@JFC: I actually revealed who both of them were, if you look carefully. lol (Or below at my comment to iacus)
@iacus: +5 to you. (I'm not sure my points are worth anything, though. haha)
@coachie: You also get +5.
@wordsworth: Think of it of having more to read, rather than missing chapters. lol And yes, you will find that Shizuka is pretty much your stereotypical twisted madman. Yay for Berryz, period.
@ferrar1: Unfortunately, the wolf girl isn't Nacchi, but I will set your mind at ease by telling you that Nacchi WILL be in this fic.
@rndmnwierd: I have no idea what you said in the first part of your post there.
@Ren: I so totally would, too. But he's probably dead now.
Probably.And um, yay for new chapter? I'm not so great at writing battle scenes. Enjoy.
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Chapter Six: BattleAs Saki’s small group made their way out of the cave and into the rain, a shriek echoed through the air, and it was all the little leader could do to keep Momoko from bolting right then and there. Eri began to tremble fitfully next to Mari, and she spoke for the very first time, startling Aika, who had begun to think the girl was mute as well as blind.
“There’s blood in the air… I can smell it…”
The tone in her voice was eerie, and it sent chills down Aika’s spine. Saki looked equally troubled, and as the shower beat down on them, she turned to look at all of them.
“That had to have been one of the others… It might not be anything big, but if one of them got hurt, we should probably go check it out, right…?”
Following the scream was a ferocious roar, a noise that none of them could register as being even remotely human. Koharu was terror-stricken at this point, and appeared to be frozen to the spot.
“You want to go TOWARDS whatever’s making that sound? I’d rather put a lot of distance in between it and us…”
The girls looked out towards the forest, the thick growth of trees not offering any hint as to what lay ahead. Aika closed her eyes, feeling the cold rain run down her face. There was another cry, and the roaring continued, louder this time.
We can’t just stand here…“What if it comes after us next…?” Risako asked, a quiver in her voice.
“Then I want to see what we’re up against before it sneaks up on us. Come on.” Saki began to run towards the source of the screaming, Momoko close behind her. Mari tugged Eri along after them, and even the reluctant Koharu followed, perhaps out of a morbid curiosity.
Risako made no move to continue onwards, and that left Aika to try and coax her along.
“What’s the matter?”
“It’s big… really big…”
“What is?”
“That thing…”
Aika was perplexed, and when she looked at the girl, she noticed that her eyes were glowing slightly. Perhaps she was tapping into her power somehow…
“Can you see it…?” She asked, eyes wide with realization.
The other female nodded. “Yes…” She answered, her whisper of a reply nearly obscured by the downpour. There was another loud roar. Whatever the other clones had encountered was getting really angry. As interesting as this was… Aika knew that they probably needed to catch up to the rest of the group.
“We should hurry, though…”
“Yeah.”
Risako seemed to snap out of it, and the two of them began to run like crazy after Saki and the others.
Towards what, however, only Risako knew…
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Just the stench of the thing was enough to make her sick.
It reeked of death and decaying bodies and the powerful, coppery smell of blood.
Disgusting.
The beast was a giant, lizard-like creature, covered in scales and spikes and possessing four powerful arms equipped with five deadly talons each. It had a huge mouth, lined with rows of sharp teeth that she knew would be the end of one of them if they were unfortunate to get close enough.
It had a long, whip-like tail, which had four pointed barbs on it that were hooked—for extra rip and tear action, she could only assume.
Goto Maki liked to look on the bright side of things, after all.
The annoying, hyper clone known as Sayumi had alerted herself and the others to the beast’s presence by screaming her head off when she stumbled upon it. Unfortunately, that only attracted the thing to them, and now here they were, trying to fight something that was about ten times their size.
And while she had claws and fangs and a furry little tail, all of these were practically useless at the moment.
Hitomi had recklessly flung herself at the thing to start off, but that resulted in her getting hurled across the clearing, and her flight was ended when she slammed hard into a tree. The girl was now unconscious on the ground, and to make matters worse, Sayumi would just NOT stop bawling.
The creature lashed out at them, and it was all she could do to keep the group moving in order to avoid being lacerated or impaled. And it was quickly getting tired of playing with them.
Without warning, one of the clones shot forward like Hitomi had made the mistake of doing earlier, racing straight for the beast. Maki waited for the sickening thud that was to follow, when suddenly the girl leapt out of reach of the creature’s sharp claws, scrambling up it’s arm and onto it’s back. She was the other clone that had been infused with animal DNA, the panther hybrid called Takahashi Ai.
The beast began to growl angrily once it realized that it had missed, and tried to grab the girl off of it’s back, rearing up unsteadily on it’s hind legs. Deciding to use this as a distraction, another clone, a very tall girl named Yurina, began to focus hard on a rather large rock nearby. After a moment or so it slowly began to rise into the air. Using her mind, she lobbed the projectile at the lizard’s head, and it connected, hard.
It let out a horrible wail, and the creature whipped its head back around to face them with a snarl. Though she applauded Yurina mentally for the effort, Maki really wished the girl hadn’t done that, because it only made the thing a lot angrier.
It started to thrash violently from side to side, knocking Ai off balance and to the ground. Before the cat girl could react and get away, the lizard grabbed her and brought her up to its’ face, causing the clone to let out a shriek. Those teeth were dangerously close, and she was mere moments away from being devoured whole, when a rapid succession of shots rang out through the air.
The little blasts of energy bounced harmlessly off of the lizard’s armor-like scales, but it turned nevertheless just in time to see Miki flying towards it’s face. And that was the last thing it saw out of that eye, as she planted a nice kick in the dead center of it.
As it writhed and bellowed in pain, Ai managed to slip out of the creature’s grasp, and when Miki landed on the ground, she immediately dragged the girl to her feet and back over to the others. Maki smirked at the metal-armed woman.
“
Now who’s playing the hero?”
“I only did it because where I come from it’s a crime to eat pretty girls like that.”
“You came from a test tube.”
“Shut up.” Miki returned, almost daring to stick her tongue out. Aya, Reina, and the rest of her group emerged from the forest, and as they joined the others, Miki gave the girl she had first tried to pick a fight with a good pat on the back. “Nice throw, Maasa.”
The female that had been gifted with super-human strength merely smiled in reply, shifting her attention to the monster.
“So how do we kill it?”
“Nothing’s worked so far. We’ve thrown big rocks at it, and shooting it doesn’t seem to do much… plus if you try to get too close, you end up like…” Maki nodded over towards Hitomi’s unconscious form. “Well… like that.”
Miki snorted, and looked as though she was about to utter a smart reply, when the beast whipped it’s tail around, aiming right for them. Everyone scrambled to get out of the way, save Maasa, who just gritted her teeth and braced herself.
The barbs on the thing’s tail slammed hard into her body, snapping as they came into contact with her diamond-hard skin. She skidded a little ways away from her original position from the impact, but was more or less unscathed. The lizard, however, was not, and Maki could smell the blood that oozed from the thing’s now broken tail.
Enraged, it charged at Maasa, snapping her up into its jaws with one fluid motion.
It was trying to slice her body up into smaller, swallow-able pieces that was the problem. The lizard’s teeth were unable to do any damage whatsoever, and a few of them actually broke during the process. Maasa was screaming various obscenities as all of this was going on, and the others seemed to be at a loss for what to do.
Fortunately, Saki’s group had finally arrived on the scene, an assortment of bewildered looks on their faces as they observed the sight before them. Apparently they had been expecting something a little more gruesome, and a little less… comical.
“What’s going on here?” The little leader asked, watching as the beast swung Maasa about in its’ powerful maw.
“She made it mad, so now it’s trying to eat her…” Maki replied, looking over the newcomers with dismay, as none of them looked as though they would be any help to the situation.
The beast was finally losing interest in the girl it had captured, and it spit her out once it was completely sure that she wasn’t edible. Maasa looked as though she was about to throw up as she trekked back towards the group, and she was covered in a slimy film of saliva, which smelled just as horrible as it looked. The ground shook as the monster stomped around, and it let out a loud snort before charging at the clones once more.
As everyone else fled, Saki was the one to hold her ground this time, and she raised her hands out in front of her body, eyes glowing a bright white-blue color. The air around her body hissed and crackled, and just as the creature was about to tear her to shreds, she delivered about 20,000 volts of pure electric current from her fingertips to its body.
There was a horrible wail of death as the beast was roasted from the inside-out, and the atmosphere was flooded with the scent of charred and burning flesh. With a snap, the small girl broke the current, and the creature fell to the ground, completely finished.
Silence enveloped the group as Saki turned to face them, her eyes returning to their normal color. Aika was both comforted and disturbed at such a display of power, and was only reassured by the knowledge that the female was on their side. And of course, the battle wouldn’t have been completely over without some words from Miki, who walked over to kick at the carcass after it had finished smoking.
“Damn. If it was that easy, we should have tried doing that in the first place.”