Page 48 of Alien Barbarian's Little Human

“The Flame Kissers started this,” he snaps. “We came in peace. But now, it’s you who are going in pieces!”

He pulls the trigger. I try to take flight, but the battle with the dead Vakutan has left my wings damaged. I take the full brunt of the automatic weapons fire in my torso. A scream rips out of my mouth. The agony! Half of my insides have been blasted away.

I look down at the hole in my center. An Ishani song bleats from my throat, a song of healing. It’s an instinct all Ishani have, to try and recover from grievous injury.

But the song is twisted. Black. It sounds ugly and guttural. I feel the pain lessen, so I know the healing song is working. But not as it should.

“Impossible,” the Vakutan gasps, still squeezing the trigger of his spent rifle.

My torso has healed, but now dozens, if not hundreds, of sharpened bone spurs jut out of my skin. I reach down and touch one of them, and my finger comes back bloody.

The Vakutan slaps another magazine into his rifle.

“Nice trick, can you do it twice?”

He squeezes the trigger. The projectiles flare from his gun, but they cannot penetrate my new layer of bone armor. I dart forward, moving faster than I ever have in my life. I grab the gun and rip it away from him. Along with the limb holding it.

The Vakutan falls to his knees, mouth open wide as his life’s blood pours from his gory stump. My claws rake across his throat, putting him down like the animal he is.

A terrible sound fills the air. Laughter born of the sheer joy of slaughter. It takes me several moments to realize it’s coming from my mouth.

The other Alliance soldiers have taken note of me. They turn their weapons my way, but that leaves them exposed to the Coalition forces. Gunfire rains down on their position. Many stray shots strike my hide, piercing the flesh but reflecting off the bone spurs.

I do not even have to sing as my body knits itself back together. I’m changing, and not just physically. Urges I have never known before beat at my mind and soul. I want to destroy, to slay, to dominate.

“Cease fire,” cries a Grolgath, apparently some kind of officer. He holds up his hand and looks at me with the most puzzled expression.

“What is that, Captain?” asks a three-eyed Shorcu.

“I don’t know. I think it’s an Ishani, but it’s…hurt.” The Captain tilts his head to the side as he continues to stare at me.“Whatever it is, it’s not the enemy. Let’s move out and find some more Alliance scum to kill.”

“You are very wrong,” I growl. “I am your enemy. In fact, I am the last enemy you will ever know.”

The captain sneers, shaking his head in disgust.

“You need to find a medic and stop courting death, you foolish Ishani.”

“Are you sure that’s an Ishani?” asks the Shorcu. “I mean, look at his eyes, and those bones thrusting out of his skin like a thousand barren trees.”

I take a step toward them. A half dozen guns train my way.

“If he moves another inch closer, shoot him,” the Grolgath captain commands.

I grin, and take a step closer. All six of them inundate me with gunfire. My left leg is nearly severed in half, my wings in tatters, but I do not fall.

I feel a familiar painful heat spreading through my leg. I’m not surprised to see bone spurs forming where the injuries were the worst. My ruined wings drag the ground behind me, leaving streaks of blood as I charge their ranks.

Before anyone can reload, I’m on top of the captain. I grab the end of his rifle and tear it out of his grasp by the still warm barrel. He only has time to scream before I slam the butt of the rifle atop his scaled head. A wet crunch fills the air, and his eyes roll back into his head.

“He killed the captain!” shouts one of the Coalition. “Waste him!”

I turn and throw the rifle at him with ferocity that no Ishani has ever displayed. It spins through the air and then the barrel thrusts directly through his eye socket. The Grolgath sways unsteadily on his feet, then collapses to the ground.

“Shoot him!” cries the Shorcu. He tries to carry out his own order, but I grab another soldier and use him as a living shield.The Grolgath in my hands shakes and sputters as he takes the full brunt of a clip-emptying barrage. A couple of shots make it through his body, but they do little to my rapidly devolving body.

I throw what’s left of the Grolgath at the shooter, knocking him flat. The other coalition soldiers try to flee. I chase them down one by one and end their miserable lives. Joy spreads through my being as I slay them.

Some tiny part of my mind that remains pure Ishani is horrified at what I have become. But it is only a small piece of me, now. My city still burns. I must find all of the aliens destroying our homeworld and put an end to them.

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