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    1. Cash78 7 yrs ago

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Sorry, I was away for work. I'll try and get a post up.
yes daddy
"Boys, boys." Phrike interjected rapidly, nervously pacing himself between the two opposing figures in tension. He was previously occupied with the impromptu lesson, having found himself enthralled and trying to commit to memory all that he could, useless even with all the arguing if he couldn't find himself able to point the right end, the right way, with the right amount of control. "You need to keep this argument out of here."

With one last glance back at the surrounding Arbites, he moved even closer to their bunks, looking them both in the eye. "Argue all you want. For His Throne or your own selfish needs, it doesn't matter," he began, shuffling his rifle over his shoulder and attempting to appear to preoccupied with the group to cast glances around the hangar, "You've all got these useless collars on - we've all got these on. Our intentions, our actions, the battlefield... it all means nothing if we die under the hands of the Arbites, our head thrown into a thousand different chunks across the walls."

He shrugged, tossing his rifle once more over his shoulder with the sling and resting his other hand on the hilt of his dagger.

"We'll all die, that is known. But I'd rather it be tomorrow or the day after, the more distance away from this planet and with the opportunity to defend myself, as opposed to dying on that rock or in here." He found his words whistling away on careless ears as the argument died down around him.

"I'm Phrike, by the way." He introduced himself, having to pull his sleeves up over his hands as they fell too long. "You might remember me from Redemption, been there my whole life... I was the cutman."
From the comfort of his fellow convicts prodding and harassing him over his rather upsetting first introduction to the Legion, Phrike tumbled to his feet as best as he could. The gravity of the situation and the danger of the great beyond paled in comparison to the very earthly condition he was in: nausea, inescapable nausea from his gut punch. He bundled his kit in one arm as he wiggled his lower-half into his dungarees, half-zipped for now until he could set his kit. Upper half exposed showing a lifeitme of shiv scars, deranged bite marks, burns from cattleprods touching exposed skin as well as all the pin-prick tattoos done painstakingly in the darkness.

Pain drifted and the gravity of the situation hit him once he fell into his cradle in the transporter. The safety cage rolled down over him, locking him in place for re-entry and it all hit him at once. For the first time in a long time, fear and paranoid was outweighed by something vastly more optimistic. He had never left his world before, never known anything other than the mindnumbingly featureless, windswept features of Redemption.

He may not have committed a crime to get there, but he finally felt out on parole. In a long time since, he smiled heartedly, even as the transporter screeched through the atmosphere and terrified most.

No matter what happened now, from dying on atmospheric entry to being shot up on some other world, they could never, ever suck the soul from his spirit on the planet of his birth. He would never die on Redemption, like his parents, his friends, the countless people who prayed to an uncaring God-Emperor in the cramped cells set up as makeshift hospitals. He would die a freeman, if not in law or name, than in his own heart.
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From the get-go, the territorial nature of the convicts set in. Once they took a locker and a bed, they set to making it their own and marking it off. Phrike, like most of them, worried about theft and intimidation, especially in this new environment that he hadn't spent his whole life figuring out and playing to his advantage.

Kit on his bunk, he finally zipped it over his razor thin frame, hiding his malnourished frame as he set to packing his bag and setting his equipment up. He had never seen a carbine before, at least not this close and not in the hands of an Arbites who had expertly planted a beam through the chest of an inmate. He tried every combination he could to get it to work: hovering the battery over the rifle, pushing it against it, rubbing it, putting it in upside down, embarassingly for a man who did combat medicine with little to no supplies and quite well, he finally got it after some time. It gave a resounding thwack and resonated with killing power.

His skill was with the blade and the mind, not the rifle.

Almost nervous, he set hooked it over his shoulder, afraid it'd be stolen as his flak was. Next was his helmet, too tight to fit onto his skull and with a strap that had once been chewed on by some sort of vermin, but it would do. He left everything with his bag in his locker, save for his Monoknife, which he hooked around his waist. You'd have to be warped in the skull to live among convicts of this caliber with no protection.

From his bunk across, he spotted Octavia and stood up.

"I didn't get my name called." He mused as he walked up, but more to no one in particular. Without waiting for a response, he looked at the Madman next to her. In the darkness of the ship, a situation he was used to living in the fettid tunnels of Redemption, he could just barely see the crooked expression on the man's face as his eyes re-adjusted. "You have to be more quiet. They'll push your button and then that's it."

Sorry, work took me away into the bush for a bit. I'll try and post sometime today or tomorrow.
In a mock defensive gesture, Phrike raised his offending hand and attempted to furitively huff down the Lho-stick, taking no time to savour it once he read the mood of the room. Everything became palpable, the hushed murmurs began to reach a crescendo with the barks of Arbites and complaints of conscripts and the Eastern Wing became stifflingly claustrophobic as bodies filled any vacant space.

As the flow and rhythmn of the room changed, Phrike went with it, pushed up against his annoyed acquaitance and walls of prisoners around him. Stripped down to his birthday suit, it was easy to see just the extent life on Redemption had on him. Scars, self-inflicted and otherwise, and the faded tattoos done in the darkness. Shivering came instantly, overpowering the vulnerability of his position, as the ice cold water fell over him, the water at his feet murky and black.

Table-to-table, item after item, Phrike was overwhelmed. Although lines were "orderly", the extent of that word only meant that if shoving and violence became too much one would find the butt of a rifle smashed across the backbone of the skull. In fact, with all his items stacked in hand, he felt his flak-vest slip from his rough pile bundled up in his arms.

"Oi, give tha-" He began, only to be cut off as the culprit took a swing far too hard from an electroprod by an Arbite. His head caved in ever so slightly, a resounding crack of bone that wouldn't be hard to remember and fell to the ground. The line kept moving as he spasmed in death throes and his body was looted for equipment.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

You'd think that in his lifetime of Redemption, a punishment needlessly cruel for a individual of no sin, he'd be use to the instances of violence and chaos around him. Behind his thin facade, he was terrified and he was faltering in his attempt to keep it up to save his integrity. By the time he was issued his canteen, he was hyperventilating, shaking more from his own fright than the arctic water that had barely scraped the top layer of grime encrusted onto his skin.

And then the man only a few heads away tried his luck. The resulting gore and symbol for what happened to those who resisted rained down on him, organic shrapnel as a chunk of flesh and globules of blood hit Phrike and stained his skin. It was too much. Shuffling on bow legged feet, Phrike curled over and fell to his knees, vomiting. All that came out was clear bile and hard, grey chunks - leftovers from their meal earlier.

Under the prod of callous guards and the stomping feet, Phrike was dragged to his feet and, looking at the ground nauseous, stood in the confines of the bay. No name was called for him, or at least he couldn't tell. When his collar was wrapped around his neck, he attempted to struggle and had been winded through a blow to the stomach that pushed more and more contents from his stomach, leaving him numb to the rest of the world as he resided in his own cave of pain for the duration.

If only just to give himself a break, he stood on the landing pad in front of the Arbites in white, hunched over naked, his rifle and helmet making a loud clatter as he fell into a deep squat, attempting to nurse his stomach.

So far, the Legion wasn't so bad.

@Cash78, you still with us?

I've got a post incoming, just checking as I seem to have missed your name out of the earlier post.


Yeah, I'm still here haha sorry, my job takes me away for days at a time to go do shit, but I'm trying to keep up.
With a half-cocked smile that didn't quite reach his sunken eyes and a quick, snatching grab that implied mistrust if one were to look deep enough for reasons in minor actions, Phrike placed the Lho-stick in the corner of his mouth, grasping at loose pockets for some sort of lighter or match.

"Nasty bit of scarring, that." He mentioned, albeit without looking up to meet her gaze. With a light in hand, he took a single drag and blew smoke from his nose, coming out in staggered breaths. No matter the fact he was born here, situations like this never changed for him; things were rowdy and tense, one errant convict or paranoid enforcer away from a stubber firing off into the crowd or suffocating gas to be piped into the room.

Under no consent from the woman, he ran his finger quickly along the length of one of the scars, Lho-stick now halved as he saved the closest section for later. "You do that yourself or your cellmate?"

Attempting to savour the luxury afforded to him, he scanned the room. You didn't survive long on Redemption without taking stock of your environment every five seconds or so, making sure to keep track of any quiet transactions, hidden blades or bubbling situations that would end up with you in an iso-cube or bleeding out on the ground before the Enforcers were able to control the situation.

Two men who stood out from the rest drew his eye. Characters of importance were rare on Redemption, as the old adage goes: "the nail that sticks out gets hammered." He made sure to keep his glances quick, as not to draw their ire before he drew his gaze back on the woman.
Time and time again, Phrike had seen himself passed over by indifferent hand through many of Redemption's "programs" - culls, purges, calls to arms and pleas of penance. Any chance to see himself cast from cold rockface, to see a true sky and know true freedom either through a chained existance in an Imperium deathsquad or the death that accompanies it, had been denied to him to the point that the introduction of the Captain paid him no mind.

If anything, it was a saving grace. The rush of correctional guards to Hall allowed Phrike to slip home remedies and contraband into the hands of his fellows before he was shoved into a seat under the threat of cattle prod.

Things were different this time, comically so. In one instance, as soon as the Captain had left, he had found himself corralled within a group of rampant inmates, rushing towards the Eastern Wing, swept up in their fervor for any inkling of redemption or freedom. In moments, he had gone from enjoying his Imperial gruel to lying face-down on the floor in the Eastern Wing, hands and arms protecting vital organs from stampeding feet and stun-prods.

Frenzied hands reached out, around the base of one of the benches, and he pulled himself from the fray as the excitement peetered out and the inmates were allotted to cells. Hand-over-hand and with a pained gasp, he found himself seated next to Octavia, panting as he nursed his sleeve to his lip, already swollen and bloody.

"Hey," he rasped between breaths, tapping his lips with two fingers towards Octavia, "Got a Lho-stick?"
@Jbcool Cheers, man. I'll try and get around to getting my character involved enough to move along plot real soon.
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