“Vern, take over here,” it called from its crouch a distance away before bursting into a sprint towards – Xin. Fei made to attack the creature but its companion slinked towards him, blocking his path with his frivolous words. “You folks seemed like such nice people too, but ‘ey I always like a good fight.” Fei brought his variant forward to impale the one-eyed demon’s throat.
His staff sank into what was indisputably, not flesh. It felt like a rotting corpse. Fei jerked his variant from the inner burrows of the screeching mass, its limbs slinking towards him like inky shadows. The forest was engulfed in the mars black presence of madness and evil. They echoes of old tortures ripped from their shriveled bodies as they devoured the morning sun and the people beneath it.
“Xin!” he called, spinning to peak above the piles of rotting creatures who grappled for a taste of his human flesh. His variant had rippled into a circular shield, twelve spokes extending from its middle. The gold surface hissed with smoke, embers licking the heart of the variant sun before bursting into a revolving flame. The sun disk resting at its center spun with increasing speed and the creatures flinched from the heat or light before stalking forward, screams alive with fury. Fei searched for his sister as he unsheathed the blade at his back.
“Fei!” There was no humour in his sister’s voice now, only a crawling panic that kissed frost along her spine. She could not see her brother, barely grasped the low growl of his voice through the wailing of the tortured souls. She stared into the pulsing glass of the creatures’ eyes that threatened to burst from their sockets as whatever agony they had endured struggled to escape. A branch caught her ankle as she stumbled backwards and then it was not a branch at all, but the crackle of bones as the fingers dug crescent moons into her flesh. Pain leapt from her ankle to her mind as she jerked her leg free.
The stench of decay fingered in her hair of multitudinous horrors as the faceless creatures gasped. Hungry, they hissed. Hungry. The bark of the tree pressed splinters into Xin’s back. She hadn’t realised she’d been retreating. A creature lunged towards her.
“Xin, get up.” The creatures grappled against the shield of flames he held before them. Xin pushed herself from the ground, clutching her hands in front of her to stifle the tremors that snaked through her veins.
“Okay,” she told Fei. “Okay,” she told herself.
Xin’s skin rippled.
“Split,” she hissed. Fei nodded, turning away from her to brace himself in front of the two women – the creature he’d fought against minutes before and a strange girl with a frailty that contradicted the fierceness of her gaze as she crouched in front of the Princess of Massacre.
"So you're the ones I smelled earlier," the little one growled. Fei turned his back on the two figures, bringing his sword and shield forward to defend them against the creeping monsters. He swung the blade across the abdomen of a dark one, eliciting a blood-curdling scream.
“We are not the enemy,” he said.
Meanwhile a light had unfurled in Xin’s chest, pushing past the walls of her skin to give her a faint luminescence that grew with each pulse of her heartbeat. A flame flickered in her gaze, but did not rise. She bared her open palms and a gleam of pearl white teeth at the dark creatures. “Catch me if you can,” she purred before throwing herself into motion.
The trees devoured her figure as she dashed through them like a glowing beacon, her high-heeled shoes abandoned on the forest floor. Gripping a low-hanging branch, she swung herself up onto a tree, leaping, swinging, taunting. Soon there was no other tree for her to swing towards as a clearing emerged, filled with the same manic beings. Xin watched as two shadowed beings crept towards a beast of unparalleled beauty. The fur on its back glistened as it reared backwards, muscles bulging in its hind legs. It was a stunning manifestation of pure grace. Xin chewed her lower lip.
You’re insane, a logical part of her growled, a part which slumbered more often than not. I know, she told it, and the branch dug into her feet as she propelled herself from it. In that moment of flight, something snaked beneath her skin and ripped through her arms. Two long, wicked blades sliced through her wrists until the pommel of the swords rested in her palms. The pain was a familiar companion, like the ache of her limbs after an intense run. The gaping slits sealed shut, threads of skin overlapping and returning to its seamless form.
Xin’s twin swords sank into the bodies of two shadow creatures as she landed on one knee. Blood like soiled ink splattered against her skin as she tore her weapons from their bodies and attacked.