Chapter Text
It made no sound, the mind flayer, as it passed. This, the child hiding under the wooden cart decided, was so far the scariest thing about them, that they could float. Suddenly, it paused, hovering just a couple of inches off the ground, and the child clasped her hand over her mouth. Could it hear her breathing? Its large, slimy looking feet came to the ground and turned to face her. She held her breath now, and she would keep it held until her father came back, like he promised he would, even if it meant she would turn as purple as the monster searching for her. He had tasked her with 1. staying absolutely still and 2. staying absolutely silent, and 3. being brave…she might have failed the second objective, so she would make up for it with the third, she decided. How does one kill a mind flayer? Her father left her with a dagger, which her other hand gripped the hilt of more and more tightly, ready to pounce and attack if needed.
"What the fuck?"
Staggering to her feet amidst the shrapnel - glass? - of the alien capsule she had been confined in, Aelrue quickly reached to pick her sword off the floor, gripping the leather wrap of the hilt tightly and marching forth. She could hear some sort of commotion ahead and was intent on finding it before it found her, or, better yet, a way out of this mess.
Following the flow of air - why was it so hot? - a rent in the framework of whatever aberrant ship thing Aelrue was on offered a glimpse of the view whirling past: am I in the Hells? She thought to herself. Is this what the Hells look like?
Time being of the essence, Aelrue proceeded toward what she thought, hoped, was the right direction, though there seemed to be no such thing in whatever situation this was. From where she initially escaped and through a series of fleshy corridors with a smell that she could describe only simply and none other than ‘ fucking weird,’ she skidded to a halt when the following area - what looked to be a control centre of sorts - was overtaken by a loud display of arcane fisticuffs between a mind flayer, some kind of devil, and a pocketful of imps. Aelrue’s presence did not go unnoticed as the imps smelled her right away and alerted the bigger fighters to her presence.
A sudden, overwhelming buildup of pressure behind her eyes that seemed to bounce around through the entirety of her skull forced Aelrue to stagger backward, nearly dropping her sword.
“The transponder,” the voice was hers in her head but also halfway across the room and also everywhere at once, “now.”
Realising the voice was telepathically cast by the mind flayer and meant as an order for her, its supposed thrall after whatever experiments were done on her, Aelrue stood firm and glared back into the beast’s starless eyes, marking the territory of her own authority.
It might have come for her right then if the devil - a cambion? - hadn’t hurled his greatsword back in its direction. With the mind flayer distracted, Aelrue fought her way through the trio of imps and focused her attention now on the mind flayer, which was too busy with the devil (in fairness, the much bigger, more intimidating, and more imminent threat) that it couldn’t be bothered with the tingling, chilling, then numbing sensation beginning to seep into its core as she clenched her fist harder and harder to work the spell. Watching as its glistening, unblemished flesh began to rot from within, her concentration broke when her ears picked up a new presence: what appeared to be other escapees had found them and stood ready to fight.
In the split second that Aelrue lost focus, the devil paused to call for backup, and the newcomers braced their weapons, the mind flayer seized the opportunity to hurl some sort of spell that made her brain feel mushy and blasted her body hard against the wall.
Aelrue’s eyes lolled open and closed and open again a few times over before she began to peel herself up from off the ground, her freshly aching frame begging to be left for gravity to deal with. Her vision righted itself just as what looked like a warrior - was that a gith? - landed its sword through the skull of the mind flayer. The considerations of this hadn’t had time to catch up with Aelrue before she collected her own sword and again ran head first toward the cambion.
She would have gotten him, too, if the ship hadn’t suddenly and violently lurched to one side; another of the wayward fighters had made it to the control panel and done something to direct the ship. The last thing Aelrue remembered was falling.