(ooc: Ugh, I don’t like how I started the lead-in to this scene, but I was getting a bit annoyed at the fact I couldn’t see how to start it off to post it and wrote the first thing that came into my head. Sorry. At least we’re finished… (at bleedin’ last, whew))
To one side of the ongoing scene, Coombes and one of the surviving mudokons from the original team were watching…
The mudokon sat cross legged on the floor, a small computer on his lap. Readings were tracking in a steady flow across the screen; he shook his head, confusedly. “My readings have just jumped off the scale…” he said, in a soft voice, glancing up at the vykker. “I can’t be sure, but I think it’s the girl doing it.”
“What do you mean, ‘the girl’? Are you talking about that pathetic little example of a slig out there with the hybrid?” the vykker asked, in a similarly hushed voice.
A nod.
“What’s she doing?”
“I don’t know… but then, if we wait very much longer I’m sure we’ll find out…”
“Well, I don’t care what she’s doing, I want it stopped before something adverse happens…” The vykker turned to the nearest soldier. “You – go round behind those two and shoot the little one. Try not to let yourself get seen, and try not to damage her. If she’s the source of these readings… it’d be interesting to know how she does it…”
Aura was trembling, her head ached, dully, and her muscles were all screaming as she leached their power with the Stones. Just a few seconds longer… just a few… she pleaded, silently. The more power she fed into the Stones the less her trembling muscles and straining nerves had, and to do what she wanted to do she’d need more than her little frame contained… She’d already sagged against Mal’s side – as he hadn’t pushed her away she guessed he suspected something was up – skin-skin contact allowing her to borrow little scraps of his energy here and there, to bolster her flagging strength-
Something hit her smartly in the shoulder. She gave a yelp, snatched it out… oh damn… trank dart… her eyes were already going blurry.
She was losing her grip, drifting away on a cushion of sleep… it was so warm, though, so welcoming… oh, how nice it would be just to let herself drift away… But no, she couldn’t do that, if she did then it’d be over, all of it… they’d catch Malice – her Mal… – they’d catch him and hurt him and lock him away and probably send her back to that accursed Arena… And she wouldn’t let that happen. Not now, not ever… With her last ounce of strength, she slammed her hands together…
Power short-circuited through the two stones. She heard Malice bellow in pain as the shorting power ripped spacetime apart, and wanted to scream herself, but was just too damn tired…
…Discharge… she thought, triumphantly, and blacked out.
When the soldiers finally shook off the ringing in their ears and stood up… the centre of the circle was completely empty. Just a dull black scorchmark on the grass, and a wisp of smoke curling into the lazy afternoon.
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