Untold Stories of a Galaxy - Kysaek: The Beginning

“Let’s not waste any more time. Bomb a hole in it and then let’s get out of here,” Kysaek ordered, but suddenly the heavy footsteps were back and that made the hairs on the back of her neck freeze. Moreover, the others now heard it as well.

“What is that?” asked Thais, undecided like the rest which way to look.

Rivulets of dust trickled down everywhere and grain-sized stones fell from the crumbling façade. New, small cracks ate through the brickwork and puddles of water bounced faintly, while it was as if something would break at any moment, from above or through the sides. Abruptly, however, everything ended and there was complete silence in the canal.

“Maybe a faint earthquake-” Kysaek guessed, as suddenly the ceiling collapsed and the light from the weapons barely helped. The dusty wall of fog was too thick and she was already glad that Tavis was right beside her as she coughed in fright. “Thais?! Dorvan?!”

“We’re fine, Kysaek!” the Talin called back immediately. The sudden collapse of the ceiling had made her and her leader forget all about camouflage, but perhaps that was lost in the confusion. “Can you see anything?!”

“A pile of rubble,” Kysaek replied, but the broken stones were vivid and the pyramid of stones began to fall to the sides. A gigantic figure began to make its way out of the rubble and the dirty air cleared and the first thing Kysaek saw was horns, horns covered in tiny spikes and the only thing that could fit that for her immediately popped into her head. “How can that be?” she gulped, but the mist cleared and there was no doubt - it was the same unstoppable monster she had encountered in the PGI labs, or at least it was a new breed of it. Immediately it cast an eye on Dorvan and slowly extended its arm towards him, with no sign of wanting to kill him. “RUN!” roared Kysaek. “We don’t stand a chance against that thing!”

Suddenly the monster forgot about Dorvan. It stopped in its grip on him and bared the teeth of its X-shaped mouth. “Ky-saek,” the monster growled. It identified its target, despite the false face, and apparently recognised her by her voice before it sent her and Tavis fleeing with a missing steam hammer of a blow, into one of the tunnels. Because of its size, though it appeared smaller than it had then, the fearsome pursuer was at a disadvantage in the narrow tunnels as it hurried after them with brisk steps.

“What’s that?!” asked Tavis, and against his better judgement and despite previous warning, he fired his plasma shotgun in the rear as he ran.

“It’s no use!” implored Kysaek desperately of the Palanian. Its melting plasma was nothing to the black, slimy skin covered in red veins. Once again, Kysaek witnessed the monster’s every wound heal within seconds. “You see!”

“I see! In here!” nodded Tavis, yanking Kysaek with him into a pipe that was just enough for the two of them. It went deep into the rock and required crawling.

The grim-faced pursuer didn’t even come close to fitting inside and was left furious - at the start. Brute and ineffectual, the monster pounded on the surrounding inner rebar until it realised it was getting nowhere like this and extended its tentacle-like tongue. The firm mouth muscle shot forward swiftly and wrapped itself around Kysaek’s leg, pulling the wildly wriggling, panicking woman towards the monster’s mouth.

But it had done the math without Tavis and his shotgun! The creature’s tentacle was thin and nowhere near as massive as the rest of its body and was severed by the shotgun before any healing could begin. “Uuhrawwrrrr!” the colossus gave out and disappeared from the start of the pipe.

“That was almost it!“, Kysaek took an anxious breath and gave her Palanian comrade-in-arms his due. “Thank you so much, Tavis!”

“You’re welcome, but we’re not out of it yet!” the Palanian, who had been attentive in all respects, agreed. “What else do I need to know about this creature ... Kysaek?”

“Very big, very strong, very fast, invulnerable, shoots thorns from its hands and can’t even be subdued by prismatic forces for long!” enumerated Kysaek, revealing himself. “And we’ll talk about my name later, alright! Right now we need to get out of here alive!” She regained her breath and her battered senses. The monster continued to stomp through their immediate area, but the short distance allowed Kysaek to make radio contact even with all the steel and stone around it. She located the signals of all the allied vortex cuffs and now deliberately dropped the masquerade. “Thais! Are you sure?!”

As quietly as she could be, the Talin replied. “We’ve hidden in an alcove, but I hear the thing! It’s not far from us! What do we do now!!!”

“Fighting is useless. We must escape it,” Kysaek said as she followed the narrow pipe and the creature spoke her name repeatedly. “Ky-saek.” This was beyond creepy to her.

Thais was sure of it. “We’ll never make it through the exit and if we do, it’ll be right there.”

“Unless ...”

“Unless what?”

Kysaek was in a quandary. There was something going through her mind that had to be done and that she wasn’t keen on. Rescuing Dorvan was her first priority, but what was the point if she couldn’t make it out of this mouldy sewer alive? She liked living, but this wasn’t just about her existence and freedom: Thais, Re’Lis, Dios, Kuren and now Tavis. They were in this with Kysaek, or more precisely - because of her. She couldn’t find another word than guilt, because it was her fault that everything was the way it was and she overcame herself, albeit with difficulty. “I’ll distract him and as soon as I’ve lured him away, you’ll all leave with Dorvan through the exit.”

“Out of the question!” directly denied Thais. “I’m not just leaving you to that thing!” At her contra, she had unfortunately overstepped the high note scale and the monster came back to speed and was close to the Talin. “Bella’Sa!”

“Stay where you are!” ordered Kysaek, testing a theory by shouting. “Hey you fat brute! Come on! I’m here!” Promptly the colossus responded to her and marched clear back in her direction. It clearly showed Kysaek that the monster wanted her, but the radio link kept her quieter. “Thais, you do what I say. I’m nimble and I’ve escaped it before. I have more experience with this thing than you three and I say it’s done this way!”

“... But-”

“No buts! I’m the bait and I keep him busy! If there’s no other way, you fly without me! I’ll get off Themis and back to Central!”

Thais just about accepted the order. “I don’t like empty promises. Don’t be one. We’ll wait until it’s safe.”

“I’m only a guest here and against it, but I’m sure you know what you’re doing,” Tavis commented dryly. “What now, exactly?”

“Give me one of the remaining explosives and a couple of your sticky bombs,” Kysaek said, getting the desired explosive. With considerably reduced light activity, she moved out further into the narrow tube system, leaving Tavis behind. She was almost pissing her pants in fear, literally, and shaking with every part of her body, but one thing gave her enough courage to go through with it and that was the chance for revenge. Thais had saved her life before, as had Re’Lis with her medical skills and Dios and Kuren with their flying skills. Even Tavis just now and he hadn’t been around long and was more of an involuntarily. Besides, he was also an essential part of the current success - it was time for Kysaek to save their lives and risk hers.

The monster walked vigilantly through the tunnels, its red eyes and glowing veins betraying it in the dark. It probably didn’t have a good nose or sense of smell, as it ran right under Kysaek’s half-open pipe and perceived nothing of its prey. The creature’s hearing, however, was all the better for it and because of that it reacted immediately to the slightest sound, like a dog guarding the house and being literally fooled by knocks and calls from the intruder. The difference with a dog, however, was that the monster was a docile hunter and adapted to the situation in an instant. “Ky-saek,” it spat before it. The behemoth began to gauge the running route of its prey in the pipe system and wherever it saw vulnerable spots, it smashed everything and soon limited its enemy’s range to one section.

“I just need a good throw,” Kysaek crouched to himself at an outlet. Inside the rock, the pipes were out of reach of her pursuer and her first and last real protection and a good time to consider new ideas. One thing she hadn’t seen yet with the Colossus and she was mad and perplexed enough to dare. For her, that meant getting out into the open by kicking open a cheap grate and scattering some of Tavi’s sticky bombs around the area. The explosive pieces fit in the palm of Kysaek’s hand and were like a flat stone that she merely had to throw and have ready - here he comes! As her target appeared and took a menacing running step, her heart pounded so hard she thought she was about to choke it out...,

The monster no longer just charged randomly, but it didn’t need to at the distance and readied its spines for the shot. “Ky-,” the monster snarled, and that was its mistake! It swallowed a perfect bomb throw and its head burst into hundreds of chunks of flesh.

Completely beside herself, Kysaek freaked out. “OH YES! FUCKING TAKE THAT!” she yelled exultantly, throwing her hands over her head in euphoria as her headless pursuer toppled over and wouldn’t budge. “Not so invincible after all, eh?!” Her jubilation knew no bounds, except for one and that was a real instant mood killer for Kysaek. The colossus wasn’t dead. “Oh, come on!” At first only his fingers twitched, but as soon the giant rose frail before her, like a drunk, staggering blindly about with regrowing noggin, and with that Kysaek’s options were once again reduced to one and that was to run for your life immediately. Pasting the tunnel with more sticky bombs beforehand was a great help to her and although the explosions didn’t kill her relentless hunter, the force of the bombs slowed him down. That was Kysaek’s only trump card in this game of cat and mouse. I can’t defeat him, but I can slow him down and get an headstart!

Shooting him in the eyes was just as effective until the colossus began to protect his vision with his broad arm, but by then he had lost his prey again and was searching frantically.“”Uhrawwwrrr!”

Kysaek, however, was left with only one tunnel to choose from and the familiar fall of vast quantities of water, awakened an unpleasant foreboding in her and it was confirmed. She was back at the deep crevice, albeit at a different point from it and turning back was out of the question for her and in her panic at the approaching beast, she sought shelter between the filtering systems of this outer edge. Her breathing was very uneasy and she had to remove the defective helmet to cover her own mouth. Too great was her worry that the panting gasps for air betrayed her to the passing creature, of whom Kysaek could practically feel her soulless eyes passing over the edge of the filtering tank under which she stood directly.

Lacking alternative routes out of the cul-de-sac, however, it didn’t stop at scouting and the monster tackled the only option left in the place. It ripped one of the large filter units from its moorings and threw it into the abyss before the thing climbed onto the remaining filters and scanned the narrow spaces between them, rampaging indiscriminately.

The banging and tearing apart of the facility was a good evasive warning for Kysaek, without her having to check where exactly her pursuer was, and she dashed between the filters. Once everything was in ruins, however, she would be a bloody lump under her opponent’s fist. Was this really how things were going to end or was there a plan B? Wasn’t there this fire in Kysaek and a rising anger at her situation? Wasn’t she going to face her enemy with deathly courage and give it her all to be the victorious heroine in the end - not in life! Being a coward was no disgrace for her now, but she could still give it her all and there was the better explosive. The good piece, switched to proximity, was Kysaek’s last bomb and chance to knock out her nightmare long enough for her to lose it, and she smashed the charge away from her in a high arc. Frenziedly, her henchman leapt to the second at the burgeoning sound of impact.

With the igniting beep as a go-ahead and the enormous blast after that, Kysaek disappeared into the tunnel and heard nothing more bawling or stomping afterwards at first, but she was lost and lost, lost in the endless maze of channels. “At least I lost him,” she muttered wearily to herself. Her hunter, however, was still there, as to be expected, and sounded at regular intervals, but there were enough metres between her and him and at one point she even heard nothing at all from the thing. The only question was: was that enough for her to escape or should she squeeze into a narrow shaft and sleep, hoping the colossus had really disappeared, but for her the thought was silly and negligent.

Surprisingly, Tavis quietly radioed in. “Kysaek, do you read me?!”

“Did I make myself so unclear?!” cursed Kysaek quietly, seething. She had long disregarded the bearing and was surprised, but the Palanian, Thais and Dorvan were close to her.

“No. You told us to escape and if necessary without you. In the meantime we were outside and found another way out for you through which we got back in.”

There was no time to argue now. “I could!” said Kysaek grimly. “Where is the exit?!”

“At our Position. Follow the bearing and if your mean friend is still there, we’ll cover you!”

“I can’t see or hear him anymore, but be ready!”

It was not far and at the longed-for way out and free of their pursuer, Kysaek’s companions waited as promised and Dorvan sealed off the place on all sides. It was a supply hub and dried up drain, with an underground connection to the deep crevice. Thick portcullis of Eldar steel descended in substantial frames, guaranteeing that the mighty beast could not get through the tunnels without effort, or at least not out of nowhere.

“Now I’m really pissed,” Kysaek complained disappointedly, but she wasn’t for long. Her joy at everyone’s return and help was too great.

Thais justification was simple. “We’re welcome to fight about it on the way home, if that helps you.”

“I can’t help with that,” Tavis agreed. “That wouldn’t exactly be what you’d call business.” He was the only one close enough to Kysaek to intercept her as she staggered forward, exhausted. The Palanian immediately injected her with an ampoule of retro adrenaline. “We’re going to need you for a while. You’ll be better in a minute.”

“And until then, drag me out of here,” Kysaek replied as she was pulled towards a set of metal, high-rising stairs.

Thais stood with Dorvan at the bottom of the long steps. “You really stood up to that thing,” the Talin praised in amazement. “And I thought your story was exaggerated.”

“It is exaggerated. It’s totally ridic-”

Suddenly a wall beside the stairs was shattered and the colossus had returned. “Ky-saek!” he roared, immediately picking up his destructive work. With the very first, massive swipe, he peppered Tavis and Kysaek across the air with the outer of his arm, separating the two. Both hit ungently and could barely move, a grazing hit and yet so hard. The Palanian, however, wasa bsolutely meaningless to the cattle. It ran straight at Kysaek and was only a growing, long fist away from killing the woman. She lay defenceless, “Uhrawwrr!” it snarled and stung!

Thais and her prismatics had something to say about that, though, and their powerful energies stopped the spike millimetres from Kysaek’s chest. It was hard for the Talin to keep her opponent’s arm in check, but he had other body parts, like his foot or his mouth tentacles, and used everything. Thais could only prevent this thanks to a lot of energy and a prismatic full-body field, which clearly pushed her to her limits. Gasping with all her might, she threw the lump several metres away from her leader - enough time for Kysaek and Tavis to get back on their feet.

But how wasthis to continue? How could one win against this relentless something or escape from it? What was the use against an enemy who could put away any shot and for whom explosions were nothing more than annoying stings that he could ignore and heal quickly? The beast didn’t even need his head to survive! It even kept running blithely after being lured by Kysaek to a gas power that Dorvan remotely turned on and Tavis shot at. Yes, the horned behemoth was burning like a torch and would probably have laughed itself to death if it had been anything more than a brutal killing machine. Instead, however, the fire gave it the aura of a demon and messenger of doom that began attacking everyone because it understood the strategic situation. It could hardly eliminate Kysaek as long as the tricky Palanian and the troublesome Talin breathed beside her. Only Dorvan remained on the outside, while the beast now used its thorny shots like a machine gun at a stretch.

While Thais dodged on a high catwalk, Tavis took one of the spikes in the right arm. Struck and filled with pain, the Palanian fell into the dry drain and could barely get up. He was trapped when the lump jumped into the drain. In front of him was this monster and behind him was the sealed-off water lock, but he was not on his own.

“Don’t you dare!” shouted Kysaek, leaping into the drain behind the beast. “It’s me you want?!”

The beast, however, for the first time completely ignored the woman and was ready to double impale the Palanese in front of it. A thorn on each fist.

At the same time, Kysaek was too weak, physically as well as with her skill, to stop the impending attack like Thais, but Tavis was a lightweight compared to the beast and not unruly. Him, thanks to her prismatics, she was able to hastily yank up into the safe air, making the monster’s stabs come to nothing. This again gave Kysaek the undivided attention of her opponent, who was standing too close to the drain’s only ladder, while she lowered Tavis outside the Drain back down. All of Kysaek’s senses suddenly sharpened and her mind was clear and without doubt or fear. If necessary, she would take her knife for the fight, but before that, out of nowhere, a bright, blinding light raced down from Above and when it was gone, the colossus suddenly had a large hole in its chest. Kysaek could have crawled through that in double-stuffed style.

Thais had helped her along with an extremely concentrated, prismatic attack and at last the monster dropped to its knees and braced itself with its hands - it wasn’t dead, but it was panting like an overeaten negdrog and healing the enormous wound nowhere near as swiftly as everything before.

Was this Kysaek’s chance for escape! Could she reach the ladder! No, that was not possible! The colossus immediately waved his hands at her and she landed with her ass in a shallow puddle where the scales fell from her eyes - water! “Dorvan! Open the drain gates immediately! We’re disposing of this thing where it belongs!” She was confident that this was child’s play for the hacker.

“And how do you get away from it?!” asked Thais.

“Take a cue from Tavis!” retorted Kysaek with a wink. “But wait until the last moment!” She backed up as far as she could to the opening airlock, beyond which it was pitch black and where two rotors with countless sharp blades waited.

“Ky-saek,” the monster growled, stumbling towards her, holey and lumbering. It paid no attention to the rotors setting in, nor to the ominous rumble of thunder at the other end of the drain, which heralded tons of water.

“My name is Kysaek, you ugly bastard!“, Kysaek lectured her opponent, for whom it was too late. She gave him the middle finger before his incoming blow and was lifted by Thais into the saving sky as vast quantities of water burst into the drain.

The dark blue slammed into the back of the colossus, which put up a formidable resistance but was still slowly but surely pushed into the rotors. They sabred into the clenched mass of skin layer by layer and the water pushed him deeper and deeper in until the blades came to a halt and the monster was stuck like a big blockage.

For that, the bleeding Tavis had an effective remedy. “My throwing arm is just out of it, but it’ll do for this!” hissed the Palanian. His remaining sticky bombs, thrown into the rushing torrent, were the ultimate cleanser! Pressing water and exploding fire together, washed the roaring behemoth away for good and its menacing sounds faded with its fall into the darkness. “That was way above the bargain,” the wounded Palanian gasped as he slumped slightly. Kysaek’s eyes widened at the sight of the thick thorn in his arm and Tavis picked at it. “I thank the spirit of Retro Adrenaline for its existence.” His murmur sounded rather bitter and joking. “I’m not going to turn into one of those critters now, too, though, or get some kind of disease?”

“Certainly not,” Kysaek denied ignorantly, helping the man up. “But the upside is - when it happens, you’ll be a lot prettier.”

“Says the one with the half face.”

Kysaek had no serious wounds and was pumped full of retro adrenaline, but she hadn’t yet registered that the fight had torn her bio-layer. “Oh, crap,” she commented, feeling over the fake and real parts of her face. “I think I owe you an explanation on the flight back.”

“Would be most welcome, and some painkillers to go with it, please.”

“Drugs, we’ll share, but let’s get the hell out of here,” Kysaek grinned amped up. For her, Thais, Tavis and Dorvan, it may not have been a crystal-clear victory and the monster was probably still alive, but the reward of this gruelling and close fight was still undeniable - a victory