As he watched cultists swarming into the tunnels on their way to the control room, Corvayne took only a moment to ponder if he was going to have to kill someone before Lady Blood Claw started swearing.
“Fuck, we got to abort! There's no way we can take hundreds.”
Corvayne knew that was strictly not true. They could possibly take down the entire gang or cult. But not without badly hurting themselves again wading through possibly two hundred enemies. He looked around, and yanked the crane controls to bring it rushing to the walkway, slamming into it.
“Grunt, get a belt, I want to ride this over to the other side.”
Grunt nodded and headed out of the room.
Lady Blood Claw looked agitated, skin taking on a dusky orange that suggested some annoyance. She was probably mad at him about the switch. “Corvayne there isn't anything on the other side of the room.”
“Including cultists. I have a plan.”
“Can you tell us the plan before we get ourselves killed?”
“Oh sure, we ride the cart across the room, then I use gravity to lighten the cage and cut the top and we ride it down to the floor and leave behind the backs of the gang of cultists.” He stepped outside and drew his two-handed sword.
Lady Blood Claw narrowed her eyes. “I do not LIKE this plan of yours!”
“That's why I didn't want to say it, because it involved heights miss, Lady!” He turned back and addressed the cage. “Step back, I need to make a hole.”
Her skin shifted to blueberry, he guessed embarrassment. “I am NOT afraid of heights!”
Corvayne didn't respond, instead slashing the end of the cage was open, and he could see a few pale kids, mostly teenage boys, a single girl... and a slightly overweight fellow who's face was now gleaming in the dark.
“MASTER!”
He groaned as Gary stepped forward to bow, then looked back while pointing. “It's the guy! This guy! My master!”
Corvayne stopped everyone rushing to leave the cage, stepping in alongside Lady Blood Claw. “Stop it Gary! Everyone, we are going out the other way. Stay there... Grunt! Cmon!”
There were some cultists below, pointing at them, a few with rifles not firing but keeping them trained on the office and pathway. Grunt tied off the belt and the cage started lurching away, but Grunt ran and took a flying leap, managing to catch the cage and causing it to tilt as he held on for dear life forty feet above the circle and bonfire. The entire crane apparatus groaned as it sped towards the other wall.
Corvayne braced himself, and started using Gravity on the cage, flooding it as he swiped his blade up into the roof of the cage and slashed the chains linking it to the crane, causing it to glide for a few moments. Grunt let go and rolled off to the side as the cage regained some of it's gravity and slammed into the ground, definitely killing a few of the cultists who tried to catch it. Gary saw an arm sticking out and started throwing up.
“Don't gawk, we gotta go!” Corvayne shouted as he switched to his spear and blasted a [Storm Thrust] out, bowling over the remnants of the cultists who hadn't either been squashed or ran out of the room. Corvayne ran for the entrance the least of them had left, but felt a weird tug.
Grunt brought up the rear as Lady Blood Claw ran up to where Corvayne was guiding their eight charges. Gary was at the front of the group, loudly telling Corvayne how cool he was.
“What's that feeling?” Corvayne interrupted, something like wind starting to push against him.
Lady Blood Claw looked back. “It's the circle... I think the blood activated it!”
Gary yelled and pointed at her. “It's a DROW! HOLY SHIT! Corvayne!!”
The one girl in the group stumbled then shrieked as she started rolling back towards the room. Grunt put a hand down and caught her. Then the next nerd stumbled into Grunt, then Gary hit one of his trunk-like legs. Corvayne let him self drift back and touched Grunt, using gravity as he braced himself. Suddenly he felt heavier, the storm tugging him and pulling at his clothes but not moving him. It made standing harder, but Corvayne had a hand on Grunt and they formed a wedge that caught the rest of the nerds as well as Lady Blood Claw, who slid into his chest and wrapped her arms around Corvayne as she nearly got dragged right around him. He decided to just pick her up and did so while leaning against the wind.
Something about Lady Blood Claw made her especially hard to brace against, on top of just how tall she was. She winced. “What the hell is this ritual?!”
Corvayne heard wailing behind him and saw that the bonfire was glowing a weird rainbow of flashing colors, and cultists were being sucked in screaming, vanishing into the fire as it grew. Lady Blood Claw's silver hair was flying in Corvayne's face and he increased his gravity power more as he felt more of a hook feeling tugging and tearing at him, then suddenly there was a burst of air that made him stumble forward.
Looking back, the bonfire settled into a deep red color. No... the bonfire had shifted form into a huge creature. It turned it's head to glare at them. It's eyes were dark spots against a burning face, huge maw opening to black teeth against a glowing yellow jaw. The rank smell of sulfur flooded the tunnel.
The nerds took one look behind them and started running. Grunt looked over at Corvayne and shrugged, then ran with them. Corvayne only waited a moment and started running, Lady Blood Claw in his arms.
She got out a few words in anger, “Let me-” then stopped and squeezed. “FASTER! It's coming!”
Corvayne bled away gravity from him and Lady Blood Claw and his boots sent him flying into the tunnel in a leap. Behind him he felt warm air and heard something snap. He took a glance back and saw that a tremendous flaming wolf face had stuck itself in the tunnel and was glaring at him.
Lady Blood Claw was holding onto him with one hand and had her phone with the other. “Left! Go left!” She shouted and he nearly slipped as he pivoted. He felt the air inside the tunnel flowing inwards, and his vapor mail kicked out a cloud that hissed as flames pushed him forward, practically shooting him up a damp ramp and flying out of a broken sewer grate and into a fenced off parking lot. He had a moment to think, midair, that he hadn't realized how hot the tunnels were until he hit the cool air.
He hit the ground running, and saw a Bone Dog gang member pulling out a gun. Corvayne charged forward, boots pounding, then whipped to the side to side, spoiling the thug's aim as he coiled, sprung, and kicked the gang member in the face, then jumped over a ragged chain fence onto a roof. Behind him, he heard the sound of things breaking. He didn't dare look back and he pushed his gravity power further and hurdled over a side street, landing on top of a two story building. He set Lady Blood Claw down, and she gently let go of him then looked around and went from pink to red.
“Why did you jump on a building? How are we going to get down?!?”
He didn't have time to form a response before he heard the crack of gunfire and crouched. A chunk of the lip of the roof they were on vanished into dust.
“We are taking fire, cloak up. Hopefully Grunt can get the hostages out.”
Lady Blood claw nodded and they crept away from the part of the building taking fire. A wood plank had been laid between the building they were on to another across an alleyway. Corvayne stepped across and Lady Blood Claw turned green a moment then rushed forward as well.
Two gang members with pistols were climbing up a ladder up to the roof they were on. Corvayne flicked his spear out, wind blade knocking them back, one off the roof and the other off the ladder. Nobody died! Probably. He looked over the side as he ran by and pulled his head back as someone shot at him.
Corvayne looked over at LBC. “Great, this place is lousy with Bone Dogs...”
The edge of the next roof was overlooking the market street, packed with people and stalls and neon. Corvayne glanced behind him and saw three gang members firing. A shot landed near him, so he grabed Lady Blood Claw's hand and said “Jump!” and pulled her before she could stop him, lowering their gravity enough that they slid off an awning and into the crowded market street.
There was a roar behind them. People at the market looked around, startled. Corvayne pulled Lady Blood Claw through the crowd to an alleyway and padded along, turning back every so often to look for the wolf. “We can't stay there. If that thing is chasing us, it's going to kill hundreds.”
She pulled her hand free of his, rubbing it. “Then we need to fight it. Isn't that what you want to do, Corvayne?”
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He turned around. “It's going to cause a lot of damage, and it's going to mark us out for the monk to find.”
Lady Blood Claw was huffing as she spoke and jogged after him. “Yeah, but you're not just going to let it hurt people, right?”
“I don't want to live in a world where a hell hound summoned by a street gang, somehow, gets to just tear it's way through the marketplace.”
He spun his spear. “Okay, so what's the plan for fighting it?”
“Lure it into a tight alleyway or building, then get above it when it gets stuck and hack it apart.” Corvayne turned and saw something on fire the size of a bus looking at him. He could see steam billowing off the monster as pushed into the market street with a chorus of screams as shoppers ran. But the monster only had eyes for him and Lady Blood Claw.
It padded across the street, and Corvayne grabbed Lady Blood Claw's hand before she could bolt.
“Walk away and take side streets. If it's like a sand wolf, running away triggers it's prey response.”
He couldn't help but think about being chased by One-Last-Note as he hustled through a series of back streets, speeding up after a corner to keep ahead of the massive prowling beast. A single Bone Dogs gang member tried to stop them, but he used the butt of his spear to knock them into a wall. He turned another corner and motioned to a ladder.
Lady Blood Claw shook her head. “You go up. I bet it's after me... the gang members kept seeing me, right?”
He felt himself frowning. “Just be careful here. Honestly, I don't like the idea of you being bait.”
She turned bright pink... then wiped the smile off her face and turned gray. She was really happy when he said that? “Same Corvayne, that's why it's my turn this time.” She gave him a friendly punch on the shoulder and ran down the alley as Corvayne crouched and leaped halfway up the ladder. He definitely was going through the gravity portal again when he saw it.
How was he going to hurt the thing? Did [Flow-Like-Water] actually have a water element to it? If he could do some sort of combo to it, he might be able to slay the thing outright with his opening attacks. No, he had the movement of [Flow-Like-Water] down but he couldn't copy what Spears did with it, and the other move he considered with it was a Diamonds-In-Passing technique that he had thought had something to do with using a great-sword that had a freezing liquid core to make the downswing hit harder and make things the sword hit brittle. He'd tried weeks ago to make it work, and he suspected it might be something that only worked with the sword. He decided instead he was going to apply was to charge a [Grand Slam] when the flaming monster was on it's way past where he was crouched, then [Execute] since he'd have a shot at the wolf when it was boxed in.
He pulled a healing potion out and put it into a pouch on his belt. Total confidence that it would work, right there.
He could see the monster was coming just from a trail of steam wafting above the rooftops, and the faint smell of sulfur growing stronger. He turned, and started charging [Cross Skill: Grand Slam] as he saw the back of the monster moving to where his increasingly heavy blade was urging him to strike.
He brought the weapon down, blasting through a bit of brick as the blade cleaved down. The monster wailed as the blade sliced through it, leaving a huge gap in it's blackened hide that gushed magma. Corvayne stepped back while pulling the sword with him to bring it back up, then stepped forward again and used [Cross Skill: Execute], landing a solid hit on the thing's snout as it's attention turned to him. Another huge gash opened, pouring magma all around. A tiny splatter landed on Corvayne's arm and instantly ignited. He rolled away, arm flaring in agony as he dragged it through a puddle, boiling the dirty water on the roof and putting out the fire, but doing nothing for the pain. He saw the monster's head and open mouth and he sprung out of the roll to toss himself over the lip of the roof and barely activated his gravity power, slamming into the ground on his back. He took a trembling hand and grabbed his healing potion as an explosion of fire blasted across the rainy sky overhead. He popped the stopper on the glass bottle and downed it, feeling his arm cool off and things in his back snapping back into place.
A moment later he was back up to his feet, running towards the open grass of the waterfront park. He could see in puddles that something glowing was above and behind him and he switched to his spear and used [Flow-Like-Water] as the alleyway lit up, the skill propelling him out of a fireball rolling through the alley.
He looked back and saw the monster perched on a building, face and back oozing magma. Little fires sprung up where it bleed. He was sure the monster caught his eyes, because it's own black eyes rimmed with orange narrowed. He turned, put his head down, and ran as fast as he could as a tremendous roar punctuated by a building collapsing was heard behind him.
His current terror was mixed in with annoyance that he was running away, again. He spun and used [Cross Skill: Thresh] do draw a line of shadow behind him with his spear, leaping and spinning a little as he found his feet again and kept running. He saw Lady Blood Claw ahead, running along the waterfront.
“I'm going for the bridge!” He cried out, feet out as he leapt over the slope and landed on the brick walkway along the sound.
She nodded and he slipped along to run next to her. Behind him he heard metal creaking and the sound of bricks breaking, the beast having slammed into a light pole as it hurled itself onto the walkway. The monster seemed to be struggling with the black shadows that it was dragging along, so Corvayne spun around and ran backwards for a moment to create another line of shadows, then another. He huffed and pumped his legs to keep up with Lady Blood Claw, who had her eyes half closed and looked in pain. The path was curving around the island, with maybe a half mile left until they got to the bridge.
“Keep going! It's bleeding from my attacks... if we weaken and slow it enough we might be able to turn on it.”
His armor flashed another layer of vapor as the air behind him ignited. He slashed more shadows into the ground. Lady Blood Claw put her head down and matched his speed. Behind him, the hell hound kept dragging the shadows he put down. Corvayne could feel his cloak heating up as the monster's fire breath licked their backs. He was on the home stretch to get to the bridge, fifty feet.
He hit the stairs up to the street two at a time, grabbing the rail and Lady Blood Claw's hand to spin her out of the way of the charging dog. It didn't react to them pulling themselves away and scampered and skidded across the road, nearly getting hit by a honking car that quickly decided to peel out to get away from the flaming monster dog.
Corvayne turned, grabbing his spear and feeling a sting on his heels where his feet had been cooked by stray fire. He was drenched in sweat too. “I'm going to fight it here, where' there's almost nothing it can ignite and where it can't use it's full speed or it will fling itself in the river.
Lady Blood Claw looked like she was wrung out. “We should have just jumped in the water from the get-go.”
The dog had stumbled down the stairway on the opposite side of the bridge, but was now padding up the stairs, facing them. Corvayne spared a glance back at Lady Blood Claw. “Can you fight?”
She nodded wearily. “I need a weapon, I dropped my sword when it tried to suck me into the fire.”
Corvayne handed her his own two-handed sword, then hefted his spear and split from Lady Blood Claw as the monster huffed a cone of fire at them. It seemed to hold a grudge as it followed Corvayne with it's cone of flames. Corvayne used [Flow-Like-Water] and found that performing it out in the rain made it work better, to the point actually overshot the side of the dog and landed near a back leg, spear scoring a few hits on the side of the monster.
The monster radiated heat and even more so when he opened wounds up, the monster bleeding lava. It looked like it had stemmed it's bleeding from previous attacks, as the wounds had scabbed over with rock. The monster suddenly heaved itself at him, trying to roll over onto Corvayne. He manged to avoid getting crushed but he brushed the monster with his forearm, cooking the skin and forcing him to back away as he closed his eyes and stumbled away. In a moment the monster was rolling back to get on all fours, but not before Lady Blood Claw hammered it's side with a sword strike, running past it and avoiding the monster spinning to snap at her.
He heard another car stop and turn around behind him as the demonic looking dog turned back at him, crouching. He hefted his spear, then ran backwards as it charged forward, jaws snapping. He used [Cross Skill: Thresh] and managed to engulf it's face with sticky shadow. In a moment where it was trying to break free, he took a wild stab at it's eye, missing and clipping it's brow with another wound leaking lava. It twisted his head and he rolled to the side, fire flashing out and leaving behind motes of steam. Corvayne pushed off the ground and regretted using his palms as his hand was burned almost instantly by the concrete.
Lady Blood Claw was at least capitalizing on his pain, her blade lopping off the monster's tail and scoring a hit on the other back leg. The monster tried to claw the shadow off it's face so he jabbed it with his spear, each wound worsening the intense heat the monster was radiating. Frustrated, Corvayne directed his shadow hands to help, the limbs darting out with his spear to jab the monster. Where the hands hit, the monster's skin turned from a deep red to a burnt black, and a cut of magma went from a thick substance to a watery flow.
The monster roared and spun, not managing to bit him but instead clubbed Corvayne with his jaw, hammering him off his feet and burning his whole side, cloak or not. He could feel his skin crinkle as he stood, waves of pain forcing him to clench his teeth. He couldn't stop yet. The monster could at any point turn around and start killing people in Ko-Ban. He pushed his spear out, using [Cross Skill: Bleeder] then forcing all four of his shadow hands to jab the wound. It worked too well and he had to use his cloak to stop a spray of high pressure magma from dousing him. His fingers got cooked by a bit of Magma, and now his entire body hurt.
The monster at least wailed and was trying to lick it's wound that was gushing burning rock.
Lady Blood Claw was staggering back. “Corvayne, if this keeps up we're going to cook!”
Corvayne knew that, but one more hit might be enough to bleed the monster out... this time he started in then darted to the side as the huge beast reacted, head snapping out to keep him at bay, but only catching air as he had started to pivot before it even moved to bite him. He knew this was his last shot, as he could feel the strain of all the pain and burns starting to sink into him. With both arms he once again used [Cross Skill: Bleeder] and thrust his weapon into the monster's leg, twisting the spear and shooting out hands, shadowy fingers jabbing the cut as Corvayne turned and started running down the bridge.
There was a titanic howl of pain. The hell hound couldn't quite reach it's flank, so instead it started hobbling after Corvayne. It's size and speed meant that it was keeping pace with him. He didn't see where Lady Blood Claw was, as he looked back, just the beast and him on open road, it's lame leg slowing it enough that his boots of running were keeping it ahead of him. Focusing on what was ahead, he was about halfway across the bridge to the train station. If he could get there, it might be possible to use a smaller entrance and get away from the dog.
Flames shot out behind him but they were tepid, the monster having trouble running and breathing on him. His own sprint was slowing as the monster did. The gravity use and running and skills were catching up. He had to get away from the dog after luring it... where? Old town still had people living on the street. The monster was going to eat them.
He had resigned himself to turning around to try to land a few more hits when he saw something going on ahead of him, at the station. A set of double doors was swinging open and someone was pushing something out. A heavy cart, or car? Focus. Maybe get to that door, warn whoever was there to hide, then once he had a moment try to healing potion up and go finish the job. Where were the cops with guns when there was a monster to fight.
Corvayne knew he was risking passing out. A quarter of the bridge was left and his legs were feeling heavier with each step, even with the gliding feeling the boots gave him. The dog had not slowed since the last wound, and once glance behind him established that the monster was going to pay him back for the damage done one way or another.
His instincts told him to hit the ground, and he did. Falling to meet the pavement, he had a moment of dream-like clarity as to the action in the station. He could see Dawn-after-Night in the arch, lining up what looked like a small car with a hole in the middle. As he hit the pavement his hands pushed themselves against his ear. Even so, he FELT the weapon go off and heard a terrible yip even through his ears being plugged. Risking an open eye, he turned to see the hell hound's corpse start to topple, a hole punched clean through the beast wide enough that Corvayne could see dark sky through the white hot shimmer of it's blood. A moment later the dog collapsed into a heap and started to fade away.
He pushed himself up, head lolling a little, and started walking towards the station. Getting closer, he could see that Dawn had an anti-tank gun scaled up three times over that she had pulled out on cart. Given the size of the bore... he looked behind him and saw that there was a hole in the sidewalk and railing of the bridge. It took him a full minute to trudge up to where Dawn was busy humming to herself and cleaning the gun. She looked up at him, then back to the last vanishing embers of the dog, then back at Corvayne. She looked expectant.
Corvayne took his time, pulling his hood back, checking to see where he was going to have blisters, then finally turning to Dawn. “Nice shot.”
“Nice jog.” She said with a smirk.
An hour later he was sitting on a crate in the garage, still gawking at the modified ship rifle Dawn was checking for rust. Lady Blood Claw was next to him, using her cloak as a balled up pillow. He was pretty sure she was awake, as sometimes she'd look up. Grunt had come with everyone the Bone Dogs had kidnapped, Gary included, and had gotten them to a place where they could get cleaned up and call someone to pick them up. Grunt took charge of that, seeing as he was in much better shape aside from a few bullet holes in his clothes.
Corvayne lifted his head as Grunt returned. Dawn stopped playing with the rifle and planted a big kiss on Grunt's lips, then folded her arms. “So Grunt... we got everyone back, including the kids the client wanted... so what the fuck happened that a giant flaming dog chased these two halfway around Ko-Ban then down the bridge?”
Grunt made a series of hand motions that Corvayne half payed attention to, seeing as they were a retelling of their day.
“Okay, so the hostages were for a ritual?”
Grunt made some more hand motions. Dagger and chanting.
“But they only took dorks for some reason? Was it an intelligence thing?”
Grunt shook his head then looked back at Corvayne and Lady Blood Claw, then crept up to Dawn and made some furtive hand motions, which Corvayne caught an X with Grunt's fingers then the universal sex sign. What was he saying?
Dawn laughed once. “Okay... I guess taking nerds makes sense if that's the reason.”
Corvayne couldn't help but ask. “What was the criteria?”
Dawn started to speak but Grunt put a hand on her elbow and shook his head.
She turned to address Grunt rather then Corvayne. “What the problem? Why does he care?”
Grunt mimed sighing. A few more hand motions. Dawn waved him off. “Okay, fine. Huh. So I guess spear-boy didn't go all the way with Wick? All-right. I'll use the money and get that info for you guys. Good job out there, you included Corvayne. Running the monster away from the buildings was dumb, but also gutsy. I like that. I guess I won't do any peeling this week ha HA!”