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Through agony and impotent rage, Gaelio forced himself to think. To cling to awareness. To ignore the lick of the flame and the sound of tearing metal and the slow creeping chill as Kimaris' cockpit stained slowly crimson; and, then, to ignore the sounds, from so very far away, of shouting voices and the whine of alloy being cut.
He needed to remain. Needed to remember. Remember all of it.
-*-
It was burned into his eyes forever. All of it was. All of it. Every last miserable mind-scarred sight, every soul-destroying decision that he so cavalierly made. Even now, agonized and mad, he knew that. He knew it.
Was that ancient old saw? 'The road to hell is paved with good intentions'?
If that was the case -- some distant, detached portion of Gaelio's shattered mind still mused -- if that was the case, then he must be on a gilded highway to a hell's circle all his own.
Not just because of Gjallarhorn, either. Not just on Carta's behalf. Not even only the blood-curdling terror of his sister, his beloved sister, left in the hands of -- to be 'taken care of' -- by that traitorous monster.
No, there was still more than that.
Ein.
The whine of metal on metal pulled the memories into sharpest focus, like shadowed knives.
-*-
... It was so easy to say big words about changing the world, wasn't it.
Seeing the rot in action ...
Because he did. Oh, how he did. Little things, little things that were so very, very looming -- and nothing that he, from his lofty perch, had ever had to deal with. Had ever needed to understand. Ein was -- had been -- was -- driven, diligent, too driven maybe ...
If I was dealt the death of a thousand cuts, I would ...
I will --
Of course Ein fixated on his loss. It seemed harmless at the time, an obsession Gaelio indulged him in ... until that one burning, desperate explanation. Support, comradeship -- oh, yes, he understood now. He understood all too well what it was to have that flayed away.
If in a completely different manner.
Memory came swiftly now, on wings of bloodied alloy while waves of agony crashed down. Those memories that could not ever be erased --
* that bloody body pulled in pieces from the Graze's wreckage, a sacrifice to save him *
I am unworthy
* hours, days of seeing what remained floating unconscious, adrift, kept alive in suspension unaware while he raged and ranted and fought against the inevitable and would not let Ein go -- if hell existed, that crushing guilt was its finest vintage *
I didn't know
* that silver-tongued viper whispering in his ear, playing on his desperation -- 'If you want to save him, this is the only way' -- and all the while he was blind, blind, and never once suspected *
I should have known, you should have died before that
* horror revealed, that system monitor so spare, measured, devoid of emotion, putting on stark display what he never meant to have happen -- subordinate, comrade, ward remade into an abomination of tortured flesh socketed into an engine of death, all that was wrong with machine and man: the Graze Ein *
was that even you any longer
From somewhere far away, he heard voices once again. One, insistent: was this what he wanted? Truly what he wanted?
He knew he answered, but could not say how. But that was hardly important any longer, in any case -- the only thing that mattered was the ability to act.
Yes, this was what he wanted. Exactly what he wanted.
Dimly he registered a sharper, almost brilliant pain, a flash of light overhead (was it overhead?), the sensation of floating without water. Discussion, nearby, voices low and concerned and disturbed; he could not make out the words.
The words hardly mattered so long as they gave him what he wished for.
-*-
Darkness fluttered; memory marched on, his thoughts coming more clearly now despite the pain.
* that thing, that abomination, towering, brutal, claws to crush and tear, inelegant, meant for death and only death, and from its bowels came Ein's voice, wavering and reedy, euphoric with disconnected madness: and he sounded so happy when Gaelio called out in horror to him *
I can't believe that's what you wanted. That that was what your mentor would have wanted.
* a chunk of meat wired into a flooded cockpit; a living operations system for an engine of death, corpse-pale, dead-eyed, limbless, unresponsive *
I took your humanity away from you because I was blind.
Because I let him blind me.
Oh, how he'd been played; how he, how Carta, how they all had been played. Sacrifical oxen slaughtered to -- what? To what? Spite? Vindictiveness? Hate, after all those years, all that (false!) friendship?
Then why Ein?
Anger overwhelmed all else.
What did he do to you, McGillis?
You couldn't stand to see me torn up about him? Was that it? Did you see too much of yourself in him and needed him punished for the affront?
How is this not 'corruption'? Who's the corrupt one now?
His fury burned through veins savaged by tubing, flashed through a body only half there, seared through the agony like the sun through stormclouds. And for the briefest of moments Gaelio forced his eyes to open.
Fluid. A tank. Savaged flesh, torn and battered away. Technicians, hovering, lamps burning with actinic light far overhead, tools of blackest technology clutched in bloody gloves. At the edge of awareness, the glint of dull blued alloy, a gaping void in a half-headless mannequin's steel-skeletal torso.
Waiting for him.
Yes.
By his own choice, may he become a monster. A suitable fate for the one who damned another to a horrible, inhuman death.
May the punishment fit the crime.
And may cold vengeance fall upon the house of Fareed.
His eyes slid closed.
The first cut slid across his skin.