Chapter 30: Battle in the Caves

"Hey, Skippy. Are we gonna be okay?"

Two Kessu boys stand and wait nervously while Lele and Megla dole out the gadgets and goodies Soren left them. The pile of fifteen items quickly depletes as Lele hands a square cube to her grandmother and other items to the remaining Kessu males.

The first Kessu boy, a thin and gangly-looking fellow named Rags, looks at his shorter and fatter cousin, Skippy. Rags stands only a few inches above Skippy, yet his long, pointy cat ears make him appear more than half a foot taller. Were Admiral Rodriguez to stand next to them, Rags’ ears would just barely reach above the Terran’s knees, while Skippy wouldn’t come close.

"Nothin’ to worry about," Skippy says, as the fat cat slaps his gut. "Don’t you see? That mutant Kessu lady seems pretty tough. I’m sure she can smack some monsters around. Just ’cause she doesn’t got any hair doesn’t mean she’s sick. And our little cousin’s a genius. She can handle all of this."

"B-but… Lele’s just a little kid," Rags says, wringing his paws together. "She’s even younger than us!"

"Psh. I’m ten, you’re eight, and she’s six. The difference in age ain’t that big," Skippy replies, oddly confident in his assessment. "Besides. Lele’s always going over to visit Crazy Lorrie in the big city. Lorrie’s a real wacko, but you can’t deny she’s one smart broad."

While the two Kessu boys talk, Lele walks over and waves her hands. "Hey! You two, stop standing around and blabbering! Take these and get ready to move!"

She hands both of the boys a foot-long metal baton, seemingly ordinary objects that don’t immediately brook their interest. Without explaining their purpose, Lele walks back over to the pile and hands out the last few items to the rest of the Kessu males.

Rags clutches his baton nervously. His big, wide, watery eyes examine the device with some apprehension. "W-what the heck is this? Are we gonna battle those monsters with a couple of metal-sticks?! Aw, geez, Skip. I’m no good in a fight!"

Skippy curls the sides of his mouth into a cocky smirk. The black-furred chonker barely gives a glance at the baton before rolling his eyes. "Heh. You’d be useless without me, Rags. This is clearly a Boggle-Shmoomalizer, my boy!"

Rags frowns. "A… a what?"

"You know. A wizard wand! Sheesh. Can’t you see the little claw-doohickey on the handle? You just point the wand at the wall, squeeze this little metal piece here, and…"

Skippy pauses for dramatic effect. He holds up the baton and rests one of his claws on a metal trigger on the bottom. After he points it at the wall and squeezes the trigger, a blast of electricity fires from the front!

KZZAT!

All of the Kessu meow in alarm and hiss, turning to look at the commotion with fearful eyes. Skippy drops the wand in fright and jumps back, his heart racing. "Oh, gosh! Th-that… that wasn’t what I was expecting!"

"Skippy! Stop messing around!" Lele hisses. She trots over, grabs the wand, and slaps it back in his paw. "This isn’t a toy! It’s a weapon! Don’t use it until I explain how it works!"

After she walks away again, Skippy and Rags share a look of apprehension. They glance at the charred-black wall where the lightning-like energy blast struck, then at each other.

"H-hey!" Skippy hisses. "Don’t point that thing at me!"

"I’m not!" Rags protests. "You pointed yours at me first!"

"Nuh-uh!"

"Uh-huh!"

"Nuh-uh!"

"Uh-huh!"

While they argue, Lele claps her paws together.

"Everyone! We’re leaving now! Listen carefully! These tools are our ticket out of here, so I’ll explain what they do before we start moving!"

The kitten swiftly begins to explain the functions of the tools Soren left behind. Aided by the PDA in her paws, she details not only their default features, but their optional gimmicks as well. She keeps her words simple, dumbing down the usage of each piece of technology in such a way that even the technologically-illiterate villagers can understand her.

Matriarch Baaru stares, wide-eyed, at the one-foot-squared metal cube Lele gave her. "Th-this box is amazing! The Precursors possess powerful magic, indeed!"

Skippy and Rags examine their batons carefully as well.

"So this is called a ‘Stun Baton,’" Rags says, awe in his eyes. "Wow, it’s like a weapon from the legends!"

Skippy rolls his eyes. Already, his moment of weakness has disappeared from his memory, leaving the tubby kitty looking as smug as ever. "Whatever. So it can shoot lightning. Who cares! Remember my uncle Leo? The mountain climber? He can breathe fire."

"Wow! He can?" Rags asks.

"Yup. This silly toy startled me a little, but it’s nothing amazing. I’ve seen all kinds of crazy stuff like this before. It’s no big deal at all."

Rags nods, lapping up his friend’s boastful words with eager delight.

"You’re so awesome, Skippy!"

…

Minutes later, Megla and the Kessu find themselves traveling down the cavernous passages at a somewhat speedy pace. Baaru’s son, Ruuki, lays on a makeshift gurney, one the Kessu created by tying their clothes together. Four of the boys work together to carry Ruuki, while the others spread out and create a defensive formation around them. Skippy and Rags end up in the rear, while Lele and Megla lead the way.

While they walk, Lele clutches a scanning device in her paws. The tool sends out specialized sonic pulses that travel through the walls, ceiling and floor, allowing Lele to predict the movements of the enemy monsters. However, the data is anything but precise, displaying them as hazy red dots without any useful information about the size and composition of the monster hordes.

"Up ahead!" Lele meows. "Bad guys! A whole bunch of them!"

Megla drops to one knee and takes aim with her Living Moldanium Rifle. "Alright! Stunners, line up next to me! If anyone gets close, shoot them! Everyone else, stay back and stick together."

Rags and Skippy glance at each other, hesitating about whether to follow her orders. A moment later, they relent and jump into line, shakily pointing their batons forward.

"Don’t shoot unless I say so," Megla says. "We have limited batteries! Don’t waste a single shot."

All of the Kessu fall silent. They hold their breath and tremble anxiously as the five designated baton-wielders stand at Megla’s side, ready for action. They rest the ‘barrels’ of the weapons on their left arms, while clutching the grips and triggers with their right paws.

Skippy’s tail flicks back and forth as he waits. Rags notices. "You okay, Skip? You’re acting kinda jumpy."

"Shut up!" Skippy hisses. "You look like you’re about to pee yourself!"

Rags shrugs. "I dunno! Doesn’t this seem kind of exciting? Scary, but exciting!"

Skippy snorts. "Mraww! I’ll show you ‘exciting.’"

The boys fall silent. They wait and listen as the distant sounds of dozens of footsteps come running toward the party.

"They’re here!" Megla yells. "The little runners, plus a few of the bigger ones, too! I’ll shoot them first. If any make it through, you guys will have to stun them before they get close!"

Lele stays behind Megla, continuously firing light-orbs overhead to blind the enemies and keep away any Shades who might wish to use the battle as cover to attack from behind. As she does, Megla lowers a pair of goggles over her eyes, one of the fifteen items Megla brought along. The Kessu might be adept at seeing in the darkness thanks to their cat-eyes, but Megla’s Kraktolian heritage makes her less so in comparison. The light diffusion goggles allow her to not only penetrate the gloom, but also mitigate the extreme brightness from Lele’s light-orbs.

Seconds later, a hundred Goblins come barreling around a turn in the distance. They rush down the hallways, spreading out to make themselves harder to hit. However, with only thirty feet separating the walls from one another, they can’t prevent Megla’s area-attack from hitting a huge number of them.

Thoomph!

Megla fires her weapon, blasting apart two dozen goblins with a single shot. Their bones and entrails fly in every direction, spraying the trailing goblins with sticky plasma and sinew.

A few seconds later, Megla fires again, taking out another two dozen goblins. Still, more than fifty goblins and a dozen orcs follow up after the first group, making Megla grit her teeth. "Get ready, guys! My gun needs to cool down now! Blast them when they get close!"

Skippy, Rags, and three other Kessu take aim with their stun batons. Once the enemies rush past an invisible fifty-foot line, the Kessu grit their teeth and pull their triggers.

KZZAT-KZZAT!

An underground thunderstorm erupts, as five bolts of explosive lightning rocket forward and fry the nerves of every enemy in range. The entire charging platoon screams in pain and falls over, their bodies paralyzed from the electricity coursing through their veins.

"W-whoa! Awesome!" Rags yells, his wide-open eyes gazing with excitement at the paralyzed enemies before him. "I can shoot sky magic!"

Skippy, however, looks noticeably more pale. The ten-year-old chonker’s heart races with fear and alarm, but he suppresses his emotions, not wanting to look like a loser. "Mraww! It was a little fun, I guess."

Before the goblins and orcs can recover, Megla follows up with two more powerful energy blasts, atomizing their bodies into horrific piles of bloody meat paste. She glances back at Lele, who nods in return.

"Alright! Good work, everyone!" Megla says, as she rises to her feet. "But don’t get complacent! More enemies are sure to come!"

"Stupid bad guys!" Lele says, frowning. "They don’t stand a chance against us!"

…

The group continues onward. Every so often, they pause their advance to battle with the underground monsters, always in waves of fifty to one hundred. More and more orcs join the fray, their durable bodies resisting the electric blasts better than the skinny little goblins.

After the fifth enemy encounter, Megla steps over the puddles of blood and frowns. "The enemy’s attacks are slowly increasing in frequency, but the threat level is still too low. I haven’t any idea how many monsters are still lurking within these underground caverns, nor which direction they might come from. My best guess is, there are still countless others, and the ones we’ve seen were merely the weakest of the bunch."

Baaru rubs her furry chin. The Kessu Matriarch nods slowly as she ponders Megla’s words. "Probing attacks. I fought many a wily critter back in the day, but none as fearsome as the shadow-monsters. They’re not only intelligent, but cunning. I can only assume they’re controlling these monsters to gauge our combat capabilities."

She pauses before adding, "These monsters don’t know the limits of the Precursor magic we wield. They must want to see what tricks we’ve yet to play."

Skippy rests his paw on Lele’s back. "Stay close to me, little cousin. These monsters are after you and Megla, so they’ll go for you first. I’m totally kick-butt, so I’ll beat ’em if they come too close!"

Lele appears uncertain about the fat chonker’s so-called ‘combat prowess,’ but still nods politely. "Uhh, okay…"

The group resumes their escape, picking up the pace a bit as they try to get out of the caverns in as expedient a manner as possible.

An hour after leaving the Kessu’s original hiding cave, Megla and the others slow to a stop as they spot a hole in the ceiling, followed by a huge, circular piece of metal embedded in the ground below it. A cursory examination reveals the metal circle to be the hollow shell of the dropship Soren used to burrow into the mountain.

Lele trots over to it and glances upward. Sadly, the dropship’s entry path has already been caved-in with rocks and dirt, making a vertical ascent impossible. Lele gives up on that idea and instead peers over the edge of the dropship’s top to scrounge for goodies. She doesn’t find anything.

"Too bad," Megla says, after Lele finishes. "But no worries. We should be getting close to the exit. This ship can’t get us out of here, but we don’t need it anyway. Let’s go."

Just as the group is about to set off, Lele glances at her underground scanner. Her heart skips a beat, and her eyes widen. "Ahh! More bad guys are on their way! They’re coming from up ahead. Behind us, too!"

Megla glances backward, where she finally notices the distant cackling of goblins, as well as… something else.

"By the Thülvik, furball! You wasted too much time looking through that damned- never mind! Everyone, line up at the front! We don’t have enough people to protect both sides!"

Lele grimaces. "No worries. Grandma! Press the red button on top of your cube and throw it behind us!"

Baaru, having already had Lele explain the cube’s function, simply nods and darts toward the back. "Alright!"

The aged Kessu Matriarch moves about twenty feet behind the other Kessu. She follows Lele’s instructions, activates the cube, and tosses it onto the ground. The fifteen-pound exosteel cube clangs against the rocky terrain heavily, but a moment later, it levitates into the air and begins to glow and spin on its axis. Suddenly, a beam of blue light shoots out of its top and bottom. The light impacts the floor and ceiling, some forty feet above, then spreads out to create a powerful forcefield, isolating the party’s rear and preventing anyone from attacking their flank.

Seconds later, a horde of monsters comes barreling out of the darkness. This time, not only do countless orcs emerge, but several rocky-skinned monsters as well, their twelve-foot height and massive muscles making the orcs beside them look tiny by comparison. Unlike their smaller, green-skinned cousins, these monsters wear heavy steel and iron armor, while also wielding gigantic greatswords. The monsters look like miniature rock golems, but unlike the stupid and slow giants, their eyes contain a hint of savage intelligence.

"What the heck are those?!" Baaru gasps. She jumps away from the spinning cube, watching with wide-open eyes as the sea of monsters crashes against the powerful, high-density barrier.

BOOM!

The forcefield rumbles visibly as countless ripples spread across its surface, but it doesn’t give way. The stone-skin monsters begin smashing their swords against it with all their strength, causing violent sounds to erupt in the hallway. The orcs join as well, leading to a pile-up of ten stone-skins and more than forty orcs, all working together to try and break down the barrier.

Lele and the other Kessu don’t have time to pay attention to their situation in the rear. A pair of trolls, both forty-feet-tall, come lumbering toward them from the front. Along with the giant duo, dozens of creepy spider-like monsters join in, their eight-legged forms skittering along the ceiling and walls. The spider-creatures all possess only a single, gigantic eye swallowing up the front of their head. Huge stingers stick out of their backs, each one seemingly capable of piercing through steel armor.

Megla’s eyes widen in alarm.

What?! Impossible! Those bastards… they’re Buzor! Why would Buzor be here, fighting alongside these monsters?!

She only spends a brief instant pondering the origins of the newcomers, but doesn’t voice her thoughts out loud. Instead, she fires her weapon twice, both times aiming for the massive trolls. She aims for their center of mass, intending to vaporize them.

Thunk!

Megla’s attacks crash against the chests of both trolls, hitting them like megaton hammers and sending them sprawling backward. The trolls crash onto their backs, flattening a few unlucky monsters behind them. However, to Megla’s alarm, they don’t die!

The trolls end up with half of their chests vaporized, but it doesn’t take more than a few seconds before their bodies begin to rapidly regenerate, causing their grievous injuries to recede.

Megla grits her teeth as the first wave of spider-creatures attacks. "Everyone! Hold the line!"

KZZAT! KZZAT!

Bolts of chained lightning fire from each of the stun batons, paralyzing the spiders and making them collapse into piles of shivering skin and bones.

However, even with some forty-plus spiders momentarily incapacitated, another wave rushes forward and crawls over their bodies, hellbent on killing the Kessu at all costs.

[Fesmith xilreh! Hiz vsili ithie ssihv sishsiehs es?! Tmi Besil zess lieshh sephliri!]

The spiders telepathically taunt the Kessu, cursing at them in their harsh, grating language. Thanks to a pair of biological antennae on every spider’s head, they can project their voices into the minds of other sentients; an evolutionary trait shared among most Buzor.

"Loathsome creatures…" Megla growls. "Remember, if they get close, melee them!"

The baton-wielding Kessu all shrink back in fear as the spiders continue attacking. Nevertheless, they continue frantically blasting the enemies with thunderbolts, doing everything they can to stun the monstrous eight-legged enemies.

From behind, Lele shouts to another pair of Kessu, an old man and his sickly son. The two of them clutch onto small, palm-sized metal orbs, waiting for their leader to give them the order to attack.

"Okay, guys! Throw those grenades!" Lele shouts.

"Mraaw! We’re on it!"

The grandfather and son rear back and throw the metal balls as hard as they can. While the Kessu might be small, their arm strength proves quite astonishing. The orbs sail through the air, fall into the middle of the enemy hordes, and detonate!

KSSS-WOOOO!

A hissing of air erupts from the grenades, followed by a wailing noise, like a coastal siren. The noise proves deafening in the underground space, especially to the Kessu’s sensitive ears. Several of the frontliners wince and grit their teeth as a surge of energy emerges from within the enemy’s flank.

A pair of miniature black holes suddenly pop into existence, each only one centimeter in diameter. They exist in the physical realm for barely half a second, but in that moment, the enemy Buzor closest to them… disappear.

Just like that, seventy horrifying spider creatures suck into the black hole before they dissipate. So swift are their departures that it takes three long seconds before the other Buzor halt their advance to whirl around in shock.

Their telepathic communications swiftly travel amongst one another.

[Wi’as i’azzurus?]

[I sar’s hraz! Tuil suhri’azzui’asus uhrsa suhr i’auhs! Wi’as rassr a zui’azarr suhs suru Kurri phus suuhs ssi’azr ar?]

[Is saurr’s ni’assus! Rurinu su i’assi’ash! Ois Bsaasnasus’r assusr i’asu i’arasisu!]

Despite the hesitation in the Buzor’s movements, they quickly resume their assault. Sadly for them, Megla has already cooled her weapon down. She unleashes two shots into the densest Buzor cluster, vaporizing their bodies into bloody mush. The few Buzor that remain lose their nerve and retreat, cursing telepathically at Megla as they leave.

However, right as the Buzor retreat, the two previously fallen trolls clamber to their feet and start stomping forward, bellowing as they charge at the Kessu battle line.

"Oh no! My gun’s still on cooldown!" Megla cries. "Try to stun them; slow them down! Lele, got any more of those black hole grenades?!"

The kitten pales. "No! I’m all out!"

In the time it takes them to converse, the giants arrive. The frontline Kessu fire three shots at one of the trolls, and two at its companion. However, the painful electric pulses do little more than sting the troll’s flesh, making both of them roar angrily.

"Look out!" Megla cries.

Skippy screams in terror. He tries to shoot the trolls again, but his baton doesn’t amass a full charge in time, causing a single piddly bolt of electricity to strike the trolls uselessly. He watches, frozen in horror, as one of the trolls sweeps its huge, five-fingered hand toward him.

"Ahhhh!!"

Just before the Troll can end Skippy’s existence, his brother in Arms, Rags, raises his head.

"No! Get away from my friend!!"

Reflexively, Rags twists his baton’s handle, activating its alternate combat mode. The baton suddenly changes its shape, melts onto his paws, and transforms into a pair of sturdy metal gauntlets.

Without hesitation or regard for his own life, Rags jumps at the troll’s head and sweeps his right claw toward its left cheek.

BOOM!

As Rags’ claw swipe lands a hit, the gauntlet releases a thunderous blast of sonic energy, increasing the power of his strike twenty-fold! His seemingly haphazard attack not only injures the troll, but it also batters the giant monster backward like a tipped-over bowling pin, making it hurtle away from him at a ludicrous speed.

Rags lands on the ground, his eyes wide and his knees shaking. "W-what?! Holy heck! I did that?!"

Meanwhile, the second troll tries to grab Megla. However, unlike little Lele, Megla is more than capable of defending herself. She dives to the side to escape its grasp, then swipes her reptilian talons at its arm.

Riiiip!

Megla sinks her claws into the troll’s muscles and digs in, holding on with all her might. The troll stands up and tries to grab Megla off its arm, but the nimble lady drops her gun, swings like a monkey, and makes her way onto its back. She digs into its flesh like her life depends on it and jumps upward to grab onto its head.

"Groooar!"

The troll bellows at Megla, but she ignores its protests. Despite the troll standing more than five times Megla’s height, she manages to climb its back like a billy-goat and grab onto its right ear. With a powerful tug, Megla rips off the monster’s ear and jams her arm into its head, piercing through its skull like a railgun bullet.

Before the troll can grab and throw Megla off its back, she tears out a huge chunk of its brains, making its body shudder and shake.

"Guh… looooo…"

The troll’s fierce roars suddenly become pitiful and weak. It staggers to the left and slumps against the wall as its entire body goes numb.

"Grooo…"

Megla doesn’t let up. She gouges out even more of its brains, grinning sadistically as she remembers that hellish training with her sister against this exact monster.

What are the odds I’d put that specific training to use, and so soon at that?!

Finally, the light disappears from the troll’s eyes, and it falls to the ground lifelessly, never to arise again.

Megla doesn’t waste time gloating over her victory. She quickly turns to look for the other troll, only to breathe a sigh of relief when she finds Rags beating the everloving shit out of it. His thunder gauntlets give every claw swipe the power of a tank-cannon at point-blank range, allowing him to repeatedly smash the troll’s head against the ground. After slapping the beast three times, he rears back for one final attack and slaps both of his claws against the troll’s face. The thunder gauntlets strike both sides of the troll’s face, sending dual sonic-blasts into its skull. The beast’s head explodes like a watermelon, spraying brains in all directions.

SPLAT!

"Mraww-haw-haw! Take that, you ugly bastard!" Rags cackles, feeling his adrenaline pump like crazy for the first time in his life.

The young Kessu boy jumps off the troll, and his smile disappears. With all of the other monsters having retreated, his eyes fall on his cousin. "Lele! Are you alright?"

Lele stands in the same spot as before, and shakily breathes a sigh of relief. "I’m… I’m okay! That was scary, but you were awesome, Rags!"

"Hehe. I’m actually having fun," Rags says, beaming a giddy smile at Lele. "If it weren’t for these gloves, I’d probably have died! Good thing that didn’t happen! Is everyone okay? Did anyone get hurt?"

A quick once-over of the party reveals that all is well in terms of injuries taken and lives lost. Not one casualty appears among the Kessu’s ranks.

However, from behind the Kessu, Baaru cries out. "Oh no! That blue bubble-thing! It’s cracking!"

Megla arrives at Lele’s side and looks toward the shield protecting their flank. Already, the stone-skin monsters have begun to break through the forcefield, making it visibly weaken.

"Filthy fur-beasts!" The stone-skins roar, their words traveling through the barrier. "Today we will eat your flesh and drink your blood!"

Megla glances at the huge army assembled on the opposite side of the barrier. Not only are there fifty-something monsters directly attacking the barrier, but hundreds more wait in the back-line, including goblins on the ceiling, as well as a hundred different spiders.

"Tch. They want our blood, huh? Then I’ll make them choke on it!"

Skippy takes a few steps back, shakily holding his baton. "Th-this thing ain’t gonna do squat to those monsters!"

Rags grins at his friend. "You’re right. That thunder-stick ain’t any good now. Twist the handle. The gauntlets are much better at close range."

While he quickly teaches Skippy how to use the gauntlets, Megla glances at Lele. "No more grenades, huh? Got any other tricks we can use?"

Lele sighs helplessly. "Mraaaw! Maybe one or two! But I don’t know if they’ll be much use!"

"Right now, anything is better than nothing," Megla says. "Don’t hold back! If we’re really unlucky, more monsters will come from the front again! We need to kill these bastards and escape before they can surround us."

As the barrier cracks further, the cube hovering in midair begins to lose some of its brilliant luster. The forcefield shimmers and wavers, giving the Kessu mere moments to prepare.

Not long after the Kessu fall into formation and steady their breathing, the forcefield shatters! The cube falls down and plunks against the rocky floor, allowing the monsters to charge at their future victims.

One of the rock-skins laughs with delight. "Looks like meat’s back on the menu, boys!"