Water from a stone

I hate running. I especially hate it because I am bad at it. But, to stay alive run I will. I had been wandering around Elysium for a good while now and I had started trying to fight the monsters that were destroying the Shadow lands. Unfortunately, the hecklers did not seem to agree with me, so I was running for my life.

I ducked behind an outcropping hoping the heckler would run right by. They may be big and hit as hard as I do, but they are some of the stupidest creatures I have ever run across. I waited trying to make my breathing regular. This whole thing started because of that stupid Martial Artist…

We were doing well me and a group of people I had met up with. We had each answered a scientists posting for people to carry silly little bracers that would record the activities around them. We wore the little things and they were reading the amount of force needed to destroy the beasts as well as the affect it had on the surrounding area. He was theorizing that the more of these little rock things we destroyed the more stable the land would become.

The rest of the team and I knew that the hecklers carried mineral deposits in their bodies so occasionally we could get some scratch out of them. The Metaphysicist was keeping his pets moving through the weird link that they have, I will never get used to the creep factor that MP’s give off. We had a soldier that was gung ho but battle hardened enough to know that moving slow was the way to survive. Then there was the MA.

He was a nice kid only about 22 or so and not quite ready to be out of the dojo. He was impressed with himself and knew that he could take anything by himself, which he told us many many times.

Now things moved smoothly for about an hour, finding ones that woke up and wandered away form the rest of them, so we could combat then one at a time and easily. I would basically run interference while the others would either keep me alive of help tear the heckler apart. We progressed fine until we got a little brave and wandered into their turf. It wasn’t until we were resting after having killed one that I saw the MA shadow boxing with an outcropping. Then it dawned on me.

“Kid, stop and back away slowly, before that thing wakes up,” I said as I began to slowly inch backwards.

“What this old hunk of rock? It’s as dangerous as a leet back home,” he said as he punched it for effect.

Needless to say the hecklers that were half buried took that as an act of aggression and quickly made a pulp out of the little guy. The rest of us ran for the trench, we knew the trench was our only hope, as it would let us drop back to Rubi-Ka. One of the reasons all of us carry parachutes now. The soldier dove over and got away, and the MP had his pets defend him as three hecklers crawled up over the side of the trench. That left me standing in the middle of five hecklers.

Now I am no creampuff, I can take a heckler one and one and usually get the better of it. But five against little old me already tired from a hard days work was no fight it was a beating. So I did what any good warrior would do in that case, I ran away.

So, this leads me to my current situation, most of the hecklers had given up but this one had a sore spot for me I guess, and he was determined to find me. Though how I have always forgot to ask. They have no eyes so they don’t really see, then again they are big lumps of rock we are not even sure how they move. A buddy of mine once explained to me that they were not really rocks but the force of rocks. Mindjack never does make much sense.

I check my storage unit to see what I had left with me. I pulled out a weak nano coil and slowly tapped a line into the source. So far so good I could feel my energy coming back to me. I just kept my eyes on the heckler that was still stalking the area making that annoying grating sound the whole while. It slowly started walking my way in a very determined fashion. Apparently the jig was up and I was about to be hooked off stage. Well, running is getting old time for this thing to find out who it’s been chasing.

We both rushed at each other and I turned to take a glancing blow and get behind it. While spinning I gave the thin a sharp crack from my Hungry Howlet. IT responded by shifting its stones around and clocking me a good one sending me back a few steps. I came back with a feint to the left and a fast swing to its right leg. I heard a crushing sound and watched as the leg cracked in half and fell away.

My victory was short lived how ever as I watched the rocks realign and form a new leg. It then roared and lunged at me. I twisted out of its reach and got behind it. I wrapped my arms around it in a bear hug which gave me time to think about what to do next. I decided it was time to do or die. I let go of the heckler and accessed the challenger nano Meatbone had given me not too long ago, as well as the anvils bane that Dong had given me. And I began hammering away at the thing with all the might and skill my NCU could muster. It soon seemed to me that I was winning the fight, blow for blow I was winning and the heckler was running out of rocks to shift around.

Finally, I landed a thunderous blow to the “head” of the heckler and it cracked in two and the whole heap fell to the ground. I watched it move a little for a moment then I started to look though the rubble, finding nothing interesting I picked up the head rock of the thing and looked at it. It was then I noticed a drop of moisture on the rock, and a streak that it had left. Now I am not betting the farm on it or anything as we did run through a lot of water, but what would make a heckler cry, if it even could?