Chapter 2:
He remembered looking at the Ceph warship, and being filled with a foreboding sense of doom. A suffocating feeling of failure choked him through the suit, before the memories of those he fought besides urged him to perform one final act.
He remembered firing Archangel at the ship, a desperate last stand. The super weapon's power generation was reverse engineered from the same invaders it was being used to destroy, and Prophet swore he could feel the heat coming off the immensely-powerful beam, even through the vacuum of space and the suit.
He remembered tumbling through space as the wormhole collapsed with an explosion of energy. He lacked the propulsion to challenge gravity, and fell directly towards the nearest planetary body that he thought was Earth.
He remembered feeling like he was burned alive, and for all intents and purposes, he was. The suit was his skin, just as his skin was the suit. He felt the damage sustained, as friction with the atmosphere ignited the nanotubes over his outer shell. The pain was immense, and SECOND was offline as the suit was rebooting.
He remembered the reprieve dying gave him, for he was sure that he died. He blacked out multiple times as he sped towards the ground, before finally going unconscious as he struck the ground at near terminal velocity.
He remembered the dreams, as the suit revived him, from either mortal injury or actual death. He didn't need to sleep. He hadn't needed to for a long, long time. The rare moments when he was damaged enough to shut down-like the machine he was-were the only times he could dream; they were not pleasant. They were recordings of everything he had done and regretted. The deaths of Raptor team, losing the fight against cell, dying… it weighed heavily on his mind as SECOND jump started his mind.
He remembered waking up with a gasp, in a boiling puddle of water, surrounded by ice. He chose to remain there until the suit booted up fully, content with his job. He had stopped the Ceph. Him, Michael, and everyone else involved in the fight against them, they had succeeded. He accepted death when he joined the US Army. He accepted it when he donned the suit for the first time. He accepted it when he committed suicide out of necessity. He accepted it every time he failed and almost failed, but the suit never granted him that reprieve.
It was a jealous son of a bitch, and it refused to let him go after all these years. It always had a way of bringing him back to share in its misery. They were joined so closely at this point that it was hard to tell if there even was a line between them now. Was he a man controlling a suit, or a suit controlling a man? The line may have fully dissolved when he unlocked the nanites, which shifted to his subconscious desire after fully rebooting, courtesy of SECOND.
Prophet had a love/hate relationship with the AI that resided in his head. It was just intelligent enough to learn and be useful, but it was dumb enough to be annoyingly vague at times and completely useless as a conversational partner. There was also the muted fear in the back of his mind, because his control over SECOND was not absolute.
Even still, this time it made a good decision. Prophet ignored the icy forest that surrounded him in lieu of looking at his face. His actual face gazed back at him from the puddle of water he sat in. He watched the nanites shift, reminding him of what he was, before they stopped, fully flushed with the shape of his face.
He gently felt his face with his hands, feeling the sensation of actual skin through the suit. The tactile sensory information present made the suit actual skin by any definition, and he felt everything through it like he was born with it on. Though, in many ways, he was born with the suit on.
He finally dropped his hands off his face and into the slowly-freezing puddle. His left hand bumped into a metallic object just under the surface. He lifted it up to see Jester's dog tag in front of the rest of Raptor team's fallen. A strange bitter-sweet guilt rose up in him at the sight of the slightly-charred metal, reminders of team mates he failed to save.
He stood up and left the tags in the puddle, steam no longer emanating from his frame. He left it there as a mark that he and Raptor team moved on. They had done their job and saved Earth, and didn't need to do anything more.
His HUD displayed the surrounding environment, but there were no indicators of his location besides the temperature, a chilly 21 degrees below zero. His GPS was unresponsive, though Prophet was unsurprised. He could have been in a remote area, or the Ceph warship's destruction might very well have damaged any remaining satellites.
Around him were pine trees, covered in snow, that adorned the angled landscape. He was on a mountain of some kind, most likely in northern North America or Europe. He passively scanned for electronic frequencies as he began to scale down the mountain as best he could. All the while, he sent out his own radio signal, trying to pick up any possible allies.
There were no responses at all, something slightly concerning. The complete silence over the frozen landscape, save the wind, felt much too like Lingshan to make him feel comfortable. He made a mental promise to move to the equator when he officially retired; he was totally fine not seeing snow for the rest of his life.
He carefully slid down, his enhanced legs having no issues with absorbing the kinetic impact from big falls. His feet and hands might have looked like human skin, but they weren't, and the nanites were more than capable of forming textures that increased traction on the wet, rocky ground.
His loose, white shirt and jeans shifted into a coat and proper pants as he gradually lowered his altitude. He didn't feel the cold, or at least suffered no damage from it, but it wouldn't do to give away that something was off as soon as someone spotted him.
The blizzard that waged around him reduced his visibility drastically, but compared to running from a Ceph pinger, or trying to fight a devastator solo, this was easy. He continued dropping for the better part of an hour before he finally came across signs of civilization.
He dropped down a steep slope once again, his left hand dragged behind him, scraping the rock beneath to slow him down, while his feet did the same from the front. He pushed off the face and landed in a crouch in the middle of what looked like a man made trail. There was a carved stone post near the side, with a tattered cloth attached, the first signs that someone other than him had ever been here.
There were no visible footprints that he could on the thin layer of snow, so he chose the direction that lead down. He hated a lot of things about the nanosuit, but the physical boost definitely wasn't one of them. He wandered the path for another half hour at a fairly slow rate for him, scanning for life and pushing aside any questions about the aftermath of what he'd done.
Cell lost every facet of its power base with the destruction of the Alpha Ceph, and they would be demolished entirely by their large number of enemies. Their tendrils of political and economic power would be denied to them by the people they had alienated through debt. Their predatory business practices were nearly as bad as their tampering with Ceph technology. Prophet let out a breath in disgust. He felt no sympathy for Cell's fate, after all he'd seen them do in New York.
He paused in his trek as he picked up a quiet laughter through the storm. The snowy air gave way to an old, stone structure just ahead. His enhanced ears picked up the sound of a fire, along with the breathing of three different people inside, two females and one male.
He walked forward slowly, before he found the entrance to the structure. It was nothing more than a hole in the wall covered by an animal skin, but there were people inside. Prophet intended to ask for directions to the nearest city. The sooner he could get access to any form of working communications, the better.
He knocked on the stone to get the attention of the inhabitants within. He succeeded, and the inside grew quiet as he heard shuffling from within. The curtain of tanned flesh parted to reveal a severely-underdressed man holding a battle axe.
The man leered at Prophet, sizing him up with a smile. SECOND immediately identified multiple signs of aggression, the low levels of alcohol in the man's breath, and the strange heat levels coming off him.
"Bad day to get lost friend," he responded in accented English, which itself was accented by a raised axe, a step forward, and an attempted swing.
Prophet paused momentarily, at a loss as to what was going on. Alcohol explained the behavior, the axe, and the lack of clothing on the man, but his body wasn't losing heat nearly as fast as it should. The more absurd fact was that the man was attempting to swing at him in the first place, though he didn't know what Prophet was.
Prophet had been stabbed, shot, electrocuted, crushed, cut, burnt, frozen, pierced, and killed by both aliens and humans, but half naked men running at him with axes was certainly a new experience.
He stepped forward readily, his body running off a completely different time table compared to the assailant, still mid swing. He gripped the weapon firmly with his left hand before disarming the man and pushing him to the ground by the shoulder.
Something was off about everything, but maybe he could leave the man unconscious until he was in the right state of mind, then ask important questions like "Where is the nearest town?" and "Why did you swing an axe at me?"
There was a rustle from inside as Prophet paid attention to the other two. They looked at Prophet, holding the prone man down with a single foot, and immediately attacked without a word. They were not inebriated, and Prophet understood that he may have misjudged the situation. Not when the female on the right loaded an arrow into an old-fashioned bow, but when the one on the left held out a hand.
He was readying a plan to disarm all of the them safely and interrogate them for information, but the woman on the left shot that plan down. He watched as a bolt of electricity flew from her hand and struck him in the chest.
He stumbled, half from shock-a quarter of which was an amperage high enough to be felt through his suit, and another quarter from the surprise of seeing a human being perform a successful Palpatine impression-and half from the man beneath him attempting to dislodge his foot.
"Warning. Unknown energy source detected. Threat detected."
He felt his muscles tense with energy as the familiar chemical balancing of SECOND came into effect. Distractions were washed away as his adrenaline spiked in response to a perceived threat. Time slowed down further as the blood flow increased to his brain. His pulse spiked-or started-to carry oxygen to his muscles, fully augmenting his strength as nanobots amplified each of his remaining biological processes in sync with the synthetic counterparts.
In a single second Prophet was replaced with a super soldier wearing a billon dollar piece of hardware. The nanites shifted back to the suit's original form to provide the maximum combat effectiveness as a plan formed in his mind.
He executed it in three steps. The first carried him forward and away from the man beneath him. The second involved him swinging his left arm in a predetermined arc. The axe he had confiscated was released through the doorway at speeds approaching a professionally-thrown baseball. The archer attempted to dodge it as she panic fired an arrow that was off the mark, but it only resulted in the axe hitting her forehead instead of throat.
The final step was to close the distance between him and the physics-defying bitch. His legs propelled him forward, far faster than any human could achieve, and he crossed the 20 feet between them in less than half a second. She had just enough time to back peddle, eyes widening as she switched from shooting lightning to creating a force field in front of her.
He shook off his surprise, lowered his shoulder, and struck the barrier head on. His momentum was cut significantly, but he pushed through whatever strange energy she was using. He was close enough for the speed loss to no longer be important. His lack of weapon resulted in him quickly grabbing her head, before she could resist, and twisting it 180 degrees around.
He paused as he felt the hyper perceptions fade away with the lull in combat. He ignored what he had done, before reaching down and gripping her wrist, before bringing it close to his eyes and running every scan he could on it. What the hell was that? The last person to shoot energy out of their hands at him was Rasch, and he was infected by the Ceph when he did that.
Electricity was not harmful to nanosuits directly without massive quantities, but he'd seen the effectiveness of EMP grenades at slowing down a user. It gave organized troops the time needed to accurately hit the superhumanly fast suits.
She had fired something strong enough to kill a man outright, likely paralyze a first generation nanosuit for a few seconds, and even give him momentary pause. Where there was one, there was more. He needed to find out how this was accomplished….
Nothing. She shot lightning out of her hand, and there was no detectable anomalies externally or internally. There was no technology on her person, nor inside her arm. Prophet stood up and shook his head, his heightened olfactory senses could detect the faint traces of ozone. He knew what he saw, but there was no way to explain it. There were too many unknowns.
A slightly rustling in the snow gained his attention. He walked towards the remaining member he had left alive for questioning, who had stood up and was attempting to run away when he saw the aftermath of the fight. Prophet outpaced him easily enough, and dragged him towards the wall. The man was mumbling profusely, repeating the name "Daedra" over and over again.
Prophet pressed the man into the stone wall firmly, with a hand on the shoulder. He didn't need SECOND's analysis to see the man was terrified. Prophet knew-first hand-that the suit had a strange effect on people. Hell, sometimes it felt like he'd had weapons drawn on him by as many allies as enemies. He looked at the man and did his best to sound calm, but stern. Cooperation would smooth things along.
"What's your name, son?"
There was no response, only panicked breathing and a frightened stare. Prophet's captive was a cornered animal in this situation, frozen and incredibly tense. He could not flee nor fight, so he did nothing.
Prophet snapped his fingers and dug his fingers a little harder into the man's shoulder. The pain seemed to give way to mental clarity as he flinched.
"M… Morgvir."
"Ok, Morgvir," Prophet repeated the foreign-sounding name, "I need to ask you a few questions, and then I'll decide what to do with you after, alright?"
The man looked at his blood-red visor before deciding the floor was much more pleasing. His breathing remained rapid, though it had steadied out.
"Very… well."
"What was that?" Prophet asked, wasting no time at getting an answer to his burning question.
Morgvir followed his finger to his dead ally. He cringed before hesitating.
"We survive by taking goods from travellers in the area."
Prophet shoot his head.
"No, I'm asking how the hell she shot lightning out of her fingers," he in frustration, his voice getting louder.
"She's a mage! She's a mage!" Morgvir answered, panic evident in his voice.
SECOND scanned his vitals to determine he was telling what he believed to be the truth. Prophet sighed, maybe it was a local word? Further questioning led to similar answers, ones that made no sense out of context. When the hell was the 15th of Last Seed, year 201 of the fourth era? Where the hell was the Throat of the World and Skyrim? Prophet would have believed he was getting bullshitted if Morgvir wasn't clearly terrified and saying statements he believed were true. It was more likely Morgvir was just insane. That made the most sense.
It finally came time to decide Morgvir's fate, something the aforementioned man noticed and became incredibly afraid of.
"Don't kill me! Please! I'll turn my life around! I swear on the Eight!" He spat rapid fire, ignoring his fear to plead directly to Prophet's visor.
Prophet considered his options. The man had attacked him, and he'd seen the suit. Killing him was the easiest way keep him quiet, something SECOND agreed with and approved of. He was tired of fighting though, tired of killing aliens and humans. One more wasn't a big difference in the overall count, but he could hear Michael as if he was right next to him.
"You might as well be a fucking machine."
He sighed again.
"Where's the nearest city?"
Morgvir paused in his begging to stutter out.
"Riverwood."
Prophet nodded and released his grip on the man's shoulder.
"Alright, show the me the way there. If your serious about this, we'll figure something out."
Morgvir dropped to his knees, folded his hands, and tossed out thank yous like they were mass produced. Prophet looked around at the old items in the room before looking back at his new, still praying guide.
Great, now he needed to babysit someone who was clearly mentally unstable and should have froze to death minutes ago.
