In my hands lay Fiend dead. I don’t have the heart to abandon his body, so I place him in my chest. Yes, it is disgusting, but I didn’t think of carrying a backpack when I ran over here. Now isn’t the time for hesitation, it's for movement.

  I sprinted to Emanuel and scooped him in my arm, giving my back with the shield to the beast. A treat he was happy to take as his claws swiped my back. The reverberation flows through my body and shakes Emanuel in my arms.

  It's here, Emanuel sees Fiend floating in my chest.

  “Fiend, wake up. We have to escape.” Emanuel says. Fiend's eyes remain closed. “Fiend, please.” He whimpers out. “Please don’t be dead.”

  I hardened my back in hopes of cushioning any extra hit. Energy sparks from the crystalized chunks of my back fly off after his next hit. Hunks of hardened slime slam into the dirt, and i swear i could see blades of grass grown an inch where pieces of my backland.

  I run to the tree line. My mind tunnels as I hear Emanuel’s soft cries. We lost someone, and I couldn’t do anything. we are running for our lives again. It's not the running I feel shame for, but the inability to to save another life. How do I declare to be a god when one of my friends dies in front of me. More than one, many. If I am not focused, another will be added to the list.

  My body grows hotter and hotter as I rush. I can feel my heartbeat in my chest. It pounds faster and faster and faster. Then I remember I don’t have a heart. I could feel Emanuel's blood drip on my hands, the breath on my chest as he heaved in pain, and the tears in his eyes as he cried for Fiend, but not his heartbeat.

  It's faint, but it builds and builds. Growing faster and faster. I feel the Source in the air filter through my slime as normal, altering it to take my own unique signature, but another power draws the Source deeper into me. It feels the same as the Life Vien. An unimaginable force mixing with my own power. The beating grows faster and faster until I hear it. A familiar squeak. It called to me as our signal to launch him in the air when we played. One of my eyes lowered into my stomach, and I saw Fiend staring at me.

  I watch his body repair itself. Streams of his blood reached out to my goo, and once connected, his blood glows a bright purple. His blood would multiply and return to his body to repair his wounds. I grow a few centimeters shorter from all this, but that is a price I would pay one hundred times over if it means this continues to happen. I felt moments before Fiend’s heart was still, and his brain was barren of electrical charge, but now it beat like a war drum, and his mind was a lightning storm.

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  I detach part of my hand and throw Emanuel as far as I can toward the outer rim. My hand expanded into an airbag and broke his fall. With my hand regrown, I turn to the charging Grul. I hear the squeak once more, and I focus my sights on the Gru’s body. I launch Fiend out of my chest at the unexpected monster.

  Fiend’s tail wasn’t spiked, but purple and orange crystal stalactites. With all his force, Fiend slammed his tail on his shell. The force of the impact shocked both the Grul and myself. The boom from the attack reverberates in the forest, followed by a thin cracking sound. I could see a thin line on the Grul’s shell. He cracked him, and FIEND CRACKED HIS BACK. A plan formed at that instant, and we rushed in without exchanging words as if we had shared our thoughts.

  Fiend and I formed a rhythm. He runs back and jumps into my body. I will use the shield to block the incoming hit. I launch Fiend high in the air. While the Grul’s eyes are on him. I fire our crystalized fist at his face. This stuns him, leaving room for Fiend to fly down and slam his tail on the Grul’s back. Not just any spot, the same spot as before. In a split second, I always aim where I believe the crack will be, so all Fiend has to worry about is hitting hard.

  This cycle continues and continues. Launch. Slam. Punch. Crack. Launch. Slam. Punch. Crack. Crack, CRACK! The beast flinches with every passing rotation, then falls for our trap. I fire Fiend once more in the air. The Grul is prepared, and instead of focusing on my punch, it tells its body to preempt to avoid Fiend's tail. What I wasn’t prepared for was waiting for this moment.

  I slither, and the Grul. I condense the slime in my arms. My hands melt onto the back of the shield, hardening and fusing with it. Like the trick I use to create pressure and tension when I make a bullet out of my body, I do it with my arms and this shield. I fire out my arms, using the shield as a battering ram, and fire at the tilted side of the Grul.

  The sheer force of the blow sends the Grul tilting back, but it's not enough. The Fiend slams down on his head, hoping to push him over the edge, but it's still not enough. Before he can plant his feet on the ground, I test Fast Travel again. I don’t have time to form my big ballista form, so I turn my arms into enormous bows and strings. I pull back on the shield and fire.

  The Grul doesn’t have time to react as the shield hits his side, but I’m not done; he needs to fall. I pop out of the box on the shield and form six crystalized hands. i unload a parage of hits not even a second after the shield impact and provide the remaining force needed to tilt the Grul on its back.

  The Grul tossed and thrashed, trying to flip itself up. With every turn, a crack was heard. The shell took more damage, and it knew. The beast stopped moving and stayed on its back. The fleeing hope had left his eyes vacant.