The young woman obeyed, flinging herself to the grass as the massive tail swung where her head had been moments ago. The beast the tail belonged to roared.
"Son of a bitch." A deep male voice growled. Its' owner nudged the hat atop his head to ensure it was in position, and drew his katana in a single smooth motion. "Rex needs to pick his creatures better."
The city had been quiet recently, but Rex had accidentally shook things up when one of the monsters he was grooming for this summer's tournament had gotten loose. But the Neo Kobbers were on the job - no sooner did Rex squawk out "Look for the giant eel with the huge mouth near Diamond Alley" then a group of them took off to rescue the city.
It was a fine specimen, to be sure - a gulper eel, taken from the black depths of the ocean and pumped full of Titanoboa genes along with a lungfish air sac. The resulting abomination of science was over 60 feet in length and had the jaw muscles to back up the gaping maw's size, unlike the days it spent in the abyss letting water pressure move its' mouth for it. The creature was "sponsored" by a convenience store that actually belonged to Rex himself, and made use of a certain drink-related brand name he'd acquired from one of his trademark buying sprees.
Yes, he'd named the damn thing Big Gulp.
The giant mantis was outsized quite a bit, but she was still over nine feet of razor-sharp bits, and her flying pass over Big Gulp left shallow streaks of blood.
"Good on ya, Spitfire! Give it another pass!" yelled out the man with the hat and katana. "I'm going in!"
"Be careful, Captain!" cried out the girl from the ground.
"Henh... I don't need to be careful 'long as you're backing us up, kiddo."
Captain Gordon ruffled the hair of the blonde girl and charged in. Big Gulp's massive jaw swung open, the eel salivating at the small prey item running right towards it, but before it could do anything about him, Spitfire showed up right on time with another attack, her long claws slicing more wounds into the eel. With that distraction, Gordon closed the distance and unleashed his sword, slashing again and again at the eel's body. Blood poured, but the creature had been given serious toughness and a lot of protective muscle, and Gordon wasn't able to strike a mortal blow before the creature tail-whipped him across the street. Lying on his back on the concrete, Captain Gordon considered his next move.
"You okay, sir?"
"There is a 97 percent chance he is fine."
Gordon grunted and sat up to stare at the two voices. A small yellow-faced bipedal robot, backed up by several identical ones, looked worriedly at Gordon. In the robot's simple, pincerlike hands was grasped a round machine with a single glowing pink eye.
"Yeah... Yeah, I'm good. That thing has some kick to it, but I've taken worse."
"It is quite likely that it could have dealt far more damage if the angle of attack had differed. You are lucky. Next time may not be so fortunate." the eye rattled off words as if desperate to say them, despite their unhelpfulness.
"We're here to help!" the yellow robot holding the round one offered helpfully.
"Can't you get Tron to do something about that guy's attitude?"
"Miss Tron is trying, but it may take a long time. She's not used to his circuitry!"
"The Fact Sphere is the most intelligent sphere, and requires no additional upgrades."
"Yeah, sure." Gordon grunted as he got to his feet. "C'mon, ya little Lego men. Let's finish this."
Back at the scene of the battle, Spitfire had managed to make a third pass before being swatted out of the sky on a fourth. She hid behind a building, nursing a smashed wing and twisted arm, while the girl was attempting to keep Big Gulp busy by herself. The eel was currently located at a street corner, and a nearby stretch of grass was being used by the girl to channel her power - geomancy. Pillars of earth rose from the grass, pistoning through the air and colliding against Big Gulp. The girl herself was coated in a protective shield, her arms raised and her eyes staring down the eel.
"Sara's by herself out there!" Gordon yelled, picking up the pace. "Hurry!"
The little robots - Servbots - spread out. They knew their best role was as a distraction, so they milled around the eel, diverting its attention from Gordon with shots, punches, and lots of jumping up and down while waving their arms. The one clutching the Fact Sphere stayed near Gordon, while the sphere itself rattled off facts about gulper eels Gordon was pretty sure he never needed to know.
Bleeding and growing exhausted, Big Gulp bellowed and made wide, sloppy strikes with its' tail while lunging with its' mouth. Servbots flew everywhere, but Sara and Gordon dodged the worst of it. Finally, they saw an opening. Gordon gestured to Sarah, and she used her geomancy to make the earth rise underneath Gordon, who used his newfound height advantage to leap onto the back of the head of Big Gulp and slam his katana into the base of the skull. Big Gulp roared, collapsed, gurgled, and was still.
KO
Gordon stepped off the eel carcass, wiping the blood off his katana before sheathing it. "All clear."
"Yay! We can celebrate with ice cream!" Sara chirped. "But first, are you hurt?"
Gordon was about to answer, but Sara cast a healing spell on him before he could. He smirked behind his mustache - she was gonna heal him anyway. So softhearted, that girl.
"Hey, Sara, over here." Spitfire called out, the mantis' head leering from around a corner. "That thing banged me up, I could use a Curaga."
"Coming!" Sara said, dashing off to help the mantis.
"Fact: This animal is dead." announced the Fact Sphere.
"Brilliant deduction." Gordon said, rolling his eyes. "Hey, servbot, get me on the line to Rex."
One of the servbots produced a phone from its' body. Gordon picked it up. "Hey, Rex? We did it. Had to put the thing down, hope you don't mind.
...What? What other one? There was no other one. It was one eel, what are you-"
A human-sized, buglike creature crawled out of the mouth of the dead eel, scurried over to a damaged manhole cover, flipped it up, and slipped in, vanishing. Gordon sighed and rolled his eyes. "You didn't tell us about that other thing."
"Fact: That creature was alive." the Fact Sphere supplied.
"It would've been nice to know that earlier. To both of you."
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