Chapter 4: Ancient ruins
After Ky got out of the temple he heard a transmission from his guide.
-"The legends of our great ancestor reveal an interest artifact, an ancient wrist bracer. You must find it! Scorcher ordered and Ky started to move but he heard a hiss somewhere and he switched his vision to the Alien vision where all the ambience was dark and the serpents could be seen in green so they won't hide in the dark, now using this new vision the kairu hunter spotted a serpent crawling near the walls of the cliff.
-"There you are." Ky whispered and he jumped near the serpent and sliced it to make it fall to solid level and he literally sliced the serpent's face away. While on his way he spotted a serpent crawling the top of the wall in front of him.
-"Treat carefully for you are looking at a new form of serpent, this one can spit acid to its foes." Scorcher informed.
-"Got it." Ky said and he threw his smart disc and it decapitated the serpent's head, with the creature dead Ky found a recorder near a dead scientist which its recorded message was playing.
-"This is a recorded message: All employees of the scientific area must return to the lab immediately for the study of the ancient artifact."
-"Curses! The humans must have the ancient wrist bracer; there is no time to lose. Resume the hunt!" Scorcher said and Ky found an entrance where he found a marine squad scouting ancient structures, this place had small arenas that also had a strange statue in the wall in front of the field and this statue had the form of the serpents. There were also air vents in the ground and in the walls there were statues with the form the serpent's head meaning that, like snakes, they could come from anywhere so that must be why they're known as the serpents.
So Ky switched to the thermal vision to see the marines who were trying to collect anything useful…after six minutes of fight Ky entered a sealed door where he saw a big arena with high structures in it.
"Whoa!" Ky exclaimed.
-"An ancient combat arena!" Scorcher exclaimed.
-"So that's what it is." Ky said and then he jumped down and all possible open doors got close as a huge serpent started to walk to the arena slowly but this one was not just huge, it was stronger, more durable, and with a different size of skull and it screamed really loud that it attracted many other serpents to the arena.
-"This prey is unique of its kind and it is more powerful than the rest of her sisters…a worthy challenge." Scorcher commented.
-"Yep, totally worthy:" Ky said and he shot at the coming serpents with his plasmacaster and he attacked the unique serpent head on, this battle took a lot of time because that sucker was to durable and too strong that Ky was running out of options, luckily the creature wasn't very smart so Ky dodged one of its attacks by jumping behind it and placing a proximity mine on its back and making it blow up in millions of pieces. Before claiming the victory, Ky didn't knew that a serpent was coming behind him and by the time Ky heard a hiss behind him and he turned around to see, he saw the serpent killed by wristblades stabbed behind it.
-"What the…?" Ky said surprised.
-"Did you miss me?" Maya said removing her mask.
-"It's really nice to see you, Maya." Ky said removing his mask as well.
-"Nice mask, where did you get it?" Maya asked.
-"Long story, what happened to the second dead hunter?" Ky asked back.
-"I found him and programmed his wrist bracer into self-destruct." Maya said.
-"I did the same with the others…though I found something hideous." Ky said.
-"Like what?" Maya asked curious.
-"I saw a serpent that had the same jaw of the rest of the hunters, it must be a hybrid of the two species or what the rest of the hunters said: An Abomination." Ky commented.
-"Yuck, any idea of where it came from?" Maya asked but soon she found a Yautja's mask with spikes on the floor, this mask belong to a special elite hunter.
-"Oh no." Maya whispered and she showed the mask to Ky.
-"That mask, oh no. Wolf…" Ky said and he was referring to the third hunter that joined them in this hunt. Soon they found their fallen comrade in the corner of the arena; soon Ky and Maya discovered that the Abomination emerged from Wolf when he was harvested by a serpent. After making the decision that no one must take possess of his weapons and technology, Ky programmed Wolf's wrist bracer to self-destruct so he and Maya ran away of their comrade's corpse to avoid the explosion.
-"I am sorry, Wolf was one of the finest hunters…but the hunt must continue." Scorcher commented.
-"Right." Ky said.
-"When the contest has ended, the victor would rise to the tribute room where he would receive a reward for his victory." Scorcher informed, and then Ky and Maya found the tribute room where the kairu hunter discovered an ancient combistick which was a double-bladed combat spear.
-"Why would you receive a new weapon and I stay with the same ones? Maya joked.
-"Try to defeat a powerful serpent and many others alone." Ky teased.
-"But I saved you from one of them, remember?" Maya said teasing back.
-"That doesn't count." Ky said retracting the combistick to a smaller size.
-"So unfair." Maya said smiling under her mask.
-"Let's get moving." Ky said so he and Maya found an exit out of the ancient ruins, there they found some sort of synthetic androids patrolling an entrance to a lab that leaded to the location of the stolen wrist bracer. The hunter and huntress sneaked inside the elevator to the research lab but they were growing impatient because the elevator was too slow.
-"So…how was your first hunt?" Ky asked.
-"To be honest…I really liked it. It's so exciting and I never thought I'll enjoy it." Maya said.
-"Good to see that you like it…I always knew you'll make it." Ky said and then came the awkward silence, at this both of them were getting closer o each other until they both faced each other, then they took off their masks and they were just a few inches away from each one's lips until a familiar voice started to sound.
-"Welcome, old friends. This is an unexpected reunion." The voice in the elevator's screen said and both Ky and Maya were shocked to see who it was.
-"Lokar!?" Both Ky and Maya exclaimed.
-"I can see you two are surprised." Lokar said.
-"That's just impossible! I killed you myself; I even have your skull as a proof!" Ky yelled.
-"I transported my conscience to this synthetic-cyborg body but we better get back to the matter hand: I have been studying the species of your hunting friends for a long time and there are secrets inside that pyramid of theirs...secrets I must possess. I will unlock them in time but it will be much easier if my warriors and I capture one of your friends to help me with it and both of you could help me with that too, after all you possess the secrets and the technology of the hunters…Take them alive, I want their organs working by the time they arrived to my location." Lokar said and then the whole elevator started to fill with liquid nitrous to freeze the hunter and the huntress.
-"So-so co-cold." Maya said as she felt she was freezing.
-"There's gotta b-b-b-be a way to s-sto-stop the co-cold." Ky said and he found a cooling system near the elevator's steel door and he slashed it so the cold stopped it and both Ky and Maya putted their masks on and cloaked themselves for they reach the research lab.
To be continued…
