#Certainly my Foundation is particularly harsh but still antilethal

[nomsfaultau]

[an excerpt from Fault, from the Cessation epoch. This is a SBI SCP AU. The SCP Foundation found a clever method of simultaneously training MTF units and sufficiently terrorizing a Thaumiel into summoning an escaped Keter.]

The game was called Target Practice and it went like this:

Tommy was being hunted. 

The maze was dark and twisting and decidedly urban, the floor littered with debris and gravel that cut into his bare feet, the twisting industry pipes and concrete walls riddled with holes and offering very meager protection as he raced through, slamming into walls and battering himself and not carrying because he needed to run before he was found. To be cautious was to be caught. Whatever nooks and crannies he shoved himself into were hardly cover, though they caught the bullets racing towards him. Well. Most of them, anyways; they didn’t play target practice anymore for a reason. 

(They’d always liked to use the Instigator for training.)

To be fair, not everyone had guns for target practice. Some had crackling tasers, and many had nets. The goal was to train up Mobile Task Forces, teach them how to go about capturing a SCP. How to herd its movement, how to corner it, how to pin it down until it stopped resisting. Learn how it thinks. Does it race down the dark corridors, frantically dashing in wild directions praying it runs into nothing, or does it hide like a cockroach? If so, where? Into the subterranean tunnels, where every footstep echoes thunderously and betrays every whimper? Into the towers, knowing it’ll take longer to be found but that there’s no way down as the fleet sweeps the rooms in well trained searches? Ah, there we are, pinned, shaking, in the corner of a back room. Very good, ensign, now you’re thinking like a monster. Quick, use the right radio channel, that’s it. Teamwork is the one advantage we have over them. Remember that in the field. 

It was not possible to win Target Practice, only prolong it. This was done by jolting still at every gun shot, waiting to realize if he was dead. This was done by clamping his hand over his mouth, refusing to breathe as footsteps raced past. This was done by learning how to not scream and betray his position when a bullet exploded mere centimeters away from his face, caught by half a cannibalized refrigerator, freezing because to run was to be caught. By doing anything and everything so he wouldn’t cry, because he could already see so little. By not caring about the gravel and slivers of glass that sliced into his feet, sprinting at full speed even if he knew the bloodied footprints marked his trail. By tucking his hands to his chest and not touching a single thing, though he was always so easy to find given the pooling Red that only grew worse the longer the game went on. The groups were always different, sometimes sneaking shadows that peeled out of nowhere, sometimes whooping and shouting with glee as they peppered bullets into the space mere seconds behind him, sometimes coordinated, sometimes not, sometimes fighting amongst themselves for the honor of who caught the game. Tommy taught each one exactly how to ruin someone else’s life, but it’s not like he could do anything but flee deep into the dark maze, heart hammering, Red racing. 

It never worked for long. The ending was different every time. Maybe he’d find himself suddenly plucked out of hiding, struggling in a head lock until the dark went even darker. Maybe he’d be at the top of a tower, listening to every hiding spot below being cleared, the approaching team only growing nearer because there was nowhere else to go. Maybe it was a sprinter who overcame his slight head start, the pair crashing to the ground, debris digging into his skin. Maybe it was being cornered by a large group, countless guns trained on him. Maybe a trap laid, him crashing into a net and becoming hopelessly tangled. Maybe it was a bullet that failed to miss. 

Game over! Better luck next time!

Tommy was recaptured and he always would be. And then target practice was played again, and again, either until there were no more trainee units left to be tested…or until there were no more trainee units left. Usually this was after a few rounds of the cat and mouse game. Maybe it ended in mortal terror, crimson spilling out runes on the manufactured floor, a beacon of ruby illuminating the dark maze. Maybe it ended with the brutal finality of The Blood God’s vengeance. The roles jarringly swapped, the hunters now forced to survive. If they did…well. They graduated from training with a promotion as bonus. Clearly they were worthy. 

He wondered how they were tested now, because the Foundation no longer played Target Practice. 

The cover, poor as it was, had always saved him before. Tommy had very little luck in his life, and most of it was used surviving Target Practice. (It was bad luck, in a way. Someone forgot the rules, got over zealous. They’d earned Keter duty for that mistake.) He’d been in the sprawling underground tunnels, tucked into a tangle of pipes. When the bullet had slammed into his shoulder, exploding everything in dark garnet, his scream had rattled through the faux sewer. Tommy had immediately run blindly, adrenaline numbing it all. The tone shift had been terrifying, too, since the trainees before hand had been the type to treat it like a game, making wolf howls and laughing. The moment Tommy was shot they’d become serious, voices clipped over radios and tactics stone as they efficiently tracked down the wounded animal, corralling it and cutting off escape routes, having it knocked out within minutes. It wasn’t the first summoning session where he’d woken up in a hospital bed, brain fuzzy with pain meds and fear. 

They never played Target Practice again.

(It wasn’t hard to convince the Instigator it’d made it out having only been grazed. Then again, it was easy to lie to, given it thought them real bullets in the first place.)

#Thought it would be fun to start posting some of my favorite parts #The ones that don’t require too much context at least (I hope) #Love me a man stupid enough to get life long trauma to what’s tantamount to a paintball arena rip #Certainly my Foundation is particularly harsh but still antilethal #tommyinnit #sbi au #scp tommyinnit #technoblade #scp technoblade #scp oc #bedrock bros #bedrock bros fic #scp fictive #idk I don’t usually put this in the scp tag since that parts usually more setting but this is blatant soo #scp foundation #scp #dark sbi #sbi #sbi fanfic #sleepy bois inc #fault au #sbi scp au #something to nom on #dehumanisation tw #violence mention tw #tw gun #Mm the horror of being hunted down like an animal my beloved