Know Thy Selfworth

Posted on Wed Oct 21st, 2020 @ 6:18am by Lieutenant Commander S'hib & Lieutenant Colonel Azhul Naxea

Mission: SEASON 4: Episode 1: Know Thy Self!
Location: Arena Station - Mirror Verse
Timeline: MD4 - Mid day
2426 words - 4.9 OF Standard Post Measure

The door creaked and groaned as it was forced apart, the metal grinding against itself echoing down the lengthy dilapidated corridor of the station, S'hib was tired, he hadn't stopped running until he reached the other side of the station, his legs shook as he pushed what strength he had into the left panel of the door, shunting it into its alcove.

"Almost there Naxea," He huffed through flared nostrils, turning quickly to look back at her slumped on the floor, mostly out of fear that she hadn't got up and run away, praying to the red sands that she wasn't still under that lizard's influence.

"I'll get you home," He sighed, frustration building up into a lump that refused to leave his throat. "I promise." He snorted as he pulled hard, sliding the last door panel as far as it would go.

"Ok, let's get you inside..." He said more to himself as he turned, trying to calm his nerves as he knelt down, letting out a tired whimper as he looked at her face, despite the missing feature what pained him the most was the bruising and swelling, the dried blood from where he had hurt her. "Ohh..." he sobbed inconsolably, trailing a discoloured finger gently over her face before sliding his hand under her head and gently picked her back up off the floor.

Another nervous glance down either end of the dark corridor reminded him why he was running, skeletal remains and wreckage from ages past lay forgotten along the deck, bulkheads blown had been sealed crudely, it was any wonder the station was still in one piece he thought as he hurried inside, squeezing through the small gap and into a rundown transporter room.

Despite its age, it had clearly been treated far kinder by the passage of time than the rest of the station, something he reckoned had to do with the doors being jammed shut.

But now inside he just stood there, holding the woman he loved with no idea of what to do next, he was no engineer, how was he going to jury rig an outdated transporter let alone trust himself enough to use it on her. "I should have gone to the shuttle bay, why did I come here..." He cursed, his voice strained and full of pain as he sat down on the edge of the pad, its flickering lights casting a shadow of him hunched over on the far wall.

His leg was bleeding he noticed, for how long he could not say, having sliced it open earlier on the debris that was strewn all over the place, or maybe it was from the net that he brought him down. "Miraj..." He said quietly, holding Naxea close as he cried, guilt ridden at leaving her to selfishly save Naxea.

Naxea moaned. She slowly opened her eyes and looked at the Sequus. She was both glad and enraged to see him as her two personalities conflicted with one another. Her hand snapped out, grabbing his esophagus, digging her nails into him. "Unhand me," she snarled. She suddenly let go as her old self retained control, shocked at herself for attacking him. "S'hib...I'm sorry..."

He let out a pained gasp, fear escaping with every rattled breath as he looked down. "You have nothing, to apologise for..." He said firmly, holding back how scared he was behind a thin veil of confidence, trying to stay calm for Naxea.

"Get me...to sickbay...before I...hurt anyone else," she struggled to maintain control but her body and head ached.

"I will do, I found a transport room... I just need to make sure everything works, ok?" S'hib said softly, not wanting to trigger any more personality shifts.

Naxea simply nodded and she closed her eyes. The lights were making her head hurt worse. "By the way...you're an asshole... for hitting me...nice job."

"I am very sorry about that, but you were trying to kill me." He smiled sheepishly, gently letting Naxea sit where he had as he got up.

Letting out a sigh, Naxea looked at S'hib. "I'll...try harder...next time," she chuckled, causing her to cough in response.

"I'm sure you will," He said back as he moved around to the con controls. "But for now... just rest, I'll have you back home soon." S'hib said through an uneasy smile.

"Thank you," she said, shifting her position to get more comfortable, grimacing at the pain it brought with it. "Be careful."

“If I was careful I'd never have asked you out, and I certainly wouldn't get myself into all this trouble...” S’hib sighed while smiling to himself. “You’re worth it though...” He added through a grunt as he pulled the panel off under the console.

This caused Naxea to painfully chuckle. "I'd better be...worth it. What...are you doing now?"

"I'm going to beam you over to the Elysium, Our Elysium anyway." He said as he peered around the console. "Just got to reroute some subsystems and make sure we have enough power." He smiled as he went about removing and replacing isolinear chips, shutting down all but one of the faintly glowing hexagonal transport pads.

"Try...not to blow up...the transporter," She managed to tease, grimacing through a painful spasm.

“No more talking,” He ordered, one of the rare occurrences he dared to be firm with Naxea. “You can tease me later, but for now just breathe and rest... your body is probably full of all manner of stimulants and chemicals.” He said as he shut the panel and stood up, looking over the flickering controls for a moment.

Naxea simply nodded, closing her eyes again. She was feeling more tired by the minute it seemed. "Just hurry," she said softly.

"Almost there..." He said in a hushed tone as he stepped away from the controls and moved down to Naxea, easing her over to the transport hex that was faintly lit. "I don't have enough signal strength to lock onto sickbay, but the medical transport bay is on the same deck and I found its transponder... you'll have to get to sickbay on your own from there," S'hib said as he clicked back, bounding onto the raised platform and the controls. "Ready?"

Naxea simply nodded her response.

"I'll see you soon... energising." He said with a heavy sigh of relief while sliding two hoofed digits over the controls, the transporter sounding like something out of a museum as Naxea dematerialized into the matter stream.

Relief washed over him as he stepped down off the control pedestal, his first hoof clunking down, too tired and exhausted to care as he looked over where she had just been.

"Where did you send her..." S'hibs mirror snorted as he gripped the jammed door panel and rammed it inside, refusing to squeeze through the gap as his other had.

"You..." S'hib remarked lowly, somewhat surprised that the Great lizard had sent his reflection to reclaim Naxea.

"I won't ask again," He huffed, as if this whole task was a trivial annoyance. "Where is she..." his phaser lance glowed angrily as he spoke, threatening to spit out death.

"Out of everyone in this universe of yours, you're the last person I'd tell." S'hib snorted, his snout pointed low as he glared at his dark reflection.

"I was hoping you'd say that..." He smiled, his upper lip twitching as he retracting the lance and placed it against the wall outside. "Because if you told me I'd have just shot you, and well... that would be rather boring." His neck clicked as he pushed inside, oversized and over stimulated muscles flexing as he approached his Prime counterpart, his vastly daintier frame less hardened by constant pain and violence.

"I'm good at disappointing myself I'm afraid..." S'hib replied as his tail lashed out behind him, preparing himself for a fight that could only end one of two ways.

"Don't compare yourself to me, I'm nothing like you." He spat, his hooves teetering anxiously on the floor.

"Yeah you're right," S'hib shrugged as he stepped side on, and raised his hooved fists. "You're a bit of prick..." He snorted with a smile, hoping to antagonise his other into attacking first.

the taunt, predictably worked like a charm, enraging the ill-tempered Sequus into a furious lunge, teeth bared as he brought his right fist around in a savage swing.

His oversized fist was batted aside, twisting his swing further left and exposing him to a quick left hook that seemed to do little else but anger him further.

Oh crap, was all S'hib could think as he was bodied back into the far end of the room, blocking blow after furious blow as his back his the wall.

"Come on! don't tell me this is all you've got!" He spat, landing blow after blow into S'hibs arms as he cradled them over his face.

His overconfident grin was soon replaced by a painful sneer as S'hib threw his head forward, smashing into his mirrors muzzle and cracking the delicate bone. "Sorry to disappoint you again, but you aren't worth the effort." He snorted loudly as he deflected another angry swing, striking his mirror rapidly in the chest and neck before being grabbed and thrown down the length of the room, coming to a painful stop beside the open doorway.

"You think you're better than me don't you!" He cried out, a mixture of deep-seated pain and boiling rage. "You never had your planet glassed! or saw your people enslaved!" He screamed, throwing a hoof down onto the floor as S'hib scrambled out into the hallway, His psychotic mirror leaving a hefty dent in the deck plating as he raised his leg once more.

"You never watched a human gut your herd and eat your children!" He continued, stamping furiously as S'hib rolled out the way, launching a quick kick into the gut of his other and giving himself enough time to get back onto his hooves.

"No, but that's not why I'm better than you," He huffed, his breath steaming out of each nostril. "I'm better than you because you became exactly like them..."

No words left his lips, only an angered cry as he charged at S'hib, closing the small gap between them in a heartbeat as the two began exchanging blows, legs collided with one another with painful thunderclaps of bone and hoof before the two ended up locked against one another, face against face and hands gripped around the others.

What little remained of the carpet tore as the two Sequellians fought against one another, eyes unflinching from the others as their tails lashed out behind them.

To let go and fallback would be what most people would do, two immovable objects fighting to be an unstoppable force with no winner, but to do so for a male Sequus was a sign of submission to the other, something neither of them wanted to do.

"You know I don't think this counts," S'hib grinned as he buckled his joints and dropped low before springboarding on his powerful legs up into the gut of his mirror, throwing his massive bulk over his shoulder and onto the floor behind. "You are me after all..." S'hib gestured as he bounced up and down on his hooves, watching the anger on the scared reflection of his face building as the broken mirror got back to his hooves.

He said no words, but the fire in his wide eyes said enough, as did the conviction of his stride as he forced his way passed a punch and grabbed hold of S'hib and threw him into the wall to his right, then the left, knocking the wind out of the struggling Starfleet officer.

Fabric ripped as the two struggled against one another, exposing skin that quickly turned from the creamy white that covered their bodies to a deep crimson, hooved fingers scratching to keep grip as S'hib was once again bodies into another wall, cracking the ageing LCARs screen as he was headbutted.

Panic only started to set in once a pair of hands wrapped around his large neck, squeezing hard against his airways and threatening to cut off blood from flowing to his brain. Out of desperation, his left hand pushed into his mirrors face, pushing his face to the side while he curved his right into the lunatics' ribs, yet still, the colour from the world was starting to drain, even after he felt the second rib crack.

His lungs screamed for air but his bloodied nostrils found none as his legs gave, forcing him to floor with his twisted reflection ontop, his weight crushing any vestiges of air in his lungs as he pushed down, teeth bared as he enjoyed watching the life leave the eyes of his other.

With his strength rapidly leaving as his brain tettered on the edge of unconsciousness S'hib lashed out clumsily, grabbing his mane in one hand and gripping another around his mirrors face, using what little dexterity he had left to guide his large hoofed thumb into the eye socket of his counterpart.

Adrenaline had powered him through cracked ribs and worse, but his left eye being crushed far exceeded what stubborn pain threshold he had as he let out a blood curdling scream.

S'hib gasped hungrily, blinking the colour back into his world as his broken reflection wailed, genuine panic and fear gripped him as his brain tried to process the trauma and the inability to see out of his left eye.

"...Should have shot me." S'hib coughed as he curled a leg up to his chest, firing a hoof up and viciously hitting his mirror in the face, knocking him out cold.

A freezing chill washed over his body as he lay there, his lungs burning and his throat aching, reminding him he was painfully still alive. "Boring conversation anyway..." He groaned as he rolled onto his front, and crawled over to the broken mirror, the gaping wound that used to be his eye still bleeding profusely over the floor. "And I'm going to need this, thank you." He snorted, gripping the Terran comm badge from his tattered uniform.

"S'hib to Elysium," He groaned, standing uneasily to his hooves. "Beam me back, Now!" He snorted, trying his best to sound like his reflection as he walked slowly back over to the transport room, claiming the phaser lance for himself as he was transported to the ISS Elysium.