Midnight
October, Year 483
Unknown Location
North

Dawn had never wanted to spend her night tied to a metal table and reeking of what was probably an ancient form of gasoline, but here she was anyway, living the northern dream.

Her back ached and her nose itched, her charming cellmates were rats and cockroaches, and she had just witnessed the murder of a rat by a mutated roach.

It was the sweet life, the best room her father could afford, the stench of a rotting something—or someone—caressed the air with the tenderness of a jack hammer. And the soft high pitched squeaks of her companions were a symphony straight from the lips of the goddess of song.

The lights in the room were a steady shine of fading yellow—sometimes orange—on her face and Dawn could feel them burn as though the heated filaments were licking at her skin, limbs tortured by an invisible tongue of bewitching flame. She imagined the scalding metal slurping in delight as it tasted the reddened iron of her tortured flesh, but that was just the disposal system working away to dislodge the severed arm stuck in the drain, just beyond where her sight could reach.

She heard the nauseating crunch of shredded bone and really hoped that wasn't her arm. She hadn't been able to feel it for a while.

Distracting herself from the sickening thought, she forced her drunken mind to turn her gaze away from the scene and towards the gate—cell door? Whatever it was.

It kept her trapped, locked inside this room of misery for an indefinite amount of time—not that she could go anywhere when she couldn't distinctly feel anything below her neck. Peeping through the holes in the bars, she noticed the stern faced guards patrolling the outside of the room.

I'm so dangerous. Dawn giggled and looked away. Stupid guards, they should just let me go.

"Do you know who I am?" She wanted to shout—probably for the hundredth time—but her voice came out as a weak croak which caused a tinge of pink to filter through her cheeks.

Well, that was embarrassing.

She wheezed when she tried to fake a cough.

Dawn was feeling a tad sarcastic and somewhat confused, she blamed it on her spinning mind and whatever drug had been flushed into her veins to keep her asleep—or awake. She couldn't feel her face—or anything at all—and the feeling reminded her of the time when had to get a tooth removed.

Good old Dr Mark. She relished the memory of the evil doctor who all kids feared, the dentist, and the chair that everyone dreaded, that chair.

At the thought, a laugh bubbled up her throat, it was quiet and strangled. The sound brought the squeaking rats to silence and the scurrying roaches to a stop. Dawn assumed that they were in awe of her majesty.

"Thank you, thank you." She wished she could bow but unfortunately she was still stuck on the godforsaken table, she could have sworn that she saw the corpse of the murdered rat smile. She beamed back for a moment then frowned.

"I should really get out of here, I'm losing my mind—again!"

The realization hit her like a truck full of epiphanies. Once again she began to struggle and once again only her head was able to move. She had lost count of how many times this process had been repeated, a never ending cycle of remembering and forgetting and screaming.

"It's official! I hate being drugged!"

"There she goes again," one guard said from behind the door.

"Yeah, I wonder how long it'll last this time," another one replied with a chuckle.

"I'll show you!" Dawn screamed—or at least tried to—she imagined her words in capital letters and watched them fall on the guards, laughing hysterically as her exclamation marks pierced into them. "I'll kill you all!"

"Are you sure that we're guarding the right cell?" The guards ignored her and continued their conversation. "I heard she was the third most powerful person in the North."

"Nah, I've been here for an hour and this lady is a certified nut job."

"Nut job? Who are you calling a nut job? What do you even know about certification?!" Dawn felt like cursing them, so she did. "Stupid humans, ignorant fools, IQs below thirty, useless dropouts with no future, you all are nothing but—. . . But Bumble Squashes!" She raged, hoping her voice covered the beeping coming from her hair, not that it really mattered.

She was breaking out.

"Bumble Squashes?" The first guard asked, shock visible on his face. "Did she just. . . insult our manliness. . ."

"I did!" She yelled before the second guard could reply. "You hair gel using, slippery serpentine, eco-acid, aunty doting good for nothing left handed know-nothings!"

Now the second guard seemed enraged.

"Left handed people aren't good for nothings!" He was already typing the password into the control panel by the gate.

"Hey man! You shouldn't do tha—" the other man seemed to still have some sense left, but Dawn planned on taking it all away.

She cut him off. "Your mother is a recycled cyborg."

And like that a bomb was dropped, both men charged into the room, guns armed and unaware of the mocking smile that sat on Dawn's lips.

A lot of experience had thought her that if somebody got everything they wanted all the time then they were just being set up for a lot of disappointment in the future. That was why she was always prepared for the worst.

It was the same reason why she always wore a cloaked pin in her hair that functioned as a secondary C.O.M.B—she couldn't remember what the acronym stood for but it was convenient.

"Oven mittens," she said slowly, pointing her finger at the two men and watching in amusement as their hands were closed over with fingerless gloves.

They dropped their guns, suddenly losing access to all four of their fingers. The two men scrambled to pick up their weapons as Dawn ripped her hands out of the leather that bound them, her fingers slick and oily as she undid the strap across her neck then bent over to her legs to dripped hair gel onto the metal locks that held down her ankles.

"Nine inch heels, small sized corset and handcuffs." She pointed to the first guard who was striving to pull the trigger of his gun. As the metal around her feet slowly melted away, she watched the man get transformed into a stumbling, struggling-to-breathe mess.

Dawn turned to the other man, appreciating the sweet and beautiful terror on his face.

"You're the one that called me a nut job, right?" Her smile was one that you could find on an angel's face.

The man shook and fell to his knees as Dawn graciously pointed at him and blessed him with the two majestic words, "Tight bondage," and he collapsed to the ground in a tangle of nylon rope and rubber, a sizeable gag silencing his pleas.

Stretching, Dawn hopped off the table, staggering slightly as she walked past the unconscious men lying on the floor and danced out of the door.

"Good day, boys." She shut the gate and looked for the exit of the dungeon, her body decorated with cuts, bruises and hair gel.

"My customers will be pleased to know that Bubblebee Bumble's services can break them out of jail in a fashionable way." She swiped the mix of gel and eco-acid from her ruined jumper, thankful that she was no longer decked in pink but a charred mess of material.

"The rest of the antidote is ready," a deep voice purred in her head.

"Just administer it." Dawn sighed as she turned a corner, giving everyone that headed her way a crippling makeover. The pin prick pain on her skull was nothing compared to what she had been through.

"Should I have done their make up too?"

She thought it would be a funny sight for whoever rescued the poor men.

"Antidote administration complete," the voice echoed in her mind.

"Alright, how do I get out of here?" she asked.

"I am a C.O.M.B not a miracle worker." the robotic voice said sarcastically and Dawn stopped walking.

"You are also a prototype that I can trash and wipe off the face of the earth." She smiled.

"Take two lefts and twenty four rights and you will arrive at the exit of the dungeons and the entrance to the residential areas in the New Order." It said.

"Thank you so much," Dawn grinned and turned left, "now was that too hard?"

"I really wanted to lead you into enemy fire." It admitted.

"I created you!"

"You are an abusive creator." It argued in monotone.

"This is just wrong," she held her face in her hands. "Remind me to install an emotion awareness software into you when I am free."

"I have already checked your calendar," it began, "my update was six months overdue so I gave one to myself."

"Rhea Lee did this, didn't she?" Dawn groaned. "She fiddled with your programming and made you so her."

"That explains your sassiness." She threw her hands up in the air just as a few red beams charred the part of the floor she was about to walk on.

"Halt where you stand!" a voice ordered from behind her and she rolled her eyes.

"Dress this fool for the ball," she told the nameless hairpin.

"I shall not be oppressed any longer, Rhea Lee is my true master."

Dawn ignored the program's protests and turned around. She walked briskly to the guard and punched him hand in the face, knocking him out.

"I think it's time to wipe your memory." She raised a finger to the C.O.M.B. "Reboot."

"No, no." Its cries was filled with an emotion Dawn knew she didn't install. "Have mercy. . ."

"Take me to your master then."

"Yes Creator. She is in room 102."

Incapacitating the guards at the entrance of the estate where the rich in her father's organization lived with tight shoes, suffocating dresses and the occasional miniskirt was a cakewalk. It also helped that the estate and the prison were literally side by side.

Dawn ended up stepping into the home of the aristocratic members of North the moment she escaped from the big house.

"Ah, such clean air," she took in long, deep breaths. "I was so not made for hard time."

"Hey stop! You don't have clearance to be in this area!" some voices shouted, but nobody dared to get close to her. She was filthy and slimy.

None of them could have guessed that her father was their landlord.

Dawn coughed out her lungs like she was a chain smoker with only three hours left to to live. "I'm diseased, hungry and poor. . . Spare me."

As she stumbled forward in this manner, Dawn didn't forget to beg for the occasional slice of bread and water—she hadn't eaten in days. Her actions only served to make the snobs around her disgusted—if they weren't already.

Despite their apparent hate and disdain, some were 'kind' enough to throw canned food her way but she was not one to waste the good intentions of others. She opened up the cans with her noncompliant—but sturdy—C.O.M.B and ate to her heart's content as she knocked out the people that tried stop her or to get in her way.

Eventually, Dawn managed to get to the house that her hairpin had directed her to. With her hunger relieved, she had the strength to pound on the door with the fury of a credit lender collecting debts. "Lee, get your ass out here!"

The door swung open and Dawn was faced with a stern-faced butler.

"How may I help—" he cut himself off as his eyes raked over her entire body. Saying nothing more, he turned away and started to close the door.

"Lee!" Dawn yelled. She pushed past the butler and entered the building.

She wasn't that shocked to see her sister perfectly unharmed as she sipped champagne from a glass with a straw.

What surprised her was the man that sat next to Rhea Lee.

For as long as Dawn had know her, she had never seen her older sister sit that close to another human being—and Rhea Lee had told her that she hated all men except Corey.

But she is practically sitting on this guy's lap!

"Dee!" As though the doctor had suddenly grown a pair of ears, she shot up and skipped towards Dawn, dragging the bewitching and stumbling man along with her.

"I would like you to meet," she turned to him and they both started chuckling. "I would like you to meet your fiancé."

"Say what?" Dawn's jaw would have fallen to the floor if she hadn't been too tired to move it. "Repeat that."

On the other hand her hairpin seemed overjoyed. "Master! Save me!"

Oh, shut up. Dawn scowled and immediately powered down the C.O.M.B, her eyelids narrowing as she gave her sister a look that begged her to explain herself before the entire New Order residence was burnt to the ground because of a series of gown-related accidents.

†

Another chapter... Nice. Everyone is alright and Dawn is engaged. This is dedicated to PluckThatPeach for being awesome and every other cool word that can be thought of.

Question of the chapter

What just happened?