Monsterland, Part 2

Six and a half years ago…

"Pssst! Hey, Charlotte!"

Charlotte looked up from her textbook, somewhat annoyed at having been interrupted. She had been reading about andalites, one of the rarest and most reclusive species to have ended up in the Puella Magi afterlife. She wasn't a full page into the chapter and already she was dismayed at the species' scarcity and shyness, because as far as she could tell, andalites rocked! Who wouldn't wanted a graceful, lavender, alien centaur warrior/scientist with four eyes and a bladed tail as a friend? And the pictures that had been taken of their homeworld were absolutely gorgeous! It was an entire planet of flowering meadows, bizarre trees, and adorable animals, with the occasional unbelievably cool looking spaceport. The fact that they disliked tourists was a damned shame.

"Charlotte. Hey, Charlotte. Check this out!"

Sighing, Charlotte put her book down and glanced over the side of the top bunk she had been assigned. At the moment, she and several other members of her integration class were on a week-long seminar focused around learning all about the various extraterrestrial beings that existed alongside the humans here in this strange world, hence the textbook. Thus far, Charlotte's time with the Freehaven Integration Bureau had been sort of rocky, what with the constant counseling and therapy, weird crap that was really hard to get used to, her various classmates often having disturbing breakdowns, and Mami. That last part was the hardest. Mami still wasn't adjusting well, and though she never said anything, Charlotte knew it was her fault. She had been the one to kill her, after all. What was she supposed to say to her after having that hang over them?

However, this particular part was undeniably awesome. If there was one thing that Charlotte found unequivocally cool about the afterlife, it was the aliens. They were just so interesting! From the moment Charlotte learned that there were intelligent species other than humans present, she had become fascinated by each and every one, from their anatomy to their culture to their planets to their cuisine to their technology to their…oh, the list went on and on. So having a full week devoted exclusively to them was the coolest thing to happen to her thus far. Sure, being away from the Nautilus Platform for that long of a time was sort of scary, but screw it, they were going to learn about aliens!

Since Charlotte was a witch and a bit more well-adjusted than most, she had been put with the advanced class. And by that, they meant "least likely to have a breakdown and be sent home." Most of the girls she was sharing the small cabin with were also witches. She knew a lot of them from her classes and therapy groups, so that made it easier. And a few of them were just as gaga over the aliens as she was, which was really making things fun.

Specifically, Annette and Cleo, who were grinning up at her. "Guess what we got?" Cleo sing-songed, holding up a data chip.

Charlotte stared at her. "What?"

"It's porn, isn't it?" Nuriel said from the bunk beneath her. This set off a chorus of giggles from all around the cabin. "Come on, it's alien porn, right? 'Horny Jott Schoolgirls Love Vaskergoros Milkbags, IV!'"

"No, no," Annette snickered. "It's better than porn."

"Blasphemy and lies!"

Cleo shushed her laughing cabin-mates. "Oh, believe me, it is," she said in a low, conspiratorial whisper. There was something about her tone that made the other girls hush up. They all turned their attention toward her, curious about what she had that was so great.

Holding the data-chip like it was the key to the kingdom, Cleo grinned mischievously and said, "You know how there's like this one alien race that they won't tell us anything about? How every time we ask, they just say that we aren't ready to learn about these guys?"

Charlotte immediately perked up, her book forgotten. "You didn't," she breathed.

"Yup," Cleo said, holding up her prize triumphantly. "We did."

"And not just the usual informative stuff," Annette said. "This is the hardcore stuff, the documentary they show to anyone wanting to go find these guys to make them scared peeless!"

"But how? They don't let us go anywhere near those!"

"Who cares?" Nuriel said, sliding out of her bunk. "Plausible deniability! C'mon, let's see what the fuss is all about!"

Cleo plugged the data-chip into the cabin's small HoloVid, and most of the girls huddled around, nervously excited about what they were about to watch. At the start of the film, a bold warning popped up, warning any viewers of the graphic images they were about to see.

"Wow," Annette whistled. "These guys really are hardcore!"

Missy, of the more hesitant girls started to squirm a bit. "Guys, maybe we'd better not-"

"Shhh!"

Rapt with curiosity, they stared through the introduction, which contained another warning. Then, they got their first glimpse of the infamous twelfth species of the afterlife. "What is that?" Cleo said, frowning. "Some kind of bug?"

"Uh, I don't know…"

"Dockengaut? Man, even their name is badass!"

Then they watched some more.

"Oh," Cleo said, her eyes widening. "Oh, that is…I was not expecting…"

"Cool," Annette said with a grin. "How do they-"

Then they watched some more.

"Oh, wait," another of the girls said. "It's not going to-"

Then the screams from the video began. Missy abruptly got up and left the cabin.

"Oh, my god," Cleo gasped, her hand covering her mouth. "Oh my god."

"This…what…oh shit. Oh shit. That poor kid."

Nuriel started gagging. She quickly moved away to the cabin's small bathroom.

"Are these…are these real?" Annette said, her face now completely pale. "Like did they really…"

Then a low gasp of horror went up. Several other girls quickly exited the cabin, including the two rogues that had brought the forbidden documentary in the first place. Not Charlotte though. She just sat in silence, staring with her mouth slightly agape, hands shaking as nightmare images paraded in front of her and tinny screams filled the cabin.

…

Now…

Kyoko could not remember a time she had seen Charlotte look so scared. The girl's face was already the color of alabaster, but now it looked like she had iced over. Her hands were trembling, and her sky-blue eyes darted back and forth in anticipation of an attack that could come at any second.

To tell the truth, Kyoko was more than a bit nervous herself. After meeting that tall asshole outside of Cloudbreak's skyport, Charlotte and Mami had given her a bit of a crash-course about the dockengauts. And she had to admit, they sounded like pretty terrifying bastards. After all, who wouldn't be scared of an entire race of cannibalistic sociopaths? But even so, she was having trouble figuring out why things like the covens only warranted careful readiness and these guys made everyone fly into blind panic.

"Charlotte," she said in a low voice. "Hey. Get a grip, okay?"

"A grip?" Charlotte said. She let out a slightly demented sounding giggle. "A grip, you say? Oh great. We're minutes away from being eaten alive, and I'm supposed to get a grip." Then she drew herself up, her face darkening ever so slightly. "Do you have any idea how much trouble-Mmph!"

Mami had clamped one hand over Charlotte's mouth and the around her front. "Char, no," she whispered. "I know you're scared, but if you start yelling, it'll give our position away."

Looking abashed, Charlotte nodded, and Mami released her.

Mami, it should be noted, also looked extremely disturbed, but she seemed to have better control over her nerves than her wife. "All right," she said, motioning for everyone to duck down out of sight. "Now listen: Charlotte was not exaggerating about the danger. Dockengauts have their territories walled off for a reason. We've already told you about the dockengauts themselves, but what you need to understand is that everything in this place is dangerous and will actively try to kill us. Very few who end up here ever come out again, and if we wish to be a statistical minority, we need to keep our heads down and stay alert at all times. Stay low and hide as much as you can. Run if you're found. Fight only if absolutely necessary." She fixed first Kyoko with a long, hard look before directing it toward Sayaka. "It doesn't matter what powers we possess or how good we are at fighting. As of now, we are the prey. Act like it."

Kyoko initial reaction was to say something pithy. She really wasn't one to react well to being told that she was weaker than the current threat and should run instead of fight. However, between the time that attitude had developed and now both Etherdale and Marsters had happened. So instead she pushed the impulse away and nodded. "More than like they noticed our arrival," she pointed out.

"Oh, they did," Charlotte said through gritted teeth. "Ten to one there's hordes of monsters stalking us right now."

"If that's true, we'll do what we can to avoid them" Mami said. "If I have to, I'll make decoys to make them think they got us."

"Okay," Sayaka said. "But can't I just-" Then she grimaced.

Kyoko tiled her head. "Can you what?"

Sayaka shot her a sour look. "Can't I just…" She broke off again and shook her head.

"Oktavia?" Mami said. "What is it?"

"C'mon," Kyoko coaxed. "Spit it out."

"Fine," Sayaka muttered. Taking a deep breath, she finally said, "Can't I just make another flying wheel and lift us out of here?"

"Sure," Charlotte said hoarsely. "If you want to throw us right out into the open."

"So I'll go fast."

"We'll probably have to," Mami said. She took a deep breath of her own. "Okay, here's what we'll do. We'll make another platform and move as fast as possible. I'll provide cover fire, and Kyoko will cover us with shields. Hopefully that'll protect us long enough to-"

"Too late," Charlotte said woodenly. She pointed to the sky. "They've found us."

Several strange flying animals were now snaking through the air above them. Their bodies were long and serpentine, at the end of which was a sucker-like mouth, lined with row after row of sharklike teeth, with four bladed feelers creeping out of their maw. Extending out in all directions from their eyeless heads were eight long limbs, each ending with a skeletal three-fingered claw. Stretching between those limbs and from the claws to the tip of the tail were black, leathery membranes. The creatures swooped this way and that, opening and closing their sails to gain or lose speed, emitting piercing cries that abruptly rose and fell in pitch.

They sort of reminded Kyoko of a cross between a deep-sea fish and Chinese dragon kite. Whatever they were, they obviously weren't friendly. They were clustered around the cliff face Sayaka had driven her wheelchair across, searching blindly while occasionally fighting amongst themselves. Kyoko saw one smaller one take a bite out of a larger, older specimen with ragged sails. The big veteran immediately spun around and sunk its feelers into the younger ones side. As if reacting to a signal, three others immediately converged on the smaller one, using their claws and feelers to tear off chunks of flesh and stuff them into their gaping mouths.

"Miscus," Charlotte said. "They're…well, exactly what they look like."

"Guys," Sayaka said. She pointed. "I think that one's spotted us."

One of the miscus had broken off from the main…flock? Swarm? Actually, murder was the most appropriate description Kyoko could think of. Regardless, one had separated itself from the others and was hovering near where the girls were hiding. Furthermore, its sightless face was pointed in their direction.

Mami lifted a sniper-rifle, no doubt intending to kill the thing before it raised an alarm. As for Kyoko, she braced herself to flee.

Then she felt something hot and sticky land on her shoulder. This was followed by the realization that there was something hovering directly over her head.

Looking up, she found herself staring at a long, crocodilian snout covered with a bony crest, with two scythe-like mandibles curving around either side of its mouth. It was attached to a long, segmented body, like an overgrown centipede that someone had stripped the legs off of and covered with bone protrusions. Hot drool dripped from its jaws.

The monster opened its mouth. Inside was the expected number of teeth: fairly normal for the local brand of insanity, and way, way too many for any place else.

Now Kyoko was in something of a no-win scenario. She was reasonably certain that she could kill the thing, but not without attracting the attention of the murder of miscus, which would likely result in all four of them getting torn into smoking shreds. However, doing nothing would get her head bitten off. And she only had about three seconds to decide what to do.

A spear, Kyoko realized as the armored snake reared up over her. Straight into its mouth. Pierce the brain. Yeah, that should-

Then Mami, who had yet to notice the monstrosity currently hovering directly over their heads, chose that moment to fire.

Maybe what happened was a trick of the wind. Maybe the miscus twitched at exactly the right time in exactly the right way. Maybe Mami was just spent and not able to concentrate like she was normally able. Whatever the reason, her skills chose that moment to fail, and she missed. The bullet sailed right past the miscus and plunged into the murder.

The miscus she had been aiming at let out a shriek of outrage and warning, but it was no longer the necessary. The others had not definitely noticed them.

"Oh no," Mami whispered, her face contorting into a grimace.

The armored snake jerked back then, the menace in its snarl replaced by a whuffing sound of surprise and alarm when it realized that the murder of miscus was now focusing on its location. Growling, Kyoko stabbed her spear right up into the unprotected flesh below its jaw and up into its brain. "Nice shot," she said sarcastically as the thing writhed on her pole.

Mami's shoulders slumped. "I'm sorry, I thought I had-" Then she finally took notice of the thing Kyoko was busy killing. "Oh, my God! Where did that-"

"Ask questions later, run now!" Charlotte snapped, and they did. Kyoko jerked her spear out, leaving the thing to twitch and whimper as she and her friends fled the premises. As she ran, she glanced briefly over her shoulder to see the murder of miscus descending upon the armored snake. As it turned out, all of those bony coverings didn't do it much good when it had already been dealt a mortal wound. It only prolonged its death.

Wincing, Kyoko turned away and ran faster. Well, at least it had bought them a little bit of a head start, for all the good it would do them.

They fled away from the cliff, heading toward a field of short, purple…stuff. It was some kind of plant, yet, but it was too tough and springy to be grass. Whatever, Kyoko didn't care, so long as it didn't nip at her heels she was fine with it.

The miscus, however, seemed to have nothing but nipping on the mind.

Sayaka and Charlotte took the lead, the former because her magic wheels meant that she was far faster than any of the others, and the latter due to not having to slow down to ward off the screeching threat. Mami and Kyoko deliberately lagged behind, with the blonde veteran blasting away every miscus that got close while Kyoko threw up shields at strategic times, disrupting the murder's formation. It worked better than expected, as for every miscus that Mami shot down, another five would break off from the chase to tear it apart. And every time Kyoko threw an obstacle in their path, it would get them fighting amongst themselves, further slowing down the swarm.

It wasn't enough though. Not nearly enough.

"They're gaining," Kyoko said. She was trying to keep her voice calm, but the prospect of getting ripped to shreds was eating away at her bravado. "Uh, Mami? Charlotte? Any bright ideas?"

Mami briefly glanced at her before shooting another down. That one look was enough to tell Kyoko that her friend had no eleventh hour solutions to offer. She gulped.

"Get on!" Sayaka called from up ahead. "I'm faster than them! So get on already!"

"We're gonna have to install sidecars on that thing," Kyoko panted.

"Less talk, more run," Mami said shortly.

Sayaka had come to a brief stop near the foot of a weirdly shaggy looking hill, one that was covered with thick brown grass. She beckoned to her friends to hurry up.

"Okay, get ready to make with the ribbons," Kyoko called over to Mami. "And the guns, come to think of it."

Mami shot her another look, this one more annoyed at being told to do what she was already preparing to do.

They were only a few meters away from Sayaka when the hill started to move.

It rose up behind the mermaid, leaving a long and deep impression in the ground beneath it. Kyoko gaped up at it. Holy shit, it wasn't a hill at all. It was an animal. No, wait, that word fell far short of describing the behemoth rising before them. It was a monster, a beast straight out of her childhood Kaiju movies. It somewhat resembled a dinosaur, a brachiosaur to be specific. Except instead of reptilian skin, it was covered with long, thick, matted brown fur like a mammoth. Its neck was as long as an airplane, and its head was the size of a city bus. Its lower jaw protruded out from under its mouth to a sharp point, and two massive horns curled around its head. It didn't have any visible eyes, but that didn't seem to bother it any. It opened its mouth, revealing teeth the size of boulders, and let out a low, earth-shaking bellow.

Then it swung its neck around to face the approaching murder of miscus.

"Oh my God," Charlotte whispered as she gazed up at the giant. In contrast to her earlier terror, her voice was now filled with awe. "A bahemont. A real live bahemont."

"Groovy," Kyoko said, also staring up. Even on this world they had pretty much the same word for big-ass monster thing. "Is it going to eat us?"

"No, they're herbivores. But-"

Suddenly the bahemont surged forward, it massive body move far too quickly than anything of that size had any business moving. It snapped at the murder of miscus and got a real mouthful. Several were crushed instantly, squirting blueish-purple blood out from its jaws.

"Ah!" Kyoko said as the resulting shockwaves knocked her down. "Herbivore! What?"

"Well, they are!" Charlotte shouted back. "But that doesn't meant they take any sass!"

The miscus had gone mad with fury. They surged around the enormous beast, trying to dig in with their bladed feelers. However, nothing they did could penetrated its layers of fur. Instead, it just swung its head to one side and the next, knocking them out of the air.

Then it reared up on its hind legs.

"Oh crap," Kyoko said. The thing was now taller than most skyscrapers. And she was willing to bet that it weighed even more.

"Yeah, uh," Charlotte said as she turned away. "We'd better…"

They tried to run, but it didn't matter. The bahemont came down, and when it did, the shockwave knocked them all off their feet or wheels and sent them sprawling.

And then the ground cracked and dropped about half a meter.

The bahemont reared up again and stomped down with its forelegs, scattering the miscus. What happened next neither Kyoko nor her friends ever found out, because that it when the ground gave way beneath them.

Apparently they had been standing over a deep chasm covered with only a few meters of earth. The next thing any of them knew, they were falling into the earth, while the bahemont continued to bellow as it did battle with the flying terrors above, oblivious to the tiny creatures it had just sent plunging to their doom.

Fortunately, Kyoko was very good at falling.

Before she had even fallen four meters, Kyoko had regained control over her body's tumbling. She twisted around, bunched her legs up, and shoved off a couple of shields she had called up. This rocketed her down in a straight line at a 120 degree angle instead of flailing about all the way down. Then, right before she hit the crevice wall, she flipped around, summoned up another set of shields, and bounded off in the opposite direction. She would have used the wall itself to leap off of, but at this point she was unwilling to trust it. For all she knew there were swarms of flesh-eating bugs right beneath the crust that would swarm out all over her the second her boots made contact.

As Kyoko ricocheted her way down, she saw that her companions were making their way in their own respective styles. Charlotte kept snagging the crevice walls with her wires and allowing them to stretch until they reached the end of their tension before springing her back up again. Then she retracted them and let herself fall even further before doing it again, continuously arresting her momentum before hitting terminal velocity. Mami had taken a similar strategy to Kyoko and bouncing from wall to wall, using her ribbons as springs. And Sayaka…

Kyoko grimaced. Sayaka had sort of fallen out of her wheelchair entirely, and the two of them were tumbling in freefall. Judging by how limp the mermaid had gotten, she was either too petrified with terror to do anything about it or had passed out. Crap, crap, crap, crap.

"Swordfish!" Kyoko shouted. "Hang on!"

She leapt her way towards the tumbling mermaid and grabbed her with both arms. Holding tightly to Sayaka's waist, Kyoko then leapt off of another shield and shot toward the wheelchair. She hit the seat with both feet, further sending it into a spin. So she threw up some shield-plates.

A lot of them. In a line that curved downward and tilted inward in a tight spiral.

Kyoko laughed with exhilaration as the wheelchair hit the twisting ramp and rode it all the way down. She was crouched in its seat, gripping tightly to Sayaka, teeth bared in a grin and ponytail flying behind her. It was now so dark that she couldn't even see where they were going, forcing her to use magic emitting from her shields to guide the thing down. It hadn't even been half an hour and already the ride along the cliff's face had been topped.

Then she heard Mami shout, "Kyoko! Kill the ramp!"

Well, why not? Kyoko let the shields she had been riding vanish, and the wheelchair reentered freefall. In pitch darkness. In the middle of a deep crevice far beneath the surface of a notoriously dangerous planet. Man, this day really was devoted to escalating its own insanity.

However, Kyoko fell for only a moment. Then several ribbons snagged the wheelchair from all directions, bringing its momentum to a halt. Kyoko and her ride hung in space for a few moments, and then the ribbons vanished, allowing it to fall the remaining half a meter to the ground.

Body shaking, Kyoko collapsed fully into the wheelchair's seat, settling somewhere between an exhausted slouch and a liquid state. Sayaka did pretty much the same, flopping on top of her like, well, a dead fish. Kyoko knew she was going to have to surrender the chair fully to its rightful owner eventually, but damn it, she had just risked her neck to save the damned thing, she deserved a little R and R.

Then she felt something approach from behind. Kyoko stiffened, and almost swung for it, but Charlotte's voice hastily whispered, "It's me, it's me. Are you guys all right?"

"We're fine," Kyoko grunted, struggling to sit up under Sayaka's weight. The mermaid had yet to move, through judging by how tightly she was holding onto Kyoko's neck she wasn't unconscious. "So. Where the hell are we?"

There was another pause, and then Charlotte said, "Anyone sense anything?"

"No," Kyoko heard Mami say from nearby. "But that doesn't mean much."

"Right," Charlotte sighed. "Okay then, hang on a second."

A halo of light sprang to life around the quartet, emitting from a plastic bracelet on Charlotte's wrist. Mami was standing nearby, looking winded but otherwise okay.

"Okay," Kyoko said. She shifted around and tried to slip Sayaka back into her chair. However, the mermaid was still clinging to her like a frightened child, her face all but burrowed into Kyoko's neck.

"Hey," she said, trying to untwist Sayaka's fingers. "Hey, it's okay. It's over."

There was a pause, and then Sayaka said into Kyoko's shoulder, "No it isn't."

"Keep your voices down," Charlotte hissed. The pinkette was busy inspecting their surroundings with her light. There was something odd about her footsteps. Whatever she was walking on, it was crunching loudly. That couldn't be a good sign.

"How is she?" Mami said, walking toward them.

"She's fine," Kyoko said. "Just freaked."

Working together, Kyoko and Mami coaxed Sayaka into letting go of Kyoko's neck and got her to settle back into her trust chair. However, the trembling didn't stop. "Can we…" she seethed through gritted teeth as she clamped a death grip onto her armrests, "…please stop…falling off of things?"

"Not exactly a problem anymore," Kyoko remarked, looking about at their subterranean surroundings.

"See how long that lasts," Sayaka growled. "Doesn't matter where we are, we keep falling off of things!"

"Guys, please," Mami begged. "Keep it down."

"Yeah, seriously, not the time," Charlotte said as she continued to look around. "Because this doesn't look good."

Everyone hushed up at that. "What is it?" Mami said.

Kyoko directed her attention down to the floor. Kneeling down, she shone her light to get a better look of what they were walking on. "Oh crap," she said when she realized what Charlotte was concerned about.

Charlotte fiddled with her bracelet, and the light increased, illuminating the whole of the cavern.

They place they had found themselves in was about twenty meters high from ground to ceiling and another fifty meters in width. As for its length, it was impossible to really tell. It was more a tunnel than a room, one that stretched seemingly into infinity.

And every square centimeter of the ground was littered with bones.

Old, browning bones. Fresh white bones. Large femurs the size of construction pylons. Tiny, fragile slivers. Spines as long as subway cars to as short as Kyoko's forearm. Hollowed-out carapaces. And hundreds upon hundreds of skulls. The whole place was a mausoleum of dozens of different animal species, all of them picked clean of flesh.

The graveyard's centerpiece lay across the floor. It was the corpse of a bahemont, even more massive than the one that had driven them underground. It's jutting chin and grinning, empty face was mere meters away from where Kyoko was standing. Kyoko silently looked it up and down. In life, it could have swallowed all four of them whole and not have to bother with chewing.

"Oh my God," Mami whispered, her hand covering her mouth. Whimpering, Sayaka sank deeper into her chair, as if that would protect her.

Then Kyoko had a bad premonition. She slowly turned around and raised her own bracelet. There she saw the skeleton of a second bahemont, this one lying belly-up, its bare ribs reaching higher than a freeway overpass.

"What is this place?" she said. "Do they come here to die?"

"No," Charlotte said. She nudged what looked like a miscus spine with her foot. "There's way too many species, and it's way too deep." Then she inhaled sharply. "Oh shit. Guys, I don't think this is a graveyard."

Kyoko was starting to have the same thought. "It's a garbage dump."

"Dockengauts," Mami said in a low voices.

"Oh God," Sayaka gulped. "They…they did this? Killed them and butchered them like this?"

"Given what I know about dockengauts, I don't think there was any butchering involved," Charlotte said flatly. "These things were eaten alive."

There was a long, horrified silence as all four of them absorbed the implications of what was just said. Then, first Kyoko, followed by Charlotte and finally, reluctantly, Mami, they all turned to stare at the one person that could get them out of there.

Sayaka, it should be noted, didn't immediately notice that she was being stared at. She was sitting transfixed by the dead bahemont grinning at her. However, she soon became aware of all the eyes fixed on her, and slowly turned around.

"What?" she said. Then, a second later, she understood. "Oh no. No way."

"Tavi," Charlotte said, trying to sound calm and collected but unable to hide the franticness in her voice, "We don't have a choice."

"No," Sayaka said, shaking her head. "No, no, no. No more flying. No more falling."

"You just offered to fly us out of here a few minutes ago."

"No," Sayaka said again, more emphatically this time. "Not after that fall. I can't. I just can't."

Kyoko said nothing. Anything she had to add would probably just make things worse. So instead, she just walked over to the wheelchair to retrieve one of the bags strapped to its back.

"Hey, get away!" Sayaka snapped, jerking the wheelchair back. "I said I'm not flying!"

"Take it easy, Swordfish," Kyoko said. "I'm just getting my backpack."

"I…fine. Sorry." To Charlotte, Sayaka said. "Look. Can't I just drive us out of here, find a tunnel or something?"

Kyoko unstrapped the worn black-and-maroon backpack she had claimed for her own and started rummaging through its contents. She took out a couple of protein bars and scarfed them down. This was followed by an orange-flavored energy drink. Then, with some hesitation, she took out a syringe of SolBlanc. She really disliked the stuff and how woozy it made her feel. But she had done a lot of fighting and would have to do a lot more. She needed all the strength she could get.

"Any tunnel we take will just lead to the dockengauts," Mami said in a low voice. "Oktavia, I'm sorry. I know how hard it is for you, but we need to go up. We don't have a choice."

"Didn't you say earlier that you weren't going to let this thing beat you?" Charlotte said.

"That was two death drops ago! I can't do it again! Please stop asking me!"

"Oktavia, we are going to die if we stay here much longer! The dockengauts will literally eat us alive! Just like they did to all these things! Only difference is that it doesn't stop after the first time!

Sighing, Kyoko slipped the backpack on and walked away from the argument to sit down on what looked like an oversized shin bone. She hunched over and rubbed her forehead while her body shivered from the SolBlanc's effects. She could feel it working, replenishing her magic. But damn, the side-effects were nasty.

Then she heard a weird grinding sound. Frowning, she looked around. "Hey," she said. "You guys hear that?"

The other three stopped arguing. "I…" Charlotte frowned. "It kind of sounds like something…opening?"

There was a short pause while they digested this. Then Charlotte's eyes went wide.

"Oktavia," she said, whirling back to the mermaid. "They're coming. Lift us out of here now."

"I…I…" Sayaka's hands were shaking.

"Do you want to get eaten? Get us out of here!"

"But…I…"

Kyoko stood up. From the sound of things, the sound was coming from right beneath her. She got ready to move.

Then the layer of bones beneath her feet simply collapsed.

Kyoko tried to leap out of the way, but her feet twisted under her and she fell instead.

"Kyoko!" Mami cried. She shot a ribbon out to snare her by the wrist. That would have saved her, if it weren't for the number of surrounding bones that had been upset by the sudden shifting, including a heavy, sharp-toothed skull that chose that moment to fall directly onto the ribbon, severing it in half. Kyoko scrambled to grip onto something, but a tumbling rib smacked her in the head, and she tumbled into the hole.

The next thing Kyoko knew, she was sliding feet-first down a smooth, lightless tunnel. Chunks of bone were sliding down with her, and kept smacking her with their sharp edges, cutting gashes across her face. She screamed into the dark.

"MAMI!" she shrieked. "CHARLOTTE! ANYBODY!"

There was no answer.

Kyoko continued to scream as the tunnel took her deeper and deeper underground. It twisted first one way and the next, and nothing Kyoko did could halt her momentum. She tried throwing up shields, but couldn't muster up the concentration even for that. She tried to brace her limbs against the tunnel's sides, but they were too slick. So she continued down, as helpless as a goldfish flushed down a toilet.

Then the tunnel vanished, and Kyoko was flying through empty space.

For one brief horrible moment, Kyoko felt a surge of animalistic terror. The world was pitch black all around her, and she was falling. The floor could have been kilometers below for all she knew. Hell, maybe she had been thrust into a bottomless void, doomed to fall forever and ever until her body shriveled up and her mind snapped. It made about as much sense as anything else she had encountered.

Then she hit the ground.

The wind was pushed right out of her, and Kyoko was knocked silly. She tumbled ass-over-boots like a scarecrow seized up by a gale kept rolling and rolling over unforgivably hard stone before coming to rest on the cave floor.

Kyoko lay still for who knew how long. Her mind was swimming, her body hurt like a mother, she was having the devil's own trouble drawing in a breath, and she still couldn't see shit. But despite all that, Kyoko found herself almost giggling with relief. At least the cave had a ground, painful enough as it was. She'd take that rough landing over an endless pit any day.

Then someone turned the lights on.

There was a click and a buzz, then a harsh, sterile white light sputtered on, like an old high-school's florescent bulb. Kyoko winced as a sharp pain lanced through her head and squinted through the haze. Rubbing her aching forehead, she groaned as she gingerly eased herself into a sitting position.

Gradually her vision returned, and she found herself in a medium-sized cave. In addition to being considerably smaller than the boneyard she had fallen from, it was also much cleaner. In fact, it looked sort of lived in. The floor was hard and rough but free of excess dust and moisture. Bare bulbs hung from wires on the ceiling. The upper walls were decorated with weird talismans made from dry bones and strips of leather. And all along the lower walls were endless small holes, almost like a disorganized honeycomb.

Blinking in bewilderment, Kyoko carefully looked around, though slowly so as to take it easy on her neck. One wall was taken up with what looked like a mad scientist's computer terminal. It was built from salvaged parts and was all old, cracked screens, blinking lights, and humming electricity. On the screens were what looked like some kind of radar layout, tracking several red triangles.

Kyoko's mind was still a little frazzled from the hard knock she had taken, but she was starting to suspect that she wasn't supposed to be here.

Then she heard a low, droning hiss. Looking down, she saw that there was a layered shelf of rock near her, one that formed steps up toward the tiny holes in the wall. And on the closest step was a small, black spider. Or at least it looked sort of like a spider. It was about the size of her knuckle and had twelve sharp legs with way too many joints and covered with hooked spines, as well as four waving antennae that came out of the center of its body. She couldn't see a head, so how the thing ate was a mystery to her. Regardless, it scuttled closer to her and hissed at her again.

Scowling, Kyoko reached over and gave the spider a sharp flick. It went sailing high and far before smacking the wall. However, it was a tough little thing, and landed on its legs no worse for the wear. It scurried back and forth a bit and make a strange clicking sound. It didn't sound like a hiss of anger or warning. Rather, it sounded to Kyoko like it was laughing.

It was then that Kyoko's mind woke up a little more, and began putting two and two together. Her back then went stiff, her eyes slowly widening.

Then she heard the sound of thousands of scurrying legs.

Out of the holes they came, hundreds of the creepy spiders, some larger than the one she had flicked while others were even smaller. They carpeted the steps in a black wave of rustling legs clacking over stone and tiny, hard bodies.

Then something long and white poked its head out of one of the holes. It looked like some kind of segmented worm, one as long as her hand with her fingers pressed together. It snaked out of the hole and fell into the horde of spiders. There was a small pop, and suddenly the thing revealed itself not to be a worm at all, but another variety of spider, this one with four extremely long legs that it had wrapped into a tight spiral in order to slither through the holes. A fifth appendage rose up behind its pale body like a scorpion's tale. Two more of the larger spiders slipped out of their holes, their legs popping wide as they fell, allowing them to join the horde.

Kyoko was on her feet in a second, her pain forgotten. She backed up as the wave of black and pale spiders spilled off the steps to converge onto a single spot. Once there, they began to swarm over one another, using each other's bodies to climb higher and higher. A sort of figure began to form, starting off as surging mass but gradually taking shape. The small, black spiders hooked their barbed legs together, while the large albinos splayed themselves out along the surface of the mass, connecting their legs to create a weird sort of star-patterned exoskeleton.

The mass grew taller and taller, eventually reaching almost twice Kyoko's height. Then a discernable shape started to appear. Two massive shoulders were formed, from which hundreds of spiders scurried over one another to create a pair of arms that hung nearly all the way to the floor. Straight out from those shoulders jutted a long, vulture-like neck, one as long as Kyoko's arm. A sort of head formed at the end, but no face. It didn't need one.

Finally all the spiders had come together to form the towering creature. Despite its lack of eyes or any sort of humanoid facial features, it still managed to look down at Kyoko while conveying an aura of amusement.

The swarm of spiders knew very well that she was there. It was intelligent, probably smarter than she was. And it found her funny.

The spiders' rubbed their barbed legs against each other to produce a dry, buzzing sound. And with that buzz it formed words.

"Vell, vell, vell," purred the dockengaut as it lifted its dangling arms, several long legs extending from the end like fingers. "Now, vhat do weeezzzz hazzzz hereeee, zzzzzz?"

…

This one's way shorter than most, I know, but that's what happens when you more-or-less stick to a single POV.

And I can't tell you how good it feels to finally reveal Big Nasty. Oh man, I have been waiting for this!

Until next time, everyone!