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Title: Of Cats and Magic

Chapter: 10

Author: Riko Gonzalez

The colossal, inflated, plant-like thing loomed before the two magical girls,

its razor sharp thorns glistening in the afternoon light. Then it happened. The

multitude of thorns exploded outward, rocketing through the air, threatening to

turn anything in the immediate area into a pincushion.

Thanks to her previous attack, Ruko was able to exploit the previously shattered

thorns to jump into a safe zone. As for Riko, she quickly ducked behind a

conveniently placed upturned car. Guess it was a good thing that there were so

many upturned cars littering the place.

Riko peaked out from behind the car, glancing at the plant-like monstrosity. It

was just as puffed up as before. However, now it lacked its thorns. Instead, it

was covered in many holes, each hole where a thorn used to be, a putrid green

sap leaking from the holes. If anything, the sap made the thing smell even

worse.

The next moment, a sickening, tearing sound filled the air as the top of the

plant-like creature split into two flaps. A thick, green tendril reached out,

twisting about as if it was sampling the air. The next instant, it locked its

attention on the blonde, whipping towards Ruko. The lithe catgirl sidestepped

the appendage, but that turned out to not be enough. Capitalizing on the

distraction caused by the first tendril, a second swiftly extended from within

the beast, successfully wrapping around Ruko's waist.

"Oh no you don't!" Riko remarked defiantly, summoning her staff. Lining up the

shot, she fired a bolt of flame at the offending tendril. The fire sliced

through the thick appendage, freeing her ally.

"Hey! Nothing burst into flame this time! I think I'm finally getting the hang

of this!"

The pink-eyed magical girl stared at the plant-like monster for a moment as

something occurred to her.

"Actually, it would have been useful it that thing had burst into flame. Wonder

if I can one-shot it?"

Riko began lining up her next shot, but she quickly found her action interrupted

by a scream --- the beast's scream to be exact. Dispelling her staff, she

clasped her hands over her ears --- or tried to at least. As a catgirl, she had

four ears --- two human and two cat-like. The problem was she only had two

hands, so her attempt was awkward to say the least.

***

"Why did that thing have to be so smelly?" Flash Fire asked to herself as she

watched the ongoing battle. Sure, she had planted that thing's seed, but she had

no idea that it would smell like that.

The redheaded assassin sat atop a damaged building, cracks running up along the

sides of said building. She had a good vantage point for the fight playing out

before her. Even from this distance, the scent of that thing was outright

nauseating, though.

However, she couldn't help but smirk at the sight before her. In essence, she

found the current scene outright hilarious. The monster was currently screaming.

At her distance, it was no big deal. Up close, though, it appeared to be

outright earsplitting. The cyan-haired catgirl was frantically trying and

failing to cover all her ears with her hands. Strangely, the blonde catgirl

maintained a stoic demeanor, unfazed by the sonic assault. Still, the

cyan-haired one's reaction was priceless. If anything, it so made putting up

with that monstrosity's disgusting scent worth it.

***

The ground quaked beneath their feet. The two magical girls took defensive

action as a forest of vines exploded upward. Each of these vines were easily

thicker than the torso of the average human adult. As the colossal structures

reached upwards, they began to bend towards the gigantic growth at the center of

the forest.

Riko and Ruko had both been forced back quite a bit by the unexpected event. The

individual vines were no more. Instead, they had wrapped around the bulbous,

green growth that the two magical girls had been fighting. Now, before them, was

an enormous cocoon of vines.

Riko summoned back her staff, pointing it at the creature before unleashing a

powerful attack of flame. A flash of light later, the monstrous cocoon was fully

engulfed in fire. It wasn't enough, though. In the wake of the inferno, the

beast was left little more than singed. The cocoon's defensive prowess was quite

formidable.

One by one, giant eyes opened along the surface of the cocoon, the many eyes

turning their attention to the pink-eyed catgirl. Riko shrunk back, disturbed by

the sight. The beast was clearly watching her, likely due to her last attack.

Although her attack obviously wasn't enough to beat it, it did appear to have

been enough to draw the thing's attention. Wait, what were those things along

the cocoon's surface?

A multitude of pods had begun to swell along the creature's vine-composed shell.

At first, they were the size of marbles, but they swiftly enlarged in size.

Moments later, they were large enough to house people. In turn, each exploded

open, each releasing a giant, wasp-like insect. The coloration of the insects

was orange and black, each insect possessing a stinger that was easily a foot

long.

As the horde of insectoid creatures gathered, Ruko took on a combat stance,

preparing herself for the inevitable clash that was quite clearly about to

occur. Following Ruko's lead, Riko readied herself as well.

The numbers of the airborne beasts continued to rise as more of the wasps were

birthed from the tangle of vines. Finally, the number of the creatures

stabilized at one hundred. That's right. Before the two catgirls was an army of

angry wasps waiting to rush the two.

A drop of sweat rolled down Riko's temple at the sight. She didn't much like the

thought of being swarmed by a bunch of enraged wasps. Of course, these weren't

regular wasps. These things were comparable to her in size. That made the

thought of them swarming her even more undesirable.

As for Ruko, she was quite clearly undaunted by the army before her. She coolly

waited, studying the beasts, standing ready to fight them.