No one had wept much when Harkness implied to Slipknot that the explosive in his neck owed more to imagination than fact. Christopher Weiss was a colossal pì yǎnr with no respect for women at all. Harley had flat out told him the rest of them didn't have explosives injected into them and he'd just sneered that of course a woman would be that stupid.
It did, however, lend credence to Harkness's claims later on. And Weiss fell for it. River slanted a warning glance at the rest of the squad. They didn't need to advertise that the explosive in the neck portion of Waller's program had been skipped. Flag had assumed they'd been subjected to the procedure while on Belle Reve and nobody had said otherwise at the time. (Of course the prison staff being dead prevented them speaking quite nicely.) Thankfully, while a lot of the Squad were textbook sociopaths, they weren't morons, and no one said a word.
GQ's voice came over the comms, "Boss, we got people up here."
Mal's voice sounded before Flag could get a word in, "I'm on my way." He glanced at River and she nodded.
Riddick moved forward, "I'll keep you company Cap'n." He walked with Mal to the front while River remained with the squad.
She looked at them and held up a hand, "Chato, I understand if you have trouble fighting in close quarters. Will you use conventional weapons if you cannot bring yourself to use the flames?"
Chato's expression twisted with discomfort under his skull tattoo, "I swore I wouldn't lift my hands in anger again." He said finally. "On the dust of my family."
"But you are not angry," River tilted her head thoughtfully. "This is an enemy; it is not personal. There is no reason for anger. Will you help defend your companions, your world?"
"You an' Riddick, you can keep me from getting out of control?" Chato's legitimate concern for their safety was touching.
"No one knows Wrath the way Riddick does," She smiled. "If there is ever a need for yours, we will be in desperate straits and you will need have no compunctions about releasing it."
"All right," Chato nodded and held out a hand. "I'm better with an Iskellian or a Grizzly than a blade."
Deadshot threw him one of the former, "Nice to have you with us homie."
River tilted her head, angling to hear the conversation at the front line and frowned, "Waller says to divert, not to fight, fighting doesn't work. But If we divert we will lose the other Purplebellies."
"Well let's not divert then," Deadshot gave her a grin of pure mischief and she laughed softly. Floyd's sense of humor seemed similar to hers and Riddick's.
"Let's not," She nodded towards the rest and they moved forward as a group.
River stood in front of the Bravo squad leader, startling Flag and the tall chocolate skinned male in fatigues as Flag commanded, "Copy that. We're diverting. Bump out second squad two blocks east. We'll pass through you, continue north. Take bravo two blocks east. We'll leapfrog through you once you're in position."
River shook her head, "If we divert we will lose Bravo." She looked at the lieutenant and did not move from her position in front of him. "Bad move to split up. We can take this group. If the Purplebellies can hold our perimeter."
GQ looked over at her and then towards Mal and Riddick who seemed to be eyeing the enemy as if determining weaknesses. "Well it's up to Cap'n Reynolds isn't it," He moved up behind the two men and tapped Mal on the shoulder. "Your daughter's got an idea, it counters Waller's orders."
Mal turned around with a grin, "Anything that don't agree with that jiàn huò I'm in favor of."
River explained Waller's idea, pointing out that splitting up seemed like a very bad idea. "We can't simply avoid all of these…things. It'll take us forever to get to wherever we're going."
"Well Waller is in charge," Flag argued. "Our orders are to get HVT-1 out of the city and off planet if possible."
Riddick folded his arms and simply stared at the Alliance officer while River rolled her eyes, "Thinks we bought his lies. Thinks he's fooled a Reader. HVT-1 is… along the way, but not our true purpose. Waller has always wanted the Squad to deal with the Enchantress problem."
"We've got our orders," Flag repeated as if they'd agree if he wore their ears down.
"Those are your orders," Mal reminded him. "Our orders are to put a stick b'tween the spokes in this Enchantress's plans." He regarded Flag calmly, "You do recall we're doing this under our own terms? Long as we're going the same way, we work together."
"But we don't follow your orders," Riddick reminded the Colonel bluntly. "We're in this for our own reasons."
"Just another excuse to cut and run when things get too hard," Flag plainly didn't think much of them.
River sighed and pushed past him, GQ gave her a questioning look and she shrugged, "Bored now."
"Where're you goin'?" The overly handsome soldier called after her.
"To pick a fight," River nearly laughed.
"Wǒ kào," Mal turned behind her and she heard him issuing orders. "Purplebellies, hold the line, don't let anyone get past you. Squad, you're with me, we're the breakwater, Purplebellies are the final levy, River and Rick are 'bout to start a fight."
Mal did know her fairly well after all, she drew her sword and axe and tried to put out of her mind that these had once been people.
"Why do they look like that," GQ was questioning Flag, but she didn't have time to listen for the answer. A slice of her blade later, she and Riddick were too busy trying to hold off a seeming battalion of whatever these things were.
She could feel the grin Riddick sent towards the rest of the Squad as he moved forward with her. Midway to the enemy the things turned and saw them and began to race forward. "Let's have some fun," River quipped and slanted a look at him. "You know that game you like to play?"
"Who's the better killer?" Riddick chuckled as he pulled his own blades.
"Hmm… let's see who wins," She slashed downward with the edge of her sword, slicing a scaly arm from a weirdly distorted body and the game was on.
He heard Flag yelling, Deadshot hollering back for Harley to rescue the idiot Alliance colonel and the Purplebellies firing as more of the things came in from their flanks. Not as many as the frontal assault, River and Riddick were handling that mostly. The ones that got by them Deadshot mowed down as if having the time of his life.
Mal and the rest were dealing with the things trying to flank them. The whole thing became a semi-satisfying mess of gore, blood, slice and dice, punctuated by gunshots. He got a few good looks at Katana and her infamous sword. The woman wasn't bad with it. No where near a match for him or River, but good, nonetheless.
Finally the gunfire died down, and they could all regroup and tend to their wounded. The co-pilot, Leila, had taken a nasty bite to her shoulder. Mal and GQ were dealing with it, while GQ stared at Flag, "The brief said terrorist. You want to start explaining this?"
"If I told you, would you believe me?" Flag stared at him and Riddick could admit that if you'd never met a metahuman it would be pretty hard to swallow.
There were some pointed observations, and more of Flag's bluffing and lies, until Deadshot, his assassin persona firmly in place now, stared at Flag, "That's bullshit. Thing is, he owned a three thousand plat watch. Is that a person?"
Flag stared at Lawton, "It was. Now it's not." Cold. True but tiān shā de cold.
Riddick wouldn't have thought a thing like that would bother the assassin, it didn't bother him. They were attacking him, River, they started the fight. Despite River's joking, they'd charged her. Maybe it was possible for someone to come back from whatever the Enchantress had done to them, maybe not. But if they pulled their punches they'd never survive long enough to find out. He said as much to Lawton, adding, "We can't afford mercy right now. We're in the middle of enemy territory, and we've got farther to go."
He could almost see every one of the Squad pulling on the masks they wore, the criminal personas that helped them survive a 'verse that alternately despised and used them according to its whims. River stood at his elbow, cleaning her blade before sliding it back in its sheath. Her dark eyes were cold on Flag's face, "So much for his theory."
Riddick chuckled and Deadshot smirked at the Colonel, "Yeah. That's how I cut and run."
River slanted a smile up at him and Riddick grinned at her, "Did he keep score?"
"Pretty much even," He told her. Her eyes narrowed on Flag and Riddick regarded the Alliance soldier thoughtfully. "Something goin' on with him?"
"Thinks to…make an offer… combine forces, we help with the exfiltration, he helps with the Enchantress, doesn't realize capture may not be an option," River murmured. "We must speak with Cap'n Daddy."
"Mal," Riddick jerked his head at the Browncoat and the man handed off the bandages he held to GQ and moved in their direction. "River says we have… well…a complication."
"What's that?" The man didn't seem surprised, but Riddick supposed living with a Reader would get you used to surprises after a while.
"Flag's thinking maybe he offers the purple bellies to help us, if we get the squad to help him with the exfil," Riddick summed it up for him. "As it is, Bravo's s'posed to split off from us once we get a few klick's farther."
"Can't say it's a bad notion," Mal rubbed his chin. "Means we've got the continuing argument of who's in charge all the way to the end of the line though."
"Yeah," Riddick nodded. "And how complicated is the exfil."
"Better question is who's HVT-1 that they, out of all the folks in the city, deserve rescuing," Mal wondered, slanting a look back at Flag.
River sighed, "Get the rest of the Squad over here, and I'll tell them. We'll need them to agree to it anyway."
"Yeah, these ain't nicely cooperative Browncoats willing to follow my every order," Mal nodded his agreement and hollered for the rest of them. "Squad! Form up 'round me, got some…developments."
"Oh this is gonna go great," Riddick muttered. The city in shambles around them, people turned into monsters, an extremely powerful meta human to deal with and now they were adding in a rescue. He took one more look at the site of their battle and inhaled. Whatever the enemy was, they had a unique stench to them, the air felt saturated with it.
Author's Note: I thought about keeping Slipknot around but he just seemed like such a jerk. More so than the rest of the Squad. And honestly I have enough characters to keep track of. I hope you're all enjoying this still. I'm working on making some small changes that will eventually lead to larger ones near the end of the story. Something of a butterfly effect.
Chinese Translations:
pì yǎnr (bastard / slob / asshole)
jiàn huò (bitch)
Wǒ kào (crap!)
tiān shā de (goddamn)