Chapter 440: Facing Gaspar [3]

Gaspar’s yellow Plasma finished spreading across his body.

It covered parts of his arms and legs in uneven layers, leaving the rest of him exposed. The membrane wrapped around his forearms like thick armor and coiled over his calves, while several strips climbed from his shoulders toward his neck. It moved every time he did, tightening and loosening with each shift of his body.

He looked less human now.

Not completely monstrous.

That would have been easier to understand.

He still had the same face, the same blond crescent mohawk, the same smug expression. But the yellow membrane crawling over him made it clear that his Symbiote had become part of him in a way Dullahan had not become part of me yet.

At least not visibly.

Gaspar looked toward the axe buried in the wall behind him.

"You throw your weapon away after one good hit?" he asked. "That is a bad habit."

I did not answer.

My hands were empty, but I still had Dullahan.

The wind around my right arm had weakened after the last attack, leaving scraps of my torn sleeve twisting around my elbow. Pain ran through my back every time I moved, and my chest still hurt from the knee he had driven into me.

Gaspar did not look injured enough.

The cut across his cheek bled, but it had not slowed him. If anything, it had made him more excited.

He took one step forward.

The Plasma around his legs tightened.

Then he launched himself at me.

I barely got out of the way.

Gaspar’s fist hit the wall behind me.

The yellow membrane around his arm hardened at the moment of impact, and the entire section of concrete caved inward. Dust and broken pieces of wall exploded across the street.

I felt fragments strike my back as I rolled away.

Gaspar turned immediately.

He was already moving before I had fully recovered.

One of the Plasma tails shot toward me from behind him, sharp at the tip. I jumped backward as it tore through the air where my chest had been. The tail struck the road and split the concrete apart.

A second tail came from the side.

I raised my left arm instinctively.

Dark green membrane burst from beneath my skin.

Dullahan’s Plasma appeared around my forearm without me meaning to summon it. It spread in a thin, uneven layer, darker than Gaspar’s and less stable. The membrane twisted around my arm like it did not know what shape it was supposed to take.

Gaspar’s tail struck it.

The impact threw me sideways anyway.

I crashed through the window of an abandoned shop, glass breaking around me as I hit the floor inside. My shoulder slammed against an overturned shelf, and pain shot down my arm.

I forced myself upright.

Dullahan’s Plasma still covered part of my arm.

It trembled.

The dark green plasma slowly pulled itself back beneath my skin, leaving behind a cold tingling sensation.

Gaspar walked through the broken window frame.

"You didn’t even command it," he said, watching my arm. "Your Plasma came out by itself."

I wiped blood from the corner of my mouth.

"It blocked you."

"It tried to."

Gaspar stepped farther inside the shop.

The old building had once been some kind of convenience store. Dusty shelves lined the walls, most of them empty. Broken bottles covered the floor. A refrigerator door hung open near the back, its glass shattered and its interior black.

I backed away from him.

Gaspar noticed.

"You don’t understand your own Symbiote," he said. "You summon wind because that is the only thing you know how to do. You use it like a blunt weapon and hope it tears through whatever is in front of you."

"You talk too much."

"I’m teaching you."

"I didn’t ask."

Gaspar laughed.

Then he moved again.

The Plasma around his legs pushed him forward with a burst of force.

I threw my right arm out.

Wind blades surged through the store.

They ripped shelves from the walls and flung broken cans, glass, and loose debris toward him. The blades cut into the yellow Plasma covering his chest and arms, forcing Gaspar to shield his face as he pushed forward through the attack.

For a moment, I thought the wind had slowed him.

Then his Plasma thickened.

The membrane spread across his shoulders and chest, absorbing the remaining blades. Gaspar broke through the wind and swung at me.

I ducked.

His arm tore through the shelf behind me.

Wood splintered against the wall.

I drove my fist toward his ribs, wind spiraling around it. ℯ

Gaspar caught my wrist.

His grip was stronger than it should have been.

The yellow membrane over his hand tightened around my arm, pinning it in place. I tried to pull back, but he twisted my wrist and dragged me closer.

His knee came up again.

This time I turned enough that it struck my side instead of my stomach.

The pain still made my vision blur.

Gaspar threw me across the store.

I hit the counter near the back wall and knocked it over with me. The wooden edge struck my ribs. I rolled onto the floor, breathing hard as I tried to force air back into my lungs.

Gaspar stepped over the wreckage.

"You are strong for someone who awakened recently," he said. "I’ll give you that. Strong enough to kill Infected, maybe even weaker Hosts."

He crouched a few feet away from me.

"But you don’t know what you are fighting."

I pushed myself onto one knee.

"You don’t either."

Gaspar’s eyes narrowed slightly.

That was enough.

I drove my hand into the floor.

Wind burst outward in every direction.

The cracked tiles beneath us lifted and broke apart. A shockwave hit Gaspar from below, throwing him upward through the remains of the counter. He landed hard on his feet near the broken shop entrance, Plasma spreading over his legs to absorb part of the impact.

I got up.

My body hurt everywhere.

My side burned where he had hit me. My back felt stiff. Every breath came with a sharp ache in my chest. But I could still move.

I ran toward him.

Gaspar stood ready.

I did not aim for him directly.

At the last second, I stepped onto the overturned counter, pushed off, and jumped over his first attack. A Plasma tail shot beneath me and tore through the wall at the back of the store.

I landed behind him.

Wind blades gathered around both my arms.

Gaspar turned.

I swung.

The blades struck his back and shoulders.

The Plasma covering him tore open in several places. Yellow membrane peeled away from his skin, splattering across the floor. Gaspar stepped forward from the force of the hit, but he did not fall.

He spun around with his elbow raised.

It slammed into my face.

My head snapped to the side.

I staggered backward, tasting blood again.

Before I could recover, a Plasma tail wrapped around my ankle.

Gaspar pulled.

My leg was ripped out from beneath me. I hit the floor hard, and the tail dragged me across broken glass toward him.

I grabbed at the ground, but my fingers only scraped over debris.

Gaspar lifted me by the leg and threw me through the shop entrance.

I crashed back onto the street.

The Screamer’s sound hit me full force the moment I landed outside. It buzzed through my head, mixing with the ringing in my ears and the pounding of my pulse.

I pushed myself up again.

Gaspar stepped out of the shop.

The cut on his cheek had stopped bleeding.

The yellow Plasma was already sealing over the damaged areas of his body.

He was healing.

Or at least repairing himself faster than I could hurt him.

"You’re persistent," he smirked. "Thankfully it only makes things even more fun for me!"

The three Plasma tails behind him rose into the air.

Then two more appeared.

They formed from the yellow membrane around his shoulders, lengthening and sharpening as they spread out behind him. Five tails now moved through the air, each one twitching in a different direction.

My stomach sank.

The last time he had used three, he had already overwhelmed me.

Gaspar rushed forward.

The tails came with him.

I jumped left as the first slammed into the road.

I ducked beneath the second.

The third cut across the street at waist level, forcing me to leap backward. The fourth came down from above. I blocked with both arms.

Dullahan’s Plasma erupted around them automatically.

The dark green membrane appeared thicker this time, wrapping over my forearms and hands.

Gaspar’s tail struck the barrier.

The impact sent me skidding backward across the pavement.

The Plasma around my arms cracked.

It tried to hold.

Then it dissolved beneath the force of his attack.

The fifth tail came at me before I could move.

I raised my right arm.

Wind gathered around it, but not quickly enough.

The tail struck my shoulder.

Pain ripped through me as it threw me into the side of a parked truck. The metal door dented around my back, and I dropped to one knee beside it.

Gaspar did not give me time to breathe.

He walked forward, Plasma tails dragging gouges through the road behind him.

"You see the difference now?" he asked. "You may have a Symbiote, but you are not its master. You’re just carrying it."

I looked up at him.

His words got under my skin because part of me believed them.

I did not know enough about Dullahan.

I did not know how to shape its Plasma. I did not understand its limits or why it reacted on its own. I could use wind blades, Time Freeze, and Kinetic Reverse, but every ability still felt like something I had stumbled into rather than truly learned.

Gaspar had control.

He knew exactly what he was doing.

One of the tails came toward me again.

I moved aside.

It struck the truck door, crushing the metal inward. The force of the hit vibrated through the vehicle and into my back.

Another tail came from the opposite side.

I jumped onto the hood and rolled over it as the Plasma smashed through the windshield. Glass rained across the road.

Gaspar stood beyond the truck.

I could not keep dodging forever.

My wind attacks were not enough. He could block them. He could heal through them. And the more I threw at him, the more exhausted I became.

I needed something else.

Gaspar raised his hand.

The yellow Plasma gathered around his fist.

He punched toward me from several feet away.

The membrane shot forward, expanding into another giant hand.

I saw it coming.

This time, I did not try to block.

My left eye turned dark green.

The giant Plasma hand reached me.

I focused.

The force behind Gaspar’s attack shifted.

Instead of hitting me, the momentum twisted backward.

Gaspar’s eyes widened.

The Plasma hand stopped inches from my face.

Then it snapped back toward him.

The force that should have crushed me struck Gaspar instead.

He was thrown backward into the road, his body slamming across the pavement while his Plasma tore up the concrete around him. The impact left a shallow crater beneath his back.

For the first time, Gaspar looked genuinely shocked.

I breathed hard, keeping my dark-green eye open.

The recoil had not been clean.

A sharp pain stabbed behind my eye, and blood began to run from the corner of it. My vision trembled, but I held my ground.

Gaspar pushed himself up slowly.

The yellow Plasma around his body was damaged. Several layers had split apart. Blood ran from the side of his head where he had struck the ground, and his expression had changed completely.

The amusement was gone.

"What was that?" He asked.