Culture Shock

Chapter 52: Motivation

Just some forewarning: this chapter (as well as future ones) has explicit mentions of body horror. I mean, it's not like Relle's arm just healed overnight, and she was far from the only one strapped to those researchers' operating tables. Just wanted to let you know what's ahead. Okay, onward!

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RECAP:

"So, the 'hero' finally returns," a voice sneered behind her, and, like floating through a dream, Relle spun to face the familiar foe. 

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The ground began to tremble again, but that could have been a fly buzzing off for all the effect it had on the person floating before Relle Phantom. Russolo, the magician ghost, leveled a hot glare the teen's way and clutched at the wide cuff around his arm. A tiny voice in the back of her mind laughed wryly at the idea of a restraint the self-proclaimed "master of escape" couldn't get out of. Then again, she was in no position to judge when the wind could easily whistle between the exposed bones of her left forearm. 

"You've got a lot of nerve showing your face here again, Relle," Russolo continued in a venomous sneer. "I suppose you figured it was easiest to let these filthy breathers take care of your problems for you!"

"How the fuck can you say that?" she shot back before she could stop herself. Angry heat pooled in her middle and threatened to boil higher and higher. "I was just as much a victim as you were!"

He scoffed and lifted the hem of his stained and tattered dress shirt to show off the bottom portion of a fresh Y-incision along the length of his torso. Even without a mortician's standard clamps to hold the walls of flesh apart, his dark green organs were all too visibly writhing inside of him. Russolo's expression turned stormy when he ground out between grit teeth, "I doubt that."

Relle's eyes immediately widened and she lurched away, both hands pressed against her mouth to hold back the urge to retch. Okay, that made her arm look tame in comparison, she had to admit. "Oh, god...!"

Seeing her reaction made Russolo grin wickedly despite himself. He opened his mouth to say more, but another enraged roar split the sky as Dora took off charging on her hind legs. Her goal was clear: she wanted to follow the ghosts fleeing through the city, maybe to escape the same way they thought they were going to. She didn't get terribly far, though, before yet another surprise rose up from the rubble to claw at her tail and try to seize it. 

A sleek, black dragon with violet scales on its underside and triangular spinal plates to the tip of its barbed tail had appeared. On its head were two small black horns flanked by a pair of larger, twisted green ones. Its neck was longer and slender while its wings, though struggling to extend for takeoff, were much larger and stronger than Dora's. To tie it all together, an identical gold amulet set with an emerald centerpiece hung from its neck, where it clashed starkly against the dragon's rather gothic color palette. 

The black dragon groaned with the beginnings of a roar and swiped at Dora's tail only to come up empty and tumble forward onto its front. Dora took off like a shot from a cannon toward the edge of downtown without a thought for the dragon picking itself up behind her. Before she could see much else, Relle whipped back around to address Russolo, who was entranced by the sight and hovered with a visibly slack jaw. 

"Look, I'm sorry I couldn't do more for you and the others, alright? Just get to the portal and get out of here before they catch you again," she barked with a sweeping gesture toward the lake. "I've got bigger problems right now."