'A terror, it's a damned terror!'
For the first time in his entire life, he froze.
His body was paralyzed from an overwhelming feeling of panic and fear settling into his bones. His mind, a weapon sharpened by his experience and knowledge, felt dulled.
His heartbeat was like a war drum, beating so rapidly he could hear the blood rushing through his ears, through his arms and legs and his chest.
It was overwhelming, no, it wasn't just overwhelming but nearly overpowering.
Through it all, he stood frozen, his eyes focused singularly on the chimera as if some curse had been placed on his soul, locking him in place with only the thoughts of how beautiful, how overwhelming, how enchanting, how dangerous, how dastardly it truly was…
The lightning in his chest surged, a vicious spark that set his veins alight with liquid fire and caused his mind to erupt with pain.
"Ah…!"
His shroud vanished, his pained shout echoing through the street.
Seirios, who had already long passed him to keep up appearances turned swiftly, his sapphire eyes locking onto him with clear worry.
He gritted his teeth with a pained grimace and pushed through it. Pain was an old companion by now, and he had felt far worse in the past few days.
With thunder in his veins, his voice sounded more akin to a howl.
"Seirios! It's a terror! A terror!"
The words were hard to get out, some of the most difficult in his entire life and he could feel blood beginning to build in his mouth as the lightning tore through his vocal cords.
Seirios didn't hesitate when listening to his warning. Turning his body and using his enhanced strength, he pushed forward, running through the streets in an almost animalistic way.
'Good', he couldn't help but think.
Even in this dire situation, Seirios was still sticking to one of their recently created contingencies. The further he got, the further Artorias could simply teleport.
Unfortunately, he couldn't keep his focus for too long, as the hex of the chimera kept building in his mind, trying to overwhelm and hypnotize him.
Cutting into his bleeding gums with his teeth, he didn't allow it to take more of a foothold in his broken mind than it already had.
Using the pain his body was feeling as an anchor, he turned to look at Seirios' retreating form, and tried to pull on the shadows beneath him to escape…
…But did he really want to?
The shadows stopped.
The abomination wouldn't hurt him after all, it was friendly, it was lonely. It just wanted a friend…nothing so angelic, so divine looking, would ever wish for his death, would it?
Growling, he pulled on the lightning in his chest once more, the flicker of surging pain overpowering the progressively stronger growing mind hex.
He used that moment to utter a single command.
"Get me away from here!"
He sounded insane, seemingly talking to nothing but the air and himself. Truly it sounded more like a cry for help. It even caused Seirios to turn and look at him, his expression complicated…
…Yes, the abomination was lonely, the angelic chimera just wanted some friends. Why only have one when it could have two-
The shadows, his ever-faithful companions, pulled him into their dark abyss not a moment later.
He was there for what felt like only a moment, but it was enough.
His body, a weightless entity in a world of nothing, took a greedy gasp of non-existent air, his mind, a contradicting mess, cleared. The shadows took and consumed everything that wasn't him, before pushing him out.
His vision cleared to the dark city and Seirios' wide eyes, but before his cousin could react or say anything, Artorias had already grabbed him by his shoulder and began running, pulling him along.
"Run dammit!"
He pushed Seirios in front of him, only to have to grab him again with a pained grunt when his cousin stumbled. Pulling him to his feet with all the strength he had available, Artorias all but carried his heavier cousin for a moment, before finally letting him go.
"What happened!?"
The world around him felt like a slipstream of barely processed information. It was only because of the lightning currently coursing through his veins that he even had a clue of what was happening.
"A mind hex! It's a chimera!"
"A what!?"
He roughly grabbed Seirios by the shoulder, pulling him through an alleyway. They were lucky that just the mere presence of a terror could scatter entire areas of Fallen Spawn within minutes.
Otherwise, the alleyway would be all but a death trap, full of waiting abomination just dying to eat them alive.
"A chimera!" he wheezed, pointing at another corner they both swiftly turned to. "The ancient Greeks wrote a lot about them, but they never truly understood the dangers of these terrors!"
"There!" Seirios shouted, pointing to an exit for the alleyway.
Grunting, he pushed his scattered mind to focus and let Solthia's blessing ease. His body was damaged, but it would heal. He had just enough energy to spare.
His mind, on the other hand, would take some time.
Mind hexes wielded by abominations were among one of the vilest things an Ascended could experience after all.
"So do we hide!?"
Seirios was thankfully asking the right questions. If they survived this, then Artorias promised himself to gladly explain to his cousin the dangers of ever facing such a Fallen Spawn.
Well, if they survived, he'd probably learn more than enough to not need the lesson.
"We need to run and plan! This thing is too smart to be tricked; it's an apex predator literally made for destroying armies!"
Seirios wordlessly cursed, exiting the alleyway first and pulling him along with a grunt.
Rough it may have been, Artorias appreciated the support either way.
His body simply wasn't built for doing such runs. The fact that Seirios was actively working with him and not simply running away was also something he was learning to appreciate.
"I don't sense it!" Seirios reported with a frown, swivelling his head and audibly sniffing the air.
'It left us?' he wondered, feeling astonished. 'Wait, shit, no, it's too smart for us to lose. Is it playing with us instead…?'
That, unfortunately, made far more sense than simply getting bored of them. It was an abomination twisted to mimic human intelligence and grown through corruption, playing with its food was the far likelier reason for its sudden disappearance.
No matter, Artorias silently decided. He'd use the opportunity presented to them for all that it was worth.
"In there!" he called, pointing at a flower shop only a street away.
Seirios didn't bother questioning him.
Turning, he sprinted directly for its front doors, whilst Artorias, the slower of the two, followed through a step in the shadows. Appearing at the shattered glass doors first and wrenching them open.
Seirios grunted his thanks, all but throwing himself into the building, with Artorias following not a second later.
Both of them fell to the ground only a moment later, taking greedy gasps of air to calm their rapidly beating hearts.
"We…we got lucky…" Artorias said placing his hand against his chest, as if he was attempting to physically hold his beating heart and force it to calm down. "We…damn it…we need to plan…and you…I need to teach you some things pavo."