A shiver ran down her spine as Slix worked his way up her arm, around her back, and settled onto her shoulder, immediately going to work fixing every crack and seam he could find.
"I know you're smiling," she stated, not even bothering to look at Kayleer. She could feel his amusement at the scene radiating from him like a sick miasma and it made her feel slightly nauseous. He was just so... Peacefulthat it was sickening.
"Pirate tech?" he asked, edging closer, inspecting her armour. Tejed rolled her eyes and sighed, biting her tongue before she said something spiteful.
"Yes," was her deadpan response, not trusting herself to say anything else. She was trying to keep herself in a reasonable state of mind. Trying, of course, being the keyword.
"Something wrong?" Kayleer asked. He truly didn't understand her. As prideful as she was, one would think she would appreciate the complimentary repair job the tiny mechanoid was giving her. Her suit was in nearly as bad shape as her dishevelled ship.
Slix was a sort of tension breaker between the pair. He was an unemotive little machine merely doing his job, while hateful undertones sparked between his two onlookers.
"You said it yourself before," Kayleer addressed her. "Lighten up." He glanced at her suit, giving it a skeptical expression and nothing else. She had been mutated by pirates, perhaps fitted with the suit by them. Or, more likely, she merely stole it. He decided to quit while she was still stable and not ask any more questions that could spark bad memories for her.
He admired Slix's repair work, looking up once to glance at one of the ship's cameras. Slix was not the only one being observed.
Presently the machine finished and scampered back over to Kayleer, seemingly proud of himself, and Tejed let out the breath she had been holding in, let her stiff stance relax. Much to her surprise, the creaking was gone. The cracking of joints, also gone. Her suit responded much more fluidly than it had in a long time, and she smiled.
"I have to hand it to you, Slix is pretty amazing."
She stretched long and hard, feeling her joints pop and crack even while her suit expressed no dismay at the stretches she was able to pull off. Kayleer instructed her to 'lighten up' in much the same fashion she had earlier, and she rolled her eyes.
"Yes mom," she drawled, smirking.
"Sir, I hate to interrupt your moment, but I have successfully correlated a new trajectory back to the star Antares as per your request."
Startled, Tejed's attention snapped up to the camera, then the pilot deck, before she realized Jarvis had been watching them for some time now.
"How long ago did you finish?" she asked shrewdly.
"Why, Tejed," the computer responded, using her name for the first time in a long while. "I only finished a few seconds prior to alerting you. Don't you trust me?"
"No," was her simple response. But she ignored Jarvis' spite before instructing him to make way towards Antares once more, and without any more arguing, the computer obeyed.
"A compliment from you? Now that is even more amazing," Kayleer scoffed. Slix scampered up his chest and rested his front pedes on the top of Kayleer's head. Tolerating the position for now, he sat back down, wondering if they should return to the pilot deck and oversee the ship's movement or merely stay in here and continuing chatting, awkwardly.
"Antares," Kayleer began, sounding out the word. "I'm not familiar with it, but, then again I don't know many human constellations," he smiled, leaning back in his seat, Slix scrambling to accommodate his position as his tail was pressed against the back of the chair. He knew pirate and Luminoth astronomy, and it bothered him a bit that he had never really taken the time to relearn them in English.
"I could teach you," Tejed offered, pushing the pilot bay to the back of her mind and smiling hopefully at him. "I know all the stars ever, just say the word!"
She flashed him a toothy grin, hopeful that she could get him talking, at least about something. He was always so quiet.
"Relearning all the constellations in English?" Kayleer scoffed. "Seems like more of a chore than it's worth." He'd already done it twice, a third time? He laughed, despite his objection he decided once more in favor of complacency. "I suppose I'll indulge you. Any interest you have besides violence is a breath of fresh air." He smiled, turned to his companion as he clinked his fingers across Slix's tail. "I'm all ears."
Tejed was positively giddy with excitement. She loved the stars. Everything about them made her so happy. Watching them, learning about them, navigating them. It was as though the deep of space was one of the few, if only, things that made her really truly happy again.
"Well right now we're orbiting the star Betelguese in the constellation Orion, right?" she started, pointing out a porthole at the brightest red star burning on the velvet black of nothing. "It's bigger than Earth's sun, Sol, than Sol is to Earth. Utterly huge, fantastic.It shares the same space with Bellatrix, Salph, and Rigel, and the three Kings make up his belt: Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka. That's where the Orion Nebula resides. A splash of the most subtle purple and red..."
She prattled on some more, moving on to Antares and the role it played in the constellation Scorpius, the scorpion, before getting lost in her own excitement, muttering first about Scorpius than Triangulum before going off on a tangent about the Whirlpool galaxy and Andromeda and Cassiopeia.
At this point she wasn't even sure if Kayleer was listening, but he had opened that can of worms all on his own, saying yes. It had been his fault. Tejed was experiencing real happiness at that point in time, and for a moment, talking about space, she was no longer insane.
"Uhuh..." Kayleer wasn't really following. She was going too fast for him to understand much of what she was saying, but he let her talk anyways. She seemed too happy for it to be a humane thing to ask her to slow down or stop. Instead he merely smiled and nodded along, letting the assault of words fly over his head in droves.
He knew their names, just merely in another language, and that, he decided, was enough for him.
He leaned his head on a claw and listened, not to the lecture but purely to the sound of her voice, the soft hum of the ship beneath his feet, the steady beat of his heart and the shifting of gears within Slix. The sounds melded together, telling a story of where he was and where, perhaps he was going. He was hardly aware that his eyes were wandering and his thoughts were becoming hazed. He stopped thinking entirely, and merely listened.
After a good while, Tejed realized that he was no longer listening, and became silent, casting him confused eyes. The pirate had sort of nodded off, though she could tell he hadn't fallen asleep. It looked as though he had retreated into his mind, into a place where all he had to do was hear and experience and exist.
Tentatively she approached him and waved a hand in front of his face. Nothing. Though his eyes were open the smallest fraction, he didn't seem to be seeing anymore, and confused the hybrid sat across from him.
"I envy you," she started quietly, not really caring if he didn't listen so much as hear her words. "You can retreat back into your mind and not get hopelessly frightened of yourself. That must be nice."
No response. She sighed heavily and watched the stars go by.
"You come from a different planet entirely," she started again, thinking. "But I was born and grew up on Earth. I was human at one point, right? Aha, yeah I know. Crazy ole' Tejed was human at one point?Scary, eh? Yeah..."
She slumped forwards onto the counter top and put her head in her hands.
"I was actually born in a small village in Germany about... 27 years ago. You probably don't want to hear all the little bits of pieces of my life, but for 27 years I can assure you I was notinsane, nor was I a monster. I was just... Normal..."
She trailed off, remembering happy thoughts.
"Really, I just want to go home, but that's never going to happen, is it? No. Never..."
Kayleer's eyes swiveled to meet hers. He had been listening. The words he was hearing now were English, something he understood. None of the 'Orion' and 'Alnitak's she had been rambling about before. She was telling him a story.
"I believe you," he responded. He had guessed that she was human once, though not by her appearance... He looked out a porthole and straightened his posture. "I was normal by my own species standards once," he began, contemplative. "I was a slave. But, another species freed me from my service." He paused, Slix slinked around his shoulder, poking his head around to look at his master while he spoke. Kayleer raised his mechanical arm in gesture, "They gave me this," he moved his hand and tapped a digit on his head, "and this."
"I used to be normal," he laughed. "What a terrible thing it was! To be stupid, capable of little more than anger, submission, and fear. Such is the short life of a slave..." he quieted down, looking at Tejed with a empathetic eye. "I suppose freedom from normalcy takes different forms."
"Maybe this is your normal," said Tejed, feeling introspective. "And they just locked it away, kind of like they did to me. And you broke free, because you could see through the cracks."
She smiled at him.
"Really though, I suppose it's all for the best, right? I mean, if none of this bullshit had ever happened, I wouldn't be here right now, talking to you. I'd still be on Earth, being normal. Looking for a job I'd never get, scratching for an income that's never enough..."
Maybe this was all for the best, she thought with a reminiscent smile. Maybe. Maybe...
"Never thought of it that way, I suppose," Kayleer responded, contemplative. "Though, 'breaking free' might be an exaggeration. I was dying; I was rescued," he smiled, memories of his escape, an escape from everything, bringing a smile to his mandibles.
"And if that hadn't happened to me, you'd be dying of twin fever by now," Kayleer continued. If he and Slix hadn't been on board, he wondered if Tejed would have been able to disarm the pirate device before it completed its mission.
He leaned back in his chair, stretching his legs to their length in the unfitting, human chair. "I was almost infected by phazon. I could've ended up dead, or in a test tube. Or I could've lived out my short life span and died never knowing what the outside of the mines looked like; never knowing what it was like to be intelligent or truly sentient... But that's just it- I'm lucky."
"Fate has a strange way about it, I suppose," he said, resting his head on his metallic digits in thought.
"Then again if you had never come with me, I might have left earlier, and would have never encountered the Pirates that just tried to kill us," she retorted, smiling wryly.
"And I wouldn't be orbiting Betelgeuse, I'd be out by Antares by now, alone. By myself. Probably beside myself with craziness. Like, literallybeside myself. Did I ever tell you that I hallucinate sometimes? I think it's a phazon thing."
She waved her hand in the air dismissively, not too eager to think too deeply about the adverse affects the phazon was having on her.
"They may have been waiting for you," he responded. Was she really going to suggest the attack was due to his lousy timing?
"And I know it is," Kayleer got quiet. He looked at the floor. "Many of my brethren were infected. Not through tests, just working in the mines. They went... insane, to say the least."
He shook his head. He didn't want to remember. The way they had screamed in pained bloodlust, how their eyes turned toxic blue and they brutally ravaged anything near them. How, once infected, they set themselves to gorge on the stuff, furthering the process. Until they were killed by their overseers, or taken for testing, for torture and dissection. It disgusted him further that the building up of such research had led to Tejed's creation.
He rested his arms on his knees and took a slouching posture, eyeing his mechanical arm, remembering the natural one whose place it had taken, and what he would have gone through if it were still there. "How lucky I am..." he trailed off.
"Oh pfft, I know," she replied quietly. "I was just trying to lighten the atmosphere a bit. I've been being chased ever since I escaped."
Suddenly feeling very depressed she slumped forwards and buried her head in her arms as the sudden and quite unexpected weight of everything came crashing down upon her.
"You have no idea how lucky you are," she said, close to tears. "You're not crazy, you're not insane. You have your mind about you. You aren't nothing more than a string of numbers that signifies 'just another experiment'. You have a name and a purpose and all I have is... Phazon."
She broke down, unable to keep it in any longer. Just like that, she lost her tenuous hold on her sadness and even the stars couldn't alleviate the pain in her mind that she couldn't get rid of.
"You think you know what it's like to be corrupted," she sobbed. "But you don't live with it 24/7, you only felt it once, fleetingly. And you ran away as fast as you could because it was terrifying. But then here I come. I can't run away from something that lives inside me, I can't hide from it. Every time I see my reflection it's there staring back at me and every time I close my eyes I can see it living in my blood and-"
It was too much to take and she collapsed into a sobbing mess, a crying heap, the light blue glow of her phazon infused tears casting dim light in the gloom of the kitchen.
Kayleer had thought the worst to fear from her was a violent outburst. He hadn't expected this.
She was right, he would never know what it felt like. All that time he spent in fear of it, and in the end he was grateful to have escaped the very life that Tejed was forced to endure. How selfish he had been, to speak of his luck when she was sitting right across from him.
He felt an instant pang of guilt. One of the less pleasant results of the Luminoth's tampering, but one he had requested nonetheless. Slix bounded off his shoulder, perhaps sensing the tension. Kayleer shut his eyes and buried his head in his claws. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," he didn't know what else to say. In his mind he wished fervently that he had a way to help her, to purge the corrupting poison from her system. But there was no way to do it. It was there, in her cells, in her blood, in her brain and sinew and heart. It was never leaving.
Her gaze was down at the floor, her yellow, slitted eyes proving that they had retained the human ability of tears. Kayleer rose from his seat and walked over to his distraught companion. He knelt down to meet the taller creature at eye level and placed a hand on her shoulder. He said nothing more, and merely looked at the floor, his eyes closed in dignified silence. He felt the weight of guilt and his own helplessness wash over his mind.
Tejed had always been a touchy feely sort of person, even though it rarely showed through these days. She loved to cuddle and she loved to hug and she enjoyed the simple pleasure gleaned from sharing her space with someone else who deemed her a friend just as much as she them. Though it didn't happen as much anymore, she always longed for contact. Or at least for someone to tell her, honestly, that everything would be okay.
So she surprised Kayleer immensely by suddenly and quite unexpectedly wrapping her arms around him and pulling him close into a hug, desperate for that little bit of comfort, regardless if it came from a pirate or not. Because as far as she was concerned, Kayleer had shown more humanity than a lot of people she knew back down on Earth, and that was saying something.
"Sometimes it talks to me," she confided quietly, her voice soft. "Sometimes, in the darkness, I can hear it whispering, and there's never anyone there to make it stop. But sometimes, I can ignore it. And other times I can't. And right now I just want someone to tell me that I'll be alright."
She sobbed into his shoulder like a small child afraid of the dark, grateful for the companionship he was showing her.
Kayleer's eyes widened in surprise. His legs buckled and he fell out of a crouch and full onto the floor.
Humans were the only species he knew that did this. As social and emotional as the Luminoth were, even they did not exhibit such a behavior, and it was far from space pirate nature to even appreciate the existence of non-violent contact. It felt so unnatural to every part of him that it was all he could do to not tear away. Something kept him there, on the floor, embraced by his sobbing companion.
He was somehow able to overcome the initial shock and discomfort as he heard her pained words. He struggled to remember how this was done, how humans reacted to being 'hugged'. His arms shaking, he returned her embrace and his expressive eyes softened to something less distraught. "You're not alone anymore, it... it's going to be okay..." he managed to say, stuttering from the unnatural feeling of being in such close contact. But despite his nature, he managed to remain.
Awkward or not, the hug felt nice, and after a moment the sobbing stopped, and all she did was cry freely, still holding him tight.
"It hurts."
Was all she said, feeling the familiar pain of the phazon in her body, in her mind, before she said no more and allowed herself to relax, hoping that Kayleer would relax as well. She knew that pirates, and a lot of other species, didn't give hugs, and she wondered for a moment how an entire species could survive without physical contact bonding them together.
But humans were social animals, indeed, and contact was an important part of their overall personality. No matter how much she mutated, no matter how much phazon invaded her body, she'd still be human through and through, and she still required companionship in order to thrive.
A moment later she pulled away, wiped the tears from her face, and looked at Kayleer. That was it, she just looked, studying him curiously.
To say the embrace was awkward would have been an understatement. But Kayleer was used to suppressing his instincts, and though they had screamed at him to let go, he couldn't. Out of respect for Tejed's emotional state, and of human culture, he had allowed it to happen. And even now, strangely, he did not find himself regretting it.
It hurts.
She finally let go, and Kayleer felt the stiffness fade, his nervous muscles relaxed at the comforting increase in space between the two beings.
"I know," he said, eyes to the floor. "But you are strong," he looked up, meeting her eyes and giving a warm smile. And he meant what he had said. He had seen other experiments. Huge, disgusting, augmented beyond recognition and mad with that power. They were nothing like her. "You didn't allow yourself to become a monster."
"I'm not a monster," she repeated quietly. The words held a curious weight in her mind and made her realize that no. No she wasn't a monster, not yet, not now, not ever. She smiled warmly at him, fighting the urge to wrap him in another hug. He looked awkward enough as it was, she didn't want to make it any worse.
"I'm not a monster... No. No that's not true is it? When the phazon builds I have to burn it off. And the monster comes out."
With a heavy sigh she stood up and looked out a porthole, at the stars that filled her with so much happiness.
"But that's not going to happen for a few days yet, right? No, I'm fine for now."
Still smiling, for his words had lifted her spirit so much, she walked out into the pilot bay and just stood, staring out the huge windows that made up the cockpit of the ship. From here she had a good view of the cosmos: stars and nebulae the most brilliant of far off galaxies swirling in the void. For a moment she considering turning the ship right around and heading back to Earth, instead of pursuing her bounty. There was no guarantee it was still there after their little detour. She could easily she that she had lost it.
But she needed the credits, sad to say. She couldn't go back empty handed. The blow to her monetary gains far outweighed the blow to her pride. The hunt had to go on, regardless of what she wanted. Jarvis had said it would take a few hours or so to get there at their present speed, with the warp drive going full tilt.
Faster than the speed of light, they were travelling, and with no resistance outside it felt like they were standing on solid ground. It made her shake her head in amazement, the leaps and bounds technology had made. So why couldn't the phazon be removed from her, if the technology was so advanced that they could travel between the stars faster than the fastest natural force? Too many what ifs, too many new things to worry about.
The faster she got to Antares the faster she could get back to Earth and have everything return to whatever normal passed as these days.
Something he had said seemed to have revived her. He saw that glow of happiness reclaim her face as she regained the composure to stand, repeating his message to emphasize how it had struck her. Kayleer realized the change in her made him happy, and it wasn't until she rose up to her full, massive height that he realized he was still on the ground, legs tucked beneath him, claws on the floor, looking quite childish and pathetic.
He snapped out of his daze and, slightly embarrassed, climbed to his feet. Even at his his full, 6.8-foot bulk, he was still far shorter than Tejed. Slix circled his feet, trilling loudly, as though querying his master as to what had just transpired non-verbally between the pair. He brushed off some dust that had collected on his scales during his time on the floor, trying to reclaim his dignity.
"Last time I checked, monsters don't hug," he replied quietly, still dusting himself, peering out a porthole into a blurred expanse of stars. They were moving, and fast, and it somewhat relieved Kayleer that they had a destination. It gave him something to look forward to.
Smiling she settled down into the pilot chair, fighting the urge to spin around like a child again. She had just gotten comfy, milling over the happy thoughts in her head, when there was a sudden insistent beep from the main command console. Nothing too loud, nor was it a siren. But it indicated that something was there, with them, in their vicinity.
Curious she stood and stared out the window, but nothing caught her eye.
"Jarvis, what is that?" she asked curiously. The beep continued.
"Long range scanners have picked up another vessel," was the bored reply. Tejed felt her heart suddenly start beating faster as she felt the familiar grip of fear. When she tried to speak, her voice was barely a whisper.
"...pirates?" she asked quietly. There was a sound, as though negating her question.
"The make is unfamiliar, but it's not Zebesian, no." There was a moment of silence. "Miss Jenal, it seems as though we have found your bounty, not at Antares, but somewhere on the planet Aether."
She perked up and glanced back at Kayleer, brightening.
"Looks like we won't have to go far after all," she said with a smirk. "Are you up for a trip to Aether instead?"
Kayleer's eyes brightened immediately upon hearing the name. His duties as a soldier had kept him from home for so long, he had never consciously thought about the day when he could return there. Masking his glee he spoke quietly and controlled.
"A trip back home would be... nice," he said simply. It had been years since he had even seen a Luminoth, and it was no surprise to find he longed to be in their company once more. He wondered to himself what became of I-Sil, the warrior, his rescuer, and her mate U-Lir, who had given him the life he had now. They were still alive, no doubt, together in the lush bogs of Torvus. The war had ended eons ago, and the cycle of a Luminoth was centuries long.
Kayleer became lost in a daze, remembering everything he missed about his adopted homeworld. It lasted only a moment before he snapped out of nostalgia and back into the moment at hand. He nodded approvingly at Tejed, then looked eagerly out a porthole into very familiar constellations.
Tejed chuckled good naturedly to herself at Kayleer's obvious attempt to suppress his joy and watched the stars go by, Aether slowly coming into view. Aether was substantially closer than the Antares system was, and it took far less time to travel the immense distances involved.
Tejed had never been on Aether before. She had heard the stories, of course, and had studied a handful of alien planets in her spare time in case she should ever make planetfall there. What she had read about Aether seemed very inviting, indeed. All the different climates had sounded so lush, so vibrant, even the desolation that was the Agon Wastes.
Maybe she just craved something different than Earth. Either way, she took over manual control of her ship as they approached Aether and gently brought it down through the thick atmosphere, pleasantly surprised to see heavy clouds and rain spatter against the windows in place of never ending black.
Presently the ship came to a halt, its heavy landing gear sinking into the soft, spongey earth below. Jarvis had indicated that her bounty had himself made planetfall somewhere in the same area, and Tejed thought it best to land as near as possible, in case there should be trouble.
The ship stopped completely and the hum of the engines faded to silence, leaving its occupants in the quiet of Torvus. Far above Tejed could hear the calming pitter patter of rain on the hull and for a moment, relished in the quiet.
Kayleer could hardly believe his luck when he saw the environment that had taken shape around them. He felt pathetically childish at how much he wanted to burst out of the ship and run, sinking through the mud and peat of the bog. The subtle and familiar, sweet sulfury smell permeated the ship as it automatically replenished its air supply with the oxygen-rich atmosphere outside.
The plinkling sound of rain on the ship filled the pilot deck with beautiful music, and Slix chirped wildly, frightened by the noise. "No point in wasting time," Kayleer said softly, smiling. "Can Jarvis... open the hull?"
Tejed waved her hand dismissively and the hull opened, filling the room with the beautiful sweet fragrance of life and bringing with it a pleasantly cool breeze that felt so nice against her phazon heated skin. For a moment she forgot what she was here for and followed Kayleer off the ship.
The first thing that struck her was how loud it was here. Everything was saying something, amid the cold shower of rain that never seemed to end. Her mechanical claws sunk deep into the muddy earth and she stepped back, momentarily alarmed and unused to such an environment.
She glanced over at Kayleer. He looked like he was in bliss.
"What are you so happy about?" she asked, her hair already sticking wetly to her face.
It took him a while for him to hear her. He was completely distracted. He felt a rush of nostalgic pleasure as his sharp, clawed toes sank into the muddy water. Slix had found a hold in the root of a titanic tree, preferring to keep his small body out of the mud for fear of being sucked down.
Kayleer stopped to listen, taking in the scene around him. The sounds, the beautiful sounds... The croaking of courting krocusses and the gentle pulse of water from the hydlings beneath the bog. The sounds of the native bioforms mixed with the pattering of rain on water, and on tree roots and on the comically out of place metal of the ship.
"There's nothing better..." he replied.
"It's a beautiful place," said Tejed quietly, stepping past him. "But as much as I'd love to just sit and enjoy, we do have a bounty to catch."
She didn't really relish the sensation of cold water seeping into the cracks and crannies of her mechanical legs. It was an unnerving sensation and it made her shiver. Water meant rust, and rust meant drying out her legs meticulously later. Water always managed to find its way to the hardest to reach areas and irritated the hell out of her.
But she didn't voice her discomfort and instead pointed off into the marshy jungle, where Jarvis had earlier pointed her.
"He's that way, apparently," she stated as she put on her helmet. Not for show but for a bit of protection, and the added advantage of having her HUD guide her. "Stole something important from the Federation a while back and has been on the run ever since. After you?"
She bowed politely and took a step back, waiting for Kayleer to ready himself. There was never any point in taking risks, and the Federation had been very vague when they described her bounty to her.
Kayleer sighed. He averted his gaze from the scenery and back to Tejed, a tad disappointed but understanding nonetheless. He didn't particularly want to go bounty hunting, but he supposed as a Federation soldier he had a duty to help bring in a fugitive.
He activated his armor. It slinked over him in segments, protecting him, preparing him for violence. He was less than excited to say the least, but he was grateful for where he was and who he was with. "Lead the way," he said. His brilliant blue visor flashed over his face, distorting, however slightly, the beauty of the world around him.
Tejed lead them into the thick brush, pushing aside huge spreading leaves as she did so. Where normally she'd hack and slash her way through the alien vegetation, now that didn't seem like such a good idea. Kayleer was positively beside himself with joy, and she felt if she attacked the flora, he'd rebuke and attack her.
They didn't have to do much wandering. The sound of another space craft came loud from the marsh up ahead, and out of habit Tejed unsheathed her scythes, movements slow and precise like a cat. She signalled at Kayleer to stand his guard and moved on ahead, peering through the brush.
Ahead was a clearing, much like the one they had landed in, though this one was burnt and charred from ship exhaust. Its owner didn't seem to share the same respect for nature that they had and had gone out of his way to destroy instead of preserve.
The ship was on, idling, its engines set to a dull roar that drowned out the sound of the rain. Though the ship was on, it didn't seem to be manned. The cargo doors were wide open, exposing the dark innards. Tejed could see crates inside with Federation stamps, but no signs of life.
"What do you think?" she asked Kayleer, her voice hushed.
"I... I don't know," he replied simply. He had never seen a ship like this one before. He looked around, trying to make sense, search his memories for something similar.
He decided to get a closer look. The ship was open, exposing its stolen cargo, and yet its occupants were nowhere to be seen. Moving carefully, he peered around the edge to see just what had been stolen.
He felt his heartbeat falter as he took in the sight of drove after drove of phazon tanks lining the inner hull of the ship. "No..." he was shocked, terrified, and moreover disgusted. Tejed had said the bounty was wanted for stolen Federation property, and he now knew what it was. He didn't want to believe they were breaking the taboo by keeping this substance in existence. After the destruction of Phaaze, its use was strictly banned. Why then, did he see the Federation emblem emblazoned on each and every luminescent blue tank?
He backed away, eyes wide with fear. He had an inherent dread of the stuff, and just seeing it brought back painful memories of witnessing infections, and how close he himself had come to it.
I don't want to be infected... I'm not strong enough. I will lose..
His legs felt weak as he continued to slowly increase the distance between himself and the deathly blue demon. He was almost too distracted to notice the sinister, hissing voice coming from the ship's captain.
Someone spoke to him in Aetherian, the chiming, resonant sound of a Luminoth voice. It would have been comforting to hear were it not tainted with a hissing, tenor noise.
"The famouss Luminoth-turned pirate. How amusing," it hissed.
Kayleer looked to see what had addressed him, and to his dismay he saw the twisted form of his adopted species, blackened and jutting with mutatious spines.
An Ing-possession? But how? Their world was destroyed decades ago, only shortly after Kayleer had been created and before he had ever come to know the Luminoth. He had only heard of the Ing through lore, and war tales. Too see one possessing his Luminoth brethren, body taken over, no longer his own, it was sickening.
Kayleer was weak, he knew that. The first Luminoth he had seen in years, twisted into this foul monstrosity. It terrified him to think what had happened to the others, to his family. Were they all victimized in such a way since his departure? The thought terrorized his imagining mind and he collapsed, his armored knees falling stiff into the cold peat of the bog.
Behind her helmet, Tejed bared her teeth and hissed at the Dark Luminoth, even behind the steel and glass of suit smelling the corrupted stenchof the dark creature that had taken up residence in the once proud Luminoth.
It's voice was twisted and echoing, its words overlapping in a way she couldn't quite place. It sounded like their were two beings speaking at once, despite the alien words it spoke. It seemed as though, un possessed, these Luminoths had such beautiful, musical voices.
She'd have to remember to speak to one, to see if it were true.
"You're under arrest," she breathed, low and sultry, voice warped even more through her helmet. She held up her scythes and pointed them at its head. "For stealing Federation property. I suggest you surrender."
Though the creature was alien, it through back its head and laughed, its black and purple spines trembling in mirth. It said something in that language she couldn't understand and gestured back at the ship, as though showing off. Tejed followed its outstretched arm and felt her heart leap into her throat when she saw it.
Phazon.
So much of it, each volatile blue container stamped with a pretty Federation logo. The tips of her scythes trembled and she felt sick to her stomach just looking at it. Quickly she averted her eyes and took a deep breath, steadying her nerves. Why would the Federation have phazon? A question she wasn't sure she wanted asking.
Suddenly very confused she opened her eyes again and glared at the possessed Luminoth. It didn't matter whether or not the phazon was Federation or not, at this point in time. The Luminoth was a criminal, through and through. And he needed to be stopped.
"You are under arrest," was all she said.
The corrupted creature merely laughed at Tejed's cocky response. He didn't take her seriously, how could he?
"Under arrest? Don't make me laugh," it taunted. It understood her English words, but the Luminoth could not make use of that inherent skill of universal translation in the other direction. That benign, mind-permeating ability had been lost in its corruption, and a cold, single langual voice came out, one Tejed could not understand. But he could tell, that merely by his defiance, she would get the message.
Instead he focused his energies on Kayleer. The terrified pirate was shaking, head downward to the bog, his mind reeling with pure, pathetic fear.
The loss of free will, it was his deepest, truest nightmare, and here he was surrounded by it. By phazon, sitting there menacingly, waiting to be contracted, to explosively infect and take over. By the malevolent Ing within his Luminoth brother, controlling his thoughts and very being. Kayleer felt helpless, weak, his eyes wide and pupils contracted beneath his opaque visor. He couldn't even muster the strength to move.
"I took over my fair share of pirates in the dayss of the war," the spectral monster continued, moving in close to his petrified victim. "Oh.. they fought at firsst, but in the end they liked it. They lovved the power, the anger. It was so fun to feel their putrid glee become one with that which I gained from possessing them," he laughed. "Oh, but you wouldn't like it would you."
He knelt down, taking the pirate's armored chin in his dainty, stolen fingers. "No, you're more like a Luminoth. You don't like power if you have to trade your free will for it," he smiled coyly, that trademark Luminoth smile with eyes alone. "Sad really, I like pirates better. You should've stayed with them."
Kayleer didn't respond. As much as he wanted to blast the monster where it stood, he couldn't. A force stronger than his will kept him tied to the ground. He was scared what would happen if he offered objection. The looming threat of possession or infection tainted his thoughts and forced him into a submission he had not so willingly accepted since his days as a slave.
He ignored her, as though she didn't exist, focusing his attention instead on the cowered pirate. Tejed understood his fear, but not to the extent that he was portraying. Phazon scared her, because she feared losing control. And the Luminoth scared her, because she had never seen a creature such as this before. But she rose up past her fear and entered the anger.
She couldn't stand back and watch this thinghurt Kayleer, despite the bored sort of indifference it had given her. The Luminoth wasn't scared of her. That would be its first mistake.
Without stopping to think she readied her scythes and leaped at it, colliding heavily with it and throwing it to the ground before it could do anything to Kayleer. They both fell into the muddy earth and Tejed quickly brought not her scythes but her closed fist down hard and fast, hoping to break something in its face instead of killing it.
She didn't know why, but she did not want to kill the Luminoth. She thought maybe, just maybe, she could get that thingout of it and restore the once proud creature to its former beauty.
But it wasn't as delicate as its twisted looks said.
It grabbed her hand before it could make contact with her face and jeered back.
"Don't think you can dessstroy me that eassily," it rasped, and even though it spoke Aetherian, she understood the meaning all the same.
Tejed had flung his oppressor off into the bog. The two enemies stared at each other, at each others necks, inches deep in the muddy water of Torvus.
Kayleer turned to watch. Tejed had saved him. He shook his head, trying desperately to regain the composure he had so easily lost.
Slix rushed up to his fallen master. He circled around and stared up at his visored face. He put his tiny, mud-covered pedes on his leg and gave him what Kayleer could only swear was a hopeful look despite his creation's expressionless face.
A shaking breath escaped the pirate's nostrils and he found the strength to stand. He couldn't allow his fear to make him selfish and unable to help Tejed.
The dark Luminoth grabbed Tejed's impending fist, stopping her attack short. He pushed her back into the soggy floor of the marsh and let loose a putrid hiss from his voice box, one that no Luminoth would ever utter naturally. A dark light surrounded his left hand and formed a blackened blade, and he brought it down straight in the center of Tejed's armor, aiming to stab the powerful thing straight into her heart.
Kayleer rushed to help her. Before the Luminoth could do any damage to his comrade, he rounded up for one of his signature, powerful kicks. He whirled around once before landing, driving a talon into the dark things twisted face, throwing him back towards his ship. Kayleer landed heavily, the weight of his armor bringing him down to nearly his knees in the bog. He approached Tejed and helped her back to her feet, turning his attention back to their attacker.
His fear dissipated for the moment, replaced by the need to help. To help Tejed, to help the tortured Luminoth that was still inside this creature, and most of all, to help rid the galaxy of the pestilence within the ship before them.
Kayleer pulled her up from the sucking mud and they both turned to look at the possessed creature. No words were spoken, only thoughts. Shared with imperceptible body language. A worried glance at Kayleer. A sad shake of the head. Her ears falling just a fraction of an inch. The Luminoth could not be saved. Only by dying, would he truly be free of the demon that had stolen his body and mind completely.
The creature was much stronger than Tejed had anticipated. She didn't care. She was just as strong, she knew it. Regardless, she would kill it, no matter how strong it was. She readied her scythed and rushed it again, this time taking no chances. There was no saving. There was only death.
The Luminoth stood and stared, smiled with its eyes. She did not falter, seeing only red. She screamed in rage and drove her scythes into where its head would be, only to feel them slice effectively into cold, hard steel, the beast having moved at the last possible second.
"FUCK," she screamed, having missed her target. He was fast, too. Something else she hadn't expected. She brought her scythes from the ship's hull but they caught on something, and a vicious yank brought not only her scythes free but a sudden deluge of raw phazon, and terrified she jumped back.
Too little too late.
The Luminoth laughed, a raspy, dark sound, and spoke in his alien way, "I wass hoping the pirate would feel the tasste of power, but you'll do jusst fine."
Tejed stumbled and fell to the ground as the mutagen took hold, the yellow of her eyes slowly building up to an intense blue. The ground around her crackled with radiation and the Luminoth turned back to Kayleer, other plans on his mind.
"Fuck," she hissed, phazon drool dripping from her mouth. It hurt every aspect of her being, left her immobilized in pain and twitching spasmodic on the ground, doubled over. She couldn't stop the Luminoth, not yet. Not without becoming a monster.
Tejed Jenal was terrified.
"Tejed!" Kayleer called her name in desperate plea, but it was useless. She was coated in phazon, it seaped through the fine cracks in her armor, poured into the bog and spread that malevolent glow like wildfire. Slix bounded away to the safety of a treetop, terrified of coming into contact with the stuff.
Suddenly he was surrounded by the blue demon he feared so much. His heart was racing and it was all he could do not to collapse again. No, he needed to remain calm, collected. He needed to help Tejed, get rid of the Luminoth.
Their foe was relishing in what had just transpired. He stood calmly, allowing the phazon to pool at his feet while he watched Kayleer panic. "Go ahead pirate, letit in. You know it tempts you," he laughed. The stuff had no effect on the dark creature, and he opted to merely watch the two allies struggle.
He turned to Tejed, smiling that mouthless smile that looked so darkly twisted on his face. "What an interesting beast you are. I'm curious to see what you'll do with so much phazon inside you," the Luminoth leapt up, his powerful, agile body allowing him to land square on the hull of his ship. "Oh, I think it would be more interesting to watch you destroy him. You'll do it, I can feel it. That corruption will drive you to kill the nearest living thing," he laughed. "To have that release, it will feel so good, don't you think?" He cared not if Tejed understood him. The Ing was excited to watch the blood pour between the two allies. The thought of witnessing that was even more attractive than destroying them himself. Why risk it...
Kayleer could feel the blue demon pressing against his armored feet, trying to get in and touch something living. But his armor was strong, it resisted, even if it would only last so long. But the phazon slowly eating down his armor was the least of his worries. He watched in horror as Tejed writhed, seeming to lose her mind as she neared the brink of total corruption.
It was pressing against her mind, devouring all that she was, replacing it with something other, something hungryfor release. Her skin was hot, on fire, and she ripped her helmet off and screamed, trying to tear it from her mind, succeeding only in tearing her scalp and bloodying her brilliant white hair.
The Luminoth leapt up and away, leaving them alone. He was right. In the grip of corruption, Tejed would go for the nearest living thing. Every living being was revealed to her phazon veiled eyes: every living thing a red dyed map of arteries and veins and a single central pump beating like mad.
The only heart she could see right now was Kayleer's, and though she desperately wanted to turn on the Luminoth, the corruption said otherwise.
Kill him,it whispered seductively, its voice like oil and honey. She screamed again, her voice warped and low, a grotesque mash up of pirate and human, before shakily finding her feet in the tainted marsh water.
"I'll... k-kill," she stuttered, grabbing futilely at her head. She lashed out with her claws and sunk them deep into a nearby tree before turning her blazing blue eyes on Kayleer.
Prey.
The corruption won out. She could no longer say no, the pain was too intense. Without hesitation she had him pinned to the ground, her claws itching at his throat and her eyes seeing nothing but red.
Kayleer was pinned in an instant. His corrupted friend moved too fast for him to even have a chance to react. Putrid water flung from a muddy crater as Tejed forced him into the poisoned bog, her lengthy metal-sheathed talons wrung tightly around his neck.
Her strength was unbelievable, her digits tainted, pulsing with phazon. No grip should have been able to do what hers was doing, literally bending the armor beneath them. Kayleer could feel his armor caving in, slowly crushing his windpipe. Dark, violet blood started to trickle from his neck as the shards of armor were compromised and penetrated. But still they held- the last barrier between his blood and the phazon-filled water outside. No... At that moment he wished fervently that Tejed would kill him before the toxic, infectious water poured into his suit. No, NO!
Death was better than infection, better than what was happening to Tejed. He would not have the same strength she did when dealing with it. Kayleer felt he would cave in like a coward instantly, skipping the rare moments of sanity and turning instantly into a mindless beast like the one before him.
The layers of armor held, but they wouldn't forever. Kayleer could feel the icy breath of the pestilence rasping again his nearly-exposed neck. He didn't want to be infected... he didn't want to die. But those seemed like the only possible outcomes. His oppressor was the only one who could change that.
He could feel his breath coming shorter and shorter as it became more difficult to breath. His thoughts became hazed, his eyes started to close. This is it...Whether he was going unconscious, dying, or soon to be corrupted, he didn't know, he couldn't focus on anything. One last desperate plea. "Please... Tejed..." was all he managed before the lack of oxygen to his brain forced him into stasis.
The blood drove her on. Seeing it welling around her claws, seeping forth from the cracks in his overly resilient armour. Why won't you die,she thought, her mind a pained haze of blue and red. She growled low in her throat, a particularly large glop of phazon drool landing on Kayleer's visor. Just a little longer, so close to death. Unknown to her, she grinned wildly.
"Please... Tejed..."
He went limp in her grasp, his eyes closing behind his visor and his breathing slowing. The words rung a bell, struck something buried deep within her mind. Her face contorted in pain and she lessened her grasp, suddenly wildly confused.
I'm not a monster, am I?
"You belong to me," cooed the corruption, working its insidious tendrils deep into her brain. She grabbed at her head again, confused and pained and everything all at once. It was like a dam had been opened and her entire body had been flooded with something she could barely even control. But barely still left some room to strike back and take over.
"Kayleer," she hissed, suddenly seeing him for who he was.
"NO. Kill him. Do it for usssss..."
No words. Only anger. She couldn't control the corruption, but she could redirect it if she so chose. Shuddering she turned, catching sight of the Luminoth monstrosity watching triumphant from the top of his ship, enjoying the show. Sitting there like an insect, confident that he could not be reached, and that they had killed each other for him.
He was in for a surprise.
She exhaled once, blowing the air out her nose in a blast of brilliant blue and gritting her teeth so hard she could feel them grinding against each other. Twitching spasmodically she stood and took a step towards the ship, shaking her head in defiance. The phazon burned in her mind like a blazing comet of pain, lighting up her eyes and filling her mouth with the taste of her own blood.
The Ing gave Kayleer a quizzical stare. Well, is he dead or isn't he?he asked himself. He didn't have long to think because once the phazon fueled monster was through with the pirate, it headed towards him. He rose from his perch and tilted his head. "Oh, you're frightening, aren't you," he taunted. He wasn't afraid; the Ing was confident he could match her, terminate her easily. He was cocky, as was his nature.
Kayleer lay unconscious. The rain pattered noisily on his listless armor as the phazon around him slowly ate away at his suit. Slix was watching, unforgotten, from a bearerpod high in the Torvus canopy. His master was hurt, soon to be more so, if nothing was done. Bravely he rushed to the bog below, feeling the painful blue substance erode his tiny digits as he moved. Though small, he was strong, and he grabbed Kayleer by the helmet and dragged him to shore, out of the bog and the toxic water. Normally in these situations he would immediately set himself to repairing the suit, but Slix's tiny, repairing claws were broken down to the wires from the phazon exposure, as was most of his body. Satisfied his master was safe from harm, the tiny mechanoid collapsed on top of him, air pouring from his vents as he reeled from the unpleasant feeling of deterioration.
The Ing-possessed Luminoth leapt back into the phazon-filled bog below. Dark energy flowed around his hands and formed two scythes on either arm. They looked nothing so much like his natural form, which he could not take in this hostile, natural world. He longed to reclaim it, his true form. He dreamed of returning to the Dark World and devouring his former host alive with his own, powerful body. That was what had brought him here, brought him back to the dismally light counterpart of his homeworld. He wanted so much to discover a way to use the phazon aboard his ship to revive Dark Aether, reclaim what was rightfully the Ing's.
The beast stood in his way. He couldn't allow it. He charged, scythes primed, ready to terminate the monstrous being before she muddied his plans of resurrecting his world.
Tejed was having none of this. She caught him in mid charge and dug her claws into his flesh, drawing not blood but corrupt darkness that writhed and squealed in the light. In the corrupt madness there was no time nor need for words, only action and anger. And it burned so deeply within her.
A struggle ensued. She was strong, but so was he, the possession granting him increases to all the Luminoth's natural abilities and then some. Dark muscle rippled underneath soft Luminoth fur, tainted black from the Ing's corruption. He lashed out and kicked her in the stomach, catching her off guard. She retorted with a savage slash to the face, ruining one of his eyes.
He cried out in pain and clutched at his stolen face, staggering back. Tejed jumped on the opening and pushed him back into the open ship, back into the dark where the only light was blue. Radioactive.
"You can't kill me," the possessed alien hissed. "You're nothing but a weak, mortal beast."
"Fuck you," Tejed hissed right back, pushing him into a wall and shattering another tube of phazon. Blue ran free over the floor, collecting around their feet as though alive. Growling ferociously she snapped forwards and bit him in the face, her double jointed jaw opening wide. Blood spilled freely, mixing with the phazon at her feet, and suddenly the luminoth went limp in her grasp.
It took her a moment but she tore her mandibles free and the now limp body fell to the floor, twitching as the corruption of the ing slowly faded away, the creature now dead. Blood and gore splattered her face. In the silence all she heard was the frenzied screaming in her head.
"...Thank you," came a voice, different from the incessant wail of the phazon. Calming. Her shuddering faded and she listened. On the ground, the near dead Luminoth spoke to her with his mind, faded fast. "I've had to live this way for far too long. Thank you... for freeing me."
It died in silence, amid the phazon and the blood, and Tejed turned away. The phazon still burned, but the thought of Kayleer managed to keep her aware, instead of mindless.
Slix trilled quietly above the fallen form of Kayleer. He wanted so much to help, fulfill his purpose, his duty to his master. He was still breathing, just barely, the damaged armor of still biting down on his neck. The restriction the damage was putting on his breathing would be fatal in the end. Slix couldn't remove it, he was useless, and Kayleer couldn't retract it in his unconscious state. Slix raised his chirping in distress, a quiet, cooing noise resonating through the bog. He was crying for help- at this point, they both needed it.
She could hear the noise of Slix's alarm call; they were close. She broke into a run, breathing far too heavily, her skin far too hot. Excess phazon dripped from her eyes and her nose and the corners of her mouth, catching in her throat and burning the backs of her eyes.
She came to a halt when she saw him, fighting the overwhelming urge to rip his body to shreds. Her entire body was shaking with repressed energy so she did the first thing that came to mind: took it out on a nearby tree instead.
"FUCK," she screamed loudly, scaring Slix but having no effect on Kayleer. The tree shook and bent and eventually toppled right over, before she turned and took a few hesitant steps towards Kayeer's still form. The phazon still burned, but not as much. She could feel it slowly ebbing way, draining from her mind.
"Kayleer," she rasped. Her throat felt red and shredded from the screaming. Kneeling beside him she saw that his his neck piece was severely dented, restricting airflow to his lungs, and quickly she tore it free, along with his helmet. He breathed in suddenly and she allowed herself a satisfied sigh.
Kayleer gasped for breath. A strained, slightly choked sound. He reached a hand to his throat and felt blood. Blood? He jerked in panic. Where was he? What had happened? Had he been infected? He took a moment to collect his thoughts. No burning, no reeling insanity... he was stable and calm and had his wits about him - for the most part. Having just regained consciousness, his mind was still a tad fogged and confused. He opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was the looming figure of Tejed. The last thing he had seen was her above him with a hostile claw clamped tightly around his throat. Whatever had happened since that... he hadn't any idea.
Her eyes were blazing blue and she looked angry, murderous even. But clearly she had been able to overcome it, and saved him rather than kill him. He was proud that he had the privilege to be with such a strong willed being. He envied her. His throat was in pain and it was hard for him to speak. Luckily he did not need to articulate much in order for his translator to work. He coughed, a tiny bit of black blood trailing down his mandible.
"Are you alright?"
She snorted in abject laughter and shook her head.
"No," was all she said. Tired she pulled him up before sitting heavily next to him.
"It's dead," she announced, voice cracking from the strain. "I k-killed him. Bit his face r-right off." Feeling nauseous she looked up at the sky, closing her eyes. The rain washed down her face, cleaning the blood and gore from her skin. Cooling her body.
"But he thanked me, before he died."
Falling silent she fell back on the words it had spoken to her, in her head. They had made her feel so calm. Was the rest of his race as calming, she wondered. So full of good will and happiness? She hoped so. Exhausted she leaned into Kayleer for comfort and closed her eyes, feeling the last of the corruption seep away. Her heart fluttered a few times before finding a comfortable rhythm now that it was powered by blood and not phazon.
In the quiet aftermath, all she did was listen to the beating of Kayleer's heart.
Kayleer smiled. He closed his eyes. That sounded about right. The Luminoth were proud and noble. To be robbed of their will was a fate worse than death; a fear, Kayleer realized, they had passed on to him. He was happy for the freedom Tejed was able to give the suffering Luminoth.
She pulled him close to her. He was too tired to object, and this was different than before. He had been injured, she had saved him. She needed to be close for that.
He could feel the close contact giving her the comfort she needed to purge the phazon from her mind. He felt an overwhelming sense of empathy. Her tranquility spread to him like a song that filled every trickling corner of the marsh. The greatest gift the Luminoth had given him; the ability to feel and share the emotion of another person. It was almost as if the human's desire for connection had spread to him as well. He reached a hand to her head and pulled it to his. He rested the brim of his forehead against hers and felt the beating of her happy feelings intensify with the closeness.
Slix's trilling had hushed to a whisper, his brilliant eyes dimmed to a deeper blue. Even he seemed to be affected by the tranquility of the scene.
Not happiness so much as contentment. Simple and absolute, shared between two battered beings with mutual feelings towards one another that were just beginning to bloom. Tejed was too tired to do anything except accept it and be still.
In the death of the corrupted noble, Torvus came back to life. In the charred clearing, life hesitantly crept back into the light, tentative and fearful after what had transpired. After an infinite moment, like an old machine slowly starting again, the sounds started up. The soft pattering of rain on the water, the rustle of plant life at the very periphery of the clearing, and the gentle, soothing buzz of alien insects.
It was a scene of beauty that Tejed knew could not last forever. Nothing lasted forever. Not the Ing-corrupted Luminoth, nor the phazon that clouded her head, nor even the tender moment shared right now. Things end, and new things began. As the last of the parasite ebbed from her system she hesitantly straightened, leaving the warm embrace of her friend.
"We have to go," was all she said. There were yet still so many things to do. Get rid of the containment of phazon still aboard the ship. Find out if the other Luminoth had also fallen victim to Ing possession, or if this was just a disturbing anomaly. And hopefully go home sometime.
Eyes having dimmed back down to their usual yellow hue, she stretched, feeling her head pounding in the afermath of the poison. Cuts and bruises patterned her face and she could feel blood leaking into one her eyes. The pain had since melded together into one constant ache in every corner of her body and it made her feel sick, nauseous, eager to feel the soft caress of a bed followed by the sweet release of sleep.
Kayleer felt his gentle hold on her falter and slip as she pulled away. He felt her happiness give way to solemnity and concern, and he in turn followed. He opened his eyes and stood up slowly, becoming painfully aware of the situation. His aching, bleeding throat, Slix's deteriorating body atop his own, and the toxic blue mutagen that was slowly spreading its way through the bog. They needed to be dealt with.
His throat, he could manage. Though his breath was painful and rasping, he wasn't in immediate danger. He eyed his helmet and neck piece, crumpled and tossed to the side. They would need repairs. And Slix, barely still functioning and literally falling apart... Kayleer knelt down and gently took his damaged friend in his arms. Gears still turning, vents still pulsing faintly to keep his temperature down, all those tiny mechanical signs of life were faint, but they were there nonetheless. He held him in his arm and took another look at the environment.
How were they to quarantine the area and keep an explosive phazon infection from spreading through the planet of Aether once more? That immediately became the epitome of Kayleer's worries. How painful it was, to see his home violated by the toxic substance. Soon it would seep into the local bioforms, corrupting them into violent monsters, transmogrifying the peaceful habitat of Torvus into something twisted and unrecognizable. Kayleer looked piteously into the fouled waters before him.
His desperate anxiety was interrupted by a familiar sound.
A soulful resonance, the sound of freedom and happiness and good will all together in one lyrical tone. The voice of a true Luminoth. The bright-burgundy plumed visitor approached Kayleer and calmed the troubled pirate with his very presence. A tranquil aura seeped into the atmosphere and brought with it a pleasure that seemed to quash all negative feelings gained from what had transpired.
"I had hoped we would never have to face this vile murrain again," he spoke in a universal understanding that transcended vocal speech. "But we are prepared."He raised a hand in the air. manipulating the waning sunlight into a signal, one which the flighted technology he called forth immediately responded to. Three pods erupted from the mud of the bog and became airborne. They extended tiny, gently flaring rockets that carried them over the bog, letting lose virulent rays of golden light as they scanned over everything beneath them that had been putrified.
The Luminoth turned to look to Tejed and Kayleer. "They will purge the poison, but in turn they will kill everything they touch." He closed his eyes, perhaps in silent mourning of all the natural life that would have to be lost in the process. His eyes remained closed and he placed a hand above his fine-pelted thorax in a shallow bow. "It is good to see you again, my friend,"he said. He opened his eyes and smiled at Kayleer.
For some reason Tejed felt the familiar wet warmth of tears grace her eyes, tears that burnt and pained like the corruption that had graced what had before been a peaceful clearing. It was as though the presence of an uncorrupted Luminoth left her soul bear and open, exposed for all the word to see. It made her feel as though the whole travesty that had conspired so quickly earlier was entirely her fault.
"It's my fault," she said quietly, averting her predator gaze to the ground. "If I hadn't come here with my poison, none of this would have happened."
The thought that by simply coming here, she had made everything worse was tearing at her heart. She felt that if she hadn't been so angry, she wouldn't have fallen for the possessed Luminoth's very obvious ploy, and the once beautiful track of swampland wouldn't have to be razed to the ground.
Wherever she went, the corruption followed. Nothing was safe.
The Luminoth looked to the sky before turning his eyes to Tejed. With a narrowed gaze he attempted to offer her an unseen aura of comfort. She was in distress, and it brought the Luminoth great sorrow to witness it.
Kayleer gave a respectful bow to his Luminoth comrade before speaking up to Tejed. "No," he retorted. "Without you, the Ing would have used its phazon to try to bring back the Dark World. That has to be why he stole it, why he came back to Aether," it had become clear to Kayleer what he had been planning, and he was immediately grateful that he had come. He shook his head, brushing off her self-blameful comments. "If anything, you saved Aether."
"I had sensed that a corrupted Luminoth had made planetfall. I was relieved when I felt the Ing presence fade, even if it took our friend wit
it." The resonant sound of his voice seemed to lift the haze of ill feelings from the air.
Kayleer nodded. He had so many questions to ask, so much catching up to do with the Luminoth he knew as A-Vei. But it would have to wait. They had greeted, that was enough for now, as his first priority was getting rid of the phazon-infested ship.
He turned to Tejed and gave her a serious look. "Any ideas on how to deal with that?" he said, gesturing his right arm in the direction of the ship. "Normally I might have Slix reprogram an automated course into Dasha, but he's a bit... out of commission right now," he trailed off, painfully aware of the damaged mechanoid in his arms.
She didn't know how, or why for that matter, but the moth like creature's head words seemed to make her feel less guilty, had infused into her mind in a curious way she couldn't quiet pinpoint. Tejed hadn't met many, if any, telepathic species in her travels, and empathetic ones were a whole different story.
All in all, she appreciated the kind creature's help in soothing her frazzled nerves. Whatever he had done, it had worked. She felt considerably calmer, almost human again. The phazon within her at this point had no hold.
"Any ideas on how to deal with that?"
Kayleer had motioned towards the now derelict hull of the stolen ship, glinting with rapidly dying radioactivity. Though the pods killed and purged the poison that had leaked into the ecosystem, they failed to have an effect on what waited unseen inside the ship, crackling malevolently in its glass and steel prison. And while Tejed could easily get in there and spill it, for the pods and their blinding golden light to eradicate, that would mean even more damage to Torvus.
It was completely out of the question.
"…I have an idea," she said after a moment, leaving the two so she could access her suit's communications by herself. It would be good for Kayleer, getting to see his adoptive people again, at least for a little longer. Out of earshot but still in the clearing, she got in touch with Jarvis, ordering him to send out a message to Gin. Hopefully he wasn't too too far away. If he were still on Earth it would take him hours to get here, and hours was something they didn't have.
They needed to do something about the phazon now, before something bad happened. Tejed didn't like to admit it, but seeing so much phazon all stocked in one place made her feel sick to the stomach, not because she hated it, but because deep down she loved it. She was scared that if it stayed there much longer she'd eventually break and end up consuming it all herself, going on a power binge.
She shuddered thinking about it.
But a moment later her radio crackled and she heard Gin's voice come through. He sounded annoyed and she suppressed a laugh.
"What do you want, Tejed?" was all he asked. Out here, she was reduced to speaking to him solely through sound, without seeing him on a screen.
"Can you get to Aether?" she asked, hopeful. "We need your help."
"…What did you do this time?"
"Oh pshaw, Gin!" she replied, mocking hurt tones. "You act like everything is always my fault!"
Silence, then, "That's because usually it is." Followed after a moment by, "I can be there in about fifteen minutes or so, I'm pretty close to Dasha. What happened?"
"You'll see when you get here," was all she said, before she terminated the connection and walked back to Kayleer.
"I got some help," she said, feeling hopeful about the whole situation. "He should be here pretty quick."
Kayleer wanted to ask who was coming, but he figured he would know in a short while anyways. The phazon would be dealt with, and that fact gave him relief. He merely nodded to Tejed.
A-Vei approached him, his tall, lean form hovering above his old friend as he observed the broken creature in Kayleer's arms. Kayleer felt his presence like a friendly warmth, and he knew his concern for his Slix was only dimming the Luminoth's aura.
He observed Slix, his expression turning pained as he saw just how bad of a condition he was in. Overloaded circuits, melted metal, broken bits of wire sparking nerves out into the humid air where there was nothing there to receive them.
A-Vei had helped to build the purging pods that were at work in the marsh. He had been Kayleer's fellow apprentice, working under master Luminoth engineers to learn the complex craft of machine-building. He offered a hand to take the damaged mechanoid out of Kayleer's hands, and he was met with complete trust and complacency. Kayleer gave him up willingly, knowing his old friend would return him good as new.
The Luminoth looked hopefully into the dim blue eyes of his new patient. "He will be easily repaired," he told Kayleer. "And I will be sure to tell the others of your return," he continued, smiling. "I look forward to seeing you in the Temple once more, once you have finished your work here."His words had a serious tone in them that told Kayleer he understood the importance of disposing of the ship and its deadly contents. With that, he turned away and disappeared into the marsh.
Kayleer sighed. He realized how much he wanted to follow him, but he still had a job to do before he had the liberty to do anything for pleasure. He turned back to Tejed and waited for her assistant to arrive.
Tejed instructed Jarvis to send out a signal bound to her suit, so that Gin would have an easier time finding them. In the meantime all there was to do was stand and wait, patiently. The serious undertones of what they had to do made enjoying the quiet tranquility of Torvus nearly impossible, and now that the Luminoth had left them, Tejed felt the calming light of his mind slowly leave as well.
"How did you meet the Luminoth?" she asked suddenly, eager to break the silence. Speech, spoken words. They would help her remain sane while they waited for Gin to arrive, instead of standing in the silence of the bog. The rain didn't help at this point in time, neither did the life sounds from all around them.
"I mean, you already told me something," she continued. "But you never really… Elaborated."
The phazon was loud, despite its locked away state. It was because she knew it was there. Fidgeting, she awaited his response to fill the silence and banish the noise the corruption made in her head.
Kayleer was grateful for the breach in the silence, but talking about his past gave him a bit of anxiety.
"I was a slave here on Aether. Part of a pirate mining operation," he replied. "Phazon; they employed countless slaves to work to mine the stuff. It almost infected me. I stopped it," he clenched his metal fist and raised it in gesture. "By removing my arm." A brief moment of intangible pain flashed in his mind as he remembered the event.
Kayleer shook his head. "Pirate slave masters didn't care about us, not one bit," he shrugged. "A useless slave was a terminable one, so I continued to work.
"My brethen died periodically, from phazon madness and the resulting termination by superiors. Or they simply died of age; slaves usually live about a year or so. They're grown to be expendable," he said simply. "One day I had the luck of meeting one of Aether's native sentients, the Luminoth, down in the mines. She was merely scouting, investigating the extent of phazon growth on Aether. This was after the Ing war, but before the Luminoth succeeded in totally purging the stuff.
"She took me with her, back to the Torvus Temple. Said something about how despicable it was for sentient creatures to enslave others, and to be honest it was the first time I had ever considered that.
"Her mate was a geneticist, a master of bio-manipulation and synthetic creatures. He helped to create much of the biotech during the war. He offered to change me, make me less of a slave and more like one of them. Back then I had a hard time understanding what he meant, what he was offering me, but I agreed anyways.
"Gave me a new arm, an expanded mind, and a lifespan more similar to theirs. To this day I stilldon't understand how," Kayleer laughed. "But I've been alive for over twenty years now, and I still feel young." He looked to the sky, merely in wonder. His body was young and healthy even though he had lived over tenfold what it was originally meant to. The staggering difference between his life as a slave and the second life the Luminoth had given him made him grateful just to be alive.
"I… I didn't know pirates could be so cruel to their own kind," Tejed said after a moment, his story resonating with her. "I mean, I knew they could be cruel, no offence, but not to their own."
It perturbed her, to know that Kayleer had originally begun his life as a slave, of all things. Despite having spent a year onboard one of their vessels, living day after day through the agony they had exposed her to, it had never crossed her mind that pirates would harm their own. And why would it? With the corruption being forced into her, she had learned to hate, and nothing else had mattered.
She shuddered, having inadvertently remembered the past. Feeling socially awkward, especially around so alien a creature, she didn't know whether to hug him or just stand to the side, away. Kayleer seemed to get confused and fidgety when she got too near him. He valued his personal space highly. So she opted on standing to the side and sharing the pain quietly.
A moment later, the flash came in the sky. The flash of a vessel entering Aether's atmosphere, its hull burning on entry. It's shape was familiar: smooth and sleek, painted black and with no logos or patterns to break the colour. It contrasted Tejed's ship sharply. Where her's was composed of points and blocks and gave off a very unfriendly vibe, Gin's felt more modern and smooth, welcoming despite its dark colouration.
She motioned Kayleer back and stood in the clearing so that she was the only one visible, directing the ship to land as it came ever closer. With a hiss and a clank it made planetfall, sinking into the soft mire mud and throwing up a cloud of water that vapourized the moment it came into contact with the hot hull.
Tejed smiled wide and approached his ship as the doors opened, the ship having already cooled considerably in the cold environment. When Gin invariably walked out he looked just as annoyed as she thought he would, his tired eyes glaring at her sullenly.
"Okay, I'm here," he announced, spreading his arms as though showing just how irritated he was. "What do you want?"
She pointed over to the derelict vessel, immune to his frustrations.
"We need to get that ship into the sun, and I don't do computers. Help?"
She smiled at him hopefully and he just rolled his eyes, surveying the scene.
"We?" he asked after a moment, still staring at the ship. It looked familiar, probably Federation. While it had no physical indicators of origin, Gin was sure of his abilities when computers came into the equation, alien or not. He sighed and looked back at Tejed.
"Yeah, we," she replied, unfazed. "Kayleer's with me."
She pointed over her shoulder at the pirate waiting patiently behind her and Gin's face instantly contorted not into anger but resentment. Simmering, hateful resentment.
