True Creation Requires Sacrifice

Such is the gospel of the Flame. Preferably your sacrifice though, not mine.

Designation ‘Fracture’ here using a combination of recorded audio, stolen video tapes, and photographic memory to recount the events leading to the end of Experiment 926. I believe the experiment proved itself to be a complete success but I suppose that’s a truly hollowed victory at this point.

Actual Retelling:

Subject 926, Duckie/Ugly Duck, was in rare form today. Despite his injuries he proved to be quite the killing machine. He was right, when we arrived on location we found we had waited far too long to follow up on our attack. The site our dear highest was hiding out at was crawling with proxies who were trying hard not to act like they were on patrol. It was, after all, still an office building pretending to be a legitimate business but the panic was obviously there. I snuck in and shut off the lights. I heard some yelling in some of the neighboring rooms immediately. When I got back to Duckie I was informed that some of the pitiful proxies they had guarding the place immediately fled the scene when the lights went out.

Duckie seemed to think most of the buildings defenses would be composed of rookies and virtually anyone else the desperate highest could get his hands on to defend himself with. If they had anyone who could actually fight, they’d probably be right there with the highest leaving no one to direct the nosebleeds.

And as far as I could tell, Duckie was right. There were large gaps in their patrols, some places were over fortified leaving other key locations complete unguarded, and even when they did see us coming they didn’t know what to do with us. Most confrontations, as we stormed the place, ended in Duckie disemboweling a poor terrified moron whose only course of action seemed to be to run at him with a knife.

Those with guns proved to be, as Duckie put it, predictable.

There was one situation as we approached the control room where we were surrounded by 12 of them. I stepped back and let Duckie take care of it. Three lunged in to stab him. Duckie dodged it and pushed one to stab into the other.  The frightened stupid fuck started stabbing his buddy. They ended up killing each other.

Trying to avoid a repeat accident they started making swings at Duckie instead. Duckie gracefully dodged several blows returning every other attack with a slash of his own. By the time the remaining ten were done the hall was beginning to pool with their blood. Those unfortunate enough not to receive a fatal wound were left to bleed in the hall.

We secured and locked away sever key locations for our final assault on the top floor. As a security measure, it had to be accessed by elevator (Not sure how that got past building regulations) and we had to secure the generator that powered the that elevator, the control room that worked it, cut off secondary control access from other terminals, and convince the security protocols to initiate a hard reset after which Duckie and myself were named as the only authorized personnel who could influence the system. Did I say we? I. I did all that. Duckie fucking killed things all day. Without me he’d probably have been gassed in the elevator on the way up and woke up in time to be slowly skinned alive.

Anyways, after all the tedious little tasks were taken care of to make sure we could actually survive our trip up, it was time to ride the elevator.

“Fracture?”

“Yeah?”

“What’s the point of all this?”

“I thought that didn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t. But I would still like to know. Why are we doing this, killing a highest? Does the Master really care about trivial fucking politics?”

“Does Father care? Probably not. In fact I can tell you right now, no. No he does not.”

“Then again, why the fuck are we doing this?”

“Because I believe this will leave future Brothers and Sisters in a better place to serve Him. Without a soulless organization to burden and conform them, they could more easily foster into something new. Something the organization couldn’t have thought up on their own. Something useful for Father.”

“The Fire cult.”

“Yes, like the fire cult only less traitorous and hopefully far less insufferable. If the organization hadn’t shut those assholes down, I might have done it myself.”

I was then thrown into the wall with a solid fucking punch.

“Touchy…”

“So to better serve proxies so they could better serve the Master, we killed a bunch of them?”

“Nobody important, or else they probably wouldn’t have died. This is an important undertaking and we’re still within acceptable losses.”

“If this task is so important, why did you have Moth kill Firecracker?”

“I didn’t.”

“I know you did. You knew it was going to happen.”

“How could I possibly?”

“I don’t know, but I know you knew. You have a tell.”

“A tell?”

“Yes, a tell. Whenever something happens that you weren’t expecting, you adjust your glasses as if you were adjusting them to better take in a part of the world you had missed, like you are adjusting them to better fit an entirely new understanding on the world.”

“How very fucking poetic of you.”

“So why?”

“I didn’t set that up Duckie boy and if I had I wouldn’t ever tell you. But if I had, I would guess my reasoning would sound something like, ‘For fun.’”

This earned me another punch.

I was a bit dazed after that and I almost missed the sound of crunching bones and screaming from directly above us followed by a few thuds.

“No way,” I said as I unloaded both of my pistols into the roof of the elevator above us.

Duckie opened the hatched and what I saw confirmed some of my suspicions. Several proxies tried ambush us from the elevator roof using the path as there shouldn’t have been any other way onto the the elevator roof after all those security measures I took. Further proof was found later when I was inspecting the bodies and discovered one of the corpses was missing his lower body and an arm. I believe the arm was crushed into the elevator on landing. I think he lost the lower half of his body when the portal he was using abruptly closed on him after it made contact with the elevator, fascinating stuff. More evidence was evident from the fact that several of our would be ambushers died from falling from too high and plowing into the elevator.

The elevator opened to gunfire. Fortunately we weren’t there, we were on top of the elevator. I dropped down while they were reloading and let a flash bang fly. After it went off Duckie swept in and killed the hostiles.

Just one door stood between us as the highest we had been hunting. I was very relieved when we opened the door to find he was actually in there and there wasn’t just a bomb waiting for us or something because that’s probably what I would have done.

Duckie moved to step in but stopped, a painful chill clearly running down his spine.

“A loop?”

“Yeah.”

“Very clever Frank. Can’t get anything past you, apparently.”

Across the room sat the highest we had been hunting for, David Walters. Better known as Loveless to those actually authorized to know.

“You certainly never could.”

He had a proxy with him. An aged man and probably well trained, his eyes told me as much. He was a maskless like Firecracker was but he was much higher ranking then her, his mask shards had meaningful markings and symbols and some where cracked in new places.

“Bought yourself an assassin huh? Let’s see if he’s any good. Cover me Duckie, I’m going to root the room in reality,” I said and took a knee behind cover and started to focus.

“Oh no you don’t. Frenchy, kill them,” said Loveless as he started to focus in an effort to counteract me.

It was going to come down to Duckie and the Maskless. That probably should have been a climactic epic moment in which both of them fought with everything they had to see who was better and secure victory and I do believe the Maskless thought so as well as he ran towards Duckie to participate in that fight. That didn’t happen though.

Duckie drew his gun as fast as he could and gunned the Maskless down. Three shots: Liver, heart, and head. The Maskless went down hard.

Startled, Loveless lost his focus and I ripped apart his loop. Funny thing about loops, never sure what they’re going to do. There was a lot of backlash and far as I could tell it all hit me. I was thrown on my ass and was bleeding from my eyes with a gash up my arm. I’m lucky it wasn’t worse than that I guess.

Without the loop, the room was bare, just Loveless, the desk, and a chair. He hadn’t even bothered to paint the damn wall. Guess he figured he wouldn’t ever have to. He could always change them if he wanted to with a thought.

“Any last words, highest?”

“…Yes,” he said pulling a gun and firing off a few rounds.

Duckie dodged most of them as he closed in and pressed the highest to the wall, knife at his throat.

“I’m waiting for them,” Duckie said as a cut on his cheek that resulted from a bullet grazing it closed shut right before Loveless’ very eyes.

“Are you…,” he said making a gesture with his hands that sent Duckie flying back into the desk, “…wearing a loop? How peculiar,” he said making several move hand gestures, each one ripping open Duckie’s flesh.

“Such potential… and all you’ve been using it for is to graft your skin closed when you get a little boo-boo haven’t you?” he said squeezing his hand closed causing Duckie to start vomiting violently. “Tisk, tisk. No imagination.”

Duckie forced himself to his feet. Loveless made a gesture and Duckie was knocked back on his ass but Duckie forced himself back up. Loveless kept making gestures. Duckies flesh would bend, rip, and rend but he would not go down again.

“What the hell do you think are you doing, die already!” complained Loveless as his gestures got more frantic. Duckie forcibly picked up his knife. I could see Loveless was now trying to stop Duckie’s hand and when that didn’t work he was trying to push him back. I desperately wanted to help push Duckie forward but I couldn’t think very hard without wanting to start ripping my own hair out.

Slowly Duckie forced himself forward and dispite Loveless clearly trying as hard as he could to stop Duckie with his control over Duckies loop, Duckie kept getting closer until he was just inches away. Desperate, Loveless reached for his gun but in the moment that he dropped his focus to do so Duckie ripped his throat open.

Loveless fell to the floor gasping for breath and then quickly bled out.

Duckie crumpled over in pain and dug a knife into his own arm. “Fuck… off!” he yelled and twisted the knife. I watched a wave of energy ripple over him and then violently tear at him shredding and scarring his flesh and leaving him looking much more like he did before he died and came back with a perfect complexion. In fact, I think he looked even worse. As if all those cuts and scars he should have been given over these last six months had all suddenly appeared. Once again, Ugly Duck was ugly and his loop was gone.

We were still for a little while after that. I think we were both surprised he was alive. But I guess that’s what Duckie does. He kills and survives. Eventually he forced himself to his feet and over to the oversized window so he could look out on the city and its lights.

“Worst last words ever,” he said and then started to laugh. I couldn’t help but laugh with him. I stood up too and moved over to the door way to get a better look at him.

“You did a great job Duckie. I’m proud of you.”

“That… that means a lot… I guess.”

“That makes this next part difficult.”

He laughed again for a moment but stopped when I didn’t start laughing with him.

“Oh, you’re serious? You really think you can take me after all this Fracture? Just going to kill me to tie up loose ends as you secure your own position as a new Highest? You’re as bad as the rest of these sick fucks,” said Duckie as he turned his mangled face to face me. “I’m g-,” he said and then abruptly stopped.

“Yeah…” I said scratching the back of my neck and looking away before turning to face Duckie again.

“Believe me, I would have preferred to keep you but this comes right from the top,” I said knowing full well Father was right behind me. I could feel he was eager. Father ripped into the back of my left shoulder urging me to hurry up.

“I… don’t understand.”

“Does it matter?” I asked moving over to him, limping from exhaustion. “I’m going to level with you Duckie. Your master, he hates you. He hates you so much. The bureaucracy is all that made you viable as an agent, because then he didn’t have to see you or be around you. And even if we could arrange someone to relay orders to you, he’s tired of you. I know you’ve been improving. I know it’s unfair that this happened after you stopped fighting me every step of the way over every little order. But this isn’t about fair. This is about Him.”

“I… I understand,” he said as he started to bleed from his nose. I looked back over to Father and sure enough their presence in the same room was starting to have an adverse effect on both of them. I watched as Father blinked out of existence for a moment and then blinked back in making an awkward, stiff,  and sudden motion. Duckie started to bleed from his eyes.

“You could fight this Duckie. You could run. Because you’re you, maybe, just maybe, you could fight this and win,” I said as I discretely got my knife out, ready to end this if he made the wrong decision.

He didn’t respond though, not with words at least. He punched me, hard, and knocked me on my ass.

“Never…,” he said and started to stumble over to Father. I sat up and adjusted my glasses.

“I-I…. s-serve…” he said and forced himself down on a knee.

Finally, Father’s tendrils descended upon him. Duckie screamed as every little piece of him that made him who he was got  slowly ripped away from him and violent shredded leaving little more than a husk and blood where a loyal man once stood.

“Happy now?”



“No, that was not sass. That was a serious question. I did make you wait some twenty years for this after all. That’s kind of a long time.”



“Hehe. Yeah, I guess not. Relativity is a bitch. What now?”



“Understood, I will proceed.”



“Goodbye for now.”

“Guess I should clean this up…”

And so I did.

Fracture Out.