Chapter 12: Monster

"Shit, there's another of 'em. Bearing 160, the Plaza, The fucker is fast he's engaging her." Private Gavin Free said to his surviving section mates in a distressed whisper, as he peered out the window of the second floor building they had rushed into whilst the monster devoured their friends.

She had peppered the section commander as the team prepared to depart having tested the prototype weapon as ordered on the spine closest to HQ. Consequently the second in command had to step up to lead the whole section, something he was struggling to do given the events he had just witnessed.

On the 2IC's mind was the images of how the woman, or monster, tore one of his squaddies apart and threw them aside like a psychotic child would a ragdoll.

She had gone from a lost, injured woman to a monster in the blink of an eye and savaged four men in somehow less time than that.

A violent shake on his shoulder managed to stir him from his tailspin, and grounding himself on the sensation Lance Corporal Alex Miller's command training kicked in, digesting the information one of his men had just given him he spoke,

"Perfect, then we can use the distraction to bug out." Reaching to the radio on his chest, he pushed down to second transmit button sending his voice to the command and HQ channel,

"Icarus 2IC to HQ, We have Hostile Contact, 1IC is down and we're pulling out." Taking his hand off the transmit button, the Lance Corporal and now acting Section Commander turned to his team,

"Private Keen, you're our only grenadier and probably our only chance of hurting those beasts if it comes to it. Consequently the surviving members of Charlie fire team will be moving to cover first in a bounding retreat back down the road Northwards. Small arm fire only seems to piss them off, but it does seem to slow them down so if either of the fuckers' attention turns to us we will switch to a full on fighting retreat and if that happens. I will also say now that if any of you die with ammo left, when we regroup in hell I will personally see to it that each of those unspent rounds wind up somewhere unpleasant in you. Understood?" The Lance Corporal said, with what he felt like was a close approximation to confidence and authority, "Yes Sir." Came the chorus of his team's response.

Everything was going well, in fact the male seemed to of quickly resolved the fight and was standing atop his kill seemingly reveling in it.

This caused a few of the team, to develop ideas such as pouring fire on the pair so that they could retrieve the bodies of the fallen or at least the ones still mostly intact.

Alex, on the other hand wanted nothing more than to leave and so shot down these ideas, and pushed the team to keep falling back, keeping two men at any time stationary to provide covering fire if it came to it.

Truth be told, Alex doubted two guns would be enough to keep the monsters at bay for long, but if it came to that his intent was solely to hurt them as much as possible before he died. As the team progressed back, Alex began to develop a sense of hope the team might escape as so far everything was going just fine, the male had been standing atop his kill for a good minute or so, despite her bitter attempts at flailing out and shooting him.

However, this dream was dashed when a series of events unfolded in a split few seconds.

First a flourish of movement as the woman managed to yank on the man's leg toppling him over and off of her as she rolled around.

As he fell the woman hounded spines into him in rapid fire, responding to this his tendrils thrashed about like a tornado shielding his body. As they did, his foot hit the ground and with the grace of a ballerina he twirled on the single foot and powered off like a bullet into the broken widow of a building nearby.

The woman continued to fire wildly into the building, before growing visibly more tired. This moment of weakness was all it took to ignite the spark of revenge in one of the section's riflemen, who opened fire.

"What the fuck Private!" Alex screamed, his dream of escaping now vanishing in his mind, as he prepared for the inevitability of a fight to the death with this beast.

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Deciding that he had spent too much energy on this fight today to retreat, Nathan decided to commit. Poking his tendrils again above the counter, he let them search. Once again they couldn't pick anything up but the vague impression of the soldiers who had opened fire down the street, however as he focused he began to sense something roughly where she had been.

Peeking his head over the counter now, he noticed a distinct red trail that was formed from multiple blood spatters on the floor, one that was far clearer than the one he had followed to get here.

Assuming that the fresher the blood, the easier it was for his alien senses to pick up he decided his best bet was to hurry after her before the trail faded as he knew it didn't take long given his previous use of this ability.

He leaped out from the building and across the road, following the trail to the dot as it arched into a small alcove filled with recycling bins and then surged up the far wall.

Practically running on autopilot, Nathan's body easily powered up the wall and flipped off part of the way up to land on the rooves of one of the neighboring buildings.

His tendrils both broke his fall, and then slung him forwards at speed before his feet even touched the ground, but when they did they seamlessly found purchase at exactly the right angle to keep powering the sprint rather than absorb the momentum.

Soon Nathan could see the woman in the distance, just about to leap to a building that would place her adjacent to the street again he also noticed that she had not noticed him yet, and so not wanting to waste another surprise attack he picked up the pace, his legs and tendrils seamlessly working in coalition to bring him his desire of more speed.

Nathan managed to close the distance, just as the woman leaped down to the street. Unfortunately as he closed she had most certainly noticed him, due to the fact his tendrils where smacking into the concrete of the buildings with a distinct crack and smash at a very rapid pace.

Consequently as she jumped down she fired a few more spines at him, which due to his tendrils being preoccupied in a cross between the swimming stroke style known as the butterfly and the rotating arm movement of a charging guerilla, they couldn't provide cover from the incoming hail of fire.

Instinctively Nathan raised his arms to cover his face as he charged, pain lanced throughout his wrists and lower abdomen as the shots collided with him but he pressed on knowing the window she could fire unchallenged was short given the distance and the speed he was going.

No sooner than the woman had hit the ground and was forced to momentarily let up her fire, was Nathan once again on her; striking from above with his fist, his tendrils once again lashing out at her.

She leapt back, evading Nathan's fist but getting caught by a series of lashes from his tendrils. As soon as Nathan landed he charged forwards at her, not giving her enough time to recover and fire on him from her narrow dodge.

Knowing she couldn't hope to deal with the onslaught, Samantha tried to get distance by leaping back once again however without her tendrils she couldn't see what was behind her, and so after a few cycles of retreating this, she leaped with force into a wall.

Cracks radiated around her as she hit with superhuman strength, momentarily the wind was knocked from her lungs and that was all it took for Nathan to firmly grasp onto her arms, his tendrils pinning her shoulders to the wall.

With a savage tug and twist, Nathan rather uncleanly tore the majority of her arm's off. She let out a howling scream and writhed from the pain, cursing her new biology's adaptation that prevented her from going unconscious from the pain.

Nathan began to feel the strength flowing into him again, but couldn't enjoy it for long due to the soldiers opening up on him. He raised his left arm to shelter himself, about to retreat when he noticed a large scaly obsidian disc expanding outwards from his wrist.

More importantly he noticed that though he could feel the shots hitting this disc, but they only felt like a slight flick.

He glanced over to the woman, who his tendrils were draining rapidly. Each wave of strength he felt flow into him, caused the woman to grow more and more limp, and thinner -her skin also beginning to loose color.

For a moment, a part of Nathan screamed for him to stop, that this was wrong, but Nathan wanted to live. He wanted to survive, and to do that as he was now: a monster, he would have to live differently.

Letting the strength trickle into him, he decided to call out to the soldiers from behind his shield.

"I am not here to harm you, I was only after this woman, as she attacked me previously. Leave me be, and I will leave you be, deal?" Nathan's voice was booming, deep and somewhat distorted and was so loud that people two streets away could of heard it if it wasn't for the loud bark of gunfire.

However, this volume was perfect for it meant every soldier currently firing at him could hear him, even through their ear protection for it reverberated through their very bodies.

Soon each of the soldiers stopped firing as they heard the words, and a sudden moment of silence then encroached upon the street.