"The catch is the explosive microchip inside of your brains. You've all had a 'routine' medical examination within the last two weeks, you all received a shot during that. It was with this operation in mind. If you 'act out of line', then a switch is flipped and your head explodes like a ripe watermelon against concrete. It's a bit messy but it gets the point across," Hardying replied, answering Scarleth's question with a bit of a sinister smirk, obviously proud of himself.
Explosive chips? Taka leaned forward, directing her focus back to the warden. Explosions always caught her interest, but she wasn't quite sure how she felt about one put inside her brain, she remembered the check-up and all, especially the lollipop. Before she could say anything, perhaps ask a few details, Mr.White jumped back in. His voice droned on in the background as Hardy's words echoed inside of her head. Their method of control sounded a lot like how she'd gotten stuck in Maximum Octane...a lot like how-.. Taka didn't like it at all. But as with the nature of these things, there was nothing she could do about it. Yet.
Whatever shit-eating grin might've been resting on Jesse's face before Hardying showed his hand was instantly dashed. Jesse enjoyed his head quite a bit, and certainly preferred it in it's current state -not as a red mist. He rubbed at the back of his head nervously before regaining his composure, and flashing a winning smile. While he had been made aware of a new entrance by the conversation of the others around the room, he hadn't exactly taken a moment to check on the inmate until now, and was silenced by the view.
"Holy shit, a dragon indeed..." He thought to himself, too awestruck to form anything near a coherent sentence.
Henri was startled upon hearing the dragon-like creature thank her and Ghost. She'd never seen anything as spectacular him before, had no clue to his race or his home world. Before she could reply, Mr. White was launching into his next speech.
Henri vaguely recalled the medical examination, the injections, the uncomfortable invasion of privacy. She felt relatively undisturbed by this news, however. What was another piece of metal? It seemed like a reasonable precaution to take, as much as she did not wish for her head to be... well, she'd try not to think about that. If it got her away from here, she'd take it.
Bullets. From the outside. This mask was built to take incoming bullets. Not my fucking head exploding.With a sigh flowing from his lips, Max's head slowly fell backwards, as his gaze shifted to admire the ceiling. Now that the truth was out, Max could do nothing but think back to the medical visit. Weeks before he even had an idea this plan existed, he was being made an unwilling participant. Would they kill him if he refused to go? Was his head exploding even enough of a reason to keep him in his cell? As his thoughts mingled with anger and confusion, his hearing began to dull. He felt like a gun was in his back, forcing him into this plan of certain death and convict rommates. Being stuck in a cell with himself was enough, being stuck on a ship with 8 other psychopaths wasn't exactly the best image of freedom Max could conjure up.
But, it was freedom, nonetheless. Heavily armed and heavily monitored freedom.
I wonder if my mask could even handle that kind of explosion?Tesra meanwhile couldn't help but be amused, impressed even, by Mr. White's rather violent method of controlling the Con Squad he was trying to build. Not a lot got by Tesra thanks to her own expertise in all things stealthy and sneaky, but she never would have suspected a chip to be inserted into her during a medical exam, at least not at the time. Maybe they gave her the injection when they treated her for the black eye that the psychiatrist gave her a few weeks ago? .
Well whatever the source, it was undeniably an inventive way to keep someone in line, but Mr. White revealing those chips was probably a bad idea if you wanted to keep someone in line permanently. Sure the threat of exploding microchips worked, but it was a threat they all knew about now. They would have been better off keeping their control method a secret, so that they wouldn't be able to try and find a way to disable it. You could make it as hard to disable as you wanted, but as Tesra proved time and time again, someone will get around those barriers eventually. Still, Tesra wanted off of this rock. Sure the exploding chip kind of sucked, but she was getting off said rock, and she didn't even have to start a prison riot to do it.
No sooner had that thought passed though Tesradomus' mind, that the area became painted red by the emergency lights that sat in the corners of the room, accompanied by the shrill wailing of the alarms. As if by collective thought, the guards that stood guard behind the prisoners all turned their gaze out of the doors, pointing their guns, as Tesra instantly jumped to her feet.
"KAFAK, I KNEW I LEFT THE WATER RUNNING!""Mr. White, take these prisoners to the Gladius. There's an emergency situation in the facility, I fear a riot is about to occur. You four, help escort this group to the vessel, you two follow me," Hardying commanded, keeping his composure as he exited the room.
"I thought we were like freedom fighters now?" Taka said, following the Lanun's lead in getting to her feet, but with less intensity.
"Well, we're going to have to fight to be free of this place so....kinda?" The buzzing klaxons and red lights woke Max out his stupor, as his head finally shot back upright, his eyes darted around to see the guards readying their weapons, and the Warden receiving messages on his wrist communicator.
"These type of things always happen at the worst times. All of you, follow me, we're going to the ship, now. I highly recommend against joining the rioters, the Gladius is one of the only two ways off of this station. The Warden won't take this situation lightly. I won't either," White affirmed. Taka skipped around the table following White towards the door, followed closely by a jaunty yet quielty determined Tesra. A vibration passed through the floor, something on the far end of the facility probably went up in flames. The thought made Taka positively giddy.
Following the party out, Henri watched the chaos unfurl around her with delight. How long had it been since she'd been in a real brawl? Years, perhaps. It was wonderful. Prisoners charging, their eyes alight, practically foaming at the mouth. That's what isolation would do to a man. Well, besides her new, merry band of miscreants who appeared to be taking out any threats with calculated efficiency. In front of her, Scarleth flipped a Vaxir as if it were nothing and continued without blinking.
Incredible, Henri thought. She knew very little about the assassin, despite having been with The Black Stars. Her father had been in awe of the woman though which was enough to convince Henri she was something.
Henri's functioning hand twitched. She ached to run into the fray, to feel that blood-pounding-skin-itching-teeth-clenching kind of thrill (
Wow, I need to get out more). But it didn't matter, as long as her arm was out of service, holding her back like an anchor, she could only stay on the defensive. Fortunately, the dragon-like creature seemed to be staying close to her and Ghost, a barrier of sorts. She wondered how he'd feel if she scaled him and hid. Now that would be quite a sight.
Better not risk it yet, she thought mildly.
Without warning, Henri felt the spray of blood as the gorgas' jaws clamped around a prisoners throat. It was a methodical, easy brutality. Henri was less comfortable, less uncaring, with murder. It made her stomach turn if done by her own hand. Still, she couldn't judge another for it.
The prisonsers were swarming now, greatly outnumbering the group. Henri avoided them as best she could, bringing a powerful shin into the stomach of a man charging forward but before she could react, she felt an arm snake around her neck. Panic curled in her stomach briefly but she used the assailants weight against them and brought them over her head. Stubbornly, the prisoner held on.
As much as Jesse hated the idea of getting his hands dirty, the prison riot seemed like the perfect opportunity for such. As he jumped into action from his seat, he was rather dissapointed to see his fellow inmates attacking the rioters, not the guards. Though he would've enjoyed killing the guards, he saw one of the inmates jump Henri, choking her from behind.
"Ironic, considering I tried to have her killed." He muttered, advancing on the two. With a two-handed punch that would make Captain Kirk proud, Jesse struck the inmate in the small of the back. Taking advantage of the inmate lurching backwards, Jesse wrapped his hands around the mans neck, and physically pried him away from Henri, before slamming him into the wall. A disgusted look crept across his face as he choked the life from the inmate, until the corpse slid to the ground.
"Don't think this means I won't still have you killed." Jesse muttered in Henri's direction, wiping his hands off.
"My hero," Henri quipped scornfully through a bought of coughing, though his comment startled her.
The commotion in the halls carried on, and before he knew it, Max was the only one left standing in the room, peering out of the door way. The rest of the convicts had rushed into the fray so quickly, he had already lost sight of them, and he was trying his damdest to sort them out of the riot. He searched for pink skin, or flying mechanical limbs, anything that could guide him to the group. Above the crowd, though, the Gorgas' head was the most prominent tell of the group's location, but between Max and the group stood a mass of angry prisoners and scattering guards. He stretched his neck, knowing trying to take on more than one prisoner at a time without guns wouldn't end too well for him.
With a sigh, the Nohvan finally left the room, and stuck close to the walls, hoping a guy in a big glowing mask and bomber jacket wouldn't stick out too much. Unfortunately for him, luck wouldn't exactly be so generous, and straight away a rather burly prisoner akin to a lumberjack charged towards him, shiv prominent in his hand. In a moment, Max was in his stance, hoping he wasn't too rusty after being in prison for 4 years.
The shiv came flying downwards, missing Max as he stepped to the side, responding with a hard right hook to Lumberjack's face. Lumberjack wasn't very badly phased, and quickly took a second stab, which Max more or less jumped away from. A second prisoner quickly came over to assist Lumberjack, much to the dismay of their lone opponent. The second man swung, striking Max in his mask, about where his nose was. The padding absorbed most of the pain, but the force still staggered Max, and it was then that Lumberjack finally landed a stab on Max's arm, but instead of sinking it, it roughly tore his synthetic skin, sliding roughly off the metal of his arm, and Lumberjack stumbled forward, the force of his stab being disrupted. Max scrambled to throw Lumberjack off of him before they both tumbled to the floor, fighting the pain searing his arm, but it was too late. Pinned under a heavy hairy man, the second burly man stood over the both, gripping on to Max's mask, muttering something like "...easier to beat you to death without this on.."
The man's fingers found the release, and off came Max's mask, which he tossed aside, readying himself to begin his beating. Breathing heavily, stuggling under Lumberjack, Max was finally feeling his blood flow, and the thrill of combat returned to him. As he looked up at the man stood above him, he gave his fangs a quick lick, and sunk them into Lumberjack's neck, who responded by crying in pain as the poison entered his bloodstream. Lumberjack gripped his neck, and loosened his hold on Max's arms, which came up under him and threw the prisoner off. Standing up, Max shook his head a few time, readying himself again.
"That actually helped. A lot." In truth, he felt exposed in a way he hadn't before, and his fangs weren't going to help much as more prisoners reponded to the screams of pain from their fallen on the floor.
One step forward, two steps back, I guess.Reaching down and grabbing the shiv that was dropped earlier, Max felt a bit safer knowing he wouldn't end his life how he began it: without a fight. Death tasted rather sweet, he thought.
On cue, the three men who stood before him charged, all trying to grapple and punch Max. He managed to slash one across the chest, and he recoiled in pain, but his two partners continued forward, delivering blows to his stomach and face, before grabbing his arms and pinning him against the wall. Licking his own blood from his fangs, Max knew he didn't have any poison left, but a weapon was a weapon, and he tried to bite the face of one of the men, but a hand roughly found its way under his chin forcing his mouth closed and constricting his breathing. With little else to do, Maxamillian struggled like a cornered animal to free his arms or mouth.
Suddenly, there was a flurry of motion as something blue and orange flew into view, roughly yanking one of the goons holding Maximillion's arms backwards like a fish caught on a line and slamming him to the ground. The nearby prisoners jumped back in shock as Tesra seemed to appear out of nowhere, standing triumphantly on top of the unfortunate prisoner's face.
"And she sticks the dismount!" Tesra announced triumphantly, taking a moment to bow towards Max before aiming a kick at her victim's 'pistachios' to make sure he stayed down. She braced for another jump before a shout behind her drew Tesra's attention. The rioters parted ways as an alien prisoner, big enough to give the Gorgas a run for his money who resembled a pile of rocks wearing an orange jumpsuit, approached to challenge her, carrying an impressive hunk of metal in his beefy hand. Looking over her opponent with an expression of unimpressed boredom, she stretched out her arms in preperation for a fight and cracked her knuckles. She blinked in surprise when they produced an unusual snapping sound, signifying that she snapped off one of the fingers on the crappy bionic hand she had on.
"Well, least I have an even number of fingers again," Tesra said with a shrug before shooting a confident albeit cocky smile at her sedimentary opponent and settling into a fighting stance.
"Well, what are you waiting for? Bring it on, boulderbrains!"The rock prisoner gave a roar that seemed to shake the room and charged forward, with Tesra adding her own mocking battle cry that by comparison sounded kind of pitiful. They collided with a tearing sound as Tesra blocked a lethal blow with her lousy bionic arm strong enough to shatter it. Barely avoiding a proper hit from the giant hunk of metal, she slowed herself to a stop as the giant prisoner's momentum kept carrying him forward, right at the rioter still holding Max. Swearing violently, he threw Max to the side and tried to make a run for it. Thrown to the ground, Max felt the breeze as the massive alien plowed right into his friend and collapsed in an unmoving heap on the ground.
"Always happy to lend a hand. Or an arm in this case," Tesra said, gesturing to the scraps of wire and metal hanging from her arm stump and unaware of the prisoner coming up behind her with a metal pipe raised over his head.
Grabbing frantically for his mask, Max's hands finally found it, and as he turned to put it back on, his arms froze and eyes widened as he saw the prisoner approaching the Lanun in front of him.
"Wait, wait, wait, look out!---
Taka found herself in the midst of pure, absolute chaos. Guards were vainly trying to stop the prisoners as they came at them in droves, leaving nothing but death and brutality in their wake. It seemed everybody was fighting each other, like a big free for all, except for the small gathering currently trying to force their way through the pandemonium. At the drop of a dime absolute insanity was unleashed through the halls of the prison. She grinned widely, feeling better than she had all day, this was
totally awesome. She wished she had her explosives, or at least her guns. Unfortunately she was at Mr.white's mercy thanks to the chip, she could feel some deep buried resentment bubble up from the thought.
Shaking her head slightly, she did her best to stay with the group but that task became rather difficult as waves of orange jumpsuits assaulted them. Suddenly Taka found herself alone, somewhere ahead of her was Mr.White, and salvation. As fun as this seemed, she didn't want to die here. She had much more fun in store for her if she did as Hardy and his friend wanted, and that was to set them all loose upon the universe. So, she reasoned, there was no other choice but to follow through with the situation. A small man cut off her thoughts as he appeared before her, brandishing the classic bent pipe.
Taka swept to the side as he swung overhead, sweeping her shin across his and throwing him off balance. He hit the ground with a thud and a small snap which was probably his nose breaking. He groaned, clutching at his face. Taka debated whether she should make sure he couldn't get up again, but he didn't seem to be trying that anyways. How easily the fight was taken out of the opportunist, she snickered in amusement. She wove through the mill of bodies, doing her best not to get shot, stabbed, or otherwise assaulted. Mostly she dodged and tripped assailents over themselves, leaving them to be trampled or find new targets. She wasn't too concerned, actually.
Through the solid wall of orange she caught glimpes of the others. The guy with the mask seemed to be holding his own fairly well, and the gorgas was doing.. well, what you'd expect a nine foot tall dragon warrior to do. A roar to her right alerted her to another attacker, this one was coming in low, protecting his center of gravity and coming at her with a bent, jagged shank of metal. Taka slid to the side in a dogding manuever, but ran into somebody's back. A large man whirrled on her, fury painted across his face and madness staring at her with his one good eye. She hopped back, gauging her two opponents now, the slim man with the shank had paused, assessing the situation with his new temporary ally.
Muscles charged forward, hunched with his arms braced.
"Are you going to hug me?!" Taka taunted, slipping under his grasp. Before she could retaliate his buddy whipped around him, swinging his impromtu weapon at her in a wide arc. She ducked, and the shank ripped a jagged line through the larger man's back, causing him to scream out in pain. Alliance broken, the thickset prisoner took the smaller one's face in one of his ham sized fists. From what Taka could tell by the sounds of bones crumbling and the blood starting to trail from the smaller fish's eyes, his head was being crushed.
That suited her just fine. She simply turned and left. It wasn't particularily desireable to go up against a man who easily dwarved her own size. Yet, her desire to come out unscathed was cut short as she spotted little Henri. The small woman seemed to be in a hard spot with that arm of hers. Despite that, her back was turned an a pair of wiry men had their sights set on her. It was more than that, they were ignoring other prime targets to get at her, they must have a grudge against the unassuming Henri, or maybe a sick desire to destroy something so precious.
Taka snaked her way towards Henri. Maybe she had already formed a sort of comradery with her, since they were all in this mess together, or perhaps she reminded Taka of somebody she had lost long ago. Either way, she was almost there when a lanky arm weilding a looted shock baton raised behind Henri.
"Rla'hom raunnom!" she cursed, leaping into a prisoner before her. Unware and more than startled he fell to the ground as Taka used him like a mounting block, propelling herself into the wiry man's back.
They hit the ground in a tumbled. The man cursed as he lost his grip on the baton. His partner stopped and turned on Taka instead, a chain gripped tightly between his fists. He sneered, charging towards her as she fought to untangle herself from the other. Her leg flickered out, like a whip, and caught the chain holder's knee in a sickening crack. For a moment he fell forward, folding his leg in half, before flopping to the side with a screech of pain.
"You little bitch," The man underneath Taka hissed, wrapping his hands around her throat. His mistake was not restraning her instead. She growled, grabbing his head in both of her hands and smashing it back into the ground. His eyes glazed over slightly, and his hands let go, choosing to form fists instead. He caught her across the jaw, with force enough to roll her off of him. He let out a mad cackle as he struggled to his knees.
Taka was already crouched on all fours, like a wild animal. Something primal let loose inside of her. She barreled forward, taking them both to the ground once more. She snarled, grabbing his wrists and pinning them to the ground.
"You gonna fuck me or what?" He seethed, struggling to free himself from her grip. He was marginally stronger than her, and was slowly forcing his wrists out from Taka's grasp. Taka's mouth split open wide, showing her fangs, her victim paused for just a moment, a look of worry passing over his features. He was right to be worried. She descended down on him, like an animal, tearing at his face with her teeth. The poison did nothing to numb his pain as his screams battered against ears that refused to hear him. His screams quickly turned to hoarse groans, and finally, wet gurgles. With the swiftness to make a gorgas proud, Taka went for the throat.
A moment later she was on her feet, wiping the blood from her mouth and staring at the mangled face of the prisoner.
"Naoo a'r sha," she spat, turning to find Henri.
"Wow," Henri breathed, somewhere between awe and fear,
"You're viscous. Thank you."She was genuinely thankful for the help. For some reason the criminals seemed to be congregating on her, an easy target perhaps? A sweet prize in the riot. She shuddered. Henri felt helpless in a way she had not since before her bionic enhancements, she had the skill but not the strength to dispatch the threat.
As if sensing her anxiety, another jumpsuit descended on her.
Let them She thought with stubborn determination, she wouldn't be brought down by anyone. One of the man's hands wrapped around her throat (
That's going to bruise later), the other grabbing for her arm. Thinking quickly, Henri swept out her foot to bring the man's legs from beneath him, sending him to the ground with a thud. His hand, fingers still pressed into her neck, brought her down with him. There's only one way out of this, she knew, as much as she wished it wasn't the case. Swinging her around, so she was straddling him, Henri closed her legs around the man's neck. She felt the grinding crunch of his spine between her thighs. It's stomach turning. Slowly, his hand loosened and slipped from her throat as his life fell away. Her body sung with the thrill of the fight but it was at odds with the discomfort of death.
As she stood, Henri hoped no one saw her. It served her well to appear helpless, to have people who wanted to defend her. She knew she would need the allies and, in truth, she had already started to warm to this unusual group.
The crowd seemed to be thinning now, weary of the group who were dispatching them with ruthless ease. Henri, blood splattered and restive, approached Taka
"We should probably go now."---
Pouncing from it's frozen state, Max's body finally found itself back into action, dropping his mask as he jumped up. With his right hand, he threw the blue Lanun to the side, and with his left, caught the incoming blow she almost took herself. The prisoner tried to wrangle the pipe away, but Max's bionic grip had already cemented itself, squeezing dents into the pipe. He yanked the pipe from the prisoner's hands, and switched it in his hand, quickly following up with a brutal blow to the prisoner's face, knocking him to the floor. Max took his advantage to stand atop the fallen prisoner, landing more vicious blows, until his face was dotted with blood, and the pipe was well bent.
Standing back, taking deep breaths, Max's gaze rose back up to face height, a few more prisoners were stood watching in horor, not sure how to approach the blood spattered Nohvan. He bared his fangs towards them, and they all turned and moved back into the thinning crowd of rioting prisoners. Tossing the pipe down, Max turned back around, grabbing the Lanun's hand in his left, and his mask in the right, putting this mask back on as the Lanun rose. Shifting the mask, twisting his neck, and licking the blood off his face closest to his lips, his masked gaze turned towards the Lanun, as they still stood in each others grip, the latter alien a bit off balance due to her missing arm.
"Thanks for the help, Blue, but-" He pulled her face nearer his.
"If anyone asks, you didn't see my face." He rasped.
"Don't say anything about the chump that almost brained me and you got a deal," Tesra replied.
"Now let's get off this prison before Rockington wakes up."
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