“There's been no change,” Red said, her voice low, unnecessary eyebrows furrowed as she gazed through a distant hidden eye.
“We've still got some time left then,” Ben said, now sitting between Vivi's eyestalks.
“My life is over,” Vivi said, sounding despondent, “they're gonna kill me and cut my guts open and see what they find in there.”
“They wouldn’t do that,” Ghost Ears assured him.
“That’s what I’d do! They’d have to be crazy not to!” Vivi moaned, and Ghost Ears didn’t have a response to that.
“I'm not so sure about this,” Short Bus said frowning, squinting his tiny eyes in the direction of the Gremlin camp, “the plan still seems a little light, you know?” He held out an empty, upturned palm and pretended to be weighing something by bobbing it slightly up and down, which really impressed Ben because Short Bus had only had arms and hands for like, less than three days. The shark was adaptable!
“I'll have you know,” Vivi began, and then both Ben and Short Bus finished for him;
“that I'm a mature Aeon Slug, and I'm powerful, and I can do this by myself now,” they said together.
“Congratulations again, Lord Vivi,” Ghost Ears said, his expression one of 'Shut the fuck up you two and tell him congratulations, he's a fucking mature Aeon Slug'
“No, Short Bus is right,” Ben said, “I think our odds went up pretty dramatically, but those assholes are like, bonkers accurate with ranged weapons. There's no way we get out alive.”
Then Ben, Short Bus, Ghost Ears, and Vivi devolved into the same circular argument they'd been having for what felt like hours. It hadn't actually been hours, but Red had yet to even be alive for a full day and she was already exhausted.
She felt. . . many things. A restrained sense of grief at the loss of her home; overwhelming anger; hunger and thirst; tiredness; annoyance; and the inexplicable urge to go around and start touching and smelling people and things. Like, everything, including her new body. She hadn’t even properly looked at herself yet, like, really looked at herself, and it was exciting because she'd never looked at anything before. Her senses were addictive, and suddenly she understood how those who left The Beyond could decide they didn't want to go back.
Yet, her sense of hearing was causing her aggravation.
“Be silent, all of you,” she said, and was pleased when their argument stopped in its tracks. She found that she liked having a voice, and that she liked her own voice.
“You are all fools for ever considering a frontal assault of a fortified position. It’s obvious not a single one of you knows a thing of war, of how to destroy an enemy. We are a small group of individuals with unique capabilities, each of us is powerful in our own way, correct?” she asked, and demanded they nod with her steady 'gaze'.
“Good, you can be taught,” she said once they had all submitted to her command, “there is only one mode of attack available to us, and fortunately, it is one I am specialized in. Since the dawn of time, the forces of chaos have feared me and mine on the battlefield, yes, but even more so behind their lines. Unconventional warfare,” the way she said the words gave the rest of the group goosebumps, “will be your cruel mother, and you shall suckle at her barren teet until you have a taste for blood.”
“Uh,” Ben said, eyebrows raised, “counterpoint, how about we just stop the Gremlins and not develop a taste for killing and blood?”
“Ah, it's too late for me,” Short Bus said, much the same way someone might say 'yeah, mom, I started smoking about six months back', “I've already got the taste.”
“I as well,” Ghost Ears said, eyeing Red in a way that could be translated as 'damn that's a fine, giant woman', then composing himself, “but I admire Prince Ben's commitment to civility. Truly befitting of royalty.”
“I too,” Vivi said, “also hunger for blood.”
It wasn't lost on anyone that Vivi had deepened his voice a little bit, or that he seemed to be way too excited.
“Ok, so it's just me and Vivi who aren't stone-cold killers then,” Ben said, “ok, that's awesome.”
“Lord Ben,” Red said, her voice close to pained, “please, be silent. You have walked with the purebeast, yet you do not understand goodness. Were she here, she would have already charged and slaughtered those monsters and stained her white fur with their blood, and left still a purebeast, untainted. You do not know what they are, but I do. I have fought these abominations across the wastelands of eternity, the battleground of perpetual conflict. Though their forms are different, and they are much diminished, I recognize some of them. They are wicked, chaos incarnate, and left unchecked, they will bring about a future of utter desolation. Even now, they seek to give birth to a Bladed Slayer, with a stolen soul that shines as bright as a star.”
Vivi blinked several times, his eyelids fluttering.
“Excuse me, a what?”
“A Bladed Slayer,” Red repeated, “an enormous, horned being covered in blades, which knows only hatred and aggression.”
“How big?” Vivi said, starting to breathe a little harder, causing Ben to feel like he was on a boat.
“A hundred feet tall and still growing. His birthing sac is bursting through the canopy and spreading devouring tendrils throughout the area, which eat all they come in contact with. I have seen such things before on the battlefield, though I shudder to realize they can be created here as well. Cease your trembling, Vivi,” she said, using his name for the first time, “I know what we must do.”
Red started talking, and everybody quickly realized she was talking sense.
–
Ben had often wondered what would happen when he put a living creature into his Utility Pocket. Would they die? Would they be placed into suspended animation? Would they black out?
As it turned out, what happened to them was a bit stranger than that.
“Ben, I can't go in there,” Vivi said, eyeing the utility pocket that wiggled its sea-anemone like tentacles at him in a friendly way.
“Lord Vivi, surely it can't be that bad,” Ghost Ears said, looking at the portal with considerably less apprehension, “it even asks you if you would like to be willingly put into an alternate dimensional space. Very advanced, at least as far as how I measure things.”
“It's going to drain my mana,” Vivi said, looking from person to person with big, spherical eyes, “I'm a spellcaster! What's going to happen to me, am I going to get dropped into a battle and start gnawing things to death with my delicate, soft mouth?” Vivi demonstrated a few pathetic snapping motions with his admittedly silly looking slug mouth; no teeth or hard parts at all.
“I'm pretty sure you'll be fine,” Ben said, allowing his intelligence to 'communicate' with the Utility Pouch. It fed him not so much hard data as feelings and intuitions, “yeah,” Ben continued, “you'll be fine for sure as long as you don't move around too much. Also, try not to breath too much either. Really, keep your mind clear as much as possible, because pretty much everything you do in there is going to cost you mana.”
“Oh, I'm going to be just fine,” Short Bus said, nodding his head, “I can blank out my mind instantly, watch,” he said, and suddenly had a dull, stupid expression on his face, then he brightened back up.
“Can you blank out anyone else's mind?” Ben asked, remembering that Short Bus had psychic powers.
“Uh,” Short Bus said, then started looking really, really hard at Vivi, who seemed unaffected, “that's a negative. I could hit him with my [Anima Blast] though,” the shark said, giving Ben an exaggerated wink. Ben had no idea what the wink was for, but he was against the idea in principle.
“I think you should save that for the Gremlins. Vivi, it's not going to kill you.”
“It's grosssss,” Vivi whined, staring at the open utility pocket and demonstrating just how dynamic the facial expression range of an Aeon Slug could be, by displaying his open revulsion at the idea of going into the utility pocket. The purple tendrils continued to display a basic sense of humor, and wiggled at him as if to say 'come here'.
“How is it gross?” Ben asked, looking at the utility pocket and not seeing anything wrong with it. To him, it looked super friendly.
“What if it's slimy in there,” Vivi asked, “or wet, or weird or-”
“It's not any of those things, you won't even notice you're in there.”
Vivi looked unhappy, but he was already in deep in terms of getting outside of his comfort zone and overcoming disgust sensitivity for the night, so he steeled his nerves and glided across the ground into the open portal.
The opening shrunk, then continued shrinking until it was small enough to fit on Ben's body. He attached it to his right pinky finger, then spoke into the tiny entrance.
“How are you doing in there?”
“I hate this,” Vivi moaned, “well, really, it's not that bad,” he said, immediately changing positions, “it's not stealing nearly as much mana as I thought it would.”
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Ben nodded, then opened a pocket for Short Bus, who jumped into his from a running start. That pocket was placed on Ben's right middle finger for what would be obvious reasons.
Finally, he opened one for Red, which would put him at his limit.
“Remember the plan,” she said, before stepping through and being attached to his left palm. Ghost Ears watched the proceedings with his arms crossed, hovering in the air without moving his wings.
“Prince Ben,” he said, his features hard, but the emotion not directed at him, “are you ready?”
“Let's do it,” Ben said, his voice not as powerful as he would have liked.
The two of them, Ghost Ears and Ben, were [Extremely Tiny]. This conferred pages upon pages of detriments, disadvantages and ways to die. There were a few benefits to being so small though; food was never a problem; a bottle of whiskey could last an entire fairy village a month of heavy drinking; and nobody noticed you unless you were trying to get their attention. Sure, they'd notice a swarm of fairies, but just two of them flying up high and trying to stay out of sight?
No way Gremlins would notice that. The fact that Ben could store a full-sized strike team in his two hands wasn't a known danger to the Gremlins, yet.
Trust me, they'd know about it by the end of the night. They were definitely going to talk about what was about to happen.
The Utility Pouch was a funny item. If used like a portal to pass a creature through space, the cost was enormous; it would drain the being's entire mana pool and half of their total stamina, but only if the being in question meant to use the utility pocket as a portal. If it were used on an enemy, Ben would pay the price.
But the thing was, if someone walked into the utility pocket of their own intention, they were on the hook for the mana cost. Even better, if an ally was stored in such a manner and the Utility Pouch was never closed, the mana cost for that was. . . small. They weren't being stored away, or teleported, they were just kinda hanging on. It was like they were in a special little pouch that could reduce their size and weight to nothing, one that they could control.
Yes, as soon as his allies entered their respective Utility Pockets, they felt an immediate connection form with it. Either they, or Ben, could make the opening bigger or smaller. They could eject themselves, and even better, they could handle it like a physical object and carry it around.
The Gremlins would talk about this night for sure, and so would the fairies. Neither Ben nor Ghost Ears noticed, but a swarm of wild fairies, none of whom were from Strange Town, was quietly watching the events as they unfolded.
Ben flew, examining the veritable horde of Gremlins and Gremlin variants below, and silently thanking Red for talking some sense into them. They would never, ever have made it with a frontal assault.
Ghost Ears flew near him, his eyes not looking at the Gremlins but the forest around them, guarding Ben. That was his only job in this mission, to keep Ben from getting eaten by one of the ten thousand kinds of monsters that he was an easy meal to. The [True-Elf Fairy] gently changed their course, noticing a hanging Mucus Webweaver and seeing that Ben was completely oblivious to the hazard.
The fact that Ben had gotten as far as he had in the Overcavern Forest alone and ignorant was nothing short of a miracle. The protection of the Ring of Sacrifice could do that much at least.
Ben was nervous, but the calm, mild kind of nervous that comes from being an extremely hard to hit target flying hundreds of feet above anything that wanted to get him. Ghost Ears set their pace, allowing Ben to really take in the details of the Gremlins 'camp'.
After solid minutes of observation, Ben concluded that it was absolute chaos down there. The Gremlins had rejected all sense of order, swarming and crawling over one another, yelling for no reason, and generally being extremely rude and physically violent with one another. If his life were a movie, Ben thought, the scene below would either be blurred out, or push his rating to MA.
“I think my life is rated R right now,” Ben said, bringing Short Bus’s Utility Pocket closer to his mouth. Silence, then the shark made a sound like he realized something.
“Oh, right. I'm nodding my head but you can’t see that. I really don’t know what that means.”
“It means the things happening to me aren’t appropriate for children or adults to see.” Ben said, his teeth chattering a little bit from the dark chill of the forest. Short Bus laughed.
“I’ll say! Hey, think we could catch a couple of those furry guys in one of these Utility Pouches? I’ve got some ideas,” the man-shark said, sounding suddenly evasive.
“No. . . well,” Ben said, thinking about it, “No, five is my limit for the number of utility pockets I can have open at any one time. That's how it is right now, at least. Plus in terms of total volume, I’m getting somewhat close to my limit.”
“Oh I see. Just keep it in mind for later then,” Short Bus said, then dropped the conversation.
“Yeah?” he said, then Ben also dropped it.
“Gremlin bomb,” Short Bus said suddenly, “toss it, and ‘Boom’, a bunch of monsters burst out and attack what you threw it at. Hilarious,” he said, his voice having the kind of positivity that had to be intentional.
“Yeah,” Ben said, laughing just a very little bit, “note to self.”
The conversation was pointless, it was just mindless chatter between people who were about to engage in a life and death struggle. Vivi was uncharacteristically quiet, but honestly, he had a lot to think about. Red was quiet as well, but that was nothing new.
Ben endeavored to learn as much about her as he possibly could, just as soon as he found her a shirt and some pants. Or a sundress.
No, dammit Ben, no sundresses.
If he were being perfectly honest with himself, which he'd gotten pretty good at, he would admit that Red kind of fucking terrified him. She had been nice enough so far, but she was scary looking, and gave off a deeply unsettling vibe. It was the fear a six year old boy had of teenage girls who had a bunch of piercings, black clothes, tattoos, and a rebellious attitude.
Ben scratched his hair in frustration, then realized what he'd just thought was completely wrong. Red was extremely confusing, and at the first available opportunity, he was going to put her through a job interview.
The thought made Ben smile, because putting Red in interview clothes would do a lot to humanize her, and also because as an Isekai protagonist, the special technology he brought with him from Earth was the EQ interview and its ability to reveal inner psychology. Then again, Red was also technically an Isekai protagonist, just not one from Earth. The thought troubled him for formless, undefined reasons. Short Bus was also, technically an Isekai-
“Prince Ben,” Ghost Ears said, his voice a whisper, “I see the Elder Gremlins now.”
Ben looked away from his thoughts and was greeted by a sight. . .
“Wow,” Ben said, not even able to be disgusted so much as impressed by the outbreak below him. Thousands of brightly colored, glowing, pressurized, fluid-filled. . . they looked like boils, or cysts, but the skin over them was completely transparent, and they were filled with glowing radioactive kool-aid.
The Gremlin cysts covered everything, the ground, the tree trunks, out onto branches. The only thing they didn't grow on were other cysts, and they were tightly packed against one another.
A cabal, because even at this distance and without the proper intellectual context, Ben could tell he was looking at a cabal, of Gremlins congregated in the way leadership does. There were thirteen of them, gathered in a circle around a shining, rainbow-hued rock. Each of them had a spine, an entire spine, which they were using as staves. Their furry bodies were painted with white symbols, and the designs were ugly in an emotional and an intellectual way. The other Gremlins were obviously terrified of the Elders and kept their distance.
There was also a gigantic red, hundreds of feet tall, glowing, pulsing, Gremlin cyst containing the Bladed Slayer. It twitched and flexed its sword like fingers, and the more Ben looked at it, the more he realized it was a creature that couldn't even feed itself, because it was optimized for destruction and slaughter.
“Yep,” Ben said, “we're here.”
He clapped Ghost Ears on the shoulder and looked him in the eye.
“It was nice knowing you, even though I don't know you at all. Let's talk, like, really talk, if we get through this.”
Ghost Ears nodded, Ben nodded, and then the Prince angled downward and began accelerating. The wind rushed past him, and for a moment, everything was quiet and he shut his eyes.
Then, when he was close enough, and the fall wouldn't kill him, Ben pointed his middle finger at the most important looking Gremlin and shot Short Bus at him like the world's most creative bullet.
The shark came out in the most loud, attention grabbing way possible; he was roaring and moving about in the air and when he landed, he immediately bit one Gremlin, grabbed another with his hands, and brutally killed one with a strong strike of his long tail.
There was a long, single second, where the Elder Gremlins had no idea what was happening and Short Bus rampaged without resistance. Then, Ben pointed his pinkie finger, and shot the Aeon Slug at them. Vivi was overly excited, and his eyes were thrashing around, his body was undulating with bright rainbow light, and his high pitched war cry would never leave Ben's memory.
Vivi arrived in a barrage of large magical arrows, which he was firing indiscriminately. An Elder Gremlin took a step backwards and fell straight into a [Disk of Annihilation], and was promptly, well, annihilated.
The Gremlin Elders started to act, to organize themselves, so Ben pointed his left palm at them and shot Red at the group.
She landed softly on the ground, and the Elder Gremlins froze in place, various looks of terror on their faces.
Red smiled, her eyes locking them in place. She said something that Ben couldn't hear, but sounded like 'Did you all miss me?' She walked right up to the frozen Gremlin and grabbed the soul-gem.
Ben accelerated down towards the soul-gem and used his favorite skill.
“[Whap]!” Ben said, and Red was gone, safely inside her Utility Pocket, attached to his hand. Thousands upon thousands of Gremlins had begun to rush on their location, and any second now, they were all going to die.
Ben rushed over to Vivi and slapped him with a hand, and the Aeon Slug vanished in a flash of purple light. Ben's heart was pounding in his chest, he grabbed Short Bus and executed his critical role in the operation.
“[Tactical Withdrawal]!” Ben shouted, using the skill he'd gotten after destroying Grayport 3. It was a funny skill, in that it greatly increased his speed, but only when he was running away from a fight he started.
Ghost Ears struggled to keep up, the little fairy was doing his best to dodge arrows and thrown rocks, and to block them from hitting Ben.
Up and up, higher and higher the two of them went.
They'd gotten away! They'd-
A utility pocket opened in front of Ben, and a burst of air completely messed up his flight path. Then, it was followed up by another utility pocket that blasted him with a heavy, sticky slime.
He immediately started falling, whatever the slime was it had the effect of completely cutting him off from his mana supply. Little utility pockets opened around him, blasting him with air and adjusting his course down to the ground, keeping him from hitting a tree. Ghost Ears, though Ben couldn't see it, had gotten stuck to a branch.
Ben impacted against something soft, and the slime glued him to it. He couldn't breathe, but then something extremely large wiped across his face, removing the slime.
Ben looked up and saw a human with empty looking eyes, giving him an apologetic look.
“Close, little guy. Real close. I'm Nemo, ah, well, I'm stealing that finger gun thing. Bang bang, out comes a monster, classic.” He made finger guns when he said 'bang bang'.
Ben tried to release Short Bus, but to his alarm, Nemo was doing. . . something. Ben couldn't access his utility pocket, every time he tried, he felt something pushing against his brain.
“Ah, no. Yeah, no,” Nemo said, shaking his head, “not happening. Come on, I'm gonna introduce you to my friends. They're dying to meet you,” he said with an exaggerated wink.
“I fucking hate void souls,” Ben muttered as he was carried to his fate.
High above, Ghost Ears watched, and the swarm of wild fairies watched as well.