17 days until the Last Ordeal

We asked 101 a few more questions, but none of them were that important. There were protests about our deadline, but we didn’t have any way of changing it. Afterwards, Harley suggested that we all exchange contact info. That way, if someone found a monster, they could text the others, and anyone nearby could gather to help. We couldn’t just always stay together, after all. Life and its obligations didn’t stop just for us.

The first text from our impromptu network came from Harley the following evening:

               found monster. not in danger yet. backup pls

It was a Saturday, so I had no obligations keeping me from responding. As tempting as it was to pretend that I hadn’t see it, I texted back that I was on my way, made up an excuse for my parents, and headed for the door.

This one was in the middle of a neighborhood, so I was thankful that it had the decency to attack in the evening, when less people would be around. On the way there, I heard someone call out – it was Laura.

“Hey! Three heads are better than two, right?” I shrugged. She slipped into pace next to me as I headed to the address Harley texted. She didn’t sound like she was in immediate danger, so I didn’t want to sprint all the way there just to run out of stamina halfway through the fight.

“So, you fought a monster, right?” I asked. I remembered her saying something to that effect at the team meeting.

“Yeah,” Laura answered. “It looked kind of a headless gorilla with tank treads. What about yours?”

“God, I don’t even know how to describe it. The lower half of a lion with a missile launcher almost attached to it?”

Laura didn’t seem to have a response to that. She went quiet for a bit, before changing the subject.

“So, I’ve been thinking. What would be a good way to monetize this?”

“Excuse me?”

“You know, make money,” Laura said. “We have superhuman abilities. There’s gotta be some way to make a profit from that, right?”

I stared at her. “We have to fight monsters that are trying to wipe out the human race, and you’re worried about money?”

“I don’t… oh, shit.” Following Laura’s gaze, I saw it. We had just turned a corner, and the monster Harley found was in clear view.

This monster was a lot bigger than the first one I saw. Its main body, an oblong mass of something that looked like obsidian, loomed above the houses flanking the street. Supporting it were seven impossibly narrow legs, moving with the uncanny jerking of a slow, enormous spider. Extending to the sides from the body were seven tentacle-like protrusions, each ending in a perfectly smooth sphere. Unlike the jerky segmented legs, these arms drifted lazily back and forth as it moved, as if they weighed nothing at all. It was even weirder than the first one, and it felt even more impossible that nobody else noticed it.

I spotted Harley, frantically waving their arms at us from behind someone’s rhododendrons. We ran over to them, ducking into hiding before the thing saw us. Did it even have eyes? We still knew so little about our enemies that anything seemed possible.

“Shhh!” Harley whispered, urging us to stay quiet as we joined them in hiding.

“Has it done anything yet?” I asked, keeping my voice low as I stared at the bizarre creature.

“No, it’s just walking around,” Harley said. “Maybe it doesn’t know we’re here.”

“Well, the legs seem like an obvious weak point,” Laura said. “It’ll probably swing those mace things at us to attack. Break its legs, then smash the body. Sound right?”

When neither of us could raise any objections, Laura stood up, summoned her weapon – a massive, ornate sledgehammer – and charged. Not wanting to leave her on her own out there, I followed, leaving Harley to catch up with us. The fight was on.

Just as Laura had anticipated, the monster’s tentacle-arms sprang into action as we approached. They swung down to knock us away with surprising speed, but we were still faster. Laura stopped directly underneath the monster’s body and brought her hammer to bear against one of its creepy legs in a powerful two-handed swing. The leg shattered like glass.

Unfortunately, things weren’t going to be quite that easy. Just a moment after Laura’s strike, the leg regrew to its original length. I swung my spear like a club, easily breaking another leg, but it grew back, too. Toppling this giant was going to take more than breaking a couple legs.

“We need to–“ Before I could finish the sentence, something collided with the monster’s main body. It was a hook, connected to a long chain, every link a different color. Harley’s weapon was a grappling hook. Does that even count as a weapon?

With a surprisingly intense battle cry, Harley pulled on the chain. Their enhanced strength was enough to actually tilt the monster, which suddenly looked like it was struggling to remain standing. Realizing that this was our chance, Laura and I both started going after its legs again. It could still regrow its legs, but not fast enough to stay upright with Harley pulling it down. Before long, the whole thing fell to the ground in a tangle of broken legs. With a victorious cry, I thrust my spear into it.

It bounced off, doing absolutely no damage.

A moment later, Laura’s hammer came down on the other side. With a sound like a massive gong, the hammer bounced off as well, knocking Laura off her feet. As the three of us stared in disbelief, the monster dragged itself back up to its full height. How the hell were we supposed to destroy a monster when our weapons couldn’t even scratch it?

I turned just in time to see one of its swinging tentacles crash into Harley from the side, throwing them through the air like a soccer ball. When they hit the pavement, they didn’t get back up.