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Yells. Gunshots. The clash of metal on chitin. The overwhelming scent of a chemical smoke, combined with a tinge of decay.
Gregor sat straight upright, heart pounding. Survival instincts clicked into gear, and he fumbled for his glasses while he tried to arrange his feet underneath him. His limbs felt heavy and awkward, like he'd been stuffed into a box.
When his eyes opened, he faltered. Instead of dirt, solid concrete walls surrounded him, covered in scrapes and dark stains. The hazy room was suffused with an ambient red light, coming from a window to his back.
This was… his room. A little dingier than usual, but that fact calmed him. Usually, the noise from outside wasn't quite so loud, and his bed had a mattress, but at least he was safe. Probably.
There were a few oddities he couldn't explain, however. Firstly, his clothes were unfamiliar- a loose white shirt and pants, both with clasps running down his right side. Secondly, his door was propped open with a book, letting in a faint stream of golden light from the hallway. Thirdly, and, perhaps, most notably, there was something taped to his chest, a white disk with a foreboding red light that flashed right over his heart. Once he noticed that, he started feeling around for more, rubbing his hand over his back, the top of his head, up and down both legs.
The more he checked, the more he found. One was hidden away at the top of his head, partially covered by his hair. One pressed into the back of his neck when he tried to settle down. One was hopelessly trapped in the hair on his calf, and another pulsed on his chitinous right arm. Somebody had gotten really up close and personal to stick these on.
Were they explosives? What kind of prank was this? Even Ryoshu wouldn't do something that crazy.
Ryoshu, Ryoshu. That name stuck in his mind. There was something important to remember. Something to do with Ryoshu.
The room lit up considerably as the door to the hallway creaked open. Gregor startled, but Faust didn't care to announce her presence. There was a small, beeping metal device in her hand, with a screen covered in text far too small and scrolling far too rapidly for Gregor to even guess at its purpose. She was wearing her uniform, though there was a dark, oily smudge on her cheek.
The woman lifted up the book that was propping the door open, checked the cover, smiled slyly, and placed it back on the floor.
“Faust sees that you are now awake,” she commented, her tone even.
“Yeah,” Gregor said, itching at the little device that itched at his neck. “So, uhh, do you know what these things are? Should I, uh, be worried?”
“Ah, yes. Faust guessed that you would mistake them for explosive devices, given your past experiences.” Then, with some irritation: “if they had gone with the design Faust suggested, this would not have been a problem.”
Before she could gripe anymore, Gregor cut in. He knew that she could go on for a while, once she got started. “So, what are they?”
“Monitors for your condition,” Faust said.
“My condition?”
She squinted at him disdainfully. “Yes,” she said. “The medical ward at the Limbus Company headquarters was far too full to justify leaving you there, especially as there was nothing physically wrong with you.”
Gregor supposed that was merciful, at least. If he had woken up hooked up to a bunch of machines in an unfamiliar hospital, that probably would have made him panic. In fact, he probably would have panicked even more there than if he had woken up in the midst of an active combat scenario.
A thought rose.
“If there’s nothing wrong with me, then why are you monitoring me?”
The device in Faust’s hand buzzed. She glanced at it, and poked a few buttons. Her face was impossible to read, as usual. “To ensure nothing changes,” she said after a few jabs. “Also, to determine when you wake.”
“Has it been a while?”
“Three days,” Faust said.
Gregor blanched. Her bedside manner could really use some work. That wasn't normal. When you had a manager that could heal everyone back to tip-top shape in an instant, three-day blackouts weren't terribly common.
“What the hell-” Gregor began.
Almost as if she had been waiting for that, Faust immediately interrupted him. “Faust determined that there was a roughly seventy percent chance that you would become disoriented or panicked when awoken, and could cause significant collateral damage in that state. Now that Faust sees that you are not, Faust must return to work.”
And, with that, she was gone. Gregor reached out for her uselessly as the door smacked against the stop behind her. Of course she wouldn't tell him anything. Probably decided that whatever it was was beneath her, or, more likely, classified.
As an act of protest, Gregor tried to unstick the probes from his body. Unfortunately, it seemed that Faust (or whoever else) had attached them to the hairiest parts of his body, and thus this was a nontrivial task. Once he gave up on that, he attempted to get out of bed, only to feel an intense wave of dizziness wash over him.
Well, Faust had not told him that he had to get back to work. Maybe this was the mythical sick leave he had heard Hohenheim talking so much about?
Hohenheim? Why was he thinking about him? He hadn’t seen him in ages. No, wait…
“Young Gregor is awake?!” The sound of Don Quixote’s enthusiastic shout did little to quell Gregor’s growing headache. He couldn’t quite make out Faust’s response, only hearing the faintest edge of her voice murmuring out in the hallway. Don Quixote’s reply was still audible, but far quieter.
“Ahh, I see, apologies. I vow my silence. …but, now that I do know, do you mind if I check on his convalescence?”
Faust must have relented, as Gregor heard Don Quixote loudly tromping down the hallway towards his door. Then, there was a knock. At least she knocked.
“Young Gregor, art thou awake?” She was clearly trying to whisper. Operative word being, trying.
“Didn’t fall asleep to Frau Faust’s lecture, nah,” Gregor said, leaning over to open his bedside drawer and grab a smoke. Hopefully, withdrawal was the cause of his weakness. That way, there was an easy fix.
“May I enter your chambers?”
“Go ahead,” Gregor said as he flicked his lighter. He probably looked like shit, but he didn't have the heart to push her away. While he didn’t really want to deal with her endless font of energy at the moment, she was definitely more likely to tell him about what was going on than Faust.
A blond head poked in around the door, and she surveyed the room with wide, golden eyes. Upon spotting him, she offered him a wide, genuine smile and then skipped in. However, as she hopped over the threshold, she tripped on the book on the floor and nearly took a headlong dive, only managing to save herself by sticking her knee out at the last moment.
“Thy lighting is quite, umm, moody,” she said, clutching her knee as her smile grew strained. “Is there a torch or lamp I may light?”
Gregor examined the corner of the room near the door. It was empty. “There usually is,” he muttered.
“Aha, I see. Say no more. My room also tends to behave quite capriciously! Though,” she glanced downwards, “why dost thou have a copy of one of Hohenheim’s textbooks on thy floor? Art thou interested in the process of Enkephalin production?”
“Uh, no,” he said. “I think Faust is just using it as a doorstop.”
“Ahh,” Don Quixote squinted, her mouth drawing into a flat line. “I don’t wish to speak rudely of anyone, but I do wish that Faust and Hohenheim could air out their differences. He was of great assistance to us on our journey into the belly of the beast.”
“On your what?” Gregor usually had the hang of the small woman’s mannerisms, but she could still sometimes confuse the hell out of him.
“Apologies! Our raid on the House of Spiders. Young Sinclair, Ishmael, and Faust were on a ‘team’ with him, as one might call it, and I hear that he behaved quite valiantly. I suppose you may not have heard, since…” Unusually, her voice fell, and she seemed unsure of what to say next.
The House of Spiders? That’s what it was. Everything had happened so fast, it had been like a fever dream. One moment, they were waving good-bye to Xichun in Hongyuan, and, the next, they were walking past piles of eviscerated corpses in the Limbus Company headquarters. The moment after that, Dante and Faust were talking strategy, organizing the strike teams as Gregor fidgeted in front of the backdoor, just hoping that he wouldn't end up on the team that had to deal with Ryoshu’s crazy abusive mom. Bad memories and all that.
But, then what? The last thing Gregor remembered was watching Ryoshu disappear through the door… Trying to remember anything after that just made him feel nauseous. Gregor despised blackouts. He had experienced waking up from an extended memory lapse before, and he had a new limb afterwards.
“Art thou feeling all right, Gregor?” Don Quixote asked him.
Gregor took a deep inhale through his cig, using that as an opportunity to hide his expression. She had gotten quite a bit sharper since their trip to La Manchaland. “‘M fine,” he said. “Just… a bit jumbled.”
“Perfectly understandable! This has been one of our most difficult capers, yet- even I still feel fatigued from our many trials.”
“Maybe this is a dumb question… but, how did it go? Did we win?” Gregor glanced around the room. “Guessing so, since we’re still alive?”
“Indeed! My group prevailed against a most cowardly and foul foe- a man who tarnished the very concept of fatherhood with two-facedness and cowardice towards his very own progeny!”
Gregor exhaled a cloud of smoke, and Don Quixote glanced back at him, flushing slightly.
“But- well, I am losing myself to a digression. In summation, we were able to retrieve the golden boughs, and… well, um…” she paused. “My understanding is that a concept incinerator was involved, but Manager Esquire has assured me that all is well. Ryoshu is still with us, and, to my estimation, appears to be in good spirits.”
“Ahh, that’s… good, I guess,” Gregor muttered. A concept incinerator likely explained some of the gaps in his memory, though he felt a bit queasy about the concept. Dante could probably fill him in on it later- at least, if he convinced them to do so. Despite their frequently goofy mannerisms, the Manager could be a very tough nut to crack. If they got it in their head that somebody would be better off not knowing something, they clammed right up. “Hope I still managed to contribute a little.”
Don Quixote fidgeted with one of her badges, and her gaze drifted over to the window.
“Did I really do that bad?” Gregor asked, something cold pricking down his spine.
“Of course not! T-thou fought with great strength.” Unlike her typical piercing stare, she refused to look at him as she spoke, and continued to fiddle with her clothes.
“Dost thou not remember?” she said quietly.
“Should I?”
The woman glanced back at him. For a moment, she looked… concerned? It was difficult to tell in the dim light. However, she turned back towards the door before Gregor had a chance to absorb anything.
“Apologies, but I must take my leave,” she said as she started walking, her arms swinging awkwardly at her sides. “I just recalled that I was p-placed in charge of the cookies in the oven, and they shall burn in my absence.”
“Wait, wait. What's wrong?”
“Everything is fine,” Don Quixote said, her hand resting on the doorknob. Then, she balled it into a fist, and looked back.
“Gregor… just know, if thou find thyself to be in poor spirits, please know that I would be happy to lend you my ear.” Her voice quaked. “I… understand. Perhaps better than most.”
And, once again, Gregor was left alone, in bed, completely baffled.
-
Normally, Gregor had no trouble falling asleep. Couldn't necessarily keep the nightmares out, but at least he'd get in his forty winks. But, now, he had trouble closing his eyes. The noise from outside his window, which he could normally tune out easily, grated against his brain.
Maybe the problem was that he had already been asleep for so long? Three days was quite a bit for him, even when he was at his most depressed. But he still felt slow, and groggy, and his body ached.
When his stomach rumbled, he tried to get up to go and track down a meal- Don Quixote was almost certainly lying about baking, so the kitchen would probably still be usable. However, the moment his feet hit the floor, he was overwhelmed with a sense of weakness and vertigo that made him crumple onto the floor.
Gregor wished Rodion was the one who ran into Faust in the hallway. If he'd fucked up something, she wouldn't hesitate to tease him about it. She also definitely would’ve had something to eat on her. Worst comes to worst, she could at least carry him somewhere- she still owed him one on that front.
Gregor sat down heavily on the cold concrete floor, knees pulled up to his chest as he tried to determine whether or not the blurry spots that clouded his vision were temporary or permanent.
Once he was satisfied that he wouldn't have to update his glasses prescription, he decided that it was probably best for him to ask whoever next came in to deliver him a meal. He messed around with his monitors to try and see if there was a call button anywhere, but nothing seemed to work.
Eventually, he levered Hohenheim’s book off of the floor and replaced it with his laundry basket. While the door did need a stop (with the way the backdoors worked, it was a miracle that Faust had gotten him in here while he was out), he figured he could put the book to some kind of use.
Gregor cradled the surprisingly heavy volume to his chest while boosting himself back onto his bed with his chitinous right arm, which, thankfully, still seemed to have some strength left in it.
He flicked through the table of contents and settled on Biochemical Synthesis of Enkephalin Substitutes as being the most boring-sounding chapter. Then, he set to reading, hoping that Hohenheim’s writing was as soporific as some of the arguments Gregor had overheard him having with Faust. Really, it was amazing how one could possess such deeply-held opinions about sorting cables.
A few hours passed. While the writing was dry, whenever Gregor’s mind started to wander, he once again saw that look on Don Quixote’s face. Where her cheery demeanor eroded away, and she couldn't meet his eyes. What was there for him to be in poor spirits about?
The door creaked. Once again, Faust really didn't seem to care much for the whole knocking thing. Gregor looked forward to feeling well enough to shut his door tight.
He lifted his eyes from the book in his lap. “Ahh, Frau Faust, could you get-”
The person standing in the doorway was not Faust. Rodion stared at Gregor, lit from behind, half a sandwich in one hand and the other half in her mouth. She was clad in a loose t-shirt and shorts, with her face free of makeup. Her eyes were wide, and her skin was pale, like she had just seen a ghost. Her hands trembled, and she dropped her meal on the floor and took a step back.
And then Gregor remembered seeing her, before. Standing in front of a wooden bookcase, her lip bloodied, her face a mask of visceral fear and disgust. While looking at him.
“I'm sorry-” Rodion said. But that isn't what the Rodion he remembered was saying.
And, then, the sky shattered above him. A firehose of visions, thoughts, and sensations flooded back into him, but he could hardly sort out any logic amongst them. Rage, hunger, fear. The buzzing of thousands of tiny wings, the skittering of even more tiny, bristled legs. A taste in his mouth (was it his mouth?)- savoury, meaty, with a tinge of booze.
Gregor hurled the useless textbook out of his lap, and stared at his hand. Fingers, pale skin, keratin nails. He then started patting himself down, frantically searching for signs of inhumanity. Did antennae hide in his hair? Were there chitin plates on his legs? Did he still have lips, a nose, eyebrows?
Rodion was walking towards him when he forced himself out of bed. Of course, he immediately collapsed, but that didn't stop him from crawling. He needed a mirror- he needed to see himself, to know if there was something new, something awful about himself. And he never kept any mirrors in his room. Rodion shrunk back against the wall as Gregor half- crawled, half-stumbled past her. Her hands were raised and she was saying something, but he couldn't bring himself to care about it.
There was somebody else in the shared bathroom when Gregor tumbled through the door. Ishmael, in green pajamas, a toothbrush in her mouth as she twisted her hair into a bun. She gaped at him in confusion as Gregor pulled himself up to the nearest sink, and then dashed away, leaving a bevy of hair-care products behind.
Gregor stared at himself in the mirror, proking and prodding at every bit he could see. Human, human, human. The arm was still there, and seemed to be wriggling about with a mind of its own, but it hadn't spread. Had he really managed to come back, or was this really just some sort of cruel dream?
There was that taste in his mouth again, and he remembered what it was, and doubled over forwards, pressing his hand to his stomach as he tried to vomit.
At the time, it seemed perfectly natural to eat Valencina. Grind her up, shred her body into strips of bloody flesh. Consume her, to keep on surviving. But now, with her taste in his mouth, Gregor would give anything to get rid of all of it. However, despite his best efforts, only a bit of bile and saliva dribbled down his face. There was absolutely nothing left in his stomach to expel- it had been three days ago, hadn’t it?
And Valencina hadn't even been the only one. He wanted to do that to everyone. Every human was just a warm pile of flesh, begging to be torn to pieces. And he had been too weak to convince himself otherwise, even as Rodion screamed his name over and over and over again. Her soft skin, silken hair, and bright eyes were just marks of humanity that he wanted to destroy.
When Gregor lifted his head, he saw her in the mirror. She was standing a few paces behind him, her lips parted slightly as she reached for him. There were dark smudges under her eyes.
Of course, it had to be her with him, in that room. She got a front-row seat to what he truly was, and he could never forget the terror and revulsion in her eyes when she first looked at him. She'd never be able to look at him again and not think of what he was, and what he could and would do to her, to everyone, given the chance. She’d never smile at him, laugh with him, touch him…
He remembered her body- beaten, bloody. He remembered hitting her, and, in the moment, wanting to. Thousands of voices in his head told him to kill, consume, multiply, and he wasn't strong enough to ignore them. It was only dumb luck that he hadn't eaten her, too.
“Get back,” he hissed, lowering his head. She had to know that she needed to stay away, right? That it could happen again at any moment? That he’d kill her over and over again? He could feel the pulse of his heartbeat in his right arm, which twitched in a way he already couldn’t control.
However, she took a few more steps forward. Gregor pressed his right arm against the wall in front of him and leaned heavily on it, hoping that his weight would keep it still. Hopefully, she would also notice his discomfort and also leave him alone.
Something tapped the middle of his back.
“Go away.”
Another, more insistent poke.
“I said-”
“No.” Damn, she could be stubborn at the worst of times.
Gregor shifted his weight against the wall to look back over his shoulder and glare at her. Rodion’s feet were planted wide apart in some mimicry of a martial arts stance, one hand balled up into a fist, which was currently pressing into the middle of his back. While making eye contact, she drew her hand back, and then mimed punching his back again. Her lip quivered.
He blinked and looked away, reaching up with his good arm to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’m gonna hurt you,” he said.
“Yeah, really?” Rodion’s voice was sharp, frustrated. “Then go ahead and give it a shot! I’ll knock some sense back into you if I gotta.” Tough words, coming from an unarmed woman in her sleep-clothes. Gregor knew he could disembowel her in an instant.
“Do you think I want to fight you?” he groaned, trying to dispel the vision that was already vivid in his mind.
“We can take you down as many times as it takes-”
“How are you so sure that you’ll be able to do that?” His breath quickened. “For all you know, it could get worse the next time, and the next. And killing me won’t even stop it- this damn contract means I’ll just keep on coming back, again and again.”
At the check-up, Hohenheim said that the contract with the company had weakened all of them. But now, as the other sinners were getting stronger, was the thing inside him, too? Everything was hopeless. He had been dancing on the edge of a cliff for a while, deluding himself into thinking he was human, and he had just started tumbling off.
She sighed, and the fist on his back relaxed. “You don’t know that for sure,” she said quietly, her hand running up to squeeze his shoulder. Gregor flinched away from the contact- he didn’t want the reminder of something he could never have again.
“I think I know myself a damn bit better than you do. So, please… just leave me alone.”
Rodion’s voice was tiny. “I can’t.”
There was an abrupt commotion out in the hallway. Doors slammed, people pushed into one another, and something electronic beeped loudly.
<Where did he go?> Dante sounded frazzled.
“He is in the bathroom. And, Dante, please stop stepping on Faust’s foot.”
<Ah, jeepers, I’m sorry…>
The door to the bathroom crashed open, and a very groggy and very shirtless Meursault appeared, his massive body nearly eclipsing the gaggle of other sinners that hid behind him. Dante was wearing a very elaborate set of silken red-and-gold pajamas, complete with plush slippers, and Faust was still in her day-clothes, frowning at the monitoring device in her hand. Half of Ishmael’s hair had managed to escape her bun, and the other half looked well on the way to finishing the job.
“Go away.” Gregor wanted to yell, but it was difficult to summon the energy.
Faust reached into her coat pocket and pressed something small into Meursault’s meaty palm before nodding at the manager.
<Do it.> Dante said, cradling their head.
“What’s going on?” Rodion asked, her eyes wide.
Meursault did not respond, but instead calmly crossed the floor in a few long strides. He tried to position himself behind Gregor, but Rodion blocked him.
“I can handle this,” she said frantically, “ I don’t think-”
The man lifted one arm and swept her to the side. He didn’t actually make contact with her body, but she followed his lead and stepped back, chewing her lip as Meursault swung his arm up.
Gregor looked back, and tried to speak. “What are you-”
Meursault slammed his arm down, and a sudden, sharp pain shot through the middle of Gregor’s back. Numbness rapidly coursed through his body, and he slumped forwards onto the sink. As darkness encroached on his vision, he saw Faust retrieve an empty syringe from Meursault’s hand while Rodion’s eyes flicked between them.
“The monitor indicated that he was panicking,” Faust said to Rodion. “Faust had prepared for this outcome.”
Then, as Gregor hit the floor: “It’s better this way.”
-
Darkness, pain. A dream?
The agony was unimaginable. Fingers dug into Gregor’s forehead, and began to peel his skin off. Another set joined in on his side, cracking him open and ripping off chunks from his body.
Light. Gregor opened his eyes to unimaginable, blinding light, his face raw, the taste of blood on his lips. His scalp burned, like someone had torn out chunks of his hair. He was kneeling on the ground, with Rodion standing in front of him, her hands covered in a mess of blood, sticky ooze, and chunks of viscera-smeared chitin. Heathcliff was at his side, and the man was apparently making his best effort to rip Gregor’s right leg off. Gregor wanted to pull away, but his body wouldn't move, as if he was encased in amber.
“Got it,” Heathcliff grunted, and a sound like wood chopping split the air. Gregor flopped forward onto the ground like his strings had been cut. There, he got to get up-close and personal with a pile of dead cockroaches, which completely covered the red carpet. A chunk of discarded elytra dug into his cheek.
An overwhelming scent of must, mold, and decay soaked the air- Gregor would have wrinkled his nose if he could make his muscles do anything. Somewhere, a radio crackled, and Vergilius muttered something in response.
Rodion took a few shuddering breaths. “Okay, I think- I think that's it.” She was panting heavily, and sounded more exhausted than Gregor had ever heard her before.
“Phew! Didn't think ol’ Stubbles had something like that in ‘im,” Heathcliff said, cracking his shoulders. “Guess this wasn't the first time we had to do something like this, though. Startin’ to feel like we’re all taking turns going nuts.”
“Y-yeah.” A hand brushed over Gregor’s shoulder.
“Whatcha doin, lass?”
“We probably shouldn't just leave him on the ground,” Rodion said.
“Guess so. At least until Dante gets to ‘im. Maybe we can stick him on one of those posh couches over there? Bet that crazy Thumb chick could afford some real cozy ones.”
Rodion kneeled on the floor next to Gregor and, with a neat little push, flipped him back onto his back. Then, carefully, with one arm under his shoulders and the other under his knees, she rose back up to her feet. Gregor’s limbs swung about uselessly in the air, and every place she touched him burned like a popped blister. He wanted to ask her to just put him back down, but his mouth felt like it was full of sand.
Need a hand?” Heathcliff asked.
“Nah, I’ve got this,” Rodion clutched Gregor to her chest. “He’s not heavy.”
“Guess not. I’ll go see what’s goin’ on with the other teams. Maybe we can help ‘em out.”
“I don’t know if I have a whole lot of helping left in me today,” Rodion sighed.
Heathcliff shrugged. “Don’t got much of a choice about it. Ain’t Clockhead supposed to call us over soon? With that, uh, weird thing they can do now?”
“...yeah.”
Heathcliff retreated to the back of the room to bother Vergilius, and Rodion walked over to one of Valencina’s couches. She was limping, and her exaggerated gait made it a bumpy ride. However, eventually, she set him down amongst several plush, velvety pillows. Their touch barely registered to him, but at least she wasn't throwing him around anymore.
Rodion arranged him carefully, picking up his right arm and placing it at his side so it didn't run over the floor. She didn't react with the usual trepidation upon touching it- he must’ve looked pretty harmless at the moment. After squeezing a pillow under his head, she searched her sleeve until she found a relatively clean spot and then used it to wipe something off of his cheek.
She sat heavily on the floor next to him, pulling her knees up to her chest and leaning her head to rest on the couch by Gregor’s side. Her blue eyes were half-shut, and the makeup on the left side of her face was one massive bruise-like smudge. Her hair was one cohesive tangle, and, through her tattered pants, the bleeding welts that covered her legs were obvious.
The faintest edge of a smile turned the corner of her lip, and she lifted up her hand and then tucked a strand of Gregor’s hair behind his ear. Her gaze softened. “I'm glad that worked,” she said quietly, her hand lingering on his skin. “Not really sure what I’d do without you.”
At that moment, Gregor was absolutely confident of two things. First, Rodion had to be the most beautiful person in the city. And, second, that this must be a dream. A pleasant dream, perhaps, but only that. She would never look at him with such tenderness.
Rodion shifted her head slightly, so that it brushed against his side, and let her eyes drift shut. “Looks like I'll owe Vergie one after this,” she whispered as she absently rubbed his scalp. “Though,” she yawned loudly, “I'm tired. Think you are, too. Maybe we can sit this next one out.” Gradually, her fingers slowed, and her breath steadied. Gregor joined her as she fell asleep.