Quick analysis in the moment between moments Reggie. Thirty meters between you and the hydra, one wounded man trying to crawl away, between us, several more over a wider area that would be within range of various area of effect abilities. Chances that I can actually reason with the beast with its cold, calculating, cruel onyx orbs that glare about with feral hunger? Approximately nil repeating. Chances that I can frighten it off with words? Approximately nil repeating. So, what you’re saying is, introducing yourself was a stupid idea, and the chance it would do anything positive was infinitesimally small. Yes. Huff. Sighing, I shake my head at myself in my paused mindscape. Alright, stop being a dingus and focus.
Hydra closes gaps fast, will probably only take it about a second to close in on me once it’s ready to spring. That’s as fast as a cheetah bursting at top speeds. Crap on a cracker Reggie. What have you gotten yourself into? Shush, I’m thinking. Right. Okay, focus. It’s fast, sure, and it whips its heads about like a flail, hard enough to break bones, sure, and its jaws snap shut strong enough to crush and rend bodies, sure, but at least it’s, um. Trying to find a silver lining Reggie? Yeah. Having trouble? Yeah. Enjoying the fractured psyche shtick? Kinda. Heh. I can’t help laughing at myself momentarily before rattling my telepathic skull vigorously, then laughing more at the irony of the situation. I’m literally a telepathic me inside of my own actual brain, arguing with myself inside my own thoughts being processed inside that version of me.
Back on trap goofball. Don’t you mean track? I did, but, hear me out here, what about a trap? Hm. What would we even have time to set up? You were thinking about chains, and telekinesis earlier. You’ve already noticed that it lunges pretty incredibly quickly. You have thin sheets of legendary metals. Oh, oh hey, I’m liking where you’re going with this. Too bad I only have the one dented sheet of orichalcum on me though. It screws up the aerodynamics, makes it less likely to shear all the way through. Yeah, but you don’t *want* it to shear all the way through. Oh? Oh! Wow, am I really that oblivious? Wait. Am I really just talking to myself?
I glance around inside my mindscape, as I banish the veneer of the healed world inside my mind. Beyond the edges of what I’ve fixed lies a desolate wasteland, filled with every possible representation of a damaged psyche. I don’t see any other copies of me in here though.
I call out, “Hello? Am I just talking to myself in here?”
There’s no reply, as usual. I poke myself in the chest. Well, my telepathic avatar pokes itself in the chest in my representation of my mindscape within a moment between moments. This is getting obtuse. Huff, okay, our first action will be to drop ourselves out of the sky into a roll towards the very center of the bodies, where the hydra had first attacked. That way I’ll be the farthest from any survivors who are straggling, trying to get away. It’ll also free up my telekinesis to help that man get further away from the fight. I’ll fling him towards the north, hopefully some kind soul drags him towards Tiago.
Thankfully, unlike my magic hand, my telekinesis doesn’t need to travel back to anywhere, I can just instantly switch focus to some other object, or being. I’d try to entrap the hydra, but I know that would just end in a headache, and the hydra being free only an instant later. It’s too strong for my telekinetic grip. But that same strength and speed are what I’ll use against it. I, glp, kind of feel horrible, because of the parallels between what I’m about to do, and what Olashax did to Teuila. When the hydra is in mid-lunge, I’m going to raise sharp, heavy things in the path of its leap. If a sheet of metal gets lodged in one of its necks, that wildly thrashes around, and then that neck injures other necks? Good. I’ll be able to get a sense of what I’m dealing with on the regeneration scale.
Anything else left to analyze? Not really, unless you want to take a good long look at the bodies, see if any of them are people we know. I—. No. No, I can’t afford the distraction. Better they remain nameless bodies for now. We can mourn later. Every life matters, so attachments don’t matter right now. Justice first, no, safety first, then justice, then grief. I gulp, and try not to weep for the wounded and the dead.
Dropping from thinkspace, I fling myself towards the most open location, letting go of my telekinesis on myself simultaneously, while I let my subconscious subroutines of internal electrokinesis guide my muscles into a tuck and roll. In the same instant, my telekinesis picks up the wounded man scrabbling away from between me and the hydra, and I carefully toss him northward towards the rest of the fleeing masses. He’ll land with a squish in the muck, it’ll be a soft landing. Soft enough at least, I hope. No time to contemplate, quickly drag out the orichalcum from the hyperdimensional haversack, toss it between me and the hydra, let it fall flat atop the murk and mire. Keep breathing Reggie, breathe air, breathe.
The hydra pauses for a moment, and for that brief moment, I worry that it has somehow read my mind. All its hungry eyes turn to focus their gazes on me, and it seems almost serenely still. There’s a flicker of a serpentine tongue, and another, and another. Its scales shimmer in reflection of the flickers of lightning trailing across the sky. Those that aren’t painted slick with crimson gore anyway. The gore has its own sort of sheen amidst the short bursts of light. The pause almost leaves me time to contemplate the devastation around me, but if I do that, I’ll lose heart, I’ll lose focus. It almost gives me time to contemplate the other cold spots I sensed in my earlier thermal analysis in paused time, that I really, utterly, truly hope aren’t what I think they are.
I let my gaze wander for the shortest of instants, as it’s attracted to the sights around me, trying to take in my surroundings, and that’s when the beast lunges. If I hadn’t been prepared, I’d probably be dead. I’d gotten about fifteen meters away with my fling and roll, and the hydra is going to close that in one and a half seconds. Focus Reggie, keep breathing. Raise it, now! During one of the hydra’s bounding lunges, I telekinetically raise the sheet of orichalcum into its path, near the top of its center of mass, where most of the necks converge.
The hydra’s own weight and ferocity works against it, practically beheading its center neck. Its forward momentum is halted only momentarily by the telekinetic push I maintain on the sheet of orichalcum, before my telekinetic hold snaps against its strength. Thankfully, other than a bit of a nosebleed, that particular telekinetic grip didn’t cost me too much to lose. I was expecting it, and not striving to keep it. As planned, the creature thrashes about, jabbing the metal sheet into the necks to the left and right of its center head, but, to my dismay, I see no wounds. Or rather, I see the necks being wounded, and by the time the metal is removed, the wounds nearly instantly close back up. Worse, the metal seems to be having a harder and harder time penetrating the spots where it was wounded. It heals *stronger* when it gets damaged?!
Bend me over and —. Huff, calm down. You have options. Like what!? We haven’t even beheaded it yet, maybe it’ll seal the wound, rather than grow extra heads. Somehow though, I doubt we’re that lucky. As if hearing my thoughts, two of the heads grip the orichalcum sheet, and use it to saw the rest of the way through the neck that it’s firmly driven into. My heart sinks when two heads almost instantly reform as the one tumbles to the ground. The scales on the new extensions of necks look tougher, and each of the necks bulge with more muscle than the previous one did. Oh come on!
Seriously world? Well, I guess I get why no one’s been able to cross the swamps, or been willing to deal with the hydra situation. Friggin’ hell. I wonder why it isn’t roaming all over Rayileklia searching for more havoc to cause, people to kill, food to eat. Speaking of food to eat, it leans down one head, and begins to scarf down its own previous head that had fallen off, as the orichalcum falls from its mouths. That’s just not right. I really—.
My thoughts are interrupted by a corpse rolling slightly to one side. Crap, civilian! I missed her under the body atop her, she had to roll it aside to be able to breathe! She’s trapped in the muck, and going to be struggling up for air. No! The hydra notices the motion as quickly as I do, or more so, and even as I’m reaching out my telekinesis to move her, I only succeed at freeing her from the muck. The hydra has already closed the gap on her, and gotten several jaws locked around parts of her body. Her scream of pain is cut mercifully short as she’s rent into quarters.
Focus Reggie, don’t lose it, don’t lose your cool. You stand no chance in this fight if your brain shuts down. My lower jaw quivers as my eyes mist. I can’t afford to get emotional at the moment. I can’t control my emotions well enough right now, with everything that’s been happening, to be able to keep calmly analyzing and strategizing. The hydra calmly closes to within thirty meters of me, and as I’m loosening my muscles, breathing deeply, preparing to face it, it lunges. I should have exactly one seco—ooph. Point nine eight seconds. My dodge was too slow, but thankfully it only clipped me with the flailing of one of its furthest heads. Taking advantage of being sent sailing, I preserve the momentum for a bit with telekinesis, letting myself float away into the air as I begin raining down holy halefire crossbow bolts at the cursed creature. I quicken several frost rays at the beast, lancing spots across its body and necks. Hm, is it just me, or did those heal up a fraction slower than the wounds from the metal?
I’m functionally out of its reach, as it eyes me with patience, but I know it could make the leap to get me if it lunged directly upwards from under me. I have to keep moving, prevent that from happening. It slowly works its way around the clearing beneath me, waiting for its opening, not even caring in the slightest about my various minor attacks. As I’m trying to catch my breath and figure out what to do, it feints a lunge at me, and turns it into a dash to the south, after the fleeing refugees who’d made it another few dozen meters away. No! It tears into five people, devouring them almost leisurely as I float slowly after it, harassing it from behind. It almost saunters back to the clearing to face me.
It’s challenging me, warning me that if I don’t come down, it’s just going after the others again. Well Reggie Shellcracker, I guess it’s time to step up to bat. I drop myself several dozen feet to the ground over the top of a cooking pit as I begin casting the steely body spell. What would have been a soft whumph is instead a massive thud as I crash into the cooking pit, leaving a small crater in the ground. The hydra closes on me in an instant, but I recover just as quickly, using telekinesis to help myself stand, and find my center of balance, as well as to follow the directions of my danger wraps.
If only I could use my Frostburn Fist style to do some Subzero Ice Punches, but I can’t seem to draw on thermokinesis the same way that I can internal electrokinesis, because it wasn’t something I’d had set up since I arrived on Rayileklia. I’d always left my internal subroutine running for sensing and filtering out thermal fluctuations, I mean, why wouldn’t I, it was basically a passive sense. I just didn’t set up anything passive with the rest of the power, and I’m regretting that right now.
Still, I tag the hydra with Electro Shock Punches, ESPs, over and over every time it tries to gnash at me. I’m not causing wounds, so it doesn’t seem to be recovering from the dazing that I’m able to inflict anywhere near as rapidly as it does from being slashed or cut or pierced. A smile spreads wide across my face, not because of my own mostly ineffectual attacks, but because a virtual missile enters my sensory range, fist forward. That would be Teuila, rocketing horizontally into the hydra so hard that there’s a thunderclap upon impact, sending it tumbling and skidding dozens of meters away, dazing it.
I can’t help grinning, I know I shouldn’t be, I know there’s serious matters at hand, and grieving and mourning to do, but Teuila’s here, and I’m at her side. Right now, that’s everything in the world to me. So bring it on hydra. Come at us. Come get some. Te flashes a smirk my way. The cheer is still diluted by the undertones of grief, and the emotions she’s struggling with, but Teuila’s doing her best, trying to stay positive. What’s more, she’s in her element, a foe that’s now enraged at her, and her alone, with me at her side.
Teuila rolls her shoulders, then flexes her neck before stretching her head down towards each shoulder one at a time, cracking her neck. Teuila then echoes my mental sentiment, from riding my thought trains as she calls out her challenge to the hydra, “Come get some!”