The Curse Of The Wereporg

9: Porgs Galore

Nine: Porgs Galore.

The only advantage to the fact he was in a very nasty fight with a feral male porg very much like the one that had savaged him and caused all this trouble in the first place was the fact he was already a porg and couldn't be turned into one again. Not that the thought gave Kylo much comfort as he found the other male sinking his teeth very hard into his...fluffbutt. Giving a yowl that sounded like he was being strangled while yodelling, he managed to kick the other porg clear, rolling away and feeling his butt ache from the savaging.

MINE! The feral porg was furious, drool dripping from its mouth and feathers sticking from his mouth and teeth. Ren backed up a pace.

Look, there's no point in fighting like an animal, he reasoned, clinging to his powers of intellect carefully. The changes in his power levels with the Force had shaken him-not that he would admit to anyone, though the Scavenger Rey could sense his emotions and would probably know. There was a sneaking worry, facing the feral beast in front of him, that his future lay with the diminution of his ability to reason and think leaving him finally as just a simple lower non-sentient creature. He would fight to his dying breath before he surrendered to that! But he could hear the scrabbling of the lust-crazed females behind him. He shifted slightly to see the females regroup and begin their charge again. So he accelerated forward, bouncing over the feral male and hitting the ground behind him with a thud that knocked the wind from him. However, he was rewarded with the sight of the feral male being stampeded by the females, who were scrabbling and clawing to get over him-and at Kylo.

And...I still appear to be a porg magnet, he thought as he bounced through the hole he had blasted in the door of the Base and then stopped. The corpses of the men he had slain lay where they had fallen, unburied and left to putrefy. All were looking less than healthy and were starting to smell, the stench of decay mild but unmistakeable. He recognised it from battlefields and trials, from Snoke himself whose Force signature always carried the slightest whiff of carrion but to smell it with his porg senses was a new experience and not one he was keen to repeat. Porgs, it seemed, had a much sharper sense of smell than a human. But he knew what he was looking for and bounced and scrabbled up onto the comm station, seeing it left powered up by his less than careful stormtroopers. Grateful for once, he stabbed the controls using the Force and accessed the mission logs.

MY TERRITORY! The aggressive male Porg was back, hissing and spitting at Kylo who was perched on the console.

"I see your people skills are as good as ever." The Scavenger, Rey, was sitting cross-legged a metre above the floor halfway across the room, her hazel eyes taking in the scene. "Is that another porg, trying to kill you?" Kylo's eyes widened.

You can see my surroundings? he asked, pausing in his perusal of the mission logs. She frowned, for she had only had any sense of his surroundings when they were in physical contact. She nodded.

"Can you see mine?" she checked. He inclined his head.

Just...hints... he murmured. Metal? She nodded.

"Correct," she complimented him as the feral porg lunged to try to bite him. "Boy, he has really warmed to your winning personality." He scanned the logs, finding he had to concentrate much harder to register the words. It really made him angry, that life was conspiring against him once more. First his birthright, then his parents, then his Uncle, now this... She unfolded and stepped onto the ground, walking to his side without missing a beat. "Easy," she soothed him, reaching out and gently making contact with his wing.

The anger receded and suddenly the words were much easier to decipher. He took a deep breath and scanned down the screen.

Fighters started vanishing a week after they arrived, after they had befriended the local Porgs, Kylo read. They found a few Porgs in the Base but returned them to the colony. Two weeks after the first disappearances, the aggressive porgs started attacking anyone who emerged from the base. Disappearances continued, always those who had been bitten. Over half the complement had vanished before the First Order attacked. He looked up. That aggressive porg was probably once one of your people.