Retribution


It wasn’t supposed to end like this. The chaos, the agony, the betrayal of it all. The piercing pain that had ravaged me on that unforeseen night paled in comparison to the boiling cacophony of anger that had fueled me as the months evolved into years afterward. The abhorration in my heart ached with each panged breath.

To this day, I do not know how I survived the assault. The crash. The healing. I… I had despised my body and my faults throughout my youth, and now… now it was almost comical. There are no words fitting to describe the emotional turmoil at my current state. I have still not recouped from it by any means, even if the resistance to push forward has finally ceased.

It was all in part to the plan. The new plan. The blueprints of retribution.

“I… I don’t think I can do that, Mr. Arpeggio,” the young mouse squeaked hesitantly. “I don’t have the technology or the appropriate lab size to achieve something like that…”

“You are saying it is impossible?”

“Well, no…” her nasally voice wavered uncertainly, “It’s just that… I’m only one person. Warping and… rewinding time just aren’t in the books to do by myself. I know you have your concepts and all… and… maybe they could work if I had the equipment…”

“Just give me an answer, dear, I don’t need to be coddled. Is it feasible or is it not?”

“No, it’s not.”

I exhaled a heavy sigh, the air whistling slightly through the trenches scored in my beak. It was difficult to grasp my composure, but I did so. “Very well. This is only a meager disappointment. We will simply have to proceed to Plan B.”

The mouse eyed me with large, curious brown orbs but did not respond.

The months crawled by. Two. Five. Twelve. Eighteen. I had tried in desperation to keep my mind off the impending wait by spending my time creatively as I hid myself from prying eyes. The prosthetics were hardly a challenge at their core for a machinist of my excelling skill level, but it was difficult to achieve the necessities to bring forth a sense of… normality. I could build the frames and movable parts, but I could not make them feel, make them react timely, make them… natural. I was no longer myself; I was half the man in every sense of the word. Remembering it on the daily only assisted in festering my undying hatred for what had happened, for whom had treated me this way, had damaged me, had destroyed me.

Neyla. The feline’s betrayal refused to leave my mind. It was on constant replay in my brain: her trickery, her lies, her unabashed manipulation. I had taught her everything I had known… and she vomited it all back up at me, turning the tables. I had trusted her far too deeply and it was a mistake that nearly ended me. She… she never gave it a second thought. The look of arrogance across her face, those turquoise eyes sparkling with delight as she stole my dreams away from me, still haunts me.

How could she be so cruel? So dastardly? Had I not treated her well? Had I not taken her in when she needed the support the most? Had I… had I not entrusted her as if she were my own flesh and blood? My… My…

She wanted me dead. Murdered! She thought only to smite me without hesitation! After all I had done? After all we were to achieve together? The audacity of it all!

The rage within my core continued to season as the months rolled by. My fury, my hate; a hate that surely would have rivaled the mighty silver bird that had almost become my second life. By the time my vengeful plan had come to its completion, I could hardly contain it anymore. The mouse engineer could likely feel the anger evaporating out of me. The poor girl, I had tried to be patient with her. I understood she had prior engagements which had led to greater allegiances and goals to achieve. I was no longer in the position I once was; I no longer had the power to force others to obey my demands. Yet, patience had grown thin. She knew this, but she had not betrayed me as the feline had. She had accomplished what she had been paid to do.

“It’s technically still a prototype, so there might be… issues, here and there, but all things considered it works more than effectively,” she had said. The tone of her voice had grown more confident than I last remembered years ago.

I stared with my remaining eye at the apparatus before me. Everything appeared as it should have compared to the early concepts, yet, not much made sense to me. I was an engineer myself… but only one of machines. I knew nothing once biology fell onto the plate, let alone scientific acts that played with God.

“I’ve tested it on numerous ferals and a couple, er… somewhat-willing volunteers. The results were messy in the beginning, but the last few batches have achieved a 99.8% success rate. I was able to reference some of the tech from a scientist in one of my recent missions that offered a good springboard. He created hybrids, but it was still close enough to get concepts for this… I know it isn’t my specialty but all things considered--”

“Will she be the same?” The words blurted from my beak.

The rodent pushed her glasses up onto her face. “Um. What do you mean?”

“Neyla,” I said, my eye not leaving the contraption. “Will it recreate her as she once was? Exactly?”

She nodded. “For the most part, yes. But it’s hard to say for certain since her memories won’t be transferred, and a person’s past affects their behavior.”

Thoughts buzzed around my weary mind. “What do I do, then?”

“Not a thing. The process has already begun. You only need to wait a little while longer. She needs to remain in the cell for at least sixteen weeks to reach the developmental age of when she originally died. If she’s taken out before, I can’t guarantee she will be the same or… or even survive.”

Survival. It was ironic, was it not? I had barely clung to life when she felled me. Now it is her that fears retaining breath?

“Very well,” was all I could muster.

“Arpeggio?” the mouse questioned with a flick of her droopy large ears, “I hope you don’t regret this.”

It was too late for regrets. I sat there, staring at the machine for days. The subtle emissions of bubbles, creaks, and whirling computer bits vibrated off the walls of the small, dark room. The plans… my plans. Did they ever truly succeed? Had I merely been privileged to have my work slip its way out of failure?

I clenched my fists. First the one of flesh, then the one of machine. The machine, it… it was not right. It’d never be right. There was always a delay, a numbness, a ghostly sensation. It would never be the same. I’d never grip the same, I’d never walk the same, I’d never see the same. Nothing would continue forth as it once had. I was a fool, I had begun to realize.

She did this to me. The bloody cat did this to me. And here I was attempting to bring her back? To make up for my errors? How could I be so daft? The damn cat would surely only betray me a second time. She was a clone… a clone of her old self. A clone entirely formulated from a few strands of hair and fur and blood scrounged up from the meager remnants of the wreckage. She would either be a useless copy that could never live up to the original or the same dastardly witch that had nearly killed me.

God-damn feline.

I stood up from my seat, my weight leaning on my organic limb. The room was encased in darkness besides the gentle red glow illuminating from the machine.

She did this to me. She ruined me! She ruined it all! How dare I ignorantly believe she deserved a second chance!

I brushed my fingers against the blade in my grasp. I could hardly remember how it had gotten there or why I thought to bring it. Perhaps my subconscious had other expectations. Memories were difficult to attain; I hadn’t slept in weeks. I stepped forward.

She damaged me, what was left of me. She took away everything I had. Everything I had worked for. Her original death had been well deserved. I could only hope she suffered as I had.

I broke the seal on the cell container, forcing an error alarm to spring up on the computer screen nearby. I ignored it, my mind focused on the task at hand. The blade pricked at my skin. A great urge beyond comprehension overcame me. I was blinded by rage, by loss, by agony. The fluid within the cell cascaded out across the floor. I reached in.

I loved her like my daughter. I promised her the world. She saw me as nothing more than a pawn on her board.

I hadn’t fathomed what my organic fingers might latch against, how much of the clone had been formed thus far. It had only been but a short few days. A lump of muscle and bone, perhaps? I didn’t know. I didn’t care. I wanted her dead. I needed my retribution: my revenge.

She needed to die by my hand.

I pulled it out, whatever it was. Small, soft, fragile. A chunk of meat and striped fur, glistening red in the light. It squirmed like an alien: a foreign entity.

My life meant nothing to her. Why should her life mean anything to me? I was a fool. Why did I believe I could change the past? How was bringing her back, uncorrupted, going to solve anything? She would eventually learn the truth. She would betray me again. I could not risk it; the entire plan was the creation of idiocy.

The damn cat. She needed to die. She needed to—

It cried then. Somewhere under the mucky liquid and matted fur and hair, it cried. Innocent and disoriented like a newborn kitten. It sounded as such because that is exactly what it was.

A babe. Writhing under my grip.

She needed to die.

I lifted my blade to its drenched chest as it heaved and coughed and cried. It would take but a single blow to end it all. To kill her. To seek my revenge. To never have to think about the damn beast again. What a waste of my time and efforts!

The grip of the knife in my artificial anatomy felt so empty. The satisfaction of plunging the blade through the child would never be worthwhile. I simply needed to—

It cried again. A fearful cry, a sound unlike anything I had ever heard prior. It was only then that it all came crashing down upon me.

She… she was…

The blade clattered to the floor, and subsequently, so did the two of us. I did not even feel the pain of the concrete floor against my bones as I sat there, one useable arm still tightly grasping the creature. It was her, more than certainly. The purple of her fur and the angular iconography of her stripes. Her eyes were sealed shut, but it took little thought to imagine they were the same turquoise that had mocked me years ago before my projected final moments.

But she was a child now. An infant. This was a mistake. I… I had to replace her. Call the Penelope girl, certainly she would know the effective procedure. She… she would… she could…

The child shivered, and its cries slowly faded. It was cold, wet, and coughing. I instinctively held her closer, drying the fur with the days-old cotton of my shirt. I don’t know why I felt such an urge, an urge that had moments ago held only the desire to eradicate.

She gently began to purr into my chest.

It was not supposed to end like this. This was not in my plan. This was not the retribution I had sought. I was a fool, a fool from the very beginning. I should have gone down with my ship, and the girl should have remained a ghost in the night. Nature had been cruel to me, and now I had corrupted the very same nature to bring the girl back into a world she no longer belonged.

Now I must reap what I sow.

---

I had mentioned I started a new Arpeggio AU using his anthro!Survived!version and I wrote a short back for Halloween for it. As usual, I forgot to post it here! Ugh!

Anyway, here are some illustrations I put along with it. You can read it "properly" on dA, but it works regardless!
https://www.deviantart.com/alfafill.....tory-769952340

I'll copy/paste the description from there here as well:

First things first:
• This is an AU/Alternative Universe obviously.
• This is NOT connected to my fic Birds of a Feather in any way.
• Timeline for this is between the end of Sly 2 and sometime after Sly 3 (but before Sly 4) and encompasses around 3-ish years.
• Arpeggio is anthro in this AU.

Now, to explain... lol
I've always liked the idea of Arpeggio seeing Neyla as either a close friend or family. I had doodled something (that I'll finish eventually) of Neyla as his adopted daughter and I loved it so much that I started developing several AUs for it. In the end, I liked the idea of Survived!Arpeggio the best since it added an interesting layer to it.

To explain further for anyone not in the Slyverse-know (or just anyone who is confused/wants easter eggs) the run down is, give-or-take, after he survived the crash at the end of Sly 2, Arpeggio managed to recover but obviously held a lot of qualms with how it all went down. He got in contact with Penelope (who I have also theorized he knew for a time before Sly 2 as the two of them both love machines, flying, and inventions. Perhaps an early candidate for his protege?) and sought to craft a time machine to undo his misfortunes. Because of his physical and mental current state, he isn't really able to assist more than concepting things for her to work off of. Penelope can't do it alone, though, so instead he has her create a machine to clone Neyla, who remains dead after the crash. Why? Perhaps he wanted his "perfect protege" back, to undo all his mistakes with her, or just because he can't grasp that she's gone. He gets his wish but... then he becomes an idiot as per usual. Instead of contacting Penelope to fix the situation, he decides to keep Neyla and raise her as his true daughter. (Meanwhile, Penelope steals his plans for the time travel machine and thus, Sly 4 results unbeknownst to Arpeggio lol)

TL;DR I half-assed a logical plotline for why Arpeggio has a clone baby of Neyla so I can live out my fantasies don't judge me.


This was also written for a contest on Sly Amino. Otherwise I probably never would have written it. But now I can draw and post pics and snippets from this AU without a confusing mess, yay!


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