Jag's Story

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Well here we are, folks... The beginning of the story... The moment that started it all... Well, maybe not all of it, I mean, I'm not the guy who created the universe-- I'm just the guy who wrote this little introduction to an epic tale following a ragtag group of mercenaries doing whatever the hell they please throughout the Milky Way Galaxy IN that universe. No... No, that other guy was God. God did that. I'm not God. If you want creativity, then go and talk to that jerk. But hey, thanks for reminding me of my insecurities! Assholes... Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah; The beginning of a...really long journey...filled with...epic...stuff-- OKAY, YOU KNOW WHAT? FUCK THIS SHIT. JUST... Here it is...

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It was a rather boring day for one particular crew of mercenaries that were currently stationed at a sad, sad place, in their equally sad, sad ship, doing God only knows what. One of them, however, was very clearly snoring quite loudly with the side of his face stuck to a desk thanks to the help of his own spit. In one hand, he held a near-empty bottle of whiskey. In the other? Well...that one... That one was digging around in the front of his pants. Again; doing God only knows what... This man, who was not unlike the common lowlife of a man you'd regularly find in any dysfunctional family's study each night after getting drunk for no other reason than simply because "fuck you", was none other than Captain Zack Archer: founder and current leader of the widely unknown mercenary business, The Second Horsemen. But hey, at least the name is cool. How many better names for a mercenary group can you think of other than the second horseman of the apocalypse? None, that's how many! Well, probably none aside from the actual horseman's name, War -- but that was already taken by another group known as War & Ruin, so fuck you anyway! Know why? Because that group doesn't have Captain "Mother-Fucking" Archer on-board their ship, now do they! No, they do NOT. And he's fucked a LOT of mothers, most likely, so deal with it!

So there was Archer, sleeping his troubles away without a care in the world. Wait, that doesn't sound right... If he's got troubles to sleep away, then doesn't that mean he's caring enough about them to do so...? Ahhh, that's right-- he's sleeping his cares away without trouble! What was I thinking? The Second Horsemen don't have any "troubles". Least not yet, anyway... Well, that was more-or-less the run-down of an average morning for Captain Zack Archer. A killer hangover from the now-passed Sunday night. Which meant that today was Monday. Which meant that something terrible was about to happen. Because Archer totally forgot all about it until that terrible something reminded him that it was so incredibly terrible.

The phone rang...

Well, it was the future, so it wasn't really a 'phone' phone, but rather the thing that acted as our sense of the word's replacement, which was in the form of an inter-galactic bridge of communication networks stretching across to every corner of the Milky Way Galaxy. In other words, a fancy-ass cellphone. But I'm going to call it the "holophone". So yeah-- suddenly, the "holophone" rang. And it was loud. At first, Archer just kinda grunted slightly, trying to turn his head the other way, only to give up because his face was too damn stuck to the surface of the desk he never used for anything other than...well, that. Then again, there was the occasional female bartender he'd pick up and bring back here from time-to-time... Anyway, as the "holophone" continued to ring, the orange light from the Caller ID's 3D hologram flashed the name of one of his clients, which illuminated the immediate area. This bright light was beginning to annoy the young captain, although he still managed to fight it with a scowl and a grit of his teeth.

Because someone on his ship chose to change the settings of his "holophone" so that it would continue to ring louder and louder each time he didn't pick it up; by the 4th ring, Archer was practically screaming inside his head, telling himself to 'Just pick the damn thing up already!' However, being Archer, he didn't actually give in until the 7th ring -- which was a good thing he did, too, because if he would have waited even one more second, he would have lost his chance at what was supposed to be their biggest job to date!

"HWAT!?" he yelled, rather stupidly, dropping the bottle of whiskey after forcefully ripping his face off of the desk. "D'YOU rEALIZE WHaT TiMe it...is?" Pausing to check the time on his holophone with squinted eyes, Archer nearly vomited all over his desk, but somehow managed to keep it down for the time being. "S'like... 12 iN the afTeRNOon, bro...!" he grunted into the receiver, burping a little. The voice that spoke from the other end of the connection sounded rather annoyed with Archer's usual lack of professionalism.

"Yeah, today's the day, asshole." said the client. "You know, THE day... I'm gonna need you guys out here to pick up the package within the next couple 'a hours, or else I've been told told to pass the job off to someone who can tell me with certainty what fuckin' day it is..." Archer merely scowled in disbelief before looking to his right at the calendar on his wall.

"Well I'm certain you sa..id it was on...MONDAY..." hiccuped Archer, looking ahead once more with a slight wobble. What happened next nearly made him drop the "holophone" out of startle.

"IT IS MONDAY, YOU JACKASS!!" screamed the client. "Now sober the FUCK UP, get DOWN HERE, and DELIVER THE PACKAGE!" With each raise in emphasis, Archer pulled his ear away from the receiver, creating something of a comical head-wag.

"O-Okay, okay! Jeez... You don't to yell--" began Archer, only to be cutoff by the sound of his client hanging up on him. "H... Hello...? Pssht, little bitch hung up on me...!" Turning off the "holophone" and setting it down on the desk he was now propping his elbows on top of, Archer sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. Trying to kick his thoughts into overdrive so that he could remember how important this job was supposed to be, Archer just sat there, barely breathing. And then it started coming back to him... For over a month, Archer had been promised a "special job", as it were, by a reliable client that would regularly get him jobs from various groups and other businesses. However, this one was said to be completely anonymous; Archer's client telling him how little he knew of them himself, other than the fact that they always pay well. This job in particular required some sort of package to be picked up and delivered to the mother ship and home of the Xilass race: The Dephdra. Until a week ago, Archer was beginning to lose hope, as most everyone on his ship figured he was spouting the regular nonsense that came out of his mouth each day, since there had yet to be any "big" or "special" jobs. The job itself was easy enough: Archer needed to swing by The Dephrdra again anyway in order to keep his promise with a certain Xilass crew member of his, so there was nothing all that "special" about it... And then he remembered the best part. The main reason why he accepted the offer back when he was first told about it.

"THE PAY!!" he suddenly shouted, waking up the female bartender that was crashing on the floor beside him. Her shout having made him give out a rather high-pitched scream of his own as he turned his head to look at the bizarre creature that was capable of making such a sound. Pausing for a moment to look at her, he scowled. "The fuck are YOU still doing here...?" he asked her in a strained voice. Her reaction to such words was less than pleased.

"Well, excuse ME for not being able to walk home after last night!" she sassed back at him. That's when they both smiled at each other, Archer giving her a nod.

"That good, huh?" he asked with a suave tone of voice.

"Oh, yeah~" she replied, giving him a suggestive look, by which Archer just leaned back in his chair, one arm over it as he stared at her until his smile began to fade.

"Well that doesn't quite answer my question, now does it!" he gradually shouted back at her, making her flinch slightly. "You can walk NOW, can'tcha'?! So get the fuck off my ship! I've got important mercenary crap to do here!" Finishing with that, he stood up and walked over to his coffee pot next to the sink. Scoffing, the female bartender stood up, albeit weakly at first, before moving towards the cabin door.

"Fuck YOU, Archer!" she said back, giving him the finger.

"Too bad you already beat me to it, lady!" said Archer, waving the back of his hand at her in farewell as he poured himself a cup of fresh coffee while the woman growled at him before leaving. There was nothing like a fresh cup of coffee in the morning to Archer... Well, it was 12 in the afternoon, but that wasn't the point. Taking a few sips of the delicious concoction, he let out a satisfied sigh, walking back over to his desk to sit down once more. Head still pounding quite fiercely, he took a couple of sips more, already thinking that he would be needing a bit of the hair of the dog that bit him in order to make a comeback from last night's binge. But instead, he figured he had better get to work, so to speak...

Leaning over his desk a bit, one hand grasping the handle of his mug while the other stretched out its index finger to click in the ship's intercom system. Speaking into the mic, Archer made his first announcement of the day.

"Well... It's that time of the day once again, kiddies." he started, his voice low and soft over the ship's speakers; evidence that he was suffering from yet another hangover. "Just got off the phone with one of our top clients... Looks like that big job I mentioned awhile back is happening. Like, right now. That means it's time to WAKE UP, you lazy sacks of shit! Ow... It's time to go to work! Hnng... Let's get Rev started up and heading for planet Alta Jarvis, located in the...Centaur Region. Don't keep papa waiting! Guh..." Finally done torturing himself with the sound of his own loud voice, Archer took his finger off the switch to the intercom. And then, on cue, one of the hands stopped while passing by his doorway.

"Archer, dear." she said, pausing to give him a look. "It's 12 in the afternoon; the only one who hasn't already been awake since morning is you..." At this, Archer made note of two things: 1, that bitch bartender left his door wide open, and 2, Kelly was looking rather hot today for someone who wasn't even compatible with his species.

"I know, Kelly." replied Archer. "I was just doing the 'professional' thing for once." Taking another sip of his coffee, he then kicked back with his legs up on the desk, looking relaxed. "By the way; your ass is looking especially awesome today."

"My name's not 'Kelly'..." she said with a bored tone, giving the impression that she'd told him this many times before. "It's Kei'Hally..." Placing her hands on her hips, she blatantly ignored his 'observation'.

"Knew that too, Kelly." said Archer, giving her a tilted nod while looking away from her. This just made Kei'Hally smile wryly and roll her eyes before hanging her head back in defeat as she walked away. Things were looking good, Archer thought to himself as he finished his first cup of coffee. By then, Rin-Naera should have already been prepping the ship for departure just as the bartender finally left, and the others would be getting ready for any problematic situations that may arise to meet them in the near future. For while Archer's crew knew how much nonsense he spewed out each new day to be his regular thing, and no matter how much they figured on this "big job" having been just another one of those things, they also knew one very important thing: Archer never joked about a job...

They knew it was go-time.

"GOD FUCKING DAMMIT."

jag's fist slammed into the wall of her little room on the revenant well shit it wasn't even really a room the damn thing was more like the starboard observation deck of this dumb piece of shit boat but jag didn't have fucking time to dick around in the fucking quarters or whatever and besides this shit gave you like a real nice view of the stars n shit which was pretty cool but not right now cause she was pissed off as shit right now so anyway back to the whole punching the wall thing have you ever noticed just how fucking infuriating chairs are with their dumb fuckin little legs n shit they ain't even actually legs man they're just like little stick things sticking out of a gay ass platform or whatever the hell with that shit as far as jag was concerned chairs were just for pussies who were too spineless to stand or some shit frankly that whole thing made more sense the less jag thought about it

wait shit she'd been pissed off about something before she'd been pissed off about chairs wait yeah i remember now she'd been pissed off cause she'd been punching the walls again and that shit left a whole bunch'a gay little cavities in the metal surface of the starboard observation wall and archer probably didn't appreciate that shit but man fuck that little cunt dude had dumb grey hair and dumb red clothes who the fuck has grey hair anyway i mean besides like old humans apparently but fuck old humans those dumb shitheads lived like sixty years or some shit before dying a shitty ol death or whatever not like jag cause jag was a fuckin noxchi so she was totally gonna live like a thousand years or some shit wait are you tellin me i'm gonna have to deal with this shit for another thousand years

"GOD FUCKING DAMMIT."

she slammed her fist into the wall again and goddammit she made another fucking hole what the shit man and goddammit the dumb little cavities weren't even like aesthetically pleasing or whatever so she didn't even and all of a sudden she was soaring over the battlefield awaiting the airdrop as the echoes of gunfire and explosions and cries of death and agony the harmonies of carnage inglorious and beside her the other widowmakers were readying their guns but she didn't have to cause she'd had her shit ready for ages now and as the military transport reached the objective, the widowmakers hurled themselves from the ship and down to the ground jag herself at the helm alighting amidst the thick of battle with outsider forces all around and without hesitation as thermal rounds pinged off their armour and their shields simply ate the laser bursts that hurtled in from all sides the widowmakers took to producing widows anew hehe yeah that'd been a fun as shit battle but fuck now she was back in the gay ass little starboard observation with a whole bunch of new craters in the walls

"GOD FUCKING DAMMIT."

jag reared her fist back again to make a new hole in the wall to be pissed off as shit about when archer's stupid shitty voice filtered in through the ship-wide intercom system which only pissed jag off all the more because i dunno it was probably gonna be some totally inane shit anyway and yeah apparently the dude had just woken up which wasn't surprising cause that asshat probably spent all the previous night drinking his brain to shit because humans were fuckin dumb as shit all like yeah i should totally drink this shit that turns me into a fucking dumbass well even more of a dumbass than i already was which was probably a lot cause humans are pretty much born with skulls full of nothing but dead flies and maybe like one brain cell that managed to get through that enables them to not forget how to breath or whatever

but anyway that was all pretty irrelevant apparently they had a job which jag knew not to get all excited about cause it was probably gonna be some real asinine as shit bullshit like hey i'm too lazy to take this dumb useless thing that absolutely nobody needs and nobody gives a shit about from here to some other shitty place so i'm gonna hire a bunch of heavily armed mercenaries to do it for me instead of getting the fuck off'a my ass and doin it myself cause i'm a dickface was dickface a real thing cause man that woulda been one shitty ass mutation or whatever and fuck her skull was fucking bursting with pain even more than usual made her just wanna tear a fucker's spine out of their back and then strangle them with it but wait shit they probably woulda died the second she tore their spine out the dumb fuckin cun

a rapping at the door to the starboard observation deck drew jag's attention "for fuck sake i don't give a fucking shit fuck off dickface" but then she decided what the fuck ever so she turned around and slammed her fist into the opening mechanism but she had sense enough at least not to do it too hard cause last time she'd broken the dumb fuckin opening mechanism that shitstain of a human cunt archer had taken funds outta her pay to pay for it but then again he'd also done that to repair the holes left over from the last time she'd gotten pissed off in the starboard observation "GOD FUCK--"

Ah. So it was Rin, then. Jag fell silent mid-snarl as she turned her glare to the Minagora, one eyebrow raised, her broad shoulders relaxing somewhat and the fury twisting at her mien abating almost immediately. At Rin's very presence, that all-encompassing vehemence, even the constant internal anguish that fuelled it... was alleviated, if only slightly. Enough for the memories and the thoughts and the sights and the sounds and the sensations to stop assaulting her at every second, like an army laying siege to a fortress that, for all its pretenses of inexorable might, was gradually wearing away. Jag exhaled the first free, easy breath she'd managed in what felt like years, and stepped away from the door in case Rin wanted to come in or some shit. Fuck if she knew. Maybe she just wanted to come here and make sure Jag had heard Archer's dumb as shit hungover little announcement or whatever.

"Yeah?" Jag's voice emerged as a hard rasp, the sorta voice you'd'a figured would come out of a throat that had a bunch of razor blades shoved down it or some way metaphorical shit like that or whatever.

And sure enough, the giant stepped out of her room, looking somewhere between enraged and enraptured before setting her glare upon the Minagora. Rin offered a slight wave - she had long since been desensitized to Jag's violence, and more or less knows she's the only one really able to keep her steady. There was the problem of life span, of course.... but it wasn't time to worry about such things for now. She was exasperated by Archer's refusal to really mature - but she had expected more or less nothing at this point from him - and at the very least, their illustrious leader had the charisma to keep the team together, on some level, right? At least, she hoped. There was no accounting for the nickname, though. Tink? What did that have to do with anything?

"Just checking in on you." Rin said pleasantly. "Really. You - eh." She looked at the holes made by what appeared to be more fits of psychotic rage, and internally sighed, still keeping her relaxed cat-like smile on. "Glad to see you're as strong as ever!" She made mental calculations - to repair the holes, the materials needed would put them in the red by a little bit. Not a crucial amount, of course, but it was still noteworthy. She'd have to try and do some non-combat jobs on the side to reign in more cash. Once landing on the planet, she'd try to establish connections with anyone who might need it.

"I'm about to go and pilot the ship again." Rin said warmly to her large Noxchi friend. She almost gave the Minagoran equivalent of a shrug, invitingly flitting closer to the door, still faced towards Jag. "You heard Archer on the speakers, right? do you mind preparing the weapons for me? Moderate to light arms, I don't think this will necessity anything too major."

With a wave and a happy "bye!" the Minagora left Jag's room, and darted her way back towards the area to pilot the ship; wondering why Archer just didn't buckle down and hire an actual pilot. Air support during a mission could be invaluable, after all, and without a pilot at the helm, they lacked that option, most of the time. And without that, it limited possible plans Rin could make during an engagement - and god knew she didn't really trust the others to work as a team if she didn't try to outline exactly how they'd move. Everyone was really skilled individually - Rin was trying to make it so that they were strong as a team, too.

So far, though, that wasn't really working. It was a while until she noticed that her holophone was ringing. Rin pressed the holographic button in front of her, feeling a bit of guilt, as she picked up, already having set up the auto pilot for take off. It was Salis.

"Hey Rin," The Tatari medic said. "I hope you're not to busy, but is it possible that I could talk to you about the state of the medical supplies?"

"Yeah." Rin replied. "I'm on my way, just give me a sec."

She then set the controls on standby mode, before ringing up the Xilass - Aranoth. It seemed she wouldn't be piloting, apparently.

"Aranoth! Do you mind flying the ship, please? I have to talk to someone. And if Jag comes by, tell her I'm at the medic bay. thank you!"

And with that, the overburdened Minagora flew her way to the med bay, feeling further guilt and slight awkwardness - she still wasn't quite used to talking to another free Tatari yet, not after what happened to her old friend. In any case, this wasn't the time to dwell on such things. Rin smiled kindly at the canine-like medic, pushing her own personal feelings away in favor of more professionalism.

"What do you need? Is this about the supplies, Salis?"