Finally, the chappy you've been gripping your seats for! Ok maybe not, but here it is. I know I know, "What happened to hopefully by tomarrow?" Suffice it to say it didn't work out. ANYHOO, as always, thank you to all my reviewers, I LOVE YOU GUYS! Cookies for all and keep it up, I need it like I need air.
Disclaimer: Don't own, or I wouldn't be here.
Chapter 8: Jonas Speaks
Riddick whipped past Kyra and charged up to the front of the skiff, snatching Jonas up out of his seat by his collar and bringing them as face-to-face as it gets without actually kissing the man. His voice was low and Kyra had to strain to hear over the hum of the engines in overdrive.
"I've only ever heard whispers of one race, besides Elementals, that could come back from the dead." Jonas flinched a little as Riddick sniffed him. "Your kind are supposed to be legend, myth. Something parents tell little kids about to get them to behave, like the fucking boogeyman."
Jonas looked at him a little panicked.
"Can I …uh… get us past the asteroid field before I go on the grill?" Jonas glanced out the front window just as the proximity alert sounded that they were about to hit something. Riddick dropped him with a grunt and Jonas coughed and quickly corrected their course to avoid the asteroid looming dangerously close.
"Get us through this fucking belt, set the autopilot and then it's twenty questions, understood?" Riddick growled. Jonas nodded, trying to concentrate on weaving in and out of the rocks floating around them.
A time later, after Jonas had eased them through asteroid belt with less than minimal damage and plotted a course as far away from shipping lanes and other such traffic as he could, he was prompted for his story. They sat down in the small common area to split a ration pack. Jonas thought for a moment.
"I'm not even sure where to begin now," he said solemnly.
"How about starting with your real name? Or why your eyes are blue now? Or how you pulled off that little trick back there? I watched you die, yet here you are in front of me like a bullet never went through your chest." Kyra was visibly agitated; her eyes were wild, her jaw clenching and unclenching even when there was nothing in her mouth. She wasn't about to let her guard down, even if he was …allegedly... on their side. Jonas sighed deeply.
"My name really is Jonas Salazar. As for that little 'trick' as you call it, it was simple really. I just came to, opened up the hole, pulled out the slug and closed myself up." Kyra's eyes went wide.
"Yeah, like it's an everyday ordinary skill that everyone has! WHAT ARE YOU!" Kyra jumped up, yelling at him. Riddick grabbed her arm and sat her back down and she looked at him in shock wondering how he could be so calm.
"He's a Changeling." Riddick spoke up. Kyra looked wide-eyed between Riddick and Jonas, and Jonas looked down.
"Only half, actually," he mumbled, "A full-blooded Changeling can morph into any shape as long as it maintains it's body mass. I can only soften my form, like putty. You know, fit through tight spaces, cracks in the wall, slide under the door. Melt down, if you will. I have organs and blood vessels and bones, they're just different molecularly. Purebloods don't have any of that." Jonas held out his hand and Kyra gasped as she saw his fingers begin to soften and sag like pulled taffy.
"Cool trick, does it hurt?" Riddick asked mildly impressed.
"Not anymore. It used to when I was first learning how to control it. I can change my identity at will, too." Jonas restructured his hand.
"That's why you have blue eyes now, instead of brown like you had before." Kyra said, amazed. Jonas nodded.
"Yeah, I got tired of brown. That's what makes my people so 'dangerous'. We could be anyone one minute and someone else the next and you'd never know unless you saw the change for yourself." He snickered a little as he thought of all the forms he'd taken over the last eight years. "I could even pull off a convincing Kyra."
Kyra shot Jonas a look, but her eyes went wide again as she saw herself appear before her. It was uncanny, he looked just like her. She moved her head, and Jonas mirrored her.
"That could be fun," Riddick smirked, however one of Kyra around was quite enough.
"That's just creepy," the two Kyras spoke in unison and the real Kyra grabbed for her shiv. "Knock it off, Jonas!"
He went back to his original form quickly. He didn't feel like patching up any more holes.
"I've heard of people like you. You guys started out as experiments or something, right?" Kyra was facinated but she quickly kicked herself mentally as a look of absolute despair crossed the man's face. Again he sighed heavily. Kyra started to apologize, but Jonas stopped her.
"It's ok. It's true, my people are descended from experiments, mutations, wretched genetic alterations performed in the late 20th century." Jonas leaned back against the bulkhead. This was going to be wearisome. This was the first time in a long long while that he'd told his story, and it felt like he was scraping scar tissue off of old wounds. It hurt a lot, but he began anyway.
"The militaries of Old Earth were in a race to create the perfect soldiers, ones with infinite healing capabilities that could be completely controlled and used for weapons or espionage. Four nations were performing top-secret experiments on condemned prisoners and homeless people trying to attain the perfect combination of molecular control, obedience, and super intelligence. In the end all the projects were scrubbed because people started asking too many questions and they ran out of ways to back up the expenses. Everyone involved, the scientists, the officers, and the 'products', were all supposed to have been killed."
"Oh that's horrible," Kyra was astonished; she thought her past was bad enough, but to know you should never have been born. Riddick could relate, he never should have livedpast his first day. Jonas continued.
"Some of my people managed to escape and the history is a little foggy from there, but they were scattered to the four winds. Some stayed together, some went out alone. My grandparents stayed together and had my mother. That's all I know about them, except that they were purists, that's all my mother would ever tell me. My mother fell in love with a human and they had me. My grandparents disowned her. She fought with them constantly, but they wouldn't have anything to do with a 'halfling' like me. Finally, my mother decided it was best to find a new place to live. We left for the planet Ajilon when I was four and that's where I grew up. I had a good life, for the most part. Of course I had to hide who and what I was for the grander majority of my life."
"That must have been hard, having to hide who really were," Kyra was sympathetic, reminiscing about the two years she spent as a boy to avoid being harassed as she ran for her life through the galaxy. It was a much grander scale, but it was still similar. Jonas nodded and continued.
"About eight years ago, a group of mercs came to my town. They said they were looking for someone, and believed he was hiding among us. He wasn't, but they didn't believe us. I don't remember a name, just that they said he was very dangerous. The elder of our town council pleaded with them, begging them to believe that the man they sought wasn't there," Jonas faltered, his voice cracking with emotion, "They pillaged the town, burned it to the ground killing many of my friends and neighbors and taking the rest captive to slave out…or out right sell, my mother included. My father fought but was killed by a coward who shot him in the back. I never saw my mother again."
Kyra's mouth was agape, and Riddick felt a twinge of pity for him, since it had probably been him the mercs had been looking for. Jonas' eyes darkened.
"I've been hunting the one who lead them ever since, hoping to find my mother, but if not, revenge will do. " he looked up at Riddick, "That's why I signed on to help find you. I was hoping you'd help me to find him." Riddick looked away.
"I don't do pity jobs." His tone was cold and Kyra looked at him as if he'd sprouted horns and a pointy tail.
"Will you at least tell me if you know of him? His name is William Johns." At this Riddick perked. Of all the fucking people to come back and haunt him, the blue eyed devil? That hyped up, "seventy nine kilos of gutless white meat", as Carolyn had put it, that William Johns? Riddick shook his head.
"And what are you going to do when you find him, huh? Kill him right?" Jonas nodded and went to speak but Riddick cut him off, "Then what?"
Jonas thought for a moment.
"Well, I'm not sure, I hadn't thought that far ahead." Jonas was troubled by Riddick's comments. He'd never questioned his quest for retribution before.
"Well you better start thinking. I hate to break it to you kid, but Johns is dead, has been for almost six years."
Jonas' eyes dropped and he looked furious and heartbroken all at once. Johns had been his last hope for finding his mother, his only purpose in life had been finding him, and now…
He looked up at Riddick with pleading eyes.
"Did he at least die slowly? Did he suffer? Tell me he prayed for death before he left this world!" He sounded almost on the border of hysterics. Kyra and Riddick exchanged looks, each of them remembering the creatures from that hellish planet.
Kyra flashed back.
She was shaking, on the edge.
"We're gunna lose everybody out here. We should have stayed at the ship."
"He died fast, and if we have any choice about it that's the way we should all go out. Don't you cry for Johns, don't you dare."
Riddick's voice brought her back.
"He was torn in two and eaten, I think he suffered. Not long enough in my opinion, but he felt hell for at least two seconds before his brain shut down." Riddick said coolly. Jonas looked down, feeling only minor satisfaction. He wanted to lash out, strike at anyone in sight, but the only two in his sight were his... friends? His frustration was mounting.
"I… I think I'll go be by myself for a while," he said quietly as he rose and walked to the small cargo hold in the back of the skiff. Kyra went to follow him, but Riddick stopped her.
"He needs his time, let him be."
Ok... honestly what did you think? Review please. If you review for no other chapter, PLEASE make it this one :o)
