Ok guys I am so sorry that it took so long for me to get this chapter up, I have been busy with my Marvel Fanfics at the moment and couldn't concentrate. Anyway
Enjoy
Chapter 11: The Enemy of my Enemy Pt2
"Ugh….wha…..where am I?" Erik asked as he groggily came to, he looked at his surroundings to find that he had fallen into a dark stagnant part of the ship with mist surrounding him. Luckily his helmet's visor was still intact and he could see through the dark with its enhanced vision modes.
Erik then looked up to see the ceiling above him had a massive hole leading down to where he was lying, the height of said hole was impossible to tell, but it was much further a fall than he could survive without a little help. Erik sat up and felt the gel layer underneath his armour softening and relaxing 'Must have taken a lot of the impact' Erik thought as he stood up.
All Myrmidons had impact Gel underneath their armour. The invention of impact gel was part of project Ares and was designed for situations like this. When the armour's lockup system wasn't activated by the user, the impact gel would kick in and would 9 times out of 10 save the Myrmidon's life.
Erik looked to see what he was sitting in and saw the crushed and squashed remains of the Xenomorph crusher he was fighting, the only parts that looked recognisable were the head and the tail which were the only pieces that hadn't been obliterated by the impact. Erik knew that after a certain period of time the Xenomorph's extremely acidic blood would become neutralized and would lose its effect, and that would explain why its guts and entrails weren't burning through this level as well.
Erik rose to his feet and stretched to free up his stiffened joints and wiped the dry Xeno blood from his visor.
'Thank god for this armour' Erik thought, if Myrmidon armour wasn't immune to Xeno blood then Erik would be dead. Erik then began to look around for his equipment and quickly found his Pulse rifle and checked how much ammunition was left.
"160 rounds…..well that's a stroke of good luck" Erik smiled and holstered it on his back. He then turned back to find his broadsword buried in the Xenomorph's head crest, he walked over and pulled it free with both hands to find it in perfect condition, he sheathed on his back and did a check of all the equipment he had on him.
"160 pulse rifle rounds plus an extra magazine, 25 pulse revolver rounds, standard medical kit, 3 frag grenades, M51A Pulse rifle Myrmidon class, 2 Myrmidon issue pulse revolvers and a tensile titanium polymer alloy broadsword…what every Myrmidon needs to kick ass" Erik mumbled to himself as he locked and loaded his pulse rifle.
Erik looked at his wrist computer to see how far away he was from the rest of the team, the distance flew up as a hologram and Erik groaned "299 miles….great". Erik turned on his radio and tried to make contact with the others
"This is Reaver, come in" Erik spoke clearly into his radio
'Bzzzzzzzt' the radio gave only static back
"I repeat this is Reaver Come in!" Erik spoke louder only to receive more static
"Dam it…..I guess I'm going to have to make my own way back" Erik groaned as he began his trek to find the others.
"FUUUUUUUCK MY FEET ARE KILLING ME!" Sophie moaned out loud
"I get it!" Eli half shouted back
"Sophie moaning isn't going to get us anywhere" Norma replied to her fellow human
"Oh but walking for miles on end without any rest is?" Sophie asked
"If you don't want some alien monster biting your face off then yes" Eli said back
"There isn't any need to be so grouchy" Sophie said causing Eli to stop to turn and face her.
"Grouchy...GROUCHY!?" he shouted at her giving her a full view of his serrated teeth
"You have done Fuck all but moan and complain since we started this whole 'adventure' and so far all you have managed to do is piss me the fuck off! Unless you have any better suggestions of what we should do, which I bet you don't, shut the fuck up!" Eli finally lost his temper and snapped at Sophie who was a bit taken back at his sudden outburst. Eli then turned and began walking again while Rezeal stayed behind with the girls.
"The fuck is his problem?" Sophie whispered loud enough for Norma to hear, Rezeal's Kamad hearing allowed him to hear what she had said and answered Sophie first
"He's just stressed out is all" Rezeal stated
"Stressed….about what?" the blonde American asked
"He is the son of the Emperor….with that comes more stress than everyone else in the galaxy combined" Rezeal stated
"He is the son of your Emperor?!" Norma asked surprised not knowing that Eli was royalty. Alien royalty sure, but royalty nonetheless.
"Yeah, I've known him since we were kids, and he has always been the same….he doubts himself and ends up taking his aggression out on others, he's a good man, he's just….having a hard time finding his place" Rezeal told the girls
"Give him a chance…..trust me he will surprise you" Rezeal told them as they began moving again, Rezeal walked a little faster to catch up with Eli.
(You should be a bit gentler when talking with them) Rezeal told Eli in Kamad
(Gentle won't get us out of this mess alive with our heads intact) Eli said
(They are just Girls Eli) Rezeal said
(I know Girls who could handle themselves in this situation) Eli replied
(Those Girls were highly trained ass kicking Kamads. these two are researchers and Human) Rezeal said
(Their species shouldn't be an excuse in this situation) Eli replied bitterly
(You know you are acting very out of character right now…..what's wrong?) Rezeal asked
(I don't know….I just have a…..bad feeling) Eli said with a sigh
(What kind of feeling?) Rezeal asked
(Like….we are being followed) Eli replied
(I'm sure it's nothing my friend, now come on, we have to get back to the ship as soon as we can) Rezeal said to his friend who nodded in agreement.
The two kamads kept walking with Norma and Sophie trailing behind them at a slower pace. Eli had slowed down a bit to give the girls a little time to catch their breath, he wasn't all heartless and given the circumstances he was having a bad day. Eli and Rezeal exchanged glances and nodded before Eli drew a throwing knife from his belt and hurled it behind him, the Knife whizzed past Norma and Sophie who flinched as it went right past them. The knife imbedded itself in the shoulder of a figure that was following the group.
Eli ran over to the figure that was writhing on the ground and grabbed him by the throat and pinned him against a wall.
"WHO ARE YOU AND WHY ARE YOU FOLLOWING US?!" Eli roared at the man who turned out was a human male. Norma ran up to Eli and instantly recognised the man.
"Let….me…ugh…go" the man choked
"Dr Blair?" Norma asked
"You know this human?" Eli snarled not tearing his fearsome gaze from Blair
"Yeah he is a professor for the project" Norma explained and as she did Eli growled and released him causing him to fall to the floor.
"The question still stands Blair…..why were you following us? And while we are asking questions how are you still alive?" Rezeal asked looking down at the human who was trying to catch his breath.
"I survived….by following your trail…you seem to leave a trail of death where you go….I figured if I was to survive I should keep following you" Blair spluttered while rubbing his neck as it was beginning to bruise.
"It's ok you can trust him, he's got a point" Sophie said personally knowing Blair, Eli growled at the human male as did Rezeal as this human didn't smell right…he smelt…off.
"If you want to trust him then fine, but if he makes any sudden moves I'll take his head off in the blink of an eye…you get me?" Eli asked earning a concerned look from Blair
"Don't worry he's fine" Norma said helping Blair to his feet and inspecting the knife imbedded in his shoulder
"You're lucky I wasn't aiming for anything vital" Eli growled
"You didn't have to throw a knife at him in the first place!" Norma shouted at Eli
"He shouldn't have been snooping around in the dark, it serves him right!" Eli growled at Blair
Norma pulled the knife out of Blair's shoulder and to her surprise he didn't start to rapidly bleed apart from the general spurt of blood from the wound. The cut itself looked clean and cauterized, she then looked closely at the knife and apart from its intricate design the only thing that separated it from a knife of human make was how light it was.
"What's this knife made of?" Norma asked curiously
"Kamad steel, its light, unbreakable and cauterizes the cut when enough pressure is put into the blow" Rezeal explained proudly
"Could, you spend less time admiring the knife…and more time FIXING MY FUCKING WOUND!?" Blair shouted at Norma snapping her trance away from the dagger and back to him
"Whoops, sorry I was miles away" Norma smiled as she handed the dagger back to Eli who sheathed it in his belt.
"As soon as you are done treating him we have to keep moving" Eli told them as he sniffed the air
"You can't be serious! With this shoulder?!" Blair shouted back as Norma treated his wound
"You weren't the only thing following us" Eli said as he looked behind him into the darkness of the ship.
Something was hunting them down and Eli had a good idea of what it was. If they wanted to live through this then they would have to keep moving and soon.
Sha'ra felt her eyes opening and the groggy feeling had set itself in her head, she couldn't have been unconscious for long even from a fall like that.
She sat up slowly and checked her surroundings with her mask's enhanced vision modes; wherever she was it was cold, very cold but nothing she couldn't handle due to her Yautja blood. Cold temperatures were nothing but a mild inconvenience to her and her people.
She found that all of her gear was still intact and had sustained minimal damage, her weapons were in pristine condition and he armour only had a few scratches and dents. Her helmet's systems were all functional and the only thing out was place was the tracker on her belt which was smashed with the landing.
The tracker on her belt was meant to give out a signal that other members of the hunting party could use to track down their fellow hunters. These devices were used during large hunts such as this, with her tracker destroyed the others hunters would most likely think she was dead.
She got to her feet and stretched her joints, her muscles and joints loosening up as she did. She then looked to where she had fell and found the corpse of the hog creature that made them fell down; one thing that stood out was that the creature was still breathing and had its eyes fixed on her.
The way the creature was snorting and spluttering blood clearly showed that it was in pain and dying very slowly. Sha'ra hated seeing strong and powerful creatures die like this, such a worthy creature that had her uncle, a trained and experienced elder on the ropes deserved a more dignified end than bleeding or suffocating to death. She extended her glaive and pointed the tip at the creature's head.
"May Paya have mercy on you" she said before thrusting the glaive's blade into the creature's head, killing it with a crack of its skull.
She ripped the blade of her weapon out of the creature's head and wiped the blood from it before looking into the dark of the ship.
"I'm coming brother" Sha'ra said before making her way through the ship's bowels.
*An hour later
Erik had been walking through the darkness of the ship for at least an hour. The sheer size and scale of this ship were mindboggling and Erik began to wonder who the hell designed it. Apparently when scientists and mechanics first discovered it they predicted that the Asclepheus was three times its present size and the parts that they found were only the vital pieces. Erik wondered why anyone would create a ship of that size, not that he had to linger on that question for very long considering the ship would be getting blown up pretty soon.
Suddenly Erik heard a clanking noise that sounded like footsteps and immediately stopped in place. But as he stopped so did the footsteps, he turned the light on his helmet and the light on his rifle off to avoid drawing attention and switched to thermal vision. His thermal sights didn't pick much up as he scanned the area for whatever was making that noise, it was a possibility that it might have been nothing but the coolants working around the clock.
Erik then began to walk again until he swore he heard something different from the sound of footsteps, he swore it sounded like clicking and chirping. He quickly turned to where the sound was coming from and fired off a warning shot which echoed in the large space of the room. Normally discharging weapons in a cooling unit would be a bad idea but luckily Erik's rifle was on a setting where the rounds wouldn't impact upon anything but organics.
The sound of the footsteps and the chirping had stopped and Erik could only hear the sound of the cooling towers hissing cold gas all over the place. The room now looked like it was extremely foggy and it was getting hard for Erik's thermal vision to work so he switched it to night vision. Erik listened for a few minutes before turning and proceeding.
Suddenly something flew from the space he shot into and whizzed at him, Erik leapt out of the way due to his enhanced senses and saw the object imbed itself into a wall. The object was a bladed Shuriken that Yautja used, Erik quickly got to his feet and turned to where the Shuriken had come from and saw a silhouette of a hunter and began to unload the clip of his rifle in its direction.
Sha'ra quickly leapt out the way of the bullets and into some cover. Whatever had opened fire on her was like nothing she had seen before, this creature was certainly no Black Yautja and it didn't look like how her uncle had described humans. Its sheer bulkiness and black armour didn't look like any other race she had seen in her life. She knew this creature was hostile when it fired a shot in her direction; she only threw her shuriken at the creature in order to eliminate it as a threat. She unholstered her spear gun and loaded it with a long metal spike.
She waited for the gun fire to stop and leapt out from cover to shoot her spear gun at the figure's rifle. The spike that the gun fired didn't destroy the rifle like she intended, but it surely did knock it out of Erik's hands forcing him to draw his duel pulse revolvers and begin firing with them in her direction. The Pulse revolvers that Erik used weren't exactly unlimited ammo-wise and ran out very quickly. Instead of reloading them he holstered them and drew his broadsword.
Sha'ra heard the sound of a blade being unsheathed and extended her glaive and turned the corner and lunged at her opponent. Erik and Sha'ra clashed their weapons against each other causing sparks to fly across the place. Erik swung his sword in an attempt to decapitate Sha'ra but she foresaw the attack and ducked in order to kick Erik's legs from under him. Erik fell onto his back and Sha'ra raised her glaive like a spear to try and impale Erik, but Erik's armoured hand shot out and grabbed the blade of the glaive bringing it to a halt.
Even though Erik's hand was armoured it began to drip blood as Sha'ra forced her glaive even harder, Erik grunted and swung his sword at the huntress in an attempt to cut her throat only Sha'ra leapt backwards with her Glaive still in hand.
Erik quickly got to his feet with his broadsword in his left hand while clutching his bleeding right hand. Sha'ra growled as she gripped her Glaive, Erik was a worthy opponent indeed and she wondered if she was capable of beating him.
Erik then finally scanned the form of his opponent; this Yautja was only an inch or two shorter than him and had a very nice looking feminine physique without having too much muscle, a female Yautja! He had never seen a female in his life and to be honest hardly any other humans had seen the Females of the Yautja species.
There had been many theories concerning the gender of Yautja, one theory was that maybe the species' females and males looked so alike that the differences had been unidentifiable; another one was that the species were monogendered. But the proof was here right in front of him, that Yautja's did indeed have females.
Erik had issues with fighting women but considering the situation he was in, it was him or her.
Erik lunged at Sha'ra and Sha'ra lunged at him. They crashed into each other and fell onto the floor, Erik rolled onto his back in time to have Sha'ra land on his lap and straddle him. She primed her glaive and tried to impale him but Erik moved his head causing Sha'ra's glaive to imbed itself on the right hand size of his head. Erik swung his broadsword at Sha'ra but she blocked it at the last second by extending the Wristblades on her right arm. Sha'ra then began to choke Erik with her free hand while Erik grabbed her hand and tried to pry it off. The Myrmidon and the Huntress were engaged in a contest of strength and it pretty narrow to say the least seeing as both weren't exactly human.
Erik's Myrmidon strength was equal to that of a Yautja hunter while Sha'ra's strength was a little below that due to her small stature. Erik pried Sha'ra's hand from his throat and the two were left at a standstill. Sha'ra's right hand was busy blocking Erik's broadsword and her legs were on either side of his waist leaving the both of them unable to do anything.
Suddenly an ear piercing screen rung through the air, as soon as Erik and Sha'ra heard it they snapped their heads to the right. Erik knew that sound better than anything, Xenomorphs, and they were coming this way. Erik drew back his sword and threw Sha'ra off of him before dashing for his pulse rifle. Sha'ra scrambled back into a wall as Erik picked up and cocked his rifle before aiming it at her.
Sha'ra closed her eyes as she waited for the inevitable.
*BANG!
Sha'ra opened her eyes to see that she wasn't dead; she looked to her right to see a Xenomorph warrior with a bullet hole in its head. The creature's blood hissing and melting the floor below it as it dropped onto the floor. She looked back at Erik who turned to his right and began to shoot at three Xenomorphs that were running at him at full speed with their fans and claws bared.
Erik shot two of the three Xenomorphs in the head spreading their acidic brains and fluids all over the floor behind them, the last one however got to Erik and swiped the gun out of his hand. The Xenomorph then tried to bite his face off but Erik kept its mouth open with his armoured hands, the creature then forced him onto his back and used its secondary mouth to try and get closer.
"Ngggh you fucking bug!" Erik strained as he tried to keep the Xeno's mouth away from his face, yet it kept growing closer and closer until its drool and hot breath was steaming up his visor. Erik's armour may have been immune to the acidic blood of the Xenomorph but they could still bite and claw through armour like Erik's.
The Xenomorph then flicked its tail and cut deeply into Erik's thigh causing his blood to shoot out all over the floor.
"AAAAGH! FUCK!" Erik shouted as his bleeding became more rapid as the Xenomorph's tail left the wound. The creature was now only a few millimetres away from biting a hole in his head and Erik was beginning to think this was the end until…
*WIIICRACK!
A blue blot of plasma blew the Xenomorph's head clean off leaving nothing but a bloody stump in its place.
Erik quickly turned his head to see the Yautja Huntress with a smoking plasma caster on her shoulder. She got to her feet and steadied herself before retrieving her glaive from the ground and giving it a flourish. She looked at Erik who was looking intently at her; Sha'ra was wearing her mask while Erik was wearing his helmet so neither could see the other's face.
Suddenly another two Xenomorphs leapt from the shadows and attacked Sha'ra. She held her ground as the two Xeno's circled her like sharks, she knew for a fact that these things weren't going to be stupid and attack one at a time. They were going to attack at once, and try to kill her as savagely as they can, giving her 0% chances of survival.
Suddenly a blade sliced off one of the Xeno's tails and Erik leapt into it, tackling it to the ground and pressing his broadsword against its throat as it hissed and screeched at him. Sha'ra took this chance and swung her glaive at the other Xeno, cutting the front half of its face off leaving a bloody stub as the Xeno fell lifeless on the floor.
The xeno fighting Erik clawed at him, the talons on its feet pierced his armour and caused his blood to spill onto the floor. Erik grunted and pressed the blade of his broadsword hard into the Xeno's throat until he sliced its head off.
Erik then picked up the Xeno's corpse and threw it away. He then fell onto his back due to the pain, the blood from his wounds pooled onto the floor around him.
"Ah…..shit" Erik breathed heavily as the last thing he saw before he blacked out was the Yautja Huntress kneeling down next to him and chirping.
Sha'ra lingered over the creature for a while and under a little observation she came to the conclusion that it was a human male. He was almost nothing like how her uncle had described humans; according to him humans were physically inferior and were at best a fraction as skilled as Yautja, but this human was skilled and powerful in more ways than one.
She looked down on him and noticed the deep wounds and amount of blood he had lost. She put her two index fingers on his neck which was covered in some sort of latex material to see if his heart was still beating. After a while she began to feel his pulse, it was weak but it was a pulse.
This human had saved her life in a way when those two Xenomorphs were circling her. If he hadn't intervened she would be either dead or host to a Xenomorph abomination.
Right now she had three choices, leave this man to die, put him out of his misery with a quick clean death or save his life.
She knelt by his side for a few minutes before scooping him up in her arms, she hoped that she wouldn't regret doing this as she carried him away to somewhere safer.
Meanwhile on the bridge of the Asclepheus, Ma'zax was sitting in the captain's chair with a human made book in his hand. Captain Grey was still tied up in a chair to the right of him and needless to say he looked terrible.
Grey's cybernetic eye had been torn from its socket and it looked like his right ear had been cut off only to be reattached. He was bloody and bruised and had a few less teeth. Next to him was Captain Azarov who was looking a bit better than him as all she had was a black eye and a few gashes here and there.
"I will give you humans this….you do come up with some interesting literature" Ma'zax smiled as he flicked another page of the book he was reading.
Over the time Grey and Azarov had been with Ma'zax they hadn't learned a thing about him. This was a bad sign in their book as they could read people, Yautja or not like a book. This Black Yautja was completely different from all the others on the ship as at least they were consistent in the way they acted. Tra'kan his second in command was a sadistic killer with an unquenchable thirst for blood while many of the hunters were simply grunts who loved to kill.
Being in the same room as Ma'zax was unsettling to say the least, as he was terrifying even by the standards of the Black Yautja on board. One moment he would be civil and polite while the next moment he would be tearing one of his own men's heads off with his bare hands and grinning while he did it.
"Why do you humans love to be frightened, Captain?" Ma'zax asked Grey
"What?" he asked back
"This book, it is meant to be frightening…..I am confused why Humans like you would write something that is designed to induce fear" Ma'zax asked as he closed the book and looked at Grey
"Why write something that makes you weak?" he asked before continuing
"Fear makes you weak. It confuses me why a race would create something that turns the ones who read it weak. It is a paradox why it is called entertainment when it turns you into something that is unworthy of being called sentient" Ma'zax said as he got to his feet and crouched in front of Grey.
"Why would you weaken yourselves? Why would you lessen yourselves to a level below that of beasts?" Ma'zax asked as he got closer to Grey
"I think I know the answer Captain…do you mind if I explain?" Ma'zax asked with a smile. Grey could only nod as the wrong answer could get his face torn off.
"You embrace fear because you think it makes you stronger…this is a human delusion. You tell yourselves this because you cannot except that you are pathetic and weak. So you come up with lies that make you feel as if you are strong when in fact you are not. I find this manner of thinking…disgusting" Ma'zax spat the last part of the sentence
"You will break, and you will tell me the access codes to the ships energy and drive cores. You will give into your weak human nature eventually" Ma'zax said before rising to his feet and sitting back in the chair.
"My Lord, we have an incoming message" one of the hunters told Ma'zax
"Who from?" Ma'zax asked
"The Sovereign my lord, she wishes to know our progress" the hunter replied
"Get these two out of my sight and put it up on screen" Ma'zax commanded as the Hunters did what he asked and took the two human captains out of the room.
As the large screen in the room powered up, Ma'zax took off his cloak and knelt down low as the image of the Black Yautja sovereign appeared on the screen. The silhouette only showed the outline of the figure as she began to speak.
"Elder Ma'zax…..how goes the plan" the female Sovereign said in Yautja
"It goes well my Lady Sovereign. The ship is under our control and we have encountered next to no resistance" Ma'zax spoke proudly
"Have you taken control of the cores yet?" the Sovereign asked
"…..no" Ma'zax replied
"See to it that the next time I check….that you have" the Sovereign spoke
"Yes my Lady" Ma'zax said
"My husband will not tolerate failure…you know this better than most, see that it gets done Ma'zax…or your head will be his" the Sovereign spoke
"….yes my lady" Ma'zax spoke in a submissive tone as the image disappeared from the screen. Ma'zax rose to his feet and traced his fingers over his face, in particular the scar over his left eye and broken tusk….a hideous wound left from the one who commanded his people. A reminder that he would do what he was told, or suffer the consequences.
Ironic….as he had finished telling Grey that fear made you weak, he reminded that even he had something to fear in this universe.
Cliffhanger! Please be sure to review and leave what you thought (god knows I need the feedback)
-who has Ma'zax so scared?
-what will become of Sha'ra and Erik?
-when will Tra'kan and the other Black Yautja hunters catch up with Eli, Rezeal, Sophie and Norma?
-and how can things get any worse?
Yet again I hope you guys can forgive me for the long wait that came with this chapter and I hope you enjoyed it, see you later.
Next time: Chapter 12 – Pleased to meet you
