Hoshi no Guu (Star Piece Quest) (M)

[Guu]

Dama’s eyes shifted into a piercing red glow. Guu could no longer see her eyes, but her piercing gaze was apparent; it made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. She bent down on all fours, her spine twisting and curving to accommodate her new stance. She digs her fingers into the ground, the stone flooring giving way to her touch like clay. She tilts her head back, sending a roar into the ceiling that shakes the foundations of the casino.

Almost like lightning, the creature shot across the room, easily clawing marks into the floor in her wake, teeth out, ready to pierce their way into a pink-haired skull.

Guu threw herself out of the way, just narrowly escaping the clasp of her maw. It instead lands on a nearby slot machine which easily shreds at the sheer force of her bite as if it was made of souffle. She violently coughs as metal parts and gambling chip fly out of her mouth, violently expelling at the horrid taste of greed.

Guu took a moment to take solace behind an overturned blackjack table. She knew this monster, she created this monster she knew how simple its mind was when Dama transforms into this state. If only she could use that to her advantage. Her mind raced, trying to think of a way out, but she could feel the bony scaly claw of fear creeping it’s way in her formally immortal mind.

Gildarts had finished charging up, his body had become a shadow against a veil of white light, only his piercing red eyes persisted in the darkness. Monster Dama had finally gotten every last scrap of the slot machine out of her mouth, and she turned her rage filled gaze towards the mage. To her primitive mind, he was just another man, another man to be conquered under her will.

She stretched her teeth out, launching herself forward at the man with full intent of slaying him where he stood. In a flash, he disappeared out of the way, her misdirected attack raking marks in the floor, scooping bits of stone into her mouth. He appeared behind her, ready to strike again but almost instantaneously she shot around to slash at him. He barely got out of the way, the sheer force of the swing sent air pressure his way, enough to notify him that if had landed, he may have been downed in just that one strike.

It was enough for him to tactically retreat. He ran backwards hoping to play defensively with the monster, but she suddenly darted forward, keeping good pace with the mage, flinging her outstretched teeth every which way forcing him to leap from side to side. Even at max speed in his most powerful form, the creature was keeping up with him.

Suddenly, she leapt into the air her gaze firmly on his head. She flew up ten feet until she was primed right above him, and then she flew down, mouth wide open, razor sharp teeth ready to bite his head off.

Suddenly, Guu’s body rams right into Dama sending them both into a nearby wall. They were in the women’s restroom, the old lady’s head went right through a toilet spilling water everywhere. As the monster slowly gets her head straight from being rammed through a wall, the princess quickly grabbed on onto the monster’s head with one hand and shoved her arm into her mouth. She quickly used the teeth as a saw to cut into the form enforcing device that was strapped onto her wrist. A second after cutting the device loose, Dama bit down on her arm, severing it at half way from the elbow.

Guu was able to activate her disassemble ability quick enough to take no damage from it, but she already motioned to swallow the arm. The princess leapt off her and quickly took control the of the arm remotely.

Dama suddenly began to cough violently, which suddenly switched to her full on choking. Guu’s arm had inflated like a balloon, blocking her air ways. She was kneeling on the floor, facing down against the unsympathetic tiles as she gasped for air. In an act of desperation, she reached into her throat, shoving her own arm deep into her mouth and yanked at the protruding limb. Her own teeth cut into the flesh of her arm as she pulled on Guu’s dismembered limb. The pink one, noticing a chance to get her arm back, turned it into a flock of tiny birds that took flight out of her maw. By the time the pink one’s arm had returned to her, she was well out of the old lady’s sight once again.

After catching her breath, Dama howled as she thrashed her fists into the ground, sending bits of bathroom tiles everywhere. Meanwhile, Guu took off towards Gildarts. With the device off, she had defaulted back into her child form. She gave a single glance over to her partner who returned it with his glowing red eyes. She gave him a single nod. No more nonsense, no more shipping, it was time for a couple to kick some ass. Suddenly, she was engulfed in shadows.

The monster made her way out of the bathroom, clawing out through the hole she made in the wall earlier. Peering around, she gave the air a mighty snort. But before she could even process those smells a big black tentacle stretched around her and yanked her through.

Guu’s skin had went black and semi transparent, her muscles and organs showing through. Her eyes were glowing red, now matching the eyes of her partner’s. Five other tentacles wave around in the air a bit before swoopingin to wrap snugly around the mad grandma.

Dama laughed, it was deep and guttural, almost like a chortle crossed with a dog's bark. With little effort, she powered out of guu’s grasp with a simple flex of her muscles, flinging her tentacles back at her.

She refocused back at Guu, launching forward with her fangs out. This time, Gildarts came in from the left, Kicking hard against her skull, throwing her into a tumble on the floor. She leapt back on her feet, but one of Guu’s tentacles wrapped around her ankle and sent her for another tumble when she attempted to charge at Gildarts.

Guu flew up in the air above the old lady as Gildarts stepped over. Winding up his leg, he gave her a swift kick to the stomach that sends her flying into the air towards a waiting enigma. She did a downwards kick launching Dama back into the ground with enough impact to leave a crater.

Dama didn’t bother climbing back to her feet. Without looking up, she launched a fist at Gildarts with a stretchy punch. It was so unexpected that it hit him dead on and knocked him over. Then she took to the air, suddenly landing on top of the princess causing both to fall to the floor. Dama pressed down on her body, pinning her to the floor.

Guu barely ducked out of the way as her maw clasped down where her face would have been. her tentacles wrap around Dama, trying to pull her off her body while she desperately shifted her head to dodge each life ending bite.

Unfortunately, she got unlucky.

The crazy lady’s teeth sunk into the princess’s shoulder. Taking off a huge chunk of flesh.

The sharp, oozing pain was enough to bring back her senses. Suddenly, the weariness that had been building in her head this entire fight took it’s toll, the aches of her body from the previous hits joined in with the pain of her shoulder like a choir, she couldn’t hold on anymore. Her tentacles receded back into her form as her skin slowly faded into a natural color. Dama pulled back, her mouth red with her greatest foe’s blood and tissue. She gave yet another laugh at Guu’s expense before moving in for yet another bite.

But once again, a solid kick to Dama’s gut sent her flying through the air. Gildarts wasn’t ready to let his teammate die, he stood behind the monster and his cherished guild leader. Dama, surprised took off out of sight.

The man knelt down before Guu, pulled out a handkerchief and pressed it on the princess’ wound,

He shot back up prepared for Dama’s next attack, but was surprised to see she still wasn’t around anymore. He scanned the room, puzzled, concerned she might be going for yet another stealth strike, but nothing came of it. Not even a sound.

But he could smell something. It smelt like burning.

Smoke. The room was filling with smoke.

Dama suddenly appeared in front of him, which sent Gildarts back in a surprised battle stance.

“Take her if you want, I don’t care. I think the message was sent.” She smiled while winking at the redheaded mage. “Goodbye lover boy!”

With that, she flew up through the glass ceiling, shattering it, launching glass all over the place. It cleared up a lot of the smoke, but the fire made itself known. It was spreading up the walls as if they were intentionally made of gasoline.

Gildarts scooped up Guu into his arms and ran for the front doors, the fire literally chasing them down the carpet the whole way. With a swift kick the front doors swung open and he dashed out the building where a the flooring behind him quickly set ablaze. The mage kept running, he ran until he was clear of the casino, clear of the town. When all that was around him was grass and forest, he let Guu down. And powered down his form.

He quickly checked Guu’s wound and found that she had patched the wound over with some of her excess skin, another bonus of malleability. Guu was unresponsive, but clearly alive. He sighed, and turn around. The spot they stopped at had a fairly good view of the casino. The fire had already spread to the outer walls, the entire building was covered in dancing lights the lit the evening sky.

With this brief moment, he had a moment to reflect, but this was a moment that his other companion was anticipating.

“I know what you’re thinking. ‘Could you have done better?’ ‘Could have we succeeded if I had handled things differently?’” Said Malefactor, Gildarts could almost visualize her smirk in his head. “This is the weakness of man. We both know, who would have done better here. Just remember that.”


By the next morning, the building was reduced to ash. With the fires dying down and the sun finally coming up, the mage collected Guu and headed down to pick through the remains. The little one was still healing, but he didn’t feel comfortable leaving her alone while he rummaged around.

Fifteen minutes into his search, he shook her awake.

“Guu! Guu Wake up!”

“What?” Said the pink enigma, groggy from the wake up call.

“Look!”

She opened her eyes, and as her vision came into focus, she saw a safe, big enough for even Guu to easily fit in.

“Maybe she left the Star Piece in there? I mean, she never used it in our fight, and she didn’t go to retrieve it afterwards. It’s a possibility.”

Guu sighed, she almost forgot about the star piece, she wanted to forget it at this point. After everything, she couldn’t bring herself to believe that it would be as simple as cracking a safe, but it was worth a try at least.

“Put me down next to it.” She said, wearily.

Plopping down, she honed her senses. She couldn’t feel into the safe, probably similar technology to the lab in the ninja village, but she could feel the locking mechanism. A very typical combination lock, nothing too special. It was unusual the technology inside was more advanced than the technology protecting it. Then again, this is Dama, not really known as the most sane.

She turned the nob until she could feel something click within the device, then she continued, going one by one through the numbers, until she could feel a heavier click than the others. Chancing it, she grabbed the handle.

And it opened.

At first, when that glimmer of yellow hit her eyes, Guu didn’t want to believe it. It could be another fake, it could just some random decoration, it could be whatever was in the box in Pulp Fiction. She didn’t want to believe that it would be so easy to be just sitting inside a safe. But as the door swung open, she began to see its form. A yellow, diamond-shaped object, just sitting all alone. She could almost feel the power radiating from it.

She reached a noodle like arm inside the metal box and shifted a few fingers to touch it. Even from a few inches away she could feel the familiar sensation of omnilium trickling down her arm. The shard was warm to the touch.

She lifted it up and brought it close to her face. The cut of the stone almost seemed manufactured, and yet so clean that the craftsman must have been more than a master.

Guu lifted the shard up to Gildarts face.

“It’s-it’s the real thing.” She could feel her social face pop up, but she didn’t care, her emotions were insatiable. “It’s actually real!”

She tried to pick up Gildarts to spin him around in the air, but his half metallic body caused the princess to stumble back a bit before giving up.

“Uh, Gildarts, can you do that thing where you pick me up and you spin around while we laugh gleefully? I can’t do it to you.”

“Oh, sure!”

The mage picked up Guu and spun around in a circle, the princess laughing gleefully before wincing in a pain from her battle wounds.

“Let’s go see the ninjas!” Guu said excitedly as Gildarts took a big step forward, but the princess stopped him. "Let's let our wounds heal first, of course."

It took almost a day to make it back to the city. Guu used her vita compass-esque senses to know the general direction, as they flew most of the way on summoned griffons. The sight of civilization appearing in the horizon, almost gave Guu chills. Felt like almost a lifetime.

It felt almost nostalgic, being lead up the steps to Tsunade’s office once again, the view of the city spreading for miles from outside the tree. The princess tapped the mage’s shoulder, gaining his attention.

“Thank you, for coming with me on this journey.”

“It was my honor.” He said, humbly.

Guu pulled the piece from her stomach before entering the ninja leader’s office.


Tsunade was sitting attentively at her desk, giving Guu her full attention.

“I assume that’s the star piece in your hand there?”

Guu stepped forward and placed the piece in front of the woman. She picked it up and inspected it closely, it almost resonated in her hands.

“It’s definitely the real deal.” She said with a smile. “Great job! Now we can trust it’s in good hands.”

“So what are you going to do with it?” Asked Guu.

She placed it back on the desk and pushed it back in her direction.

“I’ll let you hold on to it.”

Guu cocked an eyebrow.

“After all the trouble you went to get it for us, you’ve proven yourself trustworthy. Go on take it!”

Guu stretched an arm and picked up the piece.

“As head kage of Mokugakure, I name you, Guu, the protector of the yellow shard.” She said formally, before dropping a knowing smirk. “I trust you can protect it.”

“Thank you.” Guu said politely, with a bow.

“For now, I release you. Come visit sometime, we can talk politics then, but I bet you want to get home more than anything.”

“That is definite.” Said Guu wearily, the thought of Ambrosia lingering on her mind.

“I’ll have some ninja accompany you, just to ensure your safety. Farewell, Princess.”

She turned for the door, Gildarts followed after. As soon as they were out of sight, Guu stuffed the star piece back in her stomach.


She didn’t put much thought into the Ninja that would be accompanying the two of them, so it was to her surprise when she saw three very familiar faces. A girl in a bunny outfit, a perfectly fixed up cybernetic moogle, and a watermelon in a shape of a girl.

“Bani? Pitchin? Melani?” Said the princess, almost in disbelief.

“You didn’t think you’d go back to Ambrosia without us!” Said the bunny girl.

“I did originally come from there, so yeah...” Said Pitchen.

Melanie simply nodded.

Guu stretched out her arms and pulled them all into a hug.

“Yeah, let’s go home.”