Chapter 442: Ravager

I stood in the middle of the ruined street with my right arm still stretched out in front of me.

For a few seconds, I could not move.

The wind had stopped.

The dark-green cyclone was gone, leaving only dust, broken concrete, and scraps of yellow Plasma scattered across the road. My arm shook violently from the force I had forced through it. The skin around my knuckles was torn, and blood ran down my wrist to my fingertips.

My face had gone pale.

My left eye stayed closed because I could not bear the pain of opening it. It felt swollen and hot, as if the Kinetic Reverse had burned something inside it. The other side of my face was streaked with blood, sweat, and dirt.

Every part of my body screamed.

My ribs hurt.

My back hurt.

My head throbbed with each beat of my heart.

My breathing had completely fallen apart. I tried to pull air into my lungs, but each breath came out uneven and sharp, scraping against the pain in my chest.

I looked toward the building.

Gaspar had been thrown through its wall.

The front of the structure had been torn open by the explosion. Concrete blocks, bricks, shattered glass, and twisted metal lay across the sidewalk. The interior had collapsed into darkness, a cloud of dust rising slowly from the hole where he had disappeared.

I waited for movement.

Nothing came.

Then I coughed.

Blood sprayed across the road.

My knees gave out.

I dropped onto one knee and caught myself with one hand before I could hit the pavement completely. My palm pressed into cracked concrete, and the contact sent another burst of pain through my arm.

"Damn it..."

The words barely came out.

I stayed there, breathing hard, trying to keep my vision from going black.

Then I noticed something.

The Screamer had stopped.

The horrible mechanical buzzing that had filled the Boardwalk was gone.

For the first time that night, the air was not vibrating with it.

I could hear the real sounds around me again.

Distant gunfire.

Infected snarls farther down the road.

The wind moving through the empty buildings.

My own ragged breathing.

I lifted my head.

The Three Stones Matrix had been thrown onto its side by the shockwave. It lay several feet away from where it had stood, its cube-shaped body cracked and partly buried under rubble. The wires connecting it to the speaker devices had snapped loose. Sparks jumped from the torn ends before fading.

The Stones still glowed.

But the Screamer’s silver Stone was no longer emitting its awful sound.

I had stopped it.

At least that part was over.

I forced myself back up.

My legs felt unstable beneath me, but I stayed standing. I needed to make sure Gaspar was down before I could go back to the others.

If he got up again, he could restart the Matrix.

Or worse.

I had to kill him.

My hand axe was still embedded in the wall near the entrance of the ruined shop. I limped toward it, stepping around debris and yellow stains left by Gaspar’s Plasma. My fingers curled around the handle.

The moment I pulled the axe free, pain shot through my shoulder.

I almost dropped it.

But I held on.

Then I started walking toward the hole in the building.

Each step felt heavier than the last.

The wall had been completely destroyed. Moonlight reached into the ruined interior through the gap, revealing overturned furniture, broken shelves, and thick dust coating everything. I climbed over fallen chunks of concrete and entered the wreckage carefully.

"Gaspar..." I called.

No answer.

I looked through the dust.

Nothing.

There was no body beneath the broken wall. No yellow Plasma moving across the floor. No blood trail leading into the darkness.

He should have been here.

The attack had hit him directly.

I had felt it.

I took another step forward.

My grip tightened on the axe.

The building was too quiet.

A cold instinct crawled up my spine.

Danger.

I did not know how I knew it.

My body simply reacted.

I tried to jump back.

Something struck before I could move.

A massive yellow tail burst from the darkness behind me and wrapped around my waist.

"Nguh!!"

The tail tightened.

I was lifted off the ground so quickly that my boots left the floor before I could find anything to grab. The axe slipped from my fingers and clattered onto the rubble below.

The tail dragged me backward through the broken wall.

Then it turned me around.

My breath caught.

A creature stood in the street.

It was taller than Gaspar had been.

Much taller.

Its body was made of yellowish membrane, but this was not the controlled Plasma I had seen him use before. This was something complete. Something alive in a way the tails had never been.

It stood on thick, uneven legs, its torso broad and twisted beneath layers of moving membrane. Long arms hung at its sides, ending in sharp claw-like fingers. Yellow-white light burned in its eyes, bright enough to cut through the darkness.

Its mouth opened.

Rows of sharp teeth filled it.

The sight rooted me in place.

Gaspar’s Symbiote.

Not just his Plasma.

Its real form.

The creature leaned closer.

The tail around my waist kept me suspended in front of it, my arms pinned against my sides by the pressure. I struggled, trying to reach for the axe below me, but my body was too exhausted and the grip around me was too strong.

The monster tilted its head.

A long tongue slid from between its teeth.

Then it dragged across my cheek.

I flinched.

The tongue felt cold and slick against my bloodied skin.

The creature pulled back, its glowing eyes fixed on me.

"I know this taste."

The voice shook through the street.

It did not sound like Gaspar’s voice.

It was deeper, rougher, and layered with something that made the words feel as if they were coming from inside the walls and pavement at the same time.

The Symbiote licked its lips.

"I know it."

I tried to move again.

My arms strained against the tail.

Nothing.

My chest tightened.

"W...Who the hell are you?" I asked.

The creature’s mouth widened.

"My name..."

Its voice rumbled lower.

"...is Ravager."

The yellow-white glow in its eyes brightened.

"And who is the Symbiote inside you?" It asked with narrowed eyes.

I stared at it.

Ravager leaned closer.

The smell coming off it was wrong. Not blood. Not decay. Something metallic and sour, like old chemicals mixed with burning plastic.

"Tell me."

I did not answer.

Dullahan stayed silent inside me.

Maybe it did not want Ravager to know.

Maybe it could not speak.

Or maybe it knew exactly what this thing was and did not want me to give it anything.

Ravager’s expression shifted.

The creature looked pleased.

Its mouth opened wider.

The rows of teeth separated until the dark space inside its throat became visible.

The tail around my waist lifted me higher.

I struggled harder.

My fingers reached toward the ground.

The axe lay only a few feet below me.

If I could move one hand free!

Ravager opened its jaws fully.

The creature’s breath washed over my face.

Then something flew through the air between us.

A small sphere.

It struck the ground directly beneath Ravager.

My eyes widened.

I recognized it immediately.

The device Kunta had given me.

She had called it something like a bomb, though it did not work like a normal one. It was supposed to disrupt Symbiotes with powerful sound waves.

Ravager looked down.

The sphere began to glow.

Then it exploded.

The blast was not fire.

It was sound.

A violent wave burst outward from the sphere, striking Ravager at point-blank range. The noise was high and unbearable, drilling into my ears and skull with enough force to make every thought disappear.

Ravager screamed.

The monster’s body twisted violently.

Its yellow membrane began splitting apart.

The tail around my waist loosened as the Plasma tore away from its larger form in strips, peeling back and collapsing toward the ground. Beneath it, I caught sight of Gaspar’s body.

He was underneath Ravager.

The monster had been wrapped around him.

Gaspar’s face was twisted in pain as the sound waves ripped through the Plasma covering him.

Ravager released me.

I fell.

Before I hit the ground, the yellow membrane pulled itself backward and threw Gaspar away from the blast. He was sent flying through the air, his body disappearing behind a wrecked car farther down the street.

I hit the pavement hard.

The sound wave reached me fully.

Pain exploded inside my head.

I grabbed both sides of my skull and curled onto my side as blood ran from my nose and ears. My brain felt as though it was being crushed from inside. The street spun beneath me, and I could not tell whether I was screaming or only hearing the awful noise still tearing through my mind.