V A Sickly Rose

[Fennec Shand]

“Doctor Foster, it’s time to pack it up.”

The voice of Fennec Shand echoed from just down the ridge as the ever-curious Dr. Jane Foster lingered up ahead. The bounty hunter sighed, watching as the former astrophysicist ripped a tiny, leather-bound notebook out of her satchel and began scribbling away. Her gaze darted around like a madwoman, taking down every observation she could before her escort forced her back to camp.

Which would be soon, if the hunter had her way. Her boots crunched in the snow as she angled up the hill towards where Jane stood, hurriedly writing. The sight of the strange, uncharacteristically green plants had been queer enough from afar, but the further Fennec got to it, the more unusual it looked. The small forest near the Rock Raiders’ encampment, part of the very little original vegetation the ice moon of Inverxe played host to in the first place, was becoming overgrown. Where once relics of trees creaked in the night, now vines began to snake up their trunks. Flowers bloomed on branches that hadn’t seen the slightest green thing in, by any estimation, decades, easily.

“Poison,” Jane said as Fennec joined her at the crest of the hill.

There was no other way to describe it. Fennec had not been on Inverxe long, but she’d heard plenty of stories. As twisted and almost psychotic — if you could call a hunk of floating rock psychotic — as Inverxe was, phenomena like this were somehow even stranger. The two women stayed at a safe distance, and Fennec reached out and touched the scientist’s shoulder gently, but with purpose. The small, lithe woman turned and nodded, stuffing her notebook into her satchel and slinging it back over her shoulder.

Jane Foster had been her ticket to the surface. In the weeks since she’d received a startling reprieve from death — and worse — in Dante’s Abyss, Fennec had learned a surprisingly small amount about what, exactly, her job here was. She’d departed the comet’s medical facilities and tried to get in touch with her employer, but had only thus far received cryptic messages. The first directed her to Syntech’s shuttles, which had ferried her to the Hub. She’d spent a few days there, waiting patiently — as instructed — before one day, Foster had knocked on her hotel room door.

“You’re Miss Shand?” she’d asked. “I hear you’re escorting me to the surface.” Though she wouldn’t describe Jane as warm and bubbly, the woman approached this whole situation with more excitement than Fennec deemed appropriate for an excursion to a death moon.

“I suppose so,” she’d replied, with the proper level of enthusiasm (read: none).

And then they’d been off. Jane, it seemed, had already booked them — or someone else had, and she simply had the connections on hand — passage to the surface with a collection of miners that were going to relieve some of their malaise-inflicted mates. They’d been lucky enough, Fennec supposed, to find solace and shelter with the Rock Raiders, one of the few capitalist outfits that still dared to operate down on the moon’s surface. The mercenary had been brought along under the guise of being ‘hired help’ for the miners, to beat back small adversaries that would occasionally come along and try to halt their activities. Some things didn’t like the very earth around them being drilled into and ripped apart, she supposed… but the Rock Raiders didn’t much like being interrupted.

Danger lurked everywhere on Inverxe, though, even if you weren’t trying to milk it for every last Coin it was worth. Fennec and Jane had now taken several excursions outside of camp, into the wild — much against the Raiders’ advice — for Jane to do some research on the new… vegetation.

“Doctor,” Fennec held up a hand as they crossed down the hill and back onto the beaten path. Jane stopped in her tracks, looking at the crags around them.

This particular mining settlement — Camp Gnawbone, as it was called, much to Fennec’s displeasure — was situated in the foothills of a larger mountain range. It was a perfect spot for the Raiders, rife with caverns and mineral deposits they could easily get rich off of; it also, however, served as an ideal habitat for every creepy-crawly beast that stood diametrically opposed to that mission. The creatures here did not like to be disturbed, but they were so constantly, and after two weeks of subduing baby xenomorphs and iceworm larvae, Fennec was beginning to feel quite apathetic toward the miners’ safety and more sympathy towards the plight of the poor monsters.

She felt, quite suddenly, almost like her head was splintering in two.

A whisper filled the chasm of her mind, and though she couldn’t make out what it said, she knew who it was. No amount of healing techniques or bacta tank soaking was going to remove the Fallen Arbiter’s diabolical drawl from her memory. Though she couldn’t call it a ‘sense,’ per se, the sheer volume of unmaking influence on this planet had been giving the bounty hunter migraines for weeks, and now was no different.

“Fennec — ” Jane called out, reaching for her companion, but the bounty hunter stumbled just out of reach as the ground beneath them cracked open. Another iceworm larva snaked out, aiming its heated horn for the scientist and lunging. Fennec got her bearings as quickly as she could manage and hooked an arm around the creature’s midsection, hugging it tightly and pulling it down onto the ground. Her back smashed into the snow with a crunch, the creature writhing on top of her as she held it within her grip. She was lucky it was only a baby, knowing that these monstrosities could grow as large as ninety-odd meters; this one was only about three-and-a-half or four but still packed quite the punch.

Fennec reached behind her back with her free arm, pulling the vibranium dagger out of where it was stored in her rifle and swinging it high up into the air. She brought it down with a satisfying squish into what she could only hope was the iceworm’s ‘neck’ and threw the beast off of her, barrel rolling away from it and swinging her blaster rifle off her back.

She let out a deep sigh. After days without her effects in Dante’s Abyss, she was happy to have her trusty old tools back again. She let her finger rest on the trigger, aimed for the creature’s head, and prepared for the killing blow.

“Wait,” Jane muttered, “look.”

Fennec’s eyes drifted up behind the iceworm, where a tangle of thin, green vines snaked out from a small crevice in a nearby cliffside. Black ooze dripped off of it — not too much, but just enough to be noticeable — as it slithered toward the worm, which squirmed in pain on the ground before both women’s eyes.

The iceworm cooed, and for a moment, as the vines began to coil around its body, Fennec swore it was almost… looking at the two of them. She thought, perhaps, it was begging them to save it — but they were both frozen. The hunter could almost feel Darkseid’s influence radiating out of the corrupted plantlife’s pores. She’d seen enough of the Unmaking to last a lifetime in the Wastes of Cevanti, both on the outside and inside her own head, so she was beginning to learn how to recognize it when she saw it. She’d admit that she hadn’t been keen on seeing it again so soon.

But this was the job, wasn’t it? This was what she’d signed up for. She’d known that.

The vines jerked, and the iceworm was snatched from view, squeezing into the too-small crevice in the mountainside with a disgusting squelching sound. Its blood oozed out of the crack after it disappeared, staining the snow-covered ground with a deathly hue.

“Back to camp,” Fennec ordered, severity lacing her tone. She looked at Jane, pale and frozen in place. “Now.”

The scientist nodded and started off down the hill, her escort not far behind.

 

[Fennec Shand]

Fennec could feel her mind tightening, but she wasn’t sure if it was the malaise of Inverxe or this goddamn traffic.

She didn’t understand why they’d had to flee to the Hub. They’d gotten back to the Rock Raiders’ camp relatively unscathed, if a little frightened, and Jane had wandered off in a tizzy, mumbling this and that about how different this was, how curious. For the next two hours, Dr. Foster had been unreachable, zipped up in her own little tent and essentially dead to the world. She wouldn’t even let her own bodyguard in, leaving Fennec to twiddle her thumbs or, worse, try and make conversation with the miners.

The regular occupants of Camp Gnawbone weren’t much in the way of conversationalists, but they’d been a better option, Fennec was sure, than trying to get anything done on the hellscape CRVIII had become. The bounty hunter’s experience with the space station, floating lazily above Inverxe, was minimal. She’d visited it maybe once or twice in the old days to pick up a job from Kaalakiota, but given that prior to a few weeks ago she’d made the ice moon an unnegotiable no-fly-zone, that’d been the extent. Back during those brief stints, though, the Hub had been much more hospitable. A capitalist nightmare, for sure, but for Fennec Shand, capitalist nightmares usually led to money in her pocket.

Since Rose Quartz’s attack, it had remained a nightmare, and the capitalism had not left, but now whole quadrants of it were overrun with parademons or other such unmade beasts. The draw of it — as a spit-shined vacation from the horrors of Inverxe — had decidedly lessened. Essentially a warzone these days, Fennec was less than excited to make her triumphant return to the space station’s hallowed streets.

If they ever got there, anyway. Their cruiser — piloted, thank God, by a generous Rock Raider whose name Fennec had quickly forgotten — had gotten stalled in the midst of a particularly busy exodus from the ice moon’s surface. Since they’d seen the creepy unmade vines drag the corpse of that iceworm into parts unknown, reports of rustling around Camp Gnawbone had increased, and most of the Raiders had chosen to take an early weekend. They’d been caught in the rush, and had been trying for a solid hour to get past customs at the gates of the Hub before they finally made it to the docking bay.

“Fucking finally,” the huntress groaned as she emerged from the spacecraft. Jane followed behind, but quickly pushed ahead of Fennec, heading towards the entrance to the docking bay. The older woman could feel her blood pressure rising as she vacillated between following her mark and just ending both of their suffering with two quick shots to the head. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, Doctor, slow down.”

Jane stopped in her tracks, whipping around. “We’ve got no time.”

“What the hell do you mean?” Fennec lifted an eyebrow, pressing forward toward the scientist. “Camp Gnawbone’s shut down for the weekend. We’ve got plenty of time.”

“That’s exactly it,” the doctor nodded. “That’s what I mean. We’ve got plenty of time — but we’ve also got no time. We’ve got to move.”

Jane turned and started walking toward the entrance to the docking bay, leaving a bewildered Fennec standing with her hands on her hips and her face scrunched up. What Arbiter had she pissed off that she had to find herself playing babysitter to this fucking nerd?

Nevertheless, the checks were clearing, so she followed. Jane burst out of the docking bay and weaved as safely as she could through the volatile corridors of the Hub, looking at the signs next to or above every doorway they passed. She’d occasionally mutter something to herself — ‘that’s no good’ or ‘not this one either,’ things to that effect — and Fennec found herself starting to worry that the malaise had crept up on the good doctor more quickly than either of them had anticipated. What was up with this paranoia?

“Jane,” Fennec called out, finally, “Jane. Stop.”

“No, Fennec,” the younger woman responded, glancing up at another sign. “I can’t stop. We’ve got to move.”

“Move where?” Fennec questioned, irately. “What the hell are you looking for?”

Jane finally stopped in her tracks as they landed in front of what looked like — or, at least, what had been fashioned to look like — a saloon of some sorts. Well, not a saloon exactly; the aesthetics that word connotated certainly did not match the high tech club vibes that radiated from this establishment, but it did seem to match the lazy pace of one of Karim’s calmer taverns. Fennec walked up next to Jane, taking in the fruits of their search.

“We’re looking for a drink?”

“No,” Jane reached out and grabbed Fennec on the arm, which the hunter wasn’t sure she liked. “We’re looking for muscle.”

Fennec’s face scrunched up again. “Excuse me?”

Jane looked up at her and smiled. “The Rock Raiders have left that camp uninhabited for several days,” she started, “so it’s the perfect time to really dig in and figure out what’s going on down there.”

“I, uh,” Fennec stammered, “...are you fucking insane?”

“You saw the unmaking on Cevanti, Fennec,” Jane pushed her bodyguard out of the way of the door and leaned in close, whispering almost surreptitiously now. “You know that what’s going on down there… on the surface… it’s different. Way different. Someone’s got to get to the bottom of it.” She turned back toward the doors of the bar. “But with no miners there, none of their people to help protect us, we’re going to need a little bit more help.”

Fennec leaned over, looking at the doorway. “And you think we’re going to find some worthy souls in there?”

“Worth a shot,” Jane smirked, backing up and disappearing through the doorway and into the tavern.

Fennec sighed. Worth a shot.

 

[Ezrihel]

"Well, I'm jus' saying, I don't-"

"Morgan, please." Ezrihel held up a gloved hand dismissively, pausing to take a long sip of the glowing neon blue drink he was holding. "We are here to listen in about news and the unmaking. You do want to purge that foul bastard's presence across the crossroads, right?"

"But a madness moon, General? You've got to be kidding me." The cowpoke wasn't entirely sure what to make of a moon full of ice bandits and lunatics. Sick folks, the whole damn lot of 'em.

"And the whole damn lot of 'em are not worthy of a chance at redemption and saving?" There was a faint smile at the edges of the andromedan's lips. Arthur looked to the alien and frowned just a tad in return at his thoughts being read.

"I s'ppose they are worth a chance, I guess."

"You were more willing to try jumping down to Nausicaa when I first saw you, Morgan. What has gotten you so skittish?"

'Master, need I remind you that Inverxe has been known to impact the psychological landscape of those who venture too long?' P'thaeyl chirped into Ez's mind. 'Chief Medical Officer Isra will not thank you for making his therapy sessions with you any more difficult.'

"Oh come'on now, I ain't being skittish. I just never heard anything good about this moon. At least the City of Hope had amenities." Arthur asserted, as if he was consciously agreeing with the AI. The andromedan man sighed deeply, only choosing to down more of his drink at the back-and-forth everyone wanted to engage in.

"And this place doesn't have 'amenities' too, Morgan? Or are you still catching up with the times and the technology? Look, if you need help navigating the holo-maps, you only have to say so, my dashing cowboy~" Althaus smarmed with an impish grin. "Enjoy the bar. Maybe they have an old fashioned lager for you to get lost in, or a few loose cigarettes behind the bar."

Arthur cast a glance around the techno-beat lounge and shook his head. He had spent time aboard the Phantom Blossom well enough, but the time spent steeped in technological wonderment had done little to advance the cowboy's taste in high-tech.

"What, prefer the olde timey ragtime tunes and fiddle mus-" Ezrihel had started on a half-snarked tease when the words caught in his throat suddenly, as if running into a wall.

"General?" Morgan ventured, following Ez's gaze... Only to find that the man was staring hard and long into an actual wall at the far end of the bar, brows furrowed. There was hardly anything remarkable about the blue painted wall, besides perhaps the sheer amount of 'call me for a good time' notes left in sharpie to decorate its plainness. "What, you hear something I can't, or did those smooth talkin' gears in that head a' yours hit a snag?"

The alien chuckled, setting his empty chrome tumbler on the bar. His green eyes darted over to the entryway, a doctor and her mercenary body guard, if he had to guess, were making their way towards the counter. "You really stand out from a crowd, you know that, right, Morgan? Why don't you keep hollering about needing a job~? Maybe someone will offer you one if you are loud enough."

"Callin' me a blabbering fool, General?" The accusation came in a light-hearted tone.

"All I am saying is that the last I checked, stealth wasn't a requirement for what we are doing here." The blonde smirked, giving a subtle gesture towards the two women. 'The petite one with the badge, a doctor or researcher. Seems focused. Looking for something or someone.'

"What, more bodyguards?" Arthur said on an exhale.

"Perhaps." 'The mercenary with the doctor is familiar. A recent Dante's Abyss contender. Fennec Shand. She's got talent... And maybe a vendetta against the dark one as much as we do.'

The female duo drew up to the bar, Foster leaning over it to catch the bartender's attention while the aged Fennec made herself busy looking like she would prefer to be just about anywhere else. The andromedan could already hear Foster asking the barkeeper if anyone had come in looking for work planet-side, and took it upon himself to approach.

Ezrihel was, of course, greeted with Shand's blaster, to which he failed to flinch (in fact, he smirked at the insinuation). "Charmed, Shand, but I am not the boogeyman that crawled into your head in the Abyss." He remarked, pushing the barrel of the blaster away with only his index finger. His gaze fell back to Foster's brown eyes. "I couldn't help but overhear that you are looking for additionals for a job. Something on the ice-sheets." Without bothering to look, he pointed to Jane's badge. "Researcher, right?"

The official tone of his voice lent him a cool air of credit and authority that put the doctor at ease, not to mention the fact that she was positive she'd seen his pretty face on the news at some point and-- was he sparkling a bit?? "Yes, I'm looking into the unmade presence growing on Inverxe." She shook her head, trying to deal with some sort of internal inconsistency. "... Why do you look so familiar?"

The andromedan couldn't help but smirk at the confirmation of the unmade corruption, and at the final question. "Well, that's because I'm the champion of Nausicaa, love~"