Chapter 11: Threeway

A series of gunshots rang out in the close distance, and Nathan's tendril's snapped to attention ready to act a moments notice. With their focus drawn away from the blood, Nathan noticed that the clarity of the smoke trail faded noticeably, but not completely. He also noticed that they were now picking up distant signs of life, though were not able to get a fix.

This Indicated that either whatever was being picked up on was situated behind a solid wall, or that they were wearing a hazmat suit or something of similar description. The bursts of gunfire where short lived, a few sporadic bursts intermixed with the smashing of glass and car alarms.

When the gunfire stopped almost as quickly as it had began, Nathan began to suspect who may of been involved in that altercation, the question was who won.

If the military team had won, then the girl was likely going to be carted off to a medical facility somewhere which could potentially be bad for whoever is there as she would inevitably heal and wake up pissed.

That said, Nathan knew about his own incredible healing abilities, and from his conversations with Hivebert he guessed that consuming human's meant even faster and more effective regeneration. This fact weighed heavy on his mind, and gave more credence to the idea that more than likely the military team were dead, and that the woman was potentially fully healed which would not bode well if she managed to get the jump on Nathan for the third time.

Deciding he would need to investigate to find out, he dashed into the direction of the sounds of gunfire.

Arriving at the plaza area he had seen from atop the building, his senses quickly picked up the scent of blood and his attention turned to face it. Just at the bottom of the stairs that led up to the rather fancy commercial high-rise this plaza presumably belonged to, he saw a figure in the strange robe like clothing as him hunched over a corpse shovelling claw-fulls of flesh into its mouth.

A desire to look away from the sight and throw up began to blossom inside Nathan's mind, but it was quickly smothered by a desire to join in with the feast but this too was quickly smothered by both the weight of Nathan's own will and his focus on his quarry.

Nathan noticed that the woman's tendrils had started to grow back, slight blackish nubs protruded from the back of her neck and looked almost as though they were flowing like lava down her back, slowly forming the scaly obsidian flesh of the limb.

He also noticed that despite directly laying eyes on her, his tendrils weren't reacting. Or at least they were reacting to something else in the area, concerned that his extra senses weren't picking up the thing he saw in front of him, he opted to use caution, fearing what he saw could be some kind of trick or bait for a trap.

He darted for the cover of a colonnade running along the walls of the smaller more modest business that ran adjacent to the larger high rise. Tucking himself in against one of the columns, he peered back out, noticing with relief that the woman hadn't noticed him and was seemingly still enjoying her meal.

Once this was affirmed, he began to search the area careful not to leave himself to exposed by utilizing the series of half walls and columns that lined the walkway. However try as he might, he couldn't make out anything from this angle, which implied that whatever his tendrils sensed lie further down one of the streets opposite him.

Glancing back over to the woman, he noticed she had moved onto one of the other bodies that lie peppered in spines and lying against the wall of a small flower bed, one of many that separated quadrants of stairs leading up to the building in the plaza.

Deciding it was now or never, and taking the educated guess that the military team was maybe running for the lives right now, Nathan charged the woman. His powerful tendrils launching forwards and into the ground to catapult him forward even faster than his legs could alone.

The woman didn't notice until Nathan was already upon her, tendrils lancing out in vicious whip like slashes, feet pounding down onto her back bringing her to the floor.

As soon as she was prone, Nathan's tendrils shifted from slashes to lightning quick strikes, lancing into the partially formed tendrils on her back savagely.

The woman screamed in pain, as Nathan felt waves of strength and warmth radiate in pulses up from his tendrils and slowly wash over his body.

The aches he felt vanished, as the newfound strength washed over him. Had Nathan not reveled in the feeling of feeding for so long, he would of noticed the woman underneath him grasping onto his ankle awkwardly and tugging firmly whilst rapidly impaling then retracting a spine like a sowing machine into his calve.

The pain quickly distracted Nathan, who instinctively went to lift his foot giving the woman enough leverage to buck him off her and get to her feet.

As Nathan fell in a daze, a volley of spines peppered his body. Though smaller than the first ones today, they still hurt like a bitch.

Nathan reflexively covered his face with his arms against the onslaught, feeling hundreds of spines impact and penetrate his body with sharp flares of pain.

Each time they impacted he felt his strength sapping from him, slowly making it a battle to stay awake especially as the warm embrace of sleep promised freedom from the pain that now wracked Nathan's body.

Nathan desperate for cover from the onslaught, subconsciously instructed his tendrils to wildly flail at the incoming projectiles.

This achieved a small degree of success, but not due to deflecting the incoming spines like intended, but due to absorbing the impact.

This was enough of a reprieve to allow Nathan to force himself to his feet and bolt for cover, Leaping through the window of a nearby shop and hunkering behind the cashier counter.

Nathan felt the sharp, tugging pain as his body began to push out the barbed spines and grimaced. Hearing a few spines thud into the wooden structure of the counter behind him, and noticing that they failed to penetrate fully, Nathan began to rend out as many of the painful bastards jutting into him as he could in an effort to aid his regeneration.

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"The Persistent little shit. Getting cocky now are we?" Samantha thought to her self with a scowl, as she sent wave after wave of spines at the man.

She was about to let her self gloat in victory, when the man began wildly flailing with his tendrils absorbing the hail of her fire before he found his feet and ran off, leaping into one of the buildings on the other side of the street to her.

She tutted at the man as he ran, why wouldn't he just go down, though at this point with how much pain he had caused her she was tempted to just kill him, Hayden be dammed. However as the man cowered behind the cashier's desk, she quickly dismissed the thought being far more scared of Hayden's wrath than feeling desire to quell her own rage with vengeance.

She sent a few volleys of fire into the table, and cursed to herself when she noticed she lacked the strength to penetrate. She could sense through the spines embedded in the table, and so could sense where the resilient bastard was even without tendrils but couldn't do much but graze him if he stayed there. Plus if she kept firing in the hope to scare him out, her shots would grow even weaker.

This wasn't a good situation for her she thought as if he worked out she was lagging, he would just rush her again and though she had broke free once, she could tell that it was because the idiot was reveling in his kill too much to notice what she was up to.

This meant it probably wouldn't happen again, and thus Samantha needed to work a way to flush the man out without wasting too much of her strength.

As if in answer to her thought, a series of shots rang out, and a few lead chunks tore into Samantha, she reflexively leapt for cover with a grace Olympic gymnasts couldn't rival, but despite the pain and the fact she was getting shot at, she was grinning.

She now had the solution to her problems, in the form of a few stupidly altruistic soldiers thinking they could save and avenge their squadmates.

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Nathan noticed the lull in fire almost immediately, and had to fight the urge to peek knowing that was probably exactly what she was waiting for. Having pulled out most of the spines causing him the most pain that he could reach, he let his body slowly push them out at it's own pace trying his best to ignore the unpleasant sensations.

The lack of dull thuds of impacting spines drew on for what seemed like an age, but eventually Nathan heard something that drew his attention immediately: Gunshots.

Braving to peer his tendrils over the surface of the counter, Nathan could sense the projectiles flying through the air from down the street and tearing into the woman's flesh.

With animalistic reflexes, she turned and ran for cover, dipping into a side road that ran between the building opposite Nathan and what was once a fast food restaurant. Knowing that Nathan couldn't afford to let her regain her strength, and perhaps more importantly kill more innocent soldiers, Nathan knew he would have to charge her.

The issue was that he would now have to worry about the projectiles from both her, and the group of soldiers advancing as they were unlikely to differentiate between him and her.

Nathan desperately looked around the room, hoping to find something he could use to provide cover but couldn't find much. The only reason this dinky little wooden desk had sheltered him was purely because his target was flagging due to her wounds and exertion earlier.

Having said that, Nathan could feel himself tiring too, though it was mainly his tendrils that were growing lethargic due to maintaining the bridge. This meant that atop it all he was running on a timer, which was just wonderful he thought.

Cursing at finding nothing, he began to subconsciously scratch at an itch that was developing on his left arm as he cursed. He began to wonder if he should abandon the hunt for today, thus leaving the innocent soldiers trying to keep people safe, he assumed, to die.