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✘ the exurosuit


Utilizing specialized technology that focuses on the communication with her hefty cybernetic skeleton and the vessel, the Exurosuit is capable of transmitting and amplifying the heat energy provided by the Brísingamen within her body to the surface of the suit. It is also built with an internal cooling system (especially around her head), allowing her to easily absorb heat when while simultaneously setting fire to herself.
The Exurosuit is tight fitting and entirely black, with some light indicators around the feet, stomach, back, shoulders, and neck. The indicators remain unlit until the Brísingamen energy is activated, flaring the lights up into a deep red, glowing brighter depending on the amount of heat radiating from the vessel. Printed on the upper back of the suit is a salamander.
The hood is also made out of more flexible Nano-Kevlar material, protecting the wearer’s head.
The spinal region of the suit contains the function of allowing the hood to seal at the command of the wearer for extra cranial protection.
EXTRA NOTE:
The suit itself was designed by Gregory Tremond, who had discarded an older prototype in the abandoned research facility where Rey had been “born”. She is now in possession of the Exurosuit prototype. As it is not a completed version of the heatsuit, it has a risk of overheating, damaging it to the point of disrepair.
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✘ eight lives.
WARNING
THIS POST CONTAINS MONDO SPOILERS.(Yeah, I know. It's weird for me to say that, too.)
{If you want more basic info on Rey, go here.}
NOTES
Entry tags:
memory
((WARNING: Violence, blood, body parts literally falling off and just general gross shit.))
Light poured through the doors as they opened, blinding Stone. She tilted her head back, a hand starting to lift over her eyes, and stopped. She realized... she couldn’t see out of her left eye.
Ooze dribbled down her socket, over her cheek. When she moved, something fell from her face. Stone looked down to see that white ball with a forest green iris rolling across the pavement. She surprised herself when she went to pick it up, only to watch her eye slide away from her, falling into a crack in the earth.
That was when she noticed the missing fingers on her hands, most of them gone with only her thumb, index, and middle fingers remaining on them both. Her skin was peeling off, revealing raw muscle tissue of yellow and orange bubbling underneath. Her right forearm opened up to reveal a piece of bone shining through.
Bones weren’t supposed to shine. Not like that.
Stepping into the bloody daylight, she canted her head and wondered why the red bones jutting from her body were shining. She glanced down, hand over her chest, to see metal-like ribs sticking out of her.
She should be screaming but, opening her jaw, it only clacked. Much like other parts she was missing, most of her mouth was gone.
The streets were paved with eerie silence. The snow had completely melted in the wave of heat. A hot wind blew through. Any bodies piling the streets withered, reduced to ash. Cars were turned over, leaving frail skeletons behind the wheel. What should have taken months if not years to decay left bodies in a rapid state of rigor mortis.
Steam billowed down one of the many avenues she trudged. While there was nothing left of the people, cars and buildings remained, though rapidly corroding, making the place appear many years abandoned than it was.
As she thought, in the end she had nothing.
The streets were empty, quiet as a ghost passing through. She must have walked for miles before her body couldn’t carry her an inch further past the road sign over the freeway revealing the exit out of Ashwater.
In the middle of the freeway devoid of traffic, the operative collapsed to her knees. Her one eye closed, feeling the blood dry and peel off her cold face. She tilted her head to the sky, desolate and red with strange seams drifting into the burning clouds. Like a hundred ribbons falling upwards, fading into black. Was it real, or were her eyes playing tricks?
Get up, Stone said to herself, only the words were not spoken. She had no lips anymore, just as parts of her face were missing, and her hair had gone. She no longer felt the need to breathe, with her lungs rotting from the inside and melting through her ribcage.
Yet she was alive in the most peculiar way. Pushing her body onto her side, she moved into a crawl. Then she helped herself onto her feet again, her knee rattling before giving out.
Stone heard a small, pathetic sound, and realized that she was the one making it. She reached for something, anything, before her remaining three fingers on her right hand clasped around a metal rod sticking out from the ground. What remained of a street sign poked out. Stone ripped it from the steaming asphalt.
Using the rod in place of her ruined leg, she staggered on into the gray mist.
The freeway opened up to her.
In the shattered side mirror of one dilapidated truck, now the casket of a skeleton slumped in the driver’s seat, Stone caught herself in a brief reflection. Her scars were hardly the least defining trait about her anymore. Shining material poked from her skull. It looked like pale red steel, but pristine. She had lost all of her teeth, and her head bald. She was a dying animal, carrying itself on its last legs. Something like her had no right to live.
I deserve to die.
Why wasn’t she? How was it that she was here, staring down miles upon miles of endless freeway, to the interstate across the Blue Mountains, where corpses were encased in metal tombs.
Stone...?
“Stone?”
Stone was on her side, gazing into the crimson horizon and an end of the world. When a man’s shiny loafers stood in front of her field of vision, she had a passing thought to greet Death in kind. He stood beyond her line of sight, with her only eye close to the ground and seeing only the man’s knees as he crouched over her. A gentle touch came over Stone’s scalp, stroking the raw, peeling skin.
“Let me take a look at you.” Hands gripped her shoulders, sustaining her onto her knees. Her strength ebbed, head bowed until fingers reached under her chin.
In front of her was a man of rust-colored hair and sharp gold eyes. He was tall, possibly over six feet with his stature. His giant hands caressed her chin into his palm as he brought his thumb over her cheek.
While his face was foreign to her, his voice had rang familiar.
Agent Tremond.
Gregory Tremond.
“Seems that you’ve inspired quite a bit of chaos, haven’t you? This would be my fault, I imagine,” he said and sighed.
He flipped his wrist, revealing a silver watch.
“What a mess. The Chancellor is dead, although it sounds as if his son lives. He’s in urgent care right now, at any rate. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you, Stone?”
Stone didn’t reply. Couldn’t.
“Nevertheless, you were successful,” Tremond continued. “You did well, Sergeant. I promise you that once this is done, you’ll be right as rain. Although you won’t remember this conversation, so I suppose there’s no point in colloquies, yeah?”
Agent Tremond laughed. He let go of Stone, forcing her to support herself on her knees. The man rose over her. Her head drooped, from seeing his fancy white dress pants to his clean loafers once again. Although her vision was spotted, she still heard things very well. Such as the sound of a gun cocking as Tremond took one out of his vest, and released the safety.
She felt the cold end rest against the top of her head. Stone closed her eye.
Wasn’t this where she supposed to be seeing her life flash before her?
“Goodnight, sleepyhead,” Tremond told her in a soft, soothing voice.
The trigger pulled.
Stone was fond of the sound bullets made. She was born in war, and lulled by a tune burrowed into her brain that she knew so well.
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✎ writing

[PSYCH PROFILE] Subject Freyja (Q-056)
SUMMARY: Project's mental health notes on Subject Q-056, who would later be called Rey. Events take place nearly 100 years prior to Seraphim ASCENT.
Von der grossen Sehnsucht
SUMMARY: Of the Great Longing.
Massive NSFW for sexual content.
Memory
SUMMARY: As she thought, in the end she had nothing.
Bird Song
SUMMARY: Held him down, broke his neck, taught him a lesson he wouldn't forget.
You are a vessel
SUMMARY: an empty husk not yet made whole.
I'm Not Me
SUMMARY: Consider this a final gift to you.
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[PSYCH PROFILE] Subject FREYJA
Dr. Stransky: “April 25th.
Dr. Stransky: “It has been fourteen months since the first launch of the twins, Subjects Q-Zero-Fifty-five and Zero-Fifty-six. Also known as FREY and FREYJA.
Dr. Stransky: “Against the director’s counsel, I have requested to conduct a psychological profile on the surviving subject, FREYJA. The board has grown cynical since Subject FREYJA destroyed her brother during their first observational trial over a year ago. Fratricide is, of course, a matter in which the project administrators take very seriously, and Subject FREYJA had been dispatched accordingly. However, my team was able to reassemble her remains and activate her vessel as of two days ago. She hasn’t spoken a word to me since, but something about her tells me that she remembers what she did.
Dr. Stransky: “Until then, we have been ordered to confine her in Glass House — a ten-by-ten chamber with a surveillance unit to study her from. So far she has remained quiet, unresponsive. The director is skeptical that the bureau will continue funding the project on a defunct war effort.
Dr. Stransky: “Defunct war effort... It almost makes me sick to hear those words. But this was mine and Lucas’ aspiration, and the bureau was our only chance at getting the subsidies to make it possible. In order for them to help us, it is our responsibility to help their war.
Dr. Stransky: “In order to prove that Subject FREYJA can still be an asset, I have inquired the bureau to allow my research in the psychology of the artificial life my husband and I have created. Too many of our resources have been poured into this project for us to forego future endeavors, regardless of what the bureau intends to do with them.
Dr. Stransky: “They are, after all, a part of us now.
Dr. Stransky: “At the risk of being scientifically unsound, I have faith that Fi... Subject FREYJA will come through, even though her brother has not.”
Dr. Stransky: “May 15th.
Dr. Stransky: “The board has decided to allow me time with FREYJA, so long as I am under close supervision while in the subject’s presence. This means that a member of the bureau, a Dr. Jonathan Quayle, has been transferred to the facility to oversee FREYJA’s development. In addition my husband, Dr. Lucas Coffey, has volunteered to aid me in my studies.
Dr. Stransky: “I have agreed to these terms, and I am eager to begin research. Come next week, I will be meeting with Subject FREYJA in private. My husband will be working with the bureau’s researcher to sate any curiosities the man might have.
Dr. Stransky: “I want to believe that what we have done is right. If I can prove that FREYJA is capable of developing mental stability, then perhaps there is hope that our work has not been wasted.”
Dr. Stransky: “May 30th.
Dr. Stransky: “Subject FREYJA has already made some steady progress over the course of our time together. In spite of her hostile nature during the first observational trial, she now appears docile, and has been surprisingly compliant to the questions that I have asked her. In return, she has asked me questions of her own. She’s questioned about her brother, FREY, seemingly having absolutely no memory of the event.
Dr. Stransky: “I can’t help but feel sorry for her. She is like a child, trapped inside of a violent storm. Her body and mind act as two separate forces — if I can confirm that her brother’s death was a result of human error and not an act of senseless violence, the board may spare her. I am overcome by a need to do what I feel as right. This, to me, is the right thing to do.
Dr. Stransky: “I met with that researcher recently as well. Jonathan Quayle. He seems to undermine what my work means to me, but has developed a peculiar fascination with my work. I see him sometimes in the surveillance unit, watching Subject FREYJA inside of Glass House. He claims he is simply studying her patterns, but something about his presence makes me uneasy.
Dr. Stransky: “Another matter that troubles me are the things he says to her. Calls her ‘salamander’ sometimes.
Dr. Stransky: “Either way I find I do not care that much for this man, but FREYJA’s survival also depends on what he reports to the bureau.
Dr. Stransky: “As... strange as it might seem, I feel like she is another daughter to me. I did help to create her— me and my husband both. Her flesh and blood are our own, as was her brother’s.
Dr. Stransky: “Although the director has thought it unwise, I... I have started to call her by the name of Fiona, but only when we are together.
Dr. Stransky: “Lucas still does not know.”
Dr. Stransky: “June 2nd.
Dr. Stransky: “Subject Q-056, please state your name.”
Subject: “You know it.”
Dr. Stransky: “Yes, but I would like it if you told me.”
Subject: “Subject Q-056. That is it.”
Dr. Stransky: “I want you to tell me your real name.”
Subject: “The one that the project has given this vessel?”
Dr. Stransky: “Yes.”
Subject: “Designation: Subject Q-056. Codename: FREYJA.”
Dr. Stransky: “Do you know why you were given this name, FREYJA?”
Subject: “Negative.”
Dr. Stransky: “We have gone over this before.”
Subject: “Say it again.”
Dr. Stransky: “Fiona...”
Subject: [In the same tone:] “Say it again.”
Dr. Stransky: “Okay.
Dr. Stransky: “Freyja was the Norse goddess of love, magic, war, and death.”
Subject: “Love and war.”
Dr. Stransky: “Yes.”
Subject: “You have assigned this vessel that codename, as you associate it with love and war.”
Dr. Stransky: “It was not my idea to—”
Subject: “This vessel was also born with a brother. You called him FREY.”
Dr. Stransky: “Correct.”
Subject: “In this mythos, did Freyja also kill her brother?”
Dr. Stransky: “No, she did not.”
Subject: [Silence.] “...He calls this vessel the shell of a goddess, too.”
Dr. Stransky: “Who does, Fiona?”
Subject: [No answer.]
Dr. Stransky: “Who calls you this?”
Subject: [No answer.]
Dr. Stransky: “June 10th.
Dr. Stransky: “I fear that progress with the subject has come to a standstill. She does not respond to all of my questions, or attempts to avoid them altogether by changing the topic.
Dr. Stransky: “For instance, she asked me today if I hate her for what she did to FREY. I didn’t know how to respond. It seems like such a long time ago, and my current work has been such a great distraction that I might’ve forgotten about that day entirely. The fear I felt when I watched not only our work, but also something that my husband and I have created with our own DNA disappear before us. I was angry, yes. But I also saw a chance to make it right with FREYJA.
Dr. Stransky: “Even more troublesome was when she wanted to know more about love, because she claims someone has used such language at her recently. When I tried to pry for more information, she seemed to shut down, like she was hiding something from me. The only reason she would do so was if she possessed her own agency, a sense of free will. Which is good for me, but bad for the bureau. They have no use for a ‘weapon’ with a mind of her own.
Dr. Stransky: “I do hate that word, though. Weapon. What Lucas and I have created was a life, not a tool.
Dr. Stransky: “I have recently discovered that she has a quaint taste for opera music. She even asked that I play Andrea Chénier for her this morning, so I did.
Dr. Stransky: “She cried. I have never seen her cry.
Dr. Stransky: “Honestly, I do not know where these old opera recordings have been stored. Somewhere in the facility, I presume. I believe that someone may have perhaps left them behind as a gift. However, that moment was the one time that I witnessed a mixture of emotions from her. She says she feels joy and sorrow, but is unable to discern which one. I find it to be a distressful existence, not knowing the difference between pleasure and tragedy; that it is all the same to her.
Dr. Stransky: “File note. It would appear that the subject has made unauthorized contact with another staff member. Uncertain as to who ‘he’ is. I will request an internal investigation with the director. Worst-case scenario, should the security division decline my request, I will take these matters into my own hands. I cannot condone this unorthodox behavior, neither will I be party to them. Especially when such contact could have detrimental effects on Fio... on the subject’s psyche.”
Dr. Stransky: “June 12th.
Dr. Stransky: “Investigation request has been denied. Project board has insisted that, due to ‘Subject Q-Zero-Fifty-six’s unstable nature’, such accusations made by an artificial life form cannot be taken seriously. If I am to push further, they may discontinue my research under the claim that I have become ‘too attached’ to my subject.
Dr. Stransky: “Furthermore, the bureau has rejected my decision to delay Subject FREYJA’s second observational trial. While I believe that confinement has been psychologically taxing on her mental health, I cannot allow the bureau’s military division to step in at this time. The subject has been far too unstable to grasp the basic concepts of right and wrong, and putting her on a battlefield would be a grave mistake.
Dr. Stransky: “I have discussed these matters with FREYJA myself. She now fails to regard the moral quandaries regarding the death of her twin, though she does agree that it was wrong. I have made adamant arguments with the director that handing Subject FREYJA over to the bureau in the near future may result in friendly fire.
Dr. Stransky: “Dr. Quayle has taken a particular concern in this, and has offered to help me with FREYJA’s mental state.
Dr. Stransky: “If there is another issue during the final observational trial, they said that Subject Q-Zero-Fifty-six will be terminated so that the project can focus on the weapons development of the Battle-Brave.”
Dr. Stransky: “July 7th.
Dr. Stransky: “Something is wrong. Something with this project has gone terribly wrong. I don’t know who I can trust anymore. My own husband does not believe me, and claims that I have become too soft on the synthetics. I cannot help what I believe, that subjects like FREYJA and Heimdall, and even her late twin FREY, are more than just ‘pieces’ on a game board. They. Are. People.
Dr. Stransky: “Heimdall himself has expressed emotions on a large scale, revealing jealousy and compassion with his creator, Lucas. Heimdall has even developed a sense of protectiveness over the members of the project in ways that he was never programmed. Today, he asked whether or not if my marriage was going all right. He appeared concerned over the distance between me and my husband as of late...
Dr. Stransky: “I did not tell him about the divorce being final. I felt he did not need that on his conscience that I truly believe exists.
Dr. Stransky: “FREYJA, on the other hand, has been distancing herself more. I’m afraid that whoever has been making unauthorized contact with her has been manipulating her in some way to keep secrets from me.
Dr. Stransky: “Once again, I have no means of adding truth to my convictions, but I am confident in what I know. Worst case scenario, I have decided it best to withdraw FREYJA from the project. The director will never approve of this, let alone the board. But I will do whatever means necessary in order to protect my flesh and blood — even if I must sacrifice my life in order to do it.”
Dr. Stransky: “August 9th.
Dr. Stransky: “The paperwork just came in this morning. Two weeks after her trial, the board has made their decision. Subject Q-Zero-Fifty-six, Subject FREYJA... Fio...
Dr. Stransky: “Fiona is confirmed for termination.
Dr. Stransky: “What I have learned is that they will strip her of her identification and trash her come the day after tomorrow, once the paperwork for the procedure has been processed and finalized.
Dr. Stransky: “I feel sick to my stomach when I read who had authorized this decision. It did not take long for me to find out that it was Lucas who had sent the request. I believe that it may have been a retaliation... He is trying to punish me. I can’t explain it, but I no longer feel safe here. No one will believe me when I try to tell them that Lucas is the one behind Fiona’s reverted behavior. It must be him. I keep telling myself that there has to be some other way, that I ought to reason with him, but Fiona is adverse to this. She has revealed an odd emotion to me when I bring up my ex-husband with her. I’m certain that it’s fear.
Dr. Stransky: “Dr. Jonathan Quayle has agreed to help me. We have discussed an escape plan for Fiona to leave the facility. With his influence, it may be possible to spare Fiona that fate of being tossed in a dumpster like one of the lab rats.
Dr. Stransky: “But he agreed. Jonathan has planned to hack into the security mainframe, allowing us enough time to get out. If we succeed, we will all leave together. Or at least Fiona will...
Dr. Stransky: “After tonight, no matter where we go, none of us will be safe. In the event that we are caught, this will be my last entry.
Dr. Stransky: “To anyone who finds this... I don’t know what to tell you, and honestly, I doubt there is anything I can say that will justify my actions, other than the strength of a mother’s love. I have no other words for it. I love Fiona. I love my daughter. I thought at one point that Lucas did, too... I suppose it’s within our nature, even for a man like him, to hurt the ones we love.
Dr. Stransky: “For Fiona’s sake, I have decided to play some tracks from Dido and Aeneas for her tonight. Jonathan has told me that it’s her favorite. It’s silly, but... I want to make her happy.”
Entry tags:
✘ history
CONTENT WARNING, mentions of: Suicide, Self-harm, PTSD, Situations of dubious/non-consenting relationships.
The Twins were born in 2056, at the Niflheim Research Facility of the Ashwater Underground City, in Washington. Project SERAPHIM — a group of specialists in artificial biology and synthetics — produced two synthetic beings exhibiting anomalies specific to their independent design. The Twins were Subjects FREY and FREYJA.Extended history can be found here.
During the initial test run, Subject FREYJA proved to be more precarious both in aptitude and personality when she burned her brother alive during their observational trial. This almost immediately destroyed the project, but the Twins’ genetic parental donors, doctors Lucas Coffey and Undine Stransky, pleaded for the surviving Twin, which they were begrudgingly granted under heavy restrictions. They learned that FREYJA’s ability allowed her to produce extreme heat around her, and called this particularly new energy the “Brísingamen”. With that, FREYJA was locked up in a fireproof cell, the Glass House.
Undine worked as FREYJA’s personal councilor, studying the psychology of the synthetic lifeforms that her work had created. However, her sessions with FREYJA went in circles. While Lucas soon believed that the subject was a lost cause, Undine wished to continue on FREYJA’s development. Several months into the psychological evaluations, the financial backers supporting Niflheim decided to cut off funding for Project SERAPHIM. Undine and Lucas once again contested this, and won only on the agreement that a government issued researcher come and observe the project’s progress. That was when Dr. Jonathan Quayle was then sent in to oversee Undine’s development with FREYJA. It would later turn out that, over a period of time, the researcher had also frequently been making unauthorized visits into Glass House to interact with FREYJA alone. Essentially, he brainwashed the subject for his own uses, and implemented a “deactivation” protocol for times when he no longer had use of or wished her incapacitated. He had become obsessed and infatuated with her, and wanting her for himself, and no government nor scientists would get to keep her if he could help it.
Influencing the financial backers behind the scenes in order to cut the project and allow the termination order of FREYJA, Jonathan orchestrated Undine’s growing grief and desperation to save her “daughter”. She went to Jonathan for help in stalling his employers, with her having noticed he had taken a liking to FREYJA as well (though unaware as to how insidious his desires had become). He then agreed, manipulating the following events that triggered FREYJA against her will into attacking Undine, snapping her neck and killing her.
Jonathan successfully smuggled an emotionally paralyzed FREYJA out of the Niflheim Research Facility. During his time on the lam spent with FREYJA, Jonathan believed himself to be thoroughly in love with her, but she was in no condition to understand his feelings, let alone consent to them. For nearly a year, FREYJA had traveled with the twisted doctor, until Jonathan was found in a New Mexico hotel room; his charred body recovered after his floor was set afire. FREYJA herself was recovered on a Mojave highway, miles away from the hotel, her body burning wildly. Lucas returned her to Niflheim, where the inevitable process of her termination, which Undine had tried so hard to avoid, began.
However there was another synthetic, one of the first created by Project SERAPHIM named HEIMDALL, who was not nearly as forgiving of FREYJA as Undine would’ve been. He decided a different kind of intervention was in order. Faking her termination, HEIMDALL allowed Lucas to abandon any hope for saving FREYJA and focus his efforts on other endeavors, namely in preserving Undine’s legacy by resurrecting FREY in a long cloning process.
Thereafter, FREYJA lived on as Rey. She would know HEIMDALL as Gregory Tremond. And for the next 84 years, Rey had become several different women. The most notable ones would be Safronov, a Russian sniper, and Stone, an American marine and operative:
As Stone, in 2129 she would become the trigger that set off the First Cataclysm. In a mere instant, an entire city was wiped out, leaving behind only a few hundred survivors. Stone did not survive long after the incident, as she was reset by “Gregory Tremond” and sent on her next mission.
Rey continued living the lives of various women with their many different sordid memories, tasked from suicide missions to observing how well FREYJA took to her new memories as Rey. Most notable were her assignments to track down the backup terminals of the GRIGORI Program, a supercomputer that had hijacked Project SERAPHIM decades ago and was in the process of building independant synthetic life. As Safronov, by the year 2142, she believed she had found the final GRIGORI backup terminal: A former Soviet bunker that was now the Grigoryevich Underground Command Center in the war-torn town of Kristiv, Russia. But it was not without its obstacles. Safronov found herself in the crossfire of a battlefield, and became the target of two Canadian snipers preventing her from completing her mission. Safronov managed to shoot down and kill one sniper, allowing her to enter the command center while leaving the second alive.
In the end, Safronov failed. She had been infected with the GRIGORI’s failsafe that scrambled her memories. By the time she made it back to “Tremond” to report her failure, she shot herself in the head... but not before explaining the failsafe to him.
It would take four years for “Tremond” to make sense of her chaotic programming again, and he would never be able to install new fake memories. So he stored her most recent body in the morgue of an abandoned sanitarium in Engelus, Nevada (also known as the new capitol for the Western Order).
This was why, in 2147, Rey woke up with only a toetag with her name on it and no recollection as to how she got there.
To make a long story short, she would attempt to seek out her lost identity, finding her memories fractured and people who seemed to recognize her from her previous lives. She would even unknowingly be helped by some survivors of the First Cataclysm, most who had no idea that they were victims of her past life at first. At one point, while catatonic, she was in the care of the surviving Canadian sniper from Kristiv, Faye Elms. Faye would be able to put two and two together much later on, though.
One of her greatest allies would be a man named Orion Gideon, whose cells and body had been reanimated by Lucas Coffey from the same Twin that FREYJA had killed. Seeing Rey as family despite living a life of his own totally separate from her lifestyle, Orion insisted on reconnecting with her.
Over time, Rey gradually regressed into FREYJA, even lashing out at her own brother. The result of her episode ultimately caused the death of HEIMDALL (or “Gregory Tremond”)... and Rey herself.
Two years later, she was revived once again by Lucas Coffey, who also unlocked each memory of every past life that had driven her insane in the first place. She would also find that her father had taken her to Illinois, where he owned a townhouse in Old Chicago. Orion had been called to help rehabilitate her as well. Despite her brother’s support, Rey suffered yet another meltdown, and she would spend a long time in a state of temporary insanity.
Cut to the year 2153, four years later. With the aid of her father and brother, Rey was surprisingly able to find some mental stability that wouldn’t result in her hurting herself or others around her. Similarly to her experience six years ago, Rey found that some things in the world had changed. Namely the Unity Alliance Treaty, creating a pact between the differing East Republic and West Order, which was a surprise due to their divergent political perspectives. Orion had even taken it upon himself to join the auxiliary task force assembled as a result of the treaty during his stay in Chicago.
For a while, Rey was allowed to live in fleeting peace, and her recovery had been going well. The calm was short-lived before a storm came close to home... and to nine other major cities between the Unity, all attacked via biological warfare. People began to exhibit symptoms of a highly fatal disease known as Webcap. As its citizens were dying, the cities were quickly quarantined, with the Unity dispatching Cleaners to burn through the streets and trigger a defensive dome to isolate the remaining Webcap survivors. Between Lucas’ enhanced genetics and Rey’s cybernetics, they (including Orion) remained unaffected by the outbreak.
Rey and Faye Elms would cross paths again, when attempting to help out at the Northwest Memorial Hospital before they were attacked by the outbreak’s instigators: The synthetics created by the GRIGORI Program. Rey chose to stay behind at the hospital to dig Faye out of some rubble that had fallen on her. Faye reluctantly agreed to escape with Rey, at least until she could tend to her wounds properly without the risk of being torn apart or burned to death.
The plan, Rey would reveal, was to meet up with her father in Ashwater, Washington. At ground zero of the First Cataclysm and home to the Niflheim Research Facility, no less. She would regroup with Faye and her brother and eventually head west.
Once they were in the ruins of the old capitol, the three would have a run-in with the cult that had set up camp there, the Bark of Ash, led by a man named Jonah. In the midst of the chaotic encounter, Rey was met with fear and anger by the cult members, and they began attacking her. Though Jonah was able to stop them before she was beaten to death, ordering her to be sent inside the church. At the risk of Orion or Faye being killed, she complied.
The cult members to begin to change and deform. The church courtyard then opened, revealing a deep hole leading downward into the underground city beneath Ashwater, also known as the AUC. Rey watched as Orion and Faye had been among the many to fall, losing sight of them completely.
Enraged, Rey went to attack Jonah... when the side of his head burst open.
The entire time, an old “friend” she hadn’t seen in six years named Aiden Winters, had been hiding within the church with a mission of his own: Kill the leader of the Bark of Ash. Of course, he had no way of knowing that Rey would be there, or alive for that matter. Aiden managed to calm down Rey, until he was nearly retaliated at with a throwing knife held by the wounded (but somehow still living) Jonah. In his smugness, he threw a second knife. Rey, determined to be the one to save Aiden now, stood in front of him to catch the blade in her throat. The knife impaled her neck. Wounded severely, she tripped back, taking Aiden with her down the gaping courtyard hole.
Six days later, Rey woke up in a bed in the Niflheim Research Facility. She was being treated by Henry Pender, a military medic, and woke up to find that Faye and Orion were alive and well. She would find out that her brother, being the tough guy that he is, was able to save Faye from the courtyard drop. Seemingly, both Aiden and Orion both had knowledge of the research facility’s whereabouts in the tunnels, and were allowed in by the military group that had been stationed there. The colonel even seemed to know one of Rey’s past lives.
Three months later: Rey and everyone involved recovered (physically, at least) from the events that transpired with the Bark of Ash. She had been effectively caught up with some people who she hadn’t seen in over six years. One day, she ran into one of them and a soldier playing around with some old powered exoskeletons that were supposed to be distributed to the military before the First Cataclysm. What more, she managed to unearth a prototype armor that seemed to be made specifically for Rey back when she was intended to be strictly a war machine, called the Exurosuit.
The lull and recovery period did not last, when a man named Tejinder Wakeman would be apprehended by one of the GRIGORI’s synthetics. As the GRIGORI’s original target, Tejinder was dragged out into the tunnels of the underground city.
Few left behind agreed to go after him. Those “few” meaning Rey (who was determined to protect Wakeman), Orion (who was determined to keep an eye on his sister), and Faye (the only one who had a firewall that could protect Wakeman’s brain from the GRIGORI Program). Rey decided to sport the Exurosuit prototype before taking one of the old trains to the city surface. Along the way, Rey and Faye shared a little heart to heart. It broke her a lot.
Aboveground, the trio stumbled upon an aerial prison/cargo transport hovering on the outskirts of the Ashwater ruins. What more, it didn’t seem to be going anywhere. Thinking that perhaps there had been a complication during Tejinder’s abduction, the three approached the idle transport. Faye, ever the diligent sniper, went to scout ahead but did not return. Rey slipped away before she could also be seen, but not before her brother was apprehended by IV, a synthetic woman who Rey was quite familiar with. Well, one of her past selves was. More specifically, the version of Stone who had caused the First Cataclysm.
With Faye and Orion detained, the synthetics started to leave Ashwater. Now alone, Rey infiltrated the prison airship, promptly going into Soldier Mode. It was then that she was able to take advantage of the memories and skills of her previous lives to better interlope the aircraft, fluidly switching from one memory to the next. The memories of her old selves utilized the Exurosuit also helped along the way, and she was able to find the prisoners detained on the ship — including Faye Elms.
Rey tracked down Tejinder Wakeman killing himself with a suicide pill. Frantic, she managed to breach security in time to resuscitate him. She then gave him Faye’s firewall, to which Tejinder thanks her for because he was actually rather scared of dying. Promising her that he would stay alive, Tejinder helped Rey hide in the floor grating before IV and her synthetic sentries arrived.
Two weeks of scavenging and surviving from the innermost walls of the Concord Sky Prison had taken its toll on Rey in more ways than one. Not only on her physical health, but her sanity as well. As she had been dwelling in the underground waterways of the floating prison, she found herself also contended with mutated experiments of what had once been human captives. Turned out, the synthes have a very particular sense of curiosity towards organic anatomy.
During Rey’s wall excursion, she managed to sneak into various places of the floating prison undetected. Among them was the Administration, which allowed her access to blueprints and other valuable sources of information throughout the structure. She also learned that they were currently located in Russia. Committing all of this to memory, she tracked down the cells of Orion Gideon, Tejinder Wakeman, and Faye Elms.
Alone in the tunnels, Rey had plenty of time to think. And also talk to herself, as well as thinking while talking. Her feelings towards Faye remain confused, as she still felt as though she had wronged the woman, while at the same time wishing for some form of redemption while ultimately finding herself unworthy of it. In her loneliness, she had become more aware of her emotions as well as her memories, her desperation to stay alive for the sake of saving the others.
Somehow, she managed to survive after some encounters with the failed experiments that the synthes had unleashed into the prison, including the waterways. Whether or not IV had done this because she needed someplace to put the experiments or she was aware of Rey’s presence within the prison walls, she couldn’t tell. Either way, it wasn’t a huge priority. Living was. That was, until the prison’s self-cleaning system washed Rey through the tunnels and thrown out and down a 40,000-foot drop.
Fortunately for her own synthetic-organic anatomy, she survived landing atop a prison-bound shuttle, only to plummet even farther. This ultimately saved her life, when Rey was thrown across Concordia, below the prison.
Waking in an alleyway, Rey made her way through the city to confirm that the entire city was populated by synthes. She also learned of some peculiar unrest among the population.
It was a woman who looked just like Isobel Rhodes, Faye’s late wife and the Canadian sniper Rey had killed as Safronov.
This shouldn’t have come as a surprise to Rey. After all, the synthes were known to take on the appearance of the dead as a form of psychological torture, and no doubt this synth had been created to torment Faye. Strangely, though, the synth introduced herself as Elizabeth, and insisted that she was on Rey’s side. That she had developed a sort of connection or need to protect Faye Elms, which meant that synthes like her were given the memories of the dead, as well as meant to simulate human emotions. But that was all they were — simulations. They still couldn’t feel in the same way a human (or even Rey) could. As such, there was a sense of incompletion about them, Elizabeth included.
Skeptical at first, Rey started to believe that the synth was genuine in both her feelings for Faye and her desire to help. To prove this, Elizabeth started to help Rey better blend in with the synthetics of Concordia, and sent Rey along her merry way.
On the streets, Rey observed the synthes some more, learning about their unique culture and behaviors. Before long, Rey encountered Aiden Winters, who she hadn’t seen since Ashwater. Having no idea that he was even in Concordia, she realized that she had been sensing something off about him all along.
Aiden Winters was not human. He was a synthe.
Rather, he was Aiden Winters’ memories transferred inside a synthetic vessel. In every sense he was Aiden, but he was also just a copy. He explained to Rey, once removing her from the streets, that his human body had been heavily damaged during the procedure, resulting in a stroke. While Aiden existed as a synthe, his human body suffered in the sky prison.
For the next three days, the two planned a prison break. After a few snafus, the duo were able to breach Concord’s security. They parted, despite Rey’s insistence that he come with her. It was the last time she saw Aiden Winters.
Now on her own mission to break her friends out of prison, Rey ran into a Coder from Novitas Technology, Victoria Nguyen. The NoviTech employee had promised to offer assist Rey so long as she helped her and her friend/colleague escape as well. Why would two corporate employees be beneficial? Because they had ports in the back of their heads using similar technology to Tejinder Wakeman’s Bridge. Syberminds were similar, though not as reliable, and played a key role in the GRIGORI Program’s endgame.
Against her better judgment, Rey released Victoria from captivity and the two were eventually joined by Elizabeth, who had tracked them down from one of the control rooms. The synthetic woman offered her own aid, which Rey was hesitant to accept, having no intention of allowing Elizabeth to live at the end of the day.
After saving her brother from being scrapped for parts, Orion explained to Rey that IV actually intended to capture Rey. While urging her to escape with him, Orion fought a losing argument with Rey over staying to save Faye Elms. Aiden had helped release Tejinder Wakeman and Victoria’s friend, Cyra Huxley, but Faye was on the other side of the prison and about to be prepped for an “extraction” procedure, similar to what Aiden went through.
Not willing to leave Faye behind, the siblings were forced once again to part ways, making their reunion a brief one. After a heartfelt farewell, Orion took off with Victoria to the hangar where they would make their escape with Cyra and Tejinder.
Elizabeth would escort Rey to Faye. Once they were near their destination, Rey played a ruse against the synthetic, pretending to be in pain suddenly to put Elizabeth’s guard down. Rey then revealed her true intention, and decapitated Elizabeth’s vessel. The passive synthetic went down with barely a struggle.
Using Elizabeth’s head to scan through security, it was possible for Rey to reach the laboratories. She pulled Faye out of an extraction chamber and carried her through the prison, discarding Elizabeth’s head on the way to the hangars. She took a second shuttle that Aiden had prepped for Rey, and she was forced to escape without knowing whether or not her friend was okay.
They left the prison without event, a stroke of luck that Rey found odd. They managed to make it halfway across Russia when something collided with the shuttle and knocked them out of the sky.
Landed in Arkhangelsk, Russia with minimal supplies and Faye’s unconscious body severely wounded, the only thing Rey could do was patch the woman up and hunt for supplies. She carried Faye to a hotel that was just as desolate as the whole town. When she came back, Faye was conscious. She had filled the woman in on everything that had happened since they escaped the prison, neglecting the fact that she had killed Elizabeth.
That wasn’t much of a concern, anyway. Faye was more worried that the injuries she had sustained from the crash had miraculously healed. She then revealed to Rey that she had been injected with Lucas’ immortal cell line, which had affected Faye differently than most prisoners. Unsure of what the cells would do to Faye, the former sniper began to panic and question her own humanity. Rey tried to get the other woman to eat, only to be brutally assaulted by Faye. Without putting up even so much as a fight, Rey allowed Faye to do so, feeling that she deserved the punishment. When the going got even tougher, Rey even offered the sniper a chance to make up for what happened to her dead wife, and gave Faye a gun. Feeling that she had accomplished what she had set out to do, this seemed like a good time as any for Faye to exact revenge for Isobel. Rey even divulged that she had killed Elizabeth to push Faye over the edge.
Finally coming to the conclusion that Rey was no longer the same person from all those years ago, Faye did not pull the trigger. To her, it would be killing an uninvolved party.
Dumbfounded by Faye’s conclusion, the two women ended up bonding. Eventually, Faye kissed Rey. Confused if not drawn to the other woman, Rey reciprocated, further realizing her true feelings towards Faye Elms.
The moment was cut short when “Elizabeth” stormed the abandoned hotel where they were recuperating. The same “Elizabeth” who still somehow shared the appearance of Isobel, her head intact and all.
Rey attacked “Elizabeth”, pummeling the synth’s face in until she was then blindsided by Faye, who had slipped into a panicked frenzy wrought with trauma. Terrified of both how Faye saw her (killing a woman who looked like her dead wife), Rey fled into the stormy night, leaving Faye behind.
Eventually, “Elizabeth” caught up with Rey on the outskirts of Arkhangelsk. The synth, now dragging a rebar alongside her, revealed herself to be actually IV wearing one of Elizabeth’s vessels, and explained to Rey what she intended to do with the woman.
In that moment, IV plunged the rebar straight through Rey’s chest.
Entry tags:
✘ setting

and lead us not into sickness, but deliver us from evil
SETTING
WARNING
(Yeah, I know. It's weird for me to say that, too.)
{If you want more basic info on Rey, go here.}
PROJECT SERAPHIM takes place in the middle of the twenty-second century. But it began with a man who was born on November 30th, 1770.
It began in a village called Hartlone Hollow. Leland Cleary, an intellectually prodigal professor who hailed from a simple Irish community, was trying to breakdown a cure for typhus, during a time in which an epidemic had been going around. The disease had already claimed his twin son and daughter -- Fergus and Fiona -- and then threatened the life of his wife, Shea. Unknown to him, Leland was born with a strain of “immortal” cells (much later in history, they will be known as the Cleary cells).
Eventually, Leland ventured out in a fever. He stumbled upon a foreign compound near a hazel tree, way off in the outskirts of the village. He had no idea what it was at the time, as the concept of material from another world was completely unheard of. Still, he took the substance. His wife was on the near verge of death. He worked with the substance in solitude. He barely saw her.
She died. Leland waited patiently to reunite with his family, only to recover from what turned out to be a terrible flu. He lived.
Many years went on. Leland continued to work on the compound, giving little of a shit about his own health. His friend, Garrett Tremond, expressed concern for Leland’s mental state. As Leland closed in on a breakthrough with the compound, he fell ill once again, this time carrying the same symptoms of the plague that had taken the rest of Hartlone Hollow. In his desperation to survive in order to invent a “panacea”, Leland attempted to test the results on himself. The panacea proved to be a painful process that proceeded for several months. He kept records in a series of leather journals.
Just when the disease nearly took him, Leland miraculously recovered after six months of unbearable agony as a result of his impeccable immune system. He later discovered that not only had he just invented his panacea, but the key to rewriting the human gene sequence entirely with this alien compound. The panacea was, however, stolen by Garrett Tremond, who took the cure for his own dying child, Charlotte.
The effects left something to be desired.
Unlike himself, the child began to twist into something else. Leland himself tried to put the creature out of its misery, but Garrett stopped him, trying to protect his own daughter. A crazed little Charlotte bit his ear off. With her father disabled, Leland killed the child by drowning her in the river while Garrett plunged into a catatonic state. Leland would discover that when an infected child made contact with something alive, it would begin to infect that organism like a virus, and Garrett Tremond’s body acted as a carrier.
Out of the seeds of good intentions, an unnatural disease was born.
Leland tried what he could to contain the mutation, but as it turned out, several of those affected by the panacea could not be easily killed. Charlotte had not even fully died after the drowning.
While the panacea began to rapidly spread throughout Hartlone Hollow, Leland experimented on the few infected individual children that created the Orphans. When the entire village became compromised, Leland burned Hartlone Hollow to the ground, successfully killing most of the villagers. Leland stayed to deal with the remaining locals, murdering his own friends, neighbors, and acquaintances that he had grown up with.
After his research with the Orphans and the panacea run him into dead ends, Leland decided to euthanize his friend. He smothered Garrett with a pillow, and abandoned his hometown now in ruins.
As centuries went on, Leland learned that he never aged, and he never got sick again. He took on a number of aliases (all of them with the initials of L.C.). While the world around him waged on in its own battles, Leland worked to contain the unknown virus from further festering humankind, inevitable as it might have been.
By the 1900s, Leland learned how to heal other people, as well as regenerate himself in the event that he lost any limbs. While he tried to figure out how to revive the dead, this much his powers are limited to. Instead, he worked on trying to preserve and recreate life.
( what a dark mistake all my life has been. )
( when the levee breaks. )
Entry tags:
✘ extended history

WARNING
THIS POST CONTAINS MONDO SPOILERS.(Yeah, I know. It's weird for me to say that, too.)
{If you want more basic info on Rey, go here.}
NAVIGATION
Reveille Glass and Velvet Soldier's Things What the Thunder Said |
The Salamander Seraphim ASCENT Seraphim STORM Seraphim FOXHOLE |
( kiss this sad dirt goodbye. )
( as you breathe gasping holding air tight like it's your last. )
( when the levee breaks. )
( tomorrow never knows. )
( who are you mad at? me, or yourself? )
( no i don't remember. )
( just because you've forgotten, that don't mean you're forgiven. )
( you always hurt the ones you love. )