A/N: Sorry for the long delay in the updates, but things like life continued to pop up in the middle of everything, and it was hard to remember what kind of story I was writing when I kept getting hooked on other people's stories. But I think that I have finally gotten back into my stories groove well enough to go ahead and continue writing it. Hope you enjoy!
"Raina! Raina!" Riddick screamed at me over my own screaming, trying to get me to wake up and snap out of the dream. I sat bolt upright and attempted to regain my breathing, and felt all over to make sure that there were no stab wounds or blood anywhere on my body. Riddick maneuvered himself so that he was sitting behind me, holding me close to him, trying to calm me down.
I was still so scared and I kept seeing images of the Lord Marshal coming at me with a blade in one hand and the baby in the other turning blue from lack of oxygen. So when Riddick tried to touch me, I blasted him away. I couldn't control my powers right then I was so scared, that my body and mind just reacted on impulse. So when I was seeing the Lord Marshal but was feeling Riddick, I tried to get everything evil away from me, but instead blasted away only the good feelings.
With each time that I believed I was in danger, I would push harder, to get the danger away from me. The only problem was, was that Riddick was already hard pressed against the wall opposite me, so with every push, Riddick's body sustained more damage.
By the time that I had passed out from the amount of energy I was expelling, Riddick had a broken arm, dislocated shoulder, and a shattered ankle, plus, there was an imprint of Riddick's flung body in the wall. When I passed out, Riddick landed on the other bed, which wasn't really broken, with a loud thud of his body and crack of bed braces. Now the bed really was broken.
I woke back up, after how many hours, I don't know, to find Riddick still unconscious on the other bed, or rather in it. I got up, dizzily, and almost fell onto the other bed, and Riddick in the process. Once I could focus without needing to vomit, I commenced to checking him over.
I felt for broken bones and what not, and found out that he had a broken arm, the bone was shattered in three different places, his other shoulder was bent behind him in a funky position, so I summized that he had landed on it and dislocated it, and when I checked other places, I couldn't find one of his ankles. But the truly odd thing was, was when I checked these places out on his body, he didn't even so much as wince, so I began to get worried. Either he has an incredible pain tolerance ratio, or he is dead.
"Dear God! I've killed him!"
Wait! Why do I care if he's alive or dead? That was the whole point of me finding him, to kill him as a way to avenge Irgun.
"But I actually killed him. I've never killed anyone I've gotten so close to, someone that I've grown to…"
Don't even think it! He is the reason Irgun is dead, your only friend. You hate him! You hate him with a passion!
"But I think I may have actually fallen in…" I cried in his chest.
"Fallen in what?" he said back at me, putting his hand on my head.
"Riddick!" I reached down and hugged him with all my strength. "I thought I had killed you! But I didn't, and your not, and…"
He put a finger on my lips to stop me from saying anymore. "Before you go any further, could you please help me out of this bed and onto the other one? I'm not really into laying in weird bed holes."
I laughed a little bit and helped him out of his predicament, but he didn't take too kindly to me laughing, or rather giggling, at his situation, which I had put him in. He would have pushed me away for that, had he had any strength left in his body, but he just shrugged a little to get me to stop.
"Well, if you didn't want my help, then you shouldn't have asked for it."
"I had wanted it, just not now that you seem to think it's so funny that I need your help." he said trying to maintain his pride.
"Oh no, Riddick. I don't think it is funny that you need my help. It's just that you said 'weird bed holes', that's all, I swear."
After that, he allowed me to help him again. But, much to our disappointment, I couldn't pick him up. Not that he was too heavy, just that there was something wrong with both of his arms, so propping himself on me and walking over to the bed was not an option. So instead, I had to telekinetically lift him off of the bed and place him on the other one.
I went to leave the room so he could rest and I could fix him up a special tonic to help him heal faster when Riddick asked for my help again.
"Raina, wait! I'm going to need your help to relocate my shoulder. Come here and help me push."
"I can't."
"What do you mean you can't? You have to help me!"
"No! I can't."
"Yes you can, and you will! This is all your fucking fault, so you have to help me."
"Hey! It's not MY fault you needed to be some comforting hero! If I had needed your help, I would have asked for it!"
"Get your ass over here and push on my shoulder if you want to continue this argument!"
"Don't fucking order me around! I'm not afraid of you! And I'm not your maid, nurse, or... Jack! If I choose to leave a room or not help you, I can do that. I owe you nothing! You are the one hiding out here!"
"Don't youEVER bring Jack into this! She was a good kid, and she was loyal, more than I can say for you! And if I were looking for a replacement for Jack, it sure as damn well hell wouldn't be your scrawny ass!"
After I had heard what I said and listened to Riddick yell at me like a spoiled child for my rudeness, I calmed down. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have spoken about Jack like that." I reached out my hand and fixed his shoulder from across the room. I didn't think he would have allowed me to touch him now, plus, I was afraid that if I had touched him right now, that I would have to relive images from that horrible dream, and I left the room.
I went and brewed the tonic that would help him heal and had it float in to him.
"Raina, what the fuck is this crap?" he asked forcefully as he took hold of the cup I sent in there.
"It's to help you heal faster. Just drink it."
"Why didn't you just bring it in by hand?"
"I thought you wouldn't drink it if I brought it in to you." I said in an almost child-like tone.
"Your probably right, but what makes you think that I would drink it if it came floating into the room?"
"I was hoping that you wouldn't think about it and just drink it. Please drink it? I swear it won't hurt you. You'll fall asleep, and when you wake, you'll be all better."
I left the room and got ready to go run some errands.I didn't want to stick around and have to answer more questions right then. At least I can get out of the house this time without Riddick hovering over my shoulder. And now I won't have to avoid the old crew members like the plague.
I would have walked the streets without worry, but everytime I came close enough to sense a Necro that I couldn't sense a memory with me in, I took to hiding in the shadows like I had been doing with Riddick. I really didn't want to have to fight the entire new fleet of converts.
I went about my errands, without too much trouble, usually Riddick would have been there to watch my back which somehow had made me feel safer.When I got home, I suddenly realized that I should have stuck around and forced the tonic down his throat. He was laying in the bed, starring down the glass as if he were a computer trying to analyze an unknown substance.
I walked into the room, saw the scene, and dropped my bags on the floor with a thud. "Riddick! What the HELL are you doing? You were supposed to drink it, not absorb it through osmosis!" I half said half screamed at him.
"I don't know why, but I didn't trust that stuff, especially when you left the house after giving it to me." he said in a much calmer tone than mine.
"What is there not to trust? I already told you what it does. You drink it, it repairs what's wrong with your body, and when you wake up, your as good as new."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah! You already told me that. But how does it work, and what's in it? Maybe that will tell me why I don't trust a smell in it."
"Nothing really. Just a few herbs, some of the strongest pain medication known to man, a simple sleeping drought, which even the most inexperienced physician can make, and some…" I allowed myself to trail off.
"And some what? Maybe that's the smell I don't trust."
"And some of my 'healing magic'." (A/N: Healing magic is something that was made up by me, but may have some similarities to things on television shows or movies, maybe even books. Healing magic, for this story, is a special crop of magic that forever remains in a powdered form, harvested like salt is from the sea. It only grows on one planet in the entire universe in an underground well deep inside the planet and is considered illegal to posses on many planets because of it's drug-like state.)
"You have healing magic? But it doesn't smell like it."
"That's because I got that particular bit from the actual planet before it had been destroyed by the Necros. I was there maybe a week before, and I bought all that I could because you never know when you will need it, or how much you will need."
"That explains it." And with that, Riddick drank the tonic and allowed it to take full affect, so long as I stayed by his side until he was out. He woke up after a few hours completely fixed, sore as hell, but fixed.
"I thought you said I would be good as new."
"Yeah."
"I feel like I've been driven over by a semi truck several times."
"You mean your sore?"
"Fuck yeah!"
"Then your fine. That's one of the side effects."
"Fuck! I don't even get this sore when I fight someone twice my size."
"You would if I fought you." I said under my breath.
"What did you say!"
"I said, if you fought me, you would be that sore, but now that I think about it, you would be worse off."
"What makes you think that you could hurt me at all? You are half my size, you have very little muscle mass, and you weigh next to nothing. If I wanted to, I could pick you up and break you in half and not even blink an eye."
"Ha! Don't make me laugh." And I did, "I've fought and beaten, bigger, stronger, and cuter guys than you!" I poked him in the chest at that last word and got his thoughts. She thinks I'm cute. Wait! Cute as in a puppy, or as in not quite sexy? "And I'm not talking puppies."
He grabbed my wrist and pulled me closer to him. I looked deep into those gorgeous silver eyes and could see two things. One, he was trying to find fear or at least nervousness in my eyes to know that he hadn't lost his touch, and two, he was fighting for dominance, he wouldn't be beat by a girl, not again.
He found neither. The only thing he found was me trying to assert my dominance. I pulled out of his grasp, but not like I was angry with him. It was more like he had decided to allow me to move out of his grip and into a corner, all the while keeping my eyes locked with his.
Where does she get off having such strong eyes? I had to do too many horrible things to earn my strength, and she is just an innocent little human. God those are gorgeous eyes, I could just fall into them right now. He started to lean in to… I can only guess, kiss me, but I moved a little further away from him, from sheer arrogance, and got him all wrowled up again.
"Don't think that you can simply work your charms on me, and I will forget the little challenge you just instigated." I pushed him back a bit, "I plan on kicking your ass, just as soon as you feel up to it."
He broke out of his trance and hit reality hard. Riddick had me backed up into a corner so that when he loomed over me it made him seem bigger and badder than he really was. He leaned in close to me and whispered in my ear using his hottest breath and sexiest tone, "I didn't instigate it, you did, but just name the time and place, Raina." As he said my name, he put his right hand on my hip and breathed even harder into my right ear, causing excitement to run throughout my ENTIRE body.
If I hadn't had as much restraint as I had, I would have moved my body into his body in acceptation of what he was doing to me and wrapped my arms and legs around him to get myself as close to him as possible. But alas, restraint, training, and memories won out and I did my best to brush him off.
"How about tomorrow at noon? I could use a good night's sleep, and you probably have some last minute healing to do since you woke up so early." I said in a shaky attempt to be strong willed.
"Funny. But do you think it wise to have the fight so soon?" he said with mock concern in his voice.
"Why! Do you need time to train, or time to get me to change my mind?"
He looked ready to spit nails at that point. "FINE! Tomorrow at NOON!" And he left me standing there shaking nearly to death from my body's need to have him there again with me, doing those things to me, and more, so much more, for the rest of the night.
I woke up the next morning bright eyed and bushy tailed. It had been so long since I could go to sleep and not dream horrible things that woke me up in the middle of the night screaming at the top of my lungs. I woke up early enough to find Riddick still asleep on the couch twisted up in a sheet, probably from trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in and finally just passing out in that odd position. It took every bit of energy in my body to not burst out in laughter from the sight.
I went outside to get the sight for the fight ready to go, all the while Riddick was still inside the house getting the last bit of shut eye that he could. I piled stones in a large circle for the barrier of the ring and filled in the circle with sand so that it looked like an old fashioned martial arts fighting ring. When I got the last stone in place and was about to head inside to wake Riddick up so he could get ready for the fight, two massive arms came around my waist and spun me around to face Riddick standing behind me, just out of bed.
He looked deep into my eyes, grabbed my ass firmly in his hands, lifted me into the air, wrapping my legs around his waist in the process, and kissed me as hard as he could. I thought that maybe I was just dreaming and that I would wake up any minute hugging one of the pillows on my bed, but when I felt his erection, I knew there was no way in hell this was a dream and I did everything but scream for help to get him to put me down.
"I have been wanting to do that to you ever since that one morning, and this morning seemed like the absolute best opportunity to do it." he said with his forehead to mine. "I can smell your arousal coming off of you in waves right now, just like I did last night, so… do… you… REALLY want to go through with this fight, or would you rather me take you into the bedroom and I can finish this thought?"
What a fucking sneaky tactic. Come out here, get me all hot, and then give me an ultimatum. Either have me fuck your brains out right now, or we fight and you'll probably never get any. "Why? Don't think that you could take me?"
"No. Just trying to save you some serious healing time. Thought that you might not want to have most of your bones broken at once. But if you would rather fight, than bring it on, babe." He backed up and went to go inside the house, but I caught his wrist before he got too far away. "Don't ever call me BABE again."
"Or what?"
"Or I'll cut off your dick and shove it down your throat. I have a name and you know what it is, so use it." And with that I stormed into the house leaving Riddick standing outside, dumbfounded.
He would have done something to retaliate when he made it back inside the house, but the sheer amount of anger that I had displayed intrigued him beyond belief, so he just let my little outburst outside slip without punishment, seeing as how he was supposed to be getting ready to fight me in a couple of hours anyways. He decided that it would be prudent to leave me alone while I got ready, since all he was going to have to do was get dressed and he would be ready.
I went through my pre-battle routine outside so I wouldn't have to even look at his smug face. I practiced a few moves that I had planned to do to Riddick, and then for the rest of the morning I meditated. I had found months ago, that if I meditated before a battle that I was more focused and I could get through more people before I tried out and had to start using my forcelances instead of my own abilities to defeat the enemies. I figured that since I was only fighting one man, that maybe, I would be able to get this fight over with really fast and show him what a woman could do to his sorry ass.
I had no idea just how wrong I could be. It had to have been one of the longest fights that I have ever fought. I mean even when I used to be fighting with my dad during training, it never took that long for him to win. So, either I am getting better, or this Riddick really isn't all that he's cracked up to be. But, it's not like I even won the match. It ended up being a draw.
We were both fighting to prove that the other had no chance of beating the other one, and we were both right. We were evenly matched, for the most part. After a good couple of kicks and punches landed by yours truly, he backhanded me once or twice, and then it was mostly dodges and blocks until we both had to quit from exhaustion. I could see why Riddick was able to defeat Irgun so fast. Riddick had animal grace, speed, and stamina, while Irgun tried to use brute force and moved too slowly when swinging those huge hammer axes of his. Riddick's weapons of choice may be smaller, but their lighter and can slice through the air.
But with this fight, there were no weapons allowed, it was hand to hand combat, and I wasn't allowed to use my powers. Kicks, punches, flips, blocks, and dodges, just the way I like to fight. We each flipped the other one over our shoulders, but in the middle of everything, I flipped him in a completely new fashion for him. Usually, when I fight people, if I manage to jump up onto their shoulders just right, I can wrap my legs around their necks and twist to break their necks and kill them. But for some reason I had lost the will to kill him, so when I managed to get on top of his shoulders like that, I wrapped my legs around his neck, from behind so no one thinks of this too dirty, and flipped myself and him backwards so that he landed on his stomach.
If it had been any normal person, that would have been the end of the fight, but it was Riddick and that only pissed him off royally. For punishment of that little stunt of mine, he backhand punched me across the face leaving a whelp the size of his fist on my face. And after that, he neither landed a punch or managed to kick me again, but I couldn't do any of that either, and we ended up blocking and dodging eachother until we fell to the ground from exhaustion, and passing out for what seemed like days.