Desmond watched as the iron street light stuck itself in the sidewalk like a stick in the mud; electrical wires that had once been underground now bared for all to see. He could see no sign of the wolf, but the fox had reappeared on the opposite side of the street, brandishing a rather sleek-looking pair of daggers.“Anyone know what kind of troll that is?”
“See that muffin-top around its waist?”
“Is that a tail?”
“Are you guys seeing this? Likes and subscribes are—“
Voices filled the empty bistro, with Brock having turned out all of the lights within to avoid drawing attention to themselves. Standing behind the large pane of glass were the disembodies faces of various beasts, dimly illuminated by the screens of their phones as they filmed or live-streamed the events occurring outside.
“It’s a Tasslehoff,” Desmond chimed in, drawing all eyes towards him as he stood at the doorway, his eyes going wide as the troll’s tail unraveled and swatted the wolf away, the sound of him clipping the corner of the building causing the entire structure to shake.
“Got-dayum! That wolf just got fucked, dawg! Place your votes in the poll now, folks! Did he live or not? Remember to like and subscribe, and share this stream with your friends!”
Desmond gripped the door handle tightly, listening to the new generation livestream a monster attack to their Twitch followers, using his best friend’s potential death as mere content.
Fucking content.
A blinding flash of light ripped through the darkness. The troll reared back, its hand thumping to the ground, taking out one of the four stop signs at the intersection in the process.
Phones lowered in shock as the troll began to lose its calcified digits, each one dropping to the pavement below with a loud thump that preceded the horrid sound of breaking bones and slowly ripping flesh as the fingers tore away from the body.
Desmond wiped the tears from his eyes, refocusing his sight and hoping to see what had become of the fox, but she’d been nowhere to be seen. Thankfully.
While the monster dealt with some much-deserved pain, Desmond found himself pondering his bravery. He’d picked up a single Magitek and even bought a weapon that fit his particular needs and unique stature. He trained with it constantly for years within the privacy of his bedroom back home and even some since moving to Brickhedge.
The mole had played out hundreds of scenarios in his head over the years where he played the hero; Coming to the aid of his friends or even the town at the very last second to much applause and media coverage thereafter, to which he’d use to direct attention towards his blog, earning him mad ad revenue, so on and so on.
But never did a scenario even come close to presenting itself. The only one that had. He’d been so far away that making a grand entrance would have been impossible. Now, however…
Then there was the whole problem with letting the wolf know he could fight, or thought he could at the very least.
***
Advrik and Brigid stood side by side, the wolf no worse for wear after colliding with the cornerstone of Brock’s Bistro. Curative magic was something else, he thought as the troll rushed forward. It covered the distance between them in three steps and threw its balled fist toward him specifically.
He met the straight punch with the blade of his sword, shouldering the impact as he fixed himself to his Power stance. Right knee bent to weather the impact, left extended and curved inward for stability. The wolf’s tail wagged in delight as he realized the defensive maneuver worked, feeling the blade grind against bone within the troll’s remaining hand.
Brigid tossed one of her daggers, aiming for the monster’s remaining eye but piercing the troll’s huge nose straight through. It pulled back, nearly jerking Advrik’s sword from his hands as it pawed at its face, attempting to relieve itself of the object.
Balling her fist and jerking her arm back, the dagger disappeared in a cloud of sparks, then reappeared in her. The beauty of Magitek enchantments comes with additional commands, allowing wielders to throw their weapons and have them return to them with a simple recall spell, though at the cost of additional mana.
The troll quickly turned its back on the wolf and fox that had been, to its aggravation, defying it every step of the way, its large thick tail sweeping through the street, knocking benches, lamp posts, and even cars out of the way as it completed its arc. Its attention snapped away from the duo by something of much greater interest.
***
Callista Reigns, local GP and feline bombshell stood on the lawn of Town Hall, her hair wet and heavy with moisture, appearing as if she’d just gotten out of the shower. A white bottle held firmly in her hand.
A gust of chilled autumn wind swept through town, blowing south and carrying her scent with it right into the nostrils of the monster she’d already taken one eyeball away from.
“Yeah, that’s right, you asshole. You smell my shampoo; that’s what it is, right?” She said to herself as the mayor and town planner appeared behind her.
“Doctor Reigns, what in tarnation are you doing out here?! Get inside now!” The mayor exclaimed.
“The mayor’s right, Callista. Advrik’s got this, I’m sure.” Eligh, the giant grizzly, said as he placed two giant hands on the lion’s shoulders. Something that would have had her melting any other time.
The troll was two blocks away, but already she could feel the creature’s last remaining eye fixed upon her for reasons only she knew now.
“Here, take a look at this.” She said, tossing the bottle of empty shampoo to the bear. “The shampoo is an import. This thing being here? Likely my fault.”
The mayor looked at Eligh, then to the doctor, then back at the big bear as he read the label over. “Can’t we do this somewhere safer—“
THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!
The troll took off in a jog, all fixation on the fox and wolf lost in favor of the lion. Main Street rattled as the giant moved through town with utter abandon, its damaged limbs swaying wildly as it ran and sprayed thick, foul-smelling ichor across businesses and townhouses alike.
“Troll urine?!” The bear yelled, his voice deep and gravelly. “Wasn’t that ingredient—“
“Banned, yeah. That product was, I thought, discontinued as a result. That explains why I was able to get it so cheap. Turns out, a batch had been mixed using the diluted urine of a female troll that had been in estrus.” She paused. “Improperly diluted, I should say. We couldn’t smell it, but the big guy certainly could. Whenever I or—“
“Brigid!”
“Yeah, I gave her a bottle too. Whenever we’d showered, the smell of the shampoo must’ve roused the guy enough to venture into town—“
The troll had been whipped into a sexually charged frenzy, its huge penis now having grown erect and swinging between its legs, aroused by the pheromone-rich shampoo that the blue lion had used. The monster didn’t see a six-foot-tall feline but smelled a willing female.
As sparks began to swirl around Callista’s hands, the troll unexpectedly leaped into the air, throwing its mass in the direction of the three beasts, who stared on in utter shock and disbelief.
“Oh, shit—!!!” She yelled, the giant monster in the air just above her one second but gone the next.
A shower of sparks and thick blood rained out of the sky as the monster’s giant body flew down the opposite street, tumbling over itself multiple times, its tail swiping buildings and shattering windows as it rolled for several seconds before finally coming to a halt.
***
Desmond landed on the road in front of the gawking beasts, one of which had caused him much grief in recent months. Gone were his usual thick spectacles, and in their place was a pair of modified aviator goggles, complete with the thick behemoth leather strap.
Strapped to his arm was a shield the likes of which were ever seldom seen. It was a Force Shield, a magically imbued weapon that had been crafted and exposed to massive amounts of Murk, the elemental that controlled Dark and Gravity-based magic.
The shield controlled gravity at the wielder’s whims, be it by temporarily removing it to allow the user to jump otherwise impossible heights or by increasing it when contacting with another body or object. The latter had restrictions, however, as the increase in gravity was only ever done in proportion to the mass it’d been coming into contact with.
“How in the heck did you do that, little guy?!” the mayor said in awe of the mole’s more than impressive feat. The horse turned his head towards the still downed troll at the town’s parameter. “You’re so little, and that thing was so—“
“I get the fucking picture, mayor.” He said, tapping the front of his shield with his claw, causing the steel to glimmer with black and purple light. “Force Shield. Don’t feel like explaining it.” He smirked, finally having had his moment. His tentacles all danced in delight.
“At least we got it out of the city, kinda,” Advrik remarked as the monster clumsily regained its footing, using a nearby building as a stabilizer.
“Excuse me. What’s this ‘We’ shit? Last I saw the two of you, you,” he pointed to Advrik, “Had taken out a nice chunk of the corner of Brock’s diner.”
“Hey guys, we shouldn’t—“ Eligh tried to say,
“And you, fox,” His claw now directed at her. She cocked an eyebrow and crossed her arms as she geared up to retaliate, “You were actually pretty cool. A fox in action is fuckin’ rad, even when weighed down by those tits like you are.”
“Des!”
“Desmond!”
“Oh my, oh dear,” the mayor said, feeling secondhand embarrassed.
Brigid smiled and thanked the mole, to everybeast’s surprise. “’Bout goddamn time someone said it.” She shot a glare at the wolf, his ears flattening against his head.
“All right, so we’ve confirmed the cause. Brigid, we smell like horny girl trolls to the huge fucker, and that’s got his hormones all worked up. Explains why he ‘attacked’ my apartment first that night. It’s that shampoo I gave you.” Callista spoke with a leader-like tone in her voice as she accompanied the wolf, mole, and fox to the outskirts of town where the troll remained, upright but kneeling and breathing heavily, what remains of its right hand cupping his crotch.
Advrik was eying the shield affixed to mole’s wrist, trying not to feel the slightest bit betrayed.
The mole felt the wolf’s eyes on him and simply chose to ignore it. He’d have time to bitch later after the troll and his hard-on were defeated.
The crew stood only a few yards away from the monster, the darkness obscured the damage on the nearby buildings, but it was obvious a good number of the buildings were in bad shape. Luckily, very few actually lived out this way, and the businesses on this street had closed up hours ago to get ahead of the curfew.
Behind the four beasts was a line of police vehicles, their blue and red lights creating a ripple of color in the distance.
Large spotlights exploded to life next, casting the entire street in a new light and exposing the damage done not only to the buildings but to the monster as well.
“Oh ssssshit!” Eligh yelled, clutching his own crotch as the troll came into the light.
The monster’s scrotum had been torn from the impact, his testicle hanging from the ripped sack, bloodied and throbbing. Adding salt to the wound, the creature’s dick had been bent halfway down, giving the ripped and torn organ a painful L-shape.
“What in the— Desmond, the hell did you do to it?!” Brigid said, covering her muzzle with both hands as her eyes scanned the carnage.
The wolf pursed his lips and forced himself to turn away. Monster gore was one thing, but as a male, seeing the sort of damage that lay before him resonated with him in a way that only other males could relate.
Desmond, however, didn’t seem to have that problem.
“Holy fuck, dude! His junk got wrecked! I thought you could only bend your dick in that way when it was soft!”
“Desmond, that’s… that’s enough, please,” Advrik said, stepping away from the scene to catch his breath. He stood upright after taking a few deep breaths, keeping his eyes away from the scene. If the troll realized they were there, it wouldn’t pay them any mind. “We need to put this thing out of its misery. I know it’s a monster, but nothing should have to suffer like…THAT”
“I agree with—Oh fuck, it’s bleeding from the tip now!—Advrik, but what would be the quickest way to kill it without waiting until dawn?” Brigid said, wanting to tear her eyes away but simultaneously intrigued by the sight before her.
Callista scratched her chin, seemingly impervious to the rapidly cooling air as she stood in the middle of the street in a pair of athletic underwear and a tank top, “I suppose I could perform a sort of euthanasia with enough drugs and some help from the veterinarian, and— Oh, Brigid, do you know any Lucent spells—“
Their question was answered for them when the monster’s head suddenly exploded in a shower of bone and brain matter. The giant’s body fell limp against the building it had been suspending itself upon the last several minutes as it slumped forward, crashing to the ground where its now gaping head wound spilled gallons upon gallons of thick, putrid-smelling fluid out onto the street.
***
Perched atop Moonview Hill, overlooking the town of Brickhedge, was a face that most would see daily at the LovelessCo offices, often trailing the pitch-black Dire Wolf as he made his rounds about the building, imposing his will on those he deemed useful and disposing of the rest.
She was a grey wolf with near-silver fur and natural navy blue hair, cut short around her face, with the rest kept in a bun atop her head. Her golden eyes peered through the scope of her high-powered mana rifle as she watched the giant monster fall to the street below.
Tapping her forehead with the tip of the antennae on her radio, she finally pressed the button down and spoke, “This is Veras; the experiment was a failure. Over.” There was a moment of silence, followed by the hooting growl of a nearby owlbear. Veras growled back, the sound of lifeforms outside of her much-loved concrete jungle giving her anxiety.
A job was a job, especially when said job was granted to her by Mr. Loveless himself. Originally approaching LovelessCo a decade ago, shortly after, she abandoned her love life to pursue bigger, self-fulfilling opportunities in the city. Little had she expected at the time that she would find herself amongst some of the most elite soldiers in the world.
The radio crackled to life with a grainy voice, “Understood. Pack it up; we’ll try something else at a later date. Over.” The signal went dead.
Veras looked through the scope one last time at the unknowing citizens of the small, putrid mountain town as they crowded around the rapidly decaying body of the troll that had escaped containment at a nearby holding pin. Focusing on and magnifying her sights on the only other grey wolf in the group, “Well, well, Advrik. Who would have thought we’d find each other again way out here? You’re a long way from home.”
She shifted her scope just a little until the fox with the purple fur fell into her crosshair. “Guess that’s your new fling, huh?” Jealousy creeps into her voice, “We’ll have to have a little get-together here soon and catch up.”
The cigarette between her lips went out, allowing for total darkness to take everything.
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