Numbered and Factions

Chapter 7

One of the monitors lights up, we're all on edge. It displays a hole and a window into what was on the other side with a rainbow tinted edge. I can see the tails of Anbu dart by. We've moved closer to one another as Cerbi stands over us in his hellhound form. The dragon's head checks on us every so often while the wolf and fox stand defensive and snarling. The monitor makes an odd noise as a spectral figure swirls up from it, she looks like the logo we saw earlier.

She smiles widely through ghostly teeth,

"Oooo! I gwat so many of yaww,"

"Who the hell are you and where are the others!" Harmoninea barks, her eyes blazing with magenta,

"You'll see"

"That isn't an answer I'm willing to accept." the witch's hands glow ominously as Piper holds us behind her. I spin a spirit into a cover for myself, Kit, and Rabi. The woman only laughs,

"For now there in a maze! And you gwet to pway awong!"

Harmoninea's hands twist and contort to create a beam of light, Cerbi holds his tail in front of us. The wolf growls and barks as all we can hear is it and the sound of more growling. Cerbi moves and Harmoninea is gone. In her place stands about three wolves, they're about the size of Storm and wild. Piper runs right at them when she realizes her partner is missing.

***

Anbu crosses an open section with Harmoninea getting thrown into them. Anbu startles and hops back, staring at the witch. She gets up and shakes her vision straight.

"Anbu?.. That you?"

Anbu makes a couple clicking noises with their jaw,

"Good. Are the others alive?"

"Yeah, they got separated from me though. I've been trying to find them"

She looks around a bit, fluffing her wings out to straighten out a couple feathers. Anbu takes her hand and starts to run ahead. Harmoninea keeps up with them until they let her hand go. They're blocked in the clearing by a wall rising in front of the two of them, Anbu almost runs straight into it. The clearing is quiet, a few other ways out close up. One lays open as if a prediction for a group to come through. Anbu stands defensively with Harmoninea to their left.

***

Storm bites through a man over twice his size as he runs with Spark behind him. The walls continue their sickening dance of movement. Spark holds a passage open just long enough for the two to clear it. The wall slams closed as the light recedes. Storm looks around, he sniffs the ground before walking down a corridor.

"Catch a trail there?" Spark follows the wolf. Storm huffs and keeps walking, leading them out into a space where they can see the others. The two run up to Anbu and Harmoninea.

***

The three wolves waste no time going after us. It's like they're being controlled or something. I spin my hands to create a sword of pulsing black shadow. I strike with the grace of a bull in a china shop. The wolf is cut but turns itself to bite at me, it grabs my arm in its maw and closes down. Hard. It hurts so damn much. I don't have the time to react before I find myself using my freehand to make a claw and strike back. I can't feel the free half of my body as it engulfs itself in a shadow.

I'm losing my grip. Calm down.

The wolf growls as it now stands up with a gash from my sword on one side, and a claw mark on the other. I growl back at it, I can't feel the other half of my body.

Give in. The shadows will help you.

They won't. They'll make things worse.

The shadows lap at my soul, they want in and I can't let them.

Calm yourself Pixy.

I hold my stance and breathe while keeping my focused expression. A damn wolf wont strike me down. The wolf goes to strike, I grab it with my injured arm and throw it to the ground. Shadows dance around me, some cheer, others cry out to kill the thing, some yell to give up. They need to just shut up sometimes.

I hold my foot on the wolf's chest as it growls. Kit stands nearby with another wolf charred to death under her paws. Piper and Cerbi tag team the largest of the set with the hound swallowing the thing after it's dead. Whatever gives you the nutrition you need I guess.

I grab the wolf's head and snap its neck back with a clean CRACK. Not the worst thing I've done but still odd in hindsight. I turn my attention to the monitor, watching the pixels change color in an odd rhythm. It suddenly goes black.