Fiera
"Use it."
". . ." Laqi stood in front of the door to streets of Murad, not letting Fiera out.
"We may all die if you don't."
"I can't control it, Laqi."
"That doesn't matter. The world will crumble before any lasting damage is done."
". . . Okay."
Fiera rolled her four-sided ego. It fell on its edge, wobbling back and forth before landing on a four. Four bright pink strands curled around each other, before disappearing completely.
. . .
Rae
'How did I get here . . .'
A pile of bodies grew around Rae, with more being dropped off by progressively larger beetles every minute. They were piled on top of him, to the point that he could no longer move.
His body pulsed every so often, and Rae wanted to scream due to the crawling feeling on his back. Rae eventually felt his skin on his back tear, but there was no pain. He had become host to something completely unknown to him, a last resort from a man he had once looked up to.
Something rested on his side, pulling on his skin. Rae looked to the side, and saw a pair of black hooked feet. They pressed into his skin, and Rae yelled as they punctured his flesh.
After a few moments of horrible pain, the creature showed itself completely. It was a beetle with a mostly purple shell, but it had golden stripes that curled towards its head to form three spikes. The creature looked at Rae for a moment, tilting its head, but turned around and began to devour the bodies around them.
'Light save me.'
Rae relaxed slightly, seeing that the newborn creature seemed to prefer the dead over him. His wounds closed, leaving only splotches of blood on his side.
Once the spiked beetle ate enough for Rae to move, he tried to climb the bodies to get away from the creature. He was able to get halfway to the top, but an arm he was holding sloughed off of the person it was connected to, and he fell back to the ground.
The beetle stopped eating and looked back towards him.
'No.'
Rae froze as the beetle slowly crawled towards him. It inspected him, turning his head and poking him gently. Rae felt a strange sensation on his side as the creature seemed to ingest the blood that stained his skin.
The beetle crawled to the surface, leaving Rae behind. Rae gasped for breath, drenched in sweat as an ear piercing shriek cut through the screams outside of the hole in the pile of bodies.
. . .
Dorin
Now inside the city, Dorin and Ara saw the carnage that the beetles had caused. Doors had been chewed through, with bloody marks all over. Nowhere in the city seemed to be safe.
The two of them heard a high pitched shriek from deeper in the city, and every beetle in sight stopped what it was doing and flew towards the sound.
"What was that?"
"I don't know." Ara put her hands on her quivering beetle which had hunkered into the earth. "But my ego beast doesn't like it."
A red spot in the sky grabbed Dorin's attention, and as it grew bigger he threw down his trident ego. It bounced from the wall to the ground as it landed on a four.
Ara gave him a worried look as his ego's starry tails wrapped around him. "What are those?"
"None of your business." A two-pronged spear formed in his hand, and he prepared to meet whatever it was with his blade. Eventually Dorin could see the creature in full, a dark firebird that seemed to have no fear of him.
The firebird dove straight towards Dorin, heating up their surroundings, and his ego had no effect on it as it phased through the spear completely. Dorin felt a sharp hot pain in his arm as the creature gored him with its claws before rushing back into the sky. The hungry black liquid that normally coated his weapon was completely gone, revealing its bland red wood and serrated blades.
"What kind of creature was that? It didn't care about your weapon at all."
"I have no idea." Dorin glanced at Ara's spear as he clutched the torn skin on his arm. "Unless you're willing to fight it off, we need to get under cover."
The two of them ran through small alleyways on their way towards the high pitched sound, trying to block the firebird's line of sight with various buildings.
"No. It can't be." Dorin watched Ara drop her spear once they saw the pile of bodies stacked in the middle of the city.
A giant spiky beetle that stood twice as tall as Ara's was slicing them up into pieces, eating a body in moments before releasing a wave of purple from its body. The wave flooded into the city, and thousands of tiny beetles swarmed towards them.
"I can handle this, just keep an eye out for that bird." The hungry liquid had returned to his spear, and Dorin stabbed it into the ground, letting the black sludge flow out. It met the wave of beetles and struggled to hold it at bay. It wasn't until Ara's companion joined the fray that the wave began to be pushed back, and a wave of their own was created which shot back towards the giant beetle.
Dorin felt the similar heat from the firebird near his back as Ara threw her spear above his head. The spear went straight through, and seemed to only magnify the heat as the creature neared Dorin.
A sharp scream rang through the air right as the firebird bared its claws. The bird was slammed into the ground beside Dorin as a dark figure clawed at its head.
The creature's flames dimmed to nothingness as it cried out weakly, eventually turning into a red shard on top of a pile of ash. The dark shape are the crystal whole before turning around towards Dorin with a familiar set of black and gold eyes.
"Anya!" Dorin's old companion rushed him, knocking him to the ground and rubbing her neck on Dorin's arm. He felt the coolness of her feathers on his burns, and it lessened most of the pain.
Anya was much larger than Dorin remembered, especially her wings. They had blue waves which flowed outwards towards her pitch black claws. Dorin felt the same motherly care from Anya that he remembered in his first life, but after after dying nine times he had no need for such coddling. It was just good to know that Anya was alive and still had his back.
"We may actually stand a chance now."