94: Star Child: A Keepers Loss I

Everyone held on tightly as Diamond-Breaker bulldozed his way through the forest, knocking over trees and borders with a simple swat of his large claws. As big as he was Diamond-Breaker was surprisingly fast. My guess was that he was reaching speeds of up to thirty miles an hour.

Even over the sound of snapping trees and stampeding footfalls I could still hear the sounds of gunshots ringing in the distance. Proof; at least I was hoping it was proof; that Logan was still alive and fighting.

"You're too soft hearted for your own good Chase!" Haws yelled to be heard over the sound of crashing trees and rushing wind.

"I know! But I can't let my brother die, I wouldn't be able to live with myself or look dad in the eye ever again!" I replied.

"I figured…" Haws said.

Grandma Lulu scanned the woods while we traveled, looking for signs of life or any evos. I did the same but was mostly seeing the occasional cluster of thrads that Diamond-Breaker just trampled over or knocked out of the way.

The woods around us started to slope slightly as Diamond-Breaker started to climb up hill and the trees around us became more sparse. Diamond-Breaker slowed down just a little bit and I noticed an unusual evo corpse off to the side of Diamond-Breaker's path. I ordered it to stop then jumped off and ran over to one of the corpses.

It belonged to the same type of evo that attacked at the river. It was a Yaw, a evo that was the combination of a snail and a bullet ant. It looked like a golden retriever sized ant that had a snail shell on its back and majorly oversized pincers. They were highly aggressive, armored, and their saliva was acidic. Thankfully that armor wasn't that strong or Grandma and mine's bullets would have bounced right off.

"Yaws, we had a aggressive batch locked up in the restricted section of South warehouse didn't we?" I called back to Haws.

"Yeah! Buggy shits bit off Robbie's arm last year." Haws replied. "Last I heard there were three dozen or so locked up and waiting to be sold off."

"Three dozen minus four." Grandma Lulu said.

More gunshots rang out and they sounded a lot closer than earlier. Just at the top of the slope in fact. I spun around then ran up Diamond-Breaker's tail to his head and ordered it to hurry up the slope.

About halfway to the top the slope turned into a rocky hill. Luckily crawnuff's were made for that terrain. Diamond-Breaker reached the top of the hill I saw a swarm of Yaws circling around not only Logan but Reagan, his squad and two others. They all were in a defensive formation taking shot only at the yaws that charged towards them and ignoring the ones the kept circling.

I ordered Diamond-Breaker to charge through the center of the swarm of Yaws. As he surged forward Grandma and I fired freely at any evo that we saw, both of us killing at lest a dozen before Diamond-Breaker broke through the thin line of them and crushed another dozen under its feet and claws.

Logan, Reagan, and the others all looked at Diamond-Breaker with a mix of shock and horror then confusion when they saw Grandma and I mowing down evos on top of it. Once through the line of yaws Diamond-Breaker circled around the tightly packed group of soldier, slamming its club claws down on the ground.

The remaining yaws, clumped together like a shield wall and chomped their mandible loudly. It was their version of a hiss or a growl. Diamond-Breaker came to a stop in front of the Logan and company, then Haws stepped forward and took aim and fired his Mastruck, obliterating three of them in one shot.

Thankfully Haws was more prepared for the recoil and braced enough to only slide back a foot but still remained upright.

The last few Yaws let out a shriek and scurried down the hill into the woods with a surprising burst of speed. When they faded out of view I finally relaxed. Diamond-Breaker turned around to face Logan and the soldiers, obviously they were all on edge and had their weapons at the ready and aimed at Diamond-Breaker.

"Logan lower your gun before you shoot yourself!" I yelled down to my half-brother then climbed down Diamond-Breaker.

"CHASE!" Logan roared. "What the fuck are you doing here, you piece of shit?!"

"Saving your ass, though I'm starting to regret that now." I replied then turned to look at Reagan. "Hello again Sargent Reagan."

"You're that group from earlier." Reagan said then eyed the crawnuff behind me. I noticed he'd lowered his gun but hadn't taken his finger off the trigger. "There a reason you three are traveling on the back of a evo?"

"Because he's a filthy fucking splicer and the cause of all of this!" Logan yelled and pointed his rifle at my head. A loud shot rang out as Logan's gun was shot out of his hands by Grandma Lulu. The soldiers who had all been on edge all raised their guns and pointed them at me while Haws and Grandma Lulu pointed theirs at the soldiers.

"Drop your weapons!" The soldiers all shouted repeatedly. I just looked at then and groaned.

"ENOUGH!" Reagan roared silencing everyone. "Lower your weapons everyone."

"Sarge that local boy says he's a splicer! And that old woman took a shot at one of us again!" Seeger piped up.

"Seeger pull your head out of your ass and look at the situation. If he was really our enemy he wouldn't have come and saved us. Instead he would have just hanged back while we were fighting those evos and picked us off at range." Reagan said.

"But Sarge…" Sooty started only to be cut off by Reagan.

"Are you questioning the order of a superior officer private Sooty?!" Reagan barked in a commanding voice.

"N-no Sarge." He replied.

"Then lower your fucking weapons!"

The other soldiers all looked at one another hesitantly but complied and lowered their weapons. Grandma Lulu and Haws followed suit but neither took their fingers from the trigger. I looked to Logan and shook my head.

"I had a feeling coming to save you was going to be a hassle. You're lucky I have a conscious." I said.

"Private Kingston, how do you know this splicer?" Reagan asked, the air if warmness he had earlier gone, now replaced with a steely cold. All of the soldiers eyes fell to Logan and there was a hint of judgment in their gazes.

"Familial. Unfortunately sir. He's my half brother." Logan spat as if the words were foul carrion on his lips. The look he gave me told me he would have slugged me right there if it wasn't for the massive evo behind me.

Reagan nodded silently then turned and looked at me, then Haws, and Grandma Lulu. His stern eyes felt like they were appraising us as one would a new weapon or a toy after a second his features softened.

"What are your names?" He asked.

"Chase Kingston." I replied.

"Lulu'nala but everyone calls me Lulu." Grandma Lulu said with thinly veiled annoyance.

"Hawthorn but everyone calls me Haws." Haws said.

"Alright, I am going to level with you three, we're in a bad spot. The two back there are all that remains of the other squad that went into town." Reagan said pointing to the two unfamiliar faces in the back. "They were nearly wiped out shortly after entering town by a massive evo that looked similar to the thrads but wasn't showing the same night time sluggishness the others were."

"This massive evo didn't happen to have a injury to its face did it?" Haws asked.

"Yeah! Like a chunk of its face got blown off!" The first surviving member replied.

"It was so fucking fast though and strong! Charged through a brick house like it was made of twigs!" The second survivor added.

"The ascended…" Grandma Lulu and Haws said in unison.

"So you've seen it before?" Reagan asked.

"Yeah. Chase and I had a good view when it lead the charge on the factory and tore the place up." Haws said. "It's the one that's controlling all the other thrads."

"Not to mention getting chased through the woods by it while trying to deliver a baby." I added.

"Well it's been stalking these two since they managed to escape. Our squad had one run in with it but just barely managed to escape. That's when we ran into a group if survivors who said there was a lone soldier leading a pack of evos away from them and ge needed help." Reagan said.

"We ran into that group…" I said then looked back to Logan. "Your mother is safe by the way."

"…Good…" Logan said awkwardly.

"More than likely that Evo is lurking around waiting to attack us." Reagan said.

As if on queue a murderous roar echoed through the woods and sent birds scrambling into sky in huge flocks. The roar sounded a few miles away but still shocked everyone. It was thanks to that I finally took a good look at the sky.

The moon was low in the night sky and the first twinkling of dawn was starting to glow in the Eastern horizon. The stars had all but disappeared thanks to the rapidly approaching dawn and with it we'd have much more to worry about than a ascended thrad.

"Oh fuck!" I groaned.

"What?" Haws asked. I pointed to the horizon.

"Daylight." I said. Haws and Grandma Lulu's eyes both got wide as realization hit them as well.

"What's wrong with Daylight? We'll be able to see better." Logan said.

"And those thrads we passed that were sluggish as all hell will be able to move normally again." Seeger said. Logan's eyes grew wide as well and I saw panic set in. He rushed over to me and grabbed my shoulder.

"Chase you gotta call off your thrads man! If the sun comes up and they all charge us we're dead meat!" He cried. I jerked out of his grasp and pushed Logan away.

"They aren't my thrads you idiot! They're the ascended thrad's thrads." I said. "For the last fucking time I had nothing to do with the attack on the factory or the town!"

"Then we gave to get out of here!" Logan yelled. The other soldiers all looked at him and shook their heads.

"Calm down. Even if we rode that big bastard I don't think we'd be able to get somewhere safe before the sun comes up." Reagan said pointing to Diamond-Breaker. "Our orders were to investigate what's going on and then report back to base. I don't see that last one happening while there is a massive horde of evos ready to kill everything in sight."

"What do we do then?" Logan asked.

"We fight. What other choice is there?" Grandma Lulu said confidently.

"We can't kill them all. We don't have enough ammo for that." Sooty stated.

"We don't need to kill all the thrads, just enough to piss off the big bad ascended one and bring it close to Chase." Haws said flashing me a devious smile. "Then all Chase has to do is work his splicer mojo on it and bam we have all the thrads that ascended thrad controls under our control."

"Wait! So you want us to put our faith and lives in the hands of a filthy splicer?!" Seeger asked. "Never in the entire history of the US military has the success of a mission hinged on a splicer!"

"Well do any of you have a plan then?" Grandma Lulu asked. There was nothing but silence from the rest of the soldiers, they simply looked at one another with blank looks.

"We'll go with this plan…" Reagan said then looked at Seeger. "There's a first time for everything."