Chapter 8: Mimic in the Beetle’s Shadow.

  As Lucas watched the beetle creep away slowly, he decided to make his move. His tendrils hardened, his normally fluid and chaotic form becoming as still as a lake.

  He scuttled across the wall quickly, trying to get into a better position to launch his ambush. The beetle still did not seem to notice his movements and kept crawling away gingerly, trying to keep the injured section of its thorax as still as possible.

  In a matter of moments, Lucas reached what he considered to be the ideal spot to pounce. As he “looked” down at the incoming beetle, no complex thoughts about what he should be doing or feeling appeared in his mind, he just had the simple and primal desire to attack the beetle with everything he had and finally get his meal.

  Just as the armored bug closed in, Lucas made his leap at it. He felt a sharp shift in his perception, almost like everything had slowed down to a crawl as he leaped off the wall down towards his unsuspecting prey. The air howled as his two front tendrils thickened and hardened into spear-like tips. Ready to impale the beetle in a sudden burst of violence.

  CRACK!

  With a sickening, wet crack, Lucas's tendrils struck the beetle's vulnerable thorax, unleashing a sudden gush of warm ichor. But instead of sinking deep into the wound, his tendrils merely grazed the injured flesh, refusing to gain the depth he desperately needed.

  The armored beetle let out a pained hiss as it shook and buzzed frantically, trying to knock off this new assailant.

  Due to their size difference, each frantic movement almost sent Lucas flying. He felt the air wail with each powerful motion but he held on as tightly as he could. His tendrils instinctively grew jagged spines to give him a firmer grip on the thrashing beetle.

  After a few moments of fruitless struggling, the beetle carapace noticeably darkened in Lucas’ monochrome sight and it spread its wings in the next instant.

  Having seen the ferocious beetle’s clash with the slime, Lucas could already guess what it was about to do but was too slow to react accordingly.

  BOOM!

  In a burst of motion, the beetle smashed itself into the side of the cavern wall. The earth-shattering impact planted Lucas firmly into the wall and left him in a daze, his tendrils retracting instinctively.

  The beetle removed itself from the crater as swiftly as it could before turning to face its adversary, its mandibles opened wide like a waiting bear trap.

  With his core rocked, Lucas could barely recall where he was. He hastily sank to the floor as he felt a sharp howling wind roar directly in front of him.

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  SNAP!

  The beetle’s coup de grace missed by just a few centimeters, but the shockwave generated by the powerful bite slammed the amorphous Lucas to the cold cavern floor with a wet twak.

  The beetle struggled for a moment to readjust itself as it took a few steps back before preparing to deliver another fatal bite. As Lucas saw this opening, he gathered his wits and tried to slink away while he had the chance.

  The novice mimic generated 8 tendrils and shot out of the side of the crater with as much power as he could muster. Just as he squeezed out of the cavity, a huge pair of closed mandibles slammed into him mid-air, accurately smashing into the side of the wall once more.

  This time the armored bug did not let up, it intended to crush Lucas with its sheer weight as it pressed its enormous head on the panicked mimic.

  Under the crushing weight of the beetle, Lucas couldn’t help but have such a thought. He could feel his muted feelings of panic and fear being rekindled as each excruciating second passed. His struggling and flaying seemed almost futile under the overbearing weight of the hulking beetle.

  Once the thought settled in, it wasn’t accompanied by any paralyzing fear or hopelessness. In the blistering haze of violence, it just struck him as an undeniable fact. But he wouldn't take it lying down.

  Lucas hardened himself as much as he possibly could while lashing out his tendrils at the beetle’s head, hoping and praying for a lucky hit to its eyes or any other sensitive organs.

  After a few tense and desperate moments of wildly thrashing against the beetle, he heard a loud crack and felt a sharp burst of pain throughout his injured body. However, he paid no attention to it and continued his frantic assault.

  As if powered up by his internal roar, a tendril finally made a good connection to one of the beetle’s eyes forcing it to let out a wounded hiss and back off slightly. With this gap opened up, Lucas had two options, escape and fight another day or continue his onslaught like a wounded animal.

  The former didn't even register in his mind as Lucas immediately lunged at the beetle’s head, tendrils flailing wildly as he went for broke. Each attack aimed at the beetle’s eyes and wounded its thorax with almost all of them connecting on the stunned beetle.

  In just a few short moments, Lucas’ spear-like tendrils had gouged out the beetle’s eyes and widened the wound on the beetle’s thorax dramatically.

  Just as Lucas felt triumph was within his grasp, the beetle came too and smashed Lucas into the wall once more, causing Lucas to crumble back to the floor limply.

  The armored beetle then slowly opened its mandibles wide to deliver the final strike in this heart-wrenching battle.

  Lucas cursed, unwilling to go out like this but… he could barely generate a tendril in his current state. Even so, he willed his body to slowly slink away from the beetle.

  Just as Lucas felt the cold chill of death once more, the beetle froze like a statue, its mandibles still wide open. Although Lucas was confused by the sudden turn of events, he crawled away from his foe as quickly as possible before assessing the situation and his surroundings.

  No other creature was nearby at least he couldn't detect any, it was just him and the beetle. After resting for a tense minute, Lucas crawled over to the beetle and tapped it with a tendril nervously—no movement. He then directly climbed to its head and pierced into it with a hardened tendril but still no reaction.

  Lucas thought unbelievingly but the corpse of the beetle just stood there, proving this wasn't some kind of dream or hoax

  A wave of relief and fatigue flooded Lucas as his form almost turned into a puddle. He thought to himself with a curled tendril in the air.

  ‘I did it!!!’