The Atlantian System: Creation

She could feel the blood dripping from her throat being staunched as the veins closed and the skin began to pucker just as Dr. Kudela took a swipe with her dagger, slicing the Loupgarou’s face in half from ear to snout, the two sides slide apart as it went limp in death.

The older woman turned to look at her before shouting, “Leta! Behind you!” just as she tossed one of her daggers with grace and accuracy only acquired from decades of battle.

Leta caught the weapon mid-air and spun on the balls of her feet, the blade singing in the night just as it planted itself in the temple of leaping Loupgarou that had managed attempted to sneak up behind her.

Distracted, Dr. Kudela didn’t see the second Loupgarou’s head snap to her, winding up on powerful hind legs to leap with outstretched claws.

Falling back, the monster missed clawing the doctor’s face but was able to bit down on the woman’s tiny arm, it’s powerful jaws breaking bone with a loud snap.

The elderly woman cried out in pain, her other hand raising to stab into the creature’s exposed neck but was tossed to the side before she could land a hit, the monster quickly digging its claws into her stomach.

Naomi screamed in terror at the carnage in front of her as Theodore pushed up from where he’d been pressed against a metal duct to kick at the Loupgarou, trying to dislodge the old woman.

With a growl it let Dr. Kudela slip from it’s teeth to the floor, molten gold eyes burning as it’s head snapped around to clamped down on her father’s thigh, fangs the length of a finger piercing through muscle to the bone as blood filled its mouth. Leta’s father screamed in terror, hands clawing at the monster’s snout as if he would somehow be able to get free.

She pushed up from the monster at her feet to see the beast shaking her father like a rag doll, attempting to drag him away like a dog with a bone.

Leta saw red.

All that remained was blood, shadow, and a burning need to destroy.

Leta screamed; a loud, visceral scream filled with rage at what she saw.

The air suddenly thickened, becoming oppressive as if gravity were pressing down on everything around her. Metal groaned as the dirt at their feet began to vibrate, the shadows around them growing ominous. The Loupgarou growled and whined, their movements slowed and disjointed as if they were moving through molasses, their gazes wide as they experienced fear for the first time.

Blood dripped from her lips as her vocal cords were further damaged by her fury, but her rage would not be contained so easily.

The monsters, which had tried to continue their massacre under the weight of her rage suddenly twitched, muscles shaking as they tried to move but found their bodies being pushed into the ground.

Koa and her people were also affected by the thick press of her power. Vigo, who’d been trying to protect the injured Afra felt like he suddenly found himself on the surface of Saturn, gravity pushing him to his knees as he tried to lock his arms beneath him to keep from going face first into the dirt.

Teeth red with her blood, Leta gritted out one word, channeling her rage into a single coherent command.

“Suffer!”

[Persuasion skill has evolved to Command. Command successful.]

As one, the backs of the two Loupgarou arched unnaturally as if an unseen force had tried to snap them in two. Their shrieks echoed off the cooling units as their ribs imploded into their chests, eyes burning with hot blood as the tendons on their arms and legs snapped and rolled into their muscles.

It was a scene directly from a horror, the monsters unable to feel or think of anything but the excruciating agony that was their being. They were alive, but they were unspeakably broken, so tortured that it would have been better to die then live another minute in that state.

Like a discarded doll, Leta fell to the ground limp, Dr. Kudela’s dagger clinking to the floor as the Command took everything out of her.

She couldn’t remember a time in her life where she felt such exhaustion. It was as if her bones had been replaced with cartilage, her body suddenly feeling a thousand times heavier as every fiber in her body cried out in pain as if it had been dipped in slow burning acid.

[Host is experiencing Nanite fatigue. Host will feel the echo of the Command executed at 10% of the given damage for each target. Healing time for the Host’s vocal cords has been reset to one minute, three seconds.]

“Leta!” She heard her mother’s frantic scream as Koa and Vigo rushed forward, grabbing her under her arms to pull her into a massive shadow that was still growing around them.

“How much longer?” Koa asked the man in black.

“Less than a minute.” He answered, his eyes never leaving the shadow under his control even with the battle now dead around him. The shadows had created a perfect circle nearly five meters across. As he spoke, the shadow stopped growing as purple runes began to appear at its edges as a rhythmic humming pulsated through the night.

Theodore groaned as he pushed the limp body of the Loupgarou off them, clutching at the bite marks on his leg that pulsated with blood.

Naomi went pale. “Oh god, I think it hit an artery.” She hurriedly pulled off her cardigan to wrap around his leg as a tourniquet.

The sound of distant howls had the group looking up to see more Loupgarou slinking through the doorway. Silhouetted by the light of the lamp, they looked like phantoms with only their reflective cat-like eyes visible.

Naomi shrieked at the sight as Koa held his sword at the read, taking a defensive stance.

Unlike before, the Loupgarou didn’t charge forward or prepare for a coordinated assault.

They stood as a pack, waiting.

Watching.

A humanoid figure emerged from the burnt out darkness of the stairwell.

It was male and human in appearance. Tall, with olive skin, dark hair, and an athletic body clothed only in well worn gym shorts.

“Oletta Black!”

Leta wearily opened her eyes, struggling to turn her head as she recognized the wolfish eyes set in a familiar face.

“It’s the asshole!” Vigo gasped.

The pack of Loupgarou snarled as if in offense to his words, causing the very human Vigo to flinch.

“Apologies, Oletta. This is not personal.” The wolf man from Santorini called to her, taking slow and even steps over the battlefield that had once been the roof of the hospital. “You understand, I have a job to do, as do your friends.”

Leta groaned, as she tried to sit up, her mother hovering close by as if she could protect her.

[Forty seven seconds.]

“Bloody dog,” Koa hissed, brandishing his swords as if to rush towards the pack leader.

“Koa, no!” The man in black warned, his dark eyes meeting the Warriors to warn him off his course of action.

“He’s stalling,” Koa growled, “He has the advantage. Why does he not press the attack.”

The wolf man shrugged, his golden gaze landing on the healing Leta “I don’t need to kill you, Warrior. You’re death is acceptable but not required by my master.”

“Thirty seconds.” The man in black called to the group.

“But you’re not exactly as my master described, are you, Oletta Black?” The Loupgarou shouted over the whoosh of wind picking up from the black shadow, “I was sure you are a Queen, but something’s off isn’t it? You’re not like them.”

The pack moved slowly forward, as if they were gauging prey that had been cornered, golden eyes unblinking.

“Twenty seconds!”

The Loupgarou smirked, “So yes, I’m letting you escape, purely for my own curiosity.”

“Ten seconds!”

“However, letting you go gets me in a spot of trouble.” The wolf man’s grin dropped until it was almost apologetic, as if he regretted the entire situation. “You’ll forgive me, I hope, if I take something as collateral.”

Leta heard the flap of wings and felt the influx of air too late as massive talons wrapped around her mother’s shoulders, the unseen Gargoyle swooping in from behind and lifting her mother into the air with a fearful scream.

She could see her mother’s wide eyes full of terror as she flailed in the creature’s grasp, arms stretching as if she could reach out to grab hold of her husband and daughter.

Leta found her strength as she jumped up, her finger just barely skimming her mother’s sneaker before the runes around the shadow’s edge flared a blinding purple as the hospital roof winked out of existence around them.

[Healing of vocal cords complete.]

“Noooooo!”