She was retreating. What else could she do?
Tellion saw the small trail of blood that was left in the wake of her falling back. She was hurt. Worse than she had first thought. Her yellow eyes lifted to see the steady, yet aggressive, advance of Raddoch. Tellion's mind was losing its cohesion, all her thoughts were becoming lost in the rapidly mounting panic that was overtaking her.
Then Raddoch charged her.
The Jaguar's instinct was to leap aside from the threat hurtling towards her. She didn't question it, she darted out of the way of Raddoch's charge. As she did, the Hork-Bajir warrior's tail whipped out from behind him as he skidded to a halt next to her. Tellion swatted away his striking tail with her one good paw, her claws scratching across the edges of his sickeningly sharp horn blades. A flash of movement from the edges of her vision, too fast to react.
Pain shot all through Tellion's body as Raddoch smashed his talon foot into her side just below the rib cage. The force, the pain from the wound…Tellion collapsed to the roof. Raddoch didn't hesitate, he was relentless with his assault. One of his arms swung wide while the other was kept close to his chest for defense. Tellion jerked her head aside in blind desperation to dodge the blow. The arm blades barely missed penetrating her exposed throat, instead slicing deeply into the side of her head. Tellion instantly rolled her feline body away from Raddoch. She didn't think. She just rolled and rolled.
As fast as an Andlite's tail strike, the attack was over. Tellion weakly steadied herself on her shaking legs, barely able to put any weight on her injured forearm. She fully expecting to be instantly pounced on by the highly skilled Yeerk warrior. Yet Raddoch was in the same spot where he had last struck her. He hadn't advanced on her while she was down. He had let her get away. He just stood before her, motionless as if he were a statue in the exact same position he had been in when he had finished his last attack, his outstretched arm that he had sliced her head held outward in a solidly steady poise. Tellion saw several drops of her blood dripping from his arm blades onto the gravel surface of the roof.
The burning sensation on the side of her face dampened the injuries to her shoulder and side, but the fear only grew intensely as she stared down her opponent. He had hurt her again, several times now. And she had yet to land a single blow upon him. As she thought this, one of her eyes became clouded from the blood seeping from the gash to her head. Now her vision had been cut in half.
Raddoch was, without question, far more skilled in combat than she could ever dare hope to be. And soon, he would finish end this battle.
The full realization that she had put herself in this situation, that she was about to be brutally butchered by this exceptional Hork-Bajir warrior…it caused immense terror to swell up in Tellion's weary spirit. And for the very first time since she had escaped the Empire, Tellion knew that she was truly alone.
There was no Ellimist. No Crayak. No Chee. No Andalites.
There was no one that was going to come and save her. This was her fight, and her fight alone. And there was no longer any question. She was going to lose. Raddoch was going to brutally kill her. And there was nothing that she could do about it.
These next few precious moments that she had, were going to be the last of her life.
But even in the midst of that overwhelming despair, Tellion felt a faint glimmer of hope that twinkled somewhere in the depths of the endless darkness. This couldn't be the end. There had to be something, in all of that pain and fear that was consuming her, something that she wasn't seeing. Something that she was missing. Raddoch, with his far superior skills and techniques, should have killed her at least three times by now. Yet he hadn't. There was a burning fact that Tellion needed to realize about this fight. Something that just might save her, even in this moment of absolute hopelessness.
As if he sensed his impending victory, Raddoch eased his fighting stance and twisted his head slightly towards the edge of the roof. The sounds of battle far below were dimming, growing far more distant. Raddoch huffed before turning his attention back to Tellion.
"They've abandoned you." Raddoch mocked as he began to stalk towards Tellion again, he didn't even have his arm blades up this time, his confidence of absolute victory visible across his entire Hork-Bajir body. "Where are your precious friends now, puny warrior? There's no one coming to save you, and soon I will grow tired of this little game of ours. Once I've decided that you've suffered enough. Then, and only then, will I end it. I'll cut your head from its shoulders and carry it back to the Visser as my personal trophy to him. And my mentor Grath will be proud to call me his student."
It was right after Raddoch spoke that Tellion finally realized what it was that her mind had been missing through her entire ordeal with the Yeerk warrior. His attitude, his attacks, his endless mocking of her inferior skills. It now all made sense to Tellion.
He's never been in a battle before either. Tellion thought to herself. Raddoch is just as inexperienced in true combat as I am.
Raddoch was far more skilled than she was, yes. But he didn't have the knowledge that only came with fighting for one's very life. He was just as much a, as humans would say, 'green' soldier as she was.
Knowing that, Tellion instantly put her mind to work to devise some kind of strategy that would save her. After several painstaking and terrified moments of deeply immense contemplation, Tellion finally thought of a singular tactic that just might prevail against Raddoch's superior fighting style. But it would require the exact reaction from him, at the right moment, and most importantly, the sacrifice that Tellion was willing to make to win. If all those things happened, then there was a chance, even a faint one, that Tellion just might survive this battle. It had to work, it needed to work. Otherwise…
Tellion tensed her injured feline body as Raddoch slowly closed in on her, giving off the illusion that she was cowering when in reality she was poising herself to strike. She prepared herself to spot the right moment to strike as Raddoch closed in for his killing blow. Raddoch maliciously continued to confidently advance on Tellion. She gave away nothing to him, not letting Raddoch doubt for a moment the assurance of his impending victory. She waited for him to get just a little closer. And waited. And waited.
"I told you before." Raddoch mocked, taking several more strides closer. "Savor these next few breaths you draw, for they will be your final ones, Andalite scum…"
With his next step, Tellion finally sensed moment had come when the distance between them was ideal enough.
Tellion lowered her bleeding head and focused her one good eye directly at Raddoch. Then she did the very last thing that Raddoch would have ever expected form her. Tellion told him the truth.
I am no Andalite. Tellion projected her mental thoughts directly to Raddoch's overconfident mind.
Her words instantly halted his confident advance, and his Hork-Bajir head tilted slightly in uncertainty.
My name is Tellion, 7…8…5…4…, and I…am…the PRIME YEERK!
The confidence instantly faded all through Raddoch's body, and he instinctively back stepped in confusion. Bewilderment reigned in his red eyes from Tellion's proclamation. His bladed arms fell to his side as chaos became all too apparent across his Hork-Bajir face.
"What…" Raddoch sputtered, unable to formulate a coherent response.
She launched herself at Raddoch before he had a chance to even comprehend what she had told him, springing forth all of the power she had left in her hind legs. Her feline body propelled itself at Raddoch like a missile of deathly fang and claws. Her muscle laden forward legs were outstretched, the deadly clawed paws at their ends pointed directly at Raddoch's chest. Raddoch reacting instantly, desperately pulling his arm blades up to defend from Tellion's wild attack.
Too late.
Her fore legs were impaled upon his arm blades, their deadly ends piercing straight through the thick flesh of her legs and puncturing out through the other side of her black coat. The pain that exploded through Tellion's limbs was excruciating, almost mind collapsing. Yet, through the indescribable suffering, Tellion focused all of her mental strength to push beyond the agony.
With a command of her overwhelming mental strength that was able to push beyond the limits of the physical suffering, Tellion willed her legs to pull aside. The action caused both of her forelegs to be shredded from the bone to the outer layer of flesh, sending a shower of bloody meat into the air surrounding her and her combatant. But through her sacrifice, it caused Raddoch's arms to be pulled aside, leaving his body open to attack.
And attack Tellion did.
The inertia of her attack caused her body to slam into Raddoch's in a deadly embrace, sending the Hork-Bajir warrior stumbling backwards with Tellion on top of him. Pushing through an agony that few living beings could comprehend, Tellion focused every bit of her thoughts upon her target.
Raddoch's exposed throat.
With a ferocious roar that echoed out into the still night air, Tellion's jaws opened wide, and she clamped her massive fangs onto Raddoch's vulnerable neck. With one powerful clamp, her fangs pierced into Raddoch's neck. Greenish blood sprayed from every corner of her mouth as she bit down harder than she would have ever thought possible. The disgusting, foul Hork-Bajir blood flooded her mouth, overwhelming her sensitive tongue's taste. A wild, painful, bewildered cry gurgled from the depths of Raddoch's throat as Tellion tore into his neck. His bladed arms instantly shot up, their razor sharp ends stabbing into Tellion's exposed torso on both sides.
He jammed his arm blades into her torso over and over in wild panic as he tried to force Tellion off of him. She was tossed about raggedly through the air as Raddoch spun around and around to get Tellion to release her grip.
She didn't. She refused to let go.
Gurgling a pitiful cry from the back of his throat, Raddoch slammed his arm blades into Tellion's chest down to the very hilt. A sickening hissing noise came from the back of Tellion's throat as she felt one of those blades pierce through a lung.
Breathing became next to impossible for Tellion after that. But she didn't worry about breathing. She refused release her grip despite her mounting wounds.
She was beyond pain at this moment. Pain was only a word. A word that couldn't possibly describe the agony of having her internal organs pierced and shredded by Raddoch's blades. Tellion didn't relent. Her mind focused solely on her fangs sinking deeper and deeper into Raddoch's throat. Impossible as it may have been, she will her jaws to press down harder. Her fangs dug through his neck muscles and veins, his greenish blood flooding into her mouth to the point Tellion felt as if she would drown from the blood. Tellion's unbreakable determination blended with Tetzcatlipoca's killer instincts to push her beyond all physical limitations in this colossal battle for her very life.
Bite.
Bite!
BITE!
With that final roar screaming through her mind, Tellion pushed every last ounce of her mental capacity into clamping her fangs into each other.
A wild, gurgled cry erupted from Raddoch's shredded throat and he threw Tellion away. As she flew backwards, the Hork-Bajir's blades eviscerated her torso, causing Tellion's world to crash into an endless blackness before she even crashed into the roof.
Her thoughts returned to Tellion without any concept of a time lapse. She just realized that she was laying on her side upon the cold surface of the roof. She tried to get up, but one slight move of her forelegs sent explainable waves of pain shooting up from the limbs. Tellion looked down at them, and was mortified to see that whole parts of her legs flesh were dangling on the bones by the thinnest of tendons. Every breath was a colossal struggle, and it felt like her chest was collapsing. But nothing could have prepared her for what she saw when Tellion dared to lower her gaze down at her torso.
There was a gaping hole in her side. Her intestines were spilled out across the cold concrete surface, the heat from her insides sending wisps into the cold air around her. She wasn't hurt badly.
She was mortally wounded.
No. Tellion whispered weakly to herself. I can't…I've come too far…for it to end…
In that moment, Tellion almost let herself fall into hopeless despair. But as she was on the verge of surrendering herself to what felt like inevitable oblivion, something stabbed into the back of her thoughts. There was something…something that she should remember in this moment. Her mind pushed itself into searching through every memory she had of when she had first morphed. Then it clicked in her mind.
Her first morphing. The gash on her head had healed when she had morphed to crow, then back to human.
But…could that same process heal such a…certainly fatal wound?
Tellion didn't know. But she was desperate. Desperate to live. She had to try.
Calling upon the very last of strength that the big cat still possessed, Tellion pulled her back legs up and into herself, pushing everything that had spilled out of her body back inside. A whimpering noise seethed from the back of her throat, making her once powerful feline body feel as if it were just a helpless cub. And as she laid there, Tellion weakly willed herself to morph back into human.
Slowly, like pulling herself out of a deep pit that should have been impossible to escape, Tellion found the mental strength to begin bringing herself back to her human form. And her one and only hope to survive.
As she felt her body slowly shifting back into her normal form, a faint bubbling sound caught Tellion's attention. She shifted her head slightly, and saw Raddoch lying near her. He was weakly rolling about, both of his hands clasped tightly to his throat. But even with the distance between them, Tellion could see the effects of the wound she had inflicted upon him. His green blood was seeping through the creases of his large fingers, and sputtering out around those tightly clenched hands. His beak like mouth was wide open, gasping with his tongue hanging out as he struggled to breathe. Tellion couldn't do anything. She was too injured to move, to say anything. All she could do was lay there as her body gradually shifted from the Black Panther back into her human self. Lay there and watch Raddoch.
His chest was frantically rising and falling as his once powerful body now struggled to draw in even the faintest wisp of air, but only a bubbling hiss came from his eviscerated throat. Tongue hanging limply out the side of his trembling beak, Raddoch's mouth stretched wide to draw in a breath that he no longer could. His red eyes were darting about wildly as his mind clearly tried to grasp what was happening to him. Then, those red iris locked with Tellions, and all of his attention focused on her.
In that moment, Tellion saw something lurking in the gaze of the one that had only a minute before been poised to kill her.
Fear.
Total, absolute, unimaginable terror. It was an identical image to the one that had been forever etched into the fabric of her mind. Temrash's final moment before he had been swallowed in those flames as they both were on the cusp of…
…dying.
Tellion wasn't aware that she no longer was struggling to breathe herself, or that the pain that had been drowning her had vanished. Or that she was human once again. All of her thoughts, all of her focus, was keeping her vision locked with Raddoch's terrified gaze as his massive chest rose less and less.
As she watched on helplessly, the strength in his grip that had tried to desperately cradle his eviscerated throat faded and his hands slipped away from gaping wound. A faint, frightened gasp passed from Tellion's now human lips. As it did, a meek bubbling sound came from the back of Raddoch's throat as a tiny gout of his green blood sputtered from his limp mouth.
His eyes gradually ceased all movement, and in that final instant, Tellion knew. She knew that she was seeing the very light of Raddoch's life fade from his eyes. Then…a low hiss seeped from his mouth. Raddoch's breath vanished into the still night air.
His…final breath.
Then, in that next moment, the world itself seemed to cease around them. There was nothing to Tellion. Not the war. Not the Andalite resistance. Not even the people that she had come to love so dearly. There was nothing else except her as she continued to stare at Raddoch's still form. She was trapped in a nearly trance like state as she continued to stare at his now empty red eyes. Her body trembling, but not from battle wounds, Tellion weakly rose from the cold roof. It felt to Tellion as if another force was pulling her to her feet. She stood alone on the roof, now just her, as she continued to stare at Raddoch.
"No…" Tellion muttered as she slowly dragged one foot forward after another, bringing herself towards Raddoch.
And just like that, Tellion was suddenly standing over the limp form of the once powerful and confident Yeerk warrior. Her entire body was trembling as she stared at his still face, with eyes that looked off into nothingness.
"R…Radd…och?" Telllion whispered weakly to herself as she dropped to her knees beside him and cautiously grasped his massive head.
It took all of the remaining strength that she had just to lift his bladed head off the surface of the roof. There was no Yeerk seeping out of the ear holes. Raddoch had been connected to his host's brain until the very end. Tellion knew the intimate anatomy of her people, and what that meant. If a Yeerk was still connected to their host's brain at the moment of death, the shock of the sudden nervous system shut down would travel up into them as well, and they would…
When Tellion stared into the empty red eyes of the Yeerk warrior, the full realization finally struck Tellion, right into the center of her very spirit. Raddoch, and his Hork-Bajir slave, were dead.
And…
…it was she that had killed them.
As this understanding hit Tellion, she became aware of a foul, foreign taste upon her tongue. She dropped Raddoch's head, which hit the roof in a lifeless smack, and whipped her shaking hands across her mouth. When Tellion pulled them back, she was mortified to see the dark green Hork-Bajir blood slathered across her tiny hands. Tellion's stomach instantly twisted as the horror of staring at that green that saturated her fingers. She doubled over and fell into a series powerful regurgitating sensations all throughout her insides. Nothing came out, yet she had no control over her body. Several long strands of saliva seeped from her gaping mouth as the taste of Raddoch's blood was forever imbedded into her sense of taste.
Tellion feebly began pushing herself away from the dead Yeerk warrior and his slave, her mind crumbling from the onslaught of what she had just done.
"No." Tellion whispered again. "No, please…"
She couldn't face this. She couldn't stand there, staring at Raddoch's lifeless eyes. A life that she had just extinguished. She couldn't…she couldn't…
Tellion scrambled to her feet and ran away, her mind screaming at her to flee. To escape from what she had just done. Her thoughts instinctively pushed her to morph into the Kite and fly away. Far, far away from all of this.
Tellion was already half morphed when she reached the edge of the roof. She dared to look back one last time, and would forever wished that she hadn't as she stared upon Raddoch's still form sprawled out across the gravel surface, a large pool of his green blood surrounding his eviscerated throat. Her mind screamed at the sight, and Tellion threw herself over the side of the building. She plummeted to the ground without the slightest care for her own life. If the instincts of the Kite hadn't taken over, Tellion likely would have just let herself be smashed into the ground in a vain attempt to end the agony she was feeling in that moment. Yet, the swept wings of the Kite spread and caught a faint draft, and Tellion instantly rose high into the air. When the ground was far below her, Tellion flew away from the Marriott.
But there was true no escape for her. Not from what she had just done.
Tellion flew through the darkness aimlessly, the winds took her wherever they pleased. Time was of no meaning to her. No thoughts entered her mind except one. That image, that one last horrific moment of Raddoch's final breathe seeping from his mouth and the light of life fading from his eyes. It played across her mind, over and over, each time as equally clear and equally painful as the last one.
When it felt to her like her mind was going to collapse under the weight of that agonizing realization, Tellion dove and landed in the first clear spot that she could find. It was a small bluff that over looked the ocean. Tellion was demorphing before she even felt her talons touch upon the grass near the edge of the bluff. Once she had landed, she didn't move, not even a single flinch, until she was fully human again.
As Susan once more, Tellion stared out across the endless waves that stretched as far as her eyes could see. But even as she looked out at what should have been a majestic and tranquil sight, her mind kept going back to Raddoch's final moments. And as she did, a shocking revelation flashed across her mind.
She thought back to her last conversation with Erek in person, and the things he had said to her.
You don't know…the horror it is to not think, but KNOW that you are personally responsible for ending another's life…
Tellion curled herself into a feeble ball and began to feeling rock herself in a vain effort to bring comfort to her crumbling mind. Her trembling hands grasped her head as her wild eyes darted about uncontrollably. All the warmth drained from Tellion's body as Erek's words continued to haunt her thoughts.
I can still see their terrified faces. I can still hear their dying screams…like it just happened. Those, moments, will be etched into my memory banks forever…
Then, and only then, did Tellion fully understand what Erek had been trying to warn her of. Her Eidetic Yeerk memory. It was just like that of the Chee. Nothing she had ever, or would ever experience in her life, would fade into obscurity. Every memory her mind processed would remain clear and sharp in her thoughts as if it had just happened. And now, she would forever relieve that horrific moment of Raddoch final breath as if it had just happened. For the rest of her life. It would never dim. It would never fade. It would be a spirit dissolving experience that she would suffer through until her very last moment of life.
As the tears of despair, guilt, and above all else, regret, began to seep from Tellion's eyes, another thought passed through her shattering mind. Something Walter had told her long ago about killing.
When you take a life, no matter the reason, a part of you dies. And it never comes back, it's gone…forever.
Tellion wildly shook her head about as she tried in a pitiful attempt to break the flashing image of Raddoch's lifeless eyes gazing up at her in their emptiness. But it wouldn't break from her thoughts. Everything about herself, everything that she felt made her shining example of what her people could be, had just been broken beyond repair. Realizing this, Tellion threw back her head and released the most emotionally painful, anguished scream of her entire life to an uncaring world, an agonizing truth crashed down upon her.
Though she still breathed…a part of her very essence had died up on that roof with Raddoch. And she would never, ever get it back.
It was gone.
Forever…