Green with Guilt

[Dr. McNinja]

The spiny vines continued to digest their van as Doc chopped off the tendrils in a vain effort to save their vehicle. His charge the alchemist was emitting some sort of blue-white fog, which froze various branches of the monster plant. The van was now shredded into strips of rusty metal and ribbons of old leather flailed in the air.

“We’re gonna need a bigger van,” Doc muttered.

“Doc!” Finn yelled, frosty steam drifting from his nostrils, “Look for the roots! Everything else will just grow back!”

“Okay, just because I don’t have a degree in agriculture doesn’t mean I don’t know how plants work!” Doc hollered, spinning and hacking through seemingly endless vines.

He reached into his coat pocket and flung three pairs of stars, all slicing through several vines. Doc tried to clear through some more of the spiky foliage and threw showers of shuriken. The vines rapidly grew back and reached for Doc, entangling him and keeping him away from the center. The alchemist was doing his best to clear the vines, but the vines were growing back faster than he could shrivel them. Thankfully, the vines Finn froze were growing back slowly enough that Doc could get through with his agility.

“Alright, let’s wrap it up!” Doc hollered.

He flung his grappling hook at the roots and pulled as hard as he can, flying towards them, crying, “Yoink!”

Doc was now at the source of the vines. The core of the plant was a grassy sphere with a black mark that seemed to whiz around -

“Gross,” McNinja whimpered, “It’s a hairy eyeball.”

“Kill it!”

“Don’t worry,” Doc chuckled, “I’m an opthithl - ophtumlflu - ophti -”

Another tendril tried to yank off his mask. Furiously, he clenched at the branch and tore it off with his bare hands. “I’m trying to pronounce a weird word here okay would you give me a singular-”

A vine whipped out and latched onto his head.

“THIS IS NOT HELPING” Doc shouted.

He whirled around, spinning his katana, dropping towards the core once again. He landed, aiming his blade directly into the eyeball. Another tendril caught his ankle.

“Stop with the flapping tentacles!”

He managed to push aside some of the tentacles, clearing a path to the core, to the expense of usage of his limbs. The plant seemed almost to taunt Doc as it wrapped around his arms and legs, restricting his movement.

“You think I’m helpless now, don’t you?” Doc laughed, “Well, guess what?”

He glared.

“I can shoot poison out of my eyes.”

Greenish liquid shot from Doc’s irises into the plant’s. Massive leaves, as if they were eyelids, wrapped around the core, and the plant made a shrieking noise that could only be described as a scream. The vines immediately released Dr. McNinja and Finn and dropped them onto the mossy ground.

“Is it dead?” Finn sputtered, coughing the last fumes of his cold potion.

“Uh, not sure,” Doc muttered, wiping the acidic residue from his eyes, “but it’s definitely doing so awesome. That poison is strong enough to practically kill a dude.”

“And giant tentacle plant monsters?”

“Let’s see.”

The plant writhed about for a few seconds, until finally, the tentacles seemed to relax and went back to trying to strangle the pair.

“Okay, well, I shot it into an eye thing, so I’m sure it can’t really see us.”

The plant whipped out a vine in random locations, smashing down the nearby trees. While the plant clearly couldn’t aim anywhere, it was frankly wrecking the area.

“Let’s run anyway.”

“Sounds good.”

Doc and Finn sprinted away, leaving the giant plant to writhe away.