## Preface

on recursive thoughts
Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at https://archiveofourown.org/works/29728917.

Rating:
  General Audiences
Archive Warning:
  Major Character Death
Category:
  Gen
Fandom:
  Transistor (Video Game)
Characters:
  Red (Transistor), Sybil Reisz, Royce Bracket
Additional Tags:
  just some thoughts red has during recursion, after beating sybil i stood there, and watched her struggle before killing her, and i had some Thoughts, about what red might be thinking doing this again, so here you go, unknown subject grant and asher mentioned but they arent particularly relevant so i didnt tag them, f for the boxer he even talks but red isnt really paying much attention, shes working through some shit
Language:
  English
Stats:
  Published: 2021-02-27 Words: 433 Chapters: 1/1

# on recursive thoughts

by RedsNight

Summary

> At first Red thinks it might just be animal survival instinct. But the longer she stands centerstage, steadying herself on the Transistor, she sees that she is wrong. She killed Sybil too fast before, too shocked, too scared, gagging on the look of her, more than eager to put this thing out of its misery before his voice had to urge her. But Sybil is coming to Red.

> So Red waits.

Notes

> I am in love with Transistor like nothing else, and during my first recursion, I had some thoughts, so here they are.

## on recursive thoughts

“We can’t leave her like this,” he says, and he and Red watch what is left of Sybil drag itself across the stage of the Empty Set, dripping something which sloughs off her as she is disintegrating. At first Red thinks it might just be animal survival instinct. But the longer she stands centerstage, steadying herself on the Transistor, she sees that she is wrong. She killed Sybil too fast before, too shocked, too scared, gagging on the look of her, more than eager to put this thing out of its misery before his voice had to urge her. But Sybil is coming to Red.

So Red waits.

She watches the twisted thing that writhes and thinks calmly of its crackling voice. Of Grant and Asher’s cowardly corpses, when she finally found them after chasing them for what felt like forever, believing her answers were ahead. Of the way Royce smiled at her when he announced that he would go first.

Red had been afraid of Sybil. Red had not been afraid of Royce. He’d been too cocky. After all, Red had spent the entire day raging for what had been taken from her. She had been prepared to kill him, blood on her hands. Royce, on the other hand, had not known the consequences of his actions.
She feels the same way this time - the rage - but it is hard to extend that rage to Sybil. Even though it had been Sybil who had wormed her way into Red’s life, Sybil who, to the best of Red’s knowledge, had craved the death of her bodyguard. The reason Red was alone.
Perhaps it was because Royce had smiled, and Sybil, unlike the rest of her compatriots, was assimilated, picked apart like all the lost souls inside the Transistor, and Red certainly understood that that was suffering aplenty.

Red waits, however. She lets what-had-been-Sybil cry and shake and squirm its way towards her. She thinks her bodyguard must be worried about her. He must think it’s the shock, why she stares, and lets it suffer a little longer. She can’t tell him, anyways.

When the thing is reaching for Red’s ankles, she raises Transistor and slams it down into Sybil.

Sybil dies, and Red watches only a moment.

“We’ll be back again someday,” he tells her as they leave the Empty Set.

Red would murmur if she could, but instead mouths the words. I hope not.

She has already done this twice. She does not want to do it again.

She does, however, want Royce Bracket to die.

So she goes to find him.

## Afterword

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