บท 7: Chapter 7: Breaking Fantasy
"Ummm….I don't think I follow….reiterate that again?"
'I want to fight Glory Girl.' He responded resolutely.
"...i must be missing something. Are you feeling that sad you need the drunken stupor of battle to put you at ease?" Muzan questions.
Chris went silent.
"Okay then. Fine. There will be major repercussions for this. You know that right? If you become hungry bound again, I'm not sure you can come out as intact as last time-"
"I had the best damn family! And it kept shrinking and shrinking and shrinking! And now they're all gone! It's all gone! I'm just a kid!" Chris's voice wavered but rose in intensity. He threw a random chair in his steamy hatred. Indenting the wall it collided with.
"Haven't I suffered enough!?" He responded brokingly.
"Chris…you're no child. You've gone through too much to still be considered one. No. You're something far greater." Muzan spoke with a sort of extravagance.
"What kind of bullshit is that! Then what the hell am I becoming?" Chris was starting to become restless. He had been trying to come to terms with his new 'vampiric' nature.
Muzan stopped moving at that, the violet orbs reflecting each other's own thoughts.
"A survivor."
"...you.....your a fucking cornball." Chris started smiling with sadness in his heart, Muzan reminded him of himself, but also of dad in a sense. He was serious where it counted, but kind when he needed to.
"What can I say? Laughter is the best medicine after all."
Muzan's slight giggle did little to offset his jumbled mess of feelings.
Chris ascended from his form as a rodent, and rose above the desk. Uncaring of the lights storming the building and his visage. His rat formed molding into his true, human form. Ragged clothing and all.
"I think if all this is meant to happen, then at the very least I'm going to be honest with myself. I didn't care about being the good guy. I cared about my family…." Chris clenched his teeth, the fangs leaving marks as they scraped. His hands clenched so tightly it sounded like rope.
"And ever since they've died, I've hated nearly every single moment since. Each step I took felt so wrong. I felt like a miserable and embarrassing act as I kept prodoling along for some aspect of this fictitious reality!" Tears threatened to well up, but were quickly dismissed as quickly as they appeared.
"When I dominated Armsmaster, hell whenever I fight! I feel secure. I feel strong. I feel safe."
"So I'm going to do what makes me still joyful, what makes me feel appreciated, what brings light to my…our lives. And the world…can shove it for all I care." With each word, he let his true form shine as his unnaturally long hair came in.
Muzan looked at him and smiled, almost like a proud father beaming his child with well deserved praise.
He resolutely turned around towards the entrance of Brockton Bay's central hospital. He spawned a jet black light rain jacket, with some jet black jeans, his shoes were black sneakers, and his skin returned to the minty paste it was long before.
Muzan was practically glowing at this point. "I'd say so Chris. My question to you however is….are you actually ready to take away life?"
"I'm not a murderer." He continued onwards.
"Then you won't be alive to fulfill your promise."
Chris went deathly silent. He felt like cold water had been randomly poured over his head.
"You know there's no turning back from this path….right?"
Chris kept walking, past Muzan, and towards the brightly lit entrance.
"I'm sure that's what everyone says to themselves whenever they do something. Besides...Its not like i can help it."
A dozen helicopters, from the Protectorate, the police, or some hero didn't bother. Nor intrude on his drunken nirvana. The lights seemed to glorify the exit he was walking towards. Just a reminder of reality.
The doors slid open and the familial smell of air graced his nose, the sound of mobilization converged around him, and the blood in each person's veins was all the more tempting. The air blowing his back, along with his jacket.
Everything stopped.
Eyes were on him, directly on him.
The police had the entire area quartered off. Helicopters made up the skies among the dozens. Reflecting off the cold gray of the parking lot. He scanned his surroundings.
Beside her was a decently large, sleek metal dragon , perhaps the size of a car, if not bigger. Scales adorned its surface as light shined off it, giving it a certain majestic quality to it.
Scattered about were PRT officers, most of the civilian cars were still there and some were snuffed cozily next to them. Either that or the vans or the heroes.
And then there she was. The main attraction for his ire. Sitting next to a PRT van.
Glory Girl.
Suited with her radiant costume, she looked dazzlingly charming, her clean, blond hair waved as it freely flowered through the air. More majestic than even the draconic masterpiece from before.
He's heard so much. No. Too much about her. If not from friends, then from the media, hailing her as this saint. The famed 'Alexandria Package' was always paraded like a beacon of hope back at school. He didn't believe too much before, but now he actually felt intimidated just by merely seeing her.
Next to her was her sister Panacea. She seemed to be behind her sister in a distressed look. Looking dead at him in fear.
They were like night and day. One confident and unwavering, the other shy and scared.
"Abbadon, put your hands behind your head, turn around, and get on the ground." A female voice spoke abroad through a speaker. Coming from the steel reptile's direction.
'Abbadon? Who-wait. Is that supposed to be me?' He thoughtfully remarked to himself. Why give him a cape name when his real name was scattered to the winds for all to see? Why wasn't it in the newspaper? Maybe it was created after his name was already leaked. But what'd be the point?
He didn't stay on that thought for long. He heard the hum of a motorcycle in the distance.
Someone on a motorcycle pulled up. Not the same as Armsmasters, a more basic looking one he couldn't remember the name of. Stepping off it was this woman, outfitted with urban tactical gear. Rocking an army cap. And had the American flag as her mask. She reeked of gunpowder. He'd seen her on the news…..Probably…
Miss Malaysia? No…..it had something to do with guns didn't it? Miss America? Whatever. The name didn't matter right now. He was here for a fight!
A fight that would make his heart soar, the same type of fight he had against Armsmaster, one where his life was on the line!
Yet he felt only a little scorned by the idea. In fact, he felt…..emboldened. and perhaps even a little intimidated.
He stood for a few moments as he admired the situation. "Get down on the ground now! This is your final warning!"
He stood up tall against the lights and sounds of adversities adorning the lot. He looked in the direction of Glory Girl, she was glaring at him.
"No." He yelled in her direction confidently.
Glory Girl rushed in swiftly as soon as the sentence concluded. Zooming across the lot much faster than anticipated. Chris blocked the rush, but the momentum denied him of any. They were sent inside the main lobby of the hospital.
"What did you do to my sister!?"
He tumbled onto his legs elegantly, his adversary had already regained her elevation advantage. Her eyes glowed with rage.
The blonde threw a practiced punch. He ducked under it and attempted to throw a punch in retaliation. She flew away from it and over him.
She fell into a strange stance, her one foot in front the other, one hand cupped, the other balled into a fist. She got very low to the ground.
Chris stared at her for a second. It reminded him of some random martial arts. He didn't last on that thought for long. Instead opting to continue the fight, despite said stance. He giggled, before roaring a proclamation "I don't care about your kung fu, it's not gonna save you!"
He ran at full speed at her. Yet the wind didn't grace his face the same way as before.
He kept moving through it, each step cracking the ground as ran up and swung on the heroine.
"I already know you're strong! So I'm not going to hold back!" He grinned with the look only someone drunk on bate
She remained silent and stoic. Uncupping her hand. Positioning it just under the wrist. She still held a field of confidence to her unwavering face. He got close and moved his whole body into it.
She parried it. Not half parried like what Armsmaster attempted. Legitimately parrying it, offsetting the strength of the attack almost completely. He was taken aback by this as his face morphed into confusion.
She saw the opening and rushed.
Winding up her punch, she sailed it directly into the gut of the monster.
All Chris saw was stars from there. Puke threatened to come up. A flurry of punches he found himself unable to react to as each one sailed into his pores. Glory Girl winded up an especially strong punch, he could sense energy built up in her hand. He felt his jaw snap, his arms reduced to jelly, and his nose broke from the impact.
He was launched back again, outside the building and into the lot again. Crashing into a red car. Past the soldiers.
The car went through a nasty tumble into the street. Before losing momentum and falling back down to the ground with a mighty shock.
He felt his spine shutter from the impact, he attempted to get out but found his body glued to the shrapnel of the shattered car.
"Flok!" Blood spurted from his broken jaw. No one had ever hit him that hard before. It rocked him to his core. Said mandible was already regenerating. However he failed to notice it was much slower than before.
"Perhaps you shou-"
"Ho! I cow wa i-i'm doing!" His smile beamed wholeheartedly through the busted jaw. Muzan assumed he said 'Hey! I know what I'm doing!' And decided not to argue.
His blood began pumping, the drool fell from his mouth and what little blood he had began coursing through his veins. His eyes bulged from the adrenaline.
He pulled himself out of the metal. Expecting the pain, he winced when he realized there was no pain. Just the pulling sensation. Yet there was no pain. His mouth had completely returned.
"Tell me why my sister is acting strange!" A female voice projected at him. Floating through the air like she owned it. He looked up to her golden form. He wondered what she was even talking about.
"I didn't do anything to your sister!"
"Then why is she acting like you traumatized her?" She responded infuriated.
"I'm serious, I didn't do anything to her!"
She floated there silently, confusion present on her face, before molding into a determined look. After a few, long seconds, she started floating down. She got back into the stance.
He failed to notice this detail and rushed in head first. Running purely on hunger. He sprinted at her.
Chris's chest tightened as he flexed his muscles. He roared, from the bottom of his gut, and ran up to the glowing woman.
He wound up a punch, threatening to snap her jaw. She steeled herself, and took it on full force. Not even flinching.
"...so that's why the boys called her invincible….."
The punch twisted and devolved in rotation, opting to go for the hands instead. He planned on restraining her. The fist fell into a grab. Snatching both her wrists.
"I got you!"
When Chris glanced at Glory Girls face, he saw a look of unbridled confidence, her eyes told a mesmerizing glimmer of the wrath she wanted to inflict. Like everything would be alright. Like she was holding back. He felt an odd sense of both awe and fear overcome him.
Before it devolved into a maddening feeling.
She rolled her wrist quickly, his elbows bent uncomfortably, he attempted to course correct it by fighting the grip. However she saw this, and instead sent them in the opposite direction, far quicker than he expected. He lost control and got his hands leashed instead.
Now she had one hand over both of his.
"You were saying?" She said back. A cheeky grin still present on her face.
His lips folded to a snarl. He growled animalistically as annoyance took hold of him.
He pivoted the floor, and tried to throw her, but she just started floating playfully in response. He tried his damndest to stay near the ground, while the blonde seemed to control the situation from above.
"Slam her."
Chris garnered the echo in his head for a second. Before following through, taking the floating savior and throwing her into the pavement.
The impact cracked the earth and the boom created by it shattered the eardrums of those who didn't have protective aid against such a feat.
He saw through the smoke and debris, seeing her laying flat on her back, looking up at the lights.
Chris stands up proud and strong. Laughing all the same. His voice echoed with a sense of dread to the soldiers.
The Protectorate backed up professionally, like a broadway musical they cohesively moved farther away from the threat that he posed. The gun hero and the robot dragon followed suit.
A foreign feeling flooded him, like he was on some sort of pedestal that can't be taken from him. It was similar to the feelings that flooded him against Armsmaster. Like he was above everything! Again!
On top of all of this, he had never had so much fun doing something physical in his life. Every portion of his being. It felt like this was what he was meant to do! Everything felt right! It felt like….he failed to load a credible description in his head.
"Good job! Now go ahead and kill the rest!" Muzan proclaimed very loudly in his head, drowning out every other sound he heard.
….what?
"Take them all out! It will be more fun!"
"No! I'm not going to kill them! I wanted a fight!" He continued. Confused as to why Muzan would even make such a statement.
Muzan merely mirrored his confusion.
"You said you were fine with killing?"
"If they got in my way. That doesn't mean I'm going out of my way to murder someone!"
"The way you were fighting though…."
"I was having fun! Not trying to kill!"
"Wait. Do you think this is a game?!"
"No! But i'm just saying fighting is kinda fun ya know. I know you felt the same way!"
"Chris…aren't you starving."
"I'm not killing anyone! You can't convince me otherwise! I'm starving too and you don't see me losing it." He started walking, but got stopped by some force. He turned around and came face to face with the man himself, appearing from nowhere, again. Drool was falling from his mouth however. His eyes bulged like a raccoon with rabies.
"It's not about that Chris! It's about the fact you could freak out and lose yourself again. Do you want that?"
Chris lamented and moved on to continue his brawl with the heroes.
"I'm literally on my last leg of this. If we don't get something to eat, we will relapse into the frenzy again."
He tried to come up with an excuse to continue his brawl, none came to mind.
He failed to see the risk. Instead falling back to his 'i can do it if i try!' ideology. He continued to press on and turned away from Muzan.
"Chris were goi-"
An elbow came over his vision, quick, swift, and very accurate. He was locked with a fierce grip before he could even realize what had happened. It tightened overhim. It happened so fast he didn't even register the familial sheen on the arm holding him.
He was supposed to be fast enough to handle Armsmaster, yet he was getting beat by Glory Girl. Was he missing something?
"You hit hard, but I think it's time to end this." the familiar voice came through to him.
His ears began ringing. Almost like a muscle had been raptured, he felt his body run through one swift motion. Throwing up could describe it, except with his emotions in place of the bodily fluids this time.
Then in a swift but violent motion, he felt all became undone, the colors dissolved into nothing but a sign of the end. His end. His taste buds soared like an eagle through the sky, and the smell became overwhelmingly tedious. His muscles bulged and bulged against the heroine's cable-like grip. All to no avail. His eyes began popping as blood and adrenaline rushed into his head. The lack of oxygen seemingly meant nothing, as he kept trucking on.
Then the violent urge came back in full swing. He felt like he was being choked by an unstoppable wall but getting rammed by an infinitely fast bullet train.
He lost his balance this time, he felt his knees collapse like falling timburr. He felt even more restraint, he couldn't tell if it was himself or Glory Girl.
He questioned how this all happened, he should be strong, stronger than her! And yet he still….ended up trapped.
The surroundings shifted in unreal ways until he found himself in a vehicle. He recognized vague similarities, until it all clicked. His body leapt from his control like a frog from a lily pad.
Scarlet covered his sight. The tunnel vision scourge he remembered all too vividly. He smells, the tastes, the sounds, it all shot up as he hyperventilated towards insanity.
Then the darkness claimed him, silence had arrived.
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He felt the chilling embrace of the void before he heard something off in the distance.
I told you to get out and dodge, but you thought you could be stubborn, just like our dad, and now…..you have to pay the price.
His ears popped, like they had just risen and dropped from a high altitude.
His eyes opened wide. To a starry night sky, with constellations, comets, and asteroids flying across the heavens. The moon was in a constant reflective state, where the sun and moon convene in only every few thousand years. It was oddly reminiscent of the time when he floated through space….with the giant worm.
He reached his pale hand out, like an infant grasping for a toy. Only he noticed his sharp nails as they glimmered in a strange light. He put another hand towards his Adam's apple, he still felt like he was being choked out by the 'alexandria package.'
How did he not smell her, or even sense her coming? Had he grown so weak from starvation?
….damn, it reminded him of his very empty stomach. Now the feeling feels more unbearable than when he first arrived in the hospital.
He found himself surrounded by beautiful trees. The likes of which would make the Brockton Bays mountainous treescape blush a weary red. Each branch felt weaved and special, like they were loved.
It felt like being back home. With mom. With dad…
"Were in your head."
"What?" Chris immediately threw himself around and saw the menacing doppelganger appear from seemingly nowhere.
His look has remained the same since he last saw him. Only with the addition of a wine glass filled with an unknown red liquid.
"Your body rejected your will. Again. And your consciousness was sent here."
"What about my body?" He said as if it wasn't the most ridiculous sentence he ever uttered.
"Your body is now attempting to wreak havoc on the hero's. Surprisingly however, Glory Girl seems to be restraining you quite well. The flames haven-"
"THE FLAMES ARE BACK!? How fucking wonderful."
"As I was saying. Glory Girl seems to be handling the flames. And you. She's keeping you contained in the parking lot."
"How? I thought they were like….."
"It's just a theory but I think she may have something covering her, allowing her to essentially ignore the flames as they feed on raw material, and the barrier over her isn't. So it can't spread and destroy, as there isn't anything there to destroy. However I'm not sure how long she can keep it up. Worst case scenario is this field is tied to her strength. Best case is the shield can be worn down."
"How the fuck did you get all of that from just observing?"
"It pays to keep an open eye on every event."
Chris contemplated for a second.
"Actually…yeah. It does make more sense." He remarked mostly to himself. Leading into a weak laugh.
Muzan wasn't laughing.
Chris caught the look. He went to speak, but Muzan beat him to it.
"We're dying."
Chris stopped and looked to meet his inner's gaze.
"We haven't eaten anything for the past 2 weeks. It's a miracle we're still fighting in our condition. You burnt through so much energy it frankly disgust me!"
"At this rate, the body will burn through what's left of our energy, after about an hour's worth of rampaging….we will pass out and die from starvation."
"I-" he stumbled across his words for a few seconds.
"I'm…sorry, I didn't realize it was that bad."
"You didn't realize it was…..bad? You truly didn't….realize?" The sky turned from lit black to an ambrozic red with hims of orange scattered throughout the sky. The wind began picking up.
"I-i was-"
"Oh don't apologize now. You knew what you were doing. Not after what we've been through, I just want to know exactly your so gung-ho on fighting, when we've never been interested in it ever before our trigger." Muzan intimidatingly walked up to him, he towered over him as his shadow covered all light across the sky. Now the trees were dying as Muzan's red irises glowed in immense annoyance and pain.
Something crept into the core of his very being, something he hadn't experienced before.
Fear.
"It felt good alright! To be superior! Whenever I beat someone up, I felt like the pain was slowly washing away! So i…..I grew addicted to it…..slightly. I helped take my mind off the way things have been." he spun.
Muzan perked his eyebrows up at this. He backed off slightly, slouching a little and backing off his chassis.
"But there is more. It didn't just push aside my hurt. I enjoyed it. Hurting people. Like I'm some sort of hellspawn! I can smell the blood in people, and I can hear their heartbeats! I taste them…"
Muzan stood silently with a straight face, however his eyes betrayed that as the glint of a judgemental look presided behind them.
"My fear of my own strength turned to a hunger-lustered frenzy. Now in retrospect, that wasn't smart fighting like that, but I just couldn't help it!"
The silence that occurred after that made Chris sweat literal metaphorical bullets. He felt like dick for not taking into account Muzan's feelings on the matter.
"If that's how you feel, then let's reevaluate our plan." Muzan relaxed, causing Chris to relax. The world went back to the way it was when he arrived. Majestic.
"Why? We're gonna be captured by the heroes and thrown in the Birdcage. Won't we have all the food we'll want then?"
"Do you feel like being locked up?"
"No."
"That's what I thought. Now. Come over here so we can avoid that. And get something to eat." Muzan materializes a table with small seats out of nowhere.
"Fine."
"First things first. We need to get out of here. Now Glory Girl is doing a good job at holding us. However, we need to get away, all we need to do is regain enough mental stability to transform into something to escape."
"How? She's stronger than me, faster, more skilled, and I don't know how to transform into anything smaller than a rat!"
"To escape, you're going to need to master yourself, and by proxy your flames. From there, get some distance from Glory Girl, and run, once we get out of her line of sight, turn into a raccoon and make a break for it. I doubt she'll just attack a random, innocent animal." Muzan smirked, it wasn't like they were going to waste their time going after a wild street animal when a 'villain' was on the loose.
"Next, search for anything that has a pulse. We are not going to survive for that much longer, so go after it, no matter the cost."
Chris nodded, he couldn't just die yet, he was having so much fun was going to live on, for his family.
"Then to finally wrap things up, we need to find a place of sanctuary, although we can discuss that when we successfully achieve the first 2 steps. Are you still following me?"
Chris nodded humbly.
"Now, we're going to break the hunger spell on you. I can help with holding it back, however you need to actually conquer it. At least momentarily, from there it'd be up to you to run away and look for something to eat."
Chris fought the urge to pout, something about this set him off the wrong way, but he decided to apply himself and move on. This was truly life or death now. No more jokes.
"Once you return, the new memories from the fight during your frenzy will appear. Brush those aside and keep moving okay? Don't stop."
"I'm ready."
"But are you though?"
Chris looked at Muzan unamused.
"Heh, should've seen that coming. Good luck."
Muzan stuck his hand out and a wave of pressure sends Chris soaring. Crashing into one of the trees, however instead of crashing, he flew into the tree, and into a pit of darkness.
He felt tucked up, snug, in the pits of his mind, but now, he recollected every memory that came his way. The night mom passed. The first day dad got too busy with work and had to stay away. The day dad and him reconnected, after so many years of familial loneliness. Only for him to die. The night he died. The night he came back. The night he failed to realize the magnitude of my hunger. The night he had my first fight. The night he fought Armsmaster. The night he beat Armsmaster. The night he nearly killed that guy and that girl. The night he saved that girl. The night he…..
He kept falling.
And falling.
And falling.
And falling.
And falling.
And falling
And falling.
And falling.
Each moment he felt more and more sour boredom wash over him like a plague. He had been falling for over an hour. At least he thought it was. He lost count after 10 minutes.
He struggled to think straight as he fell deeper and deeper into the tunnel of memories. The memories became red, and covered in blood, shifting in and out one another. What if scenarios, different perspectives from different people. Similar looks stretch across it all.
He suddenly felt overcome with grief as the memories kept replaying, never failing to remind him of his highlight reel of failures. The hole in his gut growing larger and larger. He felt submerged in an endless sea of failure. The grains spilling out into his soul as he fought to keep himself.
He must've been falling for hours. By the time he hit a solid surface, he wasn't even sure he was on anything. At least until he looked up and saw it.
His old home. The large 2 story suburban home they used to live in. Back when mom was still alive, before dad grew so obsessed with work and sorrow he couldn't even spend a moment's notice at the house. The old truck that dad drove around in, wasn't any better, but it had a certain charm that seemed so dim now. Especially since its destruction.
The door opened up, and he stepped out of it.
Chris looked on in shock, it was him. But shattered. And drained of color, completely, the gas contrasted with the white look of his body. He had drool frothing from his mouth, and a hole where his stomach would be. Pieces of him were missing, like a broken piece of glass, black gas leaked out of the cracks and openings. The dopplegangers eyes lit up in recognition.
"Gloomy aura
A last laugh
trust demon don't
in spite of the love."
Chris stood there, completely stunned by the words. He wanted to say something, but couldn't, no words came out.
Then suddenly a tree root came out from behind the bleached him, and snatched up inside. The door slams shut, and tree roots come out of the ground and wrap around the house like a knot.
The area devolved as acid became commonplace amongst the huge roots and fragmented ground. He felt like he was in an earthquake.
The ground gave way underneath him, strange, pale hands attempted to swat him into a newly formed tar black hole that appeared beneath him. The acid seemed to stretch a whole football field away from him, the house nonexistent. The only thing he saw now was a barren wasteland of eyes, symbols, and the dim light of a red moon.
One hand had strange markings on it. With bulging muscles.
Another hand seemingly fused with another, of which it was slender, yet bulky, with a rusted cuff on it.
The other was pale, and very cold, colder than any winter he'd experienced in Brockton Bay.
Then another ghostly white hand came in, with veins that mirrored almost a broken vase.
Another ocean white hand clinged to him, with long, sharp, purple nails.
The 6th hand was pale as the rest, but its touch was electrifying, stunning, paralyzing. It had a green bracelet woth strange things on it that resembled the number 6.
The next hand was slightly darker than the rest, almost a grayish brown, like a dulled out version of a normal human skin tone. His grip was firm.
And the final hand. A simple plain pale hand, however his grip was the strongest by a landslide.
All these grips banded together in an effort to drag him into a void. A place of no escape. A place where dreams end. A place where time and space cease to be.
With every fiber of his being he slowly walked. Each step felt like he was carrying on his back an entire continent's worth of people.
The hands whispered delicious, excruciating things to tantalize the mere thought of joining them. Chris remained unphased and kept moving. His eyes bulged from the effort as his pale skin lit up with red flowing through his veins.
He kept going. Going. And going. Until he finally fell into acid finally.
The hands let him go and cursed him, some admired him, all proclaimed with an eerie tone of a thousand souls.
They will be seeing him again.
He couldn't breathe a sigh of relief, his body stopped functioning all together. Great rage took hold, and left only an instant later. Replaced by grief, and then relief.
He felt at peace with the world around him as he laid in the green liquids ooze.
For once he felt like he wasn't reason his father died.
He closed his eyes.
He returned to the great simmer in darkness.
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Glory Girl was currently attempting to hold off the rabid animal known as Chris Teel, or Abbadon. She wanted to hurt him for messing with her sister. However she saw something different.
The boy wasn't well, in the slightest.
He spoke to himself, and acted like someone was actually there. Then when she tried to choke hold him, he kept on trucking on, and eventually she felt a change in air. Like an entire skyscraper had been dropped on her.
His eyes were like a feral animal backed into a corner.
Then there was a whole collection of black flames that spewed out from him. Her forcefield protected her. The boy would rush in and try to attack her flames and all. Only instead, he didn't try punching, but instead switched to slashing now with those sharp claws of his. The look in his eyes was completely feral. No semblance of sentience was seen.
He became much faster, and much stronger. Faster than her? No. Stronger than her? Debatable, regardless he wasn't fighting to fight now.
He was fighting to kill.
A far cry from the battle crazed mindset he had before. It made her wonder.
What exactly did he do to make Amy so…..afraid?
She held back her blows the best she could, however, at some point, she felt herself slipping. She couldn't tell when or where, but she knew she was just fighting now. This lasted for about 10 minutes, until Chris's emotions took a twist, from wild rage, to calm and responsible.
The change was sudden, and he stopped his rampage. His eyes turned from bloody mary to bloodshot ocean. The change was almost unnoticeable, be it she could tell just by looking, his sanity had returned. Despite that, his fighting spirit had long since diminished, as he stood, the only thing she could tell was that-
He was hurting, and he was lost.
She did believe people could be redeemed. But even now, she felt something warning her, something that sent danger signals off in her mind.
Why? Was it whatevers setting off those alarms?
He was just a kid after all, only a few years younger than her. Even from this display, if he had truly wanted to kill someone, then needless to say what the consequence entailed. He had the speed to certainly pull it off.
Or god forbid her sister would already be dead. She had seen the worst of Brockton Bays gangs, and to her Chris didn't even remotely scale to their levels of depravity.
The boy, mid sprint, halted in his tracks. His feet skidded for a short while before stopping. He had this far off look to him. Like he saw something that caught his eyes, like his mind was elsewhere. She kept her guard up just in case.
His eyes shifted from pure red to having pupils again. They ressembled a predator, but compared to before, they were much softer.
She forced her thoughts to end right then and there. Clearly this boy was struggling. Maybe she could help him. Get him the help he needs.
He looked around him. He saw the black flames, eating away at the ground, and a few cars. The smell of molten metal pugnated her senses. Then his mouth moved. She steeled herself for anything.
"Hey Glory Girl?"
She perked up to him.
"Did I really do all this?"
She nods slowly.
He huffs like a horse. He slicks his wild hair back from his face. It stayed. Then he put his hand out. The flames began receding into his hands, and after a few moments the flames had completely receded into his body. Smoldering vehicles and scorched earth were all that remained.
He looked at her.
"I'm sorry if I did anything somehow to hurt you, your sister, or anyone else." he spoke in an almost small, mouse-like voice. Much more polite than what she had been anticipating. He sounded guilty, and truly apologetic.
There is still hope for him.
She floated towards him slowly.
"Chris. We can help you. We can get you something to eat, a doctor, and a bed to sleep on."
He started to back up.
"I appreciate that Glory Girl, I really do, but right now. I think I know what I gotta do." he responds resolutely. He sounded so sure in himself. His eyes spoke not of a lust for battle, hunger, or anything. It was the look of a determined soul. He had a goal?
Then a ball of light bounced into view, he had a look of confusion before it detonated right next to him. The light was blinding. He was sent flying backward into the street for a second time. The moment he landed, A woman with a white costume with orange trims came into view, she had a cross-bladed symbol on her chest, she had blond, short hair, and she had light swords. She had jumped in and swung at him before he could reach the ground. Brandish.
His bones cracked and splintered, his muscles shifted and made way for new shapes and space needed. His body shrank from a human to a raccoon. Dodging the attack from the sword wielding woman.
The change in size and mass did wonders for him, as his speed increased dramatically. He bolted off into the darkness. She tried to fly at him, but found it hard to move at full speed when civilians and cops could drive by and become wrecks of debris flying at 60 mph into buildings. Raccoon was ducking and weaving through the streets, she eventually lost sight of him.
She flew high in the air to see if she could spot movement in the buildings below.
She saw something. She zoomed down and snatched it up into the air.
It was a black, skinny, street cat. It tried to scratch her but it had no effect. She took a once over the cat to make sure.
It was just a regular cat.
"Crap. Damn it mom."
ความคิดของผู้สร้าง 
EndoSlayer
EndoSlayer HAPPY NEW YEARS YALLL WE MADE IT! And happy late christmas-but mostly new years bitchessssssss
but in all seriousness, I wanted to make it longer but I noticed it'd mess with the pacing, so we ain't gonna do that.
Hopefully Glory Girl is on point, I have no idea I'm kinda just going off some notes from the canon. So hopefully she's alright.
So uhh sorry for the wait. Again. I'll try and make up for it but make no promises. Although the next chapter will definitely be shorter. It won't be that big. In fact the next few chapters will probably be shorter.
Just working out how the various groups will react to Chris. Like Lung, Coil, Piggot's reaction, unironically Uber and Leet. And especially Cauldron, in which I may need a beta, but who knows, I'll worry about that when I get to it.
Or i'll just wing it like ive been doing, seems to be working well so far but im definetly not going to hold myself like that. But fr if someone does feel like dropping some tips, thatd be a great help. I kinda did Lung already but i havent written the others out yet.
Anyhow, I'll see y'all later. Have a blessed day y'all! and Happy new years!!
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