Giygas's Spawn
The First Confrontation
Part 6
Ness jumped up and grabbed the flashlight. He shined the weak beam around the small underground room to make sure everyone was alright, and began yelling above the noise to them.
"WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE!" He yelled, as the shrieks and roars from the cavern came closer. No one seemed to have any argument with Ness’s reasoning. First, they weren’t prepared to fight. Second, they would never defeat this monster under these conditions. If they fought, they would all be trapped, pinned by a creature that was nearly 10 times their size.
Everyone made a fast break for the exit. Ness followed behind to make sure everyone got out alright. He could almost feel the heat from the breath of the monster at his back. He wanted nothing more at that second than to be outside that tunnel.
Everyone scrambled out of the small hole in the ground. They felt the ground shaking still, and heard a distant roaring. The strange thing was that the sound wasn’t coming near them, it was going away. Everyone collapsed on the ground, partly from the exhaustion of scrambling up the long rope ladder used to exit the tunnel, and partly because they had not yet gathered their wits from the surprise from the monster.
"That was the scariest thing that has ever happened to me. I thought we were going to die in there..." said Paula, not looking at anything, but staring into space as if in shock. She seemed to shudder with fear every few seconds.
Jeff spoke up. "At least we made it out alright. Why in the world did that monster retreat? That makes no sense...He had us where he wanted us!"
"Perhaps we have been fooled by this monster. Perhaps he hasn’t finished with us yet," Poo said, with an eerie, monotonous voice.
"Poo’s right. We can’t stay in this spot, because right below us appears to be its temporary base. There’s nothing else that could have dug a cavern that big. I wish I had gotten a good look at that th-"
Not far away, the ground bulged. Ness alerted everyone, and they all stood up. Poo drew his sword. He had taken it back to Dalaam with him, and a swordsmith tempered it. The tempering process strengthened the steel blade, making it hundreds of times stronger. Poo had earlier demonstrated this to Ness by drawing his sword, and then plunging it into a large rock. Ness figured that the blade would shatter, and make no more than a scratch on the rock. He was awestruck when the blade went straight through the rock, making no visible cracks. The blade must have been incredibly sharp to penetrate a rock, and Poo must have had incredible strength to shove it through.
Ness reached for the handle of his bat, which was sticking out of his backpack. Paula had left her favorite weapon, a magic frying pan, at her house. Jeff had come prepared, bringing with him an assortment of new weapons.
Spikes began to emerge from the sandy ground. The spikes were much larger than Ness had remembered them. The two claws of the monster emerged no more than 20 feet in front of them. Ness was amazed; the monster he had seen was surely not this big!
The monster finally emerged. It looked like it had before, except about twice the size. It appeared to have a combination of exoskeleton and skin covering its spiky body. Its neck had many large vertebrate on the outside, looking like the neck braces car accident victims wore. The head of the monster at the end of the long neck was much like the bleached skulls found throughout the desert, except it had no horns. The eye sockets were black, and you could see a very dark red light emanating from them. The jaw was hinged, and the teeth of the monster were razor sharp, some of them more than 5 inches long. The arms of the beast looked like the arms of a crab, except much longer. They were separated by three joints, and the ends were large, spiky claws. The claws looked extremely dangerous. Poo noticed that while the spawn was emerging from the underground, a small boulder got caught in its right claw. It smashed the boulder like a dirt clod. The legs were strange, and seemed out of place. The structure of the legs was the same as the arms - like a crab. There was a thick layer of exoskeleton covering much of the legs, although you could see the inner-leg in the spots where no exoskeleton was covering. The abdomen, or main body, of the monster was only partially covered with an exoskeleton. The back had about 5 or 6 large spikes, probably 4 feet in length. The underside of the monster had little protection - a thin layer of exoskeleton that already appeared to be cracking. There appeared to be muscles, like tendons, attaching arms and legs to the spiky body. There were also muscles connecting one joint to another.
Jeff had to look up to see the dark red and black monster in front of them. It stood nearly 25 feet tall. Jeff figured that it weighed over 20 tons. He prepared for a long battle.
****
Ness attacked first. He had confidence to do so because he knew his friends were backing him up. Ness leaped into the air with his bat and came down upon the head of the monster, which was rather low to the ground. Ness made contact with the bony head of the monster and realized instantly that it was a mistake. The head of the monster didn’t move. Ness’s body absorbed all the shock, rattling his joints. He fell to the ground on his back and blacked out.
Paula gasped, and realized that the monster had Ness right where he wanted him. Paula watched in horror as the monster raised its huge left claw, preparing to shred Ness to pieces. As she realized what was happening, Paula became enraged. She closed her eyes, and concentrated deeply. Jeff looked over at Paula and saw a strange, blue glow surrounding her. Paula was manipulating her favorite PSI power, PSI Freeze Omega. The blue glow suddenly condensed, and shot towards the monster like a laser. The incredible force of the omega level attack sent the monster reeling. It fell backwards, and ice slowly formed all around the creature.
Jeff knew he only had a few seconds to run and get Ness before the monster thawed. He grabbed his gun and ran towards Ness. He bent over to pick him up, and realized that the monster had already thawed! The body temperature of this thing had to be incredible, more than 200 degrees. He saw steam rising as the melted ice began to bubble and boil on the back of the monster. He felt a blast of heat as the monster turned towards them and roared ferociously. Jeff pulled his new weapon, a modified, double-barrel, fission powered Moon Beam gun. Jeff remembered that the monster had little protection on its underside, and fired for its stomach.
The monster shrieked louder than ever as a huge blast of energy from the gun ripped through its thin layer of exoskeleton on its underside. It fell backwards, and down into the hole from which it emerged. Jeff picked up Ness and slung him over his shoulder. He yelled at Poo to teleport them to Deep Darkness. Poo, without knowing Jeff’s reasons, concentrated and began the teleportation process. Before long, they were all knee-deep in the muddy water of Deep Darkness, safe from the ravages of the monster. For the time being.