Banquet In The Stars VI : Stroll Through Dread

Returning her attention to the bleeding Commander, Nizael looked down on him in disdain. Back when she was on N-11 even after she pulled out their wings all the way they continued to fight, not succumbing to the pain; Yet this man, who happens to have a position of leadership is on the ground in tears over having them burned and slightly pulled out? What an embarrassment.

Seeing his injured irritated her, he thinks he had the right to cry when the reason her daughter was hurt and in tears is because of him and his people. She once more positioned her foot on his back – while this time putting a tighter grip on his wings, tight enough that she dug her fingers into them.

She wanted to get this over and done with, so when seeing as she only partly tore his wings out she began to tug on his wings as she did previously, slowly and painfully. He couldn't raise himself due to her foot pressing him down on the floor. There was blood pouring from where his back and wings used to be connected and his wails of pain fell on deaf ears as Nizael didn't pay a single ounce of attention to them, She knew Helia was waiting by the only door that she hadn't sealed open and decided to finish.

Using all her strength and increasing her grip while pressing her foot down hard she pulled his wings out in full force causing blood to spray out incessantly. Taking her foot off his back she held both wings on her sides, their white color now slightly dyed red by his blood. She dropped the wings on the floor, and pulled out her handgun; Not wanting to see him even attempt to get up, she quickly aimed it at his arms and legs before firing shots at them, stomping on the wounds for extra measure.

Nizael looked around the entire hanger after seeing the captured soldiers; Stepping over to a nearby supply station, she looked through the grenades, looking at a few of them before tossing them to the side. She finally picked up a somewhat round, black grenade that was cold to the touch, grabbing the center of it and twisting it it swerved back in place before it started to tick.

Nodding her head she tossed it at the net that held the anxious Kritol. And it landed straight in the center of the net on the chest of one unfortunate soldier; They tried to move away quickly, but once again to no avail, they wouldn't be able to escape from the net.

Nizael tucked a few more on her side and walked away towards Helia, ignoring the pleas for help that sounded out behind her – that was then quickly silenced by something large erecting and the air going cold. Behind her, from the grenade came a large mass of ice that spiked out almost poking her back.

With everything finally dealt with Nizael stood in front of Helia, who was resting against the wall with her eyes closed and arms crossed. The woman opened her eyes before speaking to her.

– "Finally done with the violence, eh, General?" She candidly asked.

– "Violence? I was just teaching some children a lesson, what about you. Done burning and blowing things up." Nizael spoke and asked in response.

– "That blowing up... wasn't expected. But at least I didn't go so far as to torture some poor fellow to death." Explaining to her Helia chided Nizael.

– "He's not dead... well at least not yet. Even if did survive and made it back home he was going to be killed anyway. Let's just go and kill off the rest, and hmmm..." Nizael nearly ushered them to slaughter the rest of the Dreadnought's occupants but paused.

"I was thinking we might as well keep their mechanics and researchers alive, but forget that, kill them as well. I can't allow people I don't trust to come with us, no prisoners, understood?" She advised and ordered her.

The thought to take the Kritol scientists and mechanics passed through her mind for a brief moment, they could use them to take any new Kritol armament and defense advancements that they've made in the last decade and a half. But after looking at this situation over again she decided against it.

If they were to take their enemies within their facilities and cities they would be prone and exposed to dangers of high degrees. And also, since this wasn't a legitimate fleet they most likely have false information planted in their heads, so information extracting wouldn't be trustworthy. In the end, it was better to kill all of them and have the Kritol lose many resources.

– "Of course I understand General. I already knew you'd want to turn this Dreadnought into a bloodbath after you started torturing that Commander." Helia chuckled as she took the lead in heading through the door that slid open.

The white and grey halls of the Dreadnought held many more soldiers compared to the many that were in the hanger. When the door was opened Helia was immediately pulled back into the hanger, dodging a blaster shot by the skin of her teeth.

After that first shot many more continued, bursting out a barrage of blasters shot by the soldiers that set up a barricade of barrels and heavy-duty boxes in the middle of the hallway. They couldn't even peek around the corner due to the continuous assault.

Helia let out a breath she didn't know she was holding, if it wasn't for Nizael she would have probably been full of holes by now; She almost lost the ability to see her hot-headed daughter.

Opening her palm another flame appeared in it, this time it was noticeably smaller than the last flame. She closed her palm and it extinguished the flame.

– "I'm running out of gas, General, I might have just a few flames left in me." She informed her while looking at her fist.

– "That's fine, we won't need them the whole way, just use one to get rid of this barricade, it's getting quite annoying." Nodding in understanding she was on the edge of the door, trying her best to get a peek.

– "I got it, I'll get rid of them real quick." She said.

Helia snapped her fingers and the flame reappeared in front of her before she snapped her fingers once again; The flame shot out to the door before hitting a sharp turn straight towards the barricade, every shot that was aimed at the flame took a second to contest with it before being dispersed.

Nizael quickly shut the hall door cutting off the loud shouts coming from the soldiers. Seconds later she felt the floor and door shake a great amount. They took a moment to wait for the shaking to calm down.

They opened the door and revealed the previously white and gray halls that were now painted black with ash. The barricade was destroyed and there were bodies and weapons sprawled about all around it; They carefully moved and stepped over weapons as they made their way over to where the barricade was. Getting to the remains of the barricade they began to check the corpses as they looked for a command card or master key.

Kicking the last body over, Helia checked his coat pockets and finally pulled out a card that was slightly burnt. It had a picture of a man and other information about him written across the card, he also had a higher rank than the man Nizael had tortured in the hanger.

The hall they were in went dark as the only source of light now was the blurred red lights blinking overhead. Everything was black and red which signifies the ship starting to lock down halls, doors, and rooms, further incentive by a heavy door slamming down further down the hall.

– "I was wondering why they haven't done this yet, is everyone on this ship incompetent?" Nizael questioned out loud.

She followed after Helia as they walked over to the large metal door. Helia put her ear to the door and knocked on it multiple times, listening for a few moments. She looked at Nizael and opened her mouth.

– "The door is quite dense, General, I'll save my flames for later, can you hurry and melt this?" Helia said before removing her ear from the door.

– "I still have a good amount of Flauna available to me but in all seriousness Helia. You should work on your use of Flauna, especially in space where only a limited amount can reach you." Nizael advised her as she stepped up to the door.

– "Yeah well, I've barely had the chance to use any Flauna, since I was deactivated a moment ago, and they don't assist when we deal with Spectral Beast." She explained.

– "Mmmm," Humming in response her hand started to glow, to which she placed it in front of the door and waited for Helia to step back.

After she stepped back, Nizael placed her hand in the door, increasing the heat slightly and the door started to melt from the center until almost the entirety of the door was melted.

As soon as a big enough hole was melted into the door they both stepped through it, ignoring the heated edges that remained. There were more bodies on the other side of the doors as Helia's flame made it down to the other end of the hall, so there were thankfully no more soldiers to deal with.

Only offering the corpses a glance they both continued on their way through the halls of the Dreadnought. They've yet to see any lifts so they continued with their handguns drawn. Looking left and right they passed by many passageways, as there were very few rooms in the hall they were being careful to not almost lose their heads.

Finally stumbling upon a lift they clicked it open and clicked the button to take them to the top floor, where the steering, control, and command room was. The lift was quite spacious and it was sparkly and clean, the top and bottom of the lift were made up of heavy-duty glass. When the lift began moving upwards they both hid in both corners near the door — they were expecting a surprise when it opened.

Before they reached the top Nizael pulled out another somewhat circular object similar to what she used earlier. As they waited she tossed it in the air a few times, playing with the dangerous device.

– "So how much do you bet that they're waiting for us at the lift entrance, I bet five hundred lupal." Nizael brought up a wager out of nowhere, which ushered a sigh out of Helia.

– "Why would I bet on that," Helia sighed. "It's plain to see that they'll be waiting for us up there, you just want me to place a losing bet don't you? Well, guess what, I'm not betting." She continued looking away from Helia.

Nizael clicked her tongue as there was a beep from the door, catching the grenade, she twisted it and waited for the door to open as she and Helia nodded their heads at one another.

When the door opened she didn't wait for a moment as she threw on the spot as there were immediate shouts that came from the hall In the Kritol language.

Seconds after, the air grew cold as the entire upper floor shook and ice shot out down all sides of the hall including a large spike shooting into the lift piercing its back wall and cutting open Nizael's cheek.