Ash's legs quivered. The Kraegan coming his way wasn't small fry like the others; this one was stronger and meaner-looking. It also seemed to possess a certain level of intelligence, cracking its knuckles and neck, pointing at Ash, then pointing at its own mouth, telling Ash it was going to eat him. The Kraegan ran to Ash; it wanted to eat him badly after being deprived of human meat for so long.
Ash tried to move, spark a flame in his hand to fight back, but he couldn't. He was scared; he couldn't muster the courage to fight back.
The Kraegan came close; in response, Daredevil struck it in the face. The Kraegan was stunned for a minute before shaking its head to regain its senses. Daredevil wouldn't back down; he jumped again, only making the Kraegan even more frustrated by the display of bravado.
"No, stop! That's a Berserker; it's a partially evolved Kraegan. You can't beat it." Ash tried to warn Daredevil, but he wouldn't listen. He still flung himself at the Berserker, futilely.
The Berserker had had enough. It grabbed Daredevil with its bare hands, screaming a primal roar. It threw Daredevil to the ground and then stomped on him. With a final insult, it kicked Daredevil away from it, the bike sliding and scraping against the ground.
Ash stood still; it felt like the world was covered in silence, with nothing but a painful ringing in his ears from the shock. Seeing the bike beaten and smashed reminded him of how bad Isaac and Amelia's bodies were when they died. Ash couldn't hear anything but the ringing, not even the sound of his own yell at seeing his prized treasure lying broken on the ground.
The Berserker tried to take advantage; it charged again, and once more it was stopped. More smaller Kraegans came forward and attacked it. They tasted their own kind's flesh for so long that cannibalism came before human flesh. The Berserker fought hard to get them off it. Ash took the opportunity to limp to the bike; he was panicking at the sight of it.
"No no no no no." He repeated, trying to remain even 1% calm as he figured out a way to save the bike. "System, please give me something, anything to save the bike, I beg of you."
The system popped up; it was calculating a solution.
{Answer. The user can sacrifice all their Vitality points to initiate a one-time emergency transfer to a location. Location will be random and only within a fifty-mile radius of the point of origin. Does the user wish to proceed?}
"Yes, yes, do it! Initiate now!"
The system responded; it sapped all of Ash's Vitality away, and in a ball of light Ash and Daredevil vanished.
The Berserker, witnessing the disappearance, roared in disappointment. The smaller Kraegans not only screwed it out of a meal, but also irritated it further. Drool and growls came from its mouth as it began to massacre the smaller Kraegans that attacked it.
Ash reappeared; he was still in the zone, just now away from the Berserker. Ash raised the bike upright. Even with his limping, bleeding feet, he moved inside a derelict building for cover. His pain threshold felt like it tripled in seconds. With his Vitality at zero, his ability to withstand injuries and ignore pain was gone. Now, he was feeling the full force of his damage.
Ash tried to steady his breathing and get his heart rate to slow down before he gave himself a heart attack. He had to do it fast; he could hear the sound of rapid stomping nearby. Peeking slightly out of the broken window, he could see from a far distance that the Berserker was on its way. Ash felt his heart race more. There was no way he was ready for a Berserker; it was too powerful for him currently. He had to think, come up with an escape plan, anything to hide his presence.
Ash looked and saw the blood and guts on the tires and engine of the Kraegan's Daredevil killed earlier. He hurriedly slathered himself with them to mask his scent; he figured if the Berserker only wanted to eat him, it wasn't interested in eating another Kraegan.
Ash covered his mouth to silence his breathing so he wouldn't be heard. The Berserker trudged around the area, looking for Ash. It wanted to eat him badly enough that its open mouth drooled wherever it stepped.
Ash tried to remain as calm as possible, at least until the Berserker was far enough away.
The Berserker smashed cars, corpses, and anything in its path away from it like swatting a fly. The Berserker left the area after it couldn't smell or find Ash. It figured he was somewhere else, at least to its average intelligence.
Ash let go of his mouth to breathe again. He started using the breathing techniques Lita showed him when he got angry to calm himself down and steady his heart rate. It took a couple of minutes, but he was able to get his body to calm down to an acceptable pace; the only problem now was his body throbbing in absolute pain now that his points were gone.
"System, why am I hurting so much? This is unbearable. Did those points really cause this?"
{Answer. Stats affect the user's body and abilities. Every stat plays a key role in a user's physical attributes and fighting ability. HP is the user's life force, affecting how long the body has till it ceases to function. Strength is the physical aspect of a user's ability to attack with weapons. The higher the strength stat, the higher the synchronization the user can achieve with weapons. Vitality affects the user's ability to withstand pain and attacks; the higher the stat, the more damage the user can ignore without injury. Agility grants the user evasive skills and counter movements. Stamina increases the user's speed and attrition in prolonged fights. Potential is the ability to adapt, evolve abilities and skills, and awaken users' true power at an accelerated rate. If any stats are lower or reach zero, users will be heavily impacted.}
Ash felt irritated; he knew there was a price to pay for draining those vitality points, but not that much. He wanted to smack the wall behind him, but changed his mind when he figured he would just hurt his hand more in the process.
"I've gotta get those points back; I can't focus with my body burning up. Damn, I can feel like I have a fever now; I'm sweating all over." He kept breathing in rhythm to keep himself awake, looking forward, and he saw his mangled bike lying there.
He held his face in shame; a few scratches or stains were one thing, but this was soul-crushing. He crawled to the bike, embracing it as if it were his child. He couldn't hold back his wails, not even caring if a Kraegan heard him.
Whether Daredevil felt sorry for him, or maybe because it reminded him of how Lita felt when she held him when he was dying, he could feel Ash's pain.
Struggling to move, Daredevil forced himself to move the front of the tire, moving as slowly as he could till the treads touched Ash. He even forced a slow rotation of the tire, as if he were trying to comfort Ash.
"Don't think this means I forgive you," Ash said weakly. "You have no idea how much I love this bike. This isn't just a hunk of metal and fluids to me. It's my only connection to my family."
Daredevil stopped rolling and just listened to Ash.
"My parents died when I was young. I vaguely remember them. They were killed in a car crash. Isaac said they were arguing about something before it happened. He doesn't know what it was about, but I hope it was important. Isaac raised me practically, and so did Amelia. They were more my parents than anyone else. I would give anything, even my soul if I still had it, to see them again, even if it was to tell them I'm doing ok."
Ash clutched the bike tightly; it was hard for him to be emotionally vulnerable, especially when it came to accepting Isaac and Amelia's deaths.
"I miss them. I miss them so much; all I have is this. This is my only way of keeping them alive. I'm sorry I forced your soul into the bike. I just wanted to help Lita; she's just as important as this bike. I'm sorry, boy, it's my fault."
Daredevil could feel it; Ash wasn't scolding him or faking an apology. It was an honest confession; he was letting Daredevil inside his feelings.
Daredevil, out of respect for Ash, did the same; he let Ash see his memories. Ash could feel a wave of thoughts that weren't his own projected in his mind. He could see from Daredevil's point of view the day he was attacked by the Kraegans.
Daredevil was helping to rescue civilians in a mountain range alongside his park ranger partner. When the Kraegans attacked, it was a massacre. Daredevil tried to help, but he was just a horse with no real power; no amount of fearlessness could match a supernatural being. The last image Ash saw was a little girl, no more than maybe seven or eight years old, crying, scared. Daredevil tried to save her but got smacked by a Kraegan; he landed on a tree stump that pierced him, thankfully missing his vital organs. Daredevil watched helplessly as the Kraegan ate the little girl; the image burned forever in his heart.
Ash now knew why he was so angry, why Daredevil wanted to kill the Kraegans so badly. It wasn't his pain he was feeling; it was the pain of failing that little girl that haunted him. Ash hugged him tighter; he felt connected now to Daredevil, like they were beginning to be partners finally.
"It wasn't your fault; you did what you could. That little girl, you tried to save her. I never would have imagined a horse trying to sacrifice itself to save a child. You're amazing, you know. I don't regret saving you. I wish I understood you better before I made judgments about you."
Daredevil could feel that bond with them growing; his hate and pain didn't feel like it was growing inside him anymore. Their moment was special, but not meant to last. The sound of crashing blasted inside the building; the Berserker found them. He tackled them both, crashing into two more buildings in the process.
Ash and Daredevil lay beaten and bloodied from the attack. Ash looked around and saw how busy the Berserker was when he was hiding.
More Kraegans scattered around the area,
Their bodies seizing in tremendous pain; there were bodies beside them on the ground too—human ones. Ash saw the patches on their jackets; they were HVA, Human Vigilance Army, an organized private military force in rivalry with the Revhound Corps. They believed only pure humans could save the world, using only advanced weapons to fight, and no skills or abilities. These soldiers must have snuck in to find materials for their weapons after finding out Kraegan bodies could be used for weapons processing.
"Damn idiots, they must have thought it was an easy cash grab and didn't count on the Berserker being here."
Ash struggled to get up, picking Daredevil up alongside him. He saw the additional faces on the Berserker's waist with the innards in its mouth. It must have fed on the HVA guys before finding Ash.
Ash knew that if this was his last stand, he wasn't going down like a wimp. He had enough self-pity for a lifetime. He forced himself on the bike again, fighting through the pain and fever chills. Grabbing the sword off his back, he stared the monster down, looking into its eyes unfazed.
Daredevil felt that spark in Ash; even he felt fired up now. Weakly revving up his engine, he was gonna fight alongside Ash to the end.
Ash set the sword ablaze and changed his head into the pumpkin form again. Taking the pommel of the sword, he bashed his shoulder till he heard the loud pop of it reattaching again. Shaking after being forced back in, Ash grabbed the handle of the bike. Daredevil, knowing he couldn't use the other arm for the throttle, utilized it himself. The Kraegan pounded its chest; Ash pointed the flaming sword at it in response.
"Okay." Daredevil revved up louder, his busted headlight beaming at the Berserker. "I'll chop off your head!"