#wss366
#ReturnToTheFateGear
Chapter 12: Batβs of Mercury
#FanFiction #OthersidePicnic #FateGear
Toriko and Sorawo were soon high in the rigging. Sorawo, bilge-green already, grew greener still watching Toriko swing fearlessly from the ropes.
βDonβt ye get enough danger with youkai?β Sorawo asked, a trace of pirate creeping into her speech.
The question slipped away as they turned their eyes outward. FATE GEAR was sailing low past Mercury at an incredible speed. The shipβs generators labored and throbbed, and steam leaked in thin whistles from escape valves.
Below were molten lakes of boiling metal. Volcanic spires smoked, belching ash that fell sizzling into the lakes or blew across the volcanic plains in mile-high drifts. Above the plains drifted ships and tangled cities suspended from gargantuan balloons.
As they watched, the ships turned toward the pirate vessel. Unless fate intervened, their pursuers would fall behind the shrieking comet FATE GEAR. But ahead, fate took shape in swarms of rubbery, bat-winged creatures rising from the valleys laying between smoking volcanoes. Their screeches shook the sails and set the bells chiming on their own.
βWe must win through quickly,β Mina thundered. βThe time has arrived when patience becomes a crime and mayhem appears garbed in the mantle of virtue.β
(βHeaven help us, sheβs quoting Edgar Rice Burroughs now,β) the ship complained.
βYou up thar,β Nana called. βFocus. If a Mergaunt so much as grazes us, weβll go up like a Roman candle. If ye find thar mother, bring her down. Mergauntβs be no worse than fruit flies after that.β
In the background, Mina, whipped into a fiery #lather, rantedβββWe called ourselves Soldiers of Libertyβ¦I was chosen captain,β and I say, βDeath, onlyβrenders hope futile.βββbut the Otherside pair, like most of the crew, focused on their stations rather than her words. That changed when the whistles blew all at once in a deafening cacophony and Minaβs voice thundered through the amplifiers, βTwenty thousand savage throats arose with the awful cries of battleβ¦eighty thousand fearsome pirates set the heavens atrembleβ¦β
The first Mergaunts came into range as the pirates issued their battle cry with one resounding voice:
Be invincible!
Donβt say βimpossible!β
Trample the enemies of this world!
(Be invincible!, Fate Gear, 2022)
Oi, oi, oi!
Note: Mergaunts: Bat-like creatures resembling night gaunts, from which they get their name. These hellish creatures inhabit the valleys of Mercuryβs volcanic ranges. They are fire-resistant, and their mere touch will set earthly materials on fire. The Mergaunts possess little intelligence, instead relying on hive-mind and directions from a Mergaunt Mother. If their Mother is slain, they wander until they come into range of a new Mother. (βBats of Mercury,β pg. 66, by Nara Moore.)
#TootFic #MicroFiction #Serial #NMPrompts #NMV366
#UraPi #Steampunk #Pirates #Satire #NMRTTFG #EdgarRiceBurroughs