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~~((The National Chocolate Pudding Day Special -- page 2 of 10))~~
In the downtime, Hector dematerialized the broken cage, not wanting to worry about hitting volume limit again.

He could see now why a cage had been a dumb idea. In order to a keep a big monster like Chort in captivity, the whole cage would have to be extremely sturdy. There was too much opportunity to break through.

Perhaps something smaller and sneakier was the ticket.

Like chains.

Those could obviously be broken, too, but if he managed to snake them around just the right part of Chort's body at just the right moment, they could become disproportionately effective, couldn't they? And if he used a lot of them, then... hmm.

It seemed like the offspring were ready to move again, getting antsy, but Chort took the opening to speak. "I fear this battle may never end, Hector."

"Well, you could always surrender."

Chort's body was bulging and growing--transforming again. The Beast was bigger than an elephant now, maybe even two. "And what would that look like? What would you do with me and my spawn?"

Interesting questions, but there was something more pressing on Hector's mind. "Stop those clouds from gathering, and we can talk about that."

"I think not."

Hector didn't intend to humor this any further. Chort was just buying time. Hector materialized iron shackles around each one of Chort's six amphibious legs and chained them to trees or the ground.

Chort immediately struggled and began breaking them, so Hector added more. More shackles. More chains. And even more layers of iron to the chains that hadn't immediately broken.

He materialized a big iron block above Chort's body, too. He didn't expect it to do much, but even if it only managed to stun Chort for a moment, that would be enough. He just wanted to seal the Beast's movement.

Unsurprisingly, the spawn were all over him now.