Reborn: High Strung | ONC2024

Chapter 8

The giant sticky tongue lashes out twelve feet from the mouth of the sethra beast, clutching itself on the giant mushroom stem. The sethra beast was a nine-foot-long chameleon. Its two toes gripped the stem as its head lurched forward aggressively. Meira dives forward into a roll, spinning around and kneeling up next to Zev, looking up at the predator as its tongue slams the ground where she had just been. It quickly whips back into the creature's mouth, ripping up the dirt and mud powerfully. Its head jitters slightly to the side, one small eye swirling around until locking onto them and focusing again. Meira's diamond-like eyes light up with her sethra scanning the beast as fast as she can before shouting out, "It's a flame! Let's split up!"

Meira rushes to the right as Zev calls out an understanding agreement and darts to the left of the creature. The chameleon beast jerks its head forward and follows them with the eyes on the side of its head, one precise black bead for each of them. Making a swift, seemingly calculated decision, the beast leaps off of the mushroom with the strength of a big cat, chasing down Meira quickly, mouth open, ready to lash out another strike from its sticky tongue. Zev watches, skidding to a stop and trying to think. His muscles were all still on fire from overdoing it with his sethra earlier; did the beast know that? Meira swivels and puts a hand in front of her silently. Black sethra swirled around her fingers and blasted out at the feet of the creature. Erecting from the ground came a black dome of energy. Clumsily, the sprinting beast ran into the dome before slowing to a stop in the center of it. It was barely big enough to contain the creature, but it stayed inside, staring at the ground and tilting its head at odd angles like it was seeing something in the dirt. Zev takes the opportunity to run over to Meira's side; she was panting and sweating, her hands shivering as she maintained the illusory dome around the creature. "Get the cap, and let's run. We can't fight this thing right now." Her voice was shaking softly.

"Got it." Zev said to stay as calm as he could while taking off toward the cap, lifting it up with both hands, and placing the center on top of his head to help support it while he carries the thick mushroom top. Meira nods to him and starts to back up into the light rain, trying to maintain the illusion around the beast. Unfortunately for the both of them, when she looked to the dome, the beast was no longer inside, or anywhere in sight for that matter. Meira drops the sethra dome as fast as she can, looking around herself and trying to sense the creature. Zev shivers, realizing he is in a vulnerable position now. A branch crunching behind him was the only warning he got before hearing the wind whipping around the flinging tongue barreling toward his back. Zev drops the cap behind him, a bit too slowly, in a vague attempt to avoid the sticky tongue. The powerful tongue slams into Zev's back, knocking the wind out of him with a harsh crunch sound. The cap falls back heavily on the tongue, sticking to the top of it along with the back of Zev's shirt. Meira cries out, "Zev, get out of your shirt. now!"

Zev tries to catch his breath while desperately grabbing at the knife he kept in a sheath on his lower back. The beast started retracting its whip-like tongue quickly, sending Zev and the cap flying toward its open maw. Zev felt the wind zipping around him as he grabbed the collar of his shirt, tugging it forward and shoving the knife up through it to bust the sturdiest part of the material. He was just about to slam into the creature's mouth when he tore through the weaker part of his shirt and got sent flying out of it, rolling across the mud near the beast's two-toed feet, narrowly missing it as the cap slammed into its face, making it backup, and shake its head in a daze as it shook the hit off slowly. Now shirtless and still gripping the knife, Zev slowly wobbled to his feet in the muddy terrain, his eyes locked on the creature's leg near him. His sethra may be exhausted, but adrenaline had fixed his physical problems momentarily. Zev lets out a yell of anger, leaping forward and jamming his knife into the beast's left ankle deeply, his right hand gripping the handle until his knuckles were white, and his left hand forcing the bottom of the handle deeper in with the sounds of cracking and clicking. The chameleon beast rears up and roars out a squeaky, pained cry, its colors shifting quickly from green and yellow to a dark red and blue. "You're going down!" Zev shouts, ripping his knife through the beast's ankle and spraying thick red blood all over the mud under them, causing the creature to lean over to its right side too far. It falls hard on its side, lashing out its limbs and tail violently.