Monsterland, Part 4
As Kyoko's spear lifted her out of the Hell that was the dockengauts' tunnel and into the open air, she immediately became aware of two things that stunted the furious joy she was experiencing at having actually escaped.
The first was that it was now night. The ashen grey of the sky had darkened to black, shrouding the land with shadow. There were no stars, though the fiery orange ruptures continued to open and close, like the eyes of a host of otherworldly voyeurs peeking in on the savage landscape below. That wasn't good. She wasn't sure what time it had been in the local day/night cycle when she had gone below ground, but it had to have been some hours ago if it was this dark. And the nastiest stuff always came out at night.
The second thing was that she was kind of high up.
"Oh shit," Kyoko breathed as her spear came to a sudden stop and she got a good look down. As it turned out, the hole she had come up from was at the top of a natural stone tower, one with the same sheer, prismatic sides as the cliff they had ran across upon arrival. The tower was the tallest of several, which jutted high out of the damnedest hill range she had ever seen. It looked more like a twisty labyrinth of stone walls, which curved around each other like the furrows on a brain, with the angular towers rising up out of the spaces in between.
The tower Kyoko that had come out of was very near to the end of the range. To her right, the wall dipped down into what looked like a grove of huge, puffy white mushrooms. And beyond that was something that looked very much like a swamp.
Kyoko wasn't at all afraid of heights, but given the circumstances she could be forgiven for suddenly tightening her arms and legs around the spear pole.
Then, as she hung there like the corpse of a conquered king, Kyoko was struck with a rather sinking premonition.
She glanced down. To her dismay, several black dots were scurrying up the length of the pole, heading right toward her. The dockengauts were coming.
Right, screw this. Kyoko released all of limbs except for one hand, pressed her feet against the side of the pole, and readied herself to jump.
However, just as she pressed off, her exhausted legs twanged badly, causing her graceful leap to turn into a sort of arcing tumble.
"YEEEAAAHHH!" she cried as she fell, arms and legs flailing, heading right for the twisting stone wall that dipped down into the mushroom forest. She tried to twist her body around to land on her feet, but misjudged her trajectory and ended up landing on the very edge of the wall.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Kyoko swayed back and forth, her momentum pushing her forward over the edge while she tried to angle her body back.
The momentum won.
Kyoko dropped like a stone for several meters before hitting the slope. The impact jarred her terribly, but she didn't have time to even notice before she was sent rolling all the way down to the bottom.
As it turned out, the slope was longer and steeper than she had initially judged.
"Ow, ow, ow, ow, fuck, goddamn, ow!"
Finally she came to rest at the bottom, though her mind was still turning cartwheels. She lay still for a time, letting the rolling chaos in her head take its course.
Finally the world slowed its spinning, and she was able to regather her senses. She was lying in an ungainly heap at the foot of the slope. Everything hurt, from her skinned knees and exposed arm that had regrown from the one that the dockengaut had eaten to her throbbing nose (probably broken) to the agonized wrench she felt in her shoulder (probably dislocated) to the host of other aches and pains that were clamoring for attention from all over.
Kyoko let out a soft groan. That was easily the fifth worst escape she had ever had.
She tried to see if she could sit up. She could. It hurt, but she could. Then she began a more thorough assessment of her injuries. Fortunately, most of the damage seemed to be superficial. Her shoulder was more bruised than anything and, though it made her wince, she could still move the arm. Her nose was definitely broken though. It was a good thing she didn't have blood any more, else it would be gushing down her face.
Next, she took stock of her meager possessions. Unsurprisingly, the compass was fine, despite no doubt having been knocked around while riding in her pocket. Her backpack was also in good shape, as were most of its contents, save for a bag of chips that were now mostly crumbs. Apparently these people made things to last.
Then Kyoko was struck with a horrible thought and her hands went to her neck. But to her relief, her necklace was still there, hanging down into her shirt. It wasn't even chipped.
Kyoko breathed out a sigh of relief. Well, okay. That…could have gone better, but it could have gone a hell of a lot worse. That girl she had seen being eaten by spiders was proof of that. A sick feeling twisted Kyoko's stomach, and she quickly pushed the memory away.
Once she was sure she was able, Kyoko stood to her feet. They wobbled a bit but held. Then she looked around.
The things she had mistaken for mushrooms were…well, she might have not been that far off. The certainly looked like some kind of fungus, but they could also have been some kind of weird tree. They were tall, white, thin, and flabby looking, with several upraised, leafless branches topped by bumpy bulges that reminded her of cauliflower heads. They had glossy, smooth surfaces that reminded Kyoko of candle wax.
Other than that, there was no life to be seen. No grass, no foliage, no animals, nothing but dirt between the stalks. Despite her young age, Kyoko was experienced enough to know that was a sure sign to stay well away.
Adjusting her pack, Kyoko gingerly made her way around the grove, making sure to stay well out of reach of those waxy-looking "branches." None of the strange trees reacted in the slightest to her presence, which just made them more eerie as far as she was concerned.
Either way, at least the wide berth the local monsters gave the grove meant that she wasn't attacked. At that point, Kyoko was in no condition to do any fighting. In addition to all of the hurts she had suffered tumbling down the hill and her exhaustion, her legs kept spasming, especially her right, which felt like it had come a hairsbreadth from being twisted.
Still, she kept walking, even if it was on its way to becoming a limp. It was that or wait for the dockengauts to find her.
Next time I see Charlotte, she is getting the biggest, most sincere apology I can come up with, Kyoko thought as she trudged forward. She let out a bitter chuckle. The pink-haired witch had been completely right. Kyoko had not been ready for the trials that were facing her.
On the upside, that MedGel stuff worked pretty damn well, and apparently it didn't wear off quickly. Every step Kyoko took became easier, her gait growing stronger and her posture more erect. The aches smoothed out and her bruises retreated before they could fully blossom. Kyoko soon found herself breathing relief. Then she coughed. The air smelled dry and dusty, with a weird underscent that reminded her of rotten plums. It stuck to her throat.
She cast another sour glance at the grove. She really, really hoped those things weren't filling the air with some kind of poison. That was the last thing she needed.
Fortunately, if the trees were at all hostile, they seemed content to let Kyoko be, and she managed to make her way around them without incident. Soon she was standing on the edge of the marsh, looking in.
It didn't seem all that dangerous, mostly consisting of stone steppes filled with pools of water. Some of the pools were bubbling, indicating some kind of underground spring, or perhaps natural gas. Pale green grass grew everywhere, and here and there were weird grey trees with corkscrew trunks and branches that spread out far before drooping down. Large, jagged boulders and stony hills were all over the place, making for some uneven terrain.
Still, even though Kyoko didn't actually see any monsters, she knew better to let her guard down. Pulling the compass out of her pocket, she brought it close to her face and whispered, "Okay, thank you. Now where?"
The needle remained inert.
"Oh, come on!" Kyoko said crossly. "If I get eaten you get stuck here too! Do you wanna get stepped on by a giant space hippo and buried in the mud for the rest of forever?"
The compass needle moved a few centimeters in a manner that honestly looked like a resigned sigh. Then it immediately began spinning. Breathing out in relief, Kyoko waited anxiously for it to point out the way.
When it stopped, it pointed directly in front of her, out into the swamp.
Well, that just figured. Still, it was the most obvious path to take and the one she would have chosen even without being prompted by a magic compass. Whispering her thanks, Kyoko took a moment to steady herself. Then she went in.
The ground was moist and slick, but didn't suck her boots. She picked her way through, taking care to avoid the occasional patches of grey mud from which nothing grew (probably quicksand of some kind) and the trees themselves.
It was slow going. The mud was deeper in places, sometimes deceptively so, and more than once she had to quickly withdraw a step when her foot sank in too deep. She tried to stick to areas thick with grass or made of solid stone. Once she had assessed that the grass itself was harmless (a valid concern, considering the circumstances), it seemed the safest strategy.
For once, the planet decided to give her a break with the monsters, or maybe only a few were actually nocturnal, as she only ran into one. At one point, Kyoko stepped too close to a particularly sandy pool and disturbed the water. When she did, some large, flat, and thickly shelled rose up from beneath the bottom of the pool, sand falling from a wide back of the exact same color. A blunted head with two tube-like mouths stuck out to gurgle a warning. Kyoko was quick to obey, hastily moving away from the pool to give the beast its space. Once she had done so, it settled back down beneath the sand, disappearing completely.
Once she got over the jolt of surprise, Kyoko found herself actually relieved by the encounter. The noticeable lack of monsters had been starting to creep her out, so having confirmation that there were still a few lurking about was actually reassuring in a weird sort of way.
She pressed on, moving further and further into the swamp, following the needle. But as thankful as she was for the help, she found herself wishing that the compass came with some sort of indicator of distance. For all she knew, the thing it was pointing her towards was half a world away.
I wonder if there's an app I can download, Kyoko thought, and then laughed at the ridiculous notion. Well, why the hell not? People here seemed perfectly fine mixing magic and technology to the point where it was difficult to tell the two apart. Why wouldn't there be purchasable improvements to people's mystical devices that you could just pull out of the air?
Maybe she could enchant it. Kyoko's magic was running low, but she should be able to manage something like that. But then again, she wasn't exactly sure where Elsa Maria had gotten the compass in the first place or if it would respond well to being touched by another's magic. The thing seemed to be begrudging with its help as it was. Pushing things that far might cause it to throw a tantrum.
Then, as Kyoko ascended a steppe and rounded a large rock, she paused. Something was moving nearby. She could hear its steps squishing through the mud.
Kyoko listened for a bit. Then, slowing her breathing, she crouched down into the shadow of the rock and waited, watching and listening.
It didn't sound like the wary yet confident gait of a local predator, nor did it resemble the cautious steps of the native prey. Whatever it was, its steps were heavy and erratic, like something wounded, exhausted, scared out of its mind, or some combination of the three. Kyoko could hear it breathing in heavy pants mixed with terrified whimpers and the occasional muttered curse.
Kyoko felt her illusionary heartbeat quicken. The curses were in Japanese, and the voice human. She looked down at the compass. The needle was now slowly moving, as if tracking something nearby. To be specific, its point seemed to be following the heavy footsteps. She peeked out to see if the person was within sight.
She was.
Forgetting all about caution, Kyoko leapt out from behind the stone. "Hey!" she said, waving her arms as she raced down the steppe. "Hey!"
The other person, who was navigating through the swamp with the help of a gnarled walking stick, snapped her attention upward. Her eyes widened with shock when she saw Kyoko leaping at her, and she gladly caught the redhead in her arms.
"Charlotte!"
…
The two girls made camp in a relatively dry rocky strip between the two halves of a large, shattered piece of stone. Despite the exhaustion they were both feeling, they still took the time to find a place that had some sort of shelter that had not already been claimed by something nasty and territorial. It took more than half-an-hour, all of it full of furtive glances at shadows, startled jumps at every far-off growl coming out of the dark, and being half-convinced that they were one wrong step away from being eaten.
By some rare twist of luck they weren't, and soon the two were sitting around a palm-sized electric heater that Charlotte had in her pocket, munching on a meager dinner of Kyoko's beef jerky sticks and a few dry pieces of bread. Once they had finished the insubstantial amount they had allotted for the evening (by Charlotte's insistence, and to Kyoko's resentment), they finally got around to catching up.
"They showed up right after you disappeared," Charlotte said in a low tone. "Dockengauts, thousands of them. Mami was all set to blow her way down that hatch and go after you, but they just appeared out of nowhere, crawling up through the bones."
Kyoko sat with her legs folded, one arm draped over her knee and the other picking at a bit of jerky that had gotten stuck in her teeth. She said nothing, only listened.
"We had to run," Charlotte said. Her voice was rough, as if she had been crying recently. "We didn't want to, but they were everywhere. We had…" She swallowed noisily. "We had…"
Kyoko sighed. "I ran into a dockengaut or two myself while I was down there," she said. "Trust me, I would have done the same thing. Don't sweat it."
Charlotte nodded, though she looked far from reassured. "Oktavia was the one that saved us. We managed to get her into the air. It wasn't easy, she really didn't want to, but we did."
"Well, good on her," Kyoko remarked. "Guess she had a fear of spiders bigger than her fear of heights."
To this, Charlotte shook her head. "That wasn't it. She didn't want to leave you."
Kyoko had no reply.
"We thought you were lost," Charlotte said. The way she said it sounded like a confession, spoken from a desperate sinner to a listening priest. "I thought you were lost. I saw you disappear, and it was like, that's it. She's gone. There's no way she's not-" Then her voice thickened and she broke off.
Kyoko's lips thinned out. An image came unbidden to her mind, that of all three of her friends clustered together among the bones, spiders skittering towards them from all sides, Mami futilely firing shot after worthless shot while panic eats away at the grim mask she wore during battle, Charlotte frantically begging Sayaka to get a grip and lift them out of there while Sayaka screamed for Kyoko, tears streaming down her face as she tried to push Charlotte away and go after her-
A twitch, and Kyoko slammed the brakes on that line of thought. "Well, I wasn't, so you can stop sulking," she said. She meant for it to sound cavalier and lighthearted, but her heart wasn't in it.
Charlotte just shrugged.
A few dark moments went by, and then Kyoko tackled the subject they were both avoiding. "Charlotte, where's the others?" she said. "Mami and Sa-" Her voice stumbled, and then she scowled. Oh hell with it, it wasn't like the mermaid was there. "-yaka. You said you all got out. Where are they?"
Charlotte swallowed. "I don't know," she said hoarsely.
"What do you mean you don't know?" Kyoko snapped. It came out harsher than she had meant, but she was too scared and too tired to care.
"I mean I don't know," Charlotte shot back. "We…There was a tunnel, leading out of the boneyard. The dockengauts chased us out into this narrow gorge, too narrow for Oktavia to fly, and after that it was all running and shooting and screaming and-" Charlotte made a short choking sound. "I just focused on the exit and ran as fast as I could. I could hear Mami shouting…something, but I didn't stop to see what. I so scared. All I could do is run and run and run until I was out in the open and then…" She buried her face in her hands. "Oh God."
"And then you were alone," Kyoko finished for her. Though the space heater was doing a fine job warming things up, she suddenly found herself shivering.
Charlotte miserably shook her head. "I tried to go back and look for them, but another dockengaut showed up, in one of those bodies they make when they cluster together. It just came out behind a rock and started, uh, talking to me, daring me to go after them." She shivered. "It laughed at me. It thought I was funny."
Kyoko nodded. She had a fair idea of what was said.
"I ran," Charlotte said flatly. "Like the big, freaking coward I am. I didn't even try to fight. All I cared about was saving my stupid skin."
Kyoko bit her lower lip. Comforting the despondent wasn't really her strong suit, but she had to try. "Charlotte, look. It's not your fault."
"The hell it isn't," Charlotte said sharply. "I just left them there."
"Anyone would've! Look, when I was down there, wandering around the dockengaut tunnels, I ran into this girl, okay? Human girl. She was like, I don't know, she looked like she was around eleven. And she was naked and chained to a rock." The memory made Kyoko taste bile, but she pressed on. "I thought I could help her, that we could escape together. But there…there was a dockengaut, and-" She shuddered. "It was inside her. It had gotten inside her and was eating her from the inside out. The spiders started crawling out of her mouth and then, well, they knew I was there. I ran. I didn't even try to stay and help her, even though it was just the one dockengaut and I have more combat magic than you do. I just turned tail and ran as fast as I could."
Though the darkness made it hard for Kyoko to make out Charlotte's face, it was evident that she was giving Kyoko a very cold look. "Kyoko, there is a world of difference between not being able to save a meat slave that's already being eaten," she said, "and running out on your wife."
"Yeah? And what could you have done?" Kyoko retorted. "Stay and get eaten too? How's that gonna help them?"
"Shut up, Kyoko," Charlotte said, her tone heavy with warning.
"Oh, don't you start with-" Then Kyoko clamped her jaws shut and inhaled sharply through her teeth. No, damn it. They had just reunited in defiance of all the odds. She was not going to let things break down into another argument. Checking her tone, she lowered her voice and said, "Charlotte, look. I don't want to fight with you. I've been fighting with everything all day long, and I'm sick of it. So if it'll make you stop beating yourself up, think of it like this: you didn't run away. You made a tactical retreat in the face of hopeless odds in order to regroup and, uh, reassess the situation and plan a rescue. Because if you hadn't, you would've been chained naked to a rock too, and there'd be no one to save any of you." She shrugged. "Well, except for me, I mean. But you didn't know that at the time."
Charlotte didn't respond. She just looked away and sniffed loudly.
"Look, Mami is hands' down the toughest person I ever met," Kyoko said. "She trained me, remember? And she's got more firepower than the whole Persephone Protectorate put together. And Sayaka might not have that going for her, but she is damned tough as well. First time we fought, I was fully in my asshole phase, and even I was impressed by how much of a beating she could take."
"She's not Sayaka," Charlotte growled.
Oh, to hell with that argument. "So what, she loses her legs and changes her name, and suddenly she's all soft?" Kyoko demanded. "If anything, she's even tougher now than she was then! At least she's not constantly wallowing in self-pity over that stupid boy all the damned time anymore!"
Again, Charlotte had nothing to say.
"Look, don't count them out just yet. I was all by myself, and I managed to get out. Working together, they can figure something out."
Charlotte sat with her head bowed and her hands lying limply in her lap. For the longest time the only sound was the soft wind through the grasses, and the far off trumpeting of some distant bahemont.
Then Charlotte sighed loudly. "Damn," she said with a bitter chuckle as she reached up to scratch behind her ear. "This is so weird to hear from the other end. Usually I'm the one making these speeches." She shook her head. "Okay, okay, point taken. No use in sulking. We gotta concentrate on what's in front of us."
Kyoko nodded. "Agreed."
Charlotte adjusted her position, shifting around so that she was leaning back against the nearby rock wall. "Though before we get to that, I just noticed that I've been doing all the talking. So it's your turn to tell me a story. How in the hell did you get out alive?"
Kyoko slowly breathed out. "Lots and lots of luck, and a whole bunch of panicked ingenuity."
Skipping over the unnecessary (and unpleasant) details, she told Charlotte about her own adventures through the dockengauts' world, starting with her fight with the first of the nasty bastards, moving on to her encounter with the Worm, to her discovery of Elsa Maria's compass's capabilities, then capping things off with a very brief recounting of what happened to the meat slave and her subsequent escape. That part was still sticking in her craw, and despite all her big talk it was very difficult not to picture Mami and Sayaka chained to that rock with spiders pouring out of their mouths.
When she started the story, Charlotte's posture was hunched and focused with interest, but by the time she got to the part about the compass she was leaning fully forward and paying rapt attention. "Wait," she said. "You're saying that compass points to wherever you want, no matter where it is?"
Kyoko shrugged. "Dunno, still working out the details, but it's worked pretty good for me so far." She pulled it out of her pocket and jiggled it a bit in her hand. "This thing seems to have a mind of its own, and it's pretty sassy. You ask me, it works on more of a 'where you need to be' instead of a 'where you want to be' sort of thing. Just a feeling I got, considering who it belonged it."
"Yeah, religious folk like their vagueness, I've noticed," Charlotte mused. "Still, if it can point us to Mami and Oktavia, that should cut our odds from 'completely impossible' to just 'sorta impossible.'" She pondered on this for a moment, and then said, "All right. So, what's the part you aren't tell me?"
Kyoko started. "Huh?"
"You sort've glazed over some bits. I noticed. Is there a reason your ponytail is gone, or that you jacket is missing a sleeve?"
Crap, she had noticed. "Well, yeah," Kyoko admitted, self-consciously rubbing the arm in question. "When I was fighting that first dockengaut, things…got a little hairy."
There was a lengthy pause, and then Charlotte said, "Are you all right?"
Kyoko shrugged. "I'm fine. Wasn't fun, but they didn't do anything permanent."
"Kyoko, if you're-"
"I said I'm fine, Charlotte," Kyoko said, a hint of warning in her voice. "All things considered, I got off light. I'll live."
"All right," Charlotte said with a slow nod, though Kyoko could tell that she didn't really believe her. A few thoughtful moments ticked by, and then Charlotte said, "You know, about that giant worm thing you said you got caught by…"
Grateful for the change in subject, Kyoko perked up. "Yeah?"
"I think that was a cantavier."
"Oh, really?" Kyoko said dryly. "A cantavier? Well, spank my biscuit. I would've never have guessed."
Charlotte snorted. "Sorry. But they're supposed to be super-rare. I once met this jott who owned a zoo for exotic monsters, and she pretty much said that she'd give her right arm and never have it grow back to just see one."
Kyoko's own newly regrown arm started to itch. "Well, I guess I just made them rarer," she said as she scratched.
"Yup," Charlotte sighed. "That's us, on our gloriously destructive adventure. Destabilizing governments and killing off endangered species, one territory at a time."
"Heh. Hey, question. I know you're really well read on other planets and stuff, but you seem to know an awful lot about this one in particular, even though it's got you all but scared to death. Why the interest?"
"What? I like alien planets," Charlotte said, sounding a bit defensive. "Why should this be any different?"
Kyoko shot her a look. "Charlotte. C'mon."
A few moments went by, and then Charlotte let out a long sigh. "All right, fine. Look, my first year in, all of us newcomers had to take this weekend camping trip where we learned all about the other species that wound up here. You know, their culture, their biology, which ones were friendly and which ones we had to watch our step around, that sort of thing. All except one. No points for guessing who."
Kyoko slowly nodded. "Didn't want to freak out the kiddies, huh?"
"Exactly. Except they sort of forgot the part where if there was one way to get a bunch of stupid kids on a camping trip to find something, it's to hide it from them," Charlotte said wryly. "A couple of the other girls got their hands on, well, let's call it a documentary. One that nobody was supposed to even know existed until they had been around for at least a year and proven to be more-or-less mentally and emotionally stable."
"Ah," Kyoko said. "One of those scare 'em straight sort of deals, eh?"
"Yup," Charlotte sighed. "It…well, you've already seen what it had in person. It showed what dockengauts do to meat slaves. In detail."
"Oh."
"Yeah, needless to say, we all were regretting our curiosity after that," Charlotte said flatly. "I had nightmares for a good long time after that. Still do, on occasion." She shook her head. "But anyway, it got me thinking. Sure, I might've been living in a very nice house in a very nice town, but that girl I saw get eaten probably did too, at some point. Eternity's a long time, and who knew what was going to happen to me in the future? There were monsters everywhere, so I might as well learn as much about them when I still could."
"Smart move," Kyoko remarked. She looked around at the alien world. "Guess you were right."
Charlotte gave a small half-shrug in the dark and said nothing. She seemed like she was losing herself in her private thoughts.
Kyoko looked down at her hands where they lay in her lap. Her eyes had long adjusted to the darkness, making her bare skin appear pale and ghostlike. How very appropriate.
She opened her mouth to say something, hesitated, thought, Oh, what the hell, and then finally forced it out. "Hey Charlotte, I got something to say."
Charlotte turned her head toward her.
"I'm…Shit, I'm sorry I've been such a jackass." Kyoko let out a long sigh. "You were right. I wasn't ready, not for the dockengauts, not for the Void Walkers, not for any of this."
It hurt more than she had expected, just getting the words out. But damn it, she had made a promise, and for all her faults Kyoko kept her word. "I didn't want to listen. You tried to tell me, but I thought I could handle anything we found." She lifted her bare arm and fingered the loose threads where her jacket sleeve had been torn off. "Well, I guess this shows how much I knew."
Charlotte silently looked at her for an uncomfortable length of time. Then, speaking in a low voice, she asked, "Would it have made any difference?"
"Huh?"
"If you had known, if you had understood just what you were getting yourself into, what you were going to have to fight your way through and endure if you wanted to save your sister, would you still have done it?"
Kyoko grimaced. She supposed that expecting a pat on the back and a reassuring "It's okay" from someone who, thanks to Kyoko, had lost everything that was important to her was a little unrealistic. "Yes. But…"
"Hmmm?"
"I would've done it alone," Kyoko said at last.
"But you would still have gone," Charlotte said pointedly.
Kyoko shivered. "Yeah."
"Then don't be sorry," Charlotte said flatly. "Learn from this. Get it through your head that you're in way over your head now." She reached across to poke Kyoko in the shoulder. "You're not the big, tough veteran anymore. This isn't something you can just punch your way through. Start treating this world with a little respect if you want half-a-chance of surviving, because like it or not, this is your home now. You're stuck here, along with everyone else. Time to start learning the rules."
"I understand," Kyoko said as humbly as she could. "But, uh, it would go a long way to making me feel better if you'd just accept my apology." When Charlotte didn't immediately respond, Kyoko rolled her eyes and added, perhaps with a bit too much emphasis, "Please?"
Letting out a resigned sigh, Charlotte said, "All right. I accept. It's not really your fault anyway. Everyone's angry or depressed their first few months in anyway. You were just unlucky enough to have to jump right into this terrible adventure before getting the usual therapy."
Kyoko nodded. "Once this is all over, I promise you that I'm getting all the therapy. I'll take the prescriptions, do the yoga, keep a dream journal, and tell my counselor all my horrible, horrible secrets. Every. Single. Day."
"Sounds great," Charlotte said in a wry tone. "I may join you."
Well, that was over with at least. "So hey, now that we got that out of the way, I've got a question about that film you saw. You said it showed a meat slave actually getting eaten by dockengauts, right? How'd they even get footage of that? Did they just hear the stories and throw together something in CGI?"
"CG…" Charlotte said in puzzlement. Then, before Kyoko could explain, the pinkette shook her head. "No, never mind. And no. The footage was real enough. Apparently, the dockengauts filmed it themselves and sent it out to everyone."
Kyoko started. "Wait, what?"
"This was a really long time ago, but apparently, until the savians became a thing, the dockengauts were the newest species," Charlotte explained. "And rumors starting going around that our new neighbors were kidnapping people and doing something really nasty to them. Explanations were demanded, and in response, the dockengauts 'fessed up." There was a thoughtful pause, and she amended, "Or to be specific, they bragged about it. It wasn't the only film too. They sent out videos of them eating at least one member of every species. Every territory got a video showing someone from their species getting devoured alive."
"Christ, why the hell would they do that? They had to know they were pretty much declaring war."
Shaking her head, Charlotte straightened up to sit on her knees and face Kyoko directly. "That's the thing, Kyoko. The dockengauts didn't care. It's something you really need to understand about their psychology. Remember what I said about them being the apex predator on their home planet, and how all the scary monsters here are scared shitless of them?" When Kyoko nodded, Charlotte said, "Dockengauts don't feel fear. They've never, ever had to fight from underneath for anything. We humans managed to climb our way to the top by being cleverer than all the bigger, stronger, and meaner predators that wanted to eat us, but dockengauts never had that problem. So when they sent those videos out and the predictable outrage occurred, their response pretty much boiled down to, 'Bring it.'" She leaned forward a bit and lowered her voice. "And nobody was willing to go through with it. Because despite all our numbers, all of our magic, and all of our combined technology, nobody really knew what they were capable of, and nobody wanted to risk being the one to get dragged back into their lairs. Eleven species to one, and we were the ones who blinked. Not even the coronians wanted anything to do with them, and they're like giant, flying cities!"
Kyoko thought up a number of responses, discarded them each in turn for being insufficient, and finally went with the only one that could properly convey her thoughts. "Oh."
"That's why they let us build these huge walls around their territories," Charlotte went on. "It's not to keep them in, because we really can't. It's to keep everyone else out! And they go along with it because they think it's adorable that we're so scared of them. And that's why they let you and me go once we were out of their caves. It's all just a game to them, and watching us die scared and alone is just as amusing as doing the job themselves."
Kyoko felt a chill sweep down her back. "Wait, you mean they're watching us right now?" she said, glancing uneasily at the surrounding marshland.
"I don't know," Charlotte said with a shrug. "Could be, if they have cameras. I don't think they're actually about though. Dockengauts don't really care for swamps. Hard to scurry through. But point is, there's a real good reason why everyone is so uneasy with them around. Because we know that at any time, they can come crawling undetected into whatever territory they want and eating everyone inside, and there's nothing anyone can do to stop them."
Kyoko started to nod, but then stopped. A stray memory had chosen that moment to surface. "Well, almost nobody."
"What?"
"You remember…" She frowned. Given everything that had happened since that moment, it was difficult to dig up the details. "Do you remember back at Cloudbreak, when we were stuck talking to all those politicians, and we ran into that dockengaut? And it was being all creepy, trying to scare us, but that lizard chick with the spiky hair and the tail showed up and scared it off?"
Charlotte thought for a bit, no doubt from also having to work to retrieve the memory. "Oh yeah," she said at last. "The savian. Huh, yeah, that was pretty weird. Makes you wonder what that was all about."
"You think maybe the dockengauts and the savians have some sort of history?"
"I don't know," Charlotte said with a shrug. "Could be. Doesn't help us either way, seeing how there's no savians arounds. But even so, that is interesting."
The two of them sat quietly for a few moment, each concerned with private thoughts. Charlotte was probably mulling over the savians and why that dockengaut had been so afraid of them. No doubt the implications would be staggering if the savians had some way of countering the ugly, smug bastards. Charlotte was probably wishing that she had an entire squadron of the lizards backing them right then and there.
As for Kyoko though, her thought were concerned with more practical matters. They had no savians to rely, or anyone else for that matter. It was just the two of them: a couple of exhausted, scared humans against all of this territory's dockengauts. And she didn't have the slightest clue of where to begin.
Oh sure, they could probably get back into the tunnels, no problem. Climb the towers and find one that had a hole leading back underground. From there, they could use the compass to find where Sayaka and Mami were being kept. From there, it was only a matter of freeing them from their bonds, racing back to the exit, and then having Sayaka lift them out. From there, they just had to race across the landscape until they reached the wall and fly right on out.
On paper, it sounded simple. But the fact of the matter was that it was suicide. Assuming that she and Charlotte didn't get attacked by monsters on the way back to the tunnels, there was still the very glaring problem of the dockengauts themselves. For all they knew, the cannibalistic assholes were watching them right now and working out who got which body part. And even if they did manage to get all the way back unharmed and undetected, there were the tunnels themselves to contend with. After all the ruckus Kyoko had raised on her way out, it was a fair bet that they weren't going to find the larger tunnels empty this time. And even if they did and by yet another eleventh hour miracle (though it really had to be the twelfth or even the sixteenth by now) they did manage to find their missing friends, there was no chance in this literal Hell that they would be unguarded. Shit, forget the guards, Sayaka and Mami were probably already…
Kyoko suddenly felt very dizzy, and very, very tired.
It was like throwing her brain against a stone wall. This was too big for her to figure out. It didn't help that she was a shit strategist. Kyoko did her best thinking on her feet and in the heat of the moment, not trying to puzzle out a bunch of unknowns ahead of time. That was Charlotte's thing, and her companion looked far too bedraggled to be of any use. Kyoko sighed. Like it or not, they were in no condition to do anything at the moment.
"We should probably get some rest," Kyoko said. "Won't do our girls any good if we fall asleep while sneaking in."
Charlotte's head jerked up. Kyoko got the feeling that she didn't like the sound of that at all. No doubt Charlotte wanted to saddle up and go save her loved ones right then and there. Sighing inwardly in resignation, Kyoko braced herself for another fight.
It never came. "You're right," Charlotte said at last. Shaking her head, she ran her fingers back through her greasy hair. "Okay, try to get some sleep. I'm still too wired, so I'll take first watch."
That was just fine with Kyoko. "All right," she muttered as she settled back. "Wake me when it's my turn. Or if a hungry space slug is trying to eat my head. Whatever comes first."
That actually got a small laugh from her companion. "I promise you, any of those happen, you'll be the first to know."
"Groovy," Kyoko muttered. She yawned and let her chin drop into her chest. Her eyes closed, and she knew nothing more.
…
The night was dark and full of terrors.
Kyoko moved as fast as her sluggish legs would carry her. Dead ahead, in the far off distance, was a golden light. She focused on that and pressed on, willing her legs to keep moving, ignoring how tired she felt, ignoring the fear that gnawed at the back of her mind.
Sayaka was waiting for her in the light. Kyoko knew this; the arrow had pointed her in that direction. All she had to do was keep moving forward, and they would be together again.
Provided that the spiders didn't get her first.
She heard them skittering in the dark, haunting her every step. She never felt their legs on her skin or their bodies squish beneath her footsteps, but she knew that they were right behind her, centimeters away from sinking their fangs into her heels. Every time she lifted her foot off the ground, she was just missing their strikes. Though her legs felt leaden and weariness bore her shoulders down, she continued to press on. If she didn't, she would die.
"You're looking for the wrong one."
Kyoko looked up in surprise. Elsa Maria was there, walking with her. If dark-haired witch was at all concerned about the perils that surrounded them, she didn't show it.
"I have to go," Kyoko told her. "I have to find her."
Elsa Maria sadly shook her head. "She's not there. You're looking for the wrong one." She nodded toward the light. "You'll find the one you need there, but not the one you seek."
"What do you mean?"
With a sympathetic look in her large, dark eyes, Elsa Maria reached over and put a hand on Kyoko's shoulder. "Because," she said. "You need to wake up, you lazy sack of shit."
Kyoko blinked. "What?"
Then the earth started to quake, the ground shaking violently beneath Kyoko's feet. As she pitched to and fro in an attempt to keep her balance, Elsa Maria held on to shout in her ear.
"Wake up, dumbass! Wake up!"
Kyoko started awake into bewilderment. The world was still shaking, and she had no idea why. Earthquake? A seizure? Giant pig beast rising up from beneath to devour her bottom?
"Wake up, already" a tired, irritated voice said, and the shaking got worse.
Kyoko blinked. No, wait, it was none of those things. Someone was shaking her shoulder.
She looked to her side to see a very worn-out Charlotte kneeling next to her, forcibly jostling her to wakefulness. "I'm up, I'm up," Kyoko growled as she swatted Charlotte's hand away. "Quit it."
"Finally," Charlotte muttered. "Like trying to wake a freaking log." Without another word she slumped back against the rock wall and instantly fell asleep.
Yawning, Kyoko sat up and started stretching. Her limbs were stiff and her eyes felt gummy, but all-in-all it wasn't the worst condition she had woken up in. She fumbled around in her pack and found, to her displeasure, that she only had one energy drink left, and her stash of snacks was running worryingly low.
"Not this again," Kyoko groused as she made do with some hard rolls and chips. She popped the tab on the can and made herself as comfortable as she could.
Sipping the sugary, caffeine-loaded goodness, Kyoko glanced up. Morning was coming. The canopy of clouds was now dark grey instead of solid black. That was fine with her. Logically speaking, it meant the nocturnal nasties were now getting ready for bed while the daylight killers had yet to stir. Hopefully that meant they were getting something of a break.
She sat still for a long time, letting her mind ease itself back to full wakefulness. It was sort of peaceful, she had to admit. Sort of like camping. For all of its faults, the dockengaut homeworld did have a few things in common with Earth. The chirping of morning insects was almost identical. Of course, this being what it was, they were probably all little flying piranhas. It was a wonder that anything managed to thrive on this planet at all, given just how hungry everything seemed to be.
Kyoko's stomach growled, and she sighed. Okay, so she wasn't in any position to throw stones.
As she had no idea how long the local day-night cycle lasted, Kyoko passed the time by trying again to formulate battle strategies for when they went after Sayaka and Mami. True, they didn't know for sure that the pair had been captured by the dockengauts, but given the circumstances it was best to assume the worst and act accordingly.
The gorge Charlotte had escaped through was probably straight out. The dockengauts would no doubt be watching it closely for her to make a return appearance. The same for the shaft Kyoko had come up through. As she had surmised before falling asleep, their best bet was probably to return to the towers and find another one that led down into the dockengaut tunnels.
The thought of returning to that awful place made Kyoko's skin crawl, but she pushed away the nauseated feeling it gave her. She had marched straight into Hell once before to save Sayaka, just as Mami had done for her. There was no chance that she was going anywhere without either of them. On that matter, she and Charlotte were in complete agreement.
But the tricky thing was that still didn't leave her with a clue of how to pull this alleged rescue off. Kyoko's own passage through the tunnels had been one of panic and exhaustion, not really the best way to memorize the layout of the place. The compass would be helpful in that (assuming it felt like cooperating), but if they ran into even one dockengaut they were probably screwed. And those damned things could be as big or as small as they pleased. One spider scurrying unseen behind a rock would blow their cover. And there were a lot of rocks down there. A lot of rocks and a lot of spiders.
Kyoko swallowed as the feeling of helpless despair started to return. Oh hell, how were they going to pull this off? The whole of all of history's Puella Magi from eleven freaking different species weren't willing to take these guys on, and now a couple of bedraggled humans were planning to mount a rescue operation into the heart of the monsters' lair. Unless yet another miracle chose to occur, they were going to end up naked and in chains themselves by the end of the day, just a couple more meat slaves to be forgotten by everyone else.
The exposed skin of Kyoko's regenerated arm prickled. She could feel the phantom legs of dozens of spiders skittering over it. Scratching it hard, she curled up into a shaking ball and focused on slowing her breathing. She pulled her necklace out and gripped the arrowhead hard with her trembling hand. For some reason, the feel of its sharp pointing biting into her palm had a way of centering her.
She glanced over to Charlotte, who was out like a neon sign in a second-rate strip mall. It would probably be better to wait until she was awake before committing to any sort of planning. Charlotte knew more about this planet than probably anyone, so it would be better to let her take the lead.
Then again, Kyoko truly doubted that enough people had actually gone into the dockengaut tunnels like she had and come out alive to add anything substantial to the textbooks.
Then a low, clicking snarl jolted her out of her musing.
Kyoko sat straight up, her back pressed to the wall. She glanced around, wondering if she had imagined it.
Then a second snarl answered from the other side of the hill.
Kyoko's mouth thinned out. Okay, there was definitely something out there. A pair of somethings, by the sound of it. Easing herself to her hands and knees, she slowly crawled out to where the crack opened into the swamp and peered out.
Though the sky above was lighter than it had been, most of the swamp was still wreathed in darkness. Kyoko squinted as she peered out, trying to catch some glimpse of movement in the shadows.
For what felt like the longest time, she saw nothing, and she heard nothing. Licking her lips, she gave her surrounding another look over. Maybe it was just some cranky alien frog yelling at the bugs to shut up.
Then one of the shadows moved.
Kyoko froze. Something was moving slowly between the pools, something big. Not an absurdly huge beast like the bahemont or the cantavier, but it was well over the size of a fully-grown man. More around bear sized, which was more than big enough to cause problems. She couldn't make out much in the way of details, but it did seem to have a longish body and moved with the fluid grace of fast predators. Crap, crap, crap, crap.
Then it turned its head toward her, and she got a brief glimpse of diamond-shaped eyes, glowing green in the dark. It snarled again.
Grimacing, Kyoko slowly scooted back between the rocks over to her sleeping companion. "Charlotte," she whispered, shaking her by the shoulder. "Charlotte. Wake up!"
Charlotte snorted. She blinked her eyes and blearily looked up at Kyoko. "Huh?" she muttered as she rubbed her eyes. "Okay, no way did you give me as long as I-"
"Shhh!" Kyoko clapped a hand over Charlotte's mouth. "Quiet! We got trouble."
Charlotte's eyes widened in understanding. She slowly nodded, and Kyoko removed her hand. "What it is?" Charlotte whispered. "Dockengauts?"
Kyoko shook her head. "No, some kind of animal. And I think there's two of them out-"
Then the other hunter snarled, closer this time.
Charlotte stiffened with a tiny gasp, her alabaster face going even paler. "Oh fuck," she whispered. Her hand went to her shoulder.
Kyoko blinked at the reaction. Okay, wow, that had been way more than just general worry of being hunted by an alien monster. Charlotte looked petrified, even more than she had been with the dockengauts.
"Charlotte?" Kyoko hissed. "C'mon, snap out of it. What is it? What's out there?"
Her neck tightening in terror, Charlotte licked her lips and hissed out, "Valks."
…
The pair slipped out from the shelter of the rocks as smoothly and as silently as they could. Whatever the valks were, either they had yet to spot them or were content to let the strange smelling bipeds be until they had made a better assessment of their abilities. Kyoko strongly favored the latter theory.
They stole through the grass, sloshing their way through shin-high puddles in places, until they found a rocky gorge. Water poured down the gorge's mouth from the swamp into a greenish pool that took up about a fifth of the space. The rest was mostly filled with tall, smooth stone formations, suggesting that the gorge had once been a great lake until something had drained most of it away. Either way, it was a good place to take cover.
Kyoko waited until they had slipped down inside and were crouching in the shadow of one of the rocks before whispering, "Okay, what gives? The hell is a valk?"
Charlotte just stared dead ahead, her mouth working its way around silent, nonsense syllables.
Shaking her head, Kyoko reached over and snapped her fingers in front of Charlotte's face. "Hey!"
Charlotte started. Her head jerked around to direct her stare at Kyoko.
"Snap out of it, Charly!" Kyoko hissed. "I need to know what we're up against!"
Charlotte blinked. "Oh," she said, running her fingers through her dark-pink hair. "Uh, right. Valks. They're, uh, predators…"
"Yeah, I got that part," Kyoko said dryly. "Gonna have to give me a little more to go on than that."
Charlotte breathed out. "All right. They're fast, they're strong, and they're smart. Teeth, claws, the works. Whiplike tails with clubs, and they've got venomous saliva, so don't let them bite you. Hell, don't even let them drool on you. The pain is excruciating."
"Okay," Kyoko said with a nod. "Anything else?"
"Um, um," Charlotte muttered as she tried to get her head back in the game. "Their backs, necks, and the tops of their heads are pretty well-armored, so don't bother going for that if it comes to it. Also, there's probably at least four of them out there, maybe even seven or eight."
Kyoko's brow rose. "Oh yeah?"
Charlotte nodded. "They work in family packs. Two adults, and however many juveniles survive long enough to be able to hunt. And that happens fast."
"Groovy," Kyoko sighed. "Uh, hey. No offense, but compared to the dockengauts, these guys don't sound that bad. Why'd they got you all freaked out?"
The question made Charlotte grimace. "Er, well, the truth is, there's another reason why I've studied the dockengauts' homeworld as much as I have, one that I didn't mention earlier."
"Oh yeah?"
Charlotte gave a quick nod. She opened her mouth to respond, but just ended up inhaling sharply through her teeth.
The back of her neck prickling, Kyoko followed her gaze to where it was fixed on a nearby stone column. When she did, she found herself staring as well.
A valk was crouched on top of the column, staring down at the pair. In the dim light, it was little more than a silhouette, but she was able to make out its features at least. And what she saw made her breath catch in her throat.
Kyoko was staring at a dinosaur.
Well, no, obviously not a real dinosaur. This thing didn't come from Earth, and was definitely not extinct. But the similarities were very striking, specifically to a velociraptor. Or rather, the much cooler monsters from the Jurassic Park movies that had been a favorite of hers during her monster movie phase, and not the poodle-sized parrots she had been disappointed to find out the actual creatures had really been. This one apparently held similar opinions. It was nearly two meters tall and as long as a pickup truck from snout to tail. It crouched on powerful legs ending in ripping talons, with a rather nimble set of claws at the end of long, strong-looking arms that were extended to hold onto the nearby rocks, providing further balance. Like Charlotte had said, its whole back, tail, neck, and head included, was covered with spiny, armored plates, and a thick, mace-like lump was at the end of its tail. Adding to the dinosaur comparisons, its head was further protected by a bony crest, not too dissimilar from that of a triceratops, only instead of two sharp horns sticking straight out from its forehead, they curved around the eyes before jutting out, like a ram's, or a demon's. A small, thick horn poked out from the top of its snout, and two lines of spines ran down its head, between its eyes.
All three of them.
There were two on either side of the head, like its distant dinosaurian cousins, but a third one was stuck smack dab in the middle of its forehead, giving the creature quite the range of vision. It was this eye that was staring unblinking right at Kyoko and Charlotte.
Kyoko was afraid, sure, but it was more of the careful wariness that came with confronting some new threat than the sheer panic Charlotte was experiencing. And the truth of it was that another emotion had risen to the surface, one stronger than fear, one that can be neatly summed up by a little child jumping up and down, gleefully clapping their hands while exclaiming, "Dinosaur, dinosaur, dinosaur, dinosaur!"
Then the valk's mouth opened, displaying rows and rows of curving, bladelike teeth. It let out one of those clicking snarls, and a sliver of drool dripped from its maw to splatter over the rocks. Its saliva sizzled where it landed. Charlotte let out a small whimper.
Kyoko then remembered exactly why those movies had so much running and screaming.
Then she was struck with a horrible premonition.
Still directing most of her attention to the valk directly in front of them, she tilted her head ever so slightly to the left and moved her eyes around to look up.
Another reptilian shadow was crouched on the rock they were backed up against, directly over her and Charlotte's heads, with a trio of malicious emerald eyes glaring down at them.
Clever girl.
"MOVE!" Kyoko screamed as she yanked the petrified Charlotte out of the way. And not a moment too soon, as the valk directly over them had chosen that moment to let its drool splatter down on where they had been standing. Had Kyoko not reacted exactly when she had, it would have landed right on their heads.
Unfortunately, that was as far as their luck went. Furious that their trap had failed, the pair of valks let out high-pitches shrieks and bounded off the rocks after the pair. Holding tightly to Charlotte's hand, Kyoko bolted through the maze of stone formations as the gorge around them was filled with the echoing cries of the monsters pursuing them.
…
A long, long time ago, before tragedy and personal horror had caused her to upgrade, Kyoko's nightmares had all been about monsters.
This of course had been a by-product of her love for monster movies, and more than once Papa had clicked his tongue in disapproval at the sight of his young daughter sitting in the dark, cocooned in blankets, staring with wide eyes as men in rubber suits waved plastic ray-guns around or destroyed Styrofoam buildings, lamenting that she was just going to give herself bad dreams. To his credit, he had been gracious enough to never bring it up whenever Kyoko ran wailing to her parents' bed in the middle of the night. But though he had been right, that had never really discouraged the girl. As scary as they were, the dreams had actually been sort of thrilling, and the argument could be made that they had subconsciously influence her decision to become a Puella Magi in the first place.
However, there was one dream in particular that stood out. In it, Kyoko was with Momo, who was barely walking at the time. The two of them were cowering between the aisles of a large, industrial kitchen, hiding from something that they couldn't see but knew was there, stalking them in the dark. They could hear it breathing, hear it snarling as it navigated the steel rows, its claws clicking against the linoleum floor. Holding tightly to her sister's hand, Kyoko would crawl from aisle to aisle, keeping just out of sight, staying one step ahead of the creature. But no matter how quickly they crawled or where they hid, it always seemed to be right behind them, seconds away from discovering the two girls and eating them alive.
Then, as they huddled together at the far end of the kitchen, they would look up to see windows in the walls, ones that Kyoko hadn't even known were there. And just outside was a pair of cold, reptilian eyes, staring down at them through the glass. Lightning would flash, illuminating a head big enough to swallow the pair whole, one with a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth.
Kyoko usually woke up after that.
Again, as terrifying as the dreams were, Kyoko grew to enjoy them, especially in comparison to the nightmares that would eventually replace them. All terror aside, they really had been quite thrilling. But as she was now learning, there was a marked difference between the excitement that came from dreaming about prehistoric monsters, and the reality of actually being chased by them, especially since, in comparison to the admittedly inaccurate versions created for the movies, these had seen a serious upgrade. Plus, those raptors had largely been in unfamiliar territory. These valks were in their home turf.
As Kyoko and Charlotte bolted through the columns, she caught glimpses of shadows to either side, outpacing them, racing ahead to cut them off. "Shit," she growled under her breath. "Charlotte. Up."
"Huh?" Charlotte said, staring stupidly at her.
"I said up, you-"
Too late.
It was like the valk had teleported in. One moment there was nothing in front of the girls, the next it was simply there, mouth open and shrieking at them. Charlotte screamed and Kyoko yelled as it lunged forward. Kyoko threw herself back like she was ducking under a limbo bar, and the valk's jaws missed her by an uncomfortably small distance. Kyoko's eyes crossed to focus on the muscular neck stretched out over her. She scowled and rammed her fist into its unarmored jugular.
The valk let out a hoarse cough of surprise and jerked back, allowing Kyoko to straighten up…
Only for her to have to leap back to avoid getting her head bitten off by a second valk, this one about two-thirds the size of the first. She landed on her toes, arms spread like a startled bird, teeth bared in a grimace and wide eyes staring at the beast, who was staring right back at her in evident annoyance.
The valk let out a snort of disgust. Then, moving with a grace that something with that much mass should not have been capable of, it pivoted on its feet, spinning around to swing its weighted tail at her. Acting purely on instinct, Kyoko jumped up, just clearing it as it whizzed by to smash a nearby horn of rock to pieces…
Then she was knocked to the ground as a third valk plowed into her back.
Kyoko yelled as the valk sank its teeth into her backpack and yanked back. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you looked at it), the pack was made to withstand an incredible amount of punishment, and the straps held, meaning Kyoko ended up being jerked back and shaken horribly as the creature tried to wrestle what it probably imagined was bizarrely soft shell off the back of its prey. Kyoko slipped the straps and, before the valk could realize that the backpack in its mouth was no longer attached to anything edible, she had flipped around to kick her feet right into its stomach.
Evidently it didn't expect something so small and soft-looking to have the strength that she did, and was sent wailing into the air, dropping her pack in surprise. Kyoko drew her legs back to her chest and thrust them out, kipping up to her feet. A spear flashed into her grasp, and she spun around, ready to meet the other valks blade to blade.
There were four of them: the two adults that had attacked her initially, and two of the partially grown juveniles. And all of them were staring at her with something very much like shock. Apparently they hadn't expected her to put up the fight that she had.
Breathing heavily, Kyoko's eyes flicked from one alien face to the next. She extended one hand and beckoned, daring them to try something.
One of the adults let out a hissing cackle that sounded like a rattlesnake's rattle, and suddenly all four of them simply vanished, scampering away into the pillars.
Kyoko didn't believe for one second that they were gone for good. They were simply regrouping. Their new prey had proven to be tougher than previously estimated, so they were making a tactical retreat to reassess the situation. They were going to be back before too long. Which meant that she had to retreat as well.
She snatched up her pack and slipped it back on. Then she glanced around and saw Charlotte cowering beneath one of the pillars, knees drawn up and hands covering her head. A red hot flash of anger at the other girl's cowardice surged through Kyoko. After all those lectures about Kyoko's attitude probably getting everyone killed, and this was how Charlotte responded to a threat? "Come on, Pinkie!" Kyoko growled as she seized Charlotte by the arm and yanked her up. "We're going up."
Charlotte yelped and tried to resist. Not willing to waste time knocking the panic out of her, Kyoko did the only thing she could: scoop Charlotte up into a princess carry and go bounding away, one leap carrying the two of them to the top of the tallest rock in range, and the second one clear out of the and back into the swamp.
Once there, Kyoko dropped Charlotte turned to glance over the gorge from a bird's eye view. The light had brightened considerably, and it was harder for the valks to hide when seen from above. Still, they were swift and stealthy, and counting their fleeting shadows was difficult, but Kyoko estimated there to be about six of them darting around.
She sighed. Great. Six super-raptors all looking to disembowel them, and they still had the dockengauts to deal with afterward. This was shaping up to be one hell of a day.
Though speaking of which…
Her eyes narrowing, Kyoko turned her attention to her "partner," who was sprawled out on the ground, still the trembling mess she had been in the gorge.
"Get up," Kyoko growled.
Charlotte didn't seem to hear her.
Shaking her head, Kyoko reached down to seize Charlotte by the collar and yank her up. Hoisting her high enough so that even her long legs couldn't touch the ground, Kyoko thrust her back into a rock and shouted, "Snap out of it, Charlotte! Look, you've been giving me nothing but shit about my attitude, and maybe you were right, but now you're the one going to get us killed!"
Charlotte stared at her, her blue eyes wet with tears. "I can't, I can't, I'm sorry, but I can't. Not with valks. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…"
"Why?" Kyoko demanded as she gave Charlotte another hard shake. "Why not? We were all set to invade the fucking dockengauts! How in the hell are valks scarier than them?"
"They're not. They're not. It's me, it's all me." Swallowing loudly, Charlotte motioned to be put down. When Kyoko complied, she stumbled back and sat down carefully on a nearby rock. "It's…Look, remember when I told you about that one jott who owned a monster zoo?"
Kyoko frowned. "Yeah. What about her?"
"Well, the reason why I met her in the first place was because…because a few years ago, she had a couple of valks she wanted for an exhibit. She was, uh, she was transporting them by boat, but they got loose, jumped overboard, and swam to shore. And I was at the beach with some friends when we stumbled across where they were nesting."
To this, Kyoko rolled her eyes. "Oh wow, a couple of Spielberg wet dreams versus a whole bunch of Puella Magi. Give me a break, they would've been blown to pieces before they so much as snarled!"
"And they were!" Charlotte snapped. "Yeah, okay, we blew them apart. But not before one of the snuck up on me, knocked me down, and ripped my freaking shoulder off!"
This made Kyoko's brow rise. "Oh."
"Yeah, you know how I told you that their saliva causes excruciating pain? Well, talking from personal experience there!" Charlotte took a deep, shaking breath. "I was in the hospital for three days after that. I can…I can grow my head back in half an hour, and it still put me in the hospital for three days! That's how much their venom screwed me up." Charlotte looked up at Kyoko, her face a mixture of rage, shame, and terror. "So yeah. That's another reason why I made a point of studying dockengauts. That's why I'm so scared. The nightmares I got from that documentary were bad, okay. But the dreams I had after that?" Breathing out, she hunched over and put her head between her hands. "One time they had to sedate me, it got so bad."
Kyoko gave the trembling girl a long, hard look. She folded her arms, glanced up at the brightening sky, and sighed.
"So," she said. "Fine. Did you get it out of your system at least?"
Charlotte pursed her lips. Then she shook her head. "Kyoko, don't ask me to fight them. You don't understand. I just can't."
"Oh, you can't, huh?" Kyoko said wryly.
Then she drew back and smacked Charlotte right across the face.
"Snap out of it, Charlotte!" Kyoko yelled. "You told Sayaka to get over her fear of heights, and she did! Now it's your turn! I need your help, Charlotte! I can't do this alone!"
One hand cupping her throbbing cheek, Charlotte glowered up at the irate redhead. "It's not the same thing, Kyoko! You have no idea what facing these…things is like for me!"
"Oh, I don't?" Kyoko demanded. She stuck her bare arm in Charlotte's face. "You lost a shoulder. I lost a whole freaking arm! I watched the dockengaut eat it right in front of me! And unlike you, I didn't have a nice, comfortable hospital to stay in after. And I'm still gonna go right into the lair of the monster that did it to save my friends, because I know that they'd do the same for me."
To her credit, this point made Charlotte cringe with shame, and she quickly averted her gaze. "Kyoko, I'm sorry. You're right, you're right about everything. But I just can't. Every time I even think about those things I freeze up. I'm useless to you."
Okay, that did it. Kyoko did not have time for this. Though she knew that she was probably going to feel terrible about it later, it was time to unleash the asshole. "Char," she said in an overly syrupy voice. "Charly. I'd think that you of all people would do anything to keep Mami from getting eaten."
It worked. The fear vanished from Charlotte's face in an instant. She inhaled sharply through her teeth, her back immediately going stiff. When she looked up at Kyoko, her pale cheeks were starting to darken with indignation. "How dare you?" she whispered.
"I'm about five minutes away from getting my ass eaten by space raptors or space spiders, I don't have time to be polite," Kyoko snapped. She reached down to poke Charlotte right between the eyes. "But if you don't pull yourself together and start making yourself useful, I'm chucking your ass into that gorge and telling Mami that I never found you."
All emotion went from Charlotte's expression. No fear, no anger, no chagrin, nothing. She had gone completely blank.
Kyoko's hit had scored perfectly, and all of Charlotte's uncontrollable terror had drained from the wound. Now it was time to fill that space up with something else. "You love Mami, don't you? The woman you married?" she said in a low voice. "Then forget me. Do it for her. You owe her that much." She didn't go so far as to say, "For what you did." She didn't need to. Charlotte clearly got the point.
Charlotte breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth. "When this is over," she said, "you and I are going to have some words about that little comment."
To this, Kyoko nodded. She was about to speak when they heard a far-off snarl. Charlotte froze, while Kyoko stood in place, her eyes silently tracking the place the place the noise had come from.
Then a second growl went up, on the other side of the gorge. The valks were spreading out, circling them from all sides.
"Got to get through this first," Kyoko remarked.
Charlotte sighed. "Yeah. We do." She held out her hand, and gripping it, Kyoko helped her up.
Dusting herself off, Charlotte looked blankly out at the swamp. There was still a hint of fear in her eyes, deep and primal, but now it was being suppressed by ironclad determination.
"No point in running, I take it?" Kyoko asked.
"No," Charlotte said. "Not when they're on the hunt. They won't stop until they're dead or we are." She shot a glance over to Kyoko that suggested that part of her might not be all that upset should Kyoko wind up as the valks' breakfast. Ouch. Kyoko's jab had struck harder than she thought.
Kyoko considered apologizing. Given what they were up against, she was unlikely to get the chance to make peace, and didn't feel right with that still hanging over their heads if they went down. But she also didn't want to risk breaking Charlotte's newfound resolve. So instead, she simply remarked, "You know, if it makes you feel better…"
Charlotte glanced at her, one eyebrow askew.
Kyoko grinned, baring her fangs. "Personally, I feel that revenge is the best form of therapy. So think of this as payback for all those years of nightmares. So what say we show these prehistoric bitches how we do things downtown?"
Charlotte's lips twitched, lifting in the ghost of a cold smile. "Don't get cute, Kyoko."
"Er, right." Kyoko coughed awkwardly. Okay, so maybe she had unleashed too much of the asshole. Damn it, controlling it was way harder than it should be! "Right. Then let's just do this then."
…
If anyone feels that I'm going overboard in indulging in my raptor obsession here, I just want to point out that 1, valks have been canon to Resonance Days for two years, and if you didn't already know that, it's your fault for not reading First Time, 2, let's face it, this is hardly the weirdest thing I've ever done, and 3, it's my damn story and I can do what I want!
=ahem=
Though seriously, if you haven't ready First Time, why not? I was really proud of that one! It has Mami x Charlotte sexy times and everything! And if you have read First Time and are wondering why these valks look sort of different than those ones, it's because these are a different breed. Yes, murderous alien monsters can have different breeds, it's totally allowed.
Um, anyway, I was gonna include more of the actual fight, but then I hit a major case of writer's block for what comes next, so I'm just gonna throw this up now and finish up Monsterland in the next installment. Hopefully things will have worked themselves out in my head by then.
Until next time, everyone! Happy Halloween!
P.S. Yes, there is going to be a PMMM themed Christmas special this year.