It felt like it was just seconds later that I was jolted awake by Shigure.
*"Uki-chan, the big bird's nest is under attack by lizards and there's a group of dark lizard trying to ambush us. There are too many lizards for us to ignore. We're going to need you,"* Shigure said.
The vehicle was bumping along at a faster speed than expected making the caravan rattle as if it was going to be shaken to pieces.
*"We can't keep going at this speed. Our supplies and caravans will be ruined and we may not have enough spare parts,"* Shigure told me. *"We're looking for a relatively open and empty plain to stop in."* He stopped talking for a moment and I faintly heard him directing Sarsen on where to drive in another of his mental channels. *"When we stop, Uki-chan, I'm counting on you to help protect the big bird's nest. Andrew is a superspeed runner and he's ok at climbing too. He'll pick you up and take you with him to the big bird's nest. The rest of us will stay here to defend against the dark lizards."*
*"Understood,"* I replied switching into work mode. *"I can take some weight on my legs now, so I should be alright,"* I said.
*"I'm aware,"* Shigure gave a fast and curt reply. *"Don't overdo it. Sarsen, between those two hills."*
The vehicles came to a stop in a cloud of dust.
A second later, the caravan door was yanked open, I was lifted out of bed, blanket and all and carried out and across the baking hot, cracked desert ground.
"Sorry about this, Kim," Andrew told me as he ran. "Shigure said he told you what's going on?"
"Yeah," I replied, turning around to look at the surrounding hills only to find them dark with the number of dark lizards emerging from underground tunnels. "Whoa. That's a lot of lizards."
"Yeah," Andrew agreed. "Let's hope there's not that many at the big bird's nest."
"I'll see if the big bird can come and fetch us to help," I told Andrew.
"Right on," he replied.
I contacted the big bird and realised that it was busy trying to protect its mate who was busy trying to protect its nest.
*"We're coming to help!"* I called out to the big bird. *"But we're too far away. Can you come and get us?"*
""Help?"* replied the bird with a breath of relief and gratitude. "Help. Good. Come. I come."*
"It's coming," I told Andrew. "Get ready."
The two of us wrapped ourselves up in ropes that the bird could use to carry us in.
A few seconds later, the big bird had arrived and hovered over us and I explained how we were to be picked up. The bird acquiesced and grabbed hold of the rope loops that we held up for it.
A few flaps of the wings that seemed as wide as a small aircraft's, and we had been carried aloft. It was only another ten seconds before we were dropped by a big nest surrounded by five hungry looking lizards. They weren't dark lizards, but a mix of different types. The lizards were all as big as a large sized dog or bigger, scaring me.
I used a mental attack to stun them.
In that moment, the bird sitting on the nest managed to peck one lizard on the neck, breaking its neck with a ferocious blow. The big bird that had just dropped Andrew and I off, snatched another, flew it up high and dropped it onto the rocks from a height.
Andrew attacked another with his knife in one hand and a gun in the other, taking on two at once, meanwhile I took on the last one. I was unable to move much from where I had landed, and so I used another piercing mental attack that made the big lizard reel back with dizziness and confusion. It was at that moment that I realised that I had come without a single weapon save the rope on me.
The bird on the nest helped Andrew with taking on the two lizards on that side, while I had no way of killing my lizard without using my mental abilities. I sent an strong deterring wave at the lizard to try and convince it to not want to come to the nest, but it seemed somewhat resistant to that type of forceful persuasion. Indeed, it even looked at me with some derision.
*"Nest destroyers and egg stealers must die!"* the lizard roared at me instead with anger.
Oh. The birds could very well have stolen the lizards' eggs to eat and destroyed their nests. Had we humans just stepped into a conflict we shouldn't have?
My hesitation was enough for the lizard to snatch me up and toss me to one side. I crashed into a hard rock, winding me and possibly bruising my ribs. Just as the lizard was about to attack the bird on the nest, the one in the air swooped and carried it away to drop it on the dark lizards attacking our group of cars
I let out a sigh of relief and wished that I was stronger and had at least had time to bring a weapon.
From this distance, I could see that Shigure had erected a shimmering barrier that rose around the cars like a bubble. I sent Shigure a little strength via our link which he accepted with thanks.
*"We're done here,"* I informed Shigure.
*"Good. Stay there and help me remotely maintain the barrier and shield our people's minds while I fight,"* Shigure told me. *"These lizards are mentally very strong as a group."*
*"Understood,"* I replied.
*"Weak Legs stays here to protect nest and eggs,"* the big bird and its mate took to the air, one of them picking Andrew up as they went. *"We go help friends."*
I hurriedly erected a shield around Andrew's mind so that the dark lizards wouldn't find him interesting and think he was mind blind, and informed Shigure of the birds coming to help. In the meantime, I crawled and dragged myself over to the three eggs in the nest to guard them.
Having no weapon, I took off my rope harness that Andrew and I had haphazardly made and decided to use it a bit like a lasso. It was heavy and would hurt if thrown the right way. Then I made a pile of stones to one side within my reach so that I could throw them or pick them up to bash skulls with.
Then I sat by the eggs on the alert.
I became engrossed in watching the battle down on the flat plain below. Andrew coordinated with the bird carrying him, shooting lizards when in the air and knifing them when the big bird swooped to the attack. The big bird's mate picked up lizards to drop them on the crowd from a height. Meanwhile, from inside the shield, Shigure was using his abilities at the same time as shooting a small crossbow or other throwing weapons. Di and Sarsen were shooting with guns. I saw one City Agent using fire, another had spikes of earth and the last had twin long knife blades.
When they didn't use their abilities, they'd use their guns or some other cold weapon. Why did they all have weapons and I didn't? I didn't see Apricorn, but I guessed that was because she was still sleeping with the baby inside the caravan. Homeward slashed at lizards with knives, using them like fangs.
The hairs on the back of my neck suddenly rose and I whirled around only to find myself face to face with a huge lizard. It's tongue flickered, touching my lips and I saw its grin deepen.
I struck at it with my mind, but this huge lizard had a mental barrier that my crude attacks had no effect on.
A foreign, lizardy power swept around me, closing over my throat tightly, so that I couldn't breathe. It picked me up and turned me over, tongue flickering in thought as it looked me over. It didn't try to communicate, but I felt its disdain for me.
The lizard turned to flick its tail and smash the eggs.
In a desperate move to save the eggs, I twisted my body and used the superstrength ability that I had only ever used once before to parry or deflect the tail. The tail was so heavy that I was knocked down over onto the eggs.
I didn't have time to think. I cried for the birds to come back.
The lizard picked me up with its invisible claw to give me another look over. It seemed interested and curious about me. Glancing up, it saw the birds returning. Making a decision, it flung me against the rocks at the side to stun me, picked me up with its sharp teeth and dragged me away much faster than I expected it to be able to move.
It moved so fast that the next thing I knew was that it was carrying me and climbing face down the steep rockface, while I screamed. A huge shadow swooped overhead, but the lizard leapt down toward a dark hole, dragging me underground.
My head and limbs bumped on things hard. The lizard didn't seem to care at first, but then I sensed it's strange, alien mental senses examine me and notice that I was quite fragile. After that it slowed down and took greater care not to drag and bump me around in the dark.
Finally, I was dropped in a heap on a soft padded surface. It smelled like dried moss and dried grass. Was this the lizard's home?
I tried to reach out to communicate with Shigure or someone else, only to discover that my mental senses had been locked down. I grimaced at that. As a result, I reached out via the spiritual channel, only for a big claw to swipe me sideways and interrupt me. Whenever I tried to use any channel of communication with the outside world, I'd be buffeted aside by a painfully heavy claw.
Now would be a great time, I told my ability centre to come up with something that would enable me to see in the dark. But nothing happened. In the dark, I was completely blind.
After the quick journey here and all the bumping and jolting, I was in too much pain and too dizzy to move. I could only lie on the ground until I had recovered enough to take stock of my situation.
I heard the slithering and tap-padding of the lizard moving around me. It seemed busy with something, but what, I wasn't sure. It didn't seem too worried about me. Its mind also seemed to be circling mine, prodding my mental barriers here and there, as if looking for a weakness.
It was a very strange sensation. Like dry scales scraping across my mental barriers. It tickled and itched.
Eventually, the big lizard decided to examine me physically. It nipped and tore at my clothes with its teeth and claws, while I desperately tried to protect myself in the dark. I felt like a mouse being played with by a big cat. I couldn't tell what the lizard found interesting in me. I couldn't tell if it wanted to eat me or play with me or what. It had disdained me earlier. Something I had done must have changed it's mind.
The lizard rolled me around its bed of dry moss and grass. It was very gentle and barely scratched my skin. It's tongue flickered over me, tearing away the clothes when it found me still covered by something.
Using its tongue, the lizard caressed and felt me all over, seeming curious as to what kind of a creature I was. Then it found my erogenous zones with its tongue and much to my chagrin, my body reacted. This seemed to excite the lizard very much. So much so that I saw its mental images of copulation being thrust at my mental barriers.
I resisted and rejected the idea very strongly, especially when I saw the spikes on its excited parts in the image. Those spikes would rip me apart. Besides, I was a human girl. I did not want to be done by a beast. I refused to be done by a beast. If I was screwed by this lizard, I would definitely die.
The lizard sensed my panic and mental images, seizing them and looking over them very closely. It saw my expectation of bleeding to death if it dared to force itself on me. It seemed irritated and put out by that. It sent a longing to reproduce, have a mate and children.
I rubbed my face with frustration.
"You have to find someone of your own kind," I tried to explain, but the lizard did not understand. It thought I was just an odd female of its kind who had been trying to protect the food I had found. It thought I was a lizard because of the strength I had shown in trying to stop its tail from smashing the bird eggs. It had then wanted to break the eggs to help me feed, but the birds had returned. It had thought I had been too weak to break the egg shells.
"I'm not a lizard," I tried to explain. "I have soft skin and no scales. I have no tail. I have mammary glands. I don't lay eggs."
Lizards can drop their tails and grow them back no problem, the big lizard in the dark seemed to indicate. It had just helped me shed my dead skin layer, which was why my skin was so soft. As for laying eggs, we'd only find out after mating.
My breasts interested the lizard even more after I told it in images what they were for and it examined my breasts with such detail that I wanted to cry. For shame!
Then the lizard found my sensitive hole between my legs, because apparently I was releasing a mating smell.
I protected myself with my hands and the lizard swatted me into obedience. Its tongue tasted my entrance and made me cry with fear and desperation, confusing the lizard when it discovered I could leak water from my eyes. It thought I was both injured and a treasure to be able to produce such delicious salt water that tasted like me.
What was I supposed to do? I didn't know how to communicate with this lizard anymore.
An unexpectedly sharp mental blow broke through my mental barriers, making me shriek in pain, while the lizard nonchalantly strolled through my aching thoughts with cool interest. It clawed through recent memories without any finesse in touch, almost making me faint in pain.
There, it discovered that I was truly not a lizard, causing it to exude regret. Still, it found my body fluids and blood tasty. At the same time, it seemed to feel that I was the mate of someone in my memories. It didn't want to kill or take away someone else's mate when it had been searching so desperately for one of its own.
The lizard curled around me and went to sleep, flickering its tongue at my breasts every now and then. I couldn't move and didn't dare to either. My brain ached and my body hurt. I supposed getting a good night's sleep wasn't a bad idea since the lizard didn't seem to want to mate with me, kill or eat me.