Chapter 1
Galia
"Another amazing wedding, aye babe."
"Urug"
"Well of course we're gonna party, so…duh…there'll be margs aplenty" the Mecromancer said her robot bestie, her coppery pigtails bouncing jauntily as she walked. Wearing her trademark red and black outfit and jean shorts over striped stockings she looked very much like a young mechanic out for a walk with her robot. "and prolly an omelet or two."
"Urur" the floating robot next to her growled. He was made of a stack of mismatched shapes, boxes and spikes, topped off with a head with a jagged red crystal stuck in it, it looked like someone had jammed a rough-hewn crystal directly into his face, which was more or less what had happened. The motley paint job was plastered with stickers and doodles and told of years on the road.
"Yeesh, what's got your circuits in a knot, huh?" Gaige wondered aloud "It's not like I have THAT many, and besides you won't let me do anything to crazy or let anything happen to me even if I did"
"Never have yet" she muttered under her breath.
"Urur"
"What's that supposed to mean" she said, stopping and turning to him, hands on her hips, fixing him with a flat stare that would cause most sane people to take a step back, or move around her while giving her a fearful glance.
"Ururg" Deathtrap said
"Huh?"
"Ururg" he repeated pointing ahead.
Gaige turned and looked, the road they were on was wide, with short brightly painted buildings partially hidden by hedges on either side, the spaceport looming ahead, partially obscured behind thin clouds. And in the crossroad just ahead of them stood an extremely suspicious figure.
The figure's hood, mottled green with purple lines, did a good job hiding their face, but the dark gray cloak over the rest of them, did nothing to hide the rifle on their back.
"Gaige" the voice, softer than she expected said as their head cocked slightly to the side "and Deathtrap, correct?"
Gaige shot a subtle glance to her side, letting her partner know to be ready, he responded with a slight change in posture, readying himself for a fight.
"Any requests for a wedding consultation are by ECHO appointment" Gaige said, shifting her grip, readying herself to draw the assault rifle on her back. "still, nice of you to acknowledge my bud here, most people don't even acknowledge him."
'Not good' she thought, if this is a fight, they've already acknowledged that there were two combatants, a mistake that had saved her more times than it should, anyone that underestimated her BFF met a bad and sudden end.
"I'm not here to get married, don't have anyone anyway, not even a date" the voice trailed
off to a sad mutter on the last that Gaige almost couldn't make out before returning to normal
"Weird business though, being a wedding planner I mean, especially for someone on the run.
Always thought that, though it kinda makes it easy to find you, which I'm grateful for…WhohWhohWhohWhohDon'tShootDon'tShoot." the voice shot up a few octaves cracking
at the end as Gaige whipped her rifle up. The figure's right hand waved clear of the cloak, while their left twitched underneath causing the whole thing to wave about, frantically thrashing until it got clear, showing that they had no weapons drawn.
"Notheretofightyounotheretofightyou, lower your weapons" the voice squeaked "…please?"
Gaige took note, the exposed left arm was cybernetic, smooth metal dulled to reduce reflection, and a fair piece of work, judging by the apparent quality of it. "Who are you, and whaddya want with us?"
The figures right hand moved.
"Slowly" Gaige cautioned, keeping her gun trained.
The hand slowed down and gently tossed the hood back. What was revealed was not what Gaige was expecting, the face was, if she had to describe it, was 'tomboy pretty'. She appeared to be younger than Gaige, with a strange style about her, the right side of the girl's hair was in spikes, going from dark purple to nearer to magenta at the points, the left side was buzzed short. Her full lips were covered in purple lipstick that matched her eyeshadow over her large violet eyes that stood out in sharp contrast to her barely tanned skin, in fact she was about as pale as Gaige herself was. And now that Gaige was getting a good look at her, she thought the other girl was probably shorter than her, probably by almost a full head.
"My name is Jinx," the girl said "I'm a hunter, which I think, is why Holloway tried to hire me. Don'tshootme!" she waved her hands again as Gaiges' gun snapped back up "Tried, he tried, I turned him down, obviously. I'm not here to hurt you or try to or anything like that."
"Then what, I'm supposta believe you're here to what, warn me that the guy who's after me is still after me?"
"Well when you put it like that"
"DON'T SCREW WITH ME! "
"Urug"
"Ahem…you're right babe, sorry bout that, now, what do you want with me?'
"Um…like I was saying, Holloway tried to hire me to hunt you down, of course I turned him down, but I realized that you would be just the person I needed for…" she trailed off, eyes focusing behind Gaige. Her demeanor changed dramatically, eyes narrowing and starting to emit a predatory aura, her voice dropping to a flat tone "We'll finish this in a moment, don't shoot me, seriously."
With that her right hand flew to the clasp on her cloak, while her left deftly spun the sniper rifle off her back even as the cloak fell. Dropping into a crouch, she fired calmly at Gaige. The bullet whipped past her and she heard a squishy pop, even as the rifle fired again. And again, six times as the girl rotated, each time accompanied by the same pop of a head transforming into grisly chunks, before carefully setting the gun down with her left hand, as her right dropped to her side, drawing a heavy pistol as she stood. Continuing the turn, she fanned the hammer hitting the dark armored figures that emerged from the bushes. Only the last and most heavily armored of them was still standing as the last shot pinged off his helmet.
"That pea-shooter won't work traitor" the man said, as Gaige got a good look at him. His dark armor was polished with a smooth lacquered finish, the joints covered in a heavy weave, his helmet was of a similar dark material as his armor. The only identifying marking was a brown star-burst on his chest. In his hands he held a heavy assault rifle.
"Can't be a traitor, never worked for you" Jinx replied, lowering her pistol.
The man snorted, "Whatever, you killed my men, so traitor or not I'm gonna kill you now."
As he started to raise his rifle, Jinx's left hand drew a pistol from across the small of her back.
As Gaige saw it, she revised her thought, it was a hand cannon. Leveling it, Jinx fired once, her left arm remaining steady even as the cannon barked and the attackers head vanished in a mist of gore.
Jinx lowered her arm as the remains of the man slowly toppled over, "I really should think up some pithy comment for times like these" she muttered to herself.
Gaige slowly looked behind herself at the dead bodies fallen out of the bushes and on the street,
and whispered an aside to Deathtrap "Ya know, I'm startin to believe her about not bein here to
try and hurt us"
"Urgru"
"Couldn'ta said it better myself." Gaige looked at the other girl, who had turned and was facing them with her pistols at her sides "OK, so let's say I believe you about not being here to try and hurt us, then what are you here for? And what'd that jerk want with you? Holloway, not that dead guy behind you. Him to, actually, who's he? And what's with that gun? And what's with that look?" She ranted as a small smile crept onto the other girls' face.
"You really haven't changed, have you"
"And why are you acting like you know me!?"
"Um…can I get my stuff so we can get outta here before anyone unwanted shows up to, I dunno, investigate gunfire?"
"Fine, but I'm getting answers as soon as we do."
Jinx nodded as she holstered the cannon, before popping the cylinder on her pistol, and with a practiced hand dropped new rounds in so fast they seemed to blur, before snapping it closed and holstering it. As she went to pick up her rifle Gaige got a good look at it, with her familiarity she could tell at a glance it, like the pistol, was a Jakobs, but unlike most of their sniper rifles it had no scope.
"That's related to the Buffalo, isn't it, but I've never seen one with a cylinder before."
"Another question," Jinx muttered "but good eye, yes it's a descendent, or offshoot of the Buffalo, this one's called a Rhino." She said while reloading it.
"Never cared for the scope-less line myself, too hard to line up a clean shot"
"I've got good eyesight, and it's got unparalleled stopping power, besides I didn't think aiming was really your thing, too much order in it."
"There you go again, seriously, why ya actin like ya know me?" She said warily before muttering "Besides I'm not that kid anymore."
Jinx shook her cloak and tossed it over her shoulder. "I'll talk as we walk, so let's."
"First, sticking with the guns, this is a unique custom piece, bit of a prototype, I guess." she said patting the handle of the gun on her back "Trying to get the most stopping power I can, lacks some accuracy though. Haven't chosen a name yet."
"Second those goons are some mercenary company or something, maybe Holloway's personal mercs, not entirely sure."
"Which leads to that jerk, as you so rightly called him. He heard I was a hunter, mistook that for having bounty with it, I ain't, told him that. He didn't care. Tried to hire me anyway, told him I wasn't
for sale, he laughed, said 'course I was, everyone was', so I stormed out." Jinx stated her voice was going flat, which Gaige realized was her getting angry. "Wait, before that I asked him why he was
doin this now, he told me to shut up, hired hands didn't need to know, then I told him I wasn't for
sale, that's right."
"So, anyways, I was curious, why now, bit early for an anniversary, right. So I did some digging, turns out he's about to lose his claim to a bounty on you. See, one of his products had a slight glitch in the programming, killed some people, people whose families would sue, so he did what any corrupt dick in a suit with his position does, got some laws changed. Only he had to get them applied retroac…retroarc…back dated. Only that means you get out of your 'murder' charge as well, so he has it, the law thing, being held as long as he can, but it has to go into effect in like a week, or his suing gets there first. Next Tuesday, that's when. So next Wednesday you're free."
"Wait…what" Gaige stopped and stared at the back of the other girl in disbelief. "He can't come after me after next Tuesday?"
"Well he can, but not legally"
"But I'll still have a bounty on my head."
"For what?"
"UH…creation of unauthorized technology?"
"What? That got thrown out like…three years ago I think, something like that. There was like a thing where the tech was being used by the police bots, and if you where the one who made it, then if they were using it, it had to be stolen, otherwise you didn't create it. I think your dad was behind that."
"Best. Dad. Ever." Gaige yelled. "So, wait, I'm about to be free?"
"Yeah. Well, there is still the excessive adorability charge, but you can probably plea that down to involuntary cuteness, or maybe hotness in the third degree." Gaige blinked, was the other girl cracking a joke?
"But that's partially why I came searching for you. And why douche-bags' getting desperate to kill you"
Gaige continued to stand staring at Jinxs' back, unable to process what she'd been told.
"I'm about to be free?" she repeated. "like I can go home, see my family? Not have people after me? Free?"
Jinx stopped and turned back, "Well there will still be people after you, I mean there's probably a couple bandit clans that want your head, and some corporate suits after you for something, and probably some fines to pay or something, but yeah, free." She suddenly looked a bit perplexed "Though I still find it odd, you killed Marcie by accident and I just killed like, a dozen people on purpose, and you get charged with murder, but I get to just walk away, I know it has something to do with their jobs, hunting people and such. Ah well, someone tried to explain it to me once, but I didn't get it."
Gaige's eyes narrowed "There you go again" she shifted her grip on her gun "Why do you keep acting like you know me?"
The other girl looked uncomfortable. "I do know you." she muttered looking away.
"How? I don't remember you, we didn't go to the same school did we?"
"No, we've never met before."
"Then what, how do you know me, wait are you a stalker or something"
"What! No!"
"Then spill it, or we're outa here"
"Urgr"
Jinx looked down, as she slowly ground her toe of her boot into the concrete. And then with a sigh looked ahead into the sky "You didn't know me by Jinx, would you remember me, I wonder," she sighed "My ECHO handle is AR73M15"
"AR73M15, AR7…wait YOUR Artemis? You were what, my fifth follower, one of the two who stayed subscribed?"
The other girl nodded as her ears reddened.
"So that's why you know all those things?" Gaige staggered, then whispered "Then that's why you turned down Holloway?" Again, a nod.
"Wait, anyone could have looked at old logs, prove it."
"I …can't, the best I can do is," she was stammering, before she let out a sigh "The best I can do is,
I sent you one private ECHO, 'Faithful subscriber here. Marcie sounds like she couldn't find a Vorx's butt from the inside, don't let her get to you, just wanted to let you know how much of an inspiration you are. Your Friend (?) Ar73m15'" her ears were practically glowing as she spoke while staring at the ground.
Gaige stared at her, jaw hanging open, "Wha… you really are her. My mind. Is. Blown. Seriously, first Holloway, then my dad, and now this, I don't think I can handle any more."
"When Holloway ECHOed me, I…I had been searching for something, I…I can't talk about it here, but I realized that I could finally help you, and you could help me. By the way, do you have a ship?"
"Uh…no, no I had one, stole it from some bounty hunters. What? They were dead, it's not like they were using it anymore. And then another group of bounty hunters blew it up."
"Wow, that's…unfortunate. We can go to mine, if it's alright with you."
"Sure, sure. Just a normal day, following a strange girl to her ship. Still trying to process all this. I cannot believe this day…mind, still, blown."