Rachet- lol much luv sorry you had to wait more than a week, hope you enjoy.
Celticicegoddess: ty girlie, hope your turkey day was fabulous as well.
Solaira- Jayne's gonna become real pivotal real soon, and yup you've guessed it he's pretty gorram sick of Mal right 'bout now.
Sabrina1204- Chillingsworth still has no idea who River even is, they never bothered to check the girls once they knew Riddick was Riddick, as far as she's concerned the girls are just a couple of cheap skirts he had along for the ride, and holy rice puffs is she in for the shock of her life. I keep bouncing back and forth between a couple of different enter Serenity moments, but I do know for sure Jayne will be central, a defection is possible but not likely for now, going back and forth between jumping right into CoR or doing a little bit of original in between but it all hinges on which Serenity scenario I finally decide on. Enjoy!
ONCE AGAIN UBER LUV TO GM_ANDY FOR HIS DARK FURY TRANSCRIPT.
Don't own a thing ain't makin' a single coin or cred…. Just profiting by the shameless ego boost ; )
O0O0O0O0O0O
Riddick was wheeled into an eerily sterile room, blue lighting reflected off the various statues, cold metal and sickly stone, human forms twisted in a perverse parody.
"Set him down and leave," Junner ordered from across the room, his lips curling in disgust. Riddick snarled as the pig faced merc who had hit him released him from the table, cracking his neck to the side, his hands still chained he made his way down the stairs, to inspect a particularly disturbing stone figure. The stone was like hardened flesh, and he felt a perverse need to reach out and touch it. The bronze plate beneath the twisted human read 'Killer of men, Furya'. Furya, the word itched at something in the back of his mind, and his hand reached out of its own accord and touched the figure's lips, his fingers recoiling as the statue licked him. "What the fuck?" He snarled stepping back, immediately dropping as something was slammed into the back of his neck. "All right, now you have my attention," Riddick growled as the clicking of heels echoed in the room, signaling the bitch's approach.
"A necessary precaution." Her smooth accented voice spoke, "If you attempt anything uncivilized, killing me for instance, I detonate the explosive charge Junner has just implanted and sleep very well tonight." Her words ended with a soft coo.
Fuck, Riddick thought, River's gonna kill me, "You're not putting me on a pedestal."
"Of course not," she laughed at his obvious ignorance, "you are strictly for my private collection."
"The fuck I am," Riddick growled.
O0O0O0O0O0O0O0
"You've been reactivated Toombs." A blonde female merc, snapped through the speakers.
Toombs smirked, eyeing the woman and wagging his eyebrows, "Miss me baby?"
She scowled and started the delousing sequence, "Not 'iffin' you were the last thing with a dick alive. Must be something big if they decided to take your ass off of ice after the last shit you pulled."
Toombs barked out a laugh, "Sister, I certainly aim to find out."
She rolled her eyes, "Just get your fuckin' gear and report."
O0O0O0O0O0
"River," Jack spoke, shifting her weight, trying to maintain her precarious balance on the large metal ball, while at the same time trying not to choke to death from the neck collar which dangled from the ceiling, apparently, short people had not been taken into much consideration when they designed this particular form of restraint. "When we gonna start the escapin' part of this little adventure?"
"Patience is a virtue." She answered calmly, studying their neck restraints, nothing more than a nylon rope laced through a leather choke, to be honest she was slightly disappointed, she had been hoping for at least a small challenge, though her bound wrists offered a slight obstacle.
Jack snorted in response.
"Can the girl named Jack climb a straight rope?"
"Uh, maybe?" Jack answered sheepishly, "If I could get my hands free."
"The Jack must remain steady."
"Why…holy shit!" Jack scrambled to keep her balance as River landed smoothly next to her.
"Untie the girl's hands."
"A little more warning would have been nice ya know," Jack muttered as she fumbled over the knots on River's bindings, "you think with all the creds this bitch is throwin' around she would have spent a bit more on, oh I don't know, maybe chains instead of ropes."
"The Jack is not happy unless she is complaining."
"Just sayin' is all," Jack defended as she loosened the last knot, looking up as she felt River stiffen, "What?"
"The Riddick did not listen, he has been pricked," River frowned, "A complication."
"Translation?" Jack asked raising an eyebrow.
"The dog has implanted an explosive device into the flesh of our Riddick."
"So, he goes boom if he steps outta line?"
River nodded.
"And I'm guessin' 'iffin' we're gone when the curtain goes up he goes boom too?"
"It is possible, his resulting reaction increases the probability of his demise. Why is it no one listens to the girl?" She sighed, finishing off the knots around Jack's wrists.
"I listen," Jack piped in.
River quirked her eyebrow.
"So how do we go about savin' Big Evil?"
"We play the game," River told her loosening the girl's collar next, "The Jack must remain still, she must seem afraid, they think we are less than we are, the woman wishes a show, and we shall gave her one. Can the girl pull free?"
Jack rolled her neck, testing the collar, "Yeah, won't be a problem," She smirked.
"Good," River nodded before leaping back over to her ball, and Jack couldn't help but be impressed, River had landed easily, without so much as even causing the ball to tremble, she envied that kind of skill. "The Jack will have it one day as well." River told her reaching above her own head and pulling loose the lacing.
"Won't they notice our hands are free?"
"Negative, we are not the show, the Riddick is."
"Doesn't this all seem like a bit much to you? Like we're in some kinda of sci fi vid or somethin'? I mean, we're balancing on balls, roped to the ceiling behind a giant fucking curtain for fuck's sake, and they just implanted Riddick with somethin' that makes him explode."
"And they called the girl feng le." River smirked.
Jack barked out a quick laugh, "All their missin' is some crazy monster for Riddick to battle to the death."
"The Jack should be careful what she wishes for," River frowned.
"Oh you gotta be fucking kidding me!"
"Time for a lesson now, tell the girl how many weapons do you see."
"We ain't got shit."
"Look closer, the girl named Jack must pull the pieces apart to find the whole, boot laces are not just boot laces, they are cords, restraints, implements of strangulation, trip wires. The girl must look, every object has a lethal capacity, one must see all angles at once or they will see nothing at all."
Jack thought, she really couldn't see much in the darkness, but the metal spheres they were standing on were large and heavy, it could be used to knock someone down or even just as a distraction, and there were the bootlaces but she doubted she'd have time to unlace them.
"The girl was just using an example, look harder," River responded to her thoughts.
Jack focused, straining her eyes that were just now adjusting fully to the darkness, there were some pipe works off the left and behind them, thin, looked like a good kick or two could break one lose, not much for blunt force, but maybe as a stabbing weapon?
"Good, escape routes?" River urged.
Jack's eyes restlessly scanned her surroundings spurned on by River's encouragement, and eager to prove herself. There was the curtain, but it looked like a ten foot or so climb up a smooth wall, wouldn't work, unless one of the balls could be rolled up against it.
"Better," River beamed with pride, "How else?"
Jack knew she was missing something as she racked her brain, something obvious to, and then it clicked. The device in Riddick's neck, if it could of course be removed, which, sooner or later it was gonna have to come out anyway, why not use it to their advantage when it does? It would have to be timed perfectly, but havin' a reader on your side, that made predictions a bit easier.
"The girl does not predict she calculates." River snorted, "But she is pleased with the Jack's observations none the less."
It was Jack's turn to beam.
O0O0O0O0O0O0
"So you go through all the trouble of catching these fucks and this is what you do with them?" He raised an eyebrow.
"You're missing the point Riddick," Her tone was reproachful.
"What point? You got millions of UDs sitting around collecting dust," he snorted, "seems like a waste to me."
"You underestimate their true value Riddick," She purred as her fingers caressed a particularly perverse looking pair, "They are priceless," she paused, admiration mixed with pleasure in her eyes as they began to walk again, "Each at one time, was the most wanted man or woman in the known universe. The number of lives ended at the hands of those living and breathing in this room is incalculable."
"Ain't what I call livin," Riddick growled.
"Just the same," she purred stopping before another statue to cradle its tortured face in her hands, with almost pure reverence, "I assure you they are all very much alive, each one sustained in a form of cryo so profound that seconds seem weeks and to blink an eye is a day's worth of work." She continued to walk, Junner urging him on with a slight shove to which he snarled but moved forward, "The brain however continues to function unimpeded. The mind continues to think and feel swarming with whatever dark thoughts it's trapped alone with, as it will be for hundreds of years to pass." She laughed quietly, "So much more a fitting fate then dropping them off at the nearest Slam. Here they are appreciated for what they truly are, transformed into objects on par with their life's work. And why?" She suddenly spun on him, stopping in front of a large curtained off section, Riddick snapped to attention, beyond that curtain the scents of his girls invaded his nostrils. Two mercs stood guard outside of it, and he resisted the urge to smirk, the pig faced hun dan (bastard) who had hit him, and the one that been thinking on his River's legs. "I gave them the audience they so desperately desired, the recognition they bought with the blood of others."
Riddick repressed the urge to snarl, the more the bitch talked the more he realized she was in love with the sound of her own voice, but Riddick however was not, in fact he had begun to amuse himself as her voice droned on with the many different ways he could permanently silence her, ranging from ripping out her vocal cords to pouring acid down her throat.
"I understood their actions, stripped free of moral convention. Don't you see? They are something greater now Riddick, something more than they were before, they are Art." She released a dramatic sigh, slowly bowing her head.
"Lady," Riddick smirked, "Your taste sucks."
"I expected as much," she laughed, "You see Riddick there is a fundamental difference between you and I."
"Yeah, you're a fucking psychopath."
She scoffed at this, placing her hands on his face as she had the statute, "You don't appreciate art," she purred, drawing out her words, "but I believe the reason for this is fundamentally different then what you or anyone else might think. You are an artist."
Riddick recoiled from her grasp like it burned him, the only reason he wanted her scent on him was killing her, but otherwise, the crazy bitch could keep her hands to her fucking self. "Been called a lotta things, never that."
"Junner."
With a nod of his head Junner produced a remote control, and the curtain began to pull back, revealing a darkened pit, Riddick snarled able to make out the forms of his girls bound in the darkness. "You make art, shape it with your bare hands soaked in blood, carved from flesh and bone, not analyze it, but a man like you does not understand such things by a lecture, you must experience it."
"What do you want Lady?" Riddick snarled tired of the sound of her voice, infuriated by what he saw.
"To watch you work. I've spent the latter half of my life observing fantastic things. The work of terrible men, but it has always been after the fact when the moment of bloody creation is cold and has passed, that changes now."
Junner hit another switch on his remote, lighting up the pit.
"'Bout time you showed up Big Bad," Jack called out, her legs slightly wavering.
Riddick continued to growl, his chest vibrating and humming with poorly concealed fury.
"I need to see it Riddick, I need to see it with my own eyes," she purred again, reclining on a chaise as if she was some Roman empress from Earth-that-was, settling herself for the gladiator bouts.
"I get out of here alive and you'll see it again," he snarled, approaching the lounging figure, he bent low and close to her face as she absently sipped off a glass of wine, "this close bitch."
She laughed, teasing his chin with the tip of his own shiv, "No, Riddick. I want your masterpiece," she crooned, tossing his shiv towards the edge of the pit, "an artist cannot work without his instrument."
Riddick straighten himself and turned to pick up his blade, smirking at the pale fucker, "Next time we meet, I'm gonna bury this in your eye." He snarled pushing up his goggles.
"Let him in." The woman ordered.
The two mercs walked forward, Riddick allowing one to slip behind him, he spun, his booted foot connecting solidly with the pig man's head, knocking him to the ground, in the same fluid, graceful movement his shiv found the tender flesh of the second merc's belly, traveling upward, a spray of scarlet kissing his skin.
The pig faced man was on his feet and rushed him, sending them both over the edge of the pit. Riddick twisted as they fell, landing on top of the merc he rolled away into the shadows.
"Thought I told you to kill the one thinkin' on your legs baby," He growled out.
"And the girl believes she warned you against the prick." River shot back defensively.
"Watch out for the fuck whose gonna plant an explosive in your neck would have worked better!" He yelled back, and River scowled out him.
Above them, the lady placed down the control to the explosive charge and picked up a pair of ornate looking opera glasses, "Go ultraviolet." She ordered, and with a deafening boom, the lights went out. In the darkness, two doors hissed opened, one on either side of the pit.
"This is bad isn't it?" Jack asked nervously.
"Give it a minute kid," Riddick answered, as two luminescent tentacled creatures stalked out from their respective prisons. They flashed neon, whether to communicate or intimidate Riddick didn't know and nor did he give a fuck, he was more concerned with the four tentacles each sported, and their spinning core was a new one to him too.
"Oh fuck me," Jack swore.
"What the hell are these things baby?"
"Shrill, of cybernetic origins, genetically and mechanically enhanced, DNA descendent of Earth-that-was squid, again the girl warns him of the pricks."
"Who is she?" The woman asked, a small hint of anger playing on her tongue.
"I am unsure my lady, we assumed she was just a whore," Junner answered curtly.
"It seems we were wrong."
"So it seems my lady," his lips tightened into a scowl.
"It shall be corrected once we have finished here."
"It shall."
Riddick watched with sick fascination as one of the Shrills took a swipe at the merc, its tentacle going dark as it closed in, nearly invisible to, well to everyone one but him, who saw the motion clearly, smirking as the merc's gunfire sprayed uselessly into the air. The creature flashed on again three of its four tentacles coiled around the man's body, squeezing. He let out a scream, and the forth tentacle split apart revealing a stinger. Riddick was actually kinda glad the fucker had tackled him, as he watched the creature inject pig face, even happier as the man began to swell, rupturing with luminescent goo, oozing like a popped boil.
"Watch the pricks, good to know," Riddick thought to himself.
"Riddick!" Jack screeched in warning, shaking him back into focus, dodging almost a second too late as a long tentacle swept forward.
No sooner had he dodged the first he was forced back and to the side as another struck at him. There was not time to counter, defense as of the moment was his only option, he needed time to observe, to figure their speed, their attacks, he needed a weak point, but most of all he need to get the fucking cuffs off his wrists.
"Anytime now River girl," he growled as he rolled away, nearly avoiding the grasp of one of the creatures. Riddick dodged, cut back, rolled away again, coming up spinning he latched onto one tentacle to avoid being strangled by it, but the creature flicked him away as if his weight was nothing, and Riddick went flying backwards and into a wall.
"Is the Jack with her?" River asked.
"Ain't got a better place to be," Jack smirked.
"Now, go for the gun," River ordered, slipping out of her collar she slide down her sphere, bracing her back on the ground she used her feet to kick out the sphere and send it rolling across the pit, the thud echoing as it slammed into the far wall, just below the ledge. Kicking back up and onto her feet she made for the cluster of pipes.
"Junner," The serene cool tone had left her voice, replaced instead by anger laced with anxiety.
"I shall release another Shrill my Lady."
"I want her name. Now."
"Yes my Lady." He bowed his head slightly, and speaking into his comm, he ordered the release of a third Shrill, and for the girl's voice patterns to be analyzed from the security footage.
Jack escaped her collar slightly less gracefully than River, and made a break for the steaming pile of goo that was once an overweight merc.
"Jack, down!" Riddick barked, and she rolled on instinct narrowly avoiding an open stinger as Riddick lunged at the Shrill which had tried to sting her.
Sick to shit of playing at defense Riddick twisted as the stinger was turned on him, blocking with his shackled wrists the stinger broke through the chains, freeing his hands. He snarled as he spun, his shiv slicing easily through the fleshy tentacle, severing it in half. "Wanna play fucker? Let's play." He snarled at it, flipping the shiv in his hand.
The door directly behind him hissed open, and he didn't need to look to know what was behind it, "Oh, shit."
"Catch!" River called, and he spun on his mark, his hand instinctively shooting up and out, wrapping around a length of pipe.
"Would be nice 'iffin' it had a point on it girl," he growled.
"Can the Jack or the Riddick find nothing to be please about!" She snapped, rolling out of the reach of a flying tentacle and then on her feet once more she side stepped another pinning it to the ground as she rammed a length of pipe through it.
"Aha!" Jack called triumphantly holding up a dripping weapon, followed quickly by, "Ahhhh!" As the newly arrived Shrill wrapped a tentacle around her waist.
"Shoot!" River screamed at her, ripping her pipe back up from the ground she spun in towards the creature low, dodging and ducking through the tangle of tentacles, she leapt up, her leg kicking out high, she landed spinning, using her momentum to carry her strike she drove the length through the creatures spinning core.
"Beautiful, beautiful creatures," The anger was gone again from her voice, this time replaced by awe, as Riddick drove his shiv through the center of the Shrill he had been attacking in nearly the same breath as this strange girl.
"Shrill are an exquisite species." Junner agreed.
She put down her glasses and eyed him critically, "I'm talking about the man and his whore."
Junner snorted, "Apparently she is more."
"So so much more," the lady responded eagerly lifting her glasses once more, the explosive detonator forgotten beside her. "I shall have another mounted pair I think."
Jack fumbled with the slimy weapon, firing a shot blindly she felt the ground rush to meet her, letting out a very unkiller-like screech as the severed half of tentacle still wrapped around her stomach twitched, "Ugh, gross, gross." She scrambled to her feet, "River catch!" She swung the gun at the direction of someone better equipped to use it.
River caught the weapon easily spinning around and leveling it on the final wounded Shrill she fired four quick shots, and silence marred only by the heaving breathing of the trio, as they unconsciously gravitated towards one another. The pack was regrouping.
"Bravo! Marvelous! More than I could have dreamed! I sought one artist and I have stumbled on three, Bravo!" The woman beamed breathless. "The expression, the grace, the sheer violence of it. Exquisite."
The trio looked up an odd and nearly identical expression of seething rage mingled with mild humor playing across their faces.
"This is going to hurt," Riddick complained, as River slid the shiv into his palm.
"It is no more than he deserves, he was warned, perhaps next time he will listen."
"You said watch out for the prick of a pin not a goddamn needle loaded with explosives."
"One would think it would be obvious." River retorted.
Riddick growled but was cut off by Jack's hurried whisper, "Will you guys knock this shit off already, either do it or get mounted, but shut the fuck up." Jack whisper yelled at them both having a pretty good idea how Riddick was going to get the charge out of his neck.
"Such a complete and through performance leaves only one question," the lady continued, not having noticed the exchange going on below.
"Got a feeling we're not gonna like it," Jack mumbled, wishing Riddick would just do it and get it over already.
"Have will I ever have you mounted together to do it justice?" The woman smiled as if she was amused by her predicament.
"Fuck you," Riddick spat out as he brought the shiv to his neck and plunged the tip in.
River moved in the same moment taking off at run she leapt gracefully up onto the metal sphere leaning against the ledge, and swung herself up in one fluid movement.
"What?" Panic set in on the woman's smooth face, "What are you doing?" She dove for the detonator, but River fired, a bullet imbedding itself into the chaise.
Riddick tore the charge from his neck, and examined it with an odd detachment.
"Gonna keep that?" Jack made a face.
River leveled her weapon on the woman, "The girl does not approve on attacks against what is hers," She reached forward snatching the detonator and stepping quickly away.
"You bitch! You'll ruin everything," The woman screeched.
River caught a slight movement from the corner of her eye, the shift of the pale man's intention, the slight up tic in his heartbeat, and she spun away, his bullet leaving a smoking hole in the wall behind where she had stood.
"Kill them!" The lady roared, "Now, kill them all!"
Junner fired again, but River was already back over the ledge, a second later, an explosion rocked the ship, "Move!" Riddick barked, stumbling back up to his feet, one hand wrapping around River's arm and the other Jack's as he yanked them both up, the trio disappeared through the newly created door before the smoke had even fully cleared.
"My lady," Junner ventured.
She wheeled on him seething, but her voice remained steady and calm, "We will need to rouse a substantial pursuit force."
"Who?"
That simple question broke what little restraint she had been able to maintain, "All of them!" She roared, "Even the Golls, every man, woman or thing that can hold a weapon! Every last one! Now!" Her heeled foot slamming down on Junner's to drive her point home. "And I want her name."
O0O0O0O0O0
Toombs slipped into the deserted control station, he was by no means a stupid man, greedy yes, and admittedly so, but stupid, definitely not. He knew the upheaval going on across the ship meant somethin' big, he just wanted to know how big before he put his dick on the line for it. Sliding into one of the command chairs, he accessed the main computer files, sorting through all of the recent activity. "All right, what's the big deal?" he muttered to himself as his fingers effortlessly danced across the keypad, "Holy jumpin' Jesus! Oh you bald beautiful bastard, come to Papa," he chuckled bringing up the information on one Richard B. Riddick.
"Toombs!" A rough female voice barked, "What the hell are you doin'?"
"Just gathering some intel."
"Yeah well stow it, we got a couple of runners to bring in, shoot on sight."
"Yes sir," he saluted her back with a smirk, ignoring her answering growl.
O0O0O0O0O0O0
Jayne sat in the mess, deconstructing and cleaning Vera, she didn't really need it, but he needed something to do with his hands, he was restless, and stuck inside his own head, the last place a man like Jayne Cobb would ever wanna be stuck. Cleaning her gave him something to focus on something to keep his head clear, or at least it usually did. Wasn't doing a damn bit of good at the moment. He was used to not understandin' things, he left the thinkin' to everybody else and just shot where they pointed, but he couldn't for the gorram ruttin' hell of it figure out why everybody else didn't see what was right in front of their faces.
He wanted that ten percent bad, and Mal had said he only got it 'iffin' he brought Little Crazy in, problem was he was thinkin' bringin' her in was a little like turnin' her over to the Blue Hands again. Sure Mal and her brother weren't wantin' to put needles in her brain, they just wanted to stick 'em in her arms, it didn't sit right, not one god damn bit of it. He'd turned her in once, and sworn he'd never do it again, all the girl was wantin' was to stand on her own, couldn't fault her one bit. Mayhap her taste in friends was a bit screwed, but hell he was pretty sure the little bit was just as dangerous as Riddick, kinda made sense they'd find each other in a weird twisted kinda way, 'iffin' ya squinted your eyes and cocked your head to the side.
Jayne figured this was one of the 'moral dilemmas' Book had gone on about, and not for the first time he sorely wished the man was still alive to give him some kinda advice like he'd used to. With a muttered curse Jayne slammed the last piece of Vera back into place and leaned back in his chair, weren't even close enough to WAVE his Ma for advice, which had throughout his life also been his ultimate fall back, when in doubt, ask Ma. At the least she would have sent him a new hat to make him feel better 'bout the whole mess.
He groaned rubbing furiously at his face, they were a day out from Pathos, mayhap a bit less, sooner or later this whole thing was gonna come to a head, 'verse was a big place, but all the places a man like Riddick would run to lay low were all the places Serenity did business in, eventually they would cross paths, a sick feelin' in his stomach told 'im it was gonna be a lot sooner rather than later, and he wasn't lookin' for to Riddick's reaction when he saw River drop at the sound of a certain phrase Simon had made him practice 'til he could say forward and backwards and spinning on his head. In fact the part of him which had kept him alive a lot longer than most men in his profession told him he damn well better be on the opposite side of the 'verse when it happened, but his gut told him he would be stuck right in the thick of it.
"Ta shi suo you di yu de diao zi de ma! (Whores in hell)," Jayne swore quietly, as he began breaking down Vera once more.
O0O0O0O0O0
'Til After Now.