It smelled like rotten fish… and no, it was not Snow's breath.
We sloshed in the dark as we swam in a rotten mix of tar and goo. I couldn't see a damn thing, but I could hear Rex's screams in and out of splats that panged my ears every so often.
"Fuck… ing… hell…" someone said. I think it was Snow.
Not here, goddamn it… Not like this… I thought as I tried so desperately to activate my black coating. But with the constant rotations and body handling, I couldn't get a grasp of where up or down was.
Suddenly, I felt a hand—I think—on my shoulder.
I couldn't tell whose it was, but it patted me multiple times, with that same pattern, over and over again.
I didn't get it at first, but I finally understood after it repeated at least twice… and I knew who this was.
I began squeezing my way downward to the point where I was sure that I was going deeper into this thing's massive throat. When I squeezed in low enough, I felt hands on my ankles. Still, I could not hear anything except the sounds of glop, but I reached out in the direction of where the hand that patted me was and grabbed his ankles too. At this time, I saw a green aura flash from the ankle I was holding, and I shot upward with the person who was holding my ankles as well.
We splatted and were forced through crevices of muck as I closed my eyes, grasping on to what little faith I had in where we were going… but it was not where I had thought. When we both arrived, we were finally out of that slimy guck, but it was still dark and smelled like ass.
When we arrived, I could tell the place was hollow, and we were still jetting forward—or backward—to wherever our destination was.
It was then that the one holding my ankles finally let go and all I heard next was the sound of his hands clasping and a chant,
"Firebolt Magic: Burn Bright Meteor!"
Right then, Ryo's hand lit up in a ball of red lightning that sparked fire; it sounded like hordes of birds chirping as it dimly lit the place. It wasn't much, but at least we could see, however little of it we did see. And as we traveled there, I saw a huge, membranous lump of a thing that drooped from what I believed was the roof and the back of a massive throat.
"Now, Greed! Together!" Ryo shouted as he threw his Burn Bright Meteor forward, and I coated my fist in vantablack; we coursed in a direct path that Rex's Path Weaver took us… right into this thing's large, abnormal uvula.
We hit it at the same time, and it moaned as it flew backward, hitting the distant wall of its inner throat.
I then heard rumbling vibrations. And then, as if a rising flood had erupted from below, Ryo and I watched it rise all the way to where we were.
Fuckin' Keeper…
To us—the sound of a wave. And to the beast…
HURL!!
The gigantic monster vomited us out in an ocean of trash heaps.
Ryo and I were the last to exit, as we had begun to get lifted by a green string of aura connecting us somewhere up and away.
When we shot out from the ocean of trash, purple sigils formed all around us, and a black pillar became our landing in mid-air through a pentagram from the ethers. Zeno, Rex, and Snow had been on their own separate pillars as we met them there, with Zeno's hands clasped together all the while.
"Holy fuck you guys!" Rex said, his adrenaline high.
"It's not over yet!" Zeno shouted as the gigantic monster slowly stopped heaving and found us once more.
When we observed it, suspended high up from where Zeno's black pillars had emerged, Ryo spoke, "I'm going to assume this is the first for all of us?"
A rhetorical question.
"I've only seen this thing in books. I didn't know if they actually existed or if they were myth, but here one is in front of us…"
The monster that ate us was the size of three adjacent skyscrapers; it had enormous horns that could fit two Wolves Dens side by side inside them. Its face was a mixture of a dragon's and Behemoth's, and its arms were just as huge, gnarly, and muscular, helping it hold its gigantic self up. Three fingers on each and three for toes on its massive feet. It was a monster that dwarfed both Behemoths and Basilisks alike. The apex of apex monsters of its graded category…
"Grade 0 Kaiju," Ryo finished.
Had I been standing on the skyscraper in LeHarla, this thing would probably be eye-level. This thing probably eats Colossal Sand Dragons, which are also Grade 0 monsters.
"We better be promoted after this…" Snow said.
"Aren't you guys' already Daz's select mages?" I asked.
"Yeah, but you should have asked him for commission," Zeno added.
"WAIT, HOLD UP! WE'RE NOT GETTING PAID FOR THIS!? GREED ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!?"
"Fuck…" was all I said as I started regretting that I hadn't.
"Your name is fucking Greed, and you didn't specify pay?" Snow griped.
"YOU DIDN'T KNOW EITHER FISH BREATH!? FUCK ME!"
"This is starting to sound like a punchline to a bad joke…" Zeno followed.
Ryo laughed boldly as the Kaiju snarled in our direction, and we could feel the gust of wind from that alone, like an explosion had set off a distance away.
He was standing on his pillar, arms crossed as he looked upward to all of us. "This is the perfect chance"—he looked back to the beast—"to try out our special multicast!"
Snow grew a wicked grin on his face, and ironically so did Rex. Zeno was the only one of them who sighed. "Do you guys just think I have an endless supply of mana? I'm gonna be shot after this—even with Snow's Healing Haze."
"Come on, Zeno! You've got the coolest part of this multicast!" Rex begged.
"If you say so… but I refuse to say the name."
"You can't cast this spell without chanting the incantation!" Snow commented.
"If it was a 'real' incantation… It's a combination of spells, not an actual spell."
"BOO!" Rex and Snow both said.
"I never took you as the party pooper type, Zeno," Snow added.
"I didn't say I wouldn't participate, I just said I'm not saying the name…"
"Would be a lot cooler if you did, though…" Rex said lastly.
Ryo laughed again as I sat down on the suspended black pillar with one leg up and an arm resting on top of it. "Whatever it is, it better be good," I said as the Kaiju roared, and the entire cave shook. "'Cause I sure as hell aren't a part of it."
"Just sit back and watch, Dweeb!" Rex said.
"Because Zagura is gonna fuckin' whoop some Kaiju ass!"