Toriko asked in trepidation, “Is he …”
Mencari shook his head. “Still breathing.” He looked back at her. “My god, Toriko, don’t touch anything! We talked about possible traps.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t think,” she stammered.
Seigie pulled a few green-amber crystals from a pouch and charged them. Mencari rolled the warrior onto his back. As she broke them over Naijen’s body, they released a healing glow, which little by little covered him. His face began to twitch, but he remained unconscious.
As Seigie prepared another crystal, the twitching intensified. A strange sound escaped from his mouth, and his entire body convulsed. “He’s seizing!” Mencari said.
Seigie began to move on top of him, but Mencari protested. “No. Back away. Don’t hold him down.” He noticed the amount of debris nearby and yelled, “Clear the floor around him.”
The three scampered to move broken furnishings and fragments of walls and floor away from him. Toriko snatched the Skar in time to avoid Naijen’s arm impaling on it.
His powerful body continued to thrash across the ground, with a sound somewhere between a roar and gurgle straining from his throat.
“We have to do something, Rhysus!” Toriko cried.
“There’s nothing to do—just wait it out,” he said, but understood the helpless feeling.
The sickening sound from Naijen’s throat echoed in the chamber in grotesque concert with the heavy slaps of his muscular body on the stony floor.
It felt like an eternity. When would it stop?
Movement drew Mencari’s eyes to the ceiling. There, two discs of energy swirled a moment, then transformed into arcs of energy, which struck in a flash mere feet before them.
A pair of ghost-white creatures appeared, hovering above the ground. Their amorphous forms sprouted whip-like arms and tendril wings that fanned out from their backs. Each tip ended in a glowing ball of golden energy. The tendrils fluttered furiously as arcs of energy leaped across the golden spheres.
“Protect Naijen!” Mencari yelled, charging his hand-phaser.
* * * * *
Their intent was clear. Toriko saw them turn inward, toward Naijen. They were going to attack him with electricity.
Naijen saved her; she had to save him. Throwing herself in front of those arcs would do little more than disable two of their team. Spark had other uses too, though. She looked down at the Skar weapon in her hands. There was no way she’d get close enough to swipe at them with it. Her heart raced with a realization. The weapon’s metal would be a great conductor.
The creatures glowed as their energies prepared to arc from their bodies.
Radiating with golden light, she focused her abilities and dashed between the creatures and Naijen. She raised the Skar high, blades extended, and rammed it into the ground. The chamber lit up as the creatures unleashed their attack. Toriko dove out of the way, smiling as the Skar did its job.
At her remote command Spark’s tail curled up, the end targeting the first creature. He began firing a newly installed blaster. It was Naijen’s chastisement that made her install the blaster when she upgraded her companion. She found it ironic its first use would be to defend the meathead. Each hit punched holes clean through the creature, and exploded off many of the tendrils.
Radiant green and red gems glowed in Seigie’s hand. Her fist came down, shattering the stones to unleash a vortex of flame. The fleshy white skin of the second creature blistered before charring black. Its golden spheres dissipated in a wispy fog as the shriveled body fell motionless to the ground.
A thunderous boom filled the chamber as Mencari’s D’mok abilities finished off the first beast, blasting it into tiny parts.
She looked to Naijen. The seizures had passed and he lay quiet on the floor. Only the muscles of his face twitched.
“Naijen!” she yelled, and scampered back to his side.
Joining, Mencari again checked the warrior over. “He made it through.”
Seigie pulled out a light-green crystal, but Mencari waved her back. “Let’s give him more time.”
Minutes passed and his eyes began to flutter. Toriko cried out happily as they opened. Confusion danced across his face. For the first time, Mencari saw fear from the brazen warrior.
“You’re okay,” he said. “You’re safe. We have you.”
Naijen’s eyes looked across the group. He paused on Toriko. Her eyes flooded with tears.
“I’m sorry! I’m so stupid! I—”
Seigie reached out and placed a jeweled hand on her arm. “He’s okay.”
Naijen looked back at Mencari. “I … I …” He found his words. “Want a tattoo for dis.”
Mencari smiled; only his eyes revealed the struggle with his own emotion. “You earned it. Just rest.”
Naijen’s head gently fell to the side.
Toriko panicked. “Is he—?”
“No, this is typical for a seizure. He’ll need to sleep a bit.” Mencari looked over at the Skar then back at Toriko. “Clever with the Skar too. You kept him from getting hit again.”
That made her feel a little better. “It seemed like the best option.”
“If we don’t touch anything,” Seigie said, glancing around, “maybe we can survey this place, find out what we’re dealing with and where to go next.”
Mencari agreed. “If we’re careful. It would give him time to rest.”
“I’ll stay with him,” Toriko said.
* * * * *
“This place is crawling with traps, Rhysus,” Seigie said.
“We marked the ones we found. Which should make it a whole lot safer.”
“Any other creatures?” Toriko asked.
“Some, yeah, like those two.” Mencari gestured to the corpses on the ground. “But they didn’t move, just hovered in the same place.”
A groan drew their attention to the floor.
“Naijen!” Toriko knelt next to him. “I’m so sorry. I feel like I’ve said that to everyone at some point.”
Seigie placed a gentle hand, as much as a crystal one can be, on the girl’s shoulder. “That hard head will be fine,” she said with a cruel smirk. “Probably killed off the last of the brain cells he had—wouldn’t even know he got hit again.”
“I’m not deaf,” Naijen snarled as he struggled to sit up. “Be useful and turn into stone, or somethin’.”
He rubbed his head, then stretched out his arms. “Feel like I was trampled by a herd of Renzr beasts.”
“That charge hit you pretty badly,” Toriko said.
“There’s creatures here?”
“Amazing what you can hear,” Seigie said.
He reached over and grabbed the Skar, bracing on it to stand. Mencari watched him struggle to his feet, wondering if, any moment, he’d fall over. “Easy buddy,” Mencari said. “Ease into it.”
“Have’ta be ready,” he rasped. “How long was I out?”
“A few hours,” Toriko said.
“We know where we’re going yet?” Naijen rubbed the back of his head.
“Seigie and I found a corridor with a stairway up, we think we should go there next,” Mencari said.
“Then let’s go,” Naijen said.
With Mencari in the lead and Seigie in the rear, they snaked through a maze of side chambers and small corridors, dodging around traps and the occasional creature. Mencari thought it strange that Naijen didn’t seem interested in attacking them, and worried his warrior wasn’t doing well after all.
They started up a large stone staircase. He noticed Toriko mumbling to herself while she projected additional displays. “I don’t like this,” she said. “I see a concentration of that energy again.”
She stopped dead and looked forward cautiously. “I know you can’t see it but we’re about to walk into a literal wall of the stuff.”
“If the energy readings are increasing, maybe we’re going the right way,” Mencari said.
“Maybe,” Toriko shrugged. “We sho
uld be ready.”
He smiled at the phrase that was infamously his, and charged his phaser. Naijen gripped the Skar and moved forward cautiously. Seigie, following, grabbed a handful of blue gems and charged them.
The stairwell opened into another large expanse. A blue-green fog hung in the air that made it difficult to see more than a few feet ahead.
With each step, Mencari noticed piles of dust scattered across the floor. Toriko’s scream caused him to jump back, ready to trigger his hand-phaser against another creature or some trap.
“Something brushed against my leg,” she cried.
A spotlight from her suit danced over a pile on the floor. An object reflected in the thick dust. She bent down and examined it. “A dagger?”
Even from a distance, he could see the blade was severely gouged.
“It’s only a little corroded, barely any aging at all,” she said, confounded.
The stood at the first of many dust piles around them. He directed the beam over others nearby. His stomach lurched. “Look at the shapes.”
“What do you mean?” Seigie said. “What about them?”
“There.” He guided a light on Toriko’s suit to trace over the piles. “Arms, body, head. These are people—long dead.”
“Eeee-uuuu!” Toriko hit a button on her wrist, producing a small fan. As it turned, the fan’s strong breeze blew the dust away from her. An inadvertent dust storm kicked up, which caused her to shriek again and turn off the fan.
“Claw marks,” Naijen said while pointing, oblivious to Toriko’s antics. “On tha’ walls and tha’ floor.”
Seigie and Mencari looked at the marks. Seigie added, “There’s burn marks next to them too—from explosions. Maybe from a Silra-style attack?”
“Let’s keep going,” Mencari said. The group continued on, and he felt a chill the deeper they went.
“Eudora, it’s cold!” Toriko said.
He noticed the number of dust piles and weapons increasing too. Soon they began to find bits of claws, and even a few exoskeletons. “Why are these here when everywhere else, there was only dust?” Toriko wondered aloud.
Mencari held out an arm to stop the others. Something lay motionless on the floor ahead. When he moved cautiously forward, he saw it was bodies more recently dead.
Toriko covered her mouth in shock, “Oh, Eudora! People!”
Not just people. Humanoids wearing robes were next to mutilated wolf-like creatures.
“They look like sleeping ghosts,” Toriko whispered. “I don’t detect holographic emitters, or anything. Are they dead?”
Naijen smiled as he bared the Skar. “If not, soon will be.”
While the grin was always a bit unnerving, Mencari was relieved to see Naijen’s usual demeanor returning.
Naijen tried to prod one of the creatures with the Skar, but grunted in displeasure when his blade passed right through it. “What is this?”
They looked about and found severed chunks of creatures in the same translucent state. Toriko scanned the area. “Umm. I’m getting a denser concentration ahead of us.”
Mencari saw Naijen trudge ahead. “Hey!” he called out. “We stay together!”
The warrior continued forward, another sign he’d returned to his usual self. They followed close behind. Soon new shapes joined the creatures.
Bloodied and shredded garments were strewn along the floor. Weapons and debris littered the area. These forms seemed less transparent than the ones seen earlier. Toriko said, “Their clothes … almost identical to Quin’s in the crystal projections.”
“Some of them,” Mencari agreed. “But look at these.” He pointed to robed bodies, each marked with the interlocked-crescent emblem.
The stench of fermenting carnage began to clog the air. A new display appeared before Toriko. “There’s an energy spike ahead.”
Before them was an elaborate archway that led into a larger chamber. Inside, creatures and robed victims were strewn about in various states of butchery. Mencari nudged one with his foot. “These are solid.”
Spheres of colored light danced before them in the fog. A distortion appeared in the center and a piercing shrill bellowed from it.
Naijen readied the Skar and sneered. “Playtime!”
Two spiraled horns pierced the distortion, followed by a shadowy figure covered in blade-like barbs and gray tiger-like stripes. Its stark white, saber-like teeth gave it a sinister smile. Its roar filled the air with the putrid stench of its breath. Beady bronze eyes focused on Naijen. Even hunched over on satyr-like legs, it stood twice his height and moved with unnatural grace.
There was no fear or hesitation in the warrior’s expression. Instead, an amused sneer crossed his face. He was ready to play. Mencari was relieved to see Naijen recovering so soon. Still, he worried this type of encounter could be too much. The beast howled madly, then lunged at him.
Mencari focused his energies to concentrate a ball of plasma in his hands. Before he could get the shot off, Naijen rushed in and met the beast’s advance. The blast of the Skar rang through the air as it sliced clean through a barbed claw. Without so much as a cry, the creature followed through with the other, clipping Naijen and hurling him backward.
Now unobstructed, Mencari attacked, and hit it square in the chest. To his dismay, the beast only stumbled back. Even Spark’s tail blaster wasn’t breaching the spiky black carapace around the beast. Three radiating red gems sailed through the air, followed by a pained gasp from Seigie.
The crystals exploded near its feet, and blew the creature into the air and then onto its back. Naijen dashed over, lifted the Skar high and impaled the creature through the chest. In an angry bellow, and while still prone, its claw swatted Naijen to the side for the second time.
Mencari saw Toriko pound a sequence into her armguard. The glow from the white neon stripes of her bodysuit shifted to yellow while a high-pitched squeal rang through the air. Reaching forward, a ripple of energy leapt at the beast and grounded itself in the metal of the Skar. The creature shrieked and flailed as the energy ravaged its body.
With the beast distracted, Mencari ran to Seigie.
“Are you okay?”
She shook her head. “Guess I overpowered it—too much for Toriko’s gizmo.” Standing, she took out two yellow gems.
“No.”
“I’m fine. I’ll be more careful.”
She charged the gems and tossed them above the creature. As they broke, a blast of static energy streaked toward the Skar. Again the creature thrashed in agony; its ethereal shriek of pain echoed about the chamber.
Naijen pulled the Skar from its body, creating a fountain of ooze and entrails.
“Back away!” Mencari yelled, hands flaming with power.
“D’aw!” Naijen sprung off the creature’s back and drove its head into the floor. Mencari grunted as the raw energy streaked like a comet from his hands, drilled through the prone creature’s shell, and blasted through its chest cavity. It gave a weak howl, rolled forward, and fell silent. Its remaining innards gradually filled the gaping hole as a new stench mixed the air. In the distance, the smaller shadows and illuminated creatures faded into the mists.
Naijen took a deep breath then huffed like a child. “I wanted ta kill it. Could’a earned a second tattoo!”
As Mencari inspected the fallen creature, Seigie looked at the bodies scattered about, with Toriko following close and performing various scans.
Naijen went over and carved a hunk of skin from the beast, and motioned to Toriko. “Put dis in your bag.”
She looked up from her display and saw the pulp in his hands. Her eyes bugged out and she shook her head.
“Come on! Gonna start an honor wall. This can be the centerpiece.”
Mencari shuddered when he recalled the wall covered in chunks of tattooed skin from the fallen foes in Naijen’s Haven. “I think that tradition needs to stay back on your homeworld.” Then he drove the image from his mind by focusing on how well they had just wo
rked as a team.
Naijen snorted. “Fine, I’ll keep it.” He sliced the extra meat off the skin, rolled the remains like parchment, and lashed it in a leather band to his side. Mencari and Toriko watched in silent shock.
“You, uh … have a way to stop the odor?” Seigie said, wincing.
Naijen looked up at her. “Why I wanna do that? Scent of victory!”
“I don’t care to smell your victory.” She walked over and motioned for the skin.
“What?”
“I’m going to make it tolerable for the rest of us.”
“I ain’t givin’ you nothing.”
Seigie’s red eyes gleamed. “You’ve had one blow to the head, and been electrocuted, do you really want me to add to that?” She pulled out red and amber gems. “I’m just going to dry it out.”
Still reluctant, he handed it over, and she crushed the gems over the skin. In seconds, the skin was dry and leathery. She handed it back, and he lashed it to his side.
“Nice, stone lady.” He looked back to Mencari. “And you—you holdin’ out on me! You gotta teach me those moves—”
Toriko cried out. A hand from one of the robed dead had grabbed her ankle. She jerked her leg and freed herself, then ran behind Seigie as Naijen bared his Skar. A groan rose from another of the bodies.
Mencari approached. The man wore a black robe with a yellow crescent, the dark cloth made shiny from being soaked with his blood. “A Dark Lord,” Mencari said, “like in Quina’s recordings.”
A hand quivered and reached as if for their help. Seigie took out light-green gems, charged them, and broke them over the man.
“He’s still fading,” Toriko said, scanning the man’s vitals.
The man groaned. “Can’t get out. Shield.”
His eyes were white, his vision already gone. “Shouldn’t have opened portal. Creatures appeared. Go back.”
He gasped a final breath and became silent. As his body shifted, a small crystal rolled from his hand.
Toriko picked it up and looked at it. “A Tertrn crystal?”
“How could he still have been alive?” Mencari muttered.
The area around them, both the air and the wall, began to bend and fold. Seigie reached out her arms to steady her heavy body. “What’s going on?”
D'mok Revival: The Nukari Invasion Anthology Page 55
