Post date: Aug 6, 2016 12:41:53 PM
Caradorynee: Feats & Wagers
#16
The Human girl was out of sight, so Lark knew that this was his best opportunity to act.
It had been too many years to remember the last time he’d allowed his Dueanian half to completely take over his body. He didn’t even know if what he intended to do was possible anymore. He’d grown old over the ensuing decades, if not centuries, since he’d been banished to Caradorynee. He had no idea if he had any of his Dueanian powers left within him.
He did, however, still have his Human resolve and that along with the fact that the Human girl hadn’t been able to pick him out of the crowd, after she’d dressed, was in both their favours.
The crowd rushed around Lark, eager to make the short journey to the observation disks. Individual round disks that would transport them out to the cone fields where they could watch the Human girl make her attempt to conquer the final challenge of the Shegata battles: the cone climb.
Regrettably, Lark knew the girl would fail. The upper echelon of Caradorynee’s society had made that evident by not providing her with sufficient protection in the form of the Shegata markings.
Lark was going to see that the Human girl did not die.
It would mean that he’d be force to reveal himself. Expose his Dueanian abilities to the entire planet.
There was a good chance that Lark would seal his own death, but then, he’d already done so with his intense greed. If he’d only not wanted to go home so badly. To see Earth once again before he died.
He’d known his desire was only a fantasy, but when he’d learned that a Human girl had entered the Shegata battles, he’d had to a least try.
What was Earth like now? Centuries after he’d been banished, Lark couldn’t begin to imagine.
Did the planet even still exist? Did the ‘Dueanian Solution’ revitalize the doomed planet and the Human race or was the damage irreversible?
As more and more of Caradorynee’s inhabitants moved away from Lark the more his now translucent orange energy became apparent. It would only be another few moments before his true nature would be revealed to the populace.
Lark knew that the Dueanian race was even more of a mystery to the inhabitants of Caradorynee than Humans. Their mystical ways carefully guarded secrets.
Lark had guarded those secrets just as avidly. And since he was only half Dueanian it had been more vital that he protect his vulnerable Human half.
Now as the last few of the Caradorynee creatures shuffled toward the observation disks his Dueanian energy became weightless.
A sharp cry went up.
A Moesu, ever skittish, scurried hastily away from him, but not before several creatures turned back to see what the commotion was about.
Several more outbursts of surprise followed and within seconds Lark found himself once more surrounded by creatures.
The gig was up.
A Duracka, tall and angry looking, appear just beyond the immediate crowd. Lark not wanting to have the creature shackle him again quickly focused on drawing a measure of energy from the creature closest to him.
The creature was a Tooacua and long before the Duracka got anywhere near Lark, another Tooacua developed to block the Duracka’s way.
The Duracka paused, but only for a moment. A long, whip-like tongue snaked from the beasts’s mouth while a Karco master, buzzing tool in it’s club-like fist, soon took up the Duracka’s back.
Lark dissolved the mirror image of the Tooacua and using the creature’s own bodily fluids surged his now fully Dueanian body upward. He rose into the evening sky, giving himself a good view of his surroundings.
More Duracka and Karco thugs were entering the circle of creatures below him. Harsh shouts and barked out orders and instructions filled the air.
Tongues, buzzing tools, shackles were all quickly being made ready to deploy towards Lark. He had only moments to escape.
Twisting hard to his right Lark concentrated his efforts and gathered the Tooacua’s physical mass, now reduced to a watery substance, upward. He swirled the substance around his Dueanian energy and then over the top of where his Human head should have been.
The watery substance ebbed and flowed. Increasing in mass as Lark’s Dueanian half absorbed the moisture content of the Dormoan gases that had begun to drift downward from the upper atmosphere.
The mass grew in size. Doubling, doubling again, and yet again.
A set of Shegata shackles whizzed through the air. Their trajectory on a direct path toward Lark as they locked onto Lark’s Dueanian energy.
Shegata shackles were devoid of moisture. Created specifically so that a Dueanian could not deflect the shackles away from their unique energy once the cuffs had been activated.
But that didn’t mean the shackles couldn’t be intercepted.
Lark broke off a segment of his energy and pushed it downward until it had latched onto a Moesu. The very one that had initially alerted the other creatures of Caradorynee to Lark’s presence.
Lark closed his energy around the now squealing creature as it thrashed in an attempt to free itself.
Lark wasn’t feeling generous and intentionally flung the Moesu high into the air, on a pathway that would intersect with the bulky shackles.
More shackles were hurling his way and Lark, now even more angrier, plucked other Caradorynee creatures from the planet’s surface.
The creatures, a Fewpo, a Boogaues, and another Moesu were all easily flung into the air and propelled toward the flying shackles.
Surprised that his powers were so strong, Lark mentally laughed. He could do this all day.
But time was of the essence. The Human girl must be by now reaching the base of the cone she was intended to climb.
Concern for the girl had Lark diverting his attention back to the Tooacua’s mass of watery substance.
The mass rippled orange, picking up more of Lark’s Dueanian energy as the mass grew even bigger.
With an exhale of energy Lark whirled and catapulted the mass towards the planet’s surface and the creatures that were about to deploy more weapons against him.
The orange mass, as it hurled downward, became as large as a tidal wave on one of Earth’s oceans.
The mass crashed into the crowd. Flinging Lark’s pursuers, in all directions, as if they were nothing more than matchsticks.
Lark then whirled again and spun the orange mass, now littered with bits and pieces of the creatures from the crowd, into a wider arc.
What was left of the enemy forces that had surged into the foray recoiled as the watery substance slammed into them with a force that sent most to the Caradorynee surface.
Seizing the opportunity for escape Lark launched himself upward. His body now as light as air, yet still glowing orange, dissipated and was suddenly gone.
©Human in Inhuman Worlds by Janet Merritt