In the outer reaches, a planet existed where the trash of human kind and the trash of the Upper class were unceremoniously thrown here without a second thought about their survival.
This planet was designated Dumping grounds EXL0261, the two hundredth of its kind with a total floating population of 100,000,000 give or take 90 million.
Logistics was a second thought here when even the air wanted to kill you.
And it's on this planet that Ester was walking into the place he called home.
Carefully walking up the mountain of discarded steel and plastic shattered by gravity and further more by time, sharp shards poked the bottom of his soles as the Respirator worked overtime to supply his aching body with breathable air.
As it turned out, cardio in the place that could kill you wasn't exactly the best idea.
Blackish green clouds swirling above head with signs of rain, the acid suffused clouds crackled with poisoned purple lightning as the creatures floating within briefly appeared with each flash of lightning, the bloated black forms looming ominously.
Eyeing the ominous weather signs, Ester's eyes were soon dragged to the city resting at the base of the mountain.
Built out of whatever they could get their hands on, corrugated metal sheets lined it's walls as permanent fixtures lit up their grimy surroundings.
It seemed small from afar, but everyone knew that the real thing was underground.
No sane man or woman or plant would willingly build upwards when a random trash rain could squash it all flat or a newborn Grunger decided that their homes could serve as a nice shell for itself.
Underground had its own sets of dangerous such as acid leeches and acid leaks, but in addition to being safer than above, the Trash Rain had a nasty tendency of burying anything valuable underneath thousands of tons of scrap metal.
'Which reminds me.'
Looking around the top of the scrap plastic mountain, Ester forcefully hoisted the heavy collector over his back and onto the ground.
'Where the hell is she?'
Glancing back at the town that appeared to have been disturbed with dozens of people squirming round like a bunch of Ants, Ester glanced at the sky before he felt a disturbance below him
'Never mind.'
Grinning slightly underneath his mask as the top of a drill bit revealed itself from the ground, the large machine crawled out of the ground like the Undead being puppeted by their final memories.
Picking up the bag and knocking on the door with several knocks spaced out with three short pauses, one long pause and two short pauses, a feminine voice crackled out.
[P-Pass word-d-d?]
"I am Ester, 2702 the three eyed, one armed and two legged."
[Pass-sss w-word co-confirmed, w-w-welcome ho-home E-Esterrrrrrrrr]
Moving aside the fact that he would probably have to replace that broken speaker with the one he scavenged from the drop pod, Ester moved through the door that had opened up on the side of the machine and entered.
With a brief flash cleaning in the air lock, Ester felt his shoulders slump with relief as he took in his surroundings.
'Home is still...'
Eyes peeking through cracked lenses as he stared at the numerous bits and bobs that he had scavenged over the years piled up in their own little areas, he noticed that a bunch of the cans he had given her had been jury rigged into a water filtration system.
'Functional.'
Dumping the Collector to the side where it locked in place thanks to a couple hundred fridge magnets he sourced from one fridge. (The maniacs) Ester moved to take off his respirator.
Then he remembered the Filter was broken, and that was a conversation he was dreading to have since they were a pain to make.
Deliberating if he should take off the Respirator and replace the filter before she could notice, his ears twitched at a conspicuous bang followed by crackled cursing.
And now that he thought about it. Why wasn't the drill moving?
'Ah'
Ester snapped his fingers with realization as a giant upside down mask popped down from the ceiling Hissing like crazy.
'That's why'
[h-hissssssss Crackle]
Ester mustered the most deadpan stare as the loud sound of a broken speaker blasted in his face.
Then they fell.
It was a blur, one moment they were hanging off of the ceiling like the demon they were then the next she was hanging off of his neck like a Koala that learnt to climb backwards.
Large mask falling in the process as they hung from Ester's neck, a pale skinned beauty with stormy grey eyes stared right at him with hissy cracky intent.
He unceremoniously shoved the mouthless woman off of his body.
Tumbling onto the ground with the grace of a beached Bellowbog, a grunted cry of pain came from her mouth as a pair of stormy grey eyes glared at him.
"Your fault for trying to surprise me."
[Crackle- HisssssS *PoP]
Context clues told him all he needed to know about her mood as he raised his fleshy arm and pulled out the middle finger.
The masked demon without any legs in turn raised both of her middle fingers, flinching as a blotch of red bled out of their white tank top.
Ester rolled his eyes and walked towards her, removing the Respirator mask and breathing in the clean air.
"You really can't do anything without me huh?"
He received a balled up shirt to the back of his head for that snarky comment when he went through what little medical supplies they had.
"You good with some grubby bandages for your boo boo?"
*Thwump
Receiving another shirt to the back of his head Ester nodded sagely.
"Of course you deserve nothing more than the worst of the worst."
Turning around with the last of their disinfectant 'We really need to make some more.' And some of their good bandages, he raised an eyebrow as she had since crawled over to his little zone, holding up an Aether welder.
Staring at her, she gestured up at her throat which continued to hiss and spark ceaselessly.
It seemed that she wanted him to fix up her throat, and he only had on answer to that implied statement.
"...No?"
'Ow'
Picking the piece of plastic car tangled up in his hair, Ester rolled his eyes and lifted up his cracked yellow goggles so that he could better stare deadpan at her.
She met his gaze with a playful grey gaze of her own.
With pale crimson hair running down the sides of her hair in thin streams, her stormy grey eyes stared into his own as her head bobbed with amusement.
In stark contrast to the pale as paste complexion, a black piece of metal and plastic had found its way around and into her throat and mouth, replacing the voice that had been torn out by...
Nowadays she got her food in paste form administered through a specialized tube on her neck.
Ester blinked and took the Aetherwelder from her and placed it on the table right before picking up the adult baby from the ground, the stubs from where there should've been legs moving happily.
"Architects you are heavy" Ester grunted, placing the woman who would've been a lot taller than his growth stunted self if not for the lack of legs.
"Ow."
Shrugging off the series of playful hits which kept on coming, Ester glanced at his would be sister. "So... What do you want first Eva? Fix your gut or your mouth? I vote gut."
[Click* POP CRackle HIsssssss]
"Yeah? Well I'm doing the exact opposite."
Hitting his back with mock anger, Ester rolled his eyes sarcastically while lifting her shirt to expose the wound caused by what looked like a misplaced knife.
"So. What were you doing up in the maintenance vents anyway? Pretty sure that you can't drive in the Maintenance vents."
He said whilst picking up the last of their disinfectant and pouring a healthy amount of it over the wound, soaking the pair of shorts through with disinfectant.
Ester glanced up at Eva as she drew shapes over his back "...Since when were you smart enough to rig the machine to do that? Ow."
Ignoring the small pinch and instead wisely deciding to finish tending to the wound, he grabbed the bandage and gestured. "Raise your arms."
Eva covered her chest exaggeratedly while batting her eyelashes.
"Shut up and raise your hands pervert." Ester said with a roll in his eyes, his hands tightening the bandage extra tight around her abdomen. For good measure.
"Ow." Rubbing his shoulder where a small red welt was slowly forming, he gestured at the bench full of tools. "Unless you want to deal with fixing your voice by yourself, I suggest you stop."
Pinch
Ester pinched back
---
"A surprise?"
Picking up one of many tools magnetically locked in place with some of the Fridge magnets he had gotten from the same Fridge he glanced at his sister while looking for the screwdriver.
"So what's the surprise Eva?"
Ester found his screwdriver stuck under one of his pet projects and pried it out, sticking the flat head against the screw holding the mouth plate in place.
"You're not gonna tell?" Ester pried off the plating and found that the lighting was to little for his liking. "Stay like that will you?"
[Crackle]
"Ow?"
Shaking off the slight numbness in his hands from a rogue spark, he stuffed a flashlight in between his teeth and poked at the wiring.
"Hy Harng? groken, shtarted guzzing ouh" (My arm? Broken, started buzzing out)
Removing more and more of the protective shell to see more and more of Eva's mouth, he noticed a metal bit hanging quite literally by the wire.
"Ghe Ruhne dranshlahor cahe oose" (The Rune translator came loose)
Ester kept the flashlight in his teeth as he grabbed the Aether Welder from where he had last placed it, connecting it to Crystal wiring as he did so.
"Shtay shtill for a shecond. Itsh gonna ve hoh" (Stay still for a second, its gonna be hot.)
Light flashed as the Glyphs related to merging appeared on the crystalline tip, a small bit of tweezers holding the loose connections in place.
"Sho. Whash hahhen wheh I wash goh? Ow" (So. What happened when I was gone? Ow)
"Shcraplin? How bah ish it?" (Scrapling? How bad is it?)
"Thah bah? Nhot nehw newsh ish it?" (That bad? not new news is it?)
"Hrn? Itsh achually nehw?" (Hm? Its actually new?)
"Roshling?" (Rotling?)
"Sho thehy hurking thogether?" (So they working together?)
"Nhot a ghood shign if ya had tu hihde." (Not a good sign if you had to hide)
"And done." He spat, the flashlight being wiped of all saliva. "Just have to close it up later so that you don't break it or something"
[bzz-eady? Ah]
"So how is it to begin speaking again?"
[G-great]
She clapped her hands happily before suddenly leaping off of the chair with deceptive speed, wrapping both of her arms around Ester who instinctively balanced himself with the new weight added to his back.
[N-now we-we ride-ide my ste-eed]
"What the void is even a steed?" Ester asked, trying to get Eva off of his back without hurting her that much.
[D-dunno, b-but I-I saw-aw it-it was-s use-ed l-like a-a ca-car]
"Really?" Giving up on trying to remove the female demon with a much higher arm strength then him, Ester moved to the front of the Drill where a bunch of screens worked with dubious effeciency
Then he unlocked his arm causing Eva to yelp with surprise as she fell against the chair.
"How about you drive our car then?"
[This-this is-is b-bullyin-ing the-the inju-jured]
"Isn't it the word disabled? And it isn't bullying if the victim enjoys it."
[L-Lies!]
"Just start the driller while I fix my arm Eva."
He turned to look at his sister, a mad chuckle bubbling up from within his eyes as the sound of the engine groaning to life vibrated into his very bones.
"I'm almost done with the project, and soon, we'll be able to have a place we can call home."
He grinned brightly at Eva who settled herself comfortably on the chair with the aid of numerous clothes.
"Wouldn't you want to sleep under stars?"
+++
Tree that desires to be buried over a pile of Powerstones
Tree that also desires to keep their crown on their shoulders