Eric scanned the brightly lit area with narrowed eyes.
This section of the ward was a vast, circular chamber, blindingly white and empty, save for a single narrow corridor which led deeper into the facility at the far end.
The two figures stood calmly between Eric and the corridor, while Jackson had somehow crawled to their side.
The closed door was behind Eric and his only means of opening it were the two people in front of him and the coughing man behind them.
'Talk about a rock and a hard place.' Eric mocked himself.
"Why is the subject not confined, Jackson?" Narcosa asked, seemingly unconcerned with the horrific state of the base's supervisor.
"I think he's responsible for the attack." Jackson croaked. "I don't know how, but he's also familiar with the base." He coughed out large amounts of blood as he spoke.
"His uncle might be involved."
The black haired man glanced at Eric's dishevelled bearing with contempt.
"Damian!" Jackson repeated as Damian raised his hand. "I want him alive. The core seems perfectly synergised with his body."
"I'll try my best." Damian succinctly replied.
Eric felt a cold shiver run down his spine at the man's voice.
It felt unnerving to hear.
Getting the distracting thoughts out of his mind, Eric focused on his new opponents.
When the man made a grabbing motion once more, Eric heard the winds parting as an invisible force pushed through.
The pushed air brushed against his skin, telling him which direction it came from.
He leapt backwards, avoiding the inconspicuous attack.
'Of course his attacks are invisible' Eric sighed.
The duo both perked their brows at this.
"He can sense my attacks." Damian stated. "Peculiar."
"Need some help, darling?" Narcosa purred at the now smirking man.
Damian raised both his hands as he spoke.
"No love." All the hairs on Eric's hands shot up. He could sense the force splitting into numerous slender tendrils that lashed towards him. "He's just an ant."
After speaking Damian made a rabid dash towards Eric's retreating form.
Damian's fingers jerked sporadically, controlling the invisible tendrils shooting or coiling around Eric's prancing form. He looked like a puppet master and Eric the puppet.
Eric stayed at no position for more than a second. The deep prints on the floor he'd been were a testament to what would happen otherwise.
The tendrils grew faster and faster till his sense of touch and sound could no longer keep up. As it went on, Eric, found himself being forced into a corner, limiting his mobility.
'I can't continue like this.' Eric thought amidst the barrage. 'He'll end up boxing me in or tiring me out.' The air zipped around him, as sounds like thunder tried pummelling him from every direction.
Cementing his resolve Eric decided to take a major gamble. He would bank on their underestimation and his strengthened abilities.
He concentrated all his focus on his eyes for a split second, then the world bled.
Surrounding him in shifting hues were three yellow coloured blobs in the shape of people.
The furthest and dimmest one, he knew was Jackson. The closest two were a brighter shade of yellow, but tainted with a dark purple tinge.
The darkness was undulating, as if trying to break past the region it possessed and envelope the two completely.
The one to the left, Narcosa, had the darkness wrapped around her neck, while Damian had it consuming his hands.
Inundating from Damian's raised hands, the darkness split into ten thin and distinct tendrils, controlled by each of his fingers. They were all fixed at a definite length, only able to contract, but not extend beyond about twelve feet.
'They're both cocky but Damian is famously irascible while Narcosa is more of a snake'
After accounting for the duo's personalities, a plan settled in Eric's mind. The grim thought of his three remaining bullets was shoved to the back of his mind.
With the advantage of sight Eric stopped avoiding the tendrils and directly dashed at Damian. He began a dangerous dance of drawing extremely close to Damian before running from a lethal strike at the last moment.
When Eric felt he had drawn Damian far away from Narcosa he went close to the man once more, raised his bullet and aimed.
Bang
'Two Bullets.'
The man, startled by Eric's brash move, barely swatted the bullet with a tendril in time.
His nose flared, then Eric saw all the tendrils coagulate into a single larger lump that barreled towards him.
He abruptly stopped his manic sprint with inhuman control, then dashed at Narcosa who was a short distance away.
His speed made the two struggle to react at his sharp changes.
Now he had Narcosa before him, and Damian and his hurtling tendril behind.
Damian's face embraced a scowl.
Eric, noticed the large tendril move with an erratic intensity that told of its master's mood.
As Eric raised his gun to aim at Narcosa, he could see the large tendril flatten into a sharp blade. He watched its direction change, now aiming for his neck.
'What happened to taking me alive?' Eric lampooned.
He could barely follow the large tendril with his eyes, now its speed seemed to double. 'He probably noticed I can feel the wind pressure from the tendril's blunt form.'
Just moments before Eric pulled the trigger and got beheaded, he winked at Narcosa's smirking face.
Her smile dropped at the sight.
Then, in a spine bending feat, Eric sharply lunged upwards into a backflip. He watched as the blade passed below him, shaving strands of his hair.
While in the air, Eric aimed his pistol at Damian's shocked face which was now in front of him.
Bang!
He only heard the bullet pierce between Damian's eyes as he landed.
Eric took a quick glance at Damian's standing figure before it collapsed. Brain matter spattered all around him coating the white room with a new tint of red.
While Narcosa was distracted, Eric aimed at her.
"DAMIAN!!" Then she screamed.
It felt like a heavy axe slamming into his skull, then sawing back and forth through his brain.
Narcosa's voice was her power.
Her shrill shout somehow triggered the searing backlash from his Qi vision prematurely.
The world of hues quickly dispersed, as regret filled Eric's mind for not earlier dismissing it.
Bang
The last shot missed Narcosa's body completely.
Unfortunately, the noise shook her from her stupor.
Terror and pain washed from her face to reveal a hidden madness.
Eric knew that madness well.
'Fuck!' Through gritted teeth he sprinted at her, nose and eyes bleeding as he ran.
But before he could reach her, Narcosa had already opened her mouth.
"Pain."
The single word carried more malice than anything Eric had heard in his life.
"Arghhhhhh!"
His own nerves became her weapons, turning his body against him.
Eric fell immediately. His sharpened sense were now a weakness, as he felt every detail of the non-existent wounds being inflicted on his body.
While Eric writhed on the floor in anguish Narcosa strolled to her downed companion languidly.
"Wake up darling." Her lips quivered caressing his cold body. "I've squished the ant." Narcosa's chest heaved and her eyes darkened, consumed by mourning.
Eric was quickly losing awareness. It had become very apparent he would not last long.
At the edge of unconsciousness, moments from blacking out, a system notification flashed across his eyes.
[WARNING: Anomalous energy detected.]
Right afterwards he heard a familiar voice.
"Oh woman of the fairy mounds." The voice was just as grating and eerie as Eric remembered. "What sorrows have you wrought."
The overwhelming pain that battered Eric vanished with the voice's appearance.
Eric drew laboured breaths as he forced himself to stand.
Before him stood the six feet pale man of unknown origins. Eric wondered how and why he was here.
The man held a mischievous smile on his face when he spoke.
"I have woken your friend, Your Highness." He gestured at Jackson's gasping form. Eric hadn't even noticed the supervisor faint during the fight.
"I shall hold the Banshee. The Princess awaits." The man continued as he walked towards the weeping Narcosa solemnly.
"Are you going to kill her?" Eric asked, though he had no desire to prevent whatever the man planned.
Asides the fact he had just saved Eric from having his pain receptors destroyed. Eric wasn't currently in the capacity to make unnecessary enemies.
"I have only been told to clear your path," The man's soft words disturbed Eric. "Not to shed blood."
Eric sighed, he understood the man didn't plan on killing.
"Can't have your cake and eat it too," Eric muttered in frustration.
He had the intuitive feeling any further questions he asked the man would be replied with a smile.
So he asked the one question that felt was basic courtesy, despite the surrounding mayhem
"What's your name?"
The man stopped, turning to Eric, his smile broadening.
"Baskar."