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"I'm going to pretend to grab a garden tool as weapon, tell Jor to get ready to ram something."
Before Ayo could object, Jor opened the door and Carly was out.
The enemy hunter sprinted for her, she didn't even get halfway to the pitchfork she'd been aiming for. At the sound of the plasma caster, Carly rolled out of the way of the impact. Constantly looking of her back for the next shot, she ran for the tree.
The massive roots had plenty of crawlspaces, but they were dangerously slippery. At least they were as much a problem to her pursuer as they were to her. Rationally she should hide deep, but instead she climbed up, just below the outer layer so at least she had some cover from the bolts. So he followed her into the network.
A quick glance outside showed Carly the vessel had fired up and slowly rose. She slipped out of the roots again, the snarling enemy right on her tail. She dug her nails into the slick moss, ignored a deja vu and pulled up her legs just in time to avoid being grabbed. He noticed too late.
With a loud crash, the vessel rammed into the tree, pinning the yautja into it.
Carly jumped on the wrecked vessel, which stuck at an odd angle. Both tree and machine creaked dangerously, then the engines died. Facing the enemy, she found a bright, glowing bloodbath and gurgling, twitchy excuse for a monster. The plasma caster was as wrecked as the arm it had been on, but the owner still breathed.
With a grin, Carly pulled out her strangle wire. She knelt down to look through the window, where a wide eyed Ayo stood behind the control. Knocking on the glass, she said, "Ayo, Jor, keep it in place for now. I want some revenge."
Ayo gave an absentminded nod, eyes still fixed on the mess that was ahead. There were ribs sticking out and the mask had just fallen off, this was probably the first time the girl had seen this much gore. To Carly though, it was entirely usual by now. She closed the short distance to the monster with a few steps.
This was an entirely unfair fight, just like all yautja liked it: superior technology against something smaller, just to finish it off in a traditional way. She stepped on his hand and heard several cracks. He roared at her, but didn't get far as Carly kicked him in the mandibles. That stunned it just enough for her place her knee on his free arm and wrap her wire around his neck. She slipped it just between chin and neck rings. The mandibles flared at her as he regained orientation, and she glared into the hateful eyes for a moment. Then she slowly pulled the wire tight.
Yautja could go a lot longer without air, but drowning happened at an even rate. His jugular was at the same place as that of a human, once her wire was through the skin she pushed a thumb into the windpipe. In vain, the mandibles snapped at her, but only managed to scratch her shoulder a bit.
Then his arm shot loose and Carly barely swallowed a scream as claws dug into her back and stomach. She let go of the wire and pushed the arm away, stumbling back onto the window.
"Shit!" she spat. "Fine, die the slow way!"
She crawled up and looked around. There was no sign of the other enemies, who had probably gone after Kea'chethi. Well, there was nothing they could do for her if they didn't know where she was.
The vessel's door opened, and Carly swing back inside. The engines revved and it pulled back.
Like a rag doll, the monster fell onto the roots, rolling down the sleek moss till he hit the ground with a tudd. He remained there, choking on its own breath.
"Serves him right," Carly muttered. She hadn't really expected a response, but Ayo gave an uninterpretable sound and covered her mouth. She was still staring at the body.
"Hey, you okay?"
"No!" Ayo said with that strained voice of people on the verge of tears. "I wasn't expecting it to look like this. How can you be so calm?"
"Well, I could give you a lengthy explanation of my experiences with the life in the lower edge of the city, but we've got more violence to do today and I doubt my story would make you feel any better."
"More? This is all freaky. Jor in cyberspace, a psychic in reality and mutants and monsters and alligators and cyborgs and—"
"You're having your breakdown awfully late, you know. All that is old news."
"I'm not having a breakdown," Ayo said through gritted teeth. "I'm just ... " She caught her breath. "This is too coincidental. We're being played with, and the thing doing it could reduce us to a bloody smear if that suits its plans."
She actually had a point in that.
As if accentuating this fear, a screen flickered on and Jormungandr showed them a scan of the surroundings. The colors had been adapted for human eyesight and seemed suspiciously like a chessboard. They were marked near the tree, while further into the forest six figures were split into two groups that tried to corner a single fighter. Karga'te and Nra'tex-ne had joined already? They had to have a better transport than Kea, if that was so.
Well, that just meant they had work left to do. They couldn't spare to lose any of the yautja that were moderately sympathetic towards them.
"So, who are we going to help first? Jor, you can do some more ramming with this vessel, right?"
It confirmed.
"Okay, I'm going to bait one of them. Go close to those who that are fighting Nra'tex-ne, I'll draw them out of the trees. We need him alive more than we need Karga'te or Kea." She cast another glance at the broken enemy, who had stopped moving by now.
Time to loot.
"Hang on a sec," Carly said. She jumped out of the door and went over, crossing a few of the lower roots. The plasma caster was busted, but that didn't matter much.
With some wrenching and pulling, she pried the weapon off the corpse. She also unwound her wire and used it to lop off some dreadlocks, which she stuck in her belt.
"What are you doing?" a suitably disgusted Ayo asked from the open door.
"Sprinkles," Carly said, before running off in the direction Nra'tex-ne was.
She had to cross a few hills and wrestle through the thick undergrowth before she reached the battle scene. For a moment she kept low to see what she'd have after her in a moment.
It was clear Nra'tex-ne spent a lot of his time fighting other yautja than the usual hunter did. In retrospect of what little she knew, Nra'tex-ne wasn't a great hunter and that probably was because he spent more time being a warrior teacher. His enemies were taller, and apparently stronger, but he always was one step ahead of them, predicted every move and using his environment to the fullest.
Their plasma casters were both defect, one she could clearly see burned off. Nra'tex-ne and Karga'te had apparently ambushed them and dealt with that before moving to open combat. Maybe Jor was messing with helmets again.
One of the attackers lagged behind and was injured on the leg; she could guess where Nra'tex-ne got the inspiration for that. This was probably the one that would be send to chase her, since he wasn't helping much anymore. That leg injury would give her an advantage if she followed a difficult path back, though she had to account for her own stomach injury. Off course, this depended on them actually wanting to chase her when they had Nra'tex-ne backing away already.
Well, not much other things she could do.
Carly jumped in the open and yelled, "Hey, Nra'tex-ne, can you spare an enemy? I'm bored!"
She made sure to conspicuously sling the plasma caster across her shoulder and that no plants covered her little trophies.
Oh yes, that got their attention alright. Not knowing how she'd killed their buddy, or that she'd done it at all, this probably looked like one of those legends about cheating superhumans conquering yautja. Carly gave in to an urge to laugh maniacally and added, "Cold feet already, guys?"
They probably didn't understand a word what she said, but it got the idiots angry anyway. The weaker one broke off in her direction.
Carly didn't wait a second and turned around, laughter gone in favor of breathing.
She ran back roughly the same way she'd come and found the vessel just behind a hill. Immediately she dove under it, and the vessel raised to ram the hunter.
There was no crunchy sound of impact. Scrambling back to her feet, she saw the yautja had jumped atop the vessel and was looking it over. It gave her a quick look, but had clearly figured out what had killed his friend and didn't find her very interesting anymore.
Still in motion, the vessel reached the top of the hill and tipped higher in an attempt to throw off the hunter, but he held on. There were not much places to go to with all the trees, so it went in reverse back to the garden. Carly had to duck again as it passed over her.
She pursued. The hunter was firmly latched onto the roof and used his wrist blades to pry at the edges of the door, exploiting damage the vessel had suffered from its handshake with the tree. Barely was the gap wide enough or he kicked open the door. Then he was in, barely dodging Jor's attempt to scrape him off at a passing tree. The vessel screeched to a halt, allowing Carly to catch up.
Inside, she found the hunter with his claws around Ayo's throat, ready to spike her on his wristblades. She jumped on the back of the hunter, one arm around the neck and the other tearing off the mask. He swung around and she fell off. Growling, he jabbed his wrist blades at her. She rolled out of the way and tossed the mask at his head.
He deflected with the blades and made a grab for her with his other hand. A fan of choking, apparently. Carly strapped the wire around his wrist and pulled. Skin tore off before the wire hooked between wristbones. Bashing her head against its mandibles, she caused just enough pain to confuse him. Taking this moment, she tied the wire around a trophy hook. Clipping it into the wall, the yautja was less mobile and more furious. It would just be a matter of time before he got loose.
Grabbing Ayo by the arm Carly jumped out of the door, which closed behind them. Carly jammed the broken plasma caster in the open bit and hoped that hunter would be sane enough to not start stabbing at explosives.
Almost at once, there was a crack at the front window. Oh, he was sane enough.
She grabbed a nearby rock, climbed atop the vessel and waited. The moment the yautja broke through the enforced glass, she rammed down on his head. The glass brittled away just slow enough for another attack before she was thrown back. She rolled to the ground, fall caught by the thick shrubbery. Barely had she raised to her feet or the hunter had jumped after her. He staggered slightly on his injured leg and seemed slower, dazed by the earlier attack. Carly backed off and tried not to look to obviously behind him : there was Ayo, who had picked up one of Kea'chethi's gardening tools.
Right when the yautja launched for her, Ayo dove head with a pathetic little cry and a very pointy shovel. Carly couldn't clearly see from this angle, but Ayo had to have done some damage when she jabbed it in his back, because he roared out. Eyes wide, Ayo staggered back and dropped. Carly curled to a ball and rolled away further.
Behind them, the vessel tilted sideways. Injured as he was, the hunter couldn't get out of the way quick enough.
This time, Carly did properly finish off the smashed hunter. There was a gratifying squish as she dove the shovel into its ugly face. And another time, for good measure.
Ayo stood by on shaking knees and didn't look. Carly clapped her on the back and said, "That was awesome. Wanna go brag to the hunters? I'm sure they're done with the others by now."
"You're crazy. We just ..."
"Killed two monsters. That's gotta earn us some brownie points with those assholes."
She shook her head. "Yes, it would ... that's it. Right when we got better, this happens and Jor cooperates without hitch."
"Oh, right, that."
Indeed. She'd heard of badbloods, but apparently they weren't common. And they just showed up conveniently now, so she and Ayo could prove themselves to the warrior valuing tribe? Yeah, fat chance.
"You know, when I was with Jarrod the other day, I did hear Frank complain about Jor wanting hardware stuff done that he had no way of doing as a slave. We can probably expect a promotion."
"They'll make us hunters?"
"More like Tex will try. Well, you should take it. I'm not a tech geek anyway."
"What? Why not both of us?"
"Nah. I'm sure your body has some nifty mutations in store for you, so you'll be able to do that too in the future. Did you know I can hold my breath for three minutes and stay in freezing water? Apparently, that's not something real humans can do, so I can blame the Ash thingy for it. You'll be fine."
"Why wouldn't you want a better life?"
"It's not going to be better," Carly said with a sigh. "I'm abandoning you to a tougher life with more criticism and the potential they'll ask you to kill humans. You've got a better chance to understand Jormungandr, and all I'd be doing is arguing with Tex about his stupid honor code. Trust me, it's better if I stay where I am."
Ayo clenched her teeth and frowned. "Thanks a lot."
She sharply turned around and walked back into the vessel, which had leveled itself again.
"I hear Jor not complaining about my decision," Carly said as she followed her aboard.
"Off course he won't. You're expendable."
Touché.
The vessel sputtered into the rainforest to meet up with the others. Along the way, the found some corpses, none familiar.
They looked pretty beat up, Karga'te limping and being supported by Kea. Carly tried to give an extra hand to help Karga'te climb out, but was rebuked with a snarl. When Kea proved likewise moody, Carly climbed on the roof and ignored everyone.
There was some talk between the three yautja and Ayo, who was questioning them on what exactly had happened. According to Kea'chethi, it was not uncommon for badbloods to try and collect female yautja to breed with. Nra'tex-ne spent more words deriding this in the name of honor than the girl herself did.
Nra'tex-ne and Karga'te had their own vessel, which hadn't taken a beating. They decided to take everyone back home in it, and to just blow up the damaged one. There might be more badbloods who might take parts of it, so off course they weren't going to let them have it even though said badbloods probably knew exactly how the tech worked anyway. Carly was getting to know typical yautja logic and was growing a healthy loathing of it.
When she jumped off the vessel, Nra'tex-ne turned his attention to her, and then gave this satisfied purr she recognized from whenever something went as he wanted to. Oh crap, she realized what she looked like. Blood covered warrior being casually and very not fatally inured, she could virtually see him imagine the glorious battle that hadn't actually happened.
She raised her hands. "I didn't do anything interesting, Tex. I just made him die a little quicker. Ayo got him."
Jor did, but in face of its secrecy, Ayo would get the credit for piloting the vessel. She explained this, but Nra'tex-ne didn't look like he cared. Piloting a vessel was less badass in his book than running around doing stupid things. Unlike her, he had no excuse to engage in open combat with honorless criminals when he had a handy little transport vessel.
"Tex, I mean it. We had a much bigger, effective weapon than you did. Nothing impressive here. Can we go back now? My new family is still sick, I'd like to not lose them too."
"Off course, but after that I want to talk about something with you and her."
Good luck convincing the guy who had failed at killing her and who owed her his life. This was not going to help his unrealistic impression of her as a "hunter in blood".
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