“Metempsychosis.”
Groaning inwardly, I made the first move. My beautiful, terrible blade swiped across to behead my foe. Continuing to emulate a puppet, his movements were awkward, clunky, yet it worked. Arms mostly limp, he bent back, and I missed his throat by nanometers. I spun, kneeling to cut him in half, and only hitting air. Slicing up, his body turned sideways and again, I missed. Summoning up my second blade, I began striking like a maniac. My hands spun around like a tornado, no rhythm yet precise with each strike. I aimed to hamstring, then to gut, a quick strike up to the crotch, then a kick backward as every single attack missed. It was like he could see my attacks before I even made them, but even stranger, the user never made a single counterattack.
I stood, assessing the man still standing limp. I didn’t understand. What was this guy doing? What was that ability he just used? His hand flexed, and then I spotted it. The fingers and half a palm were now regrown. I tilted my head in curiosity, looking down and spotting the original fingers now mush under his boot. Somehow, he had regrown flesh. I only thought the incredible healing abilities of my race, or the freaky amalgamation of people known as Butchers, could heal injuries like that. Then the memory of Mika’s rebirth cropped up. It was true that I did not know Ceartas’s rank; powerful non-users are not so easily categorized as we, but she was orders of magnitude more powerful than any of Marrin’s party, even if we took her all on at once. In fact, Athea had the capabilities of repairing bone and flesh in an instant, but replacing whole limbs was not something she was capable of. Seeing it here, in a meager Class Five was something I had not expected, but seeing the process with my own eyes had me spotting the drawbacks of something so potent at such a low rank.
The user looked dead. I could not see any of his body save the fingers as the armor had not regrown over the damaged section. But his skin tone was pale, bloodless, and cold. His movements were that of a doll, not one of man, and certainly not one of a Hud user, though that last part was arguable. I was not sure if he was healing under there and his armor was going a hundred percent on the defense. Even now, he still vibrated as if shaken by an earthquake, but that was it.
Deciding to test this odd ability out, stepped on the pointed end of a dagger lying at my feet. It flicked up. I expertly caught it, throwing it in one single, smooth motion. Moving so quick it must have broken bones, his right arm swiped it out of the air. The blade flew into the bulkhead and burying deep. White gas hissed out with pressure so high that the dagger was forced out, flying across the room. An alarm blared along with red flashing lights as the small shuttle dipped to its side.
I slammed against the wall, inches from the hissing gas. The user did the same, though his arms and legs cropped up like a spider, grasping loose tubing and support beams and holding himself in place. The first user, who remained unconscious, was thrown against the side and then managed to skitter out the blown out windshield. Over the wind from the opened front and the hissing gasses, I could make out a loud blaring horn just before a loud crashing. Praying that only that user was hurt, I focused and got my baring once more.
Suddenly, the user crawled over me. Moving like some macabre mechanical spider. It started swiping at me, not unlike the monstrous Butchers. The fingers of his gauntlets turned razer sharp, scratching deep but not fully penetrating my armor. Leval was shouting something. I couldn’t hear him, but I assumed it was something on the lines of hold on. I lifted my arms to defend against the unusual attack when the shuttle leveled out and we both fell flat on our faces. Knowing that this user would deftly maneuver around my attacks, I took more of a brute force approach. I dove at him, right shoulder in front and arms out as wide as I could get.
CRUNCH!
The armor’s vibrations turned into a freakish scream as the sharp spike on my shoulder, now tipped with soul damage, stabbed deep into his hip. Metal dented around the puncture, and when I fell back, a pinkish liquid spilled out. Not the right consistence nor color to be blood, it flowed out like someone turning on a spigot. Its right leg gave out completely, and I lashed out with one of my swords. Proving to still be a devious defensive menace, it rolled to the side, just out of reach. At the end of its roll, its limp arm flashed back, smacking into my hand and reminding me of the knife wound. I dropped the sword, but I had the other moving the instant I saw his arm move.
Another mechanical scream as half the arm fell limp on the floor and more of that pinkish liquid spilled out. In fact, it was still pouring out freely from his hip, leaving nearly a half centimeter of rancid fluid on the ground. The amount was much too… much to have been in his body, leaving me to only to imagine where it all came from.
His movements were growing slow, less direct, and more mindless flailing in order to escape my attacks. Still unable to land another sword blow, I could get a kick in here and a headbutt there. At one point I ducked low, fainting at an attack with the sword and cutting my arm across his waist. The tiny spikes of soul damage did less than I wished, as they were only a centimeter long. Not deep enough to score his flesh, it succeeded in opening the hip wound further, causing him to slow even more. As a last-ditch effort to stay alive, the user went on the offensive, but it was useless now. I believed that the man was unconscious or healing, while the armor was in complete control. I postulated that without having to focus the Hud’s energy into the man; it was drawing upon the Interspaces directly. That was giving it the edge in speed and cognition closer to a Class Four, in order to avoid my attacks. The rest of the Hud’s focus was on the strange ability healing the man inside. Knowing its demise was soon, it tried once more to live, but rather than defending, it attacked as it had before.
Its speed was too much for my cognition, but it lacked grace, style, and training. I avoided the slashing nails with rather ease, though it still kept me on my toes. Seeing that it was no longer thinking properly, I moved with purpose, angling myself to the exact point where I needed. I slashed high with my sword while also kicking hard. It was awkward, but I managed though I took a slash in the stomach. The warm blood spilled, but I ignored it for the time being. Seeing and deducing that the blade was the bigger threat, it leaned back, off-centered and imbalanced. My boot connected with his stomach, sending him flying backward. I have to admit; Metempsychosis was a potent ability as the Hud turned in mid air trying to reorientate itself. Its freakish scream echoed the room again just before colliding with Leval, sitting on the pilots… stool. It looked like a stool wielded to the floor…
There was the bright flash, this time I covered my eyes. When it disappeared a second later, I was greeted with a very satisfying sight. The user’s entire right side was now missing, burned off in an incredibly powerful electrical discharge. Unfortunately for us, the pinkish liquid now flowed out of the still upright half man like a waterfall, shooting all over my little green friend. Whatever his shielding was, must have not thought it was harmful, for it did nothing to keep the rotten smelling stuff from covering him head to toe.
I ran forward in an instant, feet splashing in the inch deep fluid. I jumped, kicking the remains of the man and sending him out the windshield. The body exited the shuttle just as another user ducked his head over the edge, holding a large plasma rifle. The half body smacked into him, sending them both airborne and screaming to their deaths.
“Huh… that was lucky.” I said to myself.
It was a tribute to my ever-growing strength as I was capable of send the body not just out the windshield with the incredible gales coming in, but hard enough to knock another man off the ship entirely. I looked over at a flashing red light was on my display. I was getting better at knowing how I was doing subconsciously, but that was mostly when I was not in direct combat. Everything was low save for my health. Thankfully, that remained mostly high and growing as the much smaller, much weaker health bar from my Immortal Blood racial ability slowly drained.
“L... Leval?” I said, barely able to walk up to him.
The little man was spitting out the fluid and whipping his eyes.
“Blehhh! Tastes like a shit on a fish burger!”
I gaged, just thinking of that.
“Sit! Buckle in!” he ordered.
I looked around for the first time, seeing the shuttle I was in. Between the fluid sloshing around and the vast amounts of damage, it was hard to imagine what it looked like before flying through that window. I was going to owe this little man so much money. I still don’t know how much I already gave him, but it was not something I was going to think about. Seeing some few intact seats in the back end of the ship, I staggered over and sat, strapping myself in place. I proceeded to try my best to keep my eyes open, but I needed, desperately, to recharge. I went limp, arms and legs flying back and forth as the madman escaped whatever was chasing after us.
