.
I have been challenged. I will meet that challenge. I will paint a portrait of the TSoK universe from a mon's perspective, or I will completely stop writing "The Saga of Kings" Trilogy.
Naw, I'm kidding.
Even if this fails, Theron and Zane will still burn their way through the violent world that I created.
-So you can't get me to stop that easily. What a bitch for those scalding reviews you were warming up.
...
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The Saga of Kings:
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"Through Other Eyes"
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Written by:
Vile M.F. Slanders
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(o) .I. (o)
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Chapter I: Of Prey and Predators.
The Alpha hissed, nudging her awake.
Quickly rising to her paws, she sniffed at the air.
She could smell it.
The Enemy.
The sun was far in rising, but the Enemy was moving before the solar rays could warm its blood.
The Pack had the advantage.
They could strike while the Enemy was still cold and weak.
The Alpha was rallying the other members of the Pack, rousing them to the alert.
The Enemy was moving.
The darkness favored the Pack.
It was time to hunt.
It was the perfect time to kill the Enemy.
The Enemy's scent quickened her blood, driving off the drowsing aches. She could feel her heart hammering within her chest. She could feel an itch at the base of her skull. She could feel the tightening of her shoulders, and the autonomous flexing of her claws.
The blood of the Enemy called to her blood; as the violence bade spitting breaths and snarling yowls. The Pack answered her aggression with their own.
The Enemy was moving.
The Enemy was exposed.
The Enemy would die.
The Alpha took his position at the head, and his Beta followed from beside. The remaining members fell in behind the pair, as the Pack moved as one in search of the Enemy.
The scent would lead them. The blood would call them.
And the battle would meet them.
The grass did little to impede the Pack's advance, as she followed in the footsteps of her Beta.
This hunt was different.
It was not for mere meat that the Pack now hunted for.
The five white prowlers did not hunt for simple prey.
The Enemy was not prey.
The Enemy was strong.
The Enemy was as strong as the Pack.
The Enemy hunted the Pack's quarry.
The Enemy hunted the Pack's kits.
The Enemy sought the Pack's blood.
The Enemy needed to die.
There was no fear known to the Alpha or his Beta; nor hesitation known to any other of the Pack.
Except for one.
She was not like them.
They had no fear of the Enemy's bite, or its razored tail.
Though such devices still drew blood and ended life; the Enemy's greatest weapon did not harm the Pack.
Except for one.
She was different.
She was afraid.
The Enemy's greatest weapon could kill her.
The white prowlers tightened ranks, and a wide river of turbulent water parted the prevalent grass. The path across the river was hidden in the head of the rapids; a shallow rise of stones concealed by a swell of angry water. The Pack knew the way across the river. This was their land. And the Enemy did not belong here.
Pausing to shake the water from her fur, she once again fell in behind the Beta, and readied to seek the Enemy once more. The Pack was moving again. The river's stony banks gave way to long grass again, and the Pack spread out. They were almost upon it.
The Enemy.
The scent was overwhelming now. Perhaps the enemy had caught their scent as well. Though the Enemy lacked a nose, it could still taste their trails upon the wind.
But the Enemy was cold.
The sun had not yet risen.
The Enemy would be weak.
The Enemy may not yet realize how close the Pack was.
The grass was growing thinner. Red rocks now punctured the rolling green knolls.
The Enemy liked the rocks.
The rocks warmed quickly in the sun, and retained their heat long into the night.
The rocks were growing more numerous.
And the Enemy's scent grew stronger.
The Enemy.
Dead ahead.
In the open.
Coiled on a rock.
Purple. Black. Gold.
And red.
The red eyes.
The red fangs.
And the red blade upon its tail.
The Enemy was massive. Six times the huntress's length, and twice as thick as her at its middle.
The Enemy was armless, nor did legs sprout from its scaled body.
The only features of distinction was a wide mouth with red fangs, and a tail tipped in a red blade.
Scales and muscle was all that connected those two extremities.
The Enemy was powerful.
The Enemy was dangerous.
The Pack moved to engage, and at last; the Enemy's coils shifted.
The Enemy learned too late that the Pack was upon it.
The Pack's claws broke scale and parted muscle before the Enemy's head lashed in a blinding reflex; red and gold moving in a lethal blur.
The Pack fell back, and separated, before circling the Enemy; but the Pack's many parts did not dissuade the Enemy. It fell back into its coils, head raised and tail lifted; lidless eyes unwavering and forked tongue slithering.
Despite the lack of sun, the Enemy was still strong.
The battle had begun.
The Pack moved in sequence, individuals drawing fang and blades away from the rest of the Pack with feints and bluffs.
One at a time, the Pack members struck, exploiting every opening that the Enemy revealed in its attack.
Little could the Pack's claws and teeth wound the Enemy, but every drop of blood spilled weakened it. Every gash and puncture taxed the Enemy's resolve.
But the Enemy knew this tactic.
This Enemy had eaten Packs before.
With a feint of its own, the Enemy deceived the Pack.
One Pack member moved to exploit, and when the Enemy reversed its lunge, red fangs sank into white fur.
She watched as her Pack member was drawn into the coils. She watched as that tail fell upon her sibling. She watched as the Enemy crushed bone in its deadly embrace, while a red blade hewed sinew and arteries; staining the white fur red.
The coils loosened, and a broken twitching figure rolled from the rock.
The Pack had been five.
Now they were four.
The Enemy made no sound of triumph, nor wasted any motion to intimidate. Returning once more to striking coil, the enemy awaited the Pack's next slip. But the Pack had grown wary.
The Omega was dead.
Not one of the Pack cared for the fallen; save for one.
She was the weakest now.
She would be the next Omega.
But such concerns were summarily dismissed.
The Enemy.
The Enemy was still alive.
The Enemy needed to die.
Now the Pack switched tactics.
Two Pack members circled clockwise, while two the others circled counterclockwise.
The Pack members adjusted speeds, and soon generated a mirage.
The Enemy's eyes were unmoving, but even these lidless eyes could lose their focus.
Each Pack member shifted the Enemy's gaze, each time the Pack's opposing circles crossed figures.
White shapes merged and broke apart in the Enemy's eyes; white shapes fusing and diffusing into seperate directions. Four white shapes? Six white shapes? Eight White shapes?
The Enemy grew agitated, and lunged for the nearest individual. But the Enemy could not curve its neck in the attack. Every muscle flexed in but one direction to achieve such a powerful strike.
And the Pack's circle curved ahead of the Enemy's fangs.
The Enemy faltered when its maw found neither flesh nor fur, and the Pack attacked as one.
Two converging individuals took the head, and the other two attacked the tail.
The Pack's teeth and claws worked in tangent, before the Enemy shook itself free from the onslaught.
But a new weakness had been accrued from the Pack's vicious maneuver; as the Enemy's blade folded in on the tail's rent muscle.
The Pack had disarmed half of the Enemy's arsenal; and they grew bold when the Enemy's blood welled from that tattered tissue.
The Enemy was in retreat, but the cold and blood loss had crippled it; and the Pack now struck in uncoordinated harries. The promise of victory had blinded the Pack to the danger.
A shriek and a hiss followed the Enemy's retaliating lunge, and the Alpha fell back with a bleeding gouge in his shoulder. The Enemy's weapon was in his body, but his blood could resist the sickness wrought from such wounds.
The Alpha would live, though now the Pack once again learned caution.
Even in dying, the Enemy could still kill.
Spreading their numbers wide, the Pack sought to distract the retreating Enemy once more.
But the Enemy was desperate.
The Enemy would only defend; now that its deadly tools had been dulled.
But the Alpha was infuriated with the pain. He struck now alone, slipping beneath the Enemy's lunge, and sinking both teeth and claws into belly scale.
The Enemy repositioned its head and closed its coils around the Alpha, but the rest of the Pack found an opening in the Enemy's focused intent.
Three mouths closed on the same throat; six claws tore into the same neck.
And with the addition of the Alpha's own fangs and nails; the battle met its end.
Blood oozed from open arteries, and guttural breaths fluttered the ragged tissues that split the windpipe; But the Pack's fury would not diminish while life teased them from Enemy's form. Every individual continued to gnaw and slash, until only bone connected the Enemy's head to its neck.
The struggle was over.
The Enemy was dead.
With growls spitting yowls; the Alpha secured his prize.
First meal went the Pack's leader, while the others were made to wait.
Stripping his meal from the ruined throat, the wounded Alpha gorged himself on the Enemy's remains.
When the Alpha withdrew from the corpse, the Beta moved in to fill her kit-swollen belly.
The Pack would replace what members had been lost; and the Enemy's flesh would feed their revival.
When the Beta settled down amongst the blood and the gore; did she dare move to claim the third rank.
But her sibling also moved to take of his rightful meal; and when the two met over the meat of their Enemy, it was in a yowling feud.
Neither the Beta or the Alpha intervened, as the rank of Omega was settled.
The fight only lasted moments, before a bleeding female submitted to her stronger brother.
Rolling onto her back with a whimper, she pleaded for mercy from her sibling.
But while her brother was content to yowl and spit from above her; the Alpha moved in to punish her.
Teeth sank into her neck, and her father drove her nose into the dirt. Dragging his daughter up against a rock, the Alpha's talons carved new wounds across her back.
So had it been decided.
She was to serve as the new Omega.
Her brother took his meal, guzzling the last of the ribless flesh; leaving her to pick around the scale and bone for the tough morsels. She clambered over to the fallen enemy, eyes averted and shoulders slumped, heart still beating with the fury of her lost battle.
And so did the Omega consume her meal, grateful for the scraps and waste; for if nothing was left after her brother's feast…
...Then nothing would be the Omega's meal.
But…
Something rose in silence from the grass beyond the Enemy's stones. Something massive and stealthy slowly cast its shadow over the Pack.
Something even mightier than the Enemy in the sun.
She had barely sample the Omega's first bite when the shadow fell across her.
The Pack began to slink away and hiss.
Leaving the Omega alone with the prize.
She looked up from the flesh of the Enemy and beheld this new foe's form.
Purple in two shades. Armor fashioned in beads and blades. Two long arms tipped in pincers. Four short legs shuffling beneath the plated body.
Eight black glassy eyes swelling from between those two thick arms, and below those eight eyes, flexed two heavy mandibles unfurling into long blue fangs.
The King of these plains.
The Omega fell away from that shadow, abandoning her unsampled meal.
The black eyes followed her, and the beaded arms slowly rose.
The King desired a meal; and the dead Enemy could no longer resist such a hunger.
But the dead Enemy was only a nibble to a King of this size.
And in those black and glassy eyes, the Pack was just another nibble for this unrivaled tyrant.
The King struck with a speed that outmatched the Omega's juke, and a mighty pincer severed her flesh in a glancing blow.
Little sooner than the Omega had put down a measured distance between her and the withdrawing pincer, than it was that she felt something rising from the King's burning wound.
The sickness.
She was not like the others of her Pack.
She had not their immunity to the sickness.
She could feel the venom breaking down her veins. Her stomach turned, while water and phlegm stopped her breath in a gagging reflex. The sickness was inside her.
Her heart grew cold and a twitch developed in her neck. The sickness did not outright kill the prey. It weakened the prey quickly. Her own blood was turning into poison within her body. Her own nerves were seizing against her brain's command.
Her whole existence became a blinding pain.
...And something rose within her to answer the sickness.
She was not like the others of her Pack.
She was susceptible to the sickness.
And though the sickness could kill her…
...It could also make her stronger.
Vomit left her mouth in a rasping wheeze, even as adrenaline poured into her system to counter the effects of the sickness. The seizing nerves began to swell, increasing their neurological conductivity through their enhanced saline volume. Her heart thudded heavy with life, driving the toxic blood throughout every capillary, while her blood cells withered away from their amassed hemoglobin, exposing twice as much oxygen-ferrying surface area than normal. The venom digested the walls of her alveoli, further thinning the tissue for an even more efficient atmospheric exchange.
And a sudden flood of dopamine mixed with the potent cocktail of blood, venom, and adrenaline; turning her vision black and filling her ears with a ring as the Omega was consumed by an unnatural rage.
The sickness was upon her.
She was not like the rest of her Pack.
She was different.
…
The pain woke her. She was on her side in the mud. New wounds bled into the falling rain, and a throbbing sensation in her head reddened her vision and numbed her hearing.
The sickness was still in her.
But the King was dead.
A colossal purple ruin oozed foul white blood into the mud around her, and what little her senses could relay told the Omega that the tyrant was no longer whole.
He lay in three pieces, strewn across the dead Enemy's hold.
She tried to rise, but quickly fell.
The sickness was still in her.
The sickness was slowly killing her.
Now she saw them returning from their flight.
Cautious. Nervous. Wide eyed and leery.
The Pack.
She could not lift herself from the mud. What strength she had known in the intoxicated fury was long cold.
The Omega was crawling into death.
And the Pack could neither aid her, nor would they try.
The wounded Alpha briefly sniffed around her fluttering neck, before falling away with a hiss.
Omega for less than a day.
Such frailty.
The Pack wasted little time. In a repeat of family violence, the bleeding Alpha and his pregnant Beta named their last standing child Omega, before the three left the previous Omega in that field of corpses.
Abandoned.
Packless.
Sick.
Dying.
Would some other predator end her agony before the sun rose?
Or would she be made to suffer the sickness until death?
With a defiant gasp, she lifted a paw.
Burying her claws into the softened soil, she dragged her white form through the mud.
She was still alive.
And until death claimed her…
...She would commit herself to life.
…
She woke to a noise. She had crawled into this cave just as the first wings rose to sing the morning sun into the cloud covered sky. She could hear the patter of rain on stone and the distant rumble of thunder beyond her meager shelter's enterance.
Was it the storm that had waken her from her sleep?
There it was again…
-The noise.
It sounded muffled by the rock, but distinct in its peculiar rising and falling of pitch.
Was this the sickness playing with her mind?
Or was it real?
"-ammer?"
"-ell, the rain-"
"-omething down there-?"
What was that noise?
"-Right. You stand watch. Hunker down so that I can get my headlamp and pick."
It sounded…
...Musical?
The rocks at the entrance of her cave began to shift.
"-There better be something more than an iron deposit down there, Hammer. You've had enough to eat this morning. You don't need anymore ore, fatso."
A stark white light invaded the tunnel, and the sick Omega quickly dragged herself into the shadows.
"Hold my legs. It's not that deep. I don't see any Skorupi or Sevipers in there, but it looks like it gets wider further back. I'm not seeing any gems either. I'm telling you, Hammer… If I'm going through all this trouble for another one your snack breaks…"
-Something was coming into her cave.
The white light began to move, and something was scraping along the floor of the cave.
"-Umph. These Goddamn squeezes are going to ruin my back. Can you still hear me, Hammer?"
RUMBLE.
"Okay, good. I just wanted to make sure that you could hear me bitching you out when I find a lump of-"
The light rounded a bend in the tunnel, and a vague silhouette filled the sick Omega's vision before the white light blinded her.
"-Oh fuck!"
Whatever was in the tunnel with her, it started panicking as soon as it caught sight of her.
"-HAMMER, GET ME-!?"
Her eyes adjusted to the blinding light, and a strange animal met her gaze.
It had a mane of wavy brown hair. A coarse layer of that same colored hair coated its lower jaw. But the space between the chin and mane was almost bare of hairs, save for two curved strips above the eyes. The unnatural white light shone from a bulky protrusion on its forehead, but the most startling apparatus was the animation of its face.
Red lips surrounded a bizarre mouth, and a nose stood far beyond the typical confines of a snout. A pair of blue eyes danced with brilliant motions, and the strangest fleshy patterns filled the inside of either ear.
What was this animal?
It didn't look like a predator-
"Holy shit. Hammer... we've got ourselves a wounded Zangoose in here."