Alsyn leapt at Dragena, the enormously wide jaws of the creature opening wide in preparation to swallow Dragena whole. The creature was unbothered by the fire from the walkways to the side of her, ignoring the small fountain of blood that spread across her bulk, all her attention was on the warlord before her, the warlord who stood still, lowering her blades. Two shadows flew past the creature, claws biting deep beneath the elbows of the monstrosity. Shamans allowed the momentum to carry them forward, slicing flesh and muscles in the space between the radius and ulna bones. Blood pushed from the eye socket in the forehead of Alsyn, washing away the remains of the damaged eye and pushing a new purple eye into being. The eye gleefully looked at Dragena, while more and more fangs rose from the flesh within her jaws.
With a sound of thunder, Lacerated One landed before the warlord, grabbing jaws with her own paws and stopping the advance of the beast in midair. Scarred One and Earless One flew past the warlord and shaman, Alsyn roared in pain, understanding that her paws were ruined. With a flick of her wrists, Lacerated One broke the jaws of the mercenary and twisted the massive head of the monster to the left, struggling to snap it. Dragena leaped forward, ducking beneath Alsyn's head and burying knives in the neck of the beast, adding a kick for good measure into the strained neck of the beast.
The force behind the kick of the warlord sent Alsyn into the air, leaving parts of her jaw in the claws of the Lacerated One, her torn hands flailed helplessly. A crimson fountain flowed from the former mercenary leader's neck, stopping when the purple eye looked at the wound. The ruined lips of the creature smiled, while it fixed its neck in midair with a disgusting wet pop.
"I am getting the hang of it." In a calm voice, said Alsyn, her words clear as day, distortion and animalistic sounds gone from her voice for good. She turned her head toward the soldiers on the walkway.
Her jaws opened once more, unleashing a scream. A stream of sound hit the soldiers, splatting two normies against the wall and shattering the bones of one orais, killing all three at once. As twin wind slashes from the warlord opened the skin on the neck of the being, making the creature bleed, the monstrous snout turned toward the warlord and shaman, her massive body started to finally fall down. The wounds on her neck closed for good, her mutilated hands twitched, covered by scars. Something shifted beneath the muscles of her neck when Alsyn released one more sonic scream aimed at the shamans and warlord, an ear-piercing shriek of such force that it fully arrested her fall, stopping her in midair.
Sonic scream hit the group with enough force to fling Scarred One and Earless One off their feet and send them outside of the hall. The armor of the warlord cracked, blades shattered in her paws, the lenses of her helmet exploded. Try as she might, Dragena was forced to move backward, leaving long traces on the floor with her claws on her feet. Lacerated One was the only one who stood in her place, ignoring cracks in her armor, ignoring blood that pushed from her ruined armor. She shielded herself from the storm by raising both of her paws. The scream came as abruptly as it started, replaced with a weird "thump thump" sound that happened at regular intervals. Alsyn made a somersault in the air, landing a downward kick on the paws of Lacerated One, burying the shaman to the neck in the stone floor. And then the monster landed. On two feet, accompanied by the same "thump thump" sound. Alsyn’s features made a scowl, when she noticed a large cut on her leg, Lacerated One damaged the calf muscles of the creature with her claws even during the sudden attack of the creature.
This is the sound of her heart. Annie felt panic. The mere heartbeat of the monster could be heard all over the room. How strong was she? Through cameras on the warlord’s armor, Annie could see how Alsyn smiled, looking with a single cyclopic eye at Dragena. Her animalistic behavior was gone. Slowly, the psyche of the former wolfkin was morphing back, crawling back from the darkness of madness… back to the mind of a human? The movement of the creature looked fluid once more, and the wild jerking behavior disappeared. Step by step, Alsyn was getting used to her new body.
Tegrin was screaming orders to his group, standing over several injured orais. Sometimes he hit his own soldiers with a fist, when he felt that they were too slow, causing the orais to laugh and work harder, spreading around the hall and waiting for a chance to attack. A piece of rubble fell from a floor, threatening to land on the head of the thug master. Stone was shattered when Ultis jumped from the walkway, kicking through it. Tegrin mockingly saluted her in thanks, and the scout showed him the middle finger, charging towards Annie.
Annie understood what the fellow scout wanted. Shaking off the fear, she darted toward the small terminal near the sphere, desperately looking for a way to move the cart in accordance with Dragena’s wishes.
Hurry. Ultis gestured with her fingers.
"I can’t! Damn thing is blocked with a password!" In desperation, Annie shouted, noticing with surprise that her paws no longer hurt. Her fingers left blood fingerprints on the keyboard, but no serious pain was coming. All she could feel was minor annoyance, similar to that of having a bruise or dislocation.
Ultis nodded, showed the sign "One moment" and leaped under the terminal, tearing off the panel on her way and burying herself to the waist in the electric cords below the machine. Electric sparks covered the visible part of her body while the scout was doing Spirits know what else while she furiously reconnected the cables beneath the terminal.
The shamans rushed back into the room, past the buried Lacerated One. Alsyn smirked arrogantly at their assault, her pupil moved, tracing every step of the shaman, waiting for something. Scarred One and Earless One made a thrust with their own paws, aiming for the gigantic eye of the foe. Alsyn's smirk turned to a wide smile, and her hands moved forcefully, touching the paws of her enemies and redirecting attacks with the same ease that the mercenary demonstrated in battle with Kayleen. Like a pair of whips, massive hands moved in the next motion, sending shamans into opposite walls and making women croak in pain.
"I will never get tired of killing you, bitches!" Alsyn laughed, leaping after Earless One. Soldiers, wolfkins, normies, and even orais, tried to form ranks before the shaman, firing into the advancing mass. Earless One yelled at them, demanding that they move out of the way, but Annie saw that it was too late. The right hand of Alsyn raised up, the claws on her hand twitching in anticipation. In a flash, deadly motion moved forward, ready to slice through people in her path. And it was stopped by Lacerated One, who raced past Alsyn, stopping before her and burying claws on both of her paws into an enormous hand. The pupil of the cyclopic eye shifted to look at the shaman, while the left hand of the monster moved for a kill. Alsyn failed to land this hit as well, Dragena appeared to her left, wrapping her arms around the left arm of Alsyn and dislocating bones in the mutated instrument of destruction.
A roar of hatred came from the throat of Alsyn, but stopped just short before her sonic charge could leave her lips. The claws of Lacerated One reached the windpipe of Alsyn, making the mercenary leader choke for air, stepping back. Dragena cracked her knuckles, releasing her own claws of obsidian color.
Never before had Annie seen a warlord using her natural weapons in melee. Dragena was always a refined warrior, one who relied on weapons. Yet now she crashed into the traitor with the force of nature, driving Alsyn back and bleeding the monster before her. Bones popped in the left arm of the monster, fixing themselves in place. The palm of Alsyn moved toward the thrust of Dragena, aiming to redirect the cruel strike back to Dragena, making the warlord hurt herself with her own force and any force that Alsyn could add. This time, however, this technique failed when Dragena jerked her paw back, revealing her thrust to be just a fluke. She attacked with her second paw, bisecting the flesh on the hand of Alsyn and declawing her in one motion. The cyclopic pupil glared angrily at the massive claws that had fallen to the ground. It started to move back to look at Dragena once more, light slowly began to gather in the middle of the eye. The beam never came out of the eye this time, for the giant eye exploded from the thrust of Lacerated One, who plunged her own left paw to the elbow into the head of Alsyn, grabbing something there and pulling it out, making the mercenary scream in a wheezed voice due to lack of oxygen. The sound of heartbeats reached a crescendo, not stopping even for a moment.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
"Dragena, you are losing a lot of blood. Please retreat and let His Excellency handle the situation. The facility can be repaired, your o…" Ieshua spoke in the same calm voice. Trolls never showed emotions via voice or facial features, but Annie guessed that, for some reason, the doctor was more than simply worried.
"Be silent, please." Dragena responded to Ieshua over communication, landing one more clawed hit on Alsyn, opening her monster all the way from the jaw to the belly.
Narrowly evading the angry bite of the creature, the warlord pushed her paws into the open belly of her foe, grasping its insides and causing Alsyn to scream in pain. Soldiers kept firing into the back of the monster, causing the scream of Alsyn to turn into a growl of annoyance. Alsyn's veins appeared on the neck, the skin on the back of the creature turned the color of olive gray. Where before, shards of the wolfkins left fist-sized holes in the hide of the creature, now shards merely scratched the hide of the beast. The nostrils of Annie caught the thin smell of something acidic, the warlord growled from pain, tearing out her paws and shaking a white looking substance from them, a substance that burned away fur on the paws of Dragena.
Alsyn smiled, raising her declawed hand. Dragena threw her paws up just in time to take on the wrist-crushing elbow blow of the enemy. The stone floor exploded under the warlord, she was thrown on one knee from the sheer force of the enemy blow. Somehow, seeing this, the mercenary let out a laugh and followed with a kick of the left leg. The laughter of Alsyn changed into a scream of pain when the onyx claws of the warlord found their way to the knee of the enemy, piercing flesh and reaching behind the kneecap of Alsyn.
Taking the brunt of the kick on her shoulder, the warlord used the momentum behind the enemy force to jerk away her kneecap. The force of the blow cartwheeled the warlord back, sending her through another steel column and into the wall behind. Bloody bone fell on the ground and the leg of Alsyn gave in, making the creature stumble right into a flurry of thrusting blows with claws from Lacerated One, blows that tore up huge holes in the flesh of the creature, revealing mighty bones and insides within. The following thrust of Lacerated One reached deep into the right shoulder of the mercenary, grabbing her by the clavicle and tearing oversized bone away from the body in a torrent of blood. The tail of the creature moved to hit the shaman, ending up being split by a casual looking slice from the claws of Lacerated One. Alsyn made a wild swing with her left arm, Alsyn made the shaman take a step back, the creature's right arm hung like a rope across her body, her left leg became useless. Alsyn pushed a new eye onto her forehead, looking at opponents with a mix of hatred and pain. The creature tried to charge and almost fell, breathing weakly with her restored windpipe. Her other wounds barely tried to close, blood was coming up in small
Her regeneration is slowing down! Annie thought, when the terminal gave a beeping sound. The display went dark for a moment, then flashed again, giving her access to the menu and commands over parts of the equipment in the room, including carts.
"How?" Annie asked in surprise, her fingers running above the keyboard, inputting data and positioning the cart in front of the projector. She prayed to the Spirits for a few moments of peace; cracks had already appeared in the ceiling, and if the battle continued, even carts would fall. This place was meant to contain possible dangers of the old world, yet a monster of today’s world nearly destroyed the place in her fury.
"Was raised as a slave by the raiders, before auntie Ygrite kicked my ass for trying to steal water from her and brought me back into the tribe. Back then, there was no loot, no food. Still have some skills from my former life. Not proud of my past, but I have paid for my crimes already," Ultis responded in a high-pitched voice that was more fitting to the voice of a cub, than to the voice of a twenty-year-old woman. This was the first time Annie ever heard her voice, the scout usually talked through text messages or gestures, "If you have any problems with me, go fuck yourself, I am not leaving." Ultis squeaked defensively, coming from below the terminal.
"Beat it! I can kiss you right now!" Annie laughed, spitting a fang on the panel and looking at the cart that was sliding on the rail, positioning itself just before the projector. A shadow fell on the ground, covering Alsyn in it. The creature raised its head up and Annie thought that she saw fear in the cyclopic eye for a brief moment. Flailing with her limbs, the creature tried to run from the shadow, one of her legs slid uselessly on the floor, leaving a trace of blood, her right arm barely moved. Lacerated One jumped toward the creature, landing two cruel kicks in her abdomen, sending the mercenary back into the center of the shadow.
The warlord stepped forward, not exactly running anymore. Annie could hear the loud breath of her commander over communication, Dragena actually spat on the ground, closing in on Alsyn. The body of the warlord was slightly wobbly, during her walk, her legs nearly tangled with each other. The pride and efficiency were gone, before Annie was just a tired-looking wolfkin in sparkling power armor. Blood flowed from the armor crack behind Dragena's left thigh, and the warlord's trembling fingers found a knife in the sheath. Mag locks spat out the blade and the form of Dragena changed, returning to the magnificently looking warlord for a brief moment. In flawless motion, she spun around, slamming her blade into the shadow, burying the blade of the weapon all the way to the handle. Alsyn roared in panic and anger when the shadow underneath her moved.
All members of the Wolf Tribe had power. Their physiology was that of a new breed, granting them enhanced abilities since birth. But aside from that, they also bore the blood of the blessed mother, the blood of the Ravager of the Dunes, the blood that gave them power. They were granted a reward by their own blood for each victory over the powerful enemy, becoming slightly stronger. Each had their own different peak, and far too few lived long enough to reach it. But this power allowed the strongest and bestest of wolfkins to reach that mysterious peak. And some, like Alpha or Dragena, also had another power. Warlord Dragena had a weak secondary power, one that required too many conditions for it to work. The source of light must be blocked by an object between her and the foe. Both she and the foe must stay in the shadow cast by this object. Using some object in her paws, the warlord had to pierce the ground in the shadow. Only then could her power work. For the wolfkins, who specialized in rapid deployment and fast attacks, such power was all but useless.
Darkness shifted below Alsyn, unleashing appendages made of pure shadow. They wrapped around the monstrous body of the mercenary, running around her legs, sliding across her arms, moving onto her neck, torn chest, wounded head. The ropes were thin like, looking more like paper than something that could stop the monster. Made of shadow, it was all but impossible for them to even halt the creature. Yet power could make the impossible possible. And right now, Shadowform, the power of Dragena, arrested Alsyn in place, stopping her movements dead, pressing her legs together, twisting her arms towards each other. Another sonic scream of Alsyn was stopped dead in her throat when a rope of darkness wrapped around her neck, biting deep and making her bleed.
"Bastard. Coward." Alsyn spat, looking at Dragena with her eye. She struggled to find the oxygen to say even a single word, fighting in vain with her restraints. The warlord left her paw up, stopping the fire of the soldiers around the hall. Dragena took off her partially ruined helmet from her head and put it on her belt. Lacerated One stopped looking at the opponent, helping other shamans to stand up. Scarred One had her left arm snapped in several places, Earless One had part of her skull caved deep inside her head.
"Soldier has no need for honor or pride," Dragena gestured for the orais with flamethrowers to come closer, "This will be ugly, I am sorry for this. Care to ease your conscience and tell me about your employers?"
"Screw. You," Alsyn ugly smirked, warily watching the progress. Her smirk disappeared and she looked pleadingly at Dragena for the first time since the fight, "Son. Painlessly. Please."
"I will not kill him. If possible, he will be healed. Ease your mind, he will be taken care off." Dragena started to turn around when Alsyn cried out.
"His. Name…" Her words were silenced by ropes of darkness that forcibly closed her mouth, pressing her jaws together and causing fangs inside her mouth to pierce through her skin. The pupil madly ran in the cyclopic eye, while the creature desperately tried to say something.
"Murderers have no right for clemency. He will remember nothing about you, even his name will be different. Your shadow will not taint his future. Pay for your crimes and be happy in the next life, kin." Dragena said to Alsyn, while walking away from the shocked creature.
The eye of Alsyn widened in fear when flame was unleashed on her. Her heartbeat became a non-stop, loud booming sound, heard by everyone in the room. The creature thrashed in her bindings, desperately trying to scream, to say a single word, to desperately say the name of her cub. A cracking fire deafened her muffed screams, a wall of white flame hid her from the eyes of Annie. Soon, only the "thumb" sound reminded her of a living creature that suffered horribly in the hellish flames. Annie turned away from the horrible sight, still hearing each beating of the dying heart.