"Wait, but—" Carlos started to say, but Jill practically dragged him toward the exit by force. As she left, she tossed back a dry, "Good luck."
It seemed she didn't like me. Not surprising, given my appearance. And now I was down a sleeve too, left in nothing but the hood. Well, and in my pants. The shot had hit my upper body, after all—and it seemed I'd stalled long enough to thaw out.
I stopped Nemesis's attempts to keep Jill from leaving, calmly intercepting all his numerous tentacles. This time I had no intention of settling things with a "who's stronger" contest or playing tug-of-war. I simply sliced off every appendage with my claws.
The moment I felt nothing was restricting my movements anymore, I immediately charged at Nemesis. I couldn't beat him at range—I had nothing long-distance except a pistol with three bullets in the magazine and a spare mag. So we were going to the ground. Maybe I could just tear the monster apart?
But I hadn't accounted for the fact that Nemesis had sprouted tentacles not only from his arm, but from his body as well. So I managed to land only two blows. The first came as I slammed into him, driving my fist forward with full acceleration—nearly breaking my arm in the process—but the monster's head snapped sharply on his thick neck. The second was an elbow to the ribcage once we'd gone into a grapple.
Right after that, I was wrapped across the chest and hurled upward. While I was cutting myself free of Nemesis's tentacles with my claws, he managed to grab my leg with his normal hand and smash me into the floor with all his strength. Even solid cracks spread across it. And without releasing me—still somewhat disoriented (there were downsides to this state of partial revived)—the monster hurled me just as he had Carlos. With one difference: unlike a human, I won my argument with the column, shattering it with my body.
The column, now missing its base, fractured at the top and began collapsing down on me.
Oh no you don't!
I sprang to my feet and, grabbing the massive pillar—what was left of the column—I hurled it at Nemesis. My "gift" bowled him over and slammed him against the wall. No—looking closer, I saw that Nemesis had braced his heels against the wall and managed to halt the momentum, holding the column with his hands and tentacles before crushing it into rubble.
Strong bastard!
A quick dash, hidden from Nemesis's sight by the debris, and I burst straight through it. A right hook to the stomach forced his body to hunch reflexively. A sweep of my left arm severed the tentacles reaching for me. Then another right—an uppercut to the head—snapped him upright with an audible crack from his spine.
I was developing a strange habit of pinning monsters against walls.
First left, then right—I hammered at the monster's head. I didn't care if he had a steel skull. In theory, I should still be able to damage something.
But on the third swing, Nemesis caught my arm, twisted it, and gave me an internal fracture. It didn't become an open break—the skin couldn't be pierced, not even from the inside.
Using the fact that Nemesis had leaned forward after my assault, I struck him with my other elbow straight to the crown of his head, ignoring the pain in my broken arm as the monster continued to wrench it. Honestly, after such a long stretch of numbness, even these faint echoes of pain felt like old friends. I would've preferred more pleasant sensations, of course—but even this, feeling pseudo-alive, was pretty damn good.
Nemesis flung out all his tentacles, trying to crush me in a deadly vise. I jerked backward with all my strength, stepping out of the grasp—forgetting that someone was still holding my arm. The tentacles snapped shut on empty air and hadn't yet retracted when the monster himself slammed into me, still gripping my arm. His tentacles, caught between our bodies, were practically smeared into a bloody paste.
An opening!
I wrapped my arms around Nemesis, squeezing him as tightly as possible, trying to deal damage and secure my hold while my body drained the life out of him. Feeling something was wrong, the monster tried to free his arms, pinned to his sides—for now unsuccessfully. No, the gap between his body and arms was slowly widening. Strong bastard—but quite slowly, a centimeter every ten seconds. I'd dry him out first. And without blood, he'd have a hard time of it—he'd simply wither. As for death, I wasn't sure—Nemesis was resilient—but anabiosis? That I could guarantee.
I hadn't considered one thing: the monster fundamentally disagreed with me, and he did possess some semblance of intelligence. Realizing he wouldn't manage by conventional means, he crouched, bracing even a couple of surviving tentacles against the floor, and then launched himself upward in a powerful standing leap. But because I was clinging to him like a death grip, the jump came out very crooked.
Smashing through the chapel roof near the central tower, we weren't even thrown into the street but clear across to the park. Twisting midair, Nemesis planted his hands and feet against me, literally pushing off in the air, using me as leverage.
Oh no—not so fast!
With a powerful kick, I sent Nemesis—already off trajectory—crashing into the opposite side of the chapel, smashing through the place where the tower met the church. And I myself went sailing backward, spine-first and down…
"Khshaaa!"
…landing directly on a gigantic worm that had just burst out of the ground.
Well. Now I'd truly collected all the bosses of Raccoon City.
And of course, I had to fall on it not in the middle or at the end of the fight, after Jill had already done some decent damage—but precisely at the moment it had just appeared!
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Jill—and Yamata crouched somewhat behind her. Carlos, judging by the situation, was playing tag with Zinoviev, who was also supposed to be somewhere in the park-cemetery junction.
But what did it matter right now? I had a bigger problem. This worm was as wide as I was tall.
On the bright side… I'd had a soft landing.
(End of Chapter)
P@treon: /SadRaven
🥳Joining P@treon keeps me motivated and eager to work diligently, so please consider joining.🥰