With every swing of the hammer-scythe, Luna was battling a noticeable attrition. Her arms felt heavier, her muscles felt weaker and, before long, she had to restitute for nearly a minute between every strike. She’d never felt exhaustion such as the one she faced as the six beasts skittered slowly across the mire.

Every part of her body was in agony and even the symbiote suffered greatly for their strain. A tangible hunger grew stronger with every swing, every twitch of a muscle - every thought.

She turned to see Abraham heave on his knees with a similar strain and felt the same, profound disgust as once again, she had to combat the intrusive thoughts that had forced her to disregard him entirely.

Half an hour previous, when she had felt stronger than ever, she’d passed a glance over her shoulder to see him heaving for breath on his knees in front of a pool next to the ball of clear atmosphere and, in the span of a second, she’d had to battle an urge to leap across the mire and sink her teeth into his face. That thought had come from nowhere, but ever since then, it had become a constant impulse that it pained her to resist. She’d thought it was due to the simple strain of battle, at first. But before long, she’d begun to realize the madness of wanting to cannibalize her fellow human - her friend.

“D-Done! T-To the h-hive!” Abraham shouted from behind her back. He had already begun wandering back towards the thicket, but in between him and the trees, there were four she needed to deal with.

“A-Abraham, stop… stop… I need…” Her mind was disorganized. Even standing had become a nearly impossible task. The hammer dropped to her side and she fell to her knees - battling the hunger with every passing second. Without the weapon, it would be so easy to just lunge across the mire and bite into him - drink his blood and slurp down his meat… but she doubted she could even move that far.

“Please, Luna - I know you can do it! P-Please, we’re almost there!” Abraham pleaded as he took heavy steps over the moss.

Luna’s eyes closed as she felt something cold and slimy on the hummus beneath her hand. Without her conscious thought- without even registering that her hand had moved at all, she bit down on something that was unmistakably flesh… and it was the best damn meal she’d ever had.

On her knees, she bit into the thing with ravenous hunger, slurping, chewing and pulverizing the raw, cold tentacle - it was impossible to resist, even after she realized that it had once been one of the Monstrum tentacles that had sprayed out from a crushed torso several minutes past.

The others were moving closer, but all she could do was remain on her knees and scoop down the cold, slimy flesh. With every bite, she felt herself growing stronger again, strong enough even to raise the hammer and combat the intrusive thoughts for long enough to react.

Abraham had nearly wandered into the three beasts coming out from the trees. Their tendrils were nearly upon him, swinging in the air, yet he held his eyes shut with the fierce concentration. Such was his faith in Luna - such was his lust for Serah that he hadn’t even considered that his companion wouldn’t come to his aid… and if she didn’t… nothing really mattered, did it?

“Oooh, Bravelle’s might!” He shrieked as he felt the air in front of him snap with the wild, writhing tentacles.

A loud, ear-piercing shriek of a madwoman forced his eyes open as Luna’s dark form came soaring in from the side, much the same as Logan’s had a fortnight previous. With her back-tentacles wrapped around the trees, she shot behind the three beasts with the hammer-scythe raised to her side - slicing through their chests to send their skittering forms flailing across the mire.

The last of the torsos succeeded in wrapping one of its tentacles around her neck, stopping it mid-air, only for the madwoman to come to a halt, grab the tentacles and bit cleanly across it - chewing with fervor as she checked to verify that the coast ahead was clear.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Truthfully, she didn’t give a damn how disgusting it was anymore. The Monstrum had eaten her kind for two millennia - if Pupper’s survival meant that she, too, would be eating them, then it was a price she’d pay with a grin across her face… the backmeat even thanked her for it as it withdrew the tentacles back under Luna’s shirt.

Flanked by the hound and the frightening woman, Abraham wandered through the forest - atmospheric bubble in hand - and began to lower it cautiously down the hole. He knew that a missed step would nullify all their efforts and, having come this far, failure was not an option.

Luna leaned on the rock next to the hole and stared down at the skittering forms crawling along the foramen’s walls - their tentacles already reaching for them.

“I-I need more time! I need to push it lower - it’ll just come back out if I stop now!” Abraham urged.

Luna glanced back at where they’d come from - those beasts would still take a while to get through the forest. What worried her most were the horrors down in the hole and the tentacles that were slowly approaching them. There was little time to think and she could see no other choice but to descend the dark depths… but that would entail her being down there with Abraham’s mind-trickery.

It was then that Luna felt the symbiote urge her to look to her hand - to the weapon. She followed her companion’s urgings and saw the black hammer resting atop the stone.

“Keep going, Abe - whatever you’re doing, just keep doing it!” She warned as she dropped the hammer to the moss and walked around the monstrous stone. She felt like an idiot as she grabbed hold of the edges of the slab and began to push at it - feeling the skin of her fingers tear against the coarse surface as she gave all her might into forcing it forwards.

“L-Luna, they’re getting close…” Abraham sang before finally, the suctioning noise of the stone loosening for the compressed moss and dirt sounded from his right.

With a loud scream of aggression, pain and satisfaction, Luna pushed the flat slab down the hole - knocking the beasts from the side and crushing them beneath the boulder.

In her rash action, she had also stolen away Abraham’s bubble and effectively sealed it inside the depths as the gray slab formed a seal to keep the gas from escaping too quickly in the depths.

He opened his eyes, startled, unnerved and gobsmacked by the feat of strength and the surprising turn of events. Next to him, Luna sat on her knees heaving for air while glaring up at him as if to ask ‘what now?’.

He swallowed and immediately set his attention on the next part of his plan, forming a bolt to set the trapped gasses alight - hopefully through a minute connection between the air of the hole and whatever lay beyond. But try as he might, he shook his head to report: “I-I can’t - there’s not enough of the gas! It’s not lighting! I can’t start the fire!”

Her heart sank into her chest as the beasts of the trees had nearly closed the distance between her and the party of three. Pupper had taken her place at the front - barking wildly at the approaching shapes, though it did little to scare them or slow their approach.

Had she still had the energy to slap Abraham, she would have done so as he felt him fondle her right breast, only to realize that it was not the breast itself, but the vial strapped to it that he fumbled around with. She allowed his eager hands to finish the job before he tossed the glass sphere down the hole, shattering it on the distant stone.

“Pupper! Get ready to run!” Abraham warned as he continued to toy with the moods of the air, gathering up the sad energies and the happy energies - lining them up for an explosive discharge.

Luna leapt atop Pupper, shortly followed by Abraham who warned: “Run!”

It wasn’t much. It was about as loud as the snap of a finger, but the brief flash of lightning ignited something within the hole - as much was obvious by the tall pillar of fire that arose a second later as the gasses caught fire.

Pupper darted away as Luna and Abraham breathed sighs of dissatisfaction at the lacking effect of their tiring maneuvers.

“Well, fuck… at least we got the hole sealed…” Abraham muttered.

But as Pupper’s legs moved like lightning over the mire, they began to hear an unmistakable rumbling. Abraham raised his gaze to look across the mossy landscape to see that the entirety of it seemed to breathe with life- rising and sinking as the rumbling grew louder and louder.

“Fuck! Run, Pupper - go, go, go!” He shrieked as it dawned on him that something was amiss. The rumbling was, in fact, not coming from the hole, but from every pool of bubbling mire around them. White-hot columns of steam stood from the hummus in their every direction - some of which quickly caught fire as the shockwave began to spread in full.

“I think we’ve just blown up Longmire!” He squealed as Pupper released all her might into propelling them onwards - out into the setting sun, past the boiling pools of black. |