*BANG!
Metal bolts propelled by pressurized air canisters whistled through the air as it sunk into the walls as easily as a knife would with an unspliced body.
Feeling a drop of cold sweat roll down her forehead as she watched the metal bolts tear through her previous position, Eva took stock of what ammo she had on hand.
Consisting of twenty one metal crossbow bolts and three canister of heavily pressurized air, it seemed twelve of the bolts would be going unused since a single air canister would only be able to fire three times.
A pity that the recent flipping of the driller had punctured holes into seals of the rest of their Air canisters otherwise she would be lacking bolts to fire instead of air canisters
But it wasn't like they could use plasma cells or gunpowder either.
With the both of them generating large amounts of heat energy in brief moments, those brief moments were all the air laden with chemicals needed to begin reacting violently.
It would be considered good luck to not have your hand disappear from the violent chemical explosion as some would learn the hard way.
And by the sound of the sudden explosions and screams behind her, it seemed that some people just found out the hard way.
Or was that just something that Ester did?
Glancing at Ester who was loading something into the empty sling in his left hand, he met her gaze and opened his right hand, revealing a lightbulb taped together with a small battery powering it.
Wanting to laugh at the proud look on his face, Eva paused when she realized that this ArchitectDamnedSpeaker lodged into her throat where her voice box would be stopped her.
Suppressing the urge to scratch madly at the metal apparatus like so many times before, she instead let a hiss of air escape her throat
---
A hand slapped into Ester's back.
"Ow?" Looking up in confusion, Ester tried and failed to feel his back where Eva had slapped it. "What was that for?"
[You suddenly looked very slappable.] Eva answered without a second beat.
Ester raised an eyebrow in question.
[...Fine] Eva let out a hiss through her throat, her eyes darting around their surroundings. [I was just wondering if this is a good idea.]
Ester glanced at their surroundings consisting of modded metalmen, spliced inhumans and the rare ostracized aliens wandering around the insides of whatever this place was called.
Having just paid a guard with a full unit of Aether to protect their half destroyed driller from any of the sticky fingers around, Ester understood where she was coming from.
But it wasn't as if they had any other choice.
Ester muttered to Eva underneath his breath, keeping wise of the number of eyes assessing their value as a target. "You and I both know the Project-"
He scanned their surroundings. "-wasn't exactly kind to our fragile equipment. We need supplies to tide us over until I can get to fixing it."
[I get that...] Eva stared at the prostitutes hanging around in the alleyways flaunting their silicone breasts and asses. [It's just that I have a bad feeling about this place.]
"I would've worried for brain damage if you thought that any place on this Architect shunned planet didn't have a bad feeling to it." Ester wheeled the trolley forwards while he continued to keep an eye for any Sticky Fingers eager to test their luck.
"Anyways, keep an eye out for anything yeah?"
[Wasn't born yesterday, still won't be born today tomorrow.]
"You could've been a poet."
[Alas, the Architects stole my voice.]
Shaking her head with mock anger that seemed to mirror real anger, Ester fell silent as he instinctively turned his eyes to the right.
'Sticky Fingers.'
In the form of any other inhabitant of this place, they had a clunky respirator, goggles and enough clothes to cover every inch of their skin.
They seemed to give Ester and Eva a basic amount of wariness to not get shanked when they inevitably passed by in the narrow street, but Ester could tell from how they walked and how their hands twitched inside of their coat.
He tapped at the trolley several times at a volume loud enough for only Eva who was by his side to hear.
It was all the clue that she needed to deck the guy in his unprotected gut the very instant he slipped his hands into her frame and pulled something out of it.
"Guk!"
Letting out a sharp gasp of surprise as all of the air left his lungs, Eva whipped out her dagger hidden in her sleeves and pressed it against the pipe lines protecting his respirator, pressing the man against the wall.
[Return what you took you pickie and you won't have to breath the fresh air of our trash planet.]
"Okay Okay!" Raising his hands in surrender with a wheeze, the man revealed the air canister he held. "No need to get violent."
[How about you hide that knife in your boot before you talk about not getting violent?] Eva tapped her metal legs against the ground for additional clarification as the Sticky Fingers sheepishly tapped his heel against the ground and hid the blade that poked out his boot.
[Now if you don't want to have broken fingers for trying to steal from me, tell me and my friend where the market is. Also hand back that Air canister before you put it in your pocket.]
Pointing the knife at his wind pipe, the man paused his motions of subtly putting the canister into his pockets and gingerly gave it back to Eva whilst the knife continued to hover near his neck.
"Big words for a little lady."
Eva moved her hand slightly and enjoyed the sight of the man's eyes nearly popping out of his skull. [The market]
"Yep. The market." Pointing at a large jagged building in the center of the town with a large section of its walls collapsed, the innards of the building revealed shadows of figures moving and bustling about.
"It's that big building over there. If you take a left from here and the second right, you can reach a section that's still intact after the reckoning."
[...The reckoning?]
Hearing Eva's question, the man carefully pushed the knife away from his neck only to freeze when she shook his hand off.
His freezing ended only when Eva slipped the knife right back into her sleeve.
"It's what those religious nutjobs are calling that big quake that shook Ash Town a while back, I trust you know what I'm talking about?"
[Yeah.] Eva let out an angered hiss from her neck. [I know what you mean.]
Ester had the small feeling she wasn't referring to the big quake.
"Great" Eyeing Eva's sleeve with a wariness that still hadn't disappeared yet, he continued to show off his hands. "Can I go now?"
[Not until you tell us the name of this place.]
"Ash town. This place is called Ash town."
[You can go now.]
Hurriedly disappearing into one of the buildings that had a nasty crack running along its scrap metal side, Ester watched as he briefly filched a corpses hands, metal fingers and all.
Could it really be called a corpse when all that was left was a hand?
Questions for another day.
"So that was fruitful." Ester let out a sigh as he eyed the surroundings that eyed him back. "At least no one's going to bother us for now."
With the ruckus Eva had made when subduing the pickpocket, eyes inevitably gathered onto the duo, whispers being exchanged as they watched her deal with the Pickpocket.
But despite watching her physically threaten the Pickie with death, no one stepped forwards to help.
It was just the nature of this place after all.
Spotting a few of the spectators disappear to someplace else no doubt to whisper to whichever gangs existed in Ash town, Ester fiddled with the lightbulb battery grenade in his pocket.
"...Let's get moving."
[The faster we finish this the better.] Eva narrowed her eyes. [The feeling this place gives me seems to be just getting worse and worse.]
---
Walking into the underground market, it was more broken than it seemed at first glance.
With the ground opened up to reveal a chasm that revealed at least five more floors underneath, it seemed that Project Void Buffer wasn't exactly kind to this place either.
Peering into the chasm, Ester was unable to see its bottom.
It was a tripping hazard that could lead to death, but it wasn't anything that the inhabitants of the Trash Planet were unfamiliar with.
If anything, the market seemed all the more livelier thanks to the massive chasm joining the several layers of markets together.
Moving deeper and deeper into the underground market, Ester and Eva continued to protect their things from sticky hands aiming to take a bite of their bounty.
It was easy to do since the corridors were narrow enough that they only needed to pay attention to the two people walking alongside them, but the frequency of such pickpockets made Ester remember why he disliked living in population centers.
Thankfully the number of such pickpockets dropped significantly once word spread that they weren't an easy target, but there were always a few greedy ones that they had to nick the wind pipes of.
Especially that guy with eight tentacles that tried to grope him under the guise of pickpocketing, Eva made sure to make a particularly large hole in his respirator's wind pipe.
Glaring at the eight armed man who was desperately haggling with a stall keeper who's eyes seemed to light up with gold, Ester felt his ears perk up at the sudden disappearance of sound.
Turning his head to see the cause, Ester felt his eye twitch at the sight of a green skinned giant with a bared chest muscling through the crowd, briefly angering them before they spotted the insignia of a metal jaw with two jutting tusks at the sides placed directly over where his heart would be.
Shifting his gaze towards the wide yawning chasm, he spotted more men, women and aliens sharing the insignia of a metal lower jaw flexing their muscles while taking whatever they wanted.
They looked like trouble, and trouble is where they don't want to be.
"Eva."
[Hm?]
"Do you think these guys are a welcoming party or a welcoming party?" Ester nodded towards the bunch of muscled giants pushing their way through the crowd.
Eva tilted her head and looked around briefly before nodding her head. [Yes.]
"I thought so to, can you finish your deal with the Hunter?"
"I have a name you know."
[Just put the jerky in the bag.]
"...Payment first."
[Done.] Locking the Aether Crystal in place and letting five units of Aether drain out of the small crystal nearly leaving it devoid of blue glow, the hunter roughly grabbed ten strips of jerky and shoved them into a plastic bag the size of their head.
Swiftly following up his actions by dragging everything into a large bag which he then hoisted onto his back, the Hunter glanced at the two of them, hesitated for a few moments before eventually opening his mouth.
"A word of advice for the two of you newcomers."
The Hunter warily glanced at the muscled green giant breaking the numerous stalls without a care in the world.
"I recommend not getting involved with the Tork Family. They might've shed more blood in Ashtown than they ever have bled for it but there's a reason why they're still around.."
Leaving behind that cryptic piece of advice as he hurriedly disappeared into the Underground markets many sub paths, Ester and Eva looked at each other before looking at the green Giant.
With a pair of orange eyes locked right onto them, it seemed that it was to late to listen to that Hunters words.
---
3 DAYS SINCE PROJECT VOID BUFFER WAS EXECUTED
+++
Part 1 of the post IELTS chapters
Somehow mixed up my schedules and ended forcing a chapter onto this day
Tree
[Rewrite]