Chapter Text
“Look, mother, look.” The young boy smiled, crouching down in the field and pointing to a small garter snake, eyes alight with wonder through his glasses. His mother, pausing with the soil samples, simply smiled and looked across the field towards her other son.
“Come on, Kevin!” She called, watching as Cecil’s darker haired brother jumped up and bounded towards them, backpack in hand and wide smile on his face. “Do you like it up here?” The older woman inquired, smiling softly as both her sons stood beside her. “Isn’t it wonderful?”
“I think it’s gorgeous.” Cecil sighed, breathing in the scent of fresh mountain air and smiling towards his older brother. “Lots of life. And animals.” He hinted with a grin, watching his mother roll her eyes.
“Come on, boys, it’s getting late.” They weaved through the trees, off the rugged terrain and soon ventured into the city. There was no need to drive; their home was nestled directly at the bottom of the wide breech that carved upwards through the mountain’s wide mass.
“I really want a pet, mother.” Cecil kept announcing, trotting ahead and playing with the straps of his backpack. “I think they are just wondrous. I’d like a big dog, mother. A big dog. I’d name it… Charlie.” The boy sighed at the thought. “With lots of fur and a nice bark!”
“Cecil, I’ve told you, not until you’re older. A dog would need someone at home to care for it. And since you’re at school, and I’m at work, the poor thing would be all alone.”
-:-
Carlos crouched in the bloody intersection, tapping the pencil against his clipboard repeatedly. It was hard to imagine that Cecil had done all that damage by himself, and he wouldn’t even believe it – had it not been that he witnessed the brutality with his own eyes.
The angel was still spread out in the road, guts oozing red and the contents of its recently filled stomach littered inside the mess. He’d been sent out to collect brain matter, tricky business considering that the angel may be packed full of radiation, or explode into a bloody cream. Either way, it was dangerous. As he worked, Cecil and Kevin wandered around nearby, placed with his team for aided backup, if necessary.
Taking the bone saw, Carlos had begun to carve gently at the creature’s skull, flinching when a pressurized gush of death washed out of the monsters eye socket. The scientist was thankful for his helmet, and the tight sealed lab equipment he was required to wear outside the base. Quickly sawing away at the angel’s skull, Carlos watched from the corner of his eye as Cecil rustled through old propaganda on the walls of many buildings and even found a small toy. It appeared to be a stress reliever, the ones that you squeezed and the eyes would pop out dramatically.
When the unit gave it a curios squeeze and the blobs body shrank and pushed out of its eyes, Cecil threw it away from him, blinking in alarm through the unshaded helmet. “Why do you people make stuff like that?” He muttered turning around to face Carlos before the helmet shaded once more, coating his features in a dark sheen. The armor had been repaired, cleansed and upgraded with a test field. Seeing as Cecil had been able to bust through an angel grade AT field, the engineers equipped his armor with a small phase space – in hopes of stopping any more breaks such as the one witness earlier.
“They are meant to ease stress and tension,” Carlos explained, peeling the top of the skull off and poking at the brain with a glass rod. No response from the angel, so he carefully pulled over the containment box, typing in his code and opening the pressurized tube. Kevin startled him, leaning over his shoulder with a shocked tension.
“What are you doing?” He asked tilting his helmet clad head and watching as Carlos pulled on an extra layer of gloves. The scientist concentrated on scooping up the full brain and carefully depositing it within the tube. Once the outer gloves were peeled off, Carlos slowly closed the container and moved to stand, shying away from Kevin.
“I’m collecting brain matter.” Carlos answered plainly, looking around the area and realizing Cecil was gone. He picked up the containment tube and walked toward the last place he’d seen the sensitive unit. His guards followed by instinct, and Kevin shifted beside him, armor a gentle yellow glow.
They found Cecil crouched in a filthy alley, chuckling happily. “Cecil?” Carlos tentatively spoke, making the unit whirl around to face the small team. In his arms was an underfeed, abandoned charcoal puppy.
“Dog.” Cecil simply stated holding the dog out with positive glee, his armor flickering in his excitement. “Look, a dog. Isn’t it cute?” He moved towards them, cradling the whimpering creature to his chest. “I think it’s hungry.”
“Cecil… you know we can’t keep that thing, right?” A solider to Carlos’s right announced, resting a hand on the wall as he rolled the gun through his skilled fingertips. Cecil’s armor flickered in confusion, than his shoulders hunched over with apparent difficultly. “Protocol, that little fur ball could be infected.” He continued, completely oblivious to Cecil’s increasing distress.
Carlos elbowed the stern man before approaching Cecil and hesitantly touching the dog. It felt bony and hungry even through his protective gloves. “Listen, Cecil, how about we take it too base and see what the board has to say about it, okay?” He tried to sooth, resting his fingertips on Cecil’s forearm and leading the saddened unit out into the road.
They walked in silence past the mess of an angel, and then to a district elevator, heavily guarded. It was a hassle to even get the puppy through, but thankfully, they managed. Cecil was strangely quiet the entire ride down, helmet pressed into the fur of the dog and arms protectively wrapped around it. Kevin poked around at the animal, humming to himself about a smiling god, or at least that’s what Carlos could make out of the strange chant.
-:-
The dog was eventually pried out of Cecil’s trembling fingers, and taken down a hall, out of sight, out of mind. Carlos watched Kevin and Cecil disrobe, pulling at the armor gloves and stepping back into a dock of sorts. It whirled around them, carefully peeling each piece of armor and placing inside a cleansing tube. Both units stepped out onto the platform dressed in a skin tight, black body suit. It cut off at their ankles, necks and wrists.
Cecil looked around for their normal clothes, finding them neatly folded on a stool and both grabbed their respective garments and peeled out of the suit before jumping into their more fitting materials. Carlos had to pry his gaze away, to busy stepping into his own pants and zipping them up to notice their naked presence.
Eventually, Cecil and Kevin where lead to their rooms, and placed there for the night. Carlos stayed up most the night in his lab, scanning and testing the brain for any oddities. And he was not disappointed; the angel’s brain had several portions. And two cerebellums, which may account for the beasts strange sense of gravity and movement. It wasn’t until much later that Carlos remembered the dog from earlier, and he nearly dumped the tray of brain all over his paperwork in his haste.
-:-
Cecil wasn’t tired, and since he’d done no fighting, he found no need to charge. So instead he stayed up, curled up on the couch with a simple patterned blanket and his tablet. His eyes flickered over the screen, taking in every instruction to his new game and going through each trail meticulously. When he heard his doors opening, the unit paused his game and moved his neck slightly to face the doors.
“Ow-shit, stop-” Carlos was never any good with animals, they were smelly, squirmy creatures who needed constant attention. Which is why the scientist couldn’t hold a dog, let alone a puppy, for more than two minutes.
The dog had soon twisted out of Carlos’s grip and hopped to the floor with the agility of a cat, wobbling on its fat legs as it pranced towards Cecil. The unit could hardly contain his excitement, rolling onto the floor and catching the dog with one hand as he pulled the creature to his chest. It’d been cleaned, rinsed of all the filth and given some food. It still was thin, and hardly looked healthy, but it was a start. Tests showed that the little fur ball had acquired no infections, or abnormalities during his stay topside.
“Carlos, you saved him!” Cecil squealed, holding the dog close to his chest and nuzzling into the soft fur, now unhindered by his helmet or gloves. “Thank you.” The unit breathed, smiling so brightly at the stunned scientist. He was absolutely thrilled, Cecil had always wanted a pet and he could hardly believe his eyes – they’d kept the dog alive!
Carlos stood in the doorway for a long time, blinking slowly and trying to quell a strange stirring in his heart, which only beat faster every time Cecil grinned at him. Eventually, he wandered inside and crouched next to the unit and the little dog, and cleared his throat. “What are you going to name it? We need to place a collar on this… hazard.” Carlos gestured toward the slobbering beast atop Cecil.
The unit blinked at Carlos in mild confusion, before sitting up and holding the oddly proportioned dog out in front of him, eyes scanning over every little detail. It had a patch of white fur on its nose, and right in the center of its chest. Its nose was pink, and its eyes brown. On it lolling tongue, Cecil could spot a tiny swirl of black and plague on its small teeth.
“Name?” He questioned once more, glancing at Carlos, who nodded encouragingly. After several long moments, Cecil pulled the puppy into a hug and smiled towards Carlos. “Well, I think I’ll name it… Charlie.”