04-11-2017, 09:41 PM
A few scant days later (at least as measured by Tearen’s limited capacity for measuring time in this stagnant dimension) the pair arrived at yet another blasted out crag of volcanic rock. The only difference was that this crag happened to be at the lip of a large precipice which descended to a sea of sand and salt, a thousand feet below. In the time they had been traveling together, Tearen had learned many interesting things about Myla the Succubus. Namely in that she wasn’t all that thrilled with her status in the unwritten hierarchy of Underverse demons. This was punctuated by the fact that, when asked again to change her outfit, the woman had opted to go for an almost totally concealing wardrobe of leather and dull red cloth wrapped loosely around her form.
“I want to make my way with my wit, you know? I don’t want to be just another vampire slut.” she said, walking alongside the Shadow and deftly springing over obstacles in her path. Despite the fact that she had promised to stop soliciting the ex-enigma, Tearen still noticed she had a fondness for trying to hold his hand. He didn’t detect any sort of romantic feelings in the gesture, at least not on the surface. It was more so a demonstration that she would stick with Tearen, and being what she was, it was the least sexual thing she knew. The two travelers stopped at the edge of a basalt cliff and looked over the edge at the steep descent.
“Your vehicle is down there?” Tearen said, blinking at the brightness of the corrosive sand. Myla searched the winding dunes for a moment before pointing to a small outcrop of rock that had broken off from the surrounding ridge.
“Right there, to the right of those.” she said. Nodding, Tearen grabbed her waist softly and began to levitate into the air before Myla harshly shoved him off of her.
“You think these things are for show, T? I can fly myself down there, thank you very much.” the succubus said, pointing to her comically undersized wings with her two thumbs. Slightly embarrassed, Tearen apologized for presuming she would be comfortable with his picking her up and the two floated swiftly down to the desert floor.
When they reached the half-buried rocks, Myla eagerly began digging through a sand pile on the far side of the cluster. Curious, Tearen extended his senses into the porous mound of sand and detected the mass of the car Myla had been so eager to return to. Taking in a slow breath, the Shadow felt his way around the sand pile and lifted the silt upwards in a cascade of hissing dust. Beaming, Myla skipped her way over to the rusted-over car and brushed the remaining sand off of the car’s brown surface.
“Fresh as newborn’s blood! I tell ya, this salty shit is great for keeping things safe and sound.” Myla said, opening the driver’s side door and inspecting the interior. Being that this car could be from an unlimited number of realities and universes, there was no sense in trying to identify what it might have been before the armor plating and superchargers had been added, but it had a sleek, polygonal look to it. Tearen walked around to the back of the car as the succubus continued to rummage through it, seeing what might need to be tended. The Shadow stopped in his tracks when he observed a rather unique paint job on the rear fender.
“Why does your bumper have eight vaginas painted on it.” Tearen said in a flat voice. Myla’s wings flapped slightly and the Shadow could detect a combination of embarrassment and excitement within her.
“Oh! Well. You know. Joe and his Warboys only respect cars with a V8, so…”
No more needed to be said.
After some simple repairs, the car (which Myla had named Carpet Cruncher), was cruising across the rough terrain of the Salt Flats, belting out a staccato blast of turbo-charged glee. The noise was deafening, but less throaty than Tearen had been expecting. Myla explained that since Carpet Cruncher only had an I5 engine, she had opted to keep it lightweight and sleek. It generally wasn’t an approach that was appreciated by the bellicose warboys, but seeing as how her main job was as a scout for Immortan Joe’s wrecker gangs, it was generally a good call. Indeed, Tearen was impressed at how the sprightly vehicle was able to skip over the cracked and intermittently soft terrain that may have seen other cars bogged down terribly.
They rode in contented silence for a little while, listening to songs playing from a miraculously functioning speaker system. It struck Tearen that he actually hadn’t heard any music in the Omniverse until now, at all. This thought perturbed him for a multitude of reasons, but that wasn’t important at the moment. The Shadow finally saw an opportunity to ask a question that had been irritating him for some time. Though he had been enjoying the music blaring from the car’s barely functioning stereo system (something about ‘no sleep’ and ‘Brooklyn’), Tearen slowly turned down the volume.
“Myla...how did you end up in Immortan Joe’s gang?”
The succubus immediately tensed up. Tearen didn’t even to feel for her mental emanations to pick up on her discomfort.
“It’s fine, never mind.”
“No...no it’s okay…” Myla said, keeping her eye on the horizon at all times. The portion of the Salt Flats they were currently in was, true to name, exceptionally flat and dry. Unfortunately, this made it very easy for mirages to form on the horizon, which could be used to conceal a pursuit.
“I’m not originally from this part of the Omniverse. I think...I was originally spawned in the Emerald Nightmare. Probably. Either way, that’s where my memory starts and it’s one chunk over from the Salt Flats. I was taken in by a small pack of demons in the Nightmare, but they traded me to Joe when he moved in here.” Myla said, gesturing at the endless sands.
“What need did Joe have of a succubus? From what you’ve indicated, he has no need for alternatives to violence.” Tearen said cautiously.
“I’m a good lay, T. That’s all the reason he needed to fuck any other female demons he came across. Immortan will summon Warboys for himself day in and day out, but I’ve never once heard of him summoning his own fuck-toys. I think he likes to...take things. ‘Specially women.” Myla said, her voice slowly descending into a grumble. The Shadow felt like asking an obvious question, but restrained himself. It was clear that being a succubus didn’t agree with Myla, and pressing the unfortunate implications of her means of sustenance would do neither Tearen nor the woman any good.
“Why let you be part of his war machine then?” Tearen asked, keeping his emerald gaze focused on her.
“Cuz I don’t make babies, T. I’m a succubus, I only take. I don’t give anything, ‘specially not birth. That’s probably the bigger reason Joe let me out of his rape-den, come to think of it.”
“...there are others?”
Myla shot Tearen a sour look.
“Uh, yeah man. Immortan Joe takes and he doesn’t give back. He’s got hundreds of poor fuckers trapped up in his special fortress.” Myla said, waving her hand in the air. It was presumably a gesture dismissive of Immortan Joe’s childishly possessive nature, but the ex-enigma was not entirely sure. A long silence passed between them, and after some time, it dawned on Myla what Tearen might be thinking.
“Oh no. No, no no Tearen. We’re not saving anyone. We’re getting you out of the Underverse. We’re finding Tyrael. Remember?” she barked, wagging a sharp finger in Tearen’s face. The Shadow watched on, non-plussed.
“Why not?”
“Well first because Joe is a tank and he’ll tear you and probably me apart. Second, because you’re not going to make their lives any better by freeing them. What, they gonna get out of the Citadel, then what? Walk around the Salt Flats for a few days before they keel over? They’re safe where they are.” Myla said, shaking her head. Tearen could tell that this was a mantra she told herself more often than she might care to admit. It was almost rehearsed in its assertiveness, and in that ingrained enforcement, Tearen could exploit a weakness. But before he could press the issue, he needed to figure out why he wanted to free Immortan’s prisoners.
It wasn’t as if Myla didn’t have a point; life wouldn’t necessarily be easier for them when they were released. There was a decent chance that many of them would just be captured again, as well. Ironically, it was something that Myla herself had said that helped the ex-enigma realize why he felt compelled to help these people.
“Things might change for me.” Tearen said quietly. The demonic temptress looked over at him with a raised eyebrow.
“What?”
“That’s something you said to me, right after I rescued you. That things might change for you, now that you had an opportunity.” Tearen said softly, his earnest stare boring a hole into Myla’s composure. She looked solemnly at the shimmering horizon. The Shadow continued.
“Right now, in that Citadel, those slaves don’t have an opportunity. I presume they’re kept alive if they’re useful, which might be the most they can hope for in the Underverse...but their fate is also sealed. Nothing is going to change for them. We can give them an opportunity. Forcing someone’s life onto a singular path is tantamount to murder.” Tearen said, concluding his monologue by turning his attention out the passenger side window. Something caught his eye.
“I’ll...think about it.” Myla said after a few minutes. When the Prime failed to respond for an equal number of minutes, the succubus turned to look at him, and saw the glimmer that he was watching. A flickering white dot slipping between distant salt dunes.
“Hmmm…” Myla said, popping open the glove compartment. Several different kinds of sexual aid came tumbling out of the rusted chamber, along with hand-made maps and other survival detritus. For all her dislike of being a succubus, it was clear that Myla still very much enjoyed intimacy in and of itself. It wasn’t as if Tearen disapproved of such a sex-positive attitude, but something about seeing it in someone like Myla made him feel uncomfortable for a reason he couldn’t quite define. Finally, the demon snatched what she had been looking for; a flare gun. She jammed the pyrotechnic pistol out of her window and fired a shot up into the air. A brilliant blue flash added another layer of brightness to the sands around them.
There was no response from the flickering dot. Myla licked her lips and a wicked grin split her face. Adrenaline. Nostalgia. Thirst. Tearen could feel all of them beginning to pump through her mind. The succubus nodded to a bundle of blankets in the cramped rear seats, and Tearen lifted them off to reveal an array of very heavy looking machine guns.
“Can you shoot?” Myla asked as Tearen grabbed a familiar model. Gas-powered firing mechanism with a STANAG magazine. The scope rail was regrettably empty, but it wasn’t as if he needed that kind of thing for a target as large as a car or truck.
“Even better…” Tearen said, pulling back the receiver, “...I can aim.”
“I want to make my way with my wit, you know? I don’t want to be just another vampire slut.” she said, walking alongside the Shadow and deftly springing over obstacles in her path. Despite the fact that she had promised to stop soliciting the ex-enigma, Tearen still noticed she had a fondness for trying to hold his hand. He didn’t detect any sort of romantic feelings in the gesture, at least not on the surface. It was more so a demonstration that she would stick with Tearen, and being what she was, it was the least sexual thing she knew. The two travelers stopped at the edge of a basalt cliff and looked over the edge at the steep descent.
“Your vehicle is down there?” Tearen said, blinking at the brightness of the corrosive sand. Myla searched the winding dunes for a moment before pointing to a small outcrop of rock that had broken off from the surrounding ridge.
“Right there, to the right of those.” she said. Nodding, Tearen grabbed her waist softly and began to levitate into the air before Myla harshly shoved him off of her.
“You think these things are for show, T? I can fly myself down there, thank you very much.” the succubus said, pointing to her comically undersized wings with her two thumbs. Slightly embarrassed, Tearen apologized for presuming she would be comfortable with his picking her up and the two floated swiftly down to the desert floor.
When they reached the half-buried rocks, Myla eagerly began digging through a sand pile on the far side of the cluster. Curious, Tearen extended his senses into the porous mound of sand and detected the mass of the car Myla had been so eager to return to. Taking in a slow breath, the Shadow felt his way around the sand pile and lifted the silt upwards in a cascade of hissing dust. Beaming, Myla skipped her way over to the rusted-over car and brushed the remaining sand off of the car’s brown surface.
“Fresh as newborn’s blood! I tell ya, this salty shit is great for keeping things safe and sound.” Myla said, opening the driver’s side door and inspecting the interior. Being that this car could be from an unlimited number of realities and universes, there was no sense in trying to identify what it might have been before the armor plating and superchargers had been added, but it had a sleek, polygonal look to it. Tearen walked around to the back of the car as the succubus continued to rummage through it, seeing what might need to be tended. The Shadow stopped in his tracks when he observed a rather unique paint job on the rear fender.
“Why does your bumper have eight vaginas painted on it.” Tearen said in a flat voice. Myla’s wings flapped slightly and the Shadow could detect a combination of embarrassment and excitement within her.
“Oh! Well. You know. Joe and his Warboys only respect cars with a V8, so…”
No more needed to be said.
After some simple repairs, the car (which Myla had named Carpet Cruncher), was cruising across the rough terrain of the Salt Flats, belting out a staccato blast of turbo-charged glee. The noise was deafening, but less throaty than Tearen had been expecting. Myla explained that since Carpet Cruncher only had an I5 engine, she had opted to keep it lightweight and sleek. It generally wasn’t an approach that was appreciated by the bellicose warboys, but seeing as how her main job was as a scout for Immortan Joe’s wrecker gangs, it was generally a good call. Indeed, Tearen was impressed at how the sprightly vehicle was able to skip over the cracked and intermittently soft terrain that may have seen other cars bogged down terribly.
They rode in contented silence for a little while, listening to songs playing from a miraculously functioning speaker system. It struck Tearen that he actually hadn’t heard any music in the Omniverse until now, at all. This thought perturbed him for a multitude of reasons, but that wasn’t important at the moment. The Shadow finally saw an opportunity to ask a question that had been irritating him for some time. Though he had been enjoying the music blaring from the car’s barely functioning stereo system (something about ‘no sleep’ and ‘Brooklyn’), Tearen slowly turned down the volume.
“Myla...how did you end up in Immortan Joe’s gang?”
The succubus immediately tensed up. Tearen didn’t even to feel for her mental emanations to pick up on her discomfort.
“It’s fine, never mind.”
“No...no it’s okay…” Myla said, keeping her eye on the horizon at all times. The portion of the Salt Flats they were currently in was, true to name, exceptionally flat and dry. Unfortunately, this made it very easy for mirages to form on the horizon, which could be used to conceal a pursuit.
“I’m not originally from this part of the Omniverse. I think...I was originally spawned in the Emerald Nightmare. Probably. Either way, that’s where my memory starts and it’s one chunk over from the Salt Flats. I was taken in by a small pack of demons in the Nightmare, but they traded me to Joe when he moved in here.” Myla said, gesturing at the endless sands.
“What need did Joe have of a succubus? From what you’ve indicated, he has no need for alternatives to violence.” Tearen said cautiously.
“I’m a good lay, T. That’s all the reason he needed to fuck any other female demons he came across. Immortan will summon Warboys for himself day in and day out, but I’ve never once heard of him summoning his own fuck-toys. I think he likes to...take things. ‘Specially women.” Myla said, her voice slowly descending into a grumble. The Shadow felt like asking an obvious question, but restrained himself. It was clear that being a succubus didn’t agree with Myla, and pressing the unfortunate implications of her means of sustenance would do neither Tearen nor the woman any good.
“Why let you be part of his war machine then?” Tearen asked, keeping his emerald gaze focused on her.
“Cuz I don’t make babies, T. I’m a succubus, I only take. I don’t give anything, ‘specially not birth. That’s probably the bigger reason Joe let me out of his rape-den, come to think of it.”
“...there are others?”
Myla shot Tearen a sour look.
“Uh, yeah man. Immortan Joe takes and he doesn’t give back. He’s got hundreds of poor fuckers trapped up in his special fortress.” Myla said, waving her hand in the air. It was presumably a gesture dismissive of Immortan Joe’s childishly possessive nature, but the ex-enigma was not entirely sure. A long silence passed between them, and after some time, it dawned on Myla what Tearen might be thinking.
“Oh no. No, no no Tearen. We’re not saving anyone. We’re getting you out of the Underverse. We’re finding Tyrael. Remember?” she barked, wagging a sharp finger in Tearen’s face. The Shadow watched on, non-plussed.
“Why not?”
“Well first because Joe is a tank and he’ll tear you and probably me apart. Second, because you’re not going to make their lives any better by freeing them. What, they gonna get out of the Citadel, then what? Walk around the Salt Flats for a few days before they keel over? They’re safe where they are.” Myla said, shaking her head. Tearen could tell that this was a mantra she told herself more often than she might care to admit. It was almost rehearsed in its assertiveness, and in that ingrained enforcement, Tearen could exploit a weakness. But before he could press the issue, he needed to figure out why he wanted to free Immortan’s prisoners.
It wasn’t as if Myla didn’t have a point; life wouldn’t necessarily be easier for them when they were released. There was a decent chance that many of them would just be captured again, as well. Ironically, it was something that Myla herself had said that helped the ex-enigma realize why he felt compelled to help these people.
“Things might change for me.” Tearen said quietly. The demonic temptress looked over at him with a raised eyebrow.
“What?”
“That’s something you said to me, right after I rescued you. That things might change for you, now that you had an opportunity.” Tearen said softly, his earnest stare boring a hole into Myla’s composure. She looked solemnly at the shimmering horizon. The Shadow continued.
“Right now, in that Citadel, those slaves don’t have an opportunity. I presume they’re kept alive if they’re useful, which might be the most they can hope for in the Underverse...but their fate is also sealed. Nothing is going to change for them. We can give them an opportunity. Forcing someone’s life onto a singular path is tantamount to murder.” Tearen said, concluding his monologue by turning his attention out the passenger side window. Something caught his eye.
“I’ll...think about it.” Myla said after a few minutes. When the Prime failed to respond for an equal number of minutes, the succubus turned to look at him, and saw the glimmer that he was watching. A flickering white dot slipping between distant salt dunes.
“Hmmm…” Myla said, popping open the glove compartment. Several different kinds of sexual aid came tumbling out of the rusted chamber, along with hand-made maps and other survival detritus. For all her dislike of being a succubus, it was clear that Myla still very much enjoyed intimacy in and of itself. It wasn’t as if Tearen disapproved of such a sex-positive attitude, but something about seeing it in someone like Myla made him feel uncomfortable for a reason he couldn’t quite define. Finally, the demon snatched what she had been looking for; a flare gun. She jammed the pyrotechnic pistol out of her window and fired a shot up into the air. A brilliant blue flash added another layer of brightness to the sands around them.
There was no response from the flickering dot. Myla licked her lips and a wicked grin split her face. Adrenaline. Nostalgia. Thirst. Tearen could feel all of them beginning to pump through her mind. The succubus nodded to a bundle of blankets in the cramped rear seats, and Tearen lifted them off to reveal an array of very heavy looking machine guns.
“Can you shoot?” Myla asked as Tearen grabbed a familiar model. Gas-powered firing mechanism with a STANAG magazine. The scope rail was regrettably empty, but it wasn’t as if he needed that kind of thing for a target as large as a car or truck.
“Even better…” Tearen said, pulling back the receiver, “...I can aim.”
And, we dream of home I dream of life out of here Their dreams are small My dreams don't know fear I got my heart full of hope I will change everything No matter what I'm told How impossible it seems We did it before And we'll do it again We're indestructible Even when we're tired And we've been here before Just you and I
Don't try to rescue me I don't need to be rescued
Don't try to rescue me I don't need to be rescued