Alright, so I put a few sentences together and with the thought of 'what would make this sensible and incredibly horrific' and this came out. I have no excuses and it is poorly edited.
TW: Gore, violence, cannibalism, child abuse
Cultists and Cores
The mission was described as a quick in and out intelligence gathering. UNOMI wanted a brief look up close, in order to better task the investigators who would be following their flight. Part of the briefness was STRANET uncertainty as to how long they'd have an Antagonist free window to explore the hidden complex beneath the survival bunker. The only warning UNOMI gave was that the contents were 'likely to be disturbing'.
Disturbing, thought Sarah-Louise Galloway, was a massive understatement. A thought opened up the complete file they were given, including the list of topics the EOOUI had searched. It wasn't that Sarah-Louise needed to refresh her memory. She'd been a Valk long enough that pages written reports were read and memorized faster than she could speak a sentence. But after the hell that rested in the complex Sarah-Louise wanted to make sure that it wasn't her fault. That she wasn't to blame for the nightmares that Cara, her exploration partner, and her were doomed with.
The words were innocuous. 'Post-impact cults.' 'Valkyrie pilot enhancements.' How stupid had she been, to read these and assume an Antagonist cult had gotten it's hands on Valkyrie compatible girls for human experimenting? Sarah-Louise remembers having a flash of thought, wondering if the cultists had wanted to sync with Antagonists. Before the thought had disguised her. Now, she wished that was what they found.
"Any luck?" Dani asked, tone bored from the outside overwatch position she and her two flight mates had stayed in during the hour Sarah-Louise and Cara had explored.
Sarah-Louise sent an affirmative. She couldn't see Dani's expression, not from thousands of feet below her, but they'd worked together on a flight for so long she didn't need to. Dani knew that Sarah-Louise liked talking. That she'd chosen not to meant something. Dani flipped over to a private text channel.
"What's wrong S.L.?"
"Not Antagonist cult."
"What do you mean, it wasn't a cult?"
"Cult. Not Antagonist."
"Like, an old religion thing? Weird."
Sarah-Louise sent a denial beep. "Valkyrie."
"Uh, yeah, we already knew they had a Valk. Shit, unless, did you find another?"
Another denial beep. "Valkyrie cult."
Dani paused. A cult dedicated to Valkyries? Like a bunch of fans? That didn't sound so bad. Sarah-Louise sent a tight beam stream containing a video and without hesitation Dani played it. It was shaky footage of an older man, grey hair a messy tangle, as he triumphantly held up a cracked Valkyrie core. His voice was deep and confident, at odds with the wild look in his eyes.
"-will save us and we shall look upon the face of God with Fear and Awe! All hail the Core!"
The crowd roared in response, "All Hail!"
"From the Core we Come and to the Core we Leave." The name shouted before turning towards the overlooked girl beside him and thrusting the broken Valkyrie Core at her. The girl hesitated and in a painfully slow flash of light sync with the core and extended her frame. If it could be called a frame. Dani had never seen one so underdeveloped or biological. "Let Blood follow Blood!"
The crowd parted as a struggling man was brought forward. The struggling man was bound and gagged, his face bloody and beaten. Dani ran a sound parser, allowing her to determine the muffled noises he grunted as a repeated string of 'no, please, don't.'
It was the same sound parser that allowed her to clear up and enhance what the old man said when he rested a heavy hand on the Valkyrie's shoulder. "Don't make Taylor endure more lessons, Sabine."
The Valkyrie, clad in a red frame that moved with an odd liquidity, walked up to the struggling man.
"From your sins be cleansed. With your body we nourish the Holy Core. May She Awaken!"
The crowd roared again, jostling for position and nearly obscuring the movement of the Valkyrie as her frame grew tentacles and latched onto the struggling man. The repeated chant of "May She Awaken" wasn't loud enough to drown out the crunch of breaking bones and terrified screams as the Valkyrie's frame ate the prisoner.
Dani felt bile rise in her throat. That Valkyrie had just eaten a person. A living, breathing person.
"My god, that- that- Why would a Valkyrie do that?"
The response was immediate, another flash of communication carrying an encrypted video file. Dani paused for a full second, debating if she actually wanted to open it. In the end curiosity and duty guided her hand.
This time the video was clearly from a security camera. The room showed bare concrete, only a small drain in the floor to break the monotony. The same grey haired man was present, his hair less grey and more groomed then before. In front of him stood two clean faced little girls in over large adult shirts.
"Your parents have given you to us so that we may guide you towards Awakening." The man smiled gently, eyes greedy. "A great opportunity for you and for us. You see, we have a God in the bunker. She's sleeping now."
"When she getting up?" Lisped the smaller girl, a riot of dark hair streaming down her back.
The man chuckled and placed a hand on the smaller girl's head. "Well, we've been having trouble getting her to Awaken. We were hoping your sister could help us out."
The littler girl scoffed. "Symbie do anyfang."
The man smiled, white teeth flashing predatorily at the taller girl. "Let us hope so." He ran his hand down the smaller girl's hair, a possessive movement that caused the taller girl to tense. "Let us all hope so."
The video ended with a series of medical notes. The tone was clinical and concise. The picture stomach turning. Dani didn't force herself to read it all, couldn't have. Luckily she didn't have to in order to understand what it meant.
Sabine refused order to... Punishment administered to Taylor was... Expected recovery time...
It was the most recent ones and the oldest that were most horrifying. The oldest because of how young the little girl was. The recent because of how damaging and how carelessly they were described.
Dani's hands clenched in futile rage. They'd hurt the Valkyrie's little sister so that she'd obey. Systematically, knowingly, repeatedly. Hell, they'd intentionally given the little sister brain damage because the Valkyrie refused to enslave and eat a human convoy. Dani was aware that she knew their names, both the Valkyrie's and the little sister. She couldn't bare to humanize them. She already felt too much of their pain, knowing how lucky she was that their story was not hers.
"Tell me all those fuckers are dead."
This video was a series of clips taken from security cameras. The red framed Valkyrie may not have been much against a Type, but she waded through the cultists like they were water balloons. Dani didn't know whether to be disgusted or proud when the Valkyrie consumed every cultist she came across. The last clip was the longest. It was a scene from the very place Sarah-Louise was standing, caught by the bunker door security camera. The red framed Valkyrie paused upon exit, standing there without movement for nearly ten minutes before speaking. "Yes Symbie, the sky is pretty."
