“Is that really our best option, my Pristine?” Rusa asked. He was standing on the forest floor that was carpeted in greenish-blue plant growth. There were large trees all around with thick, scaly bark that was gray like xaxew fur, with black and white scabs of bark that gave them their color. The canopy was so high up that from the forest floor, the sky was a crowd of gray trunks under a sea of green-blue leaves that occasionally let in the yellow light of the star of Xaxax.
“It is our only option,” Pultine said as she levitated above the forest floor. “This is us very much off course. I had hoped to be spraying aerphim blood around one of their vistas by now. But we’re here in this realm of disrespectful beasts who put the discarded bodies of their prey in the structures of their homes. This is the fastest way for us to get what we need and be on our way.”
“Not if you can’t charge your axes,” Rusa said forcefully, but with as much respect as he could maintain. He understood that Pultine disliked Xaxax, and he knew that her haste was making her short-sighted. “You need to be at full strength to get us to Endla. If you do this, you’ll need at least another moon to…”
Pultine glared at him. Her dark forehead slanted to one side, like the snarl at her lips was so tight that it tugged it down.
“My Pristine,” Rusa said humbly with a bow, “I don’t presume to know your power better than you do. Please forgive the carelessness of my words. But you have said it before, that these types of attacks take a lot out of you, and you’re aiming for five targets at once, over considerable distance. I don’t doubt you, and Cic has confirmed that all five targets are marked with rhasd for you to hone in on, but I know you want to be done with this place. Let me do more.”
“Now is not the time to bicker,” Pultine said flatly and she closed her eyes just as her dark skin began to glow. “Hasah should be arriving at the nest of Aexea soon and you will be there to greet him with your long staff.”
“Yes, Pristine,” Rusa said obediently, as though he had never doubted her at all. Then he spread his wings and flew up through the branches of the trees toward the nest as a large procession of xaxews made their way through the forest and up the scaly trunk of Aexea. He was a blur of shiny jade as he rocketed toward the nest; he wore the rhads plates of armor that materialized on the outside of his body at will because it was an extension of the rhasd that Yana had used to line the inside of his skin. As he flew, he brandished his long staff with his left hand, deftly swatting away vegetation and small animals that got in the way. The entrance of the nest was open as Rusa approached and there were xaxews waiting with anticipation around the open circle that led inside. Rusa flew to hover in the middle of the entrance as Hasah and the procession of admiring xaxews reached it. Rusa’s jade green aspect exploded from his body and Hasah and the other xaxews cowered away from the strange sight.
“Today will be your end,” Rusa said ominously, and as he raised his staff to attack Hasah, who was yelling for his guard to seize the intruder, balls of burning yellow-white light began to rain down on the nest, on Aexea, on everything in the area.
The chaos was instant. As the burning balls crashed into the nest and the surrounding vegetation, Rusa watched in shock as everything went up in flame, including xaxews who stumbled around in their panic. Rusa felt compelled to help, but he couldn’t move from his levitating position in the round entrance of the Aexea nest.
Rusa was a statue among the chaos and his jade green aspect began to intensify like a thick smoke poured from his body and any xaxew that wasn’t burning from the intensifying inferno, choked and died when they encountered it. Rusa could only witness with his senses; he saw xaxews dying all around him and he smelled the burning bodies and silk. He felt a strange sensation throughout his body and his rhasd enhancements that he was sure were the cause of the green smoke of death that his body produced but he could not stop. His body was not his own. He had been turned into a chemical weapon and he had no idea how to stop it.
Rusa closed his eyes to avoid the carnage around him as he realized what was happening. Pultine was incinerating the nest and she had apparently sent him to maximize casualties, even though he had no idea why he was emitting a poisonous cloud of smoke that was so thick that it darkened the forest in a large and rapidly growing circumference. He tried to ignore the death around him, the screams and screeches of xaxews on fire, the coughing and choking of xaxews being gassed. But it seemed to last for hours while he hovered, unable to move.
“Shall we be on our way?” Rusa heard as the sounds of death subsided.
He opened his eyes slowly to see Pultine inside of the reconstructed litter that they had been taking to Endla and her charged axes were attached to the bottom. The entire rectangular structure of the litter seemed to be charged with Pultine’s energy and she smirked at him from her seat inside.
“I have the scroll,” she said.
“Is Cic dead?” Rusa asked and he felt control of his body returning. He flapped his wings to approach the litter when he could and he looked back at the singed and smouldering spot on Aexea where the nest had been. Ashes seem to drizzle around them and he saw the thick cloud of green smoke that still issued from his body down below them as it continued to disseminate through the forest.
“Why the sentimentality?” Pultine asked, trying not to show the full extent of her anger at Rusa’s questioning.
“No sentiment, my Pristine. My only sentiments are for you,” he said. “Even if you do not trust me enough to be honest about your plans. Your will is paramount.”
“You would have wasted time trying to talk me out of it,” Pultine said. “I knew what needed to be done when I first laid eyes on this place. You are naive enough to believe in the goodness of anything, even the monsters of Xaxax. Cic convinced you that there was something like peace to be had here, but killing a leader and his family wouldn’t have changed anything. Come, we have places to be.”
“What was that smoke?” Rusa asked as the thick smoke stop issuing from him. He still hovered before the litter.
“That was a secret weapon that Yana told me about,” Pultine chuckled. “Thanks to Grootslang’s gem. So much more effective than I thought was possible.”
“How did you do it, though?” Rusa asked. “How did you control my body?”
“You are mine, Rusa,” Pultine said, patting the seat of the litter next to her. “I have been in your head since we met on Wiis, or do you not remember me telling you that back then?”
“I do remember,” he said, “but I guess I didn’t realize your control could be so complete.”
“Get in,” she said.
The glowing litter flew up and away from the chaos of Aexea after Rusa sat inside. Even though Pultine had incinerated the nest, Aexea was largely unharmed by the fire.
“I know that you are upset,” Pultine said as she watched Rusa watch the scene they left behind. “You think that I am not forthcoming enough with my plans and intentions. You worry what else I may be hiding from you.”
“I am yours, Pristine,” Rusa said as he looked at her. “I don’t mean to question. I told you that I would gladly be your weapon and you have demonstrated today how lethal a weapon I can be in your hands. I just wish that you trusted me, that we were closer to equals than we are now. Haven’t I proven myself to you?”
“We have traveled a long way together…” she started, but she was interrupted by an explosion that rocked the litter and sent them spiraling back down to the surface of Xaxax.
The litter was obliterated again, but Pultine held firmly to Rusa and recalled her axes to avoid separation. As they emerged from the wreckage, a hologram of a large xaxew appeared in the sky before them.
“Surrender and return the xaxew technology at once,” the thing said.
“If we don’t?” Pultine asked.
Just then, aircraft flew over the spot and dropped more bombs in the area. Rusa covered his head and Pultine glared at the hologram.
“Surrender and return the xaxew technology,” it said again. “Please state your intention to surrender and comply, or suffer another barrage of bombs. This time, we will aim to destroy.”
Pultine wished that she could harm the hologram, but the aircraft circling overhead would have to do for now.
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