Park Circle was never made to hold the number of people that now occupied its grounds. Living conditions were tight and crowded, but nobody wanted to sleep out in the streets, camping gear or no. Perimeter guards, lookouts near the edges and a tight social network where everybody knew somebody were all present to make it hard for anything to invade the survivors' secure zone.
Unfortunately, all this did was ensure escape from a threat inside the camp was a horrendous, disorganized undertaking. The scene was utter chaos- people trying to escape while others crowded to see the spectacle of what was developing in the center of the camp. A massive snow cloud fell after several long moments, revealing one white and one black inkling facing down three others. There were no words exchanged, no witty barbs at one another- Arus and Echelon immediately launched into battle with their igneous foe and his two cohorts. As if by instinct, Carrie headed toward Inked Coul and Alliston, while Natalie leapt at Cedric, who wore Emnas's flesh.
"Floe, Vissage! Crush the white one!" Cedric ordered.
"Vissage, huh??" Carrie finished her bull rush head-first into Coul's clear gel-like form, gut-checking him and sending him falling backward onto the snow. "I still see you, sneak!"
Alliston ripped a sheet of snow from the ground, solidified it into a massive stake shape and sent it flying toward Arus on a howling chill wind. "See THIS, bilge rat!"
Carrie felt the tip press into her soft, inky breast before slamming into the full of her chest and splintering, shattering over her like a torrent of glass. She shielded her face from the shards instinctively. "Gah! Cold!" She shuddered and felt hands holding her arms back.
Natalie was taking no chances- she concentrated on Carrie's powerset before the fight even began. It was for good reason; streams, jets and blobs of magma flew from Emnas' hands, and without pupils to see where he was looking, predicting his shots was too risky to leave up to chance. She had no idea how much punishment Echelon could take, but judging from how harsh it was just to apparently exist outside of her, she wasn't betting it was much. As errant globs of the hot stuff hit her protected arm before dissolving into ash, she realized that she absolutely had to do something before she was overwhelmed. "Really, Cedge? You're gonna fireball spam me at the start of the fight??"
"YES!" He bellowed. "Now stand still and die!"
"Pass." She barely dodged a beautiful blue gas-like energy blast as it passed over her head and slammed into the snow next to Cedric. "Whoa!"
"You idiot, don't fire that into a crowd!" Murphy pushed Lamont's fusion cannon upward as it cool-cycled. "You're gonna hit civilians!"
"What do you want me to do?!" The lion roared back.
"Help these people escape, perhaps??" Jacent pointed out the fact that the camp refugees on the outer rim of the circle were making a perimeter of their own- a zomb-ink perimeter filled with greyed-over citizens placed just to block any attempt to leave.
Murphy blinked. "Set your cannon to push-force!" She ran toward the outer rim. "Create an exit!"
Jacent nodded. "Hit them with repeated blasts of blunt force and you'll remove the inkling! I'll help on the other side!" He hunkered down and boost-jumped high into the air. Nat and Cat were on their own. "Good luck, girls..."
Carrie wasn't having much in the way of luck. Her attempts to wriggle out of Coul's grip were proving fruitless due to the leverage he had on her, and in the meantime, Alliston was using the cold, wet climate advantage to work her over. "Lemme go you dick! NRGH!!"
Allie had constructed two massive, jagged ice fists over her own, much smaller digits... and was swinging them into Carrie's head overhand, shattering them each time only to be reformed before the next blow. "I don't think so, scurvy cur!" She emphasized each hit. "How's it feel to be knocked out cold? Not an ice sensation, is it?!"
"HURNGH! " Cat's head spun. Every hit was more devastating, and made her shiver, lowering her rigidity, and with it, her defenses- which made the next hit worse. She forced herself to focus. Just one more fist shattered on her head, and she took her chance. She wrenched backward, slamming her head into Coul's face and freeing her. She grabbed Allie's arms mid-swing. "Take a powder, bitch." She slammed her knee into Alliston's gut and rode her down, all of her weight busting the ice-blue vixen against a pile of her own shattered shards with a ~CRUNCH!~
Meanwhile, Natalie was beginning to wonder if Cedric's assault would ever relent. She dodged where she could and blocked what she couldn't, but he was obviously playing a game of attrition with her. As she backed into Carrie's fight, noticing Alliston reeling from being body-slammed, inspiration struck. "Hey, Allie, let me borrow that for a sec!" She grabbed the vixen's hair for just a moment, feeling some sort of internal confirmation.
"Keep your filthy hands off my henchmen!" Cedric boiled.
"No problem- I'm done anyway!" Natalie stood and felt the ample moisture in the air coalesce around her. Over her right arm, a shield made entirely of ice formed. Magma bursts landed, cooled and bounced off of its translucent surface. In her other hand, she crafted a big, heroic-looking sword, and charged the molten badger. "Aaaaa!!" The shots came quicker and more frenzied, but she ran into the onslaught untouched- then swung the sword into him with all her might.
His raised arm took the brunt and sliced open, a hot gout of liquid spilling out as he cursed. "Mongoloid! Idiot! I'll kill you!" he put his hands together.
"Promises, promises- WHOA!" A massive stream of magma blasted into her shield, melting it rapidly. She tossed it and rolled away in the same motion, looking up to release a freezing gale at him. His magma stream solidified to his arms in a huge pillar of volcanic rock... and none too soon, as Alliston's power had petered out soon after.
Cat focused harder than she ever had. Coul's inkling was hard to see to begin with, but activating his actual invisibility made it nigh-impossible. She would take a blow to the back, the face, the shoulder, then try to counter, too late.
To make matters worse, Alliston had finally recovered, rising shakily. "Th-That all you got, ya filthy knave?? You think you're so cool?!"
"Ugh, your jokes are awful!" Carrie hatched a plan. Bending forward, she grabbed Alliston's feet and began spinning. At first, it was just the vixen's back tracing circles in the snow, but she quickly picked up speed. Soon, the inked girl was orbiting Cat with nary a hold but by her ankles.
"AAaaAAaaAA!!" The would-be buccaneer wailed, dizzy and panicked.
"Show yourself or I throw her into a fusion generator!" Carrie demanded.
The raccoon appeared in his snow-flecked gel form. "Stop!"
Carrie grinned. "Okay!" She took a mighty step, pushed extra hard on the back swing and smashed the two into each other, sending them sprawling. "Eat it, losers."
-
- -
-
Officer Murphy was not having a good day. Hell, she wasn't shaping up to have a good anything, the way things were going. Unlike the other volunteer soldiers for this ramshackle emergency army, she'd been a police officer. The others came from the coast guard, fire, emergency response, paramedical... she was the only one to be so much as issued a weapon before, and the neurod barely counted. It was certainly nothing in the face of the death machine she held in her hands now. She had a proper respect for it, unlike Lamont, the paramedic who'd seen too many monster movies.
As such, she knew what it was capable of- blowing a hole in somebody the size of a dinner plate. That was why, as she fired continuously at the inked citizens of Locksmouth, her rifle was essentially set to 'stun.' She used it as a manner of overpowered leaf blower, bowling over person after person as they wandered too close as her gun released the rapid burst of gases without igniting it. Thankfully, her colleagues had listened to her and were using the same settings. She called over the bee, who was shepherding people. "Don! Hey!"
"How can I help??" He asked, helping take the occasional shot as citizens funneled out of the tight path they were opening.
"Cover me for a minute- I'm gonna make some trenches to slow them down, then I have to haul ass over to the South side so I can see if there's anything left of that crazy kid!"
"Will do!"
She switched the cannon to full auto and began making sweeps with huge bursts of fusion-powered energy, scarring the park with deep, ugly trenches of dirt and buckling the paved street outside of it. It worked like a charm, most of the zomb-inks stumbling into the holes and slowing them down. "Yes! Alright, take point! I'm gone!"
Murphy slung her fusion cannon to her back and ran as soon as she heard the magnetic 'click' signifying it stuck. Her HUD showed her gaps in the crowds to run through as she navigated the masses- a nice little program from yesteryear to help break enemy defenses. She just wished the thing could identify the blob creatures causing all the trouble while they were inside people. She turned her head to see the ongoing battle between the monsters. She'd never seen them do anything but cooperate before. Could that red-haired lunatic have been telling the truth about these 'Arus and Echelon' characters? Worse, could her traitorous commander have been right that Dr. Grayswift's kid was a carrier?
The golden retriever reached the South side perimeter, and her jaw nearly dropped. Instead of a grim tale of foolish delusion in the making, she saw Mr. Danger, if that was tragically his actual name, being an Urban Justice Field Technician. Instead of a unit of soldiers holding a line per pair, he was playing with toys and directing traffic.
"Stop!" Jacent ordered, the procession of citizens obeying his command. He kicked one, two soccer balls into approaching inklings from the far side, then spun about and slapped a big group on his side back with a set of yo-yos that never seemed to cease moving. "Go!" He leapt over to the other side of the crowd as it began bunching up with zomb-inks.
Murphy laughed out loud. It was incredibly, ridiculously absurd. They were trusting their lives to a madman... and he was keeping them safe. Why was that so inspiring? Damn that kid! "Need some backup??" She called out, unable to wipe the grin off her face.
"Oh, Officer Murphy!" He replied cheerfully despite the effort. "Excellent, I was getting lonely!" The teenage boy cut a wider swath than before thanks to the canine woman taking one side with her push-force shots.
"I thought I'd be delivering your eulogy!" She countered.
Jace stood on one leg in a practiced martial pose, and quickly ricocheted a hack-e-sack off of a dozen different zombified people. "Well, if Patrick Stewart isn't around, I suppose you'll do!"
Murphy's brows knit in confusion, but she let it go. Unfortunately, she got sloppy and blocked the cooling vent on her cannon. It jammed, unable to fire until it completed the ten second cooling diagnostic. "Oh, shit." Moaning, lumbering citizens of Locksmouth drew closer and closer, their grey eyes bidding her to join them. "Come on, come on!" Her heart leapt into her throat as a group of them were only five feet away. "Fire, damn you!" Suddenly, a volleyball knocked two of them down while a netball finished off the third.
Jace landed next to her. "Take the other side, Miss Murphy??" He helpfully suggested.
Her heart decided to start working again. She laughed hoarsely. "... Right."
-
- -
-
Cedric had never been so angry. No, not angry- his jaw-clenching, unrelenting fury was more like madness. A fire, which he continuously stoked, throwing the sacrifice of reason on it to burn it hotter, brighter. Nothing would stop him. "YAAARGH!!" He hoisted the rock pillar and slammed it down into the ground where Natalie was. The damnable fool! "I'll crush you!"
Nat hopped out of the way of a sidelong swing. "Y'know what? I'm done." She concentrated on the gloves and unlocked Cap's powerset. "Let's do this!" The next time the pillar came down toward her head, she was ready for it- and smashed an uppercut into it, shattering the entire thing to shards. She pulled back and boost-punched Cedric in his face, sending him reeling backward through the snowy grass.
"Nnnngh..." He groaned. "What... where did you..."
"What's wrong, Cedge?? No stomach for a fair fight?!" She taunted. "Come on, then, if you're so sure you're gonna take my life! You can't kill me from down there!" She didn't know what had overtaken her. She just couldn't tolerate the pettiness and death threats of this enormous asshole anymore; it was wearying, and she was tired of it. No more!
"This is it!!" Cedric charged. Natalie met him halfway. They exchanged blows, Natalie the superior fighter, the Badger supplementing his own blows with gouts of magma. Only one would emerge.
Carrie was fighting a war on two fronts, battling the withering cold brutality of Alliston's powers while Coul continued to strike from the darkness. She'd beaten them both severely, but even her indestructible body was beginning to buckle under the insistent attacks that hit her when she was moving. Her joints ached, her head was throbbing, her chest and shoulders bruised. It hurt every time she moved, her only recourse to use that pain to feed her anger. She braced as a massive crystalline mace slammed into and shattered against her. "Ungh... fuck both of you!" She grabbed at the next invisible blow, throwing him into the ground with main strength.
"We wouldn't know what that's like, you greedy wench!" Alliston countered fiercely, summoning a volley of icicles the size of javelins. "You're a thug, but you get to go to parties and have a big pack!"
Cat shielded her face as they flew at her, shattering against her again. "I am not a thug! And that's your own fault for following Cedric!"
"You would be Cedric if he didn't exist!" Coul jumped on her back and attempted to choke her.
"What?!" She turned her back to a volley of ice arrows that dug into her before melting, sending her to her knees.
Alliston grinned savagely. "Don't pretend you don't remember!
Scary Carrie, what a thug
Can't get married, won't give hugs
Never OCs with her friends
Just kicks them in their rear ends!"
It should have been laughable, but the old playground rhyme brought back memories of being labeled an unsociable bully. How long she'd suffered those rumors, unable to make friends and being feared rather than respected. It made her furious. "I'M NOT SCARY CARRIE!!" She reached behind her, threw Coul onto the ground and slammed her fist into his invisible face while holding his chest down.
"It really looks like it!" Allie underhand-swung an ice hammer into the inked cat's chin, sending her sprawling backward.
Cedric's fists went for Natalie's face time and again. She deflected them as a matter of reflex, slamming her own punches into him. He pulled away. "ARGH!!" He raised his fist, but instead of going forward, he knelt and punched the ground itself.
"Wha-?" Flummoxed, Natalie never saw it coming. The lava-like inkling shuddered in horrible rage, his face contorting monstrously, and he somehow simply combusted. A blast of heat and force threw the wolf girl several yards before landing on her back. The entire front of her body was in agony. Echelon's ebony flesh fell off of her in chips and chunks, replaced slowly by the healthier liquid as it tried to heal itself. She lifted her head to see Emnas bounding toward her. It felt like stabbing herself with a drawer full of knives, but she drew her feet up and caught Cedric's torso as he arrived, tossing him over her backward.
Her knees shook as she rose. The pain was beginning to subside, but she could tell it was taking a lot out of Echelon to do so. "This is it..." She ran over as the molten Badger stood and began barraging him with blows. Faster and faster she boosted her fists into the red-hot inkling, deluging him with attacks from every angle she could. He stumbled back, she followed him. He tried to attack, she punished him harder. He fell backward against the hill with the lone tree. She continued to slam him mercilessly. Emnas quivered and shook, ripping at the seams and screaming in impotent rage.
"I'll k-k-kill yoooouuu!!!" He promised.
"Not if I kill you first!!" She screamed, picking up her hated foe and running. She sprinted as hard as she could, boosting herself and shoulder-checking him into the ground. They gained speed still, Emnas' bare flesh grinding across the grass, and soon, the bare ground. The inkling ripped and tore and pulled away at the seams, falling off of Cedric like a cheap costume. The badger's armor activated, energy sparks flying as Natalie still poured on the speed.
Cedric looked around in a panic, as if awakening from a nightmare. "N-... Natalie!!"
Finally, a look of fear from him. It satisfied her so much. She steered them into a building and cracked his energy shield like an egg, fizzling out with a crackle. She slammed him onto the pavement again, riding him and grinding his back armor away as they returned to the sparsely populated park.
Cedric tried to shield himself as they ground along, and cried in pain as they hit the park perimeter, slowing down. He saw Natalie raise her fist again. "Wait! Stop, I'm sorry! Please!!"
"It's too late for that!!" She screamed at him. "You started this! You made the choice! And now, I'm going to end it..." Her fist shook as she concentrated all the power she could into it.
"N-... Natalie..." Cat limped over to her, reaching out. "No... D-Don't..."
"... Carrie?" Natalie blinked, her rage subsiding as she saw what a wreck her lover was.
"Don't... don't kill him..." Arus fell to her hands and knees, coughing up spatters of her own white essence before receding back into Carrie. "Something's... wrong...
Natalie looked down at the pale, terrified Cedric. She was about to use her childhood hero's powers... to kill a defenseless adversary. It didn't matter that it was Cedric, or that he'd tried to kill her; Jacent would never have done this. "What... what did I almost do?" She whispered, horrified, as the Badger passed out. "I'm not a killer!"
"And that's such a pity."
She looked up to see Ms. Hendrix, standing at the top of the hill. "Wh-... What??"
The skunk's cruel smile returned. "I almost had a twofer. Both my opposing factions, killing and weakening each other." Navy blue liquid crawled over her fur. "You really thought I would leave your poor teacher alone?" She deadpanned. "You always were a C student. Loved the hug, though!" She put a hand over her heart mockingly. "So sweet!"
Natalie grimaced. "Osoth!" she spat. "You were controlling us!"
"Merely influencing you, dear student." She chuckled. "An army on one side, and a growing team of increasingly dangerous specialists on the other? That wouldn't do. So, I decided to intervene. A little emotional push here and there, and your already hot hatred toward one another boiled over." She laughed, throwing up her hands. "It was easy."
Natalie felt Echelon's power fade, and she saw the world through her own eyes again. She looked down regretfully at the unconscious badger and pounded her fist on the ground. "Cedric... it wasn't a trap at all..."
"Oh, sure it was!" Osoth cackled. "Just not his. Prince Emnas was always too stupid for that; I'll find it a great relief to kill him."
Nat rose to her feet, her body screaming at her. A few more hits had landed than she'd thought. "Ungh... I won't let you!"
"HAH!" The inked blue skunk crowed. "And in the dramatic final act, the honorable warrior leapt to her feet and defended her mortal enemy with her life, paying the ultimate price in her weakened state. A classic." She chortled with disturbed glee. "Actually, I was digging around my host's brain while pretending to leave, and I found out about these lovely little things called 'torture' and 'Stockholm's Syndrome.' Nasty! They sound like just the thing to let Echelon experience through you- having that permanent scar on her would make this eternal game of cat-and-mouse so much more rewarding." Tendrils ending in blades and blunt, barbed shapes appeared from behind her as she tittered with barely-restrained malice. "Don't worry, though; you'll only suffer it until I take your head off."
Natalie felt chills go up her spine. This... thing, it was an absolute monster. She couldn't afford to lose to it, or to let anyone else suffer its terrible plans. But her body... she was so exhausted. Carrie couldn't even stand. A creeping doubt filled her, but she wouldn't let that animal see her afraid. "Alright. Let's do this."
-
- -
-
The mood around the Burger Dictator had improved greatly. From unsure survival to panicked siege, things had swung back around to an easy, if capricious sense of calm. Samantha talked to her parents while Max and Lorna tended to various needs. Erwin sat at a booth with Kei, sipping the last of a carbolate. He pulled a binder out of his utility pants, unzipping and laying it flat on the table. A flat white surface tilted slightly toward him as his fingers brushed over several tools.
"Ooh!" Kei gasped. "You have an ArtBook? I didn't know you could draw!"
Erwin smiled and nodded. "I do it a lot on the bus or in lines. Wherever I can, really."
The fox grinned. "Ohhh, I've always dreamed of being able to, myself. Could I see what you've drawn??"
The ferret hesitated. Normally he was a bit skittish about letting anyone just page through his creations. As he looked at the fox's eager face, though, he couldn't help it. "O-Okay." He turned it around and slid it toward him.
There were no pages, of course. Kei gestured his hand as if to flip them anyway, admiring the projections as they came up on the finely textured, paper-like screen. Erwin's style was fast and loose, yet boasted a great deal of control. Most of his works were sketchy, but had at least a few tones of color to them. He saw generic fictional characters- pirates, ninjas, a small concentrated bunch of steampunk costume designs. There were some animated characters with distinct features that he recognized. Then there were people that he knew. Samantha, wearing a translucent pink vinyl outfit while morosely sitting on a bench in the rain. Carrie, proudly festooned with bows and glitter in a poofy gown. Max, monstrously mutated and silly-looking. A bust shot of Natalie, looking up from a textbook and smiling- a lot of effort had gone into the smile. "You draw your friends a lot."
"They're special to me," he explained. "Back before I had any real friends, I used to have a, er... crush, on Natalie. I tried to get her attention a lot, but she always thought I was just being creepy. It was Carrie that actually suggested I be added to the group- on the condition that I accepted we be friends."
Kei tilted his head. "And you took it?"
"At this point, Natalie didn't want to be on the same playground as me. My pack at the time was kind of too immature for the concept. I just wanted to stop being so alone," he reasoned. "After a while, though, I figured out that I liked Natalie better as a friend anyway." He brightened up. "It's kind of weird to think before we were friends, actually. How about you? What's your pack like?"
Kei fidgeted and looked to one side. "Well... they're alright, but I don't feel like we fit together right. You know... last slices of bread?"
Erwin nodded, smirking. "I know exactly what you mean."
The fox boy's fingers wandered into the sculpt section of the ArtBook, pulling up various three-dimensional models, projected holographically. Trans, impractical swords, steampunk and high-fantasy backdrops, four-legged marshmallow equines, even a robot or two. "Have you ever drawn me before?"
Erwin nodded, smiling. "Oh, sure," remembering something far too late.
He gasped. "Really?? Let me see!"
He winced. "Oh, um. I... they're... I can't show you here. They're, um... password protected."
Kei blinked, uncomprehending. "Password-protected...?"
"Uh!" Erwin spun the ArtBook back around and grabbed the sketch stylus. "H-How about I just draw you now??"
That brightened Kei up. "Okay! That sounds great!" he exclaimed adoringly.
Meanwhile, in a different corner of Biggy D's, the doctor of robotics looked at her PET worriedly. "... Three calls and she hasn't answered. I hope nothing's wrong."
Max smiled at Lorna. "Don't worry, Doctor Natalie's Mom, I'm sure she's scarfing down lunch or something. She's probably distracted by all the campsite people!"
"Yes, she's very social," Dr. Grayswift conceded. "You're right, it's probably nothing. Come help me put this regulator on the generator- that way I won't be chained to it anymore."
-
- -
-
"Nat, get up!"
It was the worst beating of Natalie's life. Bruises showed even under her dark fur. Scrapes seared with pain, fur dripping with red. Cuts in places she didn't want to recall. Slam, into the ground for the third time. She coughed too many times. Blood was in it- she wondered if it was from her lungs, or just a coincidence of being inside her mouth. Rising to her feet was Herculean, and her joints stiffly resisted her efforts to do anything but lie there.
"Come on!"
She managed it, only because Carrie had risen again, thrown herself at the monster called Osoth and let it brutalize her instead. This was the fourth time this had happened. Natalie's instincts told her that approach would mean more pain, more violence... but she pushed herself on, spitting out a cheek full of blood. She'd gotten in a few good hits, she told herself. Just a few more, they could make a difference... they had to. She started up a rocketing series of punches to Osoth's flank, her spine popping as she twisted to deliver them. It was like punching the sea. She poured everything she had into it, slamming her over and over again. She missed too many, too clumsy, too slowed by agony.
Osoth's long arm- one of hem, she effectively had so many- grabbed her by the neck, lifted her into the air. She looked down at Carrie, limbs held by slimy constructs. Cat's blue eyes burned like a gas flame; she willed herself up with a slow, steady, inhuman strength which snapped her rubbery bonds. "Nnnfh, let her go, slimeball!" She stepped forward and grabbed the skunk-shaped horror in a bear hug. "HNNNNGH!!" Her tense, insistent and overpowering strength crushed at Osoth's body, distorting her opponent's shape and pushing her liquid matter into either end of her until she popped like a grape in a vice. "That'll teach you!"
"Cat, watch out!" Natalie's feet hit the ground running, but the slime trail quickly reformed around Carrie's ankles and threw her into an abandoned tent. A sound not unlike a bell rung out when she hit the metal pitching pole. "Carrie... Hngh!" A rough blue tendril found its way around her torso and slammed her into several parts of a rigid picnic table, upending it and wracking her body with sharp spears of agony. "Oh, f-fuck...!" Her voice quivered; she'd reached her pain threshold, and her body was threatening awful things if it didn't let up.
"You kids are really starting to annoy me. Alright, that's enough. We're done here." Osoth's tendrils split up, one grabbing Natalie, the other plucking Carrie from the tent. She regarded them both as they hung upside down. "I think I understand now! You have a tough body, but you, clever girl, have devised a way to accelerate matter telekinetically, right? Perhaps an inkling you've borrowed from, with adorable little Echelon's help?"
Natalie sneered. "We're not telling you... anything, you monster..."
"Too right, dear girl!" Osoth tittered. "You're the students; I'm the teacher, and I have a lesson. What happens when an unstoppable force..." She gestured to the wolf. "... Meets an immovable object?" She grinned at Carrie, and began pulling then further away from each other.
Natalie blanched- Osoth was going to beat them with each other like clubs! She curled up and reached for her ankle restraints, trying hurriedly to remove the tendrils. "Carrie! Tense up!"
Carrie flexed every muscle in her body as she felt the swing start. "Shield yourself!" she implored in turn. Her body locked up into its most defensive posture while Natalie's propelled faster to activate the shield. They sped toward each other on a collision course that ended with them slamming into one another with a sound not unlike rocks hitting one another. ~CRACK!~
"Well! Surprisingly tough, aren't you?" Osoth cackled as they recovered and scrambled to try at their restraints again. "Oh, give that up!" In response, she cinched harder around their legs, making them both cry out in pain... then pulled them toward one another again. Screaming, grunts. ~CRACK!!~ She laughed at the impact. "It was then they realized the terrible truth: they couldn't keep it up forever-, and one of them was going to have to let the other break them, in heroic sacrifice!" She goaded. "Oh, please demand each other live, then both do it at once- CLASSIC romantic tragedy!" She cackled melodiously.
Natalie panicked as her mind ran through the possible scenarios. She lets down the shield, dies, Carrie is suffocated to death. Carrie lets herself be crushed, dies, Osoth crushes her to death in a mass of tentacles. They continue this game until one of them tires and either scenario plays out. "Come on, come on..." she whispered urgently, her fingers getting crushed between tentacle and bone as she tried to pry them off. "ANGH!!" She cried out as they impacted again, barely remembering to shield herself. She looked at Carrie, trembling as she tried to brace for the next hit. She looked at Osoth, grinning in voyeuristic glee at their pain and fear. She arched her back, saw Emnas slowly oozing back into Cedric's unconscious body. ~ZIP!~ She saw the ground rush at her face suddenly. "Ah!" she yelled out of surprise, rather than pain; she and Carrie rolled onto their backs easily.
Osoth had been bisected. Her top half slid off at an angle, splattering onto the ground in a puddle. The tree behind her held a fluorescent green frisbee, which had cut several inches into its bark at approximately waist height. Nat and Cat followed its trajectory with their gazes, locating the origin of the deadly toy. "Jacent!"
"Watch out, girls!!" The costumed boy warned, sprinting toward them. "Comet CRASH!!" He tackled the rapidly-reconstituted Osoth before she could attack them any further, smashing her against the tree. She recovered, bouncing back at him, but he let her pass over as he ducked the attack, turning rapidly. Osoth tried to distance herself, but Jacent closed immediately, a rapid staccato burst of blows interrupting her movement.
"Ugh! Pests everywhere!" The navy blue skunk's tendrils unfurled from her liquid mass and burst forth to flay and pummel. Jacent jumped two and parried another, pushing it aside fearlessly and pulling it into his stance to more easily land the devastating knee to the gut that followed. Osoth tried to duck away, he slammed a boosted heel into her form. She went for his legs, he rolled over her back and gave her a standing axe kick to the head. She tried to open with blades, he pummeled her with a flurry of shielded blows that afforded her no quarter. "RRRGH!!!"
"Get her, Cap!" Natalie cheered, struggling to stand.
Carrie hoarsely yelled, "Beat the crap out of her!"
Stifled, Osoth slurmed away. "Pre-splice human... interesting. So what are you, this planet's champion?"
He shook his head, unblinking and determined. "I'm a fictional character."
She couldn't contain her laughter. "Oh, and let me guess, you've leapt out of a book to protect these little girls."
"I'm here to even the odds after that nasty little trick you pulled." He pointed a finger at her. "Be grateful you're only facing me. If these two were at full strength, you would be a stain on the grass." He pulled his hands back and shifted into a fighting stance. "Instead, I'll just take that poor woman you're terrorizing, you parasite."
"Easy, Cap," Natalie warned, favoring a leg. "That's Empress Osoth!"
"Impossible," Jacent refuted. "If she was, she would have just controlled you."
"Uh?!" Natalie quickly realized he was right. "But then..."
"Looks like those bad grades are coming back to bite you, aren't they, dear?" The blue inkling grinned. "Despite Echelon's strange resistance to her control, you're right- I'm not Osoth."
"Who the fuck are you, then?!" Carrie spat.
Trembling with malevolence, she raised her arms in the air, which crackled with static. A hole began opening in the sky, dark clouds swirling around it like some sort of vortex. "How do you think her influence reached this far?? Gatemaker Parthal, at your service!"
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