EVENTS:

Klimt notices Eigla's killing instinct, and is quick to direct her fury.

Klimt: "Systematically! We are going to cut her free and burn this tainted flesh! Eigla, you did it once, can you behead her again?"

Malia: "I think it'd be best if we didn't kill her outright. She has valuable information."

Rosa: "She tried to hold Peggy as a bargaining chip.
Talk is over."

Peggy: "...Yes, my dear. You're right.
It is."

The girl bites one of Rosa's fingers, freeing herself from the shark's grasp. She drops onto the floor, unholstering her hunting rifle.

Your enemy stands before you.



___________________________

BATTLE!





Eigla flexes her abdomen, bursting the stitches on her midriff and letting loose the Crawling Flesh inside. The oozing masses hurtle towards Peggy, but her current form is considerably more agile than the heavy-set Desuri ever was. Still, a few vines manage to grab on, hindering her movements.

Peggy attempts to keep her distance at first, unloading her rifle ineffectively on the shieldmaiden, whose amorphous flesh simply absorbs the bullets before spitting them out. She is too busy aiming to notice the small red thread wrapping itself around her knee. With a jerky, inhuman motion, much like someone struck by lighting, the blonde heretic's muscles spasm and throw her forwards, into melee range of Eigla and Malia.


Eigla is the first to attack, slashing at Peggy's hamstrings with her katana. The move connects, slicing through fabric and skin, but suddenly stops when it meets her taut, kevlar-like flesh. Malia tries to take the chance to use her monofilament-sharp stringsnakes, but Peggy jumps out of the way, and the red thread slaps Eigla across the face, doing grisly, but thankfully cosmetic, damage.


Peggy takes a step back, then pushes forward on a running leap, slamming a fist on the side of Eigla's pelvis and snapping half her illium off. Surprised at actually taking damage from an unarmed attack, the shieldmaiden looks back to see Peggy noisily stuffing the removed chunk of muscle and bone down her throat, spilling vast amounts of blood. She licks her lips, smiling.

Peggy: "Your flesh tastes... Abhorrent. But for now, it will serve."

Malia is one step ahead, however. Having laid invisibly thin strings across the battlefield in preparation, she pulls them taut with a broad move of her arms, entangling Peggy's stomach in a monofilament net. Small jet thrusters push through the seams in her sleeves, preparing to fire in her most devastating attack yet.

HIDDEN THREADJUTSU: FINISHING KNOT

With a deafening blast, Malia is propelled backwards, her own threads and muscles snapping in the sheer force of her attack. Despite the pain, she feels positively invigorated. The thrill of the hunt - This is what she was born for!

Peggy's bindings grow increasingly tight, the wire prison cutting through her abs before shattering her ribcage and bursting several of her organs. She falls to a knee, unable to untangle her arms-

SPLURT

Two bloody pairs of arms burst forth from Peggy's innards, the first stabilizing her body against the ground, the other snapping through Malia's threads with sharpened, bony fingers. The arm hydra lifts itself off the ground in a disturbing, spider-like manner, before swinging at Eigla once again. With one arm on each side of her chest, Peggy kicks the shieldmaiden back, while grasping and bodily tearing away her maggot-filled bosom. It regenerates quickly, but the damage is done - Eigla's impenetrable defenses have been breached.

Peggy's smile turns into a malevolent grin, as she bites into the deflated spheres of vermin-infested Flesh, fueling her regenerative powers.

Peggy: "Huh. Turns out this body is a lot stronger than I anticipated. Why, I should have turned on you earlier!"


Eigla suffers 1 Madness. Klimt, despite not being involved in the fight, cannot bear to watch Peggy's bizarre transformation, and suffers 1 Madness as well. He feels he's close to breaking point.



Combat map:
[] - Tartarus
[] - Hades
[] - Limbo
[Eigla, Malia, Peggy] - Elysium
[] - Eden

BATTLE:




Battle continues. As Rosa and Klimt run towards the combat, Peggy's multiple arms unleash a barrage of strikes upon Eigla. Her shield is strong, but it cannot be everywhere - Several of the hits connect, breaking through her defenses. The shieldmaiden coughs up blood as a hand is thrust into her ribcage, pulling out another chunk of maggot-ridden flesh, before shoving it down the monster's throat. The other pairs of arms grab her by the wrists, pinning her body against the floor.


Peggy: "You think you can defend everyone with those wiry arms of yours? Imbécile! Soon they'll be mine as well! This is for getting in my way, Eigla!"


With incredible strength, the armgirl begins to pull Eigla's arms out of their sockets, muscles and ligaments snapping under tension. The shieldmaiden screams as her elbows give out, focusing all her power in not being dismembered. In a fit of clever madness, she loosens out her joints, allowing her limbs to return to their natural, gooey form. Peggy grits her teeth as the arms she was holding onto simply stretch out like taffy.


Klimt and Rosa are still too far to intervene, and the boy's mental state means he'd be of little help. Malia decides to tilt the odds into their favour. Connecting her mind to the others', she absorbs some of Klimt's madness, and forces another involuntary movement in Peggy's legs, causing her to tumble towards the approaching party members. The arm creature attempts to resist, but Malia's control is too strong, pinning her to the ground and draining her of all her agility.

With a muscular spasm, Rosa disables the safety of her shoulder cannons, and fires away at Peggy. One huge blast destroys the girl's jaw, while the other rips out the entire front of her face, eyes and nose exploding into a disgusting shower of gore. Almost immediately, new pairs of arms shoot out from Peggy's throat, distorting her voice as she screams in rage.


Peggy: "R҉̸̛͟O̵͢҉̷O҉̴̵̀͘Ó̧O͏̶O̡̨Ơ̸Ǫ҉̀O̸̴̢͟O̵̴͘͟S̸̨̀͝A̧͟A̢͢A̷̸͜A̵̸͞Á̶͟͠͏Ą̀!̶͘͡"


Klimt is quick to follow up, uncoiling his meatsnakes to rip out Peggy's legs, as well as carving a huge hole in her torso, attempting to reach the source of the corruption. The damage is grisly, but ultimately leads to her form simply growing and distorting even more, sprouting dozens of angry, muscular arms to replace any lost Flesh.

Peggy: "Į͡Ş͝͠ ̕THI̕҉͠S̛͠ HO̧͝W͏ ̶͟YO͘U̕ ̡T̀R̀E҉AT̷ ̧̀Ỳ̵O̧U̵R͟ L̀OV̶ER̴̶͞?͘͡ ͠҉̵T̡̛̛R̀A͟҉I̸T̡Ó̸͜R,̵͠ ͝TR̕A̴I͜T͝Ǫ̛͠R̴!̕͏͞ ̢I ͘͢TR̛͟U͘͞ST͏̀E͏͠D̸̨̨ ͘Y̷͡O͟U҉,̵ ̕͏K͢͢L̸͟I̶Ḿ̕T̨̧!͡ ́Y҉҉̛O͞U̡ ͟͏W͟͠͏E̸R̷̕È҉ ҉S̨͢Ų͝P̷̶P̨ƠS͏E͝D̨̕ ҉̸͘T̸Ó̴ ͟S͠AV̕Ȩ̸͘ M̕͞È!҉ ̛N͜͜ÓW ́͠L͢O͡OK̕ ͡͝W̨HA̵T̛͞͝'͞͠Ś̷ ͏҉̶HAṔ͠ṔE̶͏̨N̷̛ED̢͝!̨"


Rosa decides enough is enough, and attempts to use her piston-powered tail to bat the monster away. However, Peggy's arms are surprisingly strong, and simply grab the shark limb, stopping it mid-attack! Dozens of hands grip her grey skin tightly, before lifting her entire body, spinning it around, and smashing it down onto klimt like a gigantic sandbag. The boy is crushed under Rosa's massive girth and weight, and feels his spine breaking against the rocky floor, as his ribs pierce his innards.


Emilia: "KLIMT! GET AWAY FROM HER!"


Peggy's body is now a huge, centipede-like tube of long arms and wicked talons. It rears its bulk angrily, continuously sprouting new limbs around its bloody, circular maw.



Combat map:
[] - Tartarus
[] - Hades
[] - Limbo
[Eigla, Malia] - Elysium
[Peggy, Rosa, Klimt] - Eden

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

BATTLE:




The Peggy-monster rears its great body, preparing to smash down onto Rosa. Eigla is quick to act, however, leaping in front of the creature and taking the hit instead. She is violently thrown to the floor, crushing her jaw against the rocky terrain.

Klimt attempts to whip at Peggy, but her hundreds of arms grab one tentacle each, completely stopping his attack. They then start thrashing, slamming him against nearby objects, before spinning his body in a wide arc, the arm-worm impossibly contorting at dozens of revolutions per second. He feels his meatsnakes begin to tear, until they finally snap and send him flying away at nausea-inducing speeds. He's sure to hit a rocky ledge and splatter into a thousand pieces, and-

*SKLURTCH*


Huh. Well, he hit SOMETHING, but it didn't hurt at all. It's really soft, and bloody too. Weird, but comfy. Oh, hi Rosa!

Rosa falls to her knees, spine and pelvis completely pulverized by the Klimt lodged in her body. Flood-like amount of blood and other fluids fall from the wound, and she loses all sensation below her stomach.

Except, of course, the pain. It hurts A WHOLE DAMN LOT.


Malia realises things are not going well. After absorbing a bit more madness from Klimt, to make sure he doesn't go unhinged from realizing his current predicament, she redoubles her efforts in controlling Peggy's mind, wielding her strings like bullrider's reins. After several stressful seconds of thrasing and wrangling, the centipede falls to the ground, twitching uncontrollably.

Klimt sees his chance. Turning his entire body into tentacles, he begins slashing away at Peggy's body, pulling away dozens of arms, then the hundreds that sprout to replace them. Eventually, the monster's regeneration seems to slow down, and he sees something human, deep inside its foul mass.

Peggy's face, contorted in anger, hundreds of tiny, blood-covered hands sprouting from her mouth and nose like nightmarish broccoli. It is a horrible sight, but - It might be the last he ever sees of her. He buries the image deep in his mind, before continuing his assault.

Dozens of tentacles enter her eyesockets, wrapping around her bloodshot eyeballs and optic nerves. With a mighty tug, Klimt pulls out her eyes, along with both halves of her brain, the grey hemispheres being torn and partially liquefied as they're forced out through her eyesockets. The movement is so quick it creates a vaccuum inside her skull, and the back of her head implodes, showering him in gore and bone fragments.

She's dea- WAIT NO SHE'S STILL FIGHTING. Hands clenched into angry fists, Peggy prepares to -

BANG

A large bullet hole appears in the middle of the catterpillar's body, stopping it in its tracks. Another follows, then another, and another.

Rosa is back from her momentary stupor from being Klimtstruck. In fact, she's not just back. She's ANGRY.

Screaming in mad fury, the sharkgirl begins shooting Peggy again again with all her guns, then sprouting new guns when they run out of ammo. Her arms explode into ugly, crooked machineguns, and her ribs push out through her ribcage like long rifles, shooting bony bullets from their hollow interiors. Mortars jut out from her shoulders, and her torso deforms backwards as a huge, fleshy blunderbuss pushes out from under her engorged stomach. While the others take cover, putting their hands on their ears, Eigla grabs Peggy from the back, making sure she can't evade the final shot.

BOOM

When the echoes and smoke dissipate, all that's left of Peggy is a deformed, burning mass of flesh and bones, peppered with bullet holes and metal fragments. A few arms still twitch weakly, but she's as good as dead.

You won!

Well, whatever victory amounts to, in this case. Eigla dusts the blood and soot from her clothes, as she surveys the results. Klimt's entourage seems to have shrunk by one, and Rosa - Well, she's no longer mobile, much less human-shaped.

Not much of a victory, is it?