Interlude
The Obsidian coloured, crystalline bug eyed insectoid robots of the 15th Aku Extermination army scoured the countryside.
They killed everything that moved, dissecting hapless humans into bloody ruins with their diamonoid blades. Gigantic, slave driven artillery platforms, eerily reminiscent of caterpillars, lumbered forward, blasting houses into molten craters.
Such was the fate of those who would dare destroy a Pillar to to Aku.
The robots began another systematic scan for anything larger than a dog, no survivors would escape this purge even as a warning to others.
+++OBJECT SIGHTED - SCANNING...
DETAILS: RED, BLACK, GOLD ARMOURED MOTIFS - NON STANDARD HORN PATTERN - OVER BASE HUMAN HEIGHT - NO RECORDS IN DATABASE - ANALYSIS COMPLETE - DESTROY+++
The target of this scan was sitting alone on top of a hill, his thoughts very slowly running through his immense armoured head, as he slowly banged a gauntleted fist against his helm, in a way very reminiscent of the human act of "Head scratching"
"Kurse Sad, where Children? Me miss them… Maybe they hurt? Hurt?! HURT! Malakith maybe? What do…"
As these thoughts slowly trailed through his mind he felt a slight tickle. Turning, Kurse saw the black carapace of the killing machine that had slashed him with its molecule thick diamond blade. It could have carved straight through a half meter thick wall of stone and should have sliced him clean in half.
It shattered against his arm as if it were made of cheap ceramic.
Notified by their factory-mate's screech of alarm more bugs came scurrying to assist in dispatching the problematic target.
However they were as successful as their predecessor, completely failing even to garner any additional reaction from the being.
Having prioritized him as a high level threat they sent out a tightly coded binary transmission, summoning the artillery.
The artillery pieces rolled in, slave drivers whipping the motive force as they trundled closer.
As The pieces slowly crawled forward, each segment composed of layers of armour on top of open tractor-tracks, the ground itself shook under them while the sounds of the monotonous "Work faster" call of the robot slave driver in each wheel preceded it to an equal degree.
Then finally they reached their immobile target, they gathered into a perfect circle around it and raised their massive "heads" to fully gather the solar cataclyst needed to fire their "Hell-core streamers".
The combined blast of a half dozen artillery units melted the ground into molten lava in a radius of a dozen meters, and fully half that deep. All centered around the being.
Even this proved a useless gesture as their target merely began to swim through the lava!
Truly threatened now the artillery pieces swung around to bombard the area with their secondary weapon, a ray that transferred heat away from its area of effect. A freeze weapon, able to take materials and objects hundreds of degrees below zero
The lava, and the man swimming through it, froze. Kurse was trapped, locked inside a chunk of basalt.
An outside observer could have sword that relief showed in the actions of the faceless automatons and he would have been far from wrong as coded transmissions passed between them.
+++TRANSMISSION FOR CENTRAL AREA COMMAND:
Target neutralized – Victory! ALL HAIL AKU – EXTERMINATION TO PROCEED ACCORDING TO SCHEDULE +0.2 AKU HOURS – END TRAN+++
Unfortunately at that point the block began to wobble. Cracks appeared, skittering over its surface like a spider's web.
Then it shattered, solid basalt proving no more solid than an eggshell.
Kurse was puzzled as to why these silly machines were bothering him; still he paid them no heed until he saw It.
The "motive force" of the artillery, gangs of humans, many of them young children barely able to walk.
Logically Kurse could see that they neither Asgardian or Elven young nor were they his charges, but this was a triviality soon to be put aside as he saw a gang leader whip one of his young slaves.
This made Kurse very, very angry.
His rage had little effect on his strength, but considering that he had five fold the power of all but the mightiest of gods he was far from requiring any sort crutch to squash some bugs.
A few short minutes later the thousands strong army had been utterly exterminated, transformed into a vast scrap heap that was to provide employment for survivors in the region for decades to come.
As for Kurse? He wandered away, confused and alone.
Chapter 8 – Bounty Hunter vs Green Xeno-dwarf
Samus Aran, galactic bounty hunter descended into the sewers.
She examined her surroundings, while her scanner translated markings on the walls & rocks of the former swamp.
She began to make her way towards the Sewage treatment plant, the stench increasing as the swamp declined and the Sewage flow increased.
As the Excrement of millions flowed underneath her Samus offered a silent prayer to the Chozo that her altered bio-organic suit retained all the properties of her old one, specifically the shielding systems (following the absorption of the SA-X) even if it did rely overmuch on kinetic redirection and raw durability.
She approached the wasteland around the plant where the swamp had been completely over-run with debris, junk, trash, refuse, raw sewage, lumps of rubble & steel and the other refuse covering the terrain.
"Perfect place for an ambush" she thought to herself.
She charged up her primary blaster and activated her Infra-Red vision as she began searching for signs of life (The bounty notes indicated a heat emitting mammal).
Unfortunately this meant that her "radar" missed a trio of multi-ton boulders slowly rise off the ground and into the air behind her, the crumbling noise masked by the flow of the sewers and "Chug-Chug-Chug" of the still distant plant's turbines operating.
Away from The Lone Bounty hunter a short green being in a ragged cloak had his thumb and forefinger held apart. Then he pressed those twin digits together.
The corresponding reaction to this act was that Samus found herself pummeled by the boulders (And additional smaller stones) that smashed into her at incredible speeds.
The primitive projectiles pulverized on impact with her shields and armour but their sheer speed and kinetic impact drained her already borderline reserves of energy, despite the normally negligible effect of a mere 9 million joules of kinetic energy in a tenth of a second.
Rapidly recovering her bearings and cursing the suit's weakness to pure physical impact and her idiocy in not finding a way to recharge her suits reservoirs Samus somersaulted upwards and forwards, presenting a moving target to her hidden adversary.
She span and somersaulted in mid-air as she blasted the various boulders propelled at her and dodged smaller projectiles and shards of metal.
Samus blasted a pair of missiles to clear away potential cover and was astonished to see her missiles come blasting back at her, and she barely managed to shoot the subsonic projectiles down, the shockwave sending her slamming into the ground.
She landed on the "palms" of her hands and pusher herself forwards in a twisting leaping handstand to land on her feet.
She began to run at a constantly accelerating rate, her stored supplies of kinetic energy combining with servos in her armour serving to increase her speed to supersonic levels.
A command was mentally tapped out and her armour stopped "shaping" her passage through the air and absorbing the energy into itself.
The effect of this failsafe being disabled was a series of devastating sonic booms in her wake that shredded the environs as well as most sources of potential cover, even for a telekinetic midget.
She covered as maximum area possible in a long wide circular loop around the plant, while the effects of the friction and sonic speed debris took their toll on her minute energy supplies until finally she powered down, kinetic reserves all but drained.
She examined her wake of destruction, trying to sight movement or heat as she cycled viewing modes.
Then she spotted It at last, a flash of green on top of a distant boulder.
She utilized her mass converter and "transformed" into a tiny, compact armoured ball that then began to maneuver through the field of shredded debris towards her target, hiding stealthily by passing under the fields of rubble.
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Thanks to Ford Prefect & Pick for helping me with re-write the Interlude
