Lunation of Fate

“The city’s called Makina City,” Juste was squinting his eyes while shielding them with his hand against the sunlight.

It was not his strongest suit, but compared to the witborn and the bloodhunt, he had the keenest eye among them.

There was a train track that leads to the city. It was probably the only way for them to get inside.ConTEent bel0ngs to Nôv(e)lD/rama(.)Org .

But because of the strict guarding at the entrance of the station-being it a witborn only city, they needed to find another way to break inside that big town.

“We need to find a another way inside,” Maxill sighed and expressed his concern.

“Chastine, any ideas?” Juste asked Chastine as she was the witborn amongst them.

Chastine had been thinking whether her idea would be a good one. She couldn’t think of anything else, so she spilled her not-so-good idea to Juste and Maxill.

“I don’t think you’re up for it, but the only way besides that train is underground: the sewer.”

Maxill looked with disgust, while Juste didn’t mind getting drenched in sludge.

“About to quit bloodhunt?” Juste then was challenging Maxill, glaring at him with a smirk.

“Over my dead body.” Maxill was in it for the glory of solving the cure.

They found their way to the small entrance of the sewers. Juste led them using his strong olfactory gift.

“Yup, this is the entrance. I don’t even get this weird kind of smell, yuck.” Juste was used to burying their waste material on the ground.

“Yep. It’s the smell of cesspool.” Chastine nodded, agreeing to what he just expressed. “Come,” She led the way.

Maxill flicked his fingers and out came fire to light their way.

“Wait, no fire. The air might be flammable.”

Maxill snuffed out the little flame he just conjured.

“Will you be able to see, Chastine?”

“I’ll hold on to Juste.”

Juste held her hand.

Their legs, up to the knee, were submerged in sludge, which was slowly streaming down from where they entered. They were against that slow current.

As they were walking at a good distance from the sewer entrance, Maxill signalled his hand to Juste to halt and found out about the network of passages inside the sewage tunnel.

“Hmm, three passages…”

“What do we do now, Chastine?” This was Juste’s innocent question. He was coughing his lungs out mid-sentence.

“Do you think we should split?” he added.

“I think there isn’t much difference, as long as we get out of here the soonest.” She then requested for Juste to use his spatial senses.

Maxill, on the other hand, had something else in mind. “If it is dark, enclosed spaces I think I could help better. Spatial sense works best on the ground, not on cramped spaces with water.”

He then concentrated to shapeshift into a large bat. Maxill then clung himself to the cracks of the ceiling.

Chastine’s eyes widened in a mix of fright and awe as he saw Maxill’s animal form.

Maxill used echolocation to hear what way was the shortest distance above ground. He released ultrasound onto each passageway to bounce it back to him. The longer time the frequency bounces back, the farther the trail.

“We should go for the middle one.” He turned back into his human form and fell to the floor on his feet. He then continued leading the way.

“Ok.” Chastine agreed and they followed Maxill behind.

They had walked a few steps when suddenly Maxill stopped to his tracks. “Juste…”

“Yeah, something else is in here…”

Without warning, something grabbed Chastine by the foot.

“Aaah!!! Blurbbub blurbub…” Chastine was fully submerged in water. She was gasping for air.

“Chastine!” Juste and Maxill shouted in unison. They then ran as fast as they could to follow her down the pipe.

Juste turned into wolf, while Maxill shapeshifted again into a large bat.

The end of the pipe expanded into a dome-like structure, but the sludge was now up to Juste’s lower waste.

Juste and Maxill reached the entrance to the dome-like area, but there was no sign of Chastine.

“Chastine! Chastine!” Juste called for her out of extreme concern.

Just then, a large creature emerged from the sludge! It swayed its long, heavy tail where it showed it had wrapped Chastine by the foot.

“What the hell is that?!” Juste couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

Maxill observed the creature’s tail. It seemed to have mechanical parts, with tubes and gears supporting its moves.

“I believe it’s a mechanical robot,” Maxill let Juste know about his observation.

The robot looked like a devilfish, complete with devil horns. It had side fins that looked like wings and a wide mouth that can gobble down a witborn in one piece.

Fortunately it doesn’t eat humans. But it had quite a powerful pair of fins that is capable of smacking one into bits, and a tail that is as deadly as a poisoned whip.

The enraged Juste gravely bit the raybot on one of its fins. It let out a shriek, as if it was really alive, and swiftly swathed Juste to the wall.

Maxill’s mind control skills couldn’t do a thing because it was only an animate thing. He was in defensive mode, trying to barely avoid the raybot’s attack.

Chastine was released from the robot’s grip, as the robot was now interested in Juste.

She wiped the sludge off her face and analyzed the berserked creature in front of them.

Chastine realized it was running on waste material. It was a new technology recently developed by the witborns.

It must be guarding the sewers from intruders like them.

“Maxill, do you know how to put up a barrier?

He nodded.

“Then kill it will fire.”

Maxill understood where Chastine was getting at. He swiftly grabbed her and Juste and set up a barrier around them.

He then flicked his finger and out came a strip of flame suspended in mid-air.

“Burn in hell.”

The flame quickly darted through the raybot’s direction and it let out a large screech, which must be from its stressed and pressured mechanical parts.

And the whole underground sewage exploded.

—

There was a screeching sound of floor grate opening along the streets of Makina City. Juste’s wolf head began to protude in that opening.

He quickly hoisted himself up while Chastine followed him after. Maxill flew out of the sewage hole and perched himself in one of the city lights.

“Eww it’s been mid-day.” He stressed his annoyance to sunlight.

“We went our way to a literal sh*thole and you complain about the sun? Unbelievable.” Chastine was annoyed at the dirty state she was in.

Juste then wiggled around to get most of the sludge out of his almost blonde and brown fur. Maxill did the same to get rid of the sludge off his wings and body.

Chastine sulked in envy.

Just then, a Makinarian spotted them in their location.