Chapter 2

Riddick raced through the destroyed and desolate streets of the once prominent city. There wasn't a soul around save him and the ship he heard in the distance. It wouldn't be long before they found him.

Seeing a fire raging nearby, he ducked into the alleyway to hide in the flames. If the ship had heat sensors, he could lose it easily enough for now. When he turned the corner, he noticed the ship loom over head for a moment before moving on without him. His breathing settled marginally, but the calm was shattered with the sounds of fighting. His brows pulled together and slowly he approached.

Fierce yelling and screaming shot through the quieted streets and he soon saw why. The young woman from before, the new Rhya, was struggling against the man holding her while the other tried to grab her flailing legs. Apparently they'd caught up with her, but not before she did some damage. He saw blood on her clothes and it was more than what would have just come from her.

She struggled against the soldiers like a wild animal and part of him wondered how true that statement might be.

The trio came closer to where Riddick stood. The soldiers were still trying to control the young woman and drag her towards their ship so she could be exterminated as originally planned. Riddick stepped into the shadows, invisible to his prey.

When the one attempting to hold Rhya's feet was close enough, large arms shot out and grabbed him and pulled him deep within the blackness. The soldier screamed out before going deathly silent.

The one holding Rhya stiffened. He kept trying to control the woman wearing handcuffs, but fear saturated him as to what may happen. Riddick casually stepped out of the shadows wiping his bloodied blade with a piece of Necromunger uniform. All movement stopped, from the remaining soldier to Rhya. The two stared at the man with the hollow black eyes.

"I'll give you to the count of three to drop the lady." Riddick finally said as he looked up at the soldier.

"Back away." He commanded in a shaking voice.

"One." Riddick began. His voice stayed unchanging as he took a step forward.

"I'm warning you." The soldier stammered.

"Two."

Still Riddick approached. The soldier, if you could call him that in the first place, looked like he was going to wet his armor. The air was growing thick with tension while the young man holding Rhya became increasingly fearful.

"Three." He growled.

Riddick didn't have to move. The soldier dropped Rhya without regard and raced off into the distance to escape the convict. Riddick watched as the man disappeared into the distance. His head slowly turned back to the young woman. Her eyes never left his.

He took a step forward and still she didn't move. She didn't look frightened or concerned in the least with the convict. She didn't even look like she knew him. Nothingness stared back at him through cloudy eyes. Rhya was blank.

Riddick kept moving towards the shackled young woman waiting for any sign of life, but it never happened. He wondered what they had done to her, what could have possibly happened to Rhyalla Kendros to turn her into… nothing. She was nothing now.

Groaning metal diverted their attention upwards. The same ship as before had found him again, probably because of the man he let live. Without hesitation, Riddick grabbed the chain connecting Rhya's wrists and pulled her with him to run. She was trying to hide from the same people so she didn't need to be told twice.

The two raced through the streets, diving around chunks of fallen buildings and breaks in the road to escape the people hunting them from above. Riddick glanced to his side and noticed Rhya pull ahead of him. She raced up the length of a broken wall and leapt into the air, landing without a break in step and rolling before jumping back up and continuing on, all without shoes. She was barefoot and beating him in the run.

Explosions rang out above. Riddick looked up in time to see the ship that had been stalking them come careening down to the planet's surface.

"Down!" he bellowed.

Rhya turned in time to see the structure coming towards her and did as she had been commanded. She ducked down, dug her heels into the ground and stopped herself before the ship slammed into the planet's surface. Fire, concrete, twisted metal and bodies of those within spewed around the area in front of them as it came to rest.

The metallic machine groaned as it turned end over end and slammed to the ground, grinding to a halt before them. It had missed the two by mere feet and they knew it. Riddick stood, staring at the twisted heap as Rhya pushed herself to her feet. Her eyes were trained on the same thing while he approached from behind. She did little more than turn her head to the side without bothering to meet the Riddick's gaze. Sensing that he wasn't an immediate threat, Rhya's eyes moved back to the wreckage. She was ready to flee when everything suddenly went black.

Riddick's arms shot out and caught the woman before she crumbled to the ground. He tossed the chunk of stone he'd used to knock her out aside. The large man lifted the withered young woman into his arms in a bridal cradle. Her head limply fell back, and finally gave him a better view of her face. She looked terrible from her sunken cheeks to the bags under her eyes. She looked sick and he was the only one to blame for it.

"Sorry kid." He sighed.

Riddick felt guilty for bashing the back of her head with a rock, but he knew he had no choice. He didn't like the feeling it left behind. The violence of it didn't bother him, it was the guilt. He hated emotions to be honest. They made people do stupid things. His attention however, was soon diverted.

"Let me guess." Riddick sighed. He heard the none-too-quiet footsteps coming up behind him. "You brought a five man crew this time."

"Couple of things you could have done better." Toombs replied in irritation as he walked forward and pulled down his hood. "First, trash that locator beacon in my ship, the one you jacked. And second, now this is the most important, dust my dick when you get a chance."

Riddick grinned as he turned to face the five behind him. All of them, the young woman included, stared at Riddick uncertainly. The con acted as though carrying a bound and unconscious young woman was natural. In truth, it could have been. If half the rumors about Riddick were true, the Mercs couldn't dismiss the fact that the con might be saving Rhya just so he could eat her later on.

"Any questions?" Toombs asked cockily.

"Yeah," Riddick smiled. "What took you so long?"

The smirk on Toombs' face faltered as he raised a brow on the good half of his face.

"Who's the girl?" he asked, pointing to the body.

Riddick only shrugged.

"Check her." Toombs ordered to his men.

A man from behind came forward, but didn't want to get close to Riddick and he knew it. The thought made him smile. Guns cocked and when he looked, the remaining bits of the team had them aimed directly at him.

"Put her down." The big idiot demanded.

Riddick scoffed and did as he was told. He set Rhya down as gently as he could before standing with his hands up in front of him. Toombs motioned to the girl, Eve. She stepped forward with some cuffs and snapped them on without problem.

"Come on big boy." She told him. She pulled Riddick behind her while the Asian guy scanned Rhya's face.

"She got a price?" Toombs asked his man.

The Merc typed in what he needed before the small hand-held device scanned Rhya's face. He watched as the screen turned her features into a computerized version before scanning the wide list of people with bounties on their heads. It took longer than he thought when the tool beeped and her picture emerged. A smile touched his face.

"What do we got?" Toombs questioned, knowing that sound meant money.

"Rhyalla Kendros. Thirty years old, blah, blah, blah…" he muttered, going through her info. "Two hundred and eighty thousand dead, but five alive."

"The hell is it so much alive?" Eve asked curiously.

The Merc with the scanner laughed lightly.

"She's been spliced." He replied. "Work houses always pay more for people like that."

"That's cause they're built for hard labor." Toombs smiled. "Grab her."

One of the other men came forward, the big dumb one that spoke earlier, and picked up Rhya up by her cuffs.

"And look at that, already wrapped up for us." He laughed before slinging her over his shoulder like a duffle bag.

"Well, this looks like it's a nice little pay day, huh?" Toombs grinned wickedly. "Let's get the hell out of this shit hole."

The group of five seemed thoroughly happy about the added bonus of the young woman Riddick was holding when they'd come up. It meant they got even more to split. In their mind, that was more than enough.

Riddick put up no fight when they loaded him onto the ship and strapped him into his seat at the back. There wasn't much room for Rhya, but already being bound, she was basically tied to an exposed portion of the piping between the last seat on the right and Riddick's spot at the end.

When they took off and dusted their trail, Rhya still hadn't shifted. Riddick wondered how hard he'd hit her in the first place. She was alive, a good sign, but still asleep. With an annoyed sigh, he leaned back further into his seat and tried to get as comfortable as he could. Now he had to think about how to get Jack out of jail.

It was a nine day flight to Crematoria, not long but long enough. He'd already planted the idea in Toombs' head. It was always best when someone thought it was their idea even when it obviously wasn't. It gave them the illusion of control.

"Skittish Toombs." Riddick repeated with a smile. "Very skittish."

The man with the burned face growled his irritation at Riddick. He hated the con, most did, but he was determined to get his payday this time. The price was just too juicy to let go. Though to be honest, if shit went bad this time, he might not do it a third. Fourth?… Again. He might not do it again.

"You know something, it's a couple days to the slam Killer," Toombs told him, blowing out the rest of the smoke in his lungs and stomping on the cigarette. "I wouldn't start shit now. Might just ghost your ass and be done with it."

Riddick chuckled darkly again. They all knew Toombs was too greedy to do it. The price of a convict alive was so much greater than dead. Though why they bothered with alive when it came to someone like Riddick was beyond anyone. The man was too risky until there was half a mag of ammunition in his skull, just to be sure.

"What are we going to do with this one?" the girl asked as she pointed to Rhya.

"I bet I can think of a few things." The burley man chuckled as he walked towards her.

The Idiot kicked Rhya's leg to the side. It jostled, but she remained motionless with her head leaning to the side. The men laughed along with him, save the pilot who kept his attention on the horizon.

"I can probably find a few fun things to do with her in the mean time." He continued as he knelt down and grabbed her chin. He forced Rhya's head up and the hair out of her face. "Not too bad I guess, for some street trash."

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." Riddick warned in a carefree voice.

The man dropped Rhya's chin and shifted enough to see the convict over his shoulder.

"Oh yeah?" he asked sarcastically. "And what are you going to do about it?"

Riddick smiled and cocked a brow.

"Not me." He replied before motioning to the woman. "Her."

The Idiot's attention fell back to Rhya, but she wasn't unconscious anymore. Her cold, careless eyes glared hatefully at him. The shock of her staring at him and being so close knocked the Idiot off balance. He tried to step back, but stumbled. Rhya reacted. She lunged forward and wrapped her legs around the Idiot's throat before he could stand. The upper half of her body was secured sure, but not the lower.

The Merc choked and sputtered as she tensed her grip and adjusted him until he fell perfectly into the crook of her knee. She refused to let go and wasn't going to move with how well they had strapped her down. He could struggle all he wanted. It wouldn't matter.

Rhya growled and hissed an unnatural sound as she moved from side to side. The others mobilized to try and pry her legs off, but it was too hard. She was stronger than she looked and had a tight enough grip the Merc's face was turning bright red.

Eve reached forward and pulled an asp from her pocket. With a flick of the wrist she extended the steel stick and began beating the side of Rhyalla's legs with it. If it bothered Rhya, she didn't let on. She still held the Idiot until the risk of a broken bone was too high. Eve had beaten her thigh so hard, Rhya knew she risked breaking her femur, and let the Idiot go as a result.

He fell to the ground unconscious for a moment before coughing as he sputtered to life. He moved away from her as fast as he could while Rhya sat there glaring at him through her matted hair.

She was bearing her teeth like a wild animal, but the emotion never reached her eyes. Riddick could see it -the glassy eyed look- like a lion left in the zoo for too long. The killer instinct and predatory nature, the life, had slowly been whittled down to nothing. Then again, even a relatively tame lion will lash out when messed with.

"I'm gonna kill that bitch!" the Merc yelled. His voice was hoarse and thick from the strangulation.

"Go change your panties." Toombs sighed. "And get over it. One of you tie down her legs."

Rhya didn't move as she was tied to the floor. The Mercs hadn't expected her to be compliant, but that didn't mean they worked any slower. With a set of tow straps, they wrapped her legs together tightly and threaded the strap through a couple of holes in the ship's floor, ensuring she couldn't raise them.

"Alright, lock down and set the course. Let's get some shut eyed before we land on Hell." Toombs called as he moved to his seat and locked himself in.

~!~

Riddick was still smiling to himself. He loved teasing women, or scaring them. Regardless, he loved the reaction and reveled in it. After all, Eve was the only mercenary he didn't instantly want to skin alive. She had been flustered after she regained her seat and took another sleeping pill to ensure she would be out for the next thirty hours until they made it to Crematoria. She passed out soon enough and like before, Riddick was the only one conscious in the entire ship. He hated that he never seemed to sleep when it came to things like this, at least not enough to be happy when he had to travel long distances.

Hours passed when he noticed Rhya stir. She was asleep, dreaming or having nightmares, he couldn't tell which. Her face was twisting and relaxing, tensing and so forth as though she were fighting someone in her head. If she was, it didn't look like she was winning.

Without warning, she lurched forward. An animalistic gasping sound came from her throat as her eyes darted frantically around the immediate area. She was confused for a brief moment before recognition took hold and she seemed to realize it was somewhere she didn't want to be. Rhya scowled and fought the growl that wanted to leave her lips. Still she looked around and eventually her eyes shifted to Riddick.

Rhya squared herself on him as much as she could from her forced position. She faced him directly as she stared through long locks at the silver eyes reflecting back at her. His brows pulled together almost sadly at the lack of anything looking back at him. All he saw was rage.

"You with me, Rhya?" he asked in a low voice.

Her brows twitched before she shielded her confusion, and he noticed.

"Are you with me?" he repeated.

Without speaking a word to the man, Rhya leaned back and let her head fall against the wall behind her. She looked indifferent to him entirely, like he didn't matter in the least, something he'd never seen from her before. Even if she hated him there was an emotion, but now more nothingness.

"The fuck did they do to you?" he asked, mostly to himself, not expecting an answer from the constantly silent woman.

"Slicing." She muttered. The word barely left her lips. "Always stabbing… Spikes… Images in my brain. Shadows. Screaming. Darkness." Riddick narrowed his eyes on her. She didn't sound the same. Her voice was wispy, weak and as vacant as her eyes. She was babbling too, spouting random words and odd sentences that made no sense. "Blinding rain. Screaming... Eyes..." Her head rolled towards the man who'd been watching her and turned quiet. "Empty and cold… Like a storm, silver and white."

Riddick's eyes went a bit wider than before as her head moved back to its previous position, facing forward and ignoring him again. When she finally spoke, she spouting nonsensical sentences that wouldn't make the slightest bit of sense to anyone in the Verse, save him. The Dark Planet when the sun went out. Something told him she was talking about the planet.

The eyes he knew were him. Years ago, when they hooked up after he escaped from the slam that gave him his new peepers, she always told him they looked like a storm that never rested. But the stabbing, the slicing and spikes, he could only imagine that was when they began to convert her.

"That it?" he asked, wondering if there was anymore to it than that.

"Nothingness." She muttered softly.

That was five years ago. The last memories she had were five years old, nothing more, and even then it sounded like she remembered only the basics. He wondered what the Necromungers had done to her, what the conversion truly did. Rhya's mind was gone and what remained were bits and pieces, flashes of memories that she likely didn't understand.

"Shit." He sighed.

Riddick fell back into his seat. He had hoped there was still something that resembled Rhya left, but the longer he was around her, the less likely it seemed. He didn't know what to do now. Now he had to deal with someone who probably didn't understand a lot of what was happening around her. The only thing he could hope for was Rhya would come back to him at some point.

~!~

The ride to the main chamber of the prison was fast, faster than he'd expected and a hell of a distance from the hanger. Riddick had counted the kilometers internally, a trick one learns with the life he'd had. He'd managed to get rid of the big idiot too, the one that touched Rhya and slobbered on his goggles. It had made Rhya smile. That was the first indication there might be a chance she understood her surroundings.

They pulled into the main chamber with a lurch and a jolt from the skiv. Rhya was unhooked first since she was the least threatening as far as they knew, and shoved ahead of them. Eve kept watch over the girl while the other three kept their guns aimed intently on Riddick. Once within the offices, negotiations began and for Rhya, went relatively quickly.

"I take the girl." The Russian replied, lowering the lever that delivered new prisoners to the bowels of their facility. "She will be entertainment for the men here probably."

A few of the men in his office chuckled and smiled at the implications. Riddick stood at the edge of the hole and watched as Rhya slowly disappeared into the smoky underbelly of the prison. One of the other guards pressed a button releasing the hook the held her and gave her a chance to disappear into the crevasses surrounding the inmates before bringing the hoist back up.

It came at more than double-speed and slowed when it reached the top of the wench. Riddick's cuffs were hooked next before he was unceremoniously shoved over the hole and lowered. He shook his head the longer he heard Toombs arguing with the Russian. The rope hitched and he suddenly stopped. Riddick looked up and raised a brow.

"I'd take the money Toombs." He warned moments before the wench began again.

He knew the idiot was haggling over price -a stupid thing to do- but that's what Riddick was betting on. He knew the Merc better than most and knew the type. He was relying on the fact Toombs was an idiot and greedy, the worst mix normally, but his best chance.

Riddick took the time to look around, to see the layout of the prison and it looked like little more than a cave dug deeply into the side of a mountain. There were caverns everywhere, bits and pieces carved out where people would hide either for protection or from the heat. There were still bars everywhere too, rusted metal cages and the like with horrible lights that looked like they were going to fall apart and reveal the wiring within. This place was a shithole and everyone knew it.

It took little time for him to get loose, less to instill his place in the prisoner hierarchy and find Jack. In fact, she helped him out a bit. She seemed to have gotten a bit more cut throat in his years away, but she was still a kid, barely even eighteen years old.

The heat was sweltering. The lava within the planet's core was only a few feet away from the cracks in the ground. It poured through and threatened to choke you if you breathed too deeply. The air was acrid. Everyone wore a thin sheen of sweet at all times from doing nothing more than standing in one place. It made you feel disgusting without even trying.

Riddick walked through the mining tunnels as his eyes scanned his surroundings. A blade was suddenly pressed to his spine. He felt the person behind him, small in frame and knew immediately it was a woman.

"How do I get eyes like that?" she asked in a taunting voice.

He glanced over his shoulder to see her standing there with a wicked smile on her lips.

"Gotta kill a few people."

"Did that." She replied, jamming the bit in a little harder than before. "Did a lot of that."

Riddick moved, grabbed her arm and spun her around before slamming her back into the bars behind her.

"Then ya got to get sent to a slam…"

"One where they tell you you'll never see daylight again?" she snapped. "Only there wasn't one here that could shine my eyes, not even for twenty menthol Kools. Was there anything you told me that wasn't a lie?"

Riddick didn't speak. Gripping the young woman tightly, he lifted her into the air so she was supported by nothing but his forearm.

"What are you going to do, huh?" she asked through forced breath, her head angled to the side. "Go for the sweet spot?"

"Remember who you're talkin' to, Jack."

"Jack's dead." She replied mournfully. "She was weak. She couldn't cut it."

While he was distracted, Jack kicked out a nearby light forcing the man to release her and shield his eyes from the intense glare. She disappeared quickly. Riddick looked around before spotting her just off to his right. She was eying him, leaning low against the guard rails.

"The name's Kyra now." She told him. "And I'm a new kind of animal."

He watched as she launched herself over the edge and disappeared from sight, slinking back into the steam and to who-knew-where. The large man stood for a moment, unsure of whether or not he should be worried or impressed with her now. He lightly touched his cheek and pulled back the bit of blood she'd drawn as roaring sounded in the distance.

Riddick took a few steps forward out from the safety of the cave's overhang to see what he might find. Part of him wondered if it was Rhya communicating with whatever animals lay hidden somewhere else, but it wasn't. He had come to realize she was spliced with some kind of cat, a large breed perhaps from the Earth-of-old. It made more sense to him than if she'd been bonded with any other species. The young woman was always oddly agile. But now it worried him.

When he spotted Rhya, he noticed she was resting, crouched low on a high cliffhanging, watching everything below like a predator. He briefly wondered how true that statement might be. When a human was spliced and their DNA combined with that of anything else, it changed them to the smallest cell. They're muscles grew stronger, their mind faster, senses better, adopting the characteristics of the animal chosen.

So what would happen if the mentality of the human was taken away? What would happen if someone spent days, weeks or years chipping away at the only thing that allowed you to control the animal, to remain in charge? Would it turn you into someone like Riddick, or worse? Would it turn you into a primal creature relying on nothing but instinct to survive, unable to comprehend the world around them?

The latter was the most plausible and where Riddick was leaning. He honestly feared for Rhya. He was frightened that she was lost somewhere in her mind, trapped by what the Necromungers had done to her, in the shadows and she'd never be able to come back to the light. But as much as that thought worried him, thinking she was gone entirely scared the shit out of him, that what made her her had been killed off by the conversion rituals.