I braced for death. Lulu stiffened and tensed around me… then gathered herself into a great big bouncy ball of slime, and launched herself bodily at the t-rex’s open maw.
I yelped in alarm. “The fuck, Lulu?!”
“FUUUU!” Lulu hit the animal’s muzzle with a splat. The huge dino chomped down, but the Limne was already spreading over its muzzle. Once its jaws were closed, the slime snapped herself around its mouth, tightening like a vice around the beast’s jaws.
And then, she plunged into its nostrils.
“MMRROORR?!” The rex stumbled back, slashing its head from side to side and trying to paw at her with its too-small arms. She was only able to hold its jaws closed for a couple of seconds before the animal broke free and pulled her apart like taffy, but a few seconds was all she needed. She embedded in its nostrils and sinuses, blocking the dinosaur’s throat from the inside.
“Holy shit.” Panting, I stumbled up to my three working legs.
The rex’s shadow fell cold across my back as it scraped bloody furrows into the sides of its own neck, its two-ton tail swinging wildly. I dodged the hammer blow just in time, scrambling under its body and launching myself at the inside of its thigh. I latched on there, clawing and biting, stabbing my tentacles into the meat on the inside of its leg. One of them found an artery, sending blood gushing out in a dark spray across the undergrowth.
[Vital Strike. X3 damage. T-Rex HP: 20,135/25,000]
Lulu was probably getting combat notifications, but I couldn’t see them. What I could see were the results. I had to clear out of the way as the rex staggered around in a dizzy circle, then collapsed. Gurgling and gagging, foreclaws waving, it desperately rolled from side to side and scraped its head across the ground to dislodge Lulu. But it was no use. Its massive frame, six-ton jaw strength, and inexhaustible energy suddenly meant nothing. I ran around and nipped at it, finding and stabbing vital points on its body, racking up damage as Lulu doggedly choked the life out of Mr Rex. After nearly ten minutes of struggling, the beast spasmed, head crashing to the forest floor in a spray of mud. A few more kicks, and it fell still.
[You have defeated T-Rex.]
[You gain 138 Exp]
[You are Level 16. You gain 1 Ability Point.]
Shaking, panting, I jumped to the ground and limped over to its head. Lulu slid out of its nostrils and out of the slack jaws, pooling on the mud.
“Well, you done gone did it!” I thought at her, raising a hand. “High five!”
Lulu shivered as she ‘looked’ at my raised paw. Then she burst into tears and threw herself onto my other leg, bawling hysterically.
“Aww, hey now… it’s alright.” I awkwardly patted the Limne on the back as she sobbed. “You did it, Lulu! You killed the bad guy!”
“HUUU HUUU HUUUUU!” Lulu howled just like she had in the trap.
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Oh boy. At a loss for how to comfort a traumatized slime, I settled for acting the part of the stoic rock and kept a paw tucked around her while she wore herself out.
“You act like you never killed anything before,” I remarked to her, once the sobbing had died down to hiccups. “First time’s hard.”
“Oooo.” Lulu shivered miserably.
“You handled that real well, though. Might not have fought before, but you sure as hell knew how to react during a crisis. You must have had some kind of training before you were uploaded here.”
“Twooo…?” The notion made Lulu pause in her despair. “Uuu! Twoonuu!”
“You know, I wonder…” I rumbled and licked my teeth, opening my Inventory and peeking inside. In among the various velociraptor parts was my Lesser Legion command collar. “Do you know if these command collars make it so trainers can talk to their Legions?”
Lulu wobbled intensely for a moment. “Uuu nuu.”
“Yeah, I don’t know either. I’m thinking it’s not worth the risk of accidental slavery. But hey - what do you say we buddy up, you and me?” I pointed at my own collar. “If you have one of these collars, you can clap it on yourself and no one can catch you.”
The top of Lulu’s bouncy ‘head’ extruded like a droplet… then tilted to one side in confusion.
I pulled my Lesser Legion collar from my Inventory. “Didn’t you get one of these? You can put it on. Those fuckers running around can’t use their command collars on us if we’re self-collared.”
“Uuuuuu…?” Lulu jiggled excitedly for a moment… but after a couple of seconds, she sunk down into a miserable blob.
“What? You didn’t get one?”
“Nuu.” She twisted sadly, paused, and then extruded ‘arms’ and reached up toward the collar I was holding. “Cooloo!”
“Wait, hang on. If you put this on, that means you’d be MY Legion.” I held it just out of her reach, wincing. “I don’t want to enslave you. I just want-“
“Cooloo!” Lulu bounded from the ground, snagged the collar out of my hand… and ingested it into her mass. As she did, a strange sensation tingled at the base of my skull, like someone had pulled an invisible cable out of my brain and plugged it into the slime’s body. I suddenly had a deep sense of her presence in my mind… and I knew, somehow, that she’d obey any order I gave her.
It creeped me the fuck out.
[You have collared a Lesser Legion!]
[You have gained a new Lesser Legion: Limne (Level 11).]
[Do you want to name your Legion?]
“What? Like a dog or some shit? She can pick her own damn name.” I looked from the slime to the HUD and back. “Is Lulu the name you want the system to register?”
She thought about it for a moment. “Uuuhuu. Lulu.”
[You are now the Master of Lulu – Level 11]
[Manage your Legion from the Legions Menu.]
“Just so we’re straight on this – I’m not your ‘Master,’ and I’m not interested in ‘commanding’ you,” I said. “You make your own decisions, okay? You’re a free slime.”
“Oooh.” Lulu inched over to the T-rex, climbed up over its dark purple tongue, and engulfed it happily. She began to pulse up and down. I honestly wasn’t sure if she was eating it or humping it, but I was glad to see her memory for trauma seemed to be pretty short.
I shook my head, and limped over to start tearing at the rex’s belly like a normal, civilized predator. As I did, a list of loot appeared:
* T-Rex Tooth Trophy
* Exotic Dinosaur Meat x 1000
* Lucky Rex Claw
* Schematic: Ghillie Suit (Rare Quality)
* Schematic: Gas Mine
“Sweet.” I loaded the items and about a quarter of the meat into my inventory. It didn’t even take up two percent of my carry weight, so I loaded in the other 750 Rex steaks. That put me at about 20% of my total carry weight, and insured I wouldn’t go hungry again any time soon.
“I don’t know what Angel is going to do with a ‘Lucky Rex Claw’, but here we are.” I looked to Lulu, still happily digesting the dinosaur’s tongue. “Come on, kid. We have to return to base.”
Lulu slid out of the dinosaur’s mouth, leaving nothing but a cauterized stump behind. She blooped over to me and slithered up my leg to my back. She didn’t say anything, but somehow, I could feel her mingled exhaustion and happiness as I broke into a limping jog, used claws and tentacles to vault up and over the ravine, and followed my nose and instincts toward the grotto camp and whatever awaited us there.