Chapter Text
Somehow Zanka really has a talent for getting beaten up.
The thought echoed in Rudo’s mind, a bitter, looping refrain as he stared at the sterile white ceiling of the Cleaners’ medical ward. It was a stupid, simplistic thought for a situation so complicated, but it was the only one that stuck.
He could trace a direct line from almost every major disaster in his life on the Ground back to that jerk, and almost every time, the situation ended with Zanka broken, bleeding, or poisoned. It was a frustratingly consistent pattern. He was supposed to be the disciplined one, the tactical genius, the one who never made a mistake.
And yet, here they were again.
Rudo clenched his fists, the worn leather of his 3R gloves creaking in the quiet room. The memory of the past forty-eight hours felt like a physical weight, a suffocating blanket of noise and pain and the infuriating, condescending drawl of that Turdface. It replayed in his head, a perfect, high-fidelity flashback…
The mission had started, as they all did, with a deceptively simple premise.
The intel pointed to a cache of pre-fall medical supplies—autoclaves, surgical tools, maybe even stable chemical precursors—located in the derelict ‘Tetsu-Hana’ industrial complex, a sprawling maze of rusted factories and collapsed smokestacks that was once the heart of the Ground’s manufacturing sector.
The area was a mid-level contamination zone, but the Raiders had been sighted nearby, making it a high-risk retrieval.
For that reason, Enjin had assigned the full core of Team Akuta: himself, Riyo, and the perpetually volatile duo of Rudo and Zanka, backed by a small team of Supporters including the ever-reliable Gris.
“Intel says the cache is in the primary administration building, basement level,” Enjin had explained, pointing to a crumbling map splayed on the hood of their transport vehicle.
“The place is a structural nightmare. We go in quietly, grab what we can, and get out before we draw any unwanted attention. Riyo, you take the east flank. Rudo, Zanka, you’re with me, straight down the middle. Gris, you and the support team secure our exit and watch for any kind of unwanted company. Comms open at all times.”
It was a solid plan.
That also went completely wrong.
The trap was sprung not with a bang, but with a deep, groaning rumble that resonated up from the very foundations of the earth. They were halfway across the main factory floor, a cavernous space filled with the skeletal remains of forgotten machinery, when the ground beneath them gave way. It wasn’t a random collapse. It was surgical. A perfectly timed explosion deep underground sent a fissure racing across the concrete, separating the team with terrifying precision.
Enjin and Riyo were stranded on one side, Rudo and the Supporters on another. And Zanka, who had been slightly ahead, scouting the path with his vibration-sensing Assistaff, was plunged into the darkness of the chasm alone.
“ZANKA!” Rudo’s yell was swallowed by the grinding roar of shifting metal and crumbling earth. Dust and debris filled the air, the world reduced to a chaotic, choking grey cloud.
Down below, Zanka landed with a jarring impact that sent a shockwave up his spine, but his training allowed him to roll with the fall, coming to a crouch amidst a tangle of pipes and ruptured conduits. He was in some kind of sub-level, a maintenance tunnel that smelled of rust and stagnant water. His communication choker hissed with static, the thick layers of metal and earth above blocking the signal.
He was cut off.
Alone.
He slammed the butt of his Lovely Assistaff against the concrete floor, sending out a pulse of vibrations to map his surroundings. The space was a network of intersecting tunnels. Above him, he could feel the frantic, heavy footsteps of his team, but they were separated by at least twenty meters of unstable debris. Getting back to them would be a slow, dangerous process. A slow smile, eerie and out of place in the gloom, touched his lips.
Annoying, but this was a good test. Enjin trusted him.
He would handle this.
It was what he always did.
“Well, well, well,” a voice drawled from the shadows, dripping with a gleeful, psychotic energy. “Look what the floor caved in on. If it ain’t Mr. Bad attitude with the stick.”
Zanka’s blood ran cold. He spun around, his Assistaff held in a ready, defensive stance. Leaning against a massive, corroded boiler, his hot pink eyes glowing faintly in the darkness, was a certain someone who he really didn’t want to see. His long, ring-decorated dreads swayed as he pushed himself off the wall, a wide, disturbing grin spreading across his face.
“Jabber,” Zanka spat, his voice a low, dangerous monotone, the lazy slang he affected a thin veneer over the sudden, violent tension coiling in his gut. “Figured you Raiders were sniffing around here. This whole setup is your handiwork, I take it? Kinda sloppy, even for you.”
Jabber chuckled, a dry, rattling sound. “Just a little something to thin the herd. I gotta admit, I was hoping I’d get the little angry one with the cool gloves, but you’re a decent consolation prize. We still have a score to settle, don’t we?”
He cracked his knuckles, the ten silver rings that formed his Jinki, Mankira, glinting.
“I don’t settle scores with losers,” Zanka replied, his mind racing. He was alone, in an enclosed space, against one of the Raiders’ most dangerous front-line fighters. Jabber had beaten him twice before with his poison. Pride, cold and sharp, flared in his chest. It wouldn’t happen a third time.
He had grown.
He was stronger.
He had to be.
“Ooh, feisty,” Jabber crooned, his grin widening. “I love it when they play hard to get.”
In a blink, the rings on his fingers transformed, elongating into a set of wicked, gleaming black claws. He moved, a blur of motion too fast for the eye to properly track, his speed amplified in the tight confines of the tunnel.
Zanka was ready. He didn’t try to meet the charge head-on. He slammed his Assistaff into the ground, using the vibrations to get a perfect read on Jabber’s trajectory. He sidestepped the blitzing attack at the last possible second, the wind from Jabber’s claws whispering past his cheek. As Jabber shot past him, Zanka pivoted, swinging his staff in a tight, precise arc that connected squarely with Jabber’s back. The sound was a dull, wet thud.
Jabber stumbled, catching himself on a pipe, but he didn’t cry out. He just laughed, a low, guttural sound of pure pleasure.
“Yes! See? That’s what I’m talking about! You got some real force behind that swing, pretty boy.”
Zanka ignored the taunt, his mind a cold, calculating machine. Jabber’s right claw carried a neurotoxin, the left a variable poison. Contact was not an option. He had to use his superior reach and tactical mind.
“Ya talk too much,” he said, his voice dripping with bored condescension. “It’s super lame.”
He pushed off the wall, his own speed formidable. He became a whirlwind of motion, his Lovely Assistaff a blur of silver. He wasn’t just swinging; he was using its full capabilities. He inverted the spikes on the tip, turning it into a piercing weapon that forced Jabber to constantly shift his footing. He used the flat of the staff to slam against pipes and walls, creating a cacophony of disorienting noise and ricocheting debris. He was controlling the battlefield, turning the cramped tunnel from a disadvantage into an asset.
Jabber was ecstatic. He was laughing, dodging, weaving, his claws scything through the air, carving deep gouges in the metal around them.
“More! Give me more!” he howled, his eyes wide with manic glee. “Don’t hold back! I want you to really try to hurt me!”
Zanka saw an opening. Jabber’s frenzied attacks were leaving him exposed. After a particularly wide swing, Zanka ducked under the Raider’s arm and drove the spiked tip of his staff directly into Jabber’s side, just under his ribs. He twisted, leveraging his full body weight. There was a sickening crack.
Jabber’s breath hitched, and for the first time, his manic grin faltered, replaced by a grimace of genuine, exquisite pain. He staggered back, clutching his side.
“Agh… yes! A broken rib… maybe two! You magnificent bastard, you actually did it!” His grimace twisted back into a smile, wider and more unhinged than before. “Okay. Okay. Warm-up’s over.”
Before Zanka could press his advantage, Jabber’s entire demeanour shifted.
The playful, chaotic energy vanished, replaced by a cold, lethal focus. “You’ve earned a peek at the real me,” he hissed.
The black claws of Mankira retracted, and for a glimpse of a moment, Zanka thought he was surrendering. Then, the silver rings on Jabber’s fingers began to glow with a sickly purple light. The claws re-emerged, but this time they were different. They were longer, sharper, and attached to his fingertips by shimmering, near-invisible strings of energy. This was Mankira’s released form.
Jabber flicked his wrist, and one of the claws shot out, tethered by the energy string, moving like a venomous snake. Zanka barely managed to parry it, the impact nearly wrenching the Assistaff from his grasp. The range advantage was gone.
The fight became a desperate defense. Jabber was a whirlwind of ten independent, ranged blades, a storm of poison and neurotoxin that Zanka could barely fend off. He was being driven back, his perfect methodology overwhelmed by sheer, unpredictable volume. A claw zipped past his guard, slicing a shallow cut across his cheek. Another tore through the baggy fabric of his sleeve. He was being worn down, piece by piece.
This is bogus, he thought, his frustration mounting. I’m stronger than this. I trained for this. I can’t lose to this psycho again. Not again. He thought of Rudo, of the idiot’s stupid, earnest face, of the way he’d looked at him after their own training sessions, a flicker of grudging respect in his eyes. He thought of Enjin’s trust, the weight of his leader’s faith.
Failure was not an option.
It never was.
He roared, a sound of pure defiance, and charged forward, through the storm of claws. Pain erupted as several of the blades sliced into his arms and legs, but he ignored it. He had one goal: close the distance. He poured every ounce of his strength and discipline into a single, decisive attack. He broke through Jabber’s ranged assault and thrust his staff directly at the Raider’s chest.
But Jabber had been waiting for it. It was exactly what he wanted. Just as Zanka’s attack was about to land, Jabber’s left hand, the poison hand, shot forward. He didn’t try to block. He let the staff slam into his already broken ribs, the impact drawing a grunt of pained ecstasy from him. At the same time, his own claws, now coated in a viscous, shimmering green substance Zanka had never seen before, raked across Zanka’s outstretched arm.
The pain was instantaneous. It was white-hot, a liquid fire that didn’t just burn his skin but seemed to sink directly into his bones, into his very soul. It was a thousand times worse than Jabber’s normal poison. Zanka screamed, a raw, ragged sound torn from his throat.
His vision swam. The strength vanished from his limbs. His hand, the one holding his Jinki, went numb. He felt a sudden, horrifying disconnect, as if a string connecting his mind to his weapon had been violently severed. Lovely Assistaff, his partner, his symbol of redemption, clattered uselessly to the floor. The soul within it, his soul, went silent.
He collapsed to his knees, clutching his arm, his body convulsing from the sheer, overwhelming agony.
Jabber loomed over him, panting, his chest a mess of fresh bruises, but his eyes were alight with post-coital bliss. “There we go,” he sighed happily. “That’s the stuff.” He looked at the new poison glistening on his claws. “A new recipe. A little mud cobra neurotoxin, a little gottatrip mushroom hallucinogen, and a secret ingredient I picked up in the Serenity District. Pretty, isn’t it? Blocks the user’s connection to their Jinki. And the pain… well the pain is the best part.”
Zanka could barely hear him through the roaring in his ears. The world was a haze of agony.
“Ah, but there’s a catch,” Jabber continued, his voice conversational.
“It’s a real clingy little curse. The pain won’t stop. Not ever. Not unless you get help.” He leaned in close, his hot breath ghosting over Zanka’s ear. “It can only be nullified by the first person who you lay eyes on after you’ve had your little beauty sleep. A little something I cooked up for you Cleaners and your obsession with teamwork. They have to… take care of you. Isn’t this great, you should thank me” He chuckled. “Let’s see how your friends clean up this mess.”
He straightened up, his job done, the test of his new weapon a resounding success. He gave Zanka one last, admiring look. “You were, great pretty boy. Really spectacular. We should do this again sometime.”
And then he was gone, melting back into the shadows from whence he came. Zanka was left alone in the dark, his body on fire, his Jinki silent, and a new, more terrifying thought beginning to dawn through the haze of pain: someone was going to find him. And he was utterly, completely at their mercy.
The pain crested, a white, blinding wave, and his world dissolved into unconsciousness.