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It was getting hot again. Pandora was a planet of extremes, for sure, but the past few weeks had been a nice cool spell, with a bit of a breeze to accompany it. Of course, now that he had a chance to really get out on his own, it was back to the sweltering heat that he was accustomed to.
For once, this wasn't raider business – but still, Mordecai looked the part. He had no cause to pull his scarf to cover his mouth, though he wished he did. The stillness of the heat only made it more stifling. Perched impatiently on his shoulder as he moved through the desert was a familiar companion – though smaller than some might remember. Talon was getting to be that age now where he could drag him out on missions – and the bird wasn't a big fan of long treks.
Mordecai had insisted on going on foot. It wasn't like the encampment was that far away, really. The noise from the runner would attract attention from the bandits, he'd reasoned. He wasn't wrong, of course. He'd been doing this practically all his life – of course he knew what he was doing. He had mostly just been concerned about how the constant roar of the engine would affect Talon. He was still just a baby, after all. Loud noises, especially conscious ones, could diminish his hearing. He needed to get used to perching on his shoulder anyway, until he was big enough to properly land on an arm. He was still too little to do much damage, but the training was really what mattered. Sooner or later, the little guy had to get some experience. This was the perfect job to start him out on. It was just clearing out a few bandits from some no-name emergent group. It wouldn't even be much fun.
“Oye,” Mordecai hissed, keeping his voice down out of reflex now that they were closer to the hotzone. “quit fidgeting. You gotta be alert.” He stressed. Talon let out an awkward, fledgling squawk, and Mordecai pressed a finger to his lips. Things were quiet. Any noise would carry.
...In fact, things were oddly quiet. Mordecai's fingers curled reflexively around the revolver at his hip, and he felt Talon readjust himself on his shoulder. There was no way. Bandits, especially a new gang, were never this quiet. Mordecai's eyes narrowed, glaring off at the cave in the distance as though he expected a rush of enemies to surge out. Maybe someone had tipped them off. It didn't really matter – it just meant one more person to kill, in the end. Maybe a little more cash, if he felt like haggling for it.
Chances were, he wasn't going to be able to get the drop on them like he had planned. It wasn't a bad spot, really, if it weren't for the infestation of skags. Maybe he would have even been impressed, if he hadn't known about the skag problem. A place like that would be filled up by a more organized gang in no time had there been nothing wrong with it. He knew the area – and he knew that most of the cover he had been planning on would be near impossible to reach without being noticed. There was one, though, closer to the cave mouth, that he could risk.
It was a bit of a gamble – but what the hell. These weren't exactly elite troops he was dealing with. Mordecai reached across his chest and held his hand out to Talon. May as well let him survey the area while he got into position. He gestured to the skies around the cave with two fingers, told the bird 'Right back, Talon', and pushed his hand up. Talon rose, with a little hesitation, and Mordecai lingered to observe his flight. Had to make sure the little guy was all right.
He slung his rifle off of his shoulder and tore his eyes off the bird. There was a little outcrop of rock he knew he could press his back to. That was his target. It would give him a decent view – not the best, but good enough for his purposes.
Mordecai settled into the sands like he belonged there. He leaned his rifle against the tallest rock for a moment and pulled his goggles down. He surveyed the area one last time, and had just finished checking the wind when Talon returned to him. He held his left arm out, expected Talon to hop on, but the bird only squawked instead.
“What?” Mordecai asked, an edge to his tone. Talon should have known better by now. He couldn't stay firm with him once he noticed the jittery way the bird was behaving. “What's the matter with you, huh?” The bird squawked again, and Mordecai hushed him. “I'm lookin', I'm lookin', all right?” He said as he grabbed his sniper rifle, hoping that it would at least appease his bird for a little. With the butt of the rifle resting against the crook of his shoulder, he turned his head and peered through the scope. Nothing seemed immediately wrong.
And then, he saw it.
"The hell is that?" He murmured, staring at the purple gas hanging about the cave. His eye trailed to the floor. Bodies of bandits littered the ground. Was it some kind of weird gas eruption? No way - there was too much blood for all these guys to have died by suffocation. And why wouldn't they have just run out of the damn cave? He knew most bandits were stupid, but not that stupid. Could that cloud have something to do with Eridium, maybe? He'd seen his fair share of the damn stuff, he had a pretty good nose for it. If it was, he'd have to report this to Lilith - and if it wasn't, at least his job was done for him.
He looked around for a moment longer, watching the gaseous cloud morph and warp about for a bit, before he rose slowly. He looked down at Talon and frowned, pointing. "Stay." He muttered with finality, slinging his rifle onto his back and drawing his revolver.
If this was a trap, it was some elaborate goddamn trap, he thought as he approached the cave. He liked to think that he didn't get nervous anymore, after all the fights he had been in, after everything he'd been through; that that feeling was just gone. But that was the only thing that could explain why his stomach had dropped out as he approached a cave that was inhabited solely by a menacing purple cloud. He pulled his scarf up to cover his mouth, just in case, and then kept both hands on his weapon as he set foot into the cave. A line of tension pulled his shoulders taut, his shoes clacking rhythmically against the stone floor as he scanned continuously for danger.
---------- Post added at 03:46 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:40 PM ----------
Pain was the first sensation to reach her. It felt as though something had taken knives, rammed them into her chest, and dragged them down at a languid pace. A violent stinging pain erupted through the right side of her head and seared down her neck. She wailed – loud and piercing, a shriek like she had never uttered before.
Pym's chest heaved as she snapped into consciousness. Her lungs burned, but with each breath, the pain in her chest and head ebbed further and further away. It faded into the back of her mind, and her first real thought rose. She sat bolt upright. Her hand clutched at her chest, fingers clawing at her skin. It was solid – all solid where it should have been ribbons. Frantically, she reached up and felt for her horns. Her fingers trailed along the base, following the tight curl of the ram-like horns. Her breath caught in her throat as her fingers brushed against the broken, jagged end of her right horn. She hadn't broken it. Had she? She tore through memories, racking her brain to remember.
“What the fuck..?” The words pried themselves from her throat and fell flat before she could catch them. The voice that had spoken didn't sound at all like her own. Rough, and scratchy, too weak. Pym swallowed; it felt as though she were choking down an ember. It was only then that she registered being covered in a thin layer of clammy sweat, or the way her hands shook.
Her mind frantically searched for an answer to anything – where she was, what had happened, why she felt so weak, but everything was hazy. Last she remembered, she had been searching for answers on Pandora. A small group of zealots had been intent on following her there, especially after hearing her mother was on world too, and Pym had been equally intent on losing them. She had gotten over her head. She remembered distinctly the feeling of being hit so hard that it knocked the breath from her. A sharp, sickening crack loud in her ear and a warm gush of liquid spurting across her cheek before everything stopped. It was like someone had paused, and only now pushed play.
She quickly tried to collect herself. Her surroundings were unfamiliar, and that did nothing to calm her. Cold grey steel with splashes of yellow. Hardly welcoming. That aside, that meant that she had been moved by someone or something. Which meant that she probably wasn't alone She could hear her mother nagging at her in the back of her mind, chastising her for being careless. 'Look at the mess you're in now, Pyramus,' she would say. Pym propped herself up on her elbows, pausing for a moment to rest before she tried standing. 'If you would just listen to me -'
Pym shook the thoughts from her head with a snarl. She could get the lecture from the real thing. There was no need to do it on her own. Pym's feet hit the floor, and she shuddered at the sudden cold. She pushed herself to a stand and teetered, balancing precariously on shaky legs. A sharp pain in her everything let her know that she was moving too quickly. Pym ignored it. She took a step towards the door. Her knee buckled the second she put her weight on it.
A loud curse flew from her lips as she fell, flinging an arm out in the vain hope that she would catch something. Her hand smacked against something hard – a desk, it turned out to be, not that she cared – and she let out a hiss of pain. Pym allowed herself to rest for a moment before she struggled to her feet again.
Get it together, Pym, she thought, heading towards the door. It had probably just been a zealot that had dragged her out, found some place to shack up in, and waited for her recovery. Anything for Pyramus, the Vanguard, of course – anything to get into Qet'siyah's good graces. They had patched her up, left her to heal. That was all there was to it.
Except that it was wrong.
Pym gritted her teeth and shook that thought away, too, but the feeling still lingered. She glanced around the room for a weapon, looking for any of her weapons at all, and found that there was nothing. She would be forced to head out unarmed then. Usually, that wouldn't have been a problem. Seeing as she was having trouble walking straight, however, it would have been nice to have at least a pistol. She threw the door open and clung to the frame to collect herself. Every movement was as if wading through mud – and it was infuriating.
She hung on for a moment longer than necessary, sharp teeth biting into her tongue as she debated with herself. Zealots were irritating, sure – but if it was one that had brought her here, then they were her best shot right now for survival outside these walls. In her state, she didn't want to risk any encounters. If it wasn't one of her own... Well. She could deal with that when she came to it. As she figured, she probably had enough energy in her to disperse herself for a quick get away. Probably. It wasn't like anyone on this damned planet knew what Banshees were, much less what they were capable of, anyway – and anyone who hadn't heard her waking shriek earlier must have been deaf. Or at least, a little smart to stay away from the blood-curdling, unnatural wail. Finally, Pym arrived at a decision.
Fuck it.
“H'llo?” She called out, projecting her voice as best she could. Pym swallowed hard, her eyes flitting from side to side, watching for any movement. “Anyone? ...Anyone at all?”
Whatever remained was usurped by Pandora’s gravitational pull. The remnants of smashed shrapnel circled aimlessly about in the soundless vacuum called space, occasionally making impact with its bigger counterparts. The resulting explosion was soundless, like watching a black and white silent film on the big screen. If sound was present, it would have been enough to rest Jack from his death throes, but something else beat the jettisoned space junk to the punch. In his dreams he likened it to a wraith; the omnipresent shadow of a woman lurching over his corpse when all he could see were geysers of red erupting around him. After escaping with the starmap, Lillith, Roland and the other vault hunters left Jack for dead. With the Destroyer subdued the vault collapsed on itself, erasing the existence of Hyperion tech and the intellectual riches stored in the bedrock.
When the magma rose high enough, his angel collected him in her arms and vanished. He recalled, briefly, the feeling of warm water enveloping him. The white hot lance of pure pain painted on his now twisted face was altogether absent and, ultimately, he was stirred to life with a quick stab of electricity. He jerked upright, like one of Zed’s zombie experiments, except all of his intestines were safely fastened on the inside of his gut.
Fortunately, where he awoke was well off considering the status of the rest of the station. The walls were eked out in a gaudy, canary yellow, splashed with the low hanging buzz of swaying light fixtures. He couldn’t tell which was more yellow—the lights, or the paint. Regardless, he instinctively touched his face, flinching when the memories flooded back. He was convinced he should be feeling agony when in retrospect, he felt nothing but the gloved pads of his fingertips. He caught his reflection on a fragment of shattered glass—he was handsome. Handsome-er, even. “This isn’t right.” He threw his weight from what appeared to be a table, flat, but humming with life, depicting a detailed map of Hyperion’s research facility.
Much to his chagrin, there was no cognitive AI chronicling the events on Pandora; he couldn’t just ask a haphazard fixit loader what had transpired. Theoretically he could, but it would just veer off on a tangent about the broken state of the station. Frazzled, Jack collected his wits and made his way to an adjacent exit. The lights flickered. Outside of the glass pane doors broken black wires, like electric eels, writhed and swayed in the misconstrued gravity. From the far edge of the corridor he could hear a sound. A voice. It reminded him of the angel that saved him, or rather, the one he saw in his dreams.
He closed the space between himself and the dimly-lit hallway, occasionally stealing a glance at Pandora. The locals thought it a gem but truthfully, it was a fetid hunk of sulfur wreaking of shit and slag.
“Hey!” he hollered. His voice was skewed, but only from thirst. His eyes were unable to adjust to the darkness, but he knew the sound of a female voice as well as he knew a mirror—very well, if it was up for discussion. “I need to know what the hell is going on here. Now. Start talking, lady.” The darkness was deceiving. “You know. Talking. That thing where you move your lips and generally unfavorable sounds fall out.”
It was a rude awakening.
Her corpse was frozen in a sheet of ice at the virtual core of her planet, where the Harbinger occasionally slept. When she stirred she would sing woeful songs; dirges heralding Chaos’ return. To all of the Harbinger’s daughters, her dirge was a battle song. It imbued them with morale and made them into frenzied killing machines. Strangely, Ohm was the only of said killing machines that had cryostasis forced upon her. When Qet’siyah riled her, Ohm was mad with confusion. She raged for three days, throwing her body into the cavernous, black walls, screaming and sobbing and wailing. When the frenzy waned Qet’siyah soothed her, instilling the same focus she had for years—to end the Sirens. It took weeks for Ohm to find her thoughts. They were shuffled and misplaced. She struggled to make sense of the disarray. It was, however, one evening during meditation that it all flooded back to her in one icy sluice. She grimaced, biting her lip so hard the skin popped. Qet’siyah smiled and vanished, leaving Ohm with her prized weapon upon her lap—an ancient sniper rifle of Eridian make. The term ‘ancient’ and ‘sniper-rifle’ used in the same breath was altogether absurd, but scholars were educated enough to discern that Eridian technology was a different spectrum in and of itself.
Qet’siyah dispatched Ohm dissonance. Although the eldest of the Banshee daughters had developed a distaste for time displacement, it was the last of the energy Qet’siyah could muster before she collapsed into the void. Ohm awoke, a second time, on the planet Pandora. She was sane now—rather, text-book sane. The smell of a siren was ineffably cloying, like the fetid stench of a rotting wound. Many banshees before her were maddened by their pursuit but Ohm was practiced and patient. Her first goal was private and took her on a tangent. It lead her to a bandit nest infested with scavengers and cannibals. She arrived sporting a lacquer set of goggles festooned in niello which ensconced her altogether stoic expression. She was swarthy complected as if borne of the dessert, bestowed with full lips and pert cheekbones.
The bandit that received her greeting spat his chewing tobacco in her face but was horrified to witness her rebuke. She opened her mouth and there, glaring back at him, was row upon row of pearlescent white fangs. He likened them to an angler fish—serrated, misshapen and altogether foreboding. She asked politely for entrance but he laughed. Ohm was not nearly as amused. She advanced on silent footfalls, boring into the soft flesh of his throat with her teeth. The next hour was an omen for the bandits. She terrorized them, hiding in the shadows, springing when they least expected it. Altogether Ohm was a curt Cleaner, but when first being wrested from her comas, she enjoyed a proper practice.
The atrium was where the bandit leader hid. She killed him with a buffet to the head and stood over his corpse as she refastened her gloves to her hands. She was hungry … and abhorred it. Her sisters were natural but she, she was an abomination; an hound for the Harbinger.
Normally, following trails of bodies wasn't wise. Truth be told though, traipsing around like this gun in hand, chasing after some dumbass, it felt good. It felt like the old days when things had just been simple. When the only thing he'd really had to worry about was where his next meal came from. Not that those times had been particularly great. It was just that things were complicated now, in a way that they had never been before. He sure as hell hadn't expected to be tied to a group like the Raiders.
Mordecai paused at a crossroads. The trail continued one way, but there was another path, well-worn and seeming to slope gently out of sight. That might give him the height he needed to survey the area a bit more. He started down the side path, a little more cautious than before. No more bodies this way – it was more likely that someone would be hiding out here than in the main path way. At every turn he expected someone, or at least something – but no. The place was practically cleared out.
The path came to an end, dumping out into an open room. He pressed his back to the wall and peered around the corner. There, in the center, was a living target. Finally. With a quick check behind him, he holstered his revolver and pulled his rifle from his back. One shot was all he needed, and then he could collect the reward. Easy money.
Mordecai moved into position, crouching and stabilizing his rifle for a clean shot. He only needed one. He peered through the scope, lined up his shot and took a breath. On the exhale, he squeezed the trigger – just as the bandit fell. The bullet, lined up perfectly for his target, whizzed by the woman who had just bashed his head in.
Shit.
Mordecai lifted his rifle and spun back to the relative cover of the wall again so quickly he nearly stumbled over his own feet. Why did this always happen to him? He had everything lined up, and then it all just fell apart, and he wound up shooting at some crazy chick.
This made things marginally more complicated. He'd been expecting a few bandits, just enough to have fun with – not a badass out for blood. Or hell – maybe she'd just beat him to the punch on this one. It didn't matter. He would be the one collecting the pay for this at the end. Mordecai figured that this justified a pay raise, and made a mental note to work that out later. At least he'd found the reason things weren't as lively as he'd thought they would be. He didn't know how he'd remained undetected for so long already; she didn't seem to have any trouble with the others. But he wasn't what she was here for. Or at least, he hadn't been before that shot.
There was probably still time. He could probably make it out of this without getting caught up in a fight with this chick. His fingers drummed against his rifle. He shifted against the wall.
What the hell, though. He was here. Why not have some fun?
Mordecai pulled the flask from his hip, took a curt swig to calm his nerves, and swung back into cover. He settled into position and into his breathing. Another shot was leveled on the woman. He waited for the exhale, his finger nested loosely on the trigger. His breathing bottomed out. Mordecai held there for a moment and stared at the woman in the scope to observe his target. Were those horns? He had seen some weird things in his time, but this was a first. There was something off about her in a way that sent chills down his spine. She was beautiful, yeah, but she was also unnatural. It was enough to give him pause, to keep him with his rifle steadied at his shoulder observing her, he finger slackened on the trigger.
---------- Post added at 03:23 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:46 PM ----------
A figure appeared on the other end of the hall, a darkened silhouette shrouded by dim light. That was more a response than she had expected. Pym's mouth twitched downwards at his tone, her eyes narrowing in the dark at the figure silhouetted on the other end. She swiped her tongue along a row of sharp teeth in mild irritation. Pym let out a quiet sigh, and pushed herself from the door frame. She kept one hand on the wall to guide her and in part to steady herself. For the moment, she was electing to stay silent. what could she say, after all? It wasn't as if she knew what was going on.
Pym stopped in front of an obstruction in her path. She squinted at it, glanced up at the man in the doorway once more, and then reached down to take a hold of it. Maybe it was some of the paneling from the walls. It was impossible to tell. This place seemed to be falling apart.. She tossed it aside, and it landed with a loud metallic clang against the opposite wall.
“I was hoping you knew, actually.” Pym droned, her voice cracking. She wasn't quick to move past him and into the light. She hung back in the darkness, letting it obscure her for a while longer while she observed the man.
He was considerably taller than her – not that that was a hard thing to achieve. Pym was just over five foot two; she was used to others towering above her. Any notable features were muffled by the dark, though she could make out the more prominent features of his face. Pym brushed by him, doing her best not to wobble about like a newborn fawn and failing miserably. It was as if she hadn't used her legs in weeks. Maybe that was the case. She had no idea how long she had been unconscious for.
Pym glanced around the decrepit halls. Her brows knitted together and a low whistle escaped her. From a window, she could see it – Pandora. “Come here often?” She said dryly, her eyes trained on the planet below. She braced a hand against the wall, her fingers fumbling for purchase, and turned her eye to him. Truth be told, he reeked of Qet'siyah – she could recognize it anywhere. It clung to the man like smoke. If Qet'siyah had found something about this guy worth leaving an imprint on, then it was in her best interest to figure out what. Even if it was just to avoid getting yelled at later.
Just because Qet'siyah had found him to be worth tampering mean didn't mean she could trust him, though. She glanced over at him once more, looking him up and down quickly. He seemed to be in about the same condition as she was; confused, a little irritated, and looking a mess. Now that she had settled into the stiffness and ache of her limbs, she was beginning to notice the way her clothing had stuck to her. Crusted with blood – but it couldn't have been all hers. There was too much of it.
“I don't know how I got here. I just woke up like five minutes ago.” She admitted, turning back to her view of Pandora. There was no need to resort to violence – not yet anyway. If he knew a way off this place, it would save her an awful lot of trouble. There had to be some reason Qet'siyah had left her stranded with the man, after all. Pym pulled a hand through shoulder-length hair, working out the tangles gently. “Not really sure where 'here' is, either. Personally though, I'd like to leave. Yourself?”
“I do. I sort of, you know, funded the entire construction of this stupid fucking facility which, currently, is being swallowed by Pandora’s gravitational pull. But hey! The sun’s shining and I found both of my socks.”
Secretly, despite his misgivings, he was thrilled to know that his face was back to its previous winsome stature. He appeared younger, at least to himself; his vanity would never know any limitations, not even after having his face literally smashed in by Lilith. Unfortunately, his heterochromia didn’t develop any nocturnal attributes during his ‘resurrection’. Like any human he struggled to see in the dark, even with the gravitational pull outside of the station vacuuming in fragments of light from the sun. The reflection was rather spectacular, but on the adjacent side of the station which was now almost completely derelict.
Regardless of his vision’s capability, he understood the shape of what he thought were horns. As he advanced on his sore, aching soles, he saw her. Pretty face, hilariously short and, like he thought he saw, horns. Ram horns. He stifled a chuckle, brazenly reaching out to cover his mouth. “You uh … have any … b-aaaaaaaaaaaa-d dreams before you woke up?” He was convinced his joke was a knee-slapper. Even with the emergency light blaring red and the heaps oxygen generators around them failing, he conjured up ridiculous—and sour—jests.
“Seriously, what’s with these?”
Brazenly, he reached out for them. His first impression was that they were fake, but they were very much real. When Angel was an infant he and his late wife took her to a petting zoo. The goats there were docile and had horns of a similar make until a mad rakk infiltrated the zoo and tore the poor creatures head off. “Are you a scientist from the research department or … an experiment? If the later, should you be out? Maybe we should escort you back to your cell. Or test tube. Or whatever it is you spawned from.” Much to Jack’s chagrin, the station was deteriorating much faster than he would have liked. It sat abandoned for so long, jilted by a singularity spawned by Moxxi and her ilk.
“I know where here is. I don’t want to be here, frankly, so I’m inclined to leave. What about you, goat-lady? Or is it succubus? Satyr, maybe?” he walked passed her, wincing as his legs seized. He was achy, as to be expected. “This station has been derelict for … ugh, fuck knows. Fortunately it’s modular and engineered for failsafes like, you know, event-horizon level singularities synthesized by your ex-girlfriend because you destroyed her coliseum … truth be told, I thought she was cheating on me.” He felt his blood curdle at the thought. Moxxi abandoned the Truxican hunter Mordecai in favor of Jack but, she was nefarious for getting around.
“If I can find a working generator and re-direct the power to an unharmed leg of the station then I can probably get a fast-travel console working.”
The last surviving bandit clutched his side having been injured by an arrant bullet that was loosed during the shootout. Through his half-glazed eyes—which he thought was from encroaching death but, rather, was a result of foggy goggles—he witnessed Ohm stalk through the sea of corpses. One of her horns sported a silver bell dangling from a thread. It jingled when she so much as turned her head; a taunt, the bandit thought, to warn her victims of her approach knowing they were incapable of thwarting it. Regardless of how her perceived her she still closed the space between them. He held his hand out in a feeble gesture that begged ‘stop’. “What do you want?” he gasped. She tilted her head inquisitively, a gesticulation made ominous as her eyes were hidden. “What do you [i]want[i/]?” he asked again.
“This one is hungry.”
“You’re … hungry?” An assassin of her calibre had a lovely voice, peppered in a sultry, low accent, something reminiscent of a civilization offworld. “We have food. Take it. Just leave, for fuck’s sake.”
Ohm was unconvinced. Driven by the maddening command of starvation she lunged, however, faltered midway and stole a glimpse over her shoulder. The scent of a Siren made her virtually salivate. Unlike her sisters, Ohm was fabricated. She was sired by science; an experiment created by Qet’siyah and a successful one at that. Her origins were largely ensconced in shadow but Qet’siyah imbued her with insatiable hunger. Ohm curbed the pangs on flesh, human or otherwise. While often characterized as a cannibal Ohm did not identify as human and merely rebuked she was an apex predator on the hunt.
When the bullet jettisoned by, Ohm was convinced. The bandit flinched, fully expecting her to skewer him with her horns, but instead, she vanished in a shimmery black cloud of what appeared to be a gaseous form of slag. The atrium echoed with the floundering cough of the last bandit until he fainted, leaving Ohm to stalk the ceiling. It was high, so high in fact that the natural bioluminescence pouring from the sediment failed to chase the shadows away.
The Phoenix. This one knows her smell. Like brimstone and cinnamon and hot blood.
Without brandishing her rifle—which stayed transfixed to her back throughout the endeavor—she literally crawled from the shadows and assumed a mass of gaseous slag a second time. This time it possessed two glowering white eyes and a humanoid shape. She discovered her prey’s niche, phasing through his lissom shadow and reassembling her matter. When she was whole, she roped him from behind, throwing her weight—which was immense despite her altogether healthy appearance—into his back. As if he were some public park bench she sat on his back. “This one mislikes having a barrel trained upon her.” She gnashed her teeth. The popping sound was unforgettable.
“I don’t like having a barrel trained upon me. I would be very much obliged if you would sheathe your weapon.”
Too late. He had been too late to take his shot, too caught up in watching the woman to see what she would do and too startled when she disappeared into a fine mist. He tried to keep his eyes trained on her – it – whatever she was. The way that it shimmered in the light did nothing to help him keep track, and he soon lost it somewhere off to the left, as it faded away into a shadow.
He caught a few glimpses before they evaded him again, and he was all too aware that it was moving towards him. The flash of what he had seen should have been impossible. A form comprised of smog, complete with a set of what he thought to be eyes glowing. Unsure of what to expect, Mordecai pulled his rifle from it's makeshift stand and moved to press his back against his cover so that he could watch the area behind him. Before he had a chance to slam his back against the structure, he felt something take its place – or someone, more appropriately. It was impossible, he thought while being tossed about like a ragdoll. He had thrown an errant elbow, hoping it would find something.
What it really was, was the world's worst pushup. She was having a fine time sitting on his back, and he had begun to push himself up from the ground when he heard a sound that made him stop. His arms locked unexpected, his fingers curled tight around his rifle. How could she have been behind him, all of a sudden? There was no way, there was no conceivable way.
He had to pick his battles and play this carefully. He had just watched what this woman was capable of. He had felt the enormous weight upon him as she threw him over. To be fair, he wasn't exactly the bulkiest of men – in fact, he was a toothpick – but there was still an incredible amount of force behind her movements. He had no doubt she wouldn't have any problems snapping his back. Mordecai took in a deep breath, his ribs expanding almost painfully with her weight on top of him. How was she this heavy? She hadn't looked it.
“Okay, okay. No weapons.” Mordecai said slowly. He reluctantly set his rifle on the ground, pushing it away and out of arms reach and fighting every instinct in his body as he did so. “See?” Mordecai's mind was racing with potential outcomes, ways to get out of this situation. His revolver was still on his hip, a knife on the other. If he let his shoulder drop, rolled with enough force, he could probably shake her off. Could he be faster than her, though? He typically prided himself on his speed, but he had just watched her tear apart an entire gang in record time – with her bare hands.
He was frankly surprised she had even stopped to speak at all. There must have been something that she wanted. With the way she had torn apart those bandits with extreme prejudice, and for the most part silently let him know that she hadn't come to play with them – so at least she wasn't that kind of psychopath. There was something that she wanted from him. This revelation silenced the constant stream of expletives running through his head. If he gave it to her, she wouldn't have any use for him and that left him in a dangerous position again. But if he could drag it out until he was in a better way – at least until she wasn't sitting on his back – then he could easily handle this.
“We good here?” He'd dealt with a lot of crazies in his time. He knew the drill. Speak slow, no sudden movements, no surprises. Hair triggers and all. The second he saw a chance to get the upper hand, he had to take it. If he got even the hint of the idea that her next move was to kill him, he had to act first. His arms hadn't yet begun to shake with the effort of holding up the both of them, and his back had yet to bow out, but he was eager to move from this position before they did.
---------- Post added at 06:06 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:51 PM ----------
It took her a long moment to understand why in the world he had stretched out the word 'bad' like he had, thinking for a moment he might have had a stroke. Pym groaned. She had been perfectly civil, and yet still here he was with the goat jokes. He's lucky he's pretty, Pym thought. And that he allegedly funded this entire place. That would at least make him useful in getting out of here.
Pym ducked away from his hand the second she felt it graze her horns. She turned to stare at him incredulously. In her time she had heard her fair share of goat jokes, probing questions and jeers, but it was rare that someone was so bold as to just reach out for them. “Seriously? At least ask first. What, you've never seen horns before?” Pym drummed her fingers on the wall, keeping her eyes trained on him as he walked by.
“It's Pym,” she said curtly, in the vain hope that telling him her name would stop the goat jokes. Not that Pym was a name that didn't lend itself to jokes – but it was at least a little better than Pyramus. Pym pushed herself off the wall and hobbled after him. “And I'm not an...experiment. What the hell kind of experiments have you been doing where this is a viable result? Some people have horns. Some people don't want to suffocate out in space. I just happen to be both.”
Truth be told, Pym had never really thought herself much different from any other human. Which was a problem, because she and all the other Banshees were very different. Her primary function in life was to scream and commit genocide – which were two things that she was very good at, but also two things that she had spent years trying to avoid.
Pym relaxed, her shoulders dropping the more he spoke on and on about the state of the station. The ex-girfriend business sounded like it was touchy, and she wasn't getting near that with a ten foot pole – but his technobabble could at least put her at ease, even if she had no clue what he was talking about. “Right. Yeah. A generator. Okay.” Pym said blankly, not even bothering to feign understanding. “Not really sure I like how you said 'probably', but I don't have any better ideas. How about this; you do...all that stuff, and I'll do the heavy lifting. Sound good?”
Pym paused and rested a hand on the wall, her lungs aching painfully. She looked around them, trying to make sense of the layout of this place. It was crumbling, and pulsating lights did nothing to add any clarity to the situation. “Any idea where this generator might be, smart guy?” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder, back towards where she had come from. “It's a dead-end back there.” She pushed herself off the wall and continued forward, pausing to look through doorways for whatever a generator looked like.
“...So what did you say you did here, again? Head...nerd, or something?”
“Horns? Yes. On a woman—an attractive woman, by the way, thank your mother for me—no.” The mere vernacular of the name ‘Pym’ reminded him of cached document some crazed researcher from research and development obsessed over. He secretly educated himself on anything remotely occult, but Jack was more amused by the sound. It reminded him of a fictional faerie, however, oddly enough he chose not to disclose.
“That, goat-lady, is classified. At any rate, I don’t know if we can even classify you as a person. And there are goat-people? So you’re not synthesized, there are more like you?” he laughed, turned on his heel and began trotting down the broken pathway after Pym interjected, pointedly, explaining that the corridor opposite to them as impassable. “I like how I said probably, too. Sexily. Take notes, goat-lady.” He was careful not to put too much weight on his ankles. Although he appeared to be safe and strangely, healed, his body ached. There were occasional lances ripping up and down his spine warning of injury while other sensations including stabbing at the back of his eyes—likely due to the pulsating lights exhausting his optic nerves—and his entire forehead feeling as if it were stamped with a hot iron.
Relatively, the latter was entirely true.
“Sorry, princess, but you don’t really appear to have the … equipment for heavy lifting. If you want to escape this fucking forsaken place, just follow and be quiet. No bleating, just silence. As for the generator, it’s hidden.” He managed to traverse a smashed hallway, carefully removing rebar in a means that didn’t disturb the window a few paces away. If it broke the vacuum would siphon the oxygen in addition to them if he wasn’t careful. Fortunately Jack was as dexterous as he was handsome and successfully managed to remove the obstruction.
The connecting chamber was as lofty as it was dark. It was running on minimal power, power enough to seal the port-door behind them when they entered to prevent any further damage to the fixtures. “The closest generator is in the Veins,” Jack explained, “Not the safest place given the conditions. Infected Hyperion workers and unfinished infrastructure. I know most of the station was destroyed by the singularity but I saw through one of the panes that it was largely untouched. We get down there, we boot up the generator, we’re good. Just one concern, though—it’s pretty space-y out there. Space-y meaning that there’s a fuckton of space.” He frowned. “You’re gonna need an Oz kit, unless … are you a space goat, by chance?”
“’Good’.” She parroted back the word as if it tasted sour. “No. We aren’t good.”
She kicked away his rifle even further from his grasp, crossing her arms about her chest as she assumed a pensive stance. Her eyes, black as the night, flitted up the ceiling. What small pupils she had were like dollops of milk rippling out in a pietrie dish of pitch. Eventually she rose, carrying her weight as she climbed to her haunches. Her body still ached from being dispatched from her prison without proper preliminary exercises, but she pressed on regardless.
Like most women from the Borderlands, Ohm was forged from battle, but the years of hard muscle were misshapen when she became attracted to rifles instead of her teeth. When she was an toddler Qet’siyah taught her to maul and maim. During her ascent into adolescence her primal mind waned, paving way for more cognitive functions. Henceforth she developed into a sane—again, text-book sane—teen and ultimately, an adult. Because she became so fond of hunting from afar her once hard, lean body transformed into a softer, more womanly figure. The muscle memory still existed but Ohm found she was more comfortable in her curvaceous shell in the stead of her teenage one.
“They have something that belongs to me.” She nearly struggled to say ‘me’, as if it were a word she was unaccustomed to using. Regardless, her English was immaculate, but her accent was heavy. “There’s a cavity below the atrium. Has Eridian technology preventing entrance.” She reached into her belt and unraveled a tattered document. It was peeled from a wall of some backwater settlement, loosely depicting her, her messy black braidhawk and a text exclaiming, ‘REWARD FOR CAPTURE’. She held it in his view, wrinkling her nose at the smell of the Siren pouring from his jerkin, but she feared it may very well just be spiced rum.
“If you help me gain entrance, you may escort me back to … wherever the fuck this is. The reward is yours. I will sit in a cell, gladly, so long as I have what was stolen from me.”
A wave of relief washed over him once she stood. Mordecai flipped over the second her felt her weight lift, pushing himself to his feet. He was on edge, his shoulders raised high, stiff with tension.
Finally he could get his first up close and personal look at this woman – and he was more than a little surprised. He had seen some of the details while watching her, but there were some more...unusual ones that he had missed entirely. Like those eyes. He wished he could say that was the most unnerving thing about her, but it wasn't. There was something else, something that he couldn't put his finger on. Some that was just so inherently out of place.
“Eridian, eh?” Mordecai repeated, scratching his jaw. That in itself made this worth checking out, on top of the fact that he'd get to stay alive after this. Mordecai tensed momentarily as she reached to pull something out of her belt, hardly relaxing once sure unfurled the piece of paper in front of him. He pulled his goggles up from his eyes and set them on top of his head, looking from the poster, to her, and back to the reward. This looked like one of the Raiders posters – even better. He could get some work done and make Lil pay him for doing it on top of claiming the reward for clearing this place out.
Mordecai stayed silent for a moment, mulling over his options for a moment. “Yeah. All right. You got a deal.” He moved to grab his rifle from the ground. He slung it over his shoulder and nodded down the path. “Below the atrium, huh? There's a path leading down below. Might be our best shot at it.” Mordecai waved for her to follow him.
“How'd you find out where they were keeping this thing?” Mordecai asked over his shoulder, his hand near his revolver at all times. Just because he'd agreed to do this didn't mean he wasn't going to be cautious. Hopefully this whole thing wouldn't be as arduous as the vault. Eridians seemed to love making things complicated. If even these bandits could figure out how to use the technology to seal away whatever she was looking for, then he couldn't imagine having many problems. If need be, they could always try blasting their way in. Places like this always had at least a few explosives around. Mordecai scanned the ground, looking over the mass of corpses that she had left behind, searching for any stragglers. "You really cleaned house. Saved me the trouble."
---------- Post added at 05:23 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:54 AM ----------
Pym rolled her eyes at his empty flattery. He would likely have a chance to thank her mother himself, if past experience was anything to rely on. Qet'siyah always collected her investments. A flash of anger had her baring her teeth momentarily. Who was he to tell her she wasn't a person? Some asshole who woke up on an abandoned station, just like her. Pym bit her tongue and shoved her emotions away. It wasn't important.
“I'm pretty sure that goat-people don't...actually exist. Look, we're not exactly all over the place. There's only six of us. ...And yes. We all have horns.” Pym arched a brow. She wasn't about to argue with him; the more that she got to rest, the better. Pym folded her arms over her chest and let him fiddle with the rebar, noticing in the meantime exactly how cold it was. She trailed after him, jumping in surprise as the door hissed closed behind them. Pym sighed and tried to listen closely to what he was saying. Never had she wanted more to just be on solid ground. “So you're sure that you can get us out of here once we get the generator running?”
Oz kit. She knew what that one was. Pym gritted her teeth and set out searching for an Oz kit. “Still not a goat, by the way. Definitely not a space goat.” She wrenched a locker open a bit more roughly than she had intended. Empty. She moved to the next, opening it more carefully this time, only to find the same thing. The third locker held what she was searching for – three Oz kits, one seemingly broken, one looking a little worse for wear, and another that seemed fine, if not a little dated. Pym grabbed the pair in best condition. “Here. Catch.” She said, already affixing her kit. She lobbed the better of the two towards him.
“No guns in there. We'll have to be careful.” Or, more specifically, he would have to be careful. Pym could take care of herself just fine without a gun. Pym looked out of a small window, her stomach dropping a little. She could see some of the station from there – most of it deteriorated, and another segment that didn't quite look like it had ever been together. “It's all the way over there, isn't it?” Pym asked flatly, having a feeling that she already know the answer. She stretched her arms over her head, wincing at the painful ache she received in response. “The shuttles aren't working on this thing, are they? Transformative mass manip– do you even have those? Tell me there's at least jump pads.”
“I told you shh; no bleating.”
There would be guns somewhere. With Hyperion mutineers hiding in the corners and the excommunicated boiler room workers likely at an equal arm’s length, a firearm shouldn’t be too hard to come across. “I’m sure I can get me out of here. That’s a given. You? Eh. Chancy.” He, too, approached a locker and pried it open. One after another the tall tin containers toppled under the breadth of his strength, each revealing complete emptiness. Instinctively he caught the kit, but he appeared more concerned about a weapon to defend themselves with. Suddenly, his eyes widened with realization. He snapped, circled on his well-dressed heels and made a bee-line to an abandoned office. He cycled through three different key cards but none worked. Angered, he kicked over a trash receptacle, accidentally revealing a switch panel. “These guys were never very clever. I mean, how cliché. Next thing you know they’ll be hiding secret levers behind bookcases.”
Jack gave the switch a simple flick. The door before them struggled to lift its own weight but, eventually, the vigor behind the gears kicked into overdrive and sent the port hurdling open. Inside there were various containers, most in possession of a simple firearm. Jack adopted a plain looking assault rifle. He was clearly disparaged by its miniscule nature, more so by its bullet capacity. “Forgot this was here,” he chuckled, slapping in a magazine. “Here, take a revolver. Don’t trust goats with firearms, sorry.”
Equipped with a means of protection and a thirst for vengeance, Jack lead Pym into the central station, carefully avoiding the maddened, infected Hyperion workers that migrated to the main levels. They stalked the ruins like wild dogs, twitching, flinching. He guided her well into the subway system, ultimately happening across the Veins which were largely derelict. Upon entrance an entire congregation of infected workers took notice of their arrival. Most immediately scattered, but the ones donned in breastplates and masks likened to welding gear sauntered towards them, menacingly, with broken pipes and wrenches in hand. The first was easily dispatched with a bullet to the head but the second provided increasingly troublesome. Jack aimed for his head but the welding gear was misdirecting; he merely dislodged the thing from the infected head.
At the far end of the vestibule he glimpsed the airlock—beyond it, the deep Veins. “Can’t get to the airlock unless these guys are pushing up daises, goat-lady! Put them down!”
Truthfully, the marksman Ohm encountered was hardly a hunter let alone a vault hunter. He was lissom; spindly. She noted the absent flecks of light in his eyes leading her to believe he was colorblind. In addition, the stench of stale booze was present and still hot on his breath. Despite her misgivings she collected her weapon and followed behind him, occasionally stealing glimpses as the havoc she wreaked. Where the scavengers had fortified their hideout was hollow, half erected on a sheet of pure sediment, but at the core there was a massive gape in the wall where they built metal panels. It appeared melted from the inside. Ohm knew the iridescent glow thrumming from beyond the threshold—something Eridian dwelled inside. Perhaps old ruins eked out with their technology, or simply an epoch-eaten cistern that they abandoned their belongings in.
“Been watching,” she responded, chewing involuntarily on her bottom lip. Mid step she transfixed her goggles to her forehead, sashaying around the heaps of rock strewn about. Bandits already infiltrated the sanctum. This may prove fruitless.
For now she was sated, having ripped the throats of several bandits out with her teeth alone. Ohm’s hunger was Qet’siyah’s doing. To keep her on a short leash Qet’siyah robbed Ohm of her restraint, transfixed it to an Eridian artifact and, lastly, entrusted it to a guardian. Truthfully it was not the bandits that pilfered her restraint but Ohm deigned not care to explain the details given the circumstances.
The corridor tapered so low that they would have to crawl on their bellies for further passage. Ohm dragged her rifle behind her, grumbling darkly as her horn snagged on a crag. With a hard head-butt the stones were loosed; Ohm freed herself, rising in the next chamber which exposed the breadth of Eridian technology. It hummed with a familiar melody, as if imbued with life. The sanctum’s amaranthine chassis limned the walls, bleeding through heliotropic veins. In its center rose a dais that resembled a crystal and, in it, an artifact that assumed the shape of a pomegranate. “Watch the mezzanine,” she warned, “This one knows the sentinel will summon its companions.”
She climbed the dais, knelt, and offered her rifle in prostration before it. As she predicted the sentinel appeared, a mighty guardian with delicately webbed wings wielding a lance. It spoke to her in an alien language, as if berating her, however, Ohm merely remained silent until she knew when to rebuke.
“Hierdie een wil haar selfbeheersing, want dit het onregmatig beroof van haar. Hierdie een nederig versoek dat dit laat vaar sodat sy kan uit te voer haar plig.”
The guardian’s face twisted.
“Dit kan 'n mens dit nie toelaat nie . Jy is haar dienaar doen as sy bod. Hierdie een weier om hierdie seën bemaak .”
Ohm rose, collecting her rifle, hearing the shriek of the guardians as they poured in through the sanctum’s veins. “Then I will rend your fucking wings with my teeth, jy pousse.”
This one desires her restraint, for it has been wrongfully robbed from her. This one humbly requests that it be relinquished so she may carry out her duty.
This one cannot allow it. You are Her servant, to do as she bids. This one refuses to bequeath this boon.
You cunt.
Mordecai was beginning to regret agreeing to this. The more the path narrowed, the more his apprehension grew. He was a twig, but by no means a small man. He didn't fit comfortably into spaces like this – and neither did she, judging by the way her horn snagged into the wall. It didn't phase her one bit, of course. She powered through it, and Mordecai was briefly reminded of why he had sided with her anyway. It was faintly reminiscent of working with Brick. Except this Brick was a girl. And hot.
Mordecai brushed away the rubble with his forearm, glad he had been hanging back from her a bit. He climbed to his feet, eager to stand after so long, but he could practically feel the energy in this place radiating off of it. She hadn't been lying – this was Eridian. He would never be able to forget something like this place, the way that strange, otherworldly energy went pulsating through its bones, setting him on edge. She, on the other hand, seemed perfectly at home. That was only putting him more on edge.
He scanned the area out of habit, his eyes drawn to the mezzanine as she called it out. Mordecai stiffened, his head snapping back towards her. “Whoa, whoa – the sentinel's gonna summon guardians? The hell does that mean?” his revolver was in his hand now, and he spared her another hesitant glance as he checked his ammo. He knew exactly what it meant. He was just clinging to the last shred of hope that he had misheard her.
The exact moment where he realized that this had probably been a very terrible mistake was not when they wound up within a chamber of Eridian origin. It wasn't even when the woman told him to watch the mezzanine because some 'sentinel' would summon others. No - the exact moment of regret was when he saw that thing appear. It was monstrous, but she didn't seem at all phased. Mordecai's hands tightened on his revolver, standing awkwardly down below like the world's worst bodyguard.
Of course she could communicate with that hideous thing. Of course it would respond in turn. Of course she pissed it off. He didn't understand much in that conversation save that the woman was pissed by the end, but he could understand tone, and he could understand that when guardians were suddenly filling an Eridian ruin, it was never good.
“What the hell did you say to piss it off?” Mordecai yelled, whirling around to check the openings that he had noted earlier. He looked around wildly for some semblance of cover in the half second of respite he figured he had to prepare. Damned Eridians and their minimalist designs had hardly left him anything. She had warned him to watch for the backup, but if the one that she had called the sentinel was going to be hanging around, he doubted she could handle it all on her own. Bandits were one thing, but an Eridian guard was another beast entirely.
The first of the guardians dropped in. Mordecai was first to fire, as usual. He knew where to aim, he knew where he could bypass their protection and hit them where it hurt, and for that, he was finally glad for his previous vault-hunting experience.
“When you said 'they' had something of yours, kinda thought you meant the bandits.” He called, taking advantage of the guardian's stagger to reload what he could. There was no use trying to go toe-to-toe with these things, and as good as he was with a knife, he knew from experience a swipe from one of them hurt more.
He slapped the cylinder shut and emptied it back into the guardian. With no time to reload again, Mordecai's rifle was in his hands more quickly than he had time to think about it. Two rounds dropped it. He spun around to face the one he had seen drop into place on the mezzanine moments ago, a well placed shot stunning the creature. Another entered to the right, already on the ground. As long as he kept them at a distance, everything would be fine. As long as she could handle herself as well as earlier, as long as everything went perfectly. A shot punctuated his thoughts. There were still more, he could hear them clambering to meet them. This was going to have to be one hell of a payday.
---------- Post added at 10:36 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:28 PM ----------
It was the atmosphere. It had to be Pandora's atmosphere that turned everyone who got even sort of close into an enormous dickbag. Had to be. Pym let the dinky little revolver dangle between thumb and forefinger for a minute, thinking of saying something to the man but quickly deciding that she didn't want to hear another goat joke if she didn't have to. She followed close behind him, keeping an eye on the rabid workers who wandered listlessly. Her objective for the moment was to get the hell off of the station - and what that meant in smaller terms was protecting the jackass. Anyone who came too close would get a bullet between the eyes – though for these things, that was probably a mercy in itself. He was leading them well enough – or at least he was good enough at pretending he knew where he was going. For as big an asshole as he seemed to be, he was at least competent.
Frankly, it was amazing to think they hadn't encountered resistance until they had dropped straight into an entire gathering of freaks. It wasn't the ideal location for a fight, but then again they seemed didn't seem all that keen on sticking around with the exception of a few more bold ones. Pym had taken count – she had eight shots, six in the cylinder and two extra. Not enough for all her enemies. If they had to get all the way to the other side... it would be a struggle.
Pym dispatched the first with a clean shot to the head, taking advantage of the fact that he had blown the mask off its face. Two down. Pym hadn't gotten a clear count on their opponents – ten plus, for certain. She had to assume more than that.
“Relax, pretty boy. I've got this. Watch my back, yeah?” Pym said, her voice low. She holstered her gun, taking a moment to gauge the distance between them. This one also wore a mask. She didn't see the need to waste what few bullets she had trying to knock it away. The back of his skull was exposed; it would be an easy shot if she could get to the other side of him. Pym reached out, grabbed a jagged pipe hanging down, and wrenched it from its place.
Thankfully, Pym came genetically equipped for slaughter, and her small stature did well to hide her strength. Her companion was equipped with an Oz kit – he wouldn't be affected by the noxious cloud she had become at his side. Or, at least not so affected that he would pass out. It took more out of her than she had thought, and for a moment she was taken aback as she stalked towards the opponent. Never had it taken so much out of her to do this before. Pym reformed behind the man, surprised to find herself out of breath. She slammed the pipe she had taken from the wall down into the back of his head, and the infected crumpled. Once more, and his blood splattered onto her. Three down – the ones who had scattered were starting to flood back in.
Pym snatched her revolver from her hip. Two seemed smart enough to grab guns, to say nothing of whether or not they could sufficiently operate them, and another four were content to rush forward with their blunt weapons. Pym took aim and fired twice, nailing one of the rifle men in the shoulder. Four shots left. She scowled, but there was little time to bemoan her aim. Movement behind her sparked her attention – more filling in from the right. She ducked the swing of an infected, grabbed his wrist and kicked at the back of his knee. She wrapped her arm around his neck, hauled him up and swung him around in time to use him as a human shield. She pressed the revolver to the base of his head and fired, releasing him as the struggling stopped and the body fell limp. A bullet seared past, and Pym's breath caught in her throat.
“Take out those geeks with the guns for me, please,” Pym called back to her companion, not stupid enough to tear her eyes from the crowd that was gathering.
These weapons were virtually useless. The magazine was minuscule and emptied almost as fast as Jack could blink. He found himself slamming clip after clip into it until it ran dry and he was forced to sashay around one of the infected and engage it in melee combat. The man—or at least, he believed it was a man once—was frenzied; foaming at the corners of its red mouth. Jack cringed and buffed it to the head; it staggered and fell back where he promptly drove his heel into its head. The mess splattered his vest, garnering yet another cringe. He was in no mood to be festooned in the gore of his enemies—furthermore, he was wearing his favorite Hyperion outfit.
Disgruntled, he lobbed the empty firearm at the floor. It clicked, clacked and skittered into a wall where two of the infected stopped to spectate, distracted by the unusual sound. He circled around, absentmindedly gnawing on his bottom lip as Pym announced that she was going to assert her dominance in his stead. “Watch your back?” he repeated, parched, “Oh, I will. Trust me. I will.” His eyes centered square on her ass, a view blocked by the older infected that sauntered like brainless zombies. Jack was easily able to avoid them but the boils were much quicker on their feet.
For a moment, despite the fractals of light glinting off of the planet below, the entire chamber darkened. There was a queer miasma permeating about in tandem with Pym’s disappearance. It was black, but shimmery, like shards of ground amethysts were tossed into the haze. He rubbed his eyes; they burned and watered. Before he could blink they were thick with tears. Disoriented, he collapsed into a corner, hiding the sensitive membrane in his face from the gaseous cloud. To his disbelief it reformed to become Pym.
“You’re a space goat and you can become a poisonous cloud of slag? Not sure what to make of you, lady. You do have a pretty nice ass, though. Don’t get mad—you told me to watch your back. It was a given.”
He scooped up a sub machine-gun from one of the dead boils, extending his arm behind him in a protective stance. “That’s pretty impressive. Pym, was it?” he smiled one of his dubious, dastardly smiles. “So, I’ve decided that yes—we’ll both get off of this fuck-pit. That being said … let’s light these fucks up and get the hell out of dodge.” He pushed her back, shooting from his hip at a standalone barrel juxtaposing with the brood of infected workers. A few bullets nicked the metal but one pierced the shaft completely siring a massive explosion that ripped a hole in the side of the wall. The infected were sequentially vacuumed into the soundless, galactic expanse outside. Before Pym and himself could be siphoned, he slammed his fist into the cycle button on the airlock, thrusting Pym in before he, too, vaulted in after her.
Inside his ears swelled with an unwelcome pressure. “Gussy up, princess. ‘Bought to hit these jump pads.” He holstered the SMG and searched through canisters in the airlock for ammo. Fortunately there was enough to do them a spell, or at least, he hoped. Approaching the unlocked panel he entered an a sequence to unfasten the mechanism. “I’m not entirely sure you’ve been in open space before—I mean, you’re a space goat, but I digress. The zero-gravity environment can be extremely unpredictable so if you jump or stray from a jump pad path, try and foresee where you’re going to land.” He smirked. “But the absence of gravity isn’t all too bad. Makes bouncy things more … bouncy.”
As Ohm predicted the guardians flooded in through the derelict craft’s sluice system. The dais vanished underneath a massive panel and, with it, the artifact and her restraint. The Sentinel fled to the shadows, instructing the lesser guardians to eradicate the anomalies within the vestibule. As they advanced, Ohm growled. It was a throaty, guttural sound, as if she were drowning in her own blood. The first string of guardians were dispatched when Ohm met them in melee combat. Her jaw, apparently unhinged, revealed several rows of serrated teeth. She bored into one of the aliens’ shoulders, tearing out the flesh as she wove in out of metaphysicality by assuming the form of a cloud of slag. When she re-materialized, several corpses littered the strange purple tile and she appeared hunched over, frenzied and ultimately, enraged.
“Annul them both.” The Sentinel’s voice crackled like a whip in a strange metallic casing. Sera guardians followed, this time using the air as their haunt. Two broke into a nosedive and collected Ohm by her forearms, whisking her into the air. She gnashed at their fingers like a rabid dog, snapping so ferociously that the resounding smack echoed within the spacecraft. Her gauntlet had faux claws on it, heavily reminiscent of a stalker’s fangs. She shredded through her assailants, plummeted to the earth and rolled to absorb the shock.
“This one has said nothing that would offend it; words are benign to the Sentinels.” Or, so Ohm thought.
Regardless, she climbed to her haunches—all six feet of her. She clapped her tongue on the roof of her mouth; it lolled out, slick with saliva and the blood of a fresh kill. Unfortunately Ohm lacked a mid-ranged weapon. She was most efficient in melee discourses and at extreme distances but she floundered as a vanguard. Despite her demerits the Sentinel would still attempt to cull her and her affiliate.
“Entropic One, you know not what you do,” the Sentinel boomed. It careened into the middle of the room ye again, floating upon an unseeable wind. “She will herald your end should you cross her.”
“This one has grown tired of idle banter.”
Ohm clutched her rifle. She turned it in her hands with a feline accuracy, folding the stock and twisting it until it assumed the stature of a lance, heavily resembling that in which the guardians possessed. “Fight, pousse!”
The Sentinel hissed and grounded itself. In tandem with its descent tendrils sprouted from the walls of the vestibule. Their aggression was prophesied by their wild, frenzied whipping, even going so far as to cast guardians from the air. Ohm frowned and, pacing in front of the behemoth alien mass as if completed its transformation. “Lissom one,” she grunted, gesturing to Mordecai, “The Sentinel’s most critical point is its head. This one will dislodge its mask and hold its attention—attack at range, however, do not over-damage it, or it will direct its aggression at you. Verstaan? Good. Kom ons dans.”
Verstaan - Understand?
Kom on dans - let's dance.
Mordecai was holding his own, managing to keep his eye on his companion at the same time. 'Entropic one', that thing called her. Whatever the hell that meant. He didn't know much about this portion of Eridian culture, and he wasn't exactly sure that he really cared – especially not now. She was doing just fine on her own, which was more than a relief. In fact she might have been doing too well. Mordecai had fought with his share of crazy folk, but this was a whole new level. As long as she was on his side, he wasn't complaining.
He fired another shot at a guardian circling in the air, halting its advance on the woman. It turned towards him instead, and for a moment, he was concerned with the amount of attention that he had garnered from the guardians. He was entirely focused, zoned in perfectly when he heard his companion call out. It took him a moment to figure out that she was calling to him, and when he did, he couldn't raise his head to acknowledge her. He had taken aim at another guardian, a carefully placed shot finding its mark, and now he was rolling out of the way of another's strike.
The tentacles erupted from the walls, and frankly he was more surprised to find himself exasperated more than shocked or appalled. “What is it with the tentacles?” He muttered to himself, trying to weave around the whipping tentacles. A guardian crashed to the ground next to him, barely stirring and scrambling to stand again, and Mordecai was quick to take advantage of that, stopping it with a quick shot.
“Heard!” He called, turning his eyes to the sentinel. She had to get that mask off before he could do any serious damage, but before that, he could thin out some more guardians. Their flow into the chamber was largely slowed by the landing of the Sentinel, but not alltogether halted. He had enough ammo to pick them off and keep things clear while still being able to provide the support she needed.
He didn't know how their joust was going to go down – and he had entirely missed the portion in which she had turned her rifle into a lance, only adding to his brief spell of confusion. This was something bigger than him. All he could do was stay alive. Mordecai dodged another tentacle as it swiped by, the force behind it not lost on him. He was increasingly glad that Talon wasn't with them.
He fired another shot, hitting a guardian square in the back and drawing its attention. He led it into the path of a tentacle, overwhelmingly satisfied when it was knocked from the air and slammed against the wall. The more he could lead them into their own boss, the better. He pressed himself closer to the back wall and took advantage of his relative moment of calm, pressed his rifle to his shoulder and taking the Sentinel into his sights. That mask would be too difficult for him to penetrate. He turned his aim lower, and fired.
A tentacle swiped low at him in response, and Mordecai leaped over it just in time. He stumbled out of its range, and twirled around another. He pulled a knife from its sheath and jammed it into one of the appendages, twisting. He barely had time to retrieve it before it writhed frantically. The tentacle slammed into him. He felt the breath leave him as he was flattened against the wall, but the pressure was quickly gone. Mordecai recovered, taking note of the pain in his ribs for later, and moved out of the way of a second swipe. Maybe not such a grand idea, stabbing the thing.
All it took for him to start valuing her was a few easy murders. That should have sent red flags up everywhere, but to Pym, it seemed almost normal. Had she not struggled so hard to separate herself from her sisters, it would have been perfectly logical; she had proven her worth by eliminating an enemy. Pym caught herself, a hand outstretched to stop from crashing into the wall with too much force, and she was quick to move to the side to give him room as well. Kill a few guys, and suddenly people were throwing you to safety and complimenting your ass. Go figure.
Pym let her head fall back against the wall of the airlock and pressed a hand to her chest. Her limbs were settling back into a dull ache along with the dredge of pain in her chest with the adrenaline slowly flushing. She wanted to keep moving if it meant more combat. She pressed a hand to her stomach and looked herself over, scanning for injuries. Once she was clear, she turned to check him over as well. He seemed mostly unscathed. Her mind drifted back to earlier, remembering quite clearly how reckless it had been to shift her form that close to him. It was of course, absolutely hilarious that he thought he had any say over her worth, but she had to keep reminding herself that he had no idea who she was.
“Hey. Sorry about earlier.” She said, her voice softer than she had intended. She tore her eyes from his chest, not sure when she had stopped checking for injuries and started staring. “I didn't mean to hurt you. Thanks for, uh, y'know. Not leaving me to die. That was... kind of badass.” Pym pushed herself up to start fishing around for ammo as well.. It wasn't a good idea to start entertaining even momentarily ideas of this man – and he was still a jackass, even with his sudden change in demeanor towards her. Qet'siyah had stranded her with him for a reason. She could only imagine how incredibly pissed off her mother would be if anything uncouth were to happen – and while that made things a little more tempting briefly, the inevitable punishment squandered it immediately. At the least, she would appreciate from afar. Quietly, and undetected.
Pym swiped her tongue along her teeth. A hand came up and wrapped around a horn, tugging gently and nervously. “You should probably follow your own advice. Watch where you're jumping, all that.” Pym laughed. She nodded out the airlock and took a deep breath. Open space had never made her comfortable – and jump pads made her queasy. With her stomach likely empty, though, that wasn't likely to be a problem. She elected not to mention it. “You can look all you like, but I think I'm a little too much for you to handle.”
Reloading her revolver, she let the pipe she had used to bludgeon heads drop and braced herself. "Look - you like my ass. I think you're a solid eight of ten with a phenomenal chest. I would love to live long enough to do something about that. Generator first though, yeah?" This was going to suck. Wide open, they would be so vulnerable. This generator had to be close though. Then she would never have to deal with collapsing stations and the boundlessness of space ever again. Or at least not for a very long time. Of course, outside the airlock, the veins were even more a shithole than the rest of the station. Prior to this, there had at least been some semblance of order – and here, here it was a barely conceived notion of what could have been. How it was still being held together, she had no idea.
More of the gross assholes from before dotted the manmade landscape. They could likely avoid most of them, save a few in notably problematic locations. The first jump pad was in plain view and Pym started for it. She hated the way movement felt, like she could be dislodged with any faint strike. The second-hand oz kit was at least doing its job for the moment, though. Her hand was tighter on her gun than normal, and it hit her once again how cold everything was. Pym glanced over her shoulder and jerked her head for him to go first; he was the priority here. Without him, she was stuck on this godforsaken planet until the end. She could cover him just fine from where she was, and no, she was not nervous.
“Listen, sweetheart. I’ve handled a lot. A raucous adolescent daughter, a psychotic ex-girlfriend who manned a gladitorium, an alien monster that could have been responsible for destroying a planet …. Heh. Trust me. I think I can handle a space goat.”
When the exit door jettisoned open, a waft of ice cold air hit him before he felt only the long, hard sting of it. The sun reflected its fractals of light off of the arrant panels floating through the absent expanse like dust. He smiled, cheekishly, at Pym, gazing down into the darkness that permeated below them. One misplaced step would spell their doom; they’d like flutter off into space, never to be found, or if they were fortunate, die of hypothermia or asphyxiation first. “Well, I’ll be expecting a reward once the power is rerouted.” Truthfully, Jack wasn’t entirely sure that his ruse would even be effective. It looked hopeless, but it was better than the alternative, and he refused to have that be a reality.
When she gestured for him to take the first step, he couldn’t help but to chuckle. The sound was absent just that—sound, and appeared even more hilarious in tandem with the scenery. “No , no,” he continued, “I’m not going first.”
He hooked his arm around Pym’s, held tight and plunged forward. The springs in the pad recoiled in perfect unison, deflating, then casting up with enough force to send the two of them soaring. Jack was accustomed to launch but never the butterflies in his stomach. Like the villain he was he watched Pym’s face for the pure look of horror he anticipated she’d wear. When they landed Jack felt bullet whiz by his head. A pack of Hyperion soldiers were still mindlessly circling around the Veins. Jack loosed a few shots; they richoted off of their shields, but some caught their armor. “Fuckin’ useless. Come on, sweetheart.” This time when he pulled her onto the jump pad, his eyes were trained on her chest. He hoped physics would sate his unquenchable thirst, but it seemed that was an extremely unlikely .
“We’re almost there. Ignore these assholes, press on through the next platform—get into the air lock, cycle, we’re pretty much home free.”
Fortunately, the Sentinel was taken with Ohm. It released its pent up frustration on her in an onslaught of tentacles, whipping and slashing with an unadulterated ferocity. Succeeding each buffet Ohm felt her stamina wane and the tendrils attacked in quicker succession. One caught her shoulder and tore her morphsuit. Underneath her flesh was rent, but the skin that was unscathed sported intricate, geometrical tattoos that glowed like the ley lines running up and down their battleground.
Much to Ohm’s chagrin, the sentinel’s reach was just like that of humans’—far, and destructive. She intercepted a lash, landing square next to Mordecai after severing one of the tentacles with her lance. As it squealed, she exhaled, draped Mordecai’s arm over her shoulder and whisked him to the mezzanine. Fortunately his extraction was swift, but she feared his injury may be worse than anticipated. While the sentinel recovered—regenerating its tentacle as more sera guardians flooded in through the gates—she touched his chest, gently. “’Heard’?” she scoffed. “You don’t listen well at all. This one has directed that she would bear the brunt of its aggression.” She gestured to the armor on her shoulders—the pauldrons were eked from some sort of twisted space metal.
“Incorrigible.”
As she laid him there, she clambered down, berating the creature with slashes and quick hits to its sides. She knew that its resolve wouldn’t falter without assistance. Although its health was waning Ohm knew it would only summon more of its minions to bolster its defenses. Enraged, she buried her lance’s head into eridian’s neck, climbing as it wailed at her. “You know not what you do, Entropic one,” it repeated, “Your resolve belongs to us.”
“Unlikely.”
She straddled its long, slender neck, driving the claws on her gauntlet underneath its mask. It hissed, like the sound of hot steam escaping a vent. She lifted it, but not easily. Years of hardworked tendon and nerves were glued to the material. She severed pink film of flesh with her claws, exposing the entirety of the eridian’s face. It was twisted, putrid and ultimately, vulnerable. “Kill it!” she screamed.