Chapter Text
Chapter 118: Darkness Calling.
Adem paced his chambers relentlessly as anger boiled through his veins like liquid fire.
His seething had a singular focus that sharpened his mind and added flame to his determination.
Clan fucking Mason.
The Clan of fucking do-gooders and wanna-be heroes was currently spreading out across his beloved home like an infestation of spine mites.
The reports he was getting from both his field commanders and those filtering back from his insectoid mercenary groups painted a picture that called to his innermost rage like a whistle in the dark.
The Clan had levied those fucking Dreadnaught ships of theirs to punch a fucking hole clean through the planet’s orbital defence system which had allowed them to orbital drop troops down onto the surface.
Right now they had established a large foothold in the middle of the endless desert of Sandhome and with the help of pathetic traitors who wouldn’t know true strength if it bit them in the tail were spreading out from this central point.
It was like an infection spreading from the site of a wound.
The further it travelled the more flesh putrified and rotted from within, only in this case it was more like the further they travelled the more joined their cause.
Reports told of local resistance groups and militias that were being supplied with weapons and equipment by the vile Clan and its allies were springing up like pustules all over the place.
The teams of Beledon Nightmare Assassins that Adem had created after his destruction of the Beledon homeworld had enjoyed some successes in pushing these traitors back into the holes from which they had sprung.
This allowed the troops of the glorious Clan Ruara and its insectoid allies to nail a lid down on top of these traitors weeding them out and destroying them.
But despite these victories, the Clan and its allies continued to spread and punch through the defences that were placed in their way with relative ease.
Plus word had it that the Grand Patriarch and Matriarch themselves were here on the planet’s surface and this spelled trouble.
Adem was no fool, he knew that where those two trod Clan Mason would dig in and throw everything at anyone who dared to get near them, plus the pair themselves would be stood right there at the front of the defence rallying the spirits of their troops.
He had to find a way to separate those two from their troops, this would throw the Clan into chaos and allow his defenders the time needed to push them back.
Plus without their glorious leader to organise them and to lead by example the Clan’s precious Seekers of Truth would run around like headless Gumba birds trying to figure out what to do.
Adem was convinced that victory here lay in either killing or removing those two and killing them might not be the best course of action as what better way to get your enemy to think twice about throwing its weight at you if they believe they will harm something precious to them?
But getting to those two was far easier said than done as was getting one’s hands on them.
The pair of them had earned a reputation in battle that was pretty much unmatched.
Jack Mason was a covert specialist and an expert in misdirection, just when you believed you had him pinned down the fucker had an annoying habit of sneaking up behind you and striking you in the back or the flank.
Then there was that vile Yautja mate of his, Tik eleth Mason.
She was a tactical genius of that there was no doubt, the way she commanded her troops showed a truly keen sense of the minutia of how to turn a battle from an almost certain defeat into a victory by identifying her opponent's weaknesses and striking at them mercilessly.
But they too had their weaknesses and Adem believed that he knew one of their biggest ones after seeing what they had done to try and save the Beledon.
Their mercy and compassion for other sentient beings.
They cared so very much for the plights of the ‘innocent’ strangers that were meaningless to them that Adem realised that he could use this to bait them out into the open.
With the right timing, he could strike them using his Nightmare Assassins.
Now he knew this was a tremendous risk against the likes of Jack Mason, the man had the favour of not just his patron Goddess but others who had rallied to her call.
He was believed by a great many even among his own to be the strongest Dream Warrior to have ever walked the mortal plains.
Plus undoubtedly he would have a team of his strongest Dream Warriors at his side but Adem believed he knew his weakness all too well, all he had to do was exploit it, the question was, how?
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“By the Eternal Huntress, these fucking things are agrevating!!” Ian yelled as he chased after one of the walking limpet mines that were currently scuttling its armoured ass away from him as fast as its four legs would carry it.
Alissa couldn’t help but laugh as she watched her comrade try to grab the mine that was legging it away from him only to miss and fall face-first into the mud.
“I’m seriously considering calling in a pauking airstrike to clear these little fuckers out at this point,” Ian grumbled as he pushed himself up and wiped the mud off his armour with his robotic hands.
Alissa deftly sidestepped and snatched the fleeing mine off the ground in her own robotic hands before flipping the little fucker upside down and exposing its underbelly where they could access its internal components.
“Yeah it is getting a bit like watching Raptorians trying to wrangle the fire tiger cubs at the Seeker temple but in reverse,” she said grinning at him through her helmet and it seemed she heard the mirth in her voice.
“Very fucking funny,” he said as his robotic hands deftly began cutting into the panelling under the mine to expose the trigger mechanisms.
Over the last three hours they had defused no less than a hundred of these fucking things and what made it worse was that when they plucked one from its hiding place all the mines around it would freak out and scatter.
This meant that the minefield was constantly shifting and changing, leaving no truly safe path through it as you had no guarantee that if you defused a trail through it that their little fucking friends hadn’t simply gone right in behind you and undone your hard work.
This meant that they had no choice but to dig out as many as they could find in order to prevent them from being able to replug the gaps they made in the field.
“What's a firetiger and why would my kind wrangle their cubs?” a little voice chirped from behind them and both of them turned and glanced up to find Opina sitting on the branch of a tree watching them closely.
“They are a species of large six-legged felines that are native to the Clan homeworld and the Seeker Tamers tend to induct packs of them so there’s always quite a few of them around the temple, they seem to be truly fascinating to your kind for some reason so there always prides of females playing with the cubs though personally I thinks it because they know the Raptorian boys like to play with them, well its either that or they are trying to bag themselves a Seeker Tamer,” Alissa said grinning up at the little Raptorian as she kept watch.
“Seems like sound logic to me, my kind always want to be where the pretty boys are and can you blame them?” Opina shot back making Alissa laugh out loud.
“Fair point, plus I gotta give it to you girls you always like to aim big, the week before we left for deployment I saw a pride of girls trying their hardest to get the attention of Trestan who is one of the new Beledon Seekers, just to put it into perspective the guy looks like a pauking mountain with a face, albeit a handsome face, and here was this pride of tiny Raptorians just clambering all over him and trying to lead him off somewhere ‘safe’ though I gotta admit a little pride of Raptorian girls trying to protect a Beledon Seeker is just adorable,” Alissa said.
“Most of our boys want their pride to protect them and keep them safe, it is hardwired into us as a species to protect our males with our very lives, it is one of our most sacred core instincts,” Opina said proudly as she got to her feet and puffed out her surprisingly ample little chest.
“Oh, I know it's just funny to me because of their size difference given that even a small Beledon towers over even the biggest Raptorian but this guy is freaking huge, I don’t even wanna think of the logistics of them doing the nasty if they manage to succeed in wooing him, how the hell would that even work?” Alissa said glancing at Ian as if her male colleague held the mysteries of the male universe locked up in his handsome head.
“Don’t fucking look at me, all I’m seeing in my mind’s eye now is fucking sock puppets, so thanks for that,” Ian said never lifting his head from the guts of the still squirming mine.
“That is not an image I needed to see,” Opina said dropping her scaley little arse back down on the log and making Alissa bellow out a laugh as she too now saw it in her mind’s eye.
“Hell, half the time I can’t even get my mind around how the hell our Xeno queens human kings manage to do what they do, a part of me wonders whether they’ve all had their pelvises replaced with cybernetic upgrades or something I mean fucking hell, a Yautja girl is a whole lot of woman to be bouncing up and down on you, but a fucking queen?” Ian said as he finally tore the detonation circuits out of the mine they were working on and rendered it harmless.
“Yeah that's a good fucking point actually, I mean fuck that's gotta take some careful preparation and some serious care not to mention aftercare,” Alissa said thoughtfully as the pair moved towards the next mine.
“So what type of female would you go for then Ian?” Opina asked curiously from her tree, scurrying along the overhanging branch above their heads to take up another guard position as the pair advanced.
“You know I’m not quite sure really, I mean don’t get me wrong there are some seriously good-looking women out there and being born and raised in the Clan has kinda given me a real appreciation of a good strong woman, not something you can really avoid when you are surrounded by Yautja and Xenos all day long, not to mention Beledons and Serpentinus girls now that the Clan has expanded somewhat, but as for choosing one over the other that's a tough choice really,” Ian said thoughtfully.
“Yeah I know what you mean, it seems like every day you could wake up feeling like a cub in a Yautja candy store there are just so many pretty boys and girls out there and it seems that every day that passes the more flavours we discover,” Alissa said agreeing wholeheartedly with her human kinsman.
“You like both males and females Alissa?” Opina asked curiously and Alissa nodded.
“Yeah call it either the joy or curse of being bisexual, more choice and more dilemma,” Alissa said with a theatrical hand wave to emphasise her point.
That's when Opina seemed to click on something that Ian had said and her vision snapped onto the human male in what was most likely a glare.
“Hey, I just caught what you said! You didn’t mention Raptorians in your list of ‘strong’ females! We Raptorians may be small but we too can be mighty I will have you know!” she exclaimed her sing-song voice rasing a few octaves to show her displeasure.
“Sorry I meant no insult, honestly I know you Raptorian girls can hold your own I’ve heard the stories of how your Surface Stalker prides really held their own in the battle for Raptoria, I was more kinda just going off size coming to mind, you’ll also note I didn’t mention my own race either,” Ian said apologetically before chasing after yet another mine that leapt up out of the ground as they got close to it.
“Do you not find your own kind or mine attractive then?” Opina asked a real note of despondence creeping into her usually upbeat musical voice.
“I never said that, now that I think about it I don’t think I have yet met a species that I cannot find attractive qualities in its females,” Ian said thoughtfully as if this little self-revelation was as much news to him as it was to both his human and Raptorian companions.
“What even the bugs?” Alissa teased and Ian barked out a laugh as he clamped his cybernetic hands down on the fleeing mine and hoisted it into the air for her to work on this time.
“If you can identify the males from the females I’ll let you know but until that point, I’m just gonna go with a blanket nope,” he said making Alissa laugh.
“So if you had to choose say your three species on your attractiveness scale what would they be and what do you like about them?” Opina pressed.
Ian glanced up at the little Raptorian who was sitting above his head swinging her little legs as she scoured the surroundings for any sign of movement that was not either their team or another mine trying to leg it.
“You sure are curious about my love life, or rather lack thereof,” he said and Opina simply waved her hand in a kinda dismissive gesture.
“I never really got a chance to discuss such things with members of another race before and definitely not a male, male opinions are highly valued in my society especially when it comes to matters of attraction and of the heart,” Opina said in a very matter-of-fact voice as if such things should be obvious.
“My little pack-sssssisssster sssspeakssss the truth, it issss the ssssame in my people’ssss sssociety,” Pemrista said slithering up the tree and making her way along the branch towards Opina where she simply hung from the branch above them.
“Fuck, if any more of you go up that tree it's gonna break,” Alissa said.
“Is that a dig at my pack sister’s weight?” Opina asked glancing at Pemistra whose little metal tongue flicked at the two humans.
“Not at all, it just doesn’t exactly look like the strongest of trees given that I’m pretty sure it's dead, I rather like Serpentinus girls,” Alissa said causing Pemistra to snap her large head towards the human female and flick her long tongue at her.
“Oh? And what do you like about them exactly?” Opina asked seizing the opportunity to fire the loaded question.
“Well, whats not to like? Large, strong, sensual, come in all shapes, sizes and colours and I bet they give the best kind of hugs,” Alissa said without skipping a beat while she worked on the mine that Ian was holding.
“Yeah I’ll agree with that, Serpentinus are in my top three species,” Ian said carrying one with his work.
“Are you ssssaying thissss becausssse I am here?” Pemistra asked flicking her tongue at Ian now.
“No, not at all, I’m not opposed to insulting people if need be especially when it comes to matters of opinion because I am entitled to my own preferences and opinions am I not?” Ian said defensively.
“Of coursssse!! I would never try to take ssssuch a thing from a male!” Pemistra said equally as defensively.
“Well good to hear,” Ian said placing the now inert mine down to move on to the next.
“So what are the other two?” Alissa asked now equally curious as her non-human comrades apparently.
“Hmmm I suppose I’d have to go with both Raptorians and in slot number three I guess I’d have to choose my own kind, humans,” Ian said.
“Well that is a surprise, I felt for sure you’d choose Yautja given how much attention you always got from those big girls,” Alissa said.
“Nah a little too full on for my tastes, don’t get me wrong there are a lot of beautiful Yautja women in the Clan that's for sure, but I don’t think I could handle them, plus I think I just prefer the much more gentle natures of Serpentinus, Raptorians and humans, plus its like you said there's a lot of variety in these three groups and if I were to pick one of the first two groups not only do I get one I get a whole group, so what’s not to like?” Ian said slyly and making Alissa bark a laugh.
“So you are just a greedy bastard then huh?” Alissa said and Ian flipped her off with multiple hands jokingly.
“Says the bisexual girl,” he said making her laugh again.
“Hey at least I freely admit it,” Alissa said.
“Honestly I’d just be happy with someone or someone who could put up with my nerdy ass geeking out over whatever cool tech the science hive has come up with lately and then having living quarters over-flowing with spare parts from whatever I have decided to break down that particular week,” Ian said.
“Yeah that's true, lotta guys can get a bit of a stick up their ass about a girl being into stuff like that for some reason,” Alissa said with a shrug.
“Yeah, what the hell is with that? Last time I checked cool shit is cool shit regardless of whose hands it's in,” he said.
“Exactly!” Alissa said and both of them failed to notice the very happy and knowing glance that had been shared between Pemistra and her pack sister in the tree above them, this was news that they were silently celebrating.
Suddenly there were sounds from ahead of them and this was not one of the mines reclocating itself and it caused all of them to snap their attentions up.
“You hear that?” Ian asked as he placed the now inert mine down at his feet.
“Yeah, motion trackers up I get the feeling we have unwelcome eyes on us,” Alissa said slowly reaching for her weapon and activating her shoulder-mounted plasma casters.
“Hammer one one to all call ssssignssss we have potential enemy contact at our location, eyessss up and headssss on the sssswivel, we musssst protect our humanssss,” Permista said into the comms before quickly leaping down from the tree and slithering forwards to take up a defensive stance ahead of them.
Opina swiftly climbed higher into the tree to give herself a much better vantage point to view the terrain from and she activated her cloaking tech as she did.
She quickly scanned the ground ahead of them for movement as she moved along a branch high up in the tree and that's when she saw them.
“Hammer one two to Hammer one one I have eyes on potential hostiles sending you my feed, over,” Opina said syncing her visual feed to her pride sister showing what appeared to be a series of hot spots ahead of them hiding in the thick foliage.
That's when a little disc-shaped drone whizzed over their heads and began to circle the area above them.
“Hammer one-three to Hammer one-one I’ve sent up a drone to get us eyes on, over,” Gizka said over the comms.
A soft growl indicated that Vistra was bringing the Suba forwards into the already cleared area so that the team would have the fire support of its guns if they needed them.
“Will thosssse minessss harm ussss?” Pemistra asked Alissa and Ian.
“No, they are anti-vehicle mines,” Alissa said keeping her weapons trained on the heat signatures ahead of them.
“I have eyes on, I don’t think it's bugs. I’m going to see if I can spook them,” Gizka said and as they all watched the little drone she was controlling swooped down out of the sky and buzzed the figures hiding in the undergrowth.
There was a loud shriek and what appeared to be a large group of bipedal humanoids broke cover and sprinted full tilt towards the forest away from the Hammer squad.
“Humanoids?” Opina exclaimed.
“Look to be primitives of some variety, I think they may be tribals of some kind, they are not a threat to us, most likely just curious what these strange aliens are doing in their territory,” Gizka said over the comms as her little drone returned to its high altitude patrol.
“Roger that, good job Hammer ssssquad, letsss get back to it, Hammerssss one sssseven and one eight continue clearing the minessss, I will warn the convoy that there are innocentssss in their path and to watch their fire, over and out,” Permistra said before she switched her comms channel to contact the commander.
It took the two human engineers another two hours to clear enough mines for the convoy to pass through the area safely though there would still be a risk so Permistra relayed their findings to the commander so that they could relay them to the science hive and the other alliance science teams to analyse so that they might come up with a counter measure.
Meanwhile, all of the Hammer squad clambered back into their Suba so that they could continue along the path that their Pathfinder team were laying down and to tackle the next challenge they had highlighted.
As they rolled through the area the arieal patrol drones highlighted the tribals who were still watching them from their hiding places in the trees, though thankfully they weren’t making any kind of aggressive moves towards them.
“Hard to believe that a civilization as advanced as the Velons that there sentiants that still live like this,” Opina said as she leaned over her sister’s shoulder to look at the drone display that was on one of their internal screens.
“SSSSince the return of our Ghosssst SSSSlithererssss they have located ssssspeciessss of SSSerpentinussss that we never even knew exsssited, they are very good at ssssenssssing the hum of life and find it where ever it hidessss,” Permistra said.
“Oh yeah I heard about that, it was on the news before we left home wasn’t it?” Benna who was a large cobra genus said.
She unlike a great many of her kind did not have the lisp of rolling the human letter S when she spoke, apparently, it was something to do with the shape of their palette combined with the size of their tongue that made it happen but for her, it simply was not there, infact out of the three Serpentinus on board only Pemistra had the affliction.
“Indeed, they found a number of packssss living both in the deep cavesss of the northern territoriessss and even ssssome aquatic brotherssss and ssssisssterssss living in an underwater city!” Permistra said.
“Wow I could never even begin to imagine finding a race of humans living on the Clan homeworld that we never knew about,” Ian said thoughtfully.
“That's because all of the humans that settled among the Clan were brought there by the Clan, none have ever found their way to us that we didn’t bring there from Earth or its colonies,” Alissa said.
“Have you ever been on one of the Recon missions to Earth?” Ian asked and Alissa shook her head.
“Nah that kinda shit is reserved for the Hunters or Seekers, mainly the Seekers as covert shit is kinda their thing,” Alissa said.
“You saw the latest intel coming back from Earth, it does not look good there,” Ian said and Alissa nodded in agreement.
“Yeah I heard, something about separatists and break-away colonies revolting against their corporate overlords, humanity is really gonna have to pull its head out of its collective ass if we want to be taken seriously as an intergalactic power outside of Clan Mason,” Alissa said.
“Yeah from what I heard coming from the intel team there was even word of a possible synth revolt with possibly even multiple factions within the synths themselves, now that could be a pretty serious problem for everyone,” Ian said and Alissa nodded as they bumped along.
“Yeah if synths start making more synths they could spread a lot faster than even humans do and depending on their values they could be either a real help or a real nightmare,” she said.
“It is so strange to hear you speak of your own species like they are an alien race like this,” Opina said turning to look at the two humans.
“Honestly they might as well be, other than sharing looks and DNA Clan humans have next to nothing in common with Earth-born or colony-born humans these days, it would be like you guys finding a planet that the Great Tree seeded other Raptorians onto, they might look and share DNA with you but culturally you’d be vastly different,” Ian said.
Opina leaned back in her seat and scratched her scaly chin thoughtfully.
“I wonder what a planet of distant Raptorians would be like?” she said thoughtfully.
“Possssssibly like the difference between the SSSScalathor and the Draconisssss, adapted for their world but sssstill in need of enlightenment, or maybe the complete opposite,” Permistra said.
“Great Tree no that doesn’t even bear thinking about, one Great Sorrow was bad enough but it would break my heart to find that there had been a second one somewhere else in the universe because it would essentially prove that we Raptorians were bad to the core,” Opina said woefully.
Permistra reached out and placed a comforting hand on her little sister’s shoulder.
“Raptorianssss is nod bad, you made misssstakessss like everyone elsssse, misssstakesss that you paid for and sssstill try to make up for to thissss very day, how many other sssspeciesss can ssssay that they were so disssstraught by an event in their passsst that they rewrote their very nature to enssssure it never happened again?” Permistra said.
“Yeah the commander is right Opina, you guys did the near impossible to ensure that what happened never happens again on your world, you changed not only the very fabric of your society at large but of yourselves as well, that is no mean feat but you guys did it, that takes some serious grit I gotta say,” Ian said patting the little Raptorian’s large thigh reassuringly and cause her to look at his hand longingly.
“Thanks, maybe you can do the same for your homeworld too?” she said looking at him and Ian scoffed and shook his head.
“Earth is not my homeworld, yes its the origin world of my species but I have never even seen it outside of pictures and from what I have heard of the place I doubt I’ll ever want to either, the place is a shit hole,” he said taking his hand off her thigh and gesturing dramatically in the air while making the little Raptorian look forlorn at the loss of his hand from her leg.
“Issss it truly assss bad assss you ssssay?” Pemistra asked curiously.
She nor any of the others had heard all that much about the cradle of humanity and while she knew that none of the species of Clan Mason originated from the Clan’s homeworld she also didn’t really know anything about their origin worlds either and was eager to learn about them.
“Far worse, Earth is a geopolitical mess, pretty much everything is ruled by mega-corporations, that is non-elected global companies that have only one goal in mind, profit,” Alissa said and Ian nodded in agreement.
“I mean sure there are supposed to be governments in place but from what I’ve seen they are little more than puppets of the corporations that financed the politicians into their positions by bankrolling their campaigns, this ensures that these companies' interests are protected in those regions and from what we’ve heard of their space exploration, its ummm aggressive to say the least,” Ian said.
“Aggressive how?” Permistra said.
“Like killing one another over mining and mineral rights aggressively, the Clan recently upgraded their threat level so that we will be keeping a much closer eye on them from now on, the last thing we want is them setting up shop in either our territory or that of our allies and souring the good reputation the Clan has fostered with people by species association, so if they come anywhere near our space they will swiftly be shown the errors of their ways, especially after what happened with Xipa Longclaw,” Alissa said.
“Who is Xipa Longclaw?” Gizka asked from her seat at the drone control station.
“She is a Savior pilot who got shot down by a cruiser of something the Earth humans call the Colonial Marines, they were protecting an outpost situated on a planet bordering one of the systems we were exploring and they engaged her despite her only being in a fighter craft, she was able to eject safely onto the planet and raise the Clan for help using a Dark Star,” Alissa continued.
“What's a Dark Star?” Opina asked.
“It issss the Clanssss most ssssacred promisssse to itssss memberssss,” Pemistra said and Ian nodded and pointed at her.
“It is as the commander says, it is part of the oath that every Clan member swears upon entry, call and the Clan will come and if you fall before we get to you we will rain hellfire down on those that harmed you and those you protect, the Dark Star means that a Clan member is in mortal danger and is protecting innocents if called upon it creates a rallying cry that no Clan member can or will ignore, it means we will bring the entire weight of the Clan down on the heads of those that threaten you in order to save and protect you, each and every one of us is blood sworn to uphold that oath no matter what, including the the Grand Patriarch and Matriarch as it was their idea in the first place and when it was first used they were right there in the heart of the battle to save her, fighting alongside everyone else tooth and claw,” Ian said proudly.
“But it's what we found on that planet that set a flame to the pyre of humanity in our eyes,” Alissa said with obvious bitterness and anger tainting her voice.
“What did you find?” Gizka asked now obviously absorbed in the story.
This actually made Permistra smile inside her helmet as she knew that her little sister loved a good tale and her smile widened as she remembered those nights at the campfire between the dunes regaling each other with their stories.
“One of those mega corporations we spoke of had set up some kind of outpost there to conduct vile research, they were testing on innocent Xenos, trying to make bioweapons out of them and worse,” Alissa said.
“Yeah from what I heard when the Clan hit the place they tried to burn the evidence and by evidence I mean the innocent Xenos,” Ian said angrily.
“That's horrendous!!” Opina exclaimed loudly and both of the Saviours nodded in agreement.
“No arguments here, fortunately, the Clan was able to stop them in their tracks but they were still able to murder a good number of them, but we were able to save the queen and over two-thirds of her hive, we took them out of that place and back home with us where we gave them a safe place to set up a new hive that is now part of the Clan, every single War Angel and Dark Angel is from queen Ink’s hive, she swore that no one would ever hurt either her hive or the kind people that not only saved them but also took them in while she drew breath, she has more than kept her promise to the Clan,” Ian said proudly.
“Also did you know that her kind is a male Serpentinus?” Alissa said aiming the question at Permistra who found herself somewhat taken aback at that little revelation.
“I had no idea!” she exclaimed in surprise and Alissa nodded.
“Yup, a male Serpentinus Ghost Slither turned Seeker of Truth, slithered his way into her heart and she caught him on his mate hunt, now they have a large hive together and have turned it into a place that is dedicated to the protection of the Clan and its allies as well as all innocents, their king trains all of the new War Angels and Dark Angels himself in the arts of war,” Ian said and Alissa nodded.
“Xenos make incredible warriors and they are not to be fucked with, it was their Dark Angel teams that hit half of those ships in orbit before they even knew what the fuck was going on,” Alissa said.
“Yeah I heard about that, there were stories going around the Star Stalker barracks that the Clan was fielding some new special forces teams but none of us knew that the Xenos had their own war teams now, I mean all of us have heard of the Battle Angels, their images were all over Raptoria after the war on our surface, images of them protecting those poor, innocent Scalathor males that were found being held in the surface bases inspired the hearts of millions of our pride sisters, hell its why so many of us signed up to be Surface Stalkers in the first place when we saw what was being done on the surface of our beloved homeworld we could not simply stand by and let others fight for us,” Opina said proudly and Gizka nodded in agreement.
“Exactly, there was no way we were gonna sit by like cowards and let others die to protect those boys and others like them so we marched our perfect scaly little tail ends down to the recruiting office and signed our pride up, we became Surface Stalkers and then Star Stalkers when the opportunity came along and despite the loss of some of our sisters we have never been prouder because not only did we gain new sisters to stand proudly alongside but now we have new friends as well,” Gizka said gesturing to the two humans.
“Glad to hear it and honestly it makes me proud to be sat here with you guys, your pride or pack whichever you prefer is a story of inspiration, you both dealt with your losses and pulled together to make one another stronger as a whole, you are like a mini Clan if you don’t mind me saying so,” Alissa said and Ian nodded.
“Just with less iron-pumping Yautja girls,” he said with a grin and Permistra laughed.
“I’m ssssure me and my pack sssssissstersss could find some weightssss to lift if it would make you feel more at home?” she said playfully.
“Or we could just try lifting them that would probably be more like the real thing, Opina said slyly and Ian laughed.
“More than you’d bloody know to trust me, there was a reason the Saviours had to introduce gym patrols into their routines to ensure that the Yautja girls didn’t try showing off by lifting the whole bloody bench with you on it along with the weights as well, a few accidents later and some rather angry hissing and screeching coming from the Battle Angel hive and well let's just say there's now Saviours in all of the gyms,” he said making them all laugh.
Pemistra was incredibly happy to see how well the two humans were gelling with her pack and in all honesty she couldn’t wait to see where fate would lead them next.