Officer 9045's long black hair draped over his face, covered by his cap. The only part of his face visible to the girls was that grin.
"I have no chance. I haven't even gotten full control of healing yet, let alone a combative move." Amora's mind raced as the Officer took a confident step forward. Amora slid backwards on the floor.
"What are we gonna do?" Amora asked herself.
Suddenly, Vida stepped in front of Amora, who was still on her back, looking up at Officer 9045.
"Don't come closer." Vida's arms trembled as she held them out in front of her. She channeled Spirit into her hands, prepared to manifest mushrooms at a moment's notice.
Vida could feel her hands steadily shake more and more. Holding her arms steady felt like carrying mountains in the face of such terror.
"Oh? What's this?" 9045's sinister grin grew wider, revealing his pointed canines.
"I said, don't come closer-" Vida's words were cut off as she felt a gust of wind. She looked forward in terror as 9045 disappeared from her sight.
"Where did he go?!" She only had a split second of confusion before she heard a voice from the one place she never would have guessed.
"Prey's words mean nothing in the eyes of a predator." Officer 9045's voice came from above Vida.
She looked up towards the ceiling, staring at 9045, who was standing on the ceiling, looking down at her.
9045 clasped his hands together, then quickly pulled them apart, creating a spindle of webs in the space between his palms.
The web stuck to each of his fingers, crossing and tying around each other in the middle to create a thin mosaic, almost missable if not for the attention 9045 had drawn to himself.
Vida's face grew even more horrified.
9045 jumped off of the ceiling, keeping his spindle of webs tightly woven around his fingers. 9045 seemed to come down on the girl like a fruit cutter, trying to slice her from the top down.
Vida froze in fear, not knowing if she had the reflexes to react to the attack assisted by gravity.
Suddenly, Vida tumbled a few feet to her side, falling outside of the area of attack.
Amora had kicked Vida out of harm's way from her laying position on the floor. She silently celebrated when Vida tumbled out of the way, but was quickly met with a sharp pain in the leg she used to help Vida.
Amora let out a blood curdling scream, making Vida stand up, looking towards her friend in horror.
"Seems someone else got caught in my web." Officer 9045 grinned at the blood gushing from Amora's left shin. He stood up and tilted his head while keeping his focus on the wound. He had almost severed the bone.
Amora began to cry out of the sheer pain. Vida began to cry at the sight.
"No… Please… Not again." The sight of Amora's blood made Vida's mind flash back to the last sight of the Frewins, the self-inflicted wounds of Hendrix on that fateful mall trip, and the unconscious Bloom in the street.
Her heart felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. She felt her throat tighten up, but she also felt a surge of energy run through her.
Without thinking, Vida held her hands out, channeling her Spirit into her palms. Her hands still trembled. The light around her hands flashed and flickered, instead of the usual steady light of her light green Spirit.
Seeing the sight through her tears, Amora instinctively covered her mouth with her hoodie.
Officer 9045 had moved his sights to Vida, so he didn't have time to cover his mouth before the mushrooms appeared.
There had to be at least two dozen mushrooms stacked upon each other on the walls, ceiling, and floor surrounding the Correctional Forces Officer.
"Harmless parlor tricks won't save you." Officer 9045 took a step towards Vida, who had her sights locked on the Officer.
"You-" Before Officer 9045 could begin to talk again, the mushrooms shot their spores with greater power than Amora had ever seen.
The gusts of spores knocked 9045 off of his balance. The trained Officer quickly recovered, but not before unknowingly inhaling the spores.
His vision went dark. The room around him went silent, there was no distant fighting, no heavy breathing from Amora, not even the sound of Vida's mushrooms taking root.
"Taking the senses from the hunter. Good idea, I'll give you that." Officer 9045 spoke, but couldn't even hear himself.
Suddenly, he was toppled off his balance, like something had hit him on his side, but he felt no pain.
He tried to look down to see if he was hurt, but he couldn't even see his own body.
"Shit. These lowly rebels might be a problem." The Officer thought to himself as he felt his head get pushed to the side, like he was hit on his cheekbone.
Vida let out a small sigh, allowing herself a small victory before going back to striking the downed Officer.
She kicked him again on his side, knocking him back down to a laying position after he had tried to get on his knees.
Between kicks, she noticed his hands grabbing at the air, like he was clutching for something unseen.
"Is he trying to manifest his Mode again?" Vida thought. She jumped over the Officer, now kicking at his back.
"Amora, are you okay?" Vida turned her attention to Amora as she kept kicking.
Amora had bitten down on the collar of her hoodie now that the spores had dispersed. Tears still flowed from her eyes, but she tried to focus on her hands, which she was using to channel Spirit into.
Amora couldn't take her mind off of the pain. Every twitch her leg made felt like it brought her foot an inch closer to splitting off.
To her surprise, that rainbow light emerged from around her wound.
"The pain triggered it?" Amora surprised herself.
"See? I told you that you were amazing." Chase's words from the last time she manifested her mode rang through her mind as she watched the colors of the rainbow light slide over each other in harmony.
The rainbow light was made up of those signature broken pieces. Like shattered glass, they floated around Amora's leg.
Slowly, the bleeding stopped. Amora began to feel a serene feeling, like everything was going to be okay.
"Maybe this is what Vida was talking about when she touched the light last time." Amora thought.
Her bone began to connect itself once more. The muscle around it followed, and then the skin. Vida smiled at her.
Suddenly, Vida felt the Officer's hand around her ankle.
"Shit." Vida had been so focused on Amora's injury that she forgot about the threat that caused it.
The Officer's eyes were still glazed over. He only looked in the general direction of his hand, which meant he was still under the spell of the spores.
"How did he…" Vida looked in horror as 9045's grin reappeared.
"Desperate times call for desperate measures." 9045 quickly spun his body around, throwing Vida across the room by the ankle.
Vida let out a large yelp as her back slammed against the concrete wall of the hallway, the air in her lungs seemed to be forced out of her. The impact sounded like cracking. Amora could only hope that the cracking came from the concrete wall, and not from her friend's bones.
Officer 9045 got to his feet, remembering the general direction he had thrown the girl in.
"Prey falls to predators. Time to return to the natural order." 9045 once again held his hands together and pulled them apart, creating another spindle of webs.
While his hands were busy with that, a peculiar sight appeared from his back. Four spider legs appeared from his back, ripping straight through his military uniform.
Vida's vision had gone blurry from the impact to the back of her head. She rubbed the side of her face to try to get her vision back to normal.
After a few seconds of trying to focus on the blurry figure before her, she realized what was happening. Her eyes widened as the spider legs on the back of the Officer began to move of their own accord.
"What… What the hell are you?!" Vida screamed at the Officer.
"Your end." Officer 9045 grinned at the girl.
Vida's eyes widened in terror. She was less worried about his response, and more with the fact he could hear and see now.
Vida quickly held her hands out, trying to channel Spirit as quickly as possible as to catch the Officer off guard. She already had the mushrooms manifested from the last time, so she was confident she could spread the spores before he caught on.
"Fool me once." Officer 9045 quickly covered his mouth and nose with a clot of webs. His eyes darted around the room as he tried to assess the location of each cluster of mushrooms.
"25" 9045 counted the mushrooms in his head.
He jumped into the air, then began darting around the room at a pace that seemed to rival Kai's speed.
"What is his Mode?! How could someone who doesn't specialize in speed be this fast?!" Amora thought as she looked at the blur hopping from wall to wall.
Officer 9045 clotted the cap of each and every mushroom with his webs, his long hair shaking every which way he jumped.
As he jumped from each mushroom, he seemed to bring a string of webs with him.
The Officer had almost visited every mushroom when Vida noticed a glimmer in the middle of the room. Her eyes followed a line of light, which connected each and every mushroom.
By the time he'd sealed each mushroom, the room was like a field of lasers, with the girls scared to move so as to not get cut by one of his webs.
"Two birds with one stone." The Officer landed on his feet and manifested another spindle of webs between his hands.
Amora looked in horror at the Officer, then looked at Vida. She had never seen her more scared. Tears streamed from her eyes as her knees locked underneath her.
"Y-you… You're just some insect. Stop talking like a hunter." Vida tried to come up with an insult, hoping to get the Officer out of his cool and composed demeanor.
"Do not curse the web, child. It is divinity's way of keeping filth from spreading. With this web as my cathedral, I will sacrifice you to the living god." Officer 9045 moved the webs between his hands with his fingers, trying to get the perfect shape to cut the two girls with.
"Now to kill two more birds." Officer 9045 grinned before charging at Vida.
Vida let out a blood curdling scream, echoing through the entire compound.