Battles Beyond (Book 1: The Fleeing Saga)

Making It... Maybe (14)

In La's palm was filth. The trio had relinquished the clothing on their beings. The oozing, cream-like substance from Zazavin's allergic rash ruined the texture of his uniform and seeped into the others. Teinova had patches all over while Durin's uniform had the consistency of petroleum jelly sourced from his partially melted surface.

The energy sticks met the same fate. A soldier took the two sticks after Durin passed them through the permeable force field.

Zazavin was returned to his nude state—his aggravated rash exposed. Despite this, wholesome comfort finally came to him in another way: his nostrils were at ease. No granular dust from years of erosion could no longer cause heavy amounts of sneezing.

Durin was okay but exposed. There was no spray paint to cover his form from adversaries and allies. Clothes and paint were recent trends for the Gusu. His melted exterior resembled waves crashing a shoreline.

"Where's my hair?" The fullness of Teinova's follicles no longer populated her head, save for a few patches of orange holding firm despite fiery hell. Sores and burns decorated her. Her dark sports bra and her underwear that met her upper thigh suffered practically no damage. Her hair was the source of light, but now there was little left. Durin had brought her misery.

The torture devices regressed to their hollowed-out spaces and disappeared once the walls came back together.

Mezamica Um and La exited the room with the soldier carrying the sticks and a promise to give them new clothes. Durin gave them a few seconds after they left to formulate a quick plan. He went to where Zazavin and Teinova sat in order to quietly reveal it without being heard.

"OKAY, HERE'S WHAT WE'RE GOING TO DO!" Out of Veil's sight, a cuboid microphone attached to the roof was automatically turned on. Hearing his voice amplified by many decibels was a shock to him.

"Look up, youths." A plump green soldier pointed at the thing that exposed them with the long piece of flesh on his forehead. "That for youths like you that feel they smart. Any plan you have is exposed. None of you don't have telepathy, so don't waste your time."

"IT'S PROBABLY FOR THE BEST WE WERE CAUGHT. I DON'T THINK I CAN HANDLE MUCH MORE OF THIS." Zazavin was honest with himself while Teinova went back to her seated position.

Looks like the stranger is going to win the bet. Good. I want him to win. Durin was deep in thought as negativity draped over his comrades.

A guard came in to hand them their lunches through the permeable force field. The soldiers in the background continued playing their games to pass the time. "The cook make some salads for you all."

Three plates of watercress, cherry tomatoes, sliced cucumbers, grated carrots and slices of spam meat topped with salad dressing and a glass of freshly squeezed lemonade were what they offered. Durin forced himself to consume the food and drink. He wasn't a fan of vegetables. In all honesty, his whole species didn't really eat vegetables. They were not often grown on the planets where they resided. But he ate it anyway not only for his sake but also for his crew.

As Battle Chief, he shouldered total responsibility for all failures and successes of the crew, not Teinova or Zazavin. But in this instance, he gave up much of it to a stranger that didn't care for their cause.

* * *

Cassadon's more chunky mass was stuck onto one of Nem's scarred muscular arms. They appeared a couple hundred metres from the petal that allowed Grand Station to hold its rightful position as the headquarters of the Defence Force.

The alarms went insane. Several artillery were fortunate to avoid damage from Ippe's attack. Collections of flat-sided, oval tubes bound with wire were erected from the roof of the facility to slice with shark fin cutter stuffed within them.

They breezed past this form of weaponry as Nem's whip lengthened to hundreds of metres. It latched onto a grass artillery station and in two seconds they were almost at the petal that held Grand Station. Nem greeted it with her knuckles for the station to tip over. This provided a good platform to land on and detach from each other.

The fins continued tearing the atmosphere while they raced towards Cassadon and Nem. Their pronounced sharpened fronts were evaded; they were ineffective.

The quarry rocks shot at high speeds were no better. Whether in air or near Grand Station, they could not hit them. Both neared the centre as missiles came to eradicate them.

Nem devolved her whip to its standard length and snapped the tail of a rocket to the sound of a fleeting crack. Its flight path was now erratic before hitting an unintended target. The explosion ate all of an already incapacitated cannon.

Cassadon flung her dough to any oncoming projectiles. Some exploded, while others became inert dough balls.

Little by little, the armaments were taken out. Ees' test wasn't going to plan.

* * *

Ippe contacted the war room to hear Ees utter the names Cassadon and Nem. This worried him even when Ees gave reassurances they would not succeed. And for Ees, he had his concerns over his leader's behaviour but didn't want to bog him down with talk while in combat. He would leave that for when the fight is over.

Once he was gone, Ippe returned all his attention to the stranger.

The greenhouse entrance shattered at the immense size of the talisman. He ignored the discomfort from his arms and kept pushing forward. Ippe had trust in the brand-new security system.

Inside it laid freshwater ponds teeming with aquatic life while flora of many sizes and colours covered the rest. Strangely, it lacked large fauna. There were only a couple of large creatures and lots of smaller ones.

The Tougoles, a hefty creature as indicated by its protruding gut, a hole to breathe through and three legs, were terrified by the noise. They made their best effort to hide, even if most of their bodies were left exposed.

Ippe put down his talisman to make a thorough search. Trees, shrubs, ponds, and even the Tougoles and other creatures were suspects in the impromptu hide and seek. The last of his search was to uproot the Minose tree to find nothing but the soil he just unsettled. It had a hanging branch at the top with a teardrop fruit of teal flesh and skin. Glossy stripes wrapped around the tree and between them was the shade of burnt amber. He resumed his talisman dragging, leading him to the fresh outline of a letter that blasted through the exit. This drew him to the greater part of Grand Station.

He should feel thankful that the greater structure was adjoined to the greenhouse and that it was mostly a straight hallway leading to the Impound Garage. And just like that, there he was: the being he wanted to capture. He nearly praised higher powers that the stranger was no more than fifty metres from him, leading to a chase full of letters and feathers.

The hooded stranger handled all that came his way, including lasers, venus flytraps and much more.

Ippe's chest was being pulled apart from lifting this onerous object. The final strike had to be made or his very insides could burst open.

Feathers hung from the talisman, giving off a raw aura. He dropped it to the ground and stamped it with one of his boots for queues of feathers to quickly take up much of the floor and walls.

Because of this, brutish cuts swamped the area. The stranger flung himself before one came close to slicing him.

The feathers then vanished and clouds stirred over Grand Station. A feathered tail came down and phased through the windows and wrapped around the strange, large talisman to take back what it lent. The object suddenly inherited the trait of phasing from its true owner and was gone. Ippe then fainted; a world of pressure released when he did.

The stranger examined himself to make sure that he wasn't cut. He wasn't, and his legs pressed towards the Military Impound Garage. Nothing else could hinder his eventual arrival.

THUD!

His forehead smashed into a divider and knocked him out.

After this, a venus flytrap, one separated from its stem, flailed towards the stranger and gobbled him whole.

THANK YOU FOR READING IF YOU REACHED THIS FAR. IF YOU LIKE THIS AND OTHER CHAPTERS, FOLLOW, LIKE, SHARE, COMMENT, AND ADD THIS BOOK TO YOUR LIBRARY FOR MORE BATTLES BEYOND. MAKE SURE TO CHECK OUT MY OTHER STORIES AS WELL.