Last group, last stop. Natalie's weary, ragtag team of do-gooders landed in the bedroom of the apartment they'd picked out of Kelvalde's complex; he must have moved the mirror himself after the heavy foot traffic of the refugees died down. And indeed, there was no noise now save for the breathy sigh of heating vents letting in drafts of seductively warm air.
Max was the first casualty of the sandman, stroking and cooing at Gropey as he draped himself over the backing of a largely decorative love seat. The baby talk to his slimy pet turned into babble in moments as he lost consciousness completely. Nat and Cat shared a knowing smile: Max was the youngest, so this wasn't unusual for him at all.
Natalie peeled off the ruined sweater and yoga pants from her body as she wandered into the walk-in closet. Erwin blearily studied a schematic for the SCIFI with some kind of scrutinizing question on his mind. Sam pouted softly about the struggle of their journey, how much her feet hurt and at the general injustice of having to be tired. Carrie took this as impetus to help the bat girl get a shower and change into some clean night clothes.
Jacent walked in, shutting the door behind himself with a sense of relief, also tired beyond measure. He was greeted by a mildly surprised Natalie, who walked out of the closet in an oversized tee shirt. Her head tilted just a bit as she looked up at him, to the bed and back, raising an eyebrow inquisitively. He took a deep breath and sighed exhaustedly, gazing at the goings on in the room, then to her. His stare was pensive, of one standing unsurely at the gates of a closely-guarded sanctuary, unknowing of his own standing. The wolf girl shut her eyes and nodded in the affirmative with a smile that made even the question seem silly, thumbing back toward the bed. Jacent nodded thankfully, sitting against the bedside as he removed his boots.
Erwin had had enough time to fret over his schematics. Natalie jostled his shoulder, giving him a stern but friendly 'it's bedtime' look. He acquiesced, seeming almost glad- it was important work, and she gave him an excuse to stop. The ferret stood up, shivering and, after a moment, opening his arms a bit. Seeing no mischief in his eyes, the wolf girl wrapped her arms around him and gave him a warm, reassuring hug, in hopes it would sustain him considering all they'd been through. He savored the embrace over his skinny frame, pulled away slowly, undressed down to his undershirt, and slid into bed.
Sam and Carrie emerged from the bathroom, the bat seeming greatly relieved, but also blushing a bit. Cat smirked and patted her rump as she climbed into the huge bed opposite Erwin. Carrie stretched, apparently having found a pair of polka dot panties and a similar frilly, old-fashioned brassiere to sleep in courtesy of Kelvalde, and embraced the ferret as her snuggle buddy for the night; his smile as his head sunk into her chest told volumes. Jacent, having stripped down to his tattered tights, leaned back against the side of the bed, intent on sleeping there. Samantha would have none of this, pulling him up by the arm onto the mattress next to her. Seeing the boy's muscular body, she dithered naughtily for a moment before squeezing her little arms around him happily. It was embarassing, yet... oddly satisfying to him.
Natalie looked on her friends and nodded, seeing them happy and at peace. It was what every pack leader wanted, really. She slid in behind Carrie, entwining legs with her, sliding up close. She delivered a kiss on the back of the head, then the neck, and finally squeezed her like a beloved plush toy.
The silence was filled with questions- what would the day bring, how would they prepare for it, what would they do- but they seemed miles away.
-
- -
-
Screams were silenced one by one, a mouth a moment drowning in a black sea.
More.
Foes rose and fell, ripples in a puddle bouncing impotently against the giant's boot.
More.
A crescendo of fear whet the appetite of the endless darkness as bravery turned to pause, pause to panic, panic to despair.
MORE.
-
- -
-
"Wake up, Natalie."
She opened her eyes slowly, not out of reluctance, but surprise. She blinked and took stock of her situation momentarily. Everyone was here, in the bed, with her. Asleep. Nothing out of the ordinary, just a bunch of warm bodies slowly rising and falling with the rhythmic intake of air. Then she saw Echelon, standing by the side of the bed. It startled her momentarily, but she rolled over and stood up. "Echelon? What's going on?"
The pink-on-black inkling paced, an air of agitation about her. "We got suckered, that's what." She shook her head. "This is bad, this is very bad..."
"Mmmn? Slow down, what's bad?" asked a confused Erwin, who slowly lifted his head up.
Phactys sat on a dresser on the opposite end of the room. "The fact that our entire rescue operation was likely a ploy."
The wolf girl blinked. "Phactys? I didn't know you-"
"-Had enough rapport to go from Inked to Dry, like Echelon and yourself?" finished Mhend, sitting prissily on the loveseat as Sam stirred slowly. "He doesn't."
"In fact, none of us do, except for you!" Koralo reported from behind the love seat, peeking out childishly while his host stretched. "Guess what that means??"
"I'm dreaming?" she guessed.
"Bingo." Arus nodded, leaning against the wall
Carrie scrunched up her nose and rubbed her eyes. "Ah, geez. I wanted to dream about barbarians, what's with this?"
"Echelon thinks we've been tricked, somehow," Erwin clarified. "So what's the problem, Esh? We won that last battle."
Echelon nodded, sitting on the nightstand and knocking the lamp off of it after mis-gauging the needed clearance. She looked back at it, annoyed, but quickly refocused.
"The question is, why did we need to fight that battle at all? Why would Osoth, amidst her plan to build up forces and take over this city, suddenly take the time out to victimize a single apartment building? Why spend so many resources and so much time setting up something that, say, General Murphy's forces could have easily taken care of- dare I say much easier than even we could?"
"True," Sam submitted, an arm draped over the still-sleeping Jacent. "Many of those soldiers were emergency responders before joining up."
Carrie made a face like she'd eaten something sour. "So, what? It was a trap? Just for us?"
"It would make sense," Phactys supposed. "It was a deadly situation that demanded our help, could only be easily accessed by Echelon's mirror slide, and we had to fleece the building room by room to methodically make sure we rescued everyone."
"But why?" Natalie puzzled. "And for that matter, why didn't the Army come to help? They control the train, they could've easily gotten there."
Erwin slowly looked up to everyone else with a sense of dread. "... Maybe they couldn't come to help..."
"Divide and conquer!" Echelon deduced, slamming a fist into her hand angrily. "The Army was Emnas' doing, I should've known she'd try to take us down one at a time again."
"That's something I don't get," Max confessed. "If you both hate 'er, why don'tcha work together?"
"Emnas and I?" She nodded. "I understand, it seems logical... but he honestly hates me more than almost anything. Osoth beats me out on that list, but only just barely."
"Why is that??" Natalie probed.
"I-... I wish I knew," she confessed. "Whatever it was existed in a part of my memory that I'm just... completely missing." She shook her head in confusion. "Along with so many other things. The further back I go, the less clear it becomes. He's hated me for as long as I can ever remember, for reasons I can't fathom. It just feels like a hard-set rule of the universe at this point."
"... Like a pantheon," Erwin said with some measure of spectacle. "No beginning or end."
"Osoth would have you believe we're a pantheon. Eternal and undying," Echelon noted with pause. "But the funny thing about gods is that they always seem to have so much less potential than people."
"Well, whatever!" Carrie interrupted impatiently. "We can do it ourselves then; wake us up and let's go try to find Murphy."
"Not gonna happen," Arus explained. "Osoth was smart. She made us use what was left of our power on that last little stunt. Not only are we exhausted, but you are, too- which means that until you get some rest, we don't get any of the energy we need in order to be more than just passengers. We both need you to sleep before we can do anything."
"Dammit." Natalie pounded a fist on the dresser. "Alright, it's an emergency, so wake up Jacent."
Mhend bit her lip. "Uhm. I'm afraid that's... also not possible. You see, he hasn't slept since your little stint at Park Circle- he took every watch rotation back at the Burger Dictator. It will be at least a few hours before we can do anything about him at all."
"Well we have to do something!" Natalie exclaimed. "Who knows how much heat the Army's been taking for us? If they're out of the picture, not only will Osoth have just one faction to fight- us- but she'll have access to all that weapons technology!" She grimaced. "Doing nothing isn't an option. I need ideas, people!"
-
- -
-
The lounge was almost empty. Its friendly coziness by day and relaxing respite by night had been replaced by a waning sense of isolation in the earliest hours of the morning. Coul and Alliston laid with their heads in Cedric's lap, but instead of slapping their hollow skulls to wake them, he gently ran his fingers through their hair as they slept peacefully. His usual expression, one of barely-contained spite and threat, was now ashen and reflective.
He'd always assumed that he was the source of all his own thoughts, but recent events had greatly changed that notion. Sitting in this building, devoid of the influence of his longtime inkling Emnas, it occurred to him that his usual sense of ambition was now a pale shadow of its former glory. His previous ironclad feelings of self-assurance felt brittle. His logical arguments to defend his view of a weak, lazy society in need of a tempering were now hollow and hard to find conviction in. Was all of it Emnas? Were all of his personal goals the result of an entity whispering in his ear? And when Emnas was gone... who was Cedric Onyx?
It was a good question. One of the best ways to know someone was by the company he kept. He glanced down at his companions. He'd gone through a number of them over the years, recruiting various misfits and eventually losing them to the aggressive tendency of Society to embrace difference. Coul and Alliston had been the most recent, but also the most loyal. Still, did he like them?
Yes. Yes, he did. They were the closest things to friends he had. As much as he'd preached against the pack structure- troupe, school, whatever you wanted to call it- they were essentially his pack. They followed him and looked to him for guidance. To ignore that was foolish, and if he ignored it for much longer, he'd lose them, too. His doctrine of conflict couldn't sustain anyone on its own; he realized that now. Perhaps he should have been a better alpha. But in the face of the impending terror that imperiled them all... perhaps that ship had already sailed.
A big green blob plopped down into his lap.
He stared at it, and it stared back, obstinately interrupting all of his thoughts. Normally, this would've signified the end of its life, bathed in magma and tossed against a wall. But with a lack of anger came also a lack of spite. He just tilted his head and blinked curiously. "And... what are you?" In response, it bounced on its pseudopod, gesturing upward with all the motion of gelatin, almost like some small child, hand raised, insisting on being called on. "... Wait, you're Max's... thing, aren't you?" It bounced once, as if signifying some kind of agreement. His hand hovered over its round, shiny dome-like top. "You... want me to..."
~(_)~
Cedric opened his eyes to a strange, dark chasm from which he peered out. The features were too simple to be real, more like the illustrations in a picture book. "... What?"
"I knew it! Nobody can resist Gropey's cuteness." Cedric turned to see Max approach him out of nowhere, though there was no way he could have snuck up on him. "You petted him too!"
"... Is that how I got here?" the badger asked shrewdly.
"Yep! You're a little unconscious right now."
"Why? What possible reason could you have?" He frowned, showing shades of his former self.
"Because, dude." He shrugged simply. "You're the only one who can help Murphy."
~(_)~
Cedric opened his eyes again, this time back in the real world. Gropey had already slurmed off somewhere, and his underlings' heads were still in his lap.
Instead of bolting up, he carefully maneuvered out from under them. When Alliston stirred and made an inquisitive sound, he gently pushed her against Coul. "Keep him warm. I'll be back." She closed her eyes again, snuggled up to the raccoon and smiled, mumbling something like an 'okay.'
With that, the badger nodded slowly. It was time.
-
- -
-
The fear was here. The fear that wrenched and quenched her thirst for blood and earth and body, twisting fists clenched with wrists to flee and see the things that couldn't be. A wave of hate that loathed to wait and strove to sate its empty hunger, boundless wonder, people buried under, dreams so rent asunder.
Despair was salvation, inciting salivation.
-
- -
-
Rubber sneaker soles beat out a percussive rhythm against the midwalk, punctuated by the occasional splash of the odd puddle. Cedric panted, vision getting fuzzy the further he ran from the Safe House. It wasn't for no reason- the SCIFI's field got weaker and weaker with every step he took. When it finally seemed unbearable, he unzipped his backpack, pulled out a small triangular device and plugged it into a power socket in the ground next to the midwalk, pressing past its safety flap and illuminating the small pyramid in an almost mystical green light. He sighed in relief as this small respite flooded him, unclouding his mind and allowing him to focus again.
The journey went on, thanks to the small devices that acted like signal boosters to Erwin's device, small buoys in a sea of dark uncertainty, allowing him to think without the constant purr of Parthal's velvet threats of madness... or Emnas' curt instructions to buck up, find and destroy Osoth. Both were equally unhelpful at this point, if he was being honest.
The distance he was able to travel without putting down an additional buoy was shrinking with every plant, filling his gut with anxiety as he eyed the remaining number. He couldn't remember what it was like to feel this kind of uncertainty. It was... so very mortal of him. But then, that wasn't his overconfidence missing; that was Emnas. And after this was over- if they survived- he was going to have a long, meaningful discussion about how much he was willing to share of his body and mind. It would be far less than Emnas had already taken; of this, he was certain.
There it was! The train stop. A sigh of relief left him as he plopped down on a bench. The plan, as he remembered it, was simple: wait until the train came, hide his face, find out as much information as he could, and report it back to Grayswift's gang. If Murphy was all right, then the Army was all right, and that would be that. Worst case scenario? She was actually on the train and would get pissed at him, at which point he'd know she was fine and could just get away. "No big deal," he whispered, tugging the hood of the borrowed sweat shirt over his head.
A familiar thrumming perked the attention of his ears, but it sounded wrong, somehow; he knew the sound of a train coming, and this wasn't it.
Up in the night sky, the burning green underside of the train whizzed by as it failed to dip for its normal stop. And as it left on its runaway track, a singular form emerged from it: an orange liquid butterfly that fluttered.
She dove right for him like a murderous hawk.
-
- -
-
[08/10/2541
02:53
I know what's happening today. Osoth is making her move; I can feel it in my bones. Echelon can talk to me without speaking, I just feel what she wants to tell me. And what she tells me is that the sky is falling.
I just watched a news report that showed the New Locksmouth Militia (they had a name this whole time, how about that?) fighting against Osoth's invasion forces at their biggest refugee camp at around 12:15... the exact same time that we were rescuing those people from the burning building. One soldier was overtaken by a grey inkling, that one shot another soldier and infested them, those two would take two more, and so on, and so forth. It only got worse the longer they fought, and within an hour, they were devastated. Osoth played us completely and there was nothing we could do about it. When the battle ended, the reporter didn't say anything. I've never heard Milly Evans at a loss for words. She tried to cover it up, act professional, but she was afraid... just like the rest of us.
I look around at my friends. They're sore; we've been walking and running and fighting for what feels like forever. They're tired; Mhend used some kind of mental healing to give us the effect of more than the couple of hours' sleep we had, but it's not as good as the real thing. They're pessimistic about our chances; I'm not half the liar I'd need to be to spin this situation as anything but grim. We're outnumbered, outmaneuvered, and thanks to Osoth's last play, outgunned. Also, it's raining. Again. Apparently we didn't fix the weather machine as well as we thought. It's not dangerous, but it does kind of suck.
Echelon tells me that she's met Osoth on much better terms and lost terribly. Situations where she had armies, strategies, even secret weapons- all useless in the end. She's trying to hide it, but I can tell she's already planning for the next planet. For the next time, after she loses. I can't blame her, it would be stupid not to at this point. But I also can't accept it. Not yet. Not while I've got one more card to play.]
Natalie shut off her PET, put it in the pocket of her skull hoodie- freshly washed by Carrie's mother- and took a breath. "Are we all ready?"
"I've got everything I need," Erwin reported, hefting a backpack off of the Lounge couch. "But... I want to say goodbye to Mom and Dad."
"... Yeah," Max added soberly. "Me, too."
Sam dithered a moment before agreeing. "Indeed."
Carrie nodded. "Yeah. If you don't think it'll hold us up."
Nat shook her head. "No. Go ahead." With that, she saw her friends leave their things in the Lounge and march up the stairs one by one. Except for Jacent, who stood by the window, clutching something. She slowly walked up behind him, curiosity guiding her. It was a small pendant, the kind that clasped open and shut, in the shape of some sort of gate. Inside was the aging photograph of a little girl with long black hair and deep blue eyes, smiling as if laughing at something that was said. He stared at it contemplatively as raindrops beat at the window. "... Who's that?"
His fist clenched it shut reflexively. Indecision played on his face as he hesitated. "... Her name was Jasmine."
"... Tell me about her," she pressed,unsure why she was so utterly curious.
He licked his lips in hesitation. "She was my friend... well. Really, she was like a big sister to me. She gravitated toward me because I was Chinese like her, but like my red hair, her deep blue eyes made her seem different and strange from the other kids at the orphanage; she said it was because she was a dragon." He intercepted Natalie's look of confusion with an amused smirk. "I know, I know, but those kinds of things mattered more back then. We stuck together, though, because we needed to protect ourselves from those who disliked us without reason. She was the more physical of us, playing sports while I preferred to read, and so she was quite a bit stronger than me."
"So, she protected you," Nat observed, unable to help smiling at how sweet it was.
"She did, indeed," he confirmed. "And she was ruthless; she never pulled any punches, never gave an inch. But she also never fought my battles for me. Jasmine always insisted that I fight first, on the promise that if I couldn't win on my own, she would help. And she always did, but not until I proved that I would try."
"She was... trying to make you more self-reliant?" she guessed.
"Exactly." He nodded. "And it worked. By myself, I felt helpless... but knowing she would always be there gave me the courage to fight as if I couldn't lose. Sometimes I would warn them that if they beat me, they'd have to face The Dragon- sometimes it worked!" Jacent looked aside with a wistful smile. "Then one day, she got adopted. She had to leave me."
Natalie actually made a sad-puppy face.
"I know." He chuckled. "I felt the same way. But before she left, made me promise her something." A wistful smile came to his face. "She said, 'Jie Xian, when we met, you were weak. Now, nobody dares treat you like a weakling. So before you start crying about me, I want you to see that there are others who need you to help them, to be strong for them like I was for you. I want you to promise that you won't be scared. I want you to promise that you'll fight like I'm always by your side.'"
She gasped sharply. Those words... the same ones he'd uttered before. In that final issue...
"Natalie?"
She turned back to Erwin, who appeared alone.
"The others said they're ready to go."
A hesitant nod. "Then... let's not keep everyone waiting."
-
- -
-
The alpha female took position at the head of the pack. Their quarry was far from here, their den of safety. A fresh-fallen rain would make tracking footprints difficult. She searched her memories to recall the scents she'd gotten a good nose of- a cheap shampoo and conditioner, utilitarian antiperspirant, a fondness for onions and other things meant to drive off friendly advances. Her ancestors could have tracked all of those things individually, but her gifts were compromised by the two legs she walked on; instead, it all added up to a unique blend of smells she could identify as belonging to the cranky badger. Faint as it was, she could just make it out if she shut out all other senses.
A nod back to her pack, and they were in motion. She tracked him by scent only intermittently; with so little trail, she had to assume that he'd take a certain path by what the road was in front of him. A few minutes and the faintest trace of garlic-laden hand sweat later, she was able to find the first marker. The small green pyramid was planted firmly in the socket, glowing mystically.
"Found the first one," Erwin confirmed, inputting its location into his PET. "He was definitely here."
"Good work," Carrie praised his efforts briefly, looking around the dark night sky with concern. "Let's keep going."
"Whoa, whoa, wait." Max twitched, looking out at the night sky. "We're not alone, guys."
"Heads up!" Erwin shouted, pointing to a dark corner behind a building, out of which a New Locksmouth Militia soldier walked out, toting a fusion cannon.
Carrie winced. "Hey... it's that bee guy that Murphy was with. Ah, shit, he's been greyed!"
Their ferret friends eyes went wide as he watched the insectoid man point his weapon to the side and activate it with a high-pitched whine. "AaaAAA, DUCK!"
The group of teens knew better than to question a panicked instruction from their skinny friend- they had barely enough time to hit the deck before a veritable beam of consecutive superheated gas pocket machine-gun blasts sliced in a wide arc. They could feel the heat on their backs despite it passing harmlessly overhead and plowing into various trees and buildings, the former of which burned terribly, the latter merely smoldering. When the barrage ended, the bee soldier looked almost as if he was reeling from it, and took a clumsy, swinging torso turn to re-aim the thing down at the ground in front of him. "Move, move!" Carrie hollered imperatively, rolling to one side with some as the rest rolled the other.
The whining activation sounded again, filling all present with anxiety. The arc was fired vertically this time, digging a molten trench into the ground, then rising up rapidly to split a tree in twain, igniting it as either side fell away.
"Max! Jacent!" Natalie delegated to her friends, pointing at the man with purpose.
"Right!" Max poked his head up long enough to whip his tongue out, latching onto the fusion cannon. The soldier held on, struggling to keep his weapon.
Jacent descended on him like a hawk. A kick to the back of his knee brought him into a painful kneel, an arm held behind his back released his remaining grip on the gun, and a knee to the solar plexus knocked the wind out of him, putting him down for the count.
"Shit," Carrie commented as they regrouped. "Those guys are fuckin' dangerous."
"Yeah, no kidding," Max agreed, hefting the fusion cannon as if wielding a large fish. "And all 'cause of this. No wonder we buried these things."
"We should bury that one, as well!" Sam suggested.
"Wait." Natalie held up a hand, and slowly motioned to have it handed to her.
Erwin adjusted his glasses, surprised. "Natalie? You know how to use one of those??"
She held it in a professional position, fingers in the proper places, and changed a setting on it with a few clicks. "No." A smirk came to her as she glanced at the bee. "But he does."
"I have never preferred the use of guns," Jacent weighed in. "But you are the leader. Where to now?"
Natalie turned, a combined effort of sniffing out the trail and eyeballing the area. "... This way."
-
- -
-
Kelvalde was burning the midnight oil.
He'd always loved the expression, something plucked out of a book from the old days, referencing a technology that was unmistakeable for the time it existed in. Nobody had burned oil to light up the night for a long time, but to him, it felt like just yesterday that they'd rediscovered its usefulness, launching post-splice humanity from its neo-medieval pit of uncertainty into a new era of civilized productivity. It was inspiring to remember all that had come before, to see the progress that had been made by his people. It was something to behold.
And if Osoth had her way, it was something they weren't going to hold onto much longer. To the casual observer, his stance against meeting her head-on with the others might have seemed foolish, or even cowardly. The fact was, however, that years had given him an understanding nobody else was privy to; he knew exactly what the liquid tyrant was capable of, and how devastating it was. She could consume your body, and eat your memories, as if she were some kind of nightmare creature.
Who else even knew that? Not the greys- they heard only what filtered down to their terrified level. Even most elites never saw it up close; they were too busy obeying or running as hard as they could just from the second-hand accounts. Arus and Echelon were the only ones who had stared into the hand of darkness and sunk their teeth in, and they had paid for it- oh, had they ever. It didn't take a genius to know that the dark empress had chewed them up and spit them back out with but a fraction of what they should have remembered. So many lives before, so many thoughts and emotions, gone.
From what he'd known of them, they were warlords. Those two had sown more destruction than any others before them- they were perfect warriors, a spearhead that left virtually nothing for the rest of them to clean up after. So... maybe... they didn't mind forgetting. Perhaps that aura of guilt wasn't his imagination.
There was, however, also the small matter that it wasn't quite clear that Echelon wasn't trying for a power grab. It was a seductive notion to believe that she was exactly as advertised, simply trying to free all inklings. But there was no guarantee of that, either, and no one to ensure she follow her own rules. Oh, sure, he trusted Natalie. But she was only half the equation, and not the one he was concerned about.
His thoughts were interrupted as a cat woman with wavy hair stood at his doorway, not looking in, but across the hall, consternated. He slowly turned around in his chair and rose up. "Can I help you?"
"Ah." She seemed mildly surprised, not expecting to see anybody. She hefted a small bag of various fabrics in front of her. "Sorry, I was looking for somebody."
"Not just anybody?" He smiled.
She chuckled. "I was going to give this to the kids- well, my daughter and her friends, they're the ones with the... ah, nevermind. Anyway. I'm pretty sure they just left, before I could give this to them."
He gave her a charming smile and thumbed westward. "You know. I heard this place has pneumatic freight tubes, in the basement. If you know where they went, maybe you could send it to them that way."
"Really??" She brightened up immediately. "Wow, thanks, um..."
"Kelvalde. And don't worry about it," he replied smoothly. "We survivors have to stick together, after all! Just stay safe, hm?"
"Yeah," she agreed amicably. "You, too."
-
- -
-
"So. What are you gonna do when we win this?"
The question came from Carrie, and it was directed at Max. The youthful reptile smirked as they walked behind Natalie's lead. "I'm gonna get Gropey some tags, take him to the vet, get him up on his boosters. That kinda stuff. Maybe even teach him some tricks!" He smiled wider as Carrie snickered at his absurdity. "What about you?"
"I'm gonna make Sam bake me a big, strawberry double layer cake. And every day, for breakfast and dessert until it's gone, I'm gonna have a piece, and wash it down with a great, big, frosty glass of milk."
"Oh, that sounds really tasty," Erwin added dreamily. "How about you, Sam? What're you gonna do when this is all over?"
"Well, aside from baking a cake, apparently," she shot Carrie an amused but dirty look. "I think that the emotional trauma of facing the invading aliens of outer space, along with walking with the terrible clacking in this prosthetic's knee joint, will force me into an introverted state, a spell the likes of which can only be broken by a drastic show of good will. One like, oh, say... a Croix Profil 390 GXT." She pronounced the last part with intention: gee-ex-tee.
"Ohhhh, that personal trans you've been making me go over the manual for the past three weeks!" Erwin laughed. "You really think your parents will buy it for you?"
"Mama enjoys the thought, and even Papa must know by now how badly I want it- I passed my driving test months ago!" she raved. "Its power and style combined with my grace and charm... serendipity~! Oh, but Jacent, what will you do when this dreadful episode is behind us?"
He smiled. "I'm going to point out that Erwin tried to skip his turn."
The ferret blushed as everyone mock-gasped and giggled at his attempt. "Alright, I'm... well. I'm gonna help everyone out with this whole 'inkling' thing. And then... I'm gonna finally go on that date with Kei."
"Yeah!"
"Go for it, squiggle ferret!"
"You go, dude!"
"Hear, hear!"
"Good luck to you."
He smiled lopsidedly. "So... what about you, Natalie?" He poked. "What're your plans?"
She trudged forward, sniffing and scanning the lay of the land. "I'm gonna get my Mom back. And when I do, I'm gonna hug her, and tell her that I love her. And I'm never, ever letting anything like this happen to her again."
"We're gonna save her, Natalie!" Erwin declared with a clenched fist and a look of determination.
"Damn right we are!" Carrie agreed with a grin.
"That's- wait." Nat stopped suddenly, sniffing at the air. As abruptly as she stopped, she took off in a different direction.
Her friends followed. "Wait, what is it??" Sam queried. "Did Cedric go this way?"
"I don't know, it's-" she sniffed aggressively at the air and lower to the ground as she moved. "It's like Cedric's scent, but mixed with... paper, and... tears." She started a bit as she was stopped by Jacent's hand on her arm. She looked back to him and followed his gaze forward.
A dilapidated playground sat amidst the center of a number of buildings, a pit of soft sand and half-broken playsets. An overturned bus laid nearby, a symbol of prematurely destroyed innocence. Sitting alone on the swing set, shoulders rising and falling with silent, gentle sobs... was Kei. Upon closer look, the kid was in rough shape. His clothes were torn, bits of his fur matted and burned. He shivered from the cold. And his glasses, made of flexible plastics... were cracked. It took a lot to do that; much more than any wearer could usually endure.
Erwin, stunned, stepped forward. "K-... Kei?"
The fox looked up slowly, shuddering. "A-... Are you a dream?"
The ferret boy dropped to his knees, taking the other boy's hands in his own. "No," he whispered, shaking his head. "I'm here."
Kei's head lowered into Erwin's shoulder, weeping warm, salty tears openly. His chest shuddered as he cried, shaking his head and wiping his tears away in one agonized motion. "Erwin. Erw-i-i-in... I c-couldn't... w-... wasn't-... it hurts so bad..."
"Shhh!" Erwin felt tears come as well, but he didn't fight them; they just came, as he hugged the fox boy tightly. "It's okay. I'm so sorry. I wanted to protect you, but I didn't know where you were..."
"I'm so scared!" He mewled miserably, squeezing as tight as he could. "I kept running until I could find a place where the buzzing would stop, the c-constant whispering words of hate..."
"... Osoth," he concluded bitterly. Sure enough, Cedric had been here, and had planted a beacon just near a bench. Kei would've felt an unusual calm in this little area. He actually had something to thank Cedric for- what strange times.
"Is he okay??" asked Sam as she walked closer than the others dared.
"He could use a little love," Erwin replied. "Kei? Remember my friend, Sam? She's not gonna hurt you, she just wants to try to make you feel a little better. Is that okay?"
Kei looked to Erwin, then Sam and back again. He hesitatingly nodded, barely perceptible.
"Easy now, dear," the bat implored. "You might feel a little numbness in places, but it's perfectly normal."
"... There you kids are."
Everyone's heads turned to see, of all people, Officer Carl Tisdale. The soft panther languidly walked up to the park bench and leaned on it with an amused, how-about-that smirk.
"Officer Tisdale?" Max voiced the question on everyone's mind. "Dude! I haven't seen you since... the Burger Dictator. Where've you been, man?"
He let out a baritone laugh and shook his head softly. "Ya kiddin'? I've been everywhere I could be to get out of the way of all this craziness." He smiled and huffed. "I saw the news report. I guess you're goin' after ol' Osoth, huh?"
"Yeah!" Natalie confirmed. "Do you know where she is?"
"Natalie, something's wrong..." Carrie muttered cautiously.
"Ohhh, yes, oh my, yes." He nodded in a folksy, rambling fashion. "She's waitin' for ya, at the train station."
"Well, what are we waiting for?" She looked around. "Come on, guys, we've got to get there!"
"Oh! Ah." Tisdale rambled, as if remembering something. "Not, ah. Not yet."
Carrie narrowed her eyes. "Why not?"
The police officer, in all of his easy-going days, never made a grin as predatory as he did then. "'Cause the party. Ain't. Started yet." He reeled back and kicked the signal buoy, ripping its top half from the power plug with a momentary arc of power.
Erwin stared in horror as the beacon was destroyed. His gaze immediately went to Kei, whom now looked stricken with anxiety. "Kei, just-... just hold on, relax, okay?"
"I-It's coming back, Erwin," he mewled. "The voice that hurts so bad..."
"Erwin, what happened??" Natalie asked urgently.
"He destroyed the signal booster!"
"Ohhh! You wanted a signal boost?!" Tisdale asked rhetorically, cackling as his flesh went from ebon to liquid, navy blue. "I'd be delighted!" His hands motioned in front of him as if shaping a wad of dough. A ball of concentrated blue light appeared, then shaped into a disc.
The effect was as instant as it was agonizing. Grating, tangential discord filled the air. Terrible, unbearable, dissonant blasphemies felt akin to putting one's teeth to a belt sander. Amidst the unrelenting furor, one devil laughed uproariously, a madness in his possession, while the frightened fox boy tunneled inside himself, a coat of protective green blanketing his flesh like the encroaching arms of a worried mother.
~CRACK!~
Tisdale's blue head was sent reeling. Jacent stood over the portal disc as it blinked out of existence, turning off the hellish din that he couldn't hear in the first place.
"Ah, you," Parthal spat. "The paper man."
"P-Paper!" Kei whined out in torment. "Where are my paper cranes?? My creations, my...friends..."
"Where is Osoth?!" Jacent demanded.
Parthal's twisted body flowed in a liquid motion. "Sorry, but she's just not quite ready for you yet. You'll have to come by a little later. Eh?" The liquid panther's gaze faltered for a moment at the sound of a high-pitched whine, then his whole body twitched away at inhuman speeds as a burst of blue energy flew right past him. "Whoa! Easy there, Grayswift," she mocked the wolf girl who stood with the cooling-cycled fusion cannon pointed at her. "After all, you've got other problems." She cackled and slurmed off.
Parthal was antagonizing them, but she wasn't wrong. Kei's mental state was destabilizing by the minute, and by the looks of things, it was about to get a lot worse. "Follow Parthal! Don't let her get away!" she called to Jacent, who was off like a shot after her.
-
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"But Grandpa, we can't leave now!"
Grendolyn Murcbee tried in vain to dissuade her grandfather from breaking off from the other survivors. It was ultimately to no avail, of course. "Nothin' doin', kiddo. We've gotta get away from large groups," he stated, walking as briskly as he could at his age between buildings.
Gren knew that Old Man Murcbee could be incredibly stubborn. He used a walking stick as a point of pride, preferring the status symbol of getting old enough for his body to wear out to replacing that bad knee with a prosthetic. It was times like these she'd wished he would have just gotten the knee. "Is this about that news video?"
"Now, who said you were allowed to watch that??" he grumped.
The goat girl had watched plenty of movies and read plenty of books that had been outside her recommended age range with no troubles, but this time she truly understood what it was adults were trying to protect her from. The images of all of those soldiers being turned into grays one by one was... more than just scary. 'Scary' was something you said abut a monster underneath the bed. The video footage she saw gave her a horrible, icky weight in her stomach that wouldn't go away. "... Sorry, Grandpa..." she whispered.
He squeezed her hand. "Not as sorry as I am, sugar. Now c'mon, let's go."
-
- -
-
Green liquid confusion encased a scared young man. Erwin saw only his eyes at the last moment, eyes filled with pain and fear... and longing, for some kind of peace, some true moment of warmth in a cold, cold winter.
But it was too late for that. Too late for comfort, too late for hope. All that remained was pain.
"I knew it," Kei said to himself, accepting no input from anyone. "I knew your friends were a trap. They speak kind words, but they really just want to trick me!"
"No! Kei, that isn't true, we aren't like that," Natalie tried to object.
"You don't understand the problem!" the fox boy stated. "You need to die, simple as that, and then Erwin and I can be happy! You're ruining my happiness."
"Kid, just think for a second!" Carrie demanded. "This is Osoth we're talking about, you think she's gonna give you a pat on the back and let you go?? It would never be enough!"
"What do you know?!" he shrieked. "You don't care! You never cared! Nobody did..." He gestured to the jungle gym that had been partially flattened by a monstrous foot, its interconnected bars appearing to re-inflate the thing, flexing in a mind-bending pattern of fluctuating fractals. Another gesture, and the swing set he'd been on stepped forward like a big metal giraffe, its insulated chains thrashing. Even a bike-shaped spring horse leapt up, free of its moorings, and bounced menacingly toward the kids.
"Watch out!" Erwin warned, ducking fully to the ground as Max and Sam got clobbered by a pair of swing seats. Instead of swinging the other way away from the dazed teens, however, they popped up, looped around their bodies and pulled them upward, chains twisting to yank them higher and higher.
"The chains! They're too tight!" Sam yelled out.
A high-pitched whine that was not their batty friend sounded out, and blue energy screamed up in an arc, severing the chains and freeing their friends, who landed uncomfortably on the only somewhat forgiving sand. Natalie activated the cooling cycle and popped her neck intimidatingly. "You want some more??" She dropped to one knee, took aim and fired a cutting shot of autofire fusion blasts, bisecting the sorcerous swing set with a sound of groaning material and a metallic ~ping!~ as it fell.
"Yes, I want more!" Kei growled at her, extending a green inked arm at her shaped like a nasty guillotine. She fell backward, unable to rely on comet reflexes, and fired a shot at the offending limb, vaporizing it. "AARGH! I always wanted what you had!! I could never have it!" His arm reformed as the other swung a giant spiked club at her, which she rolled away from as sand jumped out of the crater he'd made.
"What are you talking about?!" Natalie readied the fusion cannon and shot away the first arm again, which was coming down for a second slicing swing. "Kei, I don't want to hurt you, please, stop!"
"That's too bad!" He barked. "Because I want to hurt you." He shuddered, his inked body pulsing for a moment. Natalie's stomach flopped, and within moments, Animis exploded in a cloud of razors, green shrapnel flying everywhere. Carrie tensed, Erwin avoided the blast, and Sam and Max were within the grip of the jungle gym which ironically protected them even as it tried to entrap them.
Natalie raised the fusion cannon reflexively and tensed, a searing-hot pain filling her entire right leg. As she dropped the gun, she saw it crackle and spark uselessly, its functions deactivating one by one. But most pressingly, she gave a sharp cry of shock as she saw a giant triangular shard of green matter sticking up out of her leg. It was physically pinning her to the ground like a thumbtack. Wincing, she grabbed it, trying to pull it out, but white-hot pain flooded her body and took the strength out of her attempt, her head suddenly flush with sweat as blood soaked the sand underneath her.
Kei, completely without ink of any kind, trembled with fury. "That's what you get! You should have just listened! You should have laid down and-"
Carrie punched him in the face as hard as she could. The small, bookish fox boy crumpled like a house of cards, spinning halfway around as he hit the ground. Before he had a chance to wonder what happened, she was on him again, picking him back up and head-butting him with precision, directly in the bridge of his muzzle. He fell again, all of his senses punch-drunk and swimming.
Meanwhile Erwin grunted from his struggle with the jungle gym, which appeared to be trying to chew his terrified friends inside.
"Dude, help, I think it's hungry!" cried Max, who rolled to the side as the top of the thing flexed its metal mass to try and crush them.
"Just hold on!" the ferret pleaded for time, though for what, he wasn't sure.
Points of three bars came down, impacting onto the ground like individual teeth, biting into the sand as Sam shrieked and edged away, only to bump into another one. "It's going to hold onto us forever if you don't do something!"
Natalie could only watch helplessly, trying not to pass out from the pain as sweat poured down her face, her attempts to free herself from the ground only agitating her agony. She swung her view of those three to look for the other side of the fight.
Carrie had lifted Kei bodily, holding him up by his collar. "You wanna play for keeps, kid? You wanna see what it's like when your life's in danger??"
Kei's green flesh came back at that moment, exploding outward like a pufferfish, knocking Carrie backward. "No! Stay away from him, Arus! You... you monster!" Animis demanded in her markedly more female voice.
"Monster?" Carrie grunted, getting up not quite as easily as usual. "Maybe you didn't notice, but I'm not the one turning myself into a shrapnel bomb."
"Don't get any closer! I'll do it again!" she threatened, pulsating the same as before.
The cat didn't even bother replying. Instead, she dashed forward and bear-hugged the fox, squeezing his midsection with crushing force. When Kei burst this time, an entire half of the explosion thudded dully against Carrie's body, missing her allies completely. Seeing Kei without ink, she picked him up by his neck, forcing him to hold onto her hands, tossed him into the air a couple of inches, and slammed him back down to earth by his chest. The fox boy struggled on the ground, the wind knocked out of him, trembling with the shock.
"Carrie, we've got to get Animis off of him!" Erwin shouted, helping Sam out of the jungle gym with scant time to spare as it tried to chew her again. It was clear that without taking away the source of these horrors, they'd never make it. "I need a minute to-"
"I don't know if you noticed," Carrie hollered back, walking over to the overturned school bus. "But Natalie's bleeding on the ground, and Jacent's gone. Nobody's here to give him The Typewriter." She crouched, pushing her fingers underneath the thing, and grunted. "There's only one way to end this." With a grunting roar that echoed mightily, Carrie slowly lifted the bus one... two... three feet. With one final struggle, she held the thing over her head, her eyes maddened with anger and strain. "You better come together quick, Animis, because I'm gonna murder this kid!"
"CARRIE! NO!!" Erwin screamed, running to stop her. "STOP, STOP IT!!"
The bus slammed downward, crashing to earth in a thunderous mass of metal and glass. Erwin gasped in horror, but her reason for doing so was clear- a green liquid mass oozed out from under the vehicle. "I could see her in his eyes," Carrie answered before the ferret could even ask.
"... There's clearly no reasoning with you," Kei stared hard through his broken glasses after reforming, rage in his eyes. "So I'll have to end you!" The spring-mounted bike leapt from what seemed like the very heavens, landing on Carrie's head unexpectedly. The fox folded his arms smugly as she fell with a surprised yelp. "Too bad you're not smart like me." He gestured to the school bus that had flattened him before, mechanical components ripping out from the middle to poke out of the bottom of it. Its chassis flexed and it rolled onto its 'belly' with a loud thudding, its dozens of little 'legs' giving it the look of a centipede. "I hate people like you, so smug and stupid! You think you can take whatever you want, can just push people like me around because I'm small!" Like a conductor, he gave a grand gesture, and the bug bus reared up, towering over her on its hind legs.
"... Aw, fuck." Carrie braced for impact and reached into her reserves, hoping Arus still had some power left-
~CRUNCH!!!~
"CARRIE!!" screamed Natalie, still pinned, as Kei laughed in a manner most unhinged.
"ENOUGH!" called a female voice. Kei's laughter ceased immediately, his eyes surprised for a moment, then glazing over as he fell to his knees in the soft sand. Sam panted behind him, holding out an aura of pink stronger than any she'd summoned forth before. "You don't hate us; you don't even know us. At the very least I know you don't hate Erwin." She rubbed a hand along the back of his head, and a single tear ran down his cheek.
"Hold him!" Erwin ran back to where the original signal buoy was, pulled out a pair of pliers, and ripped the thing out with all of his strength in a shower of sparks. He replaced it, a green pyramid lighting up. "There!"
Animis' green flesh went less solid, eventually pushing down past the surface. Kei shuddered, wincing and wiping the blood from his nose... before passing out.
Max, now free from the now inanimate jungle gym, walked over, rubbing a few bruises. "'S he gonna be okay?"
He nodded, digging a makeshift spot in the sand for him to elevate his head, and draped his jacket over the fox. "He should be alright. Go help Natalie."
He did. With a little help, they managed to remove the green shard from her leg- causing it to devolve into liquid again and puddle back to Kei- and begin healing her wound.
"Unh... anh... C-Carrie..." Natalie managed through her hazy thoughts full of inkling painkiller.
"Shh, just be still, Natalie dear," Sam urged. It wouldn't do to upset her when she was trying to stabilize her wound.
A noisy creaking came from the area outside the circular sandbox. Slowly, agonizingly, the bus- no longer animate- rose inch by inch. "Nnnngh... a little help?"
"Ah! Carr-bear!" Natalie stood up- too quickly by Sam's reaction- and paced over, touching Carrie's arm and holding the edge of the bus in an underhand position. "HNNGH," she grunted as Carrie let go and rolled out from underneath the thing. Nat's arms almost immediately gave out, and she quickly stepped back so as not to drop the vehicle on her toes. "Aaanhh..." Nat winced in pain, holding a pulled muscle in her back. "Never as good. Always just a little worse than the real thing..."
Carrie stood up and hugged her. "You did great, Sugarbutt." She kissed her on the cheek and just sort of held her for a moment. "Mm. Did we win?"
"Kei's asleep," Erwin answered, still a little uneasy about the entire affair. He gently caressed his cheek as he slept, wanting very badly to stay and watch him.
"Then we've gotta keep moving," Natalie responded in turn, moving oddly from the pain. "And no, Sam, I know what you're thinking, but we've got to conserve our powers. Remember, Echelon and the others aren't getting any more energy from us. Once we're out, that's it."
Max stood on the far edge of the sandbox, wavering uneasily. "Natalie... you should check this out."
The iguana stood before what looked to be a congealed puddle of black tar a few feet in diameter, having oozed onto the sand. Sam's nose wrinkled. "What in the world is that?"
Natalie crouched down and scooped a finger through it. The black goo trailed off the end of her digit, and though it appeared to be stygian at first, the liquid appeared to have a red twinge to it when thinned out. "... This is ink. As in... this was somebody's inkling." She frowned. "But whose? And what is it doing here?"
"Well, it isn't mine!" Sam replied. "Mhend is safe with me. And speaking of safe, Jacent isn't, so let's go help him!"
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A crooked cop, corrupted by the promise of money and favors, ran through an alley with a suitcase and a gun. He fled from a child whose disgust for the abuse of public trust knew no bounds.
"I won't let you catch me, punk!"
A gang member fresh out of high school, all tattoos and attitude, overturned a trash can. A thirteen year old flame-haired zealot leapt over it like a gazelle, hitting the ground running.
"Let's see just how good you are!"
An olympic gymnast-turned-burglar in a skimpy leotard leapt onto the side of a building, swung onto a fire escape and ran across it. A mid-teens youth who took himself too seriously jumped to follow and crashed down on the walkway, shaking it too much to keep footing on. The chase went back to the ground.
"Fuck it, I can take you."
A swarthy-skinned body builder turned to face him, eyes full of contempt. A disgruntled city maintenance worker in a suit of powered armor stared in surprise at the passing sky as his chin was punched hard enough to knock him off of his feet. A disturbed murderer covered in scars crumpled on the way to the ground, cowering from the force of the blow like a child from thunder. A misanthropic old clockmaker frowned bitterly in the realization that his machinations would have to wait. Again.
"What are you waiting for?"
Parthal looked up at Jacent from the ground. Her tendrils extended again, grabbing for his ankles. A sweeping stance shift carried the wind, and he set himself free of it, but only for a moment. Memories would only help him against this opponent so much.
"What's the problem? You have the look of a man who's lived too long." Parthal whispered insidiously, "I can fix that."
"Perhaps changing hosts has affected your memory; I was the victor last time," he contended.
She laughed sumptuously, rounding the corner to where a tied up Shelly Iverson sat against the side of a building, terrified. "Oh, I know. You're so strong, it's delicious. I want inside that beautiful body. And out of this one..."
"Shelly??" Jacent asked, confused, as the blue goo creature summoned a portal that dumped a handful of shufflers in front of him. "Nng, out of my way!" He struck, kicked and swept his way through the rubbery monsters, dodging their blows and watching the distressed butterfly tense with fear as Parthal got closer and closer. "NO!"
It was too late. By the time he kicked away the last shuffler, Parthal made her way off of Officer Tisdale and onto the rubbery butterfly, who shook her head and let out a muffled scream as she was engulfed.
"Leave her, monster!" he ordered.
"Oh, why??" Parthal snapped into Shelly's shape, a shivering, exaggerated shimmy wobbling the butterfly's round liquid breasts- something that might have been enticing if not for the killer's smile. "It's so cozy in here with her and Lastik. Between this girl and that hot-head Emnas, I'm beginning to like these little three-ways~!"
"I said leave her!" he insisted, stomping his boot down onto the concrete with force.
"Mm, no." Parthal flapped her wings and hovered fifteen feet in the air. "But how about this instead?!" Extending her arms and legs downward, her fingers and toes stretched into navy blue tentacles that shot into the ground like harpoons, surrounding the boy like a liquid prison.
Jacent jut an arm out and spun around twice, the force overwhelming Parthal's ability to stay solid, and twisted her limbs in his own. With the momentum, he jumped over the bunch of liquid pitons and brought his weight down, swinging the blue butterfly to the ground like a hammer.
"GNHAngkkl khnn, keheheh..." Parthal half-rose, half-reformed, grinning excitedly. "You see what I mean?! That's the kind of strength and skill I could really use... won't you just let me in for a moment~?"
"My hatred for evil would incinerate you." He went for an axe kick, but the monstrous thing slunk away. "Now leave that girl's body, or I'll remove you!"
A small voice rang out. "Hey! Heeey!"
Jacent turned his head as Parthal angled away from him. "Uh?"
Gren Murcbee stood on the street corner, clutching her backpack. "You're Natalie's friend, aren't you!"
He almost laughed. "Ah... yes!"
She tossed him the backpack. "These are yours!"
He reached in to the small pack and pulled out... his two metal yo-yos. The ones Parthal had snapped the strings off of. The ones he'd never found, having to settle for plastic ones instead. And now, here they were, restrung carefully by little hands. He looked back at her.
The little goat girl pumped her fist. "Get her! You can do it! I bet you're almost as good as Natalie!"
He smirked and nodded back to her, slipping them on. "Almost." Jacent slung the toys out in opposite directions, pulling them back in a Z-formation and balling his fists around them.
"... Oh, good for you, the toys I broke last time," Parthal replied with droll enthusiasm, amused by the entire exchange.
"Not at all!" he countered. "For they've been tempered with the hopes of a child, and to a child, a toy is a tool with unlimited possibilities." He slung the red one out at Parthal, which the inkling dodged, but immediately was slapped by the blue one as it came around. He looped Blue back around for a straight shot, which Parthal tried to clip the string of, but he yanked it back in full expectation of that, Red slamming into her face. Several threatening inky implements of death were conjured, but Jacent began a whirlwind of motion, heavy metal discs slapping away chunks of ink before it had a chance to form.
Parthal glowered at him. "How puerile. How's this for a possibility??" In one hand, a summoned portal appeared behind him, landing a sickening black tar near Gren and her grandfather, which they wisely stayed away from. In the other, a bladder dropped onto the street and burst into a cascade of crawlers.
Jacent was completely deluged. He'd begun spinning up for his attack before they started coming after him and it still almost wasn't fast enough. Red and Blue sent small, sprawly creatures flying in twos while an amount of footwork approaching ballet was used to kick and stomp and otherwise frustrate the efforts of the little monsters.
He heard a shriek.
Parthal had snaked around behind him and hovered above Gren menacingly while old man Murcbee threatened her with his cane. "May your wonderment die with your dear family!" she cackled gleefully.
"No." Jacent stepped it up, slamming fist and foot and toy and whatever else he could into his assailants to open a window, getting sloppy and leaving himself open.
Blue tendrils latched around Old Man Murcbee. "Wait!!"
The boy bolted for her, several crawlers on his flesh, his arm wrappings already torn away. He threw them off as he ran, not caring what bled or scratched.
"Watch him go!" Parthal goaded maniacally, throwing the old goat into the vat of black ooze with a percussive splash of finality, leaving not so much as time for a scream. He was gone.
"GRANDPA!! NOOO!!!" screamed Grendolyn Murcbee as she watched helplessly, dropping to her knees.
Jacent watched in horror as the kind old man was fed into the pool of blackness, never to be seen again. Never to love or care for his granddaughter.
Parthal cradled Gren's terrified, mortified, tearful face. "Wonderment? Meet despair."
He'd watched on as a quiet, expressive teenage boy was forced to try to murder the one he loved with an army of objects.
"Face it."
Rage threatened to crack his teeth.
"I've beaten you," Parthal's sweet smile mocked as Gren ran away in tears.
Blood vessels burst in his shut eyes. His arms trembled as blood oozed from his clenched, nail-bitten fists. "Yes, you have." He shook, rising again. "But you've released the Dragon." When his eyes opened, the red of his bloodshot sclera dried into stark black, leaving brilliant emerald green stuck in two pools of darkness. A loud sucking sound occurred for just a moment as he whispered, "And I cannot put it back."
Parthal's face moved to say something, but it never got the chance. A bolt of lightning in fist form plastered her to the side of the building, followed by a disquieting sound of air being moved too much, too fast. Suddenly, what seemed and felt like a hundred invisible pistons pounded into the inkling and the building, leaving a six foot diameter crater in the thing. The liquid butterfly staggered, her body spasming as it tried to cling to its host. "Agckhk! Hhgklc. GHUNKG."
Jacent backhanded Parthal just as she recovered, swatting away liquid flesh, and being followed like a tether by a group of phantom blows, shredding at her being as if from a sandstorm. No words were said by him, no judgements or second chances. Green eyes stared hatefully, with a sense of alienated contempt. He leapt into the air as she struggled, descending like a comet to earth, flipping end over end like a high diver, his body twisting and turning in midair. When he landed, it was boot-first on her chest.
And then the blows rained down.
Parthal exploded in a fine mist. Her essence spread on the wind like dust, leaving behind a butterfly girl and a twisting, tortured orange mass. Shelly reached her hand out and the mass gravitated toward her, sucking back into her body. Willingly. Not as prisoner and warden... but as partners.
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