The Conquerors bloodline

Chapter 135: The Hungering Many

Scrambling wasn't what Parc would call what he was doing at the moment. Nor would he call it a tactical retreat. It was far from tactical really. It was more along the lines of sprinting from cover to cover, dodging dark tendrils and flying buildings and the odd monkey man like grimm which Parc had seen stuck to a poor slaves head leading them into the horde giggling in a spine tinglingly horrible manner.

During his running he had found the down time to pluck his scroll open and look to the enemy counter to find it stuck at a neat 3810, which was just perfect. It was like all the grimm from the entirety of the island just up and decided to congregate on this village for whatever ghastly reason that could be. But one thing he did know, or at least was guessing, was that this was planned. The chances of them all coming at once wasn't very high. He was expecting a few, perhaps upwards of a hundred to come out after everything he did, but this many? This was just getting absurd. He'd have to talk to Summer about it, see what she thought about this mess.

The thought of her brought about a question of if it was Kurome who found her. Most likely considering Bertilak had told him 'his girls were there.' As he thought of that a large globule of neon yellow fluid flung past his head, crashing to the ground before him it burst into a large puddle from which noxious smoke began to rise. The fluid proving to be a potent acid as the concrete road melted and sunk deeper into the earth.

"Right, right, lets not get distracted then," pale faced, Parc hopped over the acid trap not daring to look back in case that lead to his untimely demise from the conglomeration of souped up shamblers. His friend, the tyrant right at the front of the group still lugging his beloved slabs at Parc, clearly still pissed off about the grenades.

When finally he got to the roads by the docks Parc was able to see a vtol ship hovering not too high above one of the ware houses. The door wide open with the familiar and gaunt form of Summer in the doorway. Her hair frazzled and dishevelled holding herself steady as she looked out over the horde filled village with what looked to be tears in her eyes. Parc was quickly able to come to the conclusion fo why that was from the several dozens of corpses dotting the grounds. The slaves, even the partially familiar old wolf faunuses body was somewhere in the mess being bloodily devoured. They didn't even reach the bullheads.

It was a sorrowfull sight but Parc couldn't let it get to him. Right now his life was the one in danger, there was just no point in lingering on those already gone to the winds. Though his escape wouldn't be easy, there were plenty of the special Shamblers around, having all been formed from their meals of human and faunus. Various in forms he hadn't yet seen such as one crawling along the ground that would pounce into the air and another with lopsided arms that was barrelling through its 'friends' on a collision course with Parc.

He couldn't waste any time, he needed out.

Holding a deep breath in his lungs he summoned out his wing, letting it unfurl behind him knocking away a few shamblers who had come in from the sides ready to grab him. A few doing so, painfully tearing out a few of his feathers in the process.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," he swore and kicked off the ground with as much strength as his legs could put in. At the same time his wing shot back and opened in all its glory and rapidly flapped downwards with as much strength as he could put into it. The wind pressure it created forming a vortex that flung the lighter of Shamblers and most the specialsbar the 'friendly' half face of the tyrant awayand shot into the sky, barely able to angle himself towards the bullheads open door where he met Summer's gaze, her having noticed the furious commotion his lively appearance had caused in the horde.

She blinked a few times, confused to the rapidly approaching shadow though soon realized what it was just seconds before impact leading her to dodging out of the way just in time for a Parc shaped cannon ball to ram through the open door and into the opposite wall with enough force that the entire ship harshly tilted. A few soft screams of Lili and Ferry resounding through the place all cuddled up at the back of the small inside of the bullhead. Their arms latched around the other, Lili more in surprise, Ferry more in the fact she was trembling in her boots. Faint memories of the last time she was in an airworth vehicle coming to the top of her mind.

As the tilted Bullhead realigned itself, Parc slowly and painfully slid out of the newly formed dent in the wall. Thankful to all of those crystalline hearts he had found in his terrarium. The impact having left him with a neat 1/400 that slowly ticked up to 5, then to 10 from the regeneration his band of regeneration gave him.

Laid flat on the bullhead floor, Parc felt like he had just been hit by a truck with every inch of his body in searing pain his wing even twisted at an uncomfortable-to-the-eye angle as it receeded into his back forcing out pained winces from Parc. Who was stuck staring blankly at the ceiling.

"Can't say I've seen anyone do that before!" he faintly heard Bertilak say from the pilots seat of the bullhead. Hands latched around the controls while a still, narrow eyed and gagged Carmine was sat in the co-pilots seat. Grumbling illegible swears at her traitorous partner and Parc's unfortunate survival.

Forcing himself to sit up, Parc groaned a response, "expect more bullshit like that from me in the future god I'm gonna need a massage after today" luckily, Leone was an experienced masseuse. From what he heard. So maybe he'd get her out when he had some private time.

"Are you allright?" Summer broke free from her daze and ran to his side, worry evident in her eyes.

"Peachy," he responded, "can you help me up," Summer complied, taking his outstreatched hand and assisted him to his feet. Letting his arm hang over her shoulder while she held her own around his waist. Finding he was actually surprisingly light for someone who towered over her.by a good two heads worth.

"Thanks," he took unsteady steps to the opened door with Summer's assistance and gripped a hand railing besides it to peak out to the horde. To which his eyelids opened wide and mouth fell open, "oh for fucks sake, Bertilak get us out of here." As it turned out, the horde decided that clambering atop each other into a massive pile of bodies would be the best course of action to get high enough to nearly scratch at the Bullhead's bottom.

"Don't need to tell me twice. I do advise you close that airlock mate."

"No shit," Parc parted from Summer and made use of what strength he had left to reach out and grab the sliding door, about to pull it shut when he noticed a hurtling concrete boulder on a collision course with his face. "Oh would you give it a rest!" Parc screeched and slammed the door shut just in time for the metal to buckle inwards and the bullhead to once again tilt in the opposite direction. This time though, instead of re-steadying the ship, Bertilak made use of the added momentum to turn it away from the island and set the thrusters to max, shooting the bullhead into the distance and narrowly avoiding the grim from gripping the bottom of the ship. The pillar crumbling sending the bodies into the ocean. Most of said grimm lost their interest in the gone bullhead, their simple minds quickly returning to their flesh based sustenance. The Tyrant on the other hand, it lingered on the edge of the dock, staring with rage at the bullhead where the bastard who damaged its delicate plating had gone. One day, it swore, one day it would have its revenge.

***

With the door shut, Parc's legs gave out on him, sending him collapsing onto his back. The thud of which reverberated and rung throughout the whole of the ship. The pain it caused on him going unnoticed from the swiftly forming bruises across his body. Digging through his satchel he pulled free a red potion with a golden line running around the glass and tipped the miracle serum into his mouth, chugging the entire thing immediately feeling a relief as his aches slowly began to fade and the bright blue marks on his face shrivelled back into his skin like they were never there.

"Its always something" Parc grumbled, "why can't it just be an easy day for once in my life." A tiredness taking hold of his mind forcing thick, dark bags to raise beneath his eyes. "We good Bertilak?" he questioned to the criminal huntsman.

"Apart from the dents in the wall? Yeah, we're good. We'll be on Vacuos shores in two hours."

"Great" turning his eyes to Summer, his lips curled into a smile, "hey, could you do me a favour? This floors a little uncomfortable. Think you could act as my pillow for a bit?" Kurome, who had kept mostly silent since Parc's sudden crash grew teary eyed that he had chosen this stranger instead of her.

Summer's addled mind ground to a halt, uttering out "what?" but gained no response as Parc's eyes rolled to the back of his skull and eyes flickered shut. The exhaustion of the last, semi panicked twenty minutes and still intense bouts of pain, wracking at his reserves of consciousness.

Staring down at him in bafflement, Summer eventually sighed and leaned down to drag Parc's body off to the side. Dropping down onto the floor, her back to the dented wall and gently brought Parc's head onto her lap. "Thank you," she whispered.