Mother and Daughter Butchers might not mean much for those who were new to the city, but they were once a symbol of the horror stories circulating amongst the city folks, especially the South-Western District residents. There were several versions to their origin story, the most prominent one being that they were the victims of a crazed and violent father. Another theory with a lot of supporting “evidence” was that they were victims of an organized gang or clan, where the father of the family made a series of mistakes in messing with their businesses and the mother and daughter paid the price. But whatever the actual origin was, one thing remained - that anyone, literally anyone, should run at the first sight of this ghostly spirit duo lest they do not value their life.
Idea after idea flashed through Marcus’ mind. He too had heard about the stories about this duo - mainly about how the unlucky wanderers and gutful but brainless teenagers who crossed paths with them ended up dismembered. There seemed to be no solutions or tips to escape an encounter, hard as he tried to remember. They might just need to fight their way out.
“Mama, what is that?” A little girl’s voice came from the staircase. The pronunciation was somewhat strange, as if there were wounds in her throat or mouth.
“That is the smell of men.” A muffled female voice responded: “That is the smell of bad men. Very bad men.”
Unnatural chills burst from Gloria’s back. Something was coming from behind her. She turned, just in time to see a tiny thin gray thread wrapping around the neck of Tae Kuo. “Tae, don’t move!” She yelled, leaping over and swinging her hand at the upper section of the gray thread.
A high-pitched ting needled everyone in their eardrums as the side of Gloria’s palm slashed through the gray thread. Immediately followed was two screams from an adult female voice and a young girl’s voice in unison.
“They found us! Stick together!” Gloria yelled.
“Oh my fucking god where’s the master?” Mick cursed as he hid behind Marcus.
“Don’t know, guard yourselves!” Marcus raised his voice and pushed his Qi. Blood dripped from Gloria’s palms, it was not a serious wound, but it was shrouded by a small puff of dark smoke. This would surely be not a big problem for her, but for any civilian it could be deadly.
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“What are bad men, mama?” The little girl’s voice came from behind Marcus: “Is this one?”
Marcus turned back, and saw a bloody little girl whose head was almost completely split in half by a grievous chopping wound on the top of her skull. Blood, brain matter and maggots spilled from the crack. Her right eye was only a bloody hole filled with torn and minced flesh, and her left eye was bloodshot. Her left arm was missing and was holding Kevin’s left arm with her blood-covered right hand.
Kevin gasped, yelled then slammed his left hand on the young girl’s bloody and horrendously wounded face. An unfolded talisman was left on the girl’s face. In but one second, it burst into flames and the young girl disappeared after an ear-piercing scream.
The muffled but still burning furious screams of the mother shocked and stunned everyone for a brief moment. And within less than a second from the disappearance of the young girl, a shadow made of dark fog shot down from above at Kevin, a hand with crooked fingers and long sharp nails grabbing at his throat.
Before this shadow could land this attack, Marcus’ upswing claw attack cut right into its trajectory. A bright orange clawmark of Qi shot through the narrow space in the hallway, broke through traces of fog and defaced part of the wall on the side of Kevin. But just as the shadow backed off, Marcus’ right hand launched a palm strike at the direction of its retreat. The bright orange shadow of his palm blasted the tail end of the shadow and burned off a chunk of it.
“Kevin!” Keryn yelled from behind Kevin and Marcus, before she unleashed a swift kick at the space behind Kevin.
The little girl, who reappeared behind Kevin and jammed her right arm into Kevin’s lower back disappeared into a puff of smoke after a frustrated yelp. Kevin’s entire body was pale, frail and sweaty from this brief but still solid contact.
The shadow circled in the air and shot right back at Marcus. It was the headless woman, who did not even fully manifest herself before swinging the cleaver his way. In Marcus’ vision, he saw a blade made of gray smoke slashing at him from above, while another blade manifested almost immediately after the first aiming at his neck.
With Qi concentrated on his arms to the best of his abilities, he stepped to the side to evade the slash coming from above, while trying to block the blade coming from the side - for simply, if the horizontal slash was to miss him, it could land on someone behind. The blade collided with his palms, and he felt the cold blade cutting into his skin. Blood spilled, but that was it - his Qi had stopped the invasion of the blade. Also almost at the same time, Gloria came to his aid, by unleashing two rapid claw slashes at the space behind the two slashes.
Sounds of cloth and fabric being torn and ripped came as Gloria’s attacks landed. The woman growled with frustration and fury as she turned into a puff of smoke once again.
“They’re too slippery! We need to get a solid strike!” Gloria darted back to Marcus’s side: “How’re your hands?”
“Not too bad. She didn’t get to the bones.” Marcus shook his head, as he used his Qi to seal the wounds and burn off the lingering dark energy: “We need to move to a smaller space, she would then only have a small space to hop around like that.”
“Kevin! Breathe!” At this moment, Keryn stayed behind Kevin and pushed her Qi into Kevin’s body: “Marcus! We need some help over here!”
Another, smaller puff of smoke moved to Mick’s side. Yet Mick seemed to have sensed the incoming danger and jumped to the side, just an arm’s length from Tae Kuo.