Chương 18: The slightest twitch.

"Oh shit," Phil said.

"Fuck, god damnit. No, no." He rubbed his face through his mask forcefully, moving his skin up and down, then dropped his shoulders, "We're fucked, kid; that's Lifeline's Boon. He gains proprioception on anybody that moves within his radius."

"What's his radius?" Grim asked.

"What's proprioception?" Hazel added, nearly at the same time.

"Your sense of where your body is, and nobody knows. Assume if you're moving, he knows exactly where you are." Grim frowned "Can he tell who's who? He can't tell the difference between us and someone else's who's moving, right?" Phil thought about it for a second, scowling.

"We can't trust that."

"Well, we don't have much of a choice, do we? Unless you've got a boon you've kept hidden from us," Grim said. Phil didn't say anything, but she saw Hazel shake her head behind him. Damnit. Things were not looking good, and it was a safe assumption that backup was not coming. She had seen Volk take Maribelle, and there was no way they'd come back for her, even if they were scared of her squealing on them. No one fought a Boon Witch and won; the best-case scenario was surviving.

"I can feel you," They heard a voice squeeze into their minds like a parasite. It wiggled behind their eyes and wrapped around their brains to whisper sweet nothings. Grim and Phil stiffened up, trying to stop themselves from reacting. It didn't work. Grim coiled in on herself, trying to get it out. It was unnatural and felt like it was burrowing deeper every time she moved. She looked up to see Phil grasping at his head; his face turned red, and his eyes bulged.

His armour shifted to cover the rest of his body, and she saw it harden, stopping him from moving.

"What's going on?" Hazel frantically asked as she looked at them in alarm.

"He's in our heads," Grim managed to get out between her teeth.

"Come to me," A voice whispered to their brain, and they knew exactly where he was. It was coming closer, up the stairs.

"Surrender yourselves." Grim covered her ears and flinched as Hazel looked around, she tried the door handle to an apartment next to them and found it locked. She stepped back and used Phil's boon to twist the wood until it warped enough to open. Phil moved inside on his own while Hazel shoved Grim inside before fixing the door behind them. Inside, the apartment was well lived in; several pairs of shoes were at the front step but were the same size. The living room and kitchen were furnished but just barely.

Not enough to feel like a home.

"STAY BACK, I'M ARMED," a man's voice shouted from a closed bedroom. Grim barely heard it through the haze her thoughts had to go through. Still, she managed to look up and consider it. It didn't seem like whoever was inside was going to come out, which was good for them. He was probably more scared of them than anything, but she'd still need to deal with it.

"Can you barricade that door closed, Hazel?" Grim asked. Hazel raised her hand and twisted the wood until it sunk deep into the wall. The man shouted once he saw what was happening but didn't fire the gun. If he wanted to get through that, it'd take him at least a couple of minutes, giving them plenty of warning. Grim took a second to get her bearings. She tried to frame her mind like when using [CEDE], which seemed to help. The experiences were similar, like there was too much for her brain to comprehend.

Once she could walk without falling over she went to the balcony and looked outside, the apartment she was in faced the front of the building, and she could see a line of watch vehicles. Big, thick armored trucks formed a perimeter around the building. They were well and truly screwed; there were way too many guns and boons aligned against them to escape or even try and fight their way out. Her head was still in a daze, but it was getting easier to think.

She could feel Lifeline moving up the stairs and getting closer. Phil seemed to realize it, too. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. He sat down on a couch opposite her, "Well, we're fucked, so here's the plan. We're gonna wait til that bastard gets close enough, and then I'm gonna spear him straight through the heart." Phil raised his hand, and a red-tipped vine travelled up his chest to his hand, where he formed it into a flower.

"This is a flower of the valley from the end. Positively soaked in essence. It should be enough to pierce any defences he might have. One use only, though."

"Holy shit, you've been there?" Grim asked. Phil smiled, "Damn right I have, stationed there."

"You were a soldier?" Phil stood up and grinned as he formed the flower into a deadly spiral." Witch. When you get a chance, run. That's the best I can do for you." She watched as he walked to the door, a floating death spiral in his hand. She could feel Lifeline walking onto their floor through that same sense he used to track them. She felt the flex and power he put into kicking down a door simultaneously. She heard it coming from the room next to them.

There were several screams, but they were silenced as gunshots rang out. Grim and Hazel hit the floor, not eager to catch a stray bullet.

Phil was by the door waiting, getting tenser by the minute as the sounds of boots trampled down the hallway. First to the door opposite theirs, and after a repeat of the last encounter, Grim knew she had to come up with something else. She could feel him getting closer. Wait. She could feel him, did that count? She got up and ran to Phil.

"Grim, wait!" Hazel whispered as she tried to follow but failed to get up off the floor. She grabbed Phil's arm as he turned to her, his eyes open wide.

"Kid, this isn't the time to get sentimental. What are you doing?"

"Giving you a gift," Grim said as she used [CEDE]. She was back in that room, the monitor in front of her. The feeling she had before, of the exact timing she needed to grab what she wanted, was faint. The tendril between them was weak; the proprioception they were sharing was acting as the physical touch but only just barely. What she did have was a name. [THE SLIGHTEST TWITCH] Her hand was back in the screen, wrapped around it. She pulled, but it didn't come as easily as Arcadia's did.

He was stronger, and she had less authority over him. Her grip was firm, but it was only barely budging. She dug her other arm into the console and tugged; with more leverage, it started to pull out. A voice in her mind yelled at her, "What are you doing?" The link between them was close and far at the same time, she could feel Lifeline fall to his knees as he started to fight back. She almost slipped as the Boon stopped moving, her grip sliding off it by an inch.

"Oh god, wait. You shouldn't be in there. You have no idea what you're doing," Lifeline warned her in her head as they fought for control over his Boon. Somehow, he started to win. It had to have been through a combination of factors either by the distance and or the rank differential between them but she felt [CEDE] start to lose power. She opened one eye, basking in the light of the real world compared to the lifeless monotone of the console room.

"He's too strong," Grim said through her teeth.

"What are you... never mind. I got it." Phil stayed in contact with her as he stretched out the tendril. When it finished forming into a foot-long spike, he drove it through the door. A burst of electricity flared out at the same time she felt Lifeline get bowled over.

"Got him." The boon snapped out of the monitor, clutched firmly in her hand. With the last echo of its power, she heard Lifeline whisper, "You shouldn't have done that." The hold Lifeline had on his power dropped, and so did their connection. She chose to ignore his warning. ERROR TARGET HAS NO REMAINING SLOTS"What are you doing, kid? Why's my system screaming at me to discard a boon?" Phil asked her as a hail of bullets came through the door. They ducked down, and he cut off his connection to the flower.

Grim felt her start to lose the power to the abyss, her hold on it in the console room was getting weaker.

"Just choose!"

"This better be worth it," Phil said. The boon ran from the abyss and rolled itself into Phil. As soon as it was confirmed, she fell backwards as her eyes nearly rolled back into her head. That took a lot more out of her than she thought it would. Phil slowly turned to look at her, "You... just took his boon. That's not possible." Lifeline screamed from outside the room, "They're in there! Kill them!" A boot slammed into the door but didn't give as the plant matter reinforced it.

Grim crawled over to Hazel and helped her get up, an alarming amount of blood was in a puddle where she'd been laying.

"What happened?" Grim asked. She hadn't noticed any blood before.

"Don't worry about me. Come on, we're almost through," Hazel said as she hobbled over to the balcony where the Watch cordon was still surrounding them. Outside were several large trees that provided shade to the apartment block. Hazel barely had her eyes open.

"What now?" Phil asked.

"Use his boon to call them away; they won't know it's not him," Grim said.

"That might actually work," Phil said to himself as she felt [THE SLIGHTEST TWITCH] reassert itself. She waited for the familiar slug feeling to wrap around her brain, but it never came; judging by how the Watchmen outside reacted, they probably couldn't say the same.

"All Watchmen to the south side, their escaping!" Phil said out loud; it took a moment, but the stripes outside who weren't reeling started to head that way.

"Now what?" Phil asked. Hazel perked up, a last-ditch feral energy to her, "We jump." Grim screamed as Hazel threw the both of them off the balcony.