34. Speak no lies
Essence of The World-shape consumed!
Bestowing benefits….
Temporary: Beneath these feet my home
Temporary: Before me my enemy
A pulsating storm of energy erupted forth from Celia. Shards of blue intermingled with a thousand red specks. Each swirling around her. A tapestry born forth from a tempest. One that coiled around her. Each member of the constellation slamming into her one by one. Every impact causing the damage done to her body to recede. The toll she had taken throughout the battle moving in reverse. Wounds that would’ve been scars were undone. Broken limbs were put back in place. Mended as if they’d never been hurt in the first place.
And Celia couldn’t help but ask the obvious.
"What was that?"
"Special flower. Petal close cuts, but temporary. Got less than five." He explained, body battered against a nearby tree.
And Celia gave herself a once over, yet again. Testing and finding that true to his words and her own senses, she was all healed up. In fact, she felt better than ever, like she could do anything. Like she could run forever and never worry about getting tired. It felt so good that it was concerning.
But worrying about potentially getting addicted if she found more of these flowers was a problem for later. She had a fight she had to settle.
"So by five, you mean?"
"Minutes. Then boom, pain back again. Head be dizzy too."
She nodded. Keeping that in mind as she started her own mental clock. One she was pretty sure would be off by like a minute. Again, future her problem. Forgotten and buried till it was relevant again as she willed another set of wings to form out of her back. Four wasp like pseudo limbs erupting forth from where skin met spine. Each feeling fresh and healthy as she took flight. Shooting up off the ground with a small shockwave.
Then she was flying. Piercing through the air like a shot loosed from a bow. Wind and clouds parting at her approach. Body churning with a taste for violence. Form twisting in on itself as she armed herself. Teeth spilling forth from scale. Tongue hardening into a blade sharper than thought. Fingertips burning with the acrid scent of cloud made acid.
Hooks came for her first. Bursting out of thin air from below, the eagle wasp came into existence like the advent of shadow. Sudden and without warning. A tendril of a limb biting into one of her legs as he pulled her in close. Mandibles opening wide.
The world slowed. Celia saw things move at half speed. Wasp in front of her suddenly painted in translucent red, weakness highlighted.
She lashed out, tentacle cutting tentacle. Leg free to deliver a kick to his face. Teeth erupting out of the blow and shredding deeper. A blink after and the newly opened circus of wounds were splattered with a touch of acid. The weight of the kick further increased by welcoming in the truth of her own independence.
A cannon ball danced her way. Zooming through the air faster than eyes could track. And exploded a foot away from her in a cloud of shrapnel.
Bits of red wax that filled the air with pain. Teeth grit as they tore into her. Scales hardening in response. A token defense that only kept a few pieces from getting any deeper. The force of the blow sending her rolling. Hooked wasp beside her letting out a cry of pain itself as it went flying.
Celia took that as opportunity. Flying toward it in order to finish the job. Acid tipped claws aiming for its throat. Burning their way in before she began to tear and rip. Letting herself fall with him.
And then she retracted her wings. Arm morphing into a thing of blades she raked against the wasps throat. Once, twice, and a third time. It was dead before it even hit the ground. And when it did hit the ground, it went slamming straight through a tree. Rolling into the dirt, a crater trail left in its wake, and bringing her along with it.
Her internal counted reached three minutes.
Not enough time to get back into the sky and finish off the cannon wasp. Already she could feel the phantom echoes of the pain return. Scales feeling as if they were being split open, veins set aflame, and her entire back a nightmare to think about.
She made to start a fire. Wood, stones, body. The ritual halfway in motion when another cannon shot split through the air. Exploding a foot above the trees and raining death on the forest below.
Celia was hit. Shrapnel tearing through her shoulder, a chunk of wood ramming itself through her arm.
She barely let it distract her. Rubbing stone on wood till sparks began to fly.
Another shot brought about ruin. Larger than the first two and worryingly accurate. But Celia had her fire already. Had the body burning already. Just needed to take a bite.
A chance she was never given, as a cloud of red wax shaped like spears bombarded her position. Dagger tips stabbing her over and over again. Blood poured from her like a river. But she didn’t let that stop her.
She took a bite.
Flavor exploded in her mouth. Rough, spicy, and barely worth being called food.
She ate it anyway. A frenzy taking hold of her as she dug into her meal with an animalistic fury. Half of it gone when her timer hit four. All her previous wounds exploding back into existence. A splatter of blood and gore erupting from her back. Nerves utterly totaled all over again. Agony became existence, and agony became the totality of all she was.
Still she ate. Willed her tongue to dance threw the meat and choke it down her throat. Forced herself to swallow with all the strength she had. And slowly…
Bite by bite…
Celia ceased being a thing of the physical. Blood became hunger. Her flesh blackened steel. The edge of her existence becoming a sharp thing to cut and to feed.
Biology was usurped by the idea of what she might become. The flames of her mark twisting from blue to a dark silvery color. Great metal wings bursting forth out of her back.
She cut through the air. Wind and space parting at her approach. Her very being singing with razor sharp purity, as a dark truth settled onto her mind. One she could not deny even as another sort of pain drowned her mind.
This is what she was.
Not before, not after, but now.
This is what she was.
It was the last thought she had before the effects of the flower bloomed in force and her brain suddenly felt like someone had dropped a boulder onto it. Headache so severe that it almost stopped her in her tracks. But she pushed through. Forced herself to continue flying. Body cutting all the shrapnel that approached her. Offense made a shield.
She barely reached the cannoneer. Hand reaching for its throat as it shot a cannon ball at her point blank. Thick and strong enough that her state of being didn’t immediately cut it to shreds.
Enough so that it hit her, and she felt the pain. But that was all. She felt it, just as well as she felt her hands squeezing around the wasps neck. Cutting and biting deeper and deeper even as it took shot after shot at her. Each one hurting worse than the one before.
It was the all consuming headache that finally got to her, though. Made her vision swim black as her body near completely shut down on her.
And the last thing she saw before it all went dark was a glowing orange spear fly through the wasp’s skull.