Logan was at its back, stepping up jagged protrusions of its spine - an apparent dead-zone in its proximal defensive system. There weren’t many left now - the few he hadn’t downright cut had been absorbed into its flesh to heal the injuries, but this was but the start of the damage it needed to sustain to stop the powerful legs.
A psychic pulse rang from the symbiote as it sensed a change in the atmosphere and just as promised, Logan looked up to see that one of the long arms were swinging over its shoulder to reach the long, clawed fingers for the irritating ant clinging to its back.
The Ghast quickly brought his feet under him and kicked himself outwards - soaring far over the crater where he felt a familiar sting in his nose; a well-known chemical smell exuding from the countless cracks in the rubble and ruins. Accelerant - a gift from the boys.
He dodged the arm, but had to react quickly lest the Behemoth’s body fall out of the range of the symbiote’s claws. It was not ideal, but in order to avoid crashing into the bone-shattering granite, he shot his appendages forwards - boring the tips into the beast’s arms as they retracted over its shoulders.
He rode the arm up over its shoulder to a rude welcoming - two of its guards ready to flail their long arms at him. He loosened the claws from the arm’s flesh and leapt at them, slashing laterally through the chest of the first before striking the second with a solid kick to the right leg - cracking the stubby appendage outwards at an awkward angle. Both fell down its long body, where he had no doubt they’d be consumed before they ever reached the ground.
But this was where he needed to go to deliver the payload - to perform the next step in his quick, on-the-go, less-than-thought-out plan.
With a swift, controlled movement, he reached for the belt strapped to his chest and grabbed both the flasks of accelerant he had left before flinging one into the Behemoth’s flabby temple. He steeled himself for the second delivery and with a well-timed second of dawdling, he watched the writhing tendrils beneath its thin skin shoot out from its flesh - clawing for his boot, only to grab his second flask of swirling, yellow liquids.
In the brief moment of inattentiveness, he caught a movement in his peripheral view and took a step back just in time to dodge being torn to shreds by the long claws of its guard. It struck him across the chest, tearing apart his chest and slicing into his flesh all the way down to his sternum.
The power in its swing combined with his backstep sent him tumbling down the shoulder and in a horrific moment, he felt his body soar through the air on a collision course headed for the solid granite.
He struck and flailed for any of the Behemoth’s flesh, but his swords only struck the air with every motion of his silver edges.
“Fuck. It was a pretty nice plan, too…” He thought as he imagined his head smashing open against the stone - surely killed him.
Just as he thought he’d blinked for the last time, he felt a familiar set of teeth gently close down around his bleeding chest and his trajectory changed - from a vertical fall to a horizontal push.
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Zeke - in an effort not to impale his partner - threw the Ghast to the stones, sending him tumbling across the granite with his blades gripped tightly in his fists. He attempted to right himself with his morbid wings, only to find that his expended energy had made them weak and floppy - hardly capable of maintaining their shape.
Zeke barked as he finally came to a halt - standing in their agreed-upon battle formation, with the hound in the back of his exhausted master.
Logan scrambled to a knee to look up at the Behemoth, satisfied that it had hardly moved a step since he began his assault. He smiled as he saw that his plan of being a noticeable irritant - a wasp to hum irkingly in its ears had succeeded to the point of turning the Behemoth around to face him with its massive, gaping orbits and the open mouth.
“Scream all you want, you fuck. I’m not scared of you.” Logan muttered as he rose to his feet, heaving for air with his blades at his side - ready to continue their battle.
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Luna looked across the demoralized masses atop the wall. Her fellow apprentices had hardly spoken a word outside insane ramblings of slaughter from their corner on the battlement. Isaac had finally stopped tending to his shell-shocked compatriots to stand next to Luna and eye the horizon with narrowed apertures and gritted teeth.
“Bastarding coward…” Isaac muttered. It was no secret who he was referring to, as the Ghast’s gray bullhound had soon been found missing. The coward had escaped - likely to the south, while leaving the town he had been charged with to fend for itself.
The always-mild priest’s eyes were obscured by the hood, but even obscured Luna could tell that they were swirling with rage. She recognized that feeling and despite not having spent as much time with Guy as he had with Bear, she’d have liked to feel that they now shared in that pain.
“Logorics… you do not possess the Gift of the Mind, do you?” He asked with a scruff voice more resembling the now-dead massive man, more than the gentle priest. She shook her head.
He pulled back his hood to reveal that his eyes now shone a bright blue. Writhing vasculature on his forehead and around his eyes glowed with the same blueish green as his eyes and patches of his hair were falling out before her very eyes to reveal that his scalp looked no less disturbing.
“You’re about to see it.”
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On Zeke’s back, Logan fumbled with the tinderbox and waited for the Behemoth’s long legs to bring it closer. The air was still thick with the fumes of accelerant around the crater - rippling the atmosphere with its rapidly evaporating gasses. Zeke and Logan had positioned themselves behind the mass of crushed stones, waiting for its feet to creep ever closer.
Zeke growled at his partner as Logan stepped off from his back and commanded: “Go - get some distance. This is gonna blow.”
The hound took a step to the side and looked wistfully at his colleague - staring big, brown eyes at him as if to say ‘you sure about this?’. Logan nodded and held the tin cylinder in his hands, popping the cap to reveal the matches inside.
“Come find me. And bring me some damn meat. You know how I like it - as rare as possible.” The chuckle in the Ghast’s voice did not fill the hound with confidence, but the hound agreed - they’d survived thus far, after all.
As he had hoped, the hound darted off yet the Behemoth’s attention was still on Logan. It dragged its arms along the granite until finally, its foot landed on what was essentially gravel to the massive beast.
With a flick of Logan’s hands, a spark shot from between his fingers - immediately setting the world alight. The Ghast saw the conflagration of the atmosphere shoot a column of fire to the skies - igniting the gasses around the beast’s head.
He couldn’t see a thing past the scorching fire and thus missed the explosion’s ill-expected effects. The compressed compartment behind his feet fed power and direction to the blast, throwing rocks - large and small, up into the air around him.
He took a single step backwards before the hailstorm of granite shrapnel began to pelt him in full - cracking porcelain, breaking bones and sending the Ghast soaring into the solid mountain wall.