章節 33: Carbon Footprint V
A Boeing 747 tore through the troposphere, bashing through the high clouds that made the sky its home.
Wind pelted the tilted plane, the sudden downfall breaking parts of its exterior instruments. Suddenly, the lax vertical stabilizer moved in conjunction with the elevator as the flaps tilted down.
The plane slowly, but surely, swung in a parabolic curve over a few kilometers. Its nose, no longer being subjected to hurricane-level winds, calmed in return.
With a deep sigh, Irwin watches the altimeter pin roll back to the center. The plane was now safely cruising at the altitude of 20,000 feet.
As one threat of annihilation gone, another soon popped up its ugly head. Screams of condemnation and terror resounded from the cabins further into the plane.
The ghost now terrorized the other passengers, for it knew that Gordon's ritual was well protected by Dante's salt shakers and emergency crowbars. It might be possessing the passengers as a human shield in one last-ditch attempt to stop the rite for its body.
Irwin strode forward, half a mind to procure the weapon he had hidden within the cockpit, but found the thought of a stray bullet more catastrophic than a renegade infantile spirit.
"Stay here, Mary. Make sure the plane stays still." Irwin ordered, clenching the hex bag for the Mind Guardian spell. He invigorated his remaining magik towards the hex bag as a green hue enveloped his fist before wisps of energy transferred onto his head. "Daingnich d' inntinn, Daingnich d' inntinn!"
Irwin walked past the lavatory, its captives banging against its locked door. He then nodded at Dante. "That salt shakers enough for you, man. Gimme the crowbar."
His glowing eyes, crackling with positive energy, subdued any doubt within Dante's mind as he subserviently handed the crowbar. "Man, if you save us, I'm going back to my hometown."
"That's probably a good idea." Irwin smirked, gripping the iron bar tightly.
The passengers' screams grew louder as he drew nearer, his heart beating faster in anticipation. He knew it was only a matter of time before the ghost grew strong enough to possess multiple people and, when that happens, all he needed to do was to buy enough time for Gordon to finish the rite.
"How we doing, bud?" He asked, stretching his back muscles.
Gordon chuckled, sweat on his forehead from the sheer exhaustion of the rite. Though the spirit had ceased to physically manifest in front of him, it still proved its danger by sending tendril psychic energy to interrupt the ritual. If not for his mental fortitude, Gordon may have long succumbed to its powers and choked to death.
"I just finished the first part." He informed Irwin. "Do you have silver on you?"
Irwin grinned. He was the heir of a goddamn werewolf clan. "Never leave home without it!"
He bent his knee and grabbed the soles of his shoe, taking out a silver bullet within, before tossing it towards Gordon.
"How 'bout that?" Gordon caught the bullet, an impressed smile on his face. He dropped the bullet in the bowl and began the second part of the invocation, sprinkling the blessed water on the baby's body. "Pastor tener gregis, Guntur nunc in amore tuo cunis jacet. Delenire corda parentum et pacem facere ad vitam suam. Illumina fidem et cordi eorum spem da..."
The plane shook with a mighty roar as the once chaotic cabin now lay silent, dead as a moonless night.
A beat passed. To Dante and Mary, it was an excruciatingly long second, full of terror of the unknown. To Irwin, however, the second could not get here fast enough.
With an expectant, yet still horrendous, loud BANG! the first of the possessed passengers came through the velvet curtains that separated the cabin and the galley.
A once virile young man, now devoid of color, eyes sunken with blood and amniotic fluid dripping out of his ears and nose. The possessed man lunged forward, grunting all the while.
The man swung his fist, but Irwin merely blocked with the crowbar and used his free hand to launch a solid uppercut into the man's unguarded chin.
The man went down with a dull THUD! to Irwin's side, a grim smile now polishing off the latter's once excited expression.
'Fragile. Too fragile,' He reminded himself as two more took the place of the unconscious man. 'Let's see what I have.'
Irwin met them head-on, throwing his crowbar at the possessed to the left. The possessed barely had any time to duck, nor did it intend to do so, when a metal bar hit its face. The possessed loosed its momentum and crashed into the wall just after the last seat.
With two hands free, Irwin ducked the assaulting swings of the last possessed, before unleashing a 1-2 punch combo. He extended his left arm as he jabbed the possessed' pale face, quickly pulling it back. He pivoted his feet and rotated his hips before launching his right arm for a cross.
The possessed reeled back from the might of the punch, blood pooling on its face, before falling down the nearby seat unconscious.
'Three down. Looks like I got worried about nothing.'
He could observe that a few more passengers were still strangling, but most of them had already been possessed by the spirit. If not for their shallow, pale countenance, then their blood and puss filled faces.
"Alright, fuckers." He rolled his non-existent sleeve and assumed a fighting pose. "Who's next?"
As if responding to his challenge, eleven possessed of varying age and gender rushed towards Irwin.
Not expecting that much of a reception, Irwin, a shameless smile on his face, went back to the other possessed and retrieved his crowbar in a hurry.
He dodged the first possessed, swinging his crowbar on the back of its head; the force of which caused blood to splatter on his face and nearby seat.
Two more came in, trying to squeeze through the narrow aisle while another one used its surpassingly agile body to leap over the seats.
Irwin jumped backwards, avoiding the downward lunge of the agile possesses causing it to stumble onto the ground and momentarily unable to get up. Of course, Irwin made sure to keep it permanent by smashing the pronged end of the crowbar to the back of its head.
While he was busy with smashing the head, the two possessed waded past the seats and lurched at him. The weight of the two possessed forced Irwin a few meters, blood trickling down his left shoulder marked by a broken fingernail.
"Damn, that hurt." He felt his heart pulsing with great intensity, a shameful feeling welling up within him: excitement. He had felt it too during his first spar with Joaquin. It felt like unknowingly he had been drawn to the appeal of hunting. Not that he needed to be, but the fact is, he had begun hunting, in part, because of his desire to survive in this unforgiving world.
This reason was also supplemented by the fact that he had acquired the Great Hunter System. Now that he had time to think about it, some would say that he was a slave to his system, merely using hunting as a means to acquire more materials to trade with; which, in turn, is used to hunt more monsters that will be fed to the system.
And round and round it goes, as his therapist boss would say in his previous life. Nevertheless, no matter the circumstance, it wasn't time for introspection, not when he had a ghost to kill.
"I'm not a masochist. I'm not a masochist," he muttered to himself, eyeing the long narrow wound ending on a fingernail in his shoulder. "I'm not gonna kill you, but this is gonna hurt."
The two possessed launched at him once more, tiredness a faraway dream for creatures such as them. Before they could connect their hits, a long, winding whip made entirely out of azure flames flogged their chests, ripping apart their clothing. If the spirit had not tampered with their brains and, subsequently, their pain receptors, the agony they would have felt would cause them permanent psychological damage.
The flaming whip he had conjured threw the two possessed further into the mix of rushing sullen people, blood trailing as they flew.
"Told you." Irwin had an excited smile on his face, feeling the power pulsating along the flaming whip. 'Maybe a few more hits and it'll upgrade to level 5. Well, let's not waste this opportunity.'
With the spell in hand, the rest of the fight remained simple. Every rushing possessed got taken down by either his 1-2 punch combo or got blew away by the flaming whip. By the end of it all, he even had to grab the fire extinguisher because some flames got transferred from their bodies to the seats.
"Is that it? Thought you'd be stronger by now." Eyeing the almost two dozen unconscious possessed, Irwin taunted the ghost as he threw away the fire extinguisher. "C'mon, you can be corporeal. Just focus on being tangible and we'll see you!"
"Uh, sir, please don't aggravate the ghost!" Dante requested politely, as he had seen Irwin's violent performance.
"Let him!" Yelled Gordon, eyes nearly bulging from the intense aura of dread surrounding his entire body. "The ghost's letting me off."
"Got it." Irwin smiled, mocking the ghost even more. "How far are you?"
"Just need to prep the body for burning," Gordon answered.
"Man, you are slow." Irwin joked, sitting atop a possessed unconscious body.
"This shit ain't exactly my bailiwick." Gordon fought back a grunt as the ghost seemed to have intensified its psychic attacks.
Irwin noticed that too, so he moved towards Gordon, intent on helping him. "Don't worry. I can burn it for you."
He drew past the curtains when Dante's eyes widened in fear and surprise. Irwin, moving by sheer instinct, crouched low, eyes nearly bulging out of its socket as he scanned his peripheral vision.
There he saw the horrifying visage of a floating large fetus, blood and amniotic fluid dripping out of its whole body. The fetus' arms were lengthened to a beast-like claw while its umbilical cord whipped wildly in the air, as if it had a mind of its own.
Irwin had just dodged its claw attack, but saw its cord whipping towards him. With a belittling smirk, Irwin jumped to his feet, facing the giant fetus, and waved his hand as the blue whip whizzed towards the oncoming cord.
As the two whips met, it created a sonic BOOM! and unleashed winds that forced both sides away.
Surprised yells could be heard from his side of the fence, but Irwin paid it no mind for he had bigger fish to fry. He pulled back his whip and enveloped his arms with flame.
'Here comes the BBEG!'
Irwin reared his fist, taut legs quivering in sheer potential energy. As the monster snarled and showed its toothy maw, he released his pent-up energy and launched forward.
"Brimstone Blow!" Roaring his punch's name, Irwin felt the shame turn into an unexpected source of more power. As if his embarrassment had fueled his attack just so he can be done with it, the fiery punch met the terrifying face of the ghostly fetus.
Flame met spirit, fist met skin. The azure flame grew bigger as it exploded on the ghost's face, its form elongating to blast through its form. Nearly engulfing the economy class cabin with its fiery form, the force breaking the thin inner pane and cracking the middle pane of the plane windows. Fortunately, there was no genuine force to the expansion of the flames lest the remaining conscious passengers get sucked into oblivion.
As the flame receded and dissipate into smoke, the aftermath of the attack revealed itself. The smell of melted seats and scorched baggage enveloped the plane, not to mention the burning clothes of the possessed passengers.
Fortunately for Irwin, he had not been made a mass murderer with his attack. Although the flames had reached the passengers, the most they had suffered were 2nd degree burns.
Unfortunately, that attack had thoroughly exhausted Irwin, despite that, he still had a smile on his face. In fact, he was just barely keeping his flaming whip active.
"Gordon, baby!"
Without so much as a hint of hesitation, Gordon threw the blessed corpse of the baby to Irwin.
Knowing his flame would soon die out, Irwin curved his arm and whipped the corpse. The flickering flames roped in the corpse and burnt it to a crisp within seconds.
With the destruction of the corpse, the people, those who are still awake, at least, felt a burden lifting off their backs, literally and metaphysically.
Gordon, now sitting on the floor, panting heavily, gazed at Irwin and said, "Maybe next time, we take my car."
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