Rune Seeker

Chapter 77: Enemy 3

Picoli’s pained cry echoed between the sparse trees, crawling across the ground and over the roots like a living thing trying to flee the agony her body endured. The party ahead of Hiral was still looking around, trying to figure out what exactly had happened, but he cut hard to the left and sped toward the source of the screaming.

Arms pumping as he went, he deftly leapt across a series of glowing roots, darted around a tree, and then ran as fast he could. There, at the base of one of the trees ahead, he could vaguely make out Picoli leaning against the trunk, head tilted back as she screamed. Her hands groped at a garish wound in her stomach, blood flowing, while her legs kicked and stomped on the ground.

Up came Hiral’s weapons in front of him, one aimed in Picoli’s direction—her red health bar was already below half—while he scanned around for whatever had done that to the woman.

“Picoli?” Hiral said. “Where is it?”

The woman convulsed in response, her arms clenching up like hooked claws, and she fell sideways on the ground.

“Picoli!” Hiral shouted, sprinting the rest of the way over to find her seizing on the ground. “Wule will be here any second now,” he told her, his head turning left and right. “Did you see where it went?”

“It… it…” she tried to force out of clenched jaws, her whole body rocking as tremors racked through her.

“It’s where?” Hiral prompted, looking around once more and then crouching down beside her.

“It’s… in… in… in… in… insiiiiide me!” she finally screamed, like the words themselves were ripping her apart, and her back arched up so violently, it was only her heels and crown of her skull still on the ground. Light, soft at first, and then suddenly blinding, burst out of her eyes and mouth, like she had the sun itself in her throat. Her screaming cut off just like that, replaced by the sizzling of a barbeque… coming from inside the woman.

Smoke curled out of the wound in her stomach, from her mouth and eyes, and red lines grew into burnt patches along her skin.

Hiral was forced to step back as the heat rose and rose, the falling rain turning to steam as soon as it touched her skin. Still, the heat continued to climb, the wet tree bark curling as it started to burn, and the falling drops of rain popping long before they ever reached her flesh.

He backed up five feet, ten, retreating until it didn’t feel like he was standing next to a bonfire, and the others finally caught up to him.

“What is that?” Wule asked.

“That’s Picoli,” Hiral said.

“Is she exploding like you did?” Nivian asked, a thread of strained hope in his voice.

“I don’t think so,” Hiral said. “She said it was inside her, whatever that means. Then she started glowing like this.” Even as he watched, her health bar plummeted, the red practically evaporating along with the rain.

“What’s inside her?” Wule asked, taking a step forward, and then immediately retreating from the heat. A gesture from his hand pulled the orbiting ball of fire from his crown slightly down, a faint red aura surrounding him, and he tried moving toward Picoli again. “The buff isn’t enough,” he said, forced back to the others.

“We have to do something,” Seeyela said, her eyes locked on her party member.

“Open to ideas,” Yanily said, but then the glow vanished just as abruptly as it had started.

The sudden plunge into darkness, along with the cold rain, made some part of Hiral’s brain think he’d been dunked underwater, and he reflexively gasped for air. Thankfully, his lungs filled, and he pushed aside the brief panic, then blinked his eyes rapidly.

“Picoli?” he asked, and something moved, the outline barely visible against the soft glow of the roots after the sun-like brightness before. His night vision had been completely destroyed by the light, and he squinted to try and make out what was moving. “Are you… okay?”

There came a SNAP like a branch breaking… No… something thicker. Harder. Like a bone breaking. Hiral raised both his weapons to point in Picoli’s direction.

“Oh, enough with this,” Seena said off to Hiral’s right, and a ball of flame appeared above her hand. Then a second… and a third, finally bringing out enough light for Hiral to see Picoli standing next to the tree.

Another SNAP came at the same time something moved under her leather chestpiece. Snap, snap, snap. The sounds of breaking continued, everybody taking a step back as Picoli twitched and her chest… widened. Like something was making room inside, her ribs shattered and spread to the limits the armor would allow, and then she looked up at them.

Even under the flickering light of Seena’s fireballs, Picoli’s eyes looked burned out, seared to little more than charred black orbs. And yet… and yet, as Hiral looked closer, there was a pinprick of golden light right where her pupils would’ve been. Had she undergone something similar to Hiral? Some sort of powerful awakening?

One more snap from her ribs, and Picoli raised her head to peer directly at them.

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!

ENEMY DETECTED!

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!

The warning notification sprang to life so suddenly, Hiral jumped, and he wasn’t the only one. Party members on both sides of him swiped aside the surprising notification window, and then everybody stood stone-still as they looked at the woman ahead of them. The Enemy?

“Picoli?” Seeyela asked gently, but she didn’t step forward. There was something unnerving about the pinprick eyes.

“Did you all get the notification?” Yanily asked.

“Yes,” Nivian said, his voice barely a hiss.

“What do we do?” Balyo asked, everybody practically frozen, though Hiral still had his weapons aimed at Picoli.

Guilt at pointing his weapons at a friend crawled up the back of his skull, but what he’d seen and heard—plus that notification—stopped him from lowering them. She barely had any health left, according to View, but, still… something primal in his brain screamed threat.

Seeyela, likewise, glanced at his RHCs, but didn’t ask him to point them somewhere else.

“We figure this out—that’s what we do,” Seeyela said instead. “Picoli. Are you okay?”

Picoli’s head tilted to the side, like Seeyela’s question was strange. Or maybe she didn’t even understand the words, from the way her lips moved, almost as if she was trying to copy the sounds. All that came out was a raspy wheeze.

“I feel like we should leave,” Yanily said.

“We can’t leave Picoli,” Balyo snapped.

“Are you sure that’s still Picoli?” Yanily asked, and Balyo opened her mouth to respond… but no words came out.

“Maybe we can learn something from her,” Hiral said. “Or figure out how to get her back to normal.”

He said the words even though no part of him believed it. That energy he’d seen, it had to have consumed her from the inside out. Burned her to charcoal inside. And now, whatever it was looking out at them through the woman’s ruined eyes—it wasn’t Picoli anymore.

Another twitch, and the woman hunched forward, something slithering out of her shoulders like Seena’s Lashing Vines ability. Bereft of thorns, these sinuous appendages coiled down around Picoli’s arms, wrapping them like a snake until the tips stopped on the back of her hands.

Vines? No. Snakes? No. Those are… suction cups on the inside? Tentacles…

No sooner had the arms finished than more of the tenacles erupted out of her hips, two weaving their way down her legs, two more crossing up her chest, and a final, smaller pair cupping over the top of her skull. A moment later, the tentacles stopped moving, and a soft line of light ran along them, just like a…

“That looks a lot like a PIM,” Seena said.

“Super creepy PIM,” Yanily added.

“Look at her health bar…” Wule said, half wonder and half fear in his voice, as the red bar above the woman’s head quickly filled back up—then more than doubled in size. Tripled. Quadrupled…

“Be ready,” Hiral whispered, a shiver running up his spine as Picoli’s eyes narrowed. He placed his fingers over his triggers.

Hunching forward, Picoli slowly lifted her right foot behind her, then placed it against the tree. Before Hiral could even wonder what she was doing—CRUNCH—she launched forward, the trunk shattering from the force, and shot toward Seeyela.

Nivian, faster than anybody else, slid in front of the other party leader, his thorny shield up, and braced his legs. A split second before Picoli struck, light formed around the front of her fist, and then her punch lifted Nivian from his feet and hurled him backwards, while the shockwave of the collision threw everybody else aside.

Hiral hit the ground and rolled to his feet, then aimed both weapons at Picoli. Instead of moving on the vulnerable Seeyela—who’d somehow managed to dive out of the way to avoid Nivian—the woman stared at her bloody fist, as if she was surprised by the crimson. Light flared along the tentacles, and the wounded knuckles sealed up even as Hiral watched.

We can’t keep hesitating, his brain screamed at him, and he pulled the triggers. Bolts of force carved through the falling rain to slam into Picoli’s shoulder and arm, knocking her to the side and carving chunks out of her health bar. Her pinprick eyes snapped up at him, more light flaring within, and she turned toward him in a crouch.

She’s coming!

But a thorny whip lashed down her shoulder, tearing at the glowing tentacle, and Picoli’s attention tore in Nivian’s direction. Legs flexing, Picoli launched again at the tank where he stood, twenty feet away. She covered the distance in the single leap, rocketing straight at him, and once more, something flared in front of her knuckles as she swung her fist to meet his shield.

WHOMP. Rain burst outward in a sphere from the impact, but Nivian held his ground, roots wrapping his legs and holding him in place. Picoli’s momentum carried her straight into the shield, her elbow snapping backwards from the force of her own blow, and she met the thorny barrier face-first. In the heartbeat it took her body to crumple against his shield, Nivian twisted and heaved, using Picoli’s own momentum to deflect her off to the side with a shift of his balance.

Picoli hit the ground in a roll, bouncing up and over glowing roots, then sprang to her feet in an animalistic crouch—a quarter of her health bar gone from the collision. Her right arm, hanging awkwardly at her side, snapped as the tentacle flexed, straightening it out, and then light flared along its length. Picoli’s hand opened and closed like the arm had never been injured—her entire red bar was fully restored—and then she leapt forty feet up toward the trunk of a nearby tree. Flipping midair, something glowed just below the soles her feet before she hit the tree… and then she kind of… stayed put.

Hiral fired at her, his first shot whizzing over her shoulder as she ducked under it with preternatural grace. She seemed to slap the other out of the air with her bare hand. No, bare wasn’t right—something had glowed on her palm just before she intercepted the blast. So, he fired again and again.

“What are you doing, Hiral?” Seeyela shouted.

“What aren’t you doing?” Hiral shouted back as he pulled his triggers. “That’s not Picoli anymore.”

Even as he spoke, his focus was on the woman somehow hanging on the side of the tree. Again and again, she either dodged or slapped aside his attacks, but the motions finally told him how she was doing it—even though the answer sent a shiver like ice water through his veins.

Another blast zipped right for Picoli, and her hand snapped out, a Rune of Impact forming on the palm of her hand a heartbeat before it blasted aside his own bolt of Impact. Then, as if she’d had enough of their little game, the tree cracked beneath her feet—where she must’ve been using the Rune of Attraction—and she blasted down in Hiral’s direction.

He hit her while she dove at him with two blasts from his RHCs, but they hardly seemed to slow her down, and then her fist came around, the Rune of Impact glowing like a meteor. Far too fast—he’d never avoid her. Hiral instead poured as much energy as he could into his Runes of Gravity and Increase, right in front of him.

The ground fractured from the sudden shift, roots collapsing in on themselves and the rain speeding up, while Picoli slammed straight down. Just like that, Hiral was out of solar energy, the greedy rune having sucked it all up, and he staggered backwards, suddenly exhausted. The increased gravity faded immediately, and Picoli hauled herself to her feet, blood oozing out of dozens of wounds along her face and body.

If she even felt them, she gave no sign of it, and a flare of light along the tentacles made her injuries vanish. Runes glowed in front of her fists, and the seemingly unstoppable woman took a step toward Hiral.

He, in turn, lifted his RHC at her head and pulled the trigger.

The blast splattered Picoli’s nose across her face in a grotesque shower of blood and cartilage, leaving a ghastly hole above her mouth, but it didn’t slow the woman down one bit. Luminous energy glowed from within the wound, and a bloody smile split her lips. Up snapped her hand, bashing the RHC out of Hiral’s grip to soar off into the woods, and then it stretched out to grasp his throat.

With strength far beyond Picoli’s E-Rank, she lifted him off the ground with just the one arm, then cocked her other hand back, the Rune of Impact glowing ominously.

Down and around, a river cut through the air and into Picoli’s extended arm. Then, in the blink of an eye, it rushed forward to explode at her wrist. Left’s Dagger of Sath chopped through her arm, then the double twisted and lunged at Hiral, catching him in the gut with his shoulder and carrying him out of Picoli’s reach.

Ten feet away, Left unhooked himself from Hiral, and the two squared up to look at Picoli. The woman was staring at the stump of her arm, like she was surprised the hand wasn’t there anymore, then looked to where it lay on the ground. Picoli’s shoulders gave a small shrug, and she raised her gaze to look at Hiral again.

“Get ready,” Hiral whispered to Left without taking his eyes off the woman. Small flashes erupted in the corner of his view, as though his PIMwas trying to bring up more warning windows.

Picoli’s legs tensed at the same time Hiral swung his RHC up and pulled the trigger. Springing to the side, she dodged the first shot, then the second, lunging around like some kind of animal. After two more misses, Picoli hit the ground and bent hard at her knee, ready for another of her powerful leaps.

Sensing the same thing, Left put himself between her and Hiral, his blade up and ready to intercept. Except, when Picoli leapt, it wasn’t toward Hiral.

She shot off to the side like a bolt from Hiral’s RHC, cutting through the rain and leaving a void where she passed, and her fist came around with its glowing rune. WHAM. It collided with Balyo’s spear shaft as the woman got it up just in time to block the blow. Something in her arms snapped at the impact, and without a buff like the roots Nivian had to brace himself, the blow hurled her backwards. Balyo hit the ground, bounced over a knobby root, and then slid along the ground.

Hiral took a shot at Picoli, but she was already moving, charging toward Balyo with a manic grin on her face. Light poured from her eyes, ruined nose, and mouth like a grinning skull. She dodged his shot, and then Yanily was there, finally running into action, his Reed SpearStyle lashing out a dozen times in the span of a heartbeat.

Picoli’s head bobbed and weaved, like his spear moved in slow motion, and then she was around Yanily, not paying him even another second of attention. Her eyes locked on Balyo as the spearwoman pushed herself to her feet. Hiral fired again and again, the first shot zipping over Picoli’s ducking head, while the second simply got slapped out of the air, all without her even looking in his direction.

She can sense the shots somehow.

Balyo managed to stand and raise her spear, arms shaking like even the effort took everything she had. And yet, she planted her feet and took a stance, gathering her solar energy. Picoli smiled at the challenge, the glow from within her tracing lines across the night as she raced ahead.

Nivian appeared out of nowhere, sliding between the two of them, and raised his shield. Picoli had already seen that trick, though. She darted out, around, and back, completely avoiding the tank, who couldn’t turn quickly enough with the roots bracing his feet. Her mocking grin as she passed told him just how useless his effort had been… until Nivian grinned back.

Picoli’s glowing eyes narrowed at the expression, and she turned her attention back on Balyo, only to find a giant, glowing spear of light aimed straight at her.

Balyo lunged with everything she had, the amount of solar energy in her spear actually rippling the air and sending the falling rain cascading in wild directions. A sound like a giant sheet tearing bounced between the trees as Balyo thrust, her attack as inevitable as the rising sun.

As fast as she was, Picoli had too much momentum, and the spear filled the space in front of her. WHAAAAAAM. The collision dwarfed the earlier impact with Nivian, blasting out a shockwave that carried the rain like a wave.

The concussive force threw Hiral back a good ten feet, and he grunted as he hit the ground, the air getting knocked from his lungs. But breathing wasn’t something he had time to worry about. He rolled to his hands and knees, lifting his RHC in a shaky hand. What he found could only make his jaw drop.

Picoli and Balyo stood directly opposite each other, cones of furrowed ground dug deep and extending out to the sides like an hourglass from the blast of the rune-empowered fist meeting solar-infused spear. Balyo had contested Picoli’s absurd strength head on and held her ground!

Her spear couldn’t say the same thing—it had been shattered to nothingness just inches above Balyo’s forward hand.

And Picoli still had the same manic smile on her face. A twitch of her shoulders was all the warning anybody had before she burst forward, the rune glowing in front of her fist. Balyo tried to back up—to put some space between them—but from that close, she couldn’t keep up.

Picoli’s fist hit Balyo square in the chest, then went through it like it was a wet paper bag to burst out of her back.

“Balyo!” Yanily shouted, and he wasn’t the only one. Voices cried out in shock all around.

Balyo, for her part, locked her eyes with Picoli, then reached out and grabbed the other woman’s arm.

“No… more… jumping… around… now…” Balyo wheezed out, blood running down the sides of her mouth with every word, and from the obviously fatal wound in her chest. “Do it!”

“Balyo…” Seeyela said. “I… can’t…”

Balyo didn’t look away from Picoli when the other woman pulled experimentally on her arm. “You… can…” Balyo wheezed. “I’m… already… dead…”

“Wule can…” Seena started, but her words cut off, the truth of the injuries too clear to dispute.

“Fine… then…” Balyo said, solar energy gathering in her hands again as she held on to Picoli, then actually pulled the woman in closer, driving the arm further through her ruined chest.

The grin on Picoli’s face finally faltered, and she tried to pull back, but something about Balyo’s grip wouldn’t let go.

“She’s burning through the energy of her PIM,” Left said. “Through her life.”

“Let’s… see… how… you… like… it…” Balyo said, releasing her left hand from Picoli’s arm, then extending her fingers like a knife. Energy gathered around her hand as she cocked it back—just like it had around her spear—and Picoli seemed to realize the danger she was in.

Balyo thrust forward at the same time Picoli brought her other arm in to catch the blow, only to realize too late she didn’t have a hand to catch it with. Still, Picoli’s stump deflected Balyo’s strike low, the blow piercing through her hip instead of her chest.

“Damnit…” Balyo wheezed. She dropped lifelessly to her knees, the two impaling arms the only things keeping her from toppling over, the last sliver of her red health bar vanishing.

Picoli stared down at the lolling spearwoman in front of her, and at her own injury. Then she swung her handless arm around so viciously, it took Balyo’s head clean off.

“Noooo!” multiple voices shouted, Hiral’s among them. Bolts of flame and a Gravity Well flared to life on both sides of Picoli and Balyo, the women vanishing in a wave of flame and lightning.

“Can you stand?” Left asked, joining Hiral and helping him to his feet.

“I… think so,” Hiral said.

Deal with the shock later. Act now, while you can, he told himself, reaching out to his side. He activated his Rune of Attraction with the little solar energy he’d managed to recover. His lost RHC sailed through the air and into his hand, and he once again aimed both weapons at the center of the conflagration. Then he pulled the triggers, again and again, pouring his anger into each pull of the trigger.

Damnit. Damnit. Damnit!

“I don’t think that will stop her,” Hiral shouted, having seen firsthand her uncanny healing abilities. “Seena, can you do something to trap her? Your Spearing Roots?”

“On it!” Seena said, hurling her next barrage of three fireballs before starting to prepare the necessary solar energy. “You need to keep her right there!”

“Leave that to me,” Seeyela said, her face a tight scowl of anger and loss. A head-sized, pitch-black gravity well appeared near the ground in the center of the raging flames.

Why is it so small?

Hiral got the answer as everything got pulled toward the well. The flames and Picoli alike got hauled down, while the ground itself seemed to tear and rise up toward the veritable hole in space. At the same time, a dreadful tearing sound filled the air, howling like a hurricane through the eye of a needle.

“Can’t… hold… this… long,” Seeyela said, strained, her hands apart but squeezing together like she had an invisible ball between them.

“Few more seconds,” Seena said, the solar energy continuing to build inside of her.

Despite the intense pressure of Seeyela’s Gravity Well, Picoli lifted her head to look at Hiral, their eyes meeting. Even with her missing nose still oozing blood, one arm through the headless husk that had been Balyo, much of her body blackened to charcoal, and her health bar below half, the woman smiled again.

“There!” Seena shouted, a dome of massively thick Spearing Roots bursting out of the ground to encompass Picoli. “I don’t know how long that will hold.”

“Then we need to go,” Hiral said, his mind replaying the smile over and over.

And how it seemed to promise him this wasn’t finished.