Booya!
Chapter 71
I dropped the gun - handy a tool as it might be, it was a strain on my arm to use it. And besides, I was better than any slig, and had better tools at my disposal.
There was no need to become a glukkon just yet. I slipped back into the hall and into the next storage room. I hid in the doorway, and noted that there was only one slig on duty. Hmm …
I silently backed out. I knew I could take down one slig in a hand-to-hand fight … but if more sligs were in the other room, there would be commotion, and his backup could simply shoot me from the doorway. Not how I want to go down. At least, not without everyone safe.
I tiptoed over to the next door, wondering how the creaking of my feet on the floor had become so unnaturally loud and how no one had heard it and come to investigate. The next sub zulag was identical, and had two sligs. I was smart then, not to charge the one from the other section.
But I had to take them down. And I could never take two armed sligs at once.
I could try and rally the muds in the room to back me up … but I didn’t want to risk one of the sligs being a good shot and taking out any unnecessary lives.
So I had to choose between scrab, paramite, and slog. It couldn’t be slog. They weren’t used for security in this facility - they were stock animals (they replaced paramites when they became impossible to find, and were made into admittedly good food products). A slog out here would be noticed, and either shot on sight or knocked out and taken back to the slog pits. And scrab? Too noisy. My last attack had probably roused their suspicions, and another one would confirm their fears. And of course one look at a scrab in this facility would prompt shooting. And I couldn’t always control my scrab instincts … I might not be able to charge up another Shred Power in time to defend myself against a slig with a gun.
So it would be paramite.
{Patch,} I began. Our connection now open, I felt a wave of anger, frustration, and jealousy overcome me. Patch was definitely up in arms about something.
{What?} He was more disgruntled than usual.
I could wait to get the power for a few minutes. {Patch? What’s up?}
A surge of anger, then controlled friendliness. But he held no hostility towards me, so that was fine. {Nothing’s up. Druna’s just been acting a little funny. I think she might be cheating on me.}
I was honestly bewildered. I didn’t know what to tell him … {Sorry, Patch. That really sucks. I wish I had time to help you out, but ….}
Patch did seem to cheer up. Something about saying sorry to a sad mudokon inevitably brought around good cheer. Whatever.
{Right, right,}, he was saying. {Need the paramite morph?}
I nodded, then realized he couldn’t see me. {Yes. Please.}
He hooked me up and I thanked him. I chanted for a few seconds and fell into the paramite body.
I pounced into the room and was on the first of two sligs before the second even knew there was anything amiss. Instead of fulfilling my paramite urges and snacking on the slain slig, I turned to the second as my paramite senses told me he was raising his gun. He faltered! I lunged and dug my mouth fingers into his chest. Two sligs out of commission. Easy.
There wasn’t much commotion … but the sonar in my paramite mind already mapped out what seemed to be the entire zulag … and the slig from the other storage room was hurrying to this room.
I crouched in wait … and was not disappointed. The slig crashed in and stumbled, clearly not expecting to see a paramite waiting for him. Less likely, he didn’t suspect a leaping paramite to be the last thing he saw. I leapt and crunched his head in my maw. The taste was repulsive, and my paramite mind no longer wanted to eat any slig meat.
All over. I switched back to normal and noticed that all the mudokons in the room were crouched low, as if in terror … but not without an air of reverence. Of course - one of the once sacred paramites had just been in their presence.
“Hello.” A whistle. Damn Zippy cameras prohibited everything else. “Follow me.”
The mudokons looked up, then whistled in joy. They stood and gathered around me.
A short walk later (with a gun in hand to shoot down the Zippy), I had assembled ten mudokons in the sub zulag. After blasting the camera out of the air, I chanted and released these ten muds. And … Shrykull invested me. It was drug like … the simple feeling of raw power could intoxicate you. It was like a natural high.
But I had a job to do.
And now to do it. I marched into the hall again and back to the main hub. I moved into the next door, the slig rations room. I knew the layout of the room front and back - I had worked here for the three years before I was switched to zulag four. And I knew that no one would see me if I just walked in. I also knew that the sligs here were extremely lazy and, believe it or not, unarmed. They were often overweight, and their mechanical pants often had trouble carrying them quickly enough to enforce anything. I had even seen an old mudokon get into a fistfight once with the five sligs assigned here and make a run for it. Of course, the last anyone saw of him was him slipping out the door. Next day there was a mud none of us knew at his place.
Now, I stepped cautiously into the chamber. And, as I expected, the sligs were asleep, and the mudokons whistled quiet conversations to each other as they scrubbed floors.
I could easily have led the mudokons out to safety … but the temptation to use the Shrykull power was overwhelming. I suddenly
needed to use it, began trembling because I was hesitating.
I pressed my palms together and instantly felt my body contort into the powerful shape of the mudokon god. I felt the now familiar throbs of lightning erupting from my body and seeking out targets, shredding through the lazy, despicable creatures.
Work complete, my body reverted back to normal … and I fell to my knees in a weak faint.
The other mudokons were up and around me in moments, whistling at me.
Are you okay? and
Is he all right? and
Isn’t that Dante?
After a short while I regained my strength. Perhaps this power to become the shrykull was, indeed, a drug. Perhaps this is why, in the stories Orion had told me of Abe, he used it so rarely. Perhaps I was weakening.
No. Not now. I sill had a job to do. I needed to save my brothers and shut the factory down.
Then … then, with my purpose served … then it wouldn’t matter.
I chanted - the Zippy destroyed in the wake of the Shrykull’s wrath - and liberated five more mudokons.
Getting there.
Feeling better, I returned to the main hub of the zulag. One sub zulag to go.
It is feeling more and more like Oddworld as I read-I can't say enough about it because it's that good. Keep it up. 
. Go Dante!
)
