490. Pragmatic flesh, 7

(Myls)

For the first time, I was riding this bike at night.

On the trail of the calamity that escaped.

Blume made a good point for not allowing it to escape and survive.

It’s that if it dies away from us, there’s a high chance that something else will take over that corpse.

Something potentially worse.

That’s a reason why she always decapitated them, aside her taste for brains that is.

So we don’t want to take the chance of leaving a calamity loose, and potentially turning into a worse monster someday.

Blume carries the nuclear bombs to Snake while I track the wounded thing.

Despite her exhaustion and wounds, she still ran very fast and far.

Another reason why we’re there now, was Blume’s cry over the stolen sword of light.

B - It’s my sword!

She had lost all human appearance during the struggle. Her head melted against the exploding light and her arms were ripped off during the fight.

The voice she had for that screaming emotion was still surprisingly human.

This blade meant a lot to her...

~

I finally caught up with her.

Her clothes were reduced to underwear. Her hair had completely burned. Her eyes were still piercing sharp with a hateful gaze. The bleeding wounds had coagulated it seemed, mostly. She was dripping less blood, so far from the observatory.

I stopped at a good distance, because she was holding the said sword in hand, and obviously was ready to use it against me.

Given her speed in fights, I don’t want to get too close. I would be beheaded before I realise it.

I drew my handgun from a fair distance and aimed.

She ran to me. By the time I would have shot two times, she would have reached me already, so I restarted the engine instead. I rolled a little further away.

She still was after me. I wouldn’t be able to ride and shoot accurately at the same time, so I focused on escaping until she gave up.

~

I lost sight of her.

I heard two noises.

A distant one, from Snake on her way.

Another one right above me.

I jumped before she landed a dreadful strike, crushing the engine of my motorcycle.

The young thing inside of me awoke.

We agreed it was time. Because it was now or never.

I drew out my second handgun and began shooting.

The calamity still evaded most of my shots, getting closer to me, a long sword in hand.

My legs reacted with the dark little thing’s assistance, and I jumped backward and high, away from her. A few metres high and far. An inhuman jump. And I just did it.

I landed heavily, but steadily back on my feet.

The calamity wasn’t impressed and didn’t wait, but I still had bullets to shoot and energy to spare.

Wounds accumulated over her body. Maybe only one bullet in ten managed to land a hit, but they accumulated.

She was bleeding and breathing more and more raggedly.

She was gasping for air, barely holding the sword now. She needed to grip it with both hands, breathing in against the blood dripping inside her lungs.

I was reloading meanwhile.

She still avoided most shots for that last showdown, but many hit her in the torso, pushing her back like punches and finally throwing her down.

She dropped the sword on the ground and coughed more liquids than air.

Then a faceless beast suddenly landed next to me. Brambles crawling along the ground picked up the sword lost there. Calamity looked at it without the strength to react, just attempting to breathe a little more.

B - Thank you Myls.

C - ...

M - This calamity really has a different spark...

Blume crawled as the beast she was, closer to the bleeding calamity still struggling to breathe, trying desperately to hold herself on her knees to stand again.

She screamed in her last moment. With real terror and pain.

Blume was merciless. The moving pot of jungle just devoured the thing that looked too human in the end.

They really make me feel uneasy.

~

The next morning, after an awful night and little sleep, I was trying to collect myself back together, while enjoying the sight from the top of Snake.

The calamity from last night had truly left an impression on me.

Blume had new human features beginning to grow on her. They’re made to interact with me, to play human, more than anything else.

M - Have you learnt anything from that one?

B - Not quite. There was something peculiar in her head, but not a knowledge per se as we see it.

M - What was it?

B - I’m not entirely sure. A familiar pattern. Something that is more daiûa than flesh.

M - She had the powers of a daiûa.

They all come with a battery of magic energy it seems. A crystalline shard stuck in their heart and diffusing it as needed in their blood.

That one had saved energy on her landing as much as possible, in order to have more power to spare fighting us. A bold strategy.

That one was really fierce.

I manage to relax a little now, enjoying the sights from the sky.

Blume is still cleaning the long sword very carefully. I guess it’s the only thing left to remind her she loves humans more than demons.

My heart aches. The sorrow quickly turns into hatred for the one responsible in the skies above.

M - The calamities will only become worse, right?

B - Probably... I don’t know where Magenta collects its food now... But it will always improve everything.

Where does a god feeds? It hasn’t poured rain over us in a while now.

Blume inspects the sword now sharpened and oiled, glossy like new. She seems satisfied, as she sheathes it somewhere in her leaves.

M - We’re heading toward the spaceport so?

B - Yes. It will take a while, even for Snake. More calamities will come.

M - What’s the limit to that magical power?

B - For a huge body like the largest daiûas can develop, hard to say. The physics of T.I. changes in nature at certain levels. However for a shard inside the human bodies of the calamities...

Like some Licht I guess. Blume thinks about her answer for a long moment.

B - I think the limit is already passed behind us. That kind of powers they display and carry, they can’t survive very long with that. Not a normal human life by far.

M - So they really are just weapons... With limited time and more power. What bodies could carry more power then?

B - Anything can carry more power. But probably not in a more stable way. It’s very likely the next calamities will be even stronger, but with an even lower lifespan than they already have.

M - What would be their lifespan right now?

B - Maybe a year or two. The more power they will carry to consume, the shorter it will fall as their body will fail. They’re just sentient weapons built upon human template.

I sigh. I start thee maintenance of my handguns.

There will be more fights to come.

The last scream still echoes in my head, just as Blume began devouring her alive.

There will be more...

I wish I could hug Zes and I feel the pain swelling inside.

More hatred sweat out of me now.

~

Blume watches the skies as we fly.

She thinks Magenta has more to its body than the main star. The body that can gather and concentrate more power than biology could, steadily... Either other satellites, or filaments floating around the globe.

B - That’s what I would do. Grow filaments that spread as rings around the Earth.

I shiver at the idea of such monsters able to observe or threaten everything like that. What the Lichts fought against...

B - There may be something playing in our favour though. Magenta’s orbit is on a different axis, and its speed was certainly adjusted to fly over as often as possible.

M - So?

B - The bad news about its orbit is it can fly over most of the world given time, aside the poles. The good news is, as we fly fast enough with Snake, we have a fair chance of losing the synchronicity at some point.

So given enough time, Magenta could always be on a wrong point of its orbit path as we cross it from below, or too far near the horizon for it to attack. We could lose Magenta!

M - Sounds good! The less chances this shit has to pour horrors over our heads the better!

B - I like our odds for that. We’ll have to be ready for what comes on our encounters, but yes, this is a real chance to make the most of.

We’re sure Magenta will be able to adapt. But there will be a gap for us to use. An opportunity to invest in.

Blume winks.

I do my best to reply likewise this time.

~