Marvel: I'm a Symbiote-Symbiote 0273: Collateral Damage (1/2)

For once, Natasha’s morning didn’t begin with the beautiful weather and calming chirping of the phoenixes as she and Alex had their habitual morning sex. Instead, she was awoken by the sound of a loud rumbling that reverberated through the entire dimension. It was as if a violent earthquake was destabilizing the ground itself. She was out of bed before her eyes had even completely opened, and Xialing was already held tightly in her arms as the girl barely woke up.

“Jump out,” Hearing Alex’s voice calmed her, allowing her to take action quickly. She jumped out of the window just as their residence collapsed under the effects of the earthquake. At the same time, Alex also jumped out through another window as the other residents all quickly evacuated their respective homes, most of them were subject to the same situation. The abrupt earthquake had left most of them disoriented and confused. As for the houses, most of them had collapsed within the first few minutes of the earthquake, only the more sturdy ones survived longer, but they were also going to collapse sooner or later if the intensity continued.

“Did you jinx something in your conversation with that dragon two days ago? How is it that this dimension seems to be collapsing?” Natasha asked in disbelief, hugging Xialing tightly.

Alex, on the other hand, only had a somber expression on his face, “Give me a few seconds.” He closed his eyes to focus on something.

“What’s going on, teacher?” Xialing asked Natasha as both of their gazes moved to the seal across the lake. It wasn’t clear what was going on, but the most likely culprit was the entity sealed within the mountain.

“Don’t worry. It seems that we might just end up leaving sooner than we planned,” Natasha said, pulling Xialing’s face close to her stomach before the girl could voice out her protests. Natasha didn’t disturb Alex, who seemed to be in some sort of a meditative state. She could feel that he was under some kind of immense stress. Just as a minute passed, she felt a familiar energy escaping her, subtle enough that only she noticed it. It was the Time Stone’s energy. Before she could think too much about it, the earthquake grew much worse.

“You!” A panicked yet immensely distressed voice spoke to Natasha. “This is your doing,” Ying Nan approached the three while barely keeping herself from falling to the ground. The earthquake affected the dimension easily in the range of magnitude nine on the Richter Scale. “Our home was perfectly fine before you came along,”

As the seconds passed, the earthquake was only getting worse and worse. Before Natasha could respond to the distressed leader’s accusation, a loud roar reverberated through the dimension itself.

“Oh no!” Ying Nan’s head whipped in the direction of the mountain. Despite the distance, she seemed to directly see the seal being damaged due to the earthquake. As cracks spread across the mountain, a small lizard-like creature escaped one of them, quickly flying toward the village.

“That’s the Dweller-in-Darkness?” Natasha asked, a little underwhelmed. “I thought it was a huge dragon …”

“That’s just one of its minions! If the seal is weakened further, we will be swarmed by thousands of those soul-suckers in minutes,” Ying Nan snapped. “I don’t know if you’re responsible for this or not, but at this point, we’re all in the same boat. Wake up your partner and take up arms, Dragonscale ones. Only they will work. Ta Lo!” She screamed loud enough to make her voice heard across the village despite the earthquake. Natasha assumed that it was due to her using Qi consciously in her voice. “Take up your arms. Get ready for the fight of your lives!”

Natasha was a little impressed by the woman’s drive. Despite the distressing situation, instead of blaming her and Alex, she was quick to come to terms with the situation.

“Your Aunt is a very competent leader, huh, Xialing?” Natasha said with a little smile, looking down at Xialing in her arms, only to frown. The girl had a silly smile on her face as she looked at the cracking mountain across the lake.

“Xialing,” Natasha couldn’t suppress her sigh. “What did we talk about yesterday?”

“You said that bad people can try to trick us,” Xialing said. “But I know my mother. It’s her. And she’s finally going to come back to me.” The girl’s excitement was palpable, only making Natasha feel a pained sense of helplessness.

“Just … keep my words in your mind, okay? If your belief turns out to be wrong, I don’t want you to lose all hope.” Xialing giggled in response to Natasha’s concerned words, not taking it too seriously. “Promise me, Xialing,” Natasha said slightly sternly.

“Fine,” The girl rolled her eyes. “I promise that I won’t lose all hope if my belief is wrong. I still have you, right shifu?” She said slightly cheekily, making Natasha shake her head. Xialing was the only one in the entire village who was calm and even slightly elated in the event of this earthquake.

Natasha glanced at Alex, who still had his eyes closed, seemingly busy with something. She thought of something and extended her hand to him, intertwining her fingers with his, [Come back. Don’t leave your body out in the open. There are soul-sucking demons out here.]

She didn’t get a response from him, but his body melded into hers in an instant. The villagers were all busy either preparing for the upcoming battle or waiting at the shore for the flying demons, so no one noticed the anomaly, including Xialing, whose face was pressed against Natasha’s stomach.

“What are you doing just standing around like that?” The old man who had first encountered her spoke to her harshly. “Since you are a warrior, take up arms. As for the girl, send her to the shelter with the other children. We don’t have the time to dally!” Leaving those words for Natasha, he joined the line of people that was slowly forming at the shore of the lake.

Hearing the man’s words, Natasha was quick to burst into action. Quickly picking Xialing up in her arms, she ran toward the forest surrounding the village, following the other guardians with their children. Looking at the panicked citizens of the small village, Natasha felt frustrated. [You couldn’t have picked a worse time to disappear, Alex …] She spoke telepathically as she helped a child and her mother up.

While most of the inhabitants of the village were trained for combat, none of them were prepared to be struck by the massive earthquake that was still violently shaking the entire dimension. The situation had already thrown them into a panicked disarray, and the enemy had chosen this exact time to attack them.

“No, Shishō!” Xialing suddenly struggled in Natasha’s arms. “We have to go back. Mother is calling for me …”

As the girl in her arms started struggling, Natasha felt an increasing sense of frustration, both with the situation and her powerlessness to fix it.

“I’m sorry, honey,” Natasha combed her fingers through the girl’s hair before pressing a specific acupoint on her neck. The girl yelped in pain before losing consciousness. “Uncle Apex will make sure that it doesn’t hurt when you wake up,” She guiltily massaged the spot that she had pressed.

Natasha continued helping the fallen people along the way, making sure that everyone was safe as they approached the shelter inside the forest. This made it so that she appeared in the clearing with a group of almost thirty people and their young. The shelter was covered by a natural canopy of dense trees, hidden from the outside completely.

Natasha put Xialing on the ground and made her lean her torso against a tree, she then approached the elder woman who was helping everyone in and settling everyone as best as she could.

“Please keep an eye on her. It’s very likely that she will try to leave,” Natasha told the woman, who hurriedly nodded. “I have to go out and join the battle.”

The woman held on to the branch of a tree to maintain her balance and spoke with a comforting tone, “You don’t have to worry. This place is protected by the magic of the Great Protector herself. No one can enter or exit this canopy once the barrier is established. As for your daughter, I will keep her safe, same as the other children.”

“Thank you,” Natasha didn’t have the time to correct the woman’s words — not to mention the happy feeling that accompanied it — and quickly ran toward the lake’s shore. The battle had already started.

Just as Natasha emerged from the forest, she came face to face with a large, scaly lizard with wings that was the size of a cat. It screeched at her, and multiple tendrils that were emerging from its underbelly approached her. Moments later, a slight glow accompanied its approaching tendrils. Instantly, A bolt of lightning escaped Natasha’s hand and vaporized the body of the scaly lizard creature. She was about to start running toward the other villagers, but the destroyed creature immediately reformed.

“The fuck?” She couldn’t help but release profanities as another bolt of lightning escaped her fingers. [I might need some help with this, Alex …] As she saw the creature reform, she realized that the residents of the village weren’t facing this issue. Their weapons were directly vaporizing the creatures. That was when she recalled Ying Nan’s warning about using Dragonscale weapons.

Just as she was about to charge toward one of the fallen weapons of one of the dead warriors, Natasha felt an ethereal pull on her entire existence.

Soul Suckers … She was quick to realize her predicament and continued blasting the creature with lightning, keeping it distracted enough that it couldn’t suck away her soul.

Just as she was thinking of a solution to her predicament, she felt a faint intent from Alex. He told her to try once again. Immediately, she released a bolt of lightning at the creature, but instead of the usual blue, it was crimson. The creature couldn’t reform again.

[I love you, Alex!] Natasha exclaimed as her arms extended into whips that glowed with the crimson lightning that was powered by Chaos Energy. She was quick to join the fray.