Odyssey || ArknightsXPunishing: Gray Raven (OLD BOOK)

Chapter 22: Clashing blades

You can't escape your fate, Lee. Just go with the flow...

And let the Punishing Virus do the work.

Open your eyes...and discover who the real enemy is...

Your time...is almost up..

Soon...you'll become one of us...

Tick.

Tock.

Tick.

Tock.

*slap*

Lee slowly squints his eyes open, awakened by the sharp pain on his right cheek. He realizes that he was laying on the ground, as he feels his head resting on some kind of debris. His vision slowly goes back to normal, and he gazes upon a face staring down at him. Her lilac eyes was staring at his, and she was saying something, but his hearing is a bit muddled.

"Are you...an angel..?" He mutters, before slowly cupping the woman's cheeks. It was soft to the touch.

He saw that she inhaled sharply before grabbing his hand. Suddenly, he felt another stinging pain forming from his cheek. She retracted her hand, before huffing.

"And here I was hoping you died. C'mon, get up." Surtr says and lightly kicks him in the legs.

"Goddamn it, why slap me two times? And do you really want me dead that much?" Lee complained as he slowly got up from the ground. He brushed of the dust on his trousers before grabbing his guns.

"The first one was to try and wake you up, which succeeded. The second was for calling me an angel, which I don't like being called." She shrugged her shoulders as she kicked a severed head of a deconstructor droid.

"That was a compliment, alright? Jeez, women these days..." He muttered as they walked the deserted streets. It was filled with fresh corpses of corrupted, their mangled remains staining the golden desert sand.

"Anyways, how long was I out?" Lee asked after a few minutes of complete silence. Surtr was walking ahead of him, and she didn't bother looking back. She was busy cursing at herself for blushing because of his actions earlier.

"Just...a minute or so."
"Damn this guy! Why the hell am I blushing anyway?!"

"I see. Well, thanks for waking me up." Lee chuckled awkwardly and scratched the back of his head. He sighed heavily and thinks back to the voice in his head from before.

He remembered what happened. They were chased out of their previous hideout because of the ever increasing numbers of the corrupted. They were fighting non-stop for the last few hours since midnight all the way till daylight. Just now, they just finished their 15th run-in with corrupted droids, all of them trying to satisfy their hunger for power.

"..." Lee suddenly stopped dead in his tracks, ultimately realizing something dreadful. He was attracting those detestable corrupted to continuously attack them.

He was a walking magnet.

"Hey! Are you alright?" Surtr yelled. She already walked quite a few distance and was using her sword as support. He could clearly see that she's already tired from the constant walking and fighting, but she's trying her best to put up a tough front.