Well, aside from the horrendous length of this chapter (four sections!), I'm sure you'll find plenty to dislike about it. Take your pick. Just don't blame me - I write what I'm told, I was only following orders. It's approximately the middle of the story, a hinge point, and probably about the grimmest part. I'm putting up the first section now, the rest will follow soon.
There's a bit of a change in the writing method of this section. It needed to be written this way for a number of reasons. I've tried to make it as clear as possible - though a couple of places are unclear or contradictory just because, well, they're supposed to be. Also please note that if some of the incidents don't seem to be in chronological order, it's because they're not. Notice the tense the paragraph's written in (present or past), that should help you sort it out.
NOTE: This chapter used to have special formatting to help make sense of it, but this has been lost since Fanfiction no longer supports it. The chapter might be easier to read on my Deviantart account (rayfan (dot) deviantart (dot) com), if you find it confusing. I have tried to help sort it out here as best I can.
As usual, PG-13 alert, general unpleasantness and language that reflects it. Don't bother asking me to apologize for it, or for the section titles for that matter... They're only words. And I'm very careful about the words I choose.
Rayman, Ly (c) UbiSoft Entertainment
All else (c) Me alas.
Chapter 10: The Descent
Part 1: Reality
Piranha emerged from the elevator and strode rapidly through the corridor, his coat and shirt torn and covered with dirt, sweat, and blood, his sword bumping against his side, his black eyes ablaze. Anxious slaves and the occasional small menial robot darted out of his path.
As he approached the ship's bridge, the control room, he was composing the report in his head. Or rather, attempting to compose it, his hardest work being to keep shoving aside the images that wrapped around him, dived at him like a swarm of hornets, snaked over and trailed behind him like the links of an endless chain.
- All right, Anaconda. It's done, we've established your goddam base.
(In the midst of the chaos of fleeing villagers running in all directions, suddenly in front of him, so close he almost trips, a pair of panicked grey eyes staring transfixed into his own and then at his upraised sword. A child's eyes. He halts, lowering his hand. Then starts - a shrieking woman coming at him, torn dress and tangled hair, armed only with a stone in one hand and her terrified rage. He can't turn and run -)
- The attack went smoothly enough.
(The hour of tense anticipation on the ship near the large exit at its lowest level, waiting for the attack to be launched. A thousand sleepy, edgy, irritably half-sober pirates crowded together in the huge assembly area in the ship's belly near the exit, shifting their weapons from hand to hand, making subdued bets, quietly grumbling. Then the call to mobilize, they line up behind the five huge, heavily armed battle robots, and as the giant door opens they storm down the broad gangway, a seething river of bandanas, unshaven jaws, swords and pistols, bloodshot eyes.
("Quiet! Keep quiet!" Standing by the exit, Piranha snarls at them. "It's a sneak attack, damn you, keep it down!"
(After ensuring the pirates have all left, he follows them out of the ship. As he emerges, he looks out from the top of the high gangway. Not very distant, in a clearing there is the silent, sleeping village, lying like a moonlit jewel in the velvety black setting of the nighttime forest. Lit like silver by the moon. He grips his sword, shuddering. The arrival of the gigantic ship was so soundless... They will have no warning. The village, the moonlight blurs momentarily. Clutching the handrail, he begins his descent.)
He rounded a corner, grinding his teeth, thrusting a slow-moving elderly slave out of his way.
- The tactics were effective. Those people didn't know what hit them.
(In the quiet starlit night, near the sleeping settlement of little wooden houses and straw shacks, there is a soft screeking of moving metal parts. And then without warning, flames explode from the edge of the forest, instantly incinerating five of the dwellings. Cries, screams, shouts in an unknown language, and then, pouring from the village, dozens of human forms indistinct in the darkness, unsteadily lit by the red-yellow flames.)
- No resistance worth mentioning.
(They encircle the clearing where the houses lie, and as the population is scattering, the flames spreading, the pirates with a swelling roar launch the charge into the village. A few men come running out to fight, struggling to yank their pants on while not tripping over their swords, pikes, pitchforks, wooden threshing flails. Racing crazily in a dozen directions, panicked as a nest of mice a cat's jumped into.)
- The surviving enemy fighters are under control and being held for your inspection. There aren't many of them.
(He dodges as the warrior brings down a hard two-handed blow with his long sword that would have sliced his head in half. The man pulls the sword back up as Piranha jerks to the side, and brings it down again, another powerful stroke that cuts close to Piranha's body, between his outstretched sword hand and his trunk. For an instant, his opponent's face shows fierce satisfaction, then almost simultaneously goes pale. No arm cut off that small, weirdly powerful black trunk... no arm... In that shocked moment, Piranha has an opening, but he hesitates. The tall, blond, muscular fighter, the blood-soaked bandage around his chest testifying to an earlier wound - he's outlasted hours of fighting by now and is still continuing to fight, despite the terrifying, overwhelming forces unleashed against his village, still holding out despite the uselessness of trying to defend his people. Must he be killed? With his free hand Piranha pulls out his nearly discharged blast gun, set to stun - the villager's blue eyes double in size as they take in yet another utterly alien object - and he fires. The sword drops from the man's hand, he wavers for a moment, then collapses unconscious. Stowing his gun again, Piranha makes sure the captive's still breathing, then drags him through the waning battle back towards the holding area in the town.)
- We've taken the two neighbouring villages. We're fortifying the main meeting hall of the larger one and building a stockade.
(He lugs his still-unconscious prisoner through the gate fencing off the holding area and drops him. He looks around. His white teeth show in his smoke- and dirt-blackened face. The large dusty village square, much of it filled already with bent, anonymous figures, greyish outlines half-seen in the early dawn, mostly women and children clutching each other, huddling together under the first anemic spatter of an oncoming rain. He hears their low voices keening softly in fear and grief, or murmuring indistinctly to comfort one another, or sobbing, or moaning in pain, or ... silent.
(Leaving the prisoner with one of the guards, he escapes through the gate -)
- The base is in a clear area, good visibility, easily defended.
(In the darkness, the contortions of the yellow flames rising from the burning houses throw a weird dancing light on the battle, glinting off the metallic heads and arms of the robots, playing on the unshaven faces, the jagged teeth and blackened eyes of the human pirates, reflecting in the swords and pistols and daggers, and outlining dozens of disorganized, panicked, fleeing forms, half-dressed, all startled from their beds, dragging small children, calling out to find lost ones.
(He leaps with his dagger as one of the villagers, a man armed with a heavy wooden pole, comes from behind to bash in the head of a pirate busy with another fighter.
(And a moment later, the continual shouting and screaming that has gone on so long it's faded into almost unheard background noise, suddenly escalates, and there is a rush of heat and light, a fierce whooshing sound - several of the separate fires have gotten hold of new fuel and combined together, the flames soar to twice their previous height, suddenly villagers and pirates are all in the same danger, they are almost surrounded, everything's burning - thatched wooden houses, piled firewood, dry brush lighting up and setting off trees and bushes, in this half-wild little village there's far too much that can burn.
("Get the hell out of here!" he shouts to his lieutenants, to anyone who can hear him. "Retreat, get out, now!" Not that they need the advice, everyone is fleeing, hunters and hunted alike.
(Yes, there will be plenty of open space around here soon enough.)
- We didn't capture any political leaders. If they even have any.
(An old man tottering out from the village towards them, smiling - smiling! - holding flat in his outstretched hands a large ceremonial-looking sword, sheathed, in what Piranha instantly grasps is a gesture of peace.
(He grabs at the arms of the pirates on either side of him, but already at the sight of a sword they've fired their pistols and moved on. He glances at the old man; and moves on as well. There's nothing he can do.)
Piranha halted as he emerged into the last corridor. The door of the bridge was in sight. Four guards in front of it, two human, two robot. They flicked covert, uneasy glances in his direction. One met his eyes by accident and winced away.
He looked at the metal door and snarled under his breath. No doubt Anaconda hadn't sauntered out that door since Piranha had seen him in the morning. Watching, spying, smiling, thinking his own thoughts, keeping his own elegant hands clean.
(Having just been shocked out of his brief sleep - it's still the middle of the night, hours before he was expecting to report to the Boss, hours before the ship has even entered the planetary system they're aiming towards - barely awake, Piranha stumbles into the bridge for the first time. It's a small, dimly lit round room at the front and near the top of the multileveled ship, busy with the activity of several robots. There is a navigation panel for control of the ship, viewscreens showing a variety of information about the ship's path and surroundings. The room is dominated by an enormous rectangular port or window, curved slightly with the curvature of the ship's hull, allowing a direct view outside. Involuntarily, Piranha halts - he's never seen such an expanse of naked space. The depth of it, the clustered stars, the blackness, the vastness; it's like stepping outside the ship.
(Anaconda, seated in a tall chair facing the port, turns at his entrance and smiles. "There's a tad more to the universe than you thought, eh, country boy? You've wasted enough time getting here, stop gawking."
(The view forgotten, Piranha's mercury-coloured eyes shift to the Boss. The black robot, his long dark red cloak wrapped around his body, his thin whiplike baton dangling loosely from one hand, gets out of the chair and approaches him. Still with that strange, barely definable smile, which on that inhuman face could perhaps be nothing more meaningful than a slight opening of the mouth. Or which might express an irony and contempt too deep for words.
("Why didn't you report back as I ordered last night?" the Boss says, the subtle irritation in his tone belying the half-smile on his face. Piranha looks at him blankly. With increasing irritation, Anaconda starts to swing the baton between his fingers. "After all the pointless violence you've instigated on this ship, Piranha, to get cold feet now! Don't you realize how much damage a fool like Hacker can do to you?" Understanding dawns abruptly in Piranha's face. He gives Anaconda an ironic grin. "What? You mean you wanted me to kill him? Why didn't you say so?"
(Anaconda stops swinging the stick, clutches it tightly. His yellow eyes glow harder. But he says nothing.
(And Piranha's metallic eyes, nearly lost in the shadow of his large black hat, glare up at him with undisguised hostility. Motionless, the two of them stare at each other for a moment in silence.
(Then, smiling coldly, Anaconda turns deliberately away, walks towards an electronic chart on the wall. "Ah well, some people simply can't be helped. - Now get over here, you need to see these maps of the landing site. Steckle, the chart master, will explain them to you."
(Piranha moves towards the display, glancing at the smallish grey robot in front of it, then up at the planetary charts. In a few hours ... Too late now, too late.)
Still standing in front of the metal door of the bridge, Piranha shook his head clear. He realized suddenly that he was panting hard, as though he had been running flat-out straight up a long hill. He closed his eyes, made a last effort to normalize his breathing. Clenching his fists. Subdue it. Silence it. Tamp it down, take hold, crush it, suppress it.
No; no use, impossible. At this moment, it was taking all his strength only to keep from exploding into mindless savagery against anything nearby - guards, slaves, the door, himself. His body was trembling faintly with the effort of it. Merely to see what was in front of him took enormous concentration. His head was surrounded with images, they thrust themselves in front of his eyes, they flew into his face like diving hawks, they ... Grimly he focused his eyes onto the door. Here and now. Here and now.
His black glove rammed the heavy door open.
"So," said Anaconda, standing and leaning on his captain's chair, "all in all, then, it's going pretty well."
Piranha's burning black eyes fixed on him. "The battle robots weren't necessary," he said. "Those people live in wood and straw huts. They didn't even have anything that could stand against little pistols. There were a lot of pointless casualties."
"Of course," said Anaconda complacently. "So they didn't give you much trouble."
Piranha shrugged irritably. "We erased them," he said. "They had a few fighters who made a pathetic effort to stand up to us at least long enough to let the women and children escape. Most of them hardly knew which end of their swords or spears to use. If they even had weapons. These people aren't warriors, they're accustomed to peace."
"How ideal," said Anaconda. "So you captured the women and children?"
"Some of them. As you ordered, we concentrated on taking the village. There were two close to each other, we took them both. We've established a base camp in the larger village. There's a big fenced-in corral there that can be ... used." He was having trouble with his breathing again. He paused for a moment.
Anaconda reached out with his baton, stroked it under Piranha's chin so that he looked up into Anaconda's face. The Boss smiled. "Not feeling well?"
Piranha glared at him. "That can be used to hold the captives before bringing them onto the ship. The men are fortifying it now. There are some 40 or 50 captives being held until we're sure the ship is ready to take them."
"Oh, it's all ready, send them along."
"Fine. We lost three crew in the battle, in case you wanted to know. Caught in the fires. Several serious injuries as well."
"Rotten luck. Any booty captured?"
Piranha gave a hard, exasperated exhalation. "Booty? We haven't had a chance to go through the rubble. There's not much left of those villages. Since you ordered -"
"That's all right. Not bad, Piranha, you didn't mess up too terribly for your first try. Now-"
Piranha, unable to stop himself, cut in. "Just why did you want us to burn the villages? You couldn't expect to get much loot after that. And going in with those massive robots and their blast weapons - that's no way to take slaves alive. None of this makes sense."
Anaconda, about to get back into his chair, turned on him, smiling contemptuously. "Some simple ideas just don't easily penetrate your skull, do they? We have a whole region to loot, a whole country, a planet if we want to. What's one village more or less? It's an investment, First Mate, an investment. Crush the resistance fast, overwhelm them, make them think only of running, not fighting. That's why we always attack these backwater planets with no technology to speak of. We go in first with weapons they can't even comprehend, firing directly with the ship's guns if need be. Then terrify them all over again when they see those robot troops. It's like being attacked by gods to them, or demons. Get the word spreading far and fast that we're invincible. Yes, we lose a few slaves and goods at the start, but after that, even human pirates will look like robots to those panicked, unthinking primitives. Makes the later stages so much easier. Go into abandoned towns and loot at will. Herd up the natives, they'll accept captivity almost with gratitude. It usually works."
Piranha's eyes were lowered, he seemed to have lost the thread of the conversation. He caught himself as his body lurched a little.
Anaconda smiled acidly. "Been a long day, has it?"
Piranha's black glare latched onto him like teeth. "I'm all right."
"Good, that's good. Because you're not done yet. As I said, do things properly at the start and the job's much easier afterwards. You're going back out there now. There are several more nearby villages, you can be sure the natives have fled to some of them by this time and news is spreading fast. My scouts have reported that more of those pathetic fighters of yours are converging on the ship, which is what we expected them to do. This is the time to thoroughly crush the resistance, and along with that we need some very dramatic looting and pillaging through all the nearby settlements. You remember. Just think terror, you want to spread as much of that around as quickly and with as much force as possible. Never mind the casualties. Plus, it's time the men captured a bit of loot for themselves. And you too."
"Me? I'm not-"
"Ah-ah-ah. You have to hold up your end, you know. You can't expect me to support you indefinitely."
Piranha gave him a sharp glance. The Boss met Piranha's eyes with a most filthily unpleasant grin. "Yes. And not to forget you have that delicious young girl to support as well. Do you think she eats for free? You've both been sponging shamelessly, living on my charity, it's time for you to start paying your way."
"So that's how it works," said Piranha in a low voice.
"Yes, that's how it works. Now you're going to become a pirate for real, it's a great moment, your graduation. Piranha, you don't look as enthusiastic about this as you could."
The glare of those large shadowed eyes didn't waver. "I don't think I specifically promised you enthusiasm."
"Well, now, I don't know. If you're not enjoying what you do here, then you're not really doing it. A pirate always throws himself into everything to the limit, full force - and isn't that your way too, little fluke? I expect you to keep the spirit, as well as the letter, of our agreement. Unless..." Anaconda walked up to him, smiling more broadly, holding up his baton like an admonishing finger. "It couldn't be, could it, that you're trying to back out? And after solemnly pledging your loyalty to me before the whole crew this very morning?"
If Anaconda had been any less of a robot, the look Piranha gave him would have stopped his heart. "I keep my agreements."
"What a relief. Well, then, get going."
Because it had been many hours since he'd eaten, he had taken a few moments to get some water and a small mouthful of food, though his stomach rebelled with violence even at the thought. Now, striding towards the big exit port in the lowest part of the ship, his hat pulled down over his face, he had a sudden attack of such nausea that he darted abruptly through a doorway off the corridor. He slammed the door behind him and stood leaning against it, his body bent, panting.
The persistent thought of a huge figure plunging a dagger into a native to snatch her small treasure, only to have a sword thrust through him from behind, and the trinket passing from hand to hand to hand, five times in as many minutes... And the sword in his own hand, what would be done with that?
The room was unlit except for the faint greenish emergency lighting. He palmed on the lights. No one here, nothing in the large room, only a floor covered with muddy footprints. Perhaps used for holding prisoners when first brought in. One room of many. He shut his eyes, threw his hat off irritably, turned back to lean against the door.
The nausea was turning to pain. He wondered if he'd somehow been fed poison. Sharp, ripping pain, like some taloned thing inside clawing to get out.
Then it stabbed behind his eyes, they filled with tears. He gasped.
"YOU? Damn you!"
He yanked a dagger out of his vest and crouched, ready to attack.
The demon inside was tearing at him, taunting him, mocking him bitterly. He hissed back at it. "You have the nerve to curse at me? You? Yeah, make a machine, set it going, then blame it for all the destruction!"
Shuddering, he bent forward. He touched the tip of the curved knife to his trunk, to that point between chest and abdomen where was located the nexus, the main control center for the energy flows that composed his body. His teeth bared. Pressing the metal blade even fractionally into that spot, into that nausea, that pain, set off a jolt of electrical agony, sent chills and a hot flush throughout his frame. He snarled.
"You want to play rough? Let's go, brother. Come out here and fight, or I come in there after you-"
It was as though something slammed him across the head. He staggered. He pulled the knife away and, leaning his body against the door, wiped his face. Closing his eyes, he laid his hot cheek against the cold metal.
Insane. He was becoming seriously insane... The taunting demonic voice was retreating, the stabbing pain relenting a little. The tears, though, still laked in his eyes.
And another surge of rage shook him. How in the living hell could he fight an enemy he couldn't lay hands on or even see? That yanked him around like a beast on a chain, a puppet? Worse, that gave him what power he had in the first place?
Still worse, that wasn't his enemy? And which strictly speaking didn't exist.
The hand with the dagger quivered, he fought the urge to run the thing into that damned symbol, into those raging dark blue eyes, that self-righteous puppeteer's face, to bury it in the place between chest and abdomen where the Guardian's white circle had once been. His body shook as he leaned against the door.
Then slowly he straightened up. He stood there for a moment, his hand covering his forehead and eyes.
No, no. Death, insanity - relief of any kind was not permitted. He was going to go on. He was going to follow the purposes of the little purple-suited bastard, that coward, that demonic ghost who hid behind him. Obey without question the orders of the little bastard's enemy. Exist in a state that could not fail to drive any living thing mad ... but mad or sane, living thing or machine, there was nothing for him but to go on. That was simple enough, wasn't it?
For a slave, a machine, to have emotions? Ethics? Irrelevant, not to mention a serious mistake.
Joylessly, he smiled. He took the dagger still in his hand and flipped it whirling upwards. As it descended, he snatched it again, grabbing it by the naked blade. His thick leather gloves, and even more the precise delicacy of his control, prevented the razor-thin edges from slicing into his fingers. Yes, delicate work that, the perfect adjustment of pressure, speed, and judgement of opposing forces. Playing with destruction. A magic act. That's what he was, a whole circus in himself, from the roaring, tormented caged beasts to the clowns. A magic act... except that, after all, this performance wasn't exactly an act. No rehearsals, no safety net. Real props, real pain, real death. And the victims being shoved into the basket and run through with swords had never volunteered.
He replaced the knife in the vest alongside the others, that metal palisade that served as improvised armour. He was encased in, surrounded by metal. Guarded by a metal cage. Living in a world of metal... Nothing could be more alien to the little blond guy from the forest, that airy, laughing sprite of moving light; wherever he was.
He wiped his eyes. He put his hat back on his head. He put a hand on the door to open it. And glancing around the room again, he recognized it suddenly. The antechamber to a torture room... It hadn't been empty then. Yes. Back there was the inner door, the locked door. It looked like the same one.
He went out into the corridor.
[End of chapter 10, section 1]