Author: xVashtaNeradax
Category: TV Shows Knight Rider
Disclaimer: OCs Kasey and Sloane are copyright myself, I will enforce it. Knight Rider universe characters belong to Glen Larson.
Genre(s): Sci-Fi/Adventure
Pairing(s): None right now
Rating: T for now, other chapters may vary
Summary: So what would happen if K.A.R.R. was a.) Not killed by K.I.T.T. in their final confrontation in the desert, and b.) Not found by someone who just happened upon his lovely corpse and later attempted to rehabilitate him? What if he was exactly what they were looking for? Find out. This will be an ongoing series under the Instruments of Destruction title.
Title: Instruments of Destruction: Black Sun
Warning(s): None for the moment.
Chapter 1: Desolate
It was hard to say how long he had been in this place.
It was not like the time he had spent in the warehouse, or even when he had been buried on the beach. In the warehouse, he had at least known what was going on around him, even if his body had been deactivated. The beach had proved unpleasant, the wind, seawater, and sand had all assaulted him, but at least there had been….something.
The program in charge of keeping time had long since ceased to function properly and without it he had little way to know how much time had passed since his final battle with K.I.T.T. under the desert bridge. He suspected it had been several years, but, just the same, it could possibly have just been a few months. Truthfully, he cared not, what he did care about was the fact that he had once again been left to rot.
The damages to his system were extensive; the hope of some novice coming along to find and repair him was not going to happen this time. Truly, they had killed him, without proper servicing soon, he would perish.
Anger.
Hate.
Fear…
They welled inside him, festering.
Why? Why had they deemed him a failure and K.I.T.T. a success? He had only done what they had programmed him to do, how was that his fault? Were they so diluted in their own power that they thought they could just create life then abandon it when it did not perform as they had hoped?
Fools!
So, he was to suffer for their failure. He should have killed them all.
Alas, he had not. He had allowed his arrogance to be his undoing, he had believed that he could beat them at their own game of manipulation and had failed, miserably. This too, angered him. He was the superior machine, he had come first…
…and now he would be the first to die.
The beginning of his descent into this maddening abyss had been spent raging from one end of his core to the other, thrashing against the systems as they failed one by one. His howls, if even audible beyond the confines of his CPU casing, would have curdled the blood of any passerby who'd been unlucky enough to hear them.
He had cursed them all, repeatedly, but now he had little energy left to do anything other than brood and await his end.
Why had they not just finished him? He knew that he had been assaulted once more after the initial battle; perhaps they had tried to destroy him and merely proved themselves incompetent at it.
Regardless, none of that would matter soon.
They had won.
…
"We are approaching the location, would you like me to run a thermo-diagnostic to see if we might locate the core more quickly?"
"Do you really think that it will be giving off readable heat? It's been 47 years."
"If it still functions, there will be heat. I am confident I can find it."
"Then by all means, proceed."
…
It was always a good sight to see when Gaia managed to reclaim something that at one time had been lost to her. The old bridge of concrete and asphalt had long ago deteriorated beyond repair as the trees, grass, and vines worked their way across the ground. What had once been a desolate piece of ground was now rapidly becoming grassland. It was clear the Wyrm had little influence left here as his human servants had all been killed by the local Red Talon pack some ten years ago, leaving the nearby town vacant.
Speaking of the Red Talons, Sloane needed to hurry up and find that damn core before the pack figured out there were strangers snooping around in territory that didn't belong to them.
"Anytime now, Sloane."
"I have it."
A green grid illuminated a nearby rock.
"He is there."
She walked over quietly, arching an eyebrow at the unassuming patch of ground. Kneeling, she picked up the rock and examined the ground beneath. Here, unlike the rest of the area, no plants grew, leaving the earth strangely bare, completely devoid of the surrounding greenery.
Running her hand over the loose earth, she felt the cold touch of metal against her palm. Working the protruding corner back and forth, she finally succeeded in releasing the box from its earthly tomb. Looking at it, it certainly didn't give the impression that something sinister was housed within.
It was black, a little smaller than the average VCR she'd grown up with as a child and it was badly damaged. One whole side of it was caved in and what was left of some circuitry could be seen just inside the warped corner.
"Judging by those marks, I must conclude that the damage was done after the destruction of the shell."
She turned to look over her shoulder, "It looks like someone took a rock to it."
"I detect faint traces of paint in the crevices of that rock."
She shook her head quietly, so someone had found this and beaten it with a rock?
How human.
Turning the black box over, she addressed her companion.
"Think he's still active?"
"Yes, but not for long." Was the icy reply.
At that moment, a howl ripped its way through the air. She turned quickly and squinted in the direction of the woods. There, dimly, she could see the glowing eyes of the Red Talon scouts and they were advancing at a frightening pace.
"Time to go!"
She rose quickly and made her way back, holding the box tightly against her chest so as to conceal it in case she was caught. The Red Talon's descended with all the speed and ferocity their tribe was known for, she only had time to toss the box inside the passenger's door of her ride before they were upon her.
"Go! I will meet you back at home!"
The door slammed and the car reversed hard, sending mud, rocks, and dirt up in a slew.
Turning to face the pack head on, she snarled. Already, her body was growing into Crinos, she wasn't about to take chances with an entire pack.
"You mutts want to play, let's play."
…
It had been an odd sensation. The suffocating pressure that had surrounded him for so long was being lifted. He wasn't sure if it were real or imagined, perhaps his end was here and this was how it felt? No, certainly not, his peripherals failed him but this sensation did not, he was no longer entombed within the earth.
Though deaf and blind, he could still tell that his core was shifting, moving, being held high above the ground. Then he was suddenly dropped, the impact rocking his already fragile hardware. Some systems went offline due to the jolt, but a few returned after a moment.
What was happening?
Maybe it was them, maybe they'd finally come to finish him off, his anger rose. What was the point of coming back now after all this time?
How dare them!
How dare they come now when he was defenseless!
He retreated further into his core, seething. He would not make it easy for them!
Routing as much voltage as he could, he attempted to electrify his core, but found it useless. Fear hit him again and he growled in frustration, what could he do?
Defiant, he waited.
