The Ultimate Weapon Chapter 10-Shrouded
Whew, how long has it been since I last updated this story? 3 years? Bit of a longer hiatus than I can say I intended, but alas, life's little events always tend to get in the way. Anyway guys, sorry for keeping those of you who have been following this story from the beginning waiting so long, trust me when I say it's been a right pain re-reading bits of my own chapters to remember just what I am supposed to be doing. :P Anyway guys, hope you enjoy I apologise for any change in my writing style all my own fault and I will be writing this chapter around my first University assignments.
P.S. By the way, Warner Bros. Still own the Road Rovers, not me, I just made the three chars Lloyd, Reggie and Reidar, just thought you should be reminded.
His footsteps echoed loudly off of the high walls of the main hall as he made his way through the large room alone in the fading pink light of the sunset fading through the small hatch that lead to the roof. The transdogmification booths stood silent in the shadows, no power running through them while they were not in use. Hunter shivered as he glanced over their silent, cold metal forms, looking into them each in turn as he walked past. The echo of his footsteps stopped as he stood still in front of the last one, staring transfixed at the red collar singed with black burn marks resting unfastened on a high stool stood inside the booth. It was Exile's old Rover collar resting on his old dining room stool. It was left to rest in the place where the Siberian husky had first transdogmified into a Cano sapien.
Hunter sighed and slowly walked over to the pedestal and stared down at the collar. It had been Blitz who had set up the little 'memorial' to their 'fallen' comrade, not more than a couple of days after Hunter had broken the news to him. He had apparently set it up alone in the middle of the night before the morning when they were all to return to their feral forms and to their masters. Nobody had seen him do it, but everyone had noticed it that morning before they all stepped into their own booths ready for home and nobody asked, they all just knew. Blitz had been the last to step into his booth and transdogmify for his journey home.
Hunter closed his eyes not wanting to look at the collar any longer. As his eyelids came down, images of the former member of his team flooded the dark before his eyes. A proud looking husky disappearing behind a veil of white smoke emerging as a tall, muscular canine form beaming as he stepped out from the smoke; "ThisisaswesayinSiberia-totallyneato!" Blitz expressing his love for biting a bad guy on the butt a little too enthusiastically as only he could with a disapproving Exile rolling his eyes in the background; "Don'tbeweirdboy!" Now he was sitting in the co-pilot seat of the Turbo-Jet Rover with Exile at the controls, the husky smiling warmly as he caught him staring at pictures of his mother, too duty bound to risk taking a detour to see her without some encouragement; "YoumustmaketimefortheimportantthingsComrade!" All those memories, painfully nostalgic in the few seconds they materialised as the vivid flashbacks Hunter saw.
But the images soon changed, they became clearer, fresher and the feelings they evoked were of a very raw anger that frustrated Hunter in its intensity alone. He was held firmly by the arm, two strong hands gripping him tightly with two ice blue eyes staring into his own before the hands relinquished their grip and the eyes started to glow; "Let'sseeifthelittledogcaniceskate!" The sheer mockery in the tone of voice in that husky Russian voice and to think it had been that same dog that had almost killed his best buddy. Hunter took a few short, agitated and shallow breaths before opening his eyes that burnt with angry tears as he clenched his fists. Suddenly he had an impulse to grasp the singed collar and launch it across the room and he thought he would have, had the brief sound of a rush of air and a sudden heavy thud at the foot of the nearby ladder snapped him out of his thoughts.
"What the-? Reg, you ok pal?" Hunter exclaimed as he rushed to the hunched over form of the hybrid, who was shakily sitting up on his knees, his hand clasped over his right eye. For a moment, he didn't reply and Hunter cautiously put an arm around the back of Reggie's neck and tapped his shoulder. He looked as if he had just fallen asleep on his knees, after such a high fall from the roof, Hunter was amazed he had managed that much. "Reg? Hey, can you hear me?"
"I'm...fine..." The wolf dog replied in a quiet growl, removing his hand from his eye, revealing the grey fur on his cheek and around his eye to be covered by a dark, glistening stain of fresh blood. "Must have passed out...feels like a burnout..."
Hunter reached his further around Reggie's back, clasping his hand under his right arm and resting Reggie's left around his own neck, slowly helping the shorter canine to stand and holding him in place. He was relieved to feel Reg firmly grip his own neck without much argument. "Come on, we have to get you to the clinic." Hunter told him, Reg looking up with a sideways glance and nodding quietly as they took a few careful steps forward.
"Just what were you doing up there, Reg? There are a lot better places for a talk than on a building." Hunter asked, looking down at Reg as they plodded along the first corridor. Reg just looked ahead and shrugged his right shoulder. "I like the moon and the stars. I wanted to wait for the sun to set." He explained simply. "I'm part of the Space Rovers, comes with the position."
Hunter sighed and shook his head. "Ok so then how did you fall? I've seen you in action for long enough to know you wouldn't just fall down a hole."
Reg looked away from Hunter. "I fell asleep..." He mumbled in what sounded to Hunter like a tone of embarrassment. Not something he had come to expect from the usually assertive hybrid. "It's this exoskeleton; it takes a lot out of me when I use it like I did back at the vault."
"Exoskeleton?" Hunter repeated, briefly glancing up and down Reg's body, covered completely in the strange black material, apart from his head and tail. "Well, I guess we had all figured that you weren't just wearing armour."
"Heh, if only it were just armour, would make my life much easier." Reg replied in a voice drenched with disgust. "It's more like a second skin and it comes with a price I didn't volunteer to pay, something for me to remember my old 'masters' by."
Hunter looked away from Reg, noticing his upper clip starting to curl back into a snarl. It was more expressive than anything Reg had done in front of him for the six months he had been on the team and it was both curious and worrying. Hunter steered them down the long corridor past the hangar that lead to the clinic, after about a minute he noticed Reg seemed heavier and that his feet were dragging. Looking down he saw that Reg's muzzle was pointed downwards and was swaying with every step Hunter took. He stopped for a moment and pricked an ear up, listening carefully and sighing as he heard the deep, regular growl of the hybrid quietly snoring.
"Reg?" Hunter said, lowering his muzzle to Reg's ear. "Reg, can you hear me?" He got no response, even as he lightly slapped the side of his cheek, Hunter grimacing as he looked at his hand to find blood on it. There was nothing for it, Reg was out for the count after his brief mention of his 'masters', seemed the poor guy had managed to exhaust himself. Hunter held his arm around Reg firmly and crouched down, sliding his other arm around the unconscious canine's legs and lifting him to his chest to carry him. As he walked off towards the double doors leading to the clinic, he thought about what Reg had said, about how his 'exoskeleton' was what drained him so much. It didn't make sense right now, but Hunter was interested to hear more, for now at least it gave him something to think about other than Exile apparently coming back from the dead only to betray the team...
Blitz restlessly shifted about on the medical bed they had placed him on, unconscious but still his mind was racing in the vice-grip of a nightmare. "Nein...Snowball...you're..." He growled incoherently as the scene in his mind played out mercilessly.
He relived the final moments of the crash all those months ago, the panic and fear he felt while a blinded Exile wrestled with the cockpit controls and gravity to keep the sky rover in the air.
Then another scene interrupted the recollection for a second. He was approaching another uniformed Cano sapien, who was wearing a balaclava, from behind no scenery but an unending ocean of black surrounding them.
Then he returned to his nightmarish recollection, now he was gripping the co-pilot's wheel, a harsh bark from Exile prompting him to stop cowering and help, but the ground was almost upon them.
The vision interrupted for another few seconds. Now he was steadily circling around the stranger to look at their covered face. The sky rover's nose was steadily pitching upwards from their combined efforts; there was hope yet! But was it enough?
The stranger reached up a hand as Blitz circled round, their fingers gripped the black material and started to pull it back to reveal singed white fur covering the front of the neck.
The sky rover's underbelly made contact with the scorched, cracked earth of the desert, the metal crumbled beneath their feet with an ear splitting, anguished cry. The harsh collision knocking Blitz from his seat and his skull was the first part of his body to make contact with the Perspex of the wind screen, ending his immediate experience of the crash.
The stranger revealed himself to be wearing Exile's face, bits of his fur and skin burnt away and singed black, two swollen, throbbing and tearful orbs of red looked back into Blitz's eyes.
He awoke with a harsh gasp, his body had gone cold and he panted in raspy, shallow breaths while stinging tears welled up from the corners of his eyes. His arms trembled as he brought his hands up to his face and closed his eyes, the vision so fresh and vivid in his mind. To top it off, everything that had happened in the vault came flooding back to him like a fast paced movie reel, his breaths becoming shorter as he thought of Exile. Exile...
"Stupid Snowball!" He cried, extending his tough, rapier claws and cutting right through the trolley next to his bed, the nearest object he could reach. He clutched his hands firmly over his eyes and continued hyperventilating in his depressive rage. How could all this have happened? Whydid all this have to happen? He had spent many days and nights since the crash mourning his lost comrade, spent many nights blaming himself for not helping to prevent the crash earlier. It had crushed him to think that Exile was lost because of his own cowardice under pressure and he had started to loathe his own character. Half a year of trying to rebuild his character, to make things better for the team, to make-up for the loss of Exile so at least something could come out of his death... Now it turned out Exile was alive all along and was working for the bad side?
He extended his claws again, starting to dig them into his own head until two large, strong hands grasped them and prised them away, forcing them to his sides. One of the paws gripped him at the base of his muzzle and the other seemed to be digging a single digit firmly into the side of his neck. He heard a voice speaking softly, but assertively to him.
"What's his name? Blitz? Ok Blitz, listen to me." The voice told him, the owner leaning closer to his own face. "You're having a panic attack, I need you to try and calm down and listen to me, eh and breathe, breathe." The voice ordered, the hand under his muzzle relaxing and moving down to his heaving chest.
For a moment Blitz was angry; how dare this stranger handle him this way and interrupt his grief? Before the impulse could come to attack though, he felt warmth spreading out through his muscles from the spot on his neck, some of the physical tension and anxiety ebbing away. Even his breathing eventually became deeper and calmer, until finally he was only breathing at a slightly harsher rate than was normal. He allowed the stranger to gently rest him back onto his pillow, the heavy paw lightly patting his head before the stranger threw a blanket over him and moved away again. His limbs started to feel heavy and he felt as though he couldn't even lift a finger and it felt like someone was gently drawing his eyelids down over his eyes, obscuring his tear-blurred vision of the white ceiling.
Though his body was relaxed, his thoughts were still clear in his mind for now and he felt warm tears continue to leak from beneath his eyelids as he thought about the past six months. He had tried hard to move on and improve himself and his role in the Road Rovers, his own little way of making amends in memory of Exile, so he'd no longer crack when things got hairy. He had been true to his word for the most part, he'd kept his usual mistakes to a minimum, kept himself from barking at Hunter's every order and even made an attempt to restrain himself from his usual habit of recklessly charging canomutants, though that was a work in progress. No matter how mature he seemed with the team though, he had always struggled when left alone, nights alone in his room were the worst, trying and failing to sleep every night since the crash as flashbacks to the crash and the weight of his own thoughts and guilt refused to relent.
Whatever was flowing through his veins now though, courtesy of the stranger, was mercifully granting him a release for now it seemed. The images and thoughts and even the guilt started to recede into the very back of his mind, until eventually even his conscious thoughts were clouded and he couldn't even feel the bed beneath him anymore. His last sensation felt as if his head was floating blissfully from his shoulders as he drifted off into a much needed state of dreamless sleep, forced or not it was the only time Blitz had felt free from himself in a long, long time...
Ok so this wasn't where I originally intended to finish this particular chapter, but with the way Uni is going I feel as though it's probably more prudent to at least get this part up while I can. Sorry it's a bit short, I'd have liked to have continued with it further, but I think for now this is the best place for me to stop for now before I got carried away. Anyway in summary I am still alive and this story though erratically submitted is set to continue, sorry to keep you all waiting I had some brilliant and helpful reviews in the past and I still appreciate them!