The|MULTIVERSE

EPISODE 17: Get Spriggan'd

A scruffy bushfiend frighteningly squalled across the battlefield, and Fae pierced through his trunk. She buzzed and blitzed around and within, busting holes through his bark, and ultimately, his tangled heart. Bushfiends had hearts made of...plant flesh; pulsating muscles comprised of dark essence that lasted no chance against the aethric streak of Fae's zippy massacre.

Nothing could stop her, her super-bee flight invisible by sheer speed. The bewildered bushfiends, who raced in desperation to unearth their stinging foe, were poorly unable to counter the fairy, but to Fae, the world lagged around her.

And she enjoyed every single second of it.

"One fiend, two fiends; three fiends more. Four fiends, five fiends; six no more!"

Those that survived the invisible menace advanced for the Shadow Tree's charred gates, which still flickered in blue embers from Ricven's aethric assault. Their charge frantic enough to stampede over another, crushing their own who were too slow to flee their inevitable deaths.

How could they forget the one that they could see?

Basil cut them off and welcomed their numbers head on with opened claws and fanged jaws. The mooks of Mertta skidded and fumbled, and the battle cat tilled the thrall a new set of asses as he locked his maw around one's neck, ripping its rugged throat, then pounced upon the next—then another.

Not one managed to dig a bloodcurdling claw into him.

With Fae at his side, Mertta's numbers dwindled quickly...sadly. And just when one believed it was in the clear, dragging himself into Mertta's black court, it squealed as a large set of cat teeth pierced its ass—and was dragged back into the carnage.

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Ricven tangoed with the Spriggan Queen Mertta as if it was his last. Edge Breaker aroused in its azure wonder, he advanced after Mertta, who lurched and weaved before him. His cleave the first to greet her, but the supple spriggan matron too limber—and oddly spectral—in her lumber form. She staved off Ricven's indomitable sword swings with rapid evade, Ricven kept coming. For an entity like Mertta—broad bodied in all the right places—Ricven found himself greatly diverted by this tree-woman's frisky dodge. If Mertta wasn't phasing out in a ghostly viridian streak, she bent and twirled pass his thrusts like a dancing tree trunk. The womanly fiend was fast, he gave her that much credit, but Ricven was more than just fast...he was stupid...stupid good.

The caged Yuka and high-hiding Rixxa watched like studious spectators as Mertta denied Ricven's mighty moves. Yuka pushed her hopes of victory to the limits; Rixxa marveled in popeyed panic. Never had the goblin seen a man of Ricven's power stack up against the terror of Mertta, and live. At the last of her phantom phase out, Mertta materialized behind an engrossed Ricven, who twirled on his heels as quick as Mertta appeared. In seconds, he swung Edge Breaker; an even slash and the blade cut loose its blue current.

To avoid Ricven at this rate meant one or two things: the spriggan queen was wicked lucky in her evasive maneuvers, or she was infused with a powerful concentration of nethra energy—the nefarious power that opposed Ricven's aethric force.

Oh! This heffa's ALL the way ready. Ricven thought to himself. The raw and evil energy Mertta revealed hit his nerves like devil fire. She's managed to tap into the nethra. Not even going to ask how...

He swiped his sword in a back spinning slash. The spriggan queen revoked him again. His backspin cost him to witness Mertta bend beneath his broad strike and crawled away like a grotesque spider. She climbed the walls of her chamber, shifting her body in a crackling pop, before freakishly returning herself back to proper form.