Losing Troy, Part 5

Audrey clutched her energy sword, hoping for even the slightest sliver of security she typically felt when she had it in her hand. But this time, it didn't give any.

     She looked down quickly at her armor, trying to gauge how much force it would resist and if those razor sharp claws that were digging deep gouges into the metal would rip it.

     Of course, it will! she realized in a panic.

     She backed up until her lower back rammed painfully against one of the many control panels.

     "You have to stay calm," she whispered hoarsely to herself. "You are not afraid; you are invincible and this creature can not harm you." She considered that statement for a split second before adding, "Too much."

     Muscular, scaly arms appeared, followed by a long, graceful, ever-curving neck, which supported an oval head with two large, dark eyes. Another set of legs appeared, followed by more back, so flexible it was like watching a slinky crawl out of the hole. At last, the third pair of legs came up over the edge, followed by three long, snakish tails, each one with a scythe-like blade on the end.

     Audrey identified it immediately as a Scav. A rebel Scav that would have no qualms killing her.

     Once all of its body was out of the hole, the Scav paused to lick its large poison fangs before settling its hypnotic black eyes on Audrey's green ones.

     "Ah, you're a hypnotizing one," she realized and almost smiled. Troy had once had the bright idea of trying hypnosis on Audrey. Unfortunately for Troy (but fortunately for Audrey), she was not the type of person who relaxed easily, and therefore could not be hypnotized.

     Audrey forced herself to keep staring into those deep, black holes, however, and managed to keep her burning eyes from blinking for a minute or two. She smiled inwardly as the Scav relaxed, thinking it had hypnotized her.

     Keeping eye contact with Audrey all the while, the Scav moved forward, its body curving like a centipede's. It stopped a few steps away from her, and Audrey found it increasingly hard not to blink as it slowly shoved out its front right hand, claws upward.

     Since she wasn't actually hypnotized, she didn't know what the Scav wanted. Her hand? Her weapon? Her armor? She decided the most logical choice was her energy sword, so she slowly brought her arm forward, like she was going to hand the Scav the energy sword.

     At the last possible moment, she brought her energy sword swinging upward with all of her strength, the beam of energy ripping up its scaled chest and neck, finally scalding the scales of its chin. It leaped back now, as its three tails whipped around its sides, one of them smacking firmly against Audrey's right side.

     She winced, but bit her lip to keep her exclamation of surprise and pain from seeping out. It was never a good idea to let your enemy know just how hurt you were or were not.

     She moved backward, letting the other two tails hit the air harmlessly. She viewed first her own wound, which was just a slight cut where the tail blade had sliced through the armor, before checking the damage that she'd inflicted on the Scav. 

     The energy blade had sliced through the first layer of thicker scales, and through the second layer of much thinner scales. But it had drawn only a little blood and inflicted minimal pain.

     The Scav launched itself forward, using the muscles in the back two pairs of legs. Audrey hit the floor and rolled as fast as she could, before springing back up into a fight ready position as the Scav sailed harmlessly overhead.

     Well, mostly so. One of the tails whipped in a sweeping motion faster than Audrey could move, slicing off a clump of red hair and leaving a very small scratch on her neck. She almost went faint, realizing that right now, her head could be severed from her body.

     "This is going to be a bit harder than I thought," she muttered, as she slowly inched backward as the Scav twisted sharply, landing lightly on all three pairs of legs, and turning around to face her.

     Audrey took another step backward, the black hole coming into her peripheral vision. The mainframe was down there, so if she could get the core...mission accomplished. As far as getting the core, not the "getting it back to us in one piece" part. Because she couldn't do that if she were dead.

     She smiled brightly at the Scav, watching uncertainty and confusion flash over its face before being replaced with sudden realization and sheer panic as it understood what she was going to do.

     "Bye-bye!" she grinned, doing a back-flip into the dark oblivion.