In which Bonesaw is kidnapped by some weird girls who try to be her friend.
Bonesaw's latest trip had been nice. They didn't have to get a new car half-way through, they were in areas desolate enough that they could be together (bar the occasional test subject every few hours), and the attractions were worthwhile, yet simple enough that no one had to stress about it, save for the vague unease that came from them visiting a less interesting place.
It stopped being nice when the car ran into the mud, tires sinking in and spinning out in the viscous swamp that used to be a road surface.
The skies had been clear for days.
"Well, seems like we've got a little problem," Jack smiled, though Bonesaw was pretty sure it was one of those smiles you did when you wanted to be happy but you weren't really happy. "Come on, everybody out. Let's get ourselves out of this rut, shall we?"
"What the fuck is this bullshit." Shatterbird was as rude as ever. "Why do we even have to bother with this fucking car?"
"Now now. Impressionable minds are present," Jack chided, even as Bonesaw hopped out and pushed against the back of the car. Despite her enhanced strength, and pushing with everything her arms and back could give, it didn't budge. The mud was too thick. The tires were trapped.
Jack and the others, with varying degrees of good humor, heaved against the bumper as one.
No luck.
"Perhaps we should get Crawler," he admitted, scratching at his mustache. "Since Siberian is off having fun, and we wouldn't want to bother her."
She always liked Crawler. He could be a big goofball sometimes, and she liked that. So... simple. It was nice. Sibby was nice too, but Crawler was just fun.
"Ooh! Mister Jack, can't we just ride on him? I'm sure he won't mind!"
"Maybe if you're a good girl."
She'd asked this before. That was always what he said. The real reason was that they had to stay in front of Crawler to make sure no one saw him and had time to tattle about it, but Jack always said this anyways.
She was used to it.
"Okay, Mister Jack..."
He, of course, chose who would go find Crawler.
While Burnscar went off to bring back the big guy, Bonesaw found herself staring at the muddy, dark soil outside of their car.
She felt Uncle Jack's eyes on her a moment later.
"What's the matter?"
"Um..."
She wasn't quite sure herself, frowning to show her thought. (Even if she liked to lie to the others, look smarter than she really was, it was harder to lie to Jack.)
"...this mud," she finally said, leaning down to get a closer look. So dark. It'd swallowed their car right up. "The ground shouldn't be this wet, should it?"
A series of clacks and chatters sounded off to her side.
"Manny says there's a river nearby," Jack translated. (She could have herself, if she was focused. Talking to Mannequin took her full attention. She didn't know how Jack did it so easily.) "That could do it, couldn't it?"
"Maybe," Bonesaw said, more to say something than to agree. Curious. She smeared a finger on the soft mud, lifted it to her face.
Cold, wet, and utterly black. The liquid clung to the fragment of soil, obscured whatever it might have once looked like.
Jack tensed as she stuck out her tongue and tested it.
Thick, like syrup. A sickly sweet ichor wriggling against her taste buds. The tangy buzz of a chemical she'd one day learn was alcohol.
The water writhed. Like it was alive.
She almost screamed.
A heavy, sloshing voice cut her off. "Ah, fuck it."
The ground erupted, black water spraying over her, covering her mouth, blinding her.
Bonesaw fired off poison darts into the muck even as she struggled, trying to rip the flood away from her mouth, from her body. She didn't need to breathe for a while yet but she couldn't see and there was noise but her ears had been covered too by the flood and it battered against her begging to be let in to her body her mind she was so thirsty -
Black.
Riley woke up in a bed of clouds, soft, feathery wings pushing against her in all the right ways.
She didn't want to move, to open her eyes. It felt so right.
But Bonesaw knew that it was so wrong. This wasn't her bed, wasn't a car seat, wasn't Jack's embrace. And she wasn't sure Ned was even capable of developing wings.
This wasn't where she belonged.
"...have to do that again, it'll be too soon," someone was saying. Bonesaw didn't recognize her. The voice was rough, energetic. Like a storm, vibrant in joy and fear alike.
"If I don't ever have to go into the ground like that again, it'll be too soon. Ugh. Dirt tastes like shit." Bonesaw recognized this voice from before. Heavy, yet smooth, at least when she wasn't coughing out something foul. Full of depth. Like an ocean. "At least we got what you wanted, right, Venus?"
"She's right here," a third voice chided. Right in her ear, so Venus must have been the person with the wings. Her voice was soft, airy. A clear, brilliant light. "And she's awake."
Her eyes shot open.
The sky was clear, the sun bright. The air was fresh, only faintly marred by the scent of paint thinner and neurotoxins.
In front of her, the ocean-voice sat on a small, broad hill, grass covered by a cheap tarp. Ink and sick flowed out of her, mud wept away, pushed aside by an endless stream of clear water. The woman who was the water had her head tilted, one eye closed, one eye lazily glancing towards Bonesaw.
Besides her was the storm-voice. A human form, surrounded in a storm of hands. So many hands, all of them held together by a mist of blood, vibrant and red, pulsing with life. They were...
Bonesaw blinked.
Nope. Not her imagination. The hands were flapping wildly at the ocean-woman, as if trying to dry her out, or somehow push the stains out by sheer force of wind. But the face between them was as human as her own, and she too, looked towards Bonesaw, nervous, expectant.
Feathers shifted beneath her. She twisted her head back and looked at the person she was resting on.
Wings and eyes, everywhere. Each of different shapes and sizes. They grew on each other, or even seemed to be painted on each other. So many different kinds, in different colors, shimmering brightly.
The eyes didn't need lips to smile, but the lips smiled anyways, and the wings shifted again, supporting the unnatural contortion of her neck without a second thought.
"Good morning," Venus cooed. "Did you sleep well?"
Bonesaw opened her mouth to say "Yes", closed it, and tried again.
"Where's Jack?"
Storm-girl tensed at that, or at least, Bonesaw thought she did. Ocean-girl didn't even bat an eye. Venus stilled in the quiet.
After an awkward pause, storm-girl replied.
"...he's fine. We got our butts kicked and ran away," she mumbled.
"U-um, I think we did fine? We're still alive, right? And that's a lot when it's just us against the S-s-slaughterhouse Nine, right?" Venus added, feathers shivering. "They're scary..."
"Jeez, you can say that again," ocean-girl grumbled, leaning back and shaking a few more drops of mud away. "Siberian is so ridiculous." She laughed, sitting up again, beginning to move to her feet now that she'd been cleaned. "You know, I think Venus is actually right. We did pretty well, considering the odds. So I guess we should be happy that we did our best and it didn't go worse, or some shit?"
"Neptune!" Venus hissed as every eye went wide with shock. "There's a child here! Language!"
Bonesaw was able to restrain her smile. Neptune, as she was apparently called, smirked all the same.
"Yeah, yeah," said ocean-girl breathed, waving her arm dismissively. "Given how many people shit their pants at the sight of said child, I get the feeling she's heard all the language I could use and then some. Shit fuck damn god Jesus, motherfuckers."
Bonesaw couldn't help her pout. Neptune immediately burst out laughing, which only made the frown deepen.
"Ahaha! Come on! She's, like, a mass murderer who lives with a bunch of other mass murderers and we're worried about swearing? Have you ever heard anything as ridiculous as that?"
"Hey! Good girls don't swear!" She tried to stomp her feet, but she was too wrapped up in feathers and softness, the warmth of skin and organs beneath her. Made it hard to get properly angry.
"Well," the storm-girl dryly noted, "luckily, we're the worst girls, so we don't have to worry about that, at least."
"I mean, yeah, but… we should do it anyways? For her, you know?" Venus tried, eyes flickering between her companions.
"That's true."
"Eh, fine."
"Oh! Great! We're agreed then!"
"I totally could have killed you all for swearing, too," Bonesaw grumbled.
She totally could have.
Maybe.
Breaker states were weird. Or were they simply mutated? But even most Changer or Breaker states weren't this… surreal. And she'd wasted all the needles in her fingers when Neptune had grabbed her, to no apparent effect given all the toxins that she'd seen harmlessly filtering out of the girl.
No need to let them realize how vulnerable she was, though.
How alone she was.
She… she had to get back to Uncle Jack. There were anomalies in her systems, she felt like her body was sagging like wet clay-
Feathers, warmth.
Hands, all over her, gently grasping.
A cool, soothing embrace.
The storm-girl and ocean-girl had slipped to her side without her even realizing it. They were hugging her, along with Venus.
Bonesaw was being hugged.
She screwed her eyes shut. Was she crying? Hadn't she removed her tear ducts a long time ago?
"L-leave me alone. J-just… get out of my way, okay?"
"You can leave if you want," Venus murmured. "But we want to talk to you first."
"Why?" Why talk to her? Why not kill her? Why wasn't she bound and gagged? Why were they so strange? Why were they hugging her?
Neptune laughed, a richer sound, more vibrant, something that echoed into infinity. "Well, cuz of Venus here, of course."
Venus smiled, even as tears began to drip from eyes. "I can… see a lot of stuff, you know. I've got all these eyes. And if I can't see, I can build things to hear with!" Something like an antique radio hung by her lungs, something that had always been there but Bonesaw hadn't noticed before, crackling softly, beautifully, a wordless song. She instinctively pressed against the strange artifact, against Venus's organs, marveled at her flowing flesh and the strange machine.
"We listen to people's souls on the radio. Yours were the only ones for miles around, so they were pretty clear while we were passing through," the storm-girl added, a hand stroking Venus' shoulder, even as she nuzzled into the crook of Neptune's neck.
"She's pretty good with those things. Way better than either of us. Tuned the radio to each and every one of you," Neptune spoke, the compliment lighting Venus's face up bright red. "But you were the only one who stood out. You were the one who definitely, somewhere in your heart, wanted to be someone else. Something else."
"You were… you were like we were, before all of this, you know?" She was so bright. So warm.
"We're… definitely not up to saving the world or anything, but..." Her hands were everywhere. Everyone was together.
"We thought you deserved a chance to be someone else." Her waters carried the pain away. Washed out the tears.
She was crying. She was crying, and she couldn't deny it. She didn't even know these people and they'd taken her away and she was still scared but they were holding her and telling her these things and… it made her feel like she belonged.
"If we're going to be hanging out," Neptune added, "we should probably introduce ourselves."
"We should."
"Do you have a name, other than Bonesaw?"
She did, though it felt like forever since she'd used it. She didn't know if she was that person.
But… maybe she could be?
"R….riley. Who… who are you?"
"I'm Venus," the feathers whispered. "Nice to meet you, Riley."
"Jupiter," the storm greeted.
"Neptune. Though you could have already heard that," the ocean smirked.
"And we're the devil."
A/N: Are they transplanted from whatever setting We Know the Devil has, or are they actually capes with similar backstories? WHO KNOWS