Chương 111: Lariat

Jairo looked like he was from another planet, to me. While I hoped the words echoed through his head, I wasn't sure what else was going on between his ears. Well, what would've been his ears. Normally when he let us see his face when it transformed, it was reptilian. Like this monitor lizard of some kind, but with a heavy jaw and eyes far larger than they should be for a lizard, and his stupid mohawk turned into a great big frill.

The only thing that stopped him from just being a full-on reptile were that his "scales" were chitinous, like he was what happened when you made a lizard out of bugs. Here and now, whatever rage he sunk himself into, made him change further. His "snout" extended further and caused his jaw to split. Past his lips were no longer any teeth but these fused together, long mandibles. His tongue thinned and narrowed to a needlepoint.

Instead of numerous chitin "scales" along his skin it was instead larger, solid hunks that were layered on top of each other. His mohawk was gone entirely. No frill like in his reptilian form. Instead, it was these series of barbs and thorns that almost seemed to pulse with every breath he took. Those inhales and exhales, those raging pants, sounded like locusts on the horizon. Every exhale resulted in a drop of a thick drool that sizzled in contact with the wood.

The rest of his body seemed to have adjusted as well, with thicker blocks of chitin instead of the scaled pattern. His hands curled into more solid form, curved and sharp like the limbs of a mantis. More barbs and serrations sat along his forearms. And his eyes. They were brighter, with no sclera. Just iris and pupil. All seven of them. Three on either side and one at the front. Just looking at him put some kind of primal upset in me. We were no longer two mammals side by side.

I was just an ape in proximity to some ancient predator, and the only reason I was in no danger was because of far more desirable prey in front of us. Before I could even tell him anything, he was gone in a blur. I could hear the cracking and splintering of wood as a hole busted through the center of one of the tree men, or Knights as that one ADU member called them. Jairo was on the other side of it, before vanishing in another blur, taking out another portion of it.

Fascinatingly, the usual vines these Knights put themselves together with weren't forming. Instead, the vines from the fat one that was called Father Mangal seemed to be filling the holes. When I was trying to fight off Jairo earlier, a bunch of those vines took human forms and speared out at me as well. They were being puppeted. Mangal's vines were everything. They made a stage and its own actors. Now the Knights were filling in for that.

Off to the side, I could see Shivvy desperately trying to pour into the enclosure Mangal had formed, tearing through vines as fast as they were growing. Just constantly bubbling into the plant barrier with no success. He wasn't going to be available help. So it was just me and a feral Jairo against an amped up Father. The Mother Belladonna lady seemed to be too busy hiding with Mangal, as I saw neither. Was fine, she didn't seem to be of much harm by this point.

When I first entered, I felt a prodding in my mind comparable to when Gleditsia stuck a flower in my head. That same drifting off. But I was already too familiar with it. How much it compelled this anger in me. I wondered if that same anger was what turned Jairo into the form he's in now. Had to stop thinking about irrelevant shit. Had to focus on the now. Mangal's controlling the stage and all the actors on it except for Jairo and I. Jairo's too out of it to fight normally.

He's gonna be kept busy with the Knights. That's okay. So long as he kept them bus- A car-sized wooden fist swung towards me, prompting an instinctive swing of my own leg, slitting the limb off entirely and tearing open a portion of the vined wall behind him. He came from the same direction we first saw Mangal in. That should at least expose the Father… … Empty. More vines out from that hole. He must've relocated. If the vines were still here making all this trouble, then he was still in the area.

It was a matter of- The disarmed knight formed a new, blade-like barbed limb from Mangal's vines, swinging it down towards me. Snapping my hand up, I caught his limb by the Wyrdwood forearm, the barbs jabbing into my shoulder. I could feel the vines stretching and trying to push past my suit.

"Stop!" I yelled, swinging the tree man over my shoulder and onto his back.

"Interrupting me!" Leaping onto his midsection, I raised a fist back before slamming it with as much strength as I could afford to let out without causing any sort of earthquake into his chest. He shattered into splinters, which tried and failed to hold themselves together with the mass of vines that had formed from the middle of his semi-destroyed body. No reformation. Hard enough hit seemed to do the trick. Nice to have a problem I could actually solve with just brute force.

Though the sudden set of screams told me that wasn't going to be my only problem. Human screams. Civilians. Pouring in through the tear in the enclosure I kicked open, were dozens of people running aimlessly, confused. They didn't even seem to process where they were given how glossed over their eyes were. Didn't even need to think too hard about it. Belladonna throwing in human shields to complicate the fight.

Those tree men couldn't hurt Jairo and I, frankly Jairo was tearing through multiples of them without issue, but they could hurt regular people. One of them was already rushing at the group, arms extended out. More vines shooting from its fingers, towards some of the civilians. No time to think. I flung myself too hard, too fast. I was trying to go for a tackle but ended up splitting the tree man in half, leaving me to have to reorient in the air and land feet-first on a portion of viney wall.

Normally I wouldn't mind that, but it didn't seem to mind the fall as its viney fingers continued moving, grabbing, and lifting up multiple civilians before bringing them close to his chest. Son of a bitch was making human shields. More vines extended from the exposed stump, producing a set of thin limbs that it scuttled around on towards me. One hand cradled the humans it was holding to keep them as shields, while the other extended more vines towards me.

I let it, I've been through this tied up gimmick before and it never worked to my disadvantage. Letting it catch my arms I lept from the ground for the ensuing pull, expecting a straightforward yank. Unfortunately, it wasn't the right move. Vines coiled out from the wall I was being pulled from, grabbing onto my legs. They were attempting to split me in half. I could keep a hold for a good while in these conditions, but it was time spent where I couldn't deal with any other tree men, the vines, or the civilians.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. Didn't want to have to pull him away from whatever he'd been doing, but if I wanted a way out of this to keep up the fight, I needed to get"Jairo!" I yelled. In a blue and orange blur, the tree man was back-first on the ground, its thin vine limbs caught in Jairo's mandibles. In one swift bite, they were split apart, smoke and steam piling up from the stumps.

I took the opportunity to swing my body in a spiraling motion, wrenching myself free from the vines clinging to my ankles and landing back on my feet. I took a deep breath and tried to re-evaluate the situation. Looking towards where he came from, multiple other tree men were torn apart, some having that same steam come from them. That told me the important statement: Jairo can face these guys. He could be trusted with fighting them. The question was the civilians.

I knew Jairo wasn't under any illusion at this point, he seemed to have been completely snapped out of it. Otherwise, he would've attacked me again. That wasn't the issue I had. No, the issue was these people were clearly under Belladonna's control. I wasn't entirely sure how her powers worked, but if she could adjust their perceptions in real time, then she could easily pit them all on Jairo.

Jairo wouldn't normally hurt them but — in his current emotional state, even when trying to save them — he was at a high risk of snapping on them in retaliation to a sudden angry mob. So long as I was here, the odds of that happening were slim. But if we just kept fighting these assholes, two things would happen. The first would be that the two ADU members would be able to escape.

Belladonna's powers meant they could probably get past the National Guard outside if they had to escape out, and those roots they use to travel could show up anywhere anyway. The second issue was we were technically fighting a defensive battle here. While Jairo and I could probably keep this up for a while, most of these civilians would tire out. They could bring in more tree men. These vines could do a lot more damage if they were able to cling on to me.

They'd likely be able to crush or seriously harm civilians or tangle up Jairo. He'd be fighting on his own. Actually, those vines. They only seemed to do anything with the tree men before, but they did lash out when my feet hit them. But not the ones below me on the floor. Otherwise, I would have been tied up already. And how could they even know our positions? We're boxed in. There had to have been a rule for these vines. They all had a function, but they were separate functions.

They weren't all doing the exact same thing at once. So some were keeping track of us, sensing our positions. The vines establishing the walls were controlling what went in or out. That gouge open was left open specifically to let the civilians in. But they grabbed me to hold me still, and are actively working to push Shivvy out. He didn't seem to know our exact positions, either. Otherwise, civilians would be getting tangled up as hostages instead of having to rely on the tree men making meat shields.

He couldn't see us. Belladonna maybe could. If I could get out, I could ambush them before they could react. I had maybe a second before touching that wall put the vines on my ankles. No idea how long Jairo could stay reasonable. But I had to put my trust in him. I knew he could do this. He had to be able to do this.

"Jairo!" I yelled out towards the monstrous hero, who was moving like a cyclone through the now far more deformed tree-men. He stopped dead in his tracks, his numerous eyes looking at me, pupils bouncing and flicking up and down to examine me. Maybe he could see me. That might be why the civilians were safe.

"Gonna stop Mangal! Protect the civs!" He let out something akin to a buzzing noise and a roar. No actual words to it. Whatever transformation he was under seemed to have taken his voice box. I could only hope he would be fine. My gaze passed towards Shivvy, bubbling at the wall. He made no headway, but the little glinting of his metal hide was enough for me to keep track of him. But he didn't need to get in. I needed to get out.

I felt the roots and vines under me give way as I blasted myself off towards the vague shimmering of his material, slamming into the wall with enough force to burst it into firm splinters. Shivvy covered me for a moment, and I swore for a second he started trying to eat my hair, but he stopped soon after realizing who he was clinging onto. He began coiling around me before forming a bubble on my back.

We slammed into a larger branch in the overall dome, his rounded form cushioning my impact, before a tendril coiled around my midsection to hold me up. I dunno where he learned that trick, but he was going to get some extra treats for that later. I looked around, my eyes adjusting to the inertia, before seeing a large "bubble" of vines jutting out from a strut of the enclosed area. They weren't very good at hiding, it seemed. Well, that was my advantage.

If I just launched in, then the vines might be able to repel me. But Shivvy could keep them busy. I dug my hand into the branch we were stuck to so I didn't have to rely on Shivvy, before grabbing a portion of his metal form.

"Long," I told him, and he shaped himself into the usual pole form. I then pointed him directly towards the bubble.

"Long! Long!" I repeated, hoping he'd get the hint. Somehow, he did, extending across further and further with each utterance of "Long!" before he made contact with the bubble. Vines were immediately digging into him as he began to bubble and curdle, eating away at whatever was growing into him. That was fine, it kept Mangal busy as I readied for the next step. A new word I hoped he could infer.

"Short!" Nothing, for a second. And then suddenly a pull. And another. I was then whipping through the air like a bullet, about as fast as I usually launched myself, heading straight for the bubble. With a crashing noise, I slammed into the sphere, bursting through several layers of thick vines. For a split second I could see Belladonna and Mangal, who immediately cocooned themselves in more vines. That was enough to stop me from splattering them, but inertia was still inertia.

THOOM My arm caught them in a lariat, yanking them right out of their own bubble and sending them hurtling towards the ground. Even with my own resistance, the impact to the ground was enough to crack concrete. Shivvy flopped down after me, immediately taking to consuming the vines. They were struggling to keep him enclosed, but just enough exposed Mangal's face. I clenched my fist. Just needed human level strength.

WHAM One clean punch left him unconscious, and soon after Shivvy was able to wolf away at the vines and roots, leaving both him and Belladonna exposed. For a split second, images flashed through my mind of safe alleyways and honest apologies and trust unlike any other. Unfortunately, these were all things I knew were too good to be true, and that pissed me off enough to force my mind back out of it. People-pleasing doesn't work on people like me.

I reared a fist back again only for her to throw her wrinkled hands up.

"I can't fight! I'm done! Surrender!" Still wanted to punch her, but I knew that wouldn't look good. The light reflected off of Shivvy as he spanned towards the vined enclosure, eating away at it with fervor. I took a deep breath as I watched, hoping Jairo was able to keep his cool for that short, short time. As the vines broke apart and Shivvy moved further along, I could see Jairo, in human form. He was kneeling by one of the younger-looking civilians, a hand on their shoulder, a bright smile on his face.

The tree-men were in splintered piles behind him. As he noticed the opening, he looked towards me. I gave him a thumbs up, my head tilting a bit to indicate it was a question. He gave a thumbs up in return and shot me a big, sharp-toothed smile. A hero's smile.