The airship lifted away and zoomed back towards the center of the city.

  “Maybe we could negotiate with it,” Samsara suggested.

  “No way,” I said. “They’d never let us go, even though we aren’t feral.”

  “What should we do then?” She asked.

  Run. This was a terrible place to fight. We needed to go deep into the Wild Lands. If we managed to make it there, then that means we would have outrun the mech. And any help the humans would send would take too long to reach us.

  “But it’s standing in our way,” Samsara said.

  That was true if we only took the roads. But there was nothing truly stopping me from going any other direction.

  Still, there was one issue we had. Samsara had been dragged across the road when I ran. Thankfully, she slithered with me. But I wanted to make sure we went as fast as possible.

  “Hey, can you wrap your tail around my torso?” I asked her.

  “Sure.” She coiled around my stomach and chest, leaving my arms and legs free. Another benefit of this was that with her new [Hardened Scales], her tail would protect most of my organs since I’m pretty sure my skin would easily be cut up by the mech.

  That only left a handful of our body parts unprotected. My limbs, and both of our heads. Hopefully, the humans wouldn’t think to cut there first.

  The mech just stood there, menacingly. The humans inside of it had to have known that we weren’t feral. They were still thinking about how to handle us. Clearly, we weren’t trying to be a threat; otherwise, we would have rampaged in the city. But the fact that the humans decided to drop the mech in front of us was quite telling.

  They wanted to trap us. Otherwise, why deploy the mech just in front of us? Thankfully, I had other places to run to.

  I began running diagonally to the right.

  A crunchy snap brought pleasure to my ears as my ink-covered foot stomped on a tiny suburban house below me. I smirked as glass shattered, timber splintered, and drywall crumbled. Modern human architecture didn’t stand a chance against me.

  I’ve never had this much power in my whole life. Ever since I was ten years old and became a squid girl, stealth was my number one priority. Even when hunting, I had to be meticulous. But now, I was easily destroying property on my path to freedom.

  A heavy metal clanking sound echoed behind us, snapping me out of my euphoric thoughts. Right. I still had to be cautious. Samsara turned around. Since our vision was shared, I also saw what she saw. And it wasn’t good.

  The mech was sprinting toward us. Its scythes whooshed through the air. Right now, it was heading perpendicular to where we were going. I quickly pivoted on my feet and made sure I was running parallel to the mech. This should delay the mech from catching up to us.

  I ended up stepping on a myriad of fences, garages, and houses. But unlike before, I was focused simply on running. Adrenaline pumped through my blood. I wasn’t going to let that dumb piece of metal catch up to us.

  Exiting the suburb, I ran across the grass of the Wild Lands. A thick forest full of trees stood in front of me. Even though I was a hundred meters tall, the Collum trees dwarfed my size. Many of them surpassed 1000 meters. The tallest Collum tree in the world was supposedly over 2000 meters tall. A small clearing was in front of me, so I headed towards it.

  “It’s catching up to us!” Samsara panicked. Her fear leaked into my mind.

  Should we fight it? We shouldn’t let it get the first attack.

  “But it killed that Kaiju tiger girl,” Samsara said. “What could we possibly do against it?”

  Wait a minute. Its legs. They were completely unprotected. Well, technically, it was a bunch of thick metal armor, but there were no scythes there.

  “Get ready to duck,” I told Samsara.

  “I hope this works,” she said, realizing what my plan was.

  I stopped running and turned around straight towards the mech. It didn’t stop sprinting toward us. I dived towards its legs, using my hair tentacles to shield my face. Samsara also dropped her head. The left scythe went straight past me. But the right one didn’t.

  Pain seared itself onto Samsara’s face. I winced as I shared her pain. And then I collided with the mech’s legs.

  I rolled onto the ground as a loud crash echoed throughout our ears.

  I could feel tears swelling up in Samsara’s eyes as she yelped out in pain. A deep gash was on her cheek, leaking blue blood.

  Anger swelled up inside of me. How dare those humans harm Samsara?! I was going to make them pay. Getting off the ground, I peeked at the mech that was now stuck in a tree. Its arms were struggling to free itself of the thick wood. Good.

  I jogged up to it and activated [Serrated Tentacles]. My tentacles sliced through the top of the blue-painted metal of its legs, leaving behind exposed wiring. A gray liquid leaked out of the torso, dismembered legs. A foul stench entered my nose. I definitely was not going to eat that.

  Wood splintered, and the mech freed itself from the tree. Its arms rotated and swung backward toward me. The scythes collided with my tentacles, sending me tumbling back. At least my hair didn’t get cut. My [Armored Tentacles] mutation was working.

  I grunted and got back up. The wound on Samsara’s face had fully clotted and was beginning to heal. She had to have been using up a lot of mana. On instinct, I activated [Sacrificial Mana Transfer] to help her, but that did nothing as our mana was shared.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  The legless mech squirmed on the ground. Since it couldn’t get up, I focused on Samsara.

  “Are you alright?” I asked, taking a closer look at her wound.

  “I’m fine,” Samsara grunted, her voice shaky but fierce. “But that bastard almost took my face off.”

  “Almost is too far,” I snarled, glaring down at the twitching heap of blue-painted metal. “I’ll get both humans inside as a meal for us.”

  The mech’s scythes twitched again, its pilots still trying to maneuver the crippled machine upright. Sparks rained from its ruined chest as it dragged itself through the dirt away from us. Each motion was a pathetic, stubborn crawl. For a moment, I almost pitied it. Almost.

  And then it set itself upright. Its eyeless cockpit, a metal helmet with a single piece of black stained one-way glass, stared at us.

  “We should just leave,” Samsara said. “It’s half-dead. It’s not worth the risk.”

  “They’ll repair it,” I growled in my mind. “You know they will. They’ll fix it up and send it right after us again. Or worse, they’ll make it even stronger.”

  I felt Samsara hesitate through our shared mind. Her fear bled into me. “Isn’t it too dangerous to fight? Even without its legs, it flung us backwards with those scythes.”

  “It can’t attack both of us at once,” I pointed out. It only had one head. If we attacked the mech from different sides, then it couldn’t focus on both of us.

  Samsara took a deep breath. Just a resigned sigh that felt like an exhale through both of our lungs.

  “Fine,” She said softly. “Let’s kill it.”

  I began approaching the mech, and it jerked one of its scythe arms up. It reminded me of when I hunted a feral scorpion girl. After I had ambushed her from behind, she bared her stinger at me on her limp legs. The mech was just that, injured prey trying to be dangerous.

  I started walking towards the left while Samsara slithers to the right. The head of the mech was tracking me. Good. Samsara kept her tail arced away from the mech, out of range of the deadly scythes. I kept my face focused on the mech as I continued circling it, and Samsara gave me a thumbs up on the direct opposite side of the mech.

  “Now,” I told Samsara. I activated [Serrated Tentacles] and sent them racing through the air towards the legless mech’s sides. Its arms started to convulse, the scythes attempting to deflect each tentacle. I grunted, attempting to stand straight as my tentacle hairs were swatted to the side.

  Samsara rushed towards the back of the mech, her claws bared and ready to slash. She dug her claws into the back of the mech, the scratching letting out a horrible metal screech. The mech stopped trying to attack my tentacles and swung its arms backward, hitting Samsara in the chest. She was sent flying back, her tail straightening out and becoming taut. Uh oh. I found myself launched towards the Kaiju, Samsara’s tail pulling me along with her.

  The mech grabbed my neck. I coughed as I felt it squeeze me. Crap. The pilots probably thought they couldn’t injure me with their scythes, so they were just going to choke me to death instead.

  “Ramona!” Samsara cried out. She slithered as fast as she could towards me.

  I felt a crack in my neck as the pressure intensified. Can’t breathe. Was this the end?

  Samsara slashed at the shoulder holding me, adrenaline giving her the strength to cut straight through the metal.

  I gasped as I fell to the ground. My mana quickly began repairing my neck.

  Samsara ducked as the left arm tried to grab her from behind. My mind quickly refocused, and my tentacle hairs sliced through the left elbow, sending the forearm and the scythe hurtling to the ground. I cut through the rest of the arm, leaving the mech completely limbless.

  It’s over.

  “It’s over,” Samsara repeated, breathing a sigh of relief.

  Now, it was time to eat. I had my [Serrated Tentacles] cut through the cockpit. Inside, there were two humans in what appeared to be white latex suits strapped to chairs. It was just like what I had seen in ads shown to me on my phone without my consent. Why were two of them needed to pilot the mech? The ads never explained. A plethora of wires jutted out of the pilots. I carefully grabbed both of them with my fingers, ripping them free from their wired connections. The cut wires in the mech sent sparks flying into the air. So pretty.

  Each of the humans was tiny, around the size of a large ant. The one held by my left hand was a man with brown hair. The one in my right was a woman with blond hair. I didn’t see any wrinkles on them, so they were probably in their twenties or thirties. I could smell the fear oozing off of their bodies. They trembled and squirmed against my ink-covered fingers.

  “Which one do you want to eat?” I asked her out loud.

  “I’m fine with either,” She shrugged. “Should I still eat him with the clothes and wires though?”

  I had seen videos of other Kaijus eating parts of buildings and vehicles to get to their prized meat inside. It shouldn’t be an issue for us.

  “Oh, that makes sense,” She said. “Also, why were we speaking out loud? I was getting comfortable just transmitting our thoughts.”

  “I just wanted to scare our prey,” I said.

  “That’s pretty messed up…” Samsara muttered.

  “What was messed up is that they tried to kill you,” I pointed out. “Who cares if they suffer?”

  “Have you done that in your hunts?” She asked, her eyes looking downward.

  “No,” I shook my head. “Number one, they hadn’t done anything to harm you. So they got a quick death. And number two, I wasn’t big and powerful enough to taunt them like this. Also, here is your prey.” I gave her the man.

  “Do you want me to cut him up for you?”

  She pursed her lips and nodded as she held out her left hand. I deposited him on her scaly palm. My tentacle hairs quickly sliced him up into four pieces. Samsara put her palm up to her mouth and dropped the pieces of flesh, clothes, and wire bits inside. Through our shared senses, I could taste what she tasted. The wires and clothes didn’t taste that good. Very stale. But the flesh and blood were deliciously salty.

  Now it was my turn.

  “You look delicious,” I licked my lips, staring down at the blond woman held by fingers. She let out a yelp. “Hopefully, you taste as good as your friend.”

  I brought her up to my mouth, and she started to scream, which I simply ignored and tossed her in. As I began to chew, my taste buds felt a mishmash of latex, blood, meat, and metal. I’ve definitely had better meals than this. As I swallowed, I noticed an intense feeling of disappointment emanating from Samsara.

  “How would your mom feel if she knew that you were playing with your food?” She asked with her arms folded.

  “Why are you bringing her up now?” I asked, tilting my head.

  “I don’t think she would be very happy with what you just did.”

  “I’m not sure where you’re going with this,” I said, moving closer to her. “But two things. Number one, we will never know what she would feel about this. And number two, I wasn’t playing with my food. Playing with my food would be like continuously slurping up and spitting down a straw. Or indefinitely poking my food with a fork. This wasn’t anywhere close to that. I ate the human pretty quickly.”

  “Ugh, that’s not what I mean,” She blurted out loud, turning around. “That was just wrong, what you did to him.”

  “How was it wrong?” I asked. “You ate a human, too. What’s wrong with eating humans?”

  “That’s not what I mean,” she said, shaking her head. “Isn’t it wrong to scare your prey like that?”

  “Only if they can harm you,” I said. “Otherwise, I don’t see what’s wrong with giving into our predatory instincts.”

  “It just feels wrong,” Samsara mentally sighed.

  “Does this feel wrong?” I asked, hugging her from behind. She held my arms as I embraced her. Perhaps changing the topic would make her feel better. We hadn’t fought in years. I wanted to keep it that way. I felt thoughts stirring in her mind.

  Suddenly, a thump sound echoed, breaking her thoughts. We looked down at the chest of the mech. Its torso jerked as another thump sound came from inside it.