Wild blue lightning splintered through the sanguine clouds swirling above.

"Ah!" I scrambled to my feet, scouring my body for any hint of those slimy black tentacles.

Nothing...

"That swine is gone," Lor growled beside me. There was a small trail of blue blood leftover from the quickly healing cut on her cheek.

That was one aspect of the Zhaguai I was grateful for.

Now, if only they could refrain from constantly pushing the boundaries of their species' innate ability for rapid healing.

We were still in the ruined courtyard of Darbek Monastery but something felt off.

The air smelled strange and everything radiated in a dim shade of red.

As far as I could tell, we were alone in a pile of rubble and the freshly dismembered remnants of our slaughtered co-workers.

"What happened?" I turned to Lor.

"I'm not sure," Lor got up off the ground. "The last thing I remember was being strangled by that asshole Bold Step until I passed out."

"Why didn't he kill us?" I proposed the question more to myself.

My hands were completely stained pink and blue.

I wanted to retch, but I chewed the urge back.

"We must search for survivors," Lor reached for her compressed helmet clamped to her shoulder. The device sparked and failed to expand.

"It's too damaged," Lor re-clamped her broken helmet and tapped on her gauntlet. "And comms are down."

"I don't hear any heartbeats," I raised my ears to their apex to scour the horizon for any sign of movement. "Your Adjutant spoke of a cruiser being boarded. We should head to the airfield."

Lor's azalea-pink eyes settled on the trail of blood painted on the ground. It was Vina's.

Then the navy blue Forged warrior stepped over the gooey blue line without a word and began the long march toward the airfield on the other side of the monastery.

It was unsettling that the Graven had so abruptly halted their attack and what were those purple glowing lines worming all over the stones?

"Was that mountain always there?" I glanced at the mountain ridge encircling the valley. "I didn't think any of the peaks were so tall."

"I don't remember," Lor stared at my fidgeting hands while I unconsciously combed my hair.

I stopped immediately and forced my arms down.

Typical Zhaguai stoicism... Show strength above all else.

We all knew what we were signing up for...

I was initially excited to join this unit, as Lor was regarded as the most forward-thinking of Oru's High Council. However, in my enthusiasm, I forgot to recalibrate the notion of forward-thinking when it came to the Zhaguai.

The species excelled at precision and order but flopped flat on the floor when asked to perform any task unarmed.

"Lungs," my ears sprang up. "Someone is breathing, barely. Over here."

We sprinted to a toppled security tower.

There was a man, a razkur, pinned under a stone slab.

Lor failed to lift the weight with her bare claws.

"Move," I stepped in with a metal pole to apply leverage while Lor pulled him free.

It was one of Yrox's soldiers. His leg was twisted and fortunately, it wasn't by chance that Lor had a small medical field kit clipped to her belt.

"Primary," the soldier gasped. "What happened?"

"Be still," Lor angled the syringe and administered the injection.

The man strained his ears, grit his teeth, and eased his breathing as the potent compound circulated throughout his veins.

"Set his leg now," Lor ordered.

I complied and guided the bones into the correct position.

"Ahh-–!" The soldier's yowls were quickly muffled by Lor's navy blue scaled hand.

"Patience," Lor let him bite down into her palm.

A few minutes later, the soldier relaxed.

It was still strange to me how the Zhaguai welcomed pain and often sought it out. I could appreciate their harsh code of conduct, but suffering permeated every aspect of their lives.

Why add to it?

"Thank you," the soldier curled up. "My name's First Thunder"

"Is your helmet working?" Lor offered him water from her canteen.

Zhaguai preparedness was by far the species' greatest virtue.

"Yes," First Thunder nodded, then he put his helmet on. "Comms are down."

I couldn't help eyeing the droplets as he licked the water off his lips.

I was all too conscious of the filth on my hands and no amount of rubbing and scratching eased the hyper-awareness that my skin was unclean.

"I'm not reading any life signs in this area," First Thunder relayed the readings from his helmet. "But there's a distress signal near the auxiliary hanger."

Lor brought up her map of the monastery on her wristcomm and the two synced his scanner to work out the most expedient path while I hung back, listening for danger and braiding my hair into one long cord.

Suddenly, I froze solid and the base of my stomach withered to nothing.

The ground rumbled and that one oddly tall mountain stood up and moved.

A Graven!

The colossal thing was made of stone and covered in ugly dead trees. Then it opened its one giant golden eye, turned around, and slowly lumbered away.

How many more of those things were sitting about watching us skitter for cover?

"Was that thing always there?" First Thunder's throat clenched.

"We should get moving," I helped the soldier up.

We didn't know if it was good or bad that the beast had moved on, but no one complained when it vanished into the distant crimson fog.

The remainder of the trek to the hangar was eerily uneventful.

"Primary!" A female Zhaguai poked out from a hatchway of a disabled cargo ship and waved for us to hurry inside. "You're alive!"

Inside, we found a dozen injured survivors, running low on medical supplies and with not enough field injections to go around.

"We've got no comms and this ship won't fly," a razkur pilot informed Lor of their status. "Also, we can't access the orbital weapons. It's like they're not even there."

The navy blue and pink Forged warrior knelt into the huddle of survivors.

In many ways, Lor's leadership was refreshing. To her and the other female Zhaguai, I ceased being a 'clever male'. I was just another scientist squirming to the top of the academic barrel in a lifelong struggle to prove that my intellect was worthy.

I was among the first razkur crews to join the Zhaguai in a survey of Menthla's celestial bodies. Together we proved the Iddril were a deceitful enemy, and that the Graven were in the process of trying to steal another of our cities.

It was the first time in my life that I felt genuinely regarded for my mind and not for my breeding potential.

"We need to move to a more secure location," Lor made her final assessment. "Or get access to a med bay."

She took inventory of the available weapons and laid out her plan to move the survivors.

Many of the survivors were too weary to even stand, let alone fight their way through a hidden army of Graven minions waiting in ambush.

But the blue and pink Zhaguai was correct. The signal booster was useless in this ship, and we needed to keep as many people alive for as long as we were able.

"What's that?" My ears popped up.

Loud sloppy grunting from outside echoed throughout the ship's hull.

"Turn off any lights and focus on infrared," Lor hushed the cargo hold. "We don't want to be targets."

We peeked through the thin gashes in the ship's casing and spied two shadows growling at one another.

One shape was bigger than the other, standing hunched with long hooked claws. While the second wagged its long muscular body like an alligator on steroids.

The beasts circled and snapped. The larger one with a wolfen mouth and the lower one with a sharp crooked beak. Each had an odd chunk of jewelry implanted into their chests that spoked out in pulsating black webs across their skin.

Lor's fist tightened. Undoubtedly, the barbarous woman was calculating on venturing outside to challenge the creatures personally.

What honor will be lost if you remain silent and let them pass?

The creatures roared and then leaped at one another, with the wonky alligator rearing up and stretching tall on its long bulbous hind legs.

All at once, every razkur ear in the room recoiled in horror.

The distorted alligator revealed itself to be male and mounted the hunched beast from behind to plow a pair of distorted orifices with two bulging erections.

The submissively posed hunched female screeched when the alligator pumped and dug its claws into her deformed haunches. Then the male released a long slimy tongue, tipped a small round fanged mouth, and plunged the prehensile muscle into the female's beak.

She squawked and jolted her head to break free, but her partner persisted in penetrating all of her openings.

The union appeared painful, yet the female was openly participating by shoving her ass aggressively into the male.

Zhaguai and razkurs weren't squeamish when it came to public rutting, but the sounds these two created were absolutely vile.

"It's like the reports from Thorngate," Lor's lower fangs hovered in disgust.

"You think we're meant to kill each other?" I turned to Lor. "Till there's only one of us left standing?"

"We choose what we are meant for," Lor kept her eyes on the preoccupied monsters. "The Graven are fools if they think we can be so easily stripped of our honor."

I'm sure the former citizens of Thorngate once had similar beliefs...

The pair went on fucking doggy-style for what felt like hours, sticky with ropy glistening phlegm smacking and stretching between them.

It was obvious Lor was contemplating a silent route for exiting the craft.

"We should wait till they're done," I whispered at her sharply.

"They are vulnerable and we are in no state to combat them without an advantage."

"We're," I thrashed my hand at the crippled group. "Not in a state to fight them at all."

Lor rose to me with her long quills twitching in preparation to strangle me.

"Not every problem needs to be solved with a death match!" I grit my teeth, struggling to keep my voice low and not draw attention.

The navy blue Zhaguai flexed her fingers, a common indicator she was restraining the urge to claw my face off.

"Go ahead!" I snapped at her. "Take my whole head off, see what that gets you! One razkur down on your watch and the fresh scent of blood to lure in hordes of monsters."

Lor's eyes widened. Her neon pink iris flickered like the carnage of colliding galaxies.

Fuck, I may have pushed my luck too far...

Just then, the milky fapping abated and was replaced by the ravenous masticating sounds of the hunched female flipping around and devouring her male counterpart, head first and all.

"An even more advantageous ratio," Lor hissed at the lone female creature with a distended, full belly.

What the hell??!!

Is there anything on this planet that can penetrate that thick Zhaguai skull and make you concede to reason?

WHAP

In an instant, the overstuffed female creature was sliced in half.

A long black shadow packed with thin lashing tentacles slithered across the airfield followed by a tall graceful male razkur.

"Rancid little worms..." Bold Step laughed to himself and then he turned his glossy black eyes in our direction.

.

.

.

...

Long 🔥🔥🔥 chapter next  -->  Ch 6: Drained (Shale)

...

Thank you for reading.

Please remember to Click the Star ⭐⭐⭐ (Vote) to help others discover this story. Wattpad counts votes for each chapter.

And as always, comments are most appreciated.