[mainard]

The Big Bro cast a chagrined look down the corridor, shifting uncomfortably as the sounds faded slightly, the wretched, wet moans stilling somewhat, dissolving into ragged breathing. The figure was slumped, back to the corridor, curled into a fetal ball, arms around his middle. Looking away, the large figure sighed, shaking his head slightly… sounds behind him, scuffling and shuffling sounds. The Big Bro winced. Sounded like he was going into convolutions… poor guy. Feeling wretched as he listened to the faint struggles, he spaced out, contemplating what had happened… and started, whipping around. The supposedly dying figure of the slig rose, pants dented heavily and a hand grasping his middle with strained, clutching fingers. The glare was fierce, but more of sore annoyance than vengeful wrath. Stepping forward, the Big Bro approached, eyes wide and eyebrows tilted in confusion.
"…What… the hell… was THAT for? That little stunt cost me five ribs! Don’t you know it isn’t polite to puncture someone’s lung with their own shattered bone fragments?? Jeez!" Throwing a hand into the air, Roagh grumbled, his other hand still clutched tenderly to his abused, healing body.
"Man you were dyin there…"
Roach favored the bigger slig with a sour look. "And? Things aren’t always what they seem… you remember that." Shaking his finger in the other, bigger sligs face a little, he wrinkles his tentacles slightly, his eyes sliding closed as he paused to lean against the wall, his breath still ragged. Groaning, he rose slightly, approached the bigger, taller slig and, tensing deliberately, throws one solid, hard punch as high as he could, into the big slig’s lower ribcage and gut.
"There! Now we’re even! You’d better not frickin bring that up again, I don’t wanna hear about it anymore!" Staring meaningfully into the taller slig’s face, Roach grinned, half in joking camaraderie, half in ruffled annoyance. Putting up his massive hands in mock surrender, the Big Bro laughed. "hey hey… whatever you say man…"
"Come on and sit down with me you big lug. Your giving me a neck crick." Tugging on one of the large arms, Roach eases himself against a wall, his legs venting a feeble mechanical protest as he bends, curling up against the soiled metal. The Big Bro bends obligingly, easing down between the four bending legs like a lounging spider. Looking up with sour amusement across his face, Roach twists, punching the Big Bro on the upper arm. The bigger slig grins.
Roach clears his throat slightly, favoring his new companion an appraising look. "Okay. You’re violent I’m violent everything’s normal. No hard feelings?"
The big slig grinned. "None."
Roach, looking confused for a moment, looks the bigger slig over. "So why were you sent to guard us?"
The Big Bro shrugs his massive shoulders. "Dun rightly know. The boss is a paranoid one… what with everything, everything, that’s been happening lately, I’m not surprised… the boss don’t know you, he don’t trust you at all…"
Casting an eye on the closed, silent door behind him, Roach nods soberly. "I can understand that." Giving the Big Bro a warning look, Roach growls. "And don’t you be getting in a fight with that bastard either… he was right in saying you had no idea what you would be getting into…" Staring seethingly at the door for a moment, he shook his head, putting the thought of his master and nemesis out of his mind.
"I see… he’s a scary bastitch. Is everything people say about him true?"
Roach smirked. "Oh Odd what rumors are flying now?"
"Well… there’s-"
"Here. think about this. Of all the bad rumors that could be ricocheting around, most likely about sixty percent of them are true."
The bigger slig merely blinked, leaning back against the wall with a low whistle.
Without looking at him, Roach said calmly, leaning against the wall. "We haven’t properly introduced ourselves yet, I believe introductions are in order…"
"Oh yeah. M’names Randall… though everyone calls me Vandal."
"Vandal?"
Vandal grinned. "Bad habit of breakin vending machines and pinball games and all that good stuff…"
"Aaah…" Roach leaned back, eyes briefly clouding over in thought. "It’s been so long. So long… "Jaxxs… a long time ago… my name was Jaxxs…"
Turning to him slowly, the Big Bro pauses, head to the side and smiling. "Hey, were you named after that leutenant Jaxxs? The leader of that one squadron, Valor, Valor somethingorother."
"Valor’s pride… yeah. You could say that." Eyes far away, he smiled a little, leaning back against the wall. "You heard of m- him?"
Vandal nodded. "Yeah, saw a special on him when I was in the BB treatment center, getting juiced. Kinda stuck in my mind. Though that was a long time ago…"
"Long time since you saw it?"
"Long time since he lived! Man that guy’s like ancient history."
Roach wrinkled up his tentacles a little, looking ornery. "Hey a hundred and fourteen years isn’t ancient history …"
The Big Bro favored him with an appraising, surprised stare. "Whoo sounds like you know a lot about him…"
"You could say that."
"Yeah. I heard all about him. Way back when… the slig’s slig, all those sligs back then, fighting native mudokons with knives and ranging the land, exploring ancient ruins and all that junk… it always sounded so, well… fun. but then his squad and a bunch of the other squads disappeared and everything changed…"
Staring off into space with an unidentifiable expression across his face, Roach merely sighed, very light, very low, and nodded. "Yes… everything changed… so much." Shaking himself out of wherever his mind had been brooding over, he pauses, glancing at the other slig. Who gave him an appraising stare.
"Sixty percent of the rumors ehh?"
"Sixty indeed, roughly…"
"Yeah… like the one saying that both you guys are like… what, five hundred years old? Five hundred… or more like a hundred and fourteen maybe?" Leaning in closer, the bigger slig looked him over, eyes remarkably sharp.
"You look just like the pictures… it’s amazing. You look just like him… just like him." Scarcely daring to believe his own accusation, Vandal reached out… placing one finger under Roach’s chin, he lifts his head, turning it slightly to the right, the left, looking him over. Roach allows it without comment, his eyes unreadable. "You’re not named after some old, historical bad ass slig commander, are you? You’re really him…"
Gently removing his head from the other slig’s grip, he gazes up into Vandal’s eyes, his own gaze sooty, tired… "I look just like him, don’t I? Just older. So much older…" Venting a long, tired breath, Roach rubs dispiritedly at his tentacles. "It is… true. I am him. Just older, impossibly older…"
"H-how…"
Silently, Roach jerked a thumb towards the door, towards the figure within. Face twisted in disgust, he snorts slightly, his tentacles wrinkling in a grimace of malevolent ire.
"So… if your this great ancient slig commander, why don’t you just ditch the bastitch? Play hooky or just slit his freakin throat?"
A look of pain and terrible, burning frustration passed like a cloud across the ancient slig’s face. His fist finds the floor, pounding ineffectually against the cold, unyielding, uncaring metal. "I was a good slig. I still am. I’ve faced down rampaging bull scrabs before, fought a cornered mudokon warrior to the death bare handed…" Although it was quite warm, the small figure hunched, his eyes glowing sullenly as a hard shiver took his form. "…but this is something else. Something I can’t even begin to handle… I may be a slig commander, ancient and proud… but I’m still a normal slig. A mortal… I’m not… like him."
The Big Bro was utterly silent, but the question rose up between them, unable to be spoken aloud. Roach turned towards him irritably, his voice scratchy and hoarse.
"Yes. Why didn’t I just kill myself. Do you know how many times I’ve asked myself that same question… but, I’ll tell you. Exactly why. Why I’m still here, instead of sleeping peaceably in the ground, instead of buried under too many years to count. Because of him. because he reached into my body; reached in, and tore out my soul. I can’t die. I just age, toughening, graying and aching as the years pass unmercifully by, pouring one over the other till the entire world becomes a painful blur… I can’t die… unless I get it back. He told me flat out what would happen to me if I ever let myself die… how he would deliver my soul to his master as a present… make sure he got real creative with it."
"He… has your soul?!"
"Yep…" Rising to his feet, Roach places a hand on the massive shoulder, head height, and slips into the door behind him. Seconds pass. Emerging with a small, unremarkable, dingy backpack, he eases back down into a sitting position. And reaches in.
The bottle was beautiful, strangely beautiful. Not quite glass, not quite stone, it was made of some unidentifiable substance, all milky and green and gray and clear, swirled together in chaotic, serene patterns. It looked vaguely like a soulstorm bottle, but bigger, blockier. Strange, disturbing creatures clung to the neck, holding on the lid. There weren’t any visible separations between the lid and the body anywhere, just smooth, seamless ‘glass’…
"Please. Be VERY careful with this… you couldn’t break it if you tried, but DON’T tip it. And don’t-shake-it."
Taking the bottle with apprehensive care, the Big Bro studies it, swiveling it around, but heeding the older slig’s wishes. Running his large thumb against the smooth side, he pauses, and brings his fingernail to it’s surface with a hard tap. He listens to the haunting ring. Roach groans.
"You okay?"
"I felt that…"
"Oh. Sorry man." Looking back, he studies it. "It looks familiar somehow…"
"S’old. Old… but same as I, it isn’t what it always used to be. Started out, way, way back when, as an innocent bottle of alcohol. Old Janx Spirit… we used to take one, to celebrate after succeeding on a mission. It was employed for… other purposes."
There was silence.
"Wow… life sucks huh?"
"Yyyyep."
As the two figures leanes back, staring at the ceiling, Vandal sighs softly, his tentacles spreading in a grin. "You’re going to seriously have to start telling me some stories old man…"
Grinning, Roach nods, secretly pleased for the first time in a long, long while…

hey, should I make Vandal a main char or not?