Night mode

“Damnit!” Crystal shouted, fighting the urge to bring her hands down on the screen in frustration. “Damnit, damnit, and damn the whole sodding thing a third bloody time.”

The swearing didn’t help clear her head or make her feel better. Crystal usually couldn’t remember her password after a couple days, especially since she usually used a random collection of numbers and letters that she could just store in a notebook in her staging area. Trying to remember a password from a year ago was a lost cause – a password from a million relative years ago, and thirty million actual years, was beyond what any sentient being should be expected to do.

I have to try something. Crystal risked a glance back. Isabel was getting tangled in the tendrils slowly pulling the Typhon back together. She was thrashing about, stamping her talons, biting, and even slashing with those tiny arms, but the tendrils were just reforming faster than she could destroy them.

To make matters worse, Isabel’s movements were becoming lethargic. The stomps were increasingly uncoordinated, and her eyes had a wild look to them that Crystal couldn’t attribute just to ferocity.

“Vocal tone indicates swearing,” the screen said. “Do you need assistance resetting your password?”

“Isabel!” Crystal shouted, inspiration striking. “Woodrat!” She twisted reality with the shouts to carry her voice to Isabel’s ear. Then she whipped her head back to the keyboard. If Isabel understood, and had a woodrat in her bag of forms – I swear if Arthur included bloody dinosaurs but didn’t include a woodrat I’m going to beat him to death with his own arms – she could shift into it long enough to neutralize the venom, then shift into something better suited to combat the Typhon. If she didn’t die while shifted. If she doesn’t shift, she’s dead either way.

“Response not understood. Do you need assistance resetting your password?”

“Yes!” Crystal shouted. “Yes, I need bloody assistance.”

The screen winked out for a moment, processing, before the screen repeated, “Response not understood. Do you need assistance resetting your password?”

Oh bloody hell, I have to speak Lemurian. Divine translation allowed her to read the words on the screen and speak in a way any living creature could understand. This machine couldn’t understand her though. “Uh…ghrat!”

Again the screen winked out to process. As it did, a foul stench reached Crystal’s nose, like rotten eggs and spoiled milk mixed with rotten meat and left in the sun for a week. The Typhon began to bellow in something other than anger or triumph. Oh no, love, you didn’t…Crystal risked a look back over her shoulder. The tendrils had momentarily halted, and the Typhon’s head was actually trying to worm away from its neck. In the center of the mess sat a white a back blob, only a couple feet long, with an upraised tail.

Crystal couldn’t help but laugh and look back at the screen. It had bought Isabel some time at least.

“Acknowledged. Please select your security question:

Name of the first to hatch from your clutch?

Name of the last to hatch from your clutch?

Sod off, I don’t have a third question?”

Crystal desperately wished divine power allowed her to travel back in time so she could slap her younger self hard enough to knock some sense into her. She’d been trying to remember the names of any of her siblings for millenia, how was she supposed to put it together now? And then the third one…Okay, think. You would have had to put in an answer. What would it be?

Behind her, the battle had resumed. The Typhon had decided that the scent of a skunk was something it could bear, and Isabel had shifted forms again. Whatever she had turned into didn’t roar like the Tyrannosaur, but it certainly was making an unholy racket. Crystal glanced back at the battle, unable to help herself. She tapped the third question as she looked.

The Typhon’s tendrils were rapidly reconnecting to its neck. Many of the serpent heads had reconnected, and were trying to bite into Isabel with frantic desperation. For her part, Isabel was much smaller compared to the Tyrannosaur, less than three meters – if you didn’t count the massive tail that ended in a spined club. The most heavily armored mammals to ever walk the Earth – the Glyptodon, an ancient armadillo. Far too thickly armored for the Typhon to bite into her, and much better suited to snapping the tendrils as the tail waved back and forth.

“Please input your answer.”

Crystal’s hands flew to the keyboard. At least divine translation made typing easier. “Sod you too,” she tried, hoping for the easy answer.

“Input incorrect. Two attempts remaining.”

Crystal felt her heart pounding in her chest. “I don’t bloody know!” she tried.

“Input incorrect. One attempt remaining.”

The Typhon had finally gotten enough tendrils attached to drag its head back towards its body. Isabel was repeatedly smacking the Typhon’s head with her armored tail, knocking off huge chunks of flesh and bone with each blow, but it didn’t seem to be doing more than annoying the monster. Isabel let out the glyptodon’s version of a roar, a deep bleating sound that was almost goat-like. It would have been funny if Crystal couldn’t hear the edge of desperation in it.

Serpent fangs kept striking against the glyptodon’s armor. By pressuring her with those, the Typhon was keeping her from being able to safely shift again. The moment she did, the instant that armor went away, Isabel would be right back to bleeding slowly to death. What would it be, what would it be…it doesn’t relate to the question. What’s the first thing that comes to mind when I’m not under pressure? The first thing I think when I look at that?

As soon as the thought crossed her mind, the answer followed. Of course. Fingers flying over the touchpad, Crystal typed exactly what she knew that question wanted.

“Roll with it, love.”

The answer was immediate. “Input correct. Please set your new password.”

This time, Crystal picked something she was certain she’d remember for quite some time.

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