Build 'Em Up With Worn Out Tools

Cambrio Montegue had lost track of how long he'd been been standing in the storehouse. It felt like it might have been a while, judging by the heavy coldness in his legs when he shifted them, turning to glance out the lone window. He squinted at the horizon. It was hard to tell whether the suns were rising or setting.

His eyes scanned the open expanse of desert warily. Malastare'd never really been his favorite planet. There was too much instability; the shifting landscapes always left him puzzled and on edge.It was unsettling.

The sand seemed to go on forever. He knew it didn't, of course. It ended somewhere, became a city or something. It couldn't just be sand blowing and swirling forever and forever.

But there was a lot of it. Which wasn't a particularly comforting fact, when he was going to be out in the middle of it in a matter of a few hours.

"So, where was it last seen?" Cambrio asked suddenly. He turned from the window and looked back at the farmer. Jaro-something, a Gran who'd been working the land for a couple decades.

The alien made a noise like a sigh. His three eyes wavered back and forth in their sockets, wary and suspicious. "Out past the south border. Maybe twenty miles or so. Issra Nobukker spotted it a few days ago."

Cambrio nodded. His mind was working overtime, frantically making calculations and connections. It'd take him twenty minutes to unpack his gear. Ten to check his blasters. Five to review his research - which didn't amount to much, not on a case like this where it was mostly lore with a little sprinkle of truth mixed in. A little under an hour to get to the south boundaries of Jaro's land. God-only-knew how long before he actually found the thing. If he found it.

Force. How the frell'd he wound up here again?

Behind him, Jaro cleared his throat.

"Son," the Gran sounded worried. "Are you sure you know what you're doing? This thing... well, this thing ain't like bopping off a few womprats, if you know what I mean."

"I know." Cambrio turned and hefted his blaster rifle off his shoulder. His hands moved over it in a stilted forgotten way, slowly easing back into long-discarded habit. "Don't worry. I've done this sort of thing before."

Jaro made a face that Cambrio could only guess was the Gran equivalent of raising his eyebrows.

"It's uh, sort of a family tradition." Cambrio offered a stiff smile. Jaro continued to stare.

Talk about awkward. Clearing his throat, the tall man moved over to his canvas bag and began to pull out a variety of weapons. He wasn't exactly sure what he'd need.

This was the stupidest thing he'd ever done, and that was saying something.

Forty minutes later he was loading up a patched-together landspeeder that he'd rented from the next farm over. He offered a confident wave to Jaro and then hopped in and tore away with a lead foot and a whine of the engine. If he didn't start off fast, odds were he'd end up bailing with his tail between his legs. He only slowed down once he hit the fenceline, pausing to get his bearings.

"Frell." Cambrio swallowed thickly, nervous. He kept the speeder pointed roughly south, which went against his natural inclination to avoid life-threatening situations at all cost. "Frell."

His hands tightened around the controls. With a grimace, he opened her up and let the dunes have it outside the border.

"A worm, you say?" Vitt nodded, stroking his bare chin, cleanly shaven that morning. Then a look of fascination. "Big worm?"

Big. Good, he liked big.

"Distrupting crops...uh-huh, uh-huh. Ok. Ooh, ouch." A tsk-tsk. "Hope he's ah... alright, then."

***

Days later...


He'd left the speeder, parked where he could find it later, and trudged the rest of the way on foot. The informant had been a good feed for what he was looking for - big, incredibly dangerous and life threatening, challenging. It didn't hurt that there were people, er... persons... er, anyway... that would be saved from certain discomfort and/or death as a result. Information stated that the creature, his quarry, had been loitering about the farming communities lately, but its home was somewhere in the forest. Force only knows why it was straying outside its territory, but there it was (according to the tales both tall and short he'd ingested), straying.

The excitement of each hunt made him jitter like a kid hopped up on sweets. The thought of it, just on the way to Malastare had given him an itchy trigger finger. He was itching to subdue - no, be honest! - kill the massive slithering thing and claim the payout from the cowardly informant, whose 'partner' the worm had grievously injured. Vittore Montegue was thrilled, alright. But a small part of him was nervous. Nervous without backup. Sure, he was more than capable of pulling jobs off on his own (much stroking of the ego that did!), but it just hadn't been the same since Dad, and then Cam, had both left him behind to do it all on his own. There was something about having others around and then suddenly not that made a man feel a little betrayed - not that he would mention it. No sir, Vitt was the tough guy. He could just shrug it off. Right?

Vitt shook his head at the erroneous thoughts. He had to be concentrating on the job, watching, listening, stepping carefully, feeling the ground for the slightest tremor. This worm could just pop up out of nowhere and -bam!- off with your head, and the rest of you, too. As he advanced carefully through the forest, armed to the teeth - a couple blaster rifles, vibroblades, blaster pistols, and who knows what else - Vittore Montegue spotted an end to the thick of vegetation about fifty meters off - Sand. In the middle of the forest. Still, it was quiet. Disturbingly quiet.

Ten feet to go, and the rumbling began.

Oh frell. Here we go.

Malastarian Death Worms went weak at the knees for the charred, mutilated flesh of newborn irvays. It was pretty much the most disgusting thing ever, and that included the time his older brother had caught crotch crickets from a Twi'lek prostitute on Antar IV and insisted on narrating their life-cycle to him in explicit detail. Often. And with illustrations.

Cambrio choked back a gag as he fished out the last of the blackened flesh and tossed it into the middle of the circle he'd formed. He took a flask from his canvas pack and uncapped it. Immediately an overwhelmingly pungeant scent wafted up. It was sweetly sour, a little metallic; Cambrio did retch, then, twisting his head away with the back of a hand pressed against his mouth.

Not for the first time, he marvelled at how seriously screwed up his life was. He should have been flatfooting through the tourist markets buying cheap trinkets and overpriced food like any other twenty-something off-worlder. Instead, he was sprinkling aged blood around dessecrated livestock in the hopes of luring a carniverous mythological beast out of the sand.

It was a miracle he hadn't grown up to be a serial killer. For real.

He finished dousing the ground with blood and then wrapped the flask in plastic before shoving it back into his bag; he'd have to remember to throw it out because there was no way he was ever drinking out of that thing again. Cambrio checked his blaster. He made sure there was a knife strapped to his thigh.

Man, what was he doing? This was crazy. It was worse than crazy. This was what happened when crazy walked into a bar, got ripping drunk and had a quickie in the 'fresher with suicide. This was their inebriated, one-night-stand, biggest-mistake-of-my-life baby.

We do what we do and we shut up about it.

Yes, sir. Cambrio shook his head, double-checked his weapons, and ducked into the growth around the circle of desert. His hands trembled. Thirty minutes later his entire body started to quake, and it wasn't entirely his doing. Cambrio closed his eyes.

It was on.

What was that smell? It was something undeniably dead, and gruesomely disgusting to the point where it made his nose wrinkle and his mouth curl in displeasure. The smell of charred flesh and not-so-fresh blood was noticeable in the stench he noted, trying not to be distracted by its presence and focus on the rumbling and now imminent appearance of the worm. Covering his nose for a minute, breathing in and out, then lowering his hand, Vittore checked over his armaments one last time as the rumbling and quaking began to make the ground far too unsteady to easily remain in one spot. And that stench was still annoying, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized that the ground action didn't really ramp up until that smell raised its ugly head and screamed: 'Come and get me, natch!'

Also, smells like that didn't just come outta nowhere. From his crouched position, Vitt rose to peer about the bushes edging the start to the sands, then started to poke about through the brush, perilously stepping across the unstable ground, through and around the vegetation that was now quivering like a herd of small animals were all mating at once within. Now, normally such an immature thought would bring him great amusement, but given the situation at hand and the strengthening stench as he (assumedly) got closer, it was best to keep his mouth shut and just breathe.

It was then that he almost bowled right over, being tripped by a root - instead bumbling a couple feet and coming to rest (managing to remain on his feet) over another guy.

Wait... another guy?

"That shit stinks, fuckhead. Why don't you take your rituals elsewhere?" He nudged the other man's side forcefully with his boot, followed immediately thereafter by a mother of a spike in the quake knocking him flat on his ass, and curses stringing out of Cambrio's mouth.

He'd been more than a little surprised when another figure had come crashing through the thick growth. This was supposed to be an exclusive job. Still, Cambrio's indignant contemplation on the matter was cut short as the tremors intensified. He was pitched forward and landed heavily on his belly. It was enough to cause his blaster to go flying out of hands, landing a few feet away in a clump of brush.

Gripping the soil with his fingertips, Cambrio made to get up - and promptly collapsed as a booted foot punted his ribcage. The man let out a bark and pressed a hand to his side as the ground buckled and rolled beneath him. Oh wasn't this delightful? Not only was some yahoo edging in on his job, they'd decided to assault him as well.

As soon as the quaking eased enough to allow him purchase, Cambrio pushed up to his knees. A dark glower crossed his face and he growled. With every intention of returning the favor to the inconsiderate gearhead, Cambrio turned with venom in his eyes.

"Hey, drenhead, what the f--" Cambrio stopped abruptly as the other man sat up.

No way. Of all the crazy sons-of-bitches it could have been...

Cambrio felt his mouth flap open and shut like a landed fish. His mind raced to find some sort of alternate explanation for the sight before him. Suddenly his heart was thumping again and it had nothing to do with the Death Worm. "...Vitt?!"

"Cam?!"

And he just stared and stared and stared for a full minute as the world rumbled and threatened to break apart around them. Blindly, as his attention was fixated on what shouldn't, couldn't, must not possibly be there and yet was, Vitt groped around for the rather threatening blaster rifle he'd had in hand just moments before. Then he realized he was sitting on it. The elder brother narrowed his eyes at the sight of the other man, scrutinizing him, slipping a hand around to a dagger strapped to his belt and leaving it there.

"How do I know you aren't a Clawdite or a... a Shi'ido?" He eyed Cambrio with a large weight of suspicion, just to complete the façade. This was completely unexpected and a large part of him was glad for it. Relieved even... but Mr. Tuff Guy wasn't going to show that in the face of imminent dismemberment or swallowing of his entire self. No siree. The other hand went to the butt of the blaster rifle on which he was nearly seated. His nose wrinkled again at the stench. The ground shook violently and it was then he realized that the ground just might open right up and tip him over like the little fuckin' teapot.

"Tell me something nobody else would know." Vitt demanded. "I gotta be sure."

"Fuck you." Cambrio stared at his older brother with wide-eyed disbelief. Ten years, ten years, and nothing had changed. The first thing his own sibling did was to demand proof that he was himself - as if the fact that Cambrio was willingly taunting a prehistoric annelid wasn't enough.

But he knew that Vitt wouldn't let him get up until he did. Montegue Rule Number Thirteen: when in doubt, shoot to wound. Cambrio really didn't want to finish this hunt bleeding from his right foot.

"When you were fifteen you stole a speeder from the annual Corellian Classics festival and got busted with a car full of prostitutes." That had been a rather spectacular showcasing of his brother's particular brand of idiocy. "Dad kicked your ass all the way to Dagon IV."

Cambrio levelled Vittore with a pinch-browed glare and twitched a hand towards his own blaster. "Prove you're you now, asshat."

Vitt's mouth twitched to a grin with the fond memory of that illegal ride... and promptly shut down again by the shaking of the ground shoving him back into present tense, but leaving him with one thing: the memory of having his ass pounded into oblivion by Hugo. Dad.

Shit, dad.

His chiseled features were accented by a profoundly deep frown for a moment, then the ground jolted again and persisted for a full minute and a half, give or take. He looked around at the foliage as it shook like it was shagging the dirt it grew out of, his hands now gripping the ground. He thought hard of what way he could prove that he was who he said he was. Or rather, who he looked like according to Cam, from Cam's point of view.

That yenaldlooshii skinwalkin' bitch that he... no. He'll force my face into reconstructive surgery if I even hint that I know about that. A broken nose isn't so bad. A whole face...

He passed his sharp gaze away from the bushes to his brother's face, and spoke with a snarl.

"I got caught on Corellia because you tattle-taled like a whiny little twat to Dad about being bored in the motel room by yourself and I kicked your ass all the way to Dagon IV and back, shit turkey. Gobble, gobble, gobble, assmunch."

The delicate charm of conversational Montegue was a linguist's wet dream. Every insult was a carefully-crafted code, containing multiple messages and enough reference offshoots into familial history to put the Encyclopaedia Galactica to shame.

Even as he sneered, Cam felt his throat tightening. He hadn't so much as breathed in Vitt's direction in a decade. His big brother, his hero, his worst enemy. There were creases around his eyes that hadn't been there the last time he'd seen him, and a sharpness to his features that highlighted the vast chasm between them.

Frell it's good to see you, Cam wanted to say. It's been too long, I'm sorry, man.

A vicious roll of the ground shook him to his senses.

"The fuck are you doing here?" Cambrio flipped to his knees and stood up, swaying like a drunk smuggler. He checked the safety on his blaster; it wouldn't do to accidentally shoot his brother -- or himself, for that matter. Boy, Vitt would never let him live that one down.

First time back on the job and you forget what you're supposed to be hunting, blueballs, Vitt'd say with that smarmy grin of his. Good thing you're a lousy fucking shot or I'd be dead. Then they'd argue over whose record of screw-ups was longer and more serious and it would all end in a drinking contest and hangovers.

Too late, Cambrio realized, he was already thinking in terms of 'us'. He growled, pushed against the idea. This was a one-time thing. He wasn't fucking back.

"Supposed to be a one-man job!" He had to yell to be heard over the groaning earth. "That one man being me!"

It was then that the ground growled something mighty fierce and the sands began to sink, bump, rise, fall and open up like they full-on intended to suck until there was nothing left to exist. Vittore pulled himself to his feet with much difficultly and gave Cam a look he hadn’t put on in what seemed like an age. The one that pretty much summed up to ‘Listen, you little fuck, and listen good, ‘else your pretty little face is going to be a black hole’. It was that look.

“In case you haven’t noticed, shitbag, I didn’t come here to argue semantics!” He growled near-angrily. Something drew his attention off his brother, his line of sight now aimed just around the other man’s right side. “I don’t fucking think the worm did either…”

The elder of the two moved his hard eyes back to Cam, flicking the safety off as if it were a subconscious thought and hauled it up to ready. His eyes flicked to the sands, gurgling like a live, very hungry thing, then back to the younger several times, those eyes steadily becoming something between uneasy, overexcited and… dangerous… with each trip. “I suggest movement unless you’re here to lay down and play lunch, Polly Pisspants.”

The fine sand was rapidly slipping from beneath his heels; Cambrio had to keep stepping forward, arms windmilling, to stop from tumbling down along with it. He had no intention of getting vacuumed into the Death Worm's jaws. Not when he had an argument with his stubborn ass of a brother to win.

"You're not going to get it aiming there, dren-for-brains!" Cambrio rolled his eyes and returned Vitt's big-brother glare with one of his own, managing to broadcast both his (obviously) superior intelligence and exasperated frustration. Leaning forward to shift his center of gravity, Cam stabbed a single finger back towards the swirling pit that was forming.

"It's not gonna come out there. Mandalorian Death Worms - or mortem lumbricus terrestris if you prefer - don't have setae, dickhead, they have bisected bodies; they use their lower half as a crude drill to propel themselves down into the ground, distracting their prey before they--"

There was a sudden explosion of sand between the brothers and Cambrio went sailing in the opposite direction, mid-sentence. With an ear-shattering screech, an impressively thick, blood red worm burst skyward, it's fang-tipped mouth snarling and snapping at the empty air. It lashed around for a few seconds before howling again and diving towards Vittore.