Chapter 16

Pandora

"No! Bloody skull, rib cage, bloody skull. You're totally ruining the aesthetic." Gaige yelled at the bandit while cold sweat trickled down her spine.

The crash had knocked her out for a brief moment, but in that time the bandits had descended and managed to surround her. Their leader had used the threat of bodily harm to her to stave off Deathtrap, and then had used the threat of destroying him to keep her in line while he had leaned in to examine her. He was a large, foul smelling bandit dressed in dark leather coats and a hood, with a massive shield strapped to his back. He had grabbed her chin in a large meaty hand and painfully pulled her up to look him in his beady eyes.

"Little Mecromancer turned into a wedding planner." He growled at her through a broken smile "We got a job for you little wedding planner, play nice and the robot doesn't die first." He turned to Deathtrap "Hear that? Chain it up, and throw her in the back, and no biting, we need her intact." He told his clan as they had scuttled to obey. Which was how she had found herself in the middle of their fortress yelling orders to the bandits and psychos.

It had turned out that the first bandit Technical that had spotted them had recognized her and Deathtrap and had reported back to the clan chief, who had realized that she was just what they needed and sent word to all the clans in the area to capture her or risk his displeasure. Which had been why they had attacked with such numbers and ferocity.

After her capture, she was taken on a truly unpleasant ride surrounded by drooling males, a scenario that she had thought she would have liked, but as with all things recently, it turned out that like anything, it could be turned into a nightmare scenario. When they had arrived, she had been drug in front of the clan warchief and her capture had announced that he had captured 'the wedding planner' and the leverage to get her to work, in other words, Deathtrap.

That was her first encounter with the warchief of the 'God Kings Disciples', a gargantuan brute wearing leather pants, that may or may not have been made from the skins of his rivals, no shirt over his rippling abs, a dark beard, beady eyes, twin mohawks and a great spike encrusted slab of a tower shield. He also had skin the color of Eridium, which was a first for Gaige.

As much as she liked the color, she had to admit that a full body that shade was a bit off putting at best, and in truth, it creeped her out. She wondered if he had been swimming in slag or if his mom had been drinking it while pregnant, no wait that timeline didn't line up, but she kept thinking along those lines to distract herself from her predicament.

He had looked at her before smiling, revealing black teeth and declared in a voice that seemed to echo within itself "Welcome to the God Kings Acolytes, you have the great pleasure to kneel before Castor, great warchief and one of the blessed Annotated of the great God King himself. Glory be to him and may he rise again."

"May he rise again" came the reverberating chant from all those present save Gaige and Deathtrap, who both looked around with rising certainty, these people were nuts.

The chief continued after a brief prayer like pause "You have been brought here on this most auspicious day to serve as counsel to the great clan as we prepare for the most sacred of events, for on this day the chief of the 'Children of the Destroyer' shall become my bride and with her I will fulfill the grand prophecy. And we shall birth a child who will call back the great Gods and return this corrupt universe to their divine will."

'Scratch that' Gaige thought 'This guy is full blown rakk shit crazy.'

"Now you shall be brought to the grand temple to prepare it for the coming ceremony."

"So, you want me to, what? Do your wedding planning?" she ventured.

"In short, yes."

And so, after they had fitted Deathtrap with a collar that would short him out if she disobeyed, she had been led to the 'Grand Temple' which had turned out to be actually pretty impressive.

The room was the size of a small Colosseum and was shaped in a large half circle that had been stretched out, so more of a two thirds oval. At the flatter end there was an overhang with extra room, and a control room for technical stuff that she was not allowed into. At the other was what she would've described as an altar. On either side were giant pictures of the Callipso twins, Troy on the left and Tyreen on the Right, both made up from a collage of masks from various psychos and bandits, as well as pieces of vehicles and cutouts of them. The images had a holy vibe to them, with the twins having halos made out of bones and guns. In the middle over the altar itself was an ugly metal arm, disproportionately large and rather crude looking, one that Gaige recognized.

It was Troy Callipsos cybernetic.

The altar itself was beautiful in its own horrific way, made of twisted metal with different patinas, twisted around bones and buzz axes.

The growling of psychos drew her back to her situation and she found herself having to deal with the brute who had captured her to find out what his boss wanted and to get help to organize the wedding.

She got to work, while her mind had gone back to just after the crash, she was sure that she had seen Artemis among the rocks, but she could only hope she had survived. As she worked, she started thinking about the fight they had had, if it could be called that. In truth it had been more of a dressing down on Artemis's part, and Gaige getting pissed. And while she was still sore about that, she felt that Artemis had overstepped her bounds since they weren't close enough to talk like that yet, deep down she had started to question whether or not she had been right. The Gaige of old would never have let herself be captured this easily, so what had changed? Was she holding herself back? And it wasn't the first time in this past week that she had felt this way either. She really wished she could talk to someone about it. She really wished she had someone to talk with.

Sighing she continued to try and buy time, hoping that someone would rescue her before it was too late. Not that she didn't have a really bad backup plan formulating in the back of her mind, but that was absolutely a last resort. She questioned whether or not Artemis would even be willing to come after her after the way she had treated her over the last day. No, she would, Gaige realized. Even if it was suicidal, for some reason she was sure that the other girl would come. No matter what, she would find a way. And that thought gave her a warmth in her heart that someone would go that far for her, and a cold sense of dread that she would be leading the other girl to her doom.

A Few Hours Later

The preparations were complete, and the macabre room was done up in glorious gory bandit style. With rib cage wall sconce and bloody skulls, an actual fountain of blood and skin bouquets. In a small disturbed way Gaige was proud of how it had come out, at least the clan seemed happy. Plus it had kept her distracted from the sinking predicament she was in.

And then the clans started to arrive.

Gaige found herself drug up to the altar and chained up off to one side as the room started to fill.

First came the grooms' side, 'The God King's Acolytes'. The clan was comprised of a fair number of males, though it did have quite a few females mixed in. Most of the clan was on the large side and were dominated by ritualistic scarring on their right arms as well as frequent purple tattoos. Over a third of them were psychos, but out of the rest, there were an abnormal number of Brutes and Nomads. There were a lot of them, nearly filling one side of the room with their noisy rabid clamoring.

Then what she guessed where the bride's side came in, snapping noisily at the Acolytes.

Where the Acolytes had been on the larger side, this clan had an abnormal number of Hags and Tinks in their ranks, or at least more than the Acolytes had. Their psychos were an even mix of the sexes, but they had a number of badasses in attendance, and not just psychos. She saw nearly a dozen heavily armored Tinks, as well as twice that number of bandits and others she couldn't identify. The clan's motif seemed to be tentacles, with a large number of them appearing as tattoos as well as a number of the psychos having what appeared to be imported limbs of some creature wrapped around them, or outright stitched onto them. The leadership all seemed to be wearing long coats stitched from various hides with fur collars, that had been tossed over their shoulders, which she guessed that the colors and level of decoration of the coats denoted some kind of hierarchy, though she had no clue what that was.

Eventually other clans started arriving, some showed up in force, including one that all had facial scars and pins like Troy Callipso, and others sent only representatives, snarling badasses and slavering psychos. Even a few other all purple ones arrived.

Many of them had eyed her up, and even a few had tried to approach, only to be turned away by some of the Acolytes top lieutenants. But even with that reprieve, Gaige felt the bad situation getting worse by the second and her really bad back up plan getting more and more tenuous at best, suicidal being more likely.

She was really getting worried when a giant pipe organ that must have been on the second story started playing and the ceremony itself got started.

Castor and a few of his top lieutenants took their place on one side of the altar and the music paused before shifting to what Gaige could only guess was the bride's march. She was right as the rear doors to the temple opened and the bride's procession started in. At the start of the procession was a pair of Tinks, the first female ones Gaige had seen, both attached to leashes being held by a one-eyed Hag. As they proceeded, they were scattering what she could only assume were scabs.

Following them were a line of psychos, also female and many with dyed hair, alternating with bandits, between them they were carrying banners, except that the symbols were carved into the backs of still living people strapped to the poles. Occasionally the bandit would lash the captive to elect a scream from them and it appeared that there was some kind of competition between them to see who could get the best from their captive.

Next where what Gaige guessed was the equivalent of bridesmaids. All females and all naked save for the tentacles and organs that had been 'tastefully' draped over them. Each one carried a bouquet of a mixture of flowers, organs, bones and buzz axes in both hands as they solemnly marched forward. One step, pause, one step, pause, as if their slowness was the point, which considering how they usually moved may have been, though it did nothing for Gaige's nerves.

Finally the bride came into view, accompanied by another of the purple bandits, this one twitched and crackled as if being electrocuted. The bride herself was somewhere between the size and build of a regular psycho and a badass, so taller and more muscular than normal and with two great arms one of which was looped through the purple mans and in the other she held a bouquet much like the bridesmaids only larger. She had a band covering her chest and a skirt made out of the faces of many people. Over her face she wore a mask behind a veil that was probably made out of tendons. On her back Gaige could see the handle to a massive buzz ax.

When they had at last arrived at the altar, Gaige was nearly hyperventilating. 'This is bad bad bad bad' her mind repeated and then the officiator of the wedding came out of a hidden door behind the altar. He looked as if a Nomad and a Goliath had a child, after beating each other up. Large in every way he strained against the robes he was stuffed into, reminding Gaige of those revolting blood sausages from Jaka 4, which caused her to want to laugh and puke at the same time. She settled on an eye twitch and swallowing her bile. His head was obscured in what looked like a cross between a bandit mask and an old executioners hood.

He waddled up to the altar and set a great book upon it. He opened it to the bookmarked page, which Gaige was mildly surprised to see wasn't covered in crayon drawings or made out of skin, instead the page was covered in writing and the 'priest' found his passage and started to read.

"We are gathered today to bind these two willing participants together, to form one clan, to shatter the fires and wake the stars. The blood of the Gods shall shine upon them as they take their rightful place at the feet of the Twin Gods and bow to the only beings more than themselves."

"Let the Twin Gods watch over them and bless us all with their return. May they rise again."

"MAY THEY RISE AGAIN" came the chant from the entire crowded room sending shivers up Gaiges' spine.

"As they are our witnesses, let us commence. On this most holy day we test the resolve of these two to join together. Bring them forth."

As he spread his arms paired members from both clans moved forward, each carrying a large bucket of glowing coals between them, which they passed to the bridesmaids and groomsmen who in turn placed them next to the couple. Each reached in and drew out a glowing bar of metal and simultaneously chanted "My resolve, proven. My strength, proven. My blood, proven." or at least Gaige thought they did, the bride's voice was a bit garbled. Finishing the chant they then pressed the glowing brand into the chest of the opposite. The smell of burning flesh caused Gaige to gag, even as the rest of the wedding party cheered.

The coals were taken away and a laughing psycho came forward throwing his fists in the air in triumph, before dropping to his knees between the couple and extending his arms straight out.

"Your resolve has been proven, now you must share with each other that which is most sacred."

The couple each grabbed one of the psychos arms and when the 'priest' nodded yanked, tearing the limbs from the psycho's body in fountains of blood. Each held their respective arms up to the growing cheers of the crowd.

"The most sacred thing has been shared. Now take your rings and place them on the others fingers to demonstrate your commitment to giving to the other what you have, so that all know that what is one clans, is both clans."

They took the arms that they still held and each pulled the ring off its finger. They slipped them onto their partner and then both raised their hands to show the icons of the Twin Gods their commitment.

The crowd went ballistic with cheers.

"You have completed the trials, and in the Twin Gods eyes I now pronounce you to be married."

The 'priest' declared as if calling an end to what could charitably be called a mockery of a normal wedding. But then he turned and called out "You may now kill the sacrifice."

And all eyes turned to Gaige.

"Well shit."