A Stand - 3

–Beginning Expressive Narration of Recording 31 - 3-

Mark’s fist collides with his cloak and it breaks away.

Lapadj’s, however, hits nothing. He missed the circular target of his cloak completely. It fades from viewing as he pulls back and begins to laugh.

“I made you break cloak,” Lapadj cackles out. Smugness radiates off of him. “Who is the idiot now?” He laughs.

The cloak of Mark that shatters into thousands upon thousands of purple shards that dissolve away leaves a wavy visage of the Empirian. The technology that had altered his form is gone and he reverts back to his true form. Pale flesh loses itself to a multitude of blue scales. He shrugs brutally back and his transformation finishes a second later. The presence of fins and gills inform Lapadj and Sarela that Mark is, in truth, a Sawapash. A tight chocker runs across where his gills are, clearly the device that allows him to breathe.

“You are the idiot, Kharatzara,” the Sawapash seethes. His right arm flares outward, a gem bracelet glittering around its middle. A second later water comes rushing out of it, its direction aimed at Lapadj.

He stops laughing right before the stream of liquid collides with his torso. He is thrust back against a solid wall. He crumples to the ground with a grunt. He shakes his head as he tries to get up. Another stream of water would have hit him if not for Sarela flying to be in front of him and sending waves of energy to dissipate the water. Her orange Szarehan hue illuminates the space lightly.

“This is between me and him,” the Sawapash known as the Human mark shouts at her.

“I really do not care,” she says and blasts him with a surge of energy. She reforms herself to look at Lapadj. “Lapadj, get up and break cloak. Unless you want me to take care of him.”

“I want to,” Lapadj says and leaps up. The overlay of his cloak comes back into focus.

“I will finally see Lapadj’s true form,” Grapefruit exclaims from the side, straying away from the plane of battle. “Wonderful!”

“I will finally see whether he is truly a Kharatzara and not a Paeyk,” ‘Mark’ mockingly remarks from afar. Then he summons more water from his gem canister. It swirls around him, gaining rapidly in volume.

Lapadj makes an incoherent spat and then punches through his cloak. The visage of the pasty Human with black hair shatters away to reveal the form of a Kharatzara. A lithe windy body with stocky legs and short arms. A tail that ends with a glowing gem with spikes as its edge. Wispy tendrils that come out from the head and back. In Lapadj’s case, there are two manic oval eyes gleaming on his countenance.

“I am a Kharatzara,” Lapadj states loudly and proudly. “We are-“

Before Lapadj could finish reciting the mantra of the Kharatzara, the Sawapash blasts him with water, avoiding the Szarehan completely with his native control over the substance.

“Excellent,” ‘Mark’ says. “This will be fun.”

“I agree completely,” Lapadj grits out, shaking the water off of his form. Then he rises into the air, floating as Kharatzara do. He glances around. Then he speaks to only Sarela and Grapefruit: “Let’s get out of here.”

Szarehan made a clicking noise with two parts of her form. “Nice use of a contraction while no longer cloaked, Lapadj.”

“At least he used it,” Grapefruit chimes. “Progress!”

Scoffing at them, Lapadj bare in his true racial body locates an exit and swiftly flies out of the parking garage. Water fails to hit him in his wake.

“Are you really fleeing?” Sarela asks him as they enter into the blue sky above the Human city.

“No, I just decided that place was not a right fit for me. I felt insulted by it,” Lapadj answers as they ascend further up.

“You mean him,” Sarela corrects.

“I mean both,” Lapadj says. “Whatever.” He stares at the clouds beside them.

Grapefruit hurries along and joins them. “What about the Humans? Will they not see us? Or rather, you two?”

“I really do not care if they see us or not,” Lapadj says bluntly. “The Distortion Field can handle it. I am going to do whatever I want because I am Empirian.”

I have again decided to end the recording short. I felt that Lapadj’s declaration served as a suitable end to this part of the recording. As usual, expect the following to follow immediately from this one.

–Ending Expressive Narration of Recording 31 - 3–