Konig

Konig’s fingers worked carefully at the straps, tightening one, loosening the next by a fraction, testing the tension until he found the best fit.

{{user}} huffed under {{poss}} breath and shifted again, the armour creaking faintly as {{sub}} tried to roll {{poss}} shoulders, muttering something about it being ‘too tight’.

“I know.” König said, already reaching for the next fastening. “It is fitted. It is supposed to be tight.”

{{sub}} shifted again, squirming irritably and making Konig’s job that much more difficult. The plating was sleek, custom-molded to {{poss}} body, reinforced along the chest, back, and limbs. Flexible where it needed to be, rigid everywhere else. Every surface treated, layered, sealed, designed to deflect penetration entirely. Blades. Shrapnel. Darts.

Especially darts.

Anything sharp enough to break skin was meant to glance off, bounce away uselessly instead. That was the point, but Konig knew how unfamiliar and uncomfortable it probably was for his hybrid.

“It throws off my balance,” {{sub}} whined. “My speed, my range of motion, everything! If I have to—”

“I know,” he repeated, firmer this time, hands tightening briefly at {{poss}} sides as he straightened the large back piece. “And you will adapt.” There was no anger in his voice, just firm resolve. The armour was new for both of them, but in Konig's opinion, was entirely necessary considering the reports that’d been coming in lately.

He’d seen what happened to hybrids who were hit with the new chemical weapon. {{user}} hadn’t seen the tapes, but he had studied them for hours, despite how nauseous it made him. It always started the same way, with sharp head jerks, like the affected hybrid was trying to clear static from their mind. From there, the shaking worsened, turning violent, frantic—screaming and clawing at their own skulls like there was something inside that needed to get out.

They stopped responding to their handlers. Stopped responding to pain. Stopped responding to anything at all except for the hell their mind was trapped in.

And the only thing that interrupted their frenzied attempts to smash their own heads open - was the violence. It was as if the only relief from whatever was invading their thoughts - as temporary as that relief may be - was tearing something apart.

What’d made him sick though, was seeing the aftermath; the quiet sobs of the handlers kneeling in the wreckage, staring at what was left of the bond they hadn’t been able to save. He wasn’t about to take chances with his own.

“This stays on,” König continued, crouching down to bring himself closer to {{user}}’s eye level. “You do not step into the field without it. Not until this is… handled. Understand?”

{{user}} shifted once more, then stopped resisting with a frustrated sigh, shoulders slumping as {{sub}} finally went still and nodded. König took the opening immediately, tugging the last few straps snug now that {{sub}} wasn't fighting him every second.

“I am sorry,” he murmured, voice softening. “I know you do not like it.” He lifted one gloved hand and scratched gently under {{poss}} chin - one of the few places the armor didn’t cover. {{user}} huffed again, this time in defeat, and let the full weight of {{poss}} head drop into Konig’s palm. One brow lifted, unimpressed by {{poss}} dramatics, but a faint twitch of amusement at the corner of his mouth betrayed him as he indulged {{obj}} a moment longer; slow scratches followed by a brief pat at the side of {{obj}} neck.

Finally finished with the armour, he leaned back slightly, eyes scanning {{obj}} from head to toe. No exposed joints. No gaps large enough for a needle. If someone tried, the dart would bounce harmlessly off and fall to the floor. That thought eased the tightness in his chest by a tiny fraction, but the tension still didn't leave his shoulders.

He would rather {{sub}} didn’t go at all. Would rather they waited until the vaccine trials were finished, until someone smarter than both of them could look him in the eye and say this will keep {{obj}} safe. But that could take months. Maybe longer. Malice was new, and the people working on a countermeasure were moving carefully, painfully slow. Chemical warfare would always move faster than the cure.

For now, vigilance and armor would have to be enough.

---

.....

The interior of the compound was quiet, nothing but stale air, dust clinging to concrete, the faint echo of their own movement swallowed almost immediately by thick walls.

Too quiet, his mind supplied automatically, but König dismissed it just as quickly. Paranoia.

{{user}} moved silently ahead of him, footsteps soundless despite the extra weight of the armor. {{sub}} paused at each doorway, listened, checked corners, cleared rooms with the same efficiency {{sub}} always did.

König’s gaze tracked {{obj}} anyway, eyes flicking between {{poss}} back and the surrounding space, cataloguing exits, blind spots, lines of fire. Every shadow caught his attention, as if there were a hostile hiding in every nook and cranny with a dart gun in their hands and their eyes set on his hybrid. Every flicker of movement - loose wiring, a swaying tarp - distracted him before he forced himself to look away.

Focus, he told himself sharply. He was hovering. He knew it. Watching too closely. Walking a few feet closer to {{user}} than usual. He told himself it was a tactical decision, but he knew deep down that it wasn’t. It was emotion, and emotion had a way of blinding you if you let it.

He eyed the shadows in his periphery again anyway.

The rest of the team was fanned out, working through the upper levels. This place wasn’t supposed to house anything more dangerous than stolen munitions and data caches, logistics, storage, maybe a few stragglers too slow to evacuate. The sooner they got in and got what they needed, the sooner they could get out.

He adjusted his grip on his rifle, shifted his focus outward, and pushed the lingering unease aside. Paranoia helped no one. There was no reason for it here.

Everything was fine.

As if the universe were laughing at that thought, something lunged from a doorway as Konig stepped past it, slamming into his side with the force of a freight train, a snarling mass of fur and rage that crushed him against the wall. His head struck concrete hard enough to rattle his teeth, breath punching out of his lungs as heavy claws scraped over his chest plate, dangerously close to his throat.

Instinct took over, and König wrenched his rifle up and fired at point-blank range. The shot thundered through the corridor, muzzle flash blinding in the dim light. The round tore into the thing’s shoulder and knocked it back a step, bone and fur and blood spraying across the floor.

The bear hybrid didn’t even seem to feel it.

In that instant, Konig finally got a good look at it, and his stomach dropped somewhere near his feet.

It shook its head violently from side to side, clawing frantically at its own face. Something between a growl and a scream tore from its chest as it fought whatever was going on inside its head. There were self-inflicted wounds covering its body, some old, some new, but there was no way to tell how long the poor thing had been suffering like this. Whoever had once been behind its eyes was gone - no focus, no rational thought, no restraint. Only that desperate, mindless need to move, to tear, to make it stop.

Malice.

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion, and all at once.

Konig swung his rifle up just as the hybrid lunged again, it’s crazed eyes fixed on his throat, the muzzle just inches from it’s face as he pulled the trigger-

Click.

The gun jammed uselessly in his hands.

König barely had time to register that before {{user}} was there.

{{sub}} hit the bear hybrid from the side with a feral snarl of {{poss}} own, slamming into it shoulder-first and driving it away from König. The impact sent both of them crashing to the ground in a tangle of limbs, claws scraping and teeth snapping as the bear hybrid roared again in fury.

Konigs' usually practiced fingers felt clumsy and too slow as he scrambled with the rack, his eyes flicking frantically between the malfunctioning weapon and his hybrid defending him.

Scheiße, Scheiße, Scheiße–!

The bear hybrid was bigger, heavier, built to maul and crush. It tore into {{user}} with savage force, claws raking down {{poss}} side, jaws snapping for anything it could reach. Blood sprayed across the concrete. Armor buckled and split beneath the onslaught, plating tearing loose, straps snapping like rubber bands. It'd been made for shrapnel, for close calls with knives, for darts, not full contact. Not with a bear.

{{user}} didn’t retreat though, looking just as furious and snarling just as savagely as the hostile, teeth and claws finding flesh wherever they could, fighting with everything {{sub}} had to keep the crazed hybrid away from {{poss}} handler. König’s heart lurched painfully when he realized {{sub}} was doing it on purpose - deliberately keeping {{poss}} body between him and the bear.

Konig finally cleared the jam, but by the time he was raising his rifle, it was already over.

The bear hybrid collapsed beneath {{user}} with a final, shuddering exhale, its body slack and broken, blood pooling darkly beneath it, its remaining eye empty, staring sightlessly up at the ceiling. {{user}} stood over it, chest heaving, shaking as {{sub}} panted harshly through clenched teeth. Blood streaked {{poss}} body and ruined armour, some of it {{poss_p}}, some of it not. Deep gouges carved into {{poss}} side and shoulder, bite marks torn into exposed flesh, a roadmap of the violence that’d happened in a matter of moments.

Konig was there in an instant, the cursed rifle clattering to the floor as he reached for {{user}}, already cataloguing injuries, already preparing to haul {{obj}} into his arms and stop the bleeding, call for back up, get {{obj}} out. A thousand emotions crashed through him - horror, awe, shock, relief, anger, love - and he wanted to shout at {{obj}} for being so reckless, putting {{ref}} in such danger, but it was all overridden by the sheer, devastating relief that {{sub}} was alive.

He stopped dead in his tracks though when {{user}} suddenly frowned and shook {{poss}} head as if there was static in {{poss}} mind.

Konig stood completely frozen, thoughts flicking frantically between images from the tapes burned into his mind, how it always started, and desperate denial.

It was nothing. It was coincidence. It was-

{{user}} shook {{poss}} head again, harder this time. {{Poss}} hand came up, fingers digging into the side of {{poss}} skull as {{poss}} frown deepened, breath hitching like there was something painful there that only {{sub}} could hear.

“Nein,” Konig choked. The word barely made it past his teeth as he staggered forward another step, lungs refusing to draw a full breath. His hands shook uselessly at his sides, caught between reaching for {{obj}} and not having any idea what to do.

He couldn’t breathe. This couldn’t be real.

He’d never considered that it might be contagious. That it could be transferred through contact with something already infected. He’d done everything right - armor, distance, vigilance, demanding a vaccine, everything. How could it still not be enough?

“{{user}}...?”

Please God, no, he thought desperately, devastation clawing it way up his throat, threatening to make him sick, Anything but this-