Page 155 of Remnants: Disruption
Maybe more bird than bug. He doesn’t seem to have wings, but God, it’s horrific.
And nothing like the majestic beauty of whatever Cass can become.
I hope I survive this—I’d like to see her again.
“Gross,” I say, studying the thing that Gareth apparently is.
“Funny,” he says, though his voice lacks any of the haughtiness of before. Hell, it lacks any of the fear he’d shown in the Seer chamber. “We say the same thing about your kind.”
I don’t even see him move. He sort of phases like I would do, except he doesn’t need the shadow.
The force of his hit strikes me like a boulder, and I careen over the bar and into the rows of drinks along the wall.
Glass shatters and falls along my back and head.
Marla’s going to kill me if this thing doesn’t.
I get back to my feet and narrowly dodge something large thrown at my face.
“Where did you get a fucking rock?” I yell, ducking another projectile.
“My king wants you dead, but you’ve annoyed me. So, I intend on playing with my dinner first.”
I scoff at the cartoonish villainy. “You sound deranged, Gareth. And since when is Darkrend a king?”
Leaping the bar, I collide with his buggy body and we both tumble backwards. Before he can move, I assume the revenant form and plunge the bar into darkness.
“Neat trick,” he hisses, voice weird with the mask—or face, or whatever it is. “Is this how you killed Loki?”
Shadows strike at his chest, but he teleports again. And again.
“Stop moving,” I grit out, finally unleashing a torrent of the spirits in Gareth’s general direction.
Surprisingly, one hits him squarely in the strange torso and he collides into and through the far wall, falling onto his ass.
People scream and scramble out of the way, everyone’s eyes trained on the horror that, in the cavern lighting, is nightmarish.
“I do not mean Darkrend,” he hisses, brushing off wall debris. “He is but a piece in the puzzle.”
I launch at him again and this time, when he teleports, I move with him.
Somehow, I feel the way his teleportation works. It’s not normal. It’s not traversal across the space. It’s movement through it. Using a subspace that feels like it has to be beside mine.
Though how I could possibly know that isn’t something worth analyzing right now.
We reappear together, now rolling through the dirt in the town square. He lands roughly on his back, head recoiling as it strikes the ground.
I swirl to standing, my incorporeal body not even feeling the brunt force.
“She was supposed to kill you before you got this way,” he says, body contorting oddly as he stands without using his arms. “Before you began to realize.”
“Stop being so fucking cryptic,” I snarl and fling more spikes of darkness.
He dodges again, but in the same pattern as before. Like he’s only got one method of deflection and it’s in an odd zigzag.
With the final zag, a tendril skewers him through the torso. He lets out a pathetic gasp of pain before wiggling like a fish caught on a hook.
My form flickers and I let it go, falling to my feet in my own flesh. Evidently overuse, alcohol, and the Seer’s mind fuck made for an excellent anti-ghost-form cocktail.
