Chapter 4: Sap

It was only a small contingent. Just a couple hundred men dressed in red. Some had medals, but all had fanciful hats and a working rifle. It was nothing too spectacular. Clover pouted, a tad offended at such a low turnout.

No matter, they were enough to entertain. The troops were clumped in formation 1000ft away or so. The plant-woman monstrosity grew a bit with each step. The energies the souls offered was immense. She wondered how long a single spirit could power a train? She was sure if the industry barons had the know how, they’d be shoveling their ancestor’s immortal souls instead of coal in those furnaces.

Clover drew upon them as a colossus about 500ft (152m) in height. She loved how every single step of hers had them cringing. Some building blew up under every footfall. Most structures were shorter in height than her peds were long.

“Just this morning.” she said, her voice thundering louder than the booms of their rifles. “I was the frailest woman in the aristocracy. Now, an army shorter than my toes is sent to deal with me.”

She chuckled.

Just two steps away from the force, a great burst rattled the air. It was a canon, towards the back of the formation. She wasn’t paying attention and didn’t dodge. The black iron sphere ripped through the plant-flesh of her left arm and exited from the other end of the limb. It left an open hole that quickly stitched itself up with vine-like veins (or vein-like vines, they couldn’t tell) crisscrossing one another.

“Ack, you ungracious weasels!” She yelled. It didn’t hurt, but the notion they’d harm her had her seething. Thoughts of her past vulnerability flashed through her eyes. Having to be careful around every pin or needle or jagged nail; having to ration her limited energy. She wouldn’t go back to that.

She took those two steps, then loomed her foot over the troops to snuff them out. Light green sole flesh drew down towards them. They shrieked out and raised their arms. But, she paused before crushing them: a plopping noise had rung out. A drop of her ‘blood’ fell from her left arm onto the ground, splashing some of the front line.

No longer was her vital fluid red and thin, but yellow, translucent and thick: sap. This sap of hers coated no less than three men, who promptly began to moan in agony. Their garbs sizzled as the liquid seeped through it to touch at their flesh.

One man’s shoulder erupted as flesh-colored limbs burst forth. Thick as arms, fist-sized teeth stuck out at the ends. Their first order of business was tearing open the throat of the human they sprouted from. That done, they reached forward and grew. Clover saw now it was a hand of sorts: the limbs were its fingers, and the ‘palm’ burst out from the man’s right-upper-torso like a bird from an egg. A fang maw adorned its belly as it crawled about with a whip-like tail of veins. It snarled and jumped onto the man immediately behind its ‘host’. There, it began chewing and drawing attention.

The second man was stained with Clover’s sap head to toe. Rather than incubate some horrible flesh-beast, he simply became one. His neck stretched out, and his collarbone to the tip of his head split into a fanged maw: thin and long with razor sharp teeth. His arms became whips of veins. His knees bent like springs, and he launched up into the air to pounce on his former brothers in arms. He could chomp down two or three in one bite.

This last gentleman merely had his face splashed. It melted, and from its front sprouted flailing, bone-bladed tendrils. He spun around in circles to decapitate the compatriots at his sides.

Clover removed her foot from above them and set it to the side with a thud. They were focused on fighting off their own now; just the three mutants she made had the squad occupied. It must’ve taken 50 or more bayonet stabs to bring the first mutant down, all the while Clover watched giddy as ever.

“An accidental discovery! Seems my blood--no, my sap--is blessed. You three were endowed with boons of Hudraloth’s minions: although I suppose you’re my minions more than theirs. It’s better that way. Were you competition, I might have to snuff you out~”

The cannon at the back was lit again, but this time Clover was ready. She flooded the barrel of the contraption with vines from her wrists, causing it to blowback and rupture. Hot fragments of cannon metal hit the operators to either side of the device. Her vines were burnt and shredded, but they grew back before the eyes of the troops. Those cannoneers could not grow back their ruptured organs or missing limbs.

“Marvelous~” she quipped. “I never would’ve thought to make myself bleed. Due to your aggression, I’ve another interesting bit of knowledge. As thanks, I’ll make your deaths quick.”

Clover lifted her foot and stomped. It wasn’t a slow savory thing, but quick and hurried as though a slippery spider were besmirching the floor and simply had to be dealt with then and there. Every step was a quake and an infusion of dozens of souls into her form. There were more canons, about the only thing that hurt her--the rifles were useless. Unfortunately for them, that artillery fell over from the thooming thuds of her steps. She worked front to back meticulously mashing them all to paste. The second and third minions of hers were caught under heel and burst as well.

She looked down at the macabre aftermath. The souls were hers and utilized, but the bodies were wasted. Her skin was clear of the mess: her body actively repulsed it for whatever reason.

“If only there was a way to put this all to use. Ah, of course. I’m a witch after all, I should be able to conjure what I desire.”

She foolishly hadn’t tried any magic yet. Now, she had another perfect idea. Clover’s arm was healed by now. She moved her palm over the mashed body-pulp and focused. From the tip of her index finger sprouted a vein--or a vine. To her, the distinction mattered less. In any case, it was red and green and wiggled a bit. The vessel squeezed out a drop of her sap onto the great puddle of gore.

Her emerald eyes dimmed black as they always did with her spells. She uttered words that boomed. The syllables were like a jagged, wet rendition of Latin. The bit of sap dissolved into the viscera and blood, and the whole mess rose as yeast in an oven.

Of this messy mass, the blood congealed and flesh restitched and regrew. What was once the mangled and pulped bodies of hundreds of soldiers grew up into a great blob of flailing limbs, myriad eyes, and dozens of flesh maws each rife with gnashing teeth. One hundred feet tall, it slithered up to Clover’s leg and nuzzled the top of its bulbous form beneath her knee.

She bent over to pat it. “Ah, my finest pet yet. Kill. Kill everyone so I may claim their souls. Its time to finish this city.”

It made some horrid sound best described as a coo, then rushed through buildings at the nearest crowds. Its bulky bottom tapered to a snake-like tail, and it pounced atop the masses to crush them beneath its bulk. Its limbs and teeth did quite a number: Clover could tell as her power grew with every soul. She could see the blue spirits sift through the air.

Why shouldn’t everyone else? She felt a weakening in the boundary between life and death and tugged at it with her will. Now, all the citizens of London could stare up and watch the souls of their kin flow into her body. They’d see this miraculous and grand harvest of hers in all its glory.

Clover closed her eyes and focused. She channeled more of the might stored within. All those souls, stuck in their flesh-bubbles deep in her body, shuddered as the fleshy soul-trapping organ grew and grew. Clover’s light-green feet burst through rubble and buildings as she erupted to an astounding height of one mile (1.6km): over ten times her old height.

“There we go. Now, to reap all the city has.”