A/N: First, I'm happy with the reception I've gotten with this story so far. At the time of writing, it's only been on the site about a week or so.
A little bit of backstory with this fic: I was actually inspired by reelefendeel's My Hero Academia: Unchained Predator fanfic, which is a Doom crossover with, you guessed it, MHA. I was enthralled with the story; it was well told, satisfying to read (except for all the swearing- I don't like the way those words look on paper, feel in my mouth, or sound in my ears), and accurately characterized. Heck, I had even impatiently written a few private scenes for myself within that universe. It's not perfect, but only Christ truly is. At the time of writing, it's regarded as the best and most popular Doom crossover on the site, and for good reason. I highly recommend checking it out if you haven't already. But some of you have gotten here through that, which is a high honor for me.
Do I want to surpass him? Sure, of course, but I'm not confident I will. It's not about competitiveness anyway; why would I make an enemy out of him? I just want to be more like a spiritual successor, or an inspired recreation attempt.
Anyway, it made me think: how on earth are there no good SWxDoom fanfics? There were three at the time, and they all were short and subpar. So I decided to throw my hat into the ring and make the fic I wanted to see. It ought to be as well-executed as Unchained Predator, but told with my voice and style, in SW. This would be my first fanfic that wasn't MLP related and written back when I was a teenager, and I had only recently gotten into Doom. But I think I've done a good job.
(Also, it's silly that I have to put the whole chapter into Word from GDocs and then into this text box to keep the italics formatting. Dang website.)
The desert was so boring, even as the Slayer zoomed along at speeds easily in excess of 70 miles an hour. Dust and dirt was thrown up in his wake, rattling along the underside of the Crucible. In the meantime, the Slayer had VEGA recite the important recent news in this apparent intergalactic Republic, which he tried to digest.
"Neither the Galactic Senate nor the Separatist Alliance are ready for peace talks at this time, after recent failed negotiations," VEGA was saying as he rounded a protruding stone formation. "With the war having no end in sight, it's likely that victory will only come about through absolute annihilation of the other side. The Republic had not been prepared for war of this magnitude for at least a hundred years, and maybe a millennia; it had no standing army at the beginning of the war, and was only able to defeat the Separatists in the first battle of Geonosis due to the timely arrival of the clone army, which had been supplied by the cloners of Kamino."
The Slayer grimaced. No army? For an intergalactic Republic? Then how could uprisings like this one be put down?
"I believe I understand your frustration. Before the army of the Republic was formed, the peacekeepers and ambassadors were a group of religious guardians called Jedi. They are devoted to a concept called The Force, which is an energy between all living and natural things which binds the galaxy together. The Jedi order and its teachings strive for peace, freedom, selflessness, control, and sacrifice. Before this war, nothing had gotten out of hand which the Jedi could not handle. Now, they lead the armies of the Republic as generals."
The Slayer pondered on that, still speeding on. So these Jedi were on the side of life. Order, peace, justice. The Slayer couldn't help but wonder if there was more to them than that. But until he actually came to one face to face, he couldn't be sure. For now, they seemed to be the most likely allies he would find in his quest.
The Slayer looked to the right. There was a far-distant metal protrusion amid sloping hills that he took to be a war base. Not all of them looked the same, which was to be expected in a place like this. Some later ones he came across seemed so far away, they shimmered in the heatless sun.
The hours dragged. The Slayer continued to listen to more assorted lore of this galaxy. VEGA chose topics that flowed into one another. He spoke of the Separatists and the prominent senators which voted to leave the Republic, the bureaucracy of the Republic, the relation of the Jedi order to the Galactic Senate and the Supreme Chancellor, and the prominent figures featured in the news on both sides: Palpatine, Yoda, Mace Windu, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, and Padme Amidala for the Republic; Count Dooku, General Grievous, Nute Gunray, San Hill, Wat Tambor, and Poggle the Lesser for the Separatists.
There was a lot to get through, and by the time Jiro's warbase was coming up on the horizon, it was early afternoon. It resembled a metal mushroom merged into a hill, surrounded on all sides by laser fences interspersed by guard towers and turrets. It looked slipshod, hastily decorated, and trashed.
"For your approach, we could do a frontal assault. You are fond of those, I notice. But there is most likely a side entrance they use for offloading cargo, which you can use to sneak into the base and accomplish your objectives without obtrusion."
The Slayer nodded after some thought. Stealth would work until there was no point anymore. And then, it was a matter of fight or flight. Which was what the Slayer excelled at.
The Slayer took a hard left and encircled the distant base, still several miles out. He soon reached the opposite end of the base, so he was now looking at it from a different angle. And sure enough, there was a smallish section of the laser fence between two power pillars that, if he squinted, seemed to lead into a cave in the hill.
The Slayer sped up. There were likely guards or cameras which would have spotted him by now, if not soon. The Slayer reached behind him into the hammerspace which his suit provided, and withdrew the assault rifle. Quickly modding it for the sniper scope, he looked through it.
Two Weequay guards in the power pillar's booth, and a camera overlooking the fence. One of the guards was pointing to the other and right at him.
Five cracks from the rifle later, and both of them dropped. Three cracks, and the camera erupted into smoke and sparks.
He reached the laser gate and slowed to a stop. The humming of the gate was like a hornet nest in his ears. The simple chain-link gate protecting the booth from the outside had been snapped in a few places from his bullets, but it was still closed off.
One mighty rip later, it wasn't anymore.
He reached inside, fiddled with the controls, and with the flick of a switch and a winding groan, the pink laser grid in front of him shut down. The Slayer pushed his speeder past the laser grid, then entered the booth from the back and reactivated the gate.
The Slayer exited the booth and looked up, squinting in the barren sunlight. Atop the towers of the laser grid in either direction, three to five charred and decaying bodies were impaled on metal spikes.
The last time he had seen such a sight, he had been in Hell. And so the Slayer grimly associated these pirates with the monsters he had seen and killed there.
The Slayer straddled his bike again and sped into the cave. His visor had night vision capabilities, so he could see where he was going in the sudden darkness. And besides, the Slayer had spent so much time in the chasms of Hell that he had grown adapted to it. Still, he activated the small headlights right above the steering vanes, and twin cones of light pierced the darkness.
One wide turn, then another, and the Slayer found himself in the medium-sized cargo storage section. Crates of metal and wood were stacked against the walls, and some up to the ceiling. A small band of speeder bikes were hovering against the cave wall facing the entrance. And a concrete slab against one wall to his left had tunnels that undoubtedly led further into the base.
The Slayer parked and shut down the speeder beside a stack of crates. Finding a tarp, he draped it over his transport. It had served him well thus far, and the Slayer wanted to preserve something he was already familiar with before taking a new one.
There was business to be done inside the base. But first, if there was anything important in here beside the three-foot crate Hondo had mentioned, the Slayer wanted to know about it.
He slid his hand across the dusty top of several metal crates. The translation of the cargo statement on the side said Blankets. But it was likely that it had simply been repurposed. And he had no time to go crate by crate in this place to find the thing.
"One moment." A wave of blue washed across his HUD, scanning the cargo hold.
The Slayer, understanding, rotated in place a few times. The more he looked, the more dank and dark it seemed to get. A rat scurried across the floor once, and more than a few crates were rotting, dusty, or in disrepair.
After a few pulses, the blue stopped. "The crate has not been detected. If you access a terminal, however, I can analyze the layout of the base and identify our mission objectives."
The Slayer nodded and turned to the tunnels.
The tunnels leading into the base weren't too long. When he came out of the other end, the Slayer found himself in a low earthen hallway. The interior was cool and dry, and motes of dust lingered in the sparse lighting. Selecting the right hallway, the Slayer moved down it until the ground became metal-lined and lights began to appear in the ceiling.
Upon reaching a bend, the Slayer picked up the echoey sound of gruff conversation. He stopped and leaned against the wall, straining for more words.
"...I'd want to be a Rodian. They make better bounty hunters than most species in the galaxy."
"Well, if I was reincarnated, I'd want to be one of those Neimodians. They always seem to find a way to earn more money than everyone else."
"If it's money you want, why not just be a bounty hunter? It's a lot more fun than business."
"Well, yeah, but there's an untouchability to those big businessmen that bounty hunters don't have. Even Cad Bane answers to his employers. We hate 'em cause we ain't 'em."
"So is it power or money?"
"Money's a kind of power, innit?"
"Nah, you know what the best kinda power's gotta be? The Force. If a Jedi freezes you in place, yer hopeless. Be a Force-sensitive Rodian bounty hunter, and you could take on Embo or Aurra Sing."
The Slayer narrowed his eyes. So not everyone could use the Force. And the question of being Force-sensitive wasn't based on species, it was just genetic. Maybe some species were more Force-sensitive than others. And why wasn't the Force anywhere outside this galaxy? What could the Force even do?
After some more meandering, the guards' voices grew fainter and fainter. The Slayer peeked his head around the corner, and sure enough, no one was there.
Of course he could have killed them easily without raising the alarm. But the Slayer didn't want to leave bodies for the next patrol to find. He needed to be quick.
After heading into the corridor, he peeked into every one of the rooms he came across. No consoles yet. He was still deep in the bowels of the base, and his best bet for a terminal was to go to the central control tower, so now he simply needed an elevator.
As the Slayer rounded another corner, he spotted lines of holes in either side of the tan rock wall, with more thin sheets of pink plasma in the entrances. Just like the cell he had woken up in. Curious, the Slayer came to the nearest one and peeked inside.
A woman.
She was in white ragged robes, curled up in a ball and barefoot. At his approach, she looked up. Her dark hair and pale skin was unwashed, and her eyes were sunken and lightless.
The Slayer instantly stopped thinking about the control center.
"I have detected a sudden spike in your demeanor and vitals," VEGA noticed. "You want to save this girl."
Spot-on. Who wouldn't?
"The codes for unlocking the cells are likely in the tower," VEGA reminded him. "And if you wish to take all the prisoners with you, there should be room in the tanks Jiro stole."
The Slayer grimaced at the thought of leaving her like this. But if he smashed the controls, he would either have to take her with him into a firefight, or make her wait in an unlocked cell at the mercy of the Weequay pirates. So oddly enough, this was the safest place for her.
Eventually, the Slayer settled on a simple thumbs-up to the woman, then a two-handed "settle down" motion and a nod.
For her part, the woman, after some confusion and panic, gave a thumbs-up back. If she didn't know what it meant, she at least acknowledged him.
It didn't take too long for him to find a turbolift shaft after that. Miraculously, no one was in it, so the Slayer simply got in and pressed the top floor. He was surprised; usually there was a lot more opposition.
The shoddy turbolift was playing some rinky-dink elevator music as it ascended, and the Slayer tapped his foot impatiently to the tune. Ba da da, da da da, ba da da, da da da, da-da-da…
As the chime sounded and turbolift doors opened, the Slayer shot out and quickly swept his assault rifle from side to side, but once more, no one was in the lobby. This level, starkly contrasted with the subterranean one, was entirely metal: floor, walls, and ceiling. It seemed to also echo, but with a groan every now and then.
It wouldn't be too long before the pirates discovered the gate guards he had killed, so he needed to hurry.
"The control room is around the corner and two doors to your right," VEGA informed him. "My geometric scans are limited, but you shouldn't encounter anything too difficult."
Sure enough, the Slayer found the door in short order, and he simply bashed a fist on the wall panel. This somehow opened the door, and as it slid up, he could see inside.
The control room was like an aircraft control tower, with windows on all sides of the hexagonal structure and descending indented rows of dark beeping consoles all around the center.
It was also occupied by some twenty-odd Weequay pirates.
One of them near the window gaped and pointed at the Slayer. "Hey! Who're y-"
And his head's insides painted the window behind him. He was followed by four more headshots from the assault rifle to the other Weequays on the other side of the room.
"Intruder!" two or three screamed, and pistols were drawn. Red lances of gunfire impacted the Slayer and harmlessly fizzled out on contact with his armor. The weapons were clearly powerful enough to instantly kill anyone without armor. But the Slayer's armor had been forged by a demon to withstand the full might of Hell itself: crushing pressures, raging infernos, subzero temperatures, and even absorbing Argent Energy. So these bolts were doing little more than buzz on the surface.
The Slayer sighed. It was too easy. He didn't even bother to run and jump around the room as he usually would; he simply stayed in one place, ignoring the petulant yet intriguing laser fire pinging off him. Point, aim, pull, repeat. The Weequays grew more and more alarmed as their numbers were quickly thinned. Yells, curses, threats, rude suggestions spewed from their vile mouths. None of it helped them.
His bursts of fire were controlled and direct. No pirate took more than three bullets to go down. Their skin was tougher than human, but still about the same as a normal imp, and .50 caliber bullets made short work of their heads and necks.
Precisely one minute later, the last Weequay pirate had been slain. Fresh gore decorated the control tower, which couldn't be avoided; the Slayer had hoped to keep at least a few consoles intact. By and large, that had been the case; his kills caused very little collateral damage, for a change. But blood had flung and seeped into a few computers, and some Weequays had been sent flying and knocked over others.
The Slayer tramped to the biggest console in the room that hadn't been destroyed or ruined by blood. His hands began tinkering with the controls, and after some experimentation, the screen booted up.
As soon as the monitor got to the home screen, it began to fizzle out as VEGA worked its charm. The Slayer kept a side-eye on the entrance; surely there were others coming soon.
"Integration successful," VEGA reported some time later. "The base layout is now completely available on your HUD. I have also disabled any alarm systems that the base has, although I cannot force this door to close, since you destroyed the controls."
Oh, yeah. The Slayer grimaced.
"Accessing the base cameras now." On the monitor popped rows and columns of video feeds. After all of them appeared, one particular screen widened out above the others. It was an opulent wooden office, filled with various riches and art pieces. It was distinctly at odds with the exposed rock walls and bare, cold metal interior of the rest of the base. There were five people in the office: one Weequay sitting behind a Spartan table, with a man in rags and shabby fittings standing obediently behind him. Three other humanoids the Slayer didn't know the species of had their backs to the camera, speaking to the Weequay.
And a box matching what Hondo had specified was resting on the plain metal desk. So this Weequay behind the desk must be Jiro.
"I recommend finding Hondo's cargo first, and then escorting the prisoners to safety. Cleaning the base of Jiro and the one hundred and forty-seven remaining pirates must also happen, but I anticipate you will naturally do this along the way."
The Slayer nodded. Naturally.
"I will provide video and audio feed en route. And please, remember that this base needs to be kept intact."
Jiro K'lotta gave a gruff smile as he creaked the crate open and looked inside. Hondo had paid so much for this. And it was truly here after all. But this is what Hondo wanted?
His Nikto ambassador tried to peer around the crate's corner, and Jiro hurriedly snapped the case shut, glaring at him.
"Wha's so important in there tha' made Hondo pay twice the price of a shipment of spice?" one of the dim Nikto bodyguards pressed in a cockney accent. He grinned. "Hah, tha' rhymes."
"It's merely something to bribe Hondo with," Jiro evasively said. He hoisted the crate up; despite outside appearances, it was lightweight. "And it'll provide Gardulla the Hutt with some leverage over him. It's also the key for my new position in the Hutt empire, so I'm trusting you to be careful with it, Glup."
Glup Shitto, the ill-built and well-dressed Nikto ambassador, waved his hand as he accepted the crate's handle. "Please. I owe my life to the Hutts. I wouldn't dare ruin their plans for this planet's conquest. None of this is out of respect to you, Jiro the Betrayer."
Jiro scowled. "Well, how else would you have expected to gain this advantage over Hondo?"
"Hondo means nothing to me," Glup affirmed emotionlessly. "This planet means nothing to me. The Hutts will have either your cooperation or your extinction. However that goes through, it will still happen."
Jiro just glared at Glup. Glup stared blankly back.
The Slayer was actually just about to leave the control tower when three pirates appeared at the sparking entrance. They each yelped and drew their pistols. "Oi! Stay where y-"
The Slayer swept his arm, and the pirate who spoke became headless. So did the other two in the same sweep.
The Slayer bent over their blood-slick corpses and picked up one of the pistols. It was small in his grip, shoddily made, likely illegal, and heavily modified. Was it a laser gun, or something resembling Argent Energy?
"These weapons are commonplace throughout the galaxy, called blasters," VEGA informed him. "Condensed Tibanna gas is converted into a particle beam, or shard of plasma; it is different from stimulated light amplification, though it's easy to confuse the two. I hypothesize that the gas can be used to supplement your plasma reserves; if nothing else, we can simply find higher quality firearms."
The Slayer peeked at the pistol closer. That was good news. His weapons that used bullets, shells, and rockets wouldn't be so easily replaced, but at least energy cells were readily available. Peeking through the rest of the corpses, the Slayer came up with seven credit sticks, a pair of dice on a string, and a very odd deck of cards.
"Enemies are around the corner."
The Slayer nodded and deposited the loot into hammerspace. He strode to the corner that led back to the turbolift, and he could pick up on frantic voices.
"...but we don' know how many 'e's killed so far. We 'erd 'im slice three heads clean off! He's on the top level, and-"
The Slayer rounded the bend, and the shoddy pirates who were pressed against the wall shrieked. One of them was speaking into what looked like a chip. "He's here! He-"
The Slayer put his fist all the way through his chest, then slammed it against the other, into the wall. The two corpses slid to the ground, trailing blood on the cold metal wall.
"We should go."
The Slayer turned to the turbolift, which had just closed. Rushing over, he punched through an inch of durasteel and pried the doors open against their will.
The shaft was empty. No problem.
The man in rags perked his head up.
Jiro and Glup turned their attention to him. "What is it, Worm?" Jiro demanded.
"Something is coming," the bearded man breathed, looking into his dirty hands. "I sense… life snuffing out. Unbridled power."
"Like, throughout the galaxy?" one of the bodyguards guessed.
Worm shook his head. His eyes were wide, and his face pulled in fright.
Jiro's wrist comlink chirped, and he tapped it. "Yes?" he snapped.
"There's an intruder!" came the panicked report. "Sir, we don't know what it is, but everyone reporting contact just fades to static! And the alarms aren't working!"
"What is the meaning of this?" Glup Shitto darkly asked.
"What do you mean, intruder?" Jiro demanded of the comlink. "What's going on?"
Over the comlink, there came panicked shouts, the sound of blasterfire, and several heavy squelches. Soon, nothing but static came from it.
"Surely this isn't a manufactured diversion from the proceedings," Glup calmly insinuated. "Unless, of course, you cannot defend against one intruder."
"Of course not!" Jiro denied, shooting up from his chair. "Take the crate. Get out of here. I'll clean up."
Glup gave an ironic smile and bowed slightly. Then he swiveled and exited the office, with his bodyguards trailing him.
"Worm!" Jiro ordered, turning to the wretched man. "Come with me. I need to summon reinforcements, and you'll protect me."
Worm's face twisted, but he fondled a metal rod hooked on his waist and nodded. "Yes, master."