Chapter 25

Among the rarest and most dangerous Martial Adventurer classes is the Arsenal. The Arsenal class is a very uncommon sight because of the corporation that produces the devices make this class what it is, sells these devices sparingly, and regulates their sales carefully. Another factor that makes Arsenals uncommon is the fact that the installation operation of the devices that grant the class its abilities only has a 20% survival rate.

Yeah, that day just kept on getting worse. Cannibals, nightmarish soul-devouring monsters, an AV chase, and now we were crashing. With only one shoe providing a grip on the car, I felt more like a rag-doll with one leg glued to a brick being thrown around inside a jet turbine than anything else. I pulled myself into the fetal position to reduce my flapping about. That didn’t stop the foot in my remaining shoe from getting dislocated at the ankle. I gave a silent snarl at the sudden pop, followed by a burning lance of pain through the joint. Without a stable joint to anchor on, I had to release the grip function on my shoe or have my foot torn completely off.

Thanks to the tailspin that I was being dragged through, I had no idea just how far from the ground I was when I let go. Because of that same jarring tailspin, my spatial awareness was totally shot in the foot. Pun intended. I was thrown from the crashing Aerial Vehicle and sent into my own plummeting tumble. Head over feet, ass over hammer, I flipped through the air, only catching glimpses of the street rushing up to meet me.

I splayed out my arms and legs to create wind-drag to stabilize my fall and slow it, even if by only the barest margin. I watched the street below racing up. forty feet, thirty-five feet, thirty feet, twenty-five feet. The moment I estimated my altitude to be fifteen feet, I aimed my remaining shoe straight down, paying no heed to the dislocated foot held within. I moved my shoe to be as close to parallel with the center of my body as my leg and rubber foot would allow. I aimed and fired a kinetic burst. The act sent me into another spin, but one not as chaotic as before, and I was falling at a slower rate. I angled my body and threw in enough torque to aim my gauntleted right hand directly below me when I was just five feet from impact. I didn’t have time to mentally calculate the output of my next action, so I had to wing it.

With my fist aimed down, I fired a kinetic burst using half of the vells in the installed Myst crystal. While my fall momentum was almost totally dispersed, my gauntlet sent me into a backspin before I landed. I struck the ground in the worst possible way. Dislocated ankle first. I made impact on the damaged limb, drawing a shout of agony that almost immediately was cut short as the wind was knocked out of me when the rest of my body hit the ground. Pain was nothing new. Most pain I could handle. Dislocations, stabs, slashes, fractured bones, burns, it all was manageable because I had experienced it all before. But I could tell from the feeling that I had shattered every bone in my foot and torn most of the tendons and muscle in the as well.

As the pain faded to an intense throbbing, I pushed the sensation out of my mind and inspected my surroundings. It looked like I had landed in the middle of a war zone. From what I could understand of my surroundings, the AV cab had struck several walls of nearby buildings, littering the street with rubble. A fire hydrant across the street from me was gushing water into the air. Several nearby vehicles appeared to have been damaged from the debris from the crash. Several of these maimed vehicles were leaking fuel. Just from my glance, I saw a few small pools of liquid Fire Myst, Water Myst, and even the gray Kinetic Myst. I also noticed that there wasn’t a single living thing in the area that I could see. But none of that was what I was searching for.

I spotted the crashed cab that held my friends. The AV was half buried in a ground-floor cafe not far from where I had landed. Nennel stepped from the rear door of the Aerial Vehicle, looking disoriented. Ferris crawled from the same door to fall onto the rubble, where he vomited. I started crawling toward the two, hoping that they had some way to either get us out of the situation or heal my busted foot. I had halved the distance to Nennel and Ferris when a Regulator AV landed forty feet from my destination. Desperately, I picked up my pace as I saw the vehicle touch down.

“Holy shit! Iver!” Nennel shouted in distress when she noticed me. My sister rushed over to help me to my feet, but the moment my bad foot took even the slightest weight, I howled in pain. “Iver, what’s wrong!?” Nennel was clearly in a panic.

“Think foot’s ruined.” I growled. “Do we have any healing left?”

“Kinda.” Nennel started. “But we don’t have anything that could patch up your foot. Navor only gave us a single rapid diagnosis device, which we used to check your state after the bridge thing. But the RDD was one use only.”

“I don’t suppose Ferris has taken anatomy classes?” I asked, half as a joke, half in desperate hope.

“Yeah… no.” Ferris said as he sat up and rested his back against the side of the cab.

“Could you maybe use Body Myst to scan my foot and get a diagnosis?” I asked, with little faith in any positive response.

“That is also a hard negative.” Ferris replied.

Let me give you some explanation if you’ve never had magical healing done. In order to perform magical healing, it requires the subject to be conscious, and for the healer to know exactly what the extent of the damage is. If both factors are not met, there is a disturbingly high chance of the healing subject developing cancer from the healing. Yes, incorrectly used Life Myst can birth cancer in a target.

“Got it. So, I’m a cripple for this fight.” I snarled.

“Is it really that bad?” Nel asked with worry.

“Yeah, and it’s about to get far worse.” Growled as I pointed toward the Regulator AV.

Two figures stepped from the damaged armored vehicle. One was a woman. She was dressed from head to toe in form-fitting advanced plate armor. Every surface of her body that wasn’t a joint was covered in thick plates of black metal. Rising from the top of her chest was an angled plate of some clear material that was seated to guard her neck from most of three directions. She wore a single-edge saber on her left hip and some kind of holstered sidearm on the other side. Given the slender frame of the female, I guessed she was some breed of Elf. Moving forward, I’ll refer to her as Regga to keep things short and clear. But she wasn’t the problem.

Exiting from the other side of the armored AV was a male Ceangar dressed in similar armor to his female counterpart. I already knew not to judge a Ceangar based on their stature. A standard Ceangar, while only standing at a height similar to that of a Human child, could match most Humans, strength for strength, with ease. They also had faster reflexes than most Humans or Elves. That was already going to cause me trouble, given my crippled state. But the male Ceangar had several chains floating around him, shifting in vaguely serpentine motions. Eight chains, each mounted with a dagger-sized spike, and I knew they all were mounted to his back. He was an Arsenal.

Arsenals were a unique class of Adventurer that normally required a corporate sponsor. Arsenals are true nightmares on the battlefield. With a single thought, they can command any or all of the chains under their control to lash out in a brutal attack with a range longer than any melee weapon. Their chains had a standard reach of fifteen feet, and that could be extended depending on if the chains were modified. Those chains were attached to a unique device mounted to the Arsenal’s spine known as a Chandress Device.The biggest limitation of the Chandress Chains was that it took more than a little experience to operate smoothly, and if the device was damaged, it could cause serious brain damage to the user.

When I saw that the Arsenal that I was about to face only had eight unmodified chains, I wasn’t sure if I was blessed or cursed. Upside: all of his most dangerous weapons had the same reach. Unlikely upside: Maybe he had just jumped straight to eight chains without training. But I doubted that, given how naturally each of the artificial limbs moved. And I would have to solve this lethal puzzle with a lame foot.

“I am Regulator Kellden.” The Ceangar’s voice boomed across the space as he calmly walked in our direction. “I would arrest you. Given that you fled the scene of a possible act of terrorism as well as fleeing pursuing Regulators, I would normally collect you and put you in max-lock security and drop the tome of law on you with full force.” As Kellden spoke, I could hear his voice shifting from stern and professional to something hostile and angry. “But attacked myself and all other Regulators that were trailing you. You actively tried to kill us. You damaged our AVs and destroyed several buildings. Injuring and possibly killing dozens of citizens.” By this point, the Arsenal had stepped within twenty feet of us and stopped there. “But your worst transgression,” he snarled, “was injuring my sister. I don’t know what spell you cast on her. But Visha is bleeding from dozens of puncture wounds, and her organs are damaged. And for that, I will butcher each and every one of you.”

He must’ve been talking about the pilot Ferris had cast Bone Thorns on. I didn’t have time to regret my plan. This Reg was about to kill everyone from the cab, innocent or not. I turned to Ferris. “FERRIS!” I shouted. “BONE LOCK!”

“Oh, you have got to be joking.” Ferris said as he pulled free a coin and flicked it toward the Reg. Just as in every instance before, the coin vanished in a puff of magic. Suddenly, the Arsenal, Kellden, went stone stiff. I could see and practically hear the Regulator straining against the effects of the spell. Without stopping for a second, the moment I saw the coin in Ferris’s hand, I released my Vekenna sword from my gauntlet, expanded it, and shoved it toward Nennel.

“Cut it.” was all I said.

Nennel took the blade, but looked confused. “Cut what?” She asked.

I jabbed a finger toward my bad foot. “Cut it off!” I snapped.

“What?!”

“We don’t have time to argue. Cut the rending foot off, or I’ll do it myself. And that will take time we don’t have.”

“Are you insane?!” Nennel shouted.

“Shut up and do it!” I shouted at my sister.

Nennel gripped the blade in two quaking hands as she slowly lowered it to my ankle. The edge of the blade rested against my joint before she dropped the blade, sobbing, “I can’t! I can’t do it!”

“Blackened blade and broken bone.” I cursed to myself as I picked up my weapon. I rested the edge against the joint, just as Nel had.

Then I heard a snap like breaking bone, followed by a muffled scream. I looked over to find that Kellden had broken the bone lock on his right hand and fingers. The cry was muffled by his locked jaw. His chains writhed around him like raging serpents, lashing out for each of us, but with five-foot clearance, we were safe for the moment. That would change the moment he could start walking again. It was when I saw the Arsenal wrap chains around his body that I knew what he was doing and panicked.

“Ferris!” I snapped. “How long can you hold him?”

“I don’t think I can hold him much longer.” Ferris said through gritted teeth as he focused on the spell. “This would be going better if I had a higher rank.”

“Just hold on as long as you can. I’m about to do something so stupid it might be lethal.” I said before I turned back to my leg. “Nameless Goddess, please give me a hand.” I prayed just before I started sawing at my ankle. I screamed. Oh, by the gods, did I scream. I can’t tell you how much it hurt. My vision faded in and out of darkness as I carved away at my foot like a starving man carving a slab of meat. Things would have gone faster and smoother if I had a serrated blade, but I was out of luck. I howled and snarled like a trapped beast chewing off his own leg. But I did it. Blood was everywhere, and my vision was swimming. But that was no time for me to faint. I drew on the growing blood pool under me, a nice, big scarlet puddle, to cast the first of several spells.

Something that many non-spellcasters don’t know is that the element that creates force shields is actually kinetic energy. Just instead of projecting a force of solid air in a direction, it is held in place to create what is essentially ‘hard air’. 

Phase one: Form a phantom foot from shaped and condensed Kinetic Myst. I left the false limb hollow to accumulate blood. But I made it air-tight against my fresh stump to prevent me from bleeding out. I climbed to my feet, my pants a sopping bloody mess. My magical prosthetic was stable and vacuum sealed but didn’t bend, so I would have to make do with a peg foot. By this point, Kellden had broken one foot and one leg free. So, I mentally assembled the next spell formula as fast as I could.

As I drew blood and pulled it into several hovering balls in front of me, Nennel had dragged Teefa free from the AV cab wreckage. The driver was mostly conscious and clutching the emergency beacon that had guided her to our location when we were fleeing from the stigmagaunt. “This is a problem.” Teefa said before breaking into a string of coughs and spraying a few speckles of blood. “It’ll bring more Regs to us. But I called back up.” She wheezed out before she went slack. Nennel had to pick her up in both arms and carry her to a safe spot just out of sight from the battlefield.

Phase two: “Ferris. Keep lady occupied.” I snarled, still in serious pain. As Ferris sprinted around Kellden, giving the Arsenal a wide berth to avoid his chains, I cast my next spell. The undulating balls of blood in front of me burst into crimson flames and conjoined to form a single sheet of fire. I threw the scorching sheet at the Ceangar, and it draped over him into a clinging layer of scalding heat.

As Kellden attempted to bat out the flames with his sole free hand, I moved to gain some distance. By the time I had made it fifteen feet, the Arsenal had broken his remaining limbs free and was ignoring the ruby flames to storm toward me. I reached for one sidearm, then the other, only to find that both were missing. I cursed again as I tried to think of something I could do.

Ferris was locked in an intense dual with Regga. My Elven friend was armed with an elemental sidearm equipped with fire and a dagger of bone. Even as I watched, Regga had Ferris on the back foot, using the length of her saber to full advantage. Ferris brought up his mystech sidearm to take a shot, only for the blade of his opponent to circle around his arm and flick the firearm from his grip with grace. In answer, Ferris held his hand in the same position and faced his palm toward the Regulator. A shower of bone shards flew from his open palm to pepper the Reg with enough force to send her two steps backwards. The last thing I saw of that fight before I looked away was Ferris making a dive for his wayward sidearm.

I turned toward Kellden to find that he was not only no longer burning, but also almost within fifteen feet of me. He hid the reach of his chains by keeping the eight spikes attached to the steel vipers hovering around his shoulders. But I had a precise sense of spatial awareness, so I knew exactly just how much reach those weapons had. That meant I had a good idea of what he would do. Before I entered the range of his Chandress Chains, I rushed forward. It was clear that me moving in closer was the last thing he expected, as his posture reflected stunned surprise for a brief moment.

I took advantage of that surprise and aimed my gauntlet at the Arsenal and triggered only a slight kinetic blast. I was reserving the remainder of the power in Venna for emergency actions, but I could still use it sparingly. The burst of force was enough to knock him off balance. I snatched my opening and kicked off with my right foot to thrust my blade into his shoulder. But I failed to remember that the foot I was kicking off with was the immutable false limb. I sprung forward only a few feet, only to fall on my face.

I rolled on my back in time to see three spikes shooting down toward my chest. Forcefully, I threw myself into continuing my roll for a few more tumbles before crawling to my feet. I was wondering why he hadn’t attacked me with his other lethal spikes until I looked at the Arsenal. A thin red cable was wrapped around three of my opponent’s chains, restraining them. I followed the glowing hot cord to Nennel on the other side, using her Lasher Gloves. Even as I looked at her, Nennel was obviously struggling to keep just three chains limbs pinned.

As I watched, one, then two, then all three of the hazardous spiked limbs she had restrained were melted through by her thermal cord. Each of the spikes fell to the ground, dead, trailing eight feet of limb chain. Nennel struck out with her other Lasher Glove tail. This wire was bright with yellow light and crackling electricity. With a whirl of her left hand on her head, the wire danced in an imitation of a flowing ribbon before she made it strike like a fierce viper toward the Arsenal.

With one of his remaining Chandress Chains, Kellden batted the voltaic wire from its path with little more than a glance in its direction. “I guess you’re my first problem that needs solving.” The Ceangar said to Nennel before making his own attack towards her. Before Nel could react, a chained spike shot toward her, shattering her left arm at the elbow.

“No!” I shouted as dread set into my stomach like a molten lead weight.

Nennel staggered back with a snarl on her face. She attempted another strike with her remaining whip, this one arcing in low from the side. Again, Kellden batted the assault aside with little effort, even as he simultaneously struck out with two more spikes to cleave her right arm off at the shoulder, metal and mechanical components thrown behind her like shrapnel.

The molten weight in my gut grew hotter and began to spread through my body. What started as dread shifted into defiant rage. I charged toward the Arsenal, the blade in my left hand and claws on my right at the ready. The Regulator spared me a sideways glance before hurtling one of his chained spikes my way. I deflected the initial attack with the flat of my Vekenna and latched my clawed grip onto the chain as the spike diverted. With as much strength as I could muster, I yanked on the metal limb in an attempt to pull Kellden off balance. He took a single step in my direction, but nothing more.

Kellden’s response was to send another spike at me. But when I moved to deflect the attack, it slipped around my block and punched into my shoulder like a shard of burning ice. The spike struck with enough force to knock me off my feet, and pushed me to the ground and pin me there. “You stay there, puppy. I’ll deal with you after I’m done with your little songbird.” Even as the Arsenal spoke, he launched two more spikes at Nennel.

Nel attempted to lunge to the side in an effort to dodge. One of the spikes struck her in the right knee and tore the leg below that point clean off. I screamed wordlessly as I struggled against the force pinning me down. With every muscle in my body, I shoved and yanked, desperate to break free. I could not let Nennel die. I would not let her die.

The remaining four Chandress Chains of Kellden’s that weren’t occupied holding me against the ground reared back for a synchronized strike, baring down on my sister. My screaming reached a new pitch as I lost my mind. But before I could break free or Kellden could attack, there was a blur from the sky and an impact hard enough to send up a plume of dust and release a rumble through the ground beneath me. The pressure restraining me vanished, and the spike and chain retracted into the obscuring cloud like the tail of some massive beast of metal.

I clambered to my remaining real foot, and the temporary prosthetic formed a shaped kinetic energy shield. My mind was a thoughtless mass of rage and panic. Fight or flight was one thing, but in this state, I was reduced to basic instincts with a single goal: to protect my sister by killing any threat I found. Even crippled and driven half-mad with fear and frenzy, I was a serious hazard to anyone in the near area. I knew this. But there was something more than this base drive to defend. Bloodlust. Pure, distilled, and concentrated bloodlust possessed me like a demon from the far realms.

Only looking back at those moments later, with a stable mind, I realized that I experienced this deep, dark hunger in my chest. That feeling thrummed through my veins like a harmonic song I felt more than heard. Through this thrumming, I could feel my blood. Not just what was under my skin or leaking from my wounds. I could sense every drop of my life fluid inside and outside of my body like it was an extension of myself, like a limb. With pinpoint precision, I knew the location of each droplet of my scarlet blood on any surface within thirty feet of me. I even knew the exact location of the spike that had punctured my shoulder.

Flashes of green light burst inside the cloud of dust, with sounds like muted cracks of gunshots. Ignoring the strange display, I drove the claws of my gauntlet into the still-bleeding wound in my left shoulder. I sunk them in deep and wrenched them free to spawn a gout of scarlet across the blade held in my left hand. In that state, I did something I never would have done if I had been sane. I wouldn’t use Death Myst under almost any circumstances. I just didn’t. It was a power with the near-exclusive purpose of killing and harming living creatures. I drew on that murderous force of nature and infused Fire Myst with it. The conjured element of altered fire, known as Rot Fire, ignited, covering both my Vekenna and my blood-soaked claws. I pulled thirty Vells worth of blood. Then, that primal, insane me took things even farther into the realm of what I thought was impossible.

I mentally tugged on the fresh blood seeping from my wounds. It felt not unlike how I would pull my fingers into a fist. The blood dripping down my body lifted from me, not leaving a trace behind. Ribbons of liquid crimson flowed up to wrap around my Vekenna to lengthen the edge. The blade normally reached three feet in length, but the razor-sharp crimson edge extended that reach by another foot.

I stormed forward toward the cloud with flashing lights and the sounds of combat. My feet pounded the ground, growing from stomping to running, then to sprinting over the distance of ten feet. Then I was inside, enveloped by the dust cloud. With my teeth bared, I hunted for the short but lethal opponent. The first thing I saw was a shape too large to be Kellden. The figure, larger than me, resolved into Demierra. Green and black flames wreathed her draconian fists. Even as I recognized her as not a threat, she punched a chained spike out of the air as it flew at her face.

“About time, horn head. Make yourself useful.”

I wordlessly growled at her as I rushed past, toward where the spike had retracted. Within moments, I spotted who I was looking for. Kellden came into my view as he lashed out at me with one of his spikes. I shifted to the side slightly. The attack that was meant to take my left arm off only grazed my skin, drawing a new line of blood. He threw out another spike toward my other arm, and I repeated my dodge. As he withdrew that spike, I grabbed hold of the chain again, but this time, I let it pull me with it. I flew toward the Arsenal with my blade aimed at his face.

Kellden turned sideways to avoid the stab from my weapon and used the chain I gripped to throw me to the side. I hit the ground on the balls of my feet and slid backward as Demierra lunged forward with a volatile, eldritch fist thrusting towards the Regulator’s chest. The Arsenal lept back, out of the reach of the strike, and launched two spikes at her before he even touched the cracked street.

I charged in again while Demierra stepped inside the attack, the twin blades flying past her as she closed the distance. The paired chains that zipped by the Dracose arced back and wrapped around her, locking her arms at her sides as they lifted her off her feet.

I wildly lashed out at the Ceangar with my necrotic claws, only for him to sidestep the reaching slash and drive a lunging knee into my abdomen. The air in my lungs was thrust out of my mouth with a spray of spit. I wasn’t about to give in. Instead of staggering back, I leaned forward and drove my right elbow into the crook of his neck and shoulder. When he stumbled backward, I lashed out with a push kick, using my false foot. My shaped shield foot contacted his chest, and as I pushed, I drew on the last Vells in my Mystwell and released a kinetic blast.

The Ceangar was sent flying out of the dust plume, which Demierra had caused with her landing. I stormed forward, following my prey as he slid across the concrete street. When I stepped from the settling cloud of dust and dirt, I was dimly aware that Demierra was still bound but lying on the rubble strewn ground.

Kellden crawled back to his feet, coughing. His armored chest piece had been totally shattered, meaning that my Dracose counterpart had struck him there a few times before my burst kick. I had a new soft point to aim for. But I could feel that I was losing the function of my left arm the more time that passed. I would have to make this quick.

“You just won’t wait your turn, puppy.” Kellden coughed as he retracted the two chain limbs that had been restraining Demierra. “I’m going to have to carve you and that lizard up like deli meat.” Kellden lifted himself into the air by using three of his five remaining chain limbs as legs like some chain-spider creature.

I picked up my pace as I closed in on the Ceangar. As I charged in, he lashed out with his two free chained spikes, but I spun and lunged to one side, then the other. My motions were not enough to completely avoid damage, but the slashes I collected felt good. Each gash brought me a rush of pleasure and a sense of power, and I fed on it.

I hadn’t closed the distance when a pair of javelins of fire struck the Arsenal in the side, knocking him off balance for a moment. I traced the flame attack back to Demierra, who had also thrown another pair of the same flame javelins at the other Regulator.

“Ferris! Move your Elf ass and get your girly friend to safety.” the Dracose commanded. “Horn head and me will handle these two.“

Ferris moved to follow the instructions, totally abandoning his fight. Later, he would tell me that he was barely holding on against his opponent. The female Regulator aimed her sidearm at Ferris’s back only to have to jump away when Demierra lept into the air to land like a bomb where the Elf woman had just been standing.

Kellden used his chain legs to move closer to his partner and attack Demierra. But I was in hot pursuit of the Ceangar. I was not about to let him go when I was so close to putting my fist through his exposed chest. And oh, how I wanted to feel his blood in those final fatal moments.

The thrumming in my veins rose into a hum, and my head began to throb at the brow like the skin there was splitting. The only reason I noticed the blood running down my face was because I could sense it like a new limb, and I planned on putting that new limb to good use.

Kellden shot one spike toward me and another at my Dracose ally while staying aloft with his other three chains. I came to a stop and flicked two fingers of my gauntleted hand in an upward motion, and the blood soaking my pants leeched out and formed a hard shield for just long enough to deflect the spike. After that, it fell into a puddle at my feet that I walked over. As my phantom foot stepped into the pool, I drew it up to form an outer shell of blood around the false limb.

I will admit that I would have looked impressively terrifying, covered in blood, wielding a metal claw and a sword alight with purple flames, and a totally insane grin on my face. Demierra and Ferris, who both saw me in that state, said I would’ve looked like a nightmare if I hadn’t been hobbling along like a gimp with a bum leg. They say I just looked like a lunatic cripple wearing one red rubber boot who walked out of a blood storm.

With the same two fingers, I flicked them toward Regga, who was attacking Demierra every time she turned to face Kellden. Blood from my shoulder wound shot forward in a single bullet. The projectile struck Regga in the helmet, not causing any damage but distracting her.

While the female Regulator was focused on me, Demierra let out a war cry. Trails of lightning started at her white, silver, and gold gauntlets and rushed to engulf her body. This cowl of electricity sped up her actions to an unnatural pace. She threw a roundhouse kick at Regga with blurring speed. The strike hit the Elf in the head, sending her tumbling. In the same motion, Demierra used the momentum of the blow to spin around and both conjure and throw another javelin of fire even as she lept backward to avoid a strike from the Arsenal. This flame javelin struck Kellden in the hip and detonated with enough force to launch his hanging form off-kilter. He hit the ground not far from his partner.

When I saw the Ceangar land on his back, I took that as my moment to finish him. I sprinted forward as fast as I could with the phantom foot. I heard a female voice I didn’t recognize scream a shrill “NO!” as I closed the distance.

When I was within five feet of my prey, I sprang like a predatory cat at crippled prey. The tip of my Vekenna pointed down, and aimed to punch through Kellden’s exposed chest. I was almost on top of him when something intercepted my attack. That something was the body of Regga. She blocked the path of my finishing attack with her own form. My blade sunk deep into her chest, passing through the already damaged armor and deep into the ribcage. The moment the weapon made contact with the Regulator, decay crept across her armor and undoubtedly the flesh beneath.