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BellBottomBlues Ａ Ｍ Ｉ Ａ Ｓ Ｄ Ａ Ｒ Ｒ Ｉ Ｅ Ｕ Ｘ
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A Collab by @Firecracker_ & @NuttsnBoltsＲ Ａ Ｃ Ｈ Ａ Ｅ Ｌ Ｍ Ｏ Ｒ Ｔ Ｏ Ｎ
The silent shroud of a pitch back night that hung around Amias suffocated him as he continuted his staggered trot down the dark streets of the Core. Instead of being lit to life by a dazzling spectrum of neon lights, advertisment screens and barrel fires, the only thing that gave any sort of visibility in the blackness was the occasional streelight or, frighteningly, the passing Advent. Amias stuck to the walls of the buildings, not being able to move much faster than an apprehensive side step, as his dwindling high was still strong enough to conjure images and faces from the darkness, often unsettling enough to make the artist shut his eyes and stop moving until they left him alone.
A noise peircing the silence startled the shaken artist as he dropped to the ground, shielding his face and head. Was it gunfire? Explosion? Impending death by evisceration? No, none of those. A small alarm chirped from Amias' right arm, making him feel foolish about his initial reaction. He rolled over onto his back, and opened the screen on his arm, the bright light of the medical computer burning his eyes.
Time to take my medicine. Fucking great.
It would only be a matter of time before the tingling and numbness would begin in his fingers, and only shortly after that before his arms would have no sensation at all. All the while, the pain in his shoulders and head would only be pounding more and more aggresively until he finally got his next dosage. Of all the nights to forget his medication, and it had to be this one.
I need to get back home. But I don't have any way to use the Mag Rail... I'll get Bules!
Connection lost...
FUCK.
At least making it to the Mag Rail was the first move. Stores around Mag Rails stations always sold pairs of Mag Rail Boots to people who needed them, at absorbidant prices, nonetheless. Credits were no issue, but seeing the way things were going, Amias could probably just swipe a pair for himself.
Now, for more walking in the pitch black. Hopefully he could still feel his arms by the time he got there.
♦ ♦ ♦
The world around Rachael felt as if it had been on a week long drinking binge, zipping past her body, pressing the wind against her back as she travelled backwards down the Mag Rail. It was an unusual mixture of a slow haze that felt overwhelmingly dull and repetative, leaving Rachael to experience the sensation of playing a zombified passenger on the worse rollercoaster ride in human history. She let out a heavy sigh knowing that if she hadn't double dosed she would be in a much better position than what she was now, but thanks to her recklessness she was now paying the price.
The mixture of sedatives and purple shard dust flowed through her bloodstream, entering into every cell in her body, fighting the adrenaline that was keeping her active. She could feel the responsiveness of her body gradually become harder and harder to control. Each movement required a proper thought process that would have been a lot easier if she managed her dosage properly, but instead she was now left with a nauseated, confused and uncertain mind that had no idea as to what it should be processing.
The Mag Rail twisted and turned around the abandoned building as it lead the girl into one of the empty stations in the Slums. She could barely register where she was, but naturally rotated her body around as she prepared to leave the network. Her thought process had gone into autopilot, instructing her to take the first few steps off the tracks and onto the concrete platform. The feet buckled, a result of reaching down in an attempt to turn off her boots, casuing her to fall onto the ground.
"Mother, fucken, bitch!" bellowing out as her knees hit down hard on the pavement, "Stuupid—whooore!"
Gaze pushed out her arm and pressed her hand against the ground, palming it order to lift her body back up. She hadn't anticipated how the ride would induce an unwanted numbness but knew that if she didn't move she would turn into a free lunch meal for those things.
Her legs ached, scratched up from the fall as she made her way back up. She dropped the visor to see where she was, noticing that the shops that surrounded the station were abandoned and silent. She only viewed the world for a minute or two before her head started to split open from the raging agony. Instantly she shut off and lifted the visor and staggered her way forward, landing up against a post and holding onto it so that she didn't fall over a second time. Rachael had pushed herself quite far, further than normal and was disapointed in herself for not controlling her emotions. The eyes began to water as the sadness and sorrow of the night weighed in on her.
Flinching when he heard yelling from ahead of him, Amias crouched into the pitch black shadows of a support column beside him. Resting on his heels, Amias slowly and silently set down his pair of stolen Mag Rail boots, and made sure the safety on his laser handgun was still off. His whiteknuckled grip was still going strong, the fear driven into him by the gunshots and explosions he had heard earlier approaching the station. There was somthing there, and it was heavily armed.
Hopefully it was still human.
Pushing all of his courage and guts into one step, the artist finally moved forward, silently stepping from the shadows into the albeit still rather dark Mag Rail station. Up a short set of stairs, Amias was level with the entirety of the platform, cursing that day he chose not to get the eye with built in night-vision.
All that fucking money and I still bou-
Shuffling ahead of Amias inturrupted his thoughts, and nearly sent him backwards tumbling down the stairs, had he not steadied himself in his crouch. His hands and weapon were barely visible had it not been for the moonlight flowing into the station.
He strained his eyes to see something moving infront of him, a figure of small stature, that seemed to be leaning or doing something to a beam near them. There were some sort of small lights, a glow that seemingly floating in the air around the head of the silhouette, sending another wave of apprehension into Amias. Was it beginning to turn into one of those monsters outside? Had they been infected somehow?
The being let out a small weeping sound as it limped from their resting position against the steel support, swaying back and forth as it made it's way towards Amias. From the view of an outsider it didn't have a true sense of direction; shuffling on the ground, stumbling about, groaning and muttering to itself. It's foot punted into a small step, sending it rolling forward, crying out in agony at the sudden misfortune that it had experienced. It rolled forward towards the artist, landing on the ground before him, narrowily missing a full body collision.
"Fuck! Amias hissed, jumping backwards away from the tumbling body, nearly losing his footing as he stumbled backwards. He took a shaky stance, pistol aiming at his best guess of where the silhouette had stumbled, difficult to see in the dark.
"You've got five seconds to say something human before I fucking kill you! Amias demanded of the being before him. If it came to it, he wasn't entirely sure he would survive another encounter with a monster, but at least he had the advantage for a moment.
The sweat in his palms and on his forehead began to trickle, and after a few moments of silence, Amias shakily pointed his pistol towards the ceiling of the station, and yanked the trigger. The shot made less noice than a gun would, but the bright flash and shower of dust that fell down reminded him he still had some sort of leathailty to him, even if he was a shaky, terrified mess. If only he could feel his trigger finger.
"Three. Seconds—
"Whaat d-do youu wannt!?!" Rachael let out a slurred cry, lifting her clammy hands up over her head, and curling up on the ground. She could feel the drug high taking over her body, causing her reactions to feel slow and uncordinated. With a sudden burst of adrenaline the girl kicked the floor, attempting to crawl away, attempting to prolong her life from yet another near death scenario. "Just g-get the fark awaay from m-me!"
The girl couldn't see what was going on and her head was starting to pound internally like a metal rock, a thumping sensation that was building up to a nausiating sickness. She hadn't felt the buildup of fear and terror like this for the longest of time. She activated her mask, letting her sights fill with digital strobe lights, gazing up at the one who threatened her and focused clearly on the gun in his hand.
"I... I... " she gasped, not sure if she was about to eat a lead salad.
Amias flinched at the sudden sounds of movement in front of him, listening to what sounded like a woman struggle around on the ground. A look aggresive confusion took over his face as he listened to the woman on the ground struggle to speak.
"You're really starting to creep me out, lady. If you are injured or infected or just on some really strong drugs, tell me so I can get the fuck out of here. Don't try an-"
Ping. Ping. Ping.
Amias's look of confusion turned into that of angered offense, as his arm's alarm began chirping abruptly. Opting to focus on the stranger in front of him, the artist tried to ignore it, but after a few moments of teeth grating irritation only adding to the tension of the situation, he broke his focus.
"You better not fucking move."
Amias drew his weapon away from the woman for a moment, opening the panel on his arm, and shut off the alarm. He grimaced at the intensifying numbness in his fingers that had begun it's slow crawl to the rest of his hands, before quickly remembering to aim back at the woman in front of him, noticing her make some subtle movements towards the case on her back.
Amias clenched his jaw, and pulled the trigger, letting a laser bore a hole in the cement flooring between them. He took a step forward, taking a blind kick towards the figure, not knowing what exactly he was hitting. His legs seemed to move themselves as he knelt down, poking the barrel of his pistol into the neck of the woman. Being closer, he could make out a few more details of the girl. Some metallic plating, dousted with light obscured her face. Amias' imagination began to wander a little on what it could be, but his voice spoke of a different subject.
"Look. I'm just trying to get out of this fucking hell hole before one of these monsters, or whatever they are, tears me a new asshole. I can't exactly leave if you're gonna shoot me in the back when I walk away."
Twisting and boring the still warm barrel of his pistol into the woman, he leaned forward.
"So convince me."
The force of the heavy kick that she didn't see coming and the burning sensation of the gun that dug into the side of her neck gradually flowed through her body as time passed. It didn't matter how many times she got beaten up over her lifetime, it always hurt like hell. This time she had excaped a hoard of monsters to only end up being the punching bag for an unknown man she only just met, and one that was threatening her life.
"Con-vince you? How?" she opened up frantically, laying slumped on the ground with the him pushing down on top, pressing her for answers. "Even if I did shoot you in the back it won't achieve anything."
Rachael deactivated her visor and lifted her head up so that she could look at the man questioning her. The combined pain of his beating and her headache were pushing her to the limit, causing her to feel weak and light headed.
"I'm fucken blind! Can't see shit without my visor... and you almost k-kicked the fucken thing!"
"Ah, is that so?" Amias said, letting up on his poking into her neck. He put a single hand over the visor on the woman's head, and gave it a slight wiggle.
"Maybe I'll just take it from you, then. Make sure I can trust you."
"Why? So you can draaag the blind girl around like a homeless puppy dog?"
A single puff of air shot out of Amias' nose in a quick laugh. "Who said I'd drag you around afterwards? World's a cruel place, Miss. I'm just watching my own ass."
Rachael scowled at his threat. While he wasn't technically able to remove the head piece without the required equipment, the thought of him doing something to hinder her was more than enough to convince the girl.
"So what are you exactly pro-posing?" she reluctantly asked.
"I'm suggesting you stay on the ground for a little longer, let me get on that Mag Rail, and get the fuck out of dodge. We part ways and that's all there is to it."
Amias removed the gun from the woman's neck, but kept it pointed at her as he stood back up.
"Whatever that is on your back you were reaching for looks like it should keep you protected pretty well. Provided you know how to use it, that is."
"Sooo. First things... first." Rachael drunkinly started, lifting up a finger to gesture the number one, "The Mag Rail is a terrible idea. Tha-t place is over run by the blue doods. You'll never make it past the first stop with that pissssy weapon of yours—" By this time she had stared to lean back on the ground, placing herself in a more comfortable position with her available arm as a resting point.
"—and SECONDLY!!!" she said louder than before, lifting up her middle finger to indicate that she had another important piece of information, "This thing here was no good... noooo goooood. Not that you would even know how to use it."
Amias lifted an eyebrow as the woman began to speak more openly, as she sounded incredibly inebriated, or at least under the influence of something. Having dealt with his own post-high crash for the past 30 minutes, Amias pitied what this girl would have to go through in a short matter of time. Quickly, though, the information the woman relayed to him began to sink into his head, which had slowly begun aching over the course of the conversation.
"Well, blue dudes aside, I can't imagine the APD is letting people out of here at the moment.Fuck!" Amias gritted his teeth, allowing his handgun to fall away from the girl. Now that he was sober, more rational thought was taking over his mind.
"Say, you wouldn't happen to belong to the...Underground, would you?"
Rachael shook her head, pausing for a moment when she felt her brain slosh from one side to the other. She took a deep breath in, hopeing that her actions would cause her to vomit before she was ready to reply.
"Nooo. I grew up in-the Slums, but I'm now living in Nee-on. I do k-now some of the routes undergrr-underground tunnels but hate using them." misinterpreting what he he was discussing due to the light concussion.
"Well, I meant, like, the criminal Underground, but, that works too. Amias watched the girl, looking her up and down for a moment. Whatever it was on her back, it had to be powerful, and no normal citizen carries weapons of that caliber. She had to have some sort of connections. But, the underground tunnels sounded like a good bet.
Amias knelt down, placing a hand on the girl's shoulder rather gently, and spoke more softly than before.
"I don't trust you. You don't trust me, and I'm sure you must not like me much after my little bit of roughness, but I think I know what you do like. Credits. You get me out of this hell hole, you get me into Sector One intact, and you can name your price. Within reason, of course." He gave one of his classic lady-killing smiles, yet he doubted she could see it.
"Farken credits dun mean shit to mee," Rachael sloppily swatted the hand on her shoulder away from her, hitting it with a slap that sounded like a small clap of lightning but lacked anywhere near the same force. "I didn't come 'ere to freaken escort sum rich jackass like you out of 'ere. Got my own shit to deal with. Okay?"
Rachael struggled as she began to push herself up, using a fair amount of her energy to balance herself out. She knew that she had to find Elisha, rampaging monsters or not. Julius wasn't the type of person that would care about the risks, only that she completed the task he set out for her.
"I've got a splicer to find," she expressed, tripping over her own feet as she tried to stand up. "My maaster ain't gonn-a like it if I don't... don't..."
Rachael held out her hand, first two fingers pointing forward, in the shape of a gun. She was motioning that she wanted to take a shot at something, at someone. The imaginary gun kicked back from the deaf shot as she landed her hand onto the side of her face, dragging it down as if to wipe away the thoughts of what she had to do.
"I have to do it..." not realising she was speaking her mind out aloud, "Julius will kill me if I don't."
Amias couldn't help but smirk at the girl. Not her problem, not even money could buy her. Just like him.
"Wait. Julius? That's funny..." He could immediately put his devilish face and haunting glowing amber eyes to the name, but there was no way.
There was no way Amias could be conversating with one of Julius The Leech's killers. He took a crouched step back.
"The Leech? Julius the fucking leech? And you're that blind killer everone pisses their pants over, huh? Funny, you don't seem much threatening to me, honestly. Then again, looks are always deceiving."
Rachael hacked in shock at his brasen remark.
"Well Excuuuse Meee!!! I've now had twoo floggingz today, thanks to you! I'm fukin 'igh on Purrrple Sleeep, aaannnddd I-amost-got-eaten-by-a-blue-fucken-zombie!!! So Itz not MY fault I'm not damn scary e-nuff!" By this point the girl was clenching her fists, leaning forward and yelling at the unnamed man like a childish brat. Overflowing with a built up of emotions that she had been bottling up since earlier that day. Rachael was lucky that Julius wasn't around to see this erratic performance otherwise she may have copped a fistful from him.
A faint howl rang through the streets from a distant, unknown location; a creature alerted by the commotion that the two individuals were creating. The hair on the back of Amias and Rachael neck stood on it's end, sending cold shivers down their spine, bringing back vivid memories of events from the most recient of time.
Rachael booted up her visor, instantly cycling into it's night vision mode as she darted her sights down the various pathways around her. The heavy panting in her breath was a clear indicator to the fears that she experiencing, the dosage that she had injected herself with seemed less and less effective with each passing moment, and on top of this the psychedelic haze that she was seeing before her eyes was adding to her nausia. Rachael's cheeks puffed as her stomached burped a rancid smell, forcing her to return back to the visual darkness that she knew so well.
"F-uck you..." she muttered, knowing that her best current chance of survival was to tag along with this man. "I'll do it. I'm yours..."
The words came out with a sense of defeat, knowing that she was pushing her body into dangerous territory, risking a collapse from exhaustion.
Amias' wide eyes shot in every direction around him, trying to make sure they weren't currently being surrounded by a pack of the blue-glowing monsters. Even thought it made him slightly happy knowing that he had managed to kill one of them, and she hadn't, he still had no idea how he pulled it off. Fear still ran rampant in his heart, and he tried his best to steady his voice before he spoke again.
"Purple Sleep? What the fuck are you doing taking downers when you're out on a mission?" Amias said, trying to force an entertained chuckle to mask his apprehension."We get to my place, I'll get you some shit to sober you right up. I would give you some now, but-"
As a panel in his right wrist opened up, Amias eyed his empty syringe vials regretfully. He had forgetten to restock on 'system flusher', a potent cocktail that helped flush the body of too many drugs, at the expense of plenty of loose bowel movements and dehydration.
"Fresh out... Well, it looks like I'm also doing you a bit of a favor by making sure you don't waltz your ass right off the MagRails, you're so damn out of it. We'll call it even, alright?"
Amias stood back up straight, taking a look around at the view of the city around them. Buildings burned in bright firest scattered across the cityscape. APD Interceptors zoomed and zipped about, searchlights illuminating all the chaos. If one stared hard enough, it appeared that an occasional body, dead or alive, Amias wasn't sure, would drop from various windows and roofs. Fear and desparation had taken their stranglehold of the Core, and now, it would probably move out to the surrounding sectors. Not even Amias was sure the walls would hold, but, he certainly prayed they would.
After putting on his freshly aquired Mag Boots, Amias wrapped a cold metal arm around the small woman's torso, and placed her gently in front of him to the ramp leading to the Mag Rails.
"You take point, so I don't lose you."
