Who the fuck is this guy again?
Gideon Husker sits across from one of his own kind. Yes, he is of a kind, a kindred borne of Ragnalon. Red Iron Patrol officer, if you want to be disgustingly official about such things. His own kind is nobody important. He thinks his name is Harrigan Drembis. Harrigan Whobis?
“Time for me to go. Give my regards to Krow, won’t ya?” says Harrigan Drembis. Harry who-gives-a-shit. Harry balls to the wall. Harry-b-gone.
Maybe we should get back on duty.
I don't need to take the shit.
No shitting?
No, no. Shit has to be taken.
Oh.
But I don't have to take the shit, you know?
Get moving, action man.
Gideon stands up and looks at the bar. The tender shifts her weight, a clear sign of discomfort. The light bears no tricks in here. She is clearly not happy. He walks up to her, holding his helmet in one hand, and his raspirator in the other.
“Amp me up.” Gideon’s tone is soft. He doesn’t want to scare the poor girl further, yet it is no use. His mere presence is enough to make her shrink, as if she were pretending to be a dorf. The girl is clearly not the actual owner of this place, perhaps a daughter or some other thing entirely.
She starts pouring him a nice cup of kyarnsoth. He notices her hand shaking, and the inevitable disaster that follows. She spills the amp, and Gideon can hear her heart pounding in her chest.
Sis is struggling.
I wonder why.
It’s obvious.
Do tell.
You’re handsome.
No way.
AND scary.
Can’t be. I'm all cuddly and shit.
You tower over her like a Neverdale troll!
She’s just short.
She’s average brego height!
A flood of tearful apologies pouring from the poor girl’s mouth all but confirm his inner turmoil. Gideon pats her on the head. She’s taken aback by this sudden show of kindness, staunching the torrent coming from her eyes.
“You’re not mad, bronze?”
Whatever you do, don’t laugh.
I’m going to laugh.
No, don’t.
Condescending laughter, incoming.
STOP!
Gideon laughs, not too hard. He stifles some of it, but the damage is done. The tyoung bartender wipes the tears from her eyes, and crosses her arms, her expression now one of indignation. “What’s so funny, bronze?”
Her tone is a bit more abrasive than she intended. For a moment, she forgot she was talking to an officer of Red Iron Patrol. As another apology almost makes it out, Gideon disarms her with words.
“You’re too cute to be mad at.”
Forget about indignation. Bar tender girl is all flustered, turning away from Gideon sharply to hide the intense blush that threatens to consume her entire face.
What the hel is that dripping noise? Is there a sudden leak somewhere?
“Anyway, I’ll pass on the 'soth. Have a nice day, lass.”
Gideon turns to walk away, but is stopped by small hands tugging on his arm. It’s the bar tender, holding an amped up bottle.
“On the house for the road.” she says bashfully, handing him the bottle without looking directly at him.
“Thank you, sprog.”
Gideon takes the bottle gingerly, and gives the young lady another pat on the head. As he leaves, she runs to the bathroom for some reason.
There it is again. Is there a waterfall around here that I’m not aware of?
Stepping outside, Gideon immediately feels something is off.
Me?
Yes me?
Something's wrong.
The night air is warmer than it should be. The streets of Whiplash may be protected from the outside, but something has gone wrong. Husker can feel the warmth of struggle, and he puts on his raspirator and helmet. Safety first.
ᛸᚾᛠᛄᚻᛟᚱᚻᚨᚨᛊᛊᛟᛗᚦᛸᛝᚹᛸᚲᛖᛞᚻᚨᛊᚨᛚᚱᛖᛞᛣᚲᚥᛗ
A warm sensation in his covered nostrils. A hunch in his gut. A scent besieges his metaphysical olfactory, and he can't ignore it. He strides with haste over to his patrol vehicle in an irregular pattern, a sudden brain froth overtaking his senses.
Where is it...?
It passes like a blush on a pog's ass. Gideon plummets like a sad meteor into the driver's seat, stuck in a deep thunk.
Trouble breeds...but where?
Gideon takes a few sniffs, his raspirator is no obstacle. He is ready to track, ready to hunt. There is too much thrashing happening somewhere, and he is on the case. After a moment of DEEP ranging, the Runes guide him.
ᚦᛖᚻᛟᚱᛗᛟᚾᛊᛟᛉᛇᛖᛏᛣ
The interceptor screams towards the local whore monopoly. Gideon is possessed, craving vengeance, like a deviant craves skidmarks in the shitter.
Whiplash isn't ready for this arbiter of vengeance. Seeing an R.I.P interceptor fully committed to the hunt, someone might've swooned into a coma. Godspeed, indeed.
His feverish quest is in sight. In the distance, a ziggurat is visible. A statue on its top, a dedication to the whore queen herself, Ishtar. Her sensual, yet threatening combat stance is visible even this far away. Yet the distance is closing.
You know what Gideon?
What?
I mean, like...man, fuck that building.
...
You know?
You're on to something there.
You should get on it.
I'm going to get on it.
Don't slow down.
I won't slow down, I am turbo man.
Slam into that fucking building.
Show it who's boss!
Fuck yeah, I am boss.
Big boss.
Biggest boss.
Titanic boss.
Woah, take it easy.
Chill.
Let's not go crazy here.
That building has been a bad architecture.
Give it a spank!
Gideon gingerly slams his foot on the go-pedal, forcing it to the floor with a thud. The interceptor picks up speed at an alarming rate. It was going fast before, but in a cool way. We're getting into concerning territory, the velocity that accidents are made of.
Oh yeah, that's turbo.
That's right, speed up.
Get ready to harpass on my signal.
What's the signal?
My finger in your bum.
Gideon looks at his own finger, not paying attention to the rapidly approaching ziggurat ahead of him. The glove is coloured to give the illusion of a fingerless gauntlet. Armor plates, one attaches to the backhand, the other on top of the forearm with nuxlar segments beneath.
Which finger?
The thumb.
Brutal.
That might hurt.
Does it?
Gideon snaps back to reality, and performs a harpass so extreme, the interceptor goes flying. The car slams against the solid wall like a splattered pie. It slides back down, and lands upside down.
Get back to work.
The pain train can't go without its conductor!
CHOO CHOO!
Gideon struggles to keep himself conscious. It's only thanks to his armor-plated, nuxlar-infested uniform that he didn't get drubbed. Yet everything hurts, in that special way where movement is harder than the pecks on a manticore.
Gideon, get up!
Gideon does not get up. Not even inner him responds to inner himself. He just lies there, basically a dead person. Something he can only roleplay. Death is not a permanent thing for Ragnalonians.
Fuck it, we ball!
Gideon feels his arm reaching for something in a compartment. It's been smushed a bit, but the item his muscle memory seeks has a sharp needle. He stabs it into his throat, and feels a surge of pain all over his body. Bones crack back into place, muscles shake themselves whole, and internal bleedings cease and desist.
With that sorted; YOU FUCKER!
Gideon starts twitching, then he throws himself out of the crashed interceptor hardcore. He's a wizard of self-harm. A master of pummel-based flagellation. The hurt dancer. He even punches himself in the groin. The cod piece doesn't stop his mighty blows, so much so that he has to remove the bent piece of nuxlar when he's done. Then one final punch against his armored head, which sends him flying backward. He lands prone on his back.
Get up.
His head tilts up, as if an invisible force lifts it by the chin. Some random vagabond witnesses all of this, and from that day forth, swears off tromatosh forever...which is next monday, funnily enough.
We're throbbing with VENGEANCE!
Gideon's punches himself in the head one last time, somehow managing to bruise himself despite wearing a helmet. Impressive concussive force.
"Right," he rises to his feet, and dusts off his armoured uniform, none the worse for wear. "duty doth beckon."
The building is quiet. Too quiet. Unnaturally quiet. Dead silence so great that Husker thinks he can pick up the faintest riff in the distance. This tells him that his interceptor is truly dead. He killed it. Murderer. Assassin. Hooligan.
He shakes his head, and unholsters his pistol. Carefully, he takes tactical steps towards the entrance. They won't know what hit them.
The doors are bent. They were punched open by mechanical fists. Hardly any noise. Faint tears of despair come from within.
"Over the hills and far away...Bubblebutts come to play."
He hums the tune to one of his favourite old kinder-shows to himself as he braces himself for entry. The steps he takes are coordinated, the height of strategy! They might seem erratic and kind of ludicrous to the casual viewer. Make not those mistakes. Gideon Husker moves with precision only seen in the most dire circumstances. Inside the ziggurat, a gruesome scene says hello.
Bodies contorted, twisted. Broken beyond belief. The berserker security detail has the worst of it. A spine bent backwards, the head shoved where the sun never shines.
Impressive.
The sickly sweet stench of sexual deviancy mixed with the carnage penetrates Husker’s raspirator. Despite its best efforts at filtering out the sweaty miasma, there is no stopping this amount of sin. Every sensual act has been committed here, and there is no taking any of it back. Noticing movement from his periphery, Gideon walks tactically to the receptionist area, and rings the bell on the counter.
A hand shoots up from behind the counter, and drags up a sorry sight. A man with an opened, fat belly, necromantic pipes leaking like guts, spewing red-gold liquid all over the floor. Somebody mistook this man's preg-vat belly implant for a gift wrapped up in thin, stretched out flesh and ripped him open like a balloon animal.
“Why do you ring the bell, bronze!?!”
"You've been bumfucked dry."
The man says nothing to Gideon's mastery over the obvious. He merely clutches the empty space where his hopes and dreams once gestated.
Husker nods his head towards the carnage. The receptionist starts crying. Actually, more like sobbing uncontrollably. So crying plus.
"What happened to that one?" Gideon points at a corpse frozen on all fours, like a dog. The groin has a small, round hole in it, and his cranium is completely open, grey matter and skull shards splattered all over the wall. Gideon looks back at the receptionist, waiting for an answer.
“He fucked his brains out!” the receptionist faints, landing in a puddle of his own tears...and necromantic goo from his belly, of course.
Hello me.
...
It's me again.
Cringe.
We need to talk.
What is it?
Brains have been fucked out.
Yep.
That's good to know.
How?
Confirmation.
No shit?
True shit.
It's him.
It's really him.
Him is he.
He is-
-him!
ᛊᛚᚨᛗᛞᚥᚾᚲᚨᚾ
Smeg!
Melrack!
Slaanger!
SKAG!
Cock your pistol.
Gideon cocks his blaster.
Nice.
Thanks.
Rock and roll.
Time to blast.
The receptionist rises up again, clumsily. He almost slips on his own wasted potential, holding on to the reception table for dear life.
"Where is your unwanted guest?"
“Down in the dollhouse, over there...just follow the corpses." the man points to a hallway littered with corpses. Husker starts towards it, but the man puts a hand on his wrist.
“Please…if you are the real deal, heed my plea.”
Husker shrugs. Of course he is the real deal. More real is not possible, his red-iron blood makes sure of that.
“He stole my sister. Ripped her right out of me. Please…promise you'll save her.”
There is a pregnant pause between the two men. Gideon jerks his hand away. He stares the man down, all the way to his belly...which is no longer pregnant, unlike the pause earlier.
"The real deal doesn't make promises, he makes progress." The man fondles the devastation on his belly as Gideon leaves him to his sorrows, the necromantic goo escaping in rhythm to his tears...and his pulse. He should probably seek medical attention. Gideon sends out a ping for a necromancer just in case.
Here we go again.
The bent, violated door opens up as wide as it can with the damage it has sustained from his fists. It beckons Gideon down. On the wall is an advertisement, only a few days old.
"Want to add some spice to your blood-play? Our rigdolls now come with ethanol infused gore! Come and enjoy a new era of boozing!"
Gideon attention is snatched away from the ad by a foreboding sound coming from below...like someone is squeezing fruit.He enters the bottom of the stairs, into the room proper.
The Rigid, a room where necromancers, voltaires and loraleys work in unison to make rigdolls. They hang in their “sleeping” bags, plastic sheaths wrapped around them until a day comes they should be needed for whatever reason.
That desperate drinking sound, now mixed with frustrated growls, becomes louder and more intense as he gets further in. Husker follows the angry noises, and finally confronts the object of his sudden metaphysical obsession.
A dorf, his robotic claws holding the severed head of a rigdoll over his bearded face. The cadaver's neck-hole is propped over his gaping maw, and he squeezes it like it were fruit. Artificial blood drips down into his mouth. He has, evidentially, already crushed the head dry of most of its gory contents.
"I take it you saw their new ad, Slam Duncan?"
The dorf's teeth gnash as he put on his raspirator, holding the head by the bald scalp with his claws. Slowly, he turns around, a mad glint in his eyes.
"Husky..." Duncan's voice is a lovingly hateful sneer, tinged with flanged metal because of the raspirator. Gideon keeps his blaster trained on the dorf. Thanks to the size difference, he has to aim down substantially.
Hey me.
What now?
Duncan isn't looking too hot.
Of course not. I am much more handsome than he.
That's not what I meant!
Oh?
He's edging on frenzied.
Oh no.
Oh yes.
"Take it easy, Duncan."
Gideon says this, as one berserker to another. He can tell that Duncan's frenzy is reaching the danger zone. He knows what is coming.
"This shit isn't even forty-percent!" Duncan SLAMS his fist against the adjacent wall, creating a dent in the solid metal. There is a moment of tense, echoing silence. The two men stare each other down. For Gideon that is literal, eclipsing the dorf in size by gigantic margins.
Yellow eyes slowly turning glowing cyan against silvery eye lenses. Moisture drips down from the ceiling, and it's not water. It's sexual juice, from up high.
Drip...
Drip...
Drip...
"HEADS UP!"
Gideon squeezes the trigger right as Duncan tosses the severed head, which hits the much taller man in the groin. The muzzle flash is an angry flare of magenta, lighting up the dim room with a spark of violence. The shot misses.
"Motherfu-!"
Slam Duncan has already closed the gap and delivered a punch straight to Gideon's groin, this time crushing his cod-piece. The larger man collapses like a giant from fables, and Duncan wastes no time, leaping on to his chest and pummelling him with a flurry of metallic blows.
Gideon kicks Duncan off, and leaps up to punch him. Duncan's frenzied reflexes grab the punch mid delivery, and he uses the momentum to toss Gideon through the ceiling, out of the Ziggurat and on to the street outside.
