Chapter 24

I wanna see this thing." you decided, you looked over your shoulder at the ginger riding you, "I can let you down if you want, but I'm going to go see how tough this thing really is."

You weren't going to lie. You were feeling pretty confident after taking out the Elder Death Stalker and gaining its abilities.

Her hands tightened in your fur, but she shook her head in denial, "No..if it's on the move, it's probably heading towards people, and it will probably take to long to find out exactly where the others are," Nora replied, "If we can manage to defeat it, we can avenge all the people of my old village, Ren's parents and make sure it doesn't hurt anybody ever again."

You nodded, "Alright then, let's go." she nodded at your words, and you took off, flying towards the pillar of smoke rising into the air.

With your travel speed through the air, it didn't take very long at all to get within attacking distance. Flapping your wings in the air above it and circling around the pillar of black smoke, you whistled, how you could do that through a beak you weren't sure, but you did it, "That thing is fucking massive!" you noted, impressed despite yourself. "It's around my size, if not bigger."

"..It's even bigger than it was when it attacked my village." Nora noted.

And god was it horrifying to look at. It was like a fusion of a decaying giant horse corpse with the massive form of an Imp Grimm hanging out of its back. Though, it was way, way bigger than a normal Imp was, even with just half of its torso.

One thing is for sure. The Nuckelavee is one ugly mother fucker.

"Ready?" you asked the girl on your back, flaring out your wings and focusing for a moment. You had a cool idea you want to try out. Aura shimmered around your wings.

Nora pulled her grenade launcher from her back and grinned, "You know! Let's blow it up!"

"Alright, then, now!" you shouted and beat your wings hard. From your wings, six massive quills were launched. Though, they were different than usual. The spines of them were edged with the crystal generation ability you'd gained from the Death Stalker, and the tips shimmered with green venom from your poison infusion ability as well.

"Boom baby!" Nora declared and fired her gun, the force of it shaking your entire body.

The Nuckelavee didn't even look up. It just let out a wailing shriek that made your ears ring painfully as all six of your quills stabbed into its massive body in the span of a few seconds.

..Only for that shriek to be cut off when all six grenades from Nora's grenade launcher hit it and exploded in a wave of pink crackling fire and electricity.

'..Wait, why is it pink?' you couldn't help but wonder idly.

"..Did we get?" Nora wondered.

You highly doubte- Your thoughts drilled to a stop as the smoke from your dual attacks cleared away to reveal the slumped body of the massive Nuckelavee..beginning to dissipate and surge up into the tower of smoke it had already been producing.

"...Eh?" you blinked.

"Huh...we did get it." Nora giggled. "...Man, and here I was expecting so much more from this thing! to think this weakling was what haunted my dreams for nearly a decade how anticlimactic!"

"..Eh?" you blinked again.

As the dissipating corpse of the Nuckelavee was absorbed inside you, you frowned. The euphoria you gained was normal, especially for such a big boost. Nothing you'd gained alone had given you anywhere near the same amount of feeling this one did.

..But alongside it, there was another feeling. You felt your magic pool, separate from your aura pulse and begin to grow. It more than tripled in size from what you estimated.

...The Nuckelavee had magic?

"Wait till we tell Ren!" Nora suddenly laughed outrageously, "I can't wait to see what kind of face he'll make when he finds out that not only did we kill that thing..but that we did it before it could even fight back!"

You sighed. Honestly, you were kind of disappointed. You were expecting a big epic fight where you could show off your coolness to Nora and maybe alleviate the trauma that haunted her because of that Grimm.

...But no..it went out like a total bitch. It probably hadn't even laid eyes on you before it died.

Your head slumped and another sigh left your mouth as you leisurely beat your wings and floated in place. "..I feel blue balled," you admitted, "I wanted to show how awesome I was.....and that...that...that bastard fucking died so easily!" your voice went from despondent to raging in just a split moment, before the wind left your sails and you slumped a bit again, disappointment once again replacing the sudden surge of rage.

Nora's laughter died down to a few giggles and she shuffled her lovely round butt across your back to reach your neck and pat you comfortingly on the back of the head, "Oh c'mon Balty, don't feel bad, I'm pretty sure that was all you," she consoled you, "That thing has shaken off much more powerful weapons than my grenades, dust infused or not. Heck, I'm so impressed that if you were still your human self I might have swooned, and I'd definitely let you feel me up as a reward!"

You slumped so bad you actually began to lose altitude, "...And the hits just keep coming." you whined a little bit. If you were capable of it, you might even have cried.

Nora just burst out laughing again.