Ajax had been sitting on a deck chair, calmly sipping on something that he had not identified, but tasted good and was strong enough to create a pleasant buzzing sensation in his head.
He had been watching the surf pounding the coast when he heard a vehicle slow to a stop behind him. A moment later, Ajax heard the door open and close, followed a moment later by the sound of boots on sand.
"Call for you, Ajax." came the baritone voice.
"I'll take it on line one, Bill." Ajax said, hoisting himself out of the chair.
"I think you should bring Amaranth with you." 'Bill' said, motioning towards the vehicle. "Come on, I'll drive you. If it is who I think it is, you'll be reinstated to active duty."
"Really?" Ajax asked.
"Well, there is the formality of actually accepting, but I've got a good guess. My sister…well, you know."
Ajax uttered a string of profanities that diplomatically described his thought's on 'Bill's sister.
"I knew you'd agree."
"Fine. Anything new on the loop for me, Death?" Ajax asked, getting into the vehicle.
"Some idiot has once again decided to toy with rules that I've instated." Death replied, starting the vehicle. He began driving back to the compound. "I absolutely motherfucking HATE necromancy!" he roared after several seconds of silence. "Von Carstein, may his soul be eaten by unmentionable things, is back on the loose again, re-animating at will. Use whatever means you think you need to eliminate him." Death said. "Permanently." he added, in an oily voice.
"Gladly." Ajax muttered darkly. "Still, I'm gonna lead him on about this."
"Who?"
"Aragon. I bet he's the one calling." Ajax said, getting out of the vehicle. He went into the communications room, and picked up the handset that was sitting there. After toggling the 'creepy ghost voice' switch, Ajax started to speak. "Aragon!" he snapped out. "What the fuck do you think you're doing, interrupting my vacation like that? What sort of motherfucking trouble have you managed to get yourself into THIS time? I'm gonna need my other boot, if the grapevine is right."
The answer was swift and sharp. "Do you have any godly idea how long it took me to find you? I figured I'd find you hanging around a beach, but having committed SUICIDE? You're damn lucky I desperately need your help, or I'd have half a mind to beat you senseless for being so selfish!" came the disembodied voice of Aragon.
Ajax grinned, put his hand over the mouthpiece and jerked his thumb towards the phone for Death's benefit. "He seems angered."
Death sniggered at that, but waved for him to keep going on the phone.
"I was hanging around a beach, but I knew you'd come head-hunting me, so I went somewhere I had HOPED was safe from your influence. In so doing, I knew that I'd only get called if it was actually important. Like this little situation you've managed to get yourself mired into. Gimme ten minutes, I'll be right down. That is a promise, so DON'T call back! This line is for emergency use only, and you've already called yours in." Ajax finished his return shot and hung up the phone, conveniently cutting off whatever else Aragon had to say. Ajax then stormed out of the comms building to his quarters, where he began throwing his gear together.
"So, the infamous Von Carstein case." Amaranth said, raising an eyebrow. She was already ready to go, and was watching Ajax with a bemused expression on her face.
"Yeah." Ajax replied. "A real sonofabitch if he makes Aragon call me in desperation. Why he couldn't get the trident force together is beyond me. He could have grabbed those three, borrowed the Phoenix, and gotten the job done by the time he'd hunted me down and called. Sheesh. Persistent sonofabitch though, I'll give him that."
Amaranth agreed, and the pair exited the cabin.
At exactly ten minutes after Ajax had unceremoniously dropped the phone back onto the hook with enough force to cause thunder in Aragon's séance, Amaranth and Ajax returned to the land of the living.
It turned out to have been three days.
"Part-time Inquisitor, remember?" Aragon drawled from the land-side entrance to the cave. "Also, full time persistent sonofabitch. It might take forever and a day, but I'd still find you and" Aragon was cut off in his welcoming speech by Amaranth exiting the water, looking human. "It's good to see you again Amaranth, and don't even start on me, I've spent eight months as head of the Riders: I'm entitled to berate someone who is technically under my purview for being AWOL."
"I wasn't about to start on you, Aragon." Amaranth said. "I haven't the inclination, I was just exiting the water, that's all." she smiled sweetly at Aragon, who scowled.
"Enough!" Thelduin cried. "We can stand here and bicker and Mannfred Von Carstein can bring back Nagash and doom the Old World, OR we can acquire what we'll need and stop him now while we still have time! Which will it be?"
Ajax regarded the dragoness coiled on Aragon's shoulders, before speaking. "Okay, starting with you first, Aragon. I'm an employee of Death, Incorporated if you wish. That puts me well OUT of your purview. Thelduin, good to see you, I've got the supplies we'd need aboard the Phoenix. Pray tell, which IS the Old World?"
Aragon was about to reply, but Amaranth beat him to it. "I've had it with you two! If either of you snipe at each other ONE MORE TIME, I'll personally bash your heads together hard enough for the both of you to see universes blinking in your respective fields of vision. And considering the thickness of YOUR skull, Ajax, that will be quite the achievement." So saying Amaranth huffed slightly in irritation before allowing Ajax to finally climb out of the water and dry off.
"You mean to say that you DIDN'T travel to a world with two moons, one of which was composed of solidified warp-energy, and had a gigantic warp-rift at either pole? Looked vaguely like Earth? No? Well this should be an enlightening experience for you; I spend my off days here offing the occasional necromancer, jumped-up two-bit Chaos Lord or over-ambitious orc Warboss. With your nigh invulnerability and incorruptability, I'd wager that we just might be able to do something actually constructive on this visit; well, ASIDE from mending diplomatic relations between the Asur and Dwarfs and stop the resurrection of the demi-god of necromancy." Aragon said forcefully. The sarcasm in his voice had Amaranth glaring warningly at him, but she made no move towards his skull.
"No, never saw a world matching your description. Why? Anyway, why are you offing orc warbosses on Earth? Doesn't matter, I'll get my prodigious resources together, and we'll get under way. I think we'll use my ship? Death gave me some things before I came back...a complete dossier to start with." Once again, Amranth was sending warning glares, but this time towards Ajax, who gulped and backed up slightly.
Aragon shook his head in irritation, but chose to ignore his antics.
Ajax sighed, then picked a manila folder out of thin air. He reach for his radio and clicked on before saying "Ajax to Phoenix. Four to transport."
The four that had been in the moonpool suddenly found themselves standing in the starboard 302 bay, and Ajax returned the radio to his pocket. "Give Phoenix the location of the Old World. From what I understand of your speech, it's Warhammer?"
"Yes." Aragon said. He followed Amaranth to the bridge, while Ajax placed the dossier on the deck before assuming a meditative posture.
Five minutes later, Aragon returned, closing the supposed airlock door behind him. Ajax had been waiting for that and punched to button to open the hangar doors.
"I have the complete dossier of Von Carstein's doings right here in my hot little hand." Ajax said, waving the file. A flick on the console, and the gravity shut off. Ajax remained firmly on the floor, and walked towards the door, stopping several meters short. The file had been abandoned when Ajax started walking, and Aragon grabbed it before re-engaging the gravity.
Ajax had just assumed a position of hanging upside down in midair when the gravity re-initialized.
"This is no time for games, Ajax." Aragon said, opening the file. Thelduin began reading along side him, and Ajax decided to fly for a bit, not wanting to be near Aragon at the moment.
A moment later, the file was closed, and Aragon turned to face Ajax. "WHAT. THE . FUCK. IS. THIS. SHIT. YOU. CALLED. INTELLIGENCE ON CARSTEIN!" Aragon roared.
"You forgot to ask permission to read classified documents, Aragon." Ajax replied, "So, you got the security instead."
"A graphic novel? Featuring me and Thelduin doing IT?" Aragon replied. He wrenched his sword out of the scabbard and chucked it at Ajax, who hard turned away. The blade ended up in his back, missing his spine by an inch.
"I'd have been better if you were alone." Ajax replied coolly, standing up. He silently handed the blade back to Aragon, proffering it hilt-first. "Then it would have been you and your dream girl, but as Thelduin was a female, and reading the documents at the same time as you…I must admit, I like Death's sense of humor, when it's not gallows humor."
"YOU KNEW!" Aragon roared. A moment later, Ajax fell to the ground in the clutches of Thelduin's coils.
"Yes." Ajax replied, wheezing slightly. "I knew. Still, I also knew it would take a bit before we actually got there." The coils tightened around Ajax.
"Allow him to read the documents." Thelduin hissed in Ajax's mind.
"Fine, let me up first. The security scripts don't recognize permission given under duress."
"Oh for goodness gracious." Thelduin replied. Still, she released him.
"I, Ajax, an employee of Death Incorporated, do hereby give Thelduin and Aragon permission to read the Von Carstein dossier."
Aragon cautiously opened the file again. "You're damn lucky I need you, Ajax." he growled. Upon opening the file however, Aragon was treated to a picture of Von Carstein, followed by an extensive bio, covering his tactics and crimes against death. It had gotten considerably heavier as well, and Aragon was soon engrossed in gleaning new information from the file.
"This is really quite good intel." Aragon said at last, closing it.
"It should be, we've got the best intelligence network in existence." Ajax said. He closed the bay doors before opening the airlock door. "Come on. I'm getting rather hungry, and I'm relatively certain that you wouldn't mind some food as well."
When the two Riders sat down, Aragon pushed the file to one side and said "What sort of weapons do you have onboard? I'd rather not go scrambling about on the Old World trying to get weapons, that sort of thing could get dicey quite quickly."
"I've got my twin .45s." Ajax replied. "I've got a powersword I built as a proof to myself that I could. I've got my Rider's sword thing. I have no clue what to call my weapon, to be honest. What sort of weapons do you need?"
"A shotgun, preferably." Aragon mumbled around his food.
Ajax nodded. "You want semi-fixed or portable?"
"Portable, obviously." Aragon said, looking at Ajax with something akin to annoyance in his eyes. "Are you implying that you have semi-fixed?"
"Yep. Since you want portable though, I let you handle the portable, and Amaranth and I will use the semi-fixed."
"It takes two to work the thing right?" Aragon asked, an odd note in his voice, food forgotten.
"Sort of. I built a mounted shotgun, then put in on a slightly used hovercraft I obtained from the Bendians. By 'obtained'," here Ajax waved a few air quotes around. "I mean I stole the thing. I saw how nifty-useful it was, and beamed the whole thing aboard, complete with pilot. I then killed the pilot with an Enhanced Gamma Radiation Rifle or EGRR for short. A few industrial-grade scourgifies later, and I had what amounted to an almost new Blade."
"Blade?" Aragon asked.
"Yeah, that's what the Bendians called that class of hovercraft. The shotgun in question is something along the lines of a Gatling gun, designed with shotgun shells in mind. Nine barrels of ten-gauge destructive power, alternating between buckshot, explosive shot, and flaming shot. It's pretty much designed to screw up anything I point it at."
"Good." Aragon said in surprised approval. "Can you get me one of them as well?"
"Do we have a week's worth of time to wait while I build a second one?" Ajax asked seriously. "If so, yes. If not, then no, I can't."
"So much for going bug-hunting after this." Aragon deadpanned. "Look, we can't be doing anything that looks suspiciously out of place in this one. If we did, the Chaos Gods would piss their pants and launch an all-out assault on the Old World, and even I don't have the influence or the balls to call in the Grey Knights to mop that sort of mess up. So no skimmers, no fliers, orbital strike only if shit really hits the fan."
"Well, fuck." Ajax replied eloquently.
"Also, Mannfred's demise, though it might appease Death, is of secondary importance on this." Thelduin said, more of an extension of Aragon's line of thought than a separate statement. "Our primary objective is to rescue the daughter of Finubar the Seafarer, the heiress to the position of Everqueen; Finubar has,-despite Aragon's protests that we aren't mercenaries and don't require payment,- stated we'll be generously rewarded if we're successful. Which in essence means he'll provide us with enough money to take care of the finance problems we'd otherwise have; with so few Riders, and with so few actually in Alagaesia, we're having to purchase supplies via Narda."
"Bottom line is, we can only use magic and solid-shot weapons, and maybe some basic directed energy weapons like hot-shot lasguns for instance." Aragon said. "And considering this bastard is not only tough in his own right but capable of pulling an army out his arse at a moment's notice, I think we're going to have to go with one in, all in; I'm thinking we either bring Eragon and Murtgh along with us, or I requisition some extra muscle in the form of a squad of Blood Wolf Assault Marines." Aragon added.
"Damn." Ajax breathed. "I can fix the gold issue…a little bit, anyway. Eragon - the first Rider - left a hell of a lot of gold in a vault in Gringott's. There's also several ages worth of lore there, in his journals. I met with a watered-down version of his ghost, right outside the vault. He pressed down on my mark really hard, then granted access. Since I really don't want to bother with Chaos 'gods' shitting themselves, I'll leave the Blade up here. It would be just a little hard to explain a hovercraft appearing out of nowhere, of course, it'll be hard to explain us appearing out of nowhere as well. I don't care what you say, this ship stays cloaked when we arrive."
"Speaking of arriving, when do we arrive?" Aragon asked, finishing the sandwich.
"When we get there." Ajax said, finishing his food. "You gave the coordinates to Phoenix, and she matched them with stellar cartography both here and there. We're traveling to the coordinates while we're in a relatively peaceful reality, then we'll change realities when we arrive. Unless you feel like we might need to bug out extremely quickly? Oh, and I think we should go with a squad of Blood Wolf Assault Marines if it's all the same to you. I highly doubt Eragon and Murtagh know the lay of the land so to speak."
"And you do?" Aragon asked, sarcastic incredulity lacing his tone.
"Slightly." Ajax replied. "Not much, but definitely more than those two. Look at it this way, I'm feeling a little overwhelmed with the idea of going up against this Carstein fucker, Eragon and Murtagh aren't as strong as I am, in terms of sheer magical power, and don't have the benefit of some slightly amount of knowledge concerning what we're about to go into. No, tactically speaking, I think we need the squad of Marines."
"You've actually thought this out, haven't you?" Thelduin asked. "It's good to see you actually thinking now, previously, I wondered if you would be a liability on this mission."
"Pretending that I didn't hear that," Ajax said, attempting to salvage his pride. "Another thing we can do is get ourselves a sensor sweep of the area, scanning for anything remotely representing this heiress to the position of Everqueen, then transport her up to the ship. Phoenix has been studying the medical library, and is at this point qualified to perform anything up to and including brain surgery…at least, by 21st century Earth standards. She should be able to deal with whatever injuries the heiress has acquired."
The bright blue tunnel of hyperspace disappeared, giving way to the darkness of normal space as a warning klaxon began to sound.
Well reader, you have stumbled upon a collaborative work, being done by myself and Master of the Blood Wolves. He'll probably want to add something to this bit, but I just wanted to say that this is promising to be a wild ride, and I hope you'll leave a review!
A-yep, this is the Master of the Blood Wolves, and this is indeed a colaboration with Hideout Writer, involving both our OCs.
It was spawned with screwing around with some of the backstory that came up as a result of me letting them use Aragon and Thelduin.
Let's just say that Ajax and Aragon are fun personalities to have clash.