Shards of shattered glass cascaded to the ground. Plywood broke into splinters. The replacements the Lock had used to restore the damage the Mask had done before couldn’t hold up to Its punishment. To the Mask, the new fortifications felt as brittle as eggshells. It tore them apart.

In the parts of It still connected to the immaterial, ethereal, nether and occulted, It felt a Threat accelerate toward It. The Threat exuded an aura of adrenaline, fear and anger commingled. In scent and extra-sense, the Mask recognized him. Minutes earlier, It and the Threat had clashed at the site of another attempted entry. Footfalls, carefully quieted but still audible, forewarned the Threat’s imminence. 

The Mask stepped back from Its improvised ingress/entry and walked toward the corner of the mansion. The Threat strafed around the edge of the structure with his shotgun drawn. Expecting to find the Mask at the source of the glassbreak woodshatter, he swept the barrel of his weapon in that direction. He only noticed the Mask a half-second later, when the Mask had already started striding the distance between them.

The Threat adjusted his aim. The Mask moved to swat away the barrel, Its momentum already reserved for greater purpose. The Mask’s/vessel’s left hand hit steel. The Threat tried to counteract Its force. Their agendas/manifestations/movements collided. The cannon,handheld/handcannon/(shotgun, Bob’s knowledge provided) erupted molten-steel-chill death, sound/fury. The pellets shred meat from bone. The Mask/Bob lost most of Its/their left upper arm and shoulder.

The injury hurt. A wheeze escaped the Mask.

But pain didn’t matter. Even damage fatal to the vessel would only hurt until the Mask disassociated from it. So what was pain?

Gripping the shot-gun underbarrel with all the neuromuscular response remaining in Its/Bob’s/the vessel’s left hand, It used Its right to jam Its knife deep and deeper into the Threat’s torso. Deep and deeper and deeper, in and then up and then in and... 

The Threat strangled a scream and spat at the Mask’s (whatiftheresnothingunderneath) face. He let go of the shot-gun(shotgun) and reached for a holster at his hip. The Mask pulled loose Its blade and pushed Itself away from the Threat. The shotgun followed part of the way before thudding to the grass. The meat-shrapnel rags of Its left arm didn’t function. It needed time to repair.

The Threat stumbled back, seemingly surprised at the depth and suddenness of his injury.

The Mask approached slowly, Its focus diverted. It disassembled the moored pellets and replaced missing bone; It grew new muscle and re-sinewed the links and adhesions; It developed three layers of epidermis. It felt Itself grow stronger with the regeneration. It felt Itself grow weaker with the expenditure of resources. It had finite fuel available to breach the Lock. Every expense mattered.

As It lifted Its left hand back toward the Threat, the Threat blew a hole through it. The recovery had taken too long. The man (sapien/human) had loosed his secondary weapon/firearm and taken aim. The bullet tunneled through slender ivory and carefully folded networks of flesh. The rampage skewed its trajectory. Leaving the hand, it grazed the Mask’s/vessel’s reconstructed left shoulder and spun into the night. A second bullet followed to similar results. Then the Mask grabbed the sidearm/pistol’s barrel with what little the gunshots had left behind.

The Threat let go of the gun and moved to twist away. The Mask drove Its knife forward and up. The blade pierced the man’s upper right arm, found the humerus, and rode the bone-edge until it hit an armor-reinforced half-sleeve at the man’s shoulder and rip-popped free. As a result of the sudden collision of opposing momentums, the Mask lost Its footing. The man/Threat shrieked as he hit the ground, his right arm a burst of mortal wiring. The Mask stumbled backwards.

Another gunshot echoed in the vast dark. A lance of lead plunged through the vessel’s torso.

The Mask caught Itself.

The Seer sagged half-dead against the side of the house, blearily aiming another pistol at It. An aura of vast, powerful something pulsed around the Seer like miasma, both a threat and a warning. Instinctively-familiar whispers occasionally hissed out. 

No matter. Great, dark gods rarely cared much about individual cogs.

The Mask strode toward the Seer without pausing to recover. The Seer fired again. The bullet blew through the Mask’s/vessel’s torso(center mass), splitting softmeat and pooling fluids into the cavities. Functionally, however, it represented a relatively minor wound. 

The Seer lifted his weapon higher. Everything in the material/meat moved so slowly.

Before the man’s finger fully engaged the trigger, the Mask threw the remnants of Its(vessel’s) left hand into the side of his face. The force of the blow ripped two digits free from the mangled mitt and cratered the Seer’s skull into the side of the building. The Seer’s head rebounded, taking the rest of his body with it. As he sagged sidelong away from the mansion/structure, he fired his third shot. It sparked(ricocheted?) against the ground and vanished.

The Mask used Its mostly-useless left arm and mostly-missing left hand to club/bludgeon the Seer. The Seer swung his arms to parry and block, his pistol barrel wildly whirling. In the clumsy melee, the man clipped another finger loose from the Mask’s mangled palm. The pale thing gleamed under floodlight as it twisted away. The Seer paused for a quarter of a second in surprise. 

Everything in the material/meat moved so slowly.

A quarter of a second later, the Mask had drawn the sharp edge of Its blade across skin and muscle. A bright red stain spread along his right shirtsleeve, a cut in his right forearm provided a narrow glimpse halfway to the bone.

The Seer stumbled in loose-limbed retreat. He’d reopened the wound in his side (how had it closed?) and now had a concussion and an opened-up arm to contend with, as well. The whispering miasma hazing him intensified. The whispers grew louder, becoming rasps and hoarse breaths. Somewhere beneath, sweetness sizzled.

Everything, already moving so slowly, seemed to slow down.

The Mask tingled with warm excitement. It had never fought against something like Itself, before. Especially not in the meat/material realms/planes/so-called ‘realities.’ And while both vessels wore damage, the Mask suspected Its vessel wore less.

The Seer backpedaled (like a drunk, Bob’s barely-there mind provided), his lips a slur of mumbles. The whispers…

The Mask approached with the knife. Tapping into Its diminishing resources, It started to reconstruct the carpals and metacarpals It had lost in Its left hand. As It knit the appendage back together, the parts of It still connected to the immaterial, ethereal, nether and occulted sparked unexpected feedback. Another entity, close, seethed with—

A hard force collided with the side of Its head. The blow followed through with such velocity that Its vessel spun and lost footing. The Mask followed the movement until It could turn to see Its attacker.

“Motherfucker,” the Lock said, a club(baseball bat) in her hands. 

The Mask diverted resources to tend to the fractured skull bones and crushed brain-matter. It reoriented Itself to face the Lock. The whispers steaming off of the Seer faded. The man, himself, lost his footing and fell kneeling to the ground. He squinted over the pistol sights but couldn’t hold his gun steady. When he fired it again, it leapt from his hands. The Mask considered. Three strides, maybe a small struggle, and two quick movements of the knife would finish the Seer.

The Lock swung the baseball bat/club and the Mask stepped back, barely avoiding its arc.

It had already spent more resources than planned; It didn’t need to gamble more of them. When the Lock stepped back, It stepped forward to match her. Cocking the baseball bat, she swept a leg in a long arc behind her. It stepped forward to match.

On all fours, now, the Seer groaned. He reached for his gun.

“Don’t!” the Lock advised, glancing over at—

The Mask lunged forward.

The Lock swung the bat.

If she’d lost focus for any longer, It would have gotten the knife into her. But she hadn’t.

“Yeah, that’s right. Stay with me.” Behind the Lock, up a pair of short steps, a door hung open. The Mask felt aged stores of energy hum from inside. Still, It stayed on target. Meat and sinew wrapped the new bones of Its left hand. It fed rapid cellular genesis with hollowed pasts and claimed futures.

The Lock backed into the mansion. It followed, Key in hand.