As expected, both Aberrations spoke the same language as the girl Nova had run into a few days earlier. However, unlike that girl's soft yet sharp tone, the red-skinned woman's voice was much more aggressive, as if she were about to start yelling at the crustacean. The fact that she was pointing a gun made it even more obvious.
'So if they're criminals...'
He frowned. Judging the distance between them was hard—especially with only one eye.
The red-skinned woman continued to speak, becoming increasingly angry. Her messy hair, partially hiding her eyes, moved like unruly bangs. Her small horns glinted under the neon lights, and after waving the gun in front of the crustacean, her hood fell down, completely revealing her face.
There was a strange beauty about her. Her blood-red skin showed pink scars near her collarbone, and her neckline was covered by a tight black garment that protected her upper torso, leaving her abdomen exposed. Her chest accentuated with every movement under the cape, and her legs were cybernetic prosthetics that mimicked the humanoid limbs she may have had in the past.
Each step sounded like metal hitting the ground. Her teeth, sharp as a saw, gleamed white as she spoke.
The crustacean crawled backward, groaning, foam coming out of its jaws. Its shiny blue chitin was dented on its large head, as if it had been hit several times; its eyes, protruding above the chitin, blinked and hid inside their sockets.
It resembled a chitin-plated crab covered in small spikes more than any other crustacean; however, its anatomy was strange. Its right arm had a huge claw, while its left arm ended in a hand with four articulated chitin fingers. It also had two double-jointed legs with sharp edges at the ends, which tore the ground with a loud noise.
In short, the crustacean was just as grotesque as any other Aberration.
Nova felt no compassion. Somehow, this specimen evoked bad memories of the Sand Octopus.
'One very aggressive criminal, huh… I'd better get out of here before I become its target,' he thought.
Stealthily, Nova slid across the ground and stood up, ready to leave. As he took his first step, a gunshot rang out: a shell casing fell to the ground. The crustacean's screeches ceased and a dead silence filled the alley.
He froze for a moment, shocked by the brutality of the event, but then he remembered that these creatures were the enemy, so he continued on. As he was about to exit, his eye lit up orange: his Spectrum of Anticipation skill—Omen of Danger—had been activated.
In his vision, he saw himself advancing stealthily until he reached the outside; as he stepped onto the sidewalk, a detonation echoed and, instantly, a bullet pierced his head: he fell dead.
He blinked as he returned to reality.
A chill ran down his spine. His primal survival instinct kicked in, and a tear of blood slid down his face due to the sharp pain his Spectrum inflicted on him.
'If I leave here, I will die.'
There was no time to think. Although he couldn't see her, his omen told him that somehow she could see him.
He looked up, frowning. 'The walls...' he thought.
The walls of the alley, tall and covered in pipes and damp, could be used to climb up to the rooftops, but he had to be quick. Luckily, Nova already knew what to do.
Hearing a metallic footstep nearby, he jumped with all his strength against the side wall.
The red-skinned woman, seeing him emerge from the shadows of the trash cans and jump between the walls with tremendous agility, aimed her gun and began to shoot.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Nova jumped between the two walls in a zigzag pattern as the bullets grazed his heels. He moved like a white blur moving quickly from side to side between the walls. And he had to be quick, otherwise he could lose momentum, resulting in a direct fall to his death.
The red woman clicked her tongue in exasperation. For a moment, a red light flickered beneath her bangs. She holstered her gun and jumped toward the wall, repeating Nova's movements.
The boy looked down when he heard the thuds as she leaned against the walls.
'She's following me!'
He desperately increased his speed and shot upward like a torrent. Soon, he reached the roof of the building in one leap. He landed, his boots scraping the ground, his eye reflecting the neon lights of the city, which were slowly fading into the crimson light of dawn. The rays grazed the cornices, tinging the landscape with shades of yellow and red.
He ran toward that light, as the yellow sun rose above the horizon. He jumped between the rooftops of buildings, while two more gunshots echoed behind him.
He was not wounded by the bullets, and his Anticipation Spectrum did not activate again.
"Damn it!"
He knew that if he looked back, he would die, because he could still hear the red woman stomping on the ground with her cybernetic legs. And that was terrifying! But he had no choice but to keep running and jumping.
Near a large antenna, Nova jumped to pass between the diamond-shaped beams. He grabbed one of the beams to climb a little way up the antenna, then jumped out to reach the next rooftop.
His cape fluttered in the rhythm of the chase, and bullets grazed his body with murderous intent, leaving behind the sound of detonations and soft smoke that vanished into the cold air.
'My Spectrum isn't activating. That means I'm not in danger for now.'
But the red woman is still back there! Nova didn't know how fast that woman was, but just hearing her heavy footsteps sent chills down his spine. He gritted his teeth, imagining that she wasn't going to use those cybernetic legs to run even faster and catch up to him.
God damn that thought! Before jumping to the next rooftop, he felt something grab his shoulder with tremendous force. His body stopped abruptly, causing his hood to fall off. In the next second, the force made him look back as he swayed toward the void.
Then, his gaze met that of the red woman; her bangs had been lifted by the jump between rooftops. She leveled the gun at his face, her expression twisted with fury and despair similar to that of a human. Her eyes were crimson with dark sclera, and black veins protruded from the sides of her eyelids.
In her gaze lay the intention to shoot. Accompanying her intentions, her grip on Nova's shoulder was beastly. The boy felt like his shoulder was going to be broken at any moment, but something happened.
She opened her eyes and mouth in surprise. Something changed in her when she finally saw Nova's face; her lips trembled. In a raspy, bewildered whisper, she said:
"Human..."
She spoke in the language of Terra, but Nova paid no attention. Fearing for his life, he twisted in the air and kicked the woman's hand. She dropped her hand back as the gun fired.
The bullet passed close to his head and hit the glass of the adjacent building.
Now out of immediate danger, Nova pushed off with his feet against the woman's chest, shoving her toward the facade of the building behind him, while he crashed into the window of the building in front, breaking the glass and falling onto a strange semicircular sofa.
Then he ran, ignoring the hideous creatures inside who stared at him in shock. He kicked his way through a couple of doors until he reached the other side of the building after a few seconds.
Just as he had entered, he broke through the window again and threw himself onto the roof five meters below.
"Crap! Crap! Crap! Crap!"
He fell onto the concrete; something cracked inside him as he cushioned the blow by rolling on the ground, but he barely noticed.
His ragged breathing and spiraling thoughts forced him to run with all his might. The aura of Anticipation permeated his body, and his one eye glowed intensely. The paranoia that she might still be behind him was overwhelming—stronger than anything he'd ever felt.
He kept going without stopping: he slid down a slanted glass roof and jumped to the edge to reach another rooftop. So paranoid about the possibility of being caught, he misstepped and slipped, falling into the void.
"Not this time," he thought, drawing his sword.
With desperate skill, he plunged the sword into the wall with all his strength. The concrete and metal broke loudly, leaving a long broken line downwards.
The blade hit something hard and stopped abruptly, temporarily halting his fall.
His single eye fell on the hull of the huge spaceship. For a moment, he thought this would be the end, but the fall was short-lived: he landed on a rusty metal platform a few feet away.
He closed his one eye as he fell, but opened it again to find himself in another alleyway. Sore from the fall, Nova sat up and rubbed his head. By then, his Spectrum had shut down.
'Oh, man... What the hell?'
This time the alley was much darker than any other. It was silent, long, and lonely. Everything around him was rusty and damp. The smell of rust was intense, permeating his clothes and the air like a sticky liquid.
'Didn't she follow me?'
He looked up. It was very high. He could barely see the sword stuck in the wall. Other than that, there was no sign of the red woman. He couldn't hear her heavy footsteps in the distance, let alone her harsh and terrifying voice.
Nova sighed, tired and with sweat dripping down his forehead.
'Damn...' he thought. 'She called me human. I could understand her!'
She spoke the language of Terra, but there was something strange about her voice. It sounded as if two languages were overlapping: she spoke simultaneously in her own tongue and in something understandable to Terra. Perhaps, in this world, there are people who can translate her language so that others can understand her. That, however, is only speculation.
Broken again by the chase, Nova got up. He clutched his right arm in pain and surveyed the area.
'I knew this would happen to me. I can't be at peace without an Aberration trying to kill me.'
Limping, he staggered into the abandoned alleyway.
'It looks like my arm is broken. I must find a place to hide so I can heal.'
Still tired, he quickened his pace and ran away from the alley. The further he tried to get away, the higher the walls became, the more rusty the metal became, and the more disturbing the area became. His quick footsteps could be heard hitting the ground, a ground that was sinking diagonally.
Nova continued. Even he noticed that this place was different from all the other places he had been. A high ceiling blocked out the sunlight in a long, dark tunnel.
'Maybe they won't find me here.'
Without waiting for anything, he entered the darkness. At the end, a faint blue light flickered softly in the blackness.
When he finally reached the end, Nova frowned. He came across a wide spiral staircase, dirty and abandoned. Colored lights hung from the ceiling like elongated lamps attached to the concrete. An annoying buzzing sound came from one of the flickering lights.
'This will do.'
He sat down on the stairs and looked at the wall. Sighing, he held his arm tighter. Suddenly, there was a crack. Nova endured the pain with a muffled groan, then breathed heavily from the effort. He had settled his broken arm without much difficulty.
To ease the pain, the Spectrum of Serenity gently enveloped him. His single eye, shining golden, rested on the fruit in his hand.
'Maybe this will be enough to heal me.'
He ate the fruit. After a few seconds, he leaned his back against the wall and looked toward the tunnel exit. His eyelids grew heavy; his body ached, but his Serenity kept the urge to scream at bay.
'Damn… I just want to go home…''