Rise of the Masked Man | Avarice
Audrey saw them draw those strange little red-and-white spheres. Explosive devices? They were weapons, absolutely. What she did not expect was for them to unleash a veritable menagerie of strange and terrifyingly inedible monsters upon the group. She stepped forward, hands put out placatingly; a startling shift from her earlier psychosis. Even despite the overwhelming odds, she seemed utterly unfazed. Perhaps she simply didn't fear death.
"Okay! Okay! I was kidding! You're unfazed by what I said, I can see. But if you want to avoid making a mess, break this up! If you want the bird, you can talk it out! How about a trade in favours? Get to know each other, maybe you could come to an agreement!"
The field was silent, save for the flutter of cloth, and the sound of breathing. She locked eyes with the man in the trenchcoat, eyeing up the group. The howling wind dug into her skin. Water dripped from every surface. She put her hands down, gave him an askance glance. Maybe these people would listen to reason. Yes, they'd come to fight, but surely they didn't want to kill the group? Maybe this was one of those worlds. Ones where death and ague and all that good stuff decided life and death. She took another step forward, feet crunching in the ice below.
"You're here to take what you want, I know. But just hear me out. We don't need to fight. Neither of us want to fight. Surely, you can sort this out without bloodshed, right? Please, put down your weapons."
A spike appeared between her ribs. She looked down at the chunk of rock, wedged in her torso. She seemed confused, for a moment. Unsure of what to make of the blood and bone poking through the surface. Slowly, tentatively, she took it with one hand, and pulled it out. Everyone could see into her chest cavity. Unfitting organs, something resembling a heart. Like someone had grabbed a handful of random body parts and carelessly shoved them in. An empty space lay where her stomach should have been.
She simply dropped the blood stained projectile in the snow, and looked back toward the trench-coat wearing man. Her eyes turned dark. The air seemed to pulse with frenetic hunger and rage, roiling with barely contained thirst. The hole in her chest knitted itself back together, flesh weaving in intricate patterns. In moments, it was gone. As if she'd never been hit, save for the blood staining her body.
"Oh. You've made a big mistake."
She took a step, traversing at least twenty feet; as if all that distance had simply collapsed. She reached for the man, head low and fingers outstretched. A charizard stepped forward, enormous clawed feet crushing snow underfoot. It scorched her, engulfed her in flame. The smell of burning flesh filled the air. The ice underneath her melted, and soon turned red with blood and giblets. And at last, the flames subsided. And standing there, was a charred corpse, black and crackling flesh barely hanging onto bone.
And slowly, it put itself together. Meat grew over the body once again, until she looked as if she'd never been burnt; even down to her clothes. Avarice flicked a drop of boiling fat from her cheek. Her fingers dripped with her own blood. And yet, she calmly tilted her head, and looked up at the orange creature. In her eyes, there was an emotion approaching... Craving?
"Oh please. You're not what I'm looking for. Your trainer, though... He smells delicious."
She turned toward a trainer, frozen in shock, and threw herself at him. Tore at him with her fingers, ripped pieces of meat out with her teeth, felt the stringy fibres parting from the body. She tore at it with hysterical fervour, disregarding all other wounds. She might have been burnt, she might have been stabbed, she might have lost an arm; but she couldn't tell. Didn't care. She shredded whatever she could reach, until she stood amongst a pile of bones and blood, covered in pieces of what once had been a living thing. And she licked her lips. She smiled, because at last, she had an excuse to feed. Not that she needed much of a reason to begin with.
Another volley of fire tore at her, stripping away fat, muscle and sinew. She simply walked through the flames, repairing herself as she went. Slowly, contemplatively, she looked up, bared her teeth, and lunged, tearing at the flaming lizard's belly, leaping into the air and scrabbling at its face, cramming any handfuls of meat she could grab into her mouth, frantically trying to rend the thing to pieces.
