#all done! yay! | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

salvager-beyblade-fanfiction · 2 months ago

Text

Salvager Chapter 5 (2): Home

“Shinoda!” Salvager screamed, kicking the Starving Silver android off of his leg, even as it ripped its claws into his flesh, its coagulated metal coating squirming like a storm of maggots into his blood. Fire immediately shot up his calf and the veins inflamed. “AAURGH--! RELEASE IT! RELEASE!”

...

Venom dropped to his chest over the lip of the door bank, snapping out his arms and only just barely managing to catch Salvager’s wrist in time. With a savage, windless grunt, he dragged the older man upward, practically throwing him onto solid ground. He himself scrambled back the very instant after, throwing his back like a shield over Salvager’s body as the man’s fifty summoned player boards split open and, with the sound of a thunder clap, all his inventory came hurtling out in a river of sheer metal. It was a terrible, screaming explosion. Salvager’s cannons, rifles, blades, bombs, and grapnels; his tools, projects, and batteries; his food, utensils, and first aid supplies--they all fell at once.

The entire Tower must have quaked.

Venom ducked his head and screwed his eyes shut. Salvager began to scream. Vaguely, Venom registered that that shouldn’t be right. Had he gotten hurt? Only once he pried his eyes open did he see what’d gone wrong.

And the color promptly drained from his face.

Salvager’s pant leg had been shredded and, spattered alongside the pooling blood, was a wriggling stream of Starving Silver. He’d… he’d been infected? The man, veins bulging and hands shaking, was biting down his screams now, holding them behind his teeth, although the reduction of sound did nothing to make his expression anything less than a picture of pure agony. His eyes bunched, welling with tears of sheer pain, and deep claw-mark creases forked down the sides of his mouth and brows. Had he been hurt just now? Venom blinked, a sense of bitter amazement dripping against his skull, like a stream of water against a stone. Did this happen in the elevator shaft, just a second ago? He hadn't seen it. He didn’t know. When had--?

And… Did that mean…?

Salvager had only…?

Minutes.

Venom swallowed with some difficulty.

He had only minutes.

The Starving Silver would eat its way into his nervous system and then chew apart his spinal cord, burrowing into his bones, brain, and organs, replacing his tissue, killing him from the inside out. And then it would take control of his corpse.

The spit he’d choked down met a wash of bile and Venom quickly lifted a hand to his mouth, gagging on the stuff as it reached his tongue. He couldn’t be sick. Not now.

“That… that last android got you?” he managed. “H-how?”

Salvager made to laugh, but it came out more like a strangled sob. “I-i-it’s bad, isn't it?” he choked, voice fracturing.

Venom just stared.

“Th-thought s-so…”

“What do you want me to do?” he asked, hearing his own voice hitch as it passed through his chest, almost as if the sound was coming from somebody else. “I-I can cut out the wound. Or burn it. Or… or take the whole leg, maybe. I--”

“Just--!” Salvager barked suddenly, seething as the Silver wriggled farther up his body, bloating his veins and rupturing a foot-long length of skin. As his blood fountained from the wound, a high-pitched keening burst through his throat. His face contorted. His eyes screwed up like bottle caps. Hot, violent tears poured like rain from the corners. “Just calm--! Calm down, Venom!” he demanded. “You’re g-gonna make me panic!”

They were already past that point. Venom’s cybernetic knuckles locked into fists. “Do you want me to cut out the wound?” he shouted back.

“No!”

“Tell me what to do, then!”

“The leg!” Salvager screamed. “C-cut the whole leg off!” His hand fell to his knee, trembling like a bridge in an earthquake, and drew a lopsided line over the top of his patella. “Right--! Right here!”

Venom marked the place in his mind, biting into his lip, drawing his brows together. “You better be sure,” he sighed.

“I-I’m gonna--! Gonna get out of here a-a-alive!” the older man snarled, gasping for breath. It was a sincere, desperate effort to scrape out each word. “Whatever it--! Whatever it takes!” ...

Venom curled his awkward, knobbly metal knuckles over the hilt of his blade, feeling the energy it carried buzzing like a beehive up his arm. “Want me to knock you out real quick?” he muttered, measuring the trajectory of the cut in his mind, picking out the line where Salvager had indicated his leg be severed.

“Th-the pain… pain’ll d-do that j-just… just fine,” the older man groaned, digging the back of his head into the floor, eyes scrunched nearly to slits. “B-be fast, okay?”

“Yeah,” Venom managed, hefting his blade back, squinting through the hazy shadows its glow cast across the ground. They wrapped over Salvager’s exposed skin like tendrils of smoke, painting his writhing, inflamed veins with long streaks of gray. “Three…,” he swallowed. “Two… one!”

KRAK!

An energy burst collided with the side of his hand, turning his fingers to slag and flinging the blade from his grip. The orange glow spiraled. Salvager called for a gun. One fell into his fists as Venom tore his own from a playerboard. He spun in the direction of the shot. His trigger finger had melted. He couldn’t fire. Salvager, however, launched three succinct charges into their assailant’s torso. The lasers crackled like sparklers against his chest, fizzling out almost immediately. But the figure staggered and--

“What the heck, Valt?”

Venom lowered his gun, breath halting. Valt?

“Did your dexterity go up a rank or something?”

“R…?” Salvager choked, and Venom saw the blood drain from his stricken face. “R-Ran…?”

Their assailant stepped carefully forward, dropping his rifle so that its nose swung downward, clacking slightly against his side. He was tall and broad-shouldered, dressed in a black police uniform of sorts--an armored jumpsuit and jacket, overlaid by a thick tactical vest, and a shooting mask that concealed the lower half of his face. A ballistic helmet was capped over his skull, which he reached to unclip, his heavy, rubber-soled boots bringing him to a stop just beside Venom. “I’m glad to see you kept practicing,” he managed, dragging the thing from his head and letting it fall back against his fingertips. He was younger than Venom had expected. Thick blonde hair was matted to his scalp and his eyes were clear, the skin around them smooth and unwrinkled. The only mark of age at all was a hypopigmented scar, which spanned the bridge of his nose, just barely peering out from beneath his mask. “But, dang it, man,” he huffed, voice thick, eyes falling on Salvager’s ravaged, blood-soaked leg. “I really wish you’d take better care of yourself.”

Rantaro Kiyama

Shinoda chimed in--a little belatedly, Venom thought.

[ROAR]

Rank: N/A

Strength: S

Speed: C → S [TEMPORARY]

Override code: SPRIGGAN

Owner: [STORM]

Endurance: S

Dexterity: C

Power: B

Inventory: A

TOWER CLIMB: COMPLETED

LEVELS ASCENDED: 193

AFFILIATION: Police

Unit: Tower Extraction

Salvager’s face crumpled like a sheet of paper and he let his disruptor pistol fall against his chest, raised arms collapsing. “Rantaro?” he gasped, a fresh assault of tears raining from his eyes. “Wh-what are you--?” His voice cut abruptly, choking as the Starving Silver rocketed through his calf, wrapping over his knee. The wriggling metal ruptured his skin and blood gushed from the split. He bit his lip, chest heaving in agony, a strangled cry wrestling out of his throat.

“Hey--!” Venom started forward, but then halted, knowing there wasn’t anything he could do. We’ll have to cut higher now, he thought, eyeing the gleaming, parasitic material growing out of Salvager’s patella. If we can cut at all. He let his gaze flicker to his newly liquefied dominant hand. No good. “Roar?” he turned.

The blonde man had hunched down beside him, the visible half of his face creased with worry. “Your ID’s Pomegranate, right?” he said, the words slightly muffled by his mask.

“Venom.”

“That’s right. Sorry.”

“Can you cut Salvager’s leg?”

He stiffened. “No way.”

Venom’s brow furrowed. “If we don’t get it off, the Silver’s going to kill him.”

“R-Rantaro,” Salvager seethed, fixing the blonde man with a fierce, commanding glare. “You sh-shot off Venom’s… Venom’s hand. I need you t-to do… do it instead.”

A flash of guilt crossed Roar’s eyes--his gaze dropped to the melted remains of Venom’s prosthetic--but, simultaneously, his jaw set into a hard line. “I would, but there’s another way.”

What? Venom bit his lip. Another way? You purged Starving Silver or you died--end of story. “I don’t--” he began.

“Valt,” Roar cut in, flicking a grave look at the cyborg. Hear me out. “Do you still have Shinoda’s Wings?”

Salvager’s strained expression tightened, his eyes cinching. “Uh--I-I don’t…”

“Open your inventory,” Roar ordered.

Venom cringed. They’d just emptied it into the shaft. “Roar--”

But Salvager did as he’d been told, summoning his blue player board at a perfect vertical angle, hovering at a good reading distance, roughly eighteen inches from Roar's nose.

INVENTORY

The screen read,

Capacity rank: SS

Capacity limit: None

Current items interred: 1

Lifetime items interred: 100, 802

Venom blinked. There was one left?

SEARCH BY

TAGS

Tags EMPTY

Press for more TAGS

RECENTLY-USED

Recently-used EMPTY

Press for more RECENTLY-USED

MOST-USED

Most-used EMPTY

Press for more MOST-USED

STARRED

Starred EMPTY

Press for more STARRED

MOST-COMMON

Most-common EMPTY

Press for more MOST-COMMON

HIGHEST RANKING

[[AWARD-CLASS]] Shinoda’s Wings (L)

Press for more HIGHEST-RANKING

Custom search

Select filters…

Enter search parameters

It was difficult to distinguish from beneath his shooting mask, but Venom imagined a relieved grin lifting Roar’s face. “That’s amazing!” he gasped, eyes wide. “Okay--Valt--I need you to key for it!”

Salvager grunted, obediently trying to raise his hand. However, labored with pain and trembling like a sprout in a snowstorm, his arm reached its apex a mere six inches from the ground and could go no further. Venom grasped it by the wrist and pushed it higher, submerging his companion’s fingertips in the player board. “Try now.”

A second passed.

“N-not,” Salvager gasped. “Not w-working.”

“Could be voice activation,” Roar chanced, leaning forward, a deep crease forking between his brows. “Ask for it.”

Salvager whimpered--Venom glanced down, sickness stirring in the pit of his stomach as he watched a worm of Starving Silver dig into the man’s open wounds--but dragged down just enough air to grind out a request. “Shinoda,” he cried. “Give me your wings.” ...

Kento’s knuckles tightened over the guardrail and he bit his lip, leaning as far as he could manage over the safety barrier’s edge. Rain spilled down from his flattened, windswept hair, rolling into his eyelashes and dripping from the end of his nose. He was soaked even beneath his waterproof jacket, cold and shivering, and the fog of his breath clouded his vision.

He couldn’t take his eyes away from the helicopter, though.

It had descended from the Tower bare minutes ago and only just settled atop the landing pad. Its rotor blades were still spinning. The policemen manning the hundred-foot safety radius around it had yet to open the gates.

Dr. Kurenai and the police chief had assured him that his son would be inside. That he, Chiharu, Toko, and Nika would finally be able to see him again. Despite their word, though, a cold stone of fear still rested in his stomach, and half his mind had already prepared itself for the renewed grief at discovering--again--that Valt hadn't made it. Kento had been to this landing pad before, after all, surrounded by desperate families, all waiting with a slurry of dread and hope, ready to receive their long-lost members home. He’d been gripped by his wife and twins before, too, each of them watching for the helicopter, searching for the slight, dark-haired teenage boy they’d lost seven years prior. But, last time, Kento swallowed. Valt hadn't been there.

Would it be any different today?

Was his son really in that helicopter, only one hundred feet away?

Almost as soon as the thought occurred, the cabin door gave a jerk from across the landing pad and began trundling open. Kento’s heart slid into his throat. Chiharu’s gloved fingers dug into his arm. Toko released a semi-strangled gasp and stumbled up to the guardrail, his twin sister close behind, flinging off her hood and scooping her bangs from her eyes.

Their reaction wasn’t unique. Kento vaguely noticed the family beside them--the Zakuros, he thought; Dr. Kurenai had introduced them earlier that day--also running to the edge of the safety barrier, straining to watch.

Please, Valt… Kento prayed. Please…

Out jumped the first of the helicopter’s occupants. Rantaro. The blonde policeman landed easily on the concrete, bending his knees to take the added weight of his armor, and then turned, holding out a hand for the next passenger.

It was a young man, light-haired and paler than a ghost. Through the rain’s distortion, Kento imagined his arms whittled down to points at the end, but that couldn’t be right. He gripped Rantaro’s wrist as he lowered himself down, taking the drop as easily as he might’ve taken a stair. His foot splashed into a puddle. He seemed somewhat stupefied by that. Even at a hundred-foot distance, Kento saw the survivor’s eyes widen, staring around at the storm. He hasn’t felt rain, Kento realized, knuckles closing tighter around the guardrail, in seven years.

“D-Delta?”

Kento glanced through his leftmost periphery at the Zakuro family.

“Delta! Delta!”

“He’s--! He’s right there! H-he’s alive!”

“He’s alive!”

“Delta!”

He smiled.

“Kento,” Chiharu whispered suddenly, voice breaking, her hold constricting over his arm. “He’s coming…”

Kento’s gaze snapped back to the helicopter, heart beating like a sledgehammer. Already, his chest ached. If it isn’t Valt… If he’s been left behind again… Both Rantaro and the first passenger--Delta--had extended their hands to the doorway and were gesturing their last companion forward. Kento held his breath. If he can’t come home…

A head, full of thick, shaggy dark hair, emerged from the shadows first, followed by a set of lean shoulders. Socked feet came after, padding up to the lip of the step. One of the survivor’s pant legs had been ripped to ribbons and he limped slightly, favoring his other side. But, using his companions’ offered hands, he managed to hop from the helicopter, out into the rain. On the landing, he staggered and Rantaro pulled him hastily upright. His face turned, for the first time, so that Kento could see.

That’s my son. He stared across the concrete. That’s my son, he realized. That’s my son.

3 notes · View notes