7 actually mistah, but hey, theyre only soldiers, gonna die anyhow, not important, only objects in the plot...
Luke
7 actually mistah, but hey, theyre only soldiers, gonna die anyhow, not important, only objects in the plot...
Luke
I've only read the first 2 chapters, gonna take a break, then read some more later. You seem to be doing great so far.
No, I'm sure it was 8
links faulty, anyhoo, do an image search for FF7 Biggs or Wedge. Its 7, not 8. C'mon people support me here...
Luke
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: L_evans on 2004-01-18 13:34 ]</font>
Ok, Chapter 6 is done if anyone wants to read it, this story is gonna go on for a looooong time. But in the mean time, does anyone have any suggestions?
Luke
one thing you could do is combine your edit posts and the story into 1 like hv the edits before then hv the story. A friend of mine had done the same thing when writing his story Released which he will be posting it on here in a few days as well as its follower Preparations. so maybe he could help and you should take a look at his when he comes. anyway keep it up.
Chapter 6:
The rope was only 20 metres long, so when Biggs got to the bottom he had to clip on his rope, then continue down. Once everyone was on the second rope, the sergeant would clip the second into the burnt rock, unclip the first and lower it to Biggs. This continued for over an hour before Biggs called up having seen a floor to the shaft.
We heard the resounding sound of rubbing gravel as Biggs leapt to the ground. Once we were all down I looked around. The floor was all ash, burnt into oblivion; everywhere we walked we had dark smears over our boots. We were in a underground cavern, with small lava streams inching their way down the blasted path. We were in what appeared to be a rounded cavern, but it sloped downwards into a path at the other side. The ash had been pushed aside, and there were footprints in the ground. The heat given off by the lava, even though there wasn’t much was dizzying. I unzipped the chest and arm sections of my suit, letting it hang loose at my waist. Kase and Darvant did the same, the soldiers tying their shirts round their waists, but keeping on their protective vests.
We strode along, following the path in the ash downwards. The ash swirled round our feet as we walked, angry at the disturbance of its rest. The light dimmed as we continued until we couldn’t see were it not for the small stream of lava emitting a faint radiant glow. As we entered the tunnel at the end of the chamber, we saw how small it was. Kase looked around uneasily, evidently unsettled by the smallness of the dark space. We could all just about stand upright, but the walls closed in on us, leaving barely enough room to have one arm outstretched. The heat from the lava in the tunnel was unbearable, but it got worse.
Further ahead we saw dark shapes moving, not human, larger than the mammals above ground. Huge, hulking figures, with a large fin on their backs, and scythe-like claws hanging at their sides. Their scaled bodies shimmered in the haze of the heat as they moved, the only sound being the soft scraping of the scales. Their eyes were pure black, a shiny little black jewel, swallowing all the light around it, glinting in the gloom.
"They're in our way, and we will not be surprised again. Men, raise rifles and fire, aim for the eyes. We will draw them here, Hunters, you wait untill they are here, then we fall back and engage in the chamber back there" the sergeant growled, motioning for the soldiers to spread out and assume firing positions.
Darvant snorted with indignation at having to wait to fight, but offered no verbal opposition. He spun on his heel and strode back to the large chamber, not willing to wait in the heat. Kase followed, flexing his gauntlets. I stayed with the soldiers and the sergeant. I knew how fast these creatures were, these idiots would need the help.
"Open fire! Single shots, aim for the eyes, take down as many as possible!" The sergeant bellowed, tossing a small detonation charge onto the path the creatures would take. The soldiers began firing in unison, with Biggs leaning against the wall and taking shots with his pistol. The moment the first volley crashed into the ranks of the monsters, they turned towards us, claws raised and eyes glinting with the same fervour and blood lust I saw in Darvant. He would have fun fighting these things.
They lurched forwards, moving fast for their large bulk, photon gouts hitting and leaving smoke where they hit, but the monsters paid no heed. The sergeant swore. I knew this would happen.
"Fall back! Full auto, get clear of the charge!" the sergeant yelled over the cacophony of rifles firing. However, the monsters made no sound, only the shuffling of feet as they strode through the ash.
As the first couple monsters walked over the charge, the sergeant flipped a switch and it detonated. The first of the creatures fell to the ground, its body blown away from the shoulders down. The second lost only an arm, and continued. The sergeant growled, furious at how ineffective the bomb was. Twenty or more of the creatures were moving forward, murder in their eyes.
I drew my katana, and walked into the clearing of the chamber.
"These scales are thinner under the armpit, the jaw and behind the knees. Anywhere else will require excessive force to do any damage." I said to Darvant and Kase, they nodded, Darvant grinning as the sergeant stared in disbelief.
"You should have told me dammit! You could have killed us all!" shouted the sergeant, waving his shotgun in my face.
"You should have reviewed the local fauna data files sergeant. You would have known. Anyway, you wouldn’t have been able to do anything even knowing. Did any of you have clear shots of the armpits, under of the jaw or back of the kneecaps? No. Because their arms were not raised, they were not staring at the ceiling, and they were not walking backwards towards you. You couldn’t have done anything anyway. You never stood a chance."
The sergeant growled before he spoke again gruffly. "Fine then teacher, anything else? Anything else your expertise can tell us?"
"Yeah," Darvant laughed, "Stay out of the way."
The monsters shuffled into the clearing, blinking at the increased light. I leapt forward, kicking the closest in the chest so it toppled backwards. I rammed the katana blade into its skull. Kicking free of the body and dodging a blow, I spun behind my assailant, cutting the backs of its legs. It fell the ground gurgling in pain.
I saw now what Kase's gauntlets could do now. He delivered an uppercut to one of the monsters, and I saw a momentary haze as sonic waves blew the creatures brain out the top of its skull. Disgusting. Kase ran and dived to slide on the ground, flicking his knuckles out at several pairs of legs. Bone splintered and blood spattered on the ground as the animals fell, howling in agony. He sprang to his feet in front of one of them, thrusting his fists under the armpits of the creature, then the sonic waves burst out, liquefying the bone, leaving the arms hanging by a thread of sinew.
Darvant was doing his usual twirling and spinning style of fighting, and he actually listened to me for once, attacking the weak spots I had pointed out. He no longer fought as cockily as he did above ground, as these creatures were faster and there were more of them. I was impressed to see Darvant duck sidestep past a claw aimed at his head, then stab two of the monsters at once under the jaw, one with each dagger. As the blades rotated blood and ichor spattered onto his gloves.
I wasn't paying enough attention to my own fight, and as I turned away from Darvant's fight as a howl erupted in front of me, I only saw a claw swipe across my stomach, droplets of blood flecking my face. I flew backwards. My katana fell out of my hand as I held my stomach, the blood flowing over my hand and arm. I felt no pain, I lost control. I grabbed my pistol from my belt with my left hand, holding the barrel under the assailants jaw. I fired several shots into its brainpan, and its limp carcass thudded into the swirling ash. I grabbed my katana with my bloody hand and ran forward. I couldn't control myself any longer, the burning rage inside me gyring up through every sinew of my body, energising me. I sliced through one of the creatures bodily with my katana, my arms drenched in blood. I was a whirling daemon, cutting through all in my path, my katana running slick with blood. In my rampage, I saw Darvant move back as I passed, hacking into a already dead animal. I ignored him, he was unimportant. These creatures had to die. I cut the legs from under one, then sped up its descent to the ground by smashing it down with my crimson blade. As its body thudded into the ash, it was over. No more stood. The burning rage evaporated away, slipping free of my bones. I felt cold, and weary. I looked at my katana, slick with scarlet life force, dripping silently into the ash. The fabric on the handle stained with my blood.
My katana fell without a sound to the ground, ash swirling round the desecrated blade. I looked down at my stomach, a sudden cold pain drawing my breath sharply. My anger had burned itself out, and now pain returned. I felt cold, and lifeless. I, like my katana, fell to the ground, bloodstained and an empty husk of a man.
Hehehehheh. Ownzorz...
Luke
Chapter 7:
The world spun before me, perception taunting me. I saw Darvant, looking sceptically at me. I saw Kase, always following Darvant. The sergeant mumbled and muttered at me. The pain in my stomach was dizzying. Bouts of excruciating hot gouts of pain, searing every nerve in my body.
A few hours later I awoke again, the world slowly focusing back. I was still in the caves. I felt my stomach. It had rough stitching on the wound, and I convulsed in pain at the touch of my own hand. The blood was washed away, and as I gently probed I could feel dried blood round the edges. The cut went from roughly the far edge of my right ribs, to the space in between my two sets of ribs.
Darvant was the first to notice me sitting up, and him talking got everyone else’s attention.
"Hey sleeping beauty. Decided to join us again in the land of the living?" he drawled, swaggering, but I noticed he was eyeing me suspiciously. The sergeant walked over, holding his shotgun, but the soldiers hung behind, with Kase sitting leaning against a wall, tossing pebbles into the lava stream.
"What happened there Donoph? You went crazy, you damn near attacked Darvant, you almost killed yourself getting in the way of the rifle fire, then you get injured. You need to control this. You went nuts. You slaughtered those monsters. We're worried. You can't flip out like that, not now. What we are doing down here is too important. Get a grip, or go back to Pioneer 2." The sergeant growled at me, striding off through the ashes to talk to the soldiers.
"Whooooooeeee Donoph! You are crazy! A lunatic! I loved it! You obliterated them things, tore em apart! Great fun to watch man, top marks."
"I'm not proud Darvant. I lost control. I have brought dishonour to myself. My skills failed me."
Darvant rolled his eyes and walked off, twirling his daggers as he went. He whispered something to Kase, and then nodded his head at the sergeant and the soldiers. Kase nodded, and looked at me until I looked him straight in the eyes.
The sergeant turned away from his conversation with the soldiers, and stood up facing us to talk. "Ok, get ready to move out. This tunnel doesn't go far, so we are gonna see just where it goes. We move out in 10 minutes, so hurry up. Donoph, if you can't walk you're gonna be carried got it?"
I snarled, pushing myself to my feet. A surge of pain wracked my body, but I exhaled and contained it. I wrapped another bandage over the wound; tight to staunch any bleeding that might happen while walking. I saw my katana, lying in the ash, black and dark scarlet from dried blood. There was no way to clean it, perhaps for the better. The tainted blade would remind me of what I had become. I could no longer wield my katana in battle until I regained my honour and control.
w00t, btw thanks Hikosaka
Luke
Chapter 8:
We continued down the tunnel, with the sergeant leading. We encountered no more groups of the shark-like monsters as we progressed. The walls opened up as we went further down, but now we saw occasional wires running along the ground, connected to various generators scattered along the path. All of the generators were shorn in half or torn asunder, but still erratically emitted sparks. Something was still powering them. We saw signs pointing down the path, but they were to scarred to be legible.
The journey down was uneventful, and we saw so sign of the creatures until we had been walking for several hours. We found seven carcasses, several brutally beaten, their skulls caved in by a large blunt object. The broken scales and dark bruises were found all over the bodies of the creatures, they had taken a voracious beating before they went down, and by the looks of it that was when they had their skulls smashed in, to kill them. One or two of the bodies had a large wound burned through their skulls, obviously done by an overcharged rifle shot. The rest of the bodies were shorn in half or cloven in two. This had been done by a massive photon blade, obviously photon because of the ways the wounds were burn wounds and cauterised by the energy emitted by the blade. The blade had been swung in huge arcs, cutting deep gouges into the walls of the tunnel. It was clearly not wielded with much skill, but the strength of the wielder and the size of the blade made skill redundant.
"This…this was done by those Hunters" Biggs stammered, finger shaking at the lifeless forms. "I told you sir…its them! Those Hunters! We can't trust em sir, we can't!" He glared at Kase, Darvant and I, then looked plaintively at the sergeant.
The sergeant looked from Biggs to us, before shaking his head sadly. "I’m sorry Biggs, but it wasn't these guys. They had nothing to do with it. Anyway, if we meet those Hunters we out-number them, we can take em out easily right?"
Darvant raised an eyebrow quizzically, but stayed quiet. I hoped I was right about where his loyalties lay. He twirled his daggers as he looked at the corpses disdainfully. He walked over to one of the carcasses shorn in two, and kicked it on its back to see the cut. He whistled appreciatively, and Biggs snarled. Darvant turned, and looked down the passage curiously.
"Let's go then, I want to see who did this kind of whuppin." Said Darvant grinning, his face glowing scarlet in the ghostly light from his twirling daggers. He walked down the passage, an eerie scarlet glow dancing on the walls as he walked, dagger crystals spinning quietly at his sides.
I walked after him, holding the stained hilt of my katana, the congealed blood sticky in my hand. Kase walked after us, and the sergeant motioned for the soldiers to follow. Biggs took out his pistol, but held it at his side as he walked.
As we continued, we found more carcasses piled by the side of the passageway, all killed in the same ways as the ones found earlier, however, these monsters were bigger than the ones we fought and killed. They had larger fins, and darker scales. It looked as though they had taken a severe beating before they could be killed, with the ones killed by the sword sporting several not very deep slices before they were killed, and only one was killed in one blow, from head to midriff, with a gouge in the ground from where the blade hit the ground after passing though the target.
At the end of the path we saw a huge metal door, operated by a control panel and several pistons. The door was half open, the panel smashed by a blunt object, sparking randomly. Inside was a dark room, lighted by photon lights, illuminating a metal floor. Lights set in the metal lighted up a path into the area.
"Mines," breathed the sergeant as he read a sign pointing towards the entrance. "Those Hunters have been here. No doubt. We will set a beacon, and report back to Pioneer 2. We'll inform the Captain of what we've seen. Let's go."
Chapter 9:
We returned to Pioneer 2 with a drop ship that landed in the forest by the central Dome. We were back on Pioneer 2 in several hours; so different to the 3 minutes it took to get down. We had been gone 37 hours, arriving in the evening and exploring through the night. When we got into the Dome we lost track of time.
Back in my quarters I slept to regain my energy. When I woke up, I winced at the site of my tainted blade, lying on the table in my quarters. I went to the Medical Centre to have my wound examined. The claws of the creature had sliced straight through my skin, lacerating a good deal of muscle in my torso, but hadn’t hit any organs. The muscles were repaired with a synthetic tissue spray that would aid the healing. The gash was simply stitched. I was permitted to go and stay in my quarters, but I was banned from the training area and lost surface privileges for 2 weeks.
All I could do was pace my quarters and the rest of the ship, making my bad mood clear to all. The ship was much busier than when we left, the ship general areas bustling with civilians, going about buying supplies. I wondered why none were upset about the explosion on Coral. Until I was called to speak with the Captain.
He had several things to tell me, none of which I liked. In order to preserve order and peace on board the ship, no one on board who was not awake at the time of the explosion was told about the explosion. Even engineers who didn’t see the explosion were told the rocking of the ship was a steering fault. No one except the military and Hunters knew about the explosion. I disapproved of withholding information from the public, but I was eager to get back planetside so I didn’t disagree. Secondly, there was no report other than ours on the mystery Hunters. There were no Hunters on Pioneer 1 officially, but there were a lot of conspiracy theories about that.
Supposedly Pioneer 1 held only 30,000 passengers, 10,000 military personnel, the rest were civilians. However, the food consumption rate was much higher than it should have been for the amount of people on board, and there was a huge area in the cargo hold that had no cargo assigned to it. Illegal people, refugees people said, people who wanted to be taken to the new planet, so they bought illegal tickets.
The entire system was corrupt. The civilians oblivious to what happened down on the planet, illegal passengers on Pioneer 1. All of this made me think about something, something that had never occurred to me before. Both Pioneer 1 and 2 were designed to carry 30,000 and 40,000 respectively. However, even with the grossly diminished population because of disease and pollution, the world's population was far more than 70,000. I was appalled. What happened to the rest of the world? Why had no one thought of it? Did no one want to think about it? The rest of the world had been left there, to die with the planet.
Many people had their doubts about the Pioneer project, saying the people of a planet should die with the planet, and the entire plan was cowardly. I never thought about it. I was going, they were not. I didn’t want to die, sitting at home as the world tore itself apart. The toxins in the atmosphere were sinking into the earth, killing off plant life, oxygen levels slowly falling until unless you were young and fit you simply couldn’t live in big cities. The toxins in the air slowly eroded weak lungs, resulting in cancer and often complete lung failure. Many older citizens refused to leave Earth, not wanting to betray their planet of birth. I thought they were being foolish, but I honestly didn't care enough to do anything about it.
I silenced my rambling thoughts. There was no point in wondering what could or should have happened. All I had to worry about was myself, and that was fine by me. It was a shame those people had died, and I decided to leave it at that. I would leave the worrying about the Pioneer plan to those who created and managed it.
I walked out of my quarters to kill some time, but I wanted to see the planet. I knew it was only possible half of the day, as the viewing screens were shut off as we orbited the side of Coral with the Dome, so that the civilians wouldn’t see the gaping maw of the destroyed Dome.
Darvant saw me leaving my quarters and walked over. "Hey Donoph, you bored? I am. Let's go to the training area, grab your lacquered katana, I'll get my training daggers." He ran off, not waiting for a response. I sighed, turning around to grab my lacquered wooden katana, called a bokken. Not a real weapon in my mind, but it was necessary for non-lethal training. I had learned to wield it lethally it was part of my training to be worthy of the steel katana. I thought that the black pole the mysterious Hunter who attacked Biggs and the others used such a weapon. If properly lacquered, the wood could be extraordinarily strong.
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