The Tattoo Summoner [System Apocalypse]

Chapter 43: Hers


The first thump against the glass made the whole shop shudder. Tanya instinctively ducked, sword raised, half expecting shards to rain down immediately. They didn't—but cracks spiderwebbed across the window pane she could see in the barricade's stabbing gaps.

"Hold steady!" Mrs Eceer barked from the kitchen. Tanya caught a glimpse of her through the open doorway, kneeling on the counter, yanking off another cupboard door with a grunt. One of her heels was barely held by her awkwardly poised foot. It fell as she leaned further. She kicked off the other one.

Another crash. This time, something dark and writhing slammed against the front window, splattering blackish ooze across the cracks. Tanya's heart thumped in her ears. She adjusted her grip over and over around the sword, preventing the ribbons from wrapping around her wrist. Their blue, spectral ribbons coiled and reached, stroking her skin before she turned it away, and they'd once again float around uncertain before locking on and continuing their path.

The glass shattered, still held in place, but sections fell out as they beat against it harder and harder. She could almost feel the floor under her feet move as they threw themselves at the glass, but she knew it couldn't be in a terrace like this. The winter air flurried through the holes, covering her exposed skin with goosebumps.

Tanya positioned her sword at one of the holes between planks, aiming more to startle than kill. She thrust it through, and the glass came down. Jerking her hand back, she gasped at the noise, but no glass had made its way through. It all broke towards them outside from the impact. She thrust the sword through again and hit something, pushing it further until it was up to the hilt.

Please be deep enough.

She pressed her other arm against the wood and spun the sword in her fingers to avoid the grasp of the tendrils. Then she thrust it further up, trying to get a better leverage on the monster to give the sword time to possess it or kill it or both. The sword simply cut its way back out, and she lost the pull on the other side of the barricade.

Shit.

The way she'd made the gaps was irritating; they were the right height for the sword, but she could either look or cut, not both.

At that moment, her interface appeared and disappeared. Assistant's doing. Two flashes—about twenty monsters. Tanya hissed through her teeth. Not terrible, but not nothing, either.

The front door rattled violently. Tanya lunged toward it, leaning over the bookcase there they'd used to block it and shoving her shoulder into the frame. She couldn't get good leverage, but she stuck her arm far out as she could and pressed with all her might. A black, clawed hand forced itself through the gap between the door and jamb, wriggling and scratching at the wood.

"Mrs Eceer! Gonna need more wood or a miracle!" Tanya yelled, stabbing her sword downward through the gap. The tendrils wrapped greedily around the wrist. The sword pulsed against her hand, the hilt tightening uncomfortably.

"One miracle, coming up!" Mrs Eceer hollered, and another glimmering barrier zipped past Tanya's ear, sealing the widening crack at the side of the door just before another monster could wedge its head through.

Tanya shook her arm to loosen the sword again. "You wanna eat somethin' useful?!" she hissed at it. The tendrils twitched and floated around beside her, caressing her arm each time they stopped it.

Please be fuckin' organic.

She didn't know if the organic materials needed to be dead, but she planned to find out.

A heavy thump against the boarded window drew her gaze back. It didn't buckle. Claws found the holes and reached through, scratching up the inside of the wood and forcing their way further in. She was positioned just right to see them all grasping further into the room, the wood to one side of her.

Tanya sliced down to a chorus of screams and howls. Some of them almost sounded human before they morphed again into something completely alien. Limbs splattered to the floor, the blood sizzling against the concrete but unable to make its way through.

"Glass's definitely gone now!" Tanya yelled, stepping in front of the gaps and stabbing a few times, fast and deep, then moving to the next. Her other hand clawed off the ribbons. She wasn't fighting to kill—just to keep them from getting enough of a foothold to rip the planks apart.

Another flash from her Interface. This time, three flashes.

Thirty now.

"Numbers're going up!" Tanya shouted. She stomped forward and drove the sword hard through another gap, feeling the blade skewer something soft. The sword thrummed in her hand, eagerly trying to drag the whole creature back through the narrow slot. Tanya growled and yanked backward, but the thing was too big.

"Don't choke, ya stupid ribbon!" she cursed, ripping the blade free and letting the corpse fall backward. Regret filled Tanya's head. This was too risky. She planted one foot on the barricade and used it as leverage to yank the sword back out. Then she reached down to a floor board to feed it. The nails scratched against it as she tugged the board up.

The front door buckled again, wood splintering louder, and Tanya lurched forward instead to hold it, chucking the sword onto the top of the bookshelf. Mrs Eceer appeared beside her without warning, bare feet slapping on the floor.

"This door won't hold," Mrs Eceer said calmly, placing her hands on different shelves and bracing, pushing the bookcase to further block the door.

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"And?" Tanya asked, panting. "Gimme useful information goddamnit."

Mrs Eceer's eyes flashed with anger. She adjusted her hands to different shelves, leaning her body further down and putting more weight into it. "The trap will give us some time whilst you replace the door with the other one."

There was another shriek and more frantic thudding against the barricade. It thrust its snout through the gap and snarled, mouth wide, trying to clamp its teeth around the planks. There wasn't quite enough space.

Tanya grabbed the sword again and jammed the sword into its mouth. She couldn't see if it worked, so she withdrew and then stabbed over and over in quick succession. Black ichor sprayed through the gap, spattering her hand and skirt.

Another shoved in beside her, claws raking at the gaps. Tanya was ready. She slashed it off, quick and brutal. It landed atop another on the floor, still twitching. She thrust the sword through the gap, trying to finish what she had started. There was a temptation to swing it back and forth and slice them, but she knew her sword was very weak in this state, so she kept her prodding technique. She dispatched another round of limbs and quick-fire stabbed in each of the holes.

The barricades were working. The gaps were tight, narrow enough that the monsters couldn't push through all at once. They stuck their faces and limbs through every space they could cram themselves in, and Tanya made each of them pay.

Behind her, Mrs Eceer hurled another shimmering barrier against the front door where the wood was groaning.

Tanya grunted, flicking the sword to disturb the ribbons. "We're fine," she muttered. "Long as the barricades hold, we're—"

Something hooked her wrist.

Sharp pain lanced up her arm as claws scraped through the gap—right at a weak spot where two planks had splintered from repeated impacts. She hadn't seen it in time—it was too dark. Tanya's fingers clamped down instinctively from the pain. She swore and tried to pull back, but the claw slashed her arm before she could get away.

Another plank cracked under the strain, widening the gap just enough.

It sank inside further, scratching her arm deeper even as she backed away.

"Get off!" Tanya snarled, hacking downward with the sword in her free hand. She carved through the monster's wrist, severing it, but not before another hand slashed through and raked open her bicep. She groaned at the white hot pain down her arm and leg. The tatters of her skirt trailed across her boots.

Blood splattered the floor.

With the searing pain, she hadn't noticed the ribbons coiling further down her arm. They squeezed tight, sinking into the wounds. Tanya screamed, trying to shake them off, but it was already too late.

She felt it immediately—the suction, like a thousand tiny needles under her skin, pulling the life out of her.

"Shit! Shit shit SHIT!" she cried out, grabbing the tendrils with her free hand and trying to peel them away. They didn't budge. They pulsed against her skin, then sank deeper.

Pain roared through her nerves. Her knees buckled. She slammed her back into the bookshelf to stay upright, gasping. It felt like something was tunneling into her arm—no, replacing it—muscle unraveling, bone splintering apart.

Mrs Eceer spun around. "TANYA!" she screamed, dropping the half-built barricade she was working on and sprinting across the room.

Tanya clawed at the ribbons desperately. Blood ran slick down her side. Her body spasmed. She felt it—her ribs shifting, her stomach twisting. Her heart skipped and shuddered as organs were pushed around, like her body was just a sack of meat being rearranged.

She coughed—then vomited a mouthful of blood onto the floorboards.

Mrs Eceer skidded next to her, grabbing at the tendrils too. "Hold still! I've got you!" she shouted. She yanked, cursing as the ribbons wriggled and pulsed between her fingers like living wire.

Tanya blinked through the pain, dizzy. Movement caught her eye—Fahad's wide, terrified face peeking from behind the overturned sofa.

"Turn around!" she choked out.

Fahad's head ducked out of sight immediately.

Tanya screamed, loud enough to rattle the glassless windows, her whole body convulsing. It wasn't just her arm anymore—the sword was eating deeper, fusing into her shoulder, her collarbone, her spine.

"No—NO!" she snarled. "You don't get to take me!"

Desperation clawed at her mind, but something else welled up inside her too—Will. Raw, stubborn, furious. She latched onto it, burning through the pain.

She pushed.

The sword fought her, the tendrils thrashing wildly—but Tanya pushed harder, forcing her mind into the thing, beating it back with sheer rage.

You're mine!—you work for me—I control you!

The tendrils wavered, and for the briefest moment, she felt it submit.

The change slowed. Tanya sucked in a ragged breath, the burning agony still radiating through her—but now she held the reins.

Mrs Eceer's attempts were futile, her hands slick with blood and the ribbons phasing through her fingers whenever she did grasp one.

"Mrs Eceer—let go!" she rasped.

"You certain?!" Mrs Eceer shouted, still trying to rip the thing free.

"LET GO!"

Mrs Eceer pulled her hands back instantly.

Tanya gritted her teeth and seized control. She willed the blade to stop fighting—to leave her arm or unsummon.

A tendril floated deeper, and she arched her back, gasping for breath as this strange sensation washed over her.

NO.

It retreated, sliding back through her body with what felt like a squelch. It had been moving things inside her, human things. The thought made her shudder. Wet leaked from Tanya's nose, her eyes, her mouth. She didn't know what was tears or snot and what was blood. Her teeth chattered.

The tendrils recoiled, trembling. She could feel them teetering, close to snapping free.

That's when the back door exploded inward with a deafening crash.

Mrs. Eceer, who'd left her post to help Tanya, whipped her head around too late. A monster raced through the splintered door, claws cracking tiles beneath its muscley hind legs.

Another lurched over it, shoving the leader onto its haunches as it gnashed and clawed over it.

They were inside.

The tendrils flailed, trying to burrow deeper.

The monsters had almost crossed the kitchen. If they used eyesight, they'd come for Mrs Eceer, if not, they'd turn and bat the sofa to one side and be face to face with Fahad and the unconscious Ishita. She ran forward, barely keeping Phantom Brand at bay. Each step jolted pain through the open wounds on her leg.

System, will consuming this summon kill me, or can I control it.

Insufficient Ability to perform inspection.

She stopped with her back to the counter. This close, she could hear Fahad sobbing.

Answer that as a Restricted Question—

Her mind raced for more information she could get.

An' tell me about how to control summons and how they work as part of that.

The words flooded her vision and all she could do was skim them whilst barrier after barrier appeared between her and the monsters.

"What are you doing?!" Mrs Eceer yelled.

"I'm handlin' it!" She yelled back

With enough Will, she'd live. She needed to restrict what it could take from her.

She focused on her arm. The hilt she'd been holding flickered in and out of existence. She could only see the section that had been in her hand. The rest of it was gone.

"Come on then!" she roared, dragging the sword into herself, forcing it to fuse completely with her arm and go no further.

The pain was indescribable.

Tanya convulsed as the metal and flesh knitted together in a grotesque rush. She felt bones shatter, organs shift, blood vessels burn. She coughed a brutal spray of blood onto the floor.

Her body wasn't hers anymore.

But she willed it to be.

"MINE!" she bellowed.

The blade responded.

It stopped fighting—and became hers.

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