Guilty x Creatures Ch. 49

Mica stiffened at the sound of his voice so close behind her. Arching her tail over her head, she lifted herself up on her hands and knees and looked down between her limbs. Her eyes could just barely be seen over the edges of her hanging breasts, but it was clear by the shock in them that she knew what she was seeing.

"Mica, did you know that you have hollow bones?" asked Anton.

"...I, um? No?" mumbled Mica as her eyes tightened in worry.

"Hm, well now you do." said Anton as he leaned back on his left leg and raised his right up before bending it inward in preparation to kick.

Mica went into a panic as she realized what he was about to do, but before she could react Anton kicked her square in the center of her bottom and sent her flying out into the open air.

Tumbling as she fell, Mica was too panicked to have the sense of mind to reach out with her tail and snag one of the passing branches, and so she merely flailed her limbs as she quickly plummeted to the ground.

Just as she was about to make her landfall, another portal opened up right in front of her and she sailed through it and directly into Anton's waiting fist.

Anton had created the new portal with his opened palm just as he had before but this time he locked his elbow as it opened and made his hand into a fist. As Mica came though the portal, she met his fist with her gut and was bent completely in half before being tossed backwards.

Landing in a heap on the ground, Mica immediately hunched into the fetal position and held her belly as she struggled to keep from vomiting. Having had the wind knocked from her, she laid breathless on her side for a moment before desperately sucking in one painful lungful of air after another.

"That was for cussing at me again..." said Anton as he let his arm fall to hang at his side.

Gathering her senses, Mica steeled her resolve and gripped at the nearby grass as she tried to rise back up and move. Getting herself to her hands and knees, she clawed at the ground as she crawled away from where she knew Anton was. Making just enough headway to give herself a dose of hope, she was suddenly jerked to a stop. Already knowing in her heart what was keeping her from moving forward she clenched her teeth and stared at the ground between her hands as she continued to pull fruitlessly against the grip that held her tail. Gathering her courage, she tilted her head to the side and glanced back over her shoulder.

Anton was sitting cross-legged on the ground behind her and in his left hand he held her tail at the base of her spade.

Eyeballs burning from a combination of the dust around her and her recent fall, Mica shut her eyes as she shifted her head and reopened them as she looked up at the dark elves.

Both of the dark elves had solemn expressions on their faces as they looked back at her. Without a word Kianna slowly moved her phone so that its screen was visible to Mica. The shinoccubus clamped her eyes shut again and hung her head as she saw that there was still eight minutes left on the timer.

With a groan Mica pulled against Anton's grip until the last of her strength was spent and she tumbled forward into a heap on the ground. Curling back up into the fetal position she ended up lying with her cheek resting against a cool, dusty patch of soil.

Mica had remained completely still for the last nearly half hour. Although she was still awake, she made every attempt she could to distance her mind from what was happening around her.

"Kianna, can you hand me that pouch I had you put in your bag, please." said Anton.

"...Um, this one?" asked the dark elf as she pulled out a small black colored, canvas pouch that was reminiscent of the carrying cases that shaving kits or hair-clippers were kept in.

"Yep, that's the one." said Anton as he reached out and took the pouch from the dark elf "Thank you."

Unzipping its top, Anton opened the pouch with one hand before reaching in, rummaging around a bit and pulling out a small whetstone block which he set down on his bent knee.

"What are you doing?" asked Fiona as she planted her elbows on her knees and rested her chin in her hands as she watched Anton.

"I'm going to give Mica's tail a bit of maintenance while we're waiting." said Anton as he gave the edge of the shinoccubi's bladed spade a look over by flipping it back and forth.

"...Wait? How much longer are we gonna be out here?" asked Fiona as she glanced down at Mica.

"We have no reason to rush." said Anton as he took a small package of alcohol wipes from the pouch and ran one down along the sharpened edge of Mica's spade to clean away the remains of the weeds and other plants she had been recently slicing apart "We can afford to be kind, and give Mica a little more time."

Fiona scrunched up her face in annoyance but said nothing as she continued to watch Anton work. After a few moments of silence her ears suddenly pointed themselves straight back in annoyance.

"Hey!" she exclaimed as she furrowed her brow at Anton "If you can make portals wherever you want to, then why did we have to hike all the way out here! We could have just portaled here!"

Anton chuckled as he folded the small towelette over and began to use the still clean side.

"I've never been here before, and there was no one here. So how could I have made a portal just open up out here with no point to link to?" he explained as he grinned up at the dark elf "Also, that little walk was a good warm-up for Mica. And it's not like you and your sister didn't benefit from it as well. In fact, now that we have a shinoccubi to train, I'm seriously thinking about implementing an exercise routine for everyone to follow."

Shacking her head, Fiona rolled her eyes and harrumphed in irritation before looking off to the side and silently fuming.

Chuckling again, Anton continued to gently work on Mica's spade.

Mica's spade was shaped like a thinly tapered spearhead and had about six inches of bladed length that was rooted to a smaller triangle shaped section that acted as the foundation for the blade. This chitin-like, horn-colored triangle had a cracked appearance across its surface and was actually the remnants of Mica's originally dull spade which had broken open along its top edge as the sharpened blade grew out from its top point. The two lower points of this triangle were still dull and rounded.

Like the rest of her tail, the blade itself was black in color and had a smooth, seemingly polished surface that would faintly reflect light in a softly shimmering manner. This low shine gave the blade the appearance of being metallic in nature, though it was actually made of a densely packed carbon based material which was constantly growing outwards to replace itself as it was worn down along its edge.

The very base of the spade, where it met the rest of Mica's tail, was curved inwards, and this was where the teardrop shaped bulge of musculature that not only attached the spade to her tail itself, but housed her barbs as well, could be found. Each of Mica's four barbs were curved, claw-like and about two and a half inches in length. They were a solid black in color and would retract into this bulge in a similar fashion to how a cat's claws would retreat into its toes.

Satisfied now with the cleanliness of the spade, Anton planted the whetstone along its sharpened edge and lightly ran the stone down its bladed length. He worked slowly and lightly to both sharpen the blade as well as smooth away the nicks and scrapes it had accumulated during its recent use. He was a little annoyed to find that the very tip of the blade had actually been chipped off at some point, and so using the whetstone, he did his best to carefully carve it back into a sharpened point.

These actions taken against her spade were not only painless for Mica, but actually had a certain level of comforting pleasantness to them. So even as Anton began to loosen his grip on her tail, she let him continue in his efforts rather than pull her spade back to herself.

Setting the whetstone back on his knee, Anton took a thick, dry, fibrous cloth from the pouch and ran it along the edge of the spade to clean away the dust-like particles that had been chipped away from the blade itself as it was being sharpened.

Sitting quietly as they watched him do all this, the two dark elves were both startled as a large portal suddenly opened up a few hundred yards in front of them.

"Oh, good. It's about time..." mumbled Anton as he blew on the newly resharpened tip of Mica's spade and gave it another swipe with the cloth "That took a lot longer than I thought it would..."

"Uh, what!?" exclaimed Fiona as she looked from the portal to him and back "Wait! Who is that!?"

"That..." said Anton as he glanced up at the three figures that had just come through the portal "Would be Mica's family..."