Fear. A feeling crawling, clawing, its way up Jane's chest. Everything around her seemed so blurry, so much like that time she an old lady across the street let Jane try using her glasses, an old lady whose face now seemed as blurry as the world around her. As everything seemed in this moment, with no walls to hide behind from the monster hanging in the sky, bodies laying on the ground beneth him and all he had to show for it was a ripped sleeve on his suit.
Black, was the word in her mind as she looked at him. Black hair, seemingly far too black (where had she seen that before? She knew she had seen it), a fancy suit and shoes, that were probably worth as much as all her clothes combined, made him seem so unhuman, so monsterous, like he was an it.
Mr Carter, the nice man from authorities that had helped her when she was attacked by some people that belived cripples didnt deserve to live, those memories that she knew she was supposed to remember cleary seemed so blurred, like looking at it through a blurred lens, hung from the monsters hand, the one without the ripped sleeve, limp and bleeding.
Red, red, red, red blood was pooling under her, not from her, but from Amelia, one of her few friends here in New Bostin. While she wasnt a cripple like Jane, Amelia had the power to transfer the wounds from others to herself, a seemingly useless ability. Maybe it was, but it had saved Jane when a chair, of all things, rammed into her, shattering most of her skull and breaking her spine. it was only useful once she supposed, she thought before she could caught up with what had happened.
How, was the sole thought in her mind when she looked up at the monster and saw Mr Carter in his hands, limp. How can someone like Mr Carter, a man with an abillity rating of 8,3 die so fast. So effortlessly.
The thing hanging in the sky had been tossed by him, right through several skyscrapers, into the cafeteria, where the school had been peacefully eating food just a minute ago. Some support pillar must have been knocked down as the roof had fallen, and then the monster ripped, or perhaps just moved like it wasnt even there, its way through the rubble. And then, for just a second, or maybe it was more, it froze, before Mr Carter came through the missing roof and slammed into the monster, moving it abit.
He didnt seem scared standing there, facing it. Atleast until a second later he was lifted off his feet at speeds even he didnt seem to be able to react to and ripped up into the air, until the monster moved it hands around his neck, and squeezed, hard, for a moment and then Mr Carter wasnt moving anymore.
Many other guardians, as the combative agents of the authorities had been named, started appearing as the monster dropped Mr Carter from its grip, and started to make its escape.
The guardians didnt let it flee. Attacks that had rent apart buildings with ease and taken down the worst of terrorist did nothing, many times even sputtering out before it had even begun to be used, and its users life snuffed out along with it. As space and time was warped, as strenght sufficent to create shockwaves that threw Jane further away from the fight, even when she was over a hundred meters away, seemed to do nothing to the monster.
The guardians were fighting with all they had, but so was it. For in every place space and time was bent, it was directed away from the monster or swallowed its own user, every time attacks meant to break his mind and shatter his will came his way he ignored it, brushed off what would, should have killed it, have killed anything else. Each and every attack did nothing except ruffle his outfit, and while he wasnt able to kill all of the guardians in the end only one of them stood there, bent, yet not quite broken.
She stood there, and Jane knew who it was. Veronica, the vice leader of the guardians and the one that was claimed to be the most powerful, with the ability to amplify anything she did. Supposedly she was able to push it forever, and she was able to beat anyone. She didnt seem to be winning, but Jane knew she could. Jane ran anyway, ran as fast as she could, as fast as her legs could carry her.
A voice, a deep one, cut through her hope and snuffed it out with fear. The monsters voice, so casual, like he hadnt just killed the strongest men and women in the world and was left standing without a single wound.
"You lot with ability ratings of 10 always were so annoying, so hard to get a grasp on. Well, I suppose I cant talk about that, now can I? No matter, I doubt I will truly ever need it, in all honesty."
Veronica was breaking, something only she herself and the monster, Erlking, as it was whispered in the shadows of his power, knew. She hoped it wasnt true, but on some level she knew it was. She was the strongest, or atleast the strongest that could be qualified as a human being and not an amalgimation of hatred and spite.
She said nothing. No words were needed. After Erlking was done with her, she knew no one would be left to ensure he doesnt plunge society in to chaos and becomes the king of the ashes of the world. It was due to this she knew, she could not lose. Erlking had to be taken down here, ot he would never be.
She braced herself, pushed her power to the limits, limits she had never knew she even had before, as lines ran up and down her arms. It would end here.
The deep voice returned. "No last words then?" A pause. "Well I suppose you know as well as I do that I would forget it, no matter what I or anyone else might promise you. You will die here, alone, and then be forgotten."
A mist seemed to travel down Erlking's right arm, the one where his sleeve was ripped. It bulged and and twisted into some giant amalgamtion of claws and a hand, power almost radiating of it.
The monster and the hero stood over a hundred meters from each other. Then they didnt, and Jane turned around and saw a shockwave coming, ripping walls apart and tearing her world down. She felt a sting in her shoulder and saw tendrils in them, formed from the mist of that monster, (it felt too familiar) she then felt the it, the shockwave as it tore up cars from the ground, and she was swept away.
The doctors told her she was lucky. Statistically speaking she shouldnt have made it, but she did. Somehow.