His Little Marionette (The Puppeteer x Reader)

Chapter 51: The Rake

Warning: blood and violence

Y/N's POV

My head whipped around to look behind me. I saw a large humanoid creature looking straight at us. My first instinct was to protect Alicia from whatever this creature was. I stood protectively in front of her. "What the hell is that!?" I ask, slightly panicking. I didn't raise my voice. I didn't want to encourage the humanoid creature to attack us.

"We call him 'The Rake'. He usually doesn't venture to this part of the forest." I heard Clockwork respond. It was clear that she was being cautious.

"What does it want from us?" I asked, still standing in front of Alicia.

"I don't know. All he does is attack anything that he can find, like a rabid animal." I heard her respond.

"What do we do?" I asked. I kept my eye on the creature.

"I don't know if we should run or to try to slowly back away and hope he loses interest..." Clockwork muttered out.

"Let's try backing away slowly." I said as I started doing just that.

We all started to slowly back away from the creature. It didn't make a move towards us, but it didn't take it's eyes off of us, either. So far, it seemed to be working.

It was working well so far, we managed to put an alright distance between us and the creature. Suddenly, the creature made a loud screeching sound. "Run!" I heard Clockwork call out.

Immediately, we bolted away from the creature. I made sure to stay between Alicia and the creature. I risked a glance behind me. The creature was gaining on us quickly. I knew we wouldn't be able to make it to the mansion before the creature caught us.

"Guys, we might have to fight him! He's gaining on us!" I yelled.

"Just keep running!" Clockwork shouted out.

I looked back at the creature as he leaped forward at me. He managed to scrape the back of my leg. Nothing too damaging. I tried my best to ignore the wound and keep going.

I wasn't running for long until he leaped towards me again. This time, he wrapped his claw-like fingers around one of my ankles. My body fell onto the forest floor. The creature pulled my body back towards him. As he was about to swipe it's claws at me, I activated my strength power and concentrated it into my legs. I used both of my legs to kick him off of me. Luckily, it worked, and I quickly got up and started running again.

The group was way ahead of me. I tried my best to catch up. While trying to catch up with my group, I didn't realize that the creature had already gotten up and caught up to me.

I felt something tackle me onto the ground. Before I knew it, the creature was above me, swiping at me. I raised my arms to protect my face, I didn't have enough time to form a shield.

I had deep claw marks on my arms. Due to the adrenaline, it didn't hurt as much as it should've. I formed a shield to protect the top half of my body and activated my strength on my bottom half. Before I could kick him back, he swiped at my legs, making deep gashes in my legs. I knew that I had to do something quick. Despite the pain, I kick the creature back with my strength.

Once I kicked the creature back, I scrambled back up to my feet. Before I could start running again, the creature started to dig his claws into my back. I screamed out as he made very deep gashes in my back. I knew that it was no use running. I had to fight this creature.

I turned to face the creature. I formed a shield in front of me and my arms and legs glowed red with my strength power. The creature swiped at me, but I used my shield to block it. While the creature was close enough, I punched him. He flew back a few meters. Before he could get back up, I started running away again.