05-06-2016, 10:57 AM
“So, I’ve been driving nonstop for like two days straight. I wish I could ask you to take the wheel.” Caira felt the tension forming in knots in her shoulders, and spread ice to her knuckles. Every part of her body was stiff, and she longed to sleep, even if it was just for a couple of hours.
“You know I would gladly take the wheel if I was human.” her lizard friend seemed to sigh.
“I know,” Caira agreed, “Well, hopefully if the wizards can help you, you won’t have to endure this much longer.” The reassurance she brought to words was partly meant to soothe her own storming thoughts.
The jeep’s wheels flushed up a huge cloud of billowing dust into the air, and its tracks would’ve made it easy for the bandits and enemies she had in the dunes to track her, but Caira didn’t care for two reasons. One, her speed was unmatched, unparalleled, she had imagined the best mount she could summon, and with the suggestion of the lizard, it had been an automobile, one that was similar but less advanced than those she had encountered in Coruscant.
Two, it would not lure the only enemy she wanted to see the most back to her. No, Merik was likely disappeared into the dunes somewhere, or escaped beyond. There were many other verses out there that Caira hadn’t visited. Plus, Caira could do with the slaying of a few bandits. Not to kill them, no, that was not who she was. But apprehending them and putting them in the back would’ve been a synch. She felt like she was on top of the world, having just met Omni and uncovered the truth.
It would take more than two days to traverse the entire desert, even at top speed with this vehicle. And that was just the journey unhitched. Caira finally skidded to a stop, kicking up a decent cover of cloud and dust in case she were ambushed while she got out of the car to stretch. Funny, she couldn’t see a thing through the dust, and was thankful for her sunglasses as her tongue tasted the less-than-fragrant dirt as it rose in the air. She’d be coughing that up in the morning.
Her legs squished down on the sand, and started to wobble as Caira nosedived into the hot sand. “O-oof,” she muttered and lifted her head up, she had eaten a mouthful of hot dirt and her face was red, brazen with the scalding heat. She groaned and flipped herself over as her hair matted against the sand, and the grains found their way into the tangles of her long, dark hair.
Because of her attire, she was not worried about the burning of sand, for she was protected by a thin layer of Coruscant fabric, one that was adaptable to heat and the like. For a while she laid there, as the dust settled on her forehead and closed eyes. The sun bore down on her once more, and she found herself a sleep while the lizard basked in the sun, letting it bathe over his cold reptilian flesh.
The car’s horn honked and roused her awake, “COME ON, GIRL. LET’S GO. There’s marauders after us! And something tells me they don’t just want your car!”
Caira jumped to her feet and launched into action, pressing the key into the ignition and slamming her foot on the pedal with a force that burnt rubber against the smoldering sand.
“Do you think we can outrun them?” she asked him, for he was well-versed in the ways of the inhabitants of the sand.
“That depends, how many enemies do you have out here?” his diamond eyes glanced up at the side mirror, and he appeared to sigh, the enemies that were steamrolling toward them, were coming not for her car, but for blood. The distinguished mop of her hair shook out in the convertible roof behind her, and the silky shine from her recognizable outfit of black must have caught the wayfaring bandits’ attention.
Caira looked at him, he had strapped the seatbelt around his lizard form in the best way he could. “Too many to count.”
“That mean’s there’s a price on yer head, girl, good job. Luckily for you, you’ve got me. And I have a unique ability that can get us out of this. Turn right and continue going east for about ten miles.” Bullets began to zoom by her head. Her hands turned the wheel when she felt something knock on her skull. A sharp pain bounced into her brain. Her teeth grit under the force of her jaw, and the wheel spun in her hands as she executed the ninety degree turn.
Bullets bounced off of the back of the metal jeep again, but lucky for Caira they were unable to get another clear shot. A huge bruise was welling underneath her unbroken skin, and Caira still felt the sting of hot lead on the side of her head. The bullet had seemingly ricocheted off. The girl doubted she would get that lucky again.
As Caira drove and ducked and did her best to steer straight, the bullets kept flying like a hailstorm of death. It was amidst this chaos that Caira did not see that clumps of darkness on the horizon. As she drove closer, their forms became more and more apparent. And more and more bizarre.
“SCORPIONS?!”
“An army.” the lizard hissed.
But they were not the size of regular bugs, nor did they resemble spiders. They were taller than a man, and their tales were long, venomous, and thrashing.
And amidst their chase, they were headed straight for them.
...
It all happened in a blur. Suddenly she had run over several of them, but merely crushed some legs in the process of her hope to get past the bug-like creatures. They were six feet high, and their tails danced into the air before lunging for her, the car’s leather seat was now split in two, and fluff was spitting out of it. That fluff could’ve been her, because it had missed its target, Caira, by about six inches to the right.
She breathed in a sigh of relief, but was startled as more started to chase her automobile. What was she supposed to do now? Where was she supposed to go? There were nearly a hundred of the monsters, and the guys in the car chasing her were -almost- managing better than she was.
The one thing scorpions seemed to hate more than being run over, was getting shot at. And bullets and grenades were all the bandits had. Her attackers worked hard to follow Caira, but were forced to abandon it after one of their friend got speared in the chest by the creature’s venomous sword of a tail.
She caught a glimpse of the man’s contorting face as death soon came to him and his form wilted into a mushy mess of unraveled skin and bone. Caira thought that the men were horrible for targeting her, and in her experience, knew that most were guilty of the most immoral crimes, but she did not believe that death was something to be delivered in such a way that it gave them dishonor. The best way to die, was to die doing what you believed in.
...
With that in her mind, Caira decided to fight. But then, how did one fight a hundred scorpion-beasts that were larger than you? Her vehicle dodged their forms as they whizzed past, and dang, were they fast. They had been charging the same direction she had been going before her turn, which meant reaching the town had been inevitable. And while she didn’t want to think about it, the entire town would be overwhelmed even IF she did find a way to escape the hoard. So, she asked her lizard friend, “So, we’re here, what do we do now? What is their weakness. I won’t let them go any further, the townspeople will be overrun.”
“And you think I have any clue? Well, I have learned my fair share about scorpions, but I’m afraid this battle might just be too big for even you, Ms. Ayryn...”
Her eyes quickly swept the scene. The scorpions made good time over the dunes, their bodies stood tall and easily traversed the desert. They moved at great speed, and the only ones getting damaged at all were those who had encountered her attackers. All of whom, were now dead.
The color of their corpses were distinctly pale, and their expressions were withered and contorted, from the pain of the venom in their veins, which was the last thing they felt before they died.
“Tch. You had to go and make things difficult..” Caira muttered and began unraveling her plan, which had suddenly struck her as she got a glimpse of the dead men’s car, still rolling slightly forward and into the sea of scorpions.
At this point though, she had to stop them, for they were plowing through the distraction as though they were a river over a stone. Caira’s palm pressed the horn, and the ungodly sound radiated across the dunes. She spun doughnuts in the sand, and made herself into a greater distraction than she had already. She ran over a few, which didn’t do much, because of their armor, and then took to the head of the raging pack.
They traveled forward, at what her speedometer called ’30 MPH’ headed for town, as meanwhile, their venomous tails targeted her tires, hating the frequency of the sound that was produced by her jeep. She needed to lead them off-course. Anything to buy time.
But despite her hopes to lead them astray, they wouldn’t take the bait, even at the incessant howl of her car’s horn. It was time for plan B. Caira took the wheel in one hand, pressed her foot with the other, and focused all she could on summoning. This was difficult, more of a challenge than she had faced in a long time, because she had to summon this while she was driving, and also, while her car was dodging the scorpions at top speed. The same scorpions that were trying to kill her, and take out her wheels at the same time.
Aside from that, she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to, given that she was in a moving vehicle. But slowly the shape of a giant tub appeared to take form, before weighing heavily on the car’s back seat and causing her to need to gently lay into the accelerator again.
More sand from beneath her tires flew into the air, while her jeep slowly lost its speed to friction in the sand. Caira’s stomach clenched as the creatures began to gain on her once more. Her head dodged quite a few tails, and she was even forced to draw her sword and slice one of the pincers off. But enough was enough, and luckily, Caira knew what she was coming up on.
On the horizon, and growing quickly, was a mass of land and rock, one mountain with a single crevice split between it. One that would give her the advantage she needed to defeat these beasts so they could never kill again.
She almost wanted to yell at them to stop now, so that she would not have to witness, and cause, the carnage that she had planned. The stampede continued to roll over the flat dunes and left a cloud of dust raised in the air behind them, as Caira watched through her rear and side view windows.
“Think you can manage to pull the plug on that thing?” Caira spoke to the lizard, who was already on it as she drove the jeep straight into the mouth of the mountain.
It was as if she was driving through a dried up riverbed. There were cliffs and walls of rock lining the entire way of about forty feet high. The sides of the jeep sparked against the rock as she made her way through the narrow byway, the stampede was hot on her heels, and would soon overwhelm her. Meanwhile, the “glug.. glug... glug” of the emptying jug could be heard as the smothering scent of gasoline reached her nose as the iguana had loosened the cap of the jug, and a steady stream poured out and filled the crevice with the liquid acid. The path became more narrow, and the Jeep finally lurched to a stop, as she was thrown nearly right through the windshield.
Caira waited, she wanted to make sure that enough if not all of them had made it into the crevice. A few crawled overhead, and she skewered them with her sword, bursts of goo leaked out and splashed on her. Next, she grabbed the iguana and climbed over the convertible’s windshield and leaped from the hood of the car.. She put well past ten feet of distance between her and the jeep and then took one of her daggers from her hips and lobbed it high in the air. It streaked in an arch across the sky, much resembling the smooth trajectory of an arrow, before it made its easy decline.
As the dagger clashed with the ground, it ignited, on target, into the still streaming pool of gasoline. Caira had under a second to dive behind a little mound of rocks before the blaze of heat ignited with a blast of energy throughout the entire crevice, which acted as a funnel for the sheer force of the power, and scalded anything in its path.
The rocks of the entire mountainous structure were left scalded and charred black. The last of the heat was sucked up with the air, and disintegrated in the air far above. Meanwhile, the scent of burnt ... creature, flashed to her nose with the same sharpness of the peculiar scent. It smelled as though someone had left the food in the oven for far too long.
Caira opened her eyes, and then dared to peek out over the rock, only to see the jeep in ruins, and the carcasses of many of the scorpions that had been in the stampede. The heat still crackled in their bug-ly flesh as it burnt and simmered the last of their remains.
The revolting scent lingered until she was well out of that eerie canal. But the good news for her, was that she had not been bothered by any of the other bandits, who may have witnessed the explosion from afar, or survived the experience in a similar way she had. The iguana squirmed from her arm, and mounted her hover board once more. The crystal glowed as the lizard spoke, “A hundred scorpions in one fell swoop.... You called it pretty damn close.”
...
It was a cold night, and Caira was still trudging on through the sand, on foot. She was tired, and didn’t think she had the strengths or will of mind to summon any form of transport at the time. If you remember correctly, she hadn’t slept for at least three days now, minus the brief nap that she was awoken, in her opinion, far too early for her liking.
She groaned, the stars shimmered in the night sky high above her. Caira’s muscles were fatigued and the stress of the chase had both taken a lot out of her, and the dry, bleakness of the desert had worn her out. The chill of the desert wasn’t helping either. She was shivering, all over, as her body tried to regulate the heat. During the explosion part of her suit had been broken, particularly the part that had helped to actually maintain her heat. It was just her luck. But she was sure Karn had it worse.
He clung to the hover board that slowly propelled off the ground and it seemed that even the gentle wind struck into his bones like an icy fire. “Karn, I’m not sure I can do this anymore.. I need to take five.” Caira said to the lizard.
“FINALLY. I’ve been waiting for you to say that for hours.” his blue crystal glowed brightly in the night.
“Well,” Caira sighed, “I wanted to put as much distance between the Bandits and scorpions as possible.”
“This has been a long and perilous journey,” Karn stated, “I see all that you have endured in your eyes, Ayryn.”
Shimmering violet in the night, they flicked to him, fascinated, though beaming weakly as she stumbled to a clumsy fall in the sand. She laid there and looked up at the stars. She was untouched for a while by the ice of the sand, because her body was so numb with fatigue. Her eyelids weakly laid open. Her journey back was not as easy, but it had gone by a lot quicker. By what Caira could tell, she was almost near the town.
Her eyes closed in the darkness as she dreamed of finally sleeping in a bed...
...
Low rumblings shook the sand below her. Caira’s eyes burst open in fear. It felt like she had been asleep for only a blink, and her body groaned and protested in anguish when she tried to rouse herself awake and sit upright.
Her first thought was of betrayal - since it had happened so recently before- but when she got her bearings, she found that the lizard had curled in a ball next to hear, trying to take advantage of her body heat so that he would not freeze to death. Karn too, was awoken by the disturbance, and Caira’s eyes shook as the fog of her breath clouded her vision. The tip of her nose felt like a hard chunk of ice. It was probably well below freezing, and it may have worked out for the better, that she had not fallen to the charms of sleep, and went into a hypothermic coma, fated to death in the dunes.
The rumblings grew closer. They had a basic pace, one after the next, “thump thump... thump thump...” Caira’s eyes grew wide as she went for her sword.
Over a small dune, the figure emerged. Through the darkness of midnight, it’s silhouette bent the space around it. It was translucent, and in the shape of a mighty lion, surpassing at least ten feet in height, much taller than the army of scorpions she had burnt to a crisp.
And it bounded over the crest of the small hill and seemed to be heading straight for her. The best way she could describe it, was as a huge shadow lion. Some sort of ghostly beast, and she remembered what Merik had said about it it as it charged, that it was one of the most feared predators of the dunes. It could kill even a powerful prime in an instant.
Caira gulped and the beast lunged closer, its claws, though translucent, dug up clumps of dirt and threw them in the air behind him. Its mane swayed with its momentum, and its eyes glowed a pale blue, full of rage and distraught emotion. Caira felt the onset on carnage and braced for the beast’s impact, as her sword was held up, gleaming, and ready to spear the lion. Her grasp was unsteady, her frozen fingers would not wrap around the hilt of the sword with enough strength to even take on the beast and give her half of a chance.
Before she would try to do such a thing, and while her hands were both shaking from fear and the cold night air, she decided that the beast deserved a chance. Should she kill a beast, or even attempt to harm it, when in its eyes, SHE was the one doing wrong? On these dunes, even the humans were territorial. Not to mention even the most fiercest beast had struggles. Such as fighting off the cannibals that roamed on his land.
Caira felt such empathy for the beast, and the wildness in its eyes, she laid down her sword. It was tossed several feet from her and its cold steel lay limp on the stand. Instead, the prime extended her hand, which now glowed with a similar determination in her eyes. Light shimmered and sprung forth as Caira warned the beast in a clear yell, “Stay back, or I will have no choice but to fight you.”
Her voice carried strong and willfully over to the lion’s ears, his eyes still flared with rage, and Caira wondered if she even had the strength to back up her threat. The lion’s pace faltered for a moment, but it’s momentum did not heed. Caira was forced to fire her immobilizing magic, as stars sprung forth from the palm of her hand, and she traced a pattern into the air. Glowing rope appeared around the beast and coiled around him, binding his legs until he could no longer move.
Upon the sand the mighty cat thrashed and his jaws, which were not bound, snarled and frothed with such tremendous force. It seemed, because of the nature of the magic, that the robe was burning him. Wisps of smoke simmered from his transparent flesh, and the shadowy figure released a roar like no thunder, and like all the thunder, she had ever heard. It was monumental, it called the land below her feet to shudder and quake, and the lion drew in another broken breath as though if it were to be his last, it would be his best and most powerful.
Echoes and reverberations of his roar could be heard across the dunes, while Caira’s eyes widened as she realized the suffering and torture her magic was causing. It would’ve been better, perhaps, had she struck him with the sword. The sword! Her eyes caught a glimpse of the silver sliver, and she dove to grab it, before wielding it over the beast threateningly. The beast noticed as the blade fell down upon him, but when he expected pain, there was only the fading of it.
She had cut his robes, because the light infused in them, was his kind’s mortal enemy. Had Caira hesitated, or waited even a second longer, the beast would be dead, faded into oblivion and never to be seen again. Yet, this was not so, and freedom had come unexpectedly so.
Caira stood tall as the sword was held drooping in her hands. She was in no condition to fight, and she was panting heavy now.
The mighty lion rose, as his shadowy dark skin was lined with the burns, which soon faded from a smoldering shade of red, into the air once more. The lion deemed the girl no longer a threat, and seemed to forget her as he shook off the pain and discomforts, nobly the lion stood proud once more.
Caira became dizzy once more, and fell to a single knee, before mustering the last of her sapping strength to look up at the beast once more.
The lion, now that it had taken its time to shake off its own dishonor, now regarded the girl. Its eyes were softer, and it’s purpose no longer set on killing her, though she was a trespasser on his domain.
It seemed, on the ground next to the lion were the last fragments of glowing, disintegrating rope. The girl continued kneeling, while the lion made of shadows looked upon her. The girl’s empathy for the lion and his pain had been powerful enough so that she had not so much as hesitated to save his life, though, he could have easily rushed at her and ended her singular life, though her existence was immortal. He looked deeply in her eyes, as though judging her strengths, weaknesses, and even her character. Something that startled the lion was that he saw himself in her eyes. While Caira, could easily relate to a being who had a code and stuck to it, she assumed he must have seen the same in her.
His eyes narrowed, and he bent down to sniff her head. As he did this, a gust of warm air breathed on her. The being, though it bore features akin to a ghost, was very much alive.
To the mighty lion, a beast of a very simple, and rational set of rules, one he -like a knight- had devoted his life to. Dedication like that was hard to come by, in just any beast. But everyone had a code of living, even the most powerful monsters had a nature, whether it was cruel, evil, chaotic, just, or good.
More action came than either the lion, or the girl, were expecting, as suddenly, Caira saw movement hastily lunge from behind the lion. A big, black creature had darted out, and under the faded moonlight, Caira could see the sleekness of its form, the shimmering gleam of shell in the darkness, and its dim shadow cast over the ripples of sand.
The creature’s pincer darted toward the lion’s flank. His ears twitched an in an instant, the entire tail had been ripped out by a set of massive jaws. Thrown off to the side, the lion had risked a pinch from one of its claws, the scorpion held on tight, while the lion merely growled at the pain and wretched as his jaws fell on the creature’s shell, and with enough pressure, a loud “SNAP!” was heard as a corresponding crack resulted in the scorpion’s hand breaking right off.
The last one had penetrated into the lion’s silky lack of flesh. It still held the shadow tangibly, but it was nowhere near what violent roars she had heard when the light of the rope became like acid on his flesh. A weakness of light, Caira determined and would have raised her sword to fight along side the mighty beast, had she had any strength left. And the lion used the attachment of the scorpion’s claw to his advantage. He swung the creature into the sand, its many legs still crawling and squirming, as the lion’s mighty fist bore down and delivered a final blow.
The world was turning cold to the girl, but more shapes appeared over the hill of sand, and the lion took every enemy down one by one. He quickly adapted to the chinks in the insects armor, and it became as easy as batting a paw in the right area, to slay the unworthy foe.
Caira lost sight of this though, her eyes would not stop blinking, the dark veil that her eyelids brought to the scene left the entire battle with only sound and her imagination. Weak and weary, Caira could barely keep track of the blurred images her eyes were only half-open for. Before she knew it, she lay on the translucence of his back, and was carried safely by the lion of shadows and toward the direction of the town.
....
Karn had managed to get stashed in her bookbag -along with her favorite hover board- and had managed to hitch the same ride as the girl. She slept on the shadow beast’s back until dawn, during which, his form suddenly turned to shadow, and disintegrated, leaving a lingering promise on her sword. The girl blinked as she looked down at it and noted the subtle tint it had left on her blade. The important part of this, to her, was that it could have been so very easily, the lion’s blood.
The heat bore down on her like that of a fire, while the sand spun in the air, rustled only by a low, heated breeze. Caira continued to walk, as she fished out her compass and expected the dial to have turned. Merik was there, she determined, her eyes narrowed with anger.
The girl trudged on and on.
“You know I would gladly take the wheel if I was human.” her lizard friend seemed to sigh.
“I know,” Caira agreed, “Well, hopefully if the wizards can help you, you won’t have to endure this much longer.” The reassurance she brought to words was partly meant to soothe her own storming thoughts.
The jeep’s wheels flushed up a huge cloud of billowing dust into the air, and its tracks would’ve made it easy for the bandits and enemies she had in the dunes to track her, but Caira didn’t care for two reasons. One, her speed was unmatched, unparalleled, she had imagined the best mount she could summon, and with the suggestion of the lizard, it had been an automobile, one that was similar but less advanced than those she had encountered in Coruscant.
Two, it would not lure the only enemy she wanted to see the most back to her. No, Merik was likely disappeared into the dunes somewhere, or escaped beyond. There were many other verses out there that Caira hadn’t visited. Plus, Caira could do with the slaying of a few bandits. Not to kill them, no, that was not who she was. But apprehending them and putting them in the back would’ve been a synch. She felt like she was on top of the world, having just met Omni and uncovered the truth.
It would take more than two days to traverse the entire desert, even at top speed with this vehicle. And that was just the journey unhitched. Caira finally skidded to a stop, kicking up a decent cover of cloud and dust in case she were ambushed while she got out of the car to stretch. Funny, she couldn’t see a thing through the dust, and was thankful for her sunglasses as her tongue tasted the less-than-fragrant dirt as it rose in the air. She’d be coughing that up in the morning.
Her legs squished down on the sand, and started to wobble as Caira nosedived into the hot sand. “O-oof,” she muttered and lifted her head up, she had eaten a mouthful of hot dirt and her face was red, brazen with the scalding heat. She groaned and flipped herself over as her hair matted against the sand, and the grains found their way into the tangles of her long, dark hair.
Because of her attire, she was not worried about the burning of sand, for she was protected by a thin layer of Coruscant fabric, one that was adaptable to heat and the like. For a while she laid there, as the dust settled on her forehead and closed eyes. The sun bore down on her once more, and she found herself a sleep while the lizard basked in the sun, letting it bathe over his cold reptilian flesh.
The car’s horn honked and roused her awake, “COME ON, GIRL. LET’S GO. There’s marauders after us! And something tells me they don’t just want your car!”
Caira jumped to her feet and launched into action, pressing the key into the ignition and slamming her foot on the pedal with a force that burnt rubber against the smoldering sand.
“Do you think we can outrun them?” she asked him, for he was well-versed in the ways of the inhabitants of the sand.
“That depends, how many enemies do you have out here?” his diamond eyes glanced up at the side mirror, and he appeared to sigh, the enemies that were steamrolling toward them, were coming not for her car, but for blood. The distinguished mop of her hair shook out in the convertible roof behind her, and the silky shine from her recognizable outfit of black must have caught the wayfaring bandits’ attention.
Caira looked at him, he had strapped the seatbelt around his lizard form in the best way he could. “Too many to count.”
“That mean’s there’s a price on yer head, girl, good job. Luckily for you, you’ve got me. And I have a unique ability that can get us out of this. Turn right and continue going east for about ten miles.” Bullets began to zoom by her head. Her hands turned the wheel when she felt something knock on her skull. A sharp pain bounced into her brain. Her teeth grit under the force of her jaw, and the wheel spun in her hands as she executed the ninety degree turn.
Bullets bounced off of the back of the metal jeep again, but lucky for Caira they were unable to get another clear shot. A huge bruise was welling underneath her unbroken skin, and Caira still felt the sting of hot lead on the side of her head. The bullet had seemingly ricocheted off. The girl doubted she would get that lucky again.
As Caira drove and ducked and did her best to steer straight, the bullets kept flying like a hailstorm of death. It was amidst this chaos that Caira did not see that clumps of darkness on the horizon. As she drove closer, their forms became more and more apparent. And more and more bizarre.
“SCORPIONS?!”
“An army.” the lizard hissed.
But they were not the size of regular bugs, nor did they resemble spiders. They were taller than a man, and their tales were long, venomous, and thrashing.
And amidst their chase, they were headed straight for them.
...
It all happened in a blur. Suddenly she had run over several of them, but merely crushed some legs in the process of her hope to get past the bug-like creatures. They were six feet high, and their tails danced into the air before lunging for her, the car’s leather seat was now split in two, and fluff was spitting out of it. That fluff could’ve been her, because it had missed its target, Caira, by about six inches to the right.
She breathed in a sigh of relief, but was startled as more started to chase her automobile. What was she supposed to do now? Where was she supposed to go? There were nearly a hundred of the monsters, and the guys in the car chasing her were -almost- managing better than she was.
The one thing scorpions seemed to hate more than being run over, was getting shot at. And bullets and grenades were all the bandits had. Her attackers worked hard to follow Caira, but were forced to abandon it after one of their friend got speared in the chest by the creature’s venomous sword of a tail.
She caught a glimpse of the man’s contorting face as death soon came to him and his form wilted into a mushy mess of unraveled skin and bone. Caira thought that the men were horrible for targeting her, and in her experience, knew that most were guilty of the most immoral crimes, but she did not believe that death was something to be delivered in such a way that it gave them dishonor. The best way to die, was to die doing what you believed in.
...
With that in her mind, Caira decided to fight. But then, how did one fight a hundred scorpion-beasts that were larger than you? Her vehicle dodged their forms as they whizzed past, and dang, were they fast. They had been charging the same direction she had been going before her turn, which meant reaching the town had been inevitable. And while she didn’t want to think about it, the entire town would be overwhelmed even IF she did find a way to escape the hoard. So, she asked her lizard friend, “So, we’re here, what do we do now? What is their weakness. I won’t let them go any further, the townspeople will be overrun.”
“And you think I have any clue? Well, I have learned my fair share about scorpions, but I’m afraid this battle might just be too big for even you, Ms. Ayryn...”
Her eyes quickly swept the scene. The scorpions made good time over the dunes, their bodies stood tall and easily traversed the desert. They moved at great speed, and the only ones getting damaged at all were those who had encountered her attackers. All of whom, were now dead.
The color of their corpses were distinctly pale, and their expressions were withered and contorted, from the pain of the venom in their veins, which was the last thing they felt before they died.
“Tch. You had to go and make things difficult..” Caira muttered and began unraveling her plan, which had suddenly struck her as she got a glimpse of the dead men’s car, still rolling slightly forward and into the sea of scorpions.
At this point though, she had to stop them, for they were plowing through the distraction as though they were a river over a stone. Caira’s palm pressed the horn, and the ungodly sound radiated across the dunes. She spun doughnuts in the sand, and made herself into a greater distraction than she had already. She ran over a few, which didn’t do much, because of their armor, and then took to the head of the raging pack.
They traveled forward, at what her speedometer called ’30 MPH’ headed for town, as meanwhile, their venomous tails targeted her tires, hating the frequency of the sound that was produced by her jeep. She needed to lead them off-course. Anything to buy time.
But despite her hopes to lead them astray, they wouldn’t take the bait, even at the incessant howl of her car’s horn. It was time for plan B. Caira took the wheel in one hand, pressed her foot with the other, and focused all she could on summoning. This was difficult, more of a challenge than she had faced in a long time, because she had to summon this while she was driving, and also, while her car was dodging the scorpions at top speed. The same scorpions that were trying to kill her, and take out her wheels at the same time.
Aside from that, she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to, given that she was in a moving vehicle. But slowly the shape of a giant tub appeared to take form, before weighing heavily on the car’s back seat and causing her to need to gently lay into the accelerator again.
More sand from beneath her tires flew into the air, while her jeep slowly lost its speed to friction in the sand. Caira’s stomach clenched as the creatures began to gain on her once more. Her head dodged quite a few tails, and she was even forced to draw her sword and slice one of the pincers off. But enough was enough, and luckily, Caira knew what she was coming up on.
On the horizon, and growing quickly, was a mass of land and rock, one mountain with a single crevice split between it. One that would give her the advantage she needed to defeat these beasts so they could never kill again.
She almost wanted to yell at them to stop now, so that she would not have to witness, and cause, the carnage that she had planned. The stampede continued to roll over the flat dunes and left a cloud of dust raised in the air behind them, as Caira watched through her rear and side view windows.
“Think you can manage to pull the plug on that thing?” Caira spoke to the lizard, who was already on it as she drove the jeep straight into the mouth of the mountain.
It was as if she was driving through a dried up riverbed. There were cliffs and walls of rock lining the entire way of about forty feet high. The sides of the jeep sparked against the rock as she made her way through the narrow byway, the stampede was hot on her heels, and would soon overwhelm her. Meanwhile, the “glug.. glug... glug” of the emptying jug could be heard as the smothering scent of gasoline reached her nose as the iguana had loosened the cap of the jug, and a steady stream poured out and filled the crevice with the liquid acid. The path became more narrow, and the Jeep finally lurched to a stop, as she was thrown nearly right through the windshield.
Caira waited, she wanted to make sure that enough if not all of them had made it into the crevice. A few crawled overhead, and she skewered them with her sword, bursts of goo leaked out and splashed on her. Next, she grabbed the iguana and climbed over the convertible’s windshield and leaped from the hood of the car.. She put well past ten feet of distance between her and the jeep and then took one of her daggers from her hips and lobbed it high in the air. It streaked in an arch across the sky, much resembling the smooth trajectory of an arrow, before it made its easy decline.
As the dagger clashed with the ground, it ignited, on target, into the still streaming pool of gasoline. Caira had under a second to dive behind a little mound of rocks before the blaze of heat ignited with a blast of energy throughout the entire crevice, which acted as a funnel for the sheer force of the power, and scalded anything in its path.
The rocks of the entire mountainous structure were left scalded and charred black. The last of the heat was sucked up with the air, and disintegrated in the air far above. Meanwhile, the scent of burnt ... creature, flashed to her nose with the same sharpness of the peculiar scent. It smelled as though someone had left the food in the oven for far too long.
Caira opened her eyes, and then dared to peek out over the rock, only to see the jeep in ruins, and the carcasses of many of the scorpions that had been in the stampede. The heat still crackled in their bug-ly flesh as it burnt and simmered the last of their remains.
The revolting scent lingered until she was well out of that eerie canal. But the good news for her, was that she had not been bothered by any of the other bandits, who may have witnessed the explosion from afar, or survived the experience in a similar way she had. The iguana squirmed from her arm, and mounted her hover board once more. The crystal glowed as the lizard spoke, “A hundred scorpions in one fell swoop.... You called it pretty damn close.”
...
It was a cold night, and Caira was still trudging on through the sand, on foot. She was tired, and didn’t think she had the strengths or will of mind to summon any form of transport at the time. If you remember correctly, she hadn’t slept for at least three days now, minus the brief nap that she was awoken, in her opinion, far too early for her liking.
She groaned, the stars shimmered in the night sky high above her. Caira’s muscles were fatigued and the stress of the chase had both taken a lot out of her, and the dry, bleakness of the desert had worn her out. The chill of the desert wasn’t helping either. She was shivering, all over, as her body tried to regulate the heat. During the explosion part of her suit had been broken, particularly the part that had helped to actually maintain her heat. It was just her luck. But she was sure Karn had it worse.
He clung to the hover board that slowly propelled off the ground and it seemed that even the gentle wind struck into his bones like an icy fire. “Karn, I’m not sure I can do this anymore.. I need to take five.” Caira said to the lizard.
“FINALLY. I’ve been waiting for you to say that for hours.” his blue crystal glowed brightly in the night.
“Well,” Caira sighed, “I wanted to put as much distance between the Bandits and scorpions as possible.”
“This has been a long and perilous journey,” Karn stated, “I see all that you have endured in your eyes, Ayryn.”
Shimmering violet in the night, they flicked to him, fascinated, though beaming weakly as she stumbled to a clumsy fall in the sand. She laid there and looked up at the stars. She was untouched for a while by the ice of the sand, because her body was so numb with fatigue. Her eyelids weakly laid open. Her journey back was not as easy, but it had gone by a lot quicker. By what Caira could tell, she was almost near the town.
Her eyes closed in the darkness as she dreamed of finally sleeping in a bed...
...
Low rumblings shook the sand below her. Caira’s eyes burst open in fear. It felt like she had been asleep for only a blink, and her body groaned and protested in anguish when she tried to rouse herself awake and sit upright.
Her first thought was of betrayal - since it had happened so recently before- but when she got her bearings, she found that the lizard had curled in a ball next to hear, trying to take advantage of her body heat so that he would not freeze to death. Karn too, was awoken by the disturbance, and Caira’s eyes shook as the fog of her breath clouded her vision. The tip of her nose felt like a hard chunk of ice. It was probably well below freezing, and it may have worked out for the better, that she had not fallen to the charms of sleep, and went into a hypothermic coma, fated to death in the dunes.
The rumblings grew closer. They had a basic pace, one after the next, “thump thump... thump thump...” Caira’s eyes grew wide as she went for her sword.
Over a small dune, the figure emerged. Through the darkness of midnight, it’s silhouette bent the space around it. It was translucent, and in the shape of a mighty lion, surpassing at least ten feet in height, much taller than the army of scorpions she had burnt to a crisp.
And it bounded over the crest of the small hill and seemed to be heading straight for her. The best way she could describe it, was as a huge shadow lion. Some sort of ghostly beast, and she remembered what Merik had said about it it as it charged, that it was one of the most feared predators of the dunes. It could kill even a powerful prime in an instant.
Caira gulped and the beast lunged closer, its claws, though translucent, dug up clumps of dirt and threw them in the air behind him. Its mane swayed with its momentum, and its eyes glowed a pale blue, full of rage and distraught emotion. Caira felt the onset on carnage and braced for the beast’s impact, as her sword was held up, gleaming, and ready to spear the lion. Her grasp was unsteady, her frozen fingers would not wrap around the hilt of the sword with enough strength to even take on the beast and give her half of a chance.
Before she would try to do such a thing, and while her hands were both shaking from fear and the cold night air, she decided that the beast deserved a chance. Should she kill a beast, or even attempt to harm it, when in its eyes, SHE was the one doing wrong? On these dunes, even the humans were territorial. Not to mention even the most fiercest beast had struggles. Such as fighting off the cannibals that roamed on his land.
Caira felt such empathy for the beast, and the wildness in its eyes, she laid down her sword. It was tossed several feet from her and its cold steel lay limp on the stand. Instead, the prime extended her hand, which now glowed with a similar determination in her eyes. Light shimmered and sprung forth as Caira warned the beast in a clear yell, “Stay back, or I will have no choice but to fight you.”
Her voice carried strong and willfully over to the lion’s ears, his eyes still flared with rage, and Caira wondered if she even had the strength to back up her threat. The lion’s pace faltered for a moment, but it’s momentum did not heed. Caira was forced to fire her immobilizing magic, as stars sprung forth from the palm of her hand, and she traced a pattern into the air. Glowing rope appeared around the beast and coiled around him, binding his legs until he could no longer move.
Upon the sand the mighty cat thrashed and his jaws, which were not bound, snarled and frothed with such tremendous force. It seemed, because of the nature of the magic, that the robe was burning him. Wisps of smoke simmered from his transparent flesh, and the shadowy figure released a roar like no thunder, and like all the thunder, she had ever heard. It was monumental, it called the land below her feet to shudder and quake, and the lion drew in another broken breath as though if it were to be his last, it would be his best and most powerful.
Echoes and reverberations of his roar could be heard across the dunes, while Caira’s eyes widened as she realized the suffering and torture her magic was causing. It would’ve been better, perhaps, had she struck him with the sword. The sword! Her eyes caught a glimpse of the silver sliver, and she dove to grab it, before wielding it over the beast threateningly. The beast noticed as the blade fell down upon him, but when he expected pain, there was only the fading of it.
She had cut his robes, because the light infused in them, was his kind’s mortal enemy. Had Caira hesitated, or waited even a second longer, the beast would be dead, faded into oblivion and never to be seen again. Yet, this was not so, and freedom had come unexpectedly so.
Caira stood tall as the sword was held drooping in her hands. She was in no condition to fight, and she was panting heavy now.
The mighty lion rose, as his shadowy dark skin was lined with the burns, which soon faded from a smoldering shade of red, into the air once more. The lion deemed the girl no longer a threat, and seemed to forget her as he shook off the pain and discomforts, nobly the lion stood proud once more.
Caira became dizzy once more, and fell to a single knee, before mustering the last of her sapping strength to look up at the beast once more.
The lion, now that it had taken its time to shake off its own dishonor, now regarded the girl. Its eyes were softer, and it’s purpose no longer set on killing her, though she was a trespasser on his domain.
It seemed, on the ground next to the lion were the last fragments of glowing, disintegrating rope. The girl continued kneeling, while the lion made of shadows looked upon her. The girl’s empathy for the lion and his pain had been powerful enough so that she had not so much as hesitated to save his life, though, he could have easily rushed at her and ended her singular life, though her existence was immortal. He looked deeply in her eyes, as though judging her strengths, weaknesses, and even her character. Something that startled the lion was that he saw himself in her eyes. While Caira, could easily relate to a being who had a code and stuck to it, she assumed he must have seen the same in her.
His eyes narrowed, and he bent down to sniff her head. As he did this, a gust of warm air breathed on her. The being, though it bore features akin to a ghost, was very much alive.
To the mighty lion, a beast of a very simple, and rational set of rules, one he -like a knight- had devoted his life to. Dedication like that was hard to come by, in just any beast. But everyone had a code of living, even the most powerful monsters had a nature, whether it was cruel, evil, chaotic, just, or good.
More action came than either the lion, or the girl, were expecting, as suddenly, Caira saw movement hastily lunge from behind the lion. A big, black creature had darted out, and under the faded moonlight, Caira could see the sleekness of its form, the shimmering gleam of shell in the darkness, and its dim shadow cast over the ripples of sand.
The creature’s pincer darted toward the lion’s flank. His ears twitched an in an instant, the entire tail had been ripped out by a set of massive jaws. Thrown off to the side, the lion had risked a pinch from one of its claws, the scorpion held on tight, while the lion merely growled at the pain and wretched as his jaws fell on the creature’s shell, and with enough pressure, a loud “SNAP!” was heard as a corresponding crack resulted in the scorpion’s hand breaking right off.
The last one had penetrated into the lion’s silky lack of flesh. It still held the shadow tangibly, but it was nowhere near what violent roars she had heard when the light of the rope became like acid on his flesh. A weakness of light, Caira determined and would have raised her sword to fight along side the mighty beast, had she had any strength left. And the lion used the attachment of the scorpion’s claw to his advantage. He swung the creature into the sand, its many legs still crawling and squirming, as the lion’s mighty fist bore down and delivered a final blow.
The world was turning cold to the girl, but more shapes appeared over the hill of sand, and the lion took every enemy down one by one. He quickly adapted to the chinks in the insects armor, and it became as easy as batting a paw in the right area, to slay the unworthy foe.
Caira lost sight of this though, her eyes would not stop blinking, the dark veil that her eyelids brought to the scene left the entire battle with only sound and her imagination. Weak and weary, Caira could barely keep track of the blurred images her eyes were only half-open for. Before she knew it, she lay on the translucence of his back, and was carried safely by the lion of shadows and toward the direction of the town.
....
Karn had managed to get stashed in her bookbag -along with her favorite hover board- and had managed to hitch the same ride as the girl. She slept on the shadow beast’s back until dawn, during which, his form suddenly turned to shadow, and disintegrated, leaving a lingering promise on her sword. The girl blinked as she looked down at it and noted the subtle tint it had left on her blade. The important part of this, to her, was that it could have been so very easily, the lion’s blood.
The heat bore down on her like that of a fire, while the sand spun in the air, rustled only by a low, heated breeze. Caira continued to walk, as she fished out her compass and expected the dial to have turned. Merik was there, she determined, her eyes narrowed with anger.
The girl trudged on and on.
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