Logan threw away his coat and readied his silver blades. The monster had appeared in full, towering over the nearby hills. Wrinkled skin sagged to the bottom of its distended abdomen - enhancing those famished, protruding ribs. He had ample time by his account - he had to make use of this ample time to let the boys return to the town.
The working drones clawed their way up the monstrosity’s flesh, perching atop its abdomen and shoulders like ants crawling over a misfortuned adventurer. He’d have to deal with those at the very least before it reached the walls, as they would make quick work of the wall-guards if left unchecked.
Logan sprinted back down the hill, leaping across the great fissures in the mountains - cautious not to fall into the bedrock abyss peering up at him. It had already begun moving, its long, spindly legs shaking the mountain with every step. He adjusted his pace and felt the symbiote cower in fear - wresting control of its anatomy to him. He would have to make use of it all to reach the featureless face and strike at the reinforcements.
He felt the familiar pain of having his back tore open as he flexed his hidden musculature. Had Luna seen him - had she had any doubts that it had been Guy who had fed her ‘the symbiote’, it would all have been dispelled as Logan’s shirt tore open to produce long, fleshy tendrils of his own- extending upwards and outwards like morbid perversions of wings.
With his blades in hand, he shot the tendrils over his shoulders - unspooling within his skin until the bony tips of his monstrous anatomy struck the pale leg.
With a jerk of his long-unused muscles, the spools began to coil, propelling him forwards through the air with his silver blades at the ready.
He righted himself in the air, striking the monster’s raised leg, feet-first to stare up along its long, pallid body. Its skin was still slick with the amniotic fluids of its gestation cocoon, but with slashes of his blades, he found grip on the flesh, propelling him upwards until he could retrain his abominable symbiotic hooks on its knee, then its hip. In two powerful jerks of his body, he had reached the flabby abdomen’s side without the creature’s reaction - again reminding him how pain seemed to not be a sense these monstrosities had developed.
The skin beneath his feet slithered with a life of its own - countless tendrils shot out from its flesh in attempts to grip his boots and absorb him into its mass. But he was learned - experienced enough to know that resting atop the beast was a death-sentence and through the use of slashes, stabs and leaps avoided staying in any place more than a second.
He swung his blades out on the abdomen, cutting two profound holes in the beast’s adipose belly - finally activating the short-legged monstrosities gripping its mobile body.
A river of blood poured down the Behemoth’s legs and, as expected, reparations were demanded. The auto-regulative body’s skin extended upwards on its shoulder; wrapping around one of the primate-like Monstrum to absorb it into its flesh without protest - without thought.
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The flabby abdomen squirmed as long, tendrilous growths used the freshly acquired biomass to close the deep wound. But Logan was already upon it, using the full length of his blades to slice cleanly through the thorax of one of the defenders, separating its arms from its legs.
Even in the face of such grievous injuries, the defender dug its claws into the skin of its host - gripping its flesh with its upper portions as the legs fell limply off of their host - smashing into the mountainside before the Behemoth’s foot came slamming down on the gory leg, smashing it in an explosion of blood.
Before Logan’s eyes, the writhing tendrils beneath the skin wrapped around the scratching beast’s form, pulling it through the skin and into the central mass, likely healing one of the slashes he had delivered as he made his way up the beast.
But the Behemoth did not stop. Without the nourishment of the creep - despite its massive size, the beast was living on borrowed time. It needed sustenance; the bodies of Man to sustain its mass and locomotion and it seemed hard-pressed not to degenerate any partitions of its own body. It was as if it knew that it needed the full length of its current body to reach over the walls and claim the prizes hiding beyond the granite.
It was as if it knew exactly where it was going and what it would face as it got there.
As if it had been made for the single task of claiming Anza.
As if the Devil itself had spawned the Monstrum.
Luna breathed a sigh of relief as she saw the flash of red appear on the horizon - carrying with it three forms struggling to stick to its back. But there was no black coat amongst them; no mask of porcelain white in their midst - no Logan anywhere in sight.
The gate remained unsealed and allowed for Zeke’s arrival.
His claws scratched against the paved arrival platform as he came to a screeching halt and quickly turned - shedding the boys to the solid stone. Luna could see that the hound was different - his teeth were bared and every bit of his fur stood to attention; a far cry from the peaceful being she had come to know as Logan’s partner. Without as much as a greeting, the red bolt of lighting sprinted back out the gate and shot across the plane - back in the direction of the scream with all the fervor he could muster; his body low on the terrain and with the powerful leaps well-deserving as its designation as a beast of a Ghast.
Michael, Abraham and Marcel were quickly flocked by the citizens of Anza, yet they seemed unable to get back up on their feet. The disorientation of the wild ride aside, every one of them struggled to process the monstrosity - the inhumanity of the horrors they had seen in the powerstation.
Abraham regurgitated a mouthful of acidic bile onto the stones - weeping in the post-terrorized after-images of the sight, unable to even see from the ghastly premonition of Bear’s suffering.
“Abraham! What did you see!?” Isaac’s voice cut through the chatter of the crowd as his glorious, tall form pressed through the pale congregation to come to his students’ aide.
Abraham inhaled a throatful of vomit as he wrapped his arms around Isaac’s neck and wept into his shoulders. “B-Bear’s… Bear’s still in t-there! T-they f-fucking f-farmed him. L-like a growbed - he’s still in there!”
Marcel looked up to see the priest bite down on his lower lip and tighten his grip around Abraham’s sobbing form. It was as if he knew exactly what Abraham had spoken about. As if he knew exactly what had happened to his beloved comrade.
Michael fought through his pain and struggled to get onto his feet. His skin was white as a sheet, his eyes wider than Zeke’s as he rose up to shout: “L-Logan’s out there! G-Get the Ghast! H-he needs to go help him!”