“…Hey,” Gale waved. “Hey. Heeeey… Uh, there! Hey there, man!”

Gale winced so hard, a sizable drop of gunk fell from her face. “What brings you to this side of the neighborhood~…?”

It was another Jaw Monster, but totally and fundamentally different.

There were so many teeth loaded into the mouth, layered on top of each other, it created an overbite. Thick scales covering the legs, they curled upwards into spikes. Its head was still faceless, but with a viper’s skull, with a shark’s snout elongating the namesake’s trait. Bony frills crested from the head, twitching feelers, each one connected by translucent webbing. The long neck Calypso assumed it had was folded inwards, becoming a mix between a wattle and frog’s vocal sac. All resting on a bullish, tensing torso.

“Do not address meeee…” It growled out, opening its maw to speak. “As if we’re equaaaals…”

“C-communication is the first step in understanding what we want here—” Gale then turned towards her fellow monster girl. “Cal, please, help me out here—"

All Calypso did was pant in its presence. A slow, methodical series of inhales and exhales. Using her entire body as it tensed, and her already wild hair bangs fell and covered her face. Her eyes, shining and unhidden from the bangs, lowered in an assured fashion, as if she’s finally found home.

She raised her claw, flexing each one individually that hollow cracks rang out before flicking them at the same time. Her bloodthirsty grin not once leaving her face.

“Oh god, you’re just as worse--!”

“Hold that thought,” Calypso spoke, not once breaking her eye contact. “Fine, we’re lower than you. What brings you here, blessing us with your eminence?”

“Revengeeeenccce…” the Jaw Monster didn’t open its maw, showing that it did not need to move its mouth to speak. Projecting the voice somehow.

“Ah, that’s fair…”

“‘Fair’?!” Gale exclaimed, waving her arms. “What did you do, Calypso--?!”

The monster gritted its tombstone-sized fangs in a low snarl.

“So it was you… Who robbed her from meee…”

“I didn’t know you were capable of love, let alone gender…” Calypso mused, putting her chin in her open palm, resting the face against the claw.

“Do nooot… Involve your human perversion into things… Our bonds are purely thaaat… A pact to be honored in the eeeend…” the Jaw Monster growled out, stepping forward. “And you took that awaaaay…!”

Only for Gale to step in between them.

“Okay okay okay okay, look…” Gale had her hands up in a defensive stance. “Just… Tell us. About her. About what exactly happened, and we can work from there…”

The monster’s head moved about, jerking and snapping to the sides, in barely restrained anger. “Your ramapaaage… Destroyed what could have been an entire brood, with your choice... Your human perversion… cost me my maaaate, and I will eat you to avenge her and take that power for myself…”

“This is all pretty interesting…” Calypso put her arms behind her back. “And as much as I want to issue condolences because, I don’t know, I wanna be nice for once… I literally do not remember your so-called mate. So.”

Calypso then shrugged. Obviously, this was a complete lie. But the itching within was becoming white hot. She needed this fight. Wanted this challenge.

And even before Gale could possibly interject, the Jaw Monster roared as it continued to monologue.

“You will not stop me… From continuing to consume my wayward, former brethren, to gain their wasted power from this stupid faaarce… Then the humans, then everything in my path!”

“…Well. In that case…”

Calypso stepped out of the way, performing a mock-customary bow.

“Then by all means, good sir! Sure up your defenses and your gullet, so that our fight to the death will be proper and earned.”

“…So there is honor, lurking within that taiiinted blood of yours…”

It rushed forward, too fast for Gale to stop the trajectory. With her outreached hand still hovering in the air, the swamp monster girl started to tremble in place.

Calypso looked at the display and proceeded to roll her eyes. “This is benefitting us—”

Gale quickly turned on her heels, swinging her arm of goop as it splattered everywhere in a rage that caused Calypso to jump.

“Did you miss the part about him eating people?!” Gale shrieked out aggressively.

Calypso’s maw tightened, still maintaining her steely gaze. “It happens every single night in this rundown town anyways—you’re just aware that it happens now—”

“And again, we’re letting that happen—not just putting a stop to it?!” Gale stormed over, clenching her fists together that they’ve melded into blobs. “What—Is—The matter with you?! Why are you letting this happen to yourself—not the monster stuff—but you—just—being so into your own darkness?!”

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Calypso squinted, gritted her fangs, before firing back. "Jokes on you, you need to accept the fact you're a monster now. A part of the process, if you're still trying to retain something--"

"There's acceptance and there's just outright holding something in!" Gale swung her arm. "Not letting things go an-and stewing in your own crap! Is that really acceptance, Cal?! Or is it another excuse just to be crummy?!"

The questions hit the various chords that Calypso deemed untouchable.

“Why did I agree to this half-assed trainwreck in the first place?!”

Gale shrunk in fear, in the presence Calypso’s advancing anger.

“Hell, why did I ever entertain interacting with another human again?!” Calypso swiped her arm at Gale, which prompted the latter to yelp out in distress. The instant feedback of the action caused the raving monster to tense in despair, before relenting back to her fury.

“See?! This is what I do! What you all do to me—other than her! Alice and I, Sal and I—that’s all I ever need! Any more and it’s so blindingly obvious that I deserve nothing but! Why bother with ‘friends’ or ‘others’, when all it does is prove the divide between humanity and I all the more stark?!”

Through Calypso’s panting and bluster, it was interesting for her to see Gale’s facial journey. Her stunned shock vindicating the monster’s point. Then her expression crumbling into near tears, and a desperate struggle to fight that.

…But it all snapped. Her face becoming unnervingly still, only her brow etched in silent, but palpable, seething.

Calypso found herself being slammed into the tree behind her, to the point she coughed out all the available air present in the lungs. And the damning thing in that moment, was the realization that she didn’t fall onto the ground.

She thought it was the well-deserved punch she earned. Turns out, it was much worse.

Gale’s arm transformed into a massive wad of slime and earth—a volume of sludge that covered her body sans the head. Calypso’s racing eyes caught a few details that could’ve explained this insane scene—the fact that the girl’s legs disappeared into raised soil, becoming one with such. In turn, her body became this swirl of both her natural material along with the soil, becoming consecrated at the now engorged arm.

Her mossy hair fell in front of Gale’s simmering expression. Her violet eyes glowing in the dark, harsher than before. And the looks of it, this was merely the beginning of what her exploding mind thought up.

Calypso simply sighed, despite being clearly scared. Shutting her eyes, knowing when it’s the inevitable end.

But there was nothing. Nothing immediate, at the very least.

All Calypso heard… Was the sounds of meditated breathing.

She opened her confused eyes, as she took in Gale looking down. Her measured breathes easing the tension in her face, allowing her to drop the rage, despite it still being plainly visible.

Gale looked at Calypso. A face that was not amused, but never more unwavering.

“Maybe you don’t try because you’re scared. It’s easier for you to call it off, to sabotage… All because you’re so driven to mess it up and run. I don’t wanna say that your friend was a bad one, for letting you get so bad… But clearly, you needed more people than her. People that can tell you it’s okay not to be so terrible. And the thing is…? I don’t think you’re a bad person, Cal. I think you’re one that’s hurt, and refuses to get that looked at. Call me an enemy, call me whatever—but I am NOT giving up on or giving into you.”

For a girl that managed to hit every single hot button of hers, there was no grid for this.

So the emotions that brewed such a torrent from within, it ripped her apart, Calypso could only sit in it. Sit in it, and absorb every aspect that whipped her stupid ego.

"Resonance" doesn't seem to be such a foreign concept anymore. A far off promise.

“…Thank you,” Calypso hung her head low, without knowing why she said it exactly.

Soon after, Calypso fell from the tree, as the slime retracted back into Gale’s being. Landing on her spiked knees and razor-sharp hands, the monster girl wanted them to give out, her face hitting the dirt with the weight on her back.

Only for her instincts to tell her to look up, as Gale offered her hand. Pointedly, the other one.

“Now, the bad guy probably got supped up during all of that—but let’s at least try, alright~?”

Yet another hand offered to her, unprompted.

So of course Calypso took it.

Once she rose back up, Calypso dashed forward, towards the dark auditorium. Claws at the ready for what she thought was a violet storming.

Only to run in, unrestricted in any way or form. But it was when she made it in the epicenter that it all made sense.

“TERRORTIDE!”

Most of the ghastly Subsumed were swarmed at the Jaw Monster. They couldn’t do anything, at the very least damaging. But it was a thick fog that was physical, layered around the thrashing, angry monster that roared at them. Roared at them for “betraying” it, how it doesn’t need them anymore.

Calypso admitted to herself that it was funny, the coincidence.

“Ready to finish this off, partner~?”

The monster girl turned to see… Gale moving, but still rooted into the ground. Leaving a very pronounced trail behind her.

“…I didn’t know how to get out of this—” Gale looked around nervously. “In fact, I didn’t know I could do any of that—and this—”

A brilliance flared up in Calypso’s usually dead eyes. She proceeded to raise a claw, pointing at the Jaw Monster with a half-assured smirk.

“Gotcha~” Gale giggled.

Like a crack of a whip, Gale’s arm made of mush was flung far—hitting the raving monster sloppily, but enough near the mark.

The Jaw Monster’s peds were locked in place due to the slime, as its roars got more loud and ferocious.

Which was perfect for Calypso, as she had a target, curling up her claws and bringing up her elbow scythes with manic zeal. The manic zeal that was no different from the type before, but actually directed for what she thought was impossible—despite her declaration months prior.

Once she entered the darkness—she quickly sliced about. Every time she felt the rake of flesh under her blades, Calypso jerked—gashed—stabbed, letting the screeches batter at her eardrums. Being pelted by the black ooze that tied all of these damned creatures together despite their shapes and sizes, Calypso experienced ease, a calming.

Calypso then felt a pull, as she was yanked out by Gale’s extended arm, landing right next to her. Clearly written on her slightly shocked face that she didn’t realize what she would do after slicing up the Subsumed.

The two monster girls watched as the Subsumed all stopped. As if they’ve solved the interruption themselves.

The “Terrortide!” chant starting up once more, slowly returning to their seats.

So it caught them off guard, as a blur shot past the shared left of them, causing the duo to snap their heads quick.

But it was too late.

The Jaw Monster, who was a mere worm-like abomination now, was already tunneling through the floor. Before the both of them could form a stance, its rear end was buried by the excess dirt.

Causing Calypso to turn back, seeing its rather large legs remaining, caked in a puddle of its blood. So much in amount, it washed away Gale’s gunk.

“…Well, at least they’re as big as me!” Gale chirped.

And without warning, the weird swamp girl pulled Calypso into a hug. The skeletal monster doing the human thing of keeping her arms firmly at her sides in embarrassment.

“We’ll take these home and we’ll finish what we’ve started tonight… After that? Yeah, I won’t be, like, offended if you wanted to end things afterwards… But like I said. I’m not leaving you alone, Cal. Especially not now~”

She wanted to buck back. At how contradictory the statement was, how she didn’t remotely know her yet. On why she would go this far for someone, when she knew intimately well how much that burned. Then what she said earlier that day, ringing loudly in Calypso’s head. Gale Pratchett simply had love for everyone.

It was quite ironic, how it was Calypso who melted in the hug.