Edit Chapter 1! I fixed a few aesthetic things. Like Ungodly long paragraphs. They're still long. But not as long!
Anyhoo, there's a war on between the Marauders and the Spargans. Love. Hate. Explosions. And all that jazz.
Enjoy!
(P.S There's a reason why Dax isn't in this chapter. I haven't left him out!)
Something was strange today.
Something in this desert was definitely different today. But what? Zleke wondered. Her leaper lizards were napping peacefully under a rock outcropping, having dined well on a nest of kanga rats they had discovered that morning. The skies were clear, the wind was still. For all intents and purposes it was a beautiful, if scorching, day. Absently Zleke reached a hand under her metal bracer and scratched at the grimy dust accumulated there. She was small but well built, as suited a Marauder. Her gray rough cloth pants hung loosely on her legs, slightly obscuring her steel toed riding boots. A set of dull armor ridged like that of a metalhead covered her torso and her right arm. Her left arm was bare, save for the lizard-hide gloves that reached halfway to her elbow. A leather pack on her back held food and water, as well as crude medical supplies. A Marauder mask, made of gray desert metalhead carapace and decorated with black feathers, obscured her face. A dirty red cloth around her head to keep off the sun completed the rough ensemble. She carried no weapons. No one came out here anyway. It was just hot, she decided finally, holding back a sigh. I really am going nuts out here. And then she heard it.
Engines.
It was rare to hear vehicles in this portion of the desert. Zleke's dusty brown ears twisted, listening. Two of them. No, three. Four? And then a new sound. Different.
A Spargus Vehicle.
The others were Marauders, her kin, she was sure. They lacked the fine high pitched whine that this strange vehicle had. But why were they out in this part of the desert? In the middle of rocky, sandy nowhere? In any case, it didn't sound peaceful. Her violet eyes narrowed behind her horned steel mask, and a nearby leaper lizard trilled nervously as it sensed her sudden tension. The Marauder warrioress would have to get her reptilian herd out of the way of the incoming vehicles, otherwise they would all panic and scatter. She chuckled grimly. Chasing down a dozen leaper lizards in a rain of gunfire would be an activity she could do without.
"Meena." She called roughly, and the alpha female lizard stood up sleepily. Meena cocked her head, as if to ask why her nap was disturbed.
"Come." Zleke instructed, and Meena snorted and hopped slowly over a pile of slumbering leaper lizards. Zleke vaulted onto her mount's back effortlessly.
"Come on, you lot. Storm's a comin." Zleke called to the herd. It was the one word they understood: storm. She nudged her mount down the side of the sandy outcropping while the others roused themselves. There was a cavern around here, known only to the Marauder shepherds like herself. Suddenly there came the sound of weapons fire, and the lizards squawked anxiously. Damn. It was closer than she anticipated. Zleke urged Meena into a run, and the now nervous lizards run after, calling back and forth as they ran to keep together. Eyes like violet lasers scanned the rocky hillside, until at last she found the round boulder that lay in front of the entrance. From a distance it looked as if it was just an ordinary boulder at the foot of a great hill, but from where she stood now she could see the cavernous space behind the giant rock. Zleke dismounted and led her mount inside, clucking to reassure those that followed after. Once she had satisfied herself that her charges were safe, she cautiously slid to the edge of the disguising boulder and peered out at the desert.
She didn't have to wait long. A hail of machine gun fire tore up the sand high up into the air on the horizon, and the sounds of the warring dune vehicles grew louder. Now a bit nervous, Zleke shrank farther back behind her stony cover, glad that her Marauder mask shielded not only her identity but her precious eyesight. Not that she would have any problems from her fellow Marauders, but those Spargans were known to be vicious. Or so she had heard. Zleke had never seen one.
Suddenly a deafening explosion rocked the landscape, causing the Lizards inside to screech in fear. Pebbles and bits of sand slid down the hill above her and rained onto her head. Plumes of black smoke were rising up over the nearest dune. Another explosion, and another one which felt it was right under her. The teeth rattled in Zleke's head and she fell to the ground, clamping her hands over her ears. She'd never heard anything so loud. The weapons fire was a constant staccato scream of death. Shaken, she raised her head, and saw.
There were two vehicles left now, circling each other like starving, injured scavengers not forty feet from where she crouched. One was a Marauder of a tribe she didn't know. The other was the Spargus vehicle. Her eyes widened in fascination. She'd never actually seen one before. The driver of the foreign vehicle, toned and tan with a head of yellow-green hair and a red scarf covering his face, didn't seem to notice her. Nor did the Marauder. It was obvious that both combatants weren't in very good shape. Dents and scratches were apparent on both vehicles, and the familiar black smoke was trailing off the Spargan vehicle in wisps. The Spargan must have blown up the other two, she realized. Could he really have taken on all four of them at the same time? Something caught her eye and she stopped her musing to take a bolder peek around the rock. Both vehicles slowed to a stop, idling, their wounded engines growling as if to challenge one another.
The wind shifted, bringing with it a harsh metallic scent. A storm was coming.
Zleke bit her lip, glad she had gotten her herd to safety early. Come on, she urged silently to her comrade. Even from where she hid Zleke could see the consternation behind her fellow Marauder's mask. He would have to finish this quickly, if he felt like living. The storm was not likely to be kind. His fingers tightened on his weapons...
...and suddenly went slack, as the stranger fired first. His gray armored form slumped over the wheel of his still idling vehicle. She stared in shock. They were Marauders. Tough. Masterful. There had to be some mistake! No way he would have failed to take a shot!
His body twitched. He still moved?
Zleke's dying comrade's body spasmed, and with his last twitch, pulled the trigger. The shot was true, and before her astounded eyes the stranger's vehicle exploded in a fiery rage of shrapnel and he was thrown clear, landing twenty feet away in a crumpled heap. Zleke gasped despite herself, then clamped a hand over her mask, even though it was unnecessary. Amazing! The dead man was a true warrior. She would have to notify her tribe of what she had saw. A lone Marauder, committed to killing the enemy while even so close to death himself. It was truly the stuff of legends. Still shaking her head in wonder she slid around the boulder onto the battlefield. Silence greeted her ears. Her eyes roamed hungrily over the now flaming vehicle. A pity. It would have made a fine trophy, and would have garnered her a few favors. Idly she walked over to where the yellow-haired one was lying sprawled across the sand, gasping for breath. His wounds were fatal, she could see that immediately. He would be dead within a few minutes. It was just as well.
Better you than me, she thought silently. Her eyes slid to a few scattered objects that lay half buried in the sand including an especially nice gun.
Pleased, she picked it up and weighed it in her hands. It was well crafted, and would be a valuable bargaining chip for whatever she needed, or even just a fine trophy. Zleke murmured approval as she shouldered the weapon. This stranger wouldn't be needing it now. There might be more trophies out here, she realized with a small smile. Eagerly she brushed the sand away from another object. It was not quite square and not quite round, a little larger than her head and appeared to expand somehow. Puzzled, she turned it over. What the hell was this? She hadn't seen anything like it in her life. Shrugging, Zleke set it aside and hunted for the next trinket. This one was tougher to find. Zleke was just about ready to give up when a copper colored glimmer caught her eye. A ha! She practically skipped the few yards over to where it lay. It was a pendant. To be more specific, an oblong shaped necklace. This man kept getting stranger and stranger. Expanding circles, odd necklaces, I wonder if he knew any other tricks?
There was a rustling behind her.
What the..?
Zleke turned quickly, then reflexively jumped out of the way as the blond man, now fully alive and well, sailed past her. What the hell! Zleke's eyes widened in alarm. She had been sure he was dead! Awed and not a little bit frightened she pulled the gun off her back and pointed it at him.
"Don't move." She growled, willing her voice not to crack. A dust devil whirled between them, but that didn't cloud in the least the anger that shone from his bright blue eyes.
"You have my gun." He responded, in a voice as tough as the armor she wore. "I'd like it back." He took a slow step towards her.
"I said don't move!" Her voice raised an octave, and her hands were shaking as they tightened their grip on the weapon.
Another step. And then another. To her horror Zleke saw a change come over this stranger. His skin was paling, becoming the kind of gray one only saw on corpses. The color leached from his eyes, revealing black, empty, soulless orbs behind. When the horns sprouted was when she began to scream. Oh Precursors, he's a monster! Zleke thought desperately. She emptied the entire clip at him, but it didn't bother him in the least, or even slow him down. The bullets bounced off him like the pebbles loosen from the explosion had bounced off her head. He laughed, a hollow sound. The very embodiment of death.
Terrified, Zleke turned and ran. The winds were whipping up the sands now, and visibility was decreasing. Maybe she could get to the cavern before this demon reached her first. Even though she was running as fast as she could Zleke could hear the harsh breathing of the demon gaining behind her. It was only a few more feet to the cavern door. Twelve. Six. Three. Zleke lunged behind the entrance just as the sensation of hot knives tore through her shoulder. She cried out in pain, and turned to see five long black claws raised above her head. The demon was smiling. It was not a friendly smile. I'm going to die, she realized as she raised her arms in front of her head as if to shield herself. She felt oddly calm now. At least she would die with honor. Zleke shut her eyes and waited.
It never came.
Slowly she opened her eyes and winced a little as the now howling sandstorm stung at her eyelids. The demon was staring at her. Or rather, not at her, but at the pendant she still clutched in her frightened hands. Slowly the color was flooding back into his body as he gently reached out and plucked it from her hands. Zleke blinked stupidly. He was now the same stranger she had seen blow up the Marauder earlier.
"Thanks." He said, and passed out on top of her.
Zleke felt the wind get knocked out of her with a whoof. What the hell? Zleke thought, staring at this stranger's face not three inches from her own.
What the hell?
End Chapter one! Hoorah!
