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The Devil's Maw: Part 4
Posted By: Conrad Lauf<conniesworld_aka_hell@hotmail.com>
Date: 21 August 2004, 1:34 AM


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Author's Note: Some of you readers may have noticed that I gave my central SPARTAN character a personality that consists of one-liners and the inability to take anything seriously. This personality is greatly reminiscent of Bruce Campbell's character Ash from the 1980's-1990's Evil Dead movies, the first films to blend horror and comedy together. So if you like Argave's persona, I suggest you watch the Evil Dead movies. They're classics. Now, on with the show!



Argave stood rigid, frozen on the spot. Around the gargantuan empty dropship hangar were eight Hunters, each engrossed in their daily duties. Argave noticed two were sharpening the edges of their alloy shields on a spinning laser wheel, burning with the light of superheated metal.
"Mother of God..." muttered Argave.

Unfortunately for Argave, one of the Hunters heard his quiet exclamation, and with a bestial grunt all Hunters were instantly alert to Argave's presence. They began charging up their fuel rod guns, and Argave threw himself to the ground as eight crackling bolts of plasma whistled overhead, slamming into the door behind him, crumpling it inwards beyond repair. Two Hunters ran forward to fight in close combat. As the first Hunter reached him, it brought its shield up in a vertical arc. Argave leapt on to the miniature platform as it swung up, and flipped himself up backwards in midair. As he was about to hit the ground, he slashed out with his blade, hitting the Hunter in the orange fleshy area between the head and chest. The flesh split open in a wash of fiery orange blood and life fluid, and the Hunter slumped to the floor, dead.

Argave heard the sound of heavy footsteps behind him, and craned his neck around to see the second Hunter swing out horizontally with the cutting edge of its shield, trying to hit Argave at the waist. The SPARTAN leapt up and tucked his legs into his body. The shield passed clean underneath him, and as he hit the ground Argave crouched low to the floor, his MA5B outstretched, the elongated barrel pressing into the stomach flesh of the Hunter. As he hit the trigger, Argave thrusted out with his scimitar, digging the blade's tip through the eye-hole of a Hunter behind him.

Now, there were only five Hunters left.
Argave had both arms stuck into two different enemies, the sword lodged in the eye-socket of one Hunter, the other's MA5B barrel being almost sucked in by the sticky organs that were being obliterated in the other. So all he could do was watch as a Hunter charged straight for him. As it reached him, he twisted his arms back, readying himself for the backflip that brought his boot arcing up into the bottom of the Hunter's helmet and landing where he started. With a sick sound of grinding bone, the Hunter toppled over backwards, its neck broken beyond repair.

Argave wrenched his arms out of the two corpses, and sprinted towards the four remaining Hunters, which had banded together in a tight circle, their fuel rod guns lit up. Relying on his superhuman speed and reflexes, Argave reached the first Hunter, and grabbed the fuel rod gun. He twisted the arm sharply, and the Hunter moaned as its forearm broke. Argave turned the wide barrel around, and as the Hunter released, the bolt of plasma fired directly at its three companions. One Hunter was hit right in the chest, and was pushed back three metres with the force of the shot. Its two friends were hit by the blast radius, one having the armour on its right side disintegrated by the white-hot heat. The other was dazed temporarily by the explosion, swaying for about two minutes, barely able to keep its balance. Using the distraction, Argave kicked out with his left foot, throwing the broken-armed Hunter onto the ground. As it hit the floor, Argave plunged the scimitar through its visor.

As he looked up, the dazed Hunter fell like a tree, finally overcome by dizziness. It hit the alloy floor with an audible "CLUNK" and lay there, its breath coming in ragged gasps. Argave walked up to it, and pushed the barrel of the MA5B into the back of the Hunter's neck.
"Put this in your pipe and smoke it," he muttered, and five milliseconds later the Hunter knew no more.



Captain Steele moaned as the spinning ban saw-like blade inched its way towards his knee. Strapped down and gagged, all he could do was watch the light glint off the blurring alloy as it cut its way through the table on which he was imprisoned. The pink walls of the interrogation room made his attempted cries for help echo, and standing in the corner of the room ext to the sliding doors stood the interrogator Elite, his arms folded casually across his chest.
"Come now Steele, we both knew this would happen. We both knew that once we gathered the data on that neural chip that your demise would be inevitable. No one is coming to get you and all you can do is watch your death come towards you..."




As always, I hope you enjoyed the story. The fight scenes were set in the following places:
- The fight against the Manreapers (from the last chapter) took place in a hallway, exactly the same as the ones in the Truth and Reconciliation and Keyes. You know the ones with those vents that you can drop down from.
- The fight against the Hunters took place in a room exactly the same as the one in the Truth and Reconciliation, minus those big rectangular box thingie-ma-jigs.

I hope these descriptions helped you, and don't worry, the next chapter will be coming at you very soon...





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