#and much less like riddick is doing a mission solo and if bertha is also still there by the end that's cool

[primitiveside]

They didn't bother to take off his goggles when they strung him up on chains. They were too eager to punish and divide the duo dismantling little pieces of Umbrella's operations. Beatings blotted his skin like storm clouds. The tips of his boots dangling a hair's width from touching the floor.

"Too bad I couldn't have you like this in better circumstances. We could have both enjoyed this." @umbrellamedic says as Riddick's bindings go loose.

He comes down on his boots with all that mass. Chains clanging hard on the floor. A deep, furrow-stricken brow has been set since her appearance. Riddick looks up from his shackles with it. No witty rejoinder, no dry comeback. His perpetual pouty frown quiet in its uncertainty.

The disembodied voice darkened in irritation: Who do you think you are?

"This guy talks too much," Riddick rumbled. The scoundrel, revived by his sense of getting even, looking worthy of all the trouble as a dribble of red pooled into his cupid's bow while he but smiled. A dastardly, subtle promise of revenge to come.

"Let's change that."

The arriving reinforcements are another obstacle to be bested. Simply in the way of shipping ledgers they are after. Priority number two, newly added: find that chatterbox fucker and kill him.

The pointmen, entering first, have their orders to preserve the specimen if possible. Riddick has his own code to abide by, to their misfortune, which preserves the self above all else. The medic could handle herself, she's proven it in bloodshed and staying alive. And if ever she couldn't keep up, Riddick had promised to leave her behind to her fate. This fight, this time, he checks in to see that she's not getting overwhelmed. He owes her, and she is paid in the silent shifted phase of their tentative partnership; in this modicum of attentiveness to her safety.