Chara had barely been separated from the southern woman for more than a few hours when she found herself standing on the edge of the battlefield. Having survived a number of struggles with the forces of the Fallen Arbiter, the teenager couldn’t quite explain why she’d subject herself to another visual display of the horrors of the unmaking.
Perhaps to steel herself against future miseries? Perhaps in pursuit of some secret science-fiction toy that would pacify those would stand between her and victory in this blood sport?
Whatever the case, she ventured out into the old battleground, and very quickly, her lithe frame was lost among the desiccated husks and rusted fuselages. There was a veritable stench that lingered everywhere, but it wasn’t the telltale aroma that you’d often associate with a normal battlefield… something like organic rot blended with gunpowder. The unmaking had a particular stench that was hard to pinpoint, and even after a number of exposures, Chara wasn’t sure she could adequately describe it.
BANG!
Something exploded underneath the nearby carcass of a mechanized creature. Chara pitched sideways as her hearing was supplanted by the telltale droning of momentarily overloaded eardrums. A spattering of rusted metal and dirty coated her face as she crashed to the ground and reached for her bag. Nail gun in hand, she clapped one hand over her tinnitus-riddled ear and swung the nail gun in a wide arch.
“How old are you?” A gravelly voice muttered as Chara twisted around and fired without a second thought.
Ketkin Flynn grimaced as the nails sank into his thigh and shattered his vertical equilibrium. The adjustment to life without his suit had taken a harsh turn as he pitched sideways, grabbed at the nearest heap of debris, and toppled it over onto the young woman.
“Sorry,” He grumbled as he grabbed her bag of supplies and made for the interior of the battlefield.
Ketkin Flynn suffered a few nails into his left thigh. He’ll need to remove those (?) and/or patch that to stop the bleeding (Minor Injury)
Chara will be hard of hearing for the remainder of Day 1 (Story Injury) but emerge from the debris pile safe aside from some scrapes and bruises that she should probably clean out (Story Injury)
Ketkin took Chara’s supplies (does NOT include the Nail Gun, though – you’re not that lucky).
"You may not need to eat, but as I am still regrettably human, I must." Lilith had raised her unique biology as an excuse for not stopping, but we had already traveled a great distance since making touchdown in the Cevanti wilderness. All around us was evidence of ruined settlements, overgrown forests, and wanton destruction as the armies of the Unmade participated in the dissolution of everything down to its constituent atoms. I picked up a handful of soil, filtering through my fingers. "Wasted. No nutrients or moisture. Closer to dust than soil."
Lilith peered down from the tree branch she was perched on. "Why do you care about dirt, huh? Genius science killer, I figure dirt would be beneath your boots." She breathed heavily, making the last phrase sound like a term of endearment. Possibly the most outwardly flirtatious woman I'd dealt with. I was not the type of person to receive many advances, and I preferred to keep it that way. "I do not care about the dirt. I care about what alters a planet's ecosystem so uniformly and methodically. After all, my methods are...similar, hggk, koff koff."
I was no foot soldier. I was only choosing to work with Anders and his freedom fighters until it no longer suited me, and our mystical employer 'Ridley' held no special loyalty with me either. Yet even I had my compunctions about such an omnicidal overlord such as the Fallen Arbiter. Humanity's eradication and stagnancy under Darkseid's rule would render all of my work utterly pointless. "You've fought the Unmade, before yes? Before you decided to take advantage of the chaos in Nausicaa." I'd read up on her when Anders told us we'd be working with Ridley's associates.
Her voice drifted down from the trees, and I didn't bother to look up, instead tearing open one of the MRE's included in the duffel bag and laying the food on my lap. "Pff..I didn't fight the Unmade. I wanted to make my mark on the Crossroads, you know? Like you did in Arcadia, with that bank heist." Ah. She'd read up on me as well. A few more moments of mutual silence passed as I began to eat the substandard food, first some spongey slice of hardtack with raisins in it. I barely tasted it as it went down, using the packaging to take a soil sample. "Tell me if you spot any of the Unmade Zoids. I wish to gather more samples before we leave."
Next went whatever protein slurry passed as food grade, although I discarded that bag. I doubted there would be authorities out here responsible for littering, and the bag was too contaminated with liquid protein. Lilith was next to break the silence as I rummaged through my bag for more. I hadn't eaten much in the last few days...the consequences of being driven by your life's work was that sustenance fell by the wayside. "So...we're all alone out here, in the wilds, monsters and other contestants lurking under every branch...perfect time to get intimate. And don't try to get away from it, this time..." Her words were like oil, seeping down from the branches...no wait, that was Lilith herself, oozing down to sit on a stone opposite me. Her eyes glittering with curiosity as I stared her in the face through the evening gloom. "Tell me....what's your favorite part of the kill? Mine is tormenting my victims until they’re on the verge of death…"
Why not.
"You kill for pleasure. Or to satiate your desires. Or because you are bored." I said plainly, in a slightly accusatory tone. "I do not kill for base reasons. I am doing research. Every death has a file in my memory, and then those get put to paper or data once I have the chance." I stood up, shoving a chocolate bar between my lips and swallowing hard. "Koff......hgghk...I am researching Death itself...every little jerk or twitch, every ache of pain or gasp of breath...all of these are problems to be solved with my ultimate formula." The air was heavy with awkward silence as I finished pontificating, clearing my throat.
"To answer your question....the moment the eyes dull from living to dead. That is the line I have discovered marks death more often than not. But when that happens, the lungs collapse and there is one last exultation of air. Sometimes....it sounds like thankfulness." The most honest I've ever been.
Lilith only grinned an unnerving smile. "Ah, the death throes! One of my favorite kinds of music."
"Hottest part of the day comes 'round just as this landscape reaches its zenith of shittiness."
From where she sat perched atop the crumbling and rusted remains of a zoid, perched very precariously on the edge of a mountain cliffside and doing it's damn best to dangle at the most obnoxiously spine-tingling angle, Aster groaned aloud at the current state of affairs. While grumpily gnawing on a chocolate-flavored energy bar (thank Karl for no actual chocolate, because she would've definitely chowed down on that literal poison in her frustrated and attention-broke state), she checked and double checked her map to mark down any areas that were scheduled to have baaaaad juju strike them any time now, as well as places that just gave her bad vibes in general.
"Don't wanna get stuck somewhere with no way out..." she mumbled. "Worst, most lame way to go out. Gettin' caught in a dead zone. Ain't gonna be me." She grinned, with a snort of amusement. "I seen enough of this stuff to know how much of a bad time death by that stuff is, even in a normal Abyss event. And this one sure ain't normal, so I don't wanna go figurin' out what it'd be like firsthand."
Her notes done, she nodded absently to herself and set the tablet down beside herself before leaning slightly forward and peering down the cliff she was perched atop while idly kicking her legs and sending small pebbles tumbling and clattering down. "Hmm. Long way down," she noted. Of all the things she might have not cared for or been afraid of, heights at least was not one of them. "Deeefinitely not goin' that way. Probably could climb down, but...eh." She shrugged dismissively, looking up and peering around for the camera she knew was watching. "You hear that?! I'm not goin' down that way cause it'd be too much effort, not cause I can't!" She huffed, snatching the tablet up again and scrambling to her feet.
"Besides, there's probably spooky shit down that way." She hunched her shoulders. "Real spooky shit. Unmaking-type real spooky shit. And Aster does not do unmade-type real spooky shit."
She hopped skipped and jumped back down the much less precarious and vertigo-inducing path behind her to where she had left her other supplies wedged in the shadow of some rocks. "Alright, time to keep a-movin', for whatever its worth. Staying in one place too long is a sure way to get your head popped." She brought the tablet up again, judging the distance and squinting around her surroundings. "So as to avoid becoming this year's dumb-dumb, I'm gonna go...this way." And with a nod in a random direction, she shoved the tablet back in her bag and headed out in approximately 'this way'-ward.
"Just gotta kill time for now, 'til I find somethin' interesting. And hopefully soon."
“Run along, little creature. You have been given a gift, you see. Your sacrifice is not in vain. In fact, it will hopefully lead whoever else is out here to me, so I can cut them down.”
Kefka looked away from the pitiful elk… thing. A glittering splash of scarlet raked across the field he’d been herding the elk-thing through.
It eked out a sad cry, struggling to keep pace. Kefka shrugged. That made sense, he figured. Humans are persistence predators after all. It was also bleeding pretty bad.
“I wonder how long you’ll go, little Elky,” he said to the creature, who continued to call for help. A little more frantic now. Kefka frowned. “Oh, very well.”
He rushed forward, and with a single swipe, put the creature’s misery to a sudden end. It collapsed onto its side, and he pointed at the creature even as the light left its eyes. A tiny spark of flame burned a perfect arrow, pointing in the direction of a beautiful glade in the forest. He headed the way the arrow pointed, hoping someone would find his macabre sign post.
“Hear the trumpets, hear the pipers,” he started to skip. Lovely day today. “One hundred million angels singin’- AUGH. I can’t believe I’m saying this but I miss that stupid battlecabbage. Who am I singing this for? Myself?”
He blinked, then laughed in his cruel way. D'uh. Of course he was singing for himself.
“Run on, for a long time, run on, for a long- oh, f- wrong song!”
Eyes briefly stilled of anger or excitement suddenly blazed with manic intensity. He stamped off into thicker woods, resisting the urge to set the whole countryside on fire.
And resist he did, for he was on a mission.
Kefka plopped down with his chosen log laid across his lap, four sticks lined up to his left. To his right, he’d gathered a number of thin, green twigs which could easily be bent and twisted.
With his equipment gathered, he began to assemble his creation. Occasionally, he’d switch from fiddling with his materials to scoring the log with the same level of expertise as he’d used on his elk-arrow.
An hour or two had passed. He wasn’t exactly sure, as he’d been busy. He admired his work. An absolutely impeccable recreation of his former pet monster Screamsicle.
Other people might see a log with four sticks lashed to it to approximate arms and legs, and a vague, angry face burned into the log.
But those people were wrong.
Kefka climbed to his feet, hefting Screamsicle aloft. One of his “legs” fell off, but the god of magic didn’t seem to notice.
“What do you think, Screamsicle? Shall we continue where we left off, or shall you go and get yourself uselessly killed a second time?” Kefka started shaking the Screamsicle effigy and shrieking incoherently. “You were useless! Maybe if you hadn’t died; we’d have won. This time, you’d better not let me down!”
Kefka shrieked at himself as Screamsicle again, and then he seemed to be humming. He twirled with Screamsicle, and then began sauntering along.
“Don’t you know the devil wears a suit and tie; Saw him driving down the 61 in early July; White as a cotton field and sharp as a knife; I heard him howling as he passed me by,”
The stars of the Crossroads lingered in Cevanti’s sky a little longer than on other planets. Perhaps the tomb world orbited inside a cosmic shadow; perhaps the decades of degradation decayed the atmosphere so terribly it was easy to peek through. By the time noon rolled around, though, with the sun at its highest point in the sky, all traces of the cosmos had vanished.
Charcoal gray clouds drifted overhead. As Fennec moved through the twisty forest, hacking unmade vines and crackling branches from her path with her machete, the coverage ensured very little light seeped through the gaps in the tree canopy. She’d been here twelve hours, and between the lack of illumination and the strange, blinding attack of the person she’d encountered a bit ago, she’d had a rough go of it as far as her sight was concerned.
An omen, or dark preview, of things to come, perhaps. Fifty-seven wasn’t geriatric, but it wasn’t anything to shake a stick at — she’d been bounty hunting in the Crossroads for longer than most of the other contestants had been alive, especially when you considered how many of them were actual children. How could the powers that be behind this whole drama live with themselves, anyway, submitting such youthful pawns to the blood and grit of this death tournament? Fennec supposed they must be actually sick in the head, psychopathic to a degree she’d only rarely seen in her decades of merc work.
Hack.
She slammed her machete down on a particularly thick conglomeration of vines, but only managed to bust through a few of them. She lifted the blade above her head, bringing it down once again.
Hack.
Another slash, another several vines sliced. Not enough.
Hack.
This time her arm fell straight through the curtain of tangled tree-rope, and she stumbled forward into a small clearing. In the center of the withered brown grass ahead of her, a tree rose tall, its trunk more girthy and gargantuan than any of the more measly specimens that made up the forest around it. She caught herself on it, steadying herself and taking a look up at the unique conifer. It rose well past the forest’s regular canopy line, looking to almost stab the foreboding clouds —
Arbiter be damned, what the fuck was that?
Fennec took a step back, gazing up at something hanging from one of the lower branches of the tree. It glimmered in the little bit of sunlight breaking through the leaves above, shiny and metallic but only to a point. Even from here, she could tell parts of it were dented and blunt, marred by time or violence.
Climbing to fetch it was no tall feat; she clambered up one or two branches before it was in her grasp. As she dropped back to the surface, she held it, examining it carefully. Once it was in her hand, she could feel even through her thick gundark-leather gloves that it wasn’t metallic at all, but fleshy and squishable. The shine came from a layer of caked, dried blood spread across it, harkening back to its original purpose as the heart of some thing, once living and now dead.
She pressed her fingers gently into it, shocked to find it still so malleable after what must’ve been decades — perhaps even hundreds — of years. Though she wouldn’t put it past the kinds of degenerates this game attracted to string the hearts of their dead adversaries up like this, it looked too decayed to be the heart of one of the other Dante’s Abyss contestants. No, rather, it must’ve been something left over from the struggles of the Wastes — maybe, even, from all the way back before The End? She sucked in a nervous breath.
That’s… impossible, she thought to herself. It would’ve turned to dust by now.
But were there people out here, fighting, dying, in recent years? She’d stayed far away from trouble when the Fade had come knocking on Markov’s door, but had there been… people out here, unsuspecting, who’d fallen victim to the Unmaking?
She knelt down to the ground, holding the heart as gently as she might a newborn baby bantha. She stabbed the machete into the dirt with her other hand, jerking it out and carving out a small indentation in the soil. Slowly, she placed the heart inside the small, shallow grave. As it touched the dirt, boils sprouted on every side of it, quickly popping and oozing out oily black liquid — essence of the Unmade, to be certain — and from within the surrounding forest, a screech.
Fennec flinched, then scowled, her gaze darting up to her surroundings.
Nothing, thank the Arbiter.
For so long, she’d taken the firm position that the Unmaking — and all the evil it brought with it — wasn’t her game. She sought out the dregs of the underworld, but interdimensional, Arbiter-backed evil? Way above her pay grade.
Somewhere deep within her, she knew that was exactly what she’d be diving into on Inverxe, though, if she followed through on the master codebreaker’s job.
She looked up into the sky, though the break in the trees above her.
“I hope you’re satisfied so far,” she muttered, and began hacking her way through the forest again.
A spirit conduit vs. soulless soul-eater. That book might make a good paperweight. The hook in them both though? Existence.
The animosity he felt for her was mutual. He seemed to have good instincts. He'd picked up on the fact that there wasn’t much she wouldn’t do.
Her eyes flicked over to his. The man with a warrior’s strength and then some. His eyes would not be deterred as he gazed back, unyieldingly meeting her challenge with a spiteful grimace. The residual anger of an unfinished battle simmered within him.
Christine halted her within her step, pausing with a tone of contemplative guilt, “I… Would like to ask you something.” Surely, the man believed in some form of the cycle of life and death, since he wore the pelt of another creature, right? Maybe he had answers for her she couldn’t quite grasp for herself. Of why things were the way they were for her.
The supernatural woman placed a hand on some bark and sapped the life out of a nearby tree. “What are you doing? You can’t-” Kolith began to protest this vile act against nature. Coming to the conclusion that she was worse than the Unmade.
The flame of the man’s ire rested in his impassioned eyes as he hoisted his weapon at her once more, “Cease this at once!”
“You want me to eat your soul instead?” She bit back. The swirl of her hand hovered in a fresh puff of smoke. The reminder of her bitter fist’s taste rested again on his tongue. He had a feeling she was far from joking. Kolith saw the threat she implied with and responded by narrowing his eyes. He did not like her for this but was it worth killing her over? “Didn’t think so, mon ami. That’s what I’ve been forced to do my entire existence. That of my… Second life. If it can even be called that.”
Kolith wondered how he could’ve possibly spared such an inhuman entity of evil. Not only did she eat people, she consumed nature. His rage at the defiling of the cycle began to simmer. He could sense her energy and the distinct lack of it. Just like her gaze, she remained cold while life swirled around her and because she was nothingness incarnate, she had to take from everything else.
Take. In an unnatural way that did not continue the cycle, but left it devoid of the parts for regrowth.
It tried his patience but he took a moment to consider her words, she was supposedly trying to be different from this nondescript and unusual second life she was born into? The same one that she would’ve drank his soul for without a second thought. That is, if she wasn’t lying through her damn teeth about this entire charade. Here in this game of games, she had every reason to lie to him. Yet, simultaneously, she didn’t strike him as the type to need to.
This womanly creature, egomaniacal on such a level where she had to absorb other things just to sustain herself. He watched wordlessly as nature's energy, its life, sucked into her existence’s needless and all consuming vacuum.
As he dipped his chin in a bow of regret and pressed his pale eyes shut with true distaste in an unwillingness to see the holy life he knew, defiled. However when they reopened Kolith was exposed to a new perspective.
Since it was impossible not to, he looked around them and felt a reminder pull at his thoughts. It was being corrupted by the Unmaking. Not by her touch. That of the Unmade was lacing through this once opulent land.
Life was wilting… Obstructing from its natural way, yet this woman was still able to make use of it.
The elemental warrior who saw the world in the same way of the spirits took note as her existence posed an important question within him. What was the true order of life and death, and how did it come into play when it came to the nature of someone like this?
She was doing exactly what her inner way prompted her to do, respond to her needs of survival.
Yet, she Unmade even the Unmaking’s corruption. Somehow, it all made sense. Perhaps, there was a place in nature for her yet.
“What was your question?” He asked in a tempered tone. Taking his finger off the trigger.
“You want to know if there is reason to honor my salvation?” Christine’s eyes wavered, black pits wobbling with concern. “I’ve seen it in your eyes. You wish to kill me. Far more than I, you.” She spoke in a tone as though she marveled at this fact. “I wish to ask you not to. Not for myself, pour une fois,” for once. She turned to him fully and gave her attention to him, continuing, “I have to find this child. They let him enter the death game. He’s here right now, somewhere out there… In the beyond all alone. I do not live solely for myself anymore, at least until I know he is safe.”
Was what was inside her, truly the heart of a killer?
Once the scenery seemed to change some, Demetri slowed to a stop and caught his breath. He was still in the thick of the unraveling lands around him, corrupted by the unmade. The land here was at least a bit more sweeping, with rolling hills and bits of cover.
The thief took a seat on a patch of fresher looking grass and examined his supplies. He tore the wrap of one of the M.R.E packages and took a whiff of the food. As dry as Mesa Roja.
“Could at least leave something with a bit of taste with us…” He grumbled as he pulled apart what was supposed to be… jerky? How do you mess up jerky? The rogue shook his head and moved on to checking his map. At the very least, he seemed to be in a good position, out of the way of most of the action for now.
However, that little easter egg trip could be very interesting. He thumbed over his FOB and thought for a moment about pressing it. Would most likely be a chaotic fight for whatever item it was. There was also the matter of the enemy nearby. He gave a sigh as he unscrewed a canteen and quenched his thirst from the dry food.
The thought of asking the cards for advice again crossed his mind, and he waved it off. He was just giving a show after all, it’s not like they were actually helping him in any way. He reached for his canteen once more and took a long drink, swishing the water in his mouth before setting the container back down in his bag, taking notice of a card laying face down in the grass.
“What is it now…”
With a slight hesitation in his motion, he reached out and plucked the card from the floor and flipped it around.
Queen of Cups, Reversed.
The rogue huffed and stood up, he didn’t bother speaking for the cameras.
Queen of Cups, Reversed.
Sure. Okay.
Maybe he didn’t really want the answers to his questions.
Maybe he just wanted to let go and enjoy himself.
His mind buzzed, as if the cards had managed to find a crack within his mental fortitude and pry him open.
Or maybe… maybe he needed more answers.
The silence broke with his exasperated sigh.
“Fine. You want to make the calls then. So be it. I have nothing to lose here.”
He pulled the cards from his sleeves, giving another flourish as he performed tricks and illusions with his stoic face.
“If you think I am so worked up, what do you think I should do then?” His statement accused the cards, as if they had been snidely chattering to him for the whole morning. In an exaggerated motion, he snatched one of the cards mid-shuffle and expertly shoved the rest away without a hitch. He held the card between his fingertips.
“Four of swords.”
A laugh escaped his lips.
“So be it then. We will see what awaits us after we prepare.”
***
For the cameras that checked in on the thief, it seemed as if he was only meditating, using hand motions to probably align his chakras or something.
Unbeknownst to any onlookers, the thief focused on more than just meditation. His vision and hearing dampened, incapacitating him as he focused on the sound and feeling of the wind. The star in the sky sent down its warmth through the cloudy sky, but the clouds would be long forgotten as he sat and focused.
What mattered most was the blades of grass, both healthy and corrupted, swaying and showing his slight trail of footsteps. He focused on the grass, pulling each stamped blade back up to rise to the light. Erasing the presence he had, and attempting to hold that image. That perfect stillness.
Of course, he was vulnerable like this, but through his spite he knew that he needed a moment to reflect. His projection held at the end of his reduced vision, and he focused on manipulating the duplication of the world that he had created. He masterfully tugged at each string of reality, making subtle adjustments and sweeping rearrangements as he vividly reimagined each detail.
His fingers pinched and traced the air, a false canvas being manipulated invisible to anyone else’s eyes as he-
“It’s so cute seeing you try to practice your powers. Playing in your own little world.”
His eyes snapped open and he gasped for air, shaking his head as he regained his composure, resuming the illusion.
She stood there in front of him, as if waiting for him to come back.
“There you are. Scared you? Not as tough as you look, Shadow.”
“Enough to make it out of your trap. Don’t think I forgot what you did.”
“Hard to remember something that never happened.”
The rogue's teeth clenched as he hesitated to open his mouth. It was just an illusion.
“What, cat got your tongue? Guess you did find someone to bounce back on.”
Silence again.
“You didn’t really escape, did you?”
Her image was replaced by fire, and she screamed into the hollow air. Demetri sat still, his figure unmoving as the illusory ashes slowly built at his feet.
When he opened his eyes, the grass was as still as when he closed them. The thief could only give a apathetic sigh.
Rogue checked the screen and gave the square that marked her current location and affirming tap as she lifted her head up to scan the area. Karl Jak had mentioned something about using the fob to instantly zap to this location, but the last thing the mutant needed was to experience another bout of teleportation sickness in a situation that was guaranteed to be a lot more violent than her first few hours on this World.
“Wonder where this egg will land?” The woman muttered as she pocketed the small tablet device and continued toward the center of this ‘zone’. Hopefully, she’d be able to traverse some of these hills and find a good vantage point before people started zapping in.
It was a brilliant idea.
Too bad it wasn’t an original one.
Rogue felt the touch of the cold blade on her throat as a heavy arm swooped around her stomach. A voice about as frosty as the improvised shiv whispered almost gently into her ear.
“For someone who calls themselves a rogue, you can’t sneak for shit.”
The southern belle smirked. “Riddick, innit? Ah’m one weapon you don’t wanna mess with, sugah.”
A laugh—a cold, heartless one. A hand smacked open the mutant’s duffel bag to reveal nothing more than assorted MREs and a baggie full of French pastries.
“Color me impressed when you kill me with croissants,” Riddick replied.
“Oh, honey,” Rogue whispered back in dulcet tones. “Ah’m the weapon here.”
Just like that, the southern brawler drove her foot into the side of Riddick’s foreleg. The shiv instinctively clenched into her flesh, but with one swift motion, Rogue slammed her hip into Riddick and judo tossed him up and over her. A beat later, the weapon sat down on the bounty hunter’s chest and managed to get his own shiv up against his throat.
“Impressive!” Riddick laughed even as some blood stained his teeth from the jarring impact. “Now smile for the cameras.”
“Eh?” Rogue almost glimpsed to look for one of the drones, but she was no dullard. “You reckon Ah’m that dense?”
In response, Riddick spit into the woman’s face, and after another tumble, he found himself on top. Rogue’s hand got around the handle of improvised shiv, preventing it from giving her throat the gentle caress it craved. Her other hand clasped around her attacker’s throat.
Riddick grabbed the woman’s wrist and wrenched it away, but even as he did, he felt a sudden shock through his system. Wrenching away from the downed woman, the bounty hunter swooned as his arm felt limp at his side. He clenched a hand to the side of his head as his vision started to double. Fresh nausea rose in waves through Riddick’s body as he withdrew to the shadows to convalesce.
Meanwhile, a winded Rogue found herself wincing as her altered vision struggled to focus.
Riddick used Bandit’s Secret to copy-lock Rogue’s Support Item (Croissants A). The irony.
Rogue has Rogue’d Riddick’s ‘shine’ effect. Better find googles before the sun comes back up, lady. She also absorbed parts of Riddick’s persona so… good luck with that.
Rogue and Riddick both have Story Injuries in the form of being extremely fatigued and headachy. This will subside over time.
Sigmund couldn’t help but cringe as he looked at the contents of his bag. All of their… less than useful items had ended up with him, and looking at the collection was positively tragic. The cultist cursed his luck, wondering who exactly in the cosmos had taken umbrage with him. Perhaps the vintage he had delivered to Mr Jak was a few millennia too young and he was taking out his frustration on the psion, the Mirage doll acting as a kind of esoteric warning. That felt somewhat unlikely though. Karl felt like the type to exact his vengeance in a much more direct manner, like a bomb in a supply crate rather than an explicit magazine.
His thoughts turning elsewhere, the cultist scratched his chin as he tried to remember if he had done all of his pre-battle sacrifices properly. He had given his offering to Gal’skap, of course, but he couldn’t remember if he had given anything up to the rest of the Old Aesir.
“Umm… Oh Gods, did I forget one?” The priest murmured to himself, rubbing his forehead as he concentrated, trying to run through the list of sacrifices and see if he missed any. His memory was failing him, though, all he could recall was his excitement at joining DA.
“Something bothering you?” Gascoigne inquired, glancing over at his hunting companion. As he did, Sigmund couldn’t help but note that when the hunter turned to face him, he did so with his nose a little more than his eyes. It was a pretty subtle thing, but a slightly amusing one too. Shaking his head, both to brush away that line of thought and to answer the elder priest’s question.
“No, no… I’m just getting that feeling… you know, like I’ve forgotten something but I’m not quite sure.” The younger priest replied, giving a shrug. If he had forgotten his sacrifices, there wasn't much he could do now. He doubted he would be able to find hearts and consecrated copper out in the middle of unmade Cevanti.
“Well, I certainly hope it wasn’t that secret weapon of yours.” The Father chuckled, with the slightest hint of genuine concern that it was Sigmund’s secret weapon that had been forgotten.
“Oh Gods no.” The scion laughed. Sweeping his cloak aside, the younger man grinned as he revealed the sacred Warhorn of Amygdala bound to his belt. Breathing deep, Gascoigne took in the scent before a cold shiver visibly ran down his spine and a low grumble escaped his throat.
“Now what have you got there? Going off the smell, I’d have thought you’d had a hunk of moonrock on your hip.” The hunter said, laser-focusing onto it with a strange expression on his face.
“Ah, no, if only.” Sigmund cackled. “It’s a warhorn from far away. They made it from a horn carved off a nightmarish beast of some sort. Legend says that the second scion… well, I won’t bore you with our old stories. All you need to know is that it is quite powerful. We can rely on it to turn the tide on practically any battle.”
“From a beast, eh? I suppose that explains it.” Gascoigne grunted. “Don’t suppose you’ll tell me what happens when you blow it?”
“And ruin the surprise? No, your assumptions are correct, my friend.” The cultist said cheekily, though his cheerful expression dropped a tad as he continued his thought. “Ah, though I doubt we’ll have to wait long. It seems we’ve received the lion’s share of junk from the items Mr Jak has handed out, and I’m sure we’ll be set upon by our doubtlessly better-equipped foes sooner or later.”
The pair looked at each other solemnly for a moment before Gascoigne cracked a grin at his younger companion. Sigmund looked at him blankly for a moment before feeling the infectious smile spread to him. Slowly, quietly, at first, the hunter began to laugh, letting out his signature unsettling cackle, and the cultist soon joined him with his own trademark laughter, genuine amusement tinged with mania. Both priests stood there in the wastes of Cevanti, both aware of and awaiting the bloodshed that was to come, their own and their foe’s.
You never forget the first grave you dig, ya know?
As Chara groaned under a pile of debris, and heard the Aquanaut run off with her supplies, she wondered if this was the first grave the old man had ever dug. One could never be sure how age affected this calculation.
He might’ve just killed her, more fantastically than the nails passing through his body ever could have. Starvation was a pretty fantastic way of making sure someone died, especially in this inedible landscape - to say nothing of the lack of water.
Chara waited until the grizzled old dude was gone before she pushed enough of the debris off her to get back onto her feet. Using a shortcut, she avoided the rest of the problem by simply warping past it, back into the camera’s watchful eyes - because for a girl who relied on an ability that required a lack of direct observation, Karl’s little show was about the worst place she could really see herself.
No food or water. No map or compass. What a good way to go. She could try hoofing it back to Sergeant Swift’s… but she had gone far enough that without navigation equipment she had no idea if she could find her way back, really.
And the worst part, the worst part, as she pushed herself back to her feet, was that she still wasn’t really here. She had just had her supplies stolen, her life made more difficult, and her chance of starving, getting lost and unmade, or starving and then getting unmade so much damn higher.
And she was worried about how Rogue was doing.
“Tch…” the mage groaned, as she looked for her other spare handkerchief. Hardly an acceptable way to clean out these bruises, and she lacked any water she’d trust in this unmade landscape to properly clean them, but she had to do what she could, as she picked bits of rock and debris out of a few scrapes and bruises.
This old battleground… she had come here in the hopes of reducing the unmade threat, or to find some ways to combat them that had been left behind. What it really resembled was a graveyard, though, a mechanical set of graves.
You never forget the first grave you dig, ya know?
Rogue had made her own bed, and Chara had a duty to do more than just protect the first pretty girl she had come across. She had been willing to watch the entirety of her family and friends die, trapped within the time loop below mount Ebbott. She had kept her focus, knew her role, and exercised it. And they had won. She had Asriel by her side. For all the light she saw in Rogue’s eyes, her brother was the priority.
Chara idly thought of the death toll that often came with these ‘easter egg’ battles. Ridiculous. Foolish. And likely a good way to get an unintended second date with Lilith.
Her eyes wandered, as she jumped up to a higher vantage point in the ruins in the vain hopes of catching a glimpse of her thief.
You never forget the first grave you dig, ya know?
Chara had never forgotten her first grave, even if she hadn’t dug it. She’d known the traveller would go for it eventually, and that she would have to stop herself from running after him first thing. She’d figured she’d braced herself for everything, as she wearily stumbled into the snow, and saw her brother’s white powder mixing in with the snow.
She’d never thought what to actually do with the corpse, though. That never struck her as an eventuality for being stuck in such a sadistic time loop.
She had stuffed what hadn’t already blown away in a shoe box.
After spending a few hours crying, she’d used the rest of the time she had until everything reset constructively. She worked hard at learning how to bury people respectfully - and silently.
The mage felt very tired, as she glanced at her teleportation fob.
“...You know, it’s… way more effort than I wanna put in without a shovel.” Chara rasped with a tired voice. “Hard way it is.”
Face to Face
Riddick vs Sigmund & Gascoigne vs Kolith, Christine & Jester vs Aster & Rogue vs Chara vs Pyke vs Caboose Easter Egg: Karot
Another year, another battlefield filled with lunatics big and small.
Across the landscape, there was a number of blips as a handful of competitors teleported to the location. Near the center of the battlefield, there was a purple puff of smoke as a package materialized about six feet above ground, nestled atop a long-dead elephantine zoid. Drawn in from all angles, the loose collection of Kolith, Christine, and Jester were the first to come within an eyeshot of the destination.
“This seems to ea—”
Up from the desiccated earth, Pyke literally dove up from the solid surface, his blazing red eyes narrowing as he leashed a bone skewer at Kolith’s chest. The trio broke apart into separate directions as the projectile crashed into the earth.
Corruption seething in the air around him, Pyke willed the bone skewer back into his palm as he caught sight of a literal cloud of floating knives. Sneering behind his bandana, the unmade legend broke into a mad dash toward Chara, but by the time the first projectiles came veering toward their target, Pyke had sunk into the earth once more like a phantasm.
As Chara fell into the defensive position on the far side of the elephant, Aster had managed to scale up onto the back of the dead beast. The wolf-girl’s eyes light up as she set her sights upon the prize. Scrambling along the zoid’s spinal column, Aster hopped onto the flattened, rusted skull and deftly attacked the container with her hands. Just as she hooked the required latches, the surface she stood upon shifted.
Seeing that his first blow had shifted the metallic skull, Father Gasciogne grinned as he took a step back and once again hurtled his bulk into the corpse. With a yelp, Aster lost her footing and went tumbling down as the opened capsule went skittering down the front of the elephant’s skull. Moving swiftly, the hunter round the now toppled skull and found himself staring at a faceless marine in a blue power suit.
“Hey!” Caboose said as he waved with one of his hands. The marine’s other hand clenched the travel container that house the karot. “Ain’t this cool what I found on the ground?”
A grin spread across Gasciogne’s visage as he casually leaned to his left, wrenched the tusk out from the zoid’s carcass, and proceeded to let it drape across his shoulders as if it were a large axe or hammer. “Last warning.”
“Don’t I usually get more than one?” Caboose asked, tilting his head. “What about a lifeline? …Call a friend?”
With that, the towering hunter dashed forward and swung the tusk.
Clown he may seem, Caboose dropped the karot and drew the two-handed sword from behind his back in more than enough time to parry the oncoming strike. Against the might of the Einlanzer, the metal tusk proved ineffective, and as he watched Gascoigne toss aside what remained of the improvised weapon, Caboose smiled behind his visor. “Maybe this is your last warning!” He declared as his adversary reached into his bag and drew a metal device into one of his fists. A moment later, there was a familiar whirring of energy as the grungy hunter activated the energy sword.
With his smile turned upside down, Caboose pointed an accusatory finger. “That’s cheating! That’s copyright infringement.”
“Just step away from the…” Sigmund peaked at the object on the ground. “Wait, is that actually a carrot?”
Before anyone could answer the somewhat obvious question, more bodies returned to the fracas, and their return was heralded by the eruption of a plasma ball at the feet of Caboose, who hopped backwards as the easter egg was sent rolling into a ditch.
“Hey!” Caboose shouted as he turned to look at Kolith and the BFG in his hands. “I think that’s also technically copyright—”
The bolt of plasma crashed into Caboose’s chest and sent him crashing down among the sun-bleached corpses.
Kolith promptly turned and look at Christine, who had opted in that moment to lean in and discharge the magic weapon.
“Ce n’est pas le moment de parler,” she grimly intoned as she drew her lightsaber. A few yards away, Chara had resurfaced and summoned her own party favors for the occasion.
A cursory glance seemed to reveal that the hunter and the cultist were not only outgunned… they were also outnumbered.
“I’m not sure what that means, but I’m sure I couldn’t have said it better myself,” the cultist replied as he drew the Horn of Amygdala from his bag and released a devastating blast of madness through the device.
In an instant, the scene was bedlam, as the assorted collection of allies turned on one another in an instant. Christine had barely made it three steps when the tip of a trident narrowly missed her kidney, and even though she had twisted away from a likely fatal blow, the barbed weapon still ripped through flesh and cloth alike.
Madness having engrossed her, Christine winced through the pain as she lashed out with the lightsaber. An equally maddened Aster parried the strike with the shaft of her weapon—the energy sword crackling and sparking angrily as it tried to eat through the shaft of the trident.
“I call that ‘Dantephysics’, Kevin,” Karl laughed as he leaned back in his chair.
Kevin rolled his eyes, knowing better than to engage with his boss when his mirth was this high.
Back on Cevanti, Christine pressed her advantage—her training and strength seeming to overshadow the fox-girl’s best, bloodlust infused efforts. After a short exchange, Aster found being backed into a corner between two broken-down vehicles. Lashing out before the trap closed around her, she managed to parry the first strike and swing a fist at Christine’s chin. The impact sent blood sputtering from the assassin’s jaw, but a beat later, she landed her own crushing down to the center of Aster’s face.
Like any prize fighter who’d absorbed a knockout blow dead to the center of her dear countenance, the wolf-girl collapsed like a sack of brick.
Yards away, Kolith grimaced as a fireball exploded against his back. As he fell, he managed to pivot just enough to return fire against Chara, whose eyes went wide as the plasma blast slammed into her chest. Rolling onto his stomach, the savage rose up to his knee and lined up the targeting reticle with Christine, who was locked in a melee fracas with the trident-wielding Aster.
He pulled the trigger.
Nothing.
Kolith growled, the unnatural madness fueling his frustration as he shook the weapon to will it to fire. Instead of that, he heard the pop of another gun as a bullet infused with lightning slammed into chest. Rushing forward, Jester wrenched the weapon from the hands of the semi-conscious warrior, but even in the hands of someone from a much closer century, the weapon wouldn’t fire, so Jester just dumped it and moved to pursue Sigmund and Gascoigne.
The pair, karot in hand, had moved deeper into the battlefield, hoping to let the madness consume their adversaries. An errant gunshot sent both into nearby cover.
“It’s just the one… the blue one,” Sigmund shouted as another magnified round slammed into the ground between them and sent skittering shards of ice everywhere.
“Let’s be done with this,” the hunter growled as he tucked the karot into one of his pockets and hoisted the energy sword.
Sigmund nodded his head. His companion had taken to the horn’s nearly supernatural bloodlust surprisingly… well, which likely begged a few questions to be asked at a later time. For the now, Gascoigne swung out from behind what had once been a foxhole, sidestepped a pair of bullets, and crashed into Jester like an errant freight train. The thiefling rasped as she swung the stock of the pistol at the man’s head, but a slash of the sword against her chest seemed to steel the moxy from the blue-skinned cleric’s sails. Blood staining her clothes, Jester wavered before falling backwards. As she did, Gascoigne ripped the weapon from her hands.
As he turned to his companion, the hunter was blindsided by a massive blast of plasma. Caster hit the ground next to a wheezing Jester, but even though his chest seemed to be composed of literal fire, Gascoigne stumbled back but kept on his feet. Teeth grinding together, he tried to intercept their attacker when his legs gave out beneath him.
“Thanks,” a voice replied as someone stole the prize from the hunter and proceeded to kick him in the face. “Too easy,” Riddick whispered as he turned the spectral BFG against a wide-eyed Sigmund. The weapon discharged with a whoosh of air and the sizzle of fresh plasma, but the cultist managed to avoid the blast.
“Nice moves!” Riddick declared as he felt something shift in the ground beneath him. The bounty hunter tensed as he twisted and fired, but Pyke’s body seemed to phase out of existence, allowing the plasma bolt to sail right through the shadowy apparition now floating midair in front of Riddick.
The thump of boots behind him drew Riddick’s focus once again, and he frowned at the fact that Pyke had teleported through him or over him in some manner. As he swung around the barrel of the BFG, the shadow of Pyke shuddered before it came snapping back toward its owner like a rubber band pulled nearly to its breaking point.
Hearing nothing, Riddick found himself in a rare spot—helpless—as the shadow washed over him and stole every muscle from him. His form literally frozen in air, the bounty hunter could only gurgle and rasp through locked jaws as the unmade assassin threw out his bone skewer, which sank cleanly into the paralyzed bounty hunter’s stomach.
Riddick felt sensations once again just as he was wrenched forward by the makeshift harpoon imbedded into his soft parts. Even as blood spurted from the wound and his muscles screamed, the animal part of the man’s mind overrode everything. He lashed out, his dirtied hands vying for the assassin’s eyeballs as Pyke went immaterial once again and sank into the floor.
Collapsing to the ground, Riddick clapped a hand over the wound on his stomach as it started to pool blood following the ghostly departure of the blade. A shadow fell over the hunter. The boy maniac.
Sigmund grabbed for the karot, but as he did, he caught sight of Pyke ‘resurfacing’ through the hull of a nearby tank.
“Duck!” Riddick barked as the cultist dropped the ground.
The BFG blast caught Pyke halfway through the tank, but even though the unmade assassin would be knocked cold in the ensuing whiplash, he still managed to leash one final present upon the pair.
It was Riddick who spotted the sizzling red tube, and it was a half-conscious Riddick who dragged himself into the nearest foxhole just as his enormous well of strength and animal instinct momentarily failed him.
For all his luck, Sigmund wasn’t quite quick enough to escape the blast radius of the dynamite. Even with the karot in his hand, he was caught up in the small wave of concussive force and crashed hard into the ground. After catching his breath and realizing that, despite the pain he felt nearly everywhere, his would-be attackers were all down for the count, Sigmund stared down at the packaged karot. With a smile, he slowly turned around and tried to recall where he’d been separated from Gascoigne.
He had a few initial thoughts before he was tackled to the ground. His forehead slammed into the solid earth with enough force to drive any (in)sane person loopy. Flailing, Sigmund got onto his back just in time to be crushed back down to the ground by Rogue, who smothered his nose and mouth with her hands. Under any other circumstance, the loyal servant of Gal’skap would have been quick to smack away his aggressor, but the woman’s toxic touch was quick to sap his strength. For all his might and madness, Sigmund Vrell lost consciousness after a few moments and slumped backwards.
“Thanks for the hard work, sugah,” Rogue whispered with a wink as she snatched the karot. Yet, even as the southern belle slipped away from the battlefield, she swore she heard someone or something whispering in the back of her head.
Riddick has a stab wound through his abdomen. It missed anything fatal (something he’ll be able to discern because he’s Riddick, but it’s still going to hurt like hell – counts as a Minor Injury)
Kolith absorbed a fireball to the back and an electrified burst to the front (sounds pretty awful but just a Minor Injury)
Sigmund will have a killer headache and be extremely fatigued for the next 12 IC hours due to exposure to Rogue (Story Injury)
Christine has some heavy bleeding in her abdominal region that will need patched (a Minor Injury)
Chara will have extensive burns on her chest and bruising on her back (Minor Injury)
Jester has a pair of slashes diagonally down her chest – these are bleeding and need wrapped (a Minor Injury)
Father Gascoigne took a blast of plasma energy to the chest, which will result in some lasting burns (a Minor Injury) and a boot to the face that loosened some teeth and will give him a sore jaw (a Minor Injury)
Aster has a broken nose (Minor Injury)
Caboose took a nasty tumble and smacked his head pretty hard inside his helmet after being plasma’d (Major Injury)
Pyke suffers a handful of crushing-related injuries, albeit the corruption will mask over their effect (still a Major Injury, though)
Rogue has Rogue’d Sigmund, which means she’ll have a momentary affinity for the arcane and supernatural
Aster has used 1 application of Focus
Sigmund has used 1 application of Focus
Sigmund used War Horn of Amygdala (1 application of Focus)
Rogue has used 1 application of Focus
Pyke used 1 stick of dynamite
Riddick copy-locked the BFG using Bandit’s Secret / Kolith’s BFG will not function until Riddick is dead or Riddick copies another Weapon
The pair sat in a clearing of verdant jungle, licking their wounds after the disastrous battle for the Karot. Night sounds stirred in the air all around them, a faint breeze carrying with it the sweet scent of charred meat and rusted ruin.
“A fine night for the hunt, it was,” Gascoigne slurred, rubbing at his bruised jaw, apparently oblivious to the smoking wounds covering his chest. He threw a concerned look over to his partner. “Though perhaps we were too reckless… How are you faring, good hunter?”
Sigmund groaned lowly from his place on the ground, lying spread-eagled in a patch of soft grass. The pale cultist’s eyes were shut tight, one hand draped across his face like he wanted nothing more than to pass out right then and there.
“I feel like I’ve had a fount of madman’s knowledge injected directly into my brain,” he finished off the declaration with a giggle, though he clutched at his forehead with a pained grimace afterward.
A sharp grin split Gascoigne’s face despite the ache. “Well, don’t get too comfortable down there, boy. A far greater beast awaits us yet...”
Those in the general vicinity of the mountains where Dante’s Abyss took place would have heard the incessant grumbles of a growingly impatient man-child. But surely, this latest outburst would be an auditory climax. Three furious words would wash over the canyons and peaks of this mountain range like a tidal wave of impotence.
“THIS BITCH EMPTY”
This incantation of indolence would be quickly followed by a whistling noise, betraying the presence of something very heavy flying obscenely quickly through the air. And then, yet another word.
“YEET”
A large metal crate crashed dramatically against a mountainside, sending rubble scattering down the reddish dirt slopes. The crate itself tumbled hopelessly down deeper into the valley, spinning slowly into oblivion. Across the valley was the absolutely fuming Dr. McNinja.
“I GET IT KARL JAK” the physician screamed into the air, “YOU’RE GODDAMN HILARIOUS. LET’S DROP SUPPLIES NEAR THE CROISSANT-WIELDING NINJA AND MAKE IT AN EMPTY! BOX!”
Dr. McNinja picked up a boulder about the size of his torso and chucked it as hard as he could. It flew into the distance, landing god-knows-where.
Doc then snatched the signpost he’d found earlier, and slammed it hard into the ground. He repeated this barbaric motion just short of a dozen times, each impact warping the rigid metal pole, until the makeshift weapon smashed into smithereens.
“NYYAAAAAAHHH”
Doc, now a bit tired out, collapsed on the ground. He checked the shards of the signpost to see if anything was recoverable.
“Oh,” he said, picking up two much shorter poles, “This is actually a lot more manageable now. How smart of me! Now I’m properly armed in this death game.”
Doc looked at the two shriveled makeshift escrima sticks and the pastry in his pack.
“Ha ha ha ha ha” he repeated to himself as he marched north.
Face to Face
#18 Demetri, #21 Fennec, #04 Father Gascoigne & #09 Sigmund Vrell Boss Battle: Steppenwolf
Sigmund Vrell and Father Gascoigne were shaken but altogether in ‘good’ spirits as they collected their thoughts and did what improvised care of their wounds they could muster in the short time window they had at their disposal. The sudden sound of footsteps put both of them on the defensive and ushered an end to their short period of reflection.
“Relax,” a voice replied. A woman. An older woman, with the scars befitting an active and fruitful career in a taxing field of work. “There’s other business to take care of here, if I’m led to believe Karl Jak’s rambling.”
“You’re correct,” a fourth voice spoke out, pulling everyone in the direction of Demetri, who held out his hands as he approached the other three. “Names Demetri,” he replied as he reached into his bag and pulled out a deck of cards. “Anyone care for a reading before the danger?”
Fennec, who seemed unsure if she should be annoyed or entertained, drew a machete from her belt and pointed to the nearby hill. “The information that Karl sent said to find the high ground.”
“Karl spoke to you?” Sigmund muttered as he rubbed his temples. Even though he was normally far from tanned, the cultist was looking particularly ghoulish as he met the look of his companion. “We just came from the easter egg.”
“That would explain it,” Demetri replied as the four made their way up to the top of the nearest overlook. From that vantage point, they had a small valley spread out in front of them.
A familiar tone spoke from their assorted collar devices. “Can the four of you hear me? Nod.”
They all did.
“The Lonely Hearts were in this region on a piece of intelligence that one of Darksied’s lieutenants was personally on the World. As you can tell from some of the newer battelgrounds… they didn’t do the best job ‘dealing’ with him, so that falls to the four of you.”
“This feels like it demands the attention of more people.” Sigmund muttered, his voice a shallow whisper.
The CEO of Syntech ignored the question as he continued his debriefing of the situation. “Down below, you should see a cave entrance, and that should be where this individual is located. If you can defeat him, that will free up some of this interference and let me zap in some more weapons for you all.”
“You can’t help us right now?” Sigmund asked.
“Obviously I will,” Karl sighed. In that instant, something snapped into existence on the ground in front of Sigmund. The cultist crouched down and picked up the item, which seemed to be a simple metal box too small to house a deck of playing cards. “Get close enough and deploy that against your target. That’s a guaranteed win… unless it’s broken. Good luck! And hey! Just think, the fate of the Crossroads could be influenced by this very battle. Isn’t that lovely? Smooches!” With a small spattering of feedback, the collar connection went dead, leaving the four individuals in the silence of the night.
“Anyone want to back out?” Fennec muttered as she turned to look at the others. “You two look shaken up,” she muttered.
“The hunt continues,” the Father declared as he hoisted his energy sword. “It waits for no one.”
“So that’s a ‘yes’?” Fennec asked with paper-thin smirk on her face as the quartet made their way down the gradual sloping hill and into the shallow valley. Up ahead of them, they kept their eyes glued to the cave entrance that seemed like little more than a pockmark on the side of the tiny mountain. They moved in silence, but there was something of an air of excitement among them.
That is, until the cave entrance—and the entire side of the mountain—exploded outward.
The horizontal avalanche of dirt and stone scattered the quartet, as gouts of flame and electiricity lashed across the valley, uprooting yet more patches of Cevanti’s tortured surface.
Shaken but not broken, the four assembled fighters managed to find safety as the debris settled over the valley, and while their lungs struggled to find fresh air, their eyes were glued on the nine-foot monstrosity. Covered from horn to foot in a segmented, silver coat of armor that seemed to shudder and twitch as if alive, the beast held a massive axe that seemed to be barely held intact by a source of red energy shuddering within it.
“Don’t be shy. Step up and face the Conqueror… step up and face Steppenwolf.”
It was Gascoigne who was first to his feet. The hunter made it to within ten yards of the unmade lieutenant when he suddenly flicked something from his hand. The tiny projectile made an audible ping as it ricocheted off Steppenwolf’s armored skull and got lost among all the other chunks of shattered stone that littered the shallow valley. Despite feeling nothing upon impact, the axe-wielding soldier turned to see if something else was going to happen.
In that moment, Fennec managed to close the distance and swing her machete. The blade crashed against Steppenwolf’s leg, and the various pieces of the monster’s armor seemed to stiffen and mold to redirect the attack. The bounty hunter recoiled and tried to swing again, but an almost casual motion of her foe’s arm sent her rolling backwards.
Having closed the gap, Gascoigne lunged at the mighty foe. The energy weapon flickered and seized as it failed to find purchase along the ever-shifting armor.
“The soldiers gave up more of a fight,” Steppenwolf rasped as he swung the axe, catching the hunter in across the chest with the flat of the weapon. By no means a small man, Gascoigne felt several of his ribs shudder and splinter as he was thrown backwards like an errant child. When he slammed against an errantly shaped boulder, several things shattered completely within his chest.
Steppenwolf, his barbaric visage displaying little to no emotional response to this ‘display’, turned to look at Fennec, who was struggle to make it to her feet. The bounty hunter, with the machete as a makeshift cane, rose to her feet, and when she managed to get her balance, Steppenwolf bounded over to her with a few graceful strides and smashed her arm with all the effort of a grown man breaking a used toothpick.
The woman screamed, but before she could be effortlessly decapitated, Darkseid’s lieutenant heard something booming in the skies above him.
“Relent!”
Recoiling, Steppenwolf turned to see the titanic, World-cowering eminence of the Fallen Arbiter. “Master? I… I was not aware of your arrival upon this pitiful landscape.”
Darkseid scowled as he pointed an accusatory finger toward the unmade monster. “You disappoint me, Steppenwolf. I should not have to come here to finish your work.”
Bestial he may be, Steppenwolf furrowed his brow and narrowed his eyes as he attempted to take in the full scale of his lord’s glory. “Your presence would usually cause the air itself to boil and the soil to rot and fester.”
On ‘the other side’ of the illusion, a sweating Demetri continued to move his hands and maintain the illusion.
“You doubt me?” ‘Darkseid’ boomed as Steppenwolf proceeded to dive through the guise and crash into the thief. A hand closed around the man’s throat and hoisted him up above his feet.
“Impressive,” Steppenwolf rasped. “But feeble tricks won’t spare you your fate.”
Coughing and rasping through the hand clenched around his throat, Demetri smiled faintly. “What about some classic misdirection?”
Steppenwolf slammed the man into the earth and hoisted his axe as he spun to confront the final fool. His small window nearly slammed shut, Sigmund lunged forward. Even as the Electro Axe came crashing down onto his foot, he managed to get his arm out just enough to slap the device into Steppenwolf’s thigh.
The result was immediate, as the lieutenant of Darkseid felt a visible jolt of electricity skitter up his massive physique.
“Fight all you like, but you cannot stop the Fallen One.” Steppenwolf snarled as a column of shimmering blue light appeared over his head. “Embrace oblivion.” With a crackle of light, the monster was gone, leaving behind four broken warriors in his wake.
The four were left to their thoughts for barely a second after the departure of the monstrous entity. Nearby, his weapon lay smoldering yet wholly intact in the dirt.
“Enjoy your spoilers, Heroes!” Karl declared from their devices.
One prize.
Four valiant fighters.
The group… ‘wins’ the Boss Battle!
Demetri used 1 application of Focus
Father Gascoigne used consumable ‘Pebble’ – He has one left. Thrilling.
Fennec has a shattered right arm (Major Injury)
All of Sigmund’s left toes and half of the foot got amputated from his body (an uncurable Major Injury)
Gascoigne has several broken ribs, which will cause him some issues with breathing and everyday things – (Major Injury)
Demetri has a dislocated shoulder (Minor Injury) and several bruised ribs (a second Minor Injury)
Please decide who wins ‘Axe of Steppenwolf. If a decision cannot be reached, a Face to Face will trigger. Please make your decision quickly, because none of you are on cooldown (TICK TOCK).
The birds weren't fucking singing because they were cameras. Nico knew it, he knew it. All along. Drones, every one of them, every bird he'd ever met up to this point. A mighty meaty looking tree full of camera lenses stared at the young punk. From out of his field of vision, one fluttered gently onto his shoulder. It shoved its one big red glassy eye in Nico's face. He huffed on it a couple of times and used his sleeve to wipe the black mirror off. The shutter began whirring at him, and Nico stuck his tongue out at the "bird". It flew off, rejoining its compatriots in the massive corrupted tree. No head or beaks, these things. Just shiny cctv cameras.
Walking up to the tree, he could see that it really was meat. Nico's nose itched. Meat seemed to be a running theme for these Unmade guys. Confusing though, because as far as Nico knew, there wasn't much meat to found in these outerlands. Nico landed here. Well, not HERE here, but he fell from the skies in the ruins surrounding Markov. He did the gnarly skate trick. He remembered the long walk to his first Dante's Abyss. It was a whole thing. No meat to speak of. So where was this tree getting the meat?
The cameras all loomed over him. Menacingly. Nico gave them the eye and walked away from the treep, shouldering his launcher as he went. The weight of the weapon once again reminded him of the weight of Pecan's wounded body against his, blowing up shit by a lake. Just waiting for someone to hear them, or see their ruckus light up the night sky. Just waiting to be slaughtered. Nico stopped walking.
He couldn't remember the last time he didn't feel like he was waiting to be slaughtered. Murdered. Expire.
And then he kept walking, holding onto this nonsensical memory of his psychotic explosion loving friend. Having fun in the most unlikely of hells was something very important to Nico, and he admired it when he saw it. Felt it. It was the devil's own luck that brought Nico the first weapon he ever held in the abyss this year. The year something went wrong and transported the contestants to Cevanti, where he first made landfall in these worlds. Maybe all the cameras on him were just making him extra paranoid, but it almost felt...the rockstar searched for the right word.
"Cinematic."
Coincidences make for good coin, and when your business is coining words, good is but another verb, Nico thought to himself, hoping the slightly poetic words would suffice as a small prayer for a very poetic Pecan. Nico's concept of home was transient, because it had to be his whole life. But Cevanti and its inhabitants had become something of a home for him, for now. He'd rather it didn't all turn into meat.
---
Inside the bunker, an imposing figure leaned casually but imposingly against a wall, ten-gallon hat dipping low over his face. When Nico entered, the man in red raised the brim of his cowboy hat with a finger.
"This town ain't big enough for the two of us, pardner," the cowboy with guns said. His voice was fucked. It sounded like he had tuberculosis or something.
"Uh..."Nico began. For some reason, this guy seemed really, really familiar. Nico thought about it. The cowman stared at him, awaiting a response. Nico looked at him, real good.
Nope, nothing.
"Did you see that treep out there?" Nico tried.
"Did I-" the man practically jumped off the wall and threw his hands up with agony. His bit, ruined. "What? Did I see what?"
"The treep," Nico said plainly. "Y'know, the meat tree, with all the little camera birds in it? It's like the word 'tree' and 'creep', cuz the fake birds are creeping on you? I dunno man, this shit is hard. I guess it works with 'tree' and 'trap' too. 'Cause that thing definitely looked like a trap, I'm surprised I got as close as I did to it without getting swallowed up by the meat or orbital struck or something, bro."
The cowpoke gave him a weird look. "Man, what are you on about? Like if someone were say, reading your thoughts," he began, "like hypothetically of course, I-I mean I've never been able to not really, I mean like I've known people who can and I sorta-Whatever, okay, if someone could read your thoughts," he tried again, "they probably would've thought that was like a spelling error or-or something, fuck I don't know. Gotta watch out for those typo fairies," he paused, before adding, "Bro."
"Ah c'mon man, you don't just make up words? No?" Nico said, feeling a little attacked.
"Hell no! Who does that? There are already too many damn words!" Deadpool shot back.
A moment of silence passed between them. Nico sighed and sat down with his back against the wall next to the cowboy, leaning the rocket launcher gently on the wall as well.
"OLE RELIABLE"
Nico hadn't had much of a chance to eat much yet, so he did his best to conjure up a full meal from the crappy rations assigned to them. More silence, just the rustling of a bag and packaging. In his peripherals, Nico saw the brim of a cowboy hat tip in his direction.
Riddick came back to the purple-flecked nighttime sky with a slow, anguished groan. He rolled over and rubbed his face as the recent memories slowly floated back to the surface.
Once he remembered where he was, of course, the adrenaline surged again, and he was up on his haunches. Silvery eyes scanned the newly upturned battlefield. No movement. A breeze whispered through the rattling robot carcass that loomed over his foxhole, but no other noises threatened him.
He sat back down with a relieved grumble, and picked up the book next to him in the coarse, black dirt. He patted the cover of Bandit's Secret, smug in the knowledge that he has completed his objective. The Karot had been tempting, but the gamble that some hotshot with a big stick would show up to the mosh pit had paid off. Now he had some real matches to play with.
He moved to stand up and winced.
Well, mostly paid off. The bone barb from that Unmade freak had almost done him a real number.
Can't be blowing all my luck in one place though. In the mean time, I'll have to hedge my bets.
Riddick sat back down into the foxhole and pulled up his shirt to look at the wound. Deep. Ugly. But the blood loss had been staunched by the weight of his body and an alarming amount of dirt. He reached into his rucksack and withdrew one of the bottles of water, took a sip, and then opened an MRE.
He'd seen contestants in previous seasons of the Abyss bitching about the food in these kits, and found it to be a fucking riot. How is someone who's never even had to suck down prison food going to tough it out on murder island?
Pussies.
Riddick crunched down some flavored calorie paste on dusty crackers while he fished out the real prize inside the kits.
Toilet paper.
He rolled a bit of the white rags up into a ball, dabbed some water onto it, and began gently wiping crud out of the wound. Aside from screwing his face into a nasty snarl, the predator made no noise as he went about his careful work.
The trick is not to ignore the pain. Gotta…
"Tsst…" he winced.
…gotta just take it in. Acknowledge the problem. No alarm bells for something that's…
"...Ah…"
…under control.
Riddick regarded the glossy, but mostly sanitized, slash across below his right rib. A makeshift tourniquet would have done it some good to slow down any internal bleeding, but he didn't have much fabric to work with. Keeping the wound clean would have to do for now.
Second time I been stabbed in less than two days. Thanks Captain Killy.
But at least now I've got a matching set of scars, and a vendetta for each.
It's good to keep your goals simple.
The rogue gave himself a few more minutes before easing up onto his feet, book in hand and pack on his back.
Time to hoof it. And I can think of a certain loudmouthed bitch who owes me breakfast.
“Oh no… oh no no no… oh Slurt…” Jester lamented, falling to her knees beside the boy. Her hands were shaking as she reached out to him, equal parts fearful and saddened. That… bitch had hurt him. What kind of person could do that to a small child and then laugh about it? Jester had already known that Karl’s game attracted a certain kind of competitor, but she couldn’t imagine the darkness that could drive someone to gleefully torture a kid. Until now, she had been sure that nothing and nobody could be that malevolent.
“Oh… please, please… PLEASE be alright…” she whispered to herself, barely restrained panic and anguish heavy in her voice. Gingerly, she turned Slurt over onto his back and looked the child over for injuries. The gentle rise and fall of his chest served as meager reassurance when her pink eyes spotted the gaping hole torn into the green flesh of his little hand. Strips of slippery red flesh hung limply from the wound, blood seeping up and out in a tiny river. So much blood for such a tiny body.
With panicked determination quickening her motions, Jester tore free a strip of cloth from her shirt, using it to create a makeshift bandage for the unconscious Slurt. Then she set to work on shifting the contents of her bag, creating a pocket for the small boy to rest in. Almost as an after-thought, she popped open the capsule, blindly grabbed the item within, and gently laid it into the bag alongside the boy. Then, shouldering her burden, and eyes set on something beyond the horizon, the tiefling cleric marched off. There was somewhere she knew she could get help for Slurt, and come Hell or highwater, she would get him there.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was nearly dark by the time Jester stepped into the clearing that surrounded the safehouse, and her legs felt like gelatine from the long trek through the Unmade lands. As she approached, she spotted some movement by the door, as though a message were being passed inside, and before she had gone more than a few more steps, the door had opened and a trio of soldiers were jogging over to her. Two of them were easily recognized as “just a joe” types, dark fatigues, helmets, and visors obscuring their identifying features, but the one in the middle? She was obviously in charge. And it was to her that Jester shouted.
“Please! You have to help him! He… he’s hurt! But he’s just a kid! I-I said I’d keep him safe, but he got hurt anyway! Please do something! I’ll… I’ll do anything! Just-”
Sergeant Taylor Swift raised her hand, cutting off the word vomit with just a motion. Gesturing forward, she directed one of her two fellows to close the gap and, as he approached, Jester zipped open the dufflebag slung across her chest and looked in at Slurt. The boy was still breathing, and it looked like the bleeding had stopped, but he was still sleeping. Why… why was he still unconscious? He wasn’t hurt that bad… maybe he was just tired…
As Slurt was passed into the arms of a black-clad soldier and rushed into the building, Jester was stopped from following with a firm hand on her shoulder. Turning to face her obstacle, and give them a piece of her mind, her tirade was turned on its head by the flat stare that Swift focused on her.
“Don’t worry,” she began, looking past Jester towards the boy. “He’ll be fine here. But… we need to talk… about that,” Taylor finished, giving the small orange ball in Jester’s hand a pointed look.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
With a soft groan, Slurt shifted upon the mattress and opened his eyes. Bright light temporarily blinded the poor boy, and soft bedding enveloped his tiny frame from chin to toe. There was a sterile, almost clinical, smell to the air, and something else that he recognized. The smell he had come to associate with…
“Did… did you save me, Miss Jestaw?”
As his eyes adjusted to the light, Slurt looked over and saw that she was indeed here with him. Seated in a chair on the other side of the room, she hurriedly tucked something behind her back and smiled at him. But there was something off about the way she smiled… it wasn’t just her usual cheerful, and slightly playful, grin. There was a sadness to it that hadn’t been there before.
“Well, of course I did; you’re my favorite squishface after all! I told you I’d… I… I’m sorry… I broke my promise… I didn’t protect you… I…”
“It’s okay!” Slurt interrupted with a weak smile, sitting up on the bed. Her words brought the memories flooding back to him, and with them, pain flared up in his left hand. He remembered what had happened, the fear he had felt, and her shouts from behind.
“I’m okay! D-don’t wowwy! It doesn’t huwt dat much! And… and it was aww my fauwt anyway!! You towd me not to wun off, but I didn’t wisten! I’m sowwy, Miss Jestaw. I… I shouwda wistened to you,” he continued, waving his hands defensively.
Rising from her seat, Jester swiftly crossed the space between the two of them as Slurt continued to protest that it wasn’t her fault and that he really was okay. Planting her rear onto the bed beside him, the tiefling wrapped her arms around the boy and laid her head atop of his. And, just like that, all pretense of stoic bravery fell away. His chest tightened with barely suppressed sobbing as he clawed his arms around her, burying his face into her bosom as though that would keep the tears from flowing.
It felt like an eternity, but soon a soft beeping, coming from the bag left by Jester’s chair, broke the moment. There wasn’t time for apologies and tearful reunions. The game was still going on, and it wouldn’t end until they could fix that machine. Still, it took an effort of will for Jester to break the embrace and even more to create some space between them. Wiping his eyes with the back of his uninjured hand, Slurt sniffled softly and watched her fearfully.
“Listen squishface…” she began, trying to come up with the right words to say. “I… I have to go for a little bit. We… we have to get out of here, right? So I have to go find the stuff that will let us leave. But don’t worry! I’ll be back soon, Traveller willing! So… until I get back, I want you to hold onto this for me, okay?”
Crossing the room again, Jester reached down for her bag and pulled something from the opening in the top. She had tossed it down there before heading over to hold Slurt, but it seemed as good a time as any to give it to him. With a casual effort, she tossed the small object over to the kid, and it landed on the bed next to him with a soft ‘fop’. It wasn’t really anything special. Just a small cap, red trimmed with yellow. Where she had gotten it from, Slurt could never have guessed. But, attached to the peak with adhesive, was a small, orang-ish crystal ball. Two stars hovered somewhere near its center, appearing as two-dimensional drawings no matter what angle they were viewed from.
Tearfully, Slurt reached out for his gift, a tiny hand closing around the ball on top. He… he had never gotten anything like this before. He had never gotten anything before. Not once before in his life. It was only a bit of fabric and glass, but to him? It was more precious than gold. With more care than the boy had ever displayed before, he slowly drew it closer to him and cradled it against his chest. He… he’d never let anything happen to this. His precious gift. From his precious Jester. He promised himself this and, at that moment, it was the most true thing he had ever thought.
Well, they’d gotten it. Whatever it was. It was shiny, and Jester liked that; it was very round as well which was aesthetically pleasing, but other than that…
She had absolutely no clue what it was. And she’d almost lost the squish-face in the process. Jester made a note to, in the future, get ready to seize Slurt by the collar if he got that look of childlike wonderment in his eyes. On an island like this, childlike wonderment could be a death sentence.
In the wake of their heartfelt exchange Jester stood before the goblin child who was flanked on either side by one of the safehouse’s soldier cronies. The Cleric felt a bit better with Slurt’s hand bandaged, and the prize they’d won safely stowed upon the boy’s head. With the moment of danger past and an emboldened warmth in her heart from the victory she’d struck over the devious youth back at the capsule, Jester saluted the two men.
“Watch over the little squish-face for me,” she instructed them, grinning widely. Jester stooped and gave what she hoped was a reassuring smile to Slurt, whose shoulder she planted a hand on. “Do not do anything troublesome, alright, little squish-face? I’ll be back in a flash, and I promise I will not come back empty handed.”
With Slurt’s hesitant nod of approval, she stood up to her fullest height of five feet and three inches, then turned on a heel. One dexterous hand clutched her fob, which she rubbed nervously between thumb and forefinger.
One last look over her shoulder, to the little squish-face…
He gave her his bravest grin, and a thumbs up. He really was trying his best, and looked more spritely despite his injury after getting some rest.
“I will not come back empty handed,” Jester repeated quietly to herself.
She thumbed her fob, then vanished with a crack.
—--
A few minutes passed…nothing.
And then…
Crack!
Jester reappeared, empty handed. Her blue hands clung shakily to her leather armor, now cleaved through straight to the blouse and hanging off of her blouse in tatters. That same blouse bore two diagonal slashes straight through, criss-crossing at her bust-line, and blood had seeped through in a growing red pool deeper in color at its center, and lighter towards the outskirts.
“Oh, man,” Jester whispered, ashen faced. “Oh, man. That was bad, you guys. That was really, really bad. I shot some guy…”
Wide, pink eyes flitted to the Caster pistol at her hip which had been haphazardly jammed back into its holster. The bandolier holding her magical ammunition hung half slumped down her hip, on her thigh.
“And I think I might be hurt pretty bad, you guys. I mean, maybe it isn’t that bad, maybe it’s just…”
She removed her arms, wrapped desperately about her wounds, and looked down. What she saw made her deep blue face go the shade of a sheet of ice.
“Oh. …jeez,” Jester said, apparently, for once, at a loss for words. “I’m bleeding quite a lot.”
“M-miss J-J-J-Jestaw?” stammered Slurt, looking as pale as she was at her condition.
Jester grinned shakily, and looked to either of the soldiers standing at attention beside Slurt. They gave her a nod, then ushered her back into the same side room where, hours earlier, they’d bandaged up Slurt’s wound…only, this was going to take a lot of bandage. The goblin child followed frantically behind, clinging to the back of Jester’s long skirt.
It took some time, but when they’d finished assisting her with the bandaging an exhausted looking Jester stood from a cot-turned-medical-table. The Tiefling had re-donned what was left of her blouse, stained with blood and torn down the front though it was, and managed to stay top-half-decent only by way of the heavy bandaging covering her from her collar bone to an area of her abdomen right above the belly button. The slashes down her chest had formed an ugly ‘X’ that she was happy to have covered.
“...I came back empty handed,” she admitted to Slurt with a bemused, disappointed expression. Her mouth made a wry line. “...I did see Christine, though. She was with some guy that I, uh…”
Jester remembered popping a round of electricity imbued casing into the shoulder of Christine’s friend and winced.
“Well, nevermind. That guy’s probably fine. …probably. Now, I think we need to move-”
“But Miss Jestaw! It is so nice hewe and what if Miss Chwistine comes hewe to find us and-”
“I know, squish-face, but we cannot stay in one place for too long,” interrupted Jester, sounding firmer than she was used to sounding. “Not even a place like this. And now that we know that Christine is out there, we should start looking for her. We really should not assume that everything is going to come to us.”
Blue lids fell over pink eyes as she flashed back to the harsh lesson she’d just learned at the hands of that…man…thing. Beast, more than anything. If only she’d been a little bit quicker, she might’ve…
The painful sear that lit her wounds up was a reminder carved in akimbo markings right into her skin that things here weren’t as easy as she’d thought they would be a few hours ago.
A baleful look towards Slurt morphed into a determined one. …no time for doubt, here. Until she found Christine, nobody was going to keep that precious little child alive. There was only her, Jester, and the things she planned, and the decisions she’d made. That last one had been a bad decision. From here on out?
“We will only make the best of decisions, now, little squish-face. You and I, we are stronger and braver than anybody. …I am pretty sure.”
As they departed the safehouse, Jester gave it one last look before hefting her pack further her her shoulders. Slurt poked his head out of the main pouch of the backpack, where he was happy to ride along, and rested his chin on Jester’s shoulder.
“Miss Jestaw, don’t those stwaps huwt the cuts?” Slurt asked, reaching up one of his small hands and curling it around one of the horns that jutted from her blue hair.
“Of course not,” Jester lied, bolstering herself up and puffing out her chest…which caused her to wince as a lance of pain shot through her torso. “I am indestructible.”
And though there were weary bags forming under the Tiefling Cleric’s eyes, she trundled out into the night. Midnight was approaching, and with it, a new day. Day two.
