Dualism

 

Picture Source: https://www.machinerylubrication.com/Read/616/gear-drive-lubricants

 

  Trigger Warning: Physical Violence / Gore

 

 ===

 

Dualism

 

    Drp.

    Drp.

    Drp.

    Blood dripped off of his body steadily, adding to the pool of crimson beneath him...wait...above him?

    Dorian arched his body this way and to try and get a better view. It was hard to really get a good angle given the dozens of large, metallic spikes that pierced his body at odd angles starting at the neck and going all the way to his feet. The giant skewers locked his body into place and made it difficult to really see anything, but given the blood was 'up' his face, he concluded that the most reasonable interpretation would be that the pool was above him.

    ...adding to the pool of crimson above him. Our stalwart hero once again found himself in the evil clutches of the Mastermind!

    "HA! HA! HA!" a boisterous and raucous sound echoed out from somewhere underneath of Dorian as...wait...

     Once again, Dorian twisted in place and tried to determine what his orientation should count as. His head was getting pulled towards gravity, so he was technically upside down. If someone else was looking at this other than stupid old Victor, they'd probably interpret that Dorian's feet were above him. But would it matter more about his own orientation or a global orientation to the room?

    "Do you mind? Are you even listening?" Victor demanded from his position above Dorian at the top of the spike contraption on a small platform overlooking the massive hole. Only moments before, the entire death trap had been covered by some well-laid lumber and a throw rug meant to catch Dorian in just such a predicament.

    "Yes, yes, yes." Dorian answered dismissively. "I'm listening, I'm listening. I'm just trying...to figure out..."

    ...underneath of Dorian as...wait...crap. What's the next line. Let's see, Mastermind above. Spike trap. Blood below...What's a good next line?

    "I don't think you're even listening." Victor accused the impaled man.

    "Yes, yes." Dorian called again. "Just...Give me a second. I'm trying to figure out the next line!"

    ...dripping blood. Right. Whatever.
    The evil Mastermind towered above our stalwart hero, standing only feet above the precipice of metal and malice that now threatened to...

    "Oh, come on, Dorian!" Victor yelled. "Are you doing the whole thing again? That narration thing?"

    ...that now threatened to consume...

    "Doriiiian..." Victor called again.

    ...to consume...Fuck!...

    "Yes! I was doing the narration thing! And you fucked it up!" Dorian growled back.

    "Ha! I knew it!" Victor yelled, pumping his fist in triumph. "I build this whole death trap and you can't even give me the time of day!"

    "It's not like that, Victor!"

    Victor, pulling a controller from his coat pocket, hit one of the dozens of unlabeled buttons. The walls of the tunnel that Dorian was suspended in that weren't being used for a giant crushing spike trap slid open. Cylindrical metal tubes, not spiky on the end this time but, instead, hollow, jutted out from their newly exposed spaces in the wall. Dorian's body was consumed a few moments later in great gouts of flame that were so hot the spikes holding him in place began to bubble and drip with molten metal.

    Victor stared down at his nemesis, or, more accurately, the flaming plume where the now liquefying body of his nemesis was, and just soaked it in. The heat washing over his face. The stink of burning human. The sense of success and a job well down.

    By the time the flamethrowers had done their job, the spikes, and the body that they had been holding in place, had been reduced to molten slag and was little more than a stinky, softly glowing puddle on the hard stone below.

    Satisfied, Victor put the controller back away in his pocket. 

    ...joining the pool of blood that had once been inside of him... Wait...I guess it's now inside of me? Do I have an inside?

    "Question." the bubbling mass of remains called up.

    And, like that, Victor's satisfaction drained away and left him with the same old exhaustion that had been plaguing him for a while now.

    "What?" he called back down to Dorian with defeated acceptance.

    "If blood was in your body, and then out, and then...uhh...this happened. Is the blood back in your body? Does the molten metal cause a problem with how things are mixed up? I'm having trouble figuring out the in's and out's here."

    Victor glowered down at the pool where lips and, disgustingly, a throat and vocal cord set were already emerging and rebuilding from the gore.

    "I feel like inside requires you to have the rest of the body in one piece." the disembodied lips continued as cheeks and teeth started to form around them. "So a puddle in a puddle is just...what...a big puddle? Right?"

    Pulling out the controller again, Victor considered it for a long moment. He had several things that would shut him up for a little bit. He could freeze him. Maybe suck him into a giant spinning saw blade. Just melt him again. Call a Roomba?

    But what was the point?

    Victor let out a long, drawn out sigh and, instead, tapped a button that caused the platform he was in to start descending towards the floor. The metal spikes did their best to retract automatically, but some of them, now hardening in strange, half-dissolved columns of metal, jammed in their housing. Still, it was enough that he could maneuver the platform around here and there and touch down next to the remains of his arch enemy.

    "Dorian." Victor began before sighing again and pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand. "I really don't know. I just... I don't know."

    "Like, don't get me wrong." the grotesque amalgamation of meat and bone declared matter-of-factly. "It's probably already actually inside now, but I feel like making that proper distinction is important to really get a sense of everything going on."

    "A sense of everything going on." Victor echoed, pinching his nose tighter. "Dorian, do you even have a sense of what's going on?!"

    "Pardon?" the bust of Dorian asked as he continued to slowly regrow from his molten puddle.

    "I mean, do you have any idea why we're still doing...THIS?" Victor demanded, waving a hand at half-destroyed trap room as a well of annoyance that had been growing within him bubbled to the surface.

    "This?"

    "YES! THIS! This song and dance! This... Whatever this is! Why are we still doing this?"

    "Well, you see," Dorian began. "I find your evil lair..."

    "Naturally."

    "Break in."

    "Obviously."

    "Deal with the traps and minions and all that."

    "Clearly."

    "And when I'm just about to defeat you, against all odds, you escape to your actual evil lair."

    "Oh, yes, the real one." Victor remarked snidely as he considered just how many different actual evil lairs he really had and how many had been destroyed over the years.

    Honestly, the property taxes alone made him cringe to even think about them.

    "And then I go to break in there! The actual lair."

    "Yes, yes." Victor agreed. "I know what we're doing. I asked why we're doing this?"

    "Because that's what we do." Dorian gestured with a meaty appendage. An arm, perhaps? Hopefully an arm.

    "And we've been doing it for as long as I can remember." Victor agreed. "But how long has that been? I know it was at least before the British came about."

    Dorian seemed to nod and consider. "I vaguely remember something about you wearing Roman armor for a while..."

    "Oh yea, I remember that one. I really liked that armor."

    "So, I guess before the Romans?" Dorian considered.

    "Yea, we'd been doing it for a while before that. Definitely before the Romans."

    The two sat in thought for a second, Victor standing over the cooling pool of mess while Dorian slowly grew and emerged out of it, his body stitching itself back together.

    "Was there a thing with dinosaurs once? Has it been that long?" Dorian asked thoughtfully.

    "Well, there was, but that was pretty recent." Victor considered. "You meant the one with the pterodactyl, right?"

    "No, no." Dorian shook his head. "The tyrannosaurus."

    "Oh! Right! When I was trying to create a dragon!"

    "Oh, yea! And you had that whole knight thing going on. Where did you even get that one?"

    "Bought it off some guy from Montana. Something... Brown? I think his name was Brown."

    The two stood there, just staring at each other. Remembering things that had come before and realizing that they probably only recalled a fraction of what had actually been.

    "Vic," Dorian echoed his nemesis's question. "Why are we doing this?"

    Despite himself, Victor tried again to recall, but knew that the answer was no longer there. Maybe he had just run out of space to remember stuff like that. Maybe it had been lost from one of the times he'd 'died'. Maybe it just hadn't been significant to begin with.

    "I don't know." Victor confessed.

    Another few seconds drew out before them as Dorian slowly reached his natural height. The man was nude as his clothes had been disintegrated in the conflagration earlier, but it was nothing that Victor hadn't seen before.

    For the first time since he could even remember, they regarded each other as men, as thinking people, rather than as the enemies they had been for so long.

    "Dorian." Victor began.

    "Yea?"

    "I'm tired." he confessed.

    "I- Me too, Vic."

    The two took in their surroundings, glancing around at the half-destroyed trap room again, but looking at it again with a new perspective. So much time. So much money. So much everything wasted in this endless rigamarole of back and forth, back and forth. They had been spending so much time trying to kill each other even though they both knew that neither of them could die. They had tried literally everything under the sun to invoke their own deaths that-

    "It was because you couldn't die." Victor declared, the briefest flicker of a memory bubbling to the surface.

    "Was that it?" Dorian asked hesitantly.

    "Yea. You said you'd never met someone else who couldn't die when...something happened. I can't remember what. And then you tried to kill me just to see. And then I tried to kill you."

    "Seems about right."

    "I can't remember what really started it, but I definitely remember bashing your head in with a rock." Victor recalled.

    "I think I tried to drown you." Dorian though.

    "Oh, right! I remember that." Victor said before shuddering. "I hate drowning. Always leaves me feeling weird."

    All at once, the silence of the room grew around them. Everything that had been said, everything that had been done for so many years. The maiming, the attempted murder, the property damage, the crimes against humanity, the tax evasion...

    "Do you want to-" Victor began while Dorian stared at him expectantly. "Do you want to go get a drink?"

    "Yea." Dorian said with a nod. "I think I do."

    Victor stepped further to the side of his platform and offered the space to Dorian who slowly stepped on, dripping with the remains of the pool.

    "Though, one requirement." Victor continued.

    "Don't drown you in it?"

    "Also good. But let's get you cleaned up first."

    "Sounds like a plan." Dorian agreed.

    And so, enemies no more, the dastardly duo ascended towards the heavens aboard the Mastermind's creati-

    "Stop that."

    "Sorry."

===

Story submitted to Reedsy for their Weekly Writing Contest with the following Prompt: Write a story about two characters who have been fighting for so long, they can’t remember what started it.

 

https://blog.reedsy.com/creative-writing-prompts/

The Dragon's Maw (Part 7) - Chronicles of Braum Stormforge

Artist Unknown - If Identified, please let me know - http://www.misucell.com/WDF-158230.html

    CRACK~
    The sound of the kobold being crushed under the weight of Magna was sickening. Worse yet, it came down cleanly on top of his head and split it like an overripe melon, spraying its contents across Braum and the other kobolds. In a heartbeat, the creature was snuffed out of existence only to be replaced by two more of the little dragon-kin, their blades flashing and searching for purchase beneath his steel hide.
    Fortunately, he didn't have the time to think about the implications.
    With his shield in his left hand, he knocked away a spear that was aimed for the slot in his helmet, bashing the beast backwards. A half moment later, a sword came from his right, seeking to cut out his knees from below him. That monster met the still gooey head of his hammer and was sent sprawling, its ribs shattering beneath the blow.
    But for each one blown away, more seemed to seethe from all around.
    And for each one that appeared, a blow landed on his armor. A blade slipped beneath a plate. A wound was cut into his flesh. And he fell back, bellowing in rage as much as pain.
    "ANYTIME NOW!" Braum roared and spared a half second to glance back at the summoner at the top of the stairs.
    None of the kobolds had been able to surge past him. Those few that had were brought down with utmost ferocity and their broken bodies now littered the way, blocking others from making the journey easily.
    But they still needed more time.
    The eidolon could clearly be seen in the runic circle now. The summoner's eyes were open but where irises would normally have been, Braum could make out nothing but a hollow, iridescent glow.
    And so he fought on.
    One kobold was kicked square in the chest only to be trampled by its compatriots.
    Another was sent sprawling by a well place shield blow.
    He had just taken out several of the little blighters in a great swing of his hammer when two things happened. First, he felt the bite of pain and the warm outpouring of blood as a spear slipped into a crack in his armor. The hard ridge of the blade bit into his flesh and rested just between two of his ribs, lighting his chest ablaze with pain and causing him to let out another bellowing roar.
    Second, a group of kobolds uncovered a very functional, very deadly-looking ballista some hundred yards away.
    For half a moment, Braum just stared. Through the haze of the pain and the shock of the massive bow-and-arrow like machine, he felt himself just go numb. Had it not been for his steel, he likely would have been killed in that moment of surprise.
    It was only when the ballista started being aimed towards Ember, the still unfinished summoner, that he was brought to his senses.
    "HEY!" he bellowed, trying to get their attention.
    But they weren't looking at him. They were getting ready to fire.
    And he had to do something.
    Using his considerable bulk and his massive tower shield, Braum plowed through the kobolds that were still in front of him. He moved through them like a bulldozer and ran as hard and fast as he could. He still had one problem...they were too far away and he had no ranged weapons.
    Think, Braum, Think. I just need a moment. Just need...
    He laughed out loud as the idea hit him.
    While he might have simply used some of the debris lying around him, Braum didn't want to slow down and possibly be caught by the horde that was now following on his heels. Instead, he quickly sheathed his hammer and reach back into his bag.
    A moment later, in a single, seamless motion, Braum drew out the cast iron pot that he'd taken from the priest's room and threw it for all he was worth.
    The great, black cauldron soared with an elegance and grace that no cookware should ever really see, particularly when thrown at another person. It struck true. The lead kobold, a little monster slightly larger and more scarred than the others who was just settling in at the controls of the war-weapon, didn't even see it coming. The pot hit dead on, slammed him to the ground, and lodged itself to the little dragon-kin's head with a resounding KLONG!
    It struggled and screeched and clawed at the pot, trying desperately to get it off, but by the time he and three others had managed to pry it from his crooked skull, it was already too late.
    A wall of steel and blood and fury descended upon them, hammer first, bellowing in a rage that even the Dwarf had not known up to this point.
    He roared and screamed and swung his weapons, decimating everything in front of him. While many still fought on, some began to back away in fear of the ferocious display that Braum was putting on. Bodies were broken, the ballista was crushed, and, just as more of them decided to back away in favor of their lives, a new threat emerged.
    It started low; a soft grumbling that quickly built up to a rushing boom. But half a moment later, the entire far end of the room lit up with arcs and bolts of blue and white electricity that shot this way and that, shattering stone and violently tearing a crater out of the platform where the now complete eidolon hovered; its deep blue eyes narrowed and sparking with energy.
    With Braum in front and the Eidolon behind, the kobolds turned tail and began to run, but it was already too late. The sound of lightning and thunder from the magical beast coupled with Braum's screams of defiance and rage drowned out their cries; the only thing louder being the sound of Ember's laughter as he watched the destruction from his perch above the stairs.

===

(Alright, so I misjudged the length of Part 7. There's only one more entry into Dragon's Maw before we switch back to a few other pieces. Promise. ;P )

The Dragon's Maw (Part 6) - Chronicles of Braum Stormforge

Artwork officially owned and copyrighted from the 4th edition Monster Manual

    BAM!
    BAMBAMBAMBAM!
    Braum and Ember stood dead silent for a tense moment, their eyes locked on the interior of the wardrobe door. The little beasties on the outside were pounding with all of the force they could, but none of the kobolds seemed to be trying to open the door. Either they were too dumb to try, which honestly seemed unlikely to Braum, or they were smart enough to know that actually opening the rune-locked door would end badly for all involved.
    The battering of the wood lastly a only few more seconds, though it felt much longer.
    It was only after all had fallen quiet, the silence broken only by the sound of scampering feet pattering out of the room beyond, did the two adventurers explore their surroundings.
    Turning away from the battered armoire, Ember openly groaned. The illusionary wall had dropped them into yet another stone hallway.
    "Ants. I'm saying it now: you're all descended from ants."
    Braum grimaced as he stared at the hard, cold stone but for much different reasons than the pissed off summoner. The earth and rock of the hall was a comfort to him given the sheer amount of time he'd spent on the surface since he had become a paladin. All the same, they had just passed through a magical barrier into an unknown hall and officially had no idea where they were going.
    Much like the halls before, this one twisted and worked its way downward and deeper into the earth. However it turned out to be much shorter than anything else they'd dealt with. After just a couple hundred yards, the hall emptied out into a dark, cavernous void.
    "Stay here." Braum grunted to Ember who was idly glancing into the darkness while holding the little celestial monkey.
    The mage offered no qualms and, past the precipice of the hall, Braum was happy to make out shapes in the darkness. Great long shelves ran along the edges of the room and disappeared into the darkness beyond. There was another, similar one at the top of a great stone stairwell nearby that seemed to run parallel with the stairs.
    No. Not shelves. Braum thought as he got closer.
    The stone structures protruded from the walls and along banisters but they weren't flat. Instead they seemed to be filled with something. Not shelves, but a basin perhaps? They all seemed to be topped off to the brim with sort of brown and tarry liquid whose pungent aroma stung his nose as he approached it.
    Petrol? Lamp oil?
    He recognized the smell but couldn't place it. Whatever it was, Braum felt pretty certain it would burn though.
    "So let's light it." Ember said nonchalantly after Braum returned to explain his findings to him.
    "Could be a trap."
    "Could be."
    They stared at each other for a long moment before their gazes fell down to the celestial monkey chittering away in Ember's arms.
    "Let the monkey do it." they said in near unison.
    And so, a minute later, the little celestial monkey was wandering into the darkness grasping one of their misbegotten torches from earlier. It clutched the flaming stick in both hands as it waddled on its hind legs towards the nearest basin, occasionally glancing back with a look of disdain and annoyance. Braum was happy it didn't look afraid; he might have felt guilty otherwise.
    It clambered up the side of the closest basin awkwardly and, with no fanfare outside of one last glance back at Ember and Braum, tossed the flaming torch into the petrol.
    The oil caught fire instantly.
    To their surprise however, nothing seemed to explode or detonate or punish them in anyway for their actions. Instead, the fires spread cleanly and seamlessly down the the length of the basins; connecting in multiple areas and working quickly to illuminate a truly massive room far larger than either of them had imagined. The flaming petrol extended as far as they could see and what they saw caught Braum's heart in his throat.
    Treasure. Literal mountains of it.
    The paladin could not even guess at the size of the room, but he didn't doubt it could fit a small townscape in it, at the very least. Hills, plateaus, and mountains dotted the "landscape", but instead of being made of rock or mineral, they were constructed out of piles of long forgotten coins and loot; many of them so old they didn't even appear to be made out of modern day precious metals. There was certainly some gold and silver, but piles of iron, copper, nickle, and lead seemed to shine back tenfold for every one that glinted gold.
    And, at the center of the room, a pedestal stood towering above it all. Upon it was a spherical gem. The sphere seemed to light and spark and crackle with energy despite its smooth, ruby-red surface. The serene globe was at odds with the internal torment of arcs and bolts of magic that the gem contained; a veritable maelstrom beneath a thin shell of calm.
    "Me thinks that's our prize." Ember commented.
    "Aye."
    The pair stepped forward, heading towards the large stairwell that lead to the base of the room, when a loud clattering sound interrupted them. Along the Eastern wall, a large pile of iron coins and scrap seemed to be moving all on its own, pressing inward from against the wall.
    "Looks like we're going to need to earn it though." Braum muttered.
    As if to punctuate his point, the high, squeaky voices of kobolds could be heard screeching somewhere beyond.
    Ember's face hardened in recognition.
    "Cover me." was all the normally witty summoner said in response.
    The man snapped his fingers and, with a crack like a thunderbolt, the celestial monkey that had just began to paw at a nearby pile of copper coins disappeared in a flash and a blast of blue smoke. A single, echoing screech of defiance fading into thin air was all that remained a half moment later as mage brought his hands together and started to chant.
    Had Braum decided to keep watching, he would have seen the runes form on the ground and the distinct shape of the eidolon begin to materialize.
    But he didn't have the time.
    They had no way back, no way forward, and had to retrieve that orb and get the hell out before they were overrun or something even worse showed up. He already knew from having seen Ember work with the monkey that it would take him a good minute or two to summon the big guns and that meant it was only him between the mage and whatever the hell was coming to get them.
    Barreling down the stairs, he once again drew his hammer and raised his shield; this time certain they would see use. And, at the bottom, he planted himself firmly to the ground; ready to keep from anyone or anything that might try to get past and up to the defenseless summoner above.
    He would hold the line no matter what.
    The screeching reached a crescendo and the hoard of iron treasure gave way to a wall of bodies. Scrabbling, skittering, and  yelling, dozens of small, dragon-like humanoids pried their ways past the treasure that had been blocking the previously hidden hall. Their roars filled the chamber as they rushed him, weapons held high.
    And, as the first creature was brought to the floor in a single swing of his mighty hammer, Braum roared back in defiance.

===

(Hello Lovelies, I do hope you all enjoyed Part 6 of Dragon's Maw. I wanted to give you a heads up based on some comments I've received that I'm only going to put out one more part of Braum's story for now as that will be the end of this little arc. I will definitely be picking it up later, but I want to move on to other work to regain some inspiration. I need to return to Little Island Tales and I have a few other smaller works that I'd like to put out as well. So, keep your eye out for the last entry here shortly and I hope you enjoy what will be the climax of this dungeon adventure!)

Xenophobia - Chapter 12

    "Have you lost your minds?!" bellowed the old judge at the holographic images of Guor-a and Juag-e.
    Darrian had never seen them side by side, but it suddenly struck him how much smaller in stature Juag-e was in comparison to the High Maister. He knew the little Juag-e was known for being a bit shorter than his compatriots, but he had to wonder if the Armada leader that he stood side-by-side with was not also larger than normal for his species.
    "You think I'm crazy?" yelled back Guor-a with just as much ferocity. "You're the ones that are out of touch with reality! All it seems that you ever do is talk and talk!"
    "Yes! We've been hosting a council to review information! Our purpose isn't to declare war on defenseless species!"
    "They're defenseless now, but what about in a rotation? Damnit! What about in half a rotation? These creatures move at such a rapid pace they might achieve interstellar travel in thirty cycles! Beating down our doors in thirty two!"
    "So you admit you'd be slaughtering a defenseless civilization." snapped A'alan't 32 with more emotion than Darrian had ever heard from the Bivvie.
    "Is it considered slaughter to vaccinate a victim from a disease? To give them medicine and kill an infection before they are cowering with illness?"
    "The humans are not an infection!" screamed the old judge.
    "Then why quarantine them if they aren't little more than a plague waiting to happen?"
    Murmurs whispered throughout the Consortium at that. A large number of the ambassadors had remained silent through the screaming contest. When the emergency council had been called, no one knew what to expect given the last time war was declared by anyone was many rotations ago. Now, sitting before this fervent anger, few even knew how to react.
    "To observe and collect data. To avoid outward influences." retorted the old judge.
    "And to keep us safe in case they proved themselves dangerous." growled Guor-a
    "Guor-a." said Illiquina softly.
    His scaled visage glowered back at her.
    "The humans are a terrifying race. Hell, the fact that they can breathe poison is unsettling enough. Yet, they are exceptionally young. We've already had observations regarding a majority population living in support of many ideals the Consortium holds dear."
    "We've seen many who are in support of peace and prosperity and ending the needless violence their species has suffered." she finished with a joyous lit to her voice that seemed to defy Guor-a's anger.
    "Would these be the same creatures that declare war on each other regularly? Would this be the same species whose only reason for trying to escape their atmosphere is in the name of competition?"
    "It's the same species who is learning to overcome their primordial instincts and move on to something greater. To look for something greater." said Cherryl with a level of confidence in her normally shaky tone that left several ambassadors staring with surprise.
    "Don't talk to me about what humans are or aren't like." growled Guor-a, pointing a clawed finger at no one in particular. "I've learned all I need to know."
    "And what does that mean?" inquired the old judge.
    "After Juag-e came to me some cycles ago, I decided to do some digging. I found out that a few of my fellow compatriots had already known about this monstrous little species."
    Any side discussion there was within the Consortium fell dead silent.
    "What are you saying?" asked Darrian in utter shock.
    "We've already known about humans for some time now. In fact, it would seem that our own survey was being conducted. We even have Tulguck infiltrators in a number of higher governmental offices learning all about..."
    "YOU TREASONOUS PIECE OF SHIT!" screamed the old judge, pounding the table with an echoing boom.
    Darrian stared in disbelief at the old judge. The old robot had been around for more rotations than Darrian would ever know. He'd been programmed with the ability to learn, but, at the end of the day, he had a base programming. Where or when the old judge would have learned such a fervent and emotional reaction was beyond him.
    "YOU MOCK US WITH THIS INFORMATION?!" continued the old judge. "HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN EVERY FACET OF THE CONSORTIUM'S AGREEMENTS?!"
    "And what would you be referring to?" asked Guor-a with a look of contempt.
    "Your government withheld information about a possible spacebound species! Not only that, but you're bragging that you've INFILTRATED their government?! Do you know that kind of damage you could be doing."
    "Look robot..." responded Guor-a in a surprising docile tone. "I'm not the one who made those calls. Hell, I'm not even sure I could find out who. But at the end of the day, we're talking about a plague. A pestilence. A virus that needs to be wiped from the galaxy before it can spread."
    "That's not your call to make! You're going against everything your species agreed to...everything this Consortium stands for!"
    "Then stop me."
    The old judge fell silent. No one on the Consortium maintained an Armada or Fleet anymore. No one but the two youngest species: the Tulgucks and the Gorderians. At best, each species kept a small defense force, but nothing that could even hope to stand up to Guor-a.
    What was worse: given the sheer amount of how often Jin'thun and Juag-e agreed on matters of state, Darrian didn't doubt the Gorderians would soon be joining the Tulgucks to cull the humans.
    And there was nothing they could do.
    "That's what I thought." continued Guor-a with a sneer when no one said anything.
    "If you do this, you'll be making an enemy of us, Guor-a." said the old judge in a low tone. "The Tulgucks will be stripped of their trade rights and positions within the Consortium."
    "Maybe so." said Juag-e. "Maybe it means our species has a falling out for now. But in a few rotations, after you've had time to think about how nice it is not being murdered in your beds, I'm sure we'll be welcomed back. With sanctions, of course...or maybe as heroes."
    "Time will tell." finished Juag-e with a small smile that suggested he really did believe they were in the right.
    "Don't do this." Darrian suddenly pleaded.
    The humans terrified him, yet the thought of simply wiping them from existence...murdering billions of people before they could respond. He couldn't stomach the idea.
    "It's already done." said Juag-e.
    "Our Armada is mobilizing as we speak." added Guor-a. "Soon enough we will remove this threat and you all can sleep peacefully once again."
    The image snapped out and the reptilian visages of the Tulgucks disappeared. No one said anything. No one knew what to say. Everyone just seemed to stare at the blank space where the hologram had been.
    "They're all going to die..." whispered Ugul woefully.
    Darrian's gaze wandered the room to Ugul and then to the other ambassadors. All of them looked devastated. There was nothing that could do. The Tulgucks were going to Earth and would probably be joined by...
    The Gorderians.
    Everyone seemed to have the same thought. As if on cue, dozens of eyes were staring intently at Jin'thun and the other Gorderians representatives.
    "Well shit..." growled Jin'thun with a look of annoyance.

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(Hello Lovelies! I'm so sorry that this took longer than planned to come out, but I had a few personal things that hit me hard and, to be candid, I've found I'd much rather focus my efforts on Xenophobia right now then simply forcing myself to right random tidbits. I should have a more stable schedule now, so I'm sorry again for missing a couple days! Keep an eye out to find out what the Gorderians are going to do.)