They were quite surprised when a black sphere shot them out of the air.

* * *

Polymnia’s vision went black for a few seconds as they hurled through the air. Spinning wildly, she almost emptied her stomach when she suddenly jerked to a stop.

<Polymnia, what happened?!>, asked her handler.

“Something attacked us, Sarah!”, she answered, trying to get an idea of their situation.

Gloom Glimmer was still reeling from the attack, but had managed to catch her. They both looked at the direction from which they had been attacked just as a twisted shape hurled out of a side street. It was too fast for Polymnia to react, but Gloom Glimmer blasted it with a scarlet red energy beam.

The shape let loose an ear-shattering scream and fell to the ground. It took a second for Polymnia to realize what she was seeing, as it did not seem to be a naturally possible creature.

The monstrosity appeared to be made of what could only be described as a twisted, flesh-like wood, coloured pale white like a corpse. Its long, almost skeletal body was humanoid, with a flapping potbelly that appeared to be filled with a black fluid. It had several more sacs filled with the same black fluid all over its body, most of them smaller except for one on its back that was larger than its actual torso. Lacking any legs, it instead had thirteen arms, each with three to five joints and hands with long, multiple-joined fingers and vicious claws. The arms did not sprout either from where they would have been on a human body, nor from where its legs should have emerged. Instead the were spread irregularly across its torso. It was, all in all, about as large as a pick-up truck.

But what was most revolting was its head, which was about as big as Polymnia’s torso. It was just as sickly white, with blond hair reaching down to the ground and an absolutely stunning face formed like a classically beautiful woman with full red lips and sparkling blue eyes.

After a second spent trying not to throw up at the sight of the eldritch shape in front of her. “Spiteborn! We are being attacked by a spiteborn, and a large one at that!”, she told her handler.