Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 2162758" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 193: Round One, The ChaseWhen the blackness faded into a dim feeling of consciousness, Shadow noted three things. First, her head hurt...badly. It was spinning and, at the same time, seemed to be trying to escape out of her ears. The last thing she remembered was a flash and then a feeling that she could only compare to a starship slamming into her as it went into hyperspace. Since she was still alive, it probably wasn’t that severe...but damn, it felt it.    Second, she noticed that, oddly enough, she was somewhat comfortable. This confused her more, as did the fact that she felt slightly trapped...and the ground was moving slightly. Rising, rather. No, rising an falling...slowly, and at fairly regular intervals. This didn’t come close to making any sense until she managed to get her eyes open. Actually, that didn’t help at first, since all she saw was a white blur. Blinking, and sitting up slightly, the white blur turned into Akan’s chest. Through the link, she couldn’t feel his mind working, so at first, she panicked and poked him hard in the chest.     Remembering he was breathing though, she sat up completely and looked down at him to see his eyes were closed. Under his head, the ground was slightly blotched with a blueish colour which made Shadow cringe. Blood. Not just any blood. Very carefully, she moved over and lifted his head up to see the source of it. At least it wasn’t that bad of an opening, and she managed to coax his unconscious body into remorphing the wound before he lost too much more blood.    And then, a sense of horror washed over her as she noticed the third thing. Sniffing the air had brought the usual smells of the forests of Alraxia, but it was suddenly drowned out by something else. Something foreign, something different, and something completely wrong. And she knew exactly what it was. But how?! Now unable to fight back the panic, she grabbed Akan by the shoulders and shook him until he regained consciousness. It wasn’t the best strategy, but it was all she could think of at the moment and it ended up working.    Akan’s eyes blinked a few times and he managed to look more dazed than hurt, “Huh...? Wha happened...?”    Helping him sit up a little too quickly, Shadow said in a stern and worried voice, “I smell Mrrakesh.”    “Wha...?” Akan’s dazed look held for a long moment before the link filled him in on things and helped him get back to working speed, “How...?”    “I don’t know!” she snapped quietly, glancing around the trees but seeing nothing but a few small animals, “There haven’t been Mrrakesh on Alraxia since the Wars!”    “So this is...bad?” obviously, Akan’s mental processes were not yet up to normal.    “Yes, its bad!” Shadow growled, shaking him again for good measure. Maybe it would rattle his brain into place... “A single Mrrakesh could easily kill the both of us! Not to mention that if one knows the location of Alraxia then this whole damned truce is gone!”    Growling to herself, Shadow pulled them both to their feet and started moving. The scent was all around, but not close...it was one. A male, no doubt. He’d been all around the area...where was he now?! Just get away and hide and try to find a way to get to him...    Dragging Akan along, she slid down a larger hill into a small ditch. After taking a quick moment to look around, she looked straight to Akan, “Listen to me. We have to find the Mrrakesh and capture him. If he’s alone, its probably already too late to stop him from reporting the coordinates of this planet...”    “And if he’s not alone...?” Akan asked very hesitantly, his eyes scanning the trees around them and finding nothing.    “If he’s not alone...” she paused, sighed, and said simply, “If he’s not alone, don’t have any regrets. If there’s anything that needs to be said, say it now, because if he isn’t alone, we probably survive.”    Silence. A tense silence. Akan stared at her for a moment, and when he said nothing, she nodded and took something off her small belt. Placing it in his hands, she said, “Normally, I would send my companion back to bring more help...” Shadow smiled slightly, “But normally, my companion is not you.”    The moment it was in his hands, Akan knew exactly what she was handing him. He knew the shape and feel of his lightsaber’s hilt better than anyone. Holding the weapon in his hand, Akan couldn’t help looking surprise, though, “How did you...?”    The smile on Shadow’s face turned into a grin, “I can morph metal, remember? You really should be less dense...” and then, the smile faded and she was suddenly back to business, “Stay low, stay hidden, but keep me in sight. When I tell you, attack...not before. Understand?”    Akan nodded, noting how much planning she was doing before they’d even found out if there was one or more. Well, you could only really plan for one of those situations, anyway. As he nodded, Shadow’s body changed. In a few moments, a metal Alraxian stood in front of him. She nodded, turned, and climbed out of the ditch without another word.    Though in her metal body, Shadow could not smell the Mrrakesh, she already had picked out where the strongest scent was. So she walked through the thick trees and underbrush, a bright shining figure that caught light from nearly everything. And then she saw something. Through the trees, there were large stones. Almost like marble but more of a grey colour to them...but Shadow recognized them instantly, and her eyes scanned the entire forest in front of her. The tree cover was there...but it lessened in large, open paths. Lining the paths were both trees and literal buildings made of stone. Of course, the buildings were crumbling and dead, but this was it. It was the first city. Ironic that the Mrrakesh would hide there...    Slowly, and knowing that Akan was following a short distance behind, Shadow continue towards the old city. As she got closer, a feeling of being watched began to grow. Two more steps, putting her only a few meters from the first of the buildings, and a voice called out from ahead of her.    “Are you the one he sent to deliver the message to me?” the voice echoed through the trees in heavily accented Trade, strong and yet uncertain. But a messenger?! The Mrrakesh had a contact on Alraxia?! How?! True, it would explain how he got to the planet...but...it didn’t make sense!    Shadow did not respond. She couldn’t. Not only could the body she was in not speak, but even if she could, she was at a loss for words. A long minute passed before the Mrrakesh appeared from behind a building. He was tall, well over two and a half meters, with a wolf like appearance. He wore a simple tunic that definitely helped him to blend into the forest, though it was hard for a Mrrakesh to blend anywhere on Alraxia. In his hands, was the weapon that had shot her out of the sky. It most resembled a blaster rifle...or at least something that had evolved from the same basic idea of a few thousand years.    The weapon was trained carefully on her as the Mrrakesh slowly approached, “What are you?!”    Shadow’s response to that was simple. She dove at the Mrrakesh and tried to pin him to the ground. There was a surprised look that crossed his face, but he took a quick step to the side with amazing speed. Just as she reached where he was, the butt of his rifle was slammed hard into the back of her skull. It hit her with a very loud, metallic pang noise, and sent her off balance and into the ground face first.    [Any time now...] she sent through the link while getting back to her feet. Despite the general durability of the metal body, it wasn’t nearly as fast as she was. Which meant that the Mrrakesh was even faster.    And as the Mrrakesh gave her another strong hit with his rifle, a loud snap-hiss from the behind the him, though, caused him to spin around in surprise. Even Shadow was somewhat surprised, not sure how Akan had managed to get all the way back there, but it didn’t matter. As Akan charged forward, lightsaber up and ready, Shadow used the momentary distraction to also attack. But the Mrrakesh was still to fast. Whipping around, the much larger male grabbed both of her arms and used her momentum to literally fling her at Akan.    She hit him hard. Hard enough to nearly knock him out again and force him to lose his grip on his lightsaber, which went tumbling off in the other direction before hitting a tree and deactivating. In a very painful moment, Akan found him pinned between the metal Shadow and a rock digging into his spine. After weakly growling a curse under his breath, he attempted to lift her off. It was impossible for a moment, but then her body slowly morphed back to her Alraxian form and she was off.    Before he could say anything to her, she was getting to her feet and charged after the Mrrakesh, who had taken the moment to run off down what had once likely been a street. [We can’t let him get away!]    Akan nodded, also getting up to his feet and running after her, his right arm reaching out and calling his lightsaber to him. It arrived in his hand just as he had a chance to see the Mrrakesh jump onto something that resembled a speeder bike. There was enough of a break in the trees for him to shoot up out of it, and from the looks of things, that was what he planned to do.    A loud whir echoed through the ancient city as the engine came to life, and after a short glance back at the two approaching Alraxians, the Mrrakesh gunned the vehicle up and away. Shadow was jumping up, morphing the whole time into something...Akan wasn’t paying enough attention to notice what it was. Instead, he had gotten an idea...one that had less than a second to pull off.    Quickly, still charging forward, Akan thumbed his lightsaber’s activation switch mid swing, letting go of the weapon and hurling it up towards where the Mrrakesh’s vehicle would have to pass through. Using the Force to guide it just as the vehicle started its lightning fast rocket out, Akan managed to succeed...but barely. Through a long arc, the tip of the blade managed to slice off the back end of the vehicle, causing a small explosion and a huge plume of black smoke to rise out of it.    As quickly as it had gone up, the Mrrakesh and his speeder bike like vehicle were only rising from momentum now, and in a moment they disappeared back below the treetops. Shadow had stopped her movement, but not her morph, so there in front of him stood a very anxious looking Dragon. It nodded to him and motioned to its back. [Get on, now!!]    Akan nodded, climbed onto the spot between her wings, and held on tight as Shadow got into the air and followed the trail of smoke back to where it had fallen. The faster they moved, the better. If the Mrrakesh had too much time, he’d set up traps...that would only make things worse. At the same time, though, they needed to know where his ship was. Maybe if they could cut him off...no. No, just stick with him. And with that thought, she descended back into the trees, urging Akan off and morphing mid run as they passed the downed vehicle and she led the way after the strong scent of the escaping Mrrakesh.</blockquote>

Verification