Jumanji - Astire

Astire awoke with a gasp.

What had happened?

She remembered creeping along the path of luminous stones, their light diminished in the face of the glow of her wings.

"Hail, fair adventurer!"

She jumped, hand half going to her blade before she realised the voice belonged to a normal-looking man who was doffing his straw hat to her.

"Welcome to our humble village!"

She looked around, realising she was, indeed, in a village.  But...how had she gotten here?

"You're welcome to our hospitality, fair adventurer, but I'm afraid we must be askin' for your help."

And why did this all sound so...familiar?

She shook her head slightly.  It didn't matter.  If the people of the village were asking for help, she would help them.  Figuring out the rest could come later.

"What can I do for you?"

Even the words she spoke sounded unnervingly familiar.

"Well, see, for years we've lived in peace with the wildlife round here, but recently things've been changin', and not for the better.  One of 'em, big ol' beast we call -"

"The Swamp Hulk," she murmured.

"Ah, ye've heard of her, then?"  The farmer didn't seem too wrong-footed by it.

"I...I must have done."

"Well, she's been peaceable as anythin' for years, kept some of the worst predators away.  Never bothered with us on account of us bein' barely a nibble to her.  But recently...it's like somethin's infected her.  Ain't safe for anyone to be goin' near her now.  So that's what we need your help with, fair adventurer.  Please, protect our village."

She realised she was mouthing his words almost before he said them.

The unnerving sense of déjà vu only got stronger as she followed the glowing rocks, towards the location the farmer had told her was the Swamp Hulk's lair.

*She gave a startled yelp as her foot suddenly sank into viscous mud that had looked like solid ground, almost up to her hip.*

She paused, crouching and pressing against the ground before her, and wasn't surprised when it gave way and revealed the thick mud beneath the moss that had disguised it. She stretched out her shimmering wings and took off, gliding over the swamp.

Soon enough she didn't need the directions the farmer had given her.  She could see trees that must have stood for centuries snapped and broken like twigs.  Hear the utter silence as even the monsters that had plagued her for almost her whole journey dared not come close.  And smell a vile reek of rot and decay and worse things besides, a horrific smell that made her gag.

But she couldn't see the Swamp Hulk.

*"Hello?" she called, the magic wrapped around her turning her speech into the tongue of the wild world.  "Is anyone there?"*

*And the earth moved.*

*She gasped, and leapt, a beat of her wings hurling her into the sky, as an eye bigger than a horse opened beneath her, and she flew higher and higher as the Swamp Hulk awoke.*

She paused, drawing her sword and focusing, heavenly power flowing through her, readying herself for a fight she somehow knew was coming even if she couldn't explain how.

*The Swamp Hulk roared, an unnatural sound that sprayed flecks of bilious saliva as big as her torso, nostrils flaring as it quested for her with sightless, rage-filled eyes.*

She flew up, holding out her hand, and a spiralling ribbon of light unfurled from it, winding down towards the corrupted swamp beneath her, and the water around it started to bubble, issuing foul smog as it boiled -

And then the Swamp Hulk roared and reared up.

It was bigger than anything she'd ever seen before.  The creature at the heart of the Dungeon of the Mimic King had been massive, but the Swamp Hulk looked as though it could've eaten even that hulking beast in a single gulp.  The mud sloughed off it to reveal a hide scarred and marked from what must have been hundreds of battles with hunters and other creatures of this strange place.

And its sightless, rage-filled eyes focused on her in a heartbeat.

Maybe once it had been a creature of the natural world, but...not any more.  "Please forgive me, great one," she murmured, softly, as though whatever was left of its natural soul could hear her.

And then she charged, diving down towards the beast and striking at its neck with her blade before it could react.  Its callused hide was as hard as steel, but her blade was harder and sharper still, and the supernaturally-strong blow left a gouge across the Swamp Hulk's neck that oozed foul blood.

It didn't even seem to feel the wound, but the attack certainly *enraged* it.  It roared, and reared up, claws the size of a giant swiping for her, but its movements were still sluggish, slow, and she darted between it and opened another wound on its legs.  The foul slurry of the swamp hissed and bubbled as it made contact with the creature's corrupted blood.

She raised her sword, holy light blazing from it, and swooped again, carving into the monster's ridged back - and then it spun, impossibly fast for a creature with such bulk, slamming into her with its tail.

It was only her inhuman strength that saved her from being crushed against the nearby rocks.  Dropping her blade into the swamp below, she pushed back against the creature's tail, slowing the slam enough that she could push herself down with her wings, out of its path - and her heart skipped a beat as she realised she'd pushed herself directly into its grinning mouth.

*It was smart, she realised, far too late, as its claws came down on her legs.  Far smarter than any animal could ever be.*

She cried out as it closed its jaws around her - it was only a mercy that its teeth were too big to find any purchase on her body, but even without its teeth, its jaws alone could crush her, and its tongue was already questing for her in its mouth, hungrily trying to swallow her in a single gulp.

She let her trapped wings fade and pulled free, falling from its mouth back towards the ground - and snapped her wings back out as its gaping maw came towards her, turning her spiralling fall into a dive that send her swooping off to the side, her sword leaping back into her hand, and she turned, sending another ribbon of light to scorch the monster - but even as its hide blackened and blistered, it didn't even seem to care.

How used was this monster to pain that the wounds she'd dealt were nothing?

It was only her holy power that had let her last this long against it, but even with it she was beginning to tire.  She couldn't tell if it was moving slower too, or if it was just her vain hope.

Or if it was pretending.

And suddenly it leapt for her, impossibly high and fast, and there was nothing she could do to avoid it, and its teeth snapped shut around her like a cage, and the impact as it landed again sounded like an entire building collapsing.

*"Not again," she whispered quietly.  First the prismatic monster, then the mimic, now this.*

"Not again," she whispered quietly.  First the prismatic monster, then the mimic, now...this, and these horrible memories that were only now flooding back into her mind.

A warrior was supposed to know no fear, but the idea of being eaten alive...that scared her, more than she could admit.  To just be...*gone*, without anything to leave behind for anyone to even know she had fallen, nothing more than a speck of nutrition to a behemoth.

"NOT AGAIN!"

It was a desperate scream more than a battlecry, and light wrapped around her, her wings stretching out to almost double their normal span, golden light forming into hardened armour around her, power surging through her body, and she raised her sword and it became wreathed in silver light, and she sprang, ramming the blade into the top of the monster's mouth with all her might.

Its hide and exterior might have been so scarred and callused from its battles that it didn't feel the wounds, but the holy power coursing through its body from the inside did what her dozens of blows couldn't, and it howled, screamed, and opened its mouth, and she flew free as it thrashed, wrapping her wings around herself to protect herself, slammed into the swamp water, retching as some of the toxic substance entered her mouth and nose, rolling onto her hands and knees as she gagged - and then there was a sound like a landslide as the monster fell, a wave of swamp water easily three times her size washing towards her.

As she unfurled her wings and looked towards the monster, breathing heavily, it raised one massive foreleg and brought it down, far from her but still close enough that the impact almost knocked her off her feet.  And it dragged itself closer, opening its mouth, and for a moment she just froze. How could it still be living after that? How could its first thought still be nothing but hunger and hate?

And then, with its last breaths, in a voice that rumbled like an earthquake, reverberating through her whole body, it spoke.

"Thank...you..."