Tap, tap, tap.
.
The sound of soles echoed through the bustling hallways of Rhodes Island. So many shoes, so many different shapes and sizes, but in the end, all and the same - just background noise. All leathered up, Andy made his way through the metal serpent's innards, narrowly avoiding the many wires and steel bones poking from each side, like ribs. Here and there, an operator of a mighty or meek stature would throw the boy a smile and flicker a wave, questioningly sliding their gaze over his horns and tail, then returning to their doings, with a never-answered query on their mind, one that would disappear within the next hour or so and be forgotten forever. Andy felt slightly out of place, even despite his initial glorifications of the landship – the hallways had hands that suffocated him with their stuffiness, and eyes that monitored his every move. Used to the freedom of the Kazdelian wildlands, the sudden yanking of freedom was quite a doozy. And W was nowhere to be found.
.
"... Excuse me." He prodded the ceramic back of some unkempt operator in his way. With a flick of their head, two pools of familiar emptiness shot the boy an asking glance. "... Uh… Ace, right?"
"Right enough." He gave a nod and removed himself from his way. "You hurrying off to somewhere? Running for the hills already?"
"No, I'm just…" Andy wasn't in the mood for pleasantries and jokey-jokes, which he signaled with a weary sigh that quickly delved into a yawn. It was a really long night, after all. "... Just looking around for W."
"W was the other one, yeah? The feisty one?" His inseparable, boonie-wearing companion cut in. "The one that slammed you in the gut?"
"Oh yeah, she beat the hell out of you." Ace chuckled, just now remembering the happening, but still fondly. "... You got yourself a girl like that, you might as well search for her 'til the end of the world, right?"
"Ha-ha, comedians…" Andy murmured past their snickering sunglasses and pushed himself onward. The process of grumbling the way through was accompanied by their overjoyed remarks about sending the two mercs flowers, either to the wedding reception or Andy's funeral. Only after he had taken a sharp corner and lost their eye-less gazes, had their voices finally subsided, leaving him with a blissful amount of peace and a completely empty hallway. He took a moment to breathe and continued on, only to find himself standing face to face with a particularly flowery door. There was something distinctively different about this one. Like a fly to a rotten apple, it drew him in. Like a product of Mother Nature's frail hands led towards its eventual goal in life, the door called out and narrowed the pathways his brains scoured into one straight line, into just a single highway, one road onward. His fingers each lingered on the handle, yet none dared grip the knob and push. Realization struck.
It was midday. He hasn't seen W since he woke up, and that somehow made him uneasy. Most of the horrific experiences his body's been put through happened with her by his side, after all. She felt like an omen of deliberate sorrow, a sign that foreshadowed nothing but misery. If this door lured him in, then W should've technically worked as a natural repellant, like a magnet of the same pole – Yet his mind couldn't quite chew the fact through. It wouldn't understand the harmful effects of W, no matter how many broken bones, shattered ribs and liters of blood lost there were. Each time his brain entered a warpath against the mere idea of W, his heart halted the process and unconsciously sought her proximity. Just like now – he wasn't required to seek the girl in any way. Quite the opposite, he could've very well spent half the day lying down in a dangerously comfy bed and staring at the ceiling. But what did he do? He took his legs – or, rather – his legs took him on a search for the twitchy war criminal, and wouldn't let themselves be put to rest until he made sure she was there, and she was alive, and she was warm, and she was with him.
Andy felt dizzy. His hand gripped onto the first thing it reached, and the door fell wide open.
.
"...?"
.
A field of cotton candy slipped into his vision.
Flowing gracefully with the non-existent breeze, the frilly dress and mounds of carefully groomed hair stepped past to make way for a sight truly to behold. Behind Her Majesty, W sat politely on the floor, a tiny teacup in hand, grazing her gaze curiously past Theresa's shoulder to glance at the door. Andy felt the pressure of their eyes on his, and any logical words seemed to escape his tongue.
"I–..."
"Andy." The fiend-king smiled. "What a chaotic entrance you've stirred up."
"Yeah Lawdog, real classy." W followed suit, losing all sorts of intellect showing on her face, instead retreating back to her usual smirky-smirk. Andy shot her a look, then closed the door behind.
"I'm sorry, I was just, uh… Just looking for W."
"You were?" Theresa couldn't stop the smile from growing further. "How thoughtful of you is that? Seems like your "mercenary solidarity" extends beyond the initial needs and wants of a battlefield partner, does it not?"
"Wuh?" He blinked. W rose a brow, expectantly. "... I mean, yeah?"
"Would you care to join us for a cup, then?" An asking glance flew his way. Andy felt obligated to accept, so he nodded and shuffled to the girl's side. W yanked on his tail hard, and pulled him to the floor.
"Ow…?"
"You're forgetting proper etiquette, moron." She hissed.
"How do you even know that word?"
"Because. Because it's my business to not be a backwards troglodyte and actually grow my brain." A moment passed, spent staring at one another. "... Besides, I know a lot of words. Like etiquette. Or equanimity. Or ambiguous."
"And the meanings?"
"What meanings?" W scoffed. "I don't need any meanings. I just need big words to sound smart."
"It makes you sound like a moron. A mentally ambiguous moron. Y'know, open to many interpretations of moronity."
W proceeded to slap him over the head. Theresa couldn't help but giggle at the sight.
"I'm gonna ambiguously kick your ass into a state of distressed equanimity next time."
"Oh, you two…" Before W could follow through with the promise, and before hands could fly, Theresa waved them both down into a state of mildly less agitated compliance. "... Could we put off the promises of violence for a later hour? I'd much rather exchange a word with you two, you see. As… as "interesting" and amusing it is to look at you bicker." She added, after a thoughtful second.
"Sure. Fine to me." W shrugged, then glued herself flush to Andy's side. An unfamiliar fabric brushed his bare shoulder, making him flinch. "... Fill my mug, buttercup. Or my cup. Whatever."
"Uh-huh…" He loomed over all the tea-drinking necessities sprawled across the floor to grab himself a piece of fine, Yanese porcelain. Bowing slightly with a flushed face, Andy watched Her Majesty herself pour him, then W, a warm cup of dully lukewarm tea. Speaking of W, "... What're you… Why are you dressed like that?"
"Like what?" She bowed theatrically to thank Theresa for the tea, then turned back to him with an accusatory glare. "It's a very nice set of clothes. Stylish. And comfortable."
What she had thrown on would best be described as a twelve year old child's first rummage-run through their parents' clothes closet. A fresh, detergent permeated shirt caught, and barely held in place a jacket loosely thrown over her shoulders. It slipped off the right one, revealing her pale skin and trailing downwards, piling up like a coiled snake in her lap, where a… an overly frilly skirt seemed to be. Thrown over a pair of shorts, AND a pair of tights. Andy had to double-check, so W once more slapped him over the horns.
"Can you stop ogling me like that? At least ask for permission."
"Bw-... WHY are you wearing a skirt over pants?" He stifled a giggle, willingly unaware of the pain coursing through his head. "... Why a skirt of all things? Why not the cargos? Where do the grenades go now?"
"That's my business." W huffed. "They're there for those with eyes to see, Lawdog."
"So they're up your ass?"
She went red. The thought quickly swirled around her brain, then soothed the growing embarrassment by the sheer stupidity of the statement. She snorted, then cackled like a hyena.
"Yeah, they're far up my ass, dipshit."
The three of them shared a chuckle, cut and split by the sipping of tea. Theresa politely placed her cup on a pinkishly innocent plate that lay in her lap. "... I personally think it looks fabulous. Classy, say… dangerous, even? Fitted enough for your ferocious craft, yet still, pardon, girly, even. Simply fabulous." She warbled, then took a sip. Andy let out a snort.
"A fabulous disaster, sure."
W wasn't too happy at his words. Looking back with a scowl, something seemed to pass her towering walls of post ironic mental fortifications and sting a bit more than it should. Andy had no idea she could ever look so dejected, so he backtracked immediately, feeling a heating ball of guilt scorching his brain. "... But I mean, a nice one. A pretty disaster."
"Pretty disaster." She grumbled. "You're the pretty disaster here."
"No, I meant…"
"Yeah, yeah, you don't like it." And she kept grumbling. "It's always that whenever I do something, you just don't like it. When I try to do something nice for myself, you always just criticize… and criticize, and cut my metaphorical wings, and-..."
"How do you know what a metaphor is?"
"... you just cut my metaphorical wings, and- and you get mad at me for anything I do, and it's just simply unfair."
"..." Andy watched both W and Theresa turn towards him, one of the gazes soft and gentle, almost expectant of some sort of answer. The other – loud and glaring, full of falsely directed hatred and some pity inducing worminess. "... What? Wh-... I mean, I get kinda pissed sometimes, 'cause you just mess stuff up."
"Do you feel as if getting mad at W is the only way to voice your frustrations?" Theresa spoke in a voice both calm and gentle, like a brush of the summer breeze past his cheeks. "Have you tried talking?"
"We… I have, but she… My liege, I'm sorry, but whenever W messes up, a lot of people die." Andy explained. The situation felt strange. "And it's just, maybe it could be avoided if she were just an itsy bit more careful?"
"He's blaming me again." W whined, accusingly pointing and pushing into his cheek. "I pretty much never do anything wrong, and he's just nitpicking at tiny imperfections. And it happens all the time, not just right now. During missions, during downtime…"
"When?" He asked, dumbfounded.
"All the time! This one time, when we were supposed to merk that lamb-merchant guy…"
" 'CAUSE YOU MISSED A STRAIGHTFORWARD SHOT?"
"You nudged me." She grumbled, then curled up just a teeny bit. The W shaped ball by his side seemed unlike her usual self for some unknown reason, and Andy had no idea why. "... And I got startled, and missed."
"That's not at all…" A bullet ripped the smokescreen of confusion that clouded his brain. His eyes and ears both sought familiarity, but the pile of wriggly mess that clung to his shoulder felt more like a parasitic presence that had just crawled into W's body, and not the actual thing. "... That's not what happened."
"It seems to me like the two of you might just be having some troubles with voicing your concerns properly." Theresa slid a gentle wedge between their growing tensions. "But that's what we're here to fix, isn't that right?"
"Are we? Aren't we supposed to be winning a war? Training? Doing anything?" Andy stared deadpan, as the King of all Sarkaz giggled at his suggestion.
"Andrew, first and foremost we're not just a side of a conflict. We're a little more than just players in some grand game of... of dodgeball, forgive my dull analogy." A tiny trail of black tea slipped behind her lips. "Tell me, what do you see when you look at me?"
She leaned back, tea in hand. The way her tufts of pinkish, bubblegum hair rolled and tumbled down the wide open plains of a dress so pristinely white and clear, that one could easily mistake it for a lamb's hide, sent his mind into a creative haze. What was he seeing? What was the correct answer here? I see a great leader, Your Majesty? A true image of beauty? The sort of image of true innocence and radiance people once saw in Dolores Dei herself? My liege, you're a glowing beacon of hope and a window into a proper, brighter future. Vindicated many times of your war-time necessities by the sheer care you bestow upon everything and anything that is Sarkaz, you, Your Majesty, are a goddess amongst mortals.
The thought materialized in his head, but refused to be voiced. A slither of reason held his tongue back.
"Well, I mean… I see a, um… a king?"
"Both true and false, Andrew." She took a moment to savor the tea. Andy realized his own cup had disappeared from his knees. The thief sat by his side, furtively slurping up the last of the tea grounds. "... I may be a king, truth, but here, we're all people. First and foremost, we're just people."
Simple as that. Ignore the metaphorical crown on her head, that followed her like a flock of flies. Ignore the warmth her eyes instilled deep within your heart. Ignore the piercing gaze, the hands that reached into your soul and dragged out the most protected, most shielded and stuffed-down memories. Ignore the fact that she can read you like a book.
Andy nodded.
"Alright, Your Majesty. We're all people."
"And as people, we can talk about our feelings. Forgive me for prodding, but I sense some tension between the two of you. The key to winning a war is not to kill or slaughter, or conquer, or any of those terribly violent words, far from it!" Theresa had to wash the atrocities down with a sip of tea. "What we need is unity. We need to stay as one. To fight off not only the external threat, but also keep our internal organism here in tip-top shape. And a way of doing it is to keep our spirits somewhat high, and relations higher. For what is a life without connections, Andy?"
Andy felt read. His brain was a report, and she was a hardened general scouring her eyes across the perfectly symmetrical letters plastered over cheap parchment. Unlike a commander of an army, she did not exhale orders and precise targets, but instead sweet, sweet words that his ears yearned for. Hard.
W must've fallen victim to the spell as well, having now been reduced to nothing but a blank pile of mush that sat and drank her tea in peace. He now knew that relations were important in the workplace, or during war. He knew that relationships ruled above everything else, thanks to miss Theresa's kind words.
Andy took a moment to loosely hug W from the side. She didn't even flinch, as if it was something utmost natural.
"I'm sorry for being judgemental." He uttered, yet there wasn't much emotion to his voice. W finished suckling on her tea-residue and sent him off with a pat to the head.
"Yeah. Wasn't so hard, was it." Her voice remained equally unaffected as his. As if the actions were just HR appointed moments of affection required from the employees to keep their sanity in check. The wonders of bureaucratic life. "... Apologies accepted. Somewhat. Whatever."
"Uh-huh. What were you two doing here, anyway?" He asked. "... Your Majesty." He added after a second spent reconsidering his initial question.
"Oh, speaking. Talking. Listening, sharing stories." Theresa hummed. "I find it strangely soothing, listening to battlefield reports from people who consider it their daily reality. It's a nice shift of perspectives."
"Girly gossip." W cut in. "You wouldn't get it, Lawdog."
"That is a very nice way of calling it! A very debilitating one, yet still a nicer sounding alternative to "sharing war experiences." Oh, we were also fixing the matter of W's peculiar condition."
"What condition? Moronity?" Andy asked, slipping past the initial depressive episode that left his brain a little weak in its non-existent knees. W rolled her eyes. "... No?"
"Some could certainly consider it moronity, yes. Some people could look at the custom-born condition and find it overbearingly moronic, for what is a person without a name, right?" Theresa thoughtfully explained, as if speaking to a child. "The lack of proper naming etiquette had stuck with certain Sarkaz tribes and communities even up to this day, and our W seems to be a prime example of a person affected by the damaging, and, well... most demeaning effects."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning I don't have a name, dumbass." W scoffed. "Not like I need one anyway, but Her Majesty keeps insisting I pick something."
"Sack one from a book? I can read you something." He shrugged, but the words set her mind steamingly ablaze.
"I can read just fine. I can pick something just fine. I don't need you to read me stuff, Your Majesty, I don't need him to read me anything. I can read just fine. I can… I can figure it out by myself."
"You sure?" Andy poked her in the side. It could've come off as a tease, but he did not mean it to be. For some reason, his brain remained void of any ulterior motives at that moment. "... 'Cause I can read a bit faster, it'd be quicker, and…"
"Oh, is that where your question came from earlier, W?" Theresa tilted her head in a very un-royal manner. "About reading? Were you asking to brush up on literature to catch Andy out?"
"No, that's-... No. No, I wasn't asking about no literature, what? Pffft, come on…" She chuckled awkwardly to feign some invisible reins back into her hands. They slipped and crashed, and burned and tumbled. "... I didn't. Girly banter, Lawdog. We're just fussing about."
Andy shot her a look that said all she needed to know. He had her one upped.
"Uh-huh…" Theresa took a moment to study her nervously twitching antennae. "... I take it that there are still some unresolved problems lurking between the two of you. Right?"
"Oh, surely." Andy nodded eagerly at the thought of having W be forcefully opened before the two of them, with the Lord of Fiends herself acting as their human can opener. "I'm sure we need them resolved, right? We can't really be productive otherwise."
"You can't be productive with my elbow down your throat either." W snapped back. Just as Theresa sighed and began mentally steeling herself for the difficult conversation at hand, the door swung wide open. Plaster fell off the walls, light bulbs rattled. The whole skeleton that laced the foundation shuddered at the preternatural presence that entered the room.
"... G'day." The newly appeared Operator Newmaker threw them all a quick glance, lingering over Theresa longest. "... Am I interrupting?"
Andy tensed up a little. Some pushy warmth forced itself neatly into his side, pressing and pressing, trying to worm its way into his core and melt into one. Like a wide-eyed ferret, W scurried to his side, and he scurried to hers, both staring with their gaping eye-holes at the source of yesterday's suffering. Anton shot them a questioning look, quickly muffled by Her Majesty's bright smile.
"Of course not. Care to join us, Anton? We could use a life-lesson story with a blurry tagline and some softer music to go with that."
"Oh, I dunno about no "softer music", Tessie, I'm sorry." He responded with apologies painted all over his grinning mug. "... And besides that, I got orders from high command! Can't be slackin' off anymore, if ya can believe 'at. I'd love 'ta pop in for elevenses, but…"
"For what?" W whispered to Andy, who responded with an equally clueless shrug.
"... But there's work to be done, and people 'ta help! Doc's words." Newmaker finished, chest puffed forward and eyes bursting with pride. Closely behind, the glint of Uri's eye-gem came into vision in the form of a silent roll at the antics.
"Oh, the Doctor gave you an order?" Theresa curiously tilted her head, and the gleaming aura that surrounded her wherever she went, shifted along. "... And you're actually obeying?"
"Yes!" He stepped in, filled with pride to the very tip of his twitchy Feline ears. "Where there's fire to put out, there's a lad brave enough to do it, and I'm feelin' particularly saving-the-day-ishly at this hour! So c'mon ya two."
"Wuh–...?"
Two grasping clasps of cold metal interlocked tightly around Andy's and W's scruffs. The last thing they saw was Theresa's lightly concerned face, the cups flying off in the air, a blurry mix of lights and colors, the door closing, and a flash of bright, red light.
"Blessed are the peacemakers, lads, for we are the sons of any and all gods that rule from high above. The gods above are the ones who bestow anything and all that is good, not bad, for they are the gods for the people, not the people-made-gods. The fake prophets down here, here on Terra, those are the false rulers of lands sometimes forgotten by those who reign over the sky. The sky above the false one, I mean. And no computer programme can ever replace them. No offense, Andy-boy."
Neither of them understood a word. Their life consisted of one winding tunnel that curled and twisted, sometimes branched into forking crossroads. Their legs dragged behind the bodies carried by a forceful grasp, refusing to be used. Only the non existent current claimed their worthless bodies as their own and let them be, but it felt fine. Superficial as it may be, this life couldn't bother them much. Because above all, this life was "them", not "him", or "her." Them. Two tumors merged together into one, two minuses that eventually gave a plus. Before they knew it, a door rattled open, and their ears were overcome with a wailing tumult.
A massive hall stretched its puffed ribcage outward, creating a tent fully enclosed within one time and place, surrounded from all sides by flesh lined with metal sheets and machinery hiding beneath. The sounds, the yells and cries, the pleas and whines, they all came from a buzzing ocean of lost souls trapped under the steel vault – souls willingly ascending forth into a better life. Andy and W landed softly on the floor, one atop the other. Past her mess of hair, Andy glanced at the sight sprawling in front and noticed a small army of Babel operators running about the entire place with memo placards to hand out, and bristol packages with whole nutritional maps printed over. Most of the cluttered mess were Sarkaz – piles of Sarkaz clothes, mounds of Sarkaz horns, tufts of Sarkaz hair, glimmers of Sarkaz skin, and an overbearing stench of devil musk blended with sweat. W picked herself up and helped Andy stand, before they both turned towards their contemporary "leader."
"What're we doing here, exactly?" She asked, with her apricot eyes running all over the horde. Some looks were directed their direction, some wide, bleary pools of unfiltered misery and blank acceptance slid all over their bodies. A few Sarkaz children sitting on the floor nearby had a lot to say with their looks. While Anton babbled something about a great cause and "turning over a new leaf" while jabbingly praising the Doctor's decisions and cursing Uri for buzzing between his words, a particularly stick-like Sarkaz kitten drew her hands forward. W stared, and stared.
"... And that's pretty much 'a gist of it. Refugees from Kazdel, poor little kittens of war. Kinda like you lot." Anton chuckled, but there were no ears to hear. "... Lads? Andy? W?"
She sat on her knees, burrowing her gaze into the kid's eyes. It was a little girl with a scarf tightly wrapped around most of her face. You couldn't even make out the race if not for the horns poking from beneath and stabbing her innate innocence. Her clothes were all tattered and torn to shit, much unlike W's new rags. Andy silently joined her side.
"Hi." She said, quietly. "... Why are you pointing at me?"
The waifish girl kept staring. In some strange way, Andy felt himself sinking in the deep, but shallow pools that were her empty eyes.
"... Are you deaf?" W asked, again. No biting sarcasm or cruel irony laced her words, which Andy found strange. "... Mute? Are you mute?"
The girl shook her head.
"I'm fine. You're the strange one here."
The words came as a bit of surprise to both of them.
"Strange? How so?"
"You're big. And strong." She added, after her empty eyes had scanned W through and through from head to toe. "And there's an angel next to you."
W glanced at Andy. It felt almost irrefutable, because he certainly was there.
"... He's not much of an angel. A fallen angel. It's sorta different, he explained it to me once."
The culprit sat and listened. He did explain it, and it came as a slight shock that she actually remembered. That she had listened to it back then, on that fateful day when they found out that grenades are in fact undefusable.
"It's an angel." The girl repeated. "We were told they're bad. Really bad."
"Bad? How bad?" W tilted her head in curiosity, like a pup. A big, overgrown, infantilized pup.
"Very bad. Everyone knows they should be hurt on sight. And you're sitting next to him. Why?"
The mercenaries exchanged a glance. With such innocence, the girl declared Andy's fate, and her empty eyes only further gave her point some sick sense of credibility. Like she truly, not only believed, but also took her own words as the natural course of life. See Sankta, kill Sankta. W returned her gaze.
"He's not that bad. A pain in the ass, granted, but there are worse. There are worse people who deserve death, like me for example. I can give you a few more examples. The people who wrecked your city or village, and left you to die. The people who broke your country in two and divided something that barely held itself together in the first place. The people who are out there, actively trying to make life hell for everyone involved, just for funsies. 'Cause they wanna rule, and they think they can do a better job at it than the current people in charge. Those are the same people who sent you here, you know? You're sitting in front of me because someone wanted you dead, and that person was a Sarkaz, not a Sankta." She finished with a little flick to the girl's bandaged forehead. "... So, honestly? Lawdog never really tore no skin off my back, so I don't think he has to be hurt on sight."
"..." Andy flew somewhere far, then crashed hard into the concrete platings below. His head swirled at the notion, overcome with a deep sense of bubbling warmth at each piece of her mind she spoke. "... Thanks."
The girl only blinked at W's word-vomit.
"He's an angel." Her voice couldn't bring itself to understand the reasoning laid out so pristinely bare. "Angels are traitors. Not people. My parents say angels are worse than us and shouldn't be allowed life."
"..." W processed her words. Cogs turned, machinery buzzed and quivered – steam eventually shot from her ears with a loud whistle, and a conclusion came to be. "If that's what they told you, sure. Not like I care enough to be busting my balls to educate some brat."
The kid blinked. "You're strange. You're very strange."
"You're strange. Fuck you." Andy's voice breezed past W's ear, soon followed by a puff of cigarette smoke. His lips sent a cloud flying straight into the waif's blurry eyes to irritate back.
"You're showing off your superior children-handling skills again, I see." W waved the cloud apart and shot him a glare. The lit cigarette twisted his face in ways that made him look a few years older, and a whole lot more idiotic – at least from her point of view.
Andy shrugged, then slipped the tobacco stick between his fingers. "Hey, I'm just trying to defend you. No need to rub salt anywhere."
"Defend me from what? A bleary-eyed toddler?" A snort. "What is it, the ego? You think I can't take a half-assed assessment from a child?"
"No? Yes?" Judging from her eyes, he settled on: "No…?"
"It's a child that's gonna end up in some ditch in a day or two, what the hell do I care about what she thinks of me? Look at her." W nudged the head-scarf. "Small. Weak. Horns are cracked. Never bothered to pile them, did you?"
"N-No…?" The girl transformed before their very eyes from a static pillar of salt into a melting pile of jello.
"Of course. And your parents had time to tell you fairy tales about murdering the Sankta and stringing them up on crosses or pikes, yeah? So you're some city rat, then. Upper level city rat. I know the type. Bet you don't even know the thrill of baiting originium slugs with industrial residue and playing catch with them, do you?"
"No…?"
"Knows how to read, knows how to sit and stare, and do nothing useful. Kinda pity you, actually. Lawdog, y'know what the funny thing about Kazdel is?"
"Mmm?" He hummed between puffs.
"The worse you start off, the better you're set for hitting the finish line." Two apricot moons surrounded the child's eyes again, pouring all their vile wisdom without a word. "The less luxury you know, the less trust you have for the outside world, the less reliant you are on anything but your own, sick need to survive… the more chances you have of actually doing so. Food for thought. Mental stability goes out the window when talking war. And the Sankta aren't your enemy in this one. It's me and you. Mostly me, though. I'm giving you, like… a week, tops. Lawdog, a week seem good?"
"Week, maybe two." Andy shrugged, then took a puff. "... Depends how long they're staying in the landship."
"Two weeks, I say. Then it's off to rejoin your parents." W smirked triumphantly at the tears forming at the very corners of the poor child's eyes. "What? Did I score right? Mama and Papa got torn to shit by a caster? Or was it a maniac with a sword…?"
"A gun?" Andy sneaked a suggestion, much to her eager approval.
"Or- or just straight up cannibalism. Eaten alive, that Ghoul wham."
"Or maybe just Oripathy?" He grinned further at the sight of the crying child, and her pathetically pitiful sobs only worked to further fuel the apathetic flame sparkling behind his eyes. The pellet rifle swung around his back purred with content. "HER TEARS ARE MY 6TH SHOT OF TEQUILA ON A FRIDAY NIGHT, AND ANDY, I HEAR A POP HIT OF LAST SUMMER FROM TEN YEARS AGO COMING ON!" It squealed in unfiltered joy. "Or some hounds running wild? Hell, who knows, with this kinda climate–..."
The girl cried and cried, bawling all her blankness away, revealing what truly lurked beneath the curtain of unruffled ignorance – childishness. A child who knew nothing about life, being forced into a situation where the seven stages of grief ravage her body over and over, like some crude and cruel, never ending cycle. The soft sound of footsteps carried from behind, and along with it came the gentle song of a stringed instrument, tugged at by a hand most skilled. Tears that previously flew down her cheeks dried up and disappeared in a near instant at the sound. The sound of warmth. Sound of hope and all that was good in the world. This sound alone could move mountains and force rivers to switch the course of their current. A sound to bring monarchies to their knees and flip Terra inside out. Andy felt utterly hypnotized, but he couldn't quite put a finger on why. Glancing into W's eyes, her small, Sarkaz lizard-brain seemed to be just as lost and confused as his. Lost, melting, yet so, so peacefully gleeful. So thankful for the beautiful sound.
And then it ended.
Evaporated into the thin nothingness instilled in the warm, Oripathy riddled air.
Anton put down his guitar and swiped his eyes across the three of them.
"Are we done scarin' kids now, lads? Had your fun, but there's actual work to be done, too."
"W-What the hell was that?" Andy immediately stammered, as the effects of his high-ridden high came crashing down onto Terra with a cacophony of migraines. "That thing. That thing you played, what was that?"
"It was a little something for the little one, not for you. Also, smoking kills, y'know." Anton calmly reached out and allowed his hand, soft as silk, to first take the cigarette from the merc's lips, then ruffle the girl's head-scarf. "... Or you." He added, glancing at W. She sat still, daze-struck.
"... What the fuck." Her voice came filled with befuddled amazement. "Can you do that again?"
"Do what?"
"Play like that?"
"No."
A quick, calm answer. The tiny waif bent and twisted a little under Newmaker's hand, before eventually thanking him quietly for the save and scurrying off to join the human-hydra of Sarkaz children in the near distance. He sighed.
"... Maybe later. What? Don't ya two look at me like 'at. Look, I know it's boring, I know refugee duty ain't yer thing. Not mine thing either, okay?"
Uri buzzed at his words. Andy could swear it sounded like the mass of iron was heartily chuckling.
"But there's devils to help and not enough of our own samaritan little handsies to deck 'em all out with food 'n clothes, 'n all the cutleries they need to NOT hit the eternal hay. So be a good sport and grab yerself some care packages, then get 'ta handing."
"Ugh…" They groaned in exasperation. "Helping devils. C'mon Lawdog, your favorite past-time activity. Gonna work you to the bone on a bigger scale."
"Fuck off…" Andy uttered, then immediately thanked her, when those strong arms pulled him up.
"Oh, and one last thing?" Their so-called "leader" leaned in to hush his voice. "... Ya know 'bout the Regent 'n his doings, yeah?"
W grumbled a "Yeah", Andy mumbled a "No?"
Both pairs of eyes piled up on him near immediately.
W began.
"You're joking."
"Why?"
"You have to be joking."
"I'm not joking."
"You don't know who the fucking Regent is?"
"No? Should I?"
"Andy." She clawed his shoulders deep, and locked in place. "... Tell me one more time. No shitting around, no fucking about. Are you joking?"
She had to be serious. A lowly "Andy" doesn't leave her lips unless the situation is the most serious of all serious situations. As serious as situations get with the two of them present. But it was serious. It had to be.
"No."
"..." Anton and W exchanged glances. "... Great. You're waging a war and you don't even know who you're up against. Nice going, Lawdog, keep it up."
"It's a wee political opponent of ours, Andy." Newmaker added. "A-, uh… a bit of a pain in the arse. He's kind of the main reason you're probably here in the first place. Big, bad guy in charge of all the tinier bad guys. Nationalist. Big fan of monarchies. Downright totalitarian, I'd say."
"Okay, not THAT bad." W bit back.
"Totally totalitarian. Wants to turn Kazdel into one giant garrison, then send you devils all the way back down memory lane and wage war against all who've ever wronged Kazdel. So, y'know, Victoria, Ursus, Gaul–... Okay, not Gaul. There's no Gaul anymore, my bad. But, uh… Leithanien, probably… Eventually even your pretty little Laterano, if I had to guess. I don't know, don't ask me 'ta guess what goes on in that pink-haired sociopath's head, 'cause I know I'll get it wrong each and every time. He's a master meddler with fifteen hundred different strings to tug at, I'm a mass entertainer by heart."
"A clown?" W perked up.
"Could be, yeah." Anton chewed her words, then swallowed with pride. "And you're my clownish little helpers. So grab a box of MRE's and get 'ta redistributin'. And, - and." His voice took on a quieter tone again. "... As I was tryin' to tell ya, try to get a proper good look at the poor souls you ID, yeah? We've been 'avin' a wee bit 'a troubles lately with spies creepin' into our formation. Had 'ta dig four 'a them like dirt from me nails just last month. Gods know what comes next. A full blown attack, maybe? Hell's bells know what that sick fuck has goin' on under the pot."
".. Oh? Just casually like that? Just, "try to weed out potential terrorists?" W raised a brow. "Should we also brew you a cup of tea while we're at it? Crumpets?"
.
"Would be swell." Anton wished them the best with a pat to the back. "... Now get to it, yer not being paid by the hour."
.
Not being paid by the hour.
Not being paid at all.
.
W huffed, handing the sixth starving family a cautiously picked serving of three packets with a generous serving of mushroom soup each.
"This is bullshit. Not even janitor duty, just straight up handling strays."
Andy followed suit, depositing bottles of clear, "BABEL" branded water into the shivering Sarkaz hands that sought solace in his dimmed light, as if he were some sort of Saint.
"Y'know, you were a stray at some point too. Like, a really wild and dirty one. You remember those towns we used to pass on our way back from the north?"
"Yeah. Bombed to shit by your compatriots, Lawdog. Real nice work. Peppered with ori-roses, hm? All you Lawies could ever do for Kazdel was leave a bouquet of cancer-rocks for us to enjoy and just off ourselves without much interference." She chuckled, dryly. "You get something like a flying machine running, a wonder of your twisted tech, and you use it for what? Just to level a civvie interest point and glass it all over." This time, a giggle. "But we're the real devils, yeah? Bad guys? The sinners, or whatever."
"..." Andy blinked at her sudden rant, almost forgetting the task at hand. A few human-pinchers clasped onto his escaping thoughts and tugged at his ever-so-weary soul, just to remind him to feed them. "Yeah. Yeah, that's what I meant, but it really wasn't the direction I was leading the thought in."
"Uh-huh. Go on." She hurried him, being hurried herself by an apartment building's worth of half-lidded eyes that restlessly awaited their lukewarm dinners. W sighed and got to handing out soup.
"So… You remember the cats in those hovels?"
"Cats?" She turned back, just in time to catch a Sarkaz child sliding their sticky fingers into Andy's pocket. One stern flash of her apricot eyes was enough for the brat to backtrack and disappear beneath a mound of other strays. "... The flea-infested furballs? I remember they were there, but I never asked for names. Can't really hold a conversation, those little shits."
"Yeah, but you remember how they looked." Andy smiled fondly at the memory. Northern Kazdel, temperatures exploring the vast depths below zero on their thermometers, no sign of any thawing anywhere, not even a speck of life to be seen. Just their company of misery – Hedley, Ines, Andy, W, and a whole bunch of faceless mercs. Andy saw the unexplored bowels of winter piling up before his very eyes, tumbling over a village that had undergone a certain beauty procedure – being bombed to shit, as W had accurately called it earlier. In the craters, peeking from behind shattered windows, gleaming from the shadows, covered by blankets of snow, were the many, many glowing eyes of the furry survivors of many Lateran barrages, the self-righteous judgment that fell upon this land. A recollection of events slid past his eyes – Finding a particularly white kitten between the rubble, taking said kitten in his arms, carrying it all the way to their makeshift camp in the middle of the ruined town square, finding W by a campfire, and finally depositing it snugly between her horns. She tensed up, her tail bristling high up – but the kitten seemed to enjoy the feeling of her hair. It nestled itself comfortably on her head and fell asleep, curled into a little ball. It spent the entire night there, acting as Andy's very own idol of safety, for W either didn't want to, or couldn't move, not to disrupt the poor thing's slumber. She sat by the fire, muttering slurs and threats from time to time, as Andy accompanied her side, petting the poor cat with a silly grin. Such a pleasant time, that was. It almost made him yearn for those stupid moments to come back – to hope that the safety and certainty of Babel could somehow be transformed into the familiarity of the Kazdelian wildlands. His brain sighed. He wanted to take the cat along on the road, but one look from Ines was enough to beat the idea out of his brain. Maybe it was for the better. Maybe it was less painful that way.
"... I remember how cats look, yep." W assured. "What of it?"
"You were kinda like that. Y'know, scrunched up like a tissue, all angry, and all that. Like a stray cat."
"Oh, don't even start." She let out a snort, nearly forgetting to hand a rag-clad family their share. Some rather loud gestures of disapproval made her backtrack. "... Just because I kicked your ass doesn't mean I was angry. I had actual bite in me, back then."
"Yeah, and now?"
"Now I'm handing out food scraps to refugees." She sighed, as they both stopped to take a larger glance at the mountain of hopeless bodies piling up in the lobby. "... Where did it all go off the rails, Lawdog?"
"..." Andy got a strange idea, just at the sound of her slightly dejected voice. It was probably meant as a rhetorical jab, sure, but the words still managed to fire up a strange pity-fueled mechanism inside his head. It pushed and squeezed his brain dry, until a sliver of some dreamed up confidence seeped from the very core and soaked through his sense of self preservation. His motor functions all came to a screeching halt, but the dry peanut of a brain still pushed the command through.
Andy leaned to her side and pressed his lips flush to her cheek. Not many thoughts were there to grace his mind at the moment, but one strolled by right after. A gentle hint of pleasant surprise that came with her absolute lack of a reaction. She just accepted the little kiss, as if it was completely natural. Like brushing one's sticky hair in the warm morning. Like dragging oneself from beneath a bedroll. Like falling into someone's willing arms after a long, arduous day. Completely normal, just the proper order of things. Just like Mother Nature intended.
"... It could've been worse." He concluded her question, then straightened back up.
"... A lot worse." She hummed to his tune. The dark, raging storms that clouded her mind from day to day, and night to night, simply weren't there. Andy once more caught her smiling.
A mere tug at her lips, on the right and left tip – but it was still there. And it couldn't have been missed. Andy stifled a smile of his own, right before the moment came to an end.
.
"... 'Scuse me?"
.
A twitchy Sarkaz approached the two. Both had troubles remembering whether they've seen him before or not – the eyes betrayed nothing, and the rest lay hidden under a thick cloak, gathered from some torn blankets and sheets haphazardly grabbed off cut washlines. The man seemed huge. Really massive. Whatever Sarkaz genes bequeathed him with such a magnificent amount of muscle mass could only be thanked and applauded. Andy felt just a sprinkle of self-conscious disappointment worming past his mental defenses, at the sight of his own, twiggy arms.
They spared a moment to take in his disheveled appearance, the mounds of meat resting under his cloak, and the nervous glances he kept throwing around the room, as if expecting the walls to suddenly collapse in on him and everyone gathered. Andy opened his mouth first.
"Whoa, big guy. Yeah?"
"Yeah. Hey." Scratch-scratch. He kept rubbing his nails over a particularly itchy spot over his forearm. "Can we leave? Like, is there somewhere we can go?"
"Go where?" W joined in, lazily sizing the refugee up with her piercing gaze. "Is a roof above your head not enough? Picky bunch, aren't you?"
"Not like that. Not like that." He mumbled, nervously scratching away at his arm. Andy could already see a darkened pool of irritation building up on his sad, gray skin. Repugnant. "We need to leave. Me and my buddies, just us. Can't spare us a room? A hidey-hole for a moment?"
"What hidey-hole? The hell are you talking about?"
"We really need to get out of here. This place." His eyes pounced onto the mound of bodies wailing behind. In the far distance, W and Andy noticed Newmaker lying indolently on a bench, absent-mindedly strumming his beloved instrument. A few kids gathered to watch. "... Too many people here. We kinda need off."
"Off?"
"Off these eyes. Too many eyes. I already have enough. More than enough." He flashed them a forced smile, then pointed to his pair of empty moons. Andy noticed a crumbly, red paste spilling from behind the overgrown nails. "Can we go? Can we just go off and see Theresa, maybe? I've always wanted to meet her."
"... First of all, it's Her Majesty for you." W reprimanded, which made Andy's mind wander. "Second, you're not going anywhere. Too tired of sitting on your ass and doing nothing? Being safe? Too bad."
She threw him a soup packet.
"I can make you feel real unsafe, if you want a change of pace. I don't mind."
"It's a refugee, Law." Andy stifled a chuckle. "Cut him some. Look at him, he's trembling."
The overarching hands of fear had long snaked their way deep into the giant's thinking-chasm, removing any and all senses of pride or self-importance. The nails kept rubbing and scratching, now busy with tearing out pieces of meat from beneath the skin. Andy stared in repulsed awe.
"Buddy, you alright?"
"I really need out, man." His pleas turned desperate. "I need to leave, I can't be here. I need to see Theresa."
"Her Majesty…" W reminded.
"I don't give a fuck about her title. I need to see that pink bitch, and I need it now. I can't be held in here. I don't belong in here." His voice finally fell from any sort of cohesive track, instead dropping into a growly series of barks. Andy took a step back, falling flush against W's tensed muscles.
"Where's the exit?" He whispered, suddenly all quiet and stifled. As if someone took the candle that lit his soul aflame and threw a dimming shade on top. "Where's the exit, where do I leave?"
"Nowhere. No exit." W gently removed the Andy-shaped weight off her chest and reached behind her back, fingers slithering past the freshly acquired coat's brim and dipping to her rear. Andy tumbled, failing to grasp at the invisible hands that offered solace and balance. His eyes ran wildly over the entire hall, but not a single other Operator-volunteer seemed to notice what was happening in their little corner. Their own, horrific bubble.
"No exit?" The Sarkaz-mass questioned. "Nowhere?"
"Nowhere." W confirmed. "Now off you go. Back to the crowd. Like a good boy, c'mon."
"Good boys follow orders." Another voice arose from his throat, this time different from the previous in a new way, imposing in its might. A voice fit for the man of his stature. A throat suiting a ruler. Words born of a golden lineage. Rivers of warm riches spilled down the giant's gaping jaw, as he assumed a proper stance before the two. A stance truly befitting a god. "... Kings defy them."
W took a little step back. Andy stared, wide-eyed.
"And you're no kings. Not a single one. Not a drip of blood fit for the royal path inside this vessel."
The rags ruffled, twisted, pulled, and lifted from beneath. First, the devil's thin waterfalls of hair came unraveled – freed from the wretched cloak's grasp. His face, lit by a royal radiance that stretched and extended far beyond the pristinely scrubbed teeth, betrayed a sense of deep accomplishment-in-the-works. A need for name-making. A deep want.
"In his name, I shall carve the path onward. A path to the crown, that lies embroidered with the name Theresis!"
The rest of the rags fell to the floor, laying his twisted body bare for everyone to see. No more linen to hide what was his true nature, no more cloth to keep the gawkers at bay. The muscle mass, all mutilated and beautifully reanimated with spirits of others, stood peppered with black crystals that grew and expanded from beneath, like a trail of poisonous vines wrapping around an ancient oak. His arms were the size of human bodies, and each of them hat their very own limbs. Andy rubbed his eyes, but the image of human arms protruding from those massive meat-mounds that couldn't even bear the title of "upper limbs" anymore, couldn't leave his glassy eyes. There were more limbs on his stomach. More limbs sticking from his chest. Originium roamed those sick, twisted plains of strained skin that Mother Nature had once bestowed upon a clear mind, now tainted, scarred and blasphemously raped by the vile notions of whatever it was that lurked inside his skull. Each of the arms held an eye. Right in the middle of the palm. Andy could clearly see his own reflection, blared at him from fifteen different places in front, as the grotesque abomination of the very, very frayed ends of sanity stretched its back. A few arms reached across the massive chest to crack its head – first to the left, then to the right. Poor, tiny refugees turned at the meaty thuds and whip-like cracks of thunderous bone-breaking, eager to glimpse, to turn their eyes away from the mushroom soup if even just for a moment, then immediately regretting the decision.
"So kneel, for in his name I command thee!"
The Sarkaz-mass stood proud. Stood tall. Like a king. Like a ruler, a ruler of every single limb grafted onto its vile mockery of a body. A few twisted arms slithered like venomous serpents towards the dropped robes and produced a disgustingly barbaric heap of metal from beneath. Something that couldn't even be called a sword – an uncut, unpolished, unsharpened slab of steel. It crawled up his back, carried by the limbs – like worker ants delivering a piece of rotten Sarkaz flesh to their hill, the arms placed the sword carefully within the massive "hand", then reached into the cloak again. Another such brutal instrument of violence emerged from within.
Steel clinked. The giant slammed both tips into the floor and shattered the tiles, sending an ear-shattering sonic boom across the entire hall.
.
"Forefathers, one and all… A king matching the strength of true, armed grace… Beings cut from cloth not fit for this world, invaders and loyalists, warriors and cowards, the false ruler who hogs the throne…!"
.
The arms all rose in unison. Mother Nature wept, for she had no say in the creation of this flesh catastrophe. The body that defied her will, and everything she loved. Andy felt his heart ringing its last beat. It stopped, right then and there.
..
"BEAR WITNESS!"
..
An electric current skid rapidly through the angel's veins. Whether it was the Law calling upon its fallen soldier to rid the world of the blasphemous presence, or just the adrenaline setting in, he did not know.
A single command rang wildly in his mind, like a caged singing-fowl.
A very, very joyous serenade of squeals that seeped from the twin barrels of his gun.
.
"FINALLY SOME FRESH MEAT! FINALLY SOME BREATHING ROOM! FINALLY A SPOTLIGHT TO BASK IN, AND A ROLE TO PLAY, ANDY! FINALLY! FINALLY, THE PLACE TO BE!"
.
Just as his hands enclosed around the burning stock of the pellet rifle, a horrendous mass of flesh descended above the two.
.
Everything went red.