Coalition RP

[Spackle]

Spline - Mercy


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Mercy Island hadn't gotten any less nasty in the weeks since Spline had last set foot on it. Arachnos was technically in charge here, which meant that the Spider soldiers stood around on their fortress walls and laughed at the carnage below. Gang members hunted each other through the burned-out buildings and the Snakes picked off stragglers in the streets. What passed for law enforcement, the Rogue Island Police, treated their prey just as brutally as any other gang. The Spider liked it that way. Every batch of prisoners that Arachnos "liberated" from Paragon City got dumped on Mercy to take their chances with the rest of the garbage. Anybody that survived long enough to get away might be worth a second look.

Spline did his best to avoid all of them, trusting his guide bot to find a safe path to his next assignment. Blackie had a nose for the cover of walls and alleyways. Even so, Spline could expect a half-dozen passing shots to come his way every time he crossed what used to be the center of town. Once they'd made it to a Snake lair, a couple stories underground and away from the constant fighting, then Spline could be sure that none of the shots had actually hit him. He felt too much pain on the surface sometimes to tell whether any of it might be his own.

Clearing the Snakes from their caves was the easy part. Spline called in one of his home-built, stupid drones for extra firepower and to draw attention off himself and Blackie; then it was almost like being on a team again. Wielding a rifle still felt a little strange to him, but his aim was nearly as good as his drone's, thanks to the autotargeting system he'd nicked off a Crey sniper. Snakes were tough and absorbed a lot of shots, but when enough beams got through their thick hides they stayed down. The sapper rifles he'd modified left them convulsing impressively, their claws digging ruts in the cave floors and their lashing tails throwing sand and rocks everywhere. Spline hoped if anyone came to check on the place, they'd see the mess and not wonder too much why there weren't any dead Snakes mixed up in it.

Worst were what they called the Infected, who were nothing but thugs driven crazy from drinking out of the cesspools on Mercy's northwest shore. Mostly they were common criminals from the Zig who'd got the idea into their heads that the poisonous water would give them superhuman powers. They filled up shantytowns all over Mercy Island, so that Spline's stomach was constantly knotted from their nausea. When he got too close to a pack of them, the tearing cramps would double him over, worse than anything he'd felt from Andy even at the height of her morning sickness. Lucky for him the Infected were too weak to be really dangerous. They just lay about in a preoccupied haze, easy prey for hungry Snakes or anyone else who wanted a little target practice.

The newer ones that could still move would often break into unguarded buildings, though they'd just stand around inside, having forgotten what to do next. They even attacked half-heartedly, like they'd been given two weeks' notice from Evildoers Inc. and were just marking time till they cleaned out their desks. Spline soon gave up using his rifle on them and let his combat drones handle the firing. If taking out a warehouse of Infected proved anything about skill or intelligence or fighting ability, he couldn't see it. Maybe Arachnos gave out these jobs just to find out who didn't mind shooting down defenseless opponents, or who was willing to do any dirty job for an easy few bucks.

Most of the Infected seemed almost grateful to collapse when the drones' stunning beams hit home. A few made it past the drones and into melee range, and Spline caught those with a gentle nerve hold and eased them down to the filthy ground. If they'd only been drinking the water for a few days, as most of the mobile ones had, the changes were still within his power to undo. His victims lay beneath his hands, glaring up with glowing pinprick eyes, helpless to fight back as Spline opened himself and pulled the sickness out of them. When he straightened up, Blackie knew to move in with a Longbow capture tag in claw for each of them. They'd wake up offshore, in Longbow custody and clean, and as long as the building got emptied, so-called Doctor Creed didn't need to know exactly how it happened.

Later that night, Spline joined his guide bot on all fours on a secluded pile of rubble, retching up glowing green ooze until his back muscles screamed. When he could stand up again, he leaned on Blackie like a crutch and let himself be led back to Chum Island. It wasn't much more than a rock sticking up out of the salt water, but it was dry, and far enough away from Mercy that nobody else's pain could reach him there.

They landed round back of the island on a tiny patch of sand screened from Mercy's lights and the Arachnos patrol copters that haunted the shoreline. Spline's spare battle drones still stood where he'd hidden them beneath a layer of trash and flotsam. Blackie helped steady him while he relieved himself into the low surf that hissed at their feet. Curled up in the shelter of the stone, Spline took off his goggles and the voice pickup stuck beneath the angle of his jaw, and spoke to the bright blue blur of Blackie's visor looking back at him in the dark. "Hey boy, what would I do without you, huh." The bot's tail thumped in the sand at his words.

He washed his mouth out and drank a little pure water from Blackie's reservoir. Blackie tried to press one of Stay's granola bars into his hand too, but Spline's stomach was still cowering from puking. He stowed the bar back in Blackie's belly compartment and stroked the bot's armored head. "Later," he promised the blue light. He'd find a way off Mercy soon enough, get them a proper hideout. Till then, a little thing like hunger wouldn't kill him.

Above the black ocean, the night sky blazed with stars, more than he could ever see over the lights of Paragon City and its war walls. He wondered what Kapria might say to that if he showed her.






From: spaniafc@mc.longbow.fc
To: regoff@mc.longbow.fc
03-13-2008 07:06:22
Subj: Sgt - You need to see this

Maybe you heard that Guardian Cheval in patrol 14 got jumped from behind the other day? Nothing happened to her, thank God, she just woke up a couple hours later. Not a scratch on her. Odd thing is, nothing was missing except her whole supply of capture tags. Check this out, the same thing just happened to Jen Laredo. Knocked out, woke up, all her tags were gone. Her partner never saw a thing. Somebody might be trying to set Longbow up for a fall. Just thought you ought to know.

att: Event Report (14mc072030908)
att: Event Report (08mc014031308)




From: spaniafc@mc.longbow.fc
To: regoff@mc.longbow.fc
03-19-2008 10:23:46
Subj: At it again

Well, our capture tag bandit is at it again, only this time he left us a present. Literally, a present. He hit Parker this morning at the end of her shift. Her squad pulled her out from behind a dumpster. She woke up good as new, tags gone, and he put a rock in her ammo pouch instead, all wrapped up. Big one too. Here's a picture of the box it came in. Check out the love note. Is this guy sick or what?

att: Event Report (03mc036031908)

Image: A flattened take-out box from Happy Dragon, laid out alongside a loop of narrow red ribbon that had tied it closed. Beside the box is a dark red ruby the size of a quail egg. Scrawled on the side of the box in red Sharpie is a short note:

blood ruby- danger- plz destroy. thx for tags. Love u.

Signed with three x's and a tiny heart.
_________________
Asaduran: Hey, you ever had sex while on fire?
Warlock of Enhasa: Nope. You?
Spackle: Yeah...
Asaduran: Spack, I didn't know you were fire-proof?
Spackle: Me? I ain't.
Spackle: Wouldn' be much of a lover in this town if'n I gave up that easy.