{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/black-nerve/chimhop/06",
  "path": "/posts/black-nerve/chimhop/06",
  "publishedAt": "2022-03-06T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "The nymphs are blown back by the blastwave of the explosion. The beach\nbecomes but ash and smoke.\n\n\"We need to run,\" Oocid says.\n\nThe other nymphs are struggling to stand, recovering from the trauma of\nthe blast.\n\nMinutes later, they're climbing up the slope they came down, but spare a\nglance behind them. The smoke and flames are clearing.\n\nThere's two immediately conflicting facts.\n\nA new pit yawns deep into the shore --- like Unodha had used a sand form\ntechnique to dig in and weather the blast. But there are two charred\nbodies above ground, one lying atop the other.\n\nThe worst is confirmed after a dread moment of watching. The rise and\nfall of an abdomen.\n\nMore than that: the back and forth of mandibles working to chew. Unodha,\nclinging to life, has the mentor's entrails in her mouth and devours\nthem.\n\nAfter swallowing, more of her moves. We saw the prelude of this when she\ntransformed the beasts. She swells, muscles crawling to life across her\nhusk of a body and attaching to limbs, like a colony of worms wriggling\nand then biting down.\n\nA mewling hound, caught at the edge of the blast, ambles over. It lies\ndown, and Unodha rips out its throat and starts to eat it. Blood gushes\nand splashes all over her, and this just accelerates the restoration.\n\nThe nymphs start climbing again, faster, but it's not enough.\n\nBy the end, Unodha looks more canine than mantid. The red flesh covers\nmost of her. From her side, where an imago might have nonfunctional\nwingcases, instead two limbs unfold or evert, born of liquid muscle and\nskin.\n\nYou could call it a pair of bat wings, or gaunt claw arms, and neither\nwould be incorrect.\n\nThe bane begins to step toward the ridge.\n\nOocid looks at the nymphs with him, and makes a calculation.\n\n\"Fihra, Ooliri, Yugen, with me. We're fighting.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"No way she's at full power after all that. We've still got soldier\npills in us. Let's go.\"\n\n\"What about me?\"\n\nOocid smiles, but something's missing from it. \"It is the duty of the\nWindborne Wardens to defend you. Remember that.\"\n\nHe lets go, and slides down the slope.\n\nFihra goes next. Then the pawns.\n\nAwelah almost follows. Then Fihra gives her a look.\n\nAwelah and Makuja climb up to the top of the ridge and with how close\nUnodha now stands, team nineteen is in no position to see those whom\nthey're defending.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nThe nymphs stop even as Unodha is approaching, suddenly overcome.\n\nIt's overwhelming. Standing before this monster. Yawning, incongruous\nmaw of teeth. Serrated claws. Mass far beyond what a mantid frame should\nsupport. Blood crawling. Eyes that are the eyes of death.\n\n\"This feeling...\"\n\n\"Killing fear. A will to maim and destroy so powerful it spills out,\nbecomes palpable. Enough to paralyze the weak,\" Oocid says.\n\n\"But it can't stop us! We are Windborne!\" Fihra yells and takes a step\nforward. The others, inspired, follow her example.\n\nIt's dark on the battlefield. Lingering smoke hangs above them, casting\nshadows over them all.\n\nAt the front, Fihra engages with sword, and Oocid with his staff. Each\nis able to fend off either of the fiend's wing-claws.\n\nThe pawns make to encircle her, attack from her undefended flanks.\n\nIt's an error. Unodha spins. Her hindlegs kick out, and claws dig\ninto Yugen. You can see her gullet emerging, severed, from her thorax.\nMuscles spill out alongside everted tracheae still flaring, trying to\nconvey breath. Her dorsal nerve is cut, and she cannot move. She falls,\nnever to rise.\n\nThe monster's forelegs, though, are reaching for Ooliri. Tarsus wraps\ntight around his neck and lifts him up. Oocid swings down with his\nstaff, but Unodha's arm could be a stone pillar for all the difference\nit would make. A wing-claw brushes him aside, carelessly, leaving long\ngashes.\n\nTwo limbs reach for Ooliri, as a wing-claw goes to the ground to support\nher. One grabs hold of his arm, pulling on it, and another is swiping\nfor his abdomen, now hanging beneath him.\n\nEven in this danger, there's a part of him still analyzing. Why is she\ndoing this? It doesn't seem the quickest way to kill me. Oh.\n\nShe's playing with us.\n\nIt's the last thing Ooliri can think before his mind is lost to fear and\npain. He feels something tearing in his arm, and wishes that was the\nworst. The monster is clawing at his abdomen --- it's reaching,\npunching, in.\n\nOoliri feels his heart.\n\nSo does she.\n\nThen she pulls. Rips the nymph's heart out of his abdomen. Holds the\nbloody, bouncing thing for a moment while his brother\nwatches. Squeezes it.\n\nEats it.\n\nOocid roars and charges at the fiend. He gets one swing and a sick\ncrunch of his staff before a single full-force punch to the head sends\nhim flying back sliding and scraping across the ground. He doesn't get\nup. His dear older brother doesn't move.\n\nOoliri, still watching with darkening vision, tries to say something and\ncannot. He's dropped, a discarded toy.\n\nFihra is the last one standing. She holds her sword high against the\nmonster, undaunted like a hero.\n\n\"How does it feel to be the best of your sorry lot?\" Uhodha gargles,\nbarely intelligible. \"To be the best, and still worthless? I don't need\nto kill you. If you run screaming, I will let you escape.\"\n\nFihra can only articulate two words. \"You'll pay.\"\n\n\"I won't.\"\n\nFihra steps forward. She thrusts and sinks her sword into bleeding meat.\nDodges around wing-claws. Ducks under forelegs. Steps over kicks.\n\nShe truly is the best of team nineteen.\n\nIt's not enough. She's a wretch, and her opponent fought a fiend mentor\nwhile outnumbered and lived.\n\nTired, injured, and down her primary weapon, Unodha is still bigger,\nstronger, faster. Better.\n\nShe makes a sign. Fihra trips; the ground had sunk beneath her.\n\nThe nymphs lies there. She feels the killing fear reach a crescendo. She\nknows she's lost. She sobs once.\n\nThen Unodha's leg comes down like a judge's hammer on her head, and then\nher skull and eyes and brain is so much gore. Fihra is dead.\n\nOoliri, shadows dancing across his vision, watches this. Did his vesper\nhave something to do with why he was still hanging on?\n\nThe last thing he sees, before a final darkness takes him, is Makuja\nclimbing down the slope and slinking up to Unodha.\n\nShe doesn't attack --- neither do. Makuja offers clothing.\n\nIt's Awelah's cloak. A single drop of blood falls from it.\n\nMakuja looks up. Unodha nods at her.\n\nAnd Ooliri watches her walk off with her master.\n\nThen he does not see, and does not think.",
  "title": "An Overburn"
}