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Lukas, Old Ben, and Nathan stood frozen, staring at the humanoid creature that had just stepped through. It was pitch black from head to toe, built like a fully grown man, its muscles carved sharply across its frame despite the total absence of any facial features. A black, skirt-like garment seemed to grow directly out of its torso, covering it down to the ankles. It stood barefoot in front of the still-humming portal.
The three men stared in silence. Even without eyes, they could tell it was staring back at them.
"Captain!! I've contacted the Tower!"
A shout cut through the tension. In the distance, atop a fallen pillar, a young man with dishevelled hair waved his arms — but the moment he laid eyes on the creature by the portal, dread swallowed him whole and he froze mid-motion.
The dark creature, motionless until now, snapped its head toward the newcomer. Old Ben's body surged larger as he lunged toward the young man.
The flames on Nathan's body flared as he shouted.
"Shit — Ben, it's after Ro—"
Boom!
Time seemed to have slowed.
The creature blitzed past Nathan before he could finish the sentence, so fast the wind of its passing snuffed the flames clean off his body. Rubble scattered in every direction, testament to the sheer force behind its speed.
Nathan stood frozen, stunned.
"How? How can it move that fast?"
"Captain!!"
The shout snapped him out of it. He spun to give chase, only to find the creature had already closed the distance and stood over Old Ben and the young man, its right arm raised in a cutting arc.
Bang!
A deafening gunshot rang out, and the creature was hurled headfirst into a pile of rubble.
Roughly twenty feet from Old Ben, a striking woman knelt on one knee, a strange sniper rifle braced against her shoulder. Her hair was a bright, almost blinding white, her expression utterly flat — the kind of face that looked like it had never once smiled. The rifle in her hands was longer and heavier than any standard model, black-cased, with thin seams of white light leaking from its barrel, as if the weapon itself were built from captured light and barely contained by its metal shell. It suited her white shirt and black trousers strangely well.
She lifted her head from the scope, glanced at the smoking muzzle, and gave a small, satisfied nod, as if silently congratulating herself.
"..."
Everyone else stood dumbfounded.
"That was close," Ron — the young man who'd been standing behind Old Ben — said, letting out a long breath distancing itself from the downed creature.
"Noelle...?"
The white-haired woman turned toward Nathan's voice. She slung the massive rifle over one shoulder and started toward him — until, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted another head of white hair: Lukas.
As if pulled by some invisible force, she abruptly changed direction and bolted straight for him instead.
"Every time..." Nathan sighed, and followed after her.
Lukas stood over the creature's body, a gaping hole in its head. He tilted his head slightly, studying it. Noelle peeked around him at the corpse, then began flicking her gaze back and forth between Lukas's face and the creature on the ground.
Lukas studied it a moment longer before glancing back at the portal. It was still turning, still humming, low and steady.
It's dead? Did 'they' get weaker? he thought. Still — the portal isn't closing, and waiting around any longer isn't smart. More of these things could come through. Looks like leaving really is the only option.
"Hm?" Lukas turned to find Noelle poking his shoulder. The moment he looked at her, a wide grin broke across her face, and her mouth opened — but no sound came out. Noelle was mute.
Lukas glanced down at her; she stood only half a head shorter than him.
"Nice sho—"
The words died in his throat. Out of the corner of his eye, the creature — presumed dead only two feet away — moved. Lukas shoved Noelle back and spun to face it. Before anyone could so much as react, the wet sound of a blade parting flesh cut through the air.
Slash!!
The creature, half its face already blown away, raked its bare hand across Lukas's face. A deep, ghastly wound — too severe to call a mere scar — tore from his forehead straight through his right eye. Not finished, the creature drew its other hand back and buried it in his chest.
The entire attack lasted less than a second. Neither Nathan nor Noelle, the closest to him, even had time to blink before it was over.
A chilling silence fell.
"Noelle!! Get away from there!" Nathan shouted, tearing toward the three of them in a streak of flame.
The dark figure lifted its head toward Noelle, who stood frozen, eyes wide with horror at what had just been done to Lukas. It reached a hand toward her.
"Noelle!!!" Nathan surged forward, still wreathed in fire, one thought screaming through his mind.
I won't make it.
...
The creature's hand stopped dead an inch from Noelle's throat. Nathan reached her a half-second later, hauling her backward and putting distance between them and the thing that should have already killed her. Old Ben rushed over and took her from his arms.
"She's unconscious. Good timing gettin' her outta there. Luke?"
Nathan kept his eyes on the frozen creature.
"She should have died," he muttered.
"What?"
"I didn't save her, Old Ben. I didn't get there in time. I should never have gotten there in time."
"Za means... it just stopped?"
"Or something stopped it." Nathan stared at Lukas's back for a long moment before turning to Old Ben. "Damnit Luke....
"He's dead... you saw it, if that first strike did not kill him, the second definitely did why it stopped after that I cannot say. You think it's one of those monsters that absorbed the souls of their target after killing them?"
Nathan kept quiet for a bit. "Get Ron, tell everyone to pull back outside the dome. Waiting on the Tower's people is our best bet."
"Ya mean our only bet." Old Ben replied.
"We could try hitting it now, while it's frozen, but I wouldn't recommend it. A point-blank shot from Noelle didn't kill it. I don't think we have the firepower for that."
"If even you're sayin' we don't got the firepower, this bastard must have skin like armor plating. What about Luke's body?" Old Ben looked at the creature. It stood locked in place, hand still buried in Lukas's chest — a scene frozen like something out of a painting.
"..." Nathan didn't answer.
Old Ben sighed. "Happy retirement, little rascal."
"Oi, kid, let's go!" he called to Ron, carrying Noelle away. Ron kept glancing back at Lukas as he trailed after Old Ben with sadness in his eyes.
Nathan stared at the two figures left behind — one a humanoid monster, the other... a friend? Not quite. He realized, with some discomfort, that he knew nothing real about the man. Colleague probably fit better. After a long moment of silence, he looked once more at the portal, then turned and walked away, following Old Ben, leaving the ruins of the building behind him.
"Happy retirement, Luke."
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Save for the low hum of the portal, silence reigned over the wreckage.
"..."
Lukas and the creature remained frozen in place.
"Hah... a man can't even get a proper retirement anymore?"
The dark creature, as if stirring back to awareness, tilted its head down toward the man it had supposedly just killed — the man who had just spoken. Lukas gripped the creature's wrist, still buried in his chest, and held it firmly in place.
Click!
A beautiful glass pistol, longer than the standard make, pressed underneath the jaw of the creature's head.
"What — did you think you were the only one who knew how to play dead?"
Bang!!!
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The creature toppled sideways, the motion wrenching its arm free from Lukas's chest.
"Ah — that hurts, that hurts," Lukas whispered, clutching his chest and hopping to one side on his good leg. The sound of shattering glass rang out; the floor around him was suddenly littered with thin, blood-red shards. His reaction didn't match someone who'd just had their heart crushed — if anything, it looked like he was performing.
He crouched for a few seconds, body trembling, muffled groans slipping past his lips.
"Hah..." He let out a long breath as his body relaxed, then stood and stretched, arms raised overhead.
Shatter!
Shards of glass rained off his body — mostly from his chest.
Lukas looked down. A hole the size of a human arm gaped in his chest, brutal-looking except for one thing: the flesh around it had frozen — no, not frozen. Turned to glass. Even the ghastly gash running from his forehead through his eye was now sealed beneath a glass-like membrane grown up from under the skin. His ruined eye had been replaced by a glass crystal, catching and throwing back the gold of the sunset. The wound in his chest wasn't healed, exactly — the flesh in and around it had simply become glass. The crimson shards scattered on the ground were, without question, his blood.
"Still hurts," Lukas noted, studying his own chest. He turned to face the source of his current predicament. The dark figure lay on the ground, twitching.
Still not dead? he thought, then glanced toward the portal. Nothing has comes through after this one. My guess is this thing has to die before another can follow. That works fine for me.
He bent down, retrieved the crystalline pistol he'd dropped while hopping around in pain, and walked over to stand above the creature.
The enforcers from the Tower will be here any minute, and Nathan and the others might come back once they hear that gunshot. I should get moving. Shame — I'll miss my retirement party.
Boom!
As Lukas turned to leave, the creature lunged at him with blinding speed.
"You really do like sneaking up on people," Lukas said, sidestepping easily, as if he'd already known the attack was coming. One had to note the monster was moving at an inhumane speed. Lukas dodging it that easily was definitely not normal. Having missed, the creature spun to strike again—
Bang!!
Its head snapped backward as Lukas shot it clean between where its eyes should have been. It stumbled back a few steps before recovering its balance.
"No damage? Tch — really didn't want to use this."
Lukas reached his left hand into his hair and made a grabbing motion. A golden glint flashed in his crystal eye as a dazzling gold pistol appeared in his palm, longer than the last, a golden feather streaked with green and red fixed into its frame.
The creature, having just steadied itself, lowered its head back toward Lukas — only to find the golden muzzle already waiting. Lukas shoved it into the featureless space where its mouth should have been.
"Hah... this is gonna hurt."