Chapter Text
Fractured World
Chapter Thirteen \\ Whiplash
Bingo leaned against the wall, still eyeing her newly obtained artifact of dubious importance. She stood outside the infirmary, cracking a bad joke that got her kicked out for the time being. She stared back at the stone, noticing how the rock shifted to a deep brown despite it usually being orange as she held it.
Jack’s semi-conscious body laid still on a desk, repurposed into something of a scrappy hospital bed. Rusty stood over him, the stump that was once his arm now bandaged up thanks to Bluey and Jean-Luc. Mackenzie placed a hand on Rusty’s shoulder, attempting to comfort him, the red kelpie had a steady stream of tears fall from his face, his eyes were shut.
“Thanks Mack…” Rusty muttered under his breath, Mackenzie simply nodded.
“Jean! How much longer on that thing?” Mackenzie shouted with urgency.
Jean-Luc walks out from a small closet, holding what looks like a pile of scrap metal in his hands. He set it down on the table where Jack’s arm should be. Everyone simply stared at it, the pile of scrap was long, bulky and just…weird to look at.
“It’s ready, it’s ready! I will need the bandages removed for one of these pieces.” JL detached a small cap-like piece from the scrap pile, underneath was strange metal ridges that had a slight blue sheen to them. He looked to Rusty who took a deep breath, calming himself down.
“This better work, Jean.” Rusty said, grudgingly removing the bandages from his stump. It began to bleed profusely, Rusty looked away, seeing visions from his final moments in the asylum with Jack.
“I got it from here, my friend.” JL said reassuringly, placing the cap over Jack’s wound.
“So… What is this?” Bluey breaks her silence asking JL just what he is doing. “This just seems like a good way for the poor guy to get tetanus or something…”
JL chuckles a bit. “No, my friend, he…should be safe from that… I added some Juggernog to the contact points, so if anything he should be even healthier from it. Could you hand me the rest of it?”
Bluey picks up the pile of scrap, noticing how it's all staying together, each piece in the same position, even being more affected by gravity.
“It’s an arm by the way, I had built it for myself in the event that…something causes me to rot to the point where I start losing limbs…so far it hasn’t happened yet. The arm is all…folded up…” JL adds, taking the metal arm and jamming a ball joint into the hole on the top of the cap.
Rusty looks over, his hand over his mouth. “Is he going to be okay?” Receiving a nod from Jean. Rusty sighs in relief, but still holding a sense of paranoia over this operation.
“Alright, we better wake him…The faster we get him back on his feet the faster we can get back to Bingo’s little escapade.” Bluey admitted, seeing a Heeler-like silhouette in the foggy door-window behind her.
“Go on, Prince Charming…” Mackenzie chuckled, patting Rusty on the back.
“You really think that's going to wake someone who passed out and nearly died from blood loss and mutilation???” JL blurts out sarcastically.
“I prefer him to be awake and conscious when I kiss him, sorry Mack.” Rusty said, smiling nervously.
Bluey mouths “It was worth a shot” to Mackenzie, receiving a small laugh in return.
Jack starts to move again, his eyes start to open, all he can hear is his ears ringing, the smell of gasoline and blood and everything is a blur. “Fuck…”
He’s waking up!” Bluey exclaimed.
“Where the fu…what? Where the… Where are we?” Jack moved his head up, rubbing his eyes and head with his organic hand.
“How do you feel?” Jean asks attentively.
“Like hammered shit…” Jack tries to move his other arm, but feels a bit of resistance and heft to it. “What the…? Wh-WHAT THE HELL!?” Jack screams in shock at his new mechanical arm, it begins to unfold and take form.
“It was…the best I could get in such a short notice…certainly beats having to re-bandage that stump though if you ask me.” Jean says. “I added a couple modifications as well, in your palm there should be a small arrow-head-like object, you can use this to grapple onto things and pull them or yourself in. It's all controlled neurotically.”
Jack slowly gets used to his arm’s weight, moving it up and moving each of his fingers, putting his hand in a fist and stretching his fingers out. “Damn… it's…numb but it feels like the real thing is there…if that makes any sense…”
“There is no ‘sense’ in this world.” Bingo walks in, her eyes blue, the Lazarus Stone in her hand. “We don’t have much time, they will return soon.” She points to JL. “Labrador, do you know if the teleporter is still where it should be?”
“It's there, just out of power…I haven’t been able to get enough concentrated divinium.” Jean-Luc explains.
“Leave that to me.” She looks over to Jack. “Alright, dead-weight, think you fight?” She says tauntingly.
Jack furrows his brows, and puts his mechanical hand in a fist. “You want to find out?”
The conversation was cut short by the sounds of groans and screams in the distance.
“We have to go. Now.” Bluey says, standing up and picking up her scythe.
“The room with the teleporter is about three doors down on our left. I’ll need some time to get it calibrated and powered with the Lazarus Stone, so I’ll need you all to cover me while I get it operational.” Bingo explained the plan as everyone stood up, readying their weapons as Bingo opened the door, hand-cannon in hand.
“NOW!”
The door burst open as the sextet ran out, the horde following them close behind as they ran down the hall, running past the remains of the Abomination, Jack takes the opportunity to loot the Bandit-half, taking the chainsaw safely. They reach the room with the teleporter quickly thanks to Stamin-Up. Bingo ran to a control panel while everyone got ready to hold their ground. Bluey and Mackenzie readying their respective melee weapons in a defensive pose, ducking so Rusty and Jean get shots in without friendly fire. Jack walked over to Bluey and Mackenzie, revving up his chainsaw. The zombies were not far behind, destroying the door and bursting through the doorway, attempting to claw their way through each other. The melee trio cut them down with ease, bisecting countless meat bags with Rusty and Jean-Luc gunning down the ones that manage to push past the wall of blades in their way. The zombies didn’t even seem to try and attack back, seemingly only interested in Bingo.
Bingo held up the Lazarus Stone, sparks of lightning erupt from it and hit the power grid next to it, slowly but surely turning to powerful bolts as the teleporter turned on. She then began to input the coordinates. “Alright… 47.4832 North… 13.1889 East… Start-up system engaging… Everyone in positions please!” Her eyes turned green, a look of panic rested on her face.
Bluey and Mackenzie slowly moved back towards the teleporter with Jack following suit, tossing the chainsaw on the platform before moving to punching the undead with his newfound arm and strength, caving in the skull of one that got way too close for comfort with a single blow. He holds out his mechanical hand, the arrow shooting out like a bullet nailing a zombie directly in the eye. Jack held onto the rope that connected to the arrow, now in the zombie’s head, tightly, rappelling the zombie speeding towards him for Jack to grab and crush, letting the undead’s grey matter stain his fur.
The three then finally run back to the teleporter, letting Rusty and Jean light the horde up to give Bingo more time
“Okay…clamped manifold parameters to CY Base and LG Orbifold- Ah hell with it just push buttons!” Bingo yelled, speeding herself up.
“Bingo!” Bluey shouted to her sister.
“Okay, it’s ready! Everyone in position! No mis-fires and no door this time, it takes too long!” Bingo instructs as she runs inside the teleporter, familiar sparks of light envelop the sextet as the world goes white around them.
A zombie-like figure seems to push past the crowd and rush towards the teleporter, holding a giant sword, arm out-stretched. “GET BACK HERE YOU ORANGE-FURRED FREAK!”
Mackenzie’s eyes widened. He knew that voice.
“Huh?” Bingo said just before they finally teleported away. The light nearly blinded the figure as it stopped right in front of the teleporter.
“...” The figure stands, putting its sword down. The figure wore a red coat, underneath, a blood-stained black tank top with even bloodier black pants. It sported a muscular build, its long, curly hair and fur covering most of its face, the only thing one could see from it in this lighting was a beady yellow eye, the other one presumably covered by its hair. “Yeah…I know…They escaped…” It spoke to nobody, the zombies behind it turning to ash before its eyes. It held out a hand, a portal opening in front of it. “I assume the others are in place and position?” And silence followed as it walked over to the portal, looking more like a tear in the very fabric of reality. “At my request, position Pyromaniac and Slackjaw at Location B, the satellite, intercept the scientist, and strike her heart.” It continued to talk to itself, seemingly requesting commands to a higher authority. “Initiate Loki, do not let them intercept either Freya, Odin, nor Thor. Sparkplug will obviously commandeer Loki.” It reaches the portal but stops and stands at it. “Deploy all six of us; Pyromaniac, Slackjaw, Sparkplug, Siren, War Mech and me obviously - we need ALL hands on deck… I understand…”
“I’m heading to Location A now.” It says, walking through the portal.
“Swordmaster Judo, approaching The Iron Dragon.”