Maelstrom Chapter 7.5
Marooned: Part F
Author's note: This story is part of a LONG series called Maelstrom. It is strictly Gen. 1 - sorry, but that was all that was out when I started writing back in the late 1980's. It began as a fan-publication so the first chapters are in the form of a comic book! If you have not read the nine original Maelstrom Comics and the preceding text stories, I strongly suggest you do. This is a complex universe. They can be found at http/ illmatar. deviantart. com (I have put double spaces between the URL here or FF . Net eats the link.) The comics and art which accompanies this series are there...and believe me I am a better artist than writer.
This chapter takes place between the comic issues #7 and #8.
Most chapters of this series contain strong language and violence. Rated M for adult themes! Really! Transformers characters belong to Hasbro. Critiques adored! This scene contains strong language, violence, trauma, and sex. Rated M for adult themes!
Transformers characters belong to Hasbro. Story and OC characters are mine. Critiques adored!
Continued from Marooned: Part E
Two days later she declared it was time to leave, but as much as Rodimus would have liked to go, he refused to budge until she was no longer wheezing. Four days later she convinced him, but not by conventional means.
Rodimus drudged his way back to camp carrying as much firewood as he could bundled on his back and in his arms. Their prolonged stay had stripped the area of combustibles and forced him to walk long distances for more. He'd been gone for hours when he silently came around the last boulder to their camp.
For a moment, he was pretty sure he was having a hallucinogenic episode.
His traveling companion had the music on. No surprise there, but she also had a large, bloody femur bone in her hands from his latest, guilty kill. This object was alternating between an air guitar and a microphone as she danced around the camp in a series of assassin's moves turned dance routine. She was quite into singing along as well, because she completely failed to notice he was there for several moments.
When she did she shrieked in surprise.
Rodimus set his wood bundles down and said flatly, " I'll be back in a few minutes." He walked back around the boulder, sat down against it, and tried, really tried, to laugh quietly. This plan fell completely apart when she came around the rock to stare at him with her microphone-bone still in her hands. "Oh crap!" he cried and laughed himself hoarse.
" I don't know whether to praise you for sneaking up on me or kick your ass for being a shit, Rodimus! It's not that funny!"
Most of his answer was completely unintelligible but she did catch "bad-ass assassin," "dance party," and "bone." This came with a sudden clear vision of herself dancing around with a carcass part...and suddenly she was laughing too. She ended up sitting on the ground across from him. They only settled down after the laughing gave her a coughing attack that lasted a few minutes, and he stopped to watch her for wheezing.
She didn't, so he got back to grinning.
"Assassin Lady, some things can not be unseen," he told her seriously. Then he cracked up again. She leaned over and punched him.
He's like a totally different person when he smiles, she thought. His face really lights up.
He sobered abruptly, and the smile was gone, the sun swallowed by darkness. He curled up around his knees.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
" I'm laughing...and it's not even over how stupid we are. I never thought I'd just...find something funny again. Do you think, wherever Goldbug is, that he's laughing?"
"He's most likely dead, Rodimus. In which case he's watching you become a bad-ass assassin too. So yeah, I think he's probably laughing his ass off in anticipation of the hell-fire you'll bring when you get home. Even if he isn't, Rodi...do you really think he'd begrudge your recovery?"
His eyes barely met hers and she could tell by the sheen Two was closing in on him. For a long moment she was afraid he was already lost there. Finally, slowly, he shook his head.
"Do not let guilt hamper your recovery. You need to get better. Keep in mind, where ever he is, if Goldbug's alive he'll have real help around him. He'll be safe while he heals, body and mind."
Rodimus smiled sadly. "You haven't done so badly. I don't think being stranded here was all to the bad either. Being safe...would have let me indulge my madness. Here. Our little asylum...I've HAD to think about other things. You, walking, the weather. Taking care of y...camp the last few weeks...that's helped me more than any doctor."
"Our little asylum, huh?" she asked.
He shrugged.
She leaned out and grabbed her bone. She pounded the end on the ground and decreed " I claim this Asylum in the name of Mars!" in her best Marvin the Martian voice...which wasn't all that good.
It didn't matter. They both laughed until they cried.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The next sunrise found them already packed and ready to leave.
Rediscovering his sense of humor marked a big milestone in Rodi's recovery, and a big pain in the ass for Lancer. He didn't seem to care so much if he laughed, but getting her to crack up became some sort of lofty goal for him. The fact that she was still tired, worried, and cranky only seemed to inspire him.
She knew she was in trouble when their predawn camp breakdown was punctuated with lines like, "Are you sure you want to leave? Won't you miss the view?" and "Where will we ever find such fine amenities again? The boulders, the blast marks, the distant smell of rotting stink beast when the wind is right..."
Mostly she groaned and returned fire with things like, "Shut up and pack you moron," because she could just tell he was inspecting her face to see if he'd scored. Worst of all, he sometimes did, and even if she managed to keep her face straight he knew. Somehow, he knew. It was maddening.
On they walked. Assassin's training resumed too, although now Rodimus had acerbic things to say every time she "killed" him – which made her want to kill him. Once in a while he "killed" her instead, but he was always so surprised about it that the humor train derailed.
Finally, she found something that shut him up for days.
Another forty miles or so towards their goal and they noticed a dark streak on the horizon. They had to get almost on top of it to see what it was.
"Fuck me," Lancer whispered.
"Wow...this looks just like the trenches Unicron drew across the surface of Cybertron with his fingers...only longer," Rodimus observed.
It was a canyon...or more precisely a series of them. It did look like an enormous hand had dug parallel groves into the surface of the planet of the planet from horizon to horizon. They couldn't see its end in either direction. The whole thing was less than two miles across but it was split, lengthwise by eight narrow walls that divided it into trenches. Each trench was hundreds of feet deep, but only a hundred or so feet wide, separated by nearly vertical cliffs that were no more than a few dozen yards across at the top.
Even after they traveled along it's edge for nearly a week they couldn't find an end to the canyon. Finally they found a place where a few of the center ridges had crumbled and weren't so high. They looked at it, then at each other.
"What do you think?" Rodimus asked.
Lancer whistled at him with an ear-bending shriek.
"Ah. Is that one of Jordan's cuss words?" Rodimus asked. "What did you just call me?"
" I called you an unfertilized egg," Lancer explained.
"Ah. What?!"
"Well, in their culture, that means your mother was such a bitch that no one would mate with her so she had to reproduced on her own," Lancer elaborated.
"Oh. …. Can they do that?" Rodimus asked.
"Apparently if they really have to. Shut up and let me think," Lancer snarled.
"Why? We both know we have to cross here," Rodimus said.
She punched him. "How's our water?"
"Full, although I don't know why you're worried. You can see the stuff running down the edges too," Rodi noted.
"Yeah, but there may not be any in the center slices," Lancer fretted. "This is going to be a long, strenuous climb and it's going to take us days to cross."
"True, but I'm more worried about getting caught in a flash flood down there if it rains. I don't think we should camp at the base," Rodimus mused. "Once we climb down, we'll have to make it back up to the top before we can rest."
"Fuck," Lancer growled. She punched him again.
"What?! I'm right!" he exclaimed.
" I know. Fuck you for thinking of it though," Lancer said. "Now I'm twice as sure I don't want to do this."
"So camping here and starting at dawn?"
"Yup," she agreed.
Dawn came way earlier than either wanted and they started down as soon as they could see. They roped themselves together and picked their way one toehold at a time. Lancer used her claws more often than not to catch cracks and find purchase. Where they couldn't find purchase she cut small divets in the rock with her powers. She tried to conserve her energy though since they had nine cliffs to scale. By mid-morning they reached the bottom which they found to be damp and teeming with what passed for bugs on Asylum. There were lots of small critters feeding off those bugs too, but they ate their own meat since neither felt they could spare the time to cook.
The canyon floor was littered with random debris in irregular heaps. Dead limbs, bones, rocks, and so forth were all tangled up in each other. There was a stain on the wall too, telling them this debris had come with high water. The highest it went was about 30 feet above the floor. They ate fast.
The climb up was nearly wordless. Neither had the breath to spare except when they absolutely had to speak. Lancer went first, testing the handholds, and clawing her way up like a gargoyle. If she could reach, her taller, stronger companion could too. Still there were a few times Rodimus found his arm wrapped in her tail as she tried to help him follow her up. A few times his hand reached up to catch her foot and support her when she slipped.
Neither noticed that all of this mutual assistance took place without anyone asking for it.
Lancer's carefully maintained personal space was a thing of the past too. The few times they found a ledge big enough to rest on they huddled together and tried not to move.
It was dusk when they reached the surface. A full day of muscle straining labor and they could clearly see the camp they left that morning on the far side of the first gorge. One down...eight to go.
They didn't pitch the tent. They didn't make a fire. They didn't eat. They spread the floor skin of their shelter on the ground, got out the blanket skins, crawled under them, and went to sleep side by side.
It was the first night since her illness Rodimus didn't attack Lancer even once, a fact they both chalked up to exhaustion the next morning. They made up for missing dinner with a big breakfast and set out again.
The second canyon was even narrower than the first.
"Damn. It almost looks close enough to throw a rope across," Rodimus complained.
"Yeah...almost. The top looks thin too. Maybe I could tunnel through at the bottom," Lancer mused.
" I thought about that," Rodimus said tiredly.
"You didn't say anything," Lancer accused.
"Yeah, well I also thought about being down there if the whole cliff decided to collapse," he explained.
" I'm almost tired enough to risk it," Lancer muttered.
"Yeah...almost," Rodimus agreed. "Shall we go Lady Assassin?"
The combination alien cuss words she called him translated to something like an unfertilized egg that was so ugly it needed to masturbate with it's own tail for lack of partners. He grinned and they started down.
The second day was a carbon copy of the first, except that Lancer actually felt motivated to vocalize complaints of tail-strain. Also, the next morning when she woke up with his arm over her she was too comfortable and too tired to move away. By the third day their hands were so covered with scabs they were almost black and bed-time was delayed by the need for intense muscle cramps to subside. Lancer took to blocking some of Rodi's nerves again. Rodimus had to use some of their hides for new foot wear too.
Day four was fun. First they were attacked by a flock of lizardish birdish things. They were able to take out most of them by throwing stones but it cost them time. They weren't down until almost noon. The cliff they had to climb was one of the eroded ones that had made them choose this spot in the first place. It was still close to dusk when they reached the crumbled area and realized they were idiots. There was no place to camp on the rubble – they had to reach the surface anyway – and they had to do it climbing an area that was even more unstable than the rest of the cliff wall. It was well after dark by the time they reached the top, and Lancer had to burn a lot of precious power lighting their way.
They spent day five resting and walking the ridge to find a better crossing place. Although they cooked and ate some freshly killed birdish lizards (a nicely different flavor of roadkill for them to savor) it never occurred to them to pitch the tent. Or talk.
That night Rodimus had his choking dream, but Lancer rolled over and put her hand on his face before it got bad. He woke, blinked in surprise, and inhaled slowly. Their eyes met, and her pride and gratitude were palpable. She smiled, kissed him on the forehead, rolled back over and went to sleep. Rodimus didn't. Exhausted as he was, he spent the night listening to her breath and wondering if he was losing his mind in a whole new way.
Day six was largely uneventful but Rodimus could tell by the way Lancer was spreading out the handholds she was willing to cut that she was worried about how much juice she had left. In doing his best to prove to her he didn't need any silly handholds he grabbed one a bit too ambitiously and caught his left pinkie finger in a crack when he lost his balance. His feet found purchase and her tail wrapped around his arm like an anaconda, but not before his finger was snapped almost in two.
He never made a sound – the scream locked in his throat as always. He could tell she was in a panic though and about to backtrack down to him.
I'm OK...give me a minute.
The face that glowered back down at him was both dubious and demoned out. She was afraid and covering with anger.
He looked at his crooked finger with disgust. He couldn't even let go of the wall to straighten it with his other hand, so he took the tip in his teeth and pulled until it was roughly back in position. Looking back up at Lancer he nodded.
It's alright, let's go.
He knew she was furious with him for hurting himself. Furious and afraid the handicap would cause a fall, but she just grunted a wordless acknowledgment that he was ready and started climbing again. Her tail, poor bruised thing, remained in close proximity for the rest of the climb. He just let his finger have the day off and made it the rest of the way without incident.
When they got to the surface they splinted him up with a bit of bone and skin and by morning it was well enough to use.
Day seven was a carbon copy of day six without the broken finger, although they could trace their own steps by following the blood trail up the rocks.
Day eight was exciting.
They were about to the bottom of their narrowest channel so far when Lancer stiffened and turned her head sharply west.
What? he wondered.
" It's raining. Way over there," she told him. Her voice was barely above a whisper.
"How do you know?" His voice was no better. He couldn't see anything on the horizon, although in this pit that wasn't a surprise.
" I can feel the lightning," she said.
Good, power for you. Not so tired after.
"Not good," she told him. "Flash floods remember? We can't stop today."
This time Rodimus called the canyon an unfertilized egg. They hurried. Still it was nearly forty minutes before they made it down and scrambled their way across. Up she clawed when they hit the far wall. She didn't spare power either, but cut a finger-hold for him with each step up. Twenty feet up. Thirty feet up. Past the flood line and yet she didn't slow down. If anything she pushed harder.
Aren't you going to ease off? Rodimus wondered.
She didn't answer but they both froze and looked up the canyon. They felt the rumble through their fingers before they heard it, and heard it long before they saw it. The flood roiled its way through in a tsunami of white foam and debris. Boulders the size of trucks bounced like pebbles back and forth against the walls of the cliffs. The noise was past description. High as they were they both felt spray and small pebbles peppering their skin. Lancer started climbing again although Rodimus clung there, fascinated. The chaos and destruction held him transfixed.
Come ON Rodimus! What the hell are you stopping for? She was desperate to keep moving.
? The flood's down there.
An image grew in his mind. The storm was coming this way, bringing the lightning with it. She was terrified it would arrive before she could get to the top and get away from him. She saw him getting hit and dying before his corpse hit the canyon floor. He followed faster while she continued to recklessly spend her power.
One hour up...two. Rodimus' limbs were quaking with exhaustion and he could no longer even feel his hands or feet. Lancer was probably worse but she refused to slow down. Some small rocks overhead came cascading down from the surface, loosening ever larger rocks as they fell. One about the size of her torso took aim for Lancer's head, but she managed to swing aside enough for it to miss her face. It caught her ear though. She looked down, sure it would have hit the man under her, but he had shunted aside just as she had. Blood hit him on the cheek and he winced as he looked up at her. She grimaced, dug her toes in, and spared a hand to fry her bleeding ear.
Hour three and Rodimus finally caught a hint of wind and the scent of rain. The top was close, but not close enough for Lancer. Desperation made her reckless. She dug her toes in too far and snapped one of her thick, outer nails right in two. She saw white for a second and completely forgot to hold on. A strong hand pushed her forcefully up against the wall. Somehow Rodimus had managed to pull himself up to her level to shove her forward between the shoulder blades.
Neither said a word while she gasped raggedly. Momentarily she was able to reach down and flash-fry the bleeding nail without even sparing it a glance. It didn't completely take but they heard the first dull rumble of thunder off in the distance. She was already fully fanged, but somehow Rodimus still sensed it when she snapped. The demon took over and suddenly she was moving as fast as if she was fresh. Her fingers cut bloody chunks out of the rock. Zap – heave. Zap – heave. He followed as fast as she led. They got to the top scant seconds before the rain started. Lancer rolled up over the edge and didn't even pause to see that he made it too. She sprinted away from him, leaving bloody footprints in her wake. He took the hint and headed in the other direction, although he couldn't quite manage a run. He felt his hair lifting and threw himself down into a crouch, covering his ears and eyes with his arms.
The bolts came hard and fast. Risking a peek his eyes widened at what he saw. She stood on the summit with her arms raised. She was calling the lighting to her. Again and again she absorbed it, demonic and wild in a circle of cracked rock. Her roar of defiance reached him through the sounds of the storm and his own limbs around his ears. She pulled the power down into herself and then turned it to the far edge of the canyon. A sustained bolt worthy of Galvatron's cannon blew from her hand towards their last climb and she sliced a canyon of her own from the surface down into the crevasse.
In other words, she cut them a ramp.
Rodimus fell asleep right on the ground in the rain waiting for her. When he woke up the next morning he was bundled in skins...and she was out cold behind him. Her arm around him was boneless in her sleep, but he lay there a while feeling hyper-aware of her breathing against him. When he finally closed his eyes again, he dreamed strange dreams of home.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * She scared them both awake the next morning by moving in her sleep and scraping her toes on the ground.
"OWW! Fuck! Fuckfuckfuckfuck!" She sat up and grabbed her right foot, rocking her body and swearing.
The sound had him on his feet, knife in hand, before he even registered where it was coming from.
"Nice reflexes," she complimented through gritted teeth. "You need to work on orienting faster though. Fuck this! Fuck this whole place!"
He opted not to argue with her and dropped to his knees. "Here. Let me see." He pulled back the rough bandages she had thrown on the night before and revealed three bloody toes. The nails had all been torn off down to the cuticle.
Rodimus shuddered and flashed. Not the worst injury he'd seen since being here but those bloody stumps were familiar. He'd seen the Jabez do the same to Goldbug's hands...and his own.
She grabbed his hand and squeezed. "Hey...don't flash over this. It's not that serious...it just hurts like a bitch. I do love how you still think about Goldbug first though."
"Did you rinse these out last night?" Rodimus asked tightly, in no way inclined to talk about Goldbug.
"Umm...maybe? I was sort of tired and demoned out so I'm not sure we can count on that," Lancer confessed. " I think we should assume I didn't. At least I had the sense to get some blankets out." The look she threw him was somewhat accusatory.
"By the time the rain stopped I was asleep," Rodimus reminded her. "At least we won't have to climb today. Not that you could with this foot."
"What do you mean? Of course we have to climb!"
Rodimus stared at her a long minute. "You know, I think being fanged hurts your memory more than your reason. You cut us a ramp, Lady. You cut us a ramp all the way to the top."
Lancer surged to her feet, hissed, and then hopped with remarkable grace to the edge. The scarred ground still steamed along a charred path over half a mile long. The young mutant's mouth hung open.
" I didn't know you could do that," Rodimus told her.
"Neither did I," Lancer answered. "Honestly I don't think I could now...but with a thunderstorm at my disposal..."
"Yeah. And you accuse me of pulling punches. By the way, do you seriously think this is the work of a mindless killing machine? I don't think you are as out of control as you assume."
" I think I'm exactly as nuts as I assume; otherwise I would never have tried this," Lancer dismissed. "Let's just get this stupid foot wrapped up and get going." They made her foot an open toed version of Rodi's footwear because the wrap and the swelling made her boots unbearable.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Getting down was more challenging than usual. Lancer would cut a ledge with a raised lip and Rodimus would anchor himself by sitting with his feet braced against the lip. Then he would lower her down on her length of climbing rope. She would cut a new ledge and he would climb down to join her.
The bottom of the gorge was no longer a tidal wave, but it was still a fast moving river of water and debris. Lancer reluctantly shoved her swollen toes back into her waterproof boot. She bound it at the top with hide to make sure it wouldn't leak. The pain was excruciating but neither of them wanted to risk another infection. They kept themselves tied together as they waded in the waist deep current. Lancer stepped on a rock that tilted under her bad foot and just vanished under the water. Rodimus kept his balance with raw strength and will. He grabbed the rope and hauled her back in one arm-length of cord at a time until he could see her and grab her by the collar. She came up like a drowned kitten, coughing and sputtering.
"This is stupid," he announced, and threw her over his back. Any complaint she might have had about the indignity of a piggy-back ride was subdued by her need to breathe. It ended up working pretty well since he could focus on walking and she could focus on blasting any rocks or trees that the river kept launching at them.
When they got to the shore they both sat without moving for almost an hour. They had a bit of a hike to return to Lancer's ramp too as the river had sent them quite a ways downstream.
The ramp made the climb to the surface easier – not easy. It was nothing like a clear or stable path, and by this point Lancer's foot would no longer bear her weight at all. Rodimus stood on her bad side and wrapped his arm around her waist. They went up on three legs, one painful hop at a time. It would have been an exhausting journey under the best of circumstances but coming off of so many days of climbing Lancer's good leg threatened to give out on her more than once. Some obstacles were too high to hop over. When she could she sat on them and swung her legs over. Rodimus allowed her the dignity of doing that whenever possible, but there were still times he just had to lift her. They would have probably made better time if she would have just suffered him to carry her the whole way, but he knew better than to even suggest it.
It was long past sunset when they finally reached the top, and once again they only had the strength to roll themselves up in their tarps.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The next morning they woke to find themselves surrounded by a herd of unconcerned herbivore-type lizard beasties. These were a new species. Roughly 300 pounds of placid scales and muscle that were only concerned with mowing the lawn. They had thick legs, thick tails, four big, soft eyes each, and the little ones were romping around in play. Really, they were sort of cute.
Rodimus didn't even hesitate. He grabbed the closest one and snapped its neck right from their bed-roll. The rest of the herd took off in panic.
"Well, I always wanted some cute guy to serve me breakfast in bed," Lancer mused. "but I pictured waffles."
"You're never satisfied," Rodimus complained.
The subject of moving camp never even got discussed. Lancer butchered the critter and gave Rodimus pointers on such while he set up the tent. While the meat cooked they attended their various owies. Rodimus had to brace his feet and pull to help her get her boot off. Her toes were pretty much purple when they first got it off, but the swelling and the redness eased as the day went on without all that pressure on them. They took turns napping and complaining about how sore each and every muscle was. Lancer took that, and the building afternoon storm clouds as inspiration and borrowed her cloak back from Rodi.
He watched dubiously while she butt hopped onto a fairly large, flat boulder. Using her cloak to shield herself from debris she blasted a crater into it about 4 feet across and just as deep at the center.
"Why?" he asked.
"You'll see...now get inside before the storm hits," she grinned.
This time he got to watch the lightning show from the warmth of the tent while she played with the power. The deluge was as heavy as always and continued long past the lightning, so she was able to join him before the rain ended. He noted, with some unjustified regret, that the packs were strategically dividing their sleeping quarters again. Still, she was in a better mood than he'd seen in a while, so he didn't worry too much.
By morning her crater was brimming with clear,cold water.
"And that is?" he asked.
"That, my friend, is a bathtub," Lancer grinned.
" I've had more cold water than I can stand Lancer," Rodimus said.
"Yeah, I know," the mutant laughed. She stuck her hand in the water and almost instantly it was steaming. "Get in!"
" If we get in all that clean water will be dirty," he pointed out.
"Yeah, but we'll be better...and there will be another storm tonight. Besides, there's nothing like heat for sore muscles."
Rodimus was dubious, and became more so when the water was nearly hot enough to burn him. He watched Lancer wincing as the water hit her cuts and scrapes, especially her scabbed up toes, but as she settled in she sighed with contentment.
" I should have made seats," she mused. "My butt keeps sliding down. By all means though, let me keep it to myself! I'm gonna undo this braid soon and then the water really will be gross, so take advantage while you can. Or don't!"
Rodimus glared at her and knew he was now obligated to try just on principle. He gingerly went in one millimeter at a time while she teased him about being a scaredy cat. He sat rigid for about two minutes and then finally felt the heat starting to work.
"This...this feels...good!" he exclaimed.
Lancer nodded smugly.
"Wow...I can't remember the last time anything felt good," he whispered. Lancer didn't answer him, and she quickly turned away, but he thought he caught her wiping her eyes as she did so.
They stayed in a long time, and Lancer kept the water hot.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * By the time they got out their skin was pruney...something that freaked Rodimus out a bit. They washed their clothes in there too and the water was truly black by the time they were done. Lancer flash evaporated the whole pool and burned the debris at the bottom. It just rained that evening, but it was enough for another, more cleansing bath in the morning. Their herd of herbivores came back too, so they got to watch the "cows" go about life's business from the comfort of their tub.
Then they packed and headed out slowly.
" I almost regret leaving this camp," Rodimus mused.
" I can make another tub later Rodi, and I'll put seats in it too," Lancer declared. " I'm just sorry I didn't think of it sooner."
"Better late than never. Let's roll," he said.
She laughed. "We might go faster if I could roll." She was leaning on a crutch made from branches and sinew, with a hide topper for padding. He became the forward scout by default. Two camps later even his broken pinkie was fully healed but she was still using the crutch. She went forward with her bathtub plans but the weather did not cooperate every night. Rodimus felt sorry for her when the rain disappointed them...her armpit was almost as black and blue as her toes. Despite that, she avoided leaning on him with a dedication that almost hurt his feelings. In the evenings she would helpfully massage any muscle that cramped on him; she never asked for the same in return.
Four camps later, she abandoned the crutch. By six, training sessions were back on. Sometimes they talked, mostly to share stories. Some days they went all day without saying a word – they'd been working as a team so long there was nothing really to talk about. The flora got denser, so did the fauna. Even if a pack of tuskers came at them, there was nothing to say really. Lancer would zap the leader if she saw it first, or Rodimus would throw a knife into it's eye if he did. The rest of the pack would run and they would continue on, unless they needed the meat. They did learn, nearly to their sorrow, that Stink Beasts were only stinky when they had already captured something.
This time though, it was a herd of "cows" that they saw getting attacked, and they learned as they watched to pay attention to changes in the landscape that seemed serpentine and out of place. The long, winding "hill" the herd was grazing on erupted and snapped up numerous beasts in a few heart beats. They bolted, but not fast enough to elude the long lashing neck that followed them. By the time the herd was out of range, the ambush predator had half a dozen slowly dying "cows" in it's jaws. It burrowed its head back down into the soil and froze in place.
Probably won't need to hunt again until long after the weeds have grown back, Lancer thought.
"Yeah, I bet they don't mind the extra fertilizer either," Rodimus mused. " I'd like to get well clear before the smell starts though."
" I'm with you," Lancer said. Then she frowned, hearing the pitiful bleats coming from the "cows" in the beast's jaws. Her eyes glowed and she fired off some quick lances. The bleating stopped. She turned and caught Rodimus looking at her with a funny smile on his face. "They might have lingered for days," she explained.
" I know," he smiled, loving how she ended their suffering without denying the predator its meal. Yeah, that's exactly how a corrupted person acts.
" It's not a big deal you know," Lancer growled at him. They gave the predator a wide berth and Lancer made a point of scanning suspicious hills for life energy before they crossed them from then on. From then on, they traveled without major incident for almost a month.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The climate and terrain had been changing slowly on them. It was warm enough now that they rarely used their thick, hide blankets. They found sort of a forest for one thing. The twisted "trees" they were traveling through were more like large ferns than anything. The branches all came up from the ground at the center, and while they were tough they weren't woody. They curled over at the top in fancy spirals that were fun to climb and bounce on. They looked nothing at all like the forests on Earth, but they smelled somewhat sweet, and if Lancer closed her eyes the sound the wind made passing through them took her home.
They were also good for stealth and environmental awareness training. Most of all, Lancer enjoyed making Rodimus practice his balance by standing on one foot on the top of a frond. He suspected that this had less to do with assassin's training and more to do with amusing his teacher when he fell.
"This is ridiculous!" he insisted. "No one can do this on these springy things! You're just doing this for laughs."
Lancer laughed. Then she proceeded to not only balance on the top of the next "tree" with one foot, she did a whole fight dance right there on the top of the branches. Complete with flips. She finished, bowed, and moved him to a smaller branch for insolence.
Some fronds even began bearing polyps that the Jabez scanner proclaimed edible. As always, Lancer was the first to try. She climbed one of the springy plants at the edge of a thicket and plucked a couple of the bluish growths. Impatient to try something new she made herself comfortable at the top and threw the next lump down at her skeptical companion.
She sniffed. It smelled somewhat sweet and she needed no more motivation than that. Her first bite was still trepidatious – her second was positively rude.
Oh shit these are GOOD! she thought. Sort of like bananas...OK not really, but good!
Mouth full, she eagerly looked down to see what Rodimus thought of them, being mostly convinced his food aversion was due to the fact all the food they'd found so far was universally vile. His expression didn't bode well.
Slimy, sticky, and disgusting, was her next thought. She nearly gagged. The texture was suddenly so disturbing she wanted to puke. The mutant looked down at her hand in shock, half expecting to see a different fruit in her hand.
Cautious now, she tried it again. It's good! They're sweet...they're juicy.
Gross. Just gross.
Suddenly disoriented, Lancer feared the scanner had malfunctioned, or that maybe it wouldn't tell her if things you ate just made you high. Her vision spun and she abruptly had the oddest view of herself - as if she was standing on the ground looking up. She shook her head and tried to clear her eyes but the abrupt motion was too much for the fronds she was lounging on. She fell hard, too disoriented to land well.
Rodimus spat out his bite and panicked a bit. She'd fallen into dense weeds and he couldn't see her. It was so unheard of for her to just lose her balance like that he was convinced something was off with the fruit. For her part, Lancer had traded a mouth full of fruit for a mouthful of mud and was forcefully coughing and spitting it out. She heard the distress in Rodimus voice when he called for her.
Shit...I'm OK. she thought, fighting harder to clear her mouth so she could let him know.
His relief didn't wait for her voice though. She heard him wading through the fronds towards her. When he found her unhurt, he grinned that shit-eating grin of his. She knew herself to be covered with leaves, mud, and the corpses of blue fruit.
I will get you back for that grin in training tonight, you big dope,she vowed, taking his hand.
He grinned wider. "As long as you're in shape to do it I don't care," he told her. "Are you OK? Why did you fall?"
" I don't know...I guess something is up with these plants. It pisses me off. The first thing I like is naturally a hallucinogenic. I felt like I had a brief out of body experience."
" I'm sorry. Maybe someday you can introduce me to actual bananas," Rodimus soothed. Although if they're anything like these slimy blue bits of slag I won't like them either.
"You know not EVERY thing humans eat is disgusting!" Lancer protested. "Just because everything on this world is gross you don't have to be an ass in advance!"
" I didn't say I wouldn't like them!"
"Maybe you didn't mean to but you did!" she exclaimed. She heaved herself out of the tangle , brushed herself off uselessly, and stomped back to the game trail they'd been loosely following.
Dignity recuperation blow up...right on cue, Rodimus thought, shaking his head. He grinned at the trail of leaves she was leaving behind. Mission status: failed.
"YOU are an ASS, Rodimus!" Lancer bellowed.
"Hey! What'd I do now?" Rodimus demanded.
"Just because I fell on my ass does not mean I'm just mad because of it. You are being a real shit today."
"You act like you know what I'm thinking!" Rodimus accused.
"'Dignity recuperation blow up – mission failure!'" Lancer sneered. "Keep your snide remarks to yourself."
Rodimus stared at her. "You really DO know what I'm thinking. Lancer I DID keep that to myself! How did you hear me think that?!"
"You said it," she insisted.
" I didn't I swear..." he promised.
Their eyes locked, and suddenly his world view spun too. He saw an unfamiliar man wearing caveman style skins and a dumbfounded expression. Startled by the stranger, he drew his knife and whirled on them. Vertigo took his legs out from under him and he landed on his backside.
Who?! Where did that guy come from?! he panicked.
"Who! Where?!" Lancer was shouting. She had her knife out too. She reached out one hand to pull him too his feet...and then he understood the viewpoint. Lancer's clawed hand reaching down to pull the red-headed stranger out of the mud. He was seeing through her eyes.
"That's me?!" It was the first time he'd seen himself as a human...this time around. Wow. What a mess.
She snatched her hand back...and started backing up.
"What the hell is happening?" Rodimus wondered. He was curious and concerned, but not frightened.
Lancer's mind was in the stalled, emotionless phase of shock. She heard the words he spoke overlaid with the thoughts that generated them...the way he took stock of this strange event...confusion yes, but not fear: What was going on? Why? The fruit? Her mutancy? Not the first time another mind had touched mine...the Matrix...what wisdom would have come if it were here? Is that really what I look like? Such a joke... Why is she backing up? She saw his view of herself as she backed into a tree...saw the horns manifest...felt his concern for her...how he felt about the demonic manifestations as a sign she was upset. Not afraid of her...afraid FOR her.
I hear his mind! In mine! He hears me! NO! NO NO NO NO! When Lancer's emotions caught up with her they blasted her into a full blown flashback. Her possession was NOW. It was happening NOW! The whole experience of being violated body, mind, and soul ripped through her memory as if it was immediate. The terror hit Rodimus like a physical blow. He saw it all...he FELT it all. Curling up in the mud, he vomited what little he had eaten. His finicky nature saved his life that day. If there had been more in his stomach he might have inhaled it while he was curled up, shuddering and insensible to the real world.
Her flashback set off his own and Lancer got the return thunderbolt of his torture...how they had used the love for his friend to break him. She tried to scream and couldn't. She fell to the ground and writhed in agony that wasn't hers.
How long they lay there, trading hell and trauma back and forth like a disease, they would never be sure of. By the time Lancer came to her senses, the sun was showing it was morning again. She didn't even think it was the next day – given that they had both soiled themselves and the fruit she had crushed in her fall was rotten and full of bugs.
She looked at what woke her. A herd of "cows" had come to enjoy the easy meal she had brought down from the trees and one of them had gone so far as to lick the residue off her face. It licked her again as she stared at it in daze. Others were wandering all around them, and stepping right over Rodimus where he lay, muttering, in the mud. His eyes were wide open and completely unseeing.
Terror tried to build in her again. His or hers? Did it matter? Right now she couldn't distinguish, but a new fear built in her while she looked at him. She knew now, better than ever, how strong he was...how...just good...he was. None of that selflessness was an act. Saving Goldbug was all that had ever mattered to him...helping people...doing the right thing...being a good leader. That was all he cared about. Saving him, bringing him home, setting him loose on the evil in the universe...he really was the best chance she had for redemption. Except now he was in her mind...her twisted, corrupted mind. If the memory of the demon didn't taint him, exposure to her probably would. What the Jabez had done to him and what he had done to himself to cope would only make it more likely he'd follow her into darkness.
How could she protect him? Claudia had tried, after her possession, to teach Lancer to shield her mind. The latent telepathy that had let the demon in was like an open door into the young mutant's consciousness. Claudia had patiently and futilely tried to teach Lancer to meditate on closing the door. Sitting cross-legged on the floor with some of Claudia's "singing" crystals had merely made Lancer frustrated. She didn't have a "center" anymore. All she had was hurt and rage.
Claudia had given up (with palpable relief) after a sponsor's pet telepath had tried to invade Lancer's mind during a battle. It turned out the assassin was now hyper-sensitive to invasion. The flashback and the resulting surge of fear and rage the telepath unleashed when he touched her all got shoved right back into his mind. After the fight Pagan had found him standing in the battlefield, physically untouched, but catatonic and drooling. Never one to take chances, the Drazi had laughed and snapped the man's neck. They had all proclaimed Lancer shielded enough and the lessons had stopped.
For the first time, the mutant was sorry about that.
One of the lizard-cows decided Rodimus' vomit looked tasty and started nudging his head out of the way. Lancer saw him blink and knew any second he'd be coming around. She froze.