I wrote this all in one sitting. For some reason I have less trouble writing chapters for this fic than for Epidemic.
Right. I just noticed that I forgot to continue Cyren’s flashback-type-past-thing that I was going to add to every post until it had finished. It doesn’t seem like it now, but Cyren will have an important part in the story. We just haven’t gotten there yet.
Here you go; a heaping helping of Charlotte’s Rein for you to savor, rich with potassium, fiber, and plenty of fun. Cheers.
---
It was nighttime in the mountains. The air was cold and wet, disrupted only by the quiet clopping of hooves against the hard, damp earth. Asio and Shandock peeked around the wide base of a colossal fur tree, slowly brandishing their spears. Their ears swivelled. Their eyes flashed left, then right.
There was no danger; no head hunters, no spyiders, nothing. Asio relaxed visibly.
“Safe.” She muttered, stepping out into the small, soggy clearing. “Nobody’s found us.” When she said ‘us,’ she meant the entire steef tribe, who had worked for years to keep their existence a secret. They were one of the only remaining clans to have survived the head-hunting frenzy that had extinguished most of their kind.
“Yet.” Shandock said quietly, bending down and examining the ground for footprints. There were none. He looked up slowly as a breeze ruffled his silver-grey fur.
“What is it?” Asio asked.
Shandock frowned. “Nothing.” He said.
Asio’s nostrils flared as she sniffed the air, and a faint beam of moonlight silhouetted her muscular body. Mountain steef differed from normal steef in many ways; for one thing, their sense of smell was much more acute, perfect for detecting scents in the thick mountain air, and they had much thicker, coarse fur, which repelled water.
“Do you smell that?” She asked, looking worriedly over her shoulder. Shandock sniffed the air.
“It smells like blood.” He sighed; he sounded old and tired, which Asio found surprising. Despite having lived a long, adventurous life, Shandock still seemed young at heart, and had a certain agelessness to him that made him seem invincible. He stalked silently over to some nearby bushes and slowly pushed them aside. He stiffened, his ears falling flat against his head. He rounded on Asio. “Go get help, now!”
“What is it?” Asio cried, moving closer.
“I said NOW!”
Asio flinched and ran off into the forest, towards the steef village, while Shandock bent down and felt the ground. The blood in the earth was still warm. Carefully, he reached forward and prodded the body in front of him as gently as he could. It groaned back.
---
Charlotte whipped out her rifle without hesitation, marched directly up to Willie, and pressed the gun’s muzzle against his head. Suddenly people everywhere were brandishing weapons and aiming them at whichever enemy was in rage, eyes shining with fury.
“Let them go.” Charlotte ordered.
“No.” Willie said stubbornly, stepping back to avoid Charlotte’s line of fire. She moved the gun closer, with more aggression.
“
Let them go!”
Mola, who had no idea what in odd’s name was going on, started murmuring to a grubb in an orange mask nearby. The grubb went rigid and nodded slightly. He crept back off towards the hidden mine exit, his feet not making a sound.
Willie sneered and prodded Brook with his weapon. “Dangerous choice,” he sneered. “Yer little grubb friends’ll be nuthin’ but fish food, if ya try anything.”
“If you try anything,” Charlotte threatened, “I’ll kill you.”
Nobody knew what to do. Grubb’s had their spears at neck level with nearby outlaws, who were armed with heavy firearms. If one person fired, Charlotte realized, it would cause a chain reaction, and it was likely that no one would survive.
Willie looked around worriedly; he seemed to comprehend their delicate situation. “Oh, come on now!” he declared, turning so all could hear. ‘We dun’ have ta act this way Why, we can sort summin’ out!”
“How?!” Ophelia demanded, taking her eyes off of the outlaw her spear was pointed at. “You barge into our home, nearly destroy our fortress, and kill one of our seers, and you expect us to just
put aside our differences and walk away as though nothing had happened?”
“Well, yeah, what else can we do?”
Ophelia’s face reddened. “You... you...” she shrieked, “...ignorant moron! How do you expect to get away with this? ”
Willie turned away, eyes fixed on the wetland. It was unnaturally quiet; all the commotion had frightened the animals into silence. He grinned slightly.
The water frothed. Two huge eyes on top of a large, long head surfaced from the water, blinking slowly. Charlotte watched in amazement as the remaining chugglers in the fortress bowed their heads submissively, their gills shut to hold in the water in their lungs. The huge, aquatic being in the wetland reared up suddenly, its heavy, frilled back sails snapping open. It had rows of round teeth in its mouth that looked bad for tearing meat, but good for snapping bones.
“What in odd’s name is that?” Stranger demanded.
“It’s an emperor chuggler.” Ophelia said, laughing nervously. Her spear fell from her hands. “We’re screwed. We’re so screwed.”
The chuggler, which was twice the size of a normal chuggler, slithered on to land with its meaty arms. Its arms and legs seemed smaller than normal, and it slid on its belly instead of walking upright, like a salamander. It appeared to have difficulty supporting its own weight, but still looked formidable. It hissed, its double eyelids squinting.
“Wherr is dah murderor?” It demanded, its voice unnaturally shrewd.
Willie pointed at Charlotte. “Right there.” He said bluntly. Charlotte paled. She had no idea what she had gotten herself into when she killed the chuggler that had been bothering the grubbs.
The emperor chuggler rounded on her. It reared its ugly head and snorted, looking insulted. “How?” he demanded, head swaying side to side. “How dis wimpy little fishwife killee mah kin?”
“Fishwife?” Charlotte squawked.
“Kin?” Ophelia asked, raising an eyebrow.
The chuggler closed its eyes. “Ah meeee.” It said, as if deep in thought. “Mah poor little eggchild, killied by a stoopid little brat!” It spat the word ‘brat.’
Charlotte stiffened. “Oh, that thing was one of your
kids?” she backed up nervously. Willie crossed his arms, looking satisfied. “I’m sorry, I swear if I would’ve known---”
“...THAT I WOULD KILLIE YEW FER KILLIE MAH EGGCHILD YEW WOOD NAWT?” It screeched, plowing through the crowd of grubbs and outlaws. Both sides attacked as best they could; the dumb creature was so enraged by the death of one of its own that it had forgotten its agreement to help destroy the grubb fortress. “I KILLIE ALL OF YOU! WORTHLESS WERMS!”
---
Stranger had experience killing huge monsters twice his size (the giant, purple-assed sleg and the three gloktigi came to mind), but never something like
this.
“GREAT JOB GETTING US ALL KILLED!” Stranger roared accusingly as Charlotte banked to the left, just barely avoiding the chuggler’s lashing paws. A faint shriek entered her voice as she snapped
“WELL HOW THE HELL SHOULD I HAVE KNOWN THIS WOULD HAPPEN?”
“YOU SHOULD’VE HAVE HAD SOME IDEA!
ITS A !#%$ING CHUGGLER, ITS BOUND TO HAVE FRIENDS!”
“HOW THE HELL WOULD YOU KNOW, YOU DIDN’T EVEN KNOW WHAT A CHUGGLER WAS A WEEK AGO!”
“AT LEAST I DIDN’T STRANGLE THE DAMN THING SO LOUDLY THAT THE ENTIRE WETLAND HEARD---”
“SHUT UP!” Ophelia cut in, throwing a rock at Stranger. It bounced off his head. “SHE WOULD’VE HAD NO IDEA HOW CHUGGLER SOCIETY WORKS LET ALONE CHUGGLER HIERARCHY SO THERE WAS NO WAY IT COULD BE PREVENTED AND BESIDES IT’S A CHUGGLER IT WAS STEALING OUR FISH WE HAD TO KILL IT AND YOU TRIED TO KILL IT TOO, DUMBASS!”
“WHAT SHE SAID!” Charlotte screamed.
“SHUDDUP, WOMAN!” Stranger roared. His throat was starting to hurt. Not only were they yelling because they were angry; it was also because the fight was so noisy, they could barely hear themselves think.
The chuggler reared up on its hind legs and threw its entire body downwards, smashing through barrels and grubb’s houses. Its mouth was foaming and its eyes were solid red, whether from anger or from something else, Stranger didn’t know. He quickly loaded his bow with a bombbat and fired it at the emperor chuggler. It stuck to the beast’s shoulder and exploded, tearing away at its flesh with tendrils of fire. The chuggler screamed as its skin fell away, revealing bleached-white bone and bloody, torn muscle tissue. It swung around and lunged at Stranger, its claws unsheathed, and he jumped back at the last second, loading his bow quickly. The chuggler’s bottom jaw cracked against the ground and it fumbled awkwardly with its little limbs, struggling to stand.
Charlotte appeared on the battlements, (a move which Stranger thought to be far too risky and much too foolish), in an attempt to get its attention. It swung in her direction, and, recognizing its spawn’s killer, howled with rage. Suddenly it sprang forward and clamored up onto the stone structure like a lizard. This was unexpected; it didn’t look like the kind of creature that would make for a good climber. Charlotte was obviously distraught, her plan having been ruined, and took to running in the opposite direction, horrified.
“SMART!” Stranger snarled, rapidly firing stingbees at the emperor chuggler. “GET THE DAMN THING’S ATTENTION SO IT CAN EAT YOU, REAL HELPFUL!”
“I HATE YOU!”
Charlotte jumped down from the battlements and took off on all fours, swerving wildly to avoid the beast’s pummeling fists and snapping jaws.
Mola came running out of nowhere, arms windmilling the air. “Don’t come any closer!” he cried as Charlotte dashed to the side. “The mine’s about to go off!”
Charlotte looked back at the mad beast chasing her. It was so destructive, so evil, that there were no words to describe the mayhem it caused. She suddenly looked determined. Stranger stiffened.
‘She wouldn’t!’
She would.
---
Charlotte had an idea. It was crazy, suicidal, and would most likely result in lots and lots of pain. But she wasn’t left with too many options.
She sprang up onto the rocks and ducked into the mine’s exit, trailed closely by the chuggler. She remembered the map that Ophelia had used to represent the mines; they didn’t seem long. She should have had no problem running through it before the mine’s exploded. But she had miscalculated, forgetting one important factor; the reason they were blowing up the mines in the first place. It was packed with outlaws. She rammed into one head-first, startled, and fell in a heap.
“Get her!” They roared, running over. The mines flashed. The dynamite sparked.
The mineshafts erupted, spewing rubble and dust in all directions. Outlaws fell all around, crushed under falling boulders. Charlotte felt something strike the back of her head; felt blood run down her shoulders; felt her temples pound like a bass drum with each beat of her heart; and then, she felt nothing but a blissful, empty silence.
. Excellent chapter, I was so not excpecting Charlotte to run into the mines so that surprised me. I hope the next chapter comes soon. Yes I see why it's easier to write it here than it is in the Epidemic Fan Fic. The make-it-up-as-you-go tactic is so much funner than making a huge plan.
