Something sweeps my legs out from underneath me. One second, I’m standing up, relatively unharmed. The next, I land on my tailbone on the ice. I let out a shout at the sudden pain.
“Get up!” Svetlana hisses. “You must not be at their level!”
I scramble to my feet, still not sure what got me. Not until one of the penguins come sliding in on its belly and takes my legs out again. I go down harder this time, slamming into the ice hard enough to make my teeth chatter.
“Fuck,” I growl, launching myself back to my feet. This time, I pull out my Fang and hold it in my hands. “You wanna fight, birds, then lets fight!”
The first slice of my Fang through one of the smaller penguins makes my stomach twist, my new Beast Bound powers making the sensation twofold. The second through another taller one makes me taste bile. There are hundreds of the birds around us, so many swarming, I’m not sure we can take them all on. I’m not even sure if I can handle taking this much life when I’m so intrinsically tied to it. Why didn’t I think of that when I chose my Glitch?
Beside me, Locke swings his hammer, hitting penguin after penguin when they stab him with their sharp beaks. I wince as each crunch echoes in the crater we’re standing in, the sounds bouncing off the ridges and making a symphony of breaking bones. With each swing, Locke seems to grow more erratic, his eyes wide and feral.
Something stabs me in the thigh and I scream in pain. I bring the Fang down without looking, horrified when it goes right through the penguin’s skull. It’s warm blood splatters across my clothing, my hands, my face.
The bile in my throat comes up and I puke right there in the middle of the fight. I retch and swing my blade, trying to keep the creatures away. A few of the penguins stop when I start puking and immediately start picking at my throw up. They filter feed through it, swallowing the chunks and violently fighting over who gets to eat it first. My stomach twists again and another round comes up, making them squawk in excitement. Steam rises up from the puke on the ground, the contrast between temperatures apparent.
“Disgusting creatures,” Svetlana says. “I told you this.”
I wipe my mouth with the back of my sleeve and back away from the penguins fighting over their meal, trying to move closer to Locke. I have to swipe my blade repeatedly through attacking penguins, wading through the creatures as they start to pile up. All around us, steam billows, the snow painted red with the innards of our attackers.
Locke is screaming now as he swings, his arms bulging as he decimates their numbers. Still, the onslaught doesn’t stop. Beaks stab into my legs, into Locke’s legs, and Svetlana growls at me to move faster.
“The Emperor!” I shout, realizing that he must be the true target. I swing my blade at a large penguin in front of me, but he ducks, avoiding it. Svetlana is there a moment later, running down my forearm with a battle cry of her own. She swipes her tibial spines out with a savagery that surprises me. The penguin’s eyes widen just before its head slides off and rolls across the ground, lost in the waddle of the attacking army. The headless body falls a second later, adding to the pile. “Fucking?—"
“Kill the Emperor!” Svetlana shouts, raising her bloody arms into the air. “Quickly!”
The Minor Boss is the Emperor, which means he should be our target. All the other penguins are just distractions. At least, that’s what I’m hoping. We could very well kill the Emperor and still have to fight the hundreds of penguins still coming at us.
The Emperor squawks at my words, watching it all in his tiny golden crown. He stands very regally at the head of the battle, his wings flapping every so often in agitation while his hen hovers behind him unsure what to do. She settles on fluttering her insanely large eyelashes that I’m near certain are growing larger by the second.
Locke turns his gaze to the Emperor at Svetlana’s shout and starts wading through the piles of bodies and the still attacking penguins.
All around us, the ice is stained red, freezing the moment it spills onto the snow. Steam billows around us, rising into the air like tendrils of guilt. I try not to focus on that, on the gore of it. There are body parts I shouldn’t be seeing, tiny organs I don’t want to see spilled onto the ice like strange meat, open eyes that make me feel even more horrible. These creatures aren’t exactly difficult to fight despite their sheer numbers. They’re more annoying than anything even with their sharp beaks. I’ve killed before. I’ve harvested resources from many bodies, but this? This feels . . . different . . . worse.
“The brutality is the point,” Svetlana answers my thoughts, turning her big eyes to me. “Once you understand that,Umnitsa,it will no longer effect you so.”
I doubt there will come a time where this much gore won’t affect me. If it does, well . . . we’ll have bigger problems. Our humanity is what keeps us human. Once that’s lost, we’re no better than the Luxe assholes at the top. Those same assholes who are watching us right now and probably placing bets on how many of the poor things we’re going to kill.
The brutality is the point.
I grit my teeth and start to slash faster, heading for the Emperor when Locke gets caught up in a swarm of penguins. I pull my hyena mask down over my face, letting my awareness spread, picking up on those penguins still alive and the many that are dead.
“Yes,” Svetlana coos. “Stay angry. Bite back. This is how we win,Umnitsa.”
I stop seeing the creatures as anything but an obstacle as I wade through them. I step over bodies that crunch under foot. I’m covered in their gore, in pieces I’d rather not look too closely at. Every part of me wants to end this, wants to end that Emperor, because in my mind, that tiny golden crown is Luxe. That tiny golden crown is all the suffering in Dross.
That golden crown is my father.
I’m screaming. I don’t know when I started, but the sound echoes in my ears now as I cut and cut and cut. I push myself harder, kicking the creatures with my heavy snow boots. Svetlana slices as we pass, chopping off heads that hit the ice with a strange, gentle thud that echoes in my ears.
“Stay angry,” I snarl through gritted teeth. “Bite back.”
The red, black, and white blurs around me as I storm my way toward the Emperor. Locke is beside me, slamming his hammer into the creatures, trying to keep up with me as I push through. I’m smaller than him, can slip through the swarm, while Locke is forced to use brute strength to follow. He falls behind me quickly. The Emperor is three meters away now. He doesn’t flee. He just stares at me with black eyes as I approach.
I bear down on him, raising my Fang above my head.
The Emperor penguin seems to smile as my Fang hangs above him. “You will not remember who you are at the end of this, player,” he says, clear as day.
The scream tears from the very depths of my soul as I bring the Fang down, my momentum already carrying it forward. The blade slices through the Emperor penguin’s neck, down, cutting down diagonally until the meat inside him flays open and he falls apart.
