I expected pain. Thankfully, I didn’t feel anything.

  Huh.

  “It didn’t do anything?” Samsara asked.

  “Doesn’t look like it,” I said. I tried moving my tentacles to clear the white fog. Except my tentacles wouldn’t move. Crap.

  Samsara turned away from the fog and towards me.

  She gasped. “Ramona! Your arms and feet!”

  I could make out small traces of white marble starting to encase my appendages. For whatever reason, it only affected me since Samsara could still move.

  “Samsara, get back!” I screamed in her mind.

  Samsara didn’t hesitate. She slithered backwards away from the fog. Seconds after, a golden ring burst from the white fog, sizzling through the air towards Samsara. She dashed towards the side, easily dodging it. Lucia yelped from the sudden movement.

  Samsara’s breathing became ragged. “Ramona, the stone—it’s spreading!”

  I couldn’t move my head, but from Samsara’s eyes I could see the stone slowly spreading across my limbs. My fingers were being encased in smooth stone. To make matters worse, I couldn’t feel it, which was terrifying in its own right. It was like my body was simply ceasing to exist.

  “Aisling!” I snapped my attention to the turtle Kaiju. She was very close to the fog bank. She was our only other source of acid attacks, so I needed her safe.

  I slammed my will into her mind. Aisling stumbled back. Her lure, the small clone, swiveled towards the fog, splitting globes of corrosive saliva into the dense white mist. We still couldn’t hear anything that was inside the fog, so we had no idea if she was hitting anything.

  “Ramona, it’s still spreading,” Samsara panicked again.

  “Focus on the Aberration, not me!”

  But I was terrified, too. Not for me. Mainly for Samsara. We were both fused together, and if my lower back became marble, would the petrification spread to Samsara’s tail? Would she also become an immobile statue like me?

  Another golden ring zipped out of the fog, heading straight for Aisling. I forced Aisling’s body to twist and duck to the side. The ring continued dashing through the air, going indefinitely into the distance.

  Samsara took a peek at me again with one of her hair snakes.

  “We’re running out of time,” I analyzed, watching the stone creep over my limbs. “We have to kill the Aberration, and to do that, we need to see it.”

  “How?” Samsara cried. “We can’t go anywhere close!”

  “[Sacrificial Limb Bomb],” I suggested. “It stunned the statues. If we detonate one in the fog, the shockwave should clear the mist and maybe stun the Aberration long enough to kill it.”

  “I… I can’t!” Samsara argued, recoiling at the thought. “I can’t blow off my own arm, Ramona! It hurts!”

  “Use mine then!” I insisted. “I can’t feel anything anyway! Do it!”

  “But—”

  Another ring shot out. Samsara ducked, her hair snakes hissing as the projectile flew over her head.

  “Just do it!”

  I tried to help. I tried to [Focus] my mana on my left arm. But the mana wouldn’t move. That yellow ring was blocking me from using my mana! I couldn’t help at all!

  “Samsara, I can’t cast!” I realized with horror. “You have to—”

  While we were arguing, another ring had flown silently from the fog. It hit Aisling dead in the chest.

  The feral Kaiju froze instantly. Crap. I got distracted trying to [Focus] my mana, so I didn’t move Aisling out of the way. We no longer had any acid weapons. We could only rely on [Sacrificial Limb Bomb]

  “No!” Samsara screamed out loud.

  “Focus!” I yelled, my mental voice cutting through her panic. “We don’t have time to mourn! If you don’t use [Sacrificial Limb Bomb] on my arm right now, we are both going to end up like her. Maybe the explosion will disrupt the magic and cure the infection!”

  Samsara looked at me, then at the spreading stone, then at the frozen Aisling.

  “Okay,” she sobbed. “Okay. I’m doing it.”

  She placed her hand on one of the unfurled tentacles of my left arm. I felt a strange tugging sensation in our Cores as she pulled the mana, not me. She began transcribing the [Incantation] for [Sacrificial Limb Bomb].

  My tentacle immediately detached, and thankfully, we didn’t feel any pain. It glowed orange as Samsara grabbed it and hurled it with all her strength into the white fog.

  Moments later, a shockwave echoed out from an explosion. A gust of wind blasted outward, dissipating the white mist instantly.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  The Aberration was revealed.

  She was gliding across the ground. Her hips were wreathed in orange fire. Thankfully, we didn’t see any white smoke emerge from her body.

  Suddenly, a loud screech emanated from the Aberration. It was wailing even louder than before.

  “Ramona, the wailing is back!” Samsara cried out in my mind, her hands covering her ears.

  “The eye! Look at the eye!”

  The slit yellow eye on her belly began to strobe between yellow and white.

  Dozens of golden rings fired in rapid succession.

  “Move!”

  Samsara threw herself to the left, dragging my unresponsive torso with her. Several of the rings crashed into my body. Thankfully, they seemed to do nothing since I was already paralyzed.

  “Kill it! Use [Blood Spikes]!” I ordered.

  Samsara nodded and [Focused] to make [Blood Spikes] on each of her claws.

  [Blood Spike Launch] caused them to fly through the air, slamming into the eye. Each one impacted, causing a louder wail from the Aberration.

  The eye blinked, destroying the [Blood Spikes]. The eye quickly began healing again and resumed firing.

  “It’s healing too fast!” Samsara panicked, slithering away from another ring.

  “Another bomb!” I shouted telepathically. “Do it again! Use another tentacle!”

  “I’m sorry, Ramona! I’m so sorry!”

  “Don’t apologize, just kill this fucking Aberration!”

  Samsara grabbed another one of my left-arm tentacles. She cast the spell. The limb detached, growing a volatile orange glow.

  Samsara threw it. The tentacle sailed through the air, spinning end over end. It smashed directly into the center of the giant yellow eye on the belly. It stayed stuck there for a moment before exploding.

  As the black smoke from the explosion cleared, we could see her belly was in ruin. The eye was obliterated, leaving only a crater of stone in the inflamed stomach.

  The wailing continued as the eye started regenerating again.

  “Go! Now!” I urged.

  Samsara slithered forward, hauling my stone-encrusted body across the ground. We closed the distance to the Aberration in seconds.

  “Venom! Stop the regeneration!”

  Samsara’s hair snakes lunged. The Aberration's eye was already trying to knit itself back together. The snakes sank their fangs into the regrowing flesh. They injected their venom into the wound. The regeneration sputtered and halted.

  The Aberration continued wailing at us, but did not attack. We waited a beat. It just stayed still, screaming.

  Samsara looked down at me.

  The stone covering my legs and arm tentacles… hadn’t disappeared. I tried to move my arm. Nothing. My body was still stuck.

  Samsara scrambled around to face me. “Ramona? Ramona, move your arm.”

  “I can’t,” I said calmly, though panic was starting to rise.

  Samsara’s hair snakes began attacking the marble surface of the Aberration. The fangs skidded off the hardened surface.

  “It’s not working!” Samsara cried. She clawed at the stone with her hands, sparks flying. “Why isn’t it breaking?!”

  Crap.

  “Acid!” Samsara gasped. “We need to melt it off! Like with the small statues!”

  She looked at me. My red finger-tip tentacles, the source of my corrosive ink, were completely encased in stone. Blocked.

  She looked at Aisling. The lure, the source of the acid spit, was a marble statue. Blocked.

  “We… we have no acid,” Samsara whispered, realization crashing down on her. “We can’t melt the stone.”

  We sat there in the silence of the ruined outpost for a few minutes. The only sound was Lucia, whom I was still holding in a tentacle that had partially turned to stone near the base.

  “Um… hello?” the bird girl squawked. She peered down from my grip. “Why are we just sitting here? Aren’t we going to kill it?”

  “I can’t,” Samsara said hollowly.

  “Then why aren’t we leaving?” Lucia asked, squirming her feathered arms frantically. “What if another one comes? Or reinforcements? Humans will come to investigate the loss of this covert base! The Monster Purifiers will kill us!”

  Samsara ignored her, staring at my frozen legs.

  “We have to go!” Lucia shrieked. “I need to get back to a lab! I need to continue my research! I have to find a way to become a human again! I can’t do that if I’m dead!”

  “She has a point about reinforcements,” I told Samsara gently. “We are not ready to fight more Aberrations or humans right now.”

  Samsara’s head snapped up.

  “No,” she said, aloud and in my mind.

  “I am not leaving,” Samsara growled at Lucia. “Not while Ramona is stuck like this. Not while Aisling is trapped.”

  “But Samsara—”

  “If you become fully encased in stone, you die,” she interrupted me. “And since we’re fused… I die too. I’m not dragging you away to slowly turn into a statue in a valley somewhere. We fix this here. Now. We are not leaving until every bit of this stone is gone.”

  “Okay.”

  We stayed still in the ruins of the outpost, with the Aberration still screaming at Aisling.

  “Think, Ramona,” I told myself. “Panic later. Problem solving now.”

  We needed acid. Aisling’s lure was stone. My finger tentacles were stone.

  What else?

  I looked around the destroyed outpost. What if there were something acidic there? No, I had destroyed everything. All the buildings were crushed inside my jaws. And I didn’t see any vats inside anyway. Everything that could have been useful was sent to my stomach.

  Wait. I ate it.

  My stomach churned, digesting the steel, drywall, and meat I had consumed earlier. We were Kaijus. Our stomachs could literally handle anything.

  “Samsara,” I said with realization. “Your stomach.”

  Samsara froze, looking at me. “What about it?”

  “It’s the only acid we have left,” I explained rapidly. “If we can get the acid onto the stone, it might dissolve it. Can you… can you vomit on the Aberration?”

  Samsara blinked. Her face twisted in disgust, but then determination hardened her features. “I’ll try.”

  She leaned over the corpse of the Aberration. She opened her mouth and heaved. Samsara coughed, hacking loudly, trying to force the contents of her stomach up. Nothing came out.

  She gagged again, but nothing came up from her throat. Only her spit dropped onto the marble of the Aberration.

  “I… I can’t,” Samsara gasped, wiping her mouth. Her eyes were wide, frantic. “It’s not coming up. I can’t do it.”

  “Damn it,” I cursed internally.

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