XIX. Hybrid Horror.

"Vanilla! what do we do now? where is Rowie?" Cookie cried.

"I have no idea... we are screwed." Her voice shrieked from cold.

"Think about something!" The blonde yelled.

"Let's... Let's..." Think of something quick, Vanilla. There's always a way. For one reason or other something happened and the day was saved. Think about something. You always do it.

They got put on their knees in the middle of that wide natural balcony that looked at the other side of the forest. It was like a wide, circular arena where roman gladiators would fight. Natural stone pillars supported the red ceiling.

Vanilla trembled without anything covering her upper body and her burning wound exposed to the cold ambiance. The kids behind them weren't luckier. They didn't stop crying and whimpering, trying to hold each other but being plunged apart by the harpies' claws.

"Sisters!" The taller harpy of blue and purple feathers announced, getting closer to both human girls.

Dozens of harpies arrived at the balcony some through the smaller tunnels of that giant ant colony, and others already hanged on the walls and ground. They surrounded the humans and their leader, leaving space in the middle. Torches lighted the wide space.

Cookie tried to count them. 1, 2, 4, 10, 30, 50...

"Some of us have already had the luxury to try the delicious human meat," The maximum harpy continued. The 7ft tall ones with horns and four wings cawed and giggled, hanging from their stone pillars.

"But the best, I can assure you has yet to come! We've already trapped the best no one in the underworld has delighted themselves with!" The harpies around raised their claws and cawed.

The kids cried and wailed. Some of them puked by the intense odor of putrefaction stinking everywhere. "These filthy humans have not only the most power we were able to get! They are also guilty. They killed many of our sisters!"

She grabbed Vanilla by the neck and raised her like a ragdoll. She put her hands on her feathery arm, but it was like a cat tried to get itself free from a gorilla. The harpies around cheered in an ovation.

"Nooo!" "Let her be!" "Please!" Those were some of the begs of the children behind, trying to fall back but getting pushed ahead.

They begged and cried even harder. The harpies' caws now were filled with anger and enthusiasm, like the roman public wanting to see a criminal getting executed by damnatio ad bestias

"You killed Griselda!" One of the beautiful harpies screamed.

"I'll gouge your eyes out!" The other one yelled.

"But don't worry!" Their leader said. "Why don't we show them some, respect for us? Let's teach them a lesson before finishing their pathetic lives!"

She spread her claws and let Vanilla hit the ground. She gasped for air and panted. Cookie tried to approach and help her, but the harpy next to her pulled her back to her position. "Release Junior!" The multicolored harpy ordered.

•••

"Where can they be... please, be safe!" Rowie mumbled, sniffing harder and harder the passages around, unable of finding any trace of them.

He sighed. He had lost his way amidst those tunnels and caverns of red rocks. It was useless to keep using his nose. It stank like putrid meat everywhere he tried to follow.

But then something appeared in the distance; making its way to him through that Vertical tunnel. It didn't smell like a harpy...

Sasha kept walking inside. Damn. Where could those monsters have taken those girls, if they haven't eaten them already? He continued through the claustrophobic tunnels, ready to unleash a skull-breaking hit if one of those things dared to appear. He had his plush ready too. He'd need his powers once more.

Some meters ahead, a white ball appeared on a ramp-up. "Young man! help me please!" Did he hear well? Did it just speak?

"I'm glad you're here!" The pup jogged down to reach him.

"W-what?! Talking dog?"  Sasha hopped on himself. Was he hallucinating? Those caves must have been filled with toxic gas. He hoped he would find fresh air quickly.

"I'll explain later," The pup responded. "Those things will eat my friends. We need to find them!"

What to do? Well, he surely had entered those caves for nothing, and harpies were an idea as absurd as a talking dog, but they were as real. He made his choice.

"I...I saw them, little friend. That is why I am here." He got on his knees. How comical the puppy's attire was. "What are these?" He grabbed a small cloth ball laying next to the pup. It was soft inside.

"They are Vanilla and Cookie plushies! They need them now more than ever!" Rowie responded.

The shaved human looked in curiosity. He said something in his eastern language that Rowie didn't understand. He leaned his head, and then he spoke understandable words. "Plush users..."

He unpacked the improvised bag. Maybe he was not hallucinating, after all. And to think that even after traveling to the other side of the planet he'd find someone similar to him. He thought he was the only one in the world with those plushes.

How interesting... And all of it in the same sad town of northern America. Perhaps not crossing the Canadian border was not a bad idea, after all...

"I'll explain it to you in the way! We need to help them!" The pup continued.

Sasha got up. He pulled from his jacket something that Rowie was already similar with: A bear plush. "...You too?" The puppy mumbled.

The Slav gave him a grin and got up. What a man of few words, compared to Cookie or even Vanilla. Rowie followed him behind. Maybe there was still hope for both girls.

•••

Vanilla's trembling, pain, lack of oxygen and desperation didn't allow her to spot a wide and black entrance that stood at their left, in a fallen down bottom.

The harpies grabbed the kids remaining and pulled them to the edges and upper corners that surrounded the wide space. Vanilla and Cookie stood alone in the middle of the arena.

The two beautiful harpies escaped from that wide hole flying as fast as they could, and the rocky structure all around shook like an earthquake. Dust and rocks collided down. The borders of that entrance collapsed.

The titanic and nightmerish creature that came out of it made the harpies smell good and look pretty. Vanilla and Cookie crawled back, sobbing and whimpering. Those three drunk men had a better ending than the ones the Striking Witches would get.

"No! Please!" Cookie tried to run to safety, but the harpies' claws impeded her to leave their circle. The memorial for a Roman Coliseum would be complete. The harpies screamed and yelled as drunk spectators that had just bet their money against each other.

Vanilla's body kept trembling, and her already ashen skin had reached one of the palest tones possible, getting a purple undertone from the pernicious cold. She felt her nose congested and her fingers losing mobility. She saw one of those things with her robe on hand. Stupid beasts...

And then, her attention changed to the creature in front, crawling outside of its cave. Big as an elephant, the conglomerated mass of decaying biological matter crawled to the center of the arena, with three pairs of sharp, backward feet of human shape and beast claws adhering themselves to the walls of his tunnel until they reached the ample space.

It lounged outside. Its green skin was full of black scars and sore spots, as well as open wounds that revealed parts of its ribs and internal organs, all covered by sticky, dark green fluids. Vanilla could swear that the monster had screaming faces painted all over his body, covered by a mantle of rotten skin.

For head, it possessed what looked like a flower bud, with its tightened petals made of the same dark, decaying matter that stunk like thousands of fermented bodies rotting on the sun. Its growls were a blend of horse neighs, pig squeals, and cicadas' buzzing. The girls felt them rushing through their spines and getting out through their ears.

The kids immobilized by the harpies' tried to run away, but they didn't equal the strength of the hybrids. It was their doom. Some of them urinated themselves.

"Vanilla... Now, what are we gonna do?!" Cookie asked. Her face had paranoia printed on it. Tears spilled through her eyes.

"...Pray to whoever you believe in," Vanilla tried to keep herself calm. She had already seen things as horrid. Her stuttering stopped with the presence of the aberration. Adrenaline rushed through her body. Cold faded away.

Junior hunched back like a cat would before chasing its prey. Its bud head spread itself. The twisted image of its insides would get forever printed in both Vanilla's and Cookie's minds...

•••

"Look, they are all there!" Rowie said.

"Keep silent, little friend." Sasha hushed. 

The pup and the young man successfully made their way to the conglomeration of harpies they were looking for. They stood at a cornice above a natural corridor that led to that space flooded with those monsters, some 30 feet ahead.

"Vanilla and Cookie must be there! Let's help them!" Rowie insisted. Sasha squeezed Dmitri, his plush bear named after his old and deceased best friend.

"Wait. See the tallest harpy?" Rowie wished he had fingers to point out. Sasha observed. The repulsive being was confidently standing on the highest rock. "She expulsed Empress and Bumbly. It's gonna be useless to utilize plushes." 

What to do, then? Getting closer would mean death. Hmmm. Sasha took a look at his surroundings. Rocks of all sizes stood at the edge of that cornice. The distance was not too long. Now it'd be useful that he had achieved the first number in grenade throwing of his whole division.

He grabbed a rock, not too heavy and not too fragile. He got the beast in sight, squeezing the rock and stretching his hand.

•••

The interior of the monster's flower head was the magnus opus of the most twisted psycho's deepest fantasy.

A human, peeled head of no eyelids and no lips that gave it a permanent smile took place of the center. A peeled dog head at the right, a goat head and a pig head in the same condition at the left and bottom, and smaller, childish human faces of dried eyes and the same peeled complexion made a crown around it.

No eye in there followed the same direction. A viscous, bubbling green liquid spilled through the muscled and nerved heads. The harpies took a step back and kept quiet for a brief moment.

Cookie screamed and cried. It was the end. Vanilla felt jealous for her previous death, in peace and silence next to Rowie and Custos Cattus, with her rival dead and at her feet. She crawled back in whimpers and sobbings.

Sasha took his shot. The rock flew like a meteorite about to hit Earth and collided against the hybrid's skull. Headshot. Brains, bones, and blood splashed everywhere. Her body plummeted like a ragdoll down.

The beast halted its attack. The harpies stared in panic at the lifeless body of their leader, laying stiff on the ground.

A male scream rumbled across the corridor that led to that rock nest. The harpies cawed and winged in anger. Vanilla and Cookie looked at each other and closed their distance. Maybe they had just slaughtered another drunk man? They kept their eyes on the putrid amalgam in front and the dense and grey mini-lake of those monsters.

The harpies tried to fly back and get into the arena, but an incoming blue light made them retreat in fear. A growling, ursine scream rumbled across the redden, natural hole that the harpies used to take them to that arena.

The blue light revealed its shape, and the figure of a bear jogged faster than a horse against them. His fangs were as long as butcher knives and his claws as sharp as swords. He sent harpies flying away with claw sweeps as it rushed. A human figure jumped to the ground.

Sasha? And Rowie was with him! The bear growled and kept at a distance the disconcerted and panicking harpies. But Junior didn't fear the small thing.

"She dead! Use them now!" The Russian threw Vanilla and Cookie their plushes. He spun his bat.

"It's the Russian who saved us! Thank you!" Cookie yelled. Vanilla grinned too. "Well, here goes my poor butt..." The blonde looked at her plush.

Between the swirls of screeching monsters making grey feathers rain, Vanilla ran towards the body of the dead Tabitha. She gripped Avrevm Bacvlvm, splashed with her blood and brains. Death by lighting was too soft for those monsters. The Ruby would be her main friend. She squeezed the Sky Empress.