'You've returned.' The ape grunted.
Dev looked up at the elder Jungleclad chieftain.
'Where is my son?' His teeth were bared.
"He, uh, died."
'How?'
Dev tried to explain what had happened to Chewbacca, but it came out wrong. The chieftain's accusatory gaze was the worst thing in the world. It was somehow even worse than the Vetala's undead stare...
...At least that had been the thought that had gone through Dev's mind in his dream. Or, rather, in the nightmare that he'd repeatedly had.
Reality was worse.
The Jungleclad's village had been seemingly undisturbed from the outside. The gates were closed, and the walls were intact. The strange tower they'd built still rose high into the sky, and the green crystal still washed out the color of the settlement and the surrounding lands.
The jungle hadn't even encroached upon it. It might not be able to do so due to the green light the suffused the area.
But, for all of that, it was still and silent.
Dev waited outside with Mr. Krabby. Bit's pet giant crab had accompanied them from the river's side. She'd operated on it during their relatively peaceful trip along the water, and it could apparently now breathe air - with part of a lung from the Redno.
Dev glanced down at it.
It was disconcerting in a sense. The eyes and smaller legs and mandibles gave it an almost insectile appearance.
It had taken a few minutes for Bit to get the gates open. Dev had wanted to just climb over, but the little girl was stronger than he was. Plus, Mr. Krabby couldn't climb, so they'd have to open the gates in the wooden wall anyways.
He'd steeled himself for what he was going to see... but it hadn't been enough.
The bodies had been left where they'd been killed. He'd thought that the robots would've... taken them, or eaten them, or something. They'd done it in the clearing, but that was because they were using those bodies. There were more apes than Mets here. So, of course the extra corpses would've been left behind.
Dev had thrown up.
It was... just too much.
Even worse, Bit had brought him water and told him to sit down and breathe. That was what he'd done, while the little girl handled the aftermath of the carnage like she'd seen stuff like that everyday while growing up.
Creepy, but useful.
Unlike him.
He might not have been a superhero. He might not have done enough surgeries that he was numb to seeing so many mangled corpses. But. He was older. He was a Bharat Scout!
Dev threw up again.
He'd... he'd help later. When it came to fighting off the robot-zombies. Bit was right. They needed to stop them now, while they still could. It wasn't an apocalyptic scenario, not like in zombie movies. The Mets couldn't multiply. They couldn't reanimate corpses like Bit could. There would be no undead army marching on an unsuspecting world...
There would only be homicidal robots that killed everything in their path, like they'd killed this village. Only, it would be worse because this hadn't been a real village. There hadn't been any children slaughtered - not like there'd be in a regular town.
And then Dev felt even worse - because he'd wanted to run away from the robots. From the jungle. From the Vetala. At least... at least Bit was here.
Riley was in her element. She had a hostile force somewhere out there that wanted her dead. She had allies. She also had an entire town's worth of bodies to play with.
Er, utilize.
She'd sworn off 'zombie' projects years ago. Using people was convenient, but it was wrong to desecrate their bodies like that.
At least according to Kevin.
She got it. She really did! But... it was wasteful! So many useful parts that could help so many people... At least she'd been allowed to utilize organ donors, but the majority of people didn't sign up for that.
She let out a sigh.
For example, it would be bad if a group of Jungleclads came to bring in supplies or something and saw their dead friends walking around. It would also be bad if they came across their dead bodies strewn throughout the outpost. Or if they were killed by rampaging Mets before they even got close.
Riley finished working on her first green ape assistant.
Riley ► Status.
GreenApe01 ► Operative.
Good enough. She ordered him to bring her the other corpses before letting her inner suit's helmet flow away.
"They seem different." Pinky said from the side. Riley glanced at her. She wasn't as flushed as she'd been back in the jungle. She'd still muttered to herself from time to time, but overall Pinky was doing better. "I don't think they managed to deal with being dead as well as I did. Then again, I was only dead for like, what? A minute? Two? It must be traumatizing to be a ghost."
Riley shook her head. "I didn't bring him back to life, I only reanimated him."
"Oh!" Pinky nodded. "So you're using your [Mimic] skills to pose as a necromancer now? That makes sense, I suppose." She stopped, and her ever-present smile faded. "Are... you not able to do it any more? Did... did reviving me cost you something? Like levels?"
"I don't have levels." Riley rolled her eyes. No matter how often she said it, Pinky just didn't understand. Or she didn't believe her. A person without levels in this world would be as strange as someone who had them on Bet. "But you're mostly correct about the necromancer thing, I guess. Once a body has been dead long enough for neural pathways to decay, then there's not much I can do. Basic things, like how to breathe or walk or even language remains, but their personality is gone."
"Right!" Pinky slammed her fist onto her palm. "Their souls wander off, so their bodies are empty! Of course. No, Lars, I'm talking to Bit right now. Mine hadn't had the chance to go far, so that's why I'm still me!"
Pinky frowned as she thought about stuff. Riley looked away. Her latest minion had brought another body and she had work to do.
Still...
She shouldn't discount what Pinky had said just because she was Pinky. Or because she was still talking to herself, or rather, to 'Lars'. If magic existed, then a person's magical essence - or a 'soul' - could exist as well. It was an interesting thought, but her Passenger wasn't giving her any insights.
...
"So, what's up with the Milk Box?" Pinky broke the silence of her Tinkering. "I meant to ask earlier - back when you, uh, attached it, but I was busy, with, uhm, stuff."
"What about the Milk Box?" Riley continued to repair the puncture wounds in her soon-to-be minion.
"Why is it attached to Badgy? I mean, I know he lost his head and all, but the Milk Box just doesn't make a good replacement! He just stands there! I don't think he can even see!"
Riley glanced over at her white flesh storage device. She admitted it looked different from what most people would be comfortable with. The Milk Box was grafted onto the bodies of Badgy and the one headless monkey she had left.
"It's just to keep the autonomous body functions up and running. Don't worry. I'll get him a replacement head from somewhere. ...Or I'll make him one myself."
"Make him one?" Pinky actually sounded incredulous at that. Riley thought she wouldn't have cared.
"Yeah, I still have his brain. It's damaged from what the Mets did, but it can be a foundation." The problem was that she didn't think Badgy's immune system would work well with different colored biomass. It had been difficult enough to keep it playing nice with the Milk Box and monkey bodies.
That also meant that it would be easier to find parts than to try and make new ones.
Plus, anything she made might mess up Badgy's Stranger powers.
"Huh. Well-" Pinky paused. "Oh! The cooldown's over!" She hopped off of a pile of red lumber. "[Ghostly Whispers]. Hi Lars. Huh. No, not yet. I'm going to. Look, I'm just not ready to see you again if the skill does what I think it will."
Riley turned and watched Pinky walk away as she started talking with her hallucination again.
Or was it the soul of 'Lars'? Could the Entity that governed the powers of this world control something like that? On one hand, that was ridiculous. On the other hand: magic.
Unless the 'soul' interacted with the body, she wouldn't be able to do anything. Then again, she had a lot of ideas about the galas muscles. They might have some sort of soul connection.
Riley shook her head. She had more vital things to deal with first. She needed to focus on things that could affect the Mets. Her upgraded 'Cubic Virus' should work wonders. Having Badgy to test it on had let her drastically increase its potency.
That only left two obstacles that she could think of: Luring the Mets here, and dealing with any that weren't attached to an animal.
The later issue would hopefully not even come up. If it did, then she'd have to un-summon them directly with the Met Factory again. Not a difficult task as long as they couldn't fight back. Protecting the non-humans in her party? That would be harder.
The Jungleclad helpers would just have to defend them. It looked like they'd fought back while being slaughtered, so they could at least be used to buy time.
"There." She wiped her forehead. "That should do it." Her latest minion clamored to its feet and stared blankly ahead. She took a moment to connect to it with the party feature of her armor before moving on to the next corpse.
A thought came to her from her work with Dev's transfusion.
She could alter the green apes' blood. Make it congeal almost instantly to a sticky glue before hardening. That could help them slow their attackers down. There would be obvious downsides, but the Jungleclads were temporary minions anyways. It wasn't like she could go up to this Titan fellow with a troop of his 'zombiefied' mercenaries.
At least, not without alienating a couple of groups. Besides, she'd rather bury them respectfully once everything was said and done.
Right, so the first issue. The part of her future plans that everything hinged on. How to lure the Mets into her ambush?
Pinky's singing wouldn't cut it this time. There had been too much time for this group of summons to disperse.
Then again... they were clearly in communication with one another. They couldn't have coordinated their assault last time without relaying information. So, she really only needed to get their attention and prove a hard enough target that they would band together again.
That meant, she only really needed to find a single one of them. It would be like looking for a needle in a jungle - but that was what disposable minions were for!
Riley nodded to herself.
Besides, the longer they sat here, the more time she had to Tinker. If the Mets were truly intelligent, they'd know that was a very bad thing to give her.
In fact...
Another idea for modifying the Cubic Virus came to mind. She could adapt it to infect the slime that lived inside of the jungle! That would allow her to kill the Mets remotely!
Now, she just needed some slime samples to experiment with. If worse came to worst, she'd figure out a way to have the slime transmit the un-summoning signal directly. That way, the Mets couldn't escape by ditching their puppeted corpses!
...
Riley cut into the red tree with her scalpel. Her latest minions stood around her in a protective circle. They all wore the best armor that was available in the village and wielded axes. They had just used them to gouge a hole in the tree's side.
The jungle had, predictably, responded. Now they were hacking at the roots and branches that were assaulting them.
Riley paid it little mind. There was no real threat of danger to her, and she could repair any wounds the Jungleclads suffered. Instead, she carefully peeled away strip after strip of wood, until there was only the thinnest layer between her and the inner slime.
Fascinating.
A liquid that could shift between compressible and non-compressible.
A neural network that could shift and re-adjust itself.
A digestive process that didn't rely on internal organs.
A core biology that could interface with-
She shook her head and blinked.
Whoa. Her Passenger hadn't reacted that strongly since... actually, she couldn't remember Surgery being that enthusiastic before. If Kevin hadn't gotten it to hold back, Riley was sure she would've gone into a haze right then and there. That hadn't happened to her in years... and she didn't like thinking about the results of those frenzies anymore.
Okay. Right. She could do this.
The slime was a biological nanite. Then again, all biology was basically nanites. Microscopic cells carrying out their orders. Getting signals. Performing tasks. A grand society that every single living creature was composed of.
Well... except for slimes apparently.
Slimes were homogeneous instead of heterogeneous. Each cell was the same. Each one of them were generalists instead of specialists. They all could digest matter. Transmit signals. Fight off intruders. Circulate nutrients. Provide structural support. Link together to move.
...And they also clearly needed magic to exist. Lots of magic. More magic than the regular animals she'd encountered inside of the Dyed Lands so far. Each and every cell was a Galas Muscle.
Or, at least, they were prototype galas. She could see the similarities. It was as if magic was possibility, and the cells shaped and condensed it to suit their immediate needs!
There was a grunt and a dull thud from her side.
One of her guards had fallen. She hadn't brought enough, and the jungle was overwhelming them.
Riley ► Fall back.
She turned and walked away, while her apes backed up and swung their weapons. Two grabbed their fallen comrade, while a third secured his axe. She could already see his green blood solidifying.
Right, she should make that an optional feature. She could add an electrical component that would keep it fluid. That would in turn make the Jungleclad require more nutrients every day, but would help relieve friendly-fire incidents like this where they bled on allies.
It would also get rid of a lot of other issues with the modification. It might even be enough to make it viable for a long-term minion.
Pinky looked around and made sure no one was close by. She'd been doing a bad job of ignoring Lars lately. She was pretty sure Bit had noticed her talking to herself. She wasn't sure about Dev.
It was a balancing act to try to both lean into it and to abstain from using [Ghostly Whispers].
'I know what you're thinking.'
"Oh?" She rolled her eyes. "Are you a telepathic ghost now, Lars?"
'Hardly.' He snorted. 'I just know you, runt. You always were too concerned about how people viewed you. You know that? You're hiding your new skill and class from them, right?'
Pinky let out a sigh and mumbled. "I knew I shouldn't have told you about that."
'You're right, y'know.'
She paused. "I am?"
'Well, yeah. If you're concerned that I'm a hallucination, then you should withhold some details from me. If I brought them up, then you'd have proof.'
"Yeah..." The problem was that she'd already thought of that. Then again, she DID have a skill that mentioned Lars by name. That should be proof enough. "But what if I'm both really talking to you, and still hallucinating? How could I tell them apart?"
'I've been thinking about that actually.'
"You have?"
'Of course I have.' She could almost see him rolling his eyes. 'There's not much else for me to do.'
"You haven't told me what it's like being dead."
'Boring.' That was a predictable answer.
"So, there's nothing to do? Have you been alone all this time?"
'No. There were lots of other ghosts at first.'
"Were? Did something happen to them?"
'No. Or, I dunno. There were lots of dead Fraerlings. And lots of dead Tallfolk. The Tallfolk ghosts tended to ignore us. There was this one lizard boy who came and talked to us for a couple of days. I think he wasn't dead for that long and was still curious.' Lars let out a short laugh. 'Ha. Look at me saying that someone wasn't dead for that long. There were Fraerlings who'd spoken with gnomes!'
"Really?"
'Probably. I mean, they could just be making stuff up.'
"And they're gone now?"
'What? No. Why would you think that?'
"You said that there were lots of other ghosts AT FIRST."
'Huh? That?' He scoffed. 'No. I meant that I'm in the middle of the Dyed Lands now. It's boring here. Well, it WOULD be boring if I didn't have you to talk to. There are no other ghosts here. We couldn't get in from the outside.'
"Now that sounds unbelievable."
'How so?'
"If there were all those other ghosts like you said, there had to be lots of high-level ones. And I don't just mean level fifty or something! If it's all of the Fraerlings who ever lived, then there are one or two level eighty architects. The Tree-Builders. The Box-Makers!"
'Oh, yeah. They were there. I didn't get to talk to them 'cause they're still too popular, but I saw one of them.'
"Well? Couldn't they get into the Dyed Lands?"
'Nah. Ghosts don't have levels, runt. We're all just... us.'
"Huh."
'Huh.'
Pinky sat in silence for a while and thought. "Okay. I think I'm ready to try out my new skill."
'Let me just comb my hair first!'
"What? Really?"
'No, dummy. I'm a ghost. I don't have a comb.'
Pinky laughed. She missed this. "Okay. Here I go! [Ghostly Presence]!"
Dev was depressed.
He was safe. He was healthy. He'd gained levels. But... he was still depressed.
He sat and watched the Jungleclad move about. They stood at the top of the wall and scanned the jungle. They went out in hunting parties and came back with animals. They cooked. They ate. They slept.
It all was so disturbingly... normal.
It shouldn't be normal. There shouldn't be these signs of life. Dev shouldn't be able to pretend that nothing had happened.
Sigh.
Even if he'd wanted to, he couldn't have done that. For all that Bit had done to put the dead apes to use, they were still just that.
Dead.
They didn't hoot at one another. They didn't laze about. Everything was done with a scary sort of efficiency. He would've thought that zombie apes would, he didn't know, stand around? Moan? Lay in shallow graves until they were needed? Not breathe?
Pinky had said that there were [Necromancers] in the world. Dev supposed that 'regular' undead might behave that way. Bit's creations were hardly 'regular', nor were they 'undead'.
Re-animated would be a better word. Corpses brought back to some semblance of life - admittedly without their minds or personalities - but alive none-the-less.
It was like that one American monster... What was it? Uhm... Oh, yeah. Frankenstein!
Or was it German? Some other country in Europe? It was hard to remember the origins of anything after Hollywood got its hands on it.
Regardless, they were like Frankenstein - but better. No jerky steps. No fear of fire. No moaning.
Then again, Frakenstein had its own thoughts, hadn't it? Dev had never read the book. Nor had he seen the original black and white movie. Everything he 'knew' came from cultural osmosis. Oh, right. 'Frankenstein' was the creator's name.
Then what was Frakenstein's real name?
Dev let out another sigh as he realized how pointless he was being. That was the thing with camping and wilderness survival, he always felt useful. There were always a dozen things that needed to be done. Each and every one was important - even if they didn't seem that way at first.
Gathering rocks for the fire pit? Couldn't you just build a fire without them?
Sure, you could. It might even work out well for you a couple of times - until it didn't. It was an important job, just like every other part of camping. Heck, even sitting down and enjoying nature was useful in its own way. Relieving stress was important. Getting use to your surroundings was important. Taking the time to plan out your next steps was important.
Right now? Dev was doing none of those things.
He sighed again.
THAT was why he was really depressed. Sure, the constant reminders of the robot apocalypse didn't help, but if he had something to do, then he could put them out of his mind.
He thought about the Scout Law... but none of the rules really applied to his current situation.
"What'cha doing?"
Dev looked down. Pinky was staring up at him from a wooden stool.
"Thinking."
"About what?"
"Everything."
"Oooooo..." She hopped off of the stool, ran over, and scurried up his pant's leg. "That must be hard!"
"I didn't mean EVERYTHING, just..." He motioned at the walls. "A lot has happened in a short amount of time."
"Ugh!" The Fraerling flopped onto her back. "Tell me about it! It's been a real charged galift tube ride!"
Galift tube? Was that like an elevator? A roller coaster? A vehicle? Dev still got the sentiment.
"I'm not sure everything's even really sunk in." Dev raised his hand, and a faint tremor went through it. "I still have nightmares about-"
"Stop!" Pinky hopped to her feet and held up a hand. "Trust me on this. Talking about that sort of stuff..." She glanced to the side. "Well, I don't want to say it NEVER goes well, but people will judge you." She covered her mouth with both hands. "I don't mean that I'll judge you, just, other people!"
Dev snorted then smiled. "I know. God, do I know." He leaned back and looked up to the sky. The twin moons were still faintly visible. "That's why it's so much nicer out in the wilderness." Or at least it had been.
"Is the rest of that sentence: 'Or at least it was'?"
Dev looked down at Pinky and raised an eyebrow. "Yeah..."
"I found what I was looking for... maybe... so, I'm sure you will too!" She gave him a thumbs up. "So, now that we've covered that, what's next?"
"Huh?"
"What are you going to do next?" What WAS he going to do- "Make some more traps? Yell at innocent Fraerlings about the 'right' type of rock to use? Make a spear?"
"Huh?"
"You're always doing something." Pinky did a half cartwheel into a hand stand. "So why aren't you doing something now? It's weird."
Yeah, that was him. Dev the 'weirdo'. Look who was talking!
"There's nothing TO do." Dev motioned to the Jungleclad zombies on the wall. "We have an honest to goodness SUPERHERO who's fighting her own brainwashed allies." When he put it like that, it sounded so cliche. What next? Was a Met going to jump on top of his head and turn him into a puppet?
...Maybe he should make himself a helmet.
"Do what Bit and I are doing! Experiment with your new levels!" Pinky did a forward flip and twisted in the air so she was facing him. "She got... uh... some more of whatever she REALLY is. I mean, she never made THIS many zombies before!" Pinky crossed her arms and nodded her head. "And I... I'm doing my best too!"
Dev frowned. "I did get [Spear Fighter], but-"
"Then you really do need to make yourself a spear!" Pinky pointed at him. "Who ever heard of a [Spear Fighter] without a spear?"
Dev looked around. There WAS a lot of wood. The 'spear' he'd used before had really only been a sharpened stick. A properly made one would help in escaping the Dyed Lands... even if it wouldn't be much use against robot zombies except as a way to apply Bit's poison.
He nodded. "Okay."
"Great!" Pinky clamored up his shirt and stood on his shoulder. He watched her out of the corner of his eye as she put one hand on her hip and pointed with the other one. "To the long stick storage place!"
"Okay! I think that should do it!" Riley held up the vial containing her latest pathogen. Unlike ones she'd made in the past, this one would last for a good, long time. She'd still built a natural decay limitation into it. In theory, it would only be able to infect slimes. Even then, it was benign to them and most everything else.
The only things it SHOULD work on were the Mets. Even then, it wouldn't accomplish anything without the Met Factory. Unlike the first version of her anti-Met virus, this one couldn't produce any signals.
Well... 'couldn't' was a strong word. She could make it do it with a few tweaks. The issue was that without the Met's self-created bridge to a biological host - no amount of 'messages' would work.
Her Passenger wasn't helping her surmount that obstacle - probably because it wasn't biological in nature.
She'd had to make it this way to be sure she got all the wild Mets. If they could avoid her attack by simply abandoning their hosts... Well, like she'd said before, they weren't stupid.
This virus would modify the slime in the jungle and turn it into a signal relay. She could broadcast the order that the Met Factory used to disperse the Mets through it. Then, in theory, the trees would actually become dangerous to her rogue robots.
"There's still a flaw." Riley frowned. "If the Mets just... stopped attacking everything, then the jungle wouldn't respond." She hummed to herself as she climbed up the side of the wall that encircled the village. "I'll need to do something about that too if it becomes an issue... but first things first!"
She pulled herself up to the top and took a moment to gaze out over the forest.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Pinky hopped up onto the edge next to her. Riley hadn't smelled any cookies, so Pinky hadn't used her Stranger powers. She was just naturally stealthy due to her size.
"I'M thinking about the jungle and getting it to kill the Mets for us."
"Hmmm..." Pinky hummed and then shook her head. "Nope! That wasn't what I was thinking at all!" She did a pirouette that ended with her facing Riley. "However, that sounds like a wonderfully foolish thing to do! I'm in!"
Riley stared at her for a second. "Maybe I should rethink things then."
"No. C'mon. It'll be fun!" Pinky bent her knees and then leapt onto Riley's shoulder. "We might even level!" She then whispered conspiratorially. "I'll tell you about my new class if you tell me about yours. Here's a hint: it's also a pun! That means it's better than other classes!"
Sure it was.
"I don't have a class, Pinky. How many times do I have to repeat myself?"
"As many as it takes for you to accept the truth!"
That... didn't even make sense.
"Fine, let's go." Anything to not have Pinky inadvertently Gaslighting her some more.
Riley ► Squads A, B, and C, escort us to the jungle edge and provide a perimeter.
"I've seen you use that helmet before? Is it an artifact or a skill?" Pinky asked as they waited for ape after ape to follow them out of the outpost.
"It's an... artifact my brother made for me." Riley brought her hand up along the side of her neck and then brushed her pigtails to the side so they would hang loose again.
"I'm no expert, but it looks nice."
Riley smiled in response. "Thanks." She then turned to check that all of her obedient minions were present. "Let's go."
Half of the troop moved out to the jungle. There were a few scuffles with smaller animals, but the Jungleclad's lack of red blood made the trees largely ignore them. Around Riley and Pinky it was another matter. The roots and branches that assaulted them weren't much compared to how the jungle had been like close to the red temple-thing. Her pets easily subdued the plant life.
The ruckus caused the nearby trees to also attack, and then also be put down. The disturbance propagated through the jungle like a wave, but it lessened with distance.
Soon enough, the commotion died down and the background noise of the jungle returned.
"Okay! Here... we... go!" Riley carefully cut open the de-limbed tree. It was easy for the slime within to lose its cohesion when exposed to the outside. Once the main vein in the trunk had a single hole that accessed it, she poured in her concoction.
The result was instantaneous, if hard to see due to the wood that was still between them. The virus traveled through the slime - infecting more and more of it as it propagated. The effect was visible, as converted sections formed into cubes sporadically before reverting back to their normal state. Unlike the visual distortion the first plague had on the animals, the slime was actually reshaping itself.
"...Is that it?" Pinky asked after a couple of minutes.
"No, we're still in phase one. The virus is still spreading." It actually moved MUCH faster than a normal pathogen could - as its infection rate was visible to the naked eye, but... the forest was massive. "It'll take some time."
"Oh... okay."
...
"There." Riley nodded to herself. "That should be enough time for all of the jungle to be infected." Assuming her calculations were correct and there were no unforeseen complications.
"So... your Mets are dead? Just like that?" Pinky asked.
"No." Riley shook her head. "Not yet." She pulled out the Met Factory from her pocket. "But they soon will be."
She placed the yellow cube against the tree. The wood had regrown a couple of times, but she'd trimmed it back down to keep the slime easily accessible. The message went out, and... the jungle remained the same.
"Was... something supposed to happen?" Pinky looked around.
"It is happening, but not here." Her Mets had undoubtedly been slaughtering things non-stop. They might not have any blood, but their presence would rile up the trees due to incidental damage. Normally, that wouldn't be an issue. Now? The slime inside of the trees would be deadly to them.
"I... wouldn't be so sure of that." Pinky turned her head. Sure enough, the sound of a pitched battle was drawing closer.
"Heh." Riley chuckled. "They're smart enough to guess where the origin of this new attack came from." Her minions were on it.
"I... I think something nasty is coming?"
Like another Redno? That might be a problem except for all the trees in the way. Something that big couldn't-
A black form blurred in the distance. It was hard to make out through the trees, but the destruction it left in its wake was undeniable.
Riley frowned. "My Jungleclad's new blood should be slowing them down, even if they aren't a match." Instead, her minions were being torn apart with such speed that they didn't have time to bleed on their attacker.
"Oh no..." Pinky sounded afraid. "That's a creler!"
"A what?" Riley asked as a Met riding a four foot tall, eight foot long, pillbug with a glowing underbelly tore through her minions with casual ease. "Hm?"
Riley took a deep breath... and then spewed a cloud of red smoke in a plume that spread out hundreds of feet. The 'creler' moved through it... and then collapsed as the Met that had taken the place of its head dissipated.
Riley ► Bring that corpse over here.
The surviving Jungleclad dragged the creature closer to her as Pinky hid behind her head.
"Well, that's an interesting thing." Riley began to prod it. "It also seems strangely familiar..."