Ch. 36 An Imperfect Beast
Haven
Still in her office, Marrow is deciding how to best handle reports of two missing tech teams. Then she has an idea with sinister intentions behind it. The Pheolvrom Team. She sends out a signal to reach Roxie.
Roxie receives the message and sends a call out for the team. This time they meet in the tunnels.
"Ok," says Roxie, "Marrow has given us an assignment or mission actually. It appears two teams have gone missing. Our job is to find them and return them back alive."
"Sounds easy enough," said Ty.
"Not likely," said Di Volo. "These tunnels are massive and endless and theses teams were highly trained so if someone is behind there disappearance they would be even worse."
"Could it be those creature that are down in the ruins?" asked Orchid.
"No. As I stated earlier they live only in the ruins."
Roxie with drew a silver dagger from her right leg holster, twirled around her fingers and put back in. "The tunnels are massive yes but first we will head to the signatures of the two teams last transmissions. That should give us some indication if any of what happened down here. Let's move out."
Moving quietly, the Pheolvrom team approached the last signature of team 1. Roxie lead the group, her mind alert and searching for others. She detected nothing. Di focused her reptilian senses on smell and sound, though she too received no indications of other life. Luke and Orchid stayed close together. Luke was in metallic form while Orchid carried an open display of her barbed vines twitching in the air. Ty stuck close to Roxie, more for her protection then his, though she's not the one who needs it.
Coming upon a silver transmitter Roxie signals the team to stop. She proceeds on, keeping a mental link on each team member. The transmitter has been smashed and there is a clear thick fluid seeping into its cinched wires. Roxie lifts it telekinetically examines it a little further and then looks ahead down the tunnel. Nothing, save for an eerie mist and the sounds of endless water drops echoing endlessly.
"Well," she starts to say before a chunk of ceiling crashes down unleashing a small dust wave and catching the team's attention. Roxie leaps ahead and looks up into the blackness above. Her eyes can not penetrate the blackness while Di Volo's can.
Di Volo eyes halt when she comes upon the creature lurking in the shadows. "Roxie! Get out of there now!"
But before Roxie made it two feet the monster descended with lightning accuracy and slammed her from behind sending her colliding with Luke.
"Roxie!" screamed Ty as he rushed to her aid.
Orchid and DI Volo stood to face the terror of Jadalien.
"How?" staggered Orchid, "he was blown into a million pieces."
D tensed up, producing a fire ball from her narrow fangs and manipulating it, ready to strike the beast. Luke and Ty helped Roxie back to here feat and they all looked upon the new and apparently evolved creature.
From his last appearance Jadalien had morphed into a new form. His features were more human, standing on two legs and his muscle structure. His chest was fully armored in his own tough dark grey hide and his arms were lengthy and black. His face was menacing, with razor sharp teeth, white eyes and a new bone armor covering his cheeks and head. His legs were well developed as well and ended with two extending toes.
He let out a small chuckle. "Well, well we meet again. I'm glad to see you have a new member," winking at Ty, "And I'm glad your back," looking at Di Volo.
Roxie withdrew the dagger from its holster. "See you've acquired a little more knowledge sense last we met. What have you done with them?"
Jadalin continued his slimy smile. "With who?" he asked.
"You no God damn well who," bellowed Roxie.
"Hmm…" Jadaline raised his eyes, "Oh, your talking about those mutants I found down here. Yeah about that….I kind of….oh what's the word I'm searching for? Oh Absorbed. I absorbed them, that's it. And from them my body evolved as did my intellect. Pretty nifty huh?"
Roxie's hand was shaking, "You, monster!" and with a rush of energy she charged the beast head on, knife out stretched.
The team watched in horror as there leader confronted the creature with a rising power.
Roxie raised her fist, clutching the knife as she did and brought it down with tremendous force aiming for his head when he merely lashed out with his own beastly hand and stopped her assault. Roxie struggled to break free before she unleashed a blast of telekinetic energy which sent Jadalien back a few feet but he remained unphased.
Instead as Roxie went to throw her dagger, Jadalien preformed an upper cut, seized the knife in mid air and slashed Roxie, clear across the chest before executing another punch sending Roxie flying threw the air. She landed with a hard thump and skitted across the rough, wet flooring.
Stained with blood, Jadalien brought the dagger to his lips and slowly licked it clean.
Luke was ready to fight but he awaited Roxie's command. Instead he decided to make small talk. "What the hell are you?"
"What am I? What are you? A mutant by the looks, a regenerative metallic alloy able to battle on through the worst conditions. Your only weakness is extreme heat or extreme cold but it's the heat that will kill you. So what am I? The question should be addressed what are we? For I am many including your leader but why not ask what I once was? And that would be, a true alien from the far reaches of space. In fact part of the race in which mutants came to be such as Apocalypse." Jadaline tossed the crumbled dagger back to Roxie. "But it's what I can do that interests you all most is it not? And as you witnessed with our last encounter I am able take other mutants abilities by absorbing there blood, though now that's all I need is a slight drop of DNA and I replicate it up to the max. I'm a greater threat to you all now then you can possibly imagine."
The battles was about to ensue. Roxie contacted the team telepathically.
Ok guys he's strong, but not invincible. While he may be able to absorb our abilities that doesn't mean he can handle us all. Luke you're going to have to manipulate your body so you can contain him. Di, you be on the ready to fry his ass as soon as he's trapped. This time we won't leave anything left at all.
Orchid, Ty cover our backs incase he tries anything else. I'm going to attack him now and when I do make your move Luke.
Severing the link Roxie used her power to rip all the wasted junk on the tunnel floor and walls and launched it at Jadalien.
He merely stood in place as his solid body was bombarded with multiple objects, and the soft skin that was torn healed instantly.
Luke picked up the cue right away as did D. Flying into the air D charged of four fire balls as Luke liquefied his body to engulf Jadalien.
But just as D was about to strike, she fell to the ground and withered in agony. Next to fall was Orchid and then Ty as Jadalien asserted a telepathic battle.
Roxie Rose to her feet and now the two were locked in a duel of the minds.
Luke still stood strong, immune to the monsters telepathic invasion as he attacked thousands of metallic spears of which he sent flying off his body. Jadaliens body was impaled in almost every direction, and immediately his body started healing, diverting energy from his mind assault. Roxie sensed the shift in power and let loose a full mental attack blasting the beast off balance which Luke then impaled again with his generated metallic tentacles.
The fallen team members rose to there feet as Jadalien's body started squirming. It was then an unknown voice spoke.
"Your destroying my beautiful creation. Fools, we'll kill you all!"
And suddenly Jadalien's chest started to part. The tough armor liquefied and an object was pushing fourth outward. Jadalin's own face was breaking out in a heavy sweat as his chest crunching apart and then the skin tore open and a new face was centered on Jadalien's chest.
The team stared in fright as what had to be impossible was staring back at them.
Roxie took a step back. "Sinister," she said.
The face of the once King, looking out at her stared with certain satisfaction.
"Why you all look as though you've seen a ghost," said Sinister mounted on his creature's chest. "I must say that my creation is a rising perfection. Two minds simultaneously working together in one body. My deadly intellect and Jadalien's deadly abilities."
Jadalien snickered a tune of Joy. "You see," said Jadalien, "after you two bitches thought you killed me, my exploded body started reforming and along the way we found our maker and absorbed him into our being thus becoming a far more powerful threat. And now we will kill you all."
The two beings in one surged into the air and attacked the entire team head on.
Landing with a bone crunching kick to Ty's ribs dropped the young boy hard on the ground, while then using telekinetic energy to reverse Di Volo's attempted fire attack back at both her and Orchid. Now leaving only Roxie and Luke standing, Jadalien enacted another telepathic battle with Roxie as both launched their arms to send a wave of energy at the other. Luke was just about to strike again when Jadalien diverted the energy between himself and Roxie at him sending the metallic mutant zooming upward; crashing threw the ceiling and all the way up to the city above. Roxie's eyes started to glow as a energy surge was about to take place before Jadalien landed a square punch right upside her cheek, knocking her on the verge of loosing consciousness. But the determined mutant fought fourth from with in her self a stronger power and taking the chance she sent Jadalien skyward until he made impact with the city above.
Recovering from the power assault Roxie aided Orchid and Di up as there fire wounds healed up. Then Roxie rushed over to Ty, to find him lying crumpled on the ground unconscious. She quickly noted his wounded side as a slight trickle of blood poured out.
"I've got to get him back to Haven," she said to Di Volo and Orchid. "His side is really busted up, but the two of you need to help Luke defeat Jadalien. Try using the same plan we discussed before. I'll return as soon as I can and with more help possibly."
Not needing to be told twice Di Volo flew up through the skyward hole made by Luke and Orchid used her tentacles to pull her self up too.
Scooping Ty, gently into her arms Roxie struggled for a moment with his weight and then had him in her arms and started walking away when a humming noise caught her attention approaching from deeper in the tunnel.
Turning to see what was approaching, a spotlight suddenly blinded Roxie, emitting from a small hovering object.
"Identification confirmed," said a mechanical voice from the small spherical object and then its spotlight blinked off and it lowered to Roxie emiiting a small holographic image of a man in white appeared.
"Greetings," said the computer image. "My name is Dr. Drollwrech and having recently read up on you I would like meet you very much and if you agree to chat with me momentarily I will intern provide you with the means to end this war in less then a day. Now you can either take a chance and hope what I say is true, or you can carry on about your lives. The choice is yours. This pod will provide you a detailed map of how to locate me if you should accept my request. Ta, ta."
The image faded and the pod's mechanical voice spoke again, "Do you accept?"
Roxie wasn't sure exactly what to do. Could this man truly have a means to end this war in less then a day? And if so could she afford not accept it?
"Do you accept?" asked the pod again.
Roxie observed Ty. His wounds weren't life threatening but required treatment none the less. She focused her powers to stop his bleeding and decided that she couldn't pass this opportunity up.
"I accept," she said and then the pod flickered a new holo map before starting to fly off. Roxie took to the air herself and fallowed the little pod off into the endless tunnels praying for this mans claim to be true and for the protection of her team mates.