching the rest of their siblings on mounted hills. Her softer form slumbers down on his hips, taking as little space as possible. A feather sliding down on him couldn't hope to be as light as she carried herself.

His eyes spoke what words couldn't, as it did for many others recuperating from the Empty plague. Trashing and gnawing at the last bastions of hollowness, his irises gleam everything he can catch, astounded by the drastic changes brought for so long. The change he could never hope to admire close up between his overbearing work schedule fuelled by his void of hobbies.

He turns down to Cloe who's own demonic stare remained fixated on his amazement, a hand so softly planted on his hip, a faint smile across her lips. her brief hair barely cutting into one of her eyes, feeding him the knowledge of her regular returns to this very spot. A place other than her library for a time of solitude and blissful silence.

One this time, bewildered by his willful presence, reminiscent of their past times deliberately stranding themselves among plains. With Cloe's yearning for a quiet place to indulge in her docile hobbies. More often than not, her hand in his pulled along in his to run from the hectic movement of the previous city, nothing more than white noise as many Empty Oath survivors would say.

White noise filled by cars, lifeless speeches in the course of purchases, trades and factories. A slag unnerving Malcolm enough to dance away from the borders, taking Cloe along to flee in the scarce pieces of nature available. His grin, a promise to her for a place of ambiance.

And now, for this day and those following, she would be the one to take his hand on hers. To spirit him away from the monotony of his cubic room. To guide him, sometimes in a frantic manner, far from the colorful city. To seat the two of them in outdoor view. To close the gap between the two, widened by his last years under the emotionless plight of the Empty Oath amulet. Their paths converging as her teased-born book depicted. --- The gap from the prince's solitary tower was at hand. To be marched to by a few lasting hours, the long stride's end. The warrior woman finally had the vision of the prison tower before her, feeling her purpose close to being fulfilled. A sigh of relief falls off her shoulders as she turns to her loyal companion, his walk pattern acclimated to her own, despite his recovery still reeling.

Her words spoke of a night's sleep rather than a night's blitz, seeking to shrug off any groggy clinging to the two by the day's traveling. An act that oversaw to the companion's assembly of their makeshift tents. Of course, her sleeping convenience, a pristine marble uncaring of the surrounding condition, such was his handiwork.

A promise to sleep...never to be given to the laboring companion who had barely a step in the way of his sleeping bag before feeling his hands cupped by her presence. A lightning-fast presence once again reminding him of her nickname, the Flash Dancer.

Her eyes, adorned by her braid and ponytail hair glancing by the side, moist to meet his. Her palms, pristine the way only a titled knight could afford to,  in the rough surface of his, worked by returned manipulations in the more utilitarian tasks in their travel.

Her words, once more spilled to tomorrow's rescue from the winged wyrm. Speaking of the bounty promised to she that would recuperate the imprisoned prince from the dragon, that his hand is wed to hers. A now long unwanted bounty attached to her. Her heart discarded to a higher branch of royalty, instead, beating fiercely at her companion's sight.

Pressing herself against the unguarded companion, her words turned affectionate as her body did, unbarred from her knightly training, given to a woman's. She would give herself wholly to her faithful comrade as he did throughout their travel to her singular objective handed by her lordship. The prince, soon to be rescued, would not have the gift of loving the fair knight coming from so far, her entire being intertwined with another... --- Like its strand, Cloe would seek out the utmost window to climb beyond, at the darkness's den. Beyond its fragile frame, sleeps the still interned Malcolm, far from the outer touch of wind.

She taps the window with her tail, fed with the sight of a reflective aura laced in purple. A dampening emission. Its death made manifest as a figure wanders within, her hands in her blouse's pockets.

Turning to the window, the ever blasé lich gestures for the would-be intruder to 'enter the premise'. Which she does through one of the many assortments given to her through her initiation as a newly anointed succubus. Transportation.

A faint smile comes to the lich's face as Cloe ushers a simple bow, ever the uninitiated with words. She turns to the door, a book so familiar to her, etched with her lasting signature "Do what comes naturally, as your writing inspired many to..."

The room closes off once more behind the only door shut, allowing Cloe to feebly approach the sleeping man. Her heart sunders as she is reminded the last days barred from their time together, of his volition. By the other doctor present, with his crippled state as the reason. Be it the price of his freedom from the Empty Oath permanently smeared across his thorax or his enfeebled limbs.

A sickly thought, he thought, for her to contend with. One she never shared, despite the efforts required for her to spirit him far from here anytime she could. Her hand placed upon her bosom, she climbs to the hospital bed adorned with her usual outfit, straddling the man underneath sleeping still with heavy fists at his side.

Her lips whisper at his sleeping tirade "Hey..." She deliberately lays on his sleeping self to place her short-haired visage to his side, open eyes mirrored to closed eyes. Clear skin to blemished cheeks.

Her entire person bestowed as a true creature of energy manipulation subtly and subconsciously begins to rub off the docile curtain of demon energy on his self, her feelings gestating in the long run now wielding this much common force of beasts. A shelter of veil masked as a second layer, taking his broken body in deep consideration.

Her eyes closed as her instincts feed her the gradual work of this affection made manifest until every inch was plastered over the plasters, to eat and devour any discomforting feedback and replace any with the acknowledging of where should the wounds be.

Her eyes open once more, feeling both her and him, ready. To which she takes the first touch with a kiss. A kiss on a slumbering man, one that springs her eyes as wide as they can be, quick to abate that initial shock. A feeling she could never truly communicate behind words, behind a feeble sense of boldness.

This new body allowed such interaction. Their touching lips, embedded in each other, gently nibbling, enough for the shroud of sleep to be disrupted. His hidden irises, slow to open, yet quick to react as the realization of her embrace lashes at his mind.

They widen, in conjecture to her own. They wind down, in the same conjecture as she did, fully taken in both a monster's and a close friend.

They separate, though by but mere inches, the impromptu end to this first kiss backlashing as one being devoid of nourishment halfway through eating.

"You're not supposed to be here..." he whispers as he turns his visage away. His mind returns to the thoughts of his crippled state even at his most fulfilling days. Thoughts of Cloe having to essentially 'move' for him. A humiliation he didn't wish to see rob her of her life.

All of it swept away by her hand imbued with dense marine shade. Her signature energy. One that could manipulate the impulses of his body to spurn a more favorable reaction. One that could mix his inner thoughts to shift them to a more 'appropriate' mood. And yet, none of them are at the forethought. Naught but the immeasurable love she carried for the broken man, one echoing to their repeated escapade from an ashen city. From her inability to correctly word her feelings, to his reciprocated thoughts masked by the constant teases, obstacles are blurred the clearest escapades to any confession, further obliterated by the 'gift' left from his deceased parents, once thought to be a sheltering device.

Her eyes moisten and tear down as her mind is exposed to the lingering thoughts of uselessness brought about. Once, by the medallion's vestiges. Twice, by the crippling blast wrought upon Malcolm as they do to every other carrier of such a cursed item.

Closed, yet tearing, Cloe's irises mystify the defeated man laying underneath long enough for his attention to falter through the sensation of his hospital outfit, being but a pajama dressed in gray and doused by plasters, to blur away as does her underwear, leaving them both bottomless. Cloe's marine skirt offered nothing in the way of covering, even as a modest attire.

She wanted nothing less than to burn these malicious thoughts from his mind. Every shred of the remnants ripped apart by her own aura in the way only a monster could, closing the gap amidst their bodies, allowing the man to feel the ambient airbrush his hindquarters...assuming Cloe's own bare under left it so.

Her weigh finally sunk into him, being but feathers of skin and silky softness, permeated through his casts, plasters, and bandages, a persistent effect from her touch. "I...I could never...find the words...to speak my mind..." she whispers beyond her eyes, illuminating with every jet of pronunciation directly to his thoughts "...but, if you would allow me...to convey my feelings...against that perceived uselessness...against those thoughts of burden...to commit them to a nameless grave..."

"...then my body shall speak on my behalf..." words spill out of her azure lips, her arms encircled around his back neck. Besides his inability to move, Malcolm became enraptured. The last vestiges of the medallion's curse, battered, devoured by their direct anathema broadcasted by the very being he sought years before his entrapment in a lifeless walk. The sweet, timid, gentle and soft-spoken woman that refused to wash from his mind, touched by a delicate desire fuelled by love.

His memories of their time together, re-ignited as the timid succubus fully lowered her hindquarter upon his, sending a sharp trace of warmth unto his hardness. Liquid. Blood.

His hand moves against the violent trashing of pain synapses to her whimpering cheek. The rupturing sacrifice of her naiveté couldn't hope to dismay her faint smile as she approaches his visage to truly get into position. Two hearts beating close to each other. Two sets of eyes, shining into the other. Fingers joined to each other.

"I will try my best to..." Her speech is yet again impended, this time, barred by a much common source of pleasure pummeling the initiate loss of innocence to oblivion "...leave the movement to me...a-alright?"

"With you so assertive?" Again, Malcolm's arms move against their intended limitation of movement to cross at her hips, utterly at the whim of the impendent attention his 'member' was about to receive "I wouldn't dream of it..."

And thus, she starts moving. Slowly. Tenderly. Lovingly. Carefully. In her sake. In his sake. Her breath, sweet, short, yet charged with ease, with moans of rapture. Evident with the moistening surrounding of their hindquarters. No harsh trashing, no rough movement. But a deliberate thrust, savoring every inch gained and lost. Such is their night devoid of sleep spent passionately devouring each other, seeking to discover what made the other shiver in comfort.

The morning washing upon the couple oversaw them in the process of a long stare of disbelief from the doctor who tended to Malcolm's recovery. One that surely, would only extend time to his eyes, considering the complex movement and strain taken during an undeniably intimate lovemaking session...

...until his fellow, once again poking in his direction, made a demand for the broken man to attest to a few motor tests. More disbelief came striding from the male doctor, witness to puncturing progress in his patient's recovery, the status of the broken man becoming unbroken anew robbing the fair doctor of his plight.

Once again, he was reminded of the demon energy's recuperating potential, with one intertwined to a close individual doubling its rejuvenating charge. Once again, for the sake of another Empty Oath survivor, he would give exclusive rights to the would-be intruder to remain in his patient's company, a right that saw to the succubus' overjoy, leaping straight into her new lover's plastered arms.

And thus, this repeated confession of love cycle into morning and evening. Day and night. Dawn and dusk. A day spent far from these dull walls, entertained to live audio of her book she promised to read to him months passed before. A day huddled together as any couple would, alone, yet not lonely, in a place barred of anyone else.

A night sheltered in the gentle moonlight with the same bespectacled woman approaching the broken man's bed, a blush to her cheeks. Her intent, clarity of purpose. To renew her oath of sewing his sinew through her feelings. To bind his flesh anew with her body, oh so specialized for such an intimate act. - How many months passed since his internment? He can difficulty recall, though it never was out of dullness. His recovery oversaw by his childhood friend continued to elude the fair doctor. Though this day, he comes with another individual dressed in white.

He comes to the recurring visitor, swirling her tail in an idle drive on a seat surrounded by scraps of paper. Malcolm sat nearby, watching her doddle with great attention, a glance at their earlier times in teenage years.

"Patient 002? Someone would love to see--" Malcolm's ears sprinkle at the shifting sound of the door, faced with the white-mantled man adorned with a shoulder shroud. An eyepiece lays on his right side, masking his eye in a blue tint.

Immediately, the intern springs into a salute, to a confounded writer turned as well, never-the-less taken to rise and bow to the man's presence.

"Please, no need to act so stiff" he speaks with a rash and docile tone as he turns to the doctor "Thank you, I shall take over from this point on".

"Of course..." Malcolm's appointed doctor takes his leave as the man himself takes on a more relaxed stance.

In what seems to be an eternity at the silent glances between her close one and the stranger bearing a regal tenure, Cloe's shy tendency climbs to the surface in a diluted quantity, prompting her to merely take a step sideways to place Malcolm in the foremost of the view, her fingers sheepishly taking hold of his arm.

Revealed to be advanced in age by his elongated white beard, the newcomer raises a hand toward the infirmed man "Well now, it sure is a treat to see one of our own recovering from that dubious artifact".

"Recovering? Sir?" Malcolm subtly raises his hand to meet what would later reveal to be an immediate superior of Helix security, his visage shifted to a questioning presentation.

"Sir?" Cloe utters in whispers, just enough for him to pick her confounded word.

"Is it not?" The old man shuts his eyes in a content demeanor "The fact that you shelter a lovely lady from which these insufferable devices were supposed to counteract behind you means to tell me that much. That, and the absence of that dull expression you once carried for a tragic part of your time among us".

Cloe's moderate timidity only heightens as the old man piles on their status in the most open of exposures "Frankly, your health files indicated an impendent return to service, but looking at you..." The bearded man's pink gaze falters to the timid succubus earnestly trying to avoid any attention "It looks more as if that special someone decided to make absolutely sure that you'd be back in 'shape' if you get my drift".

Malcolm's initial confusion turns to triumph as one of his hand gently goes to encircle Cloe's hip. Her embarrassment peaks as the bespectacled woman now bury her frontal side on his front. Her hands' plant on his thorax, unable to take proper credit for the thorough 'mending' she issued to her close one, an asset her metamorphosis to a seductress of men had utterly ignored.

"Yea...more than I thought..." His other hand comes to shelter the back of her head in a comforting caress, his head joining hers.

"More than you think still, young man..." The old man snaps his fingers, summoning forth another individual in an exosuit dispersed from what looks to be an active camouflage. The man interned within his machine waves at the two before pulling up a bed-size tile in reinforced titanium in front of the two.

"Ten-inch thick titanium hull wrapped in a diminutive energy shell for increased armor used to entomb our friend over here..." The old man walks to the massive tile and taps on it, spurning forth the shell in hexagonal shapes "...I want you to strike at it".

"Hum, sure, but that looks like it'll rescind my treatment, sir" Malcolm raises an unsure hand clenched to a fist under the approaching colossal with the metallic window.

"Ohh, I wouldn't worry about that..."

Malcolm reels his fist back before sending it plunging forward. And there it goes, through the shell. Through the titanium. And the wall, via the deceased pieces of the hull forcefully. The colossal suit, impressed, judging by his immediate drop of the broken hull to institute a thumbs-up. The old man, unsurprised, indicated by his small clapping "As expected, a magnificent display. Ohh, and don't worry about the damage, it's already been covered".

Cloe, however... "What?"

"What?!" Malcolm's reaction, a bit higher on the extreme, his hand barely scratched by the ordeal.

"Now, I do not know whether that artifact that dangled around your neck is responsible for that, but, had you looked to a mirror, the first thing you'd see would be those pearl white of yours flushed to a similar jet of pink as I. However, your irises have taken to a darker shade of violet, almost black. I take it you know what it means, yes?"

"Cloe..." His hands go on her shoulders to help adjust her to meet her marine eyes.

"Malcolm?" Her fingers reach his face, unmistakenly keen to the swirl of concentrated mana dancing in his globulars.

"...I think you overdosed on those sleepless nights..." He escalates to a puff of giggling as her cheeks once again fluster to a cherry red over the thought of having gone that overboard for his recovery.

"Nonsense, young man. It simply means we'll have to issue a new brand of exosuit to suit your duty in these plains. A reformating of the core to include the amped factory in your veins and a re-training to function under these new conditions..."

"Re-training?" Malcolm turns back to his superior, the latter shrugging in response.

"Well, unless you want your old suit to be breach from the inside. Besides, that reinforcement will undoubtedly help in your added functions among this settlement". His tone turns serious as he turns to the window to the outside "The people of these plains still suffer from those artifacts, young man. You likely feel the same, considering the reports. Pulling yourself in to avoid any collateral damage..."

"Yea..." Malcolm slowly steps to the window, followed closely by Cloe, unable to shake off the glaucous of tones among the three, the colossal man behind them in a similar fashion "Of course...they pulled me from the brink..."

"Well then, I'll take it as acceptation..." The old man turns to the door, followed closely by his escort "Consider this as a promotion to your function...your instructor and anointed exosuit will be present in this week..."

"Of course..." Malcolm watches the man and his companion leave, leaving him and his beloved to glaze over the city, the outer tone turned gray. Cloe clings to his side, well aware of the nuance of their talk.

She turns to face him, her hands reached to the back of his neck. A fearful glare echo from her to a re-assuring glance back from him. She takes comfort in his returned glance, closing her eyes. Her lips feel the spice touch of his as he approached for a kiss. An ever soft one washing her most grievous of worries away... -- The lapse of time passes, seeing Malcolm take back to the skies under a new exosuit. Roaming the isolated borders as much as in the city's havens, ever in-ear to any news of another such as him.

Meeting with a re-surfacing bearer of the Empty Oath, a trial in itself, especially for one who cut the shackles as he did, forced to watch a mirror of what he once has been. A lifeless slag wandering the streets, yielding to the basic instincts of indoctrination following the amulets.

A husked one, ignorant of yet a close mate who was pulled from the same abyss as he was, forced away by the intervention squad, as they were. Every time, he would land in the foremost of the perimeters, guided by the remnants of the cold that once held a blindfold to his face.

Every time, he would hail through the gunfire and the explosive tossed in his way by the hollow individual thinking of a knell.

Every time, he would stay his hand, all too aware of the indoctrination's hold on their behalf, instead opting to slowly lumber towards them, a hand on the Empty Oath.

Every time, he'd rip the piece from their person, slowly allowing their buried emotions to surface once more, cuddled by their counterparts, the two in comforting lament while his armored arm graciously paid the price for liberating the remnants as he was liberated as the cursed item would rupture and explode in his hand, leaving him unscathed, yet close to danger.

And at last, every time, coming back to a new domain, Malcolm would step away from his exosuit, to let it maneuver itself back to his workshop, simply so he may feel the warmth of his newlywed embracing him in stark worries. The grateful glint in her eyes matching the silver ring on her fingers. The hurried pace in which she pulls him inside to a colorful dish with the ever-present sweets on the side.

If not at the evening, then she'd momentarily forsake her librarian duties at the heart of the day, flying in an accelerated pace to one of his watchtowers, a surprise he had to dedicate time to acclimate to as his times beforehand were used to wander the plains some more. With a wife looking to fill the previous emptiness, it was more than a welcomed surprise, quality of life arrangement he'd gotten giddy for...

The plague of the empty, a distant memory, with but a very scarce amount surfacing. Those not yet found, searched for, to put an end to this trauma. Yet today was no such day.

Such is the day carrying Malcolm as he flies back from one of his watchtowers, a shining sun gently making space for its nightly counterpart. He flies as many who spots the iron man stop to wave at him, many of them as survivors, as he is.

He lands in a backyard, nearby the local library, reeling away from his exosuit. While it was never spoken, the consensus was for him to disembark from his suit, mainly because contact was, as ever, a hard one to manifest behind tons of titanium and wires. He does so, leaving but fragments of flight to his boots and hands.

Breaching the library's doors, he steps down the ladders to a hall of blue lights. Quietly, slowly, Malcolm works his way to the corner, where, once again, his heart swells with a wholesome sight before him.

His wife, innocently chewing on one of her sweets, tirelessly toiling on the final prints of a book. Writing it all under a blue feather, and a dyed ink of marine shade. Her tail, the feeding appendage flawlessly moving about, as if she always had the mobile limb.

Feeling her husband's close presence under the sapphire lights, she gradually turns to meet his sworn gaze. From the turn, her other arm, once hidden, unmasks the precious pearls of her eyes; an infant. A daughter, dozing the day away. The same short hair as her mother. A mimic of her same wardrobe as Cloe's. A miniature skirt, a tiny sweater, and minuscule leggings.

Her baby tail sways no longer, instead, clinging to her mother's arm. Her baby wings are folded on her back, sometimes impulsively moving about, still working the machinations of how to properly use them. Her baby horns, barely present atop her head, flashing the same colors as Cloe's.

An infant, just reaching the gap of a year in this life, sucking her thumb in her dreams. Malcolm, swoll in his heart by this sight, simply sits by his small family, a chair manifested beside Cloe.

~Welcome back...~ she whispers while leaning to his side, feeling his hand aiding her in the sort. His sight is filled with the gracious smile of a woman made a mother.

"Glad to be back..." he whispers back, carefully playing with hit tone as to avoid accidentally waking their infant, Claudia. His time outside was done for the day, leaving him ample liberty to do as he wished. Cuddling in a quiet section of his wife's library, at her side while nursing their firstborn, his everlasting joy to attend to. Compared to this small sight, this small realization of his friend wed to him, the harrowing precipice he once was staring at for years on...they meant nothing anymore...