artwork Ultimus Chapter Sixteen: Vengeance

[OverRannus]

 

Andrew walked into the kitchen and grabbed any cooked meat that he had left in the fridge. He exited the kitchen went down the hallway to the front and grabbed a military backpack, his goggles, and a bandanna as he walked out the door and went behind the house. He stuffed all the meat that he grabbed inside the bag as he walked around the house to the back.

Nothing mattered to him anymore except to avenge Reuben. And wouldn’t come back until the deed was done. He walked towards the shed, opened the door, and walked inside. He quickly went to the two containers of his parents and opened them up. In both were an array of weapons from his time. Everything Tek, from swords and knives to rifles and pistols to things he wasn’t sure what they were. He picked up one of two bracelets from his mom’s container and found it had a button on it. He put on the bracelet and pressed the button. Immediately a guard began forming around his wrist and lower hand, a blade shot out ahead of his hand. Andrew was amazed by this, it felt like it was pulsing through to his bones while activated. It felt energizing and powerful. But he deactivated it and put it back with the other.

While it felt good, that he wouldn’t be able to wear his gauntlets while using them, it honestly felt like a bad design choice for a military weapon. He looked through his mother’s container again only to see more medical supplies and equipment, she really only had a shoulder cannon and the knife hands.

He turned his attention to his dad’s container immediately seeing what he wanted, he pulled out a Tek bow and activated it. It immediately expanded out into the shape of a bow and a glowing string appeared from the bow and attached itself to the other side. It glowed an ominous cyan. Andrew adjusted his thumb and hit something by accident. A small holographic choice wheel appeared with four selections on it. Having regular arrows, combustible arrows, explosive arrows, and narcotic gas arrows. Andrew pressed the combustible arrow choice and the string color changed from cyan to orange. And the bow became a comfortable warm in his hand. He switched it back to the regular and it went back to normal. He deactivated it but kept it in his hand. This was something he was going to keep. He then looked at a knife in his dad’s container. At the moment, the blade was not there and it was only the handle sitting there. He grabbed and activated it and slowly an element blade began appearing out of the handle and forming into a military knife. He admired the translucent blade for a moment before deactivating it.

He took a look one last time to see if he could possibly need anything else from inside either container. He then grabbed a Tek canteen and Tek Binoculars from his mom’s container before closing it up.

He looked back at his dad’s container, and for a moment he stared at his dad’s helmet, where the call sign was. He had on the side of that helmet, Turok. For years he wondered what it meant, but never found anything in the books that he read. But to be honest, it wasn’t as important to him as it was years ago. Many of the mysteries behind his parents were never going to get answered. The only one that he wanted answered was why. Why do this to him and never wake him up? It’s haunted him for years and he’s never gotten a good answer that made sense. But that was an answer he would have to find some other time.

He walked out of the shed with the stuff and began packing it inside the bag with the meat he had packed before. He checked the canteen to see how much water it would take to be filled up but to his surprise. It was already full. He took a sip and the water was perfectly fine and clean. Nothing wrong with it, he packed it in the pack with the weapons and headed off towards the teleporter. It was time for his pain to be vanquished.

 

~

 

Three days and nights passed as Andrew wandered through the wastelands surrounding Sanctuary. Every moment out there, he felt the weird feeling of being watched or even followed. But when he looked, he saw nothing. Just an empty Wasteland. It made him all the more uncomfortable to be there. He thought this wouldn’t take this long, so he followed the blood trail outside of the building. But the trail disappeared after a mile or so with no body or pools of blood nearby. He continued searching, but with each passing day, his anger for this beast grew and so did the pain of losing his friend. He felt guilt for everything that happened. It was his and the raptor’s fault. Killing the raptor in Reuben’s name would remove his guilt and suffering. But his anger kept building as he searched the raptor packs as he went along. Using his binoculars to spot them. But hadn’t yet found the raptors that killed Reuben. He wandered westward and stumbled into a sulfur field. The place was incredibly hot, hotter than anywhere he had been and the air didn’t smell all too good.

He was about to desert the place quickly but he saw a pack of five raptors inside and decided to spot them. Andrew couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw a Raptor with a recent injury and a stubbed tail. He dropped the binoculars and quickly took off the backpack and dropped it to the ground. He opened it up, grabbed the bow, and activated it. With it expanding out and a cyan-blue string appearing. He was about two hundred yards away from the pack, a difficult shot with what weapon he had. But it was doable. Andrew drew his bow and a bolt of pure energy appeared on the arrow rest. As he did, auto-target activated and locked onto the head of the animal. Andrew pressed a button on the grip and the auto lock turned off. He aimed the bow for the creature’s ankles, he wanted it to see his face before it died. He waited for the right moment making some noise to catch its attention, the raptor stopped and looked for where the sound was. And Andrew took his shot. The bolt flew at impressive speed and hit the animal in the ankle, completely snapping it. The animal started screeching and howling in pain as the other four ran off in different directions. Andrew waited for a moment, he watched the animal struggle as it tried to get back on its feet only for it to collapse over again. Andrew watched this happen several times before having a good sense that it was clear for him to finish it off.

He walked down towards the creature as it screeched and clawed at the ground trying to get up. As he walked into its sight though. The creature hissed and snarled, its eyes filled with unnatural fury and anger as Andrew got close to it, knowing who he was and what he was there for. Andrew drew the bow and shot it in the hips, debilitating it from moving its legs. His anger built up as he activated his knife and got close to it, cutting off its arms. He continued with his anger and vengeance, thrusting the knife into the beast’s chest and gutting the creature, the creature hissed and screeched even more. Andrew dropped the knife, pulled out his bow, and aimed it at the raptor’s head. But he paused and stared at the creature. The creature’s snarls and screeches began heaves and low-tone growls, its eyes were different than before and telling a different story. A story of pain and suffering, one of confusion and despair. Its eyes looked at Andrew before closing, preparing for its death and almost being at ease with it. But Andrew couldn’t do it, his anger turned to himself. He became a monster through his anger and pain. He stumbled back after realizing what he had done through his anger, breathing heavily. 

“What have I done…” He said aloud.

Suddenly the creature began to lunge at him. Its eyes glowed magenta and were full of fury, and the beast snarled and began snapping at him. Andrew didn’t think and fear and instincts took over. He drew the bow and released the string. The bolt of energy flew straight into the head of the raptor and it dropped dead. Its head was fried and smoke came from the head. Andrew dropped to the ground and sat there, his emotions being pulled in every direction at the same time. He didn’t know what to think with all that was happening, but mostly guilt and pain hit him the hardest out of these emotions. He began hearing the echoing calls of the other raptors, their calls getting closer with each minute. Andrew quickly realized what was going on and got up as he tried to escape. Only to find himself surrounded by four raptors, all of them beginning to circle calculating an attack.

Andrew drew his bow and fired his first shot, dropping the first one. Two of the others came in charging and Andrew sifted three bolts at one of them, dropping it on the third. The third raptor came in fast and Andrew drew the bow fast and fired a shot straight at the creature’s head. Dropping it three feet away from him. Andrew quickly looked around in front of him for the fourth.

As he did, a powerful hit came from behind him, launching him into the ground face-first. He flipped over onto his back only to see a raptor a few feet away from him. He tried to scuttle back, but the raptor lunged at him. Andrew thrusted his bow in front of him with both hands on it to block the raptor from getting to his face and both got into a stalemate. Andrew held the bow to its neck and its arms as the head of the beast was only a foot away from his head. Andrew let out a yell out of instinct, releasing his anger, pain, and fury all out. Andrew could feel the raptor’s foot push down on his chest and heard the claw try to pierce the armor but was too weak to pierce it. He tried to adjust one of his hands towards the string but the animal felt its tension ease and tried to push downward, Andrew tried and succeeded at regaining a grip on the bow with his other hand. Leaving the distance between their faces only a few inches apart. Andrew could feel the hot, disgusting breath and saliva of the creature fall on his face. His strength began to fail him and the creature kept moving in centimeter by centimeter.

Andrew felt like a failure to his friend even more. All he wanted was to make something right for his friend but he failed at that. Tears began rolling down his face.

‘I don’t deserve to be alive, I should’ve been the one to die there, Reuben. All I’ve done since is cause pain. Forgive me for what I’ve done.’ He thought, he looked at the raptor above him. Its eye’s magenta, it almost looked like it had a smile across its face as it knew it was winning. Andrew screamed out just in anger at himself. And slowly letting the bow come down towards his face. With the creature snapping more vigorously with each centimeter passing. The creature jerked its head up as was about to try to force the arms down faster.

Then Andrew heard a loud thud and the raptor above him jerked, squealed, and screeched in pain. It turned around away from Andrew and started hissing and snarling at something there. Andrew scuttled back and saw a Battle Axe sticking out of the back of the raptor. He watched as the beast charged at whatever it was, and then another thud, and the creature reared up and howled in pain. Then a sudden halt in the howl as Andrew watched the head and neck slide off the body and both fell to the ground with something standing over it with an axe in its hand.

A human, a woman with blonde hair wearing fur armor and desert-built pants. She bent over grabbing the battle axe from the back of the creature and slipping it into a loop hanging from a belt. She looked over at Andrew and smiled with a kind face.

“Jeg hørte noen rop fra andre siden av dalen og fulgte etter den. Det så virkelig ut som du trengte en hånd. Paul, Erica! Kom raskt, jeg har funnet noen! Navnet er Freya, hva er ditt?” The woman said to Andrew, but he couldn’t understand it. Andrew’s eyes widened with fear. He knew his mind was already on the verge of losing it, but he didn’t think it was this close

‘This can’t be real, it’s just impossible. I’ve looked everywhere across Sanctuary and the surrounding area for years and never found anyone. Am I dead? Is this some sort of torment or alien encounter?’ He thought to himself. The woman saw that he was in distress.

“Hei, går det bra med deg? Paul, Erica! Jeg trenger hjelp her! Det er, greit at vi skal hjelpe deg uansett hva du trenger!” The woman said, he couldn’t understand her still. She started getting closer to Andrew. Andrew’s eyes widened even more and he stood up immediately and aimed his bow for her. She lowered her axe and raised her hands in the air. She tried to say something but Andrew cut her off.

“Who are you, what are you!” He said scared, he was trembling from everything that happened and was going on. She said something but again he couldn’t understand.

“I don’t understand, I don’t understand what you’re saying. WHAT ARE YOU?” He shouted with a trembling voice.