Status Quo
Chapter Thirteen: The Battle for Dhm
by Kyence
Disclaimer: All Voltron characters are property of World Events Productions.
‘’ denote character thoughts.
“Sempuzali!!!!”
Karna’s magic spell echoed through the air, warning any Dhmks in the area to immediately disperse. Most had come to understand the nature of his abilities, and knew their meager weapons were pointless to help someone of his prowess. He held his hand up to the sky, his body glowing violet to announce an attack was moments away from execution. The Alliance’s 27th Infantry Unit did not run away fast enough, for a heavy gust spun around the entire group of soldiers, forming an impenetrable column of winds. Karna heard some shots fired from within the funnel as he maintained his position, and knew that some foolish soldiers tried to shoot a hole through the barrier.
‘Little do they know that the shots will only ricochet and kill their own,’ he thought glumly.
Hagar began her spell, moving her fingers in an elegant rhythm. She chanted several inaudible phrases before ending with a loud cry of “Astrapi!” Huge bolts of lightning shot down from the stormy atmosphere above all of their heads and into Karna’s trap. Screams could be heard from within the windy prison as all of the captured were subjected to lethal electrocution. The witch cackled. ‘ How I missed this! ‘ she mused happily.
When no more cries were evident, Karna slowly lowered his arm. As the purple haze around him faded away, the winds he had summoned dissipated in innocuous breezes. He saw that the attacks were effective; not a single soldier survived the charring.
Hagar clapped her hands. “Very good, Karna. Your first time using that spell has wiped out fifty men. You make a mentor very…”
“Raskeiro!” Karna interrupted as he threw a blade of wind from his fingers. It flew past Hagar, who turned to see it pierce the chest of a soldier that was aiming at her head. The soldier wheezed out a tiny cry before collapsing, pushing the wind blade completely through. Karna sighed and finished the phrase for Hagar. “Proud?”
“Proud…and relieved,” Hagar admitted as she wiped her forehead on her tattered sleeve. She surveyed the battleground several yards ahead of them. Explosions and gunfire could be discerned. “Your people need your help.”
Karna nodded. “Ripee!” he commanded to the air, which sent him several hundreds of feet high. He cast Sempuzali around himself this time to prevent anything from harming him. Once he felt he was high enough for this to work, he cried out to his element, “Anaavay!” The dominant gas in the air became excited at the command, bursting into flames. They crashed down to the ground, setting the hundreds of Alliance’s forces afire. The bodies ran frantically, rolling on the ground to extinguish themselves while others panicked and simply ran about in thoughtless terror. The Dhmk they had been fighting jeered at them, but used the advantage given them to put the smoldering men out of their mortal misery.
The entire planet was the setting for thousands of similar battles on this day. The cries from its children were declarations of war, not of defeat, which raged forth towards their enemies with a ferocious battle chord erupting from their throats. As it is with any mob that rushes towards a military unit armed with projectiles, many perished from shots fired before they ever reached their targets. However, it is also always true that there are never enough fired before the throng overtakes them. The bloodthirsty cheers of the Dhmk drowned the screams of the Alliance soldiers out. Many bludgeoned the soft human bodies with their bare fists, the red blood sticking to their fingers with every additional punch.
“My dear friend, you are painted!” congratulated a beige male to a female. The more that splattered on one of the comrades, the more clout they received from their fellows. After the Alliance soldiers’ corpses were no longer recognizable, she gestured to several others and procured the firearms, continuing their search for victory.
Elsewhere, snipers used Dhmk homes. Nary an enemy soldier unit rushed through an avenue before half of them were dead by the end of the block. The surviving half was pelted with rocks, knifes, and any objects the homes’ occupants could find.
“Ahhhh!!” a young soldier shouted as he fired into one of the houses. His blasts smashed all of the windows into thousands of fragments. His shoulders bucked from the continuous force of his arsenal. When his magazine was empty, there was no sound suggesting anyone survived. He heard a rustle in the house as he readied his weapon with a new magazine. He aimed it.
A young Dhmk child came out. His eyes were wide, and his legs were short. His arms were relatively longer, and her approached the soldier in the manner of a gorilla’s gait. The soldier recognized the child as not having gone through the pupae stage of development. The boy cocked his head and asked something in a fearful tone. The soldier thought it to mean, “Please don’t kill me.” He held his hand out in a gesture of good faith. The child took the hand eagerly, a large grin on his face.
“Come,” the soldier said. As the soldier moved forward, the boy jumped onto his back, squeezing his throat with his powerful arms. The soldier panicked and began firing his gun wildly in front of him. Gradually, his arms tingled and grew numb. He legs gave way, and he fell down face first. The boy used his large hands to snap the soldier’s neck and guarantee death.
The boy stood up. “We children have strong arms to grip our mothers and fathers. I guess your babies don’t.” He took the loaded gun, dragging it in the ground. He whistled to Cossack, who emerged from an adjacent house. The boy knew he could not use the device personally because he was too small, but an adult could. Cossack allowed the boy to climb on his back and grip his torso as they hurried ahead to find a place worthy of another guerilla attack.
Reyk had not yet participated in the freedom fight yet. He remained in the humble shack, using his special sight to see how close the Alliance’s ships were to the planet. He could see the thousands’ worth of fighters and cruisers in his mind’s eye. His eyes shot open, determination expressed in them. He stood up, and moved towards the hut’s exit. ‘Shai, there is a huge amount of Alliance ships about to attack. I hope you get here when you said you would,’ he thought in a message specifically aimed at alerting Shai’s psychic mind. Reyk felt the breeze outside on his skin. It stank of burnt flesh and dried blood. It had been a long time since he last encountered such odor. He began to gag. ‘And people wonder why I hide myself away from the Universe,’ he thought as he spat some bile that had risen into his throat from the disgust of it all.
He folded his arms. There was no flash of light to alert anyone something important was happening. Reyk did not scream from pain, or laugh evilly from some surge of power. The change was instantaneous. If someone had been watching, they would have seen Reyk the orange Dhmk, blink, and then regard Reyk the golden dragon.
His arms were still folded, but they now glistened with a priceless sheen. His eyes bore red irises set into his angular face. He roared his signal to Karna. Seconds later, the Ripee gust met his bright wings, pulling him into the sky to do battle. He manipulated his muscles to position his leathery appendages so that he could climb further up. Satisfied with the exercise, Reyk freefell, pressing his wings close to his scaled body to allow less drag. His target was a large group of Alliance tanks that were about to fire on a civilian mob. He opened his mouth and thrust out a series of fireballs that promptly eliminated any threat the tanks were once capable of carrying out. The mob cheered, calling out “Robeast! Robeast!” as he spread his wings to catch the currents and pull himself upwards.
‘Great, they think I’m a robeast. Terrific,’ Reyk grumbled. His mind’s sight alerted him that the first wave of Alliance ships was entering the atmosphere of the planet. He nodded to himself, preparing for his next strategy. He could see about twenty fighters surround him, obviously shooting to kill. As the laser blasts were discharged, Reyk shouted, “Slow!!” The fighters were suddenly contained in a time warp that effectively slowed everything inside it down…except Reyk. He flew away to a safe distance. “As you were,” he stated plainly. The fighters’ shots blew each other apart, now that the large target had simply disappeared. Reyk sniffed, smoke trailing out of his nostrils in gray wisps. ‘ Despite the gratuitous waste of life, this brings back old memories,’ Reyk reminisced. ‘So this is one of the trials of friendship and family: rationalizing things you would never do for yourself.’ His eyes widened as a thick shadow huddled over him, glowing bright red as he readied a massive attack. He saw the projectiles screaming towards him from the countless fighter ships creating the sky’s shroud. His hands glowed a hue as fierce as his optics. He roared with determination to his elements, “Firestorm!” Fiery blades sheared through the dark atmosphere, screeching like banshees mourning the dead. The slivers pierced through the metallic hulls of the crafts, hot enough to melt through the infrastructure and meld all the fancy silicon chips and devices into amorphous globs of airborne jetsam. Ships that were compromised but not given instantaneous destruction careened to Dhm’s surface in random frenzied paths, exploding on impact.
A large battleship survived the meteoric entourage despite the damage. Reyk gulped audibly as he witnessed his body being torn apart by enemy shrapnel in a vision. ‘I don’t have time to time-warp something that big! I’m dead,’ he resigned himself. ‘Good luck, Zarkon.’
‘Really, Reyk. No need to be such a drama queen.’
Reyk opened his eyes as a gravity field crushed the huge ship into a tiny metal orb. He laughed with relief. He used his time-sight to see and hear Zarkon ask Shai, “What did he do to make you say that out loud? Something altruistic and redundantly noble, I will wager.”
‘You even blurted that out loud, Shai? Where is your clairvoyant etiquette?’ Reyk teased her mentally.
On the command ship, Shai visibly pouted as she crossed her arms.
“No need to bicker now, Great Meteriarch Shai, “ Zarkon addressed her formally as he flipped his right hand over and, with his palm, gestured to the annihilation their forces were now delivering. “Witness the battle ending before it’s even started. Had I known that Alliance technology would fold to your military like this, I would have contacted you years ago.”
“And swallow your pride? Dubious,” Jepaya muttered as she clicked her tongue.
“Great Meteriarch,” a Sapientydan lieutenant’s visage came upon the ship’s screen. “There is a flag ship and two envoy ships retreating.”
“Dispatch a fighter unit to trail them. See where they are attempting to flee. Once their allies are identified, eliminate all parties in question.”
“Indeed,” the officer acknowledged the command and ended the transmission.
“The whipped dog runs with its tail between its legs to Arus,” Lotor assumed with a pompous demeanor. He chuckled, his platinum blonde hairs jostled about his shoulders as he enjoyed his sense of humor.
“I do not doubt it,” Zarkon agreed, a rare occasion. “But, alas,” he raised his voice to mock a breathless tone while he shrugged for effect, “there is no giant robot to help this time.” He shook his head. “Such a shame for the Denubian bluebloods,” he feigned compassion. He then snickered, his chest heaving from the humor. “It looks like we blueskins are here to stay, whether they like it or not.”
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