Male:
The hobgoblin was a powerful one. Dangerous, even if he weren’t in the depleted state he found himself in. He had to be quick. The foe launched a strike towards his shoulder, and he evaded, dropping the last of his wards so as to better focus his energies on building towards his next attack. It wasn’t as if they would have been strong enough to parry the strike in their current state. It should have thrilled him. The moments were rare when one of his kind was ever placed in genuine danger, and it had been centuries since he’d last faced a genuine hunt. But here, deprived of his wards, with a malformed aberrant going for his blood, he felt only frustration. He dodged one blow, then another, the creature’s fist carving a short trench into the angular stonework of the building alongside them. He let out a single, angry chuckle. Strong as the hobgoblin may have been, it was not the fastest of its kin, and the added force of its transformation did nothing to aid in the landing of its blows. He built up what remained of his power, pushed it into a single point at the tip of an index finger, and made his strike.
The goblin was overextended, the bulk of its less familiar form and the restrictions of its garments hindering it as much as they helped. Every punch left an opening, and he exploited it. He ducked under the next blow, stepping forwards, and jabbed his charged finger in towards the joint of the creatures arm, where the shoulder and chest connected. He let out his power as a pulse, a shockwave of sorts, dampened slightly by the properties of the hobgoblin’s hide, but powerful enough to do the trick. The force of it echoed through the animal’s form, forcing bones and muscle apart from one another. He heard the pop as the goblin’s shoulder was forced free of its socket, and grinned, a moment too late to realize his mistake.
The hobgoblin’s other arm struck him in the side, hard, carried by the force of a movement made before his own attack had landed. There was no magic to it, no charge, only the force of a strong beast, and he had no shields to stop it. He was sent reeling as the goblin fell, the force wave crashing through its body and sending organs, bone and fiber into disarray. For his part, his body struck one of the human carts, the glass pane across the side of it cracking against his ribs. He felt his head collide with something hard, and everything went hazy. He wasn’t sure how long he lay crumpled against the vehicle. In the aftermath, he presumed it to be only a few seconds, but in the moment, he really couldn’t tell.
It was his partner’s voice that brought him back to himself, echoing inside his mind as she reached to him through what little of her swarm remained nearby.
‘The humans are coming. Get out of there. Run.’
Dimly, he realized that he was far too spent for another encounter. He needed to get away, to recharge. He swore, and in a strange way, the act gave him energy. He pulled himself up off of the cart, and swore again, louder, forcing his mind into focus. He glanced about himself, ignoring the crumpled form of his latest foe, and found somewhere shadowy. An alcove between two buildings. He began to run, hobbling at first as his senses slowly returned to him, but regaining his coherence fast enough. His partner could take care of things from here. He needed to hide. For now, that was all that mattered.
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Casper:
The car moved in silence for a time as the swarm continued to slowly grow itself around them. The birds were sneakier now; whatever it was that was holding them together had them hanging back from the car, only crossing from rooftop to rooftop in places just beyond their line of sight. Without his power, Casper doubted he’d have even glimpsed them. Unfortunately, that put him in a bit of a conundrum. Did he warn his companion, and potentially reveal the workings of his power, or did he stay silent, and allow them both to be led into a trap… Actually, putting it that way made the answer fairly clear.
“Uhh,” he started, more than a little nervous. “Agent government person?”
“Theo,” the driver offered, eyes still fixed on the road. “My name’s Theo.”
“Right. Theo, if I tell you something, do you promise not to ask how I know?”
His companion looked at him, one eyebrow raised quizzically as he guided the car up towards a river bridge, the vehicle slowing significantly in the traffic.
“I’m... really not sure what you mean, kid.”
Casper shook his head with a sigh.
Whatever.
“Look,” he muttered glumly. “Those birds that attacked us earlier? There’s more of them now. They’re staying out of sight, but they’re following the car. They’re kind of everywhere.”
Theo gazed across at him for a few moments at that, then returned his eyes to the road. While his expression remained neutral, Casper could feel the dread sinking into his skull at the new information.
“Great,” he murmured, his tone heavy with frustration. “And of course we can’t call for backup, because my partner had the only radio.” He glanced across at Casper again. “You don’t have a phone on you, by any chance?”
Casper thought back to last night, and the feeling of slamming his foot down against the back of his phone, smashing it against the iron grill of a street gutter. He swore.
Theo grunted at that, his mood darkening yet again.
“Yeah. This is gonna suck.” He thought for a moment, then spoke. “Okay, change of plans. The safe house is too far away to get you there in time, but there should be another rescue team about half a mile that way.” He pointed a finger towards the buildings at the far end of the bridge. “If we can get to them, then we should have enough manpower to keep you safe the rest of the way. If we don’t, then I am going to keep it off you while you run the hell aw-”
Before Theo had a chance to finish the thought, something ahead of the car exploded, and the birds gathered on the rooftops behind them took flight.
Theo swore loudly as the car in front of them came to a sudden halt, slamming his foot on the brakes with enough force to send them both jolting forwards harshly in their seats. Before Casper had the time for a thought, his companion was already moving. He felt a hand grasp him roughly around the collar, yanking him against the harness of his seatbelt. Then, there was a flash of something sharp and shiny, and he felt the straps come loose around him. In mere seconds, Theo had him out of the car and on his back, clinging on for dear life as he vaulted them over the roof of their stalled out car and sprinted towards the near side of the road with a truly ungodly degree of speed. Casper had half a second to realize that they had already been halfway up the ramp connecting the road to the bridge, before his companion jumped, and they were falling.
The drop was a solid twenty feet, and Casper let out a pained wheeze as the air was forced out of his lungs, the impact driving his rescuer’s shoulder up into his ribs. Theo hardly even seemed to notice. Above them, Casper could feel the birds gathering, searching, until one caught sight of them again, and the swarm dove. There was another mind up there now, larger than the birds and distinct from the drivers on the road because, unlike them, her mind was filled not with confusion or fear, but with rage. He heard a crash as something else above them exploded, and a few of the minds around it winked out.
“New plan!” Theo yelled, pivoting on the spot to dart in underneath the bridge, sprinting along the bank of the river, a pair of short knives in his hands that Casper could have sworn had not been there a moment ago. “Grenades in my jacket pocket! Rough means smoke bomb, smooth means flashbang! Smoke when they catch us!”
Numbly, still coughing, Casper reached down with one of the arms still clinging to his companion’s torso, and fumbled at the pockets lining the inside of the older man’s coat. The birds were nearly upon them now, moving near twice as fast as Theo’s already prodigious level of speed. He felt his fingers connect with a pair of solid, oblong shapes, and scrambled briefly for the lip of the pocket containing it.
Then, the birds were upon them, beaks and claws prying at everything within reach, digging and tearing madly. Casper yelped in pain as strike after strike rained down upon his back, tearing through his shirt and cutting his skin to ribbons.
“Now!” Theo yelled, staggering under the weight of a hundred tiny impacts, the force of it almost knocking him off his feet as the omnipresent claws continued to tear and cut, his knives swiping uselessly at each of them in turn, only striking a few.
Casper’s fingers finally found what he was looking for, pulling the rougher of the two objects free of the agent’s pocket, feeling a catch, and flicking it open. Underneath, he felt the imprint of a button. He pressed the button, then dropped the device as though it was, well, a bomb, squeezing his eyes shut and holding his breath.
The effect was immediate. Casper had been expecting the stuff to take a while to build up, but either the movies had that particular idea wrong, or this wasn’t a normal smoke bomb, because the black cloud that it created was pumped out so fast that it bordered on the uncanny. Even with his breath held, Casper could smell the stuff pressing inside his nose. It wasn’t the same acrid scent of the gas, however. This was different, like wood smoke.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Around them, the birds began to disperse, confused; their senses thrown off by the smoke billowing all around them. A few stuck to them, managing to stay close enough in the confusion to keep attacking despite the sudden dark, but he felt the agent move subtly beneath him, and the lights of their minds went out.
“Good job, kid,” Theo panted. “Now, if we can just wait down here long enough for the smoke to spread, we can make a run for it. Hopefully, someone’s seen what’s going on and we’ll have reinforcements coming before too long.”
Casper wasn’t listening. He was too busy focusing on what was going on above them. Their pursuer wasn’t giving up; they were striding towards the point where Theo had jumped from amid a rising tide of panicked voices shouting in confusion, each one trying to be heard over the rest. They were furious. Frustration and anger boiling up inside them to such a degree that Casper was amazed they even had room for it all. He felt a brush of air across his cheek, a touch of wind that slowly began to grow. Around them, the smoke ever so slowly began to clear.
“No,” Theo moaned, utterly crestfallen. “Don’t have wind spells, you cheating bitch.”
Again, Casper wasn’t listening. He felt the mind above them step up on top of the edge of the ramp, their pursuer readying to jump down after them, and he had an idea.
He acted before he had really had time to think, and, when it came down to it, that was probably a good thing, because he doubted he’d ever have had the nerve to try this if he’d had time to consider it. He reached his hand back down into Theo’s jacket, and plucked the remaining grenade from the Agent’s pocket. Theo apparently noticed the movement, and he heard an objection ring out in the older man’s mind, but before the agent had time to voice it, he had already flicked off the safety catch. He thumbed the button underneath, and tossed the flashbang down on the ground, almost exactly beneath where their pursuer was about to land.
He thought he heard the agent shouting at him, his mind touched by a momentary rage as he brought his hands up to block his ears, but he couldn’t be sure.
In the moment before he squeezed his eyes shut, he saw a thin, hipster looking woman drop down from above them amidst the last of the clearing smoke. She scanned her surroundings, caught sight of them, and turned, a hand raising towards them as a bluish green sort of energy began crackling across her palm. Theo shifted around under him, turning to position himself between the boy and the attack. He had a moment to think that she wasn’t what he had expected, before the grenade detonated beneath her feet with the loudest bang Casper had ever heard.
Even with his ears blocked, it was enough to almost deafen him, accompanied by a flash of light that was like staring into the sun even with his eyes closed. He felt in their attacker’s mind as fury rapidly shifted to confusion and shock. He felt it in Theo’s mind as anger and fear gave way to a surprised kind of elation, supplanted almost immediately by a powerful determination. He felt himself being lowered to the ground, and opened his eyes blearily. Theo was grinning down at him, shouting something that he couldn’t quite make out through the continual ringing in his ears as the woman staggered blindly behind him. What the agent meant when he turned the boy back towards the city and gave him a shove, however, was very clear. With a nod, Casper began to run back towards the cityscape as fast as his legs could carry him, leaving the agent behind him to do battle with their dazed pursuer.
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Casper wasn’t sure how long he was running for, the steady thudding of his feet against the pavement just slightly out of synch with the continual rapid pounding of his heart against his ribs. He crossed the road connecting the bridge to the rest of the city, slipping himself between the stalled traffic lines leading towards the chaos that had been put there in the past few minutes. Then, he hit an alleyway, and bolted down it. He kept running, changing direction at random, trying to make his path as winding and unintuitive as possible.
After a time, however, he felt the adrenaline begin to fade from his limbs, leaving his every limb aching and sore. He allowed himself a few minutes to rest, leaning against a wall and panting heavily as he tried to muster the energy to send himself a little bit further. He coughed, dry and painful. His lungs had felt awful even before his dead sprint out of there. Now that exertion had combined itself with the aftereffects of that gas, he felt like his insides had been rubbed with sandpaper. He shook his head. No. He was done. At the next street, he’d flag down a taxi, and get himself delivered somewhere safe. Maybe Lewis? He chuckled, then groaned as the movement drew another sharp spike of pain from his lungs. No. Lewis wasn’t safe. Not with the Family still looking for Tasha. Freja and Mel, maybe? Freja had seemed to like him well enough, and Mel seemed to have genuinely enjoyed his company. It was better than nothing, surely. He nodded. It was a plan. He pushed himself upright, and began to walk again.
That was when he felt it. A brushing against his mind from somewhere high above. It was tiny. It was hungry. With a desperate whine, Casper began to run again, all thought of going easy on himself forgotten as he made for the open street. He felt another tiny mind above him, diving this time, headed straight for him. He pushed his aching body to the side as the bird shot past, its talons skittering against the grimy concrete, missing him by inches. He turned another corner, and saw the open street ahead of him, only forty feet away. He told himself he’d make it; that he’d know what to do once he was out in the open. As long as he could get to the street, he had a chance. He felt another pair of birds dive down from the swarm slowly gathering together above him. Again, he pushed off of the alleyway wall, and managed to avoid the first of them. The second, however, struck his thigh, its sharp claws tearing at his jeans. He stumbled. Then, they were done playing with him, and the rest of the swarm descended as one. He tried to avoid them, but he didn’t stand a chance.
He kept his feet under him for the first few blows, but the third saw him down to his knees. He felt the pain of their beaks, but by now, that was almost secondary to him. Feeling more hopeless and exhausted than he could remember being in his life, he tried to continue crawling his way forwards, foot by slow foot.
Every second, there were more of them upon him; pecking, biting, clawing at his skin. He gave up crawling on his hands, and instead simply focused his efforts on protecting his eyes from the onslaught. He screamed.
He could feel her approaching now. She was angry. Not the same kind of angry as before, however. It was colder now, calmer. The frustration had boiled away, replaced by simple, direct focus. He could hear her footsteps drawing closer as he squirmed and writhed under the continued attacks of the swarm, until they too stopped. The swarm broke away, returning to the sky, and he opened his eyes, pushing himself upright on bloodied arms to look back down the alleyway at her. He had to pause for a moment to wipe his eyes. When had he started crying?
His pursuer was not at her best. Her formerly straight hair was bedraggled. Her clothes were torn and nicked, and she had a long, deep looking cut running all the way down from her left shoulder towards her wrist. It wasn’t bleeding as much as it should have been. In the hand beneath the cut, she was holding a knife. It was one of Theo’s.
For lack of any other real course to take, Casper turned his back to the woman, and began to run again. He didn’t even make it a foot before he felt something strike the back of his leg, and the limb went numb. He fell to the floor once more, catching himself on the palms of his hands, and felt the pavement dig raggedly into his skin. He let out a long, pained moan as he tried to crawl, and felt another bolt strike one of his arms. He lost his balance then, fully half of his body numb and unresponsive, the other half almost too heavy with exhaustion to move.
He cried bitterly into the ground as he felt her take another few steps towards him, and then stopped, confused, as something cracked through the air with a sound like thunder, and she staggered, the confident, slow rage in her mind giving way to a sudden, almost painful panic.
Casper pushed himself towards a wall with his one remaining good arm and, with what felt like a gargantuan effort, pulled himself up into something resembling a sitting position. This time, he was able to watch as the second strike struck home, the woman glancing madly this way and that in search of her attacker. Casper didn’t follow her gaze. He already knew where to look. He could feel them approaching around the bend in the alleyway, their mind calm, collected, and just a tiny bit angry. The air around her head distorted, seeming almost to flex, like a reflection in a bending mirror. Then, with another loud crack, she was thrown against the wall. The knife clattering to the floor, abandoned as she tried to catch herself against the impact. Then, she began to run, her swarm descending once more around her, trying to block her from this new, unseen attacker. This time, it wasn’t just the air around her that distorted; it was the whole alleyway. The walls, floor, and sky as one seemed to bend inwards around them. As it all snapped back into place, the birds that had filled the space seemed to be shunted outwards, some thrown up into the air, others ejected against the walls and floor. Casper noted, somewhat bemusedly, that none of them even seemed to have been harmed by it. At the final crack, the woman had stopped running, and Casper could see why.
She was… happy. That was the only word Casper had for it, and yet, it didn’t do the experience justice. Happiness wasn’t enough to describe it. In that moment, in her mind, he felt a greater concentration of joy than he had ever thought any single person was capable of. It was all he could do to pull his power away from her; he doubted he could have even done that were it not for the minds of the birds and their perpetual hunger helping to shield him from her all-consuming joy.
Glancing down the alleyway, Casper watched as a young man crossed the corner at a walk, his face serene, calm, and utterly without flaw.
“I won’t have you running away from me, now,” the stranger called softly. “Not when you’ve been hurting little ones.”
Casper watched, dumbfounded, as the woman sank to her knees and began to weep; half giggling, half crying as her body simply failed to come to terms with the sheer, boundless euphoria she was no doubt still experiencing.
The man turned his gaze to Casper, and began to walk easily towards him as the birds around the alleyway began to disperse. He tried to push himself to his feet, to run, but before he’d even managed to heft himself off the ground, he felt something press against his mind, and in a single moment, he was happy. He sagged, felt his aching body relax against the wall as his muscles finally allowed themselves to go limp. Everything was fine now. He was safe. All was well. The man crossed the last of the distance between them, stepping casually around the still weeping form of his erstwhile attacker. He felt the man’s mind press against the boundaries of his power, and saw that he was calm. It made him happy. The figure knelt down in front of him and, for a moment, Casper thought it was funny. Somehow, this man was even more beautiful up close. The figure reached up a hand and gently pressed a finger to his forehead. He giggled, noticing, as if from very far away, how the pain in his limbs was slowly starting to fade.
“It’s alright now, little one,” the man murmured in that soft, kind voice, before turning his attention towards the woman. “Father is here, and Father protects.”