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Luke felt the ground racing away beneath him.
Wind roared into his lungs. The air was getting thinner.
He forced his head down and saw Brando and Lionel already reduced to two tiny black dots scrambling across the sand toward the van.
The monster wasn't tearing him apart yet. It was flying straight in one direction, like it had a destination in mind.
"Son of a bitch. Is this ever gonna end?"
Luke cursed under his breath. Did this thing need so kind of ritual to kill its enemies?
He wasn't stupid enough to think the monster had suddenly turned nice.
Every muscle in his body scread in protest. The aftereffects of the alien color were still tearing through him—his bones felt like they'd been ground to dust.
Fighting it head-on would be suicide.
Luke forced himself to stay calm. His thoughts raced. His body was healing, but nowhere near fast enough to turn the fight around.
Then he rembered the new specialty on his panel.
Color of the Stars
Physical contact allows you to absorb organic life force.
Luke glanced at the clawed hand gripping his shoulder.
Perfect.
No more hesitation.
He closed his eyes, blocked out the howling wind, and reached inward for that strange, familiar power now living inside him.
A new sensation blood—like he'd grown an extra organ he could control at will.
The energy responded instantly, flowing through his body and up his shoulder.
A bizarre, indescribable color spread across his skin and onto the monster's claw.
It was beautiful. It was wrong. It stole every bit of Luke's attention the mont it appeared.
"RAAAAGH!"
A scream of pure terror and agony exploded right next to his ear.
The monster thrashed violently in the air, its flight path turning erratic like a drunk bird. It tried to let go, but the color had beco sticky, gluing its hand to Luke's shoulder.
A warm current poured into Luke's exhausted body through the point of contact.
It was raw, pure life energy.
Torn muscles and blood vessels drank it in greedily. The pain vanished at an impossible speed, replaced by a deep, satisfying fullness.
Hell yeah.
Luke felt every cell in his body cheering.
This feeling was addictive.
He could sense the color greedily devouring the monster's life force, refining it, and feeding it straight into him.
The monster's strength was becoming his strength.
Luke's mind started to drift. The color was so dazzling, so full of every beautiful desire life had to offer.
His consciousness floated upward, leaving his body behind and entering a strange space made of countless glowing points of light.
The lights rushed into his soul, each one bringing overwhelming satisfaction.
He could feel himself healing at an incredible rate.
anwhile, the monster carrying him flew slower and slower. Every beat of its wings looked labored.
Its life force was being drained dry.
A violent jolt snapped Luke back to reality.
The monster's arm had turned a sickly gray-white. Cracks spread across its skin like dry earth.
The arm was about to snap.
Luke's eyes sharpened.
He wasn't letting this thing escape.
His body already felt mostly recovered.
Ti to flip the script.
Luke twisted hard, wrapping his legs around the monster's waist.
He yanked his shoulder free with a sharp crack.
The monster's arm tore off at the root.
It howled in rage and tried to regenerate, but the wound only twitched uselessly. Its regeneration had slowed to a crawl.
Its energy reserves were almost gone.
Now!
Luke grabbed the monster's shoulder, flipped around, and climbed onto its back.
With more skin contact, even more of the strange color spread across his body.
The monster could no longer resist. Life force poured out of it like a broken dam.
Its wings gave out. It began spiraling toward the ground.
Luke finally had a mont to look around.
The endless wasteland was gone. Below them stretched a vast, lush forest with mountains and rivers in the distance.
Where the hell are we? This is still Texas?
Before he could figure it out, the monster suddenly stopped struggling.
Luke looked down and saw a flash of madness in its eyes.
It knew it couldn't escape anymore.
It was going for a suicide dive.
The monster folded its wings and dove straight toward a highway far below.
Luke wasn't about to die with it.
He coiled his body like a spring.
The ground rushed up at terrifying speed.
Now!
Luke kicked off hard.
BOOM!
The monster slamd into the asphalt like a bomb, exploding into a bloody ss.
Luke used the impact to glide forward.
But sothing strange yanked at him mid-air, pulling him off course.
Right in his new flight path was a yellow school bus rolling down the highway.
"Oh, co on—hit-and-run?"
Luke yelled and threw his arms over his head.
CRASH!
He smashed straight through the roof and landed hard inside the bus.
Screams erupted from every direction.
Luke's body lit up with fresh pain. The healing he'd just gotten was undone in an instant.
He tried to stand, but his legs wouldn't listen.
A quick check confird it—multiple fractures.
The driver, who had been blasting music through headphones, finally yanked them off and turned around.
"You little punks! Can't you wait until we get there to start acting up?"
Then he saw the gaping hole in the roof… and the blood-covered man lying in the aisle.
"Huh? What the hell happened to my bus? Who the fuck are you?"
Luke stared back at the driver, completely at a loss for words.
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