#nonhuman character

The motorcycles were the first to pull up, and those riding them were the first into Atlas’s jaws. The alleyway was functionally a bottleneck, so while Atlas’s movement was a bit limited it forced the cars to enter one at a time. Atlas reared and threw their forelimbs down on the hood of the nearest vehicle. The SUV screeched and crunched, frame contorting under the pressure, steel tearing beneath their claws. The creatures inside, mostly humans, leapt out guns blazing.

It wouldn’t have come to much if traditional guns were all they’d brought to the party. But that wouldn’t have been smart. And as much as Atlas didn’t want to admit it, this group wouldn’t have been this big of a headache if they weren’t smart.

When Atlas began looking towards the next car in hopes of wasting it and the creatures inside their enemy was already abandoning the vehicles’ relative safety. The three remaining cars emptied and the occupants charged Atlas with varying degrees of success. The humans with various automatic weapons Atlas barely noticed, paying them as much mind as one might an ant, only bothering to step on them when they found somewhere soft to bite. However the non-human gang members proved themselves to be more of a problem.

These creatures were large enough that only three had managed to fit in the cars with the other gangsters. The first to reach them was a four armed lobster like creature with serious armors and, as it turned out, pinsers. She took a running leap at Atlas and managed to avoid the snapping jaws, latching onto and crawling up their hind leg. The pinsers didn’t have the same difficulty with Atlas’s rough hide that the bullets did. They sliced into it like scissors through scale and muscle. 

Atlas seethed as their head shot to the side, having to drop contorting within the confines of the alley. As they struggled to reach another non-human leapt on. This one was some kind of beast soldier, probably a transplant from ID. Half bull half walrus, all pain in Atlas’s snout as they jammed something long and sharp into it. He clung to the weapon while he used something smaller to take a few swipes at their eye. It held true even as Atlas thrashed in an attempt to dislodge it. 

Atlas might not have thought to look for the third non-human charging them if they hadn’t heard the insectoid strike his weapons together as he charged. It may as well have been the only sound in that alley. The second it reached their ears their head turned, locking onto the Weevil descended gangbanger. 

The momentary reprieve Atlas gained by blocking the weevil’s strike before he could make it was snatched by the next sound that they recognized. They took a swipe at him, sending him through the wall and into the building, and looked up just as the trigger was pulled. 

Well damn, guess the complex wasn’t the only thing the military abandoned here. 

The rocket went flying towards them. 

There was nowhere to run. 

Atlas shifted as far away as they could and braced.

The ringing in Atlas’s ears and the burning clambering through their side and shoulder drowned out the sounds of gun chewing cement and screams of outrage, or that’s what they speculated until they actually opened their eyes. It seemed the RPG had rattled most of the alley’s occupants. 

It hadn’t struck Atlas directly, that was about the only reason they were still up and moving. It had hit the building to their left, decimating the structure, one of the dumpsters and sending the other tumbling. But the blast had done its damage, missing hide gave way to burnt and bloody flesh. Manageable, but not ignoreable. Atlas winced as they felt the crustacean clip another chunk out of their leg. She had been sheltered pretty thoroughly on the opposite side of Atlas when the rocket had detonated.  

Ok, this officially wasn’t fun anymore. They were done playing nice.

Atlas snarled then hipchecked the right wall. Miss Edward scissor claws was thoroughly crunched between. The pest on their nose shared a similar fate as they swung their nose just close enough to the left wall to batter him with it. It winded him enough to lose his grip and the second he hit the ground Atlas crushed him. 

Next they set their eyes on the caravan. The guns weren’t so useless now that there was a sizable chunk of hide missing, and that just added to the growing rage as Atlas charged them. 

They dropped their head low enough to drag it under the front of the first car in the line. They jerked their head up and sent it flying. It landed on the next two vehicles in line and scattered several gunmen. But Atlas kept moving. Preemptively dodging the next RPG round they lunged forward and dropped down. Leading with their shoulder they plowed into the tangled mess of cars and gangsters. This sent the whole conglomerate tumbling back into the mouth of the alley, largely blocking it. 

Atlas was quick to finish off any remaining gangsters in the alley with them before starting in the other direction.

They didn’t care to admit how much it hurt to use the front leg on their burned side. So when they paused for a moment they swore to themself it was just to work the contorted remains of whatever that beast soldier had stabbed into their snout free.

It was like pulling a metal toothpick out of their face. That is to say godawful. 

Atlas waited for a moment, just trying to breathe through it, summon their second wind and get moving, when something drew their eye. The dumpster thrown in the explosion had been left on its side. It seemed someone was working their way out past the heat-warped lid.  

Atlas wasn't about to leave witnesses if they could help it, and closed in on the dumpster, head lowering, teeth beginning to part in preparation. Atlas was moments from lunging into striking distance when the creature managed to pull themself free of the dumpster. Atlas’s impulse to bite first and ask questions later died in their muscles just past their bones. Something stopped them, more like a collection of somethings really.

Right out of the gate he was clearly something aquatic, there was skin that looked human as well, but mostly scales that varied between sunset shades of purple, pink, and orange. Being a siren looking creature alone wouldn’t have been enough to make Atlas assume he wasn’t the enemy, but it was strange to see something sea-native so far inland, not a practical choice for a gang enforcer (and it wasn’t like the gangs would shelter non-humans for many other reasons). 

The next thing that stood out was the blood. It tickled Atlas’s nose in a way that made them feel like they were going to sneeze, even though they weren’t sure whether or not they actually could in this form. They could have estimated just how much there was on smell alone but it was more than visually apparent because he wasn’t wearing a shirt or full length pants.  

Atlas couldn’t get their head low enough to be eye level with him without losing their ability to retreat at a moment’s notice. So even with Atlas stooped low he was looking up.

Atlas finally studied his face. The scales traveled from fin-like ears across his cheek and over the bridge of his nose. On and around the band of color were things that on something human should have been freckles, but on this creature were bioluminescent marks that glowed a soft off white. His eyes were somewhere between the color of honey and the gentle brown of cinnamon. It seemed to make the bruises stand out more.

The bruises laced up around his left eye and down to his jaw, it was a deep purple that almost matched his scales. His hair was crusted in blood, maybe other things as well, stuck at wild angles.

He seemed to be scrutinizing Atlas with just as much caution as they were him. There was a waryness to him, but not fear. It was the lack of skincrawling panic that kept Atlas just as calm. Even when he raised his hand from where it had been bracing him on the ground. 

Atlas watched his hand the whole time, their eyes studying the color change of the scales and the glint of blunted claws at the end of each finger. By the time it reached their snout they weren’t quite sure how it got there. 

He took a deep breath, pressing the calm, steady endurance into his voice, “Gentle, it’s alright.”

He set his hand against their snout so carefully. He avoided the new marring and blood of course, but his hand was so light, the touch so soft. 

Atlas’s ears dropped, their breath rushed through the additional slits on their chest as their tail began to lash. No one had ever- touch wasn’t- they didn’t- what was this!?

Atlas wretched their head away, throwing it high with a sound that bordered on alarm. They didn’t take their eyes off the creature by the dumpster as their lungs rushed air into their system. 

He pulled his hand back, “No, no wait! It’s ok, I’m not-!”

Atlas rumbled, their mind was all over the place, so didn’t really acknowledge the dangers of shifting down. The pain that carried over into Jirra’s human form was just below overwhelming and her rage flared, stamping forward she roared, “What the hell! Who are you!? What are you doing here!? Are you with the Vanner gang?”

Now the fear entered his eyes. He recoiled immediately, trying to scramble back. He yelped as his wrist seemed to protest. He pulled it to his chest and curled back against the dumpster, his other arm curling protectively around his head. His tail curved around between them, the fin at the end trembling.

Jirra flinched at his sudden reaction, then slowly shifted forward as her ears picked up his whispering, muttered frantically like a prayer, “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.” 

From this new angle Jirra caught sight of something she’d missed. There was a brand just above the waistline of his shorts, just above his hip.

Oh. 

No. He wasn’t with the Vanner gang. 

The tension left her shoulders. 

Jirra started to back away. She got so far as turning and heading for the open end of the alley, when sudden pain shot through her chest. Like someone had pulled a rubber band back and back and back, then released it to snap against her lungs. 

She stopped, trying and failing to resist looking over her shoulder.

She… she couldn’t just leave him here. 

Jirra turned back and moved with purpose. She had put her pursuers off with her attack but she wasn’t certain they wouldn’t keep trying. She needed to get them moving quickly, so Jirra didn’t exactly approach with the most tact.

She stopped just beyond his tail and crouched down, “Hey, c’mon. You need to get up.”

She saw him adjust the arm guarding his head just enough to let his eye peer out between his forearm and bicep. He didn’t say anything.

Jirra waited, but when she got nothing she tried again, this time reaching for his arm, “Can you stand? We need to get moving.” Before she could reach him he whined, curling down into a smaller ball.

She froze, then huffed, “We don’t have time for this! I need you to get up!”

His trembling increased and he hid his eye again. 

Jirra turned away, running her fingers through her hair and pressing them hard against her scalp. Ok, this wasn’t working. She could always just grab him and run, but there was no telling what kind of damage that could do, if he had broken ribs or other such fractures she could do more harm than good. She needed him to talk, needed him to work with her. Fuck, where was North when she needed him?

Jirra took a breath and tried to relax, failed, but at least managed to calm her voice. This time she knelt down next to his tail. Far enough to keep from crowding him but close enough to reach him.

“Sorry,” she really wasn’t sure how to start this, “I… I didn’t mean to scare you.” She waited a moment and when he started looking at her again she continued, “My name is Jirra. I um… I don’t work for the gang that… y’know, did that to you.” She pointed to the brand. “I’m going back to the gang I do work for though. If you want you can come with me. You look like you’re in pretty rough shape.”

It took a moment, but he whispered, “Y-y-you’re bleeding.”

Jirra reflexively wiped at the blood oozing down her face. The harpoon, or whatever the beast soldier had been using, had lodged itself in what was now her cheek. Now that she was swapping forms before properly healing it was definitely going to scar. 

She nodded, “Nothing major.”

“Y-your shoulder?”

She did not have the impulse to touch that one, “Minor.” She lied. “How about you? Do you have any injuries? I saw you hold your wrist.”

He glanced down at it, his arm starting to relax. “I… yeah. It hurts.”

“Does anything else?”

“Yeah.”

“What hurts the most?”

He took a shaky breath, “I dunno. It-it kind of hurts to breathe, but my leg is- it’s bad, I think something’s broken.”

Yeah, even assuming he had no broken bones going into this Jirra couldn’t imagine somersaulting in a dumpster would improve anything.

“You can’t stand?” She needed to be sure.

“I-I don’t think so.” 

She frowned, looking down and considering her options. 

He panicked and held his arms out towards her, “I-I-I can try! No- I-!” His tail shifted out of the way as he seemed to be about to try and get his legs under him. 

Jirra jolted forward and put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him from rising past his knees. Her voice was more terse than she intended, “Wait.”

He froze immediately, eyes wide.

She silently swore at herself, she hadn’t thought that one through. She withdrew her hand, “Sorry… again. I don’t want you to try and stand on a broken leg. That’ll only make it worse.” She paused trying to assess, he still hadn’t moved an inch, just take it slow, she prompted herself, “I- would you be ok with me helping you?”

He swallowed, “H-how would you help me?”

“I can carry you, or just support you while you walk. We need to…-” Her mind wandered to something, then her eyes searched the alley. They landed on one of the motorcycles she had tossed earlier. “Hang on, let me check something.” She stood and headed over to it. 

Jirra pulled it off its side and forced the bent kickstand down. The key turned surprisingly easily and the engine roared in response. Yes! Finally, fate was tossing her a bone. She shut it off and walked back to him. “We’ll take this. Come on, I’ll help you get there.” She reached out but didn’t touch him. This time she just waited.

It seemed to surprise both of them when he actually reached back. 

Jirra took that as permission to make this easier and bent down. She took the hand connected to the uninjured wrist, then set her other hand under the opposite bicep. He flinched but didn’t pull away or protest. 

Once he was up she pulled his arm over her shoulders and helped him to the bike. She kept glancing at the bad leg, internally wincing every time it flopped unnaturally. Broken. Definitely broken. She was going to have to do something about that. Jirra sat him down on the bike then glanced back towards the alley, looking for something long enough, strong enough, and straight enough for a- ah! Rebar! 

Jirra headed to one of the new holes in the walls. There were a few pieces of rebar poking through the crumbled concrete. This would work. Her nails fused into her fingers as they hardened and darken into grey claws. It took a few tugs but she worked two pieces free. They were close enough in size. The longer of the two she sunk between two sizable chunks of wall then pushed down. She strained but it gave until she had bent it into a nice L shape. She scavenged two belts from unfortunate gangsters before going back to the bike. 

She knelt down on one knee, she patted her knee, “Put your foot up.”

He hesitated, eyes darting too and from her before starting to try. She helped him the rest of the way. She took the L shaped rebar first and slid the short side and slid it under his foot. “Hold it here.”

He did and watched quietly.

His scales seemed to stop half way up his thigh for an inch or two before they started again. It shifted through the sunset colors the same way his arms did. His foot possessed the same webbing and claws his arms did. She couldn’t tell if they were just as bruised, but there was a fair bit of blood trickling down them from scrapes that looked accidental and cuts that didn’t.

She set the smaller bar against the other side of his leg. Neither piece quite reached his knee, but it made it past the break. That was enough. She began to wrap the first belt, securing the bars to his calf below the break. She pulled the end tight reflexively and he took a sharp breath shutting his eyes and lurching forward. He caught himself with a hand on her shoulder. 

She didn’t say anything. 

When he opened his eyes again they were tear studded. When he noticed where his hand was he withdrew it quickly and silently, looking away.  

Jirra started wrapping the second belt above the break, just below his knee, and muttered a regretful, “Sorry.”

He answered just as quietly, “it’s fine.”

This time she warned him before she tightened it, and when she did she was a lot slower. It seemed to go over easier.

Jirra glanced around the alley one last time and pilfered helmets from the dead bikers, handing him the cleaner of the two and swiping the blood off her own. She pulled it on and mounted up.

The rain started as she climbed onto the bike, before she started it she unhooked her scabbard and took her jacket off. It fared just fine despite the wretched shape her shoulder and side were in. Perks of weird mystical bind shifting she supposed. Jirra tugged the scabbard straps from the hole at the back of her jacket. She pulled her scabbard back over her shoulders then held the jacket out toward him. 

He looked up from where he had been fussing with the helmet strap and started at it for a moment before registering what that meant. He reached out with both hands stammering, “Oh- thanks- I-” he winced as the heavy leather jacket pulled badly on his bad wrist. Jirra took some of the weight back before taking it completely, he gaped, “No I didn’t- mean to be ungrateful-!”

She calmly draped it over his shoulders and held it there, waiting for him to thread his arms into the sleeves. 

“Oh. Th-thank you.”

Jirra glanced down as he finagled his way into the, for him, oversized jacket. Once it was on she turned back and settled her hands against the handlebars of the bike. She felt him hesitate, she held her hand out over her shoulder, “here.” When she felt his hand in hers she brought it down to the scabbard strap. “Hang on to this.”

When his grip seemed sure she let go and started the bike. She felt him tense at the roar of the engine. She got it moving, half costing the rest of the way to the street. It was in disrepair, cracks that she would have to watch carefully as she went, but all in all it didn’t look too bad. 

She felt him settle against her back as they started to pick up speed. She knew what gate to head for, she just hoped they had been fast enough getting out that they’d reach it before Vanner gang could beef up their guard detail. She left the city-like portion of the base and decided to take her chances cutting across the air field. She was betting on out running them if it came to it, better to run from them out here than through narrow turns they knew better than her.

Jirra reached the east gate with no surprises. She slowed down as the two guards tending the rolling gate clambered up from their card table.

Her passenger’s hand tightened on her scabbard strap. She gently rested her hand on his, and she felt him press his helmet into her back a bit harder.

As the two shambled up to her she forced the warped kickstand down before resting her foot ahead of it. She looked at the guards, then nodded sharply to the gate barking, “Going out.”

It was a large gang, it was unlikely they knew everyone. And the anonymity of the helmets went a long way, she hoped.

At least one of them seemed to be on something, he tilted his head then looked at her passenger. “Who’s that?” She clocked the blade on his hip.

“Asset, someone played to hard with ‘em. Gotta take him to a clinic." The words felt gritty in her mouth and rotted on her tongue, but she knew how to say what she had to. 

“Why can’t the doc just patch him?” the other asked. She clocked the gun holster under his jacket. 

“Leg’s fucked. Needs a surgeon. Doc’s the one who’s sendin’ me.”

The one with the gun motioned towards the gate, his friend huffed and headed over. As the gate began to screech along the track the guard standing by them started to draw a bit closer, studying the bike. 

“Ain’t that DeeDee’s ride?”

“Lent it to me, mine’s in the shop.”

“Which one of his friends are you?” 

She could feel the rising suspicion, just needed a few more seconds. 

“Ace.”

She could see his hand rising towards his holster, “He’s never mentioned an Ace before.”

“We met a few weeks ago.”

Time’s up. 

Jirra flashed a glance to the gate, then shot her hand back to the handle of the nearest blade. She slashed it down, kicked the kickstand, and bike surged forward. The gate proved to be just far enough, but to avoid hitting the other guard she found herself scrapping her already bloody leg against the edge of the fence. Not her wisest moment. She bit her tongue and kept her eyes forward.

The bike didn’t disappoint. It tore down the road with a gleeful growl and she kept both hands firmly clamped onto the handles. It was a bit awkward to keep her blade pinned between her palm and the handlebar but that was hardly her first concern. She wasn’t sure she had killed the gun guard, so she needed to be sure they were out of firing range.

In all honesty she didn’t ease up then either. The chemicals surging through her body wouldn’t let her stop. She couldn’t risk slowing down in case they were actively being followed, which they probably were. Jirra just had to keep running. 

Jirra didn’t snap out of it until the fuel indicator flashed at her. The tank was nearing empty. Her brain finally started to take in their surroundings. Much to her relief and surprise there were buildings around. How long had they been going? 

She eased up on the throttle and finally shifted from her hunched pose over the handle bars. Her shoulders ached, and she only had a moment before her burns blindsided her. She swerved and heard her passenger yelp. Jirra set her jaw and corrected their course, searching more fervently. They just needed… a fuel station! 

Jirra pulled it into the lot, not really caring what side she brought it to, then kicked the stand and flopped down onto the front of the bike. Christ, her fucking arm! Her fucking shoulder! Her fucking side!