Chapter Text
"Great job, idiot," Zanka spat, wriggling furiously against the chains that kept him pinned helplessly down. He tried to move his shoulder, to angle himself in a way that his fingers could brush against his Lovely Assistaff, but it was no use. His poor darling was just too far away, and nothing he could do would change that-- at least, not with those stupid chains in the way. Fuck. "Didja want the mission to turn out like this or something?! That was the sloppiest dodge I've ever seen!"
He paused his furious ranting to breathe in a gulp of fresh air (or whatever passed for "fresh air" out in the scrap heaps-- fuck, it was rancid), trying to cool the angry, writhing fire screaming and spitting inside his chest for something to be done about the situation, for someone to be punished. No use now, he thought sourly, glancing to the left, where Rudo was tied up against a central column and looking just as angry as Zanka felt. Not after that shit-for-brains managed to get us into this.
The same chains were wrapped all the way around Rudo's chest, legs, and arms, a singular band even going over his neck for good measure, all keeping his head pressed firmly against the cracked clay of the pillar. Zanka couldn't see to the other side of the column, but he knew that the metal chains melted into the back, attached firmly to the clay-- they wouldn't move. Neither would his, melded into the ground-- or perhaps grown from it?-- as they were.
Interesting, Zanka had thought while he was first fighting the chain's Giver.
Irritating, he had thought when he had been slammed against the ground, suddenly unable to move, or to reach Assistaff, or to snap the chains, or to do anything except wait in this shit heap of a crumbling church.
Those first few seconds, while he had been struggling futilely against the chains, the Giver had kneeled down next to him, resting her chin on her hands. Her high-pitched giggle had pierced through his ears like a shard of glass, mirth twisting her eyes into thin crescents. Her nails were so brightly coloured his head had started hurting just looking at them, and her squeal of a voice hadn’t helped in the slightest.
"I'm gonna leave now! Don't worry, I'll only be gone for a teensy tinsy little bit. I have to borrow a few veeery naughty boys~! They'll be here right away to give you a big, looong hug, and to take your pretty Spheroid friend on a little vacation! My friends have always wanted to see a real one, they'll be sooo happy~!"
Zanka shook his head, snapping himself out of his thoughts. They were ten minutes removed from neon nail polish and simpering giggles, trapped in the middle of an old, abandoned church in the middle of an even older, even more abandoned town (not even the rats touched it, thanks to the toxic waste seeping into the ground).
The church had likely been a marvel in ages long ago, some hundred feet wide with dozens of tall, hand-carved pillars supporting a high, arching ceiling. Now, all these years later, the ceiling had caved partly, showing through to the wretchedly ashen sky beyond, and the pillars that had once lined the prayer room were nothing more than tall, cracked obelisks jutting out into the sky. Trash piled against the walls, rotting food and old mildew melting onto the ground, filling the air with the stench of mould. Zanka could smell it, too, because his gas mask had come off in the fight and, like an idiot, he'd just left it there, expecting to be able to snatch it up later . . . which obviously hadn't happened.
Crinkling his nose against the smell, he tore his mind away to focus on other things. The one thing there, actually, that wasn't actively making the situation worse.
Zanka turned his head to glance up at Rudo, noticing that the jabs he'd sent Rudo's way hadn't even been returned in the form of a scoff or a pissed-off scowl. The white-haired boy was just sort of . . . hanging there, unresponsive, glaring off into the distance like the heaps of old garbage had personally offended him.
Heart sinking, Zanka tried to twist around in his bindings to get a better look at Rudo. Was there an injury he just wasn’t seeing? Why was the stupid brat not even talking to him?
"Hey!" he snapped, the sound harsh and sharp, echoing off the crumbling walls and floating off into the hazy sky. He was not worried. He was not. He just wanted Rudo to answer him, preferably with some kind of familiar, angry shout, not to sit there in limp silence like he was still sleeping off his injuries, or even . . .
As soon as the thought crossed his mind, Zanka clamped down on it, bile rising in his throat. Don't think like that. He's still alive.
He raised his voice. "Oi, ya trash-lovin' piece of crap! Did that Raider send a chain through your fuckin' ears or somethin'?! Answer me!"
Finally, Rudo glanced back at him, head turning as much as the chains would allow. Zanka paused for a moment, caught off guard by the surprisingly ugly state Rudo had been left in. It wasn’t as though he’d thought that Rudo would be uninjured, but this . . . the sight of Rudo’s face made him flinch a little. His left eye was swollen shut and crusted over with dried blood, a goose egg throbbing on the side of his head, the skin along his cheek darkened into a fat purple bruise. His chest was leaking blood-- an almost worrying amount of it, judging by the huge stain soaked into the front of his shirt, not to mention the harsh red flush of a chain-whipping was still striped over his face and arms.
Still, though, by and large, he was doing better than Zanka had. (The lucky kid had taken a solid hit to the brains and had conked out on the spot, leaving Zanka left to try-- and, admittedly, to fail-- to finish the job.)
Zanka shoved away the shame that bubbled up at that memory, choosing to fixate instead on the fact that Rudo still hadn't spoken a word to him. Instead, all he did was stare at him in tight-lipped silence, though his eyes burned with something Zanka couldn't quite place-- anger? Shame? Something else? He couldn’t say.
Shrugging the strangeness away (and dealing with Rudo, you had to let strange stuff go sometimes), he huffed up at the owner of those scorching eyes. "Well, what d’ya have to say for yourself? Gonna talk, or are ya just gonna lay there ‘n drool?”
Rudo looked him up and down-- for a second, Zanka thought he saw Rudo's eyes lingering on the bruised split lining Zanka’s lip and now-swollen cheek (a "kiss" from the Giver with the chains, as she had called it). But before he could read too much into it, Rudo's expression grew bitter and his mouth, perpetually downturned, crumpled into an even uglier scowl.
And then he simply turned back away without saying a single word.
Zanka could have spat fire.
"Are you ignorin' me?" he hissed, eyes flashing, that same furious inferno bursting back to life inside of him. He had been struggling to keep his composure for the past few minutes, and this was just the last straw. "Oh, you li'l--! When I get my hands on Assistaff, I'll put ya in the fuckin' dirt! Hey! Look at--"
"Aw, hell, won't this brat just be quiet already?"
With a shorted gasp and a harsh bite to his already bleeding tongue, Zanka slammed his mouth shut. He shuffled around best he could, warily eyeing up the newcomer.
A man was seated up on one of the only unharmed columns, legs swinging as he stared down at them through heavy, lidded eyes. His boots looked heavy, too: all thick fabric and bulky creases, the odd fashion choice completed by two weighty copper bands around the ankles. His dark, wavy hair was pulled back by a grease-spotted bandana, and his bare arms were covered in wandering tattoos, black and blue ink filling up every empty inch on his skin until it all blended into nonsense.
His low, raspy voice, though disfigured by the clear plastic oxygen mask fitted snugly over his mouth and nose, was undeniably sleepy. "Yo. I guess you're the two Cleaners that Purrly picked up?"
Zanka didn't bother replying, though an angry flush seized his face as Rudo answered. "What about it?"
Oh, so you'll talk to THEM, then, he seethed silently, hands squeezing into fists at his sides. But there's nothing you have to say to me, huh? If only I could get my hands on that brat, I'd knock his lights out!
Bandana Man nodded carelessly, pushing himself off the top of the column and landing the nearly twenty-foot drop with nothing but a thick cloud of dust and a barely audible grunt. Zanka crinkled his nose as the cloying smell of disintegrated carpet and crumbling clay hit him, and ended up nearly hacking his lungs out when a few too many dust particles snuck inside his throat. The man looked down at him in disapproval-- as though he had any right to be frustrated with Zanka!
"She didn't let you keep your masks, huh?" He sighed wearily, scratching the back of his neck. "What would she do if that Sphere guy died? Honestly, how careless . . ."
"Oh, please give her a talkin'-to from me," Zanka said, voice dripping with sarcasm. "An' if I could make another complaint, I'd love to talk to someone about how a certain ape-sized man has been kickin’ dust into my face!"
The man glared down at him. Good. It sent a certain thrill of vindication through him, to finally squeeze that annoyance out of somebody, even if it wasn't Rudo, even if that feeling was immediately squashed as Bandana Man scuffed his heel against the floor, throwing up even more silt for Zanka to choke on. What an ass. "Pipe down, princess. That dust is probably better for you than the air is, so savor it."
Trying not to breathe the filth in, Zanka turned away, refusing to dignify the useless conversation with any more of his breath. Bandana Man turned around and beckoned, presumably to a gaggle of his followers standing a ways behind the two Cleaners. His gravelly voice boomed through the haunting walls, filling the once-holy place with his wretched words. "Alright, men, get on it. You know the drill. Incapacitate, extricate, relocate-- let's go!"
A stampede of footsteps started up as a group of what sounded like a dozen or so men drew closer, chattering to one another in voices so upbeat that made Zanka want to punch their faces in. Before he could snarkily ask what incapacitate meant in this context (hopefully not another neurotoxin-- the world really did not need two Jabbers), Zanka saw Bandana Man bend down, a curious look on his face, to pick up Assistaff.
He let out a loud gasp, surging up against the chains as a sharp cry forced itself from his lips-- "No, don't touch that!"
Bandana Man froze, then turned to stare at Zanka, those heavy-lidded eyes now wide-open, the pale yellow irises piercing through him like a dagger. He licked his lips. "Oh?"
Oh, no.
Zanka's whole world seemed to fall into a silent, nightmarish haze, the full force of his mistake collapsing in on him like a concrete ceiling. No, no, how could he have been so stupid?
Bandana Man's eyes trailed from Zanka back to Assistaff, a grim smile now playing at his lips. Vaguely, Zanka could hear the piercing sound of metal dragging against metal, could see the blurred form of Rudo trying to escape his chains, a look just as desperate as Zanka's own on his face, but he was distracted by the roaring of blood in his ears, the rush of shame and panic and pure, cold fear freezing him to the spot.
Then, so suddenly that Zanka flinched, Bandana Man let out a laugh-- a full, real laugh, right from the belly, filled with mirth and disbelief and pure, cold cruelty.
"This is your Instrument, princess?" Bandana Man wiped a few tears from his eyes, face flushed red. More laughter was coming from behind Zanka-- those "men" mentioned earlier, presumably-- and it only grew louder as their leader examined Assistaff with a critical eye and a hateful smirk. "Some old stick? Hell, I bet I could snap this in half with one good smack."
Zanka opened his mouth, tried to speak, but all he could get out was a small, piteously weak, "--don't you dare."
"Aw, look atcha, poor thing . . ." Bandana Man shook his head with a sigh of mock sympathy. "You really should've thought twice before pissing me off."
Bandana Man raised the staff up, readying a fatal swing at the nearest pillar, and all of a sudden Zanka had found his voice-- he was screaming now, pleas and curses, all falling upon deaf ears. Zanka's heart was beating so fast it hurt as he struggled desperately against his bindings, equal parts livid and terrified, every single ounce of his focus trained on that man's arm as it swung back, preparing with glee to smash his dearly beloved right into a pile of splinters.
But, just before it did--