Return of The Corps

[Thaal Sinestro]

Thick wheels rolled over the packed-dirt path, hopping and bumping as the lazy-eyed driver gradually maneuvered his cargo through the desert. The sun had sunk long before they began the venture into the wasteland, those who coordinated the movement hoping to take advantage of the poor visibility and respite for the burning heat.

Four horses drug behind them a steel wagon, massive rivets indicating the material’s thickness. A mountain of goods was piled atop the wagon with a thick burlap cloth concealing what lie beneath. A few scrawny, ill-equipped merchant’s children trod after the vehicle, they were weary, seemingly unaware of what surrounded them. Unoiled wheels screeched into the night, a siren’s call to any who might be prowling the darkness, searching for an opportunity to strike.

“Hold it!” one of the young men in the back shouted, his age told with the simpering tone of his voice. “Can we jus’ wait a minute?” he pleaded, a faint cockney accent bleeding through.

Rolling his eyes, the driver pulled the reigns limply and the horses came to a halt. “If you don’t stop bitching about the walk, boy, you’re not gonna get paid.” The portly older gentleman removed his bowler cap and fanned his face with it, “How do you expect us to meet quota if we only cover a quarter of the damn road every night?”

Beneath the burlap, something rustled, nudging the driver forcefully. “Yeah, alright,” he complained and whipped the horses into motion once more. “If you can’t keep up kid, we’re gonna leave you behind.”

A lean girl, no more than sixteen smirked at the boy and nodded. “You hear that li’l’ William? If you can’t keep up, we’re gonna leave you in the dust.” She laughed loudly and tipped her long-rifle over her shoulder, following after the steel vehicle.

“Fine!” the boy shouted, tossing his weapon a few feet off the path. “It’s not like this damn gun has any bulletin it anyw-“

The child’s screeching was cut off by rolling, trilling shriek that accompanied an eruption of sand, three dark figures leaping from the ground below. The masked figures brandished their katanas as they fanned out, surrounding the wagon and its paltry defense.

“Sand furies!” the boy screamed, rushing towards his abandoned gun.

The girl reeled back as one of the apparently female assailants sliced her weapon in two. “What the hell is a sand fury?!” she howled in confusion and pain.

The horses whinnied, unable to kick or jump within their harnesses. As the wagon jerked about, the driver grinned and tore out the pintle, allowing the animals to flee. As they galloped past one of the warriors, the towing harness still strapped to their backs, he yelled out, “We got some, boys!”

The cloth that covered the wagon fluttered before being flung away, the once hidden gunmen emerging and instantly opening fire. The symphony of their various weapons erupted, neither in unison nor completely out of it. The force was comprised of men and women from several universes, cyborgs, aliens and old-west bandits alike. The one thing that they all held in common was a bright golden star worn upon their chests.

“Get ‘em off that kid!” a gruff woman ordered with a static-corrupted voice from beneath her massive Steel Brotherhood helm. She sprayed a few bursts from her massive plasma minigun, her hulking power-suit making the weapon seem easy to handle.

The young girl staggered back, clutching the deep cut on her forearm against her chest as the Fury pressed the attack. As the katana swept upwards to claim the girl’s life, a pair of massive scimitar blades intercepted the blow with a ringing clash. A lanky gerudo sneered and tossed the weapon aside, her olive eyes locked with the creature behind the mask. She twirled her blades and sank into a practiced stance as the sand-creature slunk into the darkness and contemplated an attack. “These are stronger than the others we’ve found so far,” the gerudo woman noted.

“I don’t know,” a figured wrapped in a tattered yellow cloak idly interjected as they fired off a series of tight, three-round bursts from an automatic rifle, idly watching the fury dodge out of their path, “that desperado we found last week was pretty tough.”

“They only lasted a day!” a thick-armed man laughed with a thick dornish accent in his throat, his bulging muscles tensed as he aimed his bow. “At least these would make it through the combat phase,” he chuckled and let loose the arrow, which caught his unsuspecting target in the neck. The sand warrior crumpled to the ground with a wheezing yelp, clutching at the sky dramatically. “Then again, maybe not.”

The two remaining furies barely seemed to notice their fallen sister, circling their prey and frantically spinning their swords under the light of the half-eaten moon. Their tattered clothing covered every inch of their bodies, thick layers wrapped around their head and neck, piling into a slap-shod mantle over their shoulders. They wore round, black-lensed goggles over their eyes, and two small “horns” of wound fabric pointed horizontally off either side of their heads. Small, round baubles hung from these horns, bouncing with every movement.

The woman in power-armor grabbed the young boy by his collar and lifted him off the ground easily, gingerly placing him in the wagon behind her. “You said you know what these things are?” she asked, her voice offering nothing that could be considered softness.

“Th- they’re sand furies,” he stammered, “from Aurora!”

A beam of green roared from the end of her weapon, dissuading what would have been another assault. “They don’t seem like a very technologically advanced people,” she said with a hint of irritation, “Tell me what you know, kid.”

“From I’ve heard from the guards that toured Aurora, they are a terror to behold! They’ve even been said to give the Hero King a bit a’ trouble now and then,” the youth rambled, the confines of the wagon offering the pretense of safety.

“Sentient?” the yellow-cloaked figure demanded, turning his robotic face to the child.

Stammering, the child shouted, “I don’t know what that means!”

Growling, the exo abandoned his firing point and grabbed the boy by his neck. He lifted him over his head and allowed the smooth lenses of his eyes to bore into the child’s mind. He gave the boy a forceful shake, shouting, “Do they think!?”

Tears rolled down his cheeks as he sobbed out, “Yes! Yes, I think so!”

“You either think, or you know,” the gerudo said coldly, engaging in a swirling dance of blades with her opponent.

The young boy began to weep in earnest, heaving and wailing as he struggled for breath against the android’s strangling grip. His little legs kicked and flailed as fear overwhelmed his fragile mind, tiny fingers tugging at the exo’s hands. “I’ll ask you one more time,” the robot stated.

When the boy only answered in more tears, the exo took a step to turn, dangling the squirming child over the side of the wagon. The heavily armored woman laughed and lowered her weapon, the thunderous rhythm of her blasts suddenly and overwhelmingly absent. The flailing boy glanced over his shoulder to see the lithe form of the fury darting in the darkness, the glint of her blade the only thing revealing her presence.

“I’d say you’ve only got a few seconds before that ‘fury’ cuts off your legs for a nice snack, kiddo,” the massive woman intoned grimly. “Better tell that bucket of bolts what he wants to hear.”

The exo grinned, as much as he could grin, and turn his wrist outward, allowing the boy a full view of the creature that was coming to kill him. The boy’s eyes widened and he suddenly went still, terror wresting control of his body. The gang of secondaries each looked to the young, sniveling child, and in their eyes some horrible reflection of his fear glinted within them. It seemed as though they took in the child’s whole being, in all his anguish, and the relished in it. Their gaze was that of a pack of hyenas prowling in the wake of an injured gazelle, waiting for it to succumb to its wounds.

Tentatively, the terrible creature in the darkness took a step forward, keeping its blade between itself and the cart. It tilted its head, curious as it tested the other combatant’s reactions. When it became clear that the gunfire had truly stopped, it belted out another trilling shriek and charged. His whole body clenched at once and he was unable to prevent himself from wetting his trousers as he witnessed the fury sprinter closer and closer. It lifted its katana high into the air and crouched down to leap.

“THEY CAN THINK!” the child finally screamed, taking momentary control over his faculties.

“Perfect,” the android purred and spiked the screeching boy hard into the hard steel floor of the wagon.

The dornishman let loose and arrow, penetrating her left calf and halting her dramatic leap. She hit the sand in a heap, writhing and tugging at the projective that protruded from her leg, wrenching it free with the sound of rending muscle. The gerudo stepped around the corner of the wagon, covered in the blood of her opponent, and the fury reached for her weapons. They were jsut out of reach. She wordlessly turned her eyes up to the dervish that now stood triumphantly over her. “Looks like you’re our lucky winner,” she said with a wide grin under her beak-like nose.

The flat of the scimitar slapped the creature’s head, and darkness consumed her vision.