Between Angels and Insects: Chapter 1

Nero stared out at the wasteland of rock and sand stretched out before him… stared at the horizon that shimmered with heat and the burning sun always settled somewhere directly over their heads, seemingly unmoving…. Mocking…

If he was honest with himself, Nero wasn't actually listening to the chatter from the other nearby Tsviets. They could have been bickering about the heat or Rosso's high maintenance morning rituals… or something along those lines, but the raven was too focused on nothing at all to be paying them any mind. His deep black hair was thick and long, holding in more heat on the back of his neck and shoulders… the Tviets uniform clung to his skin, folded arms over his chest beneath the straps doing nothing to circulate air, and the metal wings were only getting hotter the longer he stood out here. If it wasn't by Weiss' request that they come out here, he would have been…. Decidedly irate…

However, Weiss' orders were absolute. Come out here, deal with whatever was in this ugly place, then come home to cool… dark… underground base, where Nero could have a bath and lay stretched out on the cold stone courtyard, brushing it off as a bad experience. He didn't know how surface dwellers could deal with this sun sneering at them from above all the time…. Even the other Tsviets didn't seem to have anything against it, but it bothered him more than a little. Nero was a creature of darkness, who wielded it as an extension of his will… but here there was no darkness.

“Nero…” the raven heard Azul say his name from somewhere nearby, but it took several seconds for the vermilion eyes to catch up and glance over at the brutish male, “Shelke says the scanners are going off… whatever it is, its nearby.”

“Very well, let's get this over with.” Nero looked back at the horizon with a grimace of distaste, then let it go and set about wandering the desert cliffs in search of something.. anything that would give them a clue as to what they were dealing with.

“Neeroh.” Rosso this time. Something about the way she pronounced his name never failed to bother him, but it wasn't like he'd ever let her know that, “deed Lord Vice tell you anee more details about ze mission?”

“Why would he do that?”

“Vell you are `is brothar, so one vould assume-“

“I'll remind you not to assume anything when it comes to Lord Weiss… It's not our place to question his orders.” Nero responded very smoothly, but it was in `that' tone.. the one he only used when someone had spoken a direct or indirect or.. even very abstract.. threat to his brother's authority. It was a very dangerous tone, and one that none of the Tsviets would push, provided they valued their lives and sanity.

A quiet rumbling disturbed their lethargy, starting off as a soft sound and then forming a crescendo into the stones beneath their feet, shaking the earth as whatever it was grew closer. Nero stared at the ground thoughtfully- If it was really that big, its no wonder the Restrictor had wanted so many Tsviets on the case, and not just the usual Deepground force of soldiers.

In the corner of his eye, Nero saw the familiar flash of orange from Shelke's sabers, and Azul rolled his shoulders to loosen them while Rosso reached for the blade strapped to her back. For all their readiness, none of them were actually ready for the thing when it burst up from the ground in a spray of sand and teeth.

Nero had long enough to realize it was a worm.. a monstrously huge worm with circles of spinning teeth in its mouth and a body of surging, mottled and bulging flesh, before it was on them. The colossal tail slammed into Azul, but its mass was so large that Nero couldn't even see the rest of the group. He smelled singed and burning flesh- probably from the sabers- and could hear Rosso's blade whistling through the air, but the brunt of his attention was on its mouth. The worm was facing him, its body heaving up a roar to send a wash of breath raging around the dark Tsviet, who's clawed wings had already grabbed his guns and were firing into the monster's open mouth.

The breath almost made Nero gag, and he was thankful for the mask around his face, preventing the worst of the rotting stench of decay from entering his lungs, as though it were a poison the Tsviet wanted nothing to do with.

The four rounds he pumped into the thing did nothing to slow it, and the worm's round mouth crashed into the ground where Nero had been a split second earlier. Now the Tsviet was gliding several yards away from it, his feet skimming over the ground and supported by his abilities, watching the worm chew up the rocks with a slightly curled lip. Nero landed lightly on the ground closer to Azul, looking up at the panting male then behind him for a moment when something caught his eye. Azul ran off to find something big enough to throw at the worm, probably frustrated that the rockets hadn't loaded yet, and something shone near their transportation vehicle about a half-mile off. Nero stared at it, deaf to the smashing and grinding sounds of battle behind him, trying to make out the dark figure by their truck… he thought the helmet looked familiar…

About then, the blistering sun was suddenly blocked, and Nero found himself in a shadow. He would have been relieved if he wasn't confused, especially when a large glob of viscous liquid oozed and dropped onto the rock beside his boot. The raven frowned at it, then looked up, in time for a rounded mouth to come down and shut out light altogether.

Where was he? Everything was suddenly black… and suddenly pain…

Teeth everywhere, ripping at him, shredding his skin as he was bounced along the inside of a swirling mouth. It was too hot in here.. far too hot.. hotter than it was outside and absolutely suffocating. Then it wasn't just heat, but blood… dark blood spilled across his skin and Nero couldn't tell if it was his or not. Disoriented, the Tsviet tried to right himself desperately, but his arms were still bound, and the thing was still knocking him about like a cat in a tumble drier.

More heat, this time in the form of raw, skating pain as the teeth skipped deep, raking across his shoulder blade through fabric, skin and tissue. Still- it was darkness he was in now, and darkness he could deal with. Nero wriggled and churned, managing to get his arms loose even as yet another tooth stuck deep into his hand. He summoned the blackness with him, summoned his powers from deep in his body and felt it respond.. felt the soothing, cold brush of familiar shadows on his skin, like an old friend returned, and pushed it through his pores into the worm. The purple and black sphere exploded, tearing apart teeth and mouth and destroying the right half of the worm's skull.

The parasite had no brain, and as such had not yet realized the fatality of the wound. Gore and tissue poured to the ground and splattered when the worm shook his head, and with a final roar, a desperate attempt to rid itself of whatever was damaging it, the creature opened its mouth and threw Nero with all of its strength. Of course by then it was far too late for the beast, who was convulsing and writhing in the sand, scattering the Tsviets in all directions just to avoid it, and its struggles were lessening with each passing second.

Nero landed hard though… the first bounce crunched his somewhat dainty shoulder beneath his body, the second smashed his wings across the rocks, the final one slid him for several feet, and it was only once he'd stopped and reached a hand to his stomach that he realized a twist piece of thin metal from his wing had impale him. It was stuck there, attached to the joint on his back and every twitch sent a white hot stab of agony through his gut. Nero gasped and threw his head back, his hair unfurling as a black mane into the growing pool of blood around his body. The sun didn't seem so bad anymore… actually it seemed like it was burning out… the world was darkening for every ounce of blood he lost.. and cooling, losing the heat of the day into blissful, deep cold spreading from the wound on his stomach.

For a few seconds.. Nero felt only numbness.

Then someone was shouting orders, and Azul had lifted his body, the slight curl disturbing his wounds and dragging him back into heat and agony all over again. He would have screamed at Azul for his incompetent blunder, but Nero had no breath with which to do so, and the shock to his body only allowed interrupted stages of consciousness at the very best.

By the time they got back to the truck, Nero's mind was drifting in unseeing, deaf and cold darkness.