It was always the least protected part. However, just as I initiated the blow, Darryl sensed my approach. He didn’t try to parry the hit he knew was coming but swung six of his twelve tendrils at me. Two of mine connected solidly with his left arm and shoulder, and the third landed like I had hoped on the side of his face.
Repeating my earlier tactics, I switched to an intangible form, but not fast enough to avoid getting struck by his first tendrils. It caught the tail end of my ethereal form, sending an excruciating wave of agony through me. It felt as if someone had swung a spiked mace at my ankle with all his strength. I clenched my teeth through the pain and continued gliding at high speed towards the training room. Turning this setback to my advantage, I flickered in and out of stealth as I flew away. Hopefully, my nemesis would assume he’d inflicted a grievous enough injury that the debilitating pain was keeping me from properly going back into stealth mode.
Darryl’s triumphant laughter as he gave chase confirmed he had taken the bait.
“Running away, you little coward?” Darryl taunted, the sound of his footsteps pounding the floor as he ran after me filling the hallway. “Not so ballsy when you can’t hide to strike from the shadows. And you are the Fourth Division’s champion? You pathetic little worm, I’m going to enjoy syphoning your lifeforce. And when I’m done, I’m going to destroy your human pets, one by one, but not your bitch. Her, I will keep as my sex toy and my energy battery. Every month, maybe even every week, I will fuck her cunt, her ass, and her face with a new body. By the time I’m done with my Naima, she will have had more cocks than the Mortal Plane’s greatest whore.”
A red haze descended before my eyes. While Darryl’s primary intention was to taunt me into losing my head to anger, I also knew his words to be truthful. He would use her this way, feeding on her pain and terror, and leeching her lifeforce. He would leave her with just enough so that she couldn’t fight his abuse while remaining fully conscious and aware of the torture he subjected her to. In due time, I would make him pay for having even entertained that thought.
I reached the door of the training room, stopping just long enough to turn the handle and yank it open. To my shock, Darryl was already upon me. Before I could try to fly inside the room or dissolve into my intangible state, one of his tendrils hit me square in the chest, sending me flying down the corridor leading to the personal quarters. I collapsed to the floor, the wind knocked out of me. For a split second, I feared losing consciousness. If I did, all would be lost. Beyond the agony radiating around the point of impact, I couldn’t feel the bottom half of my ethereal body. Although I could see the rest of me, it felt as if I’d been split in two.
Darryl rushed me. Fighting through the pain, I flew towards the creatures I had passed on my way out of the personal quarters area. Once behind them, I turned back into stealth mode. This time, I was genuinely struggling to maintain it. The Nightmare charged right through the creatures, tendrils flaying. The Sparks collapsed into ashes at the first blow. The Beast reared and attempted to fight back but it, too, was defeated in a handful of powerful strikes from Darryl.
I curled into a small ball at the bottom left corner of the corridor, my back pressed against the confinement wall. Shifting into my intangible form while remaining in stealth mode through this level of agony took all of my willpower. I would not be able to fly past him and through the door without at least one of my two abilities collapsing. And at the rate keeping them up was eating through my energy reserves, I could only last so long. I only needed for him to keep flailing at the ceiling long enough for me to recover and make a dash for it.
“DARRYL, YOU PIECE OF SHIT, GET THE FUCK OUT OF OUR BASE!”
Hearing my woman’s voice shouting from the connecting hallway felt like a bucket of acid had been poured over me.
No, my love! No!
Why the fuck did Peters let her out? With a malicious grin on