"You heard the man." General Hobble appeared from out the dust and skuttle of battle, hoisted himself upon Pea, and jabbed his leg-leg into Pea's side as a giddy up. Pea did not react, but turned to Mavis questioningly.

"Go!" The copper knight pointed. "We haven't any time!"

"You heard the captain, boy!" He hit Pea twice more with his peg. "Now hurry up and hop to it!"

Pea shook his head, and in fury both at the enemy and at the man on his back, rolled back into the battle, leaping in the air and smashing the enemies underneath.

"Not so hard!" The General smacked Pea in the back with his fist. "You don't have to kill them, you know! You could just break their legs!" 

A campfire smashed, then another, and then another, but as the bands of monsters rolled away towards the hill, seemingly in retreat, a figure rose out from the red silk yurt, not bothering to use it's front flaps but busting from out it's roof. The beast was twenty feet tall, with a blue skin and an almond shaped head, and one inflamed eye sat lopsided in his skull. 

He wore no armor, for just like Pea in his current form had skin tougher than iron, but also black claws of ebony on his fingers and toes, and bottom and top incisors like serrated elephant swords. Still, it was clear he cared somewhat about his appearance, as a makeshift pair of briefs sat around his waist, made of kudzu moss and mammoth pelts.

He banged his chest, and it's bay was guttural and bellowing. Then, took his fists and pounded the earth, over and over, shaking it as if it were made of loose cinderblocks, knocking the entirety of Kürbispfalz army to their knees. All, except for one.

"There's their king, Pea-eater!" The General smacked him again. "Now is your chance to attack the king!"

Pea made a face like he was yelling a great battle cry, and began bouncing at top speed toward the enormous blue monster. At first the beast appeared confident as it braced for impact, but the unblinking eye studied the bouncing cannon's trajectory and showed fear in it's raising lids. The monster leaned back, raised his hands to his face, for he had no time to get out the way now.

"Miii!" With all the pent up adrenaline Pea even in his engorged form was able to open his mouth and utter a tiny, high pitched war cry as he leapt in the air with his enormous frame and went to bring it down upon the monster's head.

"GAAAAAAAAH!" Hobble screamed, as he held on to Pea's reigns with one hand, and drove with all his might a poison dagger into with him, with the other hand. 

In an instant and in mid-air, Pea's body shrunk back to it's original puny size, and rather than landing like a mountain atop the monster's head, fell like a sack of potatoes aside him on the ground, his limbs slung painfully under him. The monster reached out and caught Hobble in his hand and held him up to his mouth.

"Monster! Don't you dare!" Mavis was helped onto his feet by soldiers on his left and right after wrapping his foot in a make shift gauze cast. "Put down the general now, or I shall- Erm, I shall-?"

The Monster, rather than smashing the general into his teeth and sucking through til only bones remain, opened his palm and began turning his hand over as if the general were a lady bug upon it, crawling through the black piney forest of hair upon his forearms and up his shoulder where he sat perched, dangling his legs off the side like a bench. 

"What are you doing, General Hobble? You're right next the monster's head, plunge your sword into his ear!"

Hobble said nothing, but stared placidly at the copper knight.

"What is the meaning of this, human?" The monster spoke to the general. "We agreed, you would bring your men here at dawn. Dawn is still hours away!"

"I am sorry, Rytyurk. I tried, but the people had their own ideas. If I tried and dissuade them, they'd have known something was amiss."

"You TRAITOR!" Mavis unsheathed his axe, now so filled with rage he did not feel his hurt ankle at all. "You came a day early not to survey, but to parlay!"

"One must always go with the winner, Mavis. Even you must be able to understand that."

"Hobble, you one eyed, one legged dope! We WERE winning before you betrayed us!"

"Well . . . Sorry. When I saw the size of Rytyurk the other day I just decided, better not take any chances. I mean look at the size of him! Wouldn't you do the same?"

"Muahahaha." The blue monster's belly bounced obscenely as he laughed. 

"Now, Mavis, if you want to take my advice," The general's mouth frowned squeamishly as he raised a hand over his eyes. "Maybe look away from this next part."

The monster grinned and barred all it's teeth, opening the lop sided lids of his eye even wider, and lifted his foot til it was hanging just above the fallen Pea-eater.

"NO!" Mavis ran as fast he could. "Pea! Get up!"

"Huhhh." Pea's arm slowly pulled out from under him, and then pressed against the dirt weakly to help him up. His hand slipped and he fell back down, but rolled on his side and looked at Mavis now. "Captain."

"Pea! Hold on!" Mavis reached his arm out as the monster's foot came down upon Pea. There was a horrible crunch, like the sound of a thousand cockroaches being stepped on all at once. The Monster lifted his foot and appeared amused at the strands of green viscus and gore attached from the ground to his sole. He stuck out an ebony claw and swiped at it, then gave it a sniff. 

"I hate pea soup." He flicked it off his finger nail like snot, and bellowed his awful baying laugh.

"Did you look away?" The General unsheathed his eye and peered back at the copper knight, fallen on his knees in dismay. "Oh, Mavis! I told you to look away!"

"Pea . . . My friend." He fell to the ground and gripped the grass in his hands, trembling with sadness, then rage. He stood up and continued his battle cry towards the monster, who in turn found joy in the little thing's tenacity. 

"Now just hold on, Mavis." The General said, but there was no stopping the sprinting warrior. He held the axe high in the air and as he came close to Rytyurkt the monster it swung a fist down at the knight, who agilely parried his fingers by sticking his axe in between them and ducking down as slid underneath. 

"Ah!" Rytyurk yelled, holding the his split finger fold up to his eye. "A paper cut! It stings, it stings!" 

He folded his hand into a fist and grimaced he slugged down at the knight. Mavis didn't roll out of the way, but held his axe up on it's side so the dull wall of the axe was pointing out like a shield, and as the enormous fist collided with the copper axe it neither bent nor shattered nor reverberated in the hand, but instead held so true that the fist bounced off it and landed back in the monster's eye.

"Ow!" He yelped. "Impossible! It is only bronze!"

"Behold the witch's spell, demon! With it's impervious strength, I shall defeat you!"

Mavis swung his axe down on the monster's foot, lobbing off his middle toe with a single blow. The monster reacted quickly, falling back on his behind, and holding the foot up to his mouth and yowling in pain. He panted, and sweated, unable to focus on anything else.

"Your monster is defeated, Hobble!" Mavis approached the stunned beast, his weapon readied. "Give yourself up now, and perhaps you will be spared a slow execution!"

"Tenacious flea!" Hobble growled in frustration, then reached into his bag and pulled from it a handful of some black bushy root. "Here, Rytyurk! Hurry!" 

He leaned across from the beast's shoulder and hung onto his nose for balance as he reached his hand into the monster's lip and shoved the root like it was chewing tobacco. The monster's eye rolled into his upper lid in ecstasy, swayed back and forth, and then refocused on Mavis.

"Yes, you're feeling much better now, aren't you!" Rytyurk said nothing, turned too feral by whatever anesthetic had just been applied. Seemingly without thought he stood back up on his feet, even amid the gushing bleeding of his toe, and kicked one mighty leg out towards Mavis like a battering ram. He ducked down, his helmet just barely scraping the beast's heel, then jolted forward again and made a spinning slash at the beasts foot. A giant gash appeared, but he reacted not. Instead, he bent over and began pummeling both his fists into the ground at random, throwing hay maker after hay maker, hoping to find his target. 

Mavis was at a loss, the ground was vibrating much from the raining fists. He could no longer stay atop his two feet and was rolled on his side back and forth as if he were on some enormous blanket being tossed and pulled by his friends. There was almost no control over his body, yet he managed to kick and pull at the ground enough to narrowly dodge the blows. 

The monster squinted at the ground, and looked at his fists to check for blood. 

"You didn't get him yet, you fool!" Hobble called out, to which Rytyurk looked at him stupefied. Mavis took the opening and got back up on his feet and came charging for the best.

"There! There!" The general pointed, then grew so annoyed he put both his hands together in one fist and slapped it across the beasts face. He recoiled, rubbed his cheek, and then saw the knight coming at him.

"FOR KURBISFALZ!!!!" Mavis charged like a wild bear and lifted his axe in the air once more, but it was no use. Rytyurk spit at the man, and threw one well aimed fist, finally meeting it's target. It knocked the knight into the ground, and despite the strength of his armor it could not stop him pressing into the dirt. He laid there under the fist, the wind knocked out of him, unable to see until the monster lifted his hand off the ground. 

"Oh god." The general covered his eyes once again. "This could have all been avoided you know! Well . . . Actually no it couldn't."

The monster balled his toes so the tips of his bladed nails were pointed down, then he reached over the knight and raked them across his armor, peeling back the layers of plating like the lid of a tuna can, until Mavis laid there like a turtle that's lost it's shell. His soft pink flesh was exposed, all except his underwear, decorated by red hearts and smiling teddy bear faces. The monster looked upon them, and although he was about to kill the man, looked upon him with a small bit of admiration.

"I like those underpants." He said. "I wish mine were fancy as that. I'll let you live another five minutes if you tell me where you got them."

As the beast lingered with his foot hanging above the hair, the bottom side pointing down at Mavis like a dangling anvil, the contents of it's under layer began to drip down on top of the de-coppered knight. Amongst the smashed mud and men under Rytyurk's foot were the acidic and gooey remains of young Pea. A drop of his blood dethatched from it's home and fell like a single rain drop into Mavis's mouth. He smacked his lips, unaware of what it was he just swallowed.

"Hello?" The monster tapped his wrist. "I don't have all the time."

Suddenly a burst of color came from Mavis's skin like a flashbang made of coloring dye. The beast stumbled back and covered his eye, then lunged forward, smashing Mavis with his foot and finishing the job.

"Finally. It's over." Hobble said. Except it wasn't.

The ground under Rytyurk's foot began to shake, except it wasn't the ground, it was the tiny any beneath him lifting it over his head as if it were a mere fifty pound weight. Then Mavis tossed it to the side and quickly rolled out from under it, stood up, and unsheathed his weapon.

His skin was glowing red, and his body was clearly enlarging and blowing up like a water skin. His face spoke with deadly seriousness, but also focus, as if Mavis were being processed by some other being with no human emotions except for the desire to fight. He grew, and grew, until he was almost half the monster's height. He bent his head down, looking out from under his brow, and flexed his chest with confidence at the beast.

"I don't believe it!" The General shrieked and grabbed at his hair. "He consumed the blood of Peter Pea-Eater, and has taken his powers as a result!"

"Taken his powers?" Rytyurk scratched his head and shuffled his jaw as his brain processed a thought. "Then, I'll combat him by taking your powers!"

"What? No! No you buffoon I don't have any-" Rytyurk gleefully pinched the general from his shoulder and plopped him in his mouth, rolled him around on his spiny cat-like tongue, before swallowing him hole like a vitamin capsule.

"Hmmmm." Rytyurk touched his chest, checking for changes. "I don't feel any more powerful."

"That's because you aren't." Mavis said, his voice deep and magnificent, echoing out into the valleys of their kingdom. His fist came crashing into Rytyurk's, busting his cheek bone and shattering three of his teeth. 

"My face!" He yowled, and then lunged his hands at Mavis's throat. He blocked the attack with a swipe of his hand and spun gracefully on his heel to transfer the monster's body weight into the ground. The monster stumbled forward, unclear as to how Mavis had somehow wound up behind him, but no matter. He turned back around, still ferocious as ever, and like a panther leapt with all his body weight at the giant knight. It was too much for him, even in his powerful transformed state, and was taken to the ground, holding the monster's wrists from plunging into his chest.

"Can't you see? You won't hold out much longer!" Rytyurk pressed further, bending back Mavis's arms as he tried with all his might to push back the beast, until the tips of his claws were at the knight's bare solar plexus.

"You're right, I won't." Mavis groaned. "But can't you see? At all?" Mavis sucked back the phlegm from his nose, hocked it into his mouth and sent the ball of mucus spit flying into the monster's eye, so hard it got lodged until his bottom eye without a single blink. The pain was so excruciating and immediate, his body reacted without thinking, and draw back from Mavis's chest. 

The knight threw his hands off him and landed two more blows into the monster's face. Then he shuffled forward, grabbed at the monster's foot and pulled it until he fell backward, banging his head against the ground.

"AH!" The beast vocalized, and Mavis climbed on top of his chest. With both his hands he reached into the beast's mouth and bent back a bottom incisors until it snapped off like an elephant tusk, turned it on it's sharp side, and drove it into the beast's eye, then beat it in like a nail and hammer, til it was so far in it stuck out the back of his head. 

The beast had nothing left, he neither screamed nor cursed, but let out three rasping breaths of air and collapsed on his side. 

The goblins and ghouls watched in horror and began escaping as best they could in every direction, which only led them to be easily picked off by the chasing soldiers. Mavis became exhausted, fell forward on his arms and in moments began deflating into his traditional size. 

"We did it, sir!" A man came running up to Mavis, whose vision became blurry, and sound became echoing. He slowly lost consciousness, and as he drifted away his mind only vaguely aware of the repeating phrase.

"We won! We won! We won!"

Months later, when the good king Desiordaries VI would return from his battling on the other side of the world, he would find the town better than when he left it. The men were stronger, the women, too, and all of them more willing to help each other and enjoy the pleasures of every day life, as if their time on earth meant more to them now than ever. These things gave the king much joy to see. 

Only one thing stuck out to him as peculiar, and could not possibly figure out the reason. The people of Kürbispfalz no longer seemed interested in growing pumpkins for the Fall harvest celebration, but instead, exclusively grew peas.