Chapter 42: Slavers of Kiln
The ambush was quick and sudden, enabling little time to brace for the inevitable capture. Johnny couldn't do anything as he was blinded by a flash, and then restrained by several hands and a sack cloth that tightened over his head, only to be struck unconscious by a blow to the back of his head. It all happened so fast.
Johnny had blacked out from the immediate resulting ambush, which happened to disorient him to an extent. He was still connected to the Swarm, sure, but he himself knew not where he was being taken to. It was a few hours later that he had 'regained' consciousness and came back to existence. It all had been an act to appear weak to his captors, but at the cost of being controlled by the captors that had an upper hand over him. Sadly, he knew not where he was, or where Tak was taken to.
"Hey, this one is coming to." "Get the bag off."
Johnny's vision was filled with bright light once the bag over his head was removed. Once his eyes adjusted, he saw that he was in a rusted pen that was filled with several other gilanians that were chained, restrained, and naked, and also had bags over their heads. Johnny was picked up from the ground by two cloaked thugs and then led out of the rusted pen in a hurried fashion. "Wh... Where am I?" Johnny managed to say aloud.
"Shut up, before I take your head off." One of the thugs warned as Johnny was pulled to a hanging metal table that had chain shackles that hanged on its sides. Johnny was forced onto the table and had his hands, legs and neck cuffed, which prevented him from moving normally. After becoming restrained to the table, it tilted so that Johnny's body would be positioned vertically. "You just sit tight there. Boss wants a word with you."
Johnny didn't say anything. He didn't want his head taken off.
One of the thugs reached into his cloak to fish out a handheld radio. "Boss, that guy that was with your cousin is awake."
[Good. Be right there.]
Several minutes had passed as the two thugs waited for their boss to come. Johnny looked around in his environment and took note of every place he could use to escape the room he was in. The ventilation systems appeared to be the best way to escape unnoticed, but the biggest obstacle happened to be the two thugs that watched over him. However, they caught Johnny looking them over. "What you want, boy? Thinking hard about how to escape?" Johnny didn't answer one of the thugs, simply looking down as they inspected him. The thugs hissed at his non-verbal reply. "Yeah. You better keep your head down, dipshit."
A few more minutes had passed and heavy footsteps began to thunder the walls. A fat gilanian entered into the room, which happened to be more bigger than what Johnny had seen on the video screen, back at the criminal hideout at junction forty-four. Ponpon grumbled as he squeezed into the room and breathed heavy breaths. He used a dry cloth to wipe his chin dry before smiling at Johnny, looking down at him. "So! Ain't you one of my cousin's bodyguards? You don't look like the type."
Johnny shook his head. "No. I'm just a guest in this city."
Ponpon shook his head and chuckled lowly. "An outsider doesn't normally get invited into Citadel Gargantua without a good reason these days. Either she really likes your peens, or you can provide her something she can't get normally."
"Who?" Johnny asked. He knew that Ponpon was referring to Baroness Tak, but he didn't want to implicate her.
Ponpon rolled his eyes and sighed, pulling out a photo of Tak without her yellow scale paint. She looked as though her right eye had been struck, and much of the left side of her face was bruised. "This tart. You know, the one who invited you into her palace? Don't assume that I'm an idiot. Makes me less than cozy to my guests."
"You treat your guests in such a funny way that I don't see the humor in it." Johnny remarked.
"Oh hohohoh, stick around for a bit! You'll get the jokes if you listen to them long enough." Ponpon said, laughing. He straighten his face after his laugh. "But I want to know why she wants an empire-tainted memory bag. Those things are pricey for a reason, you know. They sell for peanuts to any Golden Star citizen, but can be traded for a fortune in vouchers and water in settlements not owned by that emperor guy. That is, if someone can figure out a way to make them work. And from recent news that I had received, she found someone who could do it, since they discovered that her shopping list had some unusual items included in it."
"You know, it's considered rude to spy on a lady. What she does with her time is none of your concern." Johnny said.
"Yeah? Well you're not going to have the right to say that anymore. Get the slaver in here." Ponpon said, turning to the thug next to him.
The thug nodded and left the room. Minutes later, a gangly gilanian with a surgical mask and a sterile white doctor's coat pulled a cage into the room. The cage looked like it closed around a gilanian in a mold, similar to an iron maiden, except that it was designed to contain a gilanian while exposing their scales. Ponpon had a sadistic smile spread across his face. Johnny was sighing, shaking his head. "Listen. That's not going to work."
"I ain't gonna turn you into a slave, if that's what you mean." Ponpon said, helping the gangly gilanian with his tools that consisted of several kinds of branding irons and self-heating chains. "This will be more in line to a torture for information, rather than a full-conversion into a slave. An interrogation, if you will. After I'm done with you, you'll be permanently marked as those lesser than society itself. And to top it off, if you are not under the care of a slave-master, then by law, you will be put to death on sight. Usually, the slave conversion process is done all at once to save time, but I like to do it slow."
Ponpon took a self-heated branding irons as it became red in color, and approached Johnny with it. Johnny looked up at the giant fat gilanian, staring intently. "... If you stick that on me, I will do everything in my power to make you regret your decision. To put it simply, I have powerful friends that wouldn't bat their eyes when they flay your skin from your body, and tear out all of your organs while you're still alive. I am going to give you one chance to set things right. Let me and Tak loose, and things don't have to get any worse. We'll even buy the memory bag from you and we can forget all of this ever happened. What is your decision?"
Ponpon stared intently back at Johnny for several seconds, fueled by the amusement provided by him. A sizzling sound was heard as Johnny felt pain upon his left arm. "You are in no position to threaten me, boy."
Johnny didn't blink as the self-heated brand sizzled at his scales. The damage done to the surface of his scales on his forearm was tolerable, but Johnny had to retain the appearance of a blackened scar on his arm. Zerg regeneration could remove such an injury within seconds, but Johnny needed to appear as a convincing gilanian citizen. He might be stronger than the average gilanian, but he was not as tough as one. Johnny didn't flinch or blink as his disguised skin was seared.
"... My my my, you're a tough one. I can see why Cousin Tak would like you." Ponpon said, raising an eyebrow.
"And I can see why people call you the 'Gentle Giant'." Johnny replied with sarcasm.
Ponpon chuckled. "Ey now! Just because I'm a lover that loves to eat, doesn't mean I'm not above certain urges and desires."
"Well you know how it goes with giants. The bigger they are, the harder they fall." Johnny deadpanned to Ponpon.
"Last time I checked," Ponpon said, going for another branding iron and inspecting it. "I'm the one with the branding irons, and you're getting branded." He placed another brand onto Johnny's scaly skin on his right arm, making it sizzle under the heat. Ponpon retracted the branding iron to inspect his work. "... Nothing still? Shit, you must be a tough cookie if you hadn't started squealing right now. My cousin, on the other hand, starts bawling if she gets so much as gets a paper-cut."
"Pain is an illusion." Johnny said. "If you can recognize what it is, you can shut it out of your mind. And my mind is disembodied from my vessel. No matter how much pain you force into my body, it will never affect me."
Ponpon huffed as he applied another brand onto Johnny's forehead. Again, Johnny stared daggers at Ponpon with an unflinching gaze. "... Well, I can tell that this is getting us nowhere." He said after he placed the branding iron down and choosing another one. Before he applied the next brand, he started to yawn. "Actually, let's continue this another day."
"Y-your leaving?" Johnny questioned.
"Of course I am. Bout time I get some dinner in me and go to sleep anyway. Since you'll be stuck here till morning, I'll shut the lights off on my way out." Ponpon said, setting the branding irons down and getting ready to leave.
"Leave the light on, please." Johnny asked quickly.
Ponpon turned around. "... Afraid of the dark, are we?"
"... N-n-no, of course not." Johnny replied.
Ponpon smirked as he reached over to a light switch and flicked it down.
"W-w-will you please turn that back on?!" Johnny shouted in a higher note to his voice, as he noted that the room was so much darker than before.
"Ahhh... You may not be susceptible to pain, but it seems like you're afraid of the dark." Ponpon said with a grin. "You two, turn off all lights in this room. Even if it so much as blinks."
As the two thugs went around the room unplugging things, Johnny convincingly tried to get out of his restraints. "Wh-what?! No! Don't do this! Please! Leave a damn light on!"
As the thugs went from one light to another, turning them off as they reached them, Ponpon chuckled. "I might leave a light on if you can tell me something good."
Johnny paused. "... Wh-what do you want me to tell you?!"
"Tell me if you know how to hack into a memory bag, and make a manifestation altar to produce an unlimited amount of water and food?" Ponpon asked.
"... Go to hell." Johnny replied.
Ponpon sighed. "Damn. Well... Goodnight. Let's leave him here, boys." He said, gesturing for his thugs to leave the room and closing the door that contained the last light source that filled the room.
"NOOOOOOOOO, DON'T DO THIS YOU FUCKING FAT ASSHOLE! I'LL TELL YOU WHAT YOU NEED, JUST PLEASE LEAVE THE LIGHTS ON! DON'T LEAVE ME HERE ALONE! NO! COME BACK HERE YOU FUCKING DOUGHY DOUGH-BELLIED INGRATE! TURN THE LIGHTS BACK ON OR I WILL MAKE YOU SUFFER FOR YOUR MISTAKES! COME BACK! COME BACK! COME BACK, PLEASE! DON'T LEAVE ME!"
"I'll get back to you in the morning." Ponpon said. "Maybe then you'll think twice before you insult your captor."
"YOU FUCKING LOWLIFE! IF I EVER GET OUT OF THIS, I WILL COME FOR YOU AND GOUGE OUT YOUR EYES! MY FRIENDS WILL REMOVE YOUR MARROW FROM YOUR BONES! THEY'LL STAB YOUR FAT ORGANS OUT USING PIECES OF YOUR OWN RIB-CAGE! THEY'LL THROW YOU INTO A PIT FILLED WITH PAIN AND DESPAIR! YOU WILL WISH FOR DEATH ONCE THEY GET THEIR HANDS ON YOU! YOU HEAR ME, YOU OBESE BUTTER-BALL OF CHOLESTEROL?! I WILL MAKE SURE THAT YOU WILL REGRET EVER PISSING ME OFF! MY FRIENDS WILL SWARM THIS PLACE AND MAKE YOU KNOW MY FURY AND HATRED! YOUR HIDEOUT WILL FALL LIKE A HOUSE MADE OF PAPER CARDS AGAINST THE MIGHT OF A HURRICANE, AND YOU, YOUR THUGS, YOUR FRIENDS, AND EVEN WHATEVER THE FUCKING HELL PASSES AS YOUR GODDAMN FUCK-BUDDY, WILL KNOW TRUE TERROR WHEN THEY COME! AND THEY WILL COME! THEY WILL COME AND FIND ME! THEY WILL COME AND DEVOUR YOUR FLESH AS PENANCE! PONPON, THE GENTLE GIANT, THEY ARE COMING FOR YOU! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING!"
Next day, during the night
"-THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING!"
"Ugh. Doesn't this fucking asshole ever shut up?" A thug said, standing next to the door that he was supposed to watch over.
"THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING!"
"A persistent psychophant, this one. You'd think that his voice would have given out a while ago, considering how loud he's shouting?" Another thug said, positioned next to the door on the other side of the entrance as well.
"THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING!"
"Well if he doesn't shut up in the next hour, I'm going to shove a sock down his throat."
"THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING!"
"Do you think he's telling the truth? Did he contact some backup that we didn't know about?"
"THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING!"
"I think he's bluffing. No way he would be important enough. We already patted him down for any tech he might be hiding, and the micro-machine detector said he wasn't from the Empire. Loud-boy here's just wasting breath."
"THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING! THEY ARE COMING!"
"Well I hope our rotation gets here. I'm looking forward to the nap I'm taking after this."
"..."
Both of the thugs looked behind themselves to look at the door they were supposed to guard. After several seconds of contemplation, one of them decided to reach into their cloak and fetch a handheld radio. "Our guest finally stopped shouting."
[About fucking time!] Ponpon growled from the radio. [I could hear his voice all the way from my bedroom. Who shut him up?]
"No one did, boss. He was shouting about some guys coming, but he went real quiet all of a sudden."
[Hurh... Better check up on him.]
The thugs sighed as they went to the door and slowly opened it. After it was opened, they flicked the light switch to the on position to brighten the room up. However, instead of finding Johnny shackled to the uncomfortable and vertically tilted table, they found a thug that was shackled to the table instead, while a ventilation shaft that was deprived of the ventilation grille was opened wide enough to let a flying animal fly inside the vents. The thugs paused for several seconds before responding to their boss. "Uh... We have a problem."
[Did he kill himself?]
"No. He escaped."
[WHAT?! What can you see?]
"I see one of our guys has been knocked out and was forced to take the place of the prisoner. The ventilation vents have been pulled off, so I'm gonna assume that our captive hightailed it out of here through there."
[One of our people is in there on the table? How did he get passed you?]
"I don't know. We were stationed at the door the whole time. No one went through during our guard duty time."
[Gragh! Do you know who the guy on the table is?]
The thug talking to Ponpon walked up to the shackled thug to inspect him. "Uhh... Nope, I don't."
[Check his arms and forehead. Does he have slave brands?]
The thug checked. After carefully looking, he reported back. "... Nope, no slave brands."
[Get him off the table and wake him. I'm coming over there.]
The thugs groaned as they went to the vertical table and righted it right-side-up, and they prepared to loose the unconscious thug.
Ponpon grumbled as he stomped his way to the slave-conversion room that once contained his guest. Johnny's yelling continued on for several hours, and his loud shouting had kept him awake during the whole time he tried to sleep. He could have used an extra set of pillows to cover his ears and be able to sleep that way, but then he would be drowning out other sources of sound as well. Ponpon knew well to sleep with one eye and one ear open. Due to him being the boss of this 'mercenary' group, he needed to be aware of his surroundings, and aware of the politics that ran Kiln. It's how he stayed alive for so long. But since Johnny was keeping him up that night, he figured that he will kill his 'guest' personally to finally get some shuteye afterwards.
He turned a corner and went down the hallway for several feet before stopping. Ponpon thought he saw something wrong when he saw two thugs stripped of their equipment and clothes and lying on the ground in puddles of red blood freshly forming beneath themselves. Ponpon sighed heavily, reaching for his own personal handheld radio. "Attention, Spiker Titan Mercenaries. This is Gentle Giant Ponpon, and I am raising an alarm. My cousin's friend has killed two schmucks, Poffer and Gackis in case you were wondering, that were supposed to keep him secure. But instead, they have ended up as dripping floor meat. The corpses' gear and clothes are missing, so I can only assume that my cousin's friend has made off with their gear, possibly disguised as one of you. The ass-hat somehow distracted them with another one of you thugs, but I don't see him around anymore. Assume that one among you is the disguised escapee, and that another guy in our ranks is assisting him. The guest has been partially branded with three slave brands on his arms and on his forehead, so check each other's faces and arms for any brands. If you don't comply, we're going to assume that you're that escaped jag and you'll be shot on site. To the asshole that is assisting the escapee, know that I'll find out who you are and I'll make damn sure that all of your blood is siphoned through the water filtration unit. That is all."
[Spy check!] [Roger, boss. Shaking down now.] [Uh... Boss? Whut we do if sum of us already have slave brands?]
"Can't take any chances." Ponpon replied. "If you find anyone in mercenary gear that has slave brands on them, shoot them down without hesitation."
Immediately, the insides of the building that belonged to the Spiker Titan mercenaries went into lock-down. Everyone that wore a cloak, or dressed as one of Ponpon's cronies, were patted down and inspected. All gilanians that had slave brands branded onto their arms and forehead had tried to escape from the building, but were quickly stopped with bullets, and those that tried to hide were easily discovered. Many minutes of time had passed as the thugs calling themselves 'mercenaries' checked each other and gunned down those they found suspicious.
But Johnny was a clever changelisk.
Once he ambushed the two thugs that guarded his room, he had bled the bodies and removed them of their equipment. The opened ventilation shaft was only meant to be a distraction to confuse the thugs, and disguising himself as one of them was yet another distraction that was meant for Ponpon. And since Johnny could heal and remove the scars left behind by a branding iron, he could mingle with the mercenaries unabated. But that wasn't the whole plan.
Once Johnny had killed both of the thugs that checked up on him, he had taken their equipment, used one of their cloaks to make a makeshift bag to hold the clothes and gear he would need, and then entered into the ventilation shaft while pulling the cloak/bag with him. As of then, Johnny had the whole ventilation system to travel within, and he would use the ventilation system to map out the entire building he was in. With any luck, he would find Tak and assist her in escaping from the building they were trapped in. Johnny was unsure if he, or Tak, was still in junction forty-four, but he had other resources that he could draw upon. Namely, another ally that no one would have ever expected. One that was right below the mercenaries' very noses.
Or more accurately, right under their feet.
A/N: ... You know, I had named this chapter 'Black Market', but the previous chapter was named 'Slavers of Kiln', which kind of makes the chapter titles a little confusing...
... You know what? I'm switching the titles after this chapter.