NALA [NOLASTNAMEGIVEN]

Orion is humming. Orion is humming, looking relaxed as a cat on a sunny windowsill, as if she wasn't currently behind the steering wheel of the most nightmarish riding experience Nala had ever heard of, let alone suffered through. Curbstomp, Orion's half-breed patchwork sedan, was a quiet ride - which is to say it ran so indescribably loudly that the noise overran nearly everything else and faded into a sort of anti-silence, topped off by the ragged huffing of its lungs gulping air.

The once-leather seats are shredded, patched over dozens of times with scraps of fabric - denim, burlap, what looked to be lace for some reason - and in some places the twitching biomechanical innards of the car are visible through large patches of missing stuffing. The entire back half of the Volvo has been completely gutted, the seats swapped out for more storage space and a large geometric lump welded to the bottom of the chassis, which emanates a deep bass rumble. Ligaments and muscles pulse along the walls where ill-fitting panels leave gaps in the lining. Orion's control panel didn't fare much better; Nala couldn't even begin to guess the purpose of the coils of veins, exposed wires, and pipes tangled around the thing led to or from, even ignoring the mess of switches and dials spreading like an infection from the base of the steering handles.

God knows what all the modding did, though, since the damn car had a gait more uneven than the Appalachians, rattling hard enough to jar Nala's teeth out of her head. If it weren't for the sheer speed they were traveling shoving her bodily into the battered seat, she was sure she'd have cracked her skull on the ceiling. Every so often something underneath Nala's feet would go CLANK, but even this didn't seem to faze her driver.

Not even staring out the window could give any respite, the featureless desert and sullen sky offering nothing more than a beige smear as they hurtled along. Nala had fortunately ceased to consciously note each new bruise her tailbone was collecting, having fallen into furiously going over and over the events that led her here.

After their initial discussion, Orion had all but tied her to a chair to interrogate her on her intentions, her boss' intentions, her intentions about her intentions, and so on. By the time the mechanic was satisfied with her answers, the sun had been long gone. Nala, of course, had not had the time to find a place to stay, and Orion's dire warnings about the city's nighttime attitude to newcomers did not inspire her confidence in finding one. Orion had rolled her eyes at the diminutive woman and gestured at her horribly ratty apartment, halved in size by the hulking shape of Curbstomp curled inside the building - a measure Orion insisted was for safety, despite her obvious fondness for her vehicle. Nala had eventually drifted off in the farthest corner from the horrible meaty smell of the car and its gangly sprawled arms, listening to the scrapes and scuffles of Orion checking up on its vascular and nervous systems.

She had been hollered awake by Orion practically yanking her upright to drag her out the door, looking for all the world as if she hadn't slept at all. The rest of the morning had been blurred - a small demonstration of the bone-snapping contortions Curbstomp performed to get out of the tiny apartment door; a stop at a local shop for bagels and a strange electric green drink Orion only called ‘goodmorning juice' that Nala had been too nervous to try; and a pause in a condemned building where Orion hung out of the driver's side window to share a whispered conversation with a shadowed figure. Somehow, Nala'd ended up stuck in the six-legged death trap being carried along on whatever errand Orion had been given. Hurrah.

Her increasingly annoyed circle of thoughts is interrupted by a deafening howl somewhere between a foghorn and a screaming elk. It seems to be some sort of message from Curbstomp, as Orion jerks upright in her seat, suddenly alert and focused on the desert ahead. Her eyes narrow, the only warning Nala gets before she yanks back on the steering handle, sending Curbstomp into a skidding six-handed stop, augmented claws digging into the sand. An undignified yelp does nothing to save Nala from clipping her chin on the dash, narrowly missing a sharp melted edge where plastic had been hastily re-fitted. Sitting back up, she shoots Orion a glare that goes completely unnoticed as the smuggler practically leans against the windshield, gazing intently at something beneath them. She whistles a low tone, guiding the car into a crouch.

"I've seen worse corpses running the streets, tell ya what…" Orion seems to have forgotten her passenger entirely, thick drawling accent sneaking into her speech as she mumbles to herself.

"She's still twitching, too. What kind'o beast took her, angel's iron says it was a biggun." The nose of the car has lowered enough for Nala to see the cause of Orion's strange behavior, and she cranes her head to look.

It's a wreck, and a fresh one too. The car model is small and sleek, and the eight slender legs splayed across the bloodied sand would have been beautiful, before they were snapped and twisted in the crash. One of the arms is still moving, weakly groping at the air as if to somehow gain purchase and escape. The chassis itself withstood the fall well, but there is a gaping hole in the underbelly, spilling gore and electric cabling onto the dunes. The opening almost seems like it had been ripped open or even exploded from the inside, ragged edges of rent metal shining wetly in the dull sunlight.

Horribly, Orion has clambered down over Curbstomp's folded arms and is poking around in the oil and blood-soaked dust. Nala begins to settle back into her seat, hoping to take the respite to nap, but Orion dashes her hope with a holler:

"Ay, there's a tarp in the back! You can just drag it over here." Nala drags a hand down her face and sighs, but wrestles the requested tarp - mysteriously intact among the ruins of most of Orion's possessions - over to where Orion stands at the edge of the pool of oil leaking from the main body. She grins at Nala.

"Look at this creature, eh? She's gotta be nine-tenths custom job, hoo-wee!" she is, mind-bogglingly, delighted by the carnage, and to Nala's horror, turns and crawls into the blast hole, voice muffled as she keeps talking.

"You cool grabbin stuff? Just put anything I give you onto the tarp, ‘K?"

Nala is busy gagging at the rotten salt smell of the gasoline and blood, and her silence is apparently taken as affirmation. Soon, a dripping chunk of viscera and piping comes sailing out of the torn metal, and Nala makes a disgusted squeak before depositing the thing quickly onto the tarp and away from herself. She thinks despairingly that she'll never take a paper towel for granted again, grimacing down at her slimy hands.

A long while later, the work continues. Nala stands awkwardly by the hollowed-out husk, nervously watching Orion's worn and soot-spattered boots stuck out from its innards. Various clunks and grinding sounds emanate from deep in the twisted metal, and now and then a we squelch as well. She can hear Orion muttering, a constant stream of half-formed words and expletives, punctuated by grunts and hisses. Whatever mysterious tinkering the belligerent woman is up to, it seems to be going well, as she suddenly shimmies out of the car's guts and turns to Nala, a wide and satisfied grin spread across her oil-smeared face. She holds up…something, a gory mess of pistons and veins, still twitching slightly.

"Look at the condition of this thing! Whoever ran this poor girl into the dirt sure took some pretty nasty shortcuts." She points at a line of jagged ridges running through the mass.

"See how sharp the teeth are? That'll get you phenomenal purchase, but without a specialty casing it also tears the hell out of whatever's around it. Plenty of folks would kill for an engine that can withstand these guys." she sidles over to her bag, spread out with tools and spare parts, plopping the bloody contraption onto a pile of similarly disgusting pieces. She gestures at Nala.

"Take a look! We got some real interestingly laid out guts in there. I'd'a loved to see her running. She must have been a hurricane on claws." gingerly, Nala pokes her face past the torn chassis, and blinks at the dim interior, lined with snapped studs and oozing flesh. Orion leans over her, point at a particularly wriggly section of the corpse.

"See that? That brain's been totally rewired! I bet it can't even run without twice the power input of its model. Can't even imagine how they managed DIY work this slick."

Nala pulls back quickly, wrinkling her nose. "Is that why you dragged me out here? Scavenging?" Orion's eyebrows shoot up.

"Scavenging? Cer-tain-ly not, ma'am!" She gestures widely.

"Had to keep you outta trouble. Anyhoo! somebody brought this masterpiece down and then didn't take anything. This is a veritable miracle!" Orion pauses, then, expression suddenly serious again, ears to the empty desert around them.

"Ahh, maybe they just hadn't had time. That's our bell! shame." She trots unhurriedly over to her spoils, the mountain of meat and metal at this point nearly as high as her stomach.

"Look at all'a this. That there is 8 months rent on bargain price. Could ‘ave been 10, but we gotta get along." Nala blinks.

"Wh- huh? leave? How do you know?" Orion tilts her head, holding up a finger.

"I hear someone comin'. Big feet, too.''

She cracks her back, large arms stretched up over her head nearly black with grease from the elbow down, and then ties the edges of the tarp over top of the pile and hoists the whole thing over her shoulder. She nods her head to Curbstomp, and clambers one-handed over the car's settled arms as they shift to lift her up, wrestling her bloody bundle into the back. Nala herself scrabbles back up to her seat and stares anxiously out into the desert, searching for the phantom threat Orion had promised.

Nala could feel it too, now, the deep rumble warning of some far-off threat coming closer. Curbstomp whines quietly, whether in anticipation or fear she can't tell. She frowns at Orion as the large woman lays her hands on the steering handles. She only offers an amused grin to Nala's worry, and deliberately takes her time starting up the engine as the sound roars ever closer.

Finally, Orion adjusts her mirror, and her smug look widens into a half-snarl-half-smile.

"There she is!" Craning to look through the mirror as well, Nala can see a puff of dust -or smoke?- far behind them, punctuated by a pair of sun bright headlights. They both stare at the approaching cloud for a moment, and then Orion yanks down a couple of switch handles and Curbstomp begins to growl.

The entire metal frame of the sedan begins to vibrate as a whirring mechanical yowl builds somewhere in its guts, long clawed fingers digging into the sand as it shifts into an odd position - leaning back on two arms and four stretched out ahead. The gas pedal audibly clatters when Orion slams her foot down, and Nala's head is whipped back so hard she blacks out momentarily.

Nala isn't one for measuring speeds, but she'd guess that whatever awful little contraption Orion had engaged had more than doubled their speed, rumble suddenly fading behind them. Curiously, the engine was quieter than at slower speeds, the thrumming tendons having settled into a smooth purr and heartbeat. She blinks, and looks through the back window, seeing the mystery pursuer shrinking at a stomach-churning pace. She turns to Orion, who's wiping up the smears of filth her disgusting hands had left on the controls, apparently trusting her sedan to keep them going.

"You could do this the whole time? Why were we so slow before?" Orion makes a face. "Not for long, she can't. Curbstomp wasn't built for this type of hardware, n' there's only so much I can jerry-rig. We'll slow once it's safe."

"But it's so comfortable this way!" Nala whines, adrenaline keeping her from considering her rudeness. Orion snorts.

"Catch a nap now then, your highness. I'm sure the breaks will wake you up when ya need to." Nala doesn't dignify that particular jab with a response, but it doesn't seem as though her nutjob companion meant any harm.

Curbstomp streaks across the desert, leaving whatever was after them to choke on fumes. Neither woman speaks, either to complain or start another argument, and the car's deep, even breathing seems to indicate safety. Orion hums as she cleans, and Nala can't say she feels otherwise, herself.