Dododex

ARK: Survival Evolved & Ascended Companion

The Arks: Over Heaven

Chapter 11: Kill or be Killed

Original Post Date: Jan 20, 2024

Note: Story starts in Wyvern, Aerial ABC backwards filter and has a Prologue. Last chapter in Royal Griffin, next chapter in Quetzal.

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“Well, EXCUSE me! We’re not lovebirds, freak!” Aurora shouted at Lil Jack with a soft glare. Aurora put her hands on her hips and Samuel rolled his eyes.

“We don’t know who you are, but you’re a fool to think you can just take us prisoner so easily. We have weapons, and you do not. Stand down now or else things are going to get ugly,” Samuel boomed.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Lil Jack chuckled, “I do have a weapon.”

Lil Jack reached for his back and pulled out a black whip, with a weird fiber at the end. It was a whip made of graduation gowns! Lil Jack began twirling it around and then snapped it in the air, making a crackling noise.

SSSSNAP!

Aurora stepped back a little and snuck behind Samuel.

“Are you seriously gonna use me as a meat shield?” Samuel asked.

SNAP!

“YOUCH!” Samuel cried as a mark was left on his left arm. Lil Jack continued to laugh and laugh as he kept lashing Samuel, and Aurora began to step back a little bit.

“What the- OW! OWWWW! Aurora what are you DOING, HELP ME,” Samuel screamed as his skin began to burn. He tried moving forward to attack but with another quick lash from Lil Jack, he retreated in pain.

“Nyah hah hah! Feel my wrath!” Lil Jack bellowed. Lil Jack’s goons began to laugh.

BOOM!

“Woah what the- Was that the whip?” one of Lil Jack’s goons asked, scared.

“No Larry, whips don’t make booming noises!” the other snapped back.

“Y-You don’t think it’s a T-Rex or something, Mikey?”

“Don’t be a coward. Let’s just go back to whipping this monkey-”

KABOOM!

“WOAH!” Everyone shouted in surprise and stumbled like bobbleheads. The island beneath them began to shake and rumble, and suddenly giant obelisks of glowing metal began to rise into the air from different parts of the island. One was red, another was blue, and the final one was green.

“Just like the sky before we were taken here…” Samuel thought as he began to sweat. Glows suddenly came from everyone’s implants, and everyone gasped in shock.

“THE DIFFICULTY OF THE PROTOCOL HAS INCREASED. AS A RESULT THE SYSTEM MUST BE UPDATED,” a robotic voice blared from everyone’s implants.

“System must be updated? What does that mean?” Mikey asked confusingly. Suddenly, everyone’s implants flashed purple!

“SYSTEM UPDATED. THE LAW, KILL OR BE KILLED HAS BEEN APPLIED. KILLING WILL NOW MAKE YOU STRONGER.”

“Woah, stronger? Maybe then, I’ll get my master’s degree!” Lil Jack said.

“What does that even mean?” Larry asked.

“It doesn’t matter. Let’s just kill these two now, I’ve had enough playing with them-”

Aurora took a spear and hurled it at Lil Jack, and it plunged into his chest. Lil Jack coughed up some blood and his eyes began to waver.

“W-What was that?” Lil Jack asked as he began to cry.

Samuel ran up to one of the goons, Mikey, and swung his hatchet as his head. With a deafening blow, his skull was crushed and collapsed to the ground. Larry let out a little girl’s scream and fell to the ground.

“Yo! P-please, we can talk this out, please I don’t wanna die!” Larry wept. He began to sob, “Please, please please I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die!”

Aurora had a dark look on her face, and as she plucked her spear out from the now deceased Lil Jack, she began to walk up to the poor guy with malice in her eyes. It looked like her eyes were exploding a wavy blue.

“Pfft, you’ll pay for your insolence. No one’s going to hurt my companion like that,” Aurora snarled as she began to trot toward the defenseless Larry.

“W-W-Wait! That’s not fair, I wasn’t the one with the whip!”

“Doesn’t matter, you’re going to die right here, right now.”

“She called me a companion,” Samuel realized in thought. Even though these three troublesome individuals had been out for them, he didn’t want to kill all of them. After all, there may be consequences to killing so many people.

“Besides. Larry may have information we need. About other people, about other places, any intel that I need to escape this island,” Samuel thought. Samuel walked up to Aurora and put a hand on her shoulder.

“Okay, you don’t need to kill him,” Samuel assured her. Aurora turned to Samuel.

“But-”

“I don’t want you to lose yourself any more. Besides, He may have information we need,” Samuel said. Aurora closed her eyes and nodded.

“Okay. Fine. We’ll keep him alive,” Aurora said, backing away. Larry let out a sigh of relief upon her words and sat up.

“Thank you so much for sparing me, THANK YOU!” Larry gasped. He got on his knees and began to worship Samuel.

“Enough of this, just stand up,” Samuel said, “We aren’t letting you off the hook just yet. We need intel.”

“Well…” Larry sheepishly replied, “I, uh, do know ONE thing.”

“And what is it?” Aurora asked sternly.

“Uh, well, we actually come from the west, all the way out west there’s a, a weird metal platform that looks kinda like the implants in our wrists,” Larry stammered. Larry pointed in the direction of the obelisk that glowed red.

“It’s in that direction,” Larry declared.

“Interesting. There’s definitely a connection between the metal platform, the implants, and this hellish landscape,” Samuel thought. Then he said aloud, “Thank you for the info. We’re going to need it.”

A smile grew on Larry’s face.

“Y-Yeah it’s no problem-”

Samuel swung his hatchet into Larry’s face and his body was sent flying. Aurora winced, but looked more confused than scared. Blood seeped out into the grass, and Samuel sighed as he hooked his hatchet on his belt.

“Why’d you kill him? I thought we were keeping him alive,” Aurora wondered.

“I never said that, I said YOU shouldn’t kill him,” Samuel replied. Aurora frowned and let out a squeak of anger.

“Don’t trick me like that,” Aurora whined, “I could have gotten stronger.”

“Like I said, I don’t want you to lose yourself,” Samuel replied, “And, it’s not like I can get stronger anyway. I don’t have an implant.”

Aurora gasped.

“You don’t have an implant?” Aurora asked, shocked.

“Nope. Never did, see?” Samuel said as he rolled down the sleeve of his graduation robe. Aurora raised her eyebrow.

“Huh, so you’re trying to protect me just in case there's a catch? That’s cute of you,” Aurora giggled as she elbowed Samuel. Star bit Aurora on the ankle, and she let out a yelp. Then Star ran over to Samuel and brushed her beak on his legs. Samuel let out a grunt and sighed.

“Whatever. Can we just go now? I have a feeling Ruby and Neddy tried going after us but went in the wrong direction.”

“Yeah probably. And then we can check out the red Obelisk?”

“Yes, we’ll do that.”

Before the three embarked on their quest to find Ruby and Neddy, Samuel walked over to Lil Jack’s corpse and pried his fingers into his implant. With a tug he tore out the gem and put it in his pocket.

“Okay. I have what I need. Star, which way did you see them go?” Samuel crouched and asked his dodo buddy. Star squawked, and afterward began running in the direction opposite of where they went.

“Looks like we have our lead,” Aurora smirked as she followed suit.