Welcome back!
I hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween, because I've decided to drop this a week (or so) early. With holidays coming up, I know I'm gonna get busy, but wanted you to have something fun to look forward to this week.
New reader? Welcome to the jungle, we've got fun and games!
We've got monster girls you want, honey, and the plot's never the same
But there's a lot that's going on, and it might not make much sense
you should start at the beginning, honey, and then we shall see you hence
(or just do what you want, I'm not your parent. Also, this concludes my music career)
Returning reader? The beatdown continues! This is the second to last chapter of book four, but don't you fret! I intend to wrap things up as nicely as possible and then prep your eyeholes for book five, which will start releasing either late this year or first thing next.
I won't bore you with a recap, because shit is going down! Let's jump right in, shall we?
Battlegrounds
The technicolor clouds of the Dreamscape parted as Mike fell through them, and he flipped himself over in an attempt to finally stick the landing on the beach. For a moment, he thought he had it, but at the last second his feet swung out from under him and he slammed into the ground hard enough that the beach crumbled beneath him. He fought to stay above the flowing sand that rushed in to fill the gap, and was busy pinwheeling his arms when a golden ray of light broke through the sky above to illuminate him.
The fairy queen descended slowly, her diaphanous wings spread out behind her. The regal attire she had worn in the court had been replaced with resplendent armor that glistened in the light of the Dreamscape. The clouds parted, and a choir of angels hummed a battle hymn as she landed on the beach, her bare feet pressing into the sand.
She looked around the island, her eyes scanning the water, then turned to look at the house and frowned. Curious, he followed her gaze and saw that the house was in a state of disrepair that made no sense, and the roof of his porch had collapsed.
"And so we see the inner workings of your mind," she said. "I can't say I'm disappointed. This is roughly what I would expect from a mortal."
"Yeah, well—"
He tried to pull his foot out of the sand and fell on his face, getting a mouthful of grit. There was a rush of air, and a strong hand grabbed him by his other leg and yanked. He was pulled free of the sand, and now dangled upside down in front of the queen. She seemed bigger than she had been just a second ago, and his breath caught in his throat when another pair of arms unfolded from her torso.
"Let's see what you're made of, Caretaker." She spun in place and hurled him through the air, and he careened across the beach and then slid across the sand.
He bounced over an errant boulder and landed in a tide pool, which caused the crabs inside to stand up on their hind legs and flee. A fat starfish cartwheeled behind them before performing a belly flop off of a large rock on the shoreline. Mike was almost back on his feet when she grabbed him by the hair and yanked him backward, then slammed him into the ground and placed her foot on his chest.
"Feel free to wake up when you're ready," she told him, then held up a hand full of purple fire. "But try to last. I want to carve you up first."
Pain radiated through his body, but now that he had a moment to concentrate, he was able to disperse most of it. She had gotten the drop on him, that was true, but this was his Dreamscape, and he refused to let her get to him.
He caught movement off to his side and saw a crab within reach. The damn thing was wearing a top hat and a monocle, but he grabbed it by the face and smirked at the queen.
"Feeling crabby?" he asked, then threw the crab at the queen.
When it hit her in the face, it exploded into hundreds of tiny crabs, each one wearing a top hat or a monocle. She jumped away from him and shook herself off, the tiny crabs scurrying away in a hurry once they hit the ground. When she stomped on them, they burst into smears of blue and pink paint.
"Is that all you have? Mortal puns? Stupid jokes?" Her arms and torso were covered in red and white paint smears now, and Mike suppressed a grin. When she tried to rub it off, it just created long streaks of grime that sparkled when the light hit the smashed monocles just right.
"I'm just trying to buy myself some time," he said, then struck his best martial art pose. Though inexperienced in the art of self defense, he dug into the mental intent of the act, and felt his mind connect with the beach around him.
When the queen ran toward him, he swept his hand dramatically in front of him. The sand of the beach erupted, blasting into the queen and smashing her into a grove of nearby palm trees.
He dramatically made a fist, and the beach followed suit. It was almost ten feet across, and as the queen pulled herself out of the trees, it slammed into her hard enough that one of her wings crimped, and he heard her shout something he couldn't understand. He summoned another sand hand and then put his palms together, willing the beach to grind the queen like a stone in a rock polisher.
A blast of lightning hit him in the chest and blew him across the ground. He tumbled backward and landed on his feet, raising his hands for the inevitable followup. It was another blast of lightning, but he summoned a steel rod from the sand, and the lightning hit that instead.
"So, maybe I was hasty," the queen muttered, her upper body free of the sandy prison. She had her fingers pointed like a gun at him, and a nasty looking storm cloud swirled overhead.
"Did you think this would be easy?" he asked her.
The queen ignored him, her eyes scanning the beach. He sent another sand fist at her, but she raised her own hand and created a barrier of stone. He tried a stone fist, but she countered with a piece of paper that covered the fist and caused it to implode.
"Clever girl," he muttered with a hint of annoyance.
"I am older than the Dreamscape," the queen said, then summoned a bubble to surround her. "What you do here is nothing more than cheap parlour tricks compared to its true potential. I thought I could pressure you a little at a time, make you think you had a chance, then frustrate you to no end."
"So you're toying with me."
The queen smirked. "I believe the cliche you would use is 'blowing off steam.' I have taken your measure, Mike Radley, and know what you are capable of."
Mike lowered his hands. "So...does that mean you give up?"
The queen rolled her eyes. "Your arrogance is tedious."
"It isn't arrogance. I am going to win."
"You have no idea how sad it is that you believe that." The queen vanished, then appeared right next to him. "I'm tired of listening to you."
A band of metal slammed against his mouth, and when he tried to pull it free, she yanked his hands away and then slammed him into the ground. He grunted, and she lifted him up and threw him hard into a nearby palm tree, causing the tree to snap and fall. Even though his pain was diminished, he was in agony as the bones of his body shattered and healed in seconds. She paused to lift him up, her extra hands pinching his face as if he was a cute child.
"I wanted to hear you beg, but this is far more entertaining."
She grabbed his skull and slammed him into a nearby rock. The rock broke apart, so she summoned an even bigger rock. He whimpered when he saw it, and when she smashed through him, his whole body distorted like jello, then bounced back into shape.
"You have no idea how much I've wanted to do this to you," she growled, then grabbed his arm and yanked it off. He stared in horror as she tossed it away, and then yelled when she grabbed the new arm that had formed and repeated the process.
He closed his eyes and tried to focus, but her onslaught continued. He was her hammer, and the whole world had become a nail. He was so distracted that he was unable to bend his own Dreamscape to his will. He reached out to try and find Naia, his ace in the hole, but she was centered in the middle of the house. Until the queen decided to go inside and smash some furniture with his head, he would have to hold on.
The queen was now over twelve feet tall and was casually smacking him into trees. He let the pain wash over him, his mind holding onto the idea that his real body was perfectly fine, and that nothing she did to him would leave lasting harm.
"You dare to defy a queen in her own court?" She slammed him into the ground, then pressed his face into the sand. "You miserable miscreant. I have lived many thousands of years on this plane of existence, and no creature would dare to say the things you have!"
She emphasized her point by picking him up and flying across the beach like a stealth bomber, only she shoved his face into the sand, using the beach as an industrial sander. When she lifted him up, she scowled at his appearance, then dropped him and stomped him into the ground hard enough that the world went black as he was buried beneath a foot of sand.
When she pulled him back out, she was still ranting, but in a language he didn't understand. The sand beneath her feet was turning black as if scorched with heat, and she lifted him into the sky before slamming him down again. However, the longer she went, the easier it was to disconnect his mind from the sensations of his body. After another couple of minutes, he was only along for the ride as she took out her frustrations on him.
