Like a scene out of a Japanese giant monster movie and more chaotic than any of the recent events held in town. Beasts that had been out and about this evening, heading home for work or simply trying to make the curfew, were now flooding down Main Street, away from the one-eyed monster that slowly lumbered down the street.
“I purposely avoided going to Norway for this exact reason!” A goat with a foreign accent yelled, disappearing down an alleyway along with three others in hoof.
The troll looked through his one good eye at the fleeing creatures below him like a fat kid might be eying down an all-you-can-eat buffet. Its other eye was a hollow crater, scabbed over and charred, with thick yellow and white fluids bubbling out of the cracks of thick, burnt, leathery skin. The damage from the lion’s fireball had not only destroyed the creature’s eyeball but carved out the eye socket entirely.
It inhaled, then let loose with an ear-splitting, primal war that warbled as it petered out, announcing its intentions for things to come as it lifted one of its huge feet and brought it down right on top of a small Kia that had been parked at the corner.
Advrik and Desmond burst from the front door of the butcher’s shop, their eyes opening wide in something that borderline amusement and disbelief. An honest-to-goodness troll lumbered lazily in the middle of Main Street. Its huge body, nearly thirty feet in height, was covered with thick brownish-grey fur that almost matched Advrik’s coat.
The most striking feature of the monster was a fairly new addition, which confirmed the troll’s identity at the very least. It was the same one that attacked the apartments outside of town the other night, judging by the huge gaping, charred crater that now took the place of its eyeball.
Aside from the smooshed car, the creature didn’t seem too aggressive, much to Advrik’s relief. A feeling that would no doubt vanish when he and Desmond have to go on the offense.
“Excuse you? Did you just insinuate that I was going to join in the fight?” The mole snapped, tentacles spazzing out in a wild, wriggling manner.
“Well, I mean, you’re supposed to be my support,” Advrik said as another group of terrified townsbeasts rushed past him. They clutched small children in their arms. “We need to get it out of town at the very least. Got any bright ideas?”
The mole scratched his chin, pondering the question as fast as his terrified mind could function.
“Advrik!” A familiar voice rang out, cutting through the gawking crowd of onlookers who were either documenting the event or had yet to take up shelter. “Advrik, where are you?”
“Brigid?!” The wolf answered, his voice hitting a volume level that his throat wasn’t the slightest bit comfortable with. The purple fox cut through the crowd, pushing and even punching bulkier beasts that refused to budge as she excused herself.
“What on earth are you doing here, Brigs?!”
She cocked her head, pulling her attention away from the colossal figure that stood almost motionless in the middle of the street, its head jerking as it made sniffing noises. “I was looking for you! I saw you on a livestream on Facebook; This shit is hitting the national circuit already, according to Eligh.” The fox declared with an odd sense of pride.
The crowd erupted in screams as the troll’s attention suddenly snapped towards the constantly growing mass that was forming down the street from town hall. The monster’s gaze seemingly fixed upon one beast in particular, a low gurgle rumbling from the depths of its body.
“Oh hey, yeah, I don’t know who or what, but something got its attention,” Desmond practically yelled as he wasted no time in turning, cutting between the much taller fox and wolf as he made a beeline back into the bistro with several other beasts following in-toe.
“Everyone inside, now!” The wolf yelled as the troll finally dislodged its foot from the crumpled remains of the Kia, taking one step forward, then another. Objects and buildings alike shook even from this distance with each massive step it took. “Go, Brigid!”
But the fox just stared. An eyebrow arched, her glistening pink eyes staring at the wolf as if he’d just eaten the last macaron. Even with the giant strolling towards them, he couldn’t help but marvel at how beautiful she looked in this twilight hour lighting. The thick braid of black hair dangling from her shoulder atop her baggy two-tone black and pink hoodie, which had been completely zipped up.
“If you think you’re going to fight that fucker alone, then you’ve got bigger problems, never mind the fact that you just tried to order me around.
Advrik took a step forward to the fox, which had been met by another one of the monster’s horrifyingly loud, monstrous roars. It was mere yards away now, the calm demeanor it previously demonstrated now replaced by fury.
“All right, all right! I’m sorry,” Advrik’s sword appeared amid a burst of quickly fading magic sparks. He belted the sheath to his pants, then drew the sword itself. “I didn’t mean it in that way. I just want you to be safe, is all!” He said as he fell into his Agility stance, blade in one hand and pointed to the ground.
“Well, for fuckin’ starters,” An explosion of blue and white sparks erupted from each of her hands, looking like small fireworks. While not as quick as Advrik’s Magitek spell, Brigid’s had sacrificed some speed to accommodate a set of daggers: Two sleek and stylish red-colored blades with black markings etched across the flats, the pommels resembling serpentine monsters of some sort. “Nobeast tells Brigid Ashtear what to do. And second,”
A blue mailbox soared through the air, the steel ripped from the sidewalk where it had been affixed, nearly striking the wolf. Brigid had pushed him out of the way with barely a second to spare, pinning him against the big window at the front of the Bistro. “I’m a big girl, and I can bite.” She said while giving him a seductive look.
The fox’s speed was mind-boggling. It was what the species had been known for, with their tall, slender bodies and total lack of body fat, near one-hundred percent truths that Brigid was an exception to. She wasn’t a pole-bean nor flat-chested. She didn’t stand six feet tall either, but nor did Advrik, for that matter, he thought, watching the fox take several steps away as she, too, fell into a stance of her own. Her thick, bushy tail swayed behind her in a playful cat-like manner.
“Well? C’mon!” She barked, finally snapping Advrik out of his trance.
He nodded, raising his arm and making a fist, which then promptly burst into flames. The sight caused the troll to hesitate as its gaze quickly shifted from Brigid to the wolf.
Had it been coming after Brigid all along?
The wolf threw his hand forward, opening his fist and letting the ball of magic flames rocket through the air. It collided with the monster’s shin a second later, tripping the monster and bringing it down to a skidding halt across the pavement, leaving a thick layer of flesh and fat matted with course fur in its wake.
Desmond popped his head out of the bistro’s door to the duo’s right, yelling, “It’s a troll, so you know the sunlight is your best bet,” he looked towards the east as the sun dipped behind Moon Hill, “But you’re shit out of luck there, so have fun!” he said as the door slammed shut. Inside, several phones could be seen, illuminating the faces of their wielders as they filmed the events that were about to transpire just outside.
A monster the size of a three-story building didn’t just spring to its feet after being knocked down. The troll had taken several seconds to regain its foot, its knees both void of flesh now, revealing the thick yellow-ish knee bone beneath.
“You know, if we don’t kill this thing, it’s never going to be able to look at fire the same way again,” said the fox, remarking about the two substantial wounds the giant had on display now thanks to well-aimed fireball spells.
Advrik shrugged. “Let’s not give it that chance then…” He said as he formed up with Brigid, looking at the bulky hoodie she had on over a pair of black pants. “You going to be able to move fast enough in that?” His head tilted towards her.
“My hoodie? No choice. I hadn’t planned on fighting monsters tonight, so I’ve only a bra on underneath. But if you’d rather I—“
“I haven’t known you for long, but I know you well enough to know you wouldn’t dare expose yourself like that.” He said with a smirk, knowing full well, he was the only one she’d ever done so with. Or at least, recently.
Before the banter could continue, the troll had fully regained its composure and was on the move once more, each footstep causing violent vibrations as it lumbered forward. Its knuckles scraped the road behind it as it dragged its long, heavy arms behind it.
“Can you shadow step?” He asked, and the fox nodded just as a lamp post soared through the air and planted itself into the road where the pair had stood just a second ago.
“You distract it, I’m going to cut it—“ His red eyes went wide as the creature swung, not a fist, but an open palmed hand towards the fox who had appeared on the opposite side of the intersection.
Brigid had dodged the swipe with ease, leaping well above the monster’s massive hand with all the ease and grace one could expect from a fox. The troll pulled back its hand and inspected it, looking as if it had fully expected the fox to be firmly in his grasp.
“You all right, Brigs?”
“Yeah, but you need to draw him away from me; I can only hop about like this for so long. Fuck!!” She yelled as the monster brought its hand down vertically this time, hoping to pin her that way. But the troll was a simple monster, slow and dimwitted, telegraphing every move it made long before putting it into motion.
Where foxes excelled in speed and magical prowess, wolves, on the other hand, were about a balance of strength and speed. Without the shadow step technique, he’d never be able to come close to moving about like his foxy girlfriend was mere yards away. But as a wolf, it oftentimes wasn’t as necessary as a wolf could weather attacks and keep on chugging along.
A normal wolf could, that is. One that stood between six and six and a half feet. Advrik was atypical in that he was just under the six-foot average height and lacked the broad shoulders and many of the masculine, strong-looking features that Wolfkind was known for.
But he still had the strength.
Falling into his two-handed Power stance, gripping the long shaft of his sword with both hands as he lunged toward the giant monster. Its back turned to him, exposing a taught wiry fur-covered heel. Severing that tendon would all but immobilize the monster and—
A giant tail swiped through the air, impacting the wolf with enough force to send him spiraling through the air, eventually colliding with the corner of a building, damaging the structure slightly as he came to a sliding halt on the ground several feet away.
The troll’s long tail, which no one had noticed until that very second, had unraveled itself from around the creature’s torso and now hung lip, dragging across the ground. It was tipped with a mane of fur that resembled the thick fur around the monster’s crotch area.
“Advrik, no!” She yelled, bounding away from the intersection and trying to make her way down the street opposite where the monster had actively, and surprisingly, tried cornering her.
“All right fucker, that’s enough!” Her palm lit up in a blinding light, which exploded in a burst of Lucent magic, the elemental of Light. The troll’s left hand had been close enough to her during the explosion that several of its fingers had instantly turned to stone against the spell’s UV-based element.
The troll reared back in a pain-filled howl as it lamented the loss of its fingers, the stone pulling away from the living flesh that covered the rest of its hand as nerves and veins severed against the pull of gravity as the fingers ripped away, hitting the pavement like cinder blocks being dropped from a rooftop.
Brigid came to a screeching halt beside Advrik, who’d been knocked unconscious. Blood trickled from his forehead. His chest raised and lowered, showing that he was alive at least. “You stupid wolf,” she said, raising a hand drenched in blue watery magic. The aura flowed from her hand like a stream as she opened it up. The water elemental’s magic, with its healing properties, quickly went to work in healing the wolf’s wounds.
Blurry-eyed as he came to, the sight of the purple fox hovering over him with an expression that bordered somewhere between being pissed off and relieved at the same time looked back at him.
“It has a tail,” he said weakly through a wince of pain as he sat up. His eyes were now drawn to the monster that still stood far too close to be dwelling on anything but how to bring the thing down.
“It does; I don’t know how we missed that before.” She replied, casting another cure spell on the wolf for good measure.
“Hey, hey, hey,” he protested, “Easy on the magic; you’ll need the mana for the fight.” He climbed back to his feet, wiping the blood away from his forehead with the back of his palm.
“Making sure you were all right first was more important. Besides, I figured out how we can quickly kill this thing.”
Advrik stared at the monster that clutched the nub that was once its hand, thick red blood spurting from where fingers had once attached to it. “What did you do?”
Trolls were notoriously known for having an overwhelmingly huge weakness: They couldn’t tolerate even the slightest amount of Lucent magic, as it used the sun’s rays for its basic compound. The light grenade Brigid had used to escape the monster had been one of only three Lucent-derived spells in her arsenal, none of which were attack-based.
Despite the immense pain shooting through the nerves in its hand, the troll began sniffing the air once more, pulling its attention away from its severed limb as it caught wind of the same odor that had driven it into a rage earlier. Its one remaining eye focused once again on Brigid.
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