KISMET ─ vento aureo.

▹ THIRTY ;

☆ ⁺ « THE GANG'S BACK TOGETHER

★˚⋆ YOU FELL BACKWARDS, CRASHING INTO the bench behind you. Abbacchio barely managed to scramble out of the way as you wrestled with the creature on your face, yelling all the while. The pain was intense. It felt like the thing was trying to suck your face off.

"Don't move!" you heard Rati shout.

"What else am I supposed to do?" you tried to scream back, but the creature made that a bit difficult. It was slimy, and had tentacles like some kind of octopus. No matter how hard you tried to get a grip on it, its writhing made that practically impossible.

"We have to do something," Abbacchio said. You landed heavily on your side, your ribs smarting. Why wouldn't this flacking thing come off?

"Stay back. It could transfer over to you too," Rati warned.

Of course. Stars forbid the creature transfer over to Abbacchio when you were about to flacking suffocate. It might have been your imagination, but the more you struggled against the creature, the stronger it seemed to get.

You gritted your teeth. Like hell were you going to let this stupid-ass organism kill you when the Stand Arrow was within reach.

You managed to get a hold of one of its tentacles and pulled on it as hard as you could. You felt its suction on your face give slightly and you pulled harder, ready to hear its body snap like an elastic.

And snap it did. You let out a savagely satisfied shriek when the organism snapped free of your face, with such force that your hand slammed onto the floor of the motorboat from the recoil. You were about to celebrate before you realized the thing was now on your arm.

"For flack's sake!"

"Rati, get that thing in the cooler," Abbacchio barked.

"How? Do you see how tightly it's attached to Ahren's arm?"

Who the flack is Ahren? You thought deliriously, before you remembered that was the fake name you'd given him.

"Well, do something," you snapped. You felt strangely weak, barely able to struggle anymore. You let your head slump back to the floor of the motorboat, exhausted all of a sudden. Your entire face stung like a bitch.

Abbacchio shifted to move but Rati stopped him. "What's wrong with them?"

"The organism draws energy from its targets. It leaves them incredibly weak."

"Are you sure it's just energy? That thing is bigger than it was before."

"I-I'm not sure."

You could barely move. First the Black Zone and now this? Could you get a break?

The organism was making disgusting snuffling sounds on your arm. Not eating you, but absorbing your energy and matter some other way.

"I'll just shoot it off," you muttered. You scrabbled around for your elector, trying to see where it had fallen. Its cool metal touched your hand and you aimed it at the organism, not caring that you'd probably blow your arm off in the process.

"Wait—" Rati said.

You pulled the trigger three times, in quick succession. To your shock, the organism reared up, stretching out its tentacles to block the elector pulses. A bit of blood spurted out, but it might as well have been swatting flies. It fell on your arm with renewed gusto, now the size of a cat.