It's my Birthday!! and my present to all the fans of this story is this new chapter, please accept my gift and enjoy!
Plan Beyond Insanity
Miguel moved across the rooftops with such silence and speed that it was doubtful that even the most alert Yautja would have detected him. Moving again with graceful agility he jumped off one of the roofs and landed in a squat standing to look up at the sign for Luigi's bar.
"Time to find out if Benelli is in this all the way" Miguel thought forebodingly as he stood in front of Luigi's. He had been hesitating about whether or not he should go in and find out. It wasn't that he wasn't afraid of asking he simply was hesitant about putting another one of his friends into what was likely to be a suicide scenario.
"Well courage comes in all forms" he thought as he took a deep breath and, pausing to make sure his weapons were concealed, he walked inside. (He had removed his mask and other armor before coming so that he could blend in better)
As he entered the bar he looked around and saw Benelli sitting in one of the corners with another man that Miguel had never seen before. He was a powerfully built and elderly man of medium height who looked like he was from some type of Native American tribe but Miguel couldn't tell which one.
Miguel walked over to them and took a seat as Benelli gestured in his direction and beckoned him over. "Miguel I got someone I want you to meet" Benelli said excitedly as he indicated the stranger.
"This is Joseph Hidden Fox or Tomahawk Joe as he's called by some, he's one of my friends and perhaps one of the toughest and most skillfull Cherokee warriors there is or ever has been, I've brought him here because I thought he could be very useful in our extermination situation" Benelli continued with his excitement rising.
"You know this has to be kept quiet Benelli, wouldn't outsiders pose a risk?" Miguel asked in reply as he continued to study Hidden Fox. He definitely looked fit for the job despite the fact that he was elderly but Miguel knew that he had an obligation to keep the Yautja's existence quiet.
"Don't worry about that, I know that you hunt the invisible demons, and as I have killed a number of them and no one except my friend here knows that" Hidden Fox said quietly causing Miguel to do a slight double take.
"You have killed them before, how?!" Miguel asked in an exasperated tone as Benelli began cracking up and laughing uncontrollably.
"You should have seen him Miguel, it was amazing, this son of a bitch killed three of them armed only with a hatchet or should I say Tomahawk" Benelli said enthusiastically looking over to his compatriot.
"Either one is fine" Hidden Fox said quietly as he continued to look at Miguel with a prying gaze. Miguel didn't know what it was but something about his gaze made Miguel feel somehow uneasy, it was as if the old man could somehow see right through him and read his thoughts.
"Anyway were here now so what is it you want us to do Miguel?" Benelli asked him in a much quieter tone indicating that the time for secrecy was now.
"Benelli are you sure you want to be part of this? I mean you know that it is very likely that could get killed in this fight" Miguel said in low tone to match Benelli's.
"Hey don't you think that it's better to go out with a bang than a whimper, I know I would because you got a go out sometime" Benelli responded his voice unrelentingly steady.
"Alright, I can see there is no dissuading you Benelli but what about your friend Hidden Fox here" Miguel said taking another look at the elderly Cherokee.
"I have a duty to protect the people from those that would harm them, I have protected my people when these demons came hunting them, now I will protect those of this city" Hidden Fox said quietly but resolutely.
"You're in then, even knowing all of the risks?" Miguel asked in one last challenge to be sure of the old warrior's resolution.
Hidden Fox nodded quietly in acknowledgement.
"Well then" Miguel said turning back to Benelli with an air of complacent excitement about him. "Alright, seeing that there is no dissuading either of you then get your gear ready at your apartment Benelli and I'll meet you there in about four hours" Miguel said in an undertone.
As Miguel finished his sentence the three of them got up from their table and walked towards the door.
"Hey Miguel, what's your plan for taking these guys down" Benelli asked as they exited.
"Don't worry about that, it will have so much overkill that even you won't be disappointed Benelli" Miguel replied with a sly grin as the three of them separated.
As soon as Benelli and Hidden Fox had disappeared from his view Miguel activated his cloak and began moving swiftly across the tops of buildings and back towards his ship.
It wasn't long before he reached it and began to devise a plan in his mind. He had constantly reviewed the schematics of the building and there were plenty of spots to launch a surprise attack but no matter how he divided it he couldn't see how the three of them could take on forty Yautja.
"Well like Benelli said, you got to go out sometime" he thought morbidly as he landed in a squat in front of his ship and moved swiftly up the ramp.
As Miguel was loading weapons into the jeep Gro'Kesh and Gi'Ha suddenly materialized behind him.
"Gro'Kesh, did you find the arbitrators I came with?" Miguel asked as he loaded the last of his Ooman weapons into the jeep and shut the back hatch.
"We've found parts of them and we believe we have discovered the hiding place of one of the bad blood brothers" Gro'Kesh said his aggression apparent even under the cloak of his mask.
"Which brother?" Miguel asked uncertainly. He didn't want to get his plan off to a premature start.
"The weak one Fo'Sun, me and Gi'Ha are going to apprehend him now" Gro'Kesh said resolutely.
Miguel relaxed however he managed to keep it from being visible. However he noticed something about Gi'Ha as Gro'Kesh spoke. He seemed uneasy in a way that Miguel couldn't describe but he dropped his gaze and looked back to Gro'Kesh.
"Alright, you go apprehend him and I'll look for the rest of that bad blood scum" Miguel said placidly disguising what his true intentions were. He didn't know why he didn't want to tell Gro'Kesh of his plan but common sense told him that a human approach and team would be necessary to even have a chance of success.
"Then I will meet you back here soon, until then good hunting" Gro'Kesh said in a growl. Then to Miguel's great surprise Gro'Kesh gave him a gesture of respect as he strode from the room with Gi'Ha following close behind.
"Good luck" Miguel said more to himself than anyone else because both Gro'Kesh and Gi'Ha had already left.
'Well, time to figure out what all this is actually about" he thought as he held the seal dangling in front of him on its neck cord. This was what they were after, he was sure of it and now he would go to find out why they wanted it so badly.
Holstering only his D. Eagles and shurikens under his black trench coat Miguel descended the ramp and sped off into the night moving towards the location of the mysterious doors at breakneck speed.
Landing silently on the ground Miguel deactivated his cloak and stared down the pitch black maw of the abandoned subway lines.
"Never thought I'd actually be spelunking in this place" Miguel thought solemnly as he placed his sunglasses over his eyes and activated the thermal mode. Without even hesitating a moment Miguel moved swiftly into the blackness.
Keeping his hands close by his guns Miguel moved carefully through the abandoned subway line. It wasn't that he was a coward but it was very likely that the brothers had left one or more of their associates to guard these doors or ambush him. Fortunately he didn't meet any of them.
"They're probably waiting at their ambush poin…." He broke off in mid thought as he rounded another corner and froze.
An immense amount of flickering heat was being radiated off of something up ahead. Drawing his D. Eagles Miguel advanced cautiously towards the heat source. As he got closer he realized that it was coming off of the doors themselves.
Turning off his thermal vision Miguel looked up to discover that a number of broken flood lights were pointing towards the door and a bunch of human bodies covered the ground.
"They were probably here for the same reason I am now" Miguel thought with a grimace as he moved past the slaughter to examine the doors. They had a Yautja design and phrase in Yautja etched out on them.
Miguel used the translator installed in the sunglasses to translate the words and waited as the words flashed by his eyes. First they were in Yautja then they turned to English.
"Beyond this door resides the Yautja shield of justice, only those who seek to uphold justice may wield it". It was a brief message but it was definitely to the point.
"What is the Yautja shield of justice" Miguel thought vaguely as he continued to examine the doors from top to bottom. The inscription had been interesting but it still didn't get him any closer to figuring out how to actually open them.
"These things must weigh five tons so can't push them, and it looks like these poor bastards already tried explosives" Miguel thought observing the damage to the tunnel. From the looks of it they had detonated dynamite but the door didn't seem to even have a scorch mark on it.
Miguel was about to call it quits and go to his rendezvous with Benelli when a peculiar design imbedded on the doors caught his eye. He knew he had seen it before but he couldn't remember where.
Then it hit him, he knew where he had seen that design before. Pulling Black Heart's pendant out from around his neck and held it next to the design on the doors.
"It's the exact same design" Miguel thought as he continued to compare them, tracing over every line of the two surfaces. Suddenly Miguel knew, without even knowing how he knew that the pendent was the key to opening the door.
Without a moments hesitation he placed the pendent into the indentation and stood back to watch as the doors opened with the loud noise of metal scraping metal. With his D. Eagles still at the ready Miguel moved cautiously through the doorway.
"Holy Shit! So this is what they were after all along" Miguel thought exasperatedly as he observed what was displayed before him. It was an Awu'asa, however even in the dim light Miguel could tell what was so valuable about it. It was made from void steel, the impenetrable black metal.
"Damn, no wonder they want this so bad, it has to be the closest thing to being invincible that you can possibly find" Miguel thought wearily. He didn't really care too much for the power that it might yield but he had to rescue Si'Mara and having and Awu'asa like that would probably be his best shot at actually pulling it off.
As Miguel slowly approached the Awu'asa's stand a hologram of an old and powerful looking Yautja appeared in front of him. From the tone of the message it appeared to have been prerecorded.
"If this message has been activated than I am already dead so I can only hope that the shield of the arbitrators has fallen into the right hands. This is one of the two shields of the arbitrators, virtually impenetrable armor that can only truly be wielded by a warrior who enforces the honor code of the Yautja. Hopefully the one who finds this is one because if it fell into the hands of the bad bloods it would be an unprecedented disaster. So if the one who has found this is an honorable warrior, please give this to the arbitrators so they can continue the preservation of our culture, if you are an Arbitrator, please… become the shield of those who protect the code of the Yautja way of life and protect our way of life to your dying breath" and with that the hologram faded to be replaced by a black emptiness.
Miguel continued to stare at the Awu'asa after the message had ended. He had struggled over what his place within Yautja society was ever since he had first gone to live aboard the clan ship.
"Am I an arbitrator, or am I an honorable warrior" Miguel thought as he continued to stare at the armor. Quite frankly he doubted that he was either, however there was still something that mattered even more than that and he had to get moving or he risked losing it forever.
"My apologies old Yautja, but there is something I must do, if I am not worthy of receiving this armor then I will give the Awu'asa to the ancients but regardless, there is something I must do" Miguel said keeping his eyes downcast.
Suddenly a series of metallic clicks could be heard resonating throughout the chamber and Miguel stared up and saw to his surprise that the large Awu'asa had decreased to a size that looked like it would fit him perfectly. Donning the armor in one swift motion Miguel gave a gesture of respect to the empty room before he turned and headed back towards the entrance of the subway. He was surprised at how light and natural the armor felt on him as he moved across the rooftops and back to his ship so he could collect his arsenal and go to face his destiny whether it's ending was for better or for worse.
"I may not be worthy of this armor, but I will do my best to do it justice" Miguel thought as he tore out of the subway and out into the city.
"Well time to see if Benelli's ready go on a suicide mission" Miguel thought morbidly as he pulled the jeep in front of Benelli's apartment complex. He had donned his trench coat so that he could keep his Awu'asa out of sight from any passerby, not that it was a big problem since the Awu'asa was made from void steel and the darkness was as pitch black as the Awu'asa itself. Still it was always better to be safe than sorry.
He moved to the apartment number that Benelli had provided him just before they split up. Knocking on the door Miguel stood back and waited.
"Who is it?" Benelli called through the door.
"You know damn well who it is Benelli" Miguel responded in a tone that suggested he was slightly aggravated.
"OK, OK I'm just busting your balls, geez" Benelli responded as he slowly opened the door.
"Sorry about that, but I'm just a little anxious to see this finished" Miguel mumbled as he proceeded inside and froze as he took in his surroundings.
"Nice stuff Benelli!" Miguel exclaimed as his eyes took in several walls with all their space given to numerous types of guns along with piles of professional grade C-4 bricks.
"Thanks, I've been saving it for just this sort of special occasion" Benelli said jovially as he and Miguel walked over to Hidden Fox who was preoccupied in checking a compound bow.
"Nice bow but will it really do anything against these invisible bastards?" Benelli asked slightly sarcastically.
"I think these explosive arrowheads should do the trick" Hidden Fox said with a grin as he held up an arrow. Miguel looked closely at the arrowhead and discovered that just wrapped just under the head was an amount of primer cord and a very small detonator. Miguel was not really an explosives expert but a small amount primer cord could blast a steel door clean off it's hinges and he didn't want to think about what would happrn if it detonated when it got planted into your flesh like the arrow was designed to do.
"Guess you can teach an old dog new tricks" Miguel thought as Hidden Fox put down the arrow to show them his secondary weapon, a hatchet with a titanium head and a tribal design imbued on it.
"Hey Miguel what's with that get up" Benelli said indicating the black armor under Miguel's trench coat.
"This is my insurance, where's yours?" Miguel asked in reply.
"Just about finished with it now" Benelli said as he inserted trauma plates in the front and back pouches of his kevlar vest and strapped it on. Benelli turned back to prepping a number of C-4 bricks and Miguel was amused to discover that Benelli had painted a red pentagram on the back of the body armor.
"Didn't take you for a religious man Benelli" Miguel said with a smirk
"I'm not, but I'll bring all kinds of hell to those who want to invade my city" Benelli said not bothering to turn around.
"Guess I agree with you on that, but come here and listen to my plan before you start bringing hell" Miguel said as he activated the holographic map in his wrist computer.
Benelli and Hidden Fox looked at the holographic map with slightly puzzled yet understanding expression.
"Now I've worked out all possible angles and from what I can deduce no matter how we go in were gonna end up dead as there are just too many of them" Miguel said morbidly as he indicated the various entry points to the building.
"Well in my opinion it's always best to go out guns blazing" Benelli said cracking a grin a mile wide.
"Duly noted" Miguel replied as he zoomed the map out so that the whole building appeared.
"Wait, hold that image" Benelli said quickly looking intently at the holographic readout. "I thought so, that's Kruger explosive industries, the building was going to be condemned for being a hazard for possesing thin walls along with a high amount of TNT and magnesium powder being stored there".
"So in other words it's an extremely large and flimsy explosives shed" Miguel said his spirit sinking even lower than it had previously. "Damn it this is gonna take a goddamn miracle to even come close to succeeding, if we fire a single shot in there the whole place will go up in smoke"
"Pauk! I'll kill all those bad bloods" Si'Mara thought half angrily and half groggily as she slowly awakened from her drug induced sleep to discover that her hands had been chained behind her and linked to the wall by another chain.
Realizing that fighting against her restraints proved futile Si'Mara relaxed her body yet she made sure not to make it look like it had defeated her. "I have to keep calm; that seems to be how Young Fury can fight as well as an arbitrator". Si'Mara's eyes shot up in realization, of course, she could use the beacon to call for help and began working her chained hands behind her, trying vigorously to get her hands on the small beacon and hoping that the bad blood guarding her wouldn't notice.
The bad blood didn't notice and after a couple more minutes of struggle she managed to get the beacon in her grasp and activated it. "I hope this works" she thought as she watched the dim shadow of the beacons light pulsate in quick succession.
Miguel was still wondering what the most glorious way to go out fighting was when he heard his wrist computer emit another whine. Miguel activated his wrist computer and was surprised to find a second beacon was pulsing in a building in the same warehouse district as the beacon Hrak'Ni had sent. The only difference was that it located was about two miles away on the opposite side of the district.
"Zoom in and magnify on that location" Miguel commanded the wrist computer. The wrist computer zoomed in to reveal what looked like a two story machine shop warehouse.
"Give me pheromone and body heat readouts" he continued and was surprised to find fourteen full sized Yautja and another smaller figure that looked as if it was being held against it's will on the second level. Suddenly it hit him and he let out a whoop of exhilaration causing Benelli and Hidden Fox to look at him.
"What is it Miguel?" Hidden Fox asked
"Those bastards were trying to sucker us but thanks to a little help, we've got a new and manageable target" Miguel said beckoning them closer.
"See here, they wanted us to think that the explosive warehouse was our primary target so they put most of their forces there. However our primary target is this machine warehouse here, so we will raid that location instead" Miguel said indicating the two locations.
"But if we simply raid that location instead, the bulk of their forces will just move to surround us and we'll be finished" Hidden Fox said in calm voice.
"That's why Benelli's gonna load his car with a bunch of those explosives, strap a brick to the accelerator, crash it through the flimsy walls and detonate it, he can use the straight path in back of the building to get enough distance to get clear" Miguel said indicating a long and straight maintenance road leading to the explosives building.
"But Miguel if I combined the explosives in the shed with just a few of these C-4 bricks it'll send that place into orbit" Benelli said in a slightly worried voice.
"Good, maybe they can say hi to the clans on the way up" Miguel thought but looked at Benelli and said in a mellow tone "at least then we can be sure their all eliminated".
"As soon as we here the explosion Hidden Fox will use my rocket launcher to blast a hole on the ground floor of the North wall, while I use a grenade to blow a hole in the third level of the south wall. We'll take them by surprise and hopefully we'll be able to eliminate all of them" Miguel said indicating the entry points.
"Where the hell am I gonna be while all this is going down" Benelli said with a hint of dissapointment beginning to show in his voice.
"Don't think I forgot about you, Benelli you'll haul ass to our primary target and I don't care how you decide to make your entrance just make it big, deadly, and effective" Miguel replied and watched with relief as Benelli sat back with a self satisfied smile.
"I guess then the only thing left to do is kick all of their asses' Hidden Fox said in an uncharacteristically fierce voice.
"All right, we got the plan; we got the weapons, now lets move!" Miguel said matching Hidden Fox's fierce voice as he stood up and cocked his D. Eagles in the same motion.
The story is reaching its peak and the last few chapters will be coming along shortly but for today I hope you have enjoyed my story. Please review and I'll return yet again with the next chapter!!! see you then.