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Shattered: Redux

Chapter IV: In the Darkness...

Without darkness, one cannot know light...

-Anonymous

_ _

Alex stepped onto the cold deck of the ark as he heard the airlock seal behind him. The man refused to look back as he pressed onwards. He knew that he might be tempted to just turn and run back to the safety of the light, and the people. It was ironic as the people he knew were long dead and gone, and in fact was probably waiting to include him into their macabre embrace.

He resisted the urge to flee and instead, summoned his pulse rifle from the digital storage system connected to his RIG. The familiar weight and power of the weapon gave him a small modicum of comfort. In preparation, he also retrieved his melee weapon. A creation of his own devising, the weapon was a repurposed and redesigned plasma saw. The end result was a sword-like blade comprised of a stream of suppressed plasma that could easily cleave through flesh, bone, and steel alike. It had saved his skin countless times in the past. And he knew that he would be using it again before he left this place.

He attached the hilt to his waist and continued down the hallway he slipped into. The soldier aimed his left gauntlet out, palm down facing the floor. Moments later a light connected with his hand and the deck, guiding him to his destination.

Alex had left the things he wanted back on deck-J, which was a sizeable walk from where he had been dropped off, Deck-C. It would take anywhere from two-to-six hours to get there and back, depending on if he tried to be stealthy or if he just rushed through brazenly.

The soldier decided that discretion would suit him best. So with a path and course of action planned, the man shouldered his pulse rifle and started his journey through the charnel house.

**********

Fox walked out of the airlock room with a frown on his muzzle. The vulpine felt a deep sense of loss that increased the farther he got from the derelict. It was strange, he didn't know the human that long and yet he felt as if the man had become his friend. In all the conversations he had with him, he had been a soft spoken and rather mellow man. He never saw him angry at anything. If Fox was in his situation, he imagined that he would have become bitter and hostile to the world at large for damning him to such a fate. And yet Alex wasn't like that. Sure there were times when he would lapse into silence, but besides that he could be considered normal, even better than normal.

All in all, the human was a nice guy to have around, and now in all likelihood, he would meet his end on the ship that held the monstrous remnants of his race, all for some sort of personal keepsake. He didn't think he would have been able to do it if the roles were reversed.

Fox entered the small dining hall aboard the Defiance-class cruiser, planning on getting a meal. Inside there were a few crewmen and he spotted his team at a table in the back. He quickly went through the food line-up, grabbing a tray with mashed potatoes and synthesized beef. He took the foodstuff to the table his friends were at, sitting next to Falco.

The avian was plowing through his food without a care in the world. "Doesn't it bother you?" Fox asked his friend.

"Does what bother me?" The bird demanded as he took a sip of his water.

"Maybe the fact that Alex is probably going to get himself killed?" Fox deadpanned.

Falco turned to look at his friend. "Look Fox, he said that no one could go with him right?"

The vulpine nodded.

"Which means that we can't do anything for him, so why would I let it drag me down? That wouldn't do any one good, least of all him. Besides, he can take care of himself. He said he was stuck on that death ship for six months, I'm sure that ten more hours won't kill him." Falco explained as he continued to eat.

Fox shook his head in disbelief. "I can't believe it...you're actually making sense for once."

"I have my moments." Falco replied smugly before frowning. "Wait...for once?"

But by that time Fox had already moved on, looking to Slippy. "What are your thoughts Slip?"

"I don't know...all this stuff is crazy. But I do think that Alex was, is, a cool guy. He likes fixing things, like me!" Slippy responded.

Indeed the human seemed to have a knack for tech like Slippy did. The few times he had seen the pair talking, they had been discussing things that went over Fox's head. But they both seemed happy enough.

Fox nodded and looked to Krystal. "So, resident telepath, what are your thoughts on the human?"

Krystal slowly looked up from her food, which she had been carefully picking at with her utensils. The azure vixen gently placed her equipment down on the tabletop, wiped her muzzle with a napkin, and replied. "He was....different, and yet familiar. I could not get an in-depth read on him, as something was strange about his brain. But I was able to pick up on his feelings. The most prominent was loss, rage, hatred, regret, but most of all, he was pensive. He reminded me much of myself not too long ago. And it is easy to understand why. He lost everything, as did I."

"Makes sense, you both lost your people." Fox muttered thoughtfully.

"Correct, but he is still haunted by that loss. My people were destroyed, as painful as it is to say. Whereas Alex's people still linger as twisted mockeries of themselves. I fear that he has the greater of the two evils." Krystal informed them.

"It sure does blow." Falco added. "I mean, your whole race, turned into monsters. For once I think that blows is inadequate, more like getting kicked in the teeth and then punched in the nuts."

Fox grimaced at Falco's rather bold comment. But the avian once more did have a point.

"I just want to see what it is like on that ship." Fox added. "I feel like we don't really understand."

When he said that, Slippy looked down guilty.

Krystal picked up on his emotions. "It would seem that Slippy has something to say on that matter."

Everyone at the table focused on the toad, and he lifted his head, twiddling with his hands.

"What did you do Slip?" Fox asked with a sigh.

"Well, when I was helping him with his armor I kinda....bugged it." The toad admitted, rubbing the back of his bald head.

"Jeez Louise Slippy why would you do that?" Fox demanded.

"It's not my fault, Leers told me to do it!" Slippy confessed. "He wanted to know what the human was dealing with in case something bad happened."

Fox growled. "That's not how we do things Slippy. Does Peppy know?"

"I don't know; all I do know is that he wanted a stream of the footage linked to his office, so that's what I did. Although, I also opened another feed for myself. I have it hear on my communicator." The amphibian lifted up his device.

"Well what are you waiting for? Turn it on!" Falco said excitedly.

"What we can't do that! It's a breach of privacy!" Fox retorted. "I don't think he wants anyone to see."

'So, Leer already broke it, it is only fair that his friends get to see too!" Falco countered.

"Oh so you're his friend now?" Fox asked, raising his brow.

"Maybe..." The avian muttered defensively.

Fox sighed and looked to Krystal. "What do you think?"

"It would be improper of us to intrude upon his privacy...." Falco threw his feather hands up. "...However, I think that it may be necessary this one time." She finished with a smile.

"Ah yeah, Krystal's in on it!" Falco hooted, pumping his fist.

Fox chuckled and wiped his muzzle with a paw. "Alright, alright, Slippy start it up.

The toad was quick to type away at his communicator with his experienced fingers. Within moments, the holo-emitter puttered on and an image began to render. But the sound finished first, and the first thing they noticed was the harsh barking of a ballistic weapon and bone-chilling howls.

"Holy shit!" Falco exclaimed.

**********

Alex growled as he caught the swipe of a necromorph's talon with the body off his pulse rifle, sending shockwaves traveling through his wrists and into his arms. Swinging the now scarred weapon, he battered the bladed limb away and delivered a suit enhanced Hail-Mary to the creature's mandibled face with his left gauntlet.

There was a brutal crack as he snapped bone and ruptured skin, sending the decayed head soaring off of its owner to splat against the far wall. But that did not stop the beast. Instead it continued to attack, now silently, attempting to spear him once more with its bone scythes.

He ducked low, dodging the lethal swipes, and kicked out one of the monsters legs. The knee introverted with a clean sounding break. And it collapsed. As it fell, the soldier grabbed the hilt on his waist and activated the plasma sword. It crackled to life brightly, illuminating the corridor in soft blue light and revealing the three fallen corpses of his previous foes.

"Die motherfucker!' He growled, scything the screaming blade through its torso and rendering it into chunks of flayed and scorched meat. He continued to growl as he then pummeled it with a boot, smashing the corpse further into a pulpy paste.

When he finished expending his rage, he dropped to the ground in a heap and tiredly recuperated, deactivating his blade and returning it to its home. "I fucking hate this place." He panted irritably as he gathered his spent stamina.

As per freaking usual, the stealthy approached fail gloriously. Less than ten minutes after he started, he had been attacked by a small pack of regular, or as he liked to call them, slashers. He opened a door that led to the lifts, and instead of an empty hallway, there had been ten of them, just standing there with their rotten thumbs up their butts. It went without saying that they were most enthused to see him. Thankfully even though he had been gone for close to a week and a half, his instincts were still top notch. He avoided the first attack and then danced the dance of death.

Now the corridor was deserted, not counting the ten dismembered necromorphs. Alex sighed and reloaded his pulse rifle, dropping the mag as he materialized a fresh one, ramming it home. The gun snapped closed and was ready for action once again. The soldier sighed as he stepped over the bodies and entered the elevator. He keyed in the lowest level of Deck-C, and leaned against the wall. He had forgotten how trying constantly fighting for your survival could be.

The lift shuddered as it began to descend and Alex stood in silence. Faint music began to play in the background, and he groaned grouchily.

He hated elevator music.

At last the lift pinged quietly and opened, depositing him on the final level of the deck. Bearing his rifle, he entered the monotonous hallway and proceeded onwards. The light stemming from his rifle revealed the deserted corridor and its long dried blood pools. Bits of flesh were scattered across the floor, and timeworn bodies of fallen monsters lay sprawled about. The sight of the corpses sent his paranoia on overdrive.

He had learned the hard way that not every cadaver was truly dead.

Alex stopped in the hall and shined his light on the nearest carcass, observing it from a distance. The soldier could make out the antique bullet holes and desiccated limbs, marking it as a dead one. He stepped over it and continued with his corpse check.

On the third body he stopped.

This one looked like it had been an engineer before his forced mutation. The lower body was still wearing the heavy duty armored pants and he could see a torn patch on its shoulder. Its sickle arms were in repose on the creature's lap, and for all intents and purposes could be considered dead. The necromorph's head was bent at an awkward angle, all the way back to where the forehead could touch the spine. He could see ragged flesh stretched across its abused frame and its chest was flayed open, revealing putrid entrails and a smaller pair of hands situated on the abdomen.

"Sneaky bastard, aren't you?" Alex whispered to himself with a grim chuckle.

He took his left hand off the forestock of his pulse rifle and shifted it to one of the nearby corpses. Then he activated the kinesis engine and tore one of the blades off the body to hover in front of his palm. Alex flexed his hand and the blade dove straight for his target.

The 'dead' necromorph squealed as the javelin-like limb plunged into its chest and pinned it to the hull. As it thrashed and wailed, trying to dislodge itself to attack him, the soldier scoffed and digitized his rifle, brandishing his plasma blade.

The sword activated with a hiss and erupted from the hilt, generating a low hum that permeated the area. He stepped over to the withering creature and spun the beam of energy, detaching its two fore limbs. In the same motion he hacked the blade into its shoulder and carved it into two pieces.

The creature immediately stopped moving and he shut the blade off, turning to resume his journey, hoping that things would stay relatively simple.

**********

The necromorph collapsed to the floor, peppered by a hail of pulse rounds. Yet even as gravity pulled it to the deck, the pulse gun continued to thunder as it cut down another beast behind the first.

Alex quickly jogged backwards, firing into the hoard he had stumbled upon a few minutes after stepping off on Deck-J. It seemed that the farther he progressed into the ark, the number of necromorphs he encountered increased dramatically. He was running dangerously low on pulse ammo and his pistol had been knocked away, dropping through a floor grate, lost forever.

It took him five minutes to deal with the hoard, and all but one of his ammo clips. And he knew it would only get harder the closer he got to his destination.

Deck-J was a residential deck, which meant that the amount of necromorphs here would be staggeringly high. But he remained undaunted, stepping over the corpses of those he once knew. He was close, closer than he had ever been before. It had been almost impossible to reach the residential area before. But after he had drawn the majority of the hordes farther away, to the bridge, he had a chance to slip in and snag them.

Alex activated the holographic control on the door past his little warzone and progressed past it.

The other side of the door was a large expanse, a plaza where people had been able to walk through and converse with one another, at least until the end came. Now it was a bloodbath, countless body parts were scattered amid oceans of coagulated blood.

And not all of the body parts belonged to adults.

The soldier slowly entered the plaza turned charnel house, swinging the light of his gun back and forth to pierce the darkness. The holo-counter on his rifle informed him that he had 125 rounds left. It sounded like a lot, but he could burn through the entirety of that in less than a minute, and that would leave him with only his plasma sword, something he was not looking forward to that.

His armored boots made a sickening squelching noise as they stuck to the gummy deck. As he headed towards the small lift that would take him into the apartment center, he spied a small object that had not been here when he last walked these bloodied halls.

There was a small plushy, lying in a disturbingly fresh puddle of blood and an alarming amount of shellcasings. With a growing sense of unease, he neared the new environmental location.

He stopped just at the cusp of the blood pool and kneeled down beside it. Alex enfolded his gauntlet around a tiny brown teddy bear. He could feel a warm dampness between his gloved fingers as he held the plush and a steady stream of red liquid cascaded off of it and back into the puddle. The soldier gazed into the toy's unseeing black plastic eyes and his hands began to tremble.

Alex dropped it like it had been lit aflame and stumbled backwards loudly, tripping over an arm and falling into the older blood. Almost crazed, he scrambled away from it until his plated back collided with a fountain, sending casings scattering to the four winds. The sound faintly reminded the stressed human of wind chimes as they tinkled softly in the stifling silence.

His shivering continued as he enveloped his helmet in his bloodied gauntlets and the man began to whisper to himself imperceptibly as he rocked back and forth in the darkness, his rifle lying abandoned by the fresh pool of blood.

The dawning realization, that there had been others still alive had shaken him to his core.

But he was not given much time to think about that.

A low droning wail echoed through the plaza and he heard the distant shuffling of many pairs of limbs. The golden brown eyes underneath the black helm widened in fear and he scrambled back onto his feet. His biggest fear had been realized, he knew that specific screech better than any other.

The patter of countless tiny malformed feet closed in and the moaning wails of the damned became deafening.

Driven mad by the shrieks, he sprinted towards his errant rifle.

The pack had come for him....

His gloved fingers were millimeters from the grip of his rifle when he was violently thrown to the ground. Alex felt something on his back as claws scrabbled on the plates of his bulky armor. Screaming, he reached his hands backwards and wrenched the diminutive necromorph off of his back and brought it to the deck with as much force as he could muster.

The little demon ruptured as putrid flesh met unmoving steel.

He threw himself to his feet and turned in time to snatch a second hell fiend out of the air as it bore down on him with s squealing howl. He pulled his plated fist back and rammed it into the distorted and mutated face of a small child.

Its haunting wails were silenced immediately.

He tossed the deceased creature to the ground and once more tried to reach his rifle.

Ten feet from the weapon, he was brought to his knees as several small forms pounced onto his spine and dragged him down with their combined weight. He cried out in pain as he felt a small set of unnaturally sharpened teeth dig into his neck, burrowing into it in search of his larynx.

With steely will, he ripped the head off his neck and its body, using it to bash another creature off of him. He felt blood spurt out of his wound as he clawed himself over to his weapon under the pummeling off numerous clawed limbs.

As his consciousness began to fade, he felt the palm of one of his gauntlets fall on something, cold steel.

Adrenalin flooded his system as his newfound grip tightened on his weapon and he roared as he forced himself back to his feet, shaking violently and removing all the excess baggage. He whipped around and spotted the massive swarm of dwarfish creatures.

They collectively hissed at him and charged forwards in a wave of pale flesh, sunken eyes, and deadly claws.

His response had been the booming cacophony of gunfire.

The high velocity rounds devastated the hoard of necrotized fiends and in short order silence once more pervaded the plaza.

Alex stared at the scattered bodies of what had once been children and his empty rifle clattered to the floor from numbed hands. He sunk to his knees and his form shook noiselessly. The soldier's helmet folded back into his suit, revealing bloodshot eyes as hot tears flooded down his face as he was wracked with pained sobs.

Eventually, he managed to get a hold of himself, wiping the tears away with his bloodied gauntlets. The helmet once more enclosed around his features and he returned to his feet, and any evidence of his sorrow was concealed.

The soldier walked over to the bodies and whispered a soft prayer for the departed. He hoped that wherever these kids were now, pain and suffering lay far away. He comforted himself with the thought that he had at least put their tormented bodies to rest.

Alex turned and headed for the small lift, yet after he got a few feet away he looked back. The man returned to the fresh blood pool and retrieved the teddy bear. He stared at it for a long time before he belted it to his waist.

He took the lift to the apartment complex and it opened a few minutes later. Alex stepped out and entered the deserted hallways. He meandered through, searching for his old place. Eventually he began to find things that refreshed his memory, bodies of necromorphs he had put down, and other landmarks.

He knew that he was close when he found a large pile of corpses blocking off a portion of the hallway. Alex climbed over the biological blockade of withered and bones dropped down to the other side. Slowly, he walked the corridor, slowing down the closer he got to his room.

By the time he reached the threshold he had to force physically force himself to cross it.

Alex swiveled his helmet as ran over the familiar place with his eyes. Everything looked just as he left it when he had fled, all those months ago. As he crossed the foyer into the main section of the apartment, he was assaulted by a vivid flashback.

**********

The monster that had once been Sarah McAllister shrieked and leaped on the man, trying to rip his throat out with its mandibles. Alex held its snapping jaws back with his left gauntlet as he tried to push it away. He managed to throw it back and struggled to his feet.

It warbled at him once more with its desiccated lungs and charged, flaying its deadly bone scythes. He rolled away from the attack and fumbled at his waist for his sword. He ripped it off and flicked the switch, bringing the glowing blue blade forth from its confinement.

The monster rushed again, unheeding of the energized blade.

It swung at him and he flicked his wrist, separating the blades from its body. He twisted as it tried to grapple him with its smaller arms and he plunged the blade all the way to the hilt into its chest cavity, tearing it sideways and ripping it out in a flood of putrid gore.

Instantly, the monster that had once been the love of his life collapsed motionless as he followed it down to the ground. He placed a gauntlet on its chest and looked to the mutilated face of his beloved. "I'm sorry....I am so, so sorry, I should have been faster. I should have been faster..."He kept repeating that to himself as he cradled the deformed corpse.

The smell of cauterized flesh and decay infested his nose after he had removed his helmet. He brought his fingers to his lips and then pressed then onto the forehead of the body.

But before he could even begin to grieve, he heard something move behind him and he had to evade a deadly blade that buried itself into the deck. He turned to see one of the creatures, dressed in tattered cloth, as it charged him. With a pain filled howl of rage he tackled the necromorph and forced it to the ground.

The soldier's plated fists rose and fell like the hammer of an angry blacksmith, soon the creature under his grip stopped moving, but his fists did not...

**********

Alex reeled from the intense remembrance and took deep shuddering breathes. He shook his head and walked past the living room, doing his best to not look at what still laid on the floor. He entered the small bedroom he had lived in and moved to a small drawered table by the side of the bed. Atop the drawer was a small holo device. He picked it up and pressed the button, in response a holographic image of a smiling man and woman materialized.

Silently, he shut it off and stashed it in a compartment on his armor.

He opened the drawer built into the little table and rifled through it, lifting out a small black box and placing it with the holo emitter. He grabbed a few more things and stowed them away as well. Lastly, he pulled out a large handgun from the drawer. He checked the ammo cylinder and then closed it with a nod.

With that complete, the man sat on the bed and sighed heavily. He sat there for an hour before he considered himself stable enough to keep moving. He willed himself up and walked out of the apartment, but nor before he found himself looking back to the body that lay on the floor of the living room.

Alex shook his head roughly and turned away, walking back out.

He then began to backtrack, following the path that would lead him back to the airlock. Honestly, Alex was surprised that he was still alive. He had thought for sure that he would have been killed by one of the many horrors that prowled the derelict. But it seemed that his luck continued to hold, if you could call it that.

He certainly did not feel lucky, rather, he felt like shit.

Alex exited the second lift and arrived back on Deck-C. He cautiously stepped out, handgun aimed at the darkness.

Something was not right....

His return journey had been free of any necromorphs. Instead every hallway was dominated by a deafening silence and it was making him extremely fidgety. The slightest noise jolted him and made him look around rapidly.

He neared the airlock and immediately stopped. An extreme feeling of wrongness began to slither down his spine and a deep chill sunk into his bones.

A faint giggling whispered from behind him and whipped around, pointing his gun at something scant feet away, what he saw made him issue a gasp and he stumbled backwards. "Sarah...?" Alex asked hesitantly.

A woman in a flower print dress stood opposite him.

All the members of Starfox saw was Alex talking to an empty corridor.

The woman nodded but refrained from speaking.

"W-what b-but that's impossible. I-I killed you." He choked out. "You were one of them."

Sarah giggled and flicked her auburn hair back. "Oh was I?"

"DON'T PLAY GAMES WITH ME!" He roared, shaking his handgun at her. "You're dead, GONE!"

"That's merely what you perceive Alex." She responded mysteriously.

"That doesn't make any sense." He growled.

"Only because you are unenlightened....."

"Unenlightened...?" He asked in confusion.

"Yes, you and the rest of humanity, none of you understood our true purpose." She explained.

Alex shook his head, backing away. "You, you're not Sarah."

"I am, and I am not." The women retorted, slowly advancing on him. "You see, no one ever truly dies."

"I know what this." Alex snarled, backing up to the airlock. "This is all just a hallucination; the Marker on this ship is playing games with me."

"Oh this is not a game. This is an offer." The women refuted. "You may have noticed that your journey back here was smoother than before."

He nodded hesitantly.

"That is because we allowed it to be, a show of faith if you will."

"Why would you do that?"

"The answer is simple; I want you to join us. We know that something has changed, brought us to a new dimension where we could show others the true path. We need their help."

"Help with what?" He demanded.

"To make us whole...." The specter responded simply.

"You want me to help you escape?" He spat out in disgust and disbelief.

"Yes, you sabotaged the engines and the guidance system, fix those and we will reward you." It promised.

"Reward me..." He muttered darkly as his rage boiled over. "REWARD ME! You killed of my entire race, turned them into fucking monsters! And you have the damn balls to ask me to help you do it again!"

"We can bring her back." It cut in. "We can reunite you with everyone you had lost."

He shook his helm and aimed his gun. "You must be crazy if you expect me to swallow that horseshit."

"I think we both know who's crazy here." She fired back with a giggle.

"Sorry bitch, but I don't make deals with the devil. I'm going to leave. And when they torch this ship and turn it into ash, I'll be smiling." He chuckled darkly, backing up into the airlock chamber.

"We can't just let you leave, you know that." She scolded in a condescending tone.

"Oh yeah, how are you planning on stopping me? I'll be long gone before any of your pet monsters show up."

"No, actually you won't." She denied.

Alex looked at her in confusion and then in alarm as he felt his hand start to twist on its own, shifting the barrel of his pistol towards his head. He grabbed it with his other gauntlet and clamped down, trying to force it back. He could hear movement at the end of the corridor as the hoards that had been held back were allowed to come forth.

He needed to leave, but if he removed his hand to press the airlock button, he would blow his own brains out. Alex fought with himself, keeping the gun at bay as he struggled to figure out a way out of this situation, meanwhile the pseudo Sarah gazed on with a satisfied smile. "Do we have a deal?" She asked.

"Not a chance monster." He growled, as he strained to hold his hand back.

Now he could see the necromorphs as they barreled down the corridor towards him, a veritable ocean of the dead.

It was at that moment he decided to deny her any satisfaction. "I hope that if there's a hell, I'll see you there." He growled before letting go off his hand and slamming the airlock closed. The gun wiped towards his head and the weapon barked once.