Luck and Run!

Betty

"Uh, could you talk about plans later and get me out of these chains?" Aeryn-Pip asks, gesturing at her chains for emphasis. "And while you're at it . . . who ARE you people? Is John somewhere involved in this?!"

"Uh . . . John's not involved but let me take care of...." I begin, readying a likely unlocking spell to pop open her cuffs.

"No, let me." Chiana purrs, pulling out some lockpicks she had on her person. "Gotta stay in practice, after all!"

Eagerly, our girl in gray steps up to free her sister from her bonds, quickly and quietly explaining who she was and who we were.

That we were there to help her off this rock, which Aeryn-Pip reacts rather positively to, let me tell you! Do believe that she's grown rather tired of this Earth...

But that said, though naked still, she and Chiana come up short by something they see in my face.

"Hey, what's got you so cranked?" Chiana asks, sounding . . . hurt. "Hey, I did follow the plan . . .Well, more or less I followed it. What gives?"

"Yeah, what gives?" Aeryn-Pip echoes, also giving off that odd Chiana twitch her sister tends to give off, looking at me.

Actually, I've got a look of consternation rather than anger because....

"Not . . . that you didn't fail to follow the plan . . . more or less," I begin, "It's just that after that last battle we'd kind of agreed to use our holdout weapons instead of primary, remember?"

"Well....yeah," Chiana sputters, drawing back a little bit. "But it's not like I was almost out! See!"

She pops out her chakkan oil cartridge (her last one, since like everyone else we'd gone through a LOT of ammo bringing down those Low Men, carefully or not) and hands it to me.

Well, never have actually TASTED the oil, but I remember from that one TV episode of Farscape where John Crichton, cornered by enemies found the pulse pistol he'd been using making a beeping sound instead of firing pulse blasts. After a quick taste of the cartridge, he'd been rather ticked to find it empty.

"My mistake," I lie, tasting nothing left within. "But it's kinda low..."

"Uh...right," Chiana blinks, seeing the truth I'm hiding in my face. She's still new to the crew, but she's good at spotting lies (even lies told to save face). Lies told for her sake, to make her not lose face before her newly found sister, after all...

....

Rats, kinda wanted to know what that stuff John was trying to sample tasted like...

Right . . . stick to the plan next time, Chiana sends to me, slightly embarrassed. Either phasor or spells from now on.

Good, I send back, nodding slightly. Inquirer had been kind of busy, getting one of those. . . things off of her before it ripped off half her face, but she'd been able to sort of keep track of shots fired....

Like Chiana, but like her TV counterpart she sometimes has a talent in getting herself into trouble. Would have BEEN trouble if she'd shot her pistol dry before knocking her enemies out, let me tell you. Mob bosses and henchmen aren't shy on violence and from that smoldering spot on the desk I guess is where a hidden pistol was...

Aeryn-Pip might have been able to discern my lie, is rather still busy being taken aback by Inquirer.

Her face has regenerated a lot, but still a bit of the skull beneath shines through.

"What the frell?" Aeryn-Pip whispers.

"Oh, don't worry," Inquirer chuckled in a strained, Germanic sounding accented voice. "It's just a flesh wound."

Ragan

"She's a biomechanoid in the shape of a human female," Chiana explains to her sister, who's still staring. "Kinda took a few blows but I believe she's still under warrenty."

"Nope, that got voided a LONG time ago," the mechanical lady sighs, wincing. "Creator, that was one Hell of a battle with the Low Men! Glad about the Rules because by now my life would have been shortened enough to start to show...."

Ah, wondering what's up? Well, she's a Golem. A special kind of Golem, but similar to those usually found on Terra Prime of lesser quality to share one thing in common. Given enough time and enough material left over, a golem can recover/regenerate wounds, but at a price. Each regeneration sort of shortens their shelf life, as it were. Wears them out to, if they get wound one too many times it starts to show. Signs of old age (as it were) begin to show. Too much, and no more regenerations. That or death by old age.

Given that Inquirer's species is quiet a step above the average golem, they last for a LONG time. Tens of thousands of years, without wear and tear. Given the beatings that Inquirer could get by being (by her own choice) the first into battle and the last to leave (shielding us more delicate folk), eventually it could have caught up with her. If she wasn't a Champion....

Still, she's a bit dragged out from this last battle. Not ready to drop in her tracks, but she's tired. Shows in her voice. When she's tired (rare), she slips back into her old speech patterns for some reason.

Ah, before you ask, it's odd how things worked out on her world. It's like my world, but different in some ways. In this case, a transposition somehow happened. Germans speak with a decidedly American accent and vice versa. That's not the only kind of transposition, but....

Well, that's not important right now. Right now, we need to get our naked Nebari woman dressed and our asses gone.

Aeryn-Pip, dressed in an outfit that is an old favorite of Chiana's, looks like she's going to balk in following us (and boy that's going to be a pain if she does bolt).

However....

Artizza 1

"Hey, do you trust us?" I ask our fidgeting target. "Or do you at least trust your sister?!"

By now this business of parallel worlds and all that stuff had been explained to her, so we are in the clear on THAT! But...

"I . . . trust her," she says softly, looking over at Chiana (still not sure just WHY). But she does trust her newly acquired analog sister. "But how are we going to get away if not by spaceship? I mean, you said we'd be leaving this world but....?"

"We'll explain later," Chiana says quickly, glancing around nervously (expecting monsters at any moment). "There's no frellin' time right now! We'll explain later, AFTERWARDS. Just remember to request to meet us on Terra Prime at the place I told you, after you meet the Rule."

"Okay, but I still don't...." Aeryn-Pip sighs, still not understanding but throwing in with us.

That's all we need. I point the wand at her while she's still speaking (and looking at her sister instead of the rest of us) and now in Aeryn- Pips' place is a now familiar looking style of crystal block.

"We'll explain later, my dear." the Doctor tells the block as he picks it up. "But right now we must be on our way."

As for these sleeping mobsters, I don't care one way or another what happens to them. When/if the Low Men come and finds Aeryn-Pip missing, they might take out frustration on this restaurant and those within. Or they might not. Don't "give a frell" as Chiana would say.

We don’t have to worry about repurcisions of our actions on this world in as far as it’s fate. It’ll sort it’s own fate out, with or without a few dozen mobsters in the mix (whatever the Low Men decide on that matter). We’ve done our job and now we need to scat!!

Sorry if I sound stone hearted about these sleeping scum back there, they remind me too much of the scum back in Wallants, the Black Market Cult, for my tastes.

As it stands, by the time the Low Men do get around to being able to track down Aeryn-Pip....

Things have changed. By that time the Champions (ala the Doctor and gang) have left via the Central Park exit. Besides, word had finally filtered down from their Masters about Flagg's failure AND. . . . this particular batch of Low Men are wishing that they'd never listened to Flagg's schemes....

.....

Best left to the imagination what that means.

The source of the fire back in the darker part of New York is never really uncovered. Those who had stepped forward to tell what they’d seen (the foolish ones) aren’t believed. Some whisper it’s either the work of terrorists or some kind of Mafia “urban renewal” project. Whatever, it’s not important to us here and now.

Meanwhile, our heroes step out into the bright sunlight of a new world much like what has become their home... Same but different. Then again, by now you know that's always the case with parallel worlds, eh?

"Is this supposed to be Wallants?" Fertal asks, glancing around at the burg before him and the others. "Looks like more like a gutted ruin, really!"

1. At another spot within this Shadow City (which looks less like a city and more like . . . a movie prop mockup of a city)....

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