A nonconsensual influx of movement broke out from the husk around Arik as it began sprinting through the incoming gas cloud with vigor. Arik held his breath for fear of the fumes but quickly realized that the gas wasn't affecting him.
Once Rupert's body had revealed itself to the open air, a hail of bullets descended upon them like an enraged swarm of bees. However, the bear's sortie was far too durable and prevailed against the swarm, rushing through the ruinous gas choked terrain with much needed zeal. The bullets felt like mere flicks of a finger to the ever-protected Arik. Soldiers positioned behind cover in the direction of the charge fled for fear of the hellish husk's wrath besides a select few.
One in particular was half hidden behind the destroyed pillar of a house before they revealed themselves holding a large launcher contraption on their shoulder and aimed it at Rupert's figure. Arik quickly assumed that they were about to be walloped by some kind of large propelled rocket, and he didn't know how well he would hold up, let alone Rupert.
"Rupert, I think we should hide, buddy," he implored, attempting to not sound in a panic.
Rupert showed no signs of reacting to Arik's wishes and seemed to charge even harder at the heavily armed soldier. Arik tried to wiggle his body but it was no use. He still largely didn't have feeling in his appendages.
'Shit. Does this thing even understand what I say?' Arik braced for a possible life-ending shock.
Right as the DES soldier pulled the trigger on his launcher, Cyanide exploded out of the ground below him and knocked the weapon away. The projectile hastily shot from the front of the cannon and expanded wide to reveal a large wire net crackling with blue electricity. The net flew past Arik and Rupert, the far side gently nicking the shoulder of the bear husk, and crashed into another soldier some distance away, wrapping him up and electrifying him to the ground with ease.
Rupert never once flinched, keeping momentum through the battlefield and passing Cyanide who was currently driving his sword into the soldier's neck while shooting at another soldier some 20 feet away. Arik felt a sense of pride in the talented warrior and pedagogue before him. These were the actions of the self-proclaimed most efficient deathless.
Upon breaking through the circumference of the gas, Arik could see the tree line, a finish line for the sanctuary of freedom they sought. But one additional dark sight accompanied it. A singular soldier, wearing slightly bulkier armor and a dramatic black cape. He wore no helmet and held a contemptuous mug as the bear neared his direction. A growl began to grow within Rupert as the man contested their path like a game of chicken.
In the last second before Rupert and the soldier collided, the armored man pivoted back and dodged the bear in a scornful yet conceding act. Rupert's momentum dropped not a bit as it continued to plow into the safe greenery of the forest.
'What was up with that guy? Was he their commander?' Arik pondered the identity of the strange man as his body was constantly pulled in random directions due to the bear's traversal over the knotted forest.
The colliding bullets had long stopped flying, and could now only be vaguely heard in the distance along with screams of war.
The bear had been running through the forest for nearly 10 minutes, it's stamina seemingly infinite. Arik, trapped within its body, was left to his thoughts and the rigors of battle inevitably began to subside in his heart. As adrenaline fell and the thoughts of what had just transpired were sufficiently mulled over, Arik's wounds and insurmountable exhaustion were beginning to take hold once again. He began dozing off in the warm and snug husk like a baby being delicately cradled by their mother.
In what felt like but a split second after Arik closed his eyes, he was jolted back awake by the abrupt halt of Rupert. His eyes adjusted at the view before him.
'Are we there already?' he thought bemused.
Off in the distance stood a figure six feet tall in a clearing of the forest. At first muddled in appearance by range and Arik's grogginess, it quickly came into focus as it approached the bear in an elegant stride.
A gorgeous pale woman garbed in an exquisite black ball gown stood before them, her expression as curious as it was oppressively somber. She bore long straight black hair down to her rump that was partially tied up atop her head, paying even further credence to its length. The black dress was built into a dark corset that tightly contoured her thin waist and held up her endowed chest, while the skirt itself consisted of many layers rolling over one another, giving the appearance of rose petals folded about. It came down just far enough to reveal large durable boots that stretched up her legs. All of her form was being trailed by an attachment of loose translucent cloth that drifted with the wind.
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Her face was fair and gentle, yet her exquisite eyebrows and exotically pink eyes bore fangs of intimidation that sank into the back of Arik's mind. Her luscious matte black lips parted as she began to speak.
"Cyanide, why on earth are you running about in this filthy forest?" Her words dripped with disdain. "And why did I have to go through the trouble of tracking you down when you are clearly to be stationed at the address you gave me?"
Each word she spoke seemed to aggravate her character further, her aura growing ever more violent by the second.
Arik was dead silent and his heart felt as if it would explode on every beat. He wasn't absolutely positive, and he hoped to be wrong, but he could put money on this person's identity.
'Bellanode.'
The name petrified him in all ways but literally. He frantically pondered for a moment before the situation fully clicked.
'That's it! She thinks I'm Cyanide because she can only see Rupert. So if I can manage to just keep silent—'
She took a step forward.
"You know, I had a feeling you were up to no good. You're always so mysterious and cryptic. But this time I could sense the difference in you. That's why I came early, you see." She put a hand on her forehead and cracked a smile that was eerily just as sinister as her resting face. "But to think that you would go as far as to try and smuggle a deathless out from under me—"
In the blink of an eye, her hand stretched out toward Arik and three long curved blades at least two feet long each exploded out of her forearm like polished scythes seeking blood. Her face was back to that of anger.
"—well that's beyond insulting."
'She has fuckin' arm swords?!' Arik squealed in his head ready to piss himself. The only comfort in all of this was that Rupert was in between them, even though he seemed to have gone offline once again.
"You may not be responding but I can hear your teeth chattering and smell your fear. Tch, you don't even have the same color eyes as Cyanide." She took another step forward; probably within eight feet at this point. "So, where is Cyanide, huh?"
Before sufficient time to respond would have even gone by, she dashed forward toward the two at a speed comparable to Cyanide's Redirection echo, except she was clearly running. At the end of her dash, the longest blade of hers was pointed within an inch of Arik's eye, or Rupert's eye rather. The translucent fabric behind her was gusted out in every direction, creating a presence that seemed to dwarf the bear before her.
"Open up, Arik Mitchel, and maybe I won't petrify you."
At this point the gig was up. Being silent no longer served any purpose. She saw through his disguised plan like light through a window. And yet, he was too afraid to choke out words.
"Oh Rupert," she continued after a small silence. "Would you please be a doll and open up your mouth for your dearest Bella?"
'You better not,' Arik thought to himself, worried that she knew something he didn't.
"Please, my love? I'll feed you plenty of fresh meat."
The pseudo-flesh of the head of Rupert began to shift and flex around Arik.
'You've got to be fucking kidding me!'
Arik's shared Rupert vision disappeared as light began to hit Arik's actual face like a giant eye waking in the middle of a sunny day. Large triangular teeth separated and Arik felt as if he had a backstage pass to the same event that took that soldier's head off earlier. The gap revealed both of the deathless' faces to each other, one smitten with horror and the other with smug and twisted pleasure.
'Why haven't you trained your bear, Cyanide?' Arik rebuked before trying to move his body. The results astonished him. He could finally move.
"Now stay still."
Before he could properly make any action with his newly articulate body, a silver blade shot through Rupert's mouth as Bellanode attempted to impale Arik's skull. He managed to dodge his head mostly out of the way, but the blade still managed to slice through the meat on his cheek bone with little resistance. The tip pierced into the back of Rupert's throat and recoiled for another stab.
Before she could more accurately finish him off with the second, Arik managed to swing his arm at her head in a hasty response. However, the hefty arm of Rupert struck out instead of his own. It made sense to him, but surprised him nonetheless as this was the first time he had moved the bear's body by himself. But it still mattered for little. Her nimble speed was far greater than that of Rupert or Arik and she expertly ducked the attack, making sure to keep her eyes and blades trained on the target.
'Shit. I can't hit her either?'
Then the ground beneath them began to crack open and raise like the schisms of a mighty earthquake.
Bellanode was the first to take notice, jumping away into an impossible backflip and landing a dozen feet away. Arik had realized soon after, but reacted too late within the clunky husk's body. With a destructive elemental rupture, the ground violently kicked up with a sudden geyser of what must have been 1,000 gallons of pressurized water. The force flung earth about in every direction and lifted Rupert off the ground, backwards and through the air.