Humanity's Finest

Chapter 6

Takeo impaled an unsuspecting ape in the back with his Katana while he used his other hand to cover the apes mouth, to prevent the animal from screaming. Looking to his left he saw Zoidius swiftly disarm an ape with his tail blade before decapitating it, there was a look of satisfaction on his face as he stared at his headless corpse. Takeo didn't know if it was because of Zoidius's own bloodlust or that he really hated their guts. Either way this dragon has shown to him that he can hold his own if attacked, but still they were in enemy territory they had to weaken them without them suspecting.

Takeo knelt down and searched the bodies for anything that he deemed would be useful with Zoidius looking over him, he felt his hand touch something, something rough. Gripping it Takeo pulled out his hand and stared at what he found, it was a large crumbled up peice of paper. Takeo immediately took an interest in it while Zoidius merely snorted in distain. Thinking the paper would be useless to them, but he didn't have the experience Takeo had however, to the Imperial officer anything can be useful. Anything can be a weapon.

As he straightened out the paper it turned out to be a map, a map of the whole village; the building locations, the routes the patrols would take, everything was on it. As he stood up Takeo walked to Zoidius and showed him the map. At first Zoidius didn't know what Takeo wanted him to do, but after spending ten or twenty seconds examining the thing his eyes widened.

"This, this is the map of the entire village." Zoidius looked up at the Imperial who nodded with a grim expression.

"They were werr prepared for this attack." Takeo said as he folded the map. He then placed the map in one of his pouches and looked back at the corpses. "What do you know of these... Monkeys?"

Zoidius told the human about the Dark Master; who was also known as Malefor one of the Legendary Purple Dragons that would only come after ten generations. Takeo listened carefully as Zoidius told him that the purple dragon had the ability to control every element in existence and others that none would have thought possible. Takeo noticed that Zoidius was restraining himself, a lot as he told him this. He made a note in his head to ask Zoidius about this.

After Malefor learnt all of the elements, the dragon elders realised that his power was umlimited and had consumed everything. After that he was banished. Zoidius didn't know what happened after that, but he told the human that Malefor eventaully raised an army of apes the apes that was in the village they were in now, and with this army Malefor set about a series of events that would send the dragon population into dispair causing entire armies full of dragons to retreat until they had nowhere left to go.

After that Zoidius stopped and Takeo understood, an entire destruction of an entire race? All that for power? Greed is the worst enemy you could ever face in life.

"Your peopre have faced many perirs in life, your kind now have my respect young Zoidius." Takeo bowed.

Zoidius blinked in surprise and awkwardly thanked Takeo, who in turn smiled with amusement. He then said with a serious tone "This however does not bode well." Which gained Takeo a confused look from Zoidius.

Sighing Takeo tried to explain if the apes were the enemies, how did they discover the locations and routes. And how were they able to attack effectively?

"They could have been spying for some time. And wrote everything down."

Takeo shook his head and took and unfolded the map before showing it to Zoidius again. "No. This map shows the virrage in great detair. It is likely there was a spy within the virrage itserf."

"A spy!" Zoidius hissed loudly in rage, Takeo put a finger to his lips telling Zoidius to keep his voice down.

"Why would someone want to help them? They caused us nothing but trouble and death in the past!"

"The hearts of others are arways tainted by darkness Zoidius. The betrayar of those crosest to you strikes deep, and hard. However, whomever herped them might have been promiced something in return." Takeo paused to inhale some air before continuing. "Power, Wearth or perhaps both. It is uncertain."

Zoidius stared at Takeo in a new light' he encountered dragons in the past that spoke the way Takeo does but this human seemed to have more experience. Are these humans soldiers? His train of thought was broken when Takeo called out to him, maybe he'll learn more about them when this is all over.

Nikolai and Richtofen dragged their prisoner to a secluded area where they tied the apes arms and legs together, it turned out that Nikolai had rope consealed within his sack ever sense they were in Japan and had forgotten about it. Richtofen was actually pleased with his forgetfulness for once, because it saved them from having to restrain the prisoner once it wakes up. The two sat down on a few boulders and watched the ape for the longest while, waiting for it to wake up.

The two perked up when the ape began to stir and moan, expectedly the ape woke up and slowly realised that it's arms and legs were bind together. Getting onto his feet Richtofen slowly approched the ape and with his boot he rolled the ape onto it's back so the animal was looking up at him.

All the ape could see was someone who looked like the hairless creatures they captured a while ago, only this one wore different clothing than them. Black pants with a single red stripe running down the sides, blood covered black boots' an olive jacket with blood and dirt mixed together' black gloves and strange looking headwear that consealed his eyes. The sight of him frightened the ape.

"You vill tell me vhat I vish to know." Richtofen said in a threatening manner.

The ape laughed bitterly at the Nazi, "And if I don't?"

Richtofen pulled out his combat knife and examaned it, he gazed over to Nikolai who pulled out his own combat knife and tossed it to him. Richtofen caught the blade's tilt with little difficulty and looked at the ape again; who was gazing back at Richtofen and Nikolai nervously.

Nikolai stood up and placed a foot in the middle of the apes chest and slowly added pressure on it. "He has his ways." Nikolai snarled. "Like removing an eye or two!"

Richtofen laughed as he held his knife to the monkey's throat adding pressure to it but made sure there wasn't enough pressure to draw blood. He wanted to frighten the ape into submission. But if it was going to resist Richtofen would be forced to gather information his own way, and it wasn't going to be pleasant for the victim.

The ape glared at them both with hate burning within its eyes. Nikolai and Richtofen weren't bothered by this however. Richtofen wanted to interrogate the ape himself and kindly asked Nikolai to remove his foot.

"Fine." The Soviet sighed but glared at the ape with a furious snarl. "But you had better talk, or things will not look good." He said in a threatening manner.

The ape scoffed at Nikolai as he walked away so he didn't notice. Richtofen grabbed the ape by the legs and dragged it away as it cried out in surprise, it wasn't long until the two were out of sight and Nikolai was left to his own devices.

One hour later...

Nikolai was sorting out the contents of his sack, seperating the equipment that he needed and ones that were close to useless. He sighed in boredom as a seperated his food, water, Vodka and stuff in seperate groups. He still had that peice of meat for Dempsey as well, and the cloth was doing a good enough job at keeping the dirt and grime away. Hearing someone approch he quickly grabbed his grabbed his AK47 flicked off the safty and aimed it where the person was coming from. He lowered the weapon when Richtofen came into view his entire jacket and face drenched in fresh blood and there was a look of satisfaction on his face. Nikolai knew that kind of look, Richtofen would only show it if he spilt blood; or killed someone. Maybe both.

"Vell, zat vas rather amusing!" Richtofen squeeked like a child. "Ze blood vhen it sprayed across mien face vas of satisfactory!"

"Did you get the information?" Nikolai questioned with impatence.

"Ja, unfortunitaly ze ape impaled itself on mien blade before I could ask more." Richtofen frowned as he held the blade to his face. But he smiled after a moment. "At least I could feel its blood on mien face, so I'm happy!" He laughed clapping his hands like an excited child.

Nikolai felt a chill run down his entire spine and shivered uncomfortably at the thought of a deformed ape in his mind. He didn't like these animals as they constantly reminded him of the monkey bomb, a toy that had three strips of dinimite strapped onto it's back. They would wind the thing up and throw it away' distracting everyone that was attacking with its annoying music.

Dempsey, Takeo and Richtofen loved that stupid toy but not Nikolai oh no. The dam thing creeped the hell out of him with it's wide eyes and white teeth...

To keep the thought of the toy monkey from his mind Nikolai distracted himself by asking what had Richtofen done to the ape when it commited suicide. The answer left a mental image in Nikolai's brain.

"Oh I completely dismembered ze creature. First I removed its eyes, and zhen I severed its tongue ze blood was fresh and I HAD to completely cover mien face with it. And then I severed it's arms, and yanked ze bone from it's sockets." He took a breath as his face lit up in excitement of the memory. "Then I removed its legs!" He squeeked.

Nikolai had been staring at Richtofen with mixed expressions. His face showing both disgust and shock at the discription. When Richtofen got close to the end Nikolai felt he was going to be sick but he kept the feeling down though he would barp as he covered his mouth.

"...Ze display zat I created made me feel so HAPPY!"

"I think I will throw up..." The Soviet complained.

Richtofen laughed and slapped the Russian on the back, the force behind it had easily knocked the wind out of him. Nikolai stumbled forward before regaining his footing; moments later he fell to his hands and knees and threw up on the ground.

"You vern't kidding." Richtofen said with an amused voice. Nikolai snarled at him.

"Richtofen, I hate your fucking guts!"

"I like you too Russian."

"Fuck you!"

ooOOoo

Polonsky's been spying on the apes outside for a while from the main door and saw that the enemy were in a state of panic if you could call it one. Apes were running around swords, spears and bows but three or four of them were using the M1A1 Carbines, B.A.R's and Thompsons they 'scavanged' from Roebucks team when they were ambushed. They were rather disorganised as well there was at least one large ape out there that held some kind of rocket launcher in its hands, and it was surrounded by three medium sized apes that were covered in armour.

"Ok one large ape and three medium sized ones that are covered in armour is guarding it." Polonsky said to no one. "And lots and lots and small apes running around." He added, watching the weakest apes running around and banging into each other.

Turning Polonsky announced to the others who were behind him that "If anyone goes out there without proper firepower, they'll be cut down in seconds." Their reaction was expected to Polonsky, anger, denial, acceptance but he ingored them as he looked outside. He could hear Miller, Roebuck and a few others trying to keep the others quiet, with all the noise around him Polonsky couldn't hear the dying screams nearby; he did see the apes walk out of his line of sight.

"Guys! Something is going on out there. Most of those freaks are leaving their positions!" Polonsky shouted.

Roebuck, Miller, Spyro, Nia and those who were closest to the marine walked beside and behind him. Polonsky side-stepped so Roebuck could take a look and he did see that a lot of the apes were now gone' but they were still outnumbered and he wasn't ready to risk the remains of his team, and friends, to go out there. Suddenly there was a series of explosions nearby followed by a large amount of apes screaming in agony. Roebuck saw a few apes fall to the ground in front of the building with their limbs blown off with peices of shrapnel sticking out of their body.

One ape was lying on its stomach with a single peice of metal sticking out of its forehead. Roebuck forced him and everyone around him to back away from the door as he, Miller and Polonsky aimed their .Colt's at the door. Only there was no one there. Seconds later the door closed with a 'SLAM' causing everyone in the room to jump in surprise.

Nervously Spyro stepped in front of the humans and sniffed the air for anything that he didn't recognise, he took a few steps in surprise when the unexpected appearence of a black dragon was in front of him.

The dragon stared at everyone in the room curiously noticing the humans who had their pistols still aimed at him but ignored it. Spyro knew the dragon was a male because he had a similar build to him; but he took notice of a vicous scar on his face that went from his left eye to his snout.

The black dragon's eyes lit up when he realised he found the prisoners.

"Oh finally! It's about frickin' time I found you all!" The dragon said happily. Everyone stared at the dragon with a dumb found look on their face.