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Vanessa snapped a quick salute, "Gotcha!"
"Vin, you'll stay with me as we observe the others, alright?"
"Yep," Vin nodded.
"Very well then, let's go," Griselda declared, as the group progressed to the market's entrance.
Slowly, the three Excalibur's were drawn from their sheathes, and the sounds of three pistol's cocking were heard, before Xenovia cocked back, and kicked down the door to the market, sending the wooden double doors crashing further into the barely lit chamber.
Everyone slowly filed in, while Vanessa disappeared from sight, and presumably broke off from the rest of the group. Further and further, the squad progressed into the market, passing by overturned stalls, shelves, and floors littered with product. Before finally, they had found their target.
"AH AH AH! SEEMS LIKE MORE MEAT ARRIVED!" A deep, crude voice called out from the darkness. Massive rumbling steps echoing out across the space, before the stray devil finally became illuminated under one of the few flickering fluorescents.
Vin felt like he was going to puke.
The grotesque abomination before him looked more monster than man, it's body a festering orb of fat complete with a mouth so long that it reached all the way down its body, making it's exposed, blood-soaked ribs seem like another set of jaws. Six massive, long, pudgy arms were sprouting out of it's back, clawing and thrashing in the air like a flag in a storm.
Yet even as Vin stood there, frozen in horror, his peers continued undeterred. Vaguely, Vin could make out the sounds of Irina whispering a prayer to God to offer salvation and peace in death to the monstrosity before them, all while Xenovia slammed her sword onto the ground, causing a massive shockwave to ring out.
"Augustus, we here in the name of the father have come to exorcise you for your transgressions against the innocent. Lay down arms, and accept your fate," Xenovia declared.
"HA! ME THINK YOU LOOK TASTY," Augustus eyed up Xenovia, a feral and hungry grin spreading across its entire body, "PLUMP AND CHEWY, PRETTY GIRLS MY FAVORITE!"
And so, the fight began.
Lashing out with two of its arms, the stray attempted to grab Xenovia, only for her to effortlessly backflip just out of it's grasp. Ethan quickly darted in, swinging the jagged edge of Excalibur Rapidly deep into one of Augustus' wrists, causing the beast to shriek out in pain as the holy sword corroded it's flesh.
"ARGH! ME HATE YOU, TINY MORSEL!" It growled at Ethan, before it had to bring up it's arms to block against a wave of blessed bullets.
"THAT'S IT! ME HATE YOU ALL! ME EAT YOU ONE AT A TIME!"
The stray cocked back all of it's disgusting appendages, before spinning around in a shocking display of speed like a mutated, fleshy Beyblade. The arms crashing and destroyed everything around them as Griselda screamed for everyone to scatter.
Pieces of the environment flew every which way, as Vin could make out the sight of Vanessa, who had unfortunately gone in for the kill at the wrong time, who phased back into sight as she caught one of the mammoth forearms to the stomach, flying back in a contrail of vomited blood.
Soon enough, the stray began to approach Vin, and he found himself rooted in place, eyes wide, face pale in abject horror at the imminent death that faced him. With no other option, Vin summoned his Sacred Gear, and attempted to use crystals to shield himself from the horror coming towards him, but nothing proved to work, as the spinning beast used it's momentum to shatter through the crystals like sugar glass, and slammed Vin with one of it's arms.
Using his crystals to cover his chest, Vin managed to mitigate most of the damage, although he still let out a shriek of pain as he felt one of his ribs crack under the pressure of the mad brute's assault. And soon enough, Vin found himself being flung across the store, landing with a thud in the frozen aisle on the north-western end of the store.
Vin braced himself against one of the freezer doors as his crystals weakly shattered off of his chest, revealing pressure cuts running all across his clothes and body. Hissing painful breaths with his broken rib, Vin tried to catch his breath. The distant sounds of his peers doing battle with Augustus letting him relax, knowing that the monster was too preoccupied to go after him. Despite being in the midst of a massive stray devil hell bent on eating them, Vin slowly began to relax.
That was, until a new noise caused his blood to turn to ice.
The scratching, clawing sounds of something crawling it's way over. In the darkness of the store, only the faint lights of the freezers provided a dim glow that proved barely enough to see. It was like a horror movie, Vin, the helpless victim, stalked in the darkness by some unseen predator.
With all the extra cries and noises of battle in the distance, Vin couldn't make out the precise location of the noise. All that he knew was one fact.
There was something else here.
And soon enough, Vin felt something drip down onto his shoulder, causing him to gaze up, eyes widening once in fear.
Crawling along the ceiling upside-down as some sort of quadruped, easily three times the size of a full-grown dog. It's skin chapped and fleshy, it seemed even less human than Augustus ever was. At least Augustus could speak. This… creature instead hissed and growled in glee, looking down on Vin with it's blood-soaked, drooling maw, which housed it's one ceasing, unblinking eye.
Finally snapping out of his reverie, Vin dove across the floor, as the monster before him pounced on where he stood not a second ago. With no time to think, Vin used his Sacred Gear to form a sharp cluster of crystals that protruded and covered his right forearm and hand. Using his left, Vin sent a spire of quartz-like crystals rushing towards the creature, which it dodge in manic glee, running along the freezer doors, before spring boarding off of them, and directly at Vin.
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