A massive, avian form rises from Wenji, triple her height and sporting four gargantuan wings. Its feathers are pitch-black, standing out well in the snowstorm. Not a single part of it is not obscured by the feathers, with even its “beak” being formed of pressed-together blackness, save for rows of horns on either side of its head, growing from where eyes may have been. Also exempt from the feathery covering is the spirit’s taloned feet, hovering just above the snow as it ruffles its wings.

Notably, no snow can be seen to touch it.

Worry sprouts in Jordan’s expression as he notices the thing is directing its attention to him, and it spreads its wings wide, separating the snow beneath it.

“Gotta stand,” Jordan shouts at himself within his mind “That thing’s gonna pull some shit and I’ll die!”

Jordan’s arms jitter as he forces the snow before his limp form down, into a more compact mass. He continues to shove down further, bringing his torso up.

The entire time, his focus is locked on the bird-thing. It shifts a long, silver-clawed talon to just above Wenji’s shoulder, gripping down on it hard and beginning to beat its wings.

The snow beneath it parts further, as if a helicopter’s blades were beating above it.

Jordan shuts his eyes hard, and one of his destroyed legs can be seen to twitch. He draws it forward in one quick, uneven motion, managing to steady himself on it and bring himself to a kneeling position. 

We see now that he’s phased Scorched ‘El’s form into his own, with its legs overlapping onto his.

As he brings himself up further, pushing down on his knee as he attempts to stand, we see the corn-crust of his new prosthesis begin to splinter under his weight. It is as if it were as brittle as true taco shell, managing still to support him.

The avian creature bends down further, wreathing Wenji in a wing as she coughs up a deal of phlegm and blood, seemingly just to clear her throat as she shouts at Jordan:

“I’m going to survive this! I am–”

Wenji hurls up a handful of blood, whimpering somewhat as she forces herself to continue..

“I am my father’s daughter.”

The winged creature, gripping Wenji’s shoulders, flaps its four wings hard. Wenji’s bloodied, bestabbed form is lifted slowly from the snow, Jordan’s eyes widening when he sees the machete protruding from her lower torso.

Wenji’s voice goes hoarse as she begins full-on screaming at Jordan.

“But you! You’ll never leave this place! You’re going to die here for what you did to my father!”

Wenji has now been pulled free from the snow, her own feet no longer touching any sort of ground.

“You’re going to bleed and freeze to death here, under the shadow of these Black Wings!”

Jordan pulls an arm back, as if he were reaching for some invisible gun’s holster. Then, clenching his palm into a fist, he points its knuckles straight at the rising mass!

Manifesting from his arm as he raises it is one of Scorched ‘El’s cannons, floating just beneath his forearm as if they were attached.

Three quick, thin streams of Scorcho Sauce are sent flying at the thing, but seemingly heedless of them, it dives towards Jordan!

Wenji yells aloud as she and her feathered flight are about to meet the corrosive bolts head-on, and the thing’s four wings all bend in different directions.

This changes the two’s path just so that they manage to weave between the bolts, if not around them altogether, before resuming their dive-bomb straight towards Jordan.

As Wenji and the creature come ever closer, Wenji’s enraged cries finally reaching Jordan through the storm, Jordan responds in kind: “Come on, you fuck! I’mma drizzle that chicken some SPICE!”

Jordan backs into a large, icy crag just behind him, locking his focus on Wenji and pressing his hands against it.

Scorched El’s cannons, now manifesting from both his arms, drill new, powerful streams of Scorcho Sauce straight into the crag! The sauce ricochets off it, splattering the back of his jumpsuit.

He’s sent flying straight towards the black comet, meeting its feathery head with Scorched ‘El’s knees! Jordan claws hard into the feathery husk of the thing’s larger wings to hold on, letting his own legs dangle, useless, as those of his spirit pummel down on Wenji’s head! His skin is reddened by the all-surrounding frost, being further exposed as the melted tatters of his jumpsuit melt away and expose his upper torso.

Jordan, again and again, finds his hands slipping free from the thing’s back and wings, no matter how deeply he claws! Every time they slip back, they heft a handful of the thing’s feathers! 

“It’s all just fucking FEATHERS?!” Jordan thinks to himself, panickedly.

The avian spirit is now flapping all four of its wings in place, seems as if it is struggling to keep itself airborne! Jordan sees this, and stares Wenji in the face as a smirk crosses his lips and Scorched ‘El kicks her yet again.

Her nose now bloodied, and face more bruised besides, Wenji’s scowl grows. “Reflect on your misdeeds as you fall, BASTARD.”

Hearing this, Jordan looks around. His vision hazy and the snow-storm growing more intense, he can no longer see the ground. Perhaps the dark-feathered thing wasn’t struggling at all, it dawns on him, and it was simply flapping them all higher up.

Before he knows it, the black spirit has butted its head into Jordan’s own, digging its horns into his forehead and ruining any hold he had left on the thing’s wings.

He plucks another two handfuls of feathers from the thing’s seemingly endless supply before being sent plummeting, yelling furiously as he goes. 

Jordan knows not where the ground is, seeming panicked and directionless as he falls. As his head nearly knocks against a massive spire of rock just by him, however, he regains it, and brings his focus back to the death-bird.

Doing this, he sees that it is again barrelling straight down at him!

Jordan’s panic picks up again as he looks to the ground, finally visible and approaching fast. His thoughts race:

“I can’t just stop my fall with Scorched ‘El again, there’s no WALLS! If I shoot the ground, I’ll dissolve in the pool I make!”

Resolution in his eyes, Jordan phases Scorched El’s left arm into his own, and aims its other arm’s cannon at the ground. Digging the first arm into the mound of jagged stone, he yells as it is raked and split by rushing stone, with this doing little to slow him or keep his descent balanced as he fires with his other arm. This stream sent from Scorched ‘El’s right arm-cannon hits the ground in a concentrated jet, working to slow Jordan by just a tad.

Wenji yells hard, the machete in her stomach being all but audible in her voice as she and Black Wing gain on Jordan.

Just as he’s about to make love to the ground, Jordan’s spirit-reinforced arm catches a jag of stone like a hook, dislocating the arm at the shoulder as its corn-crust exterior shatters entirely. 

Even as his fall is stopped via the destruction of his spirit and body, Jordan lands on his feet, huffing hard as he lets his dislocated arm drop from the jag. A step to the side keeps him from slipping into the slowly widening hole made by the shot of Scorcho Sauce.

Determination is etched into his brow as he locks eyes with Wenji, her yell now intensifying into an anguished scream. Her face, even against the snow, has become much paler.

Jordan has Scorched ‘El bend its knees in readiness, spreading his arms wide and clenching his teeth. A low rumble, as if from an earthquake, can be heard intensifying behind him.

Wenji is on the verge of fainting as she finally nears Jordan, her body sinking into the dark spirit’s feather-flesh as it frees its talons of her. It swings them forward, its claws flexing in readiness to rend Jordan’s flesh!

At the last second, Jordan dodges the gliding creature’s assault, diving into a roll! 

The creature crashes straight into the spire of stone that had been just behind Jordan a moment ago, showing seemingly no reaction as it loses but a few feathers.

However, as blood can be seen dripping from its lower torso, we see the thing’s black for begin to slump and sag, heaps of feathers starting to slough off.

Wenji pushes out of the still- standing bird-thing’s chest , an arm hanging loose as she twists her head to Jordan.

“Yes, big man. Run, I dare you. Avoid these talons as long as you wish– I will keep coming. The warmth of your own blood will be the only solace I offer you.”

Jordan had apparently completed the roll on his feet, as he now stands tall, looking back to Wenji. He coughs hard as he replies:

“Wasn’t you I was avoiding.”

The rumbling grows even louder, and Wenji’s eyes, travelling up the stone spire before her, spot her demise too late. The spot where Scorched ‘El had before drilled into the spire had further degraded its base, to the point that it was now falling straight onto her.

Wenji’s scream is drowned out even before she is crushed, the rumbling and crashing of massive stones creating a cocophany like none Jordan had ever heard before.

The entire time that Jordan can see her, Wenji’s one visible eye is glaring straight at him, all of it a blood red.

Of course, the crash is deafening, and shakes Jordan’s foothold to their very foundations.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Rocks clatter and settle for but a moment more, and soon the only sound above the wind is Jordan’s own choking panting.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

His chest feels like a ton of bricks, and his skin like cracking asphalt. He allows himself to fall backwards, into the snow.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

His vision still blurry as he looks behind him, into an upside-down winter wasteland, he feels obliged to scrub it into focus as he sees a yellow light.

It is far, but bright enough to shine through the snow. At its edges, he seems illuminated what may be helicopters, and a set of gates. 

For a moment, a thought of a chance, or possible survival or even escape crosses his mind.

All other thought is shot, however, as he sees another silhouette in the light.

The form is indescribably massive, and is visible for but a moment as its serpentine tail curls and uncurls in the light.

Also catching his attention, as well as the light in a way different from every other object there, Jordan can see something refracting the light– humanoid in shape, possibly, and so much smaller than everything else there. What catches Jordan’s tired eye is its color: a bright neon pink.

Hope and confusion well up in Jordan’s chest, both feelings being rendered moot as the leviathan’s tail makes another appearance.

This time, nothing is left after it passes. The helicopters all vanish, along with Zain, with clouds of kicked-up snow following in their wake.

Jordan decides to curl up, right there and then.

With no immediate threat or uncertainty to occupy him now, the floodgates of his doubt and guilt are thrown wide open. The guards. His family. Zain. He’d be going to a dark place for what he’d done, as soon as the frost took him.

Behind Jordan, sitting on the side of the collapsed stone spire, we can see Zain.

In place of armor, he sports a set of poorly-sized gym clothes.

Zain is nodding his head, clapping as he stands up. His voice is pristine and calm as he calls to Jordan, as if there were no storm at all:

“Hell yeah! Now that’s a fucking Dark Souls roll!”

Jordan flips himself around with an arm, quick as anything, nearly winding himself in the process. He gulps air back in, painfully, as he scans around the fallen spire.

There is no-one there.