Love Child

fadingshadesofpurple

Disclaimer: I don't own anything, except for Bekka. Everything else is copyright Naughty Dog/SCEA.

Here's Chapter six, sorry it took so long to produce.

Chapter Six. A Decision

Ashelin approached the palace as nonchalantly as she could, swaying her hips back and forth as she walked up the immense stairs that led to the front doors of her father's abode. They acknowledged her pass, and slid open with a click. She entered them without hesitation, Bekka's advice at the back of her mind all the while.

"I'm afraid the best thing you can do right now is try to make contact with the father in person as soon as possible, and against all odds. After that, you can go from there..."

She approached the elevator, stood on it, and rode it to the top floor.

The doors of the elevator slid open, revealing a long hall red panelled hallway. She stepped out onto it, heading down it towards her room, where she intended to grab some things. Bekka's advice was the only thing she had right now, and she was determined to follow it as best she could.

She already had a plan in mind: the next eco tanker was due to drop off shipments of eco at the palace in an hour and a half. She would sneak aboard it, and let it carry her to the drill platform, where, she could hopefully meet up with Torn. Their rendezvous would hopefully not be too long, just long enough for them to make a plan, before her father realized she was missing, and sent out a searching party.

It wasn't a perfect plan, but it was fairly solid, and she figured that she had a good chance of carrying out.

She was about to be proven wrong.

Just as she was rounding the corner of the long narrow corridor, she heard a voice, slick and oily call her from behind. "Ashelin, my dear, where are you going?"

She felt a sinking feeling in her stomach, as she recognised the speaker almost instantly. She turned to face him, glaring at him as she did. "Erol, why do you care?"

Erol, his arms crossed over his chest, and a smug grin on his face, responded just as coolly as he had when he had called to her. "Because, you're father requests your attention."

"Tell him I'm busy," she snapped. Errol's smug grin made her a little nervous. Was it possible that he knew, and had already alerted her father? Errol had a knack for getting into business that he shouldn't...

But no, he continued, dismissing her views as merely paranoid: "He has a new mission he wishes to assign you."

She sighed inwardly, but answered him as quickly as possible. "Can it wait?"

"No. It's urgent. He's assigned it to you specifically, and no one else, because he doesn't believe anyone else can carry it out. And he believes that you are well enough to carry it out as well. And seeing you standing here before me, I second the notion."

She sighed outwardly, realizing that her plan would have to be put on hold, for however long it would take for this mission to last.

She followed Errol down towards the throne room, feeling suddenly, a sense of entrapment, of doom, that she could not shake no matter how hard she tried...

His ears perked, his eyes gleaming the white of the misty cloud before him, his skin prickling against the cold and the snow and the ice that fell in heavy, leaden sheets, all for the enemy.

He had heard, through the roar of the blizzard, an all together different sound that could not be made by man or by nature; only by Metalhead. Moments later, purple streaks flew through the air, splitting the snow with a fast sounding "fizz"ing sound. Two of his men dropped to the ground, dead, and after that his senses grew even more alert.

He heard a scream, a horrendous crunching sound, and before he knew it, three stingers materialized out of the snow, covered in it like little snow demons, heading straight for him. He dodged their dark eco fire, rolling out of the way, and taking cover behind a few barrels of dark eco, the only cover he could find. The stingers swarmed about overhead, trying to find their prey in the blizzard. He pulled out his blaster, aiming at the nearest one, and firing at its head. The shot to the head was enough; it crumbled to the ground, a yellow skull gem bursting from it seconds later.

The blast from his gun caught the attention of the other two, and they turned, honing in on him as they did so. One from behind, the other from the front. As they both fired, he dove out of the way, rolling down the high hill that the platfrom he had stood on sat atop. They hit the barrels of eco that had been his hiding place instead, and he heard them explode as he rolled away from them, eco splattering everywhere. At the bottom of the hill, he rolled to a halt, stood up, and got his bearings.

Gun fire could be heard in all direction, harsh screams, roars that only Metalheads could make. From a distance, he could see some twenty to thirty grunts running towards the drill platform, and his men, who were fighting them to the best of their ability. Several of them had already been downed, he noticed, but he couldn't figure out why. A grunt was the easiest of the Metalheads to take out, even in such horrible weather conditions...

The he caught a gleam of something silver mixed with yellow, bouncing back and forth behind the line of grunts. It lasted only a second, but in that short fraction of a second, he realized what it was and what was tearing through his men so quickly.

Cloakers. On top of all this mess.

At this realization, he ran as fast he could towards a clump of his men, who were firing like crazy on the stampeding Metalheads, hoping to take down as many as they could before the Metalheads could reach their cluster.

On his way there, Torn stumbled over something buried deep in the snow. A man partially frozen and partially dead, his eyes crazed, gazing around him at the chaos that was being sown. It was not the man's gaze that caused Torn to pause slightly, but his words, as he tried to speak. "The guns.." he muttered. "They've been jamming...because of the ice...beware..."he huffed, then fell silent. Torn shook him harder, but the man's eyes slid closed in death.

Purple streaks of eco, dashing passed him, caught his attention and brought him back to his senses. Another steady stream of eco came, hitting the ground next to him as he dodge rolled yet again out of the way, leaving a smoldering hole in the ground and evaporating the snow. He turned to face the Metalhead that had chosen him for his prey, and the firing stopped.

A half visible Metalhead, bounded away, pulling up its yellow shield as it did so. "Damn it!" he swore, firing on it like mad as it bounded away and then disappeared completely. He stood up, focusing first on the dead man, and then on the still smoldering hole in the ground where he had once stood, then he shook his head and moved on.

He had almost made it to the cluster of his own men, still firing like crazy, when another cloaker materialized before him, and he, unable to stop in time, slid into. This action knocked it over, and both tumbled over each other in the snow, both grappling with one another to pin the other one down. The cloaker, fast in its reflexes, slashed in a sweeping manner towards its new prey, slicing at Torn's abdoment as it did so.

Torn, although well-known for his own quick reflexes, was not able to dodge this attack so well, and the Metalhead managed to slice away a good portion of his armor down to the skin. He cried out as it did so, sliding downward in the snow even more. As the Metalhead came to tower over him in victory, he found his arm gripping his gun, pulling it up, and aiming it at the Metalhead's skull crown, with the realization that this might be the last time he would ever use it crossing his mind as he did so. He pressed down on the trigger...

...only to have the blaster jam on him.

"Shit," he muttered, turning it sideways. "It's frozen.." he muttered. "Fuck..."he couldn't say anymore, for the pain of his previous wound was slowly creeping up on him, as the shock of the situation hit him. The Metalhead above him let out a sound that Torn could've have sworn was akin to something like a laugh. He closed his eyes, and swore again at his helpless position.

An image crossed his mind of a very special person.

"Ashelin..." he muttered the name of the person.

While the Metalhead above him raised its deadly, razor sharp talons; its keen, yellow eyes gleaming its vicitim for the best striking point...