![Newbie Guide](https://i.imgur.com/Uy7hIlu.png")
Post by Lottus on Sept 18, 2022 6:34:25 GMT -5
Murderer.
Monster.
Low Class Scum.
These are the words Lottus heard on the first day of his punishment - placed into the front lines of the war still ongoing between the Tuffles and Saiyans. Even those supposedly in the same social status as he looked at him with revulsion. Word had come with Lottus about why he was here; why he was sent to fight on the front lines of the war. Sent to die.
Just days earlier, Lottus' hands and face had been spattered with the blood of his father, Pinach. Only Lottus knew what had happened - and he had not told the ones that came to his home. They entered into a grisly scene - Jinjer, Lottus' mother, was found immediately with her neck broken and bent at an awkward angle, strewn about the floor right at the front door. Her knuckles were bruised from a fight that had broken out.
Lottus' father, Pinach, was found in the kitchen with his throat slashed open. But not only that - several dozen stab wounds across his face and chest had been a horror to see, even for a Saiyan's eyes. Lottus had been found, sitting behind the kitchen door, muttering incoherently to himself, and staring unblinkingly at his father.
His face, hands, and ragged clothes were soaked in blood, leaving little to imagine what had happened. The knife he'd used to murder his father lay on the floor, the tip snapped off and blade nicked along the edge. Guesses could be made as to what happened - but Lottus had refused to speak to them, content to mutter quietly to himself.
When a Saiyan tried to pull Lottus away from the doorframe, Lottus had screamed and bitten the soldier on the arm, acting like a newly caged wild animal. Lottus was subdued, and quickly sentenced to serve in the Saiyan army. If he was old enough to kill, he was old enough to die for the Saiyan goal to conquer all of Plant.
Fratricide.
Murderer.
At first, he hadn't heard the words. His mind had retreated to a quiet, dim place. Every time he was touched, Lottus would react violently. When a set of small armor and under suit had been tossed his way, Lottus simply acted with muscle memory, donning the battle suit and jacket. An aged scouter completed the ensemble. When his mind finally began to register his surroundings again, he was in the midst of a fierce melee that had broken out between the Saiyan and Tuffle forces.
Giant exoskeleton suits, operated by the Tuffles, tore through the weaker lines of Low Class soldiers. The violence was unlike anything the boy had witnessed, save for his own hands. On the first day, Lottus had simply froze, and curled up at the edge of a crater, screaming as the roar of war sounded all around him.
The battle had, ultimately, failed to yield favorably for the Saiyans. Along with a handful of soldiers, Lottus had limped back to the forward command base. Lottus' commander knew that the boy had failed to stand up and fight, and was duly beaten for cowardice on the battlefield.
Now, the boy sat with his legs tucked against his chest, rocking back and forth behind the shadow of his bunk, muttering and crying. That earned him a thrashing from the other soldiers who had wanted to sleep, but couldn't because of him. On the third day, the commander had found Lottus laying in the dirt outside the barracks, an kicked the boy awake with one swift boot to the stomach.
"Wake up brat." the commander growls, leering down at Lottus with disgust. "You're marching back out."
When Lottus failed to stand, the commander seized a fistful of Lottus' wild, long hair, and dragged the boy away. He would learn to obey, he would learn to fight as he was told. The nine year old boy would learn his place, and die like a Saiyan.
Six years pass, and the boy is incredibly still alive. He had learned to fight for his life, if not for the Saiyan cause. While not terribly strong by comparison to many of the others, with a battle power of a mere nine hundred, Lottus was nonetheless improving. This did not, however, change his treatment. He had been relegated to the edge of the encampment; dozens of times, Lottus had been involved in fights that ended in the maiming or other severe injuries of other soldiers. Plenty of other occasions found him recovering from broken bones in healing chambers - and often not even injuries inflicted by the enemy, but by the other soldiers.
Today had been the last straw for his commander. Lottus had gotten into a fight with another soldier, and the young man had snapped. Lottus didn't stop at beating the Saiyan to submission; Lottus had straddled the soldier's torso, pinning their arms with his knees, and gouged out their eyes with his thumbs.
It had taken five soldiers to pry Lottus off the latest offender, and by then it was far too late. Lottus had become well known to have a very poor temper, and now his breaking point had been reached after the years of verbal and social abuse. One death would have been harshly punished. But Lottus had killed two more; both among those that had pulled him off the first victim. The offense was too great to give a simple punishment of solitary confinement.
For Lottus, an archaic punishment had been chosen. Snarling and struggling with the reckless abandonment of a beast, Lottus had been locked in place, his armor peeled off and long hair thrown forward, exposing his back. Whipping was an out of date punishment, but drastic measures had been approved. Better to let the war kill Lottus, so long as he took as many of the enemy with him to the grave as possible before the end.
Fifteen lashes were his punishment, two days of rations revoked, and confined to the encampment brig whenever he was not deployed. After three weeks, there was no end in sight for his time in the brig. At least they had started feeding him again. So far, his meals had been brought to him by a Saiyan woman roughly his own age.
Her name, Lottus had learned by not request of his own, was Rapini. Rapini had taken to talking to Lottus in the last week or so; at first, she had simply came in, slid his food into the cell, and left. But since the middle of last week, she had started to stay longer. She tried asking him questions, trying to get a conversation out of him; but Lottus had remained stubbornly quiet.
And so, Rapini changed tactics. She instead just talked to him. About literally anything; weather, arguments, the progress of the war, to even whether or not rations were edible after two weeks being open.
"...and the Tuffles have a new line of mech on the field." Rapini says, seated on the guard bench, staring at the ceiling and slowly kicking her feet back and forth. Her voice has a light gravel to it, but it wasn't unpleasant. "Not the KX models you've been popping, these are less bulky, more smooth and slender. They've even got a new BIG one that's got spikes along the spinal column and crab claws for hands."
She imitated a swatting motion.
"WHAP! Knocked Tanger senseless with one swing; poor bastard got blasted as soon as he hit the ground." she huffs irritably. "I've seen soldiers hammer away against the armor, and barely make a dent! We've started having to call in Mid Class soldiers to compensate; and even THEY are having trouble picking them apart!"
Lottus, sitting against the wall with his legs tucked against his chest and resting his forehead against his knees, looks up at Rapini. Rapini, who had been looking at him down past her nose, grins.
"Ah? Got your attention with that one, eh?" she chuckles. "I'm serious! Thing's got black paint, and a big ol' glass bubble where the operator sits! I mean, it LOOKS like glass, but that crap is sturdy as hell too! The commander thinks it's some kind of transparent metal, not glass."
Lottus ducks his eyes back behind his knees, and Rapini sighs heavily.
"Man, just when I thought I got you to come outta that shell, you turtle back in." she grunts, exasperated. "I've been talkin' to you for almost two weeks, and you ain't said a PEEP back. It's rude, you know?"
"What's to say...?" Lottus grunts, his voice muffled.
"HA! He SPEAKS!" Rapini exclaims triumphantly, hopping to her feet and approaching the cell. "Come on, tell me your name at least!"
"...You know full well..." Lottus responds, his eyes reappearing from behind his knees. Rapini scoffs in response.
"Oh don't be an ass." she retorts gruffly. "Humor me here! I've told you my name!"
Lottus grimaces, annoyed.
"Fine... It's Lottus." he says after a few minutes.
"What... like that Earthling flower? HA! No way!" Rapini chuckles, grinning wide.
Lottus growls and looks away.
"Oh don't get all huffy!" Rapini chides him, leaning and arm against the cell bars. "Come on, this is progress! You gotta want to talk to somebody once in a while!"
Lottus grunts again, but looks back at Rapini through his bangs. She waits for him to speak, but when he doesn't after several minutes, she shrugs.
"Alright, whatever. I thought we could have a little buddy kind of deal, but I'm wasting my time, obviously." she says, turning away. She starts towards the door - but slower than she could walk normally. She stops at the door, and looks back at Lottus. "Hope you like your privacy."
Lottus felt his stomach turn over, and he lifted his head to speak; but the door clicked shut, and Lottus was left once more alone in the dimly lit cell. He grits his teeth and pulls his knees tighter against his chest.
**
Several days pass, and Rapini had stopped being the one to deliver his meals. She had been replaced by a balding Saiyan that simply drops the tray on the floor, spilling the contents, and leaves. The burly Saiyan ignored Lottus when the latter began asking about Rapini, never engaging with Lottus. But, at long last, Lottus' guards let him out - which meant that a battle was imminent.
Lottus was lined up with other Saiyans - a squad of six. At his arrival, Lottus stopped short; Rapini stood with the line, and grinned his way. The rest of the squad openly leers at him. None speak to him. Lottus falls in line, and silently looks at the commander.
"You have a simple mission. The enemy is planning to capture this juncture," he points to a canyon highlighted in yellow on a holographic map. "Neither the Tuffles, nor we, have control of that sector. Your job is not to capture it - you will be responsible for disabling or destroying the Carnifex-class Combat Drone that will be present there. You are being sent to wait for the enemy's arrival - upon which, you will be launching the planned ambush."
Several of the Saiyans in line, including Rapini, sound surprised.
"Sir, isn't the Carnifex Drone's carapace too hardened for our level?" one of the Saiyans inquired.
"The Drone will be alone Pambukin, scouting the area to ensure safety for their smaller combat suit soldiers. Surely six Saiyans can handle one enemy drone?" the commander retorts, though his expression leaves no room for argument. Duly chastened, the Saiyan shuts his mouth. "That's what I thought. You move out as soon as your provisions are collected. Move out soldiers!"
It would be about two hours later when the team was fully set with their supplies. The flight to the canyon was a further four hours. Upon arrival, the team of Saiyans scour the area with their scouters, and set up camp in a rocky outcropping with high sides. Lottus had chosen to sit away from the group, but still within line of sight. Twice he caught Rapini's eye, and both times he turned away.
Apparently noticing this, and growing impatient, the lean Saiyan walks up to Lottus' perch.
"Yo." Rapini says by way of greeting. She huffs and sits on a stone near Lottus, who looks sideways at her. "Mission's kind of FUBAR, wouldn't you say?"
Lottus snorts, eliciting a large smile from Rapini.
"By the Kais, he has a sense of humor?" she says, her tone a playful mockery. "Here I thought you were as much a stone as the rest of this place. So? What do you think?"
"I think that the commander's an idiot." Lottus replies, completely unheeding of the scouter on his ear. He knew full well the conversation was likely being listened to. "Fighting a Carnifex Drone is like trying to fight a warship with a fishing boat. This mission is definitely FUBAR."
Rapini smirks.
"So... think I can get a conversation outta you now?" Rapini asks, leaning her elbows against her knees. Lottus looks at her, meeting her black eyes with his own. He hesitates, but finally opens his mouth to speak.
Words never escaped his mouth. There is a deafening thunderclap that echoes through the canyon, and the cries of surprise from the rest of the squad rings through the air soon after. Lottus and Rapini flinch, and rise to their feet. To their horror, a mechanical monstrosity almost fifteen feet tall, insect-like, and clawed, stands like a terrible black harbinger of destruction. One of the Saiyans was pinned beneath one of the great, three-toed feet. But with only an arm visible, they were almost certainly dead already.
"Dammit! It killed Korn!" shouts Pambukin. "How did it sneak up on us?!"
"It's a machine! Our scouters can't track non-living energy!" Lottus shouts. "We have to hit it from every angle! Aim for the joints!"
In the end, despite the truth of the Drone's weak points, the Saiyans had allowed themselves to be too flustered to properly work together. Pambukin was the second to fall, a giant pincer crushing his head against the cliff face. Another was killed in an energy blast. The forth, Grayn, had managed to damage the Drone's command array, but not enough to stop the machine. His fate was gruesome once the pincers both caught his arms and legs.
Only Lottus and Rapini remained. They charge the Drone together, but its reflexes were unreal. The left pincer slams into Lottus, sending him crashing through a pillar of stone, while the right pincer simultaneously came down from above and against Rapini's back, slamming her hard into the ground face first. Lottus leaps up, and fires a crimson blast at the Drone - but the energy splits and disperses against the Drone's armor plating.
The Drone ignores Lottus, and raises a foot to stomp on Rapini. She can only look up in horror, and then close her eyes as the metal foot comes down. There is a grinding sound, and she opens her eyes - Lottus stands directly over Rapini, his feet planted firmly at her sides, slowly bending at the knees as the Drone continues to press down.
"Go!" Lottus barks. "Get back to base..!"
"To hell with that!" Rapini snarls back, sliding out from between his feet and rising to her own. She leaps up, fists drawn back and glowing with yellow Ki. "We're blasting this piece of junk to the scrap heap!!"
She thrusts her hands forth, aiming for the damaged command array. Her blast hits home, and the hard shell cracks and splits away, exposing the internal workings. The Drone reacts suddenly, slamming a pincer against Rapini and knocking the air from her lungs. Rapini hits the ground, and Lottus manages to slip out from under the mechanical foot.
He leaps to charge at the now exposed weak point, but suffers a similar blow as Rapini had. He felt his left arm shatter at the shoulder and elbow respectively, making him groan in anguish. Rapini manages to scramble back to her feet, and leaps away from the Drone and to Lottus' side.
"I think you had the right idea, let's go big guy!" Rapini exclaims hurriedly. She sees his injury, and pulls his good arm over her shoulders, helping Lottus to his feet. Lottus groans again, and she rolls her eyes. "Oh don't be a big baby! Let's get out of h-"
Her words were cut off as an arm thick cable wraps around her torso, and whips her harshly back, sending Lottus tumbling to fall on his injured arm. The Drone swings its arm, with the cable retracting back into the pincer, and hammers Rapini into the ground. Lottus' chest feel like ice, constricting as if pressed by a vice.
"Stop!! STOP!!" Lottus shouts, rocketing through the air at the machine. He sees the attack coming, but is unable to avoid the other pincer from nailing against his back and sending him deeper into the canyon.
The Drone turns its attention back to Rapini, who snaps the cable off her body. Her effort is rewarded his a terrible blow to the top of her head, crashing her into the rocky ground. Battered and bloody, Rapini attempts to sit up - but the Drone's foot comes down, crushing her legs under its weight. Rapini screams in pain, taking fistfuls of her own hair in hand as she does.
The left pincer comes forward, opening as if looking to snap shut on her - instead, a brackish purple smoke is sprayed at her. Rapini's screams are choked out with ragged wheezing, and she begins to convulse. Lottus, roaring with fury, suddenly comes past the cliff edge, slamming into the Drone's center, somehow knocking it back and down. Lottus turns away from it, and lands next to Rapini, horror in his eyes.
Rapini's skin was ashen grey, her eyes sallow as if she'd not slept in months. She couldn't breathe, taking rapid, unsatisfying breaths.
"Lo...Lo..." she wheezed, her body still convulsing.
Lottus drops to his knees, and grabs her right hand as it comes up, shaking like a leaf in a hurricane.
"No... No, no, come on! Breath! Please!" Lottus pleads, gripping her hand in his left despite the agony of the broken joints, and holding up her head with the other good arm. "Rapini, just hold on!"
"Lot... Lo..." she tried, her breaths a horrid series of gasps, but to no avail. After another moment, the full body convulsions stopped, and she slowly goes limp in his arm. Lottus stares at her, frozen in place. All at once, memories of what befell his family flash before his eyes, and an agonizing pain rips through Lottus' head.
"Y... You... Rap... You, you can't..." Lottus stammers, oblivious to the Drone struggling to get back on its feet. Lottus lets Rapini down, and presses his right hand against the side of his head. Tears stream down his face, and he screams. His eyes twitch in their sockets, and his screaming transforms.
His screams became a laughter. An agonized laughter.
The Drone finally gets back to its feet, but one of its arms had damaged the elbow joint in the fall. Lottus' eyes, red with tears, and wide with insanity, lock onto the machine. Still laughing, Lottus launches at the Drone...
**
Several hours later, another squad arrives at the location - to a scene of horror. As predicted, Tuffles in smaller combat exoskeletons had arrived. But they were now dead; some pulled apart at the waists, entrails hanging. Others were missing heads, or partially incinerated. Blood painted the walls of the canyon in every direction for a least a hundred feet around where the Drone had been felled.
The team found the dead Saiyans next, who had also met a poor end. Eventually, they find Lottus by following an eerie laughter. The find Lottus, seated under a stone outcropping, rocking back and forth, muttering under his breath, and covered in blood. Laying across his lap, chest and shoulder is Rapini's corpse, held tightly against Lottus with his good arm.
They were wary of approaching Lottus - his eyes are wide, and still streaming with tears as he stares forward into nothing. His laughter is interrupted by brief sobs, his body shuddering as he desperately clings to Rapini's corpse.
**
The commander of the forward base looks at Lottus through the bars of his cell, flanked by another officer.
"He's too unstable to serve in complex missions." the command tells his comrade. "You're certain you want this maniac in your battalion?"
"I'm certain. He's... motivated now." the bald Saiyan replies with a dark grin. "I'll place him with Vocado's squadron. Surely they can reign him in."
"As you say, I'll sign the transfer." the commander replies, though watching Lottus warily. "He's gone mad. I don't trust him."
"Oh, I'm sure I can make even this maniac fit right in." the officer replies, patting the commander on the back, and leaving the brig.
The commander shakes his head, and follows after him.
Monster.
Low Class Scum.
These are the words Lottus heard on the first day of his punishment - placed into the front lines of the war still ongoing between the Tuffles and Saiyans. Even those supposedly in the same social status as he looked at him with revulsion. Word had come with Lottus about why he was here; why he was sent to fight on the front lines of the war. Sent to die.
Just days earlier, Lottus' hands and face had been spattered with the blood of his father, Pinach. Only Lottus knew what had happened - and he had not told the ones that came to his home. They entered into a grisly scene - Jinjer, Lottus' mother, was found immediately with her neck broken and bent at an awkward angle, strewn about the floor right at the front door. Her knuckles were bruised from a fight that had broken out.
Lottus' father, Pinach, was found in the kitchen with his throat slashed open. But not only that - several dozen stab wounds across his face and chest had been a horror to see, even for a Saiyan's eyes. Lottus had been found, sitting behind the kitchen door, muttering incoherently to himself, and staring unblinkingly at his father.
His face, hands, and ragged clothes were soaked in blood, leaving little to imagine what had happened. The knife he'd used to murder his father lay on the floor, the tip snapped off and blade nicked along the edge. Guesses could be made as to what happened - but Lottus had refused to speak to them, content to mutter quietly to himself.
When a Saiyan tried to pull Lottus away from the doorframe, Lottus had screamed and bitten the soldier on the arm, acting like a newly caged wild animal. Lottus was subdued, and quickly sentenced to serve in the Saiyan army. If he was old enough to kill, he was old enough to die for the Saiyan goal to conquer all of Plant.
Fratricide.
Murderer.
At first, he hadn't heard the words. His mind had retreated to a quiet, dim place. Every time he was touched, Lottus would react violently. When a set of small armor and under suit had been tossed his way, Lottus simply acted with muscle memory, donning the battle suit and jacket. An aged scouter completed the ensemble. When his mind finally began to register his surroundings again, he was in the midst of a fierce melee that had broken out between the Saiyan and Tuffle forces.
Giant exoskeleton suits, operated by the Tuffles, tore through the weaker lines of Low Class soldiers. The violence was unlike anything the boy had witnessed, save for his own hands. On the first day, Lottus had simply froze, and curled up at the edge of a crater, screaming as the roar of war sounded all around him.
The battle had, ultimately, failed to yield favorably for the Saiyans. Along with a handful of soldiers, Lottus had limped back to the forward command base. Lottus' commander knew that the boy had failed to stand up and fight, and was duly beaten for cowardice on the battlefield.
Now, the boy sat with his legs tucked against his chest, rocking back and forth behind the shadow of his bunk, muttering and crying. That earned him a thrashing from the other soldiers who had wanted to sleep, but couldn't because of him. On the third day, the commander had found Lottus laying in the dirt outside the barracks, an kicked the boy awake with one swift boot to the stomach.
"Wake up brat." the commander growls, leering down at Lottus with disgust. "You're marching back out."
When Lottus failed to stand, the commander seized a fistful of Lottus' wild, long hair, and dragged the boy away. He would learn to obey, he would learn to fight as he was told. The nine year old boy would learn his place, and die like a Saiyan.
**
Six years pass, and the boy is incredibly still alive. He had learned to fight for his life, if not for the Saiyan cause. While not terribly strong by comparison to many of the others, with a battle power of a mere nine hundred, Lottus was nonetheless improving. This did not, however, change his treatment. He had been relegated to the edge of the encampment; dozens of times, Lottus had been involved in fights that ended in the maiming or other severe injuries of other soldiers. Plenty of other occasions found him recovering from broken bones in healing chambers - and often not even injuries inflicted by the enemy, but by the other soldiers.
Today had been the last straw for his commander. Lottus had gotten into a fight with another soldier, and the young man had snapped. Lottus didn't stop at beating the Saiyan to submission; Lottus had straddled the soldier's torso, pinning their arms with his knees, and gouged out their eyes with his thumbs.
It had taken five soldiers to pry Lottus off the latest offender, and by then it was far too late. Lottus had become well known to have a very poor temper, and now his breaking point had been reached after the years of verbal and social abuse. One death would have been harshly punished. But Lottus had killed two more; both among those that had pulled him off the first victim. The offense was too great to give a simple punishment of solitary confinement.
For Lottus, an archaic punishment had been chosen. Snarling and struggling with the reckless abandonment of a beast, Lottus had been locked in place, his armor peeled off and long hair thrown forward, exposing his back. Whipping was an out of date punishment, but drastic measures had been approved. Better to let the war kill Lottus, so long as he took as many of the enemy with him to the grave as possible before the end.
Fifteen lashes were his punishment, two days of rations revoked, and confined to the encampment brig whenever he was not deployed. After three weeks, there was no end in sight for his time in the brig. At least they had started feeding him again. So far, his meals had been brought to him by a Saiyan woman roughly his own age.
Her name, Lottus had learned by not request of his own, was Rapini. Rapini had taken to talking to Lottus in the last week or so; at first, she had simply came in, slid his food into the cell, and left. But since the middle of last week, she had started to stay longer. She tried asking him questions, trying to get a conversation out of him; but Lottus had remained stubbornly quiet.
And so, Rapini changed tactics. She instead just talked to him. About literally anything; weather, arguments, the progress of the war, to even whether or not rations were edible after two weeks being open.
"...and the Tuffles have a new line of mech on the field." Rapini says, seated on the guard bench, staring at the ceiling and slowly kicking her feet back and forth. Her voice has a light gravel to it, but it wasn't unpleasant. "Not the KX models you've been popping, these are less bulky, more smooth and slender. They've even got a new BIG one that's got spikes along the spinal column and crab claws for hands."
She imitated a swatting motion.
"WHAP! Knocked Tanger senseless with one swing; poor bastard got blasted as soon as he hit the ground." she huffs irritably. "I've seen soldiers hammer away against the armor, and barely make a dent! We've started having to call in Mid Class soldiers to compensate; and even THEY are having trouble picking them apart!"
Lottus, sitting against the wall with his legs tucked against his chest and resting his forehead against his knees, looks up at Rapini. Rapini, who had been looking at him down past her nose, grins.
"Ah? Got your attention with that one, eh?" she chuckles. "I'm serious! Thing's got black paint, and a big ol' glass bubble where the operator sits! I mean, it LOOKS like glass, but that crap is sturdy as hell too! The commander thinks it's some kind of transparent metal, not glass."
Lottus ducks his eyes back behind his knees, and Rapini sighs heavily.
"Man, just when I thought I got you to come outta that shell, you turtle back in." she grunts, exasperated. "I've been talkin' to you for almost two weeks, and you ain't said a PEEP back. It's rude, you know?"
"What's to say...?" Lottus grunts, his voice muffled.
"HA! He SPEAKS!" Rapini exclaims triumphantly, hopping to her feet and approaching the cell. "Come on, tell me your name at least!"
"...You know full well..." Lottus responds, his eyes reappearing from behind his knees. Rapini scoffs in response.
"Oh don't be an ass." she retorts gruffly. "Humor me here! I've told you my name!"
Lottus grimaces, annoyed.
"Fine... It's Lottus." he says after a few minutes.
"What... like that Earthling flower? HA! No way!" Rapini chuckles, grinning wide.
Lottus growls and looks away.
"Oh don't get all huffy!" Rapini chides him, leaning and arm against the cell bars. "Come on, this is progress! You gotta want to talk to somebody once in a while!"
Lottus grunts again, but looks back at Rapini through his bangs. She waits for him to speak, but when he doesn't after several minutes, she shrugs.
"Alright, whatever. I thought we could have a little buddy kind of deal, but I'm wasting my time, obviously." she says, turning away. She starts towards the door - but slower than she could walk normally. She stops at the door, and looks back at Lottus. "Hope you like your privacy."
Lottus felt his stomach turn over, and he lifted his head to speak; but the door clicked shut, and Lottus was left once more alone in the dimly lit cell. He grits his teeth and pulls his knees tighter against his chest.
**
Several days pass, and Rapini had stopped being the one to deliver his meals. She had been replaced by a balding Saiyan that simply drops the tray on the floor, spilling the contents, and leaves. The burly Saiyan ignored Lottus when the latter began asking about Rapini, never engaging with Lottus. But, at long last, Lottus' guards let him out - which meant that a battle was imminent.
Lottus was lined up with other Saiyans - a squad of six. At his arrival, Lottus stopped short; Rapini stood with the line, and grinned his way. The rest of the squad openly leers at him. None speak to him. Lottus falls in line, and silently looks at the commander.
"You have a simple mission. The enemy is planning to capture this juncture," he points to a canyon highlighted in yellow on a holographic map. "Neither the Tuffles, nor we, have control of that sector. Your job is not to capture it - you will be responsible for disabling or destroying the Carnifex-class Combat Drone that will be present there. You are being sent to wait for the enemy's arrival - upon which, you will be launching the planned ambush."
Several of the Saiyans in line, including Rapini, sound surprised.
"Sir, isn't the Carnifex Drone's carapace too hardened for our level?" one of the Saiyans inquired.
"The Drone will be alone Pambukin, scouting the area to ensure safety for their smaller combat suit soldiers. Surely six Saiyans can handle one enemy drone?" the commander retorts, though his expression leaves no room for argument. Duly chastened, the Saiyan shuts his mouth. "That's what I thought. You move out as soon as your provisions are collected. Move out soldiers!"
It would be about two hours later when the team was fully set with their supplies. The flight to the canyon was a further four hours. Upon arrival, the team of Saiyans scour the area with their scouters, and set up camp in a rocky outcropping with high sides. Lottus had chosen to sit away from the group, but still within line of sight. Twice he caught Rapini's eye, and both times he turned away.
Apparently noticing this, and growing impatient, the lean Saiyan walks up to Lottus' perch.
"Yo." Rapini says by way of greeting. She huffs and sits on a stone near Lottus, who looks sideways at her. "Mission's kind of FUBAR, wouldn't you say?"
Lottus snorts, eliciting a large smile from Rapini.
"By the Kais, he has a sense of humor?" she says, her tone a playful mockery. "Here I thought you were as much a stone as the rest of this place. So? What do you think?"
"I think that the commander's an idiot." Lottus replies, completely unheeding of the scouter on his ear. He knew full well the conversation was likely being listened to. "Fighting a Carnifex Drone is like trying to fight a warship with a fishing boat. This mission is definitely FUBAR."
Rapini smirks.
"So... think I can get a conversation outta you now?" Rapini asks, leaning her elbows against her knees. Lottus looks at her, meeting her black eyes with his own. He hesitates, but finally opens his mouth to speak.
Words never escaped his mouth. There is a deafening thunderclap that echoes through the canyon, and the cries of surprise from the rest of the squad rings through the air soon after. Lottus and Rapini flinch, and rise to their feet. To their horror, a mechanical monstrosity almost fifteen feet tall, insect-like, and clawed, stands like a terrible black harbinger of destruction. One of the Saiyans was pinned beneath one of the great, three-toed feet. But with only an arm visible, they were almost certainly dead already.
"Dammit! It killed Korn!" shouts Pambukin. "How did it sneak up on us?!"
"It's a machine! Our scouters can't track non-living energy!" Lottus shouts. "We have to hit it from every angle! Aim for the joints!"
In the end, despite the truth of the Drone's weak points, the Saiyans had allowed themselves to be too flustered to properly work together. Pambukin was the second to fall, a giant pincer crushing his head against the cliff face. Another was killed in an energy blast. The forth, Grayn, had managed to damage the Drone's command array, but not enough to stop the machine. His fate was gruesome once the pincers both caught his arms and legs.
Only Lottus and Rapini remained. They charge the Drone together, but its reflexes were unreal. The left pincer slams into Lottus, sending him crashing through a pillar of stone, while the right pincer simultaneously came down from above and against Rapini's back, slamming her hard into the ground face first. Lottus leaps up, and fires a crimson blast at the Drone - but the energy splits and disperses against the Drone's armor plating.
The Drone ignores Lottus, and raises a foot to stomp on Rapini. She can only look up in horror, and then close her eyes as the metal foot comes down. There is a grinding sound, and she opens her eyes - Lottus stands directly over Rapini, his feet planted firmly at her sides, slowly bending at the knees as the Drone continues to press down.
"Go!" Lottus barks. "Get back to base..!"
"To hell with that!" Rapini snarls back, sliding out from between his feet and rising to her own. She leaps up, fists drawn back and glowing with yellow Ki. "We're blasting this piece of junk to the scrap heap!!"
She thrusts her hands forth, aiming for the damaged command array. Her blast hits home, and the hard shell cracks and splits away, exposing the internal workings. The Drone reacts suddenly, slamming a pincer against Rapini and knocking the air from her lungs. Rapini hits the ground, and Lottus manages to slip out from under the mechanical foot.
He leaps to charge at the now exposed weak point, but suffers a similar blow as Rapini had. He felt his left arm shatter at the shoulder and elbow respectively, making him groan in anguish. Rapini manages to scramble back to her feet, and leaps away from the Drone and to Lottus' side.
"I think you had the right idea, let's go big guy!" Rapini exclaims hurriedly. She sees his injury, and pulls his good arm over her shoulders, helping Lottus to his feet. Lottus groans again, and she rolls her eyes. "Oh don't be a big baby! Let's get out of h-"
Her words were cut off as an arm thick cable wraps around her torso, and whips her harshly back, sending Lottus tumbling to fall on his injured arm. The Drone swings its arm, with the cable retracting back into the pincer, and hammers Rapini into the ground. Lottus' chest feel like ice, constricting as if pressed by a vice.
"Stop!! STOP!!" Lottus shouts, rocketing through the air at the machine. He sees the attack coming, but is unable to avoid the other pincer from nailing against his back and sending him deeper into the canyon.
The Drone turns its attention back to Rapini, who snaps the cable off her body. Her effort is rewarded his a terrible blow to the top of her head, crashing her into the rocky ground. Battered and bloody, Rapini attempts to sit up - but the Drone's foot comes down, crushing her legs under its weight. Rapini screams in pain, taking fistfuls of her own hair in hand as she does.
The left pincer comes forward, opening as if looking to snap shut on her - instead, a brackish purple smoke is sprayed at her. Rapini's screams are choked out with ragged wheezing, and she begins to convulse. Lottus, roaring with fury, suddenly comes past the cliff edge, slamming into the Drone's center, somehow knocking it back and down. Lottus turns away from it, and lands next to Rapini, horror in his eyes.
Rapini's skin was ashen grey, her eyes sallow as if she'd not slept in months. She couldn't breathe, taking rapid, unsatisfying breaths.
"Lo...Lo..." she wheezed, her body still convulsing.
Lottus drops to his knees, and grabs her right hand as it comes up, shaking like a leaf in a hurricane.
"No... No, no, come on! Breath! Please!" Lottus pleads, gripping her hand in his left despite the agony of the broken joints, and holding up her head with the other good arm. "Rapini, just hold on!"
"Lot... Lo..." she tried, her breaths a horrid series of gasps, but to no avail. After another moment, the full body convulsions stopped, and she slowly goes limp in his arm. Lottus stares at her, frozen in place. All at once, memories of what befell his family flash before his eyes, and an agonizing pain rips through Lottus' head.
"Y... You... Rap... You, you can't..." Lottus stammers, oblivious to the Drone struggling to get back on its feet. Lottus lets Rapini down, and presses his right hand against the side of his head. Tears stream down his face, and he screams. His eyes twitch in their sockets, and his screaming transforms.
His screams became a laughter. An agonized laughter.
The Drone finally gets back to its feet, but one of its arms had damaged the elbow joint in the fall. Lottus' eyes, red with tears, and wide with insanity, lock onto the machine. Still laughing, Lottus launches at the Drone...
**
Several hours later, another squad arrives at the location - to a scene of horror. As predicted, Tuffles in smaller combat exoskeletons had arrived. But they were now dead; some pulled apart at the waists, entrails hanging. Others were missing heads, or partially incinerated. Blood painted the walls of the canyon in every direction for a least a hundred feet around where the Drone had been felled.
The team found the dead Saiyans next, who had also met a poor end. Eventually, they find Lottus by following an eerie laughter. The find Lottus, seated under a stone outcropping, rocking back and forth, muttering under his breath, and covered in blood. Laying across his lap, chest and shoulder is Rapini's corpse, held tightly against Lottus with his good arm.
They were wary of approaching Lottus - his eyes are wide, and still streaming with tears as he stares forward into nothing. His laughter is interrupted by brief sobs, his body shuddering as he desperately clings to Rapini's corpse.
**
The commander of the forward base looks at Lottus through the bars of his cell, flanked by another officer.
"He's too unstable to serve in complex missions." the command tells his comrade. "You're certain you want this maniac in your battalion?"
"I'm certain. He's... motivated now." the bald Saiyan replies with a dark grin. "I'll place him with Vocado's squadron. Surely they can reign him in."
"As you say, I'll sign the transfer." the commander replies, though watching Lottus warily. "He's gone mad. I don't trust him."
"Oh, I'm sure I can make even this maniac fit right in." the officer replies, patting the commander on the back, and leaving the brig.
The commander shakes his head, and follows after him.
TWC: 3,510
