Tall Tale TV Scifi and Fantasy Short Story Audiobooks
Of Monsters and Mushrooms by Lesley Herron
Chapter 12, Russula
Vel's mechanical hand was wrapped tightly around the sharp edge of the primitive blade.
Sparks flew past his face as bits of steel and stone were chipped away under the force
of his grip.
The humanoid bug, while only slightly larger than a man, was bearing down on him with the
force of a mountain.
Had it not been for his cybernetics, this fight would have been over before it started.
As it was, Vel's feet were sinking slowly into the sand under the enormous weight the
bug was applying to it's weapon.
"You do care!," Attila squealed as he flung himself onto one of Vel's legs, wrapping
his arms around him tightly.
"What!?
No!
Get off!," Vel ordered, trying to maintain his stance through Attila's extra momentum.
The bug, however, refused to relent it's attack.
If anything, it pushed harder against it's sword.
Vel took a step back, struggling to remain upright.
His mechanical arm was still fritzing and sparking with the pressure he was applying
to stave off the sharp edge of the bug's blade.
Attila's sudden and added weight caused him to miscalculate, and he stumbled.
He felt the merc's continued grip on his leg even as he went sprawling backwards into the
sand.
Vel twisted, pushing the blade to the side, and pulled it down with him.
The combined force of the bug's weight aided by Vel's momentum caused the weapon the sink
several feet into the soft ground beside his face.
Vel felt the edge of the sword graze his mask as he kicked out hard, sinking his boot heel
into the side of the bug's knee joint.
The joint popped and twisted to the side.
"General Craft House!," the bug cried out as it stumbled back, it's hands moving
to it's, now, dislocated knee.
Vel wrenched his leg free from Attila's grasp, unconcerned as he felt his own knee connect
with the merc's face.
"What did it just say?," he asked, as he got to his feet.
"I taught it how to speak!," Attila explained, staring up at the sky.
He had tried to get up, but he was still reeling from the blow to his head.
He settled for remaining stationary in the sand.
"I was communicating with it in it's native language and then it started screaming about
fruit."
With a visceral snap, the bug fixed it's dislocated joint and regained it's composure.
With the fury of a rampaging bull, the bug started charging towards Vel like an angry
refrigerator on legs, trampling over Attila in the process.
Vel lunged to the side, his coat whipping around him as the bug flew passed.
"Sorry I asked."
He pivoted to the side again as the bug made another attempt to mow him over.
"Where's Errik?"
Attila recoiled, rolling over in the dirt.
One hand clutched at his stomach, while the other shakily pointed off behind Vel.
"Over here!," Errik shouted, struggling to climb out of the sand pit he and Evan had
landed in.
"Thanks for coming back."
He spun on the spot, looking down into the crater.
"I seem to have lost Evan, though."
"Try lookin' down, ya' overgrown potato jockey!"
Surprised by the insult, Errik looked down.
Evan was stuck squarely to the middle of his chest, like he was a baby strapped into a
carrier, adhered by the black goo that covered them both.
The tiny merc looked like an angry toddler, who didn't want to be carried around, his
arms crossed over his chest and his tiny feet dangled freely.
"Stop starin' and get me down!," Evan shot angrily.
Vel ducked a punch from the bug, parried another, and then went in to throw an attack of his
own.
The bug had leaned back, causing Vel's fist to whiff past, narrowly missing the edge of
it's face.
The bug then used it's backwards momentum to bring it's shin up to slam into Vel's ribs,
flinging him to the side.
Attila was on his feet, stumbling towards the sword that had been buried up to the hilt
in the ground.
He gripped the handle and heaved.
It didn't budge.
Even he sand around it had failed to move.
He tried again.
"Come on baby!," Attila pleaded with the sword, wheezing a little as he changed his
grip.
But before he could even give himself a hernia, the bug walked up from behind and swatted
him away like a fly, sending Attila airborne at an alarming rate.
With one hand, the bug's fingers wrapped around the handle of the sword and ripped it from
the ground.
Sand and rocks showered the area around the bug as it turned to finish what it had started
with Vel.
The bug had only a moments glimpse of shining metal as something hard collided with it's
face.
There was a resounding crunch as Vel's fist connected with the creature's jaw.
The bug staggered back a step, it's head snapping to the side.
But that was extent of it.
The bug turned it's head slowly around to glare at Vel with it's deep-set beady black
eyes.
A large, visibly deep crack began to web it's way across the bottom half of the bug's armored
visage.
It lifted a heavy arm, and pointed a finger threateningly in Vel's direction.
"Copper...Cinnamon...Rainbow..," the bug growled in a menacing tone.
Vel sighed, "Dammit."
He had just managed to get his metal arm raised, bracing against the incoming strike.
As if it took the last blow as an insult, it began attacking with a renewed vigor.
It was moving faster than before, and it knew how to fight.
But Vel had a few hundred years of experience under his belt, and had taken on armored guardians
before.
Most of them bigger than this one.
But what this bug lacked in size, it made up for with speed and sheer tenacity.
He flung his mechanical arm up to block another attack.
He had managed to crack the bug's carapace.
Now, all he had to do was work at that same spot until it broke.
And then the fight would be over.
Beneath the thick armor, the bugs were as soft as jelly.
Vel continued to play defense, dodging what he could, blocking what he couldn't.
He studied the bug's swings, it's punches, and it's kicks looking for a pattern.
As predicted, one emerged.
The bug advanced, sliced it's blade upward and stepped again.
It was about to swing it's sword in a horizontal attack when Vel closed the gap between them,
slamming a metal palm into it's jaw.
He skirted under the bug's angry swipe, and then sidestepped out of reach.
Or rather, retreated right into a sucker punch to the face.
Vel reeled from the blow, narrowly avoiding the followup attack.
The bug had faked the pattern, laying a trap.
Smart, Vel thought as he bounded out of the bug's reach once more.
He could taste the blood seeping into his mouth from a sizable gash on the side of his
face where the impact had hit.
His mask had saved him from any fatal damage, but not without a cost.
The pane of red glass that protected his eyes had cracked, and the breathing modulator had
been damaged.
Several sparks shot out as his mask began fritzing out and electrical static filled
his ears.
Voice modulator is shot too, great.
Errik was struggling to pry Evan free.
His little legs were flailing as his combat boots were kicking fruitlessly in the air
in a vain attempt to help.
The entire ordeal would have been hilarious if they had not been in such dire straights.
He pushed against Evan's back, trying to wrench him off, but failed again.
How did the Unseen manage to untangle themselves from one another?
This stuff was like super glue, and Evan wasn't budging.
"Sorry kid, looks like you're stuck."
"You tell anyone about this and I -will- murder you."
Evan folded his arms over his chest, again, in a huff.
There was a ringing of chitin against metal, and Errik looked up to see Vel stumbling back.
Attila was staggering toward them from behind, his fists raised like a boxer on his twelfth
round.
Useless, he thought as he began to scan the ground around him.
He had to do something or Vel would be killed.
His eyes landed on a sizable chunk of dirt.
He plucked it off the ground and heaved it.
He hadn't accounted for the extra weight of Evan dangling from his chest, and the rock
flew off course, connecting squarely with Attila, knocking his hat off and laying him
out flat.
"Nice shot!"
"Look, I don't need your sarcasm right now!," Errik replied, searching the ground for another
projectile.
"I was being serious.
Nice shot.
But, uh, hows about you hand those to someone who can -actually- throw?"
Vel danced around another swipe of the sword, stepped in between the bug's reach and landed
another blow to it's face.
He felt a massive armored fist sink into his gut, but had managed to toss in an extra jab
to the jaw before staggering out of reach again.
He had given up defense, and opted for collateral damage.
Vel was faster, meaning he could get inside and do the damage, but the bug's reach meant
each blow came with a cost.
The jaw was nearly cracked.
Just a few more blows ought to do it.
A small rock bounced off his shoulder, and then another whizzed past his ear.
He shot a look over in the direction they were coming from to see his brother handing
stones to Evan, who was doing his best to throw them while attached to Errik's chest.
"Knock it off, you two!," he growled.
His voice came out in bursts of static, modulated by his mask.
Evan looked outrage.
"Hows about a 'thank yous' once in a while?
I'm helpin', so quit your bellyachin'.
Not my fault your brother is a talent-less hack who keeps pullin' to the right!"
The bug took advantage of Vel's momentary lapse in concentration, and came in with a
heavy strike aimed for his shoulder.
Vel managed to raise his mechanical hand just in time, but there was a sickening metal crunch,
followed by a whir and the smell of burning plastic.
His hand gave a violent tremble, and then went limp.
It had been through so much in the last twenty-four hours that it had finally gone out.
Now he was screwed.
Vel started backing up, doing his best to stay out of the bug's reach.
He couldn't do any damage with his metal hand, and his bones would simply break if he used
the other.
He scanned the area for -anything- useful.
There, on the ground next to Attila, was the weapon fashioned from a giant mandible.
"Attila!
Stop being lazy and bring that over here!," is what he intended to say.
But the voice modulator in his mask had, also, given out.
His words were a garble of static and electronic noise.
Attila tried to blink away the spots of color from his vision.
How odd, he thought.
Everything was spinning.
"Not now, Ginger!
I'm busy!," he shouted dazedly, as he flopped over onto his stomach.
He pushed himself up to all fours, glancing around for his hat.
Reality came flooding back to him in a rush, his hand grasped around the handle of the
oddly shaped mandible weapon.
He used it to push himself up to his feet, and then brandished it in front of himself
dangerously.
"Don't worry, Vel!
I'll save you!"
Between a flurry of attacks, Vel watched Attila amble in the wrong direction.
He sighed heavily, and dodged an uppercut.
"Moron...," he hissed as he dove beneath a lunging attack, and began sprinting towards
the merc.
Attila, sensing something approaching him from behind, spun around and swung the mandible
in a drunken arc.
Vel simply plucked it out of his hands, and shoved the merc at the rampaging bug behind
him.
Attila, still dazed, merely bounced off the bug and fell back into the sand, moaning.
The bug took no notice.
Vel thrust the mandible at the bug, forcing it to dodge and dissipating it's charge.
Only able to use one arm, he didn't have much power in his attacks, and the bug was able
to deflect most of them easily.
Vel feinted, causing the bug to block one way, as he reversed his attack to sweep in
from the other side.
It connected, but not with enough power to do anything but piss it off.
Attila struggled to his feet.
He was tired of being knocked down and decided it was time to end this fight.
He reached into his poncho, feeling around for something to devastate the overgrown termite
with.
His hand emerged holding a length of lacy black fabric with two melon holsters.
Attila blushed.
Vel swung hard in a hail mary attack, but the bug managed to clasp an armored fist around
the business end of the mandible.
It swung it's blade down, shearing the weapon off above the handle, and then cracked the
severed weapon across Vel's face.
The force of the attack lifted him off his feet and he collapsed to ground, the wind
rushing from his lungs.
The bug advanced, raising it's sword for the killing blow.
Attila let out his bravest of battle cries, swinging the bra in front of him like a flag
bearer.
"HUAAHHH!"
He leapt onto the bug's back, sliding the fabric over it's eyes.
Attila then pushed off with his feet, using his weight and the downward momentum of his
lunge to pull the bug to it's knees.
The bug dropped it's sword, it's armored fingers clawing uselessly at the black fabric on it's
face.
"BASKET PADDLE!," the bug yelled, trying to dislodge Attila.
Vel scrambled to his feet, plucking up the bug's dropped sword.
His bloody fingers clamped tight around the hilt, and he lunged forward.
The pommel of the sword smashed into the bug's face with everything that Vel could muster.
There was a deep, resounding splintering sound, and his finger's went numb from the shock
of the impact.
Attila lost his grip on the bra, and the bug finally shook him loose.
He collapsed into the ground, as the bug climbed back to it's feet, and swung a blind attack
in Vel's direction.
It landed a lucky shot, collapsing him on the spot into the sand.
Before Attila could react, the bug reached around and seized him by his middle.
He was flung through the air, landing on top of Vel.
The bug wrenched the bra free from it's face, fastened it's hands together in a giant fist,
and raised them above it's head for a final, fatal attack.
The lower half of the bug's face began to splinter, shards of carapace flaking away
to reveal...a rather bushy beard and an impressive mustache?
Attila blinked as he sat up, his hand pushing off Vel's middle.
"Wait!
I know that mustache!"
Vel winced, and recoiled from Attila's careless hand placement.
"What do you mean?," he groaned, before remembering his mask no longer worked, his
words only coming out in static.
"Brig?"
The bug hesitated, it's hands dropping slowly.
Shards of rock showered them as the bug staggered forward a step before collapsing into the
sand to reveal Errik and Evan standing behind it, still clutching pieces of the massive
boulder that they had shattered against it's head.
"Ha!
Didn't miss that time.," Errik laughed, pumping a fist victoriously in the air.
"Your mask is pretty beat up.
I don't know if we have the parts to fix it.," Errik commented, turning the crunched metal
visage over in his hands.
"As for your arm, maybe Attila can help patch it up."
Vel didn't say anything, his resolve focused solely on getting this behemoth of a man through
the shifting sands.
It had taken all of them to pry him free of his armored exoskeleton, which seemed to have
been.
. . requisitioned from an unfortunate guardian.
But even after removing the weight of the exoskeleton, the man was so massive on his
own that they were forced to build a sort of sled out of part of the armor that allowed
him to be dragged along behind them.
And once again, Vel got stuck doing the heavy lifting.
He cinched his one hand tighter around the slack fabric, tugging hard on the dead weight.
"How'd he grow a beard so quick?
He's only been missing, like, two weeks."
Attila pondered aloud.
He was sitting on the unconscious lap of his friend, his fingers picking out bits of half
chewed mushrooms from Brig's beard.
"Get off!," Vel grunted, beads of sweat stinging his eyes.
Why did their hovel have to be so far away?
He probably wouldn't have minded so much had his mechanical arm not been so useless.
It dangled, limp, at his side, swinging sadly with each step.
Attila rolled off Brig's lap, and somersaulted , impressively, next to Errik.
"Do you think it's a side effect of spores?"
"For the last time, the spores are harmless!"
Errik sighed, rubbing the space between his eyes with one hand.
" And no, more likely it's the time dilation from the portal.
Over on this side he's been here.
. ." Errik did some quick math in his head.
"Sixteen months."
"WHAT?!"
Attila tried to grab Errik by the collar, and ended up grabbing Evan by the ears.
"You said we would get to him before he was eaten!"
"Hands off!," Evan snapped, trying to kick at Attila's elbow, but he was just out
of reach.
"Technically...," Errik began, scratching nervously at a spot just behind his ear.
" We did get to him before he was eaten."
Attila was walking backwards now, his hands folded over his chest and he wearing an unceasing
scowl.
Errik shrugged.
"Sorry man, we kinda got tossed in jail.
But hey, he's fine!"
He looked down at the massive form of Brig, mumbling in his sleep.
"Other than, you know, being blitzed out on magic mushrooms.
I'm guessing that's why his speech patterns are so messed up."
"And why he tried to kill us.," Vel grumbled.
Attila seemed to accept this answer, and resumed his normal stride besides Errik.
"Okay, so time moves faster over here, and he was trapped for a year and a half.
How'd he survive?!
There's no water!"
"Well, that's not exactly true.
You -can- survive out here.
Like I said, my brother and I were stuck here for like.
. . three years?"
Errik looked to Vel as if to reaffirm his timing.
"Probably, but the company I kept made it feel like decades.," Vel growled, heaving
again on Brig's weight.
"Anyway," Errik started, choosing to ignore his brother's insult.
" The mushrooms here can sustain you as long as you don't eat them raw.
You can distill the fluid from them.
It's not really water, but it'll keep you from dying from dehydration.
If you don't mind being mildly drunk most of the time."
Attila chuckled.
"Wow.
Sounds like fun.
What did you guys eat?
The bugs?"
Errik chewed on a thought for a moment before he replied, "No, it's not a great idea.
The meat is toxic and causes, uh, massive.
. . fluid loss.
He's probably been ingesting the mushrooms raw.
Like I told you, they're highly hallucinogenic.
And for as long as he's been here, with nothing but mushrooms to sustain him, then he's been
in a constant high since."
"As much as I love this little Q&A you two are doing right now...," Vel started, dropping
the tether to Brig's ride.
He used the back of his hand to wipe the sweat from his brow.
"Where the hell is the hideout?
I don't remember it being this far from the portal."
Errik looked over at the barren landscape around them.
"Oh.," he said, his finger pointing lazily off at something in the distance behind them.
" You're right.
We passed it about a mile back."
Vel could barely contain his rage, his eye twitching in anger.
He settled for pulling his coat off, insulted them with a string of profanities, and stomped
off in the direction they had come, leaving Brig unconscious in his makeshift sled.
"Hey!," Attila called out after him as he looked down at his friend.
"Who's going to pull Brig?"
If Attila had not spent most of his time around drunken bar flies, he might have blushed at
the rude gesture Vel was throwing back at him.
Attila cleared his throat and looked back at Errik and Evan.
"So, uh, two out of three?," he said as he placed a fist in the outstretched palm
of his other hand in the unmistakable sign of 'rock, paper, scissors'.
Of Monsters and Mushrooms, an ongoing series by Lesley Herron, is a crossover fanfiction
mixing her own characters and settings with a few of those created by Author J.D. Wiley.
She writes for the fun of devising new ways of messing with her characters, and seeing
just how much trouble they can get into.
Wait wait wait...
I wasn't ready that time.
You good now?
Whew, yeah.
Ok, lets do this!
Ok. . . 1, 2, 3! (slap)
Rock beats scissors!!
Again.
. .
Nooo!!!
Common, who throws rock 5 times in a row??
Who throws scissors five times in a row?
Yeah, you kinda suck at this game.
Ok, soooo, six out of 11? … wait, where are you guys going?
Hey!
Come back!
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