The Morningstar Brigade

Chapter 34

XXXIV

URIEL

Day Five. Eight Days Remain.

Brigade Food Reserve, Haven

"I said, who's interrupting my meal?" the thin, sickly-looking Nephilim bellowed as he continued to shovel everything in sight into his mouth.

"I am," Artemis said, sprinting forward and leaping in front of the Nephilim's ramshackle food-throne without missing a beat. She pulled her sword arm back and then thrust the blade into the enemy's rapidly expanding and increasingly brilliant belly with all the force she could must. The tip slid in, sinking all the way down to the hilt and making a sickening 'shlorp' sound. The disturbing Nephilim's blank eyes lazily glazed over and the expansion stopped.

"She... she did it," Uriel said, astounded. "She took it down in less than thirty seconds."

Artemis shot a cocky smirk back at the Black Cats. "Patron saint of stubborn? Please." She blew a strand of misplaced hair off of her eye. "More like the patron saint of kicking ass."

The team didn't even have the time to roll their eyes at Artemis' admittedly terrible wordplay before a gurgling noise began rumbling from deep within the Nephilim's digestive tract.

"Hey, uh, Black Cat One? You might want to get out of there," Isaac said quickly. "I'm pretty sure this isn't over. I'm going to put this sensitively: I think he's about to... engorge."

Artemis frowned beneath her mask and began frantically tugging on her sword arm. It was buried deep in the once-again expanding rolls of fat, despite her desparate attempts to get free. "It won't budge," she said, urgency building in her voice, "The blade's stuck, I can't move."

"Well can't you just detach the sword or something?" Uriel yelled.

"I don't know, Black Cat Three. Can you just detach your arm whenever you feel like it?" she barked back, pulling furiously.

The gurgling noise grew louder and louder as the Nephilim's eyes shot open wide again. "That hurt a little bit," he grumbled. "I think I'm going to... going to..." The Nephilim's mouth opened wide.

"This night just keeps getting better." Artemis looked up at the Nephilim's face with horror as a deluge of half-digested green slime rained down on her.

"Black Cat One, are you ok?" Uriel asked, running towards her.

Artemis was silent for a moment as she gave his sword one final tug. With the slime greasing the blade, it at last managed to slide out with another uncomfortable "shlorp" sound as she tumbled backwards. She stood and held up her arms, looking down with revulsion at the bits and pieces of wet food now covering her clothes. "Listen to me very carefully. No one. Writes about this. In the mission report." She turned back to the Nephilim, which was clutching its stomach and reeling backwards from nausea. "Hey, ugly," Artemis yelled at the Nephilim, wiping off her sword.

The Nephilim looked around confused, his belly a torrent of unnatural light and tulmultuous contortions.

"No, the other two-ton garbage bag with arms and legs," Artemis said through her mask with an irritated roll of her eyes. "You got a name?"

"They call me Eglon," he grumbled back, his blank eyes staring Artemis down as his very face began to ever-so-slowly fatten. His voice had grown from that of a scrawny twig to the deep bellow of a being twice his size. All the while, his stomach continued to slosh violently.