[Few moments earlier.]
Two alien creatures, dressed in the fanciest and heaviest looking sets of armor, made their way through the now changed forests of the Earth as they sort of enjoyed the scenery of this beautiful planet they stumbled upon in the great, vast Universe.
The two aliens, Huntress and Murdock, slowly walked through the forest as they sliced their paths clear, due to the creeping vines and moving shrubs that made it almost impenetrable.
The two, having walked for hours, slowed their pace down and chose to take their time...well one of them did.
"Keep up, Huntress." Murdock rolled his eyes while using his large sword to slice the plant life away from his path. His female accomplice was walking leisurely with her head held up high whilst she gazed upon the night stars through her helmet. The night sky in this strange planet had a captivating and serene calmness to it, something that she hadn’t experienced in an extremely long time.
"Don’t you ever take a moment and look at the stars?" She asked with a silly, childish tone. "This planet’s more beautiful than I thought."
"Huntress," Murdock looked at her sternly. "We, Granians, are one of the most highly intelligent species out there in the Universe and me, you, Grim and the others spend most of our lives in space. If you want to look at stars, you’ll do so on the ship. Right now, we have a deadline to follow."
"You’re no fun." She sulked while swinging her head around carelessly. She followed Murdock closely while dragging her tail heavily on the glowing ground. Just then, both Granians were able to hear a couple of sounds coming from a couple of meters ahead of them.
Using his scanner, Murdock was able to read a movement, signifying that there was something not bigger than him prancing around in the forest. He quietly signaled for Huntress to follow him and together, they both slowly approached the living creature with their weapons set to kill mode.
"My oh my." Murdock and Huntress smiled as they saw a certain orange-haired girl with a black scythe on her back observing two carcasses of beasts that were terribly slaughtered.
"Well well well," Murdock said as he dramatically walked out from the bushes and pointed his weapon at her. "Grim’s little side project." ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ 𝙣𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙡•𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚•𝙣𝙚𝙩
"He told us you were strong," Huntress continued while circling Cherry with a death smile on her face. "You don’t look like much to me."
"Why don’t you come closer so we can see how much blood I’ll be able to drain from you." Cherry taunted while her black, blood scythe made its way to her hand. Her eyes glowed a deep, blood red glow as her mutated body harnessed power from the blood moon.
All of a sudden, the leaves on the trees and shrubs started to shake violently. The air seemed to get thicker and much colder. Noticing what was happening, Murdock used his scanner on Cherry and immediately learned of a shocking discovery. "The effects of the blood moon are starting to kick in."
"What?" asked Huntress. "This planets’ got one of those too?" She lifted her eyes to sky and saw the reddest moon her eyes have ever had the opportunity to gaze on. She then looked back at Murdock, then at Cherry, who at the moment was just standing there with her eyes closed.
"We have to move fast," Murdock said to Huntress. "Grim said this one’s powerful, maybe even a quarter of Kazak’s strength."
"Pfft, don’t remind me of him." Huntress rolled her eyes while readying her circular blade. "We took him down easily without breaking a sweat. What can this one do?"
"MUCH MORE!!" The multitude and intense tone in Cherry’s voice was so great that it nearly froze Huntress and Murdock. The two aliens readied themselves for whatever the girl was going to bring next. However, she just stood there, with her eyes still facing the ground closed.
"Do not engage," Murdock warned Huntress after he saw the crazy look in her eyes. "Remember, she just needs to make contact with you to drain your blood. Do NOT engage!!" Even though Murdock had warned Huntress, the female Granian was no longer at the place she was standing. She instead used her powerful legs and thrust herself at Cherry with her blade held tightly in her hands.
When she got close enough, she quickly swung it with great force and speed towards Cherry, hoping to cause some serious damage.
Huntress’s blade did make contact with Cherry, but it had somehow missed its intended target and instead collided with the hilt of the girl’s scythe. The tough, black substance stood its ground against the circular blade as Cherry slowly and effortlessly pushed back Huntress’s blade.
Murdock quickly fired shots at Cherry and she was forced to use her scythe to shield her body from them. Through spinning her scythe very fast, Murdock’s shots were sort of deflected but the more he kept firing, the harder it got for her to deflect. As a result, Cherry’s scythe was knocked out her hands and was sent sliding towards Huntress. The female Granian stomped on the scythe and broke it in half as she said, "No stick to protect you now, huh?’
"That was just a diversion." A shadow forecast of Murdock and Huntress while Cherry stood with her palms stretched out. The two aliens saw multiple blood spikes hovering inches above their heads, and each one had barbs on their tips to make them cause twice as more damage.
"You little b*tch...." Cherry quickly dropped the spikes all at once, but the aliens were already prepared to them out. Murdock quickly dropped his gun and spun his large sword so fast that the spikes crashed into it and not him.
Huntress on the other hand barely dodged each spike by twisting, turning, bending and folding her body. When she got the opportunity to, she’d catch a blood spike with her powerful tail and throw it back at Cherry.
The blood mutant would instead stop the spikes in midair, deform them into even smaller spikes and send them directly at Huntress’s eyes. Huntress quickly used her blade and deflected the smaller spikes while dealing with the large ones at the same time.
Cherry, who was still relentless as ever, didn’t stop with dropping simple spikes. Once all the spikes were on the ground, whether smashed or intact, she lifted them up again and liquidized them once more, causing a wave of blood to seep from the ground and slowly rise into the air. She then waved her hands around and moved the blood wave around the aliens in a circular motion while she closed them in.
The wave spun much faster as its insides slowly developed sharp barbs. "As much as I’d love to stay," Cherry spoke, "I’ve got somewhere else to be. Kill you later." Some of the blood from the wave swooped around her body as she turned into her blood mutant form. With one last roar, she disappeared into the thick of the forest while the wave eventually disappeared in thin air.
"AHHH!! DAMN IT." Huntress screamed as she threw out her disk blade which cut down a couple of tress. "HOW COULD WE GET OUTSMARTED BY A KID?’
"Gee, if only you listened to me when I said don’t engage." Murdock replied sarcastically while he placed his sword onto his back and picked up his gun again. He then punched in a bunch of numbers on his scanner and soon, a hologram of Grim appeared in front of him.
"Tell me you have the boy and the girl." Grim said with a deep scowl on his face. However, Murdock went silent for a while as he waited for the answer to sink into his commander’s head. "We did encounter the orange haired girl but...."
"But what?" Grim asked in a monotonous tone.
"She got away. However," Murdock continued. "One of these humans put up the boy for sale like some sort of slave and we’re on our way there right now."
"Good. Now, do not call back unless you have them...ALIVE!!’ With the endnote, Grim ended the call and left the rest to Huntress and Murdock to figure out.
Murdock looked at the scanner once more and said, "If my hunch’s correct, that orange haired girl’s going after the boy too. We better get there quickly."
"Lead the way, Murdock."