Hounds of Orion

Logan felt the familiar rush of adrenaline creep up his spine as he stared down the Stygian Silverback. He flexed his arms back and forth, feeling the familiar pull of the tether spikes tugging gently through his threads. He felt like a coiled spring ready to burst forth at any moment. Hunching low and positioning the now dented tower shield between himself and the animal, Logan cut off the radio feed between himself and the others with a thought, speaking aloud only when he was sure that it was just Vic who could hear him.

“Give me an x-ray scan, Vic,” he said, not taking his eyes off the Silverback, “I wanna see if these amateurs actually did anything useful.”

“Right away, Sir,” The posh V.I. exclaimed, and Logan felt a strange sensation at the back of his eyes before the beast suddenly turned transparent, its skeleton now visible to him.

The bones themselves were thick and dense, and incredibly resilient as far as he could tell. There were a few openings he could see though. Five ribs were cracked on the left side, compressing on the beast’s organs, and It’s spine had stress fractures, running the length of the discs. The one thing that made Logan smile though, was a series of cracks, snaking their way along the right side of the beasts pelvic bone, converging into an epicenter that was just dying to meet his mace.

“Alright… let’s do the damn thing.” He said, relaxing his grip on the Physilight rod controlling his shield arm and banging the flanges of his mace on its surface, attempting to goad the creature into making the first move.

The beast growled, resting its weight on its knuckles as it hunched low, snorting a blast of hot air out of its nostrils. It seemed confused at first, turning its head side to side in a manner of innocent query. But after a while it’s lips pulled back showing off a row of jagged teeth, before making a series of grunting shrieks, like a challenge.

“That’s it you big bastard,” Logan whispered to himself, banging on his shield at a faster pace, meeting the creatures sound of challenge, “Come on over and say hi,”

The creature had had enough, as it leaned back on its two powerful legs, before, with a mighty roar it leaped high in the air, shooting through the open space between it and Logan like a bullet leaving a chamber.

“That’s right! Come get me!” Logan growled with glee, back boosters on his crusader firing on full blast as he rushed to meet the beast halfway. As he calculated, he reached the Silverback faster than the creature expected, as it was still outstretching its hands and opening its maw, when Logan cracked it in the face with the flanges of his mace, grunting with an effort as he powered through, guiding the beast to crash into the ground.

That wasn’t enough to put the thing down however, as it rolled into the impact, popping up directly in front of Logan and wrapping its massive arms around the Crusader’s body, keeping him place as it fell on its side, pulling Logan with it, with both man and beast hitting the ground like two felled trees. Logan tried to free himself, but the ape squeezed him hard before opening its maw and sinking its massive fangs into the Crusader’s collarbone, spraying oil and hydraulic fluid everywhere.

“Gah! Fuck!” He cried, the synaptic feedback causing a spike of pain to erupt in the exact location where the beast had taken a chunk out of his armor. He tried struggling again to free himself but it was no use, and the beast turned, deciding to take an equal chunk out of the other side of Crusader’s chassis sending another hot flash of pain into Logan’s right shoulder.

Logan tasted iron in the back of his throat as he screamed again, “Fuck this!” He bellowed before delivering a bone cracking headbutt directly to the creatures temple. There was a low howl of pain that escaped the beasts throat and Logan could feel a slight weakening on his right side where the Silverback had pulled back on its arm to paw at its head. Logan took his chance, rolling out of the things grasp and scrambling to his feet, looking down as the creature continued to hold its head in its hands whimpering in pain.

“That sympathy shit ain’t gonna work on me,” Logan spat, taking his opening and swinging down in a wide arc to hit the creature’s pelvic bone full force. There was a crack, followed by a dull crunch, with the beast lifted off the ground by several meters due to the impact, before crashing back down, laying prostrate, its legs twitching uselessly.

The creature howled out again in a low whimpering bray as Logan walked around to the front, looking down at it. Blood leaked from every orifice as the thing tried to paw away from danger, seeing the true predator standing before it.

There was a feeling of pity that settled in Logan’s heart at the sight as his battle lust faded. It wasn’t this things fault for being created, nor was it at fault for escaping. It simply wanted to do what every other creature that drew breath wanted to do. Live. Be in a world bigger than itself, feel the dirt beneath it’s feet and the wind through it’s hair. But it didn’t get that. It wasn’t allowed to experience that peace. Instead, it had been hunted down, forcing it to fight for it’s life against beings it had never seen before in a fit of anger, confusion, and fear. And in the end, it had failed. Now it lay dying, suffering in unimaginable agony at the feet of a being that was probably as horrific to it, as it was to them. It wasn’t right and it wasn’t fair, but it was the way things were.

“I’m sorry big guy…” Logan said, his voice leaving the speakers in a soft, gentle tone. The creature looked up at him, eyes squinting through trails of tears and blood, trying to make sense of the sounds it had just heard.

Logan raised his mace, the spiked ball blocking out the sun, as he watched the creature coo in painful acceptance.

“I’ll make it quick.”

He brought the mace down hard, impacting with creature’s skull like meteor striking a planet. He didn’t look at the face as he raised the mace again, bringing it down in another heavy crash. Again and again he brough the mace down until even the Phyislight rod in his hand felt heavy and cumbersome, and the sounds of the dying beast had been silenced forever. He waited a few minutes longer, watching the creature’s body spasm to life again, it’s upper body flailing and pawing at anything around it to get away, before going still for the last time. The one might Stygian Silverback, reduced to nothing but a corpse on the forest floor.

Logan stood there, taking in the sight for a long while, getting his breathing under control. Finally, with a heavy sigh he sent a mental command and heard the celebrating chatter of the rest of his team as they congratulated him on a job well done.