Xander vol.1 Transmutation (7 page)

She decided not to look
back at him, seeing how that ended up before. Instead, she poured
her energy into running faster. Concentrating as best she could,
she lifted roots from the trees behind her, hoping that one might
succeed in tripping, or at the very least, delaying
Richard.

But he was ruthless. He
was using his tentacles to latch onto the trees and catapult
himself forward, closing the distance between then quicker than
Nora would have liked. And before she could use the same technique
to speed her escape, she felt the crisp, cold, hard metal of
Richard’s tentacle come clasping around her midsection.

She felt the air be
knocked from her as her momentum was suddenly cut short. Her body
curled around the tentacle at the abrupt stop, her chestnut hair
swaying forward to frame her face. Her lips parted in a breathless
exhale of shock as she was dragged back towards her
captor.

Her hands clawed at the
cold metal that was continuously squeezing her midsection. Her feet
desperately tried to reach the ground and provide some sort of
anchor against Richard’s force, but she was only brought higher as
she was turned around to face him.

“
Richard,” she wheezed,
her face scrunching in pain as the metal coiled tighter.

“
You cannot stop the
future, Nora,” Richard cooed.

“
Look at what he’s doing,
Richard!” Nora pleaded. “What you’re doing. What you’re becoming …
Richard please, we can’t let him do this,” she wheezed.

“
It is the
future.”

“
It’s human
extinction!”

“
It’s human
evolution
!” Richard
corrected in a bellow. Nora let out a breathy sob.

“
Evolution,” she wheezed.
“And Sarah? Was death her evolution? Have you forgotten your
own
sister
?” Nora
shouted at him. Richard’s lips fell into a hard line at the
mention. He was silent for a moment too long before
saying,

“
I’m a strong believer in
Darwinism.” Nora’s eyes widened at the statement, her shock slowly
morphing into fear and disgust. “I’m offering you your life because
you were friends. Come back with me, Nora,” Richard offered once
again.

Richard felt the wet slap
of saliva on his cheek.

“
You really are a
monster,” Nora spat.

His closed eyes slowly
opened to see Nora’s defiant face, almost immediately shifting into
that of pain as the metal arm squeezed harshly. She cried out as
she felt the strain on both her bones and organs. Her breathing
became short as she desperately clawed at the metal. Her eyes
watered at the intensifying pain as it became increasingly harder
to breathe. Their eyes met, and she knew that she had been given
her last offer.

Her eyes darted about, her
brain racing to find a way out with what oxygen it had left. She
focused on the ground below them, wincing as the tentacle harshened
its grip.

“
Don’t make me do this,”
she coughed.

But he didn’t grant her a
response. His gaze remained cold as he waited for Nora’s final
breath. Seeing that she had no choice, Nora said a silent goodbye
to Richard as she called forth a summoning. Within the instant, two
halves of a hollow sphere shaped themselves from the ground and
came to hover on either side of Richard. He looked around
skeptically, but before he had a proper chance to react, Nora
slapped the two halves together around him, crushing the tentacle
that held Nora and allowing her to fall to the ground.

She sent vines to wrap
around the sphere as she sealed it, before slapping her hands
against the ground and launching the sphere into the earth. When
the dirt and dust had settled, the sphere was beneath the now
smooth surface, trapping Richard within it.

Nora panted as she laid on
the ground, the sting from Richard’s relentless squeezing still
very much present. Overwhelmed, she exhaled several sobs as she
stared guiltily at the ground and whom now lay beneath
it.

That is, before it
shook.

Nora’s body flinched as
she felt the tremor below her. She rushed to her knees as her hands
felt around on the rugged surface of the forest floor. A crack
ripped through the space between her hands, making her gasp and
scramble to her feet. She swore under her breath, making a b-line
for the town.

********

“Has he gotten anything
yet?” the clothing store manager asked optimistically.

But his employee shook her
head no. Her arms crossed, and her expression, as she watched
Xander, turned more and more into that of resentment. The manager
had been on her case for the past day, making sure that she was the
epitome of sale associates.

“
No,” she grumbled with a
sigh, her fingers drumming on her arm.

“
What happened yesterday?”
he asked, watching as Xander picked up and put down different
shirts.

“
I don’t know. He got some
call from some women and booked it.”

The manager gave a nod of
understanding, glancing at his wedding ring.

“
I know how that is. Well,
get over there and see if he needs help. He looks like a fish out
of water,” he urged, nudging her forward.

She sighed, reluctantly
making her way over. Xander was holding up a navy collared shirt to
his chest, and looking down at it considerably, as he had done to
many others before setting them back down.

“
Finding everything okay,
sir?” she asked with trying politeness.

He spun around to see her,
the shirt still being held up to his chest. He straightened his
posture a bit and nodded.

“
Ah, human, there you are.
What do you say to this?” he asked her, flattening out the shirt
against him.

“
Nani,” she corrected with
just a hint of annoyance.

“
Nani?” Xander asked with
some confusion. “What is that?”

“
My
name
.”

“
Oh. I don’t think that
answers my question.”

Nani’s regrettable slew of
insults were interrupted just in time by the collective screaming
of several people outside the store. Both Xander and Nani, as well
as everyone else inside the store, turned towards the glass walls
of the store’s entrance to see the slowly forming crowds of people
running to the right. The small crowds soon became swarms, causing
the floor to tremble and the people inside to panic.

“
What’s going on?” Nani
breathed, taking a few steps away from the front of the store,
while a few people rushed to join the crowd.

The lighting in the store
flickered, as did the lighting in the rest of the mall, which drew
Xander’s attention – as well as his curiosity. The people continued
in large numbers for several minutes before finally they began to
trickle down into a small mob. Xander placed the shirt he had been
holding in Nani’s hands as he walked towards the open doors of the
store, which some people were still running out of.

He looked in the direction
the people had been running from, listening intently for anything
out of the ordinary. And when he heard a thud, his eyes sparked
with curiosity, encouraging his body to move towards the area of
panic. Nani looked on in disbelief, taking an instinctive step
forward out of shock.

“
H-Hey!” Nani called out
to him as he walked in the opposite direction and reasoning. “Hey!”
she shouted again when he fell out of view.

Walking towards the area
of panic, the structure of the mall seemed to get worse and worse,
like a bad horror movie. The lighting had gotten dim, there were
wires hanging from lighting fixtures, and there were what looked
like pieces of the stone walls, as well as glass, scattered about
the floor. Xander’s eyes couldn’t look around fast enough there
were so many disturbances to analyze.

But his thoughts were
interrupted by the sound of a woman screaming. He lazily looked in
her direction, waiting for what he thought to be another citizen
come running in the opposite direction. But instead, he heard the
cutting of air – of something being passed through it. With
furrowed brows, he looked up towards the scream, and was shocked to
see a body being thrown his way.

Immediately he ran back,
arms open in preparation to catch her. Which he did, just barely,
as she fell towards the floor. He grunted as they made contact, his
feet skidding against the floor to a stop. He bent over her, his
strained eyes looked down at her scuffed and bruised body. Or what
he could see, anyway, from between her green t-shirt and sage brown
pants.

Slowly, her eyes
fluttered, before popping wide open, looking up a Xander in shock,
mostly from the fact that she was not unconscious on the floor. Her
hand rushed up to grip at Xander’s clothing, as if to be sure that
he was real.

“
You … caught me?” she
asked, stunned.

“
Are you alright?” asked
Xander as he nodded to her question.

He set her down, making
sure that she could stand alone before letting go of her
completely. Nora stared at him for a moment longer, almost in a
daze before vigorously shaking her head in realization. Her hand
gripped at his clothing again, this time trying to push him
away.

“
You have to get out of
here,” she urged.

Xander frowned as he
swatted her hand away. But before he could question her behavior,
or why she had been tossed through the air, the answer presented
himself. Richard sighed as he stepped on what was left of one of
the halved statues that decorated the fountain in the middle of the
mall, whose water was slowly flooding the floor from the now
cracked and damaged rim.

“
You shouldn’t have come
to town, Nora,” Richard sighed as he hopped down into the now
shallow water of the fountain.

Xander squinted at the man
in silver, before his eyes glanced to the now cowering woman, who
was taking small, but noticeable steps behind him. Two and two
clicked, and Xander frowned.

“
Are you the one who threw
this woman?” Xander asked bluntly. Richard raised a brow in
amusement.

“
That’s right, Romeo,”
Richard answered honestly. “And I plan on doing a lot more. So I’d
hightail it, if I were you.”

“
I was going to say the
same to you,” Xander countered, getting a scoff of laughter from
Richard.

Nora pulled on Xander’s
clothing in disbelief as he took a step towards Richard.

“
No!” she yelled in a
whisper. Xander looked back at her with a slight frown. “He’ll kill
you,” she warned. Xander gave a reassuring smile, but to her, it
seemed as if he’d gone mad, seeing him so calm.

“
A human cannot kill me,”
Xander assured. But Nora shook her head frantically.

“
You don’t understand,”
she started.

“
I’d listen to her if I
were you,” Richard advised, hopping down from the fountain’s bowl
with a splat. “Cause I ain’t no human. Not anymore,” he said with a
smile as his metal tentacles started sprouting from his
back.

Xander looked on in
admitted shock, his brows arching as he watched. Nora pulled on his
sleeve again, again gaining his attention momentarily.

“
Please,” she pleaded.
“Please, you have to run and get help!”

Xander tugged his arm away
from her, turning around again and stepping towards Richard with a
gaze of defiance.

“
I
am
help,” he indicated.

Nora looked on with her
mouth agape as Richard laughed, taking a step forward to accept the
challenge.

“
Richard, don’t,” she
begged.

“
Can it,” he scowled. “He
walked into this and decided to stay. Let the man fight. His blood
will be on his own hands.”

And in that moment, two
metal tentacles sprang from Richard’s back, shooting towards Xander
with the intent to kill, while another snaked towards Nora. Seeing
them all, Xander reached back and hurriedly took Nora into his
arms, making her scream as he tossed her up into the
air.

While Richard’s attention
drifted momentarily to Nora’s body, Xander hopped up on the first
tentacle as it dug into the ground. Then the second, and finally
the third, grabbing Nora as she fell and landing a ways away from
the tentacles, placing the shaken Nora back on the
floor.

Xander’s violet eyes were
still locked on Richard’s steel ones as they crinkled above a
smile. Slowly, he turned to face the two. Nora was now gazing up at
Xander in amazement, though her fear for his life was still
prominent.

“
Alright, Hercules. Not
bad,” Richard chuckled, giving his kudos.

“
Leave while you can,”
Xander warned, getting another laugh from Richard.

“
You’ve got some balls.
What do you think this is? Comic Con? This ain’t some reenactment,
buddy,” Richard toyed.

“
And I’m not your buddy,”
Xander responded. Richard sighed, rolled his eyes. At least he
could say he tried.