The mud churned even as the smoke cleared. Deunan cursed and crab-walked out of the suddenly soft feeling patch of ground, able to guess what lurked beneath. Tomahawk's legs might be imprisoned but they apparently weren't immobilized. Somehow the big bastard was stirring up the soft dirt, whether to sink them down with him, or to free himself, she couldn't guess.
Briareos felt it as well, all but wrenching her spine out of joint as he surged forward, grabbing her by the vest and flinging her behind him as he anticipated the attack. Her 'borg continued to move in the opposite direction even as she cursed and fell to safety. Using his speed to his advantage, he navigating the unstable ground around Tomahawk to close with the lunatic once again and finish him. In the time it took her to draw breath to complain, he'd nimbly jumped up onto the 'platform' formed by the man's tank-body. The monstrous cyborg didn't have a chance to do more than flinch as her partner struck again. Using both fists together as a battering ram, Briareos twisted at the last minute and swung like a pro baseball player, smashing the side of his opponent's face with a sound like a small car-crusher at work. Small bits of metal sparkled in the dappled sunlight light as delicate machinery broke loose on both sides.
Deunan tumbled to a stop in the mud, too awed by the sight of Tomahawk's head twisted sharply sideways beneath her partner's hit to care about her own damp discomfort. No un-augmented body could have survived that without a broken neck. But again, blackened, burnt, and now uncoordinatedly trying to fend off a lethal beating, Tomahawk was proving just how durable one of Dr. Zand's ZIIF suits could be. For the first time Deunan was forced to recognize for herself just how terrifying full-body cyborgs really were. She'd never seen anything – short of a truck – take more than one of Briareos' full-on punches and still try and fight back. The fact that Tomahawk was not only still-moving but that even the act of hitting him was doing her partner's fists damage, made a shiver of anxiety race down her spine.
Shaking his head, Tomahawk recovered from his surprise. He blocked Briareos' next three blows effortlessly, returning with a punch to her partner's mid-section that knocked him off his feet entirely, propelling him backwards and down into the mud. Deunan blinked at how child-like he looked compared to the towering mass of their half-buried opponent. Scrambling to get moving she chided herself for gawping like an idiot instead of helping. He couldn't do this alone. She cursed herself as she swung her rifle around, giving Briareos some time to recover by marking Tomahawk's face and shoulders with several rounds of fire.
"Hernando!" She called urgently towards the trees, wondering what was keeping the old man. They needed all the help they could get.
Deunan cursed and shot out one of Tomahawk's eyes when the borg stubbornly moved to grab at her stunned partner again. She wondered if even Hernando's assistance would matter anymore. What could the old man do that they hadn't done already? The mad-bastard seemed virtually indestructible. Her instincts told her to just keep pushing, to throw whatever they had at him. Pinned and disoriented Tomahawk _was_ at a disadvantage. As slim as their current chance was, there really wouldn't be a better one later if they retreated. Their only real choice was to tire the fucker out.
Could Tomahawk even _get_ tired anymore? She worried grimly as she watched Briareos pull himself up and shake himself like a dog to get the worst of the mud off. Just because _her_ cyborg slept and ate like a normal person, did that mean Tomahawk did too?
Another lucky shot and she got a second of Tomahawk's many lenses, effectively blinding him on his right side. He roared in annoyance, scooping up a massive fistful of mud and heaving it at her with surprising accuracy. The wet projectile caught her across the shoulders as she moved to dodge, the sudden weight enough to knock her back onto her ass into the dirt. There'd be bone-deep bruises from where she landed on her rifle she resigned herself grimly. At least she hadn't lost it, strapped to her as it was. Being caught underneath her as she put her full weight on it probably hadn't done the weapon any good however. Sweeping the mud off her arms and face she shimmied out of the tangle of straps and left the gun where it fell, opting to try another tactic now that Briareos was back on his feet.
Tomahawk, likewise was staring at her partner, his large arms swaying in slow, threatening arcs as the two men stared at each other in anticipation. The larger 'borg's voice was gravely and broken sounding as he tried to speak again.
"I remember you… police-man… Army offered you limitless power and what do you do with it…? Nothing. Bleating about your rights? Your friends? Pretending you're still… human?" His laughter sounded like grinding gears. "Coward. Still following your police-slut around like a dog in heat… If you're a good boy, does she let you get a lick in reward?" The suddenly loquacious 'borg let his tongue hang out of his mouth to emphasize the vulgar question, proving that like Briareos, his tongue was probably the most obviously 'normal' thing left of his original body.
Deunan rolled her eyes at the harassment, more than a little tempted to remind the former marine captain that Briareos still had the equipment to do the job properly, and didn't have to be content with licking. Still with Tomahawk's attention entirely focused on his attempt to piss off her partner, it gave _her_ the chance to get closer without another mud-ball to the face. She smirked to herself as she carefully moved into his now-damaged peripheral vision. Besides, she smiled wider as she glanced over at her partner, any number of meth-addicts and crack-heads had failed for years to get a barb under her tin-man's thick skin. Un-like her, his patience in dealing with the ranting of madmen was near legendary. True to form, Briareos was checking his knuckles for damage, ignoring the larger cyborg with ease.
"Too late to play soldier now!" Tomahawk crowed to his indifferent audience. "Weakling! You think you can defeat me? I am a god!" Frustrated by his opponent's lack of reaction to his taunting, the larger cyborg scooped up another two fistfuls of wet muck and threw them one after the other at her partner.
"… don't believe in gods." Briareos finally responded, pointing out the weakness in the big man's threats. He was obliged to shift his stance however, shielding his face with his forearms from the messy attack. Tomahawk continued scooping and shouting with increasingly unintelligible insults, his momentary lucidity overwhelmed by what looked like the mother of all tantrums.
It would have been funny if not for the fact that the mud underfoot started quivering and churning at the same time. All but frothing in his rage, Tomahawk was using both arms _and_ legs to lash out once more. Briareos suddenly sank down a good foot into the soft surface, cursing in surprise as he struggled with something out of sight beneath his feet. Tomahawk sank as well, tilting backwards at an angle as he shifted his odd body underground in order to continue his attack. Deunan pulled her machete off her back, reversing her grip on the blade in order to throw it across the clearing. "Bri! Catch!"
The long knife looked like a toy in his muddy hands, but her cyborg wasted no time in jabbing it downwards into the soft soil, using it to defend himself as best he could. Deunan trusted her lighter weight to keep her from sinking into-range of the mad cyborg's mud-bound feet. Torn between wanting to get to Briareos to help him directly and wanting to avoid becoming a second victim to the grasping mud, Deunan hesitated half way to his side. Taking on the titan alone seemed like a great way to get mashed, but getting closer to her partner seemed equally bad strategy. Tomahawk leaned further backwards still and finally one of his freakish limbs emerged from the muck. Mangled and dripping hydraulic fluid, the cyborg's 'borrowed' legs were considerably worse for the wear. Neither the fall nor the landmines buried in the mud had been kind to him. The frog leg looked almost alive with its artificial skin torn off in places to expose the muscle-like braid of cables and wires that made up its inner assembly.
Tomahawk was tilted like a drunkard as he sought to catch Briareos and crush him with his foot. Seeing an opportunity at last, Deunan drew her spare gun, wondering if she could get far enough left of the monster to blind him on his other side. His constant twisting and swaying made getting a good shot in nearly impossible. Briareos dropped the machete in favor of using his long-barreled rifle as a shield against Tomahawk's oversized toes. Throwing his shoulder against the grasping digits, braving the muddy, multi-jointed toes, he worked to push forward, forcing Tomahawk to overbalance completely. Tipping him, Deunan realized, would be perfect. Half buried in mud already, if they could pin him further he'd be all but immobilized. Their trap might just be worth the trouble of digging it in the first place. Glancing around for rope, or anything she could use to assist she cursed as she found nothing immediate in reach. Everything they had was already used in the secondary trap hiding in the trees. Circling back, she did what she could, spotting one of the cyborg's rear-facing eyes and completing her work from earlier in blinding him on the right.
With two toes temporarily blocked by the barrel of his weapon, Briareos concentrated his strength on the third. Bending the oversized appendage backwards in its socket, he made an earnest effort to break the motors controlling the former-tank's toe joint at the same time as pushing Tomahawk backwards. His efforts sank him somewhat as well; the ground beneath his feet not firm enough to hold up against the raw force he was applying. Deunan swore again, seeing there was no real effect for all his efforts. Some counter-leverage would be required or they'd never tip the asshole. Without thinking of the risk involved, she gave up on the futile effort of shooting the 'borg and worked her way closer to do something more pro-active. The trick, she decided was to find a way to help Briareos with the lunatic without getting grabbed herself. A loud metallic 'crack' from behind her made her wince and have second thoughts. It was the rifle that had broken, not her partner, but it was a small consolation. The gun proved less durable at last than Tomahawk's giant toes, the weapon collapsing like a broken toothpick.
"Briareos?" Deunan cursed their luck again. Where the hell was their backup? All she could think to do was to somehow keep going, pull apart the remaining trap in order to salvage the rope. Lasso Tomahawk's head and somehow winch him to the ground while Briareos pushed. They had to get the better of the titan before he squished them both flat.
"Fuck," was Briareos' only commentary on his suddenly perilous situation. Too distracted to even notice her worry, he had his hands full in a literal sense, struggling to hold Tomahawk at bay as the toes closed around him and started to squeeze. Electric motors whined audibly and the air ionized the scent of overheated circuitry on both sides as the pair of cyborgs struggled to prove once and for all whom of them was stronger. Deunan watched the large toes slowly tightening their grip and realized the only thing she could honestly do to help the situation was to do something _really_ distracting.
A gun wasn't going to cut it. But Briareos had teased her when she'd packed for their fight about carrying 'everything but the kitchen sink' for good reason. She'd known all along that there was no way her usual tactic of going toe-to-toe with the perp was going to work. Therefore she'd filled her vest pockets with anything and everything that might prove handy. A moment of patting and Deunan found what she was looking for. A military-grade taser, usually used by peacekeepers in urban pacification missions seemed the most likely. She'd been hoping to save it for after the ass was less armored, but at the rate they were going there wouldn't be a better time.
Deunan made herself ignore Briareos' strained noises of distress as he wrestled, but he was never more than a thought away as she tripped and stumbled her way over the uneven ground to get closer to her target. The non-lethal weapon couldn't do long distances, but up close it packed a considerable punch. The trick was to get a clear shot of someplace that'd actually _hurt_. Taking her chance, Deunan aimed and fired the first prong of the taser directly into the soft rubber beneath Tomahawk's jaw. The handset clicked to 'green' the moment the barb pierced his 'skin' letting her know that conductive-material was found. She jabbed the trigger without hesitation, not wanting Tomahawk to notice and rip the fragile wire away before she could act.
Enough voltage to take down one fury-addled berserker of a coke-addict raced along the filament and straight into Tomahawk's neck. The cyborg twitched and spasamed on contact, flailing in surprise as his subsystems went temporarily schizoid with the unexpected electrical stimulus. Not strong enough to slag him, or honestly even enough to do him any real harm at all, Deunan suspected the hit still stung like hell.
Glancing over her shoulder, Deunan sighed in relief to see that in the momentary chaos, Briareos had fallen free of Tomahawk's grip. His shirt and jacket were torn and he was coated in mud, but he was moving himself out of the way without mishap. Any injuries he'd sustained were impossible to see under all the filth.
"You in one piece?" She called over to him as she rapidly primed the little device for a second shot. Pure luck let her plant the taser's second barb directly into the fragile circuitry between Tomahawk's eyes. She grinned at her good fortune as she thumbed the firing stud again, granting the mad cyborg another jolt of pure electrical mayhem to the frontal cortex. Shielded or not, that one had to have reached what was left of his biological organs, she told herself. Again Tomahawk's body went haywire, arms flailing wildly as he screamed at the shock. Sparks visibly arced along the plating covering his skull, smoke coming out of the cracks as he frantically swatted at his face to remove the source of his discomfort.
"I'll live." Briareos panted in dazed agreement as he watched their captive twitch and snarl in frustrated rage. "Bad news is… so'll he."
"Clear below!" A very welcome shout from the trees behind them made them turn and stare over their shoulders and then at each other in surprise. Addled from all their frantic scrambling, Deunan looked around in sudden paranoia. She couldn't remember precisely _where_ 'part 2' of their trap was, and more importantly, which way it was pointed.
"_Move_. Deunan." Briareos's terse command jarred her into action.
Half-stumbling, half-running back over the churned mud she followed his lead. The ground firmed up nicely as they retreated from Tomahawk's sphere of influence. Deunan used the opportunity to shed several spent weapons, including the now-defunct taser. Idly she wished she'd brought two more of the evil little toys. Shocking the shit out of the oversized-ex-marine had been kind of fun in its way. Moving her next most-likely weapons into easily accessible locations she almost missed the popping creak of timber from within the canopy nearby. Briareos tapped her shoulder and pointed, pushing her now battered machete back into her hands as he reminded her that there was _one_ trick she really didn't want to miss.
The vertical shadow of the long trunk emerged with silent drama from between the leaves and fronds. Briareos moved even as it did, brave enough, or perhaps just pissed enough, that he was ready to go back on the offensive even as the trap was sprung. Deunan reached blindly for him to stay put where it was safe, but couldn't tear her eyes away from the outrageous sight before her. Hernando was hanging on to the top of the rustic battering-ram, riding it down with a maniac grin visible even with his beard. It was too dreamlike to be believed. Only the creaking groan of the flexing timber felt real. The idea of a few thousand kilos of green-lumber collapsing downwards at speed and then rolling – or splitting – off to god knew where, gave her a surge of adrenaline. Could Tomahawk dodge it? Would he notice it in time? She doubted it.
Even as she tensed in anticipation, watching Hernando sailing by in a near soundless arc, part of her worried that there was only so much more she or the old man could do to help with the fight. She'd stopped Tomahawk's guns, and led him to the pit… but there had to be something more proactive she could do than just stand back where it was safe and watch Briareos wrestle with the lunatic again. Seeing Hernando carelessly throwing himself into the fray made her itch to do more herself. If only the 'borg's arms were out of commission, she groused to herself, then she might get a few kicks in without every rib in her chest being crushed, but otherwise?
Still, the trunk's fall was like something out of a cartoon. Deunan felt a bubble of adrenaline-fueled laughter rise in her throat at the way Tomahawk abruptly looked up, noticing for the first time the shadow that had fallen across his body. She was almost able to hear his mental 'huh?' right before the crashing timber knocked him flat back into the mud. Blessedly the log rolled down the hill and away from where she stood, but not before both pinning and battering the crap out of Tomahawk. The cyborg twitched weakly where he lay. The up-thrust portion of his tank-body crushed flat against what ought to have been his pelvis. The rest of him was pushed so deep down into the mud that the surrounding dirt formed a Tomahawk shaped depression when he dazedly groaned and levered himself upright again.
Deunan cursed at his absurd durability. Not even an arm knocked off for all their trouble? It just wasn't fair. Briareos didn't seem surprised. Vaulting up onto the broken cyborg's chest, he drove the man downwards a second time, administering a ruthless kick to Tomahawk's jaw. Again, the cyborg's head snapped sideways with killing-force, and again the big bastard seemed to just shake it off. His neck had to be made of reinforced titanium, she decided. Machete in hand, she cursed as she moved in to assist, determined that this time he wouldn't face Tomahawk alone. This time they had Hernando too. She smiled at the sight of the crazy old man closing in on Tomahawk's other side, seemingly with the same thought as her.
With no choice but to defend himself with both arms from Briareos' assault, Tomahawk was vulnerable at last. Hernando was hacking at the bastard on the left. She dug the tip of her blade into Tomahawk's side on the right. The first hose came free from his body with a rank smell. Jetting its content out at high pressure, the flailing tubing disgorged a mess of disgusting sludge. Deunan ducked and cursed as she was splattered, not pausing in prying up the next likely looking bit of hose. She made a mental note to joke with Briareos later about putting her foot up Tomahawk's tailpipe. Hydraulic fluid poured out of the second connection she cut free, the third looked like a mass of communication fiber. Getting into a rhythm, Deunan grinned to herself as she methodically continued to do her part to pull the enormous cyborg to pieces.
"Ants! G-g-get off of me!" Tomahawk twisted and howled as he grappled with Briareos. Freeing a hand he managed to slap her partner across the face. What ought to have been a nearly comical maneuver was made terrifying by the sheer force of the blow. Deunan flinched at the sting of a dozen sharp pieces of shrapnel as Briareos' face broke in places and spread in an arc over her. He couldn't take another hit like that. She worried frantically as she shielded her eyes. Tomahawk's neck might be invulnerable, but she didn't want to test Briareos' if she could help it. She only got a glimpse of the damage. His jaw guard was buckled and bent into his face, one of his lenses cracked and shattered.
"Briareos?" She couldn't help but ask. He growled wordlessly too focused on their target to notice her, twisting and balling his fist even as she watched, returning Tomahawk's blow with one equally destructive to the cyborg he had half-pinned. Deunan identified several cabled that looked important hiding between the panels of Tomahawk's outstretched arm. She grimly hoped that one or more of them would affect his muscle control. Stabbing upwards into the tightly bound nest she hacked through several of the smaller wires and leaned against her blade to pry several more out of their sockets. Tomahawk's disgruntled shout let her believe that she was doing _some_ good. She crouched and ducked as he tried to knock her back with a thrust of his giant elbow.
Briareos was obliged to shift himself with their increasingly violent struggle, trying his best to regain the manic borg's free hand and keep him contained while she and Hernando worked. Their CO was cutting and cursing like a man half his age, jamming his long knife deep into Tomahawk's elbow, effectively freezing the joint before he wrapped arms and legs around one of the cyborg's giant arms and using his whole body to attempt to help wrestle it into captivity. Tomahawk abruptly twisted and flexed, catching the old man by the shoulder with a bark of laughter. Before either Hernando or Briareos could counter his trick, the cyborg soldier twisted again, carrying the smaller man easily off his feet and throwing him in one smooth motion. Hernando sailed backwards into the trees with a choked shout, chucked across the clearing as easily as a child's toy by Tomahawk's absurd strength. Deunan winced at the distant crunch of underbrush, and the sound of a human colliding at-speed with the ground. She prayed he'd found a relatively soft bit of dirt to land on. If he'd hit a tree, her CO was probably dead by now.
From lying relatively flat under Briareos' knees to upright once more, Tomahawk abruptly gained the upper-hand again. Still held in the mud, the mad cyborg rolled forward abruptly, Briareos trapped beneath his hands, returning some of the punishment he had inflicted earlier. Her partner was flagging, now obliged to defend herself from the cyborg's erratic attacks. His feet slipped and slid on the larger soldier's metal body as he tried to hold the man off with his legs in order to avoid taking a direct hit.
Deunan threw herself at Tomahawk's back by instinct. Pressing against his spine she made a bet with herself that unlike Briareos, the large cyborg's damaged limbs, and overall stature would make the small of his back both the 'safest' and potentially most damaging position for her to attack from. Hernando's dagger was still limiting the mobility of one of the oversized madman's arms. Deunan pulled a boot-knife and drove it deep between the dented plates of his right shoulder, effectively immobilizing the cyborg against reaching behind him to stop what she was about to do. "Hang on handsome!" She encouraged her partner, knowing things couldn't be great for him on the receiving end of the titan's fists. Cutting the bastard's head off wasn't feasible without some sort of chainsaw, but she had other, subtler weapons left in her arsenal.
Palming the cyborg's semi-legally obtained key in her left hand, and the thin bladed knife she'd lifted from the cafeteria in her right, Deunan chipped through the accumulated gore coating Tomahawk's back in order to force one of the many plates of his back loose. Briareos' cry of distress on the opposite side of their foe's chest made her work faster, prying a second, and then a third bit of protective plating free.
Beneath the armor, Tomahawk was just as disgusting as above. Months of congealed blood and mess had worked into all his seams, coating much of his inner machinery and forming a gummy sort of mud. Between the former marine's struggling, and the filth, it was hard to tell what exactly she was looking for. Deunan cursed the stench as it filled her nose, making her want to be sick all over again.
"What are you doing back there… little whore… trying to strip me, are you? It's not time for that yet!" Realizing the extent of the damage to his arms, Tomahawk howled in rage as he tried to reach for her. She'd underestimated his ability to twist however. Still maneuverable enough that he could turn at the waist to grab after her, Tomahawk chuckled nastily, voice more broken sounding than ever. "When I'm done crushing your boyfriend, Blondie, I'm going to enjoy listening to you scream. Hell… maybe I'll make him do it for me… that's be funny…"
"Deunan?" Half warning, half cry for help, Briareos sounded like he was in trouble. Peering over Tomahawk's shoulder she gasped at what she saw. Crippled as he was, Tomahawk's wrists had sprouted an ugly array of data cables, each bending snake like and weaving before plunging into the vulnerable areas around Briareos neck and face. Her partner grabbed frantically at the wires, tugging at them with desperate strength, but for every two he pulled free another sunk in. Furious, Deunan didn't even remember pulling her second boot knife, it was simply in her hand, ready, as she reached around Tomahawk's head and drove it angrily into his face.
"Drop him, asshole!"
"Stupid bitch." The 'borg laughed and shook Briareos like a rag-doll. "You think that'll hurt me? Watch close now… you wouldn't want to miss this." Carrying Briareos up off his feet he shook him again for good measure, parts of her partner breaking free from his rough treatment. "Squirm all you want, bug. I have won."
"No… You… haven't." Clutching at his head, rather than at the invasive wires, Briareos seemed to be struggling just to get the words out.
"The hell you have." Deunan added her vote. "Hold on, baby! I've got this!" Pulling her knife free from his face, she did the only thing she could really think of and drove it through the plastic shielding covering his power cells. A bank of four fuel cells arranged in a line where his kidneys ought to have been was exposed as she ripped the casing off. Not caring about the danger, she pried the first one loose with fingers and blade. The heat was outrageous. She bit back a scream at the sensation of her fingers scalding on contact with the beer-can sized cylinders of concentrated chemicals and electricity. Blinking past tears of pain she used both hands to rip out the second, then drove her knife in between the contact plates of the last two. Immediately an arc of electricity welded the thin metal to the terminals, all but jerking her arm out of its socket as she got momentarily shocked as well. The safety lights on the remaining cells flickered from green to red with the instantaneous overload she'd caused with her primitive short-circuit. With the knife blocking the mechanism, Tomahawk's safety fuses failed to disconnect the two batteries, allowing them to continue to back feed into eachother with increasingly dangerous amounts of current. Deunan blinked, seeing the small canisters actually swell and buckle a little, the batteries were going critical as she watched. Pressing her smoking fingers to her chest, Deunan rolled backwards and scrambled around the side of the flailing monster.
"Briareos?" She coughed and spat mud, trying to tell if she'd acted in time to help her battered partner. Without the energy to hold on to his prey any longer, Tomhawk dropped Briareos and sagged forward. A slur of curses and whining complaints emerged from the weakening 'borg as he tried to make uncooperative arms reach behind him to correct the damage.
Crawling over to where Briareos lay half sprawled in the mud Deunan shook his arm with fingers that felt both numb and blistered. "Baby? You still breathing?"
"I… think so." He replied after a moment's delay. Slowly pushing himself upright, he cocked his head and listened past Tomahawk's pitiful moaning. "Either I've taken one too many hits to the head… or I'm hearing… steam?"
"The fuel cells." Deunan gasped, suddenly worried they weren't far enough away. "They're gonna pop."
"The…what?" Still dazed, Briareos turned to stare at her. She gasped again at the extent of the damage now that she could see him head-on. Briareos looked as though he'd been attacked by a bear. Plating and cables around his head and neck were torn off, lenses and extendibles ripped free of his head all together in places, mangled past recognition in others. He was visibly sparking when he turned to stare back at the hulking wreck of the cyborg undergoing system failure above them. Tomahawk's power packs chose that moment to burst with an audible bang and loud hiss. Deunan rolled again, instinctively curling into a ball to protect her face from any potential fallout from the acids boiling out of the cyborg's back as they vaporized on contact with the damp jungle air. The clearing suddenly picked up the strong tang of heavy metals and then she caught the first whiff of the unmistakeably caustic sent of dissolving plastics.
She sense more than saw the suddenly looming shadow that covered both of them. Briareos surged upwards to shield her even as she instinctively crawled on elbows and knees to escape. "You c-c-c-can't stop muh-muh-me." Tomahawk stuttered and twitched as he tried to use the last of his strength to crush down on both of them. Deunan got clear and rolled on her sides, panting with the strain of the morning, and the pain lancing down her arms. Looking over her shoulder she gaped at the sight of the two cyborgs, each with their hands locked around each other's heads. Where Tomahawk was getting the energy from was a mystery. She cringed at the sound of metal crunching, unable to tell which side it was on. Smoke continued to curl out of Tomahawk's back. The acid, she realized, had ceased to boil, but it was probably still there, eating its way into anything and everything it touched. Tomahawk was a dead man, she figured, once the acid penetrated his bio pack, it was just a question of how long it would take for him to notice.
"Just. Die. Already." Briareos wheezed, forcing the oversized cyborg back, as battered as the madman in his way. Hoses and wires dangled from his arms as he slowly overpowered Tomahawk. Deunan couldn't say a thing, almost drunk with exhaustion as she stared in awe at the way the former marine's face slowly buckled beneath her partner's fingers. Lenses popped and metal crumpled as Briareos didn't let up the pressure, bringing his hands together with grim determination. Tomahawk's flailing grew weaker and less coordinated with every metallic pop and crack. Sparks, hydraulic fluid, and finally blood, squeezed out between her partner's fingers from what was left of Tomahawk's collapsing face. Breath no more than a gurgle, the large cyborg's limbs dropped limply to the earth at last.
"Bri…" She crawled forwards, unable to watch him squeeze any further. "Briareos… he's done… You can let go…" When even that didn't seem to get through to him she reached out to shake his arm, leaving a muddy, bloody handprint on his already ruined shirt. "Briareos… please… stop."
He turned to look for her almost as if surprised to find her so near. "Deunan?" She smiled painfully at the way he tilted his head, trying to find her with half his eyes damaged. "Deunan-girl? Where are you…?"
"Here." Leaning against him she heaved herself to her feet, moving to his good – relatively good – side so that he could see her properly. Three out of four of his standard 'eyes' looked all but destroyed, two of them dangling loosely from their wires, the whole socket shattered beyond repair. She tried to clean the mud from the best looking of the lot for him, but her fingers left streaks behind. Looking down at her hands she marveled that what she could see under the layer of filth looked like nothing so much as raw meat. The heat from the cells had burned the skin right off her palms and fingers? No wonder why they hurt so bad. She giggled softly to herself, half giddy from the pain and stress.
"You're hurt?" How Briareos was able to talk, with his jaw half broken, she couldn't say. Leaning in again, she rested her cheek against his a moment, glad to be alive. He nudged her with his shattered face, encouraging her to answer. "Kitten? I can't hear very well… My ears are ringing like you wouldn't believe…"
"I'm alright. All things considered." She leaned back, enunciating for his sake. If he couldn't hear, at least he'd be able to lip-read. "How about you? How bad is it?"
"Yellows." He summarized his system status pithily. "A few reds. Nothing too serious, don't worry about me." Briareos wheezed when he breathed. Deunan studied him carefully, wondering if he was lying to her. Then again, the wheezing was probably the result of his visibly cracked nose-filter. Either way there was nothing she could do other than get him back to base as soon as she could. He seemed to read her thoughts, peering myopically over at the dead cyborg lying next to them. "Are we done?"
"Yeah baby." She laughed again, resting again against his shoulder. "We're so done."
"Good." He sighed audibly, sitting back on his heels as he draped a weary arm around her hips, holding her against his chest. "I feel like shit…"
"Don't suppose you can see well enough to find Hernando's heat signature for me?" She forced herself onto her feet before she lost the will to get moving. If the old man was still alive, he'd know best how to get help. If he wasn't, she grimaced at the thought, he had been wearing the only long range radio.
Briareos turned his head carefully, inspecting the trees around them. Even as a corpse, Hernando'd still be warm enough to find, she told herself. After a moment's searching he pointed her wordlessly in the right direction before letting his arm drop. "Whatever we're doing, we need to do it soon. I'm leaking like a sieve."
"Sit tight." She agreed. "I'll find out about Hernando… get the packs… make some repairs to you… then we'll move out." Staggering through the dense leaves, she tucked her hands beneath her arms to apply pressure. She'd need Bri's help, she mused, to make a pair of mittens, or tourniquets or something. With her hands dripping freely she'd pass out before long. Under-pressured and almost blind, her partner would make for a clumsy nursemaid, she resigned herself to the painful ordeal.
The trail of broken branches and twigs was obvious once she found her captain's entry point. Following the debris she crouched next to the old man, wincing sympathetically at the way one of his legs was bent unnaturally. An ugly break, she guessed, tentatively poking at his bloodied pants leg. Hernando wouldn't be walking anywhere anytime soon. Still, he had a pulse. That was something.
"Hey." She nudged him with the back of her hand, seeing if he could stir himself. "Oye. Capitan…" He groaned after a moment of prodding, weakly lifting his hands to the back of his head while muttering a string of latin curses. Deunan sat on her heels and offered him a smile when he finally blinked dazedly up at her. "Concussion?" She asked.
"Surprised to still have a head at all…" He mused. The old man tried to sit up. "Dios, my legs… ah this is no good…"
"The other one too?" Deunan sighed in acceptance, one broken bone or two. It amounted to the same thing. They'd have to carry him out. She watched him fuss with his head and try and sort out his legs when a pragmatic thought occurred to her. "How're your hands?"
"Fine." He looked at her as if she was daft, clearly wondering why she wasn't being more helpful. Looking down at her mangled appendages he hissed in sudden sympathy. "Christo. You're a mess. Your man?"
"A bit smashed but ok. I think we can sling you across his back and walk you out. But we'll need to splint you first… and you'll have to help me… help him…"
"The monster? Mr. Thomas?"
"Squished." She confirmed his expectation, amused at his sigh of relief. "I'll bring your pack over… if you can bind me up, I'll try and help set your bones… then piggyback you over to the big-guy."
Somehow between the two of them, they managed to patch each other up enough to manage for the short term. Deunan double-lashed her CO's legs together along with the straightest branches she could scrounge as a temporary splint by shredding his pants to ribbons and then her own. The end result wasn't exactly comfortable looking, but then neither were the makeshift pair of mittens he'd fashioned for her. Still it was good enough, and he did her the favor of not bitching too much as she got him up onto her back and half crawled, half staggered her way back through the underbrush to where Briareos was lurching slowly around their kill, blindly pawing at the ground as he looked for something they'd dropped.
"Hernando's still got a working pair of hands." She reported as she carefully lowered the old man to the ground. "His legs are shot, but I figure… if he can stop your leaks… you can probably carry him."
"Yeah." Briareos nodded, stooping one last time to retrieve a canister from the mud. Deunan blinked, recognizing one of the power cells she'd ripped out of Tomahawk's chest.
"What're you going to do with that?" She dragged the second pack closer to Hernando so that he could fish in side it for painkillers and tools.
"…Going to have the old man here finish what we started…" Her partner kicked a clod of dirt over to them, which broke apart after the first two rolls to reveal one of her dropped hand-guns. "I'd ask you to do it, but I don't think your hands would take it right now…" He set the fuel cell into the still smoking hollow in the middle of Tomahawk's back. Seeing his meaning, Hernando picked up the gun and knocked the last of the dirt out of the barrel, taking aim as soon as Briareos stepped out of the way.
"Better safe than sorry." He quipped roughly as he pulled the trigger. Cursing in Spanish as he missed, he caught the battery dead on with his second shot, causing another fizzy eruption of violently reactive chemicals to spill out and finish the work of dissolving the majority of Thomas White's chest, both organic and inorganic. By morning, Deunan mused, he'd probably be little more than a toxic residue and an empty metal shell. Good riddance, she told herself firmly. Still, the after image of Bri's hands, locked around the madman's collapsing skull stayed with her as she walked Hernando through the necessary repairs to her partner's battered knees and calves.
They couldn't seal Briareos' system completely. There were just too many bad linkages, but the biggest problems were addressed. Groaning like a wounded thing, Briareos knelt down and fumblingly helped their captain up onto his back. Deunan took the precaution of lashing the old man's arms together at the wrist, not trusting his fatigued body to hang on without help for more than a few steps. True to her fears, the old man passed out before Briareos had done more than stand up.
She worried her own bandages loose with her teeth until she could free up the index finger on her right hand. With Hernando down, and Bri operating at one-sixth capacity, it fell to her to run point. She slipped her pack over her shoulders, then her automatic rifle, checking to see that she could still hold the trigger if she had to. The second two bags went around Briareos' neck, making him look even more like a pack mule than he already did with Hernando draped over his back. Leading on Briareos' blind side, she prayed they didn't walk into anything nasty as she alternately checked the radio and the compass. Confident that they'd find the road, she tried not to think about how long a walk it would be if someone wasn't there to meet them. "Let's go, big guy." She guided him forwards with a gentle touch on his arm.
