[Moosh da Outlaw]

Everyone has seemed to lost interest in this fic, so I don't know if i'll be continuing. I'd really like to, because I never finished my last one and would like to be able to say that I had managed to finish one, and because I really like this plot. I might continue it just for the hell of it, though this story seems to be a bit straightforward and the characters are plain. *sob*

Here you go.



----



Nedd crept down the hallway with catlike stealth, his baneful red eyes flicking left to right. With surprising content he peeked inside of a nearby room where voices could he heard.

Light. It was everywhere, glistening through the jar-covered racks and shimmering on the floor like stained glass. Nedd gave a throaty growl and pulled back. He looked around quickly; and, as if spotting what he was looking for, he sprang up onto a metal crate, grabbed a loosely-hanging pipe with his hand and swung across to the rafters. His breath cast small, milky clouds of steam in the frigid air. Quietly, he sneaked across the rafters and crouched at one end, watching, waiting...



<~{.epidemic.}~>



Durc gave a dramatic sigh.

“What did you do to Hugo?” he demanded. Dan looked down at the slog in bewilderment, having completely forgotten he was there. Hugo’s upper lip lifted, revealing sharp fangs the size of baseballs. He grumbled loudly. Dan carefully lowered him to the floor and untied his snout from the leash. Immediately the slog swung forward and bit Dan’s hand, almost drawing blood, before slinking off behind Durc.
Durc crossed his arms angrily.
“What are you doing here?” he finally asked. “I gave you a specific route to take.”

But we did– Dan began, but was cut off. Durc rolled his eyes.

“Fine, whatever happened, its too late now.” Durc crossed his arms. “Keep the lights off until we leave. I think all the havoc you caused could’ve attracted unwanted attention.” He glared at Ian. Ian turned away, muttering something.

They left as a group, taking a separate way, incase they were being followed. They came to a hallway that Dan had never seen before; the walls were painted a steel-blue, and the rafters were decorated with haphazardly-hanging lights that gave off sparks every minute or so. Puffs of steam erupted from broken pipes in the walls, hissing faintly. Dan noticed that the floor was made out of metal grating instead of plates. He eyed the floor warily, anticipating an attack from below, but none came.

They continued down the hallway at a brisk pace, weaving around discarded crates and rotting slog carcasses. Soon the flickering lights vanished behind them, and they were cast into inky darkness, fumbling for a moment before turning on their infra-red goggles. It didn’t help much; the rooms were still dark, and the only things that gave of heat were the steaming pipes and people around him.

Have you ever had the feeling you were being watched? That tingling at the back of your neck that quickly builds in your throat and makes you want to gag? And when you turn towards the source, because there must be somebody there, you find yourself alone?
That’s how Dan felt, only he knew that there was somebody there, and he knew that that somebody was out to kill him. This was not mistaken paranoia. This was real.

Ian. He hummed urgently. Ian grunted in reply. Ian, I think someone’s following us.

Ian rolled his eyes from under his goggles and turned away sulkily. Dan hissed Ian, I’m serious!

We have heat-seeking goggles, Ian said bitterly. If we were being followed, we’d know it.

Durc hushed them. The strobe light’s wheels squeaked as the metal grating turned back into floor, and they returned to more familiar territory. Dan swung around in horror. He had heard somebody breathing. Durc stiffened. He looked behind him slowly and pulled off his goggles, his beady eyes swiveling.

A clatter, a clang, something scuttling across the rafters above their heads. Something wanted to scare them, as though it were some twisted sport that it enjoyed. Durc brandished his lil’ hacker.

An inhuman scream howled through the air, filling Dan with sheer terror. Bullets were fired, whizzing through the air and rebounding off of walls. Durc screeched “The lights! Turn on the lights!”

Something swung out from the darkness and clipped a slig’s neck with a curved claw, slitting its throat. It collapsed to the floor, gurgling, and the strobe light was literally torn apart, its glass and metal peeled forcefully off of its wires. Dan fired a shot blindly into the dark. What was wrong with their goggles? Why couldn’t they see him?

The second light came on, clattering angrily. Ian shone it everywhere, but whatever it was seemed to have vanished.

‘The rafters,’ Dan thought.

RUN! He warned, backpedaling furiously. The group shifted uneasily before breaking out into a dead run, the slig’s gears whirling and the intern’s feet slapping the floor. The rafters rattled and creaked, and something zipped over their heads as quick as a flash. Dan swung around, still running, and crammed a cartrage clip into his snoozi. He fired once, twice, three times, all of which missed, and reached for another clip.

His face collided with the floor, and he preformed an elaborate double front-flip before finally grinding to a halt and laying twitching on the floor.

Dan opened one of his eyes, pulled his broken infra-red goggles off of his head, and heard the sound of the group moving before vanishing in the dark. In sheer terror he forced himself up and looked around. There were two separate pathways. They could’ve gone either way.

He slowly stood, his eyes rotating in their sockets. His snoozi clattered in his hands as he turned in circles, prepared for an attack in any direction; but nobody came. He was alone; just him and his snoozi.

Hello? Dan called quietly. His voice resounded before fading. Cautiously he took the path to the right, hoping that somehow he would catch up with the group and not fall victim to Nedd’s mindless killing.

Soon the metal plates under his feet were replaced with something hot and sticky. Dan stiffened and cranked his head downwards, dreading what he would see. The floor was dripping with crimson, still-warm blood. He felt a gag rise in his throat, as though he might throw up. The blood was splashed across the walls in crosshatching lines and lead pipes lay shattered everywhere, signs of a struggle. Dan looked up slowly into the rafters, and was alarmed to spot the mangled limb of whatever the victim had once been draped over its side. How it had gotten up there, he didn’t know.

...oh odd, oh odd, oh odd... He said in a tearless sob, staggering back. He slipped and fell on the bloodstained floor, dying his armor wine-red. Something moved in the rafters with a faint chuckle. Dan tried to stand, but his limbs jerked convulsively. Being paralyzed with fear only fueled his terror.

He could see the shape more clearly now, hunched over but still big. Suddenly it stood to its full height, tall enough to tower over Dan, its right eye glowing an evil red and its left eye swollen shut. Dan raised his snoozi, but fear got the better of him, and he dared not fire.

The once-wimpy intern eyed him critically: his eyes, Dan noticed, were no longer wide and scared as he had remembered. They were half closed, making him look bored, and almost proud. Dan could barely see him in the dark, but he could still sense his intent.

“I should have killed you when I had the chance.” He said quietly. Each syllable strained on his mouth, revealing it for what it was: a ragged, toothy hole.

Dan flinched. You don’t have to kill me. He said rather uselessly. He was going to die.

Nedd began walking towards him in slow, terrible steps. Dan pulled himself back weakly, but was up against a wall. The feeling was starting to return to his limbs, but was it too late to run?
Nedd reached out and grabbed a heavy-looking metal pipe that was leaning against the wall. It was long and thick. He gripped it tightly between his long, spidery fingers. Finally he was a mere three feet away. He raised the pole over his head, words forming on his lips, his eyes revealing nothing, and brought it crashing down.

Dan dove to the right in a last-ditch effort to save his own life. The pole smashed through the soggy plaster in the wall, crushing it. Dan whipped out his snoozi and fired, grazing Nedd’s shoulder blade, but he hardly seemed to notice.

Nedd bared his vertical, needle-sharp teeth and gave a savage hiss, pouncing forward. Dan fired, and Nedd zig-zagged to the left and gave a mighty leap up into the rafters. His breathing slowed. He became deathly silent, and virtually untraceable. Dan snarled;

Why are you doing this!

There was a pause, and for a brief moment Dan thought that he was alone; but suddenly the rabid intern slammed into him from above, knocking the wind out of him. He grabbed him by the throat and pressed him against the slimy wall, foam and saliva dripping down his face. Dan looked up hopelessly and saw a broken, heavy lamp hanging from the ceiling. It dangled and flickered, and was supported by mere cords wrapped around a support beam across the room. If he could just break free and get to the beam...

“You’re even more pathetic than I remembered.” Nedd eyed him unfavorably. Dan managed to choke,

You’re the last person who should be saying that.

Nedd chuckled quietly; is voice was deep and unamused. “I’m going to kill you. I’m going to kill everybody on this ship. Then I’m going to crash it into the ground.”

Why?

“After all the grief everyone’s caused me,” he paused thoughtfully, “why not?”

He squeezed Dan’s throat so tightly that he couldn’t breathe. Dan still held his snoozi, and in all the havoc he had forgotten about it. He raised it and fired one shot across the room. Nedd frowned at him, his ugly teeth tightening together.

“That’s it? That’s the best you can do? You’re a sickening, pathetic idiot---”

The timber in the rafters groaned in protest as the light fell, tearing away at wires and metal as though they were thread. Nedd swung around, fury in his eyes, but it was too late. The 200-pound metal box slammed down on the top of his neck and the dip of his shoulders. He jerked forward, balancing unsteadily on his feet, dazed. The metal pole clattered noisily from his hands. Dan grabbed it and swung it like a hammer. It struck the side of Nedd’s head, and he flopped over, unconscious.

Dan dropped his snoozi. Things went on as usual. The water dripped from the ceiling, the pipes hissed and sighed, the ratz and whatever else claimed the basement as their own scurried about in the vents.

Dan reached for his walkie-talkie and spoke into it, only to find it half broken. He gave his message anyway (‘Nedd’s incapacitated, I’ll try to keep him out, hurry.’) and stood by anxiously. After a while he decided that it would be best to tie Nedd up so that he wouldn’t wake up and kill him.

He searched around for a rope, but found a metal coil instead. He shrugged; it would probably work just as well. He busily began tying Nedd to the support beam the light had once been connected on, thinking.

Nedd, he noticed, was nearly twice as tall as the last time Dan had seen him, with long arms, legs, and a long torso that seemed strangely out of place. His skin was a dark purplish-grey color from where the cylonite was replacing his skin cells, and being near it made Dan fear that he would catch it. The wounds that had once crosshatched his body had healed and turned to dark grey scars, as though they had been bandaged for weeks, though it had only been days. His left eye was crossed over with four zig-zags, resembling a shaky swastika. The actual eye had turned to a crusty, brownish-red material that was bleeding. It was disgusting.

Dan got to tying the final knot, satisfied with his quick thinking, when suddenly he was crushed against the ground. Again.

Nedd snarled, “Who do you take me for?” And, with a quick jerk of his shoulders, snapped the coils like thread. His eyes darkened. “You really are pathetic.”