2.31

The four heroes stood in the dockyard, tensed and ready for battle.

They watched in horror as hundreds of grotesque creatures climbed up out of the water. All sorts of species of fish were gurgling and spitting at them. Each fish had four great, hairy legs coming out of their bodies. Each leg had a small amount of gelatinous blood where it was attached to the fish.

A mighty stench wafted around with the fish. It made the heroes feel sick to the stomach. It took everything they had to stay standing.

“Four of us, hundreds of them,” said Gauzelle.

“We can manage,” replied Hunter. The hundreds of fish were upon the group now.

Jimena had started firing at the fish the moment they had begun climbing up onto the docks. They were easy enough to hit, but they were hardy. Jimena had to keep hitting a fish until it was completely destroyed.

Hunter racked his brains on what he could do to help. He couldn’t imagine trying to make each fish choke on his dust would do much. If they were already surviving out of the water, a cloud of dust wasn’t going to be of use.

The hordes of fish had clashed with the heroes. The fish scrambled over each other to try and attack their prey.

Gauzelle made great sweeping motions with her staff, using all the strength she had on each hit. Like a great fan, she batted at the fish. Sickening, wet snaps rang out as legs were crushed by Gauzelle’s staff. But the fish kept coming, even with their broken legs.

The foul creatures amassed over Gauzelle, pinning her down under their weight. They gnashed at her face, ripping at the bandages. Each fish had sharp jagged, bloody teeth.

“Get off!” Gauzelle screamed. She unravelled half of her body and wrapped tightly around the staff. Gauzelle spun the staff around. Like a great windmill, she slammed her weapon into the fish. A clear spot of dead fish was made around her.

As the wave of fish crashed into Gauzelle, it came to flood over Jimena. Jimena fired her slime balls as fast as she could. She swept at the fish with her powers, passing back again and again in hopes to destroy the fish.

Jimena did everything she could to hold them off, but they continued to advance on her.

One fish leapt at her, exposing the underside of the creature. She blasted it out of the air just before it reached her. But before she could celebrate, another one crashed into her.

It wrapped its legs around her with a surprising amount of strength. More leapt at her in rapid fire succession and Jimena could no longer stand under the barrage of monsters.

They bit into her flesh, tearing at it as she tried to knock them away. All the little bites became more than she could handle, and she bled from each bite.

More pounced on top and Jimena could feel she was being crushed under the weight.

Consciousness began to drift away at the edges of her mind. The rending from the teeth started to feel numb and Jimena could no longer feel the pressing weight that amassed on top of her.

Slime covered her arm and slowly spread over her whole body like a sleeping bag. It congealed around her and suddenly, Jimena’s mind snapped back into control. She knew what was happening and what she could do.

Jimena closed her eyes and sank back into her mind. Her body suddenly felt loose. She brought her mind back, and she could see she was now a puddle of slime on the ground.

The monsters no longer registered she was there and took flight to find their next victim.

Jimena instinctually knew how to control her new body. She rose vertically from the ground and moulded herself to look like herself, however she stayed in her slimy state.

She started firing at the fish again, she could feel the slime balls fired with more ferocity than in her normal body.

A fish monster leapt at her and crashed right through her body. Jimena felt some of her slime pulled away from her main body, but it crawled along the ground and joined her once again.

Hunter was running as fast as he could. His chest burned and his heart pounded in his head. He had released all five of the flasks that carried his dust, but he was still unsure of what to do.

He had tried to focus the dust to flow into the fish, to choke them out, but it proved useless. The cloud of dust now hung about him, but it didn’t obscure his vision.

Hunter pounded around a corner and registered just in time as a fish had leapt at him from the side, its legs out like pincers. Hunter fell prone as the fish sailed over him. He stood back up and kept running through the labyrinth of shipping containers.

Hunter could feel a number of fish were snapping at his heels. If he stopped now, he’d surely be dead.

Hunter rounded another corner and his heart ripped at his throat. It was a dead end. Hunter kept running and when he reached the end he stopped and turned to face his incoming death.

He screamed at the fish and as he did, he noticed the dust formed a lance. It exploded forth from his hand and skewered six of the fish in one go. He pulled it back and skewered the other five.

The bodies flopped to the ground with a wet slap and Hunter watched as the dust dissipated and floated back into the cloud that followed him around.

“That was cool.” Hunter felt a surge of confidence and ran back out to join the others in fighting the overwhelming hordes of monsters.

Meanwhile, Welt had done extraordinarily little in the fight. The fish somewhat been preoccupied with his companions and he hadn’t had to rely on much.

However, when he looked over the docks below, he could see the other three were giving it their all to overcome the fight. Gauzelle was a beast on the battlefield with her staff. Jimena had taken on a new form and Hunter could construct a weapon out of his dust.

“Okay Razor Queen. Its time to end this. Help me, and you will see plenty of death tonight.” Welt jumped down from the rusted container he had been observing from.

He walked through the throng of fish, a bright flash of mauve and yellow light washed over the fight.

Razor Queen extended from Welt’s chest. She turned and looked at him and gave a wink.

“Enough!” Welt screamed. Razor Queen went to work. She swung around like a deadly yoyo, slaughtering the fish by the hundreds. Guts and stench flooded the battlefield, and everyone felt a little faint.

In minutes, all the fish were dead. Razor Queen nodded and disappeared. The team puffed and wheezed; it had been hard work.

“Oh, so your little friend did come out to play after all. Well, no matter. I’ve got something much, much bigger.”

A slicing cacophony of grinding metal split through the night sky.