Private All Gas, No Brakes

[Sam Rodarch]

Mid-Levels, Coruscant

Bitter.

That was grit in a nutshell. Crack open the nut, and it was like taking a hunk of crusty, polluted beach and shoving it into your maw. Beyond bitter, she might have said chemical, or metal. Definitely always metal in the aftertaste. Blood or ulcers, maybe. Didn't do any harm worth mentioning, and she liked the way it slightly numbed her mouth and cheeks, always took that to mean that it was working.

A few minutes and it would be. Proper. Sam liked when it first hit, when the world came into focus, and everything else went by the wayside. Alert. Aware. Fucking fast.

Sam's organic thumb was still pressed up into her gums as she walked down the service walkway, caught between two towers. Artificial rain was pissing it down somewhere up at the top, and now in the mid-levels the funnel had finally come in. It dripped, trickled and otherwise bucketed off ledges and lips with no consistency, leaving some patches dry as a bone and others under a near-torrential sheet.

The job had gone alright at least by Sam's estimations. Hit job on an arms dealer who had either been doing too good or too shit a job to warrant getting mercenaries set upon him.

Intel had been off; the bastard had five guards, not three as promised, and that changed the plan. Or, it had changed Sam's plan. Became a bit of a fracas. Not that it mattered; the target was dead with a new credit slot for a throat, and so was his muscle, smeared across the shop like too much jam on too little toast. Didn't stop Ossa from being pissy about it. Sam's head had already dropped half of what the Togruta was pitching a fit about as she cleaned off her blade. She still had a fragment of the exchange in her head:

-have bled on my case. Again. It stains the lining and it does not come out. Is there even a point explaining to you why-

That was about all she kept. From where Sam was standing, yeah, they were only there to make one body and instead came away having done six, but they hit the target. Some jobs were messy, but it was still a job done. More cleanup, but they'd still get paid. They would move on to the next one. Didn't need much more thought than that.

She rounded the corner, where light and sound hit. Neon lights smeared across her vision, causing Sam's eyes to squint as the grit still went to work in her bloodstream. Foot traffic was still high despite the time of night, and the food stalls were in full flow. Frying oil, dozens of different short-tempered chefs shouting out in a dozen different languages. Speeder traffic overhead. Transit rattling down the line. Loud place, Coruscant. Too loud. Felt like somebody opening a fist on the inside of her skull. She missed the backwaters sometimes, even if she couldn't remember their names.

There was an unspoken berth around her as she walked. Like the locals had taken one look at her: the shaved head, the hard-carved face, the unblinking red-rimmed eyes and thought, 'no, not today'. Or maybe it was the litany of scars that made it look like she was a part-time piñata. The off-centre nose. The battered ear. The junkyard cybernetic arm that hung from above the elbow, no plating, just exposed guts and prison ingenuity.

Could have been a lot of things. Could have been nothing. Probably wasn't nothing.

As Sam came to a junction plaza, where four streets diverged into a large square for aimless milling about, she picked her spot on a bench and parked up in the centre.

Tilting her head backwards, the mercenary caught all of the lights of the buildings that reached out to the skies at once. The grit kicked in better, settling blurs into shapes, lights into signs and advertisements, and made a little more sense of the world. Except, she couldn't read a single fucking word, so really it was all just neon illumination. Bright noise. Like everything. Loud.

After a period of time that was largely unclear, Sam looked back down again and realised the real reason the locals had probably avoided her. The blood. Her tank top was black, so it hid the worst offenders, but the drying smears along her arms and shoulders were decidedly on display. Most of it wasn't hers. Some of it was. On closer inspection, her red was trickling from the join between flesh and metal on her arm. It was what it was. The arm was anchored to the bone, and the pain limiter had been removed because hitting at full power was more important than preserving herself. Must have whiffed a fat fist in the fight and sent the whole joint and humerus pulling, tearing the skin and trying to wrench her shoulder damn loose from its socket.

She never regretted it. Not once. Never in fucking doubt. All the pain, the torn flesh, the dislocations, the whatever else was a worthy price for the hit she could deliver.

Didn't need much else.

 

[Mercy]

Sam Rodarch

Mercy had promised Arris Windrun to stick around.

To not leave the Sith Covenant in her wake, when another bout of wanderlust caught her. Mercy couldn't really promise that she'd be able to stick to that forever. There were other wars to fight, there were relationships to maintain and more importantly... Rishi was not under their control and that was probably her favorite world in the Galaxy.

Beaches, sapphire seas, tropical drinks and pirates.

Everything a hungry woman might need.

But for now, Mercy somewhat managed to keep to the agreement. Whenever she felt a flux of wanderlust, she simply... wandered. Last time she had wandered right into the guts of the Coruscanti underworld. She had met Grace there. Today Mercy was taking in the sight of the Mid-levels. They were... surprisingly apt for their name.

Very mid, very average, very... default.

She was smoking from her pipe and looking at something on her datapad. A big hulking mountain just casually on a stroll. Most people probably couldn't believe their eyes, but Mercy didn't put too much attention on that.

There were more important things on her mind.

It is why Mercy somehow managed to not notice Sam sitting on her bench, even as the Sith Lord passed it, not even looking up from her datapad.

Until her back was to Sam.

When you get a shot at the Throne, you better not miss.

 

[Sam Rodarch]

She registered the shape first, not the movement.

It was Coruscant; it was all movement. People stacked in their towering cans like tiny fish that swam through the same streams, day in, day out, until something ate them. She was grit sharp; she tracked, but there were too many bodies.

But the shape. The size. The way those boulder fucking shoulders were set.

Heart jumped on overtime. Something cold, something deep in the gut. Small hairs on her arms and the back of her neck standing to attention. Had to be the grit. Shit cut. Too fast, too soon.

Sam was already standing.

Two years ago and it would have been a different story. This shape would have wrecked her, would have had her doubled over, hands shaking, threatening to chuck her guts on the deck. It would have meant something. It had meant something. It was a knife in a trembling hand in an alleyway with the stench of drink, desperation and fear. She hated, she wanted, she crumbled.

In the moment, she didn't realise it, couldn't access it.

Sam was already moving.

It was instinctual, something animal. The body moves, the head follows. Before thinking, before there was more than a shape or a name, Sam was running at this woman's back and, without hesitation, was leaping into a hard right haymaker with her entire body behind it, her four-fingered cybernetic fist looking to drive directly into the back of the woman's skull.

Mercy.

 

[Mercy]

Sam Rodarch

She had a brief second warning.

Like klaxons from the Force or perhaps Warform.

Something that could best be worded as: Duck you fucking idiot, you are about to DIE.

However, Mercy considered herself the greatest apex predator currently wandering the surface of Coruscant, as such she did not take any such warning seriously. Sure, someone might be attacking her. Maybe even right this instant. But there was nothing that could hurt her in any way that would matter, so doing something as silly as duck-

Something smashed into the back of her head with such velocity that Mercy was lifted up off of the ground and was send flying into the wall opposite of her.

Urghf?

The sound undignified escaping her lips as everything shook, roiled, her head spinning and as her huge frame crumbled to the ground... Mercy tried to pick herself up.

The issue was that her head seemed to be stuffed with cotton balls again. She got up, but her legs didn't want to cooperate, so she fell down again.

"Who... the-" She coughed up blood. "-fuuuuuuck..."

Then she fell on her face.

Another urghf sound as Mercy's body twitched.

 

[Sam Rodarch]

The arm pulled. Hardest punch of her life, with her full fucking body thrown into it. The shoulder slipped, shifting, tearing. Sam knew the feeling; it had happened before; it was happening more. She breathed through it, short and sharp out of her mouth as her feet kept moving forward even as her good arm hung there like dead weight. Unresponsive.

The plaza froze, recognising that a behemoth had just been smashed into a wall by some nutter from behind. Average mid-level bodies started moving, making swift and swifter exits, with only some lingering to watch, and others fumbling with datapads and comlinks.

Sam kept going. It didn't mean shit that Mercy was down. She'd been here before. She didn't know a memory of Mercy that stayed down. It was instinct to keep going. It was right. There was no reason to stop. Didn't matter what Mercy was, how big, how strong. Didn't matter who was watching, reporting, running. Didn't matter if Mercy popped up fresh as a daisy and hit back harder. There was one consensus behind the thumping heart and quickened breath:

Not enough.

As she rounded on the downed mountain, she used her real hand to position her dead arm, the joint screaming the entire time through the grit and slammed the cybernetic elbow straight into the wall with her entire weight. The force shunted bone back into the socket, a blunt jolt going up through the arm and out into the rest of her. Gritted, broken teeth hissed. The thick clunk told her enough; it was reseated; it would do.

Then she pivoted with no hesitation and aimed a heavy kick into the side of Mercy's head.

 

[Mercy]

Sam Rodarch

She got that one too.

Mercy's head snapped to the side and she saw stars. Actual ones, showering the brilliance of the lights above them with iridium joy, or maybe it was just her synapses burning into overtime to make sense of what was happening to her right now. The force of the kick was enough to make even a giant roll onto her back where she spat blood and gargled in the internal bleeding.

Then it happened.

The gargle... turned into laughter.

Sam would know it was laughter. She had to. It was the exact same thing that happened last time, when she thought she had gotten the better of Mercy. When her throat had been crushed and that ugly noise came from damaged meat that shouldn't have been able to make any noise. It was heavier now, richer in vibrance, even as it forced itself through crimson liquid filling up her throat.

Causing her to choke on her own blood and spit and choke.

Urghffughrufhg.

Ehahfahflfffff.

Whatever Mercy was saying, it was lost to the blood and the cackle.

 

[Sam Rodarch]

Face. Blood.

Laughter.

A hole opened under her ribs, cold, lurching up from the gut. Heart, still bucking, missed a step. The plaza around them seemed far away, edges of her vision blurring, pulse drumming in her own ears. Grit never hit this hard before. It didn't hit this hard. She didn't hit this hard.

Not enough.

Sam saw herself drop down, mounting Mercy's torso without a second thought, knees either side of the mountain. She saw her hands, both fists out in front of her, and she was watching. She was watching from behind her own eyes. The flesh, her real left hand, knotted with scar tissue, still bruised and split from the last time; she saw the tremor in it. There was no sound, just the pace and pant of short breath.

Then the fists were moving, the cybernetic first; the scrapheap fucking wrecking ball smashed down at Mercy's face. The flesh would follow if she wasn't stopped.

She didn't hesitate.

 

[Mercy]

Sam Rodarch

The laughter continued.

Was it just in her head? Was Mercy still making those noises? It was difficult to say as Sam kept pummeling Mercy, over and over again, until finally something cracked and a wet noise sounded as Sam pulled her fist back from her skull. The laughter stopped by then, the physical one anyway, but did it stop ringing in Sam's mind?

The large woman wasn't moving anymore.

It was done.

Wasn't it?

It had to be done.

Maybe Sam even believed it to be true as the meat laid dormant there. Prone. Not even a twitch any longer. But then everything turned horribly wrong as suddenly those same hands snapped out and grabbed Sam's wrists. There was strength in that grip, that shouldn't have been. The brain was mush, wasn't it? The skull had been cracked open, hadn't it? And yet somehow, with the brain turned to meat pulp, those hands still moved and Mercy as Meat yanked Sam towards her by her wrists.

That was brilliant. Mercy said through a ruined mouth that had received less damage than her forehead or eyes or nose. You were a shining star, so bright, ooooh my Sammy... I knew you had it in you.

There was spittle involved, blood, but their faces were so close now. Or half of one face and the full face of Sam.

But honey... you will never kill me. And here is why-

Then Mercy did one small thing... she reached out... and slapped her shoulder from the side, to get her off of her. The movement was light, almost gentle... but the Force of it had so much in it, unnatural, as it slammed into Sam as if a freight train rammed into her.

 

[Sam Rodarch]

She watched herself do it. Blow after blow. Dry, heavy thuds becoming thick, wet ones. Saw a face. That face. She saw it become obscured by blood and viscera. Even when the mountain had stopped moving, Sam was a voyeur to her own hands. Watching as she didn't stop.

She wouldn't.

Until she couldn't.

NOT ENOUGH.

From nothing came something. Hands snapping out from a corpse to engulf her wrists. That voice. The blood in her ears pulsed. What broke through was Sammy. Sammy. There was a warmth, a second of it. Face to face. Blood and spittle. Her pupils blown wide and chest heaving.

Sam didn't stop; she didn't plan to. She was about to bear broken teeth and bite into the mangled meat of Mercy's face when the woman hit back.

Her left shoulder exploded. The world was wrong. She was off her feet. Airborne for a moment and then not. Sam hit the ground at pace, bare shoulder grinding against damp ferrocrete as she slid, taking skin. The slide was only stopped by one of the benches. Blunt force. To the back.

She slammed back into her body, and the first noise left her. Not a word. A grunt.

Grit ate a lot of the pain. Always did. Couldn't eat the way her breath left her. Mechanical lungs stuttered and seized. Lightning out of the core, shooting out the limbs. Sam's mouth opened. No breath. One beat. Two beats. Spasm. Three beats. Gasp.

All from a casual slap.

She didn't pop up straight away, fresh and ready to go again. Her feet were pins and needles. The shoulder of her organic arm felt wrong. The skin of her other shoulder was smeared into the decking. Sam dragged herself onto her front. Wet. Cold. Runoff or blood. One of them. Didn't matter which. Then she started staggering to her feet.

 

[Mercy]

Right as she staggered to her feet, she'd feel a hand press against her chest and push her right back against the wall.

Now the Force was surging through Mercy.

And Sammy got to see up close what it looked like when Mercy's face was knitting itself back together again. It was horrifying, unnatural, and it was all accompanied by a smirk that exposed teeth growing back as well. Now, embracing the Dark Side, Mercy would pin Sam against the wall and the would-be murderer would realize... she could not move.

Her arms could swing around and maybe even slam into Mercy, but where before she had been made of meat... hurtable... now she seemed to be made of steel.

Mercy's attention fully focused on Sam.

"Oh, you turned into a real killer, darling..." Mercy purred happily, but the words still came out slightly slurred, as her mouth was still regrowing. If not for the fact the words were echoing straight into her mind, Sam might not have been able to figure it out. "I knew that night club would do you some good. It's nice to own a piece of the action, instead of living on the streets on scraps, doesn't it?"

Mercy had no idea, of course, that Sam had been imprisoned practically the same day she left.

"I am proud of you, Sammy, you truly made something of yourself..."

Sam Rodarch

 

[Sam Rodarch]

It shouldn't have been possible. It was. It didn't matter.

Mercy, whose face had been a mess of meat moments before, was on her feet before Sam, hand on her chest, pinning her against the wall like she was made of fucking mountains herself. She witnessed it, inches away, that face shifting. Bones. Blood. Flesh. Teeth. Wet. Sam's throat closed again, the cold still heavy in her gut. The grit playing havoc.

She didn't stop, though. Tried to push against Mercy and found that she didn't budge a hair. Tried to kick out at the knees and found legs like pillars. She swung; Sam would never stop swinging, but her fists bounced off the queen and punished her more than they did her target.

The voice was there, garbled out of the maw, but right there in her head. Like she didn't even need ears to hear her. Reverberating in the skull. Grit. Fucking grit. And she felt it, felt it again while she was still swinging, as praise was crooned at her. The warmth right in the centre of her chest hit again. Probably the lungs. They took a big hit.

Realising she couldn't swing her way out, the cybernetic hand came up to grab one of Mercy's wrists. Her four-fingered grip wrapping around, crushing and trying to pull the hand away at the same time. Nothing moved. But it would.

"'Dun 'ave shit," Sam finally spoke; her drawl came even off the back of quickened breath. There was no fear in it, no rage, just a correction of a version of events and physical exertion. "Went ta jail."

The arm, given a prison upgrade, began to labour. The governor was gone, nothing to limit the limb in the name of self-preservation. So it ramped up. Motor running from a high-pitched whine to a low growl. Exposed gears grinding. There was heat. Sam could smell the limb cooking, could feel it burn where it met flesh. Vibration, straight into the bone, up into the teeth. Struts bowing, bending, then giving. The guts of the forearm sheared and snapped, the metal splintering instead of Mercy's wrist, and the force of it, instead of breaking her target, drove up into her own arm.

The fist seized, locking in its grip on Mercy.

---

Mercy

 

[Mercy]

Sam Rodarch

Brows furrowed.

"Hells, I forgot you talk like you are chewing through concrete." Every attack by Sam on Mercy was taken in stride, but she felt the hate beneath it, the power. If she hadn't been actively channeling the Dark Side to root herself into place and make her body into Throne, then Sam would have broken bone and maybe even worse.

What a machine.

"Prison patched you right up then, darling, you are so powerful... I am proud of you."

A beat.

"Why though? You killed the owner, that means you owned the place." Another beat. "Did you like, threaten the law? You do need to kinda shake them into place the first few times, before they stop messing with you."

Her ruined face broke into sympathy.

"Oh, honey, don't tell me you just went along with them the moment they showed up. You do need to put them into dirt at least once before they listen."

Her eyes cast towards the cybernetic arm and the way it clamped around her wrist. Sam was still trying. Force, what a woman. She hadn't seen grit like this in a while, especially from a mere mortal. She would have grimaced at the sight of the metal bending rather than the flesh yielding. But Mercy was still missing most of her lips, even when the teeth popped back into place.

"Why are you trying to kill me anyway, sweetie? Without me, you'd still be lying in the dirt, drooling from drink and kissing street scum ass."

 

[Sam Rodarch]

Powerful. Proud.

Warm.

Yeah. Prison had patched her up. The Carin was good for that. Went in shaking on the floor, riding the first night without the bottle, and came out better, faster, stronger. Wasn't anything complicated in it. Could have been the final nail. Wasn't. Was the thing that got her back up. Nothing complicated in it.

"Tried ta' do 'em," she answered, her seized metal fist no longer responding to any input whatsoever, the smell of burning oil and flesh at the join confirming that she'd cooked the whole limb and hadn't done shit to Mercy's wrist. "Wit' da knife." She'd tethered herself to the woman, attached by her main weapon that was a broken liability anchored in bone. "Din't work."

If there was shame, it wasn't there in here. She wasn't strong enough to do it back then. Could remember it. At least the feeling. Shock baton, face against the deck. Being lifted like she was nothing. Wouldn't have happened now.

That's what mattered.

Sam changed method, her grit-trembling flesh hand, knuckles split, trying to pry at the fingers of the junk hand. Unsuccessfully. They slipped beneath rain and blood. Slick. Unyielding. She couldn't move anyway; she was still pinned in place against the wall, but even an inert limb could be swung if she got it loose. Mercy knew that as well as Sam.

The body protested through the high. One shoulder fucked, the other one burdened by a liability hanging off a bone. Back. Ribs. Lungs. Heart still hammering. Breath still short. Gut still cold.

"You was here," Sam drawled, not stopping trying to free her broken hand. "Back was turned."

As if it was that simple.

It was.

 

[Mercy]

"Tried ta' do 'em," she answered, her seized metal fist no longer responding to any input whatsoever, the smell of burning oil and flesh at the join confirming that she'd cooked the whole limb and hadn't done shit to Mercy's wrist. "Wit' da knife." She'd tethered herself to the woman, attached by her main weapon that was a broken liability anchored in bone. "Din't work."

Why the fuck would it not work?

All the times that Mercy tried to push through one of her own shenanigans. It had always worked. If not with a knife, then with a fist or if things really got hairy maybe with a speeder wielded like a club. Why would Sam not be able to- If Sam wasn't too far gone in her murder lust, she might have seen the realization suddenly hit Mercy, followed by pity.

"Oh, honey." Her free hand reached out and patted Sam on the cheek. "That... yeah, okay, that is my fault. I sometimes forget that people aren't me."

That wasn't a succinct way of putting it.

More accurate would be to say that Mercy quite often forgot that other people existed beyond her and that they weren't all an extension of a very surreal dream she was having.

"I apologize." She purred softly and even if Sam Rodarch didn't know her THAT well, she could have guessed that Mercy didn't apologize often. Or ever really. But things had shifted after Abregado-rae. Mercy had acknowledged the fact that she did have a responsibility to some of the people around her and that it was possible for her to fail them.

"You was here," Sam drawled, not stopping trying to free her broken hand. "Back was turned."

Mercy's carnivore smile completed as her canines popped back into existence.

"Oh, but you are a delight. I love what you have become, Sammy baby. I am so proud of you."

 

[Sam Rodarch]

Mercy could have planted her fist squarely through Sam's face and out the other side, and Sam would have understood that.

But she didn't.

Instead, one of the same hands that had ripped off Sam's own arm and beaten her half to death with it gently patted her face. Warm. Bloody. The hand that had gripped the hilt of a blade alongside her own and helped guide it into a man. She stopped prying at the fingers and couldn't say why. Bloodshot eyes stared forward at the four seized mechanical and got lost. Her breath was still quick and ragged, heart still pounding.

Then Mercy apologised.

And was proud once more.

There was no threat in it. No blow to endure. No violence. No damage. It was a gesture and words.

Sam came back to herself after a few seconds and resumed prying at the inert cybernetic hand still wrapped around Mercy's wrist. It was the only thing in front of her that made sense to do. She wasn't finished here. She wasn't going to stop. "Ain't lettin' go," she grunted in exertion, like it was the only thing that made sense to say.

 

[Mercy]

Sam Rodarch

Mercy blinked and finally looked down, finally realizing what Sam was trying to do with the cybernetic hand and her other hand.

"Oh, honey, let me help you." And she swatted Sam's trying hand away. It was measured. Enough force to force Sam's hand away, but without it breaking any of her bones inside. Sam knew... Mercy's hands were made for violence, shaped for it, forged by it. The fact that they could make such gentle gestures with such ease?

Oh, the horror of that.

Then Mercy helped by unclenching the cybernetic hand around her wrist and releasing it back to her.

The last time she had used her hand to beat her half to death... and now she was offering it right back to her.

"Aw... it's the same hand!" Mercy said with delight as she spotted the lack of a finger, the one she had torn off so many years ago. "You know, I still have it somewhere. It was such a fond memory of mine."

The Sith Lord smiled as her hand returned to stroke Sam's face.

"I so enjoyed our fight. You put up such spirited resistance."

Until she broke.

 

[Sam Rodarch]

Her own hand was slapped away like a child's while Mercy easily pried the clenched fingers apart and freed the cybernetic arm from its broken grip. When released, the limb immediately went with gravity, unresponsive, fucked. It went limp at her side, dragging her upper arm and shoulder down with it.

It was the same hand.

Same arm.

Ripped off mid-bout and used as a club. Reattached cheaply and anchored straight into the bone instead of getting a new proper mount. She remembered. Most of it. Not a lot of the end. First time she'd met Mercy. Seemed like a normal fight against a big queen. Wasn't. Lived with Mercy ever since, right there in the bone, and in every dislocated shoulder afterwards.

Finger was a trophy. That felt right. That's what winners get.

When Mercy's hand returned for a second go at affection, Sam's head moved. She was still pinned against the wall. One arm didn't work. Instinct told her what to do, and she didn't hesitate for a single moment. She moved to bite Mercy's hand, broken and jagged teeth going full force for the webbing of the other woman's thumb. The other woman, whose flesh felt like solid durasteel.

She did not hesitate.

 

[Mercy]

Sam Rodarch

Mercy briefly considered keeping her skin solid like metal.

But then she considered what a pain in the arse it would be to regrow Sammy's teeth and she softened her flesh. She didn't even twitch a muscle when the pain laced through her body, no noise was made, but Mercy looked down at her with obvious fondness. And even as Sam bit her? Mercy patted her face with the fingers still available.

"There, there, you clearly need this, I understand." Mercy said with affection. It was easier to be the bigger woman... when... you were bigger, yes, but also when you were the victor.

"But we can hardly have a conversation like this."

She pulled her thumb free, skin scrapping and undoing, as blood burst out from the flesh underneath.

"Sorry about this, Sammy. I have only so much patience."

The next thing the fighter knew, there was a fist coming into her vision, arriving rapidly and then smashing into her face. It was modulated. The last thing Mercy wanted to do was carve the top of her head clean off. But Mercy wanted to knock her out, so she could pick her up and carry her back to Throneworld where some physicians could take a look at the poor murderer.

It was the least that Mercy could do to her for making such a good showing.

That is where Sam would wake up, strapped up, the prosthetic gone... and bright lights everywhere. And a presence... out from her eye sight, still lingering.

Mercy.

 

[Sam Rodarch]

The hand gave.

Broken and jagged teeth tore into the meat of Mercy's hand with full force. Blood. The taste filled her mouth, iron overpowering the chemical remnants of grit. It was a familiar taste. Like home. Like twenty years of getting her face bashed in. It wasn't her blood this time, and she knew, from her chest, that this taste was not hers. But it was not the first time she'd had Mercy's blood in her mouth.

Even now the woman was gentle, still petting her face regardless of the violence. Still charitable in her words and tone. Still giving Sam something she did not know what to do with.

Her prize of flesh was torn away through the clamp. Skin. Red. Down the chin like something animal.

Then the fist. She saw it. Then it hi-

High-pitched whine. Ragged breath. Pulse throbbing. Heat. Cheek. Hurt. Pulsing. Cold. Eyes opening. Light smearing. On the ground. Slid down the wall. Crumpled. Scrap arm still dead. Real arm curled to her chest. Fist clenched still. Bracing. Taste of blood. Mercy. Proud. Minutes? No. Seconds. Cheekbone caved in. Shape in the light. Legs. Mercy. Not enough.

She moved. Lurching forward. Legs not working right. She still moved. Forward onto one hand and knees. Faltered once. Dipped onto the bad shoulder. Forehead kissing wet decking. Cold. Then pushed herself back up. The good hand gripped. Mercy's trouser leg. Good grip. Dipped again. Head resting on a boot. She tried to pull herself up. Not enough.

"Ain't... lettin' go," she slurred, thick and slow. The only thing there to say. The last thing she remembered saying.

 

[Mercy]

Sam Rodarch

"Oh, honey, I don't want you to let go." Softly stroking the bald scalp like some fucked-up version of an alley cat clinging to her boots. "Grasping... for power... for strength... that is what I am about." She knelt next to Sam and kissed the back of her head so sweet. "Sleep, my baby monster, we will do great things together. I promise you that."

--

When Sam woke up next, it would be in a new bed, with clean sheets, her old clothes burned (they were a mess) and strapped to said bed. Her cybernetic prosthetic was gone.

But there were enough drugs flooding through her system to kill the pain of an elephant.

If that was plenty was the question.

One more thing: Mercy was sitting in a chair next to her, reading a datapad, until her nostrils flared and those golden eyes glanced lazily towards the mercenary killer.

"Ah, someone is finally awake. How are you, Sammy?"