Three Square Meals Ch. 097

The closest of the creatures was a quadruped and atop its enormous muscular body sat a writhing mass of viciously barbed tentacles. It galloped closer through the field of slain fiends, heedlessly trampling burned and frozen flesh under its clawed hooves. The foul appendages where its head should have been were quivering with anticipation, sickeningly eager to flay blood and bone. Moving like a whip, the tentacles lashed out as it closed to within striking range.

One of them swiped at Rachel, intending to garrotte her, but Sakura managed to shove the brunette out the way in time. Saving Rachel exposed Sakura to danger herself and another snake-like limb coiled around the Asian girl's leg and bit deep into her thigh. Calara managed to dodge several tentacles, using her Prescience to avoid their whip-like strikes, but there were too many for her to avoid them all. Sakura's screams of pain were echoed by the Latina's as a barbed appendage wrapped around her arm and back, the jagged hooks digging into her flesh.

Jade pounced, sinking her fangs into the tentacle attacking Calara and pouring lightning into that electrifying bite, the stench of burning meat making the Latina gag. Sakura was trembling with the pain from the talons cutting into her thigh, but she managed to place her hands on the rubbery tentacle and blast it with ice, flash-freezing the limb that was impaling her. The tentacle shattered with the extreme cold and she collapsed to the ground with a tormented cry of pain.

The monster howled at the loss of one hideous limb and the maiming of another, but it didn't slow it down as it struck with more tentacles. Focusing on Jade now, it grappled her with nearly a dozen prehensile limbs, snaring her four legs and trying to saw through her armour with the sharp claws that spiralled around the tentacles. She roared in defiance, but there was an undercurrent of pain too as the razor-sharp barbs cut through her inch-thick armour.

There were more fiendish beasts fast approaching and John realised that he had no chance of finishing the dome in time. Snatching up his sword he lunged towards Jade, the tip of his sword avoiding her armoured torso by a hair's breadth as he swiped across her flank. His cross-slash cut through three of the tentacles, leaving them to flop angrily on the floor, and his reverse swipe sliced through two more, freeing her front paws.

Behind him, Rachel knelt beside both fallen girls, her eyes glowing as she embraced them with her healing aura. Both Calara and Sakura were shaking violently now, the toxic barbs having pierced their bodies in over a dozen places. She placed a hand on each girl, pouring healing energy into them as she attempted to purge the venom from their grievous injuries. Disgusting black ooze began pouring from the lacerations, the wounds only closing up when Rachel was sure she had cleansed all the toxins from their systems.

A triple-tailed scorpion as big as a house scuttled closer, a cluster of eyestalks sprouting from its back, each one topped with an eyeball as large as a human head. It made a hideous screeching noise as it attacked from behind, stabbing down with its three tails. Tashana heard the grating shriek in time and ducked to avoid the stinger that plunged her way, but Irillith wasn't so fortunate and she screamed as she was stabbed in the back by a pair of foot-long spikes.

Dana looked on in horror, then whirled around and grabbed Alyssa by both arms, shaking her to try and rouse her from her daze. "What the fuck's the matter with you?! Snap out of it for fuck's sake!"

The blonde was standing quietly in the midst of the carnage, her eyes closed and her palms upraised. She slowly opened her eyes, a serene smile on her face. "Welcome to my world..."

Reality seemed to distort and shift, the sub-plane twisting violently as she asserted her will, forming a pocket plane of her own within this malevolent dimension. She gestured with both hands, forming shining white sickle blades in the air, which slashed through the thick scorpion tails impaling Irillith and severed the last of the tentacles enmeshing Jade. With a contemptuous telekinetic backhander that landed with a sickening crunch, the two monsters were smashed skywards, the multi-ton beasts tossed away as if they were mere insects.

Gone was the cold obsidian floor, the insidious grey fog, and the ever-present aura of fear which they'd been forced to overcome. In their place was a beautiful green meadow, butterflies flitting from flower to flower, the oppressive grey mists turned into fluffy white clouds, with shafts of sunlight beaming through overhead.

John looked around in wonder, then gasped as he lurched bolt upright, Edraele's psychic connection flooding him with power once more.

*Oh, John! I was so worried!* she blurted out in a rush.

*So was I...* he managed to reply, as his body shivered with the energy flowing through him.

Tashana sobbed as she pulled the two stingers from her twin's comatose body, desperately trying to stop the rush of blood from the gaping wounds using only her hands. "Please, one of you help her!" she wailed in horror, her eyes darting from John to Rachel.

"Let me!" Rachel said, as she rushed over to Irillith. Her expression turned fearful as she embraced the ghostly pale Maliri in her grey aura.

Alyssa glanced down at Irillith, giving her a worried frown before looking out at the fog bracketing the sunlit field. "They'll be back... get ready."

Dana looked at the blonde in awe. "Can't you just fuck them up again?"

"Their master is fighting me now, trying to break this pocket plane... I have to focus to maintain this place," she said quietly, her brow furrowed in deep concentration. "I need all of you to defend us."

"I can't do shit!" the redhead exclaimed in frustration. "My powers aren't any good for this kind of thing!"

"Just use your imagination," the blonde said with a tense smile. "Here on the Astral, if your will is strong enough, your thoughts shape reality..."

Jade shimmered in a dark-green haze, black ooze pouring from her wounds as her body regenerated. She grew taller and broader, her tail thickening and rippling with scales as bony plates sprouted from her back. Leathery appendages grew and unfolded from her shoulders, spreading out into a massive set of wings. Her neck grew longer and broader, her huge tiger's head shifting to become titanic and reptilian, possessing a maw filled with teeth that were longer than the girls were tall. When her change was complete, Jade's colossal dragon form was nearly forty metres tall and even longer from blunt snout to the tip of her tail, just as terrifying as she was gloriously majestic. Tilting back her head, Jade bellowed out her challenge, tail lashing as she repositioned herself to protect her friends.

"Holy fuck!" the redhead muttered, staring at the immense Jade dragon in wonder.

Dana whirled around to look at Alyssa again, to find that the blonde was now enclosed in a shimmering white Paragon suit. Alyssa nodded when she saw that Dana finally understood, before closing her eyes, lost in concentration as she fought her own private battle.

Remembering the comforting feel of an armoured suit encasing her body, Dana jumped in surprise when she was safely protected by Paragon armour an instant later. She rushed over to John and shook his arm. "John! Get suited up!"

He looked startled by her armoured form, then glanced down at his nakedness and frowned. A second later he was wearing his own Paragon armour, complete with the embossed lions on his chest and pauldrons. His eyes flashed dangerously and he gave Dana a grim smile, filling her with a surge of hope.

"Alright, get geared up everyone!" John shouted over the cacophony of bestial noise around them, brandishing his two-handed sword. "Just imagine you've got your armour and weapons and they'll appear!"

As he looked around the glade, searching for more enemies, his sensitive hearing picked up the approach of more monsters and the thumping tread of something vast out in the mists. As he strained to listen, he heard a thunderous rumble, which sounded a lot like an answer to Jade's challenge.

Glancing back at the girls over his shoulder, his heart skipped a beat when he saw Rachel and her makeshift medical station, where Calara, Sakura, and Irillith were still on the ground. He'd felt the doctor heal the Terran girls but Irillith was still grievously wounded. "Want me to help?" he called out to the brunette.

Rachel had her eyes fixed on the Maliri girl's awful wounds. "Save your energy, I'll handle it," the brunette replied firmly, her brow furrowed in concentration.

Calara hauled herself upwards, feeling a little woozy after the rapid healing. She patted Sakura on the back when the Asian girl sat up and coughed, then glanced at Rachel and realised the doctor was tending to the critically wounded Maliri girl. "Oh my God! Is Irillith alright?!"

"She's going to be okay," the brunette said quietly, focused on her healing. "I've got her now."

Crouching nervously beside her sister, Tashana sighed with relief as Rachel's grey aura repaired her twin's savagely torn flesh. Irillith's ragged breathing grew stronger and steadier, while her skin gradually began to return to a healthier and more vibrant shade of blue. Her eyelashes fluttered, but she still remained unconscious.

Tashana narrowed her eyes and was encased in Paragon armour before she'd finished standing, twin Reaper pistols appearing in holsters at her waist. She would have drawn them, but she needed to keep her hands free for a moment first. Cupping her hands together, a merry flame appeared a moment later that danced playfully on her palm. Moulding it with her will, the flame burst to life, animating into the sultry form of a fire sprite. It hopped off her hands and cartwheeled across the ground, splitting into several more and getting larger all the time.

Tashana poured her unrestrained fury into those shapely elementals, taking all the anger she felt towards the monsters that had dared to hurt her sister and channelling into her fiery creations. They grew huge by the time she was done, towering over her head as the fiery zephyrs cavorted playfully amongst themselves. With a smile of satisfaction, Tashana grasped her pistols and pulled them out, getting ready for action.

John nodded to her when she appeared at his right flank. "We'll need to split up... watch for attack from all angles," he cautioned her, before glancing up at the dark-green draconic form that towered over them. "I think Jade's got this angle covered."

"HERE THEY COME..." Jade rumbled, her massive body tensing in preparation.

John saw huge monsters pouring out of the mist-line, charging towards them in a flurry of snapping jaws and claws. He patted Tashana on the shoulder, then whirled to the left, trusting that she'd be able to cover the right. Activating his psychic speed, he sheathed his sword in incandescent blue flames, then waited for the monsters to get closer. When they were thirty-metres away, he counter-charged, leaping forward in a blur.

The first beast stampeded towards him on six huge cloven feet, the hooked arms sprouting from its upper body flexing in anticipation, while its double-jawed mouth roared in anger. John surged past it on the right, hacking through one leg after another, until it toppled over in slow motion when he sliced through its hind-limb. Skidding to a halt, he reversed direction, ducking under one flailing arm, then leaping over another, before plunging his sword into the back of its blocky head. The flames swathing the blade roared into the creature's brain and its deformed face exploded outwards in a torrent of azure fire.

Tashana peeled away to cover the right flank, her twin pistols barking their defiance as she fired flame-infused slugs at the oncoming beasts. Her bullets detonated inside disgusting rubbery flesh, igniting those monstrosities and immolating their putrid carcasses. Her elementals rushed forward to embrace the charging creatures, their friendly hugs blackening flesh and evoking shrill cries of pain. The monsters tried to bat them aside, but the giggling fire sprites were not so easily deterred, greasy black smoke pouring from the searing wounds their every touch left on the malformed beasts.

John glanced to his left and saw that several more hooked horrors were charging their way. He tugged his sword out of the smouldering carcass of the second abomination he'd slain and was about to intercept the newest opponents when he heard an ominous whir from behind. A deafening roar made him jump and he watched in shock as the stampeding monsters before him were torn to pieces by a storm of projectiles, the impacts ripping huge holes through their bodies and spraying their innards out the back. In a matter of seconds, the hail of crystal Alyssium bullets had reduced the quivering monsters to little more than steaming piles of flesh and shattered bone.

"I'll watch over Alyssa," Dana said confidently, stepping up beside him.

John did a double-take when he saw the redhead. She was toting a five-metre-long rotary cannon, the multiple barrels spinning furiously in anticipation of the next wave.

The redhead shrugged and winked at him. "Alyssa said to use our imagination... Rachel's not the only girl that likes big weapons!"

A sharp crackling sound behind him drew John's attention and he whirled around to see what new opponent they were facing. He stared at Jade in shock as she opened her vast draconic maw, a dazzling blue ball of electricity gathering between her jaws. She unleashed a stream of lightning at the brutish creatures charging towards her, the sizzling blue bolts smashing the creatures off their feet, each strike ripping glowing furrows through their bodies. She swept her lightning breath across the wave of beasts, obliterating all in her path, with peals of thunder booming around the glade.

That was when the biggest creature they'd seen so far lurched out of the mists. Truly colossal at over seventy metres in height, its six-clawed foot thumped down and shook the ground, revealing a rank hide consisting of a corpulent mass of blubber and armour plating. It had six pillar-like legs supporting a powerful body, its upper torso an undulating forest of barbed tentacles, with a gigantic set of jaws at the front containing a rotating oval of teeth. Black gore rained down from this ancient leviathan and a shrill grating noise from the spinning disc of fangs set John's teeth on edge.

Seeing Jade towering over the rest of the group, it charged towards the dragon, every footfall making the ground shudder with the impact. The monster repeated its furious answer to her challenge, the deafening bellow making John's armour vibrate with the strength of that roar.

Rather than shy away from the enormous beast barrelling towards her, Jade launched forward herself, eager to meet this foe in battle. She rushed towards it then slashed out with lightning-shrouded claws, leaving four scorched gouges across the leviathan's foreleg, the raw wound sizzling with electricity and making the creature trumpet in pain. It counterattacked by flailing at her with a score of tentacles, but she was already dodging aside, narrowly avoiding their cruel barbs. It turned to follow her as Jade circled it and John realised she was deliberately antagonising the beast to draw it away from the girls.

More abominations were approaching from their flanks and rear, storming towards them as they brayed for blood. The high-pitched whine of Dana's rotary cannon echoed around the glade, accompanied in its chorus of destruction by the booms from Tashana's exploding fireballs. John hesitated, desperately wanting to help Jade against her titanic foe, but he knew he had to help protect the rest of the girls too.

Sakura vaulted to her feet and jogged over to him, her brown eyes sharp and focused through the clear crystal helmet that appeared over her head. "Go, I'll protect the others!" she urged him, drawing her twin ninjato and encasing those wicked white blades in ice.

John nodded to her in gratitude, then charged towards the rear of the vast beast that was pursuing Jade. With his psychic speed in effect he sprinted full-tilt towards it, closing the gap in seconds. He used the momentum of his charge to put a huge amount of extra force into his passing sideswipe, his long crystal Alyssium blade carving through the creature's clawed foot and ripping out the other side in a spray of dark blood. Once clear of the huge limb, John spun around to survey his handiwork, then felt a sinking feeling as he saw the extent of the wound. He might as well have been an ant biting a person on their toe for all the good his savage slash had done, the behemoth barely noticing the cut.

There was another sizzling crackle followed by a deep grunt of pain from way above his head and he whirled around to watch Jade slash the beast again with her claws. The monster was ready for her this time and it lunged forwards, a dozen of its tentacles whipping across her shoulder and flanks, leaving foot-wide lacerations across her green-plated hide. She leaped backwards with an agility impressive for her size, reminding John of a great cat as she bared her enormous fangs and hissed at the beast; except that a hiss from a gigantic dragon came out as a terrifying roar.

He looked back at the leviathan's vast leg, then glanced dubiously at his sword - it was going to be like hacking through a tree with a toothpick.

Jade's urgent voice filled his mind. *Just make yourself big, Master!*

Turning to look at the dragon, he saw her emerald eyes locked on his as she backed away from the leviathan, limping badly as she tried to get clear.

*This is Alyssa's realm; just imagine it and it will be so!* she implored him in her desperation.

To see the Nymph severely hurt like that filled John with anguish.

And then rage...

He channelled his furious hatred of the beast deep inside, focusing his will on his physical form. The ground seemed to fall away as he soared upwards, his body growing to massive proportions. The sword he clenched in his fist became a weapon fit for a titan, thirty-metre-long tongues of blue flame curling up the colossal white blade.

The leviathan was intent on hunting Jade, stomping after her and waving barbed tentacles with unnatural hunger. Barely registering his prior attack as an irritating nuisance, it didn't consider John to be a threat and was ignoring him completely. That was until he brought his sword across in a sweeping blow that cleaved through its rear right leg, lopping it off above the knee. The lower leg crashed to the ground like a felled redwood, and his burning sword set the upper-limb ablaze, blue flames hungering for the blubbery flesh of the beast. Molten fat poured down from the amputated stump, the flames torching the creature from the inside out.

It reared up and let loose a thunderous shriek of agony, tottering unsteadily as it tried to maintain its balance after losing a leg. That was when Jade pounced, knocking the beast onto its side as she slammed into it with her hulking green draconic body. Her wicked fore-claws carved deep trenches across its flailing legs, while her rear claws raked brutal rents in its flanks, gleefully ravaging her fallen enemy. The creature tried to slash at her with its tentacles, so she snapped her jaws down on several of them and shook her head in a frenzy, ripping the writhing limbs from the beast's back.

John's blade rose and fell, chopping down over and over again, sending fountains of black blood dozens of metres into the air. He hacked the rear of the monster to pieces, slashing and burning dozens of flailing tentacles, before cleaving through another huge leg. The only thing he was focused on in his furious assault was putting this horror down as fast as possible to protect Jade.