Trials of Beta
Chapter Eleven: Reason Prior to madness
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A Week And A Half Prior...~*~*~*~*~*~
"I count five of 'em. They're just loafing about, like they own the place or something," Lunehhy observed, peering through the partially opened door into the chamber beyond, where a small group of reptilian creatures were, as she had said, just loafing about like a pack of squatters with nothing better to do then stare at each other. The elevator from the cave under the Central Dome had took her and HK-55 to this place. It felt like they were inside a volcano!
"Hmmm... I see..." HK-55 said, standing opposite Lunehhy, her Soul Eater Scythe at the ready. As always, Lunehhy was dressed in black leather outfit, trimmed with red, her ever present green Beret sitting atop her head.
"I think we should just rush 'em, we can take em, no prob." Lunehhy mentally gauged their chances of winning, found the results favorable, and suggested a plan of attack to HK, who shook her head.
"It's that kind of rookie thinking that causes most Hunters to lose their life. I suggest we take it slow, don't rush into a potentially dangerous situation." HK countered.
"Okay, so... Like we always do then?" Lunehhy said, an almost perverted grin crossing her face.
HK nodded. "Yup. Improvise." Gripping her Soul Eater tightly, HK braced herself for action as Lunehhy drew her Bravace.
"On three... Three!" Lunehhy said then threw open the door the rest of the way, bringing her Bravace to bear on the nearest threat as she crossed the threshold. The creature was some weird mixed of a Booma and a shark like creature, and with all the charm and tendencies for violence of both. As Lunehhy drew a bead on the nearest threat, HK-55 rushed in, her Scythe raised high as she double stepped it towards another target, her blood red eyes glowing with murderous glee.
Throwing up their arms, the beasts let loose a loud war cry, bellowing out an alert to others near them, then went on the offensive, moving to attack the intruders into their lair.
The ground underfoot was hard, like granite or some other magma-esque rock. The floor wasn't so much of a floor as it was more a bridge providing access for foot traffic over a small lava lake. It could probably support a lot of weight and take plenty of abuse and then some before it would ever collapse. Brushing aside these rather distracting observations her CPU was making, HK engaged the first to near her with a fierce downward hack of her Soul Eater, cleaving solidly into the base of it's skull, continuing through with the swing, and lopping off it's head in one clean stroke. Blood gurgled up from it's esophagus and jetted up into the air like a water fountain in intervals corresponding to it's heartbeat. The beast remained erect a moment longer, not yet realizing it's head was gone and therefore was technically dead. Dodging the random swings of the headless shark beast, HK-55 moved to the next in line, weaving a wave of death in her wake. Anything that wasn't Lunehhy was quickly cut down with extreme prejudice.
A yellow Photon bullet rang over her shoulders, impacting the face of the last shark beast HK-55 was getting ready to send to the afterlife. The Photon bullet forced it's way past the tough scaly hide of it's head, exploding out the back of it's head leaving an exit wound the size of HK's fists. HK-55 blinked, then growled, shouting back to Lunehhy. "You stole my kill! We agreed no stealing each other's kills!"
"Sorry!" Lunehhy replied. That was the last of the five, "But I just HAD to get more then one kill, to hold up my rep, ya know. AND! We also agreed that neither of us would hog all the action!" Lunehhy retorted, justifying her actions.
"Two wrongs don't make a right." HK-55 replied. Lunehhy grinned.
If only Beta could see this side of HK. I don't know why she's so mean to him. I guess she's just trying to protect me from getting hurt again. She's such a sweetheart... Lunehhy thought to herself as HK tried the north door.
"It's locked." The HUcasl announced.
"I'll try this one over here then," Lunehhy said as she sauntered over to a door lying in the east wall, "Hmm?" She noticed laying on the floor was a capsule, "What's this?"
Stooping and activating it, a hologram of Red Ring Rico appeared and delivered a message. Lunehhy gasped. "Hey HK! It's Red Ring Rico! She's alive and somewhere ahead of us! I'm gonna leave a capsule next to hers!"
"Understood, I'll go on ahead of you." HK announced as Lunehhy began to record. As HK passed behind Lunehhy, a thought occurred to her, seeing Lunehhy's back. It would be the perfect opportunity. No one would ever know... No one would suspect me... The thought was alien, yet strangely it was at the same time irrevocably hers. Shaking her head to clear it of the odd thought which was both hers and not her own, HK left to search for the means to open the north door.
Lunehhy shuddered, feeling HK's gaze upon her back. What's she doing? It's creeping me out... Oh, she's leaving finally...
The heat pounded them constantly, so much that half a day into the volcanic caves left Lunehhy drenched with sweat. "Geez, you think it's hot enough in here?" Lunehhy said as she kicked over another Evil Shark, as Red Ring Rico had so dubbed them, holstering her Bravace.
"It could be hotter." HK-55 said. They were standing on a large bridge that spanned across a lake of liquid lava. Twin lava falls cascaded down from somewhere above them off to one side of the bridge. The molten rock gave off insane amounts of heat, it was a wonder these creatures could survive down here. Lunehhy felt sorry for whoever had to work in here.
"You're such a pessimist!" Lunehhy exclaimed.
"No, I'm just realistic, nothing more." Hk-55 countered her partner's accusation.
"Uh huh... Well, maybe you could 'realist' me a nice, tall ice cold drink, with some ice cream, and chocolate. Yum!" Lunehhy said, rubbing her belly.
HK-55 promptly shook her head, "Humans, just when you think you've figured 'em out, they evolve into something completely off the charts." She said under her breath.
"What was that?" Lunehhy asked, casting a curious glance over her shoulder at the Android, having heard her say something but not heard what she had said exactly.
"Hmmm...? Nothing." HK-55 denied saying anything.
"Aw... Talking to yourself is a bad habit, but as long as you don't answer yourself, then we're all cool."
"Weren't you complaining just a minute ago about being too hot?" HK jested.
"Er..." Lunehhy grinned hesitantly, rubbing the back of her neck with one hand, "I did say that, huh? Oh well... Let's get going, hopefully we can find someplace where the miners slept, or ate, or someplace like that."
Nodding, HK took a step closer to the edge, then looked down at the lake below. The red hot lava flowed like sluggish, bright yellow and orange water, going deeper down into the earth. She could only speculate where, though.
"Hurry, hurry!" Lunehhy urged.
The path eventually lead them to an orange colored teleportation pad. The two hunters were busy in a conversation as they came upon it.
"So I'm saying, obviously this place goes further down, or maybe back up into the Central Dome, where the workers were housed. That's why we didn't see any sort of living quarters, canteen, or other such place. It's all further down, or further up." Lunehhy was in the process of explaining the reason why they didn't find any signs of the people who used to work here.
"I don't doubt that this thing goes further down, but I highly doubt people worked here. There's nothing of value to mine. The rock that makes up the walls of this place aren't the right kind of ore to do much of anything useful with. This place was most likely a hold over, or pass through area to the real mine." HK presented her counter-point.
"Maybe they- Oh look, a teleport pad..." Lunehhy was about to counter HK's counter, but then took notice of the pad.
"Hmmm... Yes, but where does it go?" HK-55 posed the million Meseta question.
Lunehhy hopped in front of it, throwing her arms to either side, "Isn't it obvious? This will take us into the Central Dome! Come on, we're only one step away from solving the mystery behind the loss of contact with Pioneer 1!" Without allowing HK to say otherwise, Lunehhy hopped on the pad, waving as she vanished in a flash of light. HK scoffed, then she too stepped on the pad, feeling her CPU temporary go haywire as it simultaneously existed in two different locations at the exact same time. Then all went back to normal as she appeared on the destination pad.
The air here was much cooler, but it was a natural cool, not artificial like one would expect inside the Central Dome. Also, the walls and such were carved out of the surrounding rock, meaning they weren't inside the Central Dome. "Only one step away, eh?"
"Oh... Be quiet you nay-sayer!" Lunehhy steamed, kicking some water at HK. Before the female Android could react, Lunehhy darted through the only door leading in or out of this place into the chamber beyond. The standing water came up to her ankles, and she immediately dropped into the water, splashing it all over herself. "OH! I'm in heaven!" She exclaimed, "It's so nice and cool here! I can see why they didn't want to stay long up there where it's eight hundred thousand degrees in the shade, when it's so nice down here!"
"Eight hundred thousand? If it was that..."
"It's called sarcasm!" Lunehhy cut HK off before she could complete her sentence. Abruptly, the north door chimed, and slide open. Lunehhy spun to her feet as she heard a roar coming from it. Standing there was an green insectoid creature, long scythe like blades on it's arms. "Oh hell, another Grass Assassin!"
This wasn't the first one they had encountered, and they knew how to deal with it. Drawing her Bravace and getting off a quick series of pop shots, Lunehhy managed to hit two out of four times, one Photon round slamming into it's armored chitin hide, another hitting it's knee joint on it's foremost leg. Letting loose an angry bellow, the creature scurried forward on insect like legs, raising one of it's blade arms above it's head to delivered a killing blow to Lunehhy, but it wasn't going to be like that. Jumping from behind Lunehhy, HK-55 brought her Soul Eater in an upward slicing motion, severing the blade arm at the joint, dropping it to the ground. Bellowing in agony, the Grass Assassin continued it's mindless, relentless assault, but was made quick work of by Lunehhy and HK-55. However, they didn't kill it, just disable by cutting off all it's limbs. This way, they could help stem the spread of these things, as they seemed to reproduce in death.
"Eck... We got more company. Tell 'em to go away, I'm not done cooking dinner yet." Lunehhy said to HK as a small group of Evil Sharks made on their position. In other words, Lunehhy just gave HK permission to 'Hog all the kills.' The Android would have grinned, if she were able to.