The Courtship of RD Rivero
Part 7
"Why not? What use is he, anyway? He can't shoot, and he already ate half the ration packs!" Silverkat
complained, still covering Chanur with the rocket launcher..
"Because we need him," Axelle said gently, then frowned. She looked at Fianna and said, "I can't believe
I just said that."
"Think 'cannon fodder'," Fianna interjected. "He can be your living shield."
"Bloody hell, just blow him up and let's get on with it!" Zhyan complained.
"Thanks alot!" Chanur snapped.
Skat thought it over, then said, "Okay, poofywoof, you get to live this time. But try for MY rocket
launcher again, and you're getting a missle up your butt to match the pom-poms!"
"An armed missle and two pom-poms up Chanur's ass," Axelle said. "I could say something about that, but
I'm too much of a lady."
"That would be a first," Chanur grumbled. The hani got to his feet and stomped off towards the door the
monsters had been defending. Floating above the corpses were items: clips of bullets, handfuls of shotgun
shells, and a couple of rockets. Chanur collected the clips for his chain gun, and left the shells and
rockets for Fianna and Skat respectively. After everything had been gathered, the team moved on to the
door.
Fianna and Chanur flanked it on either side, while Zhyan, shuriken at the ready, put his hand to it and
slid it open. Nothing leapt through or shot at the archangel, so they warily entered. Inside was a small
room with a large "nuclear material" button on the wall. Recognizing it, everyone crowded into the
chamber, then Chanur punched the button, and the elevator began to descend to the next level.
"Hey Zyhan," Chanur said. "Why are you being so brave? You didn't have to stand in the door like that."
"Well, I've got a bit of an advantage being immortal, haven't I?" the archangel said proudly.
"Immortal? Just how immortal are you?" Fianna asked.
"What kind of a question is that? I'm immortal. You know, ageless and deathless and all that sort of
thing, Zhyan said, wary of the dog's sudden interest.
"There are alot of degrees of immortality" Axelle chimed in. "Most is just agelessness combined with
regeneration, like Christopher Lambert in 'Highlander'. Those immortals could regenerate from anything
short of an outright severing. If their heads came off, they couldn't recover."
"There's Wolverine, too. He ages very slowly, and recovers instantly from any injury that doesn't kill
him outright," Skat pointed out.
"And there's your basic undead monster," Chanur added. "Zombies and head-shots, vampires and stakes, all
that sort of thing. And werewolves can heal anything not done by a silver weapon."
"The one sure way to take any of these guys out is dismemberment," Axelle concluded. "Even if Zhyan
didn't die, if you cut him up, encased his body parts in cement and buried them in different locations,
he'd still be out of play. In fact, after a hundred years or so, he'd probably wish he could die, just to
end the torment."
"CAN WE KINDLY MOVE ON TO SOMETHING BESIDES METHODS FOR KILLING ME?!" Zhyan screamed in near panic.
"The elevator's stopped," Fianna said, and everyone gathered their weapons while Zhyan panted in the
middle of the group.
Silverkat said, "Hey, Mister Immortal, you wanna get the door again or what?"
Zhyan glared at the thunderan, then pressed the button beside the door. The portal slid aside, and the
cold, dank air beyond rushed into the small room, chilling them all. The light of the elevator fell on
damp brown flag stones, and nothing else. After a moment of steeling themselves, they left the security
of the well-lit sanctuary and moved off into the chamber beyond.
"Ooookay, this is creepy," Skat said, looking around the dimly-lit chamber. It was the first time any of
them had heard a hint of nervousness in the thunderan's voice.
Following the wall, Chanur came to a structure that was undeniably an altar. He turned and looked
overhead to find a large cross hanging on the wall. "If you want to say your prayers, now's the--," he
began, but was suddenly cut off by the sound of steel splitting the air. "What?!" he yelled, and everyone
turned to see what was happening.
Everyone, that is, except Axelle. The assassin had her longsword drawn and was slashing with expert
speed and dexterity at a shambling, emaciated creature in the center of the room. Clad in tattered rags,
it moved with unnatural speed, swinging club-like fists at the killer, but she had already danced away
from it. The monster took a staggering step towards her, and Axelle retaliated with a spinning backhand
swing that connected with such force, the creature tore into three pieces, head one direction, torso and
legs in two others. It emittied a piteous moan, and perished.
"See, Zhyan? Dismemberment. Works every time," she said, sheathing her weapon. She wasn't even breathing
hard.
"Well, that confirms it," Fianna said. "We've blundered into the cathedral from 'Nightmare Creatures'.
We should be alright, just whatever you do, stay away from the windows."
"What about the windows?" Zhyan called from where he stood, admiring the intricate stained glass. No
sooner had the words left his mouth than the window shattered inward and a hideously obscene *thing*
bounded through. Covered in brown fur, it had a head like a wolf and the long-armed body of an ape. Zhyan
froze for one instant in pure suprise as the creature turned it's lifeless blank white eyes on him, then
it lashed out with it's three-inch talons, sending the archangel reeling across the floor with a startled
grunt of pain.
The werewolf bayed in triumph, but it's victory was short-lived, as was the victor. Before Zhyan fell,
thirty rounds from a chain gun and two shotgun blasts had blown the monster to pieces against the wall
behind the window.
"Zhyan! Are you alright?!" Axelle yelled, rushing to his side. On his knees, arms crossed over his
stomach, he looked up at the assassin, his eyes wide with pain, shock and horror. He uncrossed his arms,
and a mass of pink material spilled from his abdomen, across his knees and onto the floor.
It was his intestines. Zhyan's eyes rolled up into his skull, and he fell sideways onto the floor,
unmoving.
"HOLY SHIT!!" Silverkat screamed.
"FIANNA, HELP ME!" Axelle yelled. She put a finger to Zhyan's neck, feeling for a pulse. As the caninoid
slid on his knees to a position across from her, she shook her head. With no further instruction, the dog
placed one massive hand in the center of Zhyan's chest and began to press inward rythmically while Axelle
clamped her lips over the archangel's and blew air into his lungs.
"Company," Chanur growled, and nodded towards the church entrance, where a mix of zombies and werewolves
were edging into the room.
"Hold them off," Fianna said with an icy calm. Chanur slid behind a nearby pillar and began spraying
short bursts of chaingun fire at the monsters, driving them back to the doorway. Then Fianna reached over
his shoulder with his free hand and pulled the shotgun off his weapon harness and handed it to Silverkat.
"Third window on the right, but be careful," the dog growled, then returned his full attention to keeping
a tenuous scrap of life in the wounded Zhyan.
Silverkat took the gun, cocked it and moved across the chamber. She counted three windows, and started
towards the rightmost. She got ten feet away when both of the near windows crashed inward in a spray of
colored glass, admitting two more snarling horrors.
Before the near one could turn, she put the tip of the shotgun barrel to it's temple and blew it's head
off, splattering it's brother with a mess of blood, brains and pulverized skull. The second charged her
before she could cock the weapon, but Skat reacted with thunderan quickness, flipping the shotgun end for
end and swinging it like a baseball bat. The blow sent the monster spinning away in a clatter of
fractured teeth. She reversed the weapon once more and blew a pumpkin-sized hole through the werewolf's
chest.
She dashed for the last window and shattered the glass with the butt of the shotgun. Inside was a sphere
of glowing gold light, like a tiny sun trapped in amber. It's radiance washed over her like warm water,
and for a long moment she stared at it, transfixed by it's unearthly beauty.
"SKAT!" Fianna yelled, snapping her out of her hypnosis. She grabbed up the ball and started back
towards the group, when the air over her head was split by a loud, ragged shriek. Silverkat turned and
stopped, stunned by the sight of the flapping nightmare falling on her from above.
It had the voluptuous body of a well-endowed human woman, with swelling hips and large, heavy breasts,
but there the resemblance ended. The hips tapered together, the legs fusing at the knee into a single
sinuous tail that lashed below it. The arms were contorted into huge batlike wings that flapped on either
side, holding the monster aloft. Corpse-gray skin covered every inch of it, up to the hawk-like face and
it's wide mouth full of razor-sharp teeth.
It screeched again, and swooped towards the thunderan. Skat lifted the shotgun, but before she could
fire, the monster plowed into her, sending the weapon sailing away from her grasp. Skat landed hard on
her back, stunned, then felt the heavy weight of the fiend land on top of her, felt the creature's tail
slither around her legs, trapping them.
Skat fought like a demon, punching the monster in the face, lacerating her own knuckles against it's
jagged fangs. It smiled at her, mocking her, and a thick rivulet of viscous, yellow drool spilled over
it's lips and landed like cold snot on the thunderan's face. Nauseated, Silverkat hesitated, and the
fiend opened it's mouth horribly wide, then lunged at her throat.
Skat watched the gaping maw descend to within an inch of her neck before it stopped. The eyes above it
were wide with suprise and pain, and the Team Tyger commander grinned as she pulled her twelve-inch
butcher's knife upward, gutting the vampire like a fish. With a final shriek, like a condemned soul cast
once more into the hell it had so recently escaped, the monster toppled over and off of Silverkat.
The thunderan vaulted to her feet and slid over beside the ersatz paramedics. She handed the ball to
Fianna, who looked at it and said, "I don't know how to use it."
"WHAT?!" Silverkat screeched.
Fianna winced. "It's not like a potion or something obvious. There's some method to using it that the
game never reveals. You just select it, press the "use item" key and your health meter goes up."
Axelle stopped blowing air into Zyhan's mouth and said, "Give it to me." Fianna passed the sphere to the
assassin, who placed it in Zhyan's hand. She wrapped her own hands around his and the ball, looked to
Fianna and asked, "What it the key to use an item?"
"Default is 'enter'," Fianna replied.
Axelle gripped Zhyan's hand and said loudly, "Enter!"
They waited. Nothing happened.
"Well, it was worth a try," Fianna said morosely.
"No, wait! Look!" Silverkat said excitedly. They all looked to the golden light seeping out between
Axelle's fingers, and watched it dim, fade, and finally dissappear altogether. As it did, Zhyan's wound
also dimmed, faded and disappeared, as though it were only an image superimposed on his body. When it was
gone, the archangel's eyes fluttered open, and he looked up into the faces of his friends.
Chanur walked over to the group and said, "Those things were persistent, but dumb. I waited them out,
and eventually they all walked into my line of fire. We can move on the next level now." Then he noticed
Zhyan and said, "Glad you're not dead."
"Next time," Zhyan said weakly, "You open the fuckin' door."
********
"Got any smelling salts?" Ayanna asked.
"Where would I put them in this outfit?" Peachyra snapped, continuing to pat Spark on the cheek.
Finally, she was rewarded with a moan, and the Azteca's eyes fluttered open.
"Oh, Peachy, I had the worst dream," she mumbled. "A big doggie tore open my Zhyan like a Christmas
present. It was terrible."
Peachyra looked at TygrisHawk, who was still peering into the mystical bird-bath.
"Looks like they're all okay," the tiger reported. "Zhyan's a little shaky, but he's standing."
Peachyra helped an equally wobbly Spark back to her feet and guided her to a nearby bench, where the
aztec sat heavily and continued to tremble. Peachyra stroked her hair and made soothing sounds, all the
while listening to the conversation behind her.
"Pretty smart, using CPR like that," Tygris said proudly. "Axe and Fianna kept Zhyan from completely
dying while Skat went after a health boost item. That's the kind of thing you can't do in a video game."
"Not exactly," Ayanna said. "I played some Dungeons and Dragons games where a character at zero hit
points was bleedng to death. But if somebody gave up a turn to bandage them, they just stayed at zero
until they could be healed. There's a legal precedent."
Tygris smirked at the cheetah. "I guess a gangster would know all about legal precedent, huh?"
Aya stuck her tongue out at her, glanced in the pool and sighed. Then she called over to Peachyra and
Spark.
"They just got off the elevator. I think you'd better see this."
TBC