Welcome to Project Blackwing

Sinan Kell

After walking for the better part of a day across the burned sand of the planet, they reached the ‘city’ Kell had mentioned earlier. Unlike the cave where the humans had first encountered his kind, this was far more sophisticated. The mountainous rock formation had been carved into twisting spires, bridges linking them at many places. There were few windows, and those few were dark, clearly abandoned. The bridges linked to sheer rock, either some kind of door, or the result of a landslide.

Kell gestured up at it, turning to smile at his ‘companions’. “Well, this is it. Once your people figure out how it functions, then it should provide an excellent place for them to live.”

If their commander had been present, she might have been able to warn them about what Kell intended. Truthfully, the alien was hesitant about taking them on as a group. But, if he could separate them within the city, then his hunt could begin. The place, like most of the cities on the planet, was a labyrinth, the stone ‘gates’, now powered by their own power sources, opened and closed of their own volition. And, what was more, Kell knew that the city wasn’t quite as empty as he had made it out to be. Simply abandoned by his people.

He placed his hand on a panel cut into the face of the rock, and a section of it slid away, revealing a cavernous entrance, unfurnished, but not as barbaric as the cave from earlier. It seemed to be a road of some sort.

Lheah

Lheah stared in awe at the cavern, though her mind was elsewhere. The flashbacks just wouldn't stop. Attacking everyone in sight. Then another showed up that she desperately didn't want to remember.

She was racing through the streets, cutting down everyone in sight. Huge raindrops fell from the sky like miniature missles, exploding into thousands of tiny droplets on whatever they collided with.

She was in a huge hurry. There were scientists behind her, shouting incomprehnsible orders at each other. She ran into a dark alleyway. She heard the scientists racing after her. There was a little girl in the alleyway. She couldn't have been more than six years old. She stared at Lheah with wide eyes. Then she screamed.

Lheah took one swift step forwards and ran the girl through the chest. Her screams stopped, and a single tear ran down her cheek. Then she collapsed on the ground, dead. The scientists came up from behind Lheah and stuck a syringe in her arm.

Lheah snapped herself out of it. She felt an emotion that she had never felt before. A strange weight in her chest. She had heard of it before. People called it guilt.

((Just to make this a lot easier, Richard followed you guys to the city.))

Richard's eyes went over the few dark windows, the twisted spires, and the road ahead of them. Does this person really think I'm an idiot?

"Charming," he said flatly. "I suppose there's nothing for us to fear within those gates?" The android gave Sinan a pointed glare. "Not that I've seen much to fear in this forsaken place as of yet." The corner of his mouth twitched in the barest semblance of a smirk. It was obviously a challenge.

Sinan Kell

The alien shrugged at Richard’s question. He’d partly expected this – after all, he’d given them absolutely no reason to trust them, and much the opposite. “If you haven’t yet seen anything to fear in this place, then I don’t think there’s anything in there that you would. None of my kind should be within – we abandoned the wastes a long while ago.”

Uncommonly for his species, Kell was not one to rise immediately to a challenge. After all, he dealt more in telepathy than anything else. He set off into the city, “Follow if you wish, or you can remain out here.”

Either outcome was beneficial to Kell. He wasn’t underestimating Richard, Lheah and Mikael, not by a long stretch. He knew that the three would be able to deal with just about anything his planet hurled their way. But the wastes were abandoned for a good reason, and maybe they wouldn’t be able to compete with everything that lingered there.

The alien paused in the entrance, glowered out towards the horizon, the red glow of the sun riding low over it. “I’ll close the gates at sundown, though.” Now, was that bluffing? Or was there seriously something in the desert night that provided him and, if the empty city was any evidence, provided him with a primal fear?

Richard rolled his eyes but followed the alien creature. It wasn't as though he had anything better to do, and he didn't want to get shut off. He wasn't afraid of being dismantled by anything in the abandoned city if it was indeed a trap, and he couldn't care less about his companions.

"I am curious, is there any particular reason why your people abandoned the, ah, wastes?" He glanced at Lheah, who had a very odd look on her face. If he had any sort of empathy, he would have asked her what was wrong.

Mikael

I could see my arrival and return to Lheah's life was causing her some discomfort. I could remember how she been. In fact some flash backs of her haunted my dreams. But there was one i would always remember. We had been set on each other by a drunken guard. Lheah had been putting all her energy into splitting me open from head to toe. I had turned that energy into more armour. We were perfect opposites. Absolutes in attack and defense. It was as if that realisation dawned on us both simultaneous because we just stopped. No more fighting, no more shielding. Then we began to laugh. Long and loud. It was as if we were free again for a breif moment.
The stories goes that are laughter echoed through the hallsand sent that poor drunk guard insane, but i like to think it was his wife leaving him that did that. Finally i worked up the guts to speak.
"Lheah, are you ok?"

Lheah

Lheah looked at Mikael. She might not be too fond of him, but she did like to consider him a friend. She sighed and shook her head. "No. I see them all in my head. Every single one of them. That little girl, she didn't do anything. Why did I do it? I don't remember, I don't understand..." She put a hand to her forehead. "Am I just a monster? That mother was just trying to protect her son. Did I really need to kill them? What about that young couple? They looked so happy before I showed up. Couldn't I have just let them alone? And then there was that young man. He had a sick mother at home that would die without him. Did he really have to die?"

**This thing died again didn't it? D:**