"C'mon, c'mon...!" Mutt quietly snarled, trying his best to cut and grab through the swamp gunk out of the propellors as fast as possible. Easier said than done, it was absolutely everywhere, even the thinnest looking grass took ten more knife cuts more than it should've. His arm muscles were straining from the effort, not that he could afford to stop, it was either cut through and get the boat back running or swimming with a damn briefcase for the next couple of days.
Needless to say, the choice was pretty obvious, which didn't make the circumstances any less terrifying.
The Geist with all the giant swamp gunk and alligator sized boulders for hands was bad enough, but with Goku jumping around all over the damn place, whacking it with that stick of his and the two of them knocking over trees like game pieces, it was a nightmare just keeping his balance with the water going up and down all over the place. His gun was already at the bottom of the lake, along with all the extra weapons he brought along in his backpack, meaning the second this Grimm stopped ignoring him, he might as well cut his own throat if Goku didn't get to him in time.
Checking behind him, Mutt saw Goku take another swing, cutting through the big swamp grass making its left arm before it started growing it back with even more gunk. Goku went back to defense and jumped out of the way of another arm swing. Something he couldn't keep up forever, the Grimm were pretty relentless, even the smartasses who should know better, when they thought they had you by the nutsack. This creep who wasn't even using a real body to tire out wasn't gonna stop until Goku was dead. And then Mutt himself.
Well, actually, there was one thing he could do to actually defend himself, something that would let him kill the Geist pretty easily in fact, the package in the briefcase. All he needed to die was open it up, get the detonator out of the smaller one and throw it at the monsters general direction. Geist couldn't take over things with Dust in them, it was probably the only reason it wasn't using the bombs itself against them.
But whatever practicality the idea had, the boss' orders took first place: he was to get those bombs back home no matter what it cost, even the kid's life. He just hoped Goku wouldn't screw up to put him in a position like that...
"Woah!" Goku jumped out of the way of the ghost's arm swing, landing at the bottom of another tree just in time to stop and notice a big rock making a fist for the monsters weird, swampy body. A huge chunk of the tree he was on was smashed away with the upper half making a big splash and wave when it hit the water. Out in the back, he could see the boat shake left and right with Mutt trying to keep his balance on it.
The ghost attacked again with the boulder hand and this time Goku was gonna see what the rock part of it was really made of! Pulling his arms back, Goku shouted: "Extend!" then swung his arms, making the rock and Nyoibo smash into each other. He'd seen Nyoibo break through lotsa rocks like those no problem. Except this time, instead of breaking into tons of little pieces, it just kinda got dented and fell back into the water.
Jumping away from another gunk arm swipe over to a big branch, Goku used the speed he got from spinning himself around it to fly through the air and real close to the monster. Then, with a smirk, he let it have a taste of long Nyoibo! "Take this!" The longer staff smashed right into its shoulder and cut it in half. With the big boulder still there, it sank right away. When he landed on a patch of ground close by, he attacked again, this time cutting into the chest before hitting something hard halfway through.
"Huh?" Goku said before the grass went all over Nyoibo and started pulling something fierce. "Oh no, you don't!"
He grit his teeth and kept pulling the other way, but the Grimm was strong and the ground wasn't good for that sort of tugging contest. But he wasn't gonna let them have Grampa's gift to him, just the idea of that monster stealing it right in front of him made Goku temper go crazy. It didn't help him out when the monsters second arm took another swing, smacked him across the face and made him let go off Nyoibo.
"No!" He shouted after Nyoibo got sucked into the monster, even jumping into the water to try and get it back. Swimming as fast as he could, Goku tried grabbing it a few times when it slowed down. He didn't even think it was a trap before the monsters gunk shot out of the back and started wrapping itself all over him. They gunk got his arms first, forcing them really far apart and hoisting him off the water.
"Hey! Lemme go! And give me back Nyoibo!" Goku shouted, trying to kick the vines away with his legs or snap it with his tail but it didn't work. The monster's gunk swing to the left and smacked him face first into a tree, then another one, and another one, and another until Goku felt sick from all the smacking and spinning around. "I think I'm gonna be sick..."
Before he could puke or try to break free, the monster started shrieking all of a sudden, it was so bad Goku felt like something sharp was being jammed into his ears. That wasn't the weirdest part too, the Grimm started going crazy, dropping him into the water and shaking all over the place, its body making weird shapes where it sometimes had five arms then no arms and a big, almost ball-shaped body.
Then it started shooting stuff outta itself, like more gunk, grass, branches and even the big boulders it used to protect itself or attack him. One of em, almost as big as the boat flew so far it landed somewhere close to Mutt, Goku heard him shout a mean word when it did. Goku wasn't really sure what to think about this until it tossed Nyoibo a long way off smack dab into the middle of a tree, the same way he threw away something gross when it got in his hand.
"Hey! Don't throw my stuff!" He shouted at the Grimm then swam to the closest tree so he could jump from it over to Nyoibo. By the time he got there and yanked it out, the monster was gone. Or it looked like it was anyway. Getting a second to breathe, Goku smelled out where Mutt was and noticed how turned around he'd gotten from the fighting, cause Mutt smelled pretty far away, and get farther too.
He was gonna try and shout after im but a big, glowing thing from the water stopped him, the same kinda glow the rest of the monsters stuff had. "Uh oh!" With a jump, he dodged the rock and was aiming for another tree when the one he just left started shaking like crazy behind him. Goku didn't even get a chance to cut through it with Nyoibo in mid-air when the ghost pulled the whole tree right on top of him.
Getting smashed in the back of the head by a whole tree hurt lots more than he thought it would but he didn't have time to complain about that. The second he hit the water, more of that crazy gunk came back and started going for his arms and legs again. He attacked all over the place before the tree from before flew back up and bonked him over the head again. The second he felt dizzy, the vines came all over the place, grabbing his arms and legs this time and pulling him down into the water.
More of the gunk covered him the farther down he went, pretty soon he couldn't do more than waggle his tail helplessly or shake his head back and forth. To the side, he could see Nyoibo sinking, real close to his hand but feeling like a million miles away when he couldn't move. Even him holding his breath for a long time, which he could do, wasn't gonna matter much if he couldn't get out and kill this monster.
Attacking with his tail wasn't gonna work, Goku thought he was super lucky it didn't grab onto it or else he'd lose all his strength. But there was something else he could try that worked a little while ago: his teeth! Craning his neck, Goku opened his mouth for a whole lotta disgusting swamp water and bit down on the vines covering his left arm, the closest one to Nyoibo. With a fast jerk, he ripped all the gunk to shreds then just barely managed to snatch his Grampa's gift to him in the last second before it sank.
With a big swing, he cut the rest of the vines up and grinned at the monster. Now take this! Before it could try and tangle him back up again, Goku pulled his arm back and threw Nyoibo at it right through the water. He coulda sworm he saw the Grimm's eye go big, and bulging, kinda like that funny look the boss' guys gave him before it went right through it!
It started shaking again, but then it melted, just like all the rest. Grabbing Nyoibo, Goku swam back up and took a big mouth full of air. "That's what you get for tryin' t'steal my stuff!"
After taking a second to get his breathing back to normal, Goku started smelling around for Mutt but couldn't feel his scent anywhere! "Mutt! Where are you?!" He didn't like that nobody answered him, so he climbed to a tree and started jumping to the last spot he sorta remembered Mutt's smell being. When he got there, there was nothing around. He knew Mutt didn't get sunk, his smell was still around when the monster last attacked, so where was he?
That was when Goku picked up on something weird jammed into a tree hole and squinted before recognizing it. "One of the boxes!"
It was the small one, looking a little banged up but still in one piece. "Musta gotten tossed outta the boat when the rock almost smashed into it. I should get it back to the boss!"
Putting the handle thing of the box in his teeth, Goku climbed all the way to the top of the tree, getting a good look at where the sun was now. It was a little over noon from what he could see, almost lunch time but more importantly, he knew where the west was and like Mutt told him, just keep going west and he'd get back to the boss in no time! But first, lunch and he was pretty sure he saw one of those gators swimming close by...
Two Days Later
"Almost there, just a little more!" Goku laughed, jumping from tree to tree and getting excited about seeing the boss again. He was gonna get to give him back the whole package and walk around the town for once! Plus, it would be really nice to eat something other than gators, the first three or four are fine, but ten? That got a little same-y after a while.
Night time was starting to come around so he was trying to hurry it up even more. It was crazy how a boat was so much faster than him, Goku wondered just how many fast stuff was out there like that. Was there a fast Grimm that could get in a few hours what took him over two days? That'd be crazy if it existed!
Speaking of Grimm, they were giving him some company on the trip back, every while he'd run into one of those gator Grimm and had to fight em off but it wasn't that big of a deal, it helped make going back less boring. As long as they weren't freaks like the ghost one,... One of em was close by just when he started feeling the smell of the city off in the distance, around the place where they took the boat out of. It was a little smaller than the usual ones but Goku knew they all fell for the same trick. He'd have to tell the boss about them being this close to town.
Landing on the ground, Goku let it come for him and jammed Nyoibo in its mouth and gave it a nice poke! "Extend!" Sure enough, it went right through the monsters head, he expected it to go down right there but it was a little crazier than the others, actually managing to lunge at him and knock the little box he carried for the boss outta his hand, snapping it open.
"Hey!" He shouted, running over to the box. "Watch it!"
Once he picked it up, it snapped open and something small fell outta it. "Huh, whazzat?" Goku wondered, grabbing and looking at it. It was black, square shaped and was a little too big to fit into just one of his hands. It had a long stick thing coming outta the upper right side of it and a big, red, soft looking circle in the middle, it was kinda sticking out too.
"I wonder what it does," He looked at the red circle, and tried figuring out if the boss would get mad if he pressed it or not. "Maybe, just once,..."
With a finger sticking out, Goku carefully pressed on the soft, red circle then pushed it back into the square. Somewhere, he heard a loud rumbling sound and looked up into the sky. "It sounded like thunder, but there's no clouds in the sky,... More weird sky stuff?"
Shrugging, Goku put the red circle square back in the box and snatched Nyoibo off the ground. "Well, I guess the boss'll tell me what it does when I ask him later!"
A/N: For a myriad of reasons, this chapter was a bitch to get done. Not the least of which was some college-related matters and my own writer's block. Hopefully, I managed to get something halfway decent out for you guys and won't suffer the same problems with the following one.