Enthralled: Book 2: Picking Up the Pieces

by Prax Venter

  Ahnix noticed first and turned to look at him. “What is it?”

  “Roo,” Mark began. “Your primary attack. The metal is created permanently, right? Like it doesn't disappear eventually?”

  The velvet girl held out her hand and created a marble sized iron ball. She tossed it to him, and he snatched the perfectly smooth object out the air.

  “Not that I know of,” she said. “Hold on to that and let's see.”

  He lifted the sphere up to his face, examining it.

  “Why?” Ahnix asked.

  “Well, we know if I enhance her, she can make specific metals-”

  Vale slid up close to Mark her eyes alight with understanding.

  “Oh my. She could make gold balls.”

  Mark nodded. “Or bars, or coins...”

  Everyone turned to look at Roo who had a wicked smile growing on her face.

  “Now's not the time for this,” Ahnix said, the tip of her tail twitching. “After we collect this piece, then we can try turning our pretty, little doll into a coin press.”

  “You're right,” Mark said, slipping the iron ball into his pocket.

  Everyone turned to continue onward but Roo.

  “Wait,” the velvet-girl said, biting her lip and holding out her hand again. She concentrated, staring at her empty, fabric palm.

  Mark was about to ask what she was doing when a polished metal heart that looked like silver materialized out of her hand. She looked up at Mark, her pure black eyes sparkling.

  “Throw away the ball, keep my heart close to you instead.” She tossed it to him.

  Mark caught it and looked down at her new gift.

  “Roo, is this sliver?”

  “No, it's just flawlessly smooth iron.”

  Mark shrugged, this whole time he thought she was making silver needles. He gave the heart a kiss and slipped it into his pocket. He pulled the ball out and tossed it over his shoulder.

  Roo moved close to him, and they continued pushing forward, towards their destination.

  They stumbled into a few gelatinous cube nests, but with Vale's Hateful Sting hex, Roo's sniping shots, and Mark's explosive blasts, they weren't too much of a problem.

  They were climbing over a fallen building when an exceptionally loud buzzing caught their attention. Mark looked up and saw two gigantic insects moving from their spots, clinging to the sides of the buildings. Ahnix had been great dealing with one, but two at a time might cause a problem.

  Mark shot his crossbow at one, but his glowing ball of a projectile headed for the sun instead. He cursed under his breath; it had been a while since he missed.

  Ahnix knocked one out of the sky as she had done before with a teleport, Doom Kick combo, but the other one was headed right for Mark.

  Mark quickly hopped down the rubble he had been climbing to run towards Vale. With her armor, she would be the only one capable withstanding its attacks.

  It swooped down after him, its sharp, tube-like mouth leveled right at his back. One moment he was scrabbling towards Vale, the next she was behind him.

  She activated Perfect Cover and Shield Bash almost instantaneously, connecting squarely with its rigid proboscis, sending it straight through its own head and sticking halfway out the other side. The creature slumped over, dead.

  “You sure know how to handle that shield,” Mark said, staring at the towering naga in awe.

  Her charcoal cheeks blushed, and she gave him a sweet smile.

  They continued forward over the rubble and around the massive insect carcasses. The compass eventually led them to a larger building. This one was different from the rest in that it didn't have an enormous tree rooted at its center.

  “One cube.” Ahnix pointed to the wobbling creature as it hopped towards them in the grass.

  Roo held out her hand and launched a high-speed pellet at the animal skull floating in its gelatinous insides. The iron ball shattered the skull, and the creature melted into the ground.

  “Nice shot,” Vale said, cheering Roo on.

  They passed under the shadow of the building and looked for signs of the Crystal Heart fragment. Mark realized he had no idea how big it would be. They followed the compass past a stone stairwell covered in dripping, clear goo and went further into the dark building.

  The light was dim, but Mark could still see, and what he saw was that the compass started to spin.

  “Uh, guys,” he said, looking down at the erratic magic instrument.

  By the time his girls moved in to see what he was talking about the needle quivered and pointed forward again.

  “What is it?” Roo asked.

  “It started to spin for a second. Maybe it does that when we are close?” They hadn't found a single piece yet, and maybe it didn't actually work. He pushed that thought out easily- They seemed to be on the right track so far.

  He took a few steps forward, and the needle began to spin again.

  “Look!”

  Vale leaned in close and then straightened. “It's probably above or below us, Mark.”

  He felt stupid. “Right... And it's moving.”

  “Or being moved,” Ahnix said.

  Mark sighed. “I didn't see any stairs down, let's go up first.”

  Everyone nodded, and they started up the slippery stone stairway. As soon as they entered the dimly-lit second floor, a horde of smaller gelatinous cubes hopped towards them, slapping the ground as they moved.

  “Back!” Ahnix yelled over her shoulder, keeping her eyes forward.

  Everyone hurried back down the stairwell, and Roo lost her footing. Mark caught her arm, and carried her light body the rest of the way down. She gave him a bashful smile and got on her feet again.

  “Hit my hex, Mark!” Vale commanded.

  He concentrated on the giant naga's Hateful Sting ability, filling her with enhanced power. She shuddered as the rings closed in on her throat and sang her shifting melody. Mark watched the naga hold the stairwell by herself as the mass of glowing, red cubes threw themselves at her and tried to make a note in his mind about asking her to sing for him sometime soon. She had an amazing singing voice.

  The clear creatures all popped at once, and he felt a rush of essence. He was about halfway full from the day's activities, and it suddenly struck him as odd that he didn't get any essence from closing the massive ring-like tear round the Georath city. He shrugged to himself. Maybe that tear was different in more ways than one.

  “Nicely done, princess,” Ahnix said. “Let's keep going.”

  They climbed up a few sets of stone stairs and moved through various parts of the crumbling, ruined building. Shafts of light shot their way in from the outside through missing chunks of decaying stone. By the third floor, Mark started to see more intact remnants of the people that used to live there. They passed a room of bookshelves, and most of the books had turned to dust, but there were a few copper plates etched with runes that remained. An array of stone beds filled another floor. The layout was unmistakably Georath as the slabs were all identical and perfectly spaced apart. Along some of the walls were similar blue crystals to the bright ones in Auxiliary Academy, but these were dull and dormant. Over everything was a slippery coat of slimy, clear goo.

  Mark jumped when Ahnix hissed and put her hand on his chest, pressing him back against a wall. He followed her downward gaze and saw a pair of rats scurrying across the floor. They ignored everyone, and without stopping to sniff a single corner, they continued up the flight of stairs to the next level.

  “I hate rats,” she said.

  “Hey, me too,” Mark said, both wrinkling his nose and smiling. “Disgusting, wormy tails.”

  “I think they're cute,” Roo said, pouting.

  Vale frowned. “Either way, they were behaving strangely. Think they were running from something downstairs?”

  They all remained quiet but didn't hear anything coming from below.

  Mark moved towards the stairs. “Let's just finish searching the upper floors. If
we get cut off by something crazy, we could always take the emergency Roo exit.”

  They went up a few more floors, and instead of hearing crazy sounds coming from below them they heard a heavy, wet slapping noise from above them.

  Mark and his Enthralled exchanged glances. Everyone had a pretty good idea what to expect up there.

  - 11 -

  He could see bright sunlight spilling down from the last goo-covered, stairway and Ahnix went first to check it out. She tilted her head back, so her stiff, triangle ears didn't give her away as she peeked over the threshold.

  She came back quickly, her impassive face hard to read, but her flipping tail hinted at her agitation.

  “Yes, it's a giant cube,” She began. “The Heart fragment is inside it, but that's not all. The whole floor is open to the sky and looks like it had been an armory or a training room. The enemy is a swirling mess of skulls and rocks, but it also contains weapons, armor, and shields. Also, there are a few smaller cubes around it.”

  “We could just try to Hex it to death, like all the other ones,” Vale said, shrugging.

  Mark nodded. “I'll pelt it with explosions and Roo can slice bits off.”

  Ahnix made a loose fist, extending her claws. “I feel useless against these things.”

  Mark put his hand on her arm and her claws retracted. He looked into the cat-girl's exotic eyes.

  “If it weren't for you, we'd all be dead fifty times over by now. We got this one.”

  “Right,” Vale said, looking around. “We go up there together, melt that cube and get that first piece.”

  They all nodded and moved to the brightly lit stairwell. Mark put his hands on Vale's hips and concentrated on her Hateful Sting, again. After hitting the ability repeatedly all day it was becoming easier to lock onto. He looked up into her eyes and focused all his will on boosting its damaging effects. This is what they were here for. Closing his eyes, Mark opened a channel into the giant naga and poured a torrent of power into her.

  She placed her hands on his forearms, squeezing as the pleasure of his energy coursed through her. Mark opened his eyes when it was over.

  “Go get'em,” he said, quietly.

  Vale turned and wove her body back and forth as she charged up into the sunlight and the rest of them followed her.

  His eyes stung as his pupils constricted, trying to filter the new level of light washing over him, but what he saw in in the open space was enough to forget the minor irritation altogether.

  Ahnix had said, “giant,” but this ten-foot cube was enormous. In the center was a pulsating red clump of crystal, and Mark knew instantly what it was. They were just in time to see it push out one of the animal skulls, pulling a part of it's gooey insides with it. A new gelatinous cube was created and began to hop toward the group.

  He heard Vale start singing her hexing song, pointing at the humongous, clear cube and decided he should do something to help. He looked over at Roo who was targeting one of the smaller living gelatin cubes to her right, lining up her shot. Mark felt confident that they were choosing different targets and leveled his crossbow on the freshly created creature.

  He squeezed the trigger, and a bright ball of energy blasted the quivering cube to pieces just as Roo destroyed the core of hers with a precise iron pellet.

  Vale finished her song, and the massive, translucent cube began to glow red. It hopped forward a few feet, causing a loud, wet slapping noise.

  Mark and Roo circled its right side, trying to stay out of the way, and Ahnix moved behind them. She was out of his line of sight, but Mark could sense her tail jumping around in frustration. The walls were covered in vines, and it looked like the roof had crashed down onto the floor, making the footing a bit tricky.

  As he was lining up his next shot while the crossbow cooled down, he noticed that the swirling armor and shields seemed to move with him, all floating over to the side he and Roo faced.

  Vale moved around its other side, trying to give herself room to maneuver, and drawing it away from everyone else.

  Roo held her hands over her head and yelled, “Horrible hooks!”

  Four iron hooks on chains emerged from the slime-covered stone floor and sunk into the giant gelatinous cube. Only one latched onto anything and pulled a breastplate outside of its wiggling body. She followed up immediately with a pellet aimed for the Crystal Heart fragment. The swirl of shields moved to intercept, and the Heart piece was pulled to the opposite side as if the cube was actively protecting it. Her projectile was blocked and hung suspended along with the rest of the floating mess.

  As if mocking her, the giant cube pushed out her iron ball to create another baby cube, and it landed on the ground in front of them with a wet slap.

  Mark's crossbow was ready, so he aimed it at the new cube and erased it.

  The massive cube quivered violently for a moment before it launched itself forward and came very close to landing right on top of Vale. He could only see a distorted shape of the giant naga on the other side of the cube, but he felt a slow rising panic from their connection. She started to doubt if her hex was strong enough to kill this thing.

  Roo launched another pellet, trying to knock the glowing red shard out of the giant cube, but it was actively blocked again. They all danced around the quivering gelatinous monster for a bit longer, and it jumped another few feet towards Vale.

  Mark's crossbow was ready again, and he put a charged blast right into the creature's side. The swirling objects inside the cube all converged to that side while the Heart piece moved away. The explosion made a sizable hole in the creature, and a few of the shields were exposed to the air. The gelatinous creature quickly started regenerating, however, and most of the damage was repaired in only a few seconds.

  The massive cube shook itself, flattening a bit. It looked like it was melting into the floor, and Mark's lips started to draw back into a smile. But his smile died on his face when the monstrosity launched itself forward with a speed that surprised everyone, and Mark saw Vale's blurry image fall to the ground.

  Mark and the others circled back round the giant, gelatinous cube to get a better angle on what was happening and saw that it had engulfed about four feet of her tail.

  She was facing away from it, trying to push herself forward, but she couldn't seem to move- and the cube was pulling her in.

  “Help, I can't get free!” she yelled.

  He held out his ring, and created a shimmering, magic shield around Vale, pushing the creeping goo back. The problem was that if she moved, the bubble would break. The massive cube monster continued to slowly move forward, enveloping the magic bubble, ingesting it. He could feel feedback pressure in his mind as the creature's corrosive insides lit up his protective shield like a fireworks finale.

  “I can't hold it for long!” he shouted.

  “Roo, Mark! I have a plan,” Ahnix yelled from behind him. “When the shield goes down, both of you shoot right at it. Aim for the Heart. Trust me.”

  Mark nodded and tried to hold the bubble up long enough for his crossbow to be ready to fire, but it was impossible to keep the shield up any longer. It popped, and Vale moved a few inches before the massive weight of the creature was released and crashed down around her waist.

  Roo lifted her hand to fire, and Ahnix shouted, “Wait for Mark! Shoot yours the moment after.” The velvet-girl held her hand up, continually adjusting her aim and waited.

  Vale's legendary armor was keeping her protected as it pulled her inside, but once the clear goo got to her exposed face- it would be a horribly different story.

  Mark leveled his crossbow on the creature, squeezing the locked trigger. He saw the cube slide up her back, and he could feel her terror as she clawed at the ground, trying to get away.

  Mark's knuckle was white, his desperate muscles pushing out all of the blood in his finger as he willed the weapon to fire.

  The cube reached her shoulders, and he heard a quiet, sobbing, “Please...” come from his giant naga
, and he almost lost his mind.

  His finger finally moved the trigger, and a ball of energy impacted the monster in front of him, blasting a hole into the giant translucent cube. Roo launched one of her classic needles, aiming for the Crystal Heart fragment. The shaft of metal barely missed as the creature moved the glowing red crystal to its back side, away from the damage they were causing.

  Mark was shocked when he saw the distorted shape of his cat-girl materialize on its far side, right behind the cube. Ahnix plunged her arm inside, snatched the Crystal Heart piece floating near the edge and then Retracted back to where she started, behind them.

  She let out a quick hiss and then began to yowl in pain. Mark spun around to see her drop the red crystal on the ground, a voluminous amount of purple smoke rising from it. Then he saw the curling white smoke rising from her ruined arm.

  He rushed to her side and slid under her as she collapsed. The smell of burning fur assaulted his nostrils as he tilted the entire universe into healing the beloved cat-girl in his lap.

  Cascading light splashed down on her like a waterfall of energy, and she was made whole again.

  She grunted in his arms as her groin was wracked with a quick and intense orgasm.

  He looked over his shoulder to see Vale sliding up to them, uninjured. She saw the relief in his eyes and smiled. He nodded and turned back to face Ahnix.

  She had scooped up the throbbing red piece of the Crystal Heart while he was looking at Vale, and she handed it to him now.

  As soon as his fingers touched its sharp, rough surface, a deluge of essence filled his reserves to bursting.

  His eyes rolled into his head as ecstasy lit up his every nerve. A subtle stinging on the underside of his wrist drew his attention, and he flipped his hand over to see what was causing the discomfort. By the time he saw it, the sensation was gone- but on his wrist was a tiny, almost-empty heart outline, tattooed under his palm. The bottom third of it was filled in with black.