Hearts of Delmar 2... ( 2 many Nicoles)

Chapter 20: Welcome Mister Smith

Hyde felt a warm white light, pulling him upward, but not enough to lift him. It tried again, getting him a few inches off his back but letting go as if he was simply too heavy to ascend. The warmth grew hotter, now actually painful and burning, as the slow fade of war drums grew louder. He was ready to pass on, but something was holding him back, and the drums began to pound harder. Suddenly he realized the white light was the stadium lights, the drums were his heart pounding from the adrenaline and the burning fire lifting him was his own muscles trying to stand him upright and failing. He let out a grunt, coughing up blood and flopping back down as Gizzy's face hovered into his entire narrowed view.

"Rise and shine, shithead." She smirked. "This soldier needs a medic!" she roared. The crowd went silent. "He's not quite dead." She added. He lifted his hand out slowly with broken fingers as if to ask is someone would help him up, and then his hand slowly rotated and all of his fingers curled up, except the middle one, still held high, and he failed again to get more than his shoulders a few inches off the ground. But his finger remained held high anyway.

"I SAID MEDIC!" she roared, with the pitch dropping in the last two syllables as the rushed to the center of the pit. "I declare the right of mercy. By the old laws, he has accepted a challenge, and lost. The beast has won, and therefore by tradition shall be freed." She said with a cocky bow. "And I have decided to spare his life. He may be a clone. He may not be a Delmarian anymore, but he fights like one, and he fought a god to prove it, willing to die." She said, her bones shifting back to an almost humanlike bipedal position. Her one milky eye now almost mended and everything else looking rather fresh and normal, say for her lack of clothing.

"And as you all know, I have no difficulty killing in this arena. This creature is the strongest I have ever faced in it. As an acting council member, I hereby grant this creature citizenship." She said, as a medic brought her some high council robes.

"You cannot do that." objected the white rabbit. "You have no right to declare him a Delmarian just because he fought with honor. What makes a Delmarian a true Delmarian is not yours to decide! Even if some here many consider you a god, you were never one of OUR gods, and you cannot give him a soul. You may spare him, but he is still a clone and will never be a Delmarian citizen."

"No bitch, but as a representative of the humans in the colony I can grant any human full human citizenship within a limit of population size. Check his medical scans. He was cloned with one percent human DNA. By recently passed equality laws, humans can own land, marry and are privy to almost all of the laws of this moon." She said, full announcer voice and enjoying a beverage as if finished a light workout.

"That abomination is no human! Do you take us for fools?"

"Not the entire council, no. You, perhaps, if you fail to grasp my point. Integration laws state that a cloned human has the same rights as a human. You voted against that, but the council passed it by majority 7 to 5. So if he is a clone, and he is 1 percent human, and by your laws no percent Delmarian...then what is he?" she smiled.

"HE. IS. DEAD! Kraken was killed, this is a soulless beast copy! A piece of animal flesh at best."

"Medical records will show that any percent human and any percent uncategorized species according to the integration law that was intended for Eridani and human halfbreeds, which have no Delmarian rights to Fupar or the ancient traditions. HOWEVER, they do grant human rights and citizenship. I bet he can pass a basic sentient species test, wouldn't you assume? Look, he's even responding to the recovery shots that humans love so much. Albeit about 12 of them, but I digress. Unless you as an elder of the council would like to admit he is clearly not an unclassified human hybrid, what species do you declare him?...99 percent Delmarian?" She grinned.