It was a very bulky and spiky thing, with legs so short that if it had sported thorns on the underside too, it would have been unable to move. And with its dismally slender arms, it was carrying huge, round lumps over its head. As a result, its gait was quite funny. Like it had heaved those weights up, but overestimated itself, and become forced to stumble forward, in a perpetual attempt to keep them from falling.
All together, a very clumsy appearance. It didn’t look dangerous: it looked like it might hurt itself.
This would be an easy fight.
And it couldn’t be anything else but a fight. The frog hadn’t spent much time up in this wider world yet, but it had already seen enough. Predators would never back down unless something made them.
And so it would.
Then, the next destination would need to be picked, in this surprisingly hard search for something to do. The beaver had been largely a waste of time, but it was just one attempt and the very first it had approached. Of course it wouldn’t be the correct choice!
Getting closer, something felt... off, about the spiky creature. More menacing. Though it was hard to say what.
It might be the stuff it was carrying. From here, it was becoming increasingly obvious they were no random things at all, but its hands. Why have hands so big on top of arms so small was a mystery, but the frog’s instincts were surprisingly wary about them. And so it would be careful and keep its distance from them. Nothing to worry about.
No, other creatures would know more, undoubtedly. And it would learn everything there was to be learned from them, in any way possible.
Already, it had gotten something even from the beaver: creatures didn’t necessarily know what they were doing even if they pretended like they did. That was very important information.
And it would learn something from this one too.
Was it…? No, surely not. It must be mistaken.
Yes, it would learn something. Starting from where it stood compared to creatures up here, ones that weren’t already dying before the fight had even begun. That would be precious to know, because it would dictate where it could go and what it could safely... try… ?
Confusion spiked for a moment, as they got even closer, and the frog started to slow down, trying to adjust its perspective.
Then, it stopped dead, all confidence disappearing, unable to deny what it was seeing anymore. The distance and lack of comparison had played a trick on it. A terrible and awful trick.
That thing was gigantic. And faster than expected-!
It jumped out of the way with all its strength as the spiky creature came barreling through. The impact with the ground was hard, but it rolled with the motion, and hurriedly turned to face its foe, just as the thing was slowly coming to a stop too, quite some distance away already.
The sheer size of it was apparent even from here, after that first brush. One of the tallest creatures the frog had seen, taller than the otter had been by a good margin, and much, much wider than that. More akin to a rolling boulder than a living creature.
How could its instincts have been so wrong? With that size, the thing didn’t even need to try: it could kill just by falling in the right direction!
Not that it would be a problem any longer. After all, while mulling on the many ways its enemy was scary, the frog had already built quite a lead. The thing might be hot on its trail, but it wouldn’t be able to catch up, not before it got to the ledge. It was only deceptively fast compared to its size, thankfully. Danger averted.
But as a traitorous part of its mind suggested, if it ran away now…
It slowed down as much as it could afford to and looked behind, confirming that its lead was only getting larger.
If it ran away now, there would be nothing to stop that thing from going after its original quarry. In fact, it was already slowing down too. With how stubborn and protective of its pile the beaver was, the outcome was obvious. That simple creature might not even notice it was under attack.
They had separated in a bad way, but was the frog really willing to let this happen?
...
Before the enemy fully stopped moving, the frog did a wide turn. Feeling quite a bit of anger – at the predator, at the beaver, but mostly at itself – it ran straight at death.
The creature was quick to notice, if not as quick to react. It turned around again and started moving towards the frog, all painfully slowly. Clearly it had some trouble changing direction, but finding comfort in that was hard right now. And as they got closer and closer, the frog felt its determination getting eroded.
There was something deeply scary seeing all that bulk charging in this direction and heading straight for it, rather than doing the sensible thing. What was it doing? What was the plan!? This creature was about to-
such was its focus on suppressing terror and keeping running, it almost forgot to jump. It dug its feet in the ground and dove away at the very last moment, landing in a heap as the predator rumbled forward.
It shook off the rocks embedded in its skin and jumped back up, as the enemy did its own lengthy procedure.
That could have gone better. But also much worse. In fact... hadn’t it been easy to get out of the way? The sheer mass and the huge hands were pretty intimidating, but apart from that…
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
The crab really was clumsy.
It struggled to change direction and to recover when it missed. It had tried more than once, and for how scary, it had failed to accomplish anything, even when the frog had been unprepared.
That wasn’t something strong creatures should do. Perhaps its instincts hadn’t been wrong after all, and the thing really was as harmless as it felt? As long as it avoided the hands, but that should be doable.
With new conviction, the frog stared at crab, and stood still this time.
Still, while the predator came back running again. Which remained incredibly scary, no matter what its instincts figured, no matter that it had failed to do any damage.
It felt like a landslide was coming its way. If it failed even slightly...
But despite its doubts, the scene repeated the same as before: the crab came in hot, easily avoided; it kept going, slowing down with difficulty only after having gone for some distance; it awkwardly turned around, and readied again.
Unbelievable. The simple creature could truly do nothing else, like it was stuck in this loop.
There must be something with this plateau...
In any case, despite how menacing it looked, the crab was harmless. And so, the frog’s mood soared: this might just become funny.
Clearly, it should be trying to find a way to harm the crab: without attacking, it wouldn’t win. But progressing to that step would be such a waste, when this little game of theirs was so very amusing. And practicing these stunts felt good. Useful even.
Something less... definitive, would be much better. But it was hard to think of more to try.
Dodging with the smallest jump possible had become natural long ago. It might have been challenging at the beginning, but after making sure that the crab truly didn’t change anything at all – and kept coming the exact same way – it just wasn’t.
And it had already tapped the creature in passing any way it could think of; kicked off of it; climbed over it…
It was so easy without pointless fear. The crab was just that useless.
Maybe there had been a few close calls that reminded it shouldn’t be taking such a huge predator quite so lightly. Like when it would jump over a bit too nonchalantly and would feel the hands’ tips touching its sides. Or the one time it had dodged under, and the thing had almost collapsed on top of it. That would have hurt.
But it couldn’t take this fight seriously anymore. There was just no way this thing could harm it. The crab’s problem was clear now: it was unbalanced. It might be big and strong, but that came to the detriment of everything else. So slow and predictable, and with only one manner of attacking.
The frog felt a good feeling swelling inside, thinking back to its decision of focusing on flexibility when it had transformed, and not getting too fascinated with size and bulk, only to become like this.
On top of everything else, the creature must be getting drained, because it felt more and more sluggish. Charging with all that mass must be taking a toll, which might cut their fun short.
… What if the crab didn’t need to charge? Certainly it would last longer like that. Perhaps it would even show something different!
So, after yet another easily avoided charge, rather than waiting for the enemy to turn around and come again, the frog chased after it and kicked it on its back.
The crab didn’t even budge at the strike but, as it turned around, it looked uncertain. It tried to move, but gathering momentum was slow for it, and by the time it had moved two steps forward, the frog was already somewhere else. And it had to stop, and start again.
To think it had ever been scared of this thing!
It started to play another game with the crab: jumping in and trying to claw and bite for the longest and most daring it could, before it had to move away. Nothing that would really damage the enemy, of course: there was still too much they needed to do together.
All to see how far it could go and to test the enemy for weaknesses, certainly. But mostly just because it could.
And because it was fun.
It felt good to be the one on top.
Unfortunately, even with the frog’s impressive self-control, the crab was starting to feel the strain. The more time passed, the more slow it got.
It must have really been getting drained. And their games might really be coming to an end...
Which meant the frog had to put it down.
It was almost sad in a way, but it couldn’t be left here, ready to go after the beaver as soon as it recovered. With how stubborn that creature was, it might try to take the charge straight on to defend its pile.
Unfortunately no weak point had come up, other than the unarmored belly. And that was unreachable for now, as getting under was just about the only way it had to get hurt. How surprisingly fast the crab had been when trying to collapse on it wasn’t something the frog would forget soon.
The next most vulnerable areas were also dangerous: attacking a leg would put it one stumble away from getting squished, while attacking an arm might expose it to the other one and its vicious hand. Maybe. It was still doubtful they could reach that far, but better be sure.
Or, the crab could just collapse on its side. Another way to get squished, in short.
It stepped up its attempts at finding a weak spot, getting increasingly pushy, emboldened by the creature’s steady decline. And also upset: there was no point playing with a creature too drained to even try.
It wasn’t surprising when the crab really did collapse. What little frustration the frog felt was vented by finally slapping away the annoyance. That always improved its mood a bit.
What was really strange was the way the crab rolled back, exposing its vulnerable underbelly so that it could be attacked wit no risk of squishment.
In fact, with the way the legs were placed, with arms so weak and clumsy, and such a bulky frame, the crab wasn’t getting up any time soon. It wouldn’t even be able to turn.
Jumping at the chance was extremely tempting, but… it seemed strange. Why was the predator doing that? Didn’t it understand that exposing its only real vulnerability was bad?
But there was no other way to really damage it.
So, the frog approached carefully... and then stopped, still wary at the crab’s strangeness.
Was there really nothing at all? No hidden claw or something?
But no matter how much it looked, there didn’t seem to be anything at all hidden there. Only a glaring weakness. So it continued approaching slowly, keeping a wary eye out.
It was the subtle tremble in the crab’s flesh that alerted the frog, and it looked up just in time to see the hands coming down onto it.
