Kahli squinted, looking as her former gym buddy - now with wings, apparently - descended from the air atop her large, two horned fony.
"Well, well, well, look who we have here," said Taubitha, an air of cold bitchiness in her tone. "Kahli and her gross little monster! With two other freaks in tow, it looks like. How fun for you, Kahli, looks like you've got some orbiters. Which impresses me, considering how badly that foul little bundle of tentacles stinks."
"Orbiters?" Kahli frowned.
"Hey, just so you know, I have anosmia," said Sahdi as she flipped her flawless hair.
"Figures," said Taubitha as she dismounted her abnormally large fony and petted its glittery mane.
"And he's a robot, so his olfactory sensors probably just convert Froufrou's stinkiness to math or something in his head," said Kahli as she pointed to Unit 5a23. "But also he's meditating right now, so he won't really notice any sensory input anyway."
"Okay, okay, I don't really care, Kahli," said Taubitha with a sneer as she walked up to Kahli. "You look... About the same." She looked down at Froufrou and scowled. "Your little pet hasn't really leveled up at all since our last fight, has it?"
"No, she hasn't," said Kahli. "At least not recently. But that's just fine, she'll level in her own time."
Froufrou squelched with a stinky appreciation for her [paired] tauman's kindness and affection.
"Gross, you two are just gross," Taubitha's face, which Kahli noted was starting to get more and more living wood on it, looked so strongly affixed with a scowl that the lower half of it seemed liable to almost fall right off. "Oh my gods, Kahli, like, seriously oh my gods. Did you lose your hand?"
Kahli raised her left arm. "Yup. Sure did."
"How? Why?? Were you too weak and low level for a fight or something? I bet that's what it was."
"Actually, Taubitha, it wasn't that at all. It was actually because my hand got infected with Curr. You know Curr, right? That awful disease that eats everyone alive away until they turn into nothing but pure math? Well, it's back, and they're calling it New Curr, and I got infected with New Curr and I lost my hand to it while fighting an evil alien that came here on the meteor and that evil alien was even more powerful than you are! And he ran away from me! He ran away screaming like a little boy or something, but I think he was centuries old!" Kahli smirked.
"That sounds like bullshit to me, Kahli. There's no way on Nomachiato that you really did that. I bet you just, hell, I bet you just pissed off somebody powerful and they cut your hand off to spite you." Taubitha stuck her big nose up in the air and shook her head like a preening raven.
"Actually, that really did happen," said Sahdi. "Kahli really did fight an evil alien, all by herself, and she almost won. And then she scared him away when she revealed that she was infected with New Curr. It really did happen."
"Aw, how cute, you've got your girlfriend to defend you," said Taubitha with angry slits for eyes.
"Ew, no!" said Sahdi and Kahli in unison.
"Classic Kahli," said Taubitha as she shook her head. "Anyways, I think I'd like to kill you, now. Especially considering that awful, obviously bullshit story you just told."
Kahli was almost beside herself with confusion. Everyone was falling over to believe her when she was telling ridiculous lies, like back at the F.I.N.G.E.R. facility where she convince them that a dead, headless agent just had a venereal disease that caused said death and headlessness, but now when she tried to tell Taubitha what was ostensibly almost the truth, she didn't believe her? It was almost maddening stuff, for certain.
"Taubitha, you know what? Let me just, um, let me just praise Theseosus real quick, actually," Kahli cleared her throat. "My love to Theseosus, Theseosus my queen! You meet me all the way, you touch me in my dreams! Theseosus please raise your pincers to my hand, take me to the promised land! Oh, Theseosus, your thorax is almighty and your feelers feel me well, don't you send me off to hell! Theseosus, oh, Theseosus, your pincers and my hands, I'll watch your mighty wings unfold as you carry me o'er to the promised land! Skies above, and water below, your antenna can sense my soul! Oh, Theseosus, Theseosus, I love to watch your arms uphold my world, all of my world, from the clouds to the ground on which I stand! OHHHHH Theseosus, OHHHHHHHHHH THESEOSUS, take me TOOOO the PROMISED LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND!"
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Taubitha looked at Kahli with disgust and confusion, but was indeed made so uncomfortable by her ex-friend's display of faith that she didn't know what to say, and truthfully didn't feel able to say much of anything. Froufrou squelched with blind appreciation.
"Alright, now that I've done that, paid my respects and my dues, I'll, well, I'm going to go there," said Kahli. She cleared her throat. "Taubitha, you are a wretched person. You are an unpleasant tauman being, I cannot stand you, hell, I think I might just hate you. But, regardless of that, there is one thing I can say to you that will some up how I feel with complete certainty, and that is this: Fuck you, you bitch." She winced a little, but she knew that, thanks to her singing the hymn of Theseosus Amori, she would be forgiven by the heavenly pincers of her cherished deity.
Taubitha turned to her fony and petted her. "Stand by, Princess. Don't waste any of your beautiful energy on this jealous hussy." Then, she turned her head and glared at Kahli with a playful grin. "Takes one to know one."
And like that, the fight was on! Taubitha lunged towards Kahli, her dread wings unfurled as instruments with which to strike more blows towards her former friend. However, Kahli was quick, and she dodged out of the way.
"Hey, Taubitha, quick question for you," said Kahli. "Why, exactly, were you riding Princess before you came to fight me if you have wings? Seems a little unnecessary."
"Never call my Princess unnecessary!" growled Taubitha as she quickly started to molt and transform using her [Beast Form] [skill]. It seemed much more gruesome to Kahli this time than last, as Taubitha's jaw was three times larger, and her eyes grew into one big visor that wrapped around her head, and her talon-hands were covered in fur and what looked to be small, festering parasites.
"EW!" said Kahli as she summoned up a big rock and kicked it as far away from Taubitha as possible. Now, it was time to show Taubitha her other [skill]. While the rock was soaring away, Kahli ran up to Taubitha and started kicking at her as fast as possible. Thanks to her [skill], this was very fast, indeed it was so fast that Kahli's kicks seemed to be almost a blur instead of standard movements.
"AH!" cried Taubitha. "What are you doing to me!"
But Kahli just kept kicking at her ex-friend, knowing that as long as she attack, Taubitha would be unable to retaliate. It was really just a waiting game right now - would Kahli run out of [STM] before her big rock swung back around and zoomed over to smack Taubitha right in the face? It sure didn't seem like it.
She kept kicking and punching and attacking like a crazy lady, and soon enough her big rock was zooming its way forward. She watched from her periphery as it caught fire - first yellow, then orange, then red, then blue inexplicably! It was really zooming, it was almost there, and Kahli could tell that this rock was going to pack and exceptionally powerful punch.
But everything changed when Princess, with a cursory glance over to Kahli's big rock, suddenly shot lasers out of her eyes and incinerated it on the spot!
"What?" said Kahli incredulously as she kept attacking Taubitha. Then, Princess turned her fony gaze to Kahli, and started glaring at her. Quickly, too quickly, Kahli starting to feel a strange, painful bubbling sensation in her head.
[You are taking damage]
Kahli felt pressure pounding in her head. The pain was intolerable! What was happening to her?
[You are taking damage]
Princess' gaze was indomitable! It was doing something to Kahli, but what it was doing was uncertain. Regardless, she didn't feel right - it was almost like she'd suddenly become very congested and could barely breath, and all of the pressure was pounding in her head. Maybe she was having an aneurism and this was all some strange dream. That was what it was starting feel like, anyhow, even though Kahli knew that was a ridiculous line of thinking.
"Oh my gods, what is it doing to her?" said Sahdi halfheartedly from afar. Kahli was instantly reminded how obnoxiously useless Sahdi was whenever combat came into play. Then again, when wasn't Sahdi useless? She was useless in combat, useless outside of combat, she couldn't smell anything... Really, the only thing it seemed Sahdi knew how to do was to play with and take care of her hair!
Kahli noticed something. Although the pain and pressure in her head was a dreadful exercise in pain, the more she thought angrily about Sahdi being useless, the less it seemed to have a hold of her. Almost like her own mind, through emotion, was able to fight whatever strange [skill] Princess was currently using against her!
Princess strengthened her gaze, opening her eyes wider and angrier. Still, Kahli relented, punching and kicking at Taubitha in her stunned state and thinking as many angry thoughts as possible.
Something is going to happen soon, thought Kahli. She could tell that she was nearing a breaking point of some sort, that a figurative dam was about to crack open and spring the mother of all leaks, but she didn't know what all that entailed.