Huan Strongarm: A Bartfort Folktale

by Vergil Creiger

In which a simple delivery to Holfort goes horribly horribly wrong.

14. The First Warmother

And so an alliance was forged; one a stranger in a strange land, the other her sworn protector. No wonder this ended up as a folktale.

Canaria Monastery was an ancient institution with a history of theological conflict with the Church of the Saint, so it was little wonder that they kept as far away from them as they could. The structure was situated in the centre of the Orklands, a part of the Holfort continent overrun by Orks from the dungeon and protected by a mountain range known as the Blood Barrier. Using these monsters as unofficial guard dogs, the Monastery had enjoyed many years of seclusion.

But the Orks were nowhere near the worst obstacle standing in Huan's way.

By now, Elodach had completely regenerated his body, and had discovered the Talent unique to him as a semi-immortal. That Talent was never given a name, although Huan and his allies eventually named the creatures he used it to create.

The Warmothers. If you have been to Holfort recently, you may have seen artwork depicting a black dog of inconsistent size battling an eldritch horror. Chances are you saw a picture of Huan, and that the creature he was fighting was a Warmother. Or worse, its Spawn.

Earlier in this book, I gave a name to the incident in which the citizens of Holfort lost their memories. I called it the Blank. Now I'm going to do the same for Elodach's Talent.

I'm going to call it: Master of Nightmares. Not because that's what Elodach styled himself as, but because that's what the Warmothers were. Nightmares.

Being present for the Huan's first encounter with one of these creatures, Prince Julius eventually had a tapestry commissioned of the event: later, having forgotten what exactly it depicted, he gave it to me as a gift. I have it hanging in my study, and I'm looking at it right now as I write this sentence. I think the greatest thing Leon ever did for me was wipe these creatures out before I could ever encounter one.

Probably.

Maybe.

Apparently, the Warmothers were notoriously difficult to kill.

Huan Strongarm: A Bartfort Folktale, by Lufas Maphaahl

"Why am I not surprised!" Leon barked. The two idiots looked up at him from their campfire, grinning unrepentantly.

Leon had spent the night at the palace, and during this time he had discovered that he apparently didn't need to sleep. After a boring and frustrating night of ambling around the grounds waiting for the sun to rise, he and Olivia had set off down the road with a pack full of supplies. Iven had made sure that the freezing axe was airborne before they set off, and it circled overhead as they made their way down the road.

He had initially thought nothing of it as the carriage overtook them, as it was out of sight long before they stopped for Olivia's midday meal. It was only when night was falling that they encountered them again, having made a campfire in an empty clearing. Night had fallen, and the two morons were sitting by the fire as their driver groomed his horses.

"I get that you probably escaped the palace using the passage through Drego's hideout," he continued. "So instead I'm going to focus on why you didn't give us a ride!"

"He says hello," translated Olivia. "And he wants to know why you didn't give us a lift."

"Because you would have sent us home," claimed Julius shamelessly. "So we made it too inconvenient to escort us back!"

"We were actually going to meet you further in," admitted Jilk. "We have a friend stationed at an outpost further up the road near Thasch Mountain. He's been scouting the ork tribes of the Blood Barrier, and we were going to use his intel to barter our way back into your group."

Leon looked at the carriage, instantly seeing what had forced them to change their plans. "Except you lost a wheel."

The Prince began to look slightly sheepish. "We ran over a goblin. The driver wanted to stop and kill it normally, but I insisted so… yeah."

"Moron," grunted Leon, and even Olivia gave him a disapproving look. "You're lucky I didn't carry her on my back and take a shortcut through the woods. You would have walked back and looked like an idiot doing it."

To their credit, both boys looked ashamed. Obviously, it was because of how Olivia was looking at them: neither understood a word Leon said. "We, uh, weren't sure what to do next, so we decided to wait for you."

"Well for starters," scowled Olivia. "Why don't you try apologising to that nice man whose advice you ignored."

She could tell from their face that the thought of apologising hadn't even occurred to them; although they did as she asked and told the surprised man they were sorry, they had already fallen in her eyes.

Leon wandered over to speak with the draught horse. "Hey, how're y'all doing?"

The poor animal froze in terror, soiling itself on the spot. "Please don't eat me!"

Leon gave the horse a confused look, wondering if he had committed a social gaff of some kind. "Why would I eat you?"

Olivia laughed, instantly gaining the full attention of every man present. "The truncated unicorn doesn't like Huan!"

The carriage driver gave her an odd look. "The what?"

Leon ignored them, padding around the back of the carriage so as not to disturb the horse. The front left wheel had disintegrated, the orphaned hub possessing only two remaining spokes. It lay forgotten in the wet mud, leaving the carriage to be propped up by a sturdy log that the driver had probably found while the love interests sat around being useless.

Leon picked up the hub in his mouth and spat it out again next to another nearby fragment of wheel; the camp was next to a river, and the night sky was obscured by the huge willow trees that hung all around them. He sniffed at the river bank, eventually finding a third piece of wheel that had bounced into the reeds.

"Yo! Olivia!" Leon called, having dumped all three pieces in a messy pile. "Do you know any fancy fairy magic for putting things back together?" He already knew she did, because it was one of her starting spells.

"Sure do!" she grinned, waving her hands over the debris. Before his eyes they flowed together, until a perfectly intact cart wheel had taken its place. "There," she smiled. "Nothing… to it…"

"Olivia!" Leon yelped with alarm as she slid to the ground, the two fools running over and competing with one another over who could prop her up more comfortably. "Please, please tell me this isn't a fatal illness I don't know about!"

"Don't you worry. The bird-man will watch over us," she smiled weakly. "He wears a colourful dress of plumes and is wrapped in stardust. And when he plays the flute our hearts break from the yearning for distant places. It's the song of freedom, my dear. You just have to listen. It's so beautiful."

The boys just looked at her in confusion. "Oh god," croaked Leon. "She's hallucinating!"

Olivia laughed, which turned into a harsh cough. "It's a fairy poem, silly. It means that the adventure is worth it, that's all."

Leon huffed through his nose, sitting himself on the ground as he realised she was going to be alright. "What was that? Is it difficult to use magic right now?"

"My healing magic is fine. My mending magic is tied more closely to who I am, so it's harder to use without a sustainable source of fairy magic." She pulled herself to her feet, quickly becoming annoyed as Julius and Jilk kept trying to help her. "It's not good when things are broken. But that's all I can do; magic that uses mana is fine, but True Fairy magic uses too much energy when I'm not in the Faelands. If I push myself too far then I'd perish like a small, insignificant little flame."

Julius gave Leon a righteous, angry glare. "And you made her-"

"Don't talk to him like that." The Prince was shocked at Olivia's stony glower, almost falling over in his haste to back away. She shook Jilk off and got up on her own, patting herself down and generally looking perfectly fine. "I've been walking all day, unlike the two of you. That was all it was. I would have been perfectly otherwise."

Leon cringed when she said 'unlike the two of you.' "Well…" he coughed awkwardly. "Well, maybe we should get that wheel back on!"

The two idiots ignored him, forcing Olivia to roll her eyes and ask the driver for help. They kept trying to butt in until Leon snarled and drove them away, sitting sulkily by the fire as the repairs were made. Soon the wheel sat firmly on its axle, and they were set to hitchhike the last stretch of the way.

"Madam," the driver bowed courteously. "It would be most unseemly if you were forced to sleep outside. Can I offer you the keys to the carriage, that you might dream with a roof over your head?"

Olivia's smile made her face light up, as though morning had come early. "Thank you! You are a dear, sweet man!"

"Aw," he giggled bashfully. The boys gave him hopeful looks, but it became clear from the number of sleeping bags that three would lie by the fire that night. Olivia looked expectantly at Leon.

"Huan? Aren't you going to come in?"

Leon's incredulity made him totally miss the envious looks from the love interests. "Olivia, I don't sleep! I'm not going to stand there and stare at you all night! That's creepy!"

"You don't have to," she smiled. "Just come in here and talk to me until I fall asleep."

He had to admit, there weren't many other places he could go for conversation these days. "Fine. Why not."

He trotted through the carriage's open side door, which Olivia closed and locked behind him. The driver rolled his eyes as the boys gazed longingly after them.

"You two know he's a dog, right?"

The inside of the carriage was pointlessly opulent and spacious; the seats were long and comfy enough for someone to sleep on, and there was enough floor space for Leon to grow a few sizes if he felt like it. "This was a nice day," decided Olivia. "We had a lovely day's hike, you taught me some things about adventuring and I get to sleep with a roof over my head for the very first time. I call that a success!"

"You slept in the palace."

"Palaces don't have roofs, Huan, they have ceilings."

He almost chalked that up as another bizarre fairyism, but when he stopped and thought about it he found it made a weird sort of sense. Leon hopped onto a seat while Olivia sat beside him; she absently began to pet his fur, which he allowed so long as she left his ears alone.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure," grunted Leon, his tail thumping against the wall. "Go for it."

"What are you going to do after we turn you back?"

"I'm going to go home and give my mother that music box. Why?"

Olivia shifted her weight. Leon wondered what sort of expression she had. "And are you going to stay there? Forever?"

"Oh, no! I… I love my family, but I have dreams too."

"What sort of dreams?"

"Well, with all these secret things I know about, I sort of set one aside for myself, you know?"

"Oh really?"

"I was going to set up my own territory. Something small, so I wouldn't have to pay too much taxes. And no noble title, so I could marry a commoner who wouldn't cheat on me."

Olivia stopped petting him. "Why are you talking about this as if it's not going to happen?"

Leon avoided looking at her, placing his head between his forepaws. "Because to do all this I'd need a very specific treasure. It was… Well, it was one of the things you could have found."

"And now that you've met me, you feel like you're stealing from me?"

"A little, yeah." Leon's eyes began to droop; not sleepy, but relaxed. The sounds of quiet conversation between Julius and Jilk became a soothing background noise as they spoke. "It's different now that I've met you. You're… real."

"I don't mind you taking a little for yourself." He could hear the smile in her voice. "Especially for such a nice, humble dream. Would it really make a difference?"

He was talking about a cheat item on the level of the final boss, so… yeah, kinda. "This isn't any normal treasure, you know. This is something that stood out even compared to all the other secrets I have hidden away in my head. It's not… It's not something you can thoughtlessly give away to someone like me."

Something about the way he said it caught Olivia's attention. "Someone like you?"

"You know…" Leon's ears flattened self-consciously. "A mob. A background character."

She couldn't believe what she was hearing. "You? A background character?" she asked incredulously. "Huan… Mr Leon, of all people-"

"Remember, I'm going to turn back into a human soon," he reminded her gently. "Without my Strongarm power, I'm just an ordinary person with some slightly useful information."

Olivia wasn't immediately certain what to say. "Huan, do you remember when you offered to help me with… with what I had to do."

"Yep."

"Don't you think you could feed me this information of yours more easily if you had a means to defend yourself?" Leon raised his head and looked at her sceptically; the fairy's mouth was curled in a mischievous smile. "As the rightful owner of that treasure, I hereby bestow it upon you! May you use it to protect yourself, so that l may continue to feed on your secrets!"

It was such a Torvel thing to say that both chuckled at the melodramatic silliness. "Fine," he agreed. "But no takesies backsies."

Olivia smiled, gently running her fingers through his fur. "Deal."

They jerked upright as a sudden, ear-splitting scream tore through the night air. Olivia unlocked the carriage door as Julius, Jilk and the draught horse began to scream in terror. The fairy and the wolfdog ran outside; while the two idiots were shouting into the trees with weapons drawn, the driver was nowhere to be seen.

"Ask them what happened!" Leon tried to say, but Olivia was too busy trying to calm the horse. The poor animal had gone mad with fear, bucking and screaming until it tore away from its harness altogether. They watched helpless as it ran into the trees; moments later the air rang with its screams, intermingled with the bestial snarls of something none of them had encountered before.

They stood there listening in horror until the screams were abruptly cut off. The snarls became oddly muffled, and they knew from the sound of tearing flesh that the unknown predator was eating the horse's corpse.

"What the hell happened to the driver?" Leon demanded, his anxiety making him forget that they couldn't understand him. "Did you see what it was?"

"Something killed the driver!" Julius blurted out. "It just… It just reached out of the trees and grabbed him! It looked like… I don't know, like a weird centipede or an earwig or something!" He started to hyperventilate, and Jilk was too busy freaking out himself to calm him down. "I just watched it happen! I didn't… I didn't even try to help, I just…"

"Everyone back to back!" Leon growled. "We need a decent perimeter before this thing comes back!"

Olivia relayed his orders as quickly as she could, her voice cracking slightly out of panic. The boys were glad of the direction, facing the blackness with weapons out. Olivia clutched the pendant containing the last of her fairy magic, while Leon arched his back and bared his teeth.

He had better eyesight than the three bipeds, so he was the first to see the entity as a rose from the black river water. It had a long, muscled neck covered in slimy, greyish-green scales, with a triangular head tipped with huge pincers that - as Julius described - resembled those of a centipede or an earwig. A sharp needle that Leon decided to assume was poisoned sat between its jaws, and two dark depressions resembling eyes watched him eerily.

"Guys," he whispered. "Back away from the river. Slowly."

Olivia discreetly got the attention of the two boys, and the group began slowly making their way towards the fire. All across the river, more and more of the bizarre organisms rose up; despite the river water, Leon's enhanced sense of smell had long since told him of their existence. Countless more were hiding in the forest and buried in the mud, surrounding the quartet on all sides.

Despite the mud and water, Leon could smell them.

Despite the way they moved in perfect silence, Leon could hear their hearts beating.

Despite the dark of night, Leon could see them; he could even see below the pitch black water, where their true bodies lay hidden. The first creature advanced toward the shore, emerging from the murk so that his three companions could see them too.

It vaguely resembled a Head Taker, with slippery, amphibious skin that went smoothly over its head. The head - because what they had initially mistaken for a neck was actually a scorpion-like tail - was smooth and eyeless like a xenomorph, with huge dripping fangs that protruded from its jaws as it snarled. Also like the Head Takers was the fact that it had only two legs, but with much larger, much deadlier claws.

"Everyone into the carriage," hissed Leon. "Slowly. Don't provoke them."

Their hearts pounded in their chests as they inched to safety, the seconds dragging past agonisingly slowly. Each hiss of the creatures made them fight down the urge to flinch, knowing that any sudden movements could make the monstrosities rush them.

The boys made it through the door first, while Olivia stepped to one side and prepared to close the door as the wolfdog cautiously backed through. Just in case the indentations on its tail were really eyes, Leon stared it down until the closing door interrupted his line of sight. The fairy took a few attempts to lock the door, her shaking fingers fumbling a few times before she got it right.

The internal radar created by Leon's super smell told him that they were coming from between the trees; that they were digging themselves out of the soft mud where they had apparently lain in wait the entire time. They had been under their feet, all around them and he hadn't noticed. He had smelled them hours before he and Olivia reached the camp, and he hadn't even realised what they were. Leon slowly dropped onto his belly as his heart tap danced from the fridge horror.

"What were those?" Jilk rasped, not daring to raise his voice above a terrified whisper. "What the… What the fuck were those? I've never heard of a monster like that! Have they just been out here this entire time and no one knew about it because they never left anyone alive?"

"It doesn't matter what they are," grunted Leon. "What matters is that they're here, and they want us dead." He forced himself to stay calm, rising to his feet and paying closer attention to what his senses told him. The monsters were investigating the campsite, occasionally hissing and biting at each other. Occasionally they jostled the carriage, causing everyone to freeze with their hearts in their mouths.

"They're going to kill us!" Julius panicked. Leon didn't judge him, knowing he was just a kid. "There's way too many of them! What're we-"

"Huan?" Olivia whispered urgently. "I think I know what they are!"

She immediately had the undivided attention of everyone in the room. "Well, go ahead then!" Leon yipped. "I have no idea, so please! That would be super helpful!"

"I think they might be UnFae."

For a moment the other three looked at her uncomprehendingly. "But that can't be," croaked Leon. "There are only three kinds of UnFae; the zombie psychopaths that you usually get, the occasional Queen-Mother and their Spawn. Is there a fourth kind I don't know about?"

"Maybe?" Olivia hesitated before answering. "I'm not sure why, but I just feel like that's what they are."

Leon's mind whirred fruitlessly for a while before finally connecting the dots. "Elodach!" he breathed, saying it the way other people would say Nazis, or child molesters. "His Talent! That's… This is why I didn't want him to get away! All semi-immortals have a Talent, and he must have used his to… to transform them somehow, into… into whatever the fuck those are!"

"So those UnFae from the forest… There were four of them. Do you suppose that he used his Talent to give one of them the power to make these things?" This remark went a long way toward helping the boys infer what Leon was saying. "Is that what becoming a semi-immortal taught him to do?"

"Wait," murmured Julius. "So that smug priest did this? Does that mean that he can turn those UnFae into Queen-Mothers?"

"Maybe," shrugged Leon helplessly. "I'm just guessing. For once, I don't have all the answers. For all we know these things are an Outside Context Problem with no relation to Elodach whatsoever."

"But if they are operating under his orders, then it's safe to assume that they're here for Lady Olivia, correct?" Jilk suddenly looked very shifty, and was avoiding meeting anyone's eyes. "If that's so… If that's so, then we should consider the possibility that they might let us go if we give her up."

"You piece of shit." The carriage was filled with a low, threatening growl. Cautiously, Jilk placed one hand on his gun. "You selfish motherfucker. How dare you-"

"Jilk!" hissed Julius, his face a heartbreaking blend of anguish and disappointment. "How can you even consider-"

"You are the Crown Prince!" Jilk insisted. "You have to understand that your life is just more important than other people's! You need… You need to consider the reality that your death would have very wide repercussions that would hurt a lot of people! Sometimes… Look, I know this is unpleasant to think about, but some people's lives are just worth less than others!"

The attention of the creatures was caught as Jilk raised his voice, the three teenagers screaming as one of them stabbed their tail through the wooden wall. "It's funny," muttered Leon. "But I think you might be right. Some things are just worth the sacrifice."

For an awful moment, Olivia thought he might throw her to the beasts. "Huan?"

"Stay inside."

Leon jumped vertically, erupting through the roof of the carriage and landing on all fours by the campfire. The mud beasts seemed to acknowledge him as a threat, quickly surrounding him and hissing with their tails raised. Maximum aggro had been achieved.

"Go ahead," he taunted. "See if you can do what a pit of molten lava couldn't."

The savagery with which they attacked him almost made him think they understood him. Their severed limbs began flying in all directions as he tore them apart, their transparent blood sticking between his fangs like tasteless gum. While the salamanka were unable to pierce his skin the UnFae variants were able to bite through his flesh with ease, the instant wooziness telling him their bites were venomous.

Leon grew in size - hoping that the venom would act slower on a larger body - which had the happy side effect of pushing the creatures away. The freezing axe swooped out of the sky and began taking potshots where it could, thinning the herd as the enormous wolfdog tore them apart. He was big enough that he could now crush them beneath his paws, which was great because he disliked their taste.

All the three teenagers could hear were furious barks and reptilian snarls that filled the night air, occasionally cringing away from the window as the violence drew too close.

Eventually Leon stood panting over the fading campfire, the last of the strange UnFae dead. He was bleeding and dizzy from blood loss and venom, but he was victorious nonetheless. As his companions peeked through the windows they saw his wounds healing before their eyes, his body already resisting the venom as his faculties returned. "Yeah!" he barked, his tail wagging furiously. "Who's the man!"

A slow rumbling filled his ears, imperceptible to the three bipeds. The sound grew louder until they could hear it too, until it was like thunder that had swallowed up the lightning. A great horde of the shrieking monsters poured out of the trees, hitting the gigantic wolfdog like a tidal wave. Leon found himself carried away by the screaming mass, the occupants of the carriage screaming as it was pushed aside.

Leon yelped as he was thrown into the water, where the UnFae were clearly in their element. As he foundered in the shallows they began to leap onto his back and bite him with their fangs and tails, their enormous claws latching into his skin like hooks. He felt his heart pound with panic as they began dunking his head underwater, clearly possessing at least enough intelligence to know how to drown him.

He was outnumbered and out of his element, and for a moment he genuinely couldn't see a way out. His mind raced with pain and adrenaline, and out of nowhere he remembered alligators from his previous world. He remembered that it wasn't just the lack of air they used to kill their victims, but also exhaustion from thrashing in the water. Terrified, Leon began to wonder how long he would last. When was the last time he had eaten?

Then, like a bolt of lightning, a new secret of his biology revealed itself to him.

Since the previous night, Leon had suspected that he no longer required sleep. Now - having remembered that he had gone two days without food or water and felt fine - he knew he had no need to eat or drink either. For all intents and purposes, Leon was a perpetual motion engine.

And now that he thought about it, he seemed to no longer feel exhaustion either. The battle had been going on for about half an hour at this point and he still felt fine.

Better than fine. Leon felt good!

His mind now clear, Leon analysed his situation even as he kept up his savage attack. With his wounds still healing faster than they could be inflicted, the UnFae only seemed to have two real ways of hurting him: drowning and their venom.

While powerful, the effects of the venom could be weakened so long as he remained as large as possible. As a general rule of nature, the smaller an animal was the more vulnerable they were to harmful substances in their system. By remaining plus sized, Leon could keep the effects to a minimum.

That left drowning. Even now, Leon felt an instinctive, primal fear each time the UnFae dunked his underwater, but he had no idea if that was because he actually needed air or if the urge to breathe was just hard wired into his psyche. Honestly, he didn't want to risk it.

By now the river was changing texture from the sheer number of UnFae he had shredded and dumped in the water, the bizarre viscera making it thick and viscous. Each time he moved he felt it sucking at his paws and restricting his movements, making it harder and harder for him to fight. There was a very real possibility that if it got any worse he would be unable to keep the UnFae from overwhelming his healing factor.

"Okay," he muttered, spitting a gooey piece of monster out of his mouth. "Time for some creative use of superpowers."

This was what Jojo had trained him for.

Without warning, Leon shrank to his minimum size as quickly as he could. The monsters couldn't immediately understand what had happened, while the water rushed in to fill the gap where his large body used to be. As he was swept away Leon's head spun, the venom hitting him hard as there was suddenly more of it in proportion to his physical mass. As soon as they regained their bearings the UnFae swarmed him, and to three people watching - who had left the carriage so they could watch from the river bank - it was like the great wolfdog had been swallowed up by the reptilian tide.

"Huan!" Olivia screamed. "No!"

Without warning the river exploded: Leon had grown to his maximum, Elder Dragon fighting size as quickly as he could. The UnFae were blown away in a great cloud of bodies, the air itself pushed away with such force that his companions were knocked over by the wind. The water was thrust away by his expansion into an upside down dome shape, leaving the colossal dog standing firmly on the exposed riverbed.

His mind instantly becoming clear, Leon leapt through the air before the water could rush back in to fill the gap. He deliberately aimed for somewhere far away from his companions, allowing him to go all out without fear of collateral damage. He landed in a great carpet of the screaming UnFae, and promptly killed them in the most disrespectful way he could think of.

With a woof, Leon flopped onto his belly and rolled over; the UnFae were squished as though by a giant rolling pin, dozens perishing every time he rolled back and forth. Olivia laughed incredulously at the ridiculous sight, and after a shocked pause Julius and Jilk joined in.

"I guess the guys who made Pikmin 2 really knew what they were doing," Leon mused to himself. "Thank you, Empress Bulblax. I shall call you sensei."

The silly manoeuvre had bought him enough time for his body to process the last of the venom, leaving his mind completely clear for the first time since the brawl began. Now that he had the brain power to look, Leon noticed that a constant stream of UnFae had been trickling in to replenish the horde's reserves. It made him remember his conversation with Olivia, where she had theorised that Elodach's Talent had given him the ability to turn his UnFae into mutant Queen-Mothers.

Maybe he had been looking at this all wrong. These weren't a new, fourth species of UnFae; they were Spawn, just like the army he had destroyed two days earlier, which meant that if he killed their parent then they would perish within six hours.

Now if he could only find it.

When he felt the venom in his system had been reduced to manageable levels, Leon shrank to a smaller size and began dashing through the unprepared UnFae. He began snapping at them as he ran past, engaging in hit-and-run tactics to keep them away from him while he thought.

Concentrating, Leon inhaled deeply and focused his attention on his internal radar. Now that they weren't hiding in the mud and river water, the overpowering stench of the Spawn carpeted the surrounding area like a smog. Maybe it was because there were so many of them or maybe they just smelt exactly the same, but for the life of him Leon could not figure out where the Queen-Mother was hiding.

He focused on his ears instead, tuning out the sounds of the Spawn and his three companions. Not too far away, in the hills, was something that didn't belong. A skittering that he instinctively equated with insectoid legs, a clinking that he knew to be a chitinous carapace. He had no idea what the Queen-Mother looked like or what it was capable of, but it was literally the only other thing he could hear.

It took him a moment to realise that was because the Spawn had wiped out everything else.

Leon took off through the trees with the hissing abominations in hot pursuit, ignoring his companions as they begged to know where he was going. The sounds made by the Spawn became more alarmed the closer he got to the source of noise, which told him he was heading in the right direction. They swarmed across the countryside in pursuit as Leon sighed in relief, knowing he didn't have to worry about them killing his friends while he was…

Rather, he didn't have to worry about them killing his acquaintances while he was busy.

Yeah, that was it.

Nothing quite prepared him for how odd the Queen-Mother looked. It was squatting in a ravine in an area dominated by craggy rocks, placing it conveniently out of sight of anyone who might want it dead. It had the same disgusting moist skin as its Spawn, and had four legs despite its vaguely arachnoid body structure. Its forelimbs were far larger than its hind legs, like a gorilla, while all four were tipped with large, blunt claws resembling human nails.

That was how he knew he had the right beast. Once upon a time those had been arms and legs, and this creature had looked as human as Olivia. Then Elodach happened.

Its hideous face tangentially resembled a lobster, with long, slim tendrils in place of a mouth. Its eyes were tiny and yellow while two horns sat on its forehead, seeming small and inconsequential compared to the massive tusks protruding from its cheeks. Its back was protected by a chitin carapace leading down to a tail like an insect's abdomen, which was arched behind it like that of a scorpion to show off the hooked sting at the end.

Leon dropped into the ravine in front of it, causing it to hiss and square its shoulders. "Greetings, sir or madam," he snorted dryly. "I am here to complain about your children."

When the alien scorpion charged him he knew where he had screwed up: the ravine walls hemmed him in and made it impossible to dodge, not unlike the stone corridor the Cyberdemon created in the second phase of its boss fight in Doom 4. Leon grew to his maximum size, then immediately regretted it as his shoulders wedged between the walls.

It ended up working to his advantage when the monster crashed into him; it found itself ineffectually bouncing off him as the walls held him in place, stunning itself long enough for him to sink his fangs into its shoulder. As it let out a nauseating scream he found himself bellowing along with it, the taste of its pungent green blood one of the foulest things he had ever experienced.

This gave the Queen-Mother a chance to back away, flicking its tail and sending a hail of luminescent green gunge flying through the air. Leon had just enough time to shrink to a more manageable size before they hit him, yelping in agony as his flesh melted from the acid.

The wolfdog narrowed his eyes, charging in close before it could get a second shot.

The mutated Queen-Mother charged him like a bull, catching his jaws on its tusk. They began to thrash and writhe as they fought for dominance, slamming themselves into the ravine walls and crushing any Spawn stupid enough to get close. One of them made a flying jump and bit the wolfdog in one of his open wounds; the remaining acid burned its face off, but the pain it caused was enough to make him loosen his teeth.

The alien scorpion seized the opportunity and ducked its head, forcing itself under his chest and lifting him off his feet. Leon's claws scrabbled for purchase as it carried him away, eventually managing to climb over the monstrosity as it crashed head first into the rocky wall behind him.

He had to shrink drastically in order to turn and face it; the creature's insectoid tail was raised, exposing its pink, fleshy underbelly. It was split down the middle by a Freudian slit, which spread open before his eyes to reveal a screaming human face.

"Holy god!" Leon yelped. "Are you… Are you okay?"

Still screaming, the horrific beast resumed launching globs of acid from its tail; although it had increased accuracy he had shrunk all the way to his minimum size, and was having a laughably easy time avoiding them.

The tentacled mouth at its other end - which he now realised was its cloaca - began vomiting out eggs shaped like fleshy flowerbuds, which hatched within seconds into fresh, fully grown Spawn. The offspring began attacking him in groups, trying to manoeuvre him so that their parent could get a clean shot.

Or at least, that's what he thought they were doing. What they were really doing was trying to get some distance between Leon and the Queen-Mother.

When he was far enough away the human face stopped screaming, gathering blue energy in the back of its throat in clear preparation for some kind of breath weapon. His mind flooded with war flashbacks of the giant salamanka, Leon turned on his heels and ran.

The energy beam that erupted from its mouth was three times thicker than the salamanka's and ten times as intense. The Spawn in its way were vaporised into nothing while Leon only escaped by leaping up the rocks, the beam following him as the terrifying face slowly tilted back. At the last second he sprang of the wall and launched himself out of the ravine, the beam raising up behind him until it was shooting into the night sky.

Elsewhere on the landmass, a young man was outside of his accommodations doing practice swings with his sword. His jaw dropped as saw the energy beam off in the distance, reflecting off his glasses as it blasted into the sky.

"What… the…"

Leon loped along the edge of the ravine, dodging around the Spawn as he waited for the breath weapon to run out of juice. As soon as it stopped he launched himself back into the pit, growing as large as he dared before sinking his teeth into the screaming tail.

The face bellowed with rage as it thrashed with pain, the other end producing Spawn at an accelerated rate in an attempt to detach him. They succeeded when one of its offspring bit him in the throat, destroying his windpipe and temporarily removing his ability to breathe. Leon was temporarily helpless as he fought for oxygen, the Spawn dogpiling him as the Queen-Mother scuttled up the wall and escaped into the open air.

As soon as his throat regenerated he fought back, slaughtering the shrieking monsters before leaping out of the ravine in pursuit. As the alien scorpion turned its birthing end to face him he grabbed one of its tusks between his teeth. He grinned internally; now able to grow to his maximum size, Leon finally had the advantage.

He threw his weight against the tusk, dragging the Queen-Mother across the ground as its thrashing legs carved craters and trenches behind it. The abomination howled in pain as he bit the tusk clean off; grasping it between his teeth he swung his head, stabbing the tusk into the back of its tail and out through the screaming face's mouth.

The Queen-Mother had been desperately laying eggs ever since escaping the ravine, and the moment Leon relaxed the fresh Spawn pounced. They focused on his legs, their sharp fangs tearing his hamstrings and dropping him helplessly to the ground.

The alien scorpion yanked itself clean of the severed tusk, its greatest weapon ruined forever. Glaring hatefully with its remaining eyes, the monstrosity launched one last rain of acid onto the wolfdog's back; within seconds it ate into his spine, causing him to lose all sensation in the lower half of his body.

Still he fought back, shredding its offspring with his fangs and squishing the ones he could beneath his body weight. When the last of them were dead he met the Queen-Mother's eyes, and sneered.

"Uh oh," he taunted. "Looks like that was the last of your babies."

With an ungodly roar the Queen-Mother tried to skewer him on her remaining tusk, but he could still use his upper body. Leon grabbed the length of ivory and bit through it in one smooth motion, totally neutering its last form of defence.

He could tell from how it thrashed and screamed that the alien scorpion had some fairly sensitive nerves in there. Now its body language was ripe with fear, drawing away from him in terror. Presumably he had destroyed whatever mechanism fueled its acid launcher when he skewered its tail, as the monster made no further effort to attack.

The wolfdog's lip curled, baring his enormous, frightening teeth as his chest rumbled with a low, threatening growl.

"Come closer and finish me off," he whispered, each word dripping with the intent to kill. "I'm helpless, I swear."

Its nerve broke; with a last frustrated cry the Queen-Mother turned tail and ran, spitting out a last few eggs as it went.

Leon picked up the severed tusk in his mouth, manoeuvring awkwardly with his thick tongue. When he was done it lay lengthwise in his mouth, the tip poking out between his canines. He aimed, imagined his mouth was a blowgun and fired.

With shocking force he spat the tusk at its owner; in an instant of freakishly good luck that he swore was intentional the projectile hit the Queen-Mother in its tentacled cloaca. The final howl as the creature skittered into the hills echoed for miles, its ability to reproduce now permanently taken away.

The Queen-Mother had still laid three eggs before escaping, which hatched into Spawn before his eyes. Leon cringed; he had no choice but to let them hurt him, as his legs and spine still hadn't fully regenerated. He had experienced a lot of pain over the last few days, but somehow it never got old.

The closest of the Spawn lunged at him, and his eyes cringed shut.

A sudden gunshot split the night air. The Spawn screamed and hit the dirt, gushing transparent blood from its neck. Jilk fired a few more bullets into it in clear panic, but was still collected enough to whip around and fill the second Spawn with holes when it leapt toward him.

He was desperately reloading when the final monster attacked, which proved unnecessary as Julius rushed in with his sword. With grace and skill that Leon could only envy he cut off its barbed tail, elegantly spinning away from its fangs before beheading it. The three dead Spawn dissolved into motes of white light that were absorbed into the world around them, confirming beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were UnFae.

"Oh my- Huan!" Olivia blurted, rushing up to him and pouring healing magic into his wounds. "Your legs! Your back! YOUR LEGS!"

"I'm fine," he coughed. "You should see the other guy."

The two boys were freaking out as the adrenaline left their system. "That was… Those were… Holy crap!" Jilk gasped. "Holy crap! Holy crap!"

"I can't believe we're not dead!" Julius said, his voice shrill and cracking. "Those weren't monsters! Those weren't even demons! Those were… Those were… I don't know what those were!" He held up his hands, which now trembled uncontrollably. "Is this normal?"

"We need to go back to Holfort," insisted Jilk. "This is… We can't handle this on our own! No wonder they didn't want us involved! Leon can turn into a giant and even he couldn't finish that thing off! We can't… We need to… WHY CAN'T I TALK?"

"No," said Julius. Suddenly he sounded deadly calm, his voice ringing with cold certainty. "We can't go back."

Jilk looked at him like he had lost his mind. "Your Highness," he rasped. "Those… Those things are-"

"Probably hunting Olivia, I know," he agreed. "The only way you and I make it back is if the two of them go with us, and if that happens there's a good chance there's going to be another attack. The last time was bad enough, but that thing's still out there. If these things attack the capital with four times the force, then it's going to be a bloodbath."

The giant dog looked at him. For once, Leon was interested to hear what Julius had to say. "So then what?" he coughed, pausing as Olivia translated. "Do we camp out in the wilderness until your parents capture Elodach?"

"I think we should stay the mission," said Julius firmly. "Yesterday proved to everyone that Zefnat is nowhere near stable. We get that book and bring it back; if we do that, we'll have a potential cure lined up to be used at our leisure. Until then we take advantage of Leon's new powers, and have him track the bad guys down. It'll be a lot more efficient than a bunch of guards with no leads."

"So you want to wait until Huan stops being useful before bringing back Leon?" Olivia frowned. "That sounds… mercenary."

"But also perfectly reasonable," Leon pointed out. "Remember, Elodach is just one, below average semi-immortal. Besides him there's four beasties: that's a quarter of his forces dead within six hours of each one down."

"But you almost died!" she hissed. "I can see your spine!"

"Maybe I can't do it now," he admitted. "But by the time we have that book I'll be more used to myself. I'll be better. I'll know what I'm capable of… and with any luck I'll have the army helping me. It makes sense."

Olivia scowled, but she was too smart not to agree with me. "Fine," she said finally. "But is still feels like we're taking advantage of you."

"Perfect," grinned Julius, his shoulders sagging slightly from relief. "Let's… Let's go back to camp for now."

"I can't," sighed Leon. Olivia almost asked why until she remembered his legs and back. "You're going to have to carry me."

He shrank to his minimum size; though still big for a dog, he looked diminished. It hurt a little to see the way he curled up, shivering and vulnerable and in pain.

"I've got this," said Julius. He got down on his knees and heaved the wolfdog onto his shoulders, staggering to his feet and making his way toward the carriage as Jilk and Olivia trailed behind him.

"Sorry," muttered Leon, which Julius heard as an apologetic whine.

"Don't even worry about it," he replied, already gasping for air under his weight. "I just figured, you know, with how you've been carrying this team all night, why not carry you in return?"

He still didn't much care for Green, but maybe - just maybe - Jules was okay. "Thanks," he murmured, quiet enough that Olivia couldn't hear.

The Prince set him down by the campfire, where Olivia did her best to make him comfortable while they waited for him to finish regenerating.

"When I'm better I can pull the carriage," offered Leon. "Do you think you can rig it for a dog?"

"We can give it a shot." Both boys had clearly studied how such things work, as they were entirely too competent at what they were doing. Maybe rich people just dig horses.

"Did you see those Spawn?" Leon asked quietly.

"I did," nodded Olivia. She was still very pale, and her red eyes told him she had been crying at some point. "They were really scary. Even more than a regular UnFae."

But that wasn't what he meant. "I meant the head. The two legs. The body shape. The prehensile tail. Didn't it remind you of anything?"

In the heat of the moment the resemblance had passed her by. Now that he brought it up she couldn't believe she didn't see it earlier. "The Head Takers," she whispered. "They look just like Head Takers. But why?"

Leon thought about it. "When we met him outside your hideout, we had a few with us. Elodach saw them then, so… maybe that influenced his Talent somehow?"

Olivia frowned, considering the implications before she spoke. "So… So either he can make them take any shape he likes or…"

"Or they come out at random depending on what he's thinking about at the time," finished Leon darkly. "Either way, that means that they're going to come in all shapes and sizes. It means we're going to have no idea what these things look like or what they're capable of until they're already trying to kill us."

For a while they were quiet, staring into the embers as the idiots worked on the carriage. Occasionally they tripped on the uneven ground, which had been churned into a mess by the hundreds of clawed feet.

"I used to hear stories about the UnFae," whispered Olivia. "About the Queen-Mothers. I didn't think they were real. But whenever someone described them, they were always the same: bloated and massive, their bodies perverted into an imitation of reproduction with no true ability to create life. That thing wasn't like the stories. It wasn't made for reproduction, it was made for war. It was a… a…"

"A Warmother."

It startled them slightly when Julius spoke up, but Leon found the term fit. "Warmothers," repeated Leon slowly. "That fits, I think. Which makes the offspring… Warspawn."

"Warmothers and Warspawn." The cold light of determination was in Olivia's eyes. "They won't go gentle."

"Neither will we."

Soon the carriage was ready and Leon looked like he had never been hurt in the first place. "What's the plan?" Jilk asked. "Do we spend the night, or set off now."

"I don't sleep," Leon reminded them. "Hook me up and climb in. Feel free to get some shuteye."

Jilk waited for him to grow to the size of a horse, then bound the harness to his shoulders as the fairy and the Prince climbed aboard. The only thing left between them and the Blood Barrier was Thasch Mountain; there they would find an outpost and see the friend who Julius and Jilk had arranged to meet.

Everything would be alright, Leon told himself. Everything was going to be alright.

Later that night, in a secret lair only known to Elodach and his UnFae, the heavily wounded Warmother reported to its master. Its tusks were shattered, its tail was ruined and even its ability to create Warspawn had been taken away. The man who stormed up to it had changed into a fresh robe after regrowing his body, and aside from his new head of hair looked no different from when he was a human.

"You worthless, pathetic failure," snarled Elodach. "How? How do you fail such a simple task? Answer me, you bug!"

Leon and his friends had drastically overestimated Elodach's capacity for forethought. On hatching his first Warmother his first thought had been to place it on an obscure road and order it to kill anyone who passed. He had only meant to test its capabilities whilst gradually expanding his army; much like Leon himself he was still exploring his new powers, and hadn't yet considered tracking Olivia down.

"I will not let this stand!" he continued, slamming commands into a terminal set into the wall. The base was a modest cache of Lost Technology, which he had been gradually reactivating using trial and error. "Show me your memories! Show me how you failed!"

A long robotic arm with a probe lowered from the ceiling; the alien scorpion squealed in terror and tried to flee, but could no more disobey than the moon could escape the Earth's pull. Its pungent green blood splattered across the room as the probe dug into one of its foreheads, the events of the night replaying themselves on a screen set high up on the wall.

The rage faded from his eyes as Elodach watched the battle between Huan and the Warmother play out. The alien scorpion whimpered and bled in the corner, while two of his UnFae stepped up to watch along with him.

"What is that?" he wondered. "Was that a dog? And why would the Prince, his foster brother and a fairy be out in the middle of the night?"

He remembered seeing that fairy before. It was only then that the thought of turning her into an UnFae crossed his mind, causing him to immediately cringe at the thought of Strongarm coming to save her.

But then a question came to mind. "Where is Strongarm now?" Elodach wondered aloud. "Could it be… is he dead? Did he perhaps perish from his injuries?"

He began to laugh in a villainous fashion.

"Hah! An obvious fate for one who crosses such as I!" The smile drained from his face as the intrusive thoughts returned. "But would someone like that… Someone who kept getting back up… He was alive when I left him!"

He turned to the two UnFae, pointing dramatically. They looked over their shoulders to see what he was indicating to them.

"Do you think me so foolish, Strongarm? Do you really think I'd believe you capable of dying so easily? Why, even if you were to perish I would imagine you'd just come back as a vengeful spirit of some kind!" He laughed at the very thought. "I can see it now: your cheeks blown away, your arm in ruins, your legs torn away leaving you to… to float inexorably towards… t-towards…"

Elodach stopped laughing, now feeling distinctly uncomfortable.

"I should steal that girl," he told himself. "Turn her into a weapon for our next confrontation. I even know who I'll send!"

In a dark corner of the base sat two cocoons; one lay in ruins, having contained the UnFae who became the alien scorpion before it hatched. The other was intact, slowly pulsating as its surface glistened in the dim light.

"When you find them," he whispered sinisterly. "There shall be no escape." He ran his fingers lovingly across the cocoon's surface. "They will be as helpless as a rabbits before the raptor."

Boss: ASK and the Mud Demons

Summary: This entire encounter is based on Geron's first true encounter with the UnFae during Chains of Satinav, wherein he and Nuri are attacked while seeking shelter with a travelling performer. The draught horse was named Ymra, for anyone who cares about that sort of thing.

The Warspawn are based off the Mud Demons from Riddick. Unlike the Head Takers they aren't quite so cuddly, so even if they weren't ordered to kill anything that moved they probably would have started a scuffle anyway.

The Warmother is actually based on the depiction of recurring Contra boss Kimkoh in Operation Galuga. Of all the Warmothers I have lined up, this one is probably the weakest. Expect more of a fight and more of a body count from future encounters.

Fun Fact: I had no idea that Operation Galuga was coming out until Jaba Play posted his boss run video. At the time I had no idea who Kimkoh was supposed to be, so I just called him the Alien Scorpion in my notes because that was what Jaba Play called him. Once the wiki was updated I changed it to Alien Scorpion Kimkoh, or ASK for short.

Side Note: I will be keeping a tally which will be updated in all future UnFae centric chapters.

Warmothers Active: 1

Cocoons Gestating: 1

Remaining UnFae: 2

Let's see how high we can crank those numbers.