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Muddlefudger! Boothill isn’t sure how they ended up in this situation. The Swarm is everywhere, one darn bug after the other. Boothill shoots, reloads, weaves through enemies, only to be pushed back towards Caelus.
“They just keep coming!” He can hear Caelus shout, panting heavily and hitting the swarm with his bat. Boothill shoots one dead in the head, sees it fall back only to have two more take its place. He’s running out of bullets and Caelus isn’t doing any better, sweat dripping down his forehead, while Boothill's fans are running in overdrive to keep him cool. They need to get out of this and fast.
Boothill's back hits the wall after a particularly hard hit, scanning their surroundings for some kind of exit. The hallway is completely overrun by the Swarm, Caelus and him are only tiny specks in a sea of them, getting attacked from all sides. There on the other side is a door, maybe their only way out. Caelus seems to have seen it too, a silent agreement happening between them before they start sprinting, guns drawn, Boothill giving Caelus fire cover while he goes first to open the door, Boothill right behind him, the Swarm giving off angry sounds, their wings buzzing, one after the other swooping in for a near constant attack.
They have almost fought their way through, Caelus is fiddling with the key pad, while Boothill does his best to buy them more time. The Swarm is holding back, an unsettling precognition that something is about to be very bad opening up in Boothill's mind, as the door hisses open. “Get in!” Caelus shouts, and Boothill steps back, blindly trusting Caelus’ words while keeping his eyes on the Swarm. His eyes widen, just a second before it’s too late as the Swarm shoots forward for its signature sting. It hits him in the side, and he stumbles back, before the door slams shut again and they’re engulfed in total darkness.
Boothill’s eyes adjust to the darkness quickly, the signature green of night mode arriving automatically. Caelus looks at him with big eyes, mouth slightly agape, panting heavily, line of sight slightly off from what is undoubtedly the fault of his organic eyes.
Two bangs shake the door, the Swarm trying to get in, but it holds strong. They’re safe here.
“Well,” Boothill drawls, unwilling to let the awkward silence linger any longer. “Looks like we’ll be in here for a while.” A notification pops up in the corner of his eye. He ignores it.
“Yeah,” Caelus sighs. “Going out there is not an option.” He takes out his phone, turns on the flashlight and shines it through the darkness to make sure nothing else is there before he opens the Astral Express group chat and starts to type.
“I hope the others are doing better.”
Right. Caelus wasn’t alone on this chance meeting. Boothill is doing what he always does, running around the cosmos in search of his next target or for leads on his investigations. Meanwhile the Astral Express boarded this abandoned research station after picking up a distress signal from here. They got separated in the Swarm attack.
Caelus visibly relaxes after a ping from his phone. “They found an effective weapon against the Swarm in one of the laboratories and are making their way over here now. All we have to do is sit tight and wait.”
“Well, I’ll be darned. Saved like a regular damsel in distress.” Boothill laughs raspily. “Can’t say I’ve had the experience often.”
He hopes they’ll come soon. In truth, there are alarms blaring in his noggin right now. ‘CRITICAL FAILURE’, flashing before his eyes, ‘REPAIR IMMEDIATELY’ in bright red taking up almost half of his vision. The pain receptors in his body, their signals dulled down by default, are flaring up in his core.
Shirt. That last attack by the Swarm did more damage than he thought. Boothill blinks away the warnings to take a closer look, glad Caelus can’t see him right now because he is fighting with his phone battery life.
It looks bad. It feels worse, the metal plating of his abdomen is almost completely gone, the sticky bug acid eating itself through everything in its way. Shirt. If he doesn’t do something soon he’ll be out of commission until he finds somewhere to get fixed, if he even gets that far. But no. He’s fine. It doesn’t even hurt that much. It doesn’t. His leg gives out. Boothill goes crashing to the ground. Caelus is by his side in seconds. “Hey! What happened, are you injured?” He shouts, hitting his phone in vain, trying to get the light to turn on again. “Dammit, why is it out now?”
Boothill laughs. He’s glad Caelus doesn’t have to see him like this, the hole in his stomach getting bigger and bigger.
“Relax, partner. I just decided if we’re stuck here anyway, might as well sit down.” They can’t do anything about the corrosion until help arrives. He has seen more than enough Swarm attacks to know that.
If he’s lucky, that weapon the Astral Express picked up will do something to neutralise it, or they’ll find something in a laboratory, but they need to regroup for that. If Caelus knew Boothill was injured, he’d be more than eager to go out and search for an antidote and with so many bugs outside, that’s a death sentence.
So better to keep him in the dark. Boothill is tough. His body can handle a bit of corrosion and with the right spare parts, he’ll be good as new, every time. Caelus on the other hand is human. Completely. He might have a Stellaron in him, but even so, he’s flesh and bones, everything Boothill isn’t anymore. If Caelus gets injured saving Boothill, that’d be on him. He can’t let his partner eat dirt like that.
So yeah, he can ignore the spasms his body makes, can ignore every time acid drips down on sensitive circuitry, can ignore the tingling and pinpricks of his leg starting to malfunction. His night vision flickers. Caelus has sat down next to him.
“I hope they come soon.” He sounds worried; if it's for him, Boothill cannot say. Another bang shakes the door, another bug trying to get in while they're trapped in this small, black space like sitting ducks.
His condition is getting critical. The pain is spiking, his body not allowing him to override the receptors. He cannot move his right leg, the last cable connecting the current cut. He hopes the others arrive before the acid eats through his power supplies. It’s already affecting his cooling, the rest of his body on the edge of overheating and coping by shutting down more and more of his functions.
His hearing is cutting out. If it wasn't, he might've heard the turmoil outside. But Caelus has. He jumps up. “Boothill! I think they made it!” No response. “Boothill?”
He kneels down again, in front of where he thinks Boothill is. Shit. He should’ve dug deeper when Boothill brushed him aside earlier. He knew something was wrong! Caelus strains his eyes against the dark, hoping to make out anything of Boothill’s figure.
The door hisses and opens, light filtering in gradually. What he sees makes him wish he couldn't. Boothill’s stomach is gone. Just gone. What should be smooth silver planes of sculpted muscles has disappeared, exposing the knotted wirework underneath. And even that doesn’t look the way it should. Many of the wires are sparking, connections severed. Their rubber insulation is melted, small bubbles fizzing their way through the material. Tubes of various sizes, the outer layers destroyed, the inner layers soon to follow. They look important.
A liquid he cannot identify is oozing out of Boothill. He wasn’t aware the Cyborg had liquids in him. And even if, this is definitely not coolant or motor oil. It’s orange. Caelus wasn’t aware anything could have that colour. It’s everywhere. Everywhere where destruction has reigned, it’s left behind, bits of rust mixed within. He knows if he were to touch it it would corrode his fingers, possibly twice as aggressively as it attacked Boothill.
He hears a gasp behind him, no doubt a reaction to the same horror he is experiencing, before the air considerably cools down, white foam spreading before his eyes. He looks up. In his shock, Caelus forgot the door opened because the rest of the crew arrived. Himeko is standing in the doorway, eyes as wide as his, a device with a nozzle pointed at Boothill. His brain is still trying to grapple with the image etched into his mind. Himeko recovers before he does. Two steps and she is at his side, wrapping him into a fierce hug.
“I’m so glad you’re alright” Even when Boothill isn’t, his brain supplies. March 7th and Sunday are standing in the entrance, the storage room not big enough to accommodate all of them.
Something moves in front of them. A whirring starting up, a light blinking. “Howdy, Pardner:” Boothill sounds off, even to Caelus' ears. “Thanks for the rescue.”
Boothill feels like shirt. His hand spasms when he tries to push up. His leg doesn’t respond. Damage report? Half his stomach is missing, his right leg isn’t responsive but technically not damaged, his cooling has shut down, but all in all, he isn’t half as damaged as he thought he was. His ship should have all the supplies necessary to get him back on his feet so if someone gets him there he can fix himself up.
He laughs awkwardly. “Can I trouble you to drop me off at my ship? I’ll be outta yer hair then.”
They’re looking at him. Himeko clears her throat. “Are you sure you don’t require assistance? Pompom has vast knowledge regarding machinery.”
“It’s really no trouble,” he hears himself say. “And besides that, this body is a trade secret.” A grin, showing all his teeth, more confident than he feels. He works solo, for a reason. He doesn’t like when people worry about him. He will stitch himself back together in peace, alone in a vast cosmos as he has done many times already. And when he is whole again, he will continue on his quest through the universe: gathering leads, killing bad guys, using his body to protect who needs to be protected.
That is his vow as a Galaxy Ranger.