A/N: im sorry this chapter took quite so long but I had actually planned to discontinue this story, I had lost a bit of drive for it because it had begun to feel so much like no one was reading it. But thank you so much to my dear marine( my nonners) for being so sweet and charming. I enjoy my chats with her and she even did the sweetest thing and made a sound track for this story, I couldn't help but feel uplifted. So I will see this story through to its more than likely bloody end.

-ale

The knightly Princess

Mordecai watched as the others dissolved in front of the fast travel station, after every one else had gone ahead of him he stepped forward to head home. Likely to make some attempt to console Maya if she would allow him to, he can still see her darkened glare. In the back of his mind he wonders if she wears it still, even if she isn't wearing it now- will she dawn it once again at the sight of him? What does not cross his mind is the thought that someone waiting, that he will not see her glare.

When he taps his destination on the screen, something odd happens, every named destination deletes itself and reappears as a place called 'core'. Mordecai curses under his breath as it relocates him before he can reach out and tap 'cancel'. When his eye readjust to a much brighter set of lights he finds himself in a strangely familiar place, his gaze sweeps quickly around the room. Just as he notices a small feeble figure hung up in a heap of cords and tube a sharp stinging sensation pierces his back. Mordecai isn't even able to yell out in pain before his vision blacks and something catches him as he collapses. Some where in the distance, after his vision has failed he can hear a laugh that sends chills rolling down his spine.

Jack watches as Mordecai is lifted and forcefully shoved into an upright and disabled healing unit. Despite its inability to function it still goes through the motions, it injects various needles and tubes under his skin. The loader that does this work raises Mordecai's arms up into clasps on either side of him, the sound of metallic restraints click loudly. How amusing this man who was so furious and sure of himself a moment ago, reduced to the likeness of a rag doll- wonderful.

It is a good while later than Mordecai wakes to a bizarre pinching sensation on his wrists ankles and all along his spine. He grunts and begins to shift, only to find himself held down. It is then that his eye open wide, he realizes that his body is suspended in the air although with his head held firmly in place he can't look anywhere but forward. Forward, there across the room is a sickeningly familiar face, gaunt white skin greyish in places and so pale he can almost see her veins. Angel even more sickly than he recalls, very suddenly he is struck with the urge to go over and shake her til she speaks- to make sure that she is even alive. Sadly, yes she is as alive as she has been in a great long time.

She shifts slightly, such a struggle to lift herself up to look across the short distance to Mordecai. Her eyelashes are still black as coal and her insomnia is smeared beneath her colorless eyes.

"Angel?"

When he speaks her name her thin brows furrow in confusion at the sound. Her lips part then close again as she searches for the words, recalling the memory of how to vocalize her thoughts without a speaker system.

"how do you know my name?"

He looks at her and feel waves of cold shame spill over himself,shes so young- just a child. His voice catches in his throat as he recalls her body hitting the floor, the way her blood pooled under her in a strange almost violet color. Her eyes blink slowly, as though it was a great effort to do such a simple thing. Mutated versions of siren markings are almost hidden from view as she wears a full body suit, opening placed specifically for various needles and tubes to pierce her. These strange marks begin to glow, the neon blue crawling up the various wires that extend from her back.

"I'm very sorry, this is going to hurt you."

Mordecai looks at her curiously before the restraint holding his head in place injects a three short needles into base of his skull embedding itself into his nervous system. This time he doesn't black out when that pain overwhelms him, he finally screams in agony. He can still feel it although his memory begins to play backward in his head- the first thing that re see is Mayas angry glare. She laugh in his mind and the sound distracts him from the pain, her eyes they sparkle for a moment before that image is gone his time with her passes in a flash. The wedding plays out backward and for some reason the thought of her walking away from him hurts so much. Before that his argument with Lilith, before that a drinking match with himself. Moxxis stupid smile, the snide way she talks to him the the way her she can set him off faster than anyone in the entirety of his life. The way her felt so much rage and anger and hurt the betrayal that still felt like an open sore sitting at the bottom of the ocean. Screaming and yelling and her face all twisted up in angry snarl as she screeches at him with her country slur.

Before that for a few years it had all felt so empty and pointless, the little perch at his campsite that he still couldn't get rid of. Years of doing what ever needed doing without any direction. The image of the warrior falling in crumbling heap back into the liquid flames from which it had thrust itself. Brick leaping down from the edge of a wall onto his sinking vessel and being lifted up. Mordecai clenches his eyes shut and wills away the following memory only to see Bloodwing diving down onto the small bodies that are desperately trying to save him, the way his head exploded and spattered across the arena. A train explode and Tina's voice is heard laughing brightly over the echo net.

Here now he recalls the destroyer that had tried to escape he first vault, rushing to it he remembers dropping the strange Eridian guardians that had tried to so desperately to stop him, Brick , Lilith and Roland. He feels Angels consciousness searching his mind, he allows her to take the remaining memories from him. But when she finds herself at a loss, she back tracks to the moment he keeps locked away. Her mind claws at his with a sick ferocity, peeling away layers of willpower shame and regret. Suddenly it blares loud and clear in her mind, the image of herself wrenching her body free of the damaged restraints to scream her fury out and fall down. It is strange to see oneself wither up and fall down dead, she watches as they attempt to escape. Roland is shot and thrown to the side and Lilith taken and collared.

Angels mind recoils from Mordecai's leaving him feeling drained and exhausted.

" I'm so sorry , I'm so sorry"

A voice booms into the room from off to side.

" You're awake- good. Did you get everything angel?"

Jack smiles with his hands in his pockets as he strolls casually into the room his gaze hopping back and forth from her to him.

"yes jack"

"well don't keep me in suspense- roll it."

Mordecai sees Angels well masked fury as she looks at her father, something clicks in the distance and a small white projector emerges from the ceiling. The scene she chooses quickly wipes that smile off jacks face, he watches as Axton rips the mask off his face and plants his boot against jack chest launching him backward. When he finally struggle cursing and screaming all the while to get back up Lilith catches him- he marks all a glow as the life bleeds out his mismatched eyes before he falls back down.

Somewhere beyond the large heavy metal doors the three all hear a thunderous explosion. Jack turns to look behind him, his brow arcing curiously.

" the hell was that?"

Angel switches the scene, Jack turns back to find himself looking a still frame of Maya in her black gown with a gun in one hand and the other extended and she phase locks a distant enemy. Jack sneers at the image before it fades away. Something slams against the door leaving a massive dent, smoke begins spiraling upward from the cracks and crevices in the door. Jack snarls and shouts for security, the sound of gears working is the response, red lights on the wall shoot small thin flat lasers that scan to life several loaders. Rows and rows of large well armed loaders that sneakily camouflage themselves as they line up against the walls.

With another thunderous boom the door is launched out of the doorway and across the room, a purple orb is seen dissipating from view. As the smoke clears jack sets his eyes on an unfamiliar face, although the three blue dots under her eye give her away as the siren in the black gown. Curious the way her face does not give away any sense of rage or fright, sorrow. Nothing. As she steps forward into the room, the loaders spring into action, she moves left her mirrored image moves right. Jack jerks his head back in bewilderment as he finds himself staring at a second siren. They use exactly the same sweeping motion using that purple orb to swipe across the front row of incoming loaders. They corrode to nothing in moments, but there are so many.

Jack smirks as he watched the pair step backward until their shoulder blades are touching. What he does not expect is the way their markings light up, the way they both raise up their arms. Over their head a large black orb forms and falls to almost touch their raised palms. Their attached shied absorb every bullet the loaders fire just before hundreds of long thick violet tendrils whip out from the orb and wrap around various appendages. Those that do not dissolve on contact are dragged into the orb, where loud grinding noises can be heard. Jack watches the pair mutilate his most dangerous machines, he didn't bring a gun, all he has is the shield strapped to his thigh. On instinct he moves to run only to feels something burning at his ankle. Before he can look down he is ripped upward. Just he is launched into the air his shield spikes unlatching the corrosive touch although he lands almost completely head first. His body crumples when it hits the cold floor, Mordecai watches as that same tendril lashes out again swiping at the restraints that bind him. For a moment her braces himself to hit the floor only to find himself being jerked away. Before he can blink he is engulfed in cold and darkness, he hears a small scream some where he cant find.

The loaders keep forming only to be wiped away, with a sigh Maya and Kotyk begin to bend their knees lowering the large black sphere, as they lower their arms and turn over their palms the orb slowly spills over their bodies. Loaders stop forming and the cameras watch as the bubble pops out of existence.

Citizens shriek in horror, Llilith runs to the balcony to find a large black bubble lowering itself down to the cold cement. She can't think of what the hell that might be, so she turns and bolts for the gun safe, Salvador, Axton and Zero on her heels.

The sensation is similar to when an elevator suddenly drops, like it leaves your stomach on the upper floor. The wind is quickly knocked out of Mordecai as his body slams against the ground, gray dots scatter across his vision as he opens his eyes. When his vision slowly clears he sees feels Lilith's arms around him before he sees her. She turn him over and begins to carefully pull out the remains of his restraints, as she does this he watches the orb slowly raise back up off the ground. In its shadow it begins to reveal two figures. How strange to see Maya so stoic, as though she where sculpted marble. Both her and her brother keep their arms raised up until another body drops rather suddenly from the sphere, Angel lands with a huff into Maya and Kotyks arms.

Just as she is exposed to the open air her eye rolls back, her joints and muscles lock up and violently twitch in a noiseless seizure. The two attempt to restrain her while her body thrashes in such strange ways.

" whats going on!? What wrong with her"

It's kotyks panicked voice that Mordecai recognizes before he tries to raise his own voice to be heard.

" eridium.. poison...shes dependent on it."

When he says this he finds him self furious with their reaction, although too weak to do anything about it. They force her to her knees and grip her wrists, with their other hands overlapped on the back of her skull their marks glow brightly. Axton finds himself torn, not sure is he should stop them or if they're helping, similar thoughts rattle around in Salvador's head. Zero tilts his head to the side only mildly interested. After a moment Angel screams as her own mutated lines light up and her veins turn violet. Slimy neon purple sludge ejects itself from her ears, nose eyes and pores- a moment later it is violently ejected from the base of her stomach where it splatters across the floor. The pair relinquishes their hold of her and collapses backward- it is Axton than jumps forward to keep Angel from landing in her own sickness.

A few hours have passes and Dr. Zed sighs as he looks over the cluster taking up his hospice. Maya Kotyk, both with saline IV's pressed into their elbows, Mordecai with a series of stitches being cleaned. Lastly Angel, washed clean and wrapped up in an off white gown that daisy had brought out for her. She seems calm as she sleeps in the this cot, with only one IV pressed into the junction of her elbow. A simple fluid of nutrients and vitamins. The doctor turns and sees Lilith looking rather at Angel with an expression of guilt, shame. He asks her.

" so what you you gonna do with her?"