Badder Than ol' King Kong

My eyes were affixed to a towering ape-like creature that had taken the place of my friend Yamin. I don’t know how it was possible, but she’d just transformed into that monster without any warning or control over herself.

Before I dropped out of the sky in my base form on account of my now useless wings, Jess caught me and we rode tandem on her instrument.

“Any idea how we can change her back?” Jess asked, shouting over the wind as we circled widely over the now scary looking Yamin.

“Not a clue,” I said. “But something must have triggered this!”

The only thing we could think of to explain this was either her transformation was related to the moon, like she was some sort of wereape, or Prometheus must have cast something on her specifically.

“Ha ha!” Prometheus laughed maniacly as his pumpkin head watched the great ape pound at her chest. “This is perfect! The perfect power to cause world devastating havoc! I can just sense the energy inside of her overflowing!”

“Easy down there, Eris!” Jess mockingly shouted to him. “Keep talking like that and you’ll be the new god of chaos!”

“Don’t compare me to that diva!” Prometheus shouted. “I live with a little more purpose than she ever-”

Suddenly Yamin’s large fist swung at the pumpkin head and obliterated it, mercilessly silencing the proxy of Prometheus. She pounded her chest like a gorilla again in celebration and roared into the night.

“That’s one way to shut him up,” I commented.

Her rampage didn’t stop there. Yamin stomped down, trashing cars and small structures. She almost tripped a few times and had to grapple onto buildings to keep steady, but did a lot of damage to those structures in the process. If she kept this up, there wouldn’t be a city by the morning.

She was like a kaiju fueled on rage, and we didn’t have a massive lizard or big turtle to protect us.

I didn’t have my body’s instruments to measure power levels, but I could still sense Yamin’s energy spiked up big time, way more than either Jess or I could handle in our current states. If we didn’t put her back, there really would have been a big problem for this world.

“Jess, we need to figure out a way to turn Yamin back before it’s too late!”

“Maybe we can get her to come back to her senses?”

Yamin let out another roar and purposefully slammed her fists into taller buildings. They crumbled down and clouded the streets in dust and debris.

“Might have to knock her out first,” I said.

It seemed like Yamin was heading for something, because she was just stomping forward like she had an objective in mind. The only thing in that direction was the Satellite Industries tower though. So was she heading for that?

“Jess!” I stood up on her instrument and balanced perfectly as she flew us forward. “I’m going to hold her off and see if I can knock her out! Can you give me some cover?”

“Oh yeah!” Jess reeled in her fist. “You can count on me, best friend!”

“Wh-” I blushed. “B-best friend? Me?”

Jess blushed too. “W-well… Yeah.” she twiddled her fingers and looked at them with coy eyes and pouty looking lips. “I mean, we don’t have to be if you don’t want to…”

It’s not that I was against the idea, but it seemed so sudden that she’d bring it up like that. We just met, after all. But she kinda’ wore her heart on her sleeve, so I had a feeling if I approved of her statement, I probably wouldn’t regret it.

“You know what? Ride or die!” I smiled. “I’ll be your best friend, Jess!” I threw her a thumbs up.

“Heck yeah!” Jess thumbs upped too. “Let’s get that big monkey and save the city together!”

“That’s the plan!” I gave her a salute and purposefully fell backwards off the flying instrument.

*PWOOOF!*

Finally I was getting a hold of this transformation!

Once my feet touched the ground I began sprinting toward Yamin at full speed. She sensed my approach and turned to look at me, her eyes glowing hot red, as if scanning me with hollow anger incarnate.

I leapt into the air, a fierce look on my face, then drilled forward in a powerful spiral motion.

*BAM!*

My beak struck her body and the force was enough to stumble her backwards. She let out a roar in response and quickly motioned her arm to smack me away.

“I’ll protect you!” Jess’s voice sang like a chorus. “♪Ahhhh haaaa ahhh!♪”

Blasts of emerald wind rippled through the air and struck Yamin’s hands, preventing her from hitting me and giving me plenty of time to recover.

“Nice shot, Jess!” I cheered.

“I really did good, yeah?” Jess said, patting herself on the back.

*SLAM!*

“Gah!” I shouted as Yamin kicked me with her now monkey feet, like I was a bird shaped soccer ball.

I hit a ruined building and recovered from the rubble. Jess flew up to me with a cringed face.

“Sorry…” she said with a nervous grit of her teeth. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

“It’s fine…” I grumbled as I shook off the dust. “Everyone slips up. Just keep focused, because you might not get a second chance next time.”

“R-right!” Jess took a determined turn with her expression, which gave me confidence that she wasn’t giving up.

Meanwhile, Yamin didn’t think of us as much of a threat and continued heading for the tallest building in town.

“Let’s go!” I shouted as I bolted at Yamin again, pecking hard at her tail.

She let out an agonizing roar, as if I’d hit a weak spot. This time she didn’t seem the least bit willing to hold back and waved her arms even more aggressively. Jess did her best to blast those oversized monkey paws where she could to protect me, but slipped up a few times. Her inexperience was understandable, but it sure hurt me a lot!

“Jess! You’re doing great so far, but keep focused!” I told her, regardless of the mess ups.

“B-but… You’re getting hurt!” She cried, covering her face with her hat in shame. “If I keep messing up, the city's doomed. And so would you be!”

Although that was true, there was no time for depression to hold her back. Combat like this took a lot out of anyone, but I could tell the longer this went on, the better she was getting at it. So she had to keep trying and give it her all.

“Just keep going, Jess!” I said, rising back up from a particularly nasty knock down. “You’ve got this!” I posed my wing to make it look like a thumbs up.

Jess peeked out from under her hat, her glowing green eyes peering at me as they floated in tears.

“O-okay!” Jess grew resolve, singing a new song which surrounded me in a speedy green aura. “♪Go get her! Save the city, and run like a blur!♪”

I thought my top speed was already incredible, but I was gunning it like a bullet breaking the sound barrier thanks to Jess’s support spell!

My next hit to Yamin was so strong that it completely toppled her over. I ran across her tail to escape the collateral. She roared fiercely and threw a destructive tantrum on the ground until rising back up.

Once she was back on her feet, I suddenly felt her power level swell, gathering in her large open maw.

“What’s she doing?” Jess asked.

“Oh God no…” I uttered in fear as Yamin’s mouth opened wide and aimed toward us. “Jess, get on me!”

“What?” Jess jumped on my back and I sped away at top speed. “What’s going on!?”

Mana built in Yamin’s feral mouth, gathering into an orb of energy so bright that it painted everything in a hot blue spotlight. I could hear the sharp ring of the charging energy getting louder and louder by the millisecond.

The charging energy finally peeked and began to erupt out of the great apes mouth. I jumped high into the air, as far as I could go.

“Give me a gust, Jess!” I shouted.

“O-okay!” Jess shouted as she strummed her instrument to create a gale of wind that pushed us quickly forward.

*BWOOOV!*

A hot blue beam raged out of Yamin’s mouth and tore through the air like a stream of plasma. It warped the air around it and bent light with a lensing effect.

*BOOM!*

The beam attack missed the city and struck a mountain off in the distance. There was a bright flash of light that lit up the night like it was daytime, followed by a huge blast akin to a thermonuclear bomb.

Jess’s wind might have gotten us out of the shot, but that explosion was only just getting started.

“Hang on!” I shouted, bracing myself for the incoming blast wind.

A wave of hot and fast air spread through the city. It was loud and scolding, but I managed to keep Jess safe from it by coddling her in my wings.

Once it was safe to peek at the damage, I saw a huge mushroom cloud rise into the sky from ground zero. The distant mountain was gone, replaced by nothing but a large crater in the ground almost as deep as it was tall.

“She missed the city,” Jess said. “Did you get her to hit the mountain on purpose?”

“I got you on my back to make us a single target,” I started explaining. “That way I could control, more or less, where that big monkey was aiming that mana cannon breath attack she fired.”

“Then you ran and jumped into the air where the beam would miss all the buildings,” Jess concluded. “We really almost died, but you saved us with that quick thinking.

Admittedly, a lot of what I did just then was instinct at work. My head pretty much turned off and I went on autopilot. But there was a method behind my movement at least.

I wasn’t exactly happy that the beam hit anywhere, but with how little time we had to divert that attack, I just made a call that would limit the chaos.

More importantly, I learned just how devastating this form Yamin took on really could get. She didn’t seem the least bit fatigued by what she just did and was back to rampaging through the streets, continuing to topple buildings on her way to the tower.

“Why is she going there?” I wondered out loud. “Could it be that she’s gravitating to the center point of the demon domain?”

If that was the case, maybe she was unintentionally heading that way to destroy it. That was just a theory for the moment.

“I can’t believe something that powerful could keep fighting after an attack like that,” Jess said, fear in her eyes and her whole body shaking. “My goodness, it was so strong.”

“I’ve been playing with and against powers that could devastate the world ten times over for a while now,” I commented. “Sadly, stuff like that doesn't shock me anymore.”

Some of the more terrible punches I’ve received point blank to the face could be calculated in the low end kilotons. If I were anything but an Exceed, that would probably kill me.

“If only we could calm her down and change her back…” Jess looked at her instrument.
“Wait, maybe…” her face popped with hope. “Yalda! I have an idea! But I need to get close to Yamin to try and do it. Will you help me?”

If she was brave enough to try something here, I could give her a shot. But we were likely only going to get one more shot at all, so she needed to make this next move count, whatever it was going to be.