The purple rain was all I could focus on. The pressure from that high of a distance speeding down had plugged my ears. All I could hear was ringing, and everything else was muffled for the moment.
The young lady's scream began to fade in as she fell backward in horror. The screaming quickly turned her face flush, which then led to sobbing. I could hear everything normally at this point. Her cries probably helped unclog my ears.
"Hey… miss? It's fine now. The monster's dead…" I said as I walked toward her, trying to comfort, though I was awkward. I extended my hand, still bloodied with purple. "Let's get you out of here."
She looked at my hand and then slowly met my eyes. I thought that finally she had calmed down. But her eyes widened, and she began to let out another horrified scream.
Was it me? I mean, come on, lady, I knew I was bloodied up, but had she seen herself? Though I supposed it was my fault she looked that way now. I didn't anticipate her being there when I had planned to jump this monster from the skyscraper next to us.
It took me a minute to notice that while she was screaming, she was inching away from me to the point where our eyes no longer met. She was looking past me.
I had reactive and heightened senses, so it didn't take me long to figure it out as I stood before her. All I had to see were the faint reflections in her eyes...
"Crap." I said, letting out a displeasing exhale.
Right then, the shattered corpse of the disintegrated monster began floating midair as if on puppet strings all around me. The decimated pieces connected, making up the creature's figure once more.
It continued to do so until it somewhat looked as it did—except the spot where my fist had landed from that fall could not be mended and left a large gaping hole in its chest.
I had flown down way too fast and didn't obliterate it properly... Oops.
"Well that's rare," I said out loud, throwing my hands in my pockets as I watched it regenerate. The young lady behind me still screamed all the while, finally running away. Good riddance.
Before she could get completely away, however, a limb or tentacle of some sort flew out from the back of the creature and jetted toward her. Before it caught up, I grabbed it and crushed it with my grip.
The end piece of it whipped back to the mending beast as the other half I was still holding began to wrap around me.
As it pieced itself whole again, it whipped out more of those tentacle things and wrapped me completely, snarling aggressively in my face.
I then looked behind me without a care just in time to see the young lady scurry away from whence she came.
The beast snarled again as I slowly turned my head back to it.
"Keeper, shut up. If you wanted to eat me, you would have done it already." It squeezed tighter like it understood me but didn't listen.
"What's wrong? Can't do it?" I said as my eyes widened and challenged the beast. It retracted just a bit, just enough for me to notice. Only Grade 3 and up monsters could develop thought. This hesitancy was proof of that.
"I see… so you really are a Grade 3."
Classic Havoc, misjudging the situation. Or maybe he didn't and just wanted to get out of fighting. He was known to find creative ways to get himself out of situations he did not want to be a part of. Times like this had me questioning if he truly was a genius or just stupid… Perhaps it was the latter.
The creature's body rippled like it had finally made a decision. Its grip tightened around me, attempting to crush my bones.
"If we were having a conversation, you suck at breaking the ice," I said to it, "You can't even break me."
I flexed, and that was all it took to break free from the Grade 3's grasp. I could tell it was shocked I managed such a thing. And to its surprise, those pieces didn't restore themselves.
I took my jacket off and threw it across somewhere; I only had a white tank underneath.
The black coating covered me up to my jawline and stopped, just before a team of large, sharp fangs lay exposed on my face and wrapped around the sides of my head. I probably didn't need this much, but if there was one thing I learned it's to never underestimate your opponent. Monster or not, this thing managed to catch me by surprise with this Regeneration ability...
Besides, to it, I was probably an anomaly as well. Especially with this form I now took on. Not sure what it really was, but I had always just called it Copper magic... Even I didn't know.
The monster roared and took its giant, heavy left arm and swung down on me like a hammer. I stayed in place, not even trying to dodge it, and caught it between my neck and shoulder as it slammed down—cratering the ground even more than it already was.
It roared again to me for a good while...
"Ok."
I stood there dispassionately at its response like nothing happened, gently placing my hands on its arm and throwing it upward. The motion alone sent it behind itself, dislocating and smashing the ground.
Exposed now, I darted to its torso and gave it a barrage of punches with enough power behind each hit that it could not regenerate fast enough. I avoided hitting its dislocated arm...
Desperate, the creature ripped the limp arm off with a couple of its tentacle limbs and jumped a distance away from me.
My punches were light, to say the least. And I had avoided the arm because I wanted to test a theory...
The Grade 3, a ways away from me now, mended the deep holes in its chest and morphed its body—though not fully regenerating the spots I hit.
It would come back for the arm later, too, since it wasn't yet destroyed.
In fact, the areas where my attacks did make contact were avoided when regenerated—mended around to fill the spaces. The gaping hole in its chest, however, was proof that it could not regenerate the larger wounds I inflicted. The sheer force of that earlier plunge was what shattered it, but not by direct contact.
So, it got me thinking…
What if my fists did make contact onto all of it?
The Black Wolves Vice Captain would call me a bonehead for such a "grand" idea and then proceed to watch me execute it.
Besides, I wasn't even sure why this creature couldn't regenerate the parts of itself I managed to hit. But the answer didn't matter now. Action does.
It wants the severed arm on the ground next to me, and I wasn't bothered by that. It's going to be bait.
The creature jumped around the distance between us in a half-circular pathway in an attempt to distract me from its severed arm. I remained in place, watching its every move.
Then it jumped high up into the sky above me and reached out with the stump of a limb where its arm used to be. Those tentacles again shot out from its severed part and reached toward me… or at least, that's how it made it seem.
As previously deduced, Monsters Grade 3 and up can develop thought. The higher the Grade the higher its intelligence. This one was just using basic strategy all to get its arm.
I quickly shot over to its giant arm on the ground and lifted it with ease over my head, the tentacles closing in. I aimed and fired it parallel and past the tentacles—directly to its main body. The claws of the arm were so sharp that when it made impact on the creature's body, it utterly skewered its torso, just above that gaping hole I gave it, and stuck there.
Not knowing what just happened, it kept its descent of tentacles toward me.
I then readied my stance, squatting. Fist to the gravel, I pushed off the ground like a trampoline. Blowing past the tentacles and destroying them instantly. Zero chance of recovery.
It was discombobulated and had nowhere to go in the sky. Perhaps it could escape from this, but I wasn't about to give it the chance.
I unleashed a Gatling of punches starting from its silhouette and made my way up until it was just a head.
The last punch was an effortless one, it had an utterly terrified look on its face as it beheld me. I could sense its fear before death. For a moment, I actually felt sorry for it. Thing was—if you harm to kill, be prepared to be harmed and killed yourself. It's not a one-sided idea. Not that this thing could comprehend that.
I'm being paid to exterminate. Not walk this thing outside of town.
BANG!
The sound of the last punch echoed.
No debris. No chunks of monster meat. Completely and utterly obliterated to nothingness.
I landed on the rummaged plaza, slowly getting up from my crouched position, watching it all disintegrate and flutter up into the air—into the ethers.
My black coating disappeared. Using it here was overkill, I knew that now.
The blood on me even evaporated; a clear sign that a monster had been beaten. I sometimes wondered why they fade and don't remain like us beings do after death. But the answer to that didn't concern me unless it was relevant to the mission. And in this case. It did not.
"Alright. Time for the mission rewards." As I said this, a group of World Magistral Army officers came flooding in from all directions to the scene. Just in time to witness only me, this wrecked plaza turned into a battlefield, and the monster entirely gone…
"Sup, guys! I defeated the—"
"Put your hands up! By order of the W.M.A., you're under arrest."