Work Text:
Ember slowly came to on an old workbench. The room was dark, and that, combined with her vision still being fuzzy, made it impossible to make out anything more than vague shapes. Her body tingled, nerves slowly waking up from whatever was in her system. Where was she?
She tried to sit up, but she quickly discovered she was chained down. Metal cuffs and chains kept her ankles shoulder width apart, matching the ones that kept her wrists by her hips. A metal collar kept her head chained down as well. She pulled against the chains, trying to get a look at herself. Someone had stripped her, a pair of underwear providing the barest sense of decency to her otherwise naked body.
Her Solar began to dance and flicker across her skin as her breath grew shallow and her panic grew. How’d she get here? What was happening? Why couldn’t she remember—
~~
“I need to ask a big favor of you.”
“Is that right? What sort of favor were you thinking?”
“I—and you can say no I won’t feel bad—I need you to vivisect me.”
“I’m sorry sweetie, vivisect?”
“You wish to be cut open? I presume you also want to be awake?”
Ember nodded, eyes to the ground in growing embarrassment.
“Does Spark know about this?”
“Oh, I know about it.” The Ghost in question appeared at the sound of his name. “Don’t like it either. But she’s been having some trouble adjusting to retirement, and she thinks this will help her. Not entirely sure how, but at this point I’m willing to help her with anything.”
Ampere and Bones looked to each other, silent conversation passing between them. The longer the silence went on the more anxious Ember got, and she considered taking back the request.
Eventually, Ampere spoke. “Well, this is quite an unusual request,” they cradled a hand against Ember’s face, “But I think we can talk about this in further detail, if you’d like.”
Ember sighed in relief. “I would. I would like.”
~~
That’s right. She’d asked for this. And with that memory her Solar immediately settled back under her skin. Her breath stayed shallow, but instead of fear and confusion, it was shortened due to excitement and anticipation. The drugs she had provided Ampere with had left her system, and she was now incredibly aware of the air and table touching her bare skin.
“Oooh looks like she’s finally awake,” Ampere cooed from somewhere in the room. Her vision had finally cleared, and Ember thought she saw a figure in the darkness past her feet. She was startled when a familiar hand gently stroked her cheek, and Ampere leaned over her from behind her head.
“Such a cute little thing, did you like your nap? You’ll need all the energy you can get for what’s coming next.” Ampere tapped Ember’s nose, faint Arc energy in their finger shocking her and making her jump and forget to reply. “And you’re already so wound up! Bones, come look at this!”
The figure Ember saw earlier approached at Ampere’s beckoning, and she barely caught the glint of a scalpel in his hand.
Bones stood beside her, experimentally dragging the blade along Ember’s arm. She flinched as it cut her, just deep enough for tiny droplets of blood to well up in the wound.
“Tense,” he commented, running a finger along the cut he’d made.
“She’s so tense! If she didn’t want to be lucid I’d suggest drugging her again.” Ember whimpered at the comment and Ampere laughed. “Maybe next time, hm? You were so pliant while you were under.”
“She’s tensing up more.”
Ampere hummed, leaning into Ember’s ear and tangling their fingers in her hair. “I’m gonna need you to say something for this to continue. What’s your color, sweetie?”
“Green. Green I-I’m good,” Ember gasped out.
“And if you can’t speak and need to stop?”
A twitch of her hand and Spark appeared just long enough to look at the situation and immediately decompile. He was only there as safety, and didn’t particularly want to watch.
Ampere tugged on Ember’s hair, earning a short gasp. “Good girl,” they purred before leaving their place at Ember’s head. “So Bonesy, what’s the plan?”
“Too tense for any delicate cuts. Need to keep her from struggling too much.”
“Hmm. What about paralysis?”
Bones tilted his head and moved his scalpel to the back of Ember’s neck, positioned just between two vertebrae and threatening to slice. “Possible, would keep her lucid and would keep her from struggling.”
He pressed the blade down with just enough Solar to cauterize as he went, carefully avoiding the artery as he made a cut about an inch wide and deep enough to expose the muscle. Ember tensed even more as the cut was made, and she began to shake when Bones spread the wound wide, poking and prodding at the singed muscle. Eventually, he pried the muscles apart to expose the bone, and he poked at the cartilage with the scalpel.
“Would be easy too. Slip the blade right through the spine. Paralyze her from the neck down.” He sighed, removing the scalpel and moving down Ember’s right shoulder. “But no. I have a better idea. One that will let her feel what’s done.”
“Oh really?”
Ember managed to finally get her voice to cooperate, “Wh-what are you—” before being gently muffled by Ampere’s hand.
Bones didn’t answer, instead positioning his blade just under her armpit and slicing up quickly, cutting Ember’s pectoral muscles away from her arm. She yelped in pain and instinctively struggled against her chains. Uncaring, Bones moved down Ember’s arm, slicing where muscles and tendons attached to each other and to bone. When he got down to her wrist, he undid the metal cuff and admired his work. Her arm was littered in deep, charred cuts, oozing blood rather than gushing it. She was no doubt in a lot of pain, but she’d certainly felt worse before. As it was, she was mostly quiet save for heavy pants and she shook almost violently. But the arm Bones has sliced up was oddly still next to her trembling body. He grinned the way he would when he suspects a new engine will run perfectly.
“Tell me, Ember. Can you lift your arm?”
“I…uh…” To her credit, she certainly tried. But she couldn’t manage more than twitching. “No. No I-I can’t.” Her voice was a mix of horror and wonder.
“What did you cut away at, Bonsey?” Ampere asked.
“Her muscles. Her tendons. Disconnecting them from each other. Like destringing a puppet.” He moved around to Ember’s left arm. “She can struggle all she would like, but once I’m done, she wouldn’t be able to even get off this table.” Ember whined at the words, and Ampere jumped at the opportunity to tease.
“Oh do you like that sweetie? You were already quite helpless when we chained you down. But now you won’t even be able to struggle. Isn’t that exciting?”
Ember tried to nod, but she got cut off by Bones repeating his work on her left arm. The panting gave way to groans of pain and her eyes began to tear up from the overwhelming burning sensation in her arms.
“I think you should do her legs too,” Ampere suggested as Bones finished Ember’s left arm. “Can’t let them feel left out.”
Bones hummed, “Of course not. Though I’ll have to remove these.” He tugged at Ember’s underwear, staining them with his bloodied fingers. “They’re in the way.”
“You can remove them,” Ember spoke up with an enthusiasm that didn’t, or shouldn’t, match the situation, “Just. Just please. Keep going.”
Ampere giggled, running a hand down Ember’s chest, Arc sparking along the way, leaving faint burns. “Well, you heard the lady, Bones.”
Bones nodded before cutting her underwear away. Immediately he began slicing away at the muscles and tendons in her left hip and thigh.
Like with her arms, Ember could feel as the tenseness in her leg got cut away, unable to stay tense as they were sliced apart. It hurt like hell, and despite the blood loss being minimal, she could swear she began to feel lightheaded. But it felt good, this helplessness and forced relaxation. She just had to lay here and take it. And she was all too comfortable taking it, slipping further and further into this fuzzy headspace.
Ampere had taken to shocking Ember’s arms, delighting in the way her muscles tried to tense in response to the electricity, but failing to do more than twitch.
Bones moved around to Ember’s right leg, this time working from the ankle up. By the time he was done, Ember was fully naked and all of her limbs had been reduced to ineffectual twitching.
“Ampere, would you mind removing her ankle cuffs?” he asked as he moved up to Ember’s chest. “I believe we should move on to the main event.”
“Oh already? I feel like we barely got started.” Despite their complaint, they made their way to Ember’s ankles, trailing sparks along her side as they went.
“Maybe, but I do think Ember is already thoroughly relaxed, despite your attempts to keep her wound up.”
Ampere gasped in mock offense, “I would never!”
Bones glanced to where Ampere’s hand was still channeling sparks into Ember’s thigh and raised an eyebrow, his point further made by Ember’s breath breaking back into shallow pants and groans.
“Oh alright,” they conceded, landing harsh smack to Ember’s sliced up thigh. They smirked at the moan she let out. “But I want to break her next time. Maybe string her up.”
Bones sighed, trailing a finger across Ember’s torso, trying to decide how to cut. “Take that up with her.”
“Oh, I plan on it,” they said, undoing the ankle cuffs.
“Of course. Ember, are you still here?”
“Y-yeah,” she replied, voice shaky.
“Very good. I’m going to cut you open now. You will likely die shortly after. I’ll let you choose how long it takes.” He pressed his scalpel, no longer lit with Solar, to her collarbone. “Would you like me to keep you from bleeding out so you can experience it longer? Or would you prefer to slip away as I work?”
“I…I don’t…”
Ampere moved from Ember’s ankles to cradle her face, their mechanical eyes staring into Ember’s puffy, glowing ones. “Do you need to stop?” Ember shook her head. “Is it getting to be a bit much?”
“It’s…fuzzy. Burns.”
“And you’re taking it so well,” Ampere cooed, “Let’s let you bleed out then, hmm? As a reward for being so good.”
Ember nodded. “That sounds nice.”
With that confirmation, Bones began to slowly cut Ember’s torso in a y-shape. The top arms of the y slicing open from her collarbones to her sternum, with a long cut from her sternum, past her navel, and ending just above her pubic bone. Blood immediately began to flow from the wound without the cauterization, and Ember instinctively tried to thrash against it, to no avail.
Bones cut two more lines underneath her breasts. Once the cuts were made he grabbed one to use as a handle as he peeled it, skin, fat, and all, away from the pectorals underneath. The pain from the cuts and the muscles exposed to the air finally broke through Ember’s battle and death-hardened pain tolerance, and she began to cry. Her breath hitched as she sobbed while Ampere whispered praises and Bones repeated the action to her other breast.
Ampere reached down to prod at the exposed muscle while Bones worked. “Wow you really are just pure muscle. I mean look at these,” they squeezed the cords of muscle, and Ember trembled almost violently, “Could give you top surgery and you’d still have massive tits. And your whole body is like this? I’m jealous.” Ember could do no more than cry in response. Their hands trailed up to Ember’s neck and mutilated shoulders, digging their fingers into the cuts there. “So very strong. And so at our mercy.”
Meanwhile, Bones was prying open the long cut in Ember’s abdomen, working past the skin and fat and strong muscles to access her inner organs. He pulled at and prodded at her intestines and stomach, the feeling making Ember queasy on top of the almost blinding pain. Fortunately, Bones took that moment to grab at her esophagus, pinching it closed and preventing her from vomiting.
“Close call,” he muttered before Ember felt the feeling of the back of her throat being tugged on. It got to the point she thought it would tear before suddenly the pressure released. She tried to look down at herself, and managed to get an eyeful of Bones tying off her stomach like a balloon, her esophagus snipped in half. If she could, she’d have vomited at the mere sight.
Though maybe that was just the pain and blood loss.
Either way, she wasn’t going to try and look again. But as her vision began to swim she figured she wouldn’t see much more anyway.
As Bones kept fishing around in her guts she felt her energy drain away. Her sobs quieted down into barely a whimper, and her breathing began to slow. She thought she felt Bones reach up past her lungs to hold her heart, and a new, sharp pain spread from her chest before she passed out. He had pinched off her arteries.
She died moments later.
~~
Ember felt her Light knitting her body back together and she heard distant voices that got louder as she woke up. She felt someone wiping down her body with a warm, damp cloth and another someone urging her to sit up. The phantom pain from her death began to fade, and she found herself wrapped in a long, warm, and fuzzy bathrobe. Next thing she knew, she was being carried over to lay on a pull-out couch. Spark followed behind.
Ampere, the person she realized was carrying her, lay down next to her and pulled a warm blanket over her.
“Did you enjoy that?” they asked, and she nodded. “Think you can get words out sweetie?”
Ember nodded again. “It was good. Really good. Thank you.”
Ampere cooed. “Oh I’m glad we were able to make it good for you. Your Ghost got a bit worried.”
“I think most Ghosts would be worried when their Guardian is crying out in pain from being tortured,” Spark spoke, “But I can’t argue with results. I’ll let you relax for a bit. I’ll ask you about it later.” With that, he pressed himself to Ember’s forehead and flew off to talk to Clerval and Zap, Bones’ and Ampere’s Ghosts, about the experience.
Bones entered the room as Spark left, carrying a large mug of hot chocolate loaded with enough whipped cream and marshmallows to give Ember another heart attack. He handed it to her, and she took a long, careful drink from it.
She was more relaxed than she had felt in years.