Co-written by Lilith and Ridley
Fractured hulls. Totaled engines. Warped rudders. Thrusters sputtering out their noxious, dying breaths. Glutinous, putrid tar. Loathsome snowflakes produced from the ruinous bloodshed above, languidly drifting down and desecrating the callous ocean depths. Lilith's aquatic clash with the goliath transformer persisted, her onslaught of insatiable teeth incising Broadside's chassis like lithophagic termites. Her immense array of bone blades deflected their axe swings and fourth-rate plasma blasts - this robotic reject could never compare to her master's sultry breath.
High-frequency vibrations rippled through the water as Lilith propelled herself away from the transformer's galvanized weapon. An errant thought crossed her mind; the mech resembled a neglected children's toy, but maybe she could repurpose it for a more adult audience. She pinned the idea for later.
The brawl boiled over to the sea's surface, the meaty mass murderer and the steel death machine breaching the underside of a Syntech cruiser already in shambles. The vessel gave way to the enormity of the corrupted transformer, its vital compartments and lavish amenities laid to waste in an eruption of brine and splintered plating. Lilith plunged her razor claws into Broadside, detaching them in a manner not unlike a porcupine's quills, before twirling back and barreling through the sinking combination of warship and luxury yacht. Ballrooms, chandeliers, arcades, theaters, and extravagant diners were crushed by Nothing There's frenetic force, Lilith sliding and sidestepping a hail of lasers as Broadside fiercely fired upon her. The collateral damage was of little relevance to the mutant monstrosity, though she mangled a not-insignificant amount of sailors in the ensuing carnage.
“All this saltwater is screwing up my aim!” griped Broadside, chopping down the hungry tangle on his limbs. “You just
had to fight out here, fleshbag!”
‘Come out, whoever you are!’ cried a generic female voices, obscured within the shambles of the ships.
“Whu—”
The transformer's confusion was met with a faceful of fresh bone spikes as Lilith lunged out from the charred naval wreckage like a miniature leopard with excessively overgrown claws.
Instead of retaliating, a new directive stirred in Broadside's processor, divined from the Ungod himself. Suddenly gears shifted and pistons reconfigured, his rifle and vibro-axe melding into his frame before he morphed into his jet mode, ascended, and prepared for takeoff.
Just as the triple-changer was about to speed away, Lilith clamped onto their cockpit and strapped herself down with a slew of sinews, using them like bungee cords for her raucous cargo. “I'm not done with you!” Lilith bellowed, rabidly thrashing and jostling her hijacked ride.
Broadside and the Unmade Flotilla, however, were content to cease their skirmish. The fighter jet transformer wildly arced and zigzagged overhead the retreating unmade squadron, trying to unseat the clingy pest like a rocket-powered bull. This wouldn't be an issue on stable ground, naturally, but the accursed sea breeze was discombobulating his gyroscope and making the whole ordeal far more inconvenient than it needed to be. He could use his heat-seeking missiles, a surefire way to oust the puny-yet-still-troublesome insect, but that was wading into mutually assured destruction territory, which would leave his unholy leader none too pleased.
“I don't have time for this!” the massive mecha groused, twirling and twisting and using every dogfighting tactic in his databanks to get rid of his undesirable passenger. Darkseid had bigger and better plans for him, after all. Hopefully on a wide, smooth island elevated a fair distance from the shore. Broadside could see it in his optics, mowing down heaps of the pathetic ants from his heightened position, no ocean or sky to disturb him. All the more reason to get a move on pronto.
With an abrupt nosedive, Broadside veered straight for an unmade carrier, a black and orange blaze as he obliterated the rusted decaying metalwork into a plume of fiery scoria. A necessary sacrifice for his mission's integrity. His turbine kicked into overdrive, whirring in a vociferous shrill and accelerating past the sound barrier with a deafening
BOOM, clearing the hail of ash and oil-sparked embers with his hasty departure.
VVRREEEEEeeeeeaaaawww…
Lilith's target was nowhere to be found. Her blistered figure stood in the midst of the ship's smoldering remnants, looming with unfulfilled rancor. Did they seriously think they could escape her so easily? It'd be a disgrace to return now, not before eradicating every last enemy. The bullet holes and burns were inconsequential. She had so much more of herself to give, and she would not rest until her master was proud.
The unmade fleet hadn't gone too far. Lilith could catch up if she acted now. She bounded for the jet transformer's trail, then—
It smacked her like a paralyzing tsunami.
She didn't process the noise, at first. It was a husky, guttural tone, a voice who's command she couldn't help but obey. She discerned the singular word, an assertion of her being. A reminder that she was real, for losing her grasp of that truth was all too common.
Her name.
A flood of clarity washed over Lilith. Nothing There turned back, as did the Wyvern enforcer inside its fleshy confines. They slowed their momentum in the air, crashing onto the flaming shipwreck and engulfing themselves in the forlorn smog. Phantoon's ghostly veil evinced his otherworldly shape, phasing atop the subdued tides.
Nothing There's numerous eyes bored into the towering wraith's set of three. These were doubtlessly unusual circumstances. Lilith, a bodysnatching hodgepodge of organs. Ridley, a writhing void-forged cephalopod from beyond the pale. Even so, the sadomasochist's nostalgia was unmistakable. Her and the dragon's adventures on Opealon's waters felt so long ago. Where had the time gone?
Something must've changed. Lilith remained transfixed, tendons torn between two opposing inclinations, struggling against the raging monsoon in her head. She knew her hesitation to embrace her master was wrong - though that hasn't stopped her before. Yet this instance seemed especially shameful.
It's this monster, she dismissed, denying the likelihood of her subconscious sentiments creeping through.
---
“
Lilith.” Ridley’s growl echoed once more, amplified by and through Phantoon’s own body, as the flesh-beast before him turned its eyes to the eldritch abomination below. Phantoon’s astral claws sunk into a mostly intact aircraft carrier as it pushed itself up, the battered frame shuddering - but luckily for the crew, Phantoon’s size and weight were far from proportional - or consistent.
The eldritch eye that fell upon Lilith was now filled with that same reptilian rage that always stalked the dragon, even if the eye lacked that predatory edge. Phantoon’s writhing tentacles filled the silence combined with the uncomfortable squelching of Nothing There’s numerous organs and muscle fibers shifting, as any onlookers quieted in the face of this, worried of a possible confrontation.
“...We are
leaving!” Ridley snapped with all the spiteful energy the dragon could muster - though it was directed at his enforcer, it was borne of his own hatred - for being the one to sound the alarm to retreat, and so early yet. Were these other circumstances, and he had the time, he would have gladly turned Broadside to liquid slag all on his own - but that was not his role here.
An itch unscratched from his time fighting the gemstone in Mesa Roja dug into his scaly skin, but so did memories of a different Ridley, several years ago, retreating in the same fashion. He had allowed the Helldivers to follow him, and secure their own doom in doing so. Though what happened next was a farce, he wished not to follow in the ill-fated footsteps of his former arch-enemies.
And it was immediately clear as he looked across the fleet he had fought alongside - from the fire and debris strewn across the water, to the scars and breaks across many others - that they was in no position to commit to further combat. The weak humanoids given to him needed time to recover their injuries and rest - and he was quite certain Karl Jak had no interest in giving him more if they squandered these resources.
“Those are my
orders, Lilith.” Ridley stated flatly, noticing a flicker of indecisiveness - or hesitance. Whether that was from some over-eagerness on Lilith’s part or something else, it didn’t matter.
‘Aaahh man…’ sighed one of Nothing There's mouths, a male voice exhausted from a long day's work. Lilith had no response of her own, gliding away from the scorched metal bulk and landing besides Phantoon, not crushing any fighter jets for once. The two sat atop the carrier as they exchanged glances from within their respective aberrations.
Ridley kept a keen eye for anything - whether from friend or foe - that could give him an advantage or disadvantage. This included the moods of his underlings, and Lilith, for her part, was mostly an open book in the first place. And the normally chatty abomination was here, sullen and silent, the disgusting flesh giant mimicking the subtle intricacies of her mannerisms. Lilith had long since lost the rights to hide
anything from him, after all.
This did not mean that Ridley relished the idea of actually engaging with her strange, mercurial emotions. But it did mean that he needed to - he couldn’t leave an issue like this alone, not when Lilith was a creature of feelings and impulse. His lead enforcer was normally crude, hedonistic, airheaded and predictable, and that last part, at least, was an integral part of what made her so effective.
The fact that the pirate lord was about to comfort a melodramatic woman still rankled, however.
The dragon’s growl reverberated through the irritated Phantoon.
“What, Lilith?” the drake addressed her, the annoyed glare coming from Phantoon’s eye showing more vexation than actual hatred in this moment.
“I could’ve done it, y’know,” she muttered under her breath, lacking her typical enthusiasm.
Ridley’s snarl from within was an old, familiar one, but it was not yet to an outright snap. “I will not repeat myself.”
Lilith placed one hand to her chest, her speech quickening. “Am I not strong enough, is that it?”
“Your recklessness is something I can’t afford in this war!”
“What are you so worried for? I'll be fine, just like always.”
“You’ve
already taken damage!” Ridley castigated, contradicting his lieutenant sharply, and expecting a non-plussed response in return.
Instead, an uncomfortably long gap passed, as his lead enforcer bared their innumerable teeth against him. Ridley half-anticipated an attack, or perhaps some sort of rage-fuelled outburst, but their tantrum consisted of a solitary slam onto the ruined ship they quarreled upon.
After another pause, fluids started leaking from Lilith’s copious new eyeballs, emitting a repugnant smell as she turned away from the dragon. Ridley involuntarily sampled the disgusting odor, internally recoiling at the taste of salt and other, more caustic elements. Lilith was
sobbing, and Ridley's surprise stifled his revulsion for a moment.
“You're disappointed in me, aren't you?!” Lilith wailed. “I'm not worthy…” she continued, the arm protruding from her head wilting like an emaciated flower and clasping her face. The bizarre biology of this inhuman monstrosity mimicking Lilith’s body language - with the exception of her lip movement and lash blinking - actually managed to bother Ridley more than her normal appearance, and this already felt like the beginning of a
long campaign.
Ridley hadn't the faintest idea how to console Lilith. To talk sense into the over-emotional woman was nigh impossible with her incessant crying. The disconcerting noise drowned out any possibility of conceiving the right words to placate her misery. The old wyrm didn't need to, however. He settled on the one tool that reliably whipped his subordinate into shape, no matter the situation.
Phantoon’s great mass stood up, as an astral claw raked across Lilith's back with enough calculated restraint to inflict a superficial - yet painful - sting, bringing the enormous woman to her knees.
“If I was disappointed, you wouldn’t still be
breathing from that, would you, Lilith?”
“
Is this a mortal’s mating ceremony?” Phantoon’s voice echoed through Ridley’s brain, and the space dragon’s response was simply unrefined rage, the notion infuriating him far too much for words.
“Come. We’re rejoining the fleet,” Ridley barked to Lilith, who’s demeanor seemed to turn a complete 180.
The masochist nodded slowly, her manyfold eyes throbbing in bliss. “Of… course, master. I’m always ready to serve~”
Ridley gave a satisfied blink, his enforcer’s hysteria having been mitigated for now. So long as they remembered their role as his chess piece, the rest of this battle would be straightforward. Hopefully their lovesick loyalty would overcome their attention span in this regard.
Next to him, the fleet promptly commenced their repairs, saving who they could, and body-bagging those who hadn’t already vanished beneath the waves. It was time to finish this battle - and grow one step closer to impaling Darkseid himself.