Chikita was panting, forehead slicked with sweat and her t-shirt soaked through with it, along with dark blood stains blossoming like grisly flowers. Yukihana glowed eerily, framing her face in a ghostly lunar light and making the advancing manticore's shadow grow gargantuan. They had been thrown fifty feet or so from the springloaded tail strike, and the lion-like beast of legend was keeping that rough distance, the tread of its heavy paws stopping suddenly. Chikita blinked a streamer of blood out of her eye, her scraped forehead still leaking.
The beast's tail stopped swishing again and held itself out toward Chikita like an archer's bow. With swooshing sounds like arrows splitting the air, a trio of venomous barbs shot, one right after the other, out of the heart's stinger. Chikita drew in a sharp breath as the darts flew toward her face, neck, and chest at great speed. She was nearly at her limit, numbed, bled, exhausted, and running out of ideas. Against the burning protest in her muscles, Chikita handed the reins to her incredibly swift reflexes, chicken-necking her head side to side to let the barbs barely pass by either side of her. The third, aimed at her sternum, she dodged by turning herself sideways and leaning back precariously. Her matted, rubble-flecked blue hair hung heavily from her head as she looked up briefly toward the filthy sewer tunnel domed ceiling. She saw a circle of daylight rimming one of the loose manhole covers.
Can I climb?
Negative, Yukihana would have told her. Even if one of her legs wasn't locking up, the moment she stranded herself on the ladder rungs, the manticore would catch and maul her to death. But maybe if she could push it back, blind one of its eyes…
The beast smelled her desperation. The adrenaline and stress chemicals, along with the bleeding meat and sweet female pheromones were an enticing aroma promising a wonderful meal, even over the fecal stench of this miserable cesspool. Then - its prey seemingly threw caution to the wind and gave a mad sprint, flailing at it with that pitiful dinky little sword.
Yes, come to me, it thought. Come to die.
Chikita gave a frenzied war cry as she wielded Yukihana in one hand, her other arm mangled and flopping as numb dead weight behind her. The manticore fired another stinger shot, and Chikita ducked low to slide under it, losing traction on a patch of muck as though slipping on ice. The manticore didn't falter in the slightest, chewing something as its cheeks bulged, as if it were getting ready to blow a bubblegum bubble. It spat, and another toxic barb flew at Chikita.
From when it was biting its tail! Chikita realized.
She sprang off of one foot, her other heel nearly sliding out from under her, and felt her center of gravity wobble. The manticore thrust its tail at her face again, and it was all she could do to swing her katana in its way. The sparking impact broke her guard, forcing her sword arm back so hard her shoulder almost dislocated.
"Wide open!" the manticore called, and stood up on its hind legs, cocking back a powerful paw, hooking claws emerging and gleaming.
Chikita squeezed her eyes shut tight and forced the ambient moisture in the clammy air together into a new frozen construct. A shield of ice guarded her shoulder and forearm as she angled that side of her body toward the manticore. The muscle groaned and she felt a stabbing pain shoot through her arm as the overclocked cryokinesis turned itself on her. The cold stamina she had exhausted at the pond was far from replenished, and she realized even now that she was eating into her own life force. The alternative was to do nothing and get ripped apart.
The claw swipe shattered the circular ice pauldron and gouged Chikita's shoulder open, throwing blood and specks of sleet into the air and throwing her onto her back and tumbling. The pain of forcing her cryokinesis into action overshadowed the lacerations, and Chikita shivered on the cold stone ground, a vapor trail of icy mist leaking out of her mouth as her lips turned blue. Frost-tipped eyelashes fluttered open just in time to see the airborne manticore about to land on her, pouncing with all four powerful legs. She somersaulted backward out of the way, and was practically bounced back onto her feet by the tremendous impact vibrating through the floor. The scorpion tail snake-danced, flitted its lethal tip, and flew at Chikita in a high-speed storm of ongoing jabs.
The manticore was finished toying with its mouse - the tail was seeking a kill strike.
Chikita backpedaled as fast as she could on her trembling legs, parrying the stinger and deflecting it from striking her head-on over and over again. Each clash against Yukihana rippled through her bones, which felt ready to break. She was one-handed, her other arm, already bitten, even more tattered and blood-let than before thanks to the paw it had taken. If Chikita hadn't created a frozen buffer between her shoulder and the claw strike, her arm surely would have been taken right off.
She felt the wind rush and scatter like a repeating gale every time stinger struck sword, and could feel her hair being blown back by the winds of battle as well. She was hardly even thinking at this point, her body hijacked by autopilot and her intuitive aim guided slightly by Yukihana's pull. The sentient sword's duty, if need be, was to break before a mortal blow could touch its master. Chikita almost thought she could hear the Damascus steel creaking, on the verge of sprouting cracks. The persistent tail was a blurred tangle of pleated lightning, pushing Chikita further back and back.
I can barely track that stinger, and if these impacts keep up, either Yukihana or my hand is going to break. I just need an opening. If that damn venomous thing was out of the picture, I could finish this in one stroke! Chikita thought in blinding speed between the dozens of clashes every few seconds. Do I have anything left in me?
Chikita saw the barb arc high and glint, throwing flecks of venom from its hypodermic tip as it jittered. She locked her gaze onto it and pursed her lips, spitting a thin blue beam of ice plasma directly at the tail. It struck its mark, and the armored spike froze over in a cool blue shell of ice that stopped the flow of venom in its tracks. The arachnid appendage was encased in a compressed glacial ball that swallowed the stinger. Crackling noises spread as ice vapor wafted from the frozen tail, and between the armor plates as the cold spread farther down. The manticore stopped, merely twitching an eye, and looked at its blunted stinger, dangling its tail overhead for observation.
But Chikita's plan to cut down the maneater was cut short. As before, overclocking her cryokinesis punished her body. She felt the lining of her throat crack like brittle ice cubes, and her eyes rolled back in her head as a geyser of blood sprayed from her mouth. To add insult to injury, while she had blocked the threat of being injected with more venom for now, she had essentially given the beast an ankylosaurus tail club instead.
Actually, it was more like adding even more injury to injury.
The solid tail zigzagged off of the stone ground and slammed into Chikita's gut, folding her and carrying her like a rocket off the walkway in a huge extending uppercut. Her back slammed into the curved sewer ceiling, cracking worn bits of the material and dislodging pebble-sized chunks that tapped off of the walkway or kerplunked into the fetid river. Chikita was knocked utterly breathless, and felt something in her abdomen tear. The tail dropped out from under her, dropping her to her knees back on the stone. They bruised instantly from the impact.
Chikita doubled over, coughing and spitting up blood, red drool running down her collar and pooling in front of her. Yukihana clattered helplessly out of her grasp and away. The manticore wound its tail back and struck out again. This time the ice hammer slammed Chikita in the temple. A crack spiderwebbed up the side of her skull, the grisly sound pounding in her own ears before stars exploded into her vision, and she was thrown across the river of sewage, landing roughly on the chunks of rubble that made up the other side. She lay there, utterly out of gas and barely clinging to consciousness. Fading in and out, she heard the booming steps of the manticore stalking toward her, followed by a pause, and then a sound like breaking glass as the manticore slammed its tail against a wall, shattering the stinger free of its icy prison. Venom drops fell to the ground, making hissing steam where they ate divots in chunks of fallen ice.
Chikita's fingers twitched as her rattled brain tried fruitlessly to reconnect her senses.
"Don't bother." the manticore purred, its shadow looming over the pulverized assassin.
A huge paw dropped onto Chikita's chest, pinning her down, cracking ribs and the ground beneath her, and forcing a shrill scream of agony out of her raw throat. Yukihana vibrated helplessly on the other side of the river, unable to help its master. It sensed, inwardly, that the Faceless Man had departed a few minutes ago. By then, Chikita had already been backed into a corner, forced to fight this feline monster. It would be far too cruel to admit this to her now, at the end - that they had gambled and lost.
I can't get him off me. I can't move. Chikita realized.
She widened her left eye - the right forced shut by swelling - at the sight of the scorpion tail hanging over her, armor plates sinking into each other as it compressed into its spring loaded form.
That's the move that sent me flying. I'm stuck, I can't move out of the way. Fuck, is this really how it ends?! I can't die here, not like this! Not without even slashing the Faceless Man!
The tail finished compressing and held the tension, prepared to jet out at sonic speeds and skewer her head at the twitch of a whisker.
"Just another upstart." the manticore mused, almost sadly. "All bark and no bite."
-
"Wait right there." Richie told the wampus cat, having finished thoroughly bandaging him to the point of immobilization, and jogged over to Freyja.
"You ok?"
He could see the folding, wavy texture of the cooling magma, like a layered serving of soft serve ice cream. He looked over at the boulder where the tracer had been junked. Something about that metallic hula hoop was bugging him. But, he had more immediate concerns.
"I didn't think anything could burn you, that looks painful. Let's get Cuppy to patch you up for now."
Richie straightened up, realizing that they were missing the cryptic rugrat. He swiveled about the forest, looking for the puppeteer.
"Where is the little bugger? Did you see him?"
Richie blinked toward Freyja, understandably shocked by their strange, fiery encounter, but her shellshock was in the way. "Frey!" Richie intoned. "Any idea where Cuppy ran off to? It's not like him to just bail like this. Think he's alright?"
In truth though, it wasn't the flake's conspicuous absence that was unnerving the thief. The fiasco they had just seen with one of those Institute tracers locking in on and obliterating monsters was nothing new, even if he couldn't fully claimed having ben desensitized to the brutality. No, what really bugged him was the state of the machine's remains. Or rather, that it even had remains. The tracer program he and Cup had encountered in the Station Bay sewers red tunnel system had been wholly generated of some black box undisclosed energy best summed up as a digital construct that somehow had physical presence in their world, and which acted like overzealous antibodies locking in on and devouring anomalous threats to the milquetoast status quo. But when those burning rings of synthetic fire failed and collapsed, they merely scattered into so many pixelated wisps of dying embers, along with the molecularly expunged existence of the illegal aliens caught in their snare. Richie and Cuppy could even hear the industrial groan and see the crimson light intensify as the tunnel siphoned electric and processing power from the city grid and computer networks to birth its digital abominations. Yet, here, crashed into a boulder Freyja had the street smarts brutality to toss the bent metal ring into for good measure, the tracer - this tracer, if it even was a tracer - clearly had individual parts and a solid material form beyond the projection of fake fire. It was a ring, one that seemed detachable from each other in four distinct and evenly spaced quadrants. It looked like a hula hoop of death. Freyja would have noticed Richie holding his chin, looking unsettled.
With a grunt, Freyja shook off her daze and dislodged her shins from the hardened substance that her earlier magma blast had now become, wiping the sooty charcoal smears off her shoes and ankles.
"I hope so. Maybe he's out shopping or something? School's been out for hours." She said, hopping over on one foot while she dusted the other one off. "Fuck was this thing anyway?" She says, kicking the polished debris left of the machine, partly out of spite. She glared at the shiny metal for a moment before her thoughts shifted to Cuppy's absence.
"We should probably go look." She added, feeling an odd instinct to carry home a chunk of the dead bot. She knelt beside it, fingers hovering as she debated on which bit of scrap to take.
"The suit called them Tracers. Cuppy and I encountered one point blank in the sewers, before I got knocked into another world. A man named O'Gravy was emerging out of a pocket of fog, and we naively played right into the old fable of the farmer and the viper. The moment he was free of the tracer protocol response, he turned his sights on us and ran us down trying to beat us to the ground. Long story short, Cuppy accidentally slugged him into a supply of that Black Rain gunk, the same shit that's corrupted our water supply and which more than a few fantasy imports are trying to get into their veins. I spoke with that skimpy ice lady, and she seems to think that this so-called rain is a byproduct created by shades - unbeings without souls of their own. Also known as death shadows. I have a sneaking suspicion this isn't a mistranslation, and that they are literally the shadows of the inglorious dead wandering numbly between spheres of existence. The secretions they give off are in the rough shape of rebirth and renewal, and heavy hitters like that oni I dreamed about, or the bunyip you and Cuppy almost got crushed by are coming sniffing around our parts to get a taste of that sweet sweet evolution. Not to mention the phantom pains. If I get this right, they're the glitched-out remnants of people who had their souls and identities sucked away, leaving them to drift forever, not quite alive, not quite dead, occasionally frenzied to feed when they sense someone with a unique aura, like us power-holders. But essentially, the "ghosts" are byproducts of the shade's hunting grounds habits. The Institute either hasn't pieced this together, or something is keeping them blind. They blame the encroaching ferals for all the carnage, and it doesn't all stack up."
Richie was lost in thought, then widened his eyes. "You said Cuppy never showed up? Fuck, why's he have to make his big brother worry about him. Think you can track his smell?"
"Well, of course." Freyja nodded. "But what about the disgruntled patient over there?" she pointed to the wampus cat, bound in a full-body cast reinforced with plaster.
-
Thud
Richie exhaled, out of breath as he leaned the dead tracer on the wall. "Thing's heavier than it looks." he breathed, stretching his back. Freyja jogged in through the open front door with a rope between her teeth, dragging the battered Wampus cat behind her aboard a trash can lid. She pulled the makeshift sled inside, giving a cursory glance up and down the street before ducking inside and pushing the door shut with her snout. "Just gonna wash this soot off real quick." She said, shifting to human form and holding out her black-stained hands. The Wampus gave a pathetic meow in response, and Richie held up a thumb, still catching his breath as his eyes scanned over the dents and bends in the mechanical tracer's hull.
Fetching a few tools from the bag they'd used to fix the generator a while back, he started prying at the small seams where the four quadrants of the tracer met, hoping there wasn't any residual power left inside. The mangy cat, still lying haphazardly on the trash bin lid, yowled in disbelief that it wasn't being treated before the evil shiny steering wheel of doom that attacked it.
"You will keep sass to a minimum." Richie growls at the cat. "Water under the bridge, eat or be eaten and all that shit, but you should remember that I didn't have to save you. Sure, you're a big boy and a big boy's got to eat, but you shouldn't hold anymore grudge against me than a hapless salmon really has any right to when a bear snags it out of an upstream waterfall. Being in the brutal bitch that is mother nature, I'd think you'd understand this philosophy inside and out. You lost, that's all. And, instead of eat you or skin you for furs, I let you go, and now I've risked my life to save yours. So cut the attitude. The weak don't get to decide what happens to them, so you should just feel lucky that I'm helping you recover at all, when all your hissy bitchy vitriol makes me want to do is clamp your nuts in my vice grip until they pop, comprende?" Richie hissed at his ill-behaved patient. "Kindness and decency aren't free, they're a very expensive luxury. Why don't you just kick back and lounge in it for a while, eh? Those tracers bastards are roaming around this city snatching up unwanted guests, and that means you. The fascist prick in a nice suit who's pushing this extermination war agenda isn't first in the line of guys whose hands I want to shake, but you have to understand I have to triage problems, one at a time. There's unconfirmed status on a lunatic with claws that put yours to shame, a shifting dynamic in the balance between worlds, and some spook in blue pajamas at the peak of it all calling the shots. Maybe if we can keep from in-fighting, we can get to the bottom of our mutual problems, yeah?"
The cat grumpily slumped its head down with a dejected sigh, licking the back of its elbow in a place it would normally be unable to reach were it not dislocated backwards. Freyja exited the bathroom, steam rolling out as she opened the door, cloaked in a fresh set of black goth garb. She took a seat on the kitchen counter, glancing curiously at the pouty-looking Wampus cat. "So uh...How's the disassembly going?" She asked, rubbing at her forearms where the slightest wrinkling of burn marks were still visible from the tracer's red beam attack. She'd scrubbed off most of the dead skin in the shower, a concerning amount, really, but she knew her healing factor would take care of it in time. "I was...kind of hoping Cuppy'd be home by now. I can feel a rainstorm coming." She adds, fiddling with her hair idly as she stared out the nearest window.
"Disassembly? Refresh my memory. Everything's starting to run together. You should be careful around those metal tracers too in particular. I didn't think anything could actually burn you before now. Dammit, this is frustrating. Don't you have any information you've noticed seemed out of place? Where were you all evening when I sent you to get scrap for parts. Sightseeing?"
Scattered between the five of them were all the pieces they needed to complete the puzzle. Now the question remained - would they volunteer show and tell?
In either case, it would be pushed back by the coming incident about to burst out of the very grassy ground itself.
...
A few minutes ago
- Chikita stared into the compressed barb that was going to spear right through her head. She heard her own heart beating, like a fading radio signal, or the somber, muted encounter of some distant tribal drums.
The manticore, bruised as it was, was still going strong, licking its chops at the opportunity to finally kill the thing that had the audacity to cross its path and make it bleed. Right as its chitinous implement of envenomation was about to make a nice ornament of that pretty head of blue hair, a blinding beam of white light flashed across the vision of both predator and prey, and both of them stared at the trickling line of blood that began to seep from the venom sac the barb jutted out of. The manticore shuddered in shocked pain as the front half of its stinger slid to the floor, cut clean off by some unseen force and cauterized on both ends. Drawing in a deep breath to roar in furious agony, the manticore lost its grip on Chikita, who took the opportunity to force her battered frame to roll sideways away from the creature.
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Her savior approached from the sidelines in a rapid sprint, a smoking microwave pistol in her right hand and a spare holstered on her left hip. She was clad in a shimmering Institute combat suit, one of the latest experimental versions. She ground to a halt, nodding to Chikita. "Miss me?" Holly said, flashing a coy grin. Equal parts annoyance and gratitude washed over Chikita, bookended by the breath-stealing pain she was under.
"I told you I work alone." Chikita grumbled.
"Yes." Holly nodded. "I chose to reject your refusal. And it looks like that was the right call. A word of caution, raw meat breath, this suit's telling me everything I need to know right now. I have no idea what's right or wrong at the moment, so I'm going to take a page out of the law of the jungle. Welcome to my food chain, little pussy cat."
Holly had an uncharacteristic cocky grin.
She turned toward Chikita. "Bitchsicle, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but our mutual target vacated this shithole for parts unknown. I'm just glad I had the foresight to bug you, or you'd really be screwed right about now. So what do you say? Truce, or you want to take your chances with mount dandruff here?"
Chikita bristled in irritation. "Fine. If ya got an ice pack or something, I'd much appreciate it." she grumbled, feeling uncomfortably warm as she lay there bleeding.
Holly rolled her eyes, reaching for her melee weapon of choice and facing the Manticore. "C'mon then!" she taunted the beast, eager to see what her new suit was capable of.
She withdrew a long, smooth-gripped handle, like that of a cricket bat, and snatched four long metallic segments from her belt. The pieces clicked into each other, and the whole of it attached into the handle. A heavy, two-handed club which tapered to an angular diamond head swayed in Holly's grip, an advanced alloy whose color scheme mimicked dark wood. A button clicked, and razor sharp, square shards of shrapnel ejected out the sides of the weapon, eight blades on each side. The sigil of three eyes forming an invisible triangle, set against a cloudy backdrop, stamped the broadside of the weapon. Holly flourished and leveled the razor-studded club at the manticore.
"Get a load of my macuahuitl, aka the oar with a chip on its shoulder. Mesoamerican obsidian blade of legend, a sword in a time and place without metal forge to its advantage. But life endures. Life strives. Life is a continual arms race again itself, and oblivion. I don't know what kind of twisted hellscape evolved something like you, but I bet I wouldn't want to visit. So, what are you waiting for? Like I said, come on. I can't be any scarier than your own home, right?"
The manticore curled back blackened lips and bared its countless yellow, spiky teeth. Its ruined scorpion appendage flitted about irritably, like a house cat stalking a fly. Ichor and venom fell like dew drops from the ragged end of the pleated tail. Holly was too busy showboating her counter-threat display to notice why this was troubling, but Chikita only had laying on the ground in pain to do with her time otherwise. She noticed the problem.
That was a clean cut all the way through with that freaky heat ray. It sealed the wound closed, burned it together. So why is it leaking fluid again?
The manticore cracked out its neck and growled.
"You've outlived your entertainment value. Anything of substance to throw into the mix? Because if not, I think I've let you live long enough."
Holly beamed. "You bet I have more to add to this show and tell. This is no ordinary macuahuitl. It spins!" she lifted the club up between them and dropped her fingers to a switch at the base.
It spins? Chikita thought. As in, the blades rapidly rotate, to deepen the cuts and their severity? I've heard of this from this era, such weapons can sever limbs. Is this what they call a chainsaw?
Holly clicked. And clicked.
Nothing happened. She went bug eyed and shook the macuahuitl desperately.
The manticore was unimpressed, and made its contempt known by swatting Holly across the stream, into a wall. She slid down, leaving an imprint in the stone. The durability enhancements provided by her suit kept her alive, but it still felt like she stubbed her entire body on a corner.
She clutched her weapon and raised an eyebrow.
"Forgot to take it off safety." she said.
"DUMBASS!" Chikita roared.
The manticore growled. "I've had enough of this sideshow. Die." - it leaped across the way to pounce on Holly, teeth gnashing and eyes flaring hellfire. A roaring motor noise clicked to life, and a flash of silver clashed with the feline monstrosity's claws. Blood splattered as a shallow trench was carved in between the beans of the manticore's right paw pad. It shrieked and recoiled, and Chikita could see that the weird club was finally spinning at blistering speed as promised. Flecks of blood still flew from the razor edges as they spun, and Holly advanced, seamlessly flourishing her whirling blade in huge hoops and figure eights that seemed to leave afterimages as the air was loudly parted.
The manticore reared back on its hind legs, posturing and roaring like a grizzly bear. Holly thrust forward and slashed down the thing's chest. It jumped back as more blood flew, flesh split like ragged flaps beneath its blood-matted mane. Red fur bits scattered to the fetid wind. The mane absorbed most of the heavy blow, rendering a large but ultimately nonlethal cut. More, the fur clogged up Holly's chainsaw club, hissing sparks and angry black burnt toast smoke. A sound like gears grinding echoed through the sewer as the blades jittered and tried their best to keep moving.
The manticore lunged and tried to clamp its jaws around Holly's head. Instead, the macuahuitl thrust forward.
Eat this! Holly thought.
The club stopped dead in its tracks, clamped in the manticore's jaws. The spikes were denting into the alloy, and beginning to chip the obsidian.
Holly smirked and pulled a trigger - the blades shot of fine shrapnel inside the manticore's mouth, shredding its cheeks to ragged strips. It fell back onto its haunch and clutched at its mouth with its paws.
Holly lashed a bandoleer from her purse around her shoulder, velcro clicking together in place. She slid the blank macuahuitl into a wide pouch stitched across the belt, and withdrew it once again, sixteen more obsidian razors slotted into place. With another click, they were spinning once more.
But, Chikita saw looming danger as Holly closed in for the finishing blow. The scorpion tail was curled over again, the severed end stump bulging, throbbing, and puckering an angry, feverish pink. It was pulsating like an egg sac about to hatch. Chikita tried to stumble toward Holly and cry out a warning.
Get out of there! He can regenerate! she wanted to scream. The microwave shot had apparently hit too high, the bulb-shaped armored venom sack regrowing itself back into proper form, a pale caul of flesh pulling taut around the shape of the newly hooking barb like some kind of placenta mesh.
Holly jumped to plunge the bladed club into the monster's belly.
Instead, a spray of pseudo-embryonic fluid heralded the birth of a new stinger, flying at Mach 1 against the club.
Chikita hadn't been tongue-tied. Rather, she had grown faint all at once and stumbled, then fell. The blood loss, internal injuries, and venom were taking their toll all at once, now that the last surge of adrenaline afforded by Holly's dramatic entrance had faded.
Obsidian scattered, embedding itself in the walls, and Holly tumbled backward.
The manticore sensed Chikita's dropping blood pressure and diminishing respiration. It looked at Holly, laid out on her back, the macuahuitl in pieces, and then returned its attention to Chikita. Picking off the injured or sick from the herd first was always the most efficient way to take down one's prey. Besides, the neon-haired oriental had arrived first, so the alien secretary was going to have to wait her turn.
The manticore roared and dropped into a dead sprint at Chikita. She felt the beast's thunderous tread shaking the ground, felt the tremors in her bones. It was all she could do to prop herself up on her elbows and watch the legendary beast descend.
"Blue-Hair, jump!" Holly cried after Chikita.
Jump? Was she crazy? Even if her body wasn't shattered, what good was going midair going to do? She'd just be target practice.
She felt so very tired. Her eyes grew blurry, then darkened. The sound of the stinger flying at her was a gentle breeze. Then, a spark lit the center of her mind, and became a raging inferno of burning rubble and cherry blossom trees. At the top of the heap, standing as if a devil amidst the flames, was an armored crimson samurai with a long odachi, taller than he was, a purple lightning streak pattern zigzagging along its blade. Above the madman in red was the silhouette of the Faceless Man, always pulling the strings.
Kenta... Chikita heard her child self sniffle. Toji...
Beyond the flames of her ruined village, Chikita saw a tall raven-haired woman in a white and pink silken kimono. Her hair was done in a bun with ornamental chopsticks, and she was thoughtfully drawing from the pipe that would become Chinokiri. Her eyes were a soft, kind hazel, glimmering warmly.
Kyoko! Chikita cried out.
-
Chikita's eyes flew open, and she was high above the walkway, her legs bulging with muscle that seemed to come out of nowhere.
Did she actually jump?
She could feel power surging inside her core, her body as light as a delicate pheasant plume.
Thank me later. Holly smiled silently. The same telescope dragonfly she'd secretly fed to Chikita was good for more than just tracking her outside the Backyards. As she had found before when the biosuit merged to her skin, the artificial lifeform doubled as an object her ability could scry, its simplistic mind partitioned from the lattice work of its psychic form by tiny cybernetic implants. As she had seen through Chikita's eyes via the absorbed drone, so too did Holly realize she could send Chikita things remotely. Namely, this surplus of incredible strength the awakened monster fibers within her body had created.
"This fight is meaningless now that the target is gone, let's just escape!" Holly called.
Chikita smacked her head on the underside of the ceiling and clutched her rattled skull.
"Ow!" - she wasn't accustomed to this temporary jumping power.
The manticore thrust its tail after Chikita.
"No escape!" it roared.
A metallic cable ending in a tri-pronged claw - a grappling hook? - flew toward Chikita, outpacing the stinger, and snagged her by the arm. It yanked Chikita so quickly toward Holly that, had her body not just been enhanced, her arm would have been pulled out of its socket.
Chikita skidded to an awkward stop, crashing into a mutually unwanted embrace. Her face was wedged between Holly's bosom, the first time she could recall being on the receiving end of this technique.
"Don't get too comfy there." Holly pat her head sarcastically.
Chikita withdrew and shook her head out, sticking out her tongue distastefully.
"What's g-"
They barely split apart as a dart flew at them, the manticore firing stingers again.
Talking was not a free action, now that the enemy was thoroughly through fucking around.
"Yuki!" Chikita called to her katana, a three second sprint away if she gave it her newfound all.
"Forget the cosplay prop, we have to go!" Holly yanked on Chikita's shoulder.
Chikita yanked the hand, and the waist-mounted grappling hook, off of her and ran.
"Then you'll just have to cover me so I don't get hit!" Chikita said with straightforward finality.
Holly growled, but complied, readying her microwave pistol. Incoming barbs were superheated to crumbling char split seconds before any could sink into Chikita.
Just a little further! Chikita thought excitedly.
The manticore leaped into place, framing the abandoned katana again, tail arched.
"Die!" it demanded, spearing at Chikita again.
The swordswoman froze the ground under her feet into an ice slick and crouched, shooting under the beast and retaking Yukihana in one go. Before she emerged out the other side, she thrust her sword straight up, slitting the monster up the belly as she had the basilisk before. Blood gouted across the ice behind Chikita, staining it a glistening crimson, as she tumbled across the other side.
She kissed Yukihana's sheath.
"Momma missed you!" Chikita nuzzled her cherished weapon.
What a privilege. the sword thought flippantly.
Holly rejoined Chikita well behind the manticore, having jumped across the river to run the length of the opposite stone walk before doubling back.
"Slick move." Holly said.
"Was that a fucking pun?" Chikita asked.
"Could have been." Holly shrugged.
The manticore stood on trembling legs, but notably did not fall. It turned and faced the two of them, teeth grit so hard it was stabbing its fangs into its own gums, drawing streaming rivers of blood.
"Seems even mice bite viciously when cornered." it growled, rapidly stabbing its tail along its slit underbelly, the limb looking like nothing so much as a sewing machine. The barbs sutured the wound closed with clinical accuracy.
"Oh fuck this, I call bullshit." Holly grimaced.
Chikita looked to the ceiling again and saw the halo of light signifying the manhole cover.
"Hey, four eyes." Chikita nudged Holly.
"Yes, mouthy edgelord?" Holly replied in turn, her tone mismatching her shaking knees.
"I just need to get above ground and I can shake this thing."
The manticore stalked toward them both slowly, but deliberately, its tread cracking bits of the ground as though it had somehow increased its weight under the mass of its own subdued white hot rage.
"I don't think he's just going to let us fly the coop." Holly pulled on her collar, sweating nervously.
I take her meaning. Yukihana said. The moment our feet leave the ground, we'll be easy targets again. Even if we breach the exit, you'll get hooked on the stinger and dragged back inside. What are you thinking, Chikita? Yukihana asked.
"I'm breaking even." she answered cryptically.
She had one last bet to play.
Chikita crouched low to the ground like a frog about to spring, begrudgingly clutching Holly to her. Holly was too equal parts petrified with fear and caught off guard to protest.
Good. Good meat shield. Chikita mentally praised the off guard Institute agent.
The manticore locked eyes with Chikita. Their heartbeats seemed to fall into the same step, their intents synchronized. That didn't make any sense. The woman was going to try to jump to safety, so why did her aura reek of aggression?
The manticore spring loaded its tail and adjusted its aim at an upward angle, ready to launch like a cannon the moment the women entered the crosshairs.
You trust me? Chikita asked Yukihana.
For the love of - just get us out of this feculent dungeon! the sword broke composure.
Chikita sprang. The tail harpooned up after her. Chikita felt the wind like a heavy, tangible thing pushing down on both her and her baggage - er, Holly. But her newfound strength boost overpowered the wind resistance. For just a split second, they flew straight up at just over Mach 1, the scorpion tail a half foot below them.
Chikita thrust Yukihana straight up, blowing the manhole cover off as they all flew well into the air above the city street. They lost precious microseconds when they met obstruction from the lid, and the barb was ready to run them through, the tail fully extending out of the manhole like an elastic rocket.
Great view to die looking at. Holly thought, resigned.
Chikita grinned, bearing her canines. Her lighter's flame clicked to life and ignited Chinokiri.
"Gotcha." Chikita inhaled sharply - and exhaled a titanic mass of freezing, almost solid smoke that rolled and folded itself into a great vulpine shape. Powerful legs sculpted themselves out of the gray haze, a halo of wavy smoke formed a mane of ethereal fur, and the kitsune's long snout and sharply triangular ears erupted from the cloud's front. The familiar which had once been able to ride on Chikita's shoulder like a parrot was now a heavyweight on par with the manticore itself. A single, long, bushy tail split into nine, burning embers of suspended tobacco particles congregating like bonfires at their plume-like tips. Each tail was engulfed in an orange ball of flame that quickly turned a cool blue.
The power surge dumped into Chikita had changed hands a few times, undergoing rapid changes and adaption each time. Decentralized strength from the flesh and blood bodies of many mythical creatures were woven together into a uniform, and that uniform merged to its then-wearer Holly. The link she and it shared with the sacrificial telescope dragonfly was a jumper cable between their pools of strength. Power flowed into and revitalized a Chikita who had been at the end of her rope, and now, that excess of power had filled out the wispy body of Chinokiri into a vaporal living tank.
Chikita and Holly passed through the fox's belly, being drawn up and onto its back, out of harm's way of the incoming sting. Chikita smiled happily as Holly choked on solid smoke while being dragged through Chinokiri's body, like a first time waterskier who ate shit on the waves but who didn't let go of the reins, continually grating themselves across the water and waterboarding themselves.
She pat her back faux-sympathetically as Holly coughed, and the stinger met Chinokiri's blossoming nine tails, all turned downward like great elemental pistons with eerie blue will o the wisp heads.
Chikita threw her head back and looked up at the sky, where the moon was making an early appearance, peeking through the clouds.
Something tells me I live another day. she smiled with immense relief. "Lucky~!"
Chi hated the stench of the black rain. Smells like pure, distilled malevolent intent, far stronger than anything even I can give off. That putrid odor of malice permeated the entire underground, along with the rivers of shit and pollution. But up here, where the air is clear, she can fight all she wants with a clear head. I'm not sure how, but four eyes managed to give her an awesome form too. Well done, government dog, well done.
Chikita pointed her pipe at the jutting scorpion tail like a wand.
All nine tails grew longer like huge, churning fluid pillars, and mashed downward in a unified hammer stroke. Chinokiri's nine tails, and the manticore's single tail, clashed. A visible shockwave expanded around the point of impact like a semi-visible disc, shattering any windows in the vicinity. The pipe fox's tails flowed like vapor, but hit like solid objects, yet also had give like some kind of rubbery plasma that absorbed and cushioned the impact of the manticore's strike. At a mere glance, Holly was categorically lost on how to define the material properties of the spirit's form, but imagined the compressed gaseous layers deep within Jupiter must look and act similarly.
The icy blue fires at the tips burned instantly brighter like signal flares, and then all nine tails became a rapid volley of strikes, pummeling and pushing the manticore's tail gradually down, overcoming and reversing its speed, strength, and momentum, and forcing it back underground. At each impact, the tails solar flared blue embers that rained down like snowflakes. The assault was mesmerizing, the tails moving like overclocked pistons. Holly thought, squeamishly, of some poor blue collar worker in a factory getting ground to a pulp by cruel machinery in the recent past before proper safety regulations.
Bit by bit, the manticore sting was forced downward, and the tail armor began to crack.
And then, all at once, the scorpion tail collapsed back down the manhole, some critical breaking point having been reached, the tides officially turned. Still, Chinokiri's wrath continued to fall upon the ground at and around the manhole. Cars swerved around the inexplicable, blatant fantasy taking place above them, raining down destruction. Chinokiri kept pummeling the street until it too began to crack upon dozens, or more likely hundreds, of tail strikes. Then, all at once just like the manticore had been repelled, the street collapsed into itself, the egg shell of the concrete and asphalt above the maze of sewers cracking and caving. Great chunks of rubble stacked atop each other, smoke and dust scattering to the wind, and a thirty foot radius around the manhole was reduced to a crater of crumbled stone.
The manticore was hopefully buried.
Chikita's vulpine familiar nodded once emphatically, making an assertive little squeak, as if saying "Take that".
Chikita crossed her arms, grinning smugly.
- the manhole cover they blasted straight up into the sky upon bursting out of the sewer was on its return trip.
3, 2, 1,
Toes are a strange vestigial form of digit. Really they'd have been much more useful if they could grasp and support weight like those of other primates, and now in modern times they seemed to serve only menial roles in aiding balance and stubbing against furniture to remind us it's there. In Chikita's case, they happened to be the landing pad for the manhole cover. In a manner that would have been impressive and nigh impossible to achieve with a flicked coin, the cover landed on all ten little piggies standing on its edge, making a nice crunch before falling forward, away from the twitching Chikita, with an underwhelming thud.
The blue-haired woman's fists were balled up, icy tears welling up in her eyes, she drew in a long breath through her teeth…
Chinokiri began jumping up and down energetically, a cat-like little smile stretched across her snout. This new body was much roomier. Mmm, yeah, nice long legs, thicker neck and wider stance, and those stylish nine tails. They were so fluffy and comforting, and they kicked off pretty blue flames every time she shook. Naturally, while she fruitlessly tried to bounce Chikita off of a solid surface with no elasticity - but still managing to jostle her and her many broken bones - Holly was forced into an unexpected rodeo round, hugging around the fox's neck and burying her face into its mane in a desperate bid not to get thrown into the air. Naturally, burying her face in the creature meant another helping of asphyxiation, the clueless vampiric thing draining bits of her life force in addition to inflicting moderate nicotine poisoning. Ultimately, Holly was thrown off anyway, landing on the back of her shoulders and head.
All of this was in full view of a major city junction, in broad daylight, during heavy traffic. Additionally, Director Mason was on a return trip from the grocery store, a few plastic bags in each hand. He dropped them, regarded Holly, and lowered his sunglasses, blinking a few times.
"Mary." he said, tonelessly.