II. The Birth of Mikau
A/N: OK...I've finally found the courage to continue...once again, I apologize for the long waiting period. I just think that this might be a little on the bad side, however...it seems a bit, well, strange upon how I thought this up...
P.S. - If you're going to flame, do it tastefully. I still consider myself new to this.
Every Zora in the family swam upstairs to flee for their lives as John and Julia were left downstairs with the uninvited guest.
It was a Like-Like, monstrous in size, and it coiled around the door slowly to block off the only possible escape route. John and Julia wished they never installed bars on the windows to keep invaders out. Now everyone was trapped inside, unless there was something they could do…
"HAVING TROUBLE NAMING THE LITTLE FELLOWS, HUH?" boomed the Like-Like. "WELL, LET'S SAVE ALL THAT TROUBLE RIGHT NOW. I HAVE ONE NAME FOR THEM ALL - LUNCH!"
It coiled voraciously, but slowly, toward the aquarium of the young Zoras, knocking over furniture in its wake.
Julia shrieked. "What are we going to do, John? I'm so afraid!" She hid behind her husband.
"There's only one thing we can do!" yelled John.
"Fight it!" she yelled. "But that thing will eat you alive if you get too close to it!"
John started thinking. They could hack away at it with knives in hopes of it bleeding to death, but that would only hold out for so long, because it was already approaching. But then he had another plan. His secret stash behind the cabinet wall…it was their only hope…
"Julia!" he shouted. "The potion we found in that old shop! Get it!"
"But that won't work, you're just…"
"Just get it!" he said. "Trust me…I'll hold him off as long as possible. Do you have any better ideas? Go! Go!"
Trusting her husband, Julia nodded and swam out from behind him, hurriedly, into the kitchen. She frantically searched for something strong to break into the wall behind the cabinet, and found a mallet used to break crab shells. She picked it up, opened the cabinet, tossed all the dishes out of the way, and starting pounding away at the weak wall. Although it took only three strikes, it seemed like an eternity when it broke, and she grabbed an old bottle in the hidden compartment that read "Goddess Elixir" on its label.
Thousands of questions filled her head as she read the bottle. Would it work for her husband? It would only work for a person that practiced white magic, and Raphael, his ancestor, was among the very few in the Zora history that how. But what about her own husband?
Sure, he may have the ancestral blood running through his veins, but she didn't know if he'd be able to produce the legendary Barrier, the one attack, other than a knife slash, that Like-Likes were afraid of. And she definitely wanted to keep her husband's strange ways a secret. But time was of the essence, and it was a chance they'd have to take, as they were slowly running out of it. Grabbing a few knives on the way out, she dashed outside to the living room, where she saw her husband, backed up against the aquarium, trying to protect the eggs.
"Julia!" he hollered, throwing a book at the Like-Like, watching it disappear in its slimy flesh. "Do you have the elixir?"
"I have it here in my hand!" she yelled, waving the bottle above her head.
"Throw it over here!" he yelled.
She threw the potion, and he missed it. It bounced off his hand and through the bars at the top of the aquarium, where it broke and its contents got sucked up by the eggs.
"Oh, no!" yelled Julia, putting her face in her hands. "I'm so sorry, John!"
John helplessly looked at the eggs, then at the Like-Like. "Julia! Never mind! Just throw whatever you can at it! I'm not going to give up without a fight!"
Frantically, Julia threw a knife at the Like-Like, wounding it in the side.
"OW!" yelled the Like-Like, as brown blood starting gushing from the wound. "I"LL GET YOU!" it said, as it turned towards the direction of Julia.
Now I've done it! she thought. "JOHN!" she yelled. "HELP!"
The husband Zora dashed into the Like-Like and hit it as hard as he could with his head. The Like-Like retaliated by using its girth to fling him to the other side of the room. John hit the bookshelf, knocking over a vase at the top of the shelf, where it quickly fell down on the ground and shattered. He watched, with dazed, narrow eyes as the Like-Like continued progressing, and backed his wife up towards the wall, who was now out of knives.
She screamed. "Please! No! Please…stop!" She hid her face in her hands.
John, watching with narrowed and blurring eyes, could not bear to see his wife die. Struggling to get up, he, too, yelled.
"STAY AWAY FROM HER!"
He dashed again into the Like-Like, well away from its mouth, but he couldn't knock it off course. The Like-Like trudged on toward its target, still backed up in the corner.
In a final ditch effort to save Julia, John unsheathed his fins and sliced into the Like-Like's gummy flesh with all his strength, knocking it out of the way of his wife and creating heavy damage. After doing this, however, he collapsed on the ground, exhausted.
Unfortunately, it was not enough.
The Like-Like, with a vengeance, turned its attention towards the worn-out adversary on the floor. "I'LL GET YOU OF THE WAY FIRST!" it yelled to John. It crept over to John, arched its back, and grew to an immense size.
"JOHN!" she yelled, swimming over to her fallen husband. She tried picking him up, but it was no use. He was too heavy, and she, too, was exhausted.
John regained consciousness as he looked at the Like-Like. He was staring into the round, open, dark mouth of the Like-Like. Time slowed down as he said to his struggling wife, "Julia…it was…a nice try…but we…failed…"
Julia also noticed the slowing of the time as she looked at the face of her husband and the dark mouth of the Like-Like. Tears were in her eyes as she said to him, "I…I'm sorry, John…I truly am."
John smiled weakly and hugged her. She hugged him back, preparing for the end. Both had the same prayer in their heads. Perhaps they would meet again...
The Like-Like shrunk down to size, then came upon the married couple. The Like-Like made a few sucking motions where they lay, and stayed there for about a minute. When the Like-Like finished, the section of the floor it had stood on was now bare, save for a few blood spots.
John and Julia Zoraski were no more.
"AHH!" screamed Ellen from the top of the stairs. She swam back to her hiding place.
Big mistake. The Like-Like heard the yell from upstairs and stared creeping up the stairs towards the top. Screams of agony could be heard from the next street over as the Like-Like consumed the whole family, in revenge for the near fatal wound given to him from John's last strike.
"HELP, ANYBODY, PLEASE!" they yelled.
But no Zora came. No one could fight off the enraged Like-Like. One by one, the Like-Like ate them all in vengeance, showing no mercy at all. After fifteen minutes of bloodcurdling screams, all was silent in the residence.
The Like-Like, its work complete, went downstairs, about to exit, until it saw the aquarium with the ten little eggs, still unbroken, inside of it.
"OHH…" said the Like-Like, eyeing the eggs hungrily. "Caviar..."
Creeping towards the cage, it broke into it, and proceeded to chew up the soft eggs, one by one.
The glutton enjoyed its delicacy in delight as it consumed the first nine. Feeling like it had reached the jackpot house to break into that night, it decided to wait a little before it cleaned out the residence of all inhabitants, but it stopped as it witnessed something that it had never seen before in its life, because it never took the time to do so.
The last Zora egg was hatching.
The Like-Like watched as the last egg cracked. It stared as the little Zora came out of its shell. It had markings different from the other Zora, with birthmarks on top of its crown, neck, and right arm. The little Zora had surprisingly large fins.
"WELL," said the Like-Like. "I ALWAYS LIKE FOOD ON THE RUN…" It proceeded to try and eat the young Zora.
The baby turned its head when the Like-Like's mouth stretched open to eat it, and in doing so, its sharp right fin cut into the Like-Like's mouth.
"GAH!" yelled the Like-Like. "I'LL GET YOU!" It charged towards the little Zora.
The baby looked at the charging Like-Like. Then, closing his eyes, he felt some strange unnatural power surge through his little body. It seemed that he was filled with some strange energy. Suddenly, the built-up energy grew to an immense size in the little Zora, and started pouring out in waves. A strange blue electrical current surrounded him just as the Like-Like was upon him.
"GWAHHHH!" shrieked the Like-Like. "WHAT IS THIS POWER! NOO!" it yelled in agony. Its body started melting as the strange blue current continued running around the little Zora, passing through painfully to the surprised Like-Like. Puddles of brown goo surrounded the Like-Like as it said its final words, "CURSE YOU, WHATEVER YOU ARE!" Then it shriveled up into nothing.
Baby Mikau's body could no longer support the strange blue current. The world fell black and silent as Baby Mikau lost consciousness and fell to the ground.
Silence. Then a short beep with the glow of a red light, signaling a dead battery on a forgotten camera. Then all was quiet again.