Infection-CH 1
If it wasn't the bitter afterglow of the fire she'd set using soggy wood, it was the chomping of her mount on the bit as it grazed where she tied it.
Mitch sat on her heels, a frustrated glower escaping from her hooded eyes. Saying she was annoyed with everything was an understatement. She was less than impressed by the situation, but added to the bloody glitches she was getting into, the damnable rain that never seemed to stop and the fact she was cross dimensions on another of her damnable gods' missions... she might as well have not woken up at all today.
She cursed mentally for the hundredth time that day and looked over her shoulder to spy on her newest charges. There were two besides herself and her usual companion, a red feathered beast that looked like an oversized bird. The youngest of her charges was a female human named Sari. She lay under tough skin blankets, sound asleep. The journey had been a tough one, especially for a human as young as she. The other - Mitch never could get his name right - was a black and gold robot named Prowl. He was tall, dark and currently locked in some sort of meditation. Mitch sighed. Anything that kept her world quieter and more predictable the the better. Convincing the robot she was the real deal was damn near a miracle, but she wasn't going to question his logic. Why? Barging into some universe declaring to be some alternate universe's jaguar god's avatar was as logical as... giant robots. Nobody back on the base would believe her this time. Mind you, they saw the pack dragon she rode as a mount.
Mitch was driven from her thoughts by her close friend, who settled beside her in a frump of feathers and leather. The red feathered female blinked wearily several times before reaching over the fire to pull the kettle off the cooking tripod.
'Any plans for tomorrow?' Eerrel asked. The dribbling the kettle made as it filled the bird-lady's horn cup grated on Mitch's nerves, further darkening her mood. She lifted her shaggy head to stare up at her friend. She hated it when the Jaguar God forced her into this forsaken body.
'If it stops raining, maybe. Bastards back at the base wouldn't give us the bloody supplies we needed and we're suffering for their stupidity. As usual.' If she could have spit, she would have. Instead an annoyed growl rose from her lips. Her friends at base weren't the problem, it were the morons in command. Sure Mitch had to sneak around, but she was SUPPOSED to have some of those supplies Dan and the kids compensated for. She could have killed for some cigarettes, too. Despite all the careful cover ups, they didn't always get the basics they needed.
Fucking bastards, Mitch grumbled to herself.
It was at the sound of the conversation that the mecha behind them opened his eyes briefly. He eyed them carefully, then drifted back into whatever he was doing. Mitch scowled at the sound he made - damn near nothing for something his size - but she cringed anyway. Everything screamed with her animal senses. The ticking his eyes made when he blinked was enough to make her crawl walls. She took a less than polite grab at her backpack for some elk jerky, desperate to vent some of her frustration on something dead.
As she bit into the tough rations, Eerrel pulled up a small stone and tapped it. Immediately it began to glow and an image of a list appeared. Mitch flinched slightly. She never did get used to magic and she'd seen damn near everything being Teppy's avatar for the past 40 years.
Yeah. Teppy. His actual name was Aztec in origin. Tepeyollotli was a night god who was a patron of jaguars. Mitch had been a rancher at the time, recently retired from the American military. She'd been out looking for the pain in the ass that'd been eating her calves. She'd found the culprit - a Hefty male jaguar worth a hell of a lot of cash on the black market. Then BAM! She'd been possessed, lectured and condemned to be Tepeyollotli's minion until he tired of her or she paid off her debt to him for killing one of his sacred animals. Then she'd met Eerrel's sister, then as time wore on, Eerrel. They taught her about dimension travel, shamans and how not to piss off the gods. And boy, she'd pissed off a lot, not including that Jesus dude the Mexican Catholics always rambled on about.
Now Mitch was stuck on another world, older than dirt but never aging, trying to prevent some nasty illness the robot picked up from contaminating another frigging universe. It was all quite logical if you could look past the fact she was a god damn furry every time she did Teppy's dirty work.
It would have been a kind deed to kill them both, Mitch thought as Eerrel went through the list, written in a squiggly language called Ethananian. Kinder, but a pain in the ass to clean up. She figured Teppy would appreciate that she did things herself this time. The mecha, despite a history with space barnacles (WTF were they anyway?), was doing quite well with whatever the hell he was infected with. The human, Sari, was a possible carrier as well. Eerrel had suggested a neutral zone to contain them and the mess that had landed them in a dimension not of their own. That had led Mitch to speak to her old pals back at the base she used to work at. Jaguar God Avatar was a story unto itself, but in the end her pals were forced to believe her and she didn't end up as some lab's freak show experiment. Teppy was good that way. He protected her ass when she needed to do his work.
Eerrel scrolled down the list using her clawed fingers as if the list were a touch screen computer. Things she didn't need were scratched off. When she was done, she eyed her jaguar-faced companion with bright golden eyes.
'What do we do from here?' Eerrel asked. 'We're on the borders of three universes, one of which is quite wild. Secluded enough that they won't contaminate anything until we can disinfect them. But it'll be a mess if we need help. The energies guarding the place are chaotic, too.' Her thin brows furrowed as she considered her options. 'Plus we have to worry about ourselves if we become infected. We can handle the taint but for how long before help arrives?'
'There's always Tep' Mitch stated plainly.
'You KNOW how unpredictable he is. As you've said in the past, Mitch -'
The jaguar growled.
"I know, I know. We're better off handling things ourselves.'
Eerrel sighed, scratching the feathers under her chin.
'The other option is to let the infection incubate then pass them onto an alternate universe. That would force them to find forms that can fight the infection.'
'And do the same shit to them that Teppy did to me? Are you mad?'
Eerrel snorted, immune to the hard, cold glare the two got from the robot behind them.
'I said an ALTERNATE universe, not a new dimension. Slip them somewhere where they can handle the infection, have them change forms then pop them back where they came from. '
'But if they're allowed to change..'
'Sari will be okay. At least if she's a carrier.' Organics could handle the problems of cross dimensional travel better than mechs. 'Prowl on the other hand...' The two of them looked behind them when they heard the robot sigh.
'We have a say in your plans I hope.' Prowl said calmly.
Mitch slitted her eyes.
'Whuddya know. Ninja-bot speaks.' she said, sarcasm dripping from her words. She got up, taking a deliberate and famished chunk out of her elk jerky. The robot had an annoying habit of being damn near impossible to piss off. He spoke...just ... she couldn't put a finger on it. It was like talking to a frigging Budhist monk or something. Eerrel didn't have that problem but Eerrel could find honey in a barrel full of shit.
Eerrel took a sip of her tea, then closed up the glowing rock list with a tap of a finger. She stretched out her legs, yawned and cradled her horn mug as if her very happiness depended on its contents. The rock she'd been using was tossed to the stubby grass between her feet.
'Technically, yes. You do have a say, but considering our options there's not much we can do.'. Her eyes sparkled as she thought. ' Once incubation of the infection starts we can't stop it. If it gets into a multi verse system ... you know yourself what invasive species can do to an unprotected ecosystem. It starts in one world taking down everything. We can't have that happening to your home world.'
Mitch watched the pair, easily chewing through the boot leather-like meal.
'Like bloody hell.' She said, swallowing. 'Lets put it this way. The shit you're carrying will make Ebola look like a kid's birthday party and it's not going to stick to humans and apes.'
Prowl simply stared at the jaguar, mild comprehension in his expression. If he was worried, he wasn't showing it.
'What's Ebola?' were his only words.
Explains why he didn't look worried, Mitch thought, rolling her eyes.
'Makes your insides turn to mush,' was her response. The robot's raised eyebrows were the closest she got to panic. Bloody Buddhist Nun chuck Monk Manners, I swear, she thought with irritation. She bit her tongue - it took enormous will power to prevent her from repeating it out loud.
The infection the two strangers were carrying was scary and could be lethal to the carriers. Infection was easy. In some worlds the infections were in everything - the air, the dirt, the food you ate. Most worlds, if you stayed around long enough, you became immune to the pathogens. It was the same idea on the ranch. Every so often you got sick, but the bugs in the soil weren't a problem. You became immune to them. But sometimes a new animal came in and ruined the health of everyone, sometimes to the point that only the introduced animal was the only animal alive. Same idea with these two. They got shot through a time storm into a new world, found their way back home then got carted back OUT of their home world by Eerrel and herself.
The first world the emcha and child had been in was known for having nasty energy residues. Once contaminated, their energies became tainted. If they could fight off the bulk of infection, which Prowl was able to do thus far, they were a dangerous annoyance. If the infection could be contained long enough to wipe their energy signatures clean, they could be returned to their home world. The down side was that Prowl's infection was already imbedded. Mitch knew what the signs were - odd coloring starting on the arms or other extremities, the aura turning a murky yellow. Weakness, not being able to keep up with usual activities. Eerrel was already medicating the robot to keep the infection from knocking him out completely. If he'd not been able to contain the infection himself he'd have died weeks ago. Sari, too. There was no standard name for the illness though the Ethananians called it something like 'World Bane'.
Might have just called it 'We're-fucked-itis' Mitch grumbled. She'd personally seen the illness lay waste to entire solar systems, moving from planet to planet, then entire regions. Teppy had shown her entire worlds where nothing survived. She was lucky he'd possessed her or she'd have never been able to handle the complete and utter wastelands she encountered time after time after time. Creatures dying, stars eroding, then everything collapsing into ...
....nothing. Absolutely nothing. No energy readings, no life, no ability to create life. It was as if the Gods themselves gave up hope.
All it took was one infection and she'd be damned to let the metallic bastard infect another universe. She'd have killed him, but Teppy had other plans. Besides the infection couldn't be contained by death. It just moved to another host and the human female who came with the mecha would have been the next target for his already stained energy. She was infected, but she would ahve absorbed his infected energy into her own. Mitch, being an Avatar, was granted special 'gifts'. Not being able to be infected by 'World Bane' was one of those properties she was glad to have. Eerrel was immune to the infection herself, though Teppy may have granted her with similar anti-infectious abilities by osmosis. Eerrel and Mitch worked so closely with each other that sometimes they thought as one unit. Even their mounts seemed immune.
Mitch turned her back to her companions to eye her riding dragon who was now stretched out on his belly, scratching his head against the tree he was tied to. She could feel the hum of magical charms on his harness. Charmed against fire damage of course - she couldn't live without her leathers and he was too damn good a mount to sell to some random nutter.
She heard Prowl move behind her. He rose stiffly to his full height. He was huge - easily two stories tall, though he hunched slightly as the infection slowly ate away at his strength. He stretched again then settled back into an altered form of his previous position. How something so bloody big could move like a cat she could never wrap her head around. She'd seen him in action and was amazed that he could take down something bigger than he was as fast as he did.
Fucking Gawd Damn Ninja Shit Monk Training, the jaguar thought to herself. It was a comon thought these days. She admitted - she was envious of the robot's moves. Whatever he was doing to keep the infection contained, she hoped he could keep it up. Sonuvabitch has will of steel to keep the infection contained this long, she thought, taking another bite of her jerky. Pun intended, she added briskly.
She turned when she heard the mecha groan. He shuddered and laid on his side, trembling. His was wrapped in a mild agony that washed his frame in exhaustion. Eerrel shot the jaguar a frustrated look and was at the mecha's side to read his energy signature. She started laying her hands on his stomach, eyes closed tight with concentration. A minute passed before she spoke.
'We have to move him soon. We can't keep him here much longer.' Her voice was clipped, holding back emotion.
'He's not going to die on us before the gates open, I hope' Mitch grumbled. 'I don't think we can dig a hole big enough for him.'
Eerrel shot the jaguar an angry glance.
'No Mitch,' she said, stroking the mecha's head. His trembling had reduced to an occasional shiver though his eyes under the visor were still closed. Whatever concentration he had worked dilligently to stoke had been blown in a single moment of weariness.
'The next gate opens tomorrow.' Mitch stated. She sounded bored. 'I'll do my mojo over him so you can recover.'
The red bird eyed the resting mecha, holding his chin slightly as she inspected his energy signature another time.
'He's going to be quite ill if we wait longer.' Eerrel stated. 'He's weakening fast.'
Mitch nodded. 'Then tomorrow we move. Let Sari sleep as long as she needs. It's going to be a long day once we get going.'
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