MonsterVille
Forty Two

“Am I late?” Katie-Cam purred.

Her gaze raked over the assembled monsters, the mutilated body of River, and the Apex gathering against Mellie. She quirked her head and that dark smile grew. “I think perhaps, I’m right on time.”

“You—” Rat Bitch’s voice trembled, just the slightest catch, but every monster heard it, “—you were banished.”

“Yes,” Katie-Cam agreed jovially. “I was.”

Shadows bent to a will not their own, lights danced like an aurora across the broken sky, the earth quaked and thunder rumbled as lives were shed and blood was spilt. In other words Mellie’s night had taken a turn for the worst. She wasn’t an expert on monster etiquette when it came to apex grudge matches but apparently ‘anything goes’ really did mean anything.

Dirt shifted beneath her and Mellie lost her footing, stumbling as pincers sliced up through the soles of her shoes. She let loose a startled cry, by then Rat-Bitch had closed on her. A swift vicious slash of pincerous-claws that turned Mellie’s skin to rivers of blood and slabs of mutilated flesh. She darted back but the damage was done and it ached like a bitch.

Mellie vaguely noted the big berserker squash the rats that emerged from the hole. He took the beast between his hands and squeezed till the monster’s eyes popped and brain matter oozed from the empty sockets. She was glad he was on her side.

From the corner of her vision Mellie saw Katie-Cam move in a flicker of shadow, she reached the Rat-Bitch only to be intercepted Bacchus—he may have had no love for the rats but apparently he was even less inclined to favour Katie. Mellie swallowed nervously at the sight of the two going to war; a fallen god and a demon spirit given flesh. It was a sight to behold.

Hot rancid breath found the back of Mellie’s neck and she shuddered, claws gently encompassed her arms. Her blood running freely.

“What a sight,” the Rat-Bitch mused, her claws tightening, “I’ll admit for a moment there I was concerned, but with Bacchus in the fray you are all mine.”

Mellie cast a hopeless glance towards Elyse, still sitting upon her throne, her eyes fixed on Nicodemus. Mellie’s gaze flicked to her mother—she was hurt, but she was tearing bloody hell out of the Bacchii. The large berserker and his comrades were crushing rats left, right, and centre but they were an unending black mass of flesh that poured into the field.

They were all going to die.

It was her fault.

Fuck. That.

“All yours?” Mellie echoed softly. “You really think you can handle me all on your own…?”

Mellie tensed for the fight of her life, she fought not just for her life but for the lives of her friends, her comrades, even her mother. She took a breath, tasted life for what might be the final time. She closed her eyes, and in the space of an exhale she turned in the rat-bitches hands.

The Rat-Bitch was missing her head.

And an arm.

… And half her torso.

“What the fuck?”