Speech = ``…..´´
Thoughts = … ...
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...A piece of lead for everyone...
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``I will be taking your head, now…´´
``F-fair enough…´´
After that not a word was exchanged between the two.
She rose from the ground, her legs wobbling and shaking all the while, but refusing to give in as she held herself up…
For someone who was terrified, she put a strong front…, he would give her that.
But, it was just that, a front...
He rose his scythe over his head, its sharp length already glowing with the fake light of this reality while the chains wrapped around his arm started to squeak once they started moving.
She closed her eyes, pushing the locks of purple hair away from her shoulder so that he could get a clear view of her neckline. Not that he needed her help.
Still…
He needed to know..
He needed to know why.
``Are you not afraid…?´´
The rumbling of his voice reached with the same gentleness of a hammer...but she did not open her eyes though she flinched.
She instead smiled.
``We all die, it just takes a fucking lot more time for some of us...´´
He hummed at that...pausing as the grip weakened just a second.
His glare softening.
``To true...´´
He replied apologetic, slowly.., almost dreadful….
And then he swung….
The air shrieking as cold steel cut through it at a speed that should not have been humanely possible, descending in an ample arc down onto the girl which words and mere presence had annoyed him more than he had believed possible.
But it was not the exposed, frail neck that his scythe struck as it tore through flesh and bone with impunity…
But the abominable, grotesque open maws of a beast that had appeared almost by thin air by mortal eyes, an incandescent mass of flesh and energy that soared through the air, muscles tensed as they pushed its long, yet bulky body forward in an attempt to devour the girl from behind with one quick, yet decisive bite with the rows and rows of teeth its open open mouth allowed for him to see.
A task that it could have succeeded….
If not for him...
And so, before it even managed to push down those mandibles into those exposed, pale shoulders and took a taste of the soft flesh presented... it instead ended up with a more metallic plate for its tongue to palette.
The edge of his scythe searing and burning through flesh and bone as he cut it down in half…
Its broken body fell to each of their sides..., loudly and without any grace, staining the ground and this world with vibrant red. Its body still jerking here and there as blood still pumped inside muscles that had yet to shut down by the creatures sudden death.
He would have to thank in the afterlife the creature thankless job to distract him and focus on itself all his misery and anger instead of the girl.
That...if he ever died.
``This was not what I expected…., but is a welcomed surprise´´
He muttered loudly as he tried to not hear his own thoughts before he regarded the girl. Who was still still silent, though her eyes were now open.
``Nor he would be the last...given fates proclivity to throw souls in my wake.´´
He said, though mostly to himself as he observed the remains of the creature. Its form crudely reminding him of a wolf, though four or five heads larger and devoid of any skin or fur, instead covered with what appeared to be thick layers of scales...
Was it a mix between a lizard and dog or was he missing something..?
``Is this a denizen of this world, girl…?´´
He asked…, taking notice that its body was starting to melt down and disappear into the earth beneath, leaving no clue of its existence than the blood that had been spilled out.
A fascinating expectable to be sure…, but after a few seconds passed and he received no answer he repeated the word, this time more harshly as he turned around.
``Girl...?´´
She did not seem able to hear him, her eyes still fixated on the blood around her. Some of those specks had flew off and landed on her skirt..
``So the dream is finally attacking us? I thought we would have more time...´´
He looked at her, a demanding look in his eyes.
``You knew…´´
She nodded weakly, though she held out a hand.
``I….yes, it normally takes no time at all for its defences to activate. But could it have been the storm? I don't know much, but I know that something damaged the structure before your arrival...´´
``Something? That is rather vague...´´
``Like a wave of energy…, strong, it shattered my chains. See...?´´
She said as she pointed out at the still ringing links of steel that brushed against one another and allowed for that small, but perceptible echo of the remnants of her shackles that seemed to have kept her bound to whatever she had been prior to their meeting..
She was right..
But what sort of wave she was talking about? Surely something that large he would have felt it long before arriving at the first signs of civilization. Which he had not felt, not an ounce...just the darkness he had sough after.
Unless...
Unless his arrival had been what she was talking about.
``I see…, so we are going to be busy dealing with them from now on I suppose´´
``You suppose right, more likely than not they would be coming in full force at us…, speaking of which… here they come...´´
She said as she pointed at something far behind him, there.., where her attention had been drawn he could see spots of grey move rapidly through the empty fields.
Twenty, thirty..perhaps even forty or more of those creatures were coming at them as fast as they could..
Their ranks were broken and there was no cohesion in their approach, some where further away..others rather closer. Tremors shaking the ground as they approached
They acted like animals…
They were animals….
A pack of twelve neared him first than the rest. Pushed ever forward towards him by either their primal instincts for the need for substance or the soundless voice pulling their strings.
Their pack leader, howled loudly before leaving its maws open wide for attack, encouraging the rest that followed behind to pick up the pace as it leapt towards him. Claws extended forward ready to be use to pierce his chest after it used its weight to shove him aside and push him down into the ground.
``Slow..´´
He barely moved to the right though not after shoving the purple haired girl with him as-well.
Allowing the creature to pass through without incident or harm until he graved it by the tail, stopping it in mid air as the muscles of its tail tensed once
Without a word, he yanked it forward.. and using its entire body and the length of its tail like a mace made of flesh, he end up squashing into paste the one that came next. Slamming their bodies with one another in one second before in the next they became entombed into the ground in a no small crater.
Their bodies bursting into a puff of red smoke and living tissue in all directions by the impact as they could not withstand it...
Two…
The rest did not seem to care the brutal end of their leader as three more quickly reached up to him, he rounded and swung the psyche and the blade struck the one nearest to him from left to right, carving its left hip and coming out from its right shoulder as if he was made of paper, before he used the back end of his weapon as a spear, thrusting its blunt end and impale through one of the creatures bulging eyes into its brain.
The last one leap above the corpses of their kin and clawed at his shoulder pauldron…, large claws meant to tear through flesh and metal finding it hard to not bounce back the white coloured steel.
He yanked his weapon from the latter's skull before he merely picked the last one from its tail, reap him from its weak grasp, yet not letting go. Raising it above his head and slamming it down, hard onto his waiting knee, plated knee.
Its body broke in half, its spine pulverized and his ribs shattering, acting more like knifes that pierced its chest rather than shield it while organs and muscles burst through the open cavity like water as the motion pushed them out.
The girl seemed to gasp loudly by the show of violence..., or perhaps it was that some of it had gotten over her clothes, the way she started wailing her arms around trying to wipe away what seemed to be a piece of heart attached now to her shoulder.
Five…
The rest seemed to falter, slowing down as their minds tried to made heads of what had happened.
Even in their primitive intellect, they could still feel fear…
He hummed in satisfaction at that, yes...this place was really nothing like the Abyss...
But enough Now it was his time to move. Sprinting through the field, the ground shaking and cracking with the motion.
Like a bulldozer she tackled the second half of the pack, slamming his spiked pauldron like a battering ram onto his next victim, the sound of flesh been tore up and puncture reaching his senses as the steel crafted spikes attached to his shoulder lanced all where they could find before the motion pluck the beast away from him and threw him spiralling out of control against a pair as the kinetic force of his body swapped places with the beast.
The creature becoming unwillingly an eight and half feet tall projectile
The three of them becoming a mess of entangled limbs and broken bones as if a boulder had been used to crush them.
Eight...
He did not stop, dashing to the left, then the right...the area becoming a blur in the process. Hacking at their bestial outlines, feeling the brief resistance when they scythe chewed into the flesh, the shrill scream echoing inside his head as he fired over the other two.
Gore drizzled from them like fountains that had suddenly seemed to agree to appear in that spot. Their heads having been caved and then blown up when the payload detonated after lancing through their skulls. Leaving their a large gash where their head and neck had been as-well as burnt out flesh in its wake.
Eleven...
Yes..
This was what he had been craving for sometime.
Forgotten were his woes about the petty argument he had with the woman, he was no made for talking….
This was what he was made for…and he would revel on it for as long as he could...
Because here, in the thick of this bloodshed...he did not have doubts.
Clearly, after all this time having come down this place...something was starting to make sense for once..
But his reprieve was cut short when he realized that there was something amiss…
Eleven...
His mind had already come across the wrongness, his senses had picked them up long before and the sound of a feminine wail would reinforce the truth they warned.
His head turned around, noticing that his...companion was been chased by one of the creatures.
Clearly, the beast had witnessed the end of the first pack and had decided to venture and search for a far easier prey.
One that he had found in the form of that purple haired woman...
Her long skirt and high heels proving nothing but nuisance to her as she had stumbled and fallen to the ground in her attempts to flee the beast that was about to close its jaw around her face.
Fear…
Despair…
Those emotions flared from her like a candle in a dark room, the sound of her cries for help and ragged breaths enticing the beast to approach even faster. Tasting already its victory in the air...
He watched with a tired sigh as it closed the distance between the two...
He was making that much of habit now, wasn't he?
Ten meters….
Should he intervene..? She would die if he did not...that was clear.
Eight meters…
Or perhaps not, she was a creature of this place…, if she died she could come up again.
Six meters…
But then…, why had she tried to rile him up to do just that?
Four meters….
It was not his problem, he had spared her...it was just..fate being what it usually was. A heartless bastard.
Two meters…
He...he really was not going to this, wasn't he?
….
"You know you cant help it…, is in your nature"
``Darkness be good...´´
He cursed, though only he could hear it.
Then it happened...
Jaws clenched tightly as they bit down onto their target.
Bone and flesh shattered, snapping loudly through the air….
A gasp of shock left through a pair of quivering lips as the monsters jaws closed and pounded into their target..
But there was no shriek of pain or agony coming out afterwards...
A pair of purple eyes widened as they stared in shock at the foul beast and the arm clothed in black leather that had stepped between her and those voracious fangs. Taking the bit that was meant for her in the process.
Its teeth were long and sharp as knifes, the strength behind the bite would have kill a normal man beyond the shadow of a doubt.
They did not even tickled him….
Its teeth having shattered into powder in its attempt to chew and gnawed his arm, spilling blood all over as it tried to pull and yank it so that whatever shards remained tore through or perhaps the entity controlling it merely forced it to continue its futile task.
His arm, being bit and chewed in the process by the beast with relentless abandon, an attack that would have more than likely rip her head in heart beat yet the beast was unable to pierce through the thick cloth wrapped around his limb.
A spike of blackness darted from the arm it was biting and into its open maw..., tearing through bone and flesh like paper and impaling its brain in an instant. It died silently before falling down into the ground.
The woman gasped with no small amount of relief, though taking a step away from its corpse. She started to say something as she graved his arm and hugged it tightly against her chest, something warm was falling down over it much to his confusion since he was sure she had not been hurt in the slightest.
Startled, yes...but there were no wounds from where she could bleed..
Anyway, perhaps she was thanking him…
Perhaps she was cursing him…
He did not know his attention was focused on the remaining creatures.
He fired four more times, rounds of steel the size of his fist roaring through the air. Propelled by diminutive reactors at the back they rip apart the flesh and detonate loudly a moment later, leaving nothing but poodles of blood and gore behind.
He then turned around, if only his head. Glaring at the woman who was trying to regain her breath from what she had thought would have been her last.
She had made more or less a speedy recovery, even though she was still shaken.
He understood, more than she could ever imagine…, but at least she could do so without having to look so kindly to him..
It startled him...
``Cant you fight..?´´
He growled, hoping to break her out of her self imposed stupor or whatever daydream had dragged her mind of to...
A swung to his left and he cut in two another pair that had tried to pound him from a thought to be blind-spot. Their bodies flying through the air before landing loudly into the ground, decorating the soil and the grass with a bright shade of red.
By the time he looked back the purple haired girl was shaking her head weakly, her eyes downcast as if she had done something terrible that could not be overstated.
He was about to call her again to snap out of it, but she decided to spoke up.
``I am afraid that I will be of little use here with the dampener in full power….unless you want me to step on them´´
She said softly, lifting a part of her long skirt and lifting one of her legs as if to make the point clearer.
They were pale, slender and smooth to the sight. Clearly made for dancing... and not for crushing skulls.
He sighed, even now...she had the ability to make light of their situation.
Her situation he corrected himself.
He closed his eyes for a moment, fighting down the migraine that had gotten stuck in his brain and was growing larger and larger.
Since he had not let her die already, it seemed that there was little else he could do but continue in this path.
``Fine, stay right behind me…I will deal with them´´
He took a step forward, but soon found something clung to him, graving his arm even more tightly. He could have just shrug it off like nothing, instead he turned around.
Meeting once more those purple eyes that looked at him, pleading to him...
``Please, don't...you are going to hurt yourself..´´
He stared at her in silence, dumbfounded at first before the urge to laugh at her grew exponentially.
Luckily he kept his wits…, still that did not change the fact that she was truly a fool.
``Of all lives you should be worried, mine...is not one of them´´
His words did not seem to alleviate her self made worries, instead they aggravated them, her slender fingers that should have been made for playing instruments or brushing hair now were graving tightly into the cloth of his arm as if her life depended on it.
Her heart was beating faster, her cheeks reddening.
``I can not in good conscience let you go to your death…, if we run then we could find a spot of safety, please listen to m-...´´
``Because you want me to kill you..?´´
Shamed appeared in her face, if her cheeks had been blushing, they were now red as fresh spilled blood.
``I-I...no, that is not it..! I don't want to be alone, I don't want you to suffer and die because of me..! Is not right..´´
...The world is not a fair place, you should know that...
He thought to himself.
``It doesn't matter, beside... I am already dead, the point is moot. Leave….now, I must deal with hem.´´
She bit her lip, but this time she soften her grasp from his arm.
``Are you sure? There is an awful lot of them this time…´´
There was worry in her voice, her soft eyes darting from him towards the tide before switching back to him, pleading...begging him.
He did not know why.
Had he not told her he would take care of things, wasn't that enough..? Clearly not given the looks she was throwing at him.
``It would be a sad day in hell if I lived this long only to fall to such meagre foes.., now stand back, its not gonna be pretty.´´
He said, taking a step forward and finally freeing himself from what remained of her grip. He did not look back to meet those watery eyes stuck at the back of his head.
He had work to do, the ground creaking with each step he took, holding his weapon more tightly.
Energy bleeding into it.
Besides, if she were to try to betray him and strike from behind the act itself would do nothing and he would be free to vanquish her alongside those beasts. If she was true to her….friendliness then he would not have to worry about her and focus on those things.
Then the skies started to darken, before long rains pelts against him and his companion. Cleaning the blood from his body if only slightly.
He fired again and again and again…, alternating in turn between bolts of steel and beams of overheated magic through the barrels when he was not cleaving the monsters through left and right.
Aiming not at the first ones of the tide, but those that are behind…, to the ones that appear stronger and more robust than their fellow kin..as-well as more slower to evade. Each detonation casting their worthless carcasses to the ground to be trampled by the uncaring feet of their lesser kin.
Perception faded, replaced concentration on the task at hand.
It was like a dream, in which the very essence of its was trying to kill him. Able to see what was happening around him at all times, yet entirely focused on his own work.
He saw how the animals divide themselves into three groups, two to the sides while the rest continue onwards.
He witnessed the way their bodies moved, some trying to duck yet too slow and predictable to escape from the blazing death coming at them, others trying to push their kin to act as meat shields for themselves.
At least more than a hundred or two grunts, twenty pack leaders in total...
He took note of the details, but he was not too focused on them. The turbulence and hectic activity of battle non existent within his skull, his mind at peace once more as he is allowed to rejoin a task he had longed for too long.
The same way an addict would when given his next fix though with far less needles...
Then the closest group reached him, unable to understand or witness the maniacal smile behind his mask.
Left and right he dodged, blocked and cut through them like a sickle through a field…
Claws and teeth met scythe and gun…..
And like a contest of strength between a teenager against their infant brother... the results were pretty obvious...
And then, between the sharp sound of steel searing through the air as it cut its particles with ease and the roaring engines of bullets being pushed into the loading chamber followed.
A beast that had slipped from its kin, traversed in a straight path towards him. Dodging the first and second projectiles that flew and exploded harmlessly away from it.
But at the third time, just as it was leaping towards him the third detonation found its mark.
But it was not steel who tore through its flesh, but an overheated plasma beam, the by-product of a magic enhanced shell burning up by the ignition and having that azure glow wrapped around its metallic head.
Like a cloud of blue, or a nascent star coming out through the metallic end of a barrel.
The creature did not scream, it was dead before it even hit it by the sheer heat that fried its sensory organs and then its brain in the blink of an eye.
Its body blowing up a moment later under the ravenous maws of a bright man made star before what was left of it started raining around him in the form of burnt out and overcooked meat.
That however...was not the only thing that happened.
``I cant see..!´´
He almost wanted to hit her on the head…
Who in their right mind would even try to stare at the aftermath of super heated magic turned plasma and hopes to retain their sight afterwards?
``Stranger! S-someone...! Please help me...´´
She cried out, arms outstretched futilely. She was truly a sorry sight.
Two packs of the beasts take notice of it as-well much to his chagrin. Running or staggering through the field filled with the bodies of their kin they made way for her. Some are cut down by line of fire he kept on them, tearing and bursting many in the process.
Hoping to get their attention so that they change their target. Their crude, shambling gait drawing nearer and near to the still kneeling girl.
A good portion, however…, continue on their original path.
She heard them coming too, and to his distaste the fright in her cries grew at an exponential rate.
A cold part of him told to leave her right then and there, that it would be not his fault whatever fate awaited her.
Clearly, if she desired death...did it really matter who granted it...?
Yet again…, did it mattered what he wanted or believed..?
He closed the distance between the two before he drew another breath, his form not even a blur that mortal eyes could grasp on, but rather a wound in reality where he once stood and where he appeared.
Graving her by the arm.
Her hand wrapping with ease around the thin and elegant limb. She trashed in his grip, panic leading her strength as she tried to get away. Screaming obscenities with every waking second.
He understood..
He understood better than anyone, and perhaps.., even sympathize with what she was going through now.
Confused and scared shitless...those were not two good combinations to have in or any place or moment.
That however, did not mean she was making things easier for him to deal with.
``Get up, you fool´´
He snarled as he lowered himself to reach her level, softening his grip so that she would not hurt herself in the process to yank her arm away from his.
She stiffened visibly at his order.., but her panic decreased to a more manageable if almost non existent level.
...That was quick...
``Is that you stranger..? You..you really came for me..?´´
Her voice is tinged with relief. Her sightless pupils swivel where they thought he would be. Unfortunately, they are off by a considerate large margin…
Even with the dirt and dust covering her clothes and face and her hair was completely dishevelled she still appeared regal.
He however had not come there to look at her...
``Get. Up...!´´
He repeated again, even more strongly than before as if she had not heard him the first time. It felt like he was dealing with a toddler..
Yet again, it was improbable than in this reality people could survive having their head cleave in two, their brain matter spilling out with each step.
``I cant! My eyes…! I cant see...!´´
He wanted to scoff, to urge her for one final time to man up and stand up..that it will be worse for her if remains there sitting ducks in the field.
But he can not, for his time of leisure is over…
His clawed hand shoot out and grasped the startled, though now more calmer woman by the collar of her dress away just in time to avoid a pair of razor sharp talons from burying themselves into her neck.
The creature howled in anger when its primitive intellect comprehended that he was not going to reach its target.
The quick move of his wrist send the creature flying in a one directional route to the ground in two halves of flesh.
``What was that..!?´´
``My work...´´
``Your wh-...´´
Before she had the chance to finish he shove her to the ground, forcing her to her knees. Her curse ended abruptly when two more groaning beasts lunged past her, their intelligence too simple to correct their paths. He swung the heavy gun attached to his arm at the first one, lancing through its flesh and tearing through its bones.
Its cries of anguish end when he opened fire inside its very guts, tearing through anything between the barrels and the other creature behind it which head blew up in smoke.
``What are you doing…!?´´
She complained loudly as she tried to rise from the ground and regain her balance. Small, slender fingers outstretching out and grasping his arm tightly. He could feel the warmth of her body as she pressed herself against him.
Her heart beat was starting to slow its rapid pace.
``Saving your life..´´
Was his simple reply as he looked for more targets. He would not have to look far.
Before she came back with whatever her devilish mind could conjure another creature came forth, lurching after the dead weight clutched in his left arm.
He drag her back once more, causing the woman to cry out in confusion. He silenced the monster with a the flat end of his scythe. Shattering its skull and spine in the process.
``Dammit..!´´
She cursed once more as he picked her up before a few seconds later having to haul her away from a set of gnashing teeth.
He killed the offending creature, driving his blade into its emaciated chest. Splintering apart the ribcage and laying open its insides for all to see. Five more follow that one.
Before the last corpse falls to the ground, he dropped the woman unceremoniously to the ground.
``What was that for..!?´´
Despite the situation and much to his own amusement the woman is capable to add a trace of hurt pride to her voice.
Was it so hard to be grateful..?
``This he replied...´´
His now free hand outstretching out and graving and stopping in mid leapt one of the beast that had tried to tackle him from his side. Tons of flesh and bone trying to push him and force him to ground, yet they were unable to make him even blink as he grasped its skull and closed his fist around it.
Crushing its head like rotten fruit between his palm, brain matter and shattered bone trapped in his grasp...
Its corpse landed just right next to his charge in the bloodstained ground…., she scrambled back from the impact, trying to get away from whatever that could have been...
And right in to the direct path of half a pack of twelve creatures…
Rolling his eyes and with a tired sigh he wrench her away, drugging her through the ground before taking the brunt of their assault on him. Biting and scratching yet they could not even scratch his cloths.
``This is no way to treat a lady..! ´´
She protested vehemently, her voice somehow far more clearer to his ears than the howling menagerie right beside him.
``Then is good thing you are not a lady…´´
``Why I never...!´´
She was, much to his surprise glaring at him with a disappointed and baffled expression, her blind eyes lock in place in his form.
Seemingly unmindful of the unholy roars and growls of the creatures that appeared to be far more interested in gutting her alive than him, getting nearer with every heart beat.
``Is true, a ghost has no gender...nor a true lady would wander in this place forgotten by all...´´
``I did not mean that kind of lady! I meant Lady as in female. Women! Its a figurative speech you know...´´
The urge to sigh and hit himself in the head was strong, too strong…
And yet a part of him can not help but feel more amusement by the second.
``So then...by your definition, you are a lady and not a lady...?´´
For the first time since this mess started he heard her chuckle. A timid smile wrapped around her lips.
``Yes, I guess you could say that...´´
``Does that make you female and not female at the same time..?´´
This time he had the pleasure to see her happy mood shrink, her face heating up with embarrassment and outrage, but before she could made her indignations known he was forced to yank her back.
Narrowly avoiding a few pairs of claws, belonging to equally wretched faces…
How long can you keep this up...´´
She asked once she caught her breath.
``Indefinitely...´´
His answer seemed to made her pause.
``But surely you are impaired in combat while saving me...?´´
Her voice grew meek, almost pained. He did not know why her heart clenched inside her small frame, what he knew is that he agreed with her assessment.
Though begrudgingly…
He was away from harms way, the beasts could not harm him...they were too weak to pierce through either of his defences. But the same could not be said about her harmless, defenceless and now blind companion.
He could try to move fast, to dash at a speed that would make the speed of sound blush...but what if she was harmed?
What if her body could not be healed?
What if she died..?
Those were matters that he would not have cared at all not long ago, but right now were the core stones that were pushing him to not find out what would happen if said events took place.
Still, he would be more happy than not if he would not have to drag her like a sack of potatoes at every turn..
``I am letting you go...´´
He said, his statement causing her to sigh in relief and….gratitude? No, that could not be..
``I advise you stay close to me...I cannot guarantee all your limbs will be intact if you don't...´´
``How will I know if I am within reach? I am still blind..´´
A good question if there was one.
``A temporary ailment..it will fade in time´´
``Not soon enough, nor it helps the fact I cant see...´´
He considered her words, while at the same time he was targeting which group would be the first to be eliminated and which would be the next to follow. Satisfied once he made a mental plan of how, where and when each and every last of them would be before he looked back at her.
Dirty, sweating...her chest heaving up and down as adrenaline still courses through her veins, she really is a pitiful sight. Her once beautiful dress is in tatters in some places, showing a bit too much of flesh..
And yet, her pupils set upon a pleasant face. Searching for him, neither desperate or afraid of what could be their impending doom, not an ounce in her flesh of what had transpired before the beasts arrival.
She was still smiling at him...
Human or not…., she really was peculiar.
``I am two steps away from you…, forty five degrees from your current position. Walk to me and maintain contact..´´
``Forty-five what was that again...?´´
He scoffed annoyed, just like a father would when having to hear their child making a mess of simple instructions.
``Just turn to the right but instead of doing a full swing stop at half point...´´
``But what if you move..?´´
``You have HANDS…, use them...´´
He snarled once more, growing fed up with the relentless questioning. Even a toddler would have put two and two together.
Against all odds, her smile grew wider. As she staggered to reach him he fired non stop at the circling creatures. Superheated energy and gunpowder quickly replacing the copper scent of blood and guts that was slowly seeping into the air as shells the size of his fist fell onto the ground, loudly.
Most turning into puffs of blood in the air, the last go down together as the supersonic projectiles slam against them. One of them designating into ash, while the other was nearly blown in half by the explosive shell.
His eyes however were narrowing behind his mask as energy started to spill out from him..., making the ground the creatures were moving around shake and tear.
Holes in the ground appeared from nowhere, swallowing completely those who were unfortunate enough before they were crushed under the weight of tons of rocks.
Spikes surged from the earth that made the hills and slopes around them, made of hardened soil and rock they lanced and stabbed anything in their path as if they had a life of their own.
More than five dozen brutes were slain by this alone…
They were almost done, they did not appear to be more reinforcements…
A faint touch in his body told him that the purple haired girl had found him.
….
….
It is then that he realized Where exactly her hands had landed.
``I have found your leg..´´
She gasped out, struggling to made herself her through the loud noises coming from the twin barrels attached to his arm. Perhaps because of that...her form was a bit hunched down, trying to put a little more distance between her delicate ears and the merciless machine.
``That is not...my leg´´
He muttered ghastly as he killed and killed…, bone and tissue flew around them as shrieks of pain were quickly silenced through cold steel.
``Then where I am touching..? Your chest..?´´
She said, her fingers fumbling across the black leather of his visage…, trying to disseminate the information to her puzzled brain.
``Lower…´´
He grunted as he slashed through the waist of two creatures before firing through the third, the shell exploding after tearing through the bodies of three more behind it.
Their blood bathing them like rain...
``Your stomach?´´
``Lower…´´
His voice is nearly lost between the shrieks of another pack leader that have found the sharp touch of his talons in its brain.
``Your waist..?´´
``Lower…´´
He said once more as a wall of grass and dirt formed around a dozen of the creatures, holding them tightly in shackles before the loud staccato of gun fire tore through the magic construct and their occupants.
``But anything lower than that is….´´
The speed at which her expression changed was almost comical.
``Oh….´´
He however could not stare at it for too long, distracted with the still living targets that were not giving up, howling loudly bearing down upon them.
The first score of five died before he spent a single bullet on them, three more were blasted from existence with a fourth having its front legs severed by bone like shrapnel.
The remaining members of its group crash against him like the tide-waves of the ocean against the shoreline, breaking down into nothingness...
By the time he is done the entire field that they had been siting around peacefully not that long ago was nothing but the husk left behind of a battlefield. Bodies laid broken or dismembered everywhere he could look at.
There were no more targets…
It was over…, for now. He knew that it was never over for long in these kind of places.
But he would take his victories and enjoy them.
His attention is drawn back to the purple haired girl leaning her head against him like was a teddy bear, and the frail fingers that still lingered over that zone...
``You have not moved your hand...´´
He remarked dryly..
``No I have not…,´´
She smiled in return, one that was growing larger by the second as she stared, still blind at him. Tapping softly and rubbing her hands where her fingers were resting.
He already knew the answer before she even uttered it.
``I think I will keep it where it is….´´
ºº
A/N
Reaper may come like a bit of an arsehole, but in time he will get used to people again.
Midgar Aurora is just taking the bullet so that the rest of the characters don't take the brunt of a seclude old man with trust issues…
He may dislike her, he may felt bothered by her...but those feelings he has about the purple haired demon Lord is not just about her personality, but rather the fact that she is a window to his own soul.
I know that this is not the usual Eminence of Shadow fic...but Feel free to comment.