Ship: The Reaper's Envy

System: Stygian Outrim

ASH NEVER FELT COLD BEFORE HE HEARD THAT VOICE. But now, a chill ran up his spine and he shivered. It sliced clean through the air, quiet and calm, yet impossible not to hear. He looked past the armored woman on the walkway to the new figure emerging. She wore a dark red half-poncho, monklike sack pants and a black sleeveless jerkin. Her skin was a dark, muted maroon, covered in flowing black tattoos. She brushed long raven hair from her face as she made it to the railing and stared at him across the hangar. Ash noticed the air ripple earlier with the armored woman who now stood like a wallflower, but with this new figure the sensation was unmistakable: she was Entroph. No, more than that.

He felt his father in the air. Emanating from her, like radiation.

This was her, then. Ephrala'Trocita, High Seer of the Dreadlord, Ascendant of Plagues. The air held its breath as the two studied one another, as well as the titan behind her. Ash, a contained inferno, the armored woman a thunderous tempest, and Atrocita an arctic wind.

"Hm…" she smiled thinly, "You don't look like him. You're lucky."

Ash said nothing at first, then stood up straighter and shrugged slowly. "Could be worse…we could be Kurthax. I hear he's uglier than sin."

A laugh unexpectedly burst out of Atrocita, short, but genuine. "The universe does have its irony, no? A man as handsome as the Dreadlord produced a hog-faced lummox like him, it's just—" she laughed again, even snorting now. The armored woman looked at her in shock, but swallowed and smoothed out her face. Ash tilted his head and looked between the two women as he stepped further on the nose of Qarnan's ship.

"Well, every family's got one," he mused.

"Indeed," Atrocita composed herself, "Why don't you follow me? We'll discuss our family further."

Ash lookd down at the Orovian soldiers aiming up at him, as well as the Entroph who attacked the ship — Venatonce, he guessed from the armor and weapon. He looked back up at the armored woman, the mace that killed Qarnan still in her hand. After a moment, he grunted. "My favorite subject." Tensing up, he leapt across the bay and landed between the two women. He nodded at Atrocita, and she lead the way. Glancing over to the other woman, he saw her lean on the railing and glare at him. His brow furrowed.

"…Do I know you from somewhere?"

She slugged him across the jaw, doubling him over.

"Move," she grunted.

He tasted a little blood and looked cockeyed at her, but she shoved him around to follow Atrocita. He risked a glance downward at the hangar floor, where Venatonce and the Orovians cleared out. The Entroph spat on Qarnan's corpse.

"Take this garbage down to the waste level."

Ash quickly fixed ahead, not wanting to draw any more focus to the scene. He followed Atrocita as the doors slid shut behind them.

He took in his surroundings every new space she led him, seeing the jagged, obsidian aesthetic extended to every corridor and chamber. "This ship isn't Cindreth made," he thought aloud.

"Custom design," Atrocita answered from ahead, "We barely made it off Cindreth in half a ship when we seceded." Seceded, Ash noted, so we're not headed back, at least. "We had enough parts to retrofit the bones of an old Orovian Vulture, courtesy of my courageous brothers," she smiled and bowed her head at a few passing Orovian soldiers, who saluted back with and bowed their heads as well. Unusual for their kind — even when showing respect they preferred to keep sight of who's in front of them.

"Hm," Ash nodded, "Where'd you come by the Orovians?"

"A Nomad Legion," she patted a few on the shoulder as the last of them passed by. Ash’s brow furrowed.

The Nomad Legions were a decentralized mercenary guild from the fallen Septemvirate, a mortal alliance of seven empires that dominated the central rings of the galaxy before they, as empires do, began eating each other. The Orovian Phalanx was one of the seven, but always preferred running a battle to a star system. Among grandiose company like Lords of the House of Iron and the Crowns of the Silken Lance, the Orovians were easily the most resourceful and practical. When the Septemvirate slid towards infighting, they had the sense to wait for the duels to break out between nobles, then looted most of the Septemvirate’s shared military might before it was mobilized and made off into the stars. Nowadays they were roving clans of racketeers and marauders, the strongest of them graduating to hired guns. They didn’t come cheap — and they certainly didn’t work for ‘gods.’ Ash wondered how not only a native of Cindreth, but an exile of Cindreth, could’ve made this happen.

“Force like this,” he tested, “Why not take the fight back home?”

“Because I value my people,” she returned, somewhat taken aback, “I spent years bringing each of them into my heart, why would I waste them on a burning meat grinder like Cindreth?”

Ash said nothing, but noted what she gave away: Atrocita converted these mercenaries to her cause with guile and force of personality. It made sense, from what little Ash knew of her. She was apprenticed to Ur'Kova, their propaganda minister, and even made it to the Dreadlord’s inner circle; she needed a damn compelling word. The language of her answer told Ash about her as well: she was smart enough to know she can’t waste her forces, but couldn’t resist sharing how hard she worked to earn them. It all still came back to her.

She inherited their father’s cunning — and his pride.

Eventually, Atrocita led him through a sliding door to a throne chamber, an expansive hall of once regal, severe featuers long since left to ruin: tattered red banners, broken statues of the Entroph 'gods,' and at the end of a smooth stone path between the fallen monuments, the crumbled remains of a throne. Atrocita smiled at the armored woman and then gestured politely for her to leave, but the warrior hesitated. Ash studied her as well now that she was in his vision.

She gave off a confusing sensation, certainly distinct from Atrocita's. Atrocita was half Entroph, and thus emitted antimatter radiation as they all did. Ash wasn't around it much, but knew what it was. After all, it matched his own, as Maladact's son. A restless, crackling energy, like they were constantly suffused with static electricity, lashing out at the particles around them. This woman however, confused him because her sensation was so familiar. Her presence generated a powerful, flowing sensation, like a steady river or gust of wind. He knew this radiant field well because the Astrals all had it — but hers was warped. Aggressive. Drum-like. Before he could pursue this further, the armored woman shot him a severe look and stepped closer to Atrocita.

"My lady," she insisted, "It would be prudent if I remained here. I do not wish—"

"It's alright, darling," Atrocita soothed, rubbing the warrior's shoulder. "This is cause for celebration, not alarm." The warrior wanted to say more, but bowed and backed away, shooting Ash a grim look as the doors sealed before her. Atrocita sighed with relief, dropping her regal posture into a laid back, willowy gait. She sauntered towards the throne as Ash cautiously followed, still scanning the derelict chamber. "I imagine you have a great many questions."

"Not especially."

"No?" she looked back in mock offense, "Nothing springs to mind for your long lost sister?"

Ash tracked her movements and shrugged. "Throne's worse for wear."

"I've no use for it."

"I hear the old man doesn't either. Lets the Dreadlord sit on it," he mused, "Not much point in a seat of power when you're…in everything."

"I wouldn't know," she shrugged back, meandering toward the derelict chair, "I've not seen him in decades."

"I'm sure he's seen you," Ash replied, "Hell, I'm sure he's seeing us right now. Having a proper laugh over it."

"Perhaps," she gave reluctantly, "…He named you, you know."

Ash slowed. "Did he now?"

"He'd talk about you sometimes, when I did manage to see him. I know the Astrals called you Ashirem, but Maladact was there when you were born, made sure to give you a name before shipping you off. He called you Marrokhan."

Ash chewed on his cheek. He couldn't really process this at the moment, he was more focused on why she told him this. She was trying to build common ground, the revelation of his birth name must've been an olive branch. "Lofty and pretentious."

"As always," she chuckled, "Do you prefer Ashirem, then?"

"Ash."

"Very well, Ash. I only wanted you to know what I'm sure the Astrals wouldn't tell you. I'm not trying to pull you towards Cindreth or our father — I am not him."

"Neither am I."

Atrocita turned to him and sat on the stairs beneath the throne. "Hm…no one seems to accept that, do they?"

"'Gods' have that way about them," he nodded, "Back home I'm sure you're just a jealous little rebel."

"And you a rabid dog to domesticate."

Ash chuckled and sat on a pedestal beneath a broken statue. "Something like that."

"They want us to hate each other," she eased back on the stair behind her, "Your people expect the power in you to be there for a reason, I assume they brought up some dead fool's prophecy where you slay our father?" Ash nodded. "Mine would expect me to take your head here and now to better my claim to the throne."

Ash frowned and nodded in thought. "…But?"

"But I don't hate you," she opened up, "I don't even know you. And I certainly have no plans to kill you for our father's favor."

"I'd hope you'd kill me for your own favor."

"I—" she caught herself, "I'd rather not hurt you at all, actually."

Ash tracked her recovery, trying to gage her reactions unrehearsed. "That so?"

She leaned forward, swirling dark red eyes trying to connect. "Duriah and Maladact are running this game, everyone else is their pawn — even the Dreadlord. Keeping the universe in the same cycles of violence and inequality over and over again. But you and I left the board. We have that in common. And today…we have the chance to do more."

Ash sighed — Here we are, he thought. The sales pitch. "You say that now," he began, almost apologetic. "I'm sure you even believe it. But living out on the frontier showed me something: most people just try to get by. The handful of folk who turn rebel or oppressor? They're just changing coats. Every rebel is so sure they're doing the right thing, and if they take down the oppressor, then they have to make sure the oppressor never comes back, so they squeeze harder and harder until suddenly they're the oppressor now.

"So it's better to just do nothing?"

"Strong as we are? Getting involved just makes things worse. Casualties are higher, damage spreads further, crops of believers carry out horrors in our names. They're better off without us."

"We don't have that luxury, Ash," she implored, "We can't just leave them in a broken world that we made!"

"It's not broken — it was always meant to oppress. It's working exactly how it was built to. That's the old man's real joke — he puts the hero's journey in all our minds, makes us think we can dare to be better. That we're the chosen one. The exception to the rule. You think you're really changing the game…but even thinking that, it…it just makes you another piece on the board."

She sat up. "And what if Deja broke the board?"

Ash double-took at her, mouth agape. "…You're not serious…"

Her eyebrows rose. "I didn't think they'd tell that story on Arleth."

"A version of it," he set down the kneaded rock. "Got the real story from elder tribes in the outer rim. Trite creation myths of mortals, Astrals and Entrophs joining forces to imprison the living primal forces that created the universe."

"One of those forces lives inside you, brother," she chuckled, "With family history like ours, is it really so implausible?"

"I hoped."

Atrocita shrugged and produced a twelve inch, angular shard of smooth obsidian, tinged with blue light. The hum of its energy suddenly filled the space, overwhelming even the constant radioactive hum the two of them emitted. "The science guilds on Exadam pioneered the technology that our forebears used to imprison them. Sealed them away in their own pocket dimensions — this one is Deja's."

"Then that thing in your hand should scare you."

Atrocita smiled and stood up, delicately placing the shard on the stair behind her. She ran a finger along its inky black surface, tracing a symbol in the center with the blue light lying within. She then stepped back as holographic light gathered in the symbol she drew, and projected a four-story visage of Deja, the primordial titan of Supreme Recombination. It took the form of a colossal humanoid set of ever-shifting stone plate armor, with coursing blue magma between each chunk as it walked slowly, more like a drifting glacier than a thinking being.

"The only power beyond our father and the High King is in the primordial titans. And our father wouldn't have cared enough to help imprison them if he wasn't afraid of them," she stole a glance at him as she paced around the hologram, "Tell me the Astrals didn't start revering and catering to you once they found you had the Tectonic Mantle bonded to you?" Ash swallowed and said nothing. "The Mantle is just a means of shaping planets — Supreme Recombination far exceeds that. This force exists for the sole purpose of renewal. Deja does not create or destroy, he simply…reintegrates. Forges a new, beautiful thing out of existing material. And that terrifies gods. Suddenly their eternal life rings hollow, their divine grace and all-knowing wisdom no more special than any other — all creations are equal before Recombination. With a simple gesture, Deja can separate the very molecules that make them up, and reintegrate them into something new. I would even dare to say…something better."

"You said you were different," Ash shook his head.

Atrocita whirled on a heel to look down at him. "I am."

"Here you are making the same mistakes, just bigger."

"I was never one of the gods," she insisted, approaching him. "I was born on a barbaric mud rock where our father farmed for worshippers, I was never welcome on Cindreth until I was a child. I was raised as an outsider, unclouded by the Entrophs' lust for conquest. I am not one of them, and I don't believe you're one of the Astrals, either. That is why we have to do this, together. We are different!"

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"Deja is not a weapon or an ally," he said gravely, raising his cuffed hands, "He warps reality just by standing in it, he converts matter into biomass around him like a cosmic tumor. You. Cannot. Control him."

"This isn't about control, it's about daring to reject what's always been, I thought you of all people would appreciate that!"

"You're stomping around in the elder ages of creation like a child who just found a gun!"

"You are letting oppression reign unchecked!" she snapped, firming up her stance.

"Right," Ash dismissed knowingly, "Get on with it — the reason you need me to kickstart your glorious revolution is…?"

Atrocita shut her lips tight, fists balling at her sides. Ash knew where she was going, and it burned her inside. "…The only thing powerful enough to free a primordial force is…another force," she admitted, "The Tectonic Mantle has the power to break this crystal prison and set Deja free. I can bind him to my will, but I…" the next word choked her, "Need you…to release him."

He chuckled bitterly, "And just who will we aim him at?"

"The architects of oppression," she answered like it were obvious, "Our father. The Dreadlord. The High King. Their whole worlds and all who stand on them. Tear down their empires to the last particle, and rebirth them into something beautiful."

"And then?"

"We flourish!" she spread her arms wide, impatient, "We prosper in a new age! All of us! An immaculate era of enlightened design!"

"Your design."

Her nose scrunched, nearly baring her teeth like a cornered animal, but kept composure. She folded her arms and looked on him with judgment, while he finally rose to his feet. "You're one person. So am I. I don't have the right to judge entire worlds of people."

"Just the right to let them bleed," she sniped. "I'm sure your mother would be proud to hear it." Ash stopped cold, his brow furrowed, but held her stare, at a loss for words. Her eyebrows lifted, "Oh…did they even tell you about her?" She crept closer and leaned in. "Do you even know her name?" Ash said nothing. Atrocita sighed and scooped up the shard as the image dissipated. "Think about where you come from, Ash. Think about what Maladact would've made you. How Arleth treated you…when your only duty was to protect them."

"And this is, what?" He challenged, "My chance to get back at them?"

"No!" she insisted softly, "To show them they were wrong," she closed in, laying both hands on Ash's shoulders. "You and I, brother. We'll show them all."

Ash was silent for a long moment, then exhaled and met his sister's eyes. "Everyone on this ship…you've convinced them we can do this?"

"I have."

"…Then you're an impressive bullshitter," he shrugged, looking down at her with pity. "The old man would be proud of you."

Her stare sharpened. Venomous, and genuinely disappointed. "I wanted to do this together," she said, deflated. "But one way or another, you will serve the new age." One hand slipped off his shoulder and collected dark spores and tendrils of shadow as she flexed her Death Wield plague ability. Ash held her stare, resolute. He was immune to any form of disease he'd ever encountered — but Death Wield wasn't any typical plague. Options coursed through his mind; if her power could infect him, he'd be leaving Tectonic Mantle in her hands, and opening the door to galactic devastation. If he fought back, his rage and fear could take hold of him and he could devastate the galaxy all the same, just on a slower scale. Or, the Death Wield wouldn't work on him, and she'd use a godly weapon to kill him and try it on his corpse — at least he wouldn't have to wait around and see about that one.

None of the options were ideal, or even good, but fighting back might at least buy the rest of the cosmos a little time. He cracked his neck and focused on the pain in his wound, the frustration with his sister and all the ugly things coursing through his mind when—KATHOOM, the chamber doors blasted inward.

Ash and Atrocita's heads whipped to see the two slabs of metal hurtling their way. Ash planted a boot in her abdomen and shoved her into the door's path. One slammed into her and threw her back, while he planted his feet firm and hip-and-shouldered through the other. The armored woman leapt down the walkway, mace in hand. Atrocita's face twisted in confusion as the warrior whipped out a knife and looked to Ash.

"Do not flinch," she warned, whipping the blade into Ash's stasis cuffs. They crackled, then dimmed.

Ash flexed his wrists and popped the cuffs off, "You're a little confusing.”

She surged forward and grabbed the collar of his fatigues, "WE. ARE. LEAVING!"

Her eyes darted past Ash to Atrocita rising back to her feet on the altar. The Ascendant of Plague's face creased in confusion, "Linares, what is this?"

Ash froze up, gaping at the warrior before him. "…Linares?"

The daughter of the High King and Queen ignored both of their shock and raised her mace at Atrocita. "Courtesy of Venatonce — thank him for the advice," she unleashed a torrent of red lightning. The crackling lines struck Atrocita square in the chest…and she walked right through them, barely acknowledging the roiling electricity. The shock was gone from her face, quickly calcified into rage. At this, Linares' steely face wavered. Ash looked to the door Linares bashed through. Dead Orovians peppered the outside hallway, the apparent handiwork of Linares’ escape plan.

Linares bashed a statue with her mace, sending a hailstorm of debris at Atrocita, but she tensed through the chunks of stone like snowballs, stalking to the edge of the throne dais. She stood straight, rolled her shoulders and breathed in. The air around her warbled, her dark red eyes lightened until they looked like a pair of rocket thrusters.

Ash risked a look back at Atrocita right as she let out an angry, primal scream and fired two beams of pale yellow light from her eyes. Linares cursed with recognition braced for impact, while Ash put a hand on her back and threw the armored woman behind him, then slammed his forearms together like a boxer blocking a cross. With milliseconds to spare, the energy beams splashed into an orange barrier of energy before his arms, forming up in front of Ash and Linares like a bulwark. The impact slid Ash back, his feet grinding trenches into the stone floor, Linares backpedaling with a hand on his shoulder to guide them out into the hallway.

Linares glanced down both ends of the corridor, where the bulkheads were sealed shut with melted and dried metal. Muffled voices and pounding from the other side indicated that backup wasn’t far behind from the Orovians, and their advantage was only getting smaller. Linares glanced up, tracking an invisible trail along the ceiling until she spotted a grate.

Atrocita balled her fists as her eye beams glowed brighter, while Ash gritted his teeth and pushed back, but felt his strength waning slowly. The orange energy wall before them dimmed and cracked. This wasn’t just heat or force, he realized — Atrocita inherited their father’s power over Enervation. Not simply the power to destroy, but to sap the vitality of an opponent. Her Enervation beam steadily wore through his defense, but the Tectonic Mantle flared brighter in him and rejuvenated the barrier, flashing brighter as his veins began to crackle red. No, he pleaded with himself, right as Linares grabbed him from behind and pulled him up into her improvised exit, the grate slamming shut beneath them.

The pair tumbled down a 45 degree slope and slammed into the wall of a spacious air duct. Linares sprang to her feet and checked her bearings, “I memorized the layout of the air ducts and unfinished spaces of the ship,” she filled in as she caught her breath, “I can get us to the hangar through here, follow!” She charged down the duct, but Ash slid down to the floor, clutching the side of his head with a groan. She halted, backtracked and grabbed his fatigues, but he wouldn’t budge. “I said follow!” She barked, “On your feet, soldier!”

She put two hands on him and saw glowing red veins claw up his neck, and black smoke billowing from his eyes. She stifled a gasp and stepped back as Ash howled in pain. He tightened his face muscles as the glowing red veins slowly receded from his eyes and neck, but they were still waiting at the base of his collar. His blood vessels pulsated as his breathing finally calmed. He looked up at her, eyes not yet clear, like plumes of ink spreading in water.

“I need…my harness…”

Linares nodded and knelt, helping him up more gingerly — and cautiously.

LINARES GUIDED HIM FORWARD WITH CARE AND PATIENCE, despite her mounting anxiety. After a series of twists and turns through the ductwork, she finally found the grate that exited closest to the hangar bay, right over the holding pens. She dropped from the ducts, followed by Ash. He leaned on the wall, face slick with feverish sweat. As he worked on his breathing, he suddenly gawked at the towering cages lining both walls of the level, only now noticing the deep snarls echoing from within.

Ten feet tall, twenty feet long and standing on long, arachnid legs, the yellow chitinous shells of the creatures raged against their confinement, their eyeless pincered faces chomping at the electrified bars of their cages in constant aggression.

“Wh…what are these things?”

“Elkorian Snare Beasts,” Linares said with familiarity, stepping forward with confidence and holding her mace tighter. The weapon sparked with lightning, the sparked in kind, and the Snare Beasts soon cowed at her sight. She marched further along as the creatures huddled into submissive positions. “We fed your bounty hunter to them, if the knowledge gratifies you.”

“Not especially,” he gave back, glancing across them uncertainly.

“It is of no consequence,” she said, “The hangar is right beyond that—”

She cut herself off as the opposite bulkhead opened and Orovian soldiers flooded in and fired a hail of super-heated quill spikes their way. Linares gritted her teeth and raised her mace, while Ash rolled his eyes as the quills sparked and bounced harmlessly off them. Linares surged forward and Ash followed suit, fighting to keep calm from the nuisance gun fire, while one of the Snare Beasts whined and thrashed violently against the cage, unperturbed by Linares’ presence and the firefight.

Linares glanced back at him as she neared the soldiers, seeing the gunfire didn’t harm him, but drove him closer to emotional compromise. Knowing she couldn’t risk his power going critical, she relented from charging the Orovians and instead slid towards a control panel on the cages. She punched in an emergency release code, and a series of heavy clunks echoed across the chamber. The mighty doors of the Snare Beast’s cages sailed open. The Orovians panicked, fired on the monsters or tried to flee, but the result was the same: the Snare Beasts scurried free and ripped them apart.

Linares and Ash frantically dodged between the pincers and pillar-like legs of the frenzied Snare Beasts. One leg landed before them, and Ash volleyed up to punch out the joint, splitting it into pieces as the Snare Beast fell, tripping two others as the pair managed to slip out the far bulkhead. Thinking quickly, Linares slammed the door controls and sealed it behind them.

The pair emerged on the hangar floor. The bounty hunter’s ship, the Kurgan, remained fastened in docking clamps, cargo doors open as all manner of weapons and equipment were strewn across the floor. Looting Orovians turned about as the pair entered and snapped their rifles up. Linares bared her teeth prepared to strike, but Ash stood in front of her with his arms out.

“Whoa, whoa,” he opened, short of breath, “Just…think about this, boys. You know who I am, and who she is,” he pointed back at her, “And you know those guns won’t kill—”

A quill rocked his head back, not even breaking his skin but annoying him just enough. His head snapped back forward, veins and eyes fully overtaken with volcanic light. Whether it was an accident or an Orovian thinking he was lucky, the damage was done.

“…And you know what’ll happen,” he said, his voice an abyssal growl, “…if you try…”

Linares watched him fight a sadistic smile. This time he was losing. Linares tilted her head now, wondering if the rising rumble sound was the air rippling around Ash, or a pounding on the doors behind her when—CRASH, the bulkhead caved in. Linares narrowly pulled Ash aside as the Snare Beasts burst through, sprawling out into the hangar like roaches fleeing light, rolling over each other as one Beast in particular thrashed and writhed in pain. The Orovians scattered in a panic as Ash fell to his hands and knees, tucking his head as he fought with all he had left to resist his adrenaline. Linares weighed her options looking across the hangar: the ships she trained on were hanging on another level, and lift access was blocked by fleeing Orovians…but the bounty hunter’s ship remained untouched. She helped Ash limp along, then with a burst of energy, she thrust herself up onto the Kurgan’s wing. A few Snare Beasts snapped at her legs when she wasn’t looking, but Ash rose to his feet and glared at the pack of animals. They suddenly veered around him almost instinctively, as if he were a massive fire. He held back his rage for a few more seconds and leapt up onto the nose of the Kurgan with her.

“I will free the fastening clamps,” she called from the wing, “Can you fly this?”

Ash tried to look at her, but swayed faintly, teetering side to side. “I…I don’t…” he trailed in a foggy state.

Linares pulled her lips in and desperately looked around for an answer as the Snare Beasts scattered, apart from the one that kept thrashing. It squealed higher and higher, even snapping Ash out of his struggle. They both watched quizzically as the creature convulsed and gurgled.

…And then Sledger Qarnan burst out its back.

Covered in guts and his head completely regenerated, he wriggled about as the Snare Beast mercifully expired. It fell on a few soldiers as the bounty hunter grumbled with annoyance and squirmed one leg out, leaning on a trapped Orovian’s face.

“Ah, frack,” he spat, “I lost a shoe.”

Linares, gaping, turned to Ash, who stared on in part horror, part relief, until Atrocita emerged on the hangar floor as well. She took in the anarchy gripping her ship, the fleeing or mutilated Orovians and the remaining Snare Beasts first in her field of vision. She gritted her teeth and blasted her Enervation beams across the Snare Beasts, the yellow rays piercing their chitinous shells and rapidly desiccating the tissue inside, like a time lapse of dead tissue rotting away. The Beasts shrieked and fell, their vitality sapped like dehydrated fruits. She fixed on the already dead Beast before her and cocked her head as Qarnan strained to escape its contracted muscle and knotted entrails.

"I ain't gonna lie, yer worshipfulness," he panted, "I'm startin' ta feel led on."

Her ego pricked beyond capacity for wit or wordplay, Atrocita growled and shot her Enervation beams square into the bounty hunter's chest, flooring him and rapidly decaying his flesh. Atrocita strode by him and looked up towards Ash on the ship…only for Qarnan to stand back up, completely regenerated. She turned sharply, dumbfounded as he wiped viscera off his pants and vest.

"Spicy little look ya got there," he said, "But it don't make ya any less of a Diet Cola to yer old man."

This seemed to run through what little patience Atrocita had left. Her ego was wounded by Ash's refusal, she was shocked and humiliated by Linares' betrayal, and now her powers were falling short against a no-name bounty hunter. Atrocita's shoulders heaved, she inhaled all of her mounting frustration and roared at Qarnan, blasting him down even stronger. She held the beams longer this time, but as his flesh disintegrated, it grew back just as quick.

Ash glanced from the scene over to Linares, who ran along the Kurgan's starboard wing toward the fastening clamp, then back down at Qarnan as Atrocita shredded his flesh over and over again. "Think, genius, think," he massaged his temple, fighting through the clouds of adrenaline and clinging to reason. Down in the cockpit below his boots, he spotted Qarnan's chain and hook. He dipped into the cockpit and scooped it up, then leaned out the gaping hole above the captain's chair when—HURK, the ship suddenly dropped on the starboard side and jerked to a stop, the port wing bending and groaning, still encased in a clamp. Ash barely caught himself, now dangling out of the ship by one hand, the chain in the other. He looked up to see Linares smashing at the docking clamp with her mace until it broke off.

"Whatever you plan, make damned haste!" she barked.

Ash pulled himself up by one arm and lashed the chain down, hooking one of Qarnan's exposed ribs. Below, Atrocita ceased her onslaught and looked up at him, eyes bolting open with alarm. Her eyes glowed again, but Qarnan lashed up and decked her across the jaw with enough strength to knock her back a step. In the moment of pause, Qarnan eyed the hook in his ribs, then threw a confused glance up at Ash. Before he could speak, Atrocita's boot whipped across his face, knocking him back down. Incensed even further at now being winged by this lower life form, she unleashed another torrent of her eye blasts on him. While Qarnan thrashed in pain, Ash snapped his arm back, whipping the bounty hunter off the floor and out of Atrocita's line of fire. His half-skeletal body hurtled back up towards the ship, his flesh quickly regenerating again. Atrocita tracked his movements and refocused, blasting at Ash straight on now, but Ash held out a palm and pushed the beams back with a stiff-arm of orange Tectonic energy.

Qarnan landed in a heap in the captain's chair, watching puzzled as Ash shielded him from Atrocita's attack. "Yer officially more trouble than yer worth, Sheriff," he shook his head, thumbing the controls and bringing the Kurgan's engines to life. With one clamp off, the ship pulled away with its thrusters and slid free from the other, allowing Ash to juke one way and deflect Atrocita's Enervation beams upwards, ripping a long line of fire through the ceiling. Burning metal rained around her, forcing the Ascendant of Plagues back a few steps.

Linares seized her moment and slid along the top of the ship, then slipped into the hole over the cockpit.

"YOU!" Qarnan snapped at her, grabbing his dropped shotgun.

"Hang on, wait—!" Ash tried to intervene, but Linares slapped the gun down and dove for Qarnan, driving a knife into his torso.

"HURK—Oh, you must be new," Qarnan gurgled, barely inconvenienced by the blade in his heart. He put the muzzle under Linares' chin and pulled the trigger, snapping her head back. Her chin split open from the magnetic buckshot of his shotgun—not crippling damage, but enough to catch the Astral by surprise. She snarled and stabbed him again. "GAK—Good, good, keep tryin'," he snarked, reloading the gun. She stabbed him again, this time carving across his throat. "ACK—Y'know, you'd think after the first time, she'd—HURK!" she stabbed him once again, looking at him in confusion while he annoyedly coughed up blood. "Oh, are you done? Was that good for you?"

She prepared to stab again as he racked the shotgun, but Ash grabbed them both and effortlessly wrenched them apart. She held Linares up by a strap on her armor and palmed Qarnan's forehead into the headreast of teh captain's chair. He looked between them, fiery red-orange eyes billowing with smoke as he frothed at the mouth. "TIME…AND…PLACE!" he snarled, voice abyssal and roiling. He released them both and grabbed the torn metal above them. His hands glowed orange with molten heat and he pulled the metal back into place, then slapped a glowing hand over the seam and welding it shut, the cockpit once again sealed and space-worthy.

Linares backed off while Qarnan raised an eyebrow. "…Arright, no need ta get emotional," he grabbed the controls as Ash dropped down, falling over and convulsing. "Whoa, whoa! What is it now, Sheriff?"

Linares hesitantly turned him over to examine him, when he surged up, tensed and sweating. "HARNESS! NOW!"

"Oh, right," Qarnan nodded.

"Where is it?" Linares joined in.

"Hangar bay, that is if the scud-rats ain't picked me clean yet."

Linares bounded out of the bridge, the corridor whipping by her in a blur as she ran the full length of the ship and arrived at the upper walkway over the hangar. She scanned the disastrously messy floor and spotted a chrome harness amidst the junk — its artisinal craftsmanship a dead giveaway. She leapt off the walkway and waded through fallen crates and machinery towards it.

On the bridge, Qarnan flipped switches as the Orovians regrouped and fired on them. "Open wide, boys," he said quietly, turning the ship about to face the open bay doors. "This one's a little spicy!" He gunned the throttle, blasting a sea of blue fire over the soldiers and rocketing the ship out of the hangar, past the slowly closing bay doors. In an instant, the silent, starry expanse surrounded them once again. Despite the inertia and whiplash, Ash remained perfectly in place on the floor, artificial gravity not enough to move his form as he wrestled with the Mantle.

Linares, however, sailed off her feet and slapped into the bay doors of the Kurgan, and a sea of loose equipment slid with her and buried her. She growled in frustration and slammed a fist into the wall. "STEADY, YOU FILTHY APE!"

ABOARD THE REPAER'S ENVY, Atrocita watched the Kurgan shrink in the distance, striding vacantly over open flames. Orovians lowered their weapons to stare in uncertainty. Her tensed anger subsided and her arms dangled at her sides, her mouth agape and brows creased. She teetered forward and caught herself on a piece of debris, ignoring the burning steel resting against her palm. She breathed shakily, truly shocked. And more than that…heartbroken.

"Linares," she managed a whisper, "What are you thinking…"