Episode: 6.6

--- Tempest ---

(Now I’ve just got to find that Malcontent.)

With that thought in mind she spread out her senses, allowing her inner dream to draw in all of the faint thoughts and dreams people naturally gave off in their day to day lives, only to frown when she picked up something odd coming from all around her.

(Why would the entire square be giving off so much despair and sorrow?)

That kind of thing only happened at really nasty crime scenes, the kind she couldn’t handle if she didn’t have at least three of her friends with her, because the very emotions of the crime had stained the world around them.

As she shifted on her feet, she felt water sloshing against her boots, drawing her attention to the ground as her eyes widened.

(The dark water… Of course, the Jawless naturally infuse it with Malice, so…)

She froze as the water began to pulsate, as she suddenly realized with all of this Malice infused water, the Jawless may’ve attracted a bigger fish to their pond.

“Shit!” She cursed, jumping on top of a nearby car, already knowing that whatever creature was going to rise from the depths of the abyss was not one she wanted to catch her off guard.

And after a moment her instincts were proven accurate as the dark water began to shift and change. Only, instead of something rising out of the darkness below like she’d been expecting, the darkness itself began to rise.

“The hell?” She blinked, her eyes tracing the various streams of floating water, until they reached a point in the air where the dark water began to shift and congeal into something darker.

“That can’t be good…” She whispered to herself, as the substance began to coalesce into a s a slowly spinning sphere of darkness several stories in the air, one that was giving off less sorrow and more rage and hate.

Thinking fast she weaved together a number of her spark-dreams and sent them flying at the sphere, hoping the sphere’s seemingly liquid nature would make whatever it was forming more vulnerable to the electricity.

A hope that was quickly dashed as the butterflies fizzled into nothingness on contact with the now pulsating and spinning sphere.

“Well that… didn’t work.” She sighed shaking her head.

(If I can’t break it, I’ll have to take it down the moment it pops.)

With that plan in mind she began weaving together dream after dream, letting butterflies of numerous colors flit and flutter through the air, as a veritable swarm of dreams began to circle around the sphere, ready to take down whatever monstrosity was about to tear itself into reality.

Unfortunately, as the sphere shattered this effort was proven wasted as it released enough force to crack glass and shatter her dreams, before birthing a massive beast that crashed into the ground with enough force to shatter the pavement and shake the very earth.

Ever so slowly the beast began to rise from the ground, a goliath easily three stories tall, and as large as a freight train.

Dark fur covered its massive forearms, legs, and chest, with black as night muscle visible over its biceps and stomach, shaggy black hair shrouded half of it’s face, leaving only a maw full of fangs and two eyes darker than black visible.

“Oh, that really isn’t good…” She whispered, realizing she didn’t recognize the massive Creep as anything she’d ever fought before, and with its size that wasn’t something she was exactly comfortable with.

The hulking creature glared at her with hate filled eyes, before unleashing a roar so loud that she had to cover her ears as it shook or shattered all nearby glass.

Taking advantage of her stunned state the Behemoth of a Creep lunged at her with its arm raised, barely leaving her enough time to kick off the ground with enough force to send her rolling away from the creature’s attack.

Shaking off a bit of the debris she’d picked up she gave the Creep a once over wracking her brain for anything that might help her take down the Behemoth, even if she hadn’t fought a Boss Creep quite like it before.

(Okay, new enemy. So, fall back on Sanctuary combat Classes.)

(Given its size, and the healing factor of all Creeps it’s at least a high B rank Bruiser, maybe low A rank…)

On its own that wasn’t too bad, given how she was considered a high C, debatably low B, rank Blaster, so long as she could keep her distance, she should be able to keep the advantage.

(The problem is Creeps never have just one ranking…)

Deciding to play it safe for now she began to weave together more of her dream butterflies, generating a swarm of butterflies in a multitude of colors as she tried to rebuild her fallen swarm while slowly walked backwards to try keep her distance from the massive Creep that had started to turn towards her.

With a quick mental request, she sent the first wave of her swarm at the Behemoth, hoping to test its defenses, as her little dreams flew at their target faster than any normal butterfly could manage.

The first dream to make contact was one of her built for speed Trackers. A dream that would let her monitor the Behemoth as it bound itself to the Creep, something that wasn’t entirely necessary given fact that the creature was so large but was a habit she had no intention of breaking. Unfortunately, given how the Creep was so massive, her one lone tracker did little to monitor the actual condition of the beast, barely being able to keep a read on the Behemoth’s bicep where it had landed.

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(Okay, one tracker isn’t enough but if I tag it with a few more I’ll at least know when it’s getting ready to attack me.)

As the Behemoth glared at her and her swarm, she had one of her flash-dreams go off in front of the Creep’s face and while the creature did squint, the attack didn’t quite blind or stun it like it would lesser Creeps.

(Not very photosensitive, going to need at least a dozen flashers to actually blind it…)

A number of frost-dreams landed on the left side of the Creep, sticking close together to stack their effect and hopefully freeze something. Sadly, even with a dozen of the dreams working together their frost to barely spread across the Behemoth’s fur at half the pace of a single dream, and even then, that frost fell off as it began to walk towards her with a slow gait.

(Okay, can’t just freeze lock it, at least not without tapping myself out completely…)

Taking a few more steps back to try and make up for the giant slow but massive steps, she sent a handful of glowing red butterflies landed on the Behemoth, igniting its fur wherever they touched, and burning the flesh beneath. At least until the Creep started healing faster than the flames could burn, thus putting them out bit by bit even if they did leave a few patches of scorched fur behind.

(More effective than anything else I’ve tried, but its healing factor will still outpace a few small flames, and I can’t risk anything bigger unless I know it’ll work…)

Gritting her teeth together she used a dream reinforced kick to dash to her side to try and circle around the Behemoth.

(Okay, so this thing is durable enough to handle everything short of an all-out attack, meaning that Bruiser rating is definitely in the A rankings…) What’s more, she could definitely see why people considered her just a C rank if this was all she could manage without draining herself.

As she stopped behind the Behemoth, she once more forged her blade before flipping it in her wrist for another javelin throw, figuring the piercing nature of the attack might do more damage than her butterflies’ more explosive attacks.

The blade left her hand with small jet stream trailing behind it, before a pulse of wind was pushed out as the blade dug into the Behemoth’s flesh, causing the Creep to hunch forward for a moment.

As the Behemoth slowly turned towards her the Creep glared at her, before opening its mouth and after a moment a sphere of light began to gather in the its mouth as it drew its head back, and a faint hissing sound filled the air.

(Ah, fuck!)

Recognizing what was happening she kicked off the ground, shattering the pavement as she leapt at a nearby building before sprinting up its wall in an attempt to escape the attack.

The Behemoth clamped down on the sphere, seeming to struggle to keep its mouth shut, before roaring and unleashing a beam of light that vaporized anything that stood in its path, including half of the building she was standing on.

“Oh, crap!” She cursed, forced to push her powers a little harder to keep from losing her balance just long enough to kick off the building and jump away from it, giving herself enough distance to watch as the building collapsed in on itself, forming a massive pile of rubble.

(Shit, that’s worth at least a high B in the Blaster rankings…)

Narrowing her eyes at the Creep, she flipped through the air while summoning her sword back into her hand and spinning the blade into her usual throwing stance even if in mid-air.

(Can’t risk it firing another shot like that.)

With that thought in mind, she threw her sword at the creature’s head with as much force as she could muster, causing a small jet stream to trail behind the blade as it shot forward, before impacting the Behemoth’s face and twisting its head to the side, killing whatever power was left in the beam.

A sound halfway between a hiss and a roar erupted from the creature as it turned back to her with a glare, black mist pouring out from one its eyes as her blade remained lodged inside the organ.

As she hit the pavement in a roll, the Behemoth leapt at her, its arms raised above its head to crush her.

Unable to dodge the massive creature’s attack in time, she twisted reality dream-stepping to her blade and gripping it with both hands as she pressed her boots into the Behemoth’s face in an attempt to keep her balance as the Creep hit the ground shattering the pavement for several meters around, while shaking all of the nearby vehicles.

The moment the Behemoth quit shaking, she took advantage of the Creep’s momentary opening to tear her blade free and swing it at the Behemoth’s arm, being sure to reinforce the blade with her dreams as well as shift its angle to take advantage of her falling weight, allowing her to rend a gash several inches deep into the creature’s forearm even if she couldn’t cut all the way through.

Once more roaring in pain, the Behemoth tore the arm her blade was stuck in out of the pavement before swinging its arm around, smashing it against both the pavement and nearby cars alike in an attempt to crush her as she scrambled to avoid the impacts and get her feet back under her.

Unfortunately, under the Behemoth’s constant shaking and smashing she eventually lost her hold on her more gravity defying powers and was sent flying across the square and into a nearby building, where she just managed to wrap herself in her dreams before crashing into it with an impact that cracked reality.

“Crap, that hurts…” She cursed, rubbing at her aching head as she started to feel the mental strain of prolonged power use.

Pushing through the pain she forced herself to sit up, leaving her to notice that her powers were instinctively defying gravity to let her sit on the wall, something that wouldn’t normally bug her, if it wasn’t for the fact the trick was slowly eating at her power reserves while she was still in a fight.

It was then that she noticed a familiar hissing in the air, followed further by a familiar roaring sound.

She barely managed to look up before watching the Behemoth’s mouth burst open as another sphere of light detonated into a beam of destruction, one aimed right at her.

She immediately killed her gravity power, while wrapping herself in another layer of dreams as she dropped.

The beam blasted through her previous location, while burning her back as well as through a large portion of her dreams as she fell to the ground, this time too focused on dealing with the damage from the Behemoth’s blast to nullify her landing on the pavement and debris below.

After a moment she couldn’t help but wince as she tried to push herself off the ground, feeling a number of aches and pains across her body.

(Damn it… Need to get away… get backup and… regroup…)

As she began to move to make her escape, she felt the earth shake beneath her as a shadow draped across her.

(Oh no…)

She risked looking up as the Behemoth glared down at her with its arms raised into the air, and a snarl on its face.

The Behemoth roared, its arms swinging down, as she curled in on herself, wrapping whatever dreams she had left all around her in an attempt to endure the coming onslaught.

Her heart pounded in her ears as she waited for the attack, knowing if she could just push through, she could escape long enough for backup to arrive. Only… the attack never came.

Swallowing down her apprehensions, she decided to take a gamble and lowered her guard just enough to catch sight of the beast frozen with its arms in the air.

(W-what?)

Slowly black mist began to pour from the creature, revealing a vicious series of gashes that severed the Behemoth’s arms, cut it from shoulder to hip, and split it across its face.

She blinked as the various pieces began to fall away.

“How…?”

As the black mist began to clear she caught sight of a figure, one wearing a black hooded jacket with a sword in hand, and a very familiar insignia of a knight with their sword raised in front of them, and a dark beast behind them, on the back of their jacket.

(It can’t be…)