[Serenity’s Waste]

“Hello? Hello? You’re going to die.” The cheerful and polite voice jolted Jack from his impact-induced slumber, and he groaned as he picked himself up, and realized his hands were on something soft. He froze and blinked his eyes open to see one hand on Luna’s left breast, and his other on Aurelia’s right, and they were both looking at him in bleary confusion.

“Sorry.” He apologized simply as he finished getting up, not really bothering to note both of them blushing as he had to put more weight on them to get up on his knees.

“Before anyone asks why or how, I’m going to be level with you. You don’t have much air in there with so many lungs breathing, and the moment you open this door, all the air’s going to vacuum out anyway, and then you’ll suffocate, and your eyes will pop like grapes when the pressure differential gets too harsh.” The female voice extrapolated for them in complete seriousness. “But, you CAN survive, I have an oxygen bubble not far from here, if you take a deep breath and hold it, you can make it.”

“Hey, we have Oz kits, we should be...fine….” Jack commented, but when he reached over his left shoulder for his Oz kit, he felt it had a very obvious crack along the top of it. “Oh crap….”

“Exactly. I saw through the window that most, if not all of ya’s Oz kits are buggered. I can fix that, but I need you to stay calm, and follow me to my safehouse.” The voice said as the others all gathered themselves and got up, each hissing or checking their Oz kits.

‘Damn cheap bargain-bin pieces of shit! I should’ve KNOWN better than to get second-hand gear!’ Jack lamented, seeing that Fragtrap’s kit was actually pretty much shattered, thankfully it seemed the oxygen canister still worked, good thing the robot didn’t need to breathe.

“Now, don’t bother speaking, you need to take a deep breath, and come now, or you’ll die even quicker.” The woman’s voice urged, and seeing everyone take a deep breath, Athena, being the one closest to the door, opened it.

Instantly, the hatch burst off instead of just opening from the pressure being released, and Jack felt like his eyes were trying to be sucked from their sockets, so he assumed it was the same for everyone else. But the pain was distracted from as he and everyone else was launched out with the air into the airlessness that was the moon, and being flung through the ‘air’ with them was a shocking sight.

A kangaroo woman wearing a short top and short shorts with impressive hips and big muscled bum was giving them the thumbs up for optimism as her long thick tail whipped around, and her long face grinned at them. Title Card: Janey Springs: Black Marketeer, Heart of Gold. Athena suddenly had blood gush from her beak’s nostrils for a second before she plugged the potentially deadly leak with a talon. “Follow me!”

Wordlessly, since we were all suffocating and holding our noses so we didn’t drown in the airless atmosphere of Elpis, well, save Luna; she was fine somehow. We ran after the big-butted kangaroo who easily jumped a great distance ahead in a single coiled-leg leap. We came to a cliff she must’ve jumped over and saw her activate a blue energy dome, the ‘air bubble’ she mentioned earlier, and we all dropped down and eagerly began gasping for the air the miraculous invention provided.

But she didn’t stop, the moment we were inside, she jumped another incredible distance to a platform on the side of a building and turned to us. “Okay, catch your breaths, not far now. It’d be embarrassing if ya died on me at this point.”

“I must say, such fortune that someroo so charitable was around in our dire hour.” Luna commented as she waltzed out of the dome of air as casual as she pleased, breathing without an Oz kit and even seeming to enjoy the vacuum of her moon. “It’s been too long….” Luna continued on as casual as if she were taking a leisurely stroll.

“Now that, is a true woman of noble bearing.” Aurelia commented, grinning after the princess. “I may own a whole planet and she may only co-lead a whole planet, but I find her quite inspiring thus far.”

“Can we follow the big-booty-bitch to safety already? I want my wing looked at.” Nisha complained, stretching out the sparsely feathered appendage for emphasis. Getting the point, we all followed the fairly tall kangaroo to a closed door, holding our breaths as she kicked it a few times, her obscenely strong legs managing to dent the thing before it obliged and opened upward, and we all dashed into the air-supplied building.

“There now, catch yer-well hello~.” The roo stopped on Athena, who was still holding her nose and looked very nervous as the bottom-heavy roo got a bit closer than would normally be considered polite to the griffoness of the group. “I’m Janey Springs. What’s yer name sexy?”

Athena suddenly backed off, coughing some some blood she must’ve swallowed from her nostrils at the forward question, but Athena’s wings going stiff was a clear indicator she wasn’t against such a thing as much as she was shocked. “U-um-*cough*-Athena….”

“Well Athena, good to have saved ya, and yer friends. Most of whom I’ll admit are quite lookers themselves.” Janey smirked at the three other beautiful women in the group, who generally didn’t care for her flirting and simply thanked her for the compliments. “So, let’s break the ice. You all know who I am, but I wouldn’t mind getting to know you all. Especially you~.” Springs licked her muzzle with a hooded gaze at Athena, who was blushing so hard it showed through her feathers.

“Jack.”

“Wilhelm.”

“Fragtrap!”

“A-Athena…oh right, already….”

“Nisha.”

“Baroness Aurelia Hammerlock, owner of the vacation planet Aquatos.”

“We are Princess Luna, Goddess of the Moon we stand upon. Please fair maiden, how may we repay thou for thine kind gesture?” Luna offered, and suddenly Springs stopped being such a flirt, gasped, and fell into a deep bow.

“Princess! I’m so sorry for my rudeness! Had I known-.”

“Stand! Thou art mine companion’s savior, thou hast no need for prostration. Please, rather, name a price and we shall repay thee thine benevolent favor.” Luna offered again, and the wide-hipped roo nervously stood back up, feeling a bit concerned as she shifted around.

“Well yer highness, to be honest I was planning on getting repaid anyhow. So my actions were not as altruistic as you think.” Springs admitted, but Luna was unfazed and made a hand gesture for her to continue. “Well...I’ve been stranded out here for going on a month now. If your friends would be willing to help me get revenge, and get back home to Concordia, I’d be ever so thankful.”

“Certainly. Everyone; let us focus on repaying Springs before heading to Concordia.” Luna declared and we all more or less agreed, she IS our employer after all.

“Th-thank you! You have no idea what this means for me. The big picture is I want Deadlift dead, at least until his cue on the New-U comes up. That’ll be revenge enough, but I mainly need him dead so you can take back the moon zoomy pass he stole from me when I mocked his jump pads and told him I wasn’t into guys.” Springs explained and all of us pretty much wanted to kill Deadlift on principal for doing this to the pretty girl when she was obviously just out here scavenging if her cluttered safehouse was any indication. “That aside, make yourselves at home. I’ve got digistructed pizza in the cooler, and some digistructed water. Note; they both taste like cardboard without any seasoning.”

“Well, that sucks.” Wilhelm said which got looks from everyone around him. “What? Reminds me of school. The food at the cafeteria sucked!”

“But why is this? We arranged for regular supplies to the moon. Sister informed us that-.”

“Princess, mind the rub; but yer sis is a lyin heap of dung. We hardly get anything up here on this rock since the Crackening. Most of us all have gone the way of nature, and we take what we need from each other. Really, almost nobody up here is even able to survive more than a week or so before we kick it, and the New-U system rezzes those with accounts. The others, they...they ain’t so lucky….” Springs said sadly, clearly she’d lost someone recently.

“What?! This is, how, how DARE she?! Sister told me everything up here was fine! She said you were all managing with-URGH! SISTER!” Luna roared as the moon quaked from her anger, the nearby lava pools erupting into the air, and she gasped as she tried to calm down, all of us holding onto the ground as she tried not to burst out again. “Elpis can’t take it anymore Luna. Elpis can’t handle our fury. Stay calm. Remain calm as long as we are here, or it may well end everyone on it, and most of Pandora too.”

Luna moved into the building, away from everyone and clearly not wanting company at realizing something extremely distressing. “Damn, I knew the sisters were scary sometimes, but I thought she was about to bring half of Elpis up around us.” Jack admitted.

“Scary?! THE WHOLE RUDDY MOON SHOOK! It was like the Crackening all over again!” Springs squealed, looking mortified and shivering in a corner. We all then got back up, Athena moving to help the shaking Springs up, and we looked to each other in bewilderment.

“Okay...so who does what?” Wilhelm asked, and we all looked to Springs who took a calming breath.

“Well, I want Deadlift dead and the Zoomie system back on.” Springs said as it was the most important, and Aurelia and Nisha both gestured they were up for that. “I also need some personal effects, like my audio books-.”

“Gladly.” Athena offered, getting a beaming smile from the roo and the griffoness smiled meekly.

“What job does that leave us with?” Wilhelm asked, gesturing to Jack, Fragtrap, and himself.

“We’re being poster boys.” Wilhelm said, dejectedly. “They sent the ladies to go kill a guy, and are using the killing machines and their lackie to be the poster board guys.”

“I’m not your lackie!” Fragtrap yelled at Wilhelm.

“I was referring to Jack.” Wilhelm deadpanned. “I mean, you’ve been doing pretty good, Fragtrap. And no offence, Jackie, but you could do a bit better.”

“Bite me. I’m out of my element here. Almost no air to breath, watching a gauge tick down to death all the time, low gravity when I’ve lived in gravity my whole life, and heights. Down on Pandora and the other planets we’ve been on, that was just it; we were DOWN on something! There’s nothing but UP on this rock!” Jack complained, looking towards the ledge from our spot standing on an ‘air crack’ outside Springs’ Safehouse, shuddering. “This has already been the most fucked up job we’ve ever taken. I mean, right now, RIGHT, FUCKING NOW! We’re making posters, for the guy that members of our team just went out to KILL!”

“I HAVE MOTIVATIONAL ISSUES!” Deadlift’s voice echoed over our Echoes at the memory of him somehow interjecting when Springs told them earlier about the posters.

“Yeah, sorry about that, Jackie. I know you hate this, but if it makes it any better, I didn’t expect to get marooned on the moon either. Just figured it’d be a trek and be over with.” Wilhelm said, trying to console Jack. ‘I also didn’t expect to get stuck like this when I went to a con.’

“Are ya whining meatsticks gonna get on the jump pad or what?” Springs demanded over the Echo and we sighed. As if this wasn’t humiliating enough, Springs didn’t give us the time of day entirely because she hated guys in general.

“Stuff it, Springs.” Wilhelm said. “I’ve already had enough shit today, not taking any of yours to go with it. I’m tired, I need to take a dump, and I’m covered in a ton of deep cuts and bruises from kraggons, not to mention the moon dust getting into them. But if it helps you to shut up any faster, Fragtrap, you’re first.”

“Aye, aye, sir!” Fragtrap belted out happily before getting on the jump pad and sent hurling into the air. “Believe in your dreams!” Fragtrap shouted gleefully as the cameras on the tall stand flashed. “That felt so awesome!”

“Alright, that was good, now the one with the chiseled muzzle, shoot at some targets I have launch during the jump.” Springs directed and Jack swallowed nervously. “Oh! And don’t forget to say something inspirational while you do it.”

“Alright, I can do this...I can do this….” Jack encouraged himself before he ran at the pad and cried out girlishly as two rubber duckies were launched into the air, and he drew his Vladof pistol, taking them out in twin bursts of fire. “S-Something, Something-Stars!” Jack managed to shout as he landed and curled into a ball, trying not to hyperventilate and waste his air.

“That’s the spirit, Jackie!” Wilhelm yelled as he went to pat Jack on the back, getting only a whimper from his now prone friend. “Eh. Guess it’s my turn, then. Am I right, Springs?”

“Right you are. This time, take the jump pad up, and do a butt-slam on the target in front of it. Just remember to say something cool.” Springs directed and Wilhelm nodded. “Oh, and don’t forget the inspirational bit.”

“Pffft. Butt slam. Hilarious, but why call it a butt-slam when our butts don’t even hit the target? It’s our feet and the combined fields of our Oz kits and shields.” Wilhelm asked curiously, and Springs’ voice sounded noncommittal.

“Meh, dunno. Might just be because it’s funny. ‘Sides, can joke about butt-slamming much easier than just slamming if ya know what I mean.”

“Yeah.” Wilhelm said. He then casually stepped onto the jump pad, did a badass frontflip, and then bolted down to the target in a slam that almost crushed the button. “No.”

“That was badass! Come on back.” Springs informed before the panel in front of the switch folded open and butt-tons of cash dumped out. “Oh right, that. Well, take it, not doing me any good out here.”

“Gladly.” Wilhelm said as he approached, and his Echo drew in the cash like a vacuum, where since he was with a team, was split among the crew, even those off doing other things. “You said something about a gun though.”

“Like I said, come on back and I’ll give ya pick from my armory. Oh hey these posters are sick. You definitely earned it.”

“Good to hear. Fragtrap grab Jack, he’s panicking and I’m not about to waste air pulling his ass inside.”

“Right-o!” Fragtrap cheerfully responded and grabbed Jack by the legs, dragging him along as he continued to whimper, and he cried like a baby when Frag jumped them off the small cliff to the door of the building.

After getting the panicking Jack inside, and Wilhelm slapping him out of his stupor with his robot hand, Jack was able to get himself together and inject a healing hypo to fix his broken jaw. “So, here ya go, it’s not much but considering what I had to work with, it’s pretty barmy.” Springs presented a selection of pistols, rifles, and smgs, none really all too special, but it was still something. Jack took the maliwan sniper rifle, saying he didn’t like how sporadic the performance of his Glitch Rifle was, offering it to Wilhelm.

“Oh, gladly. Hell, take my share from her junk. I’ll take the crazy gun over one of these pieces of crap.” Wilhelm said.

“Well I’ve got nothing against that option, have another.” Springs said to Jack as Jack gave his Glitch Rifle to Wilhelm, all too glad to not have a potentially burst-firing or scatter-shot rifle. He’d be using an assault rifle if he wanted those sort of things. Speaking of which.

“I need a reliable primary. I can’t just be a support this job with my Vladof sidearm and a sniper. Got any spiniguns? Besides the one you gave Fragtrap.” Jack gestured to the happy-as-hell robot.

“I! WILL! MURDER! EVERYTHING~! HAHAHAHAHAHA~!” Fragtrap laughed maniacally as he revved the barrels of his new Dahl spinigun. “ALL WILL SEE THE BULLET STORM AND TREMBLE!”

“Dude. Calm down.” Wilhelm said.

“Fraid not, them things are rare as rocking horses. But I do have some Jakobs and Dahl rifles, I’d give ya a Scav rifle, but all they’re good for is their ridiculous magazine sizes.” Springs informed as she turned to her crates and climbed in, her big butt stretching her shorts as her thick tail wagged idly in joy of her activity, making Jack blush, but look away politely.

“I suggest the Jakobs, cowboy.” Wilhelm mockingly told Jack. “You used to love em when we first set out together.”

“THEN I found out how stupid it is to rely entirely on accuracy when that whale-squid on Hephaestus had NO FUCKING WEAK SPOTS TO SHOOT! My trigger finger cramped so hard I was lucky I could even keep shooting! Then the gun fucking jammed! If I had an automatic gun then, I’d have been more help before it jammed!” Jack shouted at Wil angrily.

“Ha ha! I remember that!” Wilhelm laughed. “I saved your ass and lost a launcher that day. Client was not happy that we let the damn thing live.”

“It was fucking Blowhole the Apocalypse! That aquarium curator can kiss my ass! Besides, he wanted to CLONE the thing! For an exhibit!” Jack defended. Clearly if they’d succeeded in killing it and bringing some of the brains to him, the idiot would’ve just doomed the town of Shorehammer to the fate of a smaller Blowhole the Apocalypse. At least them fighting it back made it leave the town alone.

“Wow, you two have been on some adventures haven’t you?” Fragtrap commented before Springs finally got her big, sexy butt out of the air and held up two Dahl rifles, one with a bayonet and one with a more stable barrel and optic sights.

“Here ya are! Pick yer poison. Accuracy or close-range?” Springs held them out, and Jack took the bayoneted one.

“Thanks, but I have a sniper for range already, the bayonet will make close-range easier on me.” Jack checked the sights on the gun, which was just iron sights, but Jack had worked with even less using crap guns made by bandits before, so he found no problem with the thing, only downside was somehow Dahl guns knew when the user was aiming down the sight, and went into burst-fire automatically. That was actually a blessing for their spiniguns though, a freaking wall of bullets. Better than almost any shotgun. “You picked well Fragtrap.”

“And don’t I know it!” Frag bragged.

“Colts...could thou come here please?” Luna’s voice echoed from the windows away from the storage bay.

“I’d like to have you know that I am a full grown cyborg stallion, thank you very much.” Wilhelm said as we left Springs to her cache and entered to see a depressed Princess Luna looking over the ruined and jagged landscape of her once smooth, beautiful moon.

“Sorry, we are so old, we forget that age is much less extensive than us.” Luna admitted, looking as old as she proclaimed to be for a moment. “We have a mission for thee, if thou would be willing to hear an old foal’s story?”

“Go ahead, get some of the weight off your chest.” Jack offered, and Wilhelm and Fragtrap both snickered childishly to which both Jack and Luna were completely confused about.

“Over a decade ago now, longer actually, the Dahl corporation approached us with an offer. They offered Pandora protection, technology, tourism, so many things our deadly, poor planet needed. Equestria, being the only stable and even relatively safe country on the planet, were the ones the other warlords of the world gave the decision of saying yes or no to. We accepted, obviously. What fools we were….

“Indeed, Dahl brought us technology that we only barely got from adventurers and explorers from other worlds second-hand. They brought us digistruct technology, advanced firearms, vehicles that were beyond simple combustion engines. Most of all, they brought in money. They mined our planet, using prisoners for the dirty work so they may pay their debts to society, something we felt economical.

“Then Dahl began mining on our moon, defiling Elpis’ surface. We demanded they stop, but they made a counter offer, and said that they will ensure we benefit, and we merely demanded they do not ruin our moon’s surface...they lied. The Crackening happened, our beautiful Elpis went from a smooth white orb in the sky, to a red-cracked omen of doom. Shortly after, rather than make the promised reparations if they should default on our contract...they left us.

“Dahl left everything, their technology, their criminals, even their own employees and soldiers. Everything went wrong. The criminals quickly overthrew their now undermanned overseers, slayed thousands of innocents, obtained weapons, formed bandit clans, stormed the surface of Pandora like an unending tide of butchery, lawlessness, and horrid stench.” We laughed a bit at that last bit there, but Luna’s fierce glare shut us up quick. “It was awful! Let us not understand the stench! Twas horrid!

Anyhow, we’ve spent years trying to clean up after Dahl’s blatant disregard for life and their contracts, we spread word of their deceit as far as we could, and it is why outside of war-torn worlds or out in the Outer Rim worlds, you won’t find Dahl anywhere civilized as no one will work with them outside of such anymore. But we are unsure if this is entirely true, who gave the order to abandon us? Who was it specifically? Or did they plan to all along? We wish to know, and the black box of that crashed ship over yonder may well hold the answer.” Luna turned back to the window, pointing out the direction in which Nisha and Aurelia had trekked.

“Why not have the ladies fetch it for you while they’re out there?” Wilhelm asked and Luna turned to us with seriousness in her features.

“Because thou art the most trustworthy of our hires. Thou completes jobs with very few accounts of failure, and thou also know when to keep thine lips sealed if what your less clandestine jobs on Eden-5 report.” Uh...how’d she know about those?! We kept those Mafia contracts quiet!

“As long as you don’t blab about some of those more… ‘secretive’ jobs, we’ll do it and keep doing it. I don’t want a blabbermouth to start talking about what kind of shit we’ve done.” Wilhelm said angrily, then added on quietly, “For Jack’s sake more than mine.”

“Worry not, thou will be compensated and we shall not speak of thou less legal acts outside of us. Is that not right Fragtrap?” Luna turned attention to the little robot.

“Filing disturbing info on my coworkers away for deletion! Compartment not found! Shit, need my trash bin fixed. Don’t worry, I won’t blab, just don’t bring it up around me.” Fragtrap stated as he saluted. “Besides, we’re Vault Hunters right now! We technically don’t answer to anyone but the client.”

“Yeah, that’s great and all, but lets go. Nisha and Aurelia will have cleared the way by now, so getting to Deadlift’s ship should be easy enough.” Jack cut in, wanting to get started on helping the mare come to terms with the situation, and upon reaching the storage bay, paused at seeing Springs lean in and kissing the cheek of the wing-boner sporting Athena, who grinned in victory, before seeing us and instantly becoming nervous, bolting out of the bay door and Springs sighed as she turned to us.

“Ya wankers...git lost, hopefully she’ll come back.” The roo pouted as she plopped her tight butt into her backless stool, and we all shrugged before starting the long walk out to Deadlift’s ship.

Author's Notes:

Yay~ more chapters~!

Ugh...so sleepy....

Again, DJ A String is co-author...zzzzzzzzzz