I won't lie though, it felt good to be electrocuted instead of needles stabbing into my bone or a whip ripping through my skin. Electricity is energy, after all, and as a biotic, I can handle more than most. I was just thankful that my new ARM wasn't damaged and that I could still see despite fried ocular implants.
I had been electrocuted to death before. I'm not saying it's pleasant, but there are worse ways to die. I'll tell you all about my many deaths another time.
This time, I didn't die, physically. A little part of me died though when I floated away from the ceiling, hearing only the raucous laughter of @auroraloon, doubled over, crying and squirming as she lost herself in her world of hilarity. Why she thinks violence is so funny I just don't know. I think maybe she's too smart for most jokes. She later admitted to me that a little pee came out, but let's just keep that between us.
After I came to my senses, I managed to grapple my way back to the staircase. @auroraloon was taking forever and not very helpful, so I decided to leave her behind.
"I wish you could have seen yourself," she squealed, making bizarre laughing snorts and sniffles as she laughed. "Ziiiip! And then." She clapped her hands together. "You." She wheezed. "Splat."
I walked down the stairway, holding the railing, charred, stained, sore, and exhausted. I hadn't died yet as a Vanquisher, but I was starting to wonder if that was a good thing.
She caught up to me on Level 8. By then I was starting to get a better handle on the grappling hook. Just like the glen10, I just needed to underthink it and follow my instincts. I knew she had found me because as soon as she saw my charred body, she burst out laughing again.
"You." She spat, breaking into another wheezing fit. "Frrrrrrr," she made an electrocution noise, holding Sango steady with two hands in front of her, while she shook her body like she was being electrocuted and laughed over and over, sending her flannel shirt flowing to the sides around her. "Frrrrrrrrr." She did it again, shocking herself once more, and then slapped her knee.
This was getting annoying and counterproductive, so I had to abandon her again.
@auroraloon caught up to me again on Level 5, our destination, the level of Flipper that was jammed full of plastic wrapped bedding and pillows. I stared at the sea of comfort and rejoiced. If we were going to survive heavy impact, this was the place to do it.
"Rest in peace," I said aloud.
She slapped me on the shoulder, which hurt quite a bit actually. Electrical burns are not to be taken lightly.
"Where's that positive attitude?" she snickered.
"High voltage must have fried my funny bone," I somberly noted.
She looked out over the many pillows on our left, the rolling waves of softness. "Oh, I get it," she blurted out. "High. Because you were high up on the ceiling when you went frrrrrrrrr." She shook my shoulder as she said it, and when I yelped she only laughed more.
I glared at her. "If violence is so funny to you, the war must keep you perfectly entertained. I'm surprised you can leave your bedroom. Don't you just want to make some popcorn, watch the news, and laugh yourself to death."
She punched me in the arm. "Hey! Not funny."
I held my arms up in exasperation. "But me getting hurt is funny? Is it just me or everyone?"
"Hmmm," she said, thinking. "It's everyone, but you're particularly good at it."
"Sonofabitch," I cursed.
"You smell like ..." @auroraloon made a disgusted face at me. "Burnt urine."
I threw my head up toward the dark ceiling and red spinning lights from the alarms. "Burnt urine? How do you know what burnt urine smells like?"
"Mostly from being close to you," she replied. "Wanna build a pillow fort?"
She slapped me one more time and then she jumped, releasing the magnetism from her boots, floating out over the land of many pillows, cradling little baby Sango.
I floated after her. He was my kitten after all.
The ship continued to shake, minor shakes, and all we could do was wait it out. We settled into a spot in the center of the room, piling pillows above us like we were in a pillow cave.
"Hey," she said. "Get your own fort."
I grimaced. "Why exactly?"
"Other than the smell, I don't think we want to bump heads if this thing starts tossing us about."
She was right, and I hated that she was right.
"Fine, but I get Sango."
She gave me an angry look.
"He's my cat!" I pleaded.
"You said he needed his Mommy."
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I shoved a pillow between us. "So you're Mommy now?"
"Duh?"
"Well, if you're Mommy, then I'm Daddy, and I don't remember making any babies." I flung my hands together like they were humping each other.
"Dude!" she said, disgusted, and hit me with a pillow.
"Eh? See my point," I declared. "My cat." I held my arms out. "Gimme."
To my surprise, she did. I was worried that Sango would complain. He seemed to enjoy her company, but no, he definitely missed me. He purred immediately and added his baby drool to my many flavors.
"I need a shower," I said aloud between licks to the face.
"You don't say," @auroraloon said, her voice softer, emanating from a thin pillow wall she put up between us.
"Did you go to the pillow fight?" I asked. She must have been on Itokawa if she was now on Flipper with me.
"No," she said, sounding disappointed. "You?"
I considered what to say as I set Sango down and worked on the pillow ceiling of my fortress. "I started it actually."
"You???" I heard her stop stacking as she asked the question.
"Yup." I needed three or four more pillows and my fort would be good. "You would have loved it. Just your kind of violence."
"Hmph," she said and was silent.
"You know we kind of did this before," I said. "But we were piling up dead bodies from overtaken to build a barrier against even more overtaken."
"We did?" Her hand popped through one of the pillows. She pulled it down and stared at me through the opening, just a bit of her violet eyes and forehead sneaking through my vision.
"Yeah, the zombies were coming through a gated area. Dead bodies were all we had to try to stop them. I was running out of bullets."
"What happened?"
"@astrowave, he's Extrovert Thunder Ops, charged through and blew himself up, giving us an opening to run for it."
She was quiet again, so I stopped building and stared at her, which reminded me oddly of our staring contest before she beat me up, but I didn't feel like I was going to get kicked in the groin this time.
"You believe me, don't you?"
She closed the opening. "Yeah," she said quietly. "Yeah, I do."
I crouched down, holding Sango in my lap, tucking the pillows in snugly. We sat silently like this as the ship shook around us.
"You don't think we're going to suffocate, do you?" I asked, breaking the silence, suddenly very aware of all the pillows. I hadn't gone through all this tortuous bodily harm just to suffocate!
"Probably not," she said.
I scratched Sango on the head, trying to lose myself by thinking about absolutely nothing. Blank space. The quiet of my old i35. It didn't work.
"I told you about myself," I said, "but I still don't know much about you. What are you doing here?"
She had to know I'd ask eventually. Despite all the laughter at my expense, I could tell her guard went up. Her tone flattened. "I'll tell you if we survive."
That would have to do, and I really wanted to survive. What an odd feeling? I thought. I want to survive!
I leaned back against the pillows. I was so exhausted that despite the immanent danger, I figured I had a pretty good chance of finally getting a nap in.
I know what you might be thinking. That's irresponsible. But no, I was learning that a Vanquisher sleeps whenever the opportunity arrises. How often do you get to hide away in a pillow fortress? This was way better than a metal floor or an alley somewhere.
Not only that, the temperature was starting to rise, making this the perfect little womb of comfort. My breathing contributed to a warm, damp, pillow cave, and the shaking of the ship only helped lull me to sleep.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” I screamed, disoriented, stirred from my slumber when a huge boom sounded somewhere above us.
Where was I again?
I felt around me in the darkness.
Surrounded by ... pillows. Oh yeah. And a little kitten was digging its claws into my belly. That kind of smarted, but I was sore everywhere. My brain caught up to myself, and I wondered how long I had been sleeping.
I turned on my night vision only to remember that my ocular implants were fried. Well, shit.
A boom sounded again. I was grateful we had made our way down to lower levels, but the ongoing attack on Flipper did not give me cause for optimism.
"You awake?" I asked through the pillow wall.
"Of course I'm awake," @auroraloon replied. "Did you sleep?"
"Hey, I've had a long couple of days, okay?" I wiped some drool off the plastic wrapping of the pillow I was resting on. "How long do you think I was out?"
"Maybe five minutes."
Damn, but at least it felt like more. Maybe I can fall back to sleep, I thought.
That wasn't going to happen though. The universe had other plans.
The side of the ship exploded, the sound deafening us. Flipper seemed to tilt and accelerate, but it wasn't the ship itself. Something was sucking everything out of Flipper.
"Pirates!" I heard @auroraloon scream from somewhere nearby.
Suddenly all the pillows, Sango, and I were pulled forcefully away from the floor toward the far end of the ship. When the pillows started to clear from my view, I saw the splintered opening into deep space where the ship had been blown apart magnificently and a pirate ship that looked like a pair of binoculars, two cylindrical shafts connected by a small arch, peering at us through the hole.
"They're raiding the cargo!" she shouted again.
I didn't have time to process it. If I had, I probably would have opted to let the pirate ship suck us over into its cargo hold. If we survived the short journey through space, completely exposed, at least we'd be in a ship that wasn't destroyed.
Instead, when Sango and I flew past @auroraloon, who had activated her gravity boots and was crouched down, trying not to slide along the floor as the force tugged at her, her flannel shirt and curly brown hair flowing back like she was walking into a stiff wind, I fired a grappling hook that direction.
My grappling hook latched onto her left boot, but the force of all of us being sucked out of the ship was too much, so instead of Sango and I joining her on the floor, she came flying toward us, howling and throwing her arms around herself.
She rammed into me, sending the three of us spinning, with plush pillows flying past our faces, battering off our bodies.
Like I said, I'm better when I underthink.
I fired the grappling hook again, catching a pipe on the wall opposite us, away from the gaping tear in the side of Flipper.
@auroraloon grabbed onto my leg, clawing for a grip.
"Sango!" I screamed.
"I got him," @auroraloon yelled.
I couldn't pull us to the far wall. The force of the vacuuming tractor beam was too strong, but at least we stayed put, floating in the middle of the room.
"I'm losing my grip," @auroraloon yelled. "Can you take him?"
I looked down. Her left arm was holding me, wrapped around my waist with her fingers latched to one of my belt loops. The other held a pillowcase, with a ball shape that I assumed was Sango inside. That was lucky, easier than holding a frantic kitten with its mighty claws.
I reached down and took the pillowcase in my right hand, spinning it to wrap it around my wrist, then grabbed below the where I'd wrapped it so I had a firm grip. Unless Sango clawed through the other side, he was only going somewhere if I was going somewhere.
The sounds of metal creaking, alarms, and zipping pillows filled my ears.
Now that @auroraloon had another hand free, she pulled herself closer against me, wrapping her other arm around my waist.
"Hold on!" I yelled, as if that wasn't obvious.
You'd think that was it. We were in the clear. Saved by the grappling hook. The pirates would move on to the next level, raiding the ship floor by floor, and our destroyed cargo box would limp its way to Eros.
Close.
I was thinking that myself when the force of the raiding ship's vacuum pulled my pants off.