LOL I HAVEN'T UPDATED SINCE FEB. 2012 SORRY I GOT CAUGHT UP IN A LITTLE FANDOM CALLED "LEGEND OF KORRA"
BIG THANKS TO REVIEWER Zarianwen for an entirely unexpected but very motivational and flattering review I dedicate this chapter to u *blows kiss*
ok so if i keep these chapters short and sweet - 2.5k words max, and not the 8k, 9k chapters i've been posting for my other long fic - i should be able to keep this up as a side project. motivate me.
Lance swore and cursed unintelligibly under his breath, fighting to pry the claw around the armor's waist off with his free hand. The scorpion didn't budge and there was a loud metallic crack as the armor dented under the strength of its grip. The scorpion bristled with combative energy, tail taut and dripping with venom.
Ilana had the sword. It was almost as tall as the Corus armor and so she held it in both hands, struggling to keep it steady – waiting for the right moment –
"Octus, wait," she commanded, as Octus raised his hands to electrocute the scorpion.
She heard Lance fall silent, panting heavily, as he slowly removed his hand from the scorpion's claw, the Manus face impassive against the scorpion. He was going to be mad at her later, for sure… if it worked.
The scorpion tail shot forward and Lance swore again, loudly, catching it with his free hand and stopping the barb a foot away from his face. The scorpion screeched and tried to pull its tail back, Lance and the armor straining to hold on, to stay in one piece –
A surge of energy shot through Ilana and the Corus armor, a knot of power untangling from the energy core in her chest and coursing to the sword, which suddenly felt weightless. Its circuitry began to glow with a pale golden light and she took her chance – she leapt high into the air, swung the sword over her head, and with a two-handed slice, cut straight through the scorpion's tail. It released like a snapped rubber band, recoiling backwards, yellow venom splurting from the cut. Ilana landed heavily between Lance and the scorpion, several feet away from its repulsive face, and without pausing to think she ducked low and used both hands to drive the sword straight into the bottom of the scorpion's head, right into the soft, fleshy crevice between its armored plates. For added measure, she heaved all her weight onto the sword, pushing it deeper and slicing it across, so that a huge gaping cut opened in the scorpion's neck and a viscous mass of whitish innards and fluid spilled out, covering her in guts.
The scorpion shrieked, an ear splitting cry that cut through them like a shard of glass, and shuddered convulsively. The Manus armor dropped to the floor as it opened its claws and, with a shrill groan, sank towards the floor of the subway station, spilling innards as its legs weakened. The floor was slick with scorpion viscera and Ilana could only look up as the scorpion threatened to drop its dead weight on her… as it collapsed with a squelchy crash, she felt a hard yank and she was out from underneath the corpse.
"Thanks… Octus…" she panted, standing up as he began trying to scrub her clean of scorpion guts; they smelled, in a over-sweet, sickly way, like sewage and bad meat.
"I didn't know princesses were taught how to slay scorpions," he said admiringly, flicking a jelly-like gob of something off her shoulder.
"Top of the class," she said breathlessly, craning her neck towards the scorpion. The thing was still sort of twitching horribly and a bubble popped in the foul-smelling slop of guts. She felt slightly ill, looking at her handiwork… and a small, fierce sense of satisfaction.
There were several thudding footsteps as Lance staggered over in the Manus armor, one hand tentatively exploring the dent. He stopped in front of Ilana and Octus, the purple armored face frozen in its blank scowl, but Ilana could imagine his expression.
"You…" he began angrily, leaning over, flinging a pointed finger into her face, apparently right on the cusp of some tirade; he paused and tried again: "you – you… !"
"Lance, is there something you want to say?" Octus asked, with a sardonic note.
"Whatever. Forget it," Lance huffed, and stomped towards the scorpion. He knelt down and stuck both arms into the scorpion's corpse, fishing around, and pulled out the sword. Ilana watched him as he swung the sword, slinging slime off the point, and then collapsed it into his armory. He turned to look at them, expectantly, as though waiting for them to push back, to argue.
"Let's just go home already," Lance muttered, after a long silence.
"Okay," she said, turning off her armor with a flash of light. Octus flickered into his Newton form and gave her a gentle pat on the head. They started off towards the tunnel and there was a similar flash of light behind them from Lance.
"So… hot chocolate when we get home?" she said, looking up at Octus.
"With marshmallows," he said, "they – "
Lance had a hand on either of their collars, halting them in their tracks.
"Look up," he said, still holding on firmly. They all looked up. A glob of scorpion poison was dripping from the ceiling high above them. The tail had slung it across the subway station when Ilana cut it in two. Lance removed his hand from Ilana's collar and looked at Octus.
"Can you catch a sample?"
"Of course," said Octus, and his hand morphed into a shallow round dish. They waited in the quiet as Octus collected three, four, five drops of the scorpion venom and studied it carefully, his eyes shining with concentration.
"It's an acidic neurotoxin," he said; "don't let any of it fall on you."
They side-eyed the puddled forming by their feet, scooted around it, and stole their way into the dark for home.
~ break ~
"They killed it. She killed it. We're doomed."
"She got lucky."
"No wonder he hasn't been able to kill her. She's lethal."
"She got lucky."
"No one 'gets lucky' killing an Apessian scorpion! Modula sent us on a suicide mission!"
"If Lance couldn't do it by himself – "
"But that's exactly what I mean – "
"Both of you shut up!"
They both fell silent, their unfinished sentences rising into the air. The speaker, a tall, pointed young man with pale blonde hair, glared at his companions, a stocky red-headed man and a freckled woman with a hawkish look, both roughly his same age. They were all wedged into a niche down the dark subway tunnel; their dirty, worn-out Galalunan uniforms a dull, bitter red under the subway tunnel lights. They could see the lifeless scorpion several dozen yards away, its eyes gleaming blankly at them. Lance, the princess, and the robot had gone down the opposite tunnel, away from them, and they had seen the whole thing.
"I'm just saying - " said the redhead, sniffling; and he was abruptly cut off as the blond soldier making a sudden movement forward, pinning him to the wall with a forearm to the neck.
"Listen, Arthur, you sniveling little shit," he growled, as Arthur squeaked; "keep saying that and I'll kill you myself. Get it?"
"Baron! Stop!" hissed the woman, and a muscle jumped in Baron's jaw.
"Anyone can take out a Mutraddi megabeast with a robot and armor," he said, "but they've never had to play at our level. So shut your mouth before I shut it for you."
"Baron!" said the woman again, louder.
Arthur nodded as best he could, glasses slightly askew on his round face.
Baron removed his arm and Arthur slumped down the wall, gasping for air. Baron sneered at him dismissively, like he was something Baron had found stuck to the bottom of his boot.
"Okay, Corinthia… Arthur. We need a plan," he said to his companions, Corinthia's serious face shadowy in the dark. He leaned out of the niche, looking up and down the tunnel, towards the scorpion and the subway station, where poison was still dribbling into puddles on the floor.
Only a week ago, he had been in a precarious spot, watching his fellow soldiers in Modula's prison camps slowly being whittled down, tortured, executed, or fed alive to Mutraddi megabeasts for the benefit of a terrified Galalunan public. And now he was on Earth, hunting down the riffraff. It was quite a predicament, for sure, but he was determined to succeed. Even if his companions weren't. Baron picked at his cuffs, carefully removing a thread and letting it flutter to the floor.
"Get up, you useless sack of fou fou," he snapped to Arthur, who was still sitting on the floor, and Corinthia straightened to attention.
"Here's what we're going to do…"
~ break ~
"Ew, I still smell like that thing," said Ilana, sniffing her arm and pulling away with a scrunched, pained expression.
"At least the thing didn't eat you," said Octus, who was puttering around the kitchen as Dad. Ilana was sitting at the kitchen table, freshly showered, feeling as though she had washed the entire day away. The miserable bit of the afternoon had floated down a river, a leaf drawn out of sight by the current, and she was still drifting on her success, nasty-smelling though it was. She had one hand wrapped around a mug of hot chocolate, steam wafting slowly into the kitchen air, curling and uncurling on itself. Lance was somewhere, doing something. He hadn't said anything on the way home and then disappeared into the garage, clutching a bag of baby carrots to his chest like they were being outlawed.
"True. I'd rather smell like it than be digested by it."
Octus let that one pass without comment and studiously scrubbed a pot clean. Ilana looked into her mug and swirled it around, watching the marshmallows bounce against the curve of the ceramic. She looked at the garage door, where the mechanical clinks and clanks of car-fixing had fallen silent several minutes ago, and tucked her hands between her knees. The afternoon had floated back, apparently, and her mood felt tainted, like someone had taken a black marker and scribbled all over her joy. She sighed.
"What did you do to each other this time?"
"Hm …?"
She swiveled her head. Octus was drying his hands, fixing her with a critical look.
"Oh. Haha. Nothing, it's fine, he was just being his usual, cheerful self today," Ilana babbled hastily, arranging her face into a crooked smile.
"I might be a robot, but I can read your facial expressions quite well, and I know that's fake," he said sternly, and her shoulders drooped. Bleh. There was nothing in her mug that could help her now.
"I went to go get him after school, and we sort of… fought… and I kind of… sort of… hit him in the face," she mumbled, feeling a warm flush come into her cheeks.
"Why did you do that?"
Ilana opened her mouth, shrugged into her shoulder, and looked for the words she wanted to say on the ceiling. They were there, quite clearly, quite plainly; the words a princess in exile never wanted to hear; the words that dug in and stung like splinters under the skin, hard to remove without breaking yourself in the process. Because he hit her in the weak spot. Because she was always defending. Always retreating. Never moving forward; always moving back, further back, away from the problem. But the problem – the 'problem!', she thought scathingly; it was a war! A coup! Her people were dying! It wasn't a problem; it was genocide – the problem moved relentlessly forward, a flood of Mutraddi and countless nightmares rising at her feet
Ilana thought of the Muculox ship in the swamp, and what she had done with it. Maybe, in part, she had redeemed herself; she had taken a step forward.
"Because I was being a jerk," blurted Lance, as he swung the door to the garage open, wiping engine grease off his hands with a grimy grey towel. His face flushed and he froze under their gaze.
"And – um. You know. Sorry. About, um, that. I didn't mean it," he said, not meeting their eyes; muscles tensed, head down, hands shoved tightly into his pockets. His entire body, stuck fast in the gap between his words and their silence, spoke of nervousness. But there was no insincerity in his voice. Shame, Ilana realized, was an unfamiliar emotion for him. She glared at him, daring him to lift his eyes.
"Would Animal Friends help right now?" Octus offered, moving to switch on the TV, and both Lance and Ilana whipped their heads around – "NO!" they both said at once, and his hand slowed sheepishly.
"Pretend I never said anything," he muttered, and he started piling dishes into the cabinet with a pointed expression.
"You're a real piece of work sometimes, Lance," said Ilana, crossing her arms, and making a point to let her gaze cut to Lance's feet and then back up to his face, like she was sizing him up. It was a princess thing, and she was good at it.
"Ilana, I'm sorry," he said again, and she sighed and rolled her eyes and thought that maybe she'd let him look her in the face again.
"Fine," she said, uncrossing her arms; "I accept your apology. Have some hot chocolate."
"I don't want any hot choc – "
"Drink it," hissed Octus, shoving a mug into his hands, and Lance took a quiet, hasty sip.
"Now will you two get along? I am the robot, not the babysitter," Octus said, and Ilana rolled her eyes, resting her head against her fist on the counter. Lance pulled out the chair across from Ilana, the wooden legs scraping loudly against the tile floor, and dropped into it with a flump, staring dully at the cup of hot chocolate.
"I'll try," he murmured.
~ break ~
And, in a large, graceful hovership several hundred miles away and several dozen miles in the air, Solomon Kane sat in his command chair, hands steepled to his nose as he watched the message play across a huge screen. One of the G3 communications men had sent it along, said they'd intercepted it on a Galalunan frequency, so naturally they'd picked it up - Solomon paused the video, slid his fingers across the touch screen, and played it again: Ilana's bright, warm face, set against some half-ruined, mossy-looking cockpit somewhere, wearing a look of both exhaustion and hope as she spoke:
This message is for the people of Galaluna, who are still struggling under the tyranny and bloodshed of General Modula's regime. I just want you all to know that I'm alive and safe, and Modula has failed in all of his attempts to assassinate me. I think of you every day - of your smiles, your songs, your compassion and your courage. You give me the strength to keep fighting. I don't know when I'll come home, but I hope it's soon, and together we can take our home back.
"Spoken like a true princess. Born fighter, that girl," Solomon muttered. The message was already hurtling through space towards Galaluna, where her people would see it, and so would General Modula. Solomon pinched his fingers down the touch pad and the message closes with a wink of light.
"But naïve," he said, into the dim light of the command room. "Too naïve."
Whatever she started, it was too late to stop.
holy shit it has literally been more than a year and a half since i worked on this BUT I STILL REMEMBER THE PLOT
i think
whatever we're goin in blind BUCKLE UP THERE'S A PLOT FORMING THAT LOSER JERK BARON IS ON PLANET EARTH OOOHOHOOHOOO