Capítulo 28: Sojourner, Pt 6
You awaken with a sharp gasp, having ejected yourself out of your own dream. Along with your alarm and surprise comes a sharp pain piercing through your head. No doubt, you've used some measure of psionic energy to force yourself to leave.
Not that you're too worried about that in the slightest - you clearly have more immediate things to worry about.
The Semi-Crazed woman is standing just outside the garage entrance, amidst an encroaching twilight. A twinge of fear immediately sweeps through you when you notice that her eyes look wild and vicious. Both her arms are splayed wide to her sides, fingers splayed and curved into talons. Her body is hunched somewhat, and possibly enlarged… You can't tell exactly.
In any case, you see and sense how much she's changed into something more animalistic, more feral, more predatory than before.
And something about how she moves bothers you. It almost seems like she's moving clumsily, like a half-broken animatronic. It takes you a second to realize that the body is being puppeteered.
You open up your Third Eye in search of something like the Conductor, but find something completely different. No-one is grasping her. There is no Conductor.
No, what you see is that her glowing gold Thread is now woven through her splinters, binding them all together, to her. The Threads holding her splinters together are taut like a spider's web, almost as though she has created a Network between her splinters.
Not only that, but each of her splinters are opened up all the way, their minds and voices at full blast. Their thoughts and emotions simply pour out into the ether wildly. But instead of dissipating into nothingness, they meld into each other. Each one directs their individual psionic energies into the ether, creating something far more potent and dangerous than any regular Crazed.
Her psionic energies lash outward with intense ferocity. You can feel her energies pulse in waves strong enough to push against you. Unlike before they aren't fighting with each other for dominance - they're working in tandem.
You shudder to think what they're capable of, as a whole. Then you realize you're about to find out whether you want to or not.
It's clear that the woman can't possibly be a Crazed. After all, her thoughts and emotions aren't chaotic ravings tumbling around and fighting each other. No, they're united in their deepest desire, their deepest need.
And that's of hunger.
You feel waves of it push against you, over and over. Each of her splinters practically exude it, though with a random smattering of other emotions mixed in. Anger, happiness, surprise, fear. What her individual splinters typically feel. But these seem muted and thin and fragile - you can hardly hear them past the deafening hunger.
Yep, definitely not a Crazed, you think. She's a Chimera.
In between you and her is Noir, who is as large as she can make herself. Her back is hunched, and her fur prickles outward, as an angry cat is wont to do. Her psionic energies are also flaring out as wide as she can, to look as threatening as she can.
As impressive as it is, the Chimera's energies far overwhelm hers. It overwhelms yours, too.
You quickly hop up from your bedroll and run up next to Noir. At the same time, you open up a Network with her, and open up your psionic reserves. That comes with a heavy squeezing sensation surrounding your head.
The vice-like grip dulls once the Network begins in earnest, but never goes away.
Your hand immediately reaches for your pistol, but you feel nothing but the fabric of your pants - you haven't equipped it. You take it off whenever you sleep. You chide yourself for not having it on anyway.
But then again, what would a mere bullet do to something like this?
"What do you want?" you scream at the Chimera.
She doesn't respond. Instead, her face contorts slightly in what looks like mild annoyance, but then grows to something more… focused. Her energies whip and lash all around as well, but instead of randomly out in whatever direction, they're aimed at you.
They lash at the psionic energy around you with such strength that you can feel every strike. Worse, they seem to nip at you in an attempt to tear some of it away for themselves.
Clearly the Chimera wishes to feed. On you.
About time you woke up! Noir shouts out telepathically, the annoyance clear in her tone of thought.
"Yeah, well, I was trapped in there, alright?" you reply, defensively. "Didn't think it'd be that hard to do!."
Well now we know.
"Now we know."
What do we do about that?
"That, I don't know. But before we do anything else…"
You reach out with your psionic energies of Connection and invite Noir into your Network. She quickly confirms and connects, allowing both your energies to fill the same pool. They gather up between you, a shared resource either of you could channel.
Even better, you sense your own abilities increase and heighten a noticeable, albeit temporarily. The same goes for Noir - her own abilities increase thanks to the Network. But even combined, your Network's total energy is perhaps just over half as potent as the Chimera's.
Alright well, you figure it out, fast. I'll try to keep her off us.
You sense Noir pour energy into her Temperance and her ESP, strengthening her body significantly as well as heightening her senses as far as she can go.
She then darts forward in the blink of an eye and slashes at the Chimera's legs with her razor-sharp claws. They tear into her shin with ease and scratch the bone beneath. Dark red blood flows out almost paradoxically.
The Chimera shrieks out of pain, then hops back a few meters defensively. You sense she does so more out of instinct rather than fear. She circles Noir, who swipes again threateningly even though her quarry is well out of range.
It's enough of a threat that the Chimera takes a half-step back anyway, though she regains her ground a few moments later.
You see her splinters shift and swap places with each other, which causes the shape and flow of her psionic energies to shift significantly. It appears she positions and angles them in certain ways, as though to strengthen certain powers.
Or, more accurately, she's rerouting the energies of certain splinters into others.
She then flings a pure Telekinetic wave at Noir, who dodges out of the way just before the wave smashes into the concrete. It's powerful enough to crack and splinter the ground at the point of impact.
Not that you have much time to admire or fear the damage - the Chimera almost immediately flings one at you, horizontally.
If not for your foresight, you might have taken it full-force in the chest. You see a flash of it moments before it happens, enough for you to quickly duck down and roll forward. You sense the wave's energies flash by above you and smash into the garage wall inside.
The sensation makes your heart skip.
At the same time, twinges of frustration leap out of the Chimera. She flings out two more Telekinetic waves at the two of you, which the both of you run and dodge and leap and scamper out of the way as best you can.
You feel the waves streak past each and every time, close enough to cause your fingers to tingle and your palms to sweat.
An idea hits you, and you run into the storefront to take immediate shelter. Seeing as how the Chimera has preserved the shopfront itself, you figure she wouldn't dare harm it. You literally duck down behind one of the shelves and peer out from the top of it to watch her reaction, to see if your hunch is right.
Outside, she rears back as though to swipe at you with another Telekinetic Wave, but doesn't carry through with it. You feel her hold on to the energies, ready to unleash it at any given moment.
She never does, and you can feel her frustration and anger rise more and more. They pierce through the hunger here and there, which causes her energies to fluctuate to some degree. Not enough to weaken her, of course.
Instead she slams her stored up Telekinetic energy down into the concrete next to her, which breaks off small chunks and flings them in every direction. At the same time, she vents some of that frustration.
You exhale with relief, at knowing that you made the right call. Then continuing on your hunch, you immediately decide to provoke her and shake the shelves violently, which causes the empty wrappers on them to topple and fall out.
The Chimera goes wide-eyed at seeing what you're doing, then screams into the air. You can feel her anger and frustration spike through her hunger.
Just as it reaches its peak, you launch your own attack.
Since there's no-one out here except you and Noir and this Chimera, you decide to go all-out with a Surge. It is, in your opinion, the best psionic power you've got, even if you haven't gotten to practice it very much.
You shape it as much as you can towards the Chimera, then pour as much of your fear and anger into it, as much as you can possibly muster up. Since you're in a Network, Noir's fear and anger goes along with yours, feeding into the whole.
The psionic Surge slams up against the Chimera's own anger and amplifies it significantly. It's enough to cause an all-out interruption in its hunger, to push it aside and drown it out. Enough to cause the splinters to get pushed and stretched outward. The Chimera's Thread thins and dulls slightly as the splinters spread further and further from each other.
You give it one good push in an attempt to snap that Thread and set those splinters free. But all that happens is that the Thread stretches thin as its golden glow dulls slightly.
Once your Surge passes through, the splinters shiver and vibrate as they slowly return back to their places. The Thread restores its glow and strength as well as it draws back into the proper lengths. Then you watch as they swell slightly, as the Chimera attempts to reinforce its Network.
You and Noir curse at the same time, having failed your attack. Though you're unsure if you hurt the Chimera, she still takes a step back. Her body takes on a more defensive posture and begins to circle around you.
Can you see her Threads? you ask Noir directly through the Network.
No, she replies. Why?
We're gonna need to cut 'em.
I can't do that, Noir protests. Can't cut the metaphysical.
Not with physical claws, sure.
The Chimera stops circling, then chuckles as it stares right at you. The sound echoes all around you, enveloping you, which causes the hairs on your neck to stand on end.
The splinters behind her shift places yet again, causing another influx of powerful psionic energies - one you're much more familiar with.
Then you see her next attack come through a sliver of Foresight. But there's nothing you can do about it. You can't dodge or run or hide from it. Instead, you throw up your Telepathic shielding and pour as much power as you can into the whole Network. You do your absolute best to keep you and Noir safe from what's about to happen.
You're able to manifest the shield in time, just as the Chimera's own Surge sweeps over you.
Her Surge comes with a truly deep hunger, one that crashes right into your defenses and wears it away into nothing. That allows the rest of the wave to sweep through you, and fills you with most of the hunger that the Chimera itself is suffering.
You feel your stomach become cavernous and empty and heavy all at the same time. It seems to suck you in painfully, as though it is literally eating you from the inside out. That pain is accompanied by a dreadful weakness, one that fills you completely and causes you to stumble helplessly to your knees.
Wh-what the hell is this? cries Noir.
You sense that she's feeling the same crippling pain and hunger, then watch her literally fall over on her side helplessly. You want to pick her up and bring her back in here with you, but you don't have the strength to stand up. You don't even have any kind of answer for her.
You feel too weak to even think, much less act.
In your desperation, you pull yourself back up on your feet and attempt to climb your way up on the shelf right in front of you. You struggle to do so, even as the Chimera's Surge finally ends. Its effects seem to linger, causing you to continually feel truly weakened.
Even though you attempt to use your Temperance to put yourself back together, the effects are minimal at best. You are well and truly cooked.
Just as the hunger inside you begins to lift, you sense the Chimera shift its energies. You mentally attempt to gather yourself another Telepathic shield, but bumble at your weak attempts. Meanwhile, her psionic energies build up around her, concentrating into a fine point, ready to lash outward with another powerful Surge.
You fear another one will completely wipe you out.
But then, she… she twists that energy upside down, and in a certain way. It's Surge, but not Surge at the same time. And in changing the psionic energies, the Surge seemingly sweeps out from behind you, causing you to stumble forward, towards the Chimera. The pull is forceful enough that the shelving you're hanging onto topples over as a result, with you on top of it.
The wind gets knocked out of you and world blurs as a result. It takes ages for everything to spin back into place, for the fog to fade. As you come back up, you become more and more aware of the Chimera attempting to tug at you.
Well, not you exactly, but your psionic energy. You can feel her attempting to pull it in towards her, to rip it off your body and take it for her own. You feel Telekinetic jaws clamp down around your psionic energies in an attempt to strip you of it.
The Chimera has somehow turned its Surge into a Devour, with you as her next meal.
Capítulo 29: Sojourner, Pt 7
The Chimera's Telekinetic jaws clamp down further on your psionic energies, biting deep into your aura. Sharp pains stab your thoughts from every direction, which worsens by the second. You feel the Chimera's jaws thrash around in violent attempts to literally strip you of your powers.
You sense your energies get tugged and pulled toward her violently, though you physically can't seem to resist. Though you fight back as best you can, you can practically feel your body getting dragged closer to her, outside. You do your best to fumble your way onto your feet and stumble behind cover just to the side of the doorway.
Psionic energies seem to press you into the wall, and call at you from the doorway right next to you, beckoning you to continue moving forward, to stop resisting.
Still, you hold firm. Your heart drums heavily in your chest, soundly rejecting the notion of being devoured.
A hint of anger and a spike of frustration radiates from the Chimera, and you feel her pouring even more of her energies into her Devour. You then feel her violent tugging at your psionic energies with even more fervor. Each one comes with such sharp pains that they nearly smother your thundering heart.
But she has clearly reached her limit, and is unable to literally tear your energies away from you. At least, not while you're conscious and fighting back. Not while you're hanging on with everything you've got.
Well, not quite everything. You take a deep breath, then pull whatever you can towards you, centering yourself.
When you exhale, you Surge outward once again, this time with overwhelming amounts of determination and persistence, as much as you can muster. With Noir's help, your psionic energies swell and harden, pushing against the Chimera's Telekinetic jaws with ease.
You can practically feel her struggle to continue to clamp down on you, but that resolve weakens as a furious few seconds pass. The Chimera attempts one last violent gnashing and tearing and pulling, but gets no further than before.
In fact, she loses a bit of her grip, which causes her to shriek in irritation. A moment later, she withdraws her attack with a huff. She screams a long, discordant note at you right afterwards, as though to chide you for being unwilling prey.
It's accompanied by a deep sense of frustration.
"That's your problem, lady," you try to quip. But you're too lethargic and too dizzy to say it in any meaningful way. You just kind of mumble it out, along with a half-cocked laugh.
You don't think she even hears it, but whatever. You're proud of it.
A sharp pain shoots across your mind, reminding you to ease up on your powers. Which you do quickly.
You lessen your psionic defenses immediately, but then slowly refocus everything towards strengthening your physical body. Just in case she decides to switch things up and swat your head off instead, or something. You're not exactly in the best shape right now, and don't really wanna know what she'll do next.
The effects of her debilitating Burst take a couple more seconds to finally lift from you, taking the lethargy and weakness away. At the same time, your own Temperance fills you with energy, allowing you to stand back up on your feet. Albeit shakily at first.
Once you feel confident enough, you step out of the doorway and take in a huge lungful of air, taunting the Chimera and revitalizing yourself at the same time.
She shrieks at you one more time, then circles cautiously. A twinge of fear and agitation shoots through her, but they're soon enveloped by her overwhelming hunger. It seems like she's thinking of a new strategy, a new way to attack you, somehow.
Your Third Eye tells you that her splinters shift and move over and over, as though she's unsure how to approach next.
It strikes you that she's likely at her weakest right now, and could be incredibly vulnerable to attack. But you've no idea how - you've already tried your Surge, and that didn't quite finish the job. You could try it again, but you're certain she'll have safeguards in place.
You need to do something else, something new. And quickly, before she attacks again. Before you can attempt it, whatever it is, you sense a burst of raw Telekinetic energy erupt from Noir.
She pours a great amount of energy into her Temperance to shoot forward and slash her claws at the Chimera. At the same time, she puts the remainder into her Telekinesis, shaping them like huge versions of her claws.
You learned how to use TK! you cry out. How'd you do it so fast?!
Fight now, talk later!! Noir cries back in response.
You immediately do your due diligence and transfer as much of your own spare energies into her, through the Network. They work to reinforce her powers, make them more potent. You literally sense her Telekinetic claws harden and enlarge as a result.
And as her energies had woven into you when you attempted your Surge, your energies now weave into hers, as she attempts her two-pronged attack. Noir decisively rakes the Chimera with her physical claws as her Telekinetic ones slash at its psionic energies.
The Chimera's skin splits and breaks, as does her aura. Blood and energy spray out, causing her significant pain, enough for her to back away and scream in pain. Though you could say it's more of a wail than anything else.
She then shrieks aggressively, with all her focus on Noir, as though warning her not to attack again. You sense that her every synapse is on high alert. No doubt, Noir's TK claws are potent as all hell.
Noir takes little heed at the warning and slashes at the Chimera again, causing more gushing wounds to appear on both her forms. She screams again, causing a spike of fear and anger to wash over her. Both are soon drowned out by her hunger, but it has clearly weakened to some degree.
The both of you are chipping away at her, surely. But she's still much stronger than the both of you, and she could lash out with something that could end you. Neither of you know what else she's capable of, and neither of you probably don't want to know.
You've got to end this as fast as possible.
No, go for the Threads! you tell Noir. She can always refill her aura, but you can cut her down through her Threads!
I can't see Threads! Noir tells you. Just… show me where to attack.
You grit your teeth, unsure exactly how to accomplish that. You're certain that simply telling her something like 'a dozen centimeters above her' wouldn't be enough, especially since they're constantly in motion. No, what you need is a way to highlight the Threads, to make them visible somehow.
But how? If only you had a laser pointer… a psionic laser pointer.
Struck by an idea, you focus your Telepathic energies into a tight point in space. You make it sharp and loud and bright, like a multidimensional psionic 'hey!' You squeeze it into shape, until it's stable enough to maintain itself.
Then, you fling it at the Chimera's Thread, specifically at a stretch between two of its splinters. You clamp down once your Telepathic flare reaches the Thread, attaching it temporarily and creating a Telepathic beacon.
Can you sense that? you tell Noir.
The glowy dot that's moving around everywhere?
Yeah! Can you cut through it?
Noir doesn't reply, instead she focuses her psionic energies and pounces yet again to make another decisive attack. Although the Chimera evades with panicked haste and doesn't get slashed, it hardly matters. Noir pours most of her power into her Telekinetic claws, and slashes exactly where you're pointing.
You watch through your Third Eye as her razor-sharp claw slices neatly through the Chimera's Thread. The severed portion of the Thread turns gray and dead over the course of a few seconds, and the psychic splinter it is attached to begins to rise up and drift away.
The Chimera emits a shrill, pained scream, even as her own psionic energies fall by a noticeable fraction. She flails at the splinter both physically and metaphysically in a futile attempt to recapture the splinter itself.
You also see her Thread - the part where Noir had severed it - it too reaches up towards the slowly drifting splinter. It stretches as far as it can in an attempt to take hold of the severed portion of itself, but never quite manages with any attempt.
Soon, the splinter fades into nothingness, far beyond the Chimera's every reach.
She wails again, and you feel a sense of sadness fill her. It comes out in a soft wave that flows over you, filling you with some measure of guilt. After all, the both of you killed some cherished part of the Chimera.
Every part of her swells with that sadness as every single one of her splinters lament their loss. But that grief doesn't last. It turns and flips and twists in short order, transforming the grief into something equally primal and feral and raw.
A red darkness suddenly takes over its mind. It sweeps over the grief, swallowing it up whole. It also takes much of the endless hunger as it spreads outward, but never quite takes all of it. Still, it's more than enough - the Chimera becomes enraged.
Your eyes go wide and your heart thumps in your chest as she launches into a full-blown rampage. Her every power is now swelling with energy, fueled by her fury. She physically wrenches a gas pump from its housing even as pure Telekinetic energies slam down on the ground around her.
She literally pounds the concrete she's standing on with such ferocity that it cracks and craters with each impact. It's certainly strong enough to cause the ground to shake, even the one beneath your feet.
Alarm sweeps through you after a sliver of Foresight, and you duck down to the ground as fast as you can. A half of a second later, you feel a massive Telekinetic wave sweep across the storefront, right where you had been standing.
The earth seems to shake and shiver while the sky seems to fall above you. You protect the back of your head after you feel bits of glass and concrete rain down on you. It also comes with a terrible wrenching and breaking and crumbling sound that completely terrifies you.
Once it's all over, well most of it anyway, you quickly get back on your feet, ready to run or find cover or whatever. It doesn't matter - your heart is pounding and demanding action from you.
You then see the wrecked shop you were just standing next to. The Chimera had literally ripped a part of the roof right off and tossed it aside, into the trees close by.
Before, you wanted to use her anger to interrupt her hunger. But that plan certainly seems idiotic, now.
The Chimera herself is huffing from exertion, but is clearly far from her physical or metaphysical limit. Her blazing eyes spot Noir and immediately lashes out at her with everything she's got. She flings numerous Telekinetic waves at her and mercilessly pounds the ground under her feet, no matter where she runs or hides.
You pour as much as you can into Noir, to help boost her Temperance and get her out of the way faster.
Noir darts and dashes and dodges everywhere, always one step ahead of the Chimera's Telekinesis. Though she's able to stay ahead of it, the Chimera continues on relentlessly. Everywhere she runs to gets pounded flat moments later, and the entire service station starts to look more like a war zone.
Though the Chimera attacks wildly, you can sense a shard of determination cut into her rage. It quickly grows inside her, very nearly severing her anger in half. But instead of cutting too hard, it settles itself within. Because it doesn't hamper her, her senses sharpen drastically, allowing her to focus herself through her anger.
And right now, that's Noir.
The Chimera lashes out in an instant, faster than either of you can even think, much less react. She flings a raw Telekinetic wave at Noir and slams it right into her.
You can feel sheer overwhelming pain sweep across your body through the Network, as Noir takes the hit full-on. She's flung a half dozen meters away, to the other end of the service station itself, even as you stumble down to one knee.
You grip your chest, where the pain feels sharpest. Then you quickly tap into your Temperance, just enough to dull the pain.
Noir! you shout down the Network. Worry fills you, not knowing how hurt she is. Your anxiety lifts only slightly when you feel her thoughts pierce through the silence a long moment later.
Ugh, she groans. That really, seriously, truly hurts…
Lay still! Don't do anything in case anything's broken! you tell her.
Wasn't planning to.
Your thoughts are interrupted when the Chimera screams up into the air. You feel her sense of victory flow out of her in waves alongside it. They echo all around you, wrapping you with a chill.
The Chimera then slowly turns towards you. Though her rage has greatly subsided, it has allowed her hunger to once again take her over. But this time, she allows her rage to drive it, just as her determination drove her rage moments ago.
She takes a single step forward, then strikes.
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