Dark Reunion: Titan Territory part II by Tom Kropp

Editor’s Note: You can read part I of Titan Territory at FreedomFiction.com by clicking here.

Dark Reunion: Titan Territory part II by Tom Kropp

 Scot aimed through his blaster scope from a prone position. He was a short, rugged-looking young man with close-cropped blond hair and blue eyes and many scars over his face and muscular figure. His left hand was a very realistic looking robotic hand from Earth. He was also psychic able to see and speak with human souls. His scope magnified the available light for better night visibility. The nearest sentry’s face loomed huge and horrible in his scope. The saldar had a humanoid shaped head and face, but was also very reptilian with black scales instead of skin, slightly bulbous dark eyes, lipless mouth, pointed teeth, and flat reptilian nose. The sentries wore their simple, bowl shaped iron helmets and chain mail shirts under furs. Their shinbones were protected by knee high leather boots, fitted with thin iron greaves. Their forearms had bracers of leather and mail. The other giants had removed their helmets for comfort. The giant reptilian humanoids all reached at least fifteen feet tall and some topped twenty feet tall.

 Shannon was sneaking in from another position. During daylight she was a pretty, green-eyed, and fine figured, white woman but at night she transformed and her dark matter wolf form was bigger than a Kodiak brown bear with a head huger than a hippo and maw full of fearsome fangs. Her furry form was actually comprised of an alien symbiont that inhabited her body and it made her incredibly strong and swift and resistant to most injuries or illness.

 Sharon flew through the air communicating to Scot any dangers she spotted. She was a beautiful blond-haired and blue-eyed shimmering female soul and former FBI agent. It was her idea to save the beautiful giantess named Elise because Elise could likely get Scot and Shannon safe escort through the mountains filled with clans of humanoid giants.

 Elise was a thirteen foot tall, blond- haired, blue-eyed, rather ravishing and voluptuous figured giantess. She had fled from her father’s clan to avoid an arranged marriage. Her lover fled with her. The results were that the humongous humanoid reptilians, called the saldars, had ambushed the couple, killing Elise’s lover and wounding her before capturing and raping her.

 Scot didn’t have time to study the scene long, the sharp-eyed nearby sentry frowned, focusing on Scot’s spot. It must have glimpsed him, but had no chance to react in time. Scot squeezed his trigger. His blaster barrel spouted out a streamer of plasma that blazed between the sentry’s eyes. Scot double tapped the target, so his second stringer of sizzling, scarlet plasma funneled through the forehead below the helm. The giant’s brain was maimed into a flash fried stew that spewed on the stones.

 Without hesitation, Scot’s scope zeroed in on the second sentry. The sentry heard the blaster’s scream and glimpsed the gleaming beams beaning his buddy. The sentry was quick to jump up and shout out. Scot’s blaster bucked in his hands, strobing photonic flashes that torched the target’s temple and eye. Both rays sprayed its brain, frying it into crisp, battered bits.

 Scot tried to find a head shot on the other pair nearby. They weren’t slow witted. They snatched up their shields and raised them over their heads and chests as they instantly charged him, waving weapons and roaring. Scot didn’t waste time shooting through shields, hoping to hit something. Instead he aimed at one of the sleeping giants that had sat up. Scot’s ruby ray zipped and slipped in the giant’s skull to broil its brain with some blood spatter and smoke.

 The two giants with shields covered the short distance almost instantly on their long legs. Scot had to jump up or be squashed on the stones where he lay. He scrambled sideways and leapt clear as an immense axe and sword struck sparks off the stones where he’d just been. Scot’s plasma bolts were a conflagration cannonade that cooked one giant’s groin below its shield. The giant’s balls were boiled and he screamed in a falsetto note.

 The other giant attacked as it tried to pancake Scot with a paddy whack of the shield, followed by a sword stab and kick. Scot stumbled over the tumultuous terrain as he evaded the shield spank and sword thrust, but the flying boot partially clubbed, and flung him, tumbling down the slope he’d climbed up. The giant quickly scrambled after him. Scot dropped his blaster while banging over a boulder. He hit the bottom hard and managed to jump clear as the giant’s boot stomped near him. He tried to pull his 45, but the swinging shield almost squished him against a boulder and glanced his gun, so it flew from his fingers.

 Scot zig zagged as the giant tried to slash, smash and stamp on him with sword, shield and boots over the uneven, tricky terrain. Scot’s plasma torch was a quick photonic flick that licked and split through the giant’s long mail shirt, roasting and rending the right thigh. The giant reeled as Scot streaked in a leap and cleave of his saber, frying a fissure in his foe’s face.

 Scot landed lightly behind the brute and dodged as the giant whirled, winging his weapons around. Scot was a blur running, jumping, and thrusting his saber in its skull. This time Scot speared and seared the brain. The spinning giant’s shield spanked Scot’s flank, flinging him forty feet away. He managed to land on all fours and rolled. The giant looked confused with its two head wounds. It stumbled two steps before falling on its face, flopping in dying convulsions.

 “Your 45 is here!” Sharon shouted while pointing on the ground.” Hurry back to Shannon!”

 Scot caught up his gun and climbed the slope quick as he could while hoping he wasn’t too late.

 When Shannon heard Scot’s blaster she bolted towards the battle. The ground was full of ditches, dips and hills amongst the stones and soil. She had to watch her footing. When she cleared the trees and sprinted over open ground, the remaining giants had got up and grabbed their weaponry to stumble towards Scot. The trio didn’t see Shannon coming behind them. She landed on one’s back with her maw gnashing into his neck. Her teeth were serrated scissors at the base of his brain, slitting the spine and opening arteries as she almost decapitated him with that bite. The massive monster collapsed dying.

 Shannon didn’t hold on long. She seized and squeezed with teeth and released to leap at the next giant. He saw her coming and raised his shield while trying to impale her with a poke of his spear. Shannon nimbly veered from the spear and darted below the shield, swinging her claws to hack under his mail shirt and tread on the flesh of his thigh, tearing through tendons and flaying the femoral artery. She dashed back as the shield rammed and the spear jabbed another stab at her. The giant’s left leg went limp under him. Her claws had deftly dipped underneath the long mail shirt to lame his leg.

 Shannon swatted the spear strike aside and dived clear as the final giant’s sword swished in a near miss at her back. She bounded around in feints to throw him off as he pursued her with shield raised and sword ready. He made another chop that dropped on rocks where she’d just stood. She pounced past with a lash of her talons that split his wrist so bad he couldn’t use that hand to wield the sword. Roaring, he tried to drive his shield into her spine. Shannon juked and jived in feints and he risked another jump and thump of his shield. The shield smacked stone. Shannon sprang with hooking claws that gnashed his neck, tearing through his trachea and jugular. Blood jetted from the fatal fissure.

 Shannon landed and leapt again as an immense arrow scratched her side flying by. The giant with the lame leg had snatched up a bow and arrows. After grazing her, he drew another arrow to ear while aiming at her. Shannon scrambled and the next arrow hissed venomously inches from her body. This time she was too close for him to draw the bow, so he swung a blow with the bow while seizing his spear. Shannon dodged the bow stroke and it broke, smacking the stones. He tried to stave her skull with a spear shove. She partially parried, partially sidestepped, the point prodding at her eye. She leapt and made a claws rake that skated over his face, rupturing his eyeball. He screamed while wildly stabbing air after her.

 Shannon stood clear of him. Both her first two fallen foes were dead or dying. Her final foe was lame and half blind. She wondered how Scot fared.

Scot stepped up on the ridge with weapons ready. He could see Shannon had things under control. The giant that Scot had pelted plasma into his privates, was still down, groaning in mindless agony. Scot’s 45 thundered and two bullets berated the brute’s brain in twain, ending his anguished existence. As Scot approached Shannon, the lone surviving giant was snarling something in his own language, while on his knees, lame and half blind, waving his spear and shield. Blood was surging in thick gouts out of his femoral artery. He was bleeding out. When he moved his shield to block Shannon’s feint, Scot chastised him with a slug that plugged his skull and shut him up. The giant did some twitching while fading away.

 “You okay?” Scot asked her.

 Shannon nodded.

 Scot walked over to Elise. The giantess was nude, full of bruises and cuts from the rough raping she’d endured. Thick ropes that reminded Scot of school gym ropes secured her wrists together to a boulder above her head. The stab through her thigh was packed with moss and tied off. Scot couldn’t help noticing she had a beautiful feminine body and pretty face. Her huge blue eyes studied him suspiciously. Looming above her was Elise’s lover’s head on a spear, as if watching her abuse. Shannon came to Scot’s side.

 “Elise, my name is Scot. This is Shannon. We won’t harm you. Why don’t you come with us? We can talk more later. If you want to try going off on your own, you can, but with that leg I don’t think you’ll get far.” Scot truthfully told her in the lowland Caucasian language, which Sharon had assured him Elise spoke. “There’s more saldar camped not far from here.”

 Elise was clearly surprised to hear him speaking her language. “You’re not trying to take me prisoner?”

 “No,” Scot assured her. “I’m gonna cut you free and you can do what you want, but you’d be smart to stay with us.”

 “How do you know my name?” Elise wondered.

 “I’m considered a spirit talker among my people,” Scot used the term her people did for supernatural sorts, which Sharon had told him.

 Elise looked suspiciously undecided. Scot helped her decision by chopping the thick rope around the boulder. Elise sat up with her wrists still tied together. Scot kept his distance. Elise was short for a giant at about thirteen feet tall, but he didn’t want to risk being in reach of her huge hands until he knew how she would act. Elise rose and limped slowly over to where her clothing and weapons had been thrown. She used her sword to cut the rope on her wrists. She dressed and leaned on her bow. She picked up the spear to use as a walking crutch, and slipped her bow in a leather case, attached to her quiver, slung over her back. She kept a wary eye on Shannon. Scot returned from the slope. Sharon had guided him back to his dropped blaster. He studied Elise at a safe distance.

 “Do you want to come with us for the night?” Scot asked her.

 “Just for the night,” Elise stressed.

 “Sure. For the night, “Scot assured her. “Come on.”

 Scot started walking. After a moment, Elise followed. The giantess leaned heavily on her stolen spear as she limped along. Shannon ghosted along their backs, looking for trouble. They traveled for a couple hours. It was near dawn when they stopped for a break. Scot put Shannon’s clothes nearby and they waited a bit. When dawn was breaking, Shannon went through her transformation from a huge wolf into a beautiful nude white woman at a safe distance. Elise watched her with wide, astonished eyes.

 “What is she?” Elise inquired fearfully, unable to take her gaze off Shannon dressing.

 “She’s a spirit talker of sorts, too,” Scot answered. “She’s on my side. You don’t need to worry.”

 “How did you know I was captured back there?” Elise pressed.

 “The spirits told me.”

 “Why did you help me?”

 “Because the solders are our enemies, too. And we don’t like rapists.”

 “How do you speak my language?”

 “It’s the same language my people use in the lowlands beyond your mountains. Have you encountered my kind before?” Scot questioned.

 “There’s old tales that our ancestors used to do trade with your kind beyond our mountains. But for many ages the brown skinned, little people, with thunder sticks have held those lands and treat us like enemies if we descend to their lands. Their thunder sticks are hard to fight.” Elise explained.

 “You don’t know what happened to my kind?” Scot knew she was referring to the Conquistadors.

 “The little brown men killed them off,” Elise replied.

 “Shannon doesn’t speak your language well yet. I’m teaching her. We’re planning to go to those lowlands.”

 “They will likely kill you there,” Elise warned.

 “We have our own thunder sticks and other magic. Do you think your clan will try attacking us when we pass through your lands?”

 “Yes,” Elise sounded confident.

 “That’s disappointing to hear,” Scot sighed.

 Elise didn’t respond. Scot didn’t try to push the issue by asking for her to escort them through her clan’s lands. He knew she was still recovering from watching her beloved mate be killed, cooked, and eaten, while she was gang raped. She obviously needed time to process what she’d endured. She’d likely be resistant to returning to her clan after fleeing the arranged marriage. She might want to remain in the wilderness free, opposed to going home and being married off. Scot would have to carefully handle her. If she chose not to return home, he couldn’t force her.

 “What were you doing so far from home?” Scot carefully questioned.

 “My father is chief of the Tulle clan. He ordered me to marry the chief of the Saxon clan. I refused. My love and I fled here, hoping to reach the lowlands and build our own home to be together. The saldar caught us.”

 Scot nodded understandingly. “Do you think your father would force you into that marriage if you returned?”

 “I don’t know,” Elise started crying as her emotional dam broke.

 “What did you say to her?” Shannon was upset over the giantesses’ tears.

 “I was just asking her if she thought her father would try to force her into marriage if she returned. She said she wasn’t sure and started crying,” Scot explained.

 “You have to give her more time to adjust to what’s happened,” Shannon scolded him.

 “Guess so,” Scot frowned. “Let’s hope we can convince her to help us.”

 They waited until Elise got a grip on her emotions before moving on.

When Scot was a 16 year old orphan in a group home, he had his cranium cracked by a baseball bat. He woke up from surgery able to see and hear earthbound human souls. He could see the tunnel of light that good souls traveled through to the other side. He could also see the dark wormhole to hell, and the demons that came through it to seize evil souls and drag them to hell. He couldn’t see into heaven, or purgatory, where souls unworthy of heaven waited to reincarnate as infants on Earth again. Nor did the souls in heaven or purgatory get free passes to visit Earth for kicks often, so there was a lot Scot didn’t know about the afterlife.

 After becoming able to see and hear souls that remained on Earth, rather than going through the light tunnel, Scot encountered Sharon, after she’d been murdered by a serial killer. Sharon begged Scot to help save her partner that was abducted by the serial killer. Scot had helped save Sharon’s partner and catch the killer. That had been the start of their relationship. From there, Scot and Sharon formed a partnership.

 At the time, Scot had been a teenage runaway living on the ghetto streets of Chicago back in 2016. He looked old enough to gamble and had a fake ID. Sharon helped him cheat at playing cards in gambling casinos by telling him the cards other players had. In exchange, he reported to authorities Intel Sharon gave him about killers, rapists, terrorists, and human traffickers. Scot would only go after alpha predators. Sharon spent her time flying around spying on people, in the process, she constantly discovered killers, rapists, terrorists, human traffickers, and such. She told Scot, and he either passed the Intel on to authorities, or took a hand in the investigation to save kidnapped victims when necessary, or plant evidence of the predator’s crimes to get them busted. Along the way, he kept meeting other ghosts of murdered people that remained on Earth, wanting justice against their killers.

 Scot’s psychic abilities led him to working with the FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, the military, and some state agencies. He’d been in the Middle East wars on assignments and lost his left hand there from a bomb. During those years, two of the women Scot loved were killed by terrorists and a serial killer. During a CIA/military mission in the early 2020’s, Scot and Sharon were both sucked through a wormhole from an experimental wormhole making machine. That wormhole opened to the primitive planet named Tier, because it was a wormhole the alien Greys often used. Scot had spent over a year on the savage planet, fleeing and fighting to survive. When he began building more advanced firearms and explosives, the alien Greys spying on their experimental world, realized he was an Earth man. They didn’t want him evolving their planet’s denizens with advanced weapons, so they knocked him out and took him home in their starship. They were the same little, grey skinned, humanoids, with big heads and huge eyes, often described by people claiming to have seen aliens.

 Although he’d only spent about a year on the planet, Tier, over sixty years had passed on Earth, so it was 2086 when he reached Earth again. He then helped the CIA track down aliens on Earth that were like vampires, feeding on human blood and making hybrid, half human vampire creatures of attractive human women. The investigation had finally led to Scot, Sharon, and Shannon, tracking the final vampires to the Brazilian jungle, where they had just finished building a wormhole machine they were using to bring an army of their kind to Earth from their planet, Tier. They’d built the device largely through the skills of another alien species, called Levians. The Levians were helping them. When Scot blew the machine up, it triggered a final wormhole that sucked Shannon, Sharon, and him through. They were trapped on the planet.

 Shannon was actually a beautiful Earth woman, with long brown hair, emerald eyes, short height, and busty figure. She had been a veterinarian and real estate entrepreneur on Earth, before she was attacked by a wolfish creature that was going around killing women. It was another rare alien creature from Tier that came through a wormhole opening. But people on Earth thought it was some kind of werewolf that bullets and buckshot couldn’t kill. Since the killings were occurring in her home region, Shannon had some silver bullets reloaded for her pistol. She’d survived the creature’s attack, with the help of her boyfriend, and her silver bullets made the creature spontaneously combust. Like the werewolves of legends, it was highly allergic to silver. Both Shannon and her boyfriend, Tod, became werewolf creatures. Tod had been killed by the vampire aliens, which led Shannon to hunting them. Scot had been hunting the same vampire aliens and Sharon discovered Shannon’s secret. The hounds on Earth wouldn’t track the vampire aliens because their scent was so hot and bitter that it was like sniffing up habanero peppers. Shannon could track them. It led to Scot and her working together hunting the aliens, which led to them being stranded on the planet. During the night, Shannon transformed into the wolfish creature. By day, she was herself.

.. An alien parasite shared her body, comprised of dark matter, dark energy, and other alien things. While in wolf form, she was incredibly strong, fast, with superb senses, and alien armored, flesh and bones, which could withstand great violence and heal swiftly. But she wasn’t impervious, just difficult to kill. In human form, she also possessed heightened physical prowess and abilities, just not as well as she did in wolf form. They’d dropped on the planet in the vampire creatures’ jungle. They’d narrowly survived the experience, fighting and fleeing from the jungle up into the cold mountains, where the vampires didn’t go because they were cold blooded. They couldn’t handle the cold temperatures in the mountains or deal with the giant humanoids that considered the mountains their territory. That kept the vampires stuck in their jungle, unable to spread out across the savage planet. They lacked the materials, tools, and knowledge to build their own wormhole machine, especially without the Levians help. Shannon and Scot had made it through the jungle and mountains, largely through Sharon’s scouting and warnings of nearby predatory threats from monstrous mammals, daunting dinosaurs, and the many savage, humanoid giants that were the top predators of the mountains. Scot’s backpack from Earth had contained ammo, medical kit, and other useful supplies. But both Scot’s Slypher enhanced abilities, and Shannon’s werewolf parasite, provided them with greatly enhanced healing and immunity to illnesses, which had been the big factor in their survival on the deadly planet

 The companions kept moving through the morning daylight before they were forced to set up a trap for the enemies pursuing them. Elise couldn’t run on her wounded leg and the only choice would have been for Scot and Shannon to abandon the giantess. They needed her guidance through the mountains. Most of the large predators avoided the giants and Elise could likely talk them through any giant clans they encountered that were reasonable.

It was late morning when Sharon warned Scot. “I’m sorry a large party of saldars is cutting you off right now. If you and Shannon fled you could escape, but they’d get Elise. She can’t run on that leg. There’s twenty of them that I’ve spotted. I did find a spot ahead where you could ambush them with what you have left for explosives. I think you guys could take them out with a good explosive ambush, but it’s dangerous. I do think Elise is your safest bet though for getting a safe escort through the mountains.”

 Scot frowned. “Show me the ambush site and I’ll discuss it with Shannon.”

 “Okay,” Sharon agreed.

 Scot lured the pursuing Saldars in by pretending to be hurt and letting them chase him. Seeing their prey looking wounded and fleeing made the saldars reckless in their pursuit. Scot waited until the lead reptilian giant saldars crossed the plastique explosive location, then he jumped behind a small boulder and detonated the bomb. The explosion was a catastrophic “boom” that thrummed through the stone ground and clubbed the air with concussion, conflagration and spiking slate shards. Numerous solders were blown over by the blast. Smoke and fire congested in a cloud hiding some of the solders.

 Shannon uncovered her ears and peeked around the boulder with her machine pistol’s sights guided by her eye. She was in position about fifty yards from the rear of the enemy formation. Those not hit hard enough to be bowled over by the bomb’s shock and shrapnel swath, still experienced disorientation from the deafening noise and force wave, along with the photonic flash.

 Shannon’s sights settled just below the helmet on an enemy. She tenderly tugged the trigger and a tempest of lead luminesced in muzzle fire, barking bullets from the barrel. Her blitzkrieg of bullets knocked him from nose to helmet. Her burst of 9mm rounds ground through flesh and bone, splintering through the skull to do brain damage. The giant looked confused as he reeled.

 Two other giants spotted Shannon and raised their shields. Shannon had time to angle an eruption of ammo, stuttering and fluttering out lead that entered an eyeball and arced up the eyebrow, before hammering the helmet with clangs. The giant’s shield then blocked its head and chest, leaving her no good shot. The half blind, skull fractured, saldar stumbled, but kept charging with its war hammer held high.

 The other charging saldar had its shield up, covering body and head, with a sword raised. Shannon lowered her aim and her barrel vomited a vicious volley that struck sparks off mail as bullets drummed up his thigh to grind in the groin. The saldar’s codpiece protected his jewels from the lead licks sticking him, but his thigh absorbed some ammo in blood blossoms. He carried the charge home and his sword frostily flashed to crash on slate as Shannon deftly sidestepped the strike. The saldar’s shield edge almost pancaked Shannon as she boldly bolted diagonally to get around the giant, instead of fleeing away from it. It tried to kick her, but was too slow. Once behind it, Shannon leapt and landed on its back, grabbing the mail one handed and jamming her muzzle against the mail that extended from the helmet to cover the back and sides of its neck. Her pistol chattered and shattered mail links, finding and grinding flesh through mail rings to reach and breach its spinal column. Blood droplets flew in her face.

 The other saldar angrily rammed his shield into his buddy’s back to smash Shannon flat. She saw the shield coming and desperately dived sideways. The shield missed her to slap the back of the saldar Shannon jumped off. The saldar’s war hammer came down like a thunderbolt. Shannon touched down on all fours and frog jumped from the hammer hewing behind her. She evaded his foot stomp, but lost her pistol during her acrobatics. She bolted behind the behemoth brute and hopped on his back.

 The saldar felt her land and stick on the nether end of his neck. He tried to spin and rake her off, using his hammer as a back scratcher. Shannon tried pulling her other pistol holstered on her hip, but the spinning and her precarious position made her fumble the gun, so it spun from her grip. She saw the hammer coming closer to scrape her off her shaky position. Shannon jerked out the combat knife Scot had given her. She put all her power and precision in a stab at his spine. The tungsten steel, backed by her incredible alien strength, split iron mail rings to drive in his spine. She kicked off his back as the hammer’s point scratched where she’d just been hanging on.

 She landed on all fours. The giant tried to turn her way, but his splintered spinal column wasn’t working right. His legs folded and he fell on his face. The other giant she’d shot in the neck was down, paralyzed and dying, as blood choked his throat. She looked for Scot.

 Scot peeked from behind his boulder after the explosion. Since he was in front of the enemy column, the smoke cloud briefly blocked his view. Suddenly several giants came charging through the smoke. One giant held his shield below his eyes to see, while still covering himself from groin to face. Scot’s blaster scope zoomed in on the solder’s eyebrow and he double tugged his trigger. The blaster barrel screeched like a beast, fluorescing flickers that forked his foe’s forehead. The saldar’s legs folded as his brain awareness died, fried by the refulgent rays boiling his brain.

 The other pair of giants charging held their shields high, to cover them from waist to face. They’d glimpsed Scot and covered the distance quickly on those long legs. Scot lowered his aim and fired below a shield, trying to torch the testicles of his target. That saldar slung his spear in a low throw that arced on target at Scot. Then the plasma burn’s effects jolted through the spear thrower. He folded over, faltering as agony overwhelmed him. The giant’s groin wasn’t gored because the plasma missed his privates to fry his thigh. He dropped his shield and managed to pull his bow off his back, nocking an arrow.

 Scot had to dive aside of the oncoming spear. The huge tip dipped to skate across slate, where Scot had just been. The charging giant hefted his axe and bashed a boulder Scot jumped over. Scot’s blaster barrel spewed phosphorescent flares that glared bright to twice smite the giant’s right leg. The plasma ruby ribbons roasted the saldar’s calf like a haunch of beef. The giant’s cooked, lacerated leg still lashed in a quick kick that almost clipped Scot as he skipped away. Scot scrambled around the giant as the shield boss plummeted down, almost squashing Scot. Scot used his new angle to Taser the saldar’s trunk, pumping plasma in his back that lanced his liver and charred his chest exiting. The saldar staggered, but still turned and attacked.

 The wounded archer unleashed an arrow accurately at Scot. Scot narrowly sidestepped the shaft that almost skewered him, only his superhuman speed and reflexes saved him. The dying, axe wielding, warrior managed a last slash with his axe and a shield slap. Scot hopped back from both blows that shattered stone. Scot’s blaster screamed and gleamed out more beams that speared and seared the saldar’s stomach at an upwards angle, the rays blazed like lava through his lung and intestines. The saldar spilled from his feet finally, fatally fried inside.

 The archer’s next arrow came closer, brushing Scot’s shoulder. The big iron broad head sliced Scot. He dropped his blaster. Scot’s plasma torch flashed in his left fist as he charged the archer. His right arm felt numb from the hard hit, so he didn’t try to pull his 45 pistol holstered at the small of his back. The archer was fast in nocking another arrow and bending his bow, but not quickly enough to effectively aim at Scot’s speeding figure.

 Scot leapt. He sailed high and the giant blocked his face with his forearm. Scot cropped the top of the archer’s upraised elbow, almost entirely lopping the limb off him. The arm only held on by some strands of flesh. Scot landed behind the giant. It wheeled Scot’s way, swinging the bow. Scot dodged the low blow, but the string tripped him. The giant’s boot almost stomped Scot into a mud hole. Scot zig zagged and leaped in a streak to meet the monster’s jugular, jamming his sizzling saber in a deep sweep that reached the carotid artery. Scot jumped off after the cut. The giant managed a final swing, winging the bow like a bat at Scot. Scots reflexes let him evade the wood, but the string grazed him again.

 Scot didn’t see the other archer aiming at his back. Shannon did. She hurdled through the air and staked her blade in his brain, knifing through his noggin, below the helmet. His arrow whizzed wide, skipping off the stone beside Scot. The saldar staggered, reaching up to touch the knife hilt imbedded in his head. Shannon landed lightly and sprinted clear before she raised her pistol to plug his mug with slugs. Her spate of shots clocked him with fractures from face to forehead, before banging on his helmet. He staggered as the brain damage done brought him down.

 Scot and Shannon eyed each other. Shannon had slain four foes and Scot three. Three soldiers were killed in the initial blast and a fourth was unable to rise, due to slate shrapnel fracturing his femur. That lame giant pulled his dagger and lifted a shield to defend himself, but couldn’t get up. The couple turned towards Elise.

 After the initial explosion, Elise rose from behind her boulder. She aimed and sent a shaft speeding with a sibilant hiss that raked through mail rings and ribs, impaling another archer. The skewered saldar touched the shaft that transpierced his torso, hewing his heart in half. He fell dying, with an incredulous expression.

 Another giant charged Elise with his shield up. She launched an arrow below his shield at his exposed groin, but he lowered his shield to stop the shaft. Elise had time to string and fling another arrow that he caught on the shield. Then Elise had to drop her bow and raise her shield and sword in defense as they closed in combat.

 The saldar was a skilled swordsman. Their blades collided with colossal clangs as they stabbed and slashed in the fast clash. Shields slammed as they rammed at each other. Elise’s wounded leg was stiff and weak, but her sword skills were superior to his. After a brief exchange of blades her sword hacked his hand and his finger fell severed, along with his sword. He roared and shield shoved her backwards, while grabbing her sword arm.

 Elise’s wounded leg failed. She was bowled over on her back, with him atop her. He slammed her hand repeatedly on sharp slate and she lost her grip on her hilt. The sword flipped from her fingers to skid away. He let go of his shield to seize her throat in one huge hand, while still pinning her sword arm. He leaned his weight down on her throat, crushing her windpipe and carotid artery. Elise released her shield to nab her dagger. He was laying on her left arm, hindering her movement. She saw spots as darkness closed in her vision from his hand throttling her throat.

 Elise frantically flailed, wildly wiggling. She got a big breath and wrenched her dagger arm free suddenly. She slipped the tip under his mail shirt to reach his ribs and shoved in a surge of strength. The iron incised between his ribs to puncture a lung. He gasped, eyes wide in sudden surprise at the knife strike. He went weak, choking as his lung flooded with blood. She rolled him over off her. Gasping air hungrily, she turned towards the battle.

 Scot and Shannon had dispatched the others and now faced her. Elise noticed the crippled giant on the ground behind them had crawled to a fallen bow and dropped his shield to pick up the bow. She snatched up her own bow and an arrow. She was faster than the other archer drawing and releasing the string, so her arrow zinged to ping his left pectoral, puncturing his heart apart. He gasped, looking down stupefied at the shaft sticking in his heart. He fell over groaning. Scot and Shannon watched the exchange, almost like sports spectators. They could have shot the archer, but let Elise do it.

 “Are you okay?” Shannon noticed his right shoulder was bleeding badly.

 “Arrow nicked me,” he jammed a field dressing on the deep cut.

 Shannon examined Scot’s blood flow. He’d minimized the injury, but it was clearly deep and painful.

 “Can you move your arm?” Shannon was concerned as the dressing became saturated with blood.

 “It’s stiff,” he admitted grimly.

 Sharon floated beside Scot.” You got them all. There’s no others.”

 “Good,” Scot nodded. He glanced around the battlefield. It had been a close call.

 “If there had been a few more of them, we wouldn’t have all made it,” Shannon spoke what he was thinking.

 “The explosives saved us. Now I’m out of explosives.” Scot grimly reflected on the fight.

 “I don’t know how to thank you both,” Elise spoke up suddenly.

 Scot addressed her bluntly. “Look, I know you don’t want to go back to your clan and be forced to marry. But if you try settling anywhere around here you’ll always be dealing with the solders. Or your clan might come looking for you. Or another clan might find you. If you try settling down closer to the ocean you’re going to be constantly attacked by tribes of cavemen and vampires and big predatory dinosaurs. Without anyone to watch your back, your odds of survival aren’t good.

 “You know your way around the highlands. There must be some ways over the mountains, where we could avoid your clan and hopefully other clans. If you could guide us on such a journey, you could come with us to the lowlands. There’s dangers there, but at least you’d have us to help you. I know of places there you could live. Your odds are better there than here.”

 Elise listened and paused briefly before answering him. “I know of many ways through the mountains. Let me think on this. We will talk more on it. Are we safe for now?”

 “We seem safe for the moment,” Scot sighed.” Elise, I know we don’t know each other well, but Shannon and I just risked our lives twice to save you. We could have fled and left you to your fate, but we didn’t. And yes we did have some selfish reasons for doing so. I know that you are friendly with numerous giant clans in the territories that we have to pass through. You can most likely get us safe escort through those territories. I also know that most of the major animal predators avoid the scent and sight of giants, so you’d be a huge help scaring off most animal predators. I’m sorry about what happened to your lover, but we’re stuck in dangerous territory here and we can all help each other survive. Will you guide us?”

 Elise was a smart giantess and didn’t need to think about it long.” I will.”

A couple nights later a twenty foot tall, Tyrannosaurus Rex punched through the brush and roared, glimpsing Elise. It charged her, bigger and faster than a freight train taking off. Elise was quick and coordinated, despite her 13 foot height. She snatched up her bow that already had an arrow knocked. Her arrow seemed to sing from the string with a serpent’s hiss and made a meaty “thwack” tacking the Tyrannosaurus’s torso, licking its left lung, sinking half of its 8 foot length in the beast’s breast. The Rex roared, clearly sore from the arrow boring in its body, but it only hesitated a couple moments. Elise used the chance to bolt a few yards behind a titanic tree. The Rex was right on her heels, but couldn’t run around the tree’s wide trunk in time to nibble her up. Nor did Elise have time to try climbing the tree. She peered around the trunk and sunk an arrow in the Rex’s neck. That hurt the Rex, blood pumped out in jets from its neck wound, where she’d nicked an artery. Elise had to run around the tree and the furious Rex chased her in a circle.

 Scot appeared out of the brush and aimed his blaster. A pair of glistening gouts of plasma perforated the Rex’s face, entering alongside its eye and nailing the nostril. Both bolts smoked while boring and baking its brain. The Rex looked over at Scot and bolted his way. Scot simply, nimbly, skipped away too fast for the Rex to catch. The beast only reached a short range before the rest of its body realized the brain was dead. It made an immense crash as it collapsed, dying.

 The Rex’s mate came tearing through the trees fully focused on the pair that had murdered its mate. The ravenous raging Rex never spotted Shannon as she adeptly ambushed the dinosaur from behind with a gigantic jump and bear trap clamp of her maw and claws nailing the nape of its neck to sever the spine and carve through the carotid arteries and jab open the jugular almost decapitating the dinosaur with one mighty bite and claw strikes.

 It was the first time that Elise had ever encountered a Rex. She had used her bow to slay many massive mammals, but in the past, her immense arrows, backed by the behemoth bow, had done devastating damage upon impact. She had to admit that she wasn’t sure how the encounter would have ended, if not for Scot and Shannon intervening. She was disturbed to consider having to routinely face such creatures in the lower, much warmer, areas dinosaurs preferred. The colder, higher elevations usually protected her people from dinosaurs.

 Her next encounter was with several raptors. They caught up to her while she was alone in the brush finishing her call of nature. The raptors made enough noise for her to hear their bodies brushing the bushes as they rushed. She barely had time to stand, pull her breeches up, and snatch her bow with the nocked arrow. She drew and released a zipping missile that met the first raptor in mid leap. The six foot tall raptor did a back flip in midair as the eight foot arrow, with its barbed, broad head, harpooned near its heart. The impaled carnivore slammed down, flopping around, skewered like a tasty tidbit, meant for a massive monster’s mouth.

 Elise had to drop her bow and snatch the neck of the next raptor that hurtled at her. She was big and strong enough to stop it. Her mail shirt saved her from evisceration as its hind talons skated along her stomach. Its shorter front claws couldn’t quite reach her, nor could its snapping snout. In an impressive surge of strength, Elise flung the raptor away. She got out her dagger, just in time to feed the four foot blade in the gullet of a raptor that aimed a bite at her right arm. Her long leg kicked out, bashing the breast of another beast before it could reach her. She felt a raptor’s bite strike her back and rasp off her mail. She jerked her dagger free of the one’s mouth and dealt a clout to the other’s snout, blinding its eye with her knife smite.

 Shannon showed up. Her profusely popping pistol proficiently poked projectiles in the puss of another raptor. The row of rounds in the raptor’s face put it down. Scot’s blaster winked, kindling a beam that reamed clean through a raptor’s head, maiming its brain beyond repair. It fell kicking. With three raptors down dying, the other pair that Elise wounded, fled in the forest.

 Elise’s mail saved her, so the raptors’ claws and teeth simply scratched her tough flesh through her mail shirt. The creatures had cunningly caught her at one of her most vulnerable moments alone. It was another example of how hard it would be surviving alone in the lower elevations. She’d never encountered raptors before in the colder highlands where she lived.

 The companions kept moving throughout the night with only brief breaks along the way. Shannon went through her transformation at dawn. Shortly afterwards they reached a stream and took a long break to wash up, drink their fill, and munch some food. Shannon was exhausted and sore from being shot. She napped gratefully.

 Elise’s mail was split in spots and she had numerous cuts and punctures. She had a bad cut along the top of her left breast.

 “Can you help me sew this up?” Elise asked Scot, indicating her chest wound.

 Scot eyed the nasty wound. “Yeah.”

 Elise laid down on the grass and wildflowers growing in the meadow beside the stream. She had already removed her mail and her leather shirts. Scot was looking at a pair of firm, well rounded, immense breasts, far bigger than any offered on Earth.

 He tried to keep cool as he used his own medical kit’s stitches, sealing up her wound. He rubbed some mashed forego on it to prevent infection, speed healing and reduce pain. Much as he tried, he couldn’t help admiring her breasts. He had to be pressed against her as he worked. Elise felt him grow aroused through his pants against her. Elise touched him there. They made surprised eye contact that quickly changed to mutual obvious interest. Scot softly squeezed her breast as she caressed him. They kissed carefully, gently exploring what it was like. It was very good.

 “Are you sure?” Scot had to ask.

 “Yes,” she kissed and caressed him more.

 “Well, I really hope size doesn’t matter,” Scot whispered to her.

 Elise gave him a squeeze and smiled mischievously. “Your sword is enough if you use it right.”

 They both stripped and started their fun experiment in lovemaking between a giantess and Earth man.

 Shannon woke abruptly, not sure what disturbed her. She was curled up in the fetal position in a fat tree limb fork about twenty feet above the ground. The myriad of bird songs continued. The tree leaves were still rustling. The stream was gurgling and splashing. Then she heard it again, a soft cry. Swiftly she untied herself from the limb and dropped to the ground. With her pistol ready, she eased through the brush and stopped at what she glimpsed in the meadow amongst the kaleidoscope of wildflowers.

 Scot and Elise were both nude. Elise was sprawled on her back. Scot was standing between her spread legs thrusting away while his hand seemed to be rubbing Elise’s sensitive button. Elise was making soft sounds, apparently enjoying herself. Shannon felt first shock, and then a perverse curiosity. It wasn’t often anyone glimpsed a normal man and a giantess having sex on a bed of wildflowers near a stream. The sun was beaming down on them warmly. It would have made quite a painting. Then, embarrassed at her voyeuristic enthrallment, she managed to turn from the sight and went back to her sleeping tree. She hopped back up to her perch and curled up again.

 She couldn’t get right back to sleep, despite her exhaustion. Her mind had kicked into overdrive, overthinking what she’d just witnessed and analyzing her feelings about it. Surprisingly she felt a myriad of unexpected emotions. She was chagrined to realize she felt hurt, as if she’d been betrayed. That made no sense because nothing had happened between Scot and her. They’d been close friends and partners, repeatedly helping each other to survive. With her heart still languishing over Tod’s death, she just hadn’t had any romantic desires going on. Now seeing Scot and Elise together made her realize her feelings for Scot had grown beyond friendship to some degree. She delved into her feelings while thinking. She wasn’t in love with Scot. She wasn’t feeling like she was ready to have sex with anyone yet. But she had developed a propriety attitude towards Scot. She realized that was her own mistake. Scot hadn’t betrayed her. Perhaps he wasn’t attracted to her that way. She’d certainly sensed and thought he was attracted to her, but was holding back from any overt displays, due to knowing she was still recovering from Tod. Maybe she’d misinterpreted the situation. Regardless, now she would have to deal with the new dynamics because they all needed each other to survive the trip.

 Despite her rational compartmentalizing, she thought it was kind of slutty for Elise to be having sex with another guy only a few weeks after her beloved boyfriend’s brutal murder and her own savage gang rape experience. Shannon felt guilty at that catty thought. She knew some women chose to turn to other men for comfort after losing a lover or suffering something traumatic. Shannon didn’t handle things that way, but some women did. She would have to try not being so judgmental with Elise over the romance with Scot. Shannon mentally played back events over the past weeks, suddenly she could better see how the relationship between Scot and Elise had progressed. It wasn’t hard to understand when she thought about it. They were both attracted to each other. Scot had saved her life repeatedly. It actually made sense. Now she just needed to be okay with it. Despite her acceptance and rationalization, sleep eluded her.

* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright Tom Kropp 2026

Image Source: Dey from Fictom.com