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twitchesandstitches · 4 years

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Miscella Vs the Fleet: old wounds

Spinel was something of an outsider to the Fleet, and walking through the rubble that had been a street market only a few hours ago, she felt that she was missing out on a lot of context.

Robots, humanoids, chimeric mash-ups and the periodic holographic manifestation of digitally encoded mind-states sat against the wall, nursing their wounds, wincing as medic-clerics carefully extracted acids specifically designed to counter the most common methods of regeneration against the Fleet. People who had chitinous bodies or alterations had watched their armor melt and then screamed as the acid had bitten at flesh and blone; those with powers centered around manipulating energy had been hit by anti-magic devices that disrupted the delicate flow, causing their bodies to break apart and explode on the spot, surviving only through sheer bloody-mindedness.

Gems weren’t immune. Spinel vaguely recalled agonizing pain before she poofed, and whatever it did had set the delicate balance of mutagenic forces plaguing her into overdrive; even now, the corruption raced through her, her projection slowly warping and turning acidic, spiritual pain sliding inward. And her Gem, mounted between breasts so large they made up a massive chunk of her entire mass, was a mass of jagged mineral, her rosey-red tinting into a dark and horrible shade of purple...

She heard it. The call of, of the thing from beyond the stars. The slow whisper, sliding into the back of her mind, drowned out just barely by the voices of other people.

But there were warm hands, kneading into her projections weak points where she got too rubbery to even move, pumping enough magic to stabilize it. It was a magic like fire, warm and, and kindly.

“Can you move?” Said a deep, rumbling voice that almost all solid baritone.

Spinel nodded, painfully standing up. She looked up into a tall and imposingly massive figure that could have been an ogre, or perhaps a goat, depending on how you looked at it. Perhaps even a nicer variety of demon.

The massive and exceptionally masculine figure sighed in relief; muscles individually larger than Spinel herself shifted beneath shaggy white fur, and a long face crowned by huge horns smiled softly. “That’s good. Please move carefully; I’m not sure how your magic might have been compromised.”

Asgore, she’d heard him called. The King of the Monsters, and a whole lot of other titles that made it sound like he’d seen a lot of extremely nasty things, and it was strangely appealing that he’d taken a bit of a shine to her.

Spinel frowned at the soldiers being led away; they weren’t local. None of them looked particularly modified on a biological or cybernetic level, though their fancy uniforms (very sleek, with a bit of an angular vibe to them) were definitely performance-enhancing exoskeletons. Power armor, she supposed, though not as clanky and ritualistically maintained as the sort you saw in her new group. The soldiers were a mixed group, of all manner of species, but whether it was a primate’s face or an avian turian’s mandibles or a glowy energy monster, they all had the same shut-down look of someone who was just doing a job and considered your presence to be beneath them; small time bullies who used what power they had to humiliate anyone they felt like.

They all had the same logo on them, which looked a bit like an infinity symbol surrounded by a spiral branching off into arrows pointing in multiple directions. “Who ARE those guys?”

“Miscella Incorporated soldiers, I believe,” said Asgore. “They have many private armies, of mercenaries and other such ruffians, but I suspect these are one of the in-house special forces they employ for touchy situations.”

Spinel blinked slowly. It had been a long day, not helped by a war rapidly escalating from a minor argument all at once. As best as she could tell, there HAD been a ship arrivng earlier, apparently to discus some trading rights.

And then there’d been yelling. And some of the Fleet members got way more intense about it than she’s ever seen, and they’d thrown punches after someone called them ‘disgusting mutants’, and then things really got out of hand.

At one point, a two-mile long ship had crashed right onto a city.

“So what the hell happened!?” she asked. “It was just a business thing; why’d they make it personal?”

Asgore sighed, looking very tired. “You should know... I’ve been with this group for a long time. Ever since we were nomads, roaming from world to world and fleeing our many enemies.”

Spinel glanced at him. Now did not seem the time for a history lesson. “Sure. You weren’t really the Fleet yet, right? You and your monsters joined up early on, then I guess Gems started finding you, and lots of other people... but it wasn’t like the way it was today. Things were a lot more fractious, you were always in danger, and the guys who’d form the Cobalt Stinger pirate empire were still with you.”

“Yes. Back then, we hadn’t run into those brutish sorts of the Imperial Commonwealth either. Our main enemy was... well. Miscella Incorporated.”

“...Why?”

“We passed near their worlds, and they took offense to us. You see, we didn’t use any of their currencies, we weren’t interested in buying any of their stuff save supplies or interesting gear, and most of all, we didn’t want to settle down in their lands and submit to their restrictive policies.” Asgore frowned. “Mega corporations, like Miscella, institutes some very harsh restrictions for their people. Depending on how the local branch implements it, they can often be little better than legal slavery. People are legally the property of whatever sub-corporation that has them employed, and they cannot move to other planets, change careers, or gain additional income without approval. Sometimes, they are even forced to have surgery and monitoring devices installed so they cannot think thoughts that Miscella would disapprove of.”

“That’s horrible.”

“Yes, that’s what we thought. We told them no. We said, on many ocassions, that our pride wasn’t worth whatever profit they offered. So things got much worse from there; Miscella is a bit of a control freak, as a whole, and since we would not comply, they tried to force us into either compliance, or to wipe us out and indoctrinate us.” He shook his head. “I honestly don’t know if this kind of policy is company-wide, or if we were simply unfortunate enough to be in the crosshairs of a particular branch that hated people who were from social margins... but they killed us, hounded us, chased us across hundreds of worlds. We fought back, and killed lots of them. At times, we were a roaming horde, destroying their towns and claiming the ruins as loot, just to survive. Revenge, and so on. And it wasn’t the Stingers alone that did such a thing, I can tell you.

“So blood for blood, and then both sides wanted revenge for the revenge we’d already taken, and so on. And so forth. It went on for a long time.” He sighed. “And so, now, there is a lot of bad blood.”

“Ain’t you guys ever tried to make peace, or at least force a cease fire?” Spinel asked. “We’re one of the biggest, baddest societies around; a single one of our heroines could clobber a whole army of theirs, I’m thinking.”

“True enough, but force alone is not a terribly attractive notion to all the clans, and given the scale of Miscella’s holdings, such total war would require absolute agreement among all the clans... and you know we argue far too much for that!” Asgore laughed, and then grew serious again. “But, miss Spinel, it’s not just revenge. Even if we didn’t have generations telling us, with bloody stories, not to trust them or give them an inch, our philosophies are wholly incompatible. You know, I think, that we in the Fleet believe that life, absolutely all forms of sapient existence, has the right to be free and become whatever it chooses, and to help all others prosper and live in contentment?”

Spinel nodded. “Yeah. I suppose that’s a reason I’m still here.”

“Indeed. Well, Miscella, I’m sorry to say, largely regards all people as resources. Sometimes... literally. Sometimes simply as markets to tap, or employees to use. But inevitably, they see people as tools and assets, fit only to serve their interests. Almost like a divine right of kings, but based on their own existing wealth and power; they consider themselves to be the rightful rulers of all existence, and all us must fall into line with how they think the world ought to be. They treat deviance from their cosmic agenda - which is an actual thing they have, some sort of flow chart of ultimate heirarchy and organization - as a personal affront. And we are nothing but deviants, you know!”

Spinel laughed. “I know!”

“So, our ideals and views are... too different. We see people and want them to be free. They see resources, and want to bring them to heel. Even if not for our mutual resentment, that would breed other problems. But ultimately, they are our oldest enemies.” He sighed. “And sooner or later, there will be war.”

“...We’d win that one. Right.”

Asgore looked troubled. “That’s the problem, though. I’m sure we’d win. The question is, how can we decisively win a war against such a powerful group, with our honor intact?”

#my writing #fics #crossthicc AU #twitchy!spinel #twitchy!asgore #twitchy!su #twitchy!undertale

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