Callan
The Outsider met him halfway. Their blades slammed together, acid and bits of Outsider material sparking clear of the weapons.
He twisted around and slammed both his weapons home, but the creature used its two sword-like limbs to block the attack, though the sheer strength of it seemed to rock the thing. Callan howled with anger, and a stream of acid shot from his mouth, splashing across the bulbous outcropping that they all assumed was the Outsider’s head.
They resembled humans to an almost uncanny degree. Two legs, two arms, and a lump on top of an oblong torso. Any resemblance ended after that though. Their armor was black and chitinous, like an ant, though it reflected no light. Callan whipped his weapons around and tried to sever the head from the shoulders, but it once again stopped him in time.
There was no fear on the Outsider’s face, because it didn’t have a face. There were no features on its body anywhere at all. The only thing that gave it any sort of change in appearance was when it healed or reformed its limbs. The black armor-like material would ripple and hump nauseously, then tendrils of it would shoot out and away from the armor before looping around and back in, like some sort of creeping vine on super-steroids, diving back into itself and stitching wounds closed.
Or in this one’s case, reforming the swords that emerged from the ends of its arms into giant battle-axes.
Callan yelped and ducked out of the way. He didn’t quite make it, a blade slamming into the back of his leg. The motion of his ducking had him moving with the blow. It sent him flying while also chopping through his armor—and the skin beneath it.
He landed, howling with pain as his system tried to repair itself, blood leaking through the acid-armor. Rising unsteadily to his feet, he took some small satisfaction in noting that the blade had lost a large chunk of its blade to his armor. Still, he couldn’t sustain many more attacks like that. It had grown damn strong compared to when he’d faced it down during the transport operation.
And now that it was free, it was trying to pay him back for that ass-kicking in spades.
Fury surged through his body. This was all the military’s fault. Those sons of bitches had had this thing in their custody, a prisoner, and somehow the bloody thing had gotten free?
It was a prime example of why he didn’t want to fight for them. Why the hell should he have to clean up somebody else’s mistakes and deal with their stupid decisions? Because it had to be one hell of a monumental screw-up that let this thing go! Now he was being left out to dry and expected to clean up their mistakes for them before anyone else could get hurt.
Well fuck that shit.
Harnessing the boost of energy that came with his rage, Callan fell into the rhythm of swordplay. He was a master of it, having learned from some of the greatest swordsmen of his age. This wasn’t a brawl; he had no other opponents to fight against or worry about. All of his attention could be focused on the ugly-ass overgrown ant in front of him, his only goal reducing it to a pile of individual pieces.
He clipped one of its battle axes and smashed his fist into its face, the acid-horns on his knuckles punching into the armor, cracking it again. Callan grinned at that. It may have a solid outer veneer once more, but it was obviously not up to strength even after having fed. That meant he had a chance to beat it on his own.
Which was perfectly okay with him. Callan would beat it down, ensuring it could harm nobody else, but after that, he was going to take Kathryn and go far away from all this nonsense. Colonel Mara and General Knefferson—that asshole—could either give him his treasure back, or he would take it. He was beyond caring. If he needed to use force, then he would.
The two of them spun and whirled in near silence, the only sound the crash of their blades as they came together, and the grunts of Callan as he swung with all his might. The Outsider fought in complete silence, an eerie sight to experience.
He upped the tempo without warning, his blades whirling and slicing, stabbing and cutting in a flurry of blows that sent the Outsider reeling, its armor slicing off in chunks as he weakened it with strike after strike. Callan faked one way and dodged the other, getting around the Outsider. He ducked low and prepared to strike upward, impaling it from behind.
The right knee of the Outsider reversed the joint and Callan was knocked backward as he took a sudden and unexpected knee to the face, the blow snapping his head around and knocking a few teeth loose in his jaw. Hitting the ground, he bounced once, ending up on his ass, legs out in front of him.
His tongue played across teeth and he spat blood to the side, getting to his feet. That was a nasty trick he hadn’t expected, and he was about ready to be done with this thing. Instead of getting angrier and letting his temper make him reckless, Callan cooled and stretched his neck, the kinks popping rapidly.
Before he could go after the Outsider though, it moved. Callan immediately dropped into a guard, swords coming up at angles, but even as he did that he noticed that the monster wasn’t heading toward him. It was cutting across the clearing. Toward a familiar hollowed-out log.
Kathryn.
“Oh no you don’t,” he whispered, gathering his strength in his knees.
Callan jumped, flipping himself up and over the Outsider, rotating midair and landing on his feet between the log that contained Katy and the armored invader.
“What did I tell you about threatening my mate?” he snarled, walking forward, swords at his sides. “She is mine. I am her protector and guardian. I am her friend and lover. She is my heart, my soul, and my everything. If you want her, you have to go through me.”
The two combatants slammed together again, Callan fighting with a skill and speed he’d never known before. His swords blurred, moving faster than even his vision could track as he struck the Outsider once, twice, three times in rapid succession. His sword bit so deep into one sword-arm that as he reversed himself, came around and sliced upward with the other blade, it lopped the end of the limb right off.
Purple goo sprayed out, covering the grass until the living-armor sealed over it, the nasty tendrils of it darting in and out of the armor as if dancing for joy at being able to feed on the purple stuff that, as far as anyone could tell, was an Outsider.
Callan whirled and slammed a boot into the thing’s chest, the force of the blow spreading cracks all across the armor. The Outsider flew back, its armor so weakened now that it ended up impaling itself on the end of a broken-off tree stump.
He stood there, swords pointed down, staying between it and his mate. The woman he loved.
Love.
The acid-covered shifter smiled, a terrifying sight to any opponent. He wasn’t happy. Just the opposite, in fact. He was furious. But despite all that, something had clicked inside of him as he thought about Katy, and how he loved her like nothing else.
Love was a powerful force. It had endless permutations and its strength was nigh unlimited. There were few other concepts, forces, or ideas out there as strong as love. It was something he had experienced before, and had been lucky enough to find again. And it was something everyone deserved a chance at finding.
Even if that meant he had to fight for that right.
Imbued with the feeling of power borne from his newfound righteous cause, Callan started across the clearing. It was time to put an end to this Outsider. The first of many that would die by his blade.
Which was when everything changed.