Calypso jerked herself awake, immediately looking down at the state of her hands. She took comfort, in the fact that they were still twisted, still mangled by dark forces. She then angled her left palm outwards, using such to feel up her face—her features still sharp and stretched into malice. Her dark eyes easing close in relief, free of the stress even if it’s a moment.
Shooting open, when Calypso realized that she was underground.
“Heeey, Cal…”
Calypso saw Gale, a few feet away from her, curled up against the “wall”. Her arms draped over her perched knees, an earbud dangling from the other hand with her iPod against her side.
That should’ve been normal. But Gale was covered in mud and blood.
The wary girl raised her hand, for a wave. Unveiling the various self-inflicted scars that painted red across her palm and fingers.
“You were out and I was alone… Had to carry you to run away from the monster—landed so hard that the dirt knocked us down. I had to scramble away, I tried turning… So freaking useless. All I could was hope that some of my powers worked despite being human now. So I did.”
Calypso looked about. The surroundings were a mixture of dirt, roots—all creating this small cavern with a sensibilities of a ditch, only one that had steeply formed downwards and towards the right.
“Usually, y’know, like…” Gale watched her ruined hand turn slowly, working the courage to flex her digits, before stiffening in pain. “It’s… When I’m gooey, yeah? I pour it from my hands and I ask the Earth to help me out… It took a lot of beginning, this time. And a lotta tries.”
Calypso’s lips pursed. She knew that her new face fought against showing such “weakness”, but she did not care.
“Is your healing… Not as fast…?” Calypso moved closer, offering her prong-hand to hold her… Friend’s. To hold her poor friend’s hand.
Gale practically teared up at the gesture. And handed herself without a second thought.
“I guess so, yeah. But I’ll be fine… After all, I finally did something, y’know? Useful for once…”
“You’ve put up with not only my terrible inexperience, but me as a person. You are furthest from the word, Gale…”
“Doesn’t feel that way…” Gale grunted with her teeth fully bared, as she reached behind herself. Slowly showing her open phone. “3:45, by the by…”
Calypso lowered her head into her palm, letting out a mournful sigh.
Gale arched her head upward, planting it against the dirt wall, “How is this harder than the monster-eating-our-souls fight…?”
“They weren’t ‘Chimeras’, apparently.”
Gale did something between a chuckle and a whine. “I still remember, like… Being torn apart. I barely made it, man…”
“I’m not sure it’s something to forget, being far. A constant reminder, in every sense of the word…”
Once that thought left her mouth, there was something about it that was stuck in Calypso’s mind. It was her mentally… Not exactly wrestling with such, but letting it rustle within her mind that…
Calypso’s dark eyes lit up with realization. “… That’s a good point, Gale. We did take on the Subsumed while being human.”
“I mean…” Gale looked at her scary friend. “It boiled down to luck, right? Otherwise, this shouldn’t be a tough one…”
“Exactly that, Gale. We had so little during that impossible situation—and we managed to win. If that, if we consider that the baseline… Then we can surely beat this thing, at the very least.”
“Well—” Gale sucked air through her teeth. “—The original guy we went after? Yeah. The vampire lady you ticked off—and the guys who are really into Thanksgiving? Iunno about that…”
“At the very least…” Calypso jumped, at the sight of the two prongs from her hands arched up at her face. She forgot they aren’t her index finger and thumb, she can’t stroke her chin, as she gathered back her thoughts. “At the very least—if we can take down the Chimera… That’s an amalgamation of Subsumed, maybe consuming it not only saves us a night, but also speeds along the transformation blockage. Not only our easiest option, but the most beneficial.”
Gale pondered. Her face was so easy to read, due to how innocent it rested. She reached down to her mp3 player, pressing the click-wheel to stop the song. “Well… What did we do that made us win, back then? I don’t know about you, but… I ran and bought time, man.”
“We, as a species, survived because we knew how to run. So that’s what we do, run—hide out… Use the terrain around us, and ultimately endure. If we chip away enough us, two results can ensue. We either stop it there and then, or it becomes night—and by that point, we can finish what we’ve started.”
“…Yeah!” Gale perked up immediately. “That can be good!”
“Also, I have a question…” Calypso narrowed her eyes, her lips moving side to side before continuing. “After it landed, which did push you down due to the impact… Did it immediately give chance—did you have to hide or play dead somehow?”
“No… It kinda just. Well, y’know, I booked it the moment I could, so—”
“But when you looked back, you didn’t have the sense that it disappeared or…?”
“…No. I… I think it just stayed there, like what it did during your fight, right?”
Calypso chuckled lowly. Finally getting that sweet nugget of information, that was stuck in her maw.
Gale chuckled right after, maybe as a sign of forced solidarity? “We have something on our side after all, I’m guessing…?
“More than what we’ve originally thought… These things are ultimately superstitious, paranoid… They don’t really ‘get’ us, and they’re afraid of that…”
Calypso carefully used her prongs, to pinch and bring up Gale’s iPod at face level with her.
“That also applies to the things we’ve achieved in the last 50 years, as well,” Calypso couldn’t hide her sinister smirk. She, admittedly, hoped that Gale wouldn’t get scared. Destroying the goodwill that she legitimately gained from her.
But even Gale, innocent faced girl, couldn’t help it either. Not only an evil grin, but closed eyes and an earnest cackle following after.
***
“FACE MEEEEEEE!” the being that lacked such screamed out with its massive maw. And yet, the way the Chimera-Jaw Subsumed’s skin was getting tighter around its jaw, veins bulging with fervent furiousness. It was hard to deny that it was on its last nerve.
The beast stomped thunderously across the forest, which was being colored by the greying skies. Doing the action so heavily, it caused the beast’s head to bob uncontrollably, but it didn’t care. Lurching forward in a march, the Chimera-Jaw slobbered, snapped its head at the air—to starve out the rage that’s been building within.
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The act of it marching only appeared to look methodical and tight, was only just that—an act. It wasn’t driven on discipline, precision. This beast was so enraged, the entire body that it actually built from the ground up, it was swollen with anger. An anger that floods the mind with doubt and uncertainty. This monster had no idea what it was going to do, once it finds the prey again… But it had to be final, this time.
But something about that made this thing… Stopped. Right in its massive tracks. Did it want this pain, this misery, this burning—all of it to cease? It gave it purpose, drive… To do away with these things, it truly makes the beast’s fallen mate truly, utterly, dead. Wasn’t this vengeance, this rampage, this murder the entire point, spawned from the fact that she was killed?
The Chimera-Jaw Subsumed proceeded to roar out once more. It didn’t need to think. Subsumed simply are.
“FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”
“Yes, yes, yes—I could hear you from here.”
The beast snapped behind itself. Calypso waving with her prongs.
“Did I mention that I was here the entire time~?”
“There is no way, you halfling vermin…!”
Calypso shrugged with her entire, altered body. “Probably. Or maybe you’re not as a great hunter as you think you are. Why am I still standing here, dreg? Why am I still talking to you—and down to you, at that? Hm? Maybe. Maybe, you’re the one that’s scared…”
“TALK! All of this is just bluster—posturing! You cannot beat me in combat, you knooooow~!”
The monster girl, who could barely qualify as either—or—and both in this moment… Laughed. Openly, at the monster as it growled.
“Wow, you certainly said what you just said there—Oh, sorry, I was laughing at your posturing, I should properly address you… Sure. I can’t fight you. But I don’t need to. And I simply don’t want to.”
Trembling with radiating hatred, the Chimera-Jaw Subsumed looked about, around the girl. Its head practically spinning in place.
“WHERE IS SHE?! WHERE IS THE OTHER?!”
Calypso smiled, baring her barely developed fangs.
“Where’s the fun in that~?”
The beast responded with a flesh-rippling, bone-rattling roar, causing the leaves around them to dance in the air. Calypso was only a few feet away, and yet she was forced backward by a sizable number of inches. She had to fight to not just keep herself anchored, but also keep herself standing.
And when it was all over, the witch still had something to say.
“…Funny.”
The Chimera-Jaw was grinding its fangs together, with such a force that caused some of them to crack under the pressure. Whatever she was going to say, or not say at this point, she was dead.
“She did the very same thing when she was angry… You truly were made for each other~”
She poured everything into the leap.
Calypso knew that she could barely track the thing with her current eyesight. Gloating it served as a natural pacer, so she could time the jump, and more importantly, control the tempo of this encounter.
As she soared straight into the air, Calypso looked down to see the literal explosion that happened below.
Like Gale told her, the Chimera-Jaw’s crash threw up a ton of dirt, leaves—mostly everything one could find in this forest began to pelt upwards into Calypso. The collisions nicked and raked across her clothes and exposed skin—but of course, she didn’t care. The monster girl had to focus.
Arching forward into a very ungraceful dive, Calypso hit the ground before she knew it, causing her to roll with minor injuries—but again, she cannot dwell on that. After getting into a kneeling position, Calypso looked back in a sweat, admittedly.
Pausing, waiting… For one second. Two. Somehow allowing herself to untense so she could accept five seconds had since passed.
Finally, Calypso could smirk in her smug contentment again.
Looking forward, shifting into a track runner pose, the monster girl immediately darted forward. Now the fact, the proof, that the so-called-mighty Chimera had no idea what to do along with the rest of them—now it’s an equal fight.
But she had to run now, that’s all Calypso had to do right now. They knew it can’t be forever, nor that it would last more than a minute. As she weaved through the trees at points, Calypso stuck to the pathway that they laid out—the one to victory.
The moment she heard the oncoming of flapping wings, Calypso poured everything available into dodging. And as she skidded across the landscape, yet another rough impact confirmed her suspicion.
But she didn’t have time to stew in that, as Calypso knocked herself into a truck, landing onto her ass within the next second. She did pause for a moment, as she witnessed the Chimera-Jaw Subsumed recover in a speedy fashion than she expected.
It was trashing so hard, it created more dirt-based impact waves. It was roaring so much, the sounds peaked up in pitch into a mad screech.
But once it lumbered forward, the entire body buckled in pain. From wings to elephant feet.
This was Calypso’s only chance.
She drove her prongs into the ground, proceeded to lift her lower body up, then planted her feet against the trunk of the tree. A few precious seconds were spent moving back and forth, flexing her legs until they reset position.
Crouching against the trunk, Calypso shot herself like a cannon, heaving herself forward using her prongs for good measure—before adjusting her arms to the right of herself with the palms outward.
It didn’t know what hit it. Once Calypso got sight of the surprised and enraged monster, with the acceleration behind her attack, the monster girl slashed at the beast’s hide. Knowing full well once she’s passed the target, she was going to be as good as dead.
As Calypso tumbled into a stop, her prongs were once again nubs. Her arms were spilt open at the seams, her head was spinning trying to catch up to the overdue shock of pain. And the most damaging of all were her legs themselves, as they were broken in places.
But it was all worth it, because she knew that most of the black blood that was covering her in that moment, wasn’t all hers.
Her eyes followed the very noticeable trail, leading to a screaming monster that was wounded. Screaming bloody murder, now that it realized it can still be hurt.
Calypso could heal in seconds, but this was too costly to perform for a number of obvious reasons. When dealing with Subsumed, every second matters, and even one can spell the end of someone. Doing a hit and run like this was the best that the girl could do right now, other than just hiding until night falls—and that resulted in too many moving objects. In any other scenario like this, the girl was good as dead once she did this play.
And as a song ripped across the air, causing the Chimera-Jaw Subsumed to stop in it’s tracks, Calypso was glad that she wasn’t alone. More importantly, she was glad that Gale had so many songs on her playlist.
The whole plan hinged on the beast reacting negatively to the sounds, but… Calypso didn’t picture such a potent effect, as she watched on.
It was a total reversal. The monster had the very same pauses, startled movements, and overall panic ala the cast of Blair Witch—or any kind of horror movie. Calypso ruminated in the time allotted to her that this must be what it’s like for them. Sounds that are normal, if not annoying to her at some points, but perfectly normal… But alien to her prey.
“H…Halfling WITCHES!”
The Chimera-Jaw continued to roar into words. “WITCH! HALFLING, VERMIN WITCHYOUR EXISTENCE IS REPULSIVE EVEN TO US FLITH! I WILL ENJOY CRUSHING YOU UNTIL YOU RETURN TO NOTHING!”
Rolling away, constantly looking back at the monster that was set to prowl and then to the next trunk she was set to launch from, Calypso felt that they’ve already won.
As soon as the monster ran towards what it thought was the source, Calypso bounded once again, raking against the undamaged side before once again landing with all of her limbs ruined. But due to the trajectory this time, the monster girl was clearly out in the open, in the beast’s line of sight.
With a screeching howl, it tried to brave the injury, the pain—lunging forward with all of its very potent might.
Only to fall square onto its face—with multiple of its claimed body parts gushing a spurt of blood from each joint or connection point.
“Heh…” Calypso laughed out, despite laying in her own pool. “Knew it. Not only figured there had to be some cost, but knew that it was nothing… Nothing but talk, in the end…”
These beings built themselves off of tribalism, fatalism… So that left Calypso with two possibilities to think about. 1) Any advancement of power, or their power system in general, ran with the idea of power and the price of such. Just grafting different parts of their comrades must have some sort of blow back once one cannot do anything with it.
And 2), which is a tad concrete. They have no understanding of baseline science and casualty. She didn’t care if they were magic and thus, bended the rules—the fact this thing could walk despite having grasshopper legs with elephant feet was a miracle in of itself. Calypso just had to find a way to topple that, cause the various parts to reject each other once whatever stability was disturbed.
But it never cared about stability. It constantly stomped, it constantly ran. Constantly crashed, constantly tried oh so hard to prove its might… Only to start whittling itself down from the inside. Its only weak spot.
Even without eyes, once it reared its head from the dirt, the Chimera-Jaw glared at Calypso.
And her hand was healed the moment she needed it to wave, as the monster girl flashed a toothy grin.
“Having fun, yet--?” Calypso yelled from afar.
It unhinged its maw. The insides rumbled with hatred, the fangs were being pushed forward somehow.
Then it stopped, almost on a dime. It immediately coiled its head behind itself, towards a very familiar sound to it indeed.
The sounds of someone running.
“GALE, NO! THE PLAN…!”
But Gale simply ran away. Cradling her mp3 to her chest, not even chancing to look behind herself.
And good thing for it.
The beast forced its leaking body onto its feet, and charged towards Gale. Vocalizing its pain, using it, to push itself forward towards the girl.