I don't want to get too far away from the Darknight ship, Sepulcher and the gunships are my ride out of here. Plus they still may need my help yet but at least the main part of my mission is over. Having successfully folded a good distance away from the ship I decide to take it slowly on foot rather than expose myself by being above the mist. Up high though I have a better chance of seeing them coming and laying an ambush if I have too, there's also a few listening devices back there that will get better reception.
"I'll take care of this personally, that little bird probably hadn't come this far alone. Set up a flakker on the perimeter, Gamel and Tamale get about manning the ship's guns with whatever ebons are left. Collins is in charge until I get back. Antioch must not fall into SLA Industries hands under any circumstances." Cameron speaks in quiet, measured tones while his Major starts bawling orders over a radio, "it will be done sire", is said in the strange unearthly voices of his two 'pets' simultaneously.
With a full company of 97 crack troops that hate SLA with unbridled passion it looks like Collins may well be able to fend off our forces on equal terms. The fact I now have the man Cameron out after me doesn't do anything to help my confidence either, sometimes those little bugs pick up more than even I care to know. Antioch, she now has a name and stirs in my chest slightly pushing away the voice in my head giving me a quiet moment of peace. It's so cold down here but I don't want to use my red thermal to make myself any more noticeable, so I wrap my wings around my bruised body to try and conserve heat.
Footfalls carry for miles in the gloom of the lower levels, I can even catch the odd voice from the Darknight base. Somewhere out there is Cameron, I can feel it. The Longslide has a good range for a pistol and the little scope makes it easier, they stopped making them 150years ago but mine still performs flawlessly. On request FEN still makes the ammunition for me, a cut down 12.7mm rifle round shell backs up the 620grain HEAP bullet giving it tremendous stopping power. Cameron is about to find out just how much as I take aim at his chest when he walks out of the mist. All subtlety is discarded when it fires, kicking like a Stormer and sounding like a thunderbolt I have the satisfaction of seeing Cameron crumple on the street below. From the little window I cant see him anymore, but I turn around just in time to see a shadow in the room behind me move off the back wall. Luckily my gorecannon is more aware than I am and adopts the shoot-first ask later policy, there's a shriek and the room explodes into darkness as the goreblast connects with something. There's more of them filtering in as my eyes clear and the small voice tells me to run, so I charge through the nearest wall head down, plowing through the rotten plasterboard and wood. Behind me they shriek in anger and excitement while my heart threatens to explode with fear, the gorecannon drops another one on its own but I dare not look back! Just as suddenly as they appeared they're gone and the only noise is a murmuring television set two rooms back behind me in the wreckage I made of the units.
"Give me the crystal and I'll let you live", somehow Cameron has gotten up here with me, the bullet hole in the dirty blue shirt reveals a deathsuit underneath.
"Humans can't use flux!" He drops the flickscythe from under the raincoat and activates the blade with an almost sad look on his face, "give me the crystal little girl. I'm not human and don't make me trim your wings." Cameron calmly holds out his left hand and I fight back an urge to give it up, "I hid it. Kill me and you'll never find it, whatever you are." Just for reassurance I point the gun at his head, five more steps and he'll be able to gut me, glyphs blaze along the blade with a soft white light.
"You haven't hidden it, your bullets and gorecannon won't hurt me. All I want is the crystal and to go our separate ways. Maybe you could put the past behind you and come with me?" Summoning up a wave of hate to dull the feelings he's arisen within me, the photo Sepulcher gave me doesn't give justice to his looks. Warily I take another step backwards to the balcony.
"There's a place for you in this universe Parody, it doesn't have to lie with SLA industries either. Deep down you know that don't you?" I'm getting out of here now, running for the edge but he's faster. Nearly on top of me when the floor gives way underneath him, a small victory for the skinny, little people everywhere. The sweeping of my wings drowns a call behind me out as I desperately try to gain altitude, I've got to head up to the vaulted ceilings a kilometre above. Its hard work climbing this high with no wind but fear drives me onward, fear of men in deathsuits. Theres only three non-ebb users in the universe that I know of that wear a deathsuit, further ingraining the fear of how much trouble I'm in.
Unlike the rest of Downtown the support structures where built to last, hyperalloy pillars weighing millions of tons each in turn hold up the millions above them. They will do so for hundreds more years, apart from the architectural wonderment they also make excellent hiding spaces for tired quarry. "I was wondering when you would get here?" Correction, mostly excellent hiding spots, "the forces of SLA are about 2hours away, that gives me enough time to get the crystal and to get the Antioch out of here without anyone getting hurt." Cameron strolls along the girder with the grace of a hunting cat, "but alas you killed all the ebons aboard her and I have a use for both you and the crystal, now come here and stop making it anymore difficult than it has to be." The Longslide begins bucking in my hand like a frenzied animal as four shots catch him in the chest and I send my gorecannon out to distract him while I reload. It leaps on him tearing with claws and teeth making deep slashes in his deathsuit, it has destroyed opponents many times its size but finally meets its end on Cameron's flickscythe. The gun bucks five more times and all the shots hit as far as I can see and then he ports it out of my hand, I'm in for it now by the look on his face. "That wasn't very nice! Time for you to learn some manners", even though he's taken enough punishment to kill 20 normal people the next thing I know I'm hit so hard in the face I can see stars and he's leaning over me. I could try to run but he hits me again with what feels like the back of the style while I think about getting out of here and I am so very tired, too tired to run anymore. "Now little princess you are mine and you will do as you are told!" Just to reinforce this fact he beats me again several more times, he's going to be real angry when he discovers that I can't jump-port the ship anyway. "Oh, you can't pilot her yet Parody, there are a few modifications I have to make to you. But let me worry about that." I hate having my hair pulled and I hate having my mind read, so the angry part of me surfaces again to fight him off but all my thrashing succeeds in doing is wrecking the cheap plastic raincoat and getting him angry enough to hit me some more.
The soldiers seem to find it amusing to see me dragged through their compound, I get lots of jeers and catcalls until their CO yells at them to shutup and get on with their tasks, the icy reception from Gamel and Tamale is enough to freeze my blood. We are like two opposites in so many ways, "take her to the navigators chamber and fetch the corpse of Hesilka. Don't kill her." I am really starting to dislike the idea of being modified, Gamel grabs me around the throat with one giant taloned hand while his partner scurries off ahead and Cameron begins talking to Major Collins. "Kill you no, hurt you yes?" Gamel takes great delight in twisting my left arm until it pops out of its socket, I don't think I will make it to the chamber intact, "can you squeal for me?" He pokes a sharp claw into my breast and twists it until I scream, "yes little 'thrope, again!" Licking my blood off his claw and momentarily distracted by its taste I take the opportunity of raking my own claws into his groin area. This doesn't seem to bother Gamel in the least so he drags me deeper into the ship exploring my pain tolerance a bit further with his claws, leaving bloody tracks down my back and shoulders while crushing my windpipe.
"I told you I didn't want her killed and you drag her up here dying!" The voice is unmistakable, as is Gamel's angry snarl even though I am blind now after he gouged my eyes. I think I will die soon, for the second time in my life but this time it will be for good, "the little 'thrope not dead sire. See still breathes", my deathsuit still tries to heal me as my ragged mind cant concentrate enough to do it but it's a loosing battle as the last of my flux drains away unable to stem the bleeding. "See sire it fixes itself", the gem in my chest gives up some more flux allowing the deathsuit to continue, I don't know why but Antioch seems to like me. "Lay her down there while I do the retrieval, not one feather or your suffering at my hands will become legendary amongst your kind!" My vision returns later, it's hard to tell how much time exactly but all I can see in the dim room is a solitary candle with Cameron hunched over the corpse of the necanthrope Hesilka with his back to me. Theres another light source in front of him that gives off a bluish glow and he's slowly muttering quietly in some weird language. Gamel gives me a kick just to show he still cares about my suffering, its times like these I really wish I knew how to ebb blast at the same level of destructiveness as Sepulcher can and then I could fight back. The stench of death still permeates this area where I fought them earlier, the bodies where removed but it still lingers along with the smell of the three captors, I really don't know how to get out of this one. "Hold her down, she won't like this", Cameron has a long splinter of blue crystal in his hand and both his pets grab my arms and legs to pin me to the floor. "Behave Parody! I am going to give you a little gift, it will hurt for awhile but only if you struggle", I buffet him away with my wings until the giants step on them with delight. "You're going to see the universe through the eyes of a navigator now, won't that be nice?" He jams the shard through the base of my skull, and it hurts more than I could ever imagine possible.