Chapter 52: The Gumiho (3)

The creature walked. Its claws struck the cement one after another as it moved around the arena, its head remained low, jaws remained open, and teeth clicked at irregular intervals.

*Kak. Kak. Kak. Kak. Kak.*

Kate followed it with her eyes. The creature’s body was smaller than Juggernaut’s , but its shoulders were thick, its forelimbs carried enough weight to crack the floor beneath it with each step. The spikes along its back shifted whenever it moved.

Black strands stretched between its teeth and broke apart whenever it closed its mouth.

It circled her in the distance.

Kate turned with it, keeping her nunchaku loose in one hand.

"You look like you’re...worth some while?" Kate smiled.

Her fingers tightened around the handle of nunchakus.

Then the chupacabra stopped. Its head lifted slightly, lowering his body a little.

Its claws spread, and the muscles along its shoulders contracted.

Kate’s eyes narrowed.

*KRAK!*

The cement beneath the creature’s feet broke.

It disappeared.

Kate’s pupil contracted.

It wasn’t a shadow contraction. It did not disappear back into the shadows, or was summoned back by Maeve.

No...it had just moved.

A black shape crossed the arena at a speed that made its body difficult to follow.

Kate turned sharply, and magnetic force pulled at the beads scattered behind her.

Something struck the air beside her head, she threw herself backward.

*SHRAAK!*

Pain opened along her left side.

Kate landed several meters away. Her one hand caught the floor before she could fall. Her jacket had split from below the ribs toward her back, blood spread across the torn fabric, darkening in seconds.

For a moment, she was surprised at the sudden change in power level of the shadow.

Then she looked down at the deep cut.

Blood ran between her fingers when she pressed her hand against it.

"..." Kate raised her head.

Across the arena, Chupacabra stood where she had been a moment earlier. Its body was lowered, one forelimb was scraping the floor while its head twisted toward her.

Its jaws opened again.

*Kak. Kak. Kak. Kak. Kak.*

Kate stared at it, she had seen it moved and she had reacted, but it still managed to reach her.

The wound burned along her side.

She lifted her hand from it and examined the blood on her palm.

"That hurt," she whispered.

The creature lunged again. The ground beneath its feet exploded.

Kate had turned serious now. Attraction pulled her toward a bead embedded near the arena barrier.

Repulsion launched her away from it before her feet had fully touched the floor.

She crossed the distance in a sharp diagonal burst.

*Boom!*

Chupacabra’s claws struck the floor where she had been, and the floor broke beneath them, sending fragments across the arena.

Kate twisted midair, and redirected herself toward another anchor.

The creature turned faster than she expected, its hind legs drove against the ground, its body followed her trajectory almost immediately.

It wasn’t simply fast; it was adjusting to her.

The brute shadow, King, had fought her with recognizable movements. Juggernaut had relied on mass, power, and sneak of an attack. Dios acts as the perfect defense.

This wasn’t a one on one fight. And the reason behind this seemingly annoying way of fighting was simple. Maeve, wasn’t conditioned to be a close combatant.

Her whole analogy of battle is to maintain distance.

*Kak.*

Chupacabra abandoned one attack the moment Kate evaded it. It changed direction without recovering its stance, using whatever part of its body.

It did not care about balance, or technique. It only cared about reaching and attacking Maeve.

Kate landed and swung her nunchaku.

*KLANG!*

The electrified weapon struck Chupacabra across the side of its head. Its skull turned with the impact, and a burst of current spread across its black body.

The creature stumbled, and Kate immediately accelerated toward it.

Her nunchaks came around again, and the Chupacabra dropped.

The strike passed overs back.

Its body twisted beneath the weapon and its jaws snapped at her thigh.

Kate pulled her leg away, but the spikes along its shoulder caught her combat pants and tore through the fabric.

She kicked against its head.

A magnetic burst threw her backward.

The creature hit the floor, rolled over its shoulder, and sprang upright before Kate had finished moving away.

It attacked again.

Kate raised her hand.

The beads scattered across the arena responded at once. Several tore out of the cement floor and shot toward the creature from different directions.

*Tink-Tink-Kang!*

The first few struck its shoulders, some caught its ribs, another portion hit the neck.

Its body lunched sideways, and at that moment Kate closed her fist.

The beads changed direction and struck again.

For the first time, the creature was forced to retreat.

It skidded across the broken floor, leaving deep grooves beneath its claws, as its head struck the floor.

Kate kept her hand raised, and the spheres surrounded it.

"Stay...down." She murmured.

The beads drove inward. Chupacabra’s body buckled, its spikes bent beneath the pressure, and its forelimbs collapsed against the floor.

It remained pinned there.

But it struggled.

"Weird..." Kate whispered.

’If they’re merely shadows...manifested from her force,’ she thought as she glanced at the dome of wings.

’Why can’t she just summon them again and again? And why is this one...not able to disappear into shadows like the rest of them...’ Kate thought.

The whole power of Maeve seemed like a broken system she wasn’t able to map. It just...did not make any sense.

’And if all they are...are mere manifestations, why do they act like living creatures?’

’And she has still yet to use her Severan Force Control,’ she thought.

Suddenly, the head of Chupacabra turned despite the struggle it was in.

Its jaws opened toward Kate, and muscles along its neck tightened.

It band pulling itself forward.

The beads ground against its body as it dragged its weight across the cement.

One claw at the time, reaching ahead like a struggling aggressive crawler.

*KAK-KAK-KAK-KAK-KAK-*

Its jaws kept snapping shut and open.

Her fingers tightened and the beads pressed harder.

Its back flattened against the floor, its spikes bent under the pressure, and floor beneath its body broke into small fragments.

Despite all that...it kept crawling.

*Kzzzt-Flick!*

The lights flickered once again.

Kate’s head turned, she knew what it meant.

Across the arena, beyond the pinned creature, the darkness beneath Dios’s wings began to spread.

A second patch of shadow appeared on the opposite side of Chupacabra.

Kate stared at it.

A claw broke through from the shadow.

*CRRACK!*

The floor split around its fingers. Another claw emerged beside it, followed by the shape of a head.

Its jaws were already opening and closing, snapping at the air before the rest of its body had cleared the shadow.

Kate slowly lowered her hand.

The first Chupacabra was still pinned beneath her beads.

The second was pulling itself out of the floor.

"Are you serious?" She looked from one creature to the other.

Inside the canopy, Maeve’s hands trembled. Her core was tiring out. Her chest felt the burn of her tiring core.

Maintaining Dios had already consumed a significant portion of her capacity. The first Chupacabra had taken another substantial amount of her powers.

The second had cost her more than she wanted to admit. She was at her last strand.

But she could no longer afford to let Kate approach the canopy.

Maeve kept her hands together.

On the floor, the second Chupacabra began to move.

It did not circle Kate, it charged directly.

*KRAK!*

Kate moved immediately, attraction pulled her toward the nearest anchor, repulsion launched her sideways, sending her across the arena in a sharp burst of speed.

The second creature followed, and at the same time, the first one dragged itself forward beneath the pressure of the beads.

Kate’s eyes widened.

One behind her, one ahead.

She redirected toward another anchor, the second changed direction with her.

Kate could not keep both in sight while maintaining the field around the pinned creature. Every movement required her to track one while leaving the other an opening.

She landed beside a broken section of the floor.

"..." Kate took a deep breath.

Her gaze returned to the both creatures, one running at her in that very instance.

But she did not retreat now.

She planted her feet.

The chrome beads scattered across the arena began to vibrate in that fraction of a moment.

The vibration spread, one after another, the beads lifted from the ground. All of them, except those holding the first creature down.

Her expression had gone completely serious.

The magnetic field around her tightened. Every bead moved toward her.

They gathered in the air around her body, hundreds of chrome spheres turned into precise formation.

The current along her nunchaku chain intensified.

*IZZZZT---*

Her force concentrated in front of her, forming a tiny point of white light.

It was no larger than the head of a pin. The magnetic field around it compressed.

The second Chupacabra stopped mid-charge and retreated on instincts.

The air trembled throughout the arena.

The beds shuddered violently, their surfaces reflected the point of light as they circled Kate.

She brought her nunchaku back.

Dios tightened the hold around Maeve, bracing for impact.

Kate’s eyes narrowed, and she swung the nunchaku.

It struck the tiny point of light, the concentration of her force.

*KRRRRRR-R-----*

In an instant, the point collapsed.

A blinding white flash swallowed the arena.

The sound arrived a fraction of a second later.

*KRRAAAAAA-BOOM!*

The entire floor erupted. Concrete shattered beneath her feet, cracks races across the arena in every directions, splitting the reinforced surface into enormous slabs.

The barriers of the audience buckled, the walls shook as the electrical discharge tore through the arena, and hundreds of chrome beads shot outward in a violent burst in all directions.

Both chupacabras disappeared inside the flash.

Their bodies broke apart in the same instant, their black forms scattered into nothing before the shockwave had finished.

Dios, for the first time, could not hold its shape.

Its feathers tore apart.

Its body fractured from the centre outward, and its head lifted above the collapsing canopy.

*KRRRAAAK!*

The eagle vanished.

The protective dome disintegrated around Maeve.

Every other active shadow disappeared with it.

The people watching saw the entire arena disappear beneath the destruction, their view was obscured by a wall of dust and white light.

Then, the sound disappeared.

The flash faded.

Fragments of concrete rained across the ruined floor.

The arena had been reduced to broken slabs, and a wide field of dust.

Kate stood in the centre of it, her nunchaku hung from one hand.

The current along its chain had faded, and the remaining beads fell around her, striking the ground one after another.

*Tink**Tink**Tink**Tink**Tink*

She breathed.

Blood still ran along her side, staining her combat clothes. Her hand pressed briefly against the wound before she lowered it again.

Across the arena, Maeve stood alone.

There was no eagle beside her, no king, no juggernaut or any creature of shadow.

Nothing remained between them. But despite that, she looked in a far better condition than Kate.

A sleek line of blood trailed from the corner of her lip, the exhaustion of Maeve’s core had taken a massive toll on her body by now.

Kate looked at her, and smiled.

"There you are~" She rolled the nunchaku across her palm.

"Now..." she stepped forward and rolled her neck once.

"I’m dying to witness the power of Severans in you," she walked slowly until she was standing opposite to Maeve.

"You know...Severans using their own force control is a rare sight," she said. "Not many have been pushed far enough for that...BUT!"

Kate smirked.

"The offer still stands." She leaned forward. "Let me have a taste of you, and you can take the win, by all means."

Maeve’s sharp grey eyes looked at her, as her hand raised and wiped the trail of blood from the corner of her lip with a thumb.

"I’ve always disliked seeing two things in my life," Maeve finally spoke for the first time since she had entered the arena.

Kate’s eyes snapped open, and she straightened up hearing her voice.

"And what would they be?" Kate asked in a low voice.

Maeve looked down at her bloody thumb, and wiped it from her frock’s waistband, and then she raised her head to look into Kate’s eyes.

"Blood and bitches."