'Hey guys GhostNobody here again, firstly I'd like to give a big shout out, some thanks and some seriously heartfelt congratulations to two of my longest readers on their upcoming marriage, you guys have helped me steer this little adventure in some amazing ways and your suggestions have given me ideas all along the path, so here's to you Doug and Sandy I hope you both have a long prosperous and happy life together, just a tip for the honeymoon here Sandy don't go down the Jack and Tik road and end up breaking Doug, trust me love making while near enough broken isn't nearly as much fun as I can make it sound ;), that being said I'd love to extend the same deep felt thanks to all my readers and commenters, all your enthusiasm and ideas have been instrumental in helping me shape this little world we've all gotten ourselves lost in and I hope that you guys help me to keep it rolling right up to the very end, so with one last big thankyou to you all this is GhostNobody signing off and saying on with the show…..'
Chapter 23: Her Fathers Daughter.
The first thing that permeated the darkness of the void she was in was a loud beeping noise, at first she couldn't tell what it was or where it was coming from, but something told her to head towards it, not that she really knew where it was or how indeed to move towards it, but somehow it did indeed get louder which told her that she was getting closer.
Suddenly it was like something went click in her head and she opened her eyes, instantly her eyes were assaulted with bright light that send little needles of pain squirming into her head causing her to squint and try to focus her vision.
Slowly her vision swam into focus and as it did her other senses reconnected as well, she was in a very unfamiliar room and for some reason she was hanging from a set of chains that held her arms rather painfully above her head, she shook at the chains and began to look around in panic, her body also felt rather cold and when she looked down she realized she was as naked as the day she was born, where was she? What was happening? Who would do this to her? And where were her parents?
Questions shot through her brain in a frenzy as the panic built up, she didn't have any answers but all she did know was that she was scared.
"Well it looks like the little abomination is awake finally" A snarling but rather feminine voice said in fluent Yaujta from behind her, her mother had taught her Yaujta just like her father had taught her ooman and she spoke both perfectly, she tried to turn her head to see who spoke,
"W-W-W-Who's there?" she asked with a trembling voice, heavy foot falls announced the unknown person was on the move and suddenly a massive Yaujta female walked around in front of her.
Sela's eyes went wide as she saw her, unlike her mother this female was about as far from pretty as you could get, her face was horribly scared and her top left mandible was missing giving her face a kind of lob sided effect, she had dark grey skin that made her look deathly pale and ill, both her eyes were blood red and she had a massive scar than ran straight through her left one, her cranial ridges were all knarled and twisted to the point that it looked like tree bark on her forehead with what appeared to be some form of horns at the edges. She stood about eight-foot-tall and looked like a walking tank in her heavy black and red armor that covered her body and clanked as she moved.
The large ugly Yaujta female looked over Sela as she hung helpless from the chains that suspended from the ceiling of the room, "Why the males took a liking to looking at you naked I'll never know, you look like a pauking painted ooman, maybe their intimidated by a real Yaujta woman, who knows?" the female said in a deep gravelly voice, the merest thought of people ogling her naked body made Sela eleth sick to her stomach, she wished her father was here right now, but she was confused by this as well, who was this strange woman?
"Do you know who I am child?" the female asked seeming to sense her confusion,
"N-N-No" Sela stammered trying to contain her fear, the female drew her mandibles up into a dark and hideous smile,
"I was the Matriarch of the clan that your beloved parents killed and now they are going to know my pain and my loss, I am going to show them what it is to lose one's family as I have lost mine they will lose theirs" she said in a venom filled voice, this confused Sela for a moment before a horrible realization sunk in, this vile looking creature must have been the leader of the bad blood clan that stranded her matriarch and her father on the planet where they'd first met.
Sela knew the story well as her matriarch and her father had both recounted it for her and her brother many times, she always reveled in their tremendous victory over the bad bloods, but it appeared that they hadn't got them all, "Normally I don't tend to introduce myself to my prey before I strike them down, but this time since my prey is such an unusual one and given that you are an abomination, a living symbol of your Matriarch's deviancy I thought it would be prudent to indulge my curiosity and speak to you and I must say I am rather impressed by her" the bad blood matriarch said, this confused Sela eleth no end,
"Impressed?" she asked
"Oh absolutely, I never thought that one could take deviancy so far as she has, but you are living proof that I stand corrected, in fact it makes me a little curious about it myself if I'm honest, what must have the sex with that ooman male have been like for her to abandon her own kind as easily as she did? I can only conclude that it must have been mind blowing, maybe when your beloved parents show up I may just take your father as my own and try him out for myself" the bad blood Matriarch said with a dark smile.
Sela eleth could feel her blood boiling at the thought of her father being forced to submit to this vile creature, but she remained wordless as she knew that her father was mighty and powerful, he would never submit to her in body or soul, the bad blood Matriarch seemed to sense her defiance and she clicked her mandibles in amusement,
"No you know what? I have a better idea, why limit myself to just one species, there must be something to this ooman thing for a full blooded huntress of the Shadow Claw clan to turn her back on her own kind so easily, so why not taste the best of both worlds?" she said.
Sela eleth looked at her with a dark curiosity wondering just what the hell this mad woman was on about, the Matriarch's smiled was like something out of a nightmare, "Now that I think about it I think I'd like to taste that brother of yours, Ahhh how sweet would it be to taste of that forbidden fruit eh? The joys of youthful energy and exuberance and vigor at my fingertips, he can teach me the joys of ooman sex while at the same time his Yaujta body should be able to take the punishment that I could inflict on him, oh yes I think I'll make him my hunt trophy and to make my victory all the sweeter, once you are all broken and defeated I'll make you all watch as I take him to my bed and force him to submit to me for the first time, do you think your deviant Matriarch would enjoy that? Having to watch as her own pup is forced to give her sworn enemy the sweetest of pleasures as I take him right in front of her?" the bad blood Matriarch said in a voice that made Sela eleth feel physically sick, she was dying to scream in this vile female's face to leave her brother alone, but she didn't want to give her the pleasure,
"But I am done conversing with you child, let the hunt begin" she said and with a wave of her hand Sela felt a sharp pain in her neck and the world went black again.
Sela felt cold, a cold rushing sensation blasting over her skin at high speed, her eyes fluttered open and she found herself looking at the most beautiful blue sky that she'd ever seen, it was so clear and so close that she felt like she could reach out and touch it, suddenly the fact that her hair was whipping around her head like a veil became apparent to her as did the sensation of falling, turning to her left she realized that the ground seemed to be rather far away, that's when it hit her, she was falling through the air!
Panic set in hard and the sudden rush of adrenaline to her system cleared her mind in an instant, her first instinct was to panic and to try to flap her arms about, but this only started to spin her, a flap of her other arm countered this just in time to stop her spiraling out of control, suddenly she heard her father's voice recounting the way that the bad bloods had dropped him onto the planet that he had met her Matriarch on, the words of how he flew through the air hit her and remembering his words like they were instructions she was able to flip herself over and immediately brought her arms and legs out to stabilize herself, quickly she looked under her body and realized that she was wearing the same blinking device on her chest that her father had, she was also wearing the same type of winged suit that he had described to her so quickly she forced her arms and legs straight and held them out, this caused the air to fill up the pockets and her high speed drop stopped and she shot forwards at insane speed.
Steering was a problem as she didn't have a clue how to do it, but again her father's words came to mind describing how adjusting the angles of one arm or leg will cause you to shoot off to one side or the other, so with a couple of tests she was able to get the hang of steering herself through the air, now all she had to do was look for a place to try and land, that was assuming that the fabric thing, what had her father called it? Parachute that was it, that was assuming that the parachute actually worked and she didn't end up like most of the other oomans that had been dropped onto the planet. Looking left and right Sela noticed a small clearing to her right and turned towards it, it was going to be difficult but it was all she had so turning she lined up on it and tried to adjust her speed by tilting forwards to go faster and then when she was in alignment tilting upwards so that her speed dropped, suddenly the blinking thing started to beep and this rapidly got faster and faster till there was a loud pop and she was wrenched upwards by an invisible hand.
"Now I know why father hates pauking TREES!" Sela yelled to herself as she swung about trying to grab the nearest branch to herself as she hung from the massive tree her chute had caught in, though at least she wasn't upside down like her father had been when he was in this position many years ago.
Finally, though she was able to swing herself close enough to catch hold of the branch and pull herself over to it. As she straddled the branch she was able to figure out the clip and unhook the parachute from herself and she felt her weight sag onto the branch as it released her, slowly she moved backwards over the branch keeping it clamped between her legs until she reached the trunk, then slowly she turned and proceeded to climb down until she was on the ground.
Now for the first time since she'd been grabbed in their room she had time to take stock of what was happening, it appeared that she'd been grabbed by the same bad blood clan that had kidnapped her father and her Matriarch, or what was left of them anyway after her Matriarch and her patriarch had wiped out their clan ship, now in the same way that they had hunted her father and her Matriarch they were planning on hunting her, then another thought struck her, what about her beloved brother? Was he here too? if so she had to find him, but first she had to take stock of her situation just like her father had taught her to do, rushing about like a headless Klix lizard helped no-one.
So quickly she took off the wing suit and looked at what she had, it seemed that the bad bloods couldn't decide on whether she was human or Yaujta when they'd been giving her kit to fight with, her equipment was a mixture of both, she had the same sort of fatigues that her father often wore but at the same time she had a chest plate and shoulder armor like that which her matriarch often wore, on her right arm she had a set of Yaujta wrist blades though when she extended the blades they looked like they were of very poor quality, nothing like the craftsmanship that her father put into the weapons that he made for them all, she sighed at the thought, what she wouldn't give for one of his hand crafted blades right now, those things could cut through just about anything, plus she loved the fact that he spent ages placing runes on the blades, with either Yaujta or Celtic symbols or a combination of both while they were red hot, the finished products were the most beautiful and intricate instruments of death that you could imagine.
The thought of him at his forge making her or her brother a new sword or dagger made her smile, then she remembered the look on her matriarch's face when he'd given her that duel set of hand crafted shadow metal wrist blades that Christmas, then the memory of her matriarch in that strange looking long red bobble hat with a white pomp om at the end and a white fringe that her father had made her wear after he'd spent ages making it made her laugh completely out of the blue.
She loved her clan deeply and she knew in heart that they would come for her and her brother if he was here too, all she had to do was find him and then both stay alive until they arrived like the wings of vengeance and justice, the thought of her matriarch and her father riding into battle against their enemies again like the old days filled her heart with pride because now she would be able to stand shoulder to shoulder with her clan and fight their enemies like every true Yaujta craved.
So quickly she looked at the rest of the kit she had been given, it appeared that they had also given her a mixture of ooman and Yaujta weaponry, they'd given her an AS50 like she and her father favored, but it wasn't one of his specially modified versions and it looked a little beat up, 'Probably stolen' she thought, she had about a hundred rounds of ammo for it, but instead of a side arm like her fathers she had a dart launcher and a couple of rounds of ammo for it, now she knew that she'd have to be careful with this thing as not only was the ammo reusable but it had a nasty habit of being tipped with poison, the last thing she found was clipped to her hips above her bum, they'd given her a Yaujta hunting mask.
Sela grinned as she turned over the beat up mask over in her hands, she figured that this was their attempt at a dig at her heritage, they probably figured that she'd not know how to use it being a hybrid, how wrong they were, with that she clipped it to her face and it instantly booted up showing her a thermal image of the world around her, little did they know how diligent her matriarch was in her teachings, they thought she was going to be an easy target because she was a half breed child, little did they know that ever since she was old enough to walk that she'd trained with two of the best hunters in the galaxy and had the best of both worlds in her, she would not let her clan down and she'd show these bad blood pauks what the best off oomanity and Yaujta could really do, with that she turned and headed off into the jungle.
As she looked around at the jungle as she walked she began to realize that she had been dropped down onto the very same planet that her parents had escaped, it was exactly as they'd described to her in their tales of this place, she had her AS50 in the shoulder as she moved her Yaujta strength made it rather easy for her to walk around with a weapon this big, despite having inherited her father's size she had inherited her matriarch's muscle density so her strength was far in excess of an ooman girl of her age, but on the other end of the scale while she wasn't as strong as a pure blood Yaujta female would have been, she was far more flexible and faster as well so her ooman and Yaujta DNA had given her a perfect balance of the two.
This had often shown when she'd played games like hide and seek with her father as well as tag, he always had a real job catching her because of her speed and ability to change direction on a pin head, she would dance around at him laughing calling him slow old man, but then when he decided to deploy his Dream Warrior abilities the tables would seriously shift as he was able to predict where she was going to go, so he would suddenly change direction and seemingly appear in front of her out of no-where and scoop her up into his arms as she squealed and wriggled in delight as he would inevitably start to tickle her, afterwards she'd always sulk and call him a cheater, but she'd always loved their games.
A sudden rustle to her left caused her to swing around with her weapon in the shoulder, the mask instantly revealed four heat signatures fanning out, given their size and shape she guessed that these were the Calibri wolves that her matriarch had described to her as her and her father's first victory together, she decided the best way to deal with these things would be swiftly and decisively, so quickly she sighted the first one up and steadied her breath before squeezing the trigger the way her father had taught her, the huge rifle roared and she saw a hot plume kick out of the side of the wolf before it dropped, then she quickly adjusted just as the others started to move and dropped the second one with a second center mass shot, two of them burst out of the grass directly ahead of her, one of which she dealt with a point blank snap shot jamming the massive muzzle into its mouth as she pulled the trigger which caused hits head and most of its upper back to explode with the force of the huge round ripping its way through it, but this impact caused her to drop the rifle and the last wolf took this opportunity and attacked hitting her onto her back on the floor.
Sela quickly grabbed its jaws and held them open just like her matriarch had taught her, then she wrapped her legs around its mid-section before flicking her right arm to cause her wrist blades to extend, with a growl of pure rage she slammed her fist into its side repeatedly causing the massive blades to slice into the wolves flesh, it tried to howl in pain but she still had its moth jammed open, then she managed to score a direct hit on the creatures heart and she felt her blades bounce off its ribs as they punched between them and into its heart, this caused the creature to stop and drop onto of her now dead weight.
After she managed to wriggle out from under the dead wolf she stood up and surveyed the four corpses of the wolves, she'd won totally and utterly on her own without any assistance from her parents, she felt a sudden blood rush hit her and she roared to the sky of her victory beating her chest with her fist just like she'd seen her matriarch do after a victory, then looking down at the dead wolf in front of her she leaned down and tore one of its razor sharp teeth from its maw and held it up, "My first trophy of this place, I'll make you proud father you'll see" she said to no-one holding the tooth tight in her fist before placing it in her fatigue trouser pocket, then she turned and picked up her rifle again before carrying on further into the jungle.
As she walked she realized that her father's word to her were true about places like this, from the ground you can't even tell in what direction you are facing, she needed to get to higher ground to survey the area and to make a plan, wandering around aimlessly would only make her life much harder and make her enemies lives easier as she'd be leaving trails everywhere for them to follow, looking up she spotted a large rocky cliff in the distance and decided to head for it, it was a rather long walk and by the time she made it darkness had fallen.
Looking up at the large cliff she spotted a cave near the top under an overhang, so slinging the rifle over her shoulder she prepped her hands for the climb.
This is where her brother far excelled over her, he was a natural when it came to climbing where as she preferred to be on the floor in the foliage, but as her father always said needs must when the devil drives, so she climbed up the rock face slowly till she reached the plateau near the top, just as she laid on the grass near the edge catching her breath something shiny caught her eye off to her left, reaching out she picked up the very familiar object and instantly her heart skipped a beat, it was a .50 shell case.
Her energy suddenly restored Sela jumped to her feet and headed straight into the cave mouth, as she descended into the pitch blackness her mask did its job and revealed the cave interior, there on the left was a huge wooden bed covered in animal skins, beyond it up against the far wall was a weapon rack and amour stands, to her right was a large fire pit and a large cauldron like pot, she couldn't believe her eyes, what were the chances!? She actually found the cave that had housed her matriarch during her time here and later her father when they'd met, it was in this very cave that they'd lived together as they'd fought to survive this place and now here she was many cycles later the product of the love that they had for one another fighting the same foes, she quickly turned and noticed the massive log that would have been used to block the door form intrusion and she pushed it into place sealing the entrance to the cave up, before heading over to the massive bed and sitting down on it, the furs still felt soft and luscious as when they would have been first harvested, she lay down on the bed and reached her hands behind her head as her mind spun with all of this, suddenly her hand hit something that felt like skin and she grabbed it, pulling it out and sitting back up she looked at the object in her hands, it was a book of some kind, then something her father had told her pinged into her mind, her matriarch had kept a diary and that she was furious when she'd been forced to leave it behind, could it be this very book was her matriarch's very diary? Quickly she scrambled around and using her tools and skills she got a fire going in the pit and used it to light the candles which still sat in their holders around the cave, then she removed her mask and opened the book at the first page, then taking a deep breath she looked down and saw the Yaujta letters written in blood, this was it! This was her matriarch's diary! So quickly she got herself comfortable and began to read.