I charge forward. The opportunity to hit Plague Doctor while her tail’s occupied is too good to pass up and I’ve got a chance to drive the fight away from the Paris. I leap atop Xenatlas’s huge, spiked shoulders and push off, nearly gutting myself on his horn before landing atop Plague Doctor and sinking my claws into her cracked carapace. Taisaur’s tail swings into her, striking her back with my long spikes and driving them into her soft innards.
The Game Masters gave me a multi-part mission, I roar, swinging my tail into Plague Doctor over and over again. She bucks and scuttles but doesn’t start to roll. A glance behind me shows that Xenatlas is holding her tail and going after her legs.
Don’t you fucking jump on me, asshole! He bellows and lets go of her tail, only to catch it between the horns on his shoulders and the one on his head. The points sink into through the carapace, spilling Plague Doctor’s viscous green blood and reminding me what a good idea it is to avoid those weapons. Getting caught between those horns is a very, very bad place to be.
So is being beneath Plague Doctor. With a shriek she lurches forward and sinks her proboscis needle through a joint in Xenatlas’s own exoskeletal armor. He roars in pain and his blood flows through the alien kaiju’s needle and into her body. The holes my tail spikes just opened tighten up and close. So do the ones in Plague Doctor’s tail, closing around Xenatlas’s horns.
I know this because a moment later she rips him off his feet and begins thrashing him about until he eventually tears free in a shower of gore. He hits the ground hard enough to make the cars and rubble along the ground bounce and breaks several strands of red webbing, unleashing a storm of red needles into the air.
His HP drops. Then drops further as Plague Doctor sprays him down with red webbing launched from her tail. Apparently, that thing at the end isn’t just a stinger. Damn.
She scurries forward as Xenatlas struggles to break free of the webbing. Several strands snap, sending up more clouds of stinging needles. The rest hold though. He’s not going to free himself in time.
I release my hold on Plague Doctor’s back and twist around to leap onto her head. I hit and nearly slide off the side, yanking her head to the right, which is the direction the stupidly oversized behemoth begins to scurry to like a horse with the reins yanked. She lets out an angry shriek and begins tossing her head every which way. It’s all I can do not to be thrown clear. I can’t even bring my tail around for a proper strike.
Maybe saving Xenatlas was a dumb idea. It had come instinctively. The same way teaming up with Halira had the very first time we encountered Titanocobra. There’s something about these things that screams “other” to me and makes me want to band together with my own kind to defeat them. Or maybe it’s just a knee-jerk reaction from all the time he and I spent playing together before. Either way, it seems I am thoroughly screwed now.
Plague Doctor drops and I go flying. I land on all fours with surprising grace, though the shock traveling up my limbs nearly makes them collapse. Xenatlas is tangled in her legs and the pair are tearing into each other. He must have come in low after tearing free of the webbing. He’s not coming out the better of this deal. Gene must feel the same way about these alien kaiju as I do.
I charge back into the fray, heedless of my own dwindling HP and swing Taisaur’s tail into the mass of legs stabbing at, and in some cases in to, Xenatlas. There’s a series of snaps, like someone’s cracking the world’s largest collection of knuckles, and Plague Doctor breaks away.
Xenatlas and me stand beside each other, breathing hard. My mouth is full of the taste of blood.
That why you needed the egg? he asks.
Huh? It takes me a moment to mentally catch up. He’s picking up our conversation right where we left off earlier. Oh, yeah. I needed to steal one of this things eggs and drop it in a hole to get the cure, then I had to broadcast a signal here to get it out.
Interesting, he says. That says a lot about what the Game Masters are capable of.
How the hell is he able to think about that right now? I can barely spare a moment of incredulity my head’s so deep in the fight.
Plague Doctor still hasn’t moved. She tilts her head from side to side like a lizard trying to decide which cricket to eat. We’ve scared her though.
Not that I’m complaining, I say through Taisaur’s roar. But why the hell does that make a difference to you now? You didn’t care about killing them before.
I’ve always cared about innocent people, he rumbles. But everyone here was already dying before. Now they have a chance to live.
Plague Doctor scuttles to the right, then to the left. It’s like watching a thunderstorm trying to figure out the best way to come at you.
And Manhattan? I ask.
I kept casualties to a minimum.
There were still casualties, I say. Still innocent people dying.
There are always innocent casualties, he says. Sometimes we have to make hard choices and sacrifice for the greater good.
Plague Doctor comes at us. Las Vegas trembles.
Xenatlas inhales and spews forth a torrent of green fire into her spear-like face. She shrieks but doesn’t stop coming.
I leap to the side and go at her legs. I knock one out from under her and she staggers, then turns that stagger into a downward lunge with her proboscis. The attack is thwarted by Xenatlas striking one of her legs from the other side. She spins around, striking him with one of her legs and knocking him off balance before stabbing him through with another.
At the same time her tail swings out behind her and catches me in the chest. I’d thought the damn thing could only strike forward because of the way it curved beneath her and couldn’t reach me when I was on her back. I’d only been partly right.
She rips the limb spearing Xenatlas free in a spray of blood and whirs on me. The stinger comes free of my chest, dragging with it a red strand of webbing that seems to be coming from inside my wound. I try to throw up the Burning Aurora but this time I’m too slow. Maybe it’s the poison now in my system. Maybe I just wasn’t fast enough. Whatever the reason, her proboscis skewers me like a fucking kabob and drives me backwards into the ground.
Taisaur’s blood—my blood—flows through that needle and into her. It doesn’t feel like I’m losing blood though. It feels like I’m being filled with fire. I roar in sheer agony and then in impotent rage as I watch the wounds we’ve inflicted on her legs and abdomen seal up and heal while my HP bar drops. Lower. Lower.
I swing Taisaur’s tail but fail to get enough force behind it to pierce her armor. I lose more HP. She heals more. I’m going to die.
Through the haze of pain, I manage to activate urst mode. Crimson veins light up beneath Taisaur’s flesh, bleeding through with energy. My HP bar jumps in size, the HP inside jumping with it right before I can die.
I’m still trapped though. Still feeding Plague Doctor. I haven’t done anything but prolong the inevitable and give her more fuel for healing.
Xenatlas’s charge hits her in the belly and flips her over me. Her proboscis rips out of my chest in a spray of blood and the impact of her enormous bulk hitting the ground actually bounces me up. I stumble onto my hands and knees, then shakily stand up.
Burst Mode deactivates and the veins of light die. I’m down to maybe a quarter of my HP depending on how much I want to cheat at my estimation. Xenatlas isn’t any better. The hand that took the stinger earlier is clutched to his chest, trying to staunch the blood flowing from another hole there. His HP is at a third and dropping.
So’s mine now that I glance at it. We’ve both been poisoned.
Plague Doctor scurries back upright and we’re back to the same faceoff we were locked in a moment before. Only now she’s showing next to no signs of having been in a fight at all.
Outlasting Plague Doctor was our best chance before. Clearly that’s no longer an option. Neither of us can deal enough damage to her with our attacks…or can we?
&n
bsp; I’ve got an idea.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
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Better say it fast, Xenatlas snarls. His horns flash as he prepares to fire off his White Hole attack.
Stop! I roar, grabbing his arm.
He jerks and for a moment I think he’s about to turn his attack on me. I’m dead if he does. Even if I get the Burning Aurora up, I’ll burn through my newly refilled rage meter and be left with nothing left to fight Plague Doctor.
He doesn’t attack me though. Plague Doctor does.
Letting out a hissing shriek she comes at us in a scurrying fury. Lord Almighty, nothing that big should scurry like that, all predatory and nauseating.
Use the fire breath!
With a snarl Xenatlas whirls on the oncoming kaiju and for a moment we’re not three monsters. We’re two men staring down an oncoming semi. Until the last few days my time spent as Taisaur has always been empowering. I was an unstoppable force. Now I know what a real unstoppable force looks like and at the same time am more than cognizant that I am not an immovable object. Aware of it like I never have been before. Not even when Xenatlas and Megaptera teamed up on me in Monster Land and beat me until I “died.”
That was different from this. For one thing they had me outnumbered and pinned. There were all kinds of things I could tell myself to feel better about my beating and a part of me had clung to the idea that if I’d just done things slightly different, I could’ve taken them on. I don’t have that now. For one thing, despite the new pain from that experience, I hadn’t really felt in danger.
I do now. Not just because my body’s so close by and will likely be crushed if I fail. There’s a feeling low in my gut, screaming at me on the most primal level that I need to run. To get out of the way of this thing and flee. I couldn’t say why, but I know with certainty that if I die in this fight, I’ll die for real. And death is so, so close.
Xenatlas roars and he’s a monster again, green fire spilling from his jaws like he’s a living flamethrower. They splash over Plague Doctor’s needle face and she shrieks but barely slows. After drinking me down she’s barely hurt. That cold fire might be painful but she can take it. And she does.
Step by scurrying step she comes on. Fast. Too fast. The flames aren’t slowing her down nearly enough. I glance up at Xenatlas’s rage meter. It’s still full. Still glowing. Thank God I remembered correctly that his flames didn’t eat away that energy.
Don’t skewer me, I roar.
He makes a grunting sound but thankfully doesn’t stop spraying his flames to ask me what I’m talking about. Another grunt, this one angry, follows an instant later when I leap upon him and climb onto his shoulders. Directly between his three horns. If he flexes wrong, they’ll stab into me and my dwindling HP will drop to zero. Or he might decide that he doesn’t need me in order to keep fighting Plague Doctor. I’m in the perfect position for him to finish me off.
Plague Doctor’s almost on us. A few more scuttling steps and she’ll close. Precariously balanced as we are, she’ll finish us off in an instant. She seems to realize this too because if anything she comes on even faster.
White Hole! I roar. White Hole right now!
Xenatlas’s horns flash white. I activate the Burning Aurora and the White Hole coalesces all around me. I can’t see a thing save for the swirling red of my aura, barely visible against the all-white maelstrom. My rage meter plummets faster than I have ever seen it drop.
My limbs go shaky. I can feel the attack pushing on me and I shove off Xenatlas’s shoulders and am carried forward by the full power of his special attack.
There is nothing but momentum and red and white light. I’m not Aaron. I’m not Taisaur. There is no Vegas. No Xenatlas. No Plague Doctor. There is only energy. So, so much energy. Now I am an unstoppable force.
I crash into Plague Doctor. Nothing else is big enough or strong enough to stand up to me. I feel us moving forward and realize the force of our joint attack has pushed her backwards. Something in front of me gives with a wet crack and then it’s like digging through Play Dough.
I can’t tell which way is up or down. I can’t tell what’s around me. All I know is that no matter what I cannot stop. I have to continue the attack.
I toss my horns. I rip with my claws and my fangs. I thrash about with my spikes and my tail. Everything I do meets soft, wet resistance. Liquid clings to my teeth and tongue and nose, tasting like the smell of old body odor. It churns my stomach. My limbs feel heavy, and weak. I press on.
The white light fades and it’s just my red pressing against an infinite mass of darkness. I rip, tear, thrash and attack with every single ounce of energy remaining to me.
Then the Burning Aurora vanishes. Everything is black.
I’m grabbed by my tail, ripped backward, and sent airborne. The light burns my eyes and I have an instant to realize that I was just inside Plague Doctor when I hit the ground. I bounce and can’t think of Plague Doctor anymore.
Because I’m skidding right toward the Pearl Theater. Where Isabella and my body are hiding. I dig in my feet and push with all my might against the ground. I’m not strong enough. I gave everything I had into that attack on Plague Doctor. I keep going. My feet and hands dig great furrows in the earth in my effort to bring me to a stop.
I slow. It’s not enough. I push harder, digging deeper than I ever thought possible.
My body hits the Pearl and takes out an outer layer. Glass, steel, and concrete disintegrate like spun sugar. And I stop. The building’s completely open from this side. It’s still standing though. And since I’m not dead I’m guessing Isabella got my body out of the way.
My relief is short lived.
Xenatlas roars and Plague Doctor shrieks. Holy shit, the bitch isn’t dead yet?
She’s crouched low, lower than I’ve ever seen. Big wet chunks of her are falling out of her broken thorax and abdomen to spill along the ground in slimy, steaming heaps. We hurt her. Badly. But she’s not dead yet.
Xenatlas is unleashing his flames on her. They wash harmlessly over most of her carapace, only clearly hurting her when they touch the cracks we’ve opened up. Or the gaping hole on her underside.
His HP bar falls sliver by sliver. There’s barely anything left now. Mine too.
What will it take to fucking end this fight because it’s not over. It’s down to sudden death. The next one of us to take a decisive hit dies.
I’m too tired to leap back into the fray. I do my best, I charge back with everything I’ve got. I just don’t got anything left. My one advantage is that Plague Doctor is in too much pain and too confused by the flames that keep hitting her in the face and her open wounds to see me coming.
I skid to a halt in what would have been easy reach of those spear-like legs if she’d been standing properly, and turn all my momentum into a tail strike. It catches her in the segment where her abdomen and thorax meet.
The bitch breaks in two.
No shit. Cracks and fissures explode over her carapace, spreading out from where our joint attack caught her and she splits. The bulbous abdomen falls away, the tail lashing about, mindlessly trying to sting us.
The front half with her legs and still armed with her proboscis scuttles forward with shocking speed, shrieking. If she manages to get one of us with that vampiric needle of hers could she heal enough to survive?
I don’t find out. Xenatlas sprays her down with fire and open as she is now, she’s quickly reduced to a quivering mass. Then he steps on her head, smashing it into a pulpy mess for good measure.
Ding-dong the bitch is dead.
I sink to my knees. I don’t think I’ve ever been this tired, no matter which body I’m in.
I don’t know what I expect from Xenatlas. A pithy comment? A sigh of relief?
Neither of those things is forthcoming. Just his powerful footsteps, their impact distinct now that there a
ren’t two other kaiju competing to see who can make the most noise. I look up and find him stomping away. Directly toward the Pearl Theater. Where Isabella and my body are.
Truce is over, he snarls. Time to finish this.
Chapter Forty
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I stagger upright. All fours would be faster but if I go on all fours I’ll collapse. If I collapse, I won’t be able to get back up. It’s not in me. There’s nothing left in me but terror. Not for myself. Isabella’s in that building. If Xenatlas brings it down trying to get to me he’ll kill both of us. I can’t let that happen.
So, I stagger forward with surprising speed and miracle of miracles I get there first. He must be exhausted himself and all other things being equal, Taisaur has always been the faster of our kaiju. I try to stand my ground to meet him, but my legs give out as I try to turn. It’s not going to work. I can’t fight.
I do the only thing left for me to do, awkwardly shuffle around and lean over the Pearl Theater, covering it with my body. The stomping grows closer. His HP is low enough that maybe, just maybe I can catch him with my tail.
I become hyper-aware of my own breathing and heartbeat and the incessant music letting me know my HP bar is all but empty. It’s stopped dropping though, which isn’t as good as I’d like. If it’s stopped for me that means it’s stopped for Xenatlas. I can’t try to stall him out.
The stomping comes to a stop. Just outside the reach of my tail. It takes me a second to remember that his new flame attack doesn’t use rage and gives him a good mid-reach weapon. He’s going to kill me. I am going to die.
The thought doesn’t bother me as much as it probably should. Isabella dying though…she might still have a chance to get out. I need to stall him for as long as possible. There I go hoping again.
You are in there, Xenatlas rumbles. I thought you might be when you fought so hard not to destroy that building.
Kaiju for Dummies Page 20