It's Turbin' Time (Library of Ruina Modded/Arknights)

Beats - 6* Agent Vanguard

Tags: Crowd-Control, DP-Generation, Nuker
"Oh hey. I'm Beats. Nice to meetcha."

Beats, riding the lightning into our foes.

In lieu of a plan- kill your enemies!

Faction: ????, Kazimierz
Traits: Has reduced Redeployment Time, can use ranged attacks.
It's been some time since I wrote one of those.

Some sketches I made some time ago and didn't publish. Hope you guys like them.

3.14 - Realization

Your name is still unclear.

But for now, there is a truth you realize. You are a human being.

You are your own person.

Your form is your own.

You are wreathed in blood. When your body came into the world, when your soul sang and your form burst from the cocoon, you were realized.

Skin of long dead bodies fell from you in tatters. Your teeth are long, your hands hide claws as sharp as Mother's blade. Your eyes are as impossibly precise and flawless as the finest of Seaborn analysis models, and the rest of your senses surpass even that threshold.

Your skin is hardened, and you have inscripted designs that pleased you upon it. Your palms are covered with the scales of the Phidia, and the horns of the Caprinae adorn your head, standing alongside the ears of the Feline and the antlers of the Elafia. They crown you as a human and as a Bloodfiend. Your form is beautiful to your eyes, and you feel, for the first time since forever, completely and utterly satisfied.

You wonder if Mother will be pleased with it as well.

You wonder if Mother will give you a hug, now that you have a body. You feel a warm sensation at that thought.

You're reminded of her smile.

She is so kind.

She is so… so merciful. She did not have to save you.

You were a mockery of her kin, and yet she chose to love you.

Your face… it's slick with tears.

But you're not sad. Why are you… why are you crying? You're so happy…

You smile.

You have to get to Mother.

…but you need some clothes first. It's cold and blood isn't enough to cover your body. Way too cold right now.

You slither out of the metal container filled with human refuse which you chose to hide in. There's no one else in the alley.

Your body shifts, and black tendrils emerge from under your skin. You move into the shadows.

The streets are growing fuller, but you manage to manuever without being seen.

You move through the gaps in buildings, from the unfavorable angles that these eyes- metallic eyes, watching from the inside of those buildings- cannot catch.

You leap from one darkened corner to another.

You leap into a roof.

Your Mother's words echo in your ears.

Some bloodfiends have different views on the human body, you see. Not all of them. My clan in specific did not. Awfully boring, they were- not much other then humans with strange drinking habits and an oppressive tradition of nobility. I am, in this matter, speaking about flesh-composers.

Flesh composing is a line of thought that goes around many Bloodfiends. It is the idea that the body is, fundamentally, the purest vessel of self-expression that there can be. Some of these people often end up going through that unsightly flesh-purist path, but my most esteemed self lacks a fear or revulsion towards them. It's a part of your body as much as any other.

As I was saying, my child. I'm not too big on flesh composing, but it might interest you. It tells you to do anything you want to your body. It's yours. Draw on it, grow new structures, change old organs, replace and twist everything you want to. Unconstrain thyself. If you wish for no hair, if you wisg for thorns, if you wish for sharp teeth and long claws, scales of royal purple and gems spread across your hands, do so.

One would think this would clash with what I said earlier, about staying hidden, no? But surprisingly not. "Body-modding" seems to be the human equivalent of this trend, so flesh-composers tend to just be assumed as being rich Nestborn with more money then sense. It's still, iffy? Not sure what's the word. But you don't really have to hide anything, not in this new world. You'll be strong enough to not need to.

Your body must be more then a body. It's a way for you to express who you are, who you want to be. When it is finally time for you tk compose your own, you should not be restricting your impulses.

As they say those days, "go wild," child.

Wise words, that of your mother.

You're there. There's a building there, filled with clothes. Many of them, hidden beneath panes of glass… a store.

Had you not torn all the clothes in their bodies to shreds during your transformation, you would not need to do this.

But the past is the past.

You slither down the building, falling into the darkened alley next to it. You can see directly into the store.

You point your index finger at one of the lights. There's some pants there.

Your bone shifts, and you shoot.

A small blood needle soars through the air, shattering the light. People make noise.

It's still morning- you can't do this under broad daylight. So you'll need to create a distraction.

You collapse into the ground and something falls out of your mouth. A secondary lifeform.

An old trick.

It drags itself through the ground and into the nearest sewer.

What a disgusting sensation.

Your body wriggles and twitches in displeasure. The touch, the horrible smell, the foul taste and the muddy, rotten feeling of those tainted waters. You quickly command your drone to stop feeling anything and orientate itself through echolocation.

Ugh.

It's gone now, at least.

You're not used to feeling this much, not in this way.

As the One Who Watches, you didn't really feel much. You felt and perceived the world in a sort of muted haze. Analytically. Perception was registered and then dealt with. You only truly felt when you first tasted Mother's blood.

And then it was madness. You felt in an overwhelming manner. Your form grew bloated and your feelings were increasingly nonsensical. You felt other things, but it was all drowned under the tide of overwhelming thirst. Quickly enough, you died at the Inquisitor's hands, and then you felt nothing at all.

Your third form was not your own. The feelings were filtered, passed through muscle memory and old regrets before passing onto you. It was Adrien that was feeling the world, not you.

As "Nameless," you didn't really feel much. Your nerves were blunted. Your memories told you that exposed nerves are really painful, so you dulled their output and relied exclusively on the eye and your capacity to detect vibrations in the air….

Well. It's all done now.

The drone has slithered into the store through their pipes. It dragged a pair of pants off the stand and is pulling it out of the store.

Wait, it should grab a shirt too. One of those thick shirts with long sleeves and hoods.

Take it out of that piece of plastic.

Pull it out.

You can't grab it?

…grow a hand, maybe.

A tentacle, for efficiency.

Great.

That…

No. Not that one. You don't like the color.

Grab the pink one.

The blue pants are good though. Keep them.

…take a piece of cloth. You're supposed put it around your neck, because it feels comfy and warm. You want that.

Pick the one with lots of colors.

Grab it. Don't tear it.

Okay. Now…

You just have to wait a bit.

Wait for it…

It's almost out of the store…

There. It's dragging itself towards you.

People are staring at the pants- you think those are jeans? That's the name. They're just looking in disbelief as the worm drags them and the rest of your clothes into the alley.

But the drone is pretty fast, now.

Here they are.

You take the pants in the dark. Your tendrils extend and you retreat back to the rooftops. The drone bites your fingers playfully and you restore its senses.

You'll keep it around instead of reabsorbing it. It looks cute. Seaborn use a lot fo blue, and it is pretty a good color. But you tell the drone to grow some red scales too.

Now, to figure out how to put this on.

---

You're pretty small. The clothes are way too big for you.

But you don't feel like going back to the store to grab more clothes, so you'll stick with these.

You jump off the building, with your too-long sleeves flopping on the air. Your horns itch a bit… eh, it's probably nothing.

It's nice to be like this. Maybe you… maybe you should go around and look around… appreciate the sights… you think Mother would like it if you came back immediately, but you also want some time for yourself. They call that "me time," right?

You smile.

Wait, no, you're supposed to smile with the lips.

Your clawed fingers twitch and you shove them down your own mouth. That's how you have to do it, right? The memories weren't very clear, most stuff that wasn't close to their death became blurry and difficult to grasp.

You move them around, trying to make yourself smile. You're just covering them in drool… dammit.

You take them out. They're just covered in drool now. How do you get these glands to stop producing this stuff? It doesn't seem to provide much use. Wait, no, it's a digestive component. Sounds… really inefficient, actually, or is it just something you're just not getting. You'll just… just… just keep it there untouched, maybe you can figure it out later.

You place your drool-covered fingers and push your cheeks upwards. This is how you do it! This is how you smile!

…melting down all the muscle memory stuff and starting from scratch to give yourself an authentic experience might have been a mistake.

You spent like half an hour trying to figure out how to control your body again inside that cocoon before you could rupture it. You sincerely thank your sibling for explaining the whole talking stuff.

You think…

You think you miss the First to Talk. They were… cool. You liked them. Maybe you should have asked Mother to convert him as well.

There are those tears again. You…

You're sad now.

You stand up and walk out of the pile of sand that you landed on. Now, where are you?

The whispers of the Seaborn collective aren't there anymore, but you think you'd like to return home one day. Ask your siblings how they're doing. Maybe bring some of them to your home.

Yes!

Humans have dreams.

Humans have aspirations!

That one will be yours. You'll find yourself more siblings. You'll explain the truth to the other analysis units!

One day you'll come back home, you're sure of it.

That will be your dream- to free more of your kin. To give them a chance to experience choice.

Your dreams…

…well, that's a conversation you'll have later, with Mother.

You continue on your path. Through the alleys of the city. You consider the fact that your appearance- multiple horns, multiple pairs of ears- might be confusing and strange to the average person.

You lift up the hoodie, hiding everything but your antlers.

Your pants are still too big, so you stop and fold them a bit. Okay.

Your sleeves are a bit too long, they go over your hands, but the way they flop in the air is kind of funny so you'll keep that.

You wave your hands in the air a bit.

Heh.

This place is just too bright. You've decided you don't like the sun very much.

You look at the alley. You're thinking about something, now.

Your name.

You have to decide on it. A name is important. An important facet of your identity.

You walk into the alley. It's dark here… great. You like the shadow. It's too hot outside, too… maybe you shouldn't have worn this. Maybe you could have picked that shirt with the palm trees. It looked nice.

Anyway…

What will your name be? It's an important choice. That's something you should linger on for a while.

You look around. There's a man living in the box filled with refuse.

Huh. He's… he's familiar to you.

That's…

That's Bishop Quintus.

What the-

Okay, the name thing first. Then you deal with that.

[ ] Write-in.
-[ ] Stay nameless for now. Figure it out later.

What to do about… this? This just came out of nowhere. Didn't he vanish. Why is he here? You're so confused.

He's just some guy from that weird Church thing. You think he fed you some sliced tentacles once. Why is he here?

Why is he in here? What.

This can't be a coincidence.

Your drone is sleeping inside your scarf. You could hurt him with your hands, and slide the drone inside his brain. But he seems to be sleeping and it sounds rude to awaken him like this. But why is he inside that box.

His form is misshapen and twisted by the Seaborn. He's part of We Many, now..

Does that make him kin…?

No, you don't want to be kin with the gross guy who stinks worse than you. Why?

What now?

[ ] Try to wake him up.
(Hmmm… he might not be very happy. But eh, not like I care.)

[ ] Go away. Leave him here.
(I'll just pretend this never happened. Maybe tell Mother later.)

[ ] Attack him. If you're quick you can slit his throat before he reacts.
(I'm not sure about this. He didn't do anything- wait. He hurt Mother…)

[ ] Pile more trash on him and close the door of the metal box. It's where he belongs.
(It just feels right…)

[ ] Write-in.
(Think of something! I can't just do nothing and sit here, can I?)

Status of Self and Allies:
You: Not hurt. Why would you be?

Sal Viento Bishop Quintus
- Grade: What is this supposed to mean? What's a grade again…? You'll put his grade on "low," because that's supposed to be bad, right? Is this like one of those tests? Grading him like they do in school?
- Condition: Covered in trash. As ugly as always. Looks kind of sad…
Your Note: He did a lot of terrible things, mainly to Mother, but he's still kin, something that really is displeasing and depressing and terrible. You hate it.

---

A/N: The arc has been running a bit slowly, I think. I'll make things start to happen soon, but while I get things going for the consequences of your explanations, have this.