Chapter 62: Mutated Frog

“Great Elder!” A man with blue hair down his back and pointy ears jumps into the sky to speak with Lark. He’s adorned with sleeveless monster skin armor.

“Mattias,” Lark says, but he doesn’t pull his vision from the monster in the distance, “is everyone from your subjugation team in the village?” Lark asks.

Mattias stands on an ice sheet and floats closer to Lark when he releases a powerful wave of magic. In return, five pulses of magic are released from different locations in the village, and they start moving closer to him.

“Everyone is here, Elder. Anna is the furthest, but she’ll still be here within minutes,” Mattias answers.

Lark nods, then whips his head around in a panic.

“Where?!” he yells.

BOOOM

The monster falls from on high and lands in the outskirts of the village’s farms, making an impact crater that nearly destroys an entire section of crops. Lark grimaces, then reaches his hand out and opens a small storage space. He pulls out two curved short swords and places one in each hand, then turns to Orla on his left. She nods. In her hands is a wooden staff with several red spell stones laid into it.

“We’ll hold the line until you’re ready, Mattias,” Lark says, his green eyes showing the fire of a much younger man.

“B-but great elder..” Mattias mumbles.

“Don’t fret, Matty,” Orla says cheerfully, “you weren’t alive at the time, but you’ve heard what we were called, haven’t you?”

Mattias gulps hard, then nods.

“Lark the bloody wind, and Orla, the death element,” he says.

Lark’s serious expression cracks. A smirk forms on his face, and the magic flowing from his body becomes denser. He takes a deep breath in through his nose.

“Haven’t heard that name in a while.. let’s remind everyone who we are, Orla,” Lark says confidently. Orla’s smile beams, then her expression hardens, and her golden eyes focus on the monster in the distance.

Wind picks up behind Lark; in moments, it becomes a tornado that slams into his back and sends him out of the village center. Orla reaches up her staff and activates a spell stone that creates that same effect. The two fly over the village’s farm land, their wind flattening rows of plants, until they arrive before the beast.

Its dark green scales are twice as thick as they were before ingesting the green gem. It radiates chaotic magic, the whites of its eyes are stained red, and its entire head is covered in pulsing veins.

Orla sighs at the sight, but Lark’s smirk hasn’t changed. The two float next to each other with wind magic, 20 meters in front of the beast.

“It’s significantly mutated, Lark,” Orla says.

“Indeed, this should be fun,” Lark replies and raises his short swords. He coats them in violent swirls of wind magic, then extends this magic to more than double the length of his blades. “I’ll test its scales,” he says.

A fresh tornado erupts behind Lark, pushing him forward. He pulls his wind-coated swords to the left and dashes at the belly of the beast. Lark drags his swords across the frog’s torso, shattering several scales, then he turns his body in the air and kicks off the beast’s stomach. He swings both swords together and cuts the creature’s left front leg off as he accelerates away from it.

“REEEEHHHHH!” the frog croaks and shifts its weight to the right. Its corrosive tongue flies from its screaming mouth and swipes at Lark, but he’s already returned to Orla’s side.

“Aha,” Lark chuckles, “we may do more than hold the line.”

Magic swirls around the creature’s missing leg and its shattered scales. New, spikey scales shoot out from its exposed belly, and a similarly armored leg grows from its stump. The frog rocks its weight onto the new appendage, then focuses its bleeding eyes on Orla and Lark.

Orla sighs again.

“It will recover from anything insignificant, no more playing, Lark,” she says while side-eyeing Lark. He frowns, then nods begrudgingly.

“Fire or ice, my dear?” he asks cheekily.

“Both,” Orla replies seriously.

“You really won’t let me have any fun..” Lark says with a sigh, then activates his magic. He rises into the air, but the beast leaps forward. Its webbed feet crush the ground it lands on just before the village elders, and its tongue whips into the air erratically, tracking Lark’s magic. Lark manipulates his wind and dodges each attack, but a touch of the frog’s saliva splashes onto his cheek and melts a spot of skin.

“Urg,” Lark groans and swipes at his bloodied face with the back of his hand. The corrosive spit eats away the top layer of skin on his hand, making Lark bare his teeth in anger. “Orla, let’s start with a storm!” he yells from above.

Orla jumps back, turns her staff over, and activates two spell stones. Snow erupts from the first, and a great wind from the second shoots this snow into the air. Lark swirls his wind in the snow’s path, creating a blizzard that surrounds the frog. Its corrosive tongue slashes through the storm, and it jumps from side to side to escape, but Lark keeps the beast in the center of the blizzard no matter where it goes.

“It’s time, Lark!” Orla yells from below.

She turns her staff again and points it at the air just in front of Lark. A stream of crackling red fire tears into the sky. Lark points both swords forward and forms a cyclone of wind around each. As the fire reaches him, he releases the wind and redirects the flames. The fire feeds off the wind and grows brighter as it flies toward the frog.

Lark scatters his storm, and the beast’s vision returns, but only for a moment. The deep red flames slam into its head and spread over its body.

“REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” The beast cries and ducks its head down towards its chest.

“First, you burn!” Lark screams as the fire engulfs the frog. It wails as the top of its head melts and its bleeding red eyes are burned black.

“Now, you break!” Lark yells, and Orla’s fire stops.

She reaches for a different spell stone and fires hundreds of ice shards into the sky.

“Don’t miss!” Orla shouts.

Lark flies higher into the air and meets the ice as gravity begins to pull it back towards the ground. He unleashes his wind, creating a torrent of ice spears to rip the frog into pieces.

THUNK THUNK CLINK KSHHHK

The frog’s head caves in on itself and its scales dent, then shatter under the barrage of ice and freezing wind. Its entire body freezes over with a sheet of ice when Lark drops back down next to Orla. He smiles, then turns to face her.

“Give me a boost?” Lark asks, grinning ear to ear.

“Fine, but I much prefer when you act your age,” Orla replies while shaking her head.

Lark steps in front of her and extends his blades to several times their normal length with wind magic.

“Ready!” he shouts and focuses his eyes on the house-sized frozen frog before him. Orla fires a stream of wind at his back, which Lark magnifies further. He spins his body and wind-blades counterclockwise and flies at the creature, but its icy shell cracks before Lark gets to it.

The ice around its body shatters, and a new, spiky armored head grows from the collapsed mess on its neck. Its tongue shoots toward a spinning Lark, but it's not the same as it was before. The tongue is dripping with corrosive saliva, and the end is covered in barbs like a fishing hook that rip into Lark’s left shoulder.

“GAHHH!” he cries and is knocked backwards into Orla.

“LARK!” Orla cries and catches him.

“GUH FUCK!” Lark groans and reaches up to his shoulder. The upper part of his robe has dissolved, and his shoulder has been grated. Smoke rises from it as corrosive spit leaks down into his muscles and bones.

Orla grimaces at the sight, then looks up to the mutating frog. Its body vibrates and pulses with magical energy, then its damaged scales shoot off its body like bullets. Orla reaches for her staff, but her arms are tied up holding Lark. She pulls Lark behind her, turns her back to shield him with her own body, and squeezes her eyes shut.

THUNK THUNK THUNK THUNK THUNK

The sound of thick monster scales pelting something fills her ears, but she doesn’t feel any pain. Orla opens her eyes and sees the village behind her. A red condensed magic barrier shields it from the barrage of scales, but there are multiple strong magical presences around her.

“Elders, go back to the village, we’re all here,” a man says from behind Orla. She turns to see a hulking figure clad in monster-skin armor, with a brown, bushy squirrel tail poking out from beneath it. In front of him is a massive wall of earth that’s dented from numerous frog-scale projectiles.

“Andre,” Orla whispers, then turns to the other presences, “Mattias, Anna, Juno, Robin, and Rich,” her voice grows louder as she speaks each of their names. “It’s ingested an otherworld gem, and its ability to heal itself is beyond anything you’ve encountered,” Orla says nervously.

“Understood, Elder, we’ll give it our best. Please bring Elder Lark for treatment while we finish this,” Mattias says, and Orla nods. She lifts into the air with Lark, and Mattias steps forward next to Andre.

“Andre and I will immobilize it,” Mattias says confidently, “everyone take positions above and ready your spells.”

Anna shoots fire from her feet and launches into the sky, while her fox tail and red hair whip around her. Her entire body is wrapped tightly in what looks like bandages, but it's actually a fire-resistant monster hide.

Rich follows, his metal armor crackling with lightning. His animal features are those of a small cat, but they’re purple along with the rest of his hair. Every bit of that hair stands on end as an electric current sparks over his body.

“Now, Andre!” Mattias yells, prompting Andre to destroy his earth wall. The frog’s barbed tongue whips across the two, but they jump over it and rush towards the beast.

Andre stops a few meters before it and slams his hand into the ground. He directs magic into the earth, forcing stone spikes to shoot up and through the frog’s webbed feet.

“REEEEEEEE!” It cries and stumbles backward, purple blood gushing from its feet as its tongue whips around the air wildly.

“Your turn!” Andre yells.

Mattias circles behind the creature and stomps his foot down. Ice bursts forth, freezing the ground beneath the frog, then its legs. Andre shoots more stone spears and shatters the frozen legs, causing the beast to flop onto its back.

“REE REEEE!” It shrieks and slaps its arms against the ground to right itself. On contact with the earth, ice crawls up its arms and back to immobilize it. The creature squirms and shatters the ice, but a new layer grows back instantly.

Andre and Mattias jump away from the creature and look overhead. Anna has her arm held high, and above it is a fire arrow the size of the trees that make up the Terran’s village. Rich has an equally large purple thunderbolt held over his head, while Juno and Robin are holding hands and pulsing with magical energy.

Juno and Robin have androgenous features, along with short green hair and pointy ears. Their magic swirls overhead as Juno creates a wind arrow and Robin fills the center of it with a high-pressure stream of water.

Mattias and Andre jump into the air with them and create relatively smaller spears of ice and stone.

“Now!” Mattias yells, and everyone unleashes their magic.

BANGGGGGGGGGGGG

Fire, lightning, earth, ice, wind, and water slam into the beast together.

Steam and dust fill the air as purple lightning crackles through it. The Terrans group together and watch for the air to clear.

“Was that.. enough?” Anna pants and looks to Mattias, whose long, blue hair is slick with sweat.

“Nothing can survive that,” he says confidently, causing Andre to nod.

“It’s no fun just throwing everything we have at it,” Rich complains and crosses his arms.

Juno and Robin are sweating buckets compared to the others, but they just watch on silently. The dust spreads and steam rises, allowing the group to see the ground below. The entire crop field where the elders fought the beast is now a crater that’s carved 10 meters into the ground. The frog’s armored body is a shattered and disfigured lump of flesh, but it’s still radiating magic.

“Again,” Anna says fiercely, while staring down at what’s left of the creature. But Mattias scoffs.

“It’s in the throes of death, Anna. Besides, you’ll need to sleep for a week if you use another spell that strong,” Mattias says.

Anna lifts her hand overhead and pushes magic out, but the frog carcass below explodes. Its corrosive, barbed tongue flies into the air along a wave of saliva.

“NO!” Anna yells and flies to the front of the group. She pulls her magic down from overhead and makes a wall of flames before them. Most of the saliva evaporates on contact, but the barbed tongue wraps around her. It pierces her bandages and digs into her stomach, then swings her in the air and shoots her back towards the village.

“ANNA!” Mattias yells and turns when a second tongue slaps across his back and drives him into the ground.

“URGHUH,” he cries and bounces off the dirt. His back burns like it’s on fire, but he pushes himself up and looks toward the beast. The frog’s head is gone; in its place is a gaping hole that five tongues stem from. Each whipping around to target Andre, Juno, Rich, and Robin, who are still in the air.

Stone and lightning shred two tongues, but two new ones grow and slam Andre and Rich into the ground near Mattias. Juno and Robin shield themselves in a bubble of water and wind, but are similarly driven to the ground. The frog’s legs have regrown longer and thicker, with spiked scales covering them. Its body has regrown similar armaments, but they’ve thickened and turned from green to black.

“We have to mov-“ Mattias tries to command his group, but five tongues dart directly for him. He raises his arms to cover his face when a red wall of condensed magic intercepts the tongues and blocks them.

“Mind if I tag in?” a voice calls from behind, “It was a pretty cool show, but then you guys started to get beat up..”

Mattias turns and sees a human holding Anna. His magic swirls into the energy in the air and closes the wound on her stomach.

“Hu-human?” Mattias mumbles.

“Oh, right, you don’t see many humans,” the man says, his long blonde-brown hair blowing around in the wind as he crouches close to Mattias. “I’m Mira’s friend, and it’s kinda my fault that froggy got the green gem, so how about I take it from here?” the man asks and moves his healing magic towards Mattias. His back regrows skin, and he jumps to his feet to protest.

“Why the fuck would Mir-” but Mattias is cut off by the man tossing Anna at him. “UGH wha!” he yells, but the human walks past him and through the condensed magic barrier. The barrier grows and fans out until it forms a massive sphere that only contains the human and the beast.