Bloodbath
Fictober18 Day 4 “Will that be all?”
Original characters
Rated: T- some violence, some language, mentions/references same sex relationship, war, bigotry, vengeance
Her skin felt too tight, her muscles twitching and jumping with useless rage. She should be sleeping, resting in preparation for the battle that lay ahead. All reports indicated that tomorrow would be the day. Officially, this was still a rescue mission. She clung to the hope that this was a rescue mission as she stared at the view screen that functioned as ‘windows’ on a star craft. Turns out, humans don’t react well to not being able to see what is on the other side of a wall for months at a time. So, she stared at the view screen that broadcast a visual representation of the sensor feeds from this side of the ship and PRETENDED it was a window. Just like she pretended that tomorrow she’d be facing the enemy and bringing her wife home.
Eventually, she gave up on sleep and hauled on her gear. If she was awake, so was her brother. Not because of any stupid mystical shit- people really loved to manufacture weird magical connections between twins- but because their brains worked the same way. Neither of them could sleep the night before a big event. Jail breaking a high security prisoner of war camp counted as a ‘big event’ by anyone’s definition.
The captain didn’t seem surprised to see her in his doorway. “Couldn’t sleep?” he asked. He was a good guy, the human that was in charge of this ship. If he’d had any complaints about adding two half-human mercs to his team at the last minute, he’d never let that show in how he treated either of them, and she knew he’d cracked down on a few crew members who’d been more vocal about their displeasure.
“Too amped up,” she answered, “I need to run through the security specs again and I don’t have the clearance to pull it up on my own.
“Oh, yeah sure,” he grabbed a tablet and accessed the files, handing it over to her. She took a few minutes to skim the blue prints of the facility and then took a more thorough look at the breakdown of the security systems, protocols, staffing, and armaments.
“We’re still confident in the intel?” she asked. She was always leery of intel, all too often it was incomplete, or out of date.
“We are,” he answered easily.
“Good. Just- tell your men to be careful of decoy checkpoints. We’ve encountered a few facilities that use them in addition to proximity alarms. The staff know which ones to use and which to avoid. Always scan a checkpoint for explosives before interfacing with it.” She held out the tablet.
“We’ve gone over that, but I will make a point to include it in the last briefing.” He took it from her hand, “will that be all?”
“Can you give me after hours clearance to the training facilities?” she stood, “if I’m going to be awake anyway, I want to be doing something productive.”
“Consider it done, I’m adding you to the scan access log now.” She nodded and he gave her a wan smile, “we have a good track record with these missions. If anyone can get her out of there, it will be us.”
“Appreciate that, Captain,” she replied, leaving him to his work.
She slammed her hand into the buzzer at her brother’s door, and within seconds, it slid open. He was already dressed, his kit bag slung over his shoulder. “We sparring or fighting?’ he asked easily as he stepped into the hall.
“We’re both healers, and pulling hits is a dangerous habit to get into,” she answered.
He grinned, “that’s what I was hoping for.”
The twins didn’t really resemble each other all that much, which wasn’t uncommon in siblings with parents of different species. They had different coloring- her skin was a soft pink that almost looked human, his a dusty purple. Her hair black, cut into a mohawk and braided down tight to her head, his a soft blond that was shorn close to his scalp. They both had slightly pointed ears, but hers stretched up, close to her skull and his jutted outward making him look aggressive. She was solidly built, but thin, compact; he was just... massive- tall, broad, heavily muscled. So, they weren’t really people you would glance at and think ‘twins’, even though they were. But that smile? The predatory, self-assured, dangerous smirk he flashed her? It was EXACTLY the same as hers.
The gym was deserted at this hour and they quickly pulled on the gear they’d be wearing on the mission, wanting to be completely comfortable with the way it fit, moved and weighed their limbs down.
“Ready?” He asked as she bounced lightly on the balls of her feet. She nodded and they started circling each other. She felt her magic stir, rippling under her skin, and saw the changes that indicated her brother was experiencing the same thing. Her vision changed, colors bleeding out, shadows starker. A tiny, malicious little giggle bubbled through her in response to the call of her power. She tapped her two batons against her legs and they powered up with a whine.
Her brother gave a soft huff- rising to the challenge and adjusting his grip on his blades.They prowled around the floor in slow rounds, each gauging the other for an opening. They’d been facing off against each other like this for decades. Mixed race children born during a war had no shortage of opportunities to fight, and they were both more aggressive than human kids, so training had started early and had been very thorough.
She let her shoulder drop. Just a fraction of an inch. But she knew he saw it and she knew he’d take it as a a falter in her stance. Moving faster and smoother than a guy his size should be able to he charged at her. He led with the big Antorian sickle knife he favored, but she knew him. That was too obvious. She ducked, rolling away just as a small, barbed throwing blade sank into the floor.
Her momentum carried her into the perfect position to swing her batons into the back of his knees and she smiled as she felt it connect. He’d been expecting it though, using the blow to send him into a spinning heel strike. It connected with her collarbone and she heard the bone snap as a star of pain exploded from the blow. Her magic surged, deadening the pain and starting to knit the bones together.
“Leechsticks?” he asked, referring to one of her favorite baton tricks, “really? You realize I’m going to be fighting by your side in a real conflict in a few hours, right?”
“Looks like you need to be better about dodging,” she countered, He gave her a small nod and ran at her again.
She parried an actual strike from that blade and the razor-sharp curve of it made short work of deflecting her baton into a very awkward angle, leaving her chest open to the foot stomp he directed at her sternum. To avoid it she had to bend back and keep her balance, so she just let the movement carry into a backflip that gave her a bit of distance. Robbed of his target, his leg overextended and left him open and unbalanced.
She slammed the butts of her batons together and they fused and expanded into a solid, slightly flexible staff as she took the few seconds he’d need to recover to burst into a sprint toward the wall, building up enough momentum to run a few steps up the wall and launch herself. The staff hit the floor with a dull thud and she whipped around it, kicking her brother squarely in the back.
She heard the grunt that told her she’d winded him, and saw the blue energy of his magic skitter over his skin, speeding up his recovery. Before he could turn to face her again, she was striking him across the back with her staff, and for several inches on either side of the impact all that pretty blue energy just blinked out, coursing through the staff to her hands.
“That’s new,” he laughed, rolling away from her and launching several darts in her direction. “Shit!,” she hissed as three of them dug into her torso. “So are those.” Sickly cold radiated out from the darts, even as she knocked them free of her flesh. Drugged. Awesome. Her magic was less than stellar against poisons, toxins, or drugs.
“Fast acting, but very temporary,” he promised, “out of your system in a hour.”
That was good to know- but the harder she worked, the faster her pulse, and the faster whatever it was he’d hit her with would spread. Already she could feel numbness starting in her belly. She had to switch tactics.
She spun her staff, moving in to strike him three times in quick succession- knee, hip, shoulder. Each contact zapped a bit of his strength, but her brother was a big guy, in prime condition, and it would take a lot more than a few strikes to take him down, even with the leeching attacks. That numbness was already wrapping around to her back and snaking down her legs. She’d lost this fight. They both knew it.
But that didn’t mean she was giving up. She surged forward, using her staff like a pole vault and clearing him. A quick twist of her wrists mid-air converted the staff into two batons once again, purple energy crackling over the dull metal surface. Instead of coming in for a hit, like he expected, she wrapped herself around him, legs coiling around his waist as she slipped both batons around her neck , holding them in place with her elbows as her hands laced around the back of his skull and she squeezed.
His knees hit the floor at almost the exact instant that her arms and legs went completely dead. The batons clattered to the floor and she heard his raspy panting as his body fought desperately to pull as much oxygen into itself as possible.
“You.... good?” he panted, still not quite recovered from the choking.
“Dunno,” she panted back, “can’t... feel... anything... below... my face.”
He scooted over to her and rested his hand on the collarbone he’d snapped. Out of the corner of her eye she could see his blue energy pulse. “You’re good,” he told her. She smiled weakly, worry starting to crowd into her mind now that the build-up of nerves and aggression had been given an outlet.
He saw the change in her face. “We’ll get her,” he pledged, “one way or another, she’s coming home with us... and you and I are going to kill every last fucker that dared to hurt her.”
“Bloodbath?” she asked, knowing that her face wasn’t even remotely human at the moment, her emotions pushing her magic to the point that her fangs were longer, pupils slitted, scelera glowing, and her tongue forked. She knew, because she saw those same changes in her brother’s face.
“Bloodbath,” he answered. “We’ll make’em pay.”
