“From what the chief told me, it’s a type of invasive predator,” said Cap, his voice so low Finn had to stand perfectly still to be sure he heard correctly. “I suspect it’s a carnobear.” The Rangers were gathered in a tight circle between the two trailers now unhitched and grounded. They’d elected to unhitch well outside Fistshollow on account of not wanting to be robbed and murdered. Next to a nearby tree, one of the horses nickered, eager to get moving again. Upon hearing Cap’s theory, Carl’s eyes narrowed and he sucked air through his teeth.
Finn felt his eyebrows knit together, and he could see a similar expression on Everett’s face. Saul was… well he was looking like Saul somewhere under his hood, but his head had a slight tilt to it. Cap gestured for Carl to speak.
When he did, Carl’s gaze was far away. “Nasty monster," he hissed. "Like a bear but worse.”
Cap rolled his eyes and slapped the back of the young man’s head, sending black curls flying. “Why thank you, Carl. Very helpful.” He sighed, allowing an exasperated hum to escape through his nose like a bull. “The carnobear is a mutated form of creature from the ursidae family: bears. Carl’s right about that. But with his gift for understatement, he failed to tell you that it’s an ambush predator with a lot of power behind it in a straight up fight.”
“Magic?” Asked Finn.
“No overt spell slinging, but it’s got some weird shit going on that can only on account of magic. I’ve dealt with them twice before and both times they’ve been a handful. Both times were a little different too.”
“What can we expect?” asked Saul, all business now, the soft qualities of his voice all shut away for when it wasn't hunting time.
“You can expect to hang back with the horses. I don’t expect to let the thing get the drop on us, but once we engage it’ll have a deceptively long reach combined with speed. Once you hear gunshots you start heading our way to take care of the wounded.” Cap paused for a moment, his gaze down at the ground. Then he nodded. “Last time I fought a carnobear, every claw or bite wound carried infection. Watch for that.”
Saul's shoulders visibly slumped under his cloak. “Roger that, Cap. It’ll sap me though. I’m not great with infection.”
“I know. Prioritize that none of us bleed out, and we’ll take care of infection ASAP.”
Carl, seeming to come back to the present chimed in. “These things are big, but they’re sneaky too. They can get small when they hide… rearrange their bones kind of. You ever see a rat squeeze itself under a door? It’s like that.”
Cap nodded. “Be ready in five. Full armor. Masks. Heavy rounds. Maximum trauma. Can’t rely on blood loss to take it down.” He looked at each of the rangers gravely. “You do not want to get close to this thing. If you do find yourself within its reach, give it a reason to leave you be.”
That was it. The five of them went to their packs and extracted kevlar and leather bits to strap to their armor. Finn put on his kevlar collar, groin and thigh protectors, and stiff leather forearm bracers. Fire retardant heavy gloves replaced his comfortable shooter’s gloves. Then he strapped on his double layered facemask, inserting the charcoal filter as the last piece. When he was done he felt ten pounds heavier, though it was much better than carrying the pack for miles on end. He gave his sword scabbard an experimental tug to make sure it could be drawn, bulked up as he was, and it came free with only a minor hitch on the bottom of the plate carrier. The feel of his rifle and kit felt muted and clumsy, but everything was exactly where he expected it to be.
Carl was similarly dressed and looking miserable just by posture alone. Use of his Gift relied heavily on his senses combined with the freedom to move quickly, and he detested being wrapped up like this. He waddled like a toddler in a puffy jacket, swinging his arms around hoping the movement stretched the fabric enough to be more tolerable.
Everett had the least to put on out of all of them, simply strapping his mask into place. He bopped Finn on the helmet and gave him a thumbs up, which Finn returned not feeling all that confident but unwilling to be ‘that guy.’
They left Saul waiting atop his horse with the reins of the four other mounts in his hand, ready to ride in to fix the wounded at a moment’s notice. Still far enough away that the carnobear wouldn’t smell the horseflesh and go after easier prey. Not that Cap expected that would be a problem.
“By all accounts carnobears are ambitious as all hell, moving into an area eating its way all the way to the top of the food chain. If given the choice, a carnobear will go after the stronger of two targets in hopes of knocking a fellow contender off the King Shit ladder,” Cap informed them all as the fire team cut their way into the woods, pushing aside thick, white barked brush and gingerly stepping over washouts and downed logs.
The fading light of the day was having a hard time reaching the forest floor now and the light that did manage to find them was diffuse and colorless. The vibrant color of the forest was slinking away, hoping to avoid getting caught up in the drama to come, and Finn couldn't help but feel like he should do the same. Would he ever truly be ready for a fight like this, even when he was old and grizzled like Cap?
Finn couldn't help but think of the carnobear as an absurdity in the evolutionary sense. What kind of successful predator lived its life constantly going after increasingly difficult meals, fellow predators even? Why not go after calorie dense prey animals like deer or aurochs or the larger species of rodent? Having a territorial nature, Finn understood, but Cap said the carnobear hunted other predators, even choosing them over better meat. It was risky. So risky that Finn was surprised the species acquired a foothold anywhere at all. The carnobear’s failure rate had to be sky high.
When Finn stated as much, Cap just grunted, bending down to touch a track in the middle of the game trail they filed down.
“That’s magic, I guess,” Everett said in a stage whisper from the middle of the formation.
Finn groaned… quietly. Casual dismissal of legitimate questions was just about his least favorite thing, up there with rank structures and chafed thighs. People had a tendency to talk about things they didn’t understand and say “that’s magic” like that explained a damned thing. People gave magical phenomena as much consideration as the weather: worth noting, worth avoiding, but way too complex to explain.
The big man let Finn stew for a moment, reveling his the moment of ball bustery. Then he continued. “Hear me out. What if our monster isn’t just after the juiciest cuts of meat? Maybe it gets more out of dangerous animals than a meal.”
Finn turned the idea over in his head for a minute, nodding as he did. “You think it’s getting residual potentiality from its kills.”
“Yeah. C-crystals most likely. It’s got mutations, so who’s to say its digestive process doesn’t involve sucking down some of its kill’s magic? The energy for living’s gotta come from somewhere.”
“Quiet now and check your masks,” Cap whispered hoarsely. “We’re nearly there.”
Finn unbuttoned and buttoned the catch on his face mask, sniffing at the air in the second it was away from his face. There was something there among the pine sap and gentle rot of deadfall. Something up ahead was… wrong. Sour like old sweat in a tanner’s shop next door to a moldy carpet repository. His flesh puckered. His pulse quickened. His gaze darted from shadow to shadow. He could feel himself slipping down a rung on the food chain… then another. Sweat ran down his back, soaking through his clothes.
This wasn’t normal. This wasn’t rational.
This wasn’t coming from him.
Finn retreated into himself as best he could, detaching his consciousness from his body’s chemical and electrical processes, activating his Gift. Emptiness replaced his fear.
He let out a long breath before he spoke. “Cap…”
“I feel it. Sit tight.” Cap growled, a hunting dog unsure if he was still the hunter.
Finn’s meditation gift, while not overtly impressive in a world of gravity benders and miracle healers, was a good firewall against foreign influences on his mind. Finn spent so much time in his own head, poking around in his psyche that he knew the ins and outs of it like he did his own reflection with a couple notable exceptions. Whether what he was experiencing was chemical or magical or a combination of both, he didn’t know. What he did know was that he was keyed up to a degree that was unnatural and the gentle emptiness of his ability swallowed this kind of thing whole, allowing him to step outside of the effect and look at things dispassionately.
Cap stood for a moment, rolling his neck from side to side. He spit then reseated the magazine in his AR15. “Stick to your training and try not to shoot each other.” The tension in his voice did more to exacerbate Finn’s nerves than anything else. “And keep those masks on tight.”
It was pretty obvious when they entered the creature’s area of influence. Finn didn’t really think calling it a lair was appropriate, since it was more of a feeling than anything else. One step, Finn was in a healthy, if very quiet, pine forest then he was in that same forest but worse. Everything looked sickly here. The carpet of deadfall and detritus seemed more rotten, growing nasty looking fungal colonies that reached up to grab Finn’s boots and stick there, soon coating the entirety of the treads and fouling up his traction. When he tried to scrape some of the stuff away on a root, he was only marginally successful, since the ground was littered with the stuff.
It was eerily quiet. No insects buzzed around the Rangers’ heads. No birds called from the trees. The only sounds were that of boots squishing through wet mud and heavy breathing. Finn felt like he was intruding on some dark place not meant for human beings, which he guessed he was… an intruder.
Every tree was marked in some way, the bark having been rubbed or scratched away from the roots to a height twice that of a human being. There were antler rubbings 9 feet up trunks, diseased looking claw marks that went deep into the core of the trees, and huge chunks bitten out of some of the larger roots.
Carl filled them in, his voice slightly higher and muffled through his mask: “Carnobears mimic their prey to lure in the more social animals. You can tell what kind of meat it likes by the kind of markings you see. I'm seeing deer, moose, beaver, big cats… The bastard’s been busy.”
There were also geometric etchings in some of the wood, drawings of a sort. It wasn’t until Carl found a passable “6” next to a “T” that they realized the carnobear was attempting to mimic the human alphabet as well. How many people did Fistshollow lose to this thing?
Then there was the smell… the God awful smell of musk and urine and feces and wet fur that invaded their masks and stung their eyes until tears flowed freely down their faces. Finn could taste it in the air, an acrid penetrating stench that hung so thickly he could feel its touch. Carl broke first, peeling off his mask to retch. Then they all took their turns doing it. Finn was the last to vomit up his trail rations, a point of pride for him even if he didn’t feel particularly prideful at the moment with vomit running down his chin and into his armor. When he was done, he gave a shaky thumbs up to the rest of the group and they were on their way again, bellies empty and limbs feeling weak.
They came to a glade where one might expect to find grass, but mounds of bones and mud were piled chest high, plowed into place like garbage at the dump. The ground was mush, long dead and rotted wood and leaves mixed with grass and who knew what to form a pulp, and the Rangers’ boots made sucking sounds with each step.
The smell was strongest here. Dizzying even. Finn’s arms and legs felt so heavy, his fingers so clumsy. He had to fight to keep his vision from spinning, more than once relying on his gift to center himself and keep from pitching forward into the mud.
Cap elected to have the team split and circle the glen from opposite sides, Finn and Everette on the left and Cap and Carl on the right. Finn heard Everett’s safety lever click just a couple feet behind him. The Rangers all knew it would happen here. The fight. Winner take all. They all watched the mounds warily expecting to see one of them rise up and become a hulking monster.
So, when the carnobear burst from the ground right under Finn’s feet, sending him flying end over end to topple onto one of the muddy mounds with a wet plop, there was some surprise, especially for Finn. When Finn sat up and oriented himself again, the carnobear already had Everett in its jaws and jammed down into the mud. It thrashed its head and raked him with its claws, driving him further and further into the muck until the big man's head disappeared below. Lacking better options, the big man struck back blindly with his fists. His slugger was pinned to his belly by the creature’s bulk, and his hammer was buried somewhere beneath him.
The beast was all slick black muck caked over wrinkly bare skin wrapped tight around grotesquely defined corded muscle. Finn saw a picture of a hairless bear once, remembering how he thought they looked like hippo-dogs, but this thing was misshapen with gangly front arms longer than Finn was tall, while the back legs were stubby and thick. Its shoulders and chest were slabs of muscle and tendon, and its belly was stretched over multiple distended stomachs.
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Shots from Finn’s right. Cap’s old world AR15 barked, striking the creature in the midsection. The lightning quick little bullets blasted away bits of the mud coating the creature wore, but they failed to penetrate the flesh. These were probing shots; attempts to get a sense for the toughness of their opponent. Cap’s munitions were small, penetrative, and best of all: cheap. Cheap in how little powder and metal they required in their manufacture, and they had almost no recoil, allowing the old man to put as many rounds downrange as the Rangers needed.
Finn brought his higher caliber rifle to bear, thumbing off the safety and taking aim at the carnobear’s neck right where it met the shoulders. Scoring a hit on an artery would end things quickly, and he didn’t have to aim very close to Everett. Finn lined up the sights, held his breath and squeezed the trigger. The rifle bucked. The fingertip sized round zipped on its way, and he felt himself slide slightly backward down the muddy slope of the mound. Just as he fired, the bear thrashed its head to the right, and Finn knew he’d missed the neck. His shot most likely found a shoulder or the clavicle if bears had those.
If Finn had hurt it, the bear didn’t seem to notice. It was fixated on Everett, attempting to tear the biggest among the team down before it moved on to the rest. Everett was entirely subsumed by the muck now. How many seconds had it been? Ten? Thirty? Finn couldn’t tell, but something had to be done before Everett got drowned then eaten or eaten while drowning.
Finn got to his feet, noticing his legs were a little wobbly. Did he hit his head on the way down? He chambered another round and got his rifle back into the pocket, this time aiming for a front knee. The rifle boomed. The carnobear opened its mouth and roared as its leg buckled underneath it, bringing its front half down. Then Carl was upon it with his sword, dancing in and slashing, removing the carnobear’s left eye, then hopping back to avoid a retaliatory swipe from the creature’s diseased claws.
Carl and Finn were on opposite sides of the creature’s head now, so Finn couldn’t risk another shot there, so he fired his last two rifle rounds into the back leg hoping to cripple it. No dice. The carnobear was up on its feet and after Carl, swiping with its claws and snapping with its jaws. Carl was in his element now, ducking, jumping, dancing in and out of the bear’s blind side. Finn knew from experience that Carl was an infuriating son of a bitch to pin down. Finn might have time to go check on Everett with the scout playing evasive like this. However, Cap had repositioned to Finn’s left, firing 5.56mm rounds at the carnobear’s head, attempting to take out the second eye. Finn had to go the long way around to get to Everett.
Carl was on borrowed time to begin with. The carnobear had such long reach, and there was such a mass disparity that the end of Carl’s little dance came before Finn could come to Everett's aid. The carnobear simply charged Carl with front arms spread, bearing the man down into the mud. It reared up, 12 feet tall on its hind legs, roaring nonsensical almost human shrieks and wails that Finn would hear in his nightmares. Then it came down pounding Carl deeper into the ground over and over, gouging the man’s armor with its claws. The plate carrier kept Carl from being eviscerated, but the pressure had to be bone-breakingly intense. The soft mud was probably keeping Carl alive, absorbing some of the inertia for him, but the massive bear would eventually cave in Carl’s torso if it was allowed to continue.
Finn changed course, hooking around to run alongside Cap’s firing line, running directly to the left of the monster’s head with his empty rifle hanging from its loop. He drew his sword and leg iron. He got there just as the monstrous bastard drew itself up for one final crushing descent. Finn slid to a stop, set himself, and angled his short sword upward. When the bear came down with its full mass to crush Carl it impaled itself through the chest. The pain caused it to flinch to the side and land badly on its shoulder.
Finn spared a glance for Carl who laid there in the mud, gasping labored breaths as he attempted to reach for a weapon somewhere on his person. At least he was alive. Then Finn was in the air. He didn’t really have time to be surprised. One moment he was watching Carl reach for a knife, the next he was whisked away like an animal in a tree snare. Only up close did Finn truly begin to appreciate how fast the monster was and how wide it could open its jaws. During his moment of distraction the bear had regained its feet and lunged forward, snatching Finn up and biting down on the kevlar and ceramic plate covering his chest. He could feel the teeth working to penetrate his less protected sides, but the kevlar held for now.
His sword was still sticking out of his quarry down lower on its chest but out of reach. His rifle was empty and stuck between the bear’s canines and other, sharper caniner(?) teeth. What did he have? Then the shaking began. The bear thrashed back and forth, Finn’s dangling arms, legs, and head flopping about bonelessly. He could feel the blood rushing into them, propelled by inertia and probable injury.
What did he have?
Everything hurt. The plate carrier wasn’t going to hold much longer. The ceramic plate was already cracked, and he could feel the disassociated pieces beginning to slide to the side to allow each other to pass, thus allowing the carnobear’s teeth to snap shut to end Finn’s short bear hunting career.
What did he have? His hand… was sore, close to cramping. It was gripping something. Furious shaking. Gunshots. His hand was sore from gripping something. His leg iron. His revolver. Oh shit, he’d held onto the revolver.
His angle was bad. He knew that. When they’d asked him during loadout if he wanted a smaller old-world handgun or one of the post-fall hand cannons, he’d chosen the latter, thinking he’d rather shoot something once and be done with it. Now he was going to pay for that decision.
He waited for a lull between the bear’s thrashings. Holy hell his head hurt. His bones felt like they were dislocated or well on their way. He drew the revolver up, curled his arm and wrist to get the gun under the monster’s chin and fired. He felt something pop in his wrist, a tendon or maybe a carpal bone.
He fired again. And again. Then he was on the ground, his hand tingling, burning from the inside. He could feel blood rushing into interesting places on his body, his breath was knocked out of him, and he couldn't get his body to move. But he was on the ground.
The bear was hunched down over him shaking its head like a wet dog, attempting to regain its senses after having high velocity lead rattle its brain. Its breath was hot and wet, and it smelled of rotten meat.
*BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!* Slugger fire from somewhere behind. The first shot took the carnobear in the shoulder, breaking the joint and causing a collapse on that side of the creature. The next hit it dead on in the nose, passing through into the brain. Teeth exploded from the monster's ruined mouth, one of them slicing Finn’s cheek like shrapnel. With Finn’s uncomfortable front row seat to this horror show, he knew the next two shots were superfluous. One in the neck and a final one in the upper back as the monster spun and toppled. The destruction the giant rounds caused was a sight to behold.
The carnobear had collapsed, mercifully not on top of Finn but next to him. When he was finally able to get his body’s nerves to listen to commands again, he craned his head to see Everett, covered head to toe in mud reloading his smoking slugger.
When Finn spoke it came out shaky and strained. “You couldn’t have done that earlier?”
“Thought you gals had it handled. Surprisingly warm and comfy down there in the piss mud,” Everette said busily cleaning the goo off of his weapon. His face… what Finn could see through the muck… was intense. Finn wouldn’t be surprised if the artillery man shot the bear again for spite.
“Oh, I had him right where I wanted him,” Finn wheezed.
The big man nodded. “'Saw that.”
“Was gonna kill it after it ate me… from the inside.”
Everett made a disgusted sound mixed with a pained chuckle as he wiped muck from his trigger guard.
When Finn sat up, he could hear the clinking of his broken ceramic plate inside the front of his armor. It must have given way just before the bear dropped him. His wrist felt like it was on fire, and his sides probably had nasty bruises from the bear’s teeth. Yet he was alive.
On his feet now, he spotted Saul crouched down next to a slumped over Carl, the black tendrils of his power burrowing deep inside the injured Ranger, fixing what was broken.
The horses stood unhappily tied to a rotted tree nearby, and it seemed the smell and the proximity to the carnobear was too much for them. They trembled and fought their reins to flee; to be anywhere but here. Cap was doing his best to soothe them, speaking to them in low, calm tones. The man was surprisingly gentle when it came to animals. After a moment, he spoke over his shoulder, softly so as not to spook the horses further. “Finn, harvest that bear, so we can move out. If it’s got a decent sized crystal we might break even on the powder we used taking it out.”
Finn nodded and wobbled over to the monstrous corpse, feeling around on his belt for his knife. He felt clumsy and light headed. His mask was gone, removed by means unknown sometime during the fight, so that might have something to do with it. There was also the possibility of head trauma, but he’d see to that once this place was well behind him.
Once he’d found his knife he found his grip severely weakened in his right hand. The liquid fire he felt when he’d broken it had faded into a feverish ache, coupled with diminished strength. He could switch to his left, but his work wasn’t going to be as precise. A hand gripped his shoulder, and he turned around to find Saul there.
“What do you have for me?” Saul asked softly from within his cloak.
“Nothing I can’t handle myself if the others need you,” he replied instinctually, hoping to cultivate more of that tough guy persona, even as he wobbled drunkenly on his feet.
“Don’t jerk me around, Ranger. I asked what you had for me.” Saul was all business now, a medic in his element. Post-battle, Ranger medics were in charge, only really able to be superseded by the captain’s orders, and even then that was a rare thing. People were the world’s most precious resource, and the medics were there to make sure people stuck around.
With some effort Finn straightened up to near attention and fought to clear his head. “Busted right hand. Possible head injury,” he reported.
“Alright, let me take a look,” Saul commanded, taking off Finn’s heavy glove to reveal a swollen lump of a thing that you’d barely recognize as a hand. The medic brought his other hand over to hover next to Finn’s, the black tendrils of his gift erupting from his palm and probing for Finn’s flesh. Finn knew what was coming, and he wasn’t looking forward to it.
“Stay still,” were the only words Saul offered before the inky power burrowed into Finn’s flesh, parting the dermis and getting deep inside to seek out what it wanted. The tendrils were cold and invasive, wiggling inside Finn’s body around his broken hand, up his arm branching and spreading until they filled him. Finn suppressed a full body shudder, or at least he thought he did. One of the first things Saul did when he used his power was shut down motor control as best he could. Was he suppressing Finn’s reflex signals as well?
“Yep, you’ve got a couple broken bones and a snapped tendon in your hand. There’s a little bit of fluid in the cranial cavity, but I don’t think you’re all the way concussed. Stand by.”
Finn couldn’t speak. He could only breathe and feel the cold eels under his skin go about their work. He could feel them split and articulate while they went to work in his hand, sliding bone into place, sewing tendon, stimulating growth, and repairing blood vessels. At least he thought he did. Then the cold feeling retreated, shrinking, collapsing down into his arm and exiting through his palm, closing the wound they’d made on the way in as well. Once the tendrils were out, Finn's knees buckled momentarily, but Saul was there to catch him.
As he steadied his patient, Saul retracted his power back into himself and let out a breath he’d apparently been holding. “Done. At least with the worst injuries. You’ve got a ton of micro abrasions and deep bruising, but I assume you’ll get that yourself later.”
Finn was finally allowed to have that full body shiver. He tried not to let that show though. “Thanks, Saul. You’re a lifesaver. I mean it.”
“Oh, I know. You’re lucky you didn’t get clawed or bitten though. Big man and Twitchy have both got nasty infections brewing, and I’m not as good with those. It’s gonna take most of my juice getting ‘em clean.”
“No need to spend any more time on me then, brother. I’m going to harvest this thing, so we can get the hell out of here.”
“Hell yeah. Cut it twice for me.”
Finn chuckled slightly. “Oh, I don’t think that’ll be a problem.”
Finn approached the carnobear from “underneath.” The creature was lying on its side, so getting to the belly wasn’t much of a chore, though the pile of bones it laid next to presented an awkward angle to get at it. Creatures with c-cores almost always kept them somewhere just outside a digestive organ, normally the stomach. The problem in this case was that the carnobear had two stomachs to choose from, one sitting just under the rib cage and the other lower where one might expect to find ursine dangly bits. Of course Finn chose the wrong stomach first, revealing more about the carnobear digestive process than he’d preferred to know.
The second stomach had what he’d been looking for: a round, red crystal the size of a baseball, the biggest he’d ever harvested personally. Once he’d exposed the thing, he had only a moment to take precautions. He slipped his heavy gloves back onto his hands and reached down to his belt to grab his second canteen, the one containing the goddess’ potion that protected humanity from the influence of chaos. He clumsily unscrewed the cap and held his breath in preparation to take a swig. The potion had never agreed with him to begin with, giving him intense migraines for as long as the stuff remained in his system, and he wasn’t looking forward to doing it again.
Finn tilted the canteen to his lips… and got nothing. The canteen felt light. Really light. He tilted the canteen to get a better look at the outside. There it was. A massive hole where the straight side met the container bottom, about the size of a single carnobear tooth. Well shit.
He looked to the other Rangers. Cap had a hold of the horses’ reins and was leading them away from the den even as they thrashed their heads and bucked. Saul had Everett and Carl, pale and sweating, leaning against a tree as he treated them with his Gift to cure their infections. They, the real Rangers, were all waiting on him, doing their duty after slaying a formidable beast. The least Finn could do was get with it and follow orders, so they could get out of this horrific refuse pile.
Finn got his lead lined leather bag from his back, closely inspecting it for holes like the one in his canteen, but he found the bag was intact if a little dirty. So, as quickly and carefully as he could with his gloves, he reached inside the dead monster, moving aside bits of viscera, and grabbed its c-core.
When his fingers wrapped fully around the crystal, Finn's breath seized in his throat. An enervating sensation traveled up his arm and suffused his body with hot, cracking lightning. Fire shot over his nerves, his muscles, his arteries, and his heart. He almost dropped the core, but his hand kept its grip following old orders from a brain not fully in control anymore. Reflexively, he activated his Gift, breathing in the emanations of the world, allowing them to pass through him and fuel him like they always did. He expected a sense of calm and relief, relief from the foreign influence he was experiencing. Instead, what he got was a firehose of soul blasting power. It scoured him. Left him bare and raw. This was it. This was what the goddess safeguarded against. Chaos. Unbridled change. The destruction of humanity.
The raging river of power was all-consuming. It swept him away, just for a moment, a short moment where all that existed in the world was chaos.
Then he surfaced, gasping, seizing, his Gift finally allowing him some modicum of control over himself.
He jerked his arm spasmodically toward the mouth of the bag, failing once, twice before fully enfolding the crystal into it, then focused his will to force himself to release his grip.
His trembling breath came in gasps, and tears steamed unbidden down his cheeks. He swayed on his feet for a moment. When had he stood back up?
Holy shit, that was... so stupid. Let’s hope I don’t grow taste buds in my anus or something.
“Finn! You good?” Came Cap’s no nonsense call from behind his wall of horse flesh.
“Good to go here, Cap!” Finn shouted in reply, not meaning to shout at all.
“Right. Let’s move then, Rangers. We’ve won the day, and no one’s dead. Let’s end it before that changes.” With that, Cap motioned with his free arm, giving the signal to form up and move out.