Knights of the Grey City

Chapter 12 - CONTROL

The gargoyle flew past me in a flash, putting its full weight into the second spider to stop its approach. I was startled enough to move the flashlight and the first spider instantly darted forward. I steadied again, tried to calm my breathing and my heartbeat, needing to believe that Huang could keep the other spider at bay behind me.

"You could have avoided this mess by running away as soon as you realized you were here," Huang snapped at me, apparently still having the energy to tell me off. "Why did you put me in this situation? If you weren't here, I could probably escape."

I did hear the unspoken words, which was that he wasn't about to abandon me to the spiders alone. Still, this was far from an ideal situation. "Huang," I said, my voice going calm again, "I was betting on the fact that you can do the shiny thing. I'm, like, ninety percent sure that you can do it."

"What a vote of confidence," he said derisively, through the flurry of a fight happening behind me. "I promise you, I am trying."

"In my dream," I said, the circle of light on the first spider's face slowly burning into my vision, "The being that talked to me said you didn't understand that form, that you didn't know how to use it."

"That seems increasingly clear!"

"Listen, just... try and focus. You figured out how to fly that thing somehow, didn't you?"

"I instinctively knew how to fly," Huang said, then let out a huff of air when the spider's leg knocked heavily into his shoulder.

"So, don't you instinctively know how to shine?" I demanded. The second spider was quickly beginning to overtake Huang; he was giving ground to avoid being crushed.

"If I had a moment to think—"

"There's no time for thinking. Just focus on what you want to do, and do it!" I said. And to my amazement, a bright light burst behind me, washing everything in the tunnel in stark white.

The spiders flinched back, appearing to be in great pain. The bright light faded and I watched Huang with my sense as he suddenly drew himself up and flared his wings out, causing an even brighter light to fill the space. The spiders instantly retreated, digging up into the ceiling and out of sensing range.

"Are you serious, all you needed was for me to yell at you!?" I demanded, dropping the flashlight to my side in relief. The earth above us made a few settling noises, and then was silent.

"Shut up! It just didn't click until the instinct thing!" Huang limped back toward me, glow returned to its normal level. "I had to let go and stop trying to make it happen, if that makes sense... You realize what a close call that was, right?"

"Please, let's just go to the waterfront before something worse happens," I pleaded. Huang was quick to agree.

We resumed our previous course and followed the pipes in the ceiling, still keeping careful watch above us in case the spiders gave us another shot. But we'd either hurt them pretty severely or they were too scared to try again, because we reached the next area without a problem.

The next area was a wide hallway with its ceiling lined with pipes of different sizes. The air was dense and humid. The hall soon opened up even wider into a circular room, which extended upward into a tall cylinder ringed with stairs. The stairs had no guardrail on the inside edge, which seemed very unsafe, and the walls of the room were made of moisture-streaked concrete.

Huang stood up on his back legs and flared his wings, briefly covering the whole area in light. With that, we could just barely see a landing at the very top, and a few lumpy shapes beyond.