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Summoned by Monster Girls - Chapter 101
🕑 Added 2024-12-31 09:00:04 +0000 UTCThrowing myself into another roll, I growled as the sucking mud that the sand beneath my feet had become. It gripped my limbs and while I could power through it, the clinging weight of it threw off my balance.
A push with my thoughts and the Manipulate Element power scraped the sticky clumps off my body, causing them to rain back down to the floor of the arena. The action took little effort or mana, but it was still another distraction. The one thing that it couldn’t do though, was remove the water that had already soaked into my clothes.
My opponent grumbled happily, clearly amused at my state, and I shot the creature a glare.
“Sure, laugh it up. I regret calling you pretty earlier!” I snarled at the creature.
It responded with a glare in kind and the scales that covered the creature’s shoulders shifted before another series of water jets blasted out from under those scales, forcing me to dodge away, again.
And roll in the mud, again.
When I’d first stepped into the arena and spotted my opponent, I’d been caught up with how cute it had looked. The summoned animal was somewhat similar to a pangolin in shape, though rather than being the size of a small dog, it was almost six feet long and stood nearly three high at its humping back. The scales were a sandy brown shot through with threads of pink and white, giving it an almost marbled look. Rather than the large digging claws that pangolin normally sported on their feet, this creature had large, webbed paddles that it waddled on awkwardly as it sidled around to keep its front towards me.
The most annoying part, though, were the continuous high-pressure streams of water it shot out. I’d caught a glancing blow from one and it’d felt like getting hit with a fastball pitch. I was pretty sure that the only reason it hadn’t cut through my skin was the fact I’d started using the adaptations of the volcano snail to armor myself. The thin iron plates had deflected the blast, though tore several of them free in the process. It may not move quickly, but it was startlingly accurate with the bursts of pressurized water.
“Come on, Liam! You can do it!” Kassandra shouted from the sidelines. I fought the urge to look towards her, as I needed to be ready when this beastie fired its next shot at me. I knew they were safely off to one side, one of the first things that I’d done once I realized the threat this monster posed was move so that the girls wouldn’t be in the line of fire if I had to dodge suddenly.
I could probably get it from underneath with an earth spike. Don’t know if its belly is armored. But I’d rather not kill or injure the creature. It’s annoying the fuck out of me, but hasn’t actually hurt me. And it still is kinda cute.
Rather than roll out of the way on the next salvo, I ducked down and conjured up a barrier of rock to absorb the blow, wanting to confirm that the threat of injury was as real as I was guessing. The blast of water slammed into the three inch thick barrier of compressed sand and blew a large chunk of it off. Another blast followed the second a moment later and my barrier began to crumble rapidly.
Okay, I can’t stay here and just hide out. I need to finish this, I thought. Not being able to see my opponent made it hard to know which way it was looking. That, in turn, made it hard to decide which way to dodge around the barrier as well. And that thought gave me an idea.
So far, I’d been very sparing in my use of the Manipulate Element ability, far more than the other summoned monsters for this battle. And boy, did it mess with my head to realize that here I was, a human guy, competing in what amounted to a Pokemon battle on another planet.
God, my life is weird… but at least there are significantly more beautiful women in my life than in that cartoon, I thought with a grin.
Scooping up a handful of the muddy sand, I slung it to my right as a distraction before scurrying my way to the left. My mud-ball was shot from the air within a second of leaving cover, but it did the job and let me get a look at my opponent.
The sand around the bizarre water-gun pangolin was entirely dry, and I guessed that it must be somehow drawing the water up into its body to fire it with whatever bizarre organs it had under those scales.
The creature was angling the wrong direction to attack at the moment, but my movement drew its gaze and the creature’s eyes narrowed while it began to turn towards me, the flippers on its feet making for an ungainly waddle.
Grabbing the wet sand in front of me with the Manipulate Element power, I yanked it upwards to form barriers between me and the creature. The sand responded sluggishly at first, as the water imparted an increased level of stickiness to it initially.
But I didn’t need much.
The barrier that rose between me and the creature only needed to be about waist high to impede its vision, and while it had been accurate before, it needed to be able to see me to fire properly. The way its body sat with its head so low to the ground gave it a distinct disadvantage.
I kept moving, spreading the sandstone barrier up around the creature in a wide ring until it was encased. The monster responded by blasting a hole in the barrier to try to spot me, but I kept moving in a circle to get around it.
When it blew through the barrier, I’d urge new sandstone to grow up to repair or cover over the gaps in the wall, which wasn’t very thick, just enough to stand upright like a sandcastle, really. Pushing that much mana around put a strain on my mind and actually ended up rearranging the features of the arena floor, as I drafted more and more of the sandy bottom into service as a vision blocker. In several spots, I splashed over the stone floor rather than the thick sand that had been there moments before.
Growling in anger, my opponent began to fire wildly around itself, trying to knock down enough of my barriers that it could spot me, but I had already achieved my aim. Confuse it of my location and get closer. It only took a bit more maneuvering to find the spot that I wanted to strike from and lunge in. I’d wanted to leap over the barriers to just end this—the chafing of my wet pants was getting to be annoying—but I’d learned from Cerebaton that being in midair just meant that you couldn’t redirect yourself.
Instead, I just went through my own barriers with a vengeance.
Slamming through the thin sandstone was easy enough with my momentum and increased strength. It didn’t hurt that I could intentionally weaken the shaped sand to make it easier either, and that had the added effect of scattering a cloud of clumps into the air as distractions when I finally reached my opponent.
I didn’t know how much the critter weighed, but I was pretty certain that it didn’t weigh enough to stop me as I grabbed hold of its tail with the armored crab claws I’d shifted to take the place of my hands. The coconut crab claws had worked on the oversized bug from before, and they worked just as well now to shield my hands from the sharp scales of the creature while still letting me get a good grip on it.
Dropping into a lunge, I turned my running momentum into a heaving jerk that lifted the surprised creature off the ground and into the air. The water-pangolin-monster flailed its flippered limbs in protest, but I was already using its bodyweight and newly imparted momentum to guide it into a spin.
I made two complete turns before bringing the creature down like I was driving a railroad spike with a maul. I knew that I could have just thrown the beast at its summoner, or even one of the nearby walls, and ended it that way. But I was still trying to be sportsmanlike in this competition. No reason to excessively hurt the creature.
So I’d released my hold on the sandy walls and actually pulled the sand together into a gigantic pile so that it would muffle the impact when I brought the creature down on its back, hard.
The scaled monster let out a sharp grunt of pain at the impact and began flailing its limbs to try to flip over, but I was already moving and had my clawed hand fastened over its neck before it could really get enough air back to think straight, let alone escape.
“Yield!” The shout came from the other side of the arena and I stepped back, releasing the creature as the resonant note of Rainfist’s horn signaled the end of the match. Only when I was a good four steps away from the creature did I look up to see its summoner, a petite young woman with fox ears and a puffy red tail scampering over with a worried look on her face.
“It should be fine. I just knocked the air out of it,” I said gently, getting a concerned frown from the smaller girl, though she didn’t slow her approach.
“If you are really sincere, will you help me roll Molly over so I can look at her back?” The young woman asked, her voice surprisingly high for someone who had to be of college age.
Shrugging, I stepped forward again and squatted next to the water creature.
“Are you going to let me help you, Molly?” I asked the creature, and got a snort of irritation from the beast, but it continued to flail its limbs and wriggle to try to turn over now that I had released its throat.
Taking that as agreement, I bent and dug my still-shifted hands underneath the creature to roll it over. The water-monster let out a bleat of surprise at being airborne again, but relaxed as soon as I set it back on its feet.
“There you go, Molly. Go let your summoner have a look at you, will you?” I laughed, and the water monster huffed in irritation before waddling over to hide behind the smaller girl, who was trying to split her attention between scowling at me and inspecting her friend.
Dipping the two of them a brief bow, I turned and slopped through the muddy sand back to where my girls waited.
Kassandra was quick to cast a pair of spells at me, the first one healing the bruise on my side and then the second banishing the water from my clothes. This left them feeling oddly stiff, like they’d just been starched, but I bore it with a smile and scooped my dwarf lamia up even as she was tucking her spell rod away.
“Liam!” Kassandra squealed in protest, nearly elbowing me in the nose as she threw her arms around my neck to steady herself. I just laughed at her faux pout as her scaled tail slipped around my waist to hug me tight.
“He just knew what you were planning to do next and decided not to wait,” Rieka said with a grin, accepting the kiss on the cheek as our group of four trooped back into the stone hallway and up into the stands once more.
“Liam seems to be good at anticipating ambushes,” Jane piped up, the energetic mouse woman bouncing ahead of us with a grin.
“Anticipation will only take you so far.” The cutting words came from behind Jane and startled her enough that she tripped and nearly tumbled back down the stairs onto us, but Shayla was quick to dart forward and catch the smaller woman while I glared up at the speaker.
The trio of wolf kin women from before stood at the head of the stairs, the one in front standing with her arms crossed over her chest and scowling at our group.
“Oh, I don’t know. Anticipation can be one of the best seasonings for something, like reven—” Kassandra began acidly, before Rieka interrupted her.
“You are in the way, move,” my wolfish princess said in a cool tone as she stepped around to stand in front of the hip Kassandra was currently riding.
My redheaded lover began wriggling in my arms until I released her and let the serpentine woman drop back to the ground. Kassandra’s hand remained on her holstered spell rod the entire time, but let Rieka handle this. I could tell from the way Kassandra’s shoulders shook in anger that she really wanted to tear into these three, but it would be better to avoid it if possible.
“You waste your time associating with this common trash, Princess,” simpered the wolf woman on the right, her ears laying back submissively while she frowned in concern. “You should be building your alliances and working to keep your reputation up. We just want what is best for you is all, and worry about your safety in this company.”
A glare directed my way punctuated the speaker’s words, but I just watched them passively and waited to see what my girls would do. Shayla had drawn Jane off to the side, so it was only Rieka and Kassandra between me and the trio. They had the high ground being above us on the stairs, but that didn’t mean much when I could turn the stairs against them if I needed to. The fight with Molly had drained a good chunk of my mana, but I still had more than enough to deal with these three from a distance, if needed.
“A likely story. You three are impeding us returning to our seats. I ask you again, move aside so we may pass. That or descend and stop blocking the stairs.”
“Princess, that creature with you is dangerous…” the one in the lead said in a stage whisper, her eyes darting from Rieka to me once more. “I worry that it is going to turn on you one of these days and harm you. Not to mention what the gutter-worm might attempt to earn a coin.”
“I’d be a shit guardian if I wasn’t dangerous,” I cut in, setting one hand on Kassandra’s shoulder to restrain the woman. My desire to be patient had gone out the window when the woman insulted Kassandra. “And if you continue to insult those under my charge, I will take exception to it. Did you forget my last warning?”
My voice pitched down into a growl and I noticed Shayla twitch in surprise at it, both her and Jane turned to look at me in surprise, but I remained focused on the trio.
“See! Princess, this is exactly why you should be careful—eep!” the speaker began, malicious glee dancing in her eyes while her puffy tail flapped back and forth, clearly excited that I was helping to prove her point. Excited, that was, until she triumphantly glanced at my face.
I’d waited for her to look back at me after exulting to my wolf princess, and then let my Shape-Shifting out to play. My skin thickened and shifted colors to pitch black. My mouth spread and lips peeled back to nearly my ears as my lower jaw distended and opened to reveal barbed teeth.
The trio shrieked almost perfectly in unison and promptly fled back up the stairs in a flurry of flailing limbs and tails.
By the time Rieka turned to see what it was that startled the three, I’d returned my features to normal and was just staring after them with a smirk.
“What was that?” Rieka asked waspishly.
“What?” I did my best to feign innocence.
“What did you do?” Rieka pressed, her brows knitting. “I was about to tear into them for ignoring me, and then they race off like a devil is chasing them.”
“Oh, I just reminded them of a past warning, is all,” I said offhandedly with a shrug.
“Liam’s scary,” Jane said quietly, and I was reminded of the fact both she and Shayla had been looking at me when I’d intimidated that trio. Wincing, I turned to apologize to the mouse woman.
Jane didn’t look scared, though. She had an expression of intense curiosity on her cute features, her nose wiggling while her tail flicked back and forth above her head. Shayla had a thoughtful look on her face as well, mirroring my stance with Kassandra by standing behind Jane with her hand on the mouse woman’s shoulder.
“Ah, sorry about that, you two. Hope it didn’t startle you very much?” I apologized. My words got a sunny smile from Shayla and a shake of the head from Jane.
“What was up with your teeth there? They looked… weird. I’ve never seen teeth like that,” Jane asked after a moment, while Rieka huffed in irritation at being ignored.
To placate my wolfish princess, I shifted to wrap an arm around her shoulders and pull her to my side. Rieka fought it for just a moment before allowing me to hug her close enough to whisper in her ear.
“I needed to remind them who is looking out for all four of you, not just my princess. I apologize for usurping your authority there, love.” The statement relaxed Rieka, and the wolf woman folded herself into my side with a sigh and an understanding nod.
With that particular problem handled, I turned back to the others. Kassandra had joined Shayla and Jane in turning to stare up at me, but she had a smirk on her lips now.
“Shall we go have a seat? I’d like a chance to rest. I’m surprised they are getting us all the way through the semifinals today, and I want to be sure I’m ready for my last fight of the day.”
“Fine, but you need to answer Jane’s question, and I want to see these teeth,” Kassandra insisted, pouting cutely up at me.
I shrugged and ruffled her hair, getting a noise of protest from the smaller woman and a slap on the stomach for my efforts. Apparently, she’d done something special with her curls today and didn’t appreciate me messing them up.
We shuffled around a bit and headed up the stairs with Rieka in the lead this time and Shayla at the rear. Kassandra and Jane were on either side of me, as those two were the most curious about the teeth in question. I shifted them again to show Kassandra before returning them to normal to be able to speak properly.
“Okay, so they were from a creature called a crabeater seal, which is badly named as it doesn’t actually eat crabs…”
Comments
vardic d
Me too. Interesting is a word for it.
Freya
Tyftc had me looking up crabeater seal teeth and they are .... interesting
