Fists & Fury

Marcus silently studies the stabbed shadow servant in front of him. Both inhuman creatures look at each other, carefully sizing each other up with thoughtful gazes, and both are on their feet even though the shadow servant in the shape of Anthony has a sword jutting out of him. Marcus's other senses are feeding him valuable information from throughout the forest.

He hears the voice of the cryptid, shuddering as its curiously human voice etches onto his mind, just before the distant stench of rotting flesh hits his nostrils. His sense of touch coupled with some of the rune work on his blade which binds the thing to him allowing him to feel every inch of his blade as though it is an extension of his arm, and he can tell that though he did strike the shadowy minion of the cryptid his strike didn't puncture any organs… If any even exist in the monster to puncture in the first place. The monster in front of him seems positively unbothered by the strike, which in and of itself hints at the potent nature of this creature.

Marcus's mind efficiently and coldly processes all the information his senses allow him to absorb thanks to perks that work to speed up his mental processes and to shield him from fear. Logically, Marcus knows that he ought to be shaken by the fact that an actual monster is attacking him and his friends. This becomes truer after the monster has revealed that it possesses an array of life-threatening powers, but a few of Marcus's perks are proving themselves to be worth their weight in gold as they shield his resolve.

Marcus knows that the creature can kill something and bring it to life. It doesn't take a tactical genius to operate under the assumption that there is a reason why a monster with powers like this went after the weakest member of the group and is now targeting the next weakest member.

Even though he doesn't fully understand the mechanisms that allow the creature to revive its victims, Marcus is bright enough to be aware of the danger that comes with fighting a foe like this. Every one of its victims has the potential to give it another set of hands through which it can strike him and other people.

He also knows that he can't run from this fight, as this sort of creature is too dangerous to be allowed to live. Marcus had hoped that he could cut down the shadow servant in front of him and then join Alexander to put down the cryptid, but that hope was snuffed out almost as quickly as it blossomed in his heart, thankfully Marcus knew not to put much stock in it in the first place.

The shadow servant distracting Marcus possesses all of Anthony's memories, every scrap of his knowledge, and an enhanced version of his body, but every fiber of its being is devoted to one simple goal: serving the cryptid responsible for ending Anthony's life. It plans to gleefully follow any order given to it by its master, even self-destructive or horrifyingly immoral ones, and as it studies Marcus it wonders what it'd take to distract the man so it can obey the order its dark master gave it.

One minor sign of the creature's intelligence is the fact that it doesn't move to dislodge the sword in its chest. Pulling out the blade would give the weapon a chance to inflict more damage on it, and it is somewhat damaged, but it is only feeling mild pain and thanks to the knowledge of the person it distortedly reflects it understands that appearing steadfast and unshaken in the face of pain can confuse and demoralize foes. It is attempting to wield that knowledge as a weapon by stoically enduring its foe's attacks.

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The flames around my fists faintly illuminate the dark forest I have lived in my whole life. Alexander glares at me through the cloud of diseased and decaying matter that separates the two of us, his body tense and his posture telling me he plans to leap at me as soon as he can.

I could dart through the cloud and press my assault but my previous clash with my foe revealed that Alexander is simply too much for me when it comes to pure skill. I am ferocious but the gap between us is too wide for me to meaningfully hurt him as is, so I might as well strategize rather than repeating myself.

Some distance away I can sense Marcus and what remains of Anthony clashing. I can feel Anthony's knowledge in the back of my mind slowly integrating itself into my consciousness, and at this point big details and feelings have already etched themselves into my brain. One such feeling is the fact that Anthony is in love with Mary, or at least he was before I killed him. Another such feeling is the fact that Anthony always wanted a dog.

"Hey Mary, did you know that Anthony is in love with you?" I say, even as I keep my eyes firmly on Alexander. I faintly hear Mary stiffen as my words wash over her. Whether or not these words reflect Anthony's shadow's feelings is beyond my ability to tell, at least at the moment, but they were true of the man when he was alive.

My knowledge of psychology, knowledge which includes both Nathan's knowledge of the subject and some fragments of Anthony's knowledge, lets me understand that doing should further damage Mary's psychological state. Heck it could even inflict damage on the psychological state of my other foes. As is, this is an unfavorable battle but if I could tip the scales somehow…

Using some of my nastier powers, such as the ones I possess that allow me to passively damage the sanity of my foes, drains the same wellspring of energy I use to resurrect fallen foes. I have an array of brutal powers but the heaviest hitters would cost me, and while even now I can feel my energy regenerating I don't know how much of a window I have after causing something to die to resurrect it. If I really want to win this fight I need to make Mary one of my servants.

My knowledge is far from immense, particularly when it comes to battle, but Nathan knows enough that I can be certain that my ability to bring the dead back to life, as my servants, is an unbelievably mighty power. If this power is leveraged properly every fallen foe becomes another pair of hands, another pair of eyes, that I can use to achieve my goals. In a disadvantageous fight like this… Such a power is enough to tip the balance.

As I watch Alexander I elect to press my assault. I raise my flaming hands and point them in the man's direction. I envision the flames that cling to my limbs shooting forward and darting towards the man, and a split second later it actually happens! Brilliant flames explode outward and snake towards my foe, causing his eyes to widen in shock and I delight in seeing him thrown off balance.

Alexander gasps and fully stumbles back, not completely dodging the elemental attack. This causes my reserves of supernatural energy to take a small hit, so I cease this attack, but I can still watch, delightedly, as Alexander rushes to smother the flames that have latched onto his clothes. The man is alarmed by my attack, and annoyed at having to put out a fire, but by the time he's done he's no worse for wear.

There's something… unnatural about this person. Nathan wasn't a genius, but he was well-traveled and well-read, and his knowledge, coupled with what I know from what I've absorbed from Anthony, his ability to be calm here and to deal with my bullshit is probably due to experience. Experience with other creatures like me, even if they don't have quite my breadth of powers. This cements my need to tip the scales, since I can only use my greater powers every so often.

I focus on the connection I have with the facsimile of Nathan. For a moment I can see through his eyes, allowing me to lay my eyes on the backs of the two humans who are with him, both of whom are spooked by what they heard. Just by looking at them and assessing their body language I can tell they must have heard Mary's scream, or at least some distorted echo of it, and Nathan's shadow is curiously wondering what to do.

A third shadow would go a long way towards turning the tide here, and I know that Nathan is close by… He's just barely within teleportation range, even discounting my ability to teleport to those I've marked. But if I go it means that Anthony's shadow will, likely, get put down.

Still, getting the shadows of the two distant humans, and having Nathan's shadow on my side, almost certainly means I can overwhelm Mary, bringing my forces up to four shadows assuming Anthony's shadow goes down. The mental math here is not complex. If I want to turn this around, to overwhelm my foes most efficiently, I need the aid of the shadow servants. There is power in numbers and if nothing else, having more bodies to bog down Marcus will make it easier for me to weaken him.

For a brief instant I review the abilities I possess. This is a purely mental process, and it's one that I am doing for a specific reason. I need something that will allow me to stun my foes for a moment, giving me as much time as I can have to slay Roger and Dakota. Locating a perfect power for this is easier than I anticipated it being, taking a fraction of a second.

I open my mouth and activate "Screamer". Doing this causes the single loudest noise I've ever heard to emanate from me, a sound so explosively loud that it forces Alexander to reel back from me as his eyes widen and he gets hit by it at point-blank range and makes Marcus, Mary, and Anthony's shadow to all wince in pain and be stunned for a brief instant.

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As Alexander reels back, trying to give himself enough room to not be assaulted physically, he covers his ears, unable to help doing so as an instinctual response to the nature of the sonic weapon I have just unleashed. I sense the opportunity this presents and I dart forward, and touch his shoulder. I don't do this as part of an attack, or at least not a direct one, and instead I "Mark" the man, even as my mouth stays open, and the sound emanates from me for an instant longer before abruptly stopping. Now he can't run, at least not in a meaningful sense.

My open mouth twists into a cruel smile, one signaling my instinctual elation at the victory I have just earned, and as Alexander feels my hand I watch my surroundings blur when I activate another one of my powers: "Teleportation". My perception of time does not slow since I know exactly where I'm going this time.

My proximity to him allows me to discern that Alexander can faintly sense that something unnatural has just occurred to him, which is a bit surprising, but it's not enough to sour this victory. Especially since even as quick as he is he cannot stop me from leaving this battlefield. My surroundings blur and I go from being in the middle of the battlefield in front of Alexander, to a dark patch of the forest situated right behind Nathan.

Nathan is creeping towards Roger, and I can tell he is planning to be violent. His fists are closed and there is a certain predator-like vibe emanating from him. His victims, Dakota and Roger, are both scared thanks to the incredibly loud sound I made just a mile away from where I now am, and their fear is visible to me thanks to my ability to see emotions.

I turn inward and focus on my shadow servants. Doing this causes an alert to appear and take up mental real-estate, but the information it reveals is immensely valuable.

[Alert: Shadow Servant Information

Shadow servants are given life by an eldritch process that blends facets of your power into the shadows and non-physical scraps of identity left behind by those you kill. This makes them a part of you, and allows you to, with training or with an increased expenditure of mental and magical energy, use some of your powers through them. You can, however, communicate with a shadow servant without expending energy once you've non-physically done so once.]

That last sentence is incredible. Thanks to it I know that I can communicate with Anthony's shadow, and with Nathan's shadow, freely. And right now, that gives me a chance to turn the tide. I close my eyes and commit a wave of focus to the connection I have with Anthony's shadow.

When I do this I can faintly see Alexander dashing at Anthony, hate visible in his eyes. Marcus is in the middle of throwing a punch at the shadow, while his other hand clutches the hilt of his sword and his muscles strain, attempting to pull his sword free from the strange prison that is Anthony's body.

"Keep them busy and do your very best to stay alive." I mentally order the creature, and when I sense the priorities of the shadow shift I break off the connection and focus on my immediate surroundings.

I dart forward, and as I do Nathan's shadow follows my lead. I hurl myself at Roger, who has a decently muscular build, and Nathan's shadow moves to handle Dakota. My super-speed, a product of one of my powers as a cryptid, allows me to slam Roger with the full force of my hefty weight little more than a few nanoseconds after I hurl myself at the man and I hear bones of his break as my weighty body knocks him over like he's a bowling pin and I'm a bowling ball.

Alexander could endure this, as I was hurling myself at him fully intending to kill the man, but it seems that he stands above other members of his species in this regard. This further proves that Alexander will be a notable shadow servant if I can get my claws around him…

Dakota has just enough time to gasp in shock before Nathan is on top of her, laughing all the while. Meanwhile, I refuse to let up and I continue to move until I am on top of my target.

He is coughing blood and there is panic visible in his eyes, panic which only intensifies when he sees my nude form on top of him. I don't hesitate, closing my fists and aiming one of the weapons at the man's head. My superhuman strength, another product of my nature as a cryptid, gives my fist tremendous power.

I plunge my fist into his head and I feel only the slightest resistance from Roger's body as my fist destroys his face, and then shatters his skull. His brain is destroyed a nanosecond later and I feel bone, blood, and grey matter embed themselves in my fist, even as another notification appears in front of me, asking me if I'd like the man to become one of my servants.

I use the same inhuman speed I displayed earlier to hurl myself back on my feet, while informing the text box that I would love for Roger to become another servant of mine. As this is happening Dakota is in the middle of being hit by Nathan, her body moving in what I perceive as slow motion as Nathan's fist hits her in the face, hard.

I sigh, even as behind me, Roger's lifeless body turns into a floating, shadowy ball and begins the process of becoming a shadow servant. I sense my stores of magical energy take a minor hit, but as bits and pieces of Roger's accumulated knowledge flows into my mind I can't help but smile.

I dart over to Dakota and grab her head as she is reeling back from the force of Nathan's hit. I tense my muscles and rip her head off her body, the thing coming off with next to no resistance and beginning to leak blood onto the forest floor close to my feet. This ends the girl's suffering and causes another notification to appear in my mind's eye, asking me once more if I'd like to gain a new servant.

At the same time, fragments of knowledge and half-remembered memories flow from the head into me. The most important bits of Dakota's knowledge, to her at least, begin to seep into my mind in the same way as Roger's and Anthony's knowledge are doing. I don't hesitate to tell the alert what I'd like and I watch as the head seems to disintegrate in my hands. Another orb begins to appear right in front of Nathan, and he begins to laugh.

"Ahh master… Seeing you triumphant fills me with such joy." He tells me, even as his raucous laughter echoes around us. The look of joy on his face is sincere, he is delighted to have been a party to the murder of two humans, and I smile darkly as well.

Roger's shadowy orb is already taking on the shape of a human, and I watch, patiently, as Dakota's begins to do the same thing. I can faintly sense that Anthony is receiving a beating, but so far the two warriors haven't had quite enough time to kill the shadow thanks to the fact that it has a level of endurance that is probably not far from their own levels of durability.

The process by which corpses transform into shadow servants is fast, lightning quick, but in a fight like the one I'm entrenched in, even the few seconds this takes feels like it is taking forever. With every passing second the supernatural being who is my true foe and his friend have more of an opportunity to weaken or maybe even kill the shadow I left behind, and if they do… They won't get away, but they'll have a few moments of reprieve. I don't want that.

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Marcus and Alexander both hurl their fists, violently, at the eerie replica of the young man they counted as an ally. Neither figure says a word as they attempt to pummel the monster into nothing. Behind them, Mary watches this gruesome display while blinking away tears.

To the credit of the two warriors, the figure they are pummeling has clearly lost the fight. He stoically, patiently endures their blows, but inky "blood" the color of the night's sky oozes out of his mouth. He grins at them, attempting to taunt them, but each blow they land makes him wince and his ability to not cry out in pain is lessening with each blow.

Fists rain down on Anthony's shadow, striking him over and over, and the perk-empowered fists of both warriors hit a creature who is not protected by perks of his own. Both Marcus and Alexander possess perks, and while Alexander's perks are only just beginning to blossom thanks to his proximity to Marcus, it is enough to give his fists the ability to make the nightmarish monster he is fighting feel pain.

In this moment of stress and life and death pressure, Alexander's nature as "The Slayer", one of the companions of the jumper, is beginning to manifest. This lends weight to each of his blows and grants him the boost to his physique that he needs to keep up with even a fledging jumper like Marcus, as well as being responsible for his ability to endure the onslaught he withstood at the hands of the cryptid mere minutes ago.

Marcus, on the other hand, possesses perks that are fully matured and beautifully alive in his soul. Each of his blows is more than a bit shocking in terms of the intensity of the pain the blows they land make Anthony's shadow feel, but it's still not enough to knock out the creature.

The zealous monster is admirably determined to stay conscious, even as he endures a brutal beating. What the monster isn't prepared for is Marcus grabbing the hilt of his sword, still embedded in the monster, with both of his hands and telling Alexander to hit Anthony as hard as he can. Anthony, still in a daze due to the brutality of the beating he has endured, is unable to put up anything but a token resistance, one Alexander can easily withstand.

Alexander ignores the creature's attempts to stop him, simply tanking hits as he smirks at the monster. The slayer hurls his body at the creature, curiously replicating the same attack that was done just moments ago against Roger, and hits the shadow with staggering force. Anthony has just taken the second most violent blow he's ever taken, with the only time he's been hit harder was during his death at the hands of the cryptid.

Anthony's shadow is sent hurtling backward and he actually loses consciousness for a slight second as Marcus makes a sound capturing his elated joy when he feels the sword he's tightly gripping slide out of the body of the nightmarish monster. Black, oil-like blood begins to ooze out of the newly exposed hole in the middle of the creature's body as the beast is knocked away, marking the first time the balance of the battle has seemed to shift. This shift is destined to last for little more than a few moments.

When the creature and his allies, their numbers bolstered by a pair of newly created shadow servants, appear in a copse just out of view of the area where the wrecked van sits, no one notices them. The shadows, on the other hand, do see what has just transpired and all of them, and their king, look deeply annoyed.

"Kill Mary, save Anthony." Utters the king of the shadow creatures, directing the commands at his servants and all three of them nod at him. Nathan and Roger charge out of the copse, not deliberately drawing attention to themselves but also not attempting to hide their presence. Dakota waits a few moments before she darts out of the untouched area in the direction of Mary, charging at her maximum speed towards the scared human.

The newest shadow clears almost half the distance that separates her from her target before Mary notices her, as right before she darted out of the copse her friends were noticed by Marcus and Alexander. The sight of their friends does not warm the hearts of the jumper and his living allies, as all three notice Nathan and instinctively recognize the similarities between him and the dark entity stalking them.

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I watch as my shadows dart through the forest, their eyes locked on their foes. Nathan and Roger eyes Alexander and Marcus, while Dakota glares at Mary, and I chuckle when I see Alexander clock Nathan and Roger, and sees Dakota darting towards Mary.

The man grimaces, and he chooses to ignore the approaching shadows. I don't doubt he trusts that Marcus can handle them. Alexander takes off, sprinting towards Dakota, determination in his eyes. He clearly plans to protect the human, and in the nick of time since she's beginning to move, backing away from the female shadow lunging at her.

"Nope." I utter, as I raise my hand in Alexander's direction and activate "ESP". I refuse to let this one man obstruct my plans any further, and I sense the wave of psionic power that projects out from my outstretched hand. It speeds towards him and hits the man before he can obstruct the shadow, weighing him down and forcing him to stop closing the distance that separates him from the shadow's trajectory with Mary.

"No!" He roars, even as Nathan and Roger finish closing the distance that separated them from Marcus. A good distance behind Alexander, Anthony is slowly turning his head in Alexander's direction, heated malice visible in his gaze. I can see the wounds that Marcus and Alexander inflicted on Anthony healing, and I can feel him beginning to regain the energy he lost because of the beating he endured.

"Join us Mary!" Dakota hisses, the words sounding utterly poisonous as they escape her lips, a cruel smile on her face as she leaps at the teen she's here to kill. Her hands are open and her fingers are outstretched, and she seems intent on using her limbs like a cat's claw, rather than use the sort of hard, closed-fisted strikes I've seen the others use in combat.

Marcus lunges at his foes and begins to bob and weave between the powerful but unsubtle strikes of the shadows dealing with him. The two shadowy beings move with surprising coordination as they seek to keep Marcus on his toes, with Roger even moving to position himself between the figure he's fighting and the man's closest ally. Nonetheless, Marcus armed with his sword proves to be a right terror as he dodges and then counters the attacks of his foes.

Marcus looks young, but he fights with a level of skill that defies what I know about the speed at which humans learn skills. Of all of the people I've fought, Marcus is firmly in the middle as far as apparent age goes. He's younger than Nathan and Alexander, and older than the group I've mostly slain, and yet even at a glance I can recognize that he seems to possess either a natural or decidedly unnatural talent when it comes to fighting.

Curiously, as he cuts into the shadows, I can see their movements becoming a little more unsteady. Even now Anthony seems to be a bit off as he staggers towards Alexander, and he endured a vicious beating by Marcus.

He… He must have perks, or something like them, empowering him. I know he's supernatural, I've seen bits and pieces of what he can do, but now, armed with his sword, he seems like a whole new beast. He is singlehandedly taking on two unharmed shadow servants, and doing so with worrying ease. I turn my attention in his direction when Anthony reaches Alexander and begins to forcefully drag the man away from Mary, even as she desperately tries to run from Dakota.

"Enough!" I roar as I glare at Marcus's sword. He is in the middle of swinging it but when I hit him with a wave of telekinesis his sword arm freezes and as he is surprised by this Nathan soaks him in the face. It is at this point that I forcefully begin to drag him towards me, and I step out of where I was hiding at the same time.

"You! You want my sword… Have it! I'll stick the damn thing in you myself!" Marcus taunts when he sees me as he reacts to being dragged towards me. The man begins to walk with the force, suddenly speeding towards me, right as Dakota grabs Mary and begins to choke her. Nathan and Roger chase after him, but he is fast enough that he'll reach me before they do.

He and I ball up our fists at the same time, and right before he can extend his sword towards me I knock the thing away with telekinesis, sending it flying away mere moments before he could stab me. This makes him cry out in pain as he is forcefully disarmed. A split second later he enters my range, and I enter his, and we throw our fists at each other.

I aimed my fists at his face, but it seems that whatever perks he possesses give him an edge over me when it comes to reaction speed because his fist flexibly reacts to mine and collides with it. When our fists slam into each other I feel my raw physical might overwhelm and overpower the paltry force he put behind his punch but I don't get to enjoy it. I have just enough time to "Mark" Marcus, before something bizarre happens and any excitement I should get to feel right now is robbed from me.

I am knocked away from the creature by what feels like a tiny, localized explosion that sends me back in the direction of the copse and sends him back in the direction of the shadows. I physically see a wave of nearly transparent energy emanate out from where our fists touched and rock our surroundings, hitting everything from grass to my shadow servants with enough force to send them tumbling to the ground.

"What the…" Marcus says, gasping as he shakes his fist and his eyes seem to light up mysteriously. They don't light up with excitement, but rather with what appears to be a strange text box, just like the ones that appear in my mind's eye, but if what I'm seeing in his eyes is real then his are so apparent and obvious that they physically appear.

I see an opportunity and I refuse to let him catch his breath. At the same time, my shadows all do the same thing and as one we lunge to end the fight. Dakota recaptures Mary, and, empowered by adrenaline, bends the woman's neck at an impossible angle. Anthony, almost fully recovered from the beating he was enduring, pounces on Alexander and begins to punch back, pinning the man down with inhuman force and going to town in a rather inartistic way.

I coat my fists in a toxin I can exude thanks to my nature as a cryptid while I dart at my foe, using a significant amount of supernatural energy to do so but willing to bet on the blow. I have hurled myself at my maximum speed at Marcus, and I am committing to this strike. At the same time Mary wheezes out an apology to Marcus and to her friends that I doubt any of them hear since it is so quiet.

Less than a half second later a notification appears in my mind's eye about Mary's death, and I reel back my fist to give it extra force as I close the distance separating Marcus from myself. Marcus does not have time to react to me, other than to widen his eyes, and inwardly I chuckle as I realize that he must not be very smart, and he appears to have overly relied on his powers. I need to learn from what he failed to consider, so I don't make the same mistakes. My poisoned fist hits the side of Marcus's face, near his ear, and I smile until I feel his own fist hit me in the chest in a remarkably executed counter strike that I failed to see coming because of my joy at landing a blow.

An uncomfortable sensation wracks my mind and body, and leaves me well and truly baffled. It takes me a moment to realize that, judging from the memories of some of my victims, I am feeling pain. While knowing I am feeling pain allows me to name the uncomfortable sensation, I shouldn't be able to feel pain at all since I possess a perk that makes me immune to pain. I am not happy to learn, this way, that there is some sort of strange hierarchy that determines which perks dominates each other when two or more perks clash.

Nonetheless, though Marcus's blow hit me cleanly and is making me feel pain I can sense my imminent victory. Marcus quietly coughs and I see green, obviously poisoned blood fly out of his mouth and I can't repress my smile. The man begins to slow, and even more disgusting-looking green blood begins to drip down his face, slowly leaking out of his eyes like tears.

I get to see something strange… The man smiles and a single, hoarse-sounding peal of laughter escapes his lips. But so breathtakingly quickly that I can't be sure it actually happens, I watch the man's expression sour and even contort with what I think must be rage. At the same time I begin to feel strange. Stranger than I've ever felt. Thankfully, this is not an unpleasant sort of strange. If anything it's the opposite.

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Marcus only has time to utter a single, audible, laugh as time begins to freeze around him. Right before time comes to a complete stop, a grim, black text box with white text takes up most of the figure's vision. He is fast enough to skim and react to this notification as time comes to a complete standstill, his facial expression changing in the span of one heartbeat. It goes from one of serenity and calmness to one reflecting the searing, red hot, rage gripping his heart.

"WHAT?!" He roars, the sound almost as loud as the scream that emanated from Mary's lips minutes before her untimely death at the hands of the shadow of her fallen friend. He can't even see every part of the notification, in fact he can't see most of it, but what he sees is bad. And as he reads it, he begins to feel what it describes, and he must stifle a sob. He can sense the powers he used, repeatedly, to protect himself and others, during his time in Generic First Jump, fading from his grasp.

He falls to his knees as he feels weaker than he's ever felt, costing him almost all of the strength in his legs in one instant. Marcus feels uncomfortably hot as his body reacts to the unnatural act of predation he has been a victim of, a supernatural theft that robs him of something that is simultaneously difficult to describe with words audible to mortals while being essential to jumpers.

The jumper is powerless to stop the essence nestled deep within the soul of the monster who has defeated him from reaching, and harming, even cutting into, the ethereal organ located in Marcus's soul that facilitates travel from one universe to another. Foul, shadowy tendrils of the essence of the monster who defeated Marcus are in the jumper, unable to firmly steal every scrap of power that the multi-universal being possesses, but even in their joint infancy the monster and the essence are still great enough to steal away some of their victim's powers.

Marcus's body changes, his appearance losing much of its fiat-backed protections. He doesn't lose what he's earned, as Marcus was smart enough to hone his body to a certain degree through hard work during the decade-long journey he undertook, but he loses much of the edge given to him by the power of appearance-boosting perks. He also feels the arcane energy that was comfortably nestled away inside of him, like water behind a dam, flow out of him and he sees the stuff fill the air between himself and his foe. He scowls at this, but knows he cannot fight it.

Entire perk trees are stolen from him, though he doesn't know the cause of this, nor its extent at this moment. All he knows for sure is that cannot do anything about it now and that he is still alive, which are two powerful and valuable facts. Marcus spends some time consumed by rage, rage directed towards his foe, towards himself, and towards stupid choices he made during the fight that played a role not only in his loss but also in granting the evil creature he lost to more power. And he feels all of this before he has a quiet epiphany and realizes that to do something worthwhile in response to the crimes he has just endured, he must escape this place. To avenge his friends, to avenge himself, he must survive.

He does not know how much "time" he spent on his knees. Prior to him slowly lifting himself up, he does not try to keep track of how many "seconds" would have passed while he kneeled and felt powerful emotions, had time not been stopped by the power of his 1-up perk. That said, he knows he must live. He gets up and begins to walk away from the monster who slew his friends, and just cost him his 1-up perk. Though a part of him hates not attacking the creature, he knows that to do so is to forfeit his chance to escape, and thus would only lead to him failing his chain. That sobering realization is enough to compel Marcus to feign maturity even as he seethes with anger and humiliation.

Eventually the figure escapes the forest altogether, time still frozen, and sees a car in the distance. Marcus slowly shuffles to the car, breaks one of the windows, and gets into it. He quickly hotwires the car, and is nonplussed when the car turns on. He lost his one up once before, he knows that it gives him a chance to make a clean getaway from his killers, even supernaturally powered ones and so he begins what is destined to be an uneventful drive to an airport in a distant town.

Marcus does not allow himself to feel anything as he drives away from the eldritch monster who has taken one of his lives and some of his power. He cannot afford to allow himself to be overwhelmed, and he will not give the monster the moral victory it'd have over him if it, even unknowingly, made him cry. No… Marcus is determined to overcome this, and the beast who defeated him, and that begins with the man not giving the beast a centimeter of power over him.

Tragically, while time being frozen is a necessary and life-saving thing for Marcus, he is not the sole creature to begin to undergo life-changing alterations while time stands still. The cryptid cannot move at all, and is not even aware that time has frozen, but the power its victory over Marcus allowed it to snatch out of the jumper is, even now, coursing through the beast.

Changes, biological and otherwise, are happening to the cryptid even as the beast's mind remains firmly as frozen as the minds of everything around it. A tiny silver of the organ Marcus possesses that allows him to survive traveling from one universe to another is now nestled deep within the physical and nonphysical substances that make up the cryptid. This is allowing the cryptid to undergo a small, at least in terms of direct, immediate power, evolution that can, with time and dedication serve as a stepping-stone to grander changes.