A/N: Grr people! Why do you give my other fic like a million reviews and this one gets like none? Sheesh. Oh well, three is better than none.
Cosmicgirl22 would like to know if her bits of the fic are good. They're the ones with Eithne and the Purifier. I think they're great but she wants to hear it from you guys so… let us know, eh?
Toombs grunted as Enya gently patted his cheek. "Wakey, wakey," she sang. His blue eyes opened and he focused on her, their faces were inches apart and he still lay in his chair.
"Do I get a good morning kiss," he asked with a grin.
Enya snorted. "With breath like yours the chances of that happening are slim." She turned from his seat and plopped back down in her pilot's chair.
Toombs came up behind her and leaned against the back of her chair. "Are we there," he rasped, looking at the screen with bleary eyes.
"Nope." Enya flipped a few switches. "I'm dropping you off at Epular 2."
Toombs nearly fell over. "What do you mean," he asked, his voice full of suspicion. "I thought we were going to Helion Prime."
Enya buckled herself into her seat. "We need a crew. You pick one up while I go to Helion." She paused and looked up at Toombs. "Don't worry I'm not going to steal Riddick away from you. I just need to… consult someone."
"So you're just going to leave me there," he asked, crossing his arms.
"Yeah, I'll meet you at Helion Prime." She turned back to her controls and began to punch buttons. "Unless you take too long getting a crew. Knowing your past experiences, it could take a while."
Toombs' eyes roamed over Enya's body again. "I'll be there," he rasped. "Don't get your panties in a twist."
It was Enya's turn to smile. "You might want to hold onto something." She turned back to the controls. Toombs jumped back into his seat just as Enya turned the skiff into a dangerous nose dive.
The Lord Marshal rounded on Eithne, still reeling from the shock of the genocide around her. "Convert now or suffer the same fate."
Gathering herself, Eithne rose and faced the Lord Marshal. "I will not serve you."
The Lord Marshal only nodded and said, "Take her before the Quasi-deads."
Eithne's eyes searched the faces of those around her, looking for clues as to what awaited her. Who or what was a Quasi-dead? The Purifier had left her where she was standing and walked toward a off-room whose doors were covered in intricate design. Three Necromonger soldiers approached Eithne and surrounded her. One stepping closer to her and removing his helmet, his eyes were dark and unwavering as he took in the sight of her. He held out his arm and motioned to the nearby room. "This way."
Eithne's legs tried to buckle, but the knife at her back pushed her forward.
The Necromonger soldier entered the small circular room with her, placed her on the raised platform and turned to leave. Cool mist swirled by her feet, and she looked back through the door. Her eyes met the Purifiers. Their eyes locked into a gaze, he was the closest thing she had to a friendly face in this place.
"Don't resist them..." he said quietly, shaking his head. "It will be over soon."
Eithne heard a switch being turned and immediately she was forced to her knees, as though the blood in her body was being magnetized to the floor. She tried to turn her head to see what the movement was around her, but her vision became terribly blurred...until the voices began and she saw, with perfect clarity, exactly what they wanted her to show them.
"Entering cerebral cortex...." the voices hissed, as pain shot up her back, forcing her forward sprawling her out on all fours.
"We find memories of a woman....a sister..." Eithne saw her sisters face flash before her eyes, she tried calling out to warn her but instead of her voice it was the Quasi-dead's. "Ennnnyaaa...."
"Elemental energies flow....." the quasi-deads said as Eithne began to convulse on the platform. "Fire and air. Unbalancing itself....she calls it Chengi."
"Regress her further," The Lord Marshal called down from above. "I want to know her most painful memories."
Eithne tried her hardest to clear her mind but the razor sharp threads of mind control reached up through her brain, fleshing deeper, as her eyes rolled back into her skull.
"Mother and Father...." the Quasi-deads delved ever deeper into her brain. "Mother and Father are dead because of me....because I'm Chengi....because I'm unbalanced...."
Blood began to flow from Eithne's mouth and nose, her eyes white from being rolled back, and as though by some unseen wind her hair was flying up around her as though it were made of flame, and as the Quasi-deads prepared for their final probe, her hair became just that.
Gasps circulated around the hall at the sight of seeing her head on fire, everyone was far to busy watching her to notice The Purifier turn off the platform and release her from the grip of the Quasi-dead.
Eithne immediately fell forward, her hair falling back to normal around her. She crawled slowly off the platform. The doors in front of her opened, standing there was Lord Marshal.
"Get her cleaned up." Lord Marshal said to no one in particular, as he witnessed her front being covered in her own blood.
"I'll do it, " It was the soldier from before, entering next to the Lord Marshal.
"Not so fast, dear husband." A woman stepped around from behind him. "I think this is a job that requires a woman's touch."
Eithne tried to speak but found her mouth wasn't working properly, instead she only seemed to be mumbling through red blood.
"P..Puure...Puri...rr"
"Yes, " The Lord Marshal seemed to understand. "Purifer, You take her and clean her up. She seems to trust you...."
The skiff was skimming through the clouds of Epular 2. Enya was pulling up images on her monitor, looking for the best port to dock at. They were all the same little shit holes. The brackish water of the polluted, half dead planet shined from the toxins dumped in it. Toombs sat behind her, being quiet for once. Hr probably had a heart attack on the way down.
Enya suppressed a sigh as she randomly picked a port. One of them would have willing mercs. Or at least she hoped they would. She turned the skiff and with amazing skill guided it over the landscape. Her runway was coming up.
Her hand slipped off the control stick and she grabbed her head. The searing pain made her cry out. It was as if someone was poking around in her mind with a hot poker, tearing at her memories.
It took every ounce of self control not to thrash about. If she did it, her and Toombs would be ghosted in a an instant. "Toombs," she cried out through gritted teeth. Little did she know that he was already at her side. "Take the controls."
The pain persisted as Enya flung herself out of the chair and landed on skiff's floor. Her body convulsed slightly before she tucked herself up into a tight ball, hands still on her head. With another stabbing pain, Enya's nose began to lightly trickle blood.
It stopped and Enya lowered her hands from her throbbing head. For a moment she lay on the floor, collecting herself as the skiff roughly landed. Toombs crouched down beside Enya, her breathing was slowly returning to normal.
"What the fuck was that," he asked looking at her bleeding nose.
Enya pushed herself off the floor and sat, looking at the man with sideburns. "Just a little headache," she mumbled in a very sarcastic tone of voice.
Toombs stood up and offered her his hand, Enya took it. "Well I hope you don't get them often," he rasped as he pulled her up. "I wouldn't want you to get one while we're in the sack together."
With a glare Enya shoved him. Toombs fell out the hatch door and landed on his ass. "Toombs, I'm warning you now," Enya said as she wiped the blood from her nose. "If you don't find a damn crew and get to Hellion fast, I'll throw your sorry merc ass into deep space and watch you implode and explode simultaneously."
She hit the button and the skiff's hatch door began to close. Toombs was looking up at her with an unreadable expression. "Women," he muttered, shaking his head.
Enya fell into her pilot's seat and gave a shaky sigh. She knew it was Eithne's pain she was feeling. Enya also knew her pain was only a fraction of what her sister had gone through. Wiping her nose again, she looked down at her blood. Eithene…Millions of thoughts and worries whirled through her throbbing head. Please be okay.
Eithne's return to consciousness was gradual. Somewhere near her, she hear footsteps. She realized she was laying on her back, and began to realize it was far more comfortable than the cot in her cell.
She opened her eyes to the bright blue-gray of the room. Hanging from the ceiling were large black leather curtains, which draped around the full bed, almost making it look like a gothic four poster. Looking down she noticed she was covered with a thin blanket, the material in a strange reptilian design.
She tried to sit up but her spine responded with searing pain, the tracks of the Quasi-deads mind probe still firmly raw.
"Don't try to move." came the now familiar voice of The Purifier. "You're lucky you're not paralyzed after what just happened."
"Where am I?"
"You're in my bed." he said as he brought her a glass of water. This was the first time she had seen him without his full uniform. He was now dressed in clothes she had seen off duty guards wear made from that same reptilian pattern as the blanket on her bed, he was without a helmet as well. "And you're to stay there, until the pain goes away."
"Why am I not back in my cell?"
"Really no point keeping you locked up is there?" he asked as he gave her a drink. "After what the Quasi's have done to you. I did try to warn you not to resist them."
The menial task of drinking water threw her neck into spasms of pain. She barely sipped once then refused more.
"I hope your Lord Marshal found what he was looking for." she lamented.
"The Quasi-dead find every human's inherent weakness. Yours being your love for your sister...that and your parents death...tell me, how did they die?"
"You mean the Quasi's didn't share that little tidbit?" At this Eithne tried to pull her strength and manage to sit up on the bed.
"Only that you blame yourself..." his eyes faltered for a moment then were back on her, as though they too were probing her.
"Enya, my sister. and I found them, murdered in their beds." Eithne looked away from The Purifier's face. "I can still see it...the brains coming out of my mother's head. Enya dragging me out, she always was the strong one."
The Purifier's face showed no emotion but when he spoke his voice betrayed his facade.
"I am not a stranger to death...I also lost a mother."
"Did she die in the last conquest?" she immediately felt bad for saying it.
"No, she wasn't a Necromonger. She was..." his voice faltered.
"What?" Eithne really wanted to know ...his eyes looked so sad for a moment, but then he seemed to catch himself...once again regressing back into full on Necromonger mode.
"Nothing." the emotion in his face withdrawing. "She was not a Necromonger, therefore her death didn't occur in due time, and you should realize that if you do not convert, the Lord Marshal will kill you, whenever he has no further use for you."
His voice had been harsh...but as he spoke again it was with renewed softness and renewed passion in his gaze. "But if you do convert, if you do drop to your knees and ask to be purified, your death will happen in due time. We all began as something else..."
"Why do you pretend to care when I die? Because your Lord Marshal commanded it? I'm nothing but a task for you to complete, a soul for you to convert."
"That's not true," his voice suddenly fierce. "My reasons for wanting you converted are my own."
"Oh?" she tested "then what are they?"
"I want you in the Underverse with me." The Purifier said, as surprised as Eithne that the words had come out.
"I'm here with you now..."
Their lips touched briefly, but Eithne pulled back.
"I'm not sure how I feel about you...I don't even know your name." she whispered into his chin.
"My name is Luthan. It's all I have left....of my life before, my name and this..."
Luthan summoned his courage and pulled back his shirt to reveal a glowing hand print on his chest. Even though Eithne didn't know what it was, or what it meant, her own hand was strangely drawn to it. When her hand closed over the mark she felt a rush of energy.
He allowed her to touch it. It had been his darkest secret for years, the fact that he was Furyan. Luthan didn't know why he had trusted her. He told himself it was because she wasn't a power hungry Necromonger woman, she was somehow more real than them...more soft.
"Luthan...." she spoke softly and as their lips met again, her hand went up from the mark on his chest to the marks on his neck...the Mark of the Necromonger.
His hand immediately kept her from touching them.
"Am I not worthy enough to touch you there?" she asked slightly hurt.
"When you touch me here...." he said putting her hand back on his chest, back over his Furyan mark, "I feel pride, but if you were to touch me there..." he motioned to his Necromonger mark. "I would feel only shame." He went to touch her shoulder, but Eithne pulled away.
"Those..." she said pointing to his claw-like finger covers. "They're cold."
And, in a final act of defiance, Luthan removed them...betraying his religion and his Lord Marshal, so that he could touch the unclean breeder with his bare hands.
As Enya awoke from cryo-sleep the feeling of being blissfully content faded. She grumbled slightly, remembering the dream she had about Eithne kissing a man. Well I'm glad she's having fun while I try to rescue her ass. A faint smile spread across her lips as she thought, Go Eithne!
With expert piloting, Enya had her skiff landing perfectly in the sands of Helion Prime. New Mecca wasn't too far from where she had landed, now it was just a matter of finding who she was looking for.
She had just begun to shut down the systems when the a button bleeped. Her burgundy eyes turned to it and she wondered who would be sending her a transmission. Out of curiosity she hit the button.
On the screen her aunt's face flickered slightly. "Enya," she said without a moment's hesitation. "I tried to contact you on your ship so Johnson put me through to you here."
Enya nodded. "Yeah, I figured."
"You're on Helion Prime, am I right?" Again, Enya nodded. "Then you know Riddick is here," Aereon stated. "He is going to visit an old friend of his, Abu Al-Walid, or Imam."
"So, what's the address," Enya asked, leaning back in her seat. Aereon gave her the address of a small place in the city. "Thanks. I'll meet you there."
With the flip of a switch, Aereon's image had disappeared. Enya shut down the skiff and was on her way.
The walk had been longer than she had expected but Enya didn't mind. The sun had set a while ago and she now walked the streets and alleyways of New Mecca. She stopped when she reached a house with hand carved doors. It bore the address she had been looking for.
Enya raised a hand and was about to knock when three men in black hoods came up behind her.
"Who are you," one of them asked in a voice barely above a whisper.
Her wine-red eyes looked him up and down. "Who the fuck are you," she threw back at the man whose eyes were the only things showing.
"We are friends of Aereon's," a second one said. While eyeing them suspiciously, Enya gave a small nod. "You must be her niece. She has told us much about you, Eithne."
Enya laughed. "Eithne? No. I'm Aereon's other niece. Enya, the renegade."
The three men exchanged looks before turning back to Enya. "Aereon has told us much about you, as well." It was the first speaker again.
"Well, if I were you I wouldn't believe a word of it. At least none of the good stuff."
Choosing to ignore her comment the third man gestured to the door. "Shall we all enter?"
Enya stepped aside and let the three men enter the house ahead of her. They were each greeted by a tall proud man with glasses. He shook their hands before ushering them into a room.
"The one you seek is here," the host said to some unknown person in the room.
From the darkness of the room a man stepped before them. Enya's eyes looked him over. He had to be a little over six feet tall. He was extremely muscular, looking like he could throw a anyone in the room out the window. The man was bald and wore a black wife beater with a pair of grubby cargo pants and a weather worn cloak.
The trait that really caught Enya's attention was the man's eyes. They were silver and shone beautifully. She knew immediately who he was even without her Elemental reasoning.
Richard B. Riddick made his way down the line of men. Each one revealed his face to the convict. His silver eyes peered angrily at each of them, intimidating them.
He was about to turn to Enya but before he could even catch a glimpse of her, his attention was drawn to the flickering candles. A soft wind blew into the room from the open balcony windows and Riddick quickly drew his blade.
The shiv found its way to the throat of a woman who had blown in with the wind. She was slightly older with white hair and a long flowing white dress.
"And whose throat is this," Riddick asked as he eyed the woman.
In one swift movement, Enya had her own knife drawn and against Riddick's throat. "Drop it," she ordered without emotion.
Riddick's silver eyes turned to Enya and he smiled in an amused way. "And who is this pretty little thing."
"My niece," Aereon said as she gave Enya a warning look.
Reluctantly she took the knife from Riddick's throat and slipped back into her belt. The convict did the same.
"This is Aereon," the host, Imam, explained. "She is the one who put the bounty on your head."
Riddick's eyes were still on Enya. "Does her niece have a name?"
"Enya," she said flatly.
The escaped con's lips twitched slightly when he heard her name. Quickly he turned his eyes back to Imam. Soon they had explained that Aereon had put the payday on Riddick's head because he was the last surviving Furyan male and the only one who could stop the Necromongers.
While they were speaking, Enya's eyes had turned to the night sky. High above the planet was a comet, slowly inching its way by. As she looked at it, the comet filled Enya with a sense of foreboding but there was something else with it. Enya could feel her sister coming closer, but she was still unreachable. A rare chill went down Enya's spine.
"That thing means trouble," Enya muttered as she looked away, shaking her head.
"They say the comet precedes them," Imam said looking up at it. "It is a sign of death and destruction."
Riddick slipped behind Enya and leaned in closely, his mouth close to her ear. "Don't worry," his deep voice whispered in her ear. "I'll protect you." She could just hear him as he took a deep inhalation of her scent and she could of sworn she heard him breath her name.
Suddenly loud knocking reached their ears along with sounds of guards yelling.
A woman ran into the room. "They come searching houses," she said looking to Imam. "They think a spy arrived on the planet earlier." Her dark eyes flashed to Riddick and panic was evident in her voice. "Did anyone see him come here?"
Imam hushed her. "Let us send them away," he said urgently as he ushered the three men and his wife out the door. He turned to Riddick. "Please," he begged. "Stay for just a moment, to save lives."
Riddick's silver eyes turned to Imam and he growled, "Not my fight." Each word was emphasized bitterly.
Enya's burgundy eyes narrowed at him as he turned to jump out a window. She was about to reach out and pull him back but Imam spoke before she could act.
"So," he said. "You will leave us to our fate. Just like you left her." Riddick froze at Imam's words.
Her? Enya pondered. I wonder who could be so amazing that the great Riddick has a soft spot her. Her eye twitched slightly and Enya scolded herself for being so annoyed at the thought. So what if he has a girl? That just means he has a weakness. There was a small pain in her stomach when she thought that and she had to suppress a grimace. Great. Now I have indigestion… Enya thought despite the little voice in the back of her mind, telling her it was a pain of jealousy.
Closing the doors, Imam left Riddick and Enya alone. Neither one said anything, they just stood there. Slowly, Riddick turned from the window. Outside the door, the guards were trashing the house, yelling in the process.
Enya could hear them outside the doors, getting ready to break it down. She pulled a knife from her belt and prepared herself for the onslaught. Her eyes flickered to Riddick who was standing in front of a set of candles, his back to the door.
The door burst open, Enya ducked out of their line of view. Riddick slowly raised his hands and for a moment Enya thought he was surrendering. No. Riddick doesn't surrender. He kills.
"I hope you're not afraid of the dark," his deep voice rumbled. "The light, hurts my eyes."
His bare hands came down on the candles, extinguishing them and sending the whole room into darkness.
Enya launched herself at the nearest guard, knocking him to the ground. All around her shots were being fired, guards tossed, and people shouting. With her knife, Enya made quick work of disposing of any guards that got too close.
Before long the only one left was the one Riddick was holding. The guard went flying through the doors, making room for light to pour in. Enya stayed in the room, looking down at the bodies of the guards while Riddick stepped through the broken doors.
"You mentioned her," his said, his deep voice floating to Enya's ears.
Enya listened closely as Imam said, "She left shortly after you did. Young Jack went looking for you."
"Where is she now," Riddick interrupted, a slight edge to his voice.
Imam paused. "I do not know. It is a place so hot you cannot set foot on the surface."
Crematoria. Even as Enya thought it, Riddick said it.
"She looked up to you," Imam began as Riddick's footsteps moved away, towards the front door. "She thought of you as a brother."
That was all Enya needed to hear. With a slight smile she turned to the window and began to climb out. Her aunt appeared beside her, watching as Riddick walked away.
"Furyans," Aereon said with exasperation. "Defiant to the end." Her gray eyes turned to Enya. "Much like you."
A grin found it way onto Enya's face. "I love you too aunt Aereon." Enya jumped out the window before anything more could be said. Now it was a matter of finding Riddick and using his weakness to convince him to help free Eithne.