“Just hold out and wait for an opening.” Belle asked as she loaded a trio set of the shockwave Arrows and slid along the ground from behind a string of trees before bouncing into the air and firing it off at the Snapjaw all in one smooth motion.
The arrows pierced through the air before landing firmly on the head of the Snapjaw where the armors had already been torn off, and this time, the shock waves did absolutely nothing. As Belle landed, Sam had already drawn back the sling shot with the same fire pallet towards the Snapjaw before he also let it go as his back muscles cramped at the worst possible time.
“Short again! Shit!” Sam cursed as Belle waved her hand, instantly teleporting across the space to where the fire pallet was before picking it up in between her fingers as Sam watched the spin halt in Belle's hands. The Snapjaws responded to her approach immediately with the cannon already ready to fire, though Belle warped forward once again, this time dropping the pallet right over the head of the first Snapjaw and then blinking away before the flames ignited.
“Don’t worry, darling. We’ve got this.” Belle said, landing lightly on the ground and stepping forward before she turned around to watch the explosion cover the Snapjaw in flames.
“So…you could just take them out easily, couldn’t you?” Sam asked.
“But I feel like we have to do this properly…” Belle said, massaging Sam on the shoulder, “Or else, it wouldn't be really a proper date, right?”
The sounds of the explosions also drew the other two Snapjaws closer to her before they each took a diagonal position at her seven and eleven o’clock, respectively, and launched a barrage of canon fire that lit up the forst in a brief moment.
Looking at the two beasts, she then lowered herself, accelerating away backward to create more space when the shadow of the very first Snapjaw emerged from the flames and cast out a straight beam of laser that burned onto her shields before the two of them were sent flying back from the ensuing explosion.
“Shit!” Belle cursed as Sam clung onto the pouch when the two Snapjaws closed in even furhter on her as one lunged forward while the other provided cover fire from distance. Against the close Snapjaw, Belle drew a trio of shockwave arrows once again as Sam had fired off yet another flaming pallet.
“None of these things are doing anything!” Sam complained when Belle aimed and fired her arrows through the flames of his pallet, striking the closest Snapjaw right in the head and causing it to veer off to the side while more pieces of armor rained down.
“Well, do you think fire is good against machine crocodiles?!” Belle shouted as she swung her wrist out wide to the side, conjuring n additional layer of light blue shielding around her hands before casually knocking aside one of the energy orbs. It exploded in the woods at their side, and Sam looked towards the thicker layer of shields that was dissipated just as quickly, and things made even more sense than before.
At any time, Belle could have finished this fight, but she simply wanted to do it the right way for them...for him. Had he not been here, how long would it take her to actually finish the fight? Before Sam finished pondering that thought experiment, the Snapjaw ejected jets of steam from its body and elevated itself over the fire, gliding further in to Belle.
Another couple of shots were fired off at them from the Snapjaw's mouth, though it missed Belle out wide and hit the trees right behind them.
"The steam from the Snapjaws must have messed up their targetting systems," Sam said as Belle nodded, and she prepared to strike back. That was when the shadows of the trees were cast over her, and the moving darkness indicated the movements of the falling trees as she looked up and immediately dashing forward, narrowly avoiding being crushed under the first of the falling tree trunks as the extending branches swiped down onto her as each of them reflected off her own personal shields.
Dashing out to the side, she scanned the environment again when Sam pointed up and warned, “ANOTHER TWO!”
Leaping back, two more tree trunks slammed down with earth-shaking rumbles as Belle landed gracefully in a clearing located in between the triangle of fallen trees. Then, before the clouds of orange dust could even settle, eighteen glowing red dots lit up from beyond, followed by a trio of laser beams at the ready to send the two of them into the dirt.
“Fine fine…” Belle growled with annoyance, dropping the bow to the ground as the pieces of armor all over her body vibrated and hummed with a high frequency tone and more and more energy became pooled within armor, the air around her starting to heat up and become heavy as light seemed to warp around them.
That was when a single projectile dashed forward through the air, and the pallet landed with a light chime followed by the sounds of shattering ice as a white mist pushed aside the cloud of dust.
Twelve of the eighteen red dots became frozen in place, and Belle took a single step to the left to avoid the barrage of canon shots as the frozen bodies of the Snapjaws were revealed.
“Ice seemed to work well, because they are cold-blooded animals, I guess…” Sam said as Belle smiled and charged forward, the eyes of the two frozen Snapjaws were locked onto her, yet their bodies were unable to do anything. As she leaped off the ground from her run up, she swung one of her leg up to horizontal before aiming her arrows with her body reclined, firing off two clean shots and knocking off the horns of the Snapjaws with ease before Sam reached out and caught onto one of them.
“Hah! Nice one.” Belle laughed.
“You did say to do it properly, right?” Sam held both hands around the horn and gripped it tight before presenting it to her.
The horn itself was still frozen cold from the ice pallet, but thanks to the soft shields all around him and Belle, it simply felt like a jug with fluids contained within it without any of the codl burns. He looked up, and Belle’s waving a hand at him with the second horn in hand. They then loaded the fruits of their labor into the bucket as a progress bar was filled up to full immediately.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“Congratulations, you have now collected enough cooking oil for your main dish.” The bucket said as an opening emerged on the other side of the forest, “You may remain to clear out the rest of the Snapjaws for a bonus butter cake dessert.”
Belle’s already half-way out of the forest when the bucket shamelessly dangled the sidequest in front of them, and another progress bar of 33% floated right by it, both Sam and her let out a groan of annoyance.
“Are you thinking what I am thinking?” Belle asked without looking down, and she stood still in place as the Snapjaws chased after them.
“Anything for that dopamine hit, I guess…” Sam rolled his eyes and loaded up the sling shot with his ice pallets, “This better be the best damn butter cake I have ever eaten.”
Sam was actually a little disappointed when gravity returned to normal the moment they floated through the soft tunnel connecting the first habitat to the very next, and Belle offloaded him from the pouch before they returned to a more normal size ratio. They shared a glance as the bows and sling shots returned to the shapes of the generic blue rifles.
“Ok…I will admit.” Sam started, “It’s not that bad.”
“Right?!” Belle ran up to him and wrapped her arm around his neck before they started heading towards the second habitat.
“It’s…actually fun…it’s like nothing I have ever done before…” Sam continued as Belle started to skip forward like a kid, and he had to match her pace.
“Would you say your mind is blown?”
“I thought that’s not gonna happen until we get to the eating stage.”
The doors to the second space habitat slid open, and a thick smell of salt water flooded the room before they found themselves standing on a platform in an raging storm on an seemingly endless pool of water.
“Bucket, what’s this?” Sam asked.
“The Mineral Crystal located in the jaws of the Colossus Whale will be used to season the main course.” The bucket said, showing what appeared to be most cartoonishly drawn crystal to them before the blue rifles in Belle’s hands turned into a drill, and the one in Sam’s hands turned into a glowing red stick with multiple layers of metal sheeth connected to side.
"So I was right about fighting a monster for some salt..." Sam shrugged before looking down, “Hah, looks like it’s my turn to wield something menacing.”
With both hands on the red stick and his fingers wrapped around its body, Sam performed a slow flurry with the stick and nearly took off his own nose, “This is far cooler than a drill.”
“Um…” Belle said with her eyes behind a scanner and her finger pointing straight at Sam, “That’s actually a beacon.”
“A beacon?” Sam glanced down, “For boats?”
Before Belle could answer, two mountains suddenly rose up from the water on both sides of the platform and obscured the views of the ocean. However, as a bolt of lightning struck from above, the stormy skies above were also obscured as the mountains closed in, revealing the interlocking teeth the two of them became engulfed in darkness and started freefalling in it right after.
There's nothing more scary than a freefall in the dark, with no hints of where they are, where everything else is, and what they are heading towards.
“AHHHH!” Sam screamed as Belle’s armor glowed like a light show, and she sharpened the her posture and dived down to grab onto Sam with one hand before she swung her drill to the side, piercing it into the inner cavity of the Colossus Whale and slowing down their descent as blood and fat jetted out from the Whale's interior.
“I’ve got you! I’ve got you!” Belle repeated as Sam finally stopped flailing his arms as the beacon dropped down through the shaft.
“Butter fingers!” Sam cursed as they looked down, and the glowing red stick passed through countless waving tendrils on its way down, illuminating from just a split second before finally stopping at the very bottom where another source of light remained.
“Don’t worry, we will get it-” Belle said when suddenly, the world around them started to spin, and Sam felt his bodyweight pressing into the walls before everything was turned horizontal. Pushing his body upright and giving Belle a hand too, she then lit up the rest of the way with a light at from her forehead as countless green eyes turned and looked in their direction.
“Um…how necessary is that beacon again?” Sam asked as those green eyes started to move, and what looked like dark tendrils at first glance were instead fish skeletons with dark fluids supporting and growing out from its body like arms and legs of a zombie. In that instant, they all converged on the single source of light, and started moving towards them in synchrony.
"That's only your weapon for the rest of the day~"
"Shit."
“Don't tell me you aren't planning to fight through this.” Belle said, handing over the drill to Sam before taking a step forward and facing the army of zombie fish monsters head on, “Those things are how the Colossus Whale digests things. The dark fluids are its digestive fluids, and they taps into the spinal cords of those dead fish to control them.”
“That can’t be real…” Sam said when Belle lowered herself in front of him, and offered him a piggy back instead, “What could possibly be on the other side of this…”
“This is indeed how the Colossus Whale managed to dominate the Oceans on one of the most hostile ocean planets.” The bucket finally spoke up in the midst of a fight, “The Mineral Crystal within the core of its stomach contained countless metals and minerals that will turn the most bland of dishes into the utmost of delicacies.”
“And we just have to fight through the zombie horde to get it?” Sam said as Belle stood up and her pieces of armor hugged around her once again.
“I’ll do the leg work, and you just make sure to swing your drill around, okay?” Belle said, “I’ve got a lock on the Crystal, so I know where to go. Just... don’t drop the drill.”
“Hey, at least the gravity seemed easy to move around with…” Sam said, looping the belt of the drill around his arms and shoudlers before turning on the drill as Belle lowered herself, and dashed forward. Sensing her approach, the horde of zombie fish monsters started moving, and sounds of flapping fins filled the interior of the Colossus Whale.
When Sam swung his drill across, the spinning bits tore open the bodies of one of the zombies as rotten fish guts rained down on him, and he don’t even have time to wipe that off before three more jumped onto him. However, even more are simply blast apart by Belle’s lowered shoulder as she ran ahead like a running back.
Then, far out in the distance, and he meant really far out in the distance, his beacon was pinned into the glowing piece of crystals as a few more larger dormant monsters guarded it with their lives.
Man, the kind of bullshit I have to go through just to get a meal with a hottie.