In the outer reaches, a planet existed where the Criminals of Society and the Criminals of Society were unceremoniously exiled alongside several hundreds of tons of garbage every single day as if it were clockwork.
Planetary Dumper units the size of mountains penetrated the thick haze forming the atmosphere, their large steel rib cages opening up to dump out all that they had devoured.
Garbage flowed ceaselessly from the sky as small dropships positively miniscule in comparison to the Behemoth class Dumpers accompanied them, the people within no doubt cursing the Star Nobles that condemned to this place as they took in several breaths of the poisoned air.
Discarded steel and upturned plastic structures littered the landscape, crushed by the fall and warped into unidentifiable shapes from the impact as a short man carefully walked around in this dilapidated landscape.
That man was Ester, and as it turned out, this chemical laden landscape constantly reacting with its surroundings was harsh on the filtration system providing him fresh air.
So as to not burden the coughing Respirator any longer, Ester had taken to the ground, locking the hoverboard to his bag as the Frame buzzed with the dying breaths of the Respirator.
He looked skywards.
Blackish green clouds swirled above head, the signs of rain showing themselves through action rather than sound.
The alkaline suffused clouds crackled with poisoned purple lightning as the creatures floating within briefly appeared with each flash of lightning, the bloated black forms looming ominously as they wriggled disgustingly, their shapes seemingly pressing on the clouds and eliciting the rain as a result.
Eyeing the ominous weather slowly passing him by several kilometers away, Ester's eyes were soon dragged to the city in the rain's direct path, the city of steel slowly forming a large dome that encompassed all but its farthest reaches.
Built out of whatever they could get their hands on, corrugated metal sheets lined it's walls as permanent Bulb fixtures lit up their grimy surroundings.
It seemed small from afar, but everyone knew that the real thing was underground.
No sane man or woman or plant or alien would willingly build upwards when a random trash rain could squash it all flat or a gang of Grungers decided that their homes could serve as a nice shell for itself.
Underground had its own sets of dangerous such as acid leeches and acid leaks, but in addition to being safer than above, the Trash Rain had a nasty tendency of burying anything valuable underneath thousands of tons of scrap metal.
'Which reminds me.'
Looking around the top of the scrap plastic mountain, Ester forcefully hoisted his heavy bag over his back and onto the ground, the numerous scavenged items clattering loudly against the starkly silent surroundings interrupted only by the heavy rattle of the Dumpers dropping trash onto the landscape.
'Where the hell is she?'
Glancing back at the town that appeared to have been disturbed with dozens of people squirming round like a bunch of Ants, Ester glanced at the tumultuous sky slowly approaching before he felt a disturbance below him
'Never mind.'
Grinning slightly underneath his mask as the top of a drill bit revealed itself from the ground, the large machine crawled out of the ground like the Undead being puppeteered by their final memories.
Picking up the bag and knocking on the door with several knocks spaced out with three short pauses, one long pause and two short pauses, a feminine voice crackled out.
[P-Pass word-d-d?]
"I am Ester, 2702 the three eyed, one armed and two legged."
[Pass-sss w-word co-confirmed, w-w-welcome ho-home E-Esterrrrrrrrr]
Moving aside the fact that he would probably have to replace that broken speaker with the one he scavenged from the drop pod, Ester moved through the door that had opened up on the side of the machine and entered.
With a brief flash cleaning in the air lock, Ester felt his shoulders slump with relief as he took in his surroundings.
'Home is still...'
Eyes peeking through cracked lenses as he stared at the numerous bits and bobs that he had scavenged over the years piled up in their own little areas, he noticed that a bunch of the cans he had given her had been jury rigged into a water filtration system.
'Functional.'
Dumping the metal laden bag to the side where it locked in place thanks to a couple hundred fridge magnets he sourced from one fridge. (The maniacs) Ester moved to take off his respirator.
Then he remembered the Filter was just about broken, and that was a conversation he was dreading to have since they were a pain to make.
Deliberating if he should take off the Respirator and replace the filter before she could notice, his ears twitched at a conspicuous bang followed by crackled cursing.
And now that he thought about it. Why wasn't the drill moving?
'Ah'
Ester snapped his fingers with realization as a giant upside down mask popped down from the ceiling Hissing like crazy.
'That's why'
[h-hissssssss Crackle]
Ester mustered the most deadpan stare as the loud sound of a broken speaker blasted in his face.
Then they fell.
It was a blur, one moment they were hanging off of the ceiling like the demon they were then the next she was hanging off of his neck like a Koala that learnt to climb backwards.
Large mask falling in the process as they hung from Ester's neck, a pale skinned beauty with stormy grey eyes stared right at him with hissy crackly intent.
He unceremoniously shoved the mouthless woman off of his body.
Tumbling onto the ground with the grace of a beached Bellowbog, a grunted cry of pain came from her mouth as a pair of stormy grey eyes glared at him.
"Your fault for trying to surprise me."
[Crackle- HisssssS *PoP]
Context clues told him all he needed to know about her mood as he raised his fleshy arm and pulled out the middle finger.
The masked demon without any legs in turn raised both of her middle fingers, flinching as a blotch of red bled out of their white tank top.
Ester rolled his eyes and walked towards her, removing the Respirator mask and breathing in the clean air.
"You really can't do anything without me huh?"
He received a balled up shirt to the back of his head for that snarky comment when he went through what little medical supplies they had.
"You good with some grubby bandages for your boo boo?"
*Thwump
Receiving another shirt to the back of his head Ester nodded sagely.
"Of course you deserve nothing more than the worst of the worst."
Turning around with the last of their disinfectant 'We really need to make some more.' And some of their good bandages, he raised an eyebrow as she had since crawled over to his little zone, holding up an Aether welder.
Staring at her, she gestured up at her throat which continued to hiss and spark ceaselessly.
It seemed that she wanted him to fix up her throat, and he only had on answer to that implied statement.
"...No?"
'Ow'
Picking the piece of plastic toy car tangled up in his hair, Ester rolled his eyes and lifted up his cracked yellow goggles so that he could better stare deadpan at her.
She met his gaze with a playful grey gaze of her own.
With pale crimson hair running down the sides of her hair in thin streams, her stormy grey eyes stared into his own as her head bobbed with amusement.
In stark contrast to the pale as paste complexion, a black piece of metal and plastic had found its way around and into her throat and mouth, replacing the voice that had been torn out by...
Nowadays she got her food in paste form administered through a specialized tube on her neck.
Ester blinked and took the Aetherwelder from her and placed it on the table right before picking up the adult baby from the ground, the stubs from where there should've been legs moving happily.
"Architects you are heavy" Ester grunted, placing the woman who would've been a lot taller than his growth stunted self if not for the lack of legs.
"Ow."
Shrugging off the series of playful hits which kept on coming, Ester glanced at his would be sister. "So... What do you want first Eva? Fix your gut or your mouth? I vote gut."
[Click* POP CRackle HIsssssss]
"Yeah? Well I'm doing the exact opposite."
Hitting his back with mock anger, Ester rolled his eyes sarcastically while removing her shirt to expose the wound caused by what looked like a rogue nail.
"So. What were you doing up in the maintenance vents anyway? Pretty sure that you can't drive in the Maintenance vents."
He said whilst picking up the last of their disinfectant and pouring a healthy amount of it over the wound, soaking the pair of shorts through with disinfectant.
Ester glanced up at Eva as she drew shapes over his back "...Since when were you smart enough to rig the machine to do that? Ow."
Ignoring the small pinch and instead wisely deciding to finish tending to the wound, he grabbed the bandage and gestured. "Raise your arms."
Eva covered her chest exaggeratedly while batting her eyelashes.
"Shut up and raise your hands pervert." Ester said with a roll in his eyes, his hands tightening the bandage extra tight around her abdomen. For good measure.
"Ow." Rubbing his shoulder where a small red welt was slowly forming, he gestured at the bench full of tools. "Unless you want to deal with fixing your voice by yourself, I suggest you stop."
Pinch
Ester pinched back
---
"A surprise?"
Picking up one of many tools magnetically locked in place with some of the Fridge magnets he had gotten from the same Fridge he glanced at his sister while looking for the screwdriver.
"So what's the surprise Eva?"
Ester found his screwdriver stuck under one of his pet projects and pried it out, sticking the flat head against the screw holding the mouth plate in place.
"You're not gonna tell?" Ester pried off the plating and found that the lighting was to little for his liking. "Stay like that will you?"
[Crackle]
"Ow?"
Shaking off the slight numbness in his hands from a rogue spark, he stuffed a flashlight in between his teeth and poked at the wiring.
+++
From this point on I'm putting the translated text in (Brackets)
+++
"Hy Harng? groken, shtarted guzzing ouh" (My arm? Broken, started buzzing out)
Removing more and more of the protective shell to see more and more of Eva's mouth, he noticed a metal bit hanging quite literally by the wire.
"Ghe Ruhne dranshlahor cahe oose" (The Rune translator came loose)
Ester kept the flashlight in his teeth as he grabbed the Aether Welder from where he had last placed it, connecting it to Crystal wiring as he did so.
"Shtay shtill for a shecond. Itsh gonna ve hoh" (Stay still for a second, its gonna be hot.)
Light flashed as the Glyphs related to merging appeared on the crystalline tip, a small bit of tweezers holding the loose connections in place.
"Sho. Whash hahhen wheh I wash goh? Ow" (So. What happened when I was gone? Ow)
"Shcraplin? How bah ish it?" (Scrapling? How bad is it?)
"Thah bah? Nhot nehw newsh ish it?" (That bad? not new news is it?)
"Hrn? Itsh achually nehw?" (Hm? Its actually new?)
"Roshling?" (Rotling?)
"Sho thehy hurking thogether?" (So they working together?)
"Nhot a ghood shign if ya had tu hihde." (Not a good sign if you had to hide)
"And done." He spat, the flashlight being wiped of all saliva. "Just have to close it up later so that you don't break it or something"
[bzz-eady? Ah]
"So how is it to begin speaking again?"
[G-great]
She clapped her hands happily before suddenly leaping off of the chair with deceptive speed, wrapping both of her arms around Ester who instinctively balanced himself with the new weight added to his back.
[Now we ride my trusty steed!]
"What the void is even a steed?" Ester asked, trying to get Eva off of his back without hurting her that much.
[Dunno, but I-I saw it on the side of that soda can you got me last time, i-it had something to do with people-ple betting on something called Umamusume, some sort of Human Splice race with mammal traits]
"Really?" Giving up on trying to remove the female demon with a much higher arm strength then him, Ester moved to the front of the Drill where a bunch of screens worked with dubious efficiency.
Then he unlocked his arm causing Eva to yelp with surprise as she fell against the chair.
"How about you drive our car then?"
[This-this is bullying the injured]
"Isn't it the word disabled? And it isn't bullying if the victim enjoys it."
[L-Lies!]
"Just start the driller while I fix my arm Eva."
[It broke again?]
"You know it."
He turned to look at his workplace now covered in a bloodied tank top, bandages, medicine and his Welder and Scribe before snapping his fingers and grinning at his sister in all but blood.
"Oh yeah, besides my handsome returning unscathed, I have some good news for you to hear."
He turned towards Eva who had settled herself comfortably on the chair with the aid of numerous clothes, responding to her outstretched middle fingers with a grin.
"Wouldn't you want to sleep under the stars?"
+++
Tree that desires to be buried over a pile of Powerstones
Tree that also desires to keep their crown on their shoulders