Chapter Text
It took five minutes of ringing, and a lot of odd looks from passersby wondering why he didn't just answer his choker before Jabber finally folded and accepted the call from none other than- “Enjin,” he groaned, “This better be ‘bout a fight, ‘cause there ain’t no other reason to be calling me.”
Pausing, he let the other man respond as he wandered through the various stalls the city had to offer. He nodded along to whatever he was saying, only really paying attention to every other word the man said before he stopped in his tracks. “What do y’mean you found a sphereite?”
Jabber’s thoughts raced as he thought about the news Enjin had told him. He not only found a sphereite, but the kid was also a giver. He’d only ever seen sphereite clothes hung on dummies before they were destroyed, or the occasional body desecrated by people angry at the heavens above treating them like their own personal wasteland until they didn’t even resemble something human.
If sphereites were to be seen as human at all.
Jabber, personally, didn’t care for the Sphere and all the shit it threw down to their residence— and honestly, despite scolding from Enjin, he still found trash falling from the sky killing people too stupid to not find funny. Sure, it was insensitive, but not his issue to worry about. Really, the only times he had given half a thought to the Sphere and the people who resided there was if they were strong. Did they have givers in the same way the Ground did?
The conclusion Jabber came to was: no.
With how much shit the Sphere threw away near everything— not just trash— like they were replaceable was enough evidence to come to the conclusion there were probably very little givers, if any at all. Givers themselves were already rare enough on the Ground, and with how little care sphereites seemed to give to their own items, it seemed like an impossibility.
And then a boy on the shorter side with messy white hair, and angry red eyes fell from the sky and into a no man’s land for Enjin to pick up.
He would be angrier that Enjin had ventured to a no man’s land without him, but he appointed Jabber as Rudo’s, the sphereite’s name, teacher, and the opportunity to fight a sphereite wasn’t something Jabber was going to pass up. Even if it meant having to tutor a kid or whatever it was his job entailed, he stopped paying attention after a fight was promised.
Over an hour had passed since Enjin first called Jabber about the news, and he still hadn’t seen the kid. He was getting impatient, sure Enjin assured him there would be plenty of time to fight the kid, but he wanted to fight the sphereite now.
Another call declined. Jabber groaned as he tried calling Enjin again for what must’ve been the sixth or seventh time in the past five minutes. Declined, again. “What could this asshole be doing?” he grumbled to himself knowing full damn well that Enjin was probably debriefing the kid like he explained twice already, but Jabber was impatient.
The worst part honestly was that Jabber could find him, but he had no idea where he was anymore. They were eating at some burger joint, and Jabber felt like he had scoured the whole damn city, and couldn’t find no burger place in the whole damn city. So now he was stuck sulking in some dirty ass alleyway trying to figure out how to eat the rock candy he bought at the market.
And then a cat ran by with a bag in its mouth.
In a second, Mankira was around his pointer finger, and he snatched the bag from the cat’s mouth. He stood up, and was halfway to opening it when he heard a crash from the side of the alley the cat came from, followed by more footsteps running past him and an angry, “Stop running!”. With Mankira back to her normal rings, he reached out and grabbed the collar of whoever was running past.
He’d probably get scolded for harassing a stranger, but if whoever this is was chasing a cat with a bag in its mouth while shouting at it to stop running, he’s going to assume they need the cat to stop running to get the bag in its mouth.
Immediately, the random turned around and pried themself from Jabber’s grip to glare at him. Behind the guy, Jabber watched the cat turn back at them, hiss, try to jump over a trash can, fall horribly, and look around like it was embarrassed before running off down the alley.
His vision focused back on the stranger once he started shouting up at him. “Hey! I needed to get that cat it got my-“
“You talking ‘bout this?” Jabber offered, holding up the bag of money in his hand. He stepped out of the shadows the alleyway he was hiding in offered.
He almost let the kid take it before he took in his appearance. Jabber snatched the money back, holding it behind him as he tried to remember how he knew this guy. “Hm.. messy white hair,” he noted, “Ends fade to black, lil’ pissed baby face, big ol’ bags under the eyes…”
His eyes lit up. “Yo, Rudo, it’s nice to finally put a face to the name,” he said, a smile growing on his face. The kid looked apprehensive, but mostly just confused. Jabber grinned, he had that effect on people. “Sir sphereite-giver, in the flesh.” He took a step closer, tossing the bag of money in the air before catching it again.
“Huh?” Rudo looked more perplexed than anything now. “Wait, you know about me?” Jabber watched as Rudo’s eyes drew towards his cleaner emblem. Then his eyes widened. “Are you one of those cleaner guys?” he asked.
Jabber looked to the side and shrugged. “Yeah, you can call me that. Name’s Jabber. Enjin filled me in on your whole.” He waved his hand in a circle at Rudo. “Situation.”
“Made me your trainer or somethin’, wasn’t paying too much attention.” He caught the bag of money in his hand one last time before leaning down and getting close to Rudo as he looked for this talent Enjin was talking about. “Was real excited to be fightin’ a sphereite.” He flicked Rudo’s forehead. “But you ain’t nothing but a malnourished kid.”
To be fair nearly everyone on the Ground was malnourished, but whatever, the kid didn't know that. He rose to his full height and closed his eyes as he stretched his arms above his head. The kid was probably hella confused, but that wasn’t Jabber’s problem anymore, as he made his way out the alleyway.
“Hey- Hey wait! I still need my money asshole!” Rudo shouted from behind him, running over to catch up with him. Jabber opened an eye, and looked down at Rudo. He held the bag well above Rudo’s head.
“You mean this money?” he teased, jostling the bag so the sphereite could hear the coins clinking together.
In Jabber’s defense. He didn’t expect the kid’s 5 '4'' ass to actually start jumping up to try and reach the money that hung ridiculously high over his head. “Hah! You look like a toy rabbit or something,” Jabber teased, flicking Rudo’s forehead. The taunt only made the kid’s face sour even more. Jabber laughed as he lowered the bag just in reach before raising it out of grabbing range again and-
Jabber doubled over in pain.
It wasn’t even a good pain either, because any pleasure he could’ve gotten was overridden by the fact that he was just kneed in the dick by a fucking kid.
He was bent over, clutching his crotch because a fifteen year old had the audacity to kick him in the dick.
Yeah, he gotta die.
“Fucking shit-” He looked up and glared at the kid, still trying to grab his money, and Jabber was still clutching the bag of coin, but this time with no intent to give it back. “You got some balls to just kick a guy like that.” Shoving the bag into his pocket more aggressively than he needed to, he stood up again. “Dunno what Enjin sees in you, you’re just some bratty kid who doesn’t know manners.”
He knew he should be the bigger person, the adult of the situation and not escalate. But Jabber was petty, and a man had to defend his honor. His eyes lit up with pink as Mankira formed around his hands, familiar claws covering his hands. “C’mon sphereite, show me what you got,” he taunted.
“What the hell?” Rudo backed up slowly, edging away from Jabber, scanning around for something. What for? Jabber didn’t know. “Dude- I just wanted my money back!”
Jabber’s claws moved with his hands perfectly, just as she always did. “Too late for that, asshole!”
“Yo. Yo. Yo, yo, yo, yo!” Jabber repeated dully while he poked at Rudo’s limp body. “C’mon I didn’t even hit you with the hard shit, you’re overreacting.” Mankira was back to her normal rings, sitting prettily on Jabber’s fingers. Same fingers that had been poking at Rudo’s face for the past fifteen minutes.
The kid had drive, Jabber could tell that from the second Rudo didn’t back down from their fight, and picked up a weapon with his jinki. Then again, it was a plunger, and he was flinging literal shit at him, but he’d dealt with worse.
“Kid. Enjin’s gonna be here soon, and if you’re not conscious, up ‘n kicking, it’s my ass on the line,” he scolded like that would sober Rudo up faster. Almost like some form of divine intervention heard him, the car pulled up the second Jabber said that.
God is real, and he has a personal vendetta against Jabber.
“You’re telling me he was flinging actual shit at you!?” Enjin laughed, almost hitting a light post in the process. “Is that why you somehow smell worse on top of whatever chemicals you fucked with?”
Rudo was sitting next to Jabber in shock that he was slinging turds at Jabber that whole time. “Don’t worry kid,” he assured, putting a hand on Rudo’s back, laughing as Rudo scrambled to get Jabber’s hand off him. One dose of Mankira was enough to get Rudo wary of Jabber’s hands, “Happens to the best of us.”
“This happens a lot?” Rudo asked too honestly to not be genuine.
Jabber barked out a laugh. “Hah! No! The doing something stupid and having Enjin laugh at you.”
From the front, Enjin slowly stopped laughing as he caught his breath. “By the way, Rudo, meet your teacher.” Jabber marveled at the horror in Rudo’s face as he turned to look at Jabber, offering a little wave. “He's got a good grasp on his vital instrument, even better at fighting with ‘er. Some of the best we got, you’ll be great.”
Now that they were properly situated, Jabber properly took notice of the boots resting against the back window. “Damn, no introduction?” Jabber teased, “Care to grace us with your presence, Riyo?”
“You make me sound pretentious,” she scoffed, pulling her feet down and sitting up behind Rudo. “I was curious about the new guy, you’re Rudo, right?”
Jabber snickered at Rudo’s face as Riyo started toying with his hair. “I am so jealous of your hair,” she praised, pulling at Rudo’s bangs, “did you dye it yourself? No.. it’s too soft to be dyed.”
Nodding along to the beat of whatever music Enjin put on, Jabber let his shoulders drop and relaxed as they headed towards Cleaner HQ.
Jabber stretched out his arms as they rolled to a stop in front of HQ. He flopped himself back into his seat as everyone started getting out of the car. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Rudo’s face take a break from looking constipated to look confused as to why Jabber hadn’t moved yet. Since he was so kind and generous, Jabber decided to grace him with an explanation.
“They put the child lock on my door ‘cause I kept jumping out before the car stopped moving,” he explained dully as Riyo opened the door for him, “I’m like a princess.”
Ahead of them, Enjin laughed. “Hah! An ugly ass princess you’d make!”
”Yeah? You’re acting like you’d be any better!” Jabber snapped back.
“I’d be prettier than you at least.”
Before they could get physical— probably would’ve been Jabber’s fault— Riyo tugged at Jabber by the back of his hood. “Ladies, ladies, you’d both make really shitty princesses, no need for fighting.”
With a huff, Jabber held back, rolling his eyes as he walked aside Riyo.
They walked through HQ’s front door, and Enjin started guiding Rudo over to Semiu. “Take care of those locks for me, okay?” Riyo said as she both waved back at Rudo, and dragged Jabber away, still holding onto his hood as he actively tried to wriggle out of her grip.
”Damn, it woman- I can walk myself!” he protested, stumbling backwards as he was dragged.
She hummed in response, but still didn’t let up on her hold. “C’mon! I wanted to see Semiu look all badass ‘nd shit! She don’t fight much, wanna see Rudo’s reaction to her!” he whined like a child. Riyo stopped for a moment, and Jabber used it as an opportunity to try and wrangle himself away from Riyo again, only to give up entirely, and make himself go completely limp.
She looked down at him blandly. “I’m not dragging you the rest of the way to your room.”
Jabber just grinned. “Well I ain’t moving.”
They had a silent staring contest, each not willing to break until Riyo just sighed, and Jabber knew he had won. He pushed himself up, ready to run back and bother the newbie when Riyo started tugging him along again, throwing him entirely off balance and making him fall on the floor. “Riyo- Hey! We didn’t agree on this!”
”We didn’t agree on anything, I’m taking you back to your room.”
Jabber whined, kicking and punching the entire way down the halls, but by the time they actually made it to Jabber’s room, he was tired from the day and expending all his energy fighting Riyo. “Key,” she requested, holding her free hand out, and Jabber begrudgingly shoved his hand in his pocket and pulled out a keychain with more charms than actual keys— which was one.
He grinned as Riyo took the key from him, fussing with it before she could properly get a hold of it and actually unlock his room. She opened the door, and finished pulling him into the room before throwing him onto the floor as she jumped to sit on his bed. “Damn. You cold man, sittin’ on my bed after jus’ throwin’ me on the floor like that?”
Riyo rolled her eyes, pulling out her scissors as a fidget. “So, the sphereite,” she started, and Jabber sat up, “What do you think of him? Think he’s gonna join?”
Jabber shrugged. “Dunno, he seems real set on gettin’ back up to the Sphere.” He scooted over so that he could lean his back against his bed. “So the boss might not take him. But, if he does y’should have him tag along on that assignment you got today. Be a good learning opportunity for the kid.”
He tilted his head up to see Riyo nod in agreement before furrowing her brows. “Aren’t you his trainer? I’m not complaining, but shouldn’t you be the one like, y’know. Training him?”
Jabber waved off her concern. “Nah, should give you and little Rudo some bonding time, ‘sides, it gives you a chance to show off.”
“Well, it is an easy assignment. Can’t be that hard having a trainee right?” Riyo considered.
He gave her a nod and pushed himself up. “Now that we got that settled, I gotta give myself an excuse to not play babysitter.” He walked over to his desk and pushed away the various beakers and vials that cluttered it to make a working space for himself. Riyo once told him that his desk made him look more like a mad scientist than anything.
He could feel Riyo’s disappointed glare from across the room, so he turned back to flash her a smile. “I won’t do nothing too stupid!” he assured her.
”Just don’t like, kill yourself or something,” she sighed as she left the room, leaving Jabber to his own devices. Probably not the greatest idea ever, but Riyo has known Jabber long enough to know that he’d end up on the floor blissed out from whatever toxin he mixed up one way or another. If only everyone at HQ had that same mentality.
He waved at her as she left, even if she couldn’t see him. “Love ya! Don’t let the newbie get killed!” he called out before turning his attention to his latest mixture. Oh, this was going to hurt so good.
Jabber woke up in the infirmary.
His mind still felt foggy from whatever shit he stabbed himself with. Fuck, he hadn’t had a trip that bad in a while. He tried to push himself up off the bed, but his muscles were stiff and his head spun with the need to throw up the second that he tried. The sound of him waking up was so noticeable that Eisha had come out of who knows where to check up on him immediately.
“J-Jabber you really shouldn’t um, be moving around right now,” she insisted, her hands held out like she wanted to push him back, but also didn’t really know what to do with him. “Riyo called Enjin an hour ago to check on you so um.” She trailed off as Jabber finally got himself to sit upright. “I don’t really um, know what you took… I think it was a hallucinogen with how you were acting…”
Jabber nodded, shaking his entire body like a dog shaking off water. Eisha had to take a few steps back to avoid being hit by his hair, but by the time that he was done, he felt mildly better. “Definitely a hallucinogen,” he confirmed, vaguely remembering the crazy shit he was seeing and hearing while tripping. “Holy shit! Damn, haven’t had a trip like that in a hot second. Can’t even feel my toes, dawg.”
Eisha’s brows were pressed together, and Jabber was pretty sure that he would give her a permanent wrinkle there eventually. “Jabber, please just tell someone next time- at least tell me so I don’t have to find out from Enjin calling me in the middle of lunch that you were rambling about nonsense because you stabbed yourself again!” She sighed, “I get worried, okay?”
Jabber put a hand on her shoulder. “I ‘ppreciate you Eisha, I really do. But I’ma need you to have just a little more faith in me. I swear I got my calculations down perfectly, don’t got nothing to worry ‘bout!” he insisted.
It was a conversation they have had thousands of times before, where Jabber insisted that she shouldn’t have anymore grey hairs over him, and Eisha arguing that it was impossible not to worry about him with his hobbies. Each time it proved fruitless on both sides, so somewhere along the way, they came to the general consensus to argue over it, both disagree, and then move on with their day.
“If you didn’t want to watch Rudo, you could’ve just told Enjin,” she mumbled, “He would’ve been happy to have him tag along with Riyo.”
“Ain’t-“ he pushed off the cot, and the world spun in front of him. He stumbled backwards until he sat onto the bed. “Ain’t the point. It’s been a hot minute since I was like that though,” he whooped. To his left Eisha just shook her head disappointedly. Jabber put his hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry ‘bout me, I don’t die easy!”
Eisha faced him and brushed his hand off her shoulder. “That’s not the point and you know it!” she argued as Jabber just laughed.
——
Maybe the ominous purple lighting from a TV at one end of the room was a little excessive. Then again, the walls of the room were piled to the ceiling with trash, and the room itself had no furniture aside from the TV lighting up the room, and a single couch right in the centre. Not exactly the best decorated in the world, but better than the filthy room he had to work in before.
Zanka was polishing his Lovely Assistaff as he waited quietly for the trafficker to wake up. She really didn’t need the cleaning, but he liked to make sure she was as pristine as possible. All wrapped up in fresh new bandages, waxed and varnished so he could show off her beauty. It was a routine he was used to doing now, something he found comfort in, as well as something to entertain himself while he waited for his kidnapee to wake up.
“Where the hell am I?” a voice sounded behind him. Zanka’s heart picked up, looks like his latest toy just woke up. “Last I remember… that sphereite kid kicked my ass and then…huh.” There was a moment of silence before the man spoke up again. “E-Excuse me? Who are you?” he asked with a tremble to his voice that made Zanka’s blood rush in his ears.
Yeah, he was going to be fun.
“You ain’t relevant ‘nough to know that." He stood up, leaning his Lovely Assistaff against the couch carefully. “But, if you tell me ‘bout that sphereite kid who kicked your ass, I’ll maybe be a little bit nicer.” Keeping one of his hands behind his back like he was holding a present behind him, he made his way in front of the trafficker, scrunching up his face with disgust as he looked at the pitiful trash in front of him.
“Pathetic shits like you don’t even deserve my time of day,” he said, almost like a reminder to himself as he leaned down to examine the man. With a sigh, he stood up straight again, and aimed a gun right at the man’s head. “But that don’t mean I ain’t gonna enjoy makin’ you talk.”
——
It was already damn near three in the morning, and Eisha still wasn’t here to let Jabber out of this room. Riyo visited him once after she got back from her assignment, but it wasn’t even to give him a ‘Get well soon card’, or hell, to even see him, it was specifically so she could drag Eisha away, and leave Jabber locked away in the medical room, alone.
He looked at the locked door, and again, he jiggled the handle in hopes for some give. Nothing. As he sat on the floor, leaning against the door, an idea popped into his head.
Mankira formed around his fingers, claws sharpening as he brought his rings to life.
Lockpicking couldn’t be that hard right?
Lockpicking was that hard.
Jabber shoved the tip of Mankira into the keyhole again, trying to hear the click that the door was unlocked. Thirty minutes. He’d been at this for thirty minutes. A whole half hour. Him, the Jabber Wonger bested by a locked door. “Fuckass door’s gotta be magic or something,” he grumbled under his breath, “Or someone’s jinki, can your vital instrument even be a door?”
Where was Eisha? She has to have heard him banging and scratching up this door from outside. He felt like a locked out cat, his claws tearing into the door’s paint— if this was someone’s treasure, his bad— as he tried to jiggle the door open.
He moved the finger around, trying to get it unlocked before he let out a noise of frustration, and hit the door with a clang!
He stared at the hallway that stretched out in front of him, and then back at the door still swinging open slightly, and then he noticed the scratch marks covering the door. Well, he decided, that was not his problem. He pushed himself up, dusted himself off, walked down the hall. Time to see what Riyo was doing.
Halfway up to the dorms, Jabber passed the double doors leading to the cafeteria, but paused when there sounded like there should be a lot more people in that room than there should be at three in the morning. Curiosity won— it always did— and Jabber pushed open the doors to see a whole ass party.
Immediately he scanned the room for Riyo, and spotted her red hair halfway across the room. “Yo, Riyo!” he shouted, pushing his way towards her, ignoring the dirty looks that got sent his way. “Man, y’all are havin’ a whole ass party down here and you locked me up in a room?”
Riyo, the asshole, just shrugged, and took another sip of her drink. “You need to learn somehow,” she teased, pushing her cup into Jabber’s hands, “I thought making you wait a few hours to join us would be good enough.”
Despite how much he currently hated Riyo, he still took the cup and chugged the whole thing in one gulp. With a satisfied sigh, he gave the cup back to Riyo. “You’re telling me you’ve been at this for hours? Man, I haven’t had an excuse to get drunk in ages, I could’ve been down here?”
Riyo stared at the empty cup— Jabber really didn’t know what she expected, he did this every time she offered him a drink or bite— and then sighed, moving through the crowd to refill her drink with Jabber following her close behind. “Clearly, you don’t need an excuse to get drunk, you seem to be fine getting high all the time,” she remarked. He watched Riyo fill the cup, take a solid drink from it, before grabbing it from her hands to down the whole thing in one gulp.
“Hey- You asshole!” she whined, reaching up to grab her cup back, but Jaber purposefully kept it out of reach, pulling away as she jumped up to grab her drink. Yes, Jabber could easily grab himself a cup and fill it himself, but it just tasted better stolen from his best friend. He shoved a finger in front of Riyo’s face, signalling for a second as he finished off the whole mug.
With a sigh, and shake of his head to wake himself up, he grinned down at her. “Payback for locking me in a room for three hours,” he said instead of apologizing, in the process of giving her cup back, only for it to be snatched from his hands rather rudely. “Hey, what’s this party for again? Don’t think it’s anyone’s birthday or nothing, so.”
Now holding her third drink closer to her body almost defensively, she perked up. “Oh yeah, it’s Rudo’s welcome to the Ground party!”
“Really?” He looked around, scanning for white hair only to spot Rudo alone at a table, head down depressingly. He made a face. “What’s his problem,” he asked, pointing at the kid, “Really killing the mood here.”
Riyo turned her head to look from Jabber to Rudo who was sulking in the corner. “Pride,” she explained, turning properly to face him. “His vital instrument crapped out on him during the job yesterday. It’s why he’s sulking.”
As Rudo’s teacher, mentor, trainer, and guide in life, Jabber should probably help out the kid. Give him a few words of encouragement, maybe offer to help him out with his vital instrument and figure out why it was so finicky. And he genuinely thought about giving him some words of advice for a moment.
“Wanna get some food?”
“Hell yeah.”
——
“P-Please I told you everything I know- just- just let me go!”
It was Zanka’s own fault for expecting something entertaining from someone who couldn’t even dream of making the average. The trafficker wasn’t a giver which already ruined any expectations Zanka had. Non-givers were too fragile minded with no drive and no spirit to break.
He kicked away the small pile of fingernails that he had pulled from the man. It’d been ages since Zanka had been given an assignment where he was allowed to do whatever he wanted without limit. Despite his initial excitement, his victim was unsatisfying to say the least. Maybe he only had himself to blame, he didn’t really know what else to expect from someone who wasn’t a giver.
Zanka could very easily kill the guy, a shot to the head maybe, bleeding him dry, pulling his heart out, a million different possibilities. At the least, Zanka could commend him on making it this far, but still, the trafficker was pathetic in ways Zanka didn’t even know people were capable of. But it’d been so long since he’d last had anything resembling a play toy.
Then again, he’d already done everything the man could probably survive. Zanka was sure the second he started carving into his chest to poke at organs he would probably die, so there really was no reason for Zanka to keep him around. “If you say so,” he hummed, pushing off his knees to stand up.
He took a step forward, squishing an eyeball under his foot with a satisfying squelch, and pressed his boot against the man’s skull, digging his heel into his skull. “You’re worth less than the shit beneath my boots.” Slowly, he put his body weight onto his boots, grinning at the way the man beneath him screamed, but still, Zanka was more focused on the loud cracking noise that echoed through the room.
He lifted his foot before slamming metal soles down onto the trafficker’s head.
Zanka’s own blood was rushing in his ears as the adrenaline rushed through his veins. His boots were covered in filth now, something he’d have to clean later. He stepped out of the gore that used to be a man, ignoring how his boots trekked blood around. The trafficker wasn’t even enough to warrant wasting more than a single bullet on him. He tossed the weapon to the side, a coward’s weapon. Something that takes no skill, none of the time or care it takes to manifest a jinki.
He sighed, letting the tension seep from his shoulders as he walked over to his Lovely Assistaff, kicking a stray piece of bone from the trafficker. No matter how many times he did this, rush always got him. It was addicting, like a drug, and Zanka loved chasing it. He ran his hands down Assistaff’s body before picking her up, he had a call to make.
——
“Its core was a vital instrument?!” Jabber shouted at Riyo, leaning incredibly close towards her.
It was an hour or so after the party had ended, Jabber ended up having a couple drinks before Enjin found him and banned him from the bar because of the stunt he pulled earlier. The party ended with Jabber asking Riyo if the rumors about the mission she went on with Rudo were real, and now they were in his room gossiping away.
She leaned back, and pushed Jabber’s face out of the way. “Yeah, the trash beast was real weird. Kinda scary to think about honestly. A trash beast’s core being a vital instrument instead of anima. It took forever for me to clean up too, spent a long time just hacking and hacking but it kept growing back. Was real nasty, and left nastier questions.”
She looked up and flashed Jabber a smile, “Which is why I’m leaving the worrying to the professionals!” With an over-enthusiastic thumbs up she continued, “We marched on home and got our party on! I’m not qualified to handle this.”
“Uggghh,” Jabber groaned as he leaned backwards. “I missed out on so much,” he whined. “Man, he’s like a bad omen, I should drag the kid along to my next-“
His choker started going off, the ringtone interrupting their conversation. He glanced between Riyo, and down at his choker like it interrupted him on purpose before finally accepting the call. “Jabber,” Semiu’s voice echoed from the device, “Come down to the lobby, there’s a job for you.” Before promptly hanging up.
He blinked once. Then twice. Then looked up at Riyo. “That was on purpose right?”
She nodded, immediately turning to Jabber with wide eyes. “Yeah! I dunno how she does that either, it’s so freaky.”
“I know it’s early, but this is something we gotta jump on now,” Semiu explained.
Jabber nodded, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “So, is it something crazy dangerous like you gave Riyo? ‘Cause it ain’t fair if you give her all the good shit, I want some of that action too!”
From behind her desk she shook her head. “Just a routine job. A merchant was attacked by a trash beast while crossing a polluted zone. And they claim that it stole their precious cargo. The merchant wants us to clean up the beast, and more importantly retrieve said cargo.
“Which apparently is a living breathing sphereite.”
Jabber looked at Semiu, then at Rudo who looked too shocked at this news, and then back at Semiu. She continued, “It’s extremely unusual for two living sphereites to be found, let alone at the same time. So I presumed our resident sphereite might be interested, and since you.” She shot a look at Jabber. “are his trainer, the job is technically yours since Rudo isn’t an official member yet. Who knows, maybe they’ll have some insight on how to get back.”
“This is a trap,” Jabber said blandly.
She shrugged, and Jabber wanted to groan. “Even if it is, we can’t ignore a call like this. And if it isn’t, we don’t have much to lose.” She eyed Jabber. “Unless you can’t handle it if it is a trap.”
Immediately, Jabber got defensive. “Hey! I can handle anything you throw at me, ain’t nothing too crazy. Y’know what, I hope I’m right and it is a trap, I’ve been needing a good fight. Too peaceful ‘round here.”
Next to him, he was pretty sure Rudo was talking to Gris at some point after Semiu mentioned the cargo was a sphereite, but honestly, a lot of what Rudo says is just white noise to him. But out of nowhere he just raised his head and said, “I’ll go.”
Beside him Gris nodded, “Cool.”
Jabber slumped, and stared at Rudo. “Man, if you didn’t go I’d beat your ass. This is a trap, an’ I’m tellin’ y’all it’s a trap, so when it is a trap, I’m gonna be all smug when I get to say ‘Told you so’ ‘cause it’s a trap!” At some point during his rant the other supporters started clearing out of the lobby to head to the car.
Semiu stared Jabber down through her glasses. “Jabber.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
—
Jabber knew he was acting like a whiny little brat more than Rudo did— he’d known the guy for two days, so was he really to know— but he really didn’t want to go on this trip. He had plans! Bother Riyo, challenge Enjin to a fight, annoy Riyo again, and then annoy Semiu, maybe spar a few times, anything but babysit the new kid— who wasn’t even an official member yet since Corvus wasn’t here!
He sank down his seat in the front like he was turning liquid and he was slowly melting, which had unsurprisingly happened once, as he turned to Gris for what must’ve been the tenth time that car trip. “Are we there yet?”
“You asked less than five minutes ago.”
“So are we there yet?”
Gris pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “No, Jabber, we’re not there yet.”
He groaned, kicking his feet like he was a toddler throwing a tantrum. “This is a trap by the way,” he announced, again for the upteenth time. “When it turns out to be a trap I hold the right to say I told you so.”
Rudo, for some reason, took this as an excuse to lean forward to the front passenger seat. “But what if it isn’t? There could be another person like me, maybe they know how to get back up to the Sphere!”
Jabber groaned loudly again. “There ain’t no sphereite, and ain’t nobody who knows how to get up to the Sphere,” he grumbled, “An’ if there is somehow a sphereite who made it down alive ‘cause you.” He jabbed a finger in Rudo’s direction. “My friend, are a miracle, they’re probably already dead.”
That earned him a smack on the head from Gris. “Leave the kid alone, Jabber. If it is a trap we’ll deal with it, but we can’t just pass up this opportunity on what if there is an alive Sphereite, we have to at least check it out,” the blond reasoned. Before Jabber could respond, the car stopped abruptly. And Jabber, who refused to wear car seats, slammed into the dashboard.
“Shit, you okay?”
He pried himself off the dash, and just barked out a laugh. “Damn, Gris, ain’t no way you didn’t do that on purpose! Didn’t know you had it in you to hurt me like that.”
In response, he got a slap on the back of his head, and an exasperated, “Get outta my car. And put your damn mask on!”
“How the hell ‘re we supposed to find this thing anyway?” Jabber asked no one in particular as they tried not to trip over rubble and debris from various fallen buildings. “Or are we just hoping we manage to stumble upon it somehow,” he muttered, his voice muffled through the mask he was forced to wear after Follo wrestled it onto his face.
He sighed aggressively to show that he really didn’t want to be here, but from everyone’s reactions to his tantrum, he made that clear without the exaggerated attitude.
The whole hike Jabber generally tuned out Rudo’s conversation with Gris and Follo, he might’ve overheard something about Gris’ weird prayer habit, but he really couldn’t care less. All he wanted was to clean up whatever trash beast was here, show everyone he was right, and there is no sphereite, and then go home.
Why did Riyo get all the good shit? She went on one job with Rudo and had to fight a crazy trash beast with a vital instrument as its core. The first job Jabber got with him was just free daycare.
Somewhere along the way, Jabber started hesitating with his steps. He was so preoccupied with sulking, he didn’t recognise the very familiar feeling of being watched. He paused his step, looking behind him to see a woman.
“Shit!” he shouted, caught off guard by the merchant standing right behind him. How long had she been there? Everyone also looked behind at his expletive, and all made various sounds of shock and surprise at the lady that had apparently been following them.
“Is this a good time, or am I interrupting?”
“Fuckin’ hell, lady, don’t just follow people tryna help you however long you were,” Jabber mumbled, “Freak.”
She didn’t even have the decency to look somewhat sympathetic, but at the least she bowed her head. “Apologies. But if we’re all present and accounted for I can show you where the trash beast is hiding.”
Rudo approached her, and Jabber would pull him back to lecture him about not eagerly going up to creepy women who had been stalking them for who knows how long, but that wasn’t in his job description. If it really was that bad of a safety risk, he was pretty sure Gris or one of the other more responsible people of the group would deal with it. So he let him ask,”You called?”
She bowed fully this time. “That I did.”
Rudo seemed too fast to trust her— were all sphereites this trusting?— since he stepped forward without a second thought. “The sphereite, who are they? C’mon tell me everything you know! Anything, any information at all.”
“Poor thing was all alone passed out on the side of the road when I was walking by, I was able to take them in, but they were still passed out cold…” Yeah, Jabber did not like this lady at all. “I really am worried, so, come on the quicker I can find them safe and sound the better.”
“I bet you’re worried,” Rudo said with actual malice in his voice Jabber perked up. “Damaged goods don’t pay top price huh?
The merchant put her hands up as she waved off Rudo’s concerns. “It’s not like that at all! I’m genuine in my concern, I fear the worst has happened. Of course the fact that they’re a sphereite is interesting, but not the main reason for my worry.”
Jabber didn’t like this merchant. She was too convenient, too well timed. Her face was missing all the microexpressions that came during conversation. She moved both too fluidly, and too stiff to be natural. But still, he mosied along with the others as they followed her to what would most likely be a trap.
They stopped in front of a building, Jabber yawned as twisted his rings on his fingers. “Right, uh, clean up trash beast and find a sphereite. Piece of cake,” he announced to the others before pushing away the shabby wooden boards that tried to pose as a door. Piece of cake.
Jabber just wanted to say, ‘Told you so’.
The entire trip, since before they even left HQ, he called that it was a trap. ‘Training the newbie’ his ass, he was sure the only reason Enjin wasn’t here was because that bum liked to throw all his responsibilities onto children. Sphereites dropping from the sky weren’t that rare an occurrence, it almost seemed like every other day the Sphere was tossing someone to the ground. But almost every time they didn’t survive the fall, or a trash beast would get them, or they’d already be sold off to traffickers
Rudo being alive was already a miracle within itself, but according to this merchant, not one, but two sphereites had fallen from the sky and both survived. Jabber called bullshit from the beginning, what’s next? They’re gonna claim this ‘second Sphereite’ is a giver too?
Still, because Jabber was a respectable teacher, and he was willing to sacrifice his own free time to teach the next generation— Semiu terrifies him— he decided to do his job as Rudo’s trainer and teacher and babysit him for a supposedly easy job investigating a ‘living’ sphereite, and clean up a trash beast.
He stood up and brushed off the dust that clung to his clothes all thanks to the one, two, three stories that they fell through. Next to him he can hear Rudo say, “Shit… Did we fall? Felt like we sunk through mud.”
Jabber slowly turned his head to make eye contact before answering, “No. We flew. Obviously.”
He couldn’t continue making fun of the kid for stupid questions because from the top of the hole the lady that pushed them in called out too cheerily for someone who just tried to murder several people. “Oh, joy! You’re alive.”
With a sigh Jabber ran a hand down his face. “Told you it was a trap, but y’all didn’t wanna listen,” he said exasperated. He looked up at the crazy lady. “Where’s the sphereite you swore you got. The guy don’t exist, huh?”
“No, no… Look right behind you.”
The group watched as the lady melted into nothing. Jabber didn’t even get time to process that he just watched a lady melt when voices spoke up behind them. “Glad you could join us,” a feminine voice called out from down the parking garage.
Jabber slowly watched purple lanterns come into view, and suddenly the trip didn’t feel useless anymore.
“Yo, Rudo. I take back all the complainin’ I did on this trip, this is gonna be so worth it.” He could feel his heart pick up at the thought of a fight. Of course, a glimpse of Rudo’s wildly confused face dimmed his mood a little, but he was still feeling generous enough to at least explain a little to the sphereite. “You can tell by the lanterns, raiders ‘re the only group on the Ground to wear those bright ass things.”
“Raiders?” Rudo asked.
Thankfully Gris took over, “Yeah, you can call them that. They’re bandits, used to just be simple thieves, but it evolved into something twisted. See, usually we wouldn’t be concerned, but the entire group is made of givers.”
He turned to the rest of the supporters and started barking out orders. All of which, Jabber didn’t care for as he bounced back and forth from the tips of his toes to the balls of his feet. All he could do was imagine the fight waiting for him until Gris turned to address him. “Hey listen-“
“Yeah, don’t worry ‘bout me. I’ve been needing to get my blood pumping,” Jabber cut him off. Concern was etched onto Gris’ face, but Jabber waved it off. “Get out, keep the kid safe.” He heard the heavy footsteps of the supporters behind him as he said to himself, “I’ll try not to go too far.”
“What’s with all this trouble just for the newbie anyway? He ain’t all that,” he dragged. “Kid can’t even put up a good fight right now with all his… issues.” He pulled his mask off, and let it hang around his neck. “Hopefully you can give me the beat down I need.”
A pink glow surrounded his fingers as Mankira came to life, claws forming over his hands as he readied for a fight. “Well, if you’re itching for a fight, then why don’t you take it out my pretty little mud things,” the woman raider announced cheerily from the other side of the parking garage.
Sculptures of women built up from the mud, and Jabber laughed giddily as he crouched before launching off the ground, swiping his claws through any of the figures that came towards him. Easy. Turn, slash, dodge, then slash again. Too easy. Already a minute in and Jabber hadn’t been hit once.
“Hey, man, you ain’t even doin’ nothin’ crazy,” Jabber complained. “Thought you raider folk would be at least a bit more entertaining than this.” He jumped back to avoid an attack just to spring forward and drive Mankira through the mud. He’d need to clean and polish her later and make sure every bit of mud was washed off. Damn, the fight’s so boring that he could think about something as mundane as cleaning his jinki.
He was slowly making his way towards the woman with each figure of mud he cut through. Huh, he noticed the man next to her was gone. Irritatingly so, with each figure he took down three more seemed to pop up. It wasn’t even fun, just annoying. He pushed Mankira through another figure, “Did you really need to give them tits? They don’t got much expression so I don’t see why you need that detail.”
The raider just giggled as she swayed happily. “Just you wait..”
“Mixed in with the dummies,” she said enthusiastically as he stabbed another figure and flung it into another as the woman kept talking. “You’ll find the real deal.”
Oh, so that’s where the man went.
He turned around just in time for a fist to connect with his jaw. Pain blossomed beautifully across his cheek, but he didn’t even get to appreciate it before his whole body was thrown into a support pillar. His whole body shuddered as a new spike of adrenaline shot through his veins.
Finally, something worthwhile.
The man slowly sunk into the mud again. “Don’t you realize? You’re too cocky,” he almost lectured before blending in with the rest of the mud figures.
Jabber slowly lifted his head as he breathed in deeply through his nose, not really listening to whatever the woman was saying as he reveled in the ringing in his ears. So the man could pack a punch. Too bad the woman didn’t seem to be too strong behind her vital instrument.
He shook his head to clear his mind, his wicks whipping around him. As he did, more of the mud figures surrounded him, and the woman was still talking. “Let’s play a little game, kill the real one before it kills you!”
She barely finished her sentence before Jabber began tearing through the figures. The fight wouldn’t be fun if they were this weak. Mankira ripped through mud like butter. He heard a squish behind him, and there was another punch aimed at the small of his back. He let the man get the hit, just to reach out and graze him with his claws. “Yeah, feel like you gotta worry about that more than me.”
Behind him, the man collapsed as he hit the floor, body twitching as his eyes dilated. And for the first time during their fight, the woman actually looked concerned for a second. “I don’t fuck with weak people like him. Non-givers gotta earn their right to be strong, and he,” Jabber nodded to the man out cold on the floor behind him, “Didn’t earn jack shit.”
He brandished Mankira, her claws catching the light as he lowered himself to the ground. In a second he was like a bullet. He laughed as he slashed through mud. He grinned at the look of horror on the giver’s face when she realized.
She didn’t have time to react before Jabber was behind her. He whispered into her ear, “Gotcha.”
And then the fight was over. No crazy injuries. Nothing worth the effort he gave. The woman dropped to the floor, taken out of the fight with one small pin prick from Mankira. He watched as her legs gave out under her, falling to the floor with a cloud of dust. Slowly, the mud figures melted into nothing as her jinki turned back into a normal shovel.
Jabber let Mankira turn back into rings, the familiar pressure against his fingers reassuring him. “Damn, really thought I could get something outta that. Didn’t do nothin’ to me.”
Then he heard a quiet thud behind him. He lazily moved to look into the darkness behind him when he was met with glowing blue eyes.
He heard the voice before he even realized he’d been stabbed. “‘Course a genius like you would think to hold back like that,” a voice behind him sighed. Jabber looked down. One, two, three metal spikes right through his torso. Before Jabber could fully process, ‘Holy shit he’d just been stabbed,’ or ‘This hurts so fucking good’, all three spikes were ripped out just as violently as when they were stabbed in, and he groaned from the pain.
Hand pressed against his new wounds, he turned around fully to shout, “What the fuck?“ He should’ve seen this coming. There was no way that those two raiders were the entire trap, his fault for assuming that would be it. He looked behind him, and made the mistake of looking at his assailant.
Anything, Jabber was prepared for anything other than laying his eyes upon the prettiest boy he’d ever seen.
Ashy blond hair- no, was that brown? Wait- He was sprawled out on the floor before he even knew he fell. Shit, the pain was getting to his head. He was in such a daze he didn’t know what was happening to his own body. He was so fucking hard he couldn’t even think straight.
The blood loss probably also contributed to that.
“I know gettin’ the drop on you like that ain’t fair.” Damn, even his voice was beautiful. “Fightin’ you would’ve been fun…” He turned to look down at Jabber, and he got his first full view of looking at an angel. There was something wrong with his clothes that nagged at Jabber’s brain, maybe the colour? Didn’t matter, because all Jabber could think of was a pretty boy just gave him the best pain he felt in ages. “But orders are orders,” he finished.
He scoffed at the downed raider, kicking her lantern. “Dunno why the boss insisted on sendin’ recruits after this kid. What he says goes, or whatever.” His voice was getting fuzzy in Jabber’s head, but he wanted to cling onto the perfect way the words rolled off his tongue, the way his accent touched each word, clinging to it like honey.
The last thing Jabber saw were blue tassel earrings and the bottom of a metal staff before there was nothing.
——
Zanka was on babysitter duty.
He was worth more than this, he knew the boss valued him more than being sent to act as a proctor for some randoms that were possible new recruits. Still, he was being sent on a pointless mission that would be over in a second. The raiders would be wiped, and Zanka would have to deal with the mess.
Most of the day Zanka spent planning what would happen when the two people— he didn’t bother learning their names— inevitably failed. His mind had a million concerns he would’ve brought up to Zodyl if he didn’t already know what the answer would be since the man wasn’t set on running this experiment.
Once he got the signal— the giant floating portal right in front of him was hard to miss— he stepped through Cthoni’s manhole to see how their two new raiders were doing.
The new recruits were pathetic.
From the second the fight started he knew that Zodyl would never accept something as sloppy as this within his ranks. The woman was a giver, which made Zanka interested, but her trump card was just some guy who could throw a half decent punch. A non-giver. Someone too weak to have their own treasure.
For half a second he considered following the supporters to grab the sphereite now that the only real threat was occupied. But retrieving the sphereite kid wasn’t his job. His job was to sit somewhere high enough to stay out of sight, but still have full view of the fight.
And what a fight it was. Honestly, it counted more like bullying the way that the cleaner allowed the raiders— if they could even be classified as that— to get hits on him. From the way that the cleaner moved, he could tell he could easily just slash through most of the mud figures and incapacitate the woman in a second.
But he didn’t.
And if that didn’t make Zanka’s blood boil.
A genius like him, a natural talent, holding back. For what? He clearly wasn’t getting anything out of taking the hits. The longer he took here, the longer it would take for him to catch up with the others. Zanka was close to just calling Cthoni about the result and handling the rest himself, when he blinked and the woman’s lackey was on the ground twitching.
What the fuck did he miss.
Maybe Zodyl was right to send him on this assignment, Zanka wasn’t even good enough to do his one job of watching the recruits. His thoughts spun with a million questions, possibilities, and answers. The fight was over in a second. Just one small graze of the cleaner’s talons knocked the woman out like a light.
This whole time, the cleaner could’ve ended the fight in a moment with no issue at all? People like him disgusted Zanka. Mediocre people like him give everything with no holding back just to match up to that kind of natural talent. And they think themselves so high and mighty just because they’re born some sort of genius with natural talent beyond comprehension.
He wanted to know how his assistaff’s spikes would tear through his body.
Unfortunately, he had direct orders from Zodyl that in the case— more like an inevitability in Zanka’s eyes— that the new recruits were unable to obtain the sphereite, only then was it Zanka’s job to retrieve the kid as efficiently as possible. As much as he ached for a fight— a proper fight, a real one with blood drawn, and real pain involved— he had orders to follow.
Then again, would a genius like that even bother giving an average joe the time of day? Zanka scoffed at the idea, clearly the cleaner didn’t bother when he fought people less than him.
Zanka wouldn’t feel too sad when he killed him.
With his Lovely Assistaff at his side, he dropped down from where he had been hiding. With the same speed that the cleaner took out the wannabe raider, Zanka had the spikes of his Assistaff through the cleaner’s torso.
“‘Course a genius like you would think to hold back like that,” he sighed. He would’ve been a good fight, Zanka would’ve loved to see how his claws would clash against his Lovely Assistaff. How he would look as Zanka used his assistaff at her best, forcing him to go all out from the start, no holding back.
Beating a clear natural talent would be difficult for someone as average as Zanka. If he could beat him. Zanka wasn’t so egotistical to believe himself invulnerable, the risk of injury and death always prevalent in all his fights. But wasn’t that what made fighting worth it?
Too bad it wouldn’t happen.
He heard the cleaner shout a surprised, “What the fuck?” Before turning his head around to look at Zanka. Wide pink eyes stared at him, more shocked than in pain. Damn, this guy was boring, didn’t even have a good enough reaction to being killed.
Zanka raised Assistaff to slightly nudge the cleaner in the shoulder with the end of her staff, and decided that the way his face winced when he hit the floor was good enough to satisfy him. He walked over so that he could face the guy properly.
He knew he should be running after the sphereite, but even he knew when to appreciate good talent. “I know gettin’ the drop on you like that ain’t fair,” he said in an imitation of an apology. He squatted down, Assistaff in hand, and her leaning against his shoulder as he properly got a good look at the cleaner’s face. Most of his hair covered his features, and Zanka almost wanted to push the dreads from his face to see the way his face twisted as the pain settled in. “Fightin’ you would’ve been fun, but orders are orders.“
A fight really would’ve been fun, clearly the guy was strong. He examined the woman he was supposed to be watching for what the cleaner could’ve done to her. “Dunno why the boss insisted on sendin’ recruits after this kid. What he says goes, or whatever,” he said, more to himself than anything as he kicked the abandoned lantern.
Well, his boss’ weird motives aside, he wouldn’t make this the first mission he failed. His head lolled over to where the downed cleaner laid. There wasn’t no way the guy would be getting up to fight soon— if ever— with the gaping hole Zanka tore into his side, but Zanka liked to cover all his bases.
He raised Lovely Assistaff, and with a satisfying crack, he slammed the butt of her staff into the cleaner’s skull.
Hopefully the sphereite puts up at least some form of a fight, otherwise if it weren’t for the giver, Zanka really could send some recruit to snag the kid. He began walking towards the direction the other cleaners went, and tapped his choker. “Cthoni, I got some dead weight for you to pick up,” he spared one last look at the woman and her lackey. “Honestly, I wouldn’t even bother grabbing them. I’m getting the sphereite now.”
He ended the connection, let Lovely Assistaff turn back into his stick, strapped her to his back, and began running.