Boren let out a soft sigh as he made it down to the cobblestones. I forgot how much a human needs to survive. God, humans have weak designs, don’t they? You have to cover their faces, and they’re done for. Glad I’m not one of those anymore. Even if he resembled a human in shape in the future, which he did like the thought of, he would never have their inherent weaknesses anymore.

If it had been just one opponent, the situation would have been perfect. Aarav could have just suffocated the man by seeping into his nose and mouth, and he would have stopped breathing, and that would have been that. It wasn’t possible with three, though. He couldn’t split himself up and get them all simultaneously; that had been proven before when bits of him were cut off.

This was the only course of action, especially with Boren in the mix, unless he was willing to leave him to the wolves.

He wasn’t, and that decision made escape harder by several orders of magnitude.

“Fan out! Make sure they can’t get away. If they’re ‘ere, we’ll find ‘um!” The skinny man said. “I’m not ‘bout to let a bounty like that out of my sight!” It seemed they were acting alone, that was a little bit of a relief, that reinforcements weren’t coming, but that didn’t change how dire the situation was already.

Aarav, by chance, saw a small stone lying to the side of where they lay and extended a tendril out to suck it up noiselessly. Next, he inconspicuously tossed it out away from where they were. The three men had been looking to the space before but luckily had not quite reached them yet. The stone glanced off bricks behind the skinny man, then bounced once on the cobbles of the alley before coming to rest.

“Where did it come from!?” The man yelled to the massive oaf.

“I dunno, boss, maybe from that side of the alley behind you?” he said, again confused about what happened.

“Right, you check it out then, check the floor everything, I heading back down the alley to cut ‘em off!” Skinny said, starting to move.

“Uhh, boss?” the big one said.

“What!?” Skinny said with obvious impatience.

“What should I do?” he asked, slowly, hands raised placating.

“Well, look here, obviously!” Skinny snapped. “And no one let them get away!”

“Uh, right, boss.” Both goons said at the same time.

With a little more breathing room, Aarav again nudged Boren to move slowly between the legs of the big ones as he stepped carefully forward. His legs spread and arms outstretched, making Aarav think of a basketball guarding position. He should bring some of Earth’s sports here, and it might be fun now with Slime powers. He was no longer the skinny kid he used to be.

Aarav blinked once and brought himself back to the precarious situation. It wasn’t time to be daydreaming. Once through the guy's legs, they could make a break for it. They were less likely to get caught by these criminals once they were out of the alley, so they needed to make it that far.

His apparent good luck ran out as Boren made it halfway through the man’s legs. Suddenly he turned to examine the alley wall, putting his left foot squarely on the small of Boren’s back. This, of course, impacted both Aarav and Boren together. While tears leaked out of the boy’s face from the weight of the giant man, Aarav was taking the brunt of the force, trying to shield Boren as much as possible. Luckily for both of them, Boren was able to keep silent. Even with Aarav covering his mouth, he wasn’t sure he would have been able to contain the sound if Boren had decided to scream.

Aarav had to suppress a groan when the pain filtered through his brain. It was painful, but he had felt much worse when he used his skill to evade death. This was child’s play by comparison. Gritting teeth that existed only in his mind, he bore it. Was this guy made of steel or what? He had to weigh at least a ton!

Thank god I don’t have a mouth right now. I don’t think I would have been able to stop myself from making some noise. Thank god he didn’t have a spine that could break; otherwise, he might never walk again. In that stomp alone, Aarav lost close to half his health. That told him he did not have anywhere close to the capacity to fight those fools. They more than made up for what they didn’t have in brains with muscle.

As soon as the man stepped on the Aarav clad Boren, several things happened. First, with a startled cry, the man’s booted foot slipped on Aarav’s slimy skin. He toppled, feet flying straight out from under him. His body bent back, poised to fall directly onto both of them with his whole weight instead of half, an impact which they were unlikely to walk away from.

At the same time, the leader and smaller goon both turned with cries of surprise at the other man’s exclamation. They both let loose with those ranged attacks prepared if the unexpected happened. Both projectiles were out of their hands before they realised their own man cried out. Their jumpiness was evident in the speed of their action. Lucky the missiles had been angled to hit a standing target. Boren and Aarav were close to the ground; the big man was not as fortunate. When it took him to fall from the slip, he was enough to catch both weapons in his side and knock him away from Boren-Aarav and into the retreat path.

Crap! He is in the way again. Maybe we can crawl over him or around? Then the man got up. To everyone’s shock, the man seemed wholly unaffected by the gaping hole in his side and the smaller one a little higher and to the right. He really is made of steel, isn’t he? No one could shrug off damage like that without some severe mental trauma. Aarav was the king of mental trauma. He knew one when he saw one. This guy was undoubtedly psychotic. Time to get out of here for things to become worse.

“Wha’ was tha’ for!” The big man yelled at his two companions, all respect for his boss gone from his voice. Now he was a mass of rage. “I’m gonna kill ya!”

“Easy mate, easy! Don’t let that creature out; come on, man. I’ll get ya dinna? How ’bout tha’? Ay?” The huge man continued to seethe, spittle forming and foaming at the corners of his mouth as he allowed the pain to take over his mind and cloud his thinking. At the offer of food, he made a concerted effort to regain control of the mountain of muscle. But he was too far gone, and the beast was halfway to the surface already.

Once the beast was out, there was one rule: it needed blood to be quenched; otherwise, it would rampage until it was put down or sated. “I’m gonna kill ya!” It was more bestial snarl than the spoken word. He was gone. The other two paled when they saw the raw rage in their comrade’s eyes and backed away. Once ten feet away, they turned and started sprinting back down the alley the way they had come. Terror gave their feet wings.

But as fast as they were, it was not fast enough. Halfway to the end and freedom, the juggernaut caught up to the two and splattered the skinny leader to paste on the building wall with a single casual swing of its arm. The other goon gaped and whimpered at this new development and saw that all hope was gone. With a knife in hand, he stabbed into the thigh of the raging beast in front of him.

The beast had been sating itself on the feel of blood and viscera covering his hands and arm, turned its head to the puny insect that had dared to stab it with a toothpick. Then the mountain man let go of his first victim's body and used his other hand to grab and slam the other sack of blood and guts into the opposite alley wall. Now two red, gory paintings created a macabre mirror effect. The second man hadn’t even had a chance to scream before he was no more.

Aarav saw all this with morbid horror. Boren, thankfully, had been facing the other way and not seen any of it, simply hearing the wet squelches of body splitting on walls. Then the liquid drip of blood, gore and other fluids as the alley was coated in a layer of red. “Boren, we need to get out of here. Now.”

One part of Aarav was loathed to leave an entire human body behind. That was one of the critical ingredients Aarav needed to make the transformation. But this was not the time. That raging lunatic might turn on them if it discovered they were still in the alley with it. Hard to call that thing a human anymore. What the hell is it?

Just then, there was a thud from the middle of the alley, and something heavy landed between Aarav and the monster. What the hell is that now!? This day just keeps on giving, doesn’t it?