33. Cloud
Celia reacted immediately. Willing her sudden morph in biology to reverse. Arm returning to its normal state, as a pair of wings burst free from her back. Granting her the ability of flight, once again. And just in time, as if she were any slower she would’ve been skewered straight through. Caught in the eagle wasp’s charge, rather than narrowly dodging it. Even so, the force of him charging through the air displaced her. Air battering against her as she floated further back.
She barely had enough time to get her bearings before he came back. Forcing herself down. Stinger passing less than a foot over her head. Where it came to a sudden stop. And just as quickly, it came down. The wasp spinning in a full circle, stinger leaving a gash over her missing eye's socket.
A gush of red splashing free as she recoiled back. Groan escaping her. Hands rising to her newly added wound, cradling it as she rapidly retreated.
She wasn’t given the chance to recover. The wasp descended on her with surgical precision. Stinger slicing through the air like a fencing sword. Forward, across, and over. A constant cycle of attacks that left no room for retaliation.
Celia had to get creative. And sadly, that meant running right at the wasp. Stinger stabbing her through the chest. Bladed tip coming out the other side. But that was to her advantage - painful as it was - as the wasp was left practically defenseless against what came next. Which was a fist full of teeth growing out of it. A whip like lash from a bifurcated tentacle, and a metal tongue extended out from her mouth like a short sword.
A combination of attacks that pierced and thrashed. Each one drawing a spray of yellowish blood. Yet, the wasp wasn’t done, and fought back with a swarm of legs. Half of which were shaped like that of an eagle’s, talons taking against her.
But where the stinger cut through her inbuilt armor with criminal ease, it’s talons we’re obstructed by her scales hardening in response. Becoming just tough enough that the attack only hurt. Freeing Celia to continue battering her foe. Tooth infested fist following tooth infested fist in a back and forth motion she would’ve never imagined for herself before. The salvo of punches supported by a series of armor cleaving whip cracks. Tentacle lashing out again and again.
Scales broke free as the melee continued. Yellow splattered the forest below. And soon the wasp was heaving, breath coming in labored instants. It’s attacks slowing. Great wings ceased their flapping, and then it went still. The life beaten out of it. Eyes going dark as it’s body rapidly descended.
Celia used it as a launching point. Pulling herself of its stinger and re-ascending back into the sky. A hand cradling the hole in her middle. Eyes scanning the battle above. And it wasn’t long till she found Dreg, battling the rest of the four - now three - wasp brigade. And it wasn’t a fight he was winning.
She immediately moved to join him. Flight slowed, haggard, but determined all the same. Pain fading into background noise as adrenaline took hold of her. A strangled roar slipping from her throat as she let the more monstrous side of her out of its cage. Wings morphing once again as she did so, trading in their wasp like appearance for a singular pair of wings shaped like red hooks with a membrane attached to them.
The pain was dulled enough at that point that Celia let go of her wound. Blood spilling from her as she rejoined the fight proper and flew at what she deemed as the most important target to eliminate first.
The already wounded eagle wasp this had all started with. He was, despite his current condition, the biggest credible threat on the battlefield to Dreg, if only by the simple volume of projectiles he was slinging his way. Wave after wave of needles that forced Dreg, who was kicking and punching himself through air, very little room to dodge.
Up until Celia slammed into the needle slinging menace herself that is. Hitting it like a living missile. A tooth covered fist slamming into its skull. Followed immediately after by an application of her new modification. Skin distorting and bending into a twisted and violent mirror of the world around her. Dripping clouds burgeoning free from her scales, colored with splotches of black and yellow. Flesh all of a sudden becoming like acid. And it was indiscriminate in who or what it burned. A hiss of pain escaping her as the eagle wasp at her mercy endured a portion of the same.
And it was a worse portion. False cloud stuff burning through exoskeleton, and liquifying what was beneath. A punishment Celia doubled with another hardy punch, before shoving a hand down into the hole she had created and causing said hand to swell with angry melting teeth.
A move that felt like it cost her a whole hand.
The pain so intense that for a moment she lost focus. World going blurry before her. Taking her back to a simpler time. Where she was young and going to the store with her father. Tiny and practically glued to his leg. Looking at the wider world around her with wide eyes, pointing and asking every question to mind.
She remembered seeing a bee and asking what it was. Innocent.
"Wake up." Her father answered.
She asked again.
"Wake up!" He said again, voice louder. Far more urgent, and less like her father’s.
"Crew need! Wake up!"
Celia’s eyes shot open. A deluge of light flashing her. Too intense. And she immediately settled back into the shadow hidden to the waking world. Where she found Dreg staring down at her. His body little more than an arm and his head, while what very little remained of it was draped over her chest. A nub of a hand slapping her again and again as he demanded she wake up.
She did and what followed immediately after was pain. Searing hot and wreaking havoc on her nerves. There was a pool of blood - hers and the eagle wasp’s - beneath her, mixed with a slowly spreading acid. The combination burning through the comparatively meager protection of her scales and setting her body aflame with agony. Both within and without.
It took all she had to even rise up into a sitting position. And more than that to gently push Dreg off her belly. Where he lay flat on the dirt, body regenerating at a painfully slow pace.
He offered something to her.
"You strange. Speak like old thing. Grow stronger from single meals. Eat like whales of doom. And marked. Evil cursed dreaded marked."
He opened his hand, and in it was a flower. A thing of dazzling yellow and red, shape twisting, circling in on itself in a never-ending cycle that hurt to look at.
She couldn’t reach it. One of her hands was gone, and the other was all she had holding her upright.
She could barely speak without waves of pain crashing against her, either. But speak she did.
"I-I don’t know how confessing you’ve got a crush on me is gonna help in this situation." She laughed, laugh quickly turning to a wince.
And Dreg pushed the flower closer.
"Found in dirt, somewhere special. Eat, save crew. Then owe me."
Celia looked at the flower then. Saw Dreg nod his head once, and leaned just close enough to barely bite it.
It tasted like the worst nightmare she’d ever had choked down by the sweetest dream.