Chapter Text
Urban Ambush – Josh’s Intro
The ruined streets reeked of smoke and the tang of spent rounds. Pistol and SMG T-Dolls were pinned between collapsing buildings and the advancing tide of Sangvis Ferri units.
“M1911, requesting immediate evac! Too many of them!” the pistol T-Doll’s voice crackled over comms as she fired at the nearest red-eyed automatons.
“MP5, keep the rear clear! Don’t let them flank us!” the SMG T-Doll barked, unleashing a rapid hail of bullets. Sparks flew as rounds struck hydraulic limbs, sending fragments of metal scattering.
A Sangvis Ferri heavy unit burst through the rubble, metal claws screeching. Five-seveN rolled aside, narrowly avoiding a crushing strike.
Then—a low hum vibrated through the concrete. Wires sparked, and the air shimmered. The T-Dolls froze.
“…What the—?” Five-seveN stammered, scanning the haze.
Through the smoke, a figure emerged. Gauntlets crackling with electrical energy, movements fluid and precise. Josh’s eyes scanned the battlefield; calm, calculating, in complete control.
“Targets identified,” he said. A pulse of kinetic energy flung a dozen Sangvis units into walls like ragdolls, metal screeching as bodies collided with rubble.
“Pistol units, hold position! SMGs, cover our rear!” MP5 ordered, rallying despite the chaos.
Josh advanced, every gesture amplifying his Conduit powers. One sweeping motion sent multiple Sangvis bodies flying into rubble. Sparks cascaded as another pulse short-circuited approaching automatons, frying their circuits mid-step.
A suppressed shot from Josh’s HK417 rifle split an approaching enemy squad down the middle. His gauntlets flared, and the rifle’s rounds gleamed faintly, cutting through the next wave like a hot knife through steel.
“Okay… that’s our definition of backup,” M1911 said, awe creeping into her voice, reloading as she ducked behind a crumbling wall.
“Not letting this guy out of my sight ever again,” Thompson added, half-grinning despite the gunfire.
Josh’s eyes narrowed at the next wave of Sangvis units. “Stay sharp. I clear the path. Let’s move.”
He leapt onto a toppled street sign, landing atop a concrete barrier. Energy arcs ran down his arms, dancing across his HK417, the bullets now trailing faint streaks of blue as they tore through Sangvis Ferri chassis. Each round hit with the force of a small concussive blast, sending enemies careening.
“MP5, suppress their advance! Pistol units, flank from the left!” Josh commanded.
The T-Dolls responded instantly, firing in sync with his kinetic pushes. Josh extended a hand, channeling raw Conduit energy into the ground beneath a rushing heavy Sangvis unit. The concrete exploded upward, throwing the machine off balance, and Josh followed through with a rapid series of electrified punches, sending it sprawling into debris.
Another group of automatons surged forward. Josh activated the energy in his HK417’s rounds fully. Each shot cracked like a lightning strike, melting joints and sending sparks scattering across the street. Five-seveN ducked, yelling, “Whoa! Those bullets, did you see that?”
“Yeah, that’s insane… he’s rewriting the rules of engagement,” M1911 said, narrowly avoiding a spinning hydraulic claw.
Josh sprinted forward, slamming a gauntlet into the side of an incoming Sangvis, sending it flying through the air. Simultaneously, he fired a precision burst from his rifle, the kinetic shockwaves from his Conduit energy making each bullet impact feel like a small controlled explosion.
“Thompson, cover the rear! MP5, keep the alley suppressed!” Josh called, moving with perfect synchronization. Each gesture amplified the energy rippling from his gauntlets, electrifying the air around his weapons.
The Sangvis units faltered. Sparks rained down, metal screeched, and the T-Dolls finally had room to breathe and regroup. Josh’s movements were a storm: part gunfire, part energy strikes, part unrelenting force, each attack layered with precision and style.
MP5 finally spoke, breathless, “Sir… we didn’t get your name. Who are you? And… what’s with that outfit?”
Josh turned slightly, his blue hooded armor catching the flickering light. Faint arcs of energy traced along the reinforced plating of his arms and chest, glimmering without revealing too much. His face remained partially shadowed, the glint of his eyes just enough to hint at the power coiling beneath. He said calmly, “Call me Josh. Let’s just say… I’m a Conduit. Focus on the fight, girls. We’ve got a team to regroup with and a path to clear.”
“Y-Yes!” M1911 saluted, her awe replaced with determination.
Josh’s gaze swept the battlefield, calm but alert, every movement measured and precise. The T-Dolls fell in behind him, trusting the storm that had just appeared in their midst as they continued on with their mission.
A Predator’s Hunt
Ash-grey skies hung overhead, filling the atmosphere with the sickening feeling of desolation, destruction, and devastation. They loomed over a small, remote village of little known importance, as whatever it had been before now had been reduced to smoking ruin, fire and ash. Buildings now resembled skeletons, with their frames resembling the remnants of tornadoes that had run through the streets, ripping them from their foundations. Layers of snow covered the village, yet many areas had been stained by other colours, grey from the ash and soot of ruined buildings… and the deep, bloody crimson from the bodies of slain villagers, many having expressions frozen into those of fear, terror and despair.
Sangvis Ferri units gathered in the village’s square, where they had made their encampment. Their T Dolls held smug, satisfied looks on their faces, having taken great pleasure in sterilising the area of the filth that had been the humans once calling this village home. Their hate for the masters they had once served shone bright in their eyes, like flames burning through all darkness, filling the air with a sense of blazing malice, bloodlust and cruelty.
But this hadn’t been their primary objective; however, merely a side quest in a way. Their TRUE goal had yet to be achieved.
One of the T Dolls huffed, clutching her rifle in her hands. She had just come back from one of their patrols around the village’s residential areas, having ensured no humans had been hiding. Part of her had been relieved at this because she detested having to waste ammunition killing such unworthy foes, but also a pang of disappointment flashed through her at the lack of humans to punish for their arrogance. “Whelp, looks like that bitch ditched this place,” she quipped to her ally.
Her patrolmate, who wielded a rocket launcher, rolled her eyes in both respect and mockery in equal measure, not at her but the target they were seeking. “What, like the last three villages? Even in her current state, she definitely has some legs on her,” she quipped, humming to herself as she surveyed their surroundings. The sight of a destroyed village had become something their platoon had grown used to during this search/hunt for their target, so it didn’t faze her.
Even so, it still irked them that their prey had been keeping them guessing on her position for this length of time. It was humiliating, this T Doll who sides with humans, these filthy, disgusting monkeys, just like those traitors in that organisation, had been causing them all sorts of trouble. The data she had in her possession may not concern the rank and file like them, but their higher-ups had different ideas, and their leaders would have their hides if they failed here, so they had little option in the matter.
At least it was better than serving the hypocrites called humans.
Several cawing sounds drew the two T Dolls to their sides, where they saw a human corpse being fed on by a crow. A crow, which was perched on the corpse’s pale neck, pecking at flesh blown open by a rifle round. The two t dolls watched it for a while, pleased smiles on their faces at seeing how nature was taking its course already. Soon enough, they would be done here. More villages were surrounding this one that their prey could have hidden in, some of which were likely already evacuated, meaning no humans would be killed, a shame, but it wasn’t too big a deal…
BOOOM-BOOOM-BOOOM-BOOOM-BOOOM-BOOOM-BOOOM-BOOOM-!
… But what happened next was a COMPLETELY different matter.
Alarm bells rang throughout the area as the entire encampment, a testament to T Doll and Sangvis Feri tech, suddenly went up in flames as sickeningly black, pulsing projectiles slammed into the space from above. Rounds the size and strength of warship projectiles rocketed the area, destroying both the encampment and what remained of the village before erupting into dark smoke, thick to the point of suffocating. T Dolls and other defenders struggled to get into positions, but the barrage was relentless, one that didn’t slow down with many getting blown to bits without even realising they had been attacked.
What had once been a haven for them, temporary as it had been, turned into a living nightmare.
“ALERT! ALERT!” Their alarms blared, though soon they got silenced when some rounds - shells one T Doll had soon realised before being reduced to atoms - silenced them. It didn’t matter, though, the encampment quickly learned the truth of what was happening… even though they couldn’t process the happenings quickly.
“WHAT THE HELL?!” One T Doll shrieked as one shell slammed into one of her sisters next to her. Not a shred of that T Doll remained. “AMBUSH!”
“WHAT'S STRIKING AT US?! ANYONE GET A VISUAL?!” another yelled, one of their command structure too, but she too soon met the same fate as those on the ground. For the second time since their arrival, the entire village went up in flames, the heat from them turning the snow into misty vapour that filled the air.
A technical specialist T Doll, barely found her way beneath the cover of a destroyed vehicle, whether it had been theirs or a part of this village’s former inhabitants, she didn’t care for, nor could she tell. Using this cover, she hurriedly got to work trying to analyse what was happening. Seconds passed as the encampment turned into a war zone with everyone scrambling to avoid the bombardment, before she made a realisation. The T Doll’s eyes widened in horror, pure and unfiltered, as she hurriedly activated her comms device. She pressed her hand against it and hurriedly tried to inform her superiors, only for loud static to hiss its response. Signal Interference.
She barely had the time to utter a curse before her cover went up in flames from a shell… taking her with it.
Before long, the entire encampment had been utterly laid waste to, not a single structure left untouched by the massacre. T Doll remains lie scattered across the area, the ground now scarred with Sangvis Feri remains alongside the human corpses. Flames roared like vengeful demons coming to claim the damned souls and drag them kicking and screaming into the underworld, filling the air with a scorching heat and blistering any flesh caught nearby. Many human corpses now lay as charred husks, caught in the crossfire from the bombardment.
One T Doll, a common soldier who once wielded an SMG as a weapon, now crawled across the snow-covered ground like an animal. Her weapon was gone, so was a leg, an arm, and a portion of her side. But her core systems remained operational, meaning she could still find a place to hide and wait for whatever was jamming their communications to pass before informing her superiors of what had happened here.
That had been the plan at least…
THUD.
Until something landed before her.
Slowly taking a gulp and realising with a fresh wave of dread that she had been found, the T Doll slowly raised her head to expose how she had only one eye socket remaining, wiring and mechanical components being all that remained from the eye’s comrade. But her optics, as damaged as they were, DID capture the sight of the one who had landed before her…
And though she didn’t know if god was real, she definitely saw the devil before her.
Standing before her, looming over her like some deity of eldritch nightmares, was a man. Though she wasn’t sure if he could be called as such, definitely not a human nor a T Doll. The man himself had black and violet hair, each strand swept back in thick, asymmetrical waves that shifted in length from side to side. At the crown, several sharp, almost crystalline locks jutted upward and outward, catching ambient light with an otherworldly sheen, reminiscent of polished obsidian. Subtle traces of shifting iridescence flickered along the tips, like faint, dark electricity running through each strand. The roots faded into a midnight blue, which might have had an effect she didn’t know of if she were looking from above. His eyes quickly got her attention, as they didn’t show any signs of human colour she was familiar with. They are composed of stormy silver irises, veined with inky black spirals that seem to swirl. The pupils looked to be inhumanly elongated, vertical slits. Around the irises, a thin corona glowed faintly with violet light in low illumination. His face, if he were a normal man, might have been something other humans would have called handsome, like some of her former masters had been. His face had this sharply defined form, with high cheekbones and an angular jawline, his skin bearing an alabaster complexion. A single, thin scar runs diagonally across his left eyebrow, adding an air of controlled menace.
To compound this man’s aura of inhuman monstrosity, his fit was an essential component. The T Doll saw that he wore a fitted, high-collar, long coat crafted from a hybrid material that shifted colour subtly between black and deep indigo, trimmed in barely perceptible circuitry lines. The shoulders were reinforced with layered, armoured fabric that gave the impression of a carapace, while the inner lining featured fractal, pulsating veins of violet light. Underneath, she could see a sleeveless, high-neck vest that clings to his form, woven from a lightweight, metallic fibre. His arms looked to be covered by the coat's fitted sleeves, but at the wrists, sleek black fingerless gloves with embedded holographic panels glowed softly. Along his right forearm, a biomechanical tattoo in the shape of an evolving viral helix moved slightly, as if it were alive, shifting its pattern in a cold, ominous manner. Around the man’s waist, she saw a utility belt of interlocking hexagonal plates, each plate etched with micro-sigil engravings that pulse gently with dark light. Several modular pouches and a slim, sheathed knife hang from it, their surfaces coated in the same shifting material as his coat. Adorning his legs were a pair of tailored, jet black trousers with subtle violet gradients along the seams. A flexible armoured weave reinforced the knees, promoting agility and defence. At his right thigh, a slim holster housed some kind of multi-tool device.
His feet were concealed in matte black leather combat boots, laced high with cables that glowed faintly. The soles were reinforced with a fractal-patterned grip, designed for traversal across unstable terrain. Small, retractable spikes can be seen along the heel, hinting at hidden functionality. A single earring, crafted from black titanium and shaped like a twisting helix, dangled from his left ear, though the T Doll’s optics struggled to make it out. Around his neck, an obsidian pendant encases a constantly shifting darklight core, which pulses in time with his heartbeat, tethering him to the source of his power.
In any other circumstances, the T Doll would have just called this person an ordinary, if odd-looking human. He had an imposing presence to him, sure, but that alone wouldn’t have made him a threat… if it hadn’t been for the HORRIFIC structure attached to his back.
Calling it a structure didn’t even do it justice; it looked like a mix of some kind of organic material fused to parts of a warship, some kind of unholy, monstrous mix of the two. Its central backbone resembled a heavy cruiser’s armoured deck, filled with ridged hull plating and jagged prows resembling a predatory beast’s blade. It rose in sections, some bristling with smokestacks, bulkheads and portholes alongside gunwale-like ridges, all fused from some kind of organic metal and tissue based on the pulsing sounds she could hear from it. Above his shoulders, a towering command mast of spined chitin juts upward, crowned by radar dishes, searchlights, and a scatter of predatory, optic-like nodes. The structure seemed to be connected to his back with some sinewy cables as thick as anchor chains laced with tubing and pulsating with some strange electrical energy. Rib-like supports arced outward from his torso, bracing the platform’s massive weight and recalling the ribcage of some kind of abyssal leviathan.
This structure could have only been the source of the encampment's misfortune, for the T Doll saw various weapons manifesting in a broad, fan-like array across the man’s back and flanks, forged from plated hull armour and adorned with organic, nigh alien features. The main battery looked to be a bunch of triple-barreled siege cannons housed in thick, armoured turrets, each barrel circled with jagged fangs and wrapped in sinew-like cables. Lower on the structure, organic sponsons thrust outward, containing secondary gun emplacements with pulsating, fluid-filled veins. She REALLY got the impression those were warship guns, and them being the culprit had to do with how some had been smoking still, a sign that they had been recently used.
But they weren’t the only weapons she could see. For near the hull, clusters of smaller, flexible appendages supported what the T Doll could only guess were missile silos and rocket pods. Their armoured hatches open like blooming carapace flowers, primed to unleash salvos on command. Farther out, anti-aircraft batteries and autoloading shard throwers mount atop bastion-like armoured bulges, all grown from a seamless blend of metal and ossified bone. The entire structure looked like a living organism, with antennae and writhing feeder tubes, each segment shifting and realigning in anticipation of threats.
In short, a goddamn nightmare was what it was.
“Wha….? wh…”
Terror gripped her so hard that she couldn’t even speak properly. She didn’t know if her voice module was damaged or if this… thing was the cause, but the tremors running uncontrollably throughout her body were CLEAR indicators that she was before something utterly inhuman, an abomination of life itself. Who made this thing? What was it doing here? Such questions, usually reserved for eggheads, flowed through her mind like some last-ditch attempt to maintain her sanity.
GRAB!
“Guh!”
Without warning, the figure grabbed her by the neck at a speed she couldn’t even begin to process, lifting her into the air with that hand, which dug into what remained of her throat with cold, brutal grip force to the point she feared being decapitated. Now, if she hadn’t thought he was human before, this DEFINITELY would have confirmed it as no human could lift a T Doll so easily like this. Struggle became an instinctive response as she clawed at his hand, trying to wrench her neck free like an animal struggling to escape a deadly trap its predator had laid for it.
But like most times a weaker animal tried to escape the stronger, it would lead to an early grave.
“... Let's see what you have.”
What remained of the man’s human body rippled, like skin peeling away to reveal the monster beneath. Blackened material, mixed with some kind of tendrils, rippled over his body before the tendrils lunged for her, and all she knew for her final moments… pain, and utter darkness.