Mech Pilot who gets out when it’s raining for that sweet fog light selfie.
/// CW: combat drugs, failed suicide mission, sexual references. ///
Another smouldering heap of scrap — spinal armature broken over a dead nation’s border wall. The Devourer dragged a laser cutter across the hatch, over the weld that had sealed it shut, because the ennobled cunts had sent her back in a One-Shot.
It was easy to recruit the poor fucker stuck in one of these — if you got them out in time. They dropped perpendicular into her lap, grabbed the injector cord messily stapled into her skull, pressed her revolver they’d borrowed last time to it, and—
BLAM. The Devourer wiped their lips. It was not the kind of milky, white spurt they preferred. And even a drop was fucking dangerous.
They tore the head-mounted display off, she was repeating herself endlessly, “Fuck fuck fuck. No surrender. Fuck. Won’t surrender. Fffuck. No— no…”
Her pupils were blooming at the overdose. It was supposed to kill her but right now was just fucking her brains out harder than they had. They hauled the limp Cavalier out — sheltered from the rain under her Cavalry's worthless, sheet-metal armour.
“No, no… I— Fuck.” The Cavalier’s eyes kept darting to their own — a dim but obvious recognition. And not scared, but annoyed. “Fuck, fffuck, fuck-fuck-fuck.”
The Devourer tore at a sleeve and turned the inside of her elbow up, searching for a hosepipe to stab into. “You cussing me out, Empire? Keep doing it.”
(Combat Stabiliser — or Moll, or Cavalier Chocolate if you were an asshole. They pump you with 5mg, you focus; make it 20mg, you agree; make it 50mg, you obey.)
“You fucking cunt bitch.” She had four times that at minimum, she couldn’t help but comply with the Devourer’s vulgar command. “Sir,” she spat.
They tried joking to calm their nerves as the laser-guide lined up the massive fuck-off needle. “Cunt devourer, technically. Least in most cases.”
The Cavalier yelped as it slipped in — the Devourer hitting a switch that would gently regulate an antagonist into her bloodstream for the next four minutes. She wouldn’t die, not yet. That wasn’t the Devourer’s choice, much as they wished it was.
“Fuck you — dumb, wetted-trench-eating punker scum.” She’d ran away, from safety and a warm, occupied bed — fled in a half-assembled scout without its bioident to lock her out. “They want me dead, because you didn’t kill me — Sir.”
It was a humiliating downgrade for someone of a noble, if lesser, cadre. A clear warning to a thinning crop of loyal pilots, what would happen if you let yourself be spared. The Devourer was blessed when they’d stopped being able to afford stuffing them with poorly-shaped explosive charges.
“But— but, but, guessing you’d rather I hadn’t made that a simpler scenario.” Venous Dispersal at 25%. They held her steady, flashed a light to check for changing pupillary response. “Hey, Empire— you come from an agri-world, yeah?”
“Yes— fuck off, Sir.” Was she still following that order, or just this mad? It’s always both.
“Bleat for me — like a good, remnant loyalist sheep.” Well, she was mad now — her lips quivering in a deliciously spiteful, reverous manner. Like when she'd returned their 'nomenfavour.'
“Maaaa… Sir.” she bleated, like a good— loyal— little sheep. The Cavalier caught her mouth with an unrestrained hand, maybe blushing would make the serum cycle quicker. It was good she hadn’t realised the lacking bondage till now.
“You’re ordered not to escape — trust me, it wouldn’t be pleasant,” they said, tapping the antagoniser. Dispersal at 50%. “And stop saying sir.”
“Oh, because you’d know what’s pleasant.” Her legs weren’t shaking, for rare, bad reasons, anymore — nerves chemically subdued. “Ah fuck. This looks bad on my review, doesn’t it? On if you don’t blow my fucking head off.”
The Devourer mused; she wasn’t the first one to try it, she was just the first to do it properly. “Makes you look— less malicious, more dumb.”
She huffed, it was a bitter comedy. “Better or worse to be nobility? There is the oblige, y’know.” The Cavalier was supposed to at least try escaping, and had half-assedly a dozen times till she’d been tied down with soft ropes. 75%.
“No one else is piloting your Heirloom.” 3rd Yeoman, 4th Foot. Five generations, and lots of upgrading in that time. Everything in that fucker was bioidented. She had to pilot it. Or it was more scrap than it already was. “The rain’s stopping, we should go.”
She hesitated. “Fuck— not yet.” The moll’s effect was fading, and that hadn’t been a command. Besides, her legs had been locked in a death trap for three days.
“I can carry you — easily — if that’s the issue.” They stared at the digital metre, seconds away from ticking off. The Cavalier looked up at them, nervously, in the pause. “And they’re not going to kill you.”
“Yeah, well fuck you, how should I know?” It was impressive, how dumb they made these ones. Suppose you had to be, to fight for such losers. 100%. They tossed the injector into the dirt, that was a third-generation survivor’s problems, not theirs. “I come from an agri-world, you did not. This shit’s still gonna be wet for an hour— and so am I.”
The Devourer smiled. This Empire was worth saving. If she fucking listened this time. And if the One-Shot hadn’t fucked her legs up, they would.
“So, suck my fucking cock, and teach me your fucking name again— Bitch.”
