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"This is not a good idea," Grim says, sharp and bitter.
"Which of us is in charge again?" her Father asks, cool, the threat implicit in his tone.
"I- you, sir, I know but- this isn't going to-"
"We are being well paid to take Thanos out. So make it happen. Or do I have to remind you what happens when you defy me?"
Grim ducks her head, breathes out carefully, doesn't let her reaction show beyond that. "No sir. I understand."
"Then get it done." He hangs up without saying anything else.
They're all here: Thanos, Gamora, Corvus, Proxima, Cull and even the sulky, blue-skinned third daughter who Grim had never been properly introduced to.
The whole family, assembled in the same place for the first time since Grim arrived.
...overwhelmed, quite honestly, she wasn't expecting this many people when she woke. Wasn't necessarily expecting anyone.
She shifts slightly, checking how her body feels.
"I- fine, sir," she says after a moment.
Her body doesn't feel quite as sore as she might expect it to, but there's definitely something different to it.
A pins-and-needles sensation lingers each time she shifts position.
"No obvious complications with component installation."
Corvus bites the side of a bony index finger, watching Grim's movements thoughtfully.
"Should be stronger and faster than ever. Give new cyber a try, see if any of the nodes need recalibration?"
She gets to her feet, stretches out her muscles. "I probably should check the calibration, yes," she agrees.
Her muscles want to move fast.
Her whole body's charged with electricity. Literal, all-too-familiar electricity. Whenever she contracts a muscle, the discharge nodes running along it activate in sequence (while the ones near any extending counter-muscles shut off simultaneously). Some of the resulting joint movements are too fast for the eye to follow.
It all probably comes as quite a shock. Sure, this new upgrade doesn't hurt nearly as bad as the Literal Torture Cybernetics it was based on, but it's impossible not to recall the latter when experiencing the former.
She breathes, ignores the flashes of phantom, remembered pain that echoes with the actual pain. She stops stretching briefly, closes her eyes, focuses on her body.
She is fine. She is here. He can't touch her. (...He's probably already dead.)
It's over. He can't hurt her now if he tries.
She moves again, with more purpose, judging where her body wants to move too fast and making it listen to her.
"Feels...good," she decides.
She smiles there, and it's triumphant and vicious.
Looks to Cull. "Care to spar?"
"--No."
Proxima shakes, speaking through grit teeth. She's held her piece for this long, but she just can't take it anymore.
"Is this really the sort of family we are? We're just going to replace Ebony with his murderer?"
She chokes up. Glances frightfully at her father. Continues in a whisper.
"He was bleeding out on the ground. We could have saved him. But then she... then she... Ebby wasn't even a threat anymore and she..."
"Have you ever been shot in the back by someone you didn't think was a threat?"
A snarky rejoinder dies in her throat.
Proxima doesn't feel her usual vicious self right now. She feels sad, confused, threatened.
She drops into a ready crouch and deploys a hidden blade from a mount on her forearm.
Grim immediately steps back, sits down heavily on the cot, lowers her eyes.
Proxima freezes in place.
She then slowly backs up into a posture of attention, retracts her blade, and lowers her eyes as well.
"She isn't wrong in her feelings," Grim points out, a little awkwardly.
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