-The primary danger to the two of you is not the tentacles, but the spores. Master Fuego, keep a burning aura of light up above your scales. If the brown mold touches you, it will drain your heat at an exponential rate. Master Mono, redirect the lightning from your soul gauntlets over your golden fur to fry the spores before they can touch you. They will start the process of rotting your flesh otherwise.-
Both of the great kaiju blinked as the consequences of ignoring the spore cloud were made very obvious. The crackling lightning around the great ape’s hands faded away, but his golden fur seemed to hum and stand on end. Ripples of fire began to peel out from under Fuego’s dark scales, looking like waves of fire flowing down him from inside his dark body, while his crest heated up with rippling, almost prismatic light that refracted through the flames.
-That thing is bigger than both of you combined, but it is not stronger than you. You’ll get one good shot with an elemental attack, and then it’ll void-adapt to it. I’d save it for cooking its insides.-
The fires building inside Fuego slowed and steadied.
-Keep your Primal fire circulating around your teeth if you want to bite it, don’t let that shit inside you. Its primary ranged attack is a thunderclap spore cloud, trying to drive spores into you at massive speed. When you see that sphincter rotate towards you, get out of its way. Master Fuego, you can counter it by breathing against it at the same time. Master Mono, I suggest an energetic shoulder roll.-
The two kaiju began to step aside cautiously, Fuego moving oddly quietly, barely disturbing the ground despite comparing favorably in weight with a castle keep.
-Your primary goal is to bring it down to the ground, rip it open, and then fucking bake the shit out of its insides. Master Mono, this is up to you. You’re going to have to grab several of those tentacles, and keep the bastard pinned down. It doesn’t have the slightest idea that Master Fuego can reach it right now, but it can certainly try to get away from him.
-Do this right, and it’s going to be a really, really short fight. You two are the Team Supreme, and this alien fucktard from outside space and time doesn’t have a chance against you.-
Both of them bellowed out their agreement, +VIII lights gleamed around paws and fangs respectively.
-Okay, Master Mono, take the lead. It’ll slap at you... grab one or two of those tentacles, hold them tight, and then jump away when it bombs you. Master Fuego, prepare to jump!-
The huge ape rumbled forwards fearlessly, muscles like great engines pulling with energy unaffected by millennia of sleep.
Trailing tentacles hundreds of yards long twitched and bulged, beginning to sway, and as he closed in, the four biggest of them lashed out.
They were the size of a train, bristling with unnatural energies, shreds of space tearing around them.
The great tusked monkey was totally unimpressed, moving with incredible grace and precision for something massing more than a cruise liner. We all watched as his massive hand grabbed the first one to come in, taking the impact with a crunching sound that made us all flinch way over here, snatched the second out of the air equally smoothly as the Mu Spore rotated –
-Roll left, spin on your butt, and catch the last two!-
He bounced a hundred yards through the air as the sound of the Mu Spore’s ejection rang out, and the ground around where he had been standing erupted in millions of little holes from spores launched like railguns. In eyeblinks, a carpet of molds, fungi, and, lichens was growing across the area, and stands of fungi were heaving themselves up with great speed.
We were all a mile away, and half the watchers staggered back, blood spurting out from their eyes, ears, and noses. Without a single word from me, they ran away, and those in the air managed to land just seconds before the displaced wind slammed past us like a hurricane.
-Disease Cures online!- I /snapped, and just about all the non-Vajras and disease-immune people elected to get the fuck out of there right now. The air was now officially Full of Shit, which would remain active until the Mu Spore was gone or out of range. Breath Masks and visors came down, but were only a stop gap. The spores could take root in the tiniest gap, and the only effective defense was immunity or not being in the area.
The Ape Emperor was down and spinning like a break-dancer, prehensile feet whipping out to capture the other two primary tentacles, spinning, spinning as he tightened his grip, and began to braid the tentacles together, which not incidentally made them useless, and a big thick rope extending up to the Mu Spore was now in place. Freaking huge it might be, but it wasn’t strong enough to lift another kaiju up there so quickly, especially one as strong and active as Emperor Mono.
-Master Fuego, catch some air.-
His teeth were glowing like white-hot little stars longer than a man was tall, the area inside his mouth like the surface of a sun. He took a step forward... and up, great rolling fiery mists lifting him up off the ground as his Soulshaped Cloudstepping Sandals at Five Slots did their thing.
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
Every step forward fifty yards forward and half that up, picking up speed remarkably fast; don’t be trying to outrun a kaiju now, people! The air was burning out of his way, and the Mu Spore was obviously a little bit perturbed to see thousands of tons of air-walking fire dino coming his way. It didn’t need wings, so why did Tyrant Fuego?
It would realize it could Dispel the Shaping in mere seconds, but seconds were what it did not have. Emperor Mono had it lashed tight in place, and Tyrant Fuego was now above it and leaping.
Damn, those talons looked really impressive spread like that, the ends of them shining like starfire.
Impact. Air shockwave, Mu Spore crashing down to the ground at the end of a rope made of its own tentacles, dust heaving up, Mono getting dragged a hundred yards with the impact. There were endless spots of light about the two of them as spores ignited or were frazzled in walls of lightning. Mono was lit up like an electric light, barely visible beneath the fine currents of lightning protecting him.
The sound of the impact hit us in a visible wall of air again, heavyfoot bracing to withstand it, just too damn loud, especially with the reverb effect of the space inside the Mu Spore. Yay for Thunder Resistance...
-He’s cracked the shell! Master Mono, get up there and pull it open. Master Fuego, give those tentacles a spinal roll.-
The burning dino looked down, and his spinal crest flared with light as he eyed the mass of writhing pseudopods below.
The saw-like crest turned hot, hot white as Master Fuego simply fell over, tucking his head as he did so.
Weight of kaiju plus thin nuclear-level hot cutting edge maketh for a sweet pressure cutter.
Master Mono was on his feet and charging even as Master Fuego hit the ground, and a zillion minor tentacles splurted out of the Mu Spore’s body as all those primary tentacles were severed under just way too much weight. The distance to the Mu’s body was covered in two bounds, and then Master Mono was leaping higher than his own head, springs in them legs to not be believed, and his fists came down on those glowing hot holes poked in the Mu Spore’s shell.
The crack of that meters-thick shell breaking was awful, sounding like something was breaking in space itself, corrupted psionic energies and unclean innards jolted free. Master Mono put his feet on one side of the crack, grabbed the other, and heaved.
The shell began to crack audibly under the power of the Ape Emperor. Pseudopods were flailing at his braced feet, stuff was starting to grow on him, but he ignored it as he heaved.
-Kick away!-
Fuego’s taloned feet grabbed the air with flaming mist, and heaved. Like a rocket, he slid out of the way as another sphincter blast shot by, barely clipping the edge of his tail as he rolled and was back on his feet, grinding to a halt, and turning around.
-Open it up and cook the bastard.-
Emperor Mono bellowed, and the massive ball of crackling lightning he looked like right now heaved, splitting that opening wider. Tyrant Fuego zeroed in on it like it was the tastiest appetizer, all the cracks between his scales started to glow, and he charged in, waves of fire converging on his throat as he drove his horned muzzle into that opening and let it all go.
I very distinctly felt all the dragons in the distance swallow in utter envy.
It was a combination of fire, force, and Radiance; he poured it inside that Mu Spore where it couldn’t bounce it, and it was in much too much pain from Mono ripping it open to try to absorb it. The impact rolled the Mu Spore right over, but neither Mono nor Fuego let go, latching on and rolling with it, tens of thousands of tons of kaiju heaving over in earth-shaking fury as a thing comfy in the endless night between the stars got to feel a sun going off inside it.
When its underside blew away and vented stinking Mu up into the sky in a blast of fire over half a mile long, we were pretty sure it was dead.
-----------
Both combatants came back to their feet, staring at the Mu Spore between them.
Its underside was a fused mess of ugh. Half its shell was cracked open, then fused with escaping flames so hot even that unnaturally tough stuff had charred.
The charged spores everywhere lost their energy, I could feel it on my Null.
-If it’s not too much trouble, Tyrant Fuego, I think it would be prudent to get it from the bottom up once, too.- He agreed with me, taking delicate steps sideways as Mono moved out of the way. -Master Mono, start circulating that lightning in your mouth, nose, lungs, eyes, and ears. Make sure no spores are hiding away in bad spots.-
He wrinkled his nose, looking at the riot of fungi that had exploded in size, been shredded, and then grown even higher with the second blast. The inactive spores were no longer a threat, but any that got onto mucous membranes could be an issue. He now understood why I had him grab the Shock Gauntlets despite the Cloudstepping Sandals having a much cooler effect.
He could grab them tomorrow, after all. There was just a small amount of Karma coming from defeating a Mu Spore Kaiju... not that he probably needed it.
Master Fuego built up his fire carefully, and when he cooked it again, it was like directing a solar flare into a cauldron. The thing’s shell actually survived the heat, it was actually that tough, but there was nothing inside it that was going to.
Aie, Mu Spore Kaiju Goop, no more! Oh, what that might have been able to do...
Of course, there were those severed tentacles... mwahahahah! Even if they were the size of a train...
-Haror, I want a full inspection of Master Fuego’s scales for brown mold. Zip all around him and find where it’s hiding, shouldn’t be too hard. Master Fuego, could we get one light ultraviolet breath for all those damn mushrooms there?-
The fiery kaiju turned around, looked at the writhing mess of moving, unnaturally-hued stuff born from the ultra-fart of the Mu Spore, and his spinal crest began to cycle up into color past the normal visible light range, painting everything in weirdness.
The following breath was very diffused, remarkably gentle, and lit the world up in some really garish hues. However, it eroded the fungi blanket below like a disintegration field. They corroded away in seconds, and his big eyes didn’t miss any of them, his breath easily able to cover the same area as the fart had, and wiping them all away.
Yeah, they might have been valuable, but you know, I just didn’t care right now. We weren’t at 400x time, able to loot everything.
Looking like little moths flying around him, the angelic haror came swooping in around him, plugged their eyes into his Markdoor so he could see through all of their eyes at once, and went over every inch of his dimmed-down scales with a fine-tooth comb.
There were sixty-two different pockets of heat-sucking brown mold tucked away in steaming, icy packets here and there down the length of him, especially the tip of his tail. He huffed and waited patiently as blasts of icy Cantrips killed them all, even some around the edge of his jaws after his spinal roll, and he waited until they all retreated a safe distance before a simple shake sent a shockwave down the length of his body and cleaned the frozen things off.