Chapter 11:

A New Talent

The God Eater


J’s imposing figure stood over me. Charlotte’s broken body lay next to me. She hadn’t moved at all. The fact she didn’t bleed didn’t even surprise me anymore. I figured I was about the only one on this ship that still had blood to lose.

“Do it!” J boomed. The grizzled roar that followed made me wince.

“I said no.”

His arm swung across my face. The sound of his hand connecting with my face echoed. I didn’t let it throw me though. I willed myself to stay firmly planted on the ground. He swung again, this time I reached up and stopped the blow. J began throwing punches from left and right. His swings wild and full of rage.

“You will never tell me what to do.” I felt calm for some reason as I said it. Maybe I knew that if I enraged him enough I would die and be free from this hell. Maybe it was because I could sense the darkness around him fading. And this time it didn’t return. Maybe it was because of the warmth I felt, Charlotte’s hand having reached over to touch my leg. She was still alive, and her power was slowly healing my body. Maybe it was my new senses picking up the raging blue energy that seemed to start billowing out from me.

Maybe I could actually fight back.

Maybe I could help Charlotte.

“You will never have power over me!” I screamed. The roar that came out after the words was a war cry. A challenge to the devil himself. And for an instant, I saw the tinniest waver in J’s eyes. He had almost blinked.

I sprang toward him. The aura around me swelling and eating away at his remaining darkness. I struck him savagely, with every claw and tooth that I could reach him with. When I swiped my right hand over his face, his right knee slammed into my gut. Instead of feeling pain, I bit down onto his neck. Releasing my scream into his cold hard muscle. J’s roar reverberated in my head. His hands pulling at me to rip me away from him. I sank my claws and teeth in farther. Refusing to let go. He fell to a knee, holding himself up by slamming us both into the wall. Pinning me under his weight against it. My grip slackened. It was getting hard to hold on. I needed something else to attack with. I couldn’t let go anymore, but it wouldn’t kill him if we stayed like this.

I wish I could use my aura like J did. But I still didn’t know what it was. He had sucked it in somehow, and then moved faster than I could see.

“Your getting to be more trouble than your worth, bitch. If I didn’t need you to lure your father out, I would’ve just killed you and been done with it.”

I took a look up at his face, he was in full beast mode, but his sneer was still clearly written all over his face. Like he expected to win even though I had gotten a hold of him.

I looked back down between us. Charlotte’s blue hoodie was the only thing I could see. J’s body was pressed so hard against mine that it had pushed up. Letting my senses tell me more, I could feel my bare stomach touching J’s fur. It was coarse and itched. Then I noticed the swirl of energy in between us. His black swirling into my blue. I focused on the swirl. It expanded. My eyes widened slightly, and it mimicked the movement. Now it looked like an oval. The swirls mixing the black and blue together until…

BOOOMMM!!!

The auras ripped away from each other, as our bodies were thrown in separate directions. I slammed back to the ground. My head was spinning. I vomited immediately when I tried to stand.

“What the hell was that?” I mumbled. I couldn’t hear my own thoughts, and I could barely speak. Unable to stand I just slumped back to the floor.

I could just barely see the huge unmoving body on the other end of the hall. Had I done it? Whatever I had done. Had it killed him? I felt like it killed me. If I closed my eyes I felt like I would pass on and never wake up again.

“Are you ok? No! Oh Fenrir! Your body!” That was Charlottes voice. Good. At least I hadn’t killed her. “We have only a short time before he’s back.” Her hands were passing over my body, her energy flowing into me. It amazed me just how capable she was. Healing me so expertly. The haze was clearing from my head. I tried to stand again. I had to know if I killed him or not.

“Not yet, your aura is trying to feed on your body. You need to take control of it.”

My aura is doing what? How could energy I expelled attack me?

“Uhhnnn…hhuhhh?” Was all I could manage.

“You’ve connected with the natural energies around you. And since you don’t have control of it, it will eat your essence until your left as nothing more than a husk. You took too much power without knowing what it was. You might as well have started a fire and dumped gas all over yourself before running through it.”

“Oh…” I fell back to the ground. Charlotte kept healing me. I tried to see the blue aura around me again, but it wasn’t blue anymore. It was a dark purple. And the whorls and swirls were going in and out of me all over. Well that can’t be good. Charlotte said this was eating me. Was it gonna turn me into Swiss cheese? How do I stop it? I only knew that I could sense it. Whatever I had down to blow it up hadn’t been on purpose.

“Stop the energy flow. Just let it go away. You have to focus.” Charlotte’s voice brought my focus back to reality. Smoke was floating all around us. Two bodies lay on the other side of the hall. And Charlotte was looking as if she had just been fully washed. Clothes spotless and unshreded.

“How?” My voice was getting stronger.

“You have to be at peace with the energy. You were able to harness it for your gain. Now let it go before it consumes you as well. It’s not sentient. It’s just energy, and it’s an energy that attaches and feeds on physical life. When you have it under control though it lives harmoniously with us. It’s how I heal you. It’s how J is so strong and fast. It’s how you seem to have endless strength even though your still mortal.”

“Did you die?”

“I have died many times.”

“But just now, here….”

“Yes.”

Her short answer stopped me. I felt a tear run down my cheek.

“It was my fault wasn’t it.”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry.” I couldn’t stop the sudden sob that followed. I hadn’t wanted her to die as well. The energy around me flared in response to the emotion.

“Thank you. I know you wouldn’t have done it on purpose. I’m glad I still had this body to jump into. And that I was close enough to save you before you died as well.”

“Is J dead?”

“His body may have been damaged beyond repair this time. But he will be back very soon.”

“How?”

“It’s a long story that I don’t have time to explain right now. Right now we need you to hang on and focus on not being consumed by the energy that your holding.”

“Where do I put it? I don’t know how to control it.”

Charlotte took my hands in hers. Slowly she raised them until they pointed straight out from us.

“Put it here. In your palms.” She turned our hands palms up.

The purple energy grew and collapsed over and over. When the green slowly enveloped it, the melded together. The purple faded back to a dull blue. And as I watched, I could feel the energy begin to flow down my arm. Soon both of our auras were in a neatly wrapped ball. Not swirling anymore, not going in and out of me, but sitting peacefully.

The weight of it made me think I would drop it. But it hovered just above our hands. Her cool fingers looked so pale when over my warm blue fur. It was calming for some reason. When she pulled her hands back, the green aura went with her. My blue energy swelled a little, but I focused on keeping it in a ball.

“Let it go. But make sure you let it go somewhere that isn’t going to hurt the ones you would protect.”

I looked over my shoulder at her and smiled. The first time I can remember smiling for real in a long time. Then I turned back, aimed at the giant lump of a body down the hall. And released all my rage and energy with the aura. It shot off and smashed into J. His unmoving corpse now scattered into tiny pieces.

“I wanna end this, now. I need to get away. You need to get away. Neither of us are safe here anymore.” I knew if Charlotte stayed, even if I got away or died, she would be the target of J’s rage. “Where is he?”

As angry as I was, this new sense was keeping my head level. The energy I felt around me was soothing now that I knew more about it. Charlotte had given me the key to controlling it. I wasn’t perfect yet, but I could use it if I concentrated.

“You won’t win.”

“I have to try, I can’t just let him do as he pleases.”

“He’ll be coming back down here. If you wait, he’ll find you.”

I walked to the next hall. Did I wait here in ambush, go out swinging? I could raise a lot of hell if I went out now and blasted my way through. Maybe I could even get on one of those escape ships and go somewhere else.

“Would you come with me?”

I looked back at Charlotte. She was the only friend I had now. And I didn’t want to leave her here.

“If I could. But J would never allow it.”

“Then wait here. I’ll go get us a ride.”