The hunt for time

[Nvez]

Seriously, if you like Inuyasha alot... you're probably going to be offended by this. It's very short (9 pages), but very violent. I typed it up in about 2-3 days, so it's not very professional. God I hope I don't get banned for this...

THE HUNT FOR TIME

In the middle of a forest in the highlands of Japan, where the wildlife was nigh disturbed, and only hunting parties came to scatter the peace and tranquility, the area was tingling with an almost supernatural aura. Animals had always been attracted to this area, for things had a tendency to pop up out of nowhere, weird things, which were never seen before. Something alerted the wildlife all of a sudden and they went scattering as a blast of cold air as icy as the tallest mountain came out of what seemed like thin air. Howling, a shrieking gale that seemed to harbor the voices of the dead was the sound of the wind, and any human in the vicinity would have fled in terror. The air in the vicinity became distorted, warping and seeming to tear wide open. From this tear, two objects fell out of it. A woman, and her ally, a robot.

Ice crystals hung in the air as moisture condensed into clouds, and hung about the woman who was huddled in a fetal position. The robot was standing still, ice was clinging to the olive-green and black armor, melting quickly in the temperate air. The first one to speak was the woman.

“S-so cold”. She whimpered. The woman was clothed in apparel never seen in this era. A thick, padded jacket colored green, and beige cargo pants that were cut off around the calves. Her boots, zippered and titanium plated, had thick, slushy snow sticking to them. The ammunition belt wrapped around her waist was stiff with the cold.

And her sidearm would have given her hand frostbite of she touched it. Her hair, a dark blonde, was coated in frost, and her backpack, which had her weapon strapped to it, was nearly torn to pieces. She was shivering, her body trying to adjust to the shock of having been in a place that was colder than space, to warm, temperate grassland.

The robot was quietly surveying the area, the servos in his “neck” were whining and crackling, still being in a sub-zero state. His electronic “eyes” were fogged up, and he moved his hand to wipe the moisture off. He focused on the woman, who was still huddled up, trying to adjust to the temperature.

“Get up”, he said in a stern manner. She didn’t move. “Get up” he said more urgently, and held out a hand. She looked at it and grabbed at it. As soon as her hand touched his, she shouted out in surprise and shock.

“Jesus Christ! Your hand is like ice shithead!”

The woman had her wit back, which was good. The sooner that they were up and running, the better, they had a job to do.

***

[Nvez]

Half an hour later, the woman and the robot had sorted things out. Cleaned themselves off, and the woman had downed an MRE, or meal-ready-to-eat. She was feeling considerably better, though the food wasn’t very good. Tying her hair back in a knot, she then placed her beret on her head, she now felt complete. Doing an arms-check, she turned to the robot.

“Hey, Spheracles, how’s things on your end”? The robot looked at her and nodded, he showed her his rifle and coaxed as many noises as he could out of it.

“My G18-XE is in working condition”. He responded, in bass tones. “I suggest that you check your armaments, as I am working at 100% efficiency”.

She checked her guns, the first, was her sidearm, a hybrid Colt pistol, the Thunderhawk .55, the second, was her limited-edition, High Impact, Deckhart-Ungersoll Rail Gun, or HIDURG. Both were working fine, there was no debris or fouling in both barrels, as she had cleaned them 2 days earlier.

“My guns are fine”. She said. “Go over the mission objectives again, to clarify things”.

“Jeneva, is this necessary”?

“Do it”.

***

[Nvez]

The woman named Jeneva, and the robot named Spheracles had arrived in this era knowing full well what they had to do. It was a mission that they had concocted themselves, consider it a form of vigilante justice. You see, they had one objective in particular, and they would see to it come hell or high water. They had to hunt.

In the 22nd century, where Jeneva and Spheracles came from, the creatures that were surreptiously named “demons” had become a significant threat to humankind. These walking terrors killed anything they saw, and they could possess people with relative ease. Spreading like wildfire, they were originally spawned during a high-risk experiment, which involved matter teleportation. Something went wrong, and the gates of hell were opened. Originally sealed in 33 C.E., by a man who was later anointed “Christ the Redeemer”, the creatures named demons were very powerful, until the day that the gates were sealed, many of them were stripped of their power, and could only assume roles as minor irritancies, they later became the ancestors of a new race of freaks that would move on to reinhabit the realm known as “hell”. And eventually would reemerge during the fateful day known as “The Zypher Disaster”.

Jeneva and Spheracles had to kill as many of the ancestors as possible, in order to stop the demons from reemerging in the 22nd century. It was risky at least, and absolutely stupid at most. Nobody knew what the results would yield, for better or for worse...

***

[Nvez]

“Is that a town”? Jeneva asked about three hours after they had left the area. They had headed north and walked at a steady pace.

“Affirmative”. Spheracles replied. “I’m reading approximately 62 humans”. The town looked small from their distance, they could see smoke rising from several chimneys, and a group of people arranged around what must have been the town center. There must have been quite a commotion, as they could hear faint voices shouting.

“Should we check it out”? Jeneva inquired. The people looked happy about something, they must have been celebrating.

“Action is not recommended, the populace will be suspicious if they spot either you or me”.

Jeneva smirked at the robot, she had an idea.

“They’ll flip if they see you” she stated matter-of-factly. “But they won‘t get suspicious if they see just one woman”. Spheracles tried to respond doubtfully but Jeneva cut him off.

“You’ll have to sit back and listen through the radio this time” She said. “No need to raise panic among the populace”.

She cocked an eyebrow at the robot as if to see if he would challenge her judgment. But he didn’t, he would have looked resigned if he had facial features.

“Affirmative” he stated. And with that, Jeneva set off towards the town, HIDURG in hand.

***

[Nvez]

Eventually, she reached the outskirts of town. This place was constructed mainly of huts, with farming tools scattered around the vicinity. The pathways were comprised of hard-packed dirt, and had the occasional pile of horse feces, not too pleasant. A child’s face peeked out of a window and stared at her. Paying no attention to the surroundings, she made her way to the centre of the village, already the crowd was starting to thin out, giving Jeneva weird looks as she passed them.

Jeneva was looking for the village leader, there she could inquire if they had seen any demons nearby. There was a problem though, Jeneva couldn’t speak Japanese, so asking the villagers where he was would yield only further strange looks. To her, the huts all looked the same, wooden walls, wooden doors, glass windows... wait, glass windows? That wasn’t right, glass was usually used as ornaments in this time, not windows. This hut was unusual, so Jeneva decided to take a peek inside.

“Is anybody there”?! She shouted. From inside the relatively dark hut, a voice came out... In English.

“Come inside, I want to talk to you”. What the hell? That wasn’t right. Jeneva enunciated her thoughts as such. The man inside laughed.

“Perhaps I should explain myself” he said, lighting a lantern. The light cast shadows around the hut, and revealing the man. He looked a lot different than the others, He had hair that was thinning around the top, flecks of grey were visible among the black. And his skin, though starting to wrinkle, was the color of someone from North America.

“My name is Osias”, the man explained. Like you, I too traveled through time. He seemed to look off into space, thinking about something. Jeneva knew that name, she’d heard it from somewhere before.

“Are you Osias Rothwell”? Jeneva exclaimed. “The first volunteer in the Zypher Disaster that took place on July 13, 2100”? The man nodded, then looked concerned.

“‘Zypher Disaster’”? He inquired. “What happened”?

Jeneva proceeded to tell Osias about the results of the Zypher Project, the malfunction, and the crisis that followed it, including the emergence of the threat known as ‘demons’. And then she told him her story, the events that led up to now. Throughout the story, Osias’ face changed from looks of concern, to disappointment, to sadness.

“Those bastards”. He hissed. “I can’t believe that this is going to happen! I’ve got to do something”! Jeneva shook her head at the man, he was at least in his late fifties.

“Don’t worry about that. I and my friend are hunting down as many as we can, that way, they can’t reinhabit hell”. Osias nodded that he understood, looked around for Jeneva’s friend, and then inquired for his whereabouts.

“He’s outside the town” Jeneva said. “‘He’ is more of an ‘it’ though... He’s a Hunter class robot”. Osias’ eyes widened at this, robots that thought freely were still in its infancy when he left the world he knew.

“More power to you then, the more you kill, the better”. He said confidently. Jeneva asked if they had seen any demons nearby.

“Yes, as a matter of fact, a group of people passed by here just a while ago” Osias answered. “They killed a couple of raiders that were going to attack us, I think they were demons”. Jeneva asked where they were heading. Osias said that they were heading further northwards, and he hoped that they caught up. Jeneva gave her thanks, and then left for departure.

“Hey”! Osias shouted at her.

“What”? Jeneva shouted back.

“The leader’s name is Inuyasha” Osias told her.

***

[Nvez]

Afterwards, Jeneva had left the town, and was currently telling Spheracles about the meeting.

“So then that means that they should be nearby” Spheracles said after Jeneva was finished. She nodded empathetically.

“We’re going to have to follow them for a while, get to know them, how they think”. Jeneva said. “And then, probably in the morning, we strike”. Jeneva mashed her hand into her palm to emphasize the point. In the days to come, a priest, a warrior, a demon, a child, and a beast, would all meet their doom.

***

[Nvez]

Over the following days, Jeneva and Spheracles followed the group of travelers, stalking them, studying their habits, and their use of tactics. With the following came a few close calls they were almost discovered when the leader almost blew up the hill they were hiding on top of while shouting what seemed like gibberish. Spheracles said that it was shouting ‘Wind Scar’ while causing some kind of energy to fly from his ridiculously large blade. How could ‘Wind Scar’ be an attack that blew up mountains? Who knows, flawed logic ran rampant even in her era.

The next day or so was uneventful, Spheracles was almost found out by the child with a tail, but managed to get out of the way in time. The mutated child attributed the noise to a creature. The cat that hung about one of the women was becoming a hindrance to Jeneva and Spheracles, as it’s ears picked up any noise they made, invoking the feeling that the targets were being followed. Jeneva and Spheracles were more cautious after that.

Eventually, the targets had found a rest area somewhere in the base of the mountains, it was below the tree line, as the occasional tree broke up the otherwise smooth terrain. While the group took shelter in the hut, Jeneva and her robot friend hid out in a sinkhole about 125 yards away from the target zone. Jeneva took this opportunity to rest until the morning, telling Spheracles to wake her up at dawn. This would give her about 8 hours of sleep, the sun had set and they group had set a fire near the hut, talking and such in Japanese. Spheracles said it was about nothing important, so Jeneva closed her eyes and slept.

***

[Nvez]

Jeneva woke up to Spheracles shaking her shoulder. Instantly awake, she looked at the robot. He was using pantomime to tell her that they were up and starting to pack. Peeking her head over the rim of the sinkhole she saw the group spread out, the child was separated from the rest, an easy target. She pantomimed to Spheracles, telling him to wait here, while she went ahead to a small hill that towered over the hut.

Sneaking over to the hill, she readied her HIDURG. This gun was special, it had recoil compensators, which meant she could fire the weapon without pulverizing her shoulder. The gun itself fired big, fat slugs of iron coated with reinforced carbon-carbon, the hardest man-made material, which meant it kept it’s shape, even while going over 200,000 feet a second. Bam, instant hole wherever it hit.

Putting her eyes to the scope on her rail-gun, Jeneva sighted the mutated child, it had to be a demon, it’s body was too disproportionate to be a child, so she didn’t have second thoughts about squeezing the trigger slowly, ever so slowly. The slug leaving the barrel was silent, but the result was not. Impacting the child’s head, the slug tore a clean neat hole, while shattering the cranium in an instant, the slug was going very fast however, and the sonic boom that trailed the projectile served to tear the severely weakened skull apart, leaving nothing but a stump where it’s head had been a split second before. The group noticed this almost immediately, especially when the demon sprayed chunks of bone, blood, and brain matter all over them. One of them screamed out its name Shippo! But it was too late, elapsed time was 2 seconds, and one was dead.

Unfortunately, things didn’t go too smoothly afterwards, the cat, which until now, both Jeneva and Spheracles had discounted as a pet, swelled into huge size, flames wreathed it’s body, and massive fangs sprouted out of it’s gums. This was no cat, it was a hell beast. Two targets hopped onto the beast, the priest, and the warrior woman. The beast leapt up into the air and flew upwards. Now, you see, Jeneva wasn’t wearing any camouflage, and she was spotted almost instantly. Getting up on one knee, she proceeded to aim at the group, she had a sweet shot, the slug would go through the beast’s chest, through the priest’s stomach, and the warrior woman’s head. But it was not to be. Spheracles’ voice rang on Jeneva’s ear-jack.

“Jeneva, you should know something about your gun”

“Not now Spheracles” She shouted, and pulled the trigger. Instead of the slug flying out of the barrel, it only spit out, arcing sharply towards the ground.

“Your gun is low on power”

“FUCK”! Jeneva screamed angrily. She dropped her gun and pulled out her sidearm, the Thunderhawk, squeezed out an entire clip at the beast, all 7 bullets found their mark, the .55 caliber bullets tore through the skin of the demonic cat, shattering the spine, the ribs, and one impacting the bottom of the skull, severing the spinal cord in it’s ricochet and killing it instantaneously. It fell about 20 feet, hitting the ground hard with a thump. The priest was trapped beneath it, while the woman was nowhere to be seen.

Quickly changing clips, Jeneva leveled her gun at the priest, easy target. But instead of hitting the priest, something hit Jeneva’s back, hard. It threw off her aim, and the bullet hit the ground 2 yards away from it’s target. Rapidly holstering her sidearm, she turned to face her attacker, the warrior woman. She was wielding some ridiculous weapon, like an oversized boomerang, and she swung at Jeneva again. She was ready this time, dodging the weapon, she snatched it out of her hands and retaliated by smashing the woman in the torso. Jeneva broke the weapon over her right knee and threw it away. This was going to be an unarmed fight. Both the woman and Jeneva took battle stances, Jeneva was the first to strike, going for the simple kick in the stomach. But she dodged it, and struck back by grabbing Jeneva’s leg and flipping her on to her back. Jeneva jumped back up, and they kept on fighting...

***

[Nvez]

Meanwhile, while the priest was busy pulling himself off of the dead beast’s corpse, Spheracles had emerged from the woods and engaged the demon one-on-one. Leveling his G18-XE caseless rifle, he fired 3 quick bursts at it. To no avail, the bullets simply impacted the robe he was wearing, and fell off. Clearly this was like some kind of bulletproof vest, and he would have to rethink his tactics, putting away the rifle, he ran towards the demon and tried to gouge his eyes out. But the demon struck back and threw off his grip. He then clawed at Spheracles’ chest, trying to pierce his armor hopefully kill him. But the armor was tough, only a laser or a rail-fired projectile could pierce it, certainly not demonic claws. He pulled out his sword quickly, and shouted a challenge at Spheracles.

“Come on! You big metal freak! Let’s fight!” Spheracles assumed a battle stance, and prepared for his ‘fight’.

***

[Nvez]

During this all, Jeneva had gained the upper hand in the unarmed fight, had countered several of the woman’s attacks and had otherwise beat the hell out of her. That was until she punched Jeneva full in the face. Doubled over in what seemed like pain, Jeneva was really feigning agony, the punch had connected to her nose, which was bleeding rather badly, but she had felt worse, a lot worse. Standing over Jeneva, the woman made the fatal mistake of becoming complacent in the thought that she had defeated her attacker, she hadn’t. Using the woman’s feeling of satisfaction against her, she grabbed the woman by the throat, and , using it for leverage, she kneed the woman full-force in the sternum, followed by 6 punches to the face, and finally, breaking her right forearm by twisting it nearly 360 degrees. The woman, now in agony, fell to the ground and writhed in pain, cradling her broken arm. Jeneva, in a state of fury, stamped on the woman’s head, forcing her back, and then kicking her savagely in the temple, again, and again, until she no longer moved.

“That’s for hitting me in the back. Bitch”! She spat. Someone in the background screamed out in Japanese, if she understood it, Jeneva would have heard the words Sango! NOOO! It looked like the priest had gotten up just in time to see Sango get beaten to death, and he was pissed. Shouting out what seemed like gibberish, he summoned a wind tunnel to try to blow Jeneva away. Jeneva merely laughed out loud and pulled out her Thunderhawk, shooting him several times in the chest, once in the head. The impact snapped his head back, and his eyes rolled back into his sockets. His body fell to the ground in a heap. Now to turn her attention to the fight that was going on. The fight between Spheracles and the demon Inuyasha.

***

[Nvez]

The witness of all of this death, was another time traveler. Her name was Kagome, and her death was imminent. She tried taking aim at Spheracles with her bow and arrow, being a terrible shot, it was no surprise that she missed. Jeneva had snuck up behind her, and, knife in hand, she knocked the bow out of her hands and grabbed her in a chokehold. Jeneva shouted at the demon to get his attention.

“Hey! Freak! Watch what happens next”! Plunging her knife into Kagome’s neck from the side, she screamed in shock and pain. Worming the blade inwards, she rapidly ripped it outwards, severing both the carotid artery and the jugular vein, and her windpipe. The whole mess that resulted involved a lot of blood, and Kagome’s death. Her pale body fell to the ground, the last few drops of blood seeping into the ground.

Seeing this, the demon screamed in fury, and proceeded to kill Jeneva in an as painful way as possible. Spheracles, sensing an opportunity, ripped the demon’s red robe off, grabbed his neck and threw him about 20 feet. Jumping towards the demon, he landed knees first on the demon’s chest. The demon, in righteous fury, tossed Spheracles off of him and jumped onto his feet. Lashing out with his sword, he severed Spheracles’ right forearm. Leaking hydraulic fluid and coolant, Spheracles’ forearm valves closed shut, causing his entire right arm to seize up and shut down.

Now, righteous fury may give people unimaginable strength. But strength can be stopped with relative ease, when you use the right tools. Spheracles tool, in this case, was a miniGAU shoulder-mounted cannon. Not even righteous fury could compete with .60 caliber bullets tearing your body to pieces. Which it did, and within 5 seconds, Inuyasha the demon was nothing more than a pile of bloody chunks and bullet riddled limbs. Not a glorious way to die. Not a glorious way to die at all. And in that instant, the battle was over. Plain and simple.

***

[Nvez]

Something was wrong, that much was clear. Maybe it was the earthquakes, maybe it was the sky becoming blood red. Whatever it was, Jeneva and Spheracles were knee deep in crap.

“Okay, what in the name of fuck is going on”? Jeneva shouted over the din.

“I do not know” Spheracles shouted back.

Then, just as suddenly as it started, the earthquakes stopped. The sky returned back to it’s normal color.

“Well I’m glad that’s over” Jeneva sighed...

Suddenly, about 50 feet away, the air began to distort, melt, and reform into some kind of portal. And out of it poured uniformed soldiers. Their suits were emblazoned with a picture of some kind of dog with the letters E O S imposed over them.

One of the soldiers was not wearing a helmet. He looked like the leader of the group, the soldiers all formed a circle around them and cocked their weapons, they all looked pretty bad ass. Although the leader looked of familiar, he looked a lot like...

“Riktus”?! Jeneva exclaimed. Walking towards him, she peered at him, this was Riktus all right, an ally that was KIA before they got here. But he looked... different.

Riktus’ response to this question was to smash Jeneva with the butt of his rifle, knocking her down onto her ass. He made the proclamation that he was told to give.

“As of this day, Jeneva Duras, and Hunter Killer unit 17-C, you are hereby declared under arrest by Lord Sesshomaru’!

Something was fucked up, Sesshomaru? Who the hell was that?

“Awww... fuck” Jeneva hissed. “We screwed up big time”.

***

TO BE CONTINUED... ?

All right thats it. Hope you enjoyed it... probably not. Ugh.