A/N: Looks who's back
"Ok we made it." Irritus said between deep breaths. The woman he was tied to let out a small laugh as she gasped for air.
"Good…that's good. What next?" Irritus licked his dry lips.
"Let me see." He opened his mouth and gripped the latch between broken teeth. Rolling his head around he twisted the handle until the door on the fuse box swing open. Inside he was greeted with the sight of a dozen or so wires. Picking one at random he bit down on it and pulled.
~/~/~
Edsin could only see the edges of the storm troopers black armored bodies but it was enough to tell where their hands, and more importantly, their shotguns were. He took a deep breath, held it for a second, and then slowly exhaled. He felt the barrels of the shotguns on his temples and in one motion; he snapped his left arm back while twisting that wrist. The sudden motion snapped the wire that had been around that wrist. No sooner was that hand free when the lights in the room went out.
Both the storm troopers yelled in surprise and Edsin grabbed the barrel of the left shotgun and yanked. Feeling someone holding onto the weapon the storm trooper pulled the trigger. The flash from the weapon was enough to light up the room just long enough for all three occupants to see the shotgun was aimed at the other storm trooper. In the next instant it was dark again and Edsin heard the sound of crumbling carapace on rockcrete. The living storm trooper regained control of the shotgun and Edsin's free hand grabbed at the restraint on his head. He could hear the sound of the storm trooper racking back again on the weapon as he undid the restraint one his forehead. No sooner had he put his chin to his chest when another flash of light illuminated the room.
He felt the air mover over his neck as the pellets passed over him. Before the storm trooper could eject the spent round Edsin grabbed at the right handed restraint. The storm trooper pumped the shotgun and Edsin put all the momentum from his to free limbs and head into rolling forward. With a loud snap the bonds on his waist and legs broke and he summersaulted forward as the shotgun discharged.
Edsin felt something stab into his leg but he ignored it and used the flash of light to find the dead storm trooper. He spotted the body literally next to where the roll had put him and grabbed for the shotgun. The living storm trooper ejected the spent shell and Edsin turned towards the sound and fired.
~/~/~
A small hand grabbed Alain's head by his hair and pulled it out of the water for what felt like the hundredth time. He gasped for air only to cringe when he felt the woman's presence.
"You don't give up easily psyker, I'll give you that." She dug her fingers into his scalp. "But I'll break you. Just like all the others." Alain shook with pain and his eyes found the pipe he'd seen earlier. Then the lights went out.
In surprise the woman let go of Alain's head. It felt as though the lack of her physical presence had lessened her null presence and the mental pain dissipated. Alain wasted no time. He lunged forward over the tube he'd been dunked in and put both hands on the pipe. He focused on the pipes with all his mental might and felt the now familiar feeling of voices in his head. The pipe began to glow in the dark and went from yellow to orange to red to white. Alain heard the woman moving behind him and the feeling of nothing began to return but he had already done what he wanted to. There was a pop somewhere in the darkness to his right and he heard a loud hissing sound from there. The woman screamed in pain and Alain felt the warm air on his face. He realized that it was probably scalding hot but for whatever reason he wasn't in any pain. He turned towards her screams in the darkness.
"I don't need my powers to find you." Alain said moving towards the screams.
He stretched out his hands and found her head, feeling her null presence again but ignoring the pain in his head. "And I don't need them to kill you either." He placed his thumbs over her eyeballs…
~/~/~
Maria starred up at the simple light fixture that she could just barely make out in the dark as Irritus continued ripping out wires with his teeth. Nothing was happening. She looked all around her but everything in the dark room looked the same. After a minute of listening to Irritus pull wires she sighed.
"Maybe there's something else we can try." She offered. She heard another wire snap and then Irritus spit.
"Maybe your right, though I thought for sure this circuit box would be connected to something." Maria gave a tight lipped smile even though she knew the cultist couldn't see it.
"I'm sure you can think of something." She said. Irritus opened his mouth to reply when they both heard the sound of heavy feet walking outside their room. Heavy armored feet.
"What's going on in there?" a voice on the other side of the wall said. The two heretics held their breath.
"What do you mean?" A second voice asked.
"We're having power outages all over the facility and the only circuit breaker that hasn't been checked is in there." The first voice said in an annoyed tone. The second voice's reply sounded confused.
"Wait a second; I've got two prisoners in there." Maria bit her lip and looked over her shoulder. "They must've messed with the wires."
"Irritus." Maria said in a sort of loud whisper. "How much do you weigh?" She felt the cultist try to move in his seat and guessed he was trying to look over his shoulder.
"I'm not sure…a hundred and thirty pounds maybe." Maria took a deep breath and tried to determine if her plan would work. "Why?" He asked. She heard the voices outside again.
"We'll let's get in there and make sure that they don't do any more damage." She head them messing with the lock.
'No time.' She thought. "Ok Irritus, when I tell you to I need you to put your legs up on the wall and kick off, ok?" She felt Irritus move again before saying a shaky.
"Ok…" The door swung open and light poured into the room. Maria took a deep breath and leaned as far forward as she could. Her feet were flat on the ground and she crouched until she felt the weight of the chairs and cultist on her back.
"Ok…now…"
~/~/~
Edsin pointed the shotgun into the same place in the darkness for a whole minute after he fired it. After what seemed like forever he heard the sound of carapace falling on the ground. Then nothing. No sound at all. He relaxed and the lights flickered and came back on.
Or to be more correct, red emergency lights came on and bathed the room in a red glow. Edsin could see the two dead storm troopers laying on the floor, each with a hole in the front of their armor where the weapon had torn into them. At this range and with a weapon like this carapace would do nothing. He took a deep breath and began to stand when he felt the stabbing pain in his left leg again. Looking down he saw where he'd been shot.
It hadn't been a direct hit, but he enough of the pellets had hit him that he had a large gash just above his knee. And it was bleeding. Edsin forced himself to stand up despite the pain and limped over to the table he hadn't been able to see before. It was cleared off for the most part save for the IV equipment that had until only recently been hooked up to. He removed the bag that was still attached to the machine and put the tube back into the catheter that was still in his arm.
Squeezing the bag he felt the spur shoot into his blood stream and dissolve the pain. He sighed in relief and put the bag in his left hand above his arm. Looking around the rest of the room he found a rag sitting on the table and grabbed the sheath from one of the storm troopers knives. He took the sheath and held it against the top of his left thigh as he tied the rag around it. After the rag was tight he twisted the sheath until the bleeding stopped. The makeshift tourniquet would do for now but the wound would kill him if he didn't find any actual medical supplies. He used another rag to tie the IV bag to his left shoulder and started undoing one of the storm troopers armor.
~/~/~
When he was finished his hands up to his forearms were drenched in blood. Alain let go of the bounty hunters body and looked at his hands. He felt happy. For the first time he could remember he didn't have a head ache and he felt happy.
'FeELs goOd DosEn't iT?' Alain stood straight up. The sound had come from behind him. He turned around but the only thing there was the tub that the bounty hunter had been dunking his head in. Alain leaned over and starred at his reflection. Only the face looking back at him wasn't his own.
The face looking back him was a sick purple color. The eyes were too high up of the face and one looked larger than the other. The mouth was far wider than normal and the bottom row of teeth protruded out. Two horns topped off the demonic face. It blinked at him. Alain realized why his headache was gone.
"WeLL?" It said, and Alain heard the voice in his head rather than with his ears. "dIDn'T tHat Feel gOoD?" Alain bit his lip.
"What? Killing?" He asked with a gesture to the eyeless body. The Demon shook its head.
"nO, ReVEnGe." Alain looked down at his blood soaked hands. "aND tHEre'S MorE tO ComE." Alain looked back at the demon in the water.
"More to come?" He repeated. The demon nodded.
"MuCH MoRe aND It sTArtS WIth tHis HiVE." Alain shook his head.
"We still need to shut down the power to that shield before anyone else is getting in here. And I don't even know where I am; let alone where that power plant is." The demon chuckled.
"Do YOu hEAr THat?" It asked. Alain frowned and opened his mouth to speak when his ears heard a distant sound. It was faint, steady rumble. Like the sound of large machinery. "yOU MigHT bE CloSEr tHaN YoU tHinK."
~/~/~
When the door opened the first thing that Sister Anna saw was that the heretics were gone. Completely gone. Even the chairs she'd tied them to had vanished.
"Where'd they go?" Sister Rita asked. Anna shook her head.
"I don't know they were right he-" The sound of wood snapping somewhere in the darkness interrupted her. Both sisters looked at each other then flipped the safeties off their bolters. They strode into the room side by side and that was when the heretics made their move. The door they stepped though only seconds ago slammed shut putting them in darkness.
Sister Rita immediately spun around and let off a half dozen shot at the door. The muzzle flashes lit up the room for an instant, providing just enough light to see that there was nothing where she was shooting. Suddenly Anna felt someone behind her. She tried to turn around but they were chest to back with her. The person grabbed her left hand and forced it so her bolter was pointed somewhere in the darkness, while she felt another hand wrap around her right hand. The grip on her right hand pushed her finger into the trigger and her bolter lit up the room.
The muzzle flashes provided just enough light for her to see that she was shooting Sister Rita in the back.
She was able to force the bolter out of her hands but the damage was done. As the bolter was clattering on the floor she felt the hands let her arms go and grab around her head. One holding her chin, the other on the back of her skull. Then the hands pulled on her head in different directions.
~/~/~
Irritus heard a wet snapping sound followed by a clatter of armor on the floor. He crept back over to the door he'd just closed and reopened it, letting light from the hallway spill back in. In the light he saw Maria standing over the armored body. Her face had the look of someone trying very hard not to have any expression on it.
"Good job Maria." He said walking up to her. "They didn't stand a chance." Maria just starred at the body on the ground. Irritus looked back at the door. Surely someone had heard the gunshots. "We should get go-"
"Her name was Anna." She said interrupting the cultist. Irritus looked back at the former sister. He noticed that she was shaking a little.
"Did you know her?" He asked, glancing back at the door. Maria shrugged.
"Not really. I just…I remembered her face." Irritus put a hand on her shoulder. She twitched a little at the contact.
"Are you ok?" he asked, genuine concern in his voice. Maria nodded slowly and took his hand in hers and squeezed it.
"Yeah, thanks." She took a deep breath. "Give me a hand with the body." Irritus failed to hide his surprise as Maria turned the body over.
"What are you doing? More of them will be here any minute." Maria ignored him and reached around the collar of the power armor until she found a latch. With a click the first piece of the armor came off.
"Help me get this on."
A/N: Hey everybody, thanks for all the reviews and follows from the last couple of months. It's great to know that people are enjoying this!
I feel like mentioning that at this point "Edsin's Own" has been in production for over a year, either in rough drafts, completed chapters, or different concepts entirely that got cut before I started submitting anything. That makes it the longest still successful writing project I've done. I put a lot of effort into this story and I'm glad that people enjoy it as much as I do.