Abyssal (ManxMan)

Sea Monster

Sea Monster

A monster with purple eyes showered them in seawater as it shot out of the sea, and dropped onto the cliff twenty feet away with a resounding thud. Kai gaped with bulging eyes and an open mouth at the sea beast. It was unlike anything he'd ever seen before and huge. Like crane-your-neck-to-take-all-of-him-in huge. He thought that being molested by a sea monster with tentacles would have made him slightly immune to these creatures of the deep, but apparently not. His brain was sounding the alarm, commanding that he take flight. Even if he wanted to, thanks to his magical chains, there was no running away.

He let out a tiny squeak at the back of his throat when the monster glanced his way. This was Erasmus' true form?! No wonder Ryodan had been so confident about winning; the monster radiated power of the magical variety like a furnace.

He stood on two legs, roughly twelve feet tall. Dark-blue scales nearly covered his entire body and the crocodile-like tail that extended from the small of his back to the ground. Muscles bulged in his arms and thighs, and sharp talons like hooks protruded out of his webbed hands. The monster -Erasmus- boasted an eight-pack that wasn't covered in shiny scales, but light blue skin. Kai barely stopped his eyes trailing farther downward; apparently sea monsters didn't wear pants and the monster's reproductive organs were very much human. He looked back up and saw the gills lining his neck and rising up to his cheekbones.

Their eyes met. A terrifying intelligence stared him right in the face. Purple eyes pierced him, peering into his very soul with X-ray clarity. Kai felt like he should shield his body with his arms.

Something inside him hissed, the echo rattling his very consciousness.

Kai gasped. He didn't know how exactly he knew, but he was sure that that had been the Spirit of the Sea! It hadn't left him!

It was finally making its presence known, after weeks of radio silence. Like a great dragon that had been slumbering inside the cavern of his mind, it stirred and hissed, woken and angered by the invasion of privacy. Kai shuddered, feeling like he was about to shed his skin and grow scales. Maybe start breathing fire too.

The chains around him abruptly disappeared and his knees nearly gave out from underneath him.

Did he -meaning the Spirit- do that, or was it Erasmus finally letting him go?

He looked up and saw that Erasmus was capable of expression in this form too -right now he was showing astonishment. So, it was not him.

Was the Spirit finally doing what it ought to be doing and helping him? He didn't dare get his hopes up. Not after what had transpired between them. He recalled their last encounter with crystal clarity:

"Fuck you. Fuck off!"

"You will regret this."

"You're useless to me. I don't need you!"

"I'm warning you for the last time!"

And then he'd planted his fist right in the Spirit's mouth with the full intention of splitting skin and knocking out teeth. After that, the Golden Merman had kept his distance, assumingly out of outrage for being rejected. At some point, Kai had started to believe the Spirit indeed vacated his body like he'd vehemently demanded.

But it wasn't like Kai wasn't justified in his reaction and his demand. The Spirit had repeatedly refused to help him in any way save for the two times he'd actually been at death's door. What use was a unpaying tenant that barely ever helped around the house?

Still... In a situation like this that was about to get a lot worse, he could use the Spirit's sea-dominating powers. In fact, he'd be stupid not to seek his help, pride be damned. For his mother, he'd get on his hands and knees and lick the Spirit's golden tail if it meant keeping her safe.

It was a mistake coming here. If only he hadn't been so persistent. If only he'd asked for proof of her safety instead. In his defense, he never in a million years could have imagined it would ever come to this.

Um, Spirit? he called into the recesses of his mind, praying for a reply.

As usual, there was no response. Was he still not going to speak with him?

Dammit, he was running out of ti-

Kai looked at the balcony and saw that Marius was gone. His stomach plummeted when he instead saw him filling the front door's frame. The look on his face spelled doom. His shark-like eyes had narrowed into slits. The look on his face made Kai's blood run cold. He was a jaguar, poised to strike.

Shit was about to go down.

Marius stepped out of the house, closing the door softly behind him. As he walked onto the cliff, headed straight for Erasmus, he reached a hand behind his back and a holstered sword that hadn't been there appeared. He drew the sword with a metallic sound that rent the air, somehow louder than the waves crashing on the cliff.

Even facing a veritable magic-wielding sea monster, Marius looked shockingly unfazed and unaffected, walking to Erasmus with steady footsteps. Kai knew nothing of Marius' fighting history, and it was probably safe to assume Erasmus wasn't the conquering king's first monster, but still! Surely a twelve-feet tall sea beast would have elicited some reaction.

Was he so confident in his abilities? Or the better question was: Was Marius so powerful that he knew no other creature, human, merman or monster, compared?

Wordlessly, Marius raised his sword and-

Sifted behind Erasmus, slashing him all the way down his back.  

*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*

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