The Vampire Bite

Is a Vampire Bite painful? This is something that gets portrayed very often by fics that center on XR’s point of view and if I am to be honest? I am NOT entirely sure of that. The Vampire Bite how we see in in BLoSC seems to be heavily inspired by classic vampire lore in how Nos-4-A2 mind-controls the victim at first in order for them to not resist and his work to go down ‘quietly’. We’ll get to that in a later part though.
Maybe the actual breaking of the shell or breaching of the engine or the draining of energy WOULD be painful if it weren’t for that kind of mind control, but I doubt that the victims are terribly aware of that. Why do I think so?
Because we see Nos-4-A2 bite multiple victims on screen, XR and the Vending Machine in “The Slayer” (with the latter sounding more relaxed than anything, without being hypnotized), the Sentry Bot from “Wirewolf” (which looks TERRIBLY ripped open, but seems too wasted to really complain) but the curious thing?
We never actually hear them scream in the show. It’s like they’re numbed down or something.

Again in “The Slayer” we get some, if little, background info on how such a bite functions with Nos-4-A2 elaborating his revenge plan to XR with draining him slowly. Now that is something that I imagine as… uncomfortable, but I’m not exactly sure if painful is the right word for this.
In all honesty… it sounds more like a tease, doesn’t it?

Now with XR I don’t really think that he actually cares much about the damage of the penetration because frankly – I don’t think he really “feels” that kind of stuff. If he were able to feel stuff like that, it’d be really bad considering he’s really seen worse with the multiple times of explosions that he’s been through… but he DOES put on a justified “do not want” attitude towards the energy vampire.

I think it comes from the

This is a part, honestly, that intrigues me a lot more than the actual bite. The question that I ask myself – especially in regard of Nos-4-A2 – where we see that being played out the most (the other only attempt being in Dirty Work) is… in how far is XR mind-controlled? Some of the things he says in this state still pretty much sound like him (though it’s mostly in the early stages) and in other cases (mostly when Nos and XR are having some sort of “Dark-Master-Moment”) it just gets very bizarre.

So the question here is – in how far does XR’s actual programming/personality (he talks about deleting a specific file in Dirty Work at least) get either corrupted or in a way pushed out of his mind. I think the difference here is much like the comparison between a Trojan Horse or a Virus. A Trojan Horse would corrupt him to open up gates for Nos-4-A2’s influence and a Virus would be a single file that takes over his body? *shrug* I don’t know really xD

In either event XR seems to be still aware of the things he does while he’s being mind-controlled. He DID remember his authorization form for one thing and knew what it was about that thing (albeit he didn’t really remember much about his team in that moment).
Furthermore – let’s for a moment remember the glorious scene on-board of 42 in Wirewolf where Mira tells us about all the things we don’t see referring to a meeting that happened ‘last time’ and although it sounds very similar to the first Nos episode and Wirewolf being a direct Prequel to Revenge with initiates Nos-4-A2’s death it really couldn’t be the first episode because what with “The Slayer” and “Dirty Work” in that case? I digress – but case in point is that she also mentions XR remaining(?) mind-controlled FOR A WEEK, supposedly even after (?) Nos-4-A2 had been defeated(???).

Which brings us to…

Yah, shoot me and all, but I don’t think they were fake :s
I think these little fangs we see in Nos-4-A2 and the very progress of how such a vampire bite actually functions are some of the greater mysteries when it comes to energy-vampirism.

So XR grows FANGS. Do they function just like Nos-4-A2's? The only other ‘victim’ we ever see that happening to are the Vampire-Hornets in “Revenge” who from the bite seem to also gain a change in physique because SURPRISE, they’re immune to laser fire! So what exactly does that mean for the robot…?
Interestingly – as we see on XR though – this effect doesn’t last, the fangs disappear after “Nos-4-A2” and never show up again.

It should also be noted that these changes don’t happen to every victim that Nos-4-A2 encounters! Now there are several different versions in general vampire-lore about how a bite functions already and what kind of effect it has on the victim. ALLUSION TIME! Contrasting examples being “Tanz der Vampire/Fearless Vampire Killers” where a victim ‘changes’ after only a mere bite (which leads to an unwilling and always multiplying INFESTION of vampires that struggle with each other for the sake of food) and the more popular Dracula, Hellsing, Anne Rice lore (as far as I get it from the movies at least) were the victim in exchange has to drink the blood of the vampire turning him/her in order for this process to work instead of having them ‘just die’ or in the case of Hellsing ‘turning into ghouls’.

Now, this might be strange but I think… even though I am not too familiar with this kind of fandom the SUPER NOT PG COMAPTIBLE HELLSING works best with this… why?! Because Nos-4-A2 can revive all his previous victims into glorious zombies that are too brainless to know what they’re supposed to attack. Why NOT? These Zombies still consider him their master in a way – If I remember correctly the ghouls in Hellsing are rogues…

Again, what does that mean for the NOT-entirely drained victims though, like XR or the Vending Machine from Slayer. Notably the Vending Machine was still capable of talking, hence not entirely drained albeit of not seeming very influenced at all.
So in the case of XR and the Vampire Hornets – I think we have to consider some additional procedures that were never shown on-screen. Fridge Horror?
Most definitely. But isn’t Horror what vampires are (should be!) all about? ~ *shot*

Oh, and DON’T make me start on the entire Wirewolf thing xD
The WIREWOLF is a predatory creature that just like Nos-4-A2 FEEDS ON ENERGY or… robots as a whole. Now his plan to turn the whole galaxy into these things… I’m not so sure if that is such a good idea Nosy, because you see – these things will eventually drain each other. We see how everyone went wild and rampaging, especially on each other in the terms of the senators. This plan Nos, isn’t going to serve you robots on a silver platter – it’s gonna make you have to fight even harder for them, like in the case of the “TdV/FVK” allusion example stated earlier. But I guess he just didn’t think so far.