BOOM. Flame erupted from the front of the rifle like a gout of dragon fire. A round fling directly for the brain of great frog launching its tongue at Ozzy.
One of the fatal flaws of theses monsters was their all in nature when it came to their attacks and movements. If they were leaping, then by the gods they were goin’ far. If they were shooting a tongue out, then you best believe that was all they were thinking about. The frog launching its tongue at Ozzy might as well have painted a perfect target on itself.
The round burrowed into the frogs face like an AT rocket, piercing the outer layer of skin and bone before erupting inside of the frog’s cranial cavity. Brain, bone, and all manner of bodily fluids went up in the air. The frog being left with a lower jaw, and not much else in the way of a head. The explosion had also served to sever the tongue. It flew past Ozzy harmlessly, landing nearly two hundred feet off from where the frog slumped, headless, into the rotten earth.
Ignorant to the demise of their brother, or maybe it was a sister? Ozzy couldn’t remember if Trinidad had explained frog genders to him, but he went with female just to be safe. He was pretty sure he’d read somewhere that female frogs were meaner and bigger. Repressing the urge to shrug at his mid-fight internal ramblings Ozzy locked back onto the rapidly encroaching frogs.
Flying directly towards him the closes frog was on a collision course with his position. Had Ozzy been the kind of person to freeze rather than fight or fly he might have been in trouble. As it was however the attack was so telegraphed it would be literally impossible to get hit without allowing it.
Rather than simply dodging Ozzy activated void shift for the second time that fight, right as the encroaching monster blocked out the sun above him. As the frog landed on him his world went black, but he was already moving to escape. While Ozzy wasn’t sure if void shifting inside of the monster would do more than confuse it he hoped it’d give him a better opening to attack with.
Despite the ability being on the expensive side compared to his other abilities so long as he wasn’t summoning rounds mid fight most of his powers weren’t to the level where he actively feared running out of mana. It was something he was glad for as more than just allowing him to stress the details less it allowed him to experiment.
Stepping out into the clear air still in void shift Ozzy came out of the frogs back. It was busy, as Ozzy had expected, looking around in confusion and letting out small, short ribbits.
It was I’ll prepared as Ozzy sneaking around to the frog’s side pressed both hands down against the monster’s leg and pushed as much mana as he could into his powder strike ability. BOOM. An explosion nearly twice as large as any he had previously made with the ability tore the limb apart, reducing it to strings of pulverized meat and broken bone.
Ribbitting in pain the monster made an ill-conceived attempt at leaping away, only succeeding in throwing itself sideways and at an unusual angle. Ozzy no longer cared to waste time on it and opted to test out one of his new abilities.
Sticking a hand out to the side he pushed mana into a similar channel as the one that summoned Frank. Though this one was notably less expensive, and personal. At his side a pile of rats nearly twenty strong formed. They weren’t the cute kind of rats you might see at a pet store or like Ozzy’s own rat form. These were mean, stringy, and wiry, looking street rats. They looked as if they’d been bred to fight, each of them just a tad above the average size of a rat Ozzy had come to expect back on earth.
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With a thought Ozzy commanded the rats to charge after the injured frog. Then second guessing their capabilities summoned another pile of rats, and of any army of rats needed a leader, and he summoned Frank. His little buddy hadn’t even needed any words of encouragement or instruction, simply herding the freshly summoned rats off to fight a battle they most surely would have lost had Ozzy not first injured the monster. Frank moved like a little general, chittering and squeaking at the disorganized fray of rats and forming them into a cohesive dangerous looking unit.
Trusting the fate of the injured frog to his little buddies Ozzy turned to face the final frog. It had already been injured, Ozzy saw blood coming from its abdomen where he’d initially landed the shot to bring the monster out of the sky. It was a nasty wound, though not the kind that would kill easily. In fact it would probably be weeks before the wound even began to become something capable of putting the monster down, that was if it didn’t heal first of course.
Dismissing his rifle Ozzy opted for something a little more familiar, the big iron. Recently he hadn’t been as big of a fan of the weapon, largely it had come in use mostly as an anti-human tool rather than one capable of tangling with monsters. That was a classification Ozzy wasn’t comfortable with however. He wanted to be able to use whatever ability he had in whatever scenario he fell into. If he had to fight monsters in a tunnel or in some other tight space then the pistol would be the way to go, even with its reduced stopping power.
Knowing the limitations of the revolver however Ozzy had entered this experiment with some tweaks. Namely, he used one of the powers granted him by his blessing to augment the rounds. While going in a similar vein to the way he had formed his rifle rounds, he also struck a pattern similar to the way that the SOB slugs were formed. Turning the revolver rounds into mini, shrapnel spreading, explosive ordinance.
Fanning the hammer at the encroaching frog Ozzy was rewarder with four hits, his fifth and six shots only just going wide. The ones he did land however were devastating. Not in the same horrific fashion as his rifle or shotgun rounds but they did pack a punch, then with six of them they were almost enough to make up the difference on their own. Though the cost for forming the special rounds did almost begin to approach the realm of not being worth it.
Despite their increased cost the results spoke for themselves. As Ozzy reloaded the gun he watched as the frog began to leak blood like a fountain. The wounds were all gruesome, looking like someone had gone and ripped out a barbed arrowhead everywhere they’d landed.
Raising a hand as the frog came to a heavy landing in front of him Ozzy cast unholy darkness over the frog. Despite the impenetrable dark his eyes were somehow able to make out the shape and form of the monster within. It writhed and spun about in confusion, moving just in time to catch another volley of six shredder rounds from his revolver as he was deciding to call them.
Right as he was getting ready to lay the finishing touches on the frog however he felt the very world around him shake. It was like someone had gone and tuned the very care of this world to a bass booster, thumping it every six seconds or so. It was an unnatural sensation, and it drove a primal fear into the very roots of his soul as he looked about for what might be the source.
In his searching he caught Trinidad. Unlike the way he normally saw her, running towards the enemy looking terrifying, she was doing much the opposite now. Running for him with a look of barely contained fear etched across her strong features.
“What’s-” Ozzy didn’t even have the time to ask her what was wrong as she caught him with a single arm, still moving at speed. She was moving so fast Ozzy felt like he’d been folded over her arm, and she leapt up. Explosions going off beneath her as she ran back for the catamaran like a wolf pup with its tail between its legs.
