Soul and Core

Subject: Mortimer | Classif.: Sirath

The spines of an Abyssal Fangcrawler were like harpoons. Seeing them brought Tim back to a moment in time, where a single Fangcrawler took out an entire convoy of tanks. The spiked spears it launched punctured heavy composite armor as if it were paper, shooting straight through.

And with several of them locked onto his daughter-turned-monster, he could not imagine the damage it would cause. Any injuries she sustained were shared between forms. But could she even transform if those massive rods hit her? How much of her would be left? Not eager to find out, he leapt out of the car, almost ripping out the door in the process.

The colossal centipede-like form of his daughter turned to black smoke, sublimating in an instant. Shell and chitin turned into skin and bone. Mia reverted to her human self, just in time for the spines to pierce the vapor without hitting her.

A sigh of relief left his lungs, but got stuck in his throat. His daughter was safe, but his car was not.

The Fangcrawler’s armor-piercing projectiles were fractions of a second away from murdering his other child. The car. He threw himself in front of his baby, only to realize it was pointless; they would just go right through him. He only knew it for about a day and a half. It had survived drone attacks and MLRS strikes, but this would be the end. There was no way he could show his face to Jack ever again.

He closed his eyes and steeled himself, dread spreading through his system like a flash of lightning. The whistling of the spears cutting through the air grew closer and louder. Crack. The sound came not from his bones or the hood of his car, but in front of him. The unexpected noise silenced the whistling, as if all the spines snagged onto something hard.

When his eyes opened, the tip of a spine hovered less than an inch in front of his pupils. Hundreds of backward-facing barbs reflected off his iris, eager to taste flesh, only to taste stone. A huge earthen column had risen from the ground, intercepting the projectiles mid-flight, providing just enough resistance to stop them from coming closer.

Tim turned around, his heart filled with eternal gratitude for the princess. Having just recovered from her car sickness, she punched the ground just in time to save their transport. All the dried blood and mess she left in the backseat were no longer an issue. She had been forgiven.

With one catastrophe averted, he shifted his attention back to the earlier one, only to be called out by Lynn.

“Wait!”

Before he could even respond to the Immortal, she advised, “Don’t help her.”

“What?”

“Let her face it alone. Coddling her would do both of you no good.”

He paused. As a parent, his knee-jerk reaction was to get her out of harm’s way, but thinking about it, this was exactly the kind of on-field training that would help Mia in the future. An armored foe that would address her overreliance on firearms. But that was when it dawned on him.

“She’ll lose.”

-----

Subject: Mia | Classif.: Barzakh

Trying to talk her way out was always worth a shot. Unfortunately, Mia was not versed in Fangcrawler communication. Fortunately, she was an expert linguist when it came to the second language spoken by the monster.

Violence.

Feeling right at home in her teenage form, she sprinted forward in a blur, hoping to divert the Fangcrawler’s attention toward her instead of the car. She was relieved it was unharmed, but that relief was short-lived. The hulking mass of the monster’s body swung right at her like a whip. Despite its enormous size, it was anything but slow.

The creature’s strike left a massive gash in the wall. Lights shattered as the tunnel quaked. Mia ducked under just in time, sliding on her knees. Her back bent at an unnatural angle, avoiding the arm-sized teeth along the sides of the undermaw. Slime-like saliva dripped down from the fleshy roof of pink and yellow. A reminder that being eaten meant no coming back, even with her Dad’s healing.

Instead of her hunting rifle, she drew her combat knife. High-carbon steel plunged into the beast’s mouth-belly. Blood and mucus gushed out like groundwater from a spring. Even as she was bathed in red, Mia did not blink. She tore through the monster as her momentum sent her forward, lacerating a good chunk of flesh along the way.

But a small knife could only do so much against an adversary many times her size. She knew she only made it angrier. So to really give it a piece of her mind, she pulled the pin of a grenade with her teeth and jammed it into its open wound with a punch.

Time seemed to slow down as she lost momentum; the Fangcrawler fractions of a second away from flattening her. Kicking the side of the platform, she shifted direction, sliding to the side. Any slower and the crushing weight of her enemy would turn her into mist.

Mia’s heart stopped. The tremors in the quaking earth rattled her down to her bones. She was so high on adrenaline that it only just dawned on her how close to death she was. In every single one of her past fights, she always held the upper hand. Always had the element of surprise. But for the first time, she had to fight on the back foot.

And the battle was only just beginning.

The muffled blast of the grenade filled her ears. An entire segment of the Fangcrawler's centipedal body imploded, the monster effectively divided in two. But while the lower half stayed limp, the upper half burned in a flurry of colors. By the time Mia got up from the ground, it was lunging right at her, tusks vibrating, driven by revenge.

There was no time to think. She flung herself to the opposite side of the wall. In an insult to gravity, she dodged the blow with a vertical run up the wall. Salt and sweat stung her eyes as her muscles cried, being pushed to the limits of human capability.

But her foe was not bound by the same human constraints. Like a snake, it looped around, redirecting itself towards the girl without losing any speed. Mia evaded the second strike by kicking off the wall again, sending her airborne. Sending her right where the Fangcrawler wanted.

It twisted, changing angles once more, chasing the girl with relentless fervor fueled by injury. She no longer had any footholds to bounce off of. The ceiling was too far away. The beast was bound to deliver a fatal hit.

In one last act of defiance, Mia switched to her hunting rifle. If the Fangcrawler could laugh, it would. Its shell had deflected countless bullets in the past. But she wasn’t aiming at it at all.

Transforming into her younger self, she fired, the recoil changing her trajectory mid-flight. The force sent her tiny body out of reach of the monster’s attack. Death avoided by just a hair.

By the time she landed on the ground, she had already returned to her teenage form. Her knees buckled from the sheer stress she subjected them to, but she was otherwise uninjured. Her lungs fought to separate fresh oxygen from the stale air, struggling to keep her body running. But when she looked up, the Fangcrawler was gone. A hole was left in the ceiling where it was supposed to be, a streak of blood smearing the cement around it.

Where did it go?

Her mind raced as her panicked breaths grew faster and louder. Her foe could tunnel out of anywhere. Should she run? Should she wait? If it were the human trash in Pitstop, she didn’t even need to think. But her battle experience could only help so much. Without a clear idea of her opponent’s next move, fear began to freeze the adrenaline in her blood.

“Your father is a fool.”

Lynn’s voice snapped her back to reality. The insult flew past her head when she noticed the woman standing right beside her. Before Mia could think of a response, a stomp from the Immortal’s right foot caught her off guard.

In the ground right in front of them, an enormous spike of rock appeared, impaling the Abyssal Fangcrawler, leaving it writhing in the air. Even after losing half of its body, it struggled and squirmed with unyielding determination. As if death itself had to earn its consent.

“Physical prowess alone might be enough for mortals,” she stated. “But for monsters greater than a Demonelk, it is woefully lacking. Allow me to demonstrate.”

She didn’t need to. Just one move from her foot and it was already incapacitated. Unlike Lynn or her Dad, Mia knew her Gift lacked the overwhelming offensive might granted by magic.

“Give me your hand,” the princess ordered.

Tired from the fight and from the sudden lecture, Mia gave up and decided to go along, hoping to be done with it. But when her hand touched Lynn’s, a jolt of lightning struck her body. Magic. The rush of energy travelled from her palm into her brain, as if some kind of stimulant was injected directly into her bloodstream.

Mia’s vision blurred. The sudden wave of power caused her to stumble briefly.

The Immortal continued, “Close your eyes.”

She followed her command. Mia felt her eyelids burning. The sensation of light searing through her skin, trying to set her eyes on fire. She groaned. Teeth clenched, fighting against the pain. But the discomfort subsided a few seconds later. And soon, the darkness in her closed vision began to paint a picture. Outlines. Silhouettes. And a pulsing light right above.

“This is Soulsight,” Lynn explained. “It lets you perceive the souls of humans and the cores of monsters.”

Mia realized the frantic movements of that pulsing light within the Abyssal Fangcrawler. It shifted from segment to segment inside its body. Fear. Panic. Emotions that she could not perceive before filled her mind. The monster was doing all it could to cling to life, hiding its core and moving it all around.

Letting go of the Immortal’s hand, Mia reloaded her rifle. Her eyes remained closed, magic bleaching her pupils. With the monster and its core thrashing about, a clean shot was impossible. But she had a different idea.

She ran straight at the struggling beast. Her body warped. Fabric turned to hide. She leapt at her target, becoming a Demonelk mid-pounce. Antlers rammed into the chink between its segmented armor, trapping the core into one spot. The barrel of her gun emerged from her skull, aiming directly at the weak spot. And with a pull of the trigger, the light in front of her dissipated.

The Fangcrawler’s squirming stopped. Its body drooped lifelessly, skewered on the spike as its core dissipated.

“Don’t bother trying the same on a human,” Lynn pointed out, her voice cold with indifference. “A core has physical form. Souls do not.”

Mia made sure to keep her advice to heart as she turned back into her regular self. But before the Soulsight faded from her eyes, pure terror crept into her soul. She felt an invisible hand around her heart, fingernails caressing the outer walls.

She caught a glimpse of the princess’s soul.

Hidden behind that orb of light was a shrine, grand and opulent. The Noble Crest of House Veranos was displayed in the main hall, lined with gold and jewels. In the center of it all was her Regalia, the sword protruding out of a meteorite encased in glass. But despite all the glory of this beautiful space, the temperature was blisteringly cold. As if a blizzard hid within the walls, preserving everything with its freezing touch.

Mia instinctively wrapped her arms around herself, trying to keep herself warm. But by then, she realized she was outside the shrine. Her feet stood on a mountain of frozen bodies. Not corpses. Thousands of people trapped in ice, begging to break out of their frigid prison. Begging her to help them out, but it was too late.

Mia was frozen solid. Another block of ice serving as the foundation of the golden shrine. The last thing she remembered seeing was cracks emerging throughout the gold, before being transported back to the tunnel.

“A word of advice. Try not to peer into others’ souls, especially those who wield magic greater than yours.” Lynn’s words of wisdom arrived too late. “Know that you should avoid looking at your father’s soul at all costs. There is nothing there.”

Those last words reverberated within Mia’s mind. But before she could interpret them, the car drove up right beside her.

“Get in,” her Dad instructed. “That Fangcrawler was just a baby. Now the mother is coming.”