Beacons in The Dark

Chapter 24 - Going Down

"They tell me the moon is full and the sun is warm just beyond the horizon." - Xevian poetry

Ex was huddled in a corner, his hands over his eyes, peering through the slits in his fingers. It was not supposed to go like this - the Zek was dead, he had to be, there was no other way around it.

A bright finger of red light blazed through the air, the energy beam hitting Blue's shoulder and passing through it with a hiss of cauterized flesh and a spray of blood; the downside being that it hit Bast's hammerhead as well, and with a deafening cacophany, the two energy fields intertwined and exploded, blowing the weapon apart in the large man's very hands, crackles of silvery after-energy whipping over his body, crackling at his skin and clothing; the smell of burned flesh heavy in the air from the two combatants facing each other.

It was a flash of pain for Blue, but his face did not twitch as an inner fire burned through him, his every nerve ending tingling with rippling energy. So his shoulder was penetrated by a burning ray of energy, as if that was going to stop this inferno - and his horrorshow face was almost broken by a grin when the beam broke apart Bast's weapon, burning the councilor badly in the process.

Bast was hurt but by no means broken; Blue looked like a demented marionette, red sunlight pouring in through the plazscreen windows into the room, giving eveything a crimson tint. A thin warm trickle of blood poured down Blue's arm to his hands, and he brought his fingers up to his lips and licked away the redness that had accumulated there.

Bast moved with the speed of an enraged tiger, his fat body streaking the air with curls of smoke boiling from his body, his knee rising into Blue's chest, pushing the smaller mans body into the air, a sharp puff of air leaving the man's chest. 

Blue was blasted backwards, rising into the air, a spot of blood spouting from his mouth, his eyes narrowing as he rose in the air, his laz sword slicing downwards.