333 replies to this topic

[Lafayra Rue]

Raissa actually snorted. "Credit where credit isn't due. Most of my theorems came from studying your work, merely manipulated to suit the work I was given at the time." She paused for a long moment. "None of my work was ever put in my real name and none of my major discoveries were ever credited to my name...how would you know?" The shock was beginning to wear off but Raissa still could barely believe that one of the greatest scientific geniuses was standing in front of her.

 

She stepped closer to read his notes. Another cigarette may be needed sooner rather than later, she would need to maintain her temper working with Augustus and her withdrawal symptoms or a burst of anger would ruin her chances to learn from him. "And my field of study is what I'm told to work on....the problem of not totally choosing your career."

[Thugren]

Augusts works in a flurry of theroms .

 

"Youre work here with the blockage is brilliant.....Incorrect...but brillaint."

 

He writes a simple solution of chemicals and the doeses.

 

"I guess i can forgive it,.....SOmetimes even pretty ones make mistakes.."

 

HE immediately began writing a formula for what he deems to be a anestetic.

 

"How are you going to tackle his blood becoming promethium? Are you going to put him on a dedicated regiment? or are you goling to seal him in his suit permanalty.........EIther method is fine by me...Its not exactly my job to care about his quality of life."

[Lafayra Rue]

Raissa's pride felt stung and she scowled at the man. "Excuse me, but my physical appearance has nothing to do with my work and I resent your comment, and how are my calculations incorrect?" Her temper was rising and she was well aware that she wasn't in control of her withdrawal. Snapping would be bad, especially since she wouldn't be able to shoot up to reduce the stress.

[Thugren]

for a moment, augustus stops. He looks at you curiously, as if you were a grashopper pinned to a board.

 

"Placebo withdrawls coupled with a psycho semantic reaction....Facinating the psycho addiction that the nazis instituted on you.."

 

 

His interest quickly wanes as he quicjky finishes his therom.

 

'Though your body doesnt actually need it considering your blood is saturated with poisions that have replaced most of the fluid plasms in your blood, would you like a hit of something? If i have to deal with you snapping and shootiong off your mouth, i may have tio tie you to a chair while i do all the work."

[Lafayra Rue]

"Save your psychological opinion of me, I've heard plenty." She walked back over to her pack of cigarettes, pulling one out and gripping it between her lips. The lighter wouldn't catch because of her shaking hands and after many persistent attempts she smacked it down on the counter top, a thickly accented Russian curse mumbled around the cigarette. After muttering a long string of Russian about the ridiculousness of her situation and how she had ended up here she tried the lighter again, relieved that it caught on the first try.

 

Raissa smoked in silence, looking over the equations Augustus had written out. She hadn't missed what he had said about her blood, but she was a bit too prideful right now to ask him.

[Thugren]

"
i dont give opinions girl..I provide facts...You dont have to like it, but when i want your approval you will know."

 

he walk to the door where a bag sits.

 

"I will go fetch the old man.......Please be ready and stable by the time i return."

[Lafayra Rue]

Raissa scowled at his back until he left, sucking the cigarette down to the filter. She put the ember out with licked fingers and went back to the adjoining room. Rummaging through the drawers she pulled out antiseptic, pain cream, gauze, and wound wrappings. She propped her leg up on the side of the tub and pushed her pants down. The bandages on the gunshot were bloody but mostly dry, meaning it had stopped bleeding much to her surprise. Taking off the dressing she put the bloody rags aside and opening the antiseptic she poured it into the wound. Her teeth clenched against the sting but it cleared her head a bit.

 

'You seriously have no control. A genius, you have a genius in this house that could teach you, and you can't control yourself.' Raissa kept pouring, letting the excess run over her leg and drain into the tub where she could hear it bubble.

 

"So it doesn't bother you at all that we'er still being told what to do?" She felt her other half hesitate. "Yeah that's what I thought. It's always 'you will do this' or 'I expect' or 'this will be done'. Amazing that we heard those words so often they all kind of blurred together. I'm sick of it. Always someone's personal bitch, so to speak. I don't want to do this surgery, I don't want to be here, I don't want to be indebted to Kronen, but here we are, following the same path over and over. I just want to be left alone, maybe learn and study new things." She suddenly realized that the bottle was half empty so she quickly tipped it back up and capped it. Drying up the excess she filled the wound with the pain cream and redressed it.

 

Buttoning her pants the photo she had looked at earlier caught her attention. Walking over she picked it up, put it back in its frame and carried it out with her. She propped it up on one of the tables, then turned to the screen to examine the equations Augustus had written. A photograph in a bathroom seemed weird to her.

[Thugren]

you walk right into augustus, his eyes cold jewels of amber.

 

Before you and i begin....."

 

you walk into a syringe, and a second later the symtpoms fade.

 

'If your done whining about how you've been a nail all your knife..Im going to teach you how to evolve a mutagen... Maybe With this lesson youll learn some humity and scope and finally become a hammer."

 

He turns away and motions at the operating table where the elder dragon sleeps bare chested.

[Lafayra Rue]

Raissa flinched from the shot, he was intentionally making the needle hurt. Even with her withdrawal fading she felt fuzzy, like her mind was fraying.

 

"Humility?" Her voice was incredulous but soft. She flashed back to those terrible years when she was young. Being five and begging in filthy clothes, digging in the garbage for food, and starving herself to feed her mentally incapacitated father. Working everyday from sunrise to sundown to earn enough money for her father's care and to buy food so they wouldn't starve. Then the gun barrel, a nightmare that often consumed her mind, and worst of all the humiliation of being a pin cushion and experiment for the Nazi's. It suddenly felt like her mind fractured.

 

She looked at the table again, her vision swimming. "I'll show you my humility. I'm not skilled enough for this procedure with or without your guidance. I will kill him." Her head was killing her, she didn't want to be here, so she made for the door. "I will not pick up that scalpel, not this time. Do the surgery yourself."

[Thugren]

the door slams shut, you are flung across the room and land in a chair.

 

your hands begin to move, your feet rising without your will as you walk to the table.

 

"Oh...YOu will...And you will do every incision yourself...YOU WILL FUCKING LEARN."

 

you move over to alduins side, and Augustus stands before you.

 

"First step is a bilateral incision.'
 

YOur hands slowly begin to make the cut, simple, precise....Sure.

 

 

Without any issue or resitance, your hand makes a perfect incision, opening the chest to you.

 

Inside the cavity, you can already see the dragons massive beating heart. Around it you can see the gemificated substance of the contained pyromancy.

 

"That right there is the Centrus gem......that is waht you are going to deal with after....."

 

your hand reaches undere the mans ribcage and you can avtually feel the blockage in the heart.

 

"This blockage is actually what is keeping this old man from his potential....Over the years his body has actually made this blockage to keep his power in check."

 

your hand reaches out to his and he puts a syringe into your hand.

 

"This is a caustic solution of obsidium ...It will break down the blockage...are you ready?"
 

[Lafayra Rue]

Being forced around the room knocked the wind out of her, but by the time she was cutting into Alduin she wasn't fool enough to struggle. Augustus was a psionic, that wasn't something you fought against. Her vision had blurred and her head was throbbing, but that meant she couldn't see and she could only hear about every other word.

She promptly ignore his cordial and most likely habitual question. "You're just like Rasputin, screaming at me when I say no and forcing me to do it anyways. Of course you didn't beat me first so that's an improvement." Her voice was tired and lacked her usual venom. She just couldn't muster the anger.

[Thugren]

"You had it hard didnt you."

 

He says simply.

 

"You dont feel like you are suited to do this.....Do you think i got that chance? DO you think i got that right?"

 

YOur hand moves and injects the fluid in.

 

Within moments you see the bulge begin to shrink and augustus smiles.

 

"When the world ended i wasnt given the choice....I poured myself into books...I struggled in the trenches...I Made a new world from the ruins and ash of the old one....I didnt get to sit and whine, sit and cry...Boo hoo about a life i didnt have, becasue people relied on me...The counted on me...They beleived in who, and what i was becasue i was all they had."

 

You notice something, youre hands arent being forced anymore, they move fluidly, performing the basics of the procedure only being guided when needed.

 

"You dont get the luxury of being like you are. There is no world to go back to if this procedure fails..SO stop curling up like a child and fighting it...Stand up, put on your big girl panties and learn like the great minds before you. if einstein quit when it got hard or he felt inadequate we wouldnt have had the bombs needed to save mankind.....So suck it up steel your will girl."

 

Without warning , your hands crack the gem and a blazing heat pours fourth.

 

all at once, the wound is pulled closed and stitched seemingly by magic, and you fall to the floor, your head cleared of fog, augustus gripping the table and gasping in effort.

[Lafayra Rue]

Slowly she stood, standing beside Alduin. She watched for a moment, if something were to go wrong it would be immediate. Augustus still clutched the table and as she turned to find her way to a chair she said, "I'm not you."

She sat down heavily, her arms hanging along the sides of the chair, Alduin's blood dripping onto the floor from her fingers. Augustus had said what everyone else had said, but he was wrong, no one relied on her and she did have a choice. She had moved on her own out of memory.

Raissa didn't like being a scientist, it was simply all she knew.

[Thugren]

alduin coughed, his eyes slowly opening....and he looked at her.

 

 

"Come here frauline........Let me see you."

 

he motions her over with his hand as you notice subtle whipss of steam coming from his lips.

[Lafayra Rue]

Raissa looked at him, she didn't want to get up, but mustering up the effort she stood slowly and walked back over to the table. She stayed just out of his reach.

[Thugren]

he takes your hand, and smiles faintly"thank you.."

 

He smiles.

 

"I would expect no less....From my Sisters daughter..."

[Lafayra Rue]

Raissa stared at him, disbelief blooming in her chest for a moment. A long silence stretched between them. 'It's not that far of a stretch really. Think about it, you barely knew her, let along any family she had. How hard is it to consider this man is family. Think, he treated you like he had known you for years. Why would a stranger do that?' Her inner thoughts were valid but they just didn't seem to be coming together.

 

"Rest." Her voice was still barely there and far from her normal coldness. She pulled away from him, leaving his hand streaked with his own blood and went to the door. Escaping the lab it suddenly felt like she could breathe a little better. A grand staircase lead to the second floor from the main hall and Raissa climbed them slowly, not stopping till she came to the third floor. The blood was tacky now, drying against her skin as she walked. She randomly opened doors until she found a room. Closing the door behind her she went to the room's bath and cranking the water to hot she started to wash her the blood off.

 

Her focus was so distant at first she just went through the motions, until she looked down at the water. It flowed down the drain, stained red and the scars on her forearms shined white against the color. She couldn't stop the memory.

 

The scalpel shook in her hand. She was terrified and determined, and just wanted it all to end. She wasn't going to back down and change her mind this time. The blade cut deep and she bit her tongue against the pain, the shaking even worse as she made the second cut. She followed suit on the other arm, slicing twice into the muscle up her forearm. They wouldn't stop her this time. The last thing she saw before she passed out was the sink stain red as her blood washed down the drain.

 

Raissa fell back onto the floor, the water still running hot, twisting her hands up in her hair. "Stop...just stop...I can't...do it anymore." She wasn't sure when she had started to cry but the tears ran down her cheeks in fast rivers. She held her arms in front of her, staring at the scars. "I failed..." She dug her nails into the lines. "I failed....." Over and over she clawed at her arms until they bled. "I just want it to be over." 

[Thugren]

your eyes fade, but as you fade out, a familiar set of amber eyes can bee seen.

 

 

"Finally....The breakdown i needed...."

 

You feel yourself lifted into those powerful arms and fade into black.

 

You come to what seems like an eternity later.

 

The clock to your right sayshe date is three days later.

 

You sit up and you notice a familair smell, a obsidium shot.

 

you look to your left and see augusutus, slowly injecting a syringe into his arm.

 

"youre awake....YOu did alot of damage tio yourself..... "

 

He motions to a small computer beside your bed.

 

'The psychological damage was hard to sift through...But i shouldve put you back together well enough...How are you girl."

[Lafayra Rue]

Raissa stared at the sheets that covered her in silence. She felt rested, much more than she had in a very long time, but her body ached from head to toe. A metal taste lingered on her tongue, maybe from the smell of obsidium in the air but more than likely a reaction from a medicine they had given her. Slowly she turned her arm up. The scratches had healed well over the last three days but she had been able to gouge deep into the flesh and it made the once thin scars much more visible. She ran her hands over her skin, as if she could rub the whitened tissue away, she would have to ask for more long sleeved shirts.

 

"I feel like I need a drink. A very strong one." Raissa turned her attention to the monitor instead of the man sitting next to her. "My mind would have stitched itself back together on its own, why did you help me?"

[Thugren]

"Becasue great minds.,..DO not have the luxury of breaking."

 

He pours you a glass of a amber colored drink.

 

"I know things arent easy...I know they are hard. But without minds like ours....This world would fall apart."