Ripley

"Weapons…" My breath itched at the idea, but I took a step back. This would only drag me deeper into whatever war was going on in the shadows. "I refuse."

"Not for us." The Queen clarified. "For her."

A screen popped up in between us, and I saw a cage fight where one lone woman was surrounded by about four combatants. Her hair moved like shadows, while her arms were engulfed in what looked like solidified blood, her right arm significantly more metallic.

She weaved under blades with menacing agility, both eyes holding crimson spheres of flame suspended in darkness as each strike she landed tore through flesh and metal, both snaking into her right limb and enlarging it with rough bladed claws.

"Lilian Rose…" I mouthed. "Is she…?"

"You just missed her." The Crimson Heart covered her mouth with her hand, giggling. "I'll make sure Andressa distracts her before you leave, wouldn't want you two meeting again so soon after your last encounter resulted in… a clash of thunder against webs."

"Hey, that makes me only want to do this less." I was ready to leave.

"Will you at least hear us out, punk?" The Queen insisted. "Diana… Lilian, she's smart. But you know best how fickle a double life can be, I'd wager all of my suits that your identity's the biggest open secret in this city right now."

"So, what?"

"Heart Seeker, as you know…" The Queen nudged her eyes to the body identical to The Bladedaughter. "Is a doppelganger."

"Yeah." I added, "and her sister can mimic mutations."

"Exactly!" The Queen clapped her hands. "We need Diana to have a doppelganger who can go around doing Silvereye stuff while she gets to be Lilian Rose for a bit."

"I…" I had no idea where to begin. "What makes you think I'm the man for this job?"

"You share her Implant's twin." The Heart said. "You also likely have the most expertise when it comes to experiencing what her Mutations can do. Besides, we're not asking for a proper duplicate. Simply a shell that can act as her with limited combat functionality, only what the public is aware of."

"And…" The Queen leaned in. "You're the expert on Personality Matrices."

I stayed silent, giving the Heart a hardened look. "I thought you couldn't share private information from your sessions."

"I can't." She tilted her head innocently. "But if my darling asked the right people, the right snakes, you'd be surprised what dirty little secrets can be uncovered."

Snakes. The Snake Fangs.

"Shaun still hiding in his hole?" I taunted.

"Oh, no. In fact, he's preparing to open a new club. A sauna club, in fact." She giggled. "He's been quite the loyal dog for Skeleton, and the puppy gets a treat every now and then."

"Point is, Donovick." The Queen grinned. "This is a job where you'd be the most valued operator we can get."

"What's the payment?" Elsa hissed at my side.

A screen flicked between us, and what I saw was… a corpse. Not just any corpse.

The Bladefather's, from the chest to the skull it was ripped in half and in between that was a Crimson Blade that had sheathed in, the Muramasa Blade.

"Take your pic. An eye? A piece of his heart? Even a fragment of that blade." The Queen laughed.

I knew just how valuable his body was, and with my nanites I could…

"You should burn it." I shook that thought away. "If Skeleton gets his hands on it, then…"

I didn't want to imagine what the Bladefather turned into a MAL could look like.

"Oh, Skeleton's already bought quite the selection of organs." The Queen said with amusement. "Though, we kept the blade off limits."

"Are you both idiots!" Mirage yelled.

"No." The Heart whispered, her eyes narrowing. "As long as we have control over this corpse, Skeleton will entertain us. We know exactly how… scheming the man can be. He'll receive only what we deem useless to us."

"You can't be serious." I squeezed my head. "You're playing with fire."

"Babe." The Queen snickered. "We are the fire. We're the fuckin' Crimson Souls."

"All of this will ensure victory over The Revenant." The Heart added. "Once they are dealt with, we can focus on Skeleton."

"That's the wrong order." Mirage shook her head. "Take it from me, a member of The Uncaged."

"Like it or not," The Queen hissed. "It's because Skeleton has so many cards up his sleeve that we need to behave with restraint. At least Soul Killer's turned into a public menace."

"Then, we just need-"

"Once Skeleton's faceless soldiers — what he calls Cadavers -- are integrated into the military," the Heart smacked her lips, "is when he will be torn between the whims of the corporates and the criminals, only then can we strike."

"I'm assuming the public won't know that the… Cadavers are dead corpses turned into MALs?" I breathed.

"No. Likely, they'll be detailed as a new breed of soldiers from SynTec. While the true manufacturer remains hidden right here." The Heart explained.

Elsa groaned, her eyes shining black and white as the voice of the Dogwhistler echoed from within her. "You fools have no fucking clue what I can do to stop that from happening!"

"Ah," the Queen massaged the Heart's shoulders. "Scorched Earth? Is that really what you want to commit yourself to, Doggie? I thought you both wanted the peaceful life?"

The black and white erased from Elsa's eyes, a calmer violet residing in her irises. "All I'm saying is, don't underestimate me as well. What you saw in the Prison Complex was a fraction of a percentile of what I could do."

"I ain't underestimatin' you, not quite." The Queen chuckled. "In fact, you know we'd love your assistance any day of the week, not that we'll get it."

"You won't." Elsa confirmed.

The Heart relaxed into the Queen's massage. "Point of all this, Silvereye remains our best point of contact with the police."

"And," the Queen continued. "If public figures out good girl's gone bad in the form of Lilian Rose, that ain't gonna help any of us. We need both good girl and bad girl."

"Hence why you want me to turn…" I looked back at the two once-human bodies on the table between us. "I can't do that, erase another person's mind."

"Neither will I." Elsa nodded, making me happy to hear that.

"What mind?" The Queen chuckled. "Hexblood's catatonic. Heart Seeker? She's a doppelganger, she's never had a personality that was 'her's' to begin with. Check for yourself, her damn existence is a Personality Matrix turned Emulect. I doubt she's ever been alive."

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"I'm not plugging myself into her." I shook my head. "But I… will this help Diana, genuinely?"

"Oh, babe, it will." The Queen snickered. "But, it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission, you know that."

"I'm beginning to think the opposite, actually." Maybe if I'd just been clean with Diana from the get-go, things wouldn't be so complicated right now.

"Will you give us your answer?" The Heart's eyes radiated with crimson warmth.

I thought about it, calculations running in my head. Ultimately, I decided this wasn't my choice.

Starlight?

"I…" She looked over the bodies of both Heart Seeker and Hexblood with a frown. "It's not right to them, they deserved to have gotten a chance to live an honest life. But… I've done the calculations, it will help Diana."

Then, how about this?

I consulted with her in my head, and she gave me the 'okay'.

"Here's the deal." I let my voice command the flow of conversation. "I'm not going to touch Heart Seeker's tech, but I'll scan it, read it. I'll be a consultant simply as an avid fan of Silvereye as to what matches her capabilities the best, then you find another Op to make those changes I tell you about."

Then I shared a glance with Elsa, she nodded to what me and Starlight had discussed. "And… Elsa and I will program you a Personality Matrix model that will best mimic Diana's behavior. But on one condition; soon as this is over, we'll release Heart Seeker and her sister — find some way to give them both a genuine chance to be their own person. Founder knows how we'll do it, but we will. They'll get freedom from Muramasa, and from you."

The two Puppeteers exchanged a look, shrugging before the Queen nodded. "Very well. What piece of the Bladefather will you take once it's all over."

"I'll decide once the job's done, for all I know you might lose it by then." I gritted. "You'll owe me a debt of that value regardless, Ten Million Shardyne."

"That's a heavy price, how about-"

"We're leaving, send the scan over to my clinic." I turned around, holding Elsa by the waist as we left the room, and soon… the Hellfire Club.

———

Lilian Rose

3:12 AM

Turns out, I liked women if they proved skilful with their hands and mouth. Twilight was giggling in my ear as she told me: 'I told you so'.

However, I was soon whisked away from my pleasure as Andressa suddenly told me I was being expected by the Heart… and then her form was erased by the Heart's veiled visage. I… I wasn't sure if I just…

I didn't think about it for too long.

I was taken down into an elevator that descended for quite some time, before long I was in a big laboratory that reminded me too much of Soul Killer's. Numerous clones of the Crimson Heart worked as they dissected bodies and extracted Mutagen, but I felt the foulest stench coming from a secured room that required multiple access keys to get into.

In the center of it was a corpse I identified as The Bladefather's.

"Which piece will you be having?" The Heart asked, a scalpel of pure energy forming at her fingertips.

I didn't think too long for an answer. "His heart, if the bastard had one in the first place."

She responded by slicing into the chest cavity that was split apart by the crimson blade sheathed inside of him, as she did… force exploded out and I felt my face get cut into. The Heart was wreathed in a thick aura of red, but it was continuously torn apart like cloth in a storm of knives as she dissected the Bladefather's corpse.

Then she tossed me an inch-long piece of flesh… it was so potent with Warp Energy that just holding it made me nauseous.

I chewed into the tough meat, my jaws sharpening and stretching as the meat sliced it's way down my throat and enlightened me. Ever so slowly, I gagged and twisted as my body came undone with cracking bones and bulging flesh tearing apart and reforminh; my right arm and left eye melting as Blood and Steel morphed me into-

The Monster

It was exactly what I needed to be.

———

Ripley

As soon as the taxi dropped Elsa back at her place, I found myself receiving a message from someone I hadn't been expecting one from at all.

[Diamanté: Yo, so I just arrived back in the city. Issue is… I'm sort of in pieces, meet me at my place?]

Starlight flickered into my vision, a confident nod coming from her. "I'll take care of Abuela, you meet with Di!"

And so, I rerouted the autotaxi to the old mall.

When I reached the place, I was yawning and tired, but also… incredibly nervous. I'd fucked up so much while they were gone, and now I had to come clean.

I had to.

[Where you at?]

[Diamanté: There'll be a truck parked in the underground of the mall, headlights on.]

Each step echoed with regret, what would I say, what would he say?

In a distance of time that stretched endlessly and in a blink, I found the truck waiting for me. Seeing noone in the front seat, I opened up the boot to where I saw… nothing except a big chest.

"AH, finally!" Diamante's gruff steely voice echoed from the chest.

"Oh, why are you a box?" I approached.

"Look inside." His voice radiated.

I opened the box to find… Diamante in pieces. His head, chest, legs and arms were all in pieces and in between all that was a big cube of steel through which tubes and pipes fed into a brain contained in the center of all of that…

And… cats. Kittens, they purred gently as they basked in the warmth of a still-functioning radiator connected to his power source.

"Uh…" I wasn't sure what to look at, Diamante's brain or the two cats. Both black as shadows as they licked eachother, upon further inspection one was missing its eyes and the other lacked front legs. "Are those real?"

"Yup, they'd sell for at least ten Bronze each." Diamante's voice confirmed. "But we thought we'd let you keep one, if you wanted it."

"Oh…" I'd never kept a pet before. "Um... let me figure it out in a bit?"

"Sure, now help me out of this box. And be careful with my life support!" He yelled, I carefully dismantled everything and ensured his important systems stayed online, one of them being a speaker so he could yell at me. Then, I took both tiny kittens which fit into my hoodie's pockets. They purred as they nestled close for warmth.

"Where'd you find the cats?" I asked, as Diamante issued instructions into my eyes.

"Snuck into our truck, ate into Maiden's dried jerky. She almost kicked them out before I kept them."

"You got a soft spot for animals?" Entering the mall's underground facilities, I deactivated the security as I trailed towards the more private armory Diamante had but never let me into.

"Guess, you could say that… me and… me and Sera used to have one."

"Seraphina?" I asked. "That's Seraphim's original author… right?"

"She was." Diamante stayed quiet too. "My girlfriend too."

"What happened?"

"Skeleton killed her for her Unique Feature." Diamante said, just as I'd heard from Skeleton himself.

I came clean. "Skeleton, he… he came to my house. Told me that story, painted you guys as the villains and… look, I… a lot has happened."

"You mean what happened with Muramasa?" Diamante grumbled. "Heard the Bladefather died, never thought I'd hear it happen. Fucking pissed that I didn't see it myself."

"Did you not like the guy?"

"The things he did to his children aren't all that different to what Metal Heavens did to me." The brain in my hands responded.

Looking at Diamante, I chose to ask the question he'd evaded for so long to answer. "Can I ask what happened? To you?"

"Guess you deserve it at this point. Earthquake severed my spine, was barely three. Don't even remember the faces of the parents who sold me to the Heavens for a quick buck. They experimented on me, with my nerves refusing to connect to flesh, it adapted to bond with steel instead through my Accomodation Feature. Developed a situation where the more flesh cut off, the higher my Compat became. Didn't take long till a little child was little more than a brain connected to a machine."

"Shit, man… I'm sorry." I didn't know what to say.

"It's… it's fine. Your granddad bust me out of there, asked if I wanted revenge and well… he built me the Iron Devil Suit. Went knocking on Metal Heavens door and tore them a new one."

"Did you manage to recover the Iron Devil Suit from Skeleton?"

"Yeah, though Skeleton killed the guy we needed to fix up it's Amalgalm Engine. Plus, he got to scan it… so he got what he wanted out of it anyway. R0N1N's Shardware was also scanned, but we recovered it. They're securing Missy's Exodus Suit now." Diamante confirmed.

"Hey, Diamante, forgive me if this question is a little… out of bounds…" I just had something I needed to confirm. "So, long story short, I saw Bladefather's memories… I saw my grandfather in them too. When my mother was born, and… there was little iron-made girl holding her. Was that you?"

Diamante stayed quiet for a second, before barking up a laugh. "Holy shit! You just dug out memories wayyy from the past! Come to think of it… yeah, actually, I think that might've been your mom. And yeah, when your granddad plucked me away from Metal Heavens, I was a gal."

"Oh, that's cool, not judging." I chuckled, putting in the passkey Diamante sent me to open up the door to his armory. I marvelled at the amount of spare bodies he had inside, some half-finished while others were titanic and some smaller. I even spotted Angelica, the body he cornered me in Little Requiem with back when I stole Black Dragon Long's Necrotium Blade.

"Stick me in that one." An arrow pointed at a body similar to his classic model, but it was a little cruder and older.

Following the diagrams, I opened up the chest cavity where there was a slot for me to insert his brain-cube into. Fastening Diamante in, his body came to life with mechanical whirs and hisses of steam as crimson light opened up in the two eyes of his.

He stretched his joints, groaning. "Damn, been a while since I've been in this clunky thing."

"When's it dated to?"

"Last used it… 2484." His steel voice came out even more artificial than normal.

"Ah, right… I think I saw you in that body from Juliet's memories." I nodded.

"You saw… Juliet Grazhe's memories?" He looked more distraught about that than when I said I saw the Bladefather's. "So, then… Ripley… that was… I was angry back then."

I remembered him being far more… detached. "That was during the time you thought Skeleton… that Mikail was dead, right?"

"Yeah, my best fucking friend. My girlfriend. Both dead in one night." Diamante said in a low voice. "Finally figured who I was, who I wanted to be, and then it got ripped right out of my hands."

"Skeleton… he made moves." I commented.

"We knew he would, Ripley. It was why he sent us away." Diamante put a hand on my shoulder.

"Me and Diana fought… I… I may have stolen some Implants." I didn't meet his eyes. "She almost killed me."

"You lost?" Diamante hissed. "Fuck! I owe Topaz money!"

"Oh…" My body felt sluggish, and I felt the Preservertion Matrix begging to increase the output of my Personality Editor. "Topaz… fuck, I-"

Diamante stilled, I was sure he understood what I was trying to say without me saying it.

"Diamante, I fucked up." Tears dripped down my cheeks, and I pounded a fist against his steel chest. "I really fucked up."

"Kid…" Diamante held me in his cold arms and just let me cry.

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