Nataliza awoke for the second time today, the smell alone assaulting her nose with the familiar scent of sterile, artificially cleaned air. Such a change in scent from the aromas of dead air and her own sweat and blood were enough to clue her in that she had been moved during her spell of unconsciousness.

There was only one way to truly know that, though…

Her eyes opened slowly, made slower by a stinging ache in her temple. That part was the norm. Nataliza had been knocked unconscious plenty in her piloting career. The post-unconsciousness headache was par for the course.

What was not, in fact, par for the course was the blindingly bright, white light making the act of opening those eyelids of hers exceedingly difficult.

Eventually, though, they were as wide open as they were earlier, scanning around for a moment to reveal that Nataliza had been moved to a different room in her trip to the land of blissful darkness. The room was, unlike her cell, lit to a clinical level.

The change from exclusively dim cells and poor excuses for washing facilities left her eyes adjusting for an extra few seconds. Once they had, the room’s basic white tiling on the walls and her limited view of the similar looking ground were finally clear.

Odd. It was like a cramped facsimile of an operating theater. White lights and white tiling. If they were trying to scare her with weak tricks beyond assault and battery, tacky surgical interior design and blinding white lights weren’t going to cut it.

The thoughts of why she was in a room such as this could have stirred something inside of her, but an unmoving snapshot alone wouldn’t give Nataliza much to go off of. She needed to scan around more…

…

Strange. She couldn’t move her head. Stranger yet was that she couldn’t seem to move… anything?

…

Nataliza couldn’t panic. Fear was the enemy in a situation like this, and it’s not like her body betraying her was entirely new to begin with. Middle age and cybernetics older than the recruits were a bitch.

…

Nataliza told herself all of this to calm down, but it didn’t take long for her to realize this wasn’t simply her age. She tried craning her neck, but it wasn’t budging.

She tried moving her arms to see if she’d been restrained again, but it was like they weren’t even there anymore.

Limb by limb, Nataliza realized that her entire body was paralyzed. Her breathing had already grown more tense as she tried to move even a single appendage under her own power. With little, if any, success.

Nataliza found one microcosm of victory. Her head, or at the very least her face, could still move. Her eyes could dart around the bizarre angle she was, assumedly, lying at. She could close them, but that wouldn’t help right now.

She did, eventually, realize that the inside of her mouth wasn’t consumed by her paralysis. A small win, but that was quickly met by an equally concerning loss.

“MHNNNF?”

Alas, that was no good. Any attempts at speaking were muffled by a ball gag lodged in her mouth, and that was already getting her blood pumping in ways she did not want.

Peeking down as far her eyeballs could painfully allow seemed to indicate some kind of device around it.

A mask.

A medical device, Nataliza tried to tell herself. Just another part of whatever sick game the Devil was playing.

...

Oh, who was she kidding? It was obviously the disgrace of a thing that Lark wore.

That mask.

Putrid. 

Liz’s eyes wandered farther down. Ropes around her limbs. At least the growing fear of today’s unknown was eased slightly by managing to confirm she was tied to a slab.

Knowing was a brief comfort, but the horrible pondering of what she was on the slab for began moments later.

“She’s awake, Sir.” Nataliza’s thoughts of lobotomies, tracker installations and bomb plantings were momentarily stopped by the sound of a professional voice that didn’t quite manage to keep the unease from its tone. The woman speaking was mature, probably not far off Nataliza on either end of the aging spectrum.

Somehow, that did not comfort her, and she didn’t need to wait for a reply to know exactly who she was talking to.

“Good. Then we are only thirty-six minutes behind schedule.” The Devil’s voice immediately weighed upon Nataliza’s already messy thoughts like an anvil. She knew Ansa’s boogeywoman would be wherever Liz had ended up, but knowing didn’t make it any easier on her nerves. “You look conflicted, doctor. Do speak if there is an issue that needs addressing.” The Devil wasn’t in Nataliza’s line of sight, and beyond the passing acknowledgement of her consciousness, she wasn’t yet focused on her.

“With all due respect, Sir, these aren’t quite the conditions for a…” The doctor cut herself off with urgency that concerned Nataliza. Clearly whatever was happening here was a surprise, and she doubted it would be the kind she wanted. “This procedure. It isn’t typically done with the patient lying vertically, let alone with her awake, and I’m concerned that the gag won’t be strong enough to dull—”

“Dr. Gray.” The Devil didn’t let this Dr. Gray woman finish her sentence before saying her name with a callous mix of respect and intimidation.

“Apologies, Sir. It’s just—”

“An apology is not needed, Dr. Gray.” The Devil interrupted again, but this time continued along with a more fully formed response. “You’ve been under our employ for a decade now. Someone so instrumental to my vision is sure to have little issue with a procedure so far below your qualifications, even with these necessary complications, hm?” The words of Lucifer could have been viewed as reassuring, but Nataliza could read a woman better than that. It was a reminder of the performance The Devil expected from this imperial affront to medicine.

It was a polite threat.

“Of course, Sir. This will succeed without incident.” Nataliza could see neither party of the conversation no matter where she turned her eyes, but she could practically sense the vile, groveling salute from the doctor.

Hopefully her rescue party would blow this one’s brains out, too.

Assuming they were coming.

Assuming even Bailey was coming…

Nataliza tried to focus. It was futile. What was there to truly focus on in this surgical pit of Hell?

“There she is.” Nataliza was given both a voice and a sight to center her attention upon. The Devil walked into the sweet spot of her vision. Not long after, she placed the very same camera that had been recording each and every vile imperial assault on her body down in front of her, wearing an even more disgusting smile than usual.

The Devil’s gaze immediately locked upon Nataliza’s eyes, but even with sweat dripping down her brow, Nataliza glared right back.

“Mphhhk myew!”

Nataliza couldn’t speak through the gag in her mask, but she’d hoped the anger in her voice could drown the obvious and growing panic in her eyes.

It did not.

“My apologies in advance, Nataliza. This will not be pleasant, but you will understand its necessity in the not so distant future. I assure you.” The Devil’s words oozed from her mouth like an overconfident poison, but what did she truly have not to be confident about, right now? This was Lucifer’s game, and Nataliza was her toy. “Dr. Gray. Please demonstrate that the paralytic is working as intended before we begin. Dr. Lavern’s… career is on the line.” The Devil paused the act of vaguely threatening the doctor in this room, and engaged in threatening the life of one outside it instead.

Dr. Lavern. The fucker making whatever they’re pumping into her neck to mess with her memory.

She’d remember that name today if nothing else.

Nataliza would have plenty to remember from today, though, it seemed. While she only now had a vague, close view of her doctor’s face, further obscured by the woman’s surgical mask, she knew Dr. Gray’s presence getting closer wasn’t a good sign at all.

“Yes, Sir.” Dr. Gray’s voice bore not even a hint of remorse or concern. Ethics be damned, apparently.

Nataliza had met her share of mad doctors in her time, and Dr. Gray was the least eclectic and concerning out of them all. A laugh built up in her throat, but turned into another obscured sound lacking audible meaning by that damn gag.

That damn mask.

…

Nataliza’s mind began racing again, but it got a whole new burst of adrenaline when she felt the unmistakable side of a scalpel slide against her stomach.

Before she could begin to process the terrifying confusion wrought by being unable to move while perfectly capable of feeling, something worse was done with that scalpel.

“MFGGGMFHK!!!”

Nataliza yelled against that damn ball gag in her mouth loudly enough to hurt her throat. With difficulty, she was able to calm herself. Barely.

This was already hellish, and it hadn’t even started proper yet. That much of a jump from a few inches of a skin deep incision? Come the fuck on, Nataliza. You were better than that.

“The paralytic is effective and working as specified. Dr. Lavern still has her uses, Sir.” Dr. Gray spoke again, riding a line between subtle fear and a professional coldness that made Nataliza’s blood boil.

All of these filthy, fascist dogs made her blood boil. None of them were special. None of them scared her.

None of them.

The White Hawk doesn’t lose.

“For the time being, but everyone is replaceable.” The Devil’s smile didn’t waver even as she gave her subordinate another thinly veiled threat. Not that Nataliza could keep her focus on threats and exchanges between her captors for long. “Begin, Dr. Gray.” Those three words would live on in Nataliza’s mind for the rest of her days. Even now, she knew that.

The Devil knew it too.

Whether Dr. Gray knew it was none of Nataliza’s concern. The only thing that could fit in the increasingly confined space that was her thoughts was trying to picture what this procedure was.

“It would be rational for you to shut your eyes, Nataliza. I certainly would not blame you.”

The Devil’s words ensconced themselves in her head, though. A part of Nataliza was already tempted by their sick beckoning, but she refused to give into it. For now, at least.

Her eyes didn’t shut. Though every fiber of her being screamed at Nataliza to look at whatever it was Dr. Gray has doing, she kept her gaze steady on The Devil and her camera, watching her pull a cigarette from her pocket and give it a light before responding to Nataliza’s ineffective defiance.

“As expected, but such resistance to reason is pointless.” The Devil’s smug face and cutting words were timed carefully between the imposing sounds of Dr. Gray affixing her gloves and readying her equipment. The Devil took a drag of her cigarette, sighed, then continued. “Nobody is coming, Nataliza. Those who live now will die before they get the chance, or perish here in front of you.” The Devil’s smile grew into a sick, victorious grin.

Those words alone meant little to Nataliza. They weren’t new, and she could recognize them as the mind games the Devil liked to play.

The next part of this trip to hell was no such bluster.

“MFGHAAAHK!!!”

Nataliza roared against the gag in her mouth when she felt a smooth, steady incision from, as best she could tell, her belly button to some destination she couldn’t identify. How could she even begin to play a game of guess the procedure when she already felt like she was about to puke?

That mystery could, potentially, be solved by simply looking down as best she could with her shifting eyes.

“Mfghhh… MFHHHH FUGHK…”

Nataliza knew that wasn’t happening the moment she felt her incision be carefully and meticulously spread open by Dr. Gray’s capable hand. Mech piloting tended to stop a woman from being squeamish. She’d seen more women crushed into unrecognizable remains of paste and bone than most saw living, breathing people in their lives.

She had not seen her own stomach being opened with no ability to move. That would not change.

Weak.

Pathetic.

…

As if to rub salt in her cold, bleeding, surgical wound, The Devil opened her mouth to speak again.

“This was inevitable. All that comes after will be the fault of your refusal to accept reality.” The Devil mocked the rebel for her resistance. Nataliza was caught between wanting to embrace the urge to close her eyes and ignore it all, and rip the smiling, smoking pig talking her down in half.

Nataliza could do neither, but despite the growing, increasing difficulty, she could still stare this monster down with every ounce of hatred inside her.

Never had she hated smokers more, that aversion Bailey had to the very concept finally made sense, but sense was fleeting right now. Nataliza tried not to think of her allies right now. That was a weapon to bludgeon her with and she tried desperately not to give it power.

“MFHHM… MFFFF… MFGAAAAAH!”

Trying to control her thoughts was the errand of a weak fool made impossible by a hand slowly inserting itself into the incision. Nataliza would have been writhing in agony if her body could move at all. The lack of said movement only left her with the ability to bite down on the strong, rubber gag in her mouth until she felt like it was going to break.

Alas, she didn’t have the jaw strength for that.

The White Hawk doesn’t lose, Nataliza.

Nataliza tried to maintain any semblance of control she could, but the ice-cold pain felt in her abdomen was exemplified by the more subtle feeling of warm, fresh blood dripping down her stomach. Drops of blood were joined by trails of tears coming from her eyes.

They need you to be invincible, Nataliza.

The pain doused any other thoughts for a blissful few moments of time. Time that felt like it was passing in slow-motion. Had this unaffected, wretched doctor been slicing and exploring her red, bloody insides for seconds or minutes? How long had it been? Nataliza didn’t know, but she did know that the body could get used to a lot, especially with a pain tolerance like hers.

Everyone needs you to be invincible, Nataliza…

She still wanted to writhe. She was still crying like a child denied their fifth cookie for breakfast. The pain was overwhelming, and that was obviously the point, but the rushes of pain and guesses as to what Dr. Frankenstein was doing to her drifted into permanent, background trauma.

Her comrades filled her thoughts, just as The Devil likely wanted.

The White Hawk doesn’t fucking lose, Nataliza!

“Cry if you must, Nataliza. I do not cherish seeing this.” Nataliza didn’t believe any of that. The Devil looked enthused to be watching the bloody, surgical performance being put on for her, and Nataliza only wished she was able to be more sickened by Lucifer’s enjoyment. “You are strong. This will break you, but you will survive it…” The Devil paused, taking another filthy drag of her cigarette before continuing. “Ina Ymari will not.” Nataliza wanted to rip her in half.

She would. 

She’d rip this cosplaying warrior in half.

“SHUTTTH TH-THE MFGHUK… MGGGAAH!!!”

Nataliza responded with broken, muffled words The Devil seemed able to parse, and Dr. Gray seemed able to ignore. Monsters.

Demons.

Nataliza would burn them all. Every fucking last one of them.

…

But could she do it before they took every last thing she cared for from her first?

“You are a survivor, Nataliza. Be it on your own, or with me, you will see the end of this war…” The Devil spewed bile from her nicotine filled throat again, driving Nataliza closer to puking than even the grim feeling of a hand exiting her wound with its own sickening sound. “Bailey Cluanaire will be dead in weeks. Ina Ymari will die in front of you…” Nataliza’s tears continued to flow as The Devil’s vile, powerful words were joined by the true agony of this…

…procedure.

“MFGHKK MHAH… MHAM… H-HAH…”

Nataliza felt a less cold hand spread the opening in her abdomen, wherever it was, apart again. This time, though, she felt the other hand enter and slice at something.

What the fuck were they doing in there?

What the fuck were they going to do to Ina?

…

Nataliza wanted to tell herself to focus, but she knew such a feat was impossible. Her mind raced between the indescribably brutal pain of feeling something being torn out of her like oil from Ansa’s soil, and picturing such brutality performed on Ina and Bailey.

She was also picturing her other comrades dying without her seeing it. Sasha and Lark being taken back to be tortured by these fucking animals.

Pathetic and weak, Nataliza.

Nataliza’s eyes wanted to close, but she tried her best to keep that glare locked on The Devil. Ineffective or not, it was her only method of fighting the bilious cocktail of physical and mental anguish she was enduring. The tears streaming down her cheeks. The blood she felt oozing from her wound while something was being pulled at within her.

Perhaps she knew what was happening already.

Perhaps she’d rather simply pretend she didn’t have a clue.

Coward.

“You asked for Hell, Nataliza. I am giving you it. Hell is all you will see until you repent from this pathetic rebellion of yours.” The Devil spoke out again, taking a final drag from her cigarette before flicking it into a nearby trash bucket. “Your only way out is accepting what you are, Nataliza. A perfect weapon. A lethal animal. Resisting only ensures they both die in front of you.” The Devil’s words were, in a way, their own form of scalpel. Paired with the tools currently slicing some kind of chunk from her, it may as well have been slicing at her, too.

“MMHH-NO! M-MGHK…”

Nataliza had no response beyond muffled screams from the walls of her gag mask.

Weak.

Each sickening, vomit-inducing sensation of pulling and cutting within the confines of her bleeding abdomen brought Nataliza closer to passing out. Every word coming from The Devil’s mouth made her revoltingly more comfortable with the idea of losing control of her consciousness.

Coward.

Nataliza felt her breathing grow unsteady. Each breath of hot air felt rancid in her mask, only made worse by the sweat caking her entire form, mixing with her tears into a sticky, uncomfortable cocktail. Embers filled her vision.

“MHGK… M-MHFFFGHK…”

Her screams didn’t fade in volume, but did fade in frequency. Her throat was on fire, and the embers of such searing torture filled her vision while she glared at The Devil’s despicable figure.

Glaring became harder and harder as her mind filled with the image of some horrific surgery being done to Ina, or some vile torture method being performed on Bailey.

Those thoughts only made the embers burn brighter.

Fucking pathetic.

Nataliza wasn’t far from mentally collapsing. There had to be something else in her system to be causing this. She wasn’t this weak.

She was strong.

She could beat this.

She could keep her eyes on The Devil.

…

All proved untrue when The Devil spoke again.

“Shock is a powerful thing, Nataliza. I do not begrudge you for failing to stay awake.” The Devil spoke with a tone befitting a woman who’d already won, and Nataliza was too hazed by pain and permanent trauma to deny she had done so. “Go ahead. Clip Your Wings, White Hawk.” The Devil’s words weighed on Nataliza like she was trying to carry a wounded comrade through hell. The embers in her vision burned stronger.

Pathetic. Weak. Coward.

“Mfghuk…”

Nataliza’s gaze fell away from The Devil. She felt a shame greater than anything she’d ever felt in her life.

Failing to save her parents.

Being unable to protect that town from a firebombing on her first mission in the Whitehawk.

Letting herself and Bailey split apart to two vastly different lives of nonfulfillment for fifteen years.

None of it compared to the bile she felt in her own throat as she looked down from The Devil and closed her eyes, giving her tormentor their first true win.

“Mfgshe’ll mfuhking k-kill myew…”

Nataliza only had the ability to stammer a few final words before the sensation of an organ being messily pulled from her stomach brought her to the brink. Her screams continued for a moment, but that moment was all they could last.

Behind her closed eyes, Nataliza could still see The Devil as clearly as when they were open. Embers still bathed that view.

Nataliza knew now she couldn’t fight this forever. The Devil was clawing inside her mind and body both. No woman could survive this forever.

Before too long, this constant Hell would simply make her another Lark. A weapon controlled by… Her.

She needed her allies to save her.

She needed someone to save her.

Nataliza needed Bailey Cluanaire, the woman she was told not to trust again, to pull through for her in the end.

She had to.

She had to…

Nataliza had to pray that in the next few days, weeks, or months Bailey Cluanaire would burst through the gates with their comrades in tow.

That was all Nataliza could think about as she drifted off to the sound of a conversation her brain rejected the ability to listen to.

Her allies were coming.

…

They had to be…