Grand Battle S3G1! (Round Four: City of the Dead)

Originally posted on MSPA by Schazer.

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"Ah! Zat ees none uzzer zan a dracodactyl – a beast of legend! Not ztrange, per'aps, to find eet een Ruinam's halls…"

Gimera's exclamations kept hwhizping into a register slightly too high for Jetsam to hear, not that he was especially curious about the socio-political ramifications of his new form. He was a goddamn dragon, and he let the goddamn dragon autonomously respond to Dorukomet's drawing of a sword; limbs tensing, crests rising and neck arched back to strike. A noise like a never-oiled door slid from his throat, and something corrosive bubbled in there a little more literally.

Neither dragonslayer nor dragon seemed willing to make the first move, and only a lull in Tykidu's sycophant chatter finally broke the tension.

"Sir Dorukomets, one moment…"

With a flagrant disregard for the etiquette of tense standoffs, Velobo sprung off the meatshield's shoulder and trotted across the no-man's land. Jetsam, too busy silently flipping a shit trying to remember whether or not he'd already burnt bridges with this co-victim, let him approach. And stare the wanderer down (well, up, technically, but it's hard to do much otherwise in a literal sense when your tongue's longer than your legs). And leap on his back, all uncontested save for a final angry screech and squawk, the latter of which had more to do with Jetsam forgetting he was currently quadrupedal, and that rearing up on his back legs to swat the Plazmuth off with the front ones just gave him a faceful of ceiling.

A flash of metal in the corner of his eye was warning enough, and the dracodactyl spat a great globule of something nasty in Dorukomets' direction before turning tail back up the corridor. Velobo just kind of clutched feathers and did his best to stay atop something which clearly was not built for running on four legs.

Jetsam ran until his dragon-senses stopped tingling, loping to a halt somewhereabouts the old but still-manmade walls eroded into more natural rock. He loped to a halt, saving the gritting of teeth (what the hell, this beak had teeth) at somehow wandering down a few floors again. This wasn't escape at all.

Velobo, moments later, dismounted, turned around, and got punched in the face by a dragon.

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"H-hey, Ursus…"

"No."

"You don't even know what I'm asking for!"

"Only made sense that you want something from me. Answer is no."

"Urs, listen, I'm not like those trigger-happy Rünslingers, at least I know what I'm asking for-"

Ursus grunted, unimpressed, and more than a little insulted the twerp saw fit to start tossing pet names around. The idiot probably wanted some scantily-clad trollop mincing around on the small of his back to show off to his bunkmates, or else some ludicrous full-arm Inking normally reserved for the eldest warrior-priests of Clan Njordbludgeon. He finished touching up the sigils of Clarity he'd Inked behind his patient's ears, and wiped the charcoal Sleep off the soldier's forehead.

"Get up. You're done. You," he growled to the lieutenant, "out."

The wheedler only made motions doorward; he snorted under his breath as the other man left. "Pssht, the pansy needs a Sleep sigil for a couple Inks?"

"I heard that," yelled the Slinger, some ways away. Ursus growled, a noise which made it a lot clearer how much would be left of the soldier's face if he was still around by the time the bear was finished tidying up. He shook an emptied tin of blue-elm charcoal, sighed,

"Get me another tin of this from the Orchard - and cook the wood right this time, then we talk-"

"I don't want something in cheap soot and fish-fat!"

"Then get me better ink," snarled Ursus, too bored with the discussion to correct the lieutenant's racism. "Either way, get out of my theatre. I have words on the hour with Lady Midday."

---

"Listen carefully," growled Jetsam, words slowed less for emphasis and more for a throat unsuited to human speech. "I will let you up when you agree to shut. the. hell. up. unless I ask a question."

Velobo flailed his limbs, and glared at the dracodactyl with his three eyes not squashed up against the floor.

"Keep me in striking distance, or give yourself room, I don't care. All I want are answers."

"Mmmng," managed the Plazmuth. Jetsam shifted his weight a little more firmly upon his pinning arm.

"Left arm up if you agree to this."

A pause, and both parties sprang apart. Velobo immediately said "What do you-" before the bird-monster interrupted with a unpleasant gurgle.

"Glurgh," protested Jetsam, who had just realised he couldn't talk and hold a resevoir of spit-venom. He spat it out, ruffled his crests, and locked the cuboid in his sights.

"Right. Who are you, and why have you and your friends been chasing me?"

Velobo had been completely confused by the creature's behaviour up to this point, considering he'd only first approached it on some vagrant whim, wherein he was reminded of the pangolin from Vio. It still had that skittishness about it, but its recent treatment of him was painfully inconsistent with what the Plazmuth remembered.

The question, on the other hand, was an easy one, despite the courteous cube feeling a bit awkward about disagreeing with a flying bird-lizard.

"Oh! No, I think we crossed paths by accident, we certainly were not looking for dragons! I am Velobo Calidad-"

"What? No, not that sword-flailing idiot!" Jetsam pranced irately, crests rising and falling with the snap of pennants in a changing breeze. "The dinosaur. That evil little squidman and his dumb muscle. That bastard sea-snake with the robot parts. That son of a goddamn whore who figured he could waltz on into my fucking mind-"

"Wait-" Jetsam pointedly refused, hissing instead and lobbing another globbet of acid-spit in no real direction- "are - are you that spikebeast?"

"Uh." And eventually: "Why would you-" And then, after several moments with Velobo only politely waitingfor an answer: "Who do you think I am?"

It was to Jetsam's credit that he didn't misinterpret Velobo's expectant smile as a shit-eating grin. The dracodactyl snorted with frustration, and sagged against a wall. He tried to run a hand through his hair, but just kind of raised a wing and rattled his beak when gritting his teeth didn't exactly work either.

"Yes, it's me. And fucked if I know what's going on seeing as I can't trust any goddamn one of you. Except for you, maybe." His eyes narrowed. "But only because you're a fucking moron."

Velobo didn't really know how to respond to that. The bird-dragon glared at him for a while, before sighing and letting his neck slump down beside the rest of its feathery self. The Plazmuth scratched a side absent-mindedly, then just sat down some distance from Jetsam.

He simply listened for a few heartbeats, closing his eyes and trying to better understand the situation - the tension in the air, trying to filter or factor out all the little discrepancies of this situation and a past one. With no finer ability than to feel whatever emotions his companion gave off, Velobo opened his assorted eyes to Jetsam staring incredulously back.

"What are you doing?" he asked, with a helping of "why are you still here" in the subtext.

"I am thinking. Would you like to trust me?"

"I-" Jetsam was about to spit out an automated "no", but something stopped him. "I want to know what's happening. You can tell me that much. There's nothing any of you can do that I'll mistrust you less, but I'll hear your story. That's it. I want to know what's happened to you. To me as well I guess, if you've got any goddamn idea. Those other asshats, too."

The dracodactyl stood in a fluid movement, an untangling stretch flowing down his neck, through the spine, and out the tip of its whiplike tail. "Get on. You've got no problems with finding a way out of here?"

Velobo couldn't say he did, and spikebeast or birdbeast he'd prefer any mount over none. "Good! So, a strange man who called himself the Fool..."

Beneath him, Jetsam twitched a bit, but let him continue. He resolved to not say anything until the Plazmuth was done.