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In a dry darkened room, two raptors sat against the wall with their arms cuffed and their legs bound by restraints. Seaclaw woke first, shaking his head with a mumbling shudder as he tried to push himself up.

[i]"N-NNNGH, nnnnngh! F-father?! FATHER!"[/i]

[i]"Nnnrgh?!"[/i] Oddclaw shot up before the chains pulled him back. [i]"Ohhh...S-seaclaw."[/i]

[i]"Are you...alright?"[/i]

[i]"Ohh...J-jane."[/i] His eyes welled up as he shook his head. [i]"They...th-they murdered Jane."[/i]

[i]"What?"[/i]

[i]"Riptor...forced me to choose either Jane or Chanoch to be killed, or else she would have...burned our home. I...s-son I am sorry, I-Chanoch said I should choose him, because he is a guard, he was ready to-...but she murdered Jane, when I wanted her to live!"[/i]

The boy watched his father weep, bowing his head with shivering gasps as he tried to reach out to him as far as his chains could let him, their ankles and wrists bound with electronic locks against their cuffs.

[i]"I hope she knew...she knew it was not my fault."[/i]

[i]"She knew, father."[/i] He nodded. [i]"She knew because you were friends."[/i]

[i]"She was the first friend I had with the hairless...she taught me so much, I know I was not as close to her as with Jeremy but-"[/i]

[i]"I'm sorry."[/i] He nuzzled his head against him. [i]"I liked Jane too."[/i]

[i]"I do not know what Riptor is planning,"[/i] Oddclaw whimpered, [i]"but it is something...terrible, something, she is planning to rule over us, all of us."[/i]

[i]"We're not letting her."[/i] Seaclaw tightened his fists. [i]"We'll stop her, we'll do it together, for Jane, for Stonevoice, a-and all our friends!"[/i]

[i]"...yes."[/i] His father sighed bowing his head. [i]"We have to kill her. We must free ourselves, and kill her."[/i]

[i]"What about the hairless she has?"[/i]

[i]"We kill them too, they...they murdered Jane. They are Riptor's tribe and any who stop us, we shall kill."[/i]

[i]"Mmm."[/i] The boy bit his lip. [i]"I need my longstone."[/i]

[i]"You have your claws, you have your teeth."[/i] Oddclaw snarled showing his fangs. [i]"We are hunters, remember what I taught you."[/i]

[i]"We never hunt alone...do you think, our family's coming to get us?"[/i]

[i]"I do not know, but,"[/i] he smiled with forceful hope, [i]"your uncle is very clever, as the alpha he will know what do, even against a stoneflyer."[/i]

[i]"Heh, maybe sister can jump up from a tree and kill the guards!"[/i]

[i]"She might, she can jump high!"[/i]

[i]"Heeheeheh..."[/i] the boy tried to laugh before it faded in his throat, [i]"why does...Rumble want you?"[/i]

[i]"I do not know,"[/i] Oddclaw shook his head, [i]"she said, that I would make the best mate for her. She is selfish, and cruel. She cannot live, for all she has done, and all she plans to do to our home, we must escape and kill her."[/i]

[i]"I...I know. But I..."[/i] he shifted in his chains, [i]"I'm afraid father."[/i]

[i]"...I am afraid too."[/i] He turned to his son. [i]"I am afraid that, I might not be strong enough to save our family and friends, especially now. But we have to fight, because what matters is not if WE survive...but those we love do. You and your brother and sister and mother and all of our tribe I will die for. They would die for you too, and I know you would do the same, even if I want you to live through this."[/i]

[i]"But there are so many of them,"[/i] shivered Seaclaw, [i]"I want to stop her, I WANT to kill her, but she has so many."[/i]

[i]"I know. Sometimes you must fight even if you are not certain you can win. I do not fight because I know I can win. I fight because it is the only way to keep those we love safe. Do you understand?"[/i]

[i]"...yes."[/i] He nodded. [i]"I-i do."[/i]

[i]"I am sorry Seaclaw. I know it is not what you wanted to-"[/i]

[i]"N-no...no it...I know, we have to fight."[/i]

[i]"Good. I love you."[/i]

The boy smiled blowing a kiss through the air that he returned.

[i]"I love you too father. But...if we kill...Rumble-"[/i]

[i]"Yes?"[/i]

[i]"...what are you going to do with her...children?"[/i]

There was no answer. They both understood, in a mutual oath. In the depths of the Tosengeist, the great and terrible ship that loomed in the sky above prehistoria, there were the sounds of festering screams through the halls beyond them. The deep rumbling engines shivered through their bones as they tried to crane their ears to find a passing guard, or someone approaching. But in the distance beyond, an old man had been tethered against the wall and was slowly being raked with a burning hot sickle down his bare chest. His face was covered in bruises but darker still where the many lines of deep scarring black that gouged thinly through his flesh, carving beneath the pectorals as tears stung hotly from his eyes.

"[i]GRRAAAAAARGH![/i]"

"//What happened to the base?!//" barked the nazi slapping his face. "//TELL ME, WHAT DID YOUR PEOPLE DO?!//"

"[i]NNRRAAAAAAAAARRRRGH![/i]"

He forced all the rage from his chest until his arms shivered through his chains, his moustache reddening with blood from his battered nose where bubbles of red streamed down as he stared at his torturer. His answer was a spit in the man's face, the masked soldier punching his gut in response as he dry-heaved a foetid yelp.

"//Fucking English prick.//"

"//I'm Welsh you kraut cunt,//" he snarled back in Cymraeg.

"//How's the jew?//"

"//Not made a fucking word,//" said the other guard grabbing Chanoch's head, "//not since that Riptor turned off the screens.//"

"//Are we seriously taking orders from a fucking dinosaur?//"

"//She's Frau Grimm's pet, that makes her above us, plus she's got all them panzeraptors under her control.//"

"//Hmph,//" the first guard tapped his boots, "//I don't like it, I get this Riptor's helping us a lot because she respects us, but shouldn't she be beneath us then if she respects us?//"

"//Well look at it this way,//" his friend turned to him, "//I respect you, but we're the same rank, and our major respects us even though we're under him.//"

"//Hmmm well, when you put it that way...I just don't feel we should be taking orders from what's basically an animal.//"

"//I know what you mean, but this is no ordinary animal, think of it like uhhh Liesel!//"

"//OH, I love Liesel!//" the nazi beside Holt pumped his fists. "//She's the best dog, she knows everything!//"

"//Right!//" his friend nodded. "//So think of it like taking orders from Liesel, you would do that right?//"

"//In a HEARTBEAT, I love that cutie!//

The door opened as they suddenly stiffened up hearing the creaking of leather.

"//SIEG HEIL!//"

"//Heil.//"

Frau Grimm stepped into the silver room with gleaming red visor, staring upon her two prisoners in the small examination room. A long table was in the centre, the hostages tethered against two separate walls whilst forced to stand, a third wall full of chemical jars and drawers with ghastly tools to the side. She walked over to Chanoch, robbed of his armour to be left naked with patches of skin already torn off in deep red holes as she pulled up his face, his swollen stinging eye staring back.

"//Thought you would never see me again, hmm?//"

She pulled out the whip from her belt and pressed the handle to his chin.

"//Even without you taking off your mask before I still would have recognised you from that unmistakeable build...the body of a thuggish degenerate.//"

"//Funny,//" snorted Holt in broken German, "//you called him a perfect Aryan-A-AAAARGH!//"

Lashing across the room he felt a vicious ream of his face, his entire cheek become a bloodied tear that split with a heavy gash like a gouged blade.

"//I don't recall asking for your opinion,//" said Grimm pulling back her whip, "//as a soldier you should know to speak when you are spoken to. Now...//"

She turned back to Chanoch and grabbed his chin.

"//I know you speak German, the one good thing you ever did in your life was speak our superior language properly. Where are the rest of the little roaches that once inhabited your base?//"

Still he said nothing, the scarlet visor brimming on his face as she wrenched his head higher to strain his neck. She stepped back as the guards shuffled to the door as her whip came out in full force, striking deep into Chanoch's scales and tearing through them with a sickening rip through his already-torn chest. He gasped with a shudder as he felt the whip carve into the muscle, flensing beneath the skin as his face twisted in a writhing gasp when she ripped back her whip and struck gim again, twice across the face as he felt his gums suddenly split.

"//SPEAK!//" she barked. "//Unless you want me to take your teeth.//"

Chanoch licked his lips, a fresh stream of red trickling down his belly from the searing wound in his chest. She walked over to the drawer and grabbed a long cylindrical tool with a sharp spike upon its tip before walking back to her prisoner. Holt fidgeted in his chains trying to push himself up.

"HEY-EY, [i]HEY, YOU FUCKIN' COW DON'T YOU DARE![/i]"

"//You must make a very good guard dog to withstand so much,//" she snapped her fingers as one guard stepped to her side, "//but every animal has a nervous system...and it does not matter how tough your flesh is, all I have to do is find a nerve...and rip it, slowly."

The soldier grabbed Chanoch's head and forced it open hard as he could, Chanoch struggling with a snarling gasp as his jaw was made exposed and she clicked the drill on, the sound of screaming steel inching closer to his teeth. The air vibrated around his tongue as he felt the spinning tiny blade come whistling past his enamel. Unbeknownst to either of them, he gave a gesture to Holt who suddenly started singing at the top of his voice.

"GOOOOODNIIIITE SWEETHEAAAART, TIL WE MEET TOMORROWWWW, GOOOOODNIIIITE SWEETHEAAAART, SLEEP WILL VANISH SORROOOOOW!"

"//Shut up!//" the other guard kicked his face. "//Stop it, shut the FUCK UP!//"

"TEAAAARS AAAAND PAAAARTING, MAY MAKE US FORLOOOORN, BUUUUT THEEEE DAWN ANEW-"

"//I SAID SHUT UP!//"

The nazi grabbed at his throat and started punching his face, causing Grimm to turn briefly from the sounds of fighting. Chanoch slipped his tail out from behind him, something they had not tethered as he slinked it round his thigh and angled his body to whack the guard holding his mouth and send him falling forwards straight into the drill, stabbing him through one of his eyeholes and deep into his temple.

"[i]A-AAAAGH [b]AAAAAAARRRRRGH![/b][/i]"

The sound of a screeching sucking wound was formed amongst his screams, the small piercing drill crunching against the skull as Grimm quickly pulled him off and stepped back with Chanoch sliding his tail back behind him. The kommandant moved her guard to the floor and wrenched the drill out of his skull after turning it off watching the guard roll across the floor clutching his face with blustering sobs.

"Awwww wee babby nazi had a fall?" Holt snickered.

"//SHUT, UP YOU ENGLISH FUCK!//" the guard still standing punched the back of his head.

"//Imbecile,//" said Frau Grimm stepping over the bleeding nazi, "//pick your friend up, we shall deal with them later.//"

"//Yes, Frau Grimm.//"

Picking up the guard who sputtered with sobs, the solder carried him off limping from the room as Grimm looked back towards Chanoch with a cold grin.

"//Once Ingelbaum has his needs of you, I shall be glad to take what I need from you...and then, you will wish you had never been born.//"

The door closed as Chanoch sighed with Jeremy wincing, their wounds dripping fresh as Jarogniew looked over to him.

"Thank you."

"S'alrigh' dab," Jeremy wheezed, "fuck...not cut out fer this at my age."

"I am twice as old as you."

"Don't you fuckin' start I'll wrestle you again after this."

"You will lose again."

"That a bet?" He licked his moustache with a growing grin. "Wot say whoever loses next fight gets to fuck the other?"

"HAH!" Chanoch gasped with a shiver through his chest. "Nnngh...you know it hurts when I laugh."

"Wuzn't making a joke, unless yer frightened of me tappin' yer arse."

"No. Deal." The lizardman nodded pulling his wrists. "When we escape."

"Sooner than ya think," Holt gave him a wink, "I'm sure our pals got a plan, don't you fret."

"I have a plan." Chanoch shifted himself in wait. "Fall asleep, do not move until I say."

"Alrigh' then, yer last idea worked so ah wouldn't mind a wee nap."

Forty minutes would pass as Holt tried to sleep, resting his wounds as Chanoch kept watch with his back straightened up until the door opened once again. Entering the room were two scientists in green overalls, along with Dr. Ingelbaum who rubbed his hands gleefully.

"//Ahhh, my little jewrat, glad to see you are looking well, are you ready to give me more samples?!//"

He said nothing as the doctor approached, dressed in a full red suit of scales with its tail and head missing.

"//Do you like?//" he turned himself round with arms spread open. "//One of the beasts from a village we found, fascinating creatures! The scales are even fireproof, and the head well, I thought it would make a good helmet but sadly not, so I put it on the mantle next to your blade.//"

"//Should we ask it?//" one of the assistant asked.

"//Oh like it understands anything of science,//" said the other.

"//Still it had an unbreakable weapon of basic steel, how does that-//"

"//Da'at Yichud, obviously,//" Ingelbaum rolled his eyes, "//did neither of you read my discourse?!//"

"//Uhh, yes sir,//" they looked to each other with a sudden shake, "//it's just, uhh, we well-//"

"//Th-the symbols were different!//" stressed the other raising a finger. "//The writings on the blade did not match the usual we had seen on artifacts.//"

"//Ahhh yes,//" the doctor nodded rubbing his chin, "//they were rather unusual, I don't suppose you would like to tell us where you found that blade?// Perhaps another nice little vault scurried away in some little thieves' den your people have?//"

Chanoch remained silent. Shrugging placid, Ingelbaum took a scalpel from the drawer and walked up to him, bending down to stab him in the side and saw through his toughened scales with a wheezing tightness as Jarogniew sucked through his teeth.

"//I have to say, you make a very good subject for a jew.//"

"//Uhhh doctor,//" one of the assistants stepped round the table, "//should we not put a muzzle on him?//"

"//Oh he's not venomous, I've studied plenty of subhumans and not one has shown such a trait.//"

"//Right but, we never met one like THIS before.//"

"//We already took swabs,//" the other assistant nudged him, "//no venom, just some nasty fangs.//"

"//And that's why I go HERE!//" Frederick twisted the scalpel in as Chanoch braced his teeth. "//Just...there, that's a good subhuman.//"

Another fresh circular wound appeared in his waist as Ingelbaum peeled the chunk free. Taking a small petri dish he locked the sample in like a compact and handed it to his researchers.

"//Put this one under T7, upgrade the acids to five.//"

"//The same we put on the blade?//"

"//Exactly. Perhaps it could not melt his Yichud steel but I'm certain jew flesh will not stand up to the same calibre.//"

"//What about the tanning treatment?//" his other researcher asked. "//Frau Grimm was wanting some-//"

"//Ohhh of course she would, honestly I do not know why she can't have this.//" He raised his arms showing the lizalfos skin in its morbid splendour. "//But I suppose we should take another sample.//"

Slipping the scalpel out once more, he picked an unblemished part of Chanoch's belly and ripped it free with a flensing cut, the knight taking a breath as he felt the pull of the metal blade, plucking at his muscles and filing beneath the skin before it peeled off that he slipped in another dish.

"//Good jew,//" he patted his chest patronising, "//when we return home, you are going to be my masterpiece.//"

"//How?//"

The humans stumbled back slightly startled hearing his voice.

"//How am I to be your masterpiece?//"

"//AH, the golem speaks!//" Ingelbaum stepped back handing the other sample to his subordinate. "//So you are curious yes?//"

"//Do I not have the right to know what you intend with my body, sir?//"

"//Well, since you are asking so politely.//"

He waved off the scientists who left the room, Frederick pressing his hands together as his monocle gleamed in the light.

"//Over the past thirty years I have been studying the anthropological differences between the Aryans and other races. How is it, that our race evolved to be so superior to that of the African, the Oriental and of course, the Jew? For years it evaded me, oh sure there were studies of phrenology, the structures of sub-saharan skulls and mongoloids but it wasn't enough for me!//"

"//Why not?//" asked Chanoch.

"//Because everyone's already asked that, there's already a venue of research that's not complete enough for me! I aimed to prove that those like you and other non-Aryans came from a completely different source of evolution, of that of reptilians, not mammals and for years I have struggled to find a body, ANY body of a subhuman that possessed such ancillary traits, because unlike those other imbeciles at Uppsala that laughed at my thesis, I am a perfectionist."

"//Why did they laugh at you?//" Jarogniew shook his head. "//Was your theory not certain?//"

"//Oh it is PERFECTLY viable,//" he smiled pressing a leather-scaled hand to his chest, "//I just would not debase myself or my research by taking some random negro's skull and be done with it like those other morons would, old decrepit bastards who were just waiting for their tenure rather than ADVANCE the science of supremacy!//"

"//There is a science to that?//" he suppressed his disgust keeping a straight face.

"//Ohoh of course, not that you would understand with that basic semite mind of yours no no, which is why I shan't tax it with an explanation. But of course I needed samples, fresh samples. That was how I met Frau Grimm since she ran the Skulte-Marupe camp and well, being in Uppsala just across the sea it only made sense I obtain them from a place so close, when I was starting out. But nothing as exceptionally subhuman as you.//"

His smile was that of a big game hunter as he sat up on the table.

"//You are EXACTLY the proof I needed all those years that non-Aryans do come from reptilian ancestors, you and that little black dinosaur with the blue hair which Frau Grimm would never let me take samples from...so that is why I have you.//"

Frederick gave little jabs of his fingers with a gleeful cackle.

"//I am going to present you to the Uppsala institute, alive of course, we'll take samples, keep you fed like a nice little doggy until we have all that we need from you...then I will have you preserved, as testament to my great and truest legacy.//"

"//Hhhhah. Hhhahahaha.//"

The laugh that came darkly from Chanoch slightly stung Frederick who squinted.

"//Legacy? You say I will be your dog, yet you are already someone else's.//"

"//Wh-what?!//"

"//Not even a human's pet, but a raptor's.//" Chanoch shook his head. "//Pitiful a man of your supposed intellect would be a mutt to another beast.//"

"//WHAT?!//" He shot up off the table. "//What the HELL are you implying you oafish semite?!//"

"//I thought you were a scientist, did I stutter?//"

"//I am NOT anyone's pet, how dare you address your master in such a way!//"

"//Is that what Riptor tells you when you speak back to her?//"

"//SILENCE!//" He lunged forwards with a vicious slap across Chanoch's face. "//YOU are not even human, you're just a pathetic evolutionary dead-end just like every other non-Aryan who fail to understand our greatness!//"

"//Greatness? HAH!//" Jarogniew chuckled. "//What is so great about being mocked by your elders for years, only to end up being belittled by a creature who shits where it walks? Even amongst your own pathetic kind, you are just a sad little man who is jealous of those such as me, because we had friends, and family, and communities that care for each other.//"

"//YOU ARE BUT A SAVAGE!//" he shrieked stomping his foot. "//YOU and your damn heathen kind have stifled the progress of my world for too long, hiding your treasures from superiors such as us who would put them to better use!//"

"//Spoken like a true thief,//" Chanoch rolled his eyes with a deep sigh, "//do you know why your people will fail? Because you only care about yourselves, and when troubles come, you will tear apart each other, trying to climb the tallest tower whilst the world burns underneath, and you abandon your supposed brothers.//"

"//How DARE YOU!//"

He marched towards Chanoch with a sudden landing fist, cracking his jaw as the knight fell unconscious suddenly with head lolling to the side. Seeing he was still breathing, Frederick began to pummel him more across the head incensed by a surge of fury and confidence upon his unresisting subject.

"//You dare to accuse such weakness of my race, when YOU cannot even withstand a second punch, or THREE?!//"

His fists went flying into his chest, battering him with a violent fit until his monocle popped out swinging beside his neck.

"//You, are nothing, but a DEGENERATE, a disgusting artifact whose only purpose to exist, is to educate my descendants, the failures of evolution, the miserable little CRETINS such as you who weren't born white, breeding like cockroaches and festering our purest world with your disease-ridden ilk instead of doing the only noble thing your kind ever did and BURN INTO-[b][i]A-AAAAAARGH![/i][/b]//"

His shoulder suddenly cracked in half when he felt Jarogniew's teeth rip through his flesh. Chanoch opened his eye faking unconsciousness in the midst of Ingelbaum's rant, his jaws crunching round the bone with splinters piercing through his scaled coat. His arm became useless whilst the other frantically tried to beat against Chanoch's face, clutched too tight against him as he hung feebly hanging from the knight's teeth, his sputtering pleas turning more desperate he felt Jarogniew's tail fish into his pockets. Slowly he pulled out a keycard with his tail through the plastic loop, slipping it towards one of the locks on his cuffs before he released Ingelbaum from his jaws.

"//Idiot.//"

He dropped him to the floor with a shove of his hand.

"//Head full of shit, too stupid to live, Stinkelbaum.//"

"//[i]H-H-HHHRRRRGH! A-AAAARGH, GET AWAY, D-D-DON'T TOUCH ME![/i]//"

"//This is why your empire will die out,//" he freed his other limbs and marched towards him, "//arrogance, refusal to accept your flaws and work to fix them.//"

"//[i]H-h-hhaaah![/i]//" He crawled back quicker clutching his bloodied shoulder. "//[i]G-god, you monster, you S-S-SAVAGE![/i]//"

"//After countless deaths and wounds you inflict upon others, you call me the savage?//"

He grabbed the nazi and jerked him upright to have him dangling with gasping fits above the floor.

"//You already had the world for yourself, your laws protect you, but still you want more.//"

"//[i]B-but...but we weren't FREE you do not understand![/i]//"

"//Free to be what, cruel and intolerant? Selfishness is not freedom.//"

"//[i]And what will you do, HMM?![/i]//" he spat on Jarogniew's face. "//[i]Kill me, like the rampant degenerate you are, proving me right all along that your kind are nothing but savages![/i]//"

"//The moment someone fights back for all the injustice you give them, you hide behind words of poison.//"

Chanoch slammed him down upon the table and grabbed his head in both hands.

"//Those who work together, help others through strife and provide for community...I would not hate, even the ones I disagree with. But those who rob, those who torture, and those who kill others for the simplest difference...cannot exist in society.//"

"//[i]W-why?! Why do we not have the right but you do?![/i]//"

"//I only want to pray in peace. You want to exterminate me. You shoot the first bullet, you will die by the last.//"

"//[i]N-NO, NOOO-A-AAAA[b]AAAAAAAAARRGHKKRNKH![/b][/i]//"

The sound of his head caving in upon itself was the last that Frederick Ingelbaum heard before his total collapse. Chanoch's fingers crushed him slowly, cracking the skull completely as he felt the splatter of brain juice upon his chest, soft grey matter oozing from the now cone-shaped head of Ingelbaum who slumped to his side listlessly screaming, puddles of grey filling up his eyes and drooling down his nose.

"Fuckin' ell." Holt roused himself watching with a quiet eye. "That wuz pretty fuckin' brutal."

"Yes." Chanoch wiped his hands on a cloth nearby. "We are leaving, we will need weapons."

"You practically are one, how you still standin' after all they cut outta you?"

"Just a flesh wound." He unlocked Jeremy's cuffs. "He only took skin, the burnings hurt more."

"Christ...speaking of," Jeremy stumbled forth to grab the table, "now that I've got me legs back they don't wanna fuckin' work."

"I won't carry you," he walked over to the drawers and pulled out some gauze with antiseptic, "we have Ingelbaum's key, we find his room and get back my sword."

"Maybe an armoury too," said Holt hissing as Chanoch applied it, "nnnngh f-fuck that stings."

"At least you have clothes," he wrapped the gauze and tightened it over the wounds, "we escape quietly, find people captive and free them."

"Then we take this place down."

"Yes."

He handed the first aid to Holt who started to patch up Jarogniew's more serious wounds, taking a moment for themselves to get the feeling back in their limbs before they exited the lab and peered down the steel hall seeing one guard patrol nearby.

"//HELP, HELP!//" Holt cried.

"//Wh-what, what's happening?!//"

"//INGELBAUM'S HURT, THE JEW BIT HIM!//"

"//Fucking...seriously?! Alright I'm coming!//"

The nazi rushed in with rifle at the ready, but the moment he stepped through the door seeing Ingelbaum's fresh corpse, he was grabbed by Chanoch from behind and gutted through the throat by Jeremy with a scalpel at the ready, stabbing his carotid and slashing him open with a feeble screech. Holt took the man's rifle along with some of his armour that fit, whilst Chanoch grabbed a knife from his belt before they moved out into the halls proper. Taking point Jeremy kept his ears open and scanned around the corners with gentle motions for Chanoch to follow, sneaking through to the next room which was currently empty as they waited for a passing guard to lure in with a vague cry of German before Chanoch grabbed his neck and Holt had his gun out.

"//Where's Ingelbaum's room?!//"

"//Gh-GHHRKH!//"

"//ANSWER, or else you suffer VERY slowly.//"

"//GN-nnnghr...h-head out from here, go left...down to very end of the hall, then right again.//"

"//Thank you.//"

Jeremy fired two shots through the head, the body tossed to one side as they snuck out once more and followed his directions. Hurrying as fast as they could, they checked corners and killed a few more guards that came the other path, Chanoch throat-slitting them fast to keep their travels silent before they reached the end room. But they found a terrible surprise when the door opened to find some soldiers' barracks of several beds, a table and lockers.

"//Uhh, hey HEY!//"

"//SOUND THE ALARM, THE SUBJECTS ESCAPED!//"

"Awww fuck this."

Holt started firing as Chanoch ducked behind the door, waiting for the spread to stop before he barged into the room beside his fellow man to rapid-fire three of them dead as Holt went into cover. Lasers tore across the air and burned the walls as one nazi rushed forwards to bash Jeremy across the face with his rifle, before Chanoch came from the side and slammed his knife deep into the skull, wrenching it hard off the neck with such force that the blade snapped into his cranium. Ducking a laser shot he grabbed the dead nazi and hurled it at the remaining soldiers, running behind the flying body to stab one soldier of them in the eye with the broken knife as Jeremy joined in with a pinpoint shot through the heart of the other nazi.

"Hooo...you alright?!"

"Yes," the knight tossed another corpse to the ground, "he lied to us."

"Well that's fine," he cocked his gun, "never wuz a quiet lad meself, though we are gonna need a map."

"Or we check every room," Chanoch grabbed a shotgun from a locker, "kill every nazi, save every prisoner."

"Now THAT is thuh best fuckin' idea you've ever 'ad."

They loaded themselves with clips as Jarogniew put on the biggest armour he could find, still naked but better equipped whilst the alarm went screaming above. Soldiers began yelling orders from the hall as they braced themselves for the assault, firing on all cylinders as they came out of the barracks and pumped laser down the hall, cutting half-a-dozen through as they charged on ahead before two more came through a side corridor that Chanoch dealt with, shotgunning one through the chest wide open before crushing the other with a huge swing of his gun.

Every room they passed they gave a clean sweep, one checking the hall and keeping guard whilst they gunned down nazis and searched for anyone else. Soldiers came filing out as the escapees cut them down one after the other, blasting lasers that lit up the walls as they navigated towards the largest and best-fitted room of the scientific wing. Frederick Ingelbaum's quarters, festooned with tribal artifacts and the skulls of their owners laid out in macabre arrangements from humans to lizalfos, was a large enough room to take cover in as they found more medical supplies to stuff their pockets with and heal up their continuing wounds, hiding beside a large steel desk as Chanoch saw his gleaming sword kept in a trophy case, alongside his old armoured plates.

"Need a key fer that?" asked Holt.

"No."

He punched the glass which shattered in one blow before grabbing his blade.

"Ah'd wanna vandalise this place but most of this stuff ain't his."

"Agreed." He put on his breastplate then his greaves. "Ahh...better."

"EY, lookie 'ere, found summat!"

On the desk was a floor plan of the entire ship with an overlay on top showing several notes scribbled down concerning the placements of various experiments rubbed out and rewritten repeatedly.

"Alrigh' so we're here," Holt tapped, "got our friends over 'ere, here, aaaand says Oddclaw's over 'ere."

"Good," Chanoch nodded scribbling on the map, "we get Oddclaw, then the captives, then...we kill Grimm."

"Too righ', sounds like a...good plan," Jeremy sighed slumping back on a chair, "haaaah-"

"Are you hurt?"

"Naw naw jus'...fuckin' tired mate, I'm old."

"Do you need rest?" He put a hand on Holt's shoulder.

"Naw...naw, not when my mochyn bach's in trouble." He grabbed Chanoch's wrist and pulled himself up. "Can't leave a good man down."

"You love him, yes?"

"I do," he shrugged, "maybe ah don't have much time left, but he does, an' if there's one thing I want done in me life, it's making sure that sweet lad gets back home cuz fer all the years I lived, I've never felt my heart bleed as much as it did fer Oddie...I wish I could grow old with him."

"You will." Chanoch smiled rubbing his neck. "We are soldiers, we retire when war is finished."

"Aye. Never is though ain't it?" He took a deep breath before standing up. "Can I ask ya summat? About Thomas?"

"Yes."

"You and him, you planned to blow up thuh base didntcha?"

"Yes." Jarogniew sighed. "It was his plan, he did not trust Schroeder, or the nazis to stay away."

"Wuz he plannin' on...blowing himself up?"

"He was." Chanoch bowed his head. "I am sorry. He insisted, said that no matter what...they must not find our gate."

"Naw." He patted his shoulder. "You done good, it's what he would've wanted. Now let's do right by him, an' take these bastards down."

"Yes." The knight braced his sword. "Nazi bastards."

"Hhhhahahahaaaaa, amen to that!"

Marching out the room they faced another onslaught of nazis who waited down the hall, Chanoch drawing his sword and stomping forth using his greatblade to deflect every one of their firing bullets and lasers that pinged and whizzed past. By the time they had to reload it was already too late, as Chanoch ripped through their skulls and carved through their armour, cleaved their stomachs and flensed their limbs with a whirlwind of steel fury, the armoured lizard gouging through hordes and skewering three at once with a single thrust. Holt provided backup as Jarogniew went in deep to the throngs of battle, massacring the soldiers who screamed and bellowed epithets that fell upon deaf ears soon severed by the holy blade. A marching troop down the hall was forced back by a roaring sound of thunder from his throat, the strength of his voice sending them on their backs as he rushed forth and chopped them to bloodied pieces.

Making their way to the far corner of the ship, they hunted for Oddclaw's cell as guards continued to come upon them. But the real threat came from the pack of cyber-raptors, awakened by the alarm as the sound of feral screams came rippling down the hall the closer they travelled towards Oddclaw's room. With close quarters combat a fuller option, Chanoch took them on at once with a tremendous rage, slashing deep into their throats and when he couldn't decapitate them fully, he sent them crushing into the walls with his brutal swings. When the armour was too tough to cut through, he used the flat of his blade like a hammer of god, ringing steel that cracked their heads like a walnut as he would crush one with his sword and punch down with his other hand as they tried to overwhelm him, struggling to take down four of the twelve beasts.

Holt kept the nazi guards back with his rifles, firing two so as to keep up a constant repeating barrage of shooting one clip down whilst the other gun recharged itself.

"F-FUCK it's gettin' a bit hot 'ere!"

"[i]NNNRAAAAAARGH![/i]" Chanoch shuddered cracking a steel raptor's skull. "That...that was five."

"WOT ONLY FIVE, YER SUPPOSED TO BE FUCKIN' SUPERMAN!"

"These things are...tough."

"Alrigh' I've got a break in thuh fight, gimme yer key I'll free Oddie!"

Tossing the keycard to Holt, Chanoch kept up the offensive with a ripping swing of his sword, damaging the next raptor as they struck against him with savage tails that whipped across his blade and scarred his plated chest, his armour covered in burns where lasers had struggled to melt through to his flesh. Holt opened the door to the cell, but he was suddenly grabbed from behind and thrown to the ground by a desperate guard.

"//FUCKING SHIT YOU'RE DEAD!//"

"A-AAAAGH, F-FUCK OFF YA FASCIST PRICK!"

[i]"U-UNCLE?!"[/i]

[i]"JEREMY!"[/i] the raptors shot up surprised.

"G-GET YERSELVES FREE!"

He threw the keycard as Oddclaw grabbed it in his mouth, pushing it against the lock on his wrists which came undone as he quickly freed himself then his son before launching onto the nazi. Grabbing his head he threw him off of Jeremy and slammed him into the wall, the guard pulling out a knife from his belt and thrusting as Oddclaw swerved and crunched his knee into the nazi's crotch winding him. Jeremy staggered against the door wheezing, his face bloodied with a broken nose as he tried to pick up his rifle and aim for the guard who wrestled Oddclaw to the ground and started beating him. The fascist stopped when he felt his own knife suddenly plunge into the side of his throat, then twice again as Seaclaw viciously stabbed him with a shriek, the guard crumpling into a puddle of his own blood.

[i]"Haah...thank you son."[/i]

[i]"Hunters hunt...together!"[/i] He held up the bloodied knife with pride before pulling his father up. [i]"Are you okay uncle Jeremy?!"[/i]

"Nnnngh...s-sorry dab," he tapped his neck gasping, "not got thuh collar on."

"Are you alright?" Oddclaw repeated in English.

"Naw, but I'll manage, we hafta leave." He hoisted himself up with a groan shuddering. "Chanoch's out thurr, we need to free everyone we can then get outta 'ere."

"No," Oddclaw shook his head taking the guard's rifle, "we have to kill Riptor, she is too dangerous."

"Wait, who now?"

"The raptor controlling them, the one who captured you."

"Naw naw mate, that were Frau Grimm," Holt shook his head staggering out the room, "that lady's sum real fuckin' work."

"Grimm is taking orders from Riptor," said Oddclaw hurrying beside him, "we have to kill them both."

"Now that, ah can get with." He slumped against the raptor and suddenly kissed his lips. "God...I'm so glad yer safe."

"I am too...hah, I am still your mochyn bach."

"You are." They kissed deeper as Holt felt a surge of strength return to him. "Is your son alright?"

[i]"Yah,"[/i] Seaclaw nodded as his father translated, [i]"you okay?! You're hurt!"[/i]

"S'fine lad, you know how to use a gun?"

[i]"No, but I got this!"[/i] he brandished the knife.

"They took his sword," Oddclaw said, "do you know where it might be?"

"They'd prob'ly put it in the armoury," said Holt pulling out the map, "that place there, we get there, we can find better guns too and yer sword."

"I wish I had my gun with me."

"Well, when yer in enemy territory, you just gotta use wot's at hand."

[i]"STONETREE!"[/i]

They turned the corner back to where Chanoch was still fighting, caught at the intersection between nazis and steel raptors that were crowding upon him. Holt and Oddclaw came rushing in to repel the soldiers, firing down in volleys as Seaclaw waited for the closest guard to approach before lunging out behind his father and stabbing into the man's gut, ripping through with a screaming gurgle before pulling back as Chanoch could focus all his strength upon the cyber-raptors.

"TO THE ARMOURY!" Holt shouted. "WE NEED MORE GUNS!"

"GOOD!" Chanoch shouted. "CLEAR A PATH!"

"ODDIE C'MON!"

[i]"THIS WAY SON!"[/i]

Carving a path towards the armoury section, Oddclaw and Jeremy tore down the advancing nazis whilst Chanoch slashed and clawed and crunched every panzeraptor that assaulted them from behind. Even with only six remaining, they still came as vicious as the day they were first made, their cold metal skin almost-impervious and their speed as sudden as any living raptor's was which made a horde of them frustrating. But Chanoch still stood, despite their many attempts to lunge at his face, trying to rip his throat or paralyse him with shocks that he forced back with sword and fist all whilst his friends up front kept firing down upon the soldiers. A nazi too close would either feel the biting crunch of Oddclaw's jaws, or the ruthless stab of Seaclaw's knife before they finally reached the armoury, a glistening gulch of gunmetal where the walls were lined with handguns, small arms, shotguns and even bigger beasts.

They locked the door behind them soon as they managed to get inside, Holt taking a moment to sit down and gasp with struggling wheeze that shook through his entire body whilst Seaclaw duig around feverish for his weapon.

"You do not look well," said Oddclaw patting Holt.

"M'fine...just...haaaah-"

"He is old," said Chanoch rifling through the guns, "he needs to rest-"

"Nawwww ah fuckin' don't just shoot me up with sum drugs I'll be back on me feet."

"Jeremy, please." Oddclaw bent down in front of him. "If you need to rest, please."

"...fuck." He clutched his face. "I'm seventy-five Odd, this isn't whut I thought I'd be doing."

"What did you think you would be doing?"

"Pissin' in mah knickers in sum retirement home givin' the frighteners to them softy Cardiff boys. Not stuck on a fuckin' nazi ship losin' mah breath cuz I got beaten half to shite."

"I am sorry," he hugged him gently, "can I do something to help?"

"Another kiss would be nice."

The raptor rolled his eyes and smooched his lips. His tongue crept in as Jeremy sighed with a blissful shiver, hands slipping round Oddclaw's back to pull him close with a suckling of his cheeks as their breaths thickened in their throats. Holt started to weep, his tears trickling upon Oddclaw's cheeks as their hands roved across each other's bodies until they were left gasping. Their lips pulled apart, soft tongues of sweet saliva they tasted from each other as the raptor licked his cheek.

"Better?"

"Aye," Jeremy sighed, "thank you Odd...if...no never mind."

"What is it?"

"...would you have wanted to live with me...if you didn't have a mate?"

"Of course." Oddclaw smiled holding his hands. "I love you Jeremy, you do not have to be my mate for me to love you."

"That's...alright, right?"

"Yes!"

"...whut if ah stayed?"

Holt sighed with a shuddering breath.

"Ah mean...thuh base is fucked Odd, there's no way we're getting home now. No one wants to talk about it, no one wanted to accept but...I've long accepted that we're not getting home."

"I am sorry...but, you want to stay?"

"I do." He stroked Oddclaw's fingers. "Ah don't feel like I can fit back home, even in thuh world that Jane an' Thomas were from...I don't miss that world. I don't think they'll miss me. But I would miss you."

"...I would miss you too," the raptor bowed his head, "but...you should not stay just for me-"

"It's my choice. Whutever happens next, even if we do find a way back home, I still wanna stay with you."

"R-really?"

"I mean it Oddclaw." He pulled their hands together. "I know you have yer family...but if I can spend me last years with thuh most wonderful friend I ever loved, no...more than a friend...I love you. I always loved you."

"I...I always loved you too, Jeremy."

He pulled him into a hug and kissed his cheek. Jeremy started crying with a sigh of relief as he squeezed him tighter, saying nothing for a few minutes more until Seaclaw's voice came back.

[i]"I FOUND IT!"[/i]

The boy rushed out from the depths of the armoury with the sword of Stonevoice, tightening the belt made of vine to his body as he made a sweeping cut before sheathing it again.

[i]"Ready to FIGHT!"[/i]

[i]"Good,"[/i] Oddclaw stood up patting his head as Holt joined him.

"Alrigh' Chanoch you ready?"

"Yes."

He walked out from the rifling valley.

"I found...a weapon for me."

Their eyes widened as he stomped forth with a crushing step. In his hands, pressed against the front of his chest, was a monstrous-looking cannon with a huge handle resembling a cable on its side, a thick bullpup at the end and a cycling piston ticking away at the back.

"Hhhhohohohohhhhh!" Holt clapped his hands. "OOOOOH if ah wuz a girl ah'd be fuckin' wettin' meself."

"What is stopping you now?" Chanoch grinned with shining teeth. "Open the door. I wish to test this."

"Yes SIR!"

Moving back from the door, Oddclaw and Seaclaw watched as Chanoch began charging his new weapon. The piston slowly revved up to a spin cycle that gathered an exceptional current of crimson electricity, sparking out in miniature arcs as Jeremy opened the door on his command.

"//THERE THEY ARE, THEY FUCKIN' TRAPPED THEMSELVES!//"

"//[i]OPEN FIRE![/i]//"

"//Gladly.//"

The sound that burst from his cannon deafened their ears as a screaming burn that ripped the air in half, a superheated gouge that filled the entire doorway with the face of God. Or rather what it felt like to the unfortunate men and one steel raptor that met the full force of a solar-electric blast. There was nothing left of those men, a pile of ashes simmering at the door with the one steel raptor that got caught in the blast having half its face completely melted to resemble a sluggish worm, the CPU in its brain overheating with a sputtering burst of small explosions that cracked through its skull before it completely collapsed.

"Hmm. Very good."

He looked down at the gatling gun's battery seeing it almost fully depleted.

"I will need more ammo, someone carry it."

"Um...I-i will."

Taking a backpack amongst the storage, Oddclaw gathered three batteries as Chanoch took a fresh one to clack into the gun and see it charge up to full.

"How thuh fuck you figured out that big bastard thing?!"

"Manual."

Chanoch pulled up a booklet showing a cartoon nazi eagle explaining how lasers work. Holt rolled his eyes as Seaclaw gasped wide in awe at the humongous cannon.

[i]"WWWWOOOOW! Can you make the SUN with that?!"[/i]

"Hmhmhm," Chanoch smirked when Oddie translated, "I can make you a sun, so your home may shine again, when I burn the darkness from this ship."

"Ohohh yer a poet now are ya?" Holt slapped his back.

"Better than you."

"Mate you don't even listen to that rap music."

"No, do you?"

"Oh aye, that Run DMC group Anna showed me once, they're a right gas!"

"Hmm. Then we will honour her." He marched out of the room. "All of our friends, with a feast and music after this."

"Toooo fuckin' right."

They bumped fists as they left the room, taking on the first group of soldiers who had backed up already in fright from the crater of black outside the door.

"//OH, [i]SHIT![/i]//

"//HE'S GOT A FUCKING LASERGEWEHR!//"

"FIGHT US NOW, AND YOU DIE!" roared Oddclaw loading his rifle next. "Leave us now, and you live!"

"//DON'T LET THEM ESCAPE, SEND THE PANZERAPTORS IN!//"

Jumping over the soldiers came the shrieking cyber-raptors as Chanoch braced his weapon. The charging spin of the electroconductor signalled their doom as he burned a violent seethe of pure light through the hall. Two of the metal raptors lost their faces and their chests from the full brunt of the lasergewehr, whilst the other four managed to push through using the two melting bodies like shields before jumpkicking onto the walls to try and assault Chanoch from above. Jeremy blasted one out of the air, whilst Oddclaw took the other and Seaclaw slashed into one of their fronts with the blade of Stonevoice tearing through the steel and showing its sinewy cables within. Chanoch ended up with the last one, aiming upwards to rip its leg off and swing his gun mid-fire to club it against the wall before emptying the rest of his ammo into the coming horde of soldiers.

"RELOAD!"

Oddclaw kicked the mecha-raptor trying to zap him with its taser, slamming the gun into its throat and emptying his entire clip until he burned out the back of its neck. Once it sputtered to a critical error state, stumbling jagged off to the side, he pulled out a battery from his pack and shoved it into Chanoch's gun as he kept advancing, tearing through a small legion with the ultra-cannon as it darkened the walls around him and left nothing but molten puddles of flesh and bone beneath his feet, the smell of ash thickening in his nostrils whilst Holt and Oddie kept him covered from the back. Soon they found the rooms where several hostages were waiting in cells, some of the scientists and a few soldiers from the T.E.A.R. base.

"Hey, wh-what the fuck-"

"Alrigh' lads an' lasses!" Holt waved tossing a medipack to them. "We're here to break ya out, we got guns an' stuff if yer up for nazi-killing!"

"Oh thank FUCK!" they started to pull themselves up as Oddclaw freed them with Ingelbaum's card. "Did the base really get blown up, we heard chatter-"

"Yes," said Chanoch keeping at the door, "come, we must go!"

"Take a gun each," said the raptor, "we have to find and kill Grimm."

"The commander, why?!" gasped one of the hostages.

"They are dangerous, we must stop them."

"...welp, good enough for me!"

"Yeah same here," said a former soldier, "we know where we going?"

"Sure do," Jeremy pointed out the door, "keep us safe, we'll need the extras, especially against them metal raptor shits."

"ALRIGHT GUYS LET'S [i]FUCKING GET 'EM![/i]"

Charging out of their cells the former hostages took on a greater force against the nazi armada, their numbers slowly depleting from the onslaught as Chanoch made certain to save his ammunition for the largest groups. Marching towards Frau Grimm's office in the higher sections of the ship, the soldiers became fiercer and more well-equipped as they changed from rifles to shotguns, as well as more panzeraptors once they found a large set of stairs reaching upwards. Nazis took positions as the rooms became more elaborate with lush carpets and golden swastikas in the grip of eagles shadowing over them. A few of the hostages died despite their best, two ripped apart by raptors of steel and two others getting pummelled by lasers to crumple down the stairs.

Chanoch used his last battery to eviscerate three panzerbeasts, one getting attacked by both father and son as Seaclaw ducked beneath its savage jaws and stabbed deep into its throat, tearing partly through its pneumatics before Oddclaw pumped half a clip into the back of its head and grabbed its tail to spear like a lance deep into the other beast. Once the hall had turned silent, they walked forth towards the grand doors of thick robust mahogany at the end of the corridor. Tossing his lasergewehr to the ground, Jarogniew pulled out his sword with Jeremy staggering behind him.

"Wait here." He put a hand to his shoulder. "Keep watch on our friends."

"Haaah...right." Holt shivered with a mutual thanks. "I got yer back."

"I will come with you," said Oddclaw taking Chanoch's wrist, "if Riptor is there, I must kill her."

"Good." He nodded looking back. "Seaclaw should stay with Holt, he is old and wounded."

"...alright."

Turning to his son Oddclaw gripped his shoulders with a firm look.

[i]"Seaclaw, can you protect your uncle for me?"[/i]

[i]"Huh?"[/i] he looked to Holt.

[i]"He is old, he is wounded, if more of them come I need you to keep him safe."[/i]

[i]"...okay."[/i] Seaclaw nodded with a hand to his hilt. [i]"I'll protect him."[/i]

[i]"Thank you."[/i] He hugged him with a smooch. [i]"I will see you soon."[/i]

The boy stepped over to Holt who sat against the wall panting ragged, smiling at the youth and rubbing his head as Seaclaw grinned hugging him back. Oddclaw stepped up beside Chanoch as they approached the doors, both nodding to the other as they gripped their weapons and took one side each before they slammed open with a hard kick.

The moment Oddclaw saw the woman in black he fired, Frau Grimm dodging as a long leather whip slashed out towards him and ripped his rifle from his hands, pulling it towards her as Chanoch came charging across the room before a shadow of steel lunged from the side and knocked him staggering.

"//So...my guards were useless after all.//"

In the hall of the kommandant stood Frau Grimm, her red-slitted visor wrapped round her head and her severe black suit that made her resemble an art deco statue. Standing beside her was Sunscreech, his half-steel face shining with a crimson eye as his claws of silver shone in the light. Her room was overwhelmingly lavish, curtains of iron crosses in deep jade patterns against covered windows on either side of the room, the floor covered entirely within a carpet that showed the Earth itself in a flattened diorama, the light of a four-armed chandelier shining upon it to form the shadow of a grand swastika upon the world.

To one side in front of the windows was her desk, a grandiose beast of ornate ancient oak with the faces of jackals carved into its front. Armchairs dotted around the other side of the room, a fireplace roaring from the wall directly opposite the door where a tremendous portrait of her venomous face was painted in chiaroscuro, the walls either side of the grand door had bookshelves adjacent, the doors themselves suddenly locking behind them with a deafening slam and a beeping sound.

"//You could have had the chance to escape,//" she spread her hands, "//but instead you come to me.//"

"//I would not suffer you to live,//" said Chanoch pointing his blade, "//not after all the cruelty you have done.//"

"//Where is Ingelbaum?//"

"//Dead. And you shall join him.//"

[b][i]"//I told you he was trouble.//"[/i][/b]

The portrait of Grimm slid upwards to reveal a large screen where Riptor's face snarled upon them beneath her grand helm of a dozen cables.

[b][i]"//Your imbecile doctor has allowed this creature to escape, half of the panzeraptors on this ship have been destroyed!//"[/i][/b]

"//Impressive,//" Grimm crossed her arms, "//the savage semite, makes a good poster for a circus.//"

[i]"RIPTOR!"[/i] Oddclaw screeched pointing at her. [i]"Come out and fight me, NOW!"[/i]

[b][i]"Or what?"[/i][/b] she snickered from the screen. [b][i]"Why not come to me instead, we can discuss things much better?"[/i][/b]

[i]"I will not forgive you for killing Jane, I will only be satisfied with your DEATH!"[/i]

[b][i]"Hmph, still a slave to the humans I see. That will change soon, but first let's deal with your friends shall we?"[/i][/b]

Sunscreech walked forth with a shiver through his head, a bitter snarl creasing his features.

[b][i]"Don't worry, your brother won't kill you. He will however kill your brute of a friend, the one you chose to die over Jane so I suppose I should grant you that wish."[/i][/b]

[i]"You worthless SHIT!"[/i]

He grabbed for his rifle quick and fired at the screen cracking through its casing, causing the image of Riptor to flicker and spasm in violent colours of red, green and blue before Sunscreech launched towards him to try and pin him down. Chanoch swiftly blocked him with his sword, whacking his head like a baseball bat as Frau Grimm lashed for his head to scrape over his skull before Riptor continued:

[b][i]"//Master, would you be so kind as to keep the raptor alive? I still have need for his fine rich seed so as to strengthen our empire.//"[/i][/b]

"//The more the merrier,//" said Grimm pulling back her whip, "//I shall subdue him well, but as for you...//"

She turned towards Chanoch with a cruel grin and a pointing finger.

"//Thank you for ridding us of Ingelbaum...he was the only reason I didn't put a bullet in your head.//"

"//I am not a trophy,//" Chanoch beckoned with a taunting hand, "//nor am I a specimen, I am a free man.//"

"//Free to take what is right from us?//" Her whip lashed across the floor between them. "//Free to rule above the white race, free to halt the progress of mankind hoarding what belongs to us?//"

"//Free to defend those too weak to protect themselves. Free to fight those who would lie, abuse and kill the weak and innocent.//"

"//Innocence?//" Grimm shook her head with a bitter laugh. "//You call the erasure of an upstanding society innocence? The poisoning of our basic values, with foreign influences of non-Aryan virtues, to waste our resources upon the crippled, the mentally-deficient, and other such degenerates who lack the basic strength to pull themselves up by their bootstraps!//"

"//It was through kindness that we survived the great flood,//" Chanoch dug his feet in the carpet, "//it was through kindness that mankind walked through the desert and survived together to build homes and families. Had we done things the way of your empire, mankind would be extinct.//"

"//And what of those who were too weak to keep up? What of those too feeble, that slowed the group down and endangered them?!//"

"//We protect them. Because they need it. Those such as you, driven by selfishness, will never be satisfied until there is nothing left to take.//"

"//Is that not the progress of nature?//" Grimm stroked her visor. "//To eat and survive and take the land for our descendants?//"

"//We take ONLY what we need.//" He nodded to Oddclaw. "//All of the beasts of this land do the same, but you...you and those like you abuse the laws of Elohim and of Nature itself.//"

"//Hah! That's a name I haven't heard. Do you know why?//" She drew her whip with a savage crack against the air. "//Because your heathen kind only exist in a museum...one we dedicate to an EXTINCT race.//"

"//Do you think you frighten me? I have faced demons worse than you, and after this day, your flesh and bone shall feed the earth, as all of us should in our last.//"

"//I am FAR above this wretched land. And you...//" she cracked her whip with a deafening sound, "//my old friend here is become rather worn, and I think she would benefit from some fine premium JEW-LEATHER!//"

With a vile strike she lashed towards Chanoch who swerved to the side and came charging forth with a sweep of his sword, Grimm dodging under the strike in a fast roll before Sunscreech leapt upon his shoulder and kicked him down with his full weight. Oddclaw jumped onto his head and rolled him off of Jarogniew, tussling to the other side of the room before Frau Grimm wrapped her whip round his throat and pulled him back with a choking wrench, dragging him across the rug before Chanoch slammed his fist in the back of her head and quickly unwrapped the whip from his neck. A silver tail came whirring for his head as Jarogniew blocked it sharp with his sword, stomping towards the cyborg raptor whose eye gleamed a piercing rouge before it suddenly blasted a shocking laser across the room that the knight parried with his blade.

In that moment of guarding the raptor leapt forth, slamming both his feet into Chanoch's sword and mounting on top to grab the edge of the blade with his motorised front claws, ripping the sword out of his grip with a shocking strength as his jaws opened wide to crunch down for his neck. Chanoch grabbed his teeth and wrestled him across the floor, the snarling shriek of the beast drooling on his hands as his head shivered with pneumatic creak, rattling vibrations against the lizardman's strength who roared in turn to force him off with a twist of his head. The moment he was free he grabbed his sword to block a fatal strike for his head from a lancing steel tail that scraped vicious sparks across the edge, pushing himself up to advance upon Sunscreech with awaiting strike as he dodged the next swipe of the tail before cleaving at his head. The raptor was faster and rolled to the side to bite at his arm and rip his teeth across his flesh, pulling him down before Chanoch elbowed him hard and slammed his fist with crunching force into the top of his skull to dent a piece of the metal.

"Damned beast."

Sunscreech snarled shaking his head as he backed up.

"Are you a slave, or something worse?"

[i]"NNNRRAAAAAAAAARGH!"[/i]

His eye pierced a ripping beam that grazed past his shoulder, before he angled his tail where another laser came shrieking out at the tip which opened like a flower of death, cutting a deep vertical line that just missed Chanoch's head when he dodged, feeling the burning scar of its shot scrape past his cheek and peel the scales of his collarbone before tearing down his armoured chest in a black line. The tail-laser shot in spasms as Jarogniew blocked each of them, advancing with a shouldercharge that knocked the creature down before Sunscreech cracked him hard across the head with a side-strike of the tail mid-fall. Stepping back towards the barricaded window, the raptor waited for Chanoch to come close almost taunting him with firing shots, jumping onto the hardened glass when the lizardman came rushing and leaping above him to try and land down upon his head, only for Chanoch to grab both his legs and swing him hard with a crack against the window hard enough to knock several cables from the back of his metal eye.

On the other side of the room Frau Grimm faced against Oddclaw, the raptor taking aim with his rifle to scattershot for her legs as she leapt back out of range and spun her body with a lashing strike for Oddclaw's head, pulling back at the last moment to graze rather than gouge across his cheek. He rushed forwards with peppering shots in a hope to overwhelm her, but instead she ducked low and swung out her whip to wrap round the gun and yank it from his hands once again. Oddclaw threw it the moment she pulled, letting it fly far as he ran up to kick her in the face, causing her to stumble before she grabbed for his neck as he blocked her arm and punched her jaw to follow up with a raking slash across her cheek. Grimm beared her teeth through the pain, grabbing his throat regardless as she holstered her whip and drove her fist into his snout, pummelling twice before he opened his jaws to crunch on her hand and force her to pull it away.

In her recoil he grabbed her shoulders and slammed his knee into her belly twice, pulling back for a hard bootkick to her chest as she let herself fall back into a roll to deceive him, pulling her whip out of her belt to lash Oddclaw's leg in mid-fall to make him gasp with a hiss and stumble before he lurched forth with a crushing stomp on her chest. Frau Grimm sliced her whip upwards with a disarming yank to lash his neck, a line of red that started to bleed before he grabbed the leather length and tried to pull it away from her. The whip however almost snapped against his hand like a serpent beneath Grimm's command, twisting a snap in such a fashion that it bent his hand and Oddclaw screamed clutching himself in pain before she pulled herself up and swung a roundhouse kick across his face with a hard leather boot. Striking down for his back with the whip, she barely missed as Oddclaw rolled for his gun and fired in an upwards line that rattled across an arm and a leg causing her to recoil in shock, her black skintight suit revealing flecks of folded steel even tighter against her body.

"//Surprised?//" She smiled with her red visor shimmering. "//You don't think I'm such a fool to enter a warzone with just a suit HMM?!//"

[i]"So you have stone on your chest,"[/i] Oddclaw shrugged taking aim, [i]"I only need to burn your HEAD!"[/i]

Firing a wide burning trail almost diagonal towards Frau Grimm, he tried to lead her towards the wall where she had less room to evade as she dived for her desk, briefly taking cover behind and waiting for Oddclaw's gun to recharge before leaping out with a savage crack of the whip inches from his head to frighten him. Throwing his gun towards the leather snake to stop it, he charged for the desk and leapt on top to drive a football kick into her skull, claws of black scarring her chin as she fell back reeling, the raptor striking from above with a hammerfist crunching into her skull as he slammed his knees into her chest with a shriek escaping her lungs. Throwing her leg upwards she vaulted Oddclaw forwards off of her and rolled on her belly with a heaving breath, pouncing on top of him like a jungle cat to sit on his chest and beat him senseless with both fists left and right.

"//You, remind me of that GODFORSAKEN MacGregor!//"

[i]"NNNGH, A-AAAGH!"[/i]

"//Him and his damn negro SON!//"

[i]"AAAGH, G-GET OFF!"[/i]

"//Riptor might have plans for you but the moment she no longer needs you I will be delighted to practice my revenge on your wretched halfbreed BODY!//"

He grabbed her incoming fist when she reared back for a punch, slamming his own into her face before grabbing her throat and strangling her with claws digging into her neck. Rolling against the desk she shoved her knee into his chest to weaken his grip, the raptor tightening his fingers to try and rip her neck apart as she grabbed his arms in turn to pull his hands away and slam her visor into his temple, stunning him brief enough to kick him away as they staggered back onto their feet. Then he felt a shadow upon him from behind, dodging fast when Sunscreech skidded in front of him and tackled him almost immediately, whilst Frau Grimm locked sight upon Chanoch and took out her whip to strike upon him. The knight sidestepped from the two raptors locked in combat and came charging with a full swing of his blade the nazi rolled underneath.

Heading behind her desk, Frau Grimm leapt upon it to climb on Jarogniew's head, wrangling him with the whip tied round his neck as she violently choked him hard to try and pull him to the ground. Gasping with a coughing shudder he tightened his neck and pulled with a sudden slam forwards of his head into the desk, throwing her forwards to pull himself free as he raised his sword high with a roaring fury to cleave the desk in half with a monstrous crack. Grimm barely evaded, but the sword managed to rip the suit off her arm exposing more of her sleek steel beneath.

With a hard crunch the desk was split into a V-shape as Grimm backflipped off of it, kicking Chanoch twice in the face and whirling her whip out with a savage lash across his face that missed his eye, bleeding red through his scales as he threw one side of the desk against the wall and stomped towards the nazi with a double slashing cut that formed an X in front of her, pushing her back to the window before she kicked off from it and came slamming down with her foot. Chanoch did not fall for it, sliding past to quickly smash the back of her head with the flat of his blade and send her rolling. Frau Grimm went for the rifle Oddclaw dropped and started firing with a gleeful smirk, hammering on its burst setting to almost melt the air between them. Grabbing the other half of the desk Chanoch guarded himself with the thick oak and marched forwards, feeling the lasers scorch through half its depth and barrel into Grimm like a rhinoceros. Slammed to the side with a battered face, she dropped the rifle as Chanoch threw the half-desk towards her causing her to scrabble away from the looming shadow as it cracked and rolled into the door, the knight grabbing the rifle to whack her across the visor.

"//A-AAAAAAGH!//" The red gleam from her head started to crack and flicker. "//Y-you...FILTHY DEGENERATE!//"

"//Pathetic.//"

He bent the gun in his hands with a hard creak before it snapped apart in two.

"//Do you still wish to fight?//"

"//I will NEVER YIELD TO A [i]FILTHY JEW![/i]//"

Grimm came charging with a shriek as she pulled her whip back, whirling towards Chanoch's sword much to his surprise as she yanked it aside to fly into his face with a direct punch to his jaw. Staggering back he tried to punch back but she pulled the sword with her whip to unbalance him slightly, wrapping the leather cord round his body to knock him down onto his knees and leap on the back of his head. With legs bound briefly he struggled as her fists came hammering down on his skull, pounding like a gorilla with raining blows that thudded into his head before he rolled hard enough to crush her underneath his body, slamming his elbow into her face as he untangled the whip from his legs and staggered away with a dull throbbing head. Grimm came rushing after with whip fully freed and slashed down his back with a scream, slicing into the burnt parts of his armour that exposed his flesh as the razor tongue of her whip scarred deep before he turned and struck with his sword, catching the long leather with his blade as it wrapped round the steel and he pulled hard to bring her close, crunching her face with his fist as her cheek turned black.

Close to the fireplace, Sunscreech grappled with his younger brother, kicking each other with razor claws as the cyborg showed an odd restraint, scratching rather than tearing unlike Oddclaw who went into full feral trying to bite his neck. Riptor's gaze above them from the cracked screen was a constant reminder, burning with hate in his eyes towards her as the two raptors rolled closer to the roaring flames. Oddclaw tried to push Sunscreech's head into the fire, but he pushed back with a slam of his head into Oddie's and kicked him with both feet hard against one of the armchairs.

[i]"Crawl."[/i]

[i]"What?"[/i]

[i]"C-crawl...crawler."[/i]

He heard his brother's voice, Sunscreech twitching his head frantically with a hissing shudder as his eye flickered.

[i]"Crawl...crawler, like...Barkclaw!"[/i]

The cyber-raptor leapt for him, as Oddclaw suddenly dove underneath him when Sunscreech grabbed the chair and stabbed his tail deep through its leather folds.

[i]"...brother, what are you="[/i]

[i]"NNNRAARGH!"[/i] He ripped out his appendage and turned towards the anthro. [i]"S-sun...sunwing on leaf!"[/i]

Waiting for the next attack, he nodded in understanding as Sunscreech came in a sliding strike towards his legs and he jumped over him in turn to scrabble over the chair. When the cyborg came after him, he kicked the chair hard in a shove to send him tumbling down over it, crunching on his head before Oddclaw leapt on him and started beating his face hard to try and stun him. Sunscreech rolled himself with a sudden strength to trap Oddclaw underneath, ready to bite him with a delayed reaction that Oddie took advantage of when he punched his throat and hammered his fists into the side of his coughing sibling. The half-metal raptor bit his arm mid-punch and threw him off, kicking him far enough to give him time to dodge his next attack, calling out "sunwing" or "deathcrawler" to duck high or low against his own assaults.

[b][i]"Having fun with your brother?"[/i][/b]

[i]"NNHH!"[/i] He leapt back staring towards Riptor's face. [i]"Not as much fun as I will have killing YOU!"[/i]

[b][i]"Hmhmhmhm...but can you kill your brother to get to me?"[/i][/b]

[i]"If...if I have to. I will, you cannot be allowed to live Riptor."[/i]

[b][i]"Hear that Sunscreech?"[/i][/b] She looked down upon her subject. [b][i]"Even your brother has abandoned you...only I care about our future."[/i][/b]

[i]"That is not true!"[/i] he shouted back. [i]"Sunscreech, you know what she has done, you know she cannot be trusted please stop this!"[/i]

[b][i]"He obeys ME. As all raptors should, and he will bring you BACK to me!"[/i][/b]

[i]"GHHRRAA[b]AAAAAAAAAARGH![/b]"[/i]

Sunscreech suddenly shook through his body with a harsh scream, scratching at his mind with a raking fury not of his own as he tried to reach for the cables behind his eye. Oddclaw took aim and leapt on his back, trying to rip one of them out and managing to loosen some before he was thrown off by the cyborg who leapt upon him in a harsh slam, his arms trying to grab for Oddclaw's throat and choke him out before the anthro kicked him in his chest. Sunscreech countered with a harsh swipe of his tail, cracking against his brother's head to send him rolling aside before leaping onto another chair and rising high with a shriek.

[i]"CRAWLER!"[/i]

He dove under in a sliding rush.

[i]"S-SUNWING!"[/i]

Oddclaw jumped back onto the chair and flipped over his brother.

[i]"Spuh...s-spotwing!"[/i]

[i]"What?"[/i]

[i]"SPOT, SPOTWING!"[/i]

There was a sound that came rumbling from the windows near them. They ran as far as they could before the room started to shake, trembling with fury causing Frau Grimm to stop and Chanoch to back away heading for the door. The shuttered windows exploded from the eastern side, shattering apart in twisted glass and steel that burst across the entire room as all four of them ducked behind cover with the shrieking howl of the gale winds from outside. Against the roaring cyclone they shielded their eyes to gaze upon the front of a nazi aircraft that now crushed half the room, simmering with smoke from its thrusters as the wide smooth black hull glistened in the light.

"//What...in the Fuhrer's name?//" Grimm went for her desk and pulled out a radio from one of the drawers. "//Eagle One, what is your status?!//"

[b]"//The sky, the sky's full of winged beasts!//"[/b]

"//Eagle Two just crashed into my office, how bad is it?!//"

[b]"//There's a fucking entire army out here screaming, I've been trying to call you for ages kommandant!//"[/b]

"//It's just a bunch of winged vermin how hard is it for you to shoot them down!?//"

[b]"//IT'S NOT JUST THEM, THEY HAVE FUCKING RAPTORS AND THEIR OWN SHIP!//[/b]

"//...what?//"

Opening the windows on the other side of the room, Frau Grimm watched with shock along with the other three as the sky was full of pterosaurs screeching and squawking, getting shot at by nazis from the top deck of the grand Tosengeist. But then they saw raptors, dangling in the pterosaurs' clutches before they swooped down low and landed fast on the deck to rush towards the nazis and violently rip them to shreds. Their screams could be heard faintly against the harsh wind, amongst the screeching squawks of primal beasts tearing them apart, some of the pterosaurs sweeping down to bash the soldiers down with their wings or even stab through their guts with their long sharp beaks. Bullets would rip through the sky in turn, tearing through their wings and bursting through their skulls as they fell in spiralling shrieks towards the sea. Then they saw a familiar ship, circling around with thundering blasts of auxiliary guns upon the Tosengeist's surface with its glistening violet sheen beneath the morning sun.

[i]"Wh-what...what, is happening?!"[/i] Oddclaw gasped.

"The...the Petrie," Chanoch grinned, "they survived! Our friends!"

[i]"ODDCLAWWWWWW!"[/i]

A voice familiar swooped past the shattered window. Both Sunscreech and Odd saw a red-backed raptor with silver eyes being carried by a pterosaur of blue and yellow wings. As they watched, none of them noticed Frau Grimm sneaking away towards the fireplace, with Sunscreech following almost hypnotically from Riptor's gaze upon him.

[i]"FISHCLAW?!"[/i]

[i]"ODDCLAW!"[/i] Stonesea circled close to the ruined ship. [i]"WE TAKE BACK THE SKIES, THE STARBEASTS SHALL FALL!"[/i]

[i]"WE FOUND OUR FRIENDS!"[/i] shouted Fishclaw. [i]"I HAVE BROUGHT THEM TOGETHER[/i]

[i]"CHANOCH!"[/i] Oddclaw shouted back. [i]"WE ARE SAFE, FRIENDS ARE HERE!"[/i]

"Not yet," he drew his sword to Grimm, "first we finish the job."

But Grimm had taken the first step, pulling a lever beside the fireplace that doused it immediately before she crawled through with Sunscreech following. Before Chanoch could reach her the fireplace shut down a thick steel gate, Riptor cackling above in her transmission as the sounds of something shuddered from behind the wall.

[b][i]"Awwww too slow,"[/i][/b] she grinned at both of them, [b][i]"I would be upset, but let's face it humans are pathetically overconfident."[/i][/b]

[i]"What do you mean?!"[/i] cried Odd. [i]"Our friends are here, you cannot fight us now!"[/i]

[b][i]"Do you think I'm even on this wretched ship?"[/i][/b] she shook her head. [b][i]"No...a goddess does not rule from the sky, instead she rules from the STARS."[/i][/b]

[i]"The...the stars?"[/i]

The rumbling behind the wall turned louder as they backed off, hearing the klaxon sound of something that burned a thickening cloud of dark smoke that fumed into the office through the vents.

[b][i]"I am waiting for you Oddclaw...waiting for you to join me in my kingdom above, and so shall you understand, your TRUE DESTINY!"[/i][/b]

"CHANOCH, JUMP!"

Looking to each other they ran for the broken window as Riptor's screen crackled and fell apart with the crunching burst of a rocket's explosion, the wall crumbling with a greater explosion that bent it outwards and would soon wash the room in a sea of flames. The doors thankfully held strong, the blast diffusing through the windows as Oddclaw and Chanoch leapt onto the crashed vessel and slid down its back, stumbling with claws grappling its shining hull before Chanoch grabbed the raptor in one arm and plunged his sword deep into the metal, screeching a hard deep cut through the metal until they finally stopped whilst clinging to the side.

From their vantage point they watched the battle unfold beneath the smoking room, the Tosengeist filled with the sounds of bullets and lasers ripping through the air as hard and fast as the pterosaurs that swooped down in spiralling stabs or the raptors they dropped that launched upon the nazis and eviscerated them to a bloody mist. The top of the great ship was a long flight deck, full of open trenches and gunner holes where nazis popped out to shoot at the invading forces from above, with anti-air turrets taking shots at the pterosaurs circling around the nazi vessel, blasting them out of the sky with explosive bursts that sent them falling to despair. Amongst his own tribe Oddclaw saw the blood-feathered raptors, the yurgovuchia flensing with their claws and ripping soldiers' faces whilst they were shot, feathers singed from steel and fire as raptors fell across the length of the flight deck, a battlefield emerging in the sky.

[i]"ODDCLAW!"[/i]

Fishclaw's voice came to them once more as Stonesea flapped in close.

[i]"I WILL BRING YOU DOWN SAFE, STARLEAF ASSIST!"[/i]

[b][i]YES FATHER[/i][/b]

They felt their bodies being pulled by a magnetic force, Chanoch sensing a gentle hand as he ripped his sword free from the hull of the crashed smaller ship before they were both gently lowered down towards the top deck.

[i]"BE SAFE BROTHER!"[/i]

He tossed something from his claws as Oddclaw grabbed it, finding with surprise to be his shotgun.

[i]"THANK YOU, SEACLAW AND JEREMY ARE STILL UP THERE!"[/i]

[i]"I WILL FIND THEM, DO NOT FEAR!"[/i] shouted Stonesea circling. [i]"SHOW THESE MURDERERS WHO THIS LAND BELONGS TO!"[/i]

The alphas flew up high as Oddclaw turned with Chanoch towards the great battle. Clicking his shotgun with a brief snap, he nodded to Jarogniew who smiled back and lowered his sword to begin a charging run at the first nazi platoon that he saw currently bunkered in a steel foxhole. Oddclaw joined him from behind, roaring only inches upon them as two were cleaved in half whilst two were blasted across the wall, their heads splattered in an explosion of flame that shattered their skulls apart and bent through the wall of the gunners' pocket.

All along the flight deck, raptors fought against the nazis ripping them to shreds, whilst the soldiers in turn pelted them with lasers and pumped bullets through their skulls amongst the screams of their own men, the charge of feral beasts and the thundering of cannons across the sky with the shadow of the Petrie flying round to take gunning runs at the turrets. One by one they were blasted, slogs of nazis being pummelled by artillery guns in the sweeping overpass of the Petrie's vengeance.

"YOU LIKE THAT YOU NAZI SCUM?!" shrieked the pilot from her cockpit. "HOW DO YOU LIKE ME NOW, YOU WANNA PIECE OF ME, YOU CAN [i]SUCK MY G-STICK![/i]"

"This is why we stopped going to the arcade," muttered Ted beside her, "ahhhh...god I love you."

"HHHAHAHAHAHAHA, [i]AAAAHAHAHAHAHHAAAA, EULALIAAAA![/i]"

With each new blast of a turret the pterosaurs grew bolder, dropping more raptors as at one point things seemed to grow in the nazis favour when their numbers came dwindling. Then came a thudding drop of the silver-eyed leader, Fishclaw standing before a horde of soldiers who fired upon him all at once, but found none of their bullets even penetrate through an invisible wall suddenly forming between them. Much to their horror, the bullets betrayed them and went zipping back into their bodies, thudding red spots through their heads and stomachs as a mob of thirty raptors mixed backed up behind him.

[i]"WE FIGHT TOGETHER! NEVER AGAIN SHALL WE SUFFER BENEATH THOSE WHO COME FROM THE STARS FOR THEIR OWN SELFISH GREED! FOR THIS LAND IS OUR HOME, AND THE HOME OF ALL OUR FRIENDS! [b]ATTAAAAAAAAAACK![/b]"[/i]

The horde united at once, the raptors now remaining advancing as a single unit with Fishclaw in front repelling all of the bullets and lasers that came upon them with a sheer wall of psychic force that almost crushed against the nazis. Slaughtering through the trenches, the beasts took no mercy within close quarters as claws turned red and teeth became crimson with severed throats and gouging rips through the bellies of nazi soldiers. Some would die, through misfortune as a soldier from a good position or one quick enough with a knife, would stab or shoot another raptor down to add to the field of corpses that now washed the deck in scarlet. Just when things seemed to almost equalise between the two forces, the Petrie soon landed once the turrets had been disabled, along with several Ducky ships that had kept on the outer rim of battle until it was safe. From inside there came not only the soldiers remaining from T.E.A.R, but even more startling a surprise.

"[i]HERE WE GO![/i]"

[i]"DON'T LEAVE A SINGLE NAZI STANDING!"[/i]

[i]"YOU KNOW THEIR SCENT, KILL THEM ALL!"[/i]

[b]"WATERJAWS, ATTAAAAAAACK!"[/b]

A horde of badniks and reploids came out fighting, the small but vicious force of steel defenders with electric shots, drilling arms, flame throwers and wheels revved up to overrun the nazi forces. But alongside were a horde of kaprosuchus that came pounding the deck like wild horses, long-legged claws and savage gallops making the floor shudder as some had humans riding upon them, firing their guns against the nazis trying to outdodge the raptors who would soon fall victim to the crunching snap of waterjaws that caught up to them, red streams billowing across the wind as the entire deck was overrun like a zoo. Amongst them was Eggfang and Frozentongue running together, dodging beneath the stream of lasers and weaving through the crowd before pincering upon a small legion of shotgunners who had so far been holding their own, strategising movements and acting in a tortoise formation to blast through skulls and shatter ribs with powerful weapons. Frozentongue baited them with a furious bark, dodging much faster than they expected and swinging her tail hard to slap one of their heads hard enough to knock him down for Eggfang to leap upon his back and maul his throat from behind.

Peeling the flesh quickly from his spine she leapt off to leave the nazi bleeding as she ducked another shotgun aimed upon her, punching her head into his stomach and grabbing the man's wrist to wrench him down to the floor close enough to reach his neck in turn, crunching the larynx and pulling the trachea in a hard rip that left him choking to death. The kaprosuchus came barrelling down like a train into two soldiers aimed upon her, knocking one down with her weight and cracking the other's legs with her monstrous jaws to leave him crawling across the ground in screaming agony through a puddle of his own blood. From above she saw a nazi aiming a rocket launcher, grabbing the other soldier's body and hurling him like a discus towards the shooter who staggered back in misfire and shot his rocket whizzing off into the sky where it boomed in the air.

[b]"HMHMHUHUHUH, YUH LUHK ZHAT YA ZHIT-EATIN' WARMBLUDD, HUH?!"[/b]

[i]"BEHIND YOU!"[/i]

Another nazi with a shotgun aimed for her head as she dodged low to swing her tail fast, but the soldier was faster on his feet and leapt back with a cracking boom that ripped through Frozentongue's tail causing her to bellow a deepening roar. A third of her tail had burst into burning tendrils of flesh, blood dripping out as she tried to focus but Eggfang quickly leapt to her aid to kick the soldier down and claw his throat in a stomping twist. In a brief moment of surprise, one of the nazis she had thought to have killed reared up with a knife to slash down her leg as she staggered gasping, hobbling away with fresh crimson trail down her thigh before the man stumbled forwards in a desperate leap, pulling her tail and ready to shank her belly.

[i]"SURPRIIIISE!"[/i]

"A-AAAARGH, [b][i]AAAAAAAARRRRGH![/i][/b]"

A pair of raptors came out from the corner of her eye and grabbed an arm each of the nazi, pulling him apart with vicious tear as he felt the twisting of his shoulders and the crackling snap of his joints. Soon the muscle popped, and the bone pulled out in a creaking groan before they half-fell out of his torso in a crumpling fit, screaming howls of anguish as Eggfang looked upon the faces of Sandrunner and Leafrunner.

[i]"Si...sisters!"[/i]

[i]"You weren't gonna have ALL the fun were ya?!"[/i] snapped Leaf.

[i]"YEAH!"[/i] chirped Sand. [i]"This is the biggest hunt we'll ever have!"[/i]

[i]"No...thank you."[/i] She purred stumbling up. [i]"Follow me, we have to take THEM out!"[/i]

[i]"GOT IT!"[/i]

Pointing her snout towards a small bunker of men covering fire from all sides, the sisters followed Eggfang's instructions as Frozentongue hobbled round to one side acting as distraction in her wounded gait. The nest of nazis co-ordinated themselves to keep firing in every direction, a semi-circle of dead raptors surrounding them and more still to come. The crocobeast only managed to distract some of them, but the rest kept focus upon the three raptors who waited for them to fire, then dodged in two directions with Eggfang and Leafrunner going one way whilst Sandrunner went the other to dive in and destroy. Kicking off from the side of the deck wall, she lunged down upon one nazi's head and ripped it almost clean off with a bloodied sputter of broken spine. One soldier however grabbed her neck in both hands and threw her down with a roar as he tried to strangle her from behind, her claws kicking out viciously out against his friend who pulled back ready to fire on her head.

[i]"GET AWAY FROM MY SIS!"[/i]

Leafrunner came charging in with a flying kick, slamming the shooter down whilst Eggfang grabbed one of the captor's arms in a quick pull-and-tear, dragging him out from underneath her sister and crunching his face in a hard clamp. The nazi Leafrunner had pinned to the wall forced his rifle against her jaws, twisting her head away and kicking her back with a hard boot to her chest and fired almost immediately. Five bullets rang out, but only one hit Leafrunner. The other four went straight into Sandrunner, who grabbed the end of the rifle in her teeth and pulled it down towards her in a desperate move before the bullets went thudding into her stomach as craters of blood spewed from her stomach.

[i]"GHRKHH[b]RRRAAAAARRRGH![/b]"[/i]

Throwing her weight forwards on top of the nazi, she stomped on the gun and then slashed open his chest through the armour before crunching her jaws into his ribs with a sudden momentum, twisting the bone and ripping out half of his heart with one savage tear of thick luscious rose that stained half her face. She collapsed soon after, crumpling against the wall as her sisters hurried to her.

[i]"S-SIS! SIS NOOOOOO!"[/i]

[i]"S-sand...Sand, hold on, please hold on-"[/i]

[i]"[b]Gh-ghrrkh[/b]...h-haaaah...I-i'm sorry."[/i]

[i]"Sis, sis please!"[/i] Leafrunner gasped nuzzling her cheek. [i]"Don't, d-don't please, you got kids I-i can't-"[/i]

[i]"I'm...s-sorry...[b]KHHRRGH![/b]"[/i] Red spittled down her chin in a heaving cough. [i]"Did I...d-do it right, Eggy?"[/i]

[i]"You did,"[/i] her older sister sighed licking her head, [i]"you...you did, my dear Sandy."[/i]

[i]"H-hah...n-never...never called me that...before...Leaf?"[/i]

[i]"Y-yeah?"[/i] her twin shivered.

[i]"You'll be a good aunt...okay?"[/i]

[i]"N-NO, NO I DON'T WANNA BE, I WANT YOU WITH ME!"[/i]

[i]"I-i know...much as...I hated them squawking and screaming every...morning...I loved our family."[/i]

She breathed a soft lick upon her sister's cheek.

[i]"I loved...you, more than anyone I'd ever..."[/i]

[i]"S-sand? S-sand?!"[/i]

Her eyes turned dim as the sounds of battle faded with her voice.

[i]"Sand, S-SAND NO! NOOOOO S-SISTER PLEASE DON'T LEAVE ME, [b]NOOOOOOOOOOO![/b]"[/i]

Two siblings sat together, in a nest of death beside their fallen sister. Beyond the battle had finally turned and with each passing minute, the sounds of bullets and lasers turned quieter with each dwindling force as raptors, humans, pterosaurs, reploids, badniks and kaprosuchus cleaned up the remaining forces. The ship was soon silent, the last remnants of the nazis now painting the walls and corridors, as the reploids went straight to the engine deck to make sure the Tosengeist would remain floating with a skeleton crew. Standing on the flight deck, Oddclaw saw his feral son and daughter along with his mate, covered in scratches and flecks of blood, most of it human as they rushed up towards him with breathless panting.

[i]"F-father, are you alright?!"[/i]

[i]"Yes,"[/i] he sighed hugging each of them, [i]"where is Seaclaw?"[/i]

[i]"There with uncle Jeremy,"[/i] his daughter pointed over to a small group sitting down, [i]"did they hurt you?!"[/i]

[i]"No, I am fine, what about you?"[/i]

[i]"We're fine...but...a-auntie Sandrunner she...she-"[/i]

[i]"Died."[/i] Oddtooth gulped bowing his head. [i]"Aunt Leaf and Eggfang are with her...body."[/i]

[i]"...no."[/i]

He looked to where the scent of his sisters came, seeing them huddled in a small gunner's ditch as he walked over towards them. There was no words between them, as he sat beside them for a few minutes, mourning his sister's passing as he stroked her face with a tender kiss, pulling her into a last hug as he gasped with tears trickling down his cheek, the sounds of his two remaining sisters whimpering in his ear as they nuzzled her body forlornly. His family stood in silence, the son and daughter keeping their heads bowed in reverance until their father stepped away.

[i]"Where is Riptor?"[/i] Moonclaw snarled tightening her claws.

[i]"She is not here."[/i] He looked up to the sky. [i]"She is in the stars, hiding somewhere."[/i]

[i]"How?!"[/i] Oddtooth shook his head. [i]"You cannot hide in a thtar!"[/i]

[i]"The moon you can,"[/i] his mother sniffed, [i]"did the hairless not have stonebeasts that lived there?"[/i]

[i]"They...did,"[/i] Oddclaw stroked his chin, [i]"I must ask them, I have to hunt down Riptor an-"[/i]

[i]"No."[/i] She stepped in front of him. [i]"WE hunt down Riptor."[/i]

[i]"What?!"[/i]

[i]"She harmed you, and tried to kill me. She attacked OUR family, we hunt together."[/i]

[i]"She's right father!"[/i] Skyfang raised her head standing tall. [i]"You're not hunting her alone!"[/i]

[i]"We are a family,"[/i] Oddtooth nuzzled his chest, [i]"right father?"[/i]

[i]"...right."[/i]

He smiled with a grateful relief before they walked over to Seaclaw, sitting down beside Holt on a cleared section of the flight deck who was getting checked by Amy.

"Alright breathe in," she pressed her hand to his chest, "hold it right there...aaaand breathe out."

"HHhnnaaaaaarrrgh...alrigh' Odd?" he looked up with a wave.

"Are you alright?" the raptor asked.

"He's fine," the reploid stood up swishing her tail, "a few broken ribs, he's tough for his age but I cannot recommend he fight anymore than he has to."

"No worries pet," he clutched his chest, "think it's time ah sat this one out."

"Wow," Kevin chuckled strolling up, "never thought I'd hear you ever say that."

"I'm old, I've a right to."

"I am twice your age," Chanoch smirked patting his shoulder, "you have no excuse."

"Hm, sod off ya fuckin' prick."

He said this with the warmest smile as the knight patted his shoulder, sitting himself down beside Seaclaw to take a moment's rest. Soon Andrea joined them, holding a book in her hands as Jarogniew smiled at her.

"Thank you for keeping it."

"It's fine...but," she rubbed her neck, "where is Jane?"

"...I am sorry." Oddclaw bowed his head. "They...they killed her. Riptor made-"

"She fought like a lion." Chanoch interrupted. "They tried to force Oddclaw to be Riptor's mate or they would kill Jane. Jane fought back, took away that power."

"God. Seriously?" Andrea almost collapsed as Kevin held her straight. "She...god dammit."

Her tears started to flow. Oddclaw gave a look to Chanoch who simply nodded back, a sigh from the raptor's lips as Dixon shook her head.

"I never...haaah...f-fuck...she really...was a lot stronger than I thought she could be."

"She was." Oddclaw closed his eyes nodding. "She...I will miss her."

"So where's their fucking leader?" Kevin snorted biting his nails. "Who do we put a few bullets in to end all this shit?"

"Gone." Chanoch raised his head. "Frau Grimm escaped."

"Riptor said she was waiting for me," said the raptor, "in the stars."

"The stars?" Schroeder came walking up with Jacob in tow. "Did I hear you right, about the stars?"

"Yes, she said so."

"Chanoch, remember the blueprints we found in their base, the Goddess Egg?"

"Yes?" Jarogniew nodded.

"I remember something in the writings, how it was primarily designed to be a mobile platform, not something that would float stationary in space but migrate from planet to planet."

"So, if it's not HERE," Jacob pointed down, "it's gotta be like, on some moon?"

"The moon." Amy gasped looking to them. "Meridian-5, we lost contact with them the same week of the attack."

"They have to have taken over it," Andrea sighed rubbing her head, "it's the only place they can observe us from, that must have been how they cut off our communications too."

"Oh shit," Kevin pointed to the burning smoulder of Grimm's observation deck, "yeah we saw a thing pop out of there after that ship crashed into it."

"That was it!" Oddclaw nodded. "They have escaped to the moon then!"

"If you're heading up," Amy stood up, "you should take some of my crew once we land this thing safe, you're gonna need people that know all sortsa weird tech."

"I agree," Andrea nodded, "we can't all go together, the Petrie can only hold so many and we still need forces down here to keep us safe from retaliation."

"I am going," Oddclaw stepped over to his son who smiled up at him, "my family are going too."

"ALL of them?"

"We hunt together. Riptor must die, for what she has done."

"I will come too." Chanoch offered his hand. "You have my sword."

"Mine as well." Schroeder stepped forth with his hand in turn. "Frau Grimm must be stopped."

"I'm going too!" Jacob windmill-slammed on top of his hand. "Wherever he goes, I go too!"

"Jacob, no this is-"

"NUH-UH, we're friends, friends don't leave each other behind, right?!"

"Right." Oddclaw smiled. "Together, we fight her, anyone else who wishes to come with us can do so. But she will be ready, she will kill anyone that is not me or my son."

"In that case." Andrea pulled out her gun with a click. "I'm joining too."

"Wh-what?!" Kevin sputtered surprised. "But, you're not-"

"No, fuck this, Jane was my friend, I got no reason to be here now that we've lost our gate, the only other one left is up there on the moon and I'll be fucking damned if I let any fucking nazi BITCH take that away from me!"

"And if you die and that gate is still there none of us are getting back home!"

"[i]I DON'T CARE![/i] FUCK THIS, FUCK ALL OF THIS, THIS FUCKING NAZI CUNT IS [i]FUCKING DEAD![/i]"

"...okay." He stepped back raising his hands. "I'll just stay here, much as I'd love to kick ass, I'm needed down here with the rest of the wounded."

"I have to stay too," Amy nodded, "this ship should have some supplies you can take with you up to the moon."

"Then let us go." Oddclaw took Seaclaw's hand. [i]"Are you ready to fight, my son?"[/i]

[i]"Yah."[/i] He smacked his fist tight. [i]"Let's do it father, together."[/i]

The group nodded to each other, as the Tosengeist slowly descended towards the plains with the help of the reploids and badniks maneuvering it to safety around 40 minutes after their resolution. A small group of them along with raptors and human soldiers joined the Petrie for its last preparations as Oddclaw's family stepped up inside with weapons and medical supplies.

[i]"Oddclaw."[/i]

He stopped upon the ramp hearing Fishclaw approach.

[i]"I wish I could come, but I must keep our tribe safe."[/i]

[i]"I know,"[/i] he said, [i]"thank you for helping Chanoch and me...I wanted to ask before I leave, how did you all manage to fight this stoneflyer?"[/i]

[i]"Eggfang and I were speaking to the other tribes, without the hairless knowing."[/i] He looked towards their sister organising the swiftclaws and blood-feathers. [i]"We spoke with the flyers and Stonesea, who agreed to help us, the waterjaws had seen this stoneflyer and the great fire it wrought, so they were glad to help us."[/i]

[i]"And the hairless?"[/i] he pointed to the Petrie.

[i]"You remember the cave they had beneath the Skylands? They were hiding there, after their shining mountain was destroyed, so they told us. We planned the attack together, to strike swiftly as we could for the surprise."[/i]

[i]"You did well."[/i] Oddclaw smiled looking towards Eggfang. [i]"You all did well."[/i]

[i]"Yes..."[/i] Fishclaw stared off to the distance, [i]"she will make a great alpha."[/i]

[i]"She will...wait, what?" Oddclaw turned back to him.[/i]

[i]"Hahaha never mind, I am just being odd."[/i]

[i]"Usually I am the one who is odd!"[/i]

[i]"Well...some of your ways have influenced me."[/i]

The older brother nuzzled him with a gentle tongue, Oddclaw hugging him back with a sigh as he held him tight.

[i]"Mother will never believe any of this after we tell her."[/i]

[i]"Hah, even when she saw it with her own eyes she will refuse, stubborn thing she is. Come back safe, alright brother?"[/i]

[i]"I will...brother."[/i]

They parted with one last lick, Oddclaw taking his leave as the Petrie closed its hull and began its departure towards the moon. On the decks of the Tosengeist reclaimed, he stood watching the ship become a speck in the sky, a small glimmering star of purple as he nodded to himself.

[i]"Is this the day then?"[/i]

[b][i]WE JOIN THE STARS AS WE HAVE DREAMED[/i][/b]

[i]"Yes...the best we could do was make sure as many of us survived after us."[/i]

[b][i]PEACE IS A GIFT ONE MUST ALWAYS SHARE[/i][/b]

[i]"But one can never have for himself."[/i] He closed his eyes feeling the wind on his cheek. [i]"I see now why the alpha chose me...it was not because of you Starleaf. It never was."[/i]

[b][i]OUR TIME IS NEVER GONE[/i][/b]

[i]"No?"[/i]

[b][i]AS THE STARS FOREVER SHINE SO TOO WILL WE, FATHER[/i][/b]

[i]"Hmm. That is true..."[/i]

The wind began to cease.

[i]"The stars have never faded, and for as long as our tribe remains they never will...my child."[/i]