FANFIC: "A Revised Ending"
by Sarah Pearson
(for lack of a better title!)SUMMARY: Just a revised ending. In this one Johns never got into that fateful fight with Riddick, Imam's last boy got hurt earlier, but all else is the same.
DISCLAIMER: Now of COURSE all rights belong to USA Films and their corporations. I just think they could have done a better job with the ending is all. :)
This fanfic can also be found by clicking here.
1
It was down to the very last couple hundred yards. Roars echoed off the canyon walls all around them, heightening the effect of their being surrounded.
Riddick crouched down at the foot of the canyons, waiting as the rest came in while scanning his surroundings. Jack, for her part, was shaking like a leaf but making a valiant effort to keep herself together. Fry was focussed on Riddick, trying to keep her mind off the monsters and keeping the light close. Imam came up behind Fry, dragging his load of the sled. His only remaining young protege huddled fearfully at his side, holding one of the makeshift alcohol lamps fearfully outward. And in the rear trudged Johns, stopping beside the holy man and dropping the reins to the sled.
"Why'd we stop?" he called up to Riddick. When he got no answer he yelled louder, "Why'd we fucking stop?!"
Smoothly Riddick rose from his crouch, not bothering to turn towards the group as he said, "There's only one way we can go. That way." To emphasize his point he pointed his hand straight ahead. "The canyon is about a hundred yards, then it's skiff city from there."
"Can we make it?" Fry asked, her voice carrying but not betraying any of her inner turmoil.
"We'll see," Riddick murmured, turning back to the group. Giving Johns a pointed glare, he added, "If we make a run for it, they won't have time to try for us."
"But who's going to take the power cells?" Johns taunted, lashing out in his fear. "The old man can't run with both the power cells and that damn fool kid of his clinging to him, and the girl ain't going to be much help. Neither's Fry here," he added maliciously.
"You high again Johns?" Fry asked, anger instead of fear making her voice shake. "Where'd you shoot up this time, have to use the arm? We never stopped long enough for you to take an eyeful, did we?"
"Why you little..." Johns, his face contorting angrily, reached around for his gun, but Riddick was already there. Nobody even saw him coming, but his hand was around the handle of the gun and his finger on the trigger before Johns' hand even reached it. Johns looked up at Riddick in stunned surprise, his face promising revenge until he heard the gun cock.
"I can blow a hole in your leg," Riddick rumbled, "and leave *you* as bait for these things. Maybe they'd focus on you and stay off our 'suns'."
Johns paled a bit, remembering their earlier conversation before the Muslim boy had interrupted by getting attacked. He'd almost gotten around to suggesting they use the girl, sure that Riddick would have agreed at the small sacrifice, but now he wasn't so sure. The convict didn't seem the least bit interested in helping the man determined to get him back to Slam.
It was Imam who stopped it, laying his hand on Riddick's. "Such actions are a waste," the holy man stated firmly, looking from each man's face to the other. When neither looked at him, focussed on each other, he stepped closer. "We must work together to get through this..."
"Get your hands off me, asshole," Johns shouted at Imam, shoving the older man away as he took a step backwards. "You would rather trust this murdering son of a..."
A short scream, abruptly cut off, came from behind them. Imam turned around soon enough to see his last young protege being dragged up, then over, the cliff wall by one of the monsters. His wail pierced the air as he raced to the cliff face, falling to his knees before it in a pleading gesture before falling with a sob face down on the ground.
The suddenness of the attack left the group momentarily stunned: all but Riddick, who leveled the blaster Johns had inadvertently given him at the bounty hunter's head. It took a minute for Johns' drugged brain to understand what was happening.
"You will do what I say now," he intoned, the words reminiscent of Johns' speech much earlier. Riddick's eyes were hidden by the goggles around his face, but Johns was sure they were glowing silver. "You lead, and if you so much as get five feet ahead of us I'll kill you myself. Keep the girl between you all, and I'll take the rear."
"Who's going to take the power cells then?" Fry spoke up then, moving from the side of a grieving Imam. "Whatever he is, Johns was right, Imam can't do this as well. And if Johns is in front..."
"I can take them." Riddick's eyes never left Johns', so he missed the uncertain look on Fry's face but fully saw the one on Johns's. Before the drug addict could speak, however, the blaster was shoved into his face. "Got that, bounty hunter."
The crazy look reminiscent of their previous encounter flashed across Johns' eyes as he grinned, his eyes a bit wide. "Sure, I get it," he stated, the eyes conveying his intense hatred.
Riddick lowered the gun and took a step back. Before Johns or any of the others could make a move he pitched back his arm and let the gun fly back into the darkness behind them. Johns let out a curse and started after it, only to be brought up short but the sudden scuffling sound in that direction they knew too well. Wherever it was, the gun was now in the possession of the beasts.
Leaving a slightly stunned group behind, he picked up the harness and secured it around his shoulders. "Move," he said softly.
"But don't you think..." Fry started.
"MOVE!" Riddick's command, shouted as loudly as the echoes in the canyon, jump started even the taciturn Johns. When Riddick ran down towards them, they themselves took off running straight into the heart of the canyon.
2
Somehow, they managed to get Imam to his feet and running before Riddick had passed them by. The man seemed lost, no expression on his face and his eyes empty, but at least he was running.
The first maybe five seconds were alright, until a very loud rustling sound started and thousands of the baby monsters whirled around the canyon's bend, bearing down on the small group. Those in front slowed, but at another roar from Riddick they ran at full speed again. The smaller creatures veered away from the bat, but there were so many of them the people had to sometimes dodge them. Fry kept her light up so they wouldn't get attacked from up top, and twice almost lost it when a boxed-in baby couldn't swerve and hit it. They burst almost immediately into flames, but flew past before they could be any danger to the group. It didn't even occur to her until later that Riddick would have made an excellent target for the flaming critter.
When they got around the canyon's bend to the ribcage bones, they immediately started pushing debris out of the way and scrambling through, waving their lights to ward off any ambushing predators. Fry helped pull the power cells over the bones along with Riddick before rushing back to the middle of the group to keep Jack and Imam company.
They could not, however, stop a more inexorable enemy: rain.
Jack was first to notice as her alcohol fire began to sputter. When she felt a drop on her head she almost sobbed, bring out her hand to make certain. As if by design a fat raindrop hit the middle of her hand, then the deluge began.
Fry didn't catch it soon enough, thinking in the very beginning it was more of the blue goo; by the time she realized what it was her light had already sputtered out. Cursing frantically, she dragged Jack against the cliff face and together the two tried valiantly to relight her wick.
Riddick made his way through the bones, breaking free just as it began to pour rain. Even Riddick stopped, surprised at the sudden change of plans. It was so absurd that he began to laugh, a sound that seemed more a bark than a laugh. "So where's your god now, holy man?" he called down to Imam, the smile slowly leaving his face.
Imam either didn't hear him or wasn't listening. He knelt down to a squatting position nearby Jack and Fry, his head bowed in prayer and the flashlight held high to still ward off any of the beasts.
"Well, well," Johns' voice echoed off the canyon walls, "if it isn't God having a pissing contest. Guess he won, wouldn't you say?"
Jack started crying then, and Fry, no less terrified, gathered her in her arms for comfort even as she tried to shield the last remnants of the bottle's fire. Beside them, Imam's voice rose in prayer, speaking a language neither Jack nor Fry could understand or had any inclination at the moment to try to.
3
It was almost too much when two very large aliens landed not eight feet from where Jack, Fry, and Imam stood.
If it hadn't been for Jack, Fry knew she would have given up by then and prayed for a quick death. But right now, someone needed her, someone she had almost resigned to an earlier death, and there would be no quitting. Even as Jack screamed, Fry took her by the hand and Imam by the back of his cloak and pulled them to a corner of the bones and cliff wall, holding out the holy man's flashlight to ward off the monsters.
"Bet you're wishing you hadn't thrown that gun away now," Johns laughed from somewhere behind the bones. "But no, look at you, running like a coward to the ship. What did I tell you, Fry," he shouted suddenly. "What did I tell you?"
Fry risked a glance at the hill just beyond the circle of bones and her heart sank. Riddick was not there, but tracks in the now mud, lit from beside by Johns' last remaining flare, stood out in plain contrast. Feelings of betrayal washed over her, that they had trusted this man when they'd been told not to. She had known Johns would never risk his neck for them, would probably have willingly sacrificed them as he was doing now, but she'd had hopes about Riddick. All in vain, all in vain...
A very human sounding roar came from her right, and in the fading light she saw a black figure dart at the two monsters. She hit one with her flashlight just as something else hit it, and the sound of a sudden battle ensued. "Go!" Riddick's voice roared once, and Fry didn't argue just shoved her two wards towards the bones, waving the flashlight around as best she could to keep away the predators.
"Go!" she heard the shout once more, then the sounds behind her slowly stopped. Despair paralyzed her throat as she realized Riddick had died saving them, but she didn't look back just kept pushing her two remaining passengers through the ribcage until they were through.
Refusing to think, she started up the hill with the two at her side. Her heart almost stopped when a smaller adult beast landed in front of her, but she shone her light and ran at it, and it hopped away almost as soon as it landed. Panting, she slipped and slid up the slope, shouting to the two beside her to keep moving, and at times cursing as loudly as possible when she or either of them slipped.
Somehow they managed to get up the slope without any of them sliding back down into the waiting jaws of the creatures, and as they crested the hill Fry saw something that almost made her fall down crying.
There, neatly laying right over the crest of the last leg of the journey, were the power cells Riddick had been holding. He'd been able to make his way to the ship and take off, leaving them on the planet and probably dead by the time he cleared the atmosphere. Instead, he had opted to save their hides at the expense of his own, something Fry herself probably wouldn't have done. At least, she wouldn't have done it three days before; she wasn't so sure now what she'd do, and it wasn't false bravado thinking that thought.
"Jack, take this," she managed to get out, holding out a set of reins and shivering slightly in the rain. As hot as the planet had been with three suns, it was just as cold without them and the rain wasn't helping any bit. She handed another set to Imam, who took them gently. She gazed at the holy man, and was both pleased and saddened by what she saw. His face looked much stronger than it had moments before at the lost of his last child, but the serenity and gentleness on it was gone, washed away by grief. He looked like a man who had lost all faith, which just might have been the case.
Fry took a deep breath and closed her eyes against turning around one last time. She wasn't sure she could take it, at this moment in time, to see Riddick being torn to shreds by the monsters. Instead she stared straight ahead and in an even voice stated, "Move."
4
They almost made it back to ship, were just barely there, before they were again attacked. But this time, the predator was all too human.
Hauling the power cells with all her strength, Fry had no time to react when she was tackled suddenly by a blue-eyed devil named Johns. She went down heavily, nearly knocking the wind out of her as her head connected with a thick metal barrel. Dazed, she stared up at the smiling face of Johns, her mind too numb to even register surprise.
Jack hurled herself onto the bounty hunter, but with hardly a thought the man flipped her over his shoulder and threw her away from him out into the darkness. Fry heard a crash and the sound of things falling, but thankfully no sonar noises.
"Thought you would leave me, didn't you Carolyn?" he whispered next to her ear. His arm whipped around suddenly and a knife was pressing to his throat as he looked over her head and stated, "Don't even try it, old man."
Fry heard the sound of something heavy hitting the muddy ground, and Imam's voice drifted to her. "This is not the way to end this, Mr. Johns..."
"Shut up, dammit, SHUT UP! You and all your know-it-all hoodoo ways, with all your peace talk. You know NOTHING about how life works in the real world. You walk around with your head in the clouds, preaching peace and love and shit, but who just picked up the metal bar to attack me? Who could that be, Mr. Holy Man?
"And you Carolyn." Not removing the blade from her throat, he reached over and caressed her cheek. "We could have been so good together, you know that? But no, you let some murdering convict like that man get through to you instead. The blood of innocents is on his head, yet you still believed him. Why is that Carolyn, WHY?"
She spit in his face, clearly surprising him. "Because he had more honor behind his eyes than you or your kind will ever have. At least he's not a coward, to save his own hide at the expense of others..."
His eyes widened in anger, and Fry realized too late that he still had the knife pressed to her throat. Instead of struggling, though, she stared at him defiantly, determined not to go out of this world a coward. But she couldn't help thinking, So close, so close...
"Mr. Johns," Imam's voice punctuated the moment, "perhaps you would like to know something before you do this."
"Didn't I tell you to sh..." Johns looked up angrily, then his jaw dropped. "Damn," he breathed, "how did you get away?"
Fry tensed in shock, and twisted her body around to see back behind her even though the move made the knife slide a bit across her neck. There stood Riddick, larger than life, with an unconscious Jack in his arms. "Riddick," she breathed, her emotions a turmoil.
Johns grinned suddenly, echoing Fry. "Riddick," he breathed, his voice pitched low and maniacal.
Riddick didn't take his eyes off of them, but held the girl out to Imam. The Muslim came and took the girl gingerly, stepping back far enough to be out of the way but not out of the light.
"I'm afraid I don't die easily Johns." Riddick's deep voice pierced the darkness like so many razor blades. "You should know that."
5
Johns darted his gaze from Riddick to Fry, then back to Riddick. "You can't do anything to me," he taunted. "I've got your girl here, and unless you do as I say things won't get pretty."
"I won't have to do anything," Riddick rumbled out, shifting his gaze past Johns before looking back at the bounty hunter. "But I'm sure he'll find you a good meal."
Johns' eyes widened and he looked behind him. Immediately realizing he'd just fallen for the oldest trick in the book, he decided to cut his losses and prepared to cut Fry's throat. A booted foot came out of nowhere, however, and caught him right on the forearm, shattering the bone there and throwing the arm upwards. The knife was lost when Johns' hand convulsed, and it pitched somewhere into the darkness. The sudden sound of alien sonar echoed from behind the barrels, reminding them that they were no longer alone.
Fry, knowing when to take advantage of a situation, rolled out from under the agonizing bounty hunter and got unsteadily to her feet, moving towards Imam and Jack. Kneeling beside the young girl, she sadly took in the rag wrapped around the girl's head and the arm twisted at a bad angle. Hating Johns fiercely, she gathered the young girl into her arms, wincing as an agonized groan issued from Jack's throat.
"Shouldn't have taken the chains off Johns." Riddick's voice rumbled through the night, echoed strangely by the sounds of alien sonar. Something flashed in the faint light, and Fry recognized the steel shiv that was Riddick's trademark. "Billy Badass, thinking you can handle me." He said no more, but circled like a panther around the unarmed mercenary.
Fry shivered as she heard the alien noises somewhere close behind her, shutting her eyes as the sounds became louder. She huddled over Jack and Imam, watching the drama unfold before her in the dim light of Riddick's body lights and the one flashlight shining from between two barrels opposite them.
"All is not as it seems," Imam's voice whispered near her ear, startling Fry. "Riddick is not as unharmed as he seems; look at his right side."
Frowning, Fry squinted in the darkness and gasped as she saw what Imam was talking about. The whole top portion of his arm was shredded, and slash marks on his hip and leg made Fry wonder how he could possibly stand, much less walk. He held the shiv in his left hand, a fact Johns hadn't noticed yet and may not in his present drugged state but Fry wasn't willing to take the chance. She couldn't just leave him to die like this; no matter how formidable he looked right now, eventually he would collapse and Johns would do him in with no mercy whatsoever. "Imam where is that pipe Johns was talking about, the one you had picked up?"
Wordlessly the Muslim pointed, and as Fry followed his finger she could barely make out the bent pipe outside the ring of light. Another cry came from behind her, and Fry closed her eyes against it, trying to bring up the courage to go for it.
Johns made his first move then, rushing Riddick unarmed. For an instant he looked to be committing virtual suicide, literally throwing himself on Riddick's shiv, but at the last minute he twisted away and lashed out at Riddick's right side. The convict grunted, his only sign of real distress, but went down heavily as his support weakened. Johns barked a laugh and lashed out with his foot to kick the downed man, but Riddick twisted and brought his shiv around, slashing out behind the merc's leg, cutting the skin deeply there.
Johns' laugh turned into a scream as he collapsed to the ground, writhing about in obvious pain. Apparently the drugs weren't working well, Fry thought mercilessly, then wondered if it was possible that there had been no drugs involved. Had Johns simply gone crazy?
Riddick rose to his feet unsteadily, blood visibly pouring down his side. One light on his belt was busted, probably in his fall, but the rest worked. Jaw clenched, he made his way towards the trio only to fall gasping to the ground.
Fry immediately laid Jack's head to the ground gently and scrambled on all fours towars Riddick, who was now also writhing on the ground. Desperately she ripped the cloth around his waist, taking in the deep wounds across his hips and the outside of his leg, as well as a closer look at those in his arm. None were shallow wounds, all of them deep enough to kill him without proper medical help. Tearing his shirt off as best she could without hurting him any more, she ripped two uneven strips from it and wrapped those around his arm, praying it would halt the bleeding enough for him to live. She had no idea how to seal the wounds on his hips without a proper aid kit, however, and used the remainder of the shirt to tie around the large wounds in his arms.
"Look out!"
It was Jack's voice that issued the warning, and Fry turned around to see Johns, perched precariously on one leg, launch himself at them with Riddick's abandoned shiv. She had no time to react, just covered Riddick with her own body, but the sounds of a scuffle made her lift her head. Iman had ahold of Johns' arms, holding them out away from his body. "I thought your god didn't allow you to fight, holy man," Johns said, his voice breaking in the middle of the sentence from the pain.
"No, Mr. Johns, I merely protect my friends." With more strength than Fry had thought he possessed, Imam hurled the merc sideways, away into the darkness. Johns' face registered surprise before it was swallowed by the pitch black darkness, and the echoes of the monsters heralded his demise.
Swallowing hard at the bone crushing noises coming from just a few feet away, Fry once again crawled to Riddick. "Come on, we've got to get out of here before they finish with him. Come on!" To Imam she called, "Get Jack and get to the ship. I'll be right behind you."
"What about the power cells?" the Muslim called back.
"I've got an idea about that, we'll use the original generator to power the lights. We just need to get to that ship now!"
Imam nodded, picked up a weakly protesting Jack and hurried towards where the ship was.
"Now come on," she whispered desperately to Riddick, who was weaving on his feet. "You have to help me, I can't do this on my own." They managed two steps before Riddick's leg buckled and he almost brought Fry down as well. "Come ON!" she shouted at him. "Get the hell up and walk, dammit!"
Whether it was the tone of voice or his own choice, Riddick stiffened his damaged leg and managed to get a few more steps on his own before he had to rely almost solely on Fry's help. By then he could barely hold himself up, and no amount of curses from Fry could convince his body to do beyond what it was capable of. "Leave me," he whispered, his leg giving out and bringing them both to the ground.
"No!" Fry shouted in denial, using all her strength to lift up the man. The alien sounds started up again, and Fry knew they'd run out of time with Johns' diversion. "We've got to get there, I'm not giving up on you..."
Light flooded the compound suddenly, and screams suddenly rent the air. An alien rushed past Fry; startled, overbalanced, and beyond tired, she collapsed beneath Riddick with a small cry. The fall probably saved her life, because the moment she hit the ground several large creatures flew screaming right over her, as well as a few smaller ones that were melting as she listened. She shut her eyes, uncertain whether she could make it back to the ship now that she was down. Imam had found out how to turn on the lights; they were the only other system linked to the auxiliary drive, which she had powered to run the systems check with the one power cells they had brought.
Hands reached down and pulled Riddick up and off her, allowing Fry room to breath. She sat up and looked up, nodding wordlessly to Imam. He took her thanks with a nod of his own and dragged the unconscious Riddick back to the ship before returning to drag the remaining power cells, along with Fry, back to the skiff.
* * * * * *
Fry checked the cells to make sure they were connected, then sat down in the pilot's seat and pushed the ignition. Engines long dead came alive a little slower than they should but smoothly enough, and Fry buckled herself in.
Jack, bandage around her head, hopped into the seat next to her and strapped herself in as well. The look she gave Fry made it obvious she wanted nothing more than to get off this planet.
"In due time, Jack, in due time." She checked the pressure gauge to make sure the cabin was sealed, then flooded the engines. "Is he secure back there Imam?"
"He must get to a hospital soon, but he will survive take-off."
That was all she needed to know. "Hold on then Imam, here we go." Flipping a switch that released the fuel, she reached down to push the lever for take-off when a monster leaped aboard her window. A nickleslick badge was stuck between its teeth as it scratched the glass, then roared in Fry's face.
She just smiled maliciously. "Good night, you motherfucker." Gunning the engines, she took off as fast as she could, watching as the alien creature slipped off the front to be burned by the back burners.
(C) 2000, Sarah Pearson