nerdling | Junior's Death Certificate

"I don't know about this, you guys," Junior mumbled with one mittened finger pressed to his chin. "Is this what it's normally like when you go through a cosmic rift into another realm of existence?"

"It's the plane of weeping sand and it's chock full of turgid land wyrms, what did you expect?" Mandy shot back with a blase stare.

"Yes, but... This seems a lot more dangerous than you made it sound." Nergal Junior heard his voice tremble as he stood at the edge of a wide trench that seemingly stretched down into eternity. The cold, desert land poured into the chasm and horrendous noises erupted from the depths of the earth that sent shivers down his spine.

"Look, we invited you along so you could shape-shift into something large and freakish in order to get us to the bottom of that ravine." Junior glanced back to Mandy as she paused to step up beside him. He knew very well she was losing what little patience she had left. "Otherwise, we'll be defenseless against those muck sucking, scaly sand leeches. So make it happen."

"Yeah, Junior, I know you can do it!" Billy chimed in, punching his fist in the air and subsequently throwing himself off balance as he stood precariously close to the vast pit-- and Junior quickly lent him a helpful tentacle so he didn't fall to his doom. "Hoo, boy! Yeah, okay, that's pretty ominous, I tell you what!"

"It'll be fine, if Junior can get it together," Mandy snapped, causing both boys to wince. "You can be the boss of all those beasts down there and none of those loser wyrms will think twice about messing with us. Got it?"

"Okay, Mandy. I'll give it my best." Junior sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"Please, just hurry it up!" The Grim Reaper was having none of this, obviously. He stood behind the children, tapping his scythe to the ground. "The bottom of that chasm is another realm altogether, a place only the otherwordly beasts can reach. And the sooner we get down there, the sooner we can get out of this crumby sand pit! Seriously, all this for a blasted cracker box prize!"

"I thought you said the midnight flame gem of eternal darkness was nothing to sneeze at, Grim?" Mandy said flatly while giving the reaper a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah, yeah. It'll grant you the power of black fire and invincibility and allow you to unleash nightmarish evils upon the earth and blah, blah, blah. You kids will tire of it in an afternoon. And I'll be the one who'll have to come back here and toss it back into the endless abyss!" Grim threw his hands up, glaring at all three of them with equal distaste. "Now come on! Do you have any idea how hard it is to get sand out of a cloak. It's impossible!"

"Okay! Stand back! I can do this!" Junior huffed as he felt a burst of confidence. He just had to think of what could be more fearsome than a giant desert dwelling sand wyrm and could lead them down into the depths of the pit of despair.

But as Junior braced himself to change his form into the nastiest, biggest monster he could imagine something was swirling around in the depths of the trench. It gave off a faint glow. And it was steadily rising toward them.

"W-W-What is that!? There's something down there!" Junior's voice bellowed out the words in a panic, his knees quacking under him as he felt what bit of courage he had mustered draining from his body.

"Oh, I know!" Billy chimed in, squinting as he stared at the same mass of illuminated coils. "That looks like one really chunky mudpuppy with a flashlight and a bunch of knives sticking out of its face. Wait, is that a real thing?"

"It's a giant land wyrm, you idiots!" But Mandy's statement didn't prompt a call to action. Junior didn't transform, but rather he looked on as the creature reared its head up from the pit.

"Sweet sassafras, it's on to us!" Grim bellowed, empty eye sockets staring up into the eerie luminescence the creature was emitting.

Striped black and tan and sporting a gaping maw lined with long razors for teeth and a spine that sported a dangling light protruding from its forehead it was not quite like any monster they had ever seen before. Its body was so incredibly long that it could reach down to the bowels of the earth at the bottom of the great trench. Its beady black eyes peered at the three children and the reaper from behind a massive muzzle, assessing the intruders.

"Why is it so gigantic!?" Junior screamed, doubling over as the creature loomed above them, hissing sharp gusts through its teeth.

"Come on Junior, get with the program!" Mandy rasped, holding a hand over her face as the wyrm's breath blew a flurry of sand over them. "Just turn into something before we're all wyrm food!"

"Land wyrms won't attack a creature that is bigger than itself!" Grim shouted as loudly as he could to be heard over the horrific growls and cries of the wyrm as well as Billy's panicked screaming. "They have a strict hierarchy-- the biggest is the baddest! And that needs to be you!"

Junior swallowed the large lump in his throat, feeling lightheaded as he stared in horror at the great beastly thing. He didn't know if he could do it. Sure, he could be anything, theoretically. But this was a tall order. Even for him.

But he couldn't run away. He couldn't back down. Not when he was needed. He had to defend his friends. He couldn't let them get hurt, they were depending on him.

"Alright! Big and bad. Big. And. Bad!" Junior's eyes narrowed from behind his glasses, meeting the gaze of the great monster as it was poised to lunge its massive head.

In an instant Junior's back erupted in a thick mass of tentacles, extending farther than he had ever attempted to grow them before. They gripped the sides of the rocky trench, lifting him up high over the abyss to loom above the monster. This did cause the beast to pause, as it halted its attack, seemingly startled by its target changing shape and moving so abruptly.

"I can be bigger than you!" Junior proclaimed with a burst of determination. He began to shift, his body glowing. He would dwarf that wyrm. He could reach down into the depths of the underground, too. He was quite familiar with it.

It was only when the creature began to salivate profusely and popped its jaws wide that Junior got the hint that things were not going as planned. A long, barbed tongue shot out of the wyrm's mouth-- far too quickly for the half-demon to readjust his tentacles to block or move out of the way. It aimed directly for his face.

The tongue was more like a scorpion's tail than anything that should be found in a mouth, the point at the tip as sharp and thick as a dagger. It easily cut through the left lens of Junior's glasses and in a wet slice sank straight through.

With a high-pitched, strangled scream Junior's transformation halted abruptly, his tentacles flailing wildly as the wyrm pulled its tongue back and, subsequently, Junior's body along with it. His shape-shifting interrupted, his tentacles went limp and the bulk of them retracted back into his body as Junior reverted to the familiar form of the boy he had claimed as his own. He was only just aware of the jaws of the monster closing down on him.

And the wyrm, with its mouth dripping and tentacles falling from its jaws reared back and proceeded to plunge into the chasm. Either its catch satisfied it or it felt the threat had been neutralized. As its body slunk away all the two children and the reaper could do was watch.

"Junior..." Mandy mumbled, staring wide-eyed.

"Dehyah-hey! Was that supposed to happen?" Billy asked wiping beads of sweat from his face.

"Oh, dang," Grim replied with a long, tired sigh. "I guess that wasn't actually a turgid land wyrm. It must have been a poisonous dagger-mouthed night drake. They do look remarkably similar. But those guys don't give a flip about how big their opponent is. What with having all the poison, and all."

"Grim, don't tell me he's actually..." Mandy paused, looking to the reaper for confirmation.

"Um, well..." He rubbed one bony hand along the back of his head. "I need to go check. This is highly irregular. Like I said, the bottom of that abyss is another temporal realm. And we're already in another plane of unearthly existence, to boot! I hope his soul won't get lost on the way down."

"Eh, his soul? What d'you mean, Grim?" Billy looked back at his friend, small eyes glistening.

Grim mumbled something under his breath, slashing his scythe into the air and cutting a rift into the very fabric of existence. "Lets go. We gotta get to the underworld and see if we can't find the poor little freak."

"Say it ain't so, Grim!" Billy cried with a sharp cough and rubbed a hand under his already wet bulbous nose. "Say it ain't so..."

"Come on, Billy," Mandy sighed, putting an arm on his shoulder to direct him through the portal. "I'm afraid it might be awhile before you can see your cousin again."