Page 46 of Scaled Hearts

While the attention is off of me, I quickly run down an alleyway that leads me away from the fight. I can still hear the loud chaos of it even as I tread deeper into the city.

Old, worn looking shops pass me by in a blur. Their windows are boarded up and their doors nailed closed, despite the outward appearances looking up-kept and clean.

If this were any other time, I’d stop to look at them and soak in the history.

I find a shop a ways away that doesn’t have anything covering the doors or windows and take that as a good sign. My shoulder hits the door hard, making it creak on its hinges. I do this a few times until the door finally busts open, causing me to stumble inside.

It’s an old supply store that is covered in dust head-to-toe. I cough a few times and wave my hand in front of my face to clear the air enough for me to see and breathe. My eyes flit around, looking for any kind of weapon that I can use.

Along the walls are rows and rows or hardware tools. I scan them quickly, only really spotting a hammer and a few pairs of scissors that could be used as a weapon.

I know that they’re going to be way too short and small for me to be able to deal any kind of damage to those things. I need something bigger and more pointy.

I head deeper into the store. They have to have something like a ladder or even a shovel that I can quickly grab and bash one of the naga over the head with. Some kind of heavy metal would do too.

Down towards the end of the aisle I’m in, I see something that looks like a familiar shape. I grab it and hold it up close enough for my eyes to barely see it in the darkness. I feel around at the top of it, making sure that it’s what I think it is.

I grin. A pickaxe. I can use one of those very well.

Running to the entrance of the shop, I carry the pickaxe over my shoulder in order to keep it from swinging around wildly while I run. It would be my luck that I would either accidentally drop it and impale myself on it or end up stabbing through some part of an important body part while running.

I can still hear the fighting going on and it makes me a little less hopeless. Angurus is still fighting, that’s a good sign.

I wish he had the room to shift into his dragon form, but the calcified rock hanging down from the ceiling, as well as the ones jutting up from the uneven ground, would make it way too hard to navigate without him getting completely cut up. Or worse: impaled.

As the sounds of the fighting grows closer, I clench my hand around the hilt of the axe and brace myself. I’d hoped that we wouldn’t find any trouble while we were down here, but of course, luck couldn’t be on our side.

I head directly into the fray and stop to swing my axe at the closest naga in my range. It hits him directly in the side, sinking deep into the scaled flesh and causing him to screech in pain. I rip the pick out of him before he can twist around to grab it and pull it out of my hands.

I spin on my heel and nail the next one, getting him right in the chest. I don’t wait for the screech and waste no time in dragging the axe down the entire length of him until I hit right where his pelvis sits.

Blood pours out of his wound, causing him to let out a guttural noise that makes me shiver.

I pull my pick axe back, watching as both naga fall to the ground at my feet.

The noise from this causes the other naga to turn and realize my possession of a weapon.

I raise it in front of me and point it towards them. Possibly a stupid thing to do what I have no other means of protection.

Angurus swipes through a few other naga near him as well. His hands pry their jaws apart, cracking their heads open like a watermelon.

I don’t have time to think about how gross that is because soon, a few naga decide to be bold and lunge at me. I swipe my axe at them, fending them off long enough to dart away and get some distance between us.

My heart pounds in my chest, hammering so hard that it’s hard for me to hear anything over the roar of the blood rushing through my ears. The naga who trails me eyes me with a strange look that causes me to shudder.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say they were either sizing me up to eat me or fuck me. Whichever one it is, I can’t tell. And honestly, I don’t really want to.

When one of them gets close enough to me, I swing my axe and nail him in the side like I had done with the first one. But this time, I don’t have enough of a quick reflex to pull my axe back in time.

The naga moves his entire body away from me with the axe still embedded into his side. The handle leaves my hands before I can even tighten my grip around it. I gasp and stumble forward, my hands grasping at the air in front of me.

The other two naga behind him converge on me. Their eyes leer at me, making me shrink away from them.

I need to go and hide somewhere. Maybe I can out run them and find some other weapons to come back and help Angurus fight with.

I’m only able to take two steps back before Angurus comes crashing down on the naga in front of me. He takes them both down with his claws sunk into the backs of their heads. He pierces into the thick scales there, blood pouring over his hands while he crushes their faces into the dirt.

Their skulls crunch in his hands, but it’s something that I find not grotesque but satisfying.

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