Anyway; in my head, the setting for this is a town in Avatar: The Last Airbender, in a valley, where Zuko and Iroh end up fighting Azula, and Aang gets involved as well. According to Google, it's called Tu Zin.
043 – Dying
Panting, Eve collapsed onto one knee. Her crossbow was
smeared in green residue, some sort of ichor from inside the enormous plantoid
that was shuddering its last in front of her. Its roots, ripped from the ground
as it thrashed, were turning brown, wilting even as she watched.
Something buzzed at her shoulder, and then Tic was next to
her. His brass casing was covered in the same slime that the plantoid had
vomited up; he shook himself and Eve recoiled as more flecks landed in her
hair.
“Watch it,” she growled.
“Sorry,” the little Cog replied.
“Better record this.”
A small hatch opened on the front of his casing and a long
bluish-white line shone onto the top of the creature. It quickly swept down it
from top to bottom, then turned sideways to sweep across it horizontally. Eve
could feel the heat from the beams and breathed in the sharp scent that always
accompanied their use. It was a useful trait, though; the little Cog could
produce three-dimensional models of the creatures it scanned on demand.
The light flicked off like a candle being snuffed. “Got it,”
the Cog chirruped.
The spasms had died down now and the mass of green vines
were mostly still. Its head, a massive sunflower, was rocking back and forth on
its stem.
“I wonder why the necks are always so thin,” Eve mused. She
took a few steps away to get a better view. For all that this thing had been
trying to kill her a minute ago, she felt remarkably calm. Perhaps, a part of
her thought, this has become the norm.
Tic moved with her. “It’s only the same relative thickness
as an ordinary plant. Just scaled up,” he said, then added, “I’m not sure it’s
dead yet…”
A groan sounded from the planetoid. A thin slit seemed to be
opening in the centre of the sunflower, the coal-black seedpods separating to
reveal bark-coloured teeth and a lashing green tongue. Droplets of a clear
liquid – sap, she realised – hung from the teeth. With a noise like a thousand
kettles boiling at once, it gave a hissing scream and hauled itself upright.
Crouching, ready to run, Eve shouted “I thought we killed
it!”
Tic bobbed left and right, a shrug. “Run,” he suggested.
Eve ran. The canyon they were in was long, perhaps half a
mile, and the sides were steep; climbing them would be suicide, as the
plantoid’s roots were far better designed for rough ground. Ahead, the ruins of
the town that had sent for her, completely destroyed by the creature, came into
view. Behind her, she could hear the planetoid crashing forwards, knocking
rocks and small trees out of the way in its fury. The whistling scream seemed
to go on forever.
“What… can we… do…?” she panted. Tic, several metres ahead,
cut his speed and allowed her to catch up.
“Fire,” he said. “Burning it might be the only way. I’ve
analysed the scan; it seems like it’s got a secondary brain centre in the
flower head.”
“Brilliant,” Eve muttered, gasping for breath. Her legs felt
like buckets of water and she gritted her teeth, pushing towards the nearest
building. She had the brief impression of a two-storey building, chimneys, most
of the roof gone and a chunk of the second floor missing, and then she barged
into the partially-open door. It slammed back on its hinges and then swung
closed. She looked quickly around the room; an inn, fireplace empty, chairs and
tables scattered around and in various states of destruction, and a long bar
with a cabinet behind it.
“I need ideas, Tic,” she said, looking around for something
to block the door with. The door suddenly looked very flimsy, and outside the
sounds of carnage were getting closer.
“The spirits,” Tic said, buzzing over to a nearby cabinet.
“Alcohol is highly flammable, especially…” he floated closer, lights
flickering. “Especially when it’s illegal moonshine,” he finished.
Eve ran over and vaulted the bar. Behind her, the sound of
hammering began on the door. She picked up a bottle in either hand and hefted
them; they were dusty and half-full with something that had a distinct brownish
tint.
“We don’t have a way to make a spark, though,” she said. A
window smashed and a green tendril, long and hairy, thrust its way in. It
groped around blindly for either of them, then withdrew. Further along, another
window burst in, glass showering the floor and bar, and then another. Tendrils
flailed wildly, hammering massive dents into the floorboards.
Eve threw the bottles she was holding and grabbed two more.
They smashed, some of the liquid splashing onto the tendrils; the green mass
quivered and the whistling momentarily increased in volume and pitch. Then the
tendrils all turned flat against the wall and pulled.
The entire front wall of the inn crumbled away, revealing
the massive bulk of the creature. Daylight flooded in. For a split second, Eve
was paralysed by the enormity of what lie before her. Cornered, she trembled.
Then desperation took hold of her, and she began to hurl bottle after bottle
onto the plantoid as it advanced.
Each impact seemed to
cause it pain, but still it advanced. The spirits gave it a thin shiny coating,
making it glisten in the light. It squeezed itself between the ceiling and
floor and, as it whipped its tendrils forward to grab her, Eve ducked behind
the bar.
“I should have noticed it wasn’t dead as soon as I went to
scan it,” Tic said. “I’m sorry.”
A seed of an idea blossomed in Eve’s mind at his words, and
then the bar was ripped out of the floor and she was sent flying. A thick
tendril grabbed her around the waist and lifted her clear of the floor. As she
was drawn closer to its mouth, the plantoid filled her vision. Its breath
rolled out of its mouth like rotten compost.
Staring into its maw, Eve shouted “Scan it again! Focus your
scan on one tiny point!”
“Why-“
“Just DO IT!”
The little blue-white light flicked out of Tic’s casing
again, and then narrowed to a single point, focused on the tendril holding Eve.
Instantly she could feel the heat it gave off, magnified tenfold now that it
wasn’t spread out, and she felt the vice-like grip around her waist loosen.
Then a single spark of flame licked over the spirits coating
the plantoid. Almost immediately, Eve was thrown away as flames washed over the
entire creature. The horrendous noise it was making increased in volume and it
stumbled backwards, out of the inn.
Tic was by her side in an instant. “Eve, are you ok?”
“I will be,” she said, rubbing at her waist. She got to her
feet and cautiously moved towards the plantoid, now the centre of its own
funeral pyre. “I suddenly remembered something they taught us at the college.”
The screaming died down and parts of its body fell in on themselves,
blackening. “There was a famous general who used lenses and mirrors to focus
the sun onto a fleet of invading ships.” She shrugged and gave a short laugh.
“At least my report will make for interesting reading.”
Eve frowned. How could she make jokes when, a moment ago,
she had been about to die? When there was something alive dying in front of
her? The last screams echoed off the canyon walls and the only noise was the
crackling of the flames and the purring of the Cog next to her. It was a long
time before she turned, wordlessly, and headed back towards her camp.
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