(materializes, a hastily erected barrier spell around himself)
Hello to you all, and I hope that you have been having a truly wonderful week. I am more than a little nervous about uploading this chapter, as animedragongirl is off on a well deserved vacation, and I do not wish to bug her. I have attempted to proofread this chapter myself, but such attempts in the past have rarely worked out well, so I apologize in advance.
Oh yes, ultimatemakuta, I am afraid that the message that I sent you didn't go through for some bizarre reason, but I am grateful for your input, and yeah, someone being held up and threatened by Kage would likely be rather scared.
To the lawyers: I own nothing save my own stuff, so bugger off and go find a real case for you to investigate!
That said, here is chapter twelve.
&
Birth of an Angel
Keira sighed as she ran a hand through her aqua colored hair, closing her eyes for a moment and shaking her head. Opening her green eyes, she stared out of one of the windows of the Naughty Ottsel and looked out over the Harbor Sector, or rather, what was left of it.
Craters littered the streets, and entire buildings lay in shambles, while smoke filled the air from where countless pyres burned both elven and Metal Head dead alike. Off to her side, Tess slept fitfully in one of the booths, twitching back and forth, and occasionally muttering something in her sleep.
In the center of the bar were Torn and Jinx, both of them hunched over a holo map of the area. It had originally been a holo-vid recreational unit that Daxter had had installed in the place, but with a bit of tweaking on her part, it now served a far more practical purpose.
One week had passed since the disastrous counter attack, and the elves in this area had been cut off from command, and for all they knew, left for dead by the rest of the army. It was clearly taking its toll on everyone, as every time Keira walked outside, she could hear the murmuring of the greener soldiers, see the fear in the eyes, and the bitter resignation of the veterans, most of whom had the thousand yard stare in their eyes.
Not helping was the fact that the Death Bots and the Metal Heads still found ways to keep them on their toes. While they were not able to directly access the Harbor Sector, they had been filtering their way up from the sewers. Thankfully, they hadn't decided to launch an all out assault yet, but the aqua haired elf felt that it would simply be a matter of time before they did so.
Hampering everything was the fact that the Lockdown barriers also scrambled radio signals, making communication with Ashelin and the others back at the General Head Quarters impossible. So they were on there own, and they would have to bail themselves out of this mess with nothing more than what they had right here. Still, Keira and the others had been in tighter spots before, and she had little doubt that they manage to find a way to win the day.
On the other hand, if her husband had been here, they likely would've never been in this mess in the first place. However, she reminded herself that she had to be strong, that she would have to carry on the fight until he returned.
With that thought, she turned back to watching the two Revenants.
"You really think this'll work, Leader Man?" Jinx asked, shaking the tech head out of her musings.
"It's worth a shot," Torn replied with a shrug, "and besides, it beats waiting around for those tin cans to come and finish us off."
"You gotta point there." The pyromaniac conceded, nodding his head slowly.
Keira let her eyes drift over the two brothers in arms, and she couldn't help but feel a swell of pity for them. Both were pale, their skin almost white, which was a result of having spent so much of the past several months encased within the Katarn Mark II battle armor that they wore into battle. There was also a noticeable slump to their shoulders, and the dark circles under their eyes indicated just how fatigued their bodies were. Torn also had a bit of a beard starting to grow on his face, the inability to get his hands on a razor becoming obvious.
All in all, both soldiers looked as though they could have used about a month of R and R, and Keira silently suspected that she didn't look much better.
"So what's up?" she asked abruptly, causing the two Revenants to look over their shoulders at her.
"We've decided that we're going to try and slip a few guys down into the Underport area to go ahead and seal off most of the tunnels down there." Torn said, his usual growl in his voice.
"That way," Jinx continued, "if our friendly neighbors decide to drop by for a chat, we don't have nearly as many places that we have to cover."
Keira rubbed her chin thoughtfully, musing over the idea. It was tactically sound, and made a lot of sense. Still, she couldn't help but be a little anxious, as given the knowledge that the Death Bots seem to have of their tactics and stratagems, the lull in the fighting could very well be a ruse to lure them down into an underground ambush. Regardless, she really wished she'd had more time to work on her new ideas before Veger had come up with his grossly botched attack plan. The new armor that she'd have been trying to design for the Revenants would have gone a long way into helping in this instance.
"Sounds like a plan." She finally said, nodding her head slightly. "So when do we move out?"
You've got two hours to get it all together while we round up some volunteers." Torn replied.
The mechanic/weapon specialist nodded silently, before making her way over to Tess, and attempting to rouse her friend from dreamland.
In what seemed to almost be an agonizing loud manner, the Underport elevators doors opened, revealing a pitch black abyss of ancient tunnels and corridors. It would appear as though during the time that they had been running around down here, the Death Bots had been doing everything in their power to ensure that the elves would have their work cut out for them if they ever decided to try and make a break for it.
However, the soldiers in the group weren't stupid, and the four Revenants activated their night vision, while the dozen or so veteran Freedom Guard members that were with them pulled their own goggles down over their faces and proceeded to activate them.
With a series of rapid fire gestures, Torn began to issue the commands for them to spread out and keep their eyes open. Keira and Tess were only to happy to oblige, knowing that as bunched up as they'd had to be on that elevator, a well place grenade or RPG would have meant the end for all of them. Truthfully, she did wonder why there weren't a couple of those new Death Bots they'd seen, which the rank and file elves had aptly named 'Hunter Killers,' stationed down here in the event that some of them tried this sort of tactic.
Given the false retreat tactic that had resulted in their current predicament, the strange lack of a robotic or Metal Head welcoming party very much unnerved the young elf. She tightened her grip upon her morph gun, her eyes constantly roaming down the corridor, searching for any sign of a foe.
Their 'fearless leader' had headed up to a crossroad style junction in the place, and Keira knew then that this mission was truly underway. Moving as quietly as she could, she came up behind Revenant Forty Two, waiting for his signal to begin the next phase of the operation.
It came in earnest, and the group headed down the right side of the tunnel, on constant alert for even the slightest twitch of something that shouldn't be down here.
"Okay, the party favors are in place." Jinx muttered over the comm. channel as he finished rigging up a few Havocs. "Now let's back up and get this little rave started."
The fifteen other troopers made haste to do so, knowing all too well the explosive power that the tiny M9-DPs had inside of them.
When they were a sufficient distance away, the pyromaniac pulled out the remote detonator that he always had on his person, and though his helmet covered his face, everyone present knew there was a look of almost fiendish glee upon it as he depressed the two thumb buttons and then pulled the trigger.
The darkness became daylight as the Havocs went off, and the resulting shockwave nearly blew them all off of their feet. After shielding her eyes for a few seconds, Keira looked back up, and with a sigh of relief, noticed that the explosives had worked, and that this tunnel was now effectively sealed off.
However, no cheer came from her or any of the others, no cry of victory. After all, this was simply one of almost six that had to be closed down, and every second they were down here increased the danger of an enemy patrol coming across them, or something of that nature. Thus, they were quick to head back the way that they came, double timing it to where the next target was.
Keira, while still remaining ever alert for an ambush, allowed her mind to drift slightly, and think about what they'd seen down here. While it was true that they hadn't directly engaged any hostile forces, there were signs of battle that they had come across. They were few and far between, but every now and then, they had come across the remains of what appeared to have at one time been a group of Roller bots, and twice she'd been eternally grateful that she could seal this suit that she was wearing, as they'd literally stumbled across the remains of a Metal Head patrol.
Both of them had been standard, run of the mill groups, consisting predominantly of Grunts and Drones, with a pair of Centurions and a Crab Head overseeing them, their corpses now in various states of decay. What had puzzled her the most, though, was what had killed them. The decomposing bodies had been riddled with a kind of energy based weapon the likes of which she had never seen before, the burn marks being far smaller in diameter than the weapons that she and the others were carrying. On the other hand, the wounds were far deeper as well, and it was something that had definitely piqued her curiosity.
Still, it was a riddle that she would have to save for another day, as there was a mission that needed completing right now.
Renewing her vow of determination, Keira Hagai Mar trekked onward, ever deeper into the maze of the Underport.
Far away from where the small patrol was bravely trying to ensure their eventual triumph, an ancient elf sat in a lotus style, her unseeing eyes staring at the wall on the far side of her.
She really missed Pecker, as much as that familiar might have been able to try even her patience, it was very difficult trying to communicate without him. Still, he was assisting the Heir of Mar, so that made up for his absence.
Besides, even if she had been able to communicate, how would she have broken the news of what she had seen in her latest vision?
Within it, she had seen darkness and heard screams of death, mixed with curses and oaths of soldiers, both male and female alike, with a few explosions and what had sounded like the death cries of the Hora-quan thrown in as well. However, suddenly, from the depths of this abyss, a flash of light had come from out of nowhere, and the seer had not been able to hold back a gasp when she finally beheld the source.
The creature was something she could have only described as an angel, glowing a white and a pale blue combination, its wings spread wide and its eyes narrowed into what she could only call a glare. With a battle cry, the being had lunged for something, and then all went black once again.
She was confused, and that was a rare thing for her to be. Frankly, she didn't much like the feeling, and so she simply scratched her chin, trying to contemplate upon what the vision might have meant, and to whom it might have pertained.
Keira ducked her head, narrowly avoiding an Eco bolt that would have nailed her right in her visor. That one bolt was soon joined by others, and a veritable stream of them were soon flying over her head, forcing her down behind the cover of the alcove she was pressed up against.
The ambush had happened at the last tunnel, just as Jinx was attempting to prime his last set of explosives. Typical, but at first they hadn't been to worried, as it had only been a few Metal Heads and some Roller bots. However, things had rapidly taken a turn for the not so good when the Hunter Killers had showed up. There were four of them all together, two lights and two heavies, and both of them had promptly unleashed the disgustingly large amount of firepower they had at the group. Four of the Freedom Guard had died instantly, their bodies all but shredded before the onslaught of the mechanized killing machines. Torn had just narrowly escaped getting filleted at the hands of one of them as well, throwing himself prone just as one of the lighter machines had gone by and swiped at him with its energy claws. It had been going to try for a second swing but fortunately Keira had been able to fire a couple of RPGs at it that had driven it back.
She'd had had a few close calls as well, and it showed in the blackened areas of her armor.
Compounding the situation was the fact that these new Hunter Killers could apparently see infrared as well, as when Tess had tried to sneak up with her active camouflage, she'd nearly been turned into Swiss chess for her trouble.
Hunkering even closer to the stone wall as a volley of Eco bolts tore into her cover, Keira removed the clip from her morph gun, before pressing a switch and flipping the gun back over to its RPG launcher mode. She then reached down and loaded up a couple of the remaining plasmite grenades, before popping up, and quickly firing them off at one of the machina warriors.
The rocket propelled grenades impacted upon one of the heavies a second later, filling their air with the sound of the explosion and a flash that nearly overloaded her night vision visor. However, any feelings of elation that she might have had about the successful hits faded a moment later when the fireball cleared and revealed that the mechanical nightmare was still on its feet and if the fact that it began throwing Eco bolts at her position was any indication, still more than capable of fighting.
How she hated that her arc caster had been left behind at the Ottsel, as its power cells had been depleted in previous incursions into the Harbor Sector by the Death Bots, and recharging the cells was taking longer than anticipated, as she hadn't brought the specialized charging mechanism along with her on the day of the assault.
A death cry echoed over the comm. a moment later as one of the infantry regulars stayed up in a standing position for a fraction of a second too long, and found himself the target of a horrifically accurate counter attack by one of the lightweight Death Bots, a burst of machinegun fire nailing him dead on, and ripping him in half in their fury.
"Jinx!" Torn shouted, lobbing a sonic grenade at one of the Hunter Killers, a mixture of feelings, predominately frustration, going through him as the explosive detonated and took off one of the heavies' left arms, only have the machine still continue to battle, seemingly oblivious to its missing limb. "How much longer do you need, cause we're going to get butchered here in a minute or two!"
"Cut me some slack, bro," Revenant Sixty Seven growled back, muttering a quiet curse, "I'm working as fast as I can here without having one of those things wise up about me and take the opportunity to splatter my guts all over the walls!"
"Well work faster!" the squad leader shot back, firing a few more times at the Hunter Killers, who were more than happy to return the favor.
Keira looked over to see how Tess was doing, and got the shock of her young life. Her blond haired friend primed a sonic grenade, and hurled the explosive at one of the crimson robots. However, it had hardly been in the air for more than a second, than one of the lightweights snapped its primary weapon up, and fired a burst at the grenade. They struck home, and the antipersonnel device exploded harmlessly in midair.
The mechanic/weapon specialist had never seen an AI run machine that could learn so fast, and she vowed then and now that she would find a way to grab the head of one of these things and take it back for examination. She also decided that she would very much have liked to meet the person responsible for programming these things and shake said person's hand…right before putting an Eco bolt through their head.
"I'm done!" Jinx suddenly cried, and a flurry of sub machinegun bolts heralded his return to the fight.
His shots hit home, pinged off of the cranial armor of the heavy that was missing its left arm, even as the bot up and decided that it was time to bring its larger weapons into play. The massive plasma gun on its right arm came up, and a well placed round completely obliterated the cover that Tess had been hiding behind.
Keira, immediately realizing the danger that her friend was now in, jumped up and fired a couple more plasmite RPGs at the offending Hunter Killer. As luck would have it, the anti armor rounds went wide of the intended target as the large battle droid attempted to backpedal out of the way. However, it didn't move fast enough to get completely clear, and they impacted upon its arm mounted cannon.
The aqua haired elf realized a moment later that she had accidentally uncovered a potential Achilles Heel in these mechanical soldiers, for the heavier variety at least, as the explosion set off the charges in the gun, effectively slagging the Death Bot.
Her analytical mind thinking quickly, she decided to try to confirm her hypothesis, and fired at the other large Hunter Killer. As before, the round set off the ammo of the bot's plasma cannon, utterly consuming it in the subsequent blast.
Tess chose that moment to dive over to where she was hiding out, and muttered a quiet thanks to her friend, before returning her attention to trying to bring down the two
One of the regulars had apparently been watching her, and decided to try out the tactic for himself. He carefully peaked up from behind his ever diminishing cover, before ducking back down, priming a plasmite grenade, and chucking it over the stone block he was hiding behind. The machina warrior was currently busy trying to blow the head off of one of the soldier's comrades, and didn't notice the weapon being thrown at it. The fiery blue device hit true, sticking to the arm of one of remaining bots as it was bringing its shoulder mounted pulse cannon into play. It detonated a second later. However, to the dismay of all present, it did not cause the power pack stored within its machinegun to go off as well.
However, it hardly mattered in the long run, as the elves, deciding that they had had quite enough of being pinned down like this, never mind the possibility of enemy forces sneaking up behind them, as they were too close to set of the Havocs without barbequing themselves in the process, and decided for an all or nothing tactic. Torn relayed the orders over the comm. channel, and a second later, every single elf promptly stood up, and let the two battle droids have it with everything in their possession.
Grenades were the first thing thrown, and while the Hunter Killers were attempting to shoot them out of the air. A veritable storm of Eco bolts were unleashed upon them, so thick that one might have actually been able to walk upon it, had such a thing been possible.
The crimson armor of the two commander Death Bots held up to the assault at first, by slowly, over the course of a few seconds, Keira and the others could see bits and pieces of it start to fly off as the punishing barrage began to prove too much even for these mechanized killing machines.
However, they weren't going down without a fight.
One of them leveled its primary blaster, and fired. A six shot burst caught a Freedom Guard and blew a soccer ball sized hole in his chest, killing him instantly. Its companion also opened fire, and Torn caught the brunt of the blast across his chest. He growled in pain, but thankfully, his ferrosteel armor held up under the assault, though he had little doubt that it wouldn't be able to take much more abuse.
Tess, thinking quickly, decided to make use of the one round that she had left for her own RPG launcher, and quickly changed her morph gun to the appropriate mode. Popping up from behind her cover, she quickly took aim and fired. The hours she had spent a the gun course honing her skills paid off, and the plasmite grenade hit one of the Hunter Killers right in the left knee joint, blowing it clean off. Unfortunately, the bot failed to collapse as she'd hoped, and merely activated its jet boosters to remain in the air. However, the blond haired elf realized what this meant.
"Aim for the joints!" she shouted over the comm. channels, dropping down and switching back to her assault rifle.
The message apparently got through, and her comrades in arms were quick to take the advice. Moments later, the combined fire began to truly devastate the two bots, as now, unable to take advantage of their speed and flight capabilities in the small tunnels, their unarmored joints would quickly prove to be their undoing.
With a defiant cry, Jinx opened fire with his two submachine guns, the flurry of blue energy that came from the barrels slicing into the neck of one of them, decapitating it after a few seconds worth of the abuse.
Its comrade followed it to the scrap heap a few moments later, as the remaining elves let loose everything they could muster, and it literally fell apart at the seams as hundreds of Eco bolts ripped into it.
For a few seconds, everyone simply panted, desperately trying to catch their breath and let their brains process the fact that they had actually managed to survive the battle.
"That was way too close for my liking." Jinx said, finding his voice and reloading his weapons.
"I second that motion." Keira responded wearily, raising her hand in a half hearted gesture of agreement.
"Can we just get out of here before those things decide they want a round two?" Tess inquired, a genuine and very much understandable amount of fear present in her voice.
"Form up and move to a safe distance." Torn responded, silently agreeing with the blond haired elf that he did not wish to tango with those Hunter Killers again any time soon. "Jinx, everything good to go?"
"Houston, we are green." The demolitions expert responded, trying to use mirth to hide his true feelings as he headed up to the nearest junction, and peeked about to make certain that nothing, machine or otherwise, was waiting in ambush.
The elves quickly abandoned their defensive location, pausing just long enough to grab the weapons of the dead. Torn hated having to leave the bodies of the fallen behind, but it would be foolhardy to try and risk the lives of the soldiers who were still living for the sake of corpses. Besides, cold hearted as it was, in the case of a few, there wasn't enough of a corpse left to even be able to bring back…
He shook those thoughts from his head. There would be a time for mourning and vengeance later, right now he needed to concentrate on getting everyone who was still breathing out of this hell hole in one piece.
Everyone but Keira was outside of the blast range, the aqua haired elf having stopped for a moment to grab a few grenades from a soldier who had been slain, and close his eyes out of respect.
It was then that Murphy's Law reared its ugly head once again.
She heard it, the rhythmic stomping that could have only come from one thing, and she whirled around leveling her gun as a light weight Hunter Killer rushed around the corner, followed closely by a heavy. She fired once, alerting the others to the danger, and then threw herself to the side. The light weight returned fire, a shot from its shoulder mounted pulse cannon nearly taking her head off as she rolled behind another alcove. However, the self aiming weapon overcompensated for the change in her position, and fired at an angle a few degrees too far to the right.
It hit one of the Havocs that Jinx had set up.
Keira felt the air around her grow thick, and for a moment she felt like she was encased in mud. Her sharp mind quickly figured out what was about to happen, and she hunkered down, praying that the stone she was hiding behind would be strong enough to take the blast and the shockwave, and hoping against hope that she was far enough away from where the M9-DPs were that she would get fried either.
There was an ungodly loud roar, and she felt the shockwave pass over her, rattling her bones and echoing through her skull. Then came a blast of heat, so great that she felt it even through her sealed armor, and the air inside of her helmet was suddenly too hot to breathe, leaving her gasping, the instinctual part of her brain wanting to rip the helmet from her head, the more rational half screaming of the insanity of such an action.
However, both were silenced a moment later when something happened that none of the parties present could have foreseen. Keira felt a rumbling, and looked up instinctively to find that the ceiling was attempting to drop down and say hello to her. Her emerald eyes widened in horror as she scrambled to try and get up and get out of the way. Then the unthinkable happened. There was another rumbling, almost indistinguishable from the collapsing roof of the corridor, but as close as Keira was, she felt it distinctively, and looked down as she felt it coursing through her boots.
The floor began to split and crack, giving way as it rapidly became apparent that Jinx's little party favor had knocked out some type of very important structural device.
The aqua haired elf suddenly heard a loud crack, and the next thing she knew, she had a sudden, ominous feeling of weightlessness as she watched the others, who were scrambling towards her and screaming her name, disappear from sight.
Unable to help herself, she screamed as she felt that sensation normally associated with the first drop of a roller coaster come over her.
She was vaguely aware that the two Hunter Killers were falling with her, apparently caught so off guard by the explosion that not even their computer controlled reflexes proved fast enough to escape. Still, she was far more concerned over herself at the current point in time, and rightfully so, as unless her built in night vision goggles were malfunctioning, she was headed for a very nasty landing via what appeared to be some kind of stone buttresses sticking out of the sides of this chamber she was falling into.
She had just enough time to gulp, before she hit them, hard. The wind was blasted from her lungs, and she felt a white hot explosion tear through her. Keira knew instantly that she'd just broken every rib in the right side of her body, and judging by the fact that she had coughed up blood her helmet, probably punctured a lung too. Adding to the complications was the fact that about half of her visor was reduced to a spider web of cracks that threatened to shatter at any moment. Distracted by the pain, she hardly even noticed that she was rolling off of the side of the buttresses until she was once again in freefall.
Looking down through what part of her visor wasn't covered in her blood or cracked, she saw what appeared to be a pool or something of some liquid type substance, what exactly she couldn't tell in her pain addled state.
A second or two passed, and the silence was broken by a splash of her hitting the substance. The pain from the resulting belly flop proved too much, and she blacked out, her last thoughts lingering upon her soul mate as she heard her visor shatter and the liquid gush in through her now open helmet.
A moment or two later, the two Hunter Killers landed with varying degrees of grace, the lightweight activating its jet boosters to slow itself down, while its heavier comrade landed hard on both of its feet, causing severe damage to its entire lower body region.
In an instant, both of their weapons were aimed at where Keira had fallen in, both of them waiting for the elf to surface, so that they might finish the job. The lightweight even went so far as to walk right up next to what was in fact, a small, artificial river of Light Eco, that went around some bizarre sort of central compound in an oval shape, its current propelled along by some unseen means.
About five standard seconds later, it heard a shout from above, and both it and its companion looked up and zoomed their photoceptors in on the source of the audio disturbance.
It was an armored elf, female by the voice, calling out a name, probably the one that had just fallen. Those thoughts passed through their brains in a nanosecond, and then they promptly raised their weapons and opened fire, lighting up the darkness with multicolored energy bursts. The elf quickly disappeared as another one yanked her back and looked over the edge, apparently not caring a whit for the deadly Eco bolts sailing up at him. He scanned around for a few seconds, until a bolt smashed into the front of his helmet, knocking him backwards out of sight. Nonetheless, they kept firing, throwing in a few missiles for good effect in case the organics decided they wanted to try that little maneuver again. They stopped about ten seconds later, as the area remained devoid of an enemy presence.
None of the soldiers reappeared, and after about two minutes, the machines could hear nothing more coming from up above, and so they returned their attention to the elf that had fallen down.
Instructing for its damaged companion to stay put, the lighter Hunter Killer proceeded to pace around the strange river, part of its mechanized brain recording what it was seeing, the other trying to figure out the logic behind such a creation.
Those thoughts were quickly cut short after that, though, when it beheld the body of the fallen elf. The current had pushed it up against what appeared to be a staircase leading down into the Light Eco, and it immediately trained its blaster upon the elf. However, when the body remained still, the machine assumed the organic life form had expired, and turned its attention towards attempting to find its way out.
Some minutes later, finding no such means of escaping this pit short of jetting back out, it put in a call for another one of its own type to come to its location, as both would be needed to extract the damaged heavy.
"Keira!" Tess screamed, leaping forward to try save her friend.
Time seemed to slow as the floor gave way beneath the aqua haired elf, and she watched the other elf disappear into the abyss that the Havoc had created. She was stopped short by Torn, who had to forcefully restrain her, lest she suffer the same fate as the other girl.
For what seemed like ages, the roof of the corridor fell, and when it finally cleared, she tore her way free of the grasp of the Revenant leader, charging towards the gap, screaming her friend's name at the top of her lungs. Reaching the edge of the chasm, she slid to her knees, and looked over the edge…
…Only to find that the two Hunter Killers were currently pointing their blasters up at her and letting fly with their weapons. Uncaring, she continued to search frantically for any sign of the mechanic/weapon specialist amongst the debris.
She was able to look for more than a few seconds, before Torn ripped her back, risking his own life to try and find Keira. For several seconds he stared about, heedless of the blaster fire that was zooming towards him. However, his search was brought to a halt a moment later when he was forcefully blown back onto his posterior, a nice bit of carbon scoring just above his visor.
Tess heard Jinx swear, and rush forward to where his brother lay, no doubt on the verge of panic at the notion of losing the last member of his original squad. However, much to the relief of all, the grizzled commander got back to his feet a moment later.
"Everyone, fall back!" he commanded, as a missile impacted above their heads, showering them with debris.
"What about…" Tess exclaimed, not daring to believe what she was hearing.
"Keira's gone!" he growled back at her, before turning to Revenant Sixty Seven. "Pull everyone back now before anyone else gets killed! For all we know, this whole damn tunnel could be about to come down on our heads!"
Jinx hated to carry the order out, but he did so without hesitation, knowing there was nothing that they could do. Besides, from what he had seen of the pit that had swallowed Keira up, even though their grappling hooks were more than capable of reaching the bottom of it, they would have the minor complication of having a pair of Hunter Killers using them for target practice the whole freaking way down. Most assuredly not helping was the fact that defeating the previous group of command and control Death Bots had used up nearly all of their ordinance.
Thus, it was with great sorrow, that the elves retreated, leaving several of their own behind, and one, who was like a sister to them all.
She was vaguely aware of a return of her senses, which confused her, as she could have sworn that she should have been dead. Then again, even if she was alive, she should also have been slowly suffocating as she tried to stay alive with just one lung, not to mention there was the little matter of the six or so broken ribs that she should have been able to feel as they send shards of pure agony tearing through her.
Maybe she was dead after all.
But if that was the case, then what was the strange liquid that she felt brushing against her skin?
Slowly, fearful of what she might discover, Keira Hagai Mar opened her eyes.
The first thing that she became aware of was the hopelessly battered state of her helmet. The HUD was gone, half of the visor was missing as well, which probably meant that all of the electronic systems of the suit were out of commission as well.
She suddenly paused in her inspection, as it finally dawned upon her what she was sitting in. The whitish blue luminescence of the Light Eco bathed the whole area around her in a strange glow, and looking down at the rest of her suit, the aqua haired elf finally realized what had happened to her. Apparently, the impact against the stone buttresses had cracked the ferrosteel plates of her armor, which had already been pushed to the limit in the firefight, and also torn open the underweave of the suit, which when combined with her visor, left her exposed to the healing substance.
However, now that she understood what had happened, she also became aware of something else. Healed though she might have been, she couldn't shake the feeling that there was just something different about her now. Still, she'd figure it out once she'd managed to find a way out of this hole. After all, while she wasn't certain how long she'd been out, she was fairly certain that it was long enough for the others to have bugged out, lest more reinforcements show up to pay them a visit.
As she removed her ruined helmet and stood up, something else caught her attention. The first, was that she could see remarkably well despite the fact that she had no light enhancing visor to help her out, and could make out shapes and whatnot even at the far reaches of the chamber. The second, mostly due to the first, was of the two Death Bots that had been responsible for dumping her down here.
Unfortunately for Keira, the sound that she made of getting up out of the Light Eco that she'd been in was apparently loud enough to grab their attention, and both looked over to her for a split second, and had it been possible, surprise would have been plastered all over their robotic heads. As it was, they simply leveled their weapons, and fired at her.
Cursing, the girl threw herself to one side, taking shelter behind the main structure of the chamber, whatever it was supposed to be, and tried to think of her options. Her morph gun was nowhere to be found, and her grappling hook looked to be in need of serious repair. This left her with her vibro blade to deal with the fearsome constructs that were about to try and turn her into a hole filled corpse, not exactly what she would have wanted for such a confrontation.
A high pitched whine that she had come to associate with one of those blasted things entering an overdrive boost reached her ears, and she felt a moment of fear overcome her as a loud stamping noise indicated that the mechanized killing machine was only feet away from her, just around the corner.
It spun around the edge with surprising agility for a machine, and leveled its machinegun at her, fully intending to send her to the next life.
But something happened then, something unexpected and miraculous.
Within her mind, Keira reached the decision that she was most certainly not going to die like this. With an animalistic growl all too like those she had used when fighting to survive on the streets of Haven City, she balled up a fist, and extended the vibro blade, before lunging at her would be slayer.
The machinegun fired as she did so, but a sudden flash of light prevented the machine from seeing the results of its work. The flash was followed by a scream, and the next thing it knew, there were alarms blaring inside its circuits about a rather nasty bit of torso chassis damage that it had taken.
The next few seconds were spent trying to analyze just what in the name of its makers was in front of it.
Breathing deeply within the room that she had been given, Onin suddenly felt an intrusion into the calm serenity of her meditation. It was a flash of power that she had felt, had 'seen' in a way, and it had been close.
A look of bemusement upon her weathered face, she focused inward, trying to tap into her powers and locate the source of this anomaly.
It did not take long for her to home in on the source of the power surge, and when she beheld what it was, she gasped in a most un 'wise old lady' like way.
The same angel that had haunted her dreams before floated in front of her now, its light revealing a foe that it was attempting to cut down.
The image faded after a second, but one thing remained etched into her mind: the face of the being.
It was Samos' adoptive daughter.
She was certainly going to have to have a talk with the Green Eco Sage about this, and soon.
The flash had momentarily stolen away her ability to see, but Keira knew to duck, and heard the bolts from the gun whiz over her head. Not bothering to think about how close the shots had come, and remembering where her foe was, and lashed out with her weapon, and felt the satisfying shriek of metal being parted before the sound blade of her melee weapon. However, she was well aware of just how much abuse these things could take, and knew that she would have to watch out for the counter attack. So she reflexively leaped back, intended to get out of the way of the retaliatory strike.
It was only when she became distinctly aware that she was not heading back towards the ground that she became puzzled, and she also noticed that the Hunter Killer was still just standing there, staring up at her, as if unsure how to proceed.
It was only then that she looked at herself, and her eyes bulged.
Her armor and she herself were now a strange, almost translucent bluish white, and she quickly noticed the reason that she had yet to fall. Fluttering slightly in a manner that couldn't quite be called flapping, were eight silvery, tendril like wings, each one appearing to be about six feet in length.
However, her self examination was cut short as the Death Bot down below her finally seemed to reach a definite stratagem about what to do with her, and quickly opened fire with its shoulder mounted pulse cannon. With agility that surprised even the girl herself, she twisted about in mid air, dodging the stream of Eco Bolts with time to spare. As she did so, she also noticed that the heavier Hunter Killer was slowly stamping its way over to where she was, in a manner that almost seemed to indicate that it was limping on both legs. Thus, she decided that she needed to finish this battle with the first bot quickly.
Angling herself downward, she proceeded to do just that, charging towards the machina warrior with a battle cry. The construct soldier leveled its machinegun, taking aim at her. However, some instinctive part of Keira's mind seemed to know just how to use this form, and it was something that she would find rather creepy in hindsight, but for the moment she didn't have time to spare the thought, as she watched in amazement as one of her wings seemed to grow in length, lashing outward and wrapping itself around the barrel of the weapon, while a second one that extended almost at the same time wound itself around the arm of the Hunter Killer itself. The two tendril like wings then flicked themselves to one side, throwing off the aim of the machine, and ensuring that it was caught off guard as she lashed out again with the vibro blade.
She twisted about as her feet hit the ground, releasing the arm of the mechanized warrior while the four wings on her right side reached out and ensnared one of its legs. As she finished her twirl, the Hunter Killer found itself going along for the ride. It slammed into the side of the strange monument, its systems momentarily disoriented by the impact, which was something that Keira intended to fully capitalize upon. She jumped forward, her blade poised to strike and jammed it into the back of the thing's neck, before twisting and tearing it to one side, effectively decapitating the Death Bot.
She then turned her attention to the larger of the two constructs, just in time to realize that it was leveling the rapid-fire weapon that it had upon its right shoulder at her. Bolts streaked towards her, and not exactly having the ideal footing to be jumping at the moment, the young elf raised her arms in a reflexive move to ward the attack. Much to her surprise, it worked.
A shield extended outward from her palms, covering her mere moments before the shots would have connected. As it was, the machine paused for a moment as if in thought, no doubt trying to figure out how in the world it would be able to penetrate the barrier that was suddenly between itself and the target.
However, it quickly decided that this would be a simple case of shoot said barrier until it can't take it anymore, and promptly resumed firing at her.
Shielded though she might have been, Keira still felt the impacts of the blasts, and she knew on some unknown level, that her shield wouldn't last much longer under this kind of barrage.
It was then that fate chose a strange manner of intervention.
Another sound filled the air, the sound of a jet booster, and looking up slightly, she saw another lightweight descending down towards the battle from the hole that the Havoc had made. However, just as the young elf began to despair, something strange occurred.
The Hunter Killer leveled its pulse cannon, and opened fire. However, what was so strange was the fact that it was targeting the other Death Bot. Caught off guard, the machine hesitated, again as if unsure of how to proceed, and as a result several rounds slammed home upon it, ravaging its systems.
However, the heavyweights were designed for the purpose of absorbing enormous amounts of abuse before they went down, and as such, it would take far more than a few hits from a pulse cannon to destroy it. Upon deciding that this malfunctioning unit was fit to be terminated, the larger of the two Death Bots raised its plasma cannon and opened fire several times. Weaving back and forth through the air, the maverick unit managed to avoid most of the shots, but one of them still connected with it, neatly removing its sword arm.
Still behind the relative safety of the shield that she had erected, Keira couldn't help but wonder what in the name of the Precursors was going on. Was the new Hunter Killer malfunctioning? Had something been able to reprogram it?
Her thoughts drifted back to the battle at hand as the lighter unit landed, and promptly began strafing around the larger one, firing its machinegun all the while. Its superior mobility, combined with the damaged legs of its adversary, helping it to stay ahead of the aim of the other.
Still circling, the smaller of the two unleashed a volley of missiles upon the larger one, causing a massive explosion when they hit that enveloped the larger machine in the fireball. However, while its armor might have been missing in several areas, it emerged from the explosion still combat operation, and decided to spin around the opposite way that it had before. Caught off guard by this sudden change in tactics, the lighter one took a plasma cannon round to the chest. What Keira didn't realize was that the attack had severed the primary power couplings from the lower motivators, effectively paralyzing the machine from the waist down. Furthermore, the power generator itself had been damaged, and it was simply a matter of time before it went offline.
Believing that it had dealt with that threat, the heavy turned its attention back to Keira, and leveled its plasma cannon at her. The young elf shifted, preparing herself for another voyage into the air, as she didn't trust for her shield to hold up against such an assault.
However, the attack was never forthcoming.
There was a loud whoosing sound, like something that was commonly associated with a jet engine's backwash, followed swiftly by a 'thunk.' Just as quickly, another fireball engulfed the heavy, this one of a far greater magnitude than the previous one. The explosion mushroomed upwards, and bits and pieces of the Hunter Killer rained down, clanking off of the stone.
When the blast cloud faded, Keira saw two things. The first was the charbroiled remains of the heavy glowing from the intense heat of the explosion, the second was of the maverick unit, propped up on its remaining arm, its large grenade launcher extended and pointed at the remains of its enemy. Then, with the air of a tired but triumphant warrior, the machine slumped to the ground, and the light in its photoceptors went out.
The young elf hardly knew what to think of what had just occurred, and scarcely realized that her angelic form was fading, the wings receding back into her as she returned to normal.
She would spend some time pondering the meaning of all this, before she finally turned her attention to the area around her.
He moved silently a blur in the darkness, his night vision active and he himself on constant look out for the slightest hint of something being amiss.
Alone now, and with no one else to be put at risk, Commander Daniel R. Torn moved through the shadows of the Underport, his Katarn's light bending camouflage active and keeping him hidden from all but the keenest eyes or any photoceptors not blessed with the ability to see in the infrared spectrum.
Guilt consumed the hardened soldier about having to leave with Keira's fate uncertain, without knowing for sure if she was dead. It reminded him all too well of what had happened during Praxis' coup, when he'd been forced to take a then three and a half year old Jak and abandon his squad mates to Death.
Gods above, how he missed them, missed Ackerson's down to business cool, or hearing Michael's Russian accent as he rattled on with Jinx over who had managed to wax the most Metal Heads. He missed the others as well, and vowed that he'd never leave another person behind again. It was a vow that he intended to keep, now that he was down here alone, and didn't have to worry about another person getting killed on his account.
He was almost to the ambush point when he'd realized that something wasn't quite right, when that tingling of the spine that veterans got began to creep up on him again. He stiffened slowly, tightening his grip upon his rifle and cocking his head in an attempt to figure out what the problem was. Then he heard it, a slight scuffle of something scraping against stone. It had come from behind him and he prepared himself to spin about and turn the tables on his would be attacker. However, as he did so, he got the surprise of his life.
"Seems you had the same idea as me, eh?" Echoed a voice inside of his helmet, a voice that he was very familiar with.
"Jinx," Torn growled, "what the hell are you doing down here?"
"Same thing you're doing, Leader-Man." The pyromaniac shot back, but there was a seriousness beneath his mirth that one didn't hear very often. "I'm looking for our lost sister."
Torn frowned, pursing his lips, and he was about to order his squad mate to head topside, when the demolitions expert cut him off.
"Don't give me that look, Torn." He said, knowing the look upon his leader's visage despite being unable to see it. "There isn't a thing in the world you can do to make back out now."
The Revenant leader knew that tone of voice from his brother in arms, and realized that further arguing would indeed be pointless. Thus, side by side, the two of them began to make their way towards the area where things had gone so horribly wrong.
They reached the hole, and through the clever use of their wrist mounted grappling hooks, were able to descend down into the chamber that Jinx had unwittingly opened.
The sight that met their eyes was a strange one to say the least. The remains of three Hunter Killers, all of them missing limbs, and what appeared to almost be some sort of temple or shrine in the center, surrounded by Light Eco.
They realized that this place certainly hadn't been on any of the maps of the Underport, as the Eco would have likely been pillaged to help power the city or some similar purpose. However, that was a mere afterthought, as their primary focus was on the scrap that was left of the Death Bots.
"Well," Torn began, "she was alive after she fell, that much is certain."
"Let's just hope she hasn't bled out on us." Jinx added, drawing his weapons in case there were more bots lurking about, and making his way over to the structure in the center of the chamber.
Without hesitation, Torn joined him, and the two Revenants slipped into the small river of Light Eco, and waded across to some stairs that were set in the side. They then approached the doors of the structure, and noticed that they were open, while a light source that was so bright that they had to shut off their night vision filled the area. As their vision returned to the normal spectrum, their souls felt relief unlike anything they'd ever known before when they saw what was inside.
The aqua haired elf was still alive, and was on her feet, staring about at what was inside of the strange building, which was dominated by a large statue.
"Keira!" they exclaimed at the same time, causing her to whirl about as they rushed towards her.
The girl turned around just in time to find her friends grasping her in a bone crushing hug, all their gruff dignity cast aside at the relief of finding her alive, and in one piece to boot.
"Guys…" she gasped. "Please, I need air!"
The two Revenants immediately backed off, both grateful that their helmets covered their faces, which were now an interesting shade of red as they realized what they had done.
"Where's Tess?" Keira asked, curious about where her friend was.
"Bawling her eyes out back at the Naughty Ottsel." Jinx remarked. "She doesn't we're down here."
"You came by yourselves?" the mechanic/weapons specialist asked, a look of bafflement upon her face.
"Actually, neither one of us figured that we'd be bumping into the other." Torn remarked, slinging his morph gun over his shoulder as he looked Keira over. "Right now, I'm just curious as to how you survived that fall, your suit's a mess."
"It's a long story…" she began, and proceeded to tell them what had happened.
"You sure you didn't hit your head on the way down?" Jinx inquired, scratching his helmet.
"I know it sounds crazy," Keira said, "but that third Hunter Killer attacked the other one."
"That doesn't seem very droid like to me." The demolitions expert responded, shrugging his shoulders.
She'd finished her tale, and the two of them had bought the story of the Light Eco after she demonstrated her abilities before them, though they had all but had to remove their helmets to put their eyes back in their sockets. Also, none of them had managed to come up with any theories as to how this phenomenon might have happened, aside from the obvious fact that she was a Channeler. Thus, it had been opted that they would simply have a little chat with her adoptive father when they next saw him.
However, they were still having a hard time buying her tale of the two Death Bots fighting each other.
"I know, which is why I'd like to grab their heads before we get out of here." She responded. "I want to see if I can figure out what caused that last one to go maverick."
"Sounds like a plan to me." Jinx responded, before turning his attention to the structure they were standing in. "That just leaves us to figure out what this place is. After all, it seems a little convenient."
"It's a shrine, or a tomb, one of the two." Keira answered, turning her back to them and walking up to the statue in the center of the place.
It was only then that the two Revenants looked up and realized that it was a larger than life carving of a Precursor. It was armored, and its right fist was cocked up into the air, the strange longsword like weapon attached to it extended and nearly brushing the ceiling.
"How do you know that?" Torn asked, once he'd recovered form the sense of awe that he had been overcome by.
In response, the girl pointed to a metallic plaque that was at the base of the statue, upon it was inscribed a message, written in Precursian tongue. A moment passed, and she began to translate it for them.
"May your Ancestors guide you to eternal rest, Phoenix Lostarr, and the gods grant you the peace that you have earned…the peace that has been denied unto me. Rest undisturbed, my brother, and know that I shall see this battle through to its end, and bring your slayers to justice." She read, before looking back up at the others.
"The inscription was signed by a one Praetor Tarath Shien." She said, her now glowing eyes boring into the two soldiers. "Ring any bells?"
"Holy gods…" was all Jinx could state. "We're standing in the burial chamber of another Precursor Praetor?"
"He's not buried here." Keira said with a shake of her head. "I couldn't find a coffin of any sorts. The inscription hints that the Metal Heads were the ones who killed this guy, and my guess is that they didn't leave much a corpse in their wake."
"Well, as much as I'd like to continue to speculate on the lives and lifestyles of the Precursors, "Torn said, looking back out the door, "I think we've spent enough time down here. We're pushing our luck, so let's just grab those clanker heads and get out of here."
Keira and Jinx quickly agreed with him, and they quickly rushed outside and scrambled about, nabbing the two heads of the lightweights, as the heavy hadn't enough of a head left to salvage, and Keira's helmet as well. The two soldiers then rigged up their grappling hooks again, and waited for the girl to come and grab a hold of them. However, she simply smirked at them, and transformed once again, letting her strange wings carry her up and out of the chamber.
"Women." Jinx muttered with a smile, before following her up.
There was certainly going to be a celebration when they got back to the Naughty Ottsel tonight.
&
Okay, once again I state that I was attempting to proofread this myself, so if you spot any errors, please point them out to me so I can correct them.
I also hope and pray that I wasn't hopelessly cliché in the manner in which Keira acquired her powers, and if this prove to be the case, please feel free to bash me in ay way you see fit, as I am still wearing my +3 breastplate and various other enchanted armor.
That said, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and that you have a great week and I wish you all a Merry Christmas, Happy Holildays, and a very joyous New Year.