435. Storm, 7

(Rose)

Thunderbolts rained over the land. A cataclysmic downpour was about to follow these giant sparks.

The clouds covered the sky heavily.

And out of them, came out the beast, flying from that dark ocean.

It landed in the wide parking, heavy. I was far away, mind in shambles maybe, but intelligence still clear enough to act according to plan.

Being suddenly depressed didn’t make me suicidal. I had laid traps, ready for this moment.

I guess the first symptom of feeling wrong was this time having shitty idea like summoning that one in the distance.

Let’s see if I can still be up for the challenge I’ve brought to myself.

~

Rain followed. Thunder roars all around like a wider throat for the beast. Everything is dimmer and numb.

And ahead, a demon with herculean strength is now on its guards, looking for me.

It will hunt me. Walls won’t stop him. Normal walls at least.

But the reactor building has some walls I want to try using against him. Some walls here are sturdier than granite stone walls.

And some in this place are even poisonous now.

This fight, I can’t win heading straight on, sword in hand. Though right now I feel terrible I can’t do that.

It would really make me relieve something to just charge openly, yelling like a beast.

But that would simply be a painful suicide.

I still want to live, and to be smarter than myself.

So Priest is actually looking for me while I hide cowardly, and trigger now my spiral of traps.

My sword remains on my back, as my last chance and resort. Only if everything else fails and I get cornered will I wield it.

I summoned the beast here because I have the best advantage of the terrain.

I have knowledge. I want to win with that.

Somewhere in my murk that wants to act beastly, that spark of excitement rose. The one from an incredible game about to begin.

One I shouldn’t have started to begin with surely, but that I then planned as best I could.

Priest is charging a building on all four like a bull. The game begins.

~

Walls collapse. I’m far. But I’ve left baits.

I know enough about him, and myself and about T.I, to know how to proceed.

My baits are simply elements carrying my smell, my warmth, both in the material world and in T.I.

I created copies, looking like me if you’re far enough, and likely blind. They’re just sculptures of random rubbish, with a few twists.

One of the twists is in the rotting fruits that smell like me, in every way. The next one is in the radioactive pellets that I’ve crushed and sprayed all around them.

The buildings surrounding the compound all have with a decoy of myself or two, heavily loaded with radioactive materials.

From the distance, through a scope, I check that Priest does run, from one bait to the next. He does. Good.

The buildings collapse one after another under his mindless wrath. And I keep eluding him, to his annoyance.

He then rushes to the next trap like a dummy.

It works better than I expected. I thought he would realise they were traps after the second or third one. He’s falling for all of them. Still this was only the outer edge of the spiral I’ve set for him here.

I’m acting the real thing now.

~

The imposing cooling tower has an underground with large pipes, leading into the reactor main building.

This will be the exit and end point of the spiral. It’s rigged with explosives I’ve made from the artefact.

I want to trap him inside the radioactive core for as long as possible, leaving these tunnels too small for him as the only way out.

So the trail I activate lures him crescendo through the loading bay inside the main building, and into the core.

The threads I pull, open crates releasing a stronger scent of myself right where I want him to go.

And it still works. I expected to need to activate the fake glows and movements too, but Priest acts excessively primal today.

I see him rushing inside, crushing the remaining decoys, and rushing faster than I could ask for inside the main chamber.

His body struggles inside the small corridors for his frame, but nothing stops him.

He knows I’m just there, close by, so he rips his skin against the jagged metal of the walls, machines and pipes, just to get to me.

He digs his way inside, madly. Blind with rage and pain, the monster just rushes into the last traps.

A kilometre away, under the rain, I’m snapping my fingers. A glow runs along an electrical cable, a thread at my feet. It heads to the building in the distance from which come loud rumbles and groans.

My impulse reaches the explosives that vitrify the building’s access to the core behind the monster.

The shockwave sends tremors in my legs. The tunnel he dug from a corridor is sealed behind him like magma.

He fell. He’s stuck inside that coffin now. And it’s very sturdy, even for him.

I hear violent pounds, even from outside. He must be breaking his bones against the walls inside that grave.

At some point he should find the pipes below his floor and attempt to flee from there.

I’m heading at the other end, trotting under the downpour. I see lightning in the distance. I’m mostly listening at the quakes coming from the building of the reactor core.

The cold rain washed my body and a good part of my nasty thoughts, but I’m still focused on the fight at hand.

I got in position. How long will I need to wait before he finds his way out of this poisonous room?

A long time I hope.

And it will end.