by Billy Wong
"Tentacle Nest?" Lars asked with a bemused look.
"It barely has a head, so the name is fitting." She hopped onto the barricade again, but instead of bashing monsters from above she leapt into the crowd.
Do not recklessly endanger my body! Maximilian snapped.
Landing atop a crab eight feet wide, she killed it by stabbing a javelin down through it and launched herself off it further away from the battle lines. "Your body? Since when does this body belong to you? I'll do with it as I please. Besides, I'm not recklessly endangering myself. If I let that thing get close to my allies, more of them will lose their lives. So by intercepting it, I'm just protecting them."
"What about me?" Strength asked. "I can handle myself against it."
Cart-Dragger landed to find herself surrounded by giant shrimp, but the ones behind didn't seem to notice her in their zeal to break through the barricade. She swung her hammer in wide arcs before her, knocking aside shrimp by the twos and threes. "Get out of the way you stupid prawns! As for you Strength, you stay back. Sure you could help me fight the big one, but why leave our comrades without either of their strongest fighters? I have this."
It would be hard to mistake the disappointment in her voice as she replied, "Fine." She didn't argue though, which was good.
My spells sure would be useful at this time, Maximilian said while she powered forward through the ranks of shelled invaders.
"You shut up!" She smacked a last pair of shrimp hurtling away, and a lobster twice the height of a man loomed over her. Its pincer reached down, much bigger by itself than her. She struck it with a heavy counterblow, the spike end of her maul cracking the chitin. "Since when have I ever needed magic to fight giant beasts?" The other claw tried to snip her in half. She rolled under towards its visage, came up with a hammer uppercut. Crack! The impact lifted the crustacean momentarily on its hind legs. As it fell back towards the ground, Cart-Dragger spun to put even more power into her next strike. "Cycle of Unbirth!" Her hammer caught its head on the way down and it exploded, one side completely caved in, the eye on the opposite side bursting out along with some brains. The carcass toppled over, crushing a half dozen shrimp to its left.
I must acknowledge, you are very impressive.
She ran past the lobster's body towards Tentacle Nest, nothing between them now as the aquatic colossus put the docks behind it. "What, have you never fought a monster this size before? Makes you seem even more unqualified to call yourself the greatest warrior like you did."
The only monsters this large were the old King Elementals, which the empire controlled. So I have not had the opportunity.
"Then how about I let you take control of my body for a bit to give you a taste?"
His voice grew excited. Yes, certainly, I would be hon-
"Haha, just teasing! You really think I'm so stupid? You'll never have a body that responds to your will again."
Curse you fat bitch!
"I feed on your bitterness!" Tentacle Nest drew near. "Let's continue this mental war another time. Hey Tiny Head, look down here! I'm your opponent today." Tentacle Nest gazed downward with a bulbous eye and raised all ten limbs into the air. "Wait! By the way, can you speak? If you're a King Elemental as we suspect, I'd think you can. What is this nonsense with you calling yourselves the race of evil and attacking us?"
A voice rumbled from its beak, thick like she heard it from underwater and inhuman enough that she couldn't associate it with a gender. "You fool, you know nothing. You deserve to know nothing, so die wondering futilely." Its tentacles shot forward.
Cart-Dragger dove aside from one limb, rolled out of the way of another whose descent shattered pavement, and met a third with a swing that tore halfway through it. A fourth struck her from the side, sent sharp pain through her ribs and knocked her tumbling head over heels. She looked up to see a tentacle whip down.
Now might be a good time for mag-
She hurled a javelin up, piercing deep. The appendage seemed to stiffen in pain, but given its momentum continued its arc towards the ground and her. She swung her hammer to hit it from the side with the blunt end, batting it off course so it slapped against the cobbles beside her. Other tentacles swept in, but as the one she'd just injured recoiled, she grabbed the embedded javelin so that it yanked her up and between them. Seeing the sheer size of the mass of writhing tentacles below unnerved her a tad, but she told herself she'd been here before. She let go as the pierced limb drew back towards the body, flinging herself at the squid face.
"What?!" Tentacle Nest said, beak gaping open. Cart-Dragger raised her weapon, the tentacles reaching for her from behind but too late. The hammer came down hard between Tentacle Nest's eyes, making it shudder and its limbs flail in agony. Standing on its face, she flipped the maul over in hand and struck again. The spike drove into its eye, spattering her with clear sticky fluid. It gave more of a keening noise than a scream, then a tentacle started to coil around her from behind.
Not knowing if even she could get free if it secured a hold, she jumped up out of the loop and kicked off it to send herself higher into the air. Tentacles came in from all sides. She twisted in midair, hammered one aside and sliced another open with a javelin. The tip of a third plowed into her chest, hard as a trebuchet shot despite its flexibility with all that weight behind it. It launched her flying scores of feet, until she crashed through the stone wall of a house and then a chair and table inside it. A woman shrieked, and while she shook her head clear Cart-Dragger glimpsed a freckled young mother hugging two children close to herself. There were still people in a home this close to the sea? She supposed any evacuation orders given by Jasper had been ignored by some. A tentacle shot into the hole she'd made, widening it. The mom screamed louder as pieces of masonry rained down at her feet, and the kids wailed. Not an extra complication she needed. She made the appendage's front go limp with her spike through it, followed when it retreated to hopefully keep the family out of this.
You are getting knocked through walls a lot these days.
"I told you, shut up!" She ran outside after the tentacle, rubbing her back.
"So you are but a child," Tentacle Nest said, "talking to an imaginary friend." Whoops, she hadn't meant for her conversation with Maximilian to be so loud... "Yet you think you have the right to stand against the new order?"
"First of all, he's neither imaginary or a friend. Second, some may not think I look it, but I'm a grown woman not that far from thirty. And what new order are you babbling about?"
A new order imposed by elementals, Maximilian suggested. The New Elemental Order?
"So like, NEO?"
"Huh?" Tentacle Nest asked.
She pointed her hammer at it. "You claim a new order is upon us. But I bet you haven't named it, right? So I name your order, and thus give myself power over it! The New Elemental Order is mine to make or break as I please."
I don't think that's the way it works...
"How many times do I have to tell you to—never mind, imaginary friend. Now that I think of it, didn't I name Tentacle Nest too? So, that gives me double power over you!"
The monster quivered with anger. "You... you're so..."
"What, awesome? Amazing? Adorable?" She charged. "Now enough small talk, let me show you the power!"
It raised its tentacles before it in a defensive shell. Her bluster notwithstanding, she knew she might be in for a long and tough fight yet. Getting past all that flesh to reach its head again would be a challenge. Then she noticed the immense wall of water rising behind it and realized she faced even steeper odds than she'd thought. The previous King Elemental of Water had shown magical control over her element, so her successor possessing similar came as no surprise. "Watch out!" she yelled at her allies behind, though unsure where they could hide from the tidal wave Tentacle Nest summoned to batter the city.
Before the wave reached land, it partially froze. Instead of an unbroken sheet of water crashing down, Athendar was showered by thousands of
hailstones larger than a person's head along with its share of water. Cart-Dragger smashed the ones that came towards her with her hammer, hoping those unable to do the same found adequate cover. Drenched head to toe, she looked around after to see numerous houses' roofs and walls wrecked by the devastating hail. No doubt many had died or been seriously injured too. "Dammit Tentacle Nest, why can't you just target me? Leave everyone else out of this, I'm the threat and the one who'll kill your soup-ingredient ass!"
Just then, the family whose home she had landed inside ran out their door. They seemed unharmed, but must have been scared out of the house by the hail flying into it. Shit, this was entirely the worst thing they could do right now... "No," Tentacle Nest replied, and whipped a tentacle down at the mother and kids. Cart-Dragger dashed their way, but she wasn't quick enough. She gaped as they disappeared under the limb, then blood spread out beneath it and her eyes grew moist.
"What, are you such a naive child that you thought you could protect them? Did you aspire to be a defender of your race against the evils that would hurt them? Forget your pretensions. You cannot protect them. All around your friends will continue to die, and even if you are the strongest human in the world you will merely suffer for your helplessness, until you too eventually perish."
That creature makes me furious, Maximilian snarled, and Cart-Dragger didn't even feel bad agreeing with him.
She wiped at her eyes while Tentacle Nest loomed over her, its very presence mocking. "Hey, imaginary friend?"
Yes? he asked eagerly.
"This squid uses tactics pretty similar to yours. So, I'm about to kill it like I did you."
Oh.
Tentacle Nest shifted its annoying arms. "With what will you kill me?"
She twirled her hammer. "This." Now she resumed her rush towards it, vision red. Spears of ice flew out of the sea and at her, which she shattered with her maul. Tentacles swiped at her. She jumped and rolled over and below them if possible to avoid slowing down, smacked them aside when she couldn't. She glared into Tentacle Nest's ruptured eye on purpose, seeking to remind of what she'd already done to it. As tentacles and ice projectiles failed to stop her, it tried a different tactic. It froze the water her feet splashed through, trapping her soles. Two limbs swept in from opposite sides, intended to squash her flat between them.
Cart-Dragger hammered the ground, breaking the ice to free herself. She spun towards one tentacle, maiming it with the spike and then doing the same to the other in the same motion. "You're running low on functional limbs," she taunted, "and from what I can see I gather you don't heal fast enough to get them working in time. You wanted to anger me by murdering that family—well, you did. How do you feel now? Are you angry? Or are you more scared?" It seemed to shrink back, and she put on a wicked grin. "Go on, try and retreat. But I bet you'll drag yourself even slower now that half your stupid arms are finished."
In desperation, it summoned multiple smaller waves from the sea, freezing them to fling volley after volley of ice shards at her. She warded off the ones she could while continuing to close the distance; some tore her clothes and flesh, but she took it in stride and pressed on. Shortly before she reached Tentacle Nest, it raised itself on its remaining limbs. "You cannot defeat me! You do not have the right!"
What's it doing? Maximilian asked. She thought to batter its tentacles out from under it, but recognized that to be unnecessary as it began to tip over. It's falling towards us! It'll crush us, let me use my-
She saw that it was coming down at them—no, her, mustn't start to identify with the evil guy in her head—beak first, and her eyes lit up. "Oh, don't worry. What's about to happen is one of my favorite things about fighting gargantuan monsters." When Tentacle Nest's mouth was about ten feet away, she jumped up towards it. It attempted to snap the beak closed on her, but she was a split second too quick and made it through. Frozen for an instant with panic, the squid then attempted to spit her out, but she stabbed a javelin into the inside of its—cheek? She didn't know what the proper terminology was for such a creature—to hold herself steady. She eyed her surroundings, wondered which way the brain was. But there should be enough important things for her to fatally damage whichever way she went, as long it was deeper. "So imaginary friend, you like what you see?"
Tentacle Nest reached an arm inside its own mouth in a last ditch effort to dislodge her. She swatted it back before throwing herself into the beast's depths. Your giant monster fighting expertise is noted, Maximilian said as she laid about with her maul, turning what passed for Tentacle Nest's throat into a mangled ruin.
#
After a few minutes of pounding Tentacle Nest's insides to mush, long enough after it fell still for her to be certain it was dead, Cart-Dragger crawled back the way she'd came. She found her way to the beak and pried it open to behold the smaller creatures retreating back towards the sea, leaving numerous dead behind as they fled past the giant carcass. "I suppose they really do have a sense of leadership. Yes, seafood, run! I'm the master chef of this world."
I've seen the food you cook. You are not even a professional level chef.
"Stop being so literal! You know what I mean."
She hopped down out of Tentacle Nest's mouth covered in sticky fluid, tired yet feeling fortunate not to have taken grievous damage. She limped towards where she had left the others, hurting pretty badly nonetheless now that the battle rush faded. "Is everybody okay?" she asked as she spotted Lars and the two city leaders, the Overseer of Velinthe no longer holding his bow but a one-handed sword instead.
Lars shrugged. "Ruth took a shrimp leg through the thigh, and I think Brennan's arm might be broken from a hailstone hitting it. But we're all alive."
"I'm fine," Brennan added with a wince, left arm hanging limp.
Ruth sat against a wall nearby, a puddle of blood under her leg. But her face showed no sign of shame, so she had probably only gone down after the fight ended. "Still killed more than Lars," she said.
"Not in melee." He glanced at her bow, dropped on the floor in favor of her close range weapons after running out of arrows. "You got quite a few of yours from afar."
"And what, does ranged fighting not count as combat these days?" They had a bit of a rivalry going between them since the fistfight that marked their first meeting, though it was for number three warrior in Galantria at best.
"It's hardly a feat if the targets can't shoot back."
"Where's Strength?" Cart-Dragger asked.
Jasper scoffed. "The unreliable ape decided we would be fine on our own here, so she went off to help other points that were having a more difficult time."
"It looks to me like you did all right, so I'd say her judgment was sound."
"We had a few close calls. Besides that, many soldiers and innocents alike perished in the squid's magical attack. Perhaps they could have been spared if you finished the fight sooner."
She hung her head to imagine the terror of helpless children as the hailstones battered the life from them and recall seeing the twisted corpses of that family as their killer lifted its tentacle up. "I'm sorry about that. I tried my best, but I'm just a small girl... even for me, fighting such gargantuan foes isn't the easiest."
"Maybe if you had taken your tall friend with you instead of challenging it alone to sate your pride, you could have ended it earlier."
"It wasn't just out of pride. I thought it'd be better to let Strength help the rest of you, and didn't know the monster would launch an attack on a scale like that. Again, I apologize about what happened, but there's no way I could have foreseen..."
"You shouldn't blame yourself," Ruth said. "Jasper is just taking it out on you because he's a prissy long-haired crybaby, but in his heart he knows how vital our aid has been for preserving his city."
Jasper looked down icily at her. "You have long hair too!"
"I'm a woman. Anyway it's not that your hair is long in itself, if you had a working brain you would understand what I'm getting at."
"How dare you imply something about my vanity and self-centeredness!"
She snickered. "You're the one who said it, not me."
There was a time when Cart-Dragger would've encouraged Rude—er, Ruthless Ruth's criticism, but it didn't seem the most appropriate right now. "That's enough, we needn't bicker among ourselves when we should be thinking about how to help the people here recover."
If you had used my magic, maybe you could have prevented such suffering.
She tried to keep her voice low as she replied, "Nobody asked you." Despite saying so, she had to admit the thought of having more power to defend others tempted her. But no, she couldn't risk herself by giving Maximilian any more of a foothold inside her than she had to. That sounded so wrong come to think of it, too.
"Is she talking to herself?" Jasper asked. "Look, another example of how mentally questionable you people are."
Brennan walked closer and whispered, "Is something wrong? You seem to be in distress."
She liked him more than Jasper, but still couldn't predict how he would react if he knew about her disembodied "companion." "You needn't worry about it, me and my friends will handle it."
They treated their wounds and joined back up with Strength, then headed for Jasper's manor. Cart-Dragger cringed at the many bodies of both warriors and noncombatants they passed. She tried to tell herself it was over with Tentacle Nest's death, but couldn't muster any confidence in that. She hoped at least that slaying it would grant humanity a reprieve, however long it might last.
At the manor, they held a meeting to decide how Galantria would assist in Athendar's recovery. After some discussion, Cart-Dragger said, "I'll send a message for my people to deliver some building supplies to help fix up what damage we can. We've been doing a lot of construction work ourselves, so we should have a fair share available although it'll slow down our own repairs." Medical supplies wouldn't be too useful, since there should be enough elemental cores to heal most of those injured unless they had lost limbs. Jasper didn't seem particularly moved, not that she would necessarily have an easy time showing gratitude if it'd been her city so devastated.
