Chapter 25
As we neared Leem, we branched off, with me going down the middle.
All the blades in my body extended as I sprang forward, clashing blades with him. With complete grace, I swiped away his blades with my wings, using my front hoof claw to shred away at his chest.
Reinhardt and Mallogory came up on either side of him, their blades flashing violently. His body flashed over and over again as he continued to heal through our attacks. Every time a hand was cut off, another would appear and grab his blade to continue his attacks.
Despite being outnumbered, he was holding his own very well. A few of his attacks getting through our defenses. Luckily for me, I was able to dodge them. The other two had their own methods for dodging his attacks.
As I removed his head, an arm suddenly shot out of another of his arms and slammed into my face. It had enough force to send me flying back and bounce off the ramp behind me.
With me out of the way, he turned his attention more on Reinhardt, mostly ignoring Mallogory.
He suddenly stopped attacking as he lunged forward, latching onto her and lifting her up, arms holding her against himself.
“Bastard!” She yelled as she fought against him.
“I’m going to put the squeeze on you, tin can!” He yelled as he began to squeeze her against himself, her armor groaning as it began to bend and pop.
Mallogory stabbed away at his back, trying to cut his arms to free Reinhardt.
I quickly rejoined the fight, sawing away at his limps uselessly as he continued to crush Reinhardt against his body. He was laughing loudly as he did so.
“This is what I love! The hopelessness you all feel right now as I slowly kill your friend, and all you can do is struggle uselessly!” he roared with laughter.
Not knowing what else to do, as attacking him did nothing, I latched my Ego to Reinhardt and began to pump Ego into her. Hopping she could do something, anything, to save herself.
She pulsed with a cyan light as she became translucent and poured out of her armor like a liquid, pouring out the boots and pooling below them, right between Leem’s legs.
He looked just as confused as we all did and he finished crushing the now empty armor. The pool of grey green liquid moved away from him and reformed into a now mostly nude Reinhart. Cyan Ego seemed to form over her like underwear.
“You bastard, that was my favorite armor!” She yelled, her blade materializing back in her hand.
I didn’t have time to think about what just happened, as I took Leem’s momentary confusion and slammed into him, sending him flying towards the edge.
As he stumbled, an arm shot out and latched onto Mallogory’s face and yanked her after himself. She’d tried to dodge, her body flickering, but he seemed to expect that and caught her anyway.
“AH shit!” She yelped as Leem went over the ledge, followed by her.
“Fuck!” I yell as I jump after them, flying after as they fell. We were actually really high up, at least thirty stories high.
I quickly caught up and grabbed Mallogory, cutting the arm that was attached to her. “Gotcha!”
She smiled at me thankfully, but a second hand grabbed my leg and began to carry us downward.
He just did not give up!
More arms shot up as he fell, attaching to us and pulling us after him. I held tight to Mallogory as I flapped my wings hard, trying to at least slow our own fall.
Leem slammed the ground below, but his hands stayed attached to us. I spin quickly, cutting the hands from us and pulled up, thankfully causing us to just land on the ground with a thump instead of a thud.
“You good?” I ask as we stand up.
“For someone who just fell a great distance, I’m pretty good,” she replied, looking a bit shaken.
“The one thing I hate is falling,” Leem said in annoyance as he was already up and stomping towards us.
The two of us nod and jump up, springing towards him.
“We need to get back to the ship!” I yell as I bypass his attacks and slice his side, landing behind him.
“Go! I’ll stall him!” She called to me as she began to clash with Leem, her dual blades easily keeping up with his four.
He suddenly slammed all four at her, causing her arms to open wide. As he went in for a fatal strike, she flickered, her swords were now crossed as if she’d just performed a X shaped cut.
Leems body started to fall away in four parts, but a quick flash of cyan recovered his body.
“Impressive,” he laughed, standing tall before her. “Join me, you’d make an amazing addition to my team.”
Mallogory stared back at him, then to me. A weird feeling passed through me as she looked at me.
“Hmm, tempting offer,” she said, but she flickered, sending his head flying away. “But nah!”
I smile, relief washing over me as I dash forward, sliding under him as he flashed back to normal.
He looked down between his legs, raising an eyebrow at me.
“Ever seen something like this before?” I asked as I flared all my blades and kicked him upward. He didn’t go that high, with him being so heavy, but he did lift a few feet into the air.
Flapping my wings hard, I flew up into him, and began to spin like a tornado. He yelled in shock as he was sucked into the vortex I was creating, getting shredded to nothing but a pink mist. He reformed over and over again, but was instantly turned to mist.
I kept it up, going faster and faster. This wasn’t killing him permanently, but that wasn’t the goal. The tornado of death I had become slowly moved to the left, carrying him with me as I kept him in a constant state of bloody mist.
Finally, I used the momentum I’d built to shoot out of the vortex I’d created and flew towards Mallogory, grabbing her and zooming straight up, all within the span of a second.
As we soared straight up, I heard Leem roar in anger behind us.
“Get back here!” he bellowed, his arms shooting up after us.
However this time, I was moving way to fast as we rocketed towards the docks above.
Once back at the docks, I saw Reinhardt, now wearing a poncho over her body, and Remi standing there.
“I thought you two were dead!” Reinhardt yelled as I let Mallogory down and landed beside her.
“Trust me, I did too for a moment down there,” I replied, covered in so much blood I was still dripping.
“Is he dead?” She asked hopefully, but slumped when I shook my head no.
“We have time to escape, but he’s still down there.” I gesture to the ship, “Are we ready?”
“About, we were waiting for you,” she said as Remi used a cloth to start wiping my face free of blood.
“Perfect, let’s get out of this hell hole!” I say as we quickly enter the ship's bay.
“Reinhardt, go tell the others to take off. I don’t care which direction, just get us moving,” I say as I point towards the bridge. “Remi, get back to engineering and help Moxxi.”
They both salute, which causes me to roll my eyes with a smile, and sprint off to perform their given task.
“I’m going to go get cleaned,” I say, waving for her to follow with my wing. “You should too, I got Leem’s blood all over you.”
She looks at her cloak and frowns, “I hope this overly fancy ship has a laundry room or something.”
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I stepped out of the shower room, feeling refreshed after taking my first shower in like a week. I’d forgotten how amazing it felt to be clean!
Upon entering the main lobby of the shower rooms, I saw Mallogory drying off with a towel. She ruffled the short feathers that covered most of her upper body, shaking herself dry.
I couldn’t help but chuckle upon seeing her without her clothes. “You look like a chicken.”
She snapped her head to me, eyeing me hard. But at my continued smile, she chuckled. “That’s kind of offensive, you know?”
“Is it?” I ask, drying my mane with the towel. “My bad.”
She rolled her eyes, wrapping her towel around herself.
“So, I have to know; what is that ability of yours?”
“It’s my Thorn,” she said, but when she noticed my raised eyebrow, she continued. “Now that’s hard to explain to someone not from my dimension. It’s basically like Ego, but doesn’t run on souls. That’s why I have this hole in my hand.”
She held up her clawed hand, a small glowing hole sat in the middle of her palm. “This is my stomata, the source of my powers.” She closed her fist, smirking to herself. “Now if you’re asking about my personal Thorn, then prepare to be impressed.”
I can’t help but chuckle at her actions as she got all dramatic.
“There are infinite alternate realities that run parallel with ours, and I’m able to swap physical places with anyone of my own alternate selves, and carry on with whatever action they were about to perform. All I gotta do is want to do a certain action and bam, I swap places.”
I blink at her, this ability seemed way too complicated. “So, you can travel between realities?”
She laughs in response, waving her hands, “No no, I wish that was the case. Would be so damn cool! All I do is swap physical places, not minds. I don’t go anywhere, I just take over whatever position and action they are performing.” Then she points at me, “which is why I’m still amazed you countered it. How’d you manage that?”
Shrugging, I lean back and cross my legs, “honestly, I had my suspicions that you could control time or something, so when I saw you flicker, I just reacted.”
“Wait, you can see me flicker?” She asked in shock. At my nod, she smiles widely, “that’s amazing! When I perform the action, it’s basically instant! Everyone else I’ve used it against don’t see anything! That flickering is the millisecond between me swapping places.”
Well, now that just raises a few questions about myself doesn’t it?
“That flicker gave me time to react,” I confess. “If you had real training, you’d be a terrifying opponent.”
“Like I’ve said, don’t need training when most opponents die before they even realize I moved,” she said with a cocky smile.
“Till you meet someone like Leem,” I counter, causing her cocky smile to waver. I looked her over, working my jaw as I thought about something. “If you want, I can train you a bit, when we have the time.”
She looked to be about to decline, but she leaned back, a grin appearing on her face. “Sure, I’m down.”
With a grunt, I pushed myself up and walked over, holding a hoof out to her. “Then we should make this official, even though we already know each other’s names.” She reached out and gripped my hoof as I began to shake her hand. “Names Scamp.”
“Mallogory,” she said with a little laugh, obviously thinking this was ridiculous. “Thank you, for you know, saving me. Twice.”
I beam a smile back at her as I stare into her eyes with my eye, “that’s what friends are for.”
“Friends,” she coos back.
“Friends,” I repeat, feeling a bit warm and fuzzy as we shook one last time and broke the handshake.