“Ugh, I forgot how much gut punches hurt…”
Elkay was internally kicking himself for being naive. A ship had landed during closing hours at Savepoint and two Decayons had rushed out of it, claiming they needed help. Of course, Elkay had gone over to see what was going on. Thankfully, he had told Litvir in advance, and Litvir had rushed off to awaken the night crew, but these Decayons had immediately attacked Elkay as soon as he approached, starting with punching him in the stomach, the one place Elkay didn’t wear much armour.
The attack had floored Elkay, and the two Decayon were swiftly accompanied by quite a few more, several of whom started beating Elkay up. Sure, Elkay’s adaptive mimic powers had kicked in, covering him in metal plating to protect him from harm, but Elkay was now too busy trying not to be killed to be able to put up any sort of real offence.
More worryingly, the large Decayon ship seemed to be deploying some sort of massive laser thing, and it was pointing the laser thing at the main base. Again, Elkay was thankful he’d alerted Litvir, because there was now a shimmering shield protecting Savepoint’s buildings. About twenty Decayons had also erupted from the ship, and were trying to work out how to breach the protective dome keeping them from pillaging the base.
“What do you even want?” Elkay growled as he managed to roll over. His wings turned into dense crystal, giving Elkay a chance to climb to his feet.
“We’re the last of the Dracliks of Dominarch, and we’ve been looking for you, you psionic mass-murdering mimic cunt! You killed our leader, you everyone else, so we’re going to fucking kill you!”
“Nah, we’re gonna kill everyone else in front of this little asshole before we kill him, right, Draclik Ekdik?”
Something long and squiggly wrapped around Elkay’s neck, dragging him back. A blade bounced harmlessly off Elkay, but now he was on the floor again, and, worse, he was on his back. With a pained grunt, Elkay caused a small blast of ice, which did knock the two initial enemy Decayons away, but the tentacles remained wrapped around Elkay’s neck, and, worse, several more appeared, wrapping around Elkay’s arms. Elkay did try a fire blast, but still, the tendrils remained unmoved.
“I do not even know who the fuck you are!” Elkay snarled, desperately trying to break free. “And what even is a Draclik? It is a stupid name!”
The being that was summoning the tentacles kicked Elkay in the head, then silently cursed as they realized they’d hurt their foot in the process. Whatever they were, they were slimy and horrible. Some sort of black and brown slug-like humanoid creature with tendrils sticking out of its back.
“You don’t know, mimic scum? You Deathven-aligned sect fools killed Dominarch and every single one of her soldiers, rather than accepting your fates and becoming her new merchandise! And now we’ve tracked you cunts down, we’re going to do to you what you did to the Dominion Pirates! So says I, Draclik Ekdik”
Elkay blinked. “I… I still do not know what you are on about! But-”
Before Elkay could say anything else, the laser on the ship powered up. Ekdik rubbed his slimy hands together in glee, but that insane smile quickly faded as the laser seemed to short circuit, and something inside the ship caught fire.
From out of the protective shield around Savepoint, several beings stepped out. Several very small beings.
“The… the fuck?” one of the Dracliks blatantly swore in confusion. “We know you got at least one of them retarded Beh’en cunts in there, and THIS is what the mighty ol’Thantir send out to stop us? Some fricking tiny robots?”
Half of the team of Kal, namely Tah, Nuh, Pah and Leh, all of them unarmed, clicked in unison.
“You’re threatening our nest. You have thirty seconds to let Elkay go, scramble back into your ship and leave, before we use deadly force,” Tah rather calmly but coldly demanded.
Ekdik snarled, then chucked Elkay to one side, in front of several of his troops, all of whom went back to kicking Elkay.
“You have to be fucking kidding me! You lot are… fucking nothing. Low ranked Metrum trash. They got fucked over harder than the fucking Ventra did. And you little bitches are hiding here now, among these idiots?”
Tah was not at all swayed. “That’s rather hypocritical, considering you’re all pirates who got taken out by two people weaker than us. You now have twenty seconds to leave, before we use deadly force.”
“This mimic here borrowed the powers of one of the most powerful Psions around!”
“I still do not know who you are…” Elkay muttered as he once again defended himself with his now crystalline wings, but backed it up with a telekinetic shield. “I have never even heard of a Draclik before. If Eksi was here, he would ask if you lick dragon balls! You probably do.”
Ekdik stared at Elkay, then instructed his minions to kick Elkay some more. “Whatever. You’re…”
“You have ten seconds to leave before we use deadly force.”
Elkay blinked, then blinked again, accidentally borrowing some time powers. He glanced forward in time, then wished he hadn’t. “Um, they… they are serious.”
“Five seconds.”
The Decayons all laughed, not seeing the four little robots as any sort of threat.
“Three seconds.”
More laughter.
“Time is up. Nuh, Leh, you may proceed to use deadly force.”
Tah dashed forward, grabbed Elkay, then teleported them both back behind the safety of the shimmering shield. this clearly pissed off Ekdik and his minions, but every single pirate suddenly realized that they couldn’t move. Gravity had increased around them, cementing them in place.
“Any last words?” Nuh asked.
“What… what is going on? How… how are you…”
The intensity of the gravity around the pirates increased, and those with internal skeletons found that their bones were beginning to snap. But before anyone could scream every single pirate’s head apart from Ekdik suddenly exploded, coating the whole area in blood, gore and brain matter.
“THE FUCK?” Ekdik screeched, trying to move, even a little. “WHY?”
Pah clicked three times. Leh clicked twice. Nuh tilted his head to one side, then clicked once.
“You threatened our nest. We are defending our nest. End of.”
Ekdik’s body suddenly collapsed in on itself, utterly crushed by Nuh’s gravitational powers. Nuh then proceeded to also crush the entirety of the Decayon ship as well. Once everything was definitely dead, Pah proceeded to incinerate anything that remained.
After a long silence and a quick bit of cleaning up, the three Cleansers all turned around and made their way back towards base. Waiting for them were several other members of the Thantir; Vikalos, Saahro and Tenuk were all armed and on guard, and Galyn and Litvir were looking over Elkay to make sure he was alright.
“Well, that was terrifying!” Vikalos admitted. “I did not think… you would just… do that…”
Nuh just clicked some more. “There is a reason the Metrum didn’t like us, and it wasn’t because they saw us as weak, it was because we were so vastly powerful despite being so limited. Savepoint and you Thantir, we consider you to be our nest. And anyone who threatens a Cleanser’s nest dies, painfully.”
“It’s deeply programmed into us,” Pah added. “We can’t peacefully defend what we consider a nest if it is threatened by violence. Either way, problem’s solved, we need to clean ourselves up. Right, Tah?”
“Of course. Let me come give you guys a hand.”
Everyone watched as the Cleansers wandered off.
“In all honesty?” Galyn eventually muttered. “They did the right thing. Those… pirates… really were monsters. Clearly some of them… survived.”
“Well, hopefully Dominarch and her ilk are gone forever!” Litvir hissed as he helped Elkay to his feet. “And thank the Light Kal solved that problem for us…”