[[Ok heres a story ive been working on. I'll be writing a sequel but I need a break hehe this took a long time. Comments are welcomed]]
Cylie was confronted by Falon a month or so back. They made a deal that he would remove the mark that was on her head. Last summer she had messed up an illegal delivery that was being made. The person who was over seeing the trading was not happy and threatened Cylie with a pin that had a engravement of a noose. In return she would get information on the Xan who once lived in Adonis city for him.
She had an inkling Falon would at some point talk to her. Falon was a mysterious man himself, a nanomage Fixer. He was tall and wore a helmet that he breathed through. He said little, and spoke in simple words. When he had shown up mysterious things were occurring. And her boyfriend at the time Lysandrel had gotten the same mark as she did. Everyone suspected him to be behind it, but really no one knew. And at the time she was more concern with making her life safe.
Adonis city was a section in the Shadowlands. The Shadowlands is another dimension, not directly connected to Rubi Ka. You could enter the Shadowlands by going through Jobe, the floating city. Jobe had a Womp-ah in Borealis. The Shadowlands were found by a group named JAME. They had opened a portal to the Shadowlands from Jobe. It was a new land, new culture and history, one that Cylie was not familiar with.
She knew two people who knew Adonis. First there was Foosball, her ex husband. He had worked up in Adonis and knew the land extensively. Also they were still pretty close because of the twins so he would be happy to help her with anything. A part of her thought he still had some feelings for her. The problem was Foos was too close to Joe.
Joe Hadrensen was a retired agent. He was a quiet man and stuck to himself. Cylie never trusted him though. And for this particular issue and its connection she wanted Joe far away as possible. He knew about Cylie's threat and was too uncomfortable around it which she found odd.
Then there was Tom. Tom was...irritating and arrogant, but extremely attractive and knew his stuff when it came to exploring up there and how to protect them if things got messy. But about four years ago they had slept together a couple times. She figured though, that she could put up with the jokes and arrogance, she was actually getting use to it by this point. She decided to ask him.
Tom agreed to take her up to Adonis and show her around. She gave him a little information about why she needed to go up there. She really didn't want to get him involved in her mess. They went up a few times with his boys. His “boys “ as he called him were his friends from the Armed Forces.
There were three of them First was Dwight Rolston, he was Tom’s main dude; they shared the same smart ass and cocky attitude. Next was Darren Elliot, quiet and shy guy. He was a trained sniper and a scout ranger. He talked to Cylie a lot when she hung out with them. Last was Matthew “Chubby” Cox. He was a surgeon. Nice guy, kind of nerdy.
Usually the five of them would get up early and head up to Adonis City. They would spend the day up there doing some exploration, investigating or prepping Cylie giving her tips she can use when she's ready for her physical tests. Then they would head back and unload, go out for some beer and food, and unwind. This one trip though, was much different. And the day ended far from how either one would have anticipated, at least in Cylie's mind.
They came around the corner and spotted a spirit that was standing a few yards away. The spirits were odd creatures. They stood tall, maybe about six feet. Their skin was almost translucent. Cylie and Tom were tired, they had been out there for several hours and were ready to get home. But unless they wanted to die, they were gonna have to battle the spirit. They made sure to stay out of sight at first, since those spirits were vicious and could easily rip a person apart.
“I'll go on the cliff to get a better view”, Cylie whispered. She left Tom and walked around the wall, climbing to the top. The walls formed a cross intersection. The sides crawled up and curved back. They were black and had a smooth surface. She crawled forward until she got in sight. Instead of yelling at him she beeped his comm unit letting him know she was in position.
Tom aimed his rifle at the spirit while creeping slowly toward it. He watched the spirit rip open a small rodent with its bare hands. Blood was dripping everywhere. Tom was getting nauseous looking at the site. He started to fire a few rounds at the spirit. It jumped up scared, it turned to run away. Tom shot a few more shots and the spirit dropped. He laughed an egotistical, arrogant laugh. Without warning, another spirit attacked him from behind! He was taken by surprise, and didn't have time to reload. Resorting to the only thing he had on hand to safe his life, he dropped his useless rifle to the ground and took hold of his combat knife, lunging at the spirit!
The spirit yelled like a banshee, almost laughing at Tom. The spirit had sharp nails trying to scratch at Tom's armor. Tom jabbed at the spirit a few times causing some metaphysical wounds, but nothing to get the Spirit to stop. They were blood thirsty monsters.
Cylie stared down the scope mounted to her rifle, and took a shot as soon as she got an opening. The bullet grazed Tom's shoulder and hit the spirit point blank in the head splattering slime and what looked to be pieces of a brain all over the ground. The spirit dropped seizing for a second. Tom grabbed his rifle from the ground, put in a fresh clip and took a few shots right back in Cylie’s direction.
“Hey what they hell are you doing?!” she yelled, crawling back getting out of view.
He stopped shooting, “You ****ing shot at me!” he yelled back up at her.
She stood up, “I did not, it was a close call! You're fine, so stop complaining” she yelled back at him, hopping back off the cliff to where Tom was standing. He slung his rifle to his back
He grabbed her rifle, firmly pushing her back a bit “Do it again and I'll leave your ass here on your own”.
“Hey! No one is forcing you up here; you're the one that agreed!” She yelled at him, pushing him back. “Now get off of me!” She let go of her rifle, bent down and picked up a rock and threw it at him. He stumbled back. Getting fed up with her, he grabbed her arms and spun her around keeping her arms pinned against her chest.
Cylie twisted her body around, in an effort to get out of his grip. “Get off!” She yelled. Finally, he let go of her. She was never quite as good at close combat as he was; in truth, she wasn’t good at close combat at all. She smacked him across the face, turned to run ahead but Tom stuck his foot out, tripping her. She fell down“Knock it off Tom!” She yelled. She rolled over and got back at him as she swung her leg beneath him, dropping him to the ground. She got up, pushed him back and sat on him pinning him down. She lowered her face to his and whispered “I didn't shoot you, if you do that again I will”.
He looked at her as she realized what she was doing. “Remember what happened last time we were in this position?” he chuckled. He moved his hands toward her butt, and kissed her. Her heart started to race, since despite her better judgment, she kind of liked it. She kissed back for a few seconds. He moved his pelvis against her in a grinding motion. This did not bode well for the high sex drive she had, especially since it had been a while since she was with someone that intimately.
“No” she said pulling away from him. Cylie was going crazy inside because she was highly attracted to him. Tom was everything she looked for in a man. He was tall, dark, good looking...very good looking, and muscular. He stood up for what he believed in, was a good soldier, did his job and did it well. Only thing she could live without was that god damned attitude he gave her, and his arrogance.
She stood up and brushed herself off. “Come on, let’s go” she said, lending a hand to help Tom up to his feet. Cylie walked away a bit, so she could grab her rifle and few things she dropped.
Tom bent down and picked up a small crystal. "Yo Tres, look at this." At Omni-Trans everyone called her Tresa, which was her proper name. Cylie was a nickname she got when she was a toddler, and it stuck ever since. The crystal was a peach color, and upon closer inspection, looked like it has an inscription etched into the side. “Wasn’t that Scott guy talking about something like this earlier? He asked handing it to Cylie.
She gazed at it, “Yea I think so…I’ll show it to Turms and see what he says” She said. She bent over patting the corpse to see if anything else dropped. Tom stared at her butt; she stood up and saw him. She narrowed eyes at him. She normally would say something to him but it was pointless. He did it all the time it became an unnoticed habit. Besides a part of her wanted that attention from him today.
“What? Not like I’m touchin’ it…” he chuckled, “Unless you want me to.” he reached down and gave her butt a quick squeeze with his hand. “Cause I know you like it” he chuckled.
She shook her head. "Come on, let’s head back. It’s late, I’m tired, and I need a shower. Tom shrugged and they started walking back toward their exit.
"Why are we looking for these things again?" Tom asked, taking a medium sized rock and throwing it at her. "Why can't he get off his ass and get it himself?" Tom asked.
“What the hell?” she yelled, nudging Tom in the arm; "knock it off...and I told you already, I'm doing this as a favor to him." she explained.
She turned around and slipped on a wet patch of grass, falling back against Tom. "Watch where you're goin" Tom said as he caught her, giving her a curious look.
"Sorry" She said, getting back on her feet and holding a hand against her back, which had been hurting a bit all day.
They walked for a while, Tom occasionally throwing something at Cylie out of boredom. "I’m hungry, why don't we go back to my place, you can help me get out of my armor, and then we can go meet up with the boys and get some food? Tom asked.
"Am I going to have to pay again?" she asked, still rubbing her back.
He answered with a smart ass remark, as usual “Well, yea. Look, it’s not my fault some bitch stole my wallet”
“Fine” she rolled her eyes. “Well...I kinda do owe you for taking me up here” she said, walking ahead of Tom, looking about her surroundings. There was a small wall that stretched for miles. A yutto stood at an opening. Yuttos were odd people. They were tall and spoke broken English. They wore a beige cloak that covered everything. All you said were two lights as their eyes.
“Well hey if we’re gonna talk about you paying me…” he put his arms around Cylie’s waist, and a sly grin on his face “I can think of a few ways.”
“I bet you could…now get off me” she said, pulling away from him. They continued their walk out of City South to the garden that would lead them back to Rubi Ka. It was hot, but not a humid hot, a nice comfortable heat with a nice breeze passing by every so often. The road was dirt and grass here and there. The sky was a dark blue color, no clouds to be seen.