Chapter Text
There's so much happening. There's so many lights flashing in front of your eyes, sirens blaring in your ears. The tiny little ship you held in your hands was straining against the free fall you were in and you were trying so desperately to pull you all to safety.
A hand gripped at your shoulder, thick and big but also - tiny and delicate? A mouth, near your ear, screamed for you to hurry, oh god Tomie, please hurry, we're going to die if you don't fix this.
But you couldn't fix this. It's like you were pulled out of your skin, floating three feet over your head to watch the carnage. A ship was on fire, metal screaming just as loud as the gasoline that burned bright bright. The ship was falling and falling and everyone was so afraid and so was the troll clinging to your shoulder who was both big and bulky but small and lumpy, with short hair dyed the brightest color of lime like the moons and also long and brittle and pale from being bleached in the sun. You were trying, please stop and just let you work, you're trying, you're trying -
But still, they beg. Hurry Tomie, hurry cadet Rinoca, hurry, hurry, hurry -
A deep, gravelly gasp of breath rattles out of your chest when you wake up, your chest heaving and pain blooming across your body. Where - where were you? Where was your... crew? God, it's so hard to think. There's so much pain in your body, from your back to your chest to your legs. It's like being dunked into a pot of ice cold water and then flipped into a pool of boiling water. Where were you? Who was with you? Why did you hurt so damn much?
It took a moment for you to reorient yourself, even with the pain. There's so much of it, but you scrape at your consciousness until you could blink and look around from where you were on the ground, your spine burning like fire. God, that wasn't normal, right? It should definitely not be hurting like that and you groan as you focus your eyes towards... well, anything. It takes a moment but purple smears turn to purple clouds and a quick blink sharpens everything to a night sky. A beautiful night, with a ring of slick, white buildings and if you twist your head, you can see you're in the middle of them. You were lying on your back on the polymer tiles of a sky bridge, face up towards the skies and splayed about, the ground smooth against your cheek as you loll your head back and forth. Lucky for you, you don't need to get up to study your surroundings.
Instead of a ship hanger, you're in a city. That's good news, usually. A pulse of relief goes through you and the memory of someone short, lumpy and delicate fades with the ship hanger. You're somewhere in a financial district, if these dry, characterless signs were accurate. The bridges were dead, and if you squinted through the glass railings, you could see the slow chugging of a train looping along the outside of the city, shining bright with the lights of the moons and the fires burning deep in its belly. At least that's good? You have to admit, at least there were no dead bodies littering the place. As for the uh, train, well, you can't prove it's full of people.
Above you, there's the shriek of metal and you jerk your head up at the sound. There, thirty feet above and one limp bodied roll's worth away was the ship you were piloting, all lodged into the side of an office building. If there was such a thing as giants, you might have suspected one took the ship and cracked it like an egg, tearing the two halves apart so that they were held together by a thread. One half was buried deep into the building - the other swung precariously in the air. Cables hung out of the half stuck in the building and you could see the glint of the moon off the metal tips of your helming port cables. They swung in the wind, tapping gently at the bottom half of the ship as it twists in the night air. It swung, and you can see movement deep in the hanging half and suddenly there was a shock of lime hair poking up and out. Well, hey! That's where he was! That's where... Uh. What's his name? Some Scimitar you were flying with? The thought was fuzzy in your brain and you puzzle at what he was called. Okay, okay okay, You just need a moment to remember him. You're disoriented and in pain and it's really hard to figure out what's going on here but you're trying! You're honestly trying really, really hard.
That Scimitar though, he was big and thick with hair cropped short and a snapped horn that bleeds rivers of dark brown profusely across his skull as he struggles against the swinging half of the ship he stood in. "Rinoca!" He rasps out. One arm reaches out to grab at the windowsill of the office building but his fingers could only slap against it before the ship creaks away. "Rinoca, are you okay?!"
Oh. Right. Rinoca, that's you. Your leg and your spine still fucking hurt but he's fine, so you just... you lift up one arm and wave weakly to him. That seems to satisfy the Scimitar. He turns away from you and tries again to grab at the windows. "Good! You're alive, let's see if I can make my way down - oh - "
He doesn't get very far. He tries to grab at the window again and catches it for just a moment while the ship pivots on the bit of aluminum that kept it aloft. There's a shriek and it almost seems like, just for a second, it's going to snap - but the Scimitar is quicker than that. What's-his-name deftly hops out of the end half of the ship onto the wall and there's a terrifying moment where it rocks from the movement.
And then, it settles.
"Holy shit," The scimitar whispers, just loud enough for it to carry down to you. He's crouched up against the wall and he turns to stare at you. "Cadet Rinoca, can you get up? Are you hurt?"
That's a hard question. The entire situation was just stressful enough that you forgot you were hurt and once he brings it up, the pain hits you hard and with a vengeance. This was like troll Lieham Neeson kicking open your door and beating the shit out of you to find his moirail that you kidnapped. This was like getting derezzed in Troll Tron! This was like being the road they drift on in Fast and the Furious: Eastern Alternia Drift! It's just really fucking painful and you have to crane your head up to look at yourself.
You think you're in one piece. You're covered in cuts from the ship you tumbled out of and they're all bright blue against your grey skin. Your prosthetic leg seems to be in one piece and kicking it weakly seems to prove that it's working. Your other leg though? You pull up the leg to try to kick it and you get nothing but a strangled scream out of your mouth.
That got the attention of the Scimitar captain climbing down the wall. "Rinoca! What happened?!"
You struggle to keep your breathing even through your nose, doing your best to keep calm. It's... it's actually fucking terrifying to have your one good leg be the one that's fucked up and you're trying so, so hard not to dwell on it. God, you can't just fucking lose another leg. "I'm fine," You finally manage out.
But that was a lie. You were not fine at all.
"I think - something's up with my leg. My good one. I can't move it. Or, well, no I can it just - it hurts."
"Don't move, I'm on my way Rinoca. I think I still got my med pack on my belt, I'll wrap you up."
Okay. You can do that. You can hold still, so you let your head fall back against the bridge and you watch as the Scimitar hop down the building. The ship hanging from the building still rocks high above him but the two of you seem safe. Safe enough at least. If you turn your head to the other direction, you know you'd be able to see the fires burning high and bright in other buildings far, far away. Or, well, not far, but a lot farther than the two of you could walk.
The Stacks was an interesting place to be, with buildings stacked on buildings until they creaked and cried under the pressure and all the lowbloods were pushed down to the ground. The rays of the moon haven't touched the streets down below in literal sweeps and you had to admit, at least you and Girhit - THAT's his name! That's the Scimitar captain's name! - didn't land down there. You're pretty sure if you guys crashed into a building and fell to the bottom, the two of you would be dead.
But no, you landed up in the fancier parts of the city. These parts were all glittering lights and glass walls and white plastic flooring and trees pressed flush up against buildings. This is where the highbloods lived - and where the rebels had attacked.
It started so simple, not even a week ago. There was some arsenic in the water supply, trolls were going deranged; nothing that'd really call for a suicidal Scimitar shock squad to come diving in. But the IPC hadn't had much publicity lately, so they thought it'd be nice for the Scream Queens to get some fresh air. It was an easy enough mission that the group took eagerly, really. Even when the poisoning set in, it wasn't so bad! Until today, that is.
Suddenly there was trolls being caught up in screaming fireballs, roasting alive in the subway cars as they zipped down the tracks and water mains bursting from the boiling water inside. Whatever mission the lot of you were being sent on before now was cancelled and they tugged in another battery to come help. There were sightings of a wanted terrorist in the area so of course the Scream Queens and the Maddened Maidens were deployed.
Things got even worse after that. How could you make fireballs worse? You didn’t know, but it happened! All of your groups split up to try to corner the terrorist and that's... well. What happened after that? Your memory's a bit fuzzy, but you think your ship got shot down. Something hit it at any rate and sent you and Girhit spinning. God, you don't even think you know where the two of you are now in The Stacks. Your phone was still in the ship and that was, uh, not an option. Maybe Girhit would know? He was no Goregle Maps but something’s better than anything...
You turn your head back to where the Scimitar captain was just hopping down from the wall and you gave him a grin. He winces at the sight, and just points at you. "You uh, got a lot of blood on your teeth. Maybe don't do that. Did you lose a tooth?"
You roll your tongue around your mouth, feeling your gums. There's one molar near the back that seems a little loose, but it's not gone. Yet. "Nah, seems like it's there?"
"Well, good. Keep your mouth closed anyway. Fuckin' disgusting." He starts pawing away at his belt, looking for the med packs.
But before he could even take another step forward, there's the soft sound of a whistle in the air. It's a whistle you've heard before and the two of you look up in the air with eyes as wide as dinner plates and ice in your veins.
That? That was a missile.
There's nothing against the bright purple of the clouds but that didn't mean shit before it makes contact. You don't know where it hit, honestly. You see absolutely nothing but your heart still climbs up into your throat as you look around wildly. Nothing on the street explodes into a fiery ball of, well, fire but the whistle turns into a scream and it crashes with a howl beneath the two of you. There's a deep boom and the bridge began to rumble and shake and you pray to the dear messiahs it won't collapse under you.
"Must've been at the support struts!" Girhit yells, stumbling. He can't keep his balance and you're suddenly glad you're still lying there on the walkway. Your fingers are digging hard into the plastic flooring (as if that'll help you in the slightest) as he falls to his knees and his hands slap up against white polymer as he tries to keep stable.
Then, it stops.
The ground groans, but it doesn’t shake. Hell, it doesn’t even groan for that long! It gives out one loud, long noise of architectural pain and then it goes quiet and that’s all the two of you hear. Well, you know, except for the thump-thump-thump of your heart beating a mile a minute, but that doesn’t count! Neither of you move as you wait to see what happens next, but the only thing of note that sounds out in the silence is the soft ring of a train bell as the flaming cars loop around the edge of the buildings again, orange flames glinting bright off business windows. The only other thing that might be alarming is the ass-end of your ship swinging wildly over Girhit’s head but hey! The twisted strip of metal that kept it tied to the front end still holds strong! It’s impressive, actually, but the more you eye it up the more anxious you get about him staying underneath it.
"Thank fuck," Girhit mutters, pushing back up to this feet. He tosses one anxious look up towards the ship above, squinting against the glint of light it reflects into his eyes. It just rocks in the air and he gives a firm nod before he starts to step forward. "Fuckin' rebels, they're about to bring this entire city down on their heads and then what're they gonna do -"
There’s a plink. A glittering shower of light swings across the bridge then back again, and once the little snap rings out, everything seems to freeze. For a second, everything’s weightless and time stops. Girhit is mid-word, the light glinting off his face is glacial slow as it slides off his face and -
Moving at an equally glacial pace was the shadow that grew over his head.
Then, reality unfroze.