Shiva hung in the air with one ankle gripped in Ash's hand.
Blood rushed back to her head because of her inverted position, and her vision that had been dark began to find shapes around her.
The small fire between those rocks was still burning, reflecting orange light onto the surface of Ash's skin covered with bright blue veins, spreading from his neck to his jaw, from his shoulder to the back of his hand, like something alive and moving beneath the layer of his skin.
Shiva pushed her body upward with one hand, trying to reach Ash's wrist. "Let me go."
Ash did not answer. His eyes looked at Shiva from below, and Shiva immediately knew that gaze did not belong to the man who had been eating beside her earlier. His focus dropped, stopped at her chest area covered only by thin cloth, and did not move from there.
Not the gaze of a human being with consideration. More like the gaze of something that only knew desire.
Shiva swallowed. Her hand moved quickly to touch Ash's fingers, and she released an electric shock directly there.
Ash growled, his body tensed for a second, but his grip did not loosen. The blue veins on his hand glowed brighter for a moment, as if absorbing part of that shock.
"Damn." Shiva gritted her teeth. Her energy had not fully recovered, that shock was only a fraction of what she could normally release.
Ash pulled Shiva downward with one movement, and Shiva's body swung down. Her long tight trousers caught on Ash's grip, and one pull tore the lower section from the knee down, revealing her calves and ankles that were pale under the firelight.
"Ash!" Shiva pushed the man's chest with her palm. "Snap out of it!"
There was no meaningful response. Ash grabbed the collar of Shiva's upper clothing, and the already strained fabric could not hold, the tear widened upward to her shoulder, revealing part of Shiva's collarbone and arm.
The elf woman immediately crossed her arms to cover her chest area, her back pressing against the large rock beneath her.
"What do you want!" Shiva looked directly into his eyes, her voice coming out louder than she had intended.
Ash slowly spread Shiva's legs apart, like something that was not in a hurry because it knew its prey had nowhere to go. His gaze dropped again, and Shiva did not need long to understand the answer to her own question.
"Damn, I am not your breeding ground!" Shiva began calculating her options quickly.
Her energy was not enough for a full barrier, the next electric shock would only make Ash growl again without result. Running was impossible, both her legs were still within Ash's grip.
Then something passed Shiva's ear, not the sound of wind and not the sound of fire.
A very fast whizzing sound. A large-sized projectile shot directly toward the empty ground near them.
Shiva glanced over then immediately closed her eyes and raised one hand, her barrier formed fully but thinner than what she could normally make with her remaining energy.
A deafening explosion split the night.
Its pressure wave struck Shiva's barrier and shattered it instantly, Shiva's body was thrown sideways and her back slammed against a large rock hard. Ash was hurled in the opposite direction, his body rolling across the rocky ground before stopping.
Shiva lay on her side among the boulders, her ribs throbbing, her vision blurred. The sound of small engines began to fill the air from every direction, and when her eyes came back into focus, the sky above Blackridge was already filled with flying boards moving in tight formation.
Dozens of people in dark tactical clothing landed one by one among those boulders, their rifles already aimed downward.
One flying board stopped in front of Shiva. The man standing on it was far larger than all the others, his shoulders nearly twice the width of an ordinary person, and his long black hair hung loose behind him.
His hand lifted his face mask upward, and the smile that appeared beneath it was not the smile of someone who had just finished fighting. More like the smile of someone who had just arrived at a place they had long wanted to visit.
Balton stepped down from his board, his eyes looking Shiva up and down, stopping at the torn part of her clothing, then rising again to her face. "Well." His voice came out quietly, almost like muttering to himself. "Beautiful."
On the other side of the boulders, Ash was already standing again. His eyes moved quickly following the movements of the people around him, around 30 people forming a circle around him at a distance that was not too close.
"Handle that man." Balton waved one hand backward without turning around. "I have business here."
Jason stepped forward from behind the line, his voice coming out sharp toward his men. "Everyone stay alert, that man can regenerate. Use shock weapons and electric ammunition to hold him, don't stop until he cannot stand."
Balton crouched in front of Shiva, one hand raised and his fingers parted the long green hair that had fallen to cover Shiva's face, moving it behind her shoulder with a movement that was not hurried in the slightest.
Then he lowered his head, inhaled deeply the scent of that hair, and exhaled it slowly like someone inhaling aromatherapy.
"Your skin is extraordinary." Balton looked at Shiva's face from close range. "I have never seen anything like this."
Shiva pushed his hand away. "What do you want."
"What do I want?" Balton laughed softly, not a loud or excessive laugh, just the laugh of someone who found the question funny because the answer was too obvious.
"You will become my sex toy, little elf, you will accompany me all day, all night, until you forget the outside world and only think of one thing, my cock."
Shiva growled, her hands pushed against the ground beneath her to rise, but her knees would not cooperate. Her drained energy made her entire body feel like wet cloth.
Ash's cry was heard from the other direction, not an angry cry, more like the sound of someone holding back something very painful. Shiva turned her head and saw Ash's body jolt backward each time small blue-glowing bullets struck him.
Purple blood flowed from every bullet hole that closed again within seconds, but new bullets arrived before his body had time to fully recover. Ash fell to his knees, both hands pressing against the ground.
"No need to worry about your dog." Balton stood, his eyes returning to Shiva. "He will be tamed shortly."
Balton turned fully toward Shiva, and that was the only chance Shiva had.
Shiva channeled all her remaining energy into her right palm, pressed it directly against Balton's forehead, and released everything at once.
Balton's head snapped backward, his body was pushed back two steps before his knees buckled and he fell to the ground with a loud thud.
Shiva rose and ran toward the tree line at the edge of those boulders. Her legs were heavy, her breathing irregular, but she kept moving. Behind her she heard the sound of Ash falling to his knees again, the sound of rifles that did not stop, and the sound of Jason asking everyone to hold their positions.
"Ash will certainly survive with that body, but I will not be able to help him in a condition like this." Shiva kept running, jumping over small rocks.
The forest was her best chance to hide and recover. Shiva was almost reaching the first tree when the sound of a flying board starting up again was heard from behind her.
She did not look back, but she knew who was riding it.
"Hehe, likes to play rough it seems. I like a woman like that." Balton chased Shiva with a grinning smile.
Then from the direction of the Aegis crowd, one body shot sideways at an unnatural speed, slammed into a large boulder with a sound that shook the ground, and fell without moving.
Balton, who had already returned to his flying board, turned toward the source of that sound.
Ash stood in the middle of the circle of people that had now opened slightly, but he was not the same Ash as a few minutes ago. The blue veins on the surface of his skin were gone.
In their place, elongated cracks covered both his arms, his neck, and part of his face, glowing red-orange from within like a thin layer of earth cracked above a flow of magma.
There was no expression on his face. Not anger, not pain, no expression of any kind.
Jason drew a long breath behind his line. "Everyone, switch your ammunition."
Balton looked at Ash from atop his flying board, and for the first time since he had arrived, his smile changed shape, not disappearing, but widening into something else.
***