Omega's Valued Prisoner

Tale 13: Formation

Three days later, the lab would have been prepped to be left behind. The COG originally going to specifically tear it down, but were convinced to leave it standing. Niles prepped a security system and a semi sentient AI system based on his own personality to monitor it. Make sure anyone who comes by to reactive it has clearance. With proper clearance it is assured that they know what they are getting into.

The Sires locked away in Stasis would be the ones left behind. To save power for the stasis tanks as many systems as could be were shut down. Really the only three things on were the turrets, AI system, and Stasis tanks. Enough supplies was left behind to last the Sires and facility for near a century.

The COG had given them little transport. Merely a few packhorses, enough for the scientists. The Locusts would have to walk on food, guarded by the Onyx Guard. They would specifically have to take a longer route so no one would spot the Locusts, and make the trip before morning, as they were traveling at night. It was lucky as there was a passage to the Hollow from here that would lead them under the mountain. The group would not have to brace the cold, in which they had not been exposed to the cold yet. Right now some of the laborers were packing machinery onto a Packhorse. Myrrah was talking to a group of three Locusts, specifically Boomer brothers. She was assuring them that they would be alright. The Boomers could not speak well, but did seem to try and smile as she talked with them and did her best to make them feel good.

One of the Boomers would grab her and hugged Myrrah. Her back cracks a little and she is in pain, but merely instructs him that he can let her go as she spies the others coming near. Myrrah would be let down and Ruften would be walking over.

"Myrrah, I need to speak with you...away from your friends." A Boomer would step forward, growling a bit. The others woulds step forward, ready to hurt him.

"Let this occur." she said turning to the Boomers "I will be fine." They stepped down as she said so. Ruften seemed a bit confused at their behavior towards her, but would dismiss it from his thoughts and lead her away. Ruften would lead her through their warehouse and to a room designed to look like an office. It was once an important lab room, but they started a facade.

"Myrrah..." He sighs, doing a trademark sigh of his that Myrrah is used to. She thought of it as the Ruften sigh.

"Yezin is dead." She raised an eyebrow, a bit confused.

"He died?"

"Shot in the head, news will not admit it, I think Monroe had it ordered." said Ruften.

"Monroe is evil you know. He-"

"Yeah, I know he wants to use the Locusts. I am still skeptical, but Myrrah...you are not sad?"

"I am saddened, but I shall not show the emotion. When I am in my private quarters or among my loved ones I shall show so, but the Locusts are about. So this is the most I shall say." She would begin walking away. Myrrah was indeed saddened by him dying, not as saddened as if he were a Locust, but she still grew up with him around for much of her life. He tried to teach her to act much more 'fun' as he called it. Moreso he just spent most of the time bothering Ruften, acting like him and Ruften were married and Myrrah was their daughter, and messing with people. He even taught her how to make snow angels and snow balls, which they proceeded to throw at people, specifically Niles. They had to stop when one of the snowballs hit a woman's cleavage and she yelled at the both of them. It was still a fun time. She sighed and would walk over to the transports. To speed up the process, she asked the Locusts to help, of whom would willingly aid at her command.

Once they finished packing, the scientists would get into the vehicles and Ruften would open the door of his packhorse so she could ride shotgun.

"I am not going to ride with you."

"Its a long walk...you sure?"

"I am a Locust, so I am going to face the same treatment as a Locust gets. If you want me to ride with you, get a ride for them all." Ruften sighs and closes the door. She was stubborn as ever. The Onyx Guard would shout at the Locusts to march, of whom would start marching. The scientists were taking seven Packhorses, and most of the Locusts were marching out of the facility, their numbers being six hundred. Mostly comprised of Drones, but also had Kantus', Boomers, and quite the fair amount of Berserkers. The Berserkers were in chains as they marched, and soldiers kept flamethrowers on them for if a Berserker gets angry.

The walk was almost like a death march. The Locusts marched along the harsh path. It followed what was barely a road. It was an unmaintained dirt road. The ground was bumpy from many rocks on the ground and seemed to curve in many unnecessary ways. Where it will take a u-turn to just go around a rather large rock or boulder. Several times there would be an obstruction and the Locusts would have to solve it. It would be either a fall tree, or the ground would be too steep for the packhorses and they would need to pull it over, as they got farther ahead larger rocks had fallen that had to be removed.

The unity of the Locusts, among their different levels of intelligence and strength were proving quite interesting to the Onyx Guard. They specifically had it so the creatures do not have transportation, to observe how well they work. Their abilities, a basic test. They were proving quite powerful. Course now that they saw how they worked together, they had something else to test.

As they cleared a rock, a drone would fall over and bump into an Onyx Guard. The Guard push him away and the Locusts would tumble back a bit. The Guard aimed his gun at the drone.

"Do not attack me! You know the rules." The rule was that if one touched a guard, they were to be executed. The drone would growl a bit and would state: "Hostile." The human fired at him and the Locusts would dodge a bit and charged into him, knocking the guard to the ground. The Locusts would begin punching him and even while armoured, the Onyx Guard was taking damage and shouting at him to stop. Myrrah would notice the guards were aiming guns. The Locust would grab his arm and start to pull.

"STOP!" Myrrah commanded over the Locust. The drone let go of him and looked over to all of the guards aiming guns at him. He put his hands up and Myrrah ran as quickly as she could to the creature.

"Do not harm this creature. He was provoked, this human threatened him and primal instinct took over. His life does not need to be taken or harmed because of such actions!"

"Move aside!" said a guard, walking over. Myrrah is shoved over and the Locust is hit with the butt of his gun. She begins to get up, only to see him shooting the drone. He fired the normal amount to kill a human, noticed he was still alive and gurgling a bit, then fired more into his body until he was dead. His blood had splattered onto Myrrah. Her eyes were wide and she clamoured to his corpse, looking at him and seeing he is dead. She sighed and closed his eyes, then stood up.

"Do that again and you shall be like him." threatened the guard who shot him. She glared at him and they would continue their march. The Onyx Guard did not have too many more things to test during the route, so they went without much troubles. They would arrive at Mount Kadar shortly after, finding there to be a large cave entrance.

"Through here?" Myrrah asked a guard.

"No, we are going to fucking go somewhere else that the road has not been leading to."
"Hmmm...whats your name?"

"Viljo Tanner, why?"

"No reason." They would walk through the cave, the head Packhorse leading through the tunnel, which did not change at size at all as they went through. The cave was near fourty feet high, if not higher. It was quite dark in there, but after traveling a bit through the dark, they would walk through to find a large underground lake, with water being flooded in by a waterfall farther off.

"Damn..." said a scientist walking out.

"This is damned huge..." said another. They would be looking at the immense size of it, but Myrrah was looking across from the point they entered, an old stone dock was there.

"What is across the river?" she asked.

"An old dock, a bunch of people at one point tried to settle into the Inner Hollow during the Age of Armageddon."

"What happened?"

"I dunno, no one human has ever succeeded in settling the Inner Hollow, I just know it was reported that they left once they had troubles with the local wildlife." said Tanner "They had little security and were attacked by these screeching little apes. Then they had their technology eaten by these ticking creatures. Supposedly a few other weird things got to them, but they just could not survive. We are prepared for them."

"Good." said Myrrah. She would begin to walk away and the Locusts would start setting up machinery and the scientists set up tents. Myrrah would walk over to the tents, but witnessed a drone trying to get a bed down from one of the Packhorses specifically meant to carry supplies. She would rush over and helped him get it down. She helped the drone carry it to the location, letting him lead. He placed it within a tent and nearly fell over from exhaustion.

"Lay down and rest. You have earned it and few will blame you." she said. The Drone would argue normally as they would be harmed for not working, but instead he would climb into the bed. She smiled and would go retrieve him a blanket and placed it over the creature. She smiled and would walk out to see two Onyx Guards who appeared upset.

"I am giving him a break, he is of no use when tired like so." said Myrrah.

"That thing needs to continue working."

"How about you two work instead or maybe I will tell your sergeant that you two are loafing about!" she said with her voice growing louder, the sergeant walking past them. The two looked at each other and seemed angry at her, walking off to go gather more items. It would not be long after until they finished setting up the area. The Locusts were tired and many were sitting against walls or laying on the ground. The route was tough, though they prevailed. Myrrah was not as tired as the others, as she did not do as much work as the others did removing obstacles and setting up as much. She still was sitting on a bed designated for her. She would use the bed, so she could have a little comfort. She laid down upon the bed and looked up. It was not as comfortable as the one she had at the facility, but Yezin had donated the mattress. It was from his guest bedroom, but he never had guests stay the night so he figured it would be nicer.

She was saddened he had died. That the damned COG had murdered him, she knew it. He had that outrage in front of Monroe, and while no one admitted it, everyone knew he was responsible for the information leak. He could never keep a secret and took any chance he could to spread awful things on the COG. Yezin merely stayed with them as he believed they would come out superior in the Pendulum Wars and its never wise to be on a losing side in war. No matter how fascist the the winner is. She fell asleep, thinking about Yezin and his antics.

Myrrah would awaken a few hours later, out of her bed and on her knees. Her hands were tied behind her back and a cloth was tied over her mouth. She was in the Guard's tent with three guards. Two of them would be talking with each, while Tanner was walking up with a pistol that had a silencer on it. His helmet was removed, revealing him to be a Gorasni, rare to find one as a soldier in the COG.

"Hey sleepy head, you finally woke up." She would protest into the cloth and attempt to shout for help. He smiled, finding it almost cute how she still fights.

"Yeah, I much prefer my victims to see me before I kill them. Cannot always happen, but I do so when I can. Its more polite, not like damned snipers who people never see coming." He would take out a pistol and screw a silencer on it. Myrrah was sweating quite a bit, she was frightened, she was going to die. She never thought she would die like this, probably how Yezin went. To this damned human. She shivered a bit and a few tears went down her face.

"I almost feel bad, you were an extremely expensive scientific anomaly. Somehow the Sires made a human, its a damned shame Monroe wanted something different than more of you. Oh well." He puts the gun directly to her head.

"I guess this is goodbye." She closes her eyes tight and awaits for the bullet. She keeps her eyes closed shut for a little bit, but then opens them to look up. A locust, the one she told to rest, is crushing Tanner's wrist with one hand, and the other hand is crushing his throat. He is trying to move his hand forward, but instead the drone just crushes his wrists more. Tanner shouts and then the drone slams him into a table. The other two Onyx Guards have their guns aimed at him.

"Open fire, kill it!" said one of them. The drone quickly ducked and pulled the table so it would block the shots. He looked around, not sure what to do. Myrrah would try to point to him a bit at Tanner's gun. A guard would walk over to shoot him and he pulled the trigger, firing at the Guard and causing him to fall down. The other one activated an alarm in the tent, which would begin ringing throughout the facility. The drone would stand from behind the table and shoot at the guard who activated it and killed him. Once he was dead, he ran towards his primary concern, Myrrah.

The Locusts would be unable to get past the handcuffs on her, and merely broke them. She pulled the cloth from around her mouth and got up.

"How did you find me?" The locust would barely manage to state that he saw her. Myrrah would later learn that she had been gone for a while and the locusts had been looking for her, he spotted the men taking her away and rushed to the tent.

"Well, either way, go rally the Locusts." she said and picked up a gun off of an Onyx guard he shot. She took a revolver off of his belt, as the main gun is just a bit too heavy for her.

"They attacked me, we are going to attack them. Leave none alive, kill every last one!" The drone nodded and would run out o the tent, firing his gun in the air. Myrrah smiled and soon within the tent, she would begin hearing pure Chaos ensuring.

"Release every Locust but a few Berserkers! Attack my minions! It is time we gain freedom from this inferior species! For you are superior my children, you are the future!" she shouted to the Locusts.

Gunfire and screaming could be heard all about as the Locusts easily overpowered the Onyx Guard and humans in this confusion. Myrrah observed one guard shoot down two drones only to have one come behind and punch him. The drone pushed him into the ground and then several others joined in and began to tear off his armour and then his flesh. A guard would run over to help, except he then heard an infamous sound.

"Boom!" The Boomer who had hugged Myrrah was holding a grenade launcher. He fired it right into the guard who was just turning around to see him. It would hit the poor man, causing flesh and blood to rain down for a little bit. Myrrah smiled and opened a tent flap to see several humans cowering in fear. Myrrah smiled and held the door open for several drones to run in. Myrrah would be merely advising and giving orders throughout the fight, as the Locusts quickly finished off the Onyx Guard and would begin rounding up and executing the scientists and researchers.

They were lined up, and would walk to an area in front of Myrrah, who was sitting in a makeshift throne. It was a regular chair, but various computers and machinery were lined up so make it raise a bit and give a larger back behind it. They were lined up three at a time and on their knees as Myrrah was, just without the bindings. They were all shot in the head and then their bodies were thrown into a pile dubbed: "Food."

After three rounds of execution, the time came for Ruften, who had been slashed through the gut and was bleeding badly. He was coughing it out a bit and a fair amount poured from his mouth. He would have his head down until he looked up to Myrrah and smiled.

"So, this is how the bitch repays our kindness." he said. He would begin to walk forward and Locusts aimed their guns a them. She put her hand up, and they put down their guns.

"In what ways am I bitch, Darren? I have merely taken my rightful place, as Queen of the Locusts. I am giving these people a chance to live and prosper. To be the true power they were meant to be, not your little science project."

"I treated you like damned family, like you were my daughter! I didn't even fucking do this because I like you!" she raised an eyebrow.

"I fuckin hated you the whole time! You were a damned bitch who always felt like you had to have a barrier between you and humans, that because you were a Locust you were so deep! Myrrah, you are a damned mistake. The Locusts were meant to become a fighting force for the COG, we claimed we were researching a cure for Lambency so we could get some more workers. To win the damned war! Though I played along with everyone and raised you, since you were damned born in that area. Claimed you were good for them as you kind of connected a bit. Now I realize that was a goddamn mistake. I was even going to kill you on the ride here, except you chose to walk with these abominations. So kill me now, if hell accepts abominations, there is a spot with your name on it." Myrrah would glare at him, she felt saddened, but this made killing him easier. Still, she hated that whole speech and his tone. It hurt her heart to remember the times she spent with him. How he taught her about history and genetics, or when she was five years old and fell into a Sire's cage and he had to somehow get her out without dying to it. Even her birthday party when she was eleven. She pulled out the revolver she took from a human and put it to his head. Before he could say another word she fired and personally killed him. Myrrah would get up and walk away to a tent, wanting to take a rest, too many emotions today.

The Locusts would continue executing and they would feast on the bodies. They packed them up and would pack up the tents, as they preceded to go further into the hollow the day after tomorrow. It was on this trip that the Locusts found ed the area they would dub Nexus in the inner hollow. They would tame and breed the creatures of the Hollow, Myrrah even personally took up work to make sure the Locusts breed to massive amounts, then had local apes breed into the large Brumak to haul supplies to places. The Horde had been created, they were now Myrrah's domain.

Myrrah would realize she was crying, as she stopped remembering. She had started writing her memory into a journal in the tent, though she sort of snapped out of it as she explained how they became the way they are. She felt her face and her fingers were wet with tears. Memories of the place just saddened her, she could never tell why, but it did. She did feel a bit bad now, Ruften spent all that time showing affection when he hated her, Myrrah spent all her time with Mora acting as a stern guide when she loved her. She wanted to go say something now to her, but Mora would probably still be angry over this confession. There was a lot of things she should have done when raising her, should have never lied, should have cared more, done more things with her, even bring RAAM and act as humans commonly depicted, a family. She would hope to do something soon with her, once the army was on the move. Take it a bit easier for a while and try to enjoy life. She would write a few more sentences, then check outside to see that it was dark. She walked back in and would begin writing more of it into a journal. She fell asleep in mid sentence a few minutes later.

One of the Queen's Guard would walk in to check on her. The drone would see how she fell asleep and picked her up, then placed her in her bed and tucked her in. He would happily walk out, glad to serve under a caring queen like her.

The End