#ctrlcore

“SEE? NOW YOU’RE EATING YOUR WORDS AND YOUR KIDNEY! I mean, you're dead, so ya don't really get to appreciate the, uh, the irony here. But hey! I'm sure laughing!” He shouts it in the boom of said laugh while dislodging his forearm from a dead man's throat, shaking blood and spit aside as he rises to his feet. The doctor in question is a slashed-up mess slumped against the white wall of a hallway; one made dark by whatever blown fuse or busted generator has the place blacked out and locked down. All because a teenager doesn't want her dad to leave. All because that teenager sprouted wings of light and ascended, furious, with a voice that had called back too close to a time when that scream had tilted the turn of a turret and sprayed bullets. The bullets that helped bring them here.

The broken doors don't stop Jack, who grunts through prying them apart. They still have very basic back-up power and the secondary generators will come online shortly while the scientists who hadn't insisted they initiate the project's “emergency shut-down” are practically climbing over one another to get it all back in order. No one else wants to end up like Gerald, whose body will be dragged off and his family never notified. 4N631 isn't something anyone here will get to walk away from anyway. 

Jack's head is still thudding with the goddamn nerve of the guy. Along with so much noise, so much scratching and hissing crammed under the press of his own thoughts running too rampant to catch. He’s still holding the scalpel he’d stolen and implemented just moments before, finally tossing it across the room to skid over broken tubes as he fixes a hard (tired) glare up at the heart of the problem.

[[ continued from ( X ) ]]

Xigbar was just about to agree with her statement---just about to, simultaneously, unlock the vehicle and prep the ancient-tech shuttle for takeoff---when her apology made him cock his head back over towards her.

She’d done this before, of course---numerous times, and he knew the exact cause behind it. Knew well, because he had once been there himself: lost beneath the towering shadow of a lordly figure whose word was law and questions were not meant to be asked---and if they were, there’d best be a good reason behind it. Thankfully, the Master had never been so cruel as Jack had been, but there had still been expected a measure of discipline and respect---the bow of the head, the murmurs of complacent agreement. Chastisement due when behavior was not deemed appropriate.

Thus, the apologies had been obligatorily expected, whether or not they had been truly necessary.

But those days were over. Xigbar had grown from the diligent and steadfast yes-man that had been that long-ago timid Luxu---and, soon, he hoped, he could aid Angel in achieving that feat.

His edges remained softened as he responded to her, “Nah, nah, you’re totally right---sometimes, it takes just the right kinda gentle coaxing to get a shy bird outta their cage.”

She would know.

“I’d say, instead of hangin’ ‘round here any longer, we get t’movin’ now, eh?” and the door swung upwards with the faintest hiss, allowing passage for its pilot and co-pilot. The interior into which the former led the latter was at first a dark chasm, but upon its owner’s entry and mental sync with the internal mechanics, hummed to life, purplish lights flickering on and the engine thrumming for departure.

@vilifyme why not all three?? 😘

distress  calls  had  been  ringing  in  her  ears  for  nearly  ten  minutes,      foreign   &   unrecognized  in  their  cries.        it  hadn’t  been  one  of  her  team,      that  she  knew.        but  she’d  felt  obligated  just  the  same,      having  put  up  with  more  than  enough  hyperion  goons  and  scavs  to  last  a  lifetime,      whoever  they  were  pestering  now  certainly  didn’t  deserve  it.        most  people  didn’t.        it’s  that  thought  that  drives  her  forward,      hand  revving  the  accelerator  of  her  mech  until  she’s  speeding  forward  through  the  air  in  front  of  her,      location  of  the  calls  pulled  up  and  tracked  on  the  screen  level  with  her  eyes.        heroism  came  easy,      laced  her  veins  in  a  manner  only  to  be  compared  with  her  drive  to  win   -   to  beat  each  challenge  as  it  appeared  before  her  and  never  accept  a  defeat.        even  if  it  meant  martyrdom,      self  -  immolation  as  a  process  of  final  victory.        d.va’d  not  consider  it  anything  more  than  a  necessary  step,      if  it  ever  came  to  that.

gloved  hand  presses  down  further  into  the  accelerator,      revs  an  engine  that’d  not  seen  such  ferocity  in  a  few  weeks;      she  ought  to  have  known  it’d  been  to  quiet  as  of  late.        should  have  been  expecting  something  to  break  the  peace,      send  it  headed  straight  back  into  the  hellscape  it’d  been  before  she’d  arrived.        well  -  practised  eyes  catch  the  dull  shine  of  rusted  metal  and  her  hands  shift  easy,      enacting  the  auto  -  pilot  system  as  her  fingers  curl  around  the  triggers  of  her  weaponry.        whoever’d  been  calling  her  had  culled  a  fair  amount  on  their  own,     enough  that  she’s  willing  to  bet  there  was  no  real  need  for  her  to  be  there   . . .   and  yet,      knowing  when  to  ask  for  aid  was  a  trait  of  someone  who  knew  better.       who  knew  how  quickly  the  tide  could  turn  when  you  were  on  your  own.        firing  off  the  fusion  canons  towards  those  that  remained,      she  makes  quick  work  of  cleaning  them  up.        until  there’s  all  but  one  left,      and  ever  the  show  woman,      she  ejects  herself  from  tokki.        barrels  towards  the  one  hyperion  goon  with  her  pistol  drawn  and  ends  it  in  an  easy  shot  to  the  temple.