#MAWS: no this one’s the other gorilla | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

itsapapisongo · 2 years

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mingyu of the jungle | act i

Pairing: Mingyu x Female!Reader

Genre: Adventure | Fluff | Non-Idol AU | Rom-Com

Content Warning: Brief tacky and racy joke (Yellow Ape), mansplaining, and a scene depicting some violence and slapstick.

Word Count: 13.1K

Synopsis: Raised by the Primate Clan in a remote jungle in Africa, Mingyu grows up to the would-be king of Ape Mountain. Now an adult, he has his first human encounter with none other than you. Or the one where Mingyu is a vine-swinging himbo, you’re smitten by him, he’s smitten by you, and hilarious chaos ensues!

Act I: Meet (Jungle) Cute

WITH NOTHING TO get in its way, nature grew in every imaginable direction in the remote land known to few as Bukuvu.

The land’s sparkling rivers and streams spread out and created an intricate pattern from high above. Lush velds, hills, and valleys were grazed by a plethora of exotic animals. The sweet melody of colorful birds filled the air. This was a beautiful country, a gift from the gods themselves, and had remained untouched by modern men for time immemorial until—the crash!

A small twin-engined plane flew above this mysterious land, carrying nearly eighty passengers. They gazed at the beauty never-before-seen sights beyond their imagination with awe. Unfortunately, with Bukuvu being out of most, if not all, maps, the pilots were unaware of one of the land’s greatest, darkest secrets: its hidden mountains.

As they reached the outskirts of Bukuvu, a huge mountain suddenly rose upon them and the pilots, without time to maneuver through them, hit it. In the span of a minute, the plane drifted to the ground, was ripped open, and scarred the Bukuvu soil, landing with a crash that shook the entire jungle.

Smoldering in the jungle’s floor, having successfully unrotted two or three trees, the plan laid in ruins . . .

●

ALERTED TO THE large metal beast that fell from the sky, four young gorillas investigated this strange occurrence. They saw hairless apes escape from its maw—or was that the metal beast’s bunghole?—as they rushed to help each other. This beast, which they would later learn was a man-made invention known as an airplane, had somehow remained almost intact.

These strangers had, somehow, survived this; they were scrapped and boo-booed, but relatively safe from real harm. There were too many, though not enough to outnumber the Primate Clan. To make matters worse, they looked lost and positively dazed.

Four young gorillas hid in the foliage, shocked at the intrusion on their utopia.

“There goes the neighborhood,” said one of them, Chiwetel, with a grimace.

“Should we help them?” Phil asked, scratching his forehead. “I don’t know what we're supposed to do in this situation. This is unprecedented.”

“We watch then we decide,” replied Bast, the oldest of the four, as he sat and crossed his legs in a meditative stance. “Then we report to Old Gray.”

Phil and Chiwetel nodded in agreement as the youngest, an ape named Ape, watched the bald strangers with apprehension.

●

THE GREAT APES observed for six hours. They reported the arrival of the bald strangers an hour later. The strangers, humans as Bast would later let the others know, lost their collective shirt over eight times as they banded together to search for something they had lost.

A day later, the humans were escorted out of the jungle and toward the nearest village. To the surprise of absolutely no one, the survivors would forever try and ultimately give up on convincing people that two talking gorillas guided them to safety.

But the truth is that these humans would never find that which they lost. It was a precious cargo that was found that same morning the humans were escorted out of the jungle. And It wasn’t an ‘it’. The precious cargo was a he. A bouncing baby boy wearing a bib that said “Gyu.”

Among the debris, Ape found a book with a cover that displayed a little monkey being carried away by two men in blue. Written in cursive and red letters, the book’s yellow cover bore the story’s title and its author’s name: Curious Mingyu by H.A. Rey. Inside, neatly written in the tongue of man, though of different alphabets, was what Ape assumed to be the baby’s full name.

김민규.

Which, in the tongue he was semi-fluent in, read KIM MINGYU.

Ape huffed, confused. He thought it was rather appropriate; the curious bit applied to this hairless baby that looked at him with nothing but curiosity and a giddy disposition as it giggled upon being picked up. Ape considered rechristening the baby, naming him George, but ultimately relented.

Kim Mingyu will always be Kim Mingyu, Ape thought, but now he’s one of us.

This adorable and hairless ape with pink skin and dark-hair only in his head was thereafter accepted into the Clan. He was christened Mingyu Primate, son of Old Gray and Golde, and brother of Ape. He imbibed the Yabai Fruit, grew strong and observant of the ways of the clan: how to hunt, climb trees, swing from vine to vine, fight, swim, protect and defend those that couldn’t defend themselves.

He became the elusive White Ape. An enigmatic legend to many, a strange myth to others, an absurd tale to the rest. Yet, to his kin, he was and is simply Mingyu: protector of the innocent, defender of the weak, and all around good guy Mingyu of the Jungle.

●

APPROXIMATELY TWENTY FOUR years later, the bouncing baby boy has grown into a handsome, vine-swinging, would-be jungle king.

Behold the one and only Mingyu of the Jungle! He is swift. He is strong. He is confident. He is swinging from vine to vine. He is humming to himself. He is not paying attention to the tree he is about to crash into—

Sigh.

He’s unconscious.

●

TWO AND HALF decades after the crash, Bukuvu has remained a mystery to the outside world. That hasn’t stopped an intrepid group of tourists from crossing the dangerous Congo River and pave a path up mountains and jungle clearings under the hot African sun.

Forty-three vines away from where an unconscious Mingyu lies in a Mingyu-shaped hole on the ground, this group of civilized folk, you among them, has reached the outskirts of Bukuvu and have stopped to set up camp and rest for the night.

You stand in front of an enormous tree, your hair blowing in the warm breeze, smiling a satisfied smile while you absorb the natural beauty that surrounds you. The sky is a shade of blue that seems almost ethereal as thick, white clouds move slowly across the horizon, accompanied by the sun’s bright glow; it looks like a painting come to life.

“That’s a banyan tree,” says Kwame, the tour’s guide, smiling as he points at it.

He stands about ten feet from you, unloading his belongings into a tent he just finished setting up. He’s tall, broad-shouldered, and bald with a trimmed, white goatee. Kwame carries himself with an air of ease and awareness that makes anyone that travels with him feel comfortable.

You turn to him, nod, raise your DSLR camera, and snap a photo.

“It’s incredible,” You say, noticing something moving around the tree. After a beat, you realize it’s a handful of monkeys. “What kind of monkey are those?”

Kwame raises a hand over his brow, keeping the sun away from his eyes, and nods as notices the barrel of monkeys resting under the tree’s shade through its intricate branches.

“Those are black-and-white colobi,” the guide replies, waving at them as if they were to wave back. “The colobus is quite an adorable creature to look at, but it’s best if we keep our distance. I don’t like to intrude in their territory.”

You snap another photo and raise an eyebrow. Kwame chuckles, but you can tell he means it. He cares about the fauna and flora and observes both from a distance, preserving their beauty and place within Bukuvu’s ecosystem.

He waves you over, and you follow him. He walks you over to a modestly made “common area” around what will be a campfire in the evening. Logs, meant to be used as chairs or to lean on, have been set in a circle with several blankets draped on the ground for comfort.

“This is our sanctuary for tonight.” Kwame spreads his arms, smiling. “I hope it’s to your liking.”

You chuckle at how simplicity goes a long way. If your mother were here, she’d be complaining about how tacky the whole thing was, but thankfully she isn’t. You chuckle at the look of horror she would be sporting and shake your head because of how absurd and entitled she can be. Your father, on the other hand, would love it.

“It’s perfect,” you tell Kwame, gently clapping him on the shoulder. “I love it.”

Kwame nods, giving you a thumbs-up. “I’m glad you do. Your friend seems to like it, too.”

My friend? I don’t—oh. You smile acidly as you remember him and slowly turn to your left to see the travel companion. It’s not like you had planned with him to come with you. No, your former roommate and friend had insisted on coming along as he had already packed his bags and bought his ticket without you knowing.

You blink then look away, noticing the glint of mischief in the guide’s eyes. “He’s a pain in the tuchus, but, sure, he’s my friend.”

Kwame shrugs. “With friends like these, huh?”

Your eyes widen with forced glee, a glint of frustration is visible in your expression. It’s now Kwame’s turn to clap your shoulder. He leaves with a wink and stops to help the porters unload their things.

Reluctantly, you tilt your head to see him filming himself in front of his tent. He’s waving his hands as he speaks into the camera. Though he drawls his words, his voice is infused with enthusiasm. You feel second-hand embarrassment and an equal amount of endearment towards him.

Yoon Jeonghan is a ball of energy that ebbs and flows depending on his mood. He’s clad in casual attire that accentuates his lean physique and is comfortable for the sort of weather and ecosystem that surrounds you. His hair is perfectly styled and parted in the middle, strands of auburn falling over his face’s left side. The look of confused wonderment at his beauty one of the porters gives him forces a cackle out of you, which you hide by pretending to have sneezed.

“You okay?” Jeonghan asks, lowering his camera to give you a cursory, if worried glance.

“I am,” you reply in a strained voice that barely conceals your desire to laugh. “Thanks for asking.”

He points to his tent with a nod of his head. “I have stuff for allergies, y’know?”

You offer him a thumbs-up. “Good to know.”

“If you need something, give a shout!”

“Will do . . .”

●

“THE DAY’S HOT, but it’s beautiful out here—say hello, guys!”

Jeonghan turns the camera to film the porters. It takes a second for Baleto, Kip, and N’Dugo to realize they’re being filmed but they naturally wave and say hello in Swahili and Yoruba, laughing as they pass a flask between them. N’Dugo is as lanky as Kip is small and Baleto is stout; and while N’Dugo and Baleto are bald, Kip has short black hair.

Jeonghan swiftly transitions to film you and Kwame having a conversation by the improvised common area. Innately aware of when a camera is pointed in your direction, you instinctively stare at him with a blank expression and lethargically wave back. The world’s smallest and most subdued nod signals your acknowledgement.

“Make sure I get a copy of that,” Kwame says, chuckling.

“Sure thing.” Jeonghan’s thumbs up appears in the camera’s frame. “Now show the folks back home what I taught you.”

You raise an eyebrow, cringing. “Does he have to?”

You had seen it once—and once had been enough—but Jeonghan seems to love improvising so whenever you took a rest in between mountains and hills, he’d teach Kwame and the porters a move or two to keep the mood light.

“Come on,” Jeonghan pouts, “it’ll be fun.”

You blink. “It won’t.”

Kwame chuckles and appeases you both with a nod that says, “settle down, kiddos, I’m about to amaze you.” It’s a perfect display of his confidence, which is something his wife absolutely loves about him.

Jeonghan half-smiles, giving you a smug smirk. Then, focusing on Kwame, he begins to count.

“One, two, three—”

With the energy of an entire high-school senior class, Kwame takes a stance, winks at the camera, and Hits the Perfect Woah: hand up as though throwing something, pause, catch, followed by a “woah” pose dripping with finesse. Whereas Kwame laughs and waves at the camera, you cringe and shake your head.

Jeonghan cackles and turns the camera to you. “Told you it was worth it.”

“It really wasn’t.” You smile a small, pained smile. “Whatever that was is now embedded in my brain.”

“You haven’t seen Baleto do it.” Kwame, optimistic and laid-back as always, heartily laughs. He gestures a thumb over his shoulder and shakes his head. “Hopefully, for your sake, you won’t have to.”

You raise both eyebrows, eyes wide, mouth gaping. After a beat, you nod as if to say, “fair enough.”

“So . . . what’s next?” you ask your tour guide.

“Ah,” the Kwame exclaims, leaning forward with a half-smile. “The best is yet to come.”

You feel invorigated at his words. You can’t believe your luck. After years of always wanting to travel, meet people, immerse yourself in the culture, here you are: on the outskirts of terra incognita, near a peaceful sanctuary where nature is free to expand and exist without being tainted.

Nothing can ruin this moment.

But, boy, are you blatantly tempting fate. Tempt fate once, it’s no biggie. Tempt fate twice? You’re practically asking to get kicked in the garbanzos.

●

JEONGHAN IS NOW back to being the director of his own African vlog, setting up a wide shot of the rest of the camp.

“—and this is my tent,” he points to a tent that’s more of a house than a tent. Pointing the camera to himself, he speaks in a conspiratorial tone. “I can fart as much as I want and no one can complain!”

You, who happens to be sitting nearby, perk up, frown then look from left to right with a “Did I hear that right?” expression. This is the Pardon, Squeeze Me Maneuver, a gesture you’ve perfected over the years of listening to mind-boggling comments. You throw an aside glance to someone who isn’t there then cock your head to the side.

“I’m right here.” You deadpand. “I can hear you.”

“Whoops,” Jeonghan mumbles, genuinely embarrassed. Though said embarrassment doesn’t last long because he shrugs and zooms in on your look of disgust. “Has anyone told you that looking constipated is your Blue Steel?”

You feign flattery with a blatantly forced gummy smile, beaming with sarcastic uwu energy. “Why, thank you!” you reply. “That’s the nicest thing I’ve heard all day.”

“Pfft.” Jeonghan immediately notices your sarcasm and pulls his tongue out. “Dork.”

“Influencer.”

“Snob.”

He opens his mouth to say something else but his eyes wander elsewhere and he says, “Isn’t that your narcissistic fiancé? ‘Cause that guy looks an awful lot like him.”

“What?” You squint at him. “What kind of smack talk is that?”

Jeonghan points a firm finger at something behind you, his expression an impressive mix of surprise and amusement. He keeps the camera on, leveled between his chin and his chest, as films the arrival of three men that are currently stepping out of an all-terrain Jeep. Two of them are dressed in jungle-appropriate attire but the third man, walking toward you with an awkward swagger, is clad in designer’s clothes appropriate for a runway.

You jump so hard and unexpectedly that you fall off the log you are sitting on and onto the ground with an unceremonious thump. A breathless “off!” is forced right out of your diaphragm as your fiancé spreads his arms out, as if basking in the adulation of a standing ovation.

“Seungcehol?” you exclaim, taken aback.

Choi Seungcehol dramatically waves a hand over his head. “Hey, hey!”

“What—” You look between your fiancé and Jeonghan, aghast. “What are you doing here?”

Seungcehol grins that obnoxious grin of his that he has always believed to be charming then promptly kisses you on the lips. His handsome features and exceptionally smooth skin are framed by his recently cut and dyed black hair. Despite how much you love him, how much you care for him, he looks so obviously out of place.

“Is that how you say hello to your fiancé, honey?” Seungcheol half-smiles. “Aren’t you happy to see me?”

“Of course, I am. It’s just that—”

You blink, unsure of what to say. Words fail you. The shock’s too much for you to actually verbalize the dread and frustration you’re currently feeling. You had, after all, planned to take some time for yourself before the wedding was to be properly planned and organized, but it seems Seungcheol had other plans. And if he had other plans, so did your beloved smother.

“The jungle loves you, baby,” Seungcheol says, not really listening to you as he embraces you in a tight hug. “You look beautiful—no, scratch that—you are beautiful.”

Behind you, you hear Kwame and Jeonghan pretend to vomit. You glance over your shoulder, give them a pointed look, then turn to stare at Seungcheol in bemusement.

“Thanks?”

“You’re welcome.” Seungcheol winks and turns to his travel companions. “Hey, fellas, remember to unload my things, ‘kay?”

“Of course, Mr. Choi,” says a soft, but exasperated voice.

From the Jeep come two men. Even before Seungcheol has told them to, they’ve already begun to unload his expensive luggage. They now carry it unevenly between them with the taller of the two holding a fanny pack and a carry-on bag. He has reddish-orange hair styled in a mullet that somehow works and somehow doesn’t, and wears all kind of fancy, shining rings in both hands.

The other, the smaller of the two, carries four bags by himself, his face a blank slate that doesn’t display neither his frustration nor his exhaustion. He’s modest in his attire, posture, and hairstyle. His hair is a light hue of silvery-blue, he wears a watch backwards in his left hand, and stands there, shining like a ray of sunlight not because he’s particularly cheerful but due to his pale complexion.

You stare at the smaller man—the small, grumpy boy—and push your lips downward, impressed. You hear Jeonghan mumble something about “how his small muscles bulge” and Kwame snorting. You can’t help but conceal a chuckle, but you’re still too stunned to actually feel anything but first- and second-hand embarrassment.

“How did you even find me?” you ask.

“Well, honey, I only hired the best trackers in the business,” he replies, gesturing a thumb over his shoulder. “They know this area well.”

Someone snorts. You briefly catch the small, grumpy boy concealing a smirk as he clears his throat. The other man clicks his tongue and nudges his side with his elbow as he steps forward and bows.

“Call me—” the taller of the two poses, lifting his hands in the shapes of claws “—Tiger.”

“Don’t,” says the other, shaking his head. “Please, don’t encourage him.”

“Now, now, Jihoon.” Seungcheol shakes his head, waving a hand as if to swat away a fly. “Soonyoung here is just introducing himself, as—er—cringey as it might be.”

“I’ll only respond to Tiger or Hoshi. There’s no Kwon Soonyoung here.”

“I can’t believe we’re ‘business partners’,” Jihoon grumbles, doing his best not to roll his eyes. He adjusts the bags, lifts them a bit, and turns to Seungcheol. “Where does all of this go?”

Seungcheol points to what he assumes is your tent, but it’s actually Jeonghan’s “Over there,” he absent-mindedly replies.

Jihoon nods and heads to your tent, greeting Kwame with a nod. The guide correctly points to your tent and tells him to be careful.

“Soon—er—Hoshi, do you mind helping your associate?”

Hoshi watches Jihoon casually drop the bags in front of your tent and shrugs. “He’s doing okay on his own,” he mumbles with a pout.

“Then start settling down,” your fiancé suggests, forcing a smile.

Before Hoshi can protest or retort, Seungcheol spots one of the porters, N’Dugo, and snaps his fingers. “You there,” he calls after him. “Take the rest of my things to my beloved’s tent. Oh, and shake a leg.”

By the look on N’Dugo’s face, he isn’t appreciative of your fiancé’s attitude. He walks up to Seungcheol, makes sure he’s being noticed, and shakes his left leg several times. While glaring at Seungcheol, N’Dugo slowly turns to Hoshi, greets him with a fist-bump, then takes the fanny pack and carry-on bag from his hands and carries them to your tent.

●

ONCE SEUNGCHEOL TAKES the rest of his luggage to your tent, you settle down a few feet from the camp and watch the nearby fauna mingle in their natural habitat. That’s when he decides to ask the question you’ve been hoping he wouldn’t ask.

“Honey, what are we doing here?”

You roll her eyes and pretend to take a photo of a colobus atop the banyan tree. You sit in one of the chairs he brought—an ergonomic stool, of all things—a few feet from the camp, taking in the refreshing breeze that envelops the area. Seungcheol scootches closer, nudging your ribs with his index finger.

“I know you’re ignoring me,” he mumbles, moving to poke your love handles.

“I’m not. I’m just . . . being in the moment.”

“Are you? You’re just staring at nothing.”

You point at the Old World monkeys that move along the banyan trees’ branches.

“Is that nothing to you?”

“I mean if you wanted to see monkeys,” he begins, “we could have gone to the zoo.”

“Zoo?” You frown. “Are those still a thing?”

Seungcheol hums, thinking. “Last time I checked.”

“Cool.” You raise the camera and snap a photo of him. “That’s good to know.”

He sighs, resting a hand on his chin. “When you said you were taking a week to sneak off to God knows where, I imagined you’d go to a place with sunshine and coconuts.”

“There is sunshine,” you point at the sky then at some faraway palm trees, “and coconuts.”

“Yeah, on trees. Not in juicy refreshing drinks like they’re supposed to.”

You squint at him, as if to scrutinize not only the meaning of his words but the expression on his face. He looks passive, almost understanding, but there’s something in his eyes that lets you know he’s not entirely comfortable with your little last-minute sabbatical. You fully turn to him, snap another photo, then nod as if you say “go on.”

“What’s your point?”

“My point?” He dramatically lays a hand on his chest. “Well, honey, it’s not exactly like you to rough it up. This all seems . . . impulsive. I followed you all the way here just to know why you would pack everything for a trip to the middle of the jungle.”

At this, you exhale in exasperation. “You couldn’t just text me? A phone call would have been perfect.”

Seungcheol dismissively waves a hand, the gesture indicative of his blasé demeanor. “I wanted to see you, silly.” He shrugs. “If a call is impersonal, a text is even more impersonal.”

“Haven’t you ever dreamed of just . . . going on an adventure? Or, y’know, disconnect yourself from all the things that hold you back from genuinely living in the moment?”

He makes a face. “No,” he replies, snorting. “Why would I? I—we—got everything we might need back home. You want adventure? I say we spend a nice long weekend in Jeju.”

“That sounds nice.” You nod, but don’t smile. And, yes, it does sound nice but it’s not your idea of adventure. “But I was thinking something else . . .”

“Like, say, dropping everything before our wedding and disappearing in the middle of the jungle?”

“Second time you’ve mentioned being in the middle of the jungle.”

“Yeah.” He widens his eyes, nodding frantically. “Because that’s where we are.”

He’s right, of course, yet you roll your eyes at how redundant his argument has become. Sighing, you rest a hand on his thigh and lean in to peck his lips.

“Can we at least try to enjoy this?”

“Listen, hun, I’ll try but no promises.” Seungcheol leans in, lays a gentle kiss on your lips, then boops you on the nose. “I still wonder, though . . .”

You squint again, lips pursed into a thin line. “About?”

“Are you having second thoughts about us getting married?” He pouts in that adorable yet frustrating way he tends to do when he doesn’t get his way. “Your mother mentioned you might be—”

“My mother?” You stand up, groaning. “Did she—no—did she send you out here to check on me?”

He stands up, matching your energy, following you as you pace in a circle. “Well . . . she thought you may have cracked under the pressure—”

“Cracked?”

“Her words.” He smiles thinly, eyes wide in slight terror at your temper. “Not mine.”

You laugh mirthlessly. “It sure sounds like her.”

“Because she said it . . .”

“Cheol, now’s not the time to give me sass.”

He frowns. “I wasn’t, though.”

You groan and kick up dirt, imagining your mother smirking home. Everything she does is deliberate and passive-aggressive; it’s concealed behind a thin veneer of politeness and obfuscated ignorance. Whether or not Seungcheol is aware of that, you’ve never known, but some part of you knows that it’s best if he remains blissfully ignorant to your mother’s cunning.

“So . . . what’s the plan? We walk through all this green, take some photos, then turn around and go back home?”

You sigh. “That’s an oversimplification, but, yeah, something like that.”

“Okay, okay.” Seungcheol closes his eyes, opens them then snaps his fingers. “I know how we can have our cake and eat it too. First thing in the morning, we see the monkeys and then we hop on a jet straight to Seoul.”

“Hop on a jet—”

“I feel much better.” He hugs you, gently laying kisses on your neck. As he looks over your shoulder, vaguely focusing on the banyan tree, he lets out a long sigh of relief. “We thought you might be out here getting cold feet, y’know? But I’m glad we’re good.”

You close your eyes and groan inwardly, as you feel the weight of his words and your heart sink.

●

LATER THAT NIGHT, you roll your eyes as you finish your dinner. You’re currently and unsuccessfully trying to ignore Seungcheol, who is sitting next to you with his phone glued to his ear; he wastes no time to make arrangements to whisk you, his wayward betrothed, back home.

Unsurprisingly, he’s utterly unaware of the synchronized displays of contempt and ridicule occasionally performed to his face by the porters and Jeonghan.

“Yes, I’m still on the—would you guys please keep it down? I’m trying to talk here. It’s an important call with the Nairobi Hilton.” Seungcheol shakes his head and wedges a finger in his left ear. He clears his throat and speaks into the phone. “You got room? Perfect!”

He turns to you, smiling a wide, dumb smile.

“They can airlift us there in two hours,” he announces, winking but immediately turning his gaze upward, as though he could see the receptionist in the starry sky above. “Neck pillows? Of course. That’s a must! Wait a second—I can’t hear—I’m losing you! There’s terrible reception here.”

Seungcheol stands up and kicks the log behind his ergonomic stool. He immediately recoils with pain, muttering expletives as he hops on one leg; he huffs and begins to pace, raising the phone over his head. Around the campfire, everyone watches him and tries to enjoy dinner. Seungcheol stops, paces a bit more, then groans in annoyance. Jeonghan, who watches all of this with subdued amusement, stifles a chuckle. The chiding glance you shoot him makes him snort and hide his face behind his palm.

“Great,” Seungcheol mutters. “My phone’s dead.”

“Oh what a nightmare,” deadpans Jeonghan, eating a spoonful of Kwame’s homemade chili.

“It might as well be.” Your fiancé agrees, ignorant to Jeonghan’s sarcasm. “No offense, Mr. Cream.”

Baleto chokes on his chili. “That’s not how you—”

Kwame modestly shakes his head. Baleto glares at Seungcheol, but N’Dugo and Kip just chuckle amongst themselves.

“I think you should just relax and enjoy the moment. It’s not like I’m in a hurry to leave.” You tug on his wrist and force him to sit down. “In the morning, we’ll be going up the mountain to see where the big apes are. It’ll be fun.”

Jeonghan smirks. “Don’t you wanna see them?” he asks, fully aware that he’s just adding fuel to the fire.

“Only if they can shake and open up a bottle of soju without spilling it.” Seungcheol laughs condescendingly. “Hey-oh!”

“Jihoon and I would be thrilled to help both of you up the mountain, Mr. Choi,” says Hoshi as he sets down his plate by his feet. Beside him, Jihoon pulls himself away from the leather-bound journal he’s been jotting down his thoughts on for the past hour to give a small nod. “With Mr. Kwame leading the way, of course.”

Jeonghan raises an eyebrow, intrigued. Ever since Seungcehol arrived with these two, he’s been nothing but skeptical about their intentions. And, granted, Jeonghan isn’t exactly the modicum of good behavior, but if he suspects someone of foul play or shady behavior, you don’t question it. More than once, he’s been an excellent judge of character.

“Scared of the jungle, are we?” Jeonghan asks, wiggling his eyebrows.

Hoshi shakes his head, smugly ignoring the comment. “We’ve heard the apes are supposed to be a fascinating sight, but we don’t know this area as Mr. Kwame does. And, besides, we’ve heard stories about a supposedly elusive White Ape and we’re very curious about whether or not it really exists.”

Silence falls around the campfire as everyone, even his men, look at Kwame. Everyone waits for him to elaborate. Only he’s too busy munching on a spoonful of chili. It takes him a few seconds for him to catch on before he stares back at you and the others, gulps, then clears his throat.

“Come again?”

“White Ape, really?” Seungcheol bursts out laughing. “What kind of nonsense is that?”

Kwame, immediately caught up, slumps his shoulders and gives an annoyed nod.

“Oh.” He rolls his eyes. “That.”

You cock your head, taken aback. “You make it sound like it’s boring,” you coax.

“It isn’t. But after fifteen years of bringing people up the mountain, you tend to get tired of telling the same story over and over again.”

“Remind me again, what is that you do?” Jeonghan points his spoon at the tour guide. “Don’t you regurgitate the same facts over and over again on every tour?”

“I don’t regurgitate the same facts over and over again.” Kwame smiles and wags a finger at him. “I impart the same facts over and over again.”

“Right. Regurgitating. Imparting.” Seungcheol interjects, bored. “Back to the info-dump.”

You raise an eyebrow then make a face. “The what?”

“He’s referring to the blatant and lazy exposition of important information to the audience.” Kwame explains with a blatant disregard for the Fourth Wall. “Let me give you an example . . .”

Jihoon closes his journal and leans forward. “Does it involve the White Ape?”

The guide sighs. “Yes.”

Jihoon nods and adjusts his glasses. They make him look both innocent and adorable. Which to some extent, he is—but not really.

“It’s a story that the locals tell to each other.” Kwame rests his empty bowl of chili on his thigh. “You could say it’s an urban legend, but it’s obviously not an urban tale.”

“Because we’re in the jungle,” Seungcheol mansplains and you catch Hoshi nodding, his mouth opening and taking a ‘O’-shape as the explanation sinks in. “That’s why it’s not urban.”

“Right.” Kwame pauses and clears his throat, turning to you and Jeonghan. “You see, they say that the White Ape is over seven feet tall and that he’s strong as a lion and as fast as the wind. That when the moon is full and the air is sweet, he wanders alone though wilderness, piercing the silence of the valley with his mournful call.

“Some say he’s an unfettered and bloodthirsty spirit of the jungle. Others say he is waiting for the mate he longs for but will never find. By the day, the White Ape rules over the entire Bukuvu from the top of Ape Mountain but by night—”

“He and Bigfoot run the popcorn stand at the Bukuvu Cineplex.” Seungcehol interjects, looking particularly smug and proud of his wit. “Now playing on all 14 screens: War for the Planet of the Apes.”

As Seungcheol guffaws, Kip, who is sitting between lanky N’Dugo and stout Baleto, whispers in Swahili, “My moron radar is going off.”

The porters laugh, prompting Seungcheol to look at them and wink, mistaking their mocking for genuine appreciation for his joke. You, fascinated by the tale but exasperated by the interruption, lean forward in your seat.

“Do you believe this White Ape is real?” you ask.

As Kwame shrugs, the porters stop laughing and their faces display a smudge of horror.

The guide offers a small smile, “Part of me believes it but it’s, after all, just a tall tale.”

You lean back in his chair and face Jeonghan. He just smiles, looking skeptical, but open to being surprised.

Seungcheol, on the other hand, looks beyond bored.

●

HAVING WOKEN UP with one heck of a headache after hours of unconsciousness, Ape Mountain’s tallest and most unbelievable tale makes his way back to his humble and secluded abode. The night, which had been relatively silent, is now interrupted by the mournful call of the White Ape.

Listen to his ominous cry echo across the jungle—

“Ouchie!”

Oof. Terrifying.

●

YOU DON’T KNOW if it’s because you were tired or because Seungcheol’s surprise arrival had drained you of your social energy, but you just feel exhausted after dinner. Sleep envelops you almost immediately and you fall asleep faster than expected.

You dream of apes . . . of Seungcheol waving goodbye . . . of an impressive mighty mountain whose peak reaches and scars the sky . . . and of a tall glass of tall, dark, and handsome swinging through the jungle.

You don’t think too much of it in the morning.

And yet some dreams, no matter how strange, do come true.

●

AS THE SUN rises over Ape Mountain, its agitated inhabitants send an urgent message to Mingyu via bongogram, warning the jungle heir that intruders are close afoot. Four apes, back to back, fiercely bang on oversized bongos and create a rhythmic cacophony that immediately summons their brother.

Startled awake, the heir to the jungle wakes up mid-snore and groggily jumps into action—only to promptly return after realizing he’s naked. A few seconds later, our bouncing young hero swings toward the danger. Because whether he’s tired or energized, hurt or healthy, eating or famished, he will always answer the call.

For he is the defender of the innocent, protector of the weak, and all around good guy Mingyu of the Jungle.

●

YOU WALK THROUGH a lush veld with Kwame leading the way and the porters mingling between Jeonghan and Seungcheol’s suspiciously suspicious companions. You actively avoid your fiancé and take photos of your venture further into the wilderness. Jeonghan, who pauses every so often to film the untouched paradise, asks Kwame about the region.

Seungcheol, on the other hand, is too invested in cutting the vacation short as soon as possible. He paces in front of everyone, desperately trying to catch up to you but his shoes, too expensive and definitely made for marble floors and not complex African topography, prevent him from keeping his balance.

“Hey, honey, slow your roll,” he sing-songs in a pathetic attempt at attention.

You try to ignore him, but you feel him reaching for you and abruptly stop, bumping into Jeonghan as the entire jungle comes to life. The fauna sings, snarls, hoots, and hollers; birds fly over you and the wind carries a foreboding breeze. Everyone stops walking to look around.

“Listen,” you hear N’Dugo whisper, awestruck.

You snap a photo of a flock of colorful birds then turn to Kwame, curious yet apprehensive. “What was that?” you ask.

The guide, a bit surprised, offers a small smile. “I suppose it’s the jungle waking up,” he guesses.

“It could be the mating call of the White Ape,” Hoshi interjects, pushing his lips downward in a pensive manner. Suddenly, he perks up. “Or it could be that a tiger is nearby and every animal around here respects its power.”

Jihoon rolls his eyes. “Aish,” he grumbles. “I’ve told you already. There are no tigers in Africa.”

“That you know of . . .”

“Why are you the way you are?” Jihoon squints, gritting his teeth. “Why are you so—ugh—never mind.”

Seungcheol snorts. You see him holding back laughter, his eyes clenched shut and almost nonexistent, as his face turns from pink to a violent and worrying shade of red. He shakes his head then roars with laughter, holding his sides as Hoshi and Jihoon look at him in confusion. Jeonghan tilts his head and opens his mouth to sass him, but ultimately decides to save it for later. Kwam and the porters simply look at each other, mumble something in Swahili, and shrug.

“Oh, you guys are a riot.” Seungcheol wipes the fountain of tears off his cheeks with the back of his hand. He clears his throat mid-chuckle and cocks his head in a “come on, now” sort of way. “If the tale of the White Ape is a thing, why can’t tigers be nearby?”

“I think we should keep moving,” Kwame announces as he turns (exasperatedly rolling his eyes) and leads the group forward. “We can set up camp a bit farther up this way.”

Seungcheol nods then exclaims, “Answer me this, though!”

Everyone but you sighs. You’re used to him obsessing over something and not letting it go until his curiosity or ego have been assuaged. He takes the lead and walks shoulder-to-shoulder with Kwame.

“Why do they call him the White Ape?”

Kwame shrugs.

“Is he an albino ape?” Seungcheol muses and counts off his fingers. “Is he even an ape? What if he’s a Tarzan wannabe? What if he’s not even Caucasian? Or even a man?”

Jeonghan exhales loudly. “Cheol, buddy, did the bed bugs bite you last night?”

“Think about it. We don’t know anything about whatever this cryptid fantasy is.”

“Oh-kay.” You pull him to your side. “Let’s put a pin on this White Ape discussion and never talk about it again.”

Seungcheol nods but immediately raises a finger, your words going through one ear and leaving through the other. “What if he’s Asian? Shouldn’t he be the Yellow—ouch!”

You pull hard on his ear. You can’t see it but your face is contorted with irritation. Seungcheol complains but quickly shuts up. Humming, you close your eyes and count to five. You can hear Jeonghan’s distinctive giggling and count all the way up to ten.

“I’ll pull your ear as well.” You point a firm finger at him “Don’t tempt me.”

Jeonghan cackles even harder but quickly composes himself, his face devoid of expression. “I love you,” he whispers.

You glare at him, exhale through your nose, and walk on, joining Kwame to lead the way.

“If he really is Asian,” Seungcheol pipes up, trudging closely behind Jeonghan. “He should be the Yellow Ape, right?”

Jeonghan, who is fighting the urge to laugh, suddenly grows serious. He clicks his tongue and moves along to avoid smacking the back of Seungcheol’s neck. Now alone with the companions he brought to the jungle, your fiancé continues his strange fascination with a potentially Asian jungle man when Hoshi interrupts him.

“You do know that’s—er—kinda racist, right?” Hoshi asks through the side of his mouth.

Jihoon nods. “We’re Asian, boss man. Korean-born, but Asian nonetheless.”

Seungcheol waves them off, not really listening.

“Yellow. White. It sounds like a drink.” He raises a hand, gesturing to an imaginary bartender. “Yes, uh, I’ll have two Black Russians and a White Ape.”

A hypothetically delightful but hard drink the venal miscreant would be begging to imbibe if only he knew how near the White Ape is at this very moment. Groggily flying through the foliage, and swinging on through the trees with effortless ease, he closes in—no, Mingyu, watch out for that—

He is unconscious.

Sigh.

Again.

●

ONWARD AND UPWARD, the tired trekkers trudge on feverish footsies over perilous paths. And so, after a lengthy trek, the group reaches their destination: Ape Mountain.

It’s exactly what says on the tin: a mountain in the shape of a great ape’s meticulously detailed head. Beyond being an iconic landmark representative of its fauna, it’s a monument to the Bukuvu’s indomitable nature. So it’s no surprise that when you and the rest of our cast finally behold the mighty mountain, all of you react with awe.

“Aww.”

I said “awe”. Not “aww.” Awe. A-W-E.

You stop and share an intrigued, awestruck “Ooh!” while nodding.

That’s better.

And now for something completely different . . .

●

BEWILDERED, MINGYU WAKES up whimpering and massaging his temple.

“Ouch,” he groans. “Big boo-boo.”

Bukuvu’s young heir rises to his impressive full height and looks upward, gaping at the Mingyu-shaped dent the tree he crashed on bears as a symbol of shame. He stands there, amazed yet bemused.

“Deep,” the jungle man mumbles, nodding to himself.

Suddenly, his ears perks up to the rhythmic beat of news traveling the thick green of the jungle, Mingyu listens to the bonogram: intruders near the mountain! He cracks his neck, pushes his long hair back from his face, then looks for the nearest vine to swing on.

As he leaps into action, something terrible is about to happen.

●

“CAREFUL, FRIENDS, THIS is an old bridge so take your time and step with caution,” Kwame warns you as he patiently leads the way.

And he is being generous. The rope bridge is not only old and close to collapsing, it swings eerily in whatever direction the wind is blowing. It’s a miracle it’s still in one piece but you have to get from Point A to Point B and there’s no risk in doing that by traversing a perfectly new bridge.

Kwame is up front with stout Baleto, closely followed by Jeonghan, you, and Seungcheol. Standing four steps behind you, N’Dugo and Kip walk stiffly and are being closely shadowed by Hoshi and Jihoon.

“Slow and steady steps, people!” Kwame reminds the group, glancing over his shoulder. “The wood is rotten and it can give in quite easily. One misstep and you’ll be waving bye-bye for a good while.”

At this, Seungcheol scoffs. He takes two steps forward, standing so close behind you that you feel his chest on your back. He throws his arms over your shoulders, as if to hug you, and reaches out to grip the ropes of the bridge with both hands.

“This isn’t that bad,” he haughtily proclaims. “I was on a bridge like this in Maui and that sucker was steady as a rock.” He begins to shake the ropes and thus the bridge. “See?”

“What in God’s—Mr. Choi, don’t—hey, hey, stop that!” Kwame tries to keep his cool, but Seungcheol shakes the bridge harder. “Please! Stop! This!”

Amidst the protests and expletives yelled in Swahili and Yoruba, your idiot fiancé continues shaking the bridge with an inappropriate “Yeehaw!” and a smug look on his face. Kwame is about to tell Seungcheol how big of a moron he is in a very indecent manner when he notices something terrible happening: N’Dugo swaying dangerously on the left side of the bridge’s ropes. The porter tries his best to maintain balance but between the bags he carries and his lack of a proper grip, he ultimately loses his footing.

One second he’s on the bridge and the next—

“NO!” Kwame cries, his voice echoing with that of N’Dugo’s and yours.

Plummeting hundreds of feet down to a deadly crevice, the distant view of a river below haunting everyone on the bridge, N’Dugo screams at the top of his lungs.

All while making obscene gestures at Seungcheol . . .

●

WORRY NOT, DEAR reader. Nobody dies in this story. They just get really big boo-boos. A band-aid here, some gauze there, a kiss on the knee, and you’re as good as new.

Which is why good old N’Dugo is still in one piece and glaring at Seungcheol. Baleto tends to his boo-boo and Kip offers him some coffee. Seungcheol gulps and looks away from N’Dugo.

Glancing at the porters every two seconds, he whispers to you, “They shouldn’t let inexperienced guides like that on these treks. It’s dangerous.”

“You were shaking the bridge,” you whisper back, pinching his arm.

“Hey, that hurts!” He looks offended, rubbing the spot with a frown. “So it’s my fault he has no balance?”

“That’s not the point—”

He pushes a finger against your lips. “Listen . . .”

The porters are talking to each other and openly staring at him. Their tone is aggressive and accusatory, the word “Maui” being uttered derisively, as they lift their chins at him in unison. While N’Dugo glares, Kip smirks and Baleto nods.

“Did you see the look they just gave me?” Seungcheol crosses his legs and leans closer to you. “They probably think I’m the world’s biggest moron. I bet they’re even planning to retaliate.”

“That guy is the world’s biggest moron,” says N’Dugo in Swahili.

Chuckling, Kip nods smugly. “I told you my moron alert was going off.”

“We have to get back at him.” Baleto half-smiles. “I say we retaliate.”

Seungcheol gulps and meets your bemused stare. You want to smack him some sense into him, but you’re too dumbfounded at his idiocy to do anything. You’re not sure if it’s the stress of the engagement or just the fact that he wasn’t entirely on board with this trip to begin with that has him all riled up, but you’re beginning to worry that he’s unraveling and close to having an anxious breakdown.

“If they turn on us,” he mutters, “we’ll never return to Seoul.”

You gently kick him in the shin. “As if,” you tell him. “What you should do is apologize.”

Seungcheol rolls his eyes, reaches into a bag, pulls a bottle of soju, and stands up. Clearing his throat, he forces a smile and approaches the porters. You watch him go, grimacing, wondering if he has more soju in his bags. Suddenly, despite being worried he’s going to dig a deeper hole than the one he has already dug, you find yourself in the mood for a drink.

“Hello, friends,” Seungcheol greets the trio, raising his voice and speaking slowly. “I bear gifts from South Korea.”

He hands the bottle of soju to N’Dugo. The bottle is passed around then secured in one of their bags. He grimaces at this but nonetheless pushes on and pulls out his iPhone from his pocket. He snaps a picture of them and shows it to them as though he had painted a magnificent masterpiece.

“Do you like that? Great quality, huh?” Seungcheol wiggles his eyebrows. “Instant picture.”

N’Dugo says something as he pulls an iPhone from his pocket. He snaps a photo of Seungcheol, shocked and offended, then laughs at his face. Blinking the disbelief away, your fiancé turns to Kwame.

“Translation, please.”

Kwame, through a bout of laughter, translates: “He says it’s bold of you to assume he would have an Android.” The guide shakes his head and continues to laugh. “He also says your phone’s camera is dirty and that he can clean it for you.”

“Is that so?” Seungcheol smiles thinly. From his pocket, he pulls something shiny and hands it to N’Dugo. “Tell him to clean this instead.”

Shaking his head and muttering under his breath, the venal socialite claps N’Dugo in the back. Seungcheol is unaware of the porter’s wincing reaction as he trots back to you and pulls you to a standing position.

“Whoa, what’s with the manhandling—” you snap then, noticing him staring defiantly at the porters, you pull on his ear. “Hey, soju man, what’s up?”

“Ouch—what was that for?” He massages his ear and turns to you, only to find himself under the coldness of your glare. He clears his throat and pulls you aside. “Come on, we’re—er—exploring the jungle.”

“No, we’re not.”

He turns on his heel, dragging you along. “We’re finding that White Ape and getting the fork out of here.”

You do a double take. “The fork?”

“I said the fork.” Seungcheol pauses and looks at you, frowning. “What the fork? I can’t say fork—forkity fork fork!”

You look shocked but then snort as a smile creeps on your lips. You’re about to laugh when he shakes his head and continues to drag you away from camp. A gasp is forced out of you as you take a sudden left into the thick green.

“We could get lost—no, we can—no, we will definitely get lost!” You protest, pulling on his forearm to no avail. “Hey, Cheol, come on. We can’t go on our own.”

“Don’t worry, honey! I have an impeccable sense of direction.”

You grimace because you know he doesn’t.

●

ALLOW ME TO interrupt for just one second and issue a bit of a spoiler alert: we’ll meet a dangerous feline in this act. And if you were expecting a lion, you’ll be sorely disappointed. Lions are often referred to as the kings of the jungle, even though they have no idea what or how a monarchy works. They also live in—let me check my notes—the savannah.

Now you may ask: Narrator, why, of all the animals, have you chosen a leopard?

And to that I say: Why not?

●

HAVING DILIGENTLY ANSWERED the call, Mingyu spies on the intruders from high above a treetop. He looks down and inspects a modest camp: logs in a circle occupied by strange men of similar and different complexion to his; heavy bags are strewn here and there, most of which are belongings unfamiliar to him.

With his senses amplified by years of living in the wilderness and imbibing the nectar from the Yabai Fruit, he picks up a distinctive smell unlike any fragrance he has smelled. For a moment, lost in this heavenly aroma, he finds himself swooning until he hears a conversation that echoes into dangerous territory.

With a quick motion, sliding a curved branch and expertly landing on another, Mingyu leaps into the foliage and swings further into the jungle.

Danger is on the horizon and he can smell it.

●

SEUNGCHEOL WHISTLES LOUDLY, though the sound comes across more like someone choking with a whistle stuck in their throat than someone actually, well, whistling. He impatiently trudges through unknown territory, slapping away branches and kicking rocks. Behind him, still being dragged around like an exasperated rag roll, you grit your teeth and roll your eyes as your fiancé continues to rant.

“—it’s my job to get you what you want, honey.” His hair is a mess and his once immaculate clothing is now dirtied by sweat and mud. “Because if you want a double decaf latte with mocha sprinkles, well, you’re getting a double decaf latte with mocha sprinkles!”

“Cheol, let go of my hand.” You stomp your feet and bury them in the earth so that your entire weight holds you in place. “I’m not taking another forking step if you keep dragging me around.”

“You said forking!”

Exhaling through your mouth and inhaling through your nose, you glare at him. “That’s your take away?” You wrestle your hand away from his and punch him on the shoulder. “I tell you to let me go and you think the point is that I can’t cuss?”

“Neither can I.” Seungcheol shrugs and takes a step only to stumble. He grabs your wrist again, more gently this time, and tugs on it but you remain unmovable as a boulder. “We just gotta move a bit forward.”

“We shouldn’t be here on our own. We’re gonna get lost out here.”

“I told you I have an impeccable—”

“Sense of direction, yeah.” You yet again slap his hand away. “You also said you have an impeccable fashion sense yet you’re wearing a Prada belt in the middle of the jungle.”

He looks down at his belt and meets your judging expression. Caressing the belt, he pouts.

“And what does that have to do with anything?”

“Absolutely everything! It exemplifies who you are, Seungcheol!” Your eyes widen as you walk in a circle and gesture at your surroundings. “We’re in the middle of the jungle and you want to go scavenger hunting.”

“You said you wanted to see the apes . . .”

“Yes! But as responsibly and as cautiously as possible—”

“Then it’s settled!” He shrugs and reaches for your hand again, but you swat his away. “You want to see the White Ape, I’ll arrange a meet and greet.”

“And how do you plan on doing that?”

“I’ve seen Animal Planet,” Seungcheol says confidently. “I’ve seen how it’s done.”

“Okay . . . I think you’ve made your point. If you want to leave so badly, we will,” you coax, pulling on his arm in the opposite direction. “Let’s go back to the camp.”

“Here, monkey, monkey, monkey!” He holds it out and pretends to hold food in it. “Here, gorilla, gorilla. Come on.”

Having paved a path that leads you to a small clearing surrounded by impossibly tall trees and more thick foliage, both of you reluctantly take a break to catch your breaths. As Seungcheol prepares to whistle yet again, a low snarl startles you. Suddenly, you feel watched. A few minutes ago, you had felt someone—or something—following you but had ignored it, certain it was mostly unwarranted paranoia. Now, as you lean on Seungcheol, you come to accept that such paranoia, as brief as it had been, doesn’t feel unwarranted.

“Don’t move,” you whisper in a hoarse voice.

“You’re telling me that I found one? Did it work—” Seungcheol moans as you slap his mouth, your fingers squeezing his cheeks and nose in the process.

“Just for a second,” you whisper, shaking him in place, “be quiet!”

Your eyes struggle to find your stalker and your attempts to pinpoint their location are futile. Seungcheol, on the other hand, continues to mumble against the hand on his mouth.

The stalker watches and snarls to themselves, playing with you—their potential meal.

For the slightest of moments, your eyes unknowingly meet those of your stalker but you’re too focused on keeping your calm and making sure Seungcheol is silent that you don’t notice it. Then there is silence. Both of you listen and find yourselves nervous but strangely calm.

You slowly let go of Seungcheol’s mouth and wipe your hand against his shoulder. Too terrified to cry, you laugh and pat your own chest to cope with the shaking.

“That scared me,” you whisper mid-chuckle.

“Yeah, I know.” Seungcheol looks confident, but there is visible fear in his eyes. “Scared me too—”

It is then that, ten feet across from where you stand, a big silhouette jumps into the light. That’s when you see it—the biggest leopard you’ve ever laid your eyes on. The feline’s fangs and claws are bared, and he moves with such deadly graze that you feel yourself taking two steps backwards and freeze out of fear. The leopard’s fur is dirty gold with black and brown spots; the face is round and masculine whereas the body is all muscle. His roar prompts Seungcehol to squeeze you by your shoulders.

“I’m gonna—I’m gonna go get help,” he stutters, then impulsively pushes you aside. “Wait here!”

He swiftly turns on his heel and makes a run for it—only to trip on a tree’s root and fall flat on his face, knocking himself out cold. The leopard witnesses all of this with palpable amusement and disgust. The famished feline looks at your fiancé then very slowly turns to you, his snarling turning into a throaty growl.

“Good kitty, nice kitty.” You back up, one hand toward the leopard to keep distance, the other behind you to feel your way out. “Good kitty, nice—”

“Do you really think that’s going to work?”

You blink. A leopard didn’t just sass me, you think. You stare at him, frowning in confusion and disbelief.

“Nice kitty?”

The leopard tilts his head, seemingly cringing. Then, without missing a beat, he says, “What are you going to do next, sing me a lullaby?”

You look close to fainting as you straighten up and point at the vicious predator.

“Did you just—”

“Speak?” The leopard sits and nods. It dawns on you that he’s not only speaking but he’s doing so with an offensively posh accent. “I believe I just did.”

“What the f—”

●

HOLD IT!

I know. You’re confused. I didn’t info-dump you enough. How could I forget about such an important detail? I’m only the Narrator. I shouldn’t forget stuff like this.

As we know, animals are complex and unique creatures that we admire—and should protect—but, unfortunately for us, they can’t talk. Their specific dialects, languages, and colloquialism are beyond our understanding. So in our story, Bukuvu’s eclectic and poorly researched fauna is going to talk so that you, dear reader, don’t miss a thing.

You’re welcome.

●

“LANGUAGE,” THE LEOPARD retorts, his posh accent once more taking you by surprise. “No need to be so vulgar.”

“Sorry.”

“No biggie.” The predator shrugs then glares, immediately returning to stalk his prey. “Now, darling, I’m afraid I’ve played with my food long enough.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, to put it plainly, it means I’m going to devour you and that imbecile over there.”

You nod but object by raising a finger. “He’s actually my fiancé.”

About to pounce, the leopard halts and makes a face. “Oh . . . that’s just depressing.”

You reluctantly agree with a small nod.

“You can do—no—you could’ve done so much better than him.”

You shrug and nervously giggle as you continue to back up. You feel a tree behind you and, aware that this is the end, whisper an agnostic prayer to whatever deity that may listen in and deem themselves generous enough to intervene.

You close your eyes and listen as the leopard closes in, snarling to tenderize his meal with fear. Just as death is about to pounce and snatch you, an ear-piercing sound startles you. It’s a cry of heroism arriving in the nick of time. It reminds you of Tarzan’s jungle call, only it echoes across the clearing as if being performed by a teenager undergoing puberty with a terrible case of voice cracks.

You open your eyes to see a lean but fit man standing on a thick branch of an impossibly tall tree to your right. Your savior surveys the scene then leaps into action, swinging from a vine. His jungle call echoes across the clearing and flies through the air, no doubt reaching the folk back at the camp.

He moves fast in the leopard’s direction—

“MINGYU COMING IN FAST!”

And yet he misses his mark.

●

MINGYU HAS NEVER been a big fan of math.

Not because he doesn’t understand the subject but because there has never been much use for it in Bukuvu. Granted, he knows enough to get by but besides using the complicated numbers science to calculate a swing, Mingyu has had but passing and rather ambivalent relationship with geometry.

So, as he misses his target by the tiniest of margins, he thinks to himself that he should have crunched the numbers better before leaping into the jaws of danger. And just as he finds the mistake that threw off his calculation, he flies straight into a tree.

The impact shakes the tree to its very foundations but it isn’t thick enough that Mingyu makes a Mingyu-shaped dent on it. Instead he hangs there, groaning, and sort of hugging the tree trunk. He shakes his head, clenches and unclenches his jaw, and simply lets go—which only prompts gravity to ostensibly take a hold of him.

He slides down the tree trunk, pausing every two branches—his groin painfully, if safely slowing down the fall. With every smack and crack, he moans and yelps until he finally descends and disappears into a bush.

●

I’M SURROUNDED BY idiots and a posh leopard, you think to yourself, tightly closing your eyes out of embarrassment and dread. I’m so forking dead. Is this even really happening? Holy shirt. No one’s gonna believe this.

“How did you miss me?” The leopard sounds genuinely confused. “I’m not even moving!”

To your surprise, your hear the man, no doubt the elusive White Ape, boisterously reply—

“Mingyu didn’t crush numbers right.”

You snap your eyes open and see your would-be savior darting out of the bush to tackle the leopard. He moves so fast you’re only able to see his long hair and tan skin.

The leopard, having anticipated the incoming tackle, moves gracefully to the side but Mingyu manages to slow his momentum enough to reposition himself and stare down at him.

“Mingyu,” the leopard snarls, his voice laced with vitriol.

“Leopold,” Mingyu greets while crouching. Though his body language implies aggression, his tone displays levity. He hoots and smacks the ground, lifting dirt and leaves. “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty!”

Leopold the Leopard bears his fangs. “Stop that, you little shirt.”

“Leopold know better than to cuss.” Mingyu smirks and reaches with his right hand to boop the feline’s snout. “Here, kitty! Mingyu wanna show kitty a trick. Here, key-tea!”

“Now listen here!” Leopold swipes a clawed paw at his enemy and misses. Annoyed, he tackles Mingyu to the ground. “I’m having lunch whether you like it or not!”

They roll on the ground. Mingyu has the upper hand until Leopold has the upper hand. Rinse and repeat for about thirty seconds. Mingyu thrusts a finger on the leopard’s side and rolls him over—only to have the angered leopard breathe on his face.

“When Leopold brush last?”

The leopard retorts with a weak attempt at preserving some of his dignity: “I brush every morning!”

“Sure and Mingyu lack armpit hair!” The jungle man chuckles as he puts his opponent in a complicated lock. “Leopold know better than lie.”

Shamed enough, Leopold swipes a paw that connects with Mingyu’s jaw. Dazed for a second, Mingyu reciprocates and pushes the leopard off himself. He jumps to his feet, runs to a nearby tree and literally bounces off it. Meanwhile, working his jaw to make sure it isn’t broken, Leopold gets his bearings and reorients himself.

By the time he composes himself, the leopard turns to see an advancing Mingyu coming at him, left hand extended to the side. Leopold tries to move but is caught in the attack and slumps to the ground.

Mingyu laughs then spots you crouching near a tree.

“Huh,” he mumbles, “strange fella.”

You gasp and take a step back. Though he’s at a distance, you’re too shocked to see a grown man fight a big cat to properly focus on his face. Just then he opens his mouth to say something.

I better pay attention, you think, trying to not faint due to the sheer absurdity of the situation you’re in.

“Rubber tree is always good for clothesline,” Mingyu tells you, a wide smile on his face. He raises a finger and motions his thumb over his shoulder. “Excuse Mingyu for a second.”

Leopold is now even more dazed than before. Unable to get on his four paws, he’s purring on the ground. Grilled birds ready to be devoured float around his periphery.

“Upsies, kitty!” Mingyu picks up the leopard with ease and holds him over his head with both hands, not even breaking a sweat.

“Is that you, mother?” Leopold mutters. “Have I been a good cub?”

Mingyu proceeds to turn Leopold until the leopard has gained enough momentum to be spinning like a basketball. As though what he’s doing is not impressive enough, this weird jungle man strikes a pose—left hand on his waist, chin up, smirk present—and spins Leopold on a single finger.

To emphasize how easy it is, he shrugs. You gape at him in utter disbelief.

“Mingyu not even trying hard,” he announces, sounding both nӓive and smug.

He stops the spinning as fast as he started it and plops Leopold on the ground. Grabbing the leopard by the base of his neck and his tail, Mingyu lifts him a few inches from the ground, sways him back and forth, then punts him ten feet into the air. With a loud crunch and a thud, Leopold lands somewhere in the foliage.

“Hidden bushes always good to break—” Mingyu turns to you and finds you on the ground, unconscious. “Oh. Poor fella.”

●

WHEN SEUNGCHEOL comes to, coincidently at the same moment a tall figure runs and disappears into the thick of the jungle carrying someone on their shoulder, he rolls on the ground and finds your scrunchy.

“You—ah—dropped your scrunchy, honey,” he feebly whispers. “Honey?”

Flabbergasted, he looks at it and groggily gets to his feet. He shouts your name as he looks left and right, up and down, then whimpers when he gets no response.

“Forking great.”

●

TAKING THE SCENIC route, Mingyu swings through the jungle and (respectfully) carries you. He takes a breather twenty-two vines away form his humble abode and accommodates you in your arms, avoiding any inappropriate touching form his part. To his surprise, you stir and blink up at him.

“Oh,” you whisper in a low, hoarse voice.

“Fella shouldn’t worry,” he whispers back. “Mingyu taking fella to safe place.”

He nods at a distinctive tree in the distance. It’s tall and robust and unique from the rest. He half-smiles to emphasize how close to safety you are. You nod back in gratitude, your hair covering half of your face.

“Thanks,” is all you manage to say before fainting.

Mingyu shrugs as he prepares to swing again.

“No biggie,” he says, then leaps further into the jungle.

●

HAVING SURVIVED A deadly encounter by virtue of being immensely dense and an embarrassing lack of self-awareness, Seungcheol absentmindedly squeezes your lost scrunchy on his right hand and bites the nails of his left.

What the fork just happened?

He shakes his head and slaps himself. Just now he swears something snarled at him and he’s having none of that business. With a lame “Go away!”, he tries to have some semblance of dignity and control as he gets his affairs in order.

Which, to be frank, is a waste of time.

Terrified, Seungcheol analyzes the scene. He sees prints of a large animal deeply imprinted on the ground; these are mixed with those of a seemingly large man. In conclusion: there was an obvious struggle, an obvious victor, and, now, you’re obviously missing.

“Where the heck are you?” Seungcheol scratches his head, the scrunchy now tied around his left wrist. Eye roll, sigh of frustration. “Aish.”

Thinking slightly harder than usual, which is not saying much, the haughty socialite does a one-eighty and scans the small clearing for clues. Unfortunately, he finds nothing that helps him solve his fiancée’s disappearance. Until—

“The White Ape!” Seungcheol claps, suddenly enthusiastic but just as quickly he deflates.

Glancing over his shoulder, he taps a finger on his chin. The wheels in his head begin to turn, working overtime as they dust themselves off. An idea is turned over and over and over in his mind and until—click!—a dim light bulb is turned on in his brain. A daring yet tragic (and obviously false) story unfolds in his mind’s eye, simultaneously being written and edited.

“It was—it was horrible,” Seungcheol mumbles to himself, his tone too stiff to be believable. He clears his throat, slaps himself, winces, then produces an award worthy performance. “It was horrible. It was a four hundred pound monster.”

He slaps himself again, harder than before, kneels, and rolls on the ground. His clothes, which had earlier been stained, are now completely ruined. Still on his knees, he drags himself in a circle and stands up. Pathetically practicing a limp, he tears his shirt’s left sleeve as he pretends to cry.

“The White Ape has my fiancée!”

He tries his best to produce tears as he notices a batch of berries and reaches for them. He squeezes them, sticks them to his clothes and face; they perfectly fake dried blood.

“I held him off as long as I could. There was—there was blood everywhere!” Seungcheol continues to paint his face, putting some squeezed berries here and there. To himself, he whispers, “The White Ape—fiancée—blood—horrible struggle.”

He checks himself and sees that his Prada belt is still intact. With a whimper and a shake of his head, he takes off and tosses it aside as hard as he can. I’ll get you back, he tells himself but unfortunately for him, and fortunately for some lucky ape, he won’t be able to. And as he limps away, arms being pathetically swung in the air, Choi Seungcheol proclaims to the entire jungle that he has lost his betrothed to a monster.

“Man needs help!” Seungcheol screams, looking like a total imbecile. “The White Ape kidnapped my fiancée—he almost killed me!”

Yeah, right.

●

A ROOSTER CROWS, signaling the passage of time and the arrival of a new morning. And so, after a night of feverish fantasies, you awake to the melodious music of Bukuvu bird life. You blink and find yourself in search of the mysterious hero that saved you from being a leopard’s dinner.

But, as you pull yourself from the softest bed you’ve ever laid in the most unlikely place you’ve ever slept in, you’re shocked to realize that isn’t who you see first. Calmly walking toward the bedroom and carrying a tray with breakfast is a gorilla. He wears a handmade flowery apron and round glasses, and hums to itself.

“Good morning,” says the gorilla with a peppy tone and a soft yet distinctive Scottish accent. “Made you—”

You scream at the top of your lungs and startle the gorilla. The large primate does his darndest not to drop the tray.

“WHAT?”

The gorilla blinks and sees you running behind bed and hiding on a corner. Very gently, he walks up to a nightstand that looks to be made of a big leather suitcase and slowly puts the tray down on it.

“Get away!” You whimper, an arm out to keep distance, the other blindly reaching for something to throw. “Not a step closer!”

The gorilla scoffs, swatting away something from his apron. Surprisingly, much to your confusion, it’s fashionable, colorful, and well made. To say he looks strangely well in it seems like a crazy thought and yet, lo and behold, this gorilla is wearing the heck out of it. You eye him suspiciously but are distracted by the smell of breakfast.

You glance over to the tray and see two fried eggs on top of a sliced avocado, some fruits, and a grilled fish. You salivate, though quickly notice him staring at you, and apprehensively clear your throat.

“Is that for me?”

The gorilla nods, adjusting his glasses. He opens his mouth to reply when a familiar sound calls your attention: the jungle cry of a teenager with voice cracks. The great ape turns to see a man arrive, swiftly, expertly swinging into this strange place you haven’t yet explored. Glistening in sweat with an excuse for garment covering his privates, your long-haired and charismatic savior carries an entire cluster of bananas.

“Hello,” says Mingyu, ever smiling and ever cheerful.

He takes a step, trips on a leaf-made carpet, and falls flat on his face. All of this happens in the blink of an eye yet the bananas never touch the ground nor leave his hands. The gorilla, already used to this display of clumsiness, whispers something and shakes his head.

Just as quickly and as he thought he hadn’t fallen, this cheerful jungle man gets to his feet, tosses the bananas aside, and smiles . . . with a handful of leaves in his mouth. He gently taps his chest and spits them out, waving at you with an expression of relief.

“Feeling better, fella?”

You tilt her head, bemused. Looking between this Tarzan wannabe and the great ape, you scoff and shake your head. And then it hits you. None of this is real.

“Okay.” You smile to suppress the cackling that wants to erupt from you to cope with all this insanity. “It’s a dream, yeah, that’s what all of this is. I’m still having that psycho dream and I’m gonna wake up next to Seungcheol and he’ll complain about my snoring—”

Mingyu and the gorilla exchange a look. As the gorilla twirls a finger around his head and whistles like a cuckoo clock, jungle boy just snorts and shakes his. You blink then shrug, ready to test the limits of this strange lucid dream.

“Hello,” you reach out to shake the great ape’s hand.

To your surprise, he reciprocates. Hysteria settles again and you shriek and try to run at the first door you see—which just so happens to be behind jungle boy.

“Get away!”

“Don’t worry!” Mingyu raises both hands, as though demonstrating he’s harmless. He offers a smile and nods toward the gorilla. “Ape friend. Ape make you breakfast.”

You assume a half-remembered pose from your taekwondo lessons. “What does it want, huh? What does it—”

“It,” Ape retorts with an eye roll, “wants its Physician’s Desk Reference, if you don’t mind.” Ape picks up a large outdated medical tome and calmly peruses its pages. “Unless, of course, you’d rather die of dengue fever.”

You very slowly begin to chuckle then violently cackle, disbelief present in your features and body language. You point at Ape with a smile so broad it hurts. “That is so funny,” you exclaim, your words slurred. “I thought I heard the monkey talk—just like that leopard! But that is, like, totally understandable, right?”

Ape narrows his eyes at you, taking his glasses off to sigh in exasperation. Mingyu, you notice, is eyeing you rather intently. As your eyes lock with his, that’s when you really take a good look at him. He’s tall, lean, and properly fit. His complexion has been tanned by the hot African sun and his long light brown hair somehow isn’t greasy or tangled. He’s definitely handsome and definitely not Caucasian because he definitely looks Korean; the eyes and cheekbones give it away.

For a second, you find herself lost in his eyes but Ape clearing his throat reminds you that you’re far from being in a normal situation. Scathing laughter comes out of you again as a coping mechanism that is uncontrollable and, perhaps, inappropriate.

“Talking ape!” You snort. “I mean, sure, why wouldn’t an ape read textbooks or make breakfast? And why wouldn’t I find myself in—is this a treehouse?”

Mingyu nods.

“Right.” You suddenly feel dazed. “Where was I?”

Ape sighs. “You were sarcastically asking yourself about being in a treehouse.”

“Yes. Thank you.” You winks, very gently swaying as though you’re drunk. “Why wouldn’t I find myself in a treehouse with room service and a Tarzan wannabe wearing a—uh—what’s that you’re wearing?”

Mingyu looks down at his garments, takes a step forward, and replies, “Butt-flap.”

“Gyu, it’s a loincloth,” Ape grumbles.

“Mingyu think butt-flap is funnier.”

You look between them, nod, giggle, and then promptly faint.

“Ooh!” Mingyu winces. “That gonna leave mark.”

“It will,” says the ape named Ape, calmly moving to get a bowl with water and a rag. “As soon as she gets used to us talking, she’ll be fine.”

Mingyu kneels beside you, brushing your hair off your face.

“Fella never heard apes talk?” he wonders, frowning.

“I assume so.” Ape moistens the rag and hands it to him. “Not everyone is used to animals speaking. It’s not the norm outside of our land.”

Mingyu touches your forehead and feels it hot. “Fever,” he correctly assumes.

“Cold compress, dear boy. Dab her lightly.” As Mingyu does as he’s told, Ape leans back and shakes his head. “‘Talking monkey’, she says. Unbelievable.”

“Huh?”

Mingyu curiously stares at you and stops dabbing once he notices that your chest is definitely different from his. For one, just grazing it makes his skin tingle.

“Somethin’ funny about this fella,” he whispers, sounding nӓive.

At this, Ape gives an amused shake of his head. “She’s not a ‘fella’, Gyu. She’s a woman, the female of your species.”

He blinks. “Like, uh, lady Mingyu?”

Ape shrugs, but when he answers, his tone is infused with mild annoyance.

“That’s one way of putting it.”

A scary thought prompts Mingyu to ask a question he daily ignores, “But does that mean Ape and Mingyu are not brothers?”

“Well, in a sense, we are related. We are, after all, members of the primate family—”

“Primate family!” Mingyu smiles broadly and extends a hand for Ape to shake. “Brothers!”

“Yes, yes, brothers.” Ape agrees. “I suppose one could make the claim—”

Then you stir in Mingyu’s arms, groggily turning to point an accusatory finger at Ape. “Mom, make the monkey stop talking—”

Ape sighs and picks up a poetry book. “I’m going to refrain from speaking around her. It seems to upset her.”

“Thank you, mom.”

You fall unconscious again. With ease, Mingyu lifts you and moves you back to the bedroom. Very gently, he settles you in bed. He leans in to sniff you and thinks about licking your cheek—

Hmm. Mingyu.

“Yes?”

Don’t lick her.

“Huh?”

Don’t lick her. It’s creepy and definitely not the best first impression.

“Okay. No licking, Mr. Narrator.”

Thank you. As I was saying . . .

Having settled you on your bed, he watches you and wonders where you come from . . . how you manage to get so close to the Clan’s territory . . . and why are you so pretty. Just as he’s about to leave, you momentarily stir awake.

“What your name?” Mingyu asks, genuinely curious.

You tell him your name and stare at him, your eyes hazy.

“And you are?” you ask.

“Mingyu Primate.” He points at himself then at Ape. “And that’s Mingyu’s brother. Ape Primate.”

Ape suddenly tosses the poetry book aside and bangs his chest, grunting and hooting. You look at them, a glint of disbelief still visible in your eyes, then make a sound between a sigh and a groan.

“Nice to meet you but—uh—I’m gonna pass out again.” You pout and nod. “Bye.”

And, as a woman of your word, you pass out.

Again.

88 notes · View notes

mlmvoreconfessionals · 3 years

Note

M.ilo simp here again...instead of prompts, could you write a story with anything as M.ilo pred? (Again, oral + samesize preferred). Apologies for sending another ask so soon but I can't help myself~

Well, lucky for you, M.ilo is perfect and I'm still in a very particular mood for people eating P.okemon soooo...let's go a bit more in depth with that last prompt I did for him, huh? Because I realized it would work a lot better as a story. Probably my longest one yet, actually!

M.ilo was on break since today was his weekly fan meet-and-greet, and today’s lucky winner was a cute little lad that seemed pretty shy. Not that M.ilo minded, he thought it was just adorable! The trainer seemed more than happy to be with him for the day, though, but now he was getting extra flustered since M.ilo had made his usual request to see the trainer’s P.okemon. It was near the end of the day, so he was going to send the lucky guy home with a fresh bag of his custom manure.

The trainer fumbled a bit with the first P.okeball as he grabbed it and opened it up. M.ilo was expecting something small and cute to come out of it to match the trainer, so he was surprised when a massive R.illaboom practically thumped onto the ground right in front of him. Now he thinks he understands why the trainer was being so flustered with him. Fortuntely, M.ilo was more than capable of handling big meals like this! He wasn’t as big and strong as he was for nothing after all!

“Well, you know that I have to respect the choice of using the G.rass type start!” Milo says with a big grin. “Good thing I also find them to be the tastiest of the bunch!” The R.illaboom seemed to perk up at the comment, but M.ilo grabbed it by the strand of leaf-like hair sticking in front of its face and giving a sharp tug. It cries out and jerks forward, right into M.ilo’s wide open maw. Despite the muscular build of the groilla P.okemon, a few heavy gulps and slurps from M.ilo sent its bulky frame squeezing down his gullet and bloating out his guts. It took him no time at all to reduce what was no doubt a very powerful and well trained starter P.okemon into a bulge in his belly.

A slimy belch rumbles out of M.ilo, both of his hands resting on his hips as he stood tall. He could feel the R.illaboom moving around inside of him, muffled cries echoing from his gut. While the g.ym leader might have normally wanted to relax and enjoy this for a good while, he didn’t have the time for that, so he let his gut get to work. Heavy churning and gurgling rumbled out of him and his powerful abs clench tightly every so often. The R.illaboom got more frantic as the stomach around it began to shrink down. But as the gut kept reducing in inches with every clench, the defined bulges began to soften and shrink down, and the movement and cries got softer and weaker, until M.ilo’s gut finally rounded out at half the original size, filled with nothing but gorilla sludge. Then it was shrinking down even faster as it all went pumping through his intestines. “Been a little while since any of my fans brought me a meal like this. I hope you had more where that came from!”

The trainer’s entire face was bright red after watching his Pokemon be reduced to nothing in less than five minutes by M.ilo’s powerful stomach. He watched as it finally stopped shrinking with a soft gurgle, not a bit thicker than before. M.ilo’s muscles were straining his shirt as well now. He’d already fully processed the R.illaboom and it’d been alive just minutes ago! Realizing he was staring, though, the trainer shook his head and quickly released his next P.okemon, hoping to see it again.

A powerful P.angoro was now towering over M.ilo, arm’s crossed as it huffed, unimpressed. M.ilo just grinned and let out a deep, bassy belch that stunk of digested G.rass type. The panda’s nose twitched a few times and he let out a soft grumble, leaning down closer as if to get a better smell of things. M.ilo grabbed it by the ears and yanked it down, shoving that muzzle into his jaws. A thick gulp slurped in the head, and then the big bear was sliding down the hatch just like the other P.okemon had before it. It actually tried to put up a fight by roaring and struggling with all its might, but it was just a pair of kicking legs hanging out of M.ilo’s jaws by then, and those were slurped up in just a few seconds. It got a few moments to throw some solid punches into the tight stomach walls and let out very intimidating roars before that stomach started up.

It was just as fast as it had been the first time. Those powerful punches started to look less impressive when the bulge was losing its shape and pushing out less. And that intimidating roar was turning into a very pathetic whine as the guts smelted and compacted around the P.angoro. And then he was gone with a clench and a slosh, and all that sludge was pumping along after his teammate. M.ilo gained some extra muscle off of that one, which left him flexing. “F.ighting types always make for a great work out replacement, you know. Nothing quite beats it!”

Next was a chubby O.bstagoon, which found itself staring down a wide open gullet the moment it was let out of its Pokeball. It didn’t even get to make a sound before getting shoveled down the hatch. Despite how scary that P.okemon seemed, the smell of R.illaboom and P.angoro wafting in M.ilo’s groaning stomach left it a frightened, whimpering mess. It put up the least resistance as the stomach began to reduce it down into sludge. O.bstagoon digested the faster, getting out a meek roar before he was suddenly crushed into sludge and pumping down into M.ilo’s bloated intestines. He was mostly reduced to soft belly fat, but there were no complaints for that.

S.awk came after that and he was the smallest so far, but the muscules he had rivaled M.ilo’s! Which also meant he was going to be adding nicely to it as he was grabbed and snarfed down. This one was a bit feistry than the rest, and M.ilo almost fell backwards from the punch he took to the chest once his jaws were over its head. But that first swallow pinned its arms down and he was slurping down the F.ighting type with ease from there. M.ilo had to give it some credit, too. The S.awk fought back to the very last minute, the kicking and punching he was receiving only stopping when his gut finally finished off the softening P.okemon. It made for one impressive belch, too! And as the protein-rich sludge pumped through his lower guts, M.ilo could feel his muscles getting even stronger.

Grimmsnarl came second to last and was easily the largest of the entire team. It complained a lot, too, as Milo started stuffing it down his gullet with each powerful swallow and hard shove against its bulk frame. He could tell the F.airy type was not excited to be his food, but a final gulp sent down its feet and those complaints meant very little. It wasn’t all that resilient, despite its very vocal complaints, and it had gone soft and quiet after only a few clenches. M.ilo’s gut was really noisy as it bubbles and groaned while sending the slop down. He got bigger all around off a meal like that!

And that left the final P.okemon, a fat T.oxicitry who, all things considered, really didn’t seem to mind the current predicament. Since it was the last P.okemon, M.ilo devoured that one feet first, and it didn’t do anything to resist the pull of his gullet. It let out a lazy cry just before it’s head was gulped down and it dropped into M.ilo’s gut. It fell apart in a single clench, but that mix of P.oison and E.lectric typing left him incredibly gassy. He couldn’t stop belching the entire time it was processing.

But before long, it was gone, too. M.ilo had reduced an entire team of clearly powerful P.okemon dow into some added heft on his frame in under half an hour. Well, that, and a massive shit he couldn’t hold in any more. Six bags were filled up due to how large each meal was, all of them the same but different. Each pile was made of thick, soft logs that smelled awfully rancid, the smell only alleviated once they were sealed in the burlap sacks. Each one was packed with bones and whatever fur remained from each meal. The trainer got to watch each bag get filled with his teammates. He let out a soft noise each time he recognized the skull getting pushed out of M.ilo’s ass and into the bag.

Soon enough, he was walking off with a wagon, six heavy bags of dung stacked in it, each one with a cartoon decal to represent the which P.okemon was in which bag. M.ilo grinned and waved as the trainer walked off with his team, and the g.ym l.eader was hoping he’d get another big meal next week as well.

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rogue-seeker · 2 years

Text

Profile: Megatronus

PHYSIOLOGY

1. Sex/Gender

None by human standards. Pronouns - Ey/Eir. Trinal Manufactoring Role: Munidor.

2. Age

Fullframed/Adult

3. Height/Weight

Forty feet tall. Many tons.

4. Color of Hair/Eyes/Skin

Silver plating with rust colored streaks. Crimson optics.

5. Posture.

Walks on “feather-knuckles” like a gorilla.

6. Appearance (Good-looking, over/underweight, clean, neat, pleasant, untidy; shape of face/head/limbs)

Megatronus is a broad-shouldered, barrel-chested monstrous mech. Eir frame resembles a cross between an owl and a gorilla. Eir plating is very angular, jagged, and spikey, to catch foes on.

Eir feather-plates on eir helm, are removable, and used as shanks.

Eir stomach plates open up to reveal a second maw, with spinning grinders and saws, to consume eir prey.

Later has egg-pods hosted on back.

7. Defects (deformities, abnormalities, birthmarks, diseases)

Ey has numerous scars from the arena fights ey was forced to battle in for eir insecticon owners’ amusement. Notable scars down eir optics, ey usually gets by using chemoreceptors and sound to track down foes.

8. Heredity (inherited traits from character's family)

N/A

SOCIOLOGY 1. Social Class (lower, middle, upper)

Low, Enslaved Gladiator Seeker. High/Criminal as Head of Decepticons.

2. Occupation (Type of work, hours of work, income, condition of work, union or non-union, attitude towards organization, suitability for work)

See above, enslaved with an owner. Later leads a rebellion and becomes Lord Megatron of the Decepticons.

3. Education (amount, kind of schools, marks, favorite subjects, poorest subjects, aptitudes)

Was educated by Terminus in the slave quarters. Later Waspinator and Inferno educates Megatronus on hive history. Orion Pax later edifies eir as well.

4. Home Life (Parents living, earning power, orphan, parents separated or divorced, parents' habits, parents' mental development, parents' vices, neglect, character's marital status)

Created in a slave factory as a grub, Megatronus never was raised in a flock setting with a loving set of trine creators, like most undomesticated Seekers were. As a grub, Ey was taken in by Terminus man old gladiator.

As an adult, ey was bonded to Soundwave. With the lack of generational knowledge on how to manufacture young, their attempts to rear the next generation ended up in tragedy. Most of their attempts at creating sparklings ended up with the eggpods hatching into deformed twisted nanite tumors and lifeless grubs.

It took the expertise of Starscream and other mecha on how to perfect the process.

The few creations that survived ended up as child soldiers. Ey was not a very good parent, and Soundwave often had to do the delicate dance of pleasing zir Lord but also keeping their creations safe from Megatronus’ moods.

Was stolen from an egg-pod from the Kaonite Ram flock that manufactured eir.

5. Race

Kaonite Ram Seeker.

6. Religion and/or Nationality

Entropism/Follower of Unicron

7. Place in Community ('leader among friends', clubs, sports)

Was one of the champion gladiators, then a leader of the Decepticon Revolution, and later Lord Megatron of the Nemesis Flock.

8. Political affiliations.

Authoritative Revolution. Burn down the old order, replace it with eir domineering leadership. MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY.

9. Amusements/Hobbies (books, newspapers, magazines he/she reads, etc.)

Poetry, learning every scrap of information eir can, crushing eir enemies, collecting trophies, hunting down prey, crafting presents for Soundwave and creations, decorating plating as an act of self-ownership.

Throwing eir creations around like footballs.

10. Time Period/Era (social structure and how it pertains to your character)

Hive Era, when the Insecticon Hives ruled Cybertron. Second Cataclysm, when the Decepticon vs Autobot War devastated their home planet. After that, Megatronus is an outcast, blamed for Cybertron being uninhabitable, and the Decepticons are left to wander the stars.

PSYCHOLOGY 1. Moral Standards

Survival of the strongest. If you can’t claw your way out of freedom, you are weak and deserve to suffer. Extremely anti-slavery. Ran a tight ship with meritocracy, mecha were encouraged to defeat their commanding officers in battle to weed out weaklings.

2. Personal Premise/Ambition

To bring Cybertron to under eir foot-claws, a peaceful world where ey rules, no threat to Seekerkind, no slavers, no slave-factories.

3. Frustrations

Everything about the war, everytime eir little ones disobey eir, everytime Soundwave speaks less and less, that eir few loved ones are becoming more and more afraid of eir. The loss of history.

4. Temperament (choleric, easygoing, pessimistic, optimistic, etc.)

Hot-headed. Will throw around underlings if they piss eir off. The war must be won at all costs.

5. Attitude toward Life (resigned, militant, defeatist, etc.)

Militant.

6. Complexes (obesessions, inhibitions, superstitions, phobias, etc.)

Obsessed with destroying Optimus Prime, who turned her back on eir after Orion Pax accepted the Matrix of Leadership and changed into Optimus Prime. The once close friends ended up on opposite sides of the war.

Obsessed with wiping out the Autobots to end the cycle of vengeance between Hivekind and Seekerkind.

7. Extrovert? Introvert? Ambivert?

Introvert. Ey loathes crowds, but grits eir fangs and gives rousing speeches to the troops. Ey dreams of just having a warm barrow and being able to teach eir young history and poetry and writing, but that won’t happen until there’s a free world, cleansed of Autobots.

8. Abilities (languages, talents)

Can turn into alien jet. Eats radioactive ores to fuel fusion cannon. Arm-wings are built to shovel into Cybertron’s thick metals, so great at digging. Very tanky in battle. Can easily eat other Cybertronians.

9. Qualities (imagination, judgement, taste, poise)

10. IQ

Would’ve been a brilliant poet and tactician if raised among eir people, instead of enslaved to produce fights for entertainment.

11. Time Period/Era (periodic ways of thinking, and how it applies to your character)

Hive Era Megatronus is a mere gladiator champion. Uneducated to any other way of life.

Revolution Era Megatronus is still idealistic, to changing the status quo without genocide. Ey is working with insecticon spies in the hives, with Orion Pax to reform the hives, to end the slave system. But after Orion Pax, now Optimus Prime betrays eir after viewing the destruction of a slave factory as an act of war…Megatronus starts sliding into madness.

Second Calamity Megatronus is a grizzled war general, a war criminal, someone who has brought eir homeworld to its knees, who sees no issue with bringing genocide to Hivekind and those who have fled the war.

Voidlost Era Megatronus is in stasis. Ey is dying, eir creations are in stasis, there is no more Cybertron. The few colony worlds left have banned the Decepticons from their worlds, they are lost to the Void.

Earth era Megatronus is deactivated, lost to nuclear hellfire. After the Decepticons and the Autobots have restarted their war on Earth, humanity doesn’t fuck around and nukes both sides.

#megatron #rogue seeker canon #profile sheets #maccadam #tf fan continuity

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gengarprotectionsquad · 4 years

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bad horror movie ideas i've been compiling b/c @fleetwoodmurk is an enabler:

thankskilling: the family connections of a 19 year old college student allow him to skirt by any substantial sentencing for violent anti-indigenous hate crimes, just in time for him to make it home by thanksgiving. the soothing whispers of how he “shouldn’t have his life ruined for making a mistake” on property staked in stolen indigenous land invite the wrathful presence of autumn’s bounty-- a ghastly, therizinosaurus-like approximation of a turkey powered solely by the anguish of lives taken in the name of american colonialism. after all, if that family wants their son to have some turkey, then he’ll get his eight foot-tall, blade-handed, undying turkey.

homebody: forced to pull into a run-down motel by a freak storm, a group of friends initially find themselves faced with nothing more harrowing than the occasional cobweb and staff who never meet visitors face-to-face, even finding a note on the front counter that there’s no fee for staying--so long as they “spread the word” if they find their stay satisfactory. but, after waking up each morning to find that they’ve lost clumps of hair, individual teeth, and even a toe among other body parts, they discover the motel’s one and only employee--a colossal, man-like harvestman that severs human tissue with surgical precision (thanks to its spindly, 15 meter arms) in a misguided attempt to better fool human prey by grafting the fruits of its labor onto its own body.

goliath’s revenge: a japanese kaiju film director finally pushes his luck just a tad too far, killing the suit actress for the lead “goliath” monster as a direct result of the director’s penchant for strenuous, dangerous stuntwork. when his connections allow him to wriggle his way out of the tragedy scot-free, the suit actress’ furious spirit reanimates in her signature costume--now made flesh and blood--in order to exact a vengeful rampage of monstrous proportions that her former boss could only have hoped to have filmed.

more under the cut!!!

hivemind: a single mother reeling from a devastating divorce seems to find new purpose in her life thanks to a california-based branch of a yoga group that emphasizes the value of both diligence and mindfulness. as the months go by, however, she realizes that she’s so deeply invested her time with the group that she doesn’t even know the names of anyone in her neighborhood that isn’t involved with them. just as she’s having doubts, she’s invited on a week-long retreat to experience what will hopefully become an outdoor facility of theirs, and that even their founder will be in attendance. she and her daughter do indeed meet the group’s founder--a colossal, humanoid queen ant who is rendered inert by her size, subsequently relying on her psychic abilities to indoctrinate human followers to her side and transform them into “suitable workers” that would happily give their lives for her sake

children of the night: an exorcist, a private investigator, a trio of true crime podcasters, the local sheriff w/ top suspect in tow, a self-proclaimed “vampire hunter”, and a humble gravedigger all converge on the same cemetery when it becomes host to a series of unspeakably gruesome murders--the site being deemed the “vampires’ playground” for the crimes’ bloody nature. but when the self-confessed suspect winds up cleaved in twain at the scene, it turns out they’ll all have to deal with actual vampires--hulking, gorilla-like, hairless bats with the intelligence of a toddler and a permanent, gummy grin filled with teeth far too dull to consume flesh that hasn’t been playfully beaten to a fine pulp beforehand

think tank: with the untimely death of a silicon valley tech giant who’d racked up a reputation for being as antisocial as he was exploitative, a documentary crew visits his main offices in hopes of interviewing any available employees in order to determine whether or not that open secret had any truth to it. though cooperative enough, the surly defensiveness that seems to increase in prevalence as the crew makes their way up the corporate ladder leads one particularly-intrepid camerawoman to sneak the crew far further into the building than originally intended and into a hidden basement. this brings them face-to-face with the deceased entrepreneur’s dirty little secret, known as the think tank: a captive “psychic existence” brought into being using the harvested, collective brainpower of every employee who refused to take their boss’s shit but was just too talented to let go

whalefall: the 300 ft tall, walking corpse of a whale dredges its way up from the ocean floor and onto american shorelines, bringing with it tidal waves of pestilence and plague. when japanese fishermen identify the creature as a bake-kujira--a ghostly whale that harbors only misfortune and undead sealife in the wake of maritime disaster--the federal government opts to not only ignore their insight, but outright blame japan and their whaling industry for its presence. their relative inaction in the name of xenophobia and saving face will serve only to prolong the creature’s attack, with entire coastal towns left to deal with the flooding and zombified deep-sea organisms themselves.

study skin: a group of hunters grow too impatient to wait for their county’s deer season and set out under the cover of nightfall in hopes of snagging a trophy or two. though met with a highway lined with bizarre amounts of roadkill and a totally silent forest, they disregard their unease and set up for the night. they soon discover the true reason for the minimal duration of the local hunting season when they catch a glimpse of an old friend long-thought to have vanished on a hunting trip, bringing them face-to-face with the hidewinder--a mysterious creature that inhabits the skins of deceased animals in search of larger and more complex bodies to call its own, with absolutely no idea how to look or behave “right” in any of its disguises, and a tendency to become enraged once it becomes clear that it doesnt fit in.

calling card: a freelance musician struggling with being sincere and vulnerable in their own work decides to move to a small, quiet town in southern bumblefuck-nowhere to try and clear their head. to their surprise, they’ve practically moved onto the set of a musical--the town’s residents bursting into song at the drop of a hat out of what seems to be the sheer, earnest passion of their feelings. this pleasant novelty soon turns out to be a town tradition established to cope with the presence of lonesome harvey--an upright cicada-man who emerges from underground hibernation every 18 years to rip select peoples’ vocal chords right out of their throats, crudely tying them together in order to fashion a set powerful enough to function as his own (which he uses to shriek out his signature mating call every summers’ night, in hopes of attracting a partner who’ll never arrive). thus, the townsfolk sing their hearts out so that harvey can gauge whose voice he’ll claim for himself (as opposed to having him mutilate everyone in the name of trial-and-error), and the musician has moved into town just in time for ol’ harvey to make his return.

back of your mind: following the very-much-timely (if a tad mysterious) death of their verbally-abusive mother, her only child returns to their childhood home in order to collect any wayward belongings and maybe find some sort of closure in setting foot on the premises one last time. a patch of black mold on the wall that they spot on their way in seems to...change location, somehow. further investigation and attempts to simply wipe away the mold leave it in the blurred image of a gummy, toothy maw--one that begins to whisper to the visitor, claiming to have missed them oh-so-very-much from the day that they left. the strangeness of the situation keeps them coming back everyday, where the mold’s whispers begin to take a familiarly-cruel edge--at first pleading for the visitor to stay, only to take to yelling at them that no-one but the mold will accept them as the “broken, useless husk” of a person that they are.

miasma: a long line of charlatans and conmen have managed to convince a small backwoods town over generations that their collection of plastic gems and false talismans will heal them better than any medical professional could ever hope to accomplish. with most of the towns residents now being old, grey, and complacently vulnerable to disease, a new con artist moving in with a case of the stomach flu compromises the health of the entire community. and with the enticing smell of illness, comes the arrival of the scavenger--a black-feathered “vulture man” who knocks three times upon the door of his intended target, before politely entering their residence and leaving within the hour, leaving behind a bloated corpse whose orifices are stuffed with posies laying otherwise peacefully on their bed.

killing stroke: a promising rising star in the fencing scene is tragically slain in the middle of a prestigious tournament, with the cause of death being attributed to a recklessly-modified underplastron. in actuality, the poor youth’s equipment was sabotaged in order to maintain the career of a legendary fencer. on the anniversary of his death, he rises from the grave and dons his old suit in order to infiltrate that year’s iteration of the tournament--his mission being to cut down not only his rival, but anyone who upholds the same kind of narcissistic greed that claimed his life.

disassembly line: an upton sinclair-adjacent investigative journalist finds herself looking into the inner workings of a 1900s meat-packing factory in chicago, beholding the full disgusting scope of its exploitative, unsanitary working conditions. managing to acquaint herself with a few of the workers, the lunchtime whispers of one particularly-attractive lady butcher point her in the direction of a devious cover-up involving a nameless employee who “accidentally” wound up in the machinery after making too much of a ruckus about his wages. a nameless employee whose steaming, ground-up remains have now crawled out of the rickety equipment in search of postmortem vigilante justice.

catch of the day: in spite of the sustainability concerns their operation has racked up over the years, a deep-sea fishing company delves into nigh-uncontested territory--a patch of ocean deemed “dead waters” in reference to the sparse results of other companies’ attempts. their first day dredges up only a single pacific halibut, titanic even by the standards of the species. upon further inspection, the flatfish splits open in a mess of bodily fluids and blackened, inedible meat--as if the fish had already been torn apart and had decayed from the inside out. lost in the shuffle was an amniotic sac containing rapidly-growing, amphibious hagfish “mermaids” that had parasitized the halibut as they had almost all of the other fish in those waters, and that have now been unleashed on a lonely fishing boat sitting miles away from shore.

razorback bridge: a group of teenaged, amateur paranormal enthusiasts livestream their first “investigation” into a local landmark--razorback bridge, rumored to be haunted by the murderous ghost of a local farmer whose crops were so frequently ruined by invasive wild boar that he snapped and devoted the rest of his natural life to slaying the hogs, eventually losing his life to a boar that proceeded to gobble up his remains without leaving a trace. although officials have long restricted access to that part of the woods due to the aggressive nature of the wild boar inhabiting the area, the teens manage to sneak their way onto the bridge and come face-to-face with ol’ rawhide himself--a ravenous, nigh-unstoppable half-man/half-boar that came to be when the hog that consumed the old farmer had its body possessed and warped by the man’s furious ghost, far too angry to accept even the prospect of his own death.

vigor mortis: a kindly old mortician prides herself on her ability to restore bodies to exactly how they looked in life, enabling their families to have at least one source of comfort during the difficult coping process of loss. one day, however, she is presented with a body so badly mangled in an accident that she almost suggests to forgo embalming altogether and to simply refrigerate the corpse until the burial service, though she ultimately doesn’t when the distraught client begs for the process to be open-casket. try as she might, the mortician finds herself unable to make any substantial restoration on the body. in the few minutes that she steps away from the body in order to think of what else she could do, she turns back to find that it’s...vanished. she soon finds herself being pursued at every turn by the shambling corpse, now enshrouded in a body bag, and is forced to confront both a mangled revenant and a debilitating case of impostor syndrome.

making up for lost time: a conspiracy theory-themed convention is having its first go in philadelphia, pennsylvania--even hosting an artists’ alley selling everything from “ayyy lmao” keychains to collapsible foam JFK heads. when mysterious burn damage begins to show up on the property, however, the inflated egos of the guest panel speakers representing various “unorthodox investigation” groups not only refuse to give up on the convention, but are so prone to bickering amongst themselves and attempting to assume leadership that they only make it harder for the other attendees to respond to the threat of what seems to be a time traveler. that is, the victim of a first attempt at time travel so badly botched that she’s received what is mostly simply put as “space-time carpet burn”: not only is she burning, but her mind, her soul, and the very concept of her throughout space and time are burning, leaving the unreachable chrononaut in a frenzied panic that threatens to scorch everything she touches right out of existence along with her.

pearly gates: in the midst of a national emergency, a group of local landlords manage to bully their recently-unemployed tenants into coughing up just enough rent to host a get-together at their luxurious gated community. following a constant sensation of being watched and drowsy recollections of blinding light shining through their windows that first evening, the group awakens the next day to find one of them dead--groveling on her hands and knees with her entire skull seeming to have somehow...inverted. they soon realize that they’re being picked off by an angel--one so enraged by their inhuman greed that it wrenched itself free from the heavens in order to exact furious retribution.

frontera sangrienta: a softspoken chicanx youth sneaks across the american border on a nightly basis under the noses of both his immigrant parents and border patrol agents, for the express purpose of helping mexican migrants safely make their way over. one night, he is met with a family so terrified that he can make out only one word from their panic--”chupacabra”. the legendary mosquito has developed a taste for american blood after devouring careless tourists and escaped goats, and is in hot pursuit of the family considering that the mother is an american herself. the young man--a “mixed signal” to the chupacabra due to his conflicted feelings over thinking of himself as strictly american or mexican--is now the only thing standing between the family and a pitiful, bloody demise.

52: after a saturation diver is violently wrenched from their diving bell in a freak accident and their remains are presumed lost at sea, a marine salvage team is sent in by the chamber’s manufacturers under the surface-level orders to retrieve evidence for the investigation, but with the underlying message really being to “pick all that shit up so we can just sweep it under the rug quickly and quietly”. upon arrival, the crew begins picking up a bizarre frequency that would otherwise be regarded as whalesong...if not for the fact that it is much higher than the calls of any whales known to inhabit the area. the salvage team then finds themselves being picked off one by one by the source of the noise--it turns out that the saturation diver’s sheer will to live allowed their broken body to adapt to the ocean depths, taking on a warped form not too dissimilar to a beluga whale. now the former diver is left to lash out in frenzied desperation, screaming out a cry for help that falls deaf on the ears of both humans and sealife

i am but a teenage fool who knows nothing about nothing so please do not dunk on me if nothing i wrote here has any accurate basis in real-world experiences or logic. also i’ll update with more if/whenever i think of any

#horror #bogleech #monster #monsters #horror movies

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katieskarlette · 4 years

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I try to keep this blog a positive place, but this is a rant post.

Apparently hitting 60 turns fire mages into cotton candy. Look at us wrong and we collapse.

While leveling I’d been able to handle two or three mobs at once fairly well, especially if one was able to be polymorphed. Now I’m struggling to take down one, and two is pretty much a death sentence if there aren’t other people around to help kill them.

It got so frustrating that after I dinged 60 I took the next day off from the game completely, thinking I was just burned out from three days of leveling marathons. Then yesterday I logged back in with what I thought was the right attitude: “Okay, I have to play more conservatively until I upgrade my gear. Don’t overpull, use cooldowns, make sure I’m fully buffed, be careful. I’ll die sometimes but it’s all right.” I died so many times. I had rez timers of over a minute. My gear didn’t break because I repaired with my yak after every two or three deaths, but it was not fun at all. I’m supposed to be this big damn hero, and I die to a single giant bug? Seriously?

It’s not like I don’t know how to play a glass cannon. I’ve played a mage since vanilla. But this isn’t a matter of strategy or adjusting playstyle. This is a case of simply not having the damage and survivability to kill a mob or two before my HP reaches zero unless I use all my cooldowns (except Time Warp.) It reminds me of early WoD, when I was so squishy I was afraid to leave my garrison.

Yesterday I had a few small intro quests in the Maw, and died several times--losing some of the stygia I needed to collect each time. And I was right on top of an herb, fighting multiple mobs that eventually killed me, when a player riding a druid dashed up and they both harvested the herb right under me. By the time I died and ran back it had despawned. What a dick move. Seriously. Fuck you, random druid and passenger.

I got in a raid group for a rare elite in far western Ardenweald, some kind of Drust monster using the yeti/gorilla skeleton...can’t remember the name. Anyway, I died twice during the boss fight, and he didn’t drop the mount so it was a waste of time in more ways than one.

Then I got to a world quest in Bastion. It’s the one where you get timeshifted back to the battle against the Void, and you have to close void portals. Well, it was bugged so some of the portals ended up with a huge crowd of voidwalkers clustered around them. They were so packed in there I couldn’t even count them all, but it was way more than the three that are supposed to be there. So I tried to work around those, but the mobs are so densely packed in that area that you have to fight for every yard of movement. Then you get to a non-bugged portal and of course there’s competition, and nobody else seemed to care about helping or cooperating. Several times I died trying to click the damn portal before someone else did and it despawned. I had died seven times by the time I got credit for a single portal closed.

I exploded. It’s the most upset I’ve been with WoW in a long time. I loudly swore a blue streak, ripped my headphones off, and paced around the house with eyes full of tears for awhile. Granted, PMS made my reaction more extreme than it would have been otherwise, but the frustration was very real.

When I calmed down a bit and went back to rez yet again I found a hunter nearby who was friendly, and by picking up the kyrian weapons on the ground and using them simultaneously we managed to clear out one of the bugged portals. We worked together to finish the quest, and out of gratitude I stuck around to help him get the last portal he needed, too. I “only” died once with him around, but without Cauterize and Ice Block it would have been twice.

I could have given up, but the quest reward was a juicy, ilvl 148 trinket with +33 crit that I really, really needed.

After that I took a shower, had a snack, watched my fish, and then logged onto my death knight to work on her class hall quests from Legion. I’d never progressed past the point where they started asking for dungeon runs, because I generally don’t do non-timewalking dungeons on my alts out of shyness and insecurity about my ability to play “properly.” I wasn’t sure with the level squish how it would go, but Vallkyrie easily soloed normal Neltharion’s Lair and Darkheart Thicket. I recruited Whitemane for the Horsemen, too. That was fun!

Then I went back to Skarlette but took her to Mechagon for only the second or third time ever to chip away at Rustbolt rep, since that’s the only thing keeping me from flying in BFA. I died twice in five minutes. At level 60. To mostly level 50 mobs, although for some reason one scaled to 60. And the 50s did include at least one elite. But still. WTF.

So yeah. I’ll probably have to sit and fish in Ardenweald and chain-queue dungeons until I get geared enough to handle open world content. I haven’t set foot in any of the dungeons yet, partly because I was just swept along with the story while leveling, and partly because of aforementioned anxiety.

Hopefully I’ll start having fun again when I get better gear. My ilvl is 142, but it would be higher if I could find another crit trinket. I have much higher ilvl trinkets than the 108 one I have equipped, but none of them have crit on them. I might have to bite the bullet and give up the crit in favor of more stamina, though. My repair bills have been painful.

P.S. I’m not ready to make a negativity tag for Shadowlands yet. I had #faillords of draenor and #bummer for azeroth, but I never needed a negativity tag for Legion, and I’m hoping despite this rant I don’t need one for Shadowlands. We’ll see.

#rambling about wow #negativity ahoy #skarlette in shadowlands

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fly-pow-bye · 4 years

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DuckTales 2017 - “The Rumble for Ragnarok!”

Story by: Francisco Angones, Madison Bateman, Colleen Evanson, Christian Magalhaes, Ben Siemon, Bob Snow

Written by: Bob Snow

Storyboard by: Vince Aparo, Kristen Gish, Victoria Harris

Directed by: Tanner Johnson

The Fly says...

In Norse mythology, there’s this cosmically giant snake named Jörmungandr that encircles the Earth, constantly eating its own tail. It is told that Jörmungandr releasing its tail from its maw would begin a series of events known as Ragnarok. To make a long story short, it's the end of the world, though someone does insert a coin to try it again.

In the world of DuckTales 2017, this tail releasing happens every ten years, according to one of Scrooge’s epic speeches, and it's an epic speech he is well qualified for, as it's because of his ability to defeat Jörmungandr that the world hasn't ended yet. Huey has many science-based questions about this, because the kids wouldn’t get that the joke is that this mythological beast doesn’t exactly follow the rules of physics if he didn’t say “science-based.” Huey is going to be our designated plot hole revealer of the episode.

This story is being told to Huey, Dewey, Louie, and Webby, as even he knows that he would eventually have to pass the torch. Who it could be: could it be Webby, Huey, or Louie? Dewey asks if him getting left out means Scrooge is saving the best for last, and Scrooge just says yes in a manner that doesn't exactly convey confidence. Huey, the aforementioned plot hole revealer, asks why Donald or his mom couldn't have that torch.

Scrooge: I don't trust Donald and Della to cooperate on a jigsaw puzzle, much less the fate of the universe.

Yeah, because the boys have never fought against each other, ever. The real excuse is that they'd rather have a plot with these relatable youths. It's a shame; I would have loved to see Donald or Della do their trademark fighting styles against these mythological beasts. Yes, these kids would be far more likely to learn a lesson in the end, especially our designated lesson learner Dewey, but maybe Donald and Della could learn to cooperate, too. Alas, they never appear.

They fly to Valhalla, courtesy of Launchpad flying into a rainbow. Valhalla: so majestic, even Launchpad couldn’t crash in it as he makes a decent landing right in front of the building. I almost didn't notice that oddity.

Scrooge is ready to fight that giant snake, currently the size of the entire planet, as even the other kids have their jaws agape that Scrooge could remotely tickle him, never mind harm him. But don't worry, Huey’s question on how that could happen is explained: when Jörmungandr unleashes his tail from his mighty maw, he transforms into a duck-sized snake man-beast. Now it makes perfect sense, or at least that’s what Huey sarcastically says.

Passing by people wearing "Scrooge vs. Jörmungandr" t-shirts, they open the door to reveal the arena this fight is going to take place in, with pyrotechnics, a roped ring, and a bunch of fans rhythmically chanting. Huey finds this kind of arena quite familiar, and Launchpad is so giddy about what this will entail, he just has to say what this is.

Launchpad: Whoa! It's wrestling!

Audience: This is awe-some!

Launchpad: This is awe-some!

With Launchpad and the audience referencing the famous "this is awesome" chant, this episode reveals itself to be an episode about professional wrestling, which apparently ripped off these Valhalla battles according to Scrooge.

From the amount of pro wrestling I watched, there's one thing I know for sure: fowls and pro wrestling probably shouldn't mix. Whether it be the Red Rooster and his "fanbase" of "Rooster Boosters", or the Gobbledy Gooker that popped out of an egg and spent quite a few minutes during a pay-per-view doing the Chicken Dance with the late Mean Gene. If there's anything that can heal the relationship between these kinds of animals and pro wrestling, it's a well-liked reboot of a classic Disney cartoon about ducks.

As Dewey gets excited by the chance of having all of his bones broken and have people love him for it, the giant ouroboros in the sky transmogrifies into The Rattlesnake himself.

Well, okay, he's not a rattlesnake, and I'm sure most of Stone Cold Steve Austin's gimmick wouldn't fly on TV Y7 programming as he seems to be more like The Rock, but anyone could get the idea. It's Jörmungandr, the People's Champion and Chairman of the VWE. He's also said to be the beloved underdog, which does make sense considering the world hasn't ended in at least a millenium.

He begins this with a promo about how grateful he is to be in his arena, being cheered on by all the fallen warriors who died gloriously in battle, and he assures them that the rest of Earth will join them. The Rumble for Ragnarok 100: Maybe The 100th Times The Charm! They don't really say that subtitle. They do introduce his opponent, who, outside of this ring, is the beloved billionaire who has saved the world countless times.

But nobody would ever cheer a billionaire babyface, as Scrooge's gimmick is the heel Millionaire Miser, a cross between The Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase and Irwin R. Schyster. Wrestling terms are used throughout the episode, and Launchpad does explain to the kids at home what "heel" and "babyface" means.

One term that doesn't come up is "kayfabe", the idea that these characters and their actions in the ring are portrayed as real, and that term could tie into one of the major plot points of this episode: that Dewey is completely offended that, in the ring, his uncle is seen as a bad guy. Granted, that term is more used to point out that pro wrestling is scripted, and this rumble is portrayed as completely legitimate. There's certainly no tired jokes about wrestling being fake.

After a botch involving a giant money bag taking out the intended color commentator for this PPV, who was clearly the late Gorilla Monsoon as a penguin, the replacement. Huey Duck is a veteran sports commentator, having earned his Junior Woodchuck badge in it, though his experience as a pro wrestling color commentator seems to be slim to none. In contrast, Launchpad's knowledge of sports entertainment even manages to give him the foreknowledge of what's going to happen, as Huey points out as the plot hole revealer.

There's a lot of humor with Huey not knowing what is happening on stage and trying the best he could, while misnaming wrestling moves and generally getting everything wrong in the process. There was a particularly disastrous wrestling PPV called Heroes of Wrestling which had a similar problem with one of its commentators. Ugh, I don't want to be reminded of that one.

Launchpad announces that there will be three matches, all of them the heroes of Valhalla vs. the dreaded Millionaire Miser.

Our first match is Strongbeard vs. The Millionaire Miser. As Strongbeard enters the ring, he decides to give one of the audience members one of his beard hairs, which has the ability to bestow his amazing strength. He's practically telling his opponent what he should do to defeat him. Wrestlers usually wait until they get in the ring before they do that.

As the audience chants his catchphrase, "fear the beard", and booes the Miser, Dewey tells his Uncle Scrooge that he shouldn't put up with this. Scrooge assures Dewey that he's just acting as the heel because it's the right thing to do, right before mocking the audience for not being the richest duck in the world like he is.

Much like in an actual battle, the Millionaire Miser has to use his smarts, as muscle is something he doesn't exactly have. The Miser tries to take down Strongbeard with his trademark Unbreakable Penny Pincher Hold, or, as Huey calls it, a sedative neck massage, only to be punched by a Beard Fake-Out. Dewey protests this use of what he thinks is a bad guy tactic, only to have food thrown at him.

He may or may not have gotten that gigantic hint from before, as he reveals that he stole one of the hairs on Strongbeard's chinny-chin-chin, giving him the strength to pin Strongbeard clean, scoring a point for Team Earth pretty quickly. This loss happened almost as fast as when fan-favorite-and-also-bearded Daniel Bryan got pinned in 18 seconds by Sheamus at WrestleMania XXVIII, and it's revealed to be just as well liked as that match as the audience showers the arena with boos and empty popcorn tins.

Dewey is not going to stand for this, and tries to convince the audience to stop cheering for a giant dragon man who wants to destroy the Earth, and start cheering for the billionaire that has prevented the destruction of the Earth multiple times. It's well established that this audience wants the Earth to be destroyed, as this event is literally for the Ragnarok, but his ignorance is a Dewey thing to do.

That ignorance angers one audience member so much that he decides to throw a wooden chair at him, a reference to the classic chair shot done many, many times in pro wrestling. The Millionaire Miser does manage to save him from an unintentional injury, as much as the fans really wanted that to happen. Unfortunately, this causes a different injury: this breaks Scrooge's back, forcing him to see what his next generation can do. It is heartbreaking to see Scrooge actually having to use his cane in ways other than hopping on enemy's heads, that's for sure.

Thankfully, Jörmungandr, as the babyface of the company, decides to rebook the second match as a tag-team match and not instantly declare victory over the Earth. Even Webby claims this makes Jörmungandr such a good guy, though Dewey disagrees. Scrooge does come to the obvious conclusion that Webby should be one of the team members, but he knows that he couldn't choose Huey because he doesn't know anything about wrestling. As for Louie...

He's too busy selling merchandise to the fans, somehow printing T-shirts of things that just happened. This is reminding me of another disaster, though not one related to wrestling, where a green person was selling T-shirts throughout the episode. Ugh, I don't want to be reminded of that one, either.

Scrooge suggests to himself that maybe Webby could tag-team with herself, but Dewey claims that he should fight. Scrooge tells him he's not ready, and Dewey ends up agreeing with that, giving up on the idea that Dewey Duck could be a champ...

...but Champ Popular can be a champ! Using a gimmick not too far off from the persona in his own 90's school sitcom dreams, he knows he can win the fans over by offering them lollipops. Even the music goes silent after that suggestion, as if it was a movie trailer. He decides to let him go through with this anyway, cheering him on, but telling Webby to do the fighting. In Dewey's mind, he knows this gimmick will turn the boos into woos. He doesn't look anything like Ric Flair!

Unfortunately, his plans for popularity doesn't work, as the lollipops are interpreted to mean that he thinks the audience are suckers. Webby shows up...and she's just Webby. I get that the joke is that Webby is just being her cute usual self, but it's kind of disappointing considering a lot of this plot hinges on embracing a character. It's not that the plot isn't there, as she gets booed slightly less, but it doesn't get to her as much as it gets to Dewey. Pretty much all the focus is on Dewey, and I think anyone can guess what's going to happen with this match even if the opponent wasn't going to be the ruler of the underworld.

Sure enough, Champ "Un" Popular and Webby has to fight Hecka, who is based on the Norse ruler of the underworld whose name is too similar to a word one couldn't say on Disney XD. What do you know, a reboot actually manages to do some research on Norse mythology besides "big dumb vikings". Hecka is joined by her pet wolf in both the myths and here, Fenrir, or "Fenny" as he's referred to on his dog bowl. This won't be the only "dog/wolf" joke in the episode.

She's also clearly The Undertaker, even referencing his trademark get up spot after a failed attempt to knock him out with a elbow drop. With the Undertaker, that happens after his opponent knocks him down, but Dewey can't even get that far because all of that booing. Scrooge is on the sidelines trying to get him to "embrace the boos", but Dewey just can't seem to shake off his lack of popularity in the ring. Dewey is all about his popularity, something that was shown with the "Dewey Dew-Night" shorts and pretty much everywhere else, so it's easy to understand why that alone would cause him to shiver.

He tags in Webby, who ends up doing a far better job at embracing her inner heel by comparing her opponents unfavorably to the Greek mythological warriors. She even manages to pin Hecka before good ol' Fenny interrupts the pin. Dewey tries to get a "cheater" chant going, but that's completely legal even in a non-Valhalla-rules tag-team match. Surprised that doesn't come up at all in this episode, especially with what happens later.

Webby does see Fenrir, and she tries to offer a belly rub. Get it, because while he's a mythological wolf, he's a still a dog! At first, it seems like that works, until Fenrir reveals that was just an act, and he throws her out of the ring.

As Webby slowly wakes up and tries to get back into the ring before this match ends in a countout, which is only implied, Dewey knows how to win. Unfortunately for Scrooge, he meant "win them over", as he tries to use his trusted lollipops to feed the puppy. Hey, it probably would have worked on Burger Beagle if he was still the glutton character he was in the original! Unfortunately, Fenrir is a non-walking and talking dog, and the audience calls him out for trying to feed candy to a dog. In those words; why would the Valhallans call him a dog?

Webby does show up to pin Fenrir and knocks out Hecka in the process, giving Champ Popular ample time to give Team Earth 2-0 and end this episode far earlier than expected. Of course, that doesn't work, and Fenrir gets out of Webby's pin to pin Champ Popular for the win, making the score 1-1.

But wait, Dewey was never tagged back in, and Fenrir wasn't tagged in at all, so this isn't a legal pin either way. It's possible that Webby was also getting pinned by Hecka at the same time, and there's nothing that disproves this. However, it seems that DuckTales 2017 is unwilling to have Webby show any kind of weakness even if it's all Dewey's fault. Launchpad reassures the audience that the world isn't coming to an end...

Jörmungandr: ...YET! (air guitars)

Deciding that Team Earth's lackluster performance is probably making his PPV not nearly as good as it should be, Jörmungandr rebooks the final match as well to be a battle royale, with just himself against all of the mortals of Team Earth. The rules are changed, too: people are eliminated if they fall outside of the ring, but one pinfall can also end the match for either team. This looks to be the third episode in a row that just turns into another giant fight scene with all of the beloved Disney Ducks, but it is separated a little.

While Webby distracts Jörmungandr with her own heel promo, Scrooge tries to give Dewey the pep talk. This unfortunately only ends with him implying that he's just not cut out for this, which only makes him feel worse. Gotta say, that's really Millionaire Miser of him, even if he's not wrong.

Back to the heel promo, Jörmungandr tells her he's not scared of Webby, and she adds that she isn't the one to be scared of.

It's the Millionaire Miser's Maid, the Shield Maiden, and she's a stunt granny! Sorry, I had to reference that one obscure TV special when I had the chance. I even see that she put on a costume similar to Thor's, who was the one that fought Jörmungandr in the original myths! This is also a reference to an original episode, "Maid of the Myth", which also references Norse mythology. Probably not a coincidence.

I have no idea how she could even be here, nor is it really even brought up. Almost all the other plot holes were pointed out, why not this one? Well, there may be a slight explanation to that one, as our designated plot hole revealer decided to leave the announcer's table because of his failures.

It's up to Louie this time to do his pep talk to both Dewey and Huey this time, and he's way more successful than Scrooge. He pretty much just gives up that t-shirt joke at this point in the episode just so he can fill this role. I guess they had to find someone, as everyone else was too busy either moping or fighting. Whatever, this comes just in time, as Jörmungandr's curb stomping of almost everyone around him is causing Valhalla to shake. Wait, I thought it was the Earth getting destroyed, not Valhalla!

Back in the ring, we see that I was slightly wrong: they can show Webby getting defeated on screen alongside her granny! The Millionaire Miser shows up too, alongside an unexpected swerve: the competent announcer was actually Captain Crash, and he's here to fight Jörmungandr!

Launchpad didn't realize nobody liked this when Michael Cole did the same thing for far too long, and he gets taken out rather easily...alongside the Millionaire Miser. I was thinking Scrooge had a no jobbing clause even outside of the ring, but here we are. Who could possibly save us now? John Cena? ... actually, they don’t seem to make a reference to John Cena as far as I can tell.

Well, we get the closest thing to John Cena even if he's way more like Bret Hart: Champ Popular, and this time it doesn’t matter if people boo him. In fact, he's knows he's so good, he shows it off in the most evil way possible: a bad joke followed by a high-five to signal that it was supposed to be funny! I do approve of the indirect bashing of the "fistbump in place of laugh track" trope!

So yes, it looks like Dewey has finally embraced his inner heel, and I'm sure Scrooge would be proud.

Unfortunately, it's here where the episode loses me. The whole episode was building up to a lesson about that it okay to do the right thing even if it would lead to a lack of popularity. However...the crowd starts to see Jörmungandr as a heel all of a sudden? It seems like he’s not fighting with honor, but now people are starting to boo him in a snap!

It doesn't make sense; they were cheering for the end of the Earth, and they were totally fine when his fellow Team Valhalla members were beating up kids before. He was a jerk before this scene and people still loved him. Maybe he's more of a jerk now, or maybe they noticed Valhalla was also getting destroyed by the coming Ragnarok, but the ending just seems like a tacked on way to make Dewey look like the good guy even when he was supposed to be the bad guy.

To make a long story short, the babyface and heel roles swap right in the middle of the match to the point where Dewey was able to borrow some of Strongbeard's impossible strength-giving beard. Why didn't Scrooge use that little hair he had in his part of this fight, which would have helped even if he had a broken back? Because Dewey wouldn't be able to learn his lesson that it's okay to do the right thing when people love you for it.

After the referee does what is clearly a fast count, as it seems like even he knows this episode has to be over in about a minute, Dewey is declared the champion, and he even gets awarded Jörmungandr's belt.

But, in a shocking swerve, the Millionaire Miser takes the gold away from him, and Dewey and Scrooge get ready for an extra main event. Broken back be damned: Scrooge knows he can beat up a little kid! ...wait.

The episode ends like Rocky III, complete with a cheesy 80's song playing in this scene and in the credits. Why is a wrestling episode referencing a boxing movie? Well, Rocky III had that one scene where Rocky had to fight a wrestler named Thunderlips, played by Hulk Hogan, for charity, so I guess it's fitting?

How does it stack up?

There are some neat references to pro wrestling throughout the entire episode, and I do like the story's idea. The second match could have been directed better, the ending feels really tacked on, and leaving Donald Duck and Della Duck out of this felt like a cop out. I couldn't get into this one as much as some of the previous episodes.

While I wouldn't say this episode is bad, I'd say this is slightly less quality than Challenge of the Senior Woodchucks. This would make it the least best episode of Season 3 so far. If anything, that's a testament to how good this season has been so far, but that means this only gets a 3.

Next, we have no idea, because the show's on hiatus again. However, I do have something for next week. In one week, I looked at the shorts. Next week, I look at some DuckTales 2017 commercials!

← Astro B.O.Y.D.! 🦆 The Commercials (Part 1?) →

#fpb dt 2017 #ducktales 2017 #ducktales #disney #fpb reviews

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torendheavenandearth · 4 years

Text

2.6

“‘Great Guro,’ asked the Student to Munsad Buralakaw, Civilization Diwata. ‘Pray tell, and let the ancestors hear: for what purpose do we suffer? For what purpose do we let our fellow men take advantage of us?’

‘Violence for violence’s sake,’ replied Munsad Buralakaw. ‘Man is the only soul capable of it. To inflict evil because they want evil. To inflict good because they want good. Higher concepts become swords, ideals become blades. Man is both divine and infernal, God between the fingertips of Good and Evil, neutrality compromised. For this reason, suffering cannot end.’

‘So, Great Guro, do you say that suffering cannot be removed?’

‘To remove suffering is to remove Man.’

‘Then why must Man persist, if all things are to suffer? Would it not be a greater good to simply end suffering by ending man?’

‘Nay, hangal,’ said Munsad Buralakaw. ‘Persist to ease the suffering of others. Because to remove Man is to remove goodness and joy and hope and love.’” - From The Lost Teachings of the Forgotten Diwata.

▼

Upon that bloody throne, they kissed, short and sweet. “Quick! Before more Guwardya Sibil arrive,” said Lulu, breathlessly. They rushed into the busted open door but--

--Lulu was gone. It was only Qayin, again. It always ends with just me, she thought to herself.

Qayin didn’t even go into the door. She was there again, in that door frame, in that liminal space between within and without. The doors bring me to places… thinks Ang Nilapastangan. Do I dare…?

She was already halfway in. If she were to back out now, then it would be a horrible waste of life, now wouldn’t it?

With a breath, Qayin stepped through, and she was there.

She was there at the end of all things.

Again.

▼

She didn’t think she could do it. She didn’t think she could do it all over again, but there she was.

It’s not fair, Ang Nilapastangan said to herself, her words echoing into white void. She’d come to terms with this. She’d accepted this part of her. She’d accepted that this had happened, that all of this was in the past, it was part of who she was, it was part of her name, it was part of the broken sword that formed her soul.

Why then, was she still so scared? Why then was she still so unsure? Why, then, was she still so angry? Why was she still filled with regret?

Remember what happened here, Qayin, Ang Nilapastangan spoke to her past, but her past does not listen, for the past is not the present and never will be. Always ever-fading memories, stuck in that twilight dream of never-happened and must-have-happened.

Qayin stepped forward. She was in the middle of a sea. A sea that reflected only white sky. And there, in front of her, was God.

Demonyong Bakulaw was in his Dimunyu form. He had revealed to them that he was not simply a demon or a sitan, but he was a Dimunyu, one of the original satan-kings that sided with SANLIBUTAN in his rebellion against his grandfather, MAYKAPAL, the BATALA. In his Dimunyu form, his corpus melted away and vomited a burning serpent-gorilla, with seven-hundred and seven hands, wielding weapons half the length of the sky. His face was that of a gorilla’s but he sported a mane like a lion and whiskers of a dragon. With his sky-rending weapons he faced off against God, this God being DYOSVETA, God the Father.

He was not winning, but his bravado was enough. “I’ve faced off against the Creator!” Demonyong Bakulaw roared. “I am YAWANG BAKULAW DAOTAN, and you will fall by my rebellion!”

In that liminal space, that non-existent yet everpresent space of sea-sky, the demon ape faced off against God the Father. DYOSVETA’s countenance was that of a true demon sky god: a great humanoid lion, with skin of marble clouds, and lightning running down the length of his body. His wings numbered in infinities, and his face was a sculpted marble bearded figure in a perpetual scowl. He had a crown of fire and light, which had been impossibly frozen into a perfect shape, one that resembled a king’s crown and or a sword impaled upon his head.

He wore an armor of angels, and his sword was demonkind melted together in an ever-wailing mass, and was called ATONEMENT. His shield was the sternums of men sewn together, with their still-beating hearts turned into embellishments, turned into roses, and it was called MERCY.

“I come unto you with a form you may decipher with your misunderstanding eyes,” said DYOSVETA. “Now kneel before the Sky.”

Lulu was spent. Her single golden-agimat arm was falling apart, the burning red lights running up its length fading in glow. Her eyepatch had been cut, revealing her missing eye. Qayin knelt next to her, holding her by her shoulders. “Lulu! We have to go!”

“No, Qayin! Remember what we said!” She grasped Qayin’s hand, which was wielding the Soul Eater. “Use it. Use my Gahum.”

Qayin knew what that meant, and she shook her head. “No. Lulu, I can’t.”

“You can. You have to. Become the winner of the Hagdanan, Yinnie. Please.”

Qayin opened her mouth to say something, but her throat tightened up, and she couldn’t choke the words out of her mouth. She was crying, and her tears were blood. “I can’t.” When she said it, it was weak, fractured, broken. Non-words.

“You can,” said Lulu, and her conviction was true.

Demonyong Bakulaw skidded onto his knees and caught the fierce sword strike of DYOSVETA with his arms. His soulstuff, his Kalag, was failing, dissipating, but his scowl never left. “Never let your anger for God fade,” he would always say.

“Lulu--”

Lulu reached up and kissed Qayin wholly in her mouth. A full kiss. A desperate kiss. A final kiss.

And then, as she did so many times before, she guided Qayin’s hand. “I love you,” said Lulu, and they both wept crimson.

Qayin, only with the help of Lulu's own hand, impaled the tamawo woman's chest. “I love you,” replied Qayin, but she couldn’t say the words, so she only mouthed them. Lulu crumbled with her fingers trailing Qayin’s cheeks, trying to wipe away her tears one last time.

Lulu failed, of course, and her hand simply fell to the side. She fell limp.

But in her death, the Soul Eater grew more powerful. The Soul Eater was, in truth, a simple sword. It had the shape of a kampilan, with the difference being the eye that grew at the pommel, held in place by the Bakunawa jaw that was kept open. It also had veins running up the length of its blade, as if it were alive, but it was not.

The blade felt heavy in Qayin’s hands as she rose to her feet, staring at the now dead Lulu. Who thought her final resting place would be here, in the end of all things?

Qayin turned around and readied to face God, DYOSVETA, the Father.

When she turned around, DYOSVETA’s face was there, and his sword was ready. Demonyong Bakulaw was dead, nothing but a lump of meat and Kalag upon the sea-sky. DYOSVETA swung his sword, but Qayin parried it away in the heat of battle. She could only see red. She broke DYOSVETA’s ATONEMENT.

She became the Swordbreaker. And with that, Qayin raised her blade and brought it down.

God was Cut.

But without another word, DYOSVETA summoned BLASPHEMER, spear made up of coagulated darkness and the sound of weeping rebellious angels being tortured for eternity. In a space quicker than an instant, the BLASPHEMER was through Qayin’s skull.

“Hesitation leads to death,” spoke DYOSVETA, and Qayin was BLASPHEMED, again and again, until she was thrown out of the End of All Things and left to die upon the wet ground of a random barangay in the middle of the Archipelago.

Her head was punctured, riddled by god-holes, and for her heresy she was laid down onto the muddy ground, never to reach the heights that she did. She failed her friends. She failed Bakulaw. She failed Lulu. She failed herself. She thought she was ready, she thought that surely, this time, she would be able to deal some kind of blow against the Tyrant of Crimson Sky, but no. She failed, she died, and she was going to lie down there, upon the mud ground, as the rain began to patter.

A man and his wife walked up to her and carried her into their house. They were talking, Qayin knew, but she didn’t know what they were saying. Her memory was hazy, her hearing blurred and unfocused.

All she remembered was that, as they were mending the wounds that they could--and called for a mananambal to heal the rest (the God-driven spikes into her head, the hatred of god lashed across her back)--they asked for her name, and she responded: “Ang Nilapastangan.”

Apparently, her story had already begun spreading from there. From the people that saw her--watched her--literally descend from heaven like a hated lightning bolt. When it got out that her name was Ang Nilapastangan, she was cemented upon the fabric of the universe. She became one of the Karanduun, one of the few that the masses and the oppressed and the countryside would tell stories about in their darkest nights.

“Swordbreaker,” they whispered, and deviled-spirits carried their words to the next town, to the next barangay, to Biringan, to the villages and hamlets of the Empire. “The Blasphemed: Ang Nilapastangan. She Who Broke God’s Sword.”

▼

Like a gasp, Ang Nilapastangan is hurled back into the hallway. The blue figure is closer now. Just a door away. A room away. The Pistang Gatusan nga Gabi’i to her left is ending. The greatest of the spirits, the Philippine dragons: crocodiles that swim in the clouds as if the sky was a river, are already making their way through the parade. The crocodiles are always the last, and these giant ones burn with the colors of the four primary elements: of fire, water, earth, and air. The Ninuno of the World.

Ang Nilapastangan turns back to the blue figure, and it’s in front of her. A gaping maw, jaw ripped open, mouth revealing not a throat but another face within it. The face of a smiling woman, eyes blackened with ash poured into her sockets. Blood drips from her lips. “Qayin?” Her tongue seems to savor the word, the secret name of Ang Nilapastangan.

“Yawa,” says Ang Nilapastangan. “Leave me now. I have made my peace with who I was, who I am. You have no power over me.”

The blue figure’s sprouts spider legs, tipped with razor sharp blades and each one with a long proboscis tongue extending from invisible compartments. Her wings sprout from behind her, webbed with blackness. “What makes you think I am Yawa?” and the woman laughed.

Ang Nilapastangan’s eyes narrow, just for an instant, and then she smirks. “Ah, you must forgive me. Sometimes I forget my own stupidity. If you wanted my Gahum, Asuwang, then perhaps you should’ve just asked.”

“Hm?”

“Here.” And Ang Nilapastangan raises her hand, filling it with contained pastel power. The technique she learned from Lulu.

I will never use blades again, thinks Ang Nilapastangan. Like Lulu, I will rend heaven and earth with my own two hands.

With a single punch, she punches the Asuwang away, sending her flurrying back through the endless hallway that they are in. Pastel light streaks from her fist and paints the walls white. The Asuwang, however, lands on the ground and then skitters onto its spider-blade legs.

Ang Nilapastangan raises an eyebrow.

The Asuwang flings itself forward, bladelegs ready to cut, but Ang Nilapastangan steps into the lunge--some of the blades cut into her skin--and grabs the Asuwang’s body, which is now shaped more or less like a serpent-centipede. Ang Nilapastangan whirls around, dragging the Asuwang’s head across the pastel painted wall, and then flings her out of the window.

Ang Nilapastangan’s Gahum ignites as she flings her, and the glass windows shatters as the Asuwang’s body slams against it. The Asuwang flies across forestry, over to where the Pistang Gatos nga Gabi’i is happening.

Ang Nilapastangan turns around and kicks a door down. A normal room. She kicks another one down and there! A staircase. She runs down it, stopping for nothing. It’s a long staircase, much longer than it had any logic being, and she knows that this is not the city hall but the illusionary labyrinth of a madman demon.

As Ang Nilapastangan steps on a step halfway down, the Asuwang explodes into the scene and slams against the staircase and begins scuttling down the steps. Below, a pile of corpses writhing and eating each other grows, rises, and stops Ang Nilapastangan from reaching the ground.

Ang Nilapastangan leaps, bringing her fist up and performing that pastel technique again, this time infused with her most violent Gahum.

In the air, she throws her fist down.

Her Gahum tears through the staircase, obliterating it completely, and the pastel power slams against the pile of corpses, flattening them and sending them flying against the walls. Ang Nilapastangan uses this opportunity to use the midair amalanhig to buffet her fall down to the ground.

Ang Nilapastangan throws the battered amalanhig away from her and stands.

The Asuwang slams down to the ground behind her.

Before Ang Nilapastangan is an opening that led to the open doors of the lobby. There she ses that past the doors of the lobby there’s nothing but more hallway.

“Foolish girl!” screams the Asuwang, and Ang Nilapastangan tilts her head back in both exhaustion and boredom. “You think you can get out? This entire town hall has been given to me by Padre Sangalang to become my fantasy! My reality! You cannot escape for as long as my nightmare-proboscis seeps into your soul!”

Ang Nilapastangan turns. Her punch made a makeshift circular arena for them: flanked and walled off by the mass of writhing corpses and body parts. There, before her, blade-legs clinking against the stone floor, is the Asuwang woman, seemingly in her fully manifested diyablo form: a serpentine centipede, although the little legs are little blades, useless for moving. Eight spider legs, two of them for piercing, all of them made of demon-swords. Her face is, in truth, a shield-mask that hides her true face within her maw. A veil of hair, beautiful and silky, flutters about her as if she’s underwater, and her eleven wings sprout from behind her. The wings seem to be grafted on, since they grow and overwhelm her left side like a tumor.

“Face me, Karanduun!” shrieks the woman. “I am Kinalimutang Birhen ng Walang Hanggang Kasakiman, the Fantasy Arachne Demon, and you will know my name as I eat yours!” She surges forward, four spider blade-legs acting like hydraulic presses. In the next instant she is in the air above Ang Nilapastangan.

Ang Nilapastangan, all this time, has been keeping her Gahum in check. If she didn’t, they’d find her. She’d be a bonfire in the middle of the forest, with night-demons watching all about.

But if she wants to get out of this alive, she has to bring out her Gahum. This is potentially a powerful asuwang, perhaps a Gabunan, an elder, but she isn’t sure. If she holds back, she can die, and with her death will be the beginning of the end.

She takes the attack head on, choosing to let her Gahum burn. Her soul a furnace, she catches Birhen’s lunge and digs her heels to the ground. She is driven back a good few feet from the force of impact, but she manages to catch the attack. Ang Nilapastangan slams the Birhen down to the ground, making sure her faceshield cracks against the stone. The Birhen shrieks, and swings wildly with her spider blade-legs, and Ang Nilapastangan has to leap back to avoid the swings.

Not wild swings, Ang Nilapastangan understands. Those are calculated swings, trying to lop her head and feet off.

With the pressure off of the Birhen, she rises to her feet and, using her wings, takes to the air. Ang Nilapastangan smirks: no way can she be that aerodynamic with that body.

Of course, that thought is immediately broken when the Birhen begins gliding around like a dragon in water, swooping down and cutting with her bladelegs. Ang Nilapastangan is caught by one. It cuts through her skin like a hot knife upon clay. She curses and evades the rest of the attacks.

“For a Karanduun, you are not living up to your reputation!” shrieks the Birhen, flying into a graceful spiral in the air and then turning to face her, coiling her serpent-centipede body.

But, Ang Nilapastangan notices, her mask-shield is cracked, and she smirks.

She leaps up just as the Birhen strikes forward, like lightning. Ang Nilapastangan catches the two blade-legs pointed at her like spears, lifts her feet, and then slams them up against the Birhen’s mask shield.

The Birhen screams. The crack spiderwebs, but it does not shatter. Not yet.

The Birhen flails around, flinging Ang Nilapastangan against the wall. She flips and then slams feet first against it. The corpses beneath her writhe, are crushed by some aftershock.

“You cannot kill me, fool!” yells the Birhen, spiralling in the air again and then launching black javelins at Ang Nilapastangan. Ang Nilapastangan turns to one side and then sprints. The black javelins impale the wall in her wake. Ang Nilapastangan’s every stride is burning crimson as she moves diagonally across the wall, moving to a spot higher than the Birhen.

A black javelin bites at Ang Nilapastangan’s ankle, but it’s negated by a sudden flash of bright red light. No beats missed: Ang Nilapastangan launches herself off the wall, turning into a red lightning bolt heading straight for the Birhen. The Birhen, apparently, sees it coming: she twists her entire body around to avoid the lunge, catches Ang Nilapastangan’s body with her serpent-centipede body, and then flings her down to the ground.

Ang Nilapastangan isn’t going to lie: She felt that one.

She pushes herself off of the ground, just as four javelins impale her hands and feet, pinning her to the ground. Ang Nilapastangan winces, and blood runs down her wounds. She shakes her head and flexes her muscles once, and the javelins shatter.

She pushes herself up again, but as she does, another javelin is sent through her back. Blood splashes up, red blossoming. Ang Nilapastangan doesn’t let herself fall to the ground. She keeps her body off the ground.

And then a great force sends the black javelin down even more, opening her wounds. The Birhen has turned into a modest devotee, a woman with a conservative skirt and with a tapis over that, with a butterfly-sleeved blouse, and a panuelo on her head. Her eyes and hair glow azure, even as her face is a placid mask.

She’s standing on top of the black javelin, driving it deeper.

“Oh, you’re disappointing,” she says, in an infruriatingly patronizing tone.

Ang Nilapastangan bursts.

Inhibitors released. She has to. She knows that if she doesn’t, her sheer luck isn’t going to be enough to save her. She has to bring back the things she’s learned, the skills she’s hidden away deep in the recesses of her soul when she inhibited her Gahum.

But not the weapons that she’s accumulated. Never the weapons.

Karanduun are known to be prone to great shows of brilliance, their faces and skin burning like the sun, their veins like magma. Their hair is like the sky. It was the highest form of visual expression: becoming nature.

Ang Nilapastangan becomes Ang Nilapastangan, the Swordbreaker, the Crimson Bodhisattva Biraddali. Her hair turns into wings, her horns shatter and form into a halo of power. Her eyes burn bright magenta, and her skin turns into the sun-fire hot skin of a demon, liquid steel.

With another flex of her body, she blows the Birhen away. The Birhen slams against the wall.

The javelin is gone now. Ang Nilapastangan is standing now. She tilts her head back and stares at the Birhen.

The Birhen, eyes wide, takes to the air and then shapeshifts back into her serpent-centipede form, her body contracting and then unfolding like cloth thrown to the wind.

Before she can finish her transformation, Ang Nilapastangan is there, above her, fist sent straight down. “Sinagsibat!” Ang Nilapastangan announces, as her fist burns violently with the pastel brush strokes, melting together to create a white-red spear of energy, which she launches straight through the still-shapeshifting Birhen.

The spear-fist sears through some of the newly formed legs of the unfolding cloth. When the Birhen completes her shapeshifting, she has lost 3 of her legs, and 3 of her wings.

She screams. She attacks without abandon now: the Birhen assaults Ang Nilapastangan with her blade-legs. “Spider Rips the Web!”

Ang Nilapastangan parries every attack without a single cut. She catches the last blade leg, turns in the air, and then flings the Birhen straight to the ground. The ground shatters, the debris turns into strands of illusory matter.

It’s breaking apart, Ang Nilapastangan thinks. She knows the truth about this place, however. Some kind of illusory labyrinth, formed by powerful Asuwang sorcery. In the back of her mind, Ang Nilapastangan congratulates the Birhen for putting up such a convincing fever dream. That would mean that the Birhen is truly an adept Asuwang, with many years upon her back.

Unfortunately, it’s time for it to end.

She bends Gahum and impossibly pushes against air, sending her streaking straight down into the earth where the Birhen has fallen. Her fist slams against the Birhen’s now exposed head-tongue, sending a shockwave rattling bones.

Debris and dust kick up as if someone had dropped a cannonball into water. When the dust clears, Ang Nilapastangan is gripping the Birhen’s neck. A vise grip, one that no being in Sansinukob can remove.

However when the dust clears, Ang Nilapastangan sees that it’s not the Birhen she’s strangling with a single, Gahum-burning hand, but Lulu. Her tears are blood, her face that immaculate white again. Her single eye blinking red.

“Q-Qayin…” her breath is ragged. She’s dying again. She’s dying again.

She’s dying again.

Ang Nilapastangan’s grip faltered.

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tyrannoninja · 4 years

Text

The Demon Beneath the Dome

A woman climbed onto the bough of a kapok tree, which twisted up from the treetop canopy. Her lissome umber-brown figure, clad with a barkcloth skirt and halter-top, sparkled with droplets of perspiration beneath the hot glow of the sun piercing through the overcast sky. She raised her hand over her eyes, surveying the green ocean of jungle as it rolled in choppy waves all around her high vantage.

To the east rose a jagged range of overgrown crags, which ran in a ring like a caldera. Covering the basin within was a vast, terraced dome glimmering of corroded gold, with a circular hole in its summit. Under the shadow cast by the crater walls, the green-stained spires and roofs of ruined masonry poked through the jungle, but there appeared no evidence of a living settlement in the proximity of these ruins.

The woman shuddered slightly as she tightened her grip on her perch. She had heard the legends, but never considered them anything more than village storytellers’ way of frightening children into good behavior. Neither had she imagined that she would ever venture within sight of a place like they had described.

Dinanga, huntress of the village of Mungu, had spent the better half of the past moon-cycle searching for her younger sister Kazadi. The memory of the girl’s abduction, with men in blood-red loincloths lunging out of the undergrowth to seize and drag her away, had haunted Dinanga’s every dream with a vivid clarity that never faded. She would have taken those men for common marauders had she not tracked them all the way to such mysterious ruins. If the old myths had spoken the truth all that time, an even more terrible fate would await Kazadi.

Within the jungle to the southwest, someone screamed.

It was not the shrieking cry of a woman, but the deeper holler of a man. Dinanga did not know whether she should investigate. If she did, it might take time away from her sister. Whatever lay in store for Kazadi, she did not want it to happen over the course of a distraction.

Again, the cry of terror burst through the leafy canopy.

Dinanga dove back into the tangled depths of the forest understory, leaping between the branches and lianas with flashing swiftness and agility. She landed on a bough overhanging a narrow game trail through the undergrowth, a cluster of foliage beside it shaking with movement.

A slim male figure tripped over a tree’s buttress root with a hoarse yelp as he emerged. Stomping behind him on muscular hind legs was a tyrannosaur. As the man struggled to get up, the reptilian brute parted its salivating, spike-fanged jaws over his back.

Dinanga took her hunting bow from her python-skin sash and sent an arrow into the tyrannosaur’s scaly green neck.

The beast’s roar and host gust of breath blew her off the branch. Rolling over the soft earth upon landing, she hopped to the man and pulled him away from the snapping jaws by the wrist. His eyes widened with shock as he shrank from her.

Dinanga shouted over the tyrannosaur’s growling. “Don’t worry, I’m here to save you!”

The world above her turned dark. The monster’s black open gullet, dripping scalding drool, filled her field of sight while the rancid stink of its breath flooded her nostrils. Sheer terror petrified every muscle within Dinanga’s cowering body.

Yet, the bone-crunching bite did not come. The tyrannosaur threw its head up with another roar, even more shrill, a bloody streak running across the side of its lower jaw. The strange man taunted it with foreign curses while brandishing a bloody-edged horn dagger.

Yanking him away from the predator’s next attack, Dinanga led him running to a tree coiled with the woody vines of a strangler fig. They climbed halfway up its height before the tyrannosaur rammed its snout into the trunk. The man slipped off and plummeted towards the beast’s gaping mouth. Dinanga seized his forearm, wrenched him up from the beast’s jaws, and tossed him onto one of the overhead branches. She jumped onto this same branch and clung to it with a tight embrace as the tree shook from the weight of the tyrannosaur smacking against it. Neither she nor the man fell off again. With a resigned snort, the dinosaur gave them one last glance with its fiery yellow eyes before lumbering off.

Dinanga, panting with exhaustion, muttered a prayer that it would find worthier prey elsewhere. The man that huddled next to her brushed leaves off his short, braided hair. Though his skin was the same brown shade as Dinanga’s, his tall, elongated stature and narrower facial features attested to an origin on the dry, open savannas that stretched beyond these jungles. The tattered loincloth wrapped around his narrow hips was cut from pebbled reptilian leather instead of the forest-dwellers’ barkcloth.

“Who are you?” she asked. “You don’t look like you’re from here.”

The man shook his head. “Call me Heri, of the clan of Deshen out on the savanna. I was barely of age when our enemies, the clan of Mendi, carried me off in a raid. I’ve been traded and dragged far across the land ever since.”

He pointed to the crisscrossing mess of welts that marred his back like a hideous, dark reddish-purple tumor. A foul taste swelled into Dinanga’s mouth. She had heard of people being captured and forced to work for others in some of the larger chiefdoms, but never had she considered the brutality forced upon many of them.

“By the spirits, you’ve been through so much,” she said. “Tell me you don’t have someone hunting you down!”

“I ran away from them many moons ago. In truth, I don’t even know where I am in this land. All I know is that I’m nowhere near my people. They must have forgotten me by now.”Heri wiped off the moisture that had welled up in his eyes.

Dinanga hugged him and smiled. “If only I knew how to bring you back to them. I have family of my own missing. Half a moon ago, a group of men in red carried my sister off. I’ve been hunting them down ever since.”

“Have you caught up with them yet?”

“Almost. My tracking has led me to this strange place with old buildings and a big dome of gold inside a crater. You heard of such a place?”

“No, but I think I know what those men want of your sister. Beg the spirits that they haven’t done it already.”

“Then I must go. You want to come along? I would like someone to fight beside me if they can.”

With a nod, Heri slipped his dagger out of its sheath and ran his finger along its bloodied edge. “You saved me from that monster. I owe you my life for it.”

A colossus of black stone leaned over a path of mossy flagstone as it loomed up through the mist and undergrowth. Though eroded by generations of rainfall and cloaked with overgrowth, Dinanga could make out the contour of a hunched, squatting creature with wings akin to those of a bat or pterosaur folded behind its corpulent gorilla-armed body. Six gemstones glinted as orange as fire within its long flat head, its wrinkled trunk-like snout curled between giant spider-like fangs.

It took a single glance at this megalithic monstrosity for Dinanga to step back, a cold shiver overtaking her body. The old stories had become even truer before she set foot within the ancient village this sculpture guarded.

Heri clenched harder on his dagger’s hilt. “What, by all the spirits, would that be?”

“Whatever it is, it isn’t of this earth,” Dinanga said.

They did not dare look back at the horrible statue as they tiptoed down the broad flagstone trail. On both sides of the avenue lay the crumbled, foliage-bedecked walls of stone huts amid piles of rubble, toppled columns, and potsherds. Interspersed between the buildings stood the pedestaled statues of men, women, and assorted creatures of the jungle—with none of these idols rivaling that of the alien giant in height or girth.

Every time her eyes met their unblinking gaze, Dinanga’s heartbeat paused. She murmured a prayer to her distant ancestors that they forgive her for trespassing through their former home.

As the road sloped up closer to the crater’s outer cliffs, the structures beside it reared higher than in the districts before, the columns inscribed with the faces of people and beasts supporting their upper stories. Mazes of cracked steps and raised pathways connected these former palaces and manors to one another like bridges, and to the main thoroughfare.

“Who built all this?” Heri asked. “It’s not like anything I’ve ever seen before.”

Dinanga nodded. “They say that, many generations in the past, all the villages in the jungle answered to chieftains who lived here. That monster we saw back there was their god, a spirit they respected more than any other. Nobody knows for sure what happened to the people who lived here…or that ‘spirit’ of theirs.”

The avenue ended before a towering portal hewn into the rock of the crater’s side. Chiseled into both jambs along its entryway were reliefs that each depicted a sitting creature with six orange orbs for eyes, the same species as the colossus before. The perspiration on Dinanga’s brow turned cold. Her heart pulsed in a panicked frenzy.

Drums thumped from somewhere within. The ritual was already underway! Dinanga unslung her bow and ran through the portal, with Heri close behind.

It was not pitch dark inside the passageway, like she had expected. Rather, dim green light filled the passageway from the painted grooves of reliefs on the corridor walls, as did an unpleasant whiff of urine. The first of these images on both sides portrayed a storm of flaming balls showering down from the starry heavens upon the primordial earth. The next showed human figures prostrating before these spheres, in which were rendered some of the most frightful creatures Dinanga had ever seen represented in art of any form. Some beings had dozens or even hundreds of eyes, limbs, or maws lined with fangs or tentacles; others were pocked with warts, thorns, or bone-shaped protuberances. Among them was the same six-eyed, winged entity she and Heri had seen before.

Some of the later reliefs even showed people throwing young men and women to the horrors to be devoured like poultry. Were the beasts so terrible that they intimidated early humankind into placating their carnivorous appetites? Or did these otherworldly deities offer something in return for the sacrifices? If so, what on earth would it have been?

The echoing beat of the drums escalated, joined by a droning chant. Dinanga could not waste any more time gawking at the pictures on the walls. She and Heri had to get to her sister before the girl suffered the same fate as the victims of those ancient rites.

The passage did not run straight, but twisted in zigzags that sloped up and down through the rock. Only the faint green glow of the painted reliefs, and the increasing volume of the reverberant music, guided Dinanga and Heri through the subterranean labyrinth. Once brighter daylight beamed from the hallway’s end, they slowed their running down to a skulk and crouched behind the jambs on opposite sides of the exit.

A flat, narrow promontory of rock projected from the opening, fifty feet from the crater’s inner floor. From the central hole in the vaulted ceiling of gold, a shaft of sunlight ran straight down to a broader, circular space at the walkway’s end. Ringed by megalithic pillars at its edges, this balcony supported a disk-faced platform in its center, around which men and women in red-dyed clothing chanted in an unintelligible language while clapping and beating wooden drums. Behind the altar stood a woman mantled in a more brilliant shade of red than the rest, scarlet macaw feathers woven into her dreadlocks and blood-red paint zigzagging down her face and limbs. She beat the stone of the promontory with her crooked priestess’s staff, human skulls jangling from the top of it.

On the altar lay a motionless Kazadi.

The drums and chanting built into a frenetic storm of noise that resonated to a deafening extreme underneath the crater’s domed covering. Rising alongside was a putrid odor emanating from far below the promontory. The voices of the female worshipers heightened to yipping screeches while those of their male counterparts lowered into guttural croaking.

With one final, cracking bang of the drums, the music stopped. The priestess waved her staff of skulls and shouted coarse, unfamiliar words to the ceiling.

A vast, odoriferous mess of slimy dark gray mud, strewn with bones and streaks of luminous green fluid, churned and bubbled at the bottom of the crater basin. With a flatulent gurgle, the muck rose in a mound and cracked open to reveal six orange-red eyes on a flattened black head. Behind it emerged and unfolded a pair of leathery, yellow-veined wings tipped with claws like a bat’s. Droning like an overgrown mosquito underlain with a rumbling growl, the thing flapped itself out of the slime to the promontory’s terminus.

Dinanga wrapped her trembling arms tight around her bow. She could not deny the old stories any longer. The star-demons of yore were real.

The cultists in red retreated and knelt in unison as the hulking creature landed between the megaliths on four columnar limbs that glistened with wet black bristles. Advancing on its knuckles in an apelike manner to the altar, it unfurled a wrinkled proboscis between its mandibles and extended it to Kazadi. Tentacles at its end rubbed wet trails of saliva over her skin. The girl’s arms twitched, her eyes opened wide, and she screamed.

Dinanga shot an arrow at the star-demon, piercing the wing’s thick skin. The creature’s eyes blazed brighter than embers as an echoing metallic shriek escaped its trunk. The people in red turned to face Dinanga, their teeth bared in anger.

The priestess thrust the tip of her staff in the huntress’s direction. “How dare you attack our god!”

Dinanga drew another arrow, now pointed toward the priestess. “I’ve come for my sister, witch!”

“Then get her at your risk!”

Dinanga released the arrow. The priestess dodged it with a sidestep, then vaulted over her followers in a single jump and swung her staff at the huntress. The bundle of skulls slapped Dinanga aside, throwing her to the edge of the promontory. She grabbed the lip of the walkway before she could slip off, her feet dangling in the muggy air of the basin.

Her fingernails scratched over the stony surface. The priestess stood above her with a cruel smirk as she raised her staff again.

An arm shot out from behind the priestess and wrung her away by the neck. It was Heri. Shoving the red-mantled woman to the side, he snatched Dinanga’s wrist and pulled her back onto the promontory.

One of the male worshipers punched him on the cheek and off his footing. Dinanga whacked the assailant’s brow with her bow, grabbed him by the throat, and pushed him into a group of his allies. With slashing swipes of her bow and sweeps of her legs, she fended off the remaining cultists’ attacks.

The priestess grappled her from behind and slammed her onto the rock. One kick rolled Dinanga back to the edge.

Over the clamor of the fight, Kazadi screamed again from the clutches of the star-demon’s talons. Its tentacled trunk engulfed her head, muffling her voice.

Stabbing the rock with the tip of her bow to still herself, Dinanga sprang to her feet and unleashed an arrow into one of the star-demon’s eyes. It spat Kazadi out with a screeching wail and staggered onto one of the megaliths at the terminus edge, toppling it over with a crash of its wings. The rock of the promontory quaked under the being’s confused stomping until it stumbled off the promontory and fell.

Dinanga started to run towards her sister, but the priestess leaped into her way with another swing of her staff. The huntress parried it with her bow, but the blow splintered her weapon apart.

The priestess cackled. “You’re outmatched. How will you save your sister now?”

“With my help,” Heri said.

He slashed his dagger across the priestess’s breast. She dropped her staff of skulls, which Dinanga seized and used to bat the woman off the promontory. The screams of the leader of the worshipers trailed away as she fell, finally ending with her faint splash into the muck below.

Dinanga hurried to Kazadi and embraced her. “Are you all right?”

Kazadi groaned and blinked as she wrung fetid drool out of her braids. “Where are we?”

“Wherever it is, we’re getting out as soon as we can.”

The star-demon’s surviving worshipers yelled a vengeful war cry and charged in a wall down the promontory’s remaining length. Dinanga, Kazadi, and Heri hopped onto the altar and launched themselves over the raging army. With a flurry of kicks, punches, and the slashing of Heri’s dagger, they sent the remainder of the cultists hurtling off to join their deity and priestess in the mud at the bottom of the crater.

Dinanga inhaled deeply and sighed with relief after they had run out of the portal on the outer side. Even the musty scent of the wild jungle was a relaxing fragrance compared to the infernal stench that had swamped the crater under the dome.

Kazadi blinked with a shake of her head. “How long has it been?”

“Why, it’s been over half a moon, sister,” Dinanga said. “Remember those old tales about the demons from beyond the stars? Those men and women in red meant to sacrifice you to one of them, like our ancient ancestors did.”

“By the spirits, you mean those stories were true all along? I can’t believe it. But at least that creature has plenty of dead to gorge upon now—if it even survived its fall.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure,” Heri said. “Its landing would have been soft down there, and who knows how hungry those things get?”

“Even so, it’s trapped under that big dome behind us,” Dinanga said. “Let it feast and then starve to death.”

A banging, crumbling crash followed, as blocks of weathered gold flew off the summit of the dome. Up soared the star-demon with a terrible droning screech, dripping wet with the dark slime of its lair. Its five good eyes scintillated with fury as it swooped down.

The three raced down the avenue through the ruins. The creature accelerated its pursuit until it emerged in front of them. As it veered to face its prey, its beating wings stirred up a gust of wind that knocked down a chunk of stone overpass to block their way. It then grabbed Kazadi with a clawed hand and raised her towards its proboscis.

Dinanga chucked one of her last arrows like a javelin into its crotch. The star-demon did not even flinch. Heri flung his dagger at it, but the star-demon evaded it with a flap that lifted it overhead. It plucked him off the ground with its other hand while half-swallowing Kazadi.

Dinanga ran to one of the piles of rubble, hauled up a hunk of masonry, and hurtled it into the star-demon’s thigh. Fluttering in the air with anguished squeals, it released Heri and reflexively vomited out Kazadi. Dinanga caught her sister in her arms and fled from underneath the reeling monster, along with Heri. They reached the colossus at the ruins’ edge, but again, the star-demon caught up with them. It landed atop its own stone likeness and jumped onto the road before them. The earth under their feet shook them onto the flagstones under the otherworldly horror’s shadow.

A deep, explosive roar resounded. It was not the star-demon. The rage in the thing’s eyes dimmed as its bristles suddenly stood on end. Breaking out from the jungle and storming towards it was the tyrannosaur.

The two beasts faced each other with an exchange of threatening roars and screeches, the tyrannosaur thrashing its head about and snapping the air while the star-demon waved its arms with wings outspread.

“We should leave now,” Heri whispered from the corner of his mouth.

Dinanga shook her head. “We can’t let the star-demon win. It must die once and for all. No one should worship it anymore.”

The tyrannosaur chomped onto the star-demon’s arm with a crunch of chitinous skin beneath the bristles. The six-eyed monster freed itself by punching its attacker in the jaws, then hooked its other arm around the tyrannosaur’s neck while clawing at it with the first. It swatted its wings in a struggling effort to lift itself off the ground with the dinosaur in its hold. The tyrannosaur, slashing across its alien adversary’s breast with a short two-clawed arm, wriggled itself loose and beat the star-demon aside with its snout. The being from beyond the heavens collided into its own statue, turning it over and smashing it to pieces with a terrific tremor.

The tyrannosaur pressed a foot onto the fallen star-demon’s belly, cracking the skin underneath and spurting out viscous yellow-green blood. The demon slapped it away with flailing forelimbs. With a push and a sweep of its wings, the wounded being pounced onto the reptilian brute and shoved it into an obelisk on the other side of the old road. The star-demon then turned its attention to the three humans, the glow of its eyes flashing with a laughing growl as it captured Dinanga in its grip.

Kazadi pried out one of the orange gemstones from the statue’s fallen face and threw it onto the creature’s hand. The gem’s sharp edge buried itself into the monster’s knuckle, enabling Dinanga to slip down from its loosened grip. The demon withdrew its other forelimb for another slashing swipe until the tyrannosaur bit onto its biceps from behind. Between those saurian jaws and teeth, the demon’s upper arm crumpled into a pulp of alien blood and bristled chitin. A final wrenching motion of the dinosaur’s head ripped the star-demon’s arm out of its socket, then the tyrannosaur delivered a crushing bite to its extraterrestrial enemy’s throat. The star-demon’s high-pitched whine broke up into a buzzing rattle as it fell onto the shattered remains of its own idol.

The tyrannosaur threw its head upward, with droplets of yellowish blood cascading from its mouth. It let out its loudest roar of triumph to the heavens.

Dinanga, Kazadi, and Heri rushed into the jungle, out of the predator’s sight. Between the buttress roots of a kapok tree, they stopped to catch their breath, all racked with strain and sweating in rivulets.

Dinanga hugged her sister with all the exhausted strength she could muster. “Thank our ancestors that I found you before it was too late.”

“Thank you both for coming to my rescue,” Kazadi said. “Who may this strange man be, may I ask?”

“Call me Heri, of the clan of Deshen over on the open plains,” he said. “I’ll tell you all about my life over the night. All I can say now is that I’m happy that’s all over with. And I get to have two pretty young women walking by my side.”

Kazadi giggled while Dinanga groaned. “You men are all the same,” Dinanga said.

Heri winked at her. “And you women are not? Maybe you’ll change your mind after a few days.”

“If that’s what you want, maybe you could start changing my mind by fetching me some wood, flint, and twine. I need a new bow and more arrows.”

Together they laughed as they walked toward the distant village of Mungu, their backs turned to the great ruined village and the domed den of its slain god.

You can read this and several more short stories in my collection Beasts & Beauties, available for purchase on Amazon.com!

#short story #fiction #writing #dinosaur #tyrannosaurus rex #african #black woman #woc #poc #women of color #people of color #fantasy #prehistoric #monster #demon #lovecraft inspired

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