It’s my turn to laugh. “There sure are a lot of violent things you associate with sex.”
“Yes.”
We don’t see the middle of the crater coming in the mist, but the moment we hit it, we know. Not because the land starts to raise, though.
No. It’s because of the sound.
A weird echoing click descends on us from above. Its staccato beat whispers through the mist like skeletal fingers tapping at the world’s biggest typewriter.
We freeze instantly, going back to back. “Where’s it coming from?”
Syl turns we me as we scan the wall of unrelenting grey. “I cannot tell. Everywhere and nowhere.”
I know what she means. This thing throws its voice with skill to make a ventriloquist jealous. The clicking sounds like it’s coming from everywhere at once. “Screw this fog. It could be anywhere.”
Something blurs through the fog so fast I can barely track it. It brushes past us in a flicker of black, leaving behind the smell of decay and a series of fading clicks.
Also pain. “What the…”
“Sam, your arm!” Syl says, going low.
My forearm burns like fire. I lift it. “How the hell?” Three slashes are torn across my wrist, the lightest touch. The cuts aren’t wide or long, but they hurt.
The poison.
“Shit.” I whisper, trying to see everything at once. I throw my power out in a net, try to detect our attacker, but I can’t find anything solid. Just something that feels… Like a blur? “Syl, did you see it?”
“Briefly.” Her claws are fully extended and her body is taut like a bowstring ready to fire. “No details.”
Another flicker. Something scrapes across Syl’s back so hard that sparks erupt from her scales. Instantly, she pounces, disappearing into the fog wall.
There’s no sound of impact, no scream of our prey dying as her claws pierce it. “Syl?”
Nothing.
“Syl!”
The clicks speed up again, so fast they blur together. My survival instinct kicks in, and I throw myself to the ground just as the dark blur speeds past me. As fast as I am, it’s quicker, and something tears through Astra’s clothes and leaves long trails of flame across my back.
I throw a hammer of power, chasing the Corroc into the mist. Fog swirls as my strike flows through it, but my strike misses.
“Fuck,” I growl as I stay crouched. This isn’t good. No sign of Syl, and I can’t even see this thing.
The pain in my back isn’t too bad, but a few more hits like this and I’ll be in trouble. I send a silent thank you to Bombor as I turn slowly, throwing out random ropes of power. Maybe I can snag it as it passes.
But it doesn’t take the bait. The sharp clicks fade in and out, never gone but no longer close.
“Syl,” I whisper shout. “Where are you?”
“Here,” she says, materializing next to me so suddenly I almost hammer her with power.
“Dude. How… Many… Times. Don’t do that!”
“Apologies. I did not want to give away my position by shouting,” she says.
There’s no rebuke in her voice, but I still curse myself. “Sorry. I haven’t been a scary ass killer as long as you have.”
“No need for–”
She cuts off, shoving me roughly to the ground as she dives with me. The clicks scream past.
“Shit. Thank God for you, Syl. I can’t see it coming.”
“Can you not do something for our visibility?”
“What? How?”
Syl cups her hands and then blows them outward like an explosion. “With your power.”
I smack my forehead. Jesus Lord, the Citadel gave powers to the least creative person on the planet. “You’re right. I’ll try it.”
The clicking is louder now. Slower, too. Circling us. Each tap is like a spike to my brain. It’s toying with us.
Anticipation of the Corroc’s attack makes my power slippery and elusive. I concentrate on the ball of energy in my chest, seize it and hold it tight. “Got it,” I whisper.
I imagine a dome that wraps Syl and I like an igloo, then throw my strength into it. The effect is immediate; the mist flows around us but doesn’t penetrate my invisible walls. “Okay, now…” The next part is harder. I push outward in every direction at once, concentrating pure will into the thrust.
I groan at the effort. The walls resist me, at first, and for a moment there’s a white-hot lance to my brain. Twin trails of blood leak from my nose as I grit my teeth and try harder.
Push…
“Sam, perhaps you should not–”
The pain intensifies as I pour more power into my effort. I go to my knees, shutting out Syl’s voice, and I push…
Still nothing. What am I doing wrong? My walls are solid, unyielding and…
Walls.
All this exists in my mind. If I think of them as walls…
I shift my perception, imagining a massive explosion of pure air emanating from the core that is Syl and I. Instantly, the mist presses outward, blowing away like a reverse mushroom cloud. We’re buffeted by the force of it and the sudden roar of the rushing air deafens me, but it works. I open my eyes just in time to see the fog race away from us, exposing the crater.
And the Corroc.
It stands about fifteen feet away like something out of a nightmare. It’s pure black, and its surface oozes and flows like the liquid in the crater. It’s as tall as I am, and too long arms stretch almost to the ground. Skeletal fingers are capped with jagged claws that are as long as Syl’s but are far less elegant; they’re uneven, like they’ve been cut with the world’s worst clippers, and the little spaces and divots in them are filled with something like fungus.
Its eyes are huge, taking up half its face, pure black and wide in almost comical surprise. Clearly, it wasn’t expecting to lose its cover.
Take that, asshole.
Syl springs forward like a bolt of lightning, and I toss a fist of power almost as fast. I wish I still had my plasma rifle from the Citadel, but this will have to do.
The Corroc’s shock evaporates, and it blinks away. Syl tumbles through the spot it occupied only a millisecond before, sliding across the slippery rock with ridiculous grace as she spins in place.
There’s murder on her face. “There is no honor in this. It makes a mockery of us.”
I’m already turning, trying to find it. “I don’t think it cares much about all that,” I say. “At least, its programmers didn’t.”
Syl lopes back to me, barely breathing hard. “When we escape from here, I will find them,” she vows. “And explain their error.”
There’s so much malice in her simple statement that I almost step away from her. “One more reminder of why I’m so glad we’re clan.”
Her mouth opens to say something, probably sexual or terrifying or both, but at that moment the Corroc flashes past us. Syl’s not quick enough, this time, and we both take a blow hard enough to spin us in place.
It’s over so quickly that it takes me a moment to realize what part of me hurts. The pain is worse now. Three long cuts along my chest that burn with instant fever. “Shit. We can’t keep this up.”
Syl’s eyes dart, tracking. “I think…” She whips around, and something blurs toward us before flickering away. “I think I can see it.”
“I’m glad one of us can,” I say, wiping blood from my chest as I try to track what Syl’s seeing. “Getting rid of the fog didn’t do jack for me.”
“When I say to–” She cuts off, pushing me aside again. I go with it, this time, not falling as the clicks dart past. Syl dives after, rolling like an acrobat when her claws catch nothing but air.
She boils up, snarling. “Too fast.”
Syl’s chest heaves, now, the first time she’s shown effort. My wounds burn, draining my strength slowly but surely. Shit… “Syl, it’s not trying to kill us. It’s just wearing us down.”
She hurries back to me. “We must end this.”
“But how? If we can’t catch it…”
Syl grunts in frustration. “Wick appears to have accidentally underestimated the Corroc’s difficulty. This may be beyond us.”
“No shit,” I say. Or did he… A seedling of doubt worms its way into our mind.
There’s no time to ponder it. Syl’s crouching, ready for another strike. Which means it’s about to attack.
There has to be a way to track it. Some way to anticipate…
“Syl, the water.”
“What?”
“Look,” I say, reaching to turn her head.
In the distance, circling us. The surface of the water eddies as the Corroc passes. It’s moving too quick for me to see, but the path it leaves…
Syl’s eyes widen, as does her grin. “Sam. Brilliant.”
“Thanks,” I say, “think you can take it this time?”
“We are about to find out,” she says, going into full Wolverine mode. She darts forward, and she’s so fast that if I wasn’t currently being attacked by a moving shadow I’d be amazed.
I don’t have time to process what happens. The eddies suddenly turn to us. Syl’s already moving. Her claws come up as the clicks sharpen and…
Nothing. She tumbles forward again, a glittering blur as she rolls and comes up empty handed. “Still too fast!”
“I–”
Three lances of agony, across my back again, so fast I don’t realize it’s happened until it’s over. I stumble forward a step as Astra’s material tears and my nostrils fill with rot.
Shit. That one was bad. My entire back burns like it’s been doused with acid.
This has gone on long enough. I grab the healing potion from my back and…
It’s not there.
Shit shit shit. Where? I turn full circle before spying it laying in the distance. One of the Corroc’s attacks must have torn it from my belt. Its crimson liquid stands out like a stain of blood against the shadowed rock and flowing green liquid.
But at least it’s not broken. If I can just get to it… I dart forward, but instinct takes over again and I dive to the side, rolling desperately. Claws brush my cheek, so close that I can feel the wind of their passing.
It attacked the second I went for the healing potion. Like it knew.
I scramble up, look for Syl.
“Sam!” Syl she shouts, sprinting back to me. “Sam, I am sorry. I am not fast enough.”
Wick definitely led us astray. I’m going to kill him if we make it out of this.
If.
“What do we do?” I gasp, desperate now.
“We must arrest its movement,” Syl says, almost plastered to me like she plans to protect my body with hers. “Stop it somehow.”
“Fucking how?” I ask. “Even knowing where it is, we can’t see it.”
“I do not know.” Syl sounds as desperate as I feel. “I cannot protect you, though. We either flee, or we die.”
“Not a fan of option two.”
Syl’s body is warm against mine. “It is every Threvian’s dream to die in battle, to pass to the Broodmother in a welter of blood and slaughter.” She turns suddenly, lips brushing my cheek in a quick press. “If we die today, Sam, know that I relish passing from this life to the next with you. We will mate in the afterlife soon.”
“Okay, that actually sounds weirdly great,” I say, somehow managing a laugh through the now constant ache and my swimming head. “But I still don’t plan on dying today.”
The clicks circle us again. The Corroc isn’t attacking. Why?
Because it thinks I’ve taken enough poison to go down eventually. I realize that it’s focused on me since its first attack was turned aside by Syl’s scales. Which makes a certain kind of sense. I’m squishy, she isn’t. Take me down, and it doesn’t have to risk fighting two of us at once.
But it doesn’t know about Bombor’s poison resistance.
“I think we have a little time,” I whisper.
Syl is close, and fast enough to kill this thing. If we can just stop it.
Have to think. If only it would run into something…
Could that work? Am I fast enough?
“Syl, get ready.”
“I am always ready.”
I don’t bother with witty banter. There’s no time. Instead, I squint, watch the eddies in the current as the Corroc speeds around us. It’s about twenty feet distant.
Just… there.
I throw up a wall of power. It’s not huge, just a few feet across and a couple yards ahead of the trail the Corroc leaves across the water.
It hits my wall like a boulder. My power shatters, but that doesn’t matter because the Corroc hits it like a fucking truck. It impacts so violently that droplets of blood spatter around us at this distance.
“Fuck yes!” I shout as Syl launches forward like she’s been shot from a catapult. Ten claws raise high, death hanging above the Corroc’s already stirring body for a split second before she lashes down with savage ferocity. Ten claws pierce the creature’s body.
It screams. The first sound it’s made that wasn’t a click. Its death cry rings out across the crater, unmistakably mortal. It’s almost a wolf’s howl before it’s swallowed by a gurgle as its throat fills with blood.
I stagger up to Syl as she holds it pinned to the rock. It thrashes, strangely reminiscent of Annabelle with Syl had her in the same position. Even dying, it’s body twitches and blurs and its clawed arms lashing the ground in slaps faster than I can see.
It seems to take forever to die. Like a bug, it still twitches and claws the ground long after it should.
“That… Was a bitch,” Syl pants.
I laugh, leaning on her. “Excellent usage. Ten out of ten.”
Then it’s over. I slump against Syl as the lassitude of the poison asserts itself. “Uhhh…”
“Sam,” she says, turning to support my weight. She doesn’t question me; she’s too worried. Her claws retract like they never existed as she takes me under the arms. “Are you functional?”
“Oh yeah, peachy,” I slur. “Gotta feeling I’d be dead right now if not for that old deus ex thingy.” My head swims now that the battle focus drains and the blood seeps deeper into my body.
Syl lowers me to the ground. “One moment.” She’s gone and back fast enough that my jacked brain almost doesn’t realize she’s left.
Something cold and round touches my lips. “Drink,” she instructs.
“Ohh yeah,” I grin against the glass. “One thing’s universal, I guess. Even alien’s tryna get someone drunk so they can take advagtan… adntagve… So, they can get with the fuckin’.” I giggle. “S’ok. I’m ready for round two if you is. Are.”
Syl clicks. “Sam, I know I do not have to get you intoxicated to… fuck… you.” She pushes the glass harder. “Now, drink.”
“Sure thing, babe.” I take a long swallow.
The effect is instant. The healing potion chases the venom from my body starting with my brain. I can feel the warm liquid tear through my veins like some kind of magic repair crew. The cuts left by the Corroc knit as green death pulses from my skin, pooling on the surface. Awareness sharpens, as does my embarrassment.
I stand with her help, rubbing my forehead as the last, lingering ache fades. “Ohhh man. Now I know how Mika felt.” I lean my forehead on Syl’s cheek. “Sorry about that. I mean, after everything we’ve done it’s no secret that I’m way into everything that you’re packing,” I laugh. “I just try not to be so… Crass… About it. Mostly.”
“My people are immune to most intoxicants,” she says. “But I have found that in other species, when their minds are liberated in such a manner, their inner desires come out far more honestly.” Her eyes rake my body. “I like it.”
“You like the dirty talk. Got it.” I wink.
The Corroc’s body finally stills.
A sharp ding rings out over the landscape. It’s like someone’s rung the world’s loudest bell, and its reverberation pounds into
my already addled brain. “Whaaa…”
Syl shakes her head. “What was…”
We both freeze as we feel it. Our bodies tighten and go taut like we’ve been tazed. My muscles strain and lock up and for a split second, my mind clears.
Power threads my veins, and I stagger at the almost sexual pleasure. My muscles and tendons tighten, and my connection to my power blazes.
“What was that?” Syl asks, flexing her free arm.
“Thinks we just… Levelled up.”
I flex my bicep. “Damn. That feels amazing. I think we just wasted a sip of the healing potion.”
Syl’s eyes crinkle with concern. “Are you fully healed? Jests aside, for a moment I thought…”
“No, I’m great,” I say. “Better than great. I feel awesome. And we levelled up. That’s baller.” I put one foot on the Corroc’s back, posing like a conqueror. “Little touch and go, but goddamn. How good does it feel to just win one? To not come an ass hair from dying?”
Syl recoils. “Ass hair?” She shakes her head. “But I know what you mean. Even with your use of the healing potion, we fared far better than I am used to.”
“Yeah, after the Citadel, and even fighting Havel when we got here…” I take a long breath, reveling in our victory. “It feels good to not be outclassed for once, even if you were way more useful than I was.”
“Untrue. I could not have dispersed the mist. I could not stop the beast.” Her arm flexes, and her muscles shimmer in the sunlight, lean and powerful. “There are different sorts of strength. Speed. We could not have done it without your brilliance.” Syl nods with respect. “There is a reason we follow you. You are worthy.” She smiles sadly.
For some reason, this hits hard. I smile at her, stepping over the Corroc to take her forearm in what I imagine is a warrior’s grip. “I kind of love fighting with you at my side, have to admit.” You’re not leaving me yet.
“That is definitely a mutual sentiment.” She turns to the Corroc’s body. It’s oddly small and unimposing, now, after seeming so huge and terrifying before. “Let us take its head and leave this place.”
Aspirant 2: A Sci-Fi Harem Adventure Page 23