Chapter 10 : Kidnapped

The beast fell to the ground with a resounding thud, and the three boys did the same. The girls got worried, thinking that something was wrong, up until Tahir screamed...

"THAT.. WAS.... FUCKING AWESOME!!!" He shouted, followed by the laughs of the other two.

"Man, i can literally feel the adrenaline bursting through my veins right now", Hugo said with a grin. 

"I have to say Hugo, i was pleasantly surprised. I never thought you would join the party. Not after you almost pissed yourself back at the castle". Jack mocked.

"Hey come, on you spewing bullshit. Anyway i couldn't let you guys fight alone". Hugo said.

"Now THAT is bullshit, you did it for the girls didn't you?" Tahir whispered the last part.

Hugo chuckled in embarrassment. "Maybe, i mean what would Pei think if i...."

The boys had to stop their small discussion when the girls approached. "Are you guys okay?" Misty asked while checking for wounds or damage to the suits. No one missed how Misty started with Jack and took a few extra seconds checking his vitals. Thankfully, neither the Paladins nor their suits were in need of any urgent repairs. Only the comms in Jack's suit were damaged but it did not hinder him in any way.

A sudden movement caused the still edgy Paladins to draw their weapons. However they slowly put them down after noticing that it was the horned man....or woman, it was hard to tell. Everyone knew that if it was not for the horned figure, most if not all of them would be dead.

The horned figure was the one who showed the paladin's the beasts weakness, which was pretty much everything but plasma based weapons. The figure was also the one which gave Tahir the time he needed to build up his courage, which in turn made the team snap out of their frozen-in-fear state which almost caused their untimely demise.

The figure suddenly fell to it's knees and bowed to the Paladins while saying some words the team could not understand.

"I think it's trying to say thank you", Pei said.

"Uh....you are welcome?" Tahir shrugged, not really sure how to respond.

The figure then stood up and looked Tahir in the eyes, then it tilted it's head to the side before reaching out to touch Tahir's hand. However, before it could, It's body was replaced by Sara's boot, which had broken quite a few bones and sent the figure flying.

The team raised their guns at the figure once more, which was back to kneeling and making sounds as if asking for forgiveness. 

"Wait guys i don't think it's trying to hurt us, otherwise it would have let the beast kill us", Hugo said. The team knew that Hugo was right, however they still did not lower their guards, they were in uncharted territory after all.

Hugo walked towards the figure which suddenly started crawling backwards, not taking it's eyes away from the group, especially Sara, who was the cause for it's deformed jaw. Recognising the fear in it's eyes, Hugo raised his arms and put down his rifle.

"It's okay, i don't wanna hurt you", he slowly walked towards the creature and offered his hand to it.

"Hugo!, bad idea". Tahir firmly said. However instead of listening to his captain, Hugo removed the glove of his suit and helped the creature stand up with his bare hand.

The creature slowly nodded and brought Hugo's hand up until it touched it's horn. Suddenly, Hugo's eyes rolled back and turned blood red.

"Fuck!" The Paladins panicked and unloaded all their clips onto the horned creature, turning it's body into a pile of bone and flesh.

"Hugo! talk to me are you okay?" Tahir said, shaking Hugo who was still out of it. Hugo's eyes suddenly turned back to normal, and he began screaming at the top of his lungs while holding his head. Misty sprung into action and injected Hugo with a vial of nano-bots, which Pei connected to her tablet and started scanning every inch of Hugo's body from the inside.

"Nothing is wrong with him!" Pei shared his tablet's screen with Misty as she furiously typed, sweat starting to build up on her forehead. Losing a Paladin on their very first day of active mission was the literal worst thing possible. To make matters worse, Hugo's screaming only increased in intensity, he was a few newtons away from ripping the hair right off his skull.

"Blood pressure is fine, heart rate is normal, even his pain receptors are not reporting any anomaly!" Misty said while checking Hugo's vitals and finding absolutely nothing wrong with him. "Guys i don't....."

She was cut mid-way by Hugo who suddenly stopped screaming.

"Shit!" Hugo said "What happened where is....." he stopped when he found who or what he was looking for as a pile of incinerated ash. 

"No no no....Tiro, what did you do!?" Hugo shouted at the team.

"Paladin Hugo Larsen contain yourself and explain what the fuck is going on!" Tahir's slap snapped Hugo out of his frenzy, and Tahir had not held back his strength at all.

"Sorry captain i.."

"What happened Hugo?" Pei said, kneeling in front of Hugo, who had fallen from Tahir's slap. 

"The alien race calls themselves Diir and that Diir's name was Tiro". Hugo explained "When i touched it's horn somehow our minds connected and i could understand it's thoughts". he said. Needless to say, the Paladins were shocked, Jack's mouth was even hanging open.

"Don't ask me how that was possible because i also have no idea. I just know that it worked like that. Anyway Tiro told me that he and his people were living normally until one day, those creatures appeared" Hugo pointed at the nearby corpse. "For no reason those monsters started attacking the Diir".

"That castle actually belonged to the king of this region but the beast lying right there slaughtered everyone. Tiro was about to tell me about the other surviving Diir when you guys killed him. The sudden termination of the mind link caused me all that pain". Hugo explained.

"Sorry about that, we panicked" Tahir said.

"It's okay, i would have done the same if i saw that happening to any of you", Hugo chuckled.

"Fuck this is messed up". Misty said, "Science, the thing we all know and trust so much does not work here at all." she sighed. Science did not explain how the so called Diir could transmit thought, and if that could not be explained then what other scientifically impossible phenomenon would they encounter?.

"Paladins we are getting off this planet right now, let's move", Tahir ordered.

"What?, but what about the Diir?" Hugo asked.

"It is none of our fucking business Hugo, we are not heroes", Tahir said. Hugo wanted to protest, however he knew that Tahir was right, X4442 was simply too dangerous.

If the Diir could transmit thought through touch, then they could also easily kill with only a touch. Due to their brief connection, Hugo felt pity for the Diir race however it was not enough to put his own race in danger. The group began walking double time towards the vultures.

Jack suddenly stopped and sniffed the air before looking at Sara.."Sara go down!" he shouted as he detached his tail and snapped at the area above Sara's head. The tail wrapped around the claw which was a few inches from cutting off Sara's head. Noticing that it's surprise attack had failed, the beast yanked it's limb, forcing Jack to fly towards it while it deflected an attack from Tahir.

With it's two appendages, the beast caught Jack mid air and rolled the appendages around Jack's body, encasing him in a cocoon. The beast then dashed towards the forest and disappeared in the thick foliage, with Jack still tied up on it's back.