Just like one of Gran's meals, I think we'd bitten off more than we could chew. It was still rumbling right for us.

"Sure you can't shoot it already?" I asked István.

He just shook his head. "Not sure anything I have would leave a dent on it. Like I said…"

I cut him off there, "I get it, one shot."

He nodded. "Yup, one shot."

"Perhaps I can do something," Celistar said, stepping forward.

"We'd appreciate that," I told her. The doom lizard was getting a little close for comfort. We'd have to start running away from the tongue in about a minute.

She placed her hands over her heart and bent her head down as if in prayer. A solemn air descended over her. Nebula streamed in from all around; pulled in from the natural world as though she'd become the center of it all.

A preternatural darkness fell as the afternoon light dimmed to a dusky gray. The area behind and above her glowed with her familiar white-blue lunar Alignment. It grew thick in moments as the energy collecting rushed into it. The blurry features within this growing sphere cleared up, and I realized she had somehow summoned the Moon, as though to watch over her.

Eyes still closed, she held out her hands in front of her, and a shimmering image of a moth appeared. It had huge wings, slowly opening and closing as it sat on her palm.

She blew gently, and the moth fluttered away upon the warm breeze, trailing Motes as it flew.

It picked up speed, going faster and faster until she finally opened her eyes, lowering her hands down to her sides. Tiny in front of a massive foe, it bridged the gap quicker than expected, before setting to land directly on the tip of its nose.

It paused for a second, not knowing what to make of this new intruder.

Then all hell broke loose.

A beam of light so dense it was nearly solid issued forth from the Moon. It impacted instantaneously on the enormous lizard, then went right on through, before carving into the sheer cliff behind it at a slight upward angle. Waves of mist flew off of it, dissipating as quickly as they appeared as a deep thrumming sound shook me to my core.

The beam descended, cutting the enormous body from stem to stern, splitting it entirely in half.

Then it was gone, the silence almost deafening in comparison to the cacophony caused by its passing.

The two sides, now twain, stood for a few minutes before slowly tipping in, slamming together with a wet slap that made me cringe.

At first, I was scared that it would just glue itself back together, but apparently the damage was too severe. The frozen legs slipped outward as the pieces levered against each other to push apart.

It was almost comical how it slowly descended, but even then the impact it made when they hit the ground was still immense, blasting out a gale of wind as the atmosphere itself struggled to make way for the mass of lizard.

Then all was still.

Almost freakishly so.

There was a pregnant pause. Then something changed.

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"I knew it," I said, having had a suspicion it wouldn't go down that easily.

As we watched, enthralled, as the sides broke up into pieces. But not just any chunks. Each chunk slowly gained a semblance of a shape. A very lizard-y shape.

Celistar looked over to me, looking rather drained. Viktor had come over to offer support to her, a massive hand held out for her small and dainty one to rest in. Even if said hand was entirely red. She took it anyway.

"You wanted to do something earlier," the Moon Fairy panted. "Now is your chance."

Sounded good to me.

I turned back to the undulating collection of ever more defined lizards. Time to earn my destructive reputation.

Before I could, however, Steeve appeared, popping in on top of one of those shapes.

Then she took a big bite out of it, chewing slowly. I stared, unsure of what would happen if one ate lizard… goo.

Then she swallowed.

A few seconds passed during which nothing moved, even the copies stopping their constant wiggling.

Then the fox barfed a rainbow.

You would think I'm joking, but a rainbow that looked like liquid light literally came out of her mouth, splashing onto the same one she'd bitten. She disappeared again and reappeared on my shoulder, wiping her mouth with a paw and looking thoroughly disgusted.

Ahead of us, the one she'd, uh, decorated began to violently shake, before bursting into pieces that flew through the air, trailing more colorful rainbows, impacting everything near it. A familiar sound I couldn't place for a moment reached my ears.

Each subdivided creature hit by these then blew apart similarly, and I realized that the noises I was hearing were the same as when Gran made popcorn. It was Steeve's 'rule-of-ridiculous' at maximum power. I was pretty sure the little fox was powered by pure, unadulterated absurdity.

Pok noises filled the air as the small fox proved her ability to be an absolute menace to reality, and common sense. Eventually, the chain reaction worked its way out as it ran out of victims to add to the destruction.

Luckily, the main body had been far enough away when it fell that we didn't have to worry about being collateral damage.

It had been far from complete, though, leaving easily dozens of now fully-formed miniature copies of them staring around in confusion, surrounded by puddles of colorful goop that settled into any depression and soaked the ground.

I stepped forward, looking to contribute to whatever this crazy event had become, when I noticed that none of them seemed interested in us. Instead, they were looking at each other with a look I can only describe as 'hunger'.

The hair on the back of my neck raised as I realized what was about to happen.

Not on my watch.

I sprinted at the carnage as they started attacking each other. No was I about to let that thing put itself back together.

A cloud of Nebula burst forth from me in a semicircular wave. Seeking more to disrupt than harm, it forcibly separated the individuals from the melee. Some of them were already looking bigger than others, with the smaller ones missing notable sections of their bodies here and there.

They tumbled away across the ground, and waves of power flew from my hands as I clenched them.

That's right, I was about to Viktor the ever-loving shit out of these things.

I leapt, landing practically on top of the nearest one as I pounded down with my fist. Residual power swept out as it detonated into a bunch of chunks.

I ignored the ones that hit me, sprinting towards the next one as it met a similar fate to the first.

A series of wet slapping noises rang out as I went around 'popping' the remaining ones with aplomb. I refined my technique as I went, and the residual mass broke into smaller and smaller pieces.

I was determined to ensure that these did not manage to reform, no matter what.

Finally, the last one was rendered into its constituent components by my fists, and I marched back towards the other three.

Viktor had his huge hand out in a thumbs up, showing his teeth in a smile that split his face from ear to ear.

"Now that is how it is DONE!" He roared in approval. I returned the grin back at him, infected by his obvious glee in the moment.

Celistar just shook her head, but she there was amusement in her eyes and toying at the corners of her mouth. She didn't even attempt to hide it.

"You are going to want to wash that off," István commented, looking down at my clothing, making a clicking noise with his mouth that sounded like tut tut.

Ah, right.

My smile became more of a rictus grin as I looked down at myself. I looked like the aftermath of some kind of industrial disaster, coated thoroughly in various viscosities of what I would have been normally referred to as gore, but looked more like some sort of dessert from hell.

No wonder Viktor had given me such high approval; I was basically his twin, just in much nicer clothing.

Well, formerly nicer clothing.

I shook my head wryly. Not my problem. It was their fault for expecting me to keep it clean in the first place.

What was an adventure without getting at least a little dirty?

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