Rather than letting himself be tossed off this time, Cien leapt from the snake as it destroyed one of the few remaining walls in this base. Landing on his feet, he stared at the thrashing creature.
“So… what am I supposed to do now?” he asked no one in particular.
That was when a tail appeared out of nowhere and smacked him.
Cien was sent flying into another pile of broken cement.
Christine and Iris stood against a massive snake. It was big. Really big. As she looked up at the gargantuan monstrosity of scales, Iris began to wonder if maybe she hadn’t been a little too hasty when she came to help.
The things I do for those two…
It shot several large globs of venom at them, but Iris decided that the best counter was to fight poison with fire.
“Void Art: Void Fire!”
Whispers invaded her mind. Voices told her to slay everything. Darkness tried to overwhelm her, to consume her, to bring her to the final oblivion.
But Iris was stronger now than she was back then. That day when Kevin saved her, she’d been weak, a frightened child who was terrified of her own power. While this power still scared her, while she still feared that, one day, her powers would consume everything she loved, Iris would be damned if she ran from that power again.
Fire met venom and won. She grinned when the poison was consumed by her flames, then she imposed her will, snuffing out the sentient flames before they could seek out more life.
“Your turn, Christy.”
“Don’t call me Christy!” Christine shouted, mist gathering around her like an invading fog rolling across a sea shore. The mist moved, taking shape. It split in two, became compressed, then elongated, condensing and becoming thinner. Sharp points formed at their end as the two objects solidified into a pair of spears. With a wave of her hands, the spears flew forward, impaling the serpent as it lunged at them—or so she’d hoped.
Shatter!
Christine scowled when she saw her spears strike its head but not its eyes. Her ice spears broke like they were made of glass. Then the snake was on them, its mouth opening to swallow them whole. She could practically smell its putrid breath.
“Hup!” Iris used extension and wrapped Christine in her tails, then reinforced her legs and leapt away. The snake crashed into the ground, gouging out chunks of earth.
Landing on the ground, Iris skid along the dirt, wincing as she felt her shoes rubbing against her skin. Unlike Lilian and Kevin, who wore those awful-looking suits that were a cheap knock off of Metal Gear Solid , Iris wore her normal clothes. Her shoes, which were nothing more than a pair of sneakers, were not meant to withstand this kind of punishment.
Ugh, maybe I should have followed their example, but I don’t want to gain several levels in otaku.
“Are you ready, Christy?”
“Yes!”
“Right, then. I’ll keep it still if you stab that thing’s eyes out.”
Iris really didn’t want to fight this thing, but she liked the idea of her friends dying even less. Thus, with a rather high-pitched battle cry, she ran at the snake with the power of her reinforced legs. The serpent tried to whack her with its tail, but she leapt over it, her body flipping around like an acrobat.
Landing back on the ground, Iris only had a moment to realize that the tail was coming toward her. Squeaking, she fell down onto her shins, then lowered herself until her back was pressed against the ground. The tail passed over her with a loud woosh and Iris could have sworn she lost a few epidermal layers from her nose.
“Extension!”
Using the extension technique, she used her tails to shove her body off the ground, leap back onto her feet, and throw herself into an all-out sprint. The serpent must have not expected her to survive its tail attack, because she leapt onto its head easily enough. But the moment she landed on top of it, the thing tried to buck her off.
“Whoa! I said whoa, damn it!”
Her left foot slipped against the snake’s scales. Grimacing as she realized that this thing was going to throw her off if she didn’t do something, she did the only thing she could think of.
“Extension!”
She extended her tails as far as they could go, wrapping them around a pair of walls that were still miraculously standing. Gnashing her teeth together, she retracted her tails, which caused the snake’s head to slam into the ground. It tried to break free, but Iris was having none of that as she channeled as much youki through her tails as she dared.
“Christy! You’d better shoot this thing quickly!” Iris squealed when the snake jerked its head upward. Oh, gods! It felt like her tails were about to be ripped off!
Christine growled as she created two more ice spears.
“Don’t. Call. Me. Christy!”
The spears flew at her command, and with Iris holding the thing down, albeit barely, both spears struck true. They pierced its eyes. The creature let out a fierce wail as it jerked back. Her tails were unable to maintain their hold and slipped free of the walls.
“Kya!”
Iris screamed as she was thrown off the snake. Swinging her legs around, she reoriented herself and landed on her feet.
Several feet away, the snake continued to writhe in pain. Its eyes were both gone. Blood poured from around the two large ice spears that had been shoved into its sockets. Iris would have felt sympathy, but considering how this thing was trying to kill them, she was a little short on that.
“Well,” she started, holding her fist out to Christine as the yuki-onna walked up to her, “we did it.”
Christine bumped her fists against Iris’s without realizing what she was doing. “Yep.”
They both watched as the snake recovered its wits. Its forked tongue flicked out, tasting the air, then it turned around and hissed at them.
“Huh, so, um, I think it’s looking at us,” she said.
“I think so, too,” Christine agreed.
“Um, well, got a plan?”
“One. Wanna hear it?”
“I’m all ears.”
“Run!”
The two bolted as the snake lunged at them. It missed, but they were nearly flung through the air when debris exploded from the ground.
“What do we do now?!” Christine asked.
“How should I know?!” Iris shouted back, then paused. The snake tried to smash them with its tail, but she grabbed Christine and leapt out of the way. “Oh, wait. I remember. This is where I come in.”
Iris reached back into the Void. She did her best to ignore the whispers that invaded her mind, and through her will, she called upon the sentient flames.
The snake was heading her way. Iris struggled against the darkness in her mind and waited. The snake was getting closer, but she still waited. It was almost on her, yet she gritted her teeth and held her ground, waiting until it had opened its mouth to eat them.
“Void Art: Void Fire!”
A sphere of writhing darkness burst from her tails and impacted against the snake’s mouth. Unlike last time, where its skin had proven too tough for her weak void fire to eat, this time, with its soft insides laid bare, the flames of oblivion quickly consumed it. The saliva that coated it, the acidic venom that dripped from its fangs, none of it meant anything to a fire that fed off everything. Wood, stone, air, water, everything was sustenance for the Void, and it quickly consumed the snake from the inside out, burning it until there was nothing, not even ashes.
“There,” Iris said with a decisive nod. “It’s finally dead.”
“I’ll say,” Christine muttered, “there’s not even any ashes left.”
“Uhuhu, what else did you expect?” Iris asked with a laugh, though that was mostly to cover how sick she felt.
Christine merely shook her head, yet she became worried when Iris fell to her hands and knees, vomiting blood.
“I-Iris!”
“Heh… i-it looks like I used the Void too much today,” she spoke, her face a grimace. “It seems like there’
s always a price to pay for using this cursed power.”
“A-are you okay? I-is there anything I can do to help?” Christine asked.
“There is one thing,” Iris confessed.
“What is—kya!” Christine squeaked when Iris lunged at her, pulling her down until she was sitting on the ground. Iris then placed her head in Christine’s lap and closed her eyes.
“Let me stay like this for a while,” Iris said before quickly falling asleep.
“Don’t fall asleep on me, damn it! Hey! Wake up! IRIS!”
Kevin and Lilian stood before two massive snakes. The creatures loomed over them like serpentine gods of a bygone era. Kevin was reminded of the many stories he’d read about in mythology books, tales of heroes facing off against impossible to defeat monsters. One stood out in particular, the story of Thor and his battle against Jörmungandr, also known as the Midgard Serpent—except he and Lilian were facing two of them.
“Why are we the ones who have to battle two serpents,” Kevin whined.
“Because we’re the main characters?” Lilian offered.
“Being a main character sucks, then. I vote for becoming side characters. They never have anything bad happen to them.”
“I… don’t think that is possible.”
“Well, shoot.”
The two serpents reared their heads back and lunged at him and Lilian, but they were both quick-footed. Lilian leapt back with a youki-enhanced leap, and Kevin rode the shock wave that the serpents’ crashing created, using it to put distance between him and their monstrous enemies.
“What do you think, Lilian?”
“I think it’s time we got serious.”
“I take it you know what to do?”
“Of course!” Lilian’s eyes burned like two raging bonfires. “Just leave it to me!”
“Celestial Art: Divine Light!”
The two snakes lunged again and were subsequently blinded when two balls of light slammed into their eyes. Kevin closed his eyes so he wouldn’t be blinded himself, but he heard their enraged hissing.
Something slipped around his waist. Soft and furry, Kevin recognized Lilian’s tail. Her hold around him tightened, and his feet left the ground.
“You ready, Beloved?”
“Yes.”
Kevin felt gravity’s force upon him as Lilian flung him into the air. As he was overcome by weightlessness, he opened his eyes and saw that he’d been thrown well over the heads of the two snakes. He also noticed that they had seen him. Their yellow reptilian eyes stared into his for at least a full second before they shot upwards to eat him.
“Oh, no you don’t!” Lilian shouted from down below. “Extension!”
Her tails extended to several dozen yards in length, latching onto one of the snakes. She then retracted her tails, which resulted in her being pulled up, her tails acting similar to a pulley system.
At the same time that she was doing this, Kevin aimed at the snake she’d latched onto and fired off several rounds. He’d already switched his ammunition with Void bullets. Darkness lanced from his guns and detonated against the snake’s eyes. It hissed and thrashed as the flames of the Void consumed its eyes, leaving behind empty sockets that poured blood.
Then Kevin reached the apex of his ascent. He hung in the air, feeling completely weightless for all of one second. Then he fell back toward the ground—or rather, he fell toward the snake whose mouth hung wide open.
Using his legs as a fulcrum to swing himself around so that he was falling head first, Kevin ignored the wind stinging his eyes, charged his guns for two seconds, then fired. Two lances of darkness shot from his guns, small beams that traveled straight into the snake’s open mouth and down its gullet. The two beams burned two holes straight through the beast, then burned it from the inside out. Kevin was witness to its destruction. It writhed on the ground as its insides were consumed. Then, after it died, its scales were consumed as well, until nothing remained.
As he continued to fall, Lilian leapt off the blinded serpent and caught him. “Gotcha!” She cheered as she landed on the ground, bending her knees. She held Kevin in her arms, like a groom holding his bride.
Kevin looked at her with fake hearts in his eyes and an amused smirk. “Is this the part where I call you my hero and swoon now?”
“It could be if you want,” Lilian fired back, her eyes twinkling merrily.
“My hero!” Kevin swooned.
Lilian never got a chance to respond properly. The snake that she’d used as a springboard spat venom at them. Lilian, with Kevin still in her arms, pumped youki through her legs and quickly ran away.
“Do you have a plan to deal with this one, Beloved?”
“I’m working on it. Just give me a second.”
“I don’t know if we have a second.”
Lilian darted behind a large pile of rubble, but that did nothing except buy them maybe a second of time. Snakes had a strong sense of smell. They used their tongues to “smell” the air, and so Kevin was unsurprised when it appeared around the rubble. It could no longer see them on account of its eyes missing, but when it turned to them, its tongue flicking out, he knew that it knew where they were.
“Run,” Kevin said.
“Right!”
Lilian bolted seconds before the snake could slam into them. It instead pounded into the rubble head first. Kevin took quick aim and shot the flying debris before it could hit either him or Lilian. Then, when he’d destroyed the last potentially harmful makeshift projectile, he shifted his aim to the snake. It was targeting them already and closing the distance. Kevin didn’t waste time in aiming and simply opened fire, unleashing load after load of void bullets. However, much as he’d suspected, this thing’s scales were far too strong for something like that to work. He doubted that charging his guns and unleashing a more powerful attack would work either. The youki enhancing this creature’s scales was simply too strong for the Void to be effective.
“What do we do now?” asked Lilian.
Kevin bit his lip. “I don’t know. This serpent isn’t opening its mouth, so I can’t fire my void projectiles down its throat. That’s the only thing in our currently arsenal that’ll kill this thing.”
“Then perhaps we can be of assistance,” a voice said.
Kevin and Lilian both turned their heads to see seven familiar women standing several feet away. Polydora stood at the front, and Thoe and Euryale were standing on either side of her. The others were behind them. All of them were carrying various forms of melee weapons.
“To arms, my comrades!” Polydora cried out. “Let us show these creatures what the yama uba can do!”
A loud cheer went up and the group of women charged. They smashed into the snake with the indomitable spirit of a raging hurricane. Polydora used her twin tonfa to bash the snake over its snout. The amount of force that she put into her attack sent the creature into the ground, where it left a large indent and caused cracks to spread. Oïstrophe went for its tail, slamming her mace onto its tip. A loud screeching hiss escaped the snake. Before it could lash out at Oïstrophe, Androdaïxa thrust out her chain-link sword, which quickly separated into several segments, extending to several yards in length. The sword’s tip penetrated the snake’s left nostril, slicing through its sinuses like a lightsaber through Stormtrooper armor.
“Whoa!” Androdaïxa yelped when the snake jerked its head up, taking her with it. The chain-link sword slid from its nose and she was sent flying, but she was caught by Thorece.
“You okay?”
“Yes, I am fine. Thank you.”
“Of course.”
The two smiled at each other, and then charged back into the fray.
Kevin and Lilian stood off to the side. As he watched the group of women swarm over the giant snake, liberally beating it to death, he came to a startling conclusion.
Women are scary.
While they were standing there, watching the massacre take place, a shadow loomed over them. Kevin and Lilian l
ooked up to see the last serpent leering down at them. Venom dripped like saliva from its fangs. Baleful yellow eyes glared at them with hatred. Kevin couldn’t possibly know what this creature was thinking, but in that moment, he could easily guess that it wanted them dead.
It lunged at them, but then it stopped mid-lunge. It made a strange face that, if Kevin had to call it something, he would have gone with pained. The snake glanced down, and he and Lilian followed its eyes to where a katana was protruding from its scales.
Is that…?
The katana moved, slicing straight through the snake. The massive monstrosity didn’t even have time to screech before it was sliced in half, with the top half crashing to the ground, and the bottom half wriggling around like a worm after it’s placed on a hook. Blood and guts sprayed into the air like water from a sprinkler. However, the gore and acrid scent was secondary to the person who emerged from the snake’s insides.
“Kotohime!”
Her kimono was gone. Completely gone. The only shred of clothing that she had left was, oddly enough, her tabi socks. Other than that, she was naked.
“Kevin-sama, Lilian-sama,” she greeted, unbothered by her nudity. “I am pleased to see you two are alive.”
“Yeah,” Lilian sounded odd, and the look on her face was even odder. “I’m glad you’re alive, too, but, um, how should I put this? What happened to your clothes?”
Kotohime looked down at herself. Her bare breasts bounced as she breathed. Her unblemished skin remained a light porcelain as her nipples stiffened in the evening air.
“I believe they were destroyed by the Hebi’s stomach acid. I am actually quite lucky that only my clothes were destroyed. Had it not been for my River Kitsune blood, I would have no doubt been digested before I could escape.”
“I’m glad you’re alive,” Lilian said, her nose wrinkling, “but do you think you can do something about all the blood—and I think there’s an intestine hanging around your shoulder.”
“Oh, my. You’re right. Ufufufu, how did that get there, I wonder? Well, no matter.”
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