'Hey there peeps GhostNobody here to wish everyone a happy and prosperous 2017, I hope everyone has recovered from the joys of Christmas and the New Year festivities, and for those like myself who had to work them both, I hope that you were at least able to share some joy with colleagues which given a lot of us spend the same if not more time with these guys than our real families that they might as well be adopted family.
I'm glad that my message back in Chapter 15 touched a few people and I hope it lifted you up and got you back to where you need to be, this life is too short to dwell on the negatives and the hate, this world is full of light and beautiful things and people to go with them, all you need to do is seek and you shall find them, so go out and make some victories of your own and don't let anyone or anything stop you.
I'd like to say a big thank you to everyone for the continued support of this adventure in love and I'm still loving the suggestions, keep them coming and if anybody is nervous about suggesting things to me in the comments then PM them to me, this also means I can communicate with you on a more personal one to one level, it'll also give me chance to give you a personal thanks and to maybe have a chat, so with one last big thank you to you all let's make 2017 a great one, this is GhostNobody signing off and saying ymlaen â'r sioe or on with the show for the non-Welsh ;)…..'
Chapter 19: Two Halves of the Same Heart.
Moving through the massive halls Jack was hugging the walls and doorways which isn't easy when you're wearing bright white armor with a flowing cape, although now his job had become a fair bit easier, as while he'd been playing with the wrist comp he'd lifted from the bad blood to try and figure out what else he could use it for he'd accidently triggered some sort of optical camouflage, it had shit him right up when suddenly while pressing buttons his skin had begun crackling with electricity before becoming pretty much see through.
Just before that he'd also figured out how the plasma cannons worked much to the misfortune of a bad blood who just happened to stumble across him hiding, as he'd turned to face him both of the cannons had targeted him as he ran towards Jack, turned out all he had to do was focus on the triangle target acquired icon that popped up in his HUD and the cannons responded by firing at the target, boy the damn things packed a serious punch to a point that was proven by the fact that after taking two close range full power hits only the legs of the bad blood male continued to run down the corridor as his torso was blown into glowing goo all over the walls.
After this bit of impromptu bit of redecorating Jack had decided that it might be a good idea to get the fuck out of Dodge and had headed out down corridor passing the still running legs as he went, he had absolutely no idea where he was or where he was going, but anywhere was better than staying still and waiting for them to find him.
As he reached the end of the corridor it suddenly became blatantly obvious to Jack just where he was and his heart sank like a fucking lead balloon, the corridor he was in swung ninety degrees to the left, but on the right was a window and as Jack stopped at it with the hope of orientating himself all he saw was an orbital view of a planet that he didn't recognize.
"I'm in fucking space!" he exclaimed to himself as he looked down at the massive blue orb through the window, as he stared at the land masses of the blue orb his thoughts turned to Tik, his love was trapped down there somewhere with no way to get to him, but maybe there would be a way for him to reach her, if he could steal a ship or something from here then maybe just maybe if he didn't end up flying it into the fucking sun he could reach her and rescue her from that god forsaken hell, a mental image of himself in knights get up on his trusty steed sweeping in to rescue princess Tik swam into his mind and he smiled under the mask, though more likely 'princess' Tik would throw him over one of those broad shoulders of hers and carry him off to her tower and his trusty steed would be an alien space ship that he had absolutely no clue on how to fly, but it still kept his spirits up, "I will find you my love, count on it" he said placing an armored hand against the glass, suddenly a series of loud claxons sounded bursting his lovely bubble, "Looks like the fuckers have noticed I'm gone, time to be more gone" he said to himself before turning and running full tilt down the corridor to god knows where.
Tik eleth flourished her sword and with a single strike took the bad blood's head clean from his shoulders, before dropping into a roll and with her now twin wrist blades stabbed his two friends in their stomachs before wrenching upwards spilling their guts all over the floor, flicking the blades she advanced on the fourth one who was now retreating away from the angry female bearing down on him, so terrified of her was he that he didn't notice that his back was about to hit a wall till it was too late. Tik eleth slammed a massive foot into his stomach bouncing him back against the wall his skull making a sickening crack as it hit, then she slammed both sets of wrist blades into his shoulders crippling his arms and pinned him to the wall, even though he was taller than her he looked terrified of the female, "You have something that belongs to me, tell me where you have taken the ooman called Ack and I will grant you a quick honorable death" she said in a voice of pure venom, his eyes widened in pure fear and she was sure he was about to piss himself,
"I don't know, the elder locked him up to interrogate him, that's all I know I swear it by the goddess" he said, Tik eleth twisted the wrist blades and the male howled in agony,
"You are lying bad blood, WHERE IS MY MALE!?" she roared in his face so loud it caused him to actually whimper, then suddenly claxons sounded and she looked up at the ceiling where red pulsing lights were spinning, they couldn't have discovered her already surely? Quickly she withdrew one of her wrist blades and slit the males throat while still looking at the ceiling, as his body slumped against the wall she heard a voice come over the ship's internal communication system, "Brothers and sisters an ooman that is the personal property off the Elder has escaped, he had killed our brothers and is to be hunted down, but not and I repeat this NOT killed, that honor belongs to the Elder, if he is found dead the one responsible will join his corpse on its trip out of an airlock!" the voice said with authority.
Tik eleth's heart did back flips of joy in her chest, her Ack was free and he was fighting, she had to get to his side as quickly as possible, but where was he and where would he go? Quickly she drew up her map and traced her route to what she believed to be the holding cells where they would have held him, best to start there and hunt him down, so putting the map out she charged down the corridor with her plasma cannons now primed, stealth no longer mattered to her, only reaching her beloved Ack mattered.
"FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!" Jack roared as he ran down a corridor as a hail of those nasty knock darts pinged off just about every surface including the armor he was now very glad he was wearing, as it turned out the hunting masks could see through their own cloaking tech and a few of their smarter hunters had tried this just in case and had hit pay dirt as he'd tried to sneak by, just before he reached the end of the corridor he span and sent a few shots of his own from his twin plasma casters at his pursers, three of the eight chasing him were instantly turned into goo and the others dove for cover before returning fire, he kept going this time not looking back as he reached the end of the corridor it turned right and there in front of him were two bad bloods, one was about seven foot but the other was about fucking nine foot tall, he aimed and fired on instinct, both dropped with neat holes blown through them, he hurdled over the larger one as he ran and he could have sworn that he saw breasts on its chest as he did, but he didn't have time to check as more of those darts started pinging off everything again, suddenly he found himself rather glad that Tik wasn't that big or their love life would have certainly been a fair bit trickier, much to his own surprise he found himself laughing at this as he ran full tilt away from the rampaging bad bloods behind him, just before he turned and released another volley of shots at the pursing bad bloods, this time he scored another two hits leaving three still in pursuit, then he turned and ran out of the corridor into a huge room that was spanned with metal catwalks heading off in every direction, "Oh shit which way?" he breathed, suddenly there was a flash in his mind and his vision went fuzzy for a moment, then a white smoke like trail went off to the right so he figured this had to be something to do with his Dream Warrior abilities, so he followed it and ran onto the ramp leading over to a door on the far side of the room, as he was running the bad bloods came into the room and started firing at him, darts pinged off the floor, the hand rails, his armor and just about everything else, it was nothing short of a miracle that none of them found his flesh and he thanked Tan sel eleth for the high quality of the armor he'd given him, he turned when he was halfway over and sent a volley of shots down the ramp, he scored three hits but now he saw that his pursuers had been joined by about fifteen others, he'd just turned back to continue his run when a figure burst out of the door ahead of him and instantly Jack locked his cannons on to the running figure just as he did the same to him, or rather she did, there was something very different with this one, while every bad blood he'd encountered all had dark auras ranging from reds to browns to blacks depending on how far the path they were, this one's aura was a pure white.
Tik eleth charged towards her goal, this massive ship was really testing her endurance as she felt like she'd been running for miles, but she was getting close to her goal she knew it, she burst out of a door and onto one of the catwalks that spanned the ships huge living sections, as she did she saw a bad blood running towards her with his twin plasma cannons at the ready, she locked onto him and was just about to fire when she noticed something odd that stopped her, this bad blood was rather short but he was rather heavily armed, carrying a verity of blades and what even appeared to be an ooman sword on his back, he was also dressed in completely white armor and mask that reminded her of pictures of the ancient Yaujta that he matriarch had told her stories of when she was a cub, these elite Yaujta warriors would dress in full white and gold armor and were beings of pure honor, if one of these bad bloods were wearing this amour then it was stolen which made her blood boil that one would be so audacious to wear the armor of a being of pure honor while being honorless, then as she looked harder she noticed something that nearly blew her eyes out of her mask, there just on his shoulder behind his plasma caster was Ack's projectile weapon.
Darts started pinging off the platform around him and also off his armor, he turned and using one of the plasma casters he fired of a few shots at another group at the base of the ramp which confused her but then reality hit her like a punch, as he turned she caught sight of his arm and she saw ooman skin!
Much to his surprise has he turned and hit the pursing bad bloods with another volley an second set of shots sailed around him and took out various others, he didn't know why the bad blood behind him on the bridge was helping him but he was glad she was, maybe she wanted out of this place and he couldn't say he could blame her, he fired off another set of shots and the last of the pursuing bad bloods fell in a heap at the end of the bridge, this would but him some time at least, he turned back to greet his new friend and was instantly picked up off the ground by a huge and very familiar pair of arms.
"Ack! My beloved Ack!" Tik eleth cried as she picked up her ooman mate into a tight embrace,
"Tik! Holy shit it's really you! Oh Tik my love it's so good to see you again!" Jack exclaimed as he tightly embraced her and clung to her despite his feet dangling in the air, he could actually feel tears of sheer joy stinging his eyes behind his mask as he clung to the woman he loved, finally she placed him back down on the ground,
"Where did you get that armor? It looks old?" she asked flicking a hand through his billowing cape,
"It's a long story and trust me when I say you're gonna want to hear it, but I think it's safe to say the sleeping Dreamer is now fully awake and ready to kick bad blood arse" Jack said with a smile behind the mask, it was at that point he noticed Tik staring at the top of his mask,
"Dreamer? Wait, no it can't be that's not possible you're ooman!?" she said gripping the side of his head and leaning in to look at the mark on his mask, then she jumped back and looked at him,
"You're a Dream warrior!?" she exclaimed, Jacks eyes widened in surprise,
"Wait how the hell did you just figure that out!?" he asked,
"That mask, it's my great great grandfathers, that's his mark on it what old clan mark is based on, he was a legendary Dream Warrior!" she exclaimed staring at her beloved male in disbelief,
"Ok well yeah that sorta explains it, yeah well I met the guy" Jack said, Tik's eyes nearly popped out of her mask,
"You met Tan sel eleth!?" she exclaimed, Jack nodded,
"That I day I went out hunting I saw a random Yaujta male in the forest and followed him, he led me to this cave which turned out to be his final resting place, turns out that planet we were on wasn't random at all, it was the place of a massive battle long ago, the bad bloods were a faction in a long ago war, warriors like Tan stomped them good ut not without massive cost, it scattered the remaining bad bloods to the winds but severely cost the Yaujta as a whole" Jack said,
"The war of redemption, you've seen it haven't you!?" Tik said in complete disbelief, Jack nodded,
"Yeah, I saw Tan's memories when he bonded with me in the cave the massive loss to the Yaujta to stamp out the rising bad bloods, but it was a price willing paid by each of those honorable warriors as it was a worthy cause" Jack said.
Tik eleth couldn't believe it, the man she loved beyond everything was one of the few that Yaujta revered above all others, he was a Dream Warrior, a seer of the unseen, they were the rarest and most feared warriors in Yaujta lore, it was said that a single Dream Warrior could turn the tide of any battle as they seemed to know the enemies plans before they even made them and in combat they were the most feared opponents as they just seemed to know what the enemy was thinking, it was said that one of these warriors was worth a thousand hunters, she turned and dropped to one knee before him saluting him with a balled fist to her chest as her tradition demanded when greeting a warrior of this stature, Ack rushed forwards and grabbed her pulling her back to her feet, she looked at him in confusion, "Oh hell no, don't you fucking dare bow to me!" Ack yelled, Tik eleth looked at him with confusion,
"You are the woman I love, you are Tik eleth proud huntress and you fucking stand tall! You are my equal in everything and you bow to pauking no-one especially not me!" he said,
"But….." Tik eleth started, but Ack raised a hand to cut her off,
"Ok I get it Yaujta tradition right?" he said, she nodded,
"I might be a Dream Warrior but I am not Yaujta and you are the woman I love, you are my life mate and you are my equal partner, I am only one half of a whole that is far stronger, we do this together as a pair on equal terms or not at all" he said in a defiant tone, this made Tik eleth's heart swell with both pride and joy that her male held her in such high esteem that even now as a Dream Warrior one of the elitist warriors he still revered and honored her, she smiled broadly behind her mask,
"Together as one then my beloved ooman mate" she said putting a hand on his armored shoulder, he nodded approvingly,
"That's more like it my love, I'm still the same Ack you know and love I just have some added bonuses now" he said with a jokey in his voice that made her smile, then his senses suddenly alerted to approaching trouble, "I'd love to continue this reunion but we have to get the hell out of here, it isn't me they wanted it was you" he said, Tik nodded her head with her face hidden by her mask it was hard for him to tell what she was thinking,
"I know" she said solemnly,
"Then let's get the hell out of here" he said turning to go, but as he did Tik grabbed his arm,
"What's wrong we need to leave" Jack said,
"Not yet, we leave now, they pursue us, we need to give them a fight to stop them chasing us, give us time to escape" she said, Jack thought about this and instantly realized that she was right, but how if they stood and fought then they'd be overwhelmed by their sheer numbers eventually,
"Got a plan?" he asked, Tik nodded her head silently,
"Then lead on my love, I've got your back" he said pulling his rifle from his shoulder and cocking it for the first time since being on this ship, it felt damn good to be back fighting by her side again where he belonged, alone they were strong together they were unstoppable, Tik nodded and headed off in the direction that he'd just come from, but Jack didn't question this as he trusted the woman he loved with his life.
The pair of them headed back through the corridors back to where they'd been torturing Jack for information, he glanced into the room where he'd been held as they passed and he saw the dead body of the young blood right where he'd left it, but there were more foot prints in the blood now than there had been showing that there had been others in there since, Jack snorted at their lack of respect for their dead, that young blood may have been stupid but at least he'd had the balls to fight him honorably in a one on one duel, Tik glanced at him when he did this before glancing into the room herself, seeing the dead body she knew that it was his doing but she never said a word, finally they reached a large door and Tik got on one side of it, Jack stacked up on the other side in a standard breaching pattern, "Control room" Tik said in a quiet voice, he nodded and reached for the panel,
"Breach in three, two, one" he said and as he said one he hit the panel causing the door to slide open, Tik went in first followed immediately by Jack, she went right and he went left, the four bad bloods in the room never knew what hit them as the two of them unleashed a barrage of shots on them with their plasma casters.
The room was full of computers covered in the Yaujta language as well as a few large tables with red holograms showing detailed outlays of rooms, "So what's the plan?" Jack said looking at Tik who was studding the computers,
"They want a hunt we give them one" she said with an evil sounding voice, then immediately she turned and started pressing buttons on the computers, Jack spotted pictures of various creatures popping up on the screens including two he was very familiar with, one was the dino dozer that he'd met on the first day on that rock, the other was a kiande amedha queen and a drone, after she was finished alarms started sounding all over the ship, Jack looked at her, "You just let all the nasty's out didn't you?" he asked, she nodded and he burst out laughing,
"Oh well the enemy of my enemy is my friend right?" he said,
"We go now before it too late" Tik said and Jack nodded, they both turned and at a run both of them headed back out following Tik's map of the ship.
As it turned out releasing all of the species currently held on the bad bloods clan ship opened up a whole Pandora's box of fucking chaos, as they ran both of them could see and hear running battles from all around them, there were screams and roars from everywhere and Jack even heard a few familiar screeches from his old friends the bugs, funny to think that this time they were sort of on the same side, not that they wouldn't have killed them as soon as look at them.
Considering the abuse that his body had taken Jack was surprised at how well hs body was coping, it must be something to do with this Dream Warrior thing, it was strange thought, he didn't feel like he'd actually gained something more that something that had always been there in the background had awoken, maybe somewhere in his lineage he had some Yaujta blood, if such a thing was possible.
Jack pushed himself to keep up with Tik as she ran through the seemingly endless corridors and passages ways of the massive ship, from time to time they fought off a few bad bloods here and there, Jack even took one down that blindsided Tik with the ancient Katana by ramming it through the side of his head with a fury that made his actually drive it right to the hilt, as his hands gripped the ancient weapon his mind was flooded with imagery of its previous owner and he saw right back to feudal Japan and the warrior who it belonged to as he trained and instantly Jack's body responded with the same skill that he himself had taken years to learn, so it seemed that when a weapon was used in combat it carried a print of its owners one it like a spiritual residue that carried a lot of their knowledge and skills with it like a sort of high speed training manual, pretty fucking useful really.
But finally they reach the hanger bay where they kept all of the drop ships and a whole host of other types, Jack looked around in awe at the sheer level of technology present in the massive room, "There that one" Tik said pointing to a fairly large ship, it was pointed and kinda reminded Jack of a swooping eagle by the sharp lines that ran into a beak like point on the bow,
"Nice choice" he said as he followed her, as it turned out that more than a few of the bad bloods had the idea of abandoning ship too and their run for the ship turned into a running gun battle the entire way as they weaved between cover and dodged shots from all directions, both Jack and Tik got clipped more than once, Jack was under so much fire he decided to resort to his faithful AS50 as well as both of his plasma casters firing three shots in three different directions at once, in fact as he began to do this he noticed things seeming to slow down a bit like the world was crawling around him.
Tik eleth couldn't believe what she was seeing when she saw this, she realized she was seeing why Dream Warriors were so feared as Ack was shooting targets literally as they appeared, it was like he knew where they were going to be and when so he was timing his shot to coincide with their appearance, if it hadn't been such pauking chaos and they weren't fighting for their lives she'd have stood and watched in awe as this amazing beloved male of hers fought as he was really a spectacle to behold, as they turned the corner to the gantry that led to the ship there was an absolutely massive male stood at the end of it with a spear staff and dressed in totally black ceremonial armor, a black aura billowed around this guy, he was flanked by two other large warriors on either side of him, suddenly Jack's world slowed right down and he felt his body moving on automatic, it was like something possessed him and he had no control, "Shadow claw WHORE! I will make you…" he started before he was cut short cover as a large ooman spear came flying through the air and slammed into his abdomen,
"Fucking catch this!" Ack yelled, then as he began to move he heard words being spoken aloud it took him a second to realise that it was him speaking them, "Dyma un, gyda hawliadau at mil
mawr Helfeydd,
Ond yr holl sydd ganddynt, yn styntiau gwag.
Hawliad, byddwch yn gwneud, deeds da dewr byth yn ei wneud,
Y cyfan sydd gennych yn Cywilydd o Un.
Peidiwch byth â dangos eich wyneb gan y golau dydd,
Ar gyfer eich Dishonour yw'r cyfan y maent yn ei ddweud.
Cryfder, yr ydych yn dweud bod gennych ond am brawf yma oes un,
Gwirionedd yn ar ffurf y gwir hwn yn Un" he said aloud as he moved, this stunned him as he couldn't remember being able to speak Welsh even though one of his teachers in school had tried to teach it to him when he was very young when he found out about Jack's Welsh blood, it seemed the Welsh Celtic warrior who had owned that spear had rubbed off on him a bit stronger than just showing him how to throw it properly, it seemed that his Celtic heritage had aligned momentarily with that of the ancient warrior and he'd spoken some sort of battle poem at the bad bloods which was odd because he'd never understood poetry, but in his mind he heard what he was saying in English, 'Here's one, with claims to a thousand Large Hunts,
But all they have is empty stunts.
Claim, you do, good brave deeds never done,
All you have is a Shame of One.
Never show your face by the light of day,
For your Dishonor is all they say.
Strength, you say that you have no one here for proof,
Actually this is the true form of the One' is what he'd said aloud in Welsh.
Tik eleth began to turn to look at Ack but he was no longer next to her, he was moving forwards at incredible speed in fact he was so fast her eyes could barely follow him, as he moved she heard strange words being spoken in Ack's voice but they were some sort of strange language that she'd never heard before, but for some reason sounded very musical and poetic, he closed the gap between them in seconds, then he stepped on the large Celtic spear sticking out of the bad blood elder and sprung upwards and planting his hands on his massive shoulders he flipped over him, as he did both his plasma casters spun and blew the two surprised males to his sides away with a single simultaneous shot to the side of their heads, then when he landed behind the massive male it was at that point Tik realized that as he was upside down Jack had spun and slit the elders throat with his extended wrist blades, the male dropped gurgling to his knees, "The huntress will avenge me" he hissed before dropping face down dead on the board walk, Ack walked back to Tik eleth's side and as he walked she swore she could see power swirling around him like a white fire but it must have been his cloak,
"No-one insults my female and lives to tell about it" he growled, she smiled at him then grabbed his hand and led him towards the ship hatch.
As they boarded it they found it completely empty, Tik eleth immediately dropped into the pilot's seat and started powering the ship up and closed all the hatches, "This thing have a gunner's seat?" Jack asked, without looking away from her panel she pointed at a seat with joysticks that seemed to rotate, Jack dropped into it and immediately a silver screen dropped right in front of his face, he found himself looking between to massive looking plasma cannons on the outer hull of the ship, "Sweet, time to eat shit and die mother fuckers!" he roared as he started pulling the triggers on anything that moved and quite a few things that didn't, like the other berthed ships, suddenly they started to move and under Tik's expert piloting they headed for the exit of the hanger, Jack swung the turret around and fired at any other ship lifting off, blowing pretty much all of them out of the sky, then Tik kicked in some sort of after burners and they accelerated away from the bad blood clan ship like a missile, as they skirted the outside of it Jack marveled at how massive it was, but that didn't stop him firing burst after burst into any point on the hull that looked weak, as he did he heard a voice in his head that sounded familiar and rather gravelly, "This one" it said and his vision noticed a grey swirl around a vent panel on the side near the massive engines, so he turned the turret and let rip with everything he had at it, suddenly it imploded and he noticed fire spreading behind the panels and bulkheads, as they headed away he started to see small explosions happening all around the ship, "Err Tik I think I might have hit something sensitive, you might wanna step on it!" he yelled to her, Tik turned to look and saw the explosions bursting along inside the hull and she pushed the throttles to full and they headed away from the massive clan ship at full clip just getting out of range before the whole thing imploded and burst like a massive bright blue ball of fire.