I do not own Gears of War or any of its characters.
Finished
Joseph groaned as the Raven shook and rocked. They'd met up with their reinforcements, Cole, Baird, and Baird's life partner Sam, and JD and Kait had been given a pair of militarized construction mechs, massive one-manned machines that were taller than a Swarmak. They were armed with industrial staple guns, which launched man-sized staples with enough force to shatter walls, and shoulder-mounted laser targeting devices for the Raven's rockets. Everyone who didn't have a mech was in the Raven, Sam piloting, Cole and Marcus operating the guns, and Lizzie trying her best to keep the Raven's constant aerial maneuvers from causing Joseph too much pain, which basically meant she had him in her lap, holding him tight to her and struggling not to rock or bounce too much as Sam avoided attacks by Carriers, Snatchers, one Swarmak so far, and the bullets of any Swarm Drones that decided to shoot at the Raven instead of the two mechs, though there were few of them.
"How're you holding up, Joseph?" Baird asked.
"I'll live," Joseph grumbled. "How're they doing?"
"They're smashing through everything," Baird said.
"Hell yeah, baby!" Cole cheered. "That's what I'm talking about!"
"Hey, how are you guys doing down there?" Del asked JD and Kait.
"So far so good," JD said. "What are you guys seeing up ahead?"
"I'm seeing a lot of bad guys," Del warned. "Big ones, too."
"Big, huh?" JD asked. "I think we can handle big."
Cole laughed. "Story of my life!"
As they continued along the ravine JD and Kait were following, more and more of the larger and more dangerous Swarm monsters attacked both of the mechs and the Raven, forcing it to take more and more evasive maneuvers. Joseph grit his teeth, struggling to bear the pain in silence. He ignored the sounds of JD and Kait's staple guns firing, the sounds of the Raven's rockets firing and exploding, and the near misses as the Raven swerved to avoid Carrier projectiles. Finally, they'd slaughtered them and the Raven blasted some shipping containers for JD and Kait before they all advanced. More and more Swarm monsters assaulted them, culminating in another Swarmak, which used its rockets to target the Raven, but they managed to kill all of the monsters without an excessive amount of trouble. Finally, the Raven blasted a hole through the dam they were heading toward for JD and Kait, then flew over it. It looked clear, and the cave where Kait's mother was being held was in sight, but as JD and Kait approached it, something began to tunnel through the ground toward them.
"Whatever's coming our way isn't going to stop us!" Del shouted, then paused. "Right?"
Then, massive versions of a Carrier's projectiles began to burst up from the ground, curving in the air and raining down at JD and Kait. The two of them stopped, firing their staple guns up into the oncoming fire, destroying or avoiding them, but not making any progress as they struggled to stay alive. Then,finally, something appeared. A massive, horrifying creature that was at least five times the size of JD and Kait's mechs exploded up from the ground, roaring. Its body looked similar to a Pouncer in shape, but with a tail like a Carrier, openings down the center of its chest to fire the projectiles JD and Kait had been dealing with like a Carrier, sand-colored, spiky flesh, and two round openings on the front of each shoulder. Then, as the thing reared back and roared, a huge, glowing tentacle with a flipper-like end burst out of its shoulder holes.
"What the fuck is that?" Joseph asked, staring at the monstrous creature.
"Oh, okay!" Del yelped. "Now that...that might stop us!"
Just as JD called for advice, two of the thing's tentacles whipped toward him and Kait, firing a barrage of quills like a Pouncer, but each spike the same size as a Snatcher's tail spike. JD shouted in fear as he and Kait tried to dodge them, only for a few to stab into each of their mechs, others bouncing off of them. Both opened fire on the tentacles, targeting them for airstrikes, and after a moment, the thing roared in pain as a tentacle twitched and spasmed before falling limp, crashing to the ground, the other tentacles all retracting to shield the openings they came from. Instantly, JD stomped on the end of it, stapling the flap to the ground, so that when the creature tried to retract its tentacle, the end tore free entirely, the tentacle retracting into the hole.
"Target the hole!" Joseph shouted.
Kait complied, and a moment later, a rocket sped directly into the hole and exploded, a spray of blood bursting out of it around the explosion. The other three tentacles extended again, firing even more violently than before, but JD and Kait both repeated the process again, another successful rocket strike forcing the creature to retreat a short distance, roaring and howling in pain. Then the third tentacle was ripped off and followed into its body by a rocket. Then, finally, the last tentacle was ripped off and a rocket blasted the opening left behind. But the thing wasn't dead, and it had already proven that its body, even the openings where it fired the explosive projectiles from, were too thick and too solid to breach, even with rockets. Then, it was firing. At the Raven.
"Shit, Sam, we got incoming!" Baird warned.
Joseph braced. Lizzie clung to him, one hand clinging to their seat. For a moment, they were able to avoid the projectiles. Then, two slammed into them and the Raven began to spin.
"We're hit!" Baird shouted. "And-" he flinched as a third blasted the rear rotor directly. "Dammit! We're going down!"
The Raven began to spin like a top, swaying one way then the other. Then, just as it pitched forward, it flipped sideways, and Lizzie screamed as she and Joseph flew from the Raven. Joseph clung to Lizzie's arms, praying even as he screamed. Then, they crashed down on a slop, bouncing and rolling into a tunnel leading down into the Swarm's Hive. They were separated when they slammed into a pod, which thankfully gave instantly and didn't injure them, and also lacked a Juvie, then continued to bounce along before finally crashing into two more pods, slowing them just in time for both to tumble over the edge of the tunnel's exit, plummeting fifteen feet to the ground inside of a chamber completely untouched by the Swarm. Both groaned, lying where they'd fallen for a long minute before Lizzie hauled herself up and hurried over to Joseph.
"Can we change families now?" Joseph groaned.
Lizzie sighed in relief, helping him stand before both looked around. Ahead of them, filling half of the cavern, were piles upon piles of bones that looked something like spider legs and bodies. Even though all of the flesh had long-since decomposed to leave pure white bones, the exoskeletal plating on the legs remained. And all around the pile of bones, as well as covering some of them, were Locust crystals.
"Are those, Corpsers?" Lizzie asked.
"Yeah," Joseph nodded, then grinned. "Feel like helping me loot while we're stuck here?"
Lizzie laughed, then nodded, and they made their way to the bones quickly. They dug through the pile for nearly five minutes before finally finding four legs that had crystals almost exclusively on the exoskeleton on the ends of the legs, were intact, and were from Adolescent Corpsers, so that they were a relatively reasonable size for use as weapons by a human. Along with the four legs, they also grabbed a few hundred crystals, more than enough for Joseph to have Baird make him armor from. Then, Lizzie fired a flare up through the tunnel they'd fallen through. A couple minutes later, Marcus stepped up in front of the opening at the top of the tunnel, holding his fingers to his ear for a moment and talking before shaking his head and waving the others over. After a minute, power cords from the Raven were thrown down for them, and Lizzie tied the end into a seat, which Joseph wrapped around him. Then, the two of them were lifted out of the hole one at a time, Marcus giving Joseph the Lancer Marcus had lost in the crash.
"Is it over?" Joseph asked, looking around and seeing Kait crying and her mother gone.
"It's over," Marcus nodded. "We called for evac. They should be here in-What the hell are those?"
Joseph looked back, seeing Lizzie emerging from the tunnel with Joseph's Corpser legs, Lizzie grinning behind her mask.
"New toys," Joseph said. "Think you can make me weapons out of them, Baird?"
"What kind of weapons?" Baird asked suspiciously.
"How're you feeling?" Lizzie asked as Joseph half-sighed-half-groaned as he sat across from her.
"Well, the lacerations have all healed up, but my body still feels like a Swarmak tap danced on it, and my eye..." Joseph trailed off lifting his eyepatch briefly.
His eye hadn't healed. It was no longer all a sickly, yellow-green, but was now entirely pure white scar tissue, leaving the entire eye white with no iris or pupil. There were no lasting scars or burns around the eye, fortunately, but he still wore the eyepatch when not in his helmet to hide it.
Lizzie stared at the table in silence. "I'm sorry. I washed it out as well as I could, but..."
"I know," Joseph smiled, taking her hand across the table. "It's not your fault. I'm a Carmine. I'm lucky that's all that happened."
Lizzie nodded, forcing a smile.
"So, about this whole wingman thing," Joseph smirked, Lizzie grinning instantly. "Who's up first?"
"You are," Lizzie said. "See that sexy blonde at the bar?"
He looked over. "Red shirt or blue?"
"Yes," Lizzie grinned. "Fetch boy."
Joseph chuckled, then sighed, draining the shot Lizzie had waiting for him. Then, he stood, making his way toward the bar where one of the two very attractive blonde sat, choosing the one in the red first. However, as soon as she saw his eyepatch, he could tell he wouldn't have any luck. So, after allowing him to buy her a drink and making a token effort at conversation, she claimed to be getting impatient at waiting for her boyfriend and he took the hint to bow out, bringing Lizzie and himself a pair more shots each. A few minutes later, he headed for the blonde in the blue shirt, only for her to spend the next ten minutes talking about what makeup and perfume she liked and not letting him get a word in edgewise, and Joseph signaled Lizzie over to rescue him before they headed for a new bar. At that bar, he struck out for being a Gear, for being Brunette, and for being half blind. At the third bar, Lizzie started the first conversation, then brought him over to join, getting the conversation going well before using the excuse of a bathroom trip to duck out. Joseph continued to talk to the woman, one with wavy black hair and an intoxicatingly sweet personality, for close to an hour before the woman leaned over to whisper in his ear.
"Since your girlfriend left, want to fuck me in the bathroom real quick? I promise not to tell her, and as long as you're behind me, your eye won't bother me if you want to take the eyepatch off." As she whispered, she set her hand directly over his groin.
Joseph blinked in surprise before turning her down, stepping away from the bar only to see Lizzie giggling as she chatted with an attractive, well-dressed man at the table she'd snagged. He sighed, turning and walking out of the bar. He walked down the road for about three minutes before stopping, still in sight of the bar, and resting a hand over his eye. He had never been the type for meaningless sex, and now, with his eye ruined, he'd never find anyone who might actually take the time for it to not be meaningless. He looked back at the bar, frowning. It wasn't fair that the only person he matched well with, and that he could be happy with, was Lizzie. It wasn't right. Even with so few humans left, it wasn't right.
He stopped as he saw Lizzie step out of the bar, looking around worriedly, before seeing him and visibly relaxing, walking over to him.
"Giving up already?" Lizzie asked. "That's not like you."
"It is with girls," Joseph said. "I've always been bad with girls. I don't want meaningless sex, I want to get to know a girl first. But all anyone cares about inside of COG settlements is reproducing, so sex is basically mandatory."
Lizzie snorted. "You are literally the only guy alive who would say he turned a girl down because she wanted to have sex."
"I know, my life sucks," Joseph grumbled.
Lizzie laughed again. "Well, what do you want to do, then?"
"I don't know," Joseph sighed. "What about you? Why'd you turn that guy down?"
"He was boring," Lizzie waved her hand dismissively. "Just wanted to brag about how much money he makes in the COG. Besides, I had something more important to do. I had to make sure you were okay. After all, I can't tease you if you're crying. It'd be too mean."
"I'm not crying," Joseph rolled his eyes. "But...thank you. I'm glad you care about me more than sex with some rich COG asshole."
Lizzie rolled her eyes. "Of course I do, Joseph. I love you. Don't be so hard on yourself. You're a great guy, you're handsome, and you're fun to talk to."
Joseph smiled. "You're one to talk. You're the most beautiful girl I've ever met."
Lizzie smiled. "You know, I can think of one thing I'd like to do."
"What's that?" Joseph asked.
"I'd like to tell you that your mom cheated on your dad, so you're fair game," Lizzie said, smiling almost shyly.
"Right," Joseph snorted. "Sure. You might want to grab a fire extinguisher for your burning pants."
Lizzie smirked, shrugging. "Hey, you never said it had to be a true statement. You just said someone had to say it."
Joseph blinked in surprise, staring at her. "Wha...Are you..."
Lizzie stepped forward, looping her arms around his neck. "I believe this is supposed to be the part where I get pinned to a wall."
Joseph's eyes widened as all of the times she kissed him during their fight against the Swarm flashed through his head, the last, when he was wounded, lingering. Now that he looked back on it, he wasn't sure when he'd missed their semi-harmless, joke flirting had started to actually carry meaning, but suddenly, he realized it had. And then, a half second later, he had her pinned to the wall, his lips mashed to hers. Lizzie whimpered, clutching him tight against her as their tongues dueled. They remained there, devouring each other for longer than he cared to keep track of before they were moving, neither having to actually say anything to agree and stopping to kiss frequently enough that the five minute walk to her apartment took closer to half an hour. Finally, he pinned her to the inside of her apartment door and attached his lips to her throat, Lizzie tilting her head back out of his way and moaning softly in approval.
"It only took you every wall between that bar and here, but you finally pinned me to the right one," Lizzie rasped between labored breaths.
"I was just waiting for you to keep you promise about not making it to the house at all," Joseph shot back between heavy kisses to her neck.
Lizzie made a noise at the back of her throat and pushed him back, only to immediately shed her shirt before rejoining her lips to his as they began to stumble into the small one-room apartment, heading for the bed.
Baird stared up at Joseph and Lizzie as they set the several bags filled with Locust Crystals on his worktable, Baird saying nothing about the obvious hickies decorating Lizzie's entire neck.
"Think you can make armor and weapons out of these?" Joseph asked.
"Kid, those crystals are harder than diamonds," Baird said flatly. "They're basically indestructible."
"Yeah," Joseph nodded. "And you're Damon Baird. Soooo..."
Baird grunted in annoyance. "Give me about a month. And don't expect it to be pretty. That or that other toy I'm working on for you."
Joseph laughed. "It's made from Corpser pieces and Locust crystals. How pretty could it be?"
Baird rolled his eyes. "Just go find a quiet corner somewhere to pretend the whole world doesn't know you're dating and leave me to work in piece."
Joseph smirked, he and Lizzie leaving, heading directly back to Lizzie's apartment to continue what they had been doing for the last three days.
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