Tag Archives: BigShit

B007 Hastur, Shrouded in Dread (Part 6)

Posted on by
33

Previous | Next

I died. I died and went to hell. Why else would my first real enemy be a giant monster made of shit?

Prisca flew to the side, evading the… dripping strike. Unfortunately, she was not fast enough to evade the splash of fecal matter that splattered her all over.

Eww.

Running on a strange kind of instinct, Prisca rose up into the air and above the towering enemy (he – she, it? – was at least sixty feet tall) and then higher still, out of reach of its disproportionally long arms – they were each longer than it was tall.

I can fly, she thought with a start, feeling her heart speed up in excitement. For a moment, she forgot even the monster beneath as an unrestrained laugh bubbled out of her throat.

I can fly!

She spun on the spot, like a ballerina, her scarlet half-skirt whirling up around her.

I can’t wait to show this to mom! And Rosalind! Their eyes will drop out of their sockets!

Just then, a huge glob of fecal matter slammed into her.

Ewwww.

She was knocked out of the air, but caught herself quickly, as the brown stuff just slid off her armor without leaving so much as a stain.

Perma-Clean armor. Awesome.

Catching herself – it was incredible how easily she could control this body and its power, like it had always been there, just waiting to be used – she looked down at her quarry, evading another lobbed mass of fecal matter.

How do I fight that thing?

She wasn’t sure what to do – it was bigger than her, it was most probably stronger than her and she didn’t know how much punishment she could take. Or how it could backlash into her real body – any trauma, no matter how small, was quite likely to kill her.

Drifting to her right, she evaded another shot. The monster seemed to mostly focus on her now, hopefully allowing Gloom Glimmer to get the survivors to safety.

Should I attack it? Or just keep distracting it? Just float up here, evading its shots…

There was something… something Basil had said, once.

When you don’t know how to proceed, choose the option that involves doing something.

She aimed her spear at where she believed the center of the beast to be. Stretching her body out to aim directly at it like a missile, she flew towards it, the silver edge of her golden spear gleaming in the sun.

It looks more like a sword on a spear than a real spear, really.

BigShit threw another glob of shit at her, but she flew through without losing a beat and plunged into its chest.

Her spear pierced through the shit, of course, then bit into flesh and bone and tendons, parting them as she pushed inside. Only when her armored body hit its actual flesh did she slow down, but she swung the spear, parting flesh and bone and sinew, cutting a way through BigShit’s body until she emerged on the other side.

She wasn’t even tired, and her spear had cut through it like through warm butter.

This body is freaking awesome. This power is freaking awesome!

She was so lost in revering her own power that she didn’t evade BigShit’s elbow strike, and he smacked her into the ground several hundred feet away.

Landing with a crash, she tore a fissure into the ground and broke through a tree before coming to a stop.

Ow. That hurt. A lot.

But she was, as far as she could tell, unharmed. Weird. Felt like I broke something, only I… didn’t.

“Are you alright?”

“Eeep!” She jumped up from the ground as a soft voice spoke to her from outside her field of vision.

Whirling around, she levelled her spear at… a young woman in a black cowl and robe, with a blood-red right hand.

“Who’re you!?” she asked the newcomer.

The woman giggled, and Prisca adjusted her estimate of her age down to teenager – maybe around her own age.

“I’m Phasma, and I’m here to help. Who’re you?” she said, her voice throaty and soft. She talked like she was just taking a stroll on a sunny day, and not standing just a hundred feet away from the giant monster that was coming closer with every moment.

“Uhh, I’m…” She didn’t have a cape yet. She so needed a name for her… well, herself really. “Call me… Gilgul. Yes, that fits.”

The other girl nodded. “Nice to meet you, Gilgul.” She turned to look towards the enemy, her face still hidden by her cowl. “You can cut that thing apart?”

“Uh, yes. But it doesn’t seem to really hurt it.” BigShit had shown now sign of being bothered by having been pierced through.

“We’ve fought a few others who seemed to be able to just absorb damage to no end. Most of them had some manner of core which, once destroyed, caused their death – or at least caused their regeneration to stop working, allowing for them to be taken down,” said Phasma. “I can blast away the shit and the outer layer of its body. If you’re fast enough, you should be able to locate and destroy the core.”

She looked at the beast with a doubtful expression on her face (not that Phasma could see that behind the helmet). “What if it doesn’t have a core?”

Phasma shrugged carelessly. “Then we do it the hard way. You keep cutting it to pieces, I get rid of the pieces. Until there’s nothing left.”

“What’s your power, anyway?”

The other girl turned to look at her, and somehow Prisca got the feeling that she was smirking. “Let me demonstrate. Stand ready.”

And with that, her robe dropped to the ground, suddenly empty.

Prisca saw a distortion in the air, roughly the size of a person, fly towards the fecal monster. As it did so, it grew and grew, until it was an amorphous shape of distorted air the size of a truck. And then it touched their enemy.

Wherever it came into contact with it, the fecal matter exploded, going up in flames and sound and force. Phasma pushed on, drawing her ‘body’ over the outer layer of the beast, literally blowing the shit and other bits off of it.

Holy Sh- Holy Hell’s Freakin’ Bells.

Within seconds, Phasma had literally blown the shit out (or rather, off) the monster, revealing it in all its twisted glory – it looked like a gaunt human, only it was all crooked bones, oozing and infected muscles, sinews and incomprehensible organs.

But nothing that looked like a core of some sort.

“Phasma! Can you blow more off?” she shouted, readying her spear and ready to fly away – BigShit was staggered, but it was still advancing with single-minded determination.

Until Phasma wrapped around its right knee, her ghost-body blowing muscle, sinew and ‘fresh’ shit off the bones with dozens upon dozens of explosions, until the lower leg came free and BigShit dropped to land on its left knee and right stump.

I hope I never have to fight her. Wouldn’t know how, for one.

Phasma went back to blowing the outer layers off of its body, as well as the fecal matter it kept oozing out of countless orifices (as well as any wounds she created), searching for the theoretical core.

Should I join in and cut it up, or wait for her to reveal the core?

She thought about it for all of maybe three seconds, before she heeded Basil’s advice and charged in, aiming her spear at the twisted, oozing mass that was probably its head.

* * *

*Smack*

*Smack* *Smack* *Smack*

She danced through the lines, her staff swinging left and right, shattering bones and bursting flesh.

*Smacksmackmsack*

A three-fer, downing three of the strange spawns they were fighting, each looking like some kind of greasy pig-man. They could see their spawner, an incredibly obese woman with no hair on her body and blue-black veins running visibly under her swollen, greasy skin. She was literally pushing out another three or four or five of these every few seconds and her ‘children’ went immediately to work, attacking everything that was not one of them or their mother.

Tyche ducked underneath their swiping claws and swung her staff left and right, shattering two knees. They fell into their siblings, getting entangled in their feet, tripping the next two waves of foes.

Finally, it’s working as it should!

The big meatshield was standing behind her, firing his heavy machine guns akimbo into the mass of enemies, trying to shoot through to their ‘mother’. Unfortunately, the kids were defending her with their own bodies, while some others were moving cars and the bodies of their fallen siblings to shield her off.

Just when we’d need Outie, he’s off hunting that weird hedgehog thing.

She flipped over the next wave of pig-men just in time for them to stumble over the bodies of those who had already fallen.

Time to see how far I can take this.

Fortunately, B-Six had given her a belt full of grenades to play with (old-school, really secure triggers, nothing electronic). Pulling one off, she checked the colour – red, so incendiary fun.

Goodie goodie.

She pulled the trigger and threw the grenade up and towards the ‘mother’ without even aiming. Then she watched, while spinning around and letting the enemies all hit each other instead of her.

The grenade bounced off a nearby window sill, off a car hood and dropped right into the gullet of the ‘mother’.

“I hope you like roasted meat for dinner, little piggies!” she shouted. How’s that for a one-liner.

The mother died almost instantly, as the grenade burned her up in seconds.

And the pig-men all dissolved into goo.

Ewwww.

She turned to look at the Big Guy, who was walking slowly towards her.

“How’s that for a one-liner, big guy?” she asked with a grin.

Tartsche replied: “That was needlessly risky – you had no idea the grenade would hit your target.”

Tyche just grinned mysteriously. “Oh, I do have my means, big guy.”

Just then, Outstep appeared out of nowhere. “FreakoSpeedsterhasbeendispatchedbosswhatsnext?” he asked before even completely dropping out of super-speed completely.

“We just got reports of three new of Hastur’s victims rampaging around the harbor. Outstep, take us onto your bike,” Tartsche answered.

“Okie-dokie!” they both replied in tune.

* * *

“Why. Won’t. You. DIE!?”

Screaming at the top of her lungs, Prisca kept cutting off pieces from the giant monster, trying to get deeper into its body to find some kind of core. But it only flailed and wriggled and thrashed around, throwing her off again and again.

At the same time, Phasma had contracted her ghost-form back into a human-sized and human-like shape and was gliding all over its body wherever Prisca wasn’t currently cutting into it. The explosions she caused were bigger and more violent now, tearing more and more off the beast.

Prisca ducked to evade a swipe of its one remaining arm, then struck out with her spear-blade to cut into it, nearly severing the appendage from the body (but only nearly). Its other wounds were already closing again, shit oozing over them as they knit themselves.

“Phasma! This ain’t working, its regenerating faster than we’re cutting it down!” she shouted, flying up over the prone enemy to cut into its shoulder. “We gotta focus on one spot and try to dig into it! Don’t worry about me, just blast away!”

She dove into the center of its chest and started cutting, her golden armor repelling a weak strike of its still regenerating arm even as her blade cut into it. Once more, she was glad that her armor seemed to repel dirt.

The ghost girl seemed to have heard her – How the hack can she sense anything, anyway? ESP? – because her nigh-invisible form, still focused into the shape of a nude, featureless woman, slammed into BigShit right where she had already cut into it.

What resulted was a series of explosions that almost threw her off of it, but she used her flight to push on with her spear, cutting deeper into its body where the explosions did not suffice.

Ow. Ow. Ouch.

She got hurt, over and over, but she never seemed to actually take any damage. It hurt just as much as she’d imagine being blown around and burned by explosions would, but there was no actual damage she could make out.

Nor did it impede her from cutting deeper into BigShit, until Phasma focused her entire form into a needle-thin form and stabbed into it.

What resulted was an explosion that hurt like hell and threw Prisca off BigShit, slamming her into the wall of the hospital.

The wall cracked, but held (hospitals were built very sturdy) even as her head rang for just a second, before her senses were clear again as if nothing happened. And for just a moment, she felt like her body had been shattered, but she was fine again.

Huh. Maybe I just recover really damn fast?

But no time for that – Phasma had blown BigShit’s chest wide open, and now, finally, she could see a glowing, crystalline heart, glowing a dark, stained red.

Well, if that ain’t a core, then I’m not wearing knight armor, either.

She flew towards her quarry even as he started to regenerate while rising up on his regenerated legs… which only served to give her an easy target. Plowing into the open wound, she stabbed her spear at the he-

* * *

Ouch.

Perhaps she should have tried throwing her spear, instead of doing the deed in person. Because BigShit exploded, big-time.

It took the entire front of the Petal Memorial Hospital down.

Prisca found herself half-buried by rubble, everything but her stained with fecal matter.

And she was completely, utterly fine.

Still hurts like hell, though.

Hearing steps, she soon saw Phasma, back in her robe and cowl, enter her field of vision and stand over her.

“Need a hand?” she asked, offering her right hand.

“Gladly, thank you,” Prisca replied and grabbed it, letting her help pull her up to her feet. Dust and debries fell off of her still spotless armor. “Good work out there.”

“You too. I hope we can work together again sometime,” replied the ghost-girl. Prisca couldn’t see her face, but she got the feeling that she was smiling.

“Really great work, both of you,” said Irene, appearing right next to them.

“Eeeek!” they both shouted in unison, jumping up. In Prisca’s case, she flew up nearly through the half-collapsed ceiling before she stopped herself.

“Don’t do that!” she said as she floated back down. And then she saw Basil – Brennus – stand behind Gloom Glimmer, supporting himself on a wooden staff.

She fought down the urge to go and hug him (and do other things) in front of Phasma (and Gloom Glimmer, for that matter). Instead, she asked: “Are you alright, Brennus?”

He nodded. “Just a little winded, but nothing too bad. Congratulations on the battle, both of you. That was one hell of a finisher,” he replied.

Blushing beneath her helmet, Prisca nodded happily, while Phasma made a shallow little bow.

“So, what are we going to do now?” the newly manifested girl asked. And where’s my body?

“We need to find a way to deal with Hastur for good,” replied Brennus. “And for that, we need to figure out how to get past her regeneration.”

“Agreed. And we need to get the survivors somewhere safe, too,” Gloom Glimmer included, taking a step back and to the side, so they were all standing in a rough circle. “I’ve already called for backup, but we need to cover them until it arrives.”

The other three all nodded, and then Brennus spoke up again: “Good, let us use the time to plan. Phasma, are you willing to work with us for the time being?”

“I wouldn’t be here otherwise. The Morning’s Children are more than willing to cooperate against this enemy,” she replied in her soft voice.

“Very good. May I ask what your power actually does? I saw most of what you did out there, but I would like to hear it from you.”

She shrugged. “I can turn into an incorporeal form, then apply various effects – though only one at a time – to any physical object that I come into contact with. The more I focus my form, the stronger the effect, while it becomes weaker as I spread myself. I can detonate, incinerate, petrify, melt, shatter and do some other things which are not relevant to the situation at hand. I am completely immune to all mental and most physical powers while doing so and can recover even if my incorporeal form is somehow torn apart,” she explained in two breaths.

Wow. That’s one hell of a power, Prisca thought. I wonder what her trigger was.

Brennus just nodded, showing no reaction. Then again, his face was still hidden by his mask. “That’s very useful, and it might prove instrumental in de- Do you all hear that?” He looked up at the hole in the ceiling.

Now that he mentioned it, Prisca could pick up an odd, mechanical chirping approaching them.

“Oh. I know that one,” said Gloom Glimmer, looking up herself.

“What is i-” Prisca began but didn’t finish as a vaguely draconic robot flew into the blasted room, landing in the middle of the circle.

It was about the size of a medium-sized dog and painted a gleaming black. Its head looked more avian than draconic and it had wings, a tail and four clawed legs.

Even Prisca could tell that it was one hell of a finely crafted machine.

“What in Tesla’s name is that?” asked Brennus, staring at the new arrival.

“That’s one of Wyrm’s drones. She’s dad’s personal gadgeteer and communications officer (also, his spymaster),” replied Gloom Glimmer as she squatted down in front of the drone. “Hey Wyrm, what’s possessed you to take a hand in this?”

Wyrm’s drone turned to look towards the only clean, still standing wall of the room. Its eyes lit up, and it started projecting onto it, like a home cinema.

They watched in silence.

Then Gloom Glimmer said: “Holy shit. That’s it.”

Brennus said: “Amen.”

Previous | Next

B007 Hastur, Shrouded in Dread (Part 5)

Posted on by
39

Previous | Next

She will live.

Brennus staggered back from the bed, his whole body shaking from fatigue and pain from his own wounds.

“She will live,” he whispered, but that took too much effort and he stumbled as he was taking a step back, falling…

Someone caught him. Hard arms, and a strange voice: “Ba-“

He whirled around, drawing a knife from his belt.

In one fluid motion, he put one leg behind the stranger’s knee, threw them – her – onto the floor and put the knife to her throat, holding it so it would slip into the gap between her helmet and her armor.

“Who are you? How do you know me!?“

I hope Gloom Glimmer did not catch that.

The stranger was a young woman in brilliant gilded armour so ornate, so skintight it had to be unnatural. It looked like something an angel or a heroine out of a videogame would wear, and the helmet, which seemed to leave no openings for her eyes sported wing-like decorations and a sunburst motif.

“B- Brennus, calm down! It’s me!” she said in a ringing, rather throaty voice. The helmet melted and disintegrated, revealing…

“P-Prisca?” What?

She smiled at him, her full red lips coloured like wine – like her hair. And somehow he did not think it was lipstick.

Then his brain finally caught up with what was happening.

“You manifested.”

He rose from his position, straddling her hips as he looked onto the bed. Gloom Glimmer had just finished removing the new scars on Prisca’s chest from the emergency operation he performed. She looked… asleep. Peacefully.

Looking back at the girl beneath him, he concluded: “A projection?”

“Quite so. And one of the rare kinds,” commented Gloom Glimmer as she staggered around the bed, sliding down to lean against it and sit next to them. “It feels more like she’s there,” She pointed at the armoured girl, “Than in there.” She pointed over her shoulder at the body on the bed.

“You mean, this is my real body!?” Prisca asked, looking confused. “But I can still feel that one!”

“Oh, it’s still your real body, Prisca. It’s just that, right now, it’s in standby mode, so to speak. Your mind is in that projection. Or maybe that projection is your mind, or something like that. But I definitely get the feeling that you are now… inbetween your boyfriend’s legs.” She cocked an eyebrow at them.

“Agh!” Brennus jumped off Prisca and scrambled over to lean against the wall, opposite of Gloom Glimmer. “Sorry!” The knife slid out of his fingers and fell to the floor.

Prisca blushed, hard (which looked all kinds of interesting in combination with her hair and lips and why was he paying so much attention to that all of a sudden?), and rose up to sit on her butt, her armor moving with her like a second skin, sliding over the linoleum of the floor. “N-n-not a problem. Wow. I feel…” She threw a glance at Brennus, blushing even more. It made her green eyes stand out even more from h- Cut it out, there is an S-Class threat running around out there! Focus on that, not on how impossibly tight that armor is around her-

He shook his head, weakly, to cut off that particular train of thought. “Alright. Alright. We need to… to get back to base. Get your real body safe, too. Hastur might c-come b-“

Suddenly, he had the sights from earlier in front of his eyes. Her eyes, bleeding, her whole body convusling as her heartbeat went out of control. Him, cutting into her chest, operating on her h-

He scrambled over to the trashcan next to her bed. Pulling the mask up beneath his nose, he emptied what little there was in his stomach into it.

“Ba- Brennus?” Prisca let go of her spear and crawled over to him, holding him by his shoulders. “Are you alright!? What can I do?”

“I… I…” His chest hurt so much… and his arms… and his legs… everything, really. “Tired…” The memories…

* * *

“B-Brennus! Hey, can you hear me!?” She shook his limp form. He was so light.

“Prisca, calm down!” Irene said, sliding over to them. Putting a hand to Basil’s chest, she closed her eyes for a moment. “He’s just asleep! Just exhausted! Calm down.”

She did, but only after a few seconds of getting her breathing back under control. “Oh God, I thought… I thought…”

Irene shook her head. “Just tired. He almost died today, fighting Hastur. I healed him, but it exhausted him a great deal, and then we raced over here.”

He’s hurt. He should be in bed, but he came for me, she thought, looking at him. She took a tissue from a box on her nightstand and wiped his mouth clean. He’s got such pretty lips… like a girl, almost. Like his sister’s.

But she didn’t want to have their first kiss with this body be like this. He had to be awake, for once. Instead, she turned to look at Irene, taking the other girl’s appearance – and presence – in for the first time.

If she hadn’t just literally gotten her dream body, she’d be crying due to physical envy. Irene was perfect, in a way that was just unnatural. She could be fourteen, she could be twenty-four.

“Oh, uh…” Why was her whole body – the new one, not the useless old one – heating up? She wasn’t interested in girls, she…

“Sorry! Sorry, wait!” Irene took a canister full of blue-and-white pills and swallowed a handful. The inexplicable attraction vanished almost immediately.

“What was that?”

Irene blushed, averting her eyes. Suddenly, she looked far younger than fourteen. “Uhm, nothing, sorry… uh, we should probably get going…”

As if on cue, there was a scream from somewhere outside. She could hear it, and she could even tell that it was from at least two foors above them. Her ears were so much better now.

“What do we do?” She pulled Basil closer to her, hugging him. He could die. I can still die.

Irene seemed to think it over for a moment. “I’m wiped. No way I’m teleporting us out of here or anything… you’ll have to cut us a way out of the hospital. I hope that spear is not just for show.”

They both looked at the spear. It looked very sharp.

“Uh, I’ve never fought before. Ever. Unless you want to count snowball fights with family and friends. And even that’s been years ago,” Prisca commented.

“Don’t worry too much. Your power seems to be geared towards combat, so you should be able to at least fight a way out,” Irene replied.

“What about my real body? We don’t know how far I can move away from it – and we can’t leave it here, either!” It’s still holding me back, even now. “And what about Brennus?” She hugged him a little harder. “And what about all the other people in the hospital?”

Irene’s eyes turned from thoughtful to soft. “Relax. I have something of a plan. We put Brennus onto the bed with your real body. I still have enough juice to turn us invisible. You cut every monster down on the way, we get out to the rescue services – even if the heroes are spread too thin, they’ll still have emergency services outside at least.”

Prisca could feel her new face twist in worry. It felt so familiar, and yet still a little strange, too. Focus, Prisca. Focus. “What about the other people in the hospital?”

Irene closed her eyes for a moment, concentrating. Then she opened them again. “Most of them are in the emergency shelters already, or getting evacuated by the rescue services. But we’re pretty much at the center of the building, so we have the longest way to go.”

Damn, mom, why did you put me into this damn room?

“Ok. Ok. I’ll put Brennus up on the bed. Gather the machines. Help me?”

“Sure thing.”

* * *

They left the room, Prisca taking the lead (helmet back up), while Irene pushed the bed that they’d loaded both with the two bodies (it felt strange knowing that Basil was lying with her, but she wasn’t really lying with him) and her life support. Her body’s life support. Wait, no. Still her own. If her broken body died, so would this one.

This one feels more real than the other one ever did since… since Hawaii.

Remembering her levitation from earlier, Prisca focused on that and flew over the floor in front of the invisible bed, levitating a few inches over the floor, her spear held ready.

Right around the next corner a… a person stepped around it. A thing, really. She saw crooked, insect-like legs, growing from a bulge of twisted, gnarled flesh studded with very, very human eyes.

The eyes were crying, filled with terror as it walked towards them, bumping into her armored waist before she managed to pull herself back together from the shock of the sight.

It bounced off, falling onto its… well, falling back down. Shivering.

She looked down at the impotent monster. That could have been me. That’s what Hastur wanted to do to me.

A great heat rose in her chest. Her body trembled, the spear vibrating, her new eyes overflowing with tears.

She wanted to do that to me. She did that to this person. She’s still doing this to people.

Before she even knew what she was doing, she realized she was screaming, striking out with the spear.

The long blade on the tip of the golden staff cut through the bulge of flesh as if it was warm butter, cutting the wretched creature in half.

Another strike, quartering it before it even hit the floor. Another. And another.

She was screaming, cutting it to pieces, until something barrelled into her, slamming her into the wall.

Ow. I can still feel pain in this body.

Trying to move, she found herself stuck in the wall, half-embedded into it, as she saw a twisted mass of over-muscled arms – skinless, bile-dripping arms – growing out of the back of a naked woman who was bent over by the weight of the appendages growing out of her back.

I’ve seen you before. She’d been a nurse. She’d seen her walk by her room sometimes when the door was open.

I never knew your name.

The arms reached out, ripping her out of the wall and drawing her into a bearhug.

Well, she tried to, at least.

It all came so easy. As if she’d always had this body, had always been fighting with the spear and in full, skintight armor.

Angling her arm up, she drove the spear into the nurse’s head, cutting through brain and heart using her forced posture and the pull of the monstrous arms.

The woman sighed and collapsed, her whole body going limp.

Rest in peace.

As if in a trance, Prisca kicked the corpses – and the pieces – aside so Irene could pass through, noting idly that the bile and blood did not stick to her armor. It was pristine again, quickly enough.

“Alright. Alright. Let’s go, go, go…”

She flew on down the hall, until she heard a massive scream outside.

“What in the name of God was that?” she asked, coming to a dead stop.

Suddenly, she felt like earlier when she’d been dying, Irene’s voice speaking up in her head. Calm down and advance. We need to get out of here. You’re doing great, sweetheart, just keep on going.

“I hope there’s not another shit-monster outside,” she whispered and advanced.

On the way out, twelve more people, including five children, joined them, with Irene extending her invisibility over them.

She had to cut down one more monster, a kind of snake made of intestines and p… and primary male characteristics.

Great. My first day as a super-something – well, I’m not gonna be a villain, so superhero I guess – and I fight a monster made of… of those things. Can my day get any worse?

Finding a double door, she kicked it open, barging outside – hopefully, no one would open fire on her, even if she was pretty sure she could take normal guns. The… male reproductive organ monster had been firing steel bolts from its… well, its openings.

Taking a look around, she wished she’d have gotten shot at. Or fought another phallus-monster.

“Oh, come on! Is this my first boss fight!?”

It was big. It was massive. And it was made of shit.

Oh God, another one of those? What t- oh fuck, it’s the same one. It must have regenerated somehow. BigShit is back.

“Who named that thing BigShit? If I ever find them, I’ll shove this spear all the way up their-“

The dung kaiju turned to her, moving slowly towards her, apparently intent on crushing her – and the still invisible people behind her – to a bloody (and shitty) pulp.

My day just keeps getting better and better.

Tell me about it, Prisca. By the way, what’s your cape gonna be?

Uh, no idea. Gonna get back to you about that once I finish cleaning the toilet.

Please try and come up with better one-liners.

Will do.

I’m getting the civilians – as well as you and Brennus – out of here. Can you distract it until help arrives?

Sure, sure.

She could hear them go away, just as BigShit reached her and swung a massive arm at her.

Fuck my life.

Previous | Next

B007 Hastur, Shrouded in Dread (Part 2)

Posted on by
36

Previous | Next

“Oh, come on!” Brennus shouted at the top of his lungs, as he stood atop a rooftop, watching the monster tear into a McDonald’s restaurant.

Polymnia winced at the volume. She so needed to come up with some kind of protection that didn’t cripple her hearing. <I know it’s disgusting, but->

Gloom Glimmer just looked green and ready to puke.

“That is not what I mean! This. Is. My. First. KAIJU. Could I not have gotten, I do not know, a lightning throwing dinosaur? Or a cyborg dinosaur? Or a chainsaw swinging ape? Or a chainsaw-swinging, lightning-throwing dino-ape?!” He looked incredulously at… the thing. “Instead I get to find out exactly how high you can pile shit!? Is this a joke!?”

Now Gloom Glimmer giggled. “Oh, I guess this is the so-called ‘nerd-rage’, right?” She still looked like she was about to throw up, though.

She couldn’t blame her – the stench was awful. Worse than anything she’d ever smelled before.

The three of them had been dispatched as a team – working under the assumption that, between Gloom Glimmer and the two of them, they should be able to handle it while the others split up into teams to hunt for Hastur – and any other victims of hers.

Now they were looking at twenty meters of brown sludge with two arms made of infected organs and muscles wound around crooked bones, smashing the restaurant open (fortunately, it had been evacuated in time). There were wounds and pustules all over the muscles and… other organs, pulsing and oozing more excrement. No head was visible, instead it looked like there was a particularly… productive opening at its top, covering the figure in wave upon wave of excrement.

“So, what do we do?” asked Gloom Glimmer after a moment, as her sick expression vanished. Acting on a hunch, Polymnia moved over to her, and the stench vanished. Slight changes in the sound around her told her that something was moving the air strangely. Low-level aerokinesis, most probably.

“We blow it up, of course! I will build a bomb, you deliver it, the thing is gone and we go after Hastur,” Brennus explained calmly. Too calmly – he’d just switched from outraged nerd to his usual calm self, like flipping a switch.

He was now looking at several cars that had been crushed by the monster. “And I have everything I need for a good bomb there.”

Polymnia grinned in anticipation. Haven’t built a big bomb before. Quite the oversight, really.

* * *

Irene had cleaned off six destroyed cars, removing their engine blocks and gathering them in one spot. Then she flew off to distract the monster – someone had slapped it with the code name ‘BigShit’, according to Sarah, and Polymnia was going to hunt them down, later on, and make them listen to her brown note – while the two of them worked on something to blow it up with. BigShit had killed seventeen people within ten seconds of appearing, apparently out of nowhere, and starting its rampage. Considering what little they knew about Hastur’s power, they’d designated the poor soul as dead already, and so they were to simply put it down.

The fact that twenty meters of super-strong excrement and whatever hid inside was rather difficult to contain also played a part in that.

Polymnia prayed quietly to God that whoever had been Hastur’s victim truly was lost, and they didn’t end up killing an innocent they could have saved.

No way to heterodyne here, now, especially considering how… worked up Brennus was. And she definitely wasn’t. Curious how easily it set him off. I took him for a calmer person. But then again, he’s totally calm now.

Not that it mattered whether or not they were heterodyned.

Bombs were easy.

Made easier by the fact that contemporary cars were completely electrical, and supplied them with all the parts they needed to work with. Though with Gloom Glimmer gone, the stench was back and worse – there were pools of sludge nearby she very pointedly ignored.

<Electromagnetic Thermo-Bomb?> she asked as she surveyed their material and their tools, distracting herself from the smell. She could already hear the beginning of a melody.

“Aye. You do the core – it’s closest to your speciality – and I do the shell?” Brennus replied, now calm again.

<Sure.> She had her spider-limbs bend backwards to let her work freely, and they started taking the wreckage apart. <What is your speciality, anyway? I’d guess it’s electromagnetism, or something close to that?> she asked matter-of-factly, or at least tried to. She heard Sarah take a surprised breath – the higher-ups really wanted to know – and she was curious, too.

After a few seconds of quietly working while Gloom Glimmer used a freeze-beam and geokinesis to slow BigShit down, she started to think he wouldn’t answer, or else he hadn’t noticed the question. She was just about to repeat it, when he replied: “I haven’t really found a definite focus yet, but it might be modular systems – everything I have created so far either has multiple settings or is easily adapted for multiple uses.”

She breathed in, surprised that he gave it up so easily. Then again, it probably didn’t make much of a difference for him.

At the same time, the song in her head continued to build up as she worked on the core, becoming more and more complicated. She loved listening to all the music her power made. Others did, too. After all, her schematics had turned her into an international superstar.

She’d only ever composed one song that was not also a schematic for some invention – even an aborted one – and no one but her had ever heard that one.

As the song grew more complex, her awareness of her surroundings faded, slowly. Her mind now wholly focused on her work, she kept assembling the core of the bomb. It really wasn’t hard, though she had to jump through a few loops to work it into her usual approach.

She finished it and turned to look at Brennus’ work – he’d assembled a kind of missile, only without any propulsion she could make out. Instead, its tip looked more like a drill than a normal missile tip, and there were exhausts further down the body of the missile, all pointing away from the tip.

“Complete?” he asked. She nodded, handing him the heavy core. He turned around and built it into the missile’s midsection – not the tip, as usual. “Can you assemble a B4CC13 battery, or an equivalent, out of the remaining parts? I already made one,” he continued.

<How is it supposed to work?> she asked as she went to work on the battery. It was even easier than the core, so her thoughts mostly focused on the question of how he managed to assemble both the missile and one of the batteries on time, when she’d just done the core. Even if the core was the most complicated part of the whole thing.

“We stick this into that thing, it drills itself inside and detonates once it reaches its core,” he explained while working on the core, connecting it to one of the batteries.

<How will it know when it has reached the core?>

“We can make an educated guess as to its rough position inside… that,” he explained, pointing at the huge monstrosity currently being baked by Gloom Glimmer. “My ravens will fly around it and serve as reference points for the built-in positioning system, so the missile knows when it has reached its destination. Nice and simple.”

She nodded. It was a nice solution.

<I so need my own raven robots. They’re way handy.> She handed him the battery.

He snorted as he put it in. “They are. The correct term, though, is ‘ravenbots’. Also, you can crib my technology, but you can not crib my style. Find your own animal to mimic.”

<Any suggestions?>

“Bats.”

<Bats!?>

“Well, you do specialize in sonics…”

<I guess so… but they’re kind of icky. And not colourful enough.>

He looked at her long hair that was constantly shiftings its colour. “I guess you are a colourful person. Maybe parrots?”

She thought it over. <Yeah, that works. I’ll see t->

An explosion cut her off, shaking the very earth beneath them for a moment. Polymnia staggered, as did Brennus, and he started to curse as there was apparently some damage to the missile.

<What happened!?>

Sarah replied: <Unkown. Tartsche, Tyche, Spellgun and Hecate engaged rampaging victim of Hastur, then our videofeeds cut off and there was an explosion.>

She turned to Brennus to pass on the information, but he just spoke, while still working on the missile: “Tyche reported in. The enemy was a powerful geokinetic, and he ‘detonated’, so to speak, when one of Spellgun’s shots penetrated a kind of core it had. She is unharmed, as are Tartsche and Hecate – except the latter got her costume ruined, again,” he grumbled for a moment, apparently annoyed more than he was concerned. “But Spellgun broke his leg.”

<Enemy down, Hecate, Tartsche and Tyche unharmed, Spellgun down but non-critical. Outstep will provide extraction,> replied Sarah, and Polymnia remembered that they’d allowed Brennus and his team to patch into their com-system.

Stepping up to stand next to Brennus again, she helped him put the finishing touches to the missile. <How come Tyche reported to you first? I thought you were all in our network.>

“It was down for some reason. She grabbed one of my ravenbots and reported through it.”

<What could knock out our communications?> That might become a major problem.

“I do not know, though it is possible that it was simply an effect of the detonation of this geokinetic. Ah, done.” He closed the body of the missile up. It was as long as they were tall, and looked more like a massive spear than a missile.

Thinking about it, she decided that it was a spear, more than a missile.

<So, how do we get it into that thing?>

“Gloom Glimmer, can you come over here quickly? Without undue risk to civilians?” he spoke into his com-system.

<Gimme a second, will you?> She was tying BigShit down with strands of billowing green energy that… made it look even more stomach-turning. <There, big boy, stay down.>

With a flash of light, she appeared next to them. “So, what do w-“

There was a flash of light, an sound like air being explosively displaced. Polymnia whirled around to see a girl in a yellow sweater and blue jeans, her head hidden by a deep hood.

Next to her stood a… a woman, naked, hairless, her skin black as ink, her body ridiculously elongated and with way, way too many joints on her limbs and torso. Also, her breasts were perfect replicas of her head, one of them locked into an expression of soundless screaming, the other soundless laughing.

And one more… a tall African-American man, his head missing, his chest burst open, the ribs spread open to reveal several twisted half-human, half-feline faces, snarling at the world. Also, she noticed, his… manhood… was abnormally engorged, and hard, to the point where it reached up to his… neck.

Before she could react, before Gloom Glimmer could react, before any of the attackers could do a thing, Brennus whirled around, throwing one of his batons at the girl – Hastur – and another at the twisted man.

The man flashed away, appearing again next to Brennus, while the other baton was blocked by the woman with too many joints, making her twitch for a moment – too little, considering the charge those things had to carry.

Folding her suit’s limbs forward, she tried to attack with sonics, but she was too slow. Gloom Glimmer struck at Hastur with a blast of billowing green energy, but it dispersed upon contact just as Brennus plunged his humming blade into the chest of the man.

The monster did not care, grabbing him with one monstrously deformed hand – it looked more like a toothless maw – and flashing back to Hastur, then vanishing again in another flash along with the two women.

<Oh God, no.>

Gloom Glimmer screamed in outrage.

* * *

They reappeared in a brightly lit room. Panthera Avis dropped him onto blood-soaked rich carpet, in front of the feet of Hastur.

“Hello cutie,” she chirped brightly, squatting on her heels in front of him.

His thoughts, however, were analyzing the situation. Panthera Avis, high-speed line-of-sight teleportation, enhanced strength and reaction speed. The other one’s faces resemble Netsense, shares senses with anyone she has touched in the last half-hour.

No information on the girl in front of him, apart from a sight-based control power. Obviously one that transformed you into a monster. Which was why he had immediately turned off his external cameras, and was right now working solely through thermal vision.

“Hello, Miss…?” he said, raising his head from where he lay on his belly in front of her, as if looking at her directly. Her heat signature seemed to be absolutely fine, and her body-type betrayed no obvious mutation, nor even an exceptional physique.

“I don’t really like to use my old name anymore. Just call me Hastur, I guess,” she replied in that chirpy, too-happy voice. “And you are Brennus. Nice to meet you.”

“The pleasure is mine, Hastur. Though I would have preferred a more polite invitation – or any kind of invitation, really,” he replied. The longer they talked, the better for him to plan his next move. As far as he could tell, there were only three of her monsters around – Panthera Avis, Netsense and a naked, normal-looking woman – who was bleeding through her every pore, torrents of blood running down her body and staining the carpet, crawling over the floor. Her face matched up with that of one of the salesgirls that had been exposed to Hastur earlier. A Mary Smith. Unknown factor. No idea whether or not the transformation bestows powers upon its victims or not.

Or maybe they just manifest due to the extreme stress of the transformation, if they have the potential. Either way, you’re screwed, mate.

“This is interesting. What’re you two – or are you three? – planning?” asked Hastur, her elbows on her knees, with her chin on her hands.

Brennus froze. “You… can read my mind?” Just like that? None of Amy’s defences worked?

“Maybe, maybe not. Either way, I must say, it’s quite rude to hide your face from me like that. And you’re not even really looking at me,” she replied in the voice of a petulant child.

“I think it is necessary, seeing how your power apparently works on anyone who sees your face,” he said in response, staying as calm as he could – made easier by his mask and voice distortion.

“Oh, now don’t be shy, I’m sure you’ll love me at first si-“

He surged forward, tackling her to the ground. She was so light.

One hand cleanched into a fist and a blade slid out of the upper side of his wrist. He stabbed at her throat.

Before even Panthera Avis could react, his blade plunged into her throat and up into her brain. She tensed up, then slumped, going limp and motionless.

Her heart stopped, along with all brain activity.

Suddenly feeling sick, Brennus hesitated – and was promptly kicked by Mary, throwing him across the room and so hard into a wall, it cracked. Panthera Avis flashed in next to him and grabbed his arms with his two maw-like hands, holding him down on his knees.

And Hastur squirmed on the ground as her blood flowed back into the closing wound. Within the blink of an eye, she was whole and alive again, and rose to her feet.

“That’s no-o-ot gonna work, cutie!” she chirped, then broke out into giggles. “You can’t hurt me, not really, no-o-one can, nu-uh, no chance, not really!”

She took a step towards him. “Now, dear Mary, please rip off that stupid helmet, will you? It’s a crime, hiding such a cute face!”

Previous | Next

B007 Hastur, Shrouded in Dread (Part 1)

Posted on by
27

Previous | Next

This is murder for my heart.

“He. Hehe. It’s just fun for everyone, Jay-jay,” the girl they called Hastur whispered, giggling.

“Wrraurk?” asked Nathaniel. He shook his head, still not quite able to talk again after seeing her face.

Love at first sight can do that to you.

“Nothin’ nothin’, Nathaniel. Now, since you’re all ready,” Her new friends had all gotten themselves ready. Only five of them had survived falling in love with her, but that was to be expected. They’d been bad men and women, anyway.

“And stupid. You were all stupid, too. What in Dio’s name possessed you to let me loose?” She looked around at the five of them, but only got moans and gurgling as a response. They were all still speechless.

Love at first sight can do that to you.

She looked down at herself, dressed only in some old rags left from the clothing she’d had on when she’d manifested (not much) and the shroud she’d been given (she’d pulled the hood down). “I need new clothes.” She sniffed under her armpit. “A shower, first. And a shave.”

A few blissful minutes later, she was clean again for the first time since they’d caught her. She threw her rags and her shroud away, stretching her body a little to limber up while Francine brought her a clean bed sheet she could use as a cowl until she found something better.

“Clothes, now.”

Focusing her awareness on New Lennston – she’d always wanted to visit this city, and now she’d finally get to do it – she looked for a place with nice clothes, and found a nice boutique.

Nathaniel teleported all five of them into it. He normally needed line of sight for his power, but she had line of sight to anywhere, and Francine could tap into other people’s senses and share them with others.

They popped into the middle of the small boutique – there were only three customers and two salesgirls inside. And they all started screaming in horror when they saw her new friends around her.

Before they could run or call someone, she pulled her cowl down, while Nathaniel jumped around the room, bringing them all into a line in front of her.

They looked at her face and their screaming changed. Now they screamed out of love, as it overwhelmed them.

Love at first sight can do that to you.

She threw the sheet away and went into the underwear section while the five women screamed their love into the world. Fortunately, the street outside was rather empty right now, and the window’s full of merchandise, so they were hidden.

“Those are cute,” she whispered with a giggle to the sound of one of the women – Marge – breaking her own neck. Shame, she always hated losing them. She pulled the pink panties with the dancing unicorns on. “No need for a bra, and ain’t that depressing? Getting powers is supposed to give you like, a D-cup at least. But noooo, I’ve still got apples instead of melons.”

She found a cute pair of socks that matched her panties just perfectly. The tight blue jeans she put on afterwards were nothing special, but they showed off her hips well. And she’d always liked the curve of her hips.

“A shirt now, don’t you think, Nathaniel?” He was her favourite, so far. Such a useful power, and he was the best-looking of the bunch.

“Srrrrrurrrhh,” he replied, slowly getting more control over his speech.

“Or maybe just a hoodie? Don’t want just everyone seeing my face all the time, that makes things… interesting, but not very practical, sometimes.” She nodded to herself and looked through the racks while two more of the women – the two salesgirls – fought each other in a brief struggle, until Mary dug out Jenny’s heart with her bare hands and ate it.

“Don’t you dare get blood over the stuff I might want to look through!” she told her and the other two who were still screaming.

Just then, someone kicked in the doors, and she heard two voices yell “Freeze!”.

Nathaniel and Greg took them down before they could do any more.

She stepped around the clothing rag she’d been standing behind, still topless, to see two police officers on the ground, held down by Greg’s power. They looked at her face and starting screaming, too, while they fought to break free of Greg’s power, useless though that was. Her new friends were rarely smart at the beginning.

Love at first sight can do that to you.

“Hey, Nathaniel,” she spoke up after a minute – Mary and Jenny had just killed their two remaining customers and were eating the tasty bits – while she just couldn’t decide which hoodie to choose. “What’s Hastur mean, anyway?” Maybe it would help knowing that.

“Hhhhhasssssturrrrr… loooooovecraffffft st’ries… King… in… Y-y-yellowwwwww,” he said.

“Bravo, Nathaniel!” she shouted, clapping her hands, then she gave him a kiss on his cheek. “You’re getting better!”

Then she turned back to the clothing selection. “King in Yellow, huh? Well, Queen in Yellow, now. So, a yellow hoodie, then…”

And she found one, it was a little thin, but it had a cute little heart for a zipper, so she put it on and zipped it closed. Then she clapped her hands again. “Shoes! I need shoes, too!”

Eight minutes (and one dead policeman later – poor stupid thing, he’d ripped out his own intestines only to eat them, but the others had gotten hungry too when they saw that), she’d found the cutest little black-and-pink sneakers.

Looking at herself in front of the mirror, she pulled the hood up and deep down over her face, so not even her chin could be seen.

“I look cute, don’t you all think so, too?” she asked her new friends. They’d all finished screaming and were quite fine now.

Love at first sight can do that to you.

There were various gurgles and moans of affirmation, as well as a “Of cccccourrrrrsssse.” from Nathaniel.

Great! Now, to see what the Juniors and Basil and friends are doing…

She looked into the headquarters of the heroes, but recoiled from the minds of Basil and Melody.

“Ouch. Damn, what is that?” She looked into the other’s heads, and learned all the wonders of heterodyning while Thomas explained it. “Ohhh, I wonder if I can do that, too, with someone. Something to keep in mind.”

Nathaniel teleported them all away, leaving only the bits and pieces of the poor things who hadn’t made it behind. They reappeared in the middle of a mob meeting, with her in the center of the round table they were sitting at. She pulled her hood down. “They’ll probably find out I’m free, soon. Let’s see who I’ll take now, and who I’ll play with until later.”

She let her awareness roam a little around the city – she didn’t want to reveal too much about her capabilities yet.

After a few minutes, she looked back into the workshop.

… but who’ll be the hunter and who the game?

“Oh, Irene, you don’t get it,” she giggled to the sound of her new friends professing their love in screams. “It’s a game of tag. We can alternate roles. Though, of course, if I win, the consequences will be… fun.”

She looked up to see herself in a large mirror on the wall, squatting on her heels in the middle of the room, in her new hoodie and those cutest of all shoes.

“Who ever said the end of the world can’t look cute, huh?”

* * *

…attach the power coupling here, then check for any hiccups along the power lines to ensure flawless transmission…

At the other end of the S.M.O.G., Polymnia connected it to the building’s power grid. Small, black pictogram manikin were pointing and miming what they had to do, moving to the rythm of a song he could not distinguish from the technology they were working on – like a dance.

I wonder how she normally works, he thought while following the instructions the little manakin, and the arrows and circles and crosses and numbers gave him. He felt like something had opened up – the ideas, the blazing light that guided him, it was all flowing, focused and steady, unlike anything he had ever felt before. If this is the usual result of heterodyning with another Gadgeteer, then I should see about recruiting Polymnia for my team. For the time being, though, he’d focus on the S.M.O.G. It had not nearly enough firepower yet to live up to its name.

* * *

Suddenly, the song that had kept them going cut off, and his power stuttered for a moment.

“What’s going on, mate!?” he asked in an angry tone, looking around the workshop. They’d just gotten started on the critical overload mechanism.

Gloom Glimmer was standing next to Polymnia, her hand on the girl’s shoulder. Apparently, Polymnia was just as angry as he was. “Enough fun and games, kids. The game is afoot, and we need to get ready for a fight. A big one, it seems.”

Brennus bit down a harsh reply – he was slowly, emphasis on slowly, coming down from… from whatever he was feeling. He felt like his brain was raw and open. “L-let’s go then.” He put the tools he’d been working with (she had actually come up with a Sonic Screwdriver, though unfortunately, it could only drive screws… yet. He would offer to help upgrade it) aside and went to slip back into his suit. The process wasn’t exactly fast, but it at least took less than a minute. If barely.

With a last, longing look at the S.M.O.G. – fifteen meters and forty-six centimeters of gorgeous, straightforward destruction (no fancy tricks there, just firepower. Lots and lots and lots of firepower) – he fell into step next to Polymnia (she took a few seconds longer to tear her eyes off their creation), following Gloom Glimmer out of the workshop.

“Where are we going?”

“War Room. Hastur somehow got out, and she’s started killing people, so we have to do something,” she replied, sounding quite wound up.

<Irene, what’s wrong? You don’t seem well… and besides, why are we supposed to do something about this? I thought we weren’t allowed to deploy against an S-Class!>

She remained silent for a few seconds as they made their way to the elevator. Brennus had all but given up on getting an answer.

Then, Polymnia put a hand onto her shoulder, gently squeezing it. For just a moment, he thought he saw Gloom Glimmer’s expression of calm crumble, before she caught herself.

“Desolation-in-Light appeared over Kansas. They’re fighting her right now. Only Amazon is left – even Patrid went to help.”

<Wait, Patrid? What can that creep do, apart from try and talk her to death?> asked Polymnia in sheer surprise.

“He has three doctorates, one of them in medicine, and he’s a crackerjack EMT on top of that. That can be worth more than any power, and that doesn’t even account for him having a God Tier Physique,” she replied, her voice barely above a whisper. “Not that it’s going to help anyone going up directly against her.”

Polymnia pulled her into a hug from behind, while Brennus just… stood there.

Am I supposed to hug her, too? Would that be too intimate?

If you ain’t sure how to to act, mate, go with the option that involves DOING SOMETHING.

He carefully put his arms around the two girls, hugging them as tightly as he dared with his armor on.

* * *

They’d sat down at the circular table again. Everyone left – the Junior Heroes, Amazon, Widard, Hecate, Tyche and himself.

Once more, the mood around the table was… bad. Guess you should not expect anything else from a War Room.

He almost slapped his head. His thoughts were frayed. Probably a side effect of the Heterodyning. Not a good time to be below one-hundred percent.

“The situation is getting worse by the minute, everyone,” began Amazon.

Not very smart, eh? To start off on a note like that, you’d think she was a beginner at this.

It is suboptimal.

She is only interim leader, because everyone else is at the Wall right now.

Still, it’s a bummer way to start.

“Define ‘worse’ in relation to an unknown S-Class getting loose in the USA’s third-most populous city at the same time at which most of our ability to respond is tied up due to the world’s only S+ deciding to pay Kansas a visit,” he asked.

Amazon and Widard exchanged looks.

“They may as well know, before we get to the situation at hand,” the older man said to his nominal leader.

“Know what?” asked Gloom Glimmer. “What could possibly make things wo- Did something happen to-“

Amazon raised a hand. “No, nothing like that. But… the Protectorate was attacked, and despite Lady Light’s intervention, one of them managed to break through the defenses and into the Protege’s range.”

Ember! Not Prote-bla, Ember!

Dude, whatever your problem, calm down. You are kind of screaming inside my head.

“How the fuck did they get past Lady Light?” asked Outstep, taking his eyes off Tyche’s rack for the first time since Brennus had entered the room (not that she didn’t enjoy the attention). “And anyway, so what? Whoever got through is probably bonkers now, but Lady Light was there to put’em down, right?”

“The how is not an issue now. The problem is that the woman who got through was a particularly powerful supervillainess. She brought a dead baby into the Protectorate, and somehow, don’t ask me how, managed to get within five feet of the Protege.”

EMBER!!! His fucking name is EMBER, you twat!

Keep it down! Is the Man in the Moon not supposed to be just an observer? Where exactly does commentator fit into that?

Bugger off, mate. I can’t stand this Prote-bleh business. He got a name, one he chose for himself!

I can not bugger off because you are in. My. Head. Shut up.

Gloom Glimmer was throwing him strange looks, which he absolutely did not like right now.

<Did Ember… did he?>

Good Girl. I’d like her for a mate.

She is female. A mate is usually a male sa-

Bugger off.

Amazon nodded, which immediately charged the mood in the room even worse.

“Sean O’Sheannan has become the newest member of the Returners – and while the Protege seems to have returned to dormancy, well…”

“No one is going to accept that. If he could wake up once, he can wake up again. If he’s even been asleep in the first place,” commented Brennus. He certainly did not seem asleep when he talked to us.

Well mate, Henry was always a little strange, but he’s definitely not the kind to just sit around and do nothing.

Wait, ‘Henry’? You know him personally?

Focus, mate. Focus.

“It’s not important,” Tartsche said. “We have far more immediate problems to deal with. One of them being this Hastur. What do we know?”

Everyone focused back on Amazon, then on Widard when she turned to look at him.

“Hastur… well, look at this.”

He called up a video file that the table projected into the air above it in six screens arrayed in a circle to let everyone see it.

They all watched the recording, apparently taken by a security camera within a clothes store. Two salesgirls, three customers. Then, suddenly, a figure cloaked in a… bed sheet… stood in the center of the room, flanked by… five blots of blackness, as if the camera had refused to record them.

The civilians screamed and tried to flee, but one of the blots vanished and reappeared all around the place, until it had collected them and lined them up in front of the shrouded figure.

She reached up with thin, slender hands and pulled the sheet down. Her position only showed silky, freshly washed dark brown hair that fell to her shoulders.

But whatever the five civilians saw, they started screaming in raw, unhinged horror. Hastur – she had to be – walked among the clothing racks, apparently looking for clothes, while her victims screamed and clawed at their eyes – one of the customers broke her own neck… and then, one of the salesgirls turned into another blot on the camera, fell over her colleague and, after a brief struggle, ripped her heart out.

The other girl convulsed, then almost fell before turning into another blot, along with one of the customers, just when two policemen stormed the shop. They were quickly subdued and exposed to Hastur’s face – it looked like her power worked through her face, or maybe just eye contact – just as the blots that were the salesgirls descended on the two remaining customers, one of whom had turned into another blot.

They kept watching, until Hastur, dressed now like a normal teenager, stepped over to the eight remaining blobs of blackness, and they all vanished.

Spellgun summed up what Brennus was thinking: “Well, shit.”

* * *

After twenty minutes, they had reached a few conclusions.

One, they had identified two of the blobs Hastur had entered the shop with. The teleporting blob had to be Panthera Avis, the new leader of the Black Panthers’ West Coast Division. Or rather, he used to be that. Now he was Hastur’s flying monkey, it seemed. The other one was most probably CrushUp, gravity manipulator and notorious terrorist.

Two, they had decided that Hastur had to have some manner of Control power, triggered by seeing either her face or making eye contact (which was mostly the same, all things considered), and some manner of power boosting, because Avis should not have been able to teleport them beyond his line of sight.

Three, they needed to find them. Fast. And take Hastur into custody or six feet under – most probably the latter.

So now, Brennus was sitting in the war room, coordinating his ravenbots while they searched the city. The others were preparing for battle. Amazon and Widard were informing the supervillains of the city and the police, respectively; both Spellgun and Hecate wanted to work on their respective equipment, Polymnia had to finish her newest armor, Tartsche was making sure his boyfriend did not forget what he was supposed to get ready for, Bakeneko and Osore were in the Juniors’ common room talking, Tyche and Outstep were stroking each other’s ego by way of making small talk and Gloom Glimmer was nowhere to be found.

Brennus knew all that because he had not been able to resist accessing the surveillance system of the place. It was not like his ravenbots needed much in the way of coordination, not with their programming and Eudocia keeping an eye on them.

“You like keeping tabs on people, too?” asked a silken smooth voice from behind him.

He turned around and looked at Gloom Glimmer standing right behind him.

“Call it paranoia,” he replied without any embarrassment. “You do, too?”

She shrugged. “Indirectly. My power takes paranoia to an artform, I guess.”

She is awfully open about her power around me, do you not think so?

No response. Strange.

“It is not paranoia if they really are out to get you.”

She actually giggled at that, even though he did not think it was all that funny.

“Papa always says that.”

“Well, I guess you would have to be paranoid to survive that long in this business… Is Mrs Whitaker like that, too?”

She shook her head. “No, not really. She is very… aware of her surroundings, but she’s far more relaxed about it than Papa or me. Or you, it seems.”

He shrugged. “Well, it might come in handy now – my ravenbots are spread all over the city, and I have ordered them to patrol. Coupled with the city’s surveillance system and the police cars and helicopters on patrol, we should find Hastur the moment she goes outside or near a window. Speaking of which, why are you not out there searching? With a power like yours, this should be rather trivial. Not that I do not enjoy talking to you.”

She blushed. What the hell? I was just being polite.

“My power is too unreliable. I might need to be here for defense, if she attacks us here – we don’t know to which extent Panthera Avis’ teleportation has been boosted – and I don’t want to leave it up to chance. Not even with Tyche’s power on our side.”

She knows? How? “You know? How?”

“I’m very good at figuring out people’s powers. Seems to be something that comes easy to my own power. Don’t worry, I’ll keep quiet about it, unless it becomes important.”

He nodded, then suddenly called up one of the video feeds from one of his ravens. “What is that?“

A blob of darkness had appeared in the Jaunt Memorial Park. It was at least twenty meters tall.

“My gut is telling me it’s nothing good,” Gloom Glimmer remarked.

Previous | Next