492. Blood, 9

(Myls)

Blume was right, about everything.

Magenta rose sideway in the sky. It would not reach a zenith right above us this way. Not anymore.

It was too far away to bring a death rain directly above us. I still felt like we should hide, but Blume was confident.

After the closest point to zenith had passed, a spark appeared behind it in the sky.

Another falling star.

A calamity to replace the previous one, but so far away.

We were still flying on Snake, with good speed.

I was giving my middle finger to the magenta light on its way out.

Snake wasn’t comfortable but kept flying straight toward the distant ocean, far beyond the horizon still.

The new calamity was a ball of fire as usual, a meteor, still propelled straight into our direction.

To be more accurate, it was heading slightly ahead of us, to an anticipated intersection course. No less...

Blume and I were expecting it on the head of the so-called Snake.

But then, the ball of fire in the distance divided itself, spreading into a wave of flames. A large cloud, stretching on its side, while it got closer.

And then, out of it appeared the calamities. Countless things.

It had saved up on them for a long time. Now it probably thought this was its last chance for a long time... And threw at us everything it had saved and got.

An army of winged calamities were becoming visible in the approaching cloud of fire, not just one, but dozens and dozens...

B - Fuck...

M - Just use these fruits you’ve grown Blume.

So I said, checking that both my handguns and spare clips were all ready for work.

Blume opened her back. Brambles like scorpion tails were stretching out. The sword she held then was beginning to gleam in an unnatural fashion.

She was ready. I was less, as a mere human here, but I wasn’t about to forget why we were in this situation.

Come at me piece of shit. Throw what you got.

~

I headed for the tail of Snake. About two third down its back.

The first calamities were soon to be at arm’s reach.

Snake just suddenly rose in altitude, a little scared. Blume asked her to return for intersection against Snake’s better instinct, so we could slaughter them and not let any escape.

I don’t know what she said, but that was probably the idea.

Whatever she said, Snake returned nervously to the altitude where the fight was now beginning.

Blume exhaled in a sound of an explosion the red mist she sometimes used. She spewed it as far as she could, forcing most calamities to fly through it, even but for a second.

It was terribly effective against their flight and glow. Many of them just dropped like flies unable to keep flight.

The first one reaching Snake received my bullets straight in the torso and rapidly fell.

One. Two. Three, four.

More than I could count getting close to we.

Explosions of light and darkness already flashing near the head.

Arcs of blood flying all over Snake.

I felt my mind change.

I went entirely into the fight.

~

During endless minutes that felt long like days, every movement was done to achieve a proper shot and survive.

I listened to every sound of my weapons and the skies. I reacted to every change of reflection of light over what I held and everything surrounding me.

I felt as if the little one was still in me to increase my strength and speed.

I kept shooting an endless stream of angelic looking things, coming at me from everywhere, in any shape or form. I kept shooting with my left hand while the right one somehow reloaded its own gun.

I had to kneel for this trick of reloading with one hand, so I had to find the right times to do so.

The fluffy horde was also attacking Snake’s wings. If she couldn’t brush them off directly, I had to go and help.

My brain was filled with notifications and alarms about such things. I was everywhere and my mind gliding.

All the world around me was seen in glimpses, short moments without a beast in my field of vision and a handgun shooting at them.

Like pictures, through painfully slow time.

And my burning brain managed to tell me all the time about the dangers it noticed.

Like tapping on my shoulder and pointing in a frozen instant at one of them in the distance, and telling me that one stood there for more than four seconds already. It’s abnormal, and a cause for alarm. Go.

And I reacted in the next second, attacking that calamity trying to summon big fire against Snake.

I progressed through that autumn wind, with bigger wings and feathers falling instead of leaves.

Blume was doing three times as much at least in the distance. I caught glimpses of her indomitable wrath. She was shredding them.

Snake herself was getting hurt everywhere and trying her best to keep a steady flight.

At some point she went for a sudden twirl, to shake off some of these blood thirsty insects.

Columns of fire still erupted here and there at times, burning her severely.

Even one against me.

I survived. My clothes and my hair were halfway burnt, but I survived.

I suddenly had a small respite.

I breathed like I didn’t for five minutes, and reloaded both my weapons and even some spare clips, as many as I could.

They still were coming and flying around us, looking for a good place to strike.

Then the worst of alarms suddenly screamed in my head, deafening me.

I was suddenly dropping the clip and bullets I was just working on, to aim both my pistols at the threat.

I felt a small shock and bigger shiver as I looked at her, standing there where she just softly landed. Just a few steps away, standing mighty and glaring at me with hatred.

Her hair was short.

She held a sort of sword with nacre on the blade. There was so much painful fire imbued with hatred in her eyes.

And she held herself there for a moment, not attacking mindlessly like the other, but looking straight at me.

M - ... Calamity?

I probably imagined the spiteful smirk appearing on a side of her face.

I began shooting as she rushed at me. She dodged bullet after bullet and attacked me at the end of her course.

I saw my death in her. A swift move later, I would be over.

My heart released all its acids. I would later remember that thing about snake’s teeth. On the moment I only acted on impulse.

When you’re being bitten by a snake and want to escape, your instinct to pull is playing against you. You will need to push your bitten part further into the mouth to free yourself. I didn’t realise at the moment, but I did the right thing on good intuition instead of panic.

Instead of stepping back and dying by the sword, I went to contact before she could reach me.

Before I could realise what I did, I had thrown her out of balance and further away in the distance.

And by the time she herself realised it, I was shooting her in the back.

That monster with bullet wounds by the burnt wings shoulders and spine still escaped. I hit it at least once this time, as blood was splattered.

We exchanged another glare, and then she left me to rush toward Blume instead.

They were far less lower calamities around by now.

I reloaded and ran after her.

~

Blume, still far away from me, was a tornado of flesh being ripped away and brambles slashing any calamity they could reach.

She shredded them apart, dissolving their flesh inside her red clouds, stretching her mist away in the winds.

And heading in her direction running barefoot was the only calamity with short hair and without wings. They had burnt into stumps before landing, once again, shaping some kind of ox horns protruding from her back.

I shot her when I had a chance. She didn’t even look back and still dodged my shot. It’s frustrating!

Others of these winged white nightmares came at me, slowing me down.

I dodged a glowing hand and shot her in the face. I shot another belly and a torso, enough times to splash blood all over my arms.

I felt fatigue, but then even more wrath animating me.

I aimed for the heads and shot well.

Harder to hit from a distance, but more efficient.

I moved pass more falling bodies and resumed my pursuit of the true calamity.

It was reaching Blume.

A flash of light exploded.

~

Snake twitched, meaning the ground suddenly collapsed for a moment below my feet. I fell there a few metres suddenly, but not down in the sky luckily.

The calamity had lit her full corrosive light, dissolving all organic flesh and tissues around her.

That included Blume, but also Snake. A ball of corrosive light was sinking into the back of Snake like a drilling hole, wounding her.

A fountain of blood appeared in front of me, and for the first time, I heard Snake scream.

That deafening rumbling noise, more like rocks cracking during an earthquake than an animal voice, it numbed my ears.

It was followed soon by her fall.

Snake stopped flapping her wings, shocked or unconscious, a wide bleeding hole in the back of the neck.

She began falling, sending all of us in a state of nullified gravity.

The blood of Snake escaping her wound was profuse. I worried for her.

The ball of light was gloating out of a gaping wound, with Blume trying to cover both.

Blume’s sword appeared like a javelin, heading suddenly straight to the bubble blinding us still.

It was deviated by the sword that calamity held herself.

I crawled over Snake to get closer, holding onto its fur.

Blume and the reappearing calamity in now fading light were crossing swords violently. I saw sparks.

I crawled further.

I saw Blume’s sword get broken.

I saw Blume’s head being removed in another swift cut.

Calamity decapitated her.

Blume’s body seemed to collapse into Snake’s wound slowly.

Calamity was wounded too, but she had won. Or so she thought.

Barely standing, I aimed at her with both hands. She was floating in her now soft glow.

I shot everything I could in the shortest time, to leave her no escape.

Without feet on the ground, she can’t dodge. She can’t!

She was hit multiple times, but still could move around and wasn’t hit nearly as much as I hoped for.

She turned around to me again. Her gaze was hurting me.

Snake recovered and began resuming to fly. We all fell heavily on her.

Other calamities reached us as I was still trying to stand up.

I shot more of them. I kicked one out of the bridge we stood on. A trail of her blood spread behind her.

The true calamity still stood, though now dying again.

She still had fire in her eyes. Blood all over her face, drooling fluids.

Her eyes still told me this was not over.

She would return.

Magenta would keep resurrecting her, over and over.

That thing lived a hell, shredded between her god and us.

Blume rose behind her as she still held her sword against me.

A dark shape. A silhouette of darkness.

Calamity was jumping at me.

Blume caught her with thin black vines. Threads, soon growing into ropes.

The agonising calamity was entangled and dying.

The black shape grabbed the sword that calamity was unable to hold anymore.

I couldn’t stay there, the last ones now landing further on Snake’s back.

M - Blume, don’t kill her!

B - too late...

Blume swallowed her entirely in the messy pile of flesh and plants that was in the wound of Snake.

Calamity screamed her agony in a gurgle and drew her last breath in pain.

I think Blume just made a mistake.

Meanwhile I ran toward the last ones.

~

Snake almost crashed. She managed to land not too abruptly in a coastal area. In the distance, we could see the ocean.

No forest around. Just some grass in fields beside an old megalopolis now shrouded in a toxic cloud.

I had some skin burns, but nothing serious.

Blume was abandoning the human shape for now, but she was alright.

Snake however still bled, because of the deep wound the calamity had struck.

Now a moment of respite before the end...

~