pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq
(Yuma PoV)
It did not, however, start to evaporate. Instead the neck split down the middle and a rush of Grimm goo pumped up from underneath. All the places it had been burnt began to refill with black muscle fibers and flesh.
"It's a Hydra!" Pine called out. She flew and took steps forward on the ground and thrust her staff upwards right at the base of its body and summoned a pillar of light which pierced the creature's limp form. When the light faded more black matter was spilling out of somewhere and filling the massive hole she'd put in it.
It got back to its feet. Its divided neck was sprouting two different heads. One was snake-like but the scales were sleeker and at a guess it would be better at handling electricity. The other was just a stump like some kind of worm but when it opened it's gaping maw there were rows upon rows of white teeth inside. It didn't even have a head to cut off really. That must have been how it was adapting to me. When it got up it must have been a quarter again as massive and it had thick black muscles with sleek Grimm white bone in all the melted and burnt places.
I was a little intimidated to be completely honest. Sure, Grimm were weird. But you slice off their head and put a massive hole in it and it should die. That was just. That was fair. To get back up after that was just not right.
"Holy fuck?" Peach asked. She stepped up and started punching it in rapid fire. She delivered a cross that just tore away flesh and a hook that ripped off bone white plate but she wasn't getting deep enough for it to matter. The worm head careened towards me eyelessly and I dived out of the way.
Pine summoned a fireball on its center of mass and burnt the flesh away but just as before from somewhere underneath black goo rose to the surface to replace what was lost. White bone settled in that was probably fireproof or fire resistant at the very least. I slashed at the worm head with my shuriken. The snake head dived at Rosé and she rolled and came up slashing. The monster stepped forward and brutally kicked Red in the side and tried to crush the dog under a taloned foot but the dog was fast and bolted to the side.
Peach stepped in on the fifteenth or so hit and when its snake-like head came close she blew it clean off with an uppercut. Then she went back to rapid fire punching its broad belly. Weird growths were sprouting from its scaly flesh down where she was hitting it and they moved like little stubs of limbs and tried clawing at her. She kept punching away.
Peach must have been on her twentieth or thirtieth hit and was cleaving away black flesh in a blur. She was probably delivering blows on par with Cloud's awesome strength but she couldn't get deep enough and the Hydra reared back on its two feet for a second before a barbed tail whipped around and caught Peach center mass and hit her hard enough that she skipped out into the bay.
"Peach!" I called after her. I almost got bitten by the worm head for my distraction. I sliced into it and my shuriken bit deep but it started to unfold where I had impaled it and its neck widened and teeth bulged out at me as it threatened to swallow me. I stepped back but the whole body pursued me with lumbering steps.
The snake neck divided and both ends started wiggling and filling with black flesh. The snake head came back. It had the sleekness to it that would grant it some immunity to electricity. And the armor under its jaw and around its face was thicker to better withstand direct force like Peach's punches. And another head began to grow like a cross between a rooster and a cougar with massive canine teeth. Its two regrowing heads shook off coming into the world, or back into the world as the case may be. The heads picked out different targets.
The snake head made a pass at me but I blocked it with my shield. It still hit me hard enough that I ate shit into the ground.
Rosé opened fire directly into the snake head. But it mostly just looked annoyed and breathed fire at her in a gushing spout of flames.
Pine flew by and smacked it with her staff and bashed it with her shield but it didn't look like it was anything other than annoyed when the worm head rose up to bite at her when she made another pass.
Red barked and lunged and jumped on its back and with teeth and claws started digging inwards towards that place flesh just kept sprouting from.
"How. The. Fuck. Do. We. Kill. It." Peach came up to me and pulled me to my feet. The worm head dived towards us and we both dodged and rolled to the side. The cougar head spat up acid at us that started dissolving the grass and willow bushes.
"We're just making it stronger. We have to reach that inner core where it keeps healing from!" Rosé shouted as she dove forward with her blade and bit deep into its right leg. She took another swing and sliced the leg off completely and the beast toppled forward. The tail came whipping around and hit Peach again but she slid and caught it instead of being flicked away. It looked like she was holding a log.
"Take the heads off!" Pine called and smashed the snake head with her shield. "You have to do both. You have to take off all the heads and you have to destroy the inner core!"
Its right leg was already regrowing and it was getting these fleshy nubs on its back that were clawing right back at Red XIII and trying to pull him off of its body.
I sliced the worm head off. I wasn't sure what all that was going to accomplish at the moment but it was a start. Rosé was hacking her way to the inner core with Red's clawing biting held but it seemed like as much flesh as they tore away more was just filling in the gaps. Peach ran up and punched the snake head. She chased it with a jumping kick. Then followed that with a stunning overhand that really slapped it around. But it didn't quite take the head off until Pine came through with the edge of her shield and cut the snake head off completely.
Rosé was working on getting to the inner core and Pine let loose a beam of light which pierced the creature. I could see a dark portal through which matter guzzled forth and then it was gone.
If we didn't kill it in the next ten seconds we probably weren't going to be able to kill it at all.
The cougar head lunged and Peach and she punched it three quick times. It vomited right onto her and sunk its teeth into her arm and picked her and shook her like a doll. Acid kept pouring from its mouth over her and she screamed. This… this head was designed to kill her. It dealt damage over time and would constantly be resetting her Roll-up. It slammed her into the ground and I tossed my shuriken and cut deep into its neck hard enough that it dropped her nearly twenty feet.
The snake head was splitting and more flesh was pouring into place. The neck wiggled frantically and the worm head swooped down at Rosé and floored her. The snake head came back even more heavily armored. The new head sprouted mandibles like a giant ant and had eight great eyes which all moved independently. The eyes frantically searched and swiveled until one caught sight of Pine in the air. Then all of the eight eyes locked onto her one by one. Pine gasped in the air and flapped back to avoid flame from the snake head.
The ant lunged at her. It's mandibled clipped her by the wing and started squeezing. She teleported out of its grip and all eight eyes started frantically searching for her. When she reappeared all eight eyes targeted her again.
The cougar head and the worm head but dipped down at peach and she punched and kicked the worm but the puma threw acid at her that she barely dodged. She had to keep dodging out of the way of a burst of flame from the snake head. The front claws took a swipe at Rosé and she had to back off.
The ant clicked the mandibles and had eyes only for Pine as she bobbed and weaved in the air. The ant's neck leaned way back and just started watching Pine and waiting. It just waited. She dodged a burst of flame from the snake and dived down to its front and cast a fireball on its center of mass. The hydra let out a collective groan and more armor and flesh started filling the gaps.
Rosé took a slice up at the snake head when it dived at her. She thrust upwards through its armor and out of its skull. She drew back and the head wiggled and shook. The armor grew even thicker and more plated.
The worm dived down at me and I sliced it but didn't take it off. The worm wiggled and showed rows and rows of inner teeth and I shuddered.
Pine stepped down in front of me and thrust her staff upwards and slammed it with a pillar of light. As soon as she stopped moving the ant head struck like a cobra and slammed her into the ground hard enough that it threw dirt up into the air. She cried out as it pinned her to the ground and started crushing her.
"Switch heads!" Rosé called. "Yuma take the cougar! Peach get the bug! Pine take the worm! We get one more shot at this!"
I jumped and tossed my shuriken. It stabbed the cougar where it was chasing Peach. Peach passed me and did a leaping kick into the bug when Pine teleported away. Rosé herself went for the snake in a flying leap. Pine reappeared and smacked the worm with her heel in a downward spike. She chased it with her shield and sliced deep. She hammered again and again to take the worm head off.
The snake head fell to the side and Rosé pulled a dust crystal and unleashed it on the monster's belly.
Peach blew the ant's head clean off with her fifth punch. She palmed a crystal and cast a lightning bolt into its heart.
Pine finished with the worm and the neck fell wiggling and shuddering to the ground. She cast her staff forward and summoned and enormous beam of light which pierced into the front.
I cut the Cougar's head off and caught the shuriken and I frisbeed it into the visible portal my friends had revealed. I cut through it and the creature died. I could tell because it was turning to ask. Peach slumped to the ground and panted hard.
Rosé leaned hard on her sword and Red XIII came limping up to us. Pine scratched the good boy's ears and it sat with a whimper.
"I feel that," Pine told the animal. "That spider head or whatever had my fucking number. Gods, I feel that."
"We almost died!" I shouted. "If that didn't kill it, then it would have killed us. How would we have stopped it if it had eight heads?"
Rosé fell to her knees. She still gripped her sword tightly in one hand. She clasped at it desperately.
"Did any of you see what it changed into in order to deal with me?" Peach wondered. "The cow head and all those little arms to try and stop Red and I? What the fresh fuck?"
"Grimm are so fuckin' weird!" Pine agreed. "What even are Grimm? What have we been learning in Grimm Studies? Seriously? Why hasn't Port ever told a story about one of those? It could have saved our lives!"
"Yeah… I thought it was just… a Pelluda or whatever. Still tough. But the thing about a drake or a Pelluda is that it doesn't try to be unstoppable. That thing was trying for unstoppable. You know what I mean? Any longer and it would have been unstoppable. At least for us," Rosé said.
"That was a baby one!" Peach exclaimed. "That's what one of the babies can do! It was a baby!"
Red paced over to her and gave her face a lick because she was shouting.
"Yeah. Imagine what one of those would be like if… oh I don't know… I don't need two to make my point. Let's say it ran into one hunter team before us. Would we even have been able to hurt it?" Rosé asked between deep breaths.
"Probably not," Pine agreed. "It was getting bigger too? Did you guys see that? It was growing bigger even as we were, like, tearing into it. More and more of that stuff just kept coming out of the middle portal."
"Grimm are so weird," Peach agreed. "So fuckin' weird."
"Yeah, this goes beyond even the regular 'Grimm weirdness,'" I chimed in. "What are we doing with our lives?" I wondered. "Are we even making a difference at all?"
"Maybe… we saved Junon…" Rosé pointed out.
"And we're training. We're… we're still babies too. We still have time to grow stronger and do meaningful stuff," Peach said. "We're just playing right now. But one day we'll be serious business."
"I'm tired of playing games," Pine threw in.
"Well, what are you gonna do about it?" There was something challenging in Peach's tone. But there was also something genuinely curious. It was like she wanted to know what Pine was really thinking she could do about it.
"I'll… I'll have to train harder. Ask for more notes," Pine decided. "I don't know."
Peach got up and walked to the ocean and jumped in. She was still covered in acid from the head which had been designed to kill her. She scrubbed at her skin in the water and squeezed the goop from her pretty hair. She looked like a mess. She looked like she got manhandled and almost died.
But she was walking away. That had to count for something.
"Well girls… let's pack it in. Let's head home. I'm so fucking shattered," Rosé murmured. She got back to her feet and sheathed her sword by her hip. She strode over to the dog and patted it on the side. "Come on," she ordered. "If we're fast maybe we can make our flight today. Otherwise we'll have to wait until tomorrow."
"We're too late," Pine said, checking her scroll. "You'll have to wait."
Rosé let out an unflattering groan and fell back to the ground and looked exhausted. It was interesting to just watch as she let it take her. She just sort of eased into and blinked slowly with a thousand yard stare. She let her muscles relax and leaned back in her filthy combat skirt. Red XIII came up to her and basically sat down on top of her.
He let out a little sigh and laid down. She buried her face in his fur and let out a second loud groan.
"Yeah. I feel that one," Peach agreed as she walked out of the ocean. "We should head in anyways. But we can take our sweet time. So there's that."
"Fine," Rosé managed.
pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq
-WG