Exqua's Storm II

 

POV Nyx

Nyx, JJQ and Swono moved past the burnt-out wreck of Pod 49, where Swono and Luc had once lived. Inside, there was a single charred bone that still remained there, belonging to someone he had once been in the same dorm as. And the killers were Airo's group. They stopped behind a large rock, looking at Pod 50. It was heavily guarded, and there were Hunters inside, going through their stuff.

"My diary's in there," Nyx muttered. "I'm going to kill them if they lay their hands on that."
"Did you actually not leave anyone to guard this place?" JJQ asked incredulously.

"Shut up, Mrs Prey," Nyx snapped. "They would have all attacked here like day 1 and we'd have all died."

"We won on day 1 when that happened."

"Exqua isn't stupid," Nyx replied. "Remember what Relic said - never underestimate the man called Exqua."

"Someone will kill him soon enough," JJQ said. "He's an old tortoise breathing his last."

"…I don’t know," Swono said. "I saw Sword fighting him. And…"
"And?"

"It looked pretty tight. Exqua almost… never mind, I'm overthinking in. If Sword locked in or if Elemental or Airo met him he'd be dead in a heartbeat."

"What if we find him?"

"He's going to have guards."

"So then what are we going to do about those guys?"

JJQ jabbed a finger at the fifty-or-so enemies wandering around Pod 50. Some where talking, others were on guards, there were even a few sitting around smoking.

"I say we wipe them."
"Sneaky?"

"Sneaky."
 

Nyx crept up behind her next victim. He was on guard, but on the outskirts of their patrol range, and she grabbed him over the mouth behind. Before he could even struggle, she slit his throat and dragged him behind a rock. She was about to leave when she heard him gurgle. He was alive.

"…sorry," she said.

It was 370, Czarn. He was staring up her, with angry, bulging, bloodshot eyes, and blood was bubbling out of lips. She wanted to stay by his side, and comfort him as he died, but he wasn't even her first. She'd already dispatched about six people, effortlessly, quietly, without anyone noticing. Czarn cave one last gurgle, and then his shoulder slumped backwards onto the stone cave floor and his eyes lost their focus.

 

They had killed about thirteen people until the enemies realized.

"We're under attack!" one of them yelled to the others, who scrambled to get their weapons.

It was too late. JJQ dropped down out of nowhere into their midst, ladding on one's shoulders and crushing him into the ground, before slamming her foot down on the back of his head, knocking him out cold. The other turned around with weapons, but before they could even react JJQ had whirled her dual wielded machete and katana around here and cut down five of them in one go. However, suddenly from behind, a huge brute of a guy roared and brought down a cleaver that was going straight for her head. She didn’t even flinch and slashed down another enemy in front of her, and then looked backwards, grinning.

"Nice one."
Nyx had blocked the giant guys attack with her arms, which were unharmed.

"Horned rock lizard," she explained, and then crushed the blade of the knife between her fingers and punched the big guy in the face.

He dropped like a sack of onions and they stood back to back, facing the other thirty people who were now surrounding them. Two of them, who seemed to be leaders, stepped forwards.

"Surrender JJQ now," one of them said. "And we'll let you go."

"Your eyes are telling me something different."
"…damn, I guess there's no hiding it."
The glint his eyes changed from mischief to bloodlust and he licked his knife like some kind of off-brand wannabe pirate.

"You look like a total doofus," Swono said from behind him, and slashed his dagger across the back of their necks, before running it through their throats, his strikes lightning quick.

They collapsed, dead, and Swono continued on his mini rampage, slashing throats, dodging confused strikes, stabbing hearts, breaking jaws, all the while moving at top speed. The enemies turned to fight him, but then found themselves cut to bits from behind by JJQ, or stabbed through the throat by Nyx. It was almost as though they were surrounded by three people. Before long, all fifty people around Pod 50 had been completely wiped out.

 

"Take a breather," Swono told them, handing them bottles of water he'd taken from their Pod. "Everything inside's fine, but they've got mud and dust everywhere."

Nyx sighed. "We'll have to clean up then."

"Yup."

They were sitting outside Pod 47, resting a little as they listened to the sounds of the others screaming, shouting and fighting throughout the cave.

"We should get moving," JJQ said.

"Chill, we haven't had a drink for the whole day."

"You can go without some water for a week."
"Fine."
They stood up to keep tracking down enemies, but the second before they left Nyx saw something out of the corner of her eye.

"Wait! There's… people there!"
They turned around, and saw there were indeed two people walking slowly towards them. Except only one of them was walking, and was carrying the other on his back. As he got closer, they realised that it was El Casio carrying Zak. Hurrying over, they took the limp body of Zak, who out cold, off El Casio's shoulders.

"Oh my god," JJQ gasped.

There was a shaft of a spear sticking out of El Casio's back, entering just underneath his ribcage.

"You carried him here with that in you?"

"I'm okay," El Casio rasped through torn lips.

Then he collapsed into Swono's arms.

 

POV Chris

"I will not say please," Chris said.

"Too bad," Stroma scoffed.

Chris and Dobo had taken out over forty people between them already, and they had just beaten Exqua's location out of their last victim. They were now at that location, but had been blocked by Stroma and Strain, who were twins that were once under Woodsy.

"What's so special about Exqua?" Dobo demanded. "Can’t you just hand him over?"

"Why do you want him so bad?" Strain countered. "Did he kill any of you? Hmm?"

Dobo's mouth closed, but Chris was on a roll.

"Do I need a reason to give his worthless ass a beating? Some guy who hides behind two weakling even weaker than he is? HMMM?"

"…and you call us evil."

"You’re not evil, you’re just weak. And ugly. And dumb. And - and short."

Chris made mocking hand gestures at Stroma's height.

"You look like God crushed you under his heel. If you were a brand you would be Strain pocket edition. You lower-case human being. I don't even know if your wearing long pants or long shorts."

"Hmph, insult me all you like," Strain scoffed. "It's not gonna work."

"Your nose looks like a lantern."

"Stroma, I'm gonna kill this guy and hang his corpse up in front of the Pod."

"Strain, no."

Strain charged Chris and Dobo slipped past him, only to be stopped by Stroma.

 

Strain came at him with a knife, feinting at this stomach and then going for a lightning quick stab to the eye. Chris grabbed his wrist a millisecond before Artee had to craft another eyepatch, and he was left with a blade a centimeter away from his eyeball. Strain whipped a razor blade form his back pocket and came at the side of his head, but he caught that too and shoved his foot into his stomach, and Strain stumbled backwards, his weapons clattering to the floor. Dobo, meanwhile, was using his hardened skin t gain the upper hand against Stroma, who was armed with a crude stone hatchet and was hacking away at him. However his skin didn’t make him invincible and there were a few bloody gashes on his arms, but he caught the back of the hatchet's blade and punched Stroma across the jaw before attempting to flip him over his shoulder. However, Stroma kicked him behind the knees and they both rolled onto the ground. Chris, clenched his fist, and electric chrona sparked through his knuckledusters, and went straight in for Strain's neck. The latter withdrew another razor and slashed horizontally at Chris's neck, but he jerked backwards and it left a red line over his collarbone. Strain stabbed it forwards towards his face, Chris gripped his hand, Strain let go of the razor and let it fall before catching it and driving it into Chris's abdomen. Chris slammed his palm into Strain's face, and they both toppled backwards.

"Now where have I seen this before?" Chris asked, grinning, as he yanked the knife out of his body.

Meanwhile, Dobo was winning his fight; Stroma was slowing down and his movements and reactions were becoming duller by the minute. Dobo was scoring punch after punch after elbow to his face, and blood was being splattered all across the floor. Eventually, Dobo struck him point blank in the face with a straight punch and he fell backwards and collapsed.

 

Strain ignored them and went after Chris, who pushed off the floor and flipped himself back upright, and grabbed his wrist again, this time pulling him in towards him, but Strain saw it coming and twisted his body, slamming his foot into Chris's side and pushing off. Chris took a step back, holding his hand over the hole in his abdomen, and Strain came at him again. Chris dodged backwards as Strain swung at him viciously.

"So the top 10 are nothing special, huh? Elemental, Airo, Sword - I’ll kill them after I'm done with you!"
Chris froze.

"What are you doing? Scared?"

Strain went straight for his face, but Chris suddenly lashed out, grabbed his wrist and twisted his arm, snapping every bone in it. As he cried out in pain, Chris grabbed his face and slammed him down onto the ground, blood dripping from the back of his head. Strain stared at him from between Chris's fingers with wide, afraid, shocked eyes as he raised his other fist.

"Elemental will never die," he hissed.

And then he punched Strain's head, once, twice, thrice, four times, and red liquid sprayed over the surrounding rocks, and Chris's face and arms.

"Die, motherfucking trash," he spat.

Strain was laid on the ground, blood seeping out of his nose, mouth and head. He wasn't dead, but he wouldn’t be back up for a while. Stroma pulled himself upright, leaning against a boulder.

"…so this is how it is."

"Yeah," Dobo replied, glancing back at Chris, was trying to top the bleeding from his abdomen. "Let's finish this quickly."

"I never wanted us to fight like this," Stroma sighed, his eyes half-closed from the beating Dobo had given him.

He pulled himself shakily to his feet and limped over towards his brother, Strain.

"I supposed you'll go kill Exqua now," he said quietly, kneeling down by his unconscious brother's head.

"Yeah," Chris sighed, as Dobo tore off a long strip from his shirt and bandaged the wound. "I'm not even going to kill you losers at this point."

Stroma laughed, a hollow, empty, emotionless laugh.

"Yeah," he said.

What happened next Chris and Dobo would remember forever. Both in their bodies and their minds. Strain's eyes opened into slits and his mouth moved.

"Brother," he rasped quietly. "Do it."

Stroma nodded. Dobo's eyes widened as he saw his hand reach into his belt, and before he could do anything Stroma had whipped out a bundle of six makeshift cluster bombs. He turned to Dobo and Chris, who had barely been able to react yet, smiled softly, and said,

"For the one who will lead us out of here, Exqua."

And then Stroma, still cradling Strain's head, tore open the fuse of his 'homemade' bomb. At the same time, Dobo gave a shout and threw his arms around Chris, pinning him underneath his body, to the ground. Strain laughed wildly, blood spitting in drops across the rock, and the bomb exploded.