The seconds were ticking by, and the plain and the crowds of beings
on it were growing increasingly strange. In the first few minutes of the
battle most of the figures on the plain had been humanoid, and although
they all either dashed towards the Crystal or fell into combat with each
other, their actions were easily comprehensible to the others (those very,
very few others who were not occupied with gaining access to the Crystal
or attacking others on the plain). Now, however, things had become quite
strange. The fundament of the plain began to buck and heave, as if something
powerful and chained beneath its surface was straining to be free. Strange
plants and trees and other flora, some obviously closely related to animal
life forms and some which could only remotely be related to any kind of
conceivable fauna, surged up through the rough, stony soil of the plain,
some whipping across the plain and then shriveling and deliquescing, some
growing and then suddenly halting at a certain size, and some performing
strange, nearly-intelligent movements. Bizarre creatures, many of which
were clearly not carbon-based beings, appeared and began moving across
the plain and through the air, some rampaging and attacking everything
in their path, others avoiding the other beings and fleeing for the outer
edges of the plain. Odd colors and surges of light and airy matter flashed
through the air, and exotic and bizarre sounds echoed across the plain.
Many beings which were scarcely comprehensible to the others appeared and
performed similarly incomprehensible actions, or attacked the others, or
simply stood and seemed to observe the events.
The green, man-shaped robot at the base of the Crystal, dictating to
itself at a high speed, was now quite clearly splitting its attention between
the events on the plain and those beings in the skies over the plain. Its
eyes were rotating, from looking out at the plain to looking up into the
air, at a rate of once per micro-second. Except for its manipulation of
the machinery on its chest, it was motionless, but as the seconds and minutes
passed there was that about its posture and its speaking voice (though
an unwavering monotone, its cadence betrayed something that in a human
might be called emotion) that displayed an increasing unease, and even
something approaching fear.
The beings over the plain, too, were acting differently. The beams of
light and darkness and energy which were flowing from their bodies into
the Crystal were splitting and flowing into each other and off into space,
flaring briefly as they seemed to touch something in the skies over the
world of the M'krann and then winking out. As with the green robot, had
there been any with the time and opportunity to concentrate clearly on
them, and with the superhuman senses and perception to see them as they
truly were, they would have noticed that, like the green robot, their body
language and expressions, though seemingly benign, unconcerned, and/or
neutral, began to express a disquiet, focussed on the large, white-winged,
white-haloed human-looking figure, whose face was chillingly placid and
whose arm continued to move, glacially slow and glacially unstoppable,
towards the thing (which could not be focussed on, for whatever it was
eluded the eye) hanging from its waist.
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