Chapter 57: That Which Lurks Awakens

  --- Miles Kennedy ---

  His current state was… odd to say the least.

  On the one hand he was still in control of his body, but on the other hand he wasn’t so sure it was his body still.

  With every beat of his heart, every rush of cold that burned through his veins, he felt different, more alive, than he had his whole life. Every movement of his body was both more controlled and more instinctive, his speed, his reflexes, his strength it was all so… alien. Yet it felt so good, especially when…

  He ducked under a swipe of foot long claws that easily tore through the brickwork of the building, before slamming his fist into the monster’s face with enough force that he could feel it rattle his entire skeletal structure.

  The killer -and he could taste the blood staining its soul- was forced back a step as its face exploded into squirming black worms, all of which promptly pulled themselves back into a fanged grin. The beast enjoying the fight, a predator finally getting to sharpen its claws.

  Something that he understood perfectly, a mad grin on his own face, despite knowing the joy was not his but the mad laughter echoing throughout his skull. Laughter that demanded he rip the killer in front of him limb from bloody limb and that he (mAkE iT HuRt!!!)

  In a sudden burst of speed the monster grabbed him by the skull, before slamming him into the brickwork wall and dragging him against it.

  At any other time the pain, the breaking of his bones, it would all be enough to leave him whimpering on the floor, but right now with the cold flowing through his veins? Dear sweet aGoNy that (fEElS sO GoOd!!!)

  Everything felt so good! Like he’d spent so long dEaD iNsIDe that he was getting high on life itself! Regardless of the pain that came with it.

  Still that didn’t stop him from remembering why he was fighting (To protect/kill the beast/girls.)

  He grabbed the monster’s arm and felt the cold flow through his hands rotting flesh under his very touch, until the limb collapsed between his fingers.

  The monster leapt back from him, staring at the missing limb before laughing as Miles/Kriminel crushed the wiggling worms in his hands.

  “Oh, you are exactly what I wanted!” The killer cackled as a flurry of worms burst from its stump before reforming its missing limb. “Now do it again!”

  That brought him up short, part of him wondering if there was a point to fighting something that could just regrow missing limbs in seconds. Before another part told that little bitch to (sit down and shut up while grown folks are killing!)

  He just needed to keep killing it until it ran out of healing, and be it mass or magic it would run out. After all, (No one can outrun Death~)

  --- Coraline Hawkins ---

  “No, no, no… Micki…” She pleaded, running her hands over her friend trying to find some way of helping that wouldn’t just make her situation so much worse. All while trying very hard not to think about Miles (who is apparently a Deviant) fighting just outside.

  She was still processing that particular development, because while she doubted even he knew he was a Deviant until he was being wailed on. It also meant that the beating was bad enough to forcibly trigger whatever Deviant genes he had in him and the possible high from that…

  It wasn’t something she’d experienced herself as a Practitioner, but she knew that it could easily make someone ignore their injuries making things so much worse. (And given how bad Micki is…)

  She didn’t want to think about what Miles was doing to his body to protect them.

  Just like she didn’t want to think about the way that Micki wasn’t responding to her anymore, the bit of blood trailing from the side of her mouth, the way she looked just as bad if not worse than she had at the convention center.

  The way she was just as powerless to stop the nightmare happening around her.

  (You know that’s not quite true…)

  She felt the tattoo on her arm begin to shift, her other hand moving to grip it.

  (No… I’m not powerless now.) She frowned, digging her nails into her skin as she forced herself to calm down. (I’ve got magic now… Just like dad…) She clutched the pendant on her necklace. (Just like mom.)

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  She took a deep breath, before reaching for her magic and pulling the cool-warmth through her body. There was a touch of resistance when it reached the wreath -(No. Don’t you dare!) (Never~)- Before it gave and her magic flowed far more freely than any other time she’d used it, almost as if she had far more than she actually did.

  Remembering her father’s lesson she focused on healing, on mending whatever was wrong with Micki, on the beautiful spark of life that Micki had always represented. With her fiery temper and caring nature, things that she always loved about the other girl.

  And with these feelings flowing through her, this thoughts of life filling her magic, giving it direction she willed the power into Micki. To heal her, to help her, to make her better, to-

  (Wait… what? She’s not…)

  Her heart stopped as her magic simply bounced off of her best friend, before fading like a dying flame in the air.

  “No…”

  --- The Darkspawn ---

  (This is far better than I could’ve hoped for!) It laughed in delight as its arm lashed out like a torrent of whips, crashing into the other that had actually stepped up to fight rather than simply hiding behind a timid human female.

  The other in the male human drug its feet into the ground to avoid being ragdolled through the air, instead using inhuman strength to reach out and latch onto its tendrils before once more using that magic that it had no knowledge of. Not from its own experience, the experience of those it had devoured, or most importantly the experience it had inherited from its original self!

  It couldn’t help but laugh even as it lost biomass equal to an entire human adult, because (this is how I’ll kill the original!)

  Admittedly it still needed to figure out if this was an ability it could learn, either manually or via eating the killer other in front of it. After all, killing them and removing the power it craved from the board was a non-starter, no matter how much it wished to just devour its fellow monster!

  Which is why instead of simply swarming and devouring the other under the entirety of its biomass, it continued to fight it using only its compressed and shackled human template. Even if it did continue to try out all sorts of fun add-ons that it had thought up but never quite had a reason to make use of. Such as this delightful spinning bunch of tendrils that it maintained by retracting and shooting new tendrils out to generate a force similar to that of a drill.

  The amount of damage it did to its opponent was noticeable, leaving a veritable hole through the male that made it briefly wonder if it had killed its playmate. Only to have the male actually pull itself further onto the drill and grab the Darkspawn by its face, before using that power that it wanted oh so badly to absolutely decimate said face.

  A phenomenon that gave it all sorts of tingles as its consciousness shifted across its shifting biomass to outrun the Deviant effect. A feat it instinctively did whenever exposed to fire, if with a distinctively different feel due to how it had to outright expel its dead flesh rather than simply consuming and regrowing it like it normally would.

  Luckily it didn’t actually need its face, and even more luckily as it threw its opponent to the side it had gained enough genetic material to test whether or not its playmate’s ability was genetically inclined or something else. It just needed a few minutes to process and digest what it had eaten thus far.

  It was almost disappointed by this, because barring the satisfaction it got from killing and consuming whatever it could get its tendrils on, it had never quite felt as much joy as it had ripping and tearing against this other that could rip and tear right on back.

  (Then again, I can leave that running in the background.) It had plenty of brainpower to spare in its compressed core, more than enough to keep playing with its fellow monster.

  A monster that was currently picking himself up, despite the hole clear through them that was slowly mending. Albeit significantly slower than its own healing process. (Then again I am the pinnacle of evolution.)

  Still this meant that it was stuck waiting for its playmate to heal. (Maybe I can get them moving with a few stabs? Pain as a motivator and all that.)

  Just as it took a step forward it felt something moving through both air behind it and the ground beneath it. Leaping to the side, it was able to avoid the first onslaught of (flora?) but unfortunately this did nothing to prevent it from being impaled by the numerous roots shooting out of the ground.

  With just a touch of annoyance it began consuming the flora that had impaled it, seeking to both free itself and make up for the biomass it had lost from the attack. Only… The plants refused to be eaten, in fact they continued to grow and impale him with an ever increasing number of thorns.

  Something that brought it up short, for in all its memories both its own and its original’s it had never found something organic that it couldn’t eat.

  Ignoring the ever growing damage to its repairable and replaceable body, it tracked vibrations through the plant life and found the host of one of the others hiding in the human females. Though unlike before it didn’t just feel the other’s presence in this one, it outright dreaded it. Terror itself flooding the world around them as the stench of rot and death creeped and crawled across everything.

  “I’m going to kill you.” The girl declared as if such was a simple statement of fact.

  And at this threat, this dread it could feel, it couldn’t help but smile. (Oh, today just keeps getting better and better!)

  --- ??? ---

  It was content to slumber, only intervening when absolutely necessary, but the other had done too much damage to simply leave things be.

  So rather than simply sparking its light, it took in all the heat of the world around it and lit the forge at the center of creation.

  And with it a heart so still once more pounded like a hammer upon steel as molten magma flooded through in place of blood.

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