The first thing Celia did was promise herself never to fight smart ever again. The second thing she did was dodge. Leaping out of the way of a growing white mass of a crab arm that slammed down with all the force of a falling oak. A very incredibly heavy oak. Impact cratering the ground beneath it, great chunks of dirt breaking up out of the ground, fracturing.
It painted a pretty good picture of what would happen if she let herself get hit by that thing. Because no, it was no longer an arm. A transformation she, regretfully, had a front row seat for. A transformation that poured some sort of… energy, or presence into the upright crab in front of her, causing its arm to further mutate.
Length increasing as it was swung at her. A mass of spiders growing out of it and reaching for her as she dodged. Barely ducking out of the way of their legs. Only for them to grow a twisting pair of scissor like limbs out of them, and for those limbs to slash at her. Contact erupting into a shower if sparks as she slashed back. Blade meeting blade. Unfortunately, Celia didn’t have nearly enough mass to back her up. End result being, that she was forced backward, feet sliding through the dirt. A groove that only stopped when the crab suddenly lost control of its limb.
Again.
It could’ve been a chance to attack. A chance to rush in and strike the crab beneath its head. A chance to even decapitate it - which Celia suspected was the only way to make it stay down.
But she’d learnt that lesson already. That, despite how the arm was trying to take control of the crab, at least that’s what she thought was going on, it would still defend him on a whim. Something it was very capable of doing without any input from its host.
So, she just waited, and watched as the crab made several hisses and clicks at its arm and wrestled once again for control. An internal battle that seemed to take longer each time it happened.
Maybe she could use that as chance to run awa-
The arm pulled the crab towards her like a father yanking a child. Front opening up like a six fingered hand and growing a dozen rows of fangs.
Celia spat, grew wings, and took to the air. The crab swung its arm upward, burn holes in its front rapidly closing up as the distance between her and it ceased to exist.
She let herself fall. Gravity grabbing her. Dragging her. Pulling her back toward the earth. Under the guidance of her wings, she turned herself into a living projectile. Heat filling her body, tongue extended and held straight like a mouth borne rapier.
An eruption of flesh covered the crab. Strips of red and white covering it like a second layer of armor.
Celia flipped and let her legs do the talking instead. Impact rattling her, sending the crab stumbling back for the first time. And then she was on her feet again, rushing toward him. Claws teeth and every other bit of her body lashing out at the giant arm above her.
The arm bit back. Teeth and limbs of its own erupting out from a sea of white. They swiped and slashed and bit. Would’ve scored a number of wounds on Celia if she hadn’t been expected it. But she had, and pulled by her instincts, went low. Falling to the ground and sliding around to the other side. Where she struck with a hundred feathered lashes in quick succession.
The result was a delayed explosion of white energy that covered the world in a cloud of short lived smoke.
It bought her just enough cover to make it over to the crabs side. Where she hit him with a bump of the hit, felt him shift against the force of her weight and struck with a thrust out tongue.
Pure sharpened hunger and a living fortress met.
Metal cut through flaps of rotten skin and organ sacs. A wave of white came from behind her. Screaming faces and grasping hands. She pushed harder. Morphed her tongue into something sharper, edge elongating and thinning in equal measure. Till it was sharpened to a point of impossibility. Narrow enough to slice between the segments in an ants armor. Thinner still, the perfection of its shape drawing something more from her. Blood dripping from her, painting her in messy streaks of red.
But as a curtain of hands twisted around her, and a thousand, thousand teeth bit down she felt it. She felt a crack on the inside. Some part of her inner being shifted and flowered into an impossible expression of more.
|Mark of the Belong to none|
Skill gaine=+*= !ERR0r!
Dialogue link established???=!Correct!
Overseer Contact protocol begin
$Hello, Hello? It would seem there is an error here.$
$How… strange.$
$Hmm, you seem to be wrapped up in a lot of trouble missy. Perhaps I can lend a hand, just this once.$
|Mark of the Belong to none|~|Mark of Myriad fates|
Skill gained: This outcome undone
Celia blinked the screen away. Mind reeling as words slammed their way into her. Every one spoken with a terrible sort of clarity. As if misunderstandings them was rendered as a true impossibility. Which made her understand them less overall.
This strange interaction was then followed by her mark twisting into something new. Chains wreathed in azure flame replaced by a knot made of chains and strings and ribbons that poured over towards it from all over her body. A knot that slowly then grew a star pattern out of itself, almost as if it was an egg giving birth to a radiant light.
But that all stopped mattering when time - time she hadn’t even known had been paused - resumed its normal flow. Bringing her right back to the moment before. Sword shaped tongue piercing a shell harder than stone and a wave of white horrendous flesh behind her, growing an orchestra of twisted limbs to mangle her with. There was a difference this time, however, as Celia found out when her new skill activated.
She shifted into another version of herself.
So now instead of belonging to none. She is perhaps so interwoven with fate none can mark her?
Moreso before she belonged to no one. Now she belongs to no one specific fate.