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RP [Thunder Lizards] {JP#01} Creatures of the Sunless Sea

Primitive Polygon

🎖️ Game Master
RP Date
YE 41
RP Location
Hanako's World
((JP with @Soban ))

YE41, Hanako’s World

Running battles backlit the dunes with shocks of flame under the distant starlight, muddying the eternally pristine beach landscape with the sight of crashed starships and burning palm trees.

Three of the four Kuvexian auxiliary troop ships had been shot down, and the command structure was a mess. The supposedly weak and feeble cat-creatures turned out to be ferocious little spirits, able to change their appearance and fire out searing beams of energy.

It still didn’t stand up to sheer, brutal concussive force, in the end. As the scattered Silanbar kill teams descended on Harbor Town and broke into the hastily constructed bunkers, it didn’t require any special oversight, just pure inertia- The problem was, the command link was now completely dead, and it was still night time. The survivors of the attack had no chance but to hunker down.

Small shells of concrete rumbled in the dark, whilst tense slave-lizards peaked out into the fantastically attractive ocean… Maybe it was an idea to get out there, and just keep swimming? Or would that be seen as insubordination?

The huge Silanbar female stalked along the lines, trying to find her mates in the dark confusion. She carried a shield her own size, big enough for a small person to even hide behind. She didn’t think very hard about running, tempting as it seemed. She was a pragmatist, she didn’t expect mercy from the cats or from her Kuvexian masters. In short, there was nowhere to run to, so running was pointless. She bent her neck down to sniff at another dark form for the scent of one of her mates.

Even with their trained agility, the shambling gait of a sea creature made it sound pretty distinctive in the sand. The sea salt made it hard to distinguish smells, but the Silanbar thought she could sense something approaching…

Red eyes peered out from a bush towards her left flank. Whip-thin and baroque, it twisted through the plants like it was part of them, a sleek and befangled, earth-coloured thing.

Distant thudding… It froze, and just gazed outwards… Maybe it couldn’t see her clearly, behind the shade of that oversized shield? It’s night vision wasn’t good enough?

“Who goes there?” She called out to the shape in the darkness. Her free hand going to her weapon.

<“Are you head-eyes dead, big sister?”> It arced the neck, held the tail up angled to the left, paced one paw outwards, and made a guttural hiss. Probably wasn’t a holo-ghost, only a true Silanbar could be that rude in their native language. <”Is it your order you hide? Or you think to kill-kill Zuruzala, now you have the chance?”>

‹Not as dead as what is in your head. Daggermother not kill-kill not-enemy, unless not-enemy is enemy.› She moved in the silent language of dance. Her shield gave her movements a strange accent. ‹I seek my mates from whom I was separated from in battle.›

<”Mates…”> It parroted back, angular eyes looking Daggermother up and down. Though the silver-hided thing was head-to-shoulders smaller, its head and forearms also bore the black star markings of the die-hard Tyrndin Banash, a kill-team that was known to have a very strong survival of the fittest mentality. The Kuvexians maintained control by making them fight each other. <”You earn things like this? You are big… but I am not recognising you…”>

A pause. Their webbed claw didn’t draw their machete, but the palm didn’t leave the pommel in its scabbard, either.

<”...Zuruzala saw… Small-ones… In part of the wing on the beach…”> A more impassive tone, wincing as if not being hostile was painful. <”Is this maybe location?”>

With its nose, it pointed west- There didn’t seem to be any active gunbattles, but that didn’t mean there were no enemies hiding.

Daggermother looked west, ‹Daggermother not see small ones. Not mean absent. We can check. You behind my wall.› She said, motioning with her shield to indicate what she meant.

It was a tense walk through the gloom. Zuruzala kept their distance despite Daggermother’s intention to protect them, zig-zagging and slinking between shadows. Glistening sweat coated them in a way that suggested more than simple paranoia might be at play…

A twitch of their ears, the snap of a twig in the gloom- Twenty paces ahead, one of those monkey things was pacing parallel, weapon raised. Didn’t look armored, but some of them were genetically engineered, they’d learnt the hard way.

Daggermother crept forward with her shield to the very last moment. The monkey thing turned to see her rising with the shield and long sword. The sword glowed to life with the power needed to slice through armor and flesh. However, her target wasn’t the only monkey thing around. “More!” She barked out in warning to Zuruzala as the first shots landed on her shield and failed to penetrate.

The grey one’s movements were lightning fast and fluid, with the initial leap being invisible save for the gusting shower of sand. The muzzle flash of a kikyo-creature barked just as Zuruzala grasped upon them, grazing a ramshackle shoulder pad, which fractured into spinning airborne sparks.

Casual like a hug, one of her foot-claws raked downwards whilst the biting maw wrenched the arm of the small thing in the opposite direction, causing some hideous damage to the elbow. It wasn’t quite dead, if the noise was any indication, but the short-barreled toy gun flipped outwards onto the smoldering dunes.
More footsteps- too impulsive?-

Daggermother charged forward towards the new footsteps. She was very direct when it came to combat, using her shield and size to overwhelm her targets and be the obvious threatening target to give her more stealthy companion openings. From time to time, she would call out a piece of information she thought Zuruzala might need. When she saw an opening, she stepped forward and picked up one of the cats by the neck and tossed it into another one.

It was funny how the flare of combat drew two souls closer together, but Zuruzala did begin to get closer and play between the methodical telegraphing of Daggermother’s relentless, mechanical attacks.

For a moment it seemed like the enemies had thinned, disappeared into the ash-bitten leaves- But the grey one’s intensity didn’t let up. Wide eyed with bright yellow sclera beaming, they bounced up onto Daggermother’s formidable shoulders for a moment, and just seemed to stare into dead space. Daggermother for her part froze, not in fear, but to be a more steady for her companion to climb on top of.

“...There-there!~” An audible tone, no time for body signals-

An indistinct shape in the trees, impossibly well camouflaged- It warped in texture, and then the glint of a targeting dot shot up the sands towards the two lizards!-

Daggermother couldn’t see where the dot was coming from, but she made a guess and tossed Zuruzala away towards cover as she went the other way, forcing the shooter to make a choice between them. She curled up behind the shield as there was a thundering crack of the sniper’s fire, which made a small round hole in the shield and grazed Daggermother.

The lithe one hit the ground with a graceful skid and went into a gallop on all fours, machete in teeth. Whatever advanced weapon that hidden figure was using, it couldn’t arc between the two of them fast enough, certainly- Another shot rang out and left a worrying notch in the larger Silanbar’s protective slab- Then the muzzle swung around and rapidly took a pot shot at the monster now bearing down on them from the other direction-

Zuruzala happily, triumphantly bit down onto a forearm, deftly spinning their machete into an open palm, and then up into the ribs-

KATING-KATING-

…Finding pure, solid alien metal in their grasp. The free arm struck them in the skull like a jackhammer, ringing the dinosaur’s brain and causing them to lose grip-

With the alien distracted by Zuruzala, Daggermother was up and dashing towards the pair. Her long legs ate up ground at a prodigious rate. She guessed at where the alien was from her companion’s attempt at munching on them. She let loose a battlecry and slammed into the other side of them with her massive shield and using her sword to stab into what she hit.

The sheer force of the blow knocked the dark blue figure off of it’s feet, and broke whatever mysterious veil of static was making it hard to look at. Clearly just as disorientated as the grey Silanbar was, but the rather triangular helm didn’t even look scratched.

What kind of cursed, magical materials were these beings made out of?

Stumbling, weezing to the point of retching, Zuruzala dragged the alien’s rifle back over to it, and took aim… At the thighs, not the head?

With a one-two blinding flash, and a cacophonous eruption of noise, the projectile set off the ammo inside the waist bulges of the twisted doll. Utterly broken, strings cut, but still refusing to come to pieces, it seized upright with pneumatic force, and then fell back forwards into the sand.

Still woozy and unable to stand straight, the grey one just looked pale, blood leaking from their nose and clouding their right eye…

Daggermother poked at it a couple of times to make sure it was dead. Then looked at Zuruzala, ‹You don’t look good. No fight.› She said, reaching out to support her companion.

<”Need to… keep go… fight… kill… snap…”> The grey one spoke back raspingly. Half way through there was an electronic sounding beep from under their mane, some kind of black collar with a blinking red light. She winced, claws arced, hair bristled. It was keeping them awake. <”Zuzu-zaza is… so pretty and fast and strong… she… isn’t going to die… dagger… mother…”>

Regardless of words, they still clung on.

Daggermother picked Zuruzala up gingerly, so as not to hurt the other Silanbar any more than they already were. ‹No. No die tonight.› She said, retracing their path to try and find some medical help, or at least a quiet place to sleep and let their bodies recover from the action.

As the night slowly brooded into dawn, the distant sounds of gunfire became more scarce, and the two Silanbar found one of the overrun bunkers on the beachhead still intact. Not another soul was encountered, beyond those husks of the departed from both sides. Food and medical supplies in abundance, dropped where vehicle crews vacated it in the dirt.

Victory was announced over the comnet by the Kuvexians just as the sun was rising.

“Zero casualties!” It proclaimed. “Not a single of our true, pure, blue blooded brethren were lost on this day!”
 
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