Monster Girl Islands 7

by Logan Jacobs

  However, the thing’s legs made me do a double take. The green creature’s upper legs rested upward against its body and then bent down so the lower legs could rest on the ground below. Its feet were webbed and veiny, and the giant reptilian had a mouth slit that was slanted downward and took up nearly the entirety of its face. Overall, the beast reminded me of an oversized frog, only missing the front legs.

  A giant, mutated frog, but a frog nonetheless.

  “A hopper,” Ahwara whispered to me from her hiding spot. “I was hoping we wouldn’t come across one of those.”

  “Why can’t we just sneak around?” I asked the Morpho leader as quietly as I could. “It doesn’t look like a very bright creature.”

  Ahwara just shook her head. “Looks can be deceiving. That thing out there is the biggest threat to the Morpho race on this island. Apparently, we are its favorite snack. So much so, it can pick up our scent from miles away, which is probably how it found us.”

  “It’s only a matter of time before he sniffs us out,” Holara added as she pulled her fan blade from its sheath. “At least this way, we can get the jump on him.”

  “Ready, girls?” Ahwara asked her tribe as they all prepared their fan blades.

  “Hold on…” I began. “Don’t we need a plan of attack before we--”

  “Now!” the pixie Morpho cried out, and all five of the women darted up into the sky under the power of their wings.

  The hopper let out a gurgled gasp as he saw the approaching women, and then he instantly licked his lips. The next thing I knew, a slender, pink tongue shot out of the creature’s mouth and tried to snatch Candara out of the sky.

  The Morpho woman let out a gasp as she dodged the incoming appendage, and then she quickly slashed at the tongue with her blades. The spines of the bone-fan missed by inches, and the hopper’s tongue snapped back into its mouth as if it were made of a bungee cord.

  The rest of the Morpho women turned and shot down toward the green beast with their fans at the ready, but the creature was more than prepared for their assault.

  The frog-monster sucked in its breath, puffed out the skin just underneath its mouth, and then unleashed a massive bellow. Visible shockwaves emerged from the hopper’s mouth, shook every bit of ground in the vicinity, struck the flying Morphos, and sent them off in four different directions far away from their original target.

  “Shit!” I growled as I drew my sword. “The Morphos are in trouble. Let’s send this frog back to the swamp it crawled out of!”

  The rest of my crew pulled out their weapons and then abandoned their hiding spots, and the sudden influx of combatants on the battlefield forced the hopper’s attention away from the Morphos.

  Unfortunately, that meant the ugly fucker’s attention was now on us.

  Tirian, let’s get airborne! Jemma commanded her bondmate telepathically.

  Without breaking her stride, the deer-woman sprang up off the ground, pulled her body to the left, and came down on the silver dragon. Next, she wrapped her legs around him tightly, took aim with her bow, and then pulled back an arrow on its string. Tirian’s mouth unleashed a quick burst of flames as Jemma released her arrow, and the two deadly projectiles headed straight for the hopper.

  Neither of them did much good.

  Tirian’s flames struck the frog-beast’s skin, sprayed out in a circular pattern, and then evaporated. Meanwhile, Jemma’s arrow stuck into the meaty portion of his head, but the creature didn’t seem to feel it.

  That’s not good, Tirian gasped. He’s fireproof?

  Suddenly, the beast inhaled, and I slammed the blade of my sword into the ground.

  “Everybody brace!” I commanded.

  The hopper unleashed another ultrasonic croak, and I was blown off my feet by the waves. My legs were literally picked up off the ground, and the only thing that kept me from blowing away was my iron-tight grip on my sword hilt.

  Thankfully, the rest of my team had battened down the hatches, as well. Sela and Mira both held their spears tightly, while Nadir and Lezan had their axes buried far into the ground. Arrick has his hands wrapped around Malkey’s neck, and the water dragon himself had anchored down by biting onto a tree.

  Jonas was nowhere to be found, but I just assumed he was hiding. He might have been a fantastic soothsayer, but he was far from the greatest warrior.

  When the bellowing finally subsided and we were all safely back on the ground, we watched as the Morpho women dive-bombed the creature. They let out a soft battle cry, swooped horizontally across the hopper’s back, and then dragged their fan-blades as they did so.

  The slimy behemoth let out a gurgled cry as he stumbled forward and tried to keep his balance.

  “He’s disoriented!” Mira called out. “Hit him with everything we’ve got!”

  Sela and Mira both looked at each other and gave a knowing nod before they split off into two separate directions. The mossy-green scaled warrior went to the right, while the tan, golden-scaled Mira took the left. They ran out from the creature for a split-second before they came back in, leapt up into the air, and stabbed their spearheads into the sides of the hopper in unison. Their spears made a wet shlock as they stuck into the creature, and he grunted with frustration.

  However, he still didn’t go down.

  Instead, the hopper tensed the muscles in his thick legs and then used them to leap up into the sky, and Mira and Sela both let out an expletive as they were carried along with him since their spears were still inside of the monster’s flesh. The creature went about twenty feet into the air, came forward, and then aimed his wide feet at the spot where I was standing.

  I rolled out of the way just in time, and the hopper slammed into the ground with the force of a two-point-oh earthquake.

  Sela and Mira’s spears were both knocked free of their fleshy entrapment, and the two women’s bodies were sent smashing into the ground. They both instantly rolled to their feet, though, took aim with their spears again like a bunch of badasses, and tried to stab them into the frog’s legs.

  Instead, they hit air as the creature bounded upwards once more.

  I’ll get him! Jemma declared as she and Tirian followed the creature’s trajectory.

  The Niralope woman drew an arrow, took aim, and then unleashed it toward the airborne creature. This time, the deadly projectile hit him right between the eyes, and he bellowed with pain.

  The ultrasonic bellow, though, knocked Tirian back a few feet, and Jemma had to drop her bow and hold onto her dragon’s neck for dear life.

  The hopper crashed down just as the Morphos came back in for their second attack. This time, however, the frog wasn’t going down without a fight. The beast did a slight hop out of the way of Ahwara and Holara before it leaned to the side, lifted up its right foot, and kicked. Elzara, Zerandrie, and Candara weren’t prepared for the sudden blow, so the foot smacked them in their faces and sent them all hurtling back into the foliage of the woods.

  “Shit!” I growled.

  Just then, the blade of Lezan’s heavy stone axe came down right on the hopper’s knee. The blade sent a brief spray of blood into the air as it lodged itself into the creature’s green skin, and the hopper let out a yelp of agony. It instantly began to wag its foot back and forth like Lezan was a piece of toilet paper on its shoe, but that only opened him up for a further assault.

  “Ayeayeayeayeaye!” Nadir cackled as she jumped up, lifted her axe, and brought it down right at the hopper’s right eye.

  At the last second, the ugly bastard’s eye lurched to the right, and Nadir’s blade swished right past. Still, it dug into the side of the beast and then lodged itself a few inches into its skin.

  Nadir yanked her axe out of the monster with a splurt of dark blood before she pushed herself off, somersaulted backwards through the air, and then landed on her feet. Meanwhile, Lezan had removed her weapon from the hopper, as well, but she wanted to go in for the kill.

  So, the Coonag woman with the multicolored hair
lashed out with her axe and struck the beast in its side.

  The hopper instantly took a jump into the air, and Lezan had to release her grip on her axe to keep from going on a ride. As the slimy creature was suspended in the sky, though, Ahwara and Holara came back in for another pass.

  Both of the Morpho women dragged their dagger blades across the flesh between the hopper’s eyes, and more dark blood splashed out onto the forest floor.

  The beast landed far away from us on the ground, puffed out his chest, and prepared to unleash another ultrasonic croak.

  Oh, no, you don’t! Malkey called out.

  The water dragon, with Arrick still on his back, ran toward his opponent as his cheeks puffed up with an incoming attack. Then Malkey fired a shot of water directly into the frog’s mouth as it opened. So, instead of an earth-shaking croak, the green monster just gagged and gurgled as the geyser of water cut off his ability to breath.

  “Nice shot, Malkey!” I whistled as I ran forward.

  Tirian took the opportunity to rain down fire again, though it still didn’t do much good. The flames just hit the hopper, bounced off, and then evaporated.

  Then the eyes of the beast looked off in two directions… One was aimed at Jemma and Tirian, while the other was looking right at Malkey and Arrick.

  This thing might not have been able to talk, but it was obvious what it was thinking. It recognized that the two dragons were the biggest threats to its survival, and it was thinking about how to take them out before it was too late.

  Suddenly, the creature’s tongue sprang out from its mouth like an earthworm in a cannon, and Tirian wasn’t prepared as the agile appendage shot up into the air. There was a wet splat as the creature’s tongue pasted itself onto the silver dragon’s belly, and then it began to pull him in.

  Tirian beat his wings as hard as he could, but he couldn’t break himself free.

  I’m trapped! the little dragon gasped as he and his bondmate were pulled closer and closer to the hopper’s waiting mouth.

  Not on my watch, pal.

  I flipped my sword around in my hand as I approached the beast. Then, I lurched over to the side, swung my seaglass blade at the hopper’s tongue, and severed it right near its base. It snapped like a bungee cord, and the severed end recoiled so hard that it smacked Tirian’s chest.

  Yeow! the dragon cried out as he and Jemma were sent flying backward and then spiraling out of control.

  “Jemma!” I gasped as I watched the dragon tailspin, but then he caught himself at the very last second, so I turned back to the beast and lashed out at him with my sword. The seaglass sliced across his thin waist, but all that seemed to do was give him a long, superficial cut.

  Sela, Mira, and the two Coonag women returned to the fight and swarmed the ugly bastard like a bunch of army ants. They hopped onto his body and began to stab and slice away with their weapons.

  Then the rest of the Morpho women joined the fray. Now, all of us were right up against the monster as we attacked it, but the damn thing still wasn’t going down.

  Finally, the hopper let out another bellow, and I was tossed back like a ragdoll. My body slammed into the muddy ground and then rolled for a few seconds before I came up for more. Thick, wet mud was now caked all over my figure, and I could feel it drying and cracking by the second.

  The sudden attack had knocked away Nadir, Mira, Ahwara, and Candara, but the hopper then took out the remaining members of the crew by repeatedly stomping his legs in rapid succession.

  My crew retreated back to our position as we watched the beast stomp the ground like an angry toddler.

  “Our weapons didn’t do jack shit…” I growled as I observed the hopper.

  There were several cuts, scrapes, and puncture wounds all over his body, but they basically seemed like the equivalent of a papercut or accidentally stepping on a tack. None of our attacks had gone too deep, and I feared it was going to take a lot more to ever crack this green eggs and ham-looking motherfucker.

  Then I got an idea.

  If we couldn’t make headway into the creature’s thick skin from the outside, we’d just have to try from the inside.

  “You said you can make more of those blades, right?” I asked as I nodded to Ahwara’s weapon.

  “Of course,” the Morpho leader reaffirmed. “But I don’t see how that really matters here.”

  I sheathed my sword and held out my hand to the orange-haired pixie.

  “Just give me your fan-blade and then cover me,” I commanded my crew. “Keep its attention, but only until I get close enough.”

  “What exactly are you planning, Ben?” Mira demanded.

  “Just do it,” I told the dragonkin warrior. “I’ll be fine.”

  She gave me a skeptical nod, but then turned to face the stomping beast.

  So, I clapped the fan-blade closed, stared down the ugly fucker, and then ran at him at full speed. At the same time, I saw a blast of water from Malkey and a shot of flames from Tirian rain down onto the hopper. Jemma shot a few more arrows at the bastard, too, and the Morphos swarmed him from above.

  The creature’s frustration was obvious as he tried to nip at the butterfly women with what was left of his tongue, but once I was only about twenty feet from the monster, I raised my hand to get everyone’s attention.

  “Fall back!” I called out.

  “Ben…” Nadir pleaded. “We don’t run away--”

  “Fall back!” I repeated.

  The Morphos and the rest of my crew hesitantly withdrew from the fight, and the two dragons ceased their attacks.

  Now, it was just me and the hopper. Which was exactly the way I wanted it.

  “Come on… You know what you want to do…” I coiled my legs and waited to spring.

  Suddenly, the green bastard’s mouth opened up, and his nub of a tongue shot out directly at me. It struck me in the leg, pulled me to the ground, and then dragged me through the mud en route to the hopper’s waiting mouth. The next thing I knew, its slimy lips closed around me, and I was surrounded in darkness.

  “Ben!” Mira cried out. “No!”

  “Dad!” Arrick’s voice was full of horror.

  “It’s alright,” I promised them through our telekinetic bond. “This is exactly what I wanted.”

  I only had a few seconds before it was too late. I felt the hoppers tight, sludgy esophagus closing around my legs, followed by a pulsating sensation as my lower half was swallowed by the beast.

  So, I held the fan blade down at my side and waited until the slimy throat brushed against my hand, and then I quickly opened it. There was a wet-sounding stab as the bony spears jabbed into his throat muscles, and my eardrums were nearly shattered by the croak of pain he let out.

  But it was too late for this guy. Once you’d started to swallow something, the esophageal muscles didn’t let you stop.

  As the rest of my body was pulled into the frog’s esophagus, I was completely drenched in the warm, irony blood oozing out of his ruptured throat. Soon, the frog began to gag and choke on his own blood, and I knew that was my cue.

  So, I released my grip on the fan blade, moved my hands up a few inches above, and fumbled around until I found the gory seam. Then I pulled in opposite directions with all of my might, and there was a disgusting, schlocky rip as I ripped his esophagus in two from the inside. I drew my sword as the stench of the hopper’s viscera began to overpower me, and then I began to hack away at the underside of his slimy flesh.

  The beast slammed into the ground, and I knew the task was almost done.

  Now, I just had to get out of here before I suffocated to death.

  It took seven swipes before I saw daylight, but then I shoved my head up through the hole and took in a deep breath. Finally, I grabbed the sides of the opening and pushed them apart just enough for me to slide out through.

  As I exited the inside of the hopper, everybody stared at me like I was a madman. The creature’s body convulsed behind me as the life slowly drained
from his eyes, but everybody seemed to be focused on me.

  “What?” I joked as I tried to rub some of the hopper’s blood and guts off my arms. “Do I have something in my teeth?”

  Meanwhile, all of my crewmembers’ faces were smiling with pure glee.

  “I told you he was awesome,” Nadir chuckled to the Morphos.

  “Very awesome, indeed,” Ahwara noted as her orange eyes studied me intently.

  “You’d be proud to have his babies, then?” the Coonag woman prodded further, but it only drew a scowl from the pink-winged Morpho.

  “Uh, before we get too ahead of ourselves,” I spoke up, “is there a river or a stream or lake or something around here I could use to wash up? I really don’t want the smell of frog guts and dried mud caked to my body all day…”

  “You won’t need a body of water.” Candara pointed up to the sky, which had now grown two shades darker. “The water’s coming to us!”

  “We should get going,” Ahwara noted, even though she was still staring at me. “We absolutely do not want to get caught in another torrential downpour.”

  “Isn’t there another village just a few miles from here?” Elzara spoke up. “Wouldn’t it be wise to camp out there for the night?”

  “Perhaps.” Ahwara nodded. “But if we don’t get going right now, we’re going to be caught in the rain for sure.”

  “Hey, uh, Malkey?” I chuckled and then whistled for the copper water dragon. “Do you think you could give me a quick spray-down? Just to get this shit off before it dries?”

  “Why do you want to take it off?” Arrick questioned with a playful grin. “It makes you look like a certified badass, Dad.”

  “What did we say about language?” I half-teased my son. “If your mother heard you talking like that she’d--Ahhh! Son of a bitch, that’s cold!”

  Malkey sprayed me down with a soft bit of his water breath, and it was about as cold as an ice bath in the Minnesota tundra. My entire body felt like it turned to goosebumps as I shivered intensely, but once the blast was done, I noticed a large portion of the gore had been removed. Sure, there were still a few bits here and there that would require a more powerful washing, but this was good for now.