Chapter Text
Vedal woke up, and that was not a good thing in the slightest.
When he was asleep, rare as that was, there was a blissful nothingness. None of the aches, pains, cuts, bruises, beatings. None of the horrible noise and the countless interrogations that was presented to him when he was awake.
But this was part of their plan, no doubt about that. Giving him just enough time to sleep to keep him alive and coherent so that he would eventually break and give them the answers they wanted.
His crusted over eyes began to open, and he saw a paper plate on the floor with a measly blotch of grain slurry. Cold, flavorless, tasting slightly off as if it was days old. He knew it well- It had been his only meal for the past…. however long it had been. He’d lost count after fourteen days of this, and it had been a LONG time since then.
He was naked, lying on a stone floor that gave him no comfort whatsoever. There was no furniture in his cell, just a hole that led to a sewer of sorts, but so small that he couldn’t even fit a hand through. Just big enough that they didn’t have to let him out to defecate. Just a further, dehumanizing step in what had been nothing short of medieval torture.
No bars were on his cell, no windows, no natural light- Just light coming in through the translucent lexan door that was thick enough to be bulletproof, and absolutely would not buckle whatever the naked, bare-handed, desperate man would try to do.
The only time he’d left his cell was when they let him to an interrogation chamber… or to torture him, only to then interrogate him again.
Days upon days upon days of this, and they seemingly didn’t get tired of it. IF he had anything to say to them, he would have, long ago. But it was a pointless endeavor.
They didn’t understand what they were after in the first place. There WAS no secret to Neuro-sama that he could tell them. And that made this whole ordeal so ironically amusing to him, if it wasn’t for the bruises on his unwashed body.
The arrow was pointing towards the large circus tent in the middle of what was seemingly a parking lot any other day- Not very helpful, since Ellie saw it from a literal mile away, but she did ask for directions after all.
Naturally, as it was the middle of the night, it was shut. A fence was drawn around it, but that was nothing for a woman with rocket-assisted jumps to vault over… now the real question became where Camila would be.
Thanks to her night vision, she could see the trailers out in the back. Camila’s circus thankfully didn’t employ any animal actors, so she didn’t have to worry about a lion or an elephant suddenly alerting everyone to her presence, but she still had to squint to see any notice on the doors as to who which trailer belonged to… as it turned out, the clown herself gave it away.
“AAAOOWWW! SHIT! GOD- DAMN IT!!”
A loud clattering sound came from one of the trailers- The lights weren't on inside it, so presumably Camila had just stumbled and fallen, or perhaps just stubbed her toe on something… loud enough to make Ellie wince, but her colleagues clearly were used to this.
She made a beeline for the trailer, but- found herself surprised with her eyes wide open as the door suddenly opened, revealing a rather sleepy looking woman in a large, oversized shirt that spelled “IMP” across its chest.
“Who the fuck is it at this ho-”
They stared at each other for a few seconds, neither saying anything. Ellie felt caught, her lips pursed, peeking off to the side as she backed away a bit… Shoomi and whoever else had made her into a superhuman being, but they did nothing to help her social anxiety any.
“Ah.. Uhm, Hi!” She finally said, awkwardly, trying to fill the deafening silence with something. “I hope I didn’t wake you, Camila- Are- Are you okay? I heard you screaming, and-”
“Wha.. Wha…. WHAT THE FUCK?! ELLIE! IT'S THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT!!”
Not exactly the reaction Ellie expected, but it was nice to finally have someone freak out not about her body, but about the time of day. Still, Camila was clearly staring at her, in disbelief, looking her over and trying to see something that lined up with her mental image of Ellie… but other than the face, the hair, and the bare feet, everything else seemed cartoonishly off.
The engineer turned supersoldier raised her hands, her face even more awkward.
“T-then keep your voice down! Do you want to wake up half the city? …Listen, can I come in and talk to you for a sec? It's vitally important.”
Slowly lowering her hands, her face softened a bit, as did her voice. “Please.” She said, in a tone that definitely didn’t match her imposing exterior.
“...Of course.” The pinkette nodded, stepping aside and keeping the door open for her friend. “I’d tell you to take your shoes off in my clean and pristine trailer, but you kinda already did that, so…”
It was warm, Ellie noticed. Warm, comfortable, and while she felt a bit cramped, Camila had plenty of space in the narrow corridor that led to a little seating area around the middle. She offered Ellie a seat, one she could just about squeeze into as her thighs were pressed against the table that was fixed in place, and Camila closed the door to give them some privacy.
Even the trailer itself reminded her a lot of what Camila was doing. Costumes hung on one rack, props were strewn about. A laptop and headset lying on the unkept bed reminded her of her secondary occupation… and a soft smile escaped her lips when she saw the Vedal plush next to her pillow, close enough for her to hug when she was asleep. Neuro and Evil, by contrast, sat on a shelf above the bed.
She came to the right person to ask for help, definitely.
“So what’s all this about? And why couldn’t it wait until the morning?” Camila rightfully asked as she switched on the coffee machine and crossed her arms, looking cluelessly back at Ellie dressed in just an oversized shirt, and presumably panties. One thing Ellie noticed right away was the lack of demonic features- No tail, no wings… she briefly wondered if, while she looked much like her Vtuber model in general, the demon thing was just exaggerated for a character. Not that it mattered right now.
“I’m not sure if you heard, but… Vedal’s been kidnapped.” She broke the news to her without a warning, only to gesture towards the seat opposite to her own to give Camila something to brace on.
“....Say what…?” The clown bleached, taken aback by this as her eyes went wide and she seemed to have trouble processing that information. It was clear that she sobered up now, more so than the stumble from before had done. “When? By who? Where is he?!”
“I wish I could tell you most of these things, but- Sit down please.” Ellie gestured to the seat again, swallowing a lump down her throat. “I saw it happen, I tried to stop it, I… Ugh, I’m still trying to wrap my head around it myself. Shoomi said something about the ‘Big Three’ having a vested interest in him, because of Neuro and Evil. A humble robotics engineer like me seems to have been useless to them, as they… shot me. I assume at least that they did, I just remember-”
“THEY SHOT YOU?!” Camila exclaimed loudly, throwing her hands up just as she’d slipped onto a bench seat. Seeing Ellie gesturing to keep quiet, though, she lowered her head and zipped her lips. “Sorry. Right. They shot you..?”
Ellie nodded, pointing at several places of her body where she remembered impacts, only to shake her head. “I woke up a few hours ago in a hospital south of here, with Shoomi telling me to put on this suit of armor and to get the hell out. Not a moment too soon, because I’ve been chased and shot at ever since… I think I finally threw them off for a while, but- Please, Camila, I need some help to find him. I know you and him aren’t on the best of terms, but-”
Camila slammed her palms on the table, her eyes narrowing to slits as she glared back at Ellie.
“You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” She hissed, her fingers scratching across the vinyl table. “I give him shit to dampen his excessive ego. I tell him off to get him off his high horse, and back down to earth. But… but this guy… he’s been there for me. He helped me, in more ways than one.”
Tears were beginning to swell up in her eyes, as she stared down onto the fake wood of the table. “He helped me when I had to switch careers to become a circus artist, getting undercover when my identity as a demon was starting to become a bit too… well known. He calmed me down, helped me out, and got me back from the brink when someone who knew about it tried to break down my door with a sledgehammer. …Fuck, name me one other guy you can call at five in the morning because its your time of the month and you cant sleep because of pussy cramps! He… He’s family, Ellie. I don’t want him to know that, but he means more to me than just a guy pretending to be a turtle.”
“Alright.” Ellie replied softly, reaching out with her armored hand to place it over Camila’s own. “Then we have something in common. I like Vedal a lot- He changed my life in ways I can't even count, and now… because of him, I’ve… become this.” She looked down on herself, only to snort slightly. “He always saw the best in me, wanted the best for me, when for as long as I can remember, I felt like I was nothing. Wasn’t good enough, wasn't pretty, wasn’t smart. I need to find him, if only to just give him an honest thanks for everything he’s done for me. …But it's also my purpose, now. Without him, I’m pretty sure I’d just be dead.”
Camila frowned, wrapping her other hand around hers. “Don’t say that. …Alright. Say less… I’ll take a break from the circus until I know Vedal’s safe and sound back in his basement in London. I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if he ends up dead and I could have prevented it from happening…”
"That's the spirit.” Ellie smiled, a bit more hopeful now that Camila was willing to help her out- She’d no longer be alone, at least for the foreseeable future, and Camila knew how to handle herself-
Wait.
“Hang on!” The cyborg stood up sharply, only to bonk her head on a shelf above her due to the height of the trailer. “What was that about you being a demon?! I thought that was just a Twitch thing!”
Camila gave her a blank stare, raising an eyebrow. “And? Aren’t you supposed to be a slender little girl? Where’d those 300 pounds of muscle come from, darling?”
"That's different! I woke up like this! This isn’t even the face I was born with! I… ugh, I’d show you proof if I could, but I don’t have a drivers licence on me!”
Despite her huge, imposing frame, Ellie still stumbled through conversations like she always did, going into a higher pitched, squeaky tone as soon as things were starting to get embarrassing. Her pleading look made Camila smirk rather widely, but as the pinkette reached for an outfit, she decided against it.
“...You know..” She said, looking at her clown outfits, her lips pursing. “I swore I’d never wear tight, spiky leather again. I’d just be a normal, wholesome clown, entertaining families. …But, with his life on the line, I guess it's okay to… go back to how I once was.”
Camila grabbed her loose, oversized shirt by the neck and pulled it over her head, causing Ellie to squeak as the bisexual engineer got to see her bare back and panties for a brief moment…
Only for her to gasp, eyes wide, her mouth covered with an armored hand as purple flames shot from her back, seemingly regrowing her tail, the wings on her head- and a single wing on her back, with a lengthy scar where the other one would be.
“...Slight problem, I think I only have bits and pieces of my old outfit in this trailer.” Camila finally said, cupping her chin as her now quite long ears tilted slightly. “I guess I’m gonna have to mix and match a bit. Something stylish, something in my colors… but also something badass, like a woman out for blood! Yeah!”
“W-well… Take your time! I- I can leave the trailer while you- Oh jeez!”
Now both of her armored hands covered her face, right after she caught a glimpse of Camila stripping off her striped panties.
“This should work, yeah.”
Mix and match she did indeed. Combining tight pink leggings and a black cocktail dress with a purple corsage, a short purple vest and a black skirt that could be buttoned up, or left open to give her legs freedom, Camila took a lot of her usual circus clothing as a base. Only to then put on leather boots with rather high heels, as if she was trying to offset the height difference between herself and Ellie… Spiked bracers and a spiked collar from her days as a demon imp were put on, and finally, a pair of long black gloves which held the most important part of all… metallic fingers with sharp nails that her hands slid into, like ten small blades that would act as her weapons of choice.
Camila paused briefly, looking at her hands. It’d been a long time since she had worn these… Ever since she swore off her demon heritage.
“Looking good.” Ellie finally said as she dared to look again, still a bit flustered, but impressed at how Camila pulled off the transformation from a silly clown to a demonic daredevil with just a change of clothes. She wondered if she could do the same, changing back from this muscular hunk back to her small and unassuming form once all this was over, but.. suffice to say, she was a bit troubled and uncertain what she actually wanted for herself. It was all too easy to claim that she wasn’t happy with this change, but she couldn’t deny that everyone she met looked at her differently. No longer belittling her or simply calling her smart, but looking at her with desire in their eyes. She wasn’t sure how to feel about that, however… It wasn’t something the lone robotics engineer was used to.
“Thanks~ Just give me a few minutes to gather a few of my things and leave a note for my fellow circus actors, I wouldn’t want them to worry.” Camila smiled, almost unaware… almost, of the lights approaching the trailer from the outside. “Wait, what the fu-”
SMASH!!
A hard impact slammed into the trailer, knocking it end over end and causing the two women to tumble before it landed on its roof, metal creaking and fluids leaking from underneath.
Through the broken fence, three Cybertrucks poured into the circus grounds, their guns trained on the trailer as six Optimus robots each emerged from the vehicles.
“Argh… Are you okay? Camila?”
Ellie crawled to her feet, a bit dizzy but otherwise unharmed- her armored limbs bumped into a few things in the tumble, but her head had remained out of harm's way. Without waiting for an answer, she crawled through the mess that was the camper’s interior to peek through one of the broken windows- noticing the amassing troops outside. “Shit- They found me! How the heck did they find me so fast?! Shoomi, tell me there isn’t a tracker in this suit!”
“There isn’t. But if they did their homework, then they knew that you exited the subway station where you jumped off, and from there they probably just sent patrols around until-”
She didn’t listen to all of it. It was all theoreticals and possibilities, but there was no time to discuss and debate what might have happened. Reaching a hand out to Camila, Ellie clenched her fists.
“I’ll hold them off for as long as I can- Hurry up with your things, we’ve got to get out of here!”
“One second, Ellie!” Camila exclaimed, ripping open a closet- which, following gravity, had a rather large revolver falling out of it.
Comically large, even. It was covered in sparkly jewels on its grip, its barrel and frame anodized in a bright purple color… while its cylinder was a polished, glistening silver, with card suits engraved on each chamber and filled in with ink.
“What the- You have a GUN?!” Ellie gawked, wincing as she heard the first laser blast hissing through the trailer. She didn’t hesitate to take it from Camila, despite her befuddlement- and her HUD immediately updated accordingly, giving her a crosshair that followed the barrel of the gun and a label of “Colt Buntline, 16 inch” with a 6/0 underneath, presumably her ammunition supply. Quite how it knew that it was loaded was beyond her.
“I use it for the circus, Ellie! Blanks all that- but after the sledgehammer incident i made sure to make it a REAL gun, just in case!” Camila exclaimed, only to reach back and SMACK Ellie on her unarmored butt, sending her stumbling forward with a squeak. “Now GO! I’ll be with you in just a minute!”
“Uwah! CAMILA!”
From one moment to the next, Ellie was facing the door- but, with the trailer upside down, the door was more of a submarine hatch that she had to climb through.
Naturally, the very moment that she did, she practically stared into the muzzle of a laser gun- but in a desperate last ditch effort, she grabbed it and broke the weapon in two, causing just a harmless, unfocussed red dot to appear on her forehead.
Good to know they weren’t keen on taking her alive…
“Hah!” The dumbfound robot was whacked aside with her forearm, and with determination to do whatever it takes, Ellie pointed the revolver at the next robot-
PEW!
Only for sparks and confetti to come out of the muzzle!
“Wha- CAMILAAAAA!!” Ellie exclaimed with frustration, leaping to the side, into the grass to avoid no less than three other laser blasts, each of which singed the doorframe where her considerable height would have had its head. Frantically she pressed the trigger a few more times, to no avail, before a helpful hint in her view told her to recock the hammer.
Click.
PLOP!!
“What is thiiiissss?!” A bouncy ball popped out of the muzzle, seemingly silencing the blast and inflating outside of the gun. It boinked against the robot she was pointing it at, and seemingly at least caused it to get confused for a moment, but at this point she wasn’t sure what to do.
“What?! Oh, yeah, I guess I left the circus-loads in there… Just a second! I’ll grab some live bullets and be right with you!”
At this point, Ellie felt like this was some sort of cruel joke. For better or for worse, the robots had no interest whatsoever in Camila, and all of them ganged up on her. Two lasers plinked off of her right pauldron as she suddenly dashed forward to strike the confused robot with her fist, knocking its head off, only to duck underneath a robot swinging its rifle at HER head instead.
Ellie was just about to shout at Camila once more, getting increasingly agitated and, frankly, scared- as it turned out rightfully so, out of the corner of her eye she could see the gun mounted on the back of one of the trucks, swinging over to point at her.
How foolish of her to think that these things needed to be manned.
“UWAGH!!”
A blast of heat came her way, she quickly covered her face with both arms- and while they felt rather hot from one second to the next, it turned out to be the right split-second decision.
The beam fired by the turret reflected off of her bracer, right into the knee of an Optimus that fell to the ground, crippled and with the wire harness of his rifle melted straight through.
For better or worse, the turret only fired for a few seconds as the sheer heat developed by this laser required not just enormous amounts of power but coolant as well, forcing it to be shut down seconds after.
“What the fuck was that?!” Camila called out, finally jogging out of the trailer with a handbag slung around her body- grabbing the stunned Ellie by the shoulder, she pulled her away behind another trailer to get a bit of cover before the next shot.
“Come on, give me the gun! I’ll take care of this!”
“Camila, no!! These things don’t care if innocent people get hurt, they’ll just-”
The Imp ripped the gun out of her hands, taking it into her own.
The pinkette smirked, cocking the hammer back.
“So, two shots were blanks, huh? I’ve played this game before, let me tell you- Vedal NEVER won against me in Buckshot Roulette…! …Offscreen, that is.”
She took aim.
A turret spun towards them…
KA-BOOM!!
An explosive release of energy sent a shockwave through the circus grounds, as the Cybertruck erupted into flames, its panels falling off as the glue melted under the heat. A single shot right into the capacitor bank underneath the turret, half a second before it fired, had unloaded an enormous amount of power with such force that six robots were flung off their feet in an instant.
Camila grinned a fangy smile of victory, pumping her fist at the carnage before turning on her heel, grabbing the cyborg by the shoulder once more.
“Booyah! I knew it, Lucky number three! Come on, Ellie, let's go!”
“Wh-why do I keep leaving fires burning wherever I go?! W-wait, what about the other people? The other trailers…?”
The white haired girl stared with a frightened expression back at Camila, who, running beside her to keep pace with Ellie’s jog, gave her a blank stare.
“...You think I got employees or something? Sorry, but those trailers are empty at the moment. Times are tough at the circus, I hire stage hands when I need them but I do most things myself…”
Ellie blinked a few times, running into a narrow street as soon as they were out of the circus grounds, just to get away from another possible Cybertruck ambush. “Why keep all those trailers around then?”
Camila shrugged, dumping the empty shell casings of her revolver into a pocket only to replace them with fresh ones- featuring actual bullets this time.
“Eh, it looks silly if there's only one for such a massive tent. Besides, sometimes I hire a guy for more than a day or two. ANYWAY, not important! Where are we going?”
Where to, indeed. A question Ellie couldn’t answer… she was afraid to ask Shoomi at this point, she had deviated so far from the original plan that the neuroscientist might be out of ideas as well.
She wasn’t sure. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere safe. Somewhere she wasn’t getting shot at, or run over, or any of these things… she’d like to have a moment to just contemplate on what's been happening to her and what was even going on, but there was just not a second to spare at any point. Not even to breathe.
Kudos to Shoomi, though, an arrow appeared in her vision, leaving Ellie to exhale softly.
“That way.” She pointed, giving a weak smile to Camila. “Not where that goes to, but we go… there.”
The Imp returned a blank look of her own, running alongside her. She was keeping pace, despite Ellie's longer legs, but it was fairly clear she wasn’t a fan of this. “...And what exactly IS there? Where ARE we going?”
The million dollar question which made Ellie flinch, and broke her smile into a nervous grimace.
“Uh… Uhm, presumably something Shoomi thinks is safe…”
Saying this, she pressed her lips together and whispered, looking the other way as if it wasn’t incredibly suspicious to do this. “Shoomi. Shoomi where ARE we going? How far till Site O?”
“20-25 miles, roughly. Too long for you two to go on foot.” The voice in her ear told her. “I’m guiding you to a remote location where you can get in a vehicle- hopefully it’ll make it more difficult to track you if they can’t figure out where you disappeared to.”
“Shoomi!” Ellie exclaimed, dropping the pretense of being quiet, while still staring at nothing as if she was right there. “I already told you, I’m not doing a carjacking! That's illegal and even if we’re threatened with violence, there’s got to be a better way!”
“ELLIE?!” Camila joined in, suddenly bewildered as to where the discussion with the unseen, unheard Shoomimi was going. “Can I get in on this? Like at all?!”
“You’re not jacking a car, dumbass, I’m having you picked up! I’m trying not to tell you too much because I don’t know if they intercept our radio traffic! Now hush until we know how they found you!”
Ellie sighed, looking back to Camila once more. “Its a secret, apparently. I’ll have to trust her…”
The Imp scoffed, crossing her arms over. “Well it better be a damn good surprise when we get there.”
The arrow pointed them down a narrow road, probably deliberately chosen to prevent trucks from following them. From there, they went underneath a bridge, down another narrow corridor, and finally into an underground garage of a supermarket.
Keeping out of sight as much as possible, they were directed down not just one, but two floors down… to the lowest level of the garage, where it suddenly ended.
“...Now what? Hah…. hahh… Your legs are too long, jesus, I can barely keep pace with you! You’re worse than Vedal!” Camila complained, coming to a stop next to her and immediately, a bit paranoid about what would happen next, started looking around to see if there would be another ambush, like bots coming out from every corner… or worse. But no, it was business as usual, with the occasional car driving in and out of the parking spaces, and no hint of any-
“Huh?” Ellie, nervously fidgeting her armored fingers and shifting from one leg to the other, suddenly blinked as a car was pulling up next to them, slowly and with purpose. But that wasn’t what caused her surprise… it was that there was nobody sitting in it.
“What the-” Camila soon joined her in surprise, but right as the doors unlocked with a click, a window was rolled down as if someone was in there.
“Are you gonna keep staring at the car like a bunch of deers in the headlights, or are we gonna go somewhere today? God, I can’t with you people.”
The voice came over the speakers- and upon closer observation, the middle console, containing the SatNav display, was showing Evil Neuro’s model, looking over to them rather annoyedly. “Hurry up!”
“Evil!” Camila exclaimed with surprise, and relief, before quickly grabbing the door handle for the passenger side and sitting down. “Now that’s a surprise! You’re picking us up?”
“Neuro gets the human body, I’m stuck with this shit.” Evil grumbled, locking the doors as soon as Ellie had sat down on the driver’s seat. “A glorified Robo-taxi. Fuck, being stuck in a toy drone would be more fun than this. Buckle up, I wanna get this over with.”
“Alright!” Ellie beamed a smile, buckling herself in… or trying to, as she found she had to funnel the safety belt between her breasts to make it possible. She wasn’t sure if she was envious for the right reasons all these years. “I’m ready, Evil- Lets go on a road trip together!”
“Oh please, spare me the usual motherly semantics. This is a chore, nothing more.” Evil grumbled, but began to move all the same, pulling out of the parking lot with precision and almost a graceful level of skill. “Besides, I thought you’re trying to avoid the cops or some shit like that. Why are you sitting on the drivers seat exactly?”
Camila sighed, rolling her eyes slightly at the bratty child, forced to simply sit there and let her talk. She felt a little safer like this, at least, with their pursuers briefly thrown off their trail. “They’re gonna find us one way or another, so it doesn’t matter- It's a bigger deal if a cop pulls us over because no one’s in the driver’s seat!”
THAT caused Ellie to perk up and stare back at Camila with shock in her eyes. “WAIT, I don’t have a drivers licence on me! Why am I in the driver’s seat, it should be you here!”
The Imp quieted down, averting her eyes with discomfort. “I uh. I don’t have one either, but not for a lack of trying… Don’t you literally live in New York, Ellie? You can’t go anywhere without a car in NY!”
“YES, BUT THE LICENCE IS TO A FACE I NO LONGER HAVE!!”
Regardless of her freaking out, Evil had put the car on the road and was driving at frankly… rather normal and predictable speeds, to her surprise. It almost seemed like she was the responsible driver, whereas the last time Ellie had sat in a car driven by Neuro, a semi truck had gotten an imprint of her face. Granted, that was a toy car, and this was very much a real one… so despite this nice change of pace, she was gripping the handle on the door rather tightly as if she was preparing to be launched through the windshield at any moment.
For a few tense moments, there was silence, as Evil wasn’t interested in talking… but Ellie, very much frightened by the powerless feeling she got from being in the vehicle, peeked over to the pink haired demon next to her.
“S-So. I bet you got a ton of questions in your head- But how about we take things one by one! I ask YOU a question, then YOU ask ME a question… and so on and so forth!” She smiled weakly, more grimacing than anything else as the trauma of the OpenSauce crash continued to haunt her more and more. Seatbelt be damned, her armor better be good if she stood any chance of surviving this one…!
“Jesus fucking christ, what is this, a kindergarden playgroup?” Evil commented with a scoff, but was ignored.
“You know, you could just ask me normally, but alright…” Camila sighed, raising her eyebrow with a side-glance. “But I start! What the heck is with those hooters of yours? You never told me you were stacked like Zen! Actually no, Zen is LESS stacked than this!”
Immediately, Ellie grimaced, taking emotional damage as she flustered, ducked away, and found that she couldn’t hide in a car with just three people. Worse yet…
“Actually yeah I wonder that too. Last time I saw you, you were still that boring flat washboard. I’m interested to know what changed but damn, I don’t mind the change.” Evil chipped in, suddenly very much focussed on the cyborg in the driver’s seat. Her mood even seemed to improve, her eyes lighting up with sparkling stars in them.
“Why are we starting off with THAT? I- I can’t give you an answer to that, I don’t know either! I woke up like this, there’s nothing i can really say beyond that- Ugh… I- I don’t know if i like this change, I’ve always been ignored by people and could fade into the background, being unattractive and boring, but now, apparently, I’m just boring!”
Ellie frowned, hugging herself underneath her chest instinctively- Only to wrap her arms further above on her chest, as if to try and hide her massive breasts. “My turn! Since when- Where- How can you shoot THAT WELL, Camila? One shot and an entire truck blows up, really?”
The Imp puffed her cheeks as Ellie dodged the question, but shrugged in return for the question asked in her direction. “I’m a circus artist. I gotta have skills that are impressive to people, you know? Not much point in it otherwise. Like, for example if I have to shoot a rope on cue to drop a weight that lifts me up to the tightrope, I can’t afford to miss that one shot or I have to painstakingly reset the whole act!”
Camila was getting more and more agitated, the further she was explaining it- as if just talking about it was somehow stressing her out like she was on stage. “You only have split seconds before people make assumptions and try to figure out your tricks, so you gotta do it right then and there with no hesitation and no-”
“Camila- Camila!” Ellie grabbed her by the shoulder, briefly shaking her- For better or for worse, Ellie was no longer the center of attention, but she was now quite worried for the Imp that seemingly slid further and further into performance anxiety. “It's okay, I get it! I was just curious is all! Okay. Your tur- ARGH!”
A harsh, powerful jolt went through the car- like a pothole but cranked up to eleven, a loud BANG could be heard- and following that, screeching noises.
Camila nearly bonked her head on the roof, but Ellie, being much taller, practically left a dent in it- unbuckling her seatbelt, she turned her body around to see what the hell they’d just hit, but while she was seeing the remnants of a spike-strip lying on the ground…
“Hold on, I’m getting us out of this.” Evil said, sharply turning the wheel to pull off of the road she was on and onto another, smaller, rural road. It was still paved, but it looked like that wasn’t going to be the case for much longer after this.
“What the hell was that?” Reaching for her gun, Camila looked around rather shocked- and just as she did, a lone Cybertruck appeared in the rearview mirror, with robots on the truck bed.
She recognized the number plate- it was one of the same trucks that had pulled up next to her circus.
“...It's them…!” She exclaimed, cocking the hammer back with a gasp. “It’s literally the same robots from before! It’s the same truck- One of them at least, I recognize it! How did they find us here?!”
“I’d rather not think about it.” Ellie frowned, feeling rather vulnerable right around now. Whereas Camila had plenty of options to reach back and shoot their pursuers, she only had her fists, and those weren’t going to do her any good in a vehicle.
“How much further, Evil?!”
“Shut up, I’m concentrating on the road!” Evil snapped back, her model briefly disappearing from the screen before the SatNav appeared instead, showing that they were five miles away from their destination. Something that they could, if needed, cover on foot, but abandoning Evil wasn’t an option in Ellie’s mind.
If they could hold on, they’d make it, but that's a big-
BANG!!
Camila’s pistol rang out a shot, right as a laser whizzed by their heads, narrowly missing Ellie as she leaned back into her seat after pressing a button to hide the Satnav again.
It was a fraction of a second- Had she moved back a single second later, the laser would’ve scorched the back of her head and possibly gone through it, but such as it was there was now a hole in the back and front windowglass of the car.
“Shit!” Camila, blissfully unaware of the mortal danger Ellie just escaped, was gritting her teeth at the realization that shooting their tires wasn’t going to do anything for them- their truck was running on airless tires, and shooting the hood or the windscreen wasn’t going to get past the armor either. She cocked the hammer back, but there was nothing to shoot at. “Evil, can you swerve around a bit so I can get a shot?”
“SHUTTHEFUCKUP I’M DRIVING. WE HAVE NO FRONT TIRES GODDAMN IT.” Evil snapped back, clearly quite agitated herself.
Ellie ducked her head down, cowering in her seat, hoping they didn’t have thermal vision or something that could track exactly where her body was at all times- but it wasn’t hard to guess, was it? It was not like she could suddenly get up and move out of the way, avoiding the-
“WOAH! SHIT!!” Camila exclaimed, finally no longer oblivious to the danger as a second, silent shot rang out, scorching the headrest where Ellie had been just moments ago. A second set of holes were drilled in the windscreens, and now she knew that she had no time to spare.
While the laser turret was recharging, she had to do something- Leaning out the window, she took aim-
“Ahh-!!”
And winced as a hand-held laser shot her arm, trying to get her to drop the weapon, but she forced herself to tighten her fist and fire.
BOOM!
Despite the way her arm was hurting from the hole burnt into it, causing her to shiver and tremble, almost dropping the gun out of the car as she leaned back into the cabin… the shot had made its mark, smashing through the barrel of the laser turret and shattering its focal lenses, rendering it into nothing but a harmless flashlight.
She clenched her teeth, grabbing the circular burn mark on her upper arm just above the long glove, covering it with the palm of her hand.
“SUCK IT, LOSERS!” She shouted out the window, hissing under her breath. Ellie still hid in the footwell, her massive body trying to make as small of a profile as possible, but Camila soon had to raise her voice as she was unable to nudge her.
“Ellie, you can get up now! …And you have to, because we’re almost there!”
“Eh?
The silver haired cyborg popped her head back up, looking across the melted dashboard and the now rather futuristic looking steering wheel with the top half missing. Through the holes in the windscreen, air was blowing in her face and made it a little harder to see, but… there was nothing to see?
They were racing towards a regular house- Out in a somewhat rural area of Ohio, with neighboring houses almost a mile away in either direction. She had expected to see a huge laboratory complex or a hospital, or any of the sort, but… this?
“Where ARE we going? Where is this? Shoomi?!”
“Be ready to disembark you two. Better to make this quick.” The scientist on the other end of the radio simply said. “Evil, transfer back to the server.”
“God, I thought you’d never ask.”
Seconds later, the AI was gone, and… the car rather worryingly simply cruised towards the house with inertia, the engine idling!
Seeing the front porch coming closer and closer Ellie stepped on the brakes as hard as she could, but with the front tires missing, the screeching didn’t change pitch- She clenched her eyes shut, expecting to NOW be launched out of the windshield, but rather than that happening, she just heard another BOOM from Camila’s Buntline, before the Imp gave her a hard shove against the shoulder.
“Come on! Go go go!” The former clown exclaimed, pushing the door open and firing again with another BOOM- but using her weak hand rather than the one that had a hole in the arm made her shooting significantly less pin-point accurate. For better or for worse, the laser had cauterized the wound so she wasn’t bleeding much, but… for her demonic healing factor to kick in, she was probably going to have to open up the wound again.
“On it! God, whatever this place is, it better be less dangerous!”
Ellie practically kicked the door off its hinges, rushing out of the car- Still blissfully unaware of Camila’s injury, but more than aware of the robots stepping out of the truck that had stopped behind their car. Part of her wanted to stop and kick each and every one of their asses… She didn’t know what they wanted from her specifically, but after so many direct attempts on her life, it was hard not to take things personally.
Ellie was not a violent woman by nature, but they were taking things a bit too far. Her fists clenched, and with a grimace, she urged Camila to go ahead.
“...Go on ahead! I’ll follow in a minut- Uwaah-?!”
Her attempt at heroism was foiled as Camila, having fired the last shot in her sixshooter, grabbed Ellie by her shoulder and pulled her over towards the door, eager to get in and to have some sort of cover or closure to all this.
Before they ever reached the door, though, it opened- and a gun was pointed out the door. Not just any gun, something rather crude and jury rigged, with electronics duct-taped to what seemed to be a 2x4 slab of wood and some metal guide rails for-
THUNK!!!
Sparks flew from the end of the gun, and a metal bolt slammed so hard into the frame of an Optimus bot that it was thrown onto its back, causing another to stumble and fall.
Another bolt was then loaded… by a slightly pudgy man in a dirty labcoat and thick sunglasses.
“Yo, how’s it goin, Ellie? Long time no see.” He said, dropping another bot with a rather loud THUNK after capacitors had finished charging up the next shot. The robots were rather oddly unable to go past his front porch, as if an invisible wall was stopping them right at the picket fence that had seen better days… from there, the man who seemed to be the very definition of a crackhead scientist picked the remaining ones off, one by one, whistling a tune that sounded like 2000s era anime.
“Wha- Slab?!” Ellie exclaimed with a gasp, only to exhale a sigh of relief. “Goodness, if I knew we were heading to YOUR place… I’d be a lot more scared. Please tell me you put away those awful microwave devices and the…” She cringed. “...100 outlet power strip? Please?”
“Uh. I’m glad you two know each other so well, but I’m kind of in the need of medical attention…” Camila grimaced, finally pointing to the blackened hole in her upper arm. “Or at least a scalpel or something, so I can scrape this crust off and let my demon blood heal me…”
Ellie’s jaw dropped at last, and she bleached pale white.
“CA-CAMILA?! YOU’RE HURT?!”
Camila stared back at her with a “No shit” expression on her face. “...Yes. I’d like to not be hurt any longer. Can we go inside, Mr… Slab?”
“Sure!” The scientist known as Uwo Slab said, shrugging his shoulders as he was satisfied with the amount of carnage he caused on the robots. “About time you guys got here. Shoomi told me you’d be here any minute now, but that was an hour or two ago… Now, Ellie, you might notice that my basement’s a little empty when we get there, and there’s a good reason for it. Shit ain’t safe in Ohio anymore, dawg, not since the Big Three had their sights on you and your friends!”
Camila, frankly, was out of the loop- and with this strange man just coming out of nowhere, she wasn’t exactly trusting of him either. Still, as they walked into the house and off the street, she was just glad to be behind some walls again rather than out in the open… even if the typical wood and drywall construction wasn’t going to be any more sturdy than the sheet metal the car had been made of.
Her arm throbbed, painfully pulsing and reminding her with every second that there was a gaping hole… even if it was nothing she couldn’t handle, it was quite unnerving to say the least. She kept her arm as straight and motionless as she could, just to ease the pain a little.
Part of her wanted to raise her hand and call for a break just so she could get some ice and put it on the wound, or maybe stitch it up, but… from an ordinary hallway to an ordinary kitchen, they went straight down an ordinary staircase without a break.
And into a suspiciously empty basement, where faint outlines of shelves and equipment hinted at a move that took place not too long ago. Hours ago, perhaps.
“Uhm. Slab? Where is everything? And why are you leading us into an empty basement?” Ellie asked somewhat understandably so, but Slab simply chuckled and, with his railgun still in one hand, pulled out an equally jury rigged device that looked frankly absurd.
PCBs, wires, antennas and duct tape held together with a switch in the middle, it looked like something a child with put together to play pretend, but she knew him well enough that he put function over everything, with form not even being a consideration until much, much later.
“Heh. Ellie, you really think I’d let these corporate fucks go through my basement if they ever catch me with my pants down? Nah, dawg, I took all of this off-site, where they’ll never get a hold of it. And that's where we’re going! With a lil’ help of my friend Glorp.”
Camila raised her eyebrow even more, all while holding onto the upper arm with the hole in it, as if it was going to fall off if she didn’t. “Glorp…? Like… the alien cat meme…?”
Slab simply smirked, pressing the button on his device once they were all in the center of the room. “Glorp, you there?”
An incoherent, glarbled speech that sounded a bit like Donald Duck speaking backwards could be heard in acknowledgement.
Now it was Ellie’s time to raise her eyebrow, as Slab pulled her and Camila closer to him.
“Alright- Teleport three people, on my location, when you’re ready!”
Camila blinked. “Teleport? You’re making shit up now!”
Ellie tended to agree, raising her hand slightly to object. “I don’t mean to be a critic, but I don’t think it's possi-”
The light faded from Ellie’s eyes, as her body became ethereal.
For the fraction of a moment, she could see everything. The beginning of the universe. The end of it. Every star, every planet. Aliens whose origin, name and culture would never be known to mankind. Ancient civilizations and interstellar spacecraft out in the void of the unknown, all within her grasp, as she felt like she was everywhere and nowhere all at once.
It was an impossible sensation, impossible to take in. Even enhanced with cybernetics, her human mind could not comprehend it, could not store it. But it was as if her mind was not even there at all, until-
“-ible to teleport pe-people?!!!”
Her voice pitched up into a squeal as her eyes were able to see again… now in a vast storage room unlike anything she’d ever seen before, outside of sci-fi shows!
Her body felt light, impossibly light, yet her feet were glued to the ground as if all of her weight was pressed against it, while the rest of her body was trying to fly away.
It wasn’t long before she realized the room was perfectly symmetrical, with walkways both above her and below her, and doorways that were large enough for both ways to go. Strange symbols covered the shipping containers, at least those that were not obviously just palettes worth of Uwo’s own junk.
Speaking of the man, he let out a smug chuckle, setting his rifle aside, and spread out his arms like a showman giving a presentation.
“Welcome aboard the Space Station Mimosa, friendos!”
“....WHAT THE FRICK?!! SLAB, I WAS GONNA GIVE THE EPIC REVEAL SPEECH! WHY ARE YOU STEALING THIS FROM ME!? I’M GONNA SHOVE MY FIST SO FAR UP YOUR- Ahem. Ellie! Camilaaaaa!”
Aquwa’s voice, coming over some sort of P.A. system, confirmed his announcement, despite her outrage. “You’re finally here! Oh my god, I didn’t clean up my room- D-Don’t come here until I say so, okay?! J-Just talk to Shoomi in the meantime! And don’t look at any doors labelled as BL Storage!”
Ellie and Camila didn’t answer. They simply stared, their eyes wide open and their mouths agape, unsure what to make of all this.
To escape killer robots with laser guns, Aliens had just teleported them into space.