Anya had never tangled with foliage before. It was usually drones that hadn't gotten the memo they'd been decommissioned by their electronic overlords, one or two dozen rounds left to spend on unsuspecting fodder. Or humans. Humans could be downright gits about survival. Particularly during ration runs. Going after the hardy game left standing--mangy, cowering carrion eaters, mostly--was an exercise in which hunter survived rather than who actually took the critters down. She swapped to her dominant hand with the slightly curved blade, its last kill a coyote with an overbite.
This was a...bit...bigger.
The blade tinged off teeth, resounding in her ears. Anya winced, and took a grazing tooth to the shoulder before she tamped down on her ability. Stupid. At least pain meant this couldn't be a wholly VR experience--thank stars, she wasn't quite in hell--and the blast of audible reverb gave her an idea. She focused her ability on a low vocal register. Sound poured into the vine in a rumble that she felt in her bones. The creature shook, loosening its grip, and she reached out to a stable-looking branch. Tugging desperately to get free, she ran through several scenarios in her head about how she'd get it to tangle itself up around the forest, at least tangled enough for her to escape.
None of them involved the plant swinging violently and pitching her into freefall, then catching her like a plaything. She swung upward with her fist, a punch to the underside of the thing's maw. Is that smoke? She had little time to focus on the odor that had pushed into an updraft. The plant reared back, then darted in, a reckless rush of green against a backdrop of impossible orange. Lifting the knife, she stabbed deeply, straight into the attempted bite. Sticky sap dripped down the handle and Anya swore in subvocal, twice. Twice, because she'd hit something vital, and the vine around her waist went abruptly slack, and she went down.
A quick tumble through the air, and she smashed into a moving limb, on a moving tree.
"Fuck this forest!" she yelled, stabbing the damn thing with her blade. Bark scraped off to reveal smooth wood. "Fuck nature!"
An arrow sailed over her head and embedded into the wood she'd bared.
"And fuck you!" she called out, hearing a scream in return, though she wasn't certain if it was the antler-mafia or someone else who'd been played by the promise of "vitalife" and its tempting ration share. She eyeballed the distance to the ground and decided the climb worth the risk, though the tree bucked and pulled at her with tendril-like branches. Anya saw the blaze now, and her eyebrows went up. "What idiot did that?" she muttered, untangling herself and continuing to slide/climb/wriggle down the trunk. Didn't they know they were in a damned FOREST? The only thing they had going for them was the place was damp; not everything would go up in flame straight away. But way to send up the flare to the arrow-people. Unless, she thought, they're the ones who struck the match. That made even less sense, but Anya was fighting a living tree-thing. Sense didn't account for much, and mattered little. Whoever was down there when she arrived was going to see steel.
This was a...bit...bigger.
The blade tinged off teeth, resounding in her ears. Anya winced, and took a grazing tooth to the shoulder before she tamped down on her ability. Stupid. At least pain meant this couldn't be a wholly VR experience--thank stars, she wasn't quite in hell--and the blast of audible reverb gave her an idea. She focused her ability on a low vocal register. Sound poured into the vine in a rumble that she felt in her bones. The creature shook, loosening its grip, and she reached out to a stable-looking branch. Tugging desperately to get free, she ran through several scenarios in her head about how she'd get it to tangle itself up around the forest, at least tangled enough for her to escape.
None of them involved the plant swinging violently and pitching her into freefall, then catching her like a plaything. She swung upward with her fist, a punch to the underside of the thing's maw. Is that smoke? She had little time to focus on the odor that had pushed into an updraft. The plant reared back, then darted in, a reckless rush of green against a backdrop of impossible orange. Lifting the knife, she stabbed deeply, straight into the attempted bite. Sticky sap dripped down the handle and Anya swore in subvocal, twice. Twice, because she'd hit something vital, and the vine around her waist went abruptly slack, and she went down.
A quick tumble through the air, and she smashed into a moving limb, on a moving tree.
"Fuck this forest!" she yelled, stabbing the damn thing with her blade. Bark scraped off to reveal smooth wood. "Fuck nature!"
An arrow sailed over her head and embedded into the wood she'd bared.
"And fuck you!" she called out, hearing a scream in return, though she wasn't certain if it was the antler-mafia or someone else who'd been played by the promise of "vitalife" and its tempting ration share. She eyeballed the distance to the ground and decided the climb worth the risk, though the tree bucked and pulled at her with tendril-like branches. Anya saw the blaze now, and her eyebrows went up. "What idiot did that?" she muttered, untangling herself and continuing to slide/climb/wriggle down the trunk. Didn't they know they were in a damned FOREST? The only thing they had going for them was the place was damp; not everything would go up in flame straight away. But way to send up the flare to the arrow-people. Unless, she thought, they're the ones who struck the match. That made even less sense, but Anya was fighting a living tree-thing. Sense didn't account for much, and mattered little. Whoever was down there when she arrived was going to see steel.
Dreams come in a size too big so we can grow into them.
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