The next words which Ao uttered fell on deaf ears, and the great turtle soon silenced herself as she felt a rush of chimeric power explode outwards. Turning her eyes to the door, a man with patchwork skin slid inside, and sat against the door, his scarred body giving off his nature. Another half-chimera by the looks of it, as nobody could survive the apparent damages which those stitches suggested. Stitches circled each joint and fell from his left collarbone to below his pectoral muscles, the scar there wider, and not bound by stitches, instead a faint red streak across his entire torso. The man's graying skin warmed up in the sunlight of the courtyard, but he was not here to steal the spotlight from those Ao was testing.
Andrei and Vivian stared across the barren cobblestone path between them, their eyes each piercing one another's souls, cutting deep, and looking into their very minds. Andrei's pools of warm amber began to strain, and crack as drops of blood injected themselves into his vision. When Vivian flicked her tail, her own eyes, previously a pale green, flashed with her own flavor of deep, crimson red. The pairs of soul-piercing vision each clashed, their very energy that had enveloped the place meeting in the middle, throwing up a gust of wind which continued to grow more and more as the crimson in Andrei's eyes began to fully envelop the amber. The scars on his eyelids grew more obvious now as the red glint caught in the sun.
When he closed his eyes, Vivian flicked her tail again, as if waiting to see what it was that Andrei, or rather Ra, would do. Andrei remained in control, motionless as Ra's cackling laughter echoed in his head. It was that moment, he heard it. The shift in the wind, the scratching of Vivian's clawed toes against the stone beneath them. It hit Andrei like a crack of thunder, and his eyes snapped to attention like the very lightning which accompanied it. His ch'i aura manifested itself, the intertwining reds and blacks forming a spiraling outline around his body as Vivian's fist struck the aura. Andrei's eyes, still glimmering with blood lusted crimson red, stared back at her in that moment as he unbuttoned his undershirt. "Don't be too hasty now... I can't hold this barrier forever; I don't have nearly enough soul for that."
As Andrei threw back his arm, he threw off both his jacket and white undershirt, revealing the true nature of his toned body. Months of training, fighting, and surviving had melded him into a true monster. Not one of chimeric nature, but rather a more humane beast. He watched as Vivian's feet hit the ground, and she put up her guard. Condensing his malevolent soul into his fist, the reds and blacks swirled more angrily, and he lunged forwards with a brutish overhead strike. "And I know you're far too confident to dodge an attack."
His punch exploded with his ki aura, and Andrei rolled his neck before using his previously balled hand to crack it. Vivian had been repelled by the mere essence of his very soul, something which only grew stronger with time. As the dust settled, Andrei shook Vivian's fur from between his fingers, the sharp bristles having dug into his skin after his aura faded. "That's new... your body is still changing? Or is that Geryon doing the changing?" Andrei glared at Vivian, who had been quiet. Far too quiet for comfort. He understood she was fighting an internal battle right now, and he would be there for her if she lost.
Vivian lurched forward, the collar of fur around her neck crackling with static electricity which spread to her head of thick, pale red hair, and her brown-tipped fox ears. A vein in her forehead began to pop, Vivi's nose wrinkling as Geryon howled with bestial might, trying to exert its control over her body. Her chest heaved with heavy breaths already, and she struggled against the greater will within her, claws grasping at the collar of her own leather jacket. "N-No. Geryon, he's nothin' you hear me, Andrei?!" That first word was nothing but a growl, but it slowly crescendoed into a roaring war cry. "It's nothing but me fighting, you get that?!"
As Vivian tore off her jacket, she revealed the cropped black tank top which she wore beneath it now. Her whole body was tense, vibrating and crackling with flashes of electrical light. Her brow twitched with rage at the suggestion, and she flexed her fingers just to make sure it was still her feeling the movement. In her mind, it was nothing but a battle of two incoherent monsters. There was no greater will, just an unbridled, unfathomable rage as two animals roared at one another. Here, Geryon took the form of a three-headed lion-hyena. It taunted Vivian in the fields of hell which made up her mind, molten energy coursing through the cracked stony ground in this place. As Vivian lunged at the mental image of Geryon, they locked grasps, the two pushing against one another unmoving.
YOU ARE READING
CALAMITY CORE : FREE THE WORLD
Action- BOUND THE WORLD - After falling from the sky in a blaze of glory, without so much as a memory to his name, and cleaving a path through the whole of the Tokyo Dead Zone with the discovery of his nature as a half-human half-Chimera, a monster from a...
