Honeymoon In Hell

[Ash]

Desman's post
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Deals between Demons


Neujmin stepped in after a set of lesser demons who were dragging Ash off the field by the crooks of her elbows. Again. Her hair was a mess, matted with blood and dirt. Her body covered in dark ink-colored blood, and swollen behind deep bruising of mold yellow. Her body limp from being barely conscious.

He wondered again if he had made a mistake purchasing the two new primes for the millionth time. The two lessers dragged her lower half across the dirt covered floor, before dropping her upper half into a trough. Her head disappeared for a surprisingly long moment, then her hands come back to life, gripping the edges and she lifted up ‘the little mermaid’ style by throwing her wet hair back quickly leaving scattered puddles about in the stonework floor, gasping for air. The water washes off most of the blood that has collected on her face, it turns from a navy blue to a corn-blue as the water dilutes it to nearly nothing. He watched her with a grim look of a betting kind of man who has lost all the races.

"You and that human would probably be better off as labor or sex slaves." He said bluntly, moving over so they could face each other. It wasn't out of respect, mind you. No matter how similar they looked, he held the power despite her attitude about it all. She only stared at him breathing heavy breaths, which Neujmin thought was unusual because she was usually a talker. He kept going. "He's doing about as good as you are, you're both total shit at this fighting thing, no wonder your asses were banished."

She looked him dead in the eyes, though it was hard to see it wasn't hard to feel. She spat some stray water out on the ground, it was dyed the color blue like your stereotypical depiction of water... There was a long silence even after that, one that demanded he not say a single word before she did. "I could have fucking told you that." She said, then weakly leaned over the trough. The light was just enough to reflect off the surface and she could see the shadow of her image in the dancing waves of black. "In fact, I think I did."

As soon as she gets pinned, she was useless. One on ones in a limited area wasn't her forte. She liked to do circles around her opponents. If she remembered anything about Desman, he wasn't that mobile. But that staying power... She'd kill to have that for a match if she could kill anything of importance. Actually, come to think about it, he probably would fair better than her.

"He should be putting up more of a fight than that." She stated, looking up as if she caught him in a lie. Her face was covered in bruises from her beating still, her whole body looked like she’d gone toe-to-toe with 6 opponents in a row. She hadn’t.

Neujmin just adjusted his weight again. "He's not. As fighters, you'd probably be sold faster. You have a lot of interesting moves. He's pretty standard, sword and blaster. Thing is, I bet I can get more money if I sold you to a harem." His comments were dry of any emotion other than buyer's remorse, but he ran his greedy eyes over her body again.. "I don't know if he will even be good in a mine. He's not terrible looking, maybe some succubus bitch will buy him off me." He said absently, wondering how good of a deal he could get for the more mouthy slave.

Ash could find Desman again if they were ever really separated, but she didn't like that idea at all just the same. She didn't like this one on one shit either. She had to play this carefully. She started with a laugh. "Didn't take you to be a soft damned fool, Neujmin." She taunted, laughed again, then added: "Or that fucking desperate."

Neujmin gave her a dirty look, standing straight up now. "You know you got quite the attitude there. Someone oughta break that jaw of your's." Not like people haven’t tried.

Ash smirked. "If someone does that, I'll be useless as a whore, too.” She shifted her body, to look as appealing as a half-drowned woman with bruises all over her could. “Also, I won't be able to tell you how to make money off me and Desman the right way."

The demon wasn't amused with her first comment but stopped at her second. His eyes narrow down on her and she knew she had his attention. "You know an awful lot about him, do ya?" He said. Obviously, he didn’t trust her or her words, but he’d take any free advice he could get to deal with the losses he inherited since their purchase.

"More than you know.." She purred. "I'll tell you, for a deal."

His darkened eyes narrow onto her. There's the catch.  "What do you want?" He knew she was smarter, more cunning, and trickier than the other slaves. This dame didn’t just look like she belonged down here, she probably did. For fuck's sake, she looks like she belongs on the other side of the cage. But would she be so bold to ask for freedom? He would outright refuse that.

Ash could read his thoughts without being able to read his mind. She pouted. "Now don't be like that.” She whined, then her tone leveled to a gentle and honest one. “I'll tell you what I want if you think the information is worth a ’simple’ reward. See, Desman and I aren't that strong separately... But put us together and were pretty cool." She assured him.

Neujmin adjusted his weight to appear intimidating. "A lot of good that will do me... Rules-"

Ash cut him off, "Rules are meant to be broken, Neujmin. Don't play that game with me." She cooed with a smirk.

A smile grew on his face that showed off his fangs, then it fell back away. He liked her way of thinking, but that wasn’t going to pursue him one way or the other just yet. "We'll worry about that later, for now, I'm not convinced you two will be any better together."

"When we prove you wrong, you'll let me spend the night with him?"

Ash didn't look hopeful, but he could tell that's what she was hiding up her sleeve. She was smarter than the average slave. He took a long moment to mull it over, then he remembered the troll... "If you two can scratch the next opponent I have lined up for you, I'll make it a permanent thing that you two have a cell together." He leaned over the trough, picking her up by the chin. He watched her wince at the pain of being grabbed by her sore jaw. "But listen here sweetheart, the safety net's coming off for this fight. I'll let them kill you."

A smile bloomed onto Ash’s face. "If I die, you won't see me again." She promised.

Neujmin had to admit, he didn't mind that idea. At least he can claim ignorance in her whereabouts if she died, feint frustration about the ones that escaped. Dead or Alive, he thinks he's already lost a lot of money... "Get her out of here." He pulled his hand free and snapped at his lesser demons to take the girl back to her cage. They pulled her up to her feet, and she just grinned at him, going with them willingly this time.

He had the fight to set up...



Shots Fired

Neujmin purposely left the male slave in the dark of the whole dealings. He found it more entertaining to accuse him of not even trying and threatening to sell him off if he didn’t pick up the slack, as well as informing him that his girlfriend wasn’t promised to come with him either. It did a great deal to rile him up, but because there was no fight for him to take anything out, he had to stew in it. All the same, he thought the female had too much faith in the kid and did his best to test this.

When the day came to put them both in the ring they started out in separate gates, he didn’t want them planning anything out beforehand. Another reason to have kept them apart from each other after the whole breaking into the reforming labs. He was sure to ‘ground’ the man for a while after all that. As far as Desman was concerned this was just another mock-fight.

To his surprise, Ash entered one of the gates opposite of him. She was still covered with half-hearted bandages and bruises, her hair pulled back in a ponytail for once. Not to his surprise, a third person appeared as well - a masculine figure that looked like he was made of muscle and shadow. They could make out his face - or more accurately his mask. With 3 sets of glowing eyes, two sets of horns, and no mouth to speak with he was certainly a sight. He took the required steps he needed to enter the arena, but then he raised his hand to summon a gun and slowly began to load it.

Meanwhile, Desman felt the more pressing urge to make a straight line for Ash. The ground began to quake under his footfalls, but he thought it was merely the integrity of the earth. To his surprise though, Ash moved towards him, so when she was within reach of him he threw his arms around her desperately, only barely able to keep himself from throwing his new weight into her and possibly knocking her to the ground.

This made Ash stop, a bit surprised. Only for him to start sobbing and then break whatever illusion the hug might have induced. She lifted her hands up to hover over his muscular back which shook and jerked as he held back the tears but not the emotion. She knew what she was expected to do, to comfort him. She also knew they didn’t have time for this.

She was on the verge of action. "H-how are you doing?" Desman was surprisingly the first to break this sound of sobbing. It was worded exactly the same as a greeting someone would use on a buddy they hadn't seen in a couple of days, but the delivery, there was something there. Something deep, something sad, something specific.

Very little in this world could surprise Ash, but his attempts at normalcy left her a bit stunned. She expected him to whine and wail like a child who was scared without his security blanket. She never claimed to be a person who was right most of the time. Her hands made contact with his back, her soft hands caressed his scars and she realized that the demon who had bought them hadn’t gone easy on him.

She hugged him tightly if only to reaffirm his beliefs that she was his friend. Reconnect with him, if only briefly. She buried her face into his mess of hair, breathing him in deeply if only to steel herself for what she had to do. Then she grabbed him by the shoulders firmly and pushed him away so she could look him in the eyes. “Desman.” She felt the adrenaline began to course through her, she took on a serious look herself. “Desman, fuse with me.”

“What?” Desman asked, confused between sniffling.

“We have to fuse. We have to-”

“Why?” Desman’s face twisted in suspicion.

“Why!?” Ash said, then glanced away, something rumbling under her foot. She got the sense that there’s a lot more to this than just the guy loading his gun. “Desman, just do it.” She said, turning to face him, her tone serious and different than her usual way of talking.

The fact that he didn’t know how to in this form was a secondary thought to the human. He was starting to become very concerned about this person. While he was used to Ash dodging questions, he was having a hard time believing she wouldn’t just come out and tell him why they had to fuse. “No.” He finally said. A firm, harsh ‘no’.

Ash contained her frustration with him well. “Why not?”

“How do I know you aren’t just some mimic?” He asked, trying to buy time and trying to decide if he could trust her.

“Seriously?” Ash asked, pushing him off her. “What do you have to do to prove it to you?” But that was a rhetorical question, she suddenly wanted to punch him. Something made her stop, and change gears. “You like when I hack you, then fine.”

She begins to summon her Cyberdeck, but he grabs her arm and pushes it down out of her vision. “That’s not going to work.” He said getting a bit closer to her face than he intended. “Besides, you are the one who’s always avoiding the conversation. You never want to talk! Not about your feelings, not about your plans! I get it, you want action, but if you’d just asked me to go to Coruscant with you we wouldn’t be in this mess!”

A flash of recognition crossed her face, and she realized what was going on. She ripped her arm free of him, and she was about lay into him - though it wasn’t yet clear if it would be her words or her fists - their opponent was finished loading his gun.”You motherfu-!”

The sound of a small explosion echoed through the entire arena as the gun was shot. There was less than a second between it firing and it hitting its target, but it all slowed down for Desman as he watched the bullet slam into the side of Ash’s head. He watched her get picked up off her feet and launched away from him. He watched as midnight-blue liquid left a lingering trail in the air.

Then time became relevant again and she was on the ground in a crumpled mess, the cobalt liquid just a splatter against the dusty ground. And the assassin slowly approaching him while aiming the gun.

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