"Gray-three, this is Gray-one. Eyes on M-Fauna?"
"Negative Gray-one, zero contact on M-Fauna. Only tracks."
"Affirmative Gray-three, link with Gray-two and prep for G-Ex."
"Hoo-rah Gray-one, moving to Gray-two's transponder."
Boots smashed small plantlife below their tread, and light arced from a flashlight, sweeping over the dense water-soaked jungle around it's host. Rifle griped in-hand, the man strode through the pouring rain with little notice, the sounds of Shear's wildlife bringing an odd serenity to the armed man. Depsite the dangers around him, he always felt that this place was... wonderious. A beaut in the galaxy above Tera itself.
It wasn't a thought shared by the colonists though, or other mercenaries even. Especially the ones who survived Factor, that place was just... a slaughterground.
It showed that the S-Fauna weren't playing around anymore, and the weaklings where to be thinned on both sides. Suffice to say, casualty rates started to climb high after that day.
The merc pulled himself from his thoughts, and tapped his commpiece "Gray-two, this is Gray-three. I'm inbound, we're G-Ex'n." He transmitted.
G-Ex, short for Ghost-Extraction, was the order given by the squadron leader when the contact timer had elapsed on a hunt with no visual or auditory contact with the M-Fauna. It was an option only taken when everyone decided they where using their time on the hunt for to-little sport or to-little advantage. Basically it meant the whole thing was non-worthwhile.
A rustle in the bushes next to him earned a burst of automatic rifle fire at the culprit.
"Ah, fuck! Weapons tight, shitballs!" A woman shrieked, a rock flying out of the brushline. Followed by the thrower, the team's Trapper 'Gray-two'. She also had a bullethole burrowed into her arm, rivulets of red rushing down the limb.
"Jesus, sorry! But you where the one skulkin' in the bushes like a damn Wraith, so who fault was htat one." Gray-three defended, thrusting his chest at Gray-two for emphasis " 's cause I saw th' damn M-Fauna comin' this way, it's been stalkin' us for the past fuckin' hour." she said, crossing her arms.
"What? Why the shit didn't you transmit or something?!" Gray Three shouted, only to get tackled to the ground by Gray-two " 'cuz, somehow, the thing's been keepin' an ear on our comms. Musta figured out how t' use Gray-four's commpeice when it got him." she whispered, pulling the large man up to his feet and shoving him back a foot or so.
"So, let's just get to the Ex-point, and set up an ambush." she said, pulling her glasses off and rubbing some rainwater off them "Got it, shitballs?" se asked, looking back to Gray-three.
He was gone.
"... Gray-three?... G-three?... Oh shit!" Gray-two whispered, realization dawning on her. She bolted down the gametrail, boots kicking up mud and water, breath coming ragged and fast, and eyes darting to every motion behind her shades.
Calls started to erupt behind her, thundering booms form the bestial abomination tailing her, it knew she had found it out, and it didn't care. It wanted her to know it was coming. Heavy footsteps thudded after her, daring Gray-two to look back and see her pursuer. But she didn't rise to the bait.
To bad, she may have saved her life that way.
A jetstream of fire blew out for her pursuer's slavering maw, and the last thing Gray-two felt was searing pain flushing across her body, and a ragged scream tearing from her throat. Her charred husk fell stiffly to the muddy ground and her pursuer stomped closed, droplets of salivation mixing with rainwater
The smell of burning flesh, the cracklings of the meat as the concoction from my body burning the Invader to a crisp all the better for consumption. As is the cycle.
My claws scooped the small body up, a female from her dainty frame -though my fires had seared away much of her body's fattier parts, and much of her false armored hide, so I may have been wrong- and lacking in the more dense of muscle that the males carried themselves with. Much like the Guardians if it was though over, though it rarely was by any of us.
We where more concerned with saving lives.
I placed the husk within my mouth, chewed and swallowed, feeling her last few moments flash through my mind I shuddered. I truly hated taking their lives so gruesomely, but she had moved to fast to run down, was far from the range of my leaps, and I could not trust the accuracy of hurling a chunk of Home from this distance. So my flames where the sole option.
But I could not trouble myself with how my prey died, I had to press onwards. One Invader yet still breathed, and it was my duty to Home and it's life to either remove them from the Cycle, or force them to join it as all other life was here. It was as the Heart spoke, and such was law to the Guardians. But that was not the present matter, the Hunt was.
I crouched low and slunk into the vegetation, my matte-gray hide blending with the light casted through the clouds overhead. This was where I was most at home, making my way through the trails and terrains of my domain in search of Prey, though in the last few moons it had been soured by the Invaders arrival upon Home.
It was a a night that all living upon Home would remember, for it was the last night of true freedom for those within the Cycle as fire and metal rained from the sky. The Invaders came upon them wilds of Home, taking over the dens of Wilds, butchering wantonly, driving the Wilds mad with grief and rage. The Heart dictated that the Invaders where a poison upon Home, and had to be purged by the Guardians, much as it pained most all of them.
It had, at first, only been an attempt to turn them away, show them that that this Home, was not theirs'. Yet the invaders persisted against the protectors of the Cycle, an admittedly admirable trait in my eyes -persistence and determination where some of my own strengths, I respected all who emulated or mirrored it- even if it was not a view shared by the other Guardians. This forced the Heart to take a direct hand in destroying one of their Dens of metal and light, the one called Factor -I never comprehended the name's origin, what was it a factor in?- was razed by the Heart in naught but a night.
But what was meant to demoralized, forced desperation. The Invaders where indeed fleeing, yet they summoned up their own Guardians to defend them from the Wilds and my own.
This proved problem, as it seemed these Pseudo-Guardians where also set on killing as many natives to home as they could while they where here.
It was not received well by said natives, to say the least.
I took a deep breath inwards, hundred of scents filling in my nostrils. A pack of scavengers flew overhead, trailing me in anticipation of leftover carrion. The water-lord resting within the overflowing pool off towards my right, the wreckage of several Invader Dens ahead.
And the last Invader -"Gray-one", as he was called by his dead packmates- standing in the middle of the trail, just past the ruined shells of metal.
I gave a pause cocking my head to the left slightly, this Invader wasn't concerned I'd see him, or rather seen him, like the others of his pack. He just stood still, with weapon in-hand and eyes dead ahead. He was waiting, but for what?
I paid it no more mind, he was vulnerable and I had to end him.
I pressed forward, crawling up one of the burnt out shells and looking down upon him. He was a large male, larger than most, and armed with a weapon that I actually recognized. It was a long, boxy thing with a front partition that rotated and spat shards of metal at range -why where the Invaders so enamored with metals?- in a rate that would put the Cunning's speed to shame, it was also extremely dangerous, even when it was the sole thing attacking you. I had to be wary, and catch him off guard.
He looked up at me, sharp green eyes locking with my own fiery orange glow, and in that gaze I saw several things. Hate, rage, fear, loss, anticipation, even small tinges of excitement. But the most prevalent, was his sorrow.
I understood it's root, the loss of a pack was something that weighed heavily on many Wilds. Continuation of the Cycle or no.
"... What are you waiting for? Come and get me!" He roared, pointing his weapon in my direction and igniting it. A stream of metal shards flew at me, cutting into my hide and evoking a harsh roar of my own. The pain wiped away any feelings I had, aside from the drive to end the hunt and tear this Invader asunder.
I leapt to the air, I could not fly like the Mind, but my jumps allowed me the crash down like one of the Invader's flying balls of fire to Home's soil. I crashed down upon the Invader, my claws missing him by inches and sending the male flying back from the shockwave. Again his weapon whirred ot life, and more pain cut across my frame, this time on my softer underbelly. A torrent of blood cascaded down to the ground, interbreeding with the rainwater and permeating into Home's soil.
My tail swept out in a spherical arc, but the Invader's size did not belay slugishness as he deftly leapt over the attack. He gripped on to the offending extremity and started beating on to it with some odd clawish weapon, each strike carving deeper and deeper into flesh. But blood rage had settled itself into my mind, and I cared not for my own self-state.
Time to end this, I had enough. I sucked in a breath, and felt the fire build within me.
"This is for my squad, you goddamn monster." the man growled, pulling a circular object from his hide. Something on his back glowed, and he shot forward... into my maw! Perfect, he'd just sealed his fate. I bit down, and was met with the delightful sound of his scream... but the scream had words, that was wrong. Screams didn't have words.
"Martyrdom, that's the name of the fucking game!"
Martyrdom, I'd heard that before. Commonly before a blast of fire and metal took the lives of one of the Invaders that had been sufficiently wounded and isolated... then it clicked, that little object he took in hand before jumping into my mouth, the scream...
"Grenade!"
And the last thing I heard, was a deafening boom.
()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()
So, I'm back. After a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong dry spell. I'm back in business.
I just started getting into Evolve recently, managed to nab a few sessions at a friends house when she got it, and fell in love. Been triyng to get back over there at least once a week since then.
But that's not he point. The point is, that I'm writing again, hopefully at a higher quality than before and if not feel free to tell me.
If this chapter is a bit short, don't worry. I'm doing the Prologue short, then I'll start to extend the chapters to be longer and longer, I just wanna get into the flow. After this little episode on Shear, we'll be moving along to Halkgenia and our favorite pinkette IED. And don't worry about her future Familiar, he's not getting off that easy.
By the way, just for the people who don't fully understand the terms I used or who's POV the two halves were in, here's a neat little glossery.
Gray Team
Gray-one: Team Assault, armed with a minigun, several explosives, and a machete. Also the Leader of Gray Team. KIA to combined Goliath bite and Kamikaze attack with his own grenades.
Gray-two: Team Trapper, armed with an autoshotgun and dual pistols, sole female on the team. KIA to Goliath fire breath. Corpse consumed for armor.
Gray-three: Team Medic, armed with an automatic rifle. Not that he got ot use it on the actual monster. KIA to sneak attack and disembowelment. Corpse consumed for stealth.
Gray-four: Team Support, armed with crossbow loading multiple arrow types. KIA to boulder being thrown at him, Commpeice stolen by Goliath and used to monitor Gray Team transmissions. Corpse consumed for info on commpeice.
Goliath terms
Guardian: The Monsters in Evolve, I always thought they where kind of like a Gaia's Wrath sort of thing against the colonists. Makes sense they think of themselves at the Guards of Shear.
The Heart: the Behemoth. It just screams 'final boss', don't it? So I always thought of it as like the big boss of the Monsters.
The Mind: Kraken. It's the second squishiest of the foursome of monsters and uses ranged the monster... plus it looks like Cthulu had a baby with a mIndflayer, both very intelligent. So the line was obvious.
The Cunning: Wraith, obviously. You need to be cunning to use that monster in game and out, brute force'll get ya killed.
Water-lord: the Shearian's name for the Tyrant. I'm betting we all died to it's crocodillian deathroll once or twice. I know I did.
Wilds: Wildlife... I really don't think that need further explanation.
Home: Shear, considering that the native fauna wouldn't think to call it anything else. If they even commonly think about that kind of thing.
Invaders: US! In Evolve, Humans are attempting colonization of Shear and the elimination/domestication of it's wildlife, it's natural for the natives to give them antagonistic nomenclatures.
The Cycle: Ah, the million dollar question, what's this 'Cycle' that our protagonist keeps talking about? Well, it's essentially Darwinism taken to a religious level. Everything on Shear exists to hunt, be hunted, eat, get eaten, and grow stronger. Essentially a gladiator games way of deciding what species on Shear gets to gain a place like the ones Humans have on Earth.
That's all for now! I hope that you will enjoy the story!
Also, I'll be taking a poll to see if Saito should be included.