Chapter Text
Shiori was walking in circles, in the living room of the small apartment she occupied when she wasn’t out on missions for CAIN, which was most of the time in the last few weeks. She had been assigned a new Hunt, and once again had to bring the rest of Advent Squad with her. But this time, the Sin was something else. The mission, too. Urgent dispatching for Advent Squad, for eliminating a category 4 Centipede? That didn’t sound like something CAIN would send them for, usually. According to the paper inside the manilla envelope, three other exorcist teams went before them and failed. This wasn’t how CAIN usually worked. Such a waste of resources.
Shiori held her hand out towards the paper again, and it glowed a faint purple.
She closed her eyes. Memories flashed her vision, not hers but those of the sheet of paper. A series of different scenes quickly happened, but most important was the memory of the typing. Shiori felt the letters imprint onto herself, and then, as the mission briefing finished writing, the hand touching the paper, and pulling it out was a hand, gloved in leather. Darn it. No way to figure out who that was if there was no skin contact. The someone that wrote this was warned about her abilities, surely. Took them long enough.
Shiori opened her eyes again. Her hand was gripped around the paper, crumpling it into a ball.
“I guess I have no choice, then. It’s time to pay the Commander a visit.”
From the door to the next room, that opened with a creaking, a short silhouette emerged, and the clinking of gems on the ceramic tiles of the floor made Shiori notice the barely awoken Bijou.
“Hey, what's up Beebs? Couldn't sleep?” Shiori asked, while watching her friend drag her feet across the floor, dressed in an oversized pyjama shirt. No answer came, but Bijou stepped on a stool to reach up to the countertop, and opened the faucet to fill up a large glass of water that instantly emptied down her throat. She then filled another one, who went the same way as the first, and just as fast. Sometimes, Shiori wondered where all that went, but she was unsure she would ever get a concrete answer. The cursed body of Beebs was an enigma, even to her and especially to CAIN scientists.
Bijou jumped down the step, and, finally noticing Shiori standing across the room, slowly raised her hand to wave.
“Hi Shiori... Did you sleep yet?” the girl yawned, opening a mouth and presenting two shiny rows of gemstones in place of teeth.
“I mean, no? But hey, can you make sure everyone's up and ready to go in fifteen minutes? I'm gonna go see the Commander real quick, but I'm pretty sure we're gonna have to go on a mission right now. Can you do that for me, Beebs?” Shiori gave her a smile, the nicest she could muster, and immediately Bijou woke up. Bringing one hand to her forehead like a military salute, she acquiesced.
“Aye boss, on it!”
Shiori waved her goodbye, before putting on her jacket and opening the front door of the apartment.
“Well, knowing the Commander, I'm sure she's not sleeping right now either. Let's just meet her at her desk.”
Shiori walked a few steps into an empty corridor, passing closed doors left and right, all the way to an elevator. Entering it, she swiped a hand in front of the keypad and the doors closed, before the cabin started moving up, fast, skipping floors where other people were waiting. Shiori hated sharing elevators.
The doors opened on the seventh floor, and she barged through a group of administrators who all stepped aside, scared. She could hear them whisper, eyes on her back as she walked up to the very last door of the hallway. Two Castle guards were standing on both sides of the door, and the first one reached out to catch Shiori's shoulder.
“Sorry, but you're not allowed to move further. The Commander is resting and ordered to not be disturbed until new orders arrive.”
The other guard put a hand onto his gun, ready to draw at the first sign of tension. But Shiori wouldn't give them the pleasure. Pulling out the folded dispatch order, she showed it to the first guard.
“These are the new orders. Urgent transmission for the Commander. You wouldn't want to be the one delaying these, would you?” Shiori smirked as she could feel the two guards shudder, even with their faces hidden by full helmets.
“Alright, give me that. I'll pass it along.” A gloved hand reached for the paper, but Shiori waved it away with a quick sleight of hand.
“Ah-ah-ah, not so fast. Admin said I was the one that had to bring it to the Commander. I need to make sure she receives it correctly and in due time, so let me enter.”
The second guard drew his gun, ready to shoot, but the first one lowered it with a wave of the hand.
“Damn you. Well, go in yourself, if you want to face the Commander so much. Tell you, she’s gonna be pissed you disturbed her rest time.
- She’s gonna be even more pissed if that paper isn’t on her desk by the minute. I’ll take the risk.”
The two guards stepped back, and Shiori pushed the door. She found herself in a vestibule, garnished with a few chairs and a small coffee table. A coat hanger was on the left wall, with an ultramarine vest hanging from it. Next to it, a two-toned jacket with dark and light blues. Good, that meant she wouldn’t be too condescending. She pushed the paper back into her pocket, and opened the other door, to reach into the office room.
“Ah, Shiori Novella,” A tall lady, sitting behind a wooden desk, lifted up her eyes towards the newly arrived exorcist. “I was wondering when you would finally make your way up there. So what is it?” Sounds of a fountain pen scritching over paper could be heard in the silence between the two women. Shiori took a moment to peek around the room, making sure they were alone. The wall to her left was displaying an impressive library, but instead of books, it was thousands of files, all sorted in chronological order. The Commander kept her own archives, and Shiori hoped to get her hands into it one day. But she wasn’t here today for this task. On the right wall, giant whiteboards covered in details of the most recent operations, cork boards with dozens of investigations pinned, all the current ones that the Commander was supervising. A blank whiteboard, with only the words “Bare Fangs” on it, indicated that she knew about the dispatch. Shiori pointed to it.
“Commander. I want an explanation for this. Why is Advent assigned to this operation? Is this a retaliatory punition for the—
- Shiori. Sit down, and we can talk.” The soft but commanding tone of the woman was without discussion. Shiori pulled the chair to her side and sat in silence. Pulled the paper from her pocket again, and pushed it to the Commander. Her officer grabbed it, revealing a gloved hand that unfolded it. With a single look, she absorbed the content of the letter, then looked back at Shiori.
“So. What is your complaint about this? You have been warned that all of Advent were put in operational status again, and you’re being sent to a mission. There’s nothing to make all that fuss about.”
The Commander set the paper down on the desk, and Shiori got a good look at her again. Staring down at her blue eyes, she wandered around her face and noticed the deep blue dye hidden under the black hair. The same blue from the jacket hanging in the vestibule, the same blue as the shirt she was wearing under that greyish vest. Shiori took a deep breath and finally allowed herself to respond.
“I just wondered if this was a punition for the—
- No, Shiori. You didn’t wonder that. You’re trying to figure out a way to bail out of this operation, to spare your team from your duty. We’ve been over this already.” She cut the exorcist again.
Shiori stood up, angered. “Kronii! I’m not trying to bail. I’m trying to understand why my team is being sent to a mission where CAIN would usually dispatch a Virtue! I’m trying to figure out why three other teams were already dispatched and lost there, why CAIN misvaluated the threat, why they lost so much resources, and why we are being sent only now, when it’s now out of our capacities.” Shiori was now leaning over the desk, both hands grabbing the wooden table, teeth clenched. Eyes locked with her Commander, who stared back, an indifferent look on her face.
“Are you done?” her higher-up was now standing behind her, hand on Shiori’s shoulder. She pulled the exorcist back on her chair, and wrapped both hands around her neck, holding her down. Shiori gulped. She knew she went too far this time. Angering herself, forgoing the protocols, calling her by her name. She knew the consequences would come, sooner and harder than she could believe. But rather than immediate punishment, she instead heard the Commander speak into her ear.
“Listen Shiori. My hands are locked by the high council since the issues we had here. We’ve lost three Virtues last year alone. Chaos is already being dispatched in the Australian Outback, fighting a CAT 5 Hound as we speak. Hope is who knows where, probably picking up new potential contractants and exorcists, like she always does. Priestess is bound to a desk like I am, overseeing the entire R&D department, and Reaper is with Comet in Japan. Phoenix? No news since her last death against that one CAT 6 Perfect Idol. Do you understand that? You got to work with me there. I have no one else to spare.”
Shiori froze. Since when was the situation so dire?
“What about Armis? What about Tempus?” Shiori tried to turn her head to meet eyes with Kronii again, but the pression of hands on her shoulders maintained her in place.
“They’re both outmatched by this threat. You’re the only team I have. Shiori. Please.” Desperation betrayed in her voice, and just now, Shiori visualized how deep the issue was.
The gloves suddenly unwrapped from her neck, and Shiori felt the pressure lift up. The Commander was once again sitting at her desk, writing with her pen again. The writing was a bit more frenetic this time, less controlled, and an awkward silence took over the room, only broken up by the scritching sounds of the nip onto paper.
“What are you waiting for?” Kronii broke that silence after a minute. Shiori raised her head, expecting a plan, a special tool, an idea perhaps? But nothing came.
“I said. What. are. You. waiting. FOR? SHIORI NOVELLA.” It was her officer’s turn to get angry, but she wasn’t standing up, she wasn’t looking at her. Just raising her voice, like a father scolding a kid. “Gather your team and go. You’re being dispatched by helicopter directly into the lockdown area. Do not come back until the Sin is eliminated.”
Shiori nodded, stood up and left the room.
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Entering her apartment again, she was glad to see that at the very least, Bijou obeyed her order while she was gone. Everyone was awake and mostly ready to leave. Beebs was obviously the first ready, always eager to please her leader. Wearing a practical field uniform with boots, shorts, and a light top hidden under a warm and cozy jacket, not dissimilar to the one Shiori was wearing right now. Next to her, sitting on the floor, the twins. After the ruckus they caused the other day at the labs, they had their usual clothing confiscated, and instead had to wear these white robes at all time, with restraining straps wrapping around them like harnesses, to make sure they were under control when CAIN needed it. Shiori found that so barbaric, so she managed to sneak out some shoes for the two girls. They were in the process of tying them, but for each other rather than their own, resulting in a confusing mess of arms, legs and feet. Only one person was missing from the team.
“Hey, Beebs? Where’s Nerissa?” Shiori asked, and Bijou turned to see her with a smile.
“Hi back Shiowi! She’s in the shower right now. Wissa said she wanted time to prepare, so..."
She didn’t have the time to finish her sentence before Shiori walked past her, and going through the chamber, barged into the bathroom. Neither Bijou nor the twins followed her, but they all heard a deafening scream of surprise coming from there, followed by yelling, a few noises of wrestling as the sound of water was cut off, then, a few seconds later, a door slamming. Shiori came back, face, hair and clothes partially wet, and brooding.
“Nerissa will be joining us-
-Now!” As the concerned person opened the door of the bedroom again, entirely dried, perfectly dressed and even with a touch of make-up. Nerissa waved her hand through her hair, which fell on her shoulder as a perfect cascade of black and blue, perfectly assorted with her white flannel covering a grey shirt. She was, like Bijou, wearing practical clothes, but didn’t abandon her sense of fashion for it either.
“Ok, great everyone.” Shiori clapped her hands together. “We’re leaving now, so pick everything you need right now and follow me.” Bijou reached over the kitchen countertop to grab a pack of biscuits which immediately disappeared in her pocket, Nerissa reached out of a small backpack she knew was filled with all the necessities for a mission, and the twins grinned as they both pulled out their empty hands to Shiori. The leader herself grabbed nothing, the book she had strapped at her thigh being all she needed, and something that never left her at any time.
“Great! Now, we all head for the sixth roof, so we can pick up the helicopter that’s waiting for us.”
Everyone nodded, then got out of the small apartment. The silence as they all boarded the elevator was heavy, but Shiori's seriousness was telling the other girls there was something bothering her, and it had to be big for her to be this serious.
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The entire team was sitting in the helicopter, waiting for the sign from the pilot. Shiori gave them the pitch on the way, and most of them were now getting ready for the worst. A Centipede wasn't an easy target for a Hunt. Especially one that underwent such a rapid growth and probably erased all traces of its Host’s existence since it initially appeared.
Looking outside at the window, Nerissa could distinctly see where the containment zone was being defined. Massive cordon of military, organized by CAIN personnel, setting up under the guise of some official government organization. All so they could secretly drop a team of exorcists to deal with the threat. Guns and tanks definitely wouldn't do anything against the Centipede, but it could still hold back its horde.
The copilot turned to them and waved them a sign, followed by three fingers. Shiori nodded and the whole of Advent prepared for the landing. They planned to drop them on a rather tall building at the outskirts of the containment zone, in order to not let the helicopter be threatened by the roaming Sin.
Advent would have to make their way to the ground, then to the Sin, probably located at the epicenter of the zone, by themselves. Probably through the hordes of civilians now infested with the Sin’s venom. Doing this would be fine, if they weren't pressed by time and also had to fight the actual Sin after that. No, doing so would be a waste of time and resources for the team. But Nerissa, and probably the rest of Advent, trusted Shiori had a plan. Nerissa tried to catch her attention, but their leader, sitting across from her in the helicopter, was deep in her thoughts. So Nerissa just had to trust. After all, Shiori never failed them before.
Shiori had no plan. She was once again mentally skimming her options, every tool she had at her disposal for the situation, every single object she had saved inside her tome. What could they do? First, locate the Sin's palace. They had no contact from the three previous teams, so no way of telling if their investigations managed to pull something out of it. It probably was at the epicenter of the zone, but where exactly? Centipede weren't keen on having a domain you could just enter like it was nothing, unlike a Lord. Shiori liked facing Lords. They were always so simple, so organized. So easy to understand and plan against. Centipedes were a pain to figure out. They were only driven by hatred, of humans, of life, of anything. Nothing in their behaviour made sense except a need to destroy anything and anyone that stood on their way.
The best plan Shiori had right now was an imperfect, deeply flawed, and very risky one. One she was sure she didn't want to subject her team to.
A hand gently poked her cheek, waking her up from her gloomy thoughts. Following the hand with her eyes, she figured out it was from Fuwawa. The girl smiled and waved towards the opened door of the helicopter, where the rest of the team were already dropping onto the roof of the landing zone. Shiori nodded, covering her ears due to the helicopter noises, and joined her friends in the corner of the roof, where they watched the helicopter lift off and turn back, leaving them on their own.
After the deafening sound cleared away, the whole of Advent looked at Shiori, expecting her to take the lead as always, demonstrating her unparalleled planning skills.
“So what's the plan, Shiori?” Nerissa hesitated, seeing no answer come from her leader. She thought for one more minute, but the silence slowly broke as they all noticed groanings and rattling coming from the door. Shiori immediately turned to the rest of Advent.
“Alright. I’ll expose the plan as we move. We can’t stay stationary for long it seems. First things first? We need to reach the ground.” Everyone nodded. With a clear goal in sight, they could make it. And it gave Shiori more time to figure out the next step.
“On it!” Fuwawa immediately took the lead, opening the roof door and readying to jump right into the fray, but her twin was right behind her, and went through the doorway first. Bijou and Nerissa followed, weapons drawn, and Shiori closed the way, still pondering their options for a decent shot at taking down the Sin.
Mococo jumped down the first flight of stairs, and landed in front of what looked like a decrepit old man, wearing a classic business costume. It slowly turned towards her with a raspy exhale, and Mococo instantly noticed the drool of purple venom falling from its mouth, and the empty eyes. That man was gone already, and as it reached towards Mococo, she saw the fingers in his hands already turned into chitinous claws. Mococo didn’t really act surprised, however. Leaning back, the claw moved above her face, and from behind her, the two soles of her sister's shoes made contact with the infested’s face at terminal velocity, immediately dislocating the head from the neck. Mococo laughed and helped Fuwawa back to her feet, and the two pushed further. Stairs ended here and opened to the last floor of the building, so they’d have to push forward to find another set of stairs to go deeper into the building.
Opening the door into what seemingly was an open space for a big company, the twins went running through the corridor, attracting the attention of a few more infested that wandered the floor. Bijou barely made it to the bottom of the stairs when the twins were done slicing up the handful of enemies found in here.
“Hey, Fuwawa! Leave me some enemies! I wanna fight, too!” protested Bijou, reaching up to them with a clinking sound as she walked to them cleaning up their claws, the metal blades covered in purple venom that replaced the blood of the infested.
Nerissa and Shiori caught up, and everyone grouped again.
“Don’t worry Bibou, you’ll have all the time to fight later. It’s better for you to keep your energy for the real deal, you know?” Nerissa joked, one of her hands holding a long spear that she didn’t plan to use anytime soon. Shiori nodded approvingly at what was said, but she wasn’t looking at anything, her eyes being stuck to her book, now unbound from her thigh strap.
“But I wanna play, tooooooo” complained the girl, at which the twins laughed.
“We’ll keep one for you next time, Bau Bau!” they replied in unison. On that note, they both moved away again, looking for an exit, another flight of stairs reaching the ground floor.
“Fuwamoco, be careful!” Tried Nerissa as they left, unsure if her worries reached them.
“I'll go catch up on them!” Bijou went to follow, the clinking sound starting again as her feet hit the floor. Nerissa sighed, then turned to Shiori.
“I'm coming, princess. No need to wait for me, I'll be fine.” Shiori answered before a question even landed. “Oh, and keep Shadow with you. I don’t like being spied on.”
Nerissa looked away, both in shyness and in shame. She couldn't believe it, Shiori called her princess! That was so unexpected... and unusual. She thought she could figure out what was bothering her friend, but turns out her awareness was still sharp, even when deep into her book. But that only made Nerissa worry more. If Shiori was so bothered, things were dire.
Snapping her fingers, her familiar landed back onto her shoulder, and she stepped away. The raven-like Sin croaked silently, then took flight again, going forward to look out for the twins so they could catch up to them.
The raven came back a few seconds later, directing her and Shiori to the stairs across a long hall, between multiple rooms full of desks and workspaces. There, Bijou was waiting for them, waving down at a flight of stairs that seemed to extend all the way down to the bottom of the building.
“Fuwawa’s already down there, she’s waiting for us on the next floor. Mococo said she was gonna see further down, so–”
A crashing sound was heard a few floors further down, immediately alerting the three girls. Shiori immediately reacted, closing her book and jumping down the stairs in one quick leap. Nerissa followed, just as fast to react, leaving Bijou alone to descend the stairs step by step, not as acrobatic as the rest of the girls.
Landing on the next floor, Shiori didn't stop her descent, jumping down flights of stairs without even touching one step. After several floors, she finally found what caused the crashing sound.
Fuwawa and Mococo ran down too fast, not paying attention, and got caught by a trap. Well caught would be an elegant way to describe the spectacle in front of her. Chitinous spikes, of the same material that covered the infested, came out of the walls, floor and ceiling at the same time. Fuwawa had some luck, only getting grazed, stuck on the other side, but Mococo... nailed, pierced from every side, riddled with holes.
However, not a drop of blood dripped from these wounds. Instead, she was withering, her skin wilting like parchment, folding upon itself, tearing from the spikes as it shrunk. From the other side, Shiori could see Fuwawa hide from her view, and hear her swallow, almost like she was vomiting something stuck in her throat.
Nerissa arrived soon after her.
“So... spike traps, huh? Fuwawa? Mococo? Are you two fine?” Nerissa tried across the wall of bladed limbs, but Shiori put her hand on the horned woman's shoulder.
“Hold. It's never a fun time for either of them, so let's just wait until they're done.”
Bijou finally made her entrance, the clicking of her gem heels against the metal of the stairs.
“So..." attempted the short woman, catching her breath between each word. “How… are… they… doing?”
“It's alright, Beebs,” answered Shiori. “Catch your breath, and let them catch theirs.”
The trio waited a few more seconds, before the degurgitating sounds on the other side stopped, quickly replaced by a few happy barks.
“Bau Bau!” “Bau Bau!” “Bau Bau!”
Shiori closed in on the spike wall.
“Is it good, Fuwawa? Everything's fine? Mococo too?”
“It's all good, Bau Bau!” Mococo eagerly replied. “We'll keep going down!”
“Wait a minute!” Nerissa tried to intervene, but again the twins were running through the place, trying to find a way to get even lower.
Shiori sighed. “Beebs, be a dear and open the way for us, please.”
She stepped away from the spikes as Bijou pulled out a long, curved blade, with a single edge, sharp as a razor. Leaving the sheath aside, she quickly slashed through the air multiple times, screaming.
“JUDGEMENT CUT!”
Then she sheathed her katana again. The spikes fell down, cut into a perfect hole for the group to pass through without even needing to lean.
“Show-off.” Joked Nerissa at the sight. “You don't even need to scream anything to use your powers-”
“Hey Rissa, a special attack has to have a special name!” Bijou protested, just as Shiori stepped through the hole she opened.
“Stop bickering girls, we got twins to catch up to.” The group leader reminded them. They needed to reach the bottom of the building faster, and every delay was just another danger waiting to catch them at the next corner.
Walking through more empty offices, occasionally crossing another infested, dead, sliced on the ground by the twins claws. It also helped track down the way they went, and soon enough, the trio reached another flight of stairs, where the twins waited.
“There’s something dangerous down there, Bau bau.” Mococo mouthed, while Fuwawa kept watching downstairs.
“Is it another spike trap?” Nerissa asked, worried that the twins would have tried to trigger it again.
“Noeh... It’s a lot of them. Big one, too.” That immediately explained the issue. infested in numbers would be sure to delay them enough that their numbers simply wouldn't stop, the fight attracting more and more of them into it. And a big one? Shiori worried this would delay them even more.
“No way around? No other flight of stairs somewhere?”
“We didn't find one!” Twins protested in unison. Shiori looked through the glass windows, but they were still too high-up for trying to jump down. And besides, she could already see a number of infested crawling on the street below, ready to catch them at the landing.
Shiori was just back to the thinking board. She hadn't even figured out the next step of her plan, and now she had to edit it on the fly. Her brain was working at 200% to find a way out, but nothing would come. It all pointed back to a fight, as always.
“I… May have a solution, I think?” Attempted Nerissa. Everyone else turned to her, and she hesitated a bit. “I’m not sure how well it would work, but… I need to be in the center of the room, and for all of them to be closer together.” She anxiously looked at Shiori.
“It’s risky but… It could work. Mococo, Fuwawa? Can you try to draw everyone around to get them close, while Bijou and Nerissa get to the center of the room? I’ll…” Shiori paused, hesitating. She couldn't find a solution in time, and now Nerissa was going to endanger herself to fix Shiori’s mistake. What a terrible lead-
“Make sure everything goes well!” Concluded Bijou, cutting short Shiori's thoughts. Nerissa nodded. The twins gave the thumbs-up.
Shiori smiled.
“I got you covered.”
Opening up her book again, she flipped through the pages and pulled a few bookmarks from it. One of them immediately shined, turning to dust and leaving a golden key with intricate designs decorating it in the Exorcist's hand.
“Mococo, Fuwawa. You're up!”
The twins eagerly jumped down the flight of stairs, landing softly on the floor below. Both went running through the offices and corridors, and Shiori noticed, right before they went out of vision, a sharp current spinning around them.
“Beebs, Rissa, with me.” Shiori walked back, to approximately the center of the floor. Using the golden key, she quickly cut out a rectangle on the floor. Then pushed the key into the keyhole, turned it and opened the door, through the ground, to the lower floor.
Shiori looked back at Nerissa and Bijou, a faint yellow glow in her eyes.
“Alright. When we get the signal from the twins that they are ready, Rissa, you will drop down this door so you end up in the best place the easiest. Beebs, you'll drop down with her. Make sure she's fine if anything goes wrong. Don't sacrifice yourself, just long enough so I can pull both of you back out if needed.”
Both nodded, and the distant sound of the twins barking “Bau Bau” at each other came closer. And closer. And closer. They kept waiting, and suddenly, right under the door. Two blurs, running next to each other. Way faster than what would be expected of them. Following them, But not as fast, a literal horde of infested, shambling after the twins. Shiori saw almost thirty of them before losing count, the horde being as numerous as actual hives of insects. But after a few seconds of the twins passing, a loud “Now!” was heard, and without a word, both Nerissa and Bijou jumped down the doorway, straight into the unending wave of creatures.
Bijou was first, blade drawn, and sliced a perfect circle across the hordes to allow a clean landing spot to Nerissa.
The raven-haired lady landed feet to the ground, waved her hair back with a flick of the hand, then sang a single word.
“Die.”
And like a ripple starting from her, every infested collectively obeyed that order. The sound of a hundred bodies hitting the ground at the same time wasn't nearly as deafening as the silence that followed.
Shiori looked from her doorway, almost impressed. That was a serious display of power from Nerissa, one that took a heavy toll on her, she could tell.
But what Shiori couldn't tell was what followed.
Right from behind her, at the last second, she felt a presence. She barely had time to turn before a scythe-like appendage cut down through her shoulder, slicing skin, muscle and bone alike. The attacker, a tall and slender infested, took a step back, seeing its attack didn't kill, and blended back into the decor, its chameleonic skin dissimulating it from Shiori’s sight.
“Shiori! What's–” Nerissa was brutally interrupted by something large ramming into her and Bijou, and they both disappeared from the vision allowed by the doorway.
The leader hesitated. She could join her squad, but threaten a complicated combat, having to deal with two different threats, or deal with that one by herself so the others would easily dispatch their attacker.
The choice was quickly made for her as another threat appeared behind her, one she managed to dodge this time, but that pushed her far away from the door. A second infested, slightly lower to the ground, with raptorial limbs, much alike a mantis, that sliced through the air where she was standing barely a second ago.
She’d have to deal with these two threats by herself. And hope her girls could manage that one massive infested underneath.
Staring at the infested that attempted to cut her story short, she picked up a bookmark that was previously pulled from her tome, and it glowed of a faint yellow light, before turning into a spool of thread in her hand. Her eyes glowing of the same faint yellow, she whispered something, mostly to herself it seemed, or to the thread? Then threw it to the ceiling. The spool started to spin, unraveling the thread alongside it, bouncing off the ceiling, the ground, the walls alongside, tangling into a giant web of gold glimmering wire around her.
The exorcist smiled through the pain in her shoulder. That should help her deal with the invisibility. She could feel the two infested lingering outside the newly established threat zone, and wondered which one would make the first move.
She felt the end of the string tense between her fingers, and pulled back. Right behind her back, one of the stalkers jumped through the web, only to entangle itself through the wires, and as Shiori pulled, the string cut deeper into the chitinous carapace, slicing the shell and the flesh underneath. One more pull, and the ropes straightened again, turning the infested into a thousand slices, falling to the floor, ounces of sizzling purple venom pouring out of every part, eating through the carpeted floors.
Shiori didn’t take time to examine the kill, however. Pouncing low, she barely dodged… something? That flew right above her and lost itself across the offices.
She turned to face the origin of that projectile, and right out of her range, outside the web of thread protecting her, the second stalker, throat swelling, similarly to a frog. Then it spit. The liquid flew right through the weaving of wires, and hit Shiori, right on her shoulder. Purple venom immediately started attacking her pants, digging through the fabrics to reach for her ankle.
Without a second thought, Shiori pulled out a pair of scissors out of her vest, cutting away the fabric to remove the impact zone from her skin as fast as possible. Cutting through the cloth, severing half of the leg away. But she wasn't fast enough, and pulling away the cut revealed a few bites of venom through her skin.
She had to move or she'll just be target practice.
Seeing the creature swelling again, she pushed through the web of wires, jumping at its throat, and as the string moved away from her way, she reached the Trace, holding, instead of the scissors, a giant scissor blade shining of a golden light. A quick slash through the air, and the throat sack was sliced, the air exiting it in a loud whistle.
Furious, the Stalker thrashed around with its bladed limbs, But Shiori just stabbed the scissor through its chest, and pulling it up, cut the body in two.
“That's one good thing done.”
She tried to stand back up, but faltered upon trying to stand on her left foot. That venom was more potent than she thought...
Dragging herself across the floor, to get closer to the door on the ground, she could hear more battle noises coming from the next floor. Claws and blades cutting away at chitinous carapace, and screeching from a creature way too large to be human anymore.
Shiori was starting to see double. Never a good thing. She lost too much blood. Pulling up her tome, she started to flip through the pages again, pulling a bookmark from a page covered in green writing, and immediately the bookmark glowed a faint yellow, before burning into a small plant, with crimson leaves. She plucked the leaves before crushing them into a little ball that she promptly swallowed.
She'll feel better in a few seconds, but what a waste it was. If only she had been more attentive, she would not have been wounded.
Finally dragging herself to the opened door through the floor, she leaned over to have a sight of the battle.
Fighting over the bodies of dozens of infested, victims of Nerissa, Bijou was waving her blade around, slicing through a heavily armored carapace. The twins were on each side of the behemoth, both trying to grab its attention away from Bijou, who was suffering a few deep cracks, showing the gemstone under her skin.
But the claws of the twins weren't sharp enough to dig deep enough through the carapace, and as such the juggernaut simply ignored these nuisances, crushing its way through towards Bijou.
Moments before impact, Bijou raised her hand, and a crystalline wall appeared between her and the creature, which crashed right on it with a loud breaking sound. The twins both jumped onto its back, and both started lacerating, pulling away large chunks of the exoskeleton.
Shiori was reassured to see they managed to survive. Trying to stand up again, she figured the red herb had the time to do its effects, as her shoulder didn't hurt as much anymore.
Finally standing, she jumped down the doorway, slightly away from the fight occurring. The twins were finishing the job, helped by Bijou, who sliced the creature in two.
But Shiori was looking somewhere else. Or, to be exact. Was looking for someone else.
“Where's Nerissa?”