Duelling Dungeons

Chelsea sputtered as she hauled herself out of the hole in the bridge. When Talia suggested that she wait until someone crossed the bridge and ambush them midway, it sounded like a brilliant idea. Unfortunately, she hadn’t considered the fact that in order to do that, she’d have to hang underneath with her body mostly submerged, until her prey got close enough.

The plan had worked, and she’d managed to wreck two of the strange bone people before they’d realized what was happening, but in exchange she was pretty sure she was going to have a bad cold for the next few days.

She took a quick glance around, trying to get a handle on the situation. It looked like one of the bone people had survived her ambush, Rogu, that ugly mound of flesh, was standing across the clearing, and there was a group of Murids backing him up.

Although her first instinct was to charge the oversized mound of muscles she hesitated. If she engaged Rogu now she’d probably get surrounded by the rat people, and based upon the fact that they were all wearing gas masks, and had bandoleers full of viscous bubbling liquids. She didn’t know what it was, but chances were they were extremely toxic.

During the last match she’d gotten over enthusiastic, and allowed herself to get ambushed. It was a humbling experience, and one she wasn’t eager to repeat.

“Hello Chelsea,” Rogu rumbled, striding across the small clearing, the small group of chemists spreading out behind him.

“Ahhh… You’ll be a worthy challenge, I cannot wait to lock my hands around your neck,” the pile of animated bones at the foot of the bridge declared as it slowly rose to its feet.

“Too bad. You’re going to be waiting a long time,” Chelsea snarled from her goat head. While she was yelling at the golem she swivelled her lion head back towards the creak. “Aroha, Rangi, please entertain our calcified guest. Girls, please keep the Murid occupied.”

“With pleasure, my lady,” a soft, almost musical voice echoed out of the forest next to the clearing. A second later a tall, shapely woman emerged from the forest, if by magic. Although she had the upper half of a human, her lower half consisted of a large rose flower with prehensile vines underneath, propelling her forward.

When the enemy team turned to look at her, a couple smooth green hands silently slipped out of the creak next to the bridge, allowing their owners to haul themselves up onto the bank. The two Pekeketua fighters were massive, eight feet tall of pure muscles. Their arms and faces were covered in a complicated web of tattoos, and they each carried a huge club which had various monster teeth carefully tied along the edge.

The bone thing, which had been distracted by Ruby’s entrance, turned back just in time to see Aroha’s club descending towards one of its skulls and throw a thick arm in the way of the blow. Many smaller bones snapped and splintered, throwing shards everywhere, but for the most part, the limb remained intact.

The golem turned towards the pair and growled. “Attacking an unaware opponent, don’t you frogs have any honor?”

Aroha and Rangi exchanged a glance before slowly separating, trying to flank their opponent. Rangi smiled wryly as he lifted his massive club. “Wark…”

“Do you have any more friends around? You might as well call for them now,” Rogu said, flipping one of the massive cleavers in his hand.

“Oh, there are two or three,” Chelsea replied casually. “I’m sure they’ll show up eventually.”

“I’m sure,” Rogu said, rolling his shoulders a couple of times before raising his massive blades. “Shall we?”

Chelsea didn’t reply; instead, she sprinted across the small clearing and pounced.

Rogu laughed as he swung his cleavers to intercept her. “That’s the spirit!”

Instead of trying to dodge and giving Rogu enough space to swing again, Chelsea put her goat head down and took the blow on her horns. The abomination fell back, relying upon the heavy blow to slow Chelsea down just enough that her pounce would fall short, but the girl wouldn’t be deterred. She unfurled her huge leathery wings and flapped them as hard as she could, using them to shoot herself forward.

When he saw her surge forward, Rogu yelped in surprise. He stumbled back, trying to get his other blade between them, but before he could, Chelsea clamped her lion jaws down on his bicep.

“You’re a lot faster than I expected,” he growled, but speed isn’t everything!”

He dropped his blades, letting them dangle from the chains around his arms, and locked one freakishly large hand around the neck of Chelsea’s lion head and the other around her goat horns.

His grip was like iron, slowly clenching tighter and tighter until he cut the oxygen from her lion head, and making her gag. As soon as her bite loosened, Rogu ripped her right off his arm and twisted her other head, forcing her away. When he had enough space to move, he dropped her head and kicked her as hard as he could in the chest, sending her tumbling across the arena.

“You’re an absolute monster,” Chelsea gasped as she climbed back to her feet. “Who kicks a Chimera?”

“Hey! You started this by clamping onto my arm,” Rogu replied, holding up his arm so she could see. When he’d ripped her off her teeth had still been embedded deeply in his flesh, so his arm had been completely shredded. There wasn’t any blood, and he didn’t seem overly concerned by the injury; it was like he was showing someone a mosquito bite rather than a grievous wound. “Do you know how long I’m going to have to spend stitching that up again?”

“I’d say I’m sorry, but I’d be lying,” Chelsea replied, spitting the rancid flesh out of her mouth. It tasted like chemicals and rot. “I was trying to take your arm off after all.”

“I figured,” Rogu grunted. “A lot of people think that I’ll be an easier target if they manage to take off one of my limbs; that’s why I make sure they’re double-stitched during matches.” He flicked his wrists, causing the two blades to swing around on their chains and fall back into his hands. “They won’t come off easily.”

“Then I’ll just have to try harder,” Chelsea growled, charging at him again.

This time Rogu didn’t try to face her head-on; instead, he backpedaled, darting left and right and trying to flank Chelsea whenever she tried to get close. The abomination was surprisingly spry for someone his size, which made it very difficult for the Chimera to close in and score a solid hit.

Every once in a while, Chelsea would catch Rogu with the tip of her claws, ripping through his flesh with her massive lion-like claws, and in exchange, Rogu would sink one of his cleavers deep into her flesh.

After a minute of combat and several exchanges, Chelsea backed away. Although the two of them were exchanging blows, it was quickly becoming apparent that if they continued fighting in this way, Rogu was going to come out ahead. Rogu was an abomination, an undead construct made of dozens of body parts stitched together, and although she was shredding his flesh, it wasn’t really causing him any permanent harm.

She took a moment to glance around the glade, to check how the rest of the fight was going. Although Aroha and Rangi had managed to crush their opponent, it had apparently cost Aroha her life. Now Rangi and Ruby were engaged with the Murids, barely holding their own. For some reason, there was no sign of the smaller Pekeketua skirmishers, who preferred to jump from tree to tree, harassing their enemies with blowpipes, or the other Alarunes.

“Bella, I don’t know where you are, but I could really use your help right now,” she muttered.

“I’m sorry, but your spectral friend won’t be joining us today,” someone hissed from the side of the clearing. A moment later, a dart shot out of the darkness and embedded itself in her flank, causing her to feel woozy.

“Did you manage to take out the Banshee?” Rogu asked as a Murid woman stalked out of the woods.

“Of course, she didn’t even see me coming. I even managed to pick off a couple of other people that were skulking around,” the Murid woman replied. “Why are you still fighting? Stop messing around.”

“I’m not! She’s just a better fighter than I expected,” the abomination replied.

“Well… I shot her with one of my special cocktails, so all you need to do now is finish her,” the woman declared.

“Why do you always have to take all the fun out of the fight, Kitra?” Rogu muttered, hefting his blades.

“Because we’re on a schedule. Get to it!” the Murid woman replied.

Chelsea blinked her eyes, trying to clear the blurriness as a massive, ominous shape slowly closed in on her. “No offense, kid. I enjoyed the fight, but we’ve got a job to do.”

She tried to dodge out of the way, but her body just wouldn’t react the way she wanted. It was slow and sluggish.

Although she prevented the Abomination from cutting off her head, his massive blade sank deep into her side.

“It’s pretty impressive that you can still move. When Kitra hits someone with her toxins, usually all they can do is roll over and die,” Rogu grunted.

“I’m going to do much better than that,” Chelsea snarled, anger swelling up in her, her instincts calling out for blood. Earlier, she suppressed them, but now she let them loose.

As Rogu tried to pull his blade back, she twirled, nearly folding herself in half, and once again sank her jaws into his arm.

“Awww, not this agai… Oooooff!” the abomination started, before she smashed him in the chest with her goat head. He stumbled a couple of steps back, and when he got as far away as he could, she wrenched him forward again.

As he fell forward, she tensed up and charged forward, hitting him as hard as she could. The force threw the Abomination from his feet. When he reached the apex of his flight, the weight of his body pulled upon his arm, but Chelsea refused to let go. It dragged her a couple of inches forward before the first stitch popped. After that, it didn’t take long until the entire thing ripped loose.

Chelsea fell back. It was getting hard to think, to move, but she knew what she had to do, and she began stumbling towards the creek.

“Hey, what are you doing? Stop that!” Kitra yelled, darting forward. She was fast, far faster than Chelsea was with the toxin in her system, and despite Chelsea’s best effort to avoid the other woman, the dagger sank deep into her side. Rather than striking out with a paw, she turned away, hip-checking Kitra away before striking out with her tail.

The Murid was fast, but she wasn’t as fast as a striking snake, and before she could dodge away, the snake's head struck home on Chelsea’s tail. It sunk its fangs deep into Kitra’s shoulder, injecting its poison directly into her bloodstream and clamping down. Kitra immediately went limp.

“Hey! What the heck do you think you’re doing?” Rogu roared. “You call this a fight?”

Chelsea glanced back at him with her goat head and smiled. “This is no fight, not anymore, but you’re the ones that started that,” she replied, shaking Kitra with her tail. “I know what venom feels like, and I know I’m not walking away from this, so I’m doing the next best thing.”

“Which is?” Rogu asked suspiciously.

“Disarming you,” she replied, before letting off a bleating laugh and plunging headfirst into the swiftly flowing creek.

Rogu rushed forward as fast as he could, reached out for his partner, but was just a tiny bit too slow. Chelsea, his arm, and Kitra all slipped below the surface, never to be seen again.

He stood on the bank for several seconds, staring at the surface of the water before finally grumbling. “That was a terrible pun.”