Calypso, completely healed again, jumped up—and proceeded to jump again, to scale the tree that was closest to her.

It became a game of chase. Calypso jumped from the tree tops, but not using everything like she had to damage the raving beast that was huffing gutturally in incoherent malice as it kept going forward. And there was Gale, managing to keep pace and away from it, and Calypso knew that this was humanly possible for another moment or so.

Calypso launched herself from where she was perched, directly landing onto the back. But it didn’t care it still gave chase, owing to the bovine inheritance it possessed. Calypso slashed, rendering her altered fingers into nubs once more, anything to add to the incurring damage.

But there was no stopping the Chimera-Jaw Subsumed. And within moments, the very time frame that Calypso correctly predicted, it was within biting distance of a sweating, panting Gale.

So her twirling around, in place, and lifting her iPod up to it, was pivotal than the girls gave it credit for.

Calypso had to hug the beast, as it reared back in pain. The imagery of this finish invoked a priest warding off the damned with the cross, and here in 2007, it was a girl in yoga pants that had her music player by the headphones—but gripping the wires and not the buds, so it could hear the discordant-to-it sounds.

Now, it was the monster girl’s part to play in this. Issuing the grand finale.

Calypso shot both her ruined hands into the gashes she made. Counting down the seconds merrily as her prongs were fully formed.

“Hey. Now you can see your beloved again… You’re going to the same place, after all~”

She prodded. She yanked. She ripped into anything that felt important. Of course bucking, rearing, any movement to get the girl off of it ensued, but there was no point due to the grip she was not willing to let go.

It tried to keep roaring. It tried to form words, to curse what was happening to it. Try in its vanity to turn this defeat into a win for it.

But there was no way. There was no chance.

There were no defenses, as Calypso shredded the monster’s insides. But the damage was already done a few, precious seconds earlier.

What was once the Chimera-Jaw Subsumed, fell onto the ground with a sickening thud. Calypso chuckling over the exquisite corpse.

“Oh no—Gale!” Calypso realized, snapping her head towards where she was.

Only to hear that giggle, what Calypso hoped would mean reassurance in the future. Gale waved, showing that she moved back, despite being tired and on the ground, sitting. She gave a thumbs up, it being propped from the iPod in front of it.

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“Thank God for Steve Jobs, man…” Gale sighed after the statement.

Calypso smiled. Genuinely.

“Indeed. Now get over here, we’ve earned this meal!”

She yanked out the contents from the aggravated slits. Tearing whatever was still hooked, still lingering and stuck to one another, the monster girl stuffed her face with her very fresh meal. Her current guise couldn’t handle the texture and the volume of what she was forcing down her throat, but her other side did not care.

Especially since, Calypso felt herself be immediately rewarded.

The transformation was happening in bursts. The muscles pulsating, spikes of bone shooting out of her clothes, the roots of her hair pushing out her growing hair…

Calypso hummed, and proceeded to keep feasting. Stewing, enjoying, what was a worthy challenge in the end.

…And felt the transformation stall. Yet again.

Calypso opened her dark eyes, which glowed with soft amber now, at least. Blinking.

“…Come on,” Calypso let the mush fall from her claws, so that she could put her wrists on her now-mature waist. “I feel like this is semantics at this point.”

“Aaaay!”

Gale rose from the left of Calypso, sporting her dark eyes and altered body structure, with vines sprouting from her raised hands. “I’m on the first stage now--!”

Calypso chuckled, as she jumped from the corpse. “There’s that, at least…”

Looking herself over… Calypso was close to her other self, but nothing came together. She had the matured body, she had the spikes, the claws… But clearly still wearing her clothes, despite them hugging her and in near tatters. But at the very least, it’s a body that can take whatever was still coming for them.

And now can clearly hear the flutter of wings. Instantly cocking her head towards it.

Even Gale read the mood, before shouting out in anguish. “We just got done taking one of them out…!”

“This was always going to be a possibility; attacking us when we’re tired. But at the very least.”

Calypso brandished her claws as she shifted her stance into a low, primal one.

“This was a demonstration. This shows that we may be weak, but we are scrappy when pushed to the edge. So! Come at us!”

The fluttering… It was something Calypso never heard before. But oddly, it brought something to her mind, it was just that she was focused on the impeding doom to let it connect the dots.

But the noise was ungodly. Annoying. Way too fast that it… Created a certain… Piercing rudder to it? It quickly gave Calypso pause, because her mind could not let this feeling go.

The realization hit far too slow, as the raining “cells” hit the duo faster and harder. Knocking them across the field, causing them to skid until stopping of their own accord.

Only for Calypso to look up, to confirm her suspicions… Her very confused, bewildered suspicions.

She was a mix between a fly and girl… Covered in ebony armor with chalk white skin, accented with indigo hair. Her buzzing wings were nearly as big as she was, jerking her side to side trying keep her hovering. The most damning detail was her insectoid mask, ebony “wings” covering her eyes completely as a stinger draped down her lips and stopped at her chin. With crimson compound eyes at the sides of her head, looking akin to earmuffs from afar.

“You?!” Calypso shouted out incredulously. “You were that was following us this entire time?!”

The fly girl cocked her head, like her namesake, before answering in a soft, but high voice.

“Yep—more or less~ Or rather… Well, I was. 'Paid' to join in and do the following for her.”

And before Calypso could ask for clarity, a series of mocking claps gave such to her.

“You guys are booooooned~” Cassie came onto the scene.