Heading west is becoming a dangerous trek to find salvation. The mysterious woman is sending us through a land swarming with Melonian villages. We camp in trees next to one to catch our breath before moving onward. Seeing their children run around freely sparks a certain type of envy that somewhat pisses me off. Our suffering is making their lives glorious. I wish I could experience what they’re going through. It looks so fun. Some of the parents chase them around to add to their excitement.
“I wish that was us,” I say, in the volume, only Vodkis can hear. She carefully crawls down the tree above my head to sit on a branch beside me.
“You want kids?” Vodkis says. Her eyes are flushed open, and the center of her lips is pinched inwards. She blushes when I fumble on my words, trying to tell her that’s not what I meant. “Calm down. I was just kidding.”
“Oh,” I sigh. My heart feels like it’s beating over my stomach. Vodkis quietly giggles at my reaction, then comes to an abrupt halt. Her smile disappears as she watches the villagers below.
“I wish we had this too. Watching these monsters makes me angry. They robbed us of a life that could’ve been this. Ugh! I wish the roles were reversed, so they can see what kind of life we were forced to live.” We seem to have the same mindset towards them. She growls through her nose at an increasing volume. I have to poke her side to make her stop. “Sorry. I’m super angry.”
“It’s fine. I agree with you one hundred percent. Let’s continue on and get away from these people. I grow furious the more I see a family I never had.” Before climbing on my back, she growls again.
“I wish I knew my parents.”
“Yeah... Me too,” I say, mumbling. “I can barely remember what their faces looked like.”
“Let’s go. I can’t stand the sight of them any longer.” Her resentment is kinda off-putting to me. This is the first time I have seen her this angry to the point of growling. I calmly fly away from the village to avoid being heard through the trees and advance, heading west, deeper into Melonian-occupied land. While navigating, I think about what the oracle said to me about the demigod of our people. “Do you believe in adivinity?” I say.
“What the heck is that?”
“The oracle spoke about a demigod named, Tagenta that our people used to worship.” I move up to fly over the trees but low enough to touch them with my hands. “He told me that Tagenta is coming back here.”
“Where did he go?”
“The oracle never told me where he went. All he said was he’d been waiting for this moment for a long time. He had visions of our sovereignty.”
“If he had those visions from before, why did everyone become so rebellious suddenly?”
“Maybe it was the final call to action. Maybe it was our final peak with the Melonians.” Vodkis puts her chin over my shoulder. I can partially see the left side of her face when I tilt my head to the right.
“Yeah,” she says with a smile. “I had a feeling you’d be the one to make a move. You always had a problem with the way you were treated.”
“Someone had to do it.” My sentence provokes thoughts of my past actions to create a free homestead. I do not regret the way I acted toward those who overworked my people. I’m sad that our plantation was annihilated, but hopefully, I can find some people to take with me to see if anyone survived.
In the middle of my thoughts, Vodkis yanks my right shoulder back. I drop flight going to my left and rotate going right. Someone’s blaster narrowly misses my face by inches. She loses her grip and falls to the ground. I ram into a tree, splitting it into two, then catch the upper half from falling on me. It’s extremely heavy, but I manage to toss it on the ground.
“Vodkis!” I say, looking around for her. “Where are you?!”
“They’re over there,” a man shouts in the distance.
“Zazarel, over here!” Vodkissays from behind a tree to my right. Right when I take a step in her direction, someone tackles me to the ground. Two other people jump on me to prevent me from getting up.
“We got runners. Go find the other one,” a man says.
Oh crap! It’s hunters!
“You stay away from her!” I scream. I push myself off the ground, get one leg under me, and then throw all three of them off my back. A fourth hunter tackles me when I turn around to see the three that were on me. I reverse his surprise attack by backflipping out of his grip. He crashes into a nearby tree. The force of the impact splits two trees in half, leaving him unconscious. I throw his body at the three hunters, knocking all of them down again.
“Zazarel,” Vodkis whispers, crouching out from behind a tree over to me.
“We need to go!” I say. She lifts her arms to get ready for me to pick her up. Right as I’m about to grab her, she gets shot. Her body flashes with a bright yellow spark as if lightning is coming out of her body. She screams in pain as she falls to the ground. “Vodkis!” I’m hit with the same shot but don’t immediately fall over.
“Shoot him again!” A woman yells. I can hear the trigger of their weapon click before it sends out another shot. Just before their shot reaches me, I vaporize it with my energy blast. The highly energetic fireball plows through the shooter’s chest, leaving an open hole. Around the rim, the flesh glows like hot embers.
“He’s too dangerous for capture! Kill him!” The woman says. The hunters swing their primary guns behind their backs to switch to a different weapon on their leg to shoot at me. I take Vodkis into better cover to avoid stray bullets hitting her.
“Stay right here. I’m going to end this.” I say.
“Zaz,” Vodkis says, groaning in pain. She grabs my leg before I can take off. “Your power. I can sense it... growing. Zazarel, your eyes... they’re red again.” The hunters’ shots narrowly miss me several times while I try to hone in on what I’m feeling. My power is doubling as she stated. I touch my fangs to see if they’re big.
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“Oh, gosh. It’s happening again.” Even though I’m changing, I’m barely in the mood I was in before. It makes me wonder if I can control this form without the need to be enraged. “Stay here,” I growl in a soft voice. I rush at the furthest gunman, punching him further into the forest. Two other gunmen fire at me while the third shouts into the radio for backup. “Come here!” I slam my shoulder into the one radioing into a tree, then fire a two-energy blast at the gunmen. One dies from a direct hit to the chest, while the other gets wounded.
“Ugh! Damn you, dog!” The hunter says, crawling on the ground away from me.
“I am,” I say, pinning him down under my foot, “not a dog! I’m a Spargarian!” I shove my foot into his stomach. He squeals and groans out of breath. “I’m a free man now!”
“Don’t make me laugh! You’re a vagabond!”
“How dare you call me that,” I say through my teeth, pushing my foot deeper into his stomach. Through his agony, he laughs and scoffs. I stomp his chest to destroy his stupid smugness. “This planet is our home, not yours!”
“You’ll never get it back. Purum has been ours for several hundreds of years.”
“Purum?” I whisper to myself. “Is... is that what this planet is called?”
“Yes. We took it over with ease. It was like all of you were waiting to be subjugated.” His words enrage me to the point I want to forcefully take his life. “The resources of the world are ten times abundant than the other ones we’ve taken. I’m surprised we haven’t scratched the surface of its limits.”
“What do you want from my world? What do you want from us?”
“We wanted to survive!” He screams with so much force that it makes him cough from straining his words. “Meon-10 was once our home until bureaucrats and their deceptive politics led it to be uninhabitable!”
“So, you think it’s right to conquer my people for your ability to live?”
“As I said,” he says with a cold, wide devilish grin. “It was like all of you were meant to be under our feet.”
“I’m going to kill you!”
“Zazarel, no!” Vodkis says. She stumbles to me, clutching her stomach with both arms. “That’s enough.” The hunter swings my foot off of him and then tries to crawl away on all fours to the forest. I hover over his back as he desperately tries to escape my presence. “Zazarel, please... please.” She wraps her arms around my waist to prevent me from taking the hunter’s life. It’s not tight, yet I remain stationary as I watch him. “Let’s get out of here before more hunters come.” Once she lets go of me, I quickly punch his face into the ground. He stops moving but remains breathing.
“I want to kill him,” I say, grabbing the back of the hunter’s neck.
“Zazarel...”
“They hurt you. I’m sure they’ve hurt others. And they did it for years!”
“Calm down. Look at me. I’m fine.”
“Don’t lie to me.” I squeeze his neck to the point I can feel some bones pop. She puts both her hands on the top of my backhand while looking up at me with teary eyes. Her glimmering tears are enough for me to let go.
“Come on,” she says with a gentle voice. She puts my hands to my side and then takes me away by holding onto my arm. Her steps are staggered and she’s breathing hard. I pick her up and fly up into the sky so she can rest in my arms.
“Tell me what you’re feeling?”
“Exhausted and in pain. That taser really hurt.”
“Damn bastards!”
“Easy, my love.” She kisses my left cheek and rubs her soft nose on my neck.
“Why are you doing that?” I say, chuckling.
“I’m trying to make you calm down. Your eyes are red, and your fangs are still sharp.”
“I think I’m getting control of this thing. I’m not as mad as I was the first time.” I get continuous nose rubs and light smooches. “Okay, okay,” I laugh from being tickled. “Do I still look odd?”
“You’re back to normal.” Just for good measure to show I’m fine, I dig my face in her breasts to play in. “Ugh, perv,” she says, combing my hair with her hands. “Can we do this when we’re not flying or when I’m not in pain, Zazy?”
“Stop right there, murderers!” A man yells from a distance behind me.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” I say, looking over my shoulder. There are four hunters armed with blasters.
“Don’t fight them. Just fly. Fly as fast as you can,” Vodkis says. I use all my might, to reach my maximum speed. “Zazarel, they’re catching up!”
“No way!” The hunters rapidly fire their blasters at us. I try my best to evade their shots while forcing myself to move faster, but every quick movement I do slows me down. “Vodkis, I can’t keep this up. I’m gonna have to fight them.”
“No! Just... Keep flying!” The more I fly, the more I have to evade. One hunter is close enough to grab my foot. They touch my ankles, so I do a forward roll and end up behind him. He flies past me, stops to turn around, but turns into my searing fist. “Oh my goodness! That sounded painful. Did you..?”
“Why does that matter?” While my back is turned, I get hit with a taser shot. Both of us yell in pain. The sudden jolt of electricity makes me drop her. “Vodkis!” I fly down after her, but the pain in my body makes it hard for me to control my descent. “Damnit! Vodkis, you need to fly!” She doesn’t respond to me and continues falling. “Please! Vodkis!” Right when she’s about to hit the ground, something catches her. It flies past the hunters and me.
“What the hell was that?” A hunter says. I slam onto the ground back first. The impact doesn’t hurt as much compared to the pain I’m feeling from the taser.
“Ugh!” I look up at the hunters hovering in the sky. Everyone focuses on whatever flew by, then suddenly it takes them out in a series of flybys. “What is that?”
After a few seconds go by, it comes back. It flies slowly over to me, and I can finally see what it is. It’s a mildly muscular woman with long black hair. Her outfit looks unusual. Her purple shirt is long-sleeved but stops below her breasts. The shirt has an open view that exposes the top of it. Her forearms are wrapped with leather guards and her shoulders have leather straps on them. I don’t see anything hanging from under her armpits. Her pants are black and her leather boots stop at the middle part of her shins. Lastly, her eyes are glowing orange. They don’t have an iris or pupils yet she resembles a Spargarian.
“You two are safe now,” the woman says. I’m beyond amazed by how she looks that I don’t realize she’s holding Vodkis in her arms. “She’s out cold. Follow me to my camp. I can treat her there.” She flies in the direction I saw her come. The hunters behind me lay motionless on the ground. I’m unsure if they’re dead and I don’t feel the want to see if that is the case. More hunters might be on their way.
“Hold on. Wait a second,” I say.
“What’s wrong?” She continues flying, so I power through my pain to catch up with her.
“Who are you? Where are we going..? Why are you helping us?”
“Too many questions,” she says, giggling. “I’m a friend you can trust, a loving sister, or a mother if you prefer.” Her strange answer leaves me perplexed.
“What?”
“Sorry,” she giggles. “That was strange of me.”
“Are you a Spargarian?”
“One hundred percent.” She turns sideways to look at me with her entire face. “My name is Purah. I’m the one you saw in your visions, Zazarel.”
“How do you know my name?” All I get from her is more giggles. “Answer me.”
“Geez, you’re impatient.” I place my hand on her shoulder to tempt her to stop goofing around. She side-eyes me yet continues flying. “I’ll answer your questions once she’s in tip-top shape. You’ll both want to hear what I tell you, so relax.”
“Fine, but if you try anything funny—”
“I won’t. May Tagenta strike me down if I’m lying.”
“Huh?” You know him?” I check the skies to see what will happen. If she’s lying; something might come down and hurt Vodkis. “H-hold on.” I get closer to Purah while checking the skies. “I believe you. Don’t let him strike you.”
“Thank you, Zazarel,” she laughs and stops flying. “I’m not your enemy and will never be. I exist to help my people. Our enemy is every single Melonian invader. They are the ones we need to rid of.”
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