Spliteye’s bullet was embedded into its forehead, but it seemed unaffected, ponderously making its way towards the source of its newest pain. Zelsys could see most of its front half now, its wretched heart visibly beating beneath exposed ribs.

She grabbed the lever and pushed down.

Click.

Click.

The gun erupted with a blinding flash and a deafening boom, the recoil so forceful it threw Zelsys into a brief backwards roll. A fleshy thunk resounded, followed by an angry gurgle-roar from the beast just as Zelsys landed on her feet. She couldn’t clearly see where she hit through the smoke, but she saw clearly enough to see the beast was still moving. The thought of reloading crossed her mind, but was immediately quelled by the realization that the rest of the ammo was stored within the Tablet. She scanned her surroundings for any other weapons, thinking that perhaps Wire had his gun by his side, but no such luck. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw it - the silvery gleam.

“Keep it busy! I’ll get it from behind!” she yelled at Spliteye, sharply inhaling and taking off towards the transport, a trail of silver Fog marking her superhumanly fast dash. In the face of imminent death, Zelsys felt not fear, but exhilaration - she was alive, ready and willing to try killing the beast with her bare hands if her current plan failed - if the cleaver was too heavy.

She grabbed it with her right hand as she leapt over the makeshift butchering table, its weight so massive she had to rebalance herself to remain upright. Then, as she ran through the small vegetable field and trampled the lentils underfoot, she felt a buzzing warmth spreading up her arm and the apparent mass of the blade becoming lesser and lesser with each step. The sound of a gunshot echoed, followed by a roar from the beast as it reared up on its back legs, tall enough that its head was visible over the transport.

When she finally got to the bear-beast’s rotting backside, the cleaver had shifted into a double-edged instrument of slaughter - one side an inward-curved blade and the other a push-saw with massive feather-shaped teeth. The bear-creature noticed her presence and dropped onto all fours, but it was too late. She had already noticed a weak point where its hide had rotted away, the ridges of its lower spine showing through.

The huge weapon noticeably trembled in her grip as she gripped it with both hands and raised it, but the bear was already moving, it would be able to dodge faster than she could follow through with a chop. Midway through raising the blade, Zelsys twisted her core to the left and rammed its push-saw side sideways into the beast’s back.

The sickening crunch of bone and the pained roar of the beast as its back legs gave out were both as though sweet music to her ears. It began thrashing, twisting about on the ground as it failed to understand why its back legs wouldn’t move.