Malconin crossed to Berina, running his fingers lightly down her cheek to her neck, where he suddenly clasped her throat hard. He glanced at her, tilting his head to the side as he watched her sturggle against his grip. "I love you." he told her stuggleing form, knowing that to do so at that moment would anger her utterly, unleashing her enhancements even more. "Now, perhaps you didn't hear me. You will hunt down Liam and you will kill him, Understood?" He released his grip and stepped back, preparing himself in case she lashed out at him.
Travis sat against the wall of a nearby building as he thought about the event that just happend. Travis held his Katana in his right hand, the blade covered in a dark, viscous blood.
*flashback* Travis had ran full speed at the hulking Nemisis with his sword at his side. His pistol forgotten Travis planned on fight this battle with his katana alone. The nemisis swung the thick metal pole at Travis and when he blocked it Travis was thrown back ten feet. The Nemisis stalked Travis as he was getting up. Travis saw this and rolled out of harm's way as the Nemisis' pole cracked the pavement where Travis had just been. Travis groaned as his shoulder hit some debri before he quickly got up and slashed the Nemisis across the back. This promted the bioweapon to backhand Travis across the street. Travis landed hard on a parked car, the windshield splintering on impact. Travis painfully rolled off of the car and saw the Nemisis walking towards him. "Alright you bastard. Give me your best shot." Travis waved the creature on after sheathing his katana. The Nemisis stopped and looked down at Travis, and what happend next shocked him to his core. "I am going to enjoy this!" Nemisis said as he raised the Pole high above his head. Travis' mind screamed foul at the creature's words, but his actions now were on instinct. Nemisis Brought the pole downwards with incedible strength, and Travis acted. He quickly sidestepped to the left and unsheathed his katana. In one clean motion he brought the sword down and through the Nemisis' neck. The large creature fell to the asphalt dead, and Travis slowly walked the a nearby wall.
*end flashback*
'It talked! God i hope that was a part of the upgrades and not that he was one of Malconin's Enhanced humans.' Travis thought as he slowy stood and painfully jogged in the direction Lianne went.
“What makes you think you’re the father?” Twirling Chrys from his grasp completely, she spun around to face him, instead of crossing her arms opting for glaring to him, morose antagonism in her eyes. Sore wrists resting on a keyboard to her back, she waited for an answer.
Kaseus looked to her seriously. “Don’t be droll…you were never the promiscuous type,” He leaned to the wall casually, arm across his back as he examined her features.
She didn’t budge, didn’t flinch, didn’t even blink. At the moment, Chrys was annoyed…no, it extended farther than that. She was pissed. Mad at the fact that he knew of her little secret. But she couldn’t do anything. Not yet anyway. Cocking her head to the side, she spoke, rather jaundiced. “Really Kaseus, you think you know me that well?”
Shaking a finger, another rarity occurred, he smiling slightly. “No...I know. I know I know you that well. Excluding before you arrived in the UBCS and the years before that, you were a cold, stone hearted…heh, I could go on. Point being, you hated everyone and everything. Then, Paul,” His tone changed from charm to malice at the name. “Came along and made you walk on water happy. But when he left you,” Kaseus shook his head, a low whistle leaving his lips. “Every guy on the team went straight on your shit list, you hating the fact that we even existed. You were so god damn foreboding you started to scare most guys away from you-”
Chrys raised an invisible champagne glass to the air in a sarcastic cheer, her own eyebrow arched in amusement. “Good times.”
“-How long did that state last? For a year? Two even? God, it took awhile before I could get to you…and even then, had to worry about the venomous stares of suspicion-”
“That,” Chrys nodded her head, eyes distant. She looked to Kaseus. “That’s one thing that bothers the hell out of me. Why after a year and a half of my and excuse the term, ‘b*tchier than usual’ mood did you still go after me?”
Chuckling lightly to himself, he threw back his head against a white and blue poster, coincidentally labeled, ‘Bang Head Here’. Running a hand through ice white hair, he ruffled it to get a messy look. A breath left him, he now curious. “You never heard the story about ‘forbidden fruit’. Wanting what you can’t have…it looming inches away from you but forever remaining unattainable? That’s why I wanted you…was damn near obsessed even. But I fear, the hour at hand is late,” His lowered his stare back to Chrys quite ominously, eyes an electric ice blue. “Love that line, sets the mood. And considering I know you too well, guess the only way I’m going to get you to answer some questions I have before I blow your brains out-”
“Oh, with this?” Chrys took from behind her back the nickel plated desert eagle she had managed to swipe from Ice’s holster mid-twirl. It was a little habit of his that she had learned too well. He only loaded one gun, despite carrying around two. His excuse was ‘one shot from this is enough…and not like I’ll ever miss’. It also had largely in part to do with his arrogance. Spinning the gun around her finger, she looked to Kaseus inquisitively, anticipating an angry reaction.
To her surprise, he smirked. Shaking his head, he took out a beretta from behind his back, Chrys searching her holster at seeing the weapon and finding her gun MIA. Turning back to Ice, she found the gun aimed between her eyes, Ice leering. “Not exactly…you’re not the only little pickpocket around here, Stone.”
Her nickname…besides the one derived from her first name. It was her chosen codename, considering she wasn’t able to use the term, ‘the b*tch’. That, and if anybody else called her so she would find herself right back in prison. Staring away from the uninviting barrel of her gun, she glared to Ice, forcing back a smile and figuring she would humor him from the time being. “Twenty questions or less…ask away.”
“Good, nice to see you’re cooperating,” Despite the news, he kept the gun aimed to Chrys. “Who’s the father?”
“You asked that already and you know the answer,” Chrys squeezed the bridge of her nose frustrated, eyes tightly closed. “You Kaseus, you’re the f*cking father. Who the hell else would it be? Paul’s?! I haven’t seen him for four f*cking years now!”
He pressed the gun to her forehead. “I told you, no curses. Four months, correct?” Chrys nodded, anxious for the cold metal to be away from her forehead. Sensing her discomfort, he removed the beretta from her skin, aiming to her neck, searching and finding a second target, a major artery. “How long have you known?”
Chrys pushed herself back against the computer, feigning worry. After all, she did have a role to play, what with her beretta aimed to her neck. “Wasn’t positive until about two days ago…” She offered a weak bitter smile. “You know, when we got to this hellhole?”
“Explain.” He paused, adding on. “And that doesn’t count as a question.”
Chrys gulped, looking down to the desert eagle, foreign in her hands. “Sure…your rules…and a little warning, I might get sentimental on you,” Looking up to him, an evanescent quiver came to her lips as she attempted a smile. “First month, I wasn’t too sure, as a matter of fact, I had no idea. Second month, after not getting any,” She glanced to the side awkwardly. “‘Unwanted visitors’ as I’ll put it, I had this whole feeling of strangeness, as if something was happening. Went to the doctor,” A light chuckle came, laughter aimed to her boots, “Thought the cigs were finally catching up with me but they told me the strangest thing,”
A weird shade to her eyes, Chrys forced her gaze to Kaseus’s unaffected cold one. “They told me…that it looked as if I had never smoked a day in my life, I was in fit condition, at my peak. Scared the shit outta me, some weird regeneration going on inside me. I wouldn’t let them check for pregnancy, probably would’ve gotten comatose if I found out just then. I didn’t think much of it, thought I’d just wait for more symptoms to show until that day…few days later I saw you in training and it was if you had ascended into a god state. You were relentless, perfect, and that oddly enough was your flaw,”
Braiding back her rippled chestnut hair, Chrys spoke to the floor aloof. “Instinct bit me in the ass and I just knew you had been altered…enhanced. I already did all my homework on the T and G virus, along with several projects that were to be kept under wraps so I knew you had to be the positive project of one of them. And that I might be harboring some sort of genetically enhanced being in my body. Didn’t want to exactly go to a normal doctor about this so I looked up info on someone who was an expert in the genetic field…”
Kaseus filled in the blank, absorbing her every word, intently aiming all the while. “Malconin Valious…ingenious bastard he is.”
“Damn straight,” agreed Chrys, tying her braid back with her band. “And if anyone was going to check me out over this, it would be him. Screw the price, money would’ve been no object, but of course, this was before he turned the city into Night of The Living Dead and I realized he was a psychotic…” Not wanting to get into name calling or swearing, she shook her head. “Rambling off-topic, sorry. Looked up his file, found him under decease…right, sure. Searched deeper, found out he’d been hiding out in this quaint little city doing only god knows what. And knowing a retrieval mission was only in the works but a month later in the same said city, I knew I’d have to find some way to get on the retrieval crew, despite you being a little less than enthusiastic about the matter.”
Shrugging casually, he waved the gun around. “I had my reasons…as you can see. But you still haven’t answered my question,” His grip tightened on her beretta. “And my patience is growing thin.”
“Here in the city,” A benign smile appeared, Chrys gliding a finger across the nickel plating. Gulping, she felt her eyes become warm, tears starting to come, vision starting to waver. Her voice, however, remained resolute. “At the hospital, I…a comrade and I split up and I was…I was looking around when I came across several of these machines, like an x-ray for your belly,” she joked weakly, looking up to Ice. “I placed down my AK on a table and I fiddled around the counter, finding this little jelly tube and thinking I’d fun around, spread the cold stuff across my waist and stomach. So, once I finished that, I took up on of those metal things and slid it across my stomach slowly…” Chrys paused to build suspense.
Kaseus was apparently captivated, goading her on by waving the gun across her face. “What happened? What’d you see?”
“Not a damn thing…” Chrys responded, a small smile. She crossed her arms, rue across her face. “Now at this, I felt two things. One relief, the first thought in my mind, ‘thank god I’m not having his child’. And then…I felt disappointed. As if, ‘Damn, guess I’ll never be a mother’.” Chrys kicked at an invisible rock, grip tightening around herself. “But silly me, turns out I had been looking at the wrong screen. I look to my right and I see the smallest image of a child, resting in the pit of my stomach, squirming around in its life…living inside me...”
*To be continued...
A tear threatened to fall from her eye, Chrys shaking uncontrollably, rueful smile directed to the ground. “Kaseus, let me tell you, I cried, I mean, tears were just streaming from my eyes, I couldn’t stop myself. It wasn’t out of sadness…or the fear that had consumed me…it was out of shock at having this child oblivious to the hell outside me, its protector, in a sweet ignorance to this hell on earth it might be born into…the only thing that managed to stop my little fit was a moan, zombified nurse apparently missed lunch break. My comrade, the newbie I was with, he came barging in, AK-47 firing erratically, eventually getting that much needed headshot. He looked to me, shouting ‘what the hell are you doing?’. You know me, the defensive b*tch. Lowered my shirt, cocked my AK, stone cold glare, ‘why the f*ck do you care?’. And that was that.” She started to rub her eyes, trying to get away ‘something’ that had flown inside them.
Kaseus gulped, lowering the beretta and staring to the door. He didn’t know how to react or if he should. Finding his voice, he forced away a quaver, unable to even glance to Chrys. “So when did you plan on telling me? If ever…?”
A bitter smile appeared, Chrys finished with her tears. “Oh, I did plan on telling you. It was a little before you shot Andrew. What, doesn’t ring any bells? The newbie I was with, had a wife, thankfully no kids. We finally managed to find you, you holding a gun over a dying colleague, I only able to wince as his brains splattered across the floor. Andrew retaliated in a rage, you shooting him first, blood falling across my work shirt and attire, he falling face down dead,” She sighed in an attempt to keep her anger in check. “You’ll have to excuse me if telling you about it was the last thing on my mind….”
His tone was cool. “You’re never going to get over it, are you? The fact that I sabotaged the weapons, gave most inactive explosives, screwed over any who might have had potential. Who might’ve given way that maybe people could get by without enhancements,” He raised back her beretta. “I killed them all, no point in denying that but who really cares?” Chrys looked to him appalled, he unmoved by her shock. “No, Chrys, that’s hypocritical coming from Miss ‘I’m going to nuke the city’!”
“Well, excuse me if it isn’t exactly full of life! It has to be done, some will die-”
“No, you will die! You, our child, that teenage youth, Paul-”
Chrys stomped her foot brutally, fists balled up to her sides. “Don’t put him into this! Like you give a damn if he lives or dies! You,” She pointed to him in a drunken motion. “You’re the one who hates him without reason!”
“Just like you hate me for no reason? And it’s before I pulled this coup so don’t even use that as an excuse!”
“I have my god damn reasons,” Chrys poked into his chest hard, annunciating her last three words sharply. “But you just have this malice to him. What’s your reason, hmm?” She looked up to him in a rage, Kaseus keeping his gaze to the ceiling. She grabbed onto his shirt, fury getting the best of her from his apathy. “What the HELL is your reason?!”
“BECAUSE HE HU-” The grabbing movement had gotten him, Chrys’s jibes managing to break him. Taking a breath, he looked to Chrys coldly, in a swift movement, moving her hands from his shirt. ‘Manipulative little…’ He kept the rest of the swear in the far corners of his mind, looking to Chrys with a conceding seriousness. “You want to know why, Chrysantheum? Hmm? Because…” His fist was shaking, it against his pride to go too heavily into his issues. “Because he hurt you. He managed to do the one thing that years of abuse, physically and emotionally, couldn’t. He broke your spirit…he made you cry. And for that, I wanted him to die. Are you happy now?” his explanation ended miserably, a hint of pink staining his cheeks.
Chrys couldn’t help it, a grin broke her angry features. She was flattered, surprised that he even cared about her feelings. “You big softie,” She punched him lightly in the shoulder, teasingly. Her attitude soon became insouciance. “Guess it’s my turn to reveal why?”
Now inches away from her, Kaseus’s eyes gained a charming, malevolent hue. He backed her up to the computers, grasp taut over her chin. “Oh, I already know why. You hate me because of three defining things that compelled you to me. Power…I can tell just by a touch, you’re drawn to it, makes you shiver…not that you mind,” Raising her face up to him, he looked down to her. “Mysteriousness…an avid curiosity to what was behind the apathy, why I held remoteness in my eyes, if I was truly just ice on the inside and finally,” He placed her face inches from his, breathing on her lips. “Sexual attraction, last one speaks for itself…”
Gulping, Chrys got over her feckless moment, pushing Kaseus away from her, massaging her jaw bones. She hated it, the fact that he was right. But there was even more to it than that. “No, Kas, I hate you because you somehow manage to change from sweetie to psycho in seconds. I hate you because I know in my heart you’ll never be a good father to my child!” She didn’t know what the hell she felt in her heart but she knew she wanted to get on his nerve, hurt him the only viable way she could.
His jaw clenched tightly, eyes growing dark, dead. Chrys, feeling the smallest pangs of guilt, brushed past him and started for the door, only stopping when feeling her beretta placed deep within the back of her head. Kaseus spoke as if he had lost himself. “I still have a job to do and your death shall set me free. Though, considering you are harboring my child, any last words? Requests?”
Remorse was quickly replaced with disbelief. “You’d kill the…” she couldn’t even finish it, everything becoming a blur. “A question? That’s all I ask.”
“As long as it isn’t sweetsie, like, ‘did you ‘l’ word me?’ etc.”
“Gods no!” Chrys scoffed, “Already used that line. No, my question…Kaseus, didn’t you ever wonder, didn’t it ever cross your mind why I never shot you, despite all my opportunities?” An impudent smile started to form.
Kaseus shrugged, still shaken from her comment. “Dunno. Had feelings for me still? Doesn’t matter either way.” He pulled the trigger.
The sound of clicking was heard, Chrys practically beaming as she turned around. “No sweetie, I ran out of ammo for my beretta just before you arrived,” Blowing a kiss, she winked, raising his desert eagle. “Love!” Shooting the ceiling lamp, sparks flew to the ground shrouding the room in darkness. During this diversion, Chrys kicked open the door, flying out the room in a mad dash.
Reaching the end of the corridor, Chrys looked around frantically, making a left towards one of several elevators, hopefully one still in service. Reaching the chipping gray painted double doors, entrance agape into a dark abyss of wires, she slammed her fist on the call button, swearing consistently to herself.
Feeling a pulsating from her head, Chrys instinctively whipped around, katana raised, just in time as she managed to avoid a strike that would’ve split her little head in half. Ice swung to her wildly, skillfully, knowingly…knowing he would eventually manage to get through her defense, it becoming sloppy as she tried to avoid falling over the edge.
Her eyes narrowed, glancing into the darkness, sparks striking her eyes. ‘Not a bad idea,’ Stepping forward, Chrys slashed across his waist, he evading gracefully. Now having enough space, she leapt backwards, falling into the dark chute of the elevator…catching one of three huge thick wires with a free hand, refusing to let go of the blade.
Ice plunged after, catching a second wire and continuing on his assault, anxious to see her blood spill, wanting to see her die. With one hand, she did the best she could, forming a small oops as she cut the third wire. It didn’t seem of importance to either, both continuing the suicidal assaults, stopping mid slash at a heavy groan from above.
Looking up, they noticed a huge dark object descending towards them viciously, a wire no longer supporting it. Glancing to each other they pushed in the opposite direction and squeezed against the wall, Chrys closing her eyes blasé as the metal box flew down past her, crashing to the ground. Once it had passed, Kaseus followed after, intent on impaling her. But she was ready for him, pushing herself out the way and making a quick slash above his head, cutting his wire and sending him after the elevator, she only managing to hear the sound of metal crashing into cement but not the comforting/sickening thud of his body hitting the ground.
Sliding herself down, Chrys swung herself to an elevator entrance. With her stiletto, she managed to pierce through the door crack, it opening automatically onto a nightmarish floor, nefarious neon azure illuminating a thick rolling fog on the ground. Desert Eagle in the air, heart skipping a beat, she walked straight, turning the gun instantly to a skull on her left, a second gun digging into her temple.
Ice stood to her side, panting, grime across his face. “You made me abandon a katana,”
She sneered. “Cry me a fu-”
An explosion cut her off, sending the pair flying back several feet. Getting up quickly, shots aimed at each other’s skulls, both eyes widened at a huge creature looming from a raging fire, roars echoing in the hall.
Chrys gulped. “Hey Kaseus, I’m willing to form a temporary alliance if you are…”
Kaseus analyzed the situation, nodding. “Deal.”
Taking the Desert Eagles away from each others temples, both extended the guns out automatically, firing away with a strange familiarity side by side to the new threat…
*To be continued...
"Yeah well just be glad it wasn't the other guy." Travis said as he grabbed Lianne by the arm and led her to the bakery just a few yards away. "We gotta get what we need and go to the hospital quickly. Malconin won't escape the punishment he deserves once this is over. I'll see to that if it kills me."
Malconin prodded Paul forward as they made their way through the contaminated city streets, his eyes ever watching for threats while his mind concentrated on Chrys and the one he'd come to dub as 'The Threat'. They were in an...Malconin smiled...an interesting situation. One that would hopefully solve his problem for him.
Malconin glanced at Drake, who marched beside him in stone faced silence, his gun reluctantly pointed at the back of Raine's head. "Do you think me a bad man, Drake? As far as this whole situation is concerned? Misleading you...damning this city...does that make me ultimately evil, when all I ever wanted was to secure the future of mankind?"
"What makes you think you have the right to govern that, Mal? You are not a god...you have no right to dictate how our race evolves. History has shown that a species evolves naturally to adapt to almost any given environment. You don't think we would have evolved in a way to allow us to survive well into the future? Instead, you have removed any chance of that happening, you have denied the human race its chance to adapt to a changing world. You have not saved our kind, Mal, you have doomed us, and that leaves me no choice but to see you as an evil man."
Drake glared at him intensly. "And you can be sure that, should we survive, I will make sure you recieve your just punishment."
Drake clenched his jaw to keep from saying anymore. He was pissed, and his temper was not helping at all. He knew he probably couldn't actually kill Mal, but he would make him wish he never enhanced him. He was gonna push Mal to the edge, even if it ment Drake died. He had nothing, and now he wasn't even in good company. And no matter what Mal said, he wasn't in debt. Drake was a soldier, but he wasn't gonna rapay a this bastard, even if every honorable nerve screamed against it.
Travis slipped a clip into the Ak-47's reciever and pulled the bolt back. The first round chambered with a satisfying metallic sound. he had put on a vest full of mag pouches for the Ak and set the O-Dachi over it. "Lianne you know that Malconin is a crafty and devious Bastard, so when we regroup with him never let your guard down. Now if you're ready lets go find him."
Lianne nodded and slipped out of the dark corner and walked slowly ahead.
-----------------------
Elsewhere...
Berina pushed open the heavy doors that separated her from her prey. The lights once illuminating the dank corridor where either spent or flickering due to the hard beating the building had taken.
She stalked through the corridors almost on all fours, crouched and following the scent of Liam, the one who would deliver her from the evil forced upon her.
Liam rounded the corner and flicked his forked tounge out, sensing the danger that Berina stowed within her, hissing threateningly, he latched onto the wall to his right with his thick and merciless claws, puncturing the metal as he went to follow her scent.
To be continued...
Travis and Lianne ran along the alleyways and sidestreets of the city of the dead. Suddenly a group of zombies appeared at the opening of the alley way the two had just ran down. Travis crouched down and set the butt of his AK against his shoulder as he begin to fire on the horde. Slivers of pain inched their way from his Shoulder into his brain as he tried to focus on headshots, hoping that Lianne was doing the same.
During their time together, Chrys and Kaseus had spent the better part of their lives as two of the most unsociable, isolated soldiers making up the entire UBCS force. Unfriendly, distant, they held no warmth for adversaries and no mercy for any who had stood in their way. Kaseus, dubbed ‘Ice’ was the colder of the two, showing no sympathy for any who died at his hands, no matter what age or status. Chrys, codenamed ‘Stone’ was the unaffected one, apathetic, nonchalant…just doing her job. Together, they were manipulative, ruthless, cruel, but highly efficient at getting their task done. The perfect duo, nothing could stop them…the twelve foot biohazard center piecing a cascading haze of brilliant purple smoke before them being no exception.
The creature was gargantuan, a huge heaping mass of slimy pink flesh and bare muscle, constantly writhing about, mutating, managing to take up six feet in width alone. Blood trailed its footsteps, the room it had burst from smoldering from the earlier explosion, charred out glass tubes and scientists in dead bloodied smocks being the only evidence that any experimentation had gone on in the unsettlingly dim corridor which would have to do for any melee planned.
Eyes rolled back into whites, the soulless abomination stood still, inactive in its horror, the only thing keeping it in such a state being a metal prong sticking out from its centre emitting several thousand volts of electricity into its being. It had been an idea from Kaseus after Chrys had realized the bullets only were only being absorbed by the creature. Currently, the two were ducked down, hidden behind their respective overturned russet and charcoal tables, ejecting wasted magazines from useless Desert Eagles, an urgency to their actions.
Kaseus peered over the russet brown, grip tight over the edge, he murmuring. “It’s even worse than I thought,”
Chrys, partially paying attention as the magazine fell to the ground, felt around through the thick moisture. “What? Has it grown something identical to a head?”
“No, I,” Tossing a fresh magazine in her direction, his face remained deadpan. “It’s horrible…it looks just like you when you wake up in the morning…”
She stopped, fingertips resting on the cold metal magazine, the new one in her lap. Glancing to Kaseus, his eyes sinuously sapphire, she threw the wasted mag to his head, it clattering against the wall beside him. “Go to hell!” Nonetheless, she smirked, her smile from a silent disbelief that this was the same man who had tried to kill her only a few minutes ago. A sudden stanch gravity hit her, Chrys motioning her head in the direction of the beastie. “So, what are we going to do?”
The creature had started to twitch, regaining focus back onto its surroundings, back onto its two unlucky preys. Kaseus dug around in an inner pocket of his expensive black leather coat, Chrys managing to catch a glimpse of enough magnum ammo for a small army. He suddenly took out a blank tank, approximately the size of a two liter soda. “Well, I’m going to set my plan into motion,” Pulling back a fist, with a fierce blow, he knocked out the plaster from the wall, debris flying across his face and revealing silver tubes serpentine across off white water stained cement. “Of course, one of us is going to have to serve as bait…” he mused.
Chrys placed her free hand on her hip, standing up from her hiding place. “And I suppose I’m going to be a diversion of some sort i.e. ‘bait’?”
Standing up with her, Kaseus shoved her towards the creature. “Bingo!”
“Hell no!” Chrys waved her arms for balance, jumping back to Kaseus, vexed at his plan. “Kas, in case you’ve forgotten, I’m not enhanced, I don’t have super speed, super strength, X-Ray vision, the works, I’m friggin’ human! I can’t do anything against that!” She motioned to the gruesome bubblegum figure, lidless eyes dancing about wildly.
Grabbing her hand, Kaseus kissed it gently. “There is one thing you can do. One thing anybody can do if their stuck against odds not exactly in their favor. One thing I’m confident even you can do.”
Feeling a little hope return, Chrys looked up to Kaseus, willing to hear out any advice he might offer. “What?”
“Pray,” He offered with an offhanded shrug. Chrys’s eyes narrowed to blue slits, she holding back a curse as she curtly snatched away her hand. Rolling his eyes, he poked her lightly in the stomach. “You recover easily, don’t worry too much. Now if you’ll excuse me.” He went back to the wall, doing what, Chrys wasn’t certain.
Chrys didn’t have to worry too much on it though or rather, she didn’t have time, as the pink mass of flesh, with a squeamish, nauseating noise, formed a pink muscular arm, at its ending a boulder sized fist. It threw a punch in her direction, Chrys reflexively dodging to the side, jumping away from Ice.
Fingers wrapped around the magnum, Chrys started to take aim, stopping after realizing she wasn’t sure where to shoot. Letting out a muffled roar, the foundation shaking from the sound, it lashed out multiple muscular arms to Chrys, she evading it all as best as she could, moving further and further down the hall as the creature destroyed the lime green and midnight black walls, one fleshy punch after another.
Reaching a dead end, another green wall, she pivoted around to the creature, noting only wooden crates and broken tables, glints of silver pinned to the ceiling. A muffled glee filled roar escaped the creature, the flesh around its middle molding into a circular pattern. ‘Something’s hiding behind that…weak point perhaps?’
Just then, a sliding interrupted her, a black object zooming past the creature and to her footsteps. She picked it up quickly, tumbling haphazardly from five well placed blows able to decapitate her. Bouncing to her feet, Chrys noted she was holding a magazine in her hand. Her eyes nearly bugged out, she remembering the AK-47 she had strapped across her back since the hospital. Once she had ran out of ammo, she never thought of it again, but now…
Holstering the Desert Eagle, Chrys ripped of the AK from her back, letting the empty magazine fall to the floor. Lithely lodging in the new magazine, Chrys gave a dangerous smile, running backwards as she pulled the trigger, ripping apart tendrils of pulsating flesh and muscle, roars increasing with each layer torn away. Getting a rush from the hailstorm of bullets flying from her weapon, she only let go of the trigger at hearing a rapid clicking, gun smoking at its tip, magazine wasted.
Soon after, Chrys felt her hands grow numb from shock, the AK falling lackadaisically to the dew covered ground. She hadn’t destroyed a protective skin but rather the equivalent of what had served to be the creature’s lips. Open mouthed, all that could be seen was an abyss of endless red, serrated teeth decorating every square inch, from the pit of its gut, a licker-esque tongue lunging upwards, intent on getting a hold on Chrys, among other things…
Taking her lingering thought as her cue, Chrys snapped out from her dumbfounded state, returning back to the dodging game. However, the creature wasn’t as mindless as it had originally put on, predicting Chrys’s movement and smashing a fleshy arm in her way, blocking off her path. With nowhere to run, Chrys stood her ground, coercing away the faintness starting to come at seeing three long blood stained claws push out from a dark muscular arm. ‘Just great…dying from a blob rip-off…now with claws!’
A fleeting noise was heard, a gear being turned or something being activated. Accompanying this, the glints of silver Chrys had glimpsed earlier sprayed the area with liquid, the sprinkler system becoming active. At smelling what clearly wasn’t water, Chrys dodged out of the way of the thickly falling nauseating yellow liquid, ducking under the confused sizzling creature’s arm and moving back to Ice, he removing his hand from the wall.
Crumbling up a small white box, Ice took a drag from his last Newport, the filter the only remaining portion. He spoke amiably, though, his words were anything but. “You didn’t think I’d let it kill you, now, did you, Chrys? You’re mine and mine alone to fight and nothing is going to stop that,” Taking the cig from his lips, he let out a steady stream of lurid grey smoke, balancing the still lit filter on his thumb. He flicked the cig from his finger, it spiraling into a golden yellow puddle on the floor.
On impact, it erupted, engulfing the puddle and the surrounding area in flames, bubblegum beastie included. A high pitched squeal left the hulking mass of flesh, tendrils sprouting from unnatural places and striking out through dead fluorescent ceiling lights as a gasoline fueled pyre devoured it.
The duo hadn’t stayed for the show, backing out of the huge room they had been fighting, well, where Chrys had been dodging blows and Kaseus had done a switch from the water system to gasoline. Chrys didn’t bother to think about how, she was too busy throwing up, the fumes noxious to her sensitive sense of smell. Pointing to Kaseus standing to the opposite side of the doorway, she brooded darkly, angry at her weakness. “You do realize you’re going to pay for this?”
Eyes darting into the room, Kaseus dashed past, grabbing Chrys’s pointing hand as he started to run down the corridor. “I’ll pay later. Right now we have bigger problems on our hands…”
“Bigger than this?” Chrys looked back to the doorway, instantly regretting it as she did so. Slamming into the walls were dozen narrowed tentacles of burnt pink flesh, elongating from the still living, and pretty pissed creature. It groped along the ground, pulling itself from the room to reveal muscle and tissue falling down in scorched chunks, a wide row of teeth revealed forming a jagged inexorably ghastly smile, big wild spiraling cat eyes jutting out from the very top of its being.
*To be continued
“Bigger than this,” Following after Ice for less than a minute, Chrys yanked her hand away, dashing down a solitary corridor. Ice, puzzled at her action, followed after her, swerving through intersections, meandering around corners, going on rather aimlessly if he didn’t know any better. She finally skidded to a halt, stopping outside a dark doorway, the only other light coming from another doorway seemingly miles away.
Motioning Kaseus to follow, Chrys bolted into the room, flipping lights on and revealing several machines, humming violently to power the floor, three huge jug shaped barrels stocked up against the corner wall. Chrys’s eyes glinted, she heading over to an off white jug. “It took me awhile to realize where the hell we were. A haunted corridor in the middle of a TV station? Not likely, this was just the locale where stage effects and props were kept, the rolling fog on the ground coming from a fog machine. Guessing the lights might’ve died,” Kaseus now up to her, Chrys dug into the inside of his jacket, finding and taking out a flare. Lighting it quickly, she started to attach it to the jug strangely marked ‘propane’. “…So the emergency lights went into affect, what with the blue and purple neon. Bad taste on whoever’s part. Anyways, considering some sort of fuel needs to keep everything in check and be used for those contained explosives, figured this is where they’d keep what we’d need!”
Chrys dragged the metal canister into the center of the room, red flare cracking sparks and smoke across the can. Kaseus kept his eyes trained on the doorway, readying his gun at catching sight of one of several slimy flaming tendrils. Backing away, the creature realized it had found its targets, feeling Kaseus’s boots step across the ground and into the fog.
Releasing an aggressive, almost disconsolate howl, it made its entrance, destroying the doorway and looming in front of the duo, burning black and fiery, a huge hellish ominous presence. Stopping the creature before it could start on its pursuit tactics, Kaseus let off a whole round into the ceiling, the huge heavy glass lights crashing down and temporarily delaying the creature. He jogged backwards several feet to where Chrys stood, a thought nagging him. “Wait, time out. I can survive an explosion no problem but what do you intend on doing?”
A good eight feet away from the tank, Chrys stopped mid fire, shiver erupting down her spine as the creature roared in its horrible glory, knocking aside the lamp fixtures and lunging to the duo. No longer hesitating, she obliquely tilted her head, clenching her teeth bitterly. “Guess I’ll burn.” She pulled the trigger.
The next thing that happened, Chrys had no words for. She had sent a golden bullet spiraling into the off-white metal tank as the creature hovered inches away, only to find herself buried in Kaseus’s chest, his arms wrapped tightly over her as an earsplitting explosion rocked the room, a neon pink inferno illuminating the scene, she only able to feel the heat as Ice took the impact of the explosion, flames licking the ceiling, arcing over Kaseus’s form.
However, the force of the explosion was too much, even for him, Ice, losing his balance and sent flying into the air, Chrys flying along after and the two slamming several yards away out into a beige painted room, fleshy pieces landing their way, the only light coming from the dying explosion, both of their clothes still smoldering.
Landing on her back, Chrys groaned, lifting a weak hand to her hair, warm sticky scarlet reaching her fingertips, the bottom of her braid slightly singed. “Not my day…” Turning onto her side, Kaseus lay but a few feet away, eyes closed in a dream but he looking completely unscathed. At feeling her eyes watching him, he woke up, rolling electric blue in her direction, chastise visible. She shook her head, confused by his actions. “For someone who wants me dead, that was quite the noble move back there.”
Kaseus’s eyes gained a beguiling hue, he sitting up. “Correction, I want to kill you, but that back there would’ve been suicide, besides being overtly idiotic on your part,” With an effort, he got onto a knee. “That’s no fun.”
Playing copycat, Chrys’s followed suit, left knee on the dew covered ground, eyebrow arched distinctly. “Idiotic coming from Mr. ‘Human Shield’ isn’t much. Although,” Astonishment shone in her eyes. “What do you use in your hair? I mean, it’s not even singed or anything.”
Kaseus got to his feet, shaking his head about as he cracked his neck. Once done, his right hand rested lightly to the black katana hilt across his back. “Imported European product, costs around two thousand…American.”
Scoffing, Chrys jumped to her feet, hand resting on her blade hilt. “You never were cheap but are you out of your mind? For a single hair product? Don’t think I’m ever going to understand you men.”
“Oh no Chrys,” Kaseus tsked, shaking a forefinger while he unsheathed a katana, Latin scriptures engraved in a metallic alien blue. Pointing to Chrys, he gained a strange change about him, not angry but no longer cold. “I’m one of a kind, you’ll never understand me…”
Swiftly pulling her katana from its sheath, Chrys rose it horizontally, stopping an overhead strike. Swiping her blade across his, she jumped back, stopping an underhanded swing. “You’re right…don’t think I ever will…” Forcing his blade back, Chrys attempted her first offensive strike, him parrying it gracefully along with a frenzy of lunges and blow, both blades dancing under dashes of firelights and dying embers, the neon purple starting up from beneath the rolling fog giving the forged pieces of tempered metal an ethereal transcendent glow.
Jutting her head to the side, Chrys ignored the thin scratch that had come from the blow, a shower of sparks by her cheek as Ice pressed his blade on to her neck, her blade barely keeping him at bay. He gave an intense stare into Chrys’s eyes, talking in barely a whisper. “Humor me, love. What would you have done if you had gotten the chance to live through this whole ordeal…escaped the outbreak and the UBCS,” Receding his katana from her cheek, he swiped out towards her arm, Chrys sloppily blocking a blow as he continued. “Had my son/daughter, only to find out they were a genetic experiment? Would you destroy them?” Chrys’s eyes gained a daze, Kaseus, thinking he’d managed to catch her off guard, swinging a decapitating blow.
Chrys stopped him, blade raising up to her defense, looking him in the eyes vindictively. She gave a cold smile. “Guess that’s one of the things I would have had to accept,” Chrys shouldered him back, making a diagonal slash across his leather jacket, Ice stopping her from making a second move, catching her blade as she attempted a slash, both combatants staring eye to eye. She cocked her head. “Who do I look like? My mother? Unlike her, I could never hate my child, I would love him/her no matter what, even if they weren’t everything I had wanted. What with the world currently being the f*cked up way it is, I couldn’t have given them the perfect life,” Pushing closer to Ice, she looked up to him with a fiery intensity. “But I damn well would’ve tried.”
Ice looked down to her, pleased with her response. Snatching his blade away from the standstill, he jumped back, boots stepping away several feet into the dew. Curious, Chrys repeated his moves, stepping back until the two had a ten foot gap in between them. She had been speaking in past tense earlier, knowing he’d kill her, and with the sudden distance procedure, she was now positive. A final charge. She frowned. “You do realize this isn’t fair? You have a longer reach than me. You’ll kill me first.”
Kaseus knew she’d get the gist of his idea, a smile forming across his lips, he responding rather endearingly. “Not necessarily…you’re katana is longer than mine. We should reach at approximately the same time.”
“Oh, a double KO?” Chrys steadied her blade in Kaseus’s direction, despite looking death in the eye, not a single tear willing to come at the life she could have had. Sighing, a lament filled smile formed. “Guess we’ll die as one big happy.”
Kaseus shrugged, katana ready. “Guess so. Enough stalling, you have to die some time. Any last requests, love?” Chrys shook her head with the same sad accepting smile, Kaseus looking unaffected by it all. Twirling his blade deftly, he became unnaturally relaxed. “Then I say it’s about time we ended this little fiasco, no?”
Losing her smile, a cold animosity filled her eyes. “As you wish.”
Without delay, the two disaffected ex-lovers charged rapidly towards each other, katana’s extended. As they reached each other, the sounds of two blades impaling flesh was heard, only one fighter able to smile from the end result…
*To be continued…or will Chrys’s little tale end here? Lol, I hate reading cliffhangers but making them is as sure as hell fun! 😆
Malconin lead the group through the car park of a Mall, using the shopping centre as a shortcut to Chrys' location, sensing that the time available to reach her was shortening.
The Mall was like everything else in the city...an utter mess. Shops were either guttered by flames or rubble strewn, dead bodies littering the floor here and there. The entire Mall floor seemed to be covered in shattered glass, that crunched loudly under foot, sending an annoying shiver down Malconin's spine, as if someone was repeatedly stepping on his grave. He hated that feeling.
The flourescent white lights flickered erratically, revealing to Malconin's sharp eyes, a shadow that was unnatural and shouldn't have been their. Before he could react, however, something hard and sharp hit him in the forhead. Malconin shook off the impact, his skin still in tact, and stared down at the small metallic object shining under the flickering light.
"A Ninja Star?" Drake raised his eyebrow.
"Malconin squatted and picked up the object, turning it over in his hand. "A Shuriken, to be exact," he replied quietly, frowning at the tiger depicted on the ancient Ninja weapon.
A crunch of glass sent his head snapping up, and out of the shadows ,into the flickering light, emerged the figure who had obviously thrown the Shuriken.
Standing before them was a man, dressed in tight fitting Navy Blue leathers. A matching Navy Blue cape was clasped to his right shoulder only by a silver clip shaped like a tiger, the cape fanning down his back to the heels of knee his, black leather boots. The boots, likewise, had tiger clips holding them on, three running up the front of each boot. Attached to the mans wrists were metallic guantlets, running down to the second knuckle of each finger, and running up his arm to form a point at the elbows. Again, a tiger was depicted on each.
Cloaking the mans head was a tight fitting leather hood and coveing his mouth and forehead was yet more silver, shaped in the form of a tigers head, mouth agape and seemingly ready to devour whoever he encountered, the only part of the mans face left visible being intense sapphire blue eyes. All in all, it was rather intimidating.
Held in the figures right hand was a sword. A massive eight feet inlength, but only and inch and a half thick, the streamline sapphire blade ran up to a silver hilt, and like every other peice of silver on the man, it was shaped like a tiger.
"Several years ago," the figure spoke in quiet english, an asian accent evident, "a Westerner came to Japan. A Westerner who knew far too much about things he should have known nothing about at all. This Westerner, somehow, found his way into the ancient catacombs below Tokyo Two, and followed them for the arduous three week journy to an ancient and secret place, a place untouched by out siders for thousands of years, a place unchanged by the ravages of time."
The fiugre walked casually towards the group, boots making absolutely no noise upon the broken glass, sapphire eyes boring a hole in Malconin as he ignored the others absolutely.
"But this Westerner did not come alone. With him, he brought a small army of modern soldiers, and an entourage of scientists and genetisists. The Westerners goal, it would turn out, was to locate a perfect subjebt, to be used as a guinepig in a futuristic experiment. And, as an afterthought, this Westerner had his sights on the ancient and Mythical sword guarded by the people of this secret place, a sword believed to have supernatural powers."
The Ninja's eyes narrowed. "When the people of this ancient and secret village refused to give up either, the Westerner destroyed everything. Burning, pillaging, raping...all to gain what he wanted. When all was said and done, the Westerner had taken his subject, but was unable to locate the sword. Content with achieving one goal, and finally dismissing the sword as mere legend, the Westerner left behind his destruction to return to his homeland."
"From within the destruction, a small boy crawled from the ashes of a burning building to come face to face with the devestation left by the Westerner on his people, and his young fingers clenched tightly around the hilt of the ancient sword of legend. But the young boys grief would be short, for he would quickly set himself the goal of avenging his people, and...he knew exactly how to do just that. For you see, the Westerner, in his arrogance, spilled everything to the old dying warrior that was the spiritual leader of th village he had just destroyed. He told the warrior of all that he planned, he told the warrior of how he could be killed, and he told the warrior of what would happen should he fall. The Westerner, did not think the old warrior would know of what he was talking about, but the Westerner wasn't counting on the young fourteen year old being in earshot."
"Having survived the destruction, the boy spent many years trainin hard, learning everything he could of what the Westerner told the old warrior, infiltrating places only a Ninja could hope to infiltrate. And the the boy found what he was looking for."
With a flourish, he flicked away part of his cape that was covering his thigh, revealing a custom made belt, holding six cylinders containing a bright green substance. Attached to the end of each cylinder was a three inch needle.
"Now, that young boy is a man, and he has come to avenge the death of his Clan. That subject you took, Westerner...Malconin Valious...that subject was my father. I have learnt of his fate, and I shall make you pay tenfold."
The Ninja glared at his sword. "I have come to learn that there is nothing supernatural about this blade, but for thousands of years it has been passed from father to son in my Clan." He glanced back up at Malconin. "It is only fitting that this should be the blade to end your life. In the name of my father, Ryo Hyusaba, and the Clan of the Tiger, I, Tao Hyusaba, shall destroy you for your heinous act against my people."
After only a slight pause, the Ninja Toa Hyusaba lifted his blade and charged.
***lol...ya know, I have no idea where that just came from...but...I do know where I am taking it, sorta...so...ya...prepare for a swerve.***
((To be continued))