Worse, the six-legged elephant was not slow. With its target in sight, it was gaining. Every step Eva took brought the elephant three steps closer.
If she ditched Irene, Eva doubted she would have a problem outrunning it. But if she was willing to do that, she would have simply teleported away through an infernal walk.
Eva took a hard right back towards the dorm building, hoping the elephant would be unable to stop moving forwards.
Her hopes did not hold out.
The elephant stopped on a dime and angled towards Eva. Its charge started up an instant later.
Eva set down Irene as gently as she could without taking more than a second or two. She turned on the demon and started her own charge.
Her hands ignited in thaumaturgical fire. Against the feathers, fire did well. The tough looking hide of the elephant might be resistant, but it didn’t hurt to try.
Eva took the full brunt of its charge with her claws out. She couldn’t risk jumping over and having it not follow. Its current course would take it right over Irene otherwise.
The leg Eva hit was nearly her size. And it was sticky.
The impact was not what Eva had expected. Rather than flying off or being trampled, Eva stuck to the leg like glue. It stilled completely, once again stopping instantly.
No, not stuck to it. The flesh around her arms split apart and started pulling her into the beast.
Eva struggled backwards. It didn’t give an inch back, slowly drawing her claws further inside.
Lifting her foot, Eva tried to kick off her arm. Arachne would be happy to donate another one, Eva was certain.
A sudden lurch by the elephant got Eva’s leg stuck inside the thing.
Eva could feel panic settling in the back of her mind. She could handle being trampled or tossed, so long as her head and chest wasn’t crushed.
Even using the strength in her hands to crush the flesh did no good. All the surrounding flesh still drew her further in.
Eva ceased all her struggles. Maybe it is one of those things where the more you resist, the harder it gets.
She breathed a sigh of relief as her hand stopped slipping further into the elephant. It wasn’t coming out, but at least she wasn’t going to be swallowed up.
The elephant pressed its leg forwards, into the ground.
Eva took a brief gasp of air before her face pressed against the leg.
Fine, Eva thought while trying very hard not to panic. You want me inside? That’s perfect.
The resistance slipped away as Eva actively pressed into the elephant. She clawed and squirmed, trying to get further and further inside.
The human body was just out of reach. Its heart, however, was not a human heart. As large as a human’s head, it stuck out of the chest.
And Eva clawed towards it.
The moment the tips of her fingers raked across the heart, she felt a tremor go through the beast. Her fingers slipped away.
Oh no you don’t. Eva knew she was being somewhat hysterical as she clawed back to the heart. You wanted me in here, you don’t get to push me out.
The pushing got stronger, but not strong enough and not fast enough. The tip of Eva’s middle finger severed one of the major arteries leading out of the heart.
The tremors got worse. Eva’s head broke out of the elephant’s leg as it collapsed onto the ground. She took a huge gasp of air. She hadn’t been under its flesh for long, but she couldn’t risk it sucking her back in.
A shudder ran through the beast and it stopped pushing Eva out.
Her arms were still stuck in the meat.
“Great,” Eva mumbled to herself. A major mistake; some viscera got into her mouth.
It tasted like ash and sawdust.
Eva struggled against the now still leg. It was hardening. That set off a whole other wave of panic.
A childlike giggle drew Eva’s attention. She craned her neck, though she also looked through her blood sense.
Another of the monsters stood just a few paces away from the hardening elephant. Each of its four limbs seemed to have originated with different creatures. One looked like another cerberus paw, one was a tentacle, or perhaps a snake, another looked like a human foot with curved talons instead of toes, and the last was a metallic spear.
Stood might be the wrong word, Eva thought mirthlessly.
Thousands of thin tentacles coiled together around the thing’s waist. Together, they squeezed and crushed until the multi-armed creature was nothing more than a bloody pulp. The tentacles all traced back into the back of a young-looking woman. More giggles poured out of her, though her mouth was shut tight.
Lalum, no. Lilith? No. “Lucy,” Eva shouted.
The tentacle-woman didn’t so much as turn to face Eva as she simply formed a second face on the side of her head. Her smile stretched all the way from the face facing the creature to the face facing Eva.
Watching it melt into only the face facing Eva was somewhat disconcerting.
A coil of tentacles stretched towards Eva before they froze just a few inches away from her head. An eyeball and a mouth formed at the end.
“Oh! You’re Zagan’s embryonic thing.”
Eva frowned. She wasn’t Zagan’s anything. “I’m Eva. I need help getting out of here,” Eva said. “Try not to hurt me.”
The eyeball turned downwards to inspect the carcass. It snapped back up to meet Eva’s eyes. “You jumped into a cutvoro?” The mouth split in two separate mouths. They started to dance around Eva on their tentacles, echoing as she spoke again. “Insane! How are you not it?”
“Don’t know. Get me out, please.”
The eye and mouths vanished as the mass of tentacles increased. They wormed their way right next to Eva’s skin as they burrowed into the elephant’s flesh.
Eva could feel the tentacles as they started pulling away from her. The elephant split apart, crumbling as it did so. The smell was rancid, but Eva was happy to be out.
“You’re all fleshy!”
Lucy had moved to right next to the elephant, all the while still churning the multi-armed creature in her tentacles across the way.
“I thought humans needed clothes?” She rubbed her fingers over the black trench-coat she wore. “Mistress Martina said never to ever take clothes off no matter how much they get in the way.”
“First,” Eva said, “humans just don’t like to be naked most of the time. Second, give me your trench coat.”
“What? I can’t!”
Eva rolled her eyes. “You have other clothes on and I have none. Don’t worry. If Martina Turner complains, tell her it was all my idea.”
Lucy seemed to mull it over for a moment. Eventually, she nodded. At the end of her nod, all of her dissolved into a pillar of tentacles. They squirmed out of one of the trench coat sleeves and reformed into Lucy a step away, still wearing the suit she had on beneath.
Eva picked up the trench coat and slipped into it. There was some slickness on the inside, but she didn’t feel sick or hallucinatory so Eva paid it no mind. The coat was too big for her, she noted with some distaste.
“Third,” Eva said as she turned back to the still prone form of Irene. “I need you to take her to one of the school nurses. Very carefully. No toxins, no squeezing too hard, just gently carry her to a nurse. Do you understand?”
“What about all the monsters?”
Eva frowned. She needed her dagger back. Without Irene, she could teleport and grab Arachne. Together they’d be able to plow through everything.
“What is the rest of the security force doing?”
“Daru is killing things. So is the old guy and the elf. The children are protecting the other children with teachers.”
“Okay, then the old guy and Daru can take care of the other monsters. Once you get her to a nurse, you can rejoin fighting.”