“My name’s Chimera!” the alien girl roared, pushing past the blinding assault of the plasma whip. Her tendril launched just below the Inquistor as she exploded from her ball, filled to the brim with needles, more tendrils, and a spike glowing with red pulsing energy.
Zala’tazz dodged it all with ease, backing her steps and covering her retreat with fluid strikes from her plasma whip, scorching and pressuring the beast with increasingly frequent strikes to her core.
Clad in Aura, but primitive and unrefined. She cannot hold a candle to my own skill!
Feeling her confidence return, Zala’tazz unleashed her second whip, bringing its energy core to life as another green beam of light joined the other. With both in hand, she engaged in her martial forms, smashing both low and high, spiking their energy just as they made contact with the abomination’s flesh.
She delighted in seeing the beast’s echoes of pain, her promised victory so close at hand.
Perhaps I did not need to send Glendara away, this creature is not the threat that buffoon Lesrack claimed. She is nothing.
Zala’tazz smirked as her flurry turned into a tornado of green energy, the light show of her whips dancing around her as the epicenter. It took everything that the bioweapon could muster to keep the destructive light away from its center.
Such an obvious weakness! You tell me everything I need to know you fool!
She focused her attacks, bringing them closer and closer to her destination, the center of the blob-like creature. It struck with tendrils when it could, but the attacks were so telegraphed as to be made useless. Everything was under Zala’tazz’s control!
So why did she feel so worried?
What is this feeling, is this my instinct?
The more the fight went on, the more certain of her victory Zala’tazz felt. It was certain, it had to be!
She is weak! She could not possibly-
A whip greeted her own, one composed of red aura.
It wrapped around the weapon, latching to it like a living thing and proceeded to pull with a force that took Zala’tazz completely by surprise.
Releasing the weapon before it could throw her off balance, Zala’tazz recovered with an overhead strike that shattered her own whip before the monster could turn it against her. An explosion of green flames coated the monster, causing it to scream in pain.
Yes, my moment!
She tossed her whip, creating a circular motion that wrapped around the creature and tugged it tight as she could. Then, with a pulse of her own aura, Zala’tazz activated the Goddess’ Wrath, the green flame of destruction that existed within the plasma whip.
The flame engulfed the creature, causing it to become a roaring pyre of verdant death. It screeched beautifully, covered in the holy flames of waiting death.
Be Cleansed in her fire heretic!
…
Holy fuck shit that hurts!
Chimera was surrounded in plasma fire, the green flame sticking to her like the worst napalm she ever knew. It was like hell was all around her and inside her, threatening to unmake her even as it scorched her flesh.
There was magic in this flame as well, not simply physical flame or ionized gas, but a will that permeated the burning death that surrounded her.
Her aura kept it at bay, but the fire seared her body all the same, spreading its burning destruction into her blobby flesh and growing deeper by the moment.
Her healing was barely keeping up, and her energy was still chugging along, but it was only a matter of time before the flame won out.
Crap, this… this might be it…
She pushed with her own magic, no good, the flames evaporated anything she tried. She called upon her druidic magic, the power deep in the soil was too charred to assist. She even reached into her powers to try and find something to douse the flames.
Nothing, nothing was working on this stuff!
“Auuughhh!” She couldn’t help but scream as the flames increased in their intensity.
Chimera could hear the laughter from her opponent as she focused more and more of her mana to spread the green flame deeper into Chimera’s own flesh.
With a pulse of gravity magic, Chimera tried once more to separate the flames from her body.
The flames resisted, sticking to her aura and refusing to part from her. Like a snake, it only seemed to coil more and more around her body.
I… can’t…
Her mind was starting to lose focus, and with it her aura was starting to falter as well.
Help! Please!
Chimera felt the pulse of something deep within her, the rock that she had taken reaching into her very being and pulling her inside.
One moment, she was drenched in fire, the next, she was sitting in a pool of magma with a Elfari girl. She looked like a child, barely old enough to be fifty in Elfari years. Grey hair, molten eyes, and a taciturn face greeted her as Mera regained her faculties enough to register she was pulled free from the flames.
“Thanks for that, I don’t know how to did it, but you saved my ass back there.” Chimera spoke as she held out a hand, to which the Elfari girl tilted her head in confusion.
“Oh, right. Here, let me show you.” Chimera reached out and grabbed the girl’s hand, pulling them together with a shake.
“I’m Mera, though you can call me Chimera if you like.”
“...Iaos.”
“Oh, nice to meet you. Glad I guessed right and got you out of there before those scaly bastards got a hold of you.”
“My head… It's still fuzzy.”
“Oh shit! Let me fix that!”
Chimera stabbed a tendril into the girl, who yelped cutely at the sudden syringe. As she dumped the pheromone killer into the girl’s body, feeling it with her body as the last of the controlling cocktail was purged by Iaos’ body, she also took a bit of her DNA.
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“It’s gone! I can’t hear that witch any longer!” Iaos cheered, her grey eyes lighting up. The foggy stare she gave off retreated to be replaced with a grateful smile.
“Oh, well that's good. I know what it's like having voices in your head that don’t belong. Glad I could help!” Mera gave her own bright smile in return, which caused the girl Iaos to giggle.
“Thank you, my champion.”
“All in a day’s work I guess.”
As they laid in the magma bath, the flames oddly enough not burning Chimera to cinders, Mera felt something enter her body, and it was coming from Iaos.
The energy, if that was what it was, coursed its way inside her, filling her own body with a flood of unknown power.
It didn’t take long to understand it though, as Mera finally realized that she was absorbing Iaos’ DNA, and with that DNA came the truth that was kept from her.
Iaos’ power wasn’t that of simple elementalism, but rather terraformation.
The ground, the sky, the earth and magma, the seeds and life that sprung from such things, all of it was under the girl’s control.
And now…
Chimera grinned, the energy coalacesiing onto the golden circle that emblazoned her chest, turning part of the golden pattern into a deep red.
…
Terasi!
Iaos felt more than watched as the eldritch being of legends took hold of her innate gift, the very one she received from her Empress was absorbed, copied, rebuilt and connected to her flesh.
I cannot believe it, the vision was for this Mera?
The red being, the avatar of hunger and heroism, the one who would dispel the darkness of the Verdant Hood stood before her.
But a Terasi of all things?!
Iaos didn’t know whether to feel fear or awe as the creature in question grew more and more powerful by the second, the aura that she was giving off breaking the very cage she used to keep out of the haze of pheromones.
Chimera, or rather Mera, didn’t seem to mind though, as she turned to face the Verdant Goddess’ champion. Iaos felt the rage and fury from the Hoodian turn a shade of fear, a slim one but still present in her aura.
The poor thing, she knows not of the Terasi.
She would have pitied the thing if the monster in scaly flesh deserved it.
…
How? How does it still live?
Zala’tazz had unleashed the Verdant Flame of her Goddess, the encompassing fire that devoured all life. None save the faithful should be able to resist let alone survive such a perdition.
Yet, the abomination… the abomination!
Zala’tazz gritted her jaw as she pulled her staff from her belt, the true source of her spell casting might, and the most powerful artifact in her possession.
It mattered little if the thing survived, for it brought back her true prize. The Elementalist laid there, ready to be taken!
Her mission must be completed, she would not fail!
With a pulse of her magic and aura, she reached out to grasp the Elfari girl, determined to bring her to her side.
However, what met her control was a wall of will so potent, it simply unmade her spell with its presence.
“Woah there, I can’t let you take the lady there, Zally.” the abomination spoke, a strange accent that sounded droll and odd.
“I am Zala’tazz you fool!”
“It’s a nickname Zally. Don’t worry, you don’t have to get it.” A smirk crossed the blobby creature’s face, infuriating Zala’tazz with its cockiness.
Again she launched a spell, her aura and mana mixing with her furious fervor to explode outward, spreading the Goddess’ Flame all around. With no ground and air to hide, the abomination would burn-
“Nice, that tickles a bit!” The fiendish monster grinned that reached ear to ear, holding out a hand as she pulled the fire towards her.
Fool! The flames cannot be controlled except by the faithful! You doom yourself!
Zala’tazz did not let her opportunity go, pulling closer to unleash her devastating arts of martial prowess, becoming a typhoon of fury and fire.
With the fire, surely she would hit-
“Nice try!” The beast spoke as it stopped all of her strikes, each one blocked by an earthen whip that sprung from the ground. Worse, they were tinged with lava, burning her weapon to cinders as she struck!
How?! Why?!
She could feel her resolve faltering, her faith becoming replaced with despair.
NO!
She blocked out all the noise, all the doubts! She would not fail her Goddess!
One technique remained, one that even the abomination could not account for, one that was gifted by the Prophet herself!
Zala’tazz would likely die, but if she did nothing, she would fail!
I will not fail! I will not be brought low by this monster, this wretch!
With a pull into her very soul, Zala’tazz activated the device on her chest.
…
Near the lake just outside of Anvilage, a bloated corpse of a mile long deep worm was being dissected by a group of Elfari from the Meras.
Leading said group was Tessa, who was at the moment consulting with the scientists on the way the Verdant Hood controlled the thing.
As they talked, a device on the monster activated, ripping out of the worm’s corpse, and began to fly towards the Highmount.
It would have likely made its journey, had Tessa not used her staff to intercept the device, pinning it to the end of her staff.
“Not so fast! Hah, gotcha!”
The tech-savvy Harrier grinned evilly as she began to delve into the device's secrets.
…
Chimera stood as the fire that the Inquisitor was absorbed, placed within her stomach as she turned to see what else the Hoodian would do.
She had hit some button on her chest and just… stopped.
“Erm… you alright?”
Zally seemed to be a bit perturbed, but she maintained her stance, hand outstretched and waiting for…something.
A minute passed, then two, then a full five.
“W-Where is it? Where is the DNA extractor?!”
Chimera felt Iaos tugging at her. Pulling her head down to better listen, she angled her head but kept her eyes on the now panicking scalekin.
“What’s up?”
Iaos spoke softly, “I saw this, you should attack her before whatever she does, happens.”
“Oh… wait what? Saw it? What's that mean?”
The Elementalist tugged on her ear, “focus, attack her already!”
“Ah, right!”
Readying a gravity punch with a shotgun punch inside it Chimera pulled back and held it there.
“Any last words Zally?”
The holy reptilian peered at her with worry, and soon was blubbering her bottom lip just as she realized that her last resort wasn’t coming.
“I surrender!” she held up her hands, her eyes bugging out as something left her body, along with all of her strength, all of her aura, and nearly all of her height.
What the hell is happening to her?
Chimera watched as the imposing Inquisitor shrunk to the size of a normal Verdant Hoodian. In fact, she looked like one of the soldiers she saw outside of the temple as well.
Wait…
Chimera pushed past the ‘Zala’tazz in front of her, rushing out into the open entrance to where the fighting was dying down after Bargo and Arrose had taken out the rest of the Hoodians.
However, one of the bodies on the ground was missing.
With a stretch of her tendril, Chimera hooked the surrendering Hoodian to her, pulling her up close.
“Where’s your High Inquisitor? Where’s Zala’tazz?”
The reptilian gulped, staring at Chimera with renewed fear.
“S-She’s returned to the Goddess… as all her champions do.”
Mera couldn’t believe what she was hearing, “what the hell does that even mean?!”
…
