Arc F1.10 | Chapter 10: Of Course I Want to Hold the Precious Creations of the Girl I Love in My Arms, One Day

Taelor slipped through the streets, slitting the throats of every soul who dared try to flee. Their lives were already sealed, and not a single one of them would be escaping this place. Nearby, Bireth moved as well, the Drinarna intern’s movements smooth as he similarly killed the criminals who had done so much harm to the city—not to mention to their group.

While there was something to be said for hoarding fame and honour to oneself, the actions of the people who worked for Fräthk were, quite honestly, baffling. They were barely cooperating, and from what they’d collectively been able to tell, those who were cooperating with other members were doing so either in an attempt to steal their allies’ achievements during this disaster or were on friendly terms with the person.

One of the people trying to steal the credit someone else was due had actually pushed the person they’d been pretending to cooperate with into an oncoming attack before attempting to flee. They hadn’t made it far, Valor sniping them from where he was guarding BJ, their childhood friend alternating between monitoring the situation so he could give them heads up when someone looked about to attack them and healing the occasional injury. There hadn’t been many, the most serious caused by Sorvell yanking Westrial out of line of fire and into Darrian’s arms, her shoeless feet scuffing over the rough street. The girl had been fine—certainly, she was better off than if she’d been hit by the attack—while the attacker had been blown up by something that Halen had simply told him not to worry about yet.

The yet was concerning, but there was nothing Taelor could do about whatever mysterious thing—presumably an attack from Westrial or perhaps Darrian, who had proven to have a ridiculous number of weird but strangely effective offensive skills that none of them knew anything about—had blown the criminal up.

Of the people who fell into the latter group of people actually cooperating with someone important to them, one such person had fallen to pieces when the man they were cooperating with had been killed by Curtisal. Pins from a previous injury had splintered out of the man’s body, leaving blood oozing out of punctures before the pins had plunged back into him over and over again, creating a grotesque pattern of lines, parts of his clothing seemingly sewn into his skin from the assault. All the while, the boy had smiled something deranged and the most horrifying thing was that Emilia had been inside something created by the young man.

Due to having been taken offaether, they knew little about what had happened down in the dungeons. It was easy to imagine it had been horrific—had been Emilia doing something stupid and reckless and Taelor knew he shouldn’t be thinking about this, a collection of alarms going off in his mind as Halen asked if he was okay.

Was he okay? Taelor had no idea. It was funny, in a way: for as much as he was often considered the harsher of his brothers, Baylor all chaotic energy, Valor all soft calm, Taelor had always known he would be the one to take these sorts of situations the worst. He worried for his brothers and Emilia, always, the care he gave them allowing his nerves to settle. Without them there, safe in his arms, he wasn’t sure he was okay.

Shifting to the side, Taelor opened the path for Bireth to surge forward, his willbrand sliding through the back of the person they had been pursuing. The Drinarna officer’s willbrand was a horrific thing, both Baylor and Curtisal oohing and aahing the first time they saw it used, when Bireth had slipped out of the side streets he and Taelor were primarily responsible for clearing out to kill someone intent to take Curtisal down. It wasn’t the first time someone had tried to kill the kid, but previously, the group in the street outside the holding cell’s door had been responsible for taking those people down.

Somehow or other, this particular attacker had slipped far closer to Curtisal than the others, everyone else distracted by their current assailant. While he had no proof of it, something told Taelor that Curtisal was actually perfectly capable of taking care of himself, even if his fighting style leaned into the long-distance. There was just something within the confidence of the boy when he fought that screamed that no one would be killing him, no matter how close they got.

Regardless, Bireth had killed the person first, his willbrand sliding into the back of that woman as well, before he pulled.

At first glance, it was easy to see that the man’s willbrand was strange, none of them having seen anything quite like it before. While it could collapse into a more standard sword form, the thing’s default form seemed to be two long, parallel metal rods, set several inches apart, each composed of several hundred plates that could twist about at Bireth’s will. Originally, Taelor had assumed they were meant to strengthen the electricity that could shatter out of the weapon, essentially becoming a conductive element to electrocute his enemies better than the sword form could.

Then, Taelor had seen the thing in action.

It was a powerful weapon that he wouldn’t particularly have liked to go up against. If the high voltage of the thing weren’t bad enough, the rods were able to latch themselves around limbs and lock the person to the willbrand… until the electricity came, anyways. Then came the sizzle of cooking flesh and the drop of limbs as they were burned off—and when the rods stabbed through the spinal column of Bireth’s opponents and he pulled? The ends of the rods connected within the torso of whichever unfortunate soul had been caught by the Drinarna intern, and when he pulled his willbrand free, it pulled parts of their spinal column out as well.

“It was a gift, from Vantril,” Bireth had said when he and Taelor had a moment of quiet, the screams of those stuck in the street before the holding cells rattling the windows of the alleyway they were waiting in, Clemence having informed them that another group of Fräthk’s people would be coming their way soon, too stupid to keep their distance and lives. “Normally, custom willbrands are passed along to other family members, but her family is quite an old legacy family. So, they have a lot of willbrands—it used to be really common for custom willbrands to be given to high-ranking officers, but that sort of dropped off a few centuries ago. The thing is, its relatively rare that legacy families—or, at least, the good legacy families—have many kids—and of those kids they have, many don’t make it to the age where they’re expected to start having families. Vantril actually had a few aunts and uncles on both sides, but only one had kids, and that aunt is dead now, her cousins raised by a mixture of her parents and grandparents.”

“It’s the same for clones. Most of us don’t make it to a hundred, and usually, when we’re given baby clones to raise, we’re in our mid-hundreds,” Taelor had replied, curious because, while there were a few legacy SecOps families, they were in no way common. In addition, where Drinarna legacy children might be given first rights to the career path, they were never hurried along the path; in comparison, SecOps legacy children were known to be useless and pampered, rarely seeing a day on the street, that lack of knowledge of how the job really worked leading to resentment among those they decided the fates of.

“Do you get to choose if you raise kids?”

“To some extent. Our guardian wanted kids and was given them. The three of us suspect that, if we wanted children, we likely would have troubles.”

“Because you guys are together? Or because Baylor is… weird? He seems a bit weird for a clone, I mean?” Bireth had asked, more nervous about pointing out that their middle brother was clearly not quite right in his existence than when pointing out they were romantically entangled.

A smile had tugged at Taelor’s lips as he clarified some of what Baylor was for Bireth—it wasn’t like the Drinarna intern actually seemed to care about their strange existence—before telling him that it was likely that, for both reasons, they would struggle to find support for them raising children. “Perhaps if another clone like Baylor is born and their guardian cannot handle them we would be asked to take the boy.”

“Do you want kids?”

“Yes, but I imagine that they will be Emmie’s children,” he had answered, easy as that. The idea of holding a child who belonged to Emilia in his arms—the idea of keeping them safe, of being trusted by the one person whose opinion actually mattered to keep her precious creations safe? Yes, that was a nice thing to imagine—to hold close within his chest for decades and decades, until the girl he loved was grown and settled and had found someone capable of making her happy in a way that he and his brothers would never be able to.

“So… your friend’s kids with someone else? Cause, you guys can’t have kids, right?”

“Not usually. Technically, our genetics have been altered so we have little viable sperm—attempts to completely sterilize us genetically have never been without consequences to other parts of our genetics. Then, we are fully sterilized as children, just to be sure those few sperm that are viable can’t accidentally create children.”

“But, sometimes fuck-ups happen?” Bireth had guessed—obviously, if it never happened, Taelor wouldn’t have added that not usually.

“Occasionally, during war, a young clone will miss their sterilization. Paperwork is fucked up, some baby clone is caught in a war zone, and in the chaos is somehow never sterilized. Every so often, a child is conceived, but usually, the mistake results in nothing—clones are not known for taking many women to bed.”

“Why not?”

For a moment, Taelor had contemplated the question—it wasn’t like he had ever had any desire to take any girl but Emilia to bed, after all. If she hadn’t accepted their offer to join them in the bedroom, he and his brothers would have sustained themselves with one another. They would miss Emilia in their bed—around their cocks, in their arms—when they were gone; they would never seek some other woman out to fill that space.

Hence, he had instead needed to pull from overheard conversations and comments from Emilia, whenever she noticed people watching them with interest—the three of them didn’t notice, having only eyes for her and one another.

“From what I understand, most of the people who attempt to have relations with us clones are not really in it for… good reasons? Some are—I know of only a few clones who have non-clone, non-black knot partners.”

“Is having black knot partners more common?”

“Somewhat. I would say it is more common for clones to find platonic love with their podmates or other Black Knot employees. Then, when it comes to sex, they share the people who are… more commonly interested in black knots and clones, although it also isn’t uncommon to share other black knots. Generally, the non-black knots who are willing to have sex with us are… obsessive and strange. They thrive on the idea that they are risking their lives by being with a black knot.”

“They make up a story in their head that you are more dangerous than you really are, when really, people like Baylor are the outliers—and clearly, while he takes joy in killing, he isn’t someone who is going to kill his sexual partners.”

“Clearly?”

With a hum, his eyes skimming over the area as something got closer to them, Bireth had noted that, obviously, he and his brother were alive, as was Emilia. “Just a guess you three are involved with her as well,” the Drinarna intern had admitted, a small smile tugging at his lips. “If I’m right, I’d find it a bit surprising if you and Valor were letting Baylor have sex with her, if it were an actual risk that Baylor would kill her.”

Sometimes Taelor did wonder if it was a risk, allowing Baylor to dig his teeth and nails and blades into Emilia, but there was something to be said for allowing the pair of them their autonomy. Neither had ever done anything to warrant tugging them back; so, despite his occasional worries, Taelor didn’t interfere.

“As far as I know, no clone has ever killed a sexual partner unless they were a part of their job.”

“That must be weird—having to play a role for a job that effectively means you have to let yourself be sexually assaulted?” Bireth had noted, explaining that while there were undercover Drinarna, engaging in sex generally wasn’t considered a requirement. “I imagine it happens—I’m not tapped for that sort of work, but I know enough to know that the people who are tapped… they’re not quite like a black knot, but still rather cold and aloof? And take their jobs so seriously that its almost like they are inherently consenting to everything and anything?”

“There is a specialized unit in Baalphoria like that, for some of the more unethical missions,” Taelor had admitted, a harsh note cutting through his voice that had Bireth glancing back towards him. Their eyes met, and when Taelor added that the worst of Baalphoria’s law enforcement weren’t black knots, there had been something knowing—understanding—in Bireth’s eyes as well because it was the same, the continent over—at least, it was for those who knew.

The worst of humanity weren’t the black knots, near always apathetic and disinterested in anything and anyone who didn’t immediately concern them. The worst weren’t even people like Baylor, happily able to take their apathy and turn it against anyone their mind decided was their victim.

No, the worst people were those who could feel—who had hearts and simply chose to shut them down, at least when it came to some people, to some missions and ethical boundaries. They were people who had been twisted by something: by a horrific upbringing, by some traumatic event or another, by their culture itself, and yet, had somehow escaped without a traumatic black knot.

Instead, they’d come out with something worse.

Black knots had hearts that turned on for specific people, either in love or hate; then, they were unable to turn that adoration or rage back off.

The worst people in existence could turn their heart off at will and let the violence take them, many learning to find joy in their job of purging something or other from the world. Most people didn’t realize such monsters existed, tucked away behind the veneer of black knots and lavender codes and a dozen other maligned irregular deviations as they were, but they existed—clearly, they existed, so many of the people who owed their loyalty to Fräthk those sorts of people.

For themselves—for their safety and security and some good will with the boss—these criminals were intent to hunt down a collection of escapees, including children. Perhaps some cared—hated themselves for what they were doing. Taelor thought few did; instead, they had learned to be cold and carefree.

It was easier not to care.

That ability to care was also something difficult to reclaim. These people had been broken by what had been done to them, and as Bireth and he sought out yet another criminal who was attempting to escape the carnage, Taelor couldn’t stop himself from wondering if they would be leaving this place with a dozen broken souls—not just those people who had been captives of Fräthk, their humanity slowly chiselled away by their tortures, but their original group as well.

Here they were, killing while barely blinking an eye, and these people were all criminals, the Drinarna they had killed corrupt; yet, everyone who hadn’t entered this place with a black knot was carving away a bit of themself with every life they took. They were making monsters of themselves, and somewhere, there was a line of acceptance and joy they shouldn’t cross.

To be cold-hearted and not care for the lives they were taking because they logically knew it was for the best was one thing—it was us or them or the world will clearly be better without this person in it. To find joy in killing even criminals…

Taelor didn’t know if it was something to be worried about or not. It certainly felt like something to keep in mind as he received footage of BJ looking a little green while Curtisal cursed about the fucker who had just activated the holding cell’s security system, the fucker in question’s body laying across the street, their head gone, their brain matter everywhere.

No one else looked put out by the gore, just as no one in Halen’s group—aside from possibly Janie, but that was increasingly doubtful—had cared much about the gore created by the bone puller.

How does one determine what is normal, what obscene, in the midst of conflict? Does it require a cheerful grin when splattered with blood? Does it require an innocent life to be taken without even flinching? Even black knots blinked when killing entirely innocent people, their lives snuffed out simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, the greater good more important than that single life.

As they moved, one last criminal slipping through the streets as she attempted to evade them, Taelor began making a list of things to watch out for. It felt a lost cause—after all, people like Curtisal were clearly already fucked up—but it felt as though he had to at least try to keep an eye on things.

He was the protector, and in no world did he want Emilia to be hurt—either physically or emotionally—by someone she loved becoming a monster, capable of turning their empathy off at will. There must be a way to spot the signs that someone was turning into a monster, surely.