44 44 Fight! 7 Final Phase

In a blink, the monstrous new form of Tear disappears, reappearing upside-down above Dynamite.

Held in place by a pulsing violet ribbon each, Dynamites limbs are spread wide, with the other two ribbons piercing the ground in front of and behind him in order to hold Tear up above him, alongside her hulking arms standing either side of him.

As it hovers above him, it's head looks straight down, bending at a 90 degree angle that hurts to look at, making it's brown hair that is showing ugly white roots dangle beneath her.

It opens it's grotesque mouth, saliva dripping down onto Dynamite as it's distorted voice sounds out.

"𝙎𝙢𝙀𝙡𝙇𝙨 𝙇𝙞𝙆𝙚 𝙂𝙖𝙍𝙗𝘼𝙜𝙀, 𝙜𝘼𝙧𝘽𝙖𝙂𝙚, 𝙂𝙖𝙍𝙗𝘼𝙜𝙀, 𝙮𝙊𝙪𝙍 𝙛𝙊𝙧𝙈 𝙞𝙎 𝙜𝘼𝙧𝘽𝙖𝙂𝙚."

While saying this, it lowered itself down until their faces are only a foot apart, at the same time, it's thick tail carefully moves down to Dynamite, splitting into dozens of thin copies halfway through.

"M-monster." Dynamite stutters, horrified and shaking as much as his bindings allow.

Suddenly, the tiny tentacles burst forward into his body, striking in different places before slowly pushing themselves further into his body, making him scream out as unbearable agony suffuses his entire body.

Even with flesh of steel, the tentacles pierce his body with ease and begin digging their way through his bones and organs until his body stills, incapable of moving without the threads of blood allowing it.

As this is happening, the monster simply stares down at him, it's face carving into a far too wide smile as it's cracked jaw starts salivating even more, like a ravenous beast.

Yet it does not strike, seemingly lost in simply watching, mumbling to itself in a voice that sounds like ten.

"𝑻𝒉𝑰𝒔 𝒊𝑺 𝑴𝒚 𝒓𝑶𝒐𝑴, 𝑫𝒐 𝒀𝒐𝑼 𝒍𝑰𝒌𝑬 𝒊𝑻? 𝒑𝑼𝒕 𝑻𝒉𝑹𝒐𝑼𝒈𝑯 𝒕𝑯𝒆 𝑹𝒊𝑵𝒈𝑬𝒓."

It's insane ramblings and the odd clicking sound being made as her appendages wave around, as if a new-born, curious about the world, make the scene even more alien, increasing the fear of everyone present to the point that they cannot even bring themselves to move, silently listening as the monster rambles on, making no sense.

"𝑾𝒂𝑺𝒕𝑬 𝒏𝑶𝒕, 𝒘𝑨𝒔𝑻𝒆 𝑵𝒐𝑻. 𝒏𝑰𝒏𝑬 𝒉𝑼𝒏𝑫𝒓𝑬𝒅 𝑨𝒏𝑫 𝒏𝑰𝒏𝑬𝒕𝒀 𝒕𝑯𝒓𝑬𝒆! 𝑯𝒆𝑯𝒆𝑯𝒆!"

𝘊𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬.

The sounds of bones breaking rings out like an unholy gong, shocking everyone out of their trances as they notice how Dynamite has just broken his own finger.

Except before anyone can even react, Dynamite suddenly starts to bloat, his face locked into a rictus of pain, his mouth open in a silent scream as his body starts to slowly expand.

Then, the expansion suddenly accelerates immensely, his body 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘭𝘰𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 outwards in a horrific display of human anatomy, painting the street with blood and viscera.

The sudden turn of events make everyone watching recoil in disgust and shock, yet, when Dovah reflexively steps backwards, his foot kicks a piece of debris over, making a clanking noise.

A noise that immediately causes the Monsters eyeless face to snap in his direction, its stretched smile seeming to have even more teeth than before.

"𝒀𝒐𝑼 𝒕𝑨𝒍𝑲 𝒕𝑶𝒐 𝑴𝒖𝑪𝒉. 𝑷𝒓𝑬𝒕𝑻𝒚 𝑭𝒍𝑶𝒘𝑬𝒓 𝑴𝒆𝑨𝒏𝑺 𝒅𝑬𝒂𝑻𝒉!~"

With another burst of movement, the Monster rushes for Dovah, however before it reaches him, it is intercepted by an even larger monster as Cath moves to defend her fellow villain, even if they are not on the same side normally.

"RUN!!" Her giant form shouts, and even though she is normally impossible to understand in this form, everyone understood her meaning rather easily and only Merlin hesitates to obey.

However after shouting her warning, Cath ignores the others and focuses all of her attention on the smaller, but far more monstrous thing before her.

Ramming herself straight into it, Cath grabs the Monster in her jaw and bites down, only to be unable to bite all the way through, making her change strategies and start running as fast as she can head first into anything sturdy looking in sight, breaking through everything using the body in her mouth.

But even after destroying multiple buildings with Tear not even trying to fight back or escape her grasp, Cath realises something.

𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴𝘯'𝘵 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨.

With that though diving me, I change tactics. Raising my snout high, I swing it down, releasing the thing from my grip and sending it crashing into the ground at a speed that would kill any normal human the moment they touched the ground, but I've already seen that that is enough.

Before it even touched the ground however, I am already raising my paws, and I bring them down as hard as I can, repeatedly.

The earth quakes as the sounds of my attacks reverberate like gunshots, but I don't stop, not until the ground in front of me is cratered and dust is everywhere in the air from the ruined building surrounding us.

Finally stopping in my attacks I stand there, panting from excursion but not letting my guard down, as I wait for the dust to dissipate so that I can see how much damage I've done.

Not that I have to wait long, as the dust cloud is suddenly blown away as the very air itself moves to grant me vision.

I don't need to look to know it's Merlin, and as much as I want to tell him to leave, I know he won't listen. So instead I focus on the hole I made in the ground.

Inside lay Tear. Her new form broken and battered, the chitinous armour covering her body cracked all around, or simply missing in places, while all her extra limbs lay helplessly by her side.

I almost let myself believe that it's over for real this time, that she's finally dead.

But then one of her 'wings' suddenly snaps up, followed by a soft sound that almost resembles a charge of electricity before a 𝘣𝘭𝘶𝘳 leaps forth from it, passing me by.

My head follows the movement with delayed horror as I recognise the direction it is traveling and the moment I finish turning I am forced to witness as Merlin drops to the ground with a spike of white bone shot through hie left eye.

It almost feels as if the world falls away and loses all meaning as my most precious person is taken from me before my very eyes, a deep and profound sense of sadness and grief filling me.

That grief rapidly turns to rage but when I turn to the target of my rage, I see no one.

Suddenly without a target for my anger, I start frantically looking around until I hear it.

𝘊𝘳𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘩

My head moves so fast that even transformed I'm surprised my neck didn't snap.

There, using her gargantuan arms in place of her legs stands Tear with Merlin's body dangling in front of her, held up by her tentacles with one arm raised to Tear's cracked face where I can see that his hand is missing with fresh blood dripping down the Monsters porcelain face.

"𝑱𝒖𝑺𝒕 𝑺𝒍𝑬𝒆𝑷 𝒊𝑵 𝒕𝑯𝒆 𝑻𝒓𝑼𝒄𝑲, 𝒊𝑫𝒊𝑶𝒕."

In my state of shock, I ignore it's nonsensical words as I simply stare at where she defiled Merlin's body, idly noticing as all the damage I had done to it rapidly heals itself until it doesn't look any worse than at the beginning.

No, in fact it looks 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 than how it started. More streamlined, like it's still improving.

Then she takes another bite making me lose all senses of patience and simply charge her with a roar of pure loathing.

As soon as I start moving, she tosses Merlin away like he's trash not worth her time and moves to meet me head on.

She swings forward, landing on the ground with her own two feet and right before I reach her, she digs all six of her ribbons into the ground around her.

Then when I swing down with my front two paws intending to repeat my actions earlier and crush her, she raises her own arms, almost as large as mine and swings both of them up, meeting mine in the middle.

I expected to simply crush her with little resistance, but instead neither of our blows gain the advantage over the other.

Instead, the impact causes a boom to sound off like a bomb as a shockwave spreads out around us, shattering the debris that makes up our battlefield into even smaller pieces thanks to the sheer force being released.

However, while am I momentarily surprised by our even match enough to pause for a microsecond, Tear evidently isn't as her tail, now fully formed as a thick singular tentacle, whips itself around and into my side with incredible force, causing another booming noise to sound out as I am sent tumbling to the side.

I quickly get to my feet and ready myself to defend or attack, only to see the Monster hovering itself 20 feet in the air, standing on her ribbons with her tail split up and splayed out behind her like a fucked up halo of gore, her crackling wings helping sell the image of a demonic, eldritch angel.

"𝑾𝒉𝑨𝒕 𝑨 𝒍𝑨𝒖𝑮𝒉.~ 𝑰𝒕 𝑾𝒂𝑺 𝒂𝑵 𝒂𝑪𝒄𝑰𝒅𝑬𝒏𝑻!" It half yells, sounding playful at first and then suddenly defensive.

But I don't care what it has to say. I only care that it dies.

With no plan coming to mind, I stick with the basics and launch myself at it once again, not caring about strategy.

Before I even get within arms reach of it, it's ribbons simply lift it slightly higher up making me fly under it, during which I see the ribbons all leave the ground and feel it land on my back.

When I hit the ground, I immediately try to move, to shake the Thing off, but before I can even try, I feel a pair of heavy impacts right on the back of my head that drive me straight into the ground and even though I recover quickly, I am unable to move afterwards as it's ribbons wrap around me, locking my legs in place.

At the same time, I feel the pair of massive arms wrap around my neck as Tear's masked face appears right in front of one of my eyes.

The blank white mask with only a gaping maw of razor sharp teeth slowly starts to morph one again as I line cuts open vertically through the centre of the mask, starting at the middle and ending right at the top.

That cut then starts to widen, to open and show what lies beneath.

Slowly, a single blood red eye makes itself known, pulsing with malice and bloodlust and filled with violence, the single eye, far larger than any eye has the right to be, and it stares deep into my soul, filling me with a primal fear that I have never felt before in my life.

Then, six more cuts open up, three either side of the large eye but horizontal this time. Each one is much smaller, matching the size of a normal persons eyes however once they open I can see that they hold the same sadistic glee within them.

The eyes of the Monster stare at me for a moment, before it's horrid mouth opens once again and I can taste the coppery tang on it's breath as it speaks.

"𝑪𝒐𝑵𝒔𝑻𝒓𝑼𝒄𝑻𝒊𝑶𝒏 𝑷𝒂𝑷𝒆𝑹. 𝒉𝑶𝒘 𝑭𝒂𝑹 𝒅𝑰𝒅 𝒀𝒐𝑼 𝒄𝑶𝒖𝑵𝒕?"

It makes no sense and I can't understand it, but that doesn't change the way I start to shiver as my fear starts to overcome my anger, something that is only exemplified when her tail comes into view once more, dangling in front of my head.

It splits into two and one half moves towards one of my eyes, while the other moves to the other.

It's the moment that the two halves both split into many smaller tentacles that I realise what is about to happen.

Closer and closer they come, my fear rocketing with each inch of distance they cross.

Then, pain.

Intense, unbearable 𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘯.

I 𝘩𝘰𝘸𝘭 as agony envelops my mind and body.

I feel myself screaming, 𝘳𝘰𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 in suffering but I cannot hear it over the feeling in my skull.

But after what felt like hours, eventually it stops.

The pain goes away.

Everything, goes away.

𝘐'𝘮 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘔𝘦𝘳𝘭𝘪𝘯.

=======

Meanwhile...

"Our strength may be equal, but only I can fly! It's over Siegfried! I have the high ground!" Ashurbanipal shouts as she hovers threateningly above him.

"You underestimate my power!" He screams in return, leaping at her.

It will only be after another few hours have passed that either of them will learn about the other events of the day.

-----------------------------

A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!

Fucking FINALLY!!! Dear god this fight killed me. You can bet that the story is going to be significantly more tear focused for a while, not to mention fuck writing any fighting in the next few chapters.

Also, I have once again not gotten any sleep for 24 hours as of writing this.

(5+)Advanced chapters with the links below!

pat/reon.com/user?u=41732867 (get rid of the first slash)

or

https://ko-fi.com/bored_works

Also, join the discord!

https://discord.gg/Pj3Dttwses