Fight for your own freedom

It was already morning Mary along with the team she formed, everyone was rested and with strength for the fight, Mary had already planned a strategy, it was not the most common against armed lizards but for an alpha it was a good strategy, if that did not work they would adapt as the fight progressed.

While our crocodile was hunting inside his territory, as always he was preparing for an ambush for the first animal that appeared nearby, this day he had not been so lucky with his prey, he had lost about 2 prey because he could not grab them properly and to avoid danger he decided to release them, he had eaten some small animals but he needed more. Suddenly while swimming in deep waters of the river, he felt some strong vibrations in the water and began to move in that direction, when he reached the place he looked above the water level, he could see the body of an orc in rags, with multiple superficial cuts and arrow wounds, he did not notice anything else, he approached the shore slowly, when he got out he saw the surroundings, good thing he was the first to arrive before any other scavenger, but he did not get too close something smelled bad in this and it was not the corpse, in fact there was not even a corpse smell.

Hiding behind the trees and undergrowth were Mary and her slaves, the closest was the arachne who was in the top of the nearest tree without moving so as not to give herself away, waiting for Mary's signal to pull her strings and catch him, our crocodile tried to smell the air but did not pick up any smell different from normal, but even so he felt that something was wrong.

It approached a little from the side aiming for the arm and when it caught it with a pull it tried to throw it to the water, but at the moment that it pulled mary gave the signal and the arachne pulled its threads catching the corpse and a little of its snout catching it by a little, the kitsune cancelled the illusion of the smell and the camouflage of the threads of the arachne, mary took out her bow with paralyzing and sedative effects, the elf prepared her spells to immobilize and damage but not kill, the arachne went down the tree and started to pull it away from the water, while she produced more silk to try to catch it with her, mary tried to keep out of sight and the human with ropes thick enough to tie it up, when she had the chance.

And so it all began, the crocodile, a bit trapped by panic, began to roll and shake very aggressively, the elf cast a gravity spell but realized that the alpha had some resistance to it and was still moving aggressively, the arachne began to pull it away from the water, but the task was difficult because of the violent shaking, leaving it barely moving and serving more as an anchor, mary shot her arrow trying to paralyze her prey but between the movements and her scales made the arrow bounce and stick in the ground, mary sighed when she saw how the spells of the elf had an effect but were not very powerful, mary saw that despite its size it had a strength to consider and the hardness of its scales was greater than normal armored lizards, its color was mossy green along with other semi-light or semi-dark shades.

Meanwhile our crocodile did not see a better way to escape than to keep shaking himself until he was free of whatever had trapped his snout, if they managed to immobilize him completely it would be a complete defeat, the good thing is that they were not lying on his back where they could immobilize him more easily.

The fight of attrition continued, the arachne was doing her best to move him away from the water but every time she tried, our crocodile was shaking harder so that part was in a dead end, the elf was trying to exhaust him with magic but he had resistances so far to fire, electricity, earth and water, the last one stronger than the others and he was starting to run out of magic energy to continue, the kitzune was trying to make illusions of smells to calm him down and thus trap him, The human already had the rope to throw it and use it but it was still too early, Mary for her part stopped trying to hit him with her bow, her best arrow had bounced, there was no point in continuing to shoot it would be wasting arrows, thinking of a way to hurt him without killing him, but something happened that she did not expect.

Our crocodile stopped jiggling and began to pull in a brute way approaching the water, making the arachne panic since the force was dragging her into the water where she would surely die.

Arachne: *screams in panic and fear* HELP ME, IT'S TRYING TO GET BACK INTO THE WATER.

In a moment mary was already helping to pull the arcne making the crocodile start to shake with one or another tug, but the change allowed the kitzune to see its nostrils more clearly since the non-stop and unpredictable movements had stopped, she started to create smells that could relax the normal armored lizards but there was a problem the crocodile did not recognize these smells but it seemed curious but its mind was focused on fighting to escape.

The kitzune did not understand why it could not relax the armored lizard, these smells always relaxed the armed lizards which was key to kill them or escape if it was in a disadvantageous situation, so she decided to change tactics, she moved away from the central fight and began to meditate and with great concentration and accumulation of her magical power and spoke.

Kitzune: *whispers* maerifa.

At that moment the crocodile began to feel smells he thought he would never smell again, places passed through his mind, moments with his family and loved ones came back to his mind, moments of relaxation with his wife, more smells brought back more memories, distracting him greatly from the current situation, mary immediately noticed the lack of strength in the occasional tugging and realized the situation, She began to signal the human and the arachne to start tying up to secure the alpha so that they could pull it all together, but they had to do it fast, the kitzune could not keep the alpha in that state for much longer, mary estimated that at most 30 seconds more, they had already secured the body, only the legs were missing, but the moment the elf got next to the tail the kitzune collapsed from the overexertion and the great expenditure of magic, the moment the kitzune hit the ground the crocodile's tail went straight to the elf's legs breaking one and bruising the other leaving her lying on the ground, he did some death spins breaking the spider web on her snout at the same time rolling over the elf passing over her causing more wounds from the spiked scales near the base of the tail, then they all missed the rope and the spider web, taking this opportunity she threw herself like a hawk into the water, mary tried to grab one of the two but all she got was a muddy mess on the river bank, the rope and spider web in the water.

Mary got up when she saw that the target got away, wiped the mud off her face and started to head back to town.

Slifer Mary: *sigh* we return to town to rest, we already know this is his territory, tomorrow all you will rest all day, I will need to talk to my employers *sounds slightly annoyed* now I'm going to double my fee and a better reward for whoever survived.

Mary's group went to town to rest and Mary to discuss her contract, our crocodile soon returned for the corpse to eat it, now it was worse than when it had the metal ring on its tail, but it knows that they will return and their peace is over, the only good thing was the rope was more easy to break.