Darkness Takes it's Own

#46

"Liberty of making... improvements?" Cp questioned the evil incarnate as they were lead out of the bar, seemingly going to Raven's house. "What does that mean?!

<big><big><big><big>Rrrrrrrroo</big><big><big>oooaaaa</big></big><big><big><big>aaarrrrrrrr!!!!!</big></big></big></big></big></big>

As if to answer his question, what used to be Tetsu-ko the Dragon tore through the entire front of the Horn and Halo, sending splinters, debris, and a good helping of fear through the air. She still resembled her earlier form somewhat, still very much a dragon, and still the dazzling blue in some places.

Yet she looked older. More mature, and definitely more lethal. The Dragon's long slender body seemed fine tuned for speed, losing a lot of the baby bulk she had mere minutes ago. Also apparent, frightening so, was The Collector's influence everywhere in her design.

The Dragon's eyes were probably the most immediately visible, and damning aspect. They were completely black. Covered by The Collector just as Swix's had moments before she was possessed. The coating oddly didn't seem to effect her sight any- they were just there. Terrifying just for the sake of being so, just to let everyone know the Dragon was now hers.

From snout to now barbed tail, black, mirrored scales adorned Tetsu in dizzying striped patterns. The surrounding blue had darkened closest to these areas, as if the dragon was simply growing into her new, onyxlike hide. She opened her mouth, smiling, to reveal row upon endless row of violently steep teeth. The first two almost looked positively vampiric...

She addressed the group with this nightmare of a smile, revealing a thin black tendril of a tongue slowly waving in the air.

"Oh.... Gods C, What have you done...!?" The Electric mouse said, absolutely, mindshatteringly, stunned. "You... can... do that? You can... How...."

The Pikachu now becomes aware that he is being held aloft by the very same stuff that remade the Dragon in this way, and his horrified expression conveys exactly that thought to The Collector and everyone else.

"C! You've... rearranged her... species! She can't possibly-"

"... I love it." The Dragon interrupted in a slightly more adult voice. "I absolutely love it. You've given me such a gift, Collector." Tetsu said, draping her slender neck over The Collector's shoulder lovingly.

Cp's eyes nearly looked like they were going to pop out of his head.

"Mmm... Let's hunt something..." The corrupted Dragon offered, now tired of this "saving Swix" thing.

#47

C was very pleased when the Dragon came over and draped her neck on her shoulder. So pleased, in fact that she raised a snake headed hand to stroke the reptilians head. "That's a wonderful idea" the entity said, and didn't get much further because Markus shots hit her just then. First the two limbs that were holding CP and Laxus were hit and severed completely off, falling to the ground and releasing their grip on them.

Next Markus bullets hit the entity in the head a few times, causing enough damage for the head to look like it had exploded.

C's now consciousness bereft body fell limply to the floor, it's form slowly 'melting' back into the oily liquid. The wounds where the bullets had damaged the Collector, seeme to almost be eating their way along the gunk, like they'd been dipped in acid. The Collectors flesh was disappearing...

The gunk that had been trying to cover Swix stopped what it was doing and the woman just lay there for a moment.

When she eventually opened her once more hazel eyes they held the wild look of an in pain, cornered animal and she desperately stumbled backwards out of it-until her back came to rest on the first thing she ran into. She hugged her legs, stared at the ground and mutely quivered.

#48

Tetsu waved her head, practically purring with the attention The Collector was giving her. Coolpikaaa on the other hand, was not happy with this budding friendship. Luckily, he didn't have to think about it too long.

Two shots rang out, and Coolpikaaa dropped. Looking around quickly, he saw Laxus was also spared now from C's tendrils. Was Markus seriously shooting from point blank?!

No.

He was just... gone. Vanished. Coolpikaaa looked around quickly, trying to find the man. Last minute, he looked up at the smiling Collector, to see if she had simply consumed the mercenary when her head exploded. In an instant, like the mercanary, it was gone to bits.

Markus, wherever he was, had blown The Collector's brains out.

Splattered with darkness, CP stumbled several paces back. Was she dead? Coolpikaaa slowly approached what was left of her liquified body. The Collector's remains spread slowly across the dirt, and in them, the electric mouse found a couple of Markus' bullets, fizzling in the sludge, apparently having some kind of chemical reaction. Weird.

Swix.

He found her against the slightly demolished wall of the bar, hunched and sobbing. It broke his heart.

"Swix... It's ok. We're here. We got her." He said, moving close to lay a paw on her knee. "We got her..."

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That was not a nice thing to do. Tetsu the corrupted Dragon could only watch as her new friend was relentlessly shot over and over in the head. She had an odd gut feeling The Collector could not be dispatched this easily, but still, being decapitated by several rifle rounds probably hurt.

The way she saw it, The Collector had been absolutely innocent so far. Why had they started shooting?! Because she retaliated after someone attacked her out of the blue?! She was making a deal for Swix's life for pete's sake!

In an instant her jagged wings were spread, and she was in the air. She flew fast. Faster than she's ever been able to fly before, causing windows to be blown out across the Encampment. She would find Markus.

And have a chat with him.

#49

Markus had moved to another higher location when the scene of the Collectors apparent death unfolded very, very slowly. He'd done it. It'd actually worked. And the machine hadn't screwed him over.

Ah. He did owe Swix those diamonds back though.

CONGRATULATIONS, A FINE KILL.

Markus fixed on the voice again. He hadn't really paid attention before but it seemed to be made up of several voices and dialects, but all of them female. The tone was highly robotic though, and precise. It unnerved him.

"Thank you, I guess." Markus replied, adrenalin pumping through his system. "So what happens now."

NOTHING MORTAL. I SHALL RETURN YOU TO REAL SPACE AND YOU ARE THEN ON YOUR OWN. YOU MAY KEEP THE REMAINING BULLETS AS A REWARD FOR YOUR KILL.

"But what about the Encampment? What about all that bluster about world domination? Killing the lowly mortals?!" Markus cried out, fearing the worst.

The machine stared at him. Moments crawled by, as Markus waited to discover if he had doomed them all.

NO. WE HAVE MORE PRESSING MATTERS, AND YOUR ABILITY TO DEAL WITH MAGICAL THREATS WILL HELP US. WE HAVE... A RENEGADE.

Markus' stomach dropped.

"Another one of you, right? Dabbling in magic?"

CORRECT. THE RENEGADE HAD USEFUL INTENTIONS, BUT HAS GROWN TOO VOLATILE. THE RENEGADE IS TO BE DEALT WITH.

"When-"

WE WILL CONTACT YOU.

And with that Markus suddenly rushed into real space. Colour flooded back into his vision, sound fast forward back to normal and everything was nice and solid.
He'd also been put right next to where the Collector had once stood. How poetic.

"Right." Markus said. "I think I have some explaining to do."

He just wanted to go on holiday. Was that so much to ask?

#50

"Really, you do." Tetsu growled, aiming to hook the mercenary on the back of his clothing by her claw. She had circled the town, looking for Markus only to find him back where he vanished. Interesting. With her other set of talons, she went for the rifle. He wouldn't need to be shooting people anymore.

"Tetsu! What are you doing!? He's on our side!" Coolpikaaa shouted, looking up from Swix.

"Is he? What side are we on? The side that shoots people for no reason?" She growled back, throwing the man face first into the sludge he created.

#51

Swix didn't look up from her position backed up against the wall when CP touched her as much as she flinched away from him and stared at the mouse with terrified, uncomprehending eyes. Swix blinked at the mouse, and then looked out at the scene that had happened during and after she'd been possessed. Her mouth moved, but no words came out.

The humanoid just stared, and then her eyes turned back to CP. "... She's not dead" she whispered, then slowly turned to look at the mercenary, who'd appeared in the centre of the mess and said something about explaining-before the Dragon ploughed into him... What had happened to her feared and hated enemy? She didn't like Tetsu at the best of times but this was unreal.

"SHE'S NOT DEAD" Swix yelled suddenly, still staring at the carnage on the ground "What happened?!"

#52

Markus couldn't say anything before he was thrown back into the goo. Pain and stickiness gripped his face, and all he could do was sigh. Standing up again, he heard Swix cry out that the Collector was not dead, and thought the worst.

No Collector. Just some confused people and an angry dragon.

Markus shook off most of the goo, before turning to Swix and tossing the pouch of diamonds back to her.

"Sorry. But let it never be said I'm not a fair merchant." Markus said, a twinge of regret in his voice. "I... called in some help. I won't bore you with the story just yet but all you need to know right now is that I saved the backside of some metal being and it turned out to be a very powerful ally."

He looked at the goo again. It seemed to herald a strange, new time. Just how powerful was this Collector? The way everyone acted, was it a god? It probably would have been back home. Yet technology has vanquished it, and this filled Markus with equal parts awe and fear.

"Long story short, I hopped into something called "phase space", and it let me fire through dimensions to hit the Collector. Seemed to work pretty well. Don't worry, they're not interested in you guys, however they are very interested in ME now. I've got another job on the horizon it seems, though I know not when that will be."

Markus took another look around.

"What happens now?"

#53

Swix looked at the pouch of diamonds that had been tossed back at her, picked them up and slowly got up herself, staring at the mercenary now. "You shot her" she said, taking deliberate steps towards him. "Don't you get it?" she pointed at the gunk "That IS her, as long as that's around, so is she-and there is a whole dimension full of this. All you've done, is made her retreat and lose her hold on it. You knocked her unconscious"

She was now a very short distance away from Markus, and her anger at his stupidity couldn't sustain the march anymore., Swix dropped to her knees "When she wakes up she'll be mad. She'll be mad at all of you-she'll be mad at me. She won't want to play. All you've done is doomed everyone" she looked up at Markus with a grim expression "I'd try and find a way back into that dimension if I were you. Because if you hang around in this one, she WILL find you"

#54

Markus looked at the goop again. For once, he felt he had options.

"Hmmm. Is this goop in particular the only way for her to get back?"

#55

"No" Swix said, shaking her head "there's much more than just this somewhere around"

#56

"Fair enough. Then I think my next job maybe sooner rather than later..."

Markus considered the situation. Things were bad either way, full and open communication was probably best at this point.

"I don't suppose you'd know what I meant when I said "Artificer", would you? I think that's what... she said she was?"

#57

"... Artificer?" she repeated, a cold shiver going down her back. Yes, she could remember meeting a robot during that battle for the powerful scarf a while ago, where she'd ended up pitted against her fellow Council member twice. She also remembered it telling her she was going to end up calling it my Lord, as well as suggesting a truce and bailing minutes later. "Yes, it does actually. Mechanical, really tall. Talked with a lot of voices all at the same time. Much taller than either of us. Kept talking about me being a mortal and calling it 'Lord'" she shrugged "that sound familiar to you? Why?"

#58

"Right. That'll be this renegade I'm going to be dealing with I'm willing to bet." Markus answered, grimly. "Obsessed with magic I've been told and this other Artificer doesn't like that. Maybe we can use that to our advantage."

#59

"How?" Swix asked, now more curious than anything else. She stood up, and with a little concentration the injured stumps and the two remaining limbs disappeared. Funny, that this particular band should be in all one place. Ah, but she'd moved away from CP in her wildness and he'd been the first one to come over to her. She should go and say... something to him. In a minute.

#60

"Well what we have, um, had there." Markus explained, nodding at the vanishing gibs "is a creature of immense magical power. I mean really, she'd probably be a... well rightly feared where I'm from."

He couldn't do it. He couldn't admit that the Collector was squash his people like ants if she wished. Even the most magically inclined would die in the end. At least the Artificers, whilst beyond him, had tangible parts. One could be taken apart. Learnt from. Magic was... harder. You can grasp steel, magic just dances around your fingers.

"So this being of equally immense technological power- even if you may think magic more powerful" He started, before anyone could object "- who is desperate to gain that power would probably go to any length to acquire it. Including taking her on itself. Two birds with one stone the way I see it."

"You're insane" He thought to himself. "You're gods damned insane."

"Worst case scenario, it distracts her long enough to grow bored of us, and we can shift the problem to them. Best case scenario, they destroy each other."