The redhead forced his body to roll, his injured leg protesting the motion. But he managed to avoid the clawing hand of the zombie that was still alive. Instead, he ended up rolling into one of the tables, and he braced his back against it and pulled himself up with his empty hand.
It was only when he was on his feet and black cloth was pooling by his legs that Nevin realized his mistake. With no idea what was behind him, the Alchemist threw himself to the left, ignoring the fresh flare of pain from his leg. It was a close thing to - almost unnaturally fast a hand speared through where he had been standing just moments before. If he hadn't dodged when he did, that hand would have plunged into his back.
He didn't have time to deal with the crawling zombie as this new one was getting more active. Threads wrapped around his legs, reinforcing the injured one as he brought his good leg back and kicked out, hard - and did his absolute best to ignore the wet, sucking feeling around his foot as his boot caved in the first zombie’s head. He ripped his foot free and focused on this new zombie - and froze, his eyes widening in shock.
Staggering to his feet was.. Was.. A male Ezra. Paler, decayed, a zombie instead of a Homunculus - but so painfully familiar that Nevin had to fight not to retch in shock, fear, pain and disgust. Even the eyes of this male were purple like his apprentice’s, etched with golden sigils. And littered across the pale, deathly pale skin, were the same alchemical and necromantic runes that he knew were on Ezra.
But there was none of his friend’s intelligence in those eyes, just a mindless hunger as the strangely wrong male version of his apprentice let out a rattling groan. None of the dry wit or sardonic amusement, none of the confusion at social cues that made no sense to her. This - this place - had Ezra - no, she had to have come from here. There was simply no way that there could be a zombie mimic of his apprentice anywhere else.
Nevin knew, as a Homunculus, she had been made somewhere. The fact that his usually bright, inquisitive, friendly apprentice was made by a madman who had literally experimented on people he had known disgusted Nevin on a very visceral level. He would not, could not, leave this abomination, this mockery, alive.
The mage dropped his whip to the ground as dozens of threads shot from his arms, weaving together into snapping cables. With a cry of disgust, and pain, Nevin charged forward, meeting the lumbering lunge from the zombie with wet cracks as his crimson cables lashed out, whips that tore rotten, barely preserved flesh from bones.
Fury drove a relentless assault as Nevin flayed - no, not flayed, he literally flensed this thing, ripping meat apart all the way down to the bone. For a moment the foul magics that wrapped around the undead creature kept it going even as it is as ripped apart - and then three coils of blood red tendrils wrapped around the head and wrenched it from the body.
Nevin's sides heaved as he stared at the quivering pile of meat and bone that now lay at his feet. Any mockery of his apprentice’s appearance had been completely abolished - and now, fury drained, Nevin sagged down, pulling his threads back inside of him as he recovered from adrenaline and rage.
