Bram turned around before Vira could respond and rolled both his shoulders forward, cracking his neck to each side.
Then the transformation started and Vira understood why Finn closed his eyes moments ago… or at least he thought he did.
Bram's right arm began to change.
The muscles along it swelled outward against his sleeve, the fabric straining and then tearing at the shoulder and then thickened beyond what any natural body should allow.
His bones reconstructed with a dense grinding sound that turned Vira's stomach, tendons snapping like a whip cracking.
Bram's jaw clenched hard enough to whiten, a raw sound tearing out from somewhere deep in his chest.
"Hrrgh!"
And then he was moving… as fast as lightning, but limping on his ginormous and mutated arm.
He crossed the distance to the Nullborn in an instant, spear leveled, and drove it deep into the creature's nearest arm.
The impact was enormous… the arm shifted sideways with a sound like collapsing stone, black fluid erupting from the wound in a wide arc as the Nullborn staggered backward a full step.
One step…
Then it caught itself, the blade stump of the injured arm reformed mid-motion, flesh knitting back together in jagged uneven pieces and it swung back with three remaining arms simultaneously.
Bram threw himself under the first strike, the second clipped his shoulder and the sound of it connecting was awful.
Bram hit the ground hard, rolling and came back up already resetting his grip on his spear.
"Ngh — Darius!"
Darius was already there, he hit the Nullborn from the left with his entire body weight behind him.
What made it devastating wasn't his speed, but what he'd done to his legs to generate it.
His legs had restructured from waist down… the proportions all wrong now, joints reversed and thickened into something closer to a battering ram than a human limb.
Darius's shoulder drove into the creature's midsection and the Nullborn lurched, its footing breaking apart entirely as two of its arms crashed into the ground around Darius trying to pin him.
He pushed himself sideways before they landed, one hand catching the ground as his restructured legs launching him back upright.
The creature turned toward him as Lyra hit it from behind.
She moved low and fast, her fingers fused and extended into something rigid and blade-like. She drove both of her hands into the back of the Nullborn's knee joint.
The creature buckled… not much, not enough, but it buckled.
The hollow face of an endless abyss swung toward her… the speed and movement was horrifying to say the least.
The way its neck twisted like rope, and at the same time a screech came again.
This time it was directed and close to Lyra, the air around her visibly rippled from the force of it.
She staggered, hands going to her ears before she caught herself.
The Nullborn's broken third arm snapped outward toward her, faster than the eye could see yet the blades edge scoured through the concrete like a herald of death.
Lyra threw herself back barely in time… the blade caught her across the forearm and she hit the ground rolling hard.
"LYRA!"
Darius started forward at the Nullborn again.
"I'm fine!"
Lyra was already rising, the cut on her arm dark and deep… but her feet already moving again.
Vira stood behind all of it.
His hands had balled into fists without him even realizing it.
He watched them move… watched them struggle, and felt something in his chest tighten to the point of pain.
'I could end this…'
The thought arrived fully formed and quiet, yet entirely uninvited.
'I could end this right now.'
The vibration in his abdomen surged and the sphere beneath his cloak pressed outward against the sunken hole it took place in.
Like a tide that had been waiting a long time for the shore to stop resisting.
'Just let go… just once… they're getting hurt.'
"Stop."
The word came out under his breath, almost inaudible.
'They're getting hurt because of you… because you're standing here doing nothing! Because you're-'
"Stop it."
'Useless.'
Vira's vision blurred at the edges. The black veins across his torso tightened, like a fist closing and pain shot through his midsection hard enough to buckle his knees.
He caught himself with one hand on the ground, teeth clamped together.
The image of the Arcane awakened he killed came back without mercy. The spiral… the blood suspended in the air.
The sound that stopped halfway through because there was simply nothing left of him to make it.
He held his stomach tight, mouth clenching as he tried not to scream.
Vira pushed the thoughts down with everything he had, pushing the sphere down, pushed the vibrations down until it was a slight tremor instead of a wave.
Finn appeared at his side.
His eyes were on the fight but his expression had changed, something careful and unsettled moving behind it.
He didn't say anything for a moment… and then whispered quietly.
"Vira."
Vira straightened, trying to look like he hadn't just been fighting himself.
"I-I'm fine."
Finn looked at him then… really looked at him, the way someone does when they aren't looking at your face but at something underneath it.
"…What is that?"
The question was barely a whisper, not accusatory… not afraid, just someone curious.
Vira held his gaze and said nothing.
A crash pulled both of them back to the fight, looking over they saw the Nullborn had Bram pinned.
Two bladed arms had driven into the ground on either side of him, caging him against the rubble… and the hollow face descended upon him with that ceaseless sound pouring out of it.
Bram had his spear horizontal across his chest, both arms straining to keep creature's weight from collapsing onto him entirely.
His left arm now looking identical to his mutated one on the right… both shaking with effort.
"Aaarghhh! L-little help?!"
Darius and Lyra were both already moving.
While Vira… was keeled over exactly where he'd been told to remain, hand pressed against his abdomen, watching the people around him struggle.