379. Season of night, 2

(Bleue)

Rose is still alive.

I can see her aura still active.

She's hurt, but alive.

I'm puzzled as to what happened. But I also see that monster's paws reaching the edge of the field, and its body appearing as it's pulling itself up to ground level.

At first I thought of a minotaur, but it may be far worse.

From the roof I'm on, to the cliff below it just reached, there's a good distance. But I know I shouldn't feel safe just because of that. I saw it galloping.

It looked at me, though I can't really tell what its face looks like. It's just dark.

And it's clearly coming for me right now.

And then, it'll go back to finish Rose I guess. Weird. But unacceptable.

It begun galloping toward the building where I stand. I have less time to think than I realised. It's fast.

I run back to the warehouse we've settled in, to grab a rifle.

Behind me, I only hear walls being smashed and crumbling. It's a mad beast.

I make it while it's busy in a collapsing building.

I pick up the rifle and a handful of bullets. I run elsewhere before it reaches the ship, pulling that pursuer elsewhere as well before it finds it.

I'm already out of breath, now back into an empty street. Trying to catch my breath back, I'm loading clumsily the rifle under the thin rain.

The beast comes out of rubbles.

It has no face. It's a little uncanny. Above the obvious strength and hard leather, it shows it's a being-like-her in many ways. But that body is obviously all but random. It was thought and designed for a violent purpose.

I shoot it straight in the torso without hesitation.

The deafening sound and pain in my shoulder are followed by the sound of the echo fading in the rain, and feeling that falling water over me again.

The beast was shocked by the wound and falls onto its knees. One of its hands goes to its torso to feel the wound.

I'm reloading the rifle, stepping backward.

P - Rose... Blume...

I don't get what it's saying but I'm too spooked to care. I shoot it again, this time hitting the muscular neck.

The bullet goes through again. The body doesn't react with as much shock, but its hand goes to that wound in reflex.

As if it was a mosquito bite...

I can feel an increasing wrath inside of it. Something ominous is growing. I'm pissing it off more than I am endangering it.

I feel that wrath overflowing. I see its effect spreading far above its body, gathering storm clouds above us.

It's using magic. And its will can be heard and read in there, plainly and clearly.

It wants to kill me.

All of me.

Leaving nothing behind.

Not even dust nor ghost.

It's about to charge with increased violence. I'm more and more scared.

The third bullet I shoot cleanly at it hits and pierces a shoulder.

It flinches, barely. I shiver. It's putting itself on all four, in a stance to charge at me.

It actually jumps more than it runs.

But I feel the tremor as it did as if an earthquake had reached my legs.

The voluminous beast covers a dozen metres in a single jump ahead. I'm stun.

It leaped again with a terrifying agility for its size, right at me.

I panicked as I saw it about to land right over me. I dropped the rifle and jumped for my life on the side.

The beast crushed the rifle and the street stones with its claws as it landed there. The sound of broken rocks is scary and loud when it's this close to you.

Am I about to die? I'm lying there where I fell, just one step away from its side.

It turns its empty and flattened head towards me. I'm petrified.

I'm holding onto my ring.

My only chance now.

I don't have time to think about what to summon.

I don't really want to summon anything specific.

I just want to survive!

While I'm panicking and holding that ring, the demon is about to crush me where I lie. I only see everything going dark as it goes for the strike over me. The ring inside my hand is crushed through the ground along with me.

Everything goes dark and painful.

I think I'm dying.

I just want to be alive tonight...

~

I'm hurt badly, wounded to the head, shoulders and chest. I feel I was crushed by a boulder.

But I'm still alive...

I even manage to move, with difficulties. I'm not able to stand up, but manage to sit painfully.

I'm in a basement? My head is pounding and my ribcage is deformed. The pain is stopping my breath and mind.

The beast struck me down with such strength, I was thrown down here through the side of the street and building.

Meanwhile, it's still up there, probably fighting its way through the rubbles of another collapsed building over it.

I'm more surprised I wasn't just turned entirely into mush... That's already a miracle.

I'm bleeding an awful lot, but I'm not dead yet.

I can hear the ruckus of the beast getting closer, digging through the rubbles to get to me.

I need more strength if I want to make it out alive.

I'm sealed inside that cave, that jail cell, while it's rapidly getting close.

There's no escape.

I try to breathe. I feel a bone piercing my lung. Air just doesn't enter my blood anymore.

My thoughts are counted I can tell.

What should they be?

If Rose can do it... Then so will I.

She calls it opening the gates, or leaving her body. It's just focusing on magic until it activates all over.

It's like visualising the run before its start.

Something begins to twirl around me, the more I focus on it.

My hand is burning me where the ring was crushed into.

I'm consuming that energy, and eating the life form that used to dwell inside.

I'm digesting it, turning it into my own energy.

I've used wish stones before, even to lighten my own body temporarily. I know how to make wishes come true.

But my wishes never involved fighting to the death nor escaping the jaws of it.

I'm scared.

The wounds over my body stop bleeding.

I focus the energy into pure brute physical strength, as best I can visualise it.

I'll fight.

There's no other way.

The arms with claws like daggers spring through the wall and straight at me.

I evade it, and grab it. My body is repairing itself along my movement like a doll.

Holding the large arm with one of mine, my other elbow goes with all the unnatural strength I can put into it to break the bones inside that arm.

Below the warm skin and fur, below the hard muscles, I'm crushing through the bone. I feel it break like dry wood. It works. I feel nauseous.

It yells from the pain.

It pulls both of us out as I still hold onto the broken arm. I'm thrown into the air along with dirt and rubbles.

I fall miserably into the street covered with rubbles.

But I notice I'm not feeling any pain whatsoever anymore.

I don't feel tired any longer.

I don't feel out of breath either.

My mind and thoughts are clear, and my body reacts in instants.

I'm back on my feet, all my bones and skin good as new, spreading my wings open as threatening as can be.

I could probably even fly with the increased brute strength I now seem to have all over my body.

The beast is groaning, roaring, screaming, but not stopping or fleeing.

It changes its body. It reacts to the events. Some of its wounds heal just as instantly as mine.

It adapts. Just like I do...

I punch it.

My fist breaks the palm of his hand, but my feet are pushed deep into the ground. I'm buried to my knees inside the street, it's odd.

The beast still yells its pain from the crushed hand, but also still attacks.

I burst a kick, and jump off the street.

Using a surreally strong flap of my wings and the push of my legs, I almost reach the roofs of the nearby building. I grab a stone ledge I reach to remain up there.

As I hold myself metres above the ground, on the only remaining façade in this block, I realise it's going to break it down easily.

If I jumped on it, my weight alone wouldn't hurt it much.

I need something more.

As expected, the entire building is soon collapsing under the beast's wrathful attacks.

But mine is growing as well.

It hurt Rose badly.

It wants to kill us obviously.

It really literally is a matter of life and death.

I have to destroy it.

And I'm not quite strong enough yet.

Even if right now I can't feel any pain, I know my body is weakening very fast. The energy I consumed to get that boost was far from unlimited. I won't be able to play like that for long.

I need more.

I'm scared.

I'm angry.

At it.

At Rose.

At myself.

I need to open the gates for real... To tap into the ambient T.I. To use all that surrounds me, and not just what was stored inside an artefact anymore...

How many times Rose warned me about these.

I try to anyway.

But I don't know how Rose does it.

Just wishing it is not enough.

I can't cause any real movement in the invisible flows of water around me.

As I'm jumping from building to building, trying to escape and survive the demon hunting me, I'm growing more and more desperate.

I need help.

I'm tearing up for it.

Rose is not there to save me...

I'm alone. It hurts, I can feel that pain already.

The storm is coming back. The crazy demon below is not slowing down its destruction in any way. And it's summoning the storm above us anyway.

I'm going to die here I realise.

I don't want to!

I'm screaming for help as I feel my wings faltering, and pain reappearing inside my flesh.

I'm trying everything, every wish I can think off.

I can feel something painful and dark shaking inside of me. Panic. Insanity. Terror.

Or another gate I'm desperately pounding against, trying to burst it open.

The one left to let T.I. flow inside of my body at will.

The one gate to the otherworld from within my own flesh and cells.

It cracks.

Something spills.

My fear spills to the other side of reality.

And something from the other side spills into me in return.

O - Alright... I'll help you.

~