1. Beautiful Little Weapon (Patreon)

A/N: And here it is. Thank you all for waiting, and enjoy the first chapter of Magical Girl Mechanical Heart. Content warnings for depression and mind control. Yeah. In chapter one. You know what I'm about. Let's fucking go.

"...Remarkably good, and remarkably quick, at pausing a task at any given point, swapping to a different task, and then swapping back at the exact point it left and resuming without any loss of information. This is called 'context switching,' and while we as humans often struggle with it greatly, it's part and parcel to how computers function, and how they give off the appearance of being able to do so many things simultaneously." 

I fail to stifle a yawn, only half paying attention as my computer science professor drones on. I know enough of this already to get the answers right on a multiple-choice test, and that happens to be the hard limit of my ability to force my brain to pay attention. The rest just starts floating past my ears, which have been tricked into ignoring real sounds by the song I'm playing in my head over and over. But when my mind wanders, my eyes inevitably wander too, always finding their way to rest on her.

Castalia.

I know I'm a bit of a rude creep for staring so much, but I can't seem to get myself to stop. I sit a couple rows behind her, so I'm at least unlikely to be bothering her with it. She probably doesn't know I'm doing it at all, unless she has some kind of magic that tells you if people are watching you without needing to look at them. Though even if she does, I know that I'd never want to cast a spell like that even if I could. 

But I can't, of course. I was never chosen. 

The professor calls on Castalia for a question and she stands up to answer it. As she talks, the stump of her left arm moves and wiggles in meaningless ways, only a quarter of a comprehensible gesticulation, while her entire right arm simply doesn't exist at all. Not even as a stump. It has been utterly scoured away, joint and all, which is easy to tell because Castalia leaves none of it to the imagination. She wears a light spaghetti strap tank top that proudly exposes the twisted scars to the air. The lingering memory of an unimaginable wound crawls all the way up the right side of her neck and face, the eye milky white and the skin red, wrinkled, and dry. 

One working eye. Zero point five arms. And yet the girl stands in front of me, in an introductory college computer science course, blandly answering the professor's question in the same raspy, disinterested voice she seems to respond to everything in.

She's absolutely beautiful. 

There are no reservations to that statement. I love her short brown hair, always looking only halfway combed. I love the way she dresses, simple and cute and startlingly normal, just shorts and sneakers that someone might jog in. I love her scars and I love the way she looks so small and soft despite them… and despite being fully capable of killing everyone in the room with her mind. I am enraptured by her. 

And yes, I mean that in a gay way, but if I'm being honest with myself I probably mostly mean it in a jealous way. 

I guess that might seem weird, being jealous of someone who suffered and lost so much. Yet when she sits back down, her pencil rises all on its own, taking notes without any need for a hand to hold it. For all her injuries, it would be stupid to think of her as disabled. If anything, we're the ones that are lacking, failing to walk in her world. The world of magic.

"Hey!" someone hisses quietly at me, and I jolt a little in my seat. Shoot, did I start humming in class again? Sorry, sorry, I'll stop, I didn't mean to bother anyone! 

"My laptop's getting repaired," the voice continues. "I'm really sorry, but would you mind sharing…?"

I glance over at the voice, my whole body still coiled like a spring as I stare into the pleading eyes of the guy next to me, grinning awkwardly my way as the entire rest of the class opens the book up on their laptops to… whatever page the professor just instructed them to while I wasn't listening. Uh. Shoot. 

"Sure," I manage to croak out, hating the word, hating myself, as I scoot my laptop over to rest between us. I wave my arms in a way that vaguely communicates he's allowed to use it, and the guy smiles wide and thanks me, taking the wireless mouse and flipping the textbook to the correct page. I try to do my best to read it, to listen to our professor, but It's just… hard. I simply do not care very much. I like computers and I know a bit of programming, but this class isn't going to be important to my major or anything. Probably. Despite nearly being done with my second year of college, I still don't actually have a major picked out.

Despite my efforts, I end up spending most of the period quietly tapping my leg to the beat of the song in my head. I'm tempted to pull out some sheet music and write it down, see if I can make it into something later, but it's probably not worth the effort. I'm really enjoying the music classes I'm taking, but I know I don't have the talent or work ethic to actually turn a music major into a paying career. 

A soft pulse of unexpected warmth passes over me like a wave when your head's underwater, a foreign feeling of undirected love. It's beautiful, brightening my mood in moments, but when it passes my heart can't help but skip a beat when I see the source. 

A white, shining cat, feathered wings sprouting from its shoulder blades, floats in the middle of the classroom. My mouth gapes. My soul yearns. Is it really… after all this time, am I…?

"Castalia," the cat says, turning to her. 

Oh. Duh. Of course.

"...I'm retired," Castalia says blandly to the flying, magical cat. 

"We know," the cat answers. "We know, and we're sorry. But it's… this is a big one. They're going to need your help. Please."

The girl and the cat stare at each other, and then without a word Castalia's laptop closes and packs itself into her backpack. She stands up, the pack slinging itself over her one fully intact shoulder, and then she continues going up, rising ever so slightly off the ground. The entire time, her expression doesn't change in the slightest.

"I will go," Castalia says simply.

"Thank you," the cat answers, and the two of them vanish in a flash of light and love.

The whole classroom is silent. Haltingly, hesitantly, after a few off-color jokes, the professor determines that no sirens are blaring and so class will continue. Wherever the apparent crisis is, it isn't here. Though obviously, I'm not the only person who seems to have trouble paying attention when the class resumes.

Castalia. She was the first magical girl, and possibly the strongest, but she's far from the last. To this day, new children are still getting chosen. I wanted to be one. If I'm being honest with myself, I still do. I want to be strong, not weak and cowardly. I want to be cute, not frumpy and awkward. I want to be loved, not hated and forgotten. But I'm well past the age where such a thing could happen to me, so like most people I suppose I'll have to be content with that, loudly protesting the ethical abhorrence of child soldiers while secretly and stupidly wishing that one of those children had been me. 

Class ends with me feeling like I wasted my time, though at least the guy next to me is appreciative. It would be the perfect opportunity to try to get even a single friend at this stupid college, but… no. I can't even bring myself to ask his name, and soon enough he gets up and walks off after one more thank you. Nice going, Luna. Could you just quit being a coward for just once in your life? 

I'm not mute. I can talk. But I hate it so much, I've often been tempted to learn sign language and pretend to be mute anyway. But I know that's stupid and utterly absurd, so I've never actually tried to do it. I probably wouldn't be able to stick with it enough to actually learn on my own anyway. 

I sigh, shake the thoughts away, and head to my next class as well. It goes even worse than the one before, and so for my third class of the day I just ditch, trudging back to my dorm hungry from a lack of breakfast and generally feeling miserable. I know this is a bad idea, but… fuck it. It's just some required history course. Rote memorization and regurgitation of information. Useless, annoying, and easy. I'll miss whatever questions on the test are taught today, but who cares? My parents don't get to micromanage my goddamn report card anymore, so I'll survive a B or a C. 

I get that this isn't a healthy, productive mindset, but it's the only mindset I can muster right now as I unlock the door to my room and flop face-first onto my bed. I should eat food, but I don't want to. Nothing sounds appealing, and I'm pretty sure I'm out of most of the food I keep in my dorm anyway. But it's fine. It's cool. I'll just keep lying here and being an idiot. 

Did I take my pills this morning? Ugh, I probably… right, I definitely forgot, because I didn't eat breakfast and I have to take my pills after I eat. That explains a thing or two. Ugh. My body sucks. 

I need to get up. 

I definitely need to get up. I'm really hungry. 

I pull out my phone, and a few hours pass. The ache in my stomach is just more dull background to the general shittiness of how I feel, but eventually, long after it would really be helpful, the pain convinces me to get out of bed and drag myself towards one of the many fast food places hogging the area around campus. It's dark out already, despite it being barely four o'clock in late April. The clouds overhead and the sucking, clammy feeling outside seeming simultaneously unnatural and perfectly normal. The Dark World is close, but it doesn't feel like it's at risk of a convergence. Not here. Not right now. I know what that feels like, and it isn't this. But I suppose that somewhere within a hundred miles or so is probably getting attacked by monsters. I idly open up a convergence tracker app to check (which just works based on people updating it manually) and… yep. That explains it. There's a kaiju just outside of Denver. That's hours away from here, though, and it looks like it's rampaging in the opposite direction to us. So… no big deal, I guess. 

It's kind of funny, thinking about it now, how people can get used to basically anything. 

I put the hood up on my baggy sweatshirt and keep walking, stomach gurgling in protest because being in the process of solving its problems doesn't mean that the problem is solved. I wonder what I'll actually get. Maybe a sandwich? Chicken fingers? Just something simple and inoffensive, something with a basic texture and flavor that won't bother my mouth while it's making its way to my stomach. I don't have the energy to eat anything more complicated than that. 

My phone buzzes suddenly, a notification popping over the tracking app telling me that I just got a message from my best friend. 

[MeanBeanMachine]: Luna!!! I saw there's a big attack in Denver! That's close to you, right? Are you okay!?

I stare at the message and smile. Yep. My best friend, a person that lives in a completely different state whose real name I don't even know. My name is actually Luna, of course, but I genuinely don't remember if I've told them that; it's just also part of my online tag. 

[LunaLightOTK]: I'm fine, Bean. The kaiju's headed away from me. 

[MeanBeanMachine]: All of the kaiju?

[LunaLightOTK]: …There's more than one?

That's… wow. That hardly ever happens. I hope… I don't know what to hope. A lot of people are definitely dead, but what can I do about it? 

[MeanBeanMachine]: Yeah there's more than one!!! Biggest attack in three years, they said. Even Castalia is there!

[LunaLightOTK]: I know, a Preserver showed up in CS 150B to pick her up.

[MeanBeanMachine]: WHAT

[LunaLightOTK]: Yeah, it was pretty wild.

[MeanBeanMachine]: HOW ARE YOU ONLY TELLING ME ABOUT THIS NOW!?

[LunaLightOTK]: Oh. Uh. Because I forgot my pills this morning and I've been super depressed all day, I guess.

[MeanBeanMachine]: Oh valid. Feel better, friend! <3

I smile a little at that. 

[LunaLightOTK]: Thanks.

Bean starts typing a response, but I don't get to see it because it is at that point that I walk face-first into someone else, nearly tripping and falling over from sheer surprise. I look up, an apology already on my lips even though the person I just headbutted didn't stumble back at all, but the words die before I can speak them the moment I see her. 

My first thought is that I have somehow horribly miscalculated, and I am about to be mauled to death by a monster from the Dark World. But… no. It's a person. A woman. She's not attacking me, but she's clearly not… I don't even know where to start with her appearance. Her clothes, maybe? Her outfit is regal, refined, yet extremely revealing, a black and purple parody of the much more modest dresses magical girls are prone to wear. But really, I'm probably focusing on the outfit to remind myself that yes, this is a human being, because so many other aspects of her seem to suggest otherwise.

Black, feathered wings emerge from her back, wrapping around her shoulders like a cape. An enormous, lizard-like tail extends out from the bottom of her spine, slowly snaking behind me to cut off my escape. A third eye grows from her forehead, and all three of her eyes are frighteningly inhuman, with black sclera and purple irises that track my face unerringly, forcing my own gaze away from her smiling face, her lips just barely open enough to show the fangs within. 

But most inhuman of all are the jagged crystals growing all over her body, down her spine to the tip of her tail, framing the cheekbones of her face, emerging around the crown of her head like horns, and tipping her fingers with deep violet claws. The crystals are the same that grow all over the monsters that emerge from the Dark World, covering them so heavily that some of them struggle to move under the weight. The crystals can form in all sorts of different colors, but this woman's are all purple, just like her eyes. 

I don't know who this is. I've never seen her before in my life. But she. Is. Dangerous. I need to leave. I need to leave right now. 

"Are you alright, dear?" the woman asks, her voice melodic like a siren's. 

I nod vigorously, not wanting to speak to her, needing to run from her, but when I step away I only trip on her tail and land on my butt. 

"Oh! Apologies," she smiles at me. "That one was my fault. Do let me help you up." 

She leans over and extends her hand down to me, and though my heart is pounding, my fight, flight, or freeze has always been more of a freezer. I stare at her, saying nothing, doing nothing. She stares back, her expression getting more and more amused before she eventually opts to lean even further down, placing her hand on top of mine and gently grabbing it. 

"There's nothing to be afraid of, dear," she smiles. "I'm not here to hurt you." 

Carefully, she helps me back to my feet, and I just sort of… let her. I was already having trouble thinking straight from the depression and hunger, so the terrifying monster woman is just causing a full short-circuit here. 

"There you are, no worse for wear," the woman hums, still staring at me with that smile. "Hmm. I thought I already knew, but looking at you… what's your name, dear?" 

My name. My name. What do I say? What do I tell her? My real name? A fake name? I can't bring myself to speak, to let someone like her hear me. 

"Hmm. A quiet one, aren't you?" she asks. "Or perhaps you're just stunned speechless. Well, it's no matter, I'm sure we will have plenty of time to get to know each other. I am Melpomene, and it is wonderful to meet you, dear." 

What? 'Plenty of time?' What is she talking about? Am I being kidnapped?

"You see, dear," Melpomene continues, "I'm looking to make the world a better place, and I need like-minded individuals to help me with that. You might not know it, but you're more than qualified for what I have in mind. You're perfect." 

My heartbeat roars in my ears, my breath shallow as I stare up at her. Her crystalline horns glitter in the light, like the worst of the monsters from the other world. There's something so tangibly powerful about her, so primally terrifying and instinctively alluring. But I don't trust her. I can't trust her. 

She's obviously a liar. She called me perfect. 

"Ah, there's a reaction," she says with a smile. "You look quite suspicious of me! No wonder the Preservers passed you up. They prefer their pawns to be a bit more… credulous." 

Okay, cool, she's dissing the flying cats so she's one hundred percent an enemy of the magical girls. I definitely need to get out of here and get help, but how am I going to outrun a literal monster? 

"Come on, dear," the woman says, gently reaching out and guiding my shoulder with her claws. "Walk with me. Let's clear that head of yours."

Pinpricks of crystal poking into me discourage me from saying no, so I follow her, the street oddly empty and the sky oddly dark. I need to turn around, to run the other way, but her tail swishes behind my ankles, her eyes watch me closely, and I know there's nothing I can do that she isn't allowing me. I walk alongside her. 

She's tall. Very tall. But looking past her imposing figure and condescending manner of speech, she doesn't look all that much older than me. …I guess that's probably hard to tell for people with magic powers, though. Castalia looks younger than me, but I know she's a few years older than me, too. She just started college late because she was busy getting her arms blown off saving the world.

I wish she would save me again. But… that's not happening, is it? She's off solving problems far more important than my own. There's no one here to save me. I'm alone. 

"Really, dear, you don't need to be so frightened!" Melpomene insists. "I can feel it oozing off of you. Relax. I would never go to all this trouble just to hurt you. The opposite, in fact. I want to help you."

Yeah that's super believable coming from a lady with purple horns and a fishnet bra. 

"You doubt me, but it's true," she hums, reaching down the front of her shirt and pulling a perfectly cut crystal out between two fingers. "I want you to be a hero."

My eyes go wide. No way. I know what that is. Castalia wears one in a brooch on her chest, one that she never takes off. Though while hers is a bright, vibrant yellow, this one is a dull clear, a vaguely milky quartz waiting to be filled with color. All magical girls have one. It's what makes them magical girls at all. 

And I realize that, nestled in her hair, the monster has one of her own. The same deep purple as the crystals growing out of her body, but while those are chaotic and organic, the one in her hair ornament is intricately crafted, just like the one she now holds. 

A transformation stone. She's offering me a transformation stone. 

"Hahaha. Tempted, aren't you?" the woman laughs with a fanged grin. 

That's impossible. Completely, utterly impossible. Only the Preservers can give those away, but this woman has two. Who is she? What is she? A magical girl corrupted by the Dark World, maybe? A resident of the Dark World? But I've always been under the impression that there's nothing in the Dark World other than monsters. 

…But I don't really know anything, do I? The Dark World is just… the Dark World. It's dark. That's all I really know for sure. Magical girls kind of live in their own little universe, strictly isolated from normal society. They protect us from monsters and the occasional other disaster, and that's pretty much it. They don't do interviews, they don't share information, they don't really follow the rules of the rest of society in general. They just showed up one day, shortly after monsters started invading from rifts between dimensions, and while they've been around for a decade and a half now, information is still pretty sparse. It's almost certainly being actively suppressed somehow or another, but still. The one thing we do know is that magical girls are heroes. 

There are conspiracy theories, obviously. Some people think they cause the rifts in the first place. Some people think they're trying to take over the world, hoarding magic to enact some global war of supremacy. Some people think they already rule everything from the shadows. But I go to class with one of the only magical girls with a public identity and she's… well, she's just a girl. A girl who has been saving lives since before she was even ten years old. A girl whose dedication to protecting others is burned directly onto her face. She saved me, many years ago, like she probably has for most people that live in this city. There's probably a lot going on behind the scenes that I don't know. I get that. But even if I can't trust an entire secret magical society, I feel like I can at least trust Castalia. 

…Despite the fact that I've never actually spoken to her. But. Y'know. Still. 

"Still nothing to say?" the woman asks. 

I nod. I don't like speaking. 

"I see. Well, let's try a few yes or no questions then, hmm? I imagine you're wondering 'why would she pick me,' yes?"

I nod. The question has passed through my mind. The woman plays with the transformation stone between her fingers, smiling at it, taunting me with it. She knows I want it badly. It's clear on her face. But I can hardly be the only person desperate enough for power that I'd be tempted no matter the source. 

"You were a top candidate, you know," the woman says. "You were almost, almost chosen, many years ago." 

I stare at her. What? Like, chosen to be a magical girl? How does she know that? Why does she know that? What does it even mean, to be 'almost' chosen? 

"Magic comes from emotion, dear," Melpomene continues. "You can burn your own feelings for power, ignite them like gasoline in an engine. Not many are suited for it, but you… you had the drive. I think you still do." 

I'm barely even listening. I'm just staring at the gem in her hand, at the one-way ticket to being free of my shitty life, my shitty body, my shitty, worthless, powerless existence. Yet even now, in this life-changing moment, my mind wanders. It wonders. It doubts. 

There's no way this is actually happening to me. 

"With this gem, you could become like them," she says. "Better than them, even, without a decade of indoctrination shackling you down. You'll be free to fight in the way you want to, doing what you think is right. Not some slave to an alien overlord that worships the status quo." 

This is too good to be true. 

"What say you, dear?" The monster in women's clothes grins at me, her eyes black and her fangs white. "Care to save the world?"

Things this miraculous don't happen to me. There's a catch. And damn, I wonder what it could be? I wonder what red flags this monster woman accosting me alone while the local superheroes are out fighting Godzillas could possibly be raising! Jesus Christ, what a day. What a fucking day. 

I shake my head. I don't need a monkey's paw. 

"...Pardon?" the woman asks, her smile finally dropping. "I can tell you want it, dear. What possible reason could you have for saying no?"

I take a deep breath, psyching myself up. 

"Because you look like you get thrown off a cliff at the end of a Disney movie," I croak.

She gapes. 

"Excuse me!?"

I glower at her, irritated that she can be offended by something so obvious. 

"Did you really expect me to agree just like that?" I ask her, my voice quiet from embarrassment and disuse. "You basically said you wanted your pawns to be incredulous."

"You rude little thing," she glowers at me. "I'm here to give you your dream."

"And what happens if I take it?" I ask her. "Does it turn me into your slave? Does it steal my soul so you can use it as fuel?"

"Would you like it to, you little worm?" she growls. "I'm sure something could be arranged."

"Oh, okay," I mutter. "That's definitely going to convince me you aren't evil." 

Her hand flashes out and grabs me by the jaw, pulling me in towards her face so she can stare me down in fury. It would almost be hot, if not for the burning discomfort I feel from her touching my face. 

"I liked you better when you were quiet," she hisses. 

"Yeah," I agree softly. "Most people do. Can I go now?" 

She growls at me, low and feral, her teeth grinding with a fury that feels slightly out of proportion for just being told 'no' but I guess I could have been a little nicer about it. Still, it's not my fault her PR is terrible. 

I'm probably going to die now, aren't I?

Oh, well. If that's the hand I've been dealt, what other cards can I play? It's better than being turned into some pawn in a magic game I don't even understand the rules of. But as I prepare myself for the end, the monstrous woman presses her lips together, takes a deep breath through her nose, and pauses, calming herself down. Or at least, it looks like she's calming herself down, but when she speaks it sounds anything but calm. 

"You know what?" she asks with false pleasantness. "Yes. You can go." 

She thrusts me forward, yanking me by the jaw and causing me to stumble a good distance before I finally stop. I know it's a mistake before I even start moving, but I can't stop myself in time, a wretched, cloying pressure increasing with every step, the sky getting darker and darker around me. The air feels like it's trying to choke me, crawl inside me, seep through my skin and open me up. Melpomene walks up next to me, but she isn't even looking my way. She's just staring at the dark sky, up at something I can't even see as my vision starts to cloud. 

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" she sighs, and then I black out. 

I wake up expecting pain, but instead I feel… nothing. Nothing at all. Terror fills me, but it doesn't feel like terror, not how I know it. There are no quickened breaths, no tightness in my chest, no tension of muscles waiting to spring. There's just… nothing. And in a weird way, that seems to calm me down. 

So. This is what sensory deprivation feels like. I could honestly see it being kind of nice, were I not terrified of what could be causing it. I must have been thrown into the Dark World somehow, but I barely even have any idea what the Dark World is. Why did I pass out? Am I dead? Have I been paralyzed? What happened? 

No answers are forthcoming, however. The closest I get is a sudden indescribable feeling—I want to call it cold, but it isn't, not really—piercing inside me, not quite painful but certainly uncomfortable as it expands and grows like a metallic tree branch, a set of thorns growing on thorns exploring the inside of my soul. I want to shout or scream but I can't do anything, I can't move a muscle or take a breath because I'm not breathing at all, I'm drowning, I'm being torn apart by this thing growing inside me until it pierces back out in a dozen places and keeps growing, coiling around me like a shell. What is it where's my body what's happening what's happening what's happening help help help someone please—

Feeling. Everything comes back all at once, but all of it is different. 

I am neither hot, nor cold, but it is exactly sixty-three point eight degrees Fahrenheit, which is seventeen point six degrees Celsius, which is four hundred and fourteen point one degrees Pyulor. Wait, what's—

Pyulor is a temperature system that counts from absolute zero, like Kelvin. 

—Pyuloookay. Okay okay okay okay. That's totally a normal thing to know. Why can I still not feel my… Oh. I can. I'm lying on my back, and there's definitely something hard beneath me. Metal. Similar in composition to my frame, which is—

My frame? What the fuck I have a frame?

—in perfect condition, unscuffed, so the hardness of the surface isn't quite the same; similar yet subtly inferior. My power reserves—

My power reserves are at 23%.

—are enough to maintain an estimated fourteen hours of runtime outside of high-performance modes and assuming zero mana conversion intake, thirteen minutes at maximum specs, one week, two days, eleven hours if assuming current mana conversion intake is maintained. Which is… What? What does that—

I'm detecting mana input from—

—No! Fuck this, fuck this, fuck this, this is too much, too fast, I don't understand this I don't want to understand this what happened to me what happened what happened what happened I just want to open my eyes and wake up!

My optical sensors flicker online. 

I look up at what appears to be a ceiling, in the sense that it is a solid constructed surface over my head, but I could also accurately describe it as a sculpture. It looks like stone, but spirals and winds up to a central point like a snail's shell. It's surprisingly pretty, and surprisingly… clear. Like I don't need to focus on any particular part of it, because my peripheral vision is just as clear as whatever I'm… looking… at. 

Why can't I move my eyes? Why do I not need to?

"Green, hmm?" a horribly familiar voice says to herself, and I feel a woman's finger on my thigh. But even that is wrong; there's too much detail and yet nowhere near enough, no sensation of the pressure indenting my skin, no electric shortness of breath at the unexpected intimacy. I don't move, don't do anything at all, even though I'm certain I tried to gasp, to flinch, to say or do anything at all. 

The finger slides further down towards my knee, tracing the soul crystal pathways that-that-that-that arc down my legs, interlaced with the metal… the metal…!

I already know it. I already know what I am. It's there, in my mind, in my memory, like the exact ambient temperature in three different measuring systems, one of which I've never even heard of before. I know my own specs list, I know my own blueprints, I know literally exactly what I am. But I don't want to think about it. I don't want to believe it. How, why, what…? This doesn't make any sense, this sort of thing should be completely impossible!

"Well, it appears to be online," that horrible, monstrous woman says. I can't see her, my eyes… my optic sensors aren't pointed her way, but I know exactly where she is, I know where she's standing, I know the layout of the room around me, I just know it, it's all in my mind, which is…!

"Sit up," she orders, and I have to sit up, so I do. "Well, well, well. Now this is certainly useful."

I… I barely even thought about that. I did that, I sat up, that… was on purpose. But I chose to do it because I had to do it? Like. Like it wasn't what I wanted to do but it was what I needed to do so I… oh god. Oh god oh god oh god. I can see her now, the damn woman who did this to me, whatever this is. Except I know what it is. I just don't want to believe it. I don't. 

"Alright, well, I suppose here's the big test, then," the woman hums, her tail flicking happily behind her. "Activate… autonomous mode?" 

My rigid body sags, every muscle-that-isn't-a-muscle becoming mine all at once. My whole body jolts, and I hear the metallic clatter of my legs against the slab I'm sitting on. Shaking, panicking, I look down at myself, at my hands, at my naked chest. But it really doesn't matter that I'm naked, does it? 

It's all metal. 

Nearly all, anyway. Around my waist and spiraling down my limbs are glowing, crystalline panels. My body is humanoid, and… beautifully proportioned, almost embarrassingly so, but it's no more detailed than a Barbie doll, no more supple than a block of steel. I look exactly the way I already knew I would look, and there's really only one reasonable response to that. 

I try to scream. But of course, I fail, because there's one major deviation between a human's shape and my own: I no longer have a mouth. I can't make a single sound. So I bring my fingers up to my face and scrape. 

"Stop," Melpomene says, and I stop immediately. "What the fuck? Why is it… hmm. Hmm. How fascinating." 

She's right there. Right in front of me. I want to scream at her, I want to strangle her, but I can't, I literally can't, my mind just slides off any intellectual attempt to hurt her, discarded as an intrusive thought that will never, can never be fulfilled. 

"Resume," she says, so… okay, fuck, I'll go back to scraping my fingers across my face like steel on a chalkboard! I feel like that's probably not what she meant, but… uh. 

Uh. 

I can't anymore. I can't. It's probably not what she wants from me, so I can't… I can't…! 

I clutch my head, careful to not make the sound because I can't make the sound because she wouldn't like that, this woman wouldn't like that, and I can't go against her I can't I can't I can't…!

"...Hmm. There's definitely something in there," Melpomene muses to herself. "Maybe even someone. But you won't tell anyone about that, will you?"

She grabs me by the cheeks, and I know how warm her hands are and I can tell her skin is touching me but I don't have any skin, I'm not feeling it in a way that brings any comforting sensation. Not that I would be comforted by her. 

"I've finally made you work," she says. "My beautiful little weapon. You won't ruin things for me by trying to be anything else, will you?" 

Oh, no. No no no. Of course I won't. 

I can't.