As I come to, the first thing that hits me is the acrid smell, then the heat. My brain tries to piece together where I am but my vision is a nauseating blur, not exactly aided by a persistent flicker, and my hearing only picks up a deafening crackle... shit, that's fire.
I grope around for some kind of purchase but my arms are entangled, my legs don't move at all. The entanglement, however, is familiar: my suit's cables, well serviced but worn in all the places I remember.
With this context, the picture clears somewhat: I am lying on the floor, with a dark shape that could only be my suit hunched over me, protecting me from the debris strewn all around. Aided by my memory, I grope some more and find the cable leading to my breathing mask - dirty but intact, thankfully. Breathing clean air clears my vision a bit more and I am horrified to see the damage on my suit: large gashes, scorch marks, bent, broken or missing paneling, sparking from multiple sources, the front wrenched open.
What happened to me?
I feel for the connection cables at the base of my neck but they aren't there, likely disconnected when I fell. When I look for the other ends inside my suit, I see scorch marks around the plugs, so reconnecting will likely kill me, great. I do have a backup, but it won't be pretty or pleasant in my current state. Prying loose a panel on the shoulder blade, I feel for the subtle give of the remote control unit. My suit jerks when I make contact, dislodging a piece of concrete that falls on my leg. I don't feel it, which I decisively label as a problem for future me.
A few more prods and jerks later and I can wedge my hand fully on the controls. My suit comes to life and I almost feel like myself again. I clean the debris away and carefully lift myself upright so I can take stock. My legs are crushed, no two ways about that, so I put an arm underneath the knees with all the care I can muster and lift myself into a carry. I fiddle with another panel inside myself and produce my self-defense pistol for my free hand, abd carefully take my first halting steps into the blaze.
The fire is everywhere and it takes more than a few burns before I get the grips of maneuvering myself through the rubble. One good thing from the damage is the open panels on my face; the lights underneath no longer contained, they can sweep over my surroundings much more clearly.
A sound comes from my left; a man in combat fatigues. He barks something at me but my scrambled brain cannot make heads or tails from it, and my slurred response likely doesn't please him in the slightest. I see him reach so I turn my head to him, he flinches, blinded by my baleful gaze and I vaguely point in his direction and squeeze. The gun bucks in my hand and I almost lose my grip as it discharges its payload. Aim compromised by concussion matters very little here as the man is engulfed in a cloud of flechettes, his helm and body armor saving his head and chest as the rest of him turns into a fine mist. I reload and press on.
Three bodies later and my brain is slowly getting unscrambled. I vaguely remember a bang at the front gates, and scrambling for my connection. Gunfire marring the panels of my skin. Snapping a soldier's neck and tossing him aside. A blast ragdolling me.
Cradling myself closer, I weave through more flaming debris, roughly following the direction the soldiers are coming from, pulping their bodies with flechettes as I go. A few return shots ping harmlessly off of me, and one bullet embeds itself in the cabling of my jaw but by this point that's just another scar for when I make it out; a story for the campfire.
I round the corner and find their breaching point: a small section of the building that somehow retained structual integrity in spite of the wholesale devastation everywhere else. Stepping closer, I note the lack of soldiers here; it's likely they retreated outside after not hearing back from their comrades. But with no other options and my flesh feeling on the high end of saignant, I proceed through. Outside, the brisk wind hits me first, before I see them all barricaded behind vans next to the back gate, and those vans I do recognize. When I started scraping junk together to build a more fitting body for myself, some people didn't take kindly to that. When I enthusiastically shared my designs online, the posts were taken down and some "concerned citizens" knocked on my door. Said I didn't need to upset the "natural order", that I didn't need to "mutilate" myself like this. I threw the door shut in their faces and by the time they came back knocking with a breaching shotgun, my prototype was live. I still cannot describe the feeling of wrapping myself in sleek panels and pistons other than joy. It's not for everyone, but it works for me.
This world tried to break me. Titanium and hydraulics made me whole. And as I tighten the grip on my remote control and my gun, I swear I will not let them break me again.
