Mythos Prelude

  Episode Jackie

  Chapter 3.4 — Check, Part 4

  by Caide Fullerton

  Krimling shrieked as nearly a dozen of them were sent flying by a sudden shockwave, a chorus of grunts and cries ringing out as the lucky ones crashed into the mud, the unlucky ones into stone walls. A second ring of Krimling wailed as they were struck by a spray of stone shrapnel, streaks of blood emerging from the destruction like strings of crimson confetti.

  At the center of the crash site, an ominous silhouette rose amid the dust. Its core appeared to be the body of a child, hanging limply in the air. Emerging from the child’s back were eight long, skeletal arms, stretching nearly a meter across between each joint, the hands at their ends disproportionately large. Half of the hands were pressed against the ground with open palms, holding the child up like the legs of an insect; the others curled around its body.

  A soft sob escaped from the dust cloud, drowned out by the shrieks of the Krimling. Then, two of the creature’s long arms stretched up into the air, their skeletal fingers breaching the smokescreen, and in the next moment they slammed down to the ground on either side of it, effortlessly crushing two unfortunate Krimling into crumpled heaps of pulsing viscera and snapped bones.

  The powerful motion cleared the dust, revealing the source of the destruction—the Kumori. A young Human girl hung limply at the beast’s center, but it was merely a disguise. The child began to wail loudly, its voice distorting into many voices of different pitches, some crying and sobbing while others began to speak in unison.

  Kumori: “There you are..! I found you, found you, found you, found you found you found you foundyoufoundyoufoundyoufoundyoufoundyou FOUND YOUUU!”

  The voices grew gleeful as the child let out that final bellow. It licked its lips, a wicked smile on its face even as tears continued to stream out from its eyes.

  Then, the chaos began all at once.

  Krimling screamed, a high-pitched war cry growing as several dozen grunts began to charge at the Kumori from all directions, some scampering across the ground, others leaping at it from atop buildings. Digging its skeletal fingers into the mud, the Kumori lurched forward, swinging its oversized limbs wildly.

  Some Krimling were crushed under hammering fists; others were sent careening through the air by powerful punches. One particularly unfortunate Krimling took a punch squarely to the head, its skull reduced to a blast of shrapnel that mutilated the Krimling behind it.

  Using four of its hands as legs, the Kumori skittered across the battlefield with impressive dexterity, sliding between groups of Krimling and mowing through them with four-armed barrages of punches and crushing blows. It cut its prey’s numbers by a third in mere seconds.

  Standing at the edge of the chaos were two Humans. Jacqueline was bloody and battered, her body covered in cuts, punctures, and bruises from her time alone with the Krimling. About half of her wounds were crudely bandaged with torn-off scraps of her clothing. Beside her, Loid, too, was caked in blood, but he was lucky to be able to say it wasn’t his own.

  As the Kumori rampaged, most of the Krimling had turned their attention to it. Only a few continued to pursue the duo, and it was easy enough to bat them aside with a kick or a sweep of Loid’s javelin.

  Loid had succeeded in luring the Kumori here, and the swarm had officially begun. Now, all they needed to do was lose the rest of the Krimling’s focus and escape with their lives before the chaos enveloped them.

  To that end, the optimal solution was obvious.

  The two stood at the mouth of one of several roads that led into the large ruined complex where the Kumori and Krimling now fought, their backs to the exit. The two crouched, making themselves look small as they slowly backed away, carefully tracking the Kumori’s movements.

  While the infinite, overwhelming numbers of the Krimling posed a uniquely existential threat, the physical threat of the Kumori was a far more immediate one. Jacqueline was severely wounded, and Loid’s combat skills were limited; if it chose to come after them, they wouldn’t fare much better than the Krimling against it.

  Despite the Kumori’s wild thrashing and the growing piles of viscera surrounding it, the Krimling’s numbers continued to rise. Whereas before they had come in large waves, they now seemed to be arriving in a constant trickle, Krimling scurrying into the complex one after another through several different paths.

  The Kumori did not seem to mind; if anything, it seemed delighted that more and more prey was coming right to it. It proceeded to slam one of its skeletal hands into the mud, clawing its fingers in deep, and then lifted the rest of its body with just that single limb. It stretched its seven remaining appendages out wide as the supporting arm began to curl, rotating the rest of the body. It picked up speed quickly, and in just a moment’s time it had begun whipping around rapidly, mowing down surrounding Krimling with its outstretched arms, their small bodies torn to halves by the force of the whirling limbs.

  The Krimling stopped approaching the ring of death after the third rotation, though one was shoved into it by a few of its cackling comrades, its blood splattering across their bodies. The Kumori adapted, curling its arm to bend its raised body down; then, wrenching it in the other direction, it used its momentum to fling itself into the air and sideways. Each of its skeletal limbs swung downwards in turn, causing its body to spin in the air.

  The Kumori’s arms formed a perfect ring around it, each bent inward at the elbow. As it touched down on the mud, its rapidly-rotating body began to roll like a great wheel, crushing a row of Krimling beneath it. As it crashed headlong into the side of a building, its skeletal limbs clattering against the stone, it rapidly ascended the surface. It shot several feet into the air above the roof, then rapidly rolled across the top once it fell. The ring tilted to the right in order to turn, and it spun down into the alleys between the ruined buildings, a crowd of Krimling shrieking as they were ran down by the rolling arms.

  As all this transpired, Jacqueline and Loid turned and bolted down the road.

  They could hear the Krimling continue to shriek and squeal as the Kumori slaughtered them one after another. Its distorted voices rose in a mix of sobs and laughter, and the ruins around the carnage cracked and crumbled with each impact they suffered. It went without saying that the stench of blood was overpowering.

  At a glance, it seemed no Krimling were following the pair. They ran without looking back a second time. The road curved leftward, then twisted sharply to the right around a mound of trash and debris. As the two rounded the bend, they suddenly slid to a halt.

  Ahead of them was another figure.

  At a first glance, it appeared to be a Human woman with long white hair, slowly staggering down the mud road. The longer they looked at her, however, the more they noticed that was wrong about her appearance.

  Her clothes were mismatched. She wore a loose white tunic and baggy pants, but the shirt’s sleeves were slightly different lengths, and the pants only reached her thigh on the left side. Her left shin was covered instead by a colorful legging connected to nothing else. A metal pauldron protected her right shoulder, a leather bracer her left hand. In place of a right foot was a bird’s talon.

  The woman stopped in her tracks as she noticed the two; they brandished their weapons, Loid taking a defensive step in front of Jacqueline.

  The woman stared at them for a few seconds, motionless. Then she raised a hand to brush some of her long hair out of her face, revealing her tired grey eyes. They widened at the sight of the Humans, and her mouth split open to a smile, revealing a row of sharp fangs.

  Loid: “Stay back, Mimic!” He shouted, making an educated guess as to the woman’s identity. He held his javelin out in front of him, though he couldn’t keep his hands from shaking. “Your meal’s just behind us. If you—“

  Before he could finish, the woman lurched forward.

  Her teeth became a flash of silver as her mouth opened wide in a twisted grin, and in the next instant her entire body became formless. Her flesh bubbled up like a viscous liquid, and her clothes and her hair followed suit, becoming a sort of formless gel that took on a skin-toned shade and merged with her body. Her entire mass shrank, condensing into the spot where her head had just been as she shot forward. The bubbling mass twisted and creaked in the air, taking on shape and color, and in the next moment it had become a silver-feathered raven.

  Loid swung his spear in front of him, but the bird shot past it and between him and Jacqueline. Once behind them it pivoted straight upwards with a flap of its wings before melting away into formless flesh again. This time it expanded, becoming the woman again, complete with the very same mismatched clothes and body, her arms raised over her head.

  On reflex, Loid and Jacqueline dove to either side as the Mimic swung her arms down. Formless flesh trailed behind her hands, still taking shape; as she finished the arc of her attack, the blade of a gargantuan battle-axe struck the mud in front of her.

  Jacqueline was quick to counter, flinging one of her daggers for the Mimic’s head. She simply deformed around the attack, a hole opening itself in the side of her skull to let the dagger pass through. The rest of her body followed suit, bubbling away and converging at the end of the axe’s haft. With her weight concentrated in one spot, the axe tipped forward; her mass then lurched downward, forcing the axe to flip forward and into the air.

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  Beneath the axe, the Mimic’s body reformed feet-first, thrusting them down into the ground to force the rest of her body—and the axe—forward. She swung it in a wide arc, aiming for both Humans at once. Jacqueline ducked the attack, the axe merely clipping a tuft of her hair; Loid held up his spear to catch the axe’s edge. The sheer weight of the attack sent him sliding backwards in a semicircle until finally he stumbled into the mud.

  The Mimic let out a satisfied snort, beginning to deform the axe as she stepped toward Loid. Before she could get far, Jacqueline tackled her from behind, wrapping her arms around the Mimic and sinking her remaining dagger into her gut.

  The Mimic cried out in pain, a mix between a gasp and a shrill scream. The skin on her arms and legs quivered, their surfaces seeming to melt slightly, but she was unable to transform—even the axe had been left as a half-dissolved mass hanging limply from her left hand. Gritting her teeth with a hiss, she began to writhe violently, clawing at Jacqueline’s arms with her remaining arm.

  Jacqueline held strong despite the Mimic’s desperate resistance. As Loid scrambled back onto his feet, the Mimic jabbed Jacqueline in the side with her elbow, forcing her grip to loosen. Loid made to thrust his spear at her, but the Mimic threw both herself and Jacqueline down into the mud, fully wrenching herself free in the process. She twisted her body around and kicked Jacqueline away, springing into the air with the same motion.

  Two formless blobs emerged from the Mimic’s back, and they solidified into a great pair of eagle’s wings. The Mimic launched up into the sky with a series of powerful flaps as Loid rushed over to Jacqueline, pulling her up to her feet.

  The two craned their necks to gaze up at the Mimic as she ceased her ascent, doing a half-flip to face the ground as she crested in the air. Then, her body bubbled away again, this time expanding into a large shape as she began to fall.

  Loid: “...Shit!”

  Jacqueline: “...Shit!”

  Cursing in unison, the pair sprang into action, Loid pulling the winded Jacqueline along in a desperate race to escape the Mimic’s darkening shadow. It crashed down behind them in the form of a metal cube, its surfaces roughly 2 meters wide; the resulting shockwave sent them both tumbling through the mud.

  Loid groaned, but he knew there was no time to sit around in pain. As he began to rise, he saw Jacqueline reaching out to retrieve the dagger she’d thrown earlier; he took her other arm to pull her up with him.

  As the two rose to their feet, Jacqueline glanced to the side, her eyes widening. She suddenly shoved Loid away, both of them stumbling to either side as a metallic limb shot forward between them. The Mimic was already in the process of returning to her human form, her right arm thrust forward. In place of a hand, her bubbling flesh extended forward as a metal spear—no, it grew longer still, extending across the road and over the toxic brush at its edge, its true form none other than a towering flagpole.

  Finding her footing, Jacqueline turned to run down the path. Loid ducked beneath the flagpole to follow her, and he could hear the twisting and tearing sounds of it returning to flesh and retracting behind him.

  The Mimic lurched after them, her left arm already bubbling away as she swung it out to the side. Her flesh extended out in a long, thin strand in a whip-like motion, materializing into iron chains. She swung the still-forming chain forward in a wide arc, and the flesh at the chain’s end split out into intricate tendrils that then hardened into a chandelier.

  As the hunk of metal approached, Loid seized Jacqueline ahead of him with both arms and spun sideways. The chandelier struck him hard in the back with a loud crack, and he and Jacqueline were both sent tumbling through the mud again.

  A searing sharp pain erupted throughout Loid’s body. He was certain he’d broken a bone, or multiple, but he couldn’t focus enough to tell as his body rolled through the mud. His vision was blurring and darkening, and he could hear blood pounding in his ear. He—

  ???: “KRYAHHHH!”

  The scream of a Krimling shocked him back to his senses. He jolted up with a shout of his own, punching the Krimling.

  The beast staggered back, one of its bulbous eyes popped by the blow. It clawed at its face for a moment before lunging at him for revenge. Loid struggled to untangle his body from Jacqueline, flailing his arm at the Krimling. He struck it in the head, but it pushed forward, undaunted, raking its claws across his arm and the bridge of his nose. He managed to seize its neck in his desperation to hold it back, and it shrieked and spat at him until finally Jacqueline managed to twist herself upright and jabbed her dagger into the side of its head.

  Loid shoved the Krimling’s corpse away, struggling to catch his breath as he looked down at the bruises and blood covering his hands. He turned to his partner,

  Loid: “Ja—“

  He was swiftly cut off as she grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, leaping to her feet and yanking him aside. A second Krimling had leapt at them, but that wasn’t what she was running from; it was the figure above it.

  The Mimic crashed down from the sky, a gargantuan hammer in her hands. It struck the ground where the two Humans had just been, kicking up a cloud of mud and dust; its only victim was a Krimling caught in the crossfire.

  Several other Krimling had gathered at the mouth of the road—guarding the Kumori’s exit, perhaps, though now they saw the Humans’ reappearance as an opportunity to score a meal for themselves. At the Mimic’s grand entrance, however, they cowered, merely letting out a few meek warning cries.

  The Mimic glanced over to them, and her smile widened. Her arms melted, then reformed, now thicker and more muscular. This process repeated, and then a third time. With biceps now thicker than her torso, she lifted the huge hammer like it was a toy. A horizontal swing took out all of her spectators in one go, sending a condensed ball of viscera flying off into the distance, leaving just the legs of her victims behind.

  With that distraction out of the way, she returned her attention to her primary targets. They were running around the outside edge of the ruined complex, avoiding as many Krimling as possible; despite their efforts, a small crowd had formed to take chase behind them.

  Just more obstacles in her way. They’d make for a decent appetizer once she scored her kill.

  She lurched forward, her body melting away and condensing into the form a wolf. She charged forward at top speed, weaving between Krimling. A few cried out in shock at her unusual appearance, and one turned to leap at her; a poor decision. She lunged forward, seizing its neck in her maw, and promptly tore its throat free from the rest of its body. She gulped it down as she then sprang into the air, shapeshifting again to shrink into the smaller body of a fox. Landing on the head of another Krimling, she used it as a springboard to launch herself forward.

  As Loid and Jacqueline dashed around the edge of the complex, they were forced to slide to a stop. A band of six or so Krimling had assembled ahead of them to cut them off, trapping them in a pincer formation. They grit their teeth, preparing to fight, but paused as a shadow passed over them.

  An anvil flung through the air and nailed one of the Krimling ahead of them, hitting it in the head. After the first was crushed, the anvil slid across the mud, bowling through the other Krimling immediately behind it. The object returned to flesh as it ran out of momentum, and in the blink of an eye it became a woman again, long, curved blades growing out of each of her fingers. She spun in a pirouette, her claws cleanly cutting through the surrounding Krimling like butter and reducing them to ribbons.

  Loid pivoted, turning towards the center of the ruined complex to resume his sprint, Jacqueline close behind him. Both the Mimic and the Krimling behind them followed suit. The Mimic leapt forward, her body melting away and condensing into a tiny form that whizzed past the duo, barely grazing Jacqueline’s shoulder. Behind them, an arrow struck a Krimling in the head.

  As the struck Krimling staggered back, the arrow bubbled up and extended into an arm, reaching right through the Krimling’s head and crushing its vital organ. The arm then reformed inside-out, the rest of the woman’s body forming next to the fallen Krimling as she turned to see the Humans pivot again, running past where she’d just been and towards a field of crumbled stone pillars.

  Loid glanced behind him to see the Mimic launch into hot pursuit again. The area ahead wasn’t all too much more inviting, as another group of Krimling was forming—

  A distant rumbling became louder and louder, and then a great ring of death rounded the corner. Still spinning on its arms like the spokes of a great wheel, the Kumori reappeared, mowing down a few stray Krimling before heading directly for the newly-forming group. It crashed through them and then made a sharp turn right as it passed over them, turning on the spot a few times to run over each of the stragglers before finally coming to a complete stop, holding its body up in the air on a single skeletal arm.

  The Kumori lowered itself to the ground, and the sobbing child at its center, caked in Krimling blood and quite a few scratches worse for wear than when the Humans had last seen it, turned its eyes directly to them.

  The two were forced to stop again, now caught right between the two apex predators. In front of them, the Kumori seemed to giggle as it slowly advanced on its many arms; behind them, the Mimic glared, fashioning one of her hands into a halberd.

  And then, both of them charged.

  The Kumori galloped on all eight of its arms, the great pounding of its huge hands against the ground echoing against the surrounding ruins. Opposite it, the Mimic lunged forward, her weapon at her side.

  Standing back-to-back between the two monsters, Loid and Jacqueline exchanged a glance. They steeled their nerves and waited, standing ready for the perfect moment. Then, they both dove away in either direction just as the monsters closed in, the Mimic swinging her axe and the Kumori swinging a skeletal fist.

  A terrible screech rang out as metal scraped against bone, the Mimic’s halberd firmly striking the outstretched wrist of the Kumori. The beasts locked eyes, their pupils dilating, and then they both reversed a step back at once.

  Kumori: “Why, why, why, why why why whywhywhywhywhy WHY!? Get out of my way, out of my way, OUT OF MY WAY!!!” The child wailed as it lurched forward, wildly swinging its huge skeletal fists in a barrage of destructive punches.

  Her smile contorting into a sneer, the Mimic ducked past the first punch, her halberd shrinking into a hand-axe as she closed in on the Kumori’s core body. Several of its hands planted in the ground threw it backwards, but the Mimic’s swing still barely caught the child by the chest, drawing blood.

  In the next moment, a skeletal fist slammed into the Mimic’s side. Though a shield formed itself against her skin, the force sent her careening away into the mud.

  The Kumori began to scream and cry as it blew the Mimic away with its attack, its wails echoing far past the valley. “Why, why, why!? All of you, all of you, all of you, getting in my way! I’m just so hungry..! All of you, I’ll kill all of you!”

  Turning back to the Humans, who had once again been attempting to creep away, the Kumori declared so.