by Charles Rye
"It's a start, if we can find this recruit base, we can do as much damage as possible to take out however many soldiers are stationed there," Caliphar suggested giving Aurelia a look.
"I guess, if it's where those dicks that tried to jump us last night I'd love to get some revenge," Aurelia grinned at Caliphar and Soraf.
"Let's do it, kick ass first and ask questions later," Soraf smirked as she unsheathed her Jagdkommando, running her thumb across the blade.
"Sounds like we have a plan," Caliphar said excitedly.
"I'm in, wouldn't mind a dose of vengeance myself," Koriphus added looking at them.
The Destroyer lying on the floor suddenly stood up and began to growl and whine, the tuft of fur on the back of his neck ruffling up.
"What the hell is his problem?" Soraf suddenly asked, eyeing the Destroyer suspiciously.
"Relax, that's how he acts when he senses others of his kind nearby,"
"Probably got a pack tailing us," Koriphus responded stroking the Destroyer's neck, smoothing down the tuft of fur.
"Great, that's just what we fucking needed‚ more of those things messing with us," Soraf sighed.
The Destroyer turned its head to look at Soraf and growled at her.
"I think you insulted him," Caliphar said glancing at Soraf.
"That's ridiculous, how could I have insulted him?" She muttered looking at the Destroyer, whom returned to his position on the bus' floor beside Koriphus.
Den of the Devil
"Let me guess; I have to kill those ugly as fuck creatures before they kill me. Am I right?" Mordren asked, glaring at the commanding officer.
The commander gave a quick nod as he retrieved a key from his left breast pocket.
He moved past Mordren and shoved the key into the door handle before pushing it open.
The creatures instantly stopped their growling and sharply turned to face him, which unnerved him greatly.
Before he could say anything else, the commander roughly shoved Mordren into the room, slamming the door close behind him and locking it.
"Well, fuck‚" He muttered under his breath.
Several of the Destroyers stepped toward him, raising their noses as they began to sniff at him.
Mordren held out the rusted dagger and aimed it at the Destroyer closest to him, giving the creature a look.
"Try it you ugly motherfucker. I've already killed two of your kind and I'm not above killing every last one of you bastards."
They all began to growl and snap as they slowly inched toward Mordren, some drooling and slobbering their dull red eyes trained on Mordren.
Mordren backed up until he was pressed against the door.
Several of the Destroyers were closing in on him.
He suddenly reached down and grabbed the closest Destroyer by the scruff of its neck as tightly as he possibly could, causing the creature to whimper slightly.
In one swift motion, he sliced the dagger across the creature's throat, cutting through its vocal chords.
Shoving the blade upwards into its throat severed its brain stem.
Blood rained down onto the concrete floor as the creature's eyes rolled into the back of its head.
He let go of the beast, allowing its body to collapse to the floor as blood continued to pour out of the gash in its neck.
"Come on you sons of bitches, give me your worst!"
Another Destroyer growled loudly before it leaped at Mordren, knocking him against the door.
Its ugly maw was inches from his face, but Mordren was quick to react and jabbed the dagger to the hilt into the creature's throat.
Blood dripped down the handle onto his hand as he slowly sliced the blade downward through the Destroyer's neck and chest before shoving the blade into the creature's heart, instantly stopping it.
Mordren withdrew the dagger and wiped the blood off it on his pants.
Some of the Destroyers that had cornered Mordren began to back away from him, lowering their heads in fear.
"That's right you fucks, I'm the alpha. Be afraid of me," He said in a low voice, licking some of the blood off his hand.
He took a step forward and they backed away from him. Some were growling and snapping at him, but were frightened all the same.
"Giving up already, you cowards?" He challenged, almost chuckling under his breath.
One of the Destroyers standing before Mordren took a step towards him, snapping at him in an attempt to intimidate him.
"You honestly think that's gonna scare me after what I just did to your pack mates?" He said incredulously as the Destroyer took another step forward.
He looked down into its eyes, wondering if it understood him as the other one had before.
Growling angrily at him, the Destroyer swiped its paw at Mordren, scratching his leg.
Four large matching gashes across his thigh began to drip blood.
Without hesitating Mordren bent back his leg, thrusting his knee upwards into the Destroyer's jaw and knocking it backward, where is crashed to the floor.
The creature appeared to seem unconscious as Mordren came to stand over it, before giving it a chance to retaliate he pressed his boot against it's throat crushing its windpipe, suddenly plunging the rusted dagger hilt-deep into its chest making sure to hit its heart.
Slowly straightening back up he looked around at the other Destroyers, an almost satisfied smirk playing across his thin lips.
A small majority of Destroyers all stepped backwards until they reached the end of the room, some with terrified looks upon their faces.
"That's right, you should cower and hide. It's the only thing you can do; they locked me in here with the highest expectation that within seconds I would be the one to tuck tail,"
"But instead their precious and fearless attack dogs are the ones acting on sheer survival instinct. Which is the main instinct hard wired into your brains,"
"Do not piss off the alpha!" Mordren exclaimed raising the dagger high above his head.
Several of the Destroyers standing at the front of the pack retreated, their ears low and tails between their legs.
Grinning to himself, Mordren took several steps backward until he reached the door and slowly sunk down into a sitting position.
"Now if any of you feel brave or dumb enough to challenge your new alpha, I'd be more than glad to take you on," He added casually, twisting the tip of the dagger against the floor.
Mordren watched as the Destroyers glanced around at one another as if communicating somehow, he figured they were planning something but he wasn't entirely sure what.
After a few minutes of glancing about at each other, one by one they began to cautiously approach him with their heads bowed avoiding eye contact with him as they came closer before moving to crouch low to the floor and inch their way towards his legs.
He stared at them intently, realizing they were showing submission as they all lied down around him, some resting their chins on his legs, others nuzzling their noses against his chin.
Placing the dagger beside himself, he reached up to press his palm against the head of one of the Destroyers resting its chin against his wounded leg.
"That's more like it,"
Beyond the door, he could barely hear some of the soldiers talking in hushed tones to their commanding officer.
"It's not like them to act like this, sir,"
"I've never seen them submit themselves to any of our captives; we must let him proceed to the next step of his initiation,"
He could hear the commander's gruff voice reply in a deadpan tone, "I suppose we'll have to or the bastard might start a bloody uprising against us,"
"We can't risk it, sir. I'll bring him straight to operations,"
Mordren glanced over his shoulder at the door as he heard the lock clicking as someone on the other side unlocked it before opening it.
"You're coming with us," two of the soldiers from before said in almost perfect unison as they grabbed Mordren' arms and roughly yanked him up from the
floor.
"Decide I'm worth something, eh commander?" Mordren remarked sarcastically as the soldiers dragged him past their officer.
Before they disappeared around a corner, Mordren managed to lift his good arm and flip the commander off as he laughed harshly.
Mordren soon found himself in a large room, illuminated by bright fluorescent lighting.
It reminded him of a hospital, only difference being was the floor was concrete and everything seemed far too clean.
Along one wall were surgical tables with metal trays beside them cluttered with a vast array of surgical instruments, everywhere he looked he saw people walking around in lab coats and their faces covered by white gas masks.
The two soldiers that had a tight hold on Mordren dragged him towards one of the surgical tables, lifting him up onto it as three men in medical gear came over and strapped his arms and legs down to the table.
"You lot must enjoy your job way too much," Mordren muttered as the third man strapped his forehead down to the table.
"Somebody gag him, I don't need to lose my hearing when he starts screaming," the commander said as he came walking into the room.
One of the surgeons gagged Mordren with what looked like some kind of mouthpiece used by dentists.
"That prosthetic arm has to come off," the surgeon that had gagged him said as he examined the arm.
"Like fuck it is," Mordren thought glaring angrily at the surgeon.
"It seems to be screwed into his shoulder,"
The other two surgeons stepped up to side of the table and examined where the prosthetic was screwed into his joint.
One of them retrieved a sinister looking surgical tool from the metal tray beside the table and attached it to where Mordren' prosthetic arm met his joint, suddenly clamping it down onto it before yanking the prosthetic from his shoulder joint.
"You cock sucking sons of bitches! Motherfucking whores!" He thought as he screamed around the mouthpiece, the sound muffled by it.
"Now that that's over with we can sedate him for the rest of the procedure," the first surgeon said as he removed the mouthpiece, replacing it with a see-through medical mask that covered Mordren' mouth and nose.
An unusually sweet smell soon filled his nose as he inhaled deeply, his eyes fluttering closed as the strong anesthesia put him to sleep within seconds.
"Is he out?"
The main surgeon glanced at Mordren and gave a short nod.
"He's out; let's begin before he wakes,"
"Where am I and why the fuck do I hurt everywhere?" Mordren thought, blinking his eyes open slowly.
He looked around, realizing he had been placed back into the room with the pack of Destroyers.
"None of this makes sense, I was just here‚ last thing I remember was being strapped down to a table and now I'm back in this place again,"
He looked down at himself and saw he had been turned into one of the creatures somehow.
"How do you like your new body, smart ass?" He heard the commanding officer's gruff voice inside his head.
"You motherfucks‚"
"Now see how you fair against your new mates as an alpha,"
Several large Destroyers began to circle him, their eyes gleaming an almost blood red in the dark.
Growling loudly, Mordren snapped at them defensively as they continued to circle him, one or two of them snapping at his hind legs.
Glancing side to side trying his best to keep his eyes on each Destroyer as they circled him, he felt a strange pain surge through his brain as if someone had turned on a switch.
He suddenly pounced on the largest Destroyer circling him, knocking it onto its back and stood over him, his jaws against its throat as he growled fiercely as if he were challenging it to fight back.
The Destroyer pinned beneath Mordren managed to kick him off with its powerful hind legs, throwing Mordren halfway across the room.
Shaking his head, Mordren regained his composure in time to see the Destroyer charging towards him.
Catching his challenger off guard Mordren reared up on his hind legs and caught the Destroyer by the throat and bit down as hard as possible.
The Destroyer yelped out in pain, the venom from Mordren' fangs quickly surging through its bloodstream as its body went completely limp as the life drained from him.
Mordren let go of the Destroyer's throat, its body collapsing to the floor as its muscles spasmed despite all ready being dead.
"Good boy," the commander's voice echoed inside Mordren' head.
"Now get your rest, you're going hunting once you've adjusted to your new body,"
Suddenly feeling drowsy, Mordren lied down and was soon fast asleep.
No Mercy
"Think we should deal with them?" Aurelia asked glancing at the others.
"I certainly wouldn't mind a fight," Caliphar grinned at her.
"I second that," Koriphus added as he raised his hand.
"You know I'm up for a good fight,"
"And Zxeron can help us too," Soraf said, grinning slightly.
Koriphus and Caliphar both gave Soraf a look of curiosity.
"You wanted to give him a name," She said looking up at them.
"Besides I think Zxeron suits him," She smiled as the Destroyer came to rest his chin in her lap.
"He obviously seems to like the name," Koriphus replied, watching Soraf scratch Zxeron behind his ears.
Aurelia spotted several large Destroyers circling the bus; their noses turned upwards trying to catch the scent of everyone on board.
"They're trying to pick our scent," Aurelia mentioned.
"They no doubt already know we're in here, why bother sniffing us out?" Keavnos wondered aloud.
"Do you have access to the roof from here?" He asked Aurelia.
"There's a hatch at the back of the bus, why?" She responded giving him a curious look.
"I have an idea, Caliphar, you follow me to the roof," Koriphus said looking at Caliphar.
"When I knock on the roof three times, you open the door and let out Zxeron," He added looking at Aurelia before turning to look at Soraf.
"I want you to follow him," He told her.
He pulled out his PP2000 smg from within his tattered cape and coked it as he stood from his seat.
Caliphar stood from his, grabbing his Remington as he did before following Koriphus towards the back of the bus.
A hatch large enough for two people to get through was above their heads, Caliphar climbed up onto the back seat and unlatched the hatch before pushing it open.
Koriphus gave him a signal to climb through it onto the roof, which Caliphar did without hesitation.
Koriphus quickly followed and came to rest on his stomach beside Caliphar who was already in position at the front of the roof, overlooking the hood of the bus.
"I see 'em, there's two coming around the left side. Ready when you are," Caliphar said with a slight grin adjusting his gun, ready to fire.
"I got my sight on the first one," Koriphus replied having set up his PP2000, adjusting the sight on it.
He knocked on the roof three times, giving Aurelia the signal to open the bus doors.
Inside the bus, Aurelia had her gun in her lap as she hit the button for the doors.
The second they slid open, Zxeron leaped out of the bus in time to tackle a Destroyer standing just outside the bus.
Growling ferociously, he had the enemy Destroyer on its back and pinned against the ground with his jaw inches from its throat.
Soraf jumped off the bus coming to land beside Zxeron and the enemy Destroyer, a second Destroyer appeared beside her prepared to attack.
She held her dagger out in front of her, crouching low to the ground as she stared it down.
"Bring it," She growled, bracing herself for the attack.
Before the Destroyer had a chance to pounce, Soraf watched as a bullet hit its head and come out through the other side, blood spraying out where the bullet exited.
The Destr
oyer instantly fell to the ground, blood pooling from its wound.
"You okay!" Koriphus called as he glanced over the side of the roof down at Soraf.
She looked up at him with an annoyed look.