The Beast

The Beast - Part 30

"Ar-" Gabriel tried to start a conversation, but it lunged forward. He threw himself to the left, as he felt a sharp pain across his torso. Now the nian was in front of him. She held a knife-like thing in her hand, it was dripping with his blood. Gabriel would have brought a violent death upon her not a week ago, but he had changed, not because he was merciful but because he learned how to think clearly when injured. The nian lunged forward again but this time he slapped the knife out of her hand and pinned her to the floor. The pin was more brute force than technique, but it got the job done, he was kneeling over the nian with his legs around her body and right arm, the left one escaped his grip, but it didn't take long for him to notice that her catlike claws didn't actually hurt all that much.

"Are you ready to talk?" Gabriel didn't want to kill the first time he was left alone and getting information would help his

"Just kill me." her resistance died down, as she accepted that her time had come.

"No. Why did you try to kill me?"

"Kill me."

"There are things worse than death, would you like to get to know them?" He was bluffing, torturing the nian below him was not an option he was willing to pursue.

"Ask, beast." Her voice was filled with spite

"The Question is obvious." His bluff worked so he would continue with the zero-empathy way.

"Do you think we don't know where you come from? You have to die." Did she know about Earth? His heart started racing, humanity was doomed if word came out that there were more of him hidden on the planet without FTL travel.

"Answer again but better or I will start counting down your limbs." He grabbed her free arm to signify what he meant by that.

"You are one of Aina's paws set on destroying us." He started to pull on her arm waiting for the better answer he asked for until a whimper pulled him back to reality. He was torturing someone honest trying to protect her brothers and sisters from evil. In this case he was the untrustworthy danger set loose in their home. He rolled off her. The nian jumped to the control panel and activated the elevator again. He should have stopped it and talked her down but all he said was a faint apology before she ran off into the crowd.

The elevator ended up not being a shortcut, was all he thought to himself as he made his way to Tibi. The wound already stopped bleeding, but he still wanted to ask, just in case. The clothing they gave him made it look scarier than it really was.

Tibi was sleeping on her padded table when he entered, she must have not gotten a place of her own. He tried to feel stoic about her situation, but he couldn't help himself from feeling bad for her. The wound really didn't look that bad, he thought to himself, and she probably had enough on her plate already, a few more hours won't make a difference.

It took quite a bit of explaining but he convinced Zuski that he was fine. She spent the next hours crushing him in terret mixed with lectures about how exactly she was doing so. He learned to enjoy losing from his bigger brother back on earth, the stomping gave him a warm feeling of nostalgia, to the point that he was fully immersed in the game. The nagging feeiling of guilt in the back of his mind faded for the first time after killing the disloyal nian. It was simply a good time.

They played until his tired mind refused him two straight thoughts in a row.