Authors notes: And here we go, just a fair warning, this chapter gets a bit... bloody. So, I hope you all enjoy this.

A hunter in waiting

2.1

As we watched all the capes stand there, giving each other quick glances before looking to another cape. It was silent, but something told us that they were waiting for the gestalt to choose a side. If that is the case, it was time to start the bond brother. Of course, now wasn't a good time to form one just this second, no, what we planned was to send a small, but sufficient enough amount of Lek'golo worms, then produce the bond brother. This way would be more unnoticed by the new guests... well, except for mother, of course.

How exactly could we do that unnoticed? Easy, the newly chewed out hole that we had just ate through. It was large enough for a small group of lek'golo to go through, and we were standing in front of it, blocking the view of it. Making it easier to sneakily create a bond brother without anyone knowing. So, reaching through the hole, with our now unarmored hand, we sent out the worms to go through the hole. We felt them slither off of our body, but we still felt connected with them.

After sending the worms to do the second job, we then moved to grab the gauntlet that we had taken off, picked it up and donned it on the unarmored hand. Then we turned around fully to face all of the capes. If things were to get sour, we'd have to take out Lung first. The only weapon we had, was crafted from the fuel systems that once belonged to the car that belonged to coil, it was an improvised flame thrower, utterly useless against Lung, and couldn't touch Oni-Lee with it. So, we had to use our raw strength.

Thing about the gestalts that are m'gal lek'golo was that when they were at full height of twelve feet tall, they weighed around the ten thousand pounds. For reference, the master chief weighs around a thousand pounds, making the legend himself lighter than that of a hunter. With us though, around eight feet tall, we still weigh more than the legend himself, but do not weigh the same as a full-grown hunter colony. So, we might just be a match for Lung.

But that didn't mean we could beat him in a fight that lasted too long, no, we'd have to make sure we take him out fast, and unexpected. Problem with that lies on the fact that he had a full visual on us. So, we'll have to find a way around that issue.

Oni-Lee would be easy, take out his boss out of the picture, he won't stay around for long. He wasn't a brute like us or Lung, so he wouldn't last long in a fist fight. Main objective with him would be taking out the boss in the first place.

Kaiser and Hook wolf, both problems we could easily solve. Both shifted into a metallic state of matter, making it nigh impossible to kill if you don't have anything heat based or the strength and wit to kill them. Fortunately, for us, there was an easy way to get around all that. We'd simply eat them with our metallic diet.

We didn't intend to kill anybody in the room... well maybe only one person in the room. Hook wolf, because he would become a member of the Slaughterhouse nine. Now, we had a list of things to do, and one of them had the intent of killing the Slaughterhouse nine from existence, including to remove any future candidates that get in our way before they even join up with them. This included the one known as Hook wolf.

We had no intention of fighting Faultline, Mother, and Miss Militia. But we didn't want to get them in the way of harm, the risk of death of our mother was too high.

While the silence continued, we relayed to the other separate Lek'golo worms, asking them to observe the area of the boat. What we got in return would've made us grin sadistically. The metal floor below us, Lung, Oni-Lee, Kaiser, and Hook wolf. The floor where Miss Militia, Faultline, and Mother were on was stable enough for what we then planned to do.

Before anyone could say anything, we lifted our armored boot, and then slammed it against the floor. This of course sent a shockwave throughout the boat, shaking everyone in it. The metal, rusty floor, gave way. Lung, Oni-Lee, Kaiser, Hook wolf, and ourselves fell into a hollowed-out area of the boats base. Being the heaviest, we landed first, but into a huge pile of sand, sending the sand flying into the air, ultimately creating a fog of war.

We got up, heard four thuds across the floor. Of course, there was sand within the boat, it might take a while to get the sand out of our armor, but we would live. Thankfully, with our new eyes, we utilized another form of vision: Thermal vision. We could see in the dark and in the cloud of sand particles, our opponents couldn't.

Lung was the largest target, easy too. He was first to go. Moving quickly and somehow silently, we were then behind the kaiju rival. He was still somehow unaware of our presence, as he shouted out into the chamber. "Either this is a sign of you wanting to negotiate, or a sign that you want to fight! Doesn't matter to m-" Lung didn't get the chance to finish that sentence, as we then grabbed his legs, then lifted him into the air, then slammed him against the metal ground of the boat. Of course, that wouldn't knock out the gangster just yet, so, we made sure to do it several more times. Lung was of course unprepared to be lifted into the air and slammed across the floor several times, so, after a while, the kaiju leader was knocked unconscious.

Casting the unconscious man aside, we turned to face the three remaining opponents. The cloud of sand had dispersed somewhat, making the take down of the kaiju challenger visible to all. This of course, caused Oni-Lee to retreat, leaving a clone that soon disintegrated. That just left Kaiser and Hook wolf.

Kaiser looked taken aback, as the dragon that was on par with him had been taken out with ease. Hook wolf however was already shifting into his metal form. Kaiser ordered for Hook Wolf, who of course, ignored it, and changed towards us. Now was the moment to activate the flame thrower. Raising our right arm, we activated the mechanisms inside it, shifting the arm into a new form. We then released a torrent of flames towards the metallic wolf.

Now, our flame thrower wasn't exactly just a flame thrower, as the flames it sent flying out, was more plasma. Thus, it was more of a plasma thrower than a flame thrower. Apparently, the covenant just rarely used them, as even they surprisingly had a geneva convention... that's what we think at least, as we didn't remember anything about that or anything relating to that within halo lore.

When the plasma hit the wolf, we caught a glance of Kaiser retreating, knowing full well that he couldn't win this fight. As for the wolf, he leapt onto us, causing us to stumble a bit, as well as causing our plasma thrower arm to lose aim. Now we were firing aimlessly, catching certain things on fire.

POV: Taylor

As I looked within the hole as well within it with some of my bugs, where Collaboration was now fighting Hook wolf, plasma flying throughout the chamber, I took notice that there just happened to be some fuel left over within the boat. This could be a huge problem for everyone within the boat.

"We need to get out of the boat... as well as get a fair distance away from the boat." I told everyone that hadn't fallen into the hole. That being Faultline, Gregor, Miss Militia, and myself. I thought that there was going to be a fight that I was going to be involved in, but Collaboration had made a move first, a risky one at that, and had solo'd Lung, scared off Oni-Lee and Kaiser, and was currently fighting Hook wolf.

"And why is that?" Miss Militia asked, almost sounding worried. She turned her head towards my direction, and I simply stated this:

"This boat still has fuel inside it... fuel that is known to be highly flammable..." I stated, earning the nod from the rest of the capes.

"Alright then, if that's the case, then we better book it." Gregor simply said as he turned around.

Deciding that it wouldn't be long before Collaboration set something that wasn't supposed to be set a flame, we all quickly ran out of the boat.

POV: Collaboration

As we were flailing around with a wolf on top of us, which was attempting to bite some of the worms within us. As we stumbled, we noticed that our plasma thrower's aim soon landed on that of a puddle that first seemed to be water, but as the light of the plasma thrower reached it, we then saw that it wasn't water... it was oil.

This oil just so happened to be leaking out from a tanker that we had just noticed. This was not good. But before we could stop firing the plasma, the plasma already reached towards the puddle. That ultimately caused a chain reaction, to which we could only react fast enough by grabbing the scruff of the neck of the wolf and then pulled the beast off of ourselves and used it to try and shield enough of our body mass that was exposed to the air.

The next thing that happened was that we were sent flying through the air. The entirety of the boat was on fire by the time we regained awareness. We were laying on the floor, aching in pain. We stood up, took in our surroundings, and saw Hook wolf, crawling on the floor in human form, his legs were no more. Our makeshift armor had taken a hit, some of the armor that did manage to survive was covered with a layer of black gunk... we didn't believe it to be oil.

We limped over to the remains of the man, grabbed his head and lifted him into the air. Reorienting the sad excuse of a human being, we saw that the man's mask was utterly destroyed, leaving a mask revealed man to us. We gazed into his eyes; we saw fear.

We decided to have him hear the last thing he would ever hear, besides that of the flames consuming that of what remained of the boat, would be our artificial voice.

Turned out, the translator had taken some damage, resulting in our voice being... somewhat broken.

"We will #e th$ l~st !%*ce you w^&~ eve~ hear... he a nic# afterlife..." we spoke, before crushing the head of the criminal, causing grey matter flying into the surrounding environment. Dropping the body to the ground, we turned around and found Lung unconscious, surprisingly having survived the blast as well.

We walked to his unconscious form and grabbed his leg, then walked away to find an exit out of the flaming boat, dragging an unconscious gangster with us. We were of course hurt, as we had been limping. Orange blood had also covered our some of our armor. We just needed to clean ourselves up... we also felt somewhat exhausted, after all, this was our first cape fight.

Eventually, stumbling through the flames, we had finally reached the outside world. There, standing in front of us, was Faultline, Miss Militia, surprisingly a man who we assumed to be Gregor (must've not seen them), and Mother... all of whom seemed to be surprised to see us alive... and dragging Lung behind us. They were all leaning against a rock, but Mother came running towards us.

We dropped Lung's leg, continued to limp towards the group. Halfway there, we fell onto our knees, landing onto the sand. Taylor got to our side, she attempted to make sure we didn't fall over completely. Let it be known, she did attempt to do so. Thankfully, Gregor had come along and helped Taylor in balancing us. Then the two other capes came along and helped to drag us to rest our back across the large rock.

"Th#n% y*$ ^or your h#1p..." we spoke before reorienting our head to face our mother, and tapped through our connection with her, 'Let us guess, we have a lot to discuss, don't we?' we asked.

She spoke out loud, sounding somewhat upset with us, "Oh yes we do, young colony." she chastised us, shaking her finger towards us. Of course, she would be upset... we think... we couldn't really tell if she was upset... or furious.

"Y#$ m*th#r, wh t is it tha& yo#'re upse$ with?" We asked, gaining a glance from Miss Militia, who raised an eyebrow to Taylor.

"Did they just..." Miss militia asked, trailing off. But mother, of course addressed her question.

"Did they just call me their mother? Yes, am I bothered by it? Eh, I've gotten used to it. And back to you, the first thing I want to talk to you about is this: using PHO in a public space? Really? And all you were wearing at the time was a cloak to cover yourself? Someone could've become suspicious, and they would most likely attempt to look under the cloak and would instantly out you!" she lectured us. This of course caused everyone to glance over at us in question. Miss Militia Looked at us in curiosity and spoke up.

"Say, what was your PHO account?" she asked, raising her eyebrows. We then chuckled at this in hunter.

"Slightcaseofworms..." we spoke, not sounding distorted this time. This earned a chuckle from Gregor, who shooked his head.

"More of a lot of cases of worms." Gregor joked.

Mother then proceeded to continue, "Then, you go and take apart someone's car, and wear it as armor and repurpose its ignition and gas related mechanisms and make a plasma thrower?! What makes you think that's safe?!" she practically yelled at us. But before we could respond, she continued, "THEN, you go here, drawing the attention of nearly all of the factions of the Bay, and then you get into a fight with the heads of two of the more powerful gangs and then blow up a boat with said plasma thrower! Let me guess, you might have killed Hook wolf as well? Because he was in your way?!" she yelled at us in motherly rage. But once more, before we could respond again, she continued to rant on and on.

Resting our heads against the rock.

Faultline then rested a hand on Mother's shoulder, and then simply stated, "I think they had enough. You can save the rest for next time." to which Mother layed off on the rants.

We feel like we just prevented Taylor from showing her abilities, to show that she isn't useless...

Then we heard Lung groan and attempted to get up... before getting swarmed by a whole bunch of bugs, which startled him in shock that he passed out.

"I would very much appreciate it if this moment didn't get interrupted, thank you very much!" Mother commented, glaring at the once more unconscious dragon.

'Never mind...' we thought.

Author's notes: alrighty then, I hope you all enjoyed this so far, feedback is appreciated, and I hope you all have a nice day.