Frenzy & Torch

Chapter 40: Frog

Elizabeth and Annabelle were staring at thousands of faces, arms, and legs that seemed prosthetically meshed together. The amalgamation of people comprised a massive centipede creature that used its victims' legs to trudge along.

Annabelle felt chills run along her body. "Oh, my God."

The centipede was escorted by a dozen brown hunks of rectangular flesh that levitated above the ground. Extending out of their bodies were hinged lobes like that of a Venus flytrap. Whatever passively spooled within them emitted a blue light in their mouths.

Elizabeth picked up her headset and looked over to Annabelle. "The fuck is our callsign again?"

"X-Ray-One-Eight," Annabelle said, her eyes refusing to look away from the grotesque abomination.

"X-Ray-One-Five, this is X-Ray-One-Eight, you've got something coming to the base. It's some kinda centipede thing made of people, it's big as fuck, and it's got escorts. Can we whoop their asses?"

"You're cleared to engage, X-Ray-One-Eight."

Elizabeth tucked away the microphone and drew her sword. Before she could fly out of the cave and attack the beast, a wave of aurora-esque green light passed over the sky. In a split second, she went from feeling nimble to grounded like back home. "I wouldn't try flying if I were you."

"Oh, no," Annabelle muttered as she tried to expel lightning, fire, or any kind of energy from her hand. Nothing came out of her. "It's that German stuff, the Zauberabwehr! My spells aren't working!"

"Welcome to life for everybody else," Elizabeth said as she looked through the scope mounted on her assault rifle's carrying handle to get a better view of the threat. She would need something bigger to take them down. "Make yourself useful and grab me the rocket launcher from your cloak."

Annabelle searched for the weapons but felt nothing except miscellaneous objects. Her hand brushed over Fuzzy's head and she felt him chewing on something. She yanked him out of the cloak and was shocked to see metal shards falling out of his mouth. "Fuzzy, did you eat our weapons?!"

Elizabeth looked at them with a scowl. "Really? Your fuckin' rabbit ate all our shit?"

"Hey, leave him alone! He doesn't know any better!" Annabelle said.

"There's not knowin' better and there's bein' fuckin' retarded!"

Annabelle clutched Fuzzy to her chest and gently stroked the top of his head. "Don't listen to her, Fuzzy, she's just upset."

"You two knuckleheads stay in here," Elizabeth hissed as she threw the assault rifle to the side. "Since you're helpless without your magic, I'll go out there and kill these motherfuckers myself, but you'll owe me for this one."

Annabelle said nothing as Elizabeth leapt from the ledge and attacked. Explosions followed seconds after.

"Helpless, huh?" Annabelle said. She turned Fuzzy over and smacked his back until he vomited the rocket launcher. It was smothered in bile, but the small screen attached to its side flickered to life and showed it was still operational. "Thank Sorcelon you didn't chew that."

Meanwhile, Elizabeth drew her sword and slashed through a couple hover escorts, sending yellow fluids and organs flying through the air. She dodged multiple plasma beams the others fired at her and leapt at the main creature, grabbing onto the side of its face. A tongue-like tendril erupted from its mouth and lunged at her. She caught it single-handedly and frowned.