by Cebelius
Along with the sword, he now had a set of bracers which were also magic, giving off the same gray aura.
There had been other magical weapons, but their auras had either flickered or given off colors that filled Terry with a sense of foreboding. Since he primarily trusted in Prada to protect him, he'd left all the fancy armor behind save for the bracers, which — magic aside — were just solid pieces of steel with simple hinges. They would allow him to block claws and the like if he needed to without slowing him down.
Since leaving Verone's lair they had made good progress deeper into the maze. Traps proved easy to avoid with Prada's tremor-sense complimenting his own ability to see magical auras. The ball of yarn he had put in his pocket was still steadily unspooling, and he had discovered a secondary effect of the yarn that made it much more useful than he'd first anticipated.
At one point, he had been approaching an intersection only to have a floating section of yarn appear in front of him. The yarn would not only allow him to retrace his steps, but just like normal string it would reveal it if he started going in circles.
As Terry took another turn, he stopped as he saw that he'd entered into a sizable open space. The walls to either side of him angled away at a 30 degree angle for about fifty feet before a second turn that had them delineating a long, hundred foot-wide room. He could see that they angled in similar fashion at the far end, coming to an apex at a vast, multi-story stone door that was far higher than the walls around it.
The open sky with its racing clouds had been a constant since his arrival. There was no sun, no direct source of light, and so very few shadows. The room was filled with broken pillars, destroyed walls, and overall the place had the look of a battlefield. Blackened spots marred the stone in places, and there were blast craters and other forms of less recognizable damage in every surface.
Prada, speaking within his head, said, 'My tremor-sense reveals nothing alive anywhere within range, but there are traps everywhere here. Be careful, and walk slowly.'
Terry acknowledged her with a feeling and began walking straight down the middle of the hall, his eyes hooded as he allowed Prada's sense to intrude on his own. It was difficult, but over the last few hours they had spent time practicing. As long as he wasn't distracted, it was possible to superimpose the visual representation of her tremor-sense over his natural vision. Doing this allowed him to move without relying on active communication with Prada to reveal the traps, but the trade-off was that the auras he could see weren't as bright, and the tremor visual faded much more quickly. Sensing and reacting to both required his full concentration.
He was halfway through the broad hall when he noticed them.
There were four of them, and they all came to his attention at roughly the same time. With each step, he sensed them, and it was obvious from their postures that all of them were aware of him, and that they intended to attack.
Terry stopped, then began tapping his foot to keep the image clear as he looked around. The two on his left were man-sized, one of the two on his right was easily over ten feet tall, and the last was a quadruped of some sort. The closest of them was one of the two on his left, and he could tell it was a woman by, of all things, the shape of her circulatory system.
Prada must be feeding me that particular tidbit, he thought to himself. He got an instant sense of gratification from her, but she didn't distract him.
The four were positioned such that the quadruped and one of those on the left would be behind him before he reached the giant's position.
Which one of the two in front is more dangerous, do you think? Terry thought. The quadruped or the human-sized one?
'I have no way of knowing,' Prada replied. 'Animals are usually faster.'
Faster. That's exactly what I need.
"By the power in my veins, I demand my speed and strength be increased to the limits of my physical endurance."
As he spoke the words, careful to enunciate them in English, a war-like scream came from his left, and a woman stepped from cover, her arm already whipping forward as she launched what looked like a javelin at him. From his right, a beast leapt out at him, and what he saw scared him so badly it all but cost him his life.
The thing had three heads. One was serpentine and was curled like a scorpion's tail over the back of the creature. The second head was leonine, and the third looked like a black-furred demonic goat. Those two heads were forward facing, and as soon as the thing landed in front of him with a clear line of sight, the lion inhaled sharply and then shot a gout of flame at him from its roaring mouth.
Terry had already adjusted his stance to account for the javelin's flight, and the fact that it flashed right in front of his eyes was the only thing that broke his horror in time. He jerked into a run, charging the human-sized opponent and putting himself between the two in the hope that the ... thing he'd just seen wouldn't want to hit an ally.
The figure in front of him was feminine, but beyond that largely inhuman. Recognizable facial features had a sharply avian cast, and she had a wickedly hooked beak instead of a mouth. Brown wings spotted with white flared behind her as she crouched on feathered bird's legs that faded into human hips and thighs, preparing to launch herself in the air.
She wore leather armor and carried several more javelins in a sling across her shoulder, and Terry got the impression she wasn't supposed to be in close combat, which suited him just fine.
His move had caught everyone by surprise, and by the time she launched herself upward he was only a few feet away and made a leap of his own.
He caught her foot just above the talons and she let out a terrified squawk as he flew past her and his weight sent her crashing down behind him. Her fall also jerked him off his feet, and he wound up flat on his back, staring up at the high, swift-moving clouds.
Recovering quickly, he lashed out over his head with the sword he'd taken from Verone's chamber and the bird sounds he heard shifted into a high, piercing scream as he felt the sword hit something soft.
He let her go and rolled, hoisting himself to his feet and launching himself for the pillar she'd been hiding behind just a moment earlier. He reached cover just ahead of a chilling blast of frost that left a thin sheet of ice on everything it touched.
"These bitches are playing for keeps," he gasped, risking a quick glance around the pillar.
'I am certain we can win, no one fights like you,' Prada purred in his mind, her calm confidence completely at odds with the fact his heart was busy trying to hammer its way out of his chest. He'd completely lost his access to tremor-sense, but that was what Prada was for, and his quick glance had told him that the ... thing, was stalking forward, and that the bird-woman with the wings was probably out of the fight.
His sword had practically severed one of her wings, and left a long gash across the meat of her ass and down one thigh that looked to be bleeding heavily.
I guess the damn thing's magic makes it supernaturally sharp; there's no way I hit her that hard.
'You actually may have, Husband. Do remember that your strength is greatly enhanced.'
Not the time.
He shifted his attention forward, and caught sight of another bird-woman. She had leapt to the top of a wall and had an arm back. As he watched, she flung her javelin at him.
At the same time, he heard a splashing sound followed by a hiss, like carbonation, only louder.
Much louder, and coming from near his feet.
Glancing down, he saw a puddle of green creeping around the pillar toward him with wispy smoke rising from the stone everywhere it touched. A strong chemical smell filled his nostrils and he staggered into a run away from the pillar as the javelin sparked off the stone behind him.
He'd gone three steps when the ground trembled underneath him, and he caught sight of the giant.
Cyclops.
He might not be very up on his monster lore, but he knew a fucking cyclops when he saw one. She was massive in every conceivable sense of the word, and h
er singular eyeball was centered on her face and almost as big as the behemoth's had been, though thankfully possessed of a singular iris and pupil.
The stone club she held loose in one hand was bigger than he was, and as his eyes met hers, she bellowed, "Stand fast or die!"
"Does that ever work?" he gasped back at her, still charging toward the bird-woman, who had just leapt backward with a tremendous flap of her wings, taking her out of sight behind the wall she'd just thrown from.
Terry risked a quick glance back toward the multi-headed creature, but before he could really register what he was seeing, a thought from Prada had him deliberately throwing himself face-first to the stone.
He'd tripped one of the numerous traps he'd noticed earlier, and with a series of pops a flurry of spears flew over his head. Most of them struck stone hard enough to completely shatter on impact, but one incredibly lucky dart buried itself between the lion and goat heads of the quadruped charging his way. It staggered to a halt and let out a scream with all three heads that sounded like nothing he had ever heard, on earth or after. Its forelegs collapsed, and it lay convulsing on the stone as a spreading pool of blood began to grow underneath it.
'That wasn't lucky, and you're welcome.'
Prada sounded so smug it took the edge off the pain of his bruised and bleeding elbows and the rough cut over his eye that he'd earned by putting himself down at full speed face-first onto a stone floor.
So good to me, he thought wryly as he forced himself to his feet, sword miraculously still in hand as he spun to face the cyclops, who was gaping down at the dying beast.
Where's the bird? he thought, glancing around quickly.
'She's still behind the stone wall, you have a clear path if you run straight toward the left side of it. Hurry!'
Terry hurried, and it was immediately apparent that he had more hustle than usual. All the combat to that point had been reactive, but now that he was focused on his movement he could tell he was running way faster than he could normally. His perception of movement around him made it seem like everything else was trying to move through water while he was free to move through air.
He reached the far side of the wall and swung around it.
Were it not for Prada, he'd have run right up the business end of a javelin. She whipped the trailing end of her sash up and across his body, knocking the long, thin blade of the weapon aside.
The bird-woman scarcely had time to process what happened before Terry palmed her head with his empty left hand and slammed it against the stone wall she'd braced against. His grip on his sword tightened as he started to thrust, but stopped himself as the woman fell bonelessly to the stone floor, either already dead or close to it. A spatter of blood smeared down the wall after her.
That left the cyclops.
As Terry looked up, he saw her eye fixed on him with what he at first thought was murderous rage. She had no iris, only a vast pupil. But something caused him dissonance, and he looked more closely.
When he did, he saw fear.
As she brought her club up, he yelled, "Surrender or die!"
He didn't expect it to work, was in fact just hoping to get her to pause long enough for him to get his bearings and head for some kind of cover that would protect him from that massive stone club. But to his great surprise she hesitated, then asked, "What happens if I surrender?"
"Well, I won't kill you, for starters," he said, keeping hold of his bravado long enough to do a little quick mental math. Despite the desperation with which he'd fought, he had just taken out three assailants, one of whom spewed three kinds of death. If he'd been an objective observer, that would be impressive. If he put himself in the cyclops' position, it might be terrifying.
Dynamite comes in small packages, lady.
'I have it on good authority that your package isn't small, Husband.'
Terry's lips twitched, but he did his best to keep a straight face as he stared up at the cyclops and thought, If you make me laugh and she turns us into a pasty smear I will be very unhappy with you.
'The fact that you're facing down death trying not to laugh endears you to me more than you know.'
"If I fail to kill you, Theseus will have my head on a platter," the cyclops said after a long moment.
"I'm here to deal with Theseus," Terry said, stepping away from the stone. "He won't be a threat to you when I'm done with him."
The cyclops eyed him for another long moment, and Terry couldn't help but notice that her knuckles were white on that stone club of hers. They faced each other across about twenty feet of broken stone, with only a waist-high wall separating them.
"You're a template, like him, right?" she asked.
"Yeah?"
"If you swear to bond me, and protect me until Theseus is dead, then I will surrender. Otherwise ..."
Her fist tightened visibly around her club and she raised it a bit. "Otherwise, we'll see if you've got what it takes. Killing Chen was probably luck, and the birdbrains are no great loss. These days those idiots are my dinner as often as not."
She was perhaps twelve, maybe thirteen feet tall, and had a taut stomach and trim figure. She wore what amounted to animal skins that supported the weight of her breasts on one shoulder, and a loincloth that hung to her knees but hid nothing of her thighs or hips. Her skin was bronze and bore scars across her upper arms and torso. She wore leather bracers on her arms and metal greaves to protect her lower legs, and in her off-hand she held what for her amounted to a buckler, but in Terry's hand would have covered everything from neck to his knees.
If I give my word you will not break it.
'As you wish, Husband. You will want to end your spell. Your mana is beginning to run low.'
Terry walked toward her, stopping when he reached the low wall between them. He set his sword down on the stone and raised his hands, palm out toward her as he said, "I'm going to cast a spell. It will have no impact on you."
The giant woman blinked, then nodded slowly. One of the few lessons that had stuck with Terry from his early efforts with Prada back in Florence was the ability to cancel magic. He clasped his palms together and concentrated, then parted them as he said in careful English, "End my spell."
Gravity increased, or so it seemed. His movement cost noticeably more effort as he waved a hand at his sword and said, "I've put down my weapon. Put down yours, and give me your name."
She did him one better. She crouched where she was and put her club down carefully, then took two steps that brought her to the other side of the low wall. It came up to his waist. It barely reached her knees.
He craned his neck to look up at her, and his lips twitched bemusedly as he realized a few things. The first was that he couldn't see her face past her boobs this close up, and the second was less a realization and more a reminder ... that underboob was awesome.
I have no hope in hell of satisfying this woman with my cock, he thought idly — as much to prod Prada for ideas as anything — while the cyclopian woman carefully leaned down to sit on one haunch, drawing one leg underneath her as she curled the other up and hooked an arm around it. She tilted her head a bit, blinked once at him, then said, "My name is Halla, but if it pleases you, just call me La. And you?"
Terry set a palm on the wall and vaulted to a seat facing her as he said, "Terrence Mack. Most of my friends call me ... well, shit," he chuckled wryly. "People around here call me a lot of things. Terry is fine for now."
"Terri is a girl's name," La said, her nose wrinkling. "Is there something else I can use?"
"What is it with big women thinking Terry is a girl's name? Fine. Call me Boss."
She smirked at that and asked, "Come up with that on your own?"
"Believe it or not, no, but I won't lie: It's growing on me."
La snorted. "I'll bet. You're the first template I've seen other than Theseus. Can I ask a favor?"
"You can always ask," Terry said, a touch of wariness in his tone.
"Take your shirt off."
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Prada started laughing inside his mind. Terry quirked a brow as he looked up at La. Even seated as she was, her head was still a good bit higher up than his. She quirked her brow right back, and hers was the much more impressive expression.
"I'm going to be opening my legs to you and let's face it, even if you're huge for your kind I'm not going to feel it," she said with a bit of a grin. "The least you can do is give a girl a show."
Oh, it's on now.
Terry crossed his arms and shucked his shirt, tossing it over his sword to cover the weapon as he slid his butt off the wall and flexed. He tightened everything and slowly twisted into a three-quarter back pose, then faced forward again and pressed his hands out toward her, then spread them wide, maintaining his flex throughout.
La's one eye widened, and she let out a lascivious wolf-whistle, then said, "Pity you don't come in my size. You put Theseus to shame."
Terry shrugged and shucked his pants. Prada stayed right where she was, but she remained tight to his waist and didn't hide anything from the cyclops as her eye wandered up and down, then back up again.
"I've got a few tricks I think you'll like," Terry said, grinning.
"I'm happy to hear that you'd bother," the giant woman said as she shrugged up and tossed her top aside, revealing heavy breasts that fit her frame, but weren't any less massive for being in proportion.
'I wonder if Laina will be jealous,' Prada said musingly.
Put your head in the game, Prada. I've got an idea, and I'm going to need you to make it work.
'Kinky. What do you ... oh. Oh now THAT'S clever. How did you know I could even do that?'
Figured it out when I woke up as a half-woman, half-man thing. That ... was a revelatory experience, by the way.
Prada's amusement flooded through him, along with an unmistakable sense of growing lust.
'She'll love it ... and so will you. I'll see to that.'
