Lineak turned back to human and glared at the woman Rasch.  The wheels in his mind were spinning trying to find a strategy of some kind.  He laughed as something, something that may or may not work came to mind.

"Come on Rasch come and get some.  Stop being one of Fang's little bitches.  You know he doesn't want you.  You know why he doesn't want you? Or for that matter why your sister wants nothing to do with you? They're dead.  Both of them.  I killed their entire crew as well.  Do you still want to talk? I can tell you that your sister was en even bigger whore than you are.  How does that feel Rasch?"

Red orbs appeared in Rasch's hands as Lineak spoke growing larger and darker as he continued.

"Shut up you don't know a damned thing about my family or about Fang."

"Fang was diddling your sister instead of you and you hate him for it don't you? He was also searching for something, I'm guessing you are too.  That's why you want to know about the runes.  Guess what? He and your sister found it.  Too bad they can't tell you what they found.  Not unless they choose to tell you when you join them in hell."

The fireballs came screaming by, fast.  Lineak barely avoided the first one but caught the brunt of the second in his chest.  The pain was excruciating and the force of the impact send him reeling.  Two more fireballs appeared in Rasch's hands and Lineak knew he would have to close the gap to stand a chance.

He turned back into a wolf and charged towards the woman.  The move must have been anticipated as first one fireball and then the other slammed into him.  The force of the blows and the crippling pain leaving him in a crumpled heap down the hallway from both Rasch and the villianous Keegan.  He fought to stand up or to change forms but nothing happened.  He watched as Rasch moved toward him saying something he couldn't understand...and then he watched as black blood erupted from the front of her throat.  A geyser of blood sprayed forth from around the tip of a blade that was getting withdrawn from behind.  Lineak stared at the dying woman watching her fall lifeless to the floor.  Keegan stood behind her a large blood covered knife in hand.

"What? You think I want to stay in a cell for the next five years?"

But how? Why? What do we? The words struggled to get out as Lineak layed on the floor panting still unable to change.  He watched as Keegan grabbed hold of Rasch's wrist and began sawing at it with her knife.  He watched as she hungrily began chugging the dark blood from the lifeless corpse.  He watched as covered in blood she approached him and began stroking his muzzle.

"Come on now I know you heal quickly.  You and I have some work to do if we're going to survive.  the crew isn't going to like that I killed Rasch and they'll like it even less if you killed her.  But as you're the new champion they will respect you.  That might help keep both of us alive when, or if, they find her body.  Now come on pup we need to get moving."

He wasn't sure if her words gave him the extra motivation but he found himself up on four legs and moving two paces behind and to the left of Keegan.  The position seemed strange and yet familiar to him somehow.  He wasn't going to dwell on it he needed to find his belongings and get off the ship.

Keegan moved with a purpose going from room to room and quickly searching the room's contents.  Common rooms were deemed unworthy of her search as Rasch would probably not put anything worth steeling where it would be stolen.  It was only rooms that were accessed with the bloody hand that waranted investigation.  The process seemed arduous to Lineak but he paced alongside Keegan nonetheless.

The room to room search seemed to go on forever to Lineak.  He sat down midstride and reached with a back paw to scratch an itch behind his ear.  Why did scratching an itch in human form never feel this good? Seeing that he had fallen behind he hurried to catch back up to Keegan, two paces behind and to the left.
 
It seemed that every room that they searched had little of interest.  Keegan would pocket the ocassional oddity but Lineak was hoping to find his gear and get off of the ship, no more no less.  With no obvious sign of finding his gear in sight Lineak was getting bored although something in him kept him from showing it.  He was really gettting irritated with this wolf form.  A familiar wooden door stopped both Keegan and himself in their respective tracks.  Keegan seemed pleased at the discovery of the door but Lineak had to question why.  It was magically closed after all. 
 
Keegan began moving her hands waving strange patterns in the air and as Lineak watched he could barely hear strange utterances.  Minutes later the door swung inward.  Keegan, and Lineak, strolled into the bedroom.  Once again the focal point of the bedroom was the large somewhat gaudy bed.  Lineak would have laughed at the thought of yet another naked woman throwing herself at him in this particular room.  Somehow Keegan didn't seem like the type. 
 
Next to the bed was a nightstand holding what looked to Lineak like his two gunbelts complets with revolvers.  He tried once again to change into human form without success.  A pitiful whine escaped and Keegan looked down at him with a strange expression upon her face.
 
"Poor puppy you want to change don't you? What did that mean woman do to you? Let me see if I can do something about it."
 
Keegan began chanting and waving her arms once again.  This time he could feel a tingle begin at the tip of his tail and travel all the way up his spine.  When it reached his mind he could feel something being released and in an instant he found himself on all fours in human form.  He quickly stood to his feet and went to retrieve his weapons.  Leaning up against the nightstand was his missing shotgun he took it and threw it over his shoulder. 
 
He looked over at Keegan to see what she was doing, she was going through the room slowly and methodically searching for something.  What it was Lineak didn't know and really didn't care.  He had his own things to search for.  He began going through the single drawer in the nightstand and was pleasantly surprised to find his missing papers.  Keegan saw what he was grabbing and came over to look at them and she gasped.  If the gasp was surprising the tome that she was holding falling to the floor was shocking.  The thick volume struck the floor with a resounding thud that Keegan seemed not to notice.  She appeared to be entranced with the scraps of paper in his hands.

Lineak stared down at the large leather bound book that had fallen to the floor.  It was old, obviously very very old.  Pages seemed to want to fly out of it in all directions yet somehow stood fast.  The leather binding was cracked in innumerable places the cover covered in what appeared to be runes to Lineak's untrained eye.  His nose detected the pressence of blood, old, very old blood.  Lineak was the first to speak disturbing the strange quiet in the room.

"What is that book? Is it evil?"

"Evil? No.  It's ancient and misunderstood but not evil.  I think you have a missing piece to it.  I may have underestimated you.  Those runes you are holding are part of a matched set.  Legends talk about weapons built utilizing strange runic combinations to perform incredible feats.  I've been looking for the last ten years trying to find out everything I could about them.  Rasch and Lydia spent even more time that that searching for answers.  I think they got Fang involved.  Did you really kill them both?"

That was a lot of information to absorb and really quickly.  Lineak let it seep into his mind thinking back to the events that led him to this point.  It made a strange kind of sense.  Fang and the woman Lydia had found what they had been searching for and had crash landed on his home planet.  They had only not survived the planet because they picked a fight with the wrong damn hunter.  They had been pursued by somebody else, soldiers.  These soldiers had also been searching for the weapons although they were unaware of exactly what they were.  So after knowledge that Fang had aquired?  It was all a bit much to think over and Lineak didn't feel up to the challenge.

"They're both dead as is the crew they were traveling with, leave it at that."

"Good.  Can I see those?"

Lineak passed the slips of paper over to Keegan and watched as she began uttering strange words.  As she did so the papers began to glow and Lineak noticed a familiar glow begining to shine from the bottom of his holster.  The runes on the inside of his revolver must be reacting, and she knows.  What the hell.  Before the look of recognition could pas over Keegan's face and before she could even respond Lineak lowered the shotgun down to face level and pulled the trigger.  Keegan's face disentegrated in a shower of blood and brain matter.  So much for answers, damn.

He had some answers though more than he had before boarding this ship.  A hell of a lot more than he had had prior to coming to the planet below.  All in all it had been a fairly productive trip.  Now all he had to do was convince the remaining crew that they wanted no part in dealing with him.  He suspected that wouldn't be very hard to do.  The large tome was going to be coming with him it might offer even more clues as to what his weapons were and what they were capable of.  The search would continue.... Or more to his liking the hunt would continue.

END THREAD