if we're doing destiny but star wars and freezing drifter in carbonite (stasis) then I'm allowed to imagine soggy trembling drifter getting rescued by eris
Capt. Jack Sparrow and Capt. Hector Barbossa - frenemies forever
UPD - I drew a bunch of the new PoTC arts and I added them to the post. Cursed sketch included (yeah, Barbossa is my favorite)
The Drifter tells a story. Frontier was wild times.
Art by @microraptorreactor!
Link to Ao3 if you prefer to read it there
Please note: this story was inspired by this reblog from several people on my timeline including @drifterslittlemuffin @savyir-genesizz-the-wizard and @zillah975 Thank you for bringing me inspiration and delight!
Ok so I'm on the Tangled Shore, right? Pre-Red War, Pre-Great hunt, Pre-Great Disaster, Pre-Twilight Gap. I'm following up on a lead for something I needed to know about, so I'm doin' odd jobs, keeping my head down, making sure I pay my protection money so I don't get ganked for having too few arms and not enough eyes and I'm doing oil changes on skimmers for a two-bit junkyard chop shop run by a Fallen goes by the name of Pa-n'Keek. Anyone speakin' not-Eliksni calls him Pancake. He knows what it means but he figures our mouths are too soft to pronounce it properly so he's fine with it.
Anywho, random day, I'm half-covered in a combination of oil and Ether, and Pancake calls me up front. At his desk are three Fallen, two Cabal and an Awoken man named Marik. Can tell, just by lookin' at 'em they're smugglers. Bad news. My kinda people. Pancake asks me if I ever been a ship's engineer. I say no. He's like, "Great news!" and I'm suddenly on Marik's crew. I wasn't really asked about it but the pay was decent and Pancake wasn't exactly someone you say no to. He worked very close with Spider and Spider pretty much ran the Tangled Shore so if Pancake said I was a ship's engineer now, I was a ship's engineer.
So I pack up my tools and show up where I'm told. Marik says we've got a shipment lined up, hot item, needs to be delivered to Ganymede and we're leaving in under an hour and also make sure I got some electromagnetic shielding because I'm gonna need it. I don't know what in the hell that's for but Pancake's got some and he sells it to Marik and then they got me in the belly of this freighter called the Dancing Loon. I'm there with all my junk and they bring in this shipping crate. It's a small thing, like the size of a dinner table.
Dunno what's in it but it is spiking all the resistance meters and has me scrambling to get it stabilized. How in the hell they managed to even get it there without it cracking open I don't know. But I do some tweaks real quick, hot-wire a few capacitors together and divert enough juice from the backup engines to run it and bam! One eleoctromagnetically shielded cursed cargo, as requested. It's unstable as fuck and I keep having to swap out components as they melt but it's good enough, and off we go.
Crate has no markings on it. Like none. And the way the insides keep shifting like something inside wants out, I don't wanna know what the fuck is going on. I just keep tweaking the electrical, swapping in bits when they blow to maintain that shit, and hope we get where we're goin' before I run out of spare parts.
Seems like we're doing ok until we get stopped by the Awoken blockade.
Now, we ain't supposed to be stopped by the Awoken blockade. That is not how this is supposed to go. These guys are professionals, or so I was told. They're supposed to have paid the right people off.
Marik calls me into his cabin, tells me to strip. I tell him that ain't the kinda engineer I was expectin' to be. He gives me his (admittedly pretty nice) clothes and puts on my greasy ether-stained shit and sends me over as the "Captain" to negotiate with the Awoken.
You can imagine I do not like this plan at all. Turns out Marik's home port, as it were, was the Prison of Elders, and him showing his face near any Awoken military would be suicide, same with the rest of his crew. I was the only one that didn't have my face in the register so I needed to go over and play legitimate businessman while Marik and his crew got inspected as my "staff."
Did I like this idea? No, I did not. Did I have a choice? Also no.
So I go on over, unarmed, in civilian clothes, with an armed escort and meet the Awoken Commander on a full-on Battleship, bringin' Marik's sloppy-ass paperwork with me. She's grillin' me over the coals on protocol and I'm tellin' her I don't know shit about shit, I pay people to do my taxes for me and I have a permit.
I play my part and they start makin' me fill out forms, talking about what fines will be levied on my ass for the crime of bein' a Human in Awoken space when all of a sudden the inspectors that got sent over stop responding and the Dancing Loon up and takes off at a dead run into deep space.
I do what any self-respectin' patsy would do at that point.
I point at the receding ship and go "Hey! They're stealin' my ship! Those fuckers! This is mutiny! You aren't just gonna let them do that are you?"
Ion cannons are firing warning shots. Fighters are scrambling. Commander's yelling orders. Battleships ain't exactly the most maneuverable of spacecraft, but soon enough we're in a high-speed police chase with Marik's crew gunnin' it for Ganymede and an entire Awoken squadron behind.
But the thing is, I know something the Awoken space cops don't know. That freighter is actually two ships, a little one inside of a big one and the little one can detach and bugger off super fast if it needs to, leaving everything else behind. And if they do that and take the cursed cargo then that capacitor field is not gonna hold so dollars to donuts they're gonna leave it behind. Which means the squadron's gonna find the highly illegal contents of the bigger ship, and this here 'legitimate businessman' is gonna be left holdin' the bag, which will probably get me a free one-way ticket to the Prison of Elders. Not my idea of a good time.
So I tell the Commander, "Hell. I got insurance. Light 'em up. This is piracy at this point. That's punishable by death, right? Blow 'em to smithereens!"
And this Awoken Commander? Someone must'a pissed in her breakfast that mornin' because she is all for it. Bloodthirsty and angry (and, thankfully, no longer directed at me). She tells her crew to quit with the warning shots and open fire on that freighter with full ion cannons, and tells her fighters to start takin' kill shots, no longer looking to run 'em down.
And you'd think that'd be it, right? Either they get away and I'm screwed or my new Awoken friends vaporize my old new friends into space dust, right?
But no, because they got close enough to Ganymede and what was waitin' just behind Ganymede where the gravitational pull would mess with sensors enough for them to be invisible until we were close, is a whole-ass Cabal Warship.
At this point my nope-o-meter is goin' haywire and all I can think of is I need to be somewhere that ain't here, so I start figuring out my exit strategy. See if I can run off in an unattended jump ship or somethin'.
Sure enough, Awoken coming in guns blazin' is not conducive to a peaceful encounter with the fucking Cabal. Warship starts immediately taking shots at the Squadron, includin' the Battleship I am on, while simultaneously bein' real interested in the Dancing Loon and ol'Drifter's sittin' here thinkin' that cargo bein' cursed was not a figurative expression.
Awoken Commander turns to me askin' what the fuck the Cabal want with my ship and I tell her with complete honesty that I have no idea, because I don't. But at this point she ain't buyin' it and gets two of her crew to arrest me and throw me in the brig.
And while in normal circumstances Drifter doesn't mind two sets of Awoken hands on him (most of 'em are not hard on the eyes, ya know?), these two were armed and dangerous and cuffed my hands behind my back and then marched me down a corridor to an elevator to toss my ass in a cell.
So there I am in an elevator, wonderin' how I managed to go from oil changes on the Reef to this in the space of less than 24 hours, when there's a big jolt, the lights go out, and all three of us hear the absolute last thing you ever wanna hear when you are in a spaceship.
Silence.
Engines are off. HVAC is off. No mechanical nothing. And then we start to float because the Antigrav is gone too.
I turn to my two newest friends and tell 'em "Look, I don't wanna die here and neither do you. Let me out of these cuffs so I can help and we can all survive together because if this ship's mechanical and electrical are hard down we really, really, do not want to be where we are bein' right now."
One of 'em agrees. The other one doesn't. They're arguing and the whole ship seems to shift sideways and starts making a low grinding groaning sound, the kind that metal makes when it's bein' made to do something metal doesn't wanna do.
Well, that does it and they let me go. We climb out of the vent at the top and start making our way up the elevator shaft. We get back out on one of the decks and find some emergency helmets. It's a standard issue Awoken ship so they're everywhere. Good thing too because not five minutes later the hull is breached and we three start grabbin' on to anything we can to keep from bein' sucked down the hallway into what is undoubtedly low orbit above Ganymede at this point.
One of my new friends doesn't pick something sturdy enough. He goes flyin' off out into deep space, leaving me and my one last Awoken military friend. She and I find a room with a door, climb inside and shut it so we can stop being sucked out into space for a little bit while the Battleship is careening around like a chicken with it's head cut off.
And where do we find ourselves? Some sort of officer's mess or fancy entertainin' spot. It's got a observation deck with big windows, some nice tables, a fish tank, and a full bar. Very fancy. And there, we see it through the big ass fancy windows: the Dancing Loon, that little freighter I was the 'engineer' for, held in one of them giant ship-sized pincers the Cabal use for planetary-level ore harvesting.
Freighter's cracked open sideways down the middle like a egg, an' poured out of it as though it was made from glowin' ink or somethin', shimmering against the backdrop of space, is the biggest freakiest thing I ever seen in all my lives. Knew what it was when I saw it even though I never seen one alive before that. I didn't know they could even get that big.
Head like a weird four lobed flower, opened up all teeth an' eyes. Body like some sorta fucked up giant cat. Long lizard tail. Big fucking claws. Massive Ahamkara wish dragon hangin' on to the front end of the Cabal Warship like it was perched on a log or somethin'.
I dunno what the Awoken Commander did, or if it was even her, but at this point, the Battleship we're on somehow manages to kick into axillary power, which means the ion canons are also powered back on. Some idiot, instead of getting us the fuck out of this nightmare, decides the smart thing to do at this point is to take a shot at the otherwise preoccupied-with-Cabal dragon.
Awoken fighter pilots in their little ships, the ones that are still left, start swarming at it, shooting it up.
Might as well be flingin' peas at a house cat.
Thing reaches out one hand, grabs one of them small Awoken ships like it was a little bird in its fist, crushes it and then turns and - I am not joking here, this is no exaggeration - it took a bite out of the Cabal Warship. Like a straight up bite and tore a huge chunk off.
Cabal bodies are flyin' into space. Awoken Battleship is firing at both the dragon and the Cabal. Cabal are firing at both the dragon and the Awoken. I'm quite sure at that point there aint' no more crew left alive on the Dancing Loon. Me and my newest Awoken friend turn to look at each other in complete confusion at what we are watching happen in space on the other side of these fancy windows and she goes: "Did that thing come from your ship?"
And I tell her I don't know nor do I know how it could even fit if it was.
And of course, this is when my newest friend decides I'm full of shit. I saved her life twice at this point but no, she points her gun in my face and starts yellin'.
I start backing up and tell her to calm down and I'm as much a victim of this situation as she is, but she don't buy it. Meanwhile, as she's yellin' at me she's got her back to the action. You know that fighter the giant-ass Ahamkara crushed? I guess it gets tired of being poked by the Battleship ion cannons and sees movement or something from my friend right at the window. I don't know. But the dragon throws that mashed up fighter ship right at us. Just as my newest Awoken friend is screaming on how she's gonna kill me, the fancy windows catch the dragon's new softball and the crumpled fighter comes crashing through that observation deck glass, sucking the lady with the gun out into space along with tables, chairs, champagne glasses and fancy Awoken fish. I seen it coming and held on to the nearest sturdiest thing, which just so happened to be the very well stocked and elaborate bar.
Old habits die hard, I guess. Drifter's still a bar tender even in the middle of a three-way space battle watching a dragon eating a Cabal Warship.
Whoever is piloting the Awoken Battleship at this point has clearly lost their sanity because they aim what's left of the vessel at the Ahamkara and try to get their barely functioning axillary power engines up to ramming speed.
This makes a lot of noise and manages to get the dragon's attention. And what does the dragon do? Run away? Nope. Let the two ships smash and eat whatever falls out like pickin' up ants? Nope. It turns and I swear it grins with that four-lobed face it has, and it jumps.
It launches off the Cabal Warship straight for the Awoken Battleship, which is the ship that I am currently on at this point. And one that, as soon as I realize there is a giant-ass fucking wish dragon coming to party, I very much would prefer to no longer be a passenger of.
So there's a giant Ahamkara flying through space that I am watching through the broken windshield of this observation deck as I am trying not to get sucked out into space. I got no weapons. No armour. Synthweave and a helmet and some fancy clothes and that's it, and I look around me to see what the hell I can do for myself in this very not good situation.
It's a bar. I'm a bartender. I look where I'd normally look for the little canisters for CO2 for the bubbly water. There's two of 'em. I grab 'em both, one under each arm, and I stop trying to fight to avoid getting sucked out into space. I get blown out and let the momentum carry me, then I open one end of the seltzer bottles point it a little to the side of the Awoken ship, and scootch out of the way of the incoming Dragon. I then turn it and point it at a different angle, and putt putt putt my way along with no tether through the powers of alcoholic bubbly to the ripped up and mangled space ship that is not currently playing host to a giant Ahamkara wish dragon.
Dragon lands on the Awoken Battleship and starts tearing it up, biting chunks out like it did with the Cabal one, and I manage to aerate my own ass through the big hole that same dragon recently tore out of the Cabal Warship, which, as you know, is not the healthiest place to be in in most situations, never mind one where you're unarmed in the middle of a space battle between two big-ass military ships and a huge-ass dragon.
Thankfully, ol'Drifter's been on a few Cabal ships in his time, picked up enough of a smattering of Ulurant along with enough basic engineering that he could read a floor plan and find the spot they launch out the Cabal Balls that our Guardians have such a strong tendency to get squished by in the field. I sneak down, jump in and push the button, get jettisoned in the Drop Pod, away from one of the biggest shit shows of all my lives, down to the surface of Ganymede.
Spent six months finding a research outpost and then another three waiting for a supply ship to hop away on. Never saw any of the crew from the Dancing Loon again, or anyone else from that whole mess neither. I figure they all bit it when the dragon got out. My guess is the Ahamkara was probably what was inside the weird unmarked box with the electromagnetic stabilizer that I was powering from the engines of the smaller ship they probably tried to divert all power to in order to escape in. If only they'd had a ship's engineer on board to tell them not to do that.
Eventually went back to find Pancake on the Tangled Shore to ask him what the actual fuck. He wasn't there no more. Went to Spider myself. Spider told me he had no memory of what in the hell I was talkin' about, that nobody there knew anyone named Pancake, they never had, and that neither did I.
I looked him straight in all four of his eyes and told him he was right. Ether does strange things to Human anatomy and I clearly had a few too many in his bar the other night and was tripping balls.
We all agreed it must have been a wild ride. And then we never discussed it again.
video games will give you two options which is the “male “ voice which is just some dude and the “female” voice which is one of the best performances you’ve ever heard in your life
listen to me. listen to me closely. rhys and fiona are the same character. they’re the same character. except rhys is more punchable and fiona is better at getting away unscathed. listen to me
- stubborn
- stupid
- constantly saying/doing ridiculous things with pure confidence
- 100% convinced they’re the smartest one in the room
- genuinely atrocious at social interactions and thinks they aren’t no matter how many social interactions they fuck up
- motivated by power/money
- full of love for their friends and will 0-100 You are nothing i hate you -> You are my best friend ever -> You are nothing i hate you actually -> I lied i’m so glad i went on this beautiful adventure with you
- full of so much love for their friends they say genuinely deranged things to say abt random ppl ur age you knew for like two days to two weeks (we’ll go together, like a family!)
- I know i already said full confidence but they’re so convinced they’re normal when they’re actually weirdos it’s so fun
- morally grey (in fun contrasting directions, w fiona directly conning people and rhys being more of a cog in the machine of hyperion)
- also both of them can optionally kill people who have betrayed them which is fun
also. they both finger guns at people the same way
tangentwithtanner
blakekathryn
titsay
kaledo-art
