Chapter 15 - Something hard to swallow

All along during the performance, Noa and Crisnée had stayed perfectly still. Now, they were finally gathering their wits.

“S-sis’? What happened?”

“I… I don’t know. It just came naturally…” She answered, still caressing her retracted fangs.

As soon as it saw Noa move, the pseudo-spider also started moving, toward him that is, its fangs coming out once more.

“No! Shhhh!” But a heavy footstep and growl from Vi put it back down on the ground. It even rolled on its back to show its belly. Very naturally, Vivianne went toward it and started petting it, stopping only when she realised what she was doing.

Well, she stopped for a second, but started again soon enough.

It’s like a wolf asserting its dominance on another wolf.

Kinda.

“S-so, you’re controlling it?” Noa didn’t know what to do with the present situation. And who could have blamed him? His sister just dominated a monster by poisoning it with her fangs.

“I think…?” She looked at Crisnée and his brother, then at me, before her gaze went back on the pseudo-spider.

“I have an idea. Noa, come please?” And she nodded at him to come over.

“You’re sure?” He wasn’t really at ease with the idea, but another nod of his sister convinced him. After all, they trusted each other deeply.

“Okay. Now you put your hand there.” She pointed at the junction between the creature’s head and torso. Which wasn’t a neck, like with normal spiders.

“O-okay?” He did as asked and, once his hand was in position, Vivianne violently trampled the monster’s belly, adding another “Shhhh!”.

A bit more trampling, and she once again pierced the monster’s skin (or exoskeleton? I had difficulties to see) with her fangs, injecting another dose of poison.

“V-vi?” Noa was a bit frightened by his sister’s behaviour, but he kept his hand on the creature nonetheless, his trust in her winning over his fear.

“There, all good. You remember what I did with my hand?”

Noa nodded, taking his hand back.

“Okay. Do it? And try to... “ She struggled a bit to find her words “...to do the same sound as I do when I… well, you know. Do it.”

Noa looked at her as if she was mad, but kept following her instructions.

“B-but what should I command it to do?”

“Just make it rise?”

“O-okay.”

Noa took a deep breath and made a fist, then a motion that could have been interpreted in at least tens of different ways.

Yet, in a strange way, the p-spider…

I really need a name for this thing.

...the p-spider rolled over and rose on its legs, looking at Noa with expectant eyes.

Its eyes. I hadn’t realised till now, but they did not look like spider eyes at all.

Instead of the full blackness natural for spiders, it was closer to human eyes. A black pupil with a black-brown iris and a black circle around it. It was a bit duller than a human one, but this was already disturbing.

Now we know where the black circle in Vi’s eyes come from.

Not that much of a surprise but still.

“I-it obeyed?!”

“Yes! I knew it!”

“...How?” Noa's question, as simple as it seemed, clearly took Vivianne by surprise.

“Erhm. I don’t know? It just came-”

“Naturally, like before?”

“Yes. Now, Crisnée, come here too!”

“Eh?” The concerned person flinched a bit.

“N-no.” And took a step back.

“Ah come on! Here, I’ll help you.” Vi took me out of Crisnée’s arms and shoved me in Noa’s then took her by the hand and led her to the monster.

“I-I hate spiders.” She struggled a bit in Vi’s grasp.

Vivianne stopped dead in her track and turned her head toward Crisnée.

“I am here.” And she smiled brightly, putting Crisnée’s hand on her heart.

“Trust me?” Crisnée looked at Vi for some time and, finally, she nodded at her.

“Thanks.” Vi turned her head back at the creature and, doing a fist and a motion, it rolled on its back just like before.

Vi gently put Crisnée’s hand at the same place that Noa did and, just like before, trampled it, snarled and bit it to inject it with poison.

“Try to order it around, like Noa?” Another nod from Crisnée as she did what Vivianne asked. Very reactive, the p-spider obeyed Crisnée’s order to rise and take a few steps back from her. Or I think it did, since I sincerely didn’t know what they were asking the monster with their hand motions.

Seeing it work, Crisnée’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “It worked.”

“Yes! Now, normally, it won’t see you as a prey anymore. Now the tricky part…” She turned to look at me.

“Noa, can you help me doing the same with Elayna?”

“Sure!” Now that Vivianne proved herself, Noa had zero doubt about following her orders, his eyes bright from impressment.

“You’re really amazing sis’!” He added to drive the point home, all the while taking me to the monster.

Easy now. Don’t blast this monster to bits, Vi put a lot into this.

Alright alright I know!

Then can you put this spell down please? You’re not very credible when you’ve a spell ready to destroy this thing.

Wasn’t it you who advised on caution?!

Yes, good caution. This is bad caution.

What the fuck is the difference?!

Still in his arms, Noa took my little hand and pressed it against the monster, Vi following right away with her… I don’t know, domination move? Domination dance? With her things.

I hope this thing won’t die from all this punishment. Would be a shame after I stopped myself to melt it to the ground.

It seems this kind of monster can take quite the beating. It’s fascinating.

It is. Do all the monsters change like that?

We’ll need to conduct a study to see how monsters changed it seems. If that’s a normal one…

Yeah. They’re way more powerful than before.

But we didn’t see it fight. Let’s save our judgement for after we’ve gathered more data.

It is indeed wiser.

Of course, Vi did not ask me to order the monster, as they thought I couldn’t comprehend even the basic idea. Which was logic, since I was… erhm.

Four months old.

Right, I was four months old. Keeping track of time sure is tiring. Lucky me, I had an AI.

After that, the three kids looked at each other in silence, a bit lost.

“So… what do we do now?” That was Noa.

“I-” Suddenly, cutting Vi in her answer, the p-spider’s hair bristled and it turned toward the entrance of the room and, not a second after, it opened wide and another, bigger, p-spider jumped in.

“CLAC-CLAC-CLAC-CLAC!” Our p-spider had intercepted the new one, each of them deploying their dorsal arms to strike at the other and ending parrying all four attacks.

Stunned at first, Vi’s eyes turned slightly red, just like those of the two p-spiders I quickly realised, and she rushed in the fight. Just. Like. That.

Put this spell down!

…

Thanks. Can we just look at how it evolves? Remember, let them live their own experiences, all that stuff?

But-

No but. We can react quickly enough even if you’re not trigger-happy, you overprotective sister.

Right. Keep calm and be focused, right.

That’s the spirit. Let’s just look at it for now.

‘Kay.

I said that but I nearly blasted the enemy to bits again when I saw it striking at Vivianne, strike that sis’ blocked by covering her fist with Shi.

I didn’t know she was already that good.

She isn’t. Look attentively, she’s fighting entirely with her guts. It’s an instinctive reaction.

The fight morphed quickly, the two p-spiders starting to climb the walls, which gave a strange turn to the fight.

Imagine two opponent that navigate a room as if all the surface was hard ground. Quite weird.

Since Vi was A) unable to climb walls and B) a seven-years-old chibi, the two fighters got out of her reach pretty fast. She stumped the ground with a foot and looked around her.

Her gaze fell quickly on the mostly empty racks of weapons. The keyword here being mostly.

“Cris, Spear!” She pointed at a spear not far from Crisnée, then extended her hand, ready to receive the weapon.

Snapping out of her daze, the young girl gathered her wits impressively fast and grasped the weapon, throwing it at Vivianne. At the same time, she took a sword for herself and, after a second of hesitation remembering Nicklass’ words about not touching anything in the room, Noa got over himself and picked up a shield in one hand, Yours truly kept safe in the other.

Catching the spear, Vivianne covered it with a green silky Shi and violently thrusted toward the ceiling. The big p-spider dodged it, but it stopped it from landing a blow on our spider.

Outnumbered at two against one, the big p-spider still ended up holding its ground (or ceiling, or whatever, you’ve understood) for another good five minutes. However, an error while dodging another bold assault for my sis’ ended up getting it wounded by its other opponent and, from there on, it all went downhill from there.

“Crtch!” Until the bloodloss made it fall from the wall, opportunity that Vivianne took to skewer its head with her spear with a disgusting sound.

Our spider jumped on the fresh corpse and started eating it. Seeing Vivianne’s gaze, Noa took her by the shoulder.

Vi struggled a second then snapped out of it, her eyes turning normal again (well, as normal as they could be) and shivered a bit.

“T-thanks bro’.”

“No prob’ sis’.” For once he answered her seriously, no smile in his voice or on his face.

“I nearly…”

“Yes. No biggy.”

Silence settled then popped like a bubble soon after.

“We can’t stay here. More could come.” Crisnée nodded toward the corpse of the monster that our monster was currently devouring.

“B-but what can we do?” Asked Noa, and Vivianne seemed to be at a loss too.

“Regroup, find others. It’s the best way to survive. Being alone is being dead.” She said the last sentence as if repeating someone else words.

The twins thought for a second and nodded together.

***

The barrack was silent, akin to a tomb. The little group was slowly moving, trying to find someone or, at least, the exit. The p-spider was swiftly and noiselessly moving on the ceiling, protecting the group from the high ground, its four sharp appendages hanging from its back and ready to strike at anything that would threaten its master.

Heart pulsing, blood pulsating, adrenaline still rushing through their veins from the last fight, the group of children was tense like a stretched elastic, ready to snap at anything.

But silence kept being the norm, and nothing happened for five minutes, ten, twenty and the kids started relaxing a bit. Until we found the food storage.

We could hear a munching sound from a hall away and, drawn by curiosity, we went that way.

Arriving in front of the half-opened door of a room with a food sign on it, Vivianne used the butt of her spear to push it entirely open.

Everyone turned pale.

In between wasted food, opened jars and bottle, flour and others, a p-spider was energetically eating. A corpse.

The poor girl’s face was stuck in an eternal scream of pain, tears from her eyes mixed with blood from her mouth, already drying, taking the natural sticky brown conformation of old blood.

The p-spider was happily devouring the innards of the military aide, splattering gore all around, here a part of heart, there some bits of lungs, and a foul stench had filled the whole room.

I could feel Noa using all his might to stop himself from throwing up, and the same effort could be seen on Vi and Cris’ faces.

Vi took a step back in disgust but Crisnée stopped her and, silently, urged her to attack the monster.

A heated but silent debate ensued, finally won by Crisnée.

Everyone acted the best they could. And it was surprisingly good.

Vivianne and her spider-pet used the element of surprise to ambush the glutton, striking as fast as they could. Meanwhile, Crisnée stayed in the doorframe and kept an eye on the fight, all the while Noa stood guard in front, protecting us from an ambush and not involving me in the fight.

Careful.

I saw.

In the middle of the fight, one of the p-spider’s attack nearly wounded Vi, and she stayed safe only thanks to my and Psaï quick reaction, protecting her with a wall made out of air.

The fight finished, the monster but a corpse in a corner of the room, Vi and Crisnée fell to their knee, tired.

At the same time, the backslash from adrenaline low and the corpse in front of them hit them hard.

They were nothing but children, after all, and two fights plus a human corpse whose face was still recognisable had eroded their will and strength, even if they won the two fights.

Once they got their energy back, they nearly fled from the room, trying to find a proper place to rest.