“Okaaay, so it summoned trees.” Shaggy muttered.
“Trees I can’t phase through.” Ephemara said from her position on the floor where she had fallen.
“Great.”
“So now what the hell do we do? We can’t fit around them.”
Before Shaggy could answer her question, the vault room they were standing in shook violently. Shaggy originally thought it was the silent alarm triggering something else. But it was the trees again. Thick brown colored arms grew from the side of the trees and slammed into the stone floor. Their bark-covered fingers tore into the ground as they used their newly formed arms to lift themselves out of the ground.
“Arboreal Knights!” Roald shouted.
Shaggy wanted to ask more about the trees, but they had finished dragging themselves from the ground. The tops of their branches raked across the ceiling, causing leaves and twigs to fall to the surrounding ground. They stood on gnarled, root-like feet and shook themselves. The bark on the front of the trees congealed into a flat surface and split apart, revealing a dark void behind sharp bark-colored teeth.
“ROAR!!” The trees roared as one.
“Okay. We are fighting trees. Anyone have any fire?”
“~I can melt one. Maybe. But it’ll take a while~” Blobby said, sounding sleepy.
“You do that. Ephemara, you’re still on the kid. The rest of us focus on the trees.”
He felt his two pack members nod in agreement, but Chromia and Ephemara had to give more vocal affirmations as Blobby just burbled. Growing his claws, Shaggy lunged for the nearest tree that was still roaring in defiance at the world. But again Shaggy bounced off some unseen thing. His attack didn’t go unnoticed though, as the enormous tree he had been aiming at stopped screaming to glance down at him.
Like it was swatting a fly buzzing around its head, the Arboreal Knight swung a branch-like arm at Shaggy. Dashing backwards, Shaggy heard a shattering sound. Like glass being broken as the tree’s arm hit something and smashed through it. Shaggy didn’t have time to think of what it could’ve been as the surprisingly nimble tree-monster rushed forward, branches flailing.
Shaggy did his best to dodge, but in the small vault room, he had little space. Especially with the others fighting around him. He saw Rita hack away at some oncoming branches as his face was covered in leaves and he felt something strike his abdomen. Shaggy was lifted from the ground and thrown bodily across the room as the tree monster struck him hard. He rolled across the ground a short distance before popping back up and taking stock of everything.
Blobby was ‘eating’ a tree while the others were fighting the other two. Rita and Cekrass were breaking and chopping whatever limb came their way, as Chromia was in full metal mode and punching away at the base of the tree. Roald was speeding toward the vault door. No longer hindered by whatever shield had been around the trees. Shaggy moved to help Chromia as the tree-monster she was fighting grew spike branches and tried to stab her instead of batting her around.
Duck an errant swipe from some leafy branches, Shaggy came up against the tree’s bark-covered body and thrust his claws forward. Expecting the feeling of his claws sinking into the bark, Shaggy was surprised that all he felt was pain. His claw-like fingers were shunted to the side as he tried to dig them into the tree’s body. They chipped pieces of the bark skin away, but did very little damage. He growled in frustration and backed away as a spike like branch tried to impale him.
Nearby, Chromia punched a limb into pieces as she tried to get closer, but the tree apparently considered her a bigger threat. So it was sending multiple branch-like arms at her. Shaggy made a mental note to increase his claws sharpness and shifted his claws back into hands. Grimacing, he rushed back into the body of the tree and started punching. But again, all he got was pain. After a few strong jabs, he had to back away again, dodging tree branches the whole way. His hands were broken and while there was a good patch of bark now missing from the tree, it would not be enough.
Shaggy sighed and looked around. Rita was having the same problem as he was. Her sword couldn’t penetrate the body of the tree. Cekrass was simply breaking any limb that came his way. Blobby was now almost covering the entire third tree with its stretchy, blue body. The vault door was slightly open and Shaggy could see light coming from inside. He was contemplating making a run for it, when he felt a painful spiked tree limb go through his thigh.
“Pay attention, wolf-man!” Chromia shouted angrily as she ripped a tree branch in half.
Shaggy ripped the branch spike from his legs and growled back at the woman. He felt completely useless. His claws weren’t enough to do any real damage. As he thought about the problem, another limb swung at him and he angrily grabbed at it. Snapping it in two, Shaggy had a thought and rushed for the tree’s body again. But instead of attacking the base of the tree, Shaggy climbed up into its branches.
He felt the wooden limbs of the tree try to bend inward to get at him. But the shorted branches couldn’t reach. Ignoring the others shouting at him, Shaggy settled himself near a large branch and sat with his back against the tree. With all of his strength, he kicked both of his legs downward at the place where a large branch connected to the tree. The tree-monster shook and screamed as Shaggy heard the branch creak and bend. More little branch spikes tore into his body, and he grimaced through the pain as he kicked again.
Black ichor ran from the crack in the tree’s large branch as Shaggy kicked again. This time, the branch was split off from the base. Barely connected, it hung limply from the tree, which went absolutely crazy.
“Arrgggghhhhh!”
Shaggy had to hold on for dear life as the Knight did its best to shake him off. Large gushes of black liquid rushed out of the spot he had broken. Shaggy guessed he had just done the tree equivalent of ripping the tree’s arm off.
Soon the tree monster slowed down and Shaggy loosened his grip on it. The knight was moving slower as Shaggy climbed up to another branch and prepared to do the same thing. The tree’s smallest limbs did their best to stop him, but he could just snap them as they attacked. Using his legs again, Shaggy severed another large tree branch at the base. The tree-monster roared in defiance again, but slumped over. As the tree branches withered and the leaves turned brown and then grey, Shaggy leapt to the floor.
Blobby was now covering the third tree entirely, and it was slowly being melted away. Chromia had moved to help Rita and Cekrass as they worked to rip all the tree branches away. Shaggy noted that it was probably a better idea to get rid of the attacking branches before you dove into the tree itself. He looked down at his own body and saw multiple welts and bruises across his bare chest. His pants also had large holes in them from where he was stabbed with wooden spears from the tree. His fighting style really was ‘get hurt until he won.’
“rooooaaaaar…”
The last tree gave a mournful wail as the others started snapping its largest branches. With no way for it to defend itself now. Cekrass and Chromia set about turning the thing into kindling. Rita was watching over them, making sure the errant branches didn’t attack. With the fight now somewhat over, Shaggy waved a hand at the others, showing he was going toward the vault. Rita gave him a thumbs up, but Cekrass and Chromia were too busy to reply. Blobby just burbled as the large tree in its mass flailed ineffectually.
If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
As Shaggy approached, he heard Ephemera's voice from inside the vault.
“... I don’t see how. Boss is going to be pissed.”
“Oh, to hell with that wolf-man! He is going to be dead in a few seconds, anyway. Arboreal knights are pretty tough.”
Shaggy stuck his head around the large circular vault door and searched for the little shit. But what he saw brought him up short. The vault was empty save for the three of them and a large metal exosuit in the middle of the room. The suit was just over eight-feet tall and five-feet across at the shoulder. Sleek gunmetal grey panels covered its surface and a large seat sat in the middle of its body. Shaggy could guess who the seat was for, judging by its size, and he did not like the idea of that.
“Who is going to be dead?” Shaggy growled menacingly.
Roald spun around from what he was doing, obvious surprise in his eyes. “How... Wha... Yo…”
“Yeah. Still alive, fucko. Now, would you care to explain why this damn vault is empty?”
Shaggy noticed that Roald was holding some kind of tool and had apparently been working on the exosuit. The young man shook visibly as Shaggy marched forward. Ephemara stood still, watching Roald as Shaggy approached. Shaggy could make out a small laptop on a stand near the exosuit and guessed that the kid was in the final stages of preparing the exosuit for operation.
Shaggy raised his eyebrows as he loomed over the kid. Roald seemed to come out of his fear as Shaggy stopped in front of him. Sneering up at the taller Shaggy, Roald waved the tool around angrily.
“Oh! Don’t pretend you weren’t planning on double-crossing me, wolf-bitch. I know how you gangster types work.”
“Why the fuck would I double-cross you if I had a vault full of stuff and a way home?” Shaggy sighed tiredly.
“You would’ve killed me as soon as we got to Under-Town!” Roald shouted.
Shaggy rubbed a hand across his face. “Again. Why?”
“Pfft. Like you types need a reason. I needed my suit, and you needed a way out. Win-Win.”
“It would’ve been. But you had to go and promise my crew and I more riches. So now we have to alter the deal.”
Roald stepped back. “What does that mean?”
Shaggy just grinned as Ephemara’s voice spoke up from behind Roald. “Whooo! This thing is cool. I do not know how it works, but I bet we’ll get a decent price for it.”
Ephemara had snuck around the two of them and was now in the exosuit’s large seat. Pressing buttons. Shaggy hadn’t planned on that to happen, but it worked really well with what he had been telling the boy, so he went with it. As Roald sputtered angrily at the woman in his machine, Shaggy put a hand on the boy’s shoulder.
“See. We took on a job to get you to and in this vault. The payment was going to be the various bits of firepower and money we found here. But now, it appears you can’t pay us. So what do you think is going to happen?”
Roald turned to Shaggy, purple-faced with anger. “You can’t have Sheila!”
Shaggy raised an eyebrow at the Exosuit’s name. “Okay. You can keep Sheila…”
“Awww, Boss!” Ephemara complained.
“But, you have to give us something for the work we did today. But we also need to go. For all we know, one of your brother’s goons is on their way. So we are going to take you and Sheila to Under-Town and there you are going to explain to my entire gang what you are going to do for us. Understand?”
Roald pursed his lips angrily and looked ready to continue arguing. But Chromia’s angry voice broke the surrounding silence.
“What the fuck!? Where in the hell is our score!?”
She stomped her way over to Roald as Rita and Cekrass came into the vault excitedly. Their excitement drained away as they glanced around the empty vault. Shaggy had to move out of an angry Chromia’s way as she gripped Roald by his collar and lifted him bodily from the floor.
“You little shit! If you fucking lied to us, I am going to break both your arms and legs and use you as a foot rest!”
Roald tried to sputter a response as he flailed in the air. Shaggy put a hand on Chromia’s arm and nodded agreeably.
“I was just explaining that to him. Apparently, this vault only housed Ephemara’s new toy there. So we were thinking of taking that as collateral until we can be adequately compensated.”
Chromia grimaced and dropped the alien teen. Turning to Shaggy, she argued. “You know you won’t be able to trust anything the kid makes you if you keep his toy from him.”
“Maybe not. But the alternative is to kill him here and have the Raks after us for attacking Donnie Raks brother. Right now, it just looks like the kid stormed the vault and got his toy back. Which may be unlikely, but it at least keeps us out of it. Now we need to go.”
Crouching down to a coughing Roald, Shaggy grew his claws and pointed one right at the teen’s pink face. “Now how do we move Sheila? We need to get out of here.”
“Uh, boss? Blobby’s not done….eating yet.” Rita said from the vault door.
“Then get him to hurry up. For all we know the silent alarm is blaring away and we need to get gone as soon as possible.”
The sounds of footsteps behind him told Shaggy that Rita was following his orders. Roald finished coughing and glanced around angrily. Coming to a decision he struggled to stand, Shaggy gripped the rotund boy’s shoulder and lifted him bodily from the ground. Roald threw off Shaggy’s hand and called to Ephemara.
“Hit the green button and the turn the yellow knob to a vertical position. Oh and make sure you are out of the suit when you do it.”
Ephemara stared at the boy for a few seconds before she hopped out of the exosuit’s seat and followed his instructions. When she was done the suit started to shake and Ephemara jumped back, surprised. But the suit merely rattled for a few seconds before it started to rapidly shrink. Once it was the size of a toy the suit stopped shrinking and Roald walked over to it. Shaggy was about to ask how Roald was going to unshrink the suit, but roof shook again.
“I am getting sick of things shaking all the damn time recently.” Shaggy growled.
“It’s never been good.” Ephemara agreed.
They left the vault to find Rita and Blobby standing next to a half-eaten tree-monster. Blobby was melting a few branches in its body as Rita stared at the ceiling, clearly uneasy. Once Shaggy and the others joined her the older woman grimaced.
“Boss, I think it’s time to go.”
Shaggy nodded in agreement and pointed at the bags of stuff they had gotten from Sylus’ shop.
“Grab our shit and lets get out. Where’s the transporter we need, Roald?”
“It’s a displacer!” Roald corrected angrily from his reacquired chair. “It’s hidden behind a false wall in the wine cellar. We can get to it through the kitchen.”
“Okay, folks. Back topside and into the kitchen. Keep a lookout for any big scary bastards. Donnie Raks might’ve sent someone at us. If we meet anyone we tell them we are from a different gang. Got it?”
The others all nodded as Cekrass and Blobby gathered up their stolen loot. Shaggy wondered if anyone was going to ask about Sylus, but when no one did he kept his own mouth shut. He would keep an eye out for the old man, but they couldn’t go out of their way right now. Not if they were on the clock like they thought they were. Shaggy waited for everyone to get ready, before he lead the way back out of the vault. Praying that they had gotten away with everything.