An hour of plodding through the dense Jasmidianite jungle had taken Aaron and his party almost to their destination. However, their target had changed. Wendy had flown off to scout ahead, and soon discovered that no Alconteans were to be found at Trackenkaken's suggested coordinates. Nonetheless, as they'd come closer to the spot, the travelers had found weapons, uniforms, and provisions strewn about the forest floor. 

"That stuff doesn't just appear out of nowhere." Aaron had said, "There's gotta be something to this." 

And so he'd sent Wendy off again. She returned a few minutes later, saying she had found the mouth of a cavern, with several Alcontean armored cars parked outside. Voices echoed inside, she'd reported, but she didn't dare to venture any further alone. 

Presently, they reached a drop in elevation. Below them lay a clearing, where water cascaded down from a stepped structure in a shallow cliffside. The vitalizing liquid, the lifeblood of the jungle, made a sharp turn once it reached the bottom of the valley and ran westward, broadening and forming a mighty river in the distance. 

"We're here." Wendy said, redirecting her comrades' attention to the other side of the valley, where the armored cars she'd mentioned earlier could now be viewed. 

Aaron peered over the edge at the vehicles and frowned. Several of them bore deep perforations in their bodies, perplexing Aaron greatly. No weapon he knew of could penetrate Alcontean armored cars. Denting was possible, in rare cases, but their shock-absorbing armor caused even the most acute attacks to disperse over wider areas. What in the world could give prolonged pressure like that with sharpness enough to pierce through? he puzzled. 

Aaron snapped out of his silent contemplation to realize everybody was staring at him. He smiled. "What?" 

"Well, the way you're lookin', I thought you were plannin' somethin'." Hannah spoke up. 

He shook his head. "No, I'm just puzzling over what pierced that armor, and how. But anyway, yeah, does anybody see a path down there?" 

Wendy crossed her arms. "We could circle all the way around to the river bank on the other side and come in through there, but that'd be bloody time-consuming." 

One of the other insurgents grimaced. "Yeah, we've been walking long enough already. There's gotta be a hidden path somewhere." 

Hannah's face brightened. "I know! Dat's some pretty clean lookin' water, don'tcha think?" 

"Yes...?" the others replied. 

"So you can bet there're animals comin' down to get a drink every now and then. If we have a way to look down there, we can see if there're any tracks." 

Aaron grinned and accepted a pair of binoculars from one of the men. "Good idea! Follow the tracks and see if they lead somewhere." 

Hannah nodded. "Yeah! 'Cause if an animal made it through, chances are we could, too." 

Aaron placed the lenses against his eyes and zoomed in. He scanned along the river bank. The first tracks he spotted caused him some pause. With no indication of toes, the deep circular pits in the ground, 20 inches in diameter, bore little resemblance to footprints. But as he traced their path to the river in the distance, their regularity suggested the unbelievable. 

Struggling to brush off the two mysteries now weighing on his brain, Aaron searched for smaller prints among the massive indentations. After a little scanning, he found a quartet of indentations in the mud, resembling a cat's paw-print, but much larger. He followed the clawed tracks up to an incline not far from the cascading waterfall, into a cluster of ferns. 

He emerged from the binoculars and shrugged, handing them back to their original owner. "I saw some paw-prints. Jaguar, tiger, or something like that. Can't tell for certain where they go, but I figure if something that big can make it down, so can we." 

The others nodded their assent, so he led the way around the cliff edge to the fern-infested area he'd traced the prints up to. Sure enough, the plants parted in the middle to allow a path. As he studied the mud at the opening to the passage, Aaron spotted many more tracks, those of raccoon, lizard, frog, and even snake all mingling together. 

"Okay, so this is a popular spot." he remarked over his shoulder as he took his first step, "Whatever creature blazed this trail is a genius and a blessing to the jungle." 

Hannah giggled at Aaron's remark, and he smiled back at her before focusing on his footwork. His breath caught in his throat when a tarantula scuttled out of the vegetation. It clambered over his shoe at an alarming speed, crossed the remainder of the path's width, and disappeared again. Only after the last of its hairy legs disappeared from view did Aaron exhale. 

Aside from a snake hissing at Wendy as she passed, no more creatures frightened the travelers. They emerged from the narrow path and came to the moist bank of the young river. Boots squished through the thick mud as they came closer to the flowing waters. 

Aaron shot a furtive glance at the gaping mouth of the cavern and the punctured cars outside it. No Alconteans appeared in view, but one could never be too cautious. 

His foot splashed into the shallow water at the point where the stream hadn't yet grown into a river. Both his boots and the hems of his pants became submerged, but the bed grew no deeper. Aaron gave a quick look to his comrades behind before shifting focus back to his own spattering footsteps. 

When the eighteen travelers had finished their crossing, they squished across still more marshy terrain. They frowned at several strange pill-shaped objects strewn across the ground, about the size of footballs, and mottled white in color. With careful footsteps, they avoided trodding them under foot and continued on. 

Then Hannah gasped as the mud under her right foot gave way. She swiftly planted her other down, only to stomp down on one of the pills. It cracked under her weight, and a viscous substance oozed out. A bulging yellow yolk floated atop the clear slime. Grimacing at the sight, she tugged her foot out of the waterlogged dirt and hurried forward to more solid ground. 

The adventurers hugged the wall as they crept closer to the cave mouth. As they drew closer, voices became audible. Panicked voices. Screams echoed inside the cavern. 

Aaron halted his comrades with a motion of his hand. While they waited behind, he hurried ahead. He took cover behind one of the armored cars when the wall ended. Peeking around into the cavern, all he could see was darkness inside. The walls distorted the echoing screams within and caused him uncertainty whether they belonged to man or beast. 

Aaron's eyes widened when the screams grew louder. Less echoes accompanied the hollering, as they appeared to ring out clearer in more open air. A succession of earth-shaking thumps accompanied the shrill tones, resembling the gallop of a gigantified horse. Aaron's heart grew irregular in rhythm as he debated between flight or concealment. 

He fell over into the mud in sheer terror when a 12 foot tall creature burst forth from the cavern mouth. It roared. The creature's head was characterized by a matted curtain of mossy fur cascading down its entire head and concealing everything but its slender snout and two forward facing horns. The carpet of fur continued down its thick body, hiding almost the entirety of its stumpy legs. 

The creature shoved the armored car aside with a casual sweep of its snout. Aaron stared up in panic. He crossed his hands over his face. After a shredded human corpse slid off the beast's bloodstained left horn, it bared its reddened teeth and sniffed the brawny man. 

Aaron dared not breathe. He stared up at the twitching nostrils, expecting every moment to be his last. 

Apparently satisfied, the colossal beast turned away and plodded elsewhere. Aaron rushed to his feet, both relieved and frightened at once. On the one hand, he personally was safe. But now the creature headed closer to his comrades. He eyed them with sympathy as they cowered against the stone wall, with nowhere to go. 

But where's Wendy? 

The furry monster turned its head again. It sniffed along the muddy ground, and whenever it came upon one of the mottled eggs, it turned them over with its nose. Aaron's breath caught in his throat when the beast came upon the smashed egg. A low growl rumbled in its throat. 

Aaron leapt atop a boulder and clapped his hands to divert the creature's attention. He cupped them and hollered. It would not so easily be fooled. The furry snout swept down the row of his comrades, nostrils twitching. 

With a desperate scream, Aaron leapt down and dashed toward the creature. He threw rocks, branches, and water at it, all in a vain attempt to dissuade it from the search. It ignored him. 

When the beast reached Hannah, the growl grew louder. Just as its snout lunged forward, a maroon streak arced through the air. Wendy swooped to the top of the cliff face and set Hannah down up there. 

Aaron still flinched. Wendy's flight had caught the creature's attention, and in turning its head, it ripped two Kemarian men into strips of quivering flesh. Blood oozed across the already-saturated earth. 

The bloodthirsty monster rushed at the cliff face, roaring at Wendy and Hannah, but its jumping ability was limited. Unable to reach them, its anger grew. 

Only when the creature turned to him did Aaron realize the folly of his terrorized paralysis. The thirteen remaining insurgents had already sprinted to the fern-lined pathway, and only Aaron stood between them and the beast. 

The monster snapped at Aaron. He barely missed his beheading by ducking. Sliding between its trunk-like legs, he hurried behind the creature, and from there, he reached up to Wendy. Without hesitation, she swooped down, placed him beside Hannah, and moved to engage the creature from a distance with her bow. Her projectiles proved just damaging enough to distract it from the retreating Kemarians. It remained to be seen whether any lasting harm had been dealt. 

Aaron glanced into the sky. "Armory, colossus armor!" 

After a second's pause, several metal cylinders crashed through the jungle canopy and sped Aaron's way. They opened into various shapes, all forming giant segments of an armor suit. It resembled Wendy's, aside from its green color, colossal size, and lack of rockets. 

When the suit had finished fastening itself around Aaron's body, he stood nine feet tall, a hulking mass of metal and firepower. He leapt down from the cliff edge and landed with a thud. He charged at the furry creature. 

Having just acclimated to the pain of Wendy's barrage, the beast had set itself to pursuing the thirteen Kemarians again. But when Aaron threw a powerful punch at it, drawing a deep grunt, he proved himself to be a new distraction. 

The creature spun to face Aaron, and he stood his ground. It lunged forward to gore him, but with a swift sidestep, he evaded. He grasped the red-tinted horn and shoved it away, exposing the animal's furry neck to another punch. 

A moan echoed through the jungle. Stumbling sideways, the beast's vocalization morphed into a growl. It shifted its footing and charged at Aaron again. He moved to dodge, but this time, his beastly opponent caught onto his tactic. Turning its head, it slapped a horn into him and sent him hurtling through the air. 

Aaron landed with a heavy thud and an accompanying squish. The contents of another egg spilled out from underneath the suit's metallic hindquarters. He grimaced. 

The beast's snout shot skyward, and it screamed. Even inside the helmet, the shrill tone pierced Aaron's ears. Wendy struggled in vain to distract the creature with a renewed onslaught of arrows while Aaron scrambled to find cover. Gooey droplets of crushed egg dripped from his suit as he sprinted away. 

When Aaron dashed his foot against a stone, he tripped and tumbled into the mud. The creature caught up and stared furiously over him, a droning growl rumbling in its throat. Its jaws opened wide, and Aaron desperately lunged a metal hand forward in defense. 

The beast's jaws closed with a crunch. It snatched its head and flung half of Aaron's metal arm into the mouth of the cave. 

Aaron stared down at the jagged metal stub with widened eyes. His pink hand peeked out of the wreckage, fully intact. If the monster's teeth had ventured only a couple inches down...he shivered to imagine. 

He raised his other wrist and fired a barrage of pellets from a mounted launcher. The projectiles dazed the creature long enough for Aaron to hurry toward the fern-lined path. He turned back occasionally as he ran to fire a few more. For now, at least, they held it at bay. 

With a roar, the four-legged giant ran at Aaron once more, ignoring the pellets now. Wendy swooped to his defense and fired both her wrist rockets. Blood splattered from the creature's shoulder, and its roar changed in tonality from fury to pain. It snapped at her, but a quick boost of her rocket shoes saved her. 

Aaron's eyes widened when he saw Hannah leap from the cliff edge onto the creature's broad back. He cried out in protest, but she was too far away to hear. 

Hannah ran down the animal's spine, and when she came to its neck, she fired her laser gun. A steady beam of light flowed into its flesh, bringing smoke to the surface. It screamed and wriggled its back to buck her off, but she gripped a handful of fur in her left hand. She visibly struggled to retain control of the heavy gun in only one hand, but she was making progress. Charred fur had all burnt away, and now raw flesh was exposed. 

Aaron sighed and took advantage of the distraction. He hurried the rest of the way down the path. Once he and his comrades found themselves safely sheltered in a cluster of trees the massive beast would be unable to maneuver through, he gave Wendy a thumbs up. She retrieved Hannah and left the monster to bemoan its wounds in solitude. 

Aaron sat himself down on a boulder and swept a glance over his comrades. "That...was unexpected." he muttered. 

One of the Kemarians nodded. He shuddered. "What was that thing?" 

Wendy shrugged. "I don't have a single bloody clue, but I don't like it." 

"Looks like it took care of those Alconteans for us, at least." Aaron said. 

"Yeah." Wendy replied, "Unlike us, they didn't get jammy." 

"Whelp," Aaron began, pushing to his feet with a grunt. "I guess it's time to head back, then. And when we do get back, the Armory's gonna need a talking to." 

"Why's dat?" Hannah asked. 

"It didn't send down all my weapons." 

Wendy huffed. "I told you trusting Sila to do all the coding without any double-checking was a stupid idea!" 

Aaron shrugged. "Now we know. Anyway, to the canopy, I guess." 

With that, the party limped through the jungle to find a good spot to ascend for pickup.

******************** 

A/N: I think we're all suckers for a good monster fight, right? And giant mech suits make it even better! If you enjoyed that as much as I did writing it, do remember to vote and comment, please and thank you. 😁 

So yes, that was definitely a fun one to write, and so out of the ordinary for me. Any thoughts on the chapter in general, the monster specifically, or any specific aspect? Dump 'em on me. I need 'em all. 😂 

(That sounds rather meme-able, those last two lines, but I digress.) 

I guess I don't have a whole lot of thoughts for you this morning. Let's see if I can think of a random question. 

Yeah! Look up and tell me what you see. Take that however you will. 😂 

(For me, I see my popcorn ceiling with the slight blue glow of the early morning peeking through the blinds and casting its light on the bumpy surface. Does this sound overly poetic for an author's note? Yes. Is anyone complaining? They'd better not be.) 

Well, that'll be all for me this morning! I hope you have an awesome day, and I'll see you in Saturday's update.