The Consequences of Change:
A "Pitch Black" Fanfic
A Sequel to "Redemption"
By Cory Smith
CHAPTER 1
The movie "Pitch Black" and all it's original characters are the property of USA Films, et al. This story is for entertainment purposes only and not for profit. All characters original to the story are the property of the author.
He was going to kill her!
No doubt about it.
As soon as he found out about Toni and the baby, he'd have kittens.
But Audrey sighed tiredly when she realized that she had no other choice.
It was up to her to find a safe place for her friend Toni Platz and her month old son Hill. Toni's stepfather, Burt, was a real work of art. A lazy, crazy son of a bitch that liked to hit first and talk later. Losing her mom four years ago when she was twelve, Toni had been at the mercy of her stepfather's skull fucked mind ever since.
He'd finally snapped earlier that morning and threatened to kill the baby if he ever saw it again. Toni escaped from the house while he slept off a bender. Running to Audrey in tears, terrified beyond belief.
Audrey had met her in a math class six months ago and they had become close friends quickly. She always thought of it as like attracting like. Though they looked nothing alike, Toni had the same haunted look that Audrey once had. But without the bravado. She was just one beaten puppy that was trying to stay unnoticed and therefore not a target.
When Audrey had taken her under wing, she was already five months pregnant by her slug of a stepfather.
She held the sleeping baby as she led her frightened and weary friend towards the apartment she shared with her own "family." Looking back, she saw Toni nervously glance over her shoulder. Waiting for the psychofuck of a stepfather to come after her. Now more than ever, Audrey was grateful for her adoptive father and mother.
Richard Carolyn might be a work of art in his own right, but Audrey never doubted his love for her. A quite man, he radiated an aura of menace. He kept his head clean shaven and his eyes covered with goggles. His cafe au lait skin highlighted his muscular build that was usually encased in all black. His voice, a deep and rough baritone, had been known to cause people to lose control of their bladder.
He could be moody, mean and stubborn - no doubt about it. But she knew that if danger ever came her way, it would have to go through six foot four, two hundred fifteen pounds of purely lethal strength to get to her. He would die for her. Whenever the old fears came to haunt her in the cold night, that thought alone calmed her and allowed her to sleep.
Her adoptive mother was the complete opposite. Zarifa Cholena, Zar, was the antithesis of Richard Carolyn. Short and pudgy she was also nurturing, outgoing, demonstrative and loving. She gave Audrey the stability that had been so missing throughout most of her fifteen years. Her gentleness and understanding healed the scars of the past and smoothed over any conflicts that arose in the home. Not a beautiful woman, she was nonetheless pretty with her curly brown hair, bright blue eyes and freckles. And most of all, her ready smile.
Adored by Richard, she emanated love as only a woman with a tragic past could. She taught Audrey by example that surviving in spirit was as important as keeping the body alive.
Together Richard and Zar made a home for Audrey. The first she had since very early childhood.
And now she was going to disrupt that happy home by bringing in trouble. And through no fault of their own, that's exactly what Toni and Hill were. Trouble.
But what else could she do?!
She couldn't turn away Toni when she'd found Audrey in the shopping mall they always hung out at. The girl was a pathetic mess. Skinny and weak in the first place, she hadn't yet recovered from the birth. Her pale skin and lank blonde hair emphasizing the shadow's under her green eyes. She'd been in tears and when pressed to explain what was wrong. Breaking down and telling Audrey the whole ugly story.
Audrey was almost nauseous when she finished listening. After all she had seen and been through herself, she still found it hard to fathom how anybody could treat another human being that way. Especially a young girl and a baby.
Toni had begged her to hide herself and Hill. Immediately Audrey agreed. And knew she would have to get Richard involved. There was no way she could handle this on her own. Not even Zar would be able to do this one by herself. Because when, not if, but WHEN Burt Leffner came looking for Toni, there was going to be some ugly shit going down. The kind that Richard Carolyn handled like a pro.
Finally coming to her apartment, she took a deep breath. Girding herself for the coming explosion. Maybe she'd get lucky and Richard was in a good mood. Well, he was never in a good mood. She'd settled for a not pissed mood then. Activating the voice lock, she ushered Toni and the baby in before her as the door opened then closed.
Richard Carolyn was in a pissed mood.
Work had been a bitch. The assholes who toiled along side him on the loading docks just seemed to get more stupid as time went on. The urge to tell his foreman to take the job and stick where the sun don't shine was almost too strong to resist. But then common sense took over and made him realize that he needed the job to support Zar and Audrey. It didn't mean that he had to like it though. Or be nice about it.
He'd already been edgy due to the lack of sex. Zar had been on her period. Normally a highly sexual man in the first place, he was especially wound up last night. So he told her not to worry about a little blood and mess. But she'd just rolled her eyes at him and told him to get a hobby. It wouldn't kill him to abstain for a few days, like he normally did.
Get a hobby?!
Hell, didn't the woman know she WAS his hobby?!
The world he used to inhabit, one of death and darkness and soul destroying self-loathing, had been replaced with life and love and the gift of redemption. She had given him that new life. She had become his life. And he got very cranky when he didn't have complete access to the pleasures of that new life.
With all the annoyances in his life going on at that minute, he didn't need any more. That should've been his first clue that something worse was coming along.
Looking up at the sound of the door opening, he watched Audrey, holding a sleeping baby, usher in a wan looking teen age girl. The alarm bells started going off in his highly sensitive mind. If trouble had a smell, it smelled like this kid and her brat.
Great, just what he needed.
He knew with one look at Audrey's face that she was bringing the girl and the baby to him for protection. The old him, sometimes he would say the true him, would have been the last person in the world anyone came to for protection. But a little tragedy on a death filled planet called Taurus 2 had changed all that.
Before the crash landing, he'd been Richard B. Riddick. One of the most feared men in the known galaxy. His brutality in dealing with his murder victims was legendary. Seen more as an animal on two legs rather than a man. But the crash of the Hunter-Gratzner had changed all that.
The survivor's, including Audrey (who was calling herself Jack at the time), had grudgingly looked to him for existence. Nobody had ever relied on him before. Even if they had, he wasn't sure he would have helped them.
But something had touched him about Audrey, Imam and Carolyn Fry. Touched a heart that he had thought long dead. And he found himself risking his life to save theirs.
He had crashed on that planet Richard Riddick, psychopathic killer, a chained animal with a bit in his mouth, feared, hated. A master at the skull fuck who had let some hack doctor "shine" his eyes. It had given him the ability to see in the dark. Handy in prison, though it had it's disadvantages in the light of day. But then, he hadn't been expecting to see too much daylight. Incapable of any emotion that didn't help with survival. He had flown away from the planet Richard Carolyn, hero to all, father to Audrey, friend to Imam. A man whose soul had been reborn due to the life Carolyn Fry had sacrificed.
But he hadn't let himself totally rejoin the human race. Some part of him had resisted letting go of the old Riddick. Zar had changed all that.
She had given him unconditional love and acceptance. Valued him for his past as well as his abilities. She had valued him for himself. But he'd almost fucked it up.
Came within an inch of losing Zar's life and love. And almost killed Audrey with his own stubbornness and unwillingness to accept his new lease on life. Unwilling to accept that he was worthy of love. Whether it be a woman's, a child's or a friend's. Driving her to attempt suicide.
Fortunately he'd had gotten a brain in his head before Audrey died. His blood had saved her. His Profearaben tainted blood. And the fact that he, and only he, had been the one that could save her from death, had given him an extra sense of responsibility toward his new family.
Part of him didn't like that responsibility. The old part. There was so much freedom in thinking only of yourself.
But the even older part of himself, the part that was still a lonely child, abandoned soon after birth to a liquor store trash bin, raised by uncaring foster families, told him he had everything he had ever wanted. He was needed, truly needed, for the first time in his sorry ass life. If responsibility was the price for that need, then so be it. It was a small price to pay for the love and acceptance that Zar and Audrey gave him.
Acknowledging the responsibility didn't mean he had to welcome more of it heaped on him though.
As he looked Audrey cradling the tiny baby, he had no doubt that was exactly what was in store for him. He was comfortable admitting his love for the skinny teenager. She was definitely a kid worthy of his respect. Tall for her fifteen years, her hair was only a little longer than his. A thin, dark layer of fuzz really. It was her eyes that really stood out. Big and blue, they were the feature of her elfin face that caught most peoples attention. They could be bright with bravery or bright with fear.
Once again, Audrey wanted Richard to make the bad things go away. In his mind he let himself breathe a little sigh of weariness as he thought of the duties that came along with loving people.
It's not that he disliked Toni Platz.
When Audrey had started to bring her to their home, he recognized right away the similarities in life that had made Audrey take her under her wing. But the girl was one of those born victims. He had always been able to spot them a mile away. She wasn't like Audrey. Audrey fought back until she just couldn't take it anymore. Only then did she give in. Toni had never developed that sense of determination to survive. Life just kept heaping more and more on her, and she just came closer and closer to the grave.
Unfortunately, people like Toni seemed to taint those around them with the same brush of disaster that was befalling them. Audrey could be one of those people. He wouldn't let her get hurt just because she felt sorry for some weakling. He knew of Toni's stepfather and that he was the disaster just waiting to happen.
Burt Leffner worked on the loading dock next to his. He made the Riddick of the past look like a cantankerous old man. Richard had never met him, but he'd seen him and he'd heard the stories of the man's diabolical rages and his perverted treatment of women. There had been rumors that he had killed Toni's mother. He'd even done time in a slam for a few years. All it had made him was meaner and more warped. On that point at least Richard could understand. It had done the same thing to him. He didn't want the sorry excuse for a human being anywhere near Zar or Audrey.
So he hadn't gone out of his way to make Toni feel welcome whenever she had visited Audrey. He wasn't cruel to her, just not talkative. And he would stare at her with his un-goggled eyes. Knowing he was making her uncomfortable.
He hoped she would move on to someone else's life. Get her out of Audrey's. But Toni, heavily pregnant, scared and brutalized, had clung pathetically to the strong and sympathetic Audrey. It must of been a repercussion of the new soul he was sporting around, but he hadn't been able to do anything more brutal to scare her away. So he contented himself watching out for Audrey. Making sure she never went anywhere near Burt.
But that wouldn't be the issue now. Not if he was interpreting the look on Audrey and Toni's faces. They wouldn't be going near Burt. Burt would be coming to them.
And Richard was going to have to make sure no one got hurt. Well, maybe Burt could get hurt. That would be just fine. But he knew he had to avoid trouble.
He was an escaped convict after all. And even though the authorities thought he had died back on Taurus 2, thanks to Audrey and Imam, he was sure his history of being able to survive tremendous odds had some people questioning the veracity of his death. All it would take is some interplanetary bulletin about a man with altered, silvered eyes being involved in an altercation and that would set off alarms throughout the galaxy. All Hell would descend on Polaris Station, his home for the last year and a half. He had no doubt it would suck Zar and Audrey into it's cauldron along with him.
So Burt, when he came (and he would come), would have to be dealt with quietly and quickly. Permanently.