Hello there. This is my first story to the site, I really hope it is good. I will have a few notes about the story down at the end. If anyone notices grammar issues, let me know!
"That is the last of them" Rebel's deep voice echoes through the empty room. "Prepare yourself, the portal should appear soon."
Placing the sledgehammer onto the holster on her back, she pulled her crossbow out. Whatever was waiting on the other side would be no match for the homing ability of her bolt marrow mutation. Her single glowing green eye narrowed at the lack of response. Her companion was usually more talkative than this. A single sentence could send her off on an hour long one sided discussion, why was it so silent this time?
She turned around to investigate the lack of noise from her partner. She spotted her standing in front of a group of the crushed corpses of the spider creatures.
"Crystal? Why so silent this time?"
The purple crystal mutant looked up at Rebel, her face dazed.
"I-I… I can't…" Crystal's voice stuttered with each word. "I can't handle this…" Was all she managed to get out before she fell to the ground, tears streaming down her face.
Rebel was surprised. Out of everyone in the group, Crystal was the most stable. No matter what happened, she took it and shrugged it off without breaking a sweat. No matter what, she never let anything get to her. What had happened to make her break down so easily?
"Crystal, what is the matter?" Rebel's voice grew soft as she spoke. "Something troubles you, I would like to help."
"My… My family…" Crystal tried to speak, her voice cracking. "T-They were here… We… I b-broke them. I-I killed them!"
Realization flashed through Rebel's mind. Back at the campfire with the others, Crystal often spoke of her family. She spoke little of what had happened to them after the apocalypse, but she often spoke of them before the apocalypse, as she was one of the few mutants who could remember that time. She would take any opportunity to talk about them that she was given, a sign she loved them very dearly.
All she had said about what happened to them after the apocalypse was that they were trapped, and only she was able to leave. She must had meant that as in their intelligence. Her family had devolved to simple creatures and no longer had sentience but she kept hers when she mutated into the crystalline creature she is now.
Rebel understood why Crystal was so upset over this. Aside from the obvious part that she had just butchered her own family in order to get through the caves, her dream for when their journey ended was ruined.
They set out to find the Nuclear throne together after Steroids and Rouge never returned. When they found it, if the legends were true, supreme power would become theirs. Anything and everything they wanted, they could have.
Rebel wanted to end the chaos of the wastelands, bring order back to the world. If it had the power to do so, she wanted to undo the apocalypse and reset everything back to normal. If it couldn't, her secondary plan was to bring order back and civilize the wastes and try to start a new world with what they had. Crystal though, her hope was to use the power of the Throne to save her family and live with them again. Now that they had killed the creatures in the caves, Crystal's family, even if they reached the throne, could never be saved.
Rebel was barely able to say anything after she understood. She knew what Crystal was going through, the pain of losing family. It wasn't something that could be gotten over easily, but as her friend, Rebel knew she had to help her through it. She moved forward and sat down in front of Crystal, placing her weapons beside her.
"Crystal…" she began speaking, but her mind drew a blank. How was she supposed to help Crystal through the pain? Perhaps it would be best to change topics to something else, but something still related to the issue at hand.
"Did I ever tell you about my brother?" Rebel brought her long blue scarf around her and wrapped it around her body, much like she did back at the campfire. "I don't think I ever did."
Crystal sniffed and looked up at Rebel.
"He and I were very close. I loved him more than anything in the world." Rebel trailed off for a brief moment, getting lost in her memories. With a shake of her head to push the thoughts away, she continued.
"He and I would spend our days wandering about with our clan, searching for food and weapons. He was a big guy so he always took the lead with the search parties, charging forward fearlessly, killing anything that attacked us but never hurting those who left us alone, few as they were. Whenever he went out, I was following close behind. When he was eating and laughing, I was right beside him hitting him for his bad jokes. I cared for him so much, he was everything to me, and I was everything to him."
Rebel lifted up the end of her scarf. "I can't remember the time before the apocalypse happened, but what I do remember is he gave me this scarf back then. It is one of the two objects I treasure most in this world. It reminds me of better times, when we didn't have to fight for our very survival. I wish I could go back to those days. Days filled with pleasure, where each day was spent messing about with each other and enjoying life as it was… But that time has passed now."
Crystal seemed drawn into the story. Rebel wasn't sure if it was because she wanted to listen, or because she wanted to try and ignore the emotions inside her. Either way, her plan was working. Now she had to start making the connection between her story and Crystal.
"One day I grew sick. He left to go search for food with some of the clan without me, as I couldn't get out of bed. I don't know what happened on that search, but when he returned he was not the same. He grew colder and more violent, he stopped acting like an older brother and he stopped making jokes. He started killing everything we saw, not only the things that attacked our clan. He went from my idiotic older brother to a cold merciless war lord of the clan. We began to drift apart…" Rebel's voice grew faint.
Rebel stopped talking and swallowed, trying to push past the bad memories. Taking a deep breath to steady her mind, she continued.
"We got into fight one day, this one was so bad that I began being ostracized by the clan. They didn't want to leave me out of everything, but for fear of my brother's wrath they had to. I didn't want to leave the clan, I cared for them all very much, but I had to. Perhaps some time of separation would help return my brother to the man he once was. Even if he was a different person then, I still loved him, he was my brother after all…" Rebel went silent, her head bent down and eye closed yet no tears fell.
"What happened?" Crystal's voice was extremely soft. With how deep and scratchy her voice normally was, it sounded like Crystal was purring as she spoke. If the caverns weren't empty, Rebel most likely would have not heard her speak. "That didn't seem like the end."
"It wasn't. I met my brother again later. At least, I think he was still my brother. The moment our eyes crossed I knew. It was him, it was the same man that I grew up with, but it wasn't my brother. I didn't see anything left of my brother inside of that man and his eyes... They were filled with nothing but rage. The proud, hardheaded fool that I knew and loved was gone. All he let out was a scream before he charged at me."
Crystal's eyes widened and she let out a light gasp.
"I did not want to, but I had no other choice. It was either let my brother kill me, or put him out of his misery. Even with his dying breaths, all he did was growl and curse at me. There was no return of his old self in his final moments." Rebel reached into her scarf and shuffled around for a moment before drawing out something from within.
"There was a time long ago when we visited the scrapyards. My brother found this device, it was able to draw images so perfectly they could be mistaken for a view of reality. I had it draw my brother and I, as a memento of that day. I never let others touch this, but I trust that you would do nothing to harm it."
Rebel handed the photo over to Crystal. Crystal took the photo and stared at it. Her eyes grew wide at the sight of what was in front of her.
On the photo was a faded, almost grey image of a younger Rebel standing in front of a massive heap of junk. The wrappings covering her face were slightly shifted upwards, something that could only mean a smile. She had her arms wrapped around another figure in the photo.
It was a tall man, several feet above her. Wrapped in the same cloth strips that all the bandits wore, except he had a massive shawl around his body, held in place by leather straps. On his right arm was a metal gauntlet and his face was covered by a metal mask that extended into spikes behind his head. A small slit between the wrappings and the metal mask showed his eyes, two faded red lights similar to Rebel's.
Crystal's jaw dropped and she slowly looked up. "T-that's- "
"The Bandit leader we fought and killed several days ago, yes he was my brother."
Crystal handed the photo back and Rebel stuffed it into her scarf again.
"I know it hurts, even more so when are the one who killed them. I know it isn't easy, but you will have to move on. How else can you carry their memory onwards without being bagged down by the weight of your guilt?"
"I-I know, but" Crystal spoke up, her voice shaking.
"I didn't say this very moment, nor did I say today or even tomorrow. It will be a slow process, I myself still haven't fully accepted what had happened. Plus, this cavern has been emptied. Do you know that there are no other ones that may hold some amount of your family? Perhaps they had not all been trapped in this specific cavern"
Rebel doubted what she had just said was true, that Crystal's family may still be out there. She wanted to think they may be, but her optimism couldn't win out this time. Still if it cheered Crystal up and got her back to normal, she was willing to lie this time.
Crystal looked down. She stayed silent for a few moments, then she lifted her head up with a smile.
"You're right! My family may still be alive somewhere, and I will save them if we reach the throne!"
Rebel stood up and bopped Crystal on the head.
"Not if, when. We will make it; we won't die out here." Rebel held her hand out towards Crystal. "Now come on, the portal is opening soon, we should get ready for what awaits us out on the other side."
Crystal smiled widely. "Yes!" she exclaimed as she took Rebel's hand. "We will reach it, beat up anything that gets in our way, and make this world better again!" She wiped her tears away and her smile grew only larger now that her spirit had recovered.
"That's my girl." Rebel gave Crystal a strong slap on the back.
Right as her hand connected with Crystal's back, the ground began to shake. The impact threw Crystal off her feet onto her stomach. A loud groaning filled the room as a light appeared on the other side of the cave.
"Ready for what awaits us!" Rebel shouted over the noise.
"Yes!" Hopping to her feet, Crystal drew her auto-flame shotgun and loaded it with shells.
The light grew to a blinding level before vanishing along with the noise. In its place was a swirling vortex of purple. A portal, the thing that brought them closer to the throne with each travel.
"Then, let us go!" Rebel yelled ran forward and leapt into the portal, Crystal following close behind.
A few things to note. According to Word of God(the devs), Crystal's family are in the caverns and going through there is really hard on her emotionally, I took this to mean her family are literally the things in the caverns that you kill. Also the devs said that Big Bandit was her brother, considering his size I took that as older brother and that he gave her the scarf she has. It apparently reminds her of better times. I really hope I got my view of Rebel out well. With all her loading screen messages being stuff like "It will get better" and "change is coming" I see her as a very optimistic person. Anyways I hope you all enjoyed!