[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/fD4F1Jn.png[/img][/center][hr]There was a light clunk of metal echoing from just outside Rachel’s consciousness. The kid had grabbed a tin first aid kit from the warehouse. [color=abd876]“Antiseptic, a bunch of bandaids...this isn't enough gauze. Why don’t they stock these things? Never mind the other guy in there also covered in blood, everything's [i]fine[/i], you got this you got this...”[/color]

[color=7976ac]“Just pull it out,”[/color] Rachel sighed, tired of his snivelling.

[color=abd876]“Uh, I can’t do that. Its the only thing keeping your blood inside you right now.”[/color]

[color=7976ac]“Just [b]do it![/b]”[/color] Her eyes flashed red and her teeth grew sharper for just a moment. She felt his apprehension mix with fear and unease.

[color=abd876]“Here goes nothin’!”[/color] Green mitts wrapping around the blade of ice, he began, [color=abd876]“On three, okay? One, two-”[/color] SKRICH

Rachel’s shout of pain rang out. She saw stars where there were none. Raising her hand, she returned in to her wound, white energy once again stitching it back together. The teen boy watched in awe as the skin was healed. The black T-shirt was still gashed, and the blood was by no means replenished. [color=7976ac]“Why would you do that, whelp?”[/color] Opening her eyes she finally got a better look at him. His clothes were on the dirty side: a pair of jeans with tattered sleeves and a white T-shirt with golden hexagon logo. More curiously, his skin, hair, and eyes were all completely green, like he’d been dipped in a pot of St. Patrick’s ichor.

[color=abd876]“Come on, you’ve seen it on TV, right? If you were ready you’d brace for it and it’d hurt even worse.”[/color]

Rachel scowled, [color=7976ac]“It hurts worse if you don’t see it coming, trash child.”[/color]

She smiled inwardly as she felt his spirits sink. That feeling was swiftly buried in a rush of alarm. [color=abd876]“We gotta help that guy in there, come on!”[/color] Standing up, he reached his hand out. Rachel slapped it away before trying to stand. She didn’t make it higher up than her elbows could prop her up before she suffered a dizzy spell, collapsing back down. [color=abd876]“Uh, sorry, just bear with me for a minute and then you can rest.”[/color] Rachel’s heart jumped as he reached his arms beneath her shoulders and legs, hoisting her up. Had the motion not further stressed her lack of energy, she might have tried to bite his throat out. Instead she was reduced to a wrathful glare, dark tendrils of energy emanating off her. He didn’t even register it as he lowered her down by the mage cut by her own magic. At this boy’s mercy despite all personal desire, she relented, raising her hand and using her magic to restore the disciple’s wounds. His slow, ragged breathing became a little bit softer.

Relaxing visible, the green mutant flopped down. [color=abd876]“Alright. Not bad. What even happened here?”[/color]

[color=7976ac]“Better question: what are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere with nothing better to do?”[/color]

[color=abd876]“Oh my, how rude of me, I didn’t even introduce myself.”[/color] Running his hands through his messy hair, he flashed a smile. [color=abd876]“Name’s Garfield, milady.”[/color] Before her eyes, he shrunk in form, becoming a striped shorthair cat with a grumpy looking face and more than a bit of pudge and as many shades of green as he’d been before. Turning back to himself, crouched in the same feline pose, he grinned, [color=abd876]“I’m not voiced by Chris Pratt though.”[/color]

[color=7976ac]“...Unfortunate.”[/color]

[color=abd876]“Well, if you must know, I’m a mutant who was part of H.I.V.E. until I got kicked out. I’ve kinda been homeless for a while. Been bumming some meals out here as a rat lately. Turns out Ratatouille was bullshit and they don’t have much of a sense of taste at all. I saw the lights go on, heard some banging, and thought I’d investigate.”[/color]

Rachel’s mouth twitched in disgust. It was all so absurd, so pathetic. This was the person who saved her? Pushing against the ground, she wrenched through the lingering pain and fatigue, sitting up properly with a twisted smile on her face. She began to giggle, then laugh, then cackle. [color=7976ac]“Little creature on this disgusting rock floating through space, digging through trash. Is that how you want to live? Pathetic.”[/color] His smile didn’t fall but, but she saw through him. [color=7976ac]“I did this. They were trying to stop me. You think you’re being helpful? That charity is a virtue?”[/color] Rachel took a dark shape. The shadow stretched wide, like two wings spreading. The beak of a bird pierced the air towards the heavens before angling down at Garfield, four red eyes burning down. Her voice, disembodied, sounded out, [color=7976ac]“So ignorant and blind. You really are just a rat in the dark scrounging at scraps better than any of you humans deserve. I’m impressed that you can live with yourself. How do you feign your happiness?”[/color] Like predator preparing to engulf prey, she drank in his emotions, waiting for the moment he broke. His sadness was like fine wine, his disappointment a classy buffet. But then the taste went sour as a sensation of pity came. The following spark of hope was like a spice of capsaicin to keep her tongue at bay.

He gave a smile, his pronounced canines on full display. Even as it concealed a deep pain, he still remarked, [color=abd876]“I’m happy because...we [i]have to[/i] be happy.”[/color]

The dark raven lingered for a few moments, before shrinking back. Rachel hadn’t moved, sitting in the same position, but her expression had returned to relative neutrality, her eyes narrowed. His broad platitudes did nothing for her except make her interest deflate like a dead balloon. With some difficulty, she stood, her balance faltering before she found relative stability.

Then she lost it. There was a rumble, easily mistaken for an earthquake. She fell into Garfield’s arms, the boy hovering by just in case of this exact possible outcome. They looked at the air as a white fissure seemed to erupt from nothing. The air seemed to drain from the chamber only to rush back just as quickly alongside a deluge of matter from nowhere. Black and white flesh materialized in high volumes, spilling out a lime green liquid. It bashed against the ground, more seeming to come.

Gar’s finger jabbed across the way to one of the fallen apprentices before he released his hands. [color=abd876]“Get him outta here!”[/color] he called before pulling away. There was a low roar as he shifted into a humongous tiger, teeth snagging the disciple’s collar before he whipped his neck, flinging him to safety. Four legs pumping against the ground he hurtled to the next one, scooping him up and carrying him off just in time as another mass of foreign flesh crashed.

Feet leaving the ground, head pounding, she hissed, [color=7976ac]“Don’t order me around!”[/color] Despite her words, the girl so often lacking in self decided direction moved into action. One of the metal baskets she’d used early sprung to life, screeching across the ground and scooping up the disciple from the head and shoulders, pushing him along once he was mostly inside. The foreign substance crashed down, but the metal didn’t give, even as white robes became splattered in whatever Trigon-forsaken spew was making a mess of everything.

With everyone out of danger, Rachel and Garfield hung back as they waited for the chaos to settle. From her elevated point of view, Rachel saw a former being unlike any she’d heard of before. It seemed to have had at least 6 limbs previously, but was heavily dismembered, as though ripped apart. The appendages she could make out were either akin to tentacles with bumps like scales or nails, or the one remaining thin arm ending off in a double hand, four fingers on each. It’s skin was black while its inner flesh was white, whatever liquid its body possessed still dripping out. If there had been a head, it was missing entirely.

[color=abd876]“Coooooool. Friend of Godzilla’s?”[/color]

Rachel sneered. [color=7976ac]“How so?”[/color] Floating a bit closer, she observed, [color=7976ac]“It’s not of this world. Or dimension.”[/color]

[color=abd876]“An [i]alien[/i] fell on us? I knew my animal magnetism would be more of a curse than a blessing.”[/color]

Rachel shook her head, ignoring him. [color=7976ac]“I’m not worried about what it is.”[/color] Eyes tracing a line across its wounds, she finished, [color=7976ac]“I’m worried about what killed it.”[/color]

With there being no sign of another incursion, Rachel considered her task. She had come here due to picking up on this location’s magical presence, operating purely on the objective truth of what she sensed rather than the assumption that such a mundane location detached from the natural world couldn’t harbor any sort of magical affinity. And judging by the coincidence of her arrival, the mage trio, and now this corpse from beyond, there was no mistaking that something was odd about this place. Off to the side, Garfield had turned into a bloodhound, sniffing the area around the body. Though she wanted to place her sigil and leave, she was pushed by her curiosity, floating closer to the body. Raising her hands, she opened her mouth, but all that came out was a scream. Bursting from the corpse a long head with a sharp beak clacked at the air, opening its maw to reveal rows of teeth. Without warning, it lunged at Rachel.

With a wave of her hand, a barrier of her dark magic appeared, the teeth tearing through the shield like it was paper. Rachel got away with a scratch, cradling her fresh wound with her other hand as she backed away, the parasite moving to lunge again. There was a rush of green. A lion swooped in, the larger animal holding the monster in its teeth. A heavy paw pressed down on its longer form and the lion stretched its neck, wrenching the pest’s face from the rest of its body. It twisted and tore with a sound more like that of rubber than flesh, but once it gave, its gore spilled out all the same.

Returning to his human form, Garfield asked, [color=abd876]“You okay?”[/color]

Rachel opened her mouth to answer, her wound healing quickly enough with a bit of magic, but the sounds of writhing sent chills down her back. With pops and squelches, the massive corpse was peppered with more of the parasites, screeching as they engaged with the air, turning their beaks on their next victims.