I Will TURN This Car Around!

"Anyone else getting tired of just riding around in cars?" John asked, though he knew that he would receive no response, even before the silence overwhelmed the car. Things had been like this since shortly after he left, and he couldn't say that he was overly surprised.

This trip had taken a rapid shift in tone and composition... it was hard to believe that only a couple of days and a scant few hundred miles ago, he'd been on a road trip with his creations to find aid from a woman who thought of him somewhere between her lover's reincarnation and his successor. That had been insane enough, but now he was being escorted by two mercenaries – one enslaved, one with the threat of a bounty hanging over his head – and accompanied by a woman who John would've expected to resent him by now, but only continued to show more and more devotion despite his near-**** of her abilities.

The mood in the car was a strange mixture, to say the least. Arista had the same blank stare she had whenever she wasn't actively antagonizing John these days, a calm nihilism to her own situation. Layla seemed extraordinarily tense, yet simultaneously exuberant. John had let their newest “ally” take the driver's seat which left him seated in the back with Layla, something she seemed very excited about... but she was unusually tense. Even more tense than 'Killjoy' informing them about John's bounty really should have. She kept glaring between the two mercenaries, seemingly equally distrustful despite Arista being quite literally under lock and key.

John's attitude was something more... lackluster. A form of melancholy had fallen over the young Gamer, a feeling brought on by a mixture of everything he'd been through in the last few days. Between Moira's plight, the oncoming front of the Northern Ashes, Himiko's immediate dismissal of his request for her to aid him, and now being led around by the hand by a mercenary hired by someone else, who was so strong or skilled she could avoid his Observe ability that had never failed him in such a way before...

John's life felt out of his own control, to a degree it hadn't for over a year now. It was like being back in his early days of the Abyss – led around by the hand by Moira, being told about how terrible the world was, surrounded by warriors who taught him the very basics of magic like a toddler. The familiar feeling was certainly not a good one, much less welcome... but instead of fear or stress, it was filling John with a surprising amount of apathy. Something resembling a begrudging acceptance had filled him – if he had to unwillingly hand the reins of his own life over to another, a part of him felt determined to embrace the uncertainty and unknowns with his last bastion of mental defense.

Rampant sarcasm.

“Seriously, it feels like all we've done lately is drive, encounter a big life-changing event, and hop back in a car,” John complained, rolling his eyes in the backseat. “Hey Killjoy or whatever your real name is, how long have you been doing merc work? It can't be fun doing this all the time – drive, job, drive, home, that kind of thing. I've been tired of it since like day three.”

“Asking me personal questions wasn't in the contract. Conversation wasn't in the contract. You want information, you go to a broker. You want shit done, you come to me,” the redhead in the driver's seat spat back, glaring at John through the rearview mirror.

“Given how much I paid you already, are casual thoughts really not covered?”

“You signed the contract, you knew what you were getting into. Personal opinions weren't part of the deal.”

John let his new guide's words hang in the air, narrowing his eyes at their absolute certainty. “Killjoy” had given John no easy hints as to the nature of their contract or what exactly Himiko had paid her while pretending to be John, so he wasn't even quite sure what she'd been hired to do, aside from escorting them to Paix. But he couldn't exactly ask outright without giving away his lack of involvement...

“Fine, we'll keep it to the mission then,” John said with a light sigh. “Tell me everything you know about Paix and Adantia, I want to know as much as I can about what I might need to deal with while we're there.”

“Start by telling me how much you already know, so I'm not wasting my time,” Killjoy replied immediately. “I assume you did some form of research for this trip?”

“I did, but I didn't learn much that was particularly useful,” John said with a shrug. “One of the biggest Abyssal cities, mostly peaceful, seemed to have quite a reputation for being a place of law and order, but it burned down a long time ago – and now, seems like every time someone tries to settle in the area, they either fail or disappear. The only real intel I have that nobody has mentioned yet is Adantia... supposedly, she's the last person still living in that city.”

“You got bad intel. Doesn't surprise me with the way you've been acting.” John frowned at her blunt tone, but said nothing. She didn't even sound particularly reproachful or annoyed – more as if she were just stating her observations out loud with no care for their impact. “Nobody escaped that city, the only survivors were people like me who were fortunate enough to be out of town when it happened. We combed through the rubble when the fires went out... you're on a fool's errand.”

John was thankful that he was in the backseat, and even more so that he was facing the window. Despite his best efforts he was sure the look of understanding that passed over his face would've given something away. So that was why Himiko had hired this mercenary in particular – she wasn't just strong, she was connected to the city. Though, if it was really an abandoned pile of rubble, would he even need a guide?

No, she was wrong about Adantia, John was sure of it. Himiko had even referred to her as “the last inhabitant”, plus there was the matter of whatever had been burrowing under the ground and following them when they moved around...

“You really think it's completely empty? What about all the rumors of disappearances, and the fact that nobody has settled down there since it burned down?” John asked, trying not to sound too sure of himself. “I've heard people talk about feeling magical auras around the area, that kind of thing.”

Killjoy quirked an eye but didn't turn her head from the road. “Plenty of places in the Abyss with rumors like that... it's probably another guild of mercenaries trying to set up in the area. If we find any while we're out there, I'll come back to take care of them once our mission is finished.”

“Still staking out your old home?” John asked. “Guess there's something a bit sentimental under that outer shell of yours.”

“Or maybe I just don't want competition springing up right outside of Himiko's borders. Ever think about how hard it is to find work as a mercenary inside of her borders, considering what a tight ship she runs?”

John wasn't particularly cowed by the comeback, despite the soft and subtle glare that Killjoy was shooting at him through the rearview mirror. Instead a thought occurred to him – how hard was it to find work there? Back in Springfield Arista had run her own business just catering to the warring factions in and around the sprawling city, and there were apparently others within casual driving distance doing the same, from what little he remembered Arista telling him of it. If things were so fiercely competitive that new organizations setting up shop outside of the borders were an active threat to the sustainability of mercenary work, just how stable was Himiko's domain? Was there some possibility that John could convince Moira to move into Himiko's territory if things went south... instead of acceding to the demands of the British Order?

John filed the thought away in the back of his mind, fully aware that based on his last interactions with her, there was no chance John would be welcome there even if Moira was. Cutting off all contact with Moira was a far lesser evil than her sacrificing herself in such a terrible way, but... if there was any alternative at all, he would prefer to take it.

“Nothing is ever that simple,” Killjoy said with a sigh, continuing after John's lengthy silence. “Learn that one day.”

“Or else?”

“Or else you're going to be dead before you can afford to hire me again, and that affects my bottom line.”

The words were spoken simply and without emotion, bluntly enough to cause John to sigh and turn his head back to the window. Whoever this 'Killjoy' was, she didn't seem interested in engaging with him in any meaningful way. John's boredom and growing dissatisfaction with the control he had over his own life was getting him nowhere with her, and that only furthered his growing feelings of malcontent with his situation.

Thankfully the remainder of the drive, silent and uncomfortable as it may have been, was relatively brief. Killjoy's barriers had allowed them to cover ground quickly in the busy West Coast traffic, aided further by the fact that she hadn't spent the entire drive worrying about Himiko's soldiers ambushing them. Another thirty minutes of silence after his last words to their particularly unyielding guide, Killjoy pulled them off on the side of the road and cleared them free of her Travel Barrier.

“We go on foot from here, the car won't be of much use. The plateau isn't much of an obstacle, but I have no idea what condition the city is in by now,” Killjoy said as she stepped out of the stopped car. John remained inside for a moment, staring out of the window toward their destination.

“Haven't been back in a long time, then?” John asked, quirking an eye toward the absurdly tall wall of rock only a few hundred yards ahead of them. “How well will you know your way around once we're in there, then?”

“I'll know my way around the city that this place used to be, before it was burned and spent decades crumbling to the ground,” Killjoy shot back, narrowing her eyes at John. “As you can imagine I don't spend much of my free time romping around my old home now that it's rubble. Nobody else has spent time in this hellhole since it fell, but if you think you can find a better escort, I'll gladly head home right now.”

“I trust your knowledge on this place as best as I can trust anything,” John noted. “Which is a very high – and very low – bar these days.”

“That's the smartest thing you've said since we met,” Killjoy noted, a wry smirk on her face – the first John had seen from her. She turned away from the car and appeared to begin scoping out the semi-distant plateau, and John was prepared to join her until he noticed the frantic motions coming from the other side of the car.

Layla was staring intently at John, her brows furrowed together and a somewhat frantic look to her eyes. She was emphatically pointing downward, and when her eyes met John's she began to nod firmly. John took perhaps a fraction of a second longer than he'd have liked to realize the implication.

”It's... it's the same signature from before. Under us again? Burrowing through the ground? But... not attacking us. At least not yet...”

“Are you ready to check out the city, Layla?” John said quietly, pointedly looking down toward the ground below them. “Or is there anything else we should take care of first?”

Layla ended her overt pointing and paused, one hand still in the air. Her look became more concerned for a few moments, before at last she nodded – albeit gravely. John returned the gesture and reached out, gently placing his hand on Layla's to comfort her. Layla bit her lip and stared at the contact for a few moments before turning her hand over to embrace his fully. John wanted to say something to thank her, to tell Layla how much he appreciated still having her around to watch his back... but the words died on his lips when a tapping sound came at the window.

“Everything around here seems clear, no sign of any other mercs or random factions trying to set up shop. Come on, let's get moving; I'd rather be done with this pointless search as soon as we can.”

John reluctantly pulled his hand away from Layla's, grimacing for a moment before composing his expression and turning his face back to the redhead glaring at him through the window. John offered a simple nod of acknowledgement before he sighed and turned back to the other two women still in the car with him.