Universal DOOM

by ImpulsiveWeaver

After being cast away by Samuel Hayden, the Doom Slayer winds up on an adventure through multiple universes and meeting those who have their own issues with the denizens of Hell. Crossover between Doom (2016) and any horror/supernatural movies/books/stories that I include. Feel free to request any movie, book, or franchise you want to see. Cover art by JakeBurner on DeviantArt!

37. Bulletstorm

Bulletstorm

A/N: I'm back again! This time, I've got the Doom Slayer and co. arriving in the shooty world of Bulletstorm, and I think they might find themselves right at home in the planet of Stygia. Enjoy! Remember that I own nothing!

Despite the roar of gunfire and screaming of both man and mutant-man alike, the signature sound of an instinct leash arcing through the air could still be heard. The hard light that constituted the leash was a fierce and prominent blue, doubling as a profound influence on both eyes and ears as its distinct crackle thundered across the battlefield. The wielder of the leash, a Final Echo soldier clad from head to toe in the finest tactical gear the Confederation of Planets had to offer, was currently using the weapon to grab a hold of an unfortunate Skull Gang member by his ankle and hurl him sideways and over the edge of a cliff. The Skull bellowed the whole way down, but the soldier paid the psychotic screams no mind. For wherever one Skull went, ten to twelve more were not far behind.

Sure enough, just as the Final Echo soldier turned, more Skulls emerged from the twisted metal and junk piles that covered the once lush tropical paradise of Stygia, their bloodlust driven not so much by the loss of a comrade, but by the flesh beneath the Final Echo soldier's armor. The cannibals knew that unlike the other humans or near-humans found on this planet, the soldier probably ate well, meaning that his body would be nothing short of a feast for the members of the Skulls if they were to bring him down. The soldier could practically see the cannibals salivating beneath their crude helmets and junk armor, and his response was to sneer beneath his own helmet and open fire on these crude barbarians. In his mind, there was no greater favor he could do for these animals than put them six feet under.

Raising his rifle, the Final Echo soldier began killing off the skulls as they swarmed towards him, picking each one off with practiced precision that came with the elite training he'd been given. The malnourished cannibals spent their last moments hungry, as a few of them didn't even have the time to draw their own weapons before they were quickly disposed of. With a fair amount of screaming and gurgling, the Skulls all finally fell silent, but unfortunately for the soldier, his moment to relax had not yet come. Just as the last Skull died, a far more distorted and feral war cry echoed from somewhere close, and from over the top of a nearby junk heap, a humanoid with no skin emerged, its body instead covered by a twisted gnarl of sickly orange muscle. Its yellowed eyes focused on the lone soldier, and upon seeing its prey, its exposed teeth began to chatter with animalistic anticipation. Like the Skulls, this former human had food on its mind, but its allegiance was to another gang that warred for resources on this barren planet. A gang of mutants that hated the Skulls almost as much as the Skulls hated them, a gang with far more savage tendencies than their human counterparts, with a name fit for a band such as them.

"Creeps…" the Final Echo soldier spat with contempt.

As agile as they were ugly, the Creeps were a direct result of what happened when the human body was forced to spend a prolonged amount of time in direct contact with hazardous toxic material, warping their minds to insanity and giving them a body to match. The Final Echo soldier was receiving up close and personal instruction on how deviant the Creeps were right now, as now they began to rise up from all directions and close in upon the sole human.

Realizing that the Creeps were attempting to flank him, the soldier threw his back against a large mountain of rubble and opened fire. He was able to drop a few of them before a high caliber round struck the rubble just a few centimeters right of his cranium.

Instantly, the soldier ducked low, simultaneously activating his leash and pulling the wreckage from a small airship in front of him as makeshift cover. Inwardly, he was seething with the knowledge that the Creeps had brought snipers, but in truth, he knew that he should have expected it from the start. If there was one thing that those mutie' freaks did right, it was long range warfare. And now, the lone soldier was now within the scopes of likely two or more Creep sharpshooters.

All around the Final Echo Soldier, the Creeps began to rally and fire upon his makeshift cover, drawing closer and growling in those menacing and guttural tones they were so fond of. Gritting his teeth, the Final Echo soldier's mind raced to concoct a way out of this mess he had found himself in. Unfortunately for him, however, any possible action he could take right now all converged on a single outcome: him being hopelessly and inarguably fucked six ways from Sunday.

Looking up to curse any and all deities that existed above, the soldier suddenly frowned as he watched a dark dot appear against the bleak orange haze that constituted the sky of this planet. The dot itself immediately became a point of interest to the soldier despite the numerous Creeps that were still trying to peel the flesh from his bones, due to the simple fact that it was growing larger by the second. The soldier frowned and prepared to dive away from the impact, but he froze as the dot suddenly changed its trajectory right before crashing directly into the Creep horde on the other side of the makeshift cover. Instantaneously the anguished sound of Creeps being crushed by the impact reached the soldier's ears, and after taking a beat to steady himself, he jumped out of cover, raising his rifle to fire at anything that moved on the other side.

His helmeted gaze held steady as nothing but a cloud of dust could be seen, but the haze only hovered for a brief moment before dissipating, revealing whatever had just squashed the encroaching Creeps.

A twinge of surprise then gave the Final Echo Soldier pause as he saw that it was not a what, but a who. Rising out of a small crater that it had made, a figure donned entirely in a heavy green suit of armor arose from the dust cloud, its helmeted face completely obscured by the opaque visor that it sported. The figure's attention immediately was fixed on the soldier as soon as it could see him, and the Final Echo warrior tensed unexpectedly at its stoic regard.

A sudden snarl filled the air as one last Creep suddenly jumped out from behind an overturned car frame, its gumless maw gnashing with rage and hunger as it discarded its weapon and charged the nameless figure, no doubt frenzied by the loss of its fellow Creeps and eager to tear the one responsible limb from limb. Mucus and spittle flew from its mouth as it bellowed in its charge, but it was immediately silenced upon reaching the figure, whose gauntleted fist promptly smashed into the mutant's mouth at a speed too quick to follow. Teeth and tongue yielded little resistance to the stranger's surprising strength, and the figure's fist only halted its advance upon exiting the Creep's mouth through the back of its head.

The Final Echo soldier's jaw dropped inside his helmet as he struggled to comprehend the picture before him. The armored human before him had just punched through the Creep's head with enough speed and force to completely emerge from the other side, and yet, the overarching skull structure remained remarkably intact, leaving the Creep's body hanging like a limp towel from the mysterious figure's still-outstretched fist, held up only by what little bone and skin remained on either side of where the Creep's lower face used to be.

All of this had occurred within the span of a second, and yet, the figure's faceplate had not turned away from the Final Echo soldier once. It had effortlessly killed the Creep without even looking.

The soldier remained speechless as the figure's arm slowly lowered back to its side, the Creep's lifeless corpse sliding off the blood-slicked gauntlet at last. The sight of the corpse falling to the dirt roused the soldier from his shock, and he retightened his grip on his weapon and leveled it at this sudden newcomer.

One look over this figure's armor told the soldier that this human was not an ally of the Confederation, or at the very least, not equipped like one. Its enigmatic craftsmanship matched no other standard-issue gear found within the Confederation military, and combined with the fact that this person had just deliberately killed a Creep meant that he or she could only be allied with one of two factions. They were either with the Skulls, or those Dead Echo pirates, and knowing that Skulls only used junk armor or stolen Confederation gear, that left only one conclusion.

The Final Echo Soldier grit his teeth with hostility and shifted his stance, ready at a moment's notice to drop the Dead Echo scum where they stood.

"Nice entrance, scumbag. Too bad you won't get a chance for an encore."

The figure eyed the Soldier dangerously, and a metallic but surprisingly pleasant voice spoke up from within the armor.

"I do not understand your hostility. From what I have gathered, our timely entrance eliminated the threat you were under. Perhaps you would not mind filling us in on the reason for your animosity?"

"How about I 'fill you in' with lead until your corpse whistles when the wind blows?" The soldier spat. "You fucking Dead Echo traitors are the whole reason we're stuck on this shithole in the first place. You bunch of lowlife, limp-dick, sacks of—!"

Had the soldier not been so shaken by the stranger's entrance, he would have remembered the snipers that were still focused on his position. Blood sprayed from within his helmet as the high caliber round passed clean through his cranium, killing him before his brain even registered the muzzle flare.

…

The Doom Slayer was already in motion before the Final Echo soldier's body hit the ground. In one smooth motion, the Slayer dropped to one knee and turned his body to face the direction the shot rang out from, drawing his assault rifle and firing a short burst the moment his armored knee touched the dirt.

He heard the second sniper's shot pass directly through the space his head had been less than a moment ago, and he simultaneously saw through the scope of his own rifle the Creep sniper's head erupt violently as his precise shots struck true. Without hesitating, the Slayer's aim shifted slightly to the right to fire again upon the other Creep sniper, who flinched down into cover as a knee-jerk reaction to its companion's blood splattering the side of its face. The Doom Slayer's speed and marksmanship rewarded him with another small blood mist as the bullets just grazed the top of the Creep's head, the mutant's enhanced senses just barely saving it from annihilation.

…

The Creep let out a screech of pain as blood dribbled down from the top of its head. The bullets had broken its skin but had not delivered a vital blow to the bloodthirsty cannibal. The sickly orange fluid dripped down into the monster's eyes, and the enraged humanoid angrily wiped it away with its arm as it hunkered low. In its psychotic mind, the Creep felt the seeds of desperation sink into its being at the speed of the armored gunman. It knew that if it so much as peeked out from behind its cover, it would be dead in a heartbeat. Its contorted muscle structure offered it enhanced agility and reaction time compared to that of a regular human, but whatever was inside that armor was beyond humanity. The thought alone made the Creep shudder and seethe through clenched teeth as it struggled to keep the blood out of its eyes.

Suddenly, a flash of lightning struck the junk-strewn ground in front of the Creep's seated form, causing it to wince in shock as the light temporarily blinded it. A moment of blinking rapidly helped clear the Creep's vision as the light waned, and in its place stood a hellacious-looking canine with jet black fur and glowing amber eyes. The Creep froze at the sight before it, unable to comprehend the creature out of fear and disbelief. Where the hound's fur grew, flames sprouted as well, setting the beast alight and providing a nightmarish ambience to its form. The flames grew larger with anticipation as the hound growled between its skinless jaws, and its dark tongue licked across its razor-sharp teeth in anticipation as its eyes locked in on the momentarily forgotten blood that oozed from the top of the Creep's head. There was a split second of silence, then the hound growled one more time before lunging hungrily for the mutant's throat.

…

The Doom Slayer steadily lowered his rifle as the tormented screams of the mutated human echoed across the planet's disheveled landscape. Upon arriving in this new dimension, both the Slayer and his canine compatriot had materialized far above the planet's surface, letting gravity do the rest of the work in returning them to solid ground. As he had done many times before, the Slayer had been satisfied with landing by way of an uncushioned crash into solid ground, but the hound did not have the physical fortitude to effectively utilize such a method of landing. Instead, the demon dog chose to teleport safely onto the planet's surface below, shortening its time in air considerably and avoiding becoming a smear on the world's hard exterior. It had separated from the Doom Slayer as a result, but their time apart had been short-lived, seeing as they had landed directly on top of whatever conflict this planet had become a part of.

After a spare moment, a flash of lightning in front of the Slayer heralded the hound's return to him. The beast appeared to still be chewing on whatever morsel it had torn from its prey, and with a tilt of its head backward, the hound swallowed its food thankfully, the flames on its fur flaring with predatory delight at having cornered such a substantial meal.

The Slayer acknowledged the predator, then turned to where the now dead Final Echo soldier lay, his hands still grasping the rifle like a lifeline even in death.

"He seemed to associate us with a band of so-called 'pirates'," VEGA mused within his helmet. "He also was quite eager to assign us the blame for his stranding on this planet."

The soldier's disposition towards them before he died harbored little to no concern in the Doom Slayer's mind, as he seemed much more interested in the complex technological gear that the Final Echo soldier had on his left hand. The small piece of tech was obviously of advanced design, and with a negligible amount of force compared to what he usually used, the Slayer tugged the device free from the dead soldier's hand.

"Taking into account the make and design, I deduce that this device interacts with its user on a neurological level and is likely activated and wielded by a combination of physical and cerebral commands."

After a thorough inspection of the device from front to back, the Doom Slayer held the object in his right hand before securely fastening it to the back of his left. The device molded itself to the Praetor Suit almost immediately, and small blue arcs of electricity surged through the Slayer's arm as he connected to the device for the first time. VEGA once again spoke up as the new addition to the Slayer's arsenal finished booting up and linking with its new user.

"It appears that I can interact with this 'leash' apparatus similarly to how I can access the Praetor Suit," he confirmed as the Slayer examined the leash with a practiced eye and a flex of his fingers.

"The technology that it utilizes is quite intriguing, as the interface between neurological activity of the brain and the electrical components within the device itself are surprisingly simple. I believe it will provide us with solid tactical functionality in our future endeavors."

Satisfied with VEGA's analysis as well as his own, the Slayer gestured to the hound with a nod of his head, and the two of them set off across the messy war-torn surface of Stygia, searching for any clue as to what had happened what appeared to be a former utopia.

"I will continue to scan for any data that can further inform us about these 'Dead Echo' pirates the soldier mentioned," VEGA said. "Perhaps they have had a significant effect on the devastation of this world."

…

"Grayson!"

Christ, just hearing the man speak made Gray want to put a bullet between his eyes. The shit-eating grin he was wearing on his face did not help much either.

"General Fuckhead…" Gray growled.

"Awful damn kind of you to aid Trishka in my rescue," General Sarrano continued with mock cheeriness, stepping forward and patting Gray on the cheek as he did so. Sarrano then turned to the woman in question, his eyes briefly looking the Final Echo commander up and down in a manner that was downright creepy at best and straight up perverted at worst.

"Trishka, please show this mutinous pile of excrement our appreciation."

The general then turned his back to them both in a conclusive manner and began surveying the ruined city below him, looking all-too-proud with himself.

"We have something to straighten out first," Trishka replied dangerously, leveling her rifle at Sarrano's back. The general turned back toward her with a mixture of indignation and slight confusion on his face, but mostly indignation. In all honesty, Gray enjoyed seeing the good general like that.

"Did you kill my father?" Trishka seethed, her own anger once again flaring now that vengeance might be finally at hand.

If Sarrano was surprised by the question, he didn't show it. Instead, his scowl deepened, and he placed his hands on his hips in clear annoyance, seemingly not at all worried about the heavy caliber rifle pointed directly at his chest.

"I know fuck all about your father! Grayson here, he's manipulated you!" came his curt reply.

At this, Gray's temper flared as well. All of those years of lies and killing were freshly unearthed upon seeing the general again, and he grit his teeth angrily before raising his own rifle to the general's head.

"Tell her the truth!" Gray barked angrily.

"Put the gun down," came Ishi's serious tone from his right, and Gray glanced sidelong at his partner to see that his rifle had been raised as well, the only difference was that Ishi's was trained right on Gray's head instead of General Sarrano's.

"Are you kidding me!?" Gray asked incredulously. Standing right in front of them was the source of all of their problems and Ishi was pointing his weapon at him ?

"I am not," came Ishi's slow but dangerous reply. "Your righteous indignation has cost me enough."

Gray felt himself hesitate as he scanned his friend's face, or well, what was left of it. Their crash on this world had destroyed almost half of Ishi's body, and in order to save his life, Doc had replaced most of the damaged parts with cybernetics, which also included swapping out a good chunk of his damaged brain with a robot's bioprocessor. Since then, Ishi had been in constant conflict with the bioprocessor's A.I., every second was spent resisting its attempt to overrun his mind.

Looking at Ishi now, Gray looked over the patch job Doc had done. Putting things mildly, it did not look good at all, and Gray still felt an agonizing twinge of guilt and regret when he saw what his drive for revenge against Sarrano had cost. Doc and Rell were both dead, and Ishi was now half-man, half-toaster. Ishi's cybernetic eye glowed a malicious red as he kept his gun unwaveringly trained on Gray and Trishka, and his remaining human eye regarded them just as coldly. Gray knew that it was the bioprocessor trying to take control, but Ishi had grown harder and more distant since the crash, and it felt like a sucker punch to the stomach when Gray realized that he was slowly losing the only friend he had left.

"Sarrano will have an evac jumpship coming for him. I will be onboard, as you promised me," Ishi said with finality, leaving no room for argument.

At this, Sarrano cackled heartily and clapped his hands together.

"Well well! Looks like I got a new best friend!"

That comment alone almost made Gray squeeze the trigger and splatter Sarrano's brains all over the rooftop, but he unclenched at long last and slowly lowered his rifle. He couldn't believe he was doing this.

"Alright, Ishi, a promise is a promise."

Christ, he hoped Ishi realized just how much restraint that took just now. So much so that Gray felt like he might have an aneurysm any second. Ishi kept his rifle trained on him for a moment longer, then shifted his aim towards Trishka, who still had her weapon firmly pointed at Sarrano.

"I am wholly uninterested in whatever bullshit you people have to resolve!" the Final Echo commander spat at the two of them. "And if either of you had a hand in the death of my father, I'll die happy knowing I took you down with me!"

Gray kept his expression neutral. That was definitely going to be a fun conversation later, especially since it had been Dead Echo that had been the ones who had greased her old man, with none other than good ol' Grayson Hunt as their leader. It had actually been the death of Trishka's father that showed Gray and the others what kind of people Sarrano had them hunting. All those bullshit reports of hunting down slave traders and weapons dealers were lies fed to them to cover up the fact that they were nothing more than assassins that killed anyone that got in Sarrano's way. Political rivals, witnesses to war crimes, innocent civilians, and of course, reporters all got added to the pile. Gray had lied to Trishka when she'd asked him earlier if he knew who it was that pulled the trigger on her father, but that secret was gonna get out at some point, and Gray had really hoped to at least not be on the same planet as Trishka when she uncovered the truth.

It was at that moment that Sarrano started to laugh again, and holy hell did Gray want to smash his teeth in.

"Okay, okay, I can see that we're all a bit upset here, but good friends, we have bigger fish to fry right now."

Their conflict briefly forgotten, both Gray and Trishka turned their attention back to the general. Trishka's rifle stayed where it was.

"The corporation that built this putrid mistake resort on this putrid mistake planet has commissioned me, at great cost mind you, to detonate a DNA bomb that will dissolve all life on this mud ball while leaving the city perfectly intact, allowing said corporation to come in and rebuild."

Gray found himself growing increasingly agitated at Sarrano's ever-present tone of condescension.

"Maybe not the best time to bore us to death with your mission deets, Sarrano ," Gray growled.

"Well now, hold your dick for one second you fungal rimjob," Sarrano retorted. "because this said DNA bomb is set to go off in two hours. My rescue squad won't arrive with a jumpship for three hours. Now then, Gray, can you do the math and tell me the problem we face, or are you gonna need some help from Sushi Dick over there?"

Sarrano jerked his thumb in Ishi's direction, and Gray saw his friend bristle at the comment. Ishi's weapon still remained pointed at Triska, who let out an angry sigh of resignation before slowly lowering her rifle.

"He's telling the truth," she said begrudgingly. General Sarrano turned towards her with a shit-eating grin on his face, then quickly stepped forward and gave Trishka a hard push with both hands, throwing her backwards off the rooftop of the seventy-five story hotel ruins they were currently standing on.

Gray's eyes shot open wide as he registered what just happened.

"No!" he shouted as Trishka's scream of surprise and rage began to decrease in volume. "You son of a bitch!"

In a flash, his rifle was pointed back at Sarrano's head, but the general simply smirked and raised his finger in a halting gesture.

"Tut-tut, think for a second, boy. You kill me, no jumpship home, and you both die anyway."

Gray knew that Sarrano was right, but that didn't help much with the urge to hurl the good general over the side of the building as well.

"The way I see it, I just did you a huge fuckin' favor," the general continued in his matter-of-fact tone. "She would have discovered that your Dead Echo squad were the folks what done killed her old man, and it would've had to be you or her walking out of that little confrontation anyway."

The general stepped away and looked to the clouds brewing far on the horizon as the sun began to set.

"Now come on you dandy tarts, gamma storm is a-brewin', and unless you pus-dicks want to enjoy the savory feeling of your own flesh melting off your bones, we need to get to cover, find our way to the Ulysses, and deactivate that bomb."

Sarrano cackled to himself and picked up Trishka's rifle from where she'd dropped it a moment ago, then turned and began striding towards the exit, his cocky self-assured gait enough to make Gray's blood boil. He turned his head to the ledge that Trishka had just been pushed over, listening to see if he could still hear her screaming. Nothing reached his ears.

"Be sensible, Gray," came Ishi's voice, and Gray looked over to see that he had finally lowered his rifle. His cybernetic eye had returned to its usual blue, indicative that he was once again in control of himself, and the metallic echo that was a result of his partially replaced voicebox had subsided, letting the human part of his voice hold dominance.

"We still have the opportunity to get out of here alive."

Gray looked at his friend's face for a long moment, then sighed and started after the general.

"Not so sure I can live with sensible, Ish."

…

Trishka was royally pissed. Falling to your death tended to have that effect on people. The last thing she saw was Sarrano's pervy grin before he pushed her over the ledge of the roof. Next thing she knew, she was tumbling head over heels on a fast track to the pavement. Righting herself in midair, Trishka's eyes searched desperately for anything to help her avoid becoming a puddle on the ground.

"Come on…come on…fuck…fuck… fuck !"

Trishka was about to exercise her entire vocabulary of swear words when her eyes spied a long powerline running adjacent down the building next to her. As she looked, she saw that the powerline ran down the building for just a little bit longer before leveling off to connect to the next building on the street. That was how she was gonna survive this.

Gritting her teeth, Trishka hurriedly removed her belt from her waist and wrapped it around the powerline. The powerline leveled off at somewhat of a shallow angle, but she knew that when it did, the force of the momentum was likely going to dislocate her shoulders. It certainly beat the alternative, however.

Trishka braced herself as best as she could, then let out a shout of frustrated agony as the powerline leveled off, slowing her fall considerably. The next moment was filled with dread as the powerline suddenly snapped, as it had not been designed to handle the weight of an adult woman.

It was at this time that the curses started coming from Trishka's mouth as she spent the last ten feet of the drop in free fall, hitting the ground hard and feeling a sharp spurt of pain as something snapped.

"Gaaargh!" Trishka bellowed out as she rolled to a stop, not daring to move until she had pinpointed exactly what part of her had just been broken. She very quickly discovered that it was actually what parts had been broken, as in plural. Swell.

It was her left ankle and forearm. That was a problem. Actually, that was a huge problem. The forearm might have been manageable, but with her ankle busted, she was going to have some serious trouble getting off this planet, or anywhere for that matter. And even though those two were the only parts that were seriously injured, it didn't mean that everywhere else was hunky-dory either. All of her ached, and though it wasn't a huge priority, Trishka was fairly certain that she'd cracked a few ribs.

With an agonized grunt, Trishka forced herself into a sitting position and scanned her surroundings. Thankfully, there didn't seem to be any enemies around, but that didn't mean there wouldn't be soon. For now, she needed to focus on getting out of the middle of the street.

Just as she was about to move, Trishka was momentarily blinded by a bright flash of light and a loud boom that sounded like thunder. Trishka screwed her eyes shut and looked away, but Final Echo training did not fail her, and she instinctively reached to her hip with her good hand and drew her sidearm, pointing it towards the disturbance. The light faded as well as the noise, and Trishka opened her eyes to see…uh…

"What the hell?"

Before her stood what looked like some kind of weird zombie wolf. Its skinless snout and glowing amber eyes made Trishka think that it was some kind of mutant like the burnouts, but her theory was chucked out the window when she saw that its jet black fur was on fire.

Continuously on fire.

All in all, its appearance didn't exactly help Trishka in believing that this demonic-looking creature had good intentions. It was probably hungry, and it had probably acquired a taste for human meat long ago. Her finger slowly moved towards the trigger on her sidearm.

"I would ask that you please refrain from doing that."

Trishka jolted towards the sound of the sudden voice, her broken body vehemently reminding her that it was still broken. With a hiss of pain, Trishka leveled her pistol at the source of the voice, which had the appearance of some kind of astronaut-soldier hybrid. Their dark green armor was all-encompassing, so Trishka had no way of telling who or what was even beneath it.

"Get back!" Trishka ordered. Shifting herself to fully face the newcomer, Trishka let out another sharp hiss as her broken bones screamed at her. The figure stared back at her, but made no move to increase the distance between them.

"You hearing me? I said get back !"

Once again, the figure didn't move.

"It appears that you are in need of medical attention," the voice from within the suit said instead. "If you would permit us, we can assist you."

"Yeah, fat chance, asshole. Now get back before I put a second hole in your a–!"

Faster than Trishka could react, the armored figure activated a previously unnoticed instinct leash on his left gauntlet. The leach arced through the air and latched onto her sidearm, and before her eyes even registered the light, the figure flicked their wrist back, wrenching the pistol from her hand.

"Hey!"

Trishka's protests were cut short in the next moment as the figure caught the pistol in their hand and crushed it as though it was made of tin foil. Broken pieces dropped to the ground as the figure released the now useless weapon, and Trishka stared wide-eyed at the remains. That was…unexpected.

"If it was our intention to harm you, we would have done so already," the voice said, ever-pleasant despite the tense situation. "The severity of your injuries has left you vulnerable, but we can return you to full physicality as long as you cooperate."

"Look scumbag, I don't even know who the hell you are. So if you think I'm gonna let you do anything with me, then you're dreaming!"

"It is my belief that we can both benefit from assisting you," the voice patiently replied. "We have just arrived on this planet and are looking for clues as to what led to its destruction. In exchange for mending your injuries, we would ask for your assistance in understanding what happened here."

"So I help you, and then what? You gonna wave a fucking magic wand and patch me up, is that it?" Trishka bit back. She was still fuming from having her weapon taken from her. That had been twice today that someone had stolen a gun right from her hands, and it was starting to get really fucking annoying.

"You will be administered an elixir that will greatly accelerate your body's natural healing processes," the voice replied. "It will not be instantaneous, but your injuries will heal in approximately two to three minutes."

There had not been even a trace of sarcasm or humor in that statement, and Trishka sat in an expectant silence for a few moments waiting for the punchline. When none came, she turned her incredulous gaze back to the zombie wolf, taking in the absolute craziness of the current situation.

Just so she had her facts straight: some weird soldier with super strength, an instinct leach, and a pet demon canine was offering to fix her broken bones with some sort of magic beverage that was going to completely mend her body in less than five minutes? Did that sound about right?

No, of course it fucking didn't. None of this was normal. At all. And unfortunately for her, she did not have much choice but to go along with it. The alternative was to maybe get to cover before the gamma storms hit, but then she'd get vaporized when the bomb went off in two hours anyway, and her chance to find out who truly killed her father would be gone. The thought alone pissed her off to no end.

Drawing her knife, Trishka held it menacingly out to the figure for a moment.

"You or your lapdog over there try anything, and I mean anything , and I'll tear your throat out, got it?"

It was an empty threat, and everyone present knew it, but having the knife at least made Trishka feel better.

"Very well," the voice replied. The figure then stepped forward. "We will need to set your breaks before we continue."

"What?! What was all that shit about your 'magical elixir' then?!"

"The elixir only accelerates the healing process. The bones still require proper alignment in order to mend properly."

Before Trishka could protest any further, the armored figure firmly grasped her left arm in their gauntlets and shifted the bone back into place, which prompted Trishka to verbally assault them with every vulgarity under the sun. The figure then also immediately set her ankle afterward, and the only reason why Trishka didn't attempt to stab them with her knife was due to the fact that she lost consciousness for a few moments.

When she came to, the figure produced a blue soda bottle and handed it to her, which she eyed skeptically. She had already figured that the beverage itself would be unorthodox, but this just looked like some kind of knock-off vintage soda. The label read "Quick Revive", and she raised an eyebrow at the stranger who simply stared back expectantly.

"This is it? This looks like something they sell at a fueling station."

"While its appearance may be misleading, its effects are not," came the reply.

Trishka stared back for a moment, then shook her head and popped the cap off the soda bottle with her good hand. With one final glance at the stranger, Trishka took a small swig, her face immediately scrunching up at the flavor.

"Ugh! This tastes like pickled sardines. What the hell is in this thing?"

"I do not know the ingredients, as I did not have the chance to inquire when we received it."

"Great, so I could be drinking bottled sewage for all we know? That's a whole bundle of fun…"

As Trishka took another swig, she began to feel the lingering pains and aches in her body start to fade, and though she should not have been surprised, she still did a double take when she saw her miscellaneous cuts and bruises begin to minimize and disappear. Her forearm and ankle began to tingle as well, and she could feel movement beneath her skin as the bones began reknitting themselves at a supernatural rate. She sat in awe for a small time as the cola did its work, and after a few minutes, she slowly attempted to move her forearm. Apart from some lingering stiffness, the limb was fully restored. A quick check of her ankle yielded similar success, and with a glance at the stranger, she slowly rose from her seated position to her feet. She felt…good.

Looked from the wolf to the stranger, then sheathed her knife and glanced back up to the roof she had fallen from. Shit. General Sarrano and the others had probably already made for the Ulysses crash site, and they had a head start on her. She turned back to the figure.

"Alright spaceman, we gotta move. You wanna full rundown on the world of shit around you? Then you better listen up and keep close."

…

"Keep the pace ya' fruitfuckers! We gotta lot of ground to cover before we hit the underground."

Gray's confusion at the general's choice of destination warred with the spike of anger he felt each time Sarrano opened his stupid mouth, but after a resigned growl, his confusion reigned supreme.

"Underground? What about the Ulysses?"

"Obviously that's our destination, dumbnuts, but the underground is the only way of keepin' clear of those gamma storms. Luckily, we got worker entrances scattered all over this festering rock. The nearest one is in the basement of this building."

Gray examined the decor of the hotel they were currently descending. After leaving the roof, the trio had tracked down a couple of floors and crossed between buildings using a skybridge. This hotel had been very similar to the one they had just left. The evidence of money being thrown around was everywhere. Intricate marble pillars stood cracked and ruined in the hallways, leaving rubble all over the once high-quality carpet that likely carried no less than thirteen different types of STDs.

"Who was working under the city that required so many entrances?" Ishi asked. "Are these workers just another term for slaves?"

The general laughed heartily then.

"Slaves? More like a bunch of convicts and reprobates given a second chance they didn't deserve. Traded their labor for a slightly reduced sentence."

"And what happened to them?"

As if to answer Ishi's question, a sudden war cry rang out from down the hall. The cry was unmistakably human, and emerging from behind once-expensive overturned furniture and upholstery appeared a band of Skulls, likely finding shelter from the storms brewing outside.

Despite their presence, Gray felt a twinge of relief. He'd been itching for something to shoot every since he'd first seen Sarrano again. At least now, he had an outlet.

His rifle was already raised by the time the Skulls noticed them, making his first few shots most effective before they ducked behind cover. Blood sprayed over the carpet as the bullets struck true, and Gray heard the sounds of Ishi and Sarrano following his lead. Similarly to what Gray had seen with the other Skulls he and Ishi had encountered so far on Stygia, these guys had little to no tactical training. The three of them were more for a match than the small band before them, but after just half a minute into the firefight, Gray peeked over his cover to see the doors at the other end of the hall swing open, with two heavily-armored chaingunners appearing from the room beyond. Gray could see lightning flashing from the windows as the gamma storm reared its ugly head at last, which only served to cast the two heavy weapon enemies in an even more intimidating glow.

"Ah, shit! We got heavy weaponry!" Gray called out just as the chaingunners began to open fire on their position. Bullets pelted their cover by the hundreds, and Gray knew that despite the integrity of the fallen marble chunks and metal, they couldn't weather a dual chain gun assault forever.

"Well?! Are you just gonna sit back and announce it all day?!" Sarrano shouted irritably from his own cover over the hail of gunfire. "How 'bout you get to doing the one thing you're good at, boy? Fuck something up!"

Gray once again briefly considered that something to be the general's head with the butt of his rifle, but instead he grunted and peeked ever so slightly out of his cover to gauge the situation. The chain gunners were slowly walking to the front of the Skull formation as they kept up their gunfire, their slow gait a dual result of both their heavy armor and recoil. Gray glanced to the sides of the hall to see a few marble pillars still mostly intact, then smirked as a plan formed in his brain.

"Here goes nothin'..."

Activating his instinct leash, Gray cast the long whip over to the nearest marble pillar, and as soon as it had latched on, Gray gave a big heave with his whole arm. The nature of the leash meant that it amplified his strength as he utilized it, and with an incredibly loud groan, the marble pillar toppled to the floor directly on top of the two chain gunners. A large cloud of dust and debris spewed up from where the pillar landed, creating a boom that rattled the foundations on the hotel.

"Hell yeah! Two for one!" Gray whooped as the leash retreated back into his gauntlet. More gloats of victory were on the tip of his tongue, but they died completely as the dust cloud dissipated, showcasing that the two chain gunners were still standing, more dusty than before, but otherwise unharmed.

"What?!"

Looking down, Gray saw that the pillar had only missed them by a few feet at most. It had fallen directly in front of them. The two armored behemoths shared a glance, then began to whir their weapons up for another salvo when a large rumble sounded from the ceiling. Looking up, Gray saw that the pillar he had just brought down had actually been supporting quite a bit of the upper floor's structural load, a load which was now completely bolstered. The floor above immediately began caving in, and though the debris was still not enough to crush the two heavy gunners, it was the open sky above that was their undoing. With the roof above them now completely open to the sky, there was nothing to shelter them from the storm. In the span of a millisecond, gamma bolts rained down on the two gunners, and Gray heard their muffled screams from their helmets as the radiation easily pierced their armor, frying their external and internal anatomy at the same time. Within moments, the two chain gunners were vaporized, and Gray took advantage of the Skulls' stunned silence to place a few well-aimed shots into their turned heads.

After taking a few precautionary moments to ensure that no more Skulls remained, the trio started forward, sticking to the right side of the hallway to avoid the radiation leaking through the ceiling to their left.

"Exercise caution when near the storm," Ishi warned as they passed close to it.

"Ahh, quit your whinin', Sushi Dick! I trained you better than that. Besides, as long as you got something solid between you and that little cosmic flurry, you'll be fine."

Ishi gave a hard glare in Sarrano's direction, and for the briefest moments, Gray thought he saw a twinge of red in his cybernetic eye.

"And I assume that these gamma storms are the cause of the mutations we've seen on this planet?"

"What do I look like? A fuckin' tour guide? Them slanty devil eyes of yours don't see so good, huh?

This time, Ishi grew visibly angry.

"Another racial slur, and I will hurl you into that storm!"

The good general smirked.

"Weakest bluff yet, you prancin' Geisha…"

"How about you start talkin' about something useful for once, general?" Gray butted in. "Like how did anyone even think it was a good idea to build a resort in the middle of a god damn gamma hazard zone?"

"Gamma filters were destroyed during the worker's revolt, boy," Sarrano quipped back. "Buncha pinko socialist queers thought they weren't being treated fairly. And now look around!"

The general gestured with a broad sweep of his arm to the carnage and forgone resort around them.

"This is what happens when you show a little bit of leniency to fuck-offs!"

"You mean slave revolt, right? All these workers they had working beneath the city were convicts."

"Convicts that were given another chance!" Sarrano continued without missing a beat. "Low-life nobodies who were given a chance to build something for once in their worthless, fuck-all lives and pissed it away!"

Gray grit his teeth as they made their way down to the entrance. The whole story of this god-forsaken place was starting to unravel, and even though he had already figured so, he did not like how the story was going so far.

…

"I am intrigued by the concept of these "Burnouts" you refer to, Commander Novak. You have already informed us that they are humans that have been exposed to high amounts of radiation and have mutated as a result, but remain quite dissimilar to other mutants such as the Creeps that we have already encountered."

"Yeah? Well you'd be the only one interested in seein' more of 'em," Trishka snorted as she led the Slayer and the hellhound through an abandoned building that supposedly held an entrance to the underground. "I'd rather be as unfamiliar with them as I can, preferably a star system or two away."

"Your description of them insinuates that their mutations are far more extensive than that of the Creeps. Is this due to a different form of more potent contaminant?"

Trishka shook her head as though she had wished that was the answer.

"Burnouts are born from the same god-forsaken radiation that the Creeps are…they just been exposed to it for a lot longer. and likely in much higher doses."

A brief glance in the Doom Slayer's direction betrayed no emotion or cue that he was listening save for his silence. In truth, Trishka doubted that this guy really did not miss much, so her conversation with VEGA still likely held his attention. The mention of the Burnouts had piqued VEGA's interest, but Triskha had a feeling that it had been deemed important info by the Slayer as well. Any information that could be gathered on your enemies could prove priceless in the hands of someone like him.

"Either way," Trishka continued. "The origin story of those freak-bags isn't what I'd call family-friendly, but I'm sure you'll be able to see that for yourself shortly."

They had entered the next room, which appeared to be an underground garage or parking area. After a brief sweep, Triska gestured to the far side of the garage, which had a mostly intact lift sitting inconspicuously in the corner. Too large to be a simple passenger elevator, the lift's wide base and high guardrails seemed idea for hauling equipment and heavy tools, which barely surprised Trishka given that this was on of the many lifts on-world that could successfully connect them to the underground, as it had done with so many convicts before.

A quick trip to the other side of the garage found all parties present boarding the lift, with the hellhound giving a hesitant sniff at the shaft that extended far below their feet and into the darkness before fully climbing aboard. Trishka gave the demon-wolf another glare as it sniffed around the small platform, still feeling a slight twinge of bewilderment that something so otherworldly as a hellhound really existed. Maybe it really didn't, and maybe that fish-flavored cola that the Slayer had given her had simply caused her to hallucinate the creature.

That was just wishful thinking, of course, as she hadn't drank the cola until after meeting the hound for the first time, leaving her with a tired sort of resignation that her entire understanding of the known world, or known universe for that matter, had been completely dismantled.

With a firm pull of the down lever, Trishka took her eyes off the hound to glance at the Slayer for a moment before ensuring that her rifle was fully loaded as the lift begrudgingly began to sink down into the shaft.

"Alright you two, er three, I guess…"

The hound seemed to know that she was addressing it, and it turned its head to her as though it was paying attention. Trishka honestly had no frame of reference with devil-canines to guess how much it actually understood what she was saying, but she decided that existential questions such as those could take a backseat for now.

"...we're headed into the real shit now, so I suggest you get your game faces on before one of the fucked up monstrosities down there rips it off ya'."

Neither the Slayer nor the hound seemed shaken by any means to Trishka's warning. Instead, the Slayer produced a pump-action shotgun of his own and began loading shells into it. The hound simply shook its head back and forth a few times as if to focus itself on the task at hand. The ever-present flames on its back grew in intensity by a small amount, a sign that Trishka figured meant it was ready.

Thinking ahead to what they might encounter down there, Trishka frowned as she couldn't quite picture how these two anomalies might act in a fight. She supposed she would find out soon enough.

…

"Behold, the Dirt-Pen, shitheads!"

Sarrano's shit-eating grin was blaring at full volume as he presented the sight to both Gray and Ishi. The lift they had nabbed had finally emerged into a ginormous underground cavern, and Gray felt his eyes widen at the bountiful prison architecture that filled the otherwise empty space. Levels upon levels of cell blocks and administrative buildings had been constructed using the cavern walls as supports, and though they were dwarfed by the gargantuan size of the cavern itself, Gray could tell even at a distance that they were no small-time prison digs. The corporation that had funded this had spared no expense, and apparently no prisoners either. There was enough infrastructure down here to hold the equivalent of three small colonies' worth of convicts. The intimidating sight was solidified even further by the river of glowing green ooze that flowed across the cave floor right through the prison.

"Damn," Gray mumbled aloud. "This is enough for more than a thousand inmates…"

"Twenty-eight thousand, to be precise," the general chimed in.

"And the toxic waste?" Gray questioned, gesturing to the river flowing through the prison yard.

"Byproduct of the city's gamma filters. You know, the ones that protected the population from those big scary storms like the one you just walked through? City officials stored it down here while diggin' up a place to bury it up in the hills.

"Only an irrational lunatic would consider that to be a good idea," Ishi replied curtly.

"Well, they did. And after just a few short weeks of stowing it down here, the yardbirds started getting sick. Started dyin', mutatin' even. So of course, the brilliant little ball-tuggers decide to demolish those pesky gamma filters. No more filters, no more waste, get it?

"Nothing to protect from the storms…"

Sarrano gave a small cackle. "Convict cocksuckers didn't think that far ahead, did they?"

"What else remains down here?" Ishi asked directly.

"Big-tittied blowjob models with yellow fever, the fuck do I know?" Sarrano replied with a roll of his eyes. "Just shoot anything that ain't me or each other. That's all you both are really good for anyway."

Gray ignored the remark and readied his weapon as the lift came to a halt and the guard rails slid back. Whatever was down here he was ready for it…

…and it was a good thing he was because they had not made it more than fifty feet through the cavern before Burnouts were upon them.

Mutated to the point of being charred black, their large and warped bodies made them nearly as agile as the creeps and three times as strong. As a price of their mutation, however, their minds had completely succumbed to their animal instincts, making them mindless and bloodthirsty monsters that would tear the head off of anything that wasn't them. Luckily, their mutations were highly unstable, giving them bloated and volatile pus sacks all across their anatomy that, if ruptured, would tear them in half if one were to get a lucky shot into it. And Gray took full advantage of that knowledge by easily picking off the first unlucky ones with a few minimal bursts from his rifle. Fortunately enough for them, the pack of Burnouts they encountered was relatively small, and they got through them easily enough.

"Ah, good to be back in the shit," Sarrano cockily gloated to himself. "Don't you two worry, you're back in Papa's care now."

"Stuff it, general," Gray grumbled as they climbed a set of stairs and onto a large balcony that overlooked the heavily fortified prison yard. "Or someday very soon, someone is gonna shut you up for good.

"Oh? And I bet you'd just looove to be that special someone wouldn't you boy?" Sarrano taunted. "Oh I bet your hairy asshole is just puckered with anticipation about the perfect moment when you can deliver sweet retribution, isn't it? Well guess what ya' scum-suckin preemie baby? You can't lay a single finger on my beautiful head, or your buddy over there–"

The general was immediately cut off as a Burnout that had been hiding behind the corner jumped out and tackled Sarrano over the balcony and down into the prison yard. Gray's hand lunged out to grab the general none-too-gently before he tumbled over, but his fingers closed around thin air at the last second as both Sarrano and the Burnout fell into the enclosed yard below. Both hit the ground with a solid thud, and before the Burnout could rise to charge once more, the general had leveled his rifle and successfully fired a controlled burst right into a pus-filled pocket on the beast's shoulder. The force of the explosion ripped the Burnout's torso clean from its body, and neon red blood sprayed everywhere as the pieces twitched and then fell still.

Once the general was sure it was dead, he coughed twice and slowly rose to his feet. Both Gray and Ishi looked down as he sneered back up at them.

"Yall ain't shit for coverin' corners!" Sarrano barked up at them. "Anyhow, get your candy-lickin' asses down here and open the door!"

As if by some delayed response, Gray turned his head to the sound of more Burnouts arriving on scene. Together, the monsters congregated outside the reinforced door to the yard, banging against the metal with fierce abandon that left an additional dent each time their large mutated fists struck.

"Balls!" Sarrano cursed as he saw the dents appearing on the other side of the door. "You two lollipops hurry up! Bad trouble is a knockin'!"

"There is a passage that leads down to the yard up ahead," Ishi noted. Gray wordlessly nodded, and the two of them started down the hallway, listening to the mutated cries of the Burnouts converging outside the general's temporary prison.

"Spent the last ten years dreaming of murdering Sarrano," Gray grumbled as they walked. "Now I got the golden opportunity right here in front of me and I gotta piss it away…"

Gray noticed that despite the fact that Sarrano was their only ticket off this rock, neither of them seemed to be in a hurry to save him from the Burnouts below. It didn't really take a genius to understand why.

"You could have killed him, Gray. You had opportunities," Ishi remarked.

Gray glanced sidelong over at Ishi, once again feeling the pang of guilt that came with seeing his only friend left in the world half converted into a mess of machinery.

"I gotta get you out of here, Ishi. I gotta undo some of my mess."

Ishi was quiet for a moment, then he looked back at Gray.

"Those many years ago, after we discovered the truth about Sarrano, we could have disappeared into the outer quads, hidden and been safe."

Gray gave a hollow laugh at that.

"But I dragged you all to the far reaches of the known galaxy huntin' the good General. Yeah, I know, Ishi."

"I don't think you do."

Gray paused for a moment to see Ishi meeting his eye. The two of them had stopped walking for a moment.

"Your thirst to murder Sarrano for his crimes was never about revenge, it was a righteous mission to avenge the many innocents he used us to kill. You lead us on a quest for atonement. A chance to reclaim our souls. I always knew I would likely die for this pursuit.

Hearing Ishi describe his actions in such a way could almost be considered humorous, as no one that had ever met Gray would ever describe any of his actions as "righteous".

"You think too highly of my motives, Ishi."

Ishi ignored his comment.

"No matter what happens, no matter what I say as I lose possession of my mind, know this: you are my brother, Gray. I followed you of free will, and I do not hold you accountable."

Gray was stunned. He had no idea where all of this had come from just now, but he couldn't help but feel like some of the crushing burden he had been carrying was lifted from his shoulders at hearing Ishi speak just now. For the briefest of moments, it had seemed like the good old days, back when Rel and Doc were still alive and Ishi didn't sound like he was speaking through a desk fan. Seeing as how they were taking a moment to be open with each other, Gray spoke something that had been on his mind since way earlier that day.

"You remember the Novak job, Ishi?"

"How could I forget? It was the start of all of this, the day we discovered Sarrano's crimes."

"Yeah…Trishka was the little girl that was there that day. Novak's own daughter. And I failed to stop Sarrano from killin' her."

Both organic and cybernetic eyes alike widened with Ishi's reaction to the news.

"I…I had no idea," Ishi admitted, his human side holding clear dominance as his surprise overpowered the bioprocessor for the time being.

"Yeah well, first thing's first, Ishi. We're gonna get to that jumpship. But once we do…"

"...we'll scalp that motherfucker," came Ishi's passionate reply. He gave Gray a knowing nod, then turned to continue down the hallway.

"For Trishka."

…

At that current moment, Trishka's entire definition of the word "brutality" was being rewritten. She had joined the Confederate army as soon as she was old enough to enlist, had endured the most grueling and cutthroat training that the Confederation of Planets had to offer, had graduated top of her class with perfect scores across physicality as well as marksmanship and tactics, and had executed over twenty-five successful missions as a Final Echo Squadron Commander, the most elite of the elite. Up until now, she had been fairly certain that she had a grasp on what true brutality was.

Unfortunately for her, the Doom Slayer, his A.I. companion, and his vicious hellhound seemed to be more comfortable with what she would call brutality squared .

They had encountered a rather sizable nest of Burnouts just shortly after arriving underground, far more Burnouts than Trishka thought a two-man fireteam could handle. She had immediately attempted to retreat and find a way around, but the Slayer had vetoed that idea by charging headfirst into the enemies. Literally, he had leashed the first Burnout he laid eyes on and had headbutted it in midair so hard that its upper body had exploded into no less than five pieces.

Trishka then watched dumbfounded as the Slayer and his hound called upon whatever arcane strength they possessed to annihilate the Burnout presence. It had been nearly a blur to Trishka as the Slayer started into his enemies, driving forward instead of seeking defensive cover in an all-out attack against the mutants. For as strong as he was, his aim was twice as good. Every single time that shotgun kicked in his hands, it killed something. Sometimes it killed more than one thing in a single shot, but it never missed.

The hound was no different. The wolf-demon moved at a supernatural speed through the Burnout horde, sinking its teeth into the sensitive flesh pockets and initiating the chain reaction that would cause the Burnouts to blow up. Despite the fact that they exploded with the hound's jaws still firmly clamped to them, the bursts of blood and gore did not deter the hound at all. In fact, it only seemed to increase its appetite, and soon, its formerly bone white snout was dyed a deep neon red from the blood, casting an even more sinister aura about the creature as it attacked.

In tandem, the Slayer and the hound worked as though this was where they were most comfortable, on the battlefield slaughtering enemies by the dozens in an overwhelming show of force. And by the time Trishka shook herself from her stupor to join in the battle, the Burnouts had almost been entirely wiped out.

A few shots from her own peacemaker dropped the last Burnout before the hound had a chance to pounce, leaving the battlefield silent for a few moments as the Slayer wasted no time in kneeling down to examine his fresh kills. The hellhound also showed interest in the corpses as well, though only to tear large chunks of flesh off the remaining legs and torsos for a quick meal. It didn't seem like the beast was a picky eater.

The group started off once more after a few moments, Trishka leading them utilizing her memory of the maps and terrain that Final Echo had received in their initial briefs before arriving on this planet. The Slayer and the hound followed alongside, the journey suddenly seeming relatively mundane after the Burnout massacre they had just partaken in. The ironically deafening silence pulled Trishka into her own thoughts, and try as she might to focus on revenge for her father, questions continued to build up unanswered in her mind. Eventually, her curiosity overcame her desire to remain silent.

"Alright, start talkin'. Where the hell are you guys from anyway? Am I looking at some kind of mad scientist's experiment gone wrong here?"

"I do not know the origins of the hellhound, Commander Novak. However, a failed genetic experiment is a possible theory as to the creature's existence. The true origins of the Doom Slayer are largely unknown as well. In contrast, I was created by a man named Samuel Hayden to facilitate the effective operation of a research facility on Mars. Though it is not the Mars that you know."

"What does that even mean?"

"The Mars that both myself and the Doom Slayer met on is within a different dimension. Another alternate universe that exists separately from yours. Are you familiar with multiverse theory?"

"I'm familiar with stomping some geek's brains out at a bar after he told me that every possibility exists due to it, including one where we ended up back at his place. Does that count?"

"To an extent, yes. Multiverse theory suggests that alternate worlds coexist simultaneously in separate spaces. Each dimension can have only slight differences than the next, or it may be extensively dissimilar. The Slayer, the hellhound, and myself all originate from dimensions alternative to this one. It is also theorized that there exists an infinite number of these alternate universes, which also suggests that every possible outcome and setting is valid, just in a different universe."

"Christ, that's convoluted," Trishka said with an annoyed shake of her head. "So…what? You're all from the dimension where soda acts as a miracle cure and dogs are on fire?"

"The hellhound and the Perk-a-cola both originate from a different dimension than myself and the Doom Slayer."

"Seriously? You're not even from the same one? Do you just hop around dimensions like a goddamn stroll in the park?"

"Unfortunately, our means of traveling across dimensions is uncontrollable at the moment. We are unable to choose our destination when we initial the sequence. Our current plan is to continue traversing alternate universes until we return inadvertently, or until we find a dimension with the means to send us back to our origin."

"If that's the case, then why even bother sticking around here?" Trishka snorted with a hint of distrust. "This obviously isn't your home, so why not just warp out when you realize you're in the wrong place?"

"There exist instances where we have done exactly as you say, Commander Novak. However, if there is discord or otherwise a situation that we may assist with before departing, we will intervene until the situation is under control."

Trishka shook her head.

"Right, keep going like that, and you'll never get home. You just told me that there's an infinite number of these dimensions, right? That's a lot to comb through for something that can send you back. Paired with the fact that you're making pit stops along the way? Good luck with that."

"I am unable to accurately estimate the length of time that will pass before our return, Commander Novak, but it is fortunate that our lifespans can accommodate…"

"Ok," Trishka cut off with a dismissive wave of her hand. "If you're gonna pull out some shit about you two being centuries old or something then forget about it. I think I've put up with enough reality-shattering crap today, so quit shovelin' it."

The Slayer turned his head toward her for a moment, then fixed his helmeted gaze back on the path in front of them. If VEGA had been offended by her comment just now, he gave no sign of it.

"Very well. I believe our initial conversation regarding these Burnouts was interrupted by their attack. I believe you were nearly to the point of explaining their origins, Commander Novak…"

…

With a final smash of a button, the lift slowly began to rise, and Gray felt overwhelming relief at finally getting out of the underground. After they'd managed to save Sarrano again from the Burnouts they'd continued through the tunnels with minimal resistance, walking quickly and adhering to the good general's foul-mouthed directions on where to go. According to him, the Ulysses would only be a short walk away from where the lift let them out, and the radiation storm should be well past by now.

"Finally getting away from that toxic goo," Gray mused. "Guess we know what twisted those inmates up."

Sarrano's laugh came like nails on a chalkboard to Gray's ears.

"You don't know shit all! You're killin' up Confederate citizens, boy! After the convicts started their own revolt, the tourists that missed the evac ships all congregated down here to hide from the rampaging prisoners topside. Real darn shame that they had to be all cooped up down here with nothin' but irradiated food and toxic air to breathe, ain't it?"

The realization hit Gray in the gut like a punch. All the Burnouts they'd been fighting down here hadn't been an extra mutation of Skulls and Creeps, it'd been the vacationers that had come to this planet. All the people had no choice but to hide from the gangs if they'd hadn't been able to make it off-world when the uprising happened, so they'd hidden in the underground prisons around the planet. And the goo…it had mutated them far worse than it had the inmates…

"Jesus…"

Sarrano's hollering laughter grew even louder.

"Might've been some kindly school teacher, maybe a mother of three you just gutted back there? Ha! I sure as hell wouldn't be surprised!"

"You should learn to better hide the elation in your voice," Ishi remarked dangerously as the lift came to a stop. After departing the lift, the three of them emerged into what appeared to be a commercial business building, or at least, what was left of it. Instead, most of the infrastructure in at least a square mile had been utterly destroyed, and one look at the center of it all left no doubt in Gray's mind as to what had done this.

"Look at her! Just look at what you treasonous sons of whores did to my baby!"

The Ulysses lay before them, scorched, torn, and still on fire in some places as it sagged like an empty husk into the Earth. Even as it was, Gray still marveled at the size of the battlecruiser, the armaments and crew requirements had made it the crown jewel of the Confederation fleet, and now it was worthless.

"Alright, there she is," Gray conceded. "Let's get in there pronto and get this bomb disarmed. Sarrano! What kind of clock we running?"

"One that has just recently been fucked in the face, you shit whistlers! We get in there now, or—"

"Everyone dies," Gray replied sarcastically as they closed in on the Ulysses. "We know."

"Yeah, and you know what? My crew is already dead, aren't they? Dead on account of Grayson Hunt. You're free to add mass murder to your rap sheet now, boy!"

It didn't take a genius to see that Sarrano was fuming about seeing the Ulysses like this, and it was unlikely that he was willing to let the subject go. Just Gray's luck.

"What?" Sarrano pushed. "No snappy repartee for me? No smartass back talk?!"

Gray was about to throw out a response when he realized he didn't have one. There really was no excuse for this one. He was undeniably, irrefutably to blame for all of the deaths onboard Ulysses. He'd been so hellbent on revenge against Sarrano that he'd rammed the A-class battle cruiser straight on with their small D-class Spectre, dooming all of them as the ships crashed onto the planet below. This one was on him, through and through.

"In case you need a reminder, Hunt, Ulysses had over seven hundred souls onboard. Here. They. Lie ."

Sarrano gestured towards the destroyed ship as they began to climb the rubble towards one of the hull breaches wide enough to fit through.

"Give it a rest, Sarrano," Ishi snapped. The general ignored him completely.

"These are human beings you killed, Gray. They had families, people countin' on em. How much pain and misery do you reckon you just spread throughout the galaxy?"

"I'd say we've both done our fair share," Gray growled.

"But we ain't talkin about me. We ain't lookin' at the piles of dead folks I killed."

As if to emphasize the general's point, bodies began to enter Gray's field of view. Torn up and beaten corpses of both men and women alike littered the rubble, blood stains darkening the rocks and concrete and deep red splashes.

"You lookin' at em, boy? Some of them are eaten, some mangled and toyed with…guess the Burnouts are here."

"I could use something to shoot," Gray replied darkly, his mood reaching a breaking point.

"Yep, and yet again we are reminded that killin' is all you're good for," Sarrano quipped one more time before a deep roar sounded throughout the rubble site. One by one, Burnouts emerged from the ruptures and cracks in the hull of the Ulysses, thirsting for more prey amidst the rubble. Gray gladly answered their rage with a hail of gunfire, as did Sarrano and Ishi. The Burnouts were feral, but they weren't cohesive, and there weren't many of them either, making their mindless dash to get to their prey something of an arcade shooter in Gray's eyes. At the very least, it made him forget about Sarrano's quips for a moment.

Heh, I'm like fuckin' Duke Nukem over here…

"Awful quiet over there, Hunt. Ponderin' those bodies, I reckon?"

Asshole…

"Bout to ponder one more, Sarrano!" he snapped back.

"Ohhh, scary!"

Yet again, Gray restrained himself and directed his frustrations at the Burnout pack, aggressively picking them off as quickly as they emerged. When no more spawned from the twisted metal and rubble, the trio slipped through a significant breach in the hull and into the Ulysses. As Gray looked around the passageway they found themselves in, he noticed that the interior of the ship didn't look all that much better than the exterior did. Destroyed wires dangled and arced into the air as their semi-active voltage went unutilized by the ship's systems. The framework of the walls had been severely compromised as well, resulting in warped hallways and sagging overhead plating that they sometimes had to crouch to get under. As their pace slowed to fit through the hallway, Gray heard Sarrano speak up once again.

"How much time you reckon we got left, boys? Tick…tock…tick…tock…Either of you gettin' nervous yet?"

As usual, his sentence was punctuated with vile laughter.

"Shut your fucking trap," Gray snapped angrily, which unfortunately only seemed to fuel Sarrano more.

"Awww, baby in a fussy mood? All that guilt is buildin' up, ain't it? I bet seein' them bodies didn't help much either now did it?"

The group emerged into a larger room, and Gray noticed that they had stumbled onto the evacuation decks of the Ulysses. Rows upon rows of escape capsules lined the walls around them and above them. Enough to jettison all seven hundred crew members of the Ulysses if it needed to. But there was only one thing about this deck that Gray focused on, and Ishi voice in the next moment mirrored his thoughts exactly.

"These escape capsules. Only half were used!"

"Didn't exactly have a lot of time after y'all sucker punched us!" Sarrano replied annoyedly, and Gray immediately seized the opportunity to turn the tables on the good general.

"Took down your battlecruiser is what we did. Dropped your prized warbird with nothin' but a D-class Spectre. I bet that stings a little bit. And while not all of your crew managed to get to the escape capsules, I know that you did. Women and children first, ain't that right, general?"

Gray's quip seemed to work, and the general finally shut up for once. The silence was certainly welcome, but Gray's focus was quickly drawn to what little time they had left before this DNA bomb was supposed to detonate. The idea seemed to be fresh on Sarrano's mind too, as the good general wasted no time in leading them towards the next passageway.

Just a little bit longer…

…

"Well, there it is," Trishka said with an overtly grand gesture to the ship before them. "The Ulysses, all its former glory notwithstanding."

As the Slayer and the hound took in the sight of the massive ship, Trishka felt her thoughts turn back to Sarrano now that her destination was so close. Sarrano definitely knew something about her father's death, and she was certain that Gray and Ishi were also hiding something from her, but she hadn't trusted either of them from the start, so she'd never stopped being wary. Her thoughts drifted to a bunch of what-if scenarios in her head, with one standing out far more than the rest:

What if Sarrano is truly the one that gave the order to kill my father. What then?

That question on its own had an easy answer, but unfortunately for Trishka, there was a wrench thrown into the system. The ship that was supposed to rescue them from this hellhole was originally only coming for Sarrano, and if he was dead, then no trip off this rock. At first, Trishka hadn't cared about making it out alive; her only mission was to hunt and find her father's killer, and if she didn't make it out because she killed her only ticket, then so be it. But now, Trishka might have just found a way to have her cake and eat it too.

"Hey VEGA," Trishka called as she started toward the Ulysses, noting the presence of both human and Burnout body parts strewn about the rubble. "You said you're some kind of super A.I. right?"

"I am certainly advanced, but I have yet to encounter an A.I. within this dimension, and my functionality is also largely dependent on how much of myself I can bring online at once. As a result, I am unable to provide a frame of reference as to my abilities at this time. Would you like me to share my more technical specifications?"

"Don't care about any of your sciency shit right now," Trishka replied. "All I need to know is one thing."

There was a brief pause as they continued forward.

"Can you synthesize voices?"

…

"Engine room, dead ahead!"

"Thank God," Ishi said with a tone of relief. "I am not accustomed to mission success."

With a final code entry, Sarrano opened the door into the main engine room. Much larger than many of the other spaces they'd been in so far, the metallic walls and red hue did little to minimize the intense sight that was the DNA bomb. Sitting in the center of the room, the bomb was easily large enough to be mistaken for a small submarine. The cold metallic surface was marked only by an easily identifiable radiation hazard symbol, which chilled Gray to the core to look at. The only other item in the room besides the bomb itself was a small control panel sitting right next to it. Gray's eyes then widened confusedly as Sarrano marched right past the control panel and to a door across the room. The door led to what seemed to be an observation booth, and Gray could see the glass separating the booth from the room the bomb was in.

"Hey! Where you goin'? Defuse this fucker!"

"It's safe guarded, stupid!" came the general's curt and semi-rushed reply. It seemed even Sarrano was starting to get ansty about defusing the bomb in time. "The defusal process takes two people. I gotta turn the key in there the moment you input the deactivation code, or it'll trip the bomb! Now get over there while I read off the code. Hurry!"

The general's relative lack of a potty mouth was enough for Gray to take him seriously, and he gave a quick nod before hustling over to the panel while Sarrano entered the observation booth, leaving both Gray and Ishi in the bomb room. From behind the glass of the observation booth, Gray saw Sarrano take his position at a similar looking console.

"Ready?" came the general's voice through a static microphone. "One wrong move, and it'll blow!"

Gray shared a glance with Ishi, who gave a steadfast nod of encouragement.

"Alright, go!"

"Enter the following code on the keypad in front of you," Sarrano's voice replied. Gray licked his lips and placed his fingers on the keys, ready to type.

"U-R-A-D-U-M-F-U-K."

Sarrano annunciated each letter clearly and carefully, and Gray was so focused on inputting the code correctly that he paid no attention to what the letters actually spelled. Keeping this bomb from killing them all seemed slightly more important than criticizing Sarrano choice in passcodes. Once he had finished typing in the codes, Gray looked up from the console.

"Code is in."

Gray watched as Sarrano then inserted a key into the console inside the observation booth and turned, causing a yellow button to begin flashing on Gray's own console in the bomb room.

"Now, press the yellow button to confirm," came Sarrano's next instructions.

Gray's hand hovered for a moment, then pressed firmly down on the button. Immediately, the sounds of whirring machinery and electronics filled the bomb room as the process was initiated. Gray frowned at the noise however, as it did not sound much like the tone of a bomb being disarmed or shutoff, more like something had been energized or set in motion…

As if to answer his question, the yellow button he just pressed suddenly shifted to a deep red, pulsing slowly and giving a low ping each time that it did. It seemed almost like it was ticking.

Gray's attention was drawn from the button by the irritating sound of Sarrano's maniacal laughter through the static of his microphone. The general was holding his sides as he struggled to compose himself from laughing so hard.

"I fail to see what is so humorous here," Ishi said suspiciously.

"You ball-sacs done shit the bed again!" came Sarrano's gleeful response. "You just armed the DNA bomb!"

Gray's stomach dropped down to his feet. The bomb had been inactive this whole time, and now they had aided the general in rigging it to blow. And to make matters worse, Gray could now see that there was another door leading out of the observation booth the good general was in. Gray and Ishi did not have the door codes to move about the Ulysses as Sarrano did, meaning that they were now stranded in the room with the bomb and that the general was free to leave as he pleased.

"You son of a bitch!" Gray spat, lifting his rifle and firing directly into the glass that separated them from Sarrano. To his dismay, the glass held, obviously made to withstand far more punishment than his rifle could deliver. Through the cracked window, Sarrano chuckled once more.

"Well, I'd love to stay and chat more, boys, but I got a flight to catch. Got a bottle of scotch waitin' onboard. Hell, maybe I'll get a secretary to give me a good mouth suckin'. Good luck, buttfuckers!"

With that, the general turned on his heel and strode from the observation booth, disappearing through the alternative exit and out of sight. His laughter echoed from where he departed.

"Alright Ishi, map us a way out of here!" Gray said in a half state panic.

"I cannot," came his friend's reply. "These reinforced walls are too thick to scan through!"

Gray grit his teeth in rage. They had been so close to finally killing Sarrano just to have him slip through their fingers yet again. And this time, they were going to pay for it with their lives.

"Cock-fucker-rimjob-piece-of-shit…okay…okay. There's gotta be a way out of here. Look around, there might be an emergency hatch or something."

"Perhaps this is a just end, Gray."

Gray turned and stared incredulously at Ishi. After being so adamant about getting off this rock before, now he was choosing to give up?

"You can't be serious!?"

Ishi calmly nodded his head, both his cybernetic and organic eyes showing his conviction.

"I would rather die at peace than frantically pushing against fate."

"I caused all of this, Ishi. And if I die without setting it right, then there ain't no kind of peace awaitin' me. There has to be something we can do–"

A sudden boom sounded from behind the entrance to the room they were in, instinctively causing them to raise their rifles to the source of the noise. The boom sounded again, as though someone was attempting to force their way inside the room.

"We've got company," Ishi said in a low voice, planting his feet and staring intently at the door.

The booming then fell silent for a moment, then the door opened and a lone figure stepped through.

"Miss me?"

Gray immediately lowered his weapon.

"Trishka! Deus ex machina. How in the hell did–?"

"What am I, some kind of Sally Buttercup?" came the snarky reply that Gray had come to appreciate over the course of the last seven hours. "I'm a goddamned Final Echo Squadron commander for Christ's sake! Now come on, this place is falling apart."

Gray and Ishi wordlessly complied, both more than eager to escape the room with the bomb. Speaking of which…

"Sarrano tricked us from the start," he said as they sprinted through the passageways towards the exit. "The bomb was never set to go off, all he had us do was arm it. And now he's headed to the dropship rendezvous without us!"

"That much I figured," came Trishka's reply. "Thankfully, I planned ahead. I got some folks heading him off."

"You encountered another ally?" Ishi's voice asked. "Another one of your Final Echo soldiers?"

"Not quite, but believe me when I say that it's better you meet em in person. Tryin' to explain things now would leave you with more questions than answers."

"Hey, anyone helping us bring down Sarrano is an ace in my book! Now let's go, I'm feelin' all murdery!"

Within minutes, the three of them had exited the Ulysses and were back outside once more. Trishka informed them that the dropship was en route to the spaceport, and that thankfully, she knew the way there.

As the three of them set off towards the spaceport at a brisk jog, Trishka called out to Gray over her shoulder.

"Hey, get on comms on that leash of yours, they guys I'm working with should be on the same frequency."

Gray wordlessly nodded and activated the communications section of the instinct leash, the blue light whirring to life. Gray gave it a moment before speaking into the the microphone.

"Yo, whoever's listening, this is Grayson Hunt. I'm here with Trishka Novak, anyone copy?"

"Hello, Grayson Hunt," came a surprisingly pleasant yet metallic voice from the leash. "I am VEGA. We have locked in on your position thanks to the homing beacon function on your instinct leash. Please find cover, and we will rendezvous with you shortly."

"Roger, see you in a few, VEGA," Gray replied, slightly put off by the nature of the voice he heard on the other end. Gray ended the transmission then called out to Ishi and Trishka.

"You heard the man, get off the street! Right there should do!"

Gray pointed to an abandoned commercial building just up ahead, and Trishka and Ishi both acknowledged as the three of them made their way through the front doors. They immediately found themselves in a lobby of some sort, and they wasted no time securing the area. Once they were sure it was safe, Gray reestablished comms with VEGA.

"What's your ETA, new guy? Dunno if Trishka filled you in, but we got a DNA bomb set to go off in–"

The wall in the back of the room suddenly exploded inward, causing the three of them to take cover and train their weapons on the source of the disturbance. Through the now massive hole stepped a figure Gray had never seen before. The figure was covered completely in a suit of dark green armor, and though there wasn't much else to go on, Gray felt a nagging feeling that this guy was not to be trifled with. The feeling was solidified as a hellacious looking wolf-dog followed closely behind the green-suited figure, its glowing amber eyes and skinless snout a minor talking point next to the flames that coated its fur.

The thing that completely drew Gray's attention however was the cargo the figure was carrying. In one hand, the figure held a menacing looking shotgun, and in the other, sputtering profanities and curses that would make even the saltiest of sailors blush, was the good General Sarrano.

Weapons were lowered as the figure stepped further into the room and unceremoniously threw Sarrano to the floor.

"You shriveled dingleberry-cock-throb!" the general spouted. "You got even half a fuckin' clue who I am?!"

"Your attention shouldn't be on him, general ," Trishka seethed, training her rifle between his eyes for the second time today. "Now that we've got a moment, I think it's time we picked up where we left off before you shoved me off a fuckin' roof!"

"Trishka!" Sarrano said with mock cheeriness. "Glad to see that sweet little can of yours is still shakin'! Now how about you cut the shit and get me to the spaceport?!"

"You're not going anywhere, Sarrano," Gray said, pointing his rifle at the general as well. "You'd be wise to listen to the lady."

"Well now, where have I seen this before?" Sarrano said, thoughtfully tapping his chin. "Ah yes, if I recall correctly, I've still got a supporter, ain't that right, Sushi Dick ?"

Gray grit his teeth as Ishi's rifle came to bear on him for the second time that day. To make matters worse, Gray could see the red in his cybernetic eye. The bioprocessor had wrested control once more.

"Lower your weapon, Gray. I will not ask again."

"Come on, Ish, he's right there!" Gray implored. "This may be our last chance!"

"Now that Sarrano has been reacquired, I once again have the opportunity to escape this planet," Ishi replied coldly, his natural voice almost completely drowned out by the A.I. "If you have changed your mind about helping me, then I see no reason not to–"

Ishi's sentence was abruptly interrupted as the armored figure activated their own instinct leash and latched onto the robotic side of Ishi's body. The cyborg jolted and let out a cry of surprise as the leash interfaced with the circuitry within him, then he fell to one knee as the figure withdrew the leash after a few seconds. For a moment, Ishi remained on one knee, his breathing labored as though he'd just run a marathon. Then, as if he'd just woken from a dream, Ishi rose back to his feet, looking around wildly like he was just seeing the world for the first time.

"The A.I…" he said breathlessly. "It's gone…no, it's just ceased its assault on my mind…I can think clearly…the voice…it's gone!"

"Ishi?" Gray ventured.

Ishi turned to look at Gray, his face a mixture of elation and relief. "Gray, the bioprocessor has been silenced. I no longer am in constant conflict with it. It just…fell silent! I am myself again!"

"The bioprocessor that replaced the damaged portions of your brain was programmed to constantly attempt to seize control of any equipment it interfaces with," came the same metallic voice Gray had heard over the leash, only now it was coming through a speaker on the armored figure's suit. "While such a function can be beneficial in revitalizing a damaged power grid or computer network, it was never designed to interface with neural networks like the human brain. If it manages to gain complete access, it can overwrite the memories and neural pathways that already exist there. It is a testament to your mental fortitude that you did not succumb to its programming, Ishi Sato."

"You…I thank you…" Ishi began, still slightly emotional from his reawakening. "But what did you do to me?"

"I was able to interface with the bioprocessor through the instinct leash," came the ever-polite reply. "I rewrote its source code to now only remain confined to the electronic components of your anatomy. It now receives commands directly from your brain and serves only as a relay to your cybernetic components. It will no longer attempt to gain control of your mind."

"I am truly grateful. I assume you are the VEGA that we spoke with before."

"That is correct, though I am not–"

"Hate to break up the mutual bullshittin' but how about we circle back to the fact that we are still standing on a planet that's about to get blown to shit by a DNA bomb?!"

Sarrano's voice cut through the air like a knife.

"Well spoken, Sarrano," Trishka growled, her rifle still trained on him. "So how about we speed this along?"

Trishka's next words came out slowly and dangerously, her eyes narrowed and her teeth clenched.

"Did you kill my father ?"

"Sure I fuckin' did!" Sarrano said gleefully. Trishka's finger jumped to the trigger of her rifle immediately, but Sarrano interrupted before she could squeeze the trigger.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, now just hold your fire there dandelion! Ain't you just a wee bit curious as to who I gave the order to? It's a doozy!"

Trishka clenched, but her trigger finger didn't move. Sarrano's grin broadened at the sight.

"Dead Echo," he said with a thumb jerk toward Gray and Ishi's direction. "Number one candidate for the job! That puke-dick right there, the same man that killed my crew and your Final Echo squad."

Trishka's eyes glazed over, her face slowly turning toward Gray such betrayal and animosity that Gray didn't even think was possible.

"Y-you…you…you!"

Her rifle was pointed at Gray in the next second, and though Ishi raised his own to train it on her, Gray lowered his and held out a halting hand.

"Whoa! Okay, look, you got every right to kill me, Trishka. But you need to know, Sarrano used us. He used all of us. He lied to us about the targets we were assassinating."

Trishka barely seemed convinced, but Gray didn't care. He was willing to die if it meant he took Sarrano down with him, and if it meant Trishka found some peace as well, then…to hell with it.

"That's why we went rogue, Trishka. That's why I attacked the Ulysses. I thought that by killing Sarrano I could undo what we did, maybe find some redemption…but all I did was kill more people in the process…"

"Stop this, Trishka!" Ishi replied. "Think! This is what Sarrano wants! He's just manipulating you!"

"Guilty as charged!" Sarrano said. "But lest you flea-ridden fuck-heads forget, you still need me to get off this planet!"

Trishka gave Gray a murderous glare, but she begrudginly turned her attention back to Sarrano.

"I've already thought about that, general. VEGA, you got everything you need?"

"That is affirmative, Commander Novak. The data I have collected is sufficient enough."

"What the hell are you limp-dicks talkin' about? Are y'all so fuckin' re–"

Sarrano's tirade was cut off as his head exploded in the next moment, Trishka finally raising her rifle and finishing the job she had joined the Confederate military for.

"What are you doing?!" Ishi cried out as Sarrano's headless body slumped to the floor. "I wanted him dead as well, but he was our only ticket off world!"

"Relax," Trishka replied. "I already got that worked out. VEGA, show him what we got."

"Abso-fuckin'-lutely darlin'!" came the voice of a dead man from the speakers of the armored suit. "Might not be perfect, but it'll sure fool the soldiers on the dropship now won't it?"

Gray did a double take. The voice had sounded exactly like Sarrano's. It was like he was in the suit instead of a headless corpse on the floor.

"No way…"

"We use the voice to get the dropship to land, then we take control before they realize we've duped 'em."

"They will still require a visual confirmation from the sky," Ishi pushed. "We cannot present a headless corpse as alive and hope that they will take it."

"Which is where you come in," Trishka finished, pointing at Gray, who widened his eyes in surprise. "You're going to don the now dead general's uniform and play the part until they land that dropship."

Gray's gaze went from the corpse on the floor and back to Trishka. It was a good plan, but Gray could still feel the unresolved tension in the air.

"Look Trishka…"

"I know he manipulated you, Gray. Believe me, I get it."

Gray hung his head, still feeling the guilt more presently than ever.

"I don't blame you ok, but we can talk more about that once we are off this rock. Now strip down and get into the dead man's uniform."

Gray then saw that the uniform wasn't exactly clean by any standards. The most obvious of which was the copious amount of blood in the neck region from where Sarrano's brains had splattered. In addition to that…

"You know what people do in their pants when they die, right?" he called over to Trishka, who had taken to scanning out the window for a clear path to the spaceport.

"Call it your punishment, Gray. Now quit whinin' and put on the dead man's shitty pants!"

A glance over to Ishi and the armored figure gave Gray no comfort, so he signed and set to work.

…

As it turned out, Skulls and Creeps alike were drawn to the dropship as it flew into low orbit. Their path to the spaceport had been anything but boring, but as both Gray and Ishi came to find out, the armored figure, or "Doom Slayer" as he was apparently called, was more than up to the task of clearing the way. A couple of miles and a few hundred corpses later, the group had arrived at the spaceport, no worse for wear.

Trishka's plan worked like a charm. A few slur-ridden sentences from VEGA and the presence of Gray in Sarrano's uniform was enough to convince them to land, and once the dropship touched down, the rest was mostly handled by the Slayer. Unbeknownst to the four of them, Sarrano's personal security detail, Heavy Echo, had arrived in the dropship to escort the general to safety. There had been a brief scuffle to be sure, but the Slayer packed more punch than anything their top of the line weaponry and training could offer, and now the entire detail was unconscious in the brig, many with broken limbs or cracked bones.

Everything after that had been easy, and before any of them knew it, the bridge had been commandeered. The dropship warped out of the system before the bomb even went off.

Now, settling in on the bridge and finding a place to get out of Sarrano's bloody and shitty uniform, Gray relaxed in the captain's chair, a course already charted to the outer rim of the galaxy, where they could lay low and avoid the no doubt numerous bounty hunters looking for them right now. Trishka and Ishi were both preoccupied with star charts in order to plan a route that would encounter the fewest Confederate patrols, and the Doom Slayer, as always seemed to be the case, was tending to his weaponry, the hound was sleeping nearby on the deck, it's flaming fur barely more than embers in its slumbering state. Looking back to Ishi, Gray cleared his throat.

"First thing's first Ishi, we gotta get you to some proper biotechs. You know I love you, but your face is gonna be the most recognizable mug in all four corners of the galaxy with a look like that.

"That is unfortunate," Ishi replied, his sense of humor fully reinvigorated thanks to VEGA's reprogramming of the bioprocessor. "I look like quite the badass right now."

"You look like a washing machine," Trishka snorted.

"Sounds like we got our first stop planned," Gray said amusedly. He then turned to the Slayer, who sensed his gaze and looked up from the shotgun he was cleaning. "How about you big guy? Need us to drop you somewhere?"

"I am afraid you do not possess the means to take us where we need to go," VEGA said, his voice somehow conveying no condescension despite the nature of his reply. "However, now that your situation is stabilized, we must move on."

"Oh yeah, I surprisingly forgot that you guys are from way out of town, huh? Well either way, thanks. For everything. Who knows what might've happened if you guys hadn't been there with us today?"

"It is my conjecture that today's events may not have turned out well for you, Grayson Hunt, but I trust that it would not have been due to a lack of skill or effort on any of your parts."

"Your compliments could use some work, but they are accepted nonetheless," Ishi said with a grateful nod.

The Doom Slayer nodded once to each of them, then took a step back as the hound roused itself from its slumber and trotted over to him. With one final look, the Slayer raised his right hand and gave them a thumbs up. Immediately, a bright blue flash overwhelmed Gray's senses followed by a loud bang that left a ringing in his ears. Gray shook his head to readjust himself, but by the time he looked back, the Slayer and the hound were gone.

A/N: I think this one now has the record for longest chapter. I have to admit, it was kind of tough to fit the Slayer in here for me. I wasn't sure where to introduce him or how to alter the storyline, so I ended up sticking him right about mid game, which still left plenty of room for him to do all the fun Slayer stuff that we know and love. But I do say again, for some reason this chapter was difficult to write. It's not that I don't like Bulletstorm because I absolutely adore the game, but I just can't put my finger on why writer's block really struck me with this one. Either way, I'd love to hear any feedback anyone has for the story, whether you think it's the best or worst thing to grace this Earth, don't hesitate to let me know. In the meantime, I'll see you all when the next chapter drops!

-ImpulsiveWeaver