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Jonny grinned and flopped down on top of Lyfrassir’s lap while they were reading a book Ivy had lent to them. Lyf ignored him, turning the page of their book.
“There’s another spaceship comin’ up soon,” Jonny said, grin not wavering.
“Fascinating.”
“They got supplies we need to get to Brian and Mari.”
“Uh-huh.”
Now Jonny was pouting, ears and tail flicking in agitation. “Only you, me, ‘nd Ivy’s here. Plus Aurora but she ain’t great at helping with raids and shit.”
“Oh? Okay, have fun.”
Jonny growled, and whacked the book out of their hands. Lyf looked down at him and raised an eyebrow, thoroughly unimpressed. “We can’t take a ship just the two o’ us,” Jonny declared. “Ivy cares too much ‘bout preservin’ history or whatever.”
“I have seen you take over a government with violence and reckless abandon together on multiple occasions.” Lyf raised their eyebrow higher, using their tail to point at Jonny. “I have seen firsthand Ivy take over a government building with her bare hands, holding everyone in it hostage. You have the highest number of war crimes of anyone on this ship and that says a lot . Brian once became a dictator just to prove a point .”
“That’s besides the point!” Jonny rolled his eyes. “You have to join us for this one!”
“Do I?”
“Yes!” Jonny huffed. “You’ve been here long enough you should get this by now.”
Lyfrassir rolled their eyes, sighing. “Are you going to drag me into this raid kicking and screaming?”
“Obviously.”
Lyfrassir sighed again. “Fine.”
Jonny grinned widely, tail wagging excitedly. “Fuck yeah! Get ready, we got a ship to take!” And Jonny jumped off them and scurried away somewhere deeper into the ship. Lyf sighed. Guess they wouldn’t get to finish their book today.
—--
When Lyf arrived at the main door, Ivy was already there gently cleaning and loading a gun Lyfrassir hadn’t seen before. Probably one of Ivy’s, since she didn’t often use firearms. They had grabbed one of their own guns and a few knives, though they hoped they wouldn’t have to actually use any weapons, content to just let the two actual pirates do the heavy lifting.
Ivy smiled slightly at them. “I’m surprised that Jonny convinced you to join.”
“He threatened violence. Essentially.”
“He threatens violence for everything.”
Lyf shrugged, but didn’t deny that. How could they, when Jonny was shoving guns into places and belts and hidden vest pockets with seeming no real care for function or reasonability. Lyf wasn’t actually sure how he was able to fit all of those guns on his person. Maybe it was like how TS did it, though The Toy didn’t really know how it did that. So Lyfrassir had decided to not question the propensity for hiding weapons prevalent with the Mechanisms.
“We’re gonna board, soon!” Jonny declared. “I’ve told them that we’re having a food shortage issue, and they’ve agreed to let us on and take a few emergency rations!”
“Standard procedure, really,” Ivy said, grabbing a short sword off a rack that Aurora had summoned.
“Ooh,” Lyf mumbled, reaching for a shiny dagger they saw.
“Yes, exactly! Once we get on, there is no plan! Just violence and bloodshed and chaos!”
Lyfrassir turned back to Jonny, raising an eyebrow. “You said that they did have supplies we need, though. To find Brian and Marius.”
“Yep! Leave that to me!”
“…Ivy, do you think you could grab anything that’s remotely useful while we’re aboard?”
“Of course– we’re just looking for a few small pieces of tracking technology. I wouldn’t trust Jonny with the things we need anyway– the inter-galactic sextants we’re looking for are extremely finicky and delicate. And Jonny… Isn’t.”
“I can be fucking careful!” Jonny yelled, tail swishing angrily. “‘Sides, I’d be careful with this! Brian doesn’t need any more reasons to be petty, the bastard.” His tail hit a rifle left on the floor, causing it to go off. Lyf ducked and Ivy sighed as the bullet ricocheted around the room before lodging itself in a wall which only got angry screeches, groans, and creaks from Aurora. Lyf figured she was cursing at them.
“Do you not have your safety on any of your guns on?!” They snapped.
“Of course I do! Just not… All of them!” Jonny growled, and huffed. “Listen, just kill anything alive and take anything that seems remotely useful! No quarter!” With that, Jonny signaled the passing ship to let them know that the trio were ready to board, and the fun began.
Lyfrassir, personally, was not one to relish bloodshed and violence. It was never really something that called to them, like it did the Mechanisms. They couldn’t bring themself to enjoy it the same way they did, even after all these years. But that didn’t mean they weren’t capable of causing harm, as the helpless crew of the vessel the three Mechanisms had boarded quickly found. Jonny grinned as he immediately got to work, a quickly growing trail of bodies trailing after him as he ventured further into the ship.
“We’re just here for some supplies,” Ivy said, pulling her gun out and aiming at a terrified looking worker. “Unfortunately for you, your lives are not a part of our supply list.”
Ivy fired, and as alarms started blaring she and Lyf made their way through the ship. Crew members rushed around trying to figure out what was happening, or to try and apprehend Ivy and Lyf, only to be cut down either by blade or by bullet. It depended on how close they managed to get, really.
“Hm. The number of crewmates coming after us has decreased by almost ten percent with each large rush–if Jonny continues on his warpath, there won’t be much fun left for us to have. There might not even be much left of the ship. Not much left to scavenge, anyway.”
“‘Fun for us’ you say? Since when do you find this pointless bloodshed fun?” Lyf raised an eyebrow and smirked, shooting a person shakily holding and attempting to aim a plasma rifle– their bullet flew true and embedded itself in their chest, causing the person to crumple, landing on the floor with a loud clang . Ivy kicked the gun away.
She smiled, glancing at Lyfrassir from the corner of her eye. “Well, it’s quite bold of you to assume that I’d never found this enjoyable. I may not seek out violence, but I’m still a ruthless killer, Lyfrassir.” Ivy stood up on her tip-toes, and Lyf still had to lean down considerably in order for Ivy to steal a quick kiss. “You’ve seen the carnage.”
“Yes, but you were always so much more sensible then the others, Alexandria.”
“Oh was I, Edda? Do you call beating someone half to death for their poor book restoration techniques sensible?”
“Hm…” Lyf pretended to think, shooting an approaching person wielding their own gun. “In comparison to the rest of the Mechanisms, I do believe it is sensible in comparison. Permanently scarred and severely injured but alive is better than dead, after all. Arguably.”
Ivy reached up and pulled at a slightly iridescent braid framing Lyf’s face. “Arguably.”
With that, the two continued further into the ship–they still had things to steal, after all–killing and injuring anyone who got in their way. Aurora seemed to have taken at least partial control of certain functions of the ship, turning off the blaring alarms and dimming the lights, which made it slightly easier for the Mechanisms to get around.
“What is the plan with the ship itself? I don’t think it’s sentient or anything…” Lyfrassir stabbed a soldier attempting to sneak up on them with their tail, looking at the steel walls in contemplation.
“There is a 1.276 percent chance that this ship is sentient like Aurora. Rounded up. So we’ll probably just strip it down for parts and take anything of minimal worth or use, at least until we collect Ashes from wherever they’ve landed themself.” Ivy shot three people through the head, before reloading her gun. “Or whenever we can next pick up Nastya.”
“Hm.” Lyf looked around again, lost in thought. “Does Brian have a cane with a sword in it yet?”
“Yes,” Ivy replied. “What makes you think of that?”
“The ceiling tiles have an intricate pattern etched into it. I thought it might make a pretty sword or dagger, and I’d been meaning to get him a pretty cane– like that one Toy made him out of an ancient tree branch… We’re really not beating the weird ‘god-like’ allegations, are we?”
“You and Marius are an exception due to– well, obvious reasons. You two have…”
“You can say it, weird fucked up curses.” Lyfrassir fired off a round into another approaching gun-wielding crew member.
“Yes, well… Because of that, you two have never beat the allegations. The rest of us however, well… We’ve all played god once or twice.”
“Like that time Ashes played god so hard you got an entire album out of it.” Lyfrassir carefully stepped over the corpses littering the hallways. “This is off topic, but don’t you think this is an abnormally large crew for this small ship?”
“You’ve gotten used to Aurora, calling this a large crew and a small ship. This is a science research vessel, so they do indeed need a decent amount of people to keep everything up and running smoothly.”
“Ah.”
“Though, admittedly, I am surprised that there are still so many people coming after us that Jonny hasn’t killed yet. I wonder what he’s up to.”
Just then, something caused the ship to rock and shake violently, shuttering as if it was hit by an explosion. “We should hurry,” Lyfrassir said, “before he destroys the things we do need.”
“Yes, yes we should.”
—--
Eventually, the entire crew was dead–one survivor did manage to escape out an escape pod, but Jonny decided to let them live, something about reminding people to fear the Mechanisms–and they had acquired the instruments and scrap metal from the ship that they needed.
“Fifty-two dead, those are chump numbers!” Jonny said grumpily, but his tail was wagging excitedly.
“I’m never going to get the blood and viscera out of my hair,” Lyf grumbled. “I feel sticky and gross.”
“If we freeze-dry the corpses, we might be able to save them for the members of our Crew that enjoy cannibalism as a pass time,” Ivy said.
“Good idea!” Jonny nodded. “Too bad we burned a lotta them.”
"You burned a lot of them."
“At least we got what we needed,” Lyf sighed. “I’m going to go take a shower. Attempt to get this blood out.”
All in all, a successful day of space piracy.