RB Chapter 206 Random Jane

Boom!

Another explosion and shockwave was set off down below causing the brown walls of the fortress, now coated red on the outside to vibrate intensely as if they could collapse any second.

A figure standing atop these walls wobbled and collapsed into a kneeling position due to the shaking.

Going by the faint light shining upon her form, she was covered in a chitin like black armor, fitted with plenty of menacing spikes in some places. Her face was currently pale, breaths coming out labored and her hands which had been balled into fists trembling faintly.

Her name was Jane, an energy channeller who had once been a normal citizen of Kampala city. After the fall of the ten clans, she had made a very important decision, deciding to enter the wilderness and hunt all manner of exotic ingredients. The rich people within Kampala city had taken a liking to rare food ingredients, from beasts to plants. This was a very dangerous yet lucrative profession, with many taking the same path.

During that time, she managed to gain the privilege of becoming one of the first few to come into contact with knowledge about energy channelling, improving her abilities by leaps and bounds.

The war arrived just as she was training to master the new ability, taking on the solemn duty of enlisting so that she could contribute to her city.

But now, now, she wasn't so sure anymore after what she had just witnessed and been through. The evidence was still lingering in front of her, a lone eye ball, pupil colored green, coated in blood...once it had been her teammate, now, this was the only part left of her.

This was the northern side of the fortress, atop its walls...

She could never forget the spine chilling feeling that had enveloped her only moments ago when a massive hyena, with pupils glowing with a yellowish light had had its shadow envelop her.

Its spectrum domain had applied pressure on her mind, causing her to feel as if her brain was being squeezed by something, rendering any attempt at any form of action moot, since her senses had become dulled. Terror had enveloped her entire existence at that time.

Its head had moved with blinding speed, stopping mere inches away from her only for the beast's fur to stand on end. It had instantly lost interest, jumping off the wall, only for her ears to pick up a shrill sound. That sound heralded a hole in the beast's hind leg while it was still in midair.

She didn't even register the movement since her body had frozen up in utter terror! The feeling of your very life being in the claws of another was enough to cause her urine to leak out of her body.

'They died...why did I live? Why am I still alive?' She continuously asked herself that question over and over again. Even being a grown woman approaching her 30s and having been to the wilderness multiple times hadn't been enough to prepare her for what she had just faced...death!

"...ptain! Captain!" The second time managed to make her regain a sense of her surroundings. The first thing she felt was someone's hands touching the back of her shoulders, shaking her.

"What..." Her soulless eyes turned towards her back, catching a silhouette just over her shoulder. It was a man, his face covered in blood, but when she looked into those widened pupils and the terror filled expression on his face, it was like an electric bolt passed through her body.

"What is it?" She asked, her voice coming out smoother as if she was trying to calm not just herself, but the man too.

According to her memories, he was called Kiggundu, a member of her team...no, the only surviving member of her team.

"My wife! My wife died! She died to that monster! How can...how can I stay fighting here when there are six other monsters like it?" The man appeared very shaken, but his reaction to the danger upon his life was different from hers.

When she looked into those brown pupils, which appeared dark within this night, all she could see was fear...there was no sense of loss for a loved one.

"Your wife has just died, don't you want revenge?" The question slipped from her mouth subconsciously.

"What are you yammering about?! Didn't you experience that power?! That terror!? That is a monster no normal human can go against! Anyway, forget that...I came to tell you that I am withdrawing from this battle. We are all going to die if we stay here like idiots!" Kiggundu shouted out, shaking his head from side to side with such intensity that she felt it had a chance of falling off the man's shoulders.

Her expression became cold upon listening to what the man had just said. Ester had been a friend, though they had only met after being cobbled into the same team, they had become instant friends, and listening to this...this piece of trash...speaking like he didn't care, that rustled her feathers.

"If you try to run away, I will kill you for insubordination." Her voice became so low that it made the man shiver when he looked into her eyes.

Hmpf!

He snorted and walked away from her.

'How can someone not feel rage upon the death of his wife?' She wondered, the sheer rage causing her to regain her vigor.

"Hey! You?" 

"What are you doing?"

"That coward!"

A cacophony of exclamations caused her to turn back only to see that a figure had leaped down the wall, heading towards the inside of the fortress. The light falling upon the person caused her expression to shift into an ugly one.

"YOU MOTHERFUCKIN' BASTARD!!!" She shouted so loud that the air itself rippled around her mouth. Her body was practically shivering with rage as she beheld the figure. It was that man, Kiggundu. He had decided to run away from the battlefield, a very shameful action. She had an impulse of running after the man and gutting him from behind, but she reigned it in.

"Haaaaaa...let him go, those of us here will stand our ground and protect this hill and fortress. Our heroes are holding off six spectrum beasts between themselves, we should show them that we aren't doing nothing!" Someone else said.

'...right! Jane get a hold of yourself!' She hit the sides of her cheeks to try and chase away the gloom, resolve replacing everything else.

That resolve chased away the lingering gloomy clouds in her mind after which she turned around and looked under the wall. 

The beasts within the section she had been guarding were all cowering on the ground, having not taken well the pressure from a higher existence's spectrum domain. That was good as they might have killed her when her guard had been lowered when she had been enveloped on hopelessness.

"All of you, the moment you spot that hyena again, don't hesitate! Use your strongest long range abilities before its domain bores down on you! That is the only way we can contend with spectrum beasts...at a distance! Do you understand?" Someone ordered, Jane knew right away that the man was the overall commander assigned to the northern wall. Even he was on the battlefield, proving that the manpower had diminished considerably.

"YES SIR!" Everyone shouted back, including herself.

After hearing those words, she tuned everything out and focussed on her own section. It had become bigger with the loss of many of her teammates.

'I hate this power.' She sighed with such thought taking the forefront of her mind while.looking at her arms which were spread out in front of her. Tiny black protrusions covered the black chitinous arm guards.

She had been born with the genetic traits of a porcupine, something that had been passed on from her father's side. Everything else had been okay except for the nasty ability of the porcupine where they hardened their spikes when intimidated.

While young, when she became nervous or scared, her hair would harden and turn into spikes, not just that on her head, so they had had to shave everything, causing her entire skin to be flawless.

'Power is power. I will use it to take revenge for Ester and the others.' She thought while circulating the remnant energy within her system. She still hated her genetic powers but, there was no way to change them, so she had had to simply live with them. For now, she felt no need for an injection of the Liquid ATP tucked just somewhere under the wall on the inside. This was the way it was being stored, the compartment having been built into the wall on the orders of Commander Chloe, a woman she respected. Her ferocious personality and tales were something of an inspiration to her. It was one of the reasons she had thrown behind her normal life to become one of the hunters.

Black spikes, glinting in the faint light jutted out of her armor. She was trying to make them bigger, since hair-thin ones would be useless unless they pierced skull.

As the spikes grew out, she once again focused her attention to the beasts below the wall, they were still cowering, shivering in terror and fear. The spectrum domain had left a lasting impression upon them, and now they weren't even remotely in any mood to get up. This was the perfect chance to strike, besides it had also allowed her section to take a breather from the assault of the horde. 

Of course, those ones which had been outside of the spectrum domain's influence were still coming up, but they were slow since some had become rabid, attacking even those that were cowering from the fear.

'That hyena...I must watch out for it. It has vanished, probably hiding within the shadows of the larger beasts, but it will be back...' She cautioned herself.