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	Exhausted of the foreign blood that had fueled its divinely sadistic bloodlust since Ziggurat, the Touch of Virtue tightened against the arm of its keeper, and millions upon millions of needles punched into every single skin cell; feasting with an almost living hunger, despite its automaton nature. Supping heartily, the evening gown glove sudden bulked up; becoming angular and sharp, a shadow of its own elegance nature. In bursts of progress, it bulked up from fingertip to shoulder blade, spreading over the shoulder, and wrapping halfway around his neck, as a section attempted to connect with nonexistence piece on Marshall’s chest.

‘[color=a187be][i]Heh. Already at my limit, eh? Such a cruel mistress I’m incarcerated to.[/i][/color]’ Marshall thoughts, trying to gauge the blood lost, as his senses floated. ‘[color=a187be][i]Are you awake, you old hag?[/i][/color]’ Marshall stepped forward, flexing his clawed fingertips, before balling a fist. ‘[color=a187be][i]It only hurts when you are, therefore: you must be. Have you done this?[/i][/color]’ he asked, displeased, ‘[color=a187be][i]Arranged this? Surely, Fate is not so cruel as to put Amaya back into my life after so long?[/i][/color]’ Marshall stood over the twitching form of the paralyzed hornet, and trust his finger into its core like a knife blade.

“[color=a187be]It’s so impure...[/color]” Marshall says, as the creature stilled, and withered to a point from the complete removal of its blood. Tilting his head, Marshall looked back to Amanita, his eyes cast into an unnatural shadow, and tossed the hornet at the trio’s feet. “[color=a187be]I drained it of all its impure insect blood,[/color]” he says, answering an unspoken question. “[color=a187be]Did you know that insects have blood? It’s not like ours, pure,[/color]” Marshall says, before he sudden took a large step, and drove his fist into other, “[color=a187be]It’s a mixture of things that could be called ‘blood’ for no better reason that operational similarities, but it’s missing a very vital thing...[/color]”

	Marshall’s blood vessels were pulsing against his visible, pallid skin; devoid of the normalcy that was blue, unoxygenated blood, and replaced by a green, sickened color. “[color=a187be]Hemoglobin,[/color]” he says, flinging the corpse aside like a discarded toy. “[color=a187be]Hemolymph,[/color]” Marshall states, “[color=a187be]that’s what insects have. It’s not perfect; impure and crude...[/color]” he flexed his fingers and claws, “[color=a187be]...but, it’s still serviceable blood to this accursed armor of mine.[/color]” All too suddenly, Marshall rushed forward, ramming the Touch of Virtue through stunned hornet, like a shish kabob, and drained them at the same time.

“[color=a187be][b]Amanita~...[/b][/color]” Marshall singsonged, looking back to her -- his right cheek was dusted in chitinous scale -- as he flung the corpses before her, “[color=a187be][i]I told you to leave, didn't I? You don’t wanna contest a Primal Beast, do you?[/i][/color]”

Mucu could tell, much faster than Amanita, as he met Marshall’s inhuman gaze that he was, at the current moment, more Primal Beast than one might suspect -- not just because of his partial insect-ification, and the magic that was warping him. No, it wasn't surface, anymore, but ran to bone; a bestial amalgamation of Light and Dark, forcefully unified with Blood as the medium. Even if Amanita had ordered him to stay, instincts told him to take the youth and young woman away.

It wasn't safe with what felt like a Fledgeling Primal Beast waking up.

	And, those instincts weren’t wrong, as Marshall turned his attention back to the incoming swarm, and, without a moment of flair, as he’d done with Selmia, unleashed a whirlwind stream of blood against the hornets that swallowed them whole in gale-force winds of blood; giving force and edge by their own Wind Ether, externalized, and turned as weapon against them by the Touch of Virtue. Swept away, they fell to the terra in messy, bloody chunks, alongside the forest in a path as wide as a house, and as far reaching as one could see. 

Teeth grit, Marshall panted via heavy breaths through his nose, as he bit his tongue, and forced the pain to will his sanity back from the edge of no return. Exhausted, once again, the Touch of Virtue deflated in a sense, and returned to its pitch-black, yet elegant evening gown state of being; harboring just enough of the hornet’s blood that was circulating in Marshall’s own to sup, and sate its hunger... for now.
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