Chapter 12 Scyll’s Surprise

The next morning came in a flash. With my mind still racing from the evening before, I felt like I had only just entered my room when the artificial bioluminescent lighting began to relight the dome signaling the beginning of a new day. I prepared for the excursion, going through all of the morning routines. After I was finished I raced down to the cafeteria to meet the others. For the first time since I had arrived in the dome I was actually early to the meeting. I retrieved a nutrient cracker and munched on it as I waited, marveling still with every bite at the exquisite taste.
Gohn was the next person to arrive. “ Wow, I can’t believe you’re here early for once.” Gohn exclaimed laughing.
“Well I couldn’t have you thinking I was going to start slowing down after you cheated in our fight yesterday.” I shot back.
Gohn laughed, and then tried to act as though he didn’t know what I was talking about. “ I won yesterday fair and square. It’s not my fault you can’t concentrate whenever a pretty girl enters the room.” Gohn said.
I shook my head smiling. “ Yea well here comes Caulin we will ask him.” I said pointing to Caulin as he walked up to us. “ Hey Caulin, I had Gohn yesterday didn’t I?”
Caulin just laughed “ I don’t know about that, but I sure whooped him after you left.” He said elbowing Gohn. Gohn just shot him a dirty look, and didn’t respond. We all continued to laugh and go back and forth like that, until the girls showed up.
Terry smiled at me from across the room as they walked over to us. I smiled back already starting to daydream. She really did make it hard for me to concentrate, I couldn’t argue with Gohn there.
After we talked for a bit and the others got their food, Terry started in on what we had planned for the day. “Ok, today we are just going out to look around and see if we find anything new.” She said. “ Scyll found us, a pretty good spot around sector 37, we should get some good practice, but there isn’t likely to be anything we haven’t seem before.” as she finished she added “ Even though this should be an easy trip we have to remember to stay on guard.”
Caulin and Gohn rolled their eyes in unison. “ Yes mother.” Gohn said sarcastically. Terry rolled her eyes back at them, I just smirked, and Scyll giggled a little. With that we headed once again out of the dome.
There was no big deal as we left this time as there had been before. Janus didn’t come to brief us or anything. We simply walked to the exit. We still went through the same pre exit check out as before, but this time I knew what was coming so I wasn’t really nervous. Though my stomach did churn a little as those huge doors began to slide open again.
We hiked out this time striking a path through some slightly less dense forest region than before, which made the trip much easier and a whole lot less work. The trip out this time seemed rather uneventful for most of the hike. I saw a few new mutants, though most weren’t that dangerous looking. Even after we reached the area that Scyll had marked out for us to explore, we didn’t run into all that much trouble. To be honest we were all getting a little bored.
“Well…” Caulin said less than enthusiastically. “ I was kind of hoping this was going to be a fun trip, but I don’t see anything out here.”
Scyll sighed, “ I am really sorry guys I thought this would be a good spot.” she said looking around as if she was expecting to find something for us to do. “ I guess this trip was a bad idea.”
“No kidding” Caulin said. Scyll bowed her head and slumped her shoulders sullenly. When Caulin saw that he quickly tried to take it back. “ I didn’t mean that you had a bad idea I meant that this was a bad um, no wait, crap.” Caulin said kicking himself again for saying something stupid like that.
Terry comforted her “ It’s no ones fault, there was no way you could have known that we wouldn’t get any action out here.” Terry said. Scyll nodded.
Gohn looked away and then smiled. “ Well I guess we could just leave, but then who would fight those two.” He said pointing to two figures in the distance.
We all turned to look. Sure enough about a hundred feet away there were two large grotesque mutants lumbering out of the woods into the field we were in. The two of them were hideously misshapen to my eyes. Though they probably fit right in to this strange new world. They walked on four short stubby legs that resembled an alligator‘s body, but their torsos bent upward giving a kind of centaur visage. They were covered in a thin grayish hair, that only lightly hid their rippling muscles. Their arms too were thick and muscular, resembling that of a gorilla, but of all their strange features it was the head that was most shocking. There wasn’t one.
“Finally,” Caulin said to Gohn. “ We haven’t gotten to kill one of these in a long time. I get the one on the right you and David can take the one on the left.” After he said that he gave Gohn a sly wink. I arched an eyebrow not understanding, but Gohn just sighed and shook his head.
The three of us took off toward our respective targets. I tried to follow Gohn’s lead, hoping to work as well with him as Caulin had. I grew out my blade. I went for a long blade to counter the long arms of the beast. As we ran the two curious creatures turned toward us and began banging their fists on the ground. I could only guess that what they were doing was some form of communication, but lacking a head I never quiet figured out how they saw or new we were coming to begin with.
As he had done with Caulin before, when we were about 50 feet away Gohn stopped and took aim at the creature we were assigned to, which had begun bounding awkwardly toward us. I continued running, filled with a new confidence knowing that I would heal quickly if I was hurt, but I tried not to think about the fact that I probably wouldn’t heal if I were killed.
Once I reached the animal I swung hard, to my surprise the beast leaned back and dodged my attack. It, in turn grabbed my outstretched arm and lifted me off the ground. I winced in anticipation as it brought back it’s other hand to smash in my face. Luckily, Gohn was there. Three dart were quickly planted firmly into the arm that was holding me. The arm immediately went limp, and I dropped free to the ground. Clearly upset, the monster jumped onto me pining me down with its two front legs and wailing on me with its uninjured arm. I brought my symbiote up to guard my face, but took several disorienting blows to the chest and stomach. All the while Gohn fired dart after dart into the things massive barrel chest, with no effect.
In frustration, and pain, I finally screamed, “ Try a different pathogen!” At the same time I mustered all my strength the push the thing off of me. It wouldn’t budge on its own, but after I stuck my symbiote’s claw deep into its side it finally let me go. I released the blade into the creature and promptly began to grow a new one. It took Gohn a second to change the pathogens on his darts, I’m not sure how he does it, but the next round of poison seemed to do the trick a little better. With each dart the creature became more and more sluggish. I slashed at it again and again. Even though it was slowing down it still landed a few more solid blows to me. A few bruises later I was able to bring the thing down for good. I charged it, and dodged it’s now slow sluggish lunge at me. Then I jumped up and plunged my blade deep into the fiends chest. Its torso folded backward onto is alligator body, and it flailed a final spasm before slumping into a awkward, unmoving position.
I cheered and looked back to Gohn giving him a thumbs up, but he was looking over to see how Caulin was doing. I turned just in time to see Caulin get smashed in the face by a pile driver of a fist. He flew back several feet before crumpling to the ground and lying still.
My eyes went wide. “ we have to help him.” I yelled already running toward him. Gohn just shook his head again and sighed and slowly started after me.
My mind raced. Was he okay? After receiving a few hits myself I was worried that Caulin might have gotten more than he had bargained for. I was even more confused at why Gohn was being so ambivalent.
I was no more than 20 feet from Caulin when I saw Scyll. She was standing about the same distance from Caulin as I was. She seemed to have a look of either fear or intense anger on her face, I couldn’t decide which. I watched confused as she threw up her right hand. I slowed, a little shocked because since I had gotten here she had always hidden her right hand under her long flowing dress sleeve. I was about to find out why. Scyll pulled back the long sleeve revealing her bare arm. Like the other arm this one was slender and smooth, in fact it appeared exactly the same as the other arm save a small hole in the palm of her hand. What I saw next stopped me dead in my tracks. To my utter horror from the small hole in her palm emerged hundreds of black slimy snake like heads. They squeezed impossibly from her thin slender arm. Each writhed flying like lightning toward the beast. Their tails seemed to recede deep into Scyll’s arm. The snake like protrusions all seemed to have minds of their own as they shot through the air. Scyll turned her head away and closed her eyes, as the hundreds of snakes extended from her, each mouth lined with razor sharp teeth. The snakes long bodies flowed all the way back to Scyll’s shaking hand, like a solid stream of black water from a garden hose. Scyll’s arm seemed to tremble as though almost trying to hold back the onslaught if even just a little. The snake heads drooled as they encircled the beast only nipping at first toying with it. Finally, one head dug into the beasts back right between the shoulder blades. It ripped off a large piece of flesh and then the feeding frenzy began.
When I had started running, after I saw the beast lay out Caulin, I had every intention of killing it, but now watching Scyll’s symbiote tear it apart, eating it alive. I felt sorry for it, and … I felt sick. The beast flailed grabbing one head only to be assaulted by a hundred more. Finally, the beast attempted to flee, but the snakes shot after it. They seemed to be able to stretch forever from her arm. They re-circled the beast. Two of them wrapped themselves around its legs entangling it to prevent another escape attempt. The monster tried to fight back, it really gave all it had, but there were just too many. After several minutes the beast laid still, but the long snake like heads frenzied on. Snapping at each other at times seeming to be competing over every last piece of flesh.
After a moment. Scyll finally turned back. There was a fiery look in her eyes as she watched her symbiote in action. She pulled her arm back attempting to withdraw them back to their hiding space, but they resisted not finished with their meal. It took her a second but she was able to will them back. Slowly begrudgingly they rescinded back into her arm. As the last head disappeared back into the hole on her palm she quickly recovered it with her sleeve and held it back to her body.
Her demeanor instantly changed back to the old Scyll. She seemed absolutely mortified that we had seen her use her symbiote. She turned away from us all, and seemed a rather upset.
In the midst of the incredible event I had completely forgotten about Caulin. I quickly turned to him to make sure he was alright. To my amazement he was lying on the ground propped up on one elbow with a huge grin on his face.
Gohn continued to shake his head. “ You know one of these days she isn’t going to save your sorry butt.” he said exasperated
Terry scowled, “ You can be a real jerk sometimes you know Caulin.” she said.
I spun around to each of them. “ Wait, what just happened, and where did Scyll get that symbiote?!” I said utterly confused once again. Caulin stood up and walked over to Scyll, while Gohn explained to me. “ Caulin fakes an injury every once in a while because he knows that Scyll will only use her symbiote if she thinks he is in trouble.” I shook my head in disbelief. “ He loves watching her use it. I guess that kind of thing is cool to him.” Gohn finished, rubbing his temple as if to fight off one of the headaches Caulin seemed to give him so often.
Caulin turned Scyll around and lifted her chin so that she looked him in the eyes. “She likes her symbiote. I know you all think I’m a jerk, but if she didn’t think that this was the symbiote for her then she wouldn’t have picked it. She may never admit it, but that kind of animal killer instinct is a big part of who she is. I just have to coax it out every once in a while.” Caulin said. To my surprise Scyll smiled shyly back at him. She didn’t say anything, but I had a feeling Caulin was right.
“ Well, I think that is enough excitement for this trip, lets head back before Caulin fakes hurt again because then I will hurt him for real.” Terry said only half joking. Caulin laughed and we headed back to the dome.
I shook my head. Since I had met her, Scyll had been only the sweetest albeit shyest person I had ever met, but after what I had seen today, I realized that she wasn’t all of what she seemed. I was starting to get the feeling that a lot in this world was like that, but one thing was for sure, Scyll had definitely surprised me with that one.