Emma didn't even try to talk. She just hopped, and as if the floor was trampoline, her body threw itself against the ceiling. She collided, and she stuck there, like a humanoid lizard, but her palms were flat on the smooth surface.

She twisted her body to face her brother, now looking up, grimacing in his leonine face. Ed was the wall as he tried to slip past him. Emma would talk to him later.

"Father demands you, Emma" Martin growled, "you're lucky enough he sent me, and not Canny."

"I don't have a father," everything washed in a wavery blue light. The way Ed was staring told her her eyes were flaring up again.

"You can't deny the blood in your vessels," he half extended his wings, the leathery appendages reached almost to the ceiling, "we are your family."

"Martha was my family."

There was a flick, a smoky black blur. If Martin wasn't present there she would've sketched it off as nothing but a mistake of her eye, even calling it a bug would be a stretch.

The concrete where she had been a fraction of a second ago exploded into a rain of dust as collision rang through the room like a gunshot. She found herself cooped up in one of the corners of the ceiling, her palms finding a quick grasp on the static potential that was stored up in the walls, holding her like a magnet a piece of iron.

The beast whipped around, growling like a broken washing machine, clearly annoyed that she swerved his attack. Its large black scorpion barb was raised above its head, drops of milky liquid— poison, she knew— dripping from the tip of the spike, as ready to strike as a loaded crossbow.

"Why are you being so selfish?" Martin was trying to get inside her head, but Emma wasn't about to give him the chance.

Keeping her eyes trained on her brother, she called upon it; The coldness at her bottom. No, not her butt. Somewhere right beneath her kidney. It burst out like the floodwater from a broken dam.

It was like Mercury, heavy, cold and utterly painful against the walls of her blood vessels, like it had always been. It pressed against her muscles, almost tearing them apart to make way for itself.

Only for a moment, then she felt the release, from her fingertips. Dizziness overwhelmed her as the inky liquid shot out of her right hand. It danced and twisted, until it came into a long and narrow shape and then, with an audible shing, it solidified.

A spear. A curved, onyx colored blade, and a five feet shaft of the same color.

Against a Manticore.

Held by an anemic eleven-year-old.

Although she saw the tail descending on her this time, she barely had time to jump out of its way.

She landed on the floor, only to leap again as a coiling cloud of orange flames engulfed the side of the room.

Did Ed get cau-

A raw jolt of pain stabbed her left thigh as she spun mid-air. The spiked appendage that had caught her spun her around and backward. Her spear flew off and clattered to the floor somewhere.

She hung upside down, facing the large leonine head that was billowing smoke from the fiery depths of its mouth like it was vaping. The pain in her thigh started to fade, a sign of the poison at work.

"Now, listen, you little crazy bitch," Martin growled, "when you get home, you say you got that from a vein bursting out or something, or else I'll make sure that- RRAARRGH!"

The tail thrashed up, tearing apart Emma's gown and slamming her into the ceiling.
She fell down, numbly, hanging on to her consciousness as her thoughts narrowed down to a string's width.

Martin roared again and spun around; the cause of his pain came into view.

It was Ed, lanky and beatup, holding the rod of her spear. The weapon of her blood was buried one foot into Martin's butthole. The manticore leaped around, flapping like a bat in daylight, cursing Ed into the most accomplished fuckboy in the world, and Ed flew with him, still holding onto the spear for his life. A few awkward backward hits from Martin's tail missed by feet, the closer ones dodged by Ed. Martin slammed sideways into a wall, apparently to knock Ed off, but Ed's embrace stayed true.

Ed grabbed the base of Martin's muscular tail, and with a grunt of effort, thrusted the spear another foot and a half into Martin.

Black blood splattered out as Martin let out a very loud "Meow!", wobbled, and barely giving Ed time to jump away, sat down with a thundering shake, driving all five feet in.

Dust rained down from the ceiling. Cracks spread like a spider web of shadow across the room as Ed ran up to Emma and bent down.

Is he shielding me from the ceiling?

Then she felt his hands beneath her back and herself lifting from the ground and into Ed's tight embrace. Like a baby.

Ed didn't even fully stand before lunging towards the corner of the room, and the ceiling came down behind them with a sound like the sky tearing open, onto the whimpering form of Martin.

Dust blew up like a dragon's breath, suffocating the air around. The light went out and gave way to the flames. Splinters of concrete stung her skin. A large chunk fell somewhere close with a heavy thud.

Ed was panting heavily, in exhaustion. Emma was also breathing heavily, poisoned and bleeding to death.

Ed looked at Emma, blood running down his forehead in a slow trickle. Then his eyes hardened.

With a yank, he ripped apart a strip of cloth from Emma's already torn nightgown. She was practically naked, but as the poison was kicking in, she couldn't do much of anything but twitch her muscles. And it seemed like a weird time for Ed to get in heat.

Lifting her leg, now a torrent of pitch black blood running down from its wound, up, he carefully moved the strip of clothing under and over and under and over and again and then tightened it. Bandages, useless ones.

Ed looked at her again, question in his eyes.

Emma, with great protest from her muscles, raised both her hands up.

Ed took the signal and picked her up again, her lips near his ear.

" Find... Find a.... Dead end." She whispered with the edges of her breath.

"Huh?" Ed looked confused.

"A... A dead... End... outside... Any..."

"Okay." Ed didn't make any more questions.

"And... Tell me... Tell me a story..." Emma breathed out raspily, " one with a happy ending."

(Emma's spear. Because I can't describe it well enough, I drew it.

Imagine this black. I didn't fill it because I didn't want to use up my gel pen.)