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--donation bonus (day #2, post 5/5)--
Hector dropped to the ground, blood spurting out of his severed limb as he wrestled the thrashing red python. ‘Get back!’ he told Garovel.

The reaper listened, but too late. Geoffrey had reached the doorway, and one of the streaks was already snaking toward Garovel. It wrapped around the reaper and pulled him closer to Geoffrey.

“Found you!”

‘Garovel!’ Iron powder gave Hector the traction he needed to rip the streak out, but he couldn’t stand yet. His leg had scarcely regrown at all. “Don’t you hurt him!”

“Tell me what he is, and I won’t,” said Geoffrey.

The reaper struggled to break free of his red bonds but to no avail.

“Fine!” said Hector. He could feel his leg slowly returning. “Okay! I’ll tell you...!” He made Geoffrey wait a moment longer. “He’s... a reaper. You know. A reaper of death.”

Geoffrey raised an eyebrow, turning Garovel around in the air. “Ah... I see. Interesting. I still want to dissect him, though.” He stuck Garovel through the chest.

‘Ugh!’

“No!” It didn’t matter that his leg hadn’t fully returned. Hector stomped toward him with one gory stump. He clenched his fist so hard that he thought it might break, and he felt iron gathering around his knuckles almost involuntarily.

He slugged Geoffrey square in the face with every ounce of strength in his body.

Geoffrey smashed through the front of the house, and from the sound of it, several more walls within the building.

Hector looked at his hand. A thin metal veil covered the back of his palm and fingers. It wasn’t stable. Even as he stared at it, he saw it cracking and crumbling into dust, but it was still much more than he had expected to see.