Scarlet Asger

After Emily gets here, I pick her up and carry her into the tree myself – to her apparent embarrassment – before telling her the plan. Then, on the knight’s next round trip around the nest, we begin.

I start by using life drain at a very small degree, but the knight doesn’t seem to notice. So I up it up more and more before eventually adding blood boil to the works. Which does finally manage to get its attention as it suddenly stops in its patrol route. Then it looks down and eventually follows the trail of red energy leaving its body from life drain.

Good boy. Come to me.

The knight slowly makes his way over here, the soil absorbing the force of its weight in the process, making me really glad that we’re not in an office building or something that has tile or cement floors that would make for loud footsteps. And after the creature makes it seventy five percent of the way here, I tap Emily on the shoulder, signaling for her to start the maladies.

Tiny black particles begin to build up around the knight as it begins walking faster while raising its sword and looking directly in the direction of the stream of life energy. But I suddenly cut off the skill and grab Emily before jumping to another tree. Meanwhile the knight continues looking at the one we were just on, it being too dark and the foliage too thick for it to clearly see us from down there without having been shown our exact positions.

I wait several seconds for it to enter the tree line before glancing at the nest again to see the other knight beginning to make its way back around, only to focus on this one again.

Just a few more steps… and there!

I quickly tap on Emily’s shoulder again, and she takes it as a cue to toss several necrotic needles at the thing. Then I immediately use life drain again and a large dose of blood sacrifice while pumping more blood into my blood claws before I jump from the tree straight down onto the knight, who is currently staggering to his knees.

A grin emerges on my face as I land on the knight’s back, my shifted hand reaching around for the front of its throat and my other one digging into the scales on its shoulders. My grin grows even wider at the feeling of my claws digging into its armor of scales, since I never would’ve been able to do that before I had Predator V, and before I was at this level.

The knight raises its sword arm back, but instead just loses its balance and the sword falls to the ground since the creature is still being drained, blood boiled, and affected by both of Emily’s skills with me on its back. So it fails to do anything as I tighten my grip on its throat, digging my claws into it in the process very slowly.

Our struggle – which isn’t much of a struggle for me at this point – continues for several seconds rather quietly, since all the knight’s doing is making grunting sounds while barely moving in the process. And eventually it goes silent, face planting into the ground with me almost being tossed off in the process. But I stay on before quickly glancing back to find the other knight beginning to walk over here as well.

Shit.

I quickly rush over to another tree before climbing up it, reaching a higher branch the moment the other knight makes it to the tree line and sees the corpse of the first knight.

My terminal vibrates very lightly, bringing my eyes to it to see a message from Emily.

[Fight or run?]

I grin at that before answering with the obvious.

[Fight.]

Then we both focus our skills at about the same time on the knight, instantly making it stagger.

After what is basically a repeat of the battle with the first knight, the second one falls to the ground, dead as well.

I climb off of the second knight after tearing out its throat as well before turning to find Emily climbing down from the tree she was in.

Not sure why she isn’t just jumping, but whatever.

Emily stares at the corpses with a slightly stunned look on her face, likely surprised about how we actually managed to kill them. But that also has me wondering why she so quickly agreed to help.

So I ask her.

“Because you saved my life before,” she answers as if it should be obvious. Which has me blinking twice in confusion.

That’s it?

“I trust your instincts, and if you think we can do this, we can,” she says, making me openly gape at her for a few seconds, only to eventually shut my mouth again.

We stare at each other for a few seconds before I eventually nod slowly.

“I should warn you,” I tell her, making her stiffen up ever so slightly, “the next part of the plan is even more dangerous for you, but less dangerous to me. In all honesty, I don’t think you should be here for it.”

Her eyes widen at that before a slightly disappointed look slips onto her face. But at the same time, a relieved one shows itself as well after that.

Interesting.

Looks like she was scared in the end.

“You should head back to Michael and tell them how I’m doing,” I tell her before smiling at her, borderline shocking her and adding, “thank you for the help!”

Then I jump back into the trees to get to a vantage point over the nest.

Can’t have her getting hurt from my plans after all. It’s my life that I can put in jeopardy. Not my friends.

And while the first part of the plan didn’t feel like it had too much risk, since I knew the way the knights were spread out had them far enough that they wouldn’t notice the other’s absence, and the spiders in the nest itself don’t give a damn about the knights, just protecting their breeder, the second part of the plan is more dangerous. For her, at least. For me, the knights are probably a tougher challenge, but they would also only be a challenge that I’d have to deal with. The spiders on the other hand won’t be much of a problem for me, but their numbers might let them slip past me to hurt Emily.

And I can’t have that happen because of my plan.

“Good to see you’re thinking logically even when hunting,” I hear Tar’s voice return again, making my eyes quickly narrow.

Tell me what happened.