Hi all! Indigo Luminai here, down from Nexus to bring you some epic tales. This fandom is pretty lacking in good fic, so I figured I'd try to bring my talents to the table. (That being said, I absolutely adore the stories by Black Waltz 0, and you should totally check them out if you haven't already. Their fics were what gave me the courage to start writing my own.)
Also, please please PLEASE leave reviews! This is my very first FanFiction work, so I'd really appreciate seeing what you guys think of it.
Aaaaand now, it is my pleasure to introduce you to Eris, dealer of dastardly damage to the Dominion!
Happy reading! :D
Eris Virana's name, particularly her surname, reeked of irony.
The name Eris was, coincidentally, the goddess of chaos and discord in some old Cassian myth. But 'Virana?' Any Exile with half a brain would connect the dots there. "Hey, your name sounds like the word "Virus." Or "Viral." Ha ha, isn't that funny, wouldn't you say?"
She might as well have been named Eris Contagia.
The Mordesh girl, who bore a younger-than-most appearance in her suspended state, curled a magnetic screwdriver around one side of a pair of Stalker claws. They were off her hands and extended, balanced precariously upon an empty food tray in her lap. She used the screwdriver to tweak one side of the sheathing mechanism, and then slid the glove on and flexed her hands – nodding in satisfaction as the claws sheathed easily and then popped back out with lightning speed.
Eris was sitting on a small flight of steps by one wall of the main loading bay of the Gambler's Ruin, one foot splayed out to keep her balance. Anyone walking by wouldn't have noticed the skeletally thin silhouette – and if they did, they'd have kept right on walking. No one wanted to be in close quarters with a Mordesh anymore, now that Nexus was right below them and ripe for the taking. And mostly free from large concentrations of her zombie species.
She'd received word that Victor Lazarin himself had made the journey down to the planet's surface, searching for a cure. Who cared. It was unlikely that any cure could be synthesized in time, although time was a bit of an indefinite as long as one had a good supply of Vitalus on hand.
The pitter-patter of feet echoed through the hall, and then a single Aurin skidded into view, teardrop-shaped ears bouncing above a curly cascade of snow-white hair. She muttered something about relics before giving Eris a cursory glance and dashing away again.
The Mordesh sighed. She made the same adjustments to her other set of claws, and then slid them on, sheathed, watching as residual amounts of stealth nanites blended them perfectly to her gloves.
Eris didn't really know why she hadn't hopped on one of the frequent shuttles and taken the trip down to Nexus yet. It was some mix between a fear of spreading her disease, and a certainty that no one would want her around. Better to stay up here, where no one looked anymore.
She stood, clattering the food tray against a metal step before steel-plated fingernails grasped down and caught it. Another day. Another Vitalus change, tonight. I suppose the deplorable doctor on the planet below would have had ample time to concoct a courtesy canister-supply of serum. It's probably better quality than the various Vitalus reserves on this ship. Should I journey down, if only for that reason?
She wasn't exactly sure.
Footsteps.
Eris's head whipped up, burgundy crests of synthetic hair flipping, as a single figure strode down the hall toward her. It was male, lean and graceful, and a quiet clinking sound followed him down the hall – gentle collisions of the resonators strapped to his back. A metaphorical knot unscrewed in Eris's cold chest as she realized that his forearms and neck were both glowing a bright green. Mordesh, then. One of her own people.
Although she was almost loath to do it, she called out. There weren't many Mordesh left on this ship anymore. A large majority had joined Lazarin on the surface – believing, once again, that he could save them. Eris didn't particularly have anything against the doctor… except, well, for the fact that he'd most likely doomed their entire race. The Mordesh had trusted him once before, and they'd all paid the price.
"Hello! Fellow Mordesh!"
Hearing her, the man turned. His face was elegant, with a heavily hooked nose and a plethora of cybernetic enhancements – including metal add-ons over and around his ears and jaw, which of course had green Vitalus pumping through them. It appeared as though he'd forgone hair entirely; instead, metal tubes meant to simulate dreadlocks were tied at the base of his neck. At Eris's call, he let a tiny smile creep across his intact lips, and approached.
"Greetings. Although, admittedly, more formality should most likely be observed." His voice was low and metal-tinged, like almost every Mordesh one.
Eris nodded, dipping her head in a quick introductory bow. "Quite correct. Excuse me."
"It's all right," the Medic replied, earning him a confused glance from the Stalker he was talking to. Such a casual statement was mildly off-putting; after all, the remaining Mordesh were all about poise.
He started to say something else, but then stopped short, gaping in wonder. "E-excuse me for staring. It's just… You… you have eyes?"
Eris brought a hand to her cheek, and then flicked her gaze upward to meet the other Mordesh's. His eyes were long gone, replaced by a set of spherical sensors and a few neon lights trailing off into the wires set in his skin. She, on the other hand, still owned a set of flesh-and-blood ones – suspended behind a glasslike screen to prevent air contact, and glowing gold all the way through just like the rest of her Vitalus serum – but she did own them.
"Y-yes. What is the worry?"
"Nothing. I was simply taken aback for a moment. Such pieces of anatomy are often… well, uncommon."
She shrugged, an infuriating gesture picked up from some of the humans. "Mm. I suppose. I lived in Victor Lazarin's home city during the Fall of Grismara, and I was a child at the time. This gave me both extra proximity and extra priority when it came to administering Vitalus in the first few stages."
He nodded thoughtfully. Then, quite suddenly, he stuck out a hand. "Kazimir Kyrokov."
"Eris Virana," she replied, shaking the proffered hand. "You're a Medic, correct?"
Kazimir smiled, exposing pointed teeth in the process. "Indeed. I am a Settler, as well. Or at least I will be, once I leave training behind and journey down to the surface of Nexus."
Eris tilted her head. "Why, then, are you still up here?"
"Up until this point," Kazimir replied, "I had been preparing prolifically. In fact, I was only heading down this particular hallway to depart."
"You're leaving… now?" she asked.
He nodded. "Indeed." The taller Mordesh took a long look at Eris through his solid-color, fake eyes. "Care to join me?"
Care to join me?
The proposition startled her. No one wanted Eris Virana around for too long; she had learned that, slowly and painfully, during her time on the Gambler's Ruin. Even other Mordesh steered clear of the skeletal, brutal young immortal with the gold eyes. And now… someone, someone she'd just met, was asking her to travel to Nexus alongside them?
"I…"
Kazimir waited, patiently, green liquid glowing on his arms and head in the semi-darkness of the corridor.
Eris swallowed thickly. It was an arbitrary mechanism, and she didn't actually possess an organic throat anymore, but the motion remained.
"…Yes. Yes, I would be honored to be allowed to accompany you."
He showed no sign of emotion – just dipped his head and blinked. The motion startled Eris – Kazimir had had custom metal shutters installed in lieu of eyelids, possibly to more accurately imitate the bioprocesses of an organic life form.
"The next shuttle is leaving in approximately ten human minutes. Let us make haste."
And then, quite suddenly, Eris found herself striding down the corridor alongside the Settler, who she found was relatively talkative. He was silent for the most part, but would occasionally point out something on a wall of the hallway, or make a remark about what needed doing on the planet's surface. This was considered 'talkative' among Mordesh.
The empty food tray lay forgotten on the steps behind.
The tinny voice of a Protostar clone echoed through the small ship.
"We are now approaching the surface of planet Nexus. Please, secure yourselves to the walls using those Protostar brand harnesses you can find to your left. And enjoy the ride! Think products, think profits, think Protostar!"
I fail to see how that last little line of the lecture relates, Eris thought to herself.
Beside her, Kazimir sighed and scowled impatiently. The tiny transport shuttle was packed, but he and Eris (being the only two Mordesh on the flight) were given a wide berth despite the lack of room. No one wanted to accidentally brush up against cold, dead skin or the slightly damp surface of a Vitalus arm vessel, not when they wanted to feel alive themselves. And if the assorted humans, Aurin, or solitary Granok needed to nearly cram themselves into the walls to avoid the pair, so be it.
"This venerable voyage should culminate in quite an interesting set of experiences," Kazimir remarked. "Imagine, if you will. An entire lost planet. Experiences we have not even begun to unravel, right at our fingertips. Fascinating."
Eris said nothing.
Kazimir gave her what she assumed was a sidelong glance – his lack of pupils made it difficult to tell. "Are you not excited, my placid partner?"
She shrugged. "You are… more excitable than many Mordesh. Most I've met, in fact. It is unsettling."
He shrugged right back. "I apologize. I was never exactly conditioned to be quiet."
"Really?" Eris asked, curiosity momentarily breaking through her customary Mordesh decorum. "Why not?" During the Fall, many of the Contagion's survivors had been forced to stay silent for long periods of time – because beyond a thin door or hastily-found hiding place, any sound could bring hordes of Ravenous rushing to your position. If they didn't smell you first. This trait – utter silence – had never really been flushed out of a lot of the surviving Mordesh.
"I was off-planet when the Contagion hit." Kazimir rolled his shoulders, seeming slightly uncomfortable. "In fact, my work amounted to making treaties with a few Cassians about resource distribution once the Mordesh joined the Dominion. Of course, I still contracted the Contagion in the end, but…" He shrugged. "I was absent from the days of terror which I'm sure you have lived through."
"You were an ambassador?"
"Close enough."
"And now you're… a Medic." Eris indicated the pair of ramshackle resonators strapped to Kazimir's back.
"Indeed. I find that my calling, time and time again, is to help others. First, it was helping the Cassians. Then, it was helping the survivors of Grismara – I performed prolific Vitalus vessel transplants in order to keep my kin alive and safe, even as I was crumbling. And now, since I have been garrisoned on the Gambler's Ruin, it has been training to help with these." Kazimir slid one resonator off of his back and looked at it thoughtfully. "To heal."
Eris couldn't see the logic in that. Her people were (often literally) falling apart anyway. Might as well get revenge instead – all the causes she used to fight for had been killed. Nowadays it was make the Dommies pay, or die trying.
"What weapons do you use?" Kazimir continued, giving Eris a quick once-over with his eyes. "You do not possess the sword of a Warrior, nor the pistols of a Spellslinger, nor the cannon of an Engineer. And an Esper is out of the question."
In response, Eris flicked her hands up and unsheathed her Stalker claws, garnering gasps from other passengers on the ship. They gleamed golden, rimmed along the edges with razor-sharp steel. She flexed her fingers again, and they were gone. The nanite casing crept over the sheath, and soon it appeared once again that she had no weapons at all.
Kazimir raised his eyebrows. "Ah."
"I'm a Soldier, too," Eris said, cleaning a smudge off of one of her forearm Vitalus tanks. "Stealthy, silent, and always piling more and more ruin onto the Dominion. But not exactly equipped to repair damage." She eyed her companion's resonators once again.
He nodded. "A fair point. Any particular reason why you chose to be such a force of destruction?"
And suddenly, for a second, Eris was in another world. Memories played in a flash. Warm embraces; bright Vitalus hues surrounding her – and then harsh light, the scratchy edge of a plank of wood, and high, keening screams.
She shook herself out of it, returning to the Exile dropship in a flash.
"No reason. Come, let us secure ourselves to the harnesses. We should be entering the atmosphere soon."
If Kazimir found this reaction suspicious, he didn't mention it. "Agreed."
Outside, the mysterious orb of Nexus spiraled ever closer.