*Warning: I'll put this trigger warning here. This chapter *will* get gory and graphic. If you can manage it, please read on, otherwise you might find it better to skip this chapter, regardless of the plot hole. Your comfort needless to say comes first.
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{Perona's POV}
"Aralynn, you're just playing, right? Get up, silly." Perona desperately gasped for air as she layered Healer's Words, her healing spell, onto Aralynn. The bird folk girl lay unresponsive, body mangled on the deck of the airship.
To make it worse, Perona's dwarf attacker was emboldened by Aralynn's fall and turned his full attention to Perona, swinging with reckless abandon. This time, he unleashed his skill without restraint—shards of stone and bursts of explosive force rained down like a deadly storm. Perona was forced to use magic. She combined Saizlef's Thunder to strike back and Phase Step to teleport clear of the skills' radius, narrowly avoiding the brunt of the dwarf's onslaught.
However, her stamina was dwindling quickly and it was clear that Perona couldn't keep this up.
Realizing the danger that Perona was in, Hadarai tried to retreat to shield her, but with Perona's healing magic focused on Aralynn, Hadarai's accumulating wounds overwhelmed him. He stumbled, unable to break free from the relentless assault of the two dwarves layering blow upon blow onto him.
Tears welled in Perona's eyes, then spilled freely down her cheeks as her body trembled under the barrage. Every breath was a struggle and every motion was a desperate push to survive. After all, the dwarf seemed barely affected by Perona's attacks as he hounded her, never giving Perona a chance to recover between his explosive skill and regular swings.
Then, the inevitable happened. Perona tripped on the wood planks of the deck and tumbled, landing heavily on the wooden deck of the ship. She tried to stand up, but her legs refused to, shivering and shaking as her tendons and muscles twinged with pain.
"Ah. Fuck." Perona braced herself as the dwarf lunged for her, his axe glowing with a crimson aura.
He never reached her. What appeared to be a twitching figure of blood and viscera intercepted him, throwing him to the ground in a cloud of feathers tainted with blood.
The dwarf turned his attention to his new attacker, but was shocked to find two things: firstly, this new attacker was the birdfolk he presumed that he had killed earlier. Standing there was Aralynn, shivering, twitching, but still standing and somehow able to fight. While she certainly wasn't in truly capable condition, her wounds had recovered to a point where she could move without her body tearing itself apart.
Secondly, the dwarf was shocked to find one of Aralynn's talons going through his throat and the other punching into his chest and grasping his heart. He didn't even have time to react. In one brutal motion, Aralynn tore out his throat and ripped his head clean from his shoulders with one hand, while the other crushed his heart, splattering it into pulp. The mangled corpse collapsed in a lifeless heap at her feet.
"A-Aralynn? You're up. Fucking dummy." Tears streamed endlessly down Perona's cheeks as she looked at her friend—bloodied, broken, barely breathing—but alive. Perona's weak mind didn't even register Aralynn's brutality as relief and anguish warred in her chest. "Wait—just hold still. Let me heal you."
She cast Healer's Words, layering the spell over Aralynn's shattered form. Nothing happened. Perona's breath caught. She tried again. Then again. Still nothing. Panic crept into her chest as blood continued to drip from Aralynn. Then, the birdfolk turned her head to face Perona, and the sight almost made the half-elf's heart stop.
"Aralynn?"
The birdfolk girl's body was barely holding itself together, and it was a miracle that she could move at all. The first thing that Perona noticed were Aralynn's eyes. Her previously bright, sunshiny orange eyes were now endless pools of bloodred irises. Her human face was now contorted into something feral—lips curled back in a vicious snarl, feathers once covered in a sweater now bristling along her neck.
Aralynn bared sharp canines—fangs Perona hadn't even realized that Aralynn had. The expression, paired with the blood-slick talons at her fingertips and the trembling, ruined wings flared behind her, made her seem less like a girl and more like a cornered predator poised to kill. Each of her movements were twitchy as if she were a puppet on a string.
Before Perona could truly register Aralynn, the birdfolk girl moved faster than the eye could follow and darted to a space midair behind the dwarves attacking Hadarai.
The sight of their half-dead birdfolk companion moving like a possessed puppet gave Hadarai and Celran the same scare as Perona. As the dwarves turned their attention to her, Aralynn ripped one away, throwing the dwarven man ruthlessly onto the planks many feet away. She then descended onto him with bloodlust, tearing away at his body with her bare talons.
The dwarf shoved Aralynn off, staggering back with a choked expression, blood pouring freely from the wounds she'd torn into him. He clutched his axe, eyes wide—not with rage, but with pain. Before he could recover, Celran charged in, unleashing a relentless flurry of slashes. This time, his blades bit deep—flesh parted for the fangs of steel. The dwarf reeled, overwhelmed, thrown into a desperate defense.
"They're vulnerable!" Celran realized. "Whatever protection they had is gone!"
Hadarai didn't hesitate. The azure flames along his blade raged as he surged forward, driving the dwarf he faced into retreat with righteous fury.
As Celran knocked aside the dwarf's waraxe with a final parry, he rushed forward, seizing the weapon's haft with one clawed hand. The dwarf moved to wrest it free but then paused, eyes widening. Celran's throat pulsed with a deep, ultramarine glow, building brighter with each millisecond.
With a guttural roar, Celran opened his jaws.
A blinding stream of crackling lightning erupted from his maw, arcing directly into the dwarf's chest. The thunderous beam engulfed him, dancing across armor and flesh alike, frying him in place with a deafening sizzle of pure electric fury.
On Hadarai's front, he'd driven his blade through the final dwarf's chest, blue fire bursting from the wound. Holy and searing, it writhed up the dwarf's body like a judgment made manifest, devouring flesh and armor alike in a blinding flare.
Then Amon, Grango, and Derrick burst through the door, weapons drawn. Grango lunged forth with two explosive bounds of his frogfolk legs, closing the distance in an instant to Hadarai. He plunged his dagger into the dwarf's skull, ending him before the smoldering body could hit the deck.
Amon loosed an arrow into the dwarf Celran had already fried—though it was likely unnecessary, given the way the dwarf's body lay smoldering, charred black.
The party paused and took in the scene before they noticed Aralynn taking steps shakily towards Perona, still twitching, her body barely holding together, her eyes bloodshot.
"Aralynn…?" Perona's voice trembled as she clutched her chest, her breath catching in her throat. Aralynn unsteadily swayed towards her, bloodied and broken, half-crushed into the deck and barely standing, looking more beast than humanoid.
Then, Aralynn collapsed face first onto the hard wooden planks of the deck right in front of Perona. Her eyes turned back to their normal brilliant orange as Aralynn hacked up blood and attempted a smile.
"I'm glad that you're safe, Perona. I didn't want to lose someone else… I'm sorry if I scared you."
Then, Aralynn closed her eyes and became deathly still once more.