Amy wove through a barrage of hypersonic projectiles. She felt them tear the air, their shockwaves screaming by. Her lenticular cloud skirt pumped hundreds of times per second like a jellyfish’s bell, propelling her avatar through the sky even faster. Those giant bullets moved faster still, but a straight path was a straight path. They couldn’t chase her down when she maneuvered. Kicking off blasts of her aerosol made for rapid changes in direction.

She forged an organ gun to return fire. It got shot out of the air mid-formation.

Alright. New tactic.

Amy zipped to the streets where they’d lose their line of sight. She stopped short.

Something was down there.

At first, she couldn’t tell what they were. She could barely feel them. They should have tickled at least. Focusing on the sensation, she realised they were numbing her.

Brainflies.

Swarming rivers of the critters poured through the streets like rising waters, pumped from the bases of the eldritch buildings. She wouldn’t function too well down there: a clever way to force her high into the air.

Plan three.

Amy zeroed in on John Crow as his aerosol drew him to the eyescraper’s top floor. One of the building’s tentacles whipped towards her faster than sound. Amy veered out of the way. Aerodynamic flaps snapped up along its length, steering it through the air. Organic jets spewed noxious fumes that pushed it forward and sideways ever faster.

It had followed her.

Everything seemed to slow as Amy’s startled mind accelerated. That tentacle was in her face, eclipsing her vision. She noticed a lone, yellow pustule on its surface, inches from impact.

"…̴̟̀ ̶̧̘̈́̏̊͝HŲ̵̥̞̇H̵̯̱̺̩̔?”̷͈͒̋

Amy grunted.

The tentacle struck.

Its force alone could bring down a small building, but that was hardly the whole story.

The pustule exploded.

*THOOOM!*

A bumpy bloom of repugnant, yellow gas billowed wide. Hot enough to cook a blue whale, it was a dim bomb.

The tentacle flew back from the recoil of its own blast.

Amy’s avatar was no more.

She spawned another one. A new, pustule-tipped tentacle reached her nearly instantly, propelled by the very chemicals that filled the dim bomb.

This time, she was prepared.

She threw up her claws, engulfing it in aerosol. The dim bomb went off. Aerokinesis warred against the chemical inferno. She pressed it back into the tentacle which writhed away, burning in its own secretions. The remaining blast washed over her nonetheless, throwing her back. This time, she remained intact.

After all, this was a battle avatar.

More tentacles pounced through the hot, chemical residue. She sensed no bumpy pustules. After a taste of their own medicine? Perhaps they’d hesitate to detonate dim bombs. Fine by her.

They converged upon the avatar.

Her lengthy arms split into four and went ablur.

*SSRRRRRMM!*

Sound couldn’t carry fast enough to encapsulate what she had done. The vicious details all came together in a homogenous blast.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Wounded tentacles flung apart from her in wild directions. One plunged deep into the street. Water erupted from asphalt as it struck a conduit. Webs of aerosol pinned in in place, anchoring the eyescraper. Another battered tentacle lopped off the top of a building, leaving its upper rooms bare. A third was shredded to ribbons, seemingly beyond repair, but these creatures were remarkable healers. They could semi-liquify their tissues and pump free-floating cells to the site of damage before solidifying whole again. The fact that some tentacles were still intact was a testament of hardiness she had never seen before. Given a little time, they’d be close enough to good as new.

Of course, she wasn’t planning to be generous.

Amy dashed for the top floor where John Crow’s aerosol tucked him away. Hypersonic projectiles ripped through the air where she’d once been. Her aerokinesis closed in on him. He slipped from its grip like a tiny fish through the claws of a grizzly.

Since when was that possible? Oh well. She’d manhandle him the old-fashioned way anyway.

Amy slapped aside an eager tentacle that sped to meet her. It clearly learnt nothing from the fate of its peers. She felt the bump of a dim bomb’s pustule on the opposite side of the tentacle. If it detonated, she’d be mostly safe.

There was a downside to supersonic tentacles weighing dozens of tons: Momentum. Strikes were fast, but their recovery for another blow was slow.

Or so she thought.

John Crow glanced back at her as she neared him. He cracked a toothy sneer. His dreadlock had slotted into the nervous tissue of a keyhole, usually used by landlords to control their buildings.

The dim bomb of the tentacle she’d slapped blew up. It was angled away from her. What was the point of-?

Oh, wait …

The backlash propelled the tentacle into her, slapping the avatar back. She reeled, fighting to right herself as she felt something else. The tentacle she’d embedded in the street had blasted its way free, rearing high into the sky under the force of its dim bomb. Another blast and it crashed into her avatar, which went flying into the midst of three peeping buildings.

She cratered into the ground. Brainflies hungrily surrounded the avatar, sapping its mental activity. She tried to rise. The peeping buildings pummeled her deeper into the dirt and concrete like a roach that absolutely had to die.

“GET OUT OF MY WAY!” boomed the landlord of a larger building through its organic sound-casters.

Tipped with compressed vehicles, his main two tentacles were like mallets. He shoved away the other the other buildings, chipping at their structures before pounding the avatar with a vengeance.

“HEY AMY! REMEMBER ME?” he laughed. “HOW’S IT FEEL TO GET JUMPED? SPEAK UP, GURL! I CAN’T HEAR YA! WHO’S ALPHA NOW, HUH!? WHERE’S THAT STUPID GRIN? SHOW ME DEM NASTY TEETH!”

He spat on her: something ordinarily impossible for a building, but he’d asked John Crow to install an organ for that purpose. The mercenary liked his spunk. Game recognised game. The organ in question spurted enough acidic mucus to bathe an elephant to the bone.

John Crow giggled like a gremlin. For all the mockery she’d put him through? Things were looking up!

He fondly ran his claws along the folds of neurological matter on the walls. The room’s nervous system buzzed to life on a new level. Forget keyholes. He was so much more than a landlord.

His dreadlocks whipped out in all directions, integrating with the tissue.

Meanwhile, the gentle, rosy light of Amy’s lesser avatar fell upon Norman as she hovered over him. Her tendrils tasted his mental aura. The brainwaves were always kinda weird, but they suggested consciousness. However, he wasn’t moving. She couldn’t sense any pain. Her aerosol rippled over him, scanning for injuries as best it could. Was it safe to move him?

She winced as her battle avatar took a blow that almost caved its head. Spawning another two would probably squad wipe these guys, but battle avatars took a lot of focus and her biomass did strange things when pushed too far too fast. Just holding it together under the onslaught demanded much of her attention. The rest was on Norman. She could be their punching bag for all she cared, so long as it kept the battle far away from Norman. The avatar attending him was lightweight: not made for epic conflicts. She hoped its electromagnetic signature was small enough to avoid enemy attention.

“… Norman? You okay?” Amy asked tentatively.

Though he remained face-planted on the ground, Norman raised a thumb.

She giggled into a relieved sigh and lifted him to his feet aerokinetially. “Let’s get out of here.”

Brainflies flooded the room. They came much faster than she’d expected. Was the building releasing them internally?

Amy’s aerokinesis failed, dropping Norman. She moved to catch him, but her avatar disintegrated.

He fell back on his face.

At the top floor, John Crow’s dreadlocks raised him to the centre of the massive room, finding leverage on all sides thanks to the fleshy walls. Brainflies spiraled around him like a whirlwind. He flexed his muscles as the power of a titan synced up with his psyche. Dread’s aerosol hummed, harmonising with the signals dancing through the air.

Now, he was prepared.

His voice boomed from the eyescraper’s sound projectors.

“̵̨̬͂A̷̩͐̅M̶͉̋́Y̸̢̹̕!̵̤̥̀"̶̝̻̚

̶̘̲́̓"̷̗́̐LET̷̬̈́̊’̶͍̣̽̿S̷͙̕͜͠ ̴̡̧̄͑P̷͖͋̍A̸̝̒̚IN̸̡͗́T̴̥͆ ̵̝̅T̷̖͋͒H̶̖̦̐̚E ̸̢̹̀Ṫ̵͇͕Ȏ̷̯͑W̸̤̫̿N̶̖̐ ̶͉̥̀Ŕ̴̨͓ED̴͍̿!̶͚̬̊̆”̴̯̌͜