Forgetting about the pesky flies, Japanoid, Aquarius, Angel, and all the other useless heroes, Ave Maria tried to grab me with her tentacles.
But this time I knew about their unobvious ability to lengthen significantly, and I didn’t let myself be fooled by the apparent sluggishness of her massive body.
Still, compared to me, she was a bit slow.
I dodged the monster’s persistent embraces once, twice, again.
It wasn’t that hard.
I just had to respect the enemy’s capabilities and stay alert.
Basically, don’t relax.
That’s exactly what I’d done last time.
I’d underestimated the threat and paid for it.
Well, I had enough maneuverability.
And while the monster was focused on me, the situation was stable.
Still, how was I going to beat her?
Bash my bones against her unbreakable skull again?
That’s how the Immortal and War Woman had done it last time, it seemed.
Though the Green Ghost, who was nowhere to be seen today, had helped them.
And Martian Man too.
Dodging between the cephalopod’s limbs again, she wasn’t a mollusk, but she definitely had legs on her head, I found an opportunity for a counterattack.
Her huge head dropped under my fists.
The monster’s knees buckled, and a seismic wave rippled through the ground, knocking over the land-based heroes who were pretending to be busy.
A good hit, but Newton’s laws were relentless.
My hands got hit just as hard as Ave Maria’s head.
Though I wasn’t sure whose bones would give out first.
I couldn’t pass up this opportunity.
Another hit, and another.
I started pounding my fists into the stunned creature’s skull, creating a whole chain of earthquakes that would hit the surrounding areas.
“Look out!” An alarmed female voice, in Russian, came from above.
Someone grabbed my shoulder and pulled me up under the frantic flapping of wings.
Right in front of my nose, a wave of monster flesh rose up, the air where my legs had been a second ago compressing.
Angel had finally decided to help.
I noticed several bloody clumps of feathers on the monster’s suckers.
I glanced at the superheroine’s wings.
There was a plucked patch with matted, broken feather shafts sticking out at odd angles.
“Thanks,” I answered in Russian, freeing myself from her surprisingly tenacious little hands.
She was quite young, not older than me.
“But you’d better not get close to this thing.”
Angel just nodded in response, not even thinking of arguing, and turned her gaze to the monster.
Ave Maria had already gotten up and was shaking her eyeless head, looking for the offender.
It didn’t look like my series of attacks had done her much damage.
Or me, for that matter.
My knuckles were skinned, the skin on my fingers was cracked in places, but that was minor.
It would heal by evening.
I’d definitely gotten stronger since our last meeting.
But at this rate, we could be here for a long time.
Finally “spotting” me in the sky, Ave Maria roared and began paddling her paws quite purposefully across the churned-up ground toward us, not even paying attention to Japanoid and Aquarius trying to hit her with their ranged attacks.
Somehow she could still see me.
Wait.
That was it.
Exactly.
Six tentacles on her head.
Four huge, attacking ones.
And two smaller ones growing from her cheeks, on either side of her mouth.
I’d never seen the smaller pair used for grabbing enemies.
But I had seen them, like antennas, tuning in on a target.
That’s how she oriented herself.
Something like the vibrissae of mammals, cats for example.
And even if I didn’t know how these antennas worked, they must be packed with sensory endings and other sense organs.
“I think I have an idea or two,” I smirked.
“Great!” Angel immediately agreed, still hovering nearby on her half-plucked wings.
“What should I do?”
“Um.” I glanced at her.
If she went in there again, she might lose her wings altogether, or worse.
“You can pray for me.”
And without waiting for her to process the joke and get offended, I dove down again, toward the danger.
***
I needed something to distract the monster.
That would work.
I slipped just within the tentacles’ range, which undoubtedly infuriated the monster, and made my way to a chosen target.
An abandoned piece of Soviet automotive engineering.
Grabbing the tractor by its undercarriage, I flew back up and aimed at the monster’s huge head.
“Snack on this!” I threw the machine right into its mouth.
It intercepted it in mid-air, crushed it with its tentacles, and probably meant to throw it aside.
But I had other plans.
I pushed down on the remains of the machine with all my strength, shoving them deeper into the beast’s maw.
I just needed to shut its mouth for a moment.
Otherwise, I couldn’t get at those sensory tentacles.
The skin there was more delicate and, I learned this by grabbing them, slippery due to the disgusting slime coating them.
Why didn’t I have laser vision or some other ranged ability, so I wouldn’t have to grab monsters by their strange secretions?
Damn.
Bracing my feet against the remains of the tractor, I pulled the tentacles toward me with all my might, literally tearing them out of the monster’s head.
The steel crumpled under my feet, I practically sank into the beast’s mouth.
But I achieved my goal.
In addition to the pathetic groans of metal, I also heard the sound of tearing flesh.
Got one.
My ears were ringing from the monster’s piercing roar.
Something slapped me on the head, shoving me deeper into the mouth.
A tooth clamped down on my leg, having successfully chewed through the tractor’s engine.
I was where Brit and the Immortal had been at the start of the fight.
But that wasn’t all.
Grabbing the remaining sensory tentacle with both hands, I pulled it toward me.
The teeth clamped on my leg served as a grip, only helping me.
The world spun, drowned in screams, blood, slime, stones, and mud as we tumbled back down again.
But it wasn’t over.
The giant had fallen, but not yet defeated.
Each octopus tentacle is connected to the others by a neural ring and can act independently of the brain.
It seemed similar here.
The small tentacles might have been needed for full orientation, but the remaining four could grab prey nearby even without them.
And although the main body was temporarily incapacitated by the shock of losing its sense organs, I still had to fight four incredibly powerful tentacles trying to strangle me in their deadly embrace.
Soon, the main body also started to stir.
Damn you.
“Hey, handsome!” A woman’s voice, Britney’s by the sound, came to me.
“Duck!”
Without thinking, I obeyed.
“I love this!” With an extremely pleased comment, something big flew over my head and crashed into the monster’s upper lip, between its tentacles.
That was Brit.
She’d thrown her brother at the creature.
Now that’s what I call teamwork.
“I hate this,” a male voice grumbled nearby.
But I had no time for that.
Ave Maria was moving more actively after that hit.
One of the tentacles grabbed my ankle, pulling me toward its mouth.
“Let go of me!” Fighting back with my free leg, I instinctively looked for something to grab with my hands, but my palms just slipped on the mud.
Pain shot through my heel when my kick landed on one of the huge incisors.
The tooth broke at the base, but I didn’t feel any relief.
I was almost there.
Shit, shit, shit.
Something solid, like a tree trunk, came under my hand.
Winding up, without looking or thinking, I hit the monster’s bristly upper lip with my find.
Once, twice again.
Not bad.
Ave Maria whined pitifully.
Yes, take that, bitch.
Finally, my blows began to show a visible effect.
Bloody explosions of flesh, splinters of bone, half-meter broken teeth, a whole fountain of monster flesh rose around me.
Someone nearby was cursing constantly and angrily.
Behind me, a woman was laughing hysterically.
I was fighting for my life, and they were having fun over there?
Some heroes.
Finally, the monster’s skull gave way, and my weapon entered its brain.
There, die, bitch.
Only then did I wonder: what could have been so strong in the mud that I could use it to pierce the skull of a creature like Ave Maria?
My weapon, meanwhile, swearing and spitting, angry, began to emerge from the hole.
Oops.
Not good.
I had to take back my words.
Brit wasn’t useless against Ave Maria.
He was, literally, the best weapon against her.
I flew over to the wound and extended my hand to the old man drowning in the monster’s gray matter.
“Grab on.” He looked at me angrily, holding onto a bone splinter with one hand.
“You really helped me back there.”
“Pfft ha ha ha, oh fuck, I can’t!” Britney burst into hysterical laughter, which really didn’t help the situation.
“I hope someone filmed that!”
“Fuck off!” The old man angrily swatted my hand away and continued to climb up the slippery bones on his own.
Not knowing how else to make amends, and desperately trying not to laugh myself, I just flew back to the others.
“I see my help is no longer needed,” a well-known, calm male voice came from above.
Holy shit.
I barely managed not to jump in surprise.
My heart literally sank into my shoes.
Why the hell hadn’t Cecil told me my father was already nearby? This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
Oh, right.
I hadn’t heard anything from him since I’d gotten caught in Maria’s tentacles.
Rubbing my ear, I felt my earpiece.
Broken, as I thought.
At the same time, I checked my mask and costume.
Nothing had torn off in the fight.
The Russian craftswoman’s creation had passed the test.
“Omni-Man,” Red Rush energetically greeted his friend, not suspecting how dangerous his presence here was for him.
“Yeah, you’re a little late, but as you can see, the kids these days are talented.
Soon there won’t be any room for us old-timers.”
He patted me on the shoulder, “introducing” the rookie to his colleague.
“Meet Invincible.”
“Hi,” I said in Russian, as if by accident, then corrected myself, switching to English.
This little “slip,” combined with the fact that Oleg was introducing me, would reinforce the impression that I was from Russia myself.
Not to mention my blatantly Soviet costume design.
I’d add an accent too, but everyone else had already heard my perfectly clean English.
“Invincible, huh?” My father looked right at me.
I thanked my luck that I was wearing a mask with lenses.
“Ambitious.”
I shrugged, trying to speak as little as possible.
I didn’t want Nolan to recognize my voice.
“I heard,” Omni-Man turned his gaze back to Red Rush, “the Immortal got hit pretty hard by that thing.”
He even put a little concern in his voice, as if his friend’s injury really bothered him.
As if he wasn’t ready to kill him the moment the opportunity arose.
“Yeah.” Oleg was a little dejected.
“I took him to Darkwing’s Chinese base.
The Immortal, you know him, he’s a tough guy.
He heals fast.
He’ll be better before we have a chance to miss his grumbling.”
“Good,” Nolan smiled slightly.
“Then, if I’m not needed here, I have to be somewhere else.”
He disappeared as quickly as he’d appeared.
Suppressing a sigh of relief, I replaced my broken earpiece with the spare one hidden in my costume and activated it.
A few seconds of static and interference as the device synced with the satellite, then the communication channel came back to life.
“Mark,” Cecil’s worried voice.
“Mark, can you hear me?”
“Yeah.
I’m fine.
Just broke my earpiece.” I stepped away from the others.
Fortunately, another person arrived just then.
Donald, Cecil’s first assistant and a cyborg packed to the brim with cool tech, finally showed up and distracted the heroes.
“Shit!
That was close!” Cecil sighed in relief.
“Looks like Nolan didn’t notice anything.”
“I don’t think so either, but…” I lowered my voice so no one could overhear.
“I’ve got a few marks here.
If he sees me now, he might guess.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Cecil interrupted.
“I’ll make sure Nolan is too busy for family matters for the next couple of days.
Will that be enough time?”
“Yeah, plenty.”
I disconnected and returned to the others.
Donald was busily examining Ave Maria’s carcass, poking it with a metal needle built into his finger.
Angel stood off to the side, smoothing her feathers, literally.
She was trying to make the plucking less noticeable.
Japanoid was helping her with some kind of futuristic device he’d probably just made.
Aquarius sat alone on a rock, looking so exhausted you’d think he’d single-handedly taken down Ave Maria.
Britney was still laughing at her brother, who was grimly wringing blood and monster brains out of his t-shirt.
The woman herself had put on a shirt from someone else’s shoulder, but again left a deep neckline.
She must be very proud of her chest.
“Here,” Oleg appeared out of nowhere and threw Brit an enormous beach towel.
“Thanks.” He started cleaning himself off from the monster’s remains with renewed vigor.
“Ah!” Donald suddenly yelped, jumping back from the monster’s twitching tentacle.
“What the hell?
It’s still alive?” Brit frowned, expressing everyone’s concern.
“I don’t know,” Donald nervously adjusted his tie.
“I was just checking for activity.”
“Better not touch that thing, Donnie,” Britney warned.
“It shouldn’t be checked.
It should be fucking burned.
Destroyed.”
The others nodded in agreement.
“Yeah.” He fingered his tie again.
“Our people will handle it.
We’ve already called in a cleanup crew.”