“Well, did your father tell you anything else about it?” Moni asks while pulling on her tail, her eyes almost popping out of her skull.
“Yeah. He told me ‘Don’t worry. It’s not real,’” I deadpan. I can barely think with that whipping sound Slayer’s tentacles are making as he runs around disabling the puca’s around him.
“Well, while you all figure out if this thing is real or not, can we come up with an imaginary game plan while it fee-fi-fo-fum’s its way here?” Rez throws her arms in the air. “I’m not sure how long my shield is gonna last,” she worries, her brows pulled down.
She looks so adorable like that. She makes me want just to throw her over my shoulder and?—
Smack. Rez hits me in the chest. “Get your head out of the gutter and in the game, or so help me I’ll castrate you before I deal with the nightmare rodent.”
“How did you...?”
“Your eyes!” she snaps, rolling her eyes before turning her back on me as a group of pucas throws themselves at her shield, rattling it.BOOM!Rez stumbles and almost falls, but I pull her against me, steadying her.
“Are you okay?” I ask, knowing full well she’s not, according to her pinched face.
“My shield,” she groans. “I can’t hold it.” She cries out as the multi-colored dome breaks and a few puca’s charge towards us.
Knots jumps in front of us, wielding his sword, looking like an avenging angel, but they don’t even get close. In a flash of light, the familiar barking and growls of Reaper cause the pucas to shriek and rear back. I watch in shock as they fall to the ground and wither in pain as their skin hardens to leather before their cries suddenly cut off. As the light dissipates, standing intheir place is Levi, and if I’m not mistaken, he looks different. Cocky, almost.
“About time you showed up.” I give him a lopsided smile as he turns around, a smirk on his lips, his dimple showing, and his eyes are only for Rez.
“Sorry for the delay. I had to take care of a Harpy.” He walks straight up to Rez and grabs hold of her, putting his hands in her hair, and slamming his mouth to hers.
Fuck if I don’t have to adjust to the lust that I’m hit with.Hello, we’re in a battle to the death here, and I’m being bombarded with enough shit to feed off for the rest of the week.I swallow uncomfortably as I roll my eyes.
“Great. Can we not die now?” I whisper-shout as I take in the capradilla marching its way closer.
“Worth it,” Rez swoons, pulling away from Levi.
“Ditto,” he retorts.
“I take it, you’ve been cured?” Rez gives Levi a goofy yet dazed look.
“You could say that,” Levi replies with his own smoldering smile.
“Great! We can get to those details later. Right now, we still need to figure out how to take out two enemies at the same time,” Knots says as he nods at Levi and the pucas only twenty-five feet away and advancing. For some reason, they aren’t running anymore. Something is hindering their approach, and I think I’m more worried about the cause of that than anything else.
“Um, about that.” Rez holds up a finger to get our attention. “Slayer apparently made a phone call,” she says and points behind me. Turning, I chuckle as I take in the sight of our new miracle.
Holy shit.
From here, it looks like dozens of creatures, ranging from lions to squid and netherwraiths, line the foliage and brush on the ground, blending into their surroundings so easily it’s hard to get an accurate count. The nine-foot cat with literal silver hooks at the ends of its squid-like tentacles protruding from their shoulders is the same creature as Knox's fourth animal, Slayer.
On top of the ones on the ground, I spot some in the tree branches above, and a few actively climbing up the trunks of the tree, who pause to give us a once-over before continuing their path. Besides the obvious, I notice that none of them is the same color as Slayer. All of them have brighter coats or blend into the trees, but nothing close to black. But I’m not complaining, not when this looks like an army of murder mittens. Now this is what I call backup!
“Slayer says, ‘tag, we’re it,’” Rez yells out, grabbing our attention. “Follow behind, take them down, and keep up. And Moni, can you tangle up the Capa until we’re ready to flay it?” Reinvigorated, Rez shrugs but activates her glaives with a smile.
I follow suit, pulling out my knives, but grabbing my phone with my free hand. I snap a picture of the scene before me, not missing the opportunity. There’s no way in Hell anyone would believe this. After this Gauntlet, I might not believe this, and I’m living it.
“That’s easy work for me,” Moni says as she shrinks down and flies off towards the woods with the monster beaver. Chester shifts to his lemur and simply follows her, climbing a tree and getting off the ground.
“Let’s go!” Knots yells, leading the charge.
“His name shall forever be Target. Like Target Practice for always going first,” Lynx calls out, making Knots stumble, and I snicker, loving the new nickname.It kinda fits.
Rez
Knox leads us deeper into the woods, where tentacles hang from the limbs of the trees in front of us. As the pucas near them, they are yanked off their feet and stripped of their tails within seconds. Their screams rip through the woods before they are shaken, dropped, and left disoriented before us as they try to gain their feet.
