Chapter 17: Emotional Damage

To pull this off, the timing would have to be immaculate; their margin of error less than a second.

Scarlet opened the bunker door just enough that it was no longer latched shut, leaving less than a centimeter of an opening between the frame and the door. Synching fully with Maus, she set the little guy on the floor facing the wall to the left of the door and in a direct interception path.

All decked out in what she was calling her ‘combat attire, Scarlet, for her part, moved far enough back that the door wouldn’t collide with her, but central enough on the landing that, if she’d calculated things correctly, she would be within striking distance of the bat.

The slow coalescence of mana began to peter off, and Scarlet sent a ‘ready’ signal towards Maus. The bond was already as open as it could get, and while the constant feedback from Maus was slightly disorienting, she was able to compartmentalize the foreign sensations and focus on what was going on outside.

With the door cracked ever-so-slightly open, it was easier to feel the mana fluctuations, but even more, now that her focus was on all her perception, she was getting significant emotional feedback she hadn’t expected. There was aggression there, but also something like determination and, possessiveness? The emotions that she’d found slightly alien before were coming through with much more clarity than they had the first time she’d engaged the bat, and she didn’t think it had anything to do with the stealth skill she speculated it had.

She put ‘wondering what changed’ to the back of her mind as she tracked the shadow bat’s measured retreat. The ‘setup’ before the ‘charge’.

The moment it accelerated, both she and Maus were ready.

There was a flurry of movement, an abrupt acceleration that distorted the mana around the bat in a way she might have found disorienting if she’d been any less focused.

Five meters, four, two, one: A sudden spike of mana, and then instead of the ‘thump’ of the reinforced-bat hitting unmoving metal, the door was thrown open so violently, it chipped the concrete wall. The metal of the handle set doorlatch deforming slightly as very stoppable force met easily movable object.

The bat slammed through the gap with a violent burst of motion, its form barely resolving before it tumbled inside. Most of its momentum had been lost in the collision, but it had enough remaining inertia to carry it just inside the bunker.

Disoriented, it fell to the ground in the same moment its skill wore off.

She didn’t even need to give the order as Maus was already moving. He was on the dark, greyish-black creature about the size of a rugby ball before it even hit the floor.

He vanished in a flicker of motion and reappeared directly behind and on top of it. His tiny form was a blur as he activated both Blink and Ravaging Bite in rapid succession. He struck like a cobra, his sharp little teeth finding their target before he blinked away again, reappearing outside in the yard, barely a meter away from the entrance.

Scarlet was moving the instant before he blinked away. Making it to the bat the moment he cleared the space.

When she’d been a young child, perhaps six or seven years old, her father had sent her to skating lessons. Wanting her out of his hair on the few days he’d had custody, but refusing to allow her to disgrace him by doing some ‘sissy-ass ice-fairy dance’, – his exact words – he made sure she was enrolled in ice hockey instead. (How leaping half a meter into the air, spinning at 400rpm, then landing on the blade of a knife was ‘sissy’ she’d never understood, but she could say that about a lot of things that man believed.)

The man had attended one game. Her first game. Back then she still didn’t have particularly good control of blocking out the ‘noise’, and the waves of energy that had buffeted her when the teams hit the ice had been so overwhelming she’d barely been able to skate in a straight line.

She’d had possession of the puck only once the entire game. She’d hit it, dead centre even. Only she’d hit it with her face, her headgear saving her from a broken nose and more missing baby teeth. She’d swung so hard she’d turned herself all the way around, a full 360, lost her balance, and faceplanted into the small black disk that had promptly skittered away.

Her father had never attended another of her games, but she hadn’t let that stop her from practicing her swing with a zeal that bordered on obsession. Textbook perfect form and balance had become muscle memory.

All that practice came flooding back like a buried instinct as she flipped her cane over, midair, and approached the now dazed and bleeding bat.

She stepped in, pivoted, cocked back, then drove forward – through the hips, mind the core – in a clean, controlled swing that would have made any Canadian proud. The motion instinctive and efficient as the metal handle connected with the creature’s side.

The impact was clean, solid. Dead on target.

It barely did any damage.

While worrying about timing she’d neglected to factor in her own low stats. It didn’t matter how weak the creature was to damage if she didn’t have enough strength to deal any. With Strength being her weakest stat, it was a measure of just how fragile the bat had to be that she’d even managed to stun it.

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The impact had sent the bat reeling backwards, keeping it distracted and disoriented, and shoving it back out of the bunker, and towards Maus. However, Scarlet hadn’t broken any of its bones, caused it any serious trauma, or done any meaningful damage that she could see.

Maus blinked back in, intercepting again before the creature could regain its bearings, forcing it into another erratic tumble as it tried to orient itself.

Thinking fast and realizing blunt damage was not going to get her anywhere, Scarlet changed tactics.

The cane twisted in her grip, her thumb finding the hidden catch in the handle. As she pulled, the head of the cane came free in one smooth motion, revealing the narrow blade concealed within.

Precision over force, she reminded herself. She remained steady, even as her body shifted to compensate for the slight drag in her injured leg.

The bat jerked as it was pummelled by Maus once more. Unfortunately, it had wised up to his attacks, and while he’d managed to clip a wing, he hadn’t been able to get a substantial bite on anything more vital.

The bat was recovering. Maus had been forced to blink away as a sudden spike of mana caused distortions in the air around the bat’s body.

It wasn’t out of mana then, and it obviously had more active skills, it just didn’t have enough power to shield itself with.

Scarlet was approaching as fast as she could. She could feel as the shadow bat became more frantic, its intent coming through to her clearly. It wanted out. It wanted to escape. After almost an hour of harassment, and a near fatal ambush, this sneaky sky-rat wanted to run away.

The going got tough, so the bat got out. Was that it?