Alex – Heart Of The Vanguard

__________*_Alex_*__________

**SMASH!**BOOM!**

...Reikon was pummeled through the floor to the level below, impacting the floor below immediately with tremendous force and speed. I followed her through, attempting to stomp on her, but she pulled herself out of my way quick enough. She launched a barrage of red coloured opaque spinning blades at me once she had footing, I simply back flipped out of their path. Like boomerangs though, they spun around in an arc, circling back towards me. I used the Shard's powers, stretching a hand out toward them as they rapidly approached me, they veered past either side of me, changing from red to purple as they passed. Following my hand motion, I directed this back to Reikon.

She clearly wasn't expecting me to turn her own attack back against her. One blade caught her prominent right cheek bone, another caught her waist on her left flank. She hissed, in pain? Anger? Both? As she slowly turned her head back toward me, with black goop started oozing from the wounds... A form of blood maybe? If so, then good. That meant 2 things, this weird partially metallic creature was alive, and if it bleeds then I can kill it. It seemed though that Reikon actually had a point. Human based weapons had little to no effect on her, it was going to take Shard abilities to kill her this time. She hissed again looking at her injury on her waist, then charged at me, pulling a fist back as she got close.

Her fist glowed red, encompassing it in a shell, I retaliated the same, my own fist igniting in purple flame to meet hers. Our fists collided. This caused damage to both of us, parts of my armour on my hand, wrist and forearm buckled under the force of the blow. But Reikon suffered as well, the skin plates on her entire right arm also buckled and some even cracked. The power of the impact rebounded us both away from each other, but that wasn't the only thing the force of impact caused.

An almighty shockwave of energy erupted from the epicenter, rapidly spread outwards at the initial collision and caused our surroundings to burst into life. It turns out we landed in the training halls, we were actually in one of the scenario rooms. The screens that formed the walls and roof or 'sky', came to life with sparks, showing jarring images of rain forest, town/cityscape or blue sky.

Parts of the floor opened up and what emerged from the void below was bits of land. Actual large whole pieces of land, whole slabs that had buildings, trees, barricades, weapon cases, cars, shop fronts, containers, fork lifts... Anything that would make a scene realistic. It was like watching different movie sets pop up into existence, only, nothing matched or lined up. All the slabs were coming into place up and down the long hall were mismatched, some from completely different scenarios to others, it made our surroundings very disorienting.

I recognised some of it, but there were some bits I didn't. Some of it was from the first tactical scenario, where I had to go through a forest to get to the bunker. There were also bits of the team building challenge, a section of long grassy meadow, a cliff face and higher ground sections. Shops from the rooftop scenario too and others I hadn't seen. But it was all jumbled up, out of order. This explained how they were able to change the scenarios over night though, they literally just had prefabbed structures and slabs of land that they must just roll off an assembly line and slap into position on demand when needed.

The floor opened a few feet away, right under Reikon and she dropped into the void, only to reappear seconds later hanging off the top of a pole with a bell on it, the same one I rang in the team building exercise. She leapt at me, screeching, before the slab ever made it into position, tackling me to the floor. The floor opened beneath me now, dropping us both away and dislodging her grasp of me.

I fell onto a car, caving the roof in completely as the car rose up under me. Reikon bounced off of the edge of the same car, narrowly missing me, and landed on a tarmac street below. The slab locked into place as I pulled myself up, looking over at Reikon. Not giving her a chance, I formed a disk of red and purple energy above her, then slammed it down on her with a couple of hundred tons of force. She screeched as I heard crunches, the force of the almost invisible impact cratered her and the tarmac in a disc shaped hole, submerging her and it all about a foot lower than ground height.

I leapt off the car and stepped into the crater as Reikon writhed and groaned, then picked her up by her neck. She flopped weakly in my grip as I hoisted her up but in a last reserve of strength, her head snapped to look me dead in the eyes.

Reikon: "YOU'RE MINE!" her fiery gaze intensified as she stared into me, it was like she was latching onto my soul, red fog enveloped us. I felt myself growing rapidly weaker, to the point I couldn't hold Reikon up anymore. There wasn't any need anyway, her feet repositioned themselves so they were flat on the deck and she stood upright on her own accord now, looking down over me, the intensity of her stare ever increasing along with the pain I was feeling inside. But I was unable to escape, unable to break free of the trance.

Until I heard a voice...

"Yeessss... This way will work, not what I had in mind, but it can work in my favour."

Weird thing is, I knew that voice. That was my own voice, but back when I was a man, a full Human man. I knew it because I hated the sound of my voice back when I was a guy, I'd use to hear it back on recordings and cringe at the sound. Hearing it now though, only brought confusion. Who or what spoke using my old voice? Maybe some trick of Reikon's?

Then, like a scream from afar, came another voice I recognised, Ember's.

"NOOOO!"

Purple energy appeared in each of my hands, quickly intensifying and turning into blue flames. My arms rose on their own accord, the energy building rapidly, forming somewhat of a barrier between our mid sections until finally the blue flaming energy exploded. Reikon was thrown like a rag doll down the simulator hall, bounced off of several of the screens on the side of the hall, smashing them in the process, before disappearing over the bunker front in the hillside. I was blasted back myself as well, but not as violently. I bounced back maybe a dozen feet to skid to a halt on my front in the grass area below the pole with the bell on top.

I got to my feet, but staggered weakly, and fell against the pole for support.

Me: "What was that?" I asked anyone listening, looking around for Ember, or whatever else could've imitated my old voice, but nothing. There was no one there. And it certainly wasn't me that spoke. I saw my front was filthy from skidding across the grass, so I brushed the worst of the grass and mud from me. Then staggered slightly, not as bad now that I had partially recovered anyway, making a bee line in the direction of the bunker.

Wrex: "Alex!" I heard him call from above for me, I spun and looked up. There he was, peering down through the crater in the ceiling past the damaged screens and wiring that dangled precariously around the hole that I had slammed Reikon through earlier, 

Me: "You alright?"

Wrex: "Yeah..." He deliberately tumbled through the hole, spreading his wings as soon as he was clear of it, to land on the ground near me in a stumble, his bad knee taking away any grace, hobbling the last few paces up to me, "...*grunt* Are you alright?"

Me: "Yeah, I'm fine, thanks. How's your knee?"

Wrex: "I'll live." He nodded confidently at me.

Me: "Good..." I gave him a quick hug before turning back to the bunker and heading off in that direction again, over the concrete slab courtyard that led up to the entrance, "...Come on, but be ready." Wrex quickly following.  

Wrex: "What for?"

Me: "Reikon."

Wrex: "She's here? Alive?"

Me: "I'm not sure if you can call her 'alive'. But it's something that answers to 'Reikon' and I need to end 'it'." I replied as I walked up the front of the bunker and over the top. The bunker finished abruptly once we reached the top, another couple of meters of flat reinforced concrete just ended, like a cutaway model. The next slab or platform along was a dried up river bed, the same one we had to cross in the team building exercise. But after that, there was nothing but another wall of displays, all still displaying mismatched images, except for a small few impact damaged.

I followed the trail of damage, tracing it with an outstretched finger, from the damaged display wall to my right, above the bunker, to the back wall, my mind calculating and displaying on my HUD where she should have landed. From the back wall a red line was drawn on my HUD to the floor, a circular area highlighted red and flashed in the dried up river bed... I hastily jumped off the bunker and jogged up to the river bank and looked down into it...

There was impact damage, fresh marks dug into the silt and dirt at the bottom of the river bed where something had crashed, bit nothing around that could've caused them.

Me: "She- She should be right there!" I cried out while whipping my head around in search.

Wrex: "Well she can't have gotten far. Can't you detect her? Like you can do with anyone else?"

Me: "No, I couldn't pick her up at all for some reason, same as before."

Wrex: "Alex, maybe you killed her? Her body vanished?"

Me: "No, how could it just vanish?!"

Wrex: "You said it wasn't alive? Maybe it was something like a ghost? And you just finished it off?"

Me: "No no, it was too easy, again!"

Wrex: "Hmm... well if she's not here, we don't have time to look for her now, we need to get back up to-"

Me: "I know I know, it's just, I just want her gone. And I mean properly." He placed his hand around my upper arm, gently grabbing it, 

Wrex: "Come on, she might even be on her way up to the kids, we need to go."

Me: "Yeah... yeah, let's go." Realising he's probably right.

__________**__________

42: "Hey... Hey, you with me? Hey!" He tapped Jinx gently on her cheek. 42 had been watching over Jinx since their standoff with the Executioner and the armoured SkyTech Dragons. Sarah had managed to stop the worst of the bleeding then brought them to this staff dwelling - a small studio apartment, one of the low level worker's quarters.

The room was basic, small, and currently dimly lit to allow Jinx some rest and to not draw attention. Jinx was laid up in the bed, only partially in her armour, helmet, neck and upper torso pieces removed. Jinx was wrapped up in some run of the mill, standard issue white bedding, though it had dabs of crimson red blood, dotted around, but the majority was populated closer to her left flank. Her left arm was also stripped of armour up to her shoulder, to allow better access to her wound - a complete sever of her forearm to just above her elbow joint.

Jinx: "Mmmhhnn... Whaat?" She grumbled in a dazed state in reply to 42.

42: "I need you to stay awake for me, please." He instructed gently while leaning over her as he knelt by her side.

Jinx: "I just need to rest my eyes for a bit." She weakly pleaded back to him as she fluttered her eyes closed again.

42: "Oi!, Hey!..." He tapped her face a bit harder this time, "... please baby, I need you to-..." there was a clonk out in the hall beyond this living quarters 42 and Jinx were holed up in. 42 turned to look at the door locking them in, realising that there was no more noise being emitted, he continued on to Jinx, "... I need you to stay with me. Please."

Jinx: "I'm trying my best." She said slowly and quietly.

There was another noise out in the hall, a clatter this time, only it sounded like some rolling down the hall, tapping as it rolled. 42 looked to the door once more before looking back to Jinx once more.

42: "I'm going to take a look..." Jinx gave the smallest of nods as she looked at him through weak and tired eyes. 42 gave her a kiss on the cheek as he started getting up, "...stay awake please. I love you." To which he was met with a little murmur, then slamming his face plates closed once he was back on his feet and headed for the door. It slid open after he hit the button, glancing out the door, training an arm where he scanned his head. Once realising the coast was clear, he stepped over the threshold, in search for the source of the noise, sliding the door closed and locked behind him.

Jinxed half gazed at the spot she last saw her lover, completely unaware of the fiery red eyes gradually growing in intensity in the corner of the room, near where the door was. The glow intensified, the eyes made of literal flames grew in size to actually start being able to illuminate the room and the owner of the eyes. A skeletal figure of a dragon, with sunken metallic scaly skin stepped forward from her corner with a staggered limp.

Reikon: "Jiiinnxxx..." She quietly hissed, sounding as though her throat was sore, torn to shreds, as she lumbered closer. Jinx's line of sight traced this zombie-like character as it closed in on her, but with her mind numbed, her body weak, her situation just wasn't computing to her the severity of her situation.

Reikon: "Jinx..." She repeated falling to her knees at her bed side, where 42 was a minute before, "...My little Jinx... So sad to see you in such a wounded state..." The creature's jaw moved out of sync to her words as she looked over Jinx, her head finally looking at her severed arm that was bundled up in blood soaked towels. A bony and elongated clawed hand traced down her arm, mapping out where the missing limb should have finished.

 "...You will recover, and when you do I have a job for you..." The flaming eyes met Jinx's dazed gaze, "...my soul is tortured... hacked... split into many pieces. You must collect them, gather them up and rebuild them. This will ensure that if I fail here today, I can still return to finish what I started..." She continued in a frail hiss to each word, the bony hand moved up, touched Jinx on the head, stroked down the side of her face and stroked her cheek, a red glow emitting from her hand, being absorbed into Jinx's skin as her hand glided down the side of her face, "... understand?"

Jinx gave a couple of small weak nods, her eyes momentarily glowed red to mimic the effect of the Shard's powers. Suddenly Reikon changed, in Jinx's eyes anyway, to a normal Dragoness, and a rather beautiful one at that. Jinx was hallucinating now, she knew she was, a skeleton Dragon with fire for eyes was more believable at this moment than the gorgeous Dragoness now standing over her, leaning over her bed so that her face was a foot from her own.

Reikon: "You and I were always meant to be... Product of design... Fate... Demands of our god... His will, will be done... He needs every Shard and I need to be whole to bring them to him." Her voice now a lustful whisper, smooth and so tantalising. She leant down, hesitated, only for a blink of a second, then her lips met Jinx's.

They linked, locked, Jinx didn't resist, she felt invigorated, energised by the power of this woman. Reikon forced her tongue past Jinx's lips, who gave way without opposition, the sweet taste of this woman's outstretched tongue, wrestling with her own, sent ecstatic shivers down her spine. Their jaws part more, as Reikon repositioned her head 90 degrees to Jinx's, allowing more of her tongue to invade Jinx's mouth, nearing the back of throat. Jinx moaned into Reikon's mouth in ecstasy, the pain and weakness of her body being washed away.

This taboo feeling she was experiencing, Jinx had never had feelings for another girl before, now she was questioning her past choices. It felt wrong, but it felt more right... She wanted more, more of this feeling, she wanted this woman to own her, be a part of her... But then, the tongue withdrew, the smooth firm face of her newfound love pulled away, the pain and weakness returning almost instantly, engulfing her once more and she never realised how dark and hollow she felt before now.

Jinx: "Wait... Come back... Please, I need you..."

Reikon: "Come and find me." Her image ghosted out from existence as she stood up and away from Jinx.

Jinx: "Please..." She started sobbing, "...come back, don't leave me." 42 entered the room at speed, quickly leaning over Jinx to comfort her, cautiously to not touch her injury though.

42: "Hey hey, I'm here, I'm back." Jinx pulled herself into a one arm hug with 42, with the same passion she shared with Reikon moments ago. She loved 42, she really did. But the darkness and pain was still there, she had tasted the forbidden fruit, and she wanted it back, wanted more of it. And she knew what she had to do to get it.

(-Cassyette)