The Mantis Equilibrium - Book Two - 29. Chapter 29 - Alone

Lahari found herself at the edge of the airfield.

Eroli skirted along the coast at the tip of the peninsula and headed north towards the old airstrip.

S’Kay slipped through the streets to the peninsula’s southern edge. She followed it west all the way past the industrial district and then turned north towards Gate Town.

Gawa ended up near the old Oselian barracks and did not recognize the area. She ducked down an alley, grabbed a tarp from a pile of garbage, and wrapped herself in it to hide her unique appearance. Voices came from the main street, and Gawa waited. A group of people headed by in mid-discussion. She could not tell what they were talking about, and they were soon gone. Gawa did not like her unfamiliarity with this region, and she moved with haste along a dark street. When she rounded a corner, she crashed into a group of two men and a woman huddled together.

“What the fuck is that?” one of the men barked.

Gawa pushed herself away from the trio, but the other man grabbed the tarp and yanked it from her.

“It’s a fucking monster!” he shouted.

“Get the fuck away from us!” screamed the only woman in the group.

“You get the fuck away from me!” Gawa screamed back.

“Oh, no you don’t!” snapped the first man, and he reached for her wrist. “We’re gonna get rich off this Shift’s mantis gland!”

Gawa delved deep into her powers, and the lavender lightning that obeyed her commands lashed out as the man’s fingertips came into contact with her marble-rippled skin. Gawa’s electricity exploded from her, and the man’s body was scorched to a cinder before his companion’s eyes.

The woman reached out for him, and the other man yelled, “No!” He grasped her wrist to pull her away, but Gawa’s powers chained into the woman’s touch and leapt from the first man, pouring into the other two.

The three were dead in an instant.

Gawa ran, leaving the scorched bodies in the street. After only a moment, she arrived at a dead-end with a high wall, but it was the wall that bordered Gate Town. She turned back and followed another street, trying to make her way with the wall in view. Gawa did not encounter any other people in the darkness, and a moment later, she slipped into Gate Town. Several streets farther, she ducked into Red Raven’s and took a seat at a lonely corner table to wait for the others; there was more work to be done.

Gawa was dazed and sat trying to catch her breath.

Then an old barmaid stepped up and asked her, “What’ll it be, dear?”

Back outside, on the southern edge of the peninsula, S’Kay crept along the waterline below the natural topographical rise of the land. During the day, many folks fished from the area, but it was quiet now save for the sounds of the sea.

Through a momentary break in the clouds, the moon’s light shined down upon S’Kay, and she noticed that her feather-like protrusions appeared slightly off-color. She shook herself, ruffling them, and a fine cloud of dust lifted from her limbs and torso.

We made quite a mess, she thought to herself.

S’Kay continued along the waterfront and soon came to the wall that bordered Gate Town. Instead of following it, she passed beyond the wall and made her way along the edge of the Grey Shallows under the old Oselian gates. The rise of the land where the immovable gate stood cast a dark shadow over S’Kay’s path.

After a short while, her trail connected with a level region at the very eastern edge of the city’s outskirts. S’Kay turned north, entered Gate Town from the outside, and headed towards Red Raven’s.

At the eastern tip of the peninsula, Eroli used the same tactic as S’Kay, walking along the water below street level. It took him a while, but eventually and without incident, he reached the airstrip. He made his way towards the underground hideout, but then passed it and climbed up the wall that bordered Gate Town. A few minutes later, he pulled open the door to the tavern.

By running north from her position on the tower, Lahari was the nearest to the old runway, but she found herself surrounded. In her panic at trying to escape the falling building, she inadvertently ended up in a little open square, and people were approaching her from all directions.

“Well, well, well,” one of them sneered, “what have we here?”

“That’s a Bio-Shift, mark my words,” another added.

“You don’t belong here,” said a third, and he pulled a knife from his belt.

A few of the folks feared whatever powers Lahari might possess, and they fled from her unique form in terror. The rest drew closer.

Someone said behind her, “It’s so ugly.”

“But its mantis gland with fetch a pretty bit of coin,” added another.

“Kill it,” one of the men said. “It’s not even human.”

It, Lahari thought with a cynical snicker.

Deep in the core of her being, she activated her cosmic energies. They were as easy for Lahari to access as taking a breath. The passive powers of her black hole-like ability were protective, but she now used them to strike out at those who would do her harm.

She stood still at the center of the square.

The gathered rabble charged at her with weapons drawn and murder in their souls, but Lahari’s vacuum of energy was like an invisible haze. As the attackers got too close, their lifeforce was sucked dry before even reaching her. In an instant, a ring of skeletal bodies lay sprawled in the street around Lahari. Those who were behind and watched their companions fall stopped their attack, and they stepped back from her.

Lahari reached even deeper into her powers, and she screamed aloud, as a wave of life-sucking energy radiated out from her. The onslaught vaporized the already wizened bodies at her feet, and it expanded farther. The force of Lahari’s void-wave hit the rest of the villains, who a moment ago thought to cut her down, and they fell like living corpses to the street.

A moment later she was gone, racing down a dark alley toward the entrance of Gate Town. She was alone, but she was alive★