Shadow's Redemption

[Wes]

ON> Darso, Coliseum dungeon

Shadow slowly walked down the dark, torchlit hallway as the sounds of people in cells and animals in cages surrounded him. Some would reach out through their windows to the world, trying to gain the scientist's attention, and get him to let them out, but Shadow didn't waver in his walking, and staring straight ahead. He came to a door at the end of the hall, and put in his password. The door clicked, and he walked through to find two guards already torturing the neko. They had hot iron, glowing bright orange, and were lightly touching her flesh, first over her shoulders, then her calves, throat, and then the insides of her thighs.

Yuuko was squirming, shrieking, tears running down her face. Her skin sizzled as the pokers rested on it, creating bubbles and burns. Helpless and restrained to her table, the only thing she could do was try to endure the terrible pain. Her barely-clothed body was like a fresh dish that the guards were playing with, sickly enjoying her pitiful cries. With what little sense she had left at the moment, she morbidly predicted where the heated metal would go next.

Shadow walked up behind the two guards, looking down at the neko. "How goes the breaking? Has she cracked yet?" he asked, looking to each in turn, then the burned woman, still no emotion shown in his eyes. "No Sir. She has alot of spirit, which is making this even more fun." The guard grinned and poked her belly button with his poker. "Well, leave us. I wish to speak in private to Dar's newest plaything." Shadow waved a hand in dismissal, and the two guards set their pokers in a bucket of cold water, sending up a plume of smoke that shadow walked the rest of the way through, letting it frame him for more effect. "Good afternoon, Yuuko."

The Nekovalkyrja whimpered incomprehensibly in reply, having lost her attitude he'd seen earlier. He could see her limbs twitch every so often, her eyes in their tear-filled sockets straining to look at him from the table. Truly she was at his mercy.

Shadow rubbed his hands together slowly, looking around. Not finding a chair, he picked up the bucket with the pokers, and threw the metal poles, and water, away to clatter and splash against the floor. Then, he turned the bucket over and sat on it. "So, how are you feeling? I can see you have a little less edge to you, which is good. It makes it easier to talk that way, I think...."

She winced visibly as the metal hit the room's blood-stained concrete floor. "Why are you doing this?" Yuuko asked hoarsely, her throat dry from her screaming. It wasn't a demanding question; the way she asked was more like a confused, desperate plea. "I don't want to die. Please..." she begged him.

"And I don't think I want to kill you, to be honest. But the way you reacted to Dar, made him very upset, so it is looking more and more like you will have to die to pay for the disrespect you showed him. That is why I am here, to make sure the job is done right. You see, I am not a bad person, I am actually a scientist who specializes in biological creations...I was just hired to pick up your tentacle friend, because I had the fastest, and most stealth like approach....But then I ran into you, and Tyriel....and that threw a wrench into my plans...."

Shadow explained, resting his hands on the side of her bed, barely touching her wrist.
Yuuko gradually floated back from the world of pain to her current reality, regaining her senses. "I want to go home," she told him, sounding almost childlike. "Please don't kill me. I will...give you my everything if you do," the helpless girl offered, "Not just my money, but my..." her voice softened to a whisper, "my...shotaiken. Please..."

Shadow smiled, this was going well indeed. He did not understand what this, 'shotaiken', was, but if she offered it now, it must be of great worth. "Alright, see? This is what I was hoping for. You are making sense now, you are listening to the reasoning in your head. Now, you say you will give me everything if I let you live. This does interest me, but I am not looking for money...I need it to run my research, but I have, in the past, got along without it for a while. So would you give me yourself? Be mine, Yuuko, and I will let you live. If you will be my confidante, my servant, I will consider getting you out of here, and taking you back to the Star Army."

Of course, Yuuko never would have been Yuuko without that little bit of spunkiness. He could see her raise her violet eyebrows; clearly this wasn't part of what she'd had in mind. "I meant I you could be my...my first," she blushed. Even dirty and under pressure, that face of her was something incredible. "But...how could I be in the Star Army and still be your servant?" she asked curiously.

"I am not asking you to be constantly in my presence, fawning over my every desire. I am asking you to be willing to help with my experiments, possibly get me onto a Star Army ship, and stay with me. You can still do your duty to your Empire, but I want you to be mine. I want...a friend." Shadow said, leaning back and laced his fingers together. "You see, in my line of work, I create life from mere pieces. But in the end, it isn't real life. They are my creations, and they live to be just as I program them. What you did up in Dar's office showed me that you are not like that. You do not respond to programming, you are completely random and unpredictable."

Yuuko actually laughed out loud at either his asking for a friend or his remarks about her; it was impossible to tell which at first. It only lasted a few seconds before the harsh reality of her current position set back in. With a sigh, she relaxed against the table and looked up at the dingy ceiling in contemplation. "What," she asked, "would you do in the Star Army?"'

Shadow's jaw clenched at her laughing. Was she really laughing at him? His hands balled into fists, and he slowly rose, walking over to the metal poles laying on the floor. He picked one up and with anger still in his eyes, walked back towards her. It may not have been hot, but it was still a weapon. Sitting down on the bucket, twisting the metal in his palms, he answered, "I am a bioengineer, surely your Army would have use for my talents studying, and reproducing alien species."

"Are you going to go legit?" Yuuko inquired, "If you don't, your career in the Star Army could be short...we have...morals..." she said, immediately wishing she hadn't, as it implied that he didn't. Although he was not a law-abiding, Emperor-fearing citizen, she could tell he had his own code of honor and justice that he'd follow.

Gritting his teeth again, and squeezing eyes shut, Shadow tightened his grip on the bar. Knuckles went white from the pressure he was applying, and he took deep breaths. "Are you saying that you don't think I am a trustworthy man, Yuuko? Are you saying that you don't think I can 'be good'? Because you know what, Yuuko, if you ARE saying that, I'm sure the guards would be more than happy to come back in here, and I can tell you, they will have no problem being even worse to you than you EVER could think I could be."

"No, sir!" Yuuko squeaked, fearful of his wrath and of his threats. "Please don't!! I'll be yours, Shadow!" she whimpered, finally giving in unconditionally to his demands. She couldn't stand the thought of being tortured and abused to death in this hellhole. "I'll do anything...please...be good to me," she asked of him timidly.

Still gritting his teeth, Shadow stood up and threw the metal over the table, letting it hit the wall, and clatter to the floor loudly. He looked down at the girl, and then at the door. "I don't trust that you will hold up your end of the bargain, but to show you that I *am* to be trusted, I will hold up my end. I will get you out of here, I will get you back to your Empire, and then we shall see where your loyalties lie." He walked over towards the door, and opened a cabinet. Rummaging around, he found a duffel bag, and pulled it out. Walking back to her, he threw it on the floor beside the table, and then started to undo the bonds that held her arms and legs. "I went in your shuttle and found you some clothes...."

Yuuko nodded slowly. She didn't try to kill him when he loosed her bonds, which was a start on trusting him. Eagerly shedding her nasty loincloth and top, she lowered to her knees, opened the bag's neck and crawled into it so that her upper body was inside, her small bottom exposed for the moment. She rummaged through the contents, finding various items from the shuttle, including a light-gray padded jumpsuit, designed for pajama-like use (or as an undergarment of a space suit), as well as a pair of rubber-like boots and a black scarf with the Star Army logo knitted into its design. A muffled, "thank you," came from inside the bag.

Shadow nodded, and turned to walk to the door. He was a gentleman, and would let her get dressed with some dignity. "You're welcome." was his gruff reply as he brooded and fumed to himself. "I am sorry that I cannot give you your shuttle back, but as soon as we landed, Dar's personnel dismantled it. So we'll have to take my ship, and hopefully we can outrun any pursuit that Dar, or Gilo, sends. From what I have found on you, you are a pilot, which is good, since I have no idea how to fly my own ship. Where do we need to go?"

"I hope its anti-tamper systems work," she muttered. Yuuko pulled the needed items out of the bag and stood up, walking over to a sink that was on one side of the room and gave herself a quick bath with a washcloth and soap she found on it's edge, drying herself off with a towel from the shuttle and then slipped inside the gray flight suit and into the white rubber boots, then adding her gloves from her original uniform and the pistol-belt with its service pistol. It seemed awfully light, and when she looked at it, she knew why. "Shadow?" she raised an eyebrow as she wrapped the scarf around her neck, wondering if he had the battery magazines.

Shadow didn't look back at her, "What?"

"I'm done changing," she let him know. "I was wondering if you had the battery magazine that was in my pistol...there should have been a number of them in the shuttle but I didn't find any in the bag. As for where to go, I would prefer to go to Yamatai...but really, any Star Army ship or space station should be able to help us." She ran a hand though her hair, dark eyes resting on him.

Shadow slowly turned to look at her, reaching into his coat and pulling out two magazines. "These were all I could find. It's the original magazine, and one extra, and here's this as well." He pulled out Tyr's weapon, and held it out to her grip first. "I think he would want you to have it." He smiled slightly and turned back to the door and opened it to the two guards standing right outside, and Gilo between them. The reptilian man clapped slowly. "Bravo, Markus, a truly tear jerking performance.....I was really moved."

Yuuko took the two BR-M27 magazines in her left hand and Tyr's pistol by the grip with her right hand, swiftly looking at the display on the side as she aimed it at Gilo. Full magazine. "Hello, Gilo," she smiled wickedly, and then fired the dead Elysian's weapon at the lizard-like face. "For Tyr," she sneered, clearly enjoying the revenge.

Gilo fell back, shot in the face. Shadow acted quickly, pulling two of his metal throwing cards, and the nanite fluid smeared over their faces. Shadow grabbed Yuuko's arm pulled her through the door as he slapped the cards to the guard's chests, and they stuck. Running at full speed, they had just reached a bend in the path, when a door rattling explosion rocked the hall, signaling the guards were no more. "We need to leave, NOW."

"Sounds like a plan," Yuuko said, following him closely. "So where's this ship of yours?" she asked as then ran, hoping that she would be able to figure out how to pilot it.
"Just outside." They ran towards a staircase with low light at the top. "It's nearly night, so we should be able to get to the ship without a lot of trouble. And it will be a little while before Dar finds out what we just did." The shifter took the steps two at a time, and ran over the courtyard of the coliseum, a black silhouette loomed about three hundred yards away. "There's the Tenyal."

"I hope you're right," Yuuko said. "Explosions tend to be conspicuous, howev...HEY! Does Gilo's body have the detonator for that bomb?" she stopped at the top of the steps, a devious idea forming in her head.

Shadow laughed and turned back to her. "Way ahead of you." He laughed a little more and pulled the detonator out of his coat pocket. "This, combined with the explosion from your ship right about...now" There was another explosion, off to the left of Shadow's ship, near some tall buildings. Shadow held out the detonator, "Do the honors?"

Yuuko didn't know it, but she was about to make some Nepleslian arena industry owners very happy by crushing their competition. "Let's get your ship into a hover first," Yuuko giggled, not wanting to be so close to the site of a fusion explosion. She started running towards the Tenyal again, making a mental note to ask about the name's origins someday.

Shadow nodded, and quickly sprinted after her. He thought about shifting into a fast moving creature, but decided against it. As they neared the ship, a ramp descended, and Yuuko and Shadow quickly boarded, and headed for the bridge to get off Darso, and away from all those affiliated with the tournament, as soon as possible. Shadow did smile knowingly, however, as the real reason he had come back to Darso, remained a secret. The cargo had been loaded, and was ready for whatever would come next.