To make it clear the Harry Potter and Riddick character/world is not mine, they belong to J.K Rowling and whoever owns Riddick. This is a fanfic, which means I'm not the original creator only the writer of this particular story.
Chapter 17: the escape.
Riddick is studying the bulkhead that they are locked to and with the help of the stranger he gets a better picture of the hole. It seems that Johns was too eager and missed something that Riddick could use. About three meter up there is clean hole trough the beam and if he can get up to it he can get them free. It´s a slim spot but maybe the chains could pass through. Problem is his arms are locked behind his hands and the kid is way too short for this. He can't get near it. Or can he?
Harry thinking much the same as he too studies the hole realizes that the guy underneath him is going for it anyways. ´Strong survival instincts is common in animals´ is what Hermione used to say. Even if there is just a small chance they will take it so don´t block them´. That conversation may have concerned Crookshanks and not this situation but the truth of it was visible in the man´s posture.
"Harry." He suddenly says catching the man´s attention. Riddick focuses his eyes on the green ones and one of his eyebrows rises.
"Harry." Harry repeats, and does so multiple times until the stranger says it back. He smiles and confirms it with a nod.
"Yes Harry."
"Harry… Riddick." The new word is strange but Harry tries it a couple of times until he gets it right. The man below him chuckles and says:
"Harry, meet Riddick." Understanding the meaning of the sentence if not the words in it Harry laughs and replies:
"Hello Riddick."
The man grins and looks upwards, when Harry's eyes follows the man tightens his arms and pumps his body. He want to go for it but the kid need to be onboard; for if it´s going to hurt him it is surly going to break the kid.
Giving a sigh Harry leaned his body towards the man´s shoulders and biting into his black wife-beater so no-one can hear his screams. He gives a silent nod and feels the man start to rise bringing him with him.
Soon he is standing with his legs between Riddick and is thankful that the cop didn´t tie their legs together only their feet. He also notices that his connection to Riddick´s arms and feet are a bit loose so he will get a couple of extra cm for this. The big guy notices as well and pulls his legs and feet as close to Harry's as he can get before he start to rise to his toes and lift his back-turned arms upwards.
Suddenly with a GRUESOME POPPING, the big guy has dislocates both his shoulders making Harry scream in sympathy into the man´s shoulder while his body start to tremble - for now his pain will start.
As Riddick raises his arm and stretches out his body as far as he can Harry has already reached his high point, and the stretch in his arms, waist and legs is brutal. When it´s only a couple of cm left Harry start to scream for he can here the bones in his body protesting. When Riddick pulls even more Harry's shoulder get dislocated and the chains around his arms and feet's start to dig into his flesh which makes him bleed. But he stays conscious long enough to see Riddick to carry his arms overhead and pass the chains through the broken spot.
The moment Riddick start to lower their arms down in front of him, Harry can feel the darkness closing in on him and he swears that it must be the tenth time that he fainted today alone. The last thing he registers is Riddick doing a body-flex to pop his shoulders back into place.
Riddick feels Harry lose conscious and is thankful for it because what will come next will hurt even more. As they both start to fall forwards Riddick pushes all thought about Harry away and focuses on the tube connected to the torch that is hanging loosely from a cable in the ceiling.
Getting hold of the torch-tube and landing on top of the others body Riddick gets to work on his hand and legs while thinking about the pain the kid will be in when he wakes up since he had to take all of Riddick's weight with two dislocated shoulders on top of it.
When he only has his feet left he can here the returning of the other survivor and realizes that he won´t have time to release Harry before they are caught. Swearing silently Riddick works faster and gets loose only minutes later. Before he abandons his fellow prisoner he pops the kid shoulder back in place and tries to make it comfortable for him.
Looking down at the sleeping beauty Riddick can´t stop himself from leaning down and kiss the kid on the mouth in thanks. He is shocked when he feels a power surge come from the boy as well as feeling some of his energy leaving him. He raises his head and sees some of the light bruising around the boys temple and neck disappearing.
'Now isn't that interesting' Riddick thinks before he disappears into the hollows of the ship looking for an escape route into the desert.
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Minutes after Riddick has left the room Johns is back with the other passengers at the ship and he decides to check in on his bounty. Fry decides to join him for she wants to get a break from the other members in the party. The heavy burden of knowing she could have killed them all is still plaguing her and she need to get away from their smiling faces for a couple of minutes.
During the short walk to the prison-room they fall into an easy conversation and by the time they reach the ´door´ they are both laughing softly and are at ease with each other.
When they enter the room Johns instinctively reaches for his gun seconds before he register that Riddick is missing. Swearing up a storm he goes on red alert and tries to scan every corner of the room and corridor. When Fry sees the unconscious body her first thought is that he is dead and feels like throwing up, how many more dead bodies is there going to be before this is over and were was the other prisoner?
Johns is cautious as he moves into the room, checking to see if Riddick is hiding in the shadows, so that he can approach the pale body safely. The peacefulness in the man face just confirms what Fry and Johns are thinking, surely his dead. Killed by Riddick most likely. The cuffs are still on which is good Johns suppose but what really throws him is when he checks the body he finds a pulse. The man is alive.
"He isn´t dead."
"What?"
"I got a pulse, so he is alive."
"Isn´t that a good thing?"
"No. Riddick never leave loose end which means that he hadn't enough time to waste him. He will be close."
"Shit. The others." Fry quickly turns and rushes back towards the others hoping that Riddick hasn´t killed anyone in the minutes they were gone. Johns just rolls his shoulder and stays behind knowing that Riddick will put a distant between them until he gets the lay of the land. They had time but what to do with the stranger during that time was more important right now.
Riddick never left survivors so something was off and Johns didn´t like it but perhaps he could use it. The young man could become useful to him. Better keep him close. But that would be later; he needed to check the premises first just to insure the loyalty of the survivors.
After re-securing the prisoner he stood and pulled out his big gun before walking the in the opposite direction that Fry had taken wanting to do a ground search before he collected his little lambs for a story time.
Entering the desert on the other side of the crashed ship with Pistol in hand, Johns runs into the desert with the two suns high above him. He lets his eyes sweep over the horizon spotting nothing at first but sand-hills until something shiny catches his attention. It's the burned out cuffs, completely destroyed. Finally getting a bigger understanding how screwed they are Johns swears some more. Riddick isn't only on the move he is completely free too.
"Like we needed another way to die."
Xxxxxx
When the survivors get the news from Fry they all rush back to the cargo-container to pillage the storage lockers, pulling out anything that might qualify as a "weapon."
When their hands are full they starts hauling it all back to the improvised camp inside the nav-bay and starts dumping it all into the room; thankfully empty of Owens body since it was removed by Zeeke and Imam earlier.
When they were done they all gather around Johns, who is back from his scouting, waiting impatiently for news. Hoping that it wouldn´t be another problem as they already had their hands full.
"No Riddick, just his cuffs… What do we got? I got a pistol, a shotgun and a baton."
Zeke and Shazza offer up a pick-ax, ancient digging tools and a hunting boomerang he found in one of Paris boxes. Imam shows a ceremonial blade but it isn´t sharp.
Paris who had lagged behind due to the burden in his arms straggles in with antique curios, making a lot of the others raise their brows in wonder.
"What the hell are these?" Johns ask as he takes a cross like scissors from the antique dealer.
"Maratha crow-bill war-picks from the ancient world and the land that was called India. Very rare as it's over 2,000 years old."
Zeke takes a closer look at the different stuff that Paris just drops onto the table that is surrounded by Fry, Shazza, Imam and Jack. Jack is fascinated by one of the weapons that look like a slim ax of some sort, but is stop by Shazza when she tries to pick it up. The girl just gives the women a glare and take up a long stick that is holly but is soon divested from the burden by Zeeke who hold it up.
"An' this?"
"Blow-dart hunting stick from the last forest tribe from the pylox-galaxy. Very very rare, since the tribe's extinct."
Zeeke didn´t have any trouble believing that since the weapons was useless and had no trouble voicing this belief.
"Well, what's the need, anyway? If he's gone, he's gone. Why should he bother us?" Paris asks as he tries to short trough the different weapons hoping to find something that actually would do some damage. He would like a gun but he didn´t think Johns would be up for sharing.
Johns is the one to answer the coward's question.
"Well there would be many reasons. Most likely because he can only live out there for so long, or for the thrill of the kill or his personal favorite to skull fuck you in your sleep just because he can."
A beat. A second beat. No one is moving, not before Shazza dry humor raises its head and breaks the tension.
"He sounds like a charmer."
They all grab for weapons and Johns smirks as he sees the fear in the groups eyes. He has power now and he only needs to use it. Riddick would be his again soon. And if some of the lambs died it would be no skin of his back. The money on the man's head was worth every single one of them and Johns would make sure they paid it if it would come to that.
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