F/R: LAST OLD CHAPTER! Hopefully with this rewrite I haven't turned anyone off my story :/ I would like to hear your honest opinions of this second rewrite. Did it bring out the story more than before? OR did I slaughter it? Let me know.
P.S OH GOD I'M SO SORRY THIS IS LATE! I went back over older chapters to just fix the grammar and sentence structure and suddenly I'm only on chapter three and three months had gone by... ;.;
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Part VI: Iron Crowns
Chapter Thirty-Six: Slide of Hand
"Smoking isn't good for your health," a voice broke out against the din, causing the young woman to turn abruptly toward the source. It was with both relief and resentment she found a familiar face marching towards her through the thick of men and machines charging into the cave. Yellow eyes considered him for a moment, nearly iridescent in the cave light. Despite his age, Riker's hair was a deep shade of grey, the stubble sprouting from his chin a considerably darker shade. His eyes appeared black, but glinted magenta as he stepped into the light.
"This armor," he rapped the shoulder guard, "is nothing more than a hassle."
"Then don't wear it." She said bluntly.
He rolled his eyes 'tsking' as if she was a child. "If it were that simple, Ava," he leaned against the wall beside her, "They're almost done unloading the equipment."
She nodded slowly, frowning. "Which team were you assigned to?"
He tilted his head to the side, "Lurker Team. I feel sorry for the bastards," he admitted, "they'll probably end up in a mine or serving some uppity noble in Haven City." He scowled at the thought. For someone not raised in Haven City, but a small community in Ivory Jungle, city politics wasn't something you got used to. Ava turned to face to entrance of the tunnel, finding the last of the teams start their travel down to the lava tunnels.
At the head of their procession was the Chief of the Excavation Team, Lazarus Normand. He was a tall man who had more scars than skin; all given to him while in service to the Krimzon Guard. To say that Lazarus Normad had love for K.G would be like saying that Metal Heads loved Haven City. He took that disdain out on his soldiers and Ava suffered just as the others.
Ava tried to comfort herself with the thought of being free of the Sewers. It was almost enough. Almost.
"What team are you stuck on?" The man standing beside her questioned, shouting to be heard above the hum of the machines.
Ava snorted in disgust. "No part of my training had me dealing with excavation – demolition yes – but no. I get stuck on Lurker patrol." She bit out venomously, glaring at the demolition team as they passed. The thick orange suits bunched at their waists while hover carts toted their barrels of TNT and Nitrate.
"As I remember it," Riker mused thoughtfully, "the human kid was the best on your team when it came down to explosives. Mainly," he chortled, "when to use them to cause the maximum amount of damage." Riker sobered himself quickly as Ava turned her unnaturally bright, and furious, eyes on him. He had forgotten the main rule when dealing with the youngest Praxis. Never mention those two. "Are you at least the head of the team?"
"You know I'm not." Ava stated wearily.
He grinned knowingly. "Of course I do, I just wanted to see how much it pissed you off. Invisrins are usually assigned to field work or Captains. Really, there is no love in your family... is there?" He commented, raising a grey eyebrow down to the woman.
Ava furrowed her brows, her body suddenly tense. "Not for fifteen years."
"What happened?" Riker dared to ask, curiosity getting the better of him.
The Invisrin flicked the butt of her cigarette away, the end bouncing off the wall across from them. "Heads up," she jerked her chin to their left. Riker discreetly cast his eyes down the tunnel to see, true to Ava's warning; Chief Normad was making his way toward them.
Ava reluctantly saluted the man as Riker did. Normad nodded to them, eyes on Riker. "Both of you are assigned to the lower tunnels near the Lurker Village. You know what to do, go."
They saluted once again and made to walk past. Ava found herself stopped behind a hand wrapped around her upper arm. More than one soldier in the vicinity stopped, watching the Chief closely. The Baron truly had no idea and Ava preferred to keep it that way. She gave a miniscule nod to Riker, the Invisrin quickly dispersing the others that stopped to watch. With a hesitant nod to both, he left to attend to his duty.
Nonplussed, Ava turned back to face the man that had nothing but contempt for her. "Sir?" she asked schooling her expression.
"What are you doing back in Haven City?" He demanded sternly.
Ava prided herself in being able to always play a step ahead of those around her. She had expected many things to come out of the Chief's mouth – she hadn't expected that. "Not be offensive, Sir, but what does it look like?" She answered the officer. Instantly his hand slipped from her arm as a long silence passed between them.
A gruff sigh escaped his lips. "This isn't what your Mother would have wanted..." Lazarus muttered, "Not for any of you."
"What?" Ava stumbled, not quite sure if she had heard the man correctly.
"Get down to the tunnels." He ordered, dismissing her with a wave.
"Ava!" Riker shouted over the roar of the drilling drones. Sweeping the cavern quickly she found the solider at the opposite side of the lava river. He dramatically pointed to the Lava Rider closing on the port to her right. She, along with six demo men, loaded onto the transport. She directed the man to the opposite shore where Riker stood looking incredibly bored with himself. Ava often found herself wondering how someone like Riker had passed through Invisera. He had the attention span of a kanga rat.
"How the hell did you get here so fast?" Ava questioned as she joined him on the wooden bridge.
"I caught a ride with one of the shuttles, friends with the operator." He told her off-handily.
"Normad said the oddest thing..." Ava started absently.
"That's interesting," Riker flippantly, "come on, we have to get the lower tunnels before Captain Tyron sees us." He pointed to the man standing in one of the abandoned huts having a heated discussion with a rather pissed looking K.G solider. He was the man in charge of their team and Ava did not feel like taking the bullshit he doled out on a daily basis.
"What was it you were saying about Normad?" Riker questioned once they came into an unexplored tunnel.
Ava simply shook her head. "Never mind."
They traveled the tunnels for nearly twenty minutes before finding themselves in a large cavern with no discernable ruins or landmarks to suggest anyone had been through here. "Well," Riker concluded, "this is another dead end." He placed both hands on his hips as he leaned over the edge of a steep cliff. "But there's a hut." He jerked his chin towards a small collection of metal huts pressed into the wall.
Ava, squinting into the distance, spotted a metal object pressed into the forehead of one of the totems. She knocked Riker's shoulder with her hand, pointing down into the lava crater. "Isn't that the thing we're looking for?"
Pulling his goggles from his pack, he nodded eagerly. "Thank the Precursors!" He shouted in relief, smiling brightly, "The sooner we get out of here the better!"
"When did you become religious?" Ava chuckled.
"You got here this morning," Riker stated dully, "I've had to spend a week in this little slice of hell."
Riker was never one for heat. She watched bemused as he unlatched his radio and gleefully called out the code. While they waited for a response, something caught his attention. Ava, who was scanning the upper tier of the cavern, suddenly met the stone. "What the hell!" She hissed angrily to Riker, not impressed with their sudden drop.
"Look," he whispered pointing to the sandbar nearly thirty feet below them. Crawling to his side, Ava anticipated a group of Lurkers, but found three figures emerging from a hidden cave entrance. Their features were masked by an overcast of shadows, Riker's position a far better angle.
"It's two men with a... well, one with a rodent on his shoulder..." The solider muttered, his grey brow creasing in confusion.
"A roden-" Ava started, only to realize who it was the moment Riker pulled his rifle. Her hand instantly snapped out against the barrel, pushing it into the stone.
"We're supposed to take them out," Riker hissed back, "its orders!"
It took Ava a moment to realize that Riker didn't recognize the two men. "That's your order as a K.G," she told him sternly, "Your order as an Invisrin Guard is to listen to your Commanding Officer." She jerked her head in the men's direction. "You were about to shoot the whole reason you had to spend a week in this little slice of hell."
Ava stole another look down into the cavern to see that Harry strode ahead of the second figure. She could just make out the young man's unruly hair in the lava-light. Riker fumbled slightly with his goggles, pulling them tight and adjusting them.
"Is that Jak?" he questioned, "He... He has facial hair." Riker had often teased the blonde about his youthful looks and reminding him of a wide-eyed ten year old during the first few months of their training. Jak had never taken much purchase in what he said, however it had always bothered him.
That couldn't be said about the young man now. That last time she had seen Jak was with Harry on their last day of training in year one. He had been, at the time, moderately muscled and working his way to clearing 5'10. He had worn a tired smile and was full of sarcastic quips that could put most to shame. He had recently been sent to the barber and the event had left him depressed for several days after. The man walking beside Harry with the creature on his shoulder was nothing like that teen. His hair brushed his shoulders in a shaggy, but clean mess. As Riker had said, he now had a small green goatee.
Jak's eyes were cold and hard, just as Harry's had been at the stadium.
"That's Jak, I think the rodent on his shoulder is called Daxter," Ava whispered back, "what are they doing here?"
"They work for the Underground," Riker reminded, "they're probably going for the seal... which means we're stuck here for another week." He sighed dramatically, burying his face into his elbow. "... fuck."
Ava snorted as she watched the three navigate the bridges and reach the totem. Jak looked down at the orange creature expectantly, Harry wary of the Metal Heads clustered below them. The creature shook its head defiantly, throwing his hands up in frustration. Jak cast his eyes to Harry helplessly, but he offered nothing but a shrug of his shoulders. Jak turned towards the totem, sighing, and began to climb.
Once he reached the piece, it reluctantly came free of its wood casing. Ava tensed as Jak was forced to grab onto the ledge while the top of the totem toppled down; directly onto the creature.
Harry stood wide-eyed for a moment, his lips twitching with a smile. Jak, clearing a twenty foot jump without a thought, landed beside them easily with the seal triumphantly in his hand. Harry simply pointed to Daxter and both burst out in loud laughter.
Ava felt a tug in her chest, remembering her time in Invisera. Secretly she wished she had been able to take Ashelin's offer, to have a better reunion with Harry, but that wasn't her task. Inside Haven City she was a Krimzon Guard and they were fugitives and she made it all too clear she wasn't on their side. The encounter with Harry woke feelings in Ava she hadn't felt for nearly a year.
A shift in the gravel beside her made her realized Riker made a move to stand. She grabbed his arm instantly, dragging him back to the gravel.
"What!" he grunted, "first you stop me from shooting them and now you're stopping me from contacting them? General A-"
Ava shook her head vigorously. "Not now, Riker. I'm not in the clear with Erol and the Baron."
Riker gave a hesitant nod and watched the three disappear through the Warp Gate. "What is so important that the General would order us to infiltrate the Krimzon Guard as normal soldiers, no less have our Commander Officer fucked over by the fact her family is insane."
The dark haired woman stood brushing the dirt from her uniform. "Don't hold anything back, Riker."
He smiled fondly. "You know what I mean, Ava."
"I do," she admitted, "and I warned him, but the damn asshole wouldn't listen to me. I used to know them and not even that well... Come on, let's get back to the main cavern."
"Alright," he conceded following closely behind as they re-entered the tunnel.
An uneasy silence broke out between the two. After nearly ten minutes of deafening silence, Riker made to break it with a joke, but Ava beat him to it. "My Mother died."
"What?" The Invisrin asked, taken back.
Ava smiled at his confusion. "You asked what happened between my family and me. My Mother died when I was five." She turned down a narrow ledge, the sounds of the drillers filtering down from the cave above them. "The Baron wasn't always so power hungry... The old King and he were even friends at one point..."
Riker followed in silence, listening intently.
"But after my Mother was killed by Metal Heads, everything went crazy..." Ava sighed heavily, rubbing her temple. "He grew more and more obsessive about destroying the Metal Heads and the three of us got the blunt of his frustration... I suppose Ashelin and I were spared the worst of it, but Erol wasn't."
"Wait," Riker quietly said, but Ava continued.
"Don't get me wrong, he's always been a jerk... But he wasn't always this sadistic. He wasn't this off." Ava told him with a shake of her head.
"If you're telling me that all that is from abuse..." Mumbled Riker.
"No," she said, "It was after he came back from Invisera. I don't think Invisera did it to him, I just think... it triggered everything. It could have been how the Baron changed, it could have been our Mother dying, and it could have been a million things." She decided with a shrug of her shoulders.
"Ashelin was always easier to live with, but she gradually began to change. She became withdrawn, harsher... and when I was ten, it became too much." Ava grit her teeth in anger, grinding them hard enough to make Riker wince.
"King Damas thought of my Father like a brother, he trusted him." Ava stated angrily, as if betrayed herself, "Ivory – the queen – would watch us during meetings – she was like our surrogate Mother... All three of us were there when she had Prince Mar."
"And then the Baron betrayed him." Concluded Riker.
"Not even two months after Ivory died."
"That's pretty fucked up." Riker stated, dipping his chin to his chest.
A mirthless smile broke out on Ava's face as they entered the main cavern. "Havenites usually are."