Monster Breeder
158. Return Under the Mountain, Part 2 (Suka)

Spoiler

Body Horror

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“Dat a lota ded bugs.”

One room down. Let’s see how far we can push it today. “If that’s all we’re facing, we can clear out every one of these tunnels.”

Cottontail trips on nothing and turns to give me a wan expression, “Miss Suka, I’m not superstitious, but did you have to tempt fate like that?”

I shrug. “Tempt fate? Really? What could these bugs even possibly throw at us that would be trouble for our group?” Even Sue is glaring at me by the light of my flaming fur when I finish. Then the ground rumbles beneath our feet. “Um…”

We’re standing at the bottom of the shaft we descended from, the floor a natural incline with a tunnel trailing off into darkness above and below. Looking uphill, I see something glinting catch the light. It has a lot of moving parts, and I can’t rightly make it out at first. Gradually, the approaching enemy resolves into something I can understand.

It’s a massive metal ball comprised of pots, pans, and other cooking equipment with Servitor legs sticking out through the gaps. They must’ve raided the ancient human cookware store that mysteriously exists down here. The bugs use the points of their legs for traction and to propel themselves forward, the smooth metallic exterior providing structure and allowing them to roll easily. Overall, the composite construct must weigh a few tons.

And it’s heading straight for us.

I shoot a stream of flame at the rolling sphere while Dura throws her club at it and Cottontail fishes around in her hat. My flames roil across its metal surfaces, making the Servitor legs pull inside the defensive outer shell, but the pieces I hit are quickly rotated away from my attack vector—allowing them to cool before coming around again. Dura’s club deflects away off a sheet pan, and Cottontail pulls a rubber chicken in a hasty panic that not even her boosted Focus can overcome.

“Run!” Megan yells, clearly not ready to test herself against the metal sphere except as a last resort.  

The five of us scramble to stay ahead of the pursuant ball of death over uneven terrain. Well, I force myself to stay with the others as they flee in case one of them trips. All we have to do is keep going until we find a crevice to duck inside.

Except our arachnoid opponents already thought of that. As we pass alcoves on the sides of the natural hallway, scythe arms extend from the shadows to slice at us.

“Black Widows!” Megan screams as she ducks a cut aimed at her neck.

Sue dodges aside a razor-edged swipe, Cottontail does an applause-worthy evasive twirl without breaking stride, and Dura grabs the wrist of the next Black Widow to try that shit. The Webling she yanks forth has a humanoid torso growing from the top of a spider head on a spider body with a pair of deadly sharp scythe-arms. Dura tosses the Black Widow back in hopes of slowing the metal ball, but the massive construct barely slows while crushing the bug monster into paste.

Another Trapdoor Webling lunges for my legs and gets a flaming kick to the head for its reward. My flaring hair illuminates the dead end of our tunnel not far ahead. We've got nowhere left to run.

“Dura, with me!” is all I have time to shout as I spin about.

Thankfully, my Ogress lover follows my lead without hesitation. We turn together to face the onrushing ball of metal and Servitors while bracing ourselves. I need something that’ll let me get a good grip, and I need to anchor myself in place. My mind races to meet this newest challenge, leveraging everything I’ve gained while practicing with Fast Learner and all my increased Focus.

My paws become engulfed with large flame constructs, enormous fiery wolf legs with claws that dig into the ground for purchase. My arms are swallowed by snarling wolf heads of burning fury. When the metallic ball barrels down on us, I catch it with jaw/hands that sink their teeth into metal. Receiving all that force makes me skid backward several feet, but I have Dura there beside me.

The Ogress is a bastion. She catches a huge metallic pot with her shoulder and her dragging feet cut furrows in the ground. Her muscles go taught as she pushes and heaves against our assailant. Together, we bring the segmented Servitor ball to a screeching halt.

Before I can feel good about myself, the Servitor legs burst forth from between the seams of cookware to strike at us. They burn themselves scratching at my flame constructs, but their efforts have a deleterious effect that gradually disrupts the form of my fire. Worse, they’re going for Dura’s eyes, one of the Ogress’s few vulnerabilities.

“We need a way to get past their metal armor!” I shout while watching my flame wolf arms slowly deteriorate. I’m sweating with the mental effort of maintaining my constructs.

“Cover me!” Megan yells in response as she dashes over to join us, putting her hands on a baking pan surrounded by waving Servitor legs. Her hair begins glowing brighter and brighter, its clean yellow glare illuminating the dark tunnels and casting wicked shadows for hundreds of meters through the underground.

With the three of us occupied, Black Widows and Burrowers crawl out of their hiding spots to approach Cottontail and Sue. The poor Froglin has her work cut out for her blasting back the advancing arachnoids with jets of water while the Showbunny roots around in her hat.

Cottontail pulls a blond wig first, and then a massive white sheet that she hastily casts aside to land on an advancing Black Widow by accident. The Showbunny then shouts, “Abracadabra!” without pausing as she continues to rummage for something useful.

The Webling’s scythe arms can’t cut the fabric for some reason and, when Cottontail says the magic word, the arachnoid’s form disappears beneath the sheet without a trace. The monster is simply gone.

“Huwwy! I can’t hold them back much longer!” Sue shouts as she dodges another Black Widow’s blades and hoses the Webling away.

Dura cranes her neck back from the waving Servitor skewer-like legs scrabbling for her eyes and I feel my flame paws start to give, sliding back a few inches on the stone floor. The big metal ball bears down on us with the strength of a thousand Servitors scraping at the tunnel walls, forcing my Ogress partner and I to lose ground despite all our efforts.

Our dependable Showbunny breathes deep, concentrates, and pulls… a rubber chicken that she slams on the ground in disgust—but then she reaches inside her hat and, with a performative flourish, withdraws a very angry scowling grey-furred rabbit with a bite-divot in one ear.

“Eep!” she screams and throws the growling little beast at a Burrower.

Peter the killer rabbit flies straight for the Webling’s throat and rips it out with a few bites. He then leaps for the next arachnoid monster—a Black Widow staring in disbelief at how quickly the tide has changed—the Webling soon dead on the ground with arterial blood spurting from a massive gash. The stage rabbit turns red with gore in moments as Peter downs half a dozen monsters in as many seconds.

“Shocking Touch!” Megan shouts as a wave of Electrical Magic discharges from her in a wave that passes through the metallic ball in a fraction of a moment.

Dura and I instantly release our hold on the metal ball as we feel a painful jolt. All the Servitors inside shiver and hiss before going limp as the shine of Megan’s hair dims to a dull glow. Then the metallic ball of spare cooking implements collapses in on itself, thereby crushing most of the surviving monsters contained within. Sue’s arms slump in relief as the threat of nearby arachnoids passes just as quickly.

Our killer rabbit companion is off like a shot without a second’s rest as soon as all our nearby enemies are dead and dying, seemingly searching the underground tunnels for more prey.

Scary.

Cottontail herself is a bit freaked out; probably the cute prey monster isn’t used to all the death and blood, and her familiar-thingy (Minion?) dispatched a bunch of spider creatures with ruthless efficiency any Wolf would envy.

“Okay,” I begin, “In retrospect, I recognize that not respecting our enemies is a recipe for disaster. I promise not to ‘tempt fate’ in the future.”

“Hwrmm,” Sue grumbles quietly but doesn’t openly reprimand me. Dura probably couldn’t care less, and from the corner of my eye, I catch her picking her nose in idle boredom.

“Need… a… recharge,” Megan says while wobbling over to Cottontail’s booty. The adorable little mouse girl with an attitude has been zipping around and expending energy left and right. That final discharge was simply the last straw. Thankfully, we have Cottontail’s fluffy-wuffy cottontail for Megan to bury her face in, motorboating her sister’s shapely rear to reach static saturation. She sighs in relief as her fur brightens to full resplendence after a dedicated minute of ass-worship.

The Showbunny’s embarrassed blush becomes visible by her sister’s increasing glow, and I give her a friendly eyebrow waggle. Then I pretend nonchalance as a refreshed Megan steps around Cottontail’s lovely bum.

“Dura want kill mo’ bugs.”

“Yeah, that’s why we’re here,” I agree, and the others concur. We could probably leave old Peter behind and call the mission accomplished, given the gory display he just made of these Weblings, but that’d feel too much like taking the lazy way out. “This way,” I lead us through a narrow side passage that gradually opens into another cavern.

My canine nose detects a hint of saline. Wait, is that the ocean I’m smelling? Given our proximity to the Western Sea, I shouldn’t be surprised that some of the tunnels go that far. There may even be underwater cave systems. Regardless, we’re not here for that today.

I lead us away from the scent of salt, heading downward and deeper. There are signs of our arachnoid enemies everywhere. Webbing, broken Servitor eggshells, and skeletons. As if to confirm my earlier suspicions, I find the bones of Mermaids as well as Goblins, Harpies, and Dire Wolves. It seems these Weblings have been ‘fishing’ as well as preying on those who fall through the cracks of the world.

Nowhere do I find any of the infantile ‘Darklings’ that Alex described from her previous exploration of the underground. The question of where they went crosses my mind briefly, but I don’t overly concern myself with the mystery.

We’re too busy chasing down and executing any Servitor or Webling stragglers that escaped Peter’s notice. The Trapdoor Weblings don’t seem like ones to talk, and the Black Widows are sadistic bitches who get off on impregnating their victims with chest-bursting babies, so I don’t feel bad despite my recent adoption of Alex’s philosophy. Webling Jumpers (like what Spindle used to be) are fine by me, but I can’t picture these twisted monsters in the peaceful society Alex is creating.

From what Spindle said, there used to be a lot more Jumpers down here in the past, and things have been getting steadily worse under the influence of ‘she-who-would-be-queen under the mountain’ as of late. That’s neither here nor there, though.

Megan and I rack up the most kills during this stretch due to our speed. Anything we catch sight of with our glowing hair we can catch and kill in short order. The others are our backup, and we’re careful not to range too far ahead of them. Over time, the tunnels and caverns descend deeper and deeper.

“They’re scattering like bugs you find under a rotted log,” Megan comments after the fifth time we run down a retreating Black Widow.

“I guess they’re not stupid enough to stick around and make things easy for us,” I reply.

“Don’t worry, it gets harder from here,” a chilling voice calls from around a dark corner. Megan and I both take a step back to buy time for the others to approach while whatever it is makes up its mind whether to attack us or wait. “Mother said she felt invaders triggering her tripwires, but I didn’t expect to receive such interesting guests!”

Her voice… there’s something alien about it, like the words are coming from a completely inhuman throat—something cold-blooded, somewhere between reptilian and insectile. Animalistic fear stirs within me at the sound of this new threat, but I stamp that down with disgust, replacing fright with fury.

“How about you come out so we can introduce ourselves, bitch?” My hair flares with heat, throwing twisted shadows on the cavern walls.

“Hahaha, you call me the bitch, but you're the wolf girl! That's funny. No, I don’t think I’ll be doing that; it’d ruin the fun. This is the first exciting thing that’s ever happened to me, you know, and I intend to savor the experience! Oh, I have an idea; how about I show you some of Mother’s prototypes? Then we can all play together!”

Dura steps forward and cracks her knuckles as Sue and Cottontail form up behind us.

That’s when a pale hand emerges from the darkness to clutch a rock, the owner hidden from view using their grip to lurch forward into view. The creature… one of the ‘prototypes,’ is a disgusting horror the likes of which will probably give me nightmares.

Not the topmost portion, that of a normal humanoid woman, though her fingertips are bluish, the gums of her wickedly grinning face recessed, and her eyes are sunken as signs of poor blood-flow and circulation. It’s at her waist and below that makes my gorge rise. A second pair of arms, these the scythes of a Black Widow, pull the rest of her body around the corner.

“Ew, ew, ew!” Cottontail whines.

“I’m gonna be sick,” Megan comments.

Dura frowns, and Sue gives a nauseous gurgle.

The top half of a mermaid, two Black Widow torsos, and a Lizardman have been stitched together with each head attached to the base of the next spine with connecting skin flaps, basically ass-to-mouth. Four sets of eyes glare at us, three of which peer over the curve of their partner’s spine, each with an intense hate kindled by a life of pure torturous existence.

In the short seconds before combat begins, I push down bile while internally noting the terrible Hybrid monster’s many limbs and segmented movements remind me of a centipede.

Then it charges at us.