The masked man raised his knife. “I am a Giant Slayer, foul flesh eater! I have felled mightier giants than you at a single blow! I have come to seal your fate.”
Tiggy’s brown eyes were wide with horror.
Hot anger bubbled up in Jax and he started forward. “How dare you threaten her…!”
“You betray humanity?” said the masked man. “Traitors to humanity must die.”
He lunged at Jax.
“No!” Tiggy bellowed, and she swung her muscular green arm in the path of the knife. The blade scored a thin cut across the ogre-girl’s arm and she roared in pain and knocked the knife flying from his grasp. Droplets of her greyish-green blood splattered all over the garden. The madman ducked and stepped back towards the trees and drew out a spiky metal disc. He hurled this towards them. Tiggy stood in front of Jax and the disc struck her other arm, causing her to bellow.
“Watch out!” cried the little voice of the sprite from the pool. “Duck!”
The Giant Slayer was whirling a metal bolas. Tiggy grabbed Jax in her strong arms and crouched, shielding him with her massive body. The bolas went whirling over her head.
The Giant Slayer cursed. “Even if you were ten stories high you would not prevail. It’ll be satisfying to see a giant fall.”
“OI!”
Jax heard Nadine, Tiggy’s human mother. She did sound frantic.
“Stupid wench!” said the Giant Slayer. “You dare disrupt my honourable work?” But then he gave a vehement exclamation and Jax heard him fall over.
Nadine’s voice: “Tiggy, my sweet girl…! My darlings… Are you alright?”
Nadine sounded really worried. They turned to her. Her brown eyes, so like Tiggy’s, were wide and she was pale, her freckles really standing out in her face. Jax had always thought she was really really pretty for an older lady. Still a real stunner, even though she was old enough to have a fifteen year old daughter.
The Giant Slayer was now caught in a net of pink strands, sort of like a cobweb, cursing as he tried ineffectually to struggle out of it.
“Mum…!” Tiggy’s husky voice trembled.
Jax recovered his composure first.
“I was here Mrs Harris. Do you think I’d let anything happen to Tiggy?”
“No, dear Jax, you wouldn’t, my sweet boy,” said Nadine, her cherry like bottom lip quivering. “Oh, Tiggy… you’re hurt.”
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Back indoors, Nadine treated Tiggy’s wounds, pulling out the chakrams and cleaning and bandaging the cuts. Nadine’s elegant fingers worked with practiced skill. Tiggy gazed with wide brown eyes as she put disinfectant on the wounds and applied gauzes and bandages.
Jax had recovered his composure. “There was nothing to worry about. I wasn’t about to let a maniac in a mask kill my best friend.” Jax considered. “You know… sometimes I think she’s my only friend.” Jax felt he had been disappointed by other people too much. He felt that he had often been let down or left bewildered.
Tiggy’s dark green lips twitched to form a smile. “Love you.”
“That’s so sweet, Jax,” said Nadine. But did her smile look wan? Jax couldn’t quite tell.
Corey, Tiggy’s father, came in. He looked grim. “So we’re under threat. We have to get Verena. Now.”
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Verena watched in horror as Mirror Girl emerged from the glass and stepped onto the floor. No one else reacted. What was the matter with them? Didn’t they think that a weirdo with a mannequin mask coming out of the mirror brandishing a knife was disturbing?
Mirror Girl turned her mask to Verena. Through the eyeholes in the flawless mask, Verena could only see blackness. It looked like the eyeholes were two holes into nothingness. Verena felt her head reel with a sense of unreality. Mirror Girl actually looked faintly transparent! But that was no more impossible than her coming out of the mirror.
Mirror Girl fixed Verena with her awful gaze. Even though Verena could not see the apparition’s eyes, she could sense a wave of malevolence emanating from her. It sent a chill down Verena’s spine.
Mirror Girl pointed at Barb with the knife…
“Verena!”
Verena heard her father’s voice. She blinked and Mirror Girl was gone. Verena shook her head to clear it. The creepy spectre from the mirror had just disappeared!
“Verena,” said Dad again.
“Dad…”
“Er… bad business Verena. We’ve got to go home straight away,” said Dad.
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As Corey expected, Verena was really angry when she heard that the so-called Giant Slayer had threatened Tiggy.
“I should like to strangle him!” Verena’s blue eyes glinted and her cheeks flushed pink. Corey thought it was sweet how close the girls were. He’d heard somewhere that teenage girls often quarrelled. He had probably heard it on the wireless.
“Oh Tiggy!” Verena climbed onto her sister’s lap to hug her.
A fond smile played around Tiggy’s greenish-black lips. “Doll. Love ya.”
Verena winced at the sight of Tiggy’s wounds. “You’re hurt.”
Jax was already on Tiggy’s knee. “I was there,” he said with characteristic bravado. “I wouldn’t let it get out of hand.”
“Yeah, great Jax,” said Verena. The idea of Tiggy being hurt was making her feel sick.
Corey met Nadine’s eyes. She smiled at him when he met her eyes, just as she always did, but he knew his wife well enough that he could read her like a book. Those shimmering brown eyes showed her worry, that was clear enough to Corey. He supposed he’d better start reassuring them all.
He walked over and patted Tiggy’s green arm. Tiggy turned her head and smiled down at him.
“Tiggy, Tiggy… you’re sadly hurt. If only I could still bounce you on my knee… but it’s been a long time since I could.”
Jax sniggered. Verena rolled her eyes. Why did she think that eye-roll worthy?
“You can sit on my knee, Dad,” said Tiggy eagerly.
How did she think Corey could do that when Verena and Jax were already on her knee? He might possibly fit, but Corey didn’t wish to be undignified as to squeeze onto her knee with Jax! The daft boy would no doubt snigger if Corey sat on his daughter’s knee. He could comfort her another way.
“I’ll read to you tonight. Tiggy, you can choose.”
Tiggy grinned at him. “Thanks, Dad.”
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Bathtime for the sisters was a bit unconventional. Given Tiggy’s size, they needed a bath the size of a small swimming pool, in a purpose-built room on the ground floor.
Verena swam around in the bubbly water while Tiggy stripped off, her pungent body odour filling the tiled room.
“Hurry up, Tig,” said Verena.
Tiggy stepped carefully into the pool, causing the water level to rise and lift Verena up with it. The ogre-girl sat on the tiled floor of the bath so that the foamy water came up to her chin. Her long red hair fanned out in the water around her.
“About time,” said Verena fretfully. “Thought you were going to leave me to bathe on my own.”
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“Aw. I wouldn’t leave you on your own, doll,” said Tiggy. “See, I’m here now.”
Verena swam over to Tiggy and trod water. The wounds that marked her sister’s bright green arms were easily visible.
At the sight of them, Verena felt a hot, sick, surge of anger. Her jaw tightened and her heart began to beat faster.
“I’m so mad that some loonie hurt you… If I’d been there…”
Tiggy gazed at her with wide brown eyes. “You might’ve got hurt if you were. So I’m very glad you weren’t there.”
“How could anyone, even a maniac, hate you of all people?” demanded Verena. “What’s not to like? Even if you are dopey…” she reached over and touched her sister’s nose lightly with one finger. Tiggy smiled at her.
Verena was fuming. That Tiggy had actually been attacked… it was too much, especially on top of the serious weirdness that had gone on lately with Mirror Girl.
Tiggy was watching her with anxious brown eyes. “What’s wrong, doll? I wanna help.”
Verena tried to put her troubles from her mind. She ignored Tiggy’s question. “Here. Let’s play Bubbly-bubble.”
This was a game where they had to propel a beach ball to each other without using their hands. Verena took a rainbow coloured beachball from the side of the pool bath.
“Tig! Catch!”
Verena headed the ball the in the general direction of her giant sister who moved sideways, creating massive ripples in the bubbly water and butted the ball with her forehead. Verena forgot the rules for a moment, tried to catch with her hands, but dropped the ball anyway.
Verena tutted. “Ah… never mind. Let’s play that I’m a cheeky mermaid.” She swam in circles around Tiggy. “Am I the most beautiful creature in all the seven seas?”
Tiggy smiled at her. “You are!”
Verena splashed her. “Then catch me, you big silly.”
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After the girls had played in the bath of a while, it was bedtime. Corey was going to read to them.
“Come on Sugar and Spice!” He took the opportunity to call them by their old pet names that reflected their temperaments. Tiggy smiled at this, whereas Verena rolled her eyes.
“Have you brushed your teeth?” Corey asked them.
“Yeah!” said Tiggy.
“Yeah, yeah, d’you really think I’d forget?” said Verena. “Having a perfect smile isn’t something I take for granted.”
“No, Verena, I didn’t think you’d forget,” said Corey. “Tiggy, did you floss?” Tiggy needed a special extra large type of floss to remove meat from between her teeth. “Let me see.”
Tiggy knelt down and grinned at him so he could check. Her long red hair hung limp and damp around her. She had flossed her teeth, but she always had a lingering smell of bad meat on her breath, poor girl. Just fancy, having to live on raw meat. The smell of her hair drying was quite pungent too.
The sisters ground floor bedroom was large and decorated in pink. Verena’s bed was at the far end. Tiggy’s bed was a giant mattress that took up a great part of the floor space. She was too heavy for an actual bed. Tiggy sat on the mattress, her muscular green legs spread out across the carpet. Her huge, pink dressing gown clashed terribly with her red hair, but she did like the colour pink.
“Now, you’re all … better now?” Corey asked Tiggy. The green girl’s wounds were bandaged again.
“Yes, Dad.” Tiggy smiled at him, but then she sniffed, sticking out her greenish-grey bottom lip for a moment. The intrusion of the crazed Giant Slayer was obviously still troubling her.
“She’s not going to just shrug off a knife wielding maniac, Dad,” said Verena tersely from where she was sitting on her bed.
Corey patted the ogre-girl’s broad shoulder. “Of course you won’t, sweetheart. But I’ll read you an inspiring tale of bravery…”
Corey picked up the book for that evening. “Just like you asked, Tiggy… The most thrilling chapter of St Winifred’s or the World of School.”
Corey had received good advice that this particular school story is best for girls. The characters are all male, but the effect of this is that the girls wouldn’t feel inadequate comparing themselves to the wonderful protagonists, whereas Corey supposed they might if the protagonists were other girls.
In the chapter he selected, Walter Eveson bravely crossed a dangerous ridge between two mountains to save his friends who were lost in a winter mist on the mountainside. He got to the part where the shadows in the mist loomed over Walter, giving the impression of ghosts.
Tiggy’s brown eyes were wide as she listened. Her dark green lips formed a perfect O when it came to the part where the mists and the spectres gave
“You know how it ends, Tiggy,” interrupted Verena. “You’ve heard it before.”
“Please, Verena,” said Corey wearily. “Don’t interrupt. You’re spoiling the atmosphere.”
“Walter’s so brave,” said Tiggy.
“Your mother and I had adventures in the mountains,” said Corey. “That took great bravery, if I may say so myself.”
Verena gave a small, sardonic smile.
“You an’ Mum are really, really brave,” said Tiggy happily.
“And Dad is modest,” added Verena.
Corey let that one slide.
“I remember how we fought the vampire,” said Corey. “He was more terrible than any spectre in the mist. He would have drunk all my blood, soon as look at me.”
“I don’ like hearing ‘bout the vampire,” said Tiggy grimacing. “I hate to think of you an’ Mum in danger.”
“Aw,” said Verena, suppressing a snigger.
Corey patted Tiggy’s arm. “It was a strange and scary chapter of our story, yes.”
"But our story had a happy ending. Your mother and I retired from adventuring to lead a quiet family life.”
Tiggy grinned. “Yay! Happy ending!”
Verena folded her arms. “It is. And you were already on the way, Tiggy. Or so I understand…” Verena glared and folded her arms. “By the way, what was the order of events? You said Mum “met” an ogre? When exactly? Was it on one of your missions?”
Tiggy clutched her face with one hand and looked at the floor, her brown eyes anxious.
Oh dear. Verena was morbidly curious about Tiggy’s conception. An awkward subject to say the least. Corey would not tell either of them the details, especially not Tiggy herself. There were parts that the sweet girl would find very disturbing. She knew virtually nothing about the ogre, and it was better that way.
“Yes, Verena. Tiggy was already on the way, so your mother and I retired to have our family,” said Corey out loud.
“Now instead of asking silly questions obsessing about the vampire and the ogre, why not ask a sensible question, like how can you give your sister emotional support at a time like this?”
Verena opened her mouth, her cheeks flushing a delicate pink. “I – Are you saying…?” She breathed through her nose and spoke through gritted teeth. “Do you think I’m worried about the stupid ogre, or the useless vampire? And not about my sister?”
Verena’s blue eyes were flashing. Always a danger sign. She could be quite cantankerous now that she’d entered adolescent.
Tiggy sat up and beckoned to Verena. “Sis. Hugs?”
Verena stalked over to her sister and sat herself on her lap. Verena put her arms around her.
“Try to be reasonable, Verena,” said Corey wearily.
“I think you’re being unreasonable, Dad,” said Verena, pulling a face.
“Less thinking,” said Tiggy. “More hugging.”
Verena pouted, but then she put her arms around her sister’s large torso.
Tiggy turned her head to Corey with an apologetic grin. “Thanks so much for reading to us, Dad. Walter Eveson’s so cool.”
Nadine came in at that moment, wearing her pink dressing gown. The soft lighting of the room made her freckled face look radiant. She grinned at them. “Heyy, my darlings.”
Verena relinquished her grip on Tiggy and glared at her mother. “What are you doing about the stupid Giant Slayers? What’s your plan please?”
Nadine leaned down and kissed the top of Verena’s head. “I’m gonna train Tiggy in combat, hon. I’ll train both of you in combat.” Nadine’s accent had that musical twang that Corey had always found alluring.
“What? Tiggy’s much too soft to fight anyone,” snapped Verena.
Corey privately agreed.
“I don’ like fighting,” said Tiggy, her smooth green brow creasing.
Nadine touched Tiggy’s cheek. “Aww sweetheart. Of course you don’t. It’s a cruel necessity.” Tears shimmered in Nadine’s warm brown eyes.
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In bed with his wife, Corey reflected on the course his life had taken since he had started out as a lowly rookie at Dark Moon. From being stuck in a crowded dorm with all those dopey boys, to gaining a wife in a league he could once have only dreamed about. But it brought unique challenges…
He held Nadine in his arms and they gazed into each other’s eyes.
“What’s wrong, darling?” Nadine asked.
He could never hide anything from her. She could always tell when he was troubled.
“For a start, that maniac attacking Tiggy. It’s just sickening,” he said.
“Yes,” said Nadine, her voice quivering. “But we stick together. We’re strong. I’d never let anything happen to any of you. You, Tiggy and Verena, you’re all so precious to me.”
“That’s not all. Verena’s asking awkward questions about the details of … uh … Tiggy’s conception,” said Corey. “I’m not really sure how to answer her, or why she thinks she needs to know. I’d definitely prefer that the girls didn’t think about it. It would be really upsetting for Tiggy. She doesn’t even know the ogre was an enemy.”
Corey’s brain still refused to imagine Nadine and the ogre doing it, but it had definitely happened and he did not regret that it had. Tiggy was a wonderful daughter, as far as he was concerned. And Corey was no fool. Under any other circumstances, he doubted very much whether he could have landed a wife like Nadine.
Nadine gazed at him with soft, brown eyes. “Thanks for being honest. I’ll sit down and talk with her about it.”
“Listen, I certainly don’t judge you at all,” said Corey hastily blurting out what was on his mind. “Besides, if it hadn’t happened, Tiggy would never have been born and I wouldn’t want a life without her.”
Oops. Had he said that right? Does ‘I certainly don’t judge you at all’ sound pompous? Corey wondered if he should try and stop just blurting out what came into his head.
Nadine chuckled. “That’s so sweet.” She nuzzled his nose. Her soft, warm breasts were pressing against his chest. His passion was ignited and they came together to share their love.
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Verena was too on edge to fall asleep just yet. She sat on the edge of Tiggy’s mattress.
“It’s obvious Mum and Dad left stuff out when they told us about their adventures,” said Verena. “Couldn’t you tell that, Tiggy?”
Tiggy was lying back on the giant mattress, her long red hair spread around her. Her lurid, green skin was almost luminous in the near darkness.
“I trust Mum and Dad,” rumbled Tiggy. “They wouldn’t lie to us.”
Verena leaned her face close to her sister’s. Tiggy smiled at her.
“Aren’t you a bit curious about the ogre? I suppose he’s your dad.”
“Noo. Dad is my dad,” said Tiggy.
“Cute,” said Verena, touching Tiggy on the nose. “Anyhow… Mum had better know what she’s doing… I wanna be able to fight.” She clenched her fists and thought of the Giant Slayer. And of Mirror Girl. “I wanna punch some masked maniac right now.”
“Hope we don’t have to fight,” said Tiggy. “I don’t ever want to hurt anyone.”
“You’re truly a great big bottle of syrup,” said Verena. She didn’t quite agree with Dad calling Tiggy ‘sugar,’ because sugar was brown or white. Tiggy was bright green, like minty syrup that you can put on ice cream, so that was the sweet thing to compare her to.
“Anyhow…” Verena stood up and gesticulated in the way she did when she wanted to act impassioned when making a speech at a beauty pageant. “The women of our family our warriors. You already know that Mum was among the top agents at Dark Moon before she retired to have us. We should be able to follow in her footsteps and fight nutters and demons too. Mum and Dad had to fight magic…”
At that moment there was a rustling sound and Verena felt a prickle of unease. There was a rustling scuttling sound across the floor… Something was creeping towards them! Tiggy sat up and gazed at it wide eyed. A horribly realistic carving of a giant centipede, with feelers, segmented body and pincers was writhing towards them, its segmented body rippling…