Crimson

Chapter Twelve

Puffs of golden dust, laced with light blue strands circulated around the feet of this small, troubled Eron. Gritting his teeth, he moved as a firestorm. Burning everything in this path, his rage thirsted for more. As some Legionnaire recruits stood, fixed in line before him, barreling through them, forcing two down on all of their appendages, he spat and kicked viciously at their abdomens.

"Out of my direction, Rots! May the Terra God send you to your ancestors, if you cross me again!"

Confused, attempting not to make orb contact, the young recruits quickly moved back out of his way. Gingerly, some grabbed their scales in agony as their obedience to their seniors disallowed any protest from escaping. Holding in their anguish, they fell into line once more. As the San receded into the distance, the recruits heard grunts and a sharp inhale as one of their kin were assaulted. Punishing those in his path, Zilterra ruminated on his loss.

"How could the gods allow this? First, the filth humiliates me and then he is rewarded?" Grunting loudly, he allowed the fires of his tempest to billow.

"Me! The Lord of these fools! How is this happening?!"

Kicking hard on the post of a nearby Hall of Gloom, causing the structure to shake slightly, Zilterra felt his wrath swell. An angry cry of protest resounded in the Hall as a movement towards the flap, caused Zilterra's life fluid to boil. Another San came out, his recruits briefly glimpsing the cause of the ruckus, through the flap shaking with the motion of struggling to rest from the movement of the intrusion. Their orbs wide with curiosity craned necks lingered as the flap moved in the midday air, hard with the thickness of heat, pulsing with the multicolored fragments of dust.

"Leave it, Tis." Zilterra addressed the other San. "Just move back to your filths in there."

Glaring, Tis refused to yield. A member of Zilterra's class of San, Tis held no sympathy for his small, brutal comrade. His methods turning all of his stomachs.

"Leave my territory. I'll report you to the Baron for this." Tis threatened.

Moving in closer, his head turned upward, Zilterra maintained his ground. Standing a head above him, Tis remained nonplussed by the aggression forced upon him.

Smiling, he gazed pityingly downwards towards Zilterra. "I do not fear you as the others do. You're nothing." Leaning in close to the side of his head, Tis whispered softly. "Such a small hatchling, like yourself holds no power here."

Turning, he made to return to his recruits when a piercing blow shocked him to his knees, his lower abdomen radiating fiery pain. Tis' bioluminescence violently flickered in response to the attack, his body boiling in the blaze on his lower back. Before he could register the initial attack, a series of explosive spasms erupted around his body. Forced to the ground, he turned feebly to witness Zilterra holding a large rock before it met his cranium bringing about a forced death state.

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Wheezing, his bioluminescence forming a beacon from his thorax, he studied the potential of his forces. The forecasted figures pleasing to him, etched in the skin of a Tulac, brightened in the Terra God's rays, allowed ease in scripting. Layers of forms piled his workspace. Lit by the open creases in his den, this being engorged himself upon pure Crimson as he mulled over the documents.

"You need your rest, Lord." A soft steady voice sounded behind him.

Startled by the soundless entry of this creature, Baron Richtol gasped, his wheezing doubling in response. Grunting and coughing to loosen the crimson, which lingered in his ingestion pathway, he turned the best he could with his large frame. His engorged abdomen proved challenging as it protested the adjustment. The large stone seat creaked as it ground with the smaller rocks littering his den.