Part Three
The Hunt Ends

Prologue:

Gunnison, Colorado
October 7, 2008

"Wolf!" Elaina slammed her hand against the thick pane glass of the helicopter as they lifted higher above the hospital. "No! You have to turn us around!" She turned from the scene of the two aliens fighting on the roof below them to look at their pilot.

"You know I can't do that," the woman Kelly answered over the roar of the propellers. Her voice was calm despite the dire situation they were in. Out of all of the them, the woman had kept a rather level head, doing her best to keep everyone in line and following her command.

Elaina's hands fisted at her sides, her nails biting into her palms, painfully. She wanted to lunge at the woman and force her to land the aircraft. Briefly, she considered jumping from the door. She only had to get it open far enough for her small frame to fit through, and she knew she could do it fast enough before even Lex could react.

But the fall would kill her.

Elaina looked back out the window, but already the hospital was too far away for her to even see Warkha or the predalien. Despite this, her mind played the sight over and over as the two charged each other, battling to the death. Her vision blurred as tears burned at the back of her eyes, threatening to fall. Raising a hand to the glass, she held it there, her heart aching. She was abandoning them. Not just Warkha, but Ci'tde and Skl're as well.

"Elli," Lex called, her voice barely breaking over the sound of the helicopter blades roaring over their heads. "Elli!"

Blinking, Elaina looked away from the window to look at her friend.

"I'm-" Before Lex could say anymore, a fighter jet flew passed the helicopter with a deafening roar. The group turned to look behind them as the jet flew out to the middle of town.

For the first time since meeting the woman, Elaina watched as fear filled Kelly's expression. "Everyone hang onto something!" The words were barely out of her mouth, before there was a bright light filling the darkness outside the windows.

"Close your eyes!" Dallas yelled to them just before he closed his own against the glare.

Elaina wasn't sure what was happening, but her hands went out to either side of herself to brace against the walls of the helicopter. Across from her Lex did the same. The light became blinding and a roar more deafening than the jet that had just passed them, came rushing up from behind them.

Molly screamed, the other's terror following close behind hers. The helicopter shuddered as the blast from the bomb rushed up to greet them. The aircraft dipped dangerously, and alarms started flaring up from the console as Kelly fought the controls to keep them in the air.

They dipped again, and the underside of the helicopter scrapped the tops of several trees, followed by crashing into limbs and tree trunks. Kelly didn't have time to warn anyone before they hit the ground. Metal crunched under metal, buckling from the rough landing. Under them, the landing gear wrenched free and they rolled across the forest ground.

Elaina cried out, as she tucked her arms close to her body to protect herself. The blades made a terrifying noise as they chopped into the ground, only to snap off as they continued to roll several more times. They came to rest against the trunk of a large tree. The metal caved in from their jarring stop, as the tree held its ground, and officially stopped their rolling momentum.

Silence fell around them as the engine sputtered out and the blaring alarms cut off mid shrilled shriek of warning. From upfront there was a cough, followed closely by a groan.

"-okay?" Kelly called, her voice failing, only to sharpen near the end of her question. Beside her, Molly must have made an indication that she was okay, as the older woman's features relaxed with relief.

"Just peachy," Dallas muttered from his seat, before breaking out into a hacking cough. "Ricky, you good? Lex, Elli?"

Elaina blinked her eyes open, from where she sat wedged against the glass. The tree nearly cut the helicopter in half, the metal torn open from the impact. She could barely make out Lex on the other side of it.

"Lex?" she croaked. The dust in the air had her coughing.

"Shit we need to get out of here, I think the engine is on fire," Kelly said from up front. Her words were quickly followed by the sound of her kicking at what remained of the glass on the door next to her. "Come on Molly."

Kelly climbed out first, and then helped her daughter through the opening.

Dallas tried the door next to him, but it refused to budge. "Lex," He called to her friend, who had yet to say anything to Elaina's earlier inquiry.

"I'm fine," she answered finally, her voice sounding a little shaky.

Elaina breathed a sigh of relief, and she quickly climbed from her seat to check on her friend. Lex sat there, relatively unharmed minus new scrapes and cuts from the landing. Elaina imagined she looked just as bad after the latest near-death experience.

"Guys hurry up," Kelly ordered from outside. "The side door is stuck, you'll have to climb out through the front."

Lex sighed softly, looking weary from everything that had already been thrown their way. Squaring her shoulders, she moved towards the door to climb out. Elaina looked over at Dallas to find him looking at the boy seated beside him.

Her eyes widened, and her hand flew to her mouth to cover her gasp. At first Ricky merely looked as if he was sleeping, his body laying against the door across from them. But even with the thickening smoke from the engine, you could see that there was a piece of metal lodged into the top of his head.

Swallowing back the bile rising in her throat, Elaina reached for Dallas who stared at the boy in shock. As if he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

"Dallas-" She started with his name, but he barely even flinched, even after she grabbed his shoulder. "Come on. We have to go."

She tugged at his shirt sleeve, pulling at him to climb to the front. They had to pass by Ricky, and Dallas moved sluggishly, as if he were a puppet with his strings cut. She had to help shove him through the small opening, calling out for Lex to help her.

Elaina hesitated at the opening, her eyes squinting through the smoky haze. She had to cover her mouth with the collar of her top pulled up over her nose, as she wheezed. Her eyes caught sight of her fallen sword and the plasma gun Dallas had before.

"Elaina what are you doing?" Lex called from outside, her head appeared near the window.

Elaina moved back into the back seat, grabbing the two weapons, she found a jacket with the hospital logo on the ground and quickly wrapped the two items inside it to hide the items from sight.

"Coming," she said with a hacking cough.

Biting her lip at the sight of Ricky as she passed him, she ducked her head as guilt weighed heavily on her shoulders. Another death. She had failed the town. She failed Ci'tde, and Warkha.

With Lex's help, she climbed through the window, staggering on her feet once she as upright. Her knees wanted to buckle from the jarred landing, but she just barely managed to stay upright.

Lex stood in front of her, her hands gripping Elaina's shoulders as if to reassure herself that they were both alive. A few feet away, Dallas had fallen to his knees and had buried his face in his hands. Kelly hovered over him, unsure how to comfort him, with Molly tucked against her side.

Elaina shook her head, before dropping her chin to her chest.

"Now what," she whispered. What did they do now?

"We can't stay here," Lex whispered back.

"The military just bombed Gunnison. They will be sweeping the area to make sure nothing survived the blast," Kelly said from her perch over Dallas. The man hadn't said anything since discovering his brother's body. He looked lost and defeated.

It was an expression they all wore in a similar fashion.

Elaina clutched the jacket in her arms close to her chest. If the military found them, they would want to take the items she had. They might not understand what it was, but she couldn't take the chance that they would confiscate them. Suddenly she remembered Ci'tde' mask. Looking down, she was relieved to see the item was still secured at her hip. There was a new faint scratch across its surface from the crash but looked relatively unharmed.

Warkha had told her to find his ship. To call for his clan.

"We can't let them find us," Elaina said with conviction. She lifted her head to look at Lex for confirmation.

The other woman nodded in agreement, for once, not arguing with her decision to avoid the military.

"They can help us," Kelly argued with them. "We're in the middle of the woods, it would be better to stay put for now and let them find us."

Lex looked over at the other woman. "You three should stay here. The military will be able to take care of your wounds. But we were never here."

"What," Kelly asked with a furrow of her brow.

Elaina tugged at Lex's hand, and the two started walking away from the wreckage.

"Wait!" Kelly shouted after them. "You two will get yourselves killed walking through these woods right now!"

The area was silent after that, with not even a chirp of a cricket or cry of a bird that followed in their wake as the group split up. Kelly watched them leave, shaking her head. Now what? Slowly, she dropped down next to Dallas, her body exhausted from the night's events. Molly hunkered down as well, making herself as small as possible against her mother's side.

Lex and Elaina trekked through the foliage, weaving around fallen logs, and dense trees. They left the others and the wreckage of the hospital helicopter, behind them, without a backwards glance.

In the distance, the remnants of Gunnison, Colorado smoldered, as military vehicles approached the remains of the small city.

Further still, at the crumpled ruins of the hospital, a single military vehicle came to a slow stop. The passenger door opened, and a man stepped out. He eyed the wreckage with a thin press of his lips. His eyes narrowed as the sun started to rise in the distance and lit up the darkened sky. More vehicles pulled in behind him, and several more military personnel joined him at the wreckage.

"Sir!" a man in fatigues saluted the older gentleman.

"At ease Williams," he said gruffly.

The younger officer relaxed his stance, his eyes briefly glancing towards the remains of the building. The only evidence of his disgust on what happened here was the slight tightening of his eyes and the brief frown that formed on his lips. He quickly wiped the expression from his face though, hiding his displeasure with a cool disinterest.

"There is a Ms. Yutani on the comm for you sir," the younger officer said, quickly recalling his reason for being there.

The older man scowled at the mentioning of the woman, but quickly turned on his heels to answer the call. Grabbing the receiver, he brought it to his lips.

"This is Captain Wilks, Ms. Yutani. What can I do you for?"

There was a brief pause, before a distinct feminine voice came over the line. "Captain Wilks, have you secured the area?"

Wilks glance over at his men, who had busied themselves with quarantining the area. Others had already started on excavating the wreckage.

"Yes, ma'am we have. Want to tell me what we're looking for, out here?" he responded by asking his own question.

He wasn't used to taking orders from a corporate woman. But his superior had told him to follow Ms. Yutani's directive to the letter. So here he was, having his team clearing the wreckage of a town, that had been wiped out. Gunnison was just a crater now in the middle of the state of Colorado.

With no explanation as to why.

"You will know it when you see it," was her cryptic reply, before the line cut out.

AN: Hey everyone, look whose back XD... Inky's back and hopefully with a satisfying ending to The Hunt Trilogy. This third installment has been seriously hard to write. I have written it, rewritten it multiple times and have not been satisfied with each idea I came out with. It has been extremely disheartening and with everything going on in life, I had to put this story on the back burner multiple times and each time I came to it, with a different mindset, a different emotional stand point and would completely scrap the whole thing and start all over again.

So First off and most importantly, I want to Thank, each and every reader I have had since the beginning of this trilogy. It is because of each and every one of you, that I kept coming back and did not give up on this story. This story is for you, and I hope you will be just as emotionally invested as I have to see this story End, with not a cliff hanger! This will be the end of Elaina and Ci'tdi's story, as well as the end of Lex and Skl're. I do promise to have another spin off like Taboo. Warkha will get his time to shine in another story I have been working off and on since Part Two finished. I'd like to see the big guy get his turn like Nev'ka.

Thank you all for your support and love so far for these stories. 3 You all are the best

Please let me know what you think, did you love/like/hate it?

Inky out!