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Bane vs Dreko
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Bane vs. Dreko
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Co-op by Spartan_117 and deadfast
 

deadfast's Commentary: At first, I wasn't too sure about making this story, but one night, it came to me, and I knew it must be destiny that these two should face off. Most of the battle scenes had to be framed by the incredible writing talent of Spartan, because I had no idea how Dreko would react to each of Bane's attacks. It took a month or so of email collaboration and alittle ironing to hammer this story together, but I believe it turned out to be one of Bane's (and Dreko's) best. Please note that this story has nothing to do with the original storyline of the Bane Series or that of The Bounty Hunter Series-this will not affect the outcome of either of them. This battle is based in a parrallel universe to theirs and therefore, never actually takes place. But, we all know it's fun to see the outcome of these matchups! So we, Spartan and I, have answered your plea's and now, without furthur adue, we proudly present you with the battle of the century!

Spartan117's Commentary: Deadfast gives me alot of credit, but too be honest, he was the driving force behind this team-up. Constantly giving me emails and getting me off my lazy and sorry ass, he really inspired me through both his efforts of this story as well as the talent of his writing itself. Overall, deadfast is one of the greatest writers I have ever, and probably will ever, be assisting in my life. Bane parts were put together mainly by deadfast, and my main parts went to Dreko, but we defintly helped each other out in each scene, from beggining to end. The conclusion specialist that he is, deadfast put together one of his most moving story-wrap ups ever. And, now that I'm done, myself and deadfast proudly present Bane vs. Dreko; the greatest showdown the StarCraft universe has ever, will ever see..Enjoy!

The rain thundered down the shallow ally, Shivian Dreko stood amongst the shadows; unseen, unheard. The tall man with a southern drawl spoke out from his hiding place in a long, grey trench coat that distorted his identity, "You know what I want," he said quickly, the rain ran in streams off his floppy top hat that hid his face, "The rebel ghost must be stopped," he said quickly, looking around for the voice that he knew would answer him. Nothing emerged, neither word nor form. Only the dank ally greeted his next comment, "I will pay any price-they have cost me everything I have worked for-". "Four hundred million. Body only." interrupted Dreko, his filtered voice echoing off the alley walls. The wet trench coat spoke again, somewhat taken aback, but he pressed on. "Price is of no importance, and you have my entire arsenal of militia and weapons at your disposal, he must be stopped-" Dreko smiled inwardly. Despite the man's cold confidence, Dreko sensed that the man was desperate. Dreko interrupted again, his voice seemed to come from the ancient brick walls of the buildings surrounding the two, instead of from the shadows somewhere ahead, "Your men and weapons would only slow me down. I have no need for your help." Dreko was not arrogantly boasting, simply stating a common fact: he was the best who ever lived. Dreko turned; he now had enough information to begin the hunt, he no longer had to stay in the presence of the old man. "Wait!! He travels with a single companion- a protector if you will. Many have fallen in the attempt to bring this rebel down, all have failed." "I have no doubt of that. Ill be back in three days. Have the money ready." And the rain continued to fall, but only one presence stood in the alley.

"How did we get here?" I asked Bane as the sunlight broke through my closed eye lids and I sat up. Soft grass was beneath me and trees lined the ridges of the small clearing we were suddenly in. I didn't know how or when we got to whatever place this is. "I don't know," Bane rubbed his sore forehead with one synth, "But this is not our realm, mortal, we must be on our guard." The scene around us was definitely not the same as the gloomy, dry desert we fell asleep to. "Let's get moving, maybe we'll come to a town or something and we can find out were the hell we are." Bane followed me closely as we came to the end of the field and started on an overgrown trail into the forest. Surprisingly, there were no sounds of movement, or animals within, but I thought nothing of it.
The targeting recticle on Drekos visor squared off on the rebels head. Dreko allowed himself a twitch of the lips. As he looked through his sights, he could think of only two things. One being the huge amount of money being spent for this single canister shot, and the second being a bet with himself how far the Ghosts head would fly. Dreko eased the sight slightly downward. Despite his desire the blow the Ghosts head off, he had been trained to shot at the center of body mass. As his sight dropped, he caught something out of the corner of it. Drekos eyes widened behind the eerie green visor. Dreko blinked again, his optic enhancements sometimes malfunctioned; but now, his eyes werent playing tricks on him-there really was a ten foot hydralisk obediently following the rebel's every step. Dreko switched his cartridges to C-12 Explosive rounds and drew a deep breathe to calm himself for the shot. It was strange, the first sensation of slight nervousness crossed Dreko for the first time in years as his chance for a clean shot came. Dreko relaxed, and his finger tightened up on the trigger.
Bane was sidling along nervously behind Charley, when the air suddenly became tense. "I have a bad feeling about this, mortal, I don't like this place at all." Bane said as Charley maneuvered his way through a net of vines and underbrush. "I wouldn't worry about it," he assured his friend calmly, "We'll be back in town and outta here in no time-" Bane looked up abruptly as a warm, wet liquid spattered across his face and the voice stopped abruptly. Bane's mouth hung open in disbelief as he watch the four second scene flash by his eyes in slow motion. Charley fell instantly, his legs crumpling beneath him. He hit the dirt on his back and coughed blood and gasped, his chest a terrible mass of torn flesh and shattered bone. Bane stared down, slowly, and Charley gasped something, coughing more blood and reaching up with one bloody hand. The color drained from the familiar face and the hand dropped suddenly to the dirt. Charley died right there in front of him, with not so much as a goodbye. Then, as the shock wore off and time sped back up to normal, Bane heard the echo of the rifle shot and smelled the trail of smoke from the barrel. He took one last look at his only friend, and then back up in the direction of the shot. Bane began growling uncontrollably as his teeth curled into a vicious snarl. His synths trembled with unquenchable anger and the world changed color. He saw yellow at first, then orange flares, and finally the bright red flames of immeasurable fury. Bane threw his synths wide and lifted his voice in challenge to the one, the careless murderer who had taken his friend.
Dreko stepped back involuntarily as the trumpeting roar shattered the serenity of the forest around him; something was crashing through the underbrush, crushing bushes and toppling small trees in its path. Then, a flash of brown carapace emerged and vanished again, and the crashing sounds grew louder. A pshycic twinge came from the left, and Dreko turned with his canister rifle as the form of a hydralisk, blind with fury, was rampaging toward him. He whipped the rifle up and let the barrel blaze. The explosive canister flew through the air in an arc, sailing toward its target. Bane took the shot head-on, the explosion engulfing him in flames. Dreko's eyes grew wide as the beast emerged from the flames, bounding ever closer, ignoring the pain of the burns, striving to finish the one deed it felt remained important in the universe. Dreko, still shocked that the heavily modified canister rifle had failed to bring down the monster, unslung his poison flechette pistol. Round after round, Dreko coldly and calmly fed shots into the raging monstrosity, but none punched through his thick carapace. The hyrdalisk was closing the distance, Dreko had to act fast. Reloading his depleted pistol, he prepared to meet the Zerg head on. Dreko reached out with his psionic power, trying to get a sense on what the animal was going to do. He reached into the mind of the hydralisk, and despite pushing through an unnatural level of psionic power, Dreko finally dove into the core of the hydralisk. SENTIENT? Drekos mind was a race of questions. How did this unnatural, freakishly powerful hydralisk come into being? How was it sentient? Was this the dark rumor that matched only his own in the fringe worlds; a dark, terrifying monster that hunts the apparent unjust? The immortal being who is the finality of the Zerg DNA structuring? Incredible. This was possibly the greatest moments of Drekos life. His psionic power brimmed at its full capacity. He was about to face down the greatest natural species the universe had ever known. The two greatest hunters in the galaxy, living or dead, in one showdown, the battle whos outcome could change the very fabric of existence. And Dreko, like he always did, would win.
The hydralisk closed the distance, and Dreko could see the flicker of death in the macabre blades that whipped towards him. He threw his flechette pistols away; they would only slow him down. He unslung his canister rifle, and put some rounds to the beasts chest. The steady booming of outgoing C-14 explosive bolts was matched only by Dreko's heart. The hydralisk snarled in pain and fury as the shells exploded at point-blank range, ripping his chest cavity. But Bane didn't hesistate, rearing his right synth back and throwing it forward again, violently shattering the canister rifle into splinters of metal. His left synth came back as the right struck, and snapped forward with a wild swing at Dreko's neck. The synth whipped out in a shallow arc, it's shimmering surface glinting in the sunlight, but Dreko was not there to recieve the punishment. Backflipping, he landed six feet away, then jumped in with a spin kick aimed at the beast's head. Bane blinked with the blinding speed of the manuever as his left synth wiffed the empty air. Bane swung out with his right at the flying target of the ghost and Dreko spun in mid-air, barely missing the blades. Landing on two feet, Dreko moved in to shatter the spine of the seemingly un-beatable hydralisk. A double punch from Dreko caught Bane in the back, and he was quick to counter. The fists thunked against rocky carapace and Bane turned, giving Dreko his wicked hydralisk grin to show that the blow did nothing before backhanding his enemy with the blunt edge of one synth, sending him tumbling into the under-brush. Dreko used the momentum to perform a languid somersault, getting back on his feet. Bane tore through the wall of the foreset, searching for his elusive prey. He snapped and hacked trees, roaring his fury into the clouded sky. He chopped a fern out of the way, and was rewarded with a well aimed roundhouse kick to the jaw, shattering some of his razor sharp teeth, sending the glittering shards to the dirt. Dreko leapt over the beast's tail, and sprinted for his devistated canister rifle, hoping to ram some of the explosive charges down the throat of this Zerg menace. But Bane, in his fury, could move quickly as well. Only two steps away from his rifle, Dreko felt a blinding pain take his left leg. Spinning off balance, Dreko landed on the ground, and was able to get a good look at his wound. A hydralisk's needle spin lay buried in the ground. It had punctured one of the most hardened steels known to man, found only in the Ghost suit, and after that, had punctured through Dreko's own Zerg-modified skin. Seeing that his shot had hit its mark, Bane moved in for the kill. Growling terribly above the fallen Terran hero, Bane lifted one synth high and prepared to take the ghost's head smooth off his shoulders with one, swift attack. But the hydralisk paused and looked down, and sensing a source powerful source of psionic energy radiating from the Terran beneath his own blades. But the twinge of insanity came flooding back to the creature's eyes as it shook its head, remembering his only friend laying dead in the woods behind them. Bane wasted no more time and lunged with a deadly stab at Dreko's throat, following with a second swing with his other synth. Hacking with both blades, Bane slashed towards the injured Ghost. Dreko smiled inwardly to himself. This was going to hurt. He rocked back onto the upper part of his spine, and then used his momentum to leap over the first blade, the one sweeping in from the right. Fully expecting the other to slash across his belly, Dreko arched his back, causing the blade to snick through the right arm of his suit, and a flash of sparks erupted from the equipment, spewing in Bane's eyes as the blades cut the main power flowing through his suit. An average Ghost, at this point, would have thought the battle lost: no power means no cloak. Shivian Dreko is no average Ghost. Activating his secondary system, a mini backup generator kicked in, flooding power back through the damaged systems. Now, it was Dreko who held the advantage. This beserking hydralisk should have no concept of his Ghost suit, never mind the backup generator he had personally installed, totally outside regulation equipment. Dreko quickly spun away, as the beast shook the sparks free of its pocked carapace. Dreko circled the growling beast, trying to sense or see some vestige of the intelligence that he had sensed before; but alas, it seemed to be gone; buried beneath layer upon layer of bottomless rage. The hydralisk shot foreward, pressing the attack. Despite his wounded leg, Dreko managed to retrieve his Katana, brandishing it bravely as the hydralisk closed in again. Sparks flew as the hydralisk's bone synths and the hardened steel of the Katana clashed together and were hurled apart. Bane swung with his left and Drekeo's sword was there again, knocking the offending blade away. Bane snarled in frustration and brought both synths together in a movement that prevented his enemy from blocking them both at once. But Dreko was ready and ducked as the blades parted the air just above him. Bane took a second too long recovering from his attack and Dreko shot up, swinging the Katana in a wide arc aiming for the hydralisk's throat. Bane lunged, faster than any so large should be able to move, but the blade caught him squarely on the side of his jaw. The hydralisk's head was knocked to the side from the blow, and chips of carapace flew with the impact of the razor sharp blade. Dreko noticed the hesitation and swung the blade back to the right, repeating the attack. It caught him on the other side of the face and Bane snarled, doubling back from the blow. Blood flew in a tiny little stream from the whirling Katana as Dreko side stepped another wild swing from the deadly synths. Bane turned his head back to the ghost, revealing an ugly cracked gash across its face. A tiny trickle of blood seeped from it. This gave Dreke confidence, the terrible monster actually bleeds like every other mortal. Some of the blood ran into the beast's gapping mouth, and it put a synth to its face. Dreko knew it was now or never. He charged in while the monster was preoccupied inspecting its wound. Dreko held his Katana out at a dead run, watching the needle point meet Bane's thick chest cavity. Bane was just alittle slow catching the ghost's attack, but that split second was all that a warrior like Dreko needed. The Katana's tiny point broke through the carapace, and Bane roared in outrage, smashing the attacker's shoulder wickedly with his powerful right synth. Dreko tumbled to the left, involuntarily letting go of his Katana handle as his whole arm went suddenly numb. Sparks and pieces of armor flew with the blow as Dreko hit the dirt hard. Dreko tried to lean up on his left arm, but winched with a dull murmur of pain and he looked down. His arm was hanging by a shred of flesh and armor from his ghost suit, bent in a hideous angle just below the shoulder. The synth had parted the welded alloys, ripping through and dislocating the arm within. He only had one arm. He looked up at the hydralisk that should have been ripping his spine out. But the creature had stumbled back with his own swing, and Dreko spied the glinting Katana handle protruding akwardly out of its chest. Blood gushed forth, soaking the ground as his wound was doing now, but somehow, the monster still stood. Dreko reached forward to the creatures mind, trying to find what kept this thing going. He only saw the same blind fathoms of rage, slowly pulsing duller and duller as it died from blood loss. But the beast had strength yet, its last strength, fueled by that incredible anger, and it charged in to finish the deed, despite the thick blade that hampered its movements. Dreko had no weapons left, and his hands proved pathetically useless against the thick carapace. All that remained was his mind. Standing, Dreko summoned the dark recesses of his essense, though he dreaded those dark corners of his being, doing the only thing he could think of to stop the beast and save himself. Heat vapors started rising in a circle around them as Dreko brought the depths of his psionic power to the surface. Bane noticed these obvious signs of an approaching psionic storm, but payed them no heed, only the thought of ripping this human into tiny pieces before he died mattered. Dreko only stood with its good arm to the sky, summoning the attack as Bane lunged in. In that instant, angry red and gold sheets of lighting engulfed the clearing in fire, setting the surrounding trees and shrubery ablaze. Bane roared in pain as the psionic lighting fried his flesh in his armored shell, and the incredible light blinded his eyes. Bane swung at the unstoppable lighting that flowed forth, but his attacks only bought dreko more time to roast him with the lighting. Bane snarled and raged, his carapace starting to smolder and char in all over. "The lighting can't be stopped," Bane thought vaugely as he stared into the turrent of white light that ripped at him, "but it's source is still mortal, it can still be slain." Trembling to stay afoot, Bane lunged on against the unreal flow of psionic arcs. Dreko could vaguely sense the the monstrosity writhing and screaming in the flames, bursting into a crackling ball of fire beneath the heat of the psionic storm, but his body wouldn't respond as it finally stumbled his way.

Bane growled with sweet satisfaction as he felt both his synths rip wide into his enemy, and, despite the fire that consumed him, Bane gave his synths a sharp jerk upwards, lifting Dreko off his feet. Dreko felt the two synths puncture up through his abdomen, ripping a clean slit. And so, his energy reserves fading, Dreko focussed his mind on one final thing: the death of an enemy. Dreko drew his life-force, and drew on the life force from the synths in his rib cage, and brought the white hot lightning to a higher intensity, trapping the two in a whirl wind of furious white light. Just as suddenly as it began, the crackling energy vanished, leaving a smoldering forest behind. In the middle of the clearing were the two warriors, at the center of a charred black crater in the earth. Bane stood for a few seconds longer, his synths trembling, as he and the Ghost locked eyes for the final time. It seemed like the emerald eyes simply would not lose their fire, nor would the black-yellow eyes of the hydralisk give up their mad rage. Warriors to the end. Finally, the emerald eyes faded, and clouded over, but not before Dreko's split lips parted into a blood-filled smile. Bane didn't get a change to enjoy the sight for long, because the enemy became blurry in his eyes as well. The strength drained from his arms like someone had pulled a plug and Bane whimpered weakly, trying to throw the ghost clear before he toppled over backwards. In the end, they both fell, hitting the dirt across from each other at the same time. And there they died, the two greatest warriors in all of Starcraft, two opposites of different worlds meeting the same end, one in which they were bound by fate, but one they will never truly see.

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