She did not remember when she decided to fall to her knees. She barely remembered anything after fog sipped out of nowhere and she was warped out of the hair salon and into the mad kill machine.
One moment ago, she had been running, her panting similar to that of her friend. They had torn through mud and thorns, forcing their failing bodies to keep ahead of the predators that trailed them.
And in the next moment, she was knelt on the ground, dirty skinned, teary eyed and beside her dead friend. The girl laid twisted, covering in wet algae and deep claw marks. The marks were not clean. They were not the kind that granted someone a swift death that was considered mercy. They were jagged, a statement that said that the forest didn't just kill, it ground down its victims to hollowness before snuffing out their lives.
The living girl stared with unbelief. Her mind had accepted it, but her heart refused to interpret what she saw. Not for the appalling nature of it, but for the broken oath that flowed out with blood.
They had promised to stay together, to grow instead of panic. And now, the forest had showed her the reality of her naive promise.
She sniffled, clutching her left arm as blood ran warm. Her flesh was swollen and parted with an angry shallow cut that ran from elbow to wrist. Her tears weren't dramatic, just small enough to convey pain from a body to weak to convey it. She couldn't scream anymore, she couldn't recognise herself.
But worst of all, was the black brand on her arm. The mark was dark, swirling and bubbling, and breathing faintly.
It was the same one Pluto bore. The same design carved to the unfortunately by the shadow as a reward for wandering too far. When it pulsed, the predators growled in chorus like a bunch of trained animals.
With fervent hunger that made throats tightened in adoration and fear.
For the second time in the forest, predators weren't following blood, they were following the mark.
***
Pluto struck again as he narrowly slipped by the impossible all out attack. The beasts made have been of one mind, but their coordinated left a lot to be wanted.
His blade rung wrongly. Too loud and for too long. It was hollow with cracks and sung with a dull vibration. It sagged slightly, threatening to snap from the next strike if poorly executed.
He shifted its weight in his hand, positioning the more airy parts in the grasp of his hand.
The Combat Class ability lensed his perception again, defining the parts that his stress had made blurry.
Ronan was leaned against a thick tree, taking advantage of the parry he had exchanged with a beast to take a moment to heave a bitter breath. The previous impact against the rhino's horn had rattled more than bone, shaking the foundation of his life force.
Khalifa stood in front of him, wedging herself between him and death, or at best, a few deep marks.
Five predators still remained in addition to the rhino. Five unpredictable variables stacked on top of a formula for destruction.
As they circled erratically, as the rhino lowered its head to give the horn centre stage again, Khalifa's trembling hands clasped together.
Not to pathway energy, but to remind herself that she hadn't slipped so far into inhumanity. Her hands trembled even more. She had not reached her threshold for energy expenditure, but she was close enough to see the lining.
Her fingers were blurred from view for a moment by a misting slightly opaque force, and when her hands were finally clear enough to see, it was the world that had blurred.
The mist had already made the next step a gamble, but now, a still stand was still in the danger of uncertainty.
Her eyes were monochrome for a second, barely pushing back the blackout that rested on her eyelids.
The world slowed in the truest sense, beating at multiple times more dragged. The air felt like swamp, the swamp like land, and land like something else entirely, something unbreakable.
Ronan had barely ever gotten a sense of scale of how power her distortion was, especially because she was so time efficient when she used it, but seeing a splash suspend and slowly stretch like thick syrup told him that she was unbelievable.
She stepped forward and moved. She wasn't a blur or steel of motion, just a regular entrant running at speeds that would win races in the regular world. But compared to the beasts that moved like they had given up, she was lightning.
Her backup blade slipped down her sleeve and into her hand. She reached for the first predator and cleaned. Her blade seemed to gain weight as she cut down on her target's neck. Blood did not spray, it dropped down cleanly with the beast's head.
She turned, not wanting to waste time and repeated the same action. Same result, and same haste followed.
She thrust her beneath the jaw of the third, cranking it for a few shafts before ripping it out ruthlessly. The fourth strike dug into the eye socket of the one by the side of the third, snapping the bone – or strong bark – behind the eye.
She didn't go for the rhino, because she knew her time was too inadequate to slay it. So she aimed to dispatch its unpredictability factor.
The distortion trembled violently around her, clashing against each other that formed new ripples to do the same thing.
Her breath was hot and her vision on thirty percent brightness. She stopped and then took a calm breath that horribly failed, before the drag shattered.
Time continued ticking. Then four beasts finally hit the ground. The swamp roared back into motion and the rhino's suspended figure burst forward with a murderous pump.
The stakes were higher now. Less body, less strength, and less time till one of Pluto, Ronan and Khalifa dropped the to ground.
Pluto clenched his teeth as the rhino grew closer. " Get the cores and absorb them, Now!" His order was off putting for people who were indirectly sworn against him, but still, Ronan answered the command quickly.
He pushed him off the tree and trudged towards her. Khalifa moved too, although a lot faster. She tore through the beasts as Pluto dodged the rhino's lunges by hair's breadths and while Ronan held off the last beast.
Soon she had all four in her hands, but instead of sharing them between her and Ronan equally, she tossed two Pluto's way. "Don't die," she said flatly, unconcerned if he did.
He caught them, stepping over the rhino as he crushed against them. Ronan knew he would need time to absorb the energy nestled in the cores, so he forced the ink together again.
This time, the ink responded with a negotiation, one that took him a second and a half to resolve. It formed a spear that shook unstably.
He launched it at the rhino as it turned to attack Pluto again. It didn't penetrate, but it shifted its centre of mass greatly enough to stagger it.
The delay was small, but enough for Pluto to hastily cycle energy through him and enhance his drained muscles.
His mark flared when the warmth reached it, igniting a wave of hungry roars in the distance. He shivered before detonating outwards. The Combat Class ability was still in play, but the new influx of energy strengthened it a bit.
He moved without fearing the most part. Sliding beneath the horn of the rhino, he drove his blade into a joint were the seams revealed themselves more.
The plating cracked and the blade finally penetrated, but only millimetres in. The rhino shook fiercely and turned, but Pluto had already anticipated and moved to another blind spot.
Just as he drew his hand back for another strike –
He felt the foreboding feeling of being wrung out. The clarity wavered and cadence became clunky.
The candle that had fueled his precision had been burnt to the last of its wick. He felt nauseous instantly, wanting to give up all his organs to the wind.
His chest knotted and his lungs stalled when he tried to inhale. His heart skipped once, but didn't come alive until three beats later.
Then stopped again.
The world drained away like a light switch being turned off. The blade slipped from his grasp and snapped in the mud.
His body hit the ground, but he caught himself with his hands to the mud. The Combat Class vanished like it went on a leave.
He couldn't hear his thoughts, let alone pay attention to more complex details. Darkness crawled in, closing his sight span.
The rhino's shadow loomed over him, horn raised high into the mist. Khalifa staggered forward, distortion flickering weakly.
Ronan strained his pores and forced two more ink spears to form. They shot towards the rhino's foreleg and shoulder. It impacted with a dull thud, giving it next step misalignment.
Khalifa pushed outwards, forcing air to ram against the beast.
In the end the gravely horn slammed into mud instead of Pluto's skull.
The impact shook the swamp, but Pluto remained still even though his eyes shot open again and his mark burned hotter.
' Let's see who breaks first then," his mind had razor steeled.
But it didn't change the fact that the horn was coming for him again, with even greater force.
***
The girl with the mark tried to crawl into a hole that led to some more forest, but the predator caught her view before she realised that she was too big to fit.
It roared, and other roars floated in from the trees in deeper. More shadows in the distance turned into grotesque shapes.
The girl's mark flared in dark joy, happy that something was coming to end its host's life.
And somewhere far away –
Pluto's unstable pulse drummed again in the same frequency, answering the same call that her's did.