390: Exactly What You Wanted (Patreon)

[Author note: Just a quick one - I got increasingly annoyed with Marlowe/Maverick looking so similar. Figured I'd just fix it now lol. Marlowe now = Marlo.]

The dragon fell, and Nicolai opted to fall with it. He dismissed his wings in a puff of Oma and dropped. Arms loose, feet trailing, he felt the wind resistance taking hold under his heels, tipping him back, the sky sliding under his boots.

He put his arms out, dropped his shoulder, and rolled fluidly back upright. A skill he’d learned dropping out of planes, long ago, in the skies above Earth. He slid a few feet to the left to preserve the distance between himself and the plummeting dragon, and watched the panic with interest. It was looking like he’d be getting a chance to save someone’s life—and thus put them eternally in his debt—sooner than anticipated. Serrin was off on the dragon’s other side, arms out like he was trying to work out who to grab, but all the rest were in quite a state.

‘Silver, Silver!’ screamed Junko. Silver didn’t answer, he just kept on dropping like a stone because he was unconscious. His chest went first, being the heaviest part of him, and it pulled his limbs trailing after—wings hauled near vertical by the rushing air, and his tail streamed out behind like a rope. His thick neck drifted, head lolling on the end of it, jaw hanging open, one eye shut, the other showing a slit of white. The air worked him as he fell, tipped him up, and Silver began to go down nose-first.

‘Junko, let him go!’ Yue yelled, grabbing at the girl. Junko was clutching tightly at one of Silver’s spines, frantically slamming her other fist against the side of his neck. ‘I can save us.’

‘You got this?’ yelled Maverick.

‘Junko, let him go.’

‘Wait,’ said Junko. ‘I can’t let him crash! Okay, okay, go!’ The Mark on the back of her hand flared gold, and Silver came apart into thousands of tiny white motes, gone back to wherever it was he came from, and they were falling through nothing at all.

At that moment, Sora, who’d been hovering over Yue, dove down, got beneath Junko and Yue, and spun a circle of howling wind. The three of them abruptly ceased their descent, disappearing upwards, and Junko’s white face was visible peering down from above.

‘Maverick, Marlo!’ she yelled.

Maverick, who even as he fell had been focused on pulling his numerous guns in and slotting them into place—in what Nicolai judged to be the manner of a dog who’d survived more than one mid-air disaster—sprouted a parachute. It blasted out from a port on his back, spread wide in a curtain of dark-grey, caught the air with a snap, and he was floating.

Only Marlo kept falling, releasing a great, bellowing roar of fear, thrashing frantically at the empty air as he tumbled. Serrin shot down after him, wings buzzing.

‘Help me!’ the Hornet yelled up at Nicolai, speaking through ripples that he broadcast at what was effectively a shout.

‘As you wish,’ replied Nicolai in his own languid ripples, diving after.

Serrin picked his moment and with the airborne skill typical of Hornets lunged in, caught Marlo under a shoulder and heaved, wings letting out a sharp buzz as he tried to rise, but Marlo merely slowed a little.

Nicolai arrived a moment later and neatly snatched Marlo under the other shoulder. Which was when he discovered just how heavy the man was, and Nicolai realised they wouldn’t be able to rise while carrying his weight. They were gliding, now, descending at a slow but steady pace. Below them the Dead City was losing the vagueness it had held from Silver’s back. A mist, cold and clinging, had risen up from the streets at some point earlier, as the sun began to drift down on the edge of the sky. Rooftops and the shapes of buildings pierced out of the grey.

‘Hoof—haaah—hoo—’ gasped Marlo, hanging between their grips like a slab of dead meat and staring down at the ground swinging below them.

‘Don’t worry, we’ve got you,’ said Serrin.

Marlo nodded, his heavy breathing slowing. Then he turned lively, began to twist his head about.

‘Where are they? Where’d they go? Are they all right?’

Nicolai had already found them. Some way off, Sora was setting Yue and Junko down upon a tower rising out of the mess of the Dead City—a rare intact building—with Maverick’s parachute drifting in after them. He began pulling towards the tower, Serrin moving with him, and together they carried the big man across.

They dropped Marlo to land with a grunt and touched down either side of him. Junko was there in an instant, lunging forwards, wrapping her arms around Marlo and sobbing into his chest.

‘Are you okay?’ she said, and, ‘I’m sorry!’ and, ‘I thought Yue would do something…’ each tumbling out atop the last, half of it lost in his chest. And she glared back, her little face all red and tearful, at Yue.

‘Sora can only carry so many,’ Yue replied, raising her arms helplessly. ‘And I knew there were others who could catch his fall.’

Marlo looked down at Junko, smiling, and looking oddly guilty. He wrapped an arm around her and held her tight.

‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘I’m fine.’

Nicolai opted against adding Thanks to us. There was no need to draw attention to his absolutely stellar performance. It spoke for itself. Indeed, he anticipated quite a change in Junko’s attitude after what had just occurred.

Maverick came down last, his parachute settling over him in a slow grey collapse. ‘Gah! Bloody thing—’ He thrashed under the fabric, a lumpy shape staggering about the rooftop, and after a moment a blade came out through the canopy and he tore his way free. He shook himself, panels clicking back into place along his flanks, and squinted around at the rest of them.

Junko pulled away from Marlo to look, tears sparkling in her eyes, and let out a laugh.

‘Everyone all right?’ said Maverick. ‘Everyone fine?’

‘Looks like it,’ said Marlo, nodding.

‘Everyone apart from Silver.’ Junko’s face crumpled and she let out another sob.

‘Aye.’ Maverick shook his head. ‘Poor dragon really got torn up out there.’

Nicolai, observing, was thinking that perhaps he’d misunderstood how her summoning power worked. He’d been under the impression the summons would simply return the next time she called them up, hale and hearty. Regardless, their fight would’ve drawn attention from wide afield. They needed to get moving.

Serrin started hesitantly forwards, stopping a little short of her. ‘Will the dragon be okay?’ he asked. ‘Is he permanently injured?’

She looked up. ‘No,’ she said. ‘He’s always fine when he comes back, but—’

‘There’s no problem, then.’ Nicolai broke in, looking briskly around at the others. ‘Let’s get on with it, shall we? I propose Serrin and I scout ahead. We’re particularly suited to the task. Once your summoning-cooldown-whatever is restored you can bring Silver back. We can talk while we move.’

Nobody moved. Junko was staring up at him with her mouth open and working silently. Marlo had gone very still, a heavy frown creasing his brow as he stared at Nicolai, who was left standing there in confusion, his words hanging in the air like a bad smell.

‘You don’t care about what he went through at all, do you?’ she said, shaking her head with, apparently, disgust.

‘He’ll be fine. He’s off healing wherever he goes,’ he said, shrugging, ‘so he’s got nothing to worry about. Unlike us, standing in a ruined city full of monsters, with one week to achieve the object and get out of here.’

He heard Junko let out a gasp, a strangely affronted-sounding one, for whatever odd reason—random neuronal firing, perhaps—while he walked to the edge of the rooftop and peered warily down at the street.

‘We need to get moving.’ He continued, figuring he should outline things more clearly. ’That fight would have been visible for miles, and this city is far from safe even without it.‘ He looked to Serrin. ’Let’s go.‘ And then to the others: ’You follow after us.‘ He put a foot on the parapet, flicked his wings.

‘Hey, no! Wait!’

Junko was coming towards him. Nicolai shifted his foot and turned to her, raising an eyebrow as he realised with some excitement that she must have recognised the need to give the grovelling apology he deserved. She was working her way up to something, that much was clear, but the bubbling mess of her Soul and her twitching features was hard to read.

‘I get it,’ she said, glaring at him. ‘You must be delighted. This has gone exactly how you hoped it would, hasn’t it? You wanted Silver to be shot down!’

Nicolai stared at her, experiencing a startling combination of disbelief and anger.

‘What?’

‘I said you must be delighted!’ she yelled. ‘From the start, you wanted to be scouting ahead of us so we’d be reliant on you. You just want to act like you’re in control and call all the shots.’

‘The girl’s got a point,’ growled Marlo. ‘You’re not our leader.’

Nicolai stared at them. Junko. Then Marlo. Back to Junko. He realised his mouth was open, closed it with a snap that was loud inside his helmet. He was unsure how to reply, or whether he even needed to bother. She was obviously wrong. He had done plenty to show that he was fully committed to helping Silver survive, as well as acting as a proper member of the team, and his suggestions were no more than obvious next steps. In fact, he was the one who had the most reason to desire the haste flying on a dragon could have brought them.

‘What is it,’ he asked in a voice of total resignation, ‘that drives you to accuse me of all this bullshit?’

‘Am I wrong?’ she snapped. ‘It’s obvious. You’re delighted it’s gone this way.’

Nicolai scoffed. ‘If it weren’t for me and everything I did, you’d really have something to cry about.’

‘We would’ve gotten out of that just fine,’ she hissed. ‘We’ve survived worse.’

Nicolai laughed. ‘Gotten out of that fine? Survived worse?’ He shook his head, incredulous. ‘I’ll tell you exactly where you’d be. You’d be standing there.’ He pointed to the edge of the tower, to the low wall. ‘Leaning over and staring down at the ground far below, where you’d see your friend here—’ and he pointed at Marlo ‘—who’d be a crumpled heap on the ground. Bloody. Broken. Bones. Probably his skull smashed open, shards of it all over the place,’ he added, flicking his hands as though tossing said shards into the air. ‘That’s where you’d be. Crying your eyes out like a baby. Wailing over his smashed up body.’

Junko had turned pale. Her mouth was slightly open, and she was looking past him, eyes wide, staring at the low wall and the drop beyond it. He wondered if she was picturing his words in her head. He hoped so. That had been the intention, after all.

‘And if you want to talk about teamwork,’ he added, ‘I think the big question is why Yue was so quick to abandon him to fall to his death.’

‘I didn’t abandon him,’ said Yue sharply. ‘I knew you two could fly. I knew you would save him, and Sora can only carry so much weight. It was the only option.’

‘Yes!’ cried Nicolai with sudden excitement, locking on to her. There it was. It was proven. Yue was not an idiot. She saw the world as it really was, unlike Junko and her shiny-headed admirer, Marlo. ‘Therefore, you must know,’ he said, now speaking entirely to her, ‘that all these insane accusations from Junko are just that: insane. Or perhaps the product of a yet-to-be-fully-grown brain. How about you stop standing there silently and stand up for what’s right?’

‘Oi.’ Maverick came round and planted himself in front of Nicolai. ‘She cried over a dragon. That’s the crime, is it? Girl cried over her dragon.’

He stared up at Nicolai, voice a growl. ‘Men I used to operate with would laugh at her for that, just like you. But you know what, after twenty years of that life, that’s why I like these guys. First time in a long time I don’t have to always keep an eye over my shoulder, ready for someone to try and screw me over. And a group like this is rare. Someone like Junko, rarer still. So when a fella looks her over, finds the softest thing in her and puts a boot straight through it because it’s the quickest…’ His armour clanked ominously as weapons stirred along his flanks. ‘…Let’s just say it makes me angry. Anyway, Junko was also saying you’re trying to call the shots. And she ain’t wrong about that.’

Yue nodded at this, because of course she did. Maverick had just deflected Nicolai away from her. This group, he was realising, were all leaning on and supporting one another, aligned against him. He glared at them all, eyes narrowed.

‘You said something about having to watch your back,’ spoke up a new voice, a little halting. It was Serrin, who drew everyone’s eye as he stepped forward, spear lowered. ‘Watch your back for someone who’d screw you over.’

Maverick looked up at the Hornet and Serrin shrugged, the movement oddly slow and careful.

‘Nicolai has never done that to me. He stuck by me. And he could have flown off today, but he didn’t. He helped me with Marlo, and nobody asked him to, and before that he was the reason we went and helped the dragon with the missiles. That wasn’t my idea, that was his.’ He shook his head. ‘You’re all talking like he did nothing.’

Maverick’s head slowly tilted. ‘How long’ve you known him, lad?’

Serrin didn’t answer. ‘Anyway,’ he went on, quieter. ‘Junko might have a point. But Nicolai is right that we should get moving, and he and I are best suited to scouting ahead.’

‘She does not have any kind of point,’ said Nicolai, turning on him, only to realise that he had growled the words. He took a moment to rein his voice in before continuing. He could feel the Dark pressing up from beneath his consciousness, but he refused to suffer a lapse because of Junko and her pet idiots. Not him. He had control. ‘I was, in fact, eager to continue atop the dragon. It would have significantly sped up our journey, something I am fully in favour of, because I find that I simply cannot wait to be done with this and away from her. And I have no interest in calling the shots. I simply want to get moving.’

Steady there, Psychology murmured as he finished, and he heard Serrin sigh as Junko stepped forward.

‘Admit it,’ she said, scowling. ‘This is exactly what you wanted!’

Nicolai raised his hands in utter confusion. ‘Why? Why would I want to get to our destination more slowly?’

‘Not that! All the rest!’ she snapped. ‘You want to act like you’re the best thing ever, and that we all have to rely on you!’

Nicolai scoffed, but reined in the words that immediately rose to his lips. All he could think was what a waste of time this was. They ought to be moving. It was astonishing to him that even this dog, this mercenary, was willing to act like such a fool on behalf of this stupid little girl. He wasn’t even sure truly what it was they were arguing about, why he was suddenly the bad guy. He began more seriously considering the pros and cons of just walking off. He looked to Psychology, but the Module’s advice came through strangely muffled.

It was becoming surprisingly difficult to remain Mr Reasonable, while the endless murmuring of the Modules was growing duller. And this loathsome, ridiculous creature was still standing in front of him, sucking in and wasting oxygen. He tensed, slightly surprised to realise that Junko was coming toward him, moving closer for no reason he could read from her posture. The others, however, were straightening in a way he recognised intimately, preparing for combat. Her head tilted further back as she drew closer, still glaring up at him, but there was an odd edge to her expression—a kind of anxiety.

It was only when a hand seized him by the arm, and Marlo shoved himself between them, and the clamouring of the Modules became distinct that he realised she hadn’t been coming towards him. He had been taking slow steps towards her.

While emanating bloodthirst, Threat Analysis told him.

Which is reasonable, added Cyberwarfare, but you really need to watch that.

The Dark had crept up inside him, as it often did.

‘Watch it,’ murmured Serrin, who had taken hold of his elbow.

‘I’ve seen men move like that in the ring,’ said Marlo, voice low and fists up. ‘Not another step.’

‘He will not,’ said Serrin, still holding his elbow. A gentle yet firm pressure. ‘He’s not going to do anything. I know him.’

‘All right,’ Maverick broke in, coming around where Marlo had positioned himself between Nicolai and Junko. ‘Enough of this. The longer we stay here, the more likely something goes wrong. And I reckon these two going ahead ain’t so bad anyway.’ His gaze moved from Nicolai to Junko. ‘Probably better to have a bit of space between people.’

Marlo nodded grimly along with this, frowning at Nicolai, who, eyeing him, imagined his head exploding into a million pieces, blood spraying all over their faces. He wondered how they’d react, and barely managed to throttle a laugh when his imagination supplied a detailed reaction scene.

‘I agree,’ said Yue.

‘Fine,’ said Junko, peering around Marlo. ‘Go on, then,’ she said, before swiftly adding, ‘but make sure to come back often and tell us if you see anything.’

‘That is how scouting works,’ Nicolai put in icily, recognising her immature attempt to portray herself as his commander for exactly what it was. He found Serrin, standing all downcast beside him. ‘Come on,’ he snapped, and leapt into the air with a harsh buzz.