The Awakening ch.18

    The three agents of the H.E.P. can’t believe what Rho-Sho has just told them, that not only is Litmet already awake but is heading their way as well. Sehkmenta turns her head to the west, pricks up her ears and says, “Yes I can sense her energy now heading this way from the west. I guess she was hiding her energy until now.”

 

    A broad smile crosses her face before she continues, “My mother seems to have herself a little companion.”

 

    She quickly turns in Rick’s direction then back to the west thinking, “Or two”.

 

    She speaks aloud again, “A Doh-Rong is flying beside her, a female Doh-Rong I believe.”

 

    Rick was briefly startled when Sehkmenta turned his way but didn’t think she spotted him. Hearing her words as to the direction Litmet and the creature he now knows is called a Doh-Rong are approaching, he turns to the west with his binoculars and sees two spots flying on the horizon, one black one and one red one.

 

    Rick pulls out his cell phone and quickly and quietly calls up the Elite Paladins and gives them his coordinates and says, “Litmet and the dragon now confirmed to be a female Doh-Rong are coming this way right now. Be cautious because there are also three were-Dires, two females one male, one female cat demon, and one shadow creature of unknown type.”

 

    The leader of the seven Elite Paladins turns off his cell phone and addresses his men all dressed in blue and silver business suit uniforms like some mockery of armor or some team of super heroes complete with dark sun glasses. All were men with short cut hair mostly brown and blond amongst them.

 

    The leader, a man of modest build and short blond hair stands and says to his team, “Okay people time to head out! Our targets are going to join with five other Hell beasts so be ready this is going to be a big one!”

 

    In the H.E.P. camp Silver has the other two were-dires moving all the sleeping humans out of the way to the tents which gave Rick a real problem trying to stay out of sight given he knows how acute the senses of smell and hearing are for a were-dire. He attributed their not noticing him to their being too distracted by the impending trouble they were about to experience.  

 

    Mean While Al’Suad pulls Dr. O’Conner to one of the tents by his arm and says to him harshly, “Do you see now what’s happening here? I knew there was something wrong with these guys! They’re all monsters & you heard them, they were looking for something worse than Sehkmenta when they woke her up. We have to get out of here and I mean now damnit.”

 

    In the air Litmet and Ananth, in her dragon form, approach the camp. Ananth looks over the camp with her crocodile like eyes at the scene below. Litmet stops in mid air only occasionally flapping her wings, just hovering in mid-air like she was sitting in water floating. She looks at the scene below, at the three were-Dires lined up on the ground horizontal to her like a line prepared for battle, with her daughter Sehkmenta and even more astonishing to her the shadow lord Rho-Sho just behind them near the open gateway.

 

    Litmet projects her voice like the howling wind to speak with them, “My elder daughter and three creatures I am told are called Were-Dires the latest creation of the Rai. Excuse me they’re called the Dire by most humans now apparently. So little Were-Dires I wander how you will compare to your ancestors the Olym and the Ish.”

 

     “Rai?” wanders Rick, “So the Dire were once called by another name. I wander how long they have been around.”

 

    Rick’s thoughts are interrupted by the very much un-expected sight before him; the were-dire called Hadd has begun a new transformation. Already in his Were-Dire form two great black feathered wings shoot out of his back and his muzzle shortens and glosses over losing the fur to form a black hawk’s beak. The very fur of his body changes into feathers and his clawed hands become talons like those of Ahm only with black skin instead of grey. His feet become the talons of a hawk unlike the X shaped running feet of a Hinnen, his tail then retracted and changed into the feathered fan tail of a bird of prey. Hadd had become some strange bird creature that Rick had never seen before.

 

    Hadd in his now wing endowed form flaps his wings with several great thrusts to be a mere thirteen feet from Litmet and Ananth on a horizontal plane to each other, however unlike Litmet Hadd has to keep flapping his wings to stay airborne.

 

    He looks to Litmet and Ananth and says in as mighty a voice as he can with his now bird like voice, “I am Hadd of the Olym”

 

    Litmet responds smugly, “Olym… I see, Hades, now calling yourself Hadd? Nice name change.”

 

    She releases a short laugh than continues, “The Olym created as a hybrid of Rai and Hinnen with human mixed in. With very limited power based on a single element for any individual just like the older Ish, in fact the only special trick you have is that turning into that miniature Hinnen form. So tell me Hadd are your companions not these Were-Dires I heard of and just Olyms or Ish?”

 

     Before Hadd can answer a spinning purple arc blade like those that had killed the fleeing men suddenly flies at Litmet from below. She easily blocked the attack with her right wing shattering the energy blade into small dots of light that quickly faded away.

 

    Litmet looks over the edge of her wing like some vampire’s cape, below at the source of the attack, which was none other than O-Vix, who yells back up at Litmet, “Olym and Ish are all old school, you may be used to fighting them but we are were-Dires, we’re not limited to single elements. We have the same powers as the Dire themselves…only a little weaker.”

 

    Silver thinks, “Litmet is a Lit a race as old as the Dire so she might be out of our league, but if she wants a fight she has it!”

    Silver yells out, “Litmet! We have no intention or reason to fight you but if you want a fight we will gladly oblige!!”

 

    Rho-Sho turns while saying, “You have what you wanted to know from me, the rest of this doesn’t concern me in the least so I am going back home now.”

 

    Sehkmenta turns and says to Rho-Sho, “Wait one minute please.”

 

    She turns to the H.E.P. agents and says, “It has been fun you three but I really have no interest in your organization.”

 

    Rick watching now from a very long distance away behind a rock out cropping through his binoculars sees yet another un-expected transformation. Sehkmenta raised her arms behind her head as her clothing changed into twin twirls of mist that floated around her well toned naked yet still fur covered body and down between her breasts and legs splitting out behind her before suddenly twirling around her as a large rapid cyclone of grey mist. After obscuring her from view two great cat paws appear from high in the column of spinning mist and the body of a giant grayish silver panther like creature comes out of the now dispersing mist. The cat is five feet at the shoulders and easily more than fifteen feet in length, about half the size of a Dire. Down her back starting from her head flowed a great mane of hair like a grey storm cloud down her back that actually seemed to emit the occasional spark as though it were an actual thunder cloud. As She turned towards the great black gate Rick could clearly make out two very human like breast between her front legs.

 

    Rick couldn’t help but think, “She is like a sphinx.”

 

     Together Rho-Sho and Sehkmenta walk through the curtain of shadows in the great black gate which quickly closes behind them and the giant golden ankh flies from the lock and vanishes into the sky. With out warning a grayish white furred clawed hand grabs Rick from behind pulling him into the shadows and through them like it they had been mere veils between the worlds.

 

    Rick finds himself in a stone castle like room that is dimly lit. Out a nearby window Rick sees he is at least three hundred feet up in a black castle like something out of a fairy tale. The sky is covered in a grey cloud high up that also seems to be emitting a faint light. The vast forest below is nothing but grey colored trees; the leaves and the bark from his stand point all appear to be grey in color.

 

    He says to himself, “What the hell just happened? And where in God’s name am I?”

 

    As though prompted by his question a grayish white furred were-Dire in appearance woman walked into the room through its one large wooden door that Rick hadn’t even gotten around to examining yet to see if it was unlocked.

 

    Rick thinks, “This woman, who is she? And why is she wearing white robes like some Greek or Roman goddess?”

 

     The woman notices Rick is uneasy and to Rick’s surprise she undergoes the same transformation Hadd had gone through instead with grey feathers, beak, and with feet like a parrot. She walks over to the window than turns to

 

    Rick saying, “Sehkmenta had me pull you out of that fight.”

 

    She sees Rick is still uneasy and says, “I would have assumed this bird form to be less alarming to you than my canine form.”

 

    She looks thought full than says, “Perhaps then this will do.”

 

     With that she changed into a human form, the shrinking from a beak to a beautiful woman’s face had to be the most remarkable thing Rick had ever seen. The woman really looked like a Greek goddess with long straight purplish grey hair and pale white skin with her baby blue eyes sitting like two gems in her face.

 

     She says in a sweet voice, “From your reaction I take it this form is more pleasing to your eyes.”

 

    In that moment the all too familiar human form of Sehkmenta walked into the room.

 

       She turned to the woman and said, “Perseph, thanks that will be all.”

 

    Perseph says, “Your welcome your majesty.”

 

    Perseph then left the room leaving Sehkmenta and Rick alone.

 

    Sehkmenta walks right up to Rick and sniffs him quickly than says, “I thought that scent was familiar, you might as well have been yelling out your presence to me back in that camp.”

 

    Rick asks with an alarmed look in his eyes, “How? How could my scent have done that with all those other people around?”

 

    Sehkmenta says, “It would seem my mother has an interest in you. As faint as it is her scent is all over you.”