> Ellie PoV

“170.” (Kelly)

ZUBLOS HAS SLAUGHTERED MILLIONS

“You what, mate?” (Kelly)

“I think he means he got more than you.” (Roel)

“Oh ho hoh! Okay then! Nano, how many did each of us get?” (Kelly)

“Do you honestly think I have nothing better to do than tally up your kills?” (Nano/Armory)

“Yes.” (Kelly)

“Yep.” (Brand)

“Master Nano is unparalleled in parallel focus and has surely accomplished such a trivial task!” (Ariel)

“... Zublos got 232, Kelly got 164 and Roel got 178.” (Nano/Armory)

“Aaargh! I’m in last plaaace!” (Kelly)

“Also, you tried to cheat.” (Roel)

“No such thing! It’s just hard, uh, to tell with those trolls that get can back up despite having a crushed skull…” (Kelly)

“Pretty sure it was just your seeing double that threw the count off.” (Brand)

“Still, Zublos won as expected. That unstoppable charge is well suited to fighting large groups like that.” (Roel)

NONE MAY STAND BEFORE THE TERRIBLE MIGHT OF ZUBLOS

“Will you three shut up already!?” (Ellie)

They’ve been going on about this scoring thing for a while now, it’s really starting to annoy me.

I want Kira to get better soon so I don’t have to deal with this!

Ah, but this is the sort of thing she deals with all the time, huh?

Hmmm…

Okay, I’ll just think of it like sharing the burden of leadership with her!

This much is to be expected.

Since I’m the wife.

“Incidentally, Ellie got 56, Brand - 29 and Ariel - 52.” (Nano/Armory)

Yes, I managed to beat Ariel!

No, I mean, who cares about that sort of thing!?

“This one has firmly been shown where she belongs! This one is in awe of her Mistress’s prowess!” (Ariel)

I’m not happy over such a trivial thing, okay!?

“Ellie, you seem awfully happ-” (Kelly)

“Shut it! We still have a titan to find!” (Ellie)

...

“Ellie! I think I see it!” (Roel)

Oh please let it be so!

We’ve only been in this cave for a few minutes, but I already want to go home!

“Where?” (Ellie)

I miss Kira!

I should be by her side, not down here in this icy cave!

“There, something moving around!” (Roel)

Roel points to a side passage.

“Prepare for battle! Ariel, light it up!” (Ellie)

“Yes, Mistress!” (Ariel)

Ariel guides her floating light orb into the tunnel in question, and I can hear slight scraping noises coming from it.

There’s definitely something moving around in there.

We approach cautiously while I focus on my sight and hearing.

“Uuuuu…” (Tiny Voice)

“There!” (Ellie)

I spot a blonde head of hair trying to hide behind a rock!

“Kyaaa! NOOOO!” (Yellow Skittle)

Ah, she skittered away with a scream!

“After her!” (Ellie)

We give chase, but she almost immediately runs into a dead end.

It’s not a particularly deep cave.

We surround her to cut off her escape route and close in from all sides.

“G-g-go away! P-p-p-please?” (Yellow Skittle)

I finally get a good look at her since she’s curling up into a small ball on the floor.

She’s trying to hide her head, so I can’t make out her face.

However, I can see multiple pairs of completely red eyes peeking out between her fingers.

Her upper body is the shape of a little girl with long blonde hair and frail-looking arms.

It’s connected to a bulbous spider’s abdomen at the hips.

Eight smooth-looking slender legs poke out from under her.

Her abdomen and legs are a bright yellow color, it matches her hair perfectly.

Her skin, on the other hand, is really pale - almost whiter than the snow outside.

Also, she’s quite tall, probably taller than Zublos if she were to stand up properly.

The upper body in particular looks like it belongs to someone who’s over two meters in height, despite looking like a young kid.

I almost mistook it for an effeminate young boy since the chest was completely flat.

But a certain place that’s on full display immediately clears up all doubts regarding her gender.

“W-w-why is she nude?” (Roel)

This is going to be really awkward, huh?

“Titans normally don’t wear clothes. I expected this much, to be honest.” (Brand)

“Draglael wore clothes though?” (Roel)

“Those clothes are part of her steel shell so technically-” (Brand)

“NOO! Don’t stare at me like thaaat! LEAVE ME ALONE ALREADYY!” (Yellow Skittle)

Even her screaming voice sounds young, maybe around Lara’s age?

It almost makes me feel bad, like we’re doing bullying her.

Almost.

“Let’s get this over with.” (Ellie)

I walk towards the quivering titan and put a hand on her bare shoulder.

“NOOO-” (Yellow Skittle)

Her scream stops abruptly and she collapses while convulsing.

Now her skin is crawling and her body is making strange noises.

*SNAP*

Okay, she can shape-shift.

Draglael did not mention that part.

Come to think of it, she didn’t mention her abdomen would be the same color as her hair, either.

Thanks for the comprehensive intel, Draglael!

I’ll stab her later as punishment.

*SNAP*

The spider-girl’s body is rapidly changing before my eyes.

Spines start growing out of her back, shoulders and elbows.

*CRACK*

Fingers extend into sharp claws and legs become longer, pointier.

*RRRRIP*

Two additional arms sprout from behind her shoulders and brown chitin starts growing from her skin.

Oh, that’s bad.

The brown is spreading to her abdomen and hair like ink on paper!

“Feral Brown! Outside, get outside now!” (Ellie)

If we fight in this tight space she’ll ensnare us in no time flat!

Our group starts running for the exit, but it looks like Ariel might fall behind.

“Zublos, grab Ariel and carry her outside!” (Ellie)

INSOLENT WHELP!

Despite his words, he still obediently grabs her and throws her onto his shoulder like a rolled up carpet.

“This one is not some, mmmm, piece of luggage you can, hnnng, manhandle as you wish! Yaahn!” (Ariel)

Now that the perverted bird no longer slowing us down we can pick up the pace!

“Shashashasha!” (Brown Skittle)

The weird sound behind us probably means her transformation is complete!

I can hear the sound of many pairs of legs following us!

Seems she’s as aggressive as expected!

“Exit up ahead!” (Roel)

“Spread out once we make it outside! Ariel and Armory are to fly upwards and out of her range ASAP!” (Ellie)

I remind them of the formation we agreed on as we make our way into the light!

Once we’re all outside, we all take our positions around the cave entrance as the skittering footsteps draw closer to us.

“SKREEEEEEE!” (Brown Skittle)

The Feral Brown titan bursts into the weak sunlight with a high-pitched roar!

The frightened kid from before is completely gone.

In her place is a monstrous creature that’s more spider than human.

Even her mouth was replaced by spider-like jaws!

“Shaaa!” (Brown Skittle)

She extends her four arms and webbing flies out, forming a net in an instant!

“Gah!” (Brand)

“H-How careless!” (Roel)

Brand and Roel got caught and wrapped up in an instant!

“Ariel, burn it!” (Ellie)

“-- [Firebolt]” (Ariel)

The semi-solid ball of flame hits Brand squarely in the back, but it doesn’t hurt him since it landed on his heavy armor.

The spider thread, on the other hand, catches fire and burns up in an instant like a flash fuse.

Roel and Brand suffered some singed eyebrows, but they’re unharmed.

Good, if it’s only at that level we can defeat the spider webs!

“Heeya!” (Kelly)

“SKraaa!” (Brown Skittle)

Kelly rammed straight into its side while it was busy with the nets, knocking it off balance!

I’ll take this opportunity to land a few attacks of my own!

Gripping the PLR-45 Sidearm, I switch it to semi-automatic mode and take aim!

*Pachew pachew pachew*

“SKRAEAAEG!” (Brown Skittle)

She takes three bolts of plasma to the face and recoils with a scream.

Judging from how the upper half of her face is partially melted, she won’t be able to see for a while!

“Now! While she’s distracted!” (Ellie)

We take this chance to surround her on five sides.

We’ve already planned ahead in accordance with Draglael’s rather dubious intel.

Let’s see if it works before we move onto Plan B!

SUFFER THE WRATH OF ZUBLOS

Zublos cuts her abdomen open with a gigantic swing of his needlessly huge sword.

“SHHRIIIEEE!!” (Brown Skittle)

She turns around reflexively only to have Roel slice through two of her hind legs.

"SHEERAA!" (Brown Skittle)

“RRRAH!” (Brand)

Brand follows up immediately by choppingoff a leg on the other side with his one-handed axe.

"KRASHAASAAA!" (Brown Skittle)

Looks like it’s my turn!

*SHLUP*

I leap in and stab my sword through her back using my right arm while holding onto my pistol with the left one.

“KEH! KEHOK!” (Brown Skittle)

Good, seems like she has lungs right where I thought she would!

She’s thrashing around trying to shake me off, but I hold on tight and put the PLR-45 Sidearm to the back of her head!

*Pachew pachew pachew pachew*

“KEHRAA!” (Brown Skittle)

She manages to swing one of her claw-tipped hands at me, so I jump off her back to dodge it.

I left my blade is lodged in her lung, but it seems to have been was a wasted effort.

It's slowly being pushed out as her wound starts to regenerate.

Her face has completely recovered and a leg has grown back!

“Nano! Sword!” (Ellie)

The Armory launches a replacement blade at me and I catch it with my Telekinesis.

I see Zublos and Kelly are already attacking from the sides, while Roel is preparing for a follow-up assault from behind.

Yes, this is the way!

Keep hurting it from all sides without letting it counter-attack!

It may be big and fast, but it’s too dumb to realize it’s being toyed with.

We don’t have to kill it, just keep hurting it until the Feral Brown disappears!

* * *

“----- [High Thunder]” (Ariel)

*Krakoooom*

The lightning bolt accurately hits the sword that’s sticking out of the top of her skull!

“SKREEEEAAAAAAaaaa…” (Brown Skittle)

It screams loudly and collapses with thin trails of smoke coming out of its upper body.

It finally stopped moving after an hour-long slugfest!

Just like with the Elder Dragon, this lightning rod combination is extremely effective!

“Hold!” (Ellie)

We warily rebuild our encirclement of the slightly-twitching titan’s body.

Regenerating monsters are a pain to fight, but this one was on a whole different level.

Cuts and burns would heal themselves in seconds, just like with Draglael.

Not to mention that seemingly limitless stamina!

Still, it looks like we succeeded.

The brown one is too stupid to do something like play dead.

“Stand down.” (Ellie)

“Haah, haah, I don’t think, haah, I could have, haah, kept going, haah.” (Roel)

“Huff, huff, huff, blasted, huff, spider!” (Kelly)

Most of us are exhausted, only Zublos appears to be perfectly fine.

I don’t think we can kill it for good without something like a tactical nuke.

Unfortunately, Kira’s WMD-like magic isn’t available and Ariel can’t bring out that much mana at once.

I have the mana capacity, but without [Unity] I can’t control big spells like that at all.

Not to mention my mana is Kira’s lifeline!

Wasting it on some crazy spider lady is unforgivable!

On the other hand, I used up all my cartridges for the PLR-45 Sidearm.

Even a fully charged shot took about 20 seconds to close up without a trace, but it was a good way to keep her off-balance.

We can’t manufacture ammo for it, but we have about 400 cartridges in stock.

That much should last us for quite a while.

*Crack*

However, we don’t exactly have time to relax just yet!

The titan’s body is starting to convulse and shake violently!

“On your guard! Next one is coming!” (Ellie)

If we see Raging Red, we have to run away immediately.

We’re in no condition to fight it, not to mention Draglael says it’s much stronger than Feral Brown.

I’d say pulling Red would be just about the worst case scenario.

*CRRACK* *SNAP*

The extra arms disappear and her chitin peels off to reveal slightly tanned skin.

The various spines fall off and slightly curly hair rapidly grows out of her scalp, stopping at about shoulder-length.

The hair and abdomen slowly turn into a bright orange.

“Stand down!” (Ellie)

“Oh thank the Steelmother! Haah, haah. I thought I was going to pass out!” (Brand)

“Ariel, can you make it back to the tower?” (Ellie)

“Fuuu, fuuu. This one is uncertain Mistress. Fuuu. This one’s mana is nearly depleted.” (Ariel)

Ariel had to work hard with her [Antidote] spell since the brown one kept spitting toxins at us.

We do have stimpacks that could handle that, but they’re for emergencies.

Nano only has 20 of them left, so we need to be careful with our usage.

Maybe I should ask Picorio about a way to replicate them through alchemy.

I wonder if directly injecting healing potion into the bloodstream will be effective?

Questions for later.

“Nano, send the gryphons to pick us up.” (Ellie)

We’ll catch our death of cold if we stand around while drenched in sweat like this, so we’re retreating.

The orange one is a docile personality, meaning we don’t have to worry about her attacking us.

Draglael claims it takes months for Skittles to switch colors on her own.

That’s why we have to go through all this trouble in the first place.

Titans might be fine with waiting for decades, but Kira might not survive that long!

“Heya!” (Orange Skittle)

Gah!

She’s already up and waving a hand in our direction!

Her face had settled into one with slightly puffed out cheeks and freckles.

The four pairs of eyes are still a bright solid red with no pupils though.

If she had regular eyes, she might be a bit cute, but she’s just plain creepy like this.

Also it’s unrelated, but her chest has grown from completely flat to about my size…

“Thanks for earlier! You guys really whooped that mean brownie good! It was really fun watching her get put in her place for once!” (Orange Skittle)

She’s way too hyper!

“Um… you’re… welcome?” (Ellie)

Her words flow at such a high speed that I barely understood what she said after ‘thanks’!

It’s like an even more intense version of that waitress, it’s a bit terrifying!

“Right! Let’s go play! Right now! Let’s go! Let’s goo! I know the perfect game, too! It’s a great game where we pass this ball of thread around!” (Orange Skittle)

“Sorry. We really need to go and rest, we’ll be back tomorrow, okay?” (Ellie)

Her over-excited smile instantly drops into a frown.

“... Promise?” (Orange Skittle)

“Yes, I promise.” (Ellie)

And the frown is gone like it never even existed, even her face is hyper.

“Yaaay! Playing with others for a change is going to be so much fun! Way more fun than playing with my other self! You know Brown keeps bullying me when we’re asleep? What’s up with that!?” (Orange Skittle)

Okay she’s hyper, but at least she’s friendly.

Unfortunately, I don’t think we can have her heal Kira and our baby.

Draglael claimed only the Original White personality can make full use of her titan’s power, and I’m inclined to believe that.

If the brown or yellow one had that sort of ability, there’s just no way we would be able to win.

“Easy there. Maybe you should chill out a little?” (Ellie)

“Hah! Hahahaha! Chill, I get it! Hahahaha! Fuuuu. Good one! You’re pretty funny miss! Ah, right! I’m Skittles! Pleased to meet ya!” (Orange Skittle)

No, I actually was serious and not trying to make a pun for once!

But, introducing ourselves seems like a good idea.

It appears that the different Skittles share memories to some extent so it’s probably a good thing!

“Good to meet you Skittles. I’m Ellie. This is Brand, Zublos, Roel, Kelly-” (Ellie)

I point out to the rest of our little expedition and they give a little nod as I call them out.

“KYAAA! There it is! What is that!? That red thing that moves around like clack-a clack-a and then a thing comes out of the hand?! And then there’s a FWOOSH and it flies and CRUNCH it lands!” (Orange Skittle)

Right, come to think of it, the orange one is supposed to relentlessly seek excitement like a little kid.

“Oh! I see you have a good eye, miss Skittles! This wonderful hunk of dwarven ingenuity before you is known as Scrappy!” (Kelly)

If we make her have so much fun that she has to ‘go home and rest’ it will let another personality take over.

“Woah! Scrappy, huh!? It’s super cool, isn’t it!? Can I get one!? Hey, hey, hey can I get one too?!” (Orange Skittle)

Scrappy might be unexpectedly useful here, but not right now.

Hypothermia aside, we also have to be in top physical condition should a violent one pop out again.

“Sorry, we need to rest first. We’ll play with you when we come back later, okay?” (Ellie)

“Okay! Be sure to keep your promise! You’ll keep your promise, right? If you don’t then I’ll get mad and my big red sis will come out to punish you!” (Orange Skittle)

Ah, that’s right!

The really dangerous Red one will come out on its own if she gets really angry with us!

It won’t rest until she or us is pummeled to dust!

That’s why we shouldn’t do anything rash like attacking her unprovoked!

“Kwaa!” (Puff)

Oh good, the gryphons are here.

We asked them to go back and rest before entering the cave since they worked hard for our sake earlier.

Even Fluffles had to tackle a random Northern Roc that flew in from somewhere.

It seems he picked up some pointers by watching Shull.

I’ll have to praise him for the hard work.

“Ohh! What are those!? Are those gryphons?! I’ve not seen them for myself! And the white one looks super tough! And that armored one looks way cool! But the last one looks super fluffy! Can I pet them!? Can I?!” (Orange Skittle)

She’s bouncing up and down excitedly, I can almost see sparkles in her eyes.

If she likes gryphons that much, then tomorrow might be easier than I expected!

Trivia time! When it came to naming this titan, I wanted to go with something clearly spider-like. 'Skittering Spider' came to mind, then it became Skittles since it sounded cute. As a result, I scrapped her original creepy encounter and morbid personality so that we can all taste the rainbow!