The Bruised, The Battered, and the Broken, Aidan

[Markus Dware]

Seven Years Ago... August 1882, New Venice

The last thing Markus remembered was the large engine crashing down on his prone body, a sharp pain in his left arm, then only darkness. His head swirled with dark waves of pain and terror. He realized that something had happened. Even in his dreams he could not feel his left arm. He wandered the wastelands of his mind for what to him felt like hundreds of years. He could feel the sensations of his limbs being torn from their sockets, the fogs of the mental wasteland dissolving his legs in their swirling clouds.

Markus could not see his arm and legs in the fog, almost as though he were floating through a never ending path of eternal night. He could feel things being driven into his flesh, the sensation of sawing and slow ripping. He felt the punch of metal being driven into his very muscles. They stung and hurt. The intense pain being drilled into him made Markus curl into his own self, trying to escape the immense torture he was feeling. Even in the dark of his own personal world he could feel the effects of what his body was going through.

One Month Later.

Markus could feel the fog lifting. His mind was getting clearer and the lights in front of his eyelids driving the consciousness away from the ball of pain. He could feel his eyelids shifting. Wait, eyelid. He could only feel one. Markus' eye shot open. He couldn't lift his body, and he could only feel one eye, and yet... he could see through both eyesockets. He tried to lift his arms, but only one would move. that is when the shouting started.

"He's awake! Nurse, get the specialist!" The doctor shouted as he came in the room. He ran over to the twenty-three year old in the bed as the nurse ran down the hall. "Just relax, relax young man, we have someone here who can explain everything to you, just settle down."

"Wha-What happened to me?" Markus asked, his head swimming...

[Aidan Montgomery]

Explanations. Honestly, if he didn't think the nurses were a bunch of mindless ferrets, he would have left that job up to them. But he doubted they could grasp the concept of a part-man, part-machine individual, so he was stuck with having to provide the explanations himself.

Frankly, Aidan Montgomery had better things to do.

He stepped in, looking critically at his creation. It wasn't often he felt too proud of his achievements. So far, he hadn't managed to surprise himself. This was rough work, done speedily, so as to preserve the very life it held within it. It was hardly something Aidan was necessarily proud of. Yet it was serving its purpose just fine.

Stepping to the bed, he pulled the sheets away, inspecting the machinery very carefully.

"Can you feel this?" he asked, pushing against the man's new chest. He should have been able to. Eventually, he would get used to the pressure pads on the soles of his new feet and on the tips of his new fingers, too. Not much finesse had been put into this one, Aidan realised. He'd done better work. His right hand hadn't been his priority, so he'd left it, lame. He could use his left - Aidan had had to rebuild that, along with his legs.

Perhaps one bit of mastery was the man's - Markus Dware's - chest. Aidan allowed himself to feel pleased about that one. After all, not every day was a man presented with the opportunity of recreating human organs.

[Markus Dware]

The person the doctor fetched came in the room. Markus was completely confused about the man, as the sheets were ripped away from him, revealing his new legs. Markus sat there in shock. My... my legs... they are... Markus struggled to keep what ever they had jammed into his mouth to keep him alive down into his stomach as the urge to vomit grew.

He watched at the man as he looked over Markus' new body parts. The whole thing still felt like a dream. That is until the man pushed his chest. A sharp pain spread through his torso as the grafted skin grated against the metal of the new parts as the skin clung to it. The shock sent him out of his distant phase. He nearly jumped, if he could have, and exclaimed at the pain. It served to piss him off.

"Ow, shit, yes, yes I can feel that. Now what the hell happened to me... what happened..." He stopped as his blood ran cold. "Where, where is Issac?" He looked around the room, it was meant for eight people, but Markus was set up so it covered four of the eight bunk areas. "I don't see him, is he alright?"

[Aidan Montgomery]

"I believe you were crushed by some machinery or the other. Perhaps I have not been clear enough," Aidan imperiously said, his fingers still inspecting his work, "I am your doctor - so to speak. My time is very precious - and thus rather limited - so you should do well to listen very carefully to what I am about to tell you."

He knew of no Isaacs, although Aidan suspected that was the body they had rolled out of the hospital hours before.

"Your life - as you may have guessed already, should you have been so prudent to do so - has changed dramatically. You shall observe a large spectrum of physiological changes in the following weeks. You may have moments of sluggishness and nausea. Migraines are also a common side-effect. Drugs are not recommended in this case. I encourage you to consume liquids in abundance - and no, that is not an invitation for your to further any state of inebriation. Water, instead, would be ideal." Aidan stepped away from the man, grabbing his coat.

"The nurses here are more than happy to assist you in your first attempts to use your new limbs." They probably wanted nothing to do with him - the ignorant fools. It mattered very little. Aidan's job was complete. "The reception has my address should there be any issues." He had told them he didn't wish to be contacted unless there were significant complications. He did not wish to be disturbed otherwise.

"Good luck," said Montgomery, fixing his hat on his head.