Hey guys, sorry I haven't updated in awhile ;) Life Attacked me with pencils and paper (GASP!). This chapter is short compared to the others, but I felt that it needed to be. Another chapter might be comming soon. Wish me luck!
Dilemmas
Artanis just stood there, at a loss for what to do. He had never seen anyone cry before, and the experience was unsettling. Things might have been mildly better if the little abomination were not part protoss. As it was, the child's physical wails were accompanied by psionic waves of distress.
Quite suddenly, and without any command on his part for them to do so, his blades flickered, almost dispersed, and then reappeared again. The praetor looked down at them in surprise, and then docked his head to the side when they began to fizzle and crackle, flickering and threatening to gutter out all together. Confused, Artanis dismissed the blades and then recalled them. They continued to flicker.
What is this? I have heard of blades faltering when a templar is exhausted, but I am fully awake. A single blade might malfunction on occasion… but two? At the same time? He looked worriedly around, concerned by this new development, trying to divine what was causing the flickering. He felt no psionic dampening device nearby; indeed, the little hybrid's psychic cries were coming to him loud and clear.
His golden eyes turned back to the wailing hybrid, the first and most immediate of his problems. There were glossy tracks on its face, and the flesh around its eyes was puffy and red. The child started sucking grotesquely on its burnt hand, and the tone of its wails changed. With much of its mouth occupied, its cries sounded more like the croons of an undersea animal than the voice of a human.
It was pathetic.
I should kill it, he reflected. It is zerg.
The only problem with this assertion was that it didn't act like a zerg. The creature gave off an aura of such complete vulnerability and helplessness that he could not even begin to classify it as dangerous.
It is a wretched thing. A mockery of all I am; a manifestation of all I fight against. In it, the zerg have stolen everything we hold dear, have warped it into something dark, his well-honed and rational mind persisted.
It's a girl, another part of his mind reflected. She is probably around four years old.
Artanis shook his head. Foolish thoughts. I have killed two of these things already. One was but an infant, and both were probably female. Such traits do not exempt this creature.
The little one's tears stemmed from confusion and hurt, and her mental wails were pure of any malice. Here was a creature innocent and naïve, a creature who had done nothing wrong- nothing deserving of death.
Such a creature does not belong in this world. She could only grow into something destructive and unwanted. There is no future for her worth living. It is best that she dies now, before she becomes a monster. Best that she, like the others, dies while still innocent.
He carefully stepped up to her and knelt down. Her white-blue eyes darted to his blades and she jerked back an inch, remembering the pain they had inflicted on her fingers. A cry escaped from her lips, and both blades momentarily dispersed altogether.
Artanis blinked, looking down at one gauntlet. Then he lifted his eyes back to the little hybrid. He pondered to himself a moment, and then experimentally moved one of the blades closer to her. She gave another cry, and both blades flickered off immediately. This time they stayed off. Intrigued, Artanis drew the gauntlet back to him and carefully pulled it from his arm.
It was a relatively simple manner to open it up, that he might look at the components that generated his psi blades. At the heart of every gauntlet was a prismatic Khaydarin crystal, shaped to direct a stream of psionic energy and mold it into a focused triangular weapon. Ordinarily, these crystals were a soft blue color, and would glow with the application of psionic energy.
To the praetor's astonishment, the crystal in his blade was an ugly shade of gray, and reacted not at all to even the heaviest stream of psionic power. It was if the crystal had gone entirely dormant.
Artanis's eyes flicked back to the little hybrid girl, and he blinked several times at the upset expression on her face. She was leaning back from him, her round eyes focused apprehensively on his blades, flicking from them to his face, scared, hesitant, so naïve. It occurred to him that he had brought the weapons uncomfortably close to her, and she was frightened he'd touch her with them and she'd get burnt again. An unpleasant sensation welled in the depths of his genetically recessive stomach, something visceral and emotional.
Frightened he'd touch her with them.
He had planned on stabbing her.
A little child was frightened of him.
Foolish thoughts, foolish emotions. This creature is zerg. A monster. A wretched, disgusting form of life. I have killed thousands of zerg, including their larva. I will doubtless kill thousands more before my life is done. I ended the life of a young hybrid just recently. It was mercy.
To kill her, I will have to grab her, pin her, and snap her neck. She will scream and cry while I do so, and she is also psionic, so I will feel her die. Like a protoss. I will feel everything she is pass from this world into oblivion. Her favorite foods, and colors, her favorite place to sleep, the games she likes to play, I will feel all these things die. I will have killed a fully developed person.
… That's called murder.
I've killed humans.
Have I killed their young? It's not the same…
The protoss have burned whole planets of humans. I'm sure that human young were still in residence.
Tassadar thought it was wrong.
She's scared of me.
And for some reason, that felt wrong. It made him feel like a monster, like a murderer, and he did not like these sensations. Her wails grated on his nerves and wore down on his psyche. He did not like having his perceptions of friend and foe toyed with, and yet found himself deeply opposed to harming this wretched creature any further. Seeing as he could not simply dispel these bizarre feelings, he resolved himself to the possibility that he might not kill the little girl. His insides appeared to find this compromise acceptable. Now there was just the matter of stopping her incessant crying…
Artanis watched the little girl for a long moment, and then carefully pulled off his other gauntlet and showed it to her. "See?" he inquired. "No blade. It won't hurt you. Will you please stop that horrible noise, now?"
The hybrid blinked, her cries slowly dissolving into sniffles and tiny whimpers. After a moment, she lifted a hand and touched the strange metal.
"P-pretty," she murmured psionically in wonder, her fingers tracing over the curves and ridges of the gauntlet. Her mouth did not seem complete enough to form human words, but she emitted a curious trill.
Immediately, the gray crystal in Artanis's gauntlet turned a brilliant blue, and the praetor was certain he could see hints of pink about its coloration. The protoss looked quickly between the hybrid and the blade, and his golden eyes widened. Until just this moment, he had believed that something about the hybrid was psionically dampening his blades. Now…
Are they… Are they reacting to the noises she makes?
Keen on testing this theory, for he had never heard of such a thing before, Artanis looked for some way to provoke another trill. An idea occurred to him, and he took the gauntlet she was examining and gently placed it in her lap. Her eyes widened in surprise, and a large smile spread over her face. She quickly hugged the gauntlet and ran both her hand and the tips of her scourge wings over it. A vocal giggle escaped her lips. The last time she had made such a sound, Artanis had been preoccupied with how exceedingly hideous she was. This time he was focusing on his psi-blade's Khaydarin crystal, and so he bore witness as it began to glow a vibrant pink.
How very, very curious…
As the evening came to a close, Danial eventually put Sasha to bed on the bunk above his. He fluffed up her pillow and tucked her in, and smiled at the baffled look she gave him. "Sleep well," he told her, and he gave her shattered nerve endings a gentle stroke. Then he stepped back from the bunk bed, and sat down to exam his new gauss rifle. Every once in awhile, he'd look up at Sasha's bunk and go over the events of the day again in his mind.
Eventually he just laid back and closed his eyes, trying to get some sleep. Still, every time he could feel himself drifting off, the nightmares seemed to grab at him, and he'd jerk awake. Cuddling his rifle did nothing to assuage the feelings this time- his real gauss carbine was still in the protoss stargate, with the ghosts…
Sasha peeked over the side of her bunk and looked down at him. Danial blinked and turned his gaze to her. His brows furrowed when he realized that all her zerg features were crystal clear and distinct. Her fangs, wings, and even a light coating of carapace were all visible in the dim light of the bedroom. "Sasha? What's wrong?" he asked. "Can't sleep?"
The little girl tilted her head to the side and then scuttled underneath the top bunk, clinging to its backboard like some sort of spider. Then she suddenly released the backboard, spun herself over in midair, and landed skillfully upon his chest. He gave a little 'oof!' and then looked at her with a smile.
"Oh, I see. Comfortable?" Sasha looked at him and fanned out her wing-like dorsal spines. After a moment, she tilted her head to the side, perhaps confused by his lack of fear. Danial tilted his head to the side as well, matching her. At this, the little girl giggled, and then curled up against his chest.
When Bree returned back to the bedroom, she found Danial fast asleep. The marine was still wearing most of his under armor, and had neglected to take off his boots. Nestled within his arms was his freakish protossian ward. A mouth had formed upon her face. Zerg-like fangs were closed gently around one of Danial's fingers, in an infantile manner. Small, hooked wings were draped over his chest. As Bree watched, Sasha opened her eyes and stared in her direction. There was nothing outright hostile about the child's gaze, but a chill swept over Bree and made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
"Yeah…" the mechanic said slowly, and began backing out of the room. "I think I'll just sleep in the ship tonight. Good idea, Sasha."
The little girl blinked almost curiously, and tilted her head to the side. After a moment, she seemed to lose interest in the frightened mechanic, closed her eyes, and nestled back against Danial's chest.
Danial just snored peacefully. Bree shook her head, and then quickly left the room, shut the door, and headed back to the valkyrie frigate. There was no way in hell she was going to get eaten by a freaky little protoss-zerg-ghost-thingy in her sleep. Besides, Valk had some good horror vids uploaded to the frigate's computer, and Bree had a hidden stash of popcorn in the back of the cargo bay. It was time for an all-night movie marathon.
Danial didn't dream again that night. When he woke up, he found that Sasha had reverted to her fully protoss self. Her skin was pale and white again, her face smooth and unblemished. Those haunting black eyes were closed, and she looked like a normal, harmless child.
He smiled and tried to worm out of bed without disturbing her. His efforts were in vain, and her eyes opened the second he began to move. He smiled at her. "Good morning." She watched him with her strange black eyes, and did nothing else, so he stretched his arms above his head and cracked his back. Then he yawned a few times and sat back on the bed, rubbing his eyes.
Sasha observed this and then mimicked him, rubbing her own face. The marine stopped what he was doing and looked at her, raising an eyebrow. Again, Sasha mimicked him, and lifted a hairless brow. He smiled and lifted a hand to rub her nerve endings. "What do you say we go get some breakfast?" he asked her, and then paused and frowned.
Breakfast. In order to get a meal, he'd have to carry Sasha out in the open again- hell he'd have to bring her straight to the salvage base's mess room. People were going to see her. Bree's warning came back to him.
On the other hand, what else could he do? He had to eat, he had to eventually get to the valkyrie frigate, and he sure as hell was not going to leave Sasha alone.
Come to think of it, he had to pee. …That was gonna be a hell of a problem. Was he supposed to bring her into the men's room with him while he had to do his business? Maybe he could just cover her eyes… He certainly couldn't leave her standing out in the hallway by her lonesome. The more he thought about the absurdity of such a situation, the more he found himself smiling at what the other marines in the bathroom would think.
He'd just have to let today slide. He'd carry her around today, and then he'd just have to…
Well, he didn't know what he'd have to do to keep Sasha safe and hidden, but he'd think of something.
After a moment he realized that Sasha was gnawing hungrily on his under armor. He blinked a few times and then smiled and picked her up, staring to head out of the room. "Right. Breakfast. Just lemme stop at the restroom, okay?" Sasha didn't answer. Instead, she bit off a chunk of his carbon fiber under armor and began chewing upon it as if it were hard taffy. "…Right… Well… If it holds you over until breakfast, I guess I can't complain…"
After Sasha had scared every last marine out of the mens' restroom, Danial headed for the mess hall. He dropped off his plate from the day before, and retrieved a new one under the bewildered stares of his fellow salvagers. The cooks piled his plate high with 'enhanced' meat and synthetic eggs. They then informed him that he was not allowed to bring the plates out of the mess hall, and that next time he did it, he'd be reported.
At this point, it occurred to Danial that the logical thing to do would have been to leave the mess room, grab a bag, put the food inside the bag, take the bag up to his room, and feed Sasha away from the public eye. He looked down at the little girl.
"What do you think? Should I go get a box, or something?" Sasha looked up at him. The expression on her face promised that Danial would end up on the menu if he abandoned that processed bacon for even a second. Danial winced but nodded. "Yeah, I thought you'd think that. Alright then, let's find a table…"
YARGGG! Review! And hopefully I'll get up the next chapter soon!
