If God Was In Hell We Would All Be Dead [OPEN | MINGLE]

[inconsequence]

Who: Who wants to kill some slavers? You do! Of course you do!
When: May 15th and onwards
Where: Slave trade outpost in the Runoff
What: The slavers that targeted the crew of the Moira in July are overdue for some justice. Chara breaks some regulations to make that happen. THIS IS A MINGLE LOG; anyone and everyone who wants to get in on this and kill some slavers is absolutely free to do so! Chara is relying on there being some chaos for this to work.
Warnings: PROBABLE DEATH. Probable references to slavery, trauma, and also death. Chara.


The Ingress opens to a spilling wash of gray and white, a monochrome cast of shadows and hard angles. The Runoff, it seems, is not a place of many colors; every inch of it is drab and washed out, cold and impersonal as the people who would employ such a place for their own twisted ends. A swirled nebula of stars glimmers overhead. It is night.

Knives are useful tools, but their reach is limited. A quiet transmission to the network, a select few messages delivered to a select few individuals, the hissing strike of a match igniting on the edge of a box. The place is angular and looks to be comprised of some sort of galactic equivalent of asphalt, likely inflammable. Still, it is entirely too dark. Too gray. Too poorly maintained. Tents and shabby establishments line the streets, places where, evidently, personal agency may be bought and sold on a whim.

It does not take long to find a structure of cloth and wood, and the whole of it soon emanates the rank, coppery tang of some interdimensional brand of gasoline.

Knives are useful tools. But they did not come with knives.

Or rather, they did not come only with knives.

One of the stalls is alight in a matter of moments. Red and gold tongues of flame gobbling the establishment whole, filling the place with both the color and light that it so lacked. Knobs of wood harvested from the wreckage form handy torches to set anything else aflame, to thoroughly raze the entire area to the ground, every stall and ship and vendor that supported and enabled the inflorescence of slave trafficking and slave keeping. Armed guards begin to converge on the disturbance at once. But small as said disturbance is, there is no guarantee that it will not come to grow.

That is, of course, where you come in.

One child alone cannot possibly take the entire place down, and flame can only take things so far. It is hardly enough when their aim is one of total destruction, however unrealistic an expectation that might be. They'll need help. Lots of it.

So won't you join the dance?

Comments

[inconsequence]

Look at him. Look at him. Hold this in your mind forever, Chara, as evidence for what you're capable of - how you seize the things you LOVE and twist them, distort them, until they may as well be caught in your own mirror image. He almost sounds about ready to laugh, because he knows laughter, he knows what it is to laugh something off, because who else would have taught him so?

An awful, ragged knotting tightens in their guts, the click and slide of a round being forced into its chamber. Defenseless, weaponless but for a Knife with too short a reach, frozen in indecision, and there's nothing they've left to do, nothing but ensure this does not go as poorly as it still could.

They unspool at once. Arms over his shoulders, pulling him tight, moving unflinchingly so their back is to the weapon pointed at the pair of them in the vain hopes that whatever projectile is launched from the guard's weapon, it is only enough to perforate one small body and not two.

It doesn't register until the warm, red spray soaks the cloth at their back that they've nothing left to fear.

For all his criticism of their planning, it seems that Rinzler came regardless.

No one called for help, and yet -

And yet.

[pleasereset]

Asriel is too slow to react to the weapon pointed at them, and suddenly Chara is there, acting as a shield between him and the slaver with a gun.

"Chara, don't-!"

Don't protect him. Run away. Things that Asriel already knows Chara won't do, and he's going to lose them, and he's going to kill that slaver when they fire at them. Asriel wonders if he can push Chara to the side, out of range before they get hurt but there isn't enough time-

But as it turns out, Asriel doesn't have to worry about that. There's a scream, and Asriel twists his head to see familiar orange red circuits.

"Rinzler!"

Rinzler's here, saving them from slavers.

Just like before.

[notglitching]

Rinzler's here. A hand comes up, allowing the thrown disk to slam back into his grip. That weapon is clean, but the other sizzles and drips, dark fluid burning its way off the blade. It joins the growing puddle he stands in, the splashes and streaks of red that cover the enforcer's frame.

Needless to say, none of it is his.

Rinzler doesn't seem to notice. Nor does he lag in the slightest for the corpses on the ground. Killing is the program's function, and any hangups over what were bypassed quite some time ago.

Asriel was there. Chara too, if... differently.

His mask lingers on the pair. No damage. Not from this, not new—and whatever prior harm they'd taken, there was no sign that it was critical. Noise rumbles out quick and steady, helmet tipping toward the dismembered shell that stains the ground off to the side. He gives a quick, deliberate nod.

Good job.

[inconsequence]

A shameful, hideously useless impulse that's rendered pointless immediately, and they can only be grateful for the spattered red surrounding them, how that masks away the flushing in their cheeks, embarrassed and horrified and -

It matters very little, in the broader scheme of things.

Smile, and play the part. As though the near miss did not thunder in their chest, aching with the acknowledgment that it would come, inevitably. Rinzler, at least, is quick enough to ensure it does not.

For now.

"Excellent timing, sir." There is no tremor in their voice. They are, perhaps, breathing a little faster, a little more irregularly, than is typical.

That is all.

[pleasereset]

Asriel was prepared for the worst, and even right now, the last thing he feels is calm.

But they're both here. At least for now they are.

It finally feels safe to turn around, and he starts to. Chara's still there, they haven't suddenly disappeared - even if they are bloodier now. They both were.

His eyes travel to their rescuer, and Asriel gives a shaky, but grateful nod.

"T-thank you, Rinzler."

[notglitching]

If his timing had been faster, they might have avoided the threat entirely. Then again, Chara hadn't exactly given notice in advance. Rinzler accepts the compliment and (more awkwardly) the thanks, inclining his mask a fraction.

A shift of power, scan-sense stretching out a little further. No threats in range, but Rinzler still glances back before he crouches, hands coming together to merge his active weapons to a single blade. Hand free, he calls up his TAB's holographics.

Status?

[inconsequence]

He is far more suited to the vicious blur of combat than the awkward social niceties that come after, even now. That, at least, they can claim they've in common. Perhaps not to the same extent.

Ideally, not.

"He's in shock," says Chara, immediately. "He needs to return home, immediately."

He's been through more than enough - to last him a lifetime. Several. Once again, weathering the pain of their choices, yoked with the blazingly agonizing extent of their poorly conceived plans.

Do they never learn?