Nearly a month had passed since Nom Anor and Eruk had met each other, and today, the former had been out for longer than usual. Eruk was getting worried; had something happened to him? Had he been caught by the restoration crews consisting of Galactic Alliance overseers and the Yuuzhan Vong Shapers who stayed behind to help? Or worse...?
She left the vault and headed up and out of the dilapidated apartment complex and looked out to the Vongformed site before her, wondering where he could have gone. Where could she start looking?
That question became moot once she saw a figure on a mechanical speeder bike, which had another speeder bike hooked up behind, riding in toward her. Eruk was about to turn and run when the biker came into view, and she saw that it was Nom Anor, who, strangely enough, had two hands instead of his one as he rode the speeder bike.
He stopped a few meters from her and as he dismounted, he smiled at her. He then took off the pack that was on his shoulders, opened it up, and showed her the three dead and sizable rodents that would fill them up for the day, as well as transparent canteens both filled with clean water.
But Eruk's attention wasn't on the contents of the pack. She was looking in disgust at both the speeder bikes and Nom Anor's new mechanical hand, which had taken the place of the stump that had been there previously.
"Where did you get these abominations?" Eruk asked, indicating the two vehicles and his prosthetic.
Nom Anor's cheery demeanor died away. "I found them in the building from which I caught our food and water. And I figured that I could lose my disadvantage-" he held up and flexed the mechanical fingers on his new hand "-and in case we were ever found, we might have a chance at getting away." He waved at the speeder bikes behind him with his prosthetic hand before turning back to her. "You do remember that the gods do not exist, right, Eruk?"
The former warrior felt an instant of loathing for Nom Anor and was about to physically assault him, only to remind herself that what he said was true. Therefore, there was nothing inherently wrong with mechanical and electric machines, as she had believed for so long. And besides, there would be some utility value in the speeder bikes, and Nom Anor's prosthetic hand might make him more useful, if only just a little bit, so her expression softened.
"I was surprised to find that these bikes still worked after what had to be years of disuse, what with the Yuuzhan Vong occupation of this planet," Nom Anor said as he unhooked the flexible metallic tether that held the two speeder vehicles together. He put the tether in the back of the bike that he rode and looked back at Eruk. "You should try to ride one of these." He patted the handlebar of the one that he towed in, again with his prosthetic hand.
Eruk looked at him in surprise, only to come to the conclusion that that was why he brought two speeder bikes, so her expression lost its raging heat again.
"I suppose I would have to learn if we do get in trouble," Eruk muttered more to herself than Nom Anor.
So she mounted the bike that Nom Anor indicated, and he leaned over her to point out the functions of the vehicle, things that he had learned from his pre-invasion days among the peoples of the New Republic. Eruk committed Nom Anor's lecture to memory, and on his, "Go," she revved the bike's engine and zoomed off.
She roamed the speeder bike around the vast Vongformed field surrounding the apartment complex, commencing various turns, ranging from tight and close to loose and far, at various intervals. She had a slight balance problem, but she always managed to correct it in the half-hour that she had of practicing in riding the vehicle.
By the end of that half-hour, she saw Nom Anor wave her back in, and she headed back in his direction, where she stopped a few meters from him and turned off the engine.
"You did surprisingly well for a beginner," Nom Anor complimented.
"It was easy enough," Eruk replied nonchalantly as she dismounted the bike. "So where we going to hide these two?"
"I know where," Nom Anor answered. "Turn on the repulsors of yours, just them, and follow me."
Eruk complied as Nom Anor turned on the repulsors of his own speeder bike, and she followed him as he walked his bike to the back of the apartment complex. There, they encountered a small but large enough parking garage, which Nom Anor opened, and they found no vehicles inside. So they placed the speeder bikes there, turned off the repulsors to settle them down, and they turned back and outside, Nom Anor shutting the door behind them.
"I think now is a good time to eat, hmm?" Nom Anor asked.
"I would like that," Eruk said.
But once they rounded the corner back to the front of the apartment complex, the two Yuuzhan Vong stopped in their tracks when they found were a dozen feral-looking, dirty humanoids in ragged and torn clothing looking at Nom Anor and Eruk with primal hatred and hunger in their eyes. Each individual was of a different species, so from left to right, there was a Twi'lek, a Bothan, a Mon Calamari, a human, a Weequay, a Togruta, a Cerean, a Neimoidian, a Zabrak, a Wookiee, a Trandoshan, and a Rodian, all of whom were male.
Only a few of the species that consisted of the fallen New Republic and the reigning Galactic Alliance.
Without warning, the multi-species feral group charged at the two Yuuzhan Vong.
Nom Anor spat two bouts of poison from his plaeryin bol that took out the two greatest threats in the group, the Wookiee and the Trandoshan, but the rest of the group had reached them, and Nom Anor knew that it would be a while before his bol could refill itself. Thankfully, however, Eruk had charged in herself and attached the Weequay and the Togruta while Nom Anor punched out the Bothan and the Twi'lek. He then turned his attention to the human and the Cerean, and he first dispatched the human by punching his mechanical hand in the man's throat, killing him instantly, before smacking the Cerean down to the ground and stomping his cone-shaped head down against the hard yorik coral.
Eruk, meanwhile, had thrown the Weequay in an over-the-shoulder toss by the other alien's arm toward the Zabrak. She then fell down against the ground as the wild Togruta leaped up on upon her, but Eruk literally rolled with the blow until she was on top of the Togruta, where she grabbed the cat-like alien's head in both hands and slammed it so hard against the yorik coral ground that an audible crack could be heard, signifying the end of the Togruta's life.
Eruk then stood up and squared off against the Neimoidian and Rodian. The latter attacked first, but she pivoted around his approaching form, caught his neck in an armlock, and promptly broke it, killing him instantly and dropping his corpse to the ground, before kicking the Neimoidian rushing in from behind in the sternum. She then whirled around to set herself on the bug-eyed alien and punched him in the throat multiple times until he dropped to the ground dead.
As for Nom Anor, he focused his attention on the Weequay, who pushed himself off the unconscious Zabrak and rushed in at the male Yuuzhan Vong. But the Weequay, in spite of his species' notoriety for stupidity and this individual's own amplified mindlessness, dodged his opponent's plaeryin bol poison and tackled Nom Anor to the ground, where he began to claw against the Yuuzhan Vong's face even as the latter alien did his best to fend off his wild foe. Nom Anor didn't struggle long, however, for the Trandoshan tackled the Weequay off, and the two wild aliens started to fight, no doubt wanting to be the one to eat - as Nom Anor figured that they thrived off the flesh of other species, if not on those of their own species - the male Yuuzhan Vong.
Across the battlefield, Eruk was downed by a punch in the face by the flippered hand of the Mon Calamari, but she kicked both her legs against the fish-like alien's legs, downing him as he screamed in pain, before she wrapped her legs around his head and twisted it until it broke, ending his life before flipping herself backward to kick both feet up against the Bothan's snout, causing him to backpedal from her in pain.
Hearing footsteps rushing in from behind upon landing and facing the stunned Bothan, Eruk commenced another pivot and ended up behind the murderous Twi'lek who tried to attack her, and she kicked him in the small of his back, downing him before pinning his legs in place with one of her legs before yanking on his lekku. With one pull, the head-tails were ripped off and gushing blood from the blue-skinned alien's head, sending him to writhe on the ground from the shock of the pain, where his eventual blood loss would lead to his death. She then set her sights on the incoming angry Bothan.
As for Nom Anor, he waited as the Weequay and Trandoshan fought it out, with the Weequay emerging the victor while the Trandoshan lay on the ground, his head a bloody smear along the yorik coral ground on account of the Weequay's frantic but effective punches. But when the Weequay had turned to face Nom Anor, poison had already spat out from the latter's plaeriyn bol and it struck the previously-evasive Weequay's visage, numbing him before killing him and dropping his body to the ground.
Which now left the Bothan, and his taloned hands raked four nasty, bloodying scars across Eruk's right cheek, and she wheeled around before collapsing to the yorik coral ground in pain, and not the kind that Yuuzhan Vong were known to shy away from. However, before she could turn herself to her back to launch a kick attack against the Bothan, as she had with the Mon Calamari, the Bothan fell on top of her and began choking the life out of her with his hands.
The choking stopped as soon as it had begun, though, when Nom Anor rushed in and delivered an uppercut against the Bothan, sending the furry alien off of Eruk. The sudden release of the wild alien's hold on her neck allowed Eruk to suck in a great amount of precious air, and she began coughing while Nom Anor finished off the downed Bothan by leaping up into the air and coming down upon the hairy figure, his elbow driving down into the Bothan's throat, thus killing him.
Nom Anor turned back and walked over to Eruk's own downed form, offering his prosthetic hand to help her up. Without hesitation, given the hand's mechanical nature, Eruk grabbed it and allowed Nom Anor to help her up.
She was about to thank him when she saw their remaining opponent, the Zabrak who recovered from unconsciousness, rush up behind him without a battle cry.
"Watch out!" she screamed plaintively.
And, instinctively, Nom Anor quickly grabbed Eruk by the shoulders and placed her in the Zabrak's path.
Reacting quickly, Eruk launched a drop-kick against the Zabrak's solar plexus even as he leaped toward her, and he flew back to the ground in pain. She then rushed in toward him, jumped up, and came down with her right boot smacking against his head, the impact being so hard that it ended the tattooed alien's life.
Eruk stood over the dead Zabrak's corpse for a long moment, her thoughts unknown to Nom Anor as she stood absolutely still, before she finally turned back to the apartment, not paying her male counterpart any mind as she soon reentered the building.
Nom Anor followed, wary of what the former warrior was now feeling.