Rot: A worm Fanfiction

Tumultuous_Anxiety · Feb 21, 2021

Explanation of what an anti-thinker looks like to a simulation precog of Coil caliber, also I am currently laughing like a manic in the background...

I have not been having a good last few weeks. My home office was cold tonight as I shrug off the last of the thinker headache that has put me down of the last three hours. The only sound being the rhythmic tapping of my fingers across the wood desk I sit at. The computer monitor in front of me off, to help distract me from...today. Fuck today...

Losing my pet to some unknown wasn't the worst of it either. It was that the new capes were complete counters to my power. I think about the first time I came across the new capes. It was honestly kind of annoying and terrifying when I was told in both of the timelines that my pet had evaded capture with the help of not one, but two unknown capes. I had watched through cameras of both scenes, in one I sent mercenaries to approach Sarah Livsey with blackmail; in the other I went with a simple kidnapping and coercion plan. In the first, my soon to be pet refused the offer so I dropped the timeline, this was my mistake. The second timeline looked good until it didn't.

" Okay units one and three follow through with chasing the target," I watched the screen as the multiple open windows showed me the videos from my men's cameras, " unit two head around to the back alley." I smirk, in the last timeline Livsey gave my men the slip when I sent in all of them at once. I split the timeline. I watched through six cameras in both timelines waiting to make a decision. The mercenaries in the first and second timeline chased the girl into a back alley way for a good distance. Then I heard a loud crash of something metallic in stereo, " Units one and three what was that?" " Moving to assess sir." The cameras of both timelines showed the four views of the same alley way. The target was at a full stop and talking to the thin air, I strain to hear.

".. are not w- them," my men move closer.

" Will you help me?"

A pause of silence.

" Your new," The cameras show the target removing some form of scarf from her person and handing it to the air, it vanishes! I feel my eyes widen.

" It's to hide your identity."

In the first timeline I tell them to immediately open fire into the alleyway, in the second I do nothing just simply watch to see what will happen. The second timeline has my men simply shrouded in a black fog like substance that poured from the empty air. In the first timeline... in the first timeline they disappeared, and then it just ended, completely. I was almost convinced that I had just witnessed a loss of my own control, but no this was something different. With the first timeline... gone, I focused on the remaining one. With me no longer using my power I finally saw it. As they came into view on the third camera, I could now see the empty cape. It was tall, vaguely female, wearing a scarf over their face covering their eyes. It was not a very intimidating look, especially with just a pair of jeans and a black hoodie. " Not even wearing shoes or socks," I whisper under my breath, " could be homeless, might be cheaper to pay off."

I then proceeded to watch as the unassuming cape preformed impressive speed and flexibility, including a minor brute power by how fast they got up from clearly broken legs. Is it some form of anti-thinker? I split the timeline just to confirm what I suspect and watch as the cape and the target disappear.

Now though after tonight I wonder if it is worth it to try and get my pet thinker. Sarah had obviously made some very powerful friends, friends strong enough to take down a fully enraged Lung. " I still don't know how I failed this," I spoke to my empty office in my house. In another timeline
I'm sleeping, in this one I'm staring at the blank screen of my computer. Just six hours ago I had no timelines, in preparation for the second attempt at getting his pet.

I had spent the last few weeks working out just what were this new capes' weaknesses. I tried lots of things: long range sniper fire, a drive by shooting of their house, explosives, and finally simple arson. All of these methods had some failure to it, and none of them ended well, let alone with the targets destroyed and my pet collected.

The human cape's name was Taylor Hebert, it was kind of obvious when she was the only cape that appeared in the PRT nonpublic registry at the right time. A quick jog to their house with my power active proved it outright. Knowing the girl's family was a tactic I tried, but those plans also fell through. Every time I tried to get the brats parents under control, either my pet sniffed me out or Taylor's mother, who is also a cape back from the dead, kills the messenger.

I repress a shudder at those timelines. Annette Hebert may not have the same effect on my power as her daughter, but that woman is brutal. The images of kitchen knives, razor wire, and Exacto knives rises unbidden to my mind. The mangled corpses, partial eaten, of my men returning from the three days he spent in timeline trying to get that woman. First just trying to blackmail, after that devolving into attempts to pacify the monster I could have awoken. The silver mask...a ball of sharp implements in the vague shape of a person. I lived through Ellisburg, I've seen monsters, I know what they look like. She was worse. Despite my long career this simple woman had lessons in cruelty I wasn't prepared for. Ultimately after dropping all timelines with Annette Hebert, thus keeping the world safe for a little while longer, I focused all my attention on
eradicating her spawn.

That did not go well today...

The synergy of these three is unbelievable. Makes me wish I tried hiring them instead of capturing my pet. I lean back as I remember what happened today.

"Unit 1 do you read me?" I stare at the single screen in front of me. It is so odd not being in multiple timelines, but I can't use my powers until after Taylor and Nimi are taken out by Lung.

" Yes I read you boss."

" The three are moving to the store, be prepared to catch the target as it leaves the back of the store."

" Roger that boss."

It had taken a lot of planning to do this, almost four simulated painful weeks. Each time running the risk of spontaneous timeline fracture, as I slowly and meticulously pathed out the three's daily activities. It was mostly boring as I watched the evidence of the problem cape get bullied at school, the green one guard my pet, and my pet using her power with some unseen one. All through third parties, god it was exhausting. Still it bore fruit, a solid cape patrol with a map and times. It was tested of course, Skidmark and Mush are really easy to trick into being in the wrong place at the right time. Lung was a little harder, but it was more of finding the right little birdy to whisper something into his ear.

Their was movement on his screen as the cameras around the block show the approaching trio. In another camera hidden on a ABB members coat, shows the on going silent film of a robbery/extortion. Across the street a camera watches a car carrying Lung. All coming together...

Except it hadn't, as soon as it started, as soon as I moved in and my pet was extracted. I split the timeline trying to come up with as many delaying tactics as I could, the multiple vans were all set, I just needed to tell unit 1 where to turn. Then it appeared and all of my timelines crashed at the same time.

It was everywhere, in every alleyway, in every shadow across the streets. All of it invisible as my men screamed for orders, I gave them and everything crashed as my mind became white pain...

The resulting feed back meant a headache, and missing my perfectly laid out path. The van didn't turn, it just breezed past the decoys. I look up at the ceiling, Accords well laid plans up in smoke. It seemed impossible to me, but even with the general plan working up until this point. I still failed this crucial step. Sure there were other thinkers I could steal, but none of them were intuitive thinker like Sarah Livsey. It was a important distinction, I would take a precog over it, but still no other kind of thinker would do. To be fair to Accord though, the plan isn't totally dead just dead in the water. Its not like the fellow thinker could predict this kind of chaos...The plan can proceed, it is just that the fastest way to carry it out has an impossible roadblock in front of the next step.

I know where they are, a shitty motel off the highway just at the outskirts of town. Some body-cams and a little bit of timeline fishing. But...can I really catch them? I had sent some men into the motel, they were bound and gaged by fucking shadows before they even reached the lobby. So fine, send them in with lasers rifles. It worked for maybe thirty minutes, but then a nude Taylor Hebert decides that lasers bounce off her fucking flesh. Seriously what am I supposed to do with that? It is not like I have any capes in my employ, that was meant to be his pet's job!

I lean forward and place my head in my hands. I could get the PRT involved, but I don't know, can't know how that will turn out. I could try to apologize...I groan from inside my hands. It might help in the short run, but it still won't get me my thinker. Lisa, it won't get me her Lisa...

I have a headache, my timeline where I'm sleeping is going on in the background. A good decision, I snort and then pick my timeline.

I dreamed about monsters seen through a cage, but the blonde one was playing with them. I was the one behind the bars.

I woke up in a cold sweat after that...couldn't sleep the rest of the night.

Poor Coil....I hope his head pops like a piece of popcorn.

Tumultuous_Anxiety · Feb 21, 2021

Character development of Swarm and finally we got a name for our group of zombies and friend...

We woke up late into our Sunday at the motel to find that the flagpole across the street was sporting a white flag. Lisa then told us that we should head home.

Together Taylor, Lisa, Swarm and I sat and wait for the bus. A mid day sun staring down on the pavement trying its hardest to heat up the winter air. A sharp wind blows through the kiosk and Lisa pulls her coat tighter. Overall it is a pretty shit start to our day.

Lisa was the only one of us four that had real clothes, and those consisted of the coat of her costume and the clothes that she wore underneath them. She lost her hat in the fire Lung caused, still had the black bio-silk mask though. Taylor's situation is a little more complicated. Swarm had broken off a piece of her flesh, and Taylor was using it as a replacement costume. The tight spiral mask only covering her eyes now, and her ankle length hair now free. Both the suit and miasma of hair, are covered in glowing eye spots. Think 2D eyeball, but at the level of a human eye. The fact that they look like her real eyes is not random.

Speaking of eyes, I have a few new changes to my own body which Taylor and I looked through in the shower and while we slept. Lung's metallic cells are practically suffused through out our designs. The bones of my body are now a composite mix of natural carbon fiber and metallic-crystal cells, giving my bones a heavier weight sure, but also making them four times stronger than they were before. The bone exoskeleton on my hands and feet, is composed of metal abalone like the armor pieces of my bio-suit but better! The hydrogen bonds of my armored hands is designed with strategic weaknesses, so that when ever I punch something it causes a cascade of chemical breaks. In simple words, my punches now exploded with a double clap. The armoring of my hands is designed to direct the blast outward so I won't have to worry about my hands being blown up.

It was so cool! My new eye is cool too. Before I had trouble with depth perception so I needed pilot eyes so I could see how far things were. Now though, my monocular vision is extremely advanced. The amount of connected nerves from my brain to my eye stalk has been tripled to account for the twelve corneas in my one eye. I can see depth, I can also see with perfect non-ghost vision at a hundred eighty degrees. This is good, ghost vision is good at seeing everything around you, but it has trouble with things like faces or even letters. Plus ghosts cannot recognize strangers for some reason.

The bus stop is empty except for us, despite it being the middle of the day, but I am glad for it. I look at my two others and Lisa. Lisa and Taylor are slumped with Lisa head being held up her hands, and Taylor's foot tapping as she stares up at the roof of our shelter. Spawn, Spawn is fine, she stayed up all night and doesn't need to fall asleep to join me and Taylor for our night time ghost activities. I don't know what to think of my new other. She is a mixture of both mine and Taylor's personalities, so we do kind of get along with her. It is just that she is usually distracted. To her the single body sitting here with us on the bench is just that, a single unit in its entire body. So far she hasn't really said anything out loud, the only reactions to things she does have are the occasional huff when agreeing, purring, and giggling. Swarm looks up at me, having noticed my
staring. I smile a big grin down at my new sister, her short hair and six arms look cute! I know that mommy and daddy will like her...

I hope they're not too worried about us. " What are we going to tell mom and dad," Taylor sighs as she swings forward, her voice is tired.

" Well we shouldn't tell them that we fought Lung and Oni Lee," Lisa rests her back against the wood bench, " hey what happened to Oni Lee anyways, it didn't come up last night."

The flinch from Taylor is more like a spasm, " he died in the fire."

Lisa is looking at the back of Taylor's head, right in an eye spot. " You ate the body didn't you."

"...yeah." I watch Lisa place a hand on Taylor's back, " does that make me a bad person?"

" No, Frankie you did it to protect me and Nimi."

" Yeah, don't feel bad, Lung is the one that killed him, you just used his body. He didn't need it anymore," I smile at her, Swarm and I send her comforting thoughts. I send the feeling of seeing Lisa safe, Swarm sends a collection of dead trees she was currently chewing on across town. It got a smile out of her.

" Thanks Neems, thanks Swarm."

" No problem," I say and the shadow Taylor shrugs.

" We should probably tell them that we were out running my kidnapper," Lisa gets into her thinker pose, legs tucked to her chest hand over mouth. " It would be mostly the truth."

" Okay, I just hope that now that they have surrendered, dad won't kick you out," All three of us, Taylor, Swarm, and myself, bristle at the idea of Lisa not staying at the house.

" He won't, likes me too much," Lisa's foxlike grin is infectious.

We sit back after coming up with our alibi for mommy and daddy. It is a comfortable silence.

" So...we just took on Lung and won..." I look at Lisa, Taylor is looking too, " what are we going to call ourselves."

" What do you mean?" Yeah what is Lisa getting at?

" Well I mean a name for our group," Lisa explains her hand rolling in the air in front of her, " I'm kind of partial to the Undersiders, and seeing how we have basically zero public presence it kind of fits."

" A group name is stupid." All three of us turn at the first words out of Swarm's mouth. Swarm's ghost idly swirled beneath her feet as Swarm's body continued to look up at the aluminum roofing covering the bus stop. Swarm continues, " We are many, legion, we do not need a name it
makes us easier to identify opening us to danger, nameless we are scary, nameless we are safe."

Swarm's voice is kind of echo-y, like there are many speaking rather than just the one in front of us. " It doesn't matter if we pick a name or not Swarm, the public will eventually do it for us," Lisa, like all of us are staring at the stoic girl.

" Don't like it, puts L-Izzy in danger." I could agree with that. Lisa is the only one of us that can actually die. We almost lost her yesterday, I can feel my left hand make a fist, we are not going to let that happen again.

" Still we don't want a name from the public, it is sloppy, unprofessional, and I'm certain we would hate it." Lisa gave Swarm a smile, it made the shadows purr.

" Well it has to be something that we can all agree with," Taylor leans back in her seat, " maybe a theme?"

" Gravetenders," Lisa grins, " or how about Horror Harem."

I laugh as Taylor slams her face into her hands, Swarm purrs louder.

"Okay so not that one, what about the Apocalypsers?"

" No, sends the wrong message," Taylor wipes her face to keep her grey blush down, " what about selling it like a detective agency, Frankie, Izzy, Swarm, and Nimi?"

" Too long, but I like the detective angle," Lisa looks down the street for the bus, it's been a while since we've even seen a car. Still it is the outskirts of town, on a Sunday. People are probably just other places. " What combines zombies, detectives, and...tentacles?"

Good question Lisa, my hair tentacles in question sway to catch scents and sounds far away. So far nothing is around and I certainly don't sense a bus coming.

" Eldritch..." Swarm's arms hang from behind the bench, but her words are loud enough to hear.

" What like Lovecraft," Taylor perks up at the mention of books, " I'm not sure if he is a good pick for PR."

" Yeah, but it is a good suggestion to use a horror author's works, maybe just a different author," Lisa goes back to her thinker pose.

Different author, detective, horror, science fiction. What about the father of the genre? " Poe, The Bells."

"Oooh good one Neems, that could really work," I blush myself at Lisa's praise, pink and red spores fluttering into the air. " So how bout The Bells, it is vague and it works for our themes."
We all agreed that it was a good name, even Swarm who didn't want a name liked it. " Okay then were now called-"

" Freeze criminals!" We all looked over to see a tiny girl in green and white.

Is that Vista...She's so, " CUTE!"

Okay I think that I might not post again today...if I do please feel free to call me an idiot....

Tumultuous_Anxiety · Feb 22, 2021

Not even an hour...wow good job me, just can't stop huh...

The resulting squeal of joy from the largest villain was not what I expected when I tried to apprehend the four villains.

" OH MY GOD, SHE IS SO CUTE!" The voice is deep and sounded like someone passed a squeak toy through an industrial shredder, underwater.

" Hey I'm not cute, I'm a hero!" I can feel my blood rise on my neck. The big one stands up, and I finally see just how big they are. The single eye stares down at me even though I'm thirty feet away! Before I can blink the giant is half way to me. " w-wait, st-stay back!"

I hurriedly use my powers throwing out my hand to keep the titan back. the space between us stretches to a mile, and I start to breath again. That was kind of scary, I look up to see the group. Is she running, towards me?

My mind fails to process as the giant monster starts speed walking the mile. She just reached the the halfway mark... I expand the distance further. This is bad where is Clockblocker?

" Clockblocker, do you read over," I keep my eyes on the still advancing giant. The other villains are trying to talk to their monster cape, but I'm too far to hear it.

" This is Clockblocker, I'm currently catching up to you from when you ran off, over."

" Look Clock this is serious I need you over here quick, I'm on-" A shadow fall over me as I look up. The single eye looks down on me, a hungry gaze glitters in the red iris. There was only a few feet between me and the female monster. Quick, I need to expand the distance before-

Strong arms wrap around me and pull me up into a huge hug. I can't use my powers, their is too much biology around me! I struggle and wiggle trying to escape, " let me go, you are interfering with an inves- oof."

The warm squishy darkness fills my vision and I can feel my powers snap back the reality around me.

"Neems put the ward down," I can feel it, today is a day where I'm going introduce my face to my hands a lot. I stand and walk over to my other, Swarm deciding that being next to Lisa is a better idea. " She clearly was trying to arrest us."

The normally deep voice of my other is sounding decidedly more high pitched then usual. " But Tay- Frankie, she is adorable," Nimi whines, " can't we keep her?"

" Hey I thought I was the cute one," Lisa interjects unhelpfully. Seriously, are we just going to gloss over the fact that a ward just tried to arrest us?

" Your hot Izzy, there is a difference," Nimi pouts, which to be fair is cute. The satisficed smirk on Lisa's face that I could see from one of my eye spots on the back of my hair, is also cute. They are both useless.

" Nimi she is a ward, and a human, we can't just kidnap her," I sternly state hands on my hip, " besides we are too young to be adopting children."

A muffled hey from the ward, mirrors Nimi's perfectly. " And more to the point, I think she is having trouble breathing Neems," that casual declaration from Lisa has both of us looking down at the ward in her arms.

Her ears are red, borderline purple. " Oh no I'm so sorry," Nimi loosens her hug just enough for a red faced Vista to take a gasp of air, " are you okay?"

" Put me down, now," Vista sounds and looks pissed. Nimi slowly and carefully sets the much smaller girl down. Now crouching down to Vista's height, Nimi looks at the small cape looking like a kid staring at a puppy. Honestly, looking at Vista, I could see it...

" Thank you, now what are you all doing here."

" Waiting for the bus, we want to get home." Vista's face is very confused at my other's words.

" So wait, you guys are just are really just waiting here for the bus," Vista looks like the hamster wheel of a particularly tired hamster.

" Yeah, what did you think four capes waiting at a bus stop were doing," I can see Lisa's raised eyebrow out the corner of my many eyes. The eyes thing would be confusing if it didn't already feel natural to see from every angle.

" We got a call about some suspicious capes hanging around a bus stop."

" Well surprise we don't have a car, so we get to take public transport like every one else." Vista looks mostly done with this conversation, and Lisa is not even close to getting done with her fun. Nimi stands back up to her full height.

" It's okay, we are used to people finding us scary," Nimi smiles a full shark-tooth smile, " no harm no fou-"

" Nimi look out!" Nimi turns at Lisa's out burst and then freezes. She then screams louder than I've ever heard her.

I am running on far too little sleep for this.

I had spent all night on the early warning Endbringer detection with Dragon. Before that I had just finished a fifteen hour shift, with a thirty minute nap in between. I was at the extreme edge of operating efficiency. My productivity is through the roof as it stands though...

I stare at the six capes spread out through the street. On my left is wards Vista and Clockblocker along with a new cape, Frankie I think it was. I checked my Hud and yes the mask is consistent with the cape named Frankie. Frankie is currently beating Clockblocker senseless while Vista watches, not helping her teammate. To my right is Izzy, Nimi, and some unknown cape with six arms. A new member perhaps. Izzy is holding Nimi's head while Nimi clutched a rather long tendril to their chest. The unknown cape is rubbing Nimi's shoulders. I check with my Hud to confirm that I have gotten the names right, I did...

" DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU HAVE DONE," Frankie yells in Clockblockers face as I start forward, " NIMI'S SENSORY ORGANS ARE FULL OF NERVES! WHAT YOU DID WAS LIKE ME RIPPING OUT PEICES OF YOUR NOSE EARS AND EYES!"
Well that sounds serious, what has Clockblocker done this time. I scan the area looking for evidence of some slight that could be... is that a floating hand print?

Hovering motionless in the air is a black and green hand print. Purple fluid is leaking from the back of it. I look between the hand print and the crying case 53. My Hud confirms that the hand print is the same color as Nimi's skin. The unknown cape is wrapping a black fabric around the held tendril. This will definitely effect relations between the new unregistered group and the PRT. " I'm. sorry. I. just. tried. to. freeze. her. I. didn't. know. that. it. would. take. off. skin." I listen to the staggered sentence that the idiot is trying to say while being shaken like a ragdoll.

I finally step close enough for Frankie to notice me, the cape's head whips to me and several eyes open across her hair to stare as well. Okay remember what Dragon said, when you come across a situation with an angry person be calm and offer assistance. " Cape Frankie," I watch as my calm voice (robotic and awkward) makes the angry cape drop Clockblocker, " does Nimi require medical attention?"

Frankie blinks, and so too do fifty other eyes from inside the halo of hair. The cape unhunches from her ready stance and mouth move from bared shark teeth to just a simple line. Success, I will alert Dragon to the good development later, now what was I supposed to do next?

" No, we have good regeneration, we just need to wait for the stolen flesh to unfreeze," the pissed female looks back at the time based cape whimpering at her feet.

" Does Clockblocker require medical attention?"

" You mean besides psychiatric," I watch the cape in question flinch under the much taller girl's gaze. A joke, a good joke, irrelevant but still I'll note it and tell Dragon about it if the next words out of the hostile cape are appropriate. " He'll live."

I nod, acceptable, " May I please get an explanation as to what happened here?" These tips are really working so I think I might ask for more of Dragon later...after I sleep.

Both Frankie and Vista explain the situation to me at my request. It certainly fills in the blanks. " Do you know how long Clockblocker's powers will last this time?"

As soon as I finish the sentence, a wet splat sounds from where the skin was floating. " Nope," Frankie says then walks over to the skin on the street. At the raising of her hand a shadow darts out from the sewer grate, startling both wards. The ball of conensed shadows lifts the skin off the ground and then rushes over to the crying cape. A shaker power? Is the shadow cape just an extension of Frankie's powers?

" Do you require assistance getting home," the four are apparently trying to get public transit, they obviously don't know that this bus line is retired. This could be a good chance to gain some good relations in face of the bad ones.

" No, I prefer to pretend that the PRT doesn't know where we live, will be fine with the bus." I store that away for later.

The cape Nimi is no longer crying so whatever happened over there seems to repair the problem. As for my assumption that they didn't know that this bus route is discontinued, correct again. " This bus line has been terminated for over three months now."
I watch the girl stop at that, clearly thinking about what I've said. She then turns to the group consoling the repaired cape, " Izzy is this bus stop closed?"

Izzy looks up at the bus stop roof before looking back down at the seat. " Sorry Frankie, my powers are tired after yesterday, I'm surprised I even got up this morning."

The black haired cape sighs, " Its fine Izzy, we're all tired."

" Incorrect," the shadow speaks turning its head, " Swarm is not tired, just sleepy."

The resulting argument between the members of the as of yet unnamed group, is ignored as Vista the youngest ward approaches me. " Yes, Vista?"

" Sir do you know these capes?"

" Yes, they are new, started on Monday, or at least started publicly on Monday." I'm pretty sure that a certain fight between a certain blond cape and at least one of the members took place a few weeks ago. Glory Girl lost that fight, and had to go to the emergency room. Still not enough
evidence was able to be collected, and Glory Girl refuses to talk to me about it. Maybe I could ask Gallant to talk to her, they are in a relationship after all.

" What is with the villainous outfits," Clockblocker, having been forgotten by Frankie, limps over to Vista and I. I think about his question, villainous? I look to the group of capes that are now bickering to each other about something. Their costumes, mostly blacks and dark colors, flashes of bright reds. Then I look to our own costumes, mostly whites with light grey being the second most common color. I guess they do look villainous, but it probably plays more to their stealth tactics rather than fashion statements.

" Squishy Brute powers," My response is met with some subtle nods and a stare from Vista. " Last week they defeated both Mush and Skidmark on their first night out."

" Oh that was them, I thought the report said that there were three capes not four," Vista looks back to the other capes. My facial analyzer detects that her emotion is most likely impressed and jealousy. I can understand that, they did something impressive and it was greater than some of my own first accomplishments.

" The report listed the correct amount of capes in their group, they may have gotten a new member," I walk up to the arguing group. Vista and Clockblocker following behind me.

" We just told you that it isn't the same," the shadow cape's voice is echo-y like it is coming from multiple angles.

" How the fuck is it not the same, if I wanted to stay awake all night I would be fine, what the fuck does sleepy mean," Frankie looks frustrated, her ears are grey as well as her cheeks.

" It means we watched it all while we slept, we are rested tired thus sleepy." Makes sense to me...

" Excuse me," I wait patiently for them to notice us, " are you sure that you don't require a vehicle?"

There are some clowning, but it is stress clowning. Don't worry the world will come back and yell at them for making so much noise...

Tumultuous_Anxiety · Feb 27, 2021

Finally! I get to feel some release.... jobs done by the way at least it is this week... enjoy a chapter for waiting! This chapter focuses on Swarm as a character as she is new, it is also mostly fluffy...

We like sitting next to Lisa.

We look up from our snack of dead tree bark. There are four of us right now here in a place with trees. Approximately forty blocks away from where main representative is with Lisa and our two others. It is relatively calm among us here in what we assume is a park. From our memories shared with both Nimi and Taylor, we know what a park is supposed to look like. To us it is much more and much less.

The world around us is wisps of color on winds, a fuzzy land of chemical reactions making textures in the air. The life glows with energy while the death stays grey and solid. The grass of the park is fuzzy with carbon, the oxygen is static as it energetically burns through the air, and the metals smells the way glass feels. Lines of electricity hang in the air by giant poles of dead wood that we smell as carbon and fiber. Great angular structures are alive with a halo glow of electricity that travels in lines down the sharp minerals, carbon filled fiber, and metallic glass construction of its body.

I bring a chip of wood to my mouth and rest against the other three with me. It is quiet to our world, we can not hear, and we are blind to light. It is only around our others can we see, can we hear.
We are Swarm. We are new as well. While representative listens to our others and Lisa, we decided to shift our thought outward rather than remain in the awkward PRT van ride. We can feel Lisa's hand in ours, via representative, she is making sure that we aren't left behind. We like the way she feels.

Two hundred seventy-three of us "smile" across the Bay. The others are hunting down food, we need it to continue our metamorphosis. I turn to myselves that are here next to me in the park. We are of one mind about many things, but still we enjoy acting like individuals due to both Nimi and Taylor being our mental blueprint. I open my "mouth" and say something to them, there is no sound for us to hear, but again theatrics is at play for us. We still understand.

" I like Lisa."

" Yes I like her too," the first says noiselessly, " she makes us hungry."

The other two nod, but it is the third that speaks, " but not like an active hunger."

I agree, " no it is more like a meal we have prepared to eat, we anticipate consumption."

The first shakes her head, " not consumption, absorption, we wish for Lisa to live inside us."

"Hosting," the second one speaks, " we should tell her that we are interested like our sisters."

We think about that. Three hundred of us give the mental equivalent of a shrug. That is an acceptable amount of agreement. We focus in on representative.

The van is quiet. In addition to my sisters and Lisa, there are the faceless PRT troopers sitting in the back. There plastic face masks smell of artificial plastics. It reminds us of the hospital, of the cold morgue. We can see them now that we have access to the eyes of my sisters, they make me nervous. We subconsciously check that we are indeed heading to our house.

…

We are...good. Now to the task at hand, we turn representative's head to Lisa. " We would like to tell you something."

Lisa, or Izzy when in a mask, startles at the sudden sound of our voices. The troopers also startle, but we pay them no mind. " Oh, uh that's nice," Lisa briefly looks at sister Taylor before looking back at representative, " what did you want to tell me?"

" We wish to Host you."

We watch through our ghost that is peaking through the bottom of the moving van. Sister Taylor places her head in her hands and blushes grey up to her ears. Sister Nimi is giving representative a thumbs-up. The troopers are hard to read, but are also irrelevant. Lisa looks like she is processing what we said, her powers probably dissecting the sentence. At least she doesn't look scared. " You do realize that I told your other that I'd like time to think about it, right," Lisa says, " and I believe the term your looking for is date."

" Yes, we are aware that our others wish to be with you, we are simply letting you know that we are also interested," representative pauses, " we also must wait, we are not finished with metamorphosis."

The troopers in the van shift, but I ignore them. " Metamorphosis?" Lisa looks at sister Taylor again before looking back to me.

" Much like my sisters, We are not in our final shape," at the confused look on Lisa's face we continue, " Swarm's body made up of swarm is infantile state, finale state will be made of cellular union. This require the gathering of many resources. Final form will be better than current."

" Uh, Swarm should you be talking about this in front of you know who," Taylor looks at the troopers who are now paying attention.

" Metamorphosis is not against the law, child turns to teen turns to adult is not illegal. Final form is not illegal, it shouldn't matter if it isn't illegal."

I watch Lisa frown and glare at the troopers. " Just because something isn't illegal, doesn't mean the PRT will leave you alone."

" Why, we just wish to grow up." I fidget as the two troopers wither under Lisa's gaze, she is very pretty. We squeeze Lisa's hand, our bodies have no face, or any features we just look like a masked Taylor made out of shadows. Still we smile at her. We are delighted when she smiles back.

The PRT dropped us off a block from our house, and I am suddenly reminded of the time I first brought Nimi home to my parents. How are they going to react to us going missing? Will dad like Swarm? Can Lisa stay with us?

All these thought race through my head as we walk the final few feet home. I have school tomorrow... at Winslow...fuck me. How am I supposed to pull that off? Yeah I didn't look exactly human before what with my dead eyes and autopsy scars, but it was still closer than what I am now!
My hair is constantly shifting, forming eye spots and teeth at random, and no matter how much I try to keep it from doing that, I can only hold it in for a couple seconds. That's not even mentioning the fact that when I walk it looks like it is moving underwater rather that in the air. The shark teeth in my mouth will be easy, just don't open your mouth, I was doing that back before I died so that one is easy. Glowing eyes, maybe contacts?

I honestly don't know what to do about the glowing eyes and eye spots. I would change them into something else if it would stick, but that is not even the problem. I don't know how they are glowing...

It is not a chemical, electrical, or whatever phenomenon. I tried shutting them "off", but they just shined through the blocking agents I employed. What I do know is that it isn't ambient light, the glow effect is not producing actual light, people just see it like it is light. Looking through Swarms "eyes" show it as some strange heat distortion, but it still looks the same. The only thing I can think of that could possibly be the cause is ghost stuff, but that doesn't make any sense. I mean sure, ghost stuff is powering my body despite not delivering any energy to the system. So it is
already violating the natural laws of physics, matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed. My ghost essentially said fuck that law and puppets my cells just fine.

Thinking of it like that makes it seem like the glowing eyes and eye spots are obviously ghost related. It is just...my ghost has never effected the world like that before. It has never had evidence, still guess it doesn't, but that distinction between the two is so subtle.

Nimi's glowing ball is much in the same boat, so maybe the red is just her ghost's color and silver is mine? But Swarm doesn't have any glow, she is pretty much anti glow right now. Maybe that will change once she grows up like she said.

Lisa walks up the rotted steps of our front porch, picking up the spare key from under the rock where we hide it. I don't even know where my spare is. It was lost after my body evaporated.

I look around the street. We are fairly exposed and while I would care more about unwanted eyes, I care more about being home. I'm tired and I miss having Lisa somewhere safe, the motel wasn't, it was also dirty.

The street is empty, no suspicious vans, no idle cars, just a quiet Sunday. I should be worried about it being a trap, of the thinker that tried to kidnap Lisa still lurking in the dark, I don't believe the white flag for a second. I should probably also worry about the ABB coming after us, we did just humiliate their leader by partially eating him and dragging him behind us as we chased after Lisa.

Lisa unlocks the door, and helps Swarm through it by holding her hand. Swarm isn't "here' right now, she is technically everywhere in the Bay. If I focus I can see what she is thinking, it is mostly just what I was doing with the swarm before it woke up, eating. It has a preference for dead wood, just like I like bugs and mold, or Nimi with her mushrooms and flowers. At least she will be easy to feed, I think to myself, just buy her a bag of mulch and she is good.

" Mommy, daddy were home," Nimi walks in after the other two. She misses home just as much as me. I stay outside for a little longer, giving my street another cursory glance. Still nothing but it feels like it isn't empty. I head inside.

" Taylor Hebert," dad's face is red with anger. This would have made me nervous back before I died, my father's anger directed at me. Dead me can see it though, dad's hands are shaking and his pupils are pinpricks. My father is terrified...is it because of me, because I look different?

Swarm walks past Lisa who for the most part is next to Nimi. I watch my father's fearful anger turn to confusion as the multi-armed shadow grabs his hand. " Hey dad," I sigh, this is going to be hard to explain, " is mom home?"

" I- no, she had an interview today," dad continues to look at Swarm as she just hold his hand, her other hands inside her "mouth" chewing on her fingers. " I had to convince her to go to it when you and your sister didn't come home last night."

I flinch, mom has been looking for a job in her field for three weeks now, it has been really hard since she couldn't get her old one at the college. " Sorry daddy, we needed to save Lisa from some kidnappers," Nimi walks forward and gives dad a hug. It is always weird to see my tall dad, look small next to Nimi's extreme height. For Nimi it is even weirder, but it does make her giggle internally every time she can see dad's bald spot.

" Yeah, sorry about that Mr. Hebert," Lisa gives a sheepish smile, " it didn't feel safe bringing them home while someone was looking for us so I checked us into a motel for the night." God she's cute.

Dad sighs, " yeah that makes sense, you could have maybe called?"

" Sorry dad, we were kind of tired and forgot," I take a seat on the couch, my "living" hair flows out to rest across the back of the seat. Nimi takes a seat to my right and Lisa sits close to me on my left. Dad takes his own seat in his arm chair, Swarm still standing next to him holding his right hand, chewing her other five. " Oh this is Swarm," I point to my newest other next to him, " she is another other like Nimi."

" Oh okay," dad grips his hand around Swarm's a little tighter, a squeeze to remind him that she is family, " why is she... or rather what happened."

I open my mouth to speak at the same time that Lisa does. Swarm beats both of us, " after sisters Taylor and Nimi were vaporized by Lung's fire, both had their ghost disconnected. With the only other body being the swarm across all of Brockton, both of my sisters ghosts' inhabited the swarm, this made Swarm."

" YOU FOUGHT WHOM!"

I flinch as my father roars and it looks like he would have continued if Swarm didn't grip dads hand tighter. Swarm is up to her knuckles with her chewing, you didn't need to be connected to her to know that she was nervous. " Da, Lisa was kidnapped, Nimi was damaged, and Taylor was distracted. I was born to fight Lung, fix Nimi, ground Taylor, and save Lisa. I don't want you to be angry at them, are you angry at me too?"

" What, nonono," dad grips Swarms other hands, pulling them from her "mouth". I can see Lisa looking down at the ground, I'm turning my head away too. Nimi is just a little upset, a few tears and a rock filled throat. " I'm just worried and scared for all of you, come're."
Swarm is pulled into dad's lap as he hugs what essentially is his new daughter. Both me and Nimi are comforted by the hug, as if it was happening to us too. " So yeah that is the worst of what happened to us last night, but there were some more to it," I explain the rest of the story to dad, with both Lisa and Nimi making embarrassing jokes. Much to dad and my horror.

I am grey faced and my father's is red. " I feel like I should put some rules around dating my daughters..."

" Wouldn't work, each one of us is the same daughter," I stare at the floor trying my hardest not to look at my father, " and we all are interested in the same person."

" True, we just initiated the courting ritual as well," not helping Swarm.

" Its okay Danny, I've told them that I wanted time to think about it, so I promise that I won't steal your daughters too soon," Lisa's grin is genuine, not that foxlike one. Not sure if that's worse for dad or not.

"...Your lucky I like you Miss Wilborn," dad sigh is heavy like a rock over your head, it could drop at anytime. " So let's see if I got this correct. Taylor and Nimi lose their bodies and enter the swarm. Swarm forms a brain and wakes up, beats Lung, steals back Lisa, then the rest of you reform out of some flesh mountain, and go to a motel?"

" Yeah that is about right," Lisa scratches the side of her head, " I think that we also went to a warehouse for a bit in there, but that is about the long and short of it."

" What about what that meanie did to my tendril," Nimi puts her hands on her knees, glaring off into the distance. To be fair I am also now glaring in a direction. I think Swarm is doing her glaring somewhere else in the city, but she is glaring...

meanwhile...

Clockblocker looked around at the dark alley way. All around him he could feel it. Eyes every where looking, glaring, trying to burn through his skull with the leer. " Uh, this is Clock to Vista, I'm going to call the alleyway clean, over."

" Roger that, over."

As soon as his teammate got back to him he booked it.

"That son-of-a...I'll kill'em …" Dad continues to mumble under his breath as he checked over Nimi's now slightly healed wound. Pain can be ignored by us, but it still hurts the same.

" The nerve bundles in Nimi's hair tendrils has increased from what they were before," Lisa winces as she looks closely at the tendril she is stroking, " ow stupid headache... is it supposed to be like that?"

I nod, " after checking through our stuff last night while we slept, we discovered that they are not finished growing, but we lack enough of certain materials."

" Oh, like what," Lisa picks up the arm thick appendage to poke at it. It just ends up wrapping around her hand.

" Metals, Osmium, steel alloy, and some other rare earth elements."

" What about the cells you got from Lung, he's metal." Dad was gently turning over Nimi's appendage, a soft expression on his face.

" Wrong properties, and the stuff isn't good for stuff beyond heat resistance and some armor capabilities."

"I still don't like that any of you fought him," dad kisses Nimi's forehead, her eye closing as she giggles, " but is that why you guys look different."

" Some of it," I explain further, " most of the changes come simply from us growing, which feeding off a regenerating rage dragon is a lot of cells very fast." My father grimaces, but doesn't stop me from continuing. " The other changes come from adaptation and application of his cells for specific jobs. For example, all three of us have different ways of managing heat. For Nimi, her skin has a negative refractive index, it reflects heat through patterns on her skin that's why she is darker in color."

" Okay so what about you and Swarm?" Lisa is fully invested, legs leaned forward, hand on jaw. What does Swarm call it, thinker's pose?

" Swarm has kind of the opposite, she is heat absorbent to the point that she will generate new cells by absorption. Essentially she can eat fire."

" What about you, what was your solution to the fire problem," Nimi likes the science, she knows the answer already, but she likes it said to her out loud.

I look down at my pale white hand against the pure black of the Swarm suit, " I have metal-crystal skin, it acts like a lenses at random that diffuse the light at random angles reducing the intensity, the physical plasma de-excites when it is around my skin."
" Damn, that is a hefty amount of problem solving," Lisa shakes her head, " if superpowers didn't exist I'd say you were breaking several laws of thermodynamics."

" Well I am, just by walking and talking so this doesn't feel like such a foul," I smile at her.

"That is crazy," dad walks back to his armchair, Swarm grabs his hand when he sits back down.

" Yeah, anything else in you that you want to talk about," Lisa grins at me, but I'm ready for it.

" I don't ask you to describe your insides Lisa," I place my hand on hers, " if you want to see mine I'll show you later." I feel my hunger return at the thought of showing her, me.

Lisa blushes as I look at her. " Hey no fair I want to flirt with Lisa too," Nimi's weight pushes me down into Lisa's lap as she tries to reach for Lisa's other hand. My squawk of protest lost as I slam face first into the folds of Lisa's coat.
" God, that was flirting," dad places his head in his hands, " my kids are going to be the death of me..." Swarm's manifold giggles ring out in the room as me and Nimi "argue".

Lisa is at least laughing with one of us....

I hope you enjoyed!

Tumultuous_Anxiety · Feb 28, 2021

I am running out of bulk chapters, but I really don't have time for writing new ones. I miss creating... and my full time job is occupying most of my thoughts forming a block for now. I'll finish this fiction though I'm nothing if not extremely stubborn about doing what I love... Here is a new chapter, enjoy!

We changed out of our costumes, or well me and Lisa did. It felt good to be back in my familiar hoodie, the soft fabric feels good to my new crystal skin. Thankfully everything still fits, I didn't grow taller or something ridiculous like that. The sneakers are a bit uncomfortable for some reason so I just left them off for now. For my hair I held it together in a loose low ponytail. The column of teeth and eyes it formed when I did was hidden by shoving it down my shirt and covering it all with my hoodie. It still poked out at the bottom though... and when all the way down to my ankles...it really isn't hidden is it? Oh well, it is a problem for later.

" Okay dad, I need to take Nimi to the beach for the metals and such," I can find most of the stuff I need if I shift through the sand at the bottom of the bay with Swarm's help.

" Oh no, if your going to take your sister to the beach, she is not going without clothes," dad calls from the kitchen, " it is one thing to come home without her costume, but she shouldn't have to go out without something."

" Awww, but daddy, Swarm is outside without clothes," Nimi pouts while pointing at the shadow us sitting on the couch.

" Your sister is also a legion of five hundred shadows," dad smirks at Nimi's crestfallen face, " even if I worked twenty-four seven I could never full cloth all of her."

" Incorrect." We three turn to Swarm, who is idlily just sitting on the couch.

" What do you mean, I'm pretty sure that I don't have enough shirts to go around," I try to picture that. The image of an army of Swarms wearing collared shirts and ties rises to the front of my conscious.
Swarm giggles in stereo, " no no, just the amount of us present has increased since last count."

" How many of you are there now?" Lisa walks halfway down the stairs, a pair of pajama pants on and a t-shirt, she looks cute. At her question and my observation, Swarm turns her head to look at her. From directly behind her...cool.

" If I use the measure of each Taylor sized unit the count comes out to seven-hundred thirty-three." I watch dad who was standing in the dinning nook, sit down hard at the kitchen table.

" That is quiet the growth speed," I have to agree with Lisa on that one, " where are you getting the cells?"

" I am using designer superproducers and "painting" them across several abandoned warehouse roofs," I know that Swarm has no face and thus can't smile, but I know that she has a smug one right now. The fact that Nimi is salivating at the amount of food that is produced by that, is a good measure for you. I'm salivating too.

" S-still, your not going out until Nimi has something to put on," dad is slowly shaking his head, as though to try to deny something. I think about that, what could we use as makeshift clothes? We can't make a new costume there isn't enough materials in the basement anymore. I could make a slime suit like what I had before, but Nimi doesn't like skin tight stuff.

" Yeah, I know we went to Parian, god that was yesterday," Lisa rubs at her eyes, the exhaustion in her voice speaks of the full brunt of the last two days, " but I was wondering why we didn't just make Nimi clothes?"

" With the bio-armor being made, there weren't enough materials for a lot of other projects," I sigh as I think about that. I was so excited about going out and being a hero I stressed what was over extended and lost sight of important things. Important people, like dad, like Lisa... " plus while complex genetically, the armor was simple structurally. Clothing is much harder, especially coloring and pigmentations." I could really only pull off black, red, and white.

" Well what do we have left of that?" Lisa walks across the living room to the basement door. What is she getting at?

" An extra pair of bone boots, as well as a couple sheets of bio-fabric." Not enough for pants and a shirt, and Nimi needs to somewhat hide her identity. So a hood is kind of necessary. I watch as Lisa comes back up the stairs carrying the rolls of living fabric and sporting the bone boots on her own feet. She was struggling with them so Nimi came over and retrieved a few of the sheets. It is a fairly heavy material. " What do you plan on doing with them?"

Lisa stepped out of the bone boots with a loud pop. " Those things are really gross," she says pointing at the upright boots, " and that meat sock is very disturbing."

I look down at the flexing tube coming out the top of the boots and then back to her face. " How so?"

The face palm Lisa does looks like it hurt. " Forget it," She rubs her face, " I was thinking that you were over thinking it. We don't need pants or a dress, and we don't need a shirt either."

" I don't think dad will accept just underwear, Lisa."

I here dad groan in pain in the kitchen. I ignore it as Lisa continues, " no I was thinking something like a rain poncho, you know with a hood and such."

" Oh..."

" Oh?"

" I didn't think of something like that..."

" I knew that, so help me with building around her?"

" Yeah, I-, yeah."

The poncho takes twenty minutes, was dark red and had a deep enough hood to hide Nimi's eye. We even had enough to make a one piece undergarment...How did I not think of that?...

Dad tells us that it is good enough for me to take Nimi out, Swarm and Lisa stay behind. Swarm to sit with dad, and Lisa to take a nap...

The boat graveyard was quiet and very out of the way from prying eyes. Dad suggested it saying that if we need something specific, there is probably a lot of good steel in the ships. Both Nimi and I have already searched and stripped what we need from the ships. My new hair coming very handy for the salvaging. I am now combing through the sands with it, Nimi is doing something similar with some of Swarm's bodies.

We have already found the correct elements that we are looking for, we just need a good chunk of the stuff. Then we can go about giving Nimi the materials and letting her body finish its transformation. Nimi and I, plus Swarm, don't entirely know what Nimi's body is trying to do, but we do know that it has to happen for her to be considered done with this phase of her un-life…

Mostly it is quiet, just the three of us, peaceful, away from last night's violence. I'm not as hungry as I have been, Lisa still makes me feel empty, but it is a pleasant emptiness not a starving state. I think that Nimi is also enjoying the silence, because she is keeping her thoughts to herself.

" Hey...Taylor."

I look up from the sand I was eating and sorting, " Yeah, what is it."

Nimi is staring out into the ocean, helping swarm navigate the ocean. It sort of just look like the giant other is staring off into the distance.

" What do you think of Swarm...and Lisa."

I stop shifting the sand, my other, both of them, are keeping me out of their thoughts. I wonder what prompted this? " It is not nice to talk about someone like they're not here Neems." It is what we hate most about the trio at school.

Nimi nods, " I know, but Swarm wants us to talk about it as if she isn't here, it helps her with trust if we speak like that." So that is why the radio silence.

" I guess I can understand that, if I had new friends I would want them to be real and not tricks," I start before going back to shifting sand, " but we are her and she is us, we love her I don't think that something like that can change between us."

Nimi nods smiling, " yeah she is pretty like us too, I think that she is so cute!"

I can't help but agree with that. While she is featureless, Swarm has certain traits that Nimi would find cute, and that makes her distinct from either of us. For one, Swarm is shorter than me when I was alive maybe by a few inches, it isn't just her hair. She is also smaller than me, her limbs are thin and so is the rest of her. It would look concerning on a human, but considering it is Swarm it looks rather adorable. Like you just want to pick one of her up and hold them in a hug. A bit like Lisa if I'm honest, the picking up not the emaciated look. " What about her combined form though, I like it..."

Neems eyes sparkle at the mention of the mountain of shadows that is Swarm in one place, " super comfy, Lisa looked like she enjoyed being held in her too."

" Yeah, it was nice and warm, and Lisa did take being held by a hundred or so hands very well," I feel a thought sour the mental image, " do we... or rather do you think that Lisa is better off with just her?"

Nimi is silent as we both stop searching for minerals. " She can protect her better than we could," I can feel tears in Nimi's eyes through our connection, it is just too big of an emotion to keep inside. " But Lisa also wouldn't have something like that, neither would Swarm..."

" Correct," I watch as an instance of Swarm walks out of the shadow of a beached ship, " the hunger we feel for Lisa is the same hunger you both feel, she cannot have one without the others. It would be impossible."

" Yeah, but humans aren't used to the idea of dating three people at once," it may make sense to me as I'm no longer human, but these instincts are alien to humans. I mean it is not even polygamy, at the end of the day Swarm, Nimi, and I are the same person. Different personalities and identities, one organism.

" Technically seven hundred forty-five," Neems interjection of humor makes us giggle, " also that was a little slower than before."

" I am making concessions for environmental impact, I also delivered two tons of material to the house lab, or basement."

" Two tons!" That is a lot of material, where did she put it all... oh, well I hope we don't have any foundation problems with it under our house like that.

" Yes, we are on track for metamorphosis in maybe a month...yes a month," Swarm's hands are fidgeting, " we need someplace for that, and it needs to be safe while we go dormant."

" Oh yeah of course, do you want Lisa to be present with us?" I think she was interested in it back in the van.

" Yes, we wish to...show off, it will be pretty."

" Sure we have no problems helping you look for the place to do it and were definitely going to protect you while your guard is down."

" Yeah, were sisters after all," Nimi smiles big and toothy, what a dork... she's cute too.

After gathering all of the materials we needed, we head home. It was dark again, but we make it back uncontested. At home mom chewed us out, checked out Swarm, and then claimed her hug out of them. It was nice...

Mom apparently had a interview with the people over at Arcadia, retiring English teacher. That just makes me realize that I have school tomorrow... That is going to not go well. Mom knows it, dad knows it, all of me knows it, we decided that I shouldn't go in tomorrow, so sick day tomorrow...

Good, I don't think I like school anyways. I'll just use the free time to make new stuff with the two tons of bio-material siting under the house.

I can't wait for Monday! Is that as surreal for you as it is for me?

Tumultuous_Anxiety · Feb 28, 2021

Director Piggot is my favorite person to write for... this is just not the most fun chapter...

" So who do we have to thank for this."

The image of Lung rested at the top of the report in front of me, or at least what was left of him. From the report I know that his legs were gone, arms too. Even if you can't tell from the covers on his torso, his rib cage is completely exposed. About the only thing in and on his body that is undamaged is his heart, liver, and brain, everything else was missing something. The picture itself shows Lung lying on a hospital bed, a intubation tube down what remains of his throat, the familiar shape of a dialysis machine hooked to the outside of his neck. The other less familiar machines just add to the strangeness of the image. I almost feel sorry for him, but I get over that quickly.

" We don't know," Hannah, Miss Militia, is disturbed. I've known her for many years, and I know just how tough she is. I know her past too, this shouldn't be that disturbing to her. Maybe I don't know her as well as I thought.

" Well what do we know," if a new cape in town can do this we've got bigger problems than just some new punk. When word gets out that Lung is in the hospital it will cause the rest of the gangs to start fighting in earnest. " This report is mostly medical, I'd like how, but I will take when and where."

Hannah nods, " For the where and when we have Barter's street just on the outskirt of the city at roughly three thirty last night, but it is likely that the fight occurred around the fire downtown."

I nod, that makes sense. Lung is not a push over and no matter the power there is going to be fight if anyone is going to be fighting him. " So running theory is that Lung picked a fight with whatever tore apart Saint Martin's drive?" My assumption was met with a nod, I meet it with a frown.

Last night, reports of a large monster, made of hands of all things, was chasing a van down Saint Martin's. Naturally when they were coming in we sent people over to investigate, we found an empty van with the entire back end of it ripped open like a soup can. The road itself was pockmarked with tiny holes in the asphalt. No monster, no DNA evidence, and the cameras from street lights were damaged or missing. So naturally we tacked on some rating in a preemptive attempt to get out front of the situation should the public begin to worry. Brute 5, Changer 5, they were unconfirmed but it will do for a cover until they do find something out.

" So what do we know about that incident?"

" Also not much," Hannah pulls out a second file for me, this one paper rather than the report on screen, " we know that something, presumably Lung, was dragged behind it, and that the holes are from fingers."

" How do we know it was Lung?"

" We found metal scales imbedded in the road," Hannah look at her feet, " the size tells us that Lung was at full strength when he was dragged."

I nod, keeping the shock to myself, " and the fingers, do we have finger printing?" I doubt it but it never hurts to look...

" No, we found prints but they aren't in the system."

" Be sure they make it into them," no sense in letting someone like this run around unmonitored, " so what did it actually do to our poor dragon?" I'm not going to apologize to a sex-trafficking, gangbanging, warlor-

" It ate him."

I look up from the report at the absolute tonelessness of Hannah's voice. She was staring at the floor still, I couldn't see her mouth but I could just see her eyes. A glassy look was there, a look she found common among some of the veterans she knew that got her into the military. The kind she sometimes see herself when she looks in the mirror...I rub the spike of pain away in my leg. " So we have something that can chew through metal, has enough of a brain to not kill a powerful cape, and is roughly the size of a building, is that about correct?"

The cape nods, a short pause of silence then, " Yes ma'am." And now I do feel guilty, I rub my sore thigh, what a pain.

Despite my very reasonable hatred of all capes, their show boat life style and mental quirks are draining, I like Hannah. Maybe not as her persona Miss Militia, but Hannah Washington is probably my only friend here in Brockton Bay. Right now it looks like my friend was just reminded of something, something horrible and bloody. " Hannah?"

" Yes, ma'am," Hannah's eyes are more than they were as she stands at attention.

" I want you to take the rest of the day off," I interrupt her protest, " that is an order Miss Militia."

" Ma'am...thank you." I wave off her thanks and get back to the report. I skim through it as I think about how much of a problem this is going to be. Better bump this up to Watchdog. Speaking of, the report in my inbox has been "sitting at the bottom" of my files since it arrived yesterday night. The name Hebert is all the attachment read.

The file has been low priority when I sent it in over two weeks ago, with only nominal observations done on the cape family, as well as the unregistered group of capes working and living there too. I decide that having a mostly cleared work schedule would be nice what with the Lung business and the resulting gang war in a month. I sigh and click open the folder...

…

" Get me Armsmaster, now." The intercom barely squeaks its reply. " I don't care if he is asleep...this is important..."

Tumultuous_Anxiety · Mar 2, 2021

So recently got some more free time so I thought I would just leave this here for everyone. Mechanical explanation of hosting, and Nimi getting something she wants....

It was comfortable in my bed. The low volume of the Hebert household, its distance from any major traffic way, is much nicer than the constant barrage of noise from the motel yesterday. The neighboring rooms in that place were far too active. I open my eyes as I remember yesterday, the world out past my eyes was the same guest room I've been living in for the last three weeks now, but the time is not what is on my mind...

" I was almost kidnapped..." My voice fills the void of deafness, almost echoing past me. I look around the bright afternoon light of the room around me, and then to the clock, its Monday.

[ you have been asleep for eighteen hours...]

Noted, but ultimately not surprising. They had me in the van, that is kind of a crucial step in the world of kidnapping. If the situation were normal, at that point I would be regulated to squirreling away evidence so that the authorities would find me...or my body. I should have bit my tongue or cut my palms on something, made sure that I was tracing my DNA all over the get away vehicle. Yeah like that would work, I snort, the kidnappers were hired by a thinker. I shouldn't have made it away from them...

I feel a tightness squeeze around my chest. It would be like before, with mom and dad, but so much worse. " I don't want to go back."

" We would never let you go." The polyphonic voices whisper from behind my ear as a warm tightness across my chest clarifies in my mind.

[ something is in the bed with you...]

I throw the sheets far from me with a kick, as I try to leap myself from the bed. A hand grabs my shoulder and pulls me back, it is joined by five others, and then twenty more as I start to struggle. I look down and pale, my body is covered in shadow hands! Oh, shit, what the fu-...wait. My breakneck pulse slows as I remember my latest admirer. Oh, yeah, " hey Swarmy?"

" Yes?" I look back over my shoulder to the rest of the bed. I then look up as that is not the best view of the situation.

From my bed up to the ceiling is darkness. Arms are waving through the surface that folds and flexes through itself. It is a solid wall of limbs, not limbs attached to each other in discernable ways either. It is like they are all separate, or connected at some distant spiraling point...

[ pattern of growth is fractal in higher dimensions than are currently present. Point of origin is ERROR VARRNOTINSTANTIATED, point of origin cannot be found, zero mathematical parameters present...]

I wince at the error log from my power, it is a new kind of error, like it couldn't properly find some variable or it didn't exist in the first place. I feel Swarm's hands across my body as she pulls me deeper into her. I think to struggle, but Swarm is my friend, she wouldn't hurt me. Besides, I've been in her before, it was nice last time. Like a hug, but from everywhere.

Hands and limbs fill my vision as they layer on to me, wrapping me up like some burrito made of hugs. " So, uh not that this isn't nice Swarmy, but what are you doing in my bed?"

I watch as her "face" forms, actually several heads are forming filling in the blank spots of the hug. A head nuzzles into my stomach, one is pressed into my back, another presses itself against the palm of my hand, and still two more are pressing into either side of my shoulders. The entire thing purrs like a huge cat. " Taylor's bed is too small with all three of us."

" I see, so you came and decided to sleep with me," I fix what I hope is an unimpressed stare at the talking head, past one that is nuzzling into my cheek, " exactly how many of you are even present?"

The hands all pause, it is very weird to see all the movement from before just freeze like that. "...fifteen," more heads, making the count exactly fifteen, appear and go in for affection.

" I thought I told you that I wanted time to think things over?"

" We are treating you just like we would a fellow pack member or child." Pack member? Child? " We wanted to comfort you...you were having nightmares when we came in to check on you."

" Oh, okay, thanks," she comforted me?

" Would have called in both of my sisters, but bed is too small," the speaking head looks away, " and we didn't want to move you while you slept either."

Yeah, I can see that too. The image of me wedged in between the three rises in my mind. Taylor's long cool body and arms pressed up against my back, one of Swarm nests at my stomach her arms reaching around me to press her soft face into me, my own face against Nimi's lower chest, all around the three of us the rest of Swarm wraps around us like a blanket. Taylor's mouth is pressed into my neck, she opens it to reveal the zigzag of shark-like teeth and bites into my-

I grimace, not going to think about that, but it does make me curious in a morbid way. I stare out into the landscape of moving limbs. Swarm doesn't have a mouth; how would she go about hosting? Actually, I don't know too much about hosting beyond it being a blood exchange and the motivations behind it being hunger. I'm still not sure if I want to know, but it isn't impossible to believe that I would end up dating Taylor, Nimi and Swarm. They are...sweet...loyal. Funny, caring, good at taking care of me, will risk their lives for me. I mean, Taylor and Nimi both created life just to protect me. I know it is a trope to say I would die for you, but how many people would make a new self and live for you. Shit, these three are kind of wonderful: they like me in spite of me being different from them, they are willing to talk about needs and wants, hell they can even take a soft no. I guess I should at least ask about the stuff that makes me nervous.

" Swarmy?"

" Yes?" The talking face is now pressing into the top of my head.

" Can you- or rather, how would hosting work for you?" A ripple goes through the body surrounding me, but other than that she doesn't show much of her excitement. I stop her before she can start, " I would like to know things like mechanics, and what would actually happen."

She pauses, cocking her head against mine as she thinks. " Hosting involves two parts, the first is ghost union, our ghost joins with yours and an exchange of information, usually feelings, takes place."

I'm a bit doubtful about Taylor's whole ghost state thing, but I keep quiet as she continues. A soft kneading on my back as a single hand rubs against me, god Swarm would give the best massages...

" The second part is different for each of us, but it is the physical exchange of information," I feel hands pulling my hair gently, combing fingers through the locks, " for Taylor it is the joining of circulatory systems, her heart become your heart and your blood and body become one..."

Wait, " it isn't a bite?"

" It is a kind of bite, but it is her cells that enter you and vice versa. That is the one common thing from each of our methods."

" Okay, what about you and Neems?"

" Nimi would pierce your skin to deposit some of her with you," she giggles the sound haunting and pretty, like wind-chimes, " you would have to feed her your blood from either your wrist or shoulder."

I never thought of that, that I would have some participating part in it. I always pictured it as something happening to me rather than a participation act. The thought of feeding Nimi from my wrist rises with the image of Nimi resting her head on my lap, like feeding a baby. Oh, that is too cute, I giggle at the image, " okay so what about you?"

" I am not ready...yet," the hands around me stop for a second, " I guess that after our metamorphosis is completed, we will have a method, but we do not know what the end result is. If I had to guess though we would probably just become a part of your body."

" What like replace an organ?" I am not sure what to think about with that, in love with my liver?

" Or become a new one in your body, but we don't know what would be exchanged for it though."

" What could I do," honestly, I kind of like the idea of participating rather than just sitting back, it helps it seem less scary.

" Hmmm, we suppose that you could breathe us in, but it doesn't really matter," I can't see her "face" and even if I could tell, but she does sound like she is smiling, " you could always just hold my hand, participation is just connection you can be with us how you please."

That...sounds nice...I don't get it, why am I even considering it, my internal voice of reason sounds lackluster, this is fetishized cannibalism plain and simple. They are also giving me something back to replace it. Okay then it is just picquerism, we don't even like the idea of sex- The act isn't sexual, the feelings are not pleasure based they are undead hunger based, they do it to feel closer the pleasure is secondary even lost to them. My inner voice is quiet, I continue. They saved me from a hostile threat that tried they're hardest to kill them. They have kept me close to them and are just as desperate for companionship as I am for people around me. I want to know more. I've only known them for three weeks, but I know that I want to know more, see more. I nod, the warm space I'm in is comforting, despite the very real danger I could be in I want to know more about my friends. I wonder what the other two are doing. " Hey Swarm?"

" Yes?"

I smile, she is going to need a nickname, swarm is just not a cute enough word. " What have the other two been up to...besides eavesdropping."

Apparently, Taylor was feeling guilty about Nimi's lack of clothing. So, when I walked down into the basement, Taylor greys all the way up her ears and Nimi practically swimming in her own cloud of red spores, the walls and ceilings had great sheets of materials hanging from them. They were mostly reds and blacks with just a few dried blood browns mixed in for color. I walk up to a few dark satins and run my hand down them, silky is not what I expected. " So, you've been busy?"

Swarm giggles at the two as they somehow become more pigmented at my words. " Uh, yeah we just don't know what else to make," Taylor eventually looks over at me, I give her a smile.

" So, besides the fabrics themselves, what have you three constructed?"

Nimi is the first to break out of her embarrassment, " A pair of pants, a button up shirt, and cloak!" She brings them over to me too look at them. They are huge, but that was expected. The pants were black and sort of feel like cotton, they look like dress pants. I guess they match the dress shirt. The design is ripped from one of Annette's shirts that I've seen her wearing, except this one is blood red and silken. The buttons are made of bones with a polished enamel surface, tooth enamel. The cloak is the most interesting of them though. The outside surface is rough with a fur, but the inside is soft with hair. The entire thing was grey.

It all looks good, but... I look up at Nimi, she is pulling the blanket around her shoulder tight. Her eye is positioned in a way that is not looking directly at me, at the clothes. She does not like human clothes..." Nimi this is the same kind of stuff that Parian is making for us, you can make whatever you want here." Nimi is not human, and I do not mean that as a negative. " Those clothes are for hiding you in public, what do you want to wear at home?" I know that Nimi would feel restricted if her gills were covered, and there are just certain places around her legs that would be uncomfortable covered.

" Nimi why didn't you tell me that they weren't good," Taylor has her hands on her hips as she looks up at the taller girl, " we totally have the stuff for making new designs now."

" I just wanted you to feel less guilty about the clothes," Nimi looks away from the two of us. Nimi is usually the one to give out praise, the pink intermingling with the red shows just how unused to the opposite she is. Need to change that.

" Swarm likes the cloak, the other two are restrictive."

" Wait you knew that they were a problem, and you didn't tell me," Taylor looks at Swarm exacerbated.

" We were distracted watching Lisa sleep, what is your excuse."

I ignore the heat on my cheeks and turn to Nimi, " Neems I know you like making sure that everyone is happy, but let's make you happy, okay?"

Nimi nods her eye glowing deep red, the air full of pink around her. She looks hungry, I smile at her. I am rewarded with one back.

The next few hours were spent talking, designing, and arranging fabrics, as we worked out just what Nimi would like in clothing. As that turns out Nimi likes things to be piece-meal. Her favorite texture is largely dependent on where and what, but overall, she hates skintight and thinks baggy is ugly. She has some outlier areas of course, and while her tendrils, which are now shiny, are still finishing themselves they are too sensitive for some of the wraps she likes. At the end we had one outfit. It was a strange and complex one too. She looked good in it though.

The outfit was split into five parts: chest, arms, waist and hips, legs, and hair, but the last one was left off for now. Nimi in her bio-armor was like a mixture of religious robes and armor. This was just straight up undead priestess garb.

The chest was made of the silky material in strips. The back was open and like her armor was a blouse of wrappings fused together with a papal style cloth acting as both a collar and giving her a plunging V-neck. The papal itself draped over her bust, and her cleavage was hidden, at her request, by a rainbow abalone plate. The papal was also decorated in bits of bone.

The waist and hips were a loose skirt, it was long but started at her waist and was made up of many thin sheets that ended in bone plated tips. It also was unconnected to the chest garment, so the entire look had some of her ribs showing in between the gap. The legs were made of downward facing loops with it being tighter around the inner legs and looser around the outer legs. They were fused, but it gave the impression that they weren't. The arms were simple wraps that went from her natural armored forearms up to just past her bicep. They were stretchy and came off like arm warmers. The hair stuff was mostly beaded strips of silk, but again too sensitive right now.

We step back to look at Nimi's new look. " Damn Nimi, that looks good on you," I whistle as Nimi floods the room with pink.

" Yeah, I have to agree with Lisa on this one, this works really good," Taylor walks around her other even as Nimi spins.

" Like, good colors, brings out eye," Swarm is touching the skirt portion, " soft too."

Nimi is pumping out pink spores, her eye is hunger as she looks at all of us, " I'm hungry." We each yelp as she picks up all three of us into a very tight hug. The world fills with pinks and bright yellows as our giant laughs...

I felt like Lisa would in fact like to conduct some research on her friends, so third explanation of hosting....I don't think there will be anymore after this...but I can't be sure...

Tumultuous_Anxiety · Mar 4, 2021

One more happy moment in the death of Taylor Hebert...and then the beginning of the next shitty happening...

" Girls, I'm home," the voice of dad echoes down into the basement, " I brought pizza."

Both of my others perk up at the thought of, even if it is just normal, food. Lisa looks hungry too...why do I find that hot? I shake my head, " okay dad we'll be up in a minute." Nimi coughs up the last protein egg for the designs we made today. The row of eight viral blueprints are the other project that we got up to, mostly just new tougher plates for Izzy's coat and the clip dispenser for the dart gun which we also replaced. The other stuff was mostly a collection of rough drafts for things like organic tasers and other long range weapons for me and Nimi.

Lung would have been a much easier fight if we had heavier weaponry. Thankfully with his genome known to us, we can synthesize several brute level paralytics that should knock Lung out of a fight with a single application. The compound is made up of Alpha-amanitin, to decrease the livers abilities to fight the other poisons, and then a combination of Muscarine and Gyromitrin. The effect is a twitching mess and paralysis by the blocking of some neurotransmitters. It is also completely deadly to anyone but Lung, so naturally we needed other methods. A sleeping powder using Penicillium as the base, we focused on generating a strain that caused lower brain activity versus pain blocking. The effect is be instantaneous and can be applied via skin contact, so of course Swarm can now generate it on their skin. I found a better method with dispersing it in a room with my new hair. The dosage would have to be pretty limited and it would probably be safe to bring a couple epi-pens just in case of allergic reaction, the aerosolized version would have to be an outside weapon too.

Overall it was a very productive day, I smile to myself as walk up the stairs, much better than if I went to school...

" Hey sweetie, hey owl," mom walks in through the back door. Her hands and feet slightly are tinged red. Dad just glances over before going back to preheating the oven. At this point, mom coming home with her hands just slightly bloody and barefoot has been happening since she got back.

" Hey mom how was your hunt?" Swarm walks in from behind me and makes a bee line for mom. Lisa and Nimi step out and head over to see about the pizza.

" Oh it was good, I see that your day was pretty successful too," mom looked at the fully clothed Nimi standing by the oven waiting for the pizza inside to burn. Swarm grabs one of mom's red hands and puts it in her "mouth", while mom stokes the back of the shorter girl's hair. " Nimi you look great in your new clothes, sweetie."

" Thanks mommy!"

" Ah, I thought they were sort of like your half finished armor or something," dad says around a bite full of pizza. He is now seated at the kitchen table with Lisa, and the second pizza, the one for the humans, in between them.

" Nah, we thought that it would be better for her to have some comfortable clothes for in the house," Lisa swallows her bite, I try not to stare at her eating, " you know for when she isn't hiding from the public."

" So that means that missing a back is for comfort?" The oven dings as our now extra crispy pizza is done. Us undead descend on the pie like a flock of vultures. The silky black crispy decadence of charcoaled cheese and burnt sauce...mmmmmmmm.

" Yeah, she likes to keep her gills exposed," Lisa is watching the burnt pizza disappear rapidly, " something to remember if we ever go back to Parian for less disguise based clothing, she would probably look pretty cute in a sweater..."

The pizza ends too quickly, and we are all quick to shove the third pizza into the oven. While we wait we decide to join the living at the dinner table. Mom kisses dad, and Nimi, Swarm, and I pull up chairs around Lisa. " So how was work dear?"
Dad sighs," not great, a subcontractor pulled out of its job offers today, some company called Fortress Construction. Then the empire was seen hanging around some of our warehouses, a few of them were trying to mess with Lacey, but Kurt and I scared them off."

" Hmmm, do you want me to come down there and take care of them," mom's hunger was kind of apparent, and one of her nails was tapping away at the wood table. " It would be a good way of meeting back up with some of my friends from...before."

" Ah no honey you don't have to help enforce law and order down at the docks, we got that covered, but if you want I'm sure Kurt and Lacey would love to see you again."

" Its a date then," mom leans in to dads face. I'd pretend to feel sick but my two others are doing it for me. Besides deep down I think my parents are adorable...

" Ew yuck, I think I lost my apatite," Neems has a big goofy grin as she looks away towards the smell coming from the oven.

" Yes gross...uh it is disgusting, sure," Swarm's deadpan voice of distraction shows just how little she is actually paying attention. She is actually chewing on some wood she found three blocks over right now.

" Oh, and how was your day," mom purposely sits in dad's lap as she fixes us with a smile.

" It was good," Nimi continues practically vibrating in her seat, " Lisa and..."

I take a look around the table while Nimi talks about our day. Mom is smiling, dad is reaching around her to snag a slice of pizza. Swarm has draped themselves over Lisa's back. Nimi has a full grin spread out on her face as her deep voice gets excited, her arms gesticulating to various parts of her new clothing.

A family, a happy family. It is surreal to me, to have all of these people here happy and laughing. Even if half of them are me too, and isn't that a sad thought, happiness looks alien on my many features. It has maybe been almost three weeks, but I'm still not used to this, being happy I mean. The last two years have been nothing but misery. Mom died, Emma left me, dad left me, and in their places came the torture...the isolation...the paranoia and fear. I look down at Lisa's hand it is almost touching mine, but she is gripping Swarm's arm keeping her steady. I'm not alone anymore...I have a friend, my family is whole and complete. Swarm grabs Lisa's hand and we all can feel it. I feel myself smiling and watch mom, go and retrieve the burn pizza from the oven...life is good...

I am hungry again...

I stand back before Winslow. The decaying corpse of education's past and a diseased plastic flesh covers it with corruption. The humans walk in herds as they meander into the school. Swarm's flesh clings to my eye sockets as it darkens my eye's glow, her body covering my hair to both weigh it down as well as make it appear to have a texture. It is a good disguise... too bad we are both so hungry.

I take a few steps to the door. Today I decided to go back to this hellhole for one reason. To see if I could still pass for human...

The eyes that turn to stare at me as I walk past, hood down hair tied back into a pony tail, are pretty telling that people notice that I'm different. The smells of the people around me makes me twitch, my hair wishing to sprout teeth along its loops and curls. Functionally my hair looks the same as it always has with Swarm in it to hide the eyes. My hair is just now reaches my ankles and lacks a visible texture, other than that it is the same curly mess of my life before death. Beneath my hoodie my pony tail twists with formed teeth. The dental protrusions move around the loops like the teeth of a chainsaw.

Honestly, my hair's new attributes are really cool. I can see with perfect human vision in all directions if I wanted, and even cooler my new hair is completely mobile. Acting much like a sheath, I can move each of my individual strands at the same time. It takes a bit of focus to do that though, but large movement are easy with it. Another cool thing is that all of those extra eyes and teeth are mobile along the strands too. What I'm saying is my hair is the organic equivalent of a saw. I can even vibrate the teeth making my cutting power even more effective. They were the same metal structure as my other teeth, and Nimi and I tested there power on Sunday when I used them to cut large sheets of steel off of a few boats, and then shredded them into powder.

As cool as it is though, it is kind of just a problem here. The halls are quiet as I walk down them despite the large volume of people here with me. The halls don't smell like when I got back to school last week. Last week they were mostly surprise from my fellow school goers, the people who knew me, my bullies, were a bit more varied. Excited, afraid, frustrated, panicked, and worse happy. Yeah last week I caught just a whiff of that scent off of Emma, before I revealed my face to the crowed of vile that were my former tormentors. I didn't register it until today, because as I walk up to my locker the students around me watching my movements with fixed stares, today is different. The hall's mood is different, with so many eyes on me and every single one of them...is terrified...

I don't like it...

It makes the hungry fear in my gut turn to starving dread. How do they know I'm dangerous? My disguise isn't showing off anything, so how is it so universal? I look to my left as I stand next to my locker, the people around there flinch away, refusing to look at me in some cases, in other cases a few take steps back. Looking to the right reveals much of the same. Let's just get this day over with. I press into the locker door trying to tune out the eyes on my back. A few of the girls in the hall are former hanger-ons, but from the smells coming off of them told me they aren't looking to rekindle their old ways. I grimace as one of them pees themselves, they aren't alone on that in the hall. I open my locker with a final twist of the dial, only for something to hit me in the face.

I lean back as the metallic object swings back and forth in and out of my locker. The flutter of polaroids falling to the ground. I don't have to look up to see what it is, my ghost recognizes the broken form of mom's flute... surrounded by pictures of me in the school showers...

Tumultuous_Anxiety · Mar 5, 2021

Neems as requested... also Lisa which is good too...

My tendrils softly clink together as I wave them through the air. The world flying by fast as I run. Soft arms wrapped around my neck as Lisa's face presses into it. The day-time world is so much fun!

I turn down an alley, briefly sliding up the wall as I curve sharply past. My tendrils whip around the corner trailing behind me as I just move. The busy street at the end of the alley is easily jumped as I fly through the air over buildings and rooftops. Only to come down in an abandoned parking lot of some long abandoned warehouse...well a formerly abandoned warehouse, I guess. I skid to a stop, lot becoming my landing strip as I grind my heel into its already marred surface. " Okay, we're here!"

Since I have clothing now, I can finally check out a little thing that Taylor had promised to show me. I wasn't wearing just my lounge clothing either, the light red dress shirt is just layered over my outer top, and I modified the poncho from Sunday. Basically, just cut a hole in the hood to let my tendrils through, it makes it easier. I look up at the warehouse, the hole on the third floor is our entry point.

The warehouse was actually where I was "born" the me sized hole on the third floor being the evidence of my escape. Ah, good times. The warehouse is also completely sealed from humans getting into it. The second and first floor are filled with garbage, we're talking floor to ceiling filled, like no one but maybe Mush could wade through that without getting a serious injury or infection. The third floor is however completely clean.

" Too fast," Lisa's voice is a whisper as she slides down my back. I catch her as her grip around my shoulders with her arms and ribs with her feet fail. My slightly metallic tendrils wrap delicately around the blonde and bring her forward into my arms. " Too fast," she huffs out again, her face is pale and tinged green.

Ooops," I'm sorry Lisa, I got excited to see the mushroom farm." Taylor has been working on this project in the back of her head all last week, usually to ignore the more boring of classes or "pranks" by our former friend... I watch as Lisa's face mostly clears, " do you think you can handle one more jump?"

Lisa doesn't respond but just hides her face in my chest. I can feel myself fidget. " Just do it..."

The jump is easy, but I think that the landing was still jarring. I let Lisa down and keep her hair out of her face as she dry heaves on the concrete. " I'm sorry, so so sorry Lisa I shouldn't have done that," I stroke her back as a particularly hard heave leaves her coughing.

" No, it's," *hurk* *burp*, " fine..." Lisa finally can talk again after a few more sick sounds. " I wanted to hang out with you, so it's my fault." Lisa holds her stomach and rubs it as she stands.

" Are you going to be, okay?"

" Yeah," Lisa looks up at me and tries a painful smile. Then I smell blood...Lisa's bleeding?

" Lisa!" I crouch down and bring my tendrils around her, " your bleeding are you-"

Lisa calmly pushes my tentacles away. " It is just the time of the month Neems, I'm fine...but can you carry me?"

I pick up the much smaller human and being to walk into the warehouse. Time of the month? The smell of blood from Lisa is kind of nice and horrible at the same time. Like a perfume, if the perfume in question was screaming at you. It makes me hungry and worried. Is Lisa going to be alright, and what does time of the month mean? I grasp at the collected knowledge of our ghosts...period...Oh, yeah. I kind of forgot what those things are. I mean I can't get one for obvious reasons, and Taylor doesn't do that either. " Can I help?" I subconsciously switch her to a bridal carry, my tendrils wrapping around her to hold her in a nicer position.

" Unless you can draw up a hot bath here in the warehouse, or even just a cup of hot water," Lisa stretches in my grip, " don't worry about it, mines not too bad this time."

Heat and water huh... Taylor's were usually pretty bad, although she stopped getting them when she started high school, too much stress. I frown at that, living Taylor didn't tell daddy about that either, afraid that he couldn't afford to take her to the doctor. I look down at Lisa and then around at the warehouse as we walk through it. Can I get water, there isn't any clean water here...? I feel my unoccupied tendrils shift, a crisscross across the surfaces. It almost feels like I rested a net across my skin. I stop as I feel the shift in skin texture, what is that? " Uh, Neems are you okay?" I look at what my cells are doing at my tips, it is almost like I can-

The air fills with shrieks of metal on metal as long threads of metal cells slide across each other. The tips of each tentacle are barbed with a nine meter long metal wire, made of chained metal cells. " Uh it looks like I figured out what my body was building." The wires shimmer in and out of visibility, it is almost like a sentient piano wire. Lisa watches the thin wires flex and twist through the air.

" So, what can they do?" At the question from her I look around the room for something to use them on. There, a glass bottle sitting a distance away from us. Without thinking about it, I flex one of the wires out towards the glass. It flies through the air with a strange sound and passes through the glass without knocking it over. Lisa and I both watch as the glass explodes a second after the wire passes through it. "...holy shit..."

I nod at Lisa's breathless whisper. The cellular chain of metal, effortlessly ground through the glass, vibrating at the glasses resonate frequency when it started to cut through it... Still doesn't solve Lisa problem, but it is cool. Hmmmm, I flex my wire hair behind me as I think about the problem. Okay one at a time, my body is warm, but it is distributed so it doesn't feel too hot or cold. My skin itself is heat refractive so if I do heat up myself more it should stay just skin level. A few seconds of rearranging my DNA and cells, and now I have heat producing organs in my tendrils that doesn't affect my other temperature based senses. I wrap two tendrils around Lisa's stomach and lower back, drawing her out of her awe, " uh what are you doing-oh, oooh..." I activate the new organs interrupting her and treating myself to her cute little mewls of relief. She is so adorable, the orange glow around her stomach frames her head in a warm light that goes good with the cold blue from the outside lights leaking in. I roll the limbs up and down her stomach and back.

Okay heat check, now water. The water in the room that is liquid is dirty, so what if we condense the water in the air? I crisscross my new wires behind me in the air, first making a net and then making tight spirals. It is pretty cold out, but it was foggy this morning and casting my "net" outside I am rewarded. The drops of water flow down my wires and onto my tendrils. My cells collect the moisture and clean it of any impurities that I find, before filling a single tentacle's heat organ. I spiral in the net, wrapping the individual threads back into my tentacles, I don't need them right now after all. With the water filled tentacle I bring it forward, " you want some warm water?"

Lisa, looking incredibly relaxed, looks at me and then at the tentacle hovering just over my shoulder. " Uh...I'm good, thanks though," Lisa blushes deeply. She is so pretty...

" Okay," I bubble as I throw the water out behind me with a splatter, " now enough experimenting, we got a mushroom garden to look through!" I start walking over to where it is being started, Lisa giggling and occasionally sighing as I roll over her middle.

The gentle rolling of heated flesh soothes ache-y muscles as I relax in the boney arms of Nimi's grip. God, if this is just one of the benefits of being friends with Taylor, forget it they can have me...

The tentacles roll up my stomach and down my back as the steady up and down of Nimi's steps gently rock me. This is heavenly. I look up at her, her eye is wide and open, her mouth a small smile. She is so excited...

[can smell your blood, likes it, is distressed by it, wants to make you haERROR...]

I wince internally, wow three facts new record. All three of them, the Taylors, have caused errors with my power as I've looked at them, but it seems to be getting better at reading it. Well, it may be getting better, or it is cheating by reading me instead of them.

[your bloods consistency is-]

Shut. Up. I smack the side of my head at my power's intervention of my thoughts and isn't that a scary thought. Before I met Taylor and Nimi, as well as now Swarm, my powers had never been able to mess with me like is does now. Direct intervention, hesitation, clues that my cape power has a certain level of intelligence. The presence of computer speak seems to suggest that my power is at least not human. I quake causing Nimi to look at me and lighten her pressing with those wonderful limbs of hers. No! " I'm fine you didn't hurt me," I hope I don't sound as desperate as I feel, these tentacles are magic...

" Oh, okay," Nimi smiles big and toothy as she resumes the organ massage, " it is not too hot, is it?"

The glowing orange limbs wrapped around my middle feel exactly like a hot water bottle, like it is full of steaming hot liquid. Its glorious, " no its perfect." Neem's smile is radiant as she pulls me tighter to her chest, her soft, squishy chest. God I'm totally hopeless aren't I.

I've thought about my conversation with Swarm yesterday, and while I'm still on the fence about actively dating them. I am beginning to see it as a real possibility. I nestle closer into the comfortable hold.

" Hey look, that's where she started it," Nimi speeds up as she starts walking towards a corner. I can see one or two glowing mushrooms next to a wall, where she is pointing. It doesn't look like it is very expansiv-

Nimi turns around the wall and stops, I don't blame her. Floor to ceiling is covered in mushrooms, it extends for meters in both directions. Large shrooms the size of small bushes litters the floor, growing straight out of concrete. The mixture of glowing colors as feathery parasol caps, thick and stout bulbs, and gilled domes compete for attention. Uh, powers?

[seventy-two species, all unknown. The fungus is being fed by something deposited in the concrete, they are high in all essential vitamins and minerals. The number of genders present is over four hundred, perfectly arranged to have the maximum of spawning rate. All hostile bacteria and viruses are not present around the garden patch. Arranged by color, texture, and species...human editable with heat or water submersion for several hours...]

The dizzying wall that is my powers is briefly nothing but mushroom facts as my powers try to digest everything I'm looking at. Well, another point to what Taylor could do for humanity, world hunger what's that...I look up at Nimi, her eyes are glittering with hunger, transfixed by the actual ton of fungal reproductive organs in front of her. " Uh, Neems are you alright?"

" I- I have the best sister...." Nimi's grin grows as she starts towards the tapestry of fungal flesh. " We need to be decreeing, there are some mushrooms that are busy, but some are done so I can eat those. Oh, did you want some?" She looks down at me a few caps being lifted with her tendrils.

" Uh sure," I don't really want to take from Nimi, but my powers are losing their mind with mushroom facts. I'm curious too... " Thanks for sharing."

" Okay!" Nimi starts grabbing a few small mushrooms, " I should've brought a basket!"

I giggle at the image of Nimi with a picnic basket, " I can hold the small ones, do you need-" I look up at Nimi. She has completely stopped, her hair tentacles frozen in the air. The soft orange glow around my waist disappears as Nimi straightens up, the mushrooms in her grip drop to the ground.

" Nimi?"

" We are going to Winslow, something is wrong..."

As we leave the happy scene, my stomach drops as we fly through the air, but my nausea is forgotten and is replaced with a mass of dread...

Tumultuous_Anxiety · Mar 5, 2021

It gets worse...

I giggle to myself as I skip to Taylor's locker. She has to have seen it by now. Digging up the flute was the easiest task, after all when I found that Taylor had left it on the dumpster, I just had to take it. She clearly didn't want it after all, I giggle as I turn a corner. The picture themselves were from the little camera that Sophia let me borrow, a quick buck to the right girls in Taylor's gym class, which finding was worryingly harder than it should be, and bam instant blackmail. I'll need to fix the lack of loyalty that I found in Taylor's gym class though, I'm the strong and popular one I deserve their obedience.

I frown internally, Madison should also be on that list as well as a few of the other girls. Madison didn't show up for school yesterday, and a quick phone call with her parents told me she is sick. Likely story, I guess Sophia and I are going to have to straighten her out, again. I am not to be ignored...

I frown actually as I remember last week. Taylor wasn't at school for almost two weeks, what kind of weakling fakes death from a little prank. Pathetic, and then she has to come back all cocky and proud. Where the fuck does she get off that makes her think she can ignore and dismiss me! After all I've done for her, she should know her place. I smirk, shamed forever by the internet might work, but it will be so much sweeter to hang it over her head instead.

I can't wait to see the look on her fac-

I turn the corner. Taylor stands at her locker, a large circle of people avoiding her. Nothing different there, what is odd is the silence. The hallway is full of the sheep of this school, but there is no movement, no whispers, no giggles at my wonderful prank. It is dead silence, and everyone is staring at weak Taylor, her hand shaking by her side. I scoff, the noise breaking the crowd out of their trance briefly, a lot of them jumping. What is their problem, fuck'em, I start walking over to my "friend". My body relaxes as I fall into the comfortable routine, " oh hey Taylor, how do you like my camera skills?" I stop behind the weakling as she faces into the locker, almost tempted to push her back in...

Taylor is silent, need to try harder. " Oh, don't feel like talking, what was that last week huh. Post-death confidence?"

Still nothing, the hall beings to murmur and some even start to back up a bit. God, I wish Sophia was here, she would be so proud of me scaring the entire hall. Shame she has "work" today. " Come on Taylor, even if I did post this online no one would be looking at it, your far too ugly for anyone to possibly be attracted to, remember the movies, Taylor."

The shaking hands at her sides are fists, aw cute she thinks she is strong. " Oh Taylor, it's not like you should be surprised, after all your mom left you, do you really think that she'll forgive thi-"

*KERCHOK* *BLOTISH*

The hoodie on Taylor snaps apart and a black fluid splatters across the lockers in front of her. An almost wooden clicking sound comes from somewhere, hidden by the flared cloth of Taylor's stretched clothing. The crowd around me starts and moves to escape, but it stops as we hear it. The sound of cicadas, a harsh buzz of insect wings, mixed with a clicking that sounds like some form of demented clock. I barely register the liquid I can feel going down my leg, as I stare at the hints of the monster hiding in the frame of its locker. The blood along the walls, floor, and ceiling flows in reverse as the lights in the hall flicker with the passing of the inky black fluid. The hall smells of iron, bitter and overwhelming as the thrum of insects crescendos. The ink is gone and the sliding, wet *thunk* of something closing. Like a chest or trunk soaked in so much wet garbage.

I look down as I finally notice Taylor's hair, it is ankle length and looks like it is made from shadowy fingers. I join the crowd in the hall in their quest to hold my breath, none of us can run from this monster. It is simply impossible; we are all dead...

A short but important chapter explaining just how terrifying the undead can be to the living...

Tumultuous_Anxiety · Mar 6, 2021

I got nothing to say here...Lisa is pretty cool...

Winslow is a shit hole...

It is little more than a parking lot and a football field around a simple brick box. The wall of which are heavily tagged and have bars over the windows. There are a few trees and grassy knolls, but for the most part they don't add much to the concrete wasteland. It also doesn't help that every plant on them, as well as the grass on the field, is dead.

The grass that should be yellow is black with rot. The trees have collapsed under their weight. Several of them have snapped in half, the rotting plant flesh on the inside is spongy. This is the view I see as I get up from all fours. Nimi standing next to me as I collect my stomach after the run here. God, I need to get used to that.

[necrosis of plant life suggests that they have been dead for weeks, they have only been dead for hours...]

Fuck me, I stand up and fall into walking next to Nimi as we make our way across the concrete death lands, just another power we can tack on to Taylor's ever increasing list. " So, what are we dealing with," my voice is confident even if my anxiety for my friend is spiking. With the death surrounding the school I don't really need to ask to know it's bad. Using your powers as a cape outside of a cape fight is generally a bad thing. If you hurt someone the PRT can arrest you right there, but even if you don't there are several people, and the public, that could try for a witch hunt. Hopefully Taylor will forgive them if they set her on fire...

I smile cruelly at the thought, Taylor is way out of the public's league by now. " I'm not sure, but the feeling I got from her said she was very hungry, no... empty, it felt like she was empty..." Nimi is not smiling, and her voice has that serious tone that Taylor usually gets. She looks like she is getting ready for a fight, it is the same look that I saw when she charged at Lung. My smirk dies and is replaced by my own work face, a much sharper grin.

" Okay let's go get her then." The false cheer of my work persona, the one before Izzy, filling my voice.

The front of the school is guarded by a fat, possibly retired, cop. "Hello, we are here for our friend." Nimi stands ominously besides me as we stare down the first obstacle. The rental cop looks from the giant next to his left and then down to me. His eyes gleam as they land on me.

[he will not let you pass, is unafraid of possible repercussions for his thoughts, is planning on separating you from Nimi with local law enforcement, he will move if you mention the lock box in his car, it contains...]

Jesus Christ, thank you powers, I'll get him arrested later...

The "cop" opens his mouth to say something, his mouth smiling as his eyes look at me too well. Fucking pervert... " I know what is in the lock box in your car, you have three hours before I get you arrested, now move," my empty smile makes the heavy man sweat. He thinks about it for a few seconds before booking to his car, staying as far as he could from us, good. " Alright let's go." Nimi nods and pushes open the door, having to bend to enter the building.

"Can we hunt him down later," Nimi holds the door open for me as I walk through, "I'm kind of hungry."

I smile a real one at Nimi, "maybe later Neems." The inside of Winslow is just as shitty as the outside, with the metal detectors completely jacked and the walls tagged on top of other tags. I've looked at Taylor's school records when I was offering to help her out with the bullying. She said no because it would be too revealing to my kidnappers, but that ship has sailed. Taylor was a straight A student before Winslow, she requested transfer to Winslow for some reason even though she could have gotten into Arcadia on merit alone. If it is the last thing I'm doing, I am getting Taylor out of this school, even if I have to homeschool her myself. " So which way?"

[Halls A though B have normal noises going on, Hall C on the second floor is an ERROR...]

" She is upstairs." Nimi says as I recover from my power's deliberate triggering of its error system. Smart, painful but smart. I follow after Nimi, the student in the hall parting as the giant makes her way through the building. There were a few phones out either taking video or pictures as we walked past, but most stop when Nimi walked past. The floor and air practically vibrating with the growls coming from her.

[ no one has noticed you...]

Good to know, this is essentially like a very public unmasking right here, and we don't need any more problems. The stairs creak underneath Nimi's weighty stomps as we get closer and closer to Taylor. The sound of cicadas coming down the stairwell is not a good sound, and the large group of frozen students are a pretty good indicator of where Hall C is.

Taylor is pissed.
As me and Nimi make our way thought the crowd, I can see the tall dark haired girl standing motionless in front of an open locker. The deep sound of insects coming from her is terrifying, it is almost a death rattle. As we push through the rather dense crowd of students in the hall for the first period, I can smell several disgusting "accidents" that had befallen many students, with the concentration of spontaneous bowl release being more towards Taylor.

Behind Taylor curled up in a ball as far from her as she can get in the small hallway, is a red head. She is the only one inside the circle of space around Taylor and the horrific clicking. She, the red head, is quietly whimpering and her legs are soaked. Nimi ignores her and walks over to Taylor.

The cicada sound is honestly very disturbing, I'm actually having cold chills run up my spine, but it is just Taylor. No matter how scary Taylor can be she is still my friend, which means she is needs help and I going to give her it. Nimi's hand falls on Taylor's shoulder, and death rattle stops.

[anxiety levels and fear has increased in the crowd...]

Don't need to know that power, but thanks anyways. I look around the hall, the frozen glazed over eyes of total panic stare back at me. It seems that the sudden stopping of the sound coming from Taylor did not break the trance-like fear of the students. " Taylor are you okay?" Nimi's voice is like the murmur of stones grinding against each other. I start to walk over too, the red head seems to be standing out the corner of my eye. " We are going home, okay Taylor..."

" I'm fine, Nimi..." The voice from behind the hood, is anything but fine. Taylor sounds wrong, too hollow, too wooden.

[The error is looking at something in their locker, it is pictuERROR]

Too close to Taylor it seems, or maybe Taylor is the subject of the photos? " Taylor, you are going home," I walk around to see for myself, rubbing at my temple, " it will be alright, Neems-"

" She's not going anywhere." I turn back to the voice behind me, the red head. Taylor's hackles raise as I turn to face the hysterical voice. The red head is no doubt pretty, her long straight red hair, the perfect make up now smeared with tears, the pretty green eyes in her well-proportioned face. It was all ruined by her expression, and animalistic sneer of self-appointed authority. " She used a master power on me and half of the students in this hall..."

More like all of them, but it wasn't a Master power...

" She is a cape." I internally growl, as a loud ticking starts up. At first, I think it is Taylor, but I soon realize that it is my own mind making that noise.

" Obviously she is a villain, only a villain would attack like that unprovoked."

The crowd winces around her as I hear Taylor breaking her fingers with twitches.

[former best friend to error, was almost raped by gangsters at gun point, found someone that they imprinted on, she is a narcissist, low self-esteem, needs to hurt error to feel better about themselves, has all of error's secrets, been using them against her for years, dad is someone in law enforcement, believes that they are untouchable, believes that they deserve fear and love, needs to be seen as strong.... crush them...]

" Somebody call the PR-"

" Shut. Up." My voice is steel as my powers give me everything, I need to know to remove this stain on Taylor's life. Taylor's sounds of distress behind me quiet at my command.

" Who the fuck are you, are you friends with that mon-"

" Your pathetic and weak," my grin feels like it was cut into my face, " hiding behind your protector, touting that you are powerful, that you are important."

The red head, Emma Barnes, opens her mouth to speak again, but I cut her off.

" To think that a couple kicks make you strong, you think that fighting back was proof," I watch as her face becomes pale. " No, you were just as weak then as you are now. You need to feel strong, which means you need the so-called sheep around you as well. What happens when everyone is gone? Are you going to stay strong without them? What about your protector, what was her name? Oh yeah, Sophia Hess."

Taylor shivers with hunger behind me at the name, it's okay I'm hungry too...

[hates that Taylor has a friend, cannot believe that she was scared of Taylor, will try to remove you from Taylor if she can, if you mention how much stronger Taylor is it will make her shut down, if you keep mentioning her dependence on others for her power you can crush her mental state...]

I keep the shock off my face at my powers finally using Taylor's name instead of error. Later, I can think about this later. " You traded your friendship for someone just as insecure as you, you're not important no matter how much 'power' you think you have. It is all third party, your dad, Sophia, and the girls you convinced," I lean forward towards the now green girl, I'm delighted that she leans back, " those last two aren't here either, and how many do you think would help you right now? And don't think that Taylor needs to defend herself from you, you're so beneath her consideration that she doesn't need to step on you. Does it burn? knowing that you don't have any value to her, she doesn't think about you or your petty insults. She doesn't need you, you do."

I lean back and walk away from the slowly collapsing person behind me. It won't kill her, she's also beneath me for that too, no matter my brother. Taylor is being pulled into Nimi's arms her hoodie and shirt ripped open like something burst from her bare chest. Taylor pulls the fabric closed, choosing to cover nudity, shit that's a bad sign for any Taylors. With her no longer standing in front of her locker I can now finally make out what is inside. Hanging from a wire is a badly damaged flute and spilling out of the bottom like disemboweled guts are photographs.

[flute belongs to Annette; pictures are of error naked...]

I lean back and take a full picture of the scene with my phone. Several flashes later with some of the still frozen crowd, I nod should be good enough evidence. I look closer at the crowd, most of them are coming around now that I've been the one talking, although now a few of them are flinching away from me. I try my hardest not to feel good about that, Taylor doesn't need a new Emma in her life and I'm not going to start picking up her habits.

" Swarm can you please gather up the pictures and keep the oils and fingerprints on them intact," I walk forward and grab the flute as a shadow leaves Taylor's hair and collects up the photos. The forming shadow becomes a Swarm instance and hugs my back clinging loosely like a cape. " Okay let's leave."

The three of us turn to leave. " W-wait," I turn to a flailing Emma, Nimi and Swarm just keep walking, " I-I'm c-c-calling the police."

" No need we're going to call them anyways, child pornography is a federal offence after all," at her sputtering I grin harder, " can your friend or daddy protect you from the FBI, I don't think so." I rejoin my friends, a quick tootles to the truly fucked individual behind me.

Tumultuous_Anxiety · Mar 9, 2021

This chapter took forever to get down, also congratulations, we no longer have any prewritten material that is relevant to the story....Updates will definitely get slower. I will probably have some interludes in the intermission, but those too need to be written. I still am wanting ideas on what to do with the next part, but it will probably involve the empire. I also want to explain the imploding PRT and maybe a PHO chapter, those will take some work. I'm going to also be rereading this fiction in its entirety as well as my other notes to try and get my brain back in working condition. Hope you enjoy the chapter!

Cold long arms held me as I sat on similarly cold thighs.

While being a human teddy-bear isn't fun per se, it is necessary here. I look at the head resting in the crook of my neck, large triangular teeth pressing into the soft flesh a cold breath passing gently down my neckline. An out spilling of teeth, eyes, and shadows pours down my body as the eyes dart, the teeth kneed, and the shadows slither across me. I stroke my pretty friend's hair as she come down from her panic.

Taylor had never explicitly said what her problems at school were. I knew she was bullied because she told me, I knew that it was mostly girls too. What I didn't know was how bad, I didn't know how much trust she placed in me. Betrayed by your best friend and then mocked and humiliated for almost two years, and then she died surrounded by filth alone and trapped inside a locker. I only learned the full extent of it when Swarm showed me one of her notebooks. That why it is necessary for me to stay put, Taylor needs to know I am still here, she needs me to be present. She needs to know that she has a friend...

I look back at the room from my seat in Taylor's lap, who herself is sat on the couch at home. Danny is talking to a couple of officers at the kitchen table, a stack of photographs and my phone between them. Danny is pissed, I know that he is short-fused, but the absolute rage in his eyes right now makes him look crazy. The fact that he is acting completely calm just makes him scarier. Annette was sitting at the table earlier, but now she is beside me and Taylor. Stroking Taylor's living hair, and contemplating triple homicide with a side of torture charges with the same causal indifference of someone ordering lunch.

Behind me Nimi and Swarm are giving their own statements, both extremely serious. Nimi isn't making jokes or getting distracted she is single focused in describing the scene, and Swarm, who was present for the full event is acting as primary witness. The fact that there are at least two dozen instances of her walking around gathering evidence, Taylor's notebook, the flute, and the collected email lists that were inbox full, shows just how much she is paying attention to this little part of the city.

"...Emma...Madison...Sophia..."

Taylor whines and presses her full toothed grimace deeper into my neck, at the sounding of those names from Danny. Both of the Hebert parents get just that little bit angrier at the noise. Danny is now contemplating wars; Annette is no longer at homicide she is now leaning more towards mindless slaughter. The teeth on my neck, cold like metal, open as Taylor's mouth engulfs my throat. She gently places her lips back over the mouth of fangs and relaxes again leaning back pulling me back with her. I just stroke her hair as she nibbles lightly on my neck flesh. She is surprisingly soft; she isn't breaking my skin. " It's okay Taylor, I'm not going anywhere and they're not here right now," my voice is calm it needs to be, and I want it to be, but my powers are making distracting comments...

[bite force is approximately 5000lbs per square inch, it is adERROR..]

[the teeth wrapped around your ankle can easily shreddERROR...]

[your smell has a natural relaxing effect on ErrERROR...]

Shut up. I stroke her hair, eye spots closing as my hand passes over them the silver lights crinkling in pleasure as they reappear. So adorable...I feel the bare chest through my clothes shift like something sliding open and close, a wet and cool...something moves up my back. Did...did...did Taylor just lick me? A soft caress by another wet and cold appendage passes across my neck. Well, that answers that question. " Shh shh, it's okay I'm defiantly still here Taylor."

The knock on the door makes the house quiet.

[PRT most likely...]

Figures they would come last; I snort and stroke the freezing flesh of Taylor's arm on my stomach. We called them first. A Swarm is the one to open the door and let in... Miss Militia, huh guess they are trying to be smart. " Hello, Miss Militia, you're late the BBPD was contacted an hour ago," Swarm held the door open for the hero, her confusion at being addressed by a multiarmed shadow forgotten as she looks across the concession of people occupying the house.

" Apologies we had something happening across town," the eyes of the hero search the room, they look tired.

[lying...]

Annette gestures to the open armchair and the hero takes the seat. " So, we understand that there was an incident at your school."

Miss Militia is looking at me, she thinks she is here to talk to me? " I think you want to talk to Taylor about the violation that took place at her school," I emphasize her by pointing at the mess of hair, eyes, and teeth still resting on my shoulder. Taylor's hair eyes lock on to the hero at my mentioning.

Miss Militia is uncomfortable, but I wouldn't have been able to tell without my powers telling me that. " I see sorry I was only vaguely briefed on this as Armsmaster was indisposed," the star-spangled hero turns to Taylor, " would you like to explain what happened?"

Another lie, she does know something. Armsmaster must have been barred from going, smart move PRT, smar-

I freeze.

Taylor's jaw tightens on my neck, a soft puncture just causing a tiny drop of warm to bloom on my neck, it causes every instance of the undead in the building to stop. I shake it off mentally, as my head is locked in place. I continue petting her hair.

Taylor's face, and thus her attachment to my neck, is completely obscured by her hair. This is good, because cannibalism and Miss Militia in particular would be a bad combination.

[cannibalism is closely related to trauma, possibly trigger...]

" I don't think that she wants to talk about it right now, do you mind if I explain in the time being," her jaw loosens and a tongue licks at my wound.

" Certainly, but who are you?"

" Lisa Wilbourn, I'd get up to shake your hand, but I'm pretty attached with my seat right now."

The hair curls over me protectively as a snort of amassment comes from next to me. Annette stands, " Well I'm going to make some tea we could all use some right about now. Honey do you wants some tea?"

" I'd prefer coffee," comes the grumble of Danny from the kitchen.

" No, you need tea, your far too much yourself right now," Annette walks into the kitchen, Danny's and a few of the police officers' hushed laughter calling out.

" So, Lisa, what happened?"

" Before I start, I would like to know some things," I feel something on my back shift. It felt like a hole had opened behind me. I try not to shiver. She still thinks I'm missing somehow, like she can't tell that I'm here...Taylor needs something to reassure that I'm there, what could that be?

" That depends on what they are," the hero leans forward in her seat, a serious expression on her face, " there are of course somethings I can't tell you for secrecy's sake."

" Why didn't you or the PRT do anything back in January, when the bullying was first brought up?"

The hero grimaces and nods, " I thought that would be something that was brought up, in simple terms poor judgement on Armsmaster's part." The hero straight frowns, she was pissed earlier, probably at the tinker. " A longer answer is corruption and a conspiracy to brush most of the evidence under the rug, several administrative staff failed to mention anything about certain student behaviors, and considering the evidence, both at the crime scene and Taylor's testimony, was considered circumstantial-"

I wince actually this time as Taylor starts tightening her jaw, a long object passes along my back from the hole in her chest, it feels sharp. Militia stops as I go ahead and start talking to Taylor in whispers. " Taylor that's too tight."

" Har'ee," She licks at the wounds on my neck. They aren't deep or anything, but I am bleeding. The undead in the room are very much affected by the small smell.

I ignore the hero's looks of confusion. " It's okay I'm here," I hush her small whine, it is not enough. Taylor needs to know I am here, simply telling her isn't enough... She needs evidence that I'm here...

Oh, shit... The sharp object pokes at my back, a point dragging over veins as it follows my pulse.

I take a look at the gathered witnesses: A hero, four police officers, and three PRT troopers. Taylor cannot do that, here or right now. No one would understand, and it would make this whole thing disappear.

Me? I would be fine. Taylor is a very unfortunate romantic, but she prefers happy stories over sad ones. Still, she can't do it, which means I need to...

" Lisa are you alright?" The genuine concern on the fatigue wearing woman tells me how much this could suck if I don't do what I'm about to do. This is going to be really gross, and while Taylor said she would let me wait, this is important...Fuck it, I am interested and she needs me to be real, I want to be real. So, as calmly as I could I extract one of Taylor's arms from my waist. She let it go with me easily, even though I can feel how solid and strong her grip on me is. I lift her hand, turning the pale white and boney appendage palm up, the skin is perfect and so very pretty. I bring it to my mouth and kiss it. " Miss Wilbourn, can you hear me? I don't understand, what are you-"

I put Taylor's thumb in my mouth, all the way to the palm. I watch Miss Militia's eyes widen as the world around me starts to slow, I bite down as hard as I can. The world around me stops, the skin breaks easily around my teeth and a cold fluid flows around my lips and across my mouth, the excess dripping out of my mouth in rivets. The taste fills my mouth, it tastes...sweet? Like it is full of sugar and iron, a strange mixture of bitter and honey. It's not bad... The world comes back into motion as the second passes.

Taylor's grip on my neck loosens and the void where her chest snaps shut. I can feel her entire body relax as I chew deeper on her hand, her mouth retracts from my neck and she now just drapes across me.

The rest of the house is less relaxed. The law is reaching for me and Taylor, Danny looks mostly just concerned but he is also standing. On the less human side of things, Nimi is stunned and very hungry while Swarm has stopped all movement. The sounds of shouts and yelling from the non-Heberts fill the small room. "What are you doing!"

I don't know how Miss Army wants me to respond, my mouth is kind of busy. I chew harder, feeling my friend behind me shiver with delight. The flesh is weird, what should be very tough practically melts with my chewing. Taylor must be allowing me to damage her, it keeps getting more...tender. My teeth hit something hard, the moan out of Taylor's mouth silences the room.

Annette walks calmly into the living room with a tray of cups, she looks at me as my tongue starts to lick at the wounded hand in my mouth. I swallow the collected blood in my mouth, Taylor shivers behind me. She mewls as I chew around her bone, nestling into my neck and head. Her hair curls around me as teeth trace lines across my legs through my tight jeans, her eyes watching me as a I dislodge a chunk of muscle from its anchor to the Trapezium. I really should be grossed out, especially now that the detached muscle is wrapping around my tongue.

Annette sets down the drinks, making every human apart from me look at her. " Taylor, sweetie, I don't think that your flirting is appropriate right now," Annette's voice and hands on her hips causes the hair eyes to flick to her, "what will the fine police think if you make noises like that?" Annette turns to me, hands leaving her hips, a huge friendly smile on her face, " thanks for helping her out Lisa, sorry if it felt a little forced-" I feel Taylor wince underneath me, both Nimi and Swarm are effectively looking anywhere but at me. "-I know that you wanted to wait and think it over, but I'm sure you understand the dire nature of events going on."

I pull Taylor's hand from my mouth; the mangled limb showed a bit of skeleton and the thumb is barely attached. The police look disturbed, the troopers are mostly scared, Miss Militia is horrified. " It's okay," I wipe my mouth, my hand comes away covered in black. My chin and lips are covered in sweet and bitter blood, Taylor's taste. " She just needed to know I was still here." The mangled hand in question moves to cross my body and grip the opposite shoulder, a humming purr now very audible from behind me. I feel my legs get trapped as she wraps her own legs around mine, it does make my fear of getting arrested for assault go down. It is not like Taylor is going to let me go anytime soon.

The displays of affection that Taylor is doing mixed with the sounds she is making, makes the law enforcers and Danny uncomfortable. Miss Militia is just empty of emotion right now, a PTSD episode. I try not to pry, but my powers description of how the hero's young exposure to cannibalism is making her have a panic attack. The green light of her power switching endlessly is very noticeable. Looks like the PRT miscalculated on the choice of representatives again. " Look I just want to explain what happened to Taylor today," I lean into the damaged hand as it strokes my cheek, I also grimace as I realize that I'm doing it, "can you just take your statement, Taylor and I are not really in the mood to be open...like this...with so many witnesses." I grab the torn hand and place it into my lap, stoking the muscle fibers as they knit themselves back together.

" I don't mind if they watch," Taylor's voice is soft, but loud enough to be heard, " thanks for the kisses." Danny's head slams into the kitchen table as a groan sounds from him, Nimi is in a soft glowing cloud of reds and pinks, Swarm is having trouble with how many limbs she is supposed to have and her purr is in a twenty-four-part harmony, and Annette? Annette just puts her hands back on her hips, huffs and then sits down with her cup of tea. She is all smiles though.

I groan even as I lean into some of the nuzzling, " fine, I'm uncomfortable with it, can we please just get our statement." I watch as the hero still blank nod her head. I need her to focus she is far too space-y, thankfully I know just what to say. "Good, maybe this time you'll actually do something helpful."

She winces but nods and takes out a pen and pad. I explain what happened today, the sound of gentle whispers and the scratching of pens as I talked with the occasional sip of tea from everyone who got one... Oh and yeah, the sound of Taylor purring like a cat into my shoulder... at least she is only kissing the bite mark on my neck...

The cold arms around my lap are joined my massive warm hands around my stomach. I look down at the shadow straddling my lap as I sit here on the couch completely encased in the purring undead bodies. The couch underneath us is making protesting sounds, but it will be fine...I hope. I actually can't tell...

You see, after being so close to these three for so long, ever since the police and PRT left, my powers have kind of stopped talking to me. So, for the past thirty minutes I have had truly blissful silence for the first time in a year! Another great thing being held by them, is that my cramps, which I was getting to the end of my rope ignoring, were massaged away by Swarm's many arms.

I snuggle into my perfectly cool seat of Taylor's lap, a hum of my own to join the chorus of purrs in harmony around me. " Thank you for doing that for us Lisa," Nimi's voice is a distant thunder, " it was very..."

"Hot," Taylor's voice is a whisper in my ear making me shiver, " I'm glad to know you're still here." I feel the arms around my stomach pull away, " sorry for forcing you to do that, even if it was just for show I don't expect anything out of it, we can go back to waiting..."

Swarm presses against my own lap, her soft head pressing up against my jaw. " We also understand if this makes your decision to leave us," The echoes of her voice sound sad, I think that I can hear crying in the background, " we would understand, we didn't mean to force it, we shouldn't have."

I can tell that there is an intense debate going on between the Taylors. They really think that I'd leave them don't they. I can feel something wet on my neck and watch as one of Nimi's hands leave Swarm's waist and wipe at her face. Still, I keep quiet, I need to actually think about this.

On the one hand, I like Taylor, Nimi, and Swarm. They check off all the little boxes I've made for myself about them. So, it is not like I wouldn't eventually probably date them. After all, when do come across the most sought-after treasure of all, the rare and legendary triple hug? I push back into Taylor's body, nuzzle back at Swarms face, and grab one of Nimi's hands. I smile at the resulting purrs at that.

On the other hand, Taylor forced me to consume her or be consumed. As Taylor put it as far as Hosting goes it doesn't qualify, apparently intent is a thing. However, she still called it a kiss, and she wasn't lying about that being what it was. I, Lisa Wilbourn, will go down in history as the first human to "kiss" a zombie back. I look down, I can't see it due to Swarm sitting on her hands, but I can imagine Taylor's right hand. The exposed muscle fibers now covered in a scar that I think Taylor is keeping around for sentimental value. I... didn't hate it. The bite or maybe just the holding her digit in my mouth, the blood seeping in and flowing across my tongue. The chewing into her wasn't as pleasant and I really don't like the whole muscle French kiss thing, too invasive. I did like the intimacy though.

When my teeth were sitting still in her hand, I could feel a faint pulsing of her blood moving. Knowing Taylor and her biology she gave herself a pulse for my benefit rather than her own. She wanted me to feel like I was attached, and I did. I enjoyed it, for as violent as it was, the act was very relaxing. Taylor's blood has a nice, if strong, taste, and while it certainly smelled like a murder scene, I didn't mind it. If it wasn't for my conversation with Swarm earlier, I'd be more concerned with the blood in my gut, but I don't have to worry about that. Taylor loves me every bit of her does... I imagine undead blood cells bumping into my living counterparts and, like their multicellular forms, cuddling. Odd image, but the fact that I'm not currently running a fever due to an extreme infection seems to suggest that Taylor is being a good body partner right now.

" Lisa will we at least still be friends," now Taylor sounds close to tears. The group around me starts to hesitantly let go of me...

" I'm hungry," I say pulling Swarm back into place on my lap. I let my words hang there as their retreat halts. I figured that would stop them from getting up from me and am proven right as they all squeezed back into place. " I'm still deciding so keep your booty's placed firmly under mine."

I look around the living room as I get my thoughts together. Danny and Annette both went out for food, Danny Chinese and Annette other. The evidence and police left along with the PRT a while ago, but you can still see the evidence of them being here, mostly the empty mugs all over the place. I look down at the carpet just in front of me, Taylor has already cleaned it up, but I can still picture it. The dark stain as cold and black fluid drips down my chin to join the puddle forming on the carpet beneath me. My head feels warm at the thought, and my relaxed abdominal muscles tense with the thought. That was hot...

Okay, okay, so I'm more than a little interested in Taylor at this point. I'm not the most intimate person either, but it was exciting for lack of a better word. The fact that I had to listen to the person behind me react to it without knowing what she was going to do was probably part of it, but the drinking, the consumption...I want a relationship...with Taylor...all of Taylor...But, I need more than just want it. " I want you to make it up to me."

The comfortable embrace from all sides stiffens before quickly relaxing. " We will do anything," they speak in unison, and it sends a shiver down my spine. A really good shiver.

" I want you to tell me everything, you're not allowed to keep secrets from me anymore," I feel Taylor tense behind me, so I turn around, with a little help from everyone, and straddle her like Swarm was me. I feel claws on my back and Swarm's head rest against my spine. The position is weird, as I'm now stretched across Taylor's lap with my knees resting on Nimi's thighs, not the most comfortable really. I'm now nose to nose, staring into those big silver eyes, the faint glows off of them pulsing with the rhythm of my heartbeat. " If you're hungry I want you to tell me, if you need to hunt something I want to either come with or be told what it is you catch, if your being bullied is school, I want details and names. No more holding yourself in, if you can't take it or you need a break, you tell me, and I'll take care of you. Can you do that Taylor?"

My warm breath passes across our faces at our closeness, her own cold breath is heavy as she goes grey with embarrassment. " Y-yes."

" Good girl," I lean forward and press my cheek into hers, " if you can keep your promise, we can date, but Hosting is off the table until I'm ready, okay?"

Taylor practically vibrates under me, " o-o-o-okaaaaay!"

I feel more arms and hands flood across my back, Nimi squishes us together as we both are nestled under her breast, Taylor vibrates as I hold her to my own body. It feels good to be the one to make Taylor fall apart...I guess I'll just have to make it a habit.

" I thought you said you weren't going to take my daughters." Danny's deadpan voice comes from the front door, causing my cuddle buddies and me to freeze. I turn and give a weak smile to Danny standing in the doorway, two bags of Chinese takeout taking up his hands. His body is rigid as he stares at the four of us on the couch. Then Nimi has to open her big mouth.

" At least three of us are clothed, daddy." His eyes narrow before dropping the bags on the ground and making his way over to the stairs.

" I'm getting the shotgun."

" What no, dad wait!"
" Daddy, no!"
" Da stop, please."

I laugh despite the odd mix of warmth, panic, and butterflies, pulling the three girls back to me and snuggling as close as I can. Hell, if Danny is serious there really is no better place to die than with the bodies, I'm covered in...

Oh Lisa, you ain't the first....

Tumultuous_Anxiety · Mar 12, 2021

Hey a not too short one, as well as an explanation for some stuff...

Subject: Taylor Hebert

Cape Name: Frankie

Code Name: Sigbin

Power rating: Stranger 1

Note from Watchdog: Due to the nature of Sigbin's power, Watchdog refuses to examine subject name: Taylor Hebert. Reason: Sigbin's anti-thinker effect has these following negative reactions in thinkers: headaches, migraines, brain hemorrhages, memory loss, suicidal ideation, extreme panic with a single reported heart attack, and cognitive reset.

Recommendations: non-thinker based observation at a distance. Considering the affiliations that Sigbin has inside the Hebert residence, and in the interest of saving both paper and human life, Watchdog as the following protocols that should be observed when dealing with Sigbin or her family.

-End Report-

Subject: Annette Hebert

Cape Name: N/A

Code Name: Silver

Power rating: Clearance Level 7 required to access, see recommended protocols.

Protocol: DO NOT ENGAGE. If you must engage in combat with Silver DO NOT RUN, play dead. If she is truly angry run and seek what will feel like an excessive amount of blaster fire for support.

PSYCH: At current status Silver has not entered what we at Watchdog call a MASK scenario, keep it this way. Silver shows very little emotion towards humans, exceptions being of course situational. In a MASK scenario, found via thinker simulation, Silver engaged in cannibalistic tenancies, with a significant loss of life as result, both personnel and civilian. Do not antagonize her.

-End Report-

Subject: Nimi (case53 possible)

Cape Name: Nimi

Code Name: Golem

Power rating: Stanger 0

Protocol: Distract with something childish, ice cream, flowers, etc. Golem is the least likely to hurt someone if they didn't first hurt them or someone else. However, due to the nature of her Stranger power being a weaker, but similar power to code name: Sigbin, see file Sigbin, thinker observation is limited.

-End Report-

PSYCH: Unknown.

Subject: Unknown

Cape Name: Unknown

Code Name: Grim

Power rating: Clearance Level 7 required to access.

Protocol: Prevent Silver, see file code name: Silver, from entering a MASK scenario.

-End Report-
Final note from Watchdog: NEVER ASK US TO INVESTIGATE THE HEBERTS EVER AGAIN. The anti-thinker effect from code name: Sigbin is distributed across most of the Brockton Bay area but is the most concentrated around the cape themselves. Watchdog can continue watching Brockton Bay, but any and all missions involving the Heberts will be ignored. Any request to observe them by thinker methods will be denied.
-Final End Report-

I stare at the barely one page report that has been open on my desktop for the last three days. Rubbing at my leg, I feel my blood pressure rise with my nerves. And God what a document it was.

I turn to look out my windows as both Armsmaster and I wait for Miss Militia to return. A big fat middle finger from Watchdog, I snort under my breath, hearing the tinker behind me stop his mindless fiddling. It resumes after I stay silent. Just like capes, I sneer to myself, willing so much to talk a big talk, but when the shit hits the fan, they abandon us with the mess. " Fucking useless," I hear Armsmaster again look up at me from the little bits of electronics in his hands. I ignore him and continue staring out the window, " do you have anything more to report now that we are more actively monitoring the house?"

I can just barely see his reflection in the glass, he cocks his head, " no, but I have been able to accurately track their movements."

I nod and turn back to him, " and tell me again why you couldn't find any evidence for who put Taylor in that locker, I'd really like to kick their teeth in." I don't feel for the brat, but whoever put her there made them my problem, and I do hate having so much on my plate.

" As I stated before, zero eye witnesses, and the suspects had solid alibis," I watch the cape frown, " for both the incident and the suspected bullying." I watch as his entire body shifts, a finger tucks here, a twitch of his mouth there. Armsmaster is frustrated, I've worked with him for a long time just like Hannah. He is not my friend though, too self-righteous, too rigid.

" And the bio-waste," I raise a brow. It helps him realize I'm indeed asking a question.

" No workable DNA, the entire mass of bio-matter was a tangled mess of various cellular matrix structures," a twitch of his fingers, interest, " it resembles most-like fungal structures, but it still has nothing in common with normal biology." He pauses and looks back down at the piece of circuitry in his hands, a few twitches later and he is gone.

I sigh, to be far Armsmaster always gets like this when an Endbringer attack is happening soon. I push that thought away, if it is not attacking today or tonight then I don't care, one crisis at a time. Speaking of crisis, " have we found Shadow Stalker yet?"

" No, she went missing from the building before lunch," he starts to curse under his breath as he continues working on the latest gadget, " her phone records indicate that she received an outside communication just before she vanished."

"Good enough for an admission of guilt as anything else," I frown. Thankfully the wards weren't briefed on the Hebert situation, an angry ward with a grudge is bad media. An angry ward that knows the name of a cape, and is pissed enough to prepare for said cape, is worse. I know it is probably horrible of me to think that this will be a great information gathering opportunity, but I can't help if I wish I could see the look on the brat's face when she tries something stupid. Hopefully she lives, that way I can rub it in her face and if she doesn't? I sigh as the door to my office opens to reveal a rather pale Hannah, it looks like a single day wasn't enough of a break for her. If Shadow Stalker doesn't survive, I can spin it to get rid of the Heberts entirely. " Ah, Miss Militia," I watch as my friend walks towards my desk, her body stiff, " report."

"Yes, Ma'am," she stands at attention, something tells me that it makes it easier for her. Usually she is incredibly relaxed, at least compared to now. " The evidence of Miss Hebert's case against her school bullies is pretty solid, the pictures are damning and the months worth of notebooks are as well."

"She kept notebooks, plural," I watch Armsmaster look up from his work, the frown on his face just subtly towards horror rather than upset. Good he is starting to understand just how much he fucked things up, if I had my way, he would be investigated for corruption too. " She had evidence and she didn't give me it." Or maybe he didn't get it. I watch as Armsmaster starts to pace, " I've been chasing the facts of this case, her case, to dead ends for weeks in my free time," he has free time? " And she had leads, why didn't she hand over this evidence before hand," the accusation in his voice was mechanical, not emotionless like the word would suggest, but he was breathing in time with his talking. Probably the most efficient outburst in the world, I cough drawing his attention.

"Did you ask about evidence," my voice is cool, god I hate working with children...

"No, but I-"

"Did you try and recruit the newly back from the dead cape, before or after she asked about the case against her bullies?"

"Before, but it was important to be firs-"

Hannah interrupts him, "Colin, you just asked a girl a bunch of hard questions, a person that went through severe trauma and probably more on an autopsy table, she probably forgot in her haste for you to leave." Hannah is looking at him, as she gives him a deadpan look, "did you at least try to talk with the victim again for a better interview?"

"I...no?" Armsmaster takes a seat back in his chair, it creaks as he puts his weight on it, "I never thought of that..."

"You've been doing better with social interactions lately, but you should probably apologize to her later, at an appropriate time."

I nod at Hannah's handling of his outburst, she'll make a good leader for her group once it's her time, but back to the real reason we are here. " What can you tell me about the Heberts, I know you know how small their file is. What are their temperaments, do they act...rational."

I watch as the woman flinches behind her mask, her eyes noticeably distant for a few seconds, the green light of her power flicking between one or two weapons. A Glock and then a large knife. " I have concerns..."

Reading the comments of the previous chapter, SensibleMalarkey how on earth did you predict that Miss Militia was going to have "concerns..." practically word for word?

Tumultuous_Anxiety · Mar 13, 2021

Short one...but fun...

My skin shifts as the glint of blades hide back inside me. I lower my hand back to my side, a smile on my face.

" Taylor was just adorable today," I giggle to her. My prey on the ground is quickly picked up and placed in my canvas sack. The large orange cat smelled heavy of cancers. Poor thing, the streets were not kind to you. I tuck in the dead feline next to the six large rats also in the sack. " You should have been there..."

The dark limb of her body places another dead rat into the sack, along with over a dozen cockroaches. "Oh, thank you dear, did you find any dead wood, our baby Swarm sure does love her "vegetables"," I giggle the gurgling of her laughter joining me, "you really should meet them."

She goes silent, but I can still understand. "No, I'm sure that Danny would love to see you, and you under sell yourself, your gorgeous."

Silence, another black arm comes out and places a hollow log inside the bag. I sigh, shifting from side to side in my dark grey jumpsuit. It had "stains" from previous hunts, but as far as disguises go it would do. All though considering it is an unlabeled janitor's outfit, that is a bit small on me, it doesn't leave a lot to the imagination. I think I look great in it, I'm sure that my husband would find it hot too. "Just like you."

I stare at the silent dark shape looking back at me from the alleyway, the mid-afternoon sun hidden by dark winter clouds. Yet even that small amount of light keeps her in the shadows. "It's not fair to hide from him, it isn't fair that he is all mine...he's yours too you know."

I watch her make herself small as a person walks by the alleyway entrance, jumpy as ever. " Our daughters will need us especially after today," I watch as she stretches and grows, the two glints of white appear in her face, " I'm going to be teaching again, and the school is alright with my "cape" stuff as well as my looks. I don't want Taylor to be all alone again, like she was before." She and I shudder as we remember the two years we sat and watched. Suffering, the two most important people in our heart suffering and all we could do was watch.

The cold streets blow a hollow breeze as we both stew in our mixed feelings. We are so hungry with them...

Never again...

She is silent, and I am listening. "Well, you'll never know until you come out from hiding in our walls," I smirk as a thought crosses my mind, "don't you want to see how cute our Danny will look pressed in-between us?"

She retreats in embarrassment as I laugh at my other all the way home...

To find my daughters, wrapped around a very red Lisa as Danny comes walking down the steps with his gun. Oh, dear I was gone for maybe forty minutes...I forgot to get mushrooms. I walk back out of the house, ignoring the pleas for help from my silly daughters...

PHO is taking a bit so here is a little something something for you to think about...

Tumultuous_Anxiety · Mar 14, 2021

Side plot stuff...still hope you guys find it interesting....

From the associated work of Undead by Dr. Amon Morgan...

The most common of all undead are incorporeals. In other words: ghost, phantoms, wraiths, etc. of the order Ectoplasmus, order Violentus for poltergeis, banshees, hauntings, etc., order Obiectum for animate puppets, animate skeletons, and the like. Essentially the all of the Class Praesentia, Phylum Incorporeus. As said previously in many chapters before, the classification of the undead is largely superfluous as it only helps in describing general concepts about how we organize the undead as the living. However, it should be noted that almost everyone who dies has a chance to become a creature from this class without outside influence from another undead...

I look up at the thing sitting in the chair across from my desk. Long straight black hair, pale skin that looks shimmery, and a long adult white tee-shirt on its female 12 to 13 year old body. How much more of a stereotype could you get. Sure, it gave me a small jump in my old heart when I looked up to see it sitting there. Now though? The dark eyes stare at me from between the curtain of hair draping across its face. I roll my own and go back to reading.

...While the method of rising from the grave is still unknown, what is known is that the undead are incredibly dangerous, especially those for the order Violentus and Ectoplasmus. Undead from these order only ever appear if they are either old or powerful, but in either case they are most-likely insane...

"She still misses you..."

I sigh at the noise and look back up at-

An adult woman sat naked in the chair, her flesh fried and flayed sexless, but I could still tell who it is. Her hair from before is gone, replacing it the charred and rubbed raw scalp of a burn victim. Her arms are skeletal and show just how wasted the body had been at her death. A wicked grin stretches across her face at my recognition, her missing lower lip showing off her burnt teeth. " Hello, Dr. Morgan did you miss me?"

My heart clenched at the voice, broken and cracked but strong, confident. I could smell smoke and other immoral things, familiar smells. I compose myself with the practiced ease, this is not the first ghost I've seen. Technically this is the fifth, I knew this one after all so it shouldn't be added to the count. " Hello, Elaine, your looking...fresh."

" Oh, but don't I?" Elaine passes a black tongue across destroyed lips, " I was feeling sentimental, I look exactly how I did when you last saw me... alive."

I ignore the screams in my head as I try to forget that expedition. "Well, I'm fine thank you Dr. Morgan, I was great student and I'm so well learned in my field now. Plus, after getting my revenge, I can do this now."

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!"

The room and walls catch fire as soon as she snapped her fingers. The plastic cover of my desk melts to my hands as I scream in agony. The witch snaps her fingers making the entire burning room extinguish, her laughter no longer drowned out by the flames.

"Weeeeeeeee, that was fun!"

"What do you want Elain," my voice was weak as the large boils on my hands felt like acid to my flesh.

" Well, I'm here answering Moryt's call to arms of course," she leans forward her feet kicking in back and forth as she rocks, " Everybody is coming, although it is a shame that the current catastrophe that is humanity made it hard for the, oh what do you call it physical?"

"Corporeal," I frown at my former student. She knows the answer, even if it has been close to forty years since she died, she was a very bright student. My hands hurt...I'll need to visit the infirmary... later.

"That's the one!" She smirks, " the corporeals are having a rough time with the barrier, wall thing that the capes built to keep London contained. So, too bad it won't be till awhile before Kathrine get inside."

I tighten my hands into fists despite the pain of my popping flesh, "how is she?"

Elain's face softens, "well you know Dullahan's, burying her in her ancestral home in Ireland like she asked was a great call. She looks good in uniform, and her hair grew back, although red fiery hair made of literal fire is probably cheating."

"Is she actually coming here," I don't think I'm ready to open that old wound.

"Yep," Elain's smile is sadistic, "soon you will have a thirty-year-old spitfire of a woman back in your life. Speaking of age, it's been a while Amon you look old, it looks good on you." The genuine smile on her face hurts more than the burns even if a few of my new boils definitely burst, what is a few more scars? "Sooooo, how's Sawtooth?"

"Underwater mostly, but the school has been kept going."

"Oooooo, you should hire me, you know to teach a class, I am an expert now," Elain smiles, back to rocking back and forth.

"My students do not need to learn about witchcraft, Elain."

"Oh, please," the hand she waves at me smokes, "it's nothing like the bible, there are no deals with demons or anything, just a little exposure to some mana, a fire for example."

"Elain, no."

I watch as the wraith witch giggles, it sounds like burning wood, " oh well, how's Moryt?"

"Married."

"Oooooo, who's the lucky ghoul?"

"Human and Heather is permanently disfigured by his affections."

"Ouch, they happy together?"

I remember that as soon as Heather calmed down long enough for the doctor say she was healthy, just for her to go back to Moryt's containment and beat him until he needed medical attention. The fact that the two of them made up with each other is still the most bizarre thing I've ever seen. Guess I probably shouldn't have told her he was sorry. "Yes, as much as a Ghoul relationship can be happy, yes I think so."

"How's the staff, I notice at least five incorporeals skulking around the place, that is five more undead then this place is used to."

"We are quite well-armed against anyone who wishes to start something," I would like to see the undead start something with as many artifacts and tomes in this place.

"Don't worry about it, I'm crazy, but even I know that this is a serious gathering." Elain looks at one of the books resting on the bookshelves of my office, they are completely unburnt. "I know that you don't know what is going on Amon, but this is big. There are other armies all across the world forming rank, they aren't here to fight each other either. This is a world war, but we have no idea who our enemy is. We just know that if we lose it will send ripples back through time, disrupting the spirit world at large."

"Armies need a general, do you know who?"

"Nope," a crazed smile crosses her face, "but I hope I get to burn their enemies, it would be nice to have a purpose again..."

I nod, another vague answer to who is summoning an undead army, but a ripple through the afterlife, well...I can probably tell what species of undead is responsible. That is not a good sign for the fate of humanity, "anything humanity can do to help?"

"Besides dying and joining rank," Elain rest her chin on her hand, an exaggerated expression of thinking. She then drops all friendly pretense she has towards me, leaning forward across my desk as she instantly appears in front of it. "Stay out of our way."

Tumultuous_Anxiety · Mar 17, 2021

This took forever, by the way meet PHO's version of you guys...you know fellow undead enthusiasts...

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■

♦Topic: Brockton Bay Cape News
In: Boards ► News ► Brockton Bay

Atila_The_Bun (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (Cape Groupie)
Posted on January 1, 2011:

Since the last thread got cut due to post limit I thought I would restart it here, so here it is: Brockton Bay Cape News Jan 2011th edition.
remember the rules:
1.) must relate to Brockton Bay
2.) must involve cape shenanigans
3.) nothing off topic is allowed(even if it is impossible to stop)
Alright enjoy!

(Showing Page 53 of 100)

...

► Causal_beans (Veteran Member) (PRN)
Replied on January 5, 2011:
Hey one of my friends in the morgue where I work at saw something strange today. kept saying that a corpse ran out of the building yesterday...

Anybody else got any news about a Lazarus walking around.

► Wata_Joke
Replied on January 5, 2011:
Woah, seriously. No I haven't seen anything about something like that? Where does your friend work?

► FredFried (Veteran Member) (EMT)
Replied on January 5, 2011:
Oh yeah I did hear something about that from the boys, apparently some one woke up mid-autopsy, at Bay General North I think.

► Causal_beans (Veteran Member) (PRN)
Replied on January 5, 2011:
Okay cool, so my friend hasn't lost it.

They wouldn't tell me too much about it, kept telling me that he didn't want to upset Panacea.

I guess we got a rogue body, cape or zombie cape is the real question...

► rats_in_the_wall
Replied on January 5, 2011:
A zombie? @Causal_beans

Okay people are going to think I'm joking, but I saw something weird today too.

I was at the boardwalk earlier today, it snowed today so I was pretty bundled up. So I'm just walking along enjoying my day off you usual stuff, and then I see it. It was standing on the snow covered beach, barefoot. If you live here you know how cold it was today. Well it threw me off, but I shook it off you know could be just some junky right. But then I notice it was holding something, a fish, a live fish. Now at this point I figured that I would stick around and see if I could see something else. I was pretty far from them so I figured it was safe...

It was tall, dark haired, and really pale grey. I watched as it climbed away from the beach, with the fish in hand still wriggling. It tried to enter a few cafes only to be turned away, no shoes right. So instead of sitting in the café, it perches on the bench and starts to eat the fish.

I was transfixed in no small amount of horror as it ate the still moving fish, looking like Gollum. Still, and yes it hurts me to say this, kind of normal for Brockton. But then it suddenly stops and starts chasing after some blonde chick, and I mean with long legs like that I was still shocked at how fast it could move!

So I very much need someone to tell me what I saw, and please don't say zombie..

► yellLOUDER
Replied on January 5, 2011:

@rats_in_the_wall Dude lay off the sauce

► ParaPeople (Cape Groupie)
Replied on January 5, 2011:
@Causal_beans @FredFried @rats_in_the_wall I just made a new thread for this [link]

because I saw something too...

...

End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 51, 52, 53, 54, 55 ... 98 , 99, 100

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♦Topic: Brockton Bay Zombie Girl
In: Boards ► Brockton Bay

ParaPeople (Original Poster) (Cape Groupie)
Posted on January 4, 2011:

If you are wondering what this is [link] this is where it started from.

So on Jan 4th I saw the zombie girl, one they very much are a girl, just really skinny I think. Two they act very odd like even for people in this town odd.

So I saw her on my bus ride home, I have a late shift just before the last buses run. so it is getting dark out and the bus is nearly empty so I take a seat. The bus is about to take off when she shows up. The bus driver lets her on despite her only wearing a hospital gown, her ass was hanging out and everything, bare foot too. I wasn't able to get a picture because one I'm not a pervert, but I can describe what she looks like.
Her skin was a very pale grey, she had long dark hair. I think it was brown, but it looked black. Her eyes were milky like maybe she was blind? but her lips were grey almost bluish. She also walked funny, like she was sort of pretending to walk like it wasn't how she normally moved.

So anyways discuss.

(Showing Page 1 of 25)

► Causal_beans (Veteran Member) (PRN)
Replied on January 4, 2011:
First!

► ParaPeople (Original Poster) (Cape Groupie)
Replied on January 4, 2011:
very funny

► rats_in_the_wall
Replied on January 4, 2011:
I guess we just have to wait for more people now...

So, assuming that this isn't one of the signs of the apocalypses. We can assume that this is probably some form of cape right?

So what do you think her powers are, my votes in Mover, because she could move.

► FredFried (Veteran Member) (EMT)
Replied on January 4, 2011:
I step away for thirty minutes to rescue a life and you have already made a new thread.

*clap clap*

But seriously this kind of stuff is pretty common for cape types especially ones that have slow regeneration powers. Maybe she is just one of those, no use in throwing around the word zombie.

► Mad_Max78
Replied on January 5, 2011:
I am a bus driver for brockton, and I was just scrolling through the threads, and found this one.

yeah I've heard at least two drivers mention something like that get on the bus. Pale white, dark hair, and glassy eyes grey like their blind. one said she was nude, but I think they were full of it..

What I saw was a lot different then those, I got the whole big green monster too.

It was my last shift for this week, because they have us on rotation due to losing buses to cape stuff. Anyways I'm on this shift and pull up to a bus stop. I thought it would be a normal stop, and from the way they were sitting at the stop I would have never of seen them. But as I pull up the strange entourage showed up.

One of them was our mystery zombie girl, pale with the dead eyes. Also could have been just the light but she looked like she had something red around her mouth. I didn't notice her breathing either, but it could have been just shallow.

They were with a normal person too, blonde kind of pretty.

The last one was huge, were talking top of the bus huge, she had to stoop before she could enter the damn bus. And get this one-eyed, like she wasn't missing an eye she only had a single eye. Big and red with black whites. Built like an athlete too, she was ripped. Kind of jealous of it too.

So Zombie? I don't think so either, much more likely they just capes...

► Wata_Joke
Replied on January 5, 2011:
Damn, was really hoping for zombies, be a nice change of pace.

does this mean we're going to have to change the thread title?

► storks_for_dogs
Replied on January 7, 2011:
Hey I didn't see this until just now.

Big and green was something to see at the docks on Wednesday

I watched it run past me with a whole bunch of cars chasing it, didn't look like police either, just black SUVs.

...

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► dead_one (Zombie Hunter)
Replied on January 12, 2011:
Yo, just saw something in an alley way across my street. I think it is the older one, with the brown hair...

It was chasing after something, and dressed in some jumpsuit I think.

I tried to get a picture off, but damn she is so fast...

► nonsensicalSerious (Cape Groupie) (Zombie Hunter)
Replied on January 12, 2011:
Okay we know from past sightings that the older one is much more dangerous than the other ones.

@dead_one just stay still and don't follow her or she'll start following you

also this makes the fifth sighting so congrats team, we're getting better at figuring out their pattern!

► storks_for_dogs (Zombie Hunter)
Replied on January 12, 2011:
Yay!

► FredFried (Veteran Member) (EMT) (Zombie Hunter)
Replied on January 12, 2011:
Okay do we still have any idea on what they were doing at Brockton General? I do know that some of the PRT was their for it, but I couldn't ask around too much.

Also congrats!

► Causal_beans (Veteran Member) (PRN) (Zombie Hunter)
Replied on January 12, 2011:
Forget the hospital, we still don't know about some of the other twos activities. Like why are they always around places that people don't normally visit. Kmart_Diver has been tracking them for the last week across the Graveyard.

► Kmart_Diver (Urban Explorer) (Zombie Hunter)
Replied on January 12, 2011:
@Causal_beans and @nonsensicalSerious

just got back to my den in the sewers to see this post. So far I've tracked them all across the graveyard and to several abandoned malls or stores. As far as I can tell they either don't know I'm there or don't care.

My findings are thusly, if it is the green or the young one, the blonde normal is usually with them on these things. From what I could see with binoculars it doesn't look like a prisoner situation.

If it is the older one, don't run @dead_one, she definitely knows you are there. The few time that I ran into her were not pleasant, I mean she is nice, but she likes to chase. Most of the time if I see I've been spotted I just laid down and let her walk by me. She actually knows my name so she usually will greet me if I am close enough for talking.

I think that there might be a fourth one too. I haven't seen anything like another zombie or something. But sometimes I'll see something dark flash past me, even had it tap my shoulder once or twice.

I haven't been on here in a while, so I'm asking the "science team" for their findings...

► nonsensicalSerious (Cape Groupie) (Zombie Hunter)
Replied on January 12, 2011:
@Kmart_Diver
welcome back explorer

So the science team has found out this so far.

1.) the blonde one is most definitely a normal

2.) the diet of the zombies consists of bugs, mushrooms, and flowers. We had people observe them eating other things when the blonde is not present, these are mostly road kill so gross stuff.

3.) the older one has been seen climbing walls, and running around. Yeah we figured out that she does like to chase us around, but we've never talked to her so points to the explorer team.

4.) we think that the young zombie fought Glory Girl and won? Honestly it is just a hunch, the young one always seems to drink blood, and GG was at the hospital last week from a cape fight, cause blood loss.

We know that they are intelligent, and possibly a cape family, but their actions suggest some animal-like habits. Considering that they were at the hospital yesterday and the PRT was there it seems more likely that they are just weird capes, but until they come out as capes or rogues standard operations will treat them as zombies! Glory to the Undead Horde!

► Kmart_Diver (Urban Explorer) (Zombie Hunter)
Replied on January 12, 2011:
I remember why I don't like coming on here

I'm going back out, maybe I'll bring some road kill with me as a peace offering. @dead_one good luck with the older one, remember to be respectful and just lay down.

► dead_one (Zombie Hunter)
Replied on January 12, 2011:
it is dark, my phone is the only light I have and she just walked by me. Welp see you guys, cause I'm dead...
...

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(Showing Page 14 of 25)

► dead_one (Zombie Hunter) (Not Dead)
Replied on January 15, 2011:
So hey guys sorry for the scare, uh I'm alive I've just been in the hospital.

Now that sounds bad, but really it was from hypothermia not bodily mutilation or something. I got really great news though, I met the older one! Although we should probably call her by her given alias, Silver. She was really nice too, very happy to explain what she was doing out there when I told her about our group here. It really is just hunting by the way, her family, pack as she called it, are omnivorous decomposers. That was the connection they eat dead stuff!

► nonsensicalSerious (Cape Groupie) (Zombie Hunter) (Science Team)
Replied on January 15, 2011:
Holy shit your alive! Thank god!

► Causal_beans (Veteran Member) (PRN) (Zombie Hunter) (Hospital Scanner)
Replied on January 15, 2011:
Oh hey @dead_one your back! Sorry about the hypothermia, how did that happen?

► storks_for_dogs (Zombie Hunter)
Replied on January 15, 2011:
Glad to see you not dead @dead_one

► Wata_Joke (Zombie Hugger)
Replied on January 15, 2011:
Yo, glad to see you on here again @dead_one

► dead_one (Not Dead) (Zombie Hunter)
Replied on January 15, 2011:
Awww, thanks you guys.

@Causal_beans I got hypothermia from walking around with Silver.

after I took Kmart_Diver's advice and laid down in the snow, Silver decided to be a little talkative. So naturally I told her about our group, and then she decided to let me follow her around. It was cool(cold), but I don't recommend it if you have a weak stomach...road kill is even worse when you watch it get eaten.

So I have a better description of her as well as a few more facts we can add to the list. Also @Kmart_Diver when you see this she said hi.

okay description: She is tall maybe 5'11", her hair color is brown and she is white. her eye color is a lot like the younger one greyed out, she isn't blind though like we thought, but at times she acted like she didn't need them as much. She looked to be in her thirties maybe early forty's, honestly she was still working it so I could be wrong. Her teeth were normal looking, but I think that they are probably really sharp. And while I couldn't see wear she got a kitchen knife at one point, I also didn't see it on them before it appeared.
I also asked her some basic questions.

Is she a cape? Maybe, she said yes, but it was sarcastic like she wasn't but is pretending to be.

does she eat human flesh? Not right now...

is she infectious? Nope...

are you mad that we are stalking you? As long as you don't get in the way, it's fine.

how much do you eat? more than what my daughter thinks...

and that was all I got out of her, so science team thoughts?

► nonsensicalSerious (Cape Groupie) (Zombie Hunter) (Science Team)
Replied on January 15, 2011:
Why did she pick the name silver?

► Silv3r (dead) (Real Zombie) (Necro Account)
Replied on January 15, 2011:
@nonsensicalSerious because it was my old PHO username

► FriedFred (Veteran Member) (EMT) (Zombie Hunter)
Replied on January 15, 2011:
WOAH

► rats_in_the_wall (Zombie Hunter)
Replied on January 15, 2011:
Holy Fuck, dead account, she has a dead account!

► ParaPeople (Original Poster) (Cape Groupie) (Zombie Hunter)
Replied on January 15, 2011:
THE FUCK!

► Causal_beans (Veteran Member) (PRN) (Zombie Hunter)
Replied on January 15, 2011:
Okay fine, sure fine, its totally fine...

► Wata_Joke (Zombie Hugger)
Replied on January 15, 2011:
Hello scary lady!

► storks_for_dogs (Zombie Hunter)
Replied on January 15, 2011:
I have just one word, How?

Necro'd Accounts are locked off to everyone unless you are given an email pass code. Their meant for people to discover if someone went missing or is dead...dudes I think- is this real life?

► Silv3r (dead) (Real Zombie) (Necro Account)
Replied on January 15, 2011:
@storks_for_dogs very real...

So internet, having fun? Being undead and all has been for me, but I find that all the attention on this site is overrated. Anyways just wanted to stop by to see if any fun could happen, and when I saw dead_one's post I couldn't help but make a dramatic entrance...

► nonsensicalSerious (Cape Groupie) (Zombie Hunter) (Science Team)
Replied on January 15, 2011:
...well at least she isn't mad, right?

...

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► SpecificProtagonist (Cape Groupie)
Replied on January 18, 2011:
oh shit...

► nonsensicalSerious (Cape Groupie) (Zombie Hunter)
Replied on January 18, 2011:
yeah you said it SpecificProtagonist, but I still think that Silv3r is not telling us the full story...

► Tottles_ (Cape Groupie) (Zombie Hugger)
Replied on January 18, 2011:
I don't know what you mean she was pretty clear in her last posts about multi-instance thinking. She can separate her conscious into multiple pieces, but unless there is a body that's hers she can't think with two brains.

Makes sense to me after all you can't think with two brains if you only have one.

► Kmart_DIver (Urban Explorer) (Zombie Hunter) (Ghost Whisperer)
Replied on January 18, 2011:
But that still doesn't explain how she can remember multiple things that other parts don't remember.

you need a brain to store information too, not just do problem solving.

► dead_one (Not Dead) (Zombie Hugger) (Ghost Whisperer)
Replied on January 18, 2011:
It has to do with the animus she talked about, it is the reason that she can manipulate her knives without having full control over her cellular stuff, like her kids

► nonsensicalSerious (Cape Groupie) (Zombie Hunter)
Replied on January 18, 2011:
I still think that she is pulling our leg with her terminology, "just knowing" the stuff is a stupid reason.
And why does the daughter not know the things z-mom knows?

► FriedFred (Veteran Member) (EMT) (Zombie Hunter)
Replied on January 18, 2011:
@nonsensicalSerious no idea, but maybe it has to do with time being dead? Z-mom was dead for years, where as little-z was only dead for a couple weeks. It could also be what z-mom said about her daughter not smelling right.

As for her daughter's other maybe this is simply a more advanced form of spectreal-antigenesis. God these terms...

► Causal_beans (Veteran Member) (PRN) (Zombie Hunter) (Hospital Scanner)
Replied on January 18, 2011:
@FriedFred I know right

the simple fact that she has an almost text book of information in her head, full of facts and vocabulary is reason enough to believe it. No one writes this amount of stuff for fun...

► Wata_Joke (Zombie Hugger)
Replied on January 18, 2011:
@Causal_beans clearly you've never read 40k

but I agree, the pseudo-scientific terminology is extensive, but it is also incomplete. She has theories not just facts, that makes it sound much more like science...

► storks_for_dog (Zombie Hunter)
Replied on January 18, 2011:
Yo, have you losers been paying attention to the news?

► Kmart_Diver (Urban Explorer) (Zombie Hunter) (Ghost Whisperer)
Replied on January 18, 2011:
need I remind you that I live underground?

► stork_for_dogs (Zombie Hunter)
Replied on January 18, 2011:
Says the one responding over the internet...

Anyways, Skidmark and Mush were taken out last night and the PRT introduced a new team. No name but read the physical description.

► nonsensicalSerious (Cape Groupie) (Zombie Hunter) (Science Team)
Replied on January 18, 2011:
Oh shit!

► Wata_Joke (Zombie Hugger)
Replied on January 18, 2011:
Hell yeah go team Undead!

...

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(Showing Page 43 of 50)

► Silv3r (dead) (Real Zombie) (Necro Account)
Replied on January 23, 2011:
So if any of you see those three please tell me, I'm going to be busy for the next few hours, and I am worried...

► nonsensicalSerious (Cape Groupie) (Zombie Hunter) (Science Team)
Replied on January 23, 2011:
Okay you heard the dead woman, chop chop we got her dead kids and their friend to find!

...

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(Showing Page 45 of 50)

► nonsensicalSerious (Cape Groupie) (Zombie Hunter) (Science Team)
Replied on January 23, 2011:
Anything?

► Wata_Joke (Zombie Hunter)
Replied on January 23, 2011:
Nope

► stork_for_dogs (Zombie Hunter)
Replied on January 23, 2011:
nothing on my end

► Kmart_Diver (Urban Explorer) (Zombie Hunter) (Ghost Whisperer)
Replied on January 23, 2011:
So I've been all over the graveyard and a few of their usual haunts, but I haven't seen them. I have however seen some weird shadows moving in the darkness, looked like hands, but they disappeared as I approached. So yeah other than that nothing...

► Silv3r (dead) (Real Zombie) (Necro Account)
Replied on January 23, 2011:
Well thanks for looking, but they came home earlier today.

Also, congratulations are in order. I am now the proud mother of three daughters.

► FriedFred (Veteran Member) (EMT) (Zombie Hunter)
Replied on January 23, 2011:
Oh hey congrats!

► ParaPeople (Original Poster) (Cape Groupie) (Zombie Hunter)
Replied on January 23, 2011:
Oh cool, another other or did you actually give birth?

► Silv3r (dead) (Real Zombie) (Necro Account)
Replied on January 23, 2011:
other

► nonsensicalSerious (Cape Groupie) (Zombie Hunter) (Science Team)
Replied on January 23, 2011:
Congrats, but how many children do you want?

► Silv3r (dead) (Real Zombie) (Necro Account)
Replied on January 23, 2011:
More...so many more...

...

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(Showing Page 50 of 50)

► Umbr4
Replied on February 7, 2011:
you're all idiots.

► rats_in_the_wall (Zombie Hunter)
Replied on February 7, 2011:
@Umbr4 oh this will be good..

► Tottles_ (Zombie Hugger)
Replied on February 7, 2011:
Yeah lets hear it, our little group has heard it all...

► Umbr4
Replied on February 7, 2011:
you guys are messing with a dangerous predator

► Umbr4
Replied on February 7, 2011:
She's a cape that can eat you, and your just talking to it. Please it is just gathering information on you guys, I bet it already knows where most of you live

► dead_one (Not Dead) (Zombie Hugger) (Ghost Whisperer)
Replied on February 7, 2011:
Well duh she knows were most of us live, that is the point. Hell she shows up unannounced at my house sometimes to check up on me.

► Umbr4
Replied on February 7, 2011:
All just a smokescreen, she just wants to make sure that her food is still where she keeps it.

► Kmart_Diver (Urban Explorer) (Zombie Hunter) (Ghost Whisperer)
Replied on February 7, 2011:
This is the shit I get back to?

Yo, asshole, while it pains me to agree with anyone with a Zombie Hugger tag, I have to disagree with you entirely.

Silv3r sometimes hangs out with me for half-hour intervals, in my sewer den. Fuck she helped me with clearing out some of the more vicious rat nest, so what if she ate it? I like her and I'm still going to like her when you leave.

► storks_for_dogs (Zombie Hunter)
Replied on February 7, 2011:
yeah go fuck yourself @Umbr4

She's met my mom, and hit it off with her, posing as a teacher of mine. She scares away gangsters and druggies in my neighborhood just by being scary. She's the coolest!

► nonsensicalSerious (Cape Groupie) (Zombie Hunter)
Replied on February 7, 2011:
You are out numbered here @Umbr4, go bother your failing relationship with your parents

► Umbr4
Replied on February 7, 2011:
You all are weak idiots and easy prey, some hunters you are. You should be looking for her house and burning it to the ground with her hell spawn inside with her. Her weak ass daughters probably would just get in her way, as she slaughters you al-

--------User has received a Permanent Ban---------------------------------------
Tin_mother: I have know idea what is going on here in this thread, but threats of violence(inspired or otherwise) are strictly prohibited, you have been banned.

► ParaPeople (Original Poster) (Cape Groupie) (Zombie Hunter)
Replied on February 7, 2011:
@Tin_mother Thanks

@Zombie_Hunter What was their problem?

...

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I growl, ignoring the whimper behind me, as the site locks me out and closes on me. Stupid Hebert, I get up from my chair at the filthy desk, the computer sparking as I put a bolt in it, thinking she is better. Bitch needs to learn her place...

I look over at the whimpering prey in the corner, Madison Clements a sheep in wolves clothing. I grin from behind my mask as I bring up my crossbow, a spineless shit who needs to know who is boss...

My grin breaks into a smile, as the weakling grows a puddle in her little corner. One bolt won't hurt...

I mostly had to do this by hand and I then redid it all with the PHO Generator...god please hate this chapter so I never have to write with the inferior BB text editors. The fuck is wrong with

!

Tumultuous_Anxiety · Mar 19, 2021

So, I got accepted into grad school today...have a chapter, I'm going to explode in the corner...

I did not loom over her...

The room is silent except for her breathing. A gentle in and out, the rise and fall of her chest hypnotic to me. The halo of golden hairs around her head as she slept, a pretty meal all wrapped up for me.

I lean forward across Lisa's body, as I stand beside her bed, she smells heavenly. I'm very hungry and my girlfriend is so cute lying in the bed before me. I try not to giggle at the thought, girlfriend...she said yes, and now were dating! My hair coils and rolls with happy movements at the thought of connection. I stare at the breathing form, my many eyes glued to the rise and fall. She is turned away from me tonight which is different from last night and, oh god, her expressions during her sleep are adorable!

Lisa told us that we could start dating last Tuesday, all it would take from me is to trust her with everything, all my secrets. It hasn't been the easiest task for me, but after finishing on Wednesday I have now told Lisa everything about school, Emma, and my personal thoughts. The teasing was terrible, but ultimately worth it as I now have Lisa. We all do...

I look up as she starts to roll and move, the soft sounds of her sleepy mouth so cute. This is really just for me, Lisa doesn't know that I have been doing this every night, and yeah, yeah, I know that Lisa has to know all of my secrets. I watch as my girlfriend pouts in her sleep, I'll tell her later-

" You know, Swarm was less of a coward about climbing in bed with me," I freeze at the sound of Lisa's very awake voice, shit! " So, how long have you been standing there?"

"....a few hours."

"Mmmhmm," I watch as Lisa rolls over eyes wide open to stare at me. I shrink back at the cold stare, she looks disappointed. "And how many days have you been doing that."

".......since Tuesday."

"And who has Nimi been able to snuggle with?" Now I can hear the disappointment.

"I- Swarm," Nimi has been understanding about my nightly activities, but I know that she misses me in bed with her, and our nightly ghost stuff. I shrink in guilt more as my hair's teeth click together.

The shifting of sheets draws my eyes as Lisa pulls the covers back, her pajama clad back facing towards me. "Well get in we should talk about it."

I try to climb in carefully, but as soon as I am lying with her at a respectful distance Lisa scoots back into me. My body reacts before I can apologize, arms wrap around her shorter body as I press up against her back. She is so warm, and my body relaxes with the heat, my heart starts beats to the rhythm of hers. " Your cold," Lisa grunts.

"Sorry," I press my mouth into the back of her neck, "your warm."

"....I was over heating in here anyways," her voice is soft even as she presses back into me harder, "so want to talk about it?"

"Nimi misses me at night," I wrap my legs over hers, "but we both want to be in here with you...all of us do."

"All three of you have done nothing but stay home with me for the last six days," her hand rest across my arm on her stomach, the stroking feels good, "and our beds are both too small."

"Sorry, we can stop if you think we are being too clingy," I frown into her neck, I don't really want to, but I can if she needs it.

"N-nno, it's fine I-," Lisa warms up against me, "I kind of like the closeness, I've haven't had it in a long time..."

I smile at her nervousness, I'm embarrassed too. I still nuzzle into her neck, a warm hum rising in my chest. "You still need to spend time with her more than me, she is another you after all. She is mentally younger than you too, she needs her older sibling." She strokes my new scar on my hand, a shiver of pleasure shoots through me.

"I know," I sigh, undead hair coiling around us, "I just don't want to forget your here again." Tuesday was horrible and scary, I was so upset that I couldn't recognize anyone until Lisa reminded me who she was. I shake my head to dislodge the experience.

I feel Lisa pause in my musings, her hand gripping my arm. "Tell me what you've been thinking while you ignored sleep watching me." I hesitate to tell her my thoughts, they're not- Lisa what are you doing with my arm?

I feel Lisa lift my arm off of her stomach and hold it to her lips. Oh, okay...I-I can tell her stuff, I uuuuuuuuuh. Lisa's teeth rest over the top of my flesh, and she starts to gently nibble.

"Aoooooh," the keaning moan forces its way out of my mouth as I scramble mentally to tell her everything, "I-I waaas think-king aaabout how c-c-cute you loo-k-k, and-d-d." I am panting into her neck as Lisa gently bites without breaking the skin. She has been doing it that way all week, it is less intense than Tuesday for her, I think. " And-d how delicious you look, haaah Lisaaaa!"

Lisa removes my arm from her mouth, pressing an open lipped smile into the bite. "You three make such the nicest noises when I bite you," she kisses my arm, "and you think I'm delicious, flatterer." I try to calm my body as it ripples with joy and excitement, the semi-instinctual panting slows as Lisa rolls over in my grip to face me. Our pajama buttons slide over each other with the movement, her nose it touching mine and my legs are tangled with hers. "You need to sleep, Nimi needs you to at least do that, your ghost time with your others are more important than you watching me sleep Taylor," she pauses and kisses my lips, "I think that it should rotate every night, Nimi, Swarm, then you, at least until we can get a bigger bed, okay?"

I nod, and she pushes me down into her chest. It reminds me of Nimi and suddenly I feel like crying as I drift into the ghostly plane. Lisa sleeping in the bed with me.

Here out of my body and with my two others, I am swarmed with hugs, kisses, and petting. I laugh from my end of our souls, I've miss this too. I know the red one smiles and feels good to wrap around me. A shadow creeps happily around us, it grips at us, we gladly grip back. Through Taylor body we feel Lisa, our Lisa, the one who owns us. Her soft warm body feels pleasant to us, as does the life thrumming through her. We want her with us...here, but we can wait. She deserves a happy and full life first, then she can join us closer than close once it is complete. We will be here for that after party...

I flutter back into consciousness, my long night with my others reviewing biology and sharing thoughts done. The room is quiet with the warm breathing over my face the only sound. This is nice...

Why are my fingers wet? I feel biological processes move and react, exchange of nutrients and proteins, a DNA that is at once familiar...

My eyes open and I'm treated to a wide-eyed Lisa staring back, my fingers in her mouth as she holds my hand by the wrist. My brain misfires as I watch her deer in the headlights routine. "Uh Lisa, what'cha doing?"

Lisa's teeth tighten down as she focuses in on my eyes, her green meets my silver, even as I try my hardest to not vocalize just how nice her teeth feel against my skin. "Oh'hing," Lisa pulls the fingers from her mouth much to both of our disappointments, "I like the taste...your sweet." My face greys even as she reddens making her freckles stand out against her skin. So cute...

"We should go get breakfast..."

"Yes..."

I awkwardly rise out of the bed, the warmth immediately missed as my body returns to the ambient temperature in the room. Lisa gets up after me and walks over to the dresser. As she passed by me, I can smell a faint whiff of her.

She smells-

Lisa lifts off her shirt. I turn as my body runs ashen across my neck and ears, my hair can still see her! "Uh, I'm just going to," I try to close my eyespots as soon as they appear, but my body is fighting me for control. I want to look...The greys of my face deepen. I start for the door, this is too much, and Lisa doesn't want me to perve on her.

I barely making it a half step. "Sit," Lisa's voice is authoritative and strong.

I slump on to the bed and keep my head pointed down at the floor not that it does anything. Lisa has freckles across her nose, this I know because they are really cute. What I didn't know is that she has freckles on her chest too. The bra she puts on are a nice shade of lavender, it pairs well with her skin, god I just saw everything. I look up at her face, I mean if I can't stop myself from looking maybe I can just choose where to look. She turns to look at me, hopelessly peeping at her with eyes formed in my curls, I squeak. That dangerous smirk crosses her face as she slowly slips a sweater over her exposed chest, her eyebrows wiggling as she does it. I can't take it, all that exposed flesh, she is too delicious, her flavor is so strong, and I want to be part of it. Nope, nope, nope, I shake my head as I give up, I have to leave she is too tempting. I hear a slip of her pants...

"Okay, no no no," I roll over onto the bed pulling all of the sheets around me, my hair, and thus all my eyes, are completely covered by it. I hear her pretty laugh, but at least I can't see anything. Wrapped up here in the burrito of shame and embarrassment I am safe. I feel a thump of weight straddle my hips and then something soft lean down on to me.

"Oh, come on out," Lisa's voice says right into my ear, her voice a husky sound, "how can I tease you if you stay all wrapped up?" I feel pressure on my ear as the distinct shape of her lips press against the sensory organ. "I want you to help me pick out what to wear." I shake my head violently, the teeth of my hair running along my curls at a fast pace but dull edge. The thighs trapping my legs squeeze me, her weight full placed down on me as my girlfriend lies on top of me through my protective covers. "Come on, I've seen you, Nimi, and Swarm fully nude already, plus aren't the dead okay with nudity," She breaths over my face through the sheet, "come to think of it, I've seen your mom naked too, she sometimes forgets clothes when she gets out of her hunting stuff you know."

"It's different," my hair is trying to grasp the warmth lying on me, it actually feels good to be under her, she is so soft. Like Nimi...

"Oh really, how is it different," I can hear the smirk from above the covers, "I don't mind showing you, after all I trust you." I squirm at the word trust, Lisa was very clear in this first week of our relationship on trust and the importance of planning.

"Okay so first off if we're going to do this thing, I want us to discuss some things." Me, Swarm, and Nimi sit on our bed as we watch Lisa pace back and forth in front of us. My room felt small, as well as my bed, now that it has four people in it. I stroke my now fully healed but scared hand, I want us to all fit on the bed...

"What sort of things," Nimi, like Swarm and I, is very happy, especially with how yesterday went. Lisa is going to final Hos- Date, she is just dating us for now. I promised, we all did, that we wouldn't push her into it too early.

Lisa stops in front of us, "mostly things about what each of us want out each other in the relationship, it is important to do this given how many members there are." That's probably smart, I look at her to continue. "Will do this one by one, Neems you're first."

"Okay!" Nimi puts a hand on her chin as she thinks about what she wants. We watch as she holds out a hand to Lisa. "I want to hold hands, anytime we are touching, is that okay?"

Lisa nods, "it's a good start, but I need to know more, like who do you want to hold hands with, is that the only touch you like, or do you think that only holding hands is just a special circumstance."

I can feel all three of me think about that, our thoughts being automatically shared as we each think of the same thing. The convergence feels like sleeping, but less. I still become we... "Nimi wants cuddles and snuggling to be frequent among everyone, and it doesn't matter with who, but she prefers to sleep with someone in our Pack," Taylor's words spill from Nimi's mouth as she adds her wants to me, Swarm adds our designations and grammar.

"Pack?"

We hear Taylor's voice come from Swarm, "We are only dating right now, but you are already a Pack member, much like dad and mom. If you become Host, the contract of this relationship will need to be revised."

Lisa looks at us, but slowly nods, " Okay then what does Swarm want?"

Taylor's mouth opens to mouth out the words, but it is through Swarm's body that the words are audible, " Swarm wishes to not be left behind, if we are all going somewhere, she needs to be taken with, and she needs to not be left somewhere. Swarm also wishes to wait for Hosting, even if it has not been stated to happen anytime soon." We pause as we try to think of other things she would want. "...we also would like to engage in kissing."

"Nimi seconds that..."

"So does Taylor..."

Our bodies all show embarrassment, a division of limbs for Swarm, Nimi is sitting in a cloud of spores, and Taylor is greyed out.

Lisa pauses to think over our request, the distant look tells us that her power is in play. "Wait, do you mean like "kissing" kissing, you know the human kind, or do you mean the stuff from yesterday?" Lisa looks pale, but her fingers are twitching.

"Both," we speak in unison.

"I- does it have to be as...violent as yesterday," we feel our heads cock to the side, confused at the question. "Like do I have to drink blood and tear muscle or can I just bite to bruise. Not break the skin or anything."

We look at Lisa while we process that. Lisa doesn't look nervous, she looks anxious. Her fingers are twitching, and she has a subtle shift in her hips. Is she anxious about stuff like that? "Which are you comfortable with?"

Lisa practically jumps at the question, "well, I- don't want to break skin, or at least I need to do it that way. I don't think it is a good idea for me to consider doing that a normal human thing..."

" Okay, we can let you work up to whatever you feel like."

"C-can, can I bite you whenever?"

"Yes...are you okay with us biting back?"

"Only if it is softly, and I get to say no whenever I want."

We nod our heads in full agreement. Slowly we become each of our selves, that was so embarrassing. "Okay what does Taylor want then, it feels like everything, but I would like to get confirmation."

I freeze, without my others here with me I don't have them to help me come up with ideas. What do I want from a relationship? Both Swarm and Nimi have already covered the level of contact we want, even biting. Wouldn't it be too much to ask for more?

"It doesn't have to be physical or something, if it is just emotional support or being given a break from everyone else that is a valid want too," Lisa smiles at me, "the most important thing in any relationship is that you can trust your partners."

"If you didn't want to be teased you should have told me last week," Lisa is smiling I can hear it in her voice, "so tell me why this is working so well, we both know from that conversation that it isn't a sexual thing for the undead, so what?"

I notice the bait she set with that, and yeah, it's true, I really have no interest in "sex" sex. I was nervous about explaining that to Lisa, because, despite both of us being minors, sex is just something that will come up. If high school was anything to go by, teens have sex all the time and I don't know if I could fake it. Thankfully Lisa isn't interested in it either, apparently stuff like that is hard with her powers always being on. I can see it, if my partners intentions were, and I quote, "shoved down my throat in painful detail," I would probably not be too interested in sex either. For now, though we have a good set of physically intimate activities that are good enough for both of us. "All the exposed skin, the smells, the sight, it is all so tempting," I whisper under my breath, too bad Lisa still heard it.

She shivers above me, a nice scent coming off her, "perve." A playful smack to my thigh feels nice, her getting up off of me is less so for the same reason. "Well, I'll keep that in mind for when it's your birthday," I hear the jangle of pants and a belt, "where's my two other girlfriends?"

"Down in the kitchen, burning cereal," I can feel the both of them perk up at Lisa's mentioning of them. The rush of them sending me warm emotions is nice, what they want me to say to her gives me my own smirk, "they say good morning...and nice legs."

The silence of the room is telling me exactly how bright red she is right now. "T-thanks," she coughs, "tell her that she is sleeping with me tonight too."

"She knows, was listening to us," I roll out of my trusty burrito, I'm not the one who needs it now. Lisa is standing in front of the wardrobe looking intently at the inside, her ears are red. I smirk, revenge is best served cold they say, I like it hot and embarrassing, "she can't wait to show off her legs." I step off the bed and head out the door, my girlfriend imploding behind me. Lisa and I are both pretty asexual, but we both agree that Nimi could totally talk us into it...

A breakfast of burnt cereal and dried mushrooms waits in a bowl for me next to dad nursing a mug of coffee. I take a seat next to him a smile that he shares with me, before blearily going back to the coffee. The cereal would be better with some milk, but both Lisa and dad said no to me pouring sour milk on top of them. I tried to explain how much flavor was in sour milk, and how the texture was chewy as well as chunky, but they still didn't like the idea. So, dry cereal it is, at least the added mushrooms: Fistulina hepatica, Boletus huronensis, Honey-Colored Agaric, add the complex textures my palate craves. I should keep the Agaric and Boletus away from dad and Lisa though, both are gastrointestinal irritants, or at least the huronensis is. I don't boil my mushrooms so lots of their less friendly compounds are still present.

Both Swarm and Nimi are in the kitchen, Nimi working on an egg and one instance of Swarm coming into the house and replacing the one exiting. Swarm does that, she likes to have all her parts equally fed and we can't always have stuff that she wants on hand. So, to combat that she spends time between her parts equally with us, it is weird to think that I'm coming into contact with a new Swarm instance every day, but it loses that strangeness when you realize that there really isn't a difference between them.

Lisa comes down sporting her sweater and jeans, some comfortable running shoes too. Guess she, and thus us, are going out today. As Lisa arrives to the table, Nimi picks her up one handed, slides into a seat with Lisa forced to sit in her lap. The egg presented to her on a small plate, with some toast, all unburnt. "Thanks for talking to Taylor," Neems says, her head bent down to kiss the top of Lisa's head. The soft rustling of her hair beads and the metallic "tinks" of her tentacles sound as she hugs our girlfriend to her chest.

"Just doing my part to keep this thing going," Lisa's smile turning to a grin when my father groans next to me. Dad has not been taking our relationship with Lisa the greatest, but he is our dad...he only threatened to shoot Lisa twice, see not that bad! I grin myself as I eat another bite of my breakfast, could use some ants...

"So where are we going today?" I watch Lisa swallow her bite of egg, Nimi is slowly rubbing circles into the blondes stomach, you know standard morning stuff.

"I'd like to go over to the boardwalk and check up on the clothes," Lisa rubs at the hand on her stomach, "she told us that the first set of clothes, plus the hoodie, would be done by this week." A pause for her to eat her toast, "Nimi needs to come with for any last minute adjustments, also we are going to be paying for that set today, so we need to check our team's account before going."

I nod, but dad perks up from his coffee, "are you sure that you don't need help paying for any of it, I should I'm her father after all."

"Nah, it's cool Danny," Lisa finishes her meal and leans back a bit, much to my father's pain, "with both Skidmark's and Mush's minor bounty around two-thousand a piece plus the contraband haul we scored around twelve grand."

"Huh, I guess fighting crime pays," he sips his coffee, "pretty well too, I didn't know that those two had a bounty."

"Yeah, as it turns out most villains have some form of compensation around their capture, as long as they get to jail that is, if they escape before long term lock-up no dice," I chew on my cereal as I listen to the two talk about cape law enforcement stuff. Honestly not my favorite subject, but it does have some interesting stuff in it. One, there is no law against cannibalism. Assault and murder sure, but just eating your fellow man, yeah totes legal. Of course, if your caught eating your fellow man, they're still going to arrest you for something else, so don't get caught. I thought it was interesting...

"...so, yeah, I'm handling the accounting so far," Lisa's voice finishes as she gets up from Neem's lap, much to her disappointment. "We should probably head out soon if we want to avoid some of the crowds, no point in torturing my girls."

Dad frowns even as my final spoonful of cereal disappears into me, "okay if you're going out with my daughters, clothes, right Nimi?"

"Okay daddy!" She leans down and kisses dad's bald spot, before walking off to the basement, a little hop in her step. Dad is smiling again, it just grows brighter when Swarm decides his hand is lonely. He turns to me, "so are you going to go out with your sisters today too?"

"Yeah," I will need to start hunting again, I miss the running too, "I don't know how well it is going to go though, I still don't make a convincing human with Swarm disguising my hair."

"I hate to break it to you kiddo, but you weren't a convincing human before you started biting things with your hair," dad smile is soft and Lisa is typing gently at the computer in the hall, "speaking of could you please stop chewing on your chair."

I look down to see my hair wrapped around the legs of my chair, teeth spiraling around the piece of wood rubbing at it as it moves up and down my strands. "Oops," I uncurl it and float my hair above my head, "sorry dad."

"It's okay owl," he kisses me on the top of my head, right on an eyespot it disappears but reappears crinkled and smiling. I glad that he is happy again...

"Okay so we got paid, and Parian emailed me that she is ready for us," Lisa says just as Nimi appears, "get dressed and disguised, we can just miss the crowds if we get there in the next forty."

The bus ride was pretty normal for us at this point, our group definitely draws some eyes. Lisa sat next to me as Swarm secretly held her hand from my hair, Nimi took up her own seat and most eyes were on the giant woman. The only odd thing was this brown haired kid who kept sneaking glances at me, he looked familiar. Like I have seen them before, god I hope they weren't from school...

We step off the bus to the relatively cool day at the boardwalk, and sure enough no tempting crowd for any of me to freak out over, thank you Lisa. "Okay so I wanted to do other things here, are you guys going to be okay with that?" Nimi and I turn to look at Lisa's question, Nimi smiles down her eye glowing deep inside her hood.

"Okay, will we be going to lunch too?"

" Yeah, that was the idea, I was also thinking of doing some PR stuff, but I'm afraid that the crowd work might be too much..."

"It is fine," Swarm's voice sounds from my head, "we are well fed, and we can feed our sisters with transported matter if need be."

"Yeah, it will be fine Lisa," I lean on her, she leans back into me. It reminds me of a week ago, she stopped me then from getting close. That reminds me, "hey is this a date?"

Lisa stops her walking, red dotting her face. To be fair grey is covering my face, Nimi's clothes hide any spores from showing through...lucky, but she was looking down at Lisa's hand now. Swarm...Swarm is probably "blushing" somewhere else in the city, also lucky. I practically feel like my heart is on my sleeve compared to my others. "Well, you are taking me to lunch, but I think that we've been dating before this," Lisa grabs Nimi's hand, her other arm wraps around my thin waist, "this one is just...official."

When have we gone on a date? I think back to the past month I've known Lisa, all the hunts both day and night, the spending of time, Nimi's closeness to Lisa at every opportunity, showed her to my parents... Have, have I been dating her? But... "but that was just courting," Nimi's blurting of my thoughts is breathy, her hand dwarfing Lisa's, but she holds it so tenderly.

"Y-yeah," Lisa starts walking and we go along with her, "what do you think a date is?"

"Something that dating people do," Nimi states, her joy thrumming from her feels like a force on my mind, my ghost rippling behind me.

"Well sure it is that, but it can also be something people do to figure out if they want to be in a relationship," the little number of humans that are out today give us a wide birth, don't mind that too much, "so you guys have been taking me on dates for the last month, while I decided what I wanted to do."

"And?" Swarm strokes her hair as she is close enough for no one to see.

"You forced my hand," the three of me wince at the reminder of my fuck up. Lisa grips Nimi's hand hard and pulls me closer even as I make to pull away, "you guys are just too cute for me to say no!"

I like it when Lisa smiles, the real one. The hum in my ghost tells me that my others are in agreement on that. We are quiet as we walk together, just us and our girlfriend. The boardwalk itself is also quiet, just a few people going about their business early on this cool Monday. The comfortable silence a nice contrast to last week's hecticness. I shake myself at the reminder of last week, of Emma...

We did end up calling the FBI about that, and surprisingly they took the case like they were responsible adults. I guess it is something in the water here that makes the adults neglectful when I was part of the living. It's weird to think, but I'm much happier now that I'm dead. Sure, I still need to be careful, Lisa and dad are mortal and thus they can get hurt, Emma just proved that I can still get hurt.

We arrive at Parian's shop before I could continue down the line of thought I am sure to get to if I kept my current thoughts going. The resulting scramble to detangle our limbs from each other and walk single file into the shop, watching Nimi duck down to enter and hitting the bell at the top of the door, our laughter. It all helps to distract me, I got better things to think...

Parian looks up at us as we approach her counter, the porcelain mask making it hard to determine what she is thinking. I get the air of amusement though, so I think she is happy to see us. "Ah, glad you could make it," she turns to Nimi, "Nimi I presume, would you like to follow me to the backrooms for the fitting?"

"Okay," Nimi starts to follow her, but stops and looks back at us, "uh is it okay if the others follow too?"

"Sure, if they don't mind," the cape looks to both Lisa and me.

"We don't." I say, Lisa just walks up and grabs Neem's hand. The dressmaker simply nods and draws us deeper into her shop.

"So not to sound too suspicious, but last week you said that you couldn't find any clothing for Nimi," Parian opens a door to her workshop. The air is filled with flying threads and great bolts of fabric, at least three dresses were being built on body forms near the back, to the sides of the room are mirrors with a orange couch across from it. In the center is a small raised platform made of wood. It is a nice workshop. "Also, both you and Nimi look different, I might have to adjust certain color choices."

"Yeah, me and Neems tend to change," I grin slightly just to show off my pointed teeth, "for the clothing I grew the materials."

"Grew," Parian flinched at my teeth, but at me mentioning the material of Nimi's clothes, she touches the cloak covering my other. "It's like leather?"

"Technically it is skin, one of my powers is growing organic tissues," I watch her look at me suspiciously, it is all in her posture.

"You're a bio-tinker?"

"Technically she is bio-kinetic," Lisa flops on the couch, "like Panacea, but with dead things not living stuff." The cape relaxes at Lisa's explanation, and relation with the healer, and pulls over some cloth to rest on the podium.

"I see, well Nimi could you please remove the cloak and drop it over by the couch?" I flop down next to Lisa, Swarm wanted to look around the room some more, but I don't know how the clothing cape would handle my non-disguised looks. As the cloak came off and the dress shirt underneath, Parian gasps at the revealed casual clothing underneath her disguise. "Oh, my what is this?"

Both Lisa and I watch as the cape pulls a still dressed Nimi over to the podium. She walks around her lifting arms, touching the loops of her leggings, and feeling the dress parts. I saw her look at the bone boot, even try to touch them before she retreated instead. "Okay, so I'll bite, this is very unusual garments. Is it piecemeal or is there some sort of buttons or zipper? Why the lack of a back, and what is that lovely rainbow plate over her chest?" Parian spins to look at me, "It is simply sublime and super flattering to the subject, how did you come up with the design?"

"I didn't," Swarm is really tired of being my hair. She keeps tugging at my roots, "Nimi is the designer I just helped make it." Parian spins from me to the now red swarmed giant.

"I love it, the way it is both flowy and loose as well as snug in all the right places," She walks around Nimi even asks to be lifted up to see her shoulders, "the next time you want some of your ideas turned into cloths, please come back, this makes me wish I was bringing something besides what I have..." Nimi sets her down as the cape gets pensive.

"Hey is it alright if Taylor lets her hair down?" I look over at Lisa, she is currently twirling fingers with Swarm.

"I don't mind, this room is private for a reason after all," at the approval Swarm shoots off my head, nearly popping one of my eyes out, and into Lisa lap before launching off to look at the dresses. Parian stares at me as I stare back a thousand-fold. "You are very different from last week..."

Swarm comes around a corner, her arms shifting as she stared at the dress she was circling. "Last week was rough..." The cape nods as though what I said explained everything, in a way it did.

"Okay, as lovely as your current clothing is, I need you to strip Ms. Nimi," Lisa whistles as Nimi pulls off her shirt, a red cloud makes the room foggy. The blouse flies at our girlfriends face, but both me and Lisa smile underneath the Nimi scented cloth. "Good that's quite enough out of the peanut gallery, here is the shirt, well do the pants next."

And so it went, with Nimi trying on the various clothing, Parian and her talking about clothing designs, and Lisa making lewd remarks. The fact that Neems started to make them back at Lisa, to the point that she was beet red, made the date even better. And we weren't even done yet, I smile big and toothy, as Lisa's body heat rises and Parian's words stutter as Nimi pulls up her pants. I wish that I could bite Lisa right now, but that is for later in the date...

This is me experimenting with scene transitions that lack a chapter change... As such it is longer than any other chapter...

Tumultuous_Anxiety · Mar 22, 2021

I have been having post success depression most of last week. Between the rush of writing 10k+ words last week, getting accepted into grad, and moving into a new room in my house I am feeling very overwhelmed. This chapter is not 6k words and that feels like a failure to me, but I am getting motivation to write again, so they can't all be long ones. Please let me know if this chapter is good or bad...

Leaving Parian's, we continued our date, jumping from store to store even doing some light hunting and fishing near the beach when I got a little too hungry. The cool dark under the boardwalk conceals my "lunch" from prying eyes. The gentle hum of voices above us with woody footsteps is pleasant and relaxing mixed with the sounds of the incoming waves. The soft weight of Lisa resting on my back with the calming up and down of her unhurried breathing. Her skin brushing against mine as I chew through my fifth living fish.

I can feel Nimi running around in her new clothes somewhere along the docks talking up a storm with anyone brave enough to stay still. Lisa rest against my back, full of her own lunch, the grease trap Fugly Bob's lining her guts with a hearty burger. She strokes my hair over one of my ears, both Swarm and me dancing with the fingers of her other hand, stroking her legs with teeth. "So, we've pretty much did everything we needed to do today," Lisa's voice against my back feels nice, "did you want to try for a public patrol?"

I swallow the bones of my fifth and reach for the sixth. It feels good to eat with Lisa here, resting on my back as I hunch over my food, it felt personal, close. Like something that I should be hiding from everyone but made special by her viewing. Like sharing a secret, I blush but hide it with my eating. The wet tearing of flesh and salty flavors of piscine blood drowned out my emotions.

A public patrol, we brought all the stuff for being costumed up so we could technically just change into our costumes here under the boardwalk, but that does bring up the question. Do I want to be "out" in public? Lisa is always saying that we will eventually need to do it so ripping off the band aid now would be the easier than later. However, recent events have cast a rather negative light on being public.

On one hand, I do not really care about the opinion of the living. It is just something about being undead, and my justified misanthropy from living doesn't help the feeling that the living are an obstacle at best, food at worst. They have just been more of a threat to me when I was alive, most being actively malicious to me...

Lisa strokes my back, "we don't have to do it today, but with what happened last Tuesday we need to do it soon."

I smile back at her, there are exceptions to those feelings though. Given that I don't care what most of the world thinks, coming out as a public hero group should be easy. As an undead I am pretty save from any permanent harm. My body is completely replaceable, and I don't need it to continue existing. Tuesday however, showed me that the living can still hurt me greatly. While you might say that what happened last week was pretty tame for my time spent at Winslow, and even I could make the claim that what happened shouldn't have bothered me after all, as an undead being naked is nothing.

I shiver despite not feeling the cool breeze flowing past us in the darkness of the under-dock. Emma violated me...That's the difference. My form is my own, it is very much the physical extension of myself out into the world. To have it mocked, stolen for someone to display before me in a shrine built of my torments... I pet Lisa's legs with my teeth standing a bit straighter. My former friend Emma is dead to me, maybe when she finally passes away from this life, I will reclaim her as mine. When I can finally find out what happened between us.

Lisa could hurt me too. My eyes glide along my hair's surface, the few that she can see from beneath Swarm's shadow receive pats as they crinkle in joy. I look over my shoulder a her, the sixth fish gone and the final seventh in hand. Lisa knows everything about me, all my secrets both living and dead. She is also much smarter than Emma. If there was one person left in all of the world that could truly harm me, it is her. She who gives me a look noticing my distant gaze, is the one person I cannot lose. For she is my last weakness, I smirk at the corny line in my head, but it is true...

"What?" Lisa's voice is curious and has the tone of someone asking if they have something in their teeth. I slurp down my seventh fish, looking right at Lisa while I do it. "Ew gross, Tay," she sounds exacerbated, her blush is inviting. I spin around to face her, pushing her onto her back as I trap her between my arms.

"We can do the patrol in a minute," my voice is husky as my throat shifts back into a shape that can make human noises again. Lisa looks up at me, her wide eyes and a nervous grin stares back at mine. My hair covers us, and I can feel Swarm sending more of her to under the dock. "We need to finish the date."

The shadows deepen around us as arms and limbs grip us softly, I can feel Nimi heading towards us as Lisa squirms under the hands cupping her body. Lisa below me is covered is massaging hands, Swarm is running her hands through my hair too. The gold halo around Lisa's head stands out against the darkness of Swarms limbs. She looks so beautiful like this.

"Uh, is this punishment for earlier this morning," Lisa looks nervous, excited, and impatient. I smile as I let her wait, my throat finally reformed.

I lean forward, shadow hands on my back pushing me towards her, "punishment, I like to think of it as reward..." My cold, hard, and thin lips press against her warm, soft, and full ones. I deepen it for a second, letting our teeth touch and tongues taste, before pulling back. "You set me straight with Nimi after all, and every date needs to end with a kiss between partners."

Lisa pants, just getting over the kiss before her brain catches up with what I said, "wait, partners?" Swarm takes this moment to "kiss" her, a couple fingers entering Lisa's mouth. "Awah, mmm mmhmm," our girlfriend leans into the fingers playing with her tongue, before my shadowy other pulls back. "Aww, I was enjoying that."

Then Nimi shows up, "Hey you three, my turn!" Nimi pulls Lisa up into a hug then presses a kiss over half of Lisa's face, causing our girl to giggle. The giggle turns as Nimi's tongue, big and purple, comes into play. Nimi giggles as she pulls away from a very warm Lisa, "okay make out session over, cuddles now." I feel myself get picked up as Nimi flops backwards into a growing mound of Swarm, at least thirty of her are present. I'm press up next to Lisa, Nimi's chest acting as impromptu pillows, and then the world disappears as hands reach in to cover our snuggly forms.

Lisa's face is close to mine as strong arms hold everything together. Swarm faces nestle into us from all sides, and Nimi rubs our backs pressing us into her. I join in by folding my hair across her back and stroking her as well as tangling with a few of Swarm's hands. I feel Lisa grip my hand, her legs tangled with mine as she presses into Neem's very soft chest. I feel joy and delight from my others as the cuddling goes into full swing...

**30 minutes later**

"You know," Lisa pants, Swarm's fingers pulled from her lovely teeth, "we don't have forever if we are going to do that patrol." Nimi presses Lisa back into her stomach which she is balled up at.

"Five more minutes," I mumble against Nimi's mouth before going back to making out, my hair running teeth along my other's warm tentacles. A soft hum of purrs and soft words surrounds us as Swarm presses into us from every angle.

"Thank you," I look up at Lisa. She pulls on her coat, her eyes already covered by the silk bio-cloth hiding her green eyes from the world. Most of Swarm left after our cuddling/make-out session, a single instance shifting her hands through Lisa's tangled hair. Nimi's hoodie hood is down as she is technically always in costume, but she did switch out to her comfy clothing rather than Parian's disguise clothing. The cloak was taken home by Swarm, after of course she decided to try it on. The cute image of a Swarm instance wearing the almost poncho like cloak makes me wish that I finally got that camera.

"For what," I shift the spiral across my face, my hair free flowing behind me. It doesn't fit under the mask anymore...

"For the great date," Izzy pulls on her new hat, a grey bowler hat, "and for surprising me at the end, it is nice to not know what my partners are going to do next."

I walk over to her, my mask parting as give a quick kiss and nip at her exposed neck. "No problem Iz, I love the noises you make when you aren't expecting something too." I love that even though her cheeks are hidden I can still tell when she is blushing, "okay so how is this going to go, are we just going to walk around or are we shaking hands and stuff?"

"Uh, a bit of both," Izzy turns to look at Nimi, "Neems, just act like yourself, and try not to grab anyone no matter how cute they are." She then looks at Swarm, "Stick close to me Swarm, and be sure to hold my hand people will respond positively to that." She turns to me, "Frank, I want you to be the calm silent type, try to not stare with your hair at anyone for too long."

"Got it."
"Okay!"
"Hand please..."

I watch Izzy grip Swarm's hand before Nimi speaks up, "hey what role are you going to play Izzy?"

The grin across the detective trope hero's face is a hundred percent Lisa, "mother hen when you guys eventually go off script."

"Hey, I can totally keep my hands to myself!"
"I am always the calm silent type!"
"Do you seriously think that I'm going to let go of this hand, you'll be lucky to get it back until later tonight..."

Izzy laughed at our protests as she lead us out of the dark and onto the board walk. And that is how the public first met us, the laughing detective leading her entourage of indignant undead from the beach to the boardwalk. Honestly, it was a pretty good introduction. People were everywhere and already that was a problem for me, but not as much as it would be at school and alone. People gave us a pretty good distance, the wary looks weren't just limited to us either, Izzy got some too, but eventually some people approached us. It seemed to be mostly cape fans, but there were a few that asked how my mother was which was weird. When had my mom decided to talk to people online? I haven't been on PHO in a month, and she has an entire group that she talks with? Maybe I should be paying more attention to the world...

Once people could see that we weren't hostile, many other people began talking to us, our pictures were also being taken too. When people found out that we were trying to be hero's that just encouraged some people and made others disappear. It was maybe two hours of interactions with people, but towards the end it felt like forever. I was glad when people started to lose interest and head back to tourist shopping or whatever.

"Well, that went better than expected," Izzy lifts her hand to wipe at her forehead, only to realize that Swarm is holding that one, "nothing bad happened and people were really liking Neem's excitement." Said other was looking at a group of kindergarteners and trying her hardest not to vibrate.

"Hey Frankie, when are we old enough to adopt?" I sigh at her question. It actually comes up rather a lot. Despite not being able to make her own children, Nimi has quiet the maternal instinct. I guess in that regard she is a lot like mom, who seems to get more and more excited when I come home with a new other. I promised that I would look up adoption law's in our state, but I haven't yet...

"You need to be eighteen and either previously married or currently," We look at Izzy as she continues, "also the kid needs to give consent at fourteen or up with finalization happening after six months of residency."

…

"What, I looked it up, Nimi and Swarm are technically not legal parts of your family," Izzy huffs as the horror of that statement reaches our "ears", "so naturally I got to looking up adoption laws and case 53s."

"And?" My voice squeaks, the thought of my other's being taken away from me and possibly being found out for what they are, is terrifying.

"Well case 53's are treated as wards of the state if they register which means that the government can take them away from us," I tense and I can see Swarm grip Lisa's hand harder, Nimi is mind is full of steel. The government has got another thing coming if they think they can take my others, there would be blood..."But as long as they don't officially register, they can't legal take anyone from anyone, still means that your parents also don't have legal authority over these two."

I trust this city as much as I can throw it, so for now forget legal status. The world literally can't uproot us, we are buried in this town like a tick. "Okay so let's not do that until we can fight for our rights."

Izzy nods, as we continue walking down the seaside shops, "We still need to register ourselves as a cape group, I've held off on it because of the legal grey zones. Once I have a solid strategy and we get the required documents I want to make sure that they are filed at the same time, so nothing bad happens."

…

"So does this mean that I have to wait for three years before I can have kids," Nimi's whine brings the mood back, "also Izzy want to get married?"

I laugh at the red puff that comes from Nimi, Lisa's ears are warm too, but she hides it well with a smile, "sure Neems when we're older."

I stumble at her acceptance, "woah uh, L-Iz, are you for real-"

"ATTENTION ALL SHOPPERS," our group stops walking at the sound of someone over a very loud speaker, "THIS IS UBER!"

"AND LEET!"

"AND WE HAVE GOT AN EXCITING GAME FOR YOU ALL TODAY!"

I look around at the nervous smelling humans, the source of the voice is coming from the other end of the boardwalk. I can feel Swarm searching for the threat her own way, but she doesn't have a scent to follow, and she can only hear around us right now.

"SO ACCORDING TO THE CURRENT TRENDS..."

"ZOMBIES ARE IN!"

"SO TODAY WE WILL BE INTRODUCING YOU TO AN ALPH CLASSIC..."

"THAT'S RIGHT LEET, TODAY'S GAME IS..."

"CALL OF DUTY: ZOMBIES!" The voices speak in unison as shrieks of terror start to appear from the alleyways. The shiny forms of green grey men in Nazi uniforms start to run out of the alleys. I watch as people run from the obviously fake undead.

"Iz, what are we looking at?" Nimi is just a confused as me, these "dead" are too clean, and there rot looks like fresh tissues to be this green...

"Bunch of hard-light holograms, shouldn't be too dangerous, but they could scare someone..."

I hear a scream from one of the grade-schoolers, and turn to look at a pair of kids hiding under one of the benches. Four of the holograms shriek at the children batting uselessly at the bench. I then feel Nimi's mind disappear, a shriek of wires crossing through the air being the only sound I recognize as my other is off.

A hum of heated wires glowing white hot, slice out from behind Nimi as she appears behind the false zombies. A quick haymaker slams into the false heads of the four Nazi clad insults to zombies everywhere, launching them back into the main hoard. The graphic explosion of fake blood is unnecessarily graphic for the kids, good thing Nimi is blocking their view. The super-heated metal wires from her hiss and rattle as she stares down the mass. A Swarm instance appears behind the bench and grabs the two crying kids, quickly running back to the other side of the boardwalk where most of the civilians went with them.

Nimi stood between the two sides as the throng of hard-light stood waiting. "OH, LOOK AT THAT IT LOOKS LIKE WE GOT OUR FIRST CONTESTANT!"

"AND WHAT A CONTESTANT IT IS, UBER, I DON'T THINK THAT THIS IS SOMETHING I THOUGHT WE'D SEE HEAR TODAY."

Izzy interrupts our listening, "Swarm, keep the civilians back from entering the fight and find the two idiots, Frankie, you and Nimi are on pest extermination, I'll be calling out attack patterns with Swarm, got it."

" Yes," time to remove some pests. Nimi's wires are twitching with the desire to rip virtual flesh as I walk up next to her. "Alright Neems look out for any civilians lost in the crowd and destroy everybody dressed as a Nazi."

Nimi growls before running head first into the crowd, wires pointed at the group like spears. She quickly punches through the crowd, her explosive fists sounding much like a grenade and acting like a cannon through the crowd. I know that Nimi is looking for people in the crowd, so it is fine...probably...

I run into the zombies after watching my other decimate another twenty, can't let her have all the fun. My hair forms into flat plates as teeth begin to glide down the edges. The loops and coils of my hair quickly becoming more like chainsaws as I glide through the crowd. Every swipe becomes a whiplash of organic blades of vibrating teeth, slicing effortlessly through the holograms in visceral fakeness.

I can see shadows inside the mass of shiny undead fakers, hands grip false people and break necks as I slice through groups like a lawnmower over grass. Nimi found a trapped civilian and is helping them, good. She may be pissed beyond talking to us, but at least her wrath is directed at the right targets. Speaking of target, we are kind of running out of them really quick.

"UH, UBER, DO YOU GOT THE STUFF, CAUSE THE HOLOEMITTER IS GETING LOW..."

"YEAH, THAT SHOULD- UH, HEY LEET?"

"YEAH?"

"DO WE KNOW ANY SHADOW PEOPLE?"

"NO? UBER, WE ARE OUT OF HOLOGRAMS AND THE GREEN ONE IS STILL PISSED, SHE IS LEAKING SMOKE TOO, UBER? -"

"AH, THEre's the dial, okay the two of them are unconscious, call the police now please..."

I didn't think that I could get depressed from just having a good week...honestly it has been awhile since I felt like life wasn't in a tailspin of anxiety... so maybe it has been awhile since I had a good week...

Tumultuous_Anxiety · Mar 27, 2021

This was something I had pictured awhile ago in my many discarded chapters this week, I decided that instead of a sentence it deserves a full exploration...

My the sky is so blue today...

*Beep*

*Beep*

I look back into the hospital room, my dressing gown crinkling as I turn. Atop me I feel a weight and my blurry vision does not clear for a minute as I feel hands slide up my sides. Who is that, and where am I?

"Lisa...Lisaaaa," the voice is soft as it leans down on me, "open your eyes Lisa, please we don't want you to miss it." A soft purr can be heard to my left, and a warm wetness can be felt on my right. My eyes that were squinting open fully and the world around me is displayed.

*Beep*

*Beep*

It is a hospital room, mint green curtains and mint green walls, the sheets of a hospital bed cover my body in soft cream fabric. The hollow electric beeping is of the heart monitor next to the bed. What happened, I was just getting home from the board-

"Their she is," Taylor's voice is soft and warm, like what she said, "It is time Lisa, everyone is here, and we all look forward to this."
I look up to see her, straddling my waist, but she looks different. She's older, maybe thirties or early forties, looking more like her mother than ever, but I can still recognize her. The wide silver eyes glow warmly as she stares back, a soft crinkle on her perfect skin as she smiles a happy, toothy smile.

What's going on? There is movement at the end of the bed, but my vision is too blurry, and I can't see anything beyond my aged up girlfriend. I feel the wet something on my right and look over. Nimi is there, holding my wrist up to her mouth. The long purple tongue that I remember kissing yesterday, snakes between my fingers as her mouth opens wider. I look away as the purr on my left grows louder and in multitude. On my left is Swarm, my arm disappears under her hands and limbs. The gentle suckling of my flesh all I can feel to tell me the limb is even there.

Swarm and Nimi, they are also older. Nimi herself has great bone spines growing from her shoulders and arms, the wrinkles around her eye are deeper than I remember. Swarm is taller her hair longer than the cut tiny curly mop that she used to have, her body was more solid with it looking more like Taylor does in figure. When did they get old?

Taylor brings me back to attention with a finger on my jaw, "before we start there are a few people here that wish to send you off with well wishes, would you like to see them?" Taylor's silver eyes are full of a heat that looks like it should burn, but it is only warm across her gaze of me.

I nod as I fail to speak, she nods back and motions to the room beyond my vision. I hear giggling of children and it is the only warning I get before the air is rushed out of me by a gold blur. I look down to see what just jumped onto the bed with me. Wide green eyes with a thin wide smile stares back, long curly blonde hair moves as the child gives me the biggest hug she can with their tiny arms. Her skin is a patchwork of many shades of grey and purple, with very visible staples going in great lines where it was stitched together, she is also ice cold to the touch. The smile she gives is shark-toothed, even as the lines of stitching cover her face, I can tell she is beautiful.

"I'm so happy momma, it is finally the day," she snuggles closer to me, "I look forward to you coming back home, I miss your jokes..."

I watch as the little girl in my arms that looks so much like me, so much like Taylor, jumps off the bed and runs off. Only for me to feel another blur race in and jump on me. A new face, red eyes with black whites, grey hair; she is warmer, but at the same time just as unliving. She tells me things, runs off and then another...and another...and another...and another. An endless precession of kids, some undead and totally looking a lot like me, others looking like Taylor or her others. I apparently have eighty daughters, but my breath hitched when he walked in.

It was easy to the see the differences, but still, I could see the similarities. He had my brother's hair, the shape of his eyes, and the same sad look. He walked to the edge of my bed, briefly stopping when Nimi got up to give him a hug and his forehead a kiss. "Thanks mom," he walks over to Taylor who exchanges familial love too, before looking back at me and kneeling down to get level with me. He is tall, thin, and male unlike the rest of my kids, his eyes are a white silver, and his hair is dark black. He is the same age as Reggie was...

"H-hey mom," I just stare at the boy as he speaks to me, god I wish I could touch him, "today's the day huh, haha...ha." The pain on his face is one I remember on my own sometimes when I see a face like the one in front of me, loss. "Look I know you'd tell me that everything is going to be fine, but," he places a hand on my shoulder, a warm living hand, "I worry, you know me." No, I don't, but I really wish I did, why can't I remember? "Look I'll be outside when it happens, I-I can't be in here," he turns to look at Taylor, I can see an apologetic look on him face.

"It's okay Regg," my heart nearly stops at Taylor's naming of him, "I understand, we'll help you with what comes next, we love you after all."

Reggie cries silently, I can feel moisture on my face too, "thanks mom, love you too." He kisses my forehead, Taylor kisses his cheeks and hugs him, then he's gone, and no new children are coming. I can hear them, all the girls in my room giggling and playing. So much happiness in a room full of death...

"Okay Lisa, darling," I feel my covers go down and my gown come up as I look at Taylor unbuttoning her dress shirt, "you wanted to watch one last time, so pay attention my lovely." I look down at her hands grip my hips, thumbs pressing wonderfully into my pelvic bones. I stare at my now uncovered stomach as I finally see it. The skin is wrinkled, and very old, numerous marks mar the flat surface as the delicate fingers of one of my loving spouses rubs at them. Stretch marks, I'm covered in them, deep angry red marks that show where my skin had stretched around a great volume in the past. I would think them ugly, but they way that Taylor looks down at them, the way she traces them as if remembering each one and what happened to make them, it makes me feel beautiful. Like a well-loved patch of garden, Taylor, Nimi, and Swarm even have made many things in this ground. I almost want to smirk, but I stare transfixed as Taylor holds open her shirt. I feel Nimi bite into my wrist, the sharp pain followed by my excitement is nothing compared to what I see across Taylor's flesh. Her autopsy scars are prominent, but it is my own teeth that I recognize dotting Taylor's flesh. Thousands of bite marks cover the undead woman sitting atop my hips, my tastings of her, my marks of my ownership. I wish I could remember...

*Beep*

*Beep*

I watch as Taylor's chest cavity opens, a dark void looking strange in the lights of the hospital window. Thin, sharp strands emerge from the cavity, the barbs across their bodies gleam against the sunlight. I feel my eyes follow them as the descend onto my belly, wince as the sharp points begin to trace across the exposed flesh. I look up at Taylor, with her ribs parted and the white dress shirt it looks like she has wings, she looks down hungry and in love. I hear cracking and look to my right. My right forearm is gone, two shattered bones stick out from where the wound is and Nimi is lovingly licking at the wound. The pain is terrible, but I smile even as she put the rest of my arm in her mouth. A numbness on my left alerts me to Swarm, I look over to see my arm missing with just a stump remaining where it should be. Swarm purrs as she nuzzles the closed flesh of my long-gone arm, I hum back in approval.

I am terrified as I sit in my mind watching me carry out these actions. Did I miss it? I don't want to go yet! I haven't lived enough, please, please!

My body does nothing as it enjoys a conclusion that my mind is not ready for. The sharp puncture of Taylor's flesh feels exciting and terrifying as my mind desperately tries to go back to yesterday, before all of this. Please I don't want to see the end yet! I want to remember I want to feel it again! I look around the room even as the barbs dig inside my cavity, the giggling of children I have but haven't met, the beeping of my steady heartbeat hiding my internal panic, I think I can hear weeping in the hall. I feel something wrap around my heart as Nimi leans over my face, Swarm covering my legs as she dissolves my flesh. Ecstasy, terror, and longing as the abdomen fills with blood, the soft masses of my organs disappear as more and more of me is eaten. I feel...as the barbs surround my heart...

*Beep*

...as Nimi's mouth closes over my head and face...

*Beep*

...as Swarm's fingers grip my spinal column...

*Beep*

…loved.

*whine*

My heart explodes, the bones of my body fade, and I hear only a crunch as my head is devoured.

…

…

…

I startle awake with a jump. The world is dark and soft as my face presses deep into two pillows. Oh, god oh fuck oh god oh fuck... I move my head between the two soft things, only to feel large boney hands at my back. A dream, I sigh as I press back into Nimi's chest, it was a dream, right? I feel my panic creep back into my flesh at the thought, I don't want to miss anything.

The panic in my mental voice makes me grip one of my girlfriends tighter. I don't want to forget it, I hope that I haven't, I hope that this is just Tuesday, and we just got done with our date yesterday. That it isn't going to end yet. I need to make sure that she is there... I bite into the soft warmth of Nimi's chest. Her flesh's taste is not like Taylor's, just like Swarm's is not like Neem's. Nimi tastes minty with a hint of musty mushrooms, and it is the same as the taste currently in my mouth. Nimi moans lowly as I continue to nibble, proving to me that this is real and that Nimi is there.

I feel her stroking my back, cooing and whispering soft words of encouragement, as my body relaxes. The dream fades from my mind as I fall back asleep, Nimi's taste and cuddling telling me that everything is okay...

This scene was thought of while I was stressed about the future, but it was inspired by artwork by Avogado6, https://twitter.com/avogado6. Be warned that his artwork is very symbolic of depression and that it can be kind of violent...

The art piece that inspired me is this one, it isn't violent...

Angel Hangout

Tumultuous_Anxiety · Mar 31, 2021

Depression has been killed again... long live manic episodes!

I don't want to be here...

The room is quiet with only the sounds of the air vent blowing cold air into the room. The grey walls are dotted with the holes that Lisa and I saw down in the lobby when we walked in. The steel table is bolted into the floor along with the chair I'm sitting in. My many eyes stare back at me as I look at the reflection of a one-way mirror. The cold of the room is focusing for me, but I suspect that it is not kept so low for my comfort. The room is obviously an interrogation room...

I really wish that Lisa we would get back soon, how long could it take to go to the bathroom anyways?

As I'm trying to remember what peeing was like, the door opens. The slime across my face tightens, the red and black spiral of my mask shrinking and contracting. The eyes of my hair lock on to the human, it's not Lisa. The man is not as tall as me and he is dressed in a long coat with a dress shirt wrinkled underneath, both a visitors and badge denote that he is FBI not PRT. "Ah, good morning, Frankie," he stumbles on the cape name, clearly not used to using that kind of stuff, "I'm Special Agent Dagshaw, thank you for coming in."

three hours ago...

I bring the raw steak of Ganoderma Applanatum to join the Polyporus Squamosis in my mouth as I watch the soap opera before me unfold. I had already eaten the maple woodchips that Swarm made with tree she found these on.

Dad sat next to me purposely ignoring his coffee to glare at the two across the breakfast table. Across from me sits Nimi and Lisa, one has a very self-satisfied grin on her one-eyed face, and the other is beet red. The reason, a very familiar set of teeth marks on the underside of Nimi's tits, that she isn't leaving unexposed. Lisa blushes harder as Nimi presses her deeper into her lap, the huge dark green fun bags enveloping our small human's head. Dad frowns even harder.

"So, Neems," I start, smiling myself at the thoughts my other is enjoying, her red eye glittering with red luminescence, "sleep good?"

Lisa tries hiding her blush with her hands, only ends up getting a big handful of Nimi's chest decoration. The solid chunk of my father setting his cup down a little too hard, causes Nimi to giggle. "Oh, you know normal night," she layers a few tentacles across our girlfriend's lap, the fact that Lisa grips one as it comes near her hands makes both of us smile fondly, "though my bed partner was a bit cling-y."

Lisa looks like she is going to pass out with how much blood is rushing to her face. Dad also looks close to blowing a gasket, the coffee in his grip shaking as he brings it to his mouth. Maybe just one more joke..."Shame it is Swarm's turn tonight," I grin, but soon stop when I see the less friendly amusement in her eye.

"Yes shame," a Lisa grin crosses Nimi's sharp toothed smile, "I guess I'll just have to live with you as my bed partner again, I get to bite back too." My skin flushes as I remember just how bad at this whole teasing thing I am. Dad nearly chokes as he takes his first casual sip of his coffee. Smelling blood in the water Lisa quickly switches roles with me.

"Yeah, you can put your marks over mine Taylor," Lisa goes for a smirk, it looks slightly forced, "Swarm good to sleep with last night?"

I open my mouth to say something, but the back door opens as Swarm walks out only for a new one to walk in. The new instance immediately makes a beeline for the kitchen table. Her arms are fluctuating with excitement. "We look forward to sleeping with you girlfriend Lisa," Lisa smiles as a hand reaches out for Swarm's hand, "We will spend the entire night touching..."

Lisa, Nimi, and I do our equivalents of blushing hard enough for the room to start glittering from Nimi, my eyespots to rapidly appear and disappear, and Lisa looks like she just stopped thinking as her eyes glaze over. Dad has also stopped, the hot coffee pouring into his mouth but his throat not swallowing. Then Swarm makes our embarrassment worse as she jumps up into Lisa lap on top of Nimi's lap, the chair underneath creaking dangerously. "We will enjoy your noises," Swarm being husky with their voice, it's echo-y like always but it doesn't matter where you are in the room. It sounds like she just whispered that into my ear.

"Okay, ok, ok, nope," I can feel my fluids in my face make my head heavier as I shake it back and forth, "can't do it, please stop everything, I-" I'm so hungry, and it feels like I'm eating the butterflies in my stomach. I look desperately across my plate to see if I can find any more of my breakfast...I finished it a minute ago... shit. I just need something to chew for now, I can feel my hair reaching for the chair leg underneath me. It is already covered in teeth marks from my previous chewing, so I can't use that, dad already got on to me about chewing the furniture. That leaves one thing, I think to myself as I try to ignore the three things in the room my instincts tell me are free game when it came to chewing. I lift the ceramic plate to my mouth and start to crunch into it.

"Ah, Taylor not another one," dad stops his glaring to turn to me worried as I cut myself chewing the plate, "we don't have an endless amount of those and you're getting blood all over yourself." It makes me attractive; my brain says in full rebellion even if I can smell Lisa's full attention on me, on the drops of blood running down my cheeks. "Okay, I know that it is practically tradition between you four to embarrass each other to death in the morning," dad removes the plate from my mouth as my body relaxes around the chewing of the swallowed bits, my black blood covering his hands, "but please stop, or do it when I'm not here, we're running out of plates."

He stands and walks to the kitchen, placing the broken plate into the sink. He goes to wash his hands before being stopped by a Swarm who just walked in and puts his hands in her mouth. I shudder in the nice feeling of my body becoming a part of Swarms body, a level of hosting that only others can share unconditionally. I lick my lips to gather up the fluids still on my face, even as the blood soaked into my clothes seeps through my skin to rejoin the whole. Lisa is watching me the entire time.

"Okay thank you Swarm dear," dad wraps up his daughter in a tight hug which she returns three-fold. The warm family exchange brushes my embarrassment away under a mental rug for me to look at later, good luck future me. He glances at his watch before sighing, "look I've got to go to work soon, and your mother is going to be out today too. Arcadia called her back, so fingers crossed on that yeah, are you four going to behave yourselves while we're gone?"

"Don't worry Danny," Lisa's voice is barely audible as she lifts a thumbs up from underneath the shadows, "I got this."

I giggle at dads pained expression, "it's alright dad, we have cape recon to do today so we can go out on Friday." Honestly since the Lung fight, both all of me and Lisa have kind of been ignoring our recon stuff. Swarm has mostly just been silently growing in prep for her metamorphosis at the end of this month and exploring the bay and surrounding wooded areas for food stuff. That and helping with the mushroom garden, now that Swarm is no longer swarm, I've been doing it mostly by "hand" with Swarm's help.

Dad's expression doesn't change, even as he puts on his coat and grabs his keys, "Okay, as long as I get to see the patrol this time, no more Lung fights."

"Yes, dad."
"Uh-huh, bye daddy!"
"Love you, da..."
"Don't worry Danny, none of us want to fight him again either."

"Well, okay goodbye I love you three too." Dad walks out of the door to the chorus of us telling him we love him. The sound of his truck exiting the neighborhood got my attention back to the only other human that matters in my "life". I get up and make my way across the table, I'm gonna-

*ring* *ring* *ring*

I sigh turning to look over at the phone buzzing on its stand. I look back to Lisa, her body occupied by my two others in a quickly protesting chair. She looks back with excited eyes. I look back to the phone, it can wait right? I look back at Lisa, she looks so inviting...

Well...I guess if it is important, they'll just call back...

*click*

*Hi, this Special Agent Dagshaw of the FBI, I was wondering if you would come down to the PRT building, I have questions about the case...*

now...

Considering that this is the PRT building, I didn't feel comfortable coming in unmasked. So here I am talking to the FBI fully masked in what is clearly an interrogation room. "Frankie," I shake his hand, "my partner, Izzy, will be back soon she just stepped out."

"I see," Dagshaw slips into his seat, "sorry about the PRT by the way."

"What do you mean?"

"Ah, well they pulled a few strings in my case to make it a joint case with my office," he gestures to the room, "thus we have to use this room, I'm told that they're not recording, but if you wish to represent the civilian Taylor Hebert, I'll accept it as this isn't a testimony." The way the agent said represent and civilian told me just how much he believed that the PRT wasn't recording.

I look at the mirror behind him and then back to him. "Why the joint case?"

"I'm afraid that it is above my pay grade," the man sounded clearly unhappy about that, his frown directed at the papers as he places them on the metal table, "thankfully they have agreed to let me handle the civilian parts of the case, so they shouldn't be in here for this meeting."

"Okay," I watch him for a few minutes as he gets everything ready, but stop him before he can start, "since I'm representing Taylor, I would feel more comfortable to wait for Izzy to get back."

Dagshaw's expression is pained for a second, but quickly he nods and offers a small smile, "of course, these are sensitive cases, you have a right to any council that you agree to."

"Thank you."

"Do you mind if I ask a few other questions," Dagshaw asks an uncertain look on his face, "they don't pertain to the case, just wanted more information on some things that came up."

"Uh, sure..."

I wipe my face with the paper towels and look at myself in the mirror.

My name is Lisa Wilbourn, and I am insane...

Oh of course, yesterday was fun. I enjoyed my date with the three and even enjoyed our public patrol before it was interrupted. The last week, hell the last month, I've felt less alone than I have since I got my powers over a year ago. I really, really like Taylor, all of her...

But that's not why I'm insane.

I rewrap my eyes with the bio-silk mask slipping back into Izzy, making sure in the mirror that it covered any revealing markings on my face. I then shift my collar to expose my neck. The scar is red and shiny, a series of lines in two semi-circles going from the base of my neck down to my shoulder. A bite mark...

I watch as my reflection brings up a finger to stroke at the marking, the fact that it is my left index is not lost on me. The shiny off white of scar tissue covers that finger, another bite, this one from Swarm last Thursday. Even as I touch the markings on my neck, I feel the other one on my side, bigger than the other two, but not as deep as the first. That one is from Nimi given to me on Saturday.

None of these make me feel insane though. Even if I really looked at the facts, I don't regret any of the love bites on my body. I want more of them even. No what makes me feel insane is that I am finding it hard to not think about my new girlfriends eating me. My face warms as the thought of them "loving" on me until nothing is left...

Okay get a grip Lisa, I smack my cheeks to get the feelings to go down, now is not the time. I wanted to date them, I knew what it could be like, and they have been very accommodating to my needs. The constant physical contact is something that we all like, and even sometimes need, and none of us are getting worn out by it anytime soon. So, fuck, is it the cannibalism, or maybe it is the fact that I want to participate? I shake my head as I try to dislodge the thought, again Lisa. Head. In. Game.

I finish my self-inspection and head for the door. The FBI want to do an interview of Taylor for her case, I need to be there to act as legal and moral support. I really need to stop fantasizing about..."stuff". There is a time and a place, now in neither.

I step out of the bathroom and into the halls. The PRT HQ is mostly halls actually, all of it a spiraling and confusing mess. I turn to the trooper that waited for me while I finished up having my existential crisis. I want to say something, but they just nod and start walking expecting me to follow. Since my power have informed me that the PRT building's layout is thinker designed to confuse anyone not familiar with its structure, I quickly follow my escort.

I wonder why the FBI wants to talk, Taylor has already given a testimony about both last Tuesday and the locker stuff from January. They have all of the notebooks that she kept, detailing all the stuff that her bullies have done to her over the last two years. So, what could be left?

[possible questions about death, or likely that events have transpired since then, impossible to know for sure...]

Speaking of my powers, I've noticed something that I hadn't in the last year I've had them. I'm starting to get answers from them. It is still a constant non-stop stream of information going on in my brain, but lately it has been answering my questions. I have to ask it directly; it can't be a vague question either unless it is the question "how do I destroy this person/building/thing". Otherwise, my power needs me to ask an almost leading question, like I am so close to the answer and it just jumps when I ask it. Before I just looked at the world around me and picked through the run on sentence for what I needed, but now I can direct its attention to much finer details.

I guess all I needed was a little practice with my powers in a different sort of setting, one where direct questions are better than indirect answers. It had probably been doing that this whole time, but I've been a little distracted last month. What with the almost being kidnapped only to be saved by a very friendly zombie from said kidnappers. Then to becoming a hero which was then undercut by the fear that the aforementioned zombie really wants to eat me. Which was finally resolved as I realize that her "digestion" of me is extremely slow and it means she loves me. Followed by accepting my very slow death and enjoying her affections, even biting back... Fuck, last month was long.

Well, it's a new month, and with the way it has been going so far...it will probably also be long, let's not fuck with the trickster god Murphy right now...

The trooper is silent as we walk the halls back to the interrogation room that I left Taylor in. I know, I know, not a smart move to leave my zombie girlfriend alone in a room when she clearly has a fear of authorities. Better than having to explain to the FBI why it is okay that Frankie is chewing on me and blood is coming out. God, I wish, we were going to try biting harder today, you know after we checked in with the gangs and such, why does the world want to keep me from my zombie? I smirk to myself, but inside a girl I call crazy is cackling inside a little soft room I made for her. Best leave the crazy for home, hopefully this won't take too lo-

"Oh, hey trooper wait." Both me and the trooper next to me turn to see who called out. The tall skinny man wearing a fancier PRT uniform is speed walking towards us.

I don't like her...

The quiet sound of Armsmaster's tinkering with a couple circuit boards is the only sound in the room as I stare through the glass into the other. I would have preferred that Militia was here not the twitchy-too-excited-for-an-Endbringer Armsmaster, but from her last report on the Hebert household, Hannah made it clear. She wants fuck all to do with them. I can't say I blame her.

I watch as the ever-shifting mass of long hair flows across the floor, like a twisted sheet. The curls, big and loopy, have teeth that seem to move along the surface like the blades of a chainsaw. In the hood formed by her hair, black and silver eyes blink in and out looking in every direction. Her mask is just ugly too, a black flat surface over her face with only a red spiral as its singular feature. I almost wish that she was coming in to be a ward, just give the PR team a little heart attack. Almost, I think as Special Agent Dagshaw walks into the room, all those hideously glowing eyes lock on to the movement.

I shudder, unfortunately Armsmaster takes notice but he doesn't make comment. I realize that I'm probably being a little more bias than usual. This is a cape that flat out refused to join us and gave no reason for it. Considering how cannibalism is a very definite maybe in the Hebert home, I should probably be glad that she turned our offer down. Still doesn't make me less pissed. Maybe I should just be glad that she wants to be a "hero", considering that Lung most definitely is in the hospital because something decided he was tasty. I stop my internal triage at the sound of the FBI's agent starting.

"Ah, good morning, Frankie, I'm Special Agent Dagshaw, thank you for coming in." I try not to smirk at his bumbling with the cape name, clearly the PRT are more suited to handle this case. It's a shame I'm not recording I could use it to embarrass the FBI, maybe stall this case long enough for us to hunt down Shadow Stalker. The frown on my face deepens as I think about the little shit. This is all her fault, first she has the gall to break her probation terms, then she gets some random triggered into whatever the fuck is sitting in the room across the glass, before finally not being smart enough to leave the new trigger alone. I can feel my teeth tighten and squeak as I think about how smug that petulant child must have felt to get away with it all for almost two years, fucking sadist. I know that I would be spitting angry right now, if the satisfaction of knowing Shadow Stalker is out there now, pissed herself that she has consequences coming to bare down on her throat.

I ignore the subtle barb that Dagshaw gives the PRT, almost wanting to roll my eyes at the comfort he throws the cape letting her friend sit in. Sure, on some level I do feel for Miss Hebert, capes are unstable and reckless to a fault, and I know more than a few that need serious psychological help. Taylor's story, while a little more gory and violent than average, describes a young girl who was tortured into triggering and then died only to heal from that just to be tortured again. I'm just pissed off at having the FBI show up an interfere with our own investigation into Shadow Stalker's activities, I can pity Hebert later when I have time to. Maybe after the Endbringer attack that could happen anytime this or next month, when I will probably lose another protectorate team member...

"Do you mind if I ask a few other questions, they don't pertain to the case, just wanted more information on some things that came up."

"Uh, sure..."

I lean forward, this is unexpected. I had looked through most of Special Agent Dagshaw's notes about what kind of questions he would be asking. All of them pertained to the cases he is working, so this is a complete departure from that list. What are you up to Dagshaw?

"I wanted to ask you about the administration of Winslow," my eyes narrow, what is he- "I noticed that in your notebooks, you never mentioned if principal Blackwell had any motives to ignore the bullying."

"No, I didn't start my notebooks until six months after the bullying started, so a lot of the early stuff got lost as I forgot to write it down," I watch as the hair begins to wrap around the legs of her chair. A nervous habit? Probably...

"I see," I can see a notepad pulled from his coat, "do you mind describing how the staff at your school acted in more detail, as well as what your bullies would do to get out of trouble, also you don't mind if I take some written notes for some of this?"

"No, and no I don't mind," I watch the teeth of the cape's hair spiral around the chair leg, holding up to that chainsaw-like movement. "Emma and Sophia are popular and are really good at convincing people that I was a liar. I think that Emma's dad being a lawyer also helped them get away with things, that Sophia is a track star doesn't help."

"Hmmm, that still isn't enough," I watch the teeth press harder against the metal leg, surprised that some of them sunk into the solid steel. "The motivations are not enough I mean, it feels like there should be more to this, they essentially tried to hide a body after all." I ignored the minor display of brute powers in favor of looking at the back of Dagshaw's head. Getting way to close to the details there Dagshaw. "Do you have anything that would give me a better angle on Blackwell, such as her character or how did she act with each of them, the bullies I mean."

"Uh, okay," she grinds at the table leg, its visibly denting now. I look over at Armsmaster to see him also taking notes, brute strength, check. One power my ass... "I seem to remember that she tends to react more to stuff that could make her look bad, she really doesn't like when I mentioned that they were bullying me again. I don't know anything else that there could be."

"Then how about something about other members of the staff." Armsmaster and I watch and listen as Hebert talks about various teachers and student. The absolute lack of responsible adults at Winslow is very concerning, I'm surprised that someone else hadn't triggered. Well, I guess someone has triggered, after the entire school sacrificed Taylor to the wolves. I'm more surprised that she even decided to come and talk with the FBI here, the lack of good role models in authority positions in her life is shockingly thin. It does explain why she doesn't want to join the wards and makes our position even more clear. Taylor Hebert can never find out about Shadow Stalker; I don't want to face someone who can eat metal like that chair leg. Her partner hasn't returned yet, but I can already feel the current conversation begin to wind down.

"Okay, this is all very helpful," Dagshaw looks at his watch and then at the door, "how long has your friend been gone now, I would like to start soon."

"Fifty minutes." Wait, what?

"Fifty minutes," the agent's question mirrors mine, "what did she have to do?" I look over at the clock, I had watched the blonde leave the room and even heard her talk to the trooper at the door to say she need to go to the bathroom. The closest bathroom was a minute away per the building's design, even if it also looked like an office door. She should be back by now... has it really been fifty minutes?

"She needed to go to the bathroom," Frankie looks fine as though the extreme time discrepancy is not concerning, "I'm sure that she will be back soon."

"Uh, do you not realize that is kind of a long time to go," he speaks slowly, Frankie blushes embarrassed. Her face turning grey rather than red. Considering that is not a weird as the rest of her, I'll ignore it.

"I uh, don't remember what that stuff was like." Both me and Armsmaster watch as the chair leg snaps and is rapidly shredded by a buzzsaw made of hair and teeth.

"Armsmaster?"

"Uuuh?"

"Go find out where Izzy is, right now."

"Uuuh."

I have her cornered...

The trooper stops as I approach giving a small salute that my rank here deserves. "Good, good you stopped," I split the timeline, I don't have all the time in the world after all. When I learned that both Lisa and the Hebert child were going to be at the PRT building I was torn on what to do. On the one hand it could be a way to capture myself a thinker, but on the other it could capture the attention of the monster family.

I had already tried to get that stubborn idiot Dagshaw in my pocket and get him to trigger the monster he was going to interrogate, but I hit the snag of him being way too stubborn and not having a covert method of removal. Even blaming it on a rather angry ex-ward or a homicidal monster worked for very long, so he is unfortunately immovable.

1: {I dismiss the trooper with just a formal dismissal.}

2: {I explain to the trooper that I wished to discuss something with the cape Izzy.}

The second timeline suffers from suspicion and time wasting, with the first making him leave immediately with only a quick explanation. I watch longer to reveal that the thinker has seen through my lie. So, I go with the second.

"I'm sorry sir, but I have orders to keep the visitor within sight at all times."

I split the timeline.

0: {"understandable trooper, but I merely have questions pertaining to the upcoming Endbringer fight." A subject that is very hot right now, with murmurs of it throughout the rank. It could happen any day now...}

1: {"I'm afraid that my questions are above your security clearance, I have my orders." I try this time to believe what I'm saying, after all in my mind Coil's needs are greater than the PRT's needs. So, it technically isn't a lie...}

The first one gets an okay with the trooper leaving to within an earshot, but still being present. The second gets a salute and them surrendering duty to me, it also passes the thinker check...

I take the second and split the timeline.

"So, what is this about?" Lisa doesn't look convinced, even though her powers didn't cause the telltale switch in facial expression. Her poker face wasn't up all the way before, it is now...

0: {"the PRT would like to work with you on a case, if you're willing to listen..."}

1: {"We would like to discuss some worrying information that we've gotten about the Hebert residence..."}

In both timelines Miss Wilbourn is unimpressed.

0: {"What kind of case?"}

1: {"I kind of already am aware... what do you really want?"}

I drop the second and take timeline one, "Missing persons, but I would like to discuss it in private."

0: {"would you like to follow me?"}

1: {"We can talk the details out over the phone I'll provide later, I just have a few questions about your group."}

I feel lucky as she ascents to both paths, thus giving me an escape should I mess up from here. Whatever I do, I must not run into the Hebert in the building.

0: {We walk over to a conference room in silence. Taking a seat across from me I begin. "Good, now that we have some privacy, I can tell you more about the case."

"Okay," Izzy is tapping her thigh, "who is missing and why go to the outside the PRT for it?"

"Sarah Livsey," I watch her face looking for signs and tells, she gives up after a few seconds.}

1: {I begin walking down the hall with the clueless thinker following me behind as I "lead" her back to the interrogation rooms. "First, I would like to know somethings about how your group plans."

"Why, we haven't been exactly on too many patrols or raids."

"Some of the thinkers noticed that your decision-making skills as a group are very accurate," I start, relishing the panic I'm causing in the first timeline, "considering the anti-thinker effect surrounding your group we figured that asking how you gather information was easier than the side effects."

"Side effects, what side effects?"

I turn to look at her, an eyebrow raised. While I too haven't suffered some of the things that the Watchdog report entailed, it is still horrifying to read that I could have killed myself using my power near that girl-thing. It still was worth the nightmares stealing that bit of covert info. "You aren't aware, supposedly it put several thinkers in the hospital."

"Oh, well no I haven't had it too bad," she pauses looking at me for a second, "It is a power synergy between myself and Swarm."

I look at her waiting for her to go on, before realizing that she wasn't going to explain. "I see, well it is impressive to say the least, Swarm is a new member or are we incorrect?"

"She has been with us the entire time."

Bullshit...}

0: {"How the fuck do you know that name," an extreme smirk sharp and wicked crosses Lisa's face. It reminds me of a certain terror I saw in my testing time with the Hebert parents...

"The PRT is very good at its job, and stealing is a crime with a very obvious paper trail," I try my best to grin back, this is just like sharing a secret after all it is important to grin. "We tracked you from New York and Boston, until we reached here." Mostly true, I've been tracking Sarah's movements as far back as three months ago. "It was smart to keep moving like you did, but you should have sticked to smaller populations."

"I'll keep that in mind," the smirk never leaves, in fact it just starts to look more and more feral, "but I don't think that I'll be leaving anytime soon."}

1: {I turn down another hall, thus taking us even father from the interrogation room as we begin to loop through halls. "I see, well we are also wondering about certain members origins, such as where your group met to form as it has."

"It's private," her poker face has yet to relax, "hey are we going the right way?"

"Yes, the halls of the building are designed to look different going down them in different directions," also a truth, they just don't look this different, "some kind of thinker-based architecture, you get used to it."

She is silent, but we continue on our way.}

0: {"And why is that, Miss Livsey?" I drop all pretense and ignore the other timeline it was too slow anyways. This one was much more interesting.

"Because if there is one word I could possibly use for my girlfriend," the smirk loses its edge as she brings up her wrist to her mouth. What the hell is she up to. "Is clingy."

I open my mouth to say something, but quickly lose that comment as I watch her bite down as hard as she can on her wrist. I don't- what?

I continue to stare as the blood starts to run down her arm and spill on to the floor. Hmm, I watch as the clearly insane child slips back into her chair, her eyelids fluttering closed as she starts to pass out from blood loss.

Was that supposed to-}

[0:ERROR]

I stop walking as the previous timeline dies.

What.
The.
Fuck?

When did she figure out, we are well out of her range. I've seen Miss Wilbourn hurt before and she never had the monster's attention unless they were nearby. So what-

I try not to jump as the voice behind me makes itself known. "Is something wrong?"

She just ended a timeline, by killing herself. No, no that couldn't be right, could it?

I split the timeline.

0: {I swiftly pull out my handgun and fire directly into her head.}

1: {I wait to see what will happen in the first timeline, ignoring the thinker's questions...}

0: {As soon as the gunshot echoes down the hall, two things happen all at once. One it immediately calls the guards out of there hidden rooms with one being just besides me. I ignore the shouts of the troopers surrounding me in favor of staring at the corpse of the thinker lying on the ground, head splattered down the hall. The second thing I noticed was that the entire hallway had dropped a couple degrees in temperature, I feel frigid cuff placed over my wrist as I'm wrestled to the ground. Still, I continue to watch fully focused on just this timeline. I don't have to wait long as the troopers and I start to hear the screams. The sounds of buzzing saws coming from down the hall, wet tearing noises and the sounds of many people screaming. We watch as people start running down the halls away from the screams, many of them are covered in blood and several have viscera on them. The sound of containment foam somehow comes before the alarms go off, as though it is only now that someone could reach the emergency alarm.

I can hear it coming. The buzzsaw sound of insects enraged, the heavy footsteps of a creature walking on all fours across ceilings and through walls. I hear the screaming of people quickly fall silent as more and more thumps can be heard. The sound is getting closer too, under all of it I hear sickening snaps of bone and the crunching of skulls. The troopers next to me freeze up as blood starts to pool near the edge of a intersecting hallway, it is just around the-}

I stop the timeline and split again. I don't care to see any more of what that one was. I keep watching this new timeline and keep my control one with just Lisa and I standing there.

"Uh, hey are you alright you have sort of just spaced out there for the last twenty minutes," Lisa look of confusion is either a clever ruse or real all I know is that I can't stay here. Has it really been twenty minutes? I check my watch in both timelines. It felt so much faster...

0: {"Ah, I think I'm lost, perhaps I don't know the building as well as I did," I shrug and try my hardest to appear confused, "I'm going to find a trooper they can escort you back, stay here." I then walk off before she can respond, turning around a corner and then slipping into one of the secret corridors before she could catch up.}

1: {I pull my gun and this time aim it at her stomach. "Woah, fuck!" She tries to move out of the way, but I just refocus my aim at her leg. The shot bores a hole straight through her with blood-}

[1:ERROR]

I stagger in my climb up the stairs to my office. That timeline ended almost instantly...okay time to extract, the PRT are not going to be able to help me get my thinker. At least not the local branch...

I make my way to my office acting calm as I could possibly be knowing that the monster is currently only fifteen floors below me. Not enough if you ask me. I shudder as I close my office door finally safe to break down, which I do quietly in another timeline. In this timeline I make the executive decision, my cover here in the PRT building is not worth it if it can't protect me from that which lies underneath me.

The first task I set about doing is dismantling my computer's code and then physical hardware, when people come looking, I don't want any of it left. I shut all my back doors under passwords and encryptions as it will be important to keep my access to the PRT systems. With my access retained via paper and electronic means, I hit my computer kill switch, overwriting the system with thousands of dummy files and removing all pointers just to make it seem like a simple delete. Finished I check on my internal panic episode only to wince as I am now writing on the walls with markers, I've barred the door and my floor to ceiling window is blown out, the computer's tower is missing. I shake my head, I'm definitely running over somebody once I leave, in another timeline of course.

Now what to do with the physical hardware? I pull out a kit that my tech expert helped me build just in case I had to bail from the PRT at any point in the future. I peeled open the side of the tower and got to work...

As I exited the building fifteen minutes later, I looked back at the building. Nope not going to miss working there...

As for the weird formatting on Coil's power instead of it being like the other interlude stuff, it mostly comes down to that was a flashback, this time we got to see it happen in real time. Also this was technically easier to write and a bit easier to comprehend. But I wonder if people will notice that distinction between the two. Depends on how lazy I am about going back and fixing that chapter or changing this one.

Tumultuous_Anxiety · Apr 5, 2021

This chapter fought me, it has been awhile since I wrote something a bit more action-y. As for some of the things in this are not nice. Say what you will about fluff, but conflict is an important story focus and it is time to get back to that part...

I stare after the retreating cape as they jog down the hall, disappearing around a corner. He was weird...

I relax as I'm now finally away from whoever the fuck that was. I cover my eyes, rubbing at the spiking pain in my skull, that fucking hurt...his power sucked. You get anything useful from that powers?

[THE WALLS ARE COATED IN A REFLECTIVE SUBSTANCE THAT ALTERNATES IN PATTERN AND TEXTURE, IT WILL LOOK DIFFERENT DEPENDING ON WHICH DIRECTION YOUR FACING, THE FLOOR LINES ARE COLORED VIA A SYSTEM OF GLOSS PAINTS THAT...]

Fuck! I grip me head as my power screams into the too tight confines of my pounding skull. Okay so I got nothing from him, got it, just please shut up! I can feel the florescent lights buzz over head as the full swing of my thinker headache starts to pour acid onto my brain. This is so much worse than it usually gets, I look around as I try to determine where I am, but I still think I can walk- woah! The world twists around in my vision as I take a step. My eyes burn with the bright lights as the colors of the room blend into a mess. "Fuck, wha-?"

[...CAN BE USED AS A...HAS TROUBLE WITH...DON'T LOOK...WE NEED TO KEEP OUR HEAD AWAY FROM...*whine*....IT NEEDS TO BE INSERTED AT THE BACK END...CHEESE, PICKLES, BALONEY AND LETTUCE...stop...HE LEFT HER AFTER HE FOUND OUT...THE SCREAMING IS NOT COMING FROM THE SURROUNDING AREA...FORTY PERCENT OF YOUR ACTIVITY COULD BE REPLACED WITH...]

My powers scream as the random garbage presses painfully through the back of my eyes. "FUCK!" My voice is loud in my skull and drills into my temples as I feel my skull trying to heat up, but I can't stop speaking it hurts to much to ignore. "Shut up, shut up, shut up, please it is too loud, I-"

[HEAD POPPED LIKE A WATERMELON, 9MM AT CLOSE RANGE AIM FOR THE HEAD, IF YOU TALK ABOUT THEIR DOG, YOU CAN GET THEM TO BREAK DOWN IN TWENTY MINUTES, DODGE: LEFT, RIGHT, BACK TO THROW HIM OFF GUARD THIS WILL STAGGER HIM AS HE OVER EXTENDS, <we> CAN'T SEE IT BUT THEY ARE PRESENT...]

My ears ring and my throat feels hoarse as I realize that the screaming, I was hearing was me. I shut my mouth so fast that I think I clip my tongue, a bitter taste covers my tongue. "I, need to sit down..."

[THEY ARE STILL LOOKING FOR YOU, IF YOU MENTION THAT HE WAS YOUR FAULT, YOU CAN BREAK YOU, MENTION THAT HE DID IT TO ESCAPE YOU AND YOU WILL BE ABLE TO SELF-TERMINATE IN THE NEXT TWENTY-FOUR HOURS, THREATEN TO TELL ERROR WHAT HAPPENED, WILL DO ANYTHING YOU SAY...]

"Stop," I feel my throat strain around my words as my powers examine me, "please, I don't want to hear this..." I'm ignored as the vocal gunshots of my power scream at me my weaknesses.

[needs people, can't stand isolation for too long, strong reason that you decided to even stick around error is because you feared being alone again, just like he was as...]

"NO!" I scream as the voice becomes mine, its sibilant tones run razors over my brain as it speaks. My mind fills to full, and the burning heat turns sweltering as I feel something drip from my nose and ears. I feel the floor under my hands, when did I get on the floor?

[FELL, IDIOT.]

I curl into a ball as the voice punches my skull with thoughts. I shut my eyes, they can barely close them as the sensation feels too tight. No- no more questions, I press my hands over my ears as I try to block out the sound of approaching feet, it is causing my power to look at me...

[tinkertechalloydesignedtolimittheamountofheatlostduetopowertollerancesbeingsostrict...]

[hasproblemswithcurrentassignment,doesn'tbelivetheyareasimportantasthecomingendbringerfight...]

[seesmostpeopleasuseful,butmakesnoclaimtothemhavingarealvaluetohistime...]

[ismostlyinterestedinyourconditionforitabbilitytomanipulateerror...]

Armsmaster, that is who's feet are by my head, I curl tighter as my teeth clench through the pain, fuck it is getting worse. I feel my nails cut the skin around my ears with how tight I'm holding my head. Just stop thinking I can't- I don't have room for all of this information!

[ …SUBJECT 2 HAS PLANS FOR THIS EVENING AT TWO...WE CAN BREAK SUBJECT 6 IF WE PRESS THEM ON...SUBJECT 3 WILL BE EASIER TO SWAY IF WE CONVINCE SUBJECT 8 TO FORFEIT CUSTODY... THE INFO IS SOUND, HE WON'T PUNISH US AS LONG AS WE ARE WORKING...]

[…ENOUGH OF THE DRUGS HAVE BEEN EXCRETED...SUBJECT 35 IS GOING TO ONE OF THE DOGFIGHTS ON THE SOUTH OF DOWNTOWN TONIGHT, SHE HAS THE PLANS MARKED DOWN...YOU WILL BEGIN TO FEEL PAIN FROM THE HEADACHES SOON, THEY WILL REPLACE THE DRUGS IN YOUR SYSTEM...I'M SORRY...]

[AaAaAaAaAaAaAaAaAAaaAAaaaAaAAAaaaAAaAaaAAaaaAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAA...]

[it wasn't your fault, he would do it anyways...you blame yourself more than think you should...he didn't die in pain...]

"Console, this is Armsmaster I have a downed cape on the ninth floor hallway beta, c please send for medical," the voice is inflectionless and cuts at my brain like glass, "she appears to be having a seizure."

[cccccccccccctttttttttttttttttthhhhhhhhhhhhhh...]

"AHHH, STOP!" My eyes feel wet underneath my tight mask, tears forming but not having enough room to escape the silk covering them. "TOO LOUD, TOO BRIGHT, TOO SHARP!"

I feel that sinister voice whisper in my mind as I can see the man from before, the skinny one. I watch as a pale white snake trails up his body. The serpent's eyes are locked on mine, its mouth opens and screams a whisper...

[they know what you sound like screaming and in pain...if they shot you ERROR.]

I scream as the error rips through the wet tissue of my grey matter, nails ripping out of my flesh as lightning lances across my back. I-I need it t-t-to st-top! I feel my eyes open as the light floods into my skull, a burning fire fills my head. The world is a blur as I look around, a blue shape is coming towards me, but warbles of sound are punches to my brain as I look around. Please, please stop! How do I stop? It hurts!

[WALL.WALL.WALL.WALL.WALL.WALL.WALL.WALL.WALL.WALL.WALL]

I spin to face the wall, my whole world rushing past as my vertigo and nausea fight for dominance in my burning senses. "Wall", I whisper. The smooth concrete surface is the only thing I can recognize in my haze of pain. It is the solution, I run at it dodging the blue shape as my adrenaline floods my skull and body with speed. The white expanse grows larger and larger as my mind leaks into the air. I point my head forward and scream, "WALL!"

*crack*

I bounce off the wall as the impact blooms pain and wet across my forehead. I- what, I stumble back as the world tilts back. The lights burn but my head feels like cotton. A smirk on my face as my pain lessens, "that crack was satisfying..."

My vision wavers as the floor rushes up to meet me. My vertigo winning out as it feels as though I fell further than the floor. Where is Taylor?

[. . .]

I think I see blue? It wavers in my vision, just a blob of color on an already messy canvas.

[. . .]

What was I doing again? I try to turn my head, but it just feels like it is spinning in place.

[. . . . .]

A darkness over takes me even as I feel Taylor approach, when, could...I...do...tha-

I stood when I felt it. The metal chair, now three legged with the chewed up steel of the missing leg lying on the floor, ripped from its bolts with my motion. I could smell everything, Dagshaw's panic and confusion, the seep of containment foam filling the nozzles that turned to me, a sweat building on the brow of someone just beyond the glass. It was all irrelevant to the bitter bite of her blood, Lisa's blood.

Yes, I'm still inside her veins, it is not like my blood wasn't helping after all. Sealing small tissue damage, removing and decoding viruses, keeping her red blood cells company... It wasn't Hosting, but it isn't like my love was extracted from her. But now; I can feel it trickling from a gash, my blood flows out with her own blood.

Lisa is hurt, hurt enough to bleed and a lot if what I can feel is being lost right now. I use my dead cells in her flesh to check her over, it could be just a simple cut, right? Bleeding is a natural part of living, so it doesn't have to be bad...

Lisa's muscles are contracting violently, micro fractures and tears pocket her skeletal and muscular systems, her heartbeat is rapid and the same damage in her muscles is present. She is bleeding from her nose and ears, her eyes also seem to have burst several vessels. I quickly reach for her nerves and feel myself stop pretending to breath. Her peripheral nerves are warm like a burning electrical wire with her spinal cord pulsing in time with her heartbeat. Her brain is the worst, full activity with the both the motor cortex and prefrontal suffering the most damage. There is a skull fracture. Lisa is hurting badly...

I feel the silence stretch in my mind as me and my others take that thought in. And then I feel their screaming, a panic radiating through all of me as our thoughts align. "Protect Lisa..."

"Please, Frankie." We whip Taylor's head to look at the source of the voice. "I need you to remain calm okay, your still in the PRT building right you recognize that if you freak out here, they'll detain you." We study the living one carefully. We don't recognize him, but he does offer solid advice. If the PRT capture Taylor body, it will be several minutes before Swarm body can defeat them and reach Lisa. A fight would just halt our progress.

I gather up a small fraction of Swarm body's bodies, four-hundred should be enough, to hide in and around the metal and electric building Taylor body and Lisa are in. Nimi body is currently in the basement of home, building a breaching tool at her discretion of destructive force. I feel these two drop from our in union thinking, I'm now just Taylor.

Okay Taylor think I'm the closest to Lisa, so I need to escape this room, find her, and kill the threat. I think over my options, just barely noticing that Dagshaw has retreated to the corner farthest from the door. Well, maybe I can just ask the living to step out of my way. "I am leaving, my girlfriend is severely injured," I move towards the door dropping the metal chair my hair had started chewing as I walk. Okay, the FBI is staying out of my way, so at least I don't have to worry about that.

"Stop," the voice over the intercom in the room has a commanding presence to it, even if it does have a slight shake as well, "I must ask you to remain in the interrogation room, I will not have you wreak havoc in my building." Interesting so this is someone in charge, who?

"I have to find L- Izzy," I stare at the false mirror, feeling the heartbeat quicken as I pinpoint the living one beyond, "her nerves are on fire and she has a skull fracture, a fever is currently killing off brain cell at a speed that will cause mild-brain damage." The intercom is silent, and I feel my feet shift as the undead flesh in my legs desire to run. "Please, her stress levels spiked before she was injured, I think that she was attacked."

"We sent Armsmaster to look for her, do not leave."

"He has no clue where she is, I know exactly where she is, please she is unconscious right now, but her brain is still trying to fry itself."

"You have a powerful anti-thinker effect that causes severe adverse reactions in thinkers, which power do you think Izzy has?" I narrow my eyes at the veiled accusation. Does she think I'd hurt Lisa on purpose? I growl under my breath as she keeps talking. "How do I know that you intervening won't make things worse, besides Armsmaster has already found her so your point is invalid."

"If you do not let me out of this room, we will tear through this building until we find her," I can feel the ribs in my chest click, the mouth in my core opening as my hunger grows, my growl rising to a buzz of insect wings. It is a white hot fire I feel, built to consume those that are stupid enough to put their hand in that flame. Rage, it's called rage... I'm filled with this hunger.

"Is that a threat, cause I would love to press this button right here in front of me and flood that room with containment foam if it is."

"Let me out and we won't do to your building what we did to Lung." I can feel Swarm's agitation as she forgets to only bring four-hundreds of her bodies and instead brings all two-thousand seven-hundred fifty. The swirling dark storm of limbs pack the dark alleys all along the street the PRT building is on. Nimi's enthusiasm to rescue Lisa is uplifting as she finishes the breaching tool. A long bone tube, thick with muscles lined with dense abalone chains of hydrogen bonds. When it flexes it will launch an explosive tipped bone spike as the muscles crunch their hydrogen to make the resulting chains explode. It will work...

"So, your admitting to a crime," I can see the heartbeat slow as serotonin and other feel good chemicals fill her blood stream. She is smug, like she thinks that this is a game to play. Lisa's life is in danger, it is not a game to us.

"Extreme situations call for extreme reactions, Director Piggot," Dagshaw's voice almost startles me as he opens up from behind. Also, now got a name for mystery asshole, Director Piggot...

"This is a bit beyond your department Eric, I would suggest you keep your mouth shut," the irritation in Piggot's voice is very clear.

"Oh, of course I'll keep my lips zipped director," the detective begins to walk over to me, "and it's Special Agent."

"Dagshaw, what are you doing I order you to stop, do not approach the clearly dangerous chainsaw on legs," Piggot's voice is angry, not an ounce of concern present for the FBI agent, "what do you think you're doing!"

Dagshaw quietly walks past me and opens the door, letting it swing inwards. "I find that entrapment at this level is childish, and I intend to resolve this dick measuring contest before someone starts acting rash."

I stare at the open door and the hallway beyond, both my others screaming at me to move. I instead walk very slowly past the detective giving him a nod and smile, even if he can only see the smile. Past the threshold I run down the hall rapidly zeroing in on Lisa location. The distant shouts from the intercom drown out by the much closer shouts of troopers heading my way.

I feel the world narrow and focus as I examine the incoming opponents in front of me. Six humans, four in my path and two behind me. I can't kill them, it would slow me down, so I need to go past them. A trooper approaches on my left and another stops a bit back to bring up a sprayer. I don't think about it as my body dodges.

I roll left under the trooper's arms to dodge the grab, kicking off from his thigh into a standing run that brought me close to the wall. I kick the wall with my left leg to roll past the second one with the sprayer, slamming my feet into the ground to hop over the head of the third. I feel the thick mass of containment foam near my head mid-air. My hair shifts my body back as reaches and grips the floor, my body flowing around the glob as I fly underneath, missing it with my face by inches. I land in a slide that goes under the last guy's feet, having crossed the hall past everyone without slowing. I'm back on my feet and running in a fraction of a second as my hair pushes me back onto my feet.

Behind me I can see the after math of my handy work. The sprayer guy got his buddy that I kicked in the thigh, his leg was now covered in an expanding foam. The sprayer guy had followed my arc through the air and got the other two as well, one guy completely immobilized and the other tripped and smashed his head into sprayer guy. It was fun but I kept running picking up speed as I hear alarms and see red lights beginning to flash. The stomp of boots alerting me to the incoming troops, the ones behind me I can see.

Fuck you too, Piggot. I'm going to get to Lisa before you can catch me!

So, yeah I seem to like to hurt Lisa...fuck I feel like shit about it...

Tumultuous_Anxiety · Apr 8, 2021

I'm grinning ear to ear...

The depressed button flashes as the sounds of alarms and red lights flash in the room. I shouldn't have done that...

I sag in my chair as I run the last twenty minutes through my head. As a one Taylor Hebert walked for the door, I felt my panic spike. Could I really blame myself, I just watch the dangerously unknown cape rip a solid steel chair from its moorings just by standing up only to chew it apart and spit it out. She even admitted to going toe to toe with a full power Lung and not only win but put the overpowered rage cape in the hospital rather than lock-up. Doctors aren't sure if he could recover with his regeneration off of machines! The sounds of fighting long since have stopped, and I fear what level of destruction could be waiting me outside the interrogation room.

Then there is the way she acts around people. Don't think that I didn't see her look at Special Agent Dagshaw like he was just meat. Her stares didn't recognize him, he could have just been another piece of furniture. The fact that she stares with some twenty plus eyes that form in her hair...I'm surprised that Dagshaw could keep such a level head. In that moment when she was talking about Izzy, her voice told me that she was showing concern, but her posture was a story of desperate hunger. Hunched over posture, eyes locked on objects like how predators watch for their prey, she looked like an animal, like she was a starving dog, and I was in front of her food. With what I had been told by Hannah... I played the game...

I look down at the glowing button, its flash mocking me as I stew in my regret. The pain in my leg flares as I feel my heartbeat fall to a slower pace. I should have been smart instead of dangle her girlfriend like some sort of prize in exchange for information. It was reckless and stupid, fuck I'm acting like Armsamaster for Christ sake...

"Director Piggot." I look up as the speakers for the interrogation room spit out Dagshaw's voice. In the room I can see the man sitting at the interrogation table, his head in his hands even as his back faces the window. His posture belied his stress, and I can see where the man gets his greys from. "Give it to me straight, did I just royally fuck up there?" I frown at the question.

I didn't like the man when he reported to my office last week. The man had the feel of a professional who was better than his current station. Like he had the arrogance to not step aside and take a desk job, like people would just mess up his work if he handed it over to someone else. In a way I respect the man more than I like him, but he was in the way of our own investigation and our cases were made linked through the complex system of bureaucrats and national secret keeping of our respected organizations. He was also a part of the investigation team at the FBI to look into the other three letter organizations, but despite all of that he had my respect for just how stubborn he was.

I pulled many strings to get the PRT and the FBI to have joint jurisdiction on this case. I also tried many things to get this man removed from the case, going all the way up to his superior and then mine, but apparently, he had already been there. Every one of my contacts respected the man, the older gruff stereotypical detective type who's done everything from solve serial killings to investigate corruption in the CIA. I scoff, he even fucking dresses like one too.

Guess I should explain the situation to him, professional courtesy and all that.

"You just let a cape you know nothing about," we know nothing about my subconscious interjects unhelpfully at my words, "loose inside the building, right now troopers could be risking their lives against a force they are unprepared for, armed with hoses of fancy instant cement." I watch the grey haired man slump further into his chair, looking pitiful in the red flashes leaking in through the open door. "You did a better job than me," I sigh.

I watch him still at my words, I just sneer as the painful thought manifest in my throat, "I'll have to probably apologize or owe something to the cape just to make things close to as good as you did."

The man shifts to look back at the mirror, the surprise in his expression, matches the look in his brown eyes. "Look Dagshaw, when dealing with parahumans you have to understand a few things. Pretty much every one of them is ready to use their powers at a moment's notice, they enjoy using it and often choose to fight over any sense of diplomacy, it's the reason why the PRT doesn't directly employ capes just sponsors them. The other thing you need to understand is that sometimes a good rapport with a cape is more important than following protocol," I feel my sneer transform into a disappointed frown, "something I forgot just now."

"I see." He seems better, good, now I don't have to deal with a mopey old man.

"So, congratulation, you've successfully made positive relations with a cape that has extreme issues with authority," I snort and stand up from the chair, I have other things to do than wait for this to resolve. I press the button turning off the alarm, "I'd offer you a job here, but I think you'd just end up doing less here than you do in the FBI."

He is silent as I lean into the radio, "stand down and prep medical if it hasn't been done already, I'll be in my office, and call Panacea. Tell her that we got a cape in critical condition" Might as well work in some good will of my own...

The band of white wrapped around the bleeding cape's head, blooms with a bright crimson. I closed my com message to console and begin my assessment. I wasn't fast enough...

How?

My suit is literally designed to give me a low level mover rating, I should have been able to stop her from hitting the wall. I look up at the cracked wall, a dent in concrete just barely there, the spray of blood across the surface isn't a small amount either. I look back over the footage while I wait for medical to bring a stretcher.

I came upon the scene of the cape Izzy spasming on the ground and screaming. Her back was almost arched in a way that could have been back breaking if she continued to do it. I approached closer and called it in, looking over my footage shows me something I missed while calling it in, her face and body were twitching in pain as I spoke.

I, like a lot of my colleagues, am familiar with the term thinker headache, even seen a few take place in my career in both heroes and villains. They usually range from mild-headaches to severe migraines, and they are not commonly relieved by any amount of pharmaceutical aid. They are not typically this violent though...

After I called in for medical, I looked around for cause, briefly walking a short distance away, around ten feet. Then Izzy popped up from the ground, looking around very confused before locking on to the wall at the end of hall. I start walking over to her and almost reach her, my arm stretched out to grab at her shoulder, but then she moved.

It was odd to watch from my angle. Reaching out for her, from her blind spot no less, seemed to almost push or propel her forward. Weirder was that as soon as she cut and ran, she outpaced my machine's reflexes something that so far only certain movers have been able to accomplish. I ran after her, my armor actually pushing itself in speed to keep up at a ten foot difference. My armor's top speed is twenty-three miles per hour, slow to any speedster but way better than any normal human running speed. I watch the play back of the instant that she was near the wall, her war cry as she screamed out her target, then the dull crack of her skull slamming into the wall at a speed close to a slow moving car.

It had all happened in the span of a couple minutes, and I have no idea how long that the cape was seizing, but I feel myself privately cringe at the idea that knocking yourself in this way was seen as a better alternative than continuing to feel pain. I shake off the thought, I'm a professional I need to be in this moment. I look around the scene hoping to see if I can find some evidence, something to do rather than wait, but there is nothing and I can't leave the injured cape to investigate down the hall until she is moved.

So inefficient, I try to keep my frown in place, but my hands twitch as I try to, I could probably make medical more efficient just need to... I stop myself. No, I need to stay focused, Endbringer fight could happen anytime this month and I haven't finished the early warning system with Dragon. I could call her, it would mean that I'm at least helping while I wait... Maybe then I'll stop feeling like a failure...

That decides it for me, thinking about the Hebert case wasn't productive right now, and "mopping" about it is something Miss Militia tells me isn't worth it. I call Dragon through the internal phone system in my helm, fidgeting to myself as I wait for the connection. I don't have to wait long.

"Hey, Colin," the slight Canadian accent of Dragon's voice is accompanied by her avatar appearing on my HUD. I can feel my fingers stop twitching as she speaks, "did you need something, or is it finally time to work on the detection system?"

"Yes." I blink as the word leaves my lips before I could have thought about it, "I- uh, I wanted to know how the program was going on your side."

I want to slap myself at my accidental slip of control but stop as Dragon smiles, a virtual hand covering her avatar's mouth as she tries to keep in a giggle. "Yes, it is going well," She says amused, "or about as well as running predictive models for eighty petabytes worth of data, it has been very slow on my end unfortunately." She frowns, "I don't think that it will be ready by this attack, maybe the next if we come up with something clever." I frown too, that is disappointing, but we knew it would have been unlikely that we would finish the system in a prompt fasion. "So, what are you up to?"

"I'm currently waiting around for medical, downed cape," I respond.

"Oh, is someone on the team hurt," Dragon's eyes widen for a second, before her frown returns and her eyes narrow, "you're in the PRT building, it isn't you is it. I swear to god Colin if you ignored a piece of shrapnel again in favor of tinkering, I'm gonna send a suit."

I feel my face relax and I struggle to keep the mask of professionalism on my face, "No, it's not me or any of the team, we are currently working on the Hebert case and one of the members is hurt, Izzy."

She sighs, "Ah, okay...well no not okay, but at least it isn't you. So, you just decided to call me because your bored, am I right?"

I suppress my flinch, "No, I'm just using my time efficiently."

"Colin," her smile is pretty even when it is strained, "remember what we talked about, how people are more comfortable when you give them more attention than is necessary?"

"Yes." The concept of paying attention to someone when we are waiting for the next step in important events, is still kind of strange. If you can't speed up when people or things will arrive you might as well just tinker...

"Well, this also applies here," her sigh is strained, and the shake of her head makes me feel disappointed that I couldn't see that.

"Then what should I do," I look down at the cape at my feet. Her head was already checked and the wrap around it was already down. I'm checking her heart rate and breathing, they are slow and shallow, but they haven't changed since impact. I checked her neck for fracture, but it is fine, and she doesn't have any other injuries that I could find. So what?

"Your monitoring her vitals, right?"

"Yes."

"Then maybe you should do it without the aid of computers too."

"I- why," I lean down and place a few physical sensors on her body, a finger on her neck is all I need.

"Well, you're concerned right?"

"Yes, of course, we have an injury that was self-caused and before that the injured was showing signs of a seizure," who wouldn't be concerned it's not like pretending to monitor her vitals while I actually watch her vitals with my HUD is any more helpful.

Dragon pauses as she digests my words, "you're going to have to tell me more details later, but if your concerned about another person's wellbeing it helps to show what you are doing rather than just monitor the computers. It works better at showing you care then just standing there."

"Oh," I can imagine how people might think I'm doing nothing, the monitoring system is pretty unobservable..."I didn't think-" I pause mid-sentence as the intruder alarms go off. The hall is plunged into red lights and sounds, I can hear troopers heading for a section, but it is a bit of a ways away. "Hold-on Dragon something is going on. Console, Armsmaster calling in for a sit-rep, over."

I wait just a few seconds before I get a response, "Armsmaster this is Console, the intruder alarm in interrogation has been pressed, please be advised that medical has been delayed, your orders remain the same stick with the injured, over."

I look down at Izzy, her head bandage is now completely soaked through with blood. I adjust her status from slight bleeding to major bleeding and grab my wound kit. "Copy, Console, I suggest medical hurries, injuries are no longer a minor bleed, over."

"Copy that."

I carefully lift Izzy's head and remove the old bandage and replace it with a fresh one. I can feel my own heart rate spike as this one too blooms red far too fast. "How is she looking Colin?"

"Not good, her bleeding appears to be speeding up rather than slowing, subtle twitches show me that she is still experiencing a seizure," I pause at a thought, "Dragon, do you have any knowledge on thinker related illnesses?"

"What like a thinker seizure?" I can hear typing in the background as she starts checking her data banks. "Except for a few cases, no and in the three that match that description well the prognosis wasn't good." "How so?"

"Well even though they were seizures, medicine that you use in situations like that had zero effect, two of the cases had brain death occur after four hours of start."

"And the third," I frown as I stare at the very likely dying girl, fuck why couldn't I be some kind of medical tinker...

"You're not going to like it," I can see her grimace out of the corner of my eye, "they called in a master who, if I'm reading this right, convinced the thinker that they weren't having the seizure."

I try not to think about that. "Did they give any causes for the severe reaction?"

"No, although the living thinker stated that it involved another thinker power, so the best guess is power interaction gone very bad."

No accounting for that, power interactions are almost completely random, and their effects are similarly unpredictable. I watch the girl shiver in pain, the simple black fabric covering her eyes makes it look like she is blind. I try not to panic as I see drips of red leak from under the mask, right where eyes would be. I can't do anything...

*SHREEEEEEEEK*

The sound of nails on a chalkboard, or in this case teeth on concrete, grabs my attention away from the dying thinker. "Colin what was that," Dragon's voice is distance as I stare down the other end of the hall, "I think our connection has interference..."

It's not interference...

I crawl forward on all fours, my pale hands reaching out from the shadows I bring to the lighted halls. A thick red spiral denotes, hides my face, the twisted writhing shadows trailing from behind me stretch around the corner as I turned down to reach this hall. My curled mass is full of teeth that shine white like starlight next to wandering, shifting eyes that burn silver like moons, constantly flicking across my surroundings.

My eyes search through the corridor as I smell my lovely. My eyes locking on to the her as she lies bleeding behind him. Those starlight teeth start moving through the waves of black, a silent thing made loud when the darkness expands to the walls. My teeth cut gouges into the walls as a violent buzz forms, shredding concrete as I stalk forward. The hall is blocked as I approach like a storm on the horizon. A terrible calamity approaching a knight of steel and copper searching for my prize, a prize that lies just beyond him.

I have taken the form of a hungry god as I stalks to my beloved, the one I choose above all other food to trust, to be whole with and complete, our lovely Lisa...

I stand and make my way forward, I had to go through thirty troopers to get here if I have to go through Armsmaster it will be little issue. I keep myself calm or I try to okay, Lisa's condition is getting worse and with it my instincts are doing that weird thing again. I'm serious, just look how I described the scene...that is not normal. Besides now is not the time to wax poetically about being a romantic undead monster trying to save its loved one's life. This is serious, and I need to be that way.

My hair lowers from the ceiling and walls as I walk slowly and calmly walk forward. "Armsmaster, step away from L-Izzy," I have been slowly working on some of the damage with my cells that are already present in her body, but they keep getting lost and I don't have enough to work with. In my own body I have made a new organ to help. While dodging and running I formed a simple sack and started cloning Lisa's blood. She has lost a lot from her hemorrhages and the skull fracture, but I currently have three pints of genetically similar blood to replace it. The other problems are mostly inner cranial, although the skull fracture is a concern it actually has improved her survival chances.

Right now, Lisa's head is less resembling a human brain case and more a pressure cooker, she has onset encephalitis, and her brain activity is so high it is starting to swell as well. The pressure alone is worrying because it could burst a blood vessel in her brain, an aneurism, and decrease her survival time from hours to minutes. Her cracking open her skull, as much as it hurts me to say, has so far kept her from dying faster. It still doesn't solve all the other problems, but it was a good enough stall for time. She had an hour and a half from the impact...

Now I just need to move a single cape..."Frankie, I am required to ask what your intentions are," His stance is stiff as he stands over her, it doesn't look like he will move, but at least he doesn't have his weapon out. Maybe he can be talked to...

"I can save her life if I can get to her," I stop at his frown, what is with the PRT and being assholes today? "I don't want to have to move you myself, it would waste precious time."

"Do you know what is wrong with her?" He is wasting time, every second is closer and closer to reaching irreparable brain damage. I maybe really good with chemistry and biology, but I don't want to try and test to see if I can repair my girlfriend brain. It is too important, I can figure it out later... with mice...maybe.

"Yes," I list out her symptoms before adding her time frame for major brain damage to occur, roughly an hour now, it took me twenty minutes to get here because of the guards. That's twenty minutes the bitch Piggot stole from me to work. "She also has an extreme level of activity in her brain, I think her Pollentia and Gemma are leaking neurotransmitters into the rest of it."

One hour until brain damage...

He nods and steps back, as soon as he moved, I moved. Lisa's body is covered by mine, I'm sitting on her hips, as I place my hand into her mouth. "Dragon and I have been trying to determine the cause, and she thinks that it could be a power related illness, a thinker seizure." I open my hand's flesh in the privacy of Lisa's mouth and feed her my blood, the cells of the dark fluid passing through her stomach and into the rest of her body. I nod at Armsmaster's voice, power related, so I guess that means that if I can't figure out what is exactly wrong and fix it, I could always eat her Pollentia. It would mean that Lisa no longer has any powers, but I'm more than fine with that, it is will Lisa forgive me that makes it a final solution not the first.

"If it is a thinker related illness, I'm afraid that we lack the means to treat her here," I can see his frown with my hair's eyes as he continues, " and if what you say is true, there is no time to solve it like what we found."

I unzip my hoody and unbutton her dress shirt, the wet tearing rip of my chest opening along it's seam makes the hero jump, but he can't see us underneath all my hair. Good, I want privacy for this. A thin tendril emerges from my chest and I direct it to a good spot on Lisa's stomach. Yes, this one should work, close enough to the heart to get fast circulation, I press the needle like head of the tentacle into her pale flesh and dig. "What was the solution that you found?" I reach her left renal artery, I'm passing the cloned blood through her kidneys first so that her body can get used to this blood faster and to get the body to start making its own cells faster as all of this is pretty low in oxygen.

"It requires intervention by master powers," his frown is still there, but I can now smell annoyance off his breath, "the statement given said, and I'm quoting, "the master convinced the thinker that the seizure wasn't happening"."

I frown at that too. So, I just need to tell Lisa's power to stop how the f-…. Wait, would it work if I get it to stop entirely or does it mean turn off? I pump in the red blood cells through my blood sack as I think about what Lisa has told me about her thinker powers.

"I was wondering, do your anti-thinker powers work on Izzy?"

Armsmaster is apparently on the same page as me. I feel a jolt of pain roll through Lisa's body, and watch as her brain activity spikes to full coverage, before going back down again. The fever in her skull has gotten hotter, and my cells scream at me as I watch her brain cells die by the hundreds. I bend down and lick up Lisa's red tears, mostly it is to keep me calm, she isn't in too much trouble until we reach the thousands...

Forty-five minutes to permanent brain damage...

Okay, fuck she has less time now... Let's check her eyes to see what they look like.

I remove Lisa's dark bio-silk mask, her eyes are shut tight and blood leaks from them. The red on her neck tells me she has been experiencing a very rapid bleed from most of her facial orifices. What I remember is that Lisa's powers clash with my nature as undead when she views me. Sure, she can look at me and her powers have started to ignore me now, but right now I don't think she can ignore anything. I pull open her eye lids to see her green circles swimming in a pool of red. I send cells to her eyes to check and see if she can even see.

The nerves in the eyes look fine, her pupils are dilating when my eyes go pass over, their glow causing the eyes to instinctively expand despite it not being real light. I can feel hands try to move me, but I simply wrap my hair under and around Lisa sealing us together and removing the prying hands. My eyes all focus inwards, even my ghost rests between us, and my teeth form a barrier around us. No one is separating us...

**Forty minutes to brain damage...**

Okay so Lisa's eyes work, I lick up the blood out of her eye and seal its burst capillaries soaking the blood under her conjunctiva. I just need her to look at me, I grimace at that, she needs to be conscious to look at me, is she conscious? The level of activity in her nerves causing her to twitch under me tell me that being awake is pain. I'm reminded of the first time I woke up Nimi last month, her entire sensory suite had registered as pain and flooded all of us with it. The pain will be comparable. I look down at the blank face of Lisa's maybe unconscious but twitching form, her brain's activity level looks like she is already awake, but it isn't aware...

Another extreme spike in activity makes me hold her tighter...

Twenty minutes to brain death...

Okay, I need to wake up someone who should be awake, but who's brain is currently asleep due to pain. I could flood her heart with adrenaline to get her body to wake and thus her brain, but her heart is already very damaged, and I can't replace it fast enough. Making blood cells is one thing to make in minutes, an organ more complex than the sack I'm using will take a bit. It also needs to be alive, I can make dead stuff perfectly, unnaturally, fast, but as much as I want to save Lisa, I'm not willing to cut her life short. Turning my girlfriend into a half-undead even to save her life is wrong and requires her consent. Plus, it defeats the purpose of saving her life if I just half kill her...

I test the spinal column for a waking response, but I'm greeted with it being damaged just before reaching the brain. Okay so her extrathalamic control is damaged and that explains why she can't stop feeling her body. It also tells me that she is not in a coma, or even asleep, she is trapped in her head and she is in so much pain that her senses are being ignored entirely. She can hear me...

"Lisa, I need you to focus on me, please I know it hurts," I try to keep the rock in my throat down as another quake passes through her weakening body, "but I need you to see me, can you try it for me please lovely."

Ten minutes to brain death...

I watch hopeful as her eyes begin to move, the green's looking blindly around is promising, but she still doesn't "see". I can see the signals get lost in the lighting storm inside her skull. The signals aren't strong enough, my ghost wraps itself around Lisa's head and heart, she can see me, but it can't pass through to her. I watch as the tumor that gives her powers continues to pump out more and more signals, almost mockingly, the heat of fever and pressure of her brain swelling will damage it last. I snarl, such a disrespectful guest to my lovely, how dare it view itself as higher than the flesh around it! I watch as its spider cancer is connected to every part of Lisa's brain, its signals reaching everything through thin strands of nerves.

I need to go into it directly, I can pass my brain signals through the offending section if I physically connect to it. My face splits in half as I expose my rotting brain, my eye stalks severing as they grow towards Lisa's eyes. If this doesn't work, I'll just eat her powers, they aren't worth it if they plan on killing her...

Five minutes to brain death...

The thin undead nerves reach her eyes and flow across the surface, reaching the back of her eyes. I breach the barrier and connect to her eye stalks. My brain doesn't produce chemicals or electricity, it is my ghost that does that using the brain more as a vehicle for my senses than anything else. So, with Lisa's nervous system connected to mine, my ghost can technically signal her brain. In theory...

I touch Lisa's nerves...nothing. I was able to reach her brain but like before the signal just gets lost in the noise. My split face frowns, I need to reach deeper. My nerves snake down her stalks and pass the barrier until I reach her brain. The occipital lobe, vision in the brain, is found at the back of her head so I need to navigate quickly.

I connect to every lobe on my path, if visual is not enough I can just attack the Pollentia from every angle in Lisa's brain if needs be!

Two minutes to brain death...

My nerves are spread everywhere in her by the time I reach her visual centers. The neural tissues connect to hers almost as if I have formed a new lobe, but instead of her Pollentia's set-up mine connects to only one, the Pollentia itself. I send my signals, slow at first but faster as it tries to push me back.

I feel the spike coming, a wave of brain destroying chemicals, already to take from me Lisa's life... How dare it!

I push back at the signal with full force behind my anger. You think I can't save her, watch me! I push into it physically as I connect more and more nerves to the internal enemy.

I will flood you until you surrender or are destroyed thief, she is mine and I will keep her as long as she wants! I feel the signal from it flinch as I now send signals all across it...

She will have a long life with or without you PARASITE! The words flow across its surface as I feel its walls break under the strain of my constant attack.

I send everything into the cracks and feel myself push deeper into the Pollentia, its torrent of signals nothing compared to my tsunami of wrath. I fill the irrelevant lobe with my own signals causing it to slow as it tries to process...and fails.

I receive a single signal back before the entire collection of nerves stops fighting...

[~~…error...~~]

Lisa relaxes as my internal sensors show the hyper brain activity cease.

Thirty seconds until brain death would have occurred...

Laughing like a loon, screaming at the sky!

The writing in the halls and walls of my brain tell tales
tales of madness and despair,
tales of triumph and glories,
tales of the darkness that loves you,
and ballads of the end of all things...

I'm pretty tired... ignore the mad poetry it has nothing to do with the story...

Tumultuous_Anxiety · Apr 14, 2021

A chapter...

The PRT building is familiar to me like the hospital is, a sense of foreboding, inadequacy, and stress.

The director had called for me about an hour ago, or five patients ago depending on how you measure, someone was injured or dying same deal as usual. It wasn't one of the wards, because I wouldn't have arrived an hour later if it had been, Vicky probably would have cut class if someone on Dean's team was hurt bad enough. Another thing that was weird about it is that it was a request not an emergency call through New Wave, meaning it isn't a protectorate hero either. So, must be a trooper? I don't know, they didn't tell me anything, and it was put on fast track, hence five and not ten.

I sigh, sure hope I'm not late...

The stark halls of the PRT building pass by as I follow the escort to my new patient. Just another one in a long line of wounded I've dealt with today, it's worse this week. Lung was apparently taken off the streets a week ago, I don't know how or who, but the other gangs took notice. The Merchants are somehow holding out with two thirds of their cape leadership gone, Squealer's vehicles have been mostly missing though. The empire on the other hand has decided to have a field day, although again their capes are oddly absent. It must be because an Endbringer fight, and thus the truce, is coming up. God it is going to get worse after that isn't it...

I huff beneath my hood, the amount of injuries that the gangs are doing to each other and civilians is just coasting in the fifties for every day that the ABB leader is gone. After the truce has run its course, I don't doubt that those numbers will reach the hundreds easy. I can feel the pack of cigarettes press against my leg inside my scrub pants under my robes. I don't smoke often, just when my work load gets crazy, it helps with...everything.

I follow the trooper mechanically through the halls ignoring my growing need. The walk there a mess of grey halls, stairs, and an elevator ride before we make it to medical, the PRT's own private hospital with a miniature MRI and everything. Six hospital beds, five sporting a open curtain with the last one furthest from the door with its green privacy drapes drawn. I look around at the abandoned room, usually one of the on-site doctors would at least greet me and give a run-down of the situation. I turn to the trooper, but they're gone too...odd. Well, they're probably just busy, I shrug and start to head over to the drawn curtain. I'm curious about who they called me in for. I make it about two steps before I really examine the room.

It isn't just dark over in the far corner. Wavy strands of black flow from the top of the green curtains, where the lights are not off, they've been smashed. I look down at the bottom of the curtain and see rolling darkness spread and twist as if something solid moves in the darkness. The light of the bright window doing nothing to pierce a veil of shade surrounding the mint green curtains, but if I look closely, I can see shapes move beyond the paper. I take a few more steps to see what they are.

Now that I'm closer I can hear it, a soft sound like the fluttering of wings, but underneath I can hear something throatier. It sounds like a hiss of air through teeth, a papery quality mixed with the deeper rasp of a gasp for air. It's cold...

I'm standing before the curtain now, it is dark inside there. I can't see a thing, but I can hear it now. A buzz like insect wings, like summer bugs even though my body is freezing. I think I'm scared, but I can't stop my hand rising from my side as I reach for the flap...

"Panacea?"

I jump a squeak in my throat dying as I realize just how close I am to the curtain, "I, what?" I look behind me at the voice, the chill from before gone as the room suddenly feels too hot.

The blank mask of the PRT trooper mask stares back at me, "Are you alright?"

"Uh, yes I just," I look back at curtain and see a shape moving in the dark, long and spindly as it bends down to my eye level. A soft glowing circle staring back at me...I shake my head and when I open them the shape is gone, "I just didn't hear you come in."

"Sorry to startle you," he scratches the back of his head, "I've been ordered to take you up to the director, sorry for the mix up your patient is not ready to see you yet."

The buzzing from before are gone and looking back to the green paper doesn't illuminate what I saw before. "Uh, yeah lets go talk to Piggot instead."

The trip upstairs to the director's office is a blur as I think back to what my "patient" could possibly be. The shapes I saw...maybe It is some kind of case 53?

I sigh as I walk back though the door to the clinic. Piggot's explanation of just what went down earlier today, had me both panicky and angry. One Piggot has the nerve to call me in for a healing I can't even do! I don't, read can't, do brains, I huff as I approach the green divider, plus Armsmaster believes that Izzy's condition was taken care of by Frankie, her girlfriend. They called me in to see if they could get dirt on the two!

I hesitate at the dark curtains. I was going to walk out on them right then and there, but then we get to why I'm panicking. Frankie eats people... They read me a report by Miss Militia that also told me that Izzy might eat people too... Their cannibals, in fact the entire team they're on are cannibals in some regard or another. They have been observing the family's house for the past couple of weeks and their eating habits are...vile. I mean sure anything is better than humans, but eating dead decomposing or even just decomposers, well I'm glad that I don't.

I guess cannibalism is a strong word really, none of the people in that house have been seen eating someone. Except for Izzy apparently who bit Frankie, and it was consensual, ew...

I drag a hand down my face and try to steel myself, just remember their patients which means they deserve medical treatment too, despite the fact that Carol would skewer them. I shake my head, Carol would skewer me if she found out I could change people's brains, I don't think that my mother is a sane counter argument.

I sigh and pull aside the curtain. It is dark, but I can see inside okay, the bed is occupied by two mounds. One looks normal, blonde with freckles across her cheeks and nose, she is sleeping peacefully next to her bed partner. Her bed partner is well Taylor Hebert, very different from when I met her last month.

Thick locks of hair spill out of the bed and crawl up every surface of the space with huge curls. It is like looking at waves of literal darkness. God her hair must trail behind her for feet, it moves like its underwater or like it is tendrils of shade, several places on the floor have rising columns of the keratin structures waving lazily in an absent breeze.

Her chest is...nude, which would make me look away out of embarrassment, but her rib cage is open. The flaps of her chests flesh draping over the other girl. Sternum missing and the ribs move like they are articulated, a gentle breathing motion making them wave. A spaghetti mess of barbed tentacles spill out of an empty cavity where lungs should be but aren't. The rest of her body is a bloodless pale with long appendages. She is tall maybe six foot, hard to tell with her lying down next to the shorter girl.

A yawn takes me away from my peeping of pale creature in human form, she rolls onto her side from her back, snuggling up to the blonde in bed with her. The wet slap of her skin slapping bone, thus hiding her exposed bones, makes me flinch. I look down as I feel something slither past my leg, the hair is not hair, it feels too much like flesh to be hair. I hold in a scream as the tendril of hair opens a glowing silver eye and grows teeth. "What are you doing here," the voice is hollow and insect-like, not like an angry noise, just extra clicky. I look up and see that all of the other hair is full of the eyes, white circles of shiny silver glow surrounded shark teeth glittering in the low light. In the center of the black, a pale form stands in stark contrast to the dark, the bright points of glowing silver lights in her face completing the look. Yep, I just woke up a death goddess while she was napping with her girlfriend. I feel my legs get wrapped up in toothed hair, they're sharp teeth I might add, the points digging into my flesh through my pants. At least she isn't angry...

"Uh, I was told someone needed healing," I struggle to not say her name. After all, even if she doesn't have her mask on, it is still polite to maintain her cape status, "May I come in, Frankie?"

"You know my name Panacea, I don't care if you use it." She speaks like she is tired, but before I can take a step, the dark not-hair grabs me, closes the curtains, and places me on the bed. The hoodie gets zipped close, hiding the completely mended flesh of her nude chest, it healed in seconds! "Sorry for scaring you earlier, I was sleeping.

My hands are covered in the not-hair so I'm expecting the rush of information, what I get is nothing, nothing at all. It's all dead cells no activity, no chemical changes, and no feeling of control. I simple am not allowed to edit Taylor's body in any way. "Uh, I, okay?" I can't change her...if she wants to eat or kill me, there is nothing I can do to stop her...

"Nimi would like me to ask you if you want to be adopted."

Her voice, and words, startle me from my panic at being at this cape's complete mercy, "what?"

"I told her that I would ask people on her list she has," Taylor's head turns as she watches me, "she thinks that your adorable, and wants to care for you like a mother would. If you say yes though it might be a few years though..."

I don't know how to respond to that one, I mean sure Carol is kind of a bitch, but I deserv- I halt at that thought, no I-I'm improving so I'll make her happy...eventually...let's stop thinking about her. I still don't know what to say about the proposition so..."I smoke cigarettes!" Blurt the first thing that came to mind. I feel the need for one now that I remembered the pack in my pocket, but at least she'll stop holding me. People usually give me dirty looks when I smoke-

I'm picked up from my seat at the end of bed and I'm soon placed in a cocoon of that not-hair and sitting in her lap. I feel small as the much taller girl wraps some arms around me. The arms and hair like steel, but a combing of my hair as my hood is pulled back distracts me from the danger. She isn't warm, but she is definitely soft.

"And why do you smoke cigarettes," Her voice is warm in contrast with the chill of her skin as she strokes me cheek. I expected a look of disgust, or maybe pity, but as I look up Taylor's face is a blank mask of hunger like she is talking to her food. Her voice is motherly...

"I-I," I blush as the girl who is maybe around my age makes me feel like she is so much older and makes me feel like I'm so much younger. The arms around me squeeze and I just blush harder as it makes me feel better, "I just need to sometimes..." It sounded weak to me, but it apparently satisfies her as she nods. "I-I thought you didn't like me?" The morgue and then their hospital check up from last month kind of made it clear that Taylor didn't trust me.

"I didn't back when you called me less than human," I flinch at her words and that she stopped stroking my face. This encounter is going very differently than I thought it would..."But I've since then stopped caring about it as much, it takes a lot more than one bad introduction to make me hate you. There are people that have said a lot worse for a lot longer." Her voice then drops as the hunger in her eyes turns to emptiness, "plus I hurt your sister, and you deserve an apology as well as an explanation."

What is she talking about, when was Vicky hur- Oh... "You're talking about January." I remember that night, Vicky came in on a stretcher missing two litters of blood and going into hypovolemic shock. Her body temperature rocking between two extremes as chills and fever plagued her body. She was panicking one minute and far to quiet the next. It was awful and of course I remember it, I was working that night. They wouldn't let me help, until they realized that they couldn't get the needle past her forcefield. It was like the mall all over again, just sitting on the side lines unable to help. And she dares to say sorry... "Who do you think you are," I can see a painful look cross her face, but fuck her, "you think that you can just take from people and then say sorry!?"

I struggle to get away from the fucking bitch, her and her false comfort even as she shoves the casual claim of almost killing the one person who's everything. "She won't even talk about what happened, all she does is fly around looking for something at night," I snarl even as she stares at me impassively, "well I guess I know who she's looking for now, the PRT may not be willing to do anything to you, but she's not going let you just get away with eating people!"

"Panacea," I halt at the word, her voice hollow and sounding like Carol, but not like when she is talking to me. It sounds like the voice she uses when she is disappointed in Vicky... "I want to tell you about that night," she growls, "are you going to listen?" Her face is blank, but her voice buzzes with noise as I realize just who I'm yelling at. Fuck...

I nod and then she starts the story... When it ended, I felt my anger die as my worry fills its place. "So, it was just a misunderstanding?"

"Yes," her voice is calm as she places me back on the other side of bed. The brief touch of my hand as it touches a shoulder brings me back to why I was here in the first place. I forgot Izzy was here... "for what it is worth I apologize that I ended up hurting Glory Girl, but I needed to protect Nimi, I wasn't thinking, and she wouldn't listen."

"Yeah," I sag as the tension in my shoulders leaves, "she can get like that, uh who's Nimi?" I was given a brief overview of the group that Taylor is a team member on, but they didn't give me names.

"Nimi is our tank, but she is also shares L-Izzy with me and Swarm," I pretend not to notice the slip of her tongue as my brain stalls on the thought of Izzy dating three people. How the fuck is that supposed to work? After a few images rise into my thought I shake my head, on second thought I don't want to know. "She's a case 53 thus can't have kids, so she wants to adopt when we all get old enough."

"And she thinks that I'd be a good choice," I really doubt that anyone would want me beyond my powers...

She nods, "yes, I don't think that we'd mind having someone to take care of. If it helps, Vista and several kindergarteners are on that list, and they might be the only kids Nimi has ever seen so I don't think she has an actual list and just wants to be a mom."

I frown, "so why are you the one asking if I want to be adopted?"

"I have an obligation to my other to try and win over her picks, so even if I don't particularly have the best impression of you, I still need to try. I don't know you too well after all, it could be nice to have some more friends if you don't want to be my daughter." I feel my cheeks heat up as her voice drops the motherly tone and goes back to normal. She lies down curled across Izzy.

"So, what just lying, huh?" The thought of her just phoning in her concern for me, even the lazy thought of her adopting me, almost hurt. Like I'm not good enough.

"No," she lifts to look at me, I can feel her hair curl around me the teeth at my back reminding me just who and what I'm talking to. "I would like to have kids, and you seem to have chronic stress," she frowns, "stress kills you, you know. Maybe it would be better to just start as friends."

I watch as she continues to stare at me, does she want a real answer? "I uh, guess we can be friends?" Her head quirks, and I feel myself blink. Why did I phrase that as a question?

The hairs withdraw from me and gather around the opposite side of the bed. I sigh as she lets me go, "look I was just called in to heal someone, I'm guessing your girlfriend, right? She was the one that was hurt."

A nod from the strange cape, "her head was alive with voices, I silenced them before her head popped from the noise." I blink at the glazed look across the girl's face.

"Oookay, so what does that mean?"

She frowns, the glaze over her eyes disappearing, "Onset encephalitis, generalized-onset seizure that started as focal in the Pollentia. She suffered minor tears in ninety percent of her muscular-skeletal system and blood loss. She also cracked her head open by running at a wall."

Uh, ouch... That is a very serious diagnosis. I was thinking that there wasn't anything I'd need to fix, but I guess the PRT didn't just call me in for spying. "Okay, I can fix most of that, except for the brain stuff, power doesn't work on that stuff."

The cape nods and snuggles into her girlfriend's side, "okay, ignore any necrotic tissue in her system, those are my cells and I'm using them." The hair spreads out across the wall behind her reaching up across the wall and onto the ceiling. "I'm going to sleep some more, you'll be safe here while you work." I watch as her eyes shut, the motion rippling out to all the other eyes as they disappear into shadow.

"Uh, okay?" Why wouldn't I be safe if the scary cannibal cape is going to be asleep? I shake my head and get to work, I don't need to analyze this too much, just finish this patient, go up to the hospital roof and smoke. I place my hands on the sleeping blonde and start to work only to stop when I see just how much dead cells are floating around. She is full of the stuff, her blood work is a spiraling pattern of peripheral structures of necrotic tissues. I watch as the infectious material continues to function despite having zero energy output, but it is what it is doing that is the weirdest part.

I follow a few what seem to be rogue cells travel through the veins, their same dead biology slipper to my powers like Taylor's is. They travel along before stopping at a damaged blood cell, this one is Izzy's as I feel I can change it, but I don't have to. I watch as the three cells begin repairing the single cell, even going so far as to feed it some nutrients, and they are, in what I can only describe as nuzzling, showing the formerly damaged cell affection. I watch bewildered as the newly repaired cell actually responds positively to the attention, producing proteins faster and having less errors in transcription.

It's happening everywhere too. Izzy's burnt nerve fibers are being repaired by an army of dead tissues. Her muscle tears are being filled and mended as the other cells transform the scar tissues into healthy muscle cells, while other large groupings of necrosis pull together seams in bone making it easier to seal the micro fractures. Its helping... not as fast as my healing, but hey she is healing her even if I don't want to imagine how all these cells got inside her.
Don't think just heal...

The work went quickly with the help of a couple million rogue cells helping me. They transported nutrients to the sites damage as I worked, held structures together while I add transformed cells to the bones, and fought against germs trying to get in the wounds. About the only thing that slowed me down was that they gave rather long "goodbyes" to every cell that I needed to convert. Stem cells were the only ones that they just gave a second long "nuzzle", but every other type went from three to ten seconds. As for the dead cells...the mourning was uncomfortable.

But eventually I was done. I look up from my work, moving my hood back up from my covered eyes. Taylor looked like she is asleep, the hair still lacked its eyes and teeth, and her face laid next to her girlfriend's. It was cute...until her ribs opened back up...

The cracking sound of snapping bones competes with the sound of wet flesh unsealing. The maw opens and pulls apart as it moves her to cover Izzy's chest. A thick tongue wraps around the unconscious girl's waist as the sleeping girl pulls her bed partner into a hug. I can't handle this anymore, I leave to inform the medical staff of their condition.

I pull the curtain close blocking my view of the most inhuman display of intimacy, the bone and flesh, the red and black coupling with white and gold. I'm so relieved to be out of there, I sigh my hands are shaky and I can't tell if it is lack of energy from working on the patient, or my nerves being shot from dealing with the two.

I walk over to a desk area where I can see a doctor sitting next to Armsmaster who stands. "What is the prognosis, Panacea."

I huff at the sound of his neutral voice and speed up out of the dark corner of the clinic. "She is stable, but she's probably going to remain unconscious for a couple days, maybe a week." Her body is mostly healed, with only the minor damage being taken care of by the other girl. "However, her brain is probably the only thing keeping her in that bed right now."

"So, we can expect brain damage," he frowns, but I can't tell if he is sad or disappointed, "the director doesn't like that both Frankie or Izzy are still remaining in the building, can they be moved to Brockton Bay North?"

Now it's my turn to frown, "Your facilities lack the equipment needed to treat someone in a coma, so yes Piggot can get exactly what she wants. I'd give it a day or two before moving them, just to let the healing I've done set."

He nods, "I'll inform her that they can be moved for medical reasons at a later date, did you find anything out about them?"

"Other than their names, faces, and just how gross Frankie is with her girlfriend," I put my hands on my hips, but only I sigh as I see his stance lean forward, completely ignoring my sarcastic tone, "I think she is probably biokinetic of some kind, or changer, or something, I honestly don't know what her powers are and I saw her use them to heal Izzy, while I was healing her." I think back to the constant strange cell behaviors and movements, I should probably consider her a master too, but it was only her cells that she was moving. Probably not too dangerous... maybe...

"I see, did she discuss anything?"

I look at the man, well I'm not telling him about Taylor's plans to adopt. Especially since I'm someone she, and whoever Nimi is, considered adoption materials. The fact that it sounds nice to just get away from the house...maybe for a bit. I feel my cheeks heat, but I shove it down with some well-placed irritation. "Frankie is hungry, so I suggest that she eats...something..."

The frown turns into a grimace as the metal clad tinker leans back, a hand placed on his chin as he thinks, "I suppose that we will need to contact the rest of the family, they have similar eating habits."

I shake my head, no don't think about it Amy, just don't think about it. Their just capes with different diets, that's all just because it is mostly roadkill...I feel my nausea bloom, but I just look back to Armsmaster, "I'd like leave and get back to the hospital."

He nods, "We'll contact New Wave, or get you transport if you'd like."

"Thanks..."

The hospital was how I left it, a disaster, five more victims needing urgent care. I roll up my sleeves and get to work. An hour and then two, five becomes twelve becomes thirty, as a gang shoot out on whatever street puts the city in a meat grinder. I see teeth and eyes as I work the flicker of silver as my stress gets higher and higher.
Couldn't save this one, brain hemorrhage too advanced to fix...

This one has a gunshot in their spine, brain failure to fast for us to get to...

"What are you waiting for, heal me!" I ignore her screaming as I solve what is comparably a paper cut...

"Get me some blood over here!" I yell over the din of the front lobby, hands in the guts of someone nearly cut in half...

The hospital roof slams open and then shuts behind me. The sound of the dead and dying lost to the wind and the steel door behind me. My grip on the door lost as I march to the edge of the roof and look down. frayed nerves and shaky fingers grip the pack in my pocket.

I throw out the first stick, the memory of Taylor's care fresh...

I smoke the second one...

Tumultuous_Anxiety · Apr 24, 2021

Hey sorry for the wait, I've been studying for the evaluation exam, (and stressing to the point of tears), but that is over now. I'm finally on a health study schedule and I thought that I would share with you guys the chapter I was working on, now complete. Hope you enjoy...

I have been watching the house for a week now, since Sunday at least...

I crouch on the sloped roof across from the Hebert's residence. The moon new so the street is as dark as it could get with the street lamp buzzing its orange light. I wish that bitch was still around, she just has to go get powers and then doesn't even give me the chance to beat the worthless bitch into the ground. That's another thing the bitch fucking owes me. She got her powers because of me so that makes them mine.

Last Tuesday I watched Taylor and the blonde, Izzy, leave the house, but they haven't come back yet. Odd, but ultimately this just helps me with my plan. The weakling's family has been in and out of the house for the last week so all I needed to do was wait and watch. The green one and the shadow one are easy to track, and the mom doesn't usually hunt around her house. Speaking of...

I watch the big green one and short shadow go for their "hunt". Just one more, I look down at the gas can I brought for tonight, after they're all out of the way that bitch Taylor can finally get her punishment. I glower, I shouldn't have to do this, why can no one see them for what they are? At least after tonight I'll be sure that whatever evidence the bitch has on me and Emma, then it'll be just back to what we normally do. After all we got no one to look at Taylor before, proving to the PRT that Taylor is a villainous threat
should be child's play.

I watch as another person steps out of the open doorway. Taylor's mom is tall. I try my hardest not to shiver as I watch the nearly six-foot monster walk out fully dressed for her hunt. This is the one to be warry of, I only tried to follow her on her hunt once and I will never be taking that risk again...

I look at her intensely as I try my best keep my eye on the very quick Mover. "Not to mention if she looks up hear and sees me, she can climb just as fast," I mutter as I watch the pale figure check their basket for whatever. There is nothing particularly creepy about the pale woman, but it is in how she holds herself. Even with the distance and the dark, I can make out the wound muscles, a sharpness to her movements. How she carried an air of readiness, it reminded her of a few of the cats that had been on the street longer than usual. Then there are the features, she is tall which I guess is kind of obvious since Taylor is tall, but it is the other similarities between the two. The long dark hair clashes with the pale grey of her skin, it almost looks like she was bleached. " Or dead," I whisper as I watch.

I shake my head; PHO is stupid for thinking these capes are..."zombies". I snark under my breath as I watch her, wave at her "children". PHO is full of idiots and crazies, I frown as I remember last Sunday, I shouldn't have let them work me up too much. Shooting at Madison was stupid, it is one thing to simply punish her when she is clearly acting like weak prey, it is another leaving evidence in her wall... no matter how satisfying it was watching her jump from the bolt inches from her head.

I quit my musings as I see the head of Taylor's mother move across my hiding spot. Shit, I duck at once almost hitting the gasoline, it slides, but I catch it before it can really leave my grip. That could have been bad... I look back up over the roof.
The creature's gaze has moved past my spot, before turning back to the open door and closing. She turns to look out at the street, the light from inside the house gone, shrouds the shape of her body. I can't see her eyes, but I can imagine what they look like. The cold grey orbs of from the skinny creature from school, the lifeless hungry gaze of Taylor Hebert...

I shake my head, ignore it girl, ignore what you read on PHO, she is just a weird cape, they are all just weird capes. Sure, they are monsters, and I'm doing the world a favor getting rid of them, but they are not the dead, they're not zombies. I catch sight of the tall woman running down the street, and thirty minutes later the PRT van starts up, right on time.

The lights are out in the house and the driveway is empty. The dad must be working late. So that's my que, I grab the can and my crossbow, and start to slide down the roof phasing my body into shadows making me silent. I make it across the street to the darkened house. I think back to the week Taylor came back.

When Taylor came back from being "dead", naturally we didn't give her a break, she didn't deserve one after all. We started to mess with her, but it was creepy, the coward was almost exactly the same, or well no she was different. She still didn't talk back to us, unless it was to get us to leave, and she never fought back against us, but still. The hungry looks, how she would sometimes just forget we were even there, the dark smiles she would put on when she was looking at us. I'd say she was in a gang, what with the tattoos she had on her back, but I once saw her look at one of the E88 losers at school like he was a fucking steak, and she isn't Asian. I guess she could be with the merchants, but she didn't even shy away when I mentioned her looking like a crack whore. She looks a lot different now...

The image of a dark red spiral, sharp teeth, and bright eyes in the dark, rises to the mind now. Taylor is a villain; must cause she really sells the look. Why no one else can see it for that reason alone is strange to me. I mean come on, I huff as I reach through the front door, she dresses in nothing but red, black, and white. I mean come on, she already looks like an empire reject!

The door unlatches as I finally find the lock. Whatever, after I take care of the evidence that she has, Emma and I can finally expose her for the villain she is barely pretending to not be. I pull the door open and walk in. All I have to do is get rid of everything.
The room is dark, but clearly a living room. A shabby couch sat next to an equally ragged armchair. The television is one of those old box kinds, a kitchen with a small bar occupies the back space. Next to the front door lies a set of stairs leading up into darkness. The place is even worse than Emma described, I walk around to get more of a view.

Getting deeper into the living room showed me, that there really wasn't much to see. The kitchen and table sat in the dark of the house, both looking worn, but near the back of the kitchen is a back door, useful to know the exits. Looking down a hall near the kitchen shows a basement wide open and what must be the garage? I snicker to myself, I wonder which monster lives in the basement or the garage, the green one, the shadow, or Taylor herself. I smile at the idea that Taylor's parents would put the green or multiarmed creature in Taylor's bed and shove weak-ass Taylor into the basement. It is where she belongs.

I shake my head, my smile not leaving my lips as I walk back out into the living room area. Well best to get started. I splash the gas over the couch and furniture, careful to not get any on me. I know that the dad isn't here so this should only be arson, not attempted murder. I call it pay-back, after all, they should know their place to not mess with me.

Okay, with that done time for look for evidence. So, if I were a coward bitch, my smile becomes extra toothy, where would I hide my problems. I start looking over the room. An office corner with old computer mostly just has bills and letters. Too public, I look around the living room, she probably kept the stuff in her room. I look back at the basement, but make my way up the stairs instead, keeping my steps silent as I phase the bottoms of my shoes.

"You've got to be kidding me." I stare at the walls of Taylor's room. The likeness of Miss Militia in all her fabricated PR based glory looks out on the room. " I guess it kind of makes sense," I shake my head as I catch sight of another cape poster, this one Armsmaster, " the weak tend to look up to the strong, but I guess she couldn't even get that right." The room is messy, especially the bed, with all sorts of clothes spread out, disorganized and a few strange garments lying on the ground. I smirk as I step on a few silky-er clothes with my muddy boots. It's a little sad that she won't see any of this after I torch the place.

I look through one of the drawers of a cabinet, it is much more organized in here. Neat lines of folded clothing greet my eyes as I search for evidence. Must be the parents, cause judging from the room she is a messy bitch. Well point to you Taylor, I half-smile internally, looks like your parents care about their failure of a kid. I frown as I look through the desk, " lucky bitch." I shake my head, focus girl, I need to remember what I'm here for. Taylor is not going to take down me or Emma, I just need to find where she put her evidence. I search through drawer after drawer, nothing there or in the desk. Let's check the closet.

I open the closet only to cringe. While I don't particularly care for looks, I have gotten used to Emma's particular tastes. The drab mess of dark colors and greys would be good fuel for some insults if the stupid bitch hadn't fucked everything up. I haven't found any makeup either which is just shameful. Emma's explanation of warpaint was very enlightening...

I turn away from the ugly wardrobe and start searching through the boxes on the upper shelf. It is mostly just useless junk, but eventually I find a few notebooks. Bingo, flipping through a few pages revealed quite a lot of nothing, just random letters on pages interspersed with math homework. So basically useless. I reach to put the disappointing notebook back on the top shelf and almost lose balance as the floor suddenly shifts. I look down to see that the floor in the closet is wood rather than the carpet I get down on the floor of the closet and feel around. " A-ha," The floorboards near the middle of the closet are loose, " let's see what you got Tay-tay."

I secretly hope to find something criminal, something I could bring to the PRT to show them that the useless prey is nothing but a criminal and that I am just fighting a villain. But there is nothing but more notebooks, I frown, I don't need to be exonerated, Taylor is so pathetic that the world should just not care about the weakling. Inside the floor I find four more notebooks. These too have the same random letters and words going on, but no math. I flip through the pages and watch as the random letters started to form a pattern.

She coded her evidence?

It isn't a particularly good code either, more evidence that she is an idiot, Armsmaster could probably decode this in his sleep. I flip to the next page, this one in plain English so I begin to read...

Shit.

This us, I flip to the next page to find another uncoded page, she wrote it all down? I keep reading as I find more and more. Pranks, most of which I couldn't remember, and all of the pure hatred that poor Taylor could probably muster, I joke internally even as I flip to another page.

…she could muster quite a bit...

…I flip to the next page...

I start to grin as the dates wind down to the locker, the desperation of my prey explained in good detail. It is gratifying to know that I had indeed gotten to her, made her cry and rage, it felt good to know that all my work wasn't for nothing.
The locker was genius, I had spent weeks fermenting the materials in a place I found for Emma's prank. It had everything we needed to finally break Hebert. I frown, she wasn't supposed to get powers. Her pretending to be dead was just another insult too, if I wanted to kill her, I would just do it myself. But this is fun...

I eagerly flip faster to reach the locker, but as I flip past the last date before winter break, it's just a blank page. I look at the date, January 3rd, 2011. Just a blank page... My face twists in disgust, "stupid bitch, what's the matter Taylor, can't bring yourself to write it down!"

I stare at the blank page wishing she was here, so I could burn the house down with her inside. How dare she not write it down, she has all the lesser stuff written down! I struggle to not just tear the thing apart, but then I notice that the page after that is heavy with ink.

I flip to the next page and pale...

I didn't know that she could draw...

The image is dark, but with the streetlight coming in through the window I can just barely see it. The locker, except it didn't look like a garbage dump for useless people. No, it looks like an insane person drew it. Scratched into the page with the heavy scribbles it looks like a mess, but at the same time...

The walls of metal are covered in mushrooms, each different and mostly bright white against the dark of the ink-soaked page. A black spider web of shiny black strands interlacing the box, in the spaces between threads eyes stare out of the page to judge and narrow at me. At the bottom of the locker where the outpouring of bloody tampons should be, a collection of lumpy, organ looking masses pour out. At the center of the drawing are two bodies. The first is dark and unrecognizable as it sits back in the locker. The second though...

Her face is a glowing panic, her mouth opens as though gasping for air. I can see clearly black tears trailing down a face as a hand caress it. Her body is covered in bruises, as it slumps back into the other body at the back. I can't tell if she is restrained or not, but I can tell that her head is lying back in a space. A chest as an open cavity of teeth is a halo around the head. The texture of muscles stretching to cover the piece in a horrifying displace. I struggle not to slam the book shut as soon as I recognize the face is resting inside the mouth...

Emma's face...

There is a date written at the top...it is from the Tuesday that Emma told me to run... I haven't heard from her since...

The room is suddenly too quiet, and I can feel a shiver roll down my spine. I stuff the book into my hoodie, I got my evidence. I look at the other notebooks and begin to stuff them too. Okay so that should be all the evidence, now all I need to do is get ou-.

There's a creak...

I turn and watch as the formerly closed door leading out into the hall slowly swings open...

I like the inner walls...

I climb up through the rafters and dry wall, it barely creaks as my light form passes through room to room. I like them, because they are safe.
My bones click as I stretch around looking for the source of noise, I hope it's a rat, they're delicious to drain! I shift through electrical and plumbing as I make my way to the skittering noise I can hear, it sounds like it is from the attic. Good, I can stretch out up there...

My name is Annette Rose Hebert, I died on May 10th, 2009. You can call me Rose.

I came back after my daughter retrieved me with my other and gave me my body back. I slither through a gap in the wall and ceiling, carefully pulling my skull through the gap with me, before reforming in the attic. Granted I didn't actually wake up immediately, but enough of my ghost remains eventually formed together to make me. Which was disorienting, but I'm not alone, another me who I had shared dreams and thoughts and perspective, helped me get my body together. Getting out of the suitcase in the basement even folded in half as I was, wasn't too difficult. My limbs stretch as I crawl along the beams and pink insulation, stalking nearer and nearer to my prey hiding behind the boxes. I'm really limber, and my whole body can stretch around my bones, that has mostly to do with my new flesh though.

The black gel is human like even if it isn't flesh colored at all, I have kept the shape I had in life. All my features are present, even my hair. However instead of brown tresses curled, my gel forms a solid locks of gel darker than the rest of my body. The gel is stretchy, so it acts both like muscle and sinew, making movement easier as bones were kind of heavy for me to lift when I tried to leave the slime behind, before Annette came to help me.

I stare at my hand, the dissolving roach corpse under the skin ignored for my actual hand. I'm disappointed that it isn't a rat, absorption is not as satisfying as draining. My body is, I guess, the original in the sense that it is made from the body I had in life. A black gel covering my pure white bones, its translucent membrane showing off what Annette calls my most beautiful feature. I frown, I'm hideous...

I stalk over to the other side of the attic and squeeze back down into the walls. Annette says that it's not true, I head to my favorite part of the house, the living room. Annette says that I'm beautiful, and that my family wants me to come out of the walls. That our bed is too big without me...

I slide into place behind the kitchen desk nook, my favorite place to listen to my family's muted voices through the wall. Annette is...so nice. She has helped me get food, then taught me how to hunt with her, she's cuddles me when I'm feeling lonely, and has not tried to remove me from her life. She didn't steal my family; she is me and I am her. She has invited me into everything and feels that I have a right to everything she has, just as she does. I hug myself as the quiet of the house feels too much. I want to be part of it too...

I want to hug my children and show them the things I know. I want to go out and walk next to my other lock step, rather than hide in the alleys. I want to squeeze up to our Danny and feel his warmth with my own flesh, rather than listen to him sleep from the walls while my other sends the feelings to me through our link. I want to "live" in their lives again...I want to be.

Hell, I want to have a job! Annette got the job at Arcadia, and they have plans on sending Taylor there. Once she and her mate/tenant/partner get back from the hospital, Annette plans on telling her the plan she has for Arcadia. They already have all the paperwork setup, just need Taylor to study for the entrance exams and if she passes high enough then she can get in. The school even agreed that it would be fine that Taylor, barely looks human anymore, and they didn't bat an eye at the fact that Annette looks like a corpse.

I smile at the good things that my other is experiencing in her new "life". I can feel her across town, she is hanging out with that kid Carlos, Kmart Diver I think she calls him. Must be a PHO thing, I grin at the thought of Silv3r roaming the streets again. Instead of looking for predators now she is hunting down roadkill. Her fast form and weapons pulled by the world around her feel good to my fingers even as the feeling comes from her own. I wish I was out there, maybe I wouldn't mind revealing myself to this Carlos, a stranger is not as scary as my family-

I stop my monologue as I hear the door unlock. I strain to hear who this could possibly be, I know that it can't be my mate /tenant/partner, he even called to say that he would be late. As I strain my one good sense beside smell, I notice something. Something that you would only notice after hearing what a door sounds like when you unlock it a thousand times. The door is being unlocked from the inside...

My bones groan under my tightening flesh as I hear the door open to the entrance and boot walk lightly into the living room. Who is that, I don't recognize the sounds of their steps. I try to keep my panic down, Danny isn't home so the only person that can die isn't in danger, but this is my home too. I don't like people who aren't allowed inside. A scent hit my skin, and I forget my panic.

I can smell gasoline...

...and hear the sound of it splashing across my living room...

I don't have a heart, so my core and bones click in irritation as the steps lead upstairs. The walls and house around me rage at the thought of this ungrateful guest. They're trying to burn away Annette's happiness, Taylor, Swarm, and Nimi's happiness, the house that Danny and I bought together and had Taylor in. They are going to steal it...my happiness.

I don't have vocal cords, and the only sounds I make are clicks and gurgles, but still, I scream, and the house fills my senses as I pinpoint my intruder. My small body pulls itself up the walls of my much larger shell and through my maze of electrical and plumbing. A rage building great and terrible at the thought of my family's home gone, it's mine!

They are mine!

And I'm not giving it up for anything!

I slide effortlessly through the ceiling until I'm over the master bath, a fixture unscrews itself from the wall and I pull myself through the gap. Bone by bone, I reform on the tiles, shifting my jaw back into position as my lips pull back with a snarl. My steps silent as my light form is cushioned by my floors. Okay little rat, I grin the black of my translucent lips pulling back to reveal my bright white fangs, let's see what you taste like...

I stand up and face the door that swung open. My grip on my crossbow tight as I stare at the darkness from the open hall. It looks empty...

I search the entry way for a sign of something out of place, but the hall is too dark, and the light behind me from the street doesn't penetrate far enough into the room. God, I wish that I had my gear, or at least my goggles. I had to ditch the ward gear in the bay and get my bug-out bag from my hiding spot when Emma had warned me. The googles though sure would be helpful right now, with them I could just see the internal wiring in the wall and avoid getting electrocuted if I decide to phase through a wall. I stare at the frame of the door, it is incredibly shadowed, but I don't think I see anything...

I lower my crossbow, relaxing as I realize that there is nothing there.

A shadow of fingers slips out of view.

I snap my weapon up to aim at the door, bolt leaving the end of my bow before I could even register what I just saw. The bolt thunks into the wall and something dark blurs at me. It is too fast for me to even see, but I can hear an angry gurgle just before impact, sounded like a drowned bee. I feel the impact first and then hear the sound of glass as I fly off my feet. I launch a bolt back as I fall through the second story window. My body turning to shadow as soon as the bolt leaves. I reform on the grass a second later.

"What the fuck was that?" My chest creaks as I stand, and I wince as I feel a few of my ribs slide across breaks. "Okay, so the shadowy one left a double in the house." I sneer as I load another bolt and walk back to the door. A light has popped on in the house, so I hurry. I'm not going to get my shot like this, plus I dropped the locker notebook upstairs after it fell out of my hoodie. I feel the first step of the porch creak as I make my way up to the front door. "I wonder if she'll feel it when I put my bolt through this one..."
I smile and grab the handle...

*SHREIK*

I whip at the noise of metal on metal and spot her...

There standing just under the streetlight, a woman in the street rises from a low crouch the orange light just illuminating a terrifying sight. Her arms are covered in knives, blades, even some nails.

Not coming out, going in.

Every knife every blade, has a handle. Like the cape had taken an entire kitchen knife set and decided that the pincushion look was all the rage. I can see black streaks of fluid flowing from the knives. Looking down at the hands, they are worse. The fingers have broken scissors for some claws, others are Xacto-knife blades. I watch the hands flex and move, razor blades appearing to the surface to form the mangled hands into more metal looking claws. I tried to not look at the disgusting display of self-mutilation, and just focus on her mask. It was simple, made of metal that is rusty with a dull silver sheen, the eye spots are scratched in...

I shake my head and look higher and see a spiral of razor wire whipping violently through the air behind her. My hand grips the handle of the door as my eyes lock with her eyespots. She has brown hair, and she is tall...
Annette Hebert takes a step towards me, and I feel the force of it on my beating heart.

I need to run...

That thought runs through my head as I turn the knob and rip open the door. My actions on autopilot as I feel the growing panic. The sounds of my boots running, and the shriek of metal running across the pavement and then gravel, make me pound through the lit living room faster. The smell of gas in my nose as I run, has me reaching for a match. Fuck Taylor, I dive over the bar, I need a good distraction.

I get the match and box ready and run for the back door, the sound of heavy steps getting closer. I strike the match and light the box on fire. "HEY ANNE, FUCK YOU," I slam the backdoor open and fling the burning ball of matches behind my head. Turning back to see if that worked...

The burning ball, flies through the open doorway heading straight for the-

*squelch*

-skeleton...

I slow to the middle of the backyard as it frames the door, the formerly burning box of matches crushed in its fist. A smokey glass statue of a nude woman, her skeleton a dull grey in the lighting from the doorway. Her empty socket skull stares back as I watch her pull a bolt from her skull. It drops to the ground with a dull clatter, and she steps into the yard. She is tall and lanky and totally going to kill you if you don't start moving girl!

I snap out of my stupor and start running in any direction, it doesn't matter. I just need to get away...

I didn't lose them for four hours, as they chased me through the dark streets of downtown. A constant shriek of metal claws on brick walls, and the lighter sounds of wet footsteps mixed with gross gurgles. They giggled as they hunt me through the dark. My ribs aching as I try my best to outmaneuver them through walls and ceilings.

I eventually did lose them after cutting through a Merchant store house. I would have probably found it funny to see the slimy skeleton and razor blade Annette tore that place apart, Merchant's included, but I was still thinking that it could be me that the two monsters might be feasting on right now. So, I quickly took the distraction for what it was and left. I need to rest anyways; my ribs are killing me...

"So, how does it feel to be out hunting, Rose."

I look over at Annette, a severed arm being eaten by her, bone and all, while I look down at the many dried husks under me. I smile and whine, it coming out of my mouth like a wet hum, soooo full!

Her laugh rings out in the warehouse, the bodies around us leaking delicious red fluids my gel lapping at the streaks. I grab another body and feel my fangs extend as I bite deep into the corpse. The body drains instantly. "Well, I'm glad that you enjoyed it," her silver mask hiding half of her face as her jaw unhinges to take another bite, "so what are we going to do with the Merchant?"

I look over at the whimpering drug peddlers and then back down to my dinner. A whole nest of rodents, I smile as I pick up another fat one and bring it up to my teeth, we were so lucky to find it while we apprehended the criminals. Shame we couldn't catch the intruder, but it did teach us some things. One, the PRT are not to be trusted at all. That was clearly Shadow Stalker, and while we do lurk in the night, eating roadkill isn't a crime. The second thing it taught me is that I like chasing things, or maybe just running with a goal, but I don't want to go back into my walls. I turn to my other, her sharp teeth biting through the side of a rat, blood painting her lips red. I don't know, I say across our connection, but we unfortunately can't eat them, Danny would be scared if he found out.

I can feel her eyes widen, before her red stained lips smile, "well we can't ruin your re-introduction now can." I smile back, my black membrane ruby with rat blood, a color that will fade as I digest the life into my anima. "Oh, I can't wait," Annette jumps up from her crouch, her exited movements causing a few of the Merchant's to urinate, "All our children are going to be so happy to have you, and you're going to love all their little things." She looks down at me, her smile one of happiness before shifting to amusement, "and going to have to get you into clothing though, a full display of your privates will embarrass the kids to death and make Danny's heart race a little too fast."

I look down at my flesh, see through though it may be, and realize that I am one hundred percent anatomically correct. I am also one-hundred percent naked...

Oh...I never noticed that...

So I know it is late and not spectacular, but I hope you enjoyed it anyways...

Tumultuous_Anxiety · Apr 27, 2021

Just something to tide you over...

The murmur of soft voices fills the street behind me as I stare up at the steel wall in our path. The abandoned outskirts of London, remind me of the time I was here last. The Blitzkriegs of World War Two having filled my time there with bombed out buildings and nightly raids. The buildings of this time are just abandoned, having long been left when most of the city was quarantined in 2002. And I have to get through that...

My skin smokes in the daylight, covering my fellows in a grey ash cloud as I try may hardest to figure out how to handle this. The wall extends upwards into the heavens and even from this distance it takes me a minute of neck craning to actually see the sky above it. It has no entrances or exits to the structure, as you would expect from the outer quarantine wall of London, but still, it is in our way. At the base, humans in plastic-looking armors patrol with heavy weapons.

"Moryt has picked hell for his rally."

I look over to my left at the heavily accented female voice to see the grey green flesh of a very old draugr. "You know how he is with his territory; it is not like a ghoul to let the living have it all to themselves." It gets a chuckle out of the dead woman, her rotting face lipless in its smile, as she leans on her weapon, an ancient garden hoe. She looks behind her and I follow her gaze. "Do you think that we could storm the gate with these meager forces," I doubt it, but from one warrior to another I'd like to know her opinion.

"We lack all but the spirit, they are not enough..."

I nod, "more waiting then."

I have been here for a couple weeks, and I have a long history of waiting. After all I have done so for centuries now. I look back at the wall, my legs itchy with the need to move, a summoned knife in my hand is gripped in anticipation. Doesn't mean I enjoy it...

We need to get past this wall, the immaterial have already move on ahead of us to Sawtooth. "If only a union or maybe a lich comes." I grunt my agreement to her, even as I try to ignore my growing hunger. I doubt that Minerva will be coming, and if there is a union left in Europe it will come by sea rather than through the English Channel, like I and the others here. If only my master had decided to come with me... I think about that thought for a second, before mentally shaking my head. No, it is good that Master did not come with me and decided to travel alone. Master is...annoying this century...

"If we stay here for much longer the humans will notice the ash cloud," I sigh and send my weapon back to the dark, "Elain should have stuck with us to help it's not like-" I stop as I hear familiar clinking metal. A sound I haven't heard since my infancy as a vampire. Plate mail has been long dead and I do not exactly miss it, but learning how to move as a shadow, swift and deadly, in armor was a useful skill to learn. My master is supposed to be a few days behind me, I look back to the edge of the fog, who could this possibly be?

Out of the grey she appears, an armored sabaton stained red with blood on its bluish metal steps out into view. The swing of armed gauntlets easy despite the weight of them, a chest plate of bright blue walks out as the obscuring close helmet appears. The neck is stiff as thick straps of leather keep her head from falling off. A mane of fire leaks through the slots of the armor, and the large handle of a sword rises behind her...And then my master skips out behind her.

God if your there, smite me...

The draugr next to me laughs as my expression clearly shows my pain. I watch as my master, who decided that being an eighteen-year-old girl this century was a fun idea, skips next to the impassive dullahan. And she just had to wear that outfit too, I groan internally as my blood thins in embarrassment. She is dressed in what she calls her "sinister yet cool" outfit, a long dark red cape, black dress pants, white gloves, and a bright gold cross over her white dress shirt. The frills... Satan it is tacky. "Oh, shut up Alexander," I choke as my master reads my thoughts, "you're just mad that you could never pull this off."

"Master," I sigh as I bow to the young-looking girl. Not that it truly matters, but her hair is dark and long almost to her feet, a typical sharp looking nose, and her eyes are wide and crazy. I'm not impressed. "Master, I understand that you have particular...tastes," I try not to gag on my tongue, "but weren't you the one who taught me to dress simple, to better disguise us from the living?"

"Oh, but this is cute," She spins in a circle having the cape flutter out, "and it has been so long since I've dressed up in my original sex, don't you remember Mircalla?"

"Yes, I also remember Lilith," the form that saved me in the woods all those years ago. A tall raven-haired woman, pale as the moon with eyes like ponds of blood, standing over my bleeding body, just a boy before a beautiful monster. "What you were named before all of this."

My master blushes at the old name, and imagery, as far as I know or care her real name. "Look you know why I had to change it, first I was called a demon which was fun up until they started calling me a succubus!"

She is of course talking of the church, but I suppose she could be talking about the Israelites or maybe the Ancient Babylonians. How my master found her name inside the Bible and the common tongue of man, before she even started to really socialize with creatures is a total mystery to us both. "Well, you did tend to kill people in their beds," and there is that one woman that you-

"Don't you dare finish that thought, Iris and I's relationship is not evidence that I'm a sex-crazed demon!" Her voice is stern as she narrows her eyes at me. It is a bit lost when I must look down at her, but this has kind of been the thing for the last seventy years. I'm... well, getting used to it. "I'm so much better than a sex-crazed demon, just ask mine and Iris's harem." I roll my eyes at that, not exactly proving your point on the whole sex-crazed part.

"Yes of course, forgive my thought Master," I feel a grin grace my face at thought of the much saner Iris, "will she be joining us, or has she moved on ahead?" The medium Iris was powerful in life, but now in death her spirit is a force of nature. She is probably already there, she hates waiting. Probably has to do with being stuck on an island for most of her life... She is a much better mother than Mother. I suppress a shudder.

"Yeah, yeah, she said that we could meet up when I arrive in two days," my diminutive Master gestures to the suit of armor next to her," but I ran into someone on the way here."

"I see," I turn to the blue armored giant, and she is tall now that I can see her up close. Standing a good head over mine, and next to the barely five-and-a-half-foot height of my Master it looks almost silly. "And who are you?"

I look down at the stick of a vampire before me, he looks fragile. A lanky body, dressed in simple clothing, business casual. Shoulder length brown hair, straight like curtains, frame a youthful face with tired muddy red eyes. Looks are always deceiving, but he looks nice for a vampire, not too snooty like a lot of the younger ones that carry the title elder. Leech told me all about Alex on the way here, too bad I couldn't see the "baby" pictures.

"Kathrine," my voice sounds like a furnace as it steams through the vents of my helm. The inferno of my hair turning bright with the sound. "I hail from Carrauntoohil, Ireland."

"I see so you're answering the call to arms too," Alex's voice is a smooth and soft one, but clearly, he is tired, "what is your stake in this?"

"She's married to Dr. Morgan!" I stare down at Leech, her childish face hiding the fact that a three-millennium old just burst out my story to others, like a child. I ignore her and turn to him.

" I am aware that the end is soon, and I will not let the world die without a fight," I turn to look down the slits of my helm, my bright electric gaze piercing Leech's, "I did not come here for him, Leech." I am very much over my ex...

"Leech?"

"Oh, yeah," the young-old vampire god shrugs off my glare, as if it isn't a powerful curse, "I changed my name again."

I ignore the ensuing argument between master and servant and turn to the other undead, a draugr it looks like. Her cloths are rotting on her body, barely covering her obvious lack of modesty. It is some kind of leather apron, tightly adhered to her dark green flesh. Solid work boots showing the wear and tear of her trip. Her flesh is rotting around wounds, and her face lacks lips. A musical instrument rest across her lower back. "Who are you?"

"I believe the word of English just means monster, name me Saurr," the voice is like paper and steam, but I can hear how amused by all this she is. "My reasons much like yours, I protect."

I nod, and turn to the two-bickering vampire, and then past them to the wall. I frown unseen, God Amon, why the fuck did you stay here of all places. I'm not looking forward to this, I step past the other undead and start walking to the wall. Meeting Amon I mean, the wall is nothing...

I can hear the three undead following behind me, the shouts of confusion and questions from the vampires doesn't mask the sounds of the other undead beyond following along. I walk steadily towards the wall.

Last time I saw Amon was the hospital, where I died. Cancer is a bitch, but it is even worse when your spouse isn't even there to see you off.

I growl under my breath, like a forge roaring with its bellows.

The one last good thing he did for me was burying me like I asked. Bury me next to my mother and father in Ireland, a coat of arms for our house buried with it. I'm the last of my house after all, and Amon didn't want kids...fucker...

The wall gets closer, and I can see humans pointing automatic weapons in my direction. They are yelling at me to stand down, but I can't hear it over the boiling of air in my helm.

Well, fuck him right! I pull my blade from my back with a smooth practiced motion, and wave for the others behind me to stay back.

It's not like I missed him, the air is charged with ozone as I unclip my head from its mounting. A bright line appears across the seams of my neck as I unseal my head.

It's not like I hadn't forgotten how we were. Thunder rolls above me as I raise the sword to the sky, the pings of bullet fire are ignored as I focus, the tears in my eyes vaporized by the lightning in my helm.

For a man obsessed with death, why couldn't he have focused on the one that should have mattered most!

Lightning strikes the blade of my longsword, as heaven fills the blade with power. I scream in my success as the lightning travels through my rotting body, fuck him and fuck this wall too! I bring my blade back, its edge a feather of electricity as St. Elmo's fire dances on the tip. The bullets stop as the living scatter, but I just swing. Fuck it all!

A bright intense arc of yellow light shreds the air as it flies at the wall.

I watch as the wave of super-heated plasma slams into the wall with a loud and flashy explosion. Once my eyes can adjust, I see just what the dullahan did. A forty foot long, glowing white gash of molten metal drips out of the wall, the building that the wave passed by have been bisected. I look over to my Master from the floor, she is grinning like a loon, "where did you say you found her again?"

"I, didn't!" My Master springs up to her feet, a sense of bloodlust coming off her strong, and runs out of our cover. "Hey Kathrine, if it doesn't work out with you and the Professor you want to be in mine and Iris's harem?" Oh, God no... She comes back to just inside the door of the abandoned building we stood in. My Master, eyes alight with her instincts, vibrates in place as she stares down at me. "Hey, Alex?"

"Yes, Master," she is standing over me looking more like my Master than she has in the last seventy years.

"I'm going to go for a walk," oh no no no, "would you like me to get you some blood while I'm out?"

The sound of gunfire returns, and another flash of light tells me that the wall is probably not going to be an obstacle for much longer. "Uhhh...," I am getting hungry,"...yes?"

My Master's eyes gleam, and I'm suddenly reminded of my youth as a vampire, back when Master was Mother... Those were horrible years...

"Okay!" She blurs away from me, and the sounds of gunfire stop in favor for the sounds of dropping bodies.

I stare at the wall, its thick surface falling way as it crumples like a tin can.

Tumultuous_Anxiety · May 11, 2021

I didn't get to write everything I wanted to for this chapter, but it was feeling too long so I cut it in half...

Waking up in the hospital is not that shocking...

The pickup pulls into the driveway of the Hebert household. I can't help but feel a little relieved to be back at my girlfriends' house. Sure, I didn't spend a lot of time conscious at the hospital, but it is good to be back somewhere safe.

The suspension rocks Danny's truck as Nimi gets out of back. It was a little small in the cabin with Danny, Swarm, Taylor and I hogging up the old cushion, so Nimi had to ride in the back. I turn from the window to watch as my giant girlfriend walks around to my side of the vehicle. The soft curls of Swarms short hair are nice as my hand rubs her head from her seat on the floor, like I said cramped...

The door next to me opens and Nimi unbuckles me from the car. I feel Taylor's guiding hands help Nimi pull me into a bridal carry, Swarm's body flowing up and across Nimi and I, making great cape of arms around me. I look up as Nimi looks down at me in her arms, tentacles pour from the hood of her civilian disguise of a red dress shirt, grey cotton pants, and her black hoodie, hood up to hide her face. I reach a shaky right hand for the tentacles, their warm metallic flesh filling my lap, as I look up at her big red eye. It glows brightly in the darkness of her hood, and I get a smile out of her, but I can tell that she is still upset.

Being told that you have brain damage is also not too scary...

She carries me to the front door where another instance of Swarm opens it to let us in. This other Swarm climbs up into Nimi's arms and joins the other one in wrapping around me. Swarm is scared, I've been able to tell since I woke up screaming in the hospital. I grab one of her hands and try my hardest to hold it in my weak grip, my fingers hurt with the effort and the periodic spasms are frustrating and annoying. Dammit, my chest hurts as the hand slips out of mine, I just want to hold her hand. I drag the slippery appendage up my chest and to my mouth, the one last thing that I can really control anymore. I push the fingers into my mouth and bite once I reach knuckles.

Nimi and Swarm both stop just inside the entrance when my teeth press down on the black not-flesh of Swarm's limb. The woody flavor of my smallest girlfriend is welcome after going so long without it in my nightmares...

A white snake glares at me from across the cage of lights and electricity. His smile is cruel and doesn't reach his eyes as he places the needle into my flesh. My power screams out answers to plans as I'm forced to stare at the faces of people I indirectly enslaved. I'm cry as the world is lonely and the meaning of words lose meaning...

I shiver and, as best as I can, pull the limbs around me closer in a hug as the unfortunate memory of my dreams while I was in a coma pop up. I bite harder, until I break the outer layer of black flesh and feel a suckle at my teeth, Swarm strokes my tongue with her fingers.

No, the scary thing isn't the waking up or the damage, it's that I don't remember what caused it. That it could happen again...

I open my eyes as I feel Nimi sit down, the familiar cold hands of Taylor rub at my scalp as I can feel them relax. They are purring, because of course they are I'm biting one of them as hard as they like, but I wish that Taylor wasn't just playing with my hair. I want more.

I want to be wrapped up in her arms as Nimi wraps us both. I want Swarm to surround us, I want her head pressed up into my ribs and her hands to hold mine. I want to feel safe, I want to fall asleep and not be scared that I'll get stuck in a nightmare for a week again. I just want...rest.

I need it, coma is not the same as sleeping and that nap at the hospital wasn't enough, but I want to know more about the arsonist first. Like hell am I going to let someone get away from trying to burn away this family. I take a look around the room, hasn't really changed much, but the smell of gas is hard to not notice. I frown at that. Apparently last night someone broke into the house and doused the place in gasoline, then tried lighting it. Thankfully the attempted arson failed, Taylor and Annette have already explained to me that the undead are pretty flammable. Even if that weakness has been solved for my girlfriends after the Lung fight, both Annette and Danny are very much not super-undead like Taylor and her others.

Speaking of others, I finally get to lay eyes on Taylor's mother's other... God they can be confusing sometimes. She looks familiar, but I suppose that makes sense, I was there to dig her up after all. She is tall, like Annette, somewhere in the six foot range. Her body looks smooth and shiny, a black glass over white bones, the light behind her head showing her features in the shade of a barely visible skull. She also dresses a bit more formally than Annette. A white cotton dress shirt with its sleeves rolled up to show off her arm bones which look delicate and fine, black dress pants cover her legs, but she is bare foot. I was disgusted last month at the cemetery when we pulled her up, but now that she is animate and walking around, I can tell that she is beautiful.

[subject: Annette Hebert, died May 10th 2009, no brain activity, zero cellular activity, movement caused by ambient energy...]

I want to roll my eyes at my power's description of the approaching glass woman, but I don't have any energy to. My power seems quieter than it was before my coma, almost like it is trying to make sure it isn't too loud for me. Since it tried to kill me with the mother of all headaches, I'm not that inclined to forgive it either. Won't even tell me what happened. When I ask all, it says is...

[I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm...]

…which is just uncomfortable. My internal musing ceases as I feel soft cool fingers on my face. Rose, as I'm told is the name she picked, lifts my head and turns my face gently from side to side. It must look pretty weird to the outside observer, probably stranger since no one is talking. Me sitting here wrapped up in tons of arms like a baby and being inspected by a skeleton lady, but as someone who is kind of used to this family... I try to smile around the hand, she's checking me for injuries... not even my biological mother...

She nods satisfied that I'm in good condition, and then kisses my forehead. This family is really too good to me...

The front door closes, and the slightly heavy gait of Danny Hebert's work boot brings the man into view. "Okay so what did the doctors say about how we are going to take care of Lisa?" His voice is tight, like he has anxiety about taking care of me. He picked us up at the hospital in full costume as none of the Heberts are related to me, so I was treated as a cape and thus my teammates are allowed to be the ones responsible for me and get visitor rights.

[not his job, doesn't want you hurt, stressed about bills, feels responsible for you, will fight to protect you, you're important to his daughters...]

I'm touched, really. For someone who doesn't really like his daughters dating it is nice to know that he at least approves of me. "Technically speaking, I'm her doctor dad," Taylor's voice is quiet. She has been ever since I woke up and I don't need powers to know that she feels responsible for getting me hurt. I want to scoff, Taylor didn't hurt me, I made my own decisions...

Please don't leave me because of some misplaced blame, I don't want to be alone anymore...

"Healer cape laws, I know more about her health than anyone else," she pauses, "I'm currently swimming through her veins after all."

I snuggle deeper into the limbs and feel them tighten around me in response. I'd reach up and take Taylor's hand into my mouth, but I can't reach over my head too well anymore. I settle for Swarm's tasty digits instead, onomnom...

"Ah, I see." Danny is the picture of stress, he wants us to quit the cape business. I am right there with him, I just know better than to think that capes can just quit.

"Her body is fine, but her brain has some significant damage," I lean into Taylor hand as she scratches my scalp, I should really remove the hand from my mouth and ask my questions about the arson attempt. I'll do it after, this hand is tasty. "Her motor cortex is shot full of holes so she has tremors in most of her limbs and I don't want her to be walking around on her own until she heals some more." Taylor's voice is soothing as I try to feel her blood running through my veins. If I focus, I can just hear it sing...

[ERROR]

I smile as I find it, the wincing pain from my power trying to quickly look away is worth it to know that I can still feel her. "For the most part her brain will heal itself with my cells working in tandem with her body, so it isn't permanent, but it will be a while before she can walk on her own."

He nods, "okay, will the hospital be sending us a bill?" Valid concern, another bill to pay will be rough on the Heberts…maybe I should help some way? I'm tiring to be a hero so it would be bad if I got caught stealing funds from some offshore accounts or whatever, but maybe I can steal it from some place more local...E88? I'll have to talk it over with the team.

"No Daddy, the PRT decided to pay it in full," I don't need to see the spores trapped inside her dress shirt to know they are dark with anger. Nimi was pissed when I collapsed, I don't think I've ever seen her angry before, but she takes after father. She mellowed out while I was unconscious, but I can tell she hates the PRT now. Every time it gets brought up she gets a bit darker in mood. I try to squeeze one of the tendrils, it barely presses into the metal flesh, she looks down at me. Her eye's glow pulses slowly but speeds up when I meet her gaze. I pat the tentacle until she calms back down...

"Good, it is their fault that this even happened," Danny's words kind of hide his inner thoughts, he doesn't like hand-outs. I watch Rose as she comes up and kisses him on the cheek, the slight flinch he makes on contact tells me he is probably on the fence about how others and relationships work with the undead, but he returns the kiss anyways. I smirk, good to know that I wasn't the only one who thought it was weird before. I snuggle deeper into Nimi's hold, so warm so comfortable. "Listen I've got to get back to work, your mother will be home later, and we can talk about it more then." Good, this means I'll have to wait to ask about the arson, but I guess I will be taking a nap first, lucky me.

Rose and Danny leave, but as the front door closes, she comes back a smile on her face. She then turns to face us.

"Yeah, we're okay mom," Taylor says, "she just needs a lot of sleep right now, we'll feed her something later."

A soft wet gurgle sounds from the slime woman and the house around us rattles. I look up and see Taylor's face greying, what did she say?

[made some comment on mating...]

"Momma," Swarm's voice is tired, the many overlaying echoes sound almost distant from each other, "we are all too young to properly breed with Lisa, and she isn't even ready for just Hosting so it wouldn't work out if we pushed."

I smirk to myself as I watch Taylor's face get even darker. I can feel my own face heat up a bit, but it doesn't stop me from snuggling deeper into Nimi and Swarm's arms. So, they do have a way to reproduce, I think as I turn to Rose, or at least Swarm does...maybe?

Rose's expression changes and a light in the kitchen flickers to a dim setting. Uh, translation power?

[Disappointed, wants more k-...occupants?]

Is, is she the house? I watch as she gurgles something else, the sound of a few hanging picture frames vibrating against the wall behind her. "No mom, we aren't even interested in... sex," my ashen girlfriend practically whispers the word.

"Besides mommy, we're mostly planning on adopting and like my sister said," Nimi's voice is pretty light, but I can tell she must be putting out a lightshow of glowing spores behind her, "we don't have the right parts." I think that Taylor is going to explode if this conversation continues, but my mouth is currently occupied by some finger food, so I think I'll just sit back and watch the show. I grin as Swarm decides an intricate lecture on her anatomy isn't embarrassing...

After the conversation wound down, I was carried upstairs. At first, I thought they were going to take me to the guest bedroom that I've been living out of for the past month. That made me scared...

I don't want to just sleep in the same bed as one or two of my girlfriends, I wanted them all there. I need it. I remember being in a coma unfortunately. I couldn't hear anything like they say that people in comas can sometimes, but my experience was not pleasant. I didn't get a smash cut from blacking out to waking up in the hospital. No, I got trapped in my head for a week with nightmares. Taylor, Nimi, and Swarm were not there with me either.

I shake my head and focus on the present. Nimi's heavy thuds move down the hall stopping at Taylor's bedroom long before the guest room. That's odd, sure I'm fine with this, but Taylor's bed is even smaller than the guest bed. Are they going to just lay me in their bed and forget about me? I can feel hands, Swarm's, stroke my face as my heart feels like it is ceasing. No this is worse! I try to move my hands, but they are shaking too much for me to make any progress. What are they doing?

[ERROR]

Dammit! They aren't talking so my power can't read them, and I can't see Nimi or Taylor's expressions with how deep into Nimi's arms I am. No please, I beg in my head biting down until my gums reach the skin of Swarm's palm, my eyes start getting wet as my panic increases. They stop and I shut my eyes. "It's okay Lisa," a cool hand runs through my hair, "we aren't going anywhere."

I feel myself lowered on to a bed as I keep my eyes screwed shut, the hand in my mouth leaves as I'm laid on my back. The after images of my nightmares, of the snake and the white cage, feel near in the darkness of my lids. My limbs shake uncontrollably as I lie on the bed like a limp fish, I can't even sit up. I then feel someone large and warm lie next to me. I reach for it blindly as I squeezed my eyes shut too hard and now, I'm having trouble opening them.

Large arms wrap around my chest and arms as I'm pulled into a familiar body. Hard like a rock with bony forearms and hands, an almost plush weight gets pushed into my face as my legs rest against solid abdominals. Several tendrils flow over onto my shoulders. Her skin is kind of rough against my face, but it is comfortable and safe. She got naked and then got into bed with me...

I almost start as a cool set of arms wrap around my waist and an equally cool body rests her head against the back of mine. Her soft breath is cool against my neck, but I know from experience that she'll heat up after a bit. I can feel the coolness of her bare legs through my pants, and her bare stomach practically fuses to my back. The feeling of sharp point around my legs proceeds the feeling of my pants being pulled off with what feels like Swarm's hands helping to remove the bunched-up clothing. Soft, sharp and cool, Taylor's hair wraps around our legs. It's good, but Swar-

The bedroom door opens, and I can hear the sounds of feet, lots of them. Then I feel them crawl into the bed. A head with curly hair forces its way between me and Nimi's stomach to rest against the space just below my ribs. Fingers, and then full hands, join with Taylor's hair to hold our legs I can hear and feel both Taylor and Nimi sigh. Hands rubs at my uncovered sides, and I feel a few of them rest across my stomach, small circles are happening all over me. My hands which have been crushed up against my chest have been drawn down and to comfortable positions as Swarm puts the fingers in her mouth. Perfect...

I relax into the many grips and hugs that surround me. A nip at my fingers makes me warm and I open my own mouth to get a mouth full of breast tissue to bite. Nimi's purr rumbles like a car on idle, as something wet and warm drags up my face over my still closed eyes. The heat makes the muscles relax and my eye flutter open. They got a bigger bed is the last thought I had before my mind slipped into sleep.

Thanks for waiting, this one took forever for me to write...

Tumultuous_Anxiety · May 18, 2021

Not much to say about this one, just wanted to get the ball rolling for a bit...

The next couple days were mostly spent taking care of Lisa, which to be honest I'm really fine with. I look up as my mom, Rose, carries a clean Lisa in after her bath. Her face is a bit red, and I can smell her embarrassment, but she doesn't protest as she is placed on the bed. "Thanks mom, sorry for asking you for help again," I am just not comfortable with seeing Lisa naked, too much skin, it would be hard to not...want a bite.

The walls rumbled as she speaks. It's fine sweetie, the cool soft hand ruffles through my hair, its strands curling around her fingers as my eyes crinkle in joy. I was going to make some tea, do you two want any?

"Yes please," Lisa says trying her hardest to sit up on her own. I nod too, a cup of tea would be good right now. Mom leaves and I move over from my desk towards the bed. I can see the struggle on Lisa's face as she desperately tries to raise herself, her shaky limbs are barely lifting her an inch.

"Good you made it a bit farther," I lift her the rest of the way and place pillows behind her head and back to keep her in place.

"I barely moved," she pants, "how is that progress?" I place my hand on her stomach and gently start to massage her organs. God, I'm hungry...

"There is nothing wrong with your body Lisa," I place a kiss on her forehead, "Your brain just forgot how to use them like how they are currently grown. You doing anything is teaching your brain how to use your body. It will get easier once you reach a certain threshold, and then I can work on removing the shakes." Really, I technically could fix everything with her brain all at once but doing that would mean that her brain's pathways would be wiped out entirely. By keeping the repeating pattern of signals in her motor cortex her brain cells keep from dying due to lack of signal. Think of it like muscle atrophy, if you stop using your muscles, they get reabsorbed by the body and you lose the ability to use the muscle with ease. It is similar here, if signals do not happen in a section of the brain, it become incredibly hard to use that part of your brain. You can't move with a muscle that you've never used, likewise you can't think with an inactive brain part... you know unless your undead like me.

She frowns, but leans into my touch, "I just miss being able to do things, like you know walking and stuff." True, Lisa as she is right now can't really move with any sort of strength or coordination. I think one of her biggest complaints is that she can't type, or even stay seated at a computer without falling over. We've been mostly keeping our thinker, who is definitely showing signs of going stir crazy, entertained with books, conversation, and cuddling. "But your right it only has been two days...how is the patrol going?"

The car is getting away! I grin as I look over at the sound of a car peeling away with the rest of the would be criminals.

I toss aside the E88 I was currently holding upside down, only to feel Swarm catch him. Good, you stay here and gather up the ones we downed, I'll catch the car. I get a nod from the shadows and bolt after the car.

God running is great! I fly after the vehicle at nice brisk pace of "I'm-going-to-catch-you-fuckers!" I love it when they run, it feels so freeing to move like this. I bend around a corner as I keep accelerating toward the retreating car, the lights of the street flashing by as I reach the ten feet mark. My remade bio armor gleams pearlescent against the streetlights as I zoom across the asphalt. The skirt flutters as I run, the boom of my bone plate boots, loud and fast, as I get within an arm's reach of the car. The near invisible wires trail from my tentacles whipping down the street, luminous in the nightlight. "Gotcha!"

My hand slams into the back of the car, sinking my fingers deep into the soft metal as the car swerves under its new weight. I hear one of the occupants scream, and my grin grows as I access the situation. Okay so now I just need to stop a car, what to do... I feel the yards of wire that trail behind me almost reaching back to the alleyway I was just at a few minutes ago. The idea slowly forms even as I see one of the gangsters start to brandish and automatic. I shake the vehicle with a whip of my arm causing them to stumble. Okay let's do this!

I anchor my wires into every building between here and the alleyway, that is sixty feet worth of friction on a car going maybe three times as fast as the other traffic, which there is not much of that. The car stops immediately sending its passengers forward with the sudden change in acceleration. I tear my fingers through the soft exterior of the car, the wheels underneath smoking as the driver tries to floor it as I climb/walk until I'm on the driver's side of the cabin. "Surrender criminal scum," I giggle as the cheesy line leaves my lips as I pull back my fist. The hailstorm of bullet responding to my reasonable request is less funny.

My eye narrows as a bullet flattens against the sphere of indestructible crystal cells. "So, you have chosen your fate," I say with a deepened voice and slam my fist into the cabin. My blow is explosive as the hydrogen bonds in my hand's armor break. All the glass from the car shatters as the entire cabin deforms into a huge crater. The car flies off my claws and, since the accelerator is fully depressed, spins out of control into the side of a building, stalling. I rush to the car and slam into it with a hip check to the engine knocking the block out clean. I then turn to the wide-eyed Nazi wannabes. "So, who here would like to leave here with their fingers intact," I question in a singsong to them through the now missing windshield, my smile big and toothy as one of the younger looking ones in the back slowly raises a hand.

I smile as I look at Lisa, "good, they haven't run into any capes still, but they've broken up a dozen crimes in progress."

"Jeez, they planning on breaking your record?" She grins at me but snuggles closer to me as I pull her into my side. Fox...

My others and I have decided to, while Lisa is still incapacitated, step up our patrols. The last week we have been trading off on who goes where and who teams up with who, with the remaining members staying with Lisa while she was at the hospital, and for the last two days at home. So far each of us have had a "solo" patrol, but we switch between me and Nimi, Swarm and Nimi, then Swarm and I. Between the three of us we have stopped over a hundred crimes in progress across all the gangs, with one patrol, mine, resulting in over three dozen arrests. It has kind of started a competition between us, but I'm pretty sure that Swarm is just holding back, being everywhere in the city is cheating.

"Yeah, Nimi wants her prize, and she is in a spirited mood tonight." It was actually a point of contention between us, the continuing to do cape stuff. Lisa and I had our first fight about it too...

"But Lisa you get hurt every time..."

"No, don't you dare blame me for ruining your dream," Lisa shouts before I can finish, "you can't just stop being happy because I got myself hurt!"

"What, no this is just your power, you would have been safe if you were here, I don't blame you for getting hurt," I can feel my panic try to eat me from the inside as I look at Lisa's expression of pain. Around me I can see Swarm biting her fingers in the corner, Nimi was on Lisa's side of the bed glaring at me.

"Taylor as much as you want to, Lisa cannot live in our bedroom as a porcelain doll." Nimi's voice is hard, harder than I've ever heard it, "survival is not the same as living remember, we need to go and fight criminals, and Lisa needs to live. I shouldn't have to say it out loud."

I flinch at the remembered ideals in our nightly ghost sessions, we want Lisa to live a long and happy life so that we can eat her when she is dead. It sounds kind of fucked up when I say it like that, but yeah when Lisa's body begins to die, we will be the ones to take her into the afterlife. If she agrees of course to be ours, if not we will still make sure her afterlife is not lonely like moms' was. Anyways, we three not too long ago agreed that survival is not the same as living and thus Lisa must live not just survive, otherwise we would just stay home with her forever...

"Is that what you guys want, to just keep me, like a pet..."

I shift back to Lisa, her face is horrified, and she is shaking uncontrollably. "What, no no no no," I feel Swarm rush in as I move to her as well. Nimi pulls Lisa up into her arms as we wrap around our girlfriend.

"You are not a pet Lisa," the sound of Swarm speaking is one of great stress, her voices were out of sync, "you're an equal, we just want you to be safe, and sister Taylor is being an idiot, you're not trapped by us." I cringe at what I've been fighting for. If Lisa did get better and I decided to stop going out and just obsessed over Lisa, would I let her leave?

…

Would I sabotage her healing...

We sit in silence as my better others comfort a Lisa that I hurt. That if I had my way I would have poisoned and eventually kill. I pull away from them, or try...

"No..." Lisa's voice is firm and almost sounds like it did before last week, "you do not get to walk away like some stupid asshole and take some moral high ground bullshit. You will tell me exactly everything, you promised no secrets, so spit it out, now."

I felt self-righteous hunger war with my sadness's famine, my pride was consumed. I told her everything, my fears about someone attacking the house, that my powers maybe killing her slowly by proxy of her own, that her would-be-kidnappers would steal her from me when I wasn't looking. That I'm immortal and going to out "live" Lisa, that she and I are going to exist outside of time, and I don't know how to deal with forever. Then finally, I told her that I can't betray her, that no matter what she does I cannot leave her because of what Emma has done. Sure, she has heard most of those things before, but once I started talking, I couldn't stop.

"Thank you," Lisa says strongly as I stop, "your still an idiot." I cringe and curl up tighter in my girlfriend and others' laps. "But you're my idiot," she lays a shaky hand atop me, "no more angst, and you are not allowed to tell me what's best for me either. I don't mind all of you taking care of me Taylor, in fact I kind of enjoy being pampered." I smirk at Lisa's joke as both Nimi and Swarm giggle. Her face hardens, "but it is a consent thing too, do not try to lobotomize my life." I nod as she stares down at me, she is so beautiful. "Now with that taken care of," Lisa snaps back to playful, " I believe I'd like to contribute to your care, arm."

We spend the rest of that night cuddling with Lisa biting down on my arm. I sigh as Lisa laughs, her face flushed at the mention of Nimi's prize. "Well good to know she is motivated," she says in between bursts of giggles. It was Lisa's idea to have the prizes.

To be fair considering what I want for my prize, Nimi's isn't that weird. My prize for winning is well to cuddle Lisa with everyone, and for Lisa and Nimi to make out while I do the same to Swarm's fingers, standard stuff we did stuff like that before. Nimi's is to go on a date with everyone and... hold hands in public. I don't really get it. Why not make out in public or maybe something a bit more scandalous like biting? She has kept her feeling behind them secret so I can't exactly find it in our ghosts. Swarm's prize is simple, she wants Lisa to eat one of her fingers, like the whole digit. The fact that Lisa said yes to all these requests as prizes, well that kind of just tells me she is actually into it.

"Now if we could just get Swarm to just win," Lisa smirks a hungry gleam of her own on her face. What did I tell you, she is way into it. "I want to know what it feels like detached and on my tong-."

Mom walks in with two cups of steaming tea, making Lisa clam up and blush profusely. Behind her my mom, Annette, walks in too. They both have matching grins. The two are very different from each other, in sense of clothing. Rose prefers button up shirts, dress pants or skirts, and keeping her hair draped over her body. Annette like to wear sweaters and bright colors, long dresses and scrunchies to keep her hair back and out her face.

Rose hands me the glasses, one a clear yellow and smelling of honey and chamomile. The other is a dark and sticky purple, looking thick and smells of: poisonous toadstools, blood that has rotted inside a cat's gut, soil from the garden with a few grubs, and... Oh, spiders my favorite!

"Thanks mom," I smile as I hold the human drink in my left and my drink in my right. The taste is lethal... I giggle internally at my lame joke.

A few floorboards creak and mom, Rose and Annette both smile. You're welcome dear, careful not to mix the two up, I added extra rot for you at the bottom.

"So are we interrupting you two love birds," mom's, Annette, smile is dangerous, I know exactly what she is going to suggest next, "talking about how many babies to make or just going to try and have them all." Okay I thought I knew what she was going to just say...

Lisa almost chokes on the tea as she puts that image in both of our heads. The human body, for most women, has at least three hundred thousand to at most four hundred thousand when they are in their teens and steadily decrease from there, but still by the time we're twenty or something that is a hundred thousand eggs at least. A hundred thousand children... "Mommm," I whine as I feel Nimi's excited vibrating through our ghosts from halfway across the city and just to make it worse, Nimi wants children and every amount, including ridiculous amounts, is the right amount. "Please don't give Nimi any more ideas on having six-figures worth of children."

That is another thing, why don't Swarm and Nimi have the ability to procreate, I'm technically able.

I frown, because that does actually bother me. Excluding Swarm, who we won't know if she can breed until after her metamorphosis in four days, I built Nimi sterile because I didn't want the world realizing she is technically made by me. Now that the world thinks she is just a case 53, I have plans to give her what I denied her on her eighteenth birthday. Technically she can change her own body without me editing it, in addition to both of us growing, but I think she want me to un-neuter her myself...that's enough of thinking about genitals and sex, both are uncomfortable and gross.

"...a thousand...kids..." I turn to a muttering Lisa as she stares off into the distance, shock, I think. Hell, I think that twenty-five would be a lot so from that angle, a hundred thousand...I don't think I've even seen a hundred thousand people let alone that many babies or children.

"It's okay Lisa, don't listen to my moms, we don't have to have any at all," I glare at my two disappointed mothers, "we agreed that adoption is perfectly valid, you don't have to feel like you're being pushed." They both look a bit guilty as I pull my human close with my hair, putting the tea to the side.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to push, the walls groan, and the room feels cozier somehow, like the house is hugging us with air pressure. I just want more, people in my shell...

Lisa relaxes in my grip as my hair continues to make spirals on her legs. "Yeah, we're sorry Lisa," Mom's voice is warm as she sits on our bed, "it was just supposed to be a joke, but it was a bit inappropriate."

"It's okay Annette, I just- I'm not sure that could happen...now, maybe when we're adults and if we don't lose each other on the way to that," she chuckles, I just pull her tighter, being in a romantic relationship might not work forever, but Lisa will always be my friend. Lisa turns to Rose, "maybe you should have a house party, just to hold you over for a bit?"

Both moms brighten up at the suggestion just as the front door is opened loudly. "Mommies, daddy, we're back!" I drain my mug of poison as I hear dad's low rumbling reply and watch both of my moms leave for the downstairs.

Life has been rough for the last couple of days... and I refuse to invoke the wrath of murphy.

It is going to get worse isn't it...

Hope you enjoyed this, I know I've slowed down recently on the writing, and I started posting this in December so it has only been six months, but I started writing in late October/early November so for me it has been a bit of time.

Tumultuous_Anxiety · May 27, 2021

So if you don't know I deleted the previous chapter 46, when MaskedCritic pointed out that my character were off... So I reread what I had posted, and it didn't feel right. MaskedCritic also pointed out several inconsistences between events and character dynamics. Thus inspiring this revision. The first half of the chapter is much the same, as it sounds like the characters. The next 7k+ words were inspired by MaskedCritic as he reminded me of some events I straight up forgot about, or worse, ignored because I was feeling off. I am much happier with this chapter as it shows how Taylor has changed from her first night out as a zombie, as well as how the relationship with Armsmaster has improved across Taylor and her others. It is also the longest chapter I've written, and shows subplots developing beyond just E88 and ABB future conflict. The same events happened in the deleted chapter, but without the out of character actions and interactions. I hope you enjoy, and please don't be afraid to tell me that it needs to be relooked at, thank you for reading!

I put down my pencil and stare up out the window. Studying is boring...

Yeah, I'm happy that I get the opportunity to go to Arcadia and all, they even said it was okay that I look...not human. All I have to do is pass a qualifying test and have my grades stay above C's for two semesters to go. That's easy.

Before the Locker, before I died, before Emma... Well, I guess before a lot of things, I actually liked school and I had pretty good grades before high school, before well...

My hair's teeth glide soundlessly up my hair, but it is impossible not to hear it chewing on the leg of my desk chair. I look down at the math, trigonometry, written out in neat lines of my notebook and frown. School was fun, going to classes, learning stuff about all sorts of subjects, hanging out with Em-.

I look over at the buzzing streetlamp outside my window, then back into my room. The bed, the new one, is kind of too big for this room, but it fits everyone, so the lack of floor space is worth it for all the cuddling we get to do. I smile as I watch Swarm, about fifteen of her bodies, huddle close to our sleeping girlfriend. The many arms sway and float like seaweeds covering the surface of the bed.

We like to sleep close, so the bed is just a normal king-size that Nimi and I designed. It is covered in a self-cleaning bio-silk and uses muscles and bones for a support structure with tendons weaved together to make it light and supportive. So far it can support all of our weights and Lisa sleeps like a baby on it, I call that alone a success.

I stand up and stretch, the bones in my back popping delightfully, I think that is good enough studying for today. Time to go on patrol! No more sitting behind a stuffy desk, now it's time for movement, maybe even some running, yay! I bend down and kiss Lisa's sleeping forehead, taking a moment to see her cute expression and set my cells inside her to cuddle her own. Tempting to just stay here and take a nap, just call it off for tonight and bring Nimi up from her own prep downstairs.

My instincts complain inside my head, the desire to move and run, to chase, is strong and has me pulling back. I close the door to our room and quickly make my way downstairs.

"...hahaha, sure Danny, I'm just glad that things have been better for you recently." The deep bass-y laugh of is familiar and as I walk further down the stairs I can see dad, a smile on his face, as he invites Kurt and Lacey in through the front door. Both of the living walk in ahead of my dad, they are smiling, at least until they see me.

Kurt looks a bit pale as I continue down the steps and Lacy doesn't look too hot either. I just smile, careful to keep my lips closed around my sharp teeth. Not sure it works too well with my eyes, all of them, glowing white hot silver and creasing in a friendly manner as my teeth shine in the dark of the steps. "Hey Lacey, hey Kurt."

I step down the final steps and the gloom of the stairs lift as I step out of the dark. "Taylor?" They both look a little less, scared. I can smell them though and I think that will be a weird thing for me. I've known both of them for almost as long as I can remember, but unlike dad, I want to eat them...

"Yeah, it's me," I quickly disconnect my sense of smell, but it is impossible for me not think, understand, and know that, the tall and muscular man with deep dark skin, Kurt, would be warm to drink and soft to chew through. Likewise, the short, stout woman with worn but pretty features, would be hearty and likely taste silky. Their organs would be incredibly tender, like all living things are to me. I mentally shake off my instincts reminding me that the life in front of me is edible and turn to my father, "hey it is mine and Nimi's turn to patrol tonight, did you want anything while we're out?"

Dad frowns, at the mention of the patrol probably, "are you sure I can't talk you out of going?"

"Nope," I walk over to the basement, "we are going to pass by the garden and pick up some mushrooms too, so it won't all be crime fighting." I knock on the basement door, ignoring my father's defeated expression and the look of whiplash on Kurt and Lacey's faces. "Nimi, are you dressed, it is time for patrol," I look over at dad's friends, "oh, Kurt and Lacey are here, so if you want to say hi now's your chance." Remember they don't know you, okay? I add in our heads.

"Okay," Nimi responds, both to my verbal and mental words.

"Okay now hold on," Lacey's voice is the kind of voice you'd get if you spent all day everyday yelling at people. Which is probably true as she runs a food truck down by the docks and she gets all sorts of crazies. "I know you told us that your Anne and Taylor came back from the dead via cape stuff and that they looked a bit different," I cringe even as she walks towards me, but I stop once I see her face split into a grin, "what you forgot to tell me is that she got taller!"

I turn and hug her just as she lifts her arms, "hey kiddo, heard life's been rough." I press my face into the crook of her neck at the whispered support. Lacey only comes up to my chest, so I have to crouch pretty low for the hug, worth it to give my god parent a hug. I hear dad and Kurt chuckling.

"Hey, move over short stuff, I want a turn hugging my god daughter too," Kurt interjects. Strong arms wrap around us as Lacey squawks in protest of being lifted off the ground. I can actually feel my feet hover above the floor too, and I have metal bones! Yeah, they are a super light metal-crystal structure, so I don't actually weight all that much more, but still.

"Sorry Lacey, with everything going on it has been a little hectic here at home," dad chuckles but I can tell from how the group hug twitches, we can all hear the stress in dad's voice, "sorry for keeping it from you guys for so long."

The hug breaks as Lacey is starting to get squished. I'm kind of sad that the hug couldn't go on for longer, but I think it would get too tempting. I love my god parents, so much that I could eat them. I doubt that dad would feel the same way if I accidently took a bite. No, bad Taylor, the only one you get to bite out of love's clawing, cloying hunger is Lisa.

"Hmmm, fine I'll forgive you just this once Dan, but you're on thin ice," she teases.

"Yeah, the cape stuff alone is complex," Kurt adds, "but you best believe that if this family ever needs help, the Union's got your back boss man."

"Okay Taylor, I'm ready!" The soft boom of Nimi climbing up the steps of the basement sounding behind me, interrupting dad's response as the two turn to the new voice. Nimi ducks through the door wearing her people disguise, "can I hug the guests before we go?"

Both of the guests freeze up as they are pulled into a massive green hug. Lifting both of them off the ground as a hood down and cotton clad Nimi holds them.

It's going on for a while...

…

"Uh, Nimi?" My other turns to me with Lacey and Kurt both lost in the huge embrace, Kurt looks like he is going red, and Lacey has a very funny, pale look on her face. "These are my god parents, Kurt and Lacey."

The red glow and glitter from Nimi's eye shows me what I fear, Nimi does not want to stop hugging them. I reach for her ghost...she is incredibly hungry. It is a soft innocent thing, a tongue on a pulse point, the feel of silk across your teeth. She just wants a small bite, chunk of our god parents' flesh...Joy, that is the emotion I sense. Is that how it feels for Nimi? She doesn't even notice that it is a form of hunger. I guess that is just the difference between us, all she has ever felt is hunger. "I like them, really nice and they don't try to struggle too much!"

Nimi's smile is infectious as I feel the corners of my mouth lift, but I should really stop this before her hunger makes her eat them. "Well could you put them down, we need to get going if we are going to swing by the mushrooms-"

"Oh yeah," she drops them as her excitement overtakes her. Our god parents just barely catch themselves as she turns to dad and kisses his forehead, "bye daddy, we'll be back! Come on Taylor we don't want to be late!"

I shake my head as I walk past dad's friends. Figures now I'm the late one. "Sorry dad," we had wanted to keep the fact that Nimi is my "sister" secret. I don't envy dad having to explain that to them. "We'll be back at the usual time, good luck with introducing moms again."

I leave just as Kurt asks, "moms?"

The running is the best! The wind rushing through my tentacles as my legs and arms pump. The increased heart rate from my still living circulatory system, sending lovely ripples of movement across my dead veins. The heat energy I produce heating up colonies of chemosynthetic single cells that I feed with each breath of my huge lungs, culling the excess as I in turn passively feed on them. It is... relieving to not be hungry whenever I want.

Taylor and I zip down alleyways and side streets to reach the Garden. Once there, we changed out for our costumes, grabbed a light dinner of mushrooms, and then started our patrol. My bio armor is a bit different than it was, it is really just a more armored version of my casual clothes. A battle skirt covers my bone plate boots; the thick bio silk covered in patterned veins of bright red against the darker red of the fabric. The bone corset of abalone and tight muscles is rainbowed and perfectly frames my breasts. Speaking of my girlfriend's favorite bite place, my chest is covered in strips of bio silk that loop around my neck and leave my back uncovered for ease of access for my spores. The bone plate over my cleavage is removeable as I like showing off to Lisa. My arms are armored down to my elbow just before the natural armor of my hands with shell like pauldrons.

I look over at Frankie as she runs next to me, the joy I can feel coming off her is mine too. Her costume has also not changed much. A solid black suit that is skintight but makes her just featureless instead of giving too much information on her body. The red spiral of her mask is still present, but it is no longer a sealed system. Now, because of her hair, it is just a half mask leaving her mouth exposed and letting the variable length hair flow behind her, its glowing eyes looking like moons and teeth shiny like stars as she and I run through the night.

We decided on our patrol at the Garden after checking that the mushrooms and experiments are running okay. The patrol for tonight is a simple one, run around empire territory until we find something illegal, and stop it. After a few hours of that, we are going to go back to the Garden, grab the medical mushrooms, then swing by the hospital to snuggle with Panacea...or at least I am, Taylor is going to offer the hospital the mushrooms for the staff to use for minor injuries. She is going to get the paste tested by Panacea to see if it works.

It does, but people tend to be scared of us, so it helps to have a trusted, and adorable, healer confirm it. Maybe once the healer is done with checking out my "sister's" incredible work she could come out for ice-cream, or maybe I could take her to the park, have a less stressful talk about adopt-

My thoughts are interrupted by the sound of a scream and thus starts the night...

We break off in a silent sprint, Me running across roof tops, Frankie crawling along walls and the streets her hair trailing behind her. Time to go beat up the "criminal scum", I giggle silently as we approach a dark alleyway, I hope they run it's a blast to chase something.

I stop over the alley as I examine the situation, I can see Frankie crawl forward along the ground towards a group of five bodies. Four pale men crowding around a young black woman. They've ripped her clothing in places and one of them has a knife out. "Now I know you know that your kind ain't allowed here," a fat ugly one speaks his three buddies chuckling even as the woman curls away farther from them. My hands crunch the lip of the building, brick turning to dust as I watch.

I don't have to watch long...

A hiss like a gas pipe grows just out of the gangers' view as dark and beautiful crawls around a dumpster into view. I suppress a laugh as I smell two of the four jerks pee themselves as my other creeps towards them. The dark of the alleyway hides her shape, but the glow of a thousand eyes as her hair extends upwards and upwards gives them just enough of an idea on just what they are up against.

The two that urinated on themselves bolt and I jump down between them and the exit. The knowledge that there are only four humans between me and the victim, fills me with all the determination I need. Goal, get the girl, knock out everything in my path to the girl. I grin down at the two, they pull their own blades, but that just makes the fog of yellow spores glowing behind me brighter. One of them loses more of their control over their bowels and I grin harder, I love my job...

I can hear Nimi's punches from the other side of the building knocking her opponents around, the sound of shrieking wires sliding against each other as they extend from her tentacles. I ignore it as I dodge a fist aimed at my head, my instincts happy as the flesh comes within biting range. I don't hesitate and bite down, the taste of warm blood on my tongue almost eclipses my thought but shove the thought to the back of my mind and simply pull him the rest of the way leaving him only with some puncture marks. The man goes flying behind me as I throw him with his own momentum and watch the other ganger's scramble behind the boxes and crates of the warehouse.

This warehouse is a huge place, filled mostly with boxes and conveyor belts that don't look like they've been used in a while. I zip up the wall of crates just as the place I was in gets pelted with bullets. I climb up one of the lights and slip into the shadows at the top of the warehouse, careful to avoid the skylights with their moonlight leaking in. It is also full of Nazis, I think we've seen maybe thirty, forty? I don't know, but this place is a huge bust for us.

This is actually our fifth bust of the night, but after our first with the mugging back in the alleyway, we just kept on running into stuff. One arrest of a hold up of a store front, then a breaking and entering of an apartment, followed by a car chase which brought us here. Honestly, it has been pretty ridiculous...

I sneak across the darkness of the ceiling, my eyespot lights dimming as I crawl along its surface. I can see it all from up here with its high ceilings. It is, like I mentioned, full of crates in neat lines with only a few open places with chairs and stuff. I watch my other from up here tear through the ganger's she is fighting. The small arms fire bouncing of her armor with ease as she trips them up with wires and knocks them back with concussive blows of her fists. Her giggle as she thinks the bullets "tickle", is loud enough for me to hear it from all the way up here. I smile but turn back down to the group underneath me.

There are fifteen of them all running to one of the more open spaces even as I keep pace with them from the ceiling. When they reach there, they spit up and start searching, seven go right and six go left. Ennie meanie minie moe, right. I follow the group of seven as they start along a row parallel to the other group of six.

This is kind of fun; I creep along the ceiling as they look up trying to spot me. I feel a small thrill as I stalk them, a little bit of joyful hunger, a bright sensation of my cells vibrating in my lungs. I stop as the group stops, coming together to aim in all directions with their guns. They are looking up, but not at the ceiling. Why they clearly saw me climb up right? I watch as several of them scan the top of the boxes, then the one in the center actual looks up at me. I drop as my eye lights brighten. The man screams high and shrill as I slam into him with my heel.

The world moves slowly for me as I crouch atop the guy, I just made eat dirt and the gangsters start to turn around. I don't give them much of a chance. My hair grabs their shoulders, except for the farthest one from me. Then I lunge at his still turned back, pulling every one of them off their feet as the world speeds back up to full. The man I lunged at falls face first into the concrete, the rest all fall at odd angles as I pull them.

Okay, that seemed to- I dodge around a knife aimed at my right leg as the nearest downed guy decides he hasn't had enough yet. The dodge does two things. One it causes me to spin out with a kick from my left leg aimed at the man's face as my body decides to do the "dance" thing for dodging. The second thing is more of a consequence of still holding on to five people with my hair as I move.

The kick goes wide as my hair pulls my attacker out of the way, flinging him instead behind me to back flip into the wall of crates at my back. While he is enjoying that, the other four people pull into each other and knock their heads together like billiard balls. As my feet land in a stand, I feel the dead weight of several bodies behind me. "Uh, yes," I let go of the unconscious men, " I totally meant to do that."

…I shake my head.

Well, at least I took them down, I look over at the seven men on the ground, even if the last one was bullshit. I stretch out my strong fibers of hair, feeling the strength in them as my teeth and eyes appear and disappear at random. I hear the running of boots and disappear back up into the dark of the top of the boxes. Okay six more to go, I run along the tops of crates and jump at the backs of the gangsters running to check on their downed friends.

Two go down with the lunge, my hair coming up to wrap a third's gun up and tail whip him into the floor. Then there were three... The first on my right pulls out a knife and makes a slash at my face. I lean along the direction of attack making it miss entirely. I use the movement to grab his wrist and then pull him forward into a tumble over his own shoulders. The next guy aims at my head and fires just as his buddy hits his legs making the shot go wide, and into the last guy's guts.

"Fucking son of bitch, you fucking whore I'll-"

I tune out the sound of his screaming as I press my hands into the wound. Ignoring the tantalizing smell of blood as I scope out the damage, he has a bullet in his abdominal cavity, ruptured spleen and a bruised kidney from the shock wave. The damage around his stomach where the bullet went in is more concerning. It didn't exit, which could be a good thing, if it didn't also penetrate his stomach wall. The smell of stomach acid masked by blood isn't doing much to my hunger, it is so strong.

"Hurk"

I drop the shooter from my hair, his breathing evening out now that he is unconscious. I look at the last remaining conscious empire guy, besides not-good-enough-to-be-a-sailor mouth who I currently have my hands in his guts. Now that I'm not fighting anything anymore, I can actually take a closer look at my enemies. The kid is just that, looks like a high schooler, skinny pale shaved head and what look like fresh E88 tattoos on his neck. He is also scared out of his mind and in shock. "Hey, you," I address him causing him to jump and look at me, "come over here and help me."

He doesn't move so I add a bit of my hunger to my voice, "fucking now."
The growl causes him to whimper, but he does crawl over, favoring his right. Might have dislocated shoulder when I flipped him. "Good," I say as he sits across from me and mister gunshot who won't shut up, "now press your hands here and here, as hard as you can."

He barely presses on the spots as I pull my hands away. "Oh, yeah, shock right," I say not getting a response out of him. "Here," I press on the tops of his fingers until I can smell the blood flowing from the gunshot wound decrease.

"OH FUCK, GET YOUR FINGERS OUT OF ME YOU FREA-"

I tune him out again and focus on the jumpy teen in front of me," okay now I want you to hold it, okay?" I wait for his eyes to focus a bit more, before moving my hands away from his when I get a nod. "Good," I watch his hands pressing into the neo-Nazi in front of me, before turning to the wound. Okay with him keeping the blood flow down I can get the bullet, seal the man's stomach, and knit together a few of the more important arteries, thankfully he landed on his back meaning most of his blood is still inside his body.

I get to work, the slime mold of my suit's fingers extending out to form thin tips. Time to dig for some gold.

"Hey no you get away from me you freak!" I turn to the man I'm going to have to operate on. He is in a word, a big baby. His body is all the muscles that you typically see on a biker, but with a characteristic beer gut. Which is probably why he didn't have a spinal injury too, so point to being unhealthy and Darwinism. His arms are nothing but empire tattoos and his hair is bleached blonde, so I'm going to have to take away point for Darwinism as he clearly wouldn't have been in this situation if he wasn't a Nazi. Is that correlation or causation?

My thoughts are interrupted as the chubby Nazi speaks again. "Hey boy, my gun is in my right pocket, shoot this bitch and call Hookwolf, and then we can get out of here." You can't be that stupid, right? Okay never mind he gets negative two points for everything, cause that is just dumb.

The teen actually lessens the pressure on the wound causing my nose to flare with the smell of blood. "He has a bullet lodged past his stomach and will leak stomach acid into his blood stream if you don't hold him close," I growl. The fact that it would just make me hungrier is something I'll keep to myself. "I'm going to remove the bullet and close the hole in his stomach, put the pressure back on it, now."

I reach into the hole, and thankfully the teen listens to me more than the waste of human space I'm working on. I wish we had my mushrooms here, but we just left them back at the Garden. What, it is not like this suit has pockets... Note to self, add pockets to my costume. Why do I always forget this kind of stuff?

I'm pulled from my musings as the tips of my finger extensions touch metal. "I got the bullet," I say, my growl long gone from my voice as I focus, "I'm going to take it out, when I do it is going to hurt like a lot. I'm going to need you to increase pressure as well, use all your weight in three..."

"Woah, Woah, wait!"

"Two..." I can hear the boy across from me tense as his leather jacket creases.

"No, No, boy I will kick you as-"

"One!" I rip the bullet out as the teen increases pressure practically stabbing his fingers into the sides of the, now howling and crying, man's wound. I toss the bullet and go back in, my cells funneled into the tips of my suit as I seal first the back of his stomach then the front. "Good, good you're doing great, keep up the pressure." The kid has pinched shut close to a hundred minor veins and capillaries with his hands, now I go about the same in a more permanent fasion for the Mr. Ungrateful's arteries. "So, what's your name?"

He looks up at me even though my head is facing the wound, I can see it with every eye and my ghost behind me. "What," his voice is distant and breathy, but he doesn't smell of fear anymore, "why do you want to kno-"

"Boy you shut your trap; you don't say nothing you hear me nothing!"

I ignore him and answer his question, "it will take a while to seal some of the arteries, and I would enjoy some talking." It helps distract me from eating the blood in his wound as I have to use my cells to move and join his tissues back together. It is really distracting when I can feel all my cells scream for food, we know that this is not Lisa. I give myself a mental shake, thinking in unison is a bad idea right now.

There is a pause as I continue to work before the boy opens his mouth, "Terry."

"I told you to shut up boy, don't talk to the frea-" I clap my hand over the annoying noise faster than the other two could likely see, let alone stop.

"That's better," I mutter as I stitch the connective structures of an artery wall, "so Terry, want to tell me why your here?"

"Uh, isn't it obvious," he says looking back at me, "to fight against the chin-"

I cut him off, "no no I don't care about that, I mean why are you here in this warehouse." I pause as I think about it, "well maybe that part doesn't matter too, so why the E88 or gangs in general."

"Well, the empire is powerful," he starts his voice getting stronger, "and I don't exactly like the ABB, or I guess they don't like me."

"So, protection," I say as I finish my second layer of the second artery, "do you think it actually works?"

"Yeah," he nods, "they got the most capes-"

"And they are where?"

"Uh..."

"Look," I look up from my work with my head, "this is a big place with maybe forty...fifty guards, right?"

He nods so I continue, "we are just two people, and we took you out in a under an hour, that is plenty of time to call for back up, and they didn't send any." I pause as he frowns at me, but I just continue after he makes no move to defend, "and what if they did send capes, say it is Hookwolf right? That is a massive rage fueled man who transforms into a blender. He is well known for not giving a shit about people who he considers weak. If you call for help, what sort of person does he see when he finds out that fifty men were taken out by two newbie capes?"

I watch Terry get paler, going from milk to paper. I decide to continue as I notice myself struggling to not eat the delicious blood, I'm swimming in. I breath out a shudder as my control slips and I consume a single red blood cell. Time to leave this, I've done all the repair I can. "Look all I'm saying is that cape stuff and gangs just means your now in that danger more often, you could have got a job saved up gas money and moved away, even if it would take forever, it would still be a safer route." I stand and move away from the bloody hole, "keep putting pressure on it Terry, I've done all I can so I'm going to go call for an ambulance, stay here."

I look to my left as Nimi walks around the corner, dragging behind her are well, the gangsters. Nimi's wires are tugging them along by their hands, some are up walking, but most are being dragged. I can see the car chase guys near the back and the ones in the box canyon I dropped with the hair "trick" are there too. "Hey Nimi, is that everyone?"

"Yep!" She smiles as slight bounce in her walk, "do you want me to rope up these one while you go get a phone?" She points to the unconscious thugs at my feet.

"Uh, I got a phone," I turn to Terry, "It's uh, in my jacket pocket."

"Perfect." I get the phone from him and call for the paramedics and police. With that done, and ignoring fat Nazi, I pop open one of the crates. Inside is row upon row of dark metal guns, all neatly arranged in rows. I then call the PRT, because as much as I'm mad at them, this is a lot of guns. I then ask Swarm for Lisa's opinion, when she tells me that she is up, sending the texture information of the gun in my hands and all the details I can think of about the place. I don't like her report back...

The Police and ambulances arrived on time, thirty minutes the former and ten minutes the later, while Frankie and I sat with Terry and the other gangsters. Chubby Nazi is taken away by the ambulance, after it is determined that he is the only critically hurt person, the rest had at most a few broken fingers and one with a very nasty headache. Outside we waited for the police and PRT, but still the police arrive first, fine by me those guys are jerks... except maybe Armsmaster he's just an accidental jerk. Jerk by association!

Anyways, the police arrived, and the gangers were loaded up in a couple paddy wagons. I smile and walk over to Frankie; she is talking adamantly with a familiar officer. What was here... Officer Jones, that's right. She let us leave early from the night that I first met Lisa. Oh, and I almost got killed by Glory Girl back then too. I remember us liking her... I wonder if I can steal a hug.

"...so that is how we found this place, do you know how the guns are going to be handled?" Frankie asks as I sneak up behind the officer.

"We don't really have an evidence room big enough for a warehouse full of guns," She starts, Jones's voice on the deeper side it sounds smokey to my tentacles. She is shorter than me or Frankie, but I think she is taller than Swarm or Lisa, and she is curvy. Also probably built like a brick, her arms look tough under her long sleeves. "Probably have the PRT take it off our hands or maybe send them over to Boston if they want them."

I'm standing just behind her prepared to hug, but Frankie outs me on my plan. "Nimi, no, you have to ask if you want a hug."

"Wha-," Jones turns to look at me leaning over her, "uhhh..."

I stumble back and grin shyly as some pink embarrassment leaks from my back, "uh, hi Officer Jones." We stare at each other for a good second, before I slowly raise my arms up, "can I have a hug?" I try to pour my heart and soul into my puppy dog, eye.

"Oh, Nimi," she tenses. I've never actually met with Officer Jones, I talked to an Officer Horris that night. She looks from me to Taylor, who just made a defeated gesture. She then turns back to me, "I- sure." From the defeated sound of her voice, I know that my puppy dog eye won, and with a squeal of victory I pull the tiny human into my arms and off the ground.

I like hugs...but there is a reason for me being extra hug-y recently. Just this week I've hugged both of my mommies thirty-two times each, daddy I've hugged seventeen times, and my others I lost count. Lisa is too sick for hugs. I can feel Lisa in my arms, but she can't lift her arms around me. I'm too big and her arms are too heavy to reach, and it hurts her. I pull Jones closer in my arms. I still want hugs, but it isn't fair to ask them from the one I want them from, not until she's better.

"Is she always like this," she huffs in my arms, breaking my thoughts from my dark place. I hide them before Taylor or Swarm can see it. They notice me hiding something but are silent.

"Not until recently," shit she knows, "I think something is upsetting her, but hey hugs are nice, right? I don't mind it when she gives me one."

"No, I suspect not," the tiny human in my arms laughs, "she is quite squishy." My leak of embarrassment becomes a cloud as pink curls up through my tentacles. I open my mouth to retort, but I see a vehicle approach with my ghost on my side. I then hear the sound of a familiar bike approaching although far off. Unfortunately, we are approached by a trooper instead of a certain protectorate hero.

"Hello Frankie, I am PRT Officer Garth," I look down at the solid reflective mask, and repress the urge to growl, "please state what happened?"

"Hmm, usually it is Armsmaster who keeps contact with us," I can feel the cold of Taylor bleeding through the link, she doesn't want this guy here either.

"Armsmaster is busy," Garth's smell is musky and a bit acidic, or to translate prideful, "I was assigned by him to act as a go between with your team and his."

"If he is busy, then why can I hear his motorcycle approaching?" My question slipped out as a growl, which causes the plastic man to stiffen, but also makes Officer Jones stiffen too. I feel a bit guilty in the back of my head, but I am still staring down at the PRT goon.

He pauses for a second, before I notice a hand going to his pistol, "ma'am I'm going to have to ask you to calm down and put the officer down." Out of the corner of my ghost I can see some of the other police officers try to see what is going on. I hear the motorcycle get closer, but I don't think that the humans can yet. "Garth" smells even more smug...

"Now hold on," Officer Jones starts, "I am perfectly-"

"It's fine officer," I say my growl practically a burn in my throat as I repress it. I put Jones onto her feet and unwrap my arms. I can see some of the other officers getting close, so I raise my voice a bit, "thank you for the hug Officer Jones." Two could play at this game, this guy is not good enough to frame me for anything, Emma taught us all well...

"Now, why don't you tell us what you want," Taylor's voice is not cold, I think it has slipped far beyond that. The air around our breaths is visible, and it isn't the warm winter night doing that.

"I am simply trying to-" At that moment the motorcycle becomes audible to humans. I know because Officer Jones is now reaching for her weapon too. Garth doesn't get scared, I can't smell that on him, but I can smell some frustration. "Never mind you have a good night." He then turns and walks off. I move to follow, but a freezing hand grips mine before I can move.

"No," Taylor says, "Swarm can follow him instead, at least for the next week." I nod after a few seconds and feel our other send an instance of herself to follow the man. Who goes into the PRT vehicle and then drives off, with all of the PRT officers he brought.

"Okay, what the fuck," I turn to Jones as she speaks, her eyes staring after the receding truck. The officers walking over finally reach us even as Jones turns to them.

"Everything alright Jones?" A gruff officer in a winter coat says his hands running together to warm them up. The three other officers he's with look at everything, from Jones to the truck to Frankie and me.

"Did any of you get the license of the that truck, I wasn't in a good spot for it." Jones smells irritated, just a subtle hint of cortisol, grapefruit, and adrenaline.

"No," a younger officer with dark eyes and even darker skin says, "why?"

"Cause I think the PRT would like to know that they got people posing as their people," Jones growls. The sound of the motorcycle eventually becomes the sight of a motorcycle as it turns around a corner at the end of the street.

"Ah, great, tin-man is here," the groan of one officer is quickly cut by the older one coughing.

"Well, you can tell them yourself when he gets here," the gruff officer says before turning, "I'll call it into the PRT, see if they'll send an actual truck for the guns."

Jones nods, and I somehow find myself nodding too. He seems like a good leader, reminds me of the FBI guy, Dagshaw. We all turn to watch as Armsmaster walks up to us, he is hunching slightly, and I can smell a little blood...must be a rough night. "Nimi, Frankie, officer, you wanted a PRT presence at the scene of a non-cape related crime," he pauses as I think he reads something. His voice is still mechanical, like if you gave a typewriter lips, but maybe that is just how he talks. "Something about a warehouse full of guns on Morison street."

"Yeah, it's behind us, but I think you should hear something first, come on," he turns to Jones as she walks over to the warehouse. We follow, the mechanical click behind us tells me he is following too.

"That is...disturbing."

Armsmaster doesn't sound all that disturbed, even as he examines what Lisa determined is something called a Heckler & Koch MG4 machine gun. Apparently, that is what is in most of these crates, that isn't ammo, but we found several grenade launchers, sniper rifles, and pistols. They come from all over and most countries are listed by Lisa as their origin, but mostly from Germany or places in Europe.

Everyone knows that the empire has ties to Gesellschaft, a neo-Nazi group in Europe that has more power than most of the remaining countries there too. With this kind of fire power in the city is a powder keg waiting to happen. I turn to Nimi, but quickly look back to Armsmaster as he continues. "As far as I'm aware there is no one matching the description of Officer Garth in the PRT ENE," he sets the gun back into the crate, "the fact that he not only tried to remove you from the scene, but also handle this many guns are not good things."

I frown too, now, "how do you think they got those uniforms?"

He turns to look at me. The beard looks like it has been recently groomed, and despite the smell of blood coming off of him, he doesn't look too bad. "Not enough information, I would have to see them myself," he starts, "if they are cheap, I could probably spot it, but I do know of several tinkers in the Toybox that sell cheap disguises with stranger tech abilities." He shrugs, "really they could have got them from a lot of places, them knowing to be here is the more important clue."

"You think that the PRT has a mole?" Jones questions while examining one of the bullets from an open case, turning it in her hand.

"The PRT frequently use the tactics of dummy moles to spread miss information among the gangs of the city, but this seems to suggest that it is someone much higher up in the organization," he turns to pick up what Lisa called a Panzerfaust 3, a fucking anti-tank weapon, "it is also impossible to determine what organization it could be, ABB, E88, probably not Merchants, but anyone would want their hands on this kind of fire power."

"We too would like the weapons," Armsmaster looks up at Swarm from her spot atop a crate. Her feet kicking in the air arms helping her lean back.

"What, why would you want them," Nimi says as she pulls out a huge rifle. It looks like a pistol in her hands... I think I have a good idea for a weapon. I shake it off as Swarm speaks again.

"Izzy described for us the various chemical components that make up much of their structure," she begins as we listen, "several of these chemicals we will need for our metamorphosis." Oh, so she wants to just eat them okay. I was imagining an army of cute little Swarm instances wielding automatics, but I guess this makes more sense. Looking at the two humans tells me they weren't thinking the same thing.

"The PRT is aware of this metamorphosis," he begins slowly, "and has some serious questions and concerns too. Would you care to explain?"

My other swings her legs for a bit her head tilted as she thinks. It doesn't take her long to decide. "Okay," we watch her drop twenty feet as she jumps from her crate, "metamorphosis involves all of the instances of Swarm joining for a time as an accelerant of a radio-isotope activates a mutagenic state." I can't gauge Armsmaster's reaction, but I can smell something close to excitement. She continues, "after a brief period of cellular and genetic restructuring Swarm will be whole, and reach adolescence, which we will stay at until adulthood."

"What happens at adulthood," Jones looks lost as she asks that, and the fear under her scent is unpleasant. We like her, we don't want her to be scared of us.

"We will be sexually available," Swarm deadpans. I think we all feel it when I smack my face hard enough it makes Nimi smack her own eye.

"Ow, Frankie!"

"Sorry, Neems..."

"I see," okay at least Armsmaster is embarrassed too. His body language completely shifted, and he smells no longer excited. "It is unusual for a cape power to cause such changes in structure, are you a case 53?"

Oh, yeah, I forgot about that, we didn't really tell him anything... and he helped me... Even when the PRT tried to stop me. Maybe I should ease him into it?

"Yes, we identify as an altered cape."

"Do you know any more about this metamorphosis?"

"We would suffer greatly if it was prevented," Swarm states before changing the subject, "can we have the weapons?"

"What chemicals to you need exactly," Armsmaster places a gun back into a box as he tilts his head, "you mentioned a radioactive element."

"High carbon steel or just any grade and sufficient carbon, silicon oils of any dilution, sulfur gas, water, carbolic acid, three lead based car batteries, and the radio-isotope, we are using the Americium-241 from several smoke detectors," her arms twitch as I feel her irritation, "speed of metamorphosis would be improved with a stronger isotope, but plutonium-239 is hard to require and we can't buy the correct uranium isotopes to produce it."

"That sounds," Armsmaster pauses as he thinks, "frustrating..."

I feel something strong from Swarm's ghost, elation, happiness, and understanding. Did...did Swarm just bond with Armsmaster through atomic chemistry? I mean I'm not mad, I'm starting to like Armsmaster too, it is just weird that it happened like this. I watch as Swarm's arms start to vibrate, I guess this is fine. Swarms happy so that is only a good thing.

"How much plutonium would this require?" And it is just getting weirder as Armsmaster sounds excited too, "and you mentioned Americium-241, does that mean it doesn't matter what type of emissive radiation."

"Well..."

approximately 38 minutes later

"So, you don't actually know what type of biological changes are going to take place," Armsmaster's hands move as he excitedly talks, "but you have theories about it based on the base chemistry involved?"

"Yep."

This has been going on for a bit, with either Armsmaster or Swarm switching between one word and twenty-word answers to advanced chemistry questions. Sure, both me and Nimi understand the conversation as we sit here on the floor next to a really lost Officer Jones. We both could join in, less so Nimi as she understands but doesn't care for the science, but...

"We think we will be able to bind cellularly to crystals and fill them with photonic energies that..."

I watch as our quietest other, waves her hands just as excitedly as the grown man she is talking to. The persistent sound of giggles in her echoes as she talks at a rapid pace, her eagerness to hear Armsmaster's response, and her excited hand shifting as she explains some new concept to the equally excited tinker.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm not just a really weird cape of some kind, and I just became undead at the same time. But I am literally missing the brain tissue for it to be there, dad has got the structure though just inactive. Maybe it skips a generation? Whatever, doesn't matter, moms are proof enough that I am not one of the living.

"So can I have the weapons?"

"Hmm, I have duties to remove them from the street," Armsmaster starts, "and I can't give up evidence for destruction, where were you planning to get the requisite chemicals before you knew of this weapons cache?"

"We were going to consume a ship out in the graveyard, but we'll likely have to eat a few as the rust on some of them is extensive."

"I see," he puts a hand on his chin as he thinks, " and we have a mole... can you ask Izzy a question for me?"

"Sure," Swarm exclaims. I look over at Nimi as she looks at me, Swarm just sounded like Nimi just now... Nimi's smile stretches across her face, and I can feel one start to make it across mine. She is acting so cute right now... "What do you want to ask?"

"Are these firearms marked by shipment, and do they still have their registration numbers?"

Swarm tilts her head as she thinks, before nodding to something, "One second we will check." Suddenly a few doors open to the sound of hundreds, read thousands, of feet. The ringing sound of a thousand crates being opened at the same time, makes Jones and Armsmaster nervous, but soon we can see an avalanche of Swarms flooding down our little section of the warehouse. "She requires a larger sample size and," I watch as all of the instances around us rapidly change the amounts of arms and hands they have, "surface area..." The image of Swarm wrapped around Lisa, the texture of a thousand numbers across Swarm's surface all pressing against a Lisa in nothing but underwear.

My face gray's out and I can see clouds of red, pink puffing out of Nimi's back like a chimney. Armsmaster's voice just makes me glad that only my mouth is visible on my mask. This is too embarrassing... "You said that after your metamorphosis you would be whole," he says as he looks over the wave of shadows around the room, "how many of you are there?"

The one Swarm instance in charge of talking tilts her head, before they all answer in unison, "seven-thousand two hundred sixty-one." The warehouse reverberates with her answer, but after a minute of searching all of the activity stops. "They are marked by batch of shipment, all of them are registered."

"Can you remember all of the numbers if possible or maybe-"

"Done," a few Swarm instances walk up to the tinker, fuse together and then print out a giant sheet of paper- Oh, no it's silk not paper. "This is the entire catalog of this warehouse, we included every weapon and ammo magazine with their: type, serial number, color, batch number, and in what shipping crate they are in."

Swarm gets smarter the more of her is focused on a task, this is close to three thousand Swarm instances. That means that instead of just one brain thinking in this warehouse, she has thousands thinking in unison right now. So, her just making the task of cataloguing a building full of guns take a couple of minutes, is totally possible. And showing off... Lisa will be so proud if she doesn't already know.

Armsmaster silently looks over the list of weapons before tilting his own head, a quick nod and then he speaks, "yes I think this will do, you have my permission to destroy these weapons and keep them off the streets, this is all the information we would probably get from them anyways, more efficient, good work." He pauses before adding, "none of them have been fired, have they?"

"No." Swarm's arms are vibrating and both Nimi and I can hear the words "good work" over and over again in her head. When you think about it, Swarm is the youngest of us and I was obsessed with capes when I was young. Armsmaster was my hero, then I met him and some of the magic of that died that day, but as Nimi and I stare at Swarm vibrating as most of her bodies are turned to stare at him. I realize that maybe he is still her hero... It's a nice thought.

And then the Endbringer alarms go off...

Again thank you to MaskedCritic, and anyone who has commented with constructive criticism or just happiness with the story...

Tumultuous_Anxiety · Jun 8, 2021

Hey, I finished part 1, working on part 2 and a few interludes with some character that have been missing for a bit... hope you enjoy...

[ERROR: conditions divergent from expected outcome...]

[searching for cause...]

[…]

[…]

[…]

[...no cause found]

[simulated structures 5% divergent from physical model...]

[…adjusting for ERROR]

[…]

[…]

[…adjustment successful]

[destination...set]

[commence attack]

"Dragon where is it happening?"

I begin walking to the door of the warehouse, ignoring the flurry of movement all around me as the many clones of the young cape hurriedly start to empty the crates of guns. I'm sure that when... if I get back from this fight the Director is going to be upset that I gave the weapons to the independents. Especially considering what I've learned about this "metamorphosis", a bit too close to bio-tinkering for the Director most likely. I may be...efficient with people, but even I know that the Director is biased. I look at the rapidly emptying crates as a Swarm clone I pass starts to eat the bullets from a container next to me.

Fascinating...

"Sorry Armsmaster, I'm still getting the word out...it's DC, Collin."

"PRT main HQ," I frown, the sound of sirens cutting off confirms that at least the Bay is not the target, "how long has it been going on?"

"Twenty minutes," I step out into the cold, but pause when those words registered. She must have sensed this because Dragon continues, "she blocked the signal for the alarm going out, right now the only capes currently on the scene are the ones that were either part of DC's population or those from the surrounding areas that could hear the alarm, but many of DC capes are missing."

I hear footsteps, a massive amount, behind me. Looking over my shoulder I can see Frankie, Nimi, and a good amount of Swarm following me. " What about the Triumvirate, or evacuations?"

"I was able to contact Legend and he is on the scene, Alexandria is currently in England as London containment was lost last week," that seems bad, I continue walking to my motorcycle. I need to get to the Rig and relay to my team before transport. DC is a heavily surveillance place though... "As for evacuations, I think some of the government that was on site was airlifted out, but Collin, it's the Simurgh."

Blocking the Endbringer alarm, that is... a new strategy, not untypical for the psychic Endbringer, but still not a tactic we have seen. "Okay I'll be on my way," I look over on my display as I receive a message, "we have a transporter, arrival time the next ten, see you later."

"Good luck Collin."

I nod disconnecting the call. The heavy step of boots and movement of the shadow clones suggests that they want to talk. "Yes," I look up at the trio. Taylor Hebert, with her red spiral and bright eyes hiding between the strands of moving hair, Nimi, with her rainbow armor of bone a single glowing red eye staring down at me from her eight-foot height, and Swarm, a featureless shadow with three pairs of arms and seven thousand copies.

The unnamed group, or did they have a name? They lack a real public presence... bad PR, they should work on that. They're an odd one, but they seem to have good intentions despite their theorized diet. Makes no real difference to me as long as it never becomes a proven fact that the Hebert's household is full of cannibals, then it will be out of my hands.

"Where is it happening?" Frankie's voice is strong, and she holds herself like she isn't scared. I wish Dragon was still here, she would be able to tell me if I'm just misunderstanding them.

"Washington, DC, started twenty minutes ago, we have transport if you're looking to join."

She shifts her feet, and I watch as several eyes disappear from her hair only to reappear in new positions. I note the timer I set for the fight and start move towards my bike. The sound of a thousand feet following me is surprising. I won't begrudge the help this strange group will bring. They are all considered anti-thinkers, here is hoping that they are anti-masters too....

Three hours later...

The world has been a blur of activity since I got here...

I grip a red covered hand, ignoring my hunger as I haul up the downed cape. He is wearing something dark with some gold trim, but even through that I can see the way the white bone leaks from his leg. It looks so appetizing...

Going from point A to point B, helping people...

I run past the stone statue of Abraham Lincoln to get to the next one, this one a flying mover or maybe a brute? I don't know, it all looks the same when they bleed all over me. Ignore it and move to the next, there are stones crushing a girl in pink's legs, she is crying even if she is making no noise. I feel Nimi's want to keep her, she is smaller than us... I want to baby her too.

This is what I wanted...

I slide underneath some rubble and can feel my others reaching their own targets. "CD-13, next after this one," I whisper as I reach out for a cape in solid green. I try my best to not smell his warm body, the smell of his short breath, bitter with sweet iron, his lung punctured by three ribs and his collar bone. The smell as I run back louder than the persistent scream of the reason I am here.

…right?

I set the bleeding man down into a cot, the smell of broken bodies still clinging to life surround me as I decide to "catch my breath". The triage around me is set up around one of the hospitals here in DC that is just out of range of the Simurgh's screams. I watch as the nurses and doctors try to heal the capes and small number of non-hostile civilians that me, my others, and the other capes that can't actual hurt an Endbringer, bring to them. I'm glad that I can help, but it doesn't mean that this is easy.

I watch, with no small amount of bleed over affection from Nimi, as Panacea barks orders and moves to help critical capes and the small number of civilians we have found that didn't try to attack every one they saw. Her hands look lovely stained with red like that...

I shake my head, it isn't fair for me to find all this... appealing. I am trying to save people, I shouldn't be so hungry. I stand to exit, it isn't helping me just being here in the tent, salivating over the heroes and villains barely clinging to life. I want to do more...

Swarm, one of the thousand she brought with for the fight, walks over to me. She has probably brought in the most, and in any other circumstance I'd feel a desire to be a bit competitive, but our hunger is insane right now and I don't feel the desire to have fun. I can feel her hunger too, it is my own after all, but one can see it if they know how. She is shaking, her echo-y voice is full of snarls just hidden under its bass-y tones. She is constantly biting her fingers off... "Just hold on, all Endbringer fights end eventually, when it is over, we can be with our Lisa."

I nod as she nods back, comforting words, but the tent of broken bodies and blood is filled with spider webs and fungus. I salivate as my eyespots stare at a doctor pressing his hands into an open chest cavity, the smell of dead cells is everywhere, and the living are hot and tantalizing in the only way living tissues are. A few nurses look over at me with concern, I finally hear that my stomach is growling. I leave back for more food to bring back to the tent of honey and death...

I am not a cape... I think that it is kind of obvious as I have seen more capes here than I have ever seen in my life and my death combined. So, while my mind has decided to become hell on earth as I am not allowed to eat any of these... people... I've also become aware of just how limited I am compared to some capes. As for the wanting to eat everyone, I am surrounded by violence and blood as I move to get injured people out of the Endbringer's path, and it is severely fucking with me.

I know, I know, I am exceptionally hungry, and I can learn from my past. When I get really hungry, I start losing my mind. It happened at school so it can happen here, but unlike before when I was surrounded by what my body considered "acceptable targets" I am now surrounded by too much "food". Now Taylor, I say to you who is myself as I now truly start to lose it, I thought you solved your food problem, you know back when we made the super producers and Lung was turned into a delicious meat battery? Well...

I'm currently running with my arms and legs fully exposed, only a leotard of my slime mold suit remains purely because Lisa reminded me that humans don't run around naked. Which I remember making sense when I was alive, but I don't really understand right now in my current mental state. Back to the whole food thing... My arms are inky black, full coverage, there are no blank spots on my arms at all. I am covered in super producers, and while it is cold here in DC, the skies are clear. The morning sun isn't for another hour.

I am starving, it is in every thought as I race through these streets to the next cape or downed victim. The grey world of semi dark morning just barely feeding me like a slow drip, as the super producers I've covered over my bare arms and legs are not feeding me enough to compensate for my cells to stop their screaming for the food around me. I probably look crazy too. I know I can technically see myself with my ghost trailing behind me, but I'm not the best judge of what is sane right now, so I'll just describe it.

In addition to my suit being in its current state, my hair is wild as and my eyespots have skipped past a silver burning glow to a smoldering fire of white light. Each strand covered in lines of teeth, luminous as I saw through brick and steel to get into collapsed buildings.

I'm sure that if anyone could see more than my mouth under the red spiral mask, they'd see my wide eyes bugging out as I hunt down the dying. I've been doing nothing but running from the battle to the triage tent and back for the past three hours. Making this the longest running Simurgh fights in the history books, according to Lisa they only really last for thirty minutes. I look with some eyespots on the back of my head as the newest set of blaster arrive in the air to take place of the old ones. This is the Simurgh, so just being around her runs the risk that you will succumb to her control.

"CD-15, I got word of a few friendly civilians trapped in the hospital, I need a brute or two to help me get inside."

I look down at my wrist at the tinker tech timer, a bomb that makes sure that you don't become a hostile by vaporizing you if you spend too long exposed to the angel's scream. Thankfully, I have confirmed that she can't affect the undead or Nimi, so we have been pretty useful in the fight. "This is Frankie, I'm heading your way," I start running to the south.

So yeah, this was probably not a good idea to come to this fight. In retrospect I should have probably stayed home. Lisa and dad would be less worried about me, and I could be in a city that has a stable food source without all of the stress here making me obscenely hungry. Also crazy, did I mention that to you? Most of these buildings are full of dead bodies, be them human, bug, mold, plant you name it, but I can't stop to eat any of it. One nothing about eating bodies saves lives, two... Well, there is no two. People are dying and I need to bring them to the doctors, eating takes up time, time the dying don't have. So fuck my hunger, and fuck you too crazy personification of my inner thoughts. I'm going to be a hero, you just watch!

"This is Nimi, I am also close to there, be there in a sec!"

I smile as her voice crackles over the radio, she sounds good, better than me at least. A quick glance over her with my ghost tells me she is just better at hiding her distress. I frown, I can feel a long cuddle secession in my future. Which is good, I don't think that Lisa will be moving from her spot between Nimi, Swarm, and I for at least a few days. I smile again at the thought of our Lisa perfectly comfortable on top of Nimi as I lay on top of her, Swarm threading our limbs around her as we collectively destress.

A scream loud and inhuman makes me wince out of my day dream, and I focus on the flailing Endbringer behind me with some eyespots. She has pretty much stayed in a single spot for most of the fight, just above the Reflecting Pool near the Washington Monument and the Hero Memorial grave. It burns that because of this screaming bitch Hero's, one of the first members of the Triumvirate and the greatest tinker to ever live, grave in Washington will be sealed off from the world by a containment wall.

I try to stare a hole through her head as her razor sharp wings slice through the air, the cars and buildings shattering as they orbit her. A cyclone of broken rubble shreds through the fliers that I can see, a few of them are the new blasters I saw. I scowl, a funny thought of making Armsmaster proud intrudes on my rapidly decreasing sanity, and run harder. I can feel Swarm move in to catch several of the capes that are falling. Need to focus, need to stop thinking about food, need to just last a bit farther, need to be more prepared next time, need to kill the monsters...

I stop my internal monologue as I get close to the hospital, DC General... insert cardinal direction here. I laugh internally and feel my hunger, and stress, lessen with the bad joke. It just comes back when I get closer. A man is next to another cape in purple, he is screaming. I'm at the point that I can't distinguish faces hunger, but not at the point that I can't understand language so I can hear what he is saying. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN DOCTOR," he screams, his neurochemistry a confusing jumble as it tries to embalm his brain, "I WANT TO SEE MY WIFE, I KNOW YOU ARE HIDING HER!"

I wince as I walk closer, the man is clearly losing it, most of the civilians in the last two hours have been. The strange mix of dopamine, cortisol, adrenaline, and oxytocin in his head is kind of a given that he is losing it. They, the effected, are not dangerous by themselves to capes, but they tend to attack people that are acting normal. The fact that this one is trying to get into a hospital... I want to eat him...

"What seems to be the problem," I step into view and watch as the crazy man whips to face me. His, mouth I think, opens and he starts to make a noise, but it dies as he steps back from me. " Do you need a hand, sir," the stressed tone of my voice comes out like a rattle, and I can smell the crazy trickle down his leg, "leave."

I watch him run almost bowling over the purple cape chuckling behind him. "Hey thanks I've been trying to get him to leave for the last couple of minutes," I look over at the purple clad cape, his face a blurry mess to me, "you Frankie, right?" I nod, trying my best to not pay attention to the small bleed on his leg. It is practically a paper cut but is still enough to be distracting to my stomach. "Seismic, I got a call that some people got trapped in the hospital, thinker's confirmed that they aren't one of the crazy ones."

Seismic starts walking over to the front entrance, and I can immediately see the problem as I follow. A ten foot block of concrete covers the entrance completely blocking it off. The rebar sticking out of it tells me that it is probably one piece too, a little too much for the stick thin man in purple next to me. "What about the other entrances," I ask, as I look over the block.

"From what I can tell they are crushed and structurally unsound." I look over at him. "My power is with vibrations, so I can see deep into structures," I watch as he places a hand on the block and see his hand blur, "the block is five feet thick, but the entrance is safe enough to pass through once we remove this one."

I nod, "I am going to cut the block into movable pieces for Nimi, step back please." The sound of my hair chain sawing its way through the ground as I swing it at the block of concrete is not soothing. Imagine nails on chalkboards but a thousand times worse. I didn't flinch though, I've been doing this for the entire fight, cutting into places to get the search and rescue capes into crushed buildings. I loud boom and Nimi's presence in my mind tells me that she is here.

"Oh good, could you help move the blocks," I move to the side from my cutting and get to work with my other. I cut, she grabs, the block before me taken apart piecemeal as we bore a hole through it. It takes us maybe ten minutes with stops by Seismic, a villain from Colorado, to check for stability in the concrete. We eventually find ourselves in the front lobby of the hospital.

"They said that they are stuck of the eleventh floor," Seismic says as he heads deeper into the building, "I saw that the elevator shaft is off so we should take that stairs."

We nod and Nimi chimes in from behind me as we follow, "do we know how many are trapped?"

The stairwell is rough looking, and a lot of the steps are showing some severe damage. "Are these stable," I say as Seismic mounts the steps, "Nimi weights a bit more than us."

"Hey," Nimi's smile is barely contained, "you calling me fat!"

It gets a few laughs from Seismic and me, the relief of laughing at something is shared as our stress decrease. "Funny, but yeah the stairs are safe, it is mostly just surface damage," we follow as he starts to run up the steps, before yelling back to us, "see? Anyways we got four maybe five people, to answer your first question, only one is unable to walk."

The rest of the short ascent up to the floor was spent in silence. Nimi and I not needing to breathe, and Seismic able to run up the stairs without breaking a sweat. On the eleventh floor we started looking, it did not take us long to find them.

"Over here, we're in here!" True to Seismic words there are five people, an elderly couple, two men, and a kid maybe eleven or twelve. "Oh good, you heard, are you the one we talked to on the phone dear?"

"Uh, no, ma'am, we are just the ones closest," I nod at the purple cape's words, "I'm told that one of you is injured?"

"That would be my dad," I turn to look down at the eleven year old tugging on my hand, "he hurt his leg, bad." The kid is sniffling as they lead me to one of the chairs holding one of the men. The man's face is bloody, and he is holding a hand to his head. His leg is at an odd angle around his foot, a quick touch of his body and I can read the superficial damage. His ankle is broken in four places, and his head has a concussion. "Can you help him?"

I look at the blurry face of the kid, it slowly clears as I focus and reveal a freckled brown eyed girl as my hunger takes a back seat to a pack instinct, protect children. Her face is covered in tear marks as she holds her father's hands, her eyes are big, and she has a wide mouth like me. I smile without revealing my teeth, "of course, what is your name?"

"Emma."

I feel my core tighten uncomfortably, and behind me I can feel Nimi's ghost whine. I don't let my discomfort show, even as the words of everyone else in the room become incomprehensible. I look over the damaged living in front of me with my cells. The chemistry of living flesh makes them scream with hunger, but I can't act on that, it would hurt Emma to harm her father...

I ignore my rapidly deteriorating mental state as I lift the man up into my arms. He represses a scream of pain, as I set his ankle in place with my hair shedding the wrap to act as a split/bandage. "Nimi, you carry him and the two others," I say pointing to the elderly couple as I hand her Emma's father, "I'll carry her." I can feel Nimi's simultaneous relief and disappointment at me carrying her. I pick up the small warm human, Emma is tiny, and fragile, and safe in my arms.

…

I need to get her to the triage with her dad. I mentally shake off the mind fuck that is this day and follow Seismic and Nimi out of the hospital room. The others are talking, but the words don't make any sense. "Why are you so cold?" I look down at her in my arms, they are shivering, it's still winter and they don't have a coat. I also don't have a body temperature and have been outside all day, I must feel freezing. A quickly formed bladder of vibrating hair and water generates heat in my body raising my temperature.

"Better?" My voice is solid as I try to keep my naked concern out of my voice.

"Yeah," she snuggles closer into my arms, "are you a hero?" Her eyes are wet, but she is calm, and I can smell that her stress hormones have decreased. Open curiosity is in her voice and on her face... so cute...

"I try to be," I say currently struggling to keep both my hunger and more affectionate instincts down. It probably wouldn't be a good idea to just start cuddling a stranger's kid. Nimi is jealous and I can feel her ghost press into mine, to be closer to her. "Why are you in the hospital," I ask as I try to keep her motherly instincts out of my head.

"Dad was picking me up from my blood stuff," she grimaces.

"Blood stuff?" The hunger leaves me entirely, I now only feel the concerned starvation as my instincts struggles to not pull the child in my arms close.

"Dad says that I got the sickness that got mommy before she died," I stare down at her as she continues, "so I got to go to the hospital and do the blood stuff until they find it."

"I'm sorry, I know how it feels to lose a mom," the struggle to not hug this child to me is worse than the hunger. In the background, I quickly read through a few of her dead skin cells looking for this "disease". It doesn't take long to find her genetic predisposition to ovarian cancer. It isn't active currently thank God, so Emma is cancer free and even if she wasn't I'm holding Panacea down until she fixed it so that she never gets it. "Is your dad taking care of you by himself?" Taylor... no, that is... no she isn't your kid. This isn't the same as Panacea or Vista, this is you projecting your problems onto a child! I feel both Swarm and Nimi recoil from that as we all back up from making our attachment to this kid.

"Yeah, dad has been working at home while my uncle helps around the house."

I smile, both because she sounds happy and because she doesn't seem to have the same problems I did. I don't even break my smile when I remembered that she will never be able to leave DC after they put up a containment wall. "That's good, family is important, I'm glad that your dad is sticking close to you."

I walk out of the hospital and the open air, relaxing a bit as the hospital wasn't empty, but there isn't anybody living in the building. "Well, once we get you and your dad to the healers, I'll ask my healer friend to see if she can help," my smile turns as she gives me a warry look, "you, okay?"

"I don't have to get another needle do I," her face an adorable pout as she whines about doctors.

"No no, Panacea doesn't use needles," I squeeze her with my arms, "she doesn't need to take blood either, just to hold your hand for a bit."

"Okay."

I should have been paying attention to the street, I should have noticed that the man from outside before, the crazy one, was back. I should have noticed the machine guns and extra crazies he brought with him. I was still smiling down at her when a hailstorm of gun fire tears the world apart. When I felt innocent blood get forced into me from armor piercing rounds. When I could feel Nimi's hunger become wrath as the humans she was carrying become bloody dust. When the world went cold for me, and I realized I was screaming... I moved...

Okay so feeling shitty is just a common thing when it comes to writing character death...

Tumultuous_Anxiety · Jun 11, 2021

So this is early, but I don't suspect any of you mind that too much. So this chapter reveals quiet a bit of the background going-ons and has some explanation of other stuff. Hope you enjoy!

[Attack from coordinates T7-35-2U by {host} of <Controller>… calculating parameters... return attack allowed]

Satisfaction rings in my mind as I telekinetically launch Eidolon into the distance by the waist of his underwear. The data from fighting him is subpar and I dislike his childish needs. I shift a few wings to distract a blaster before nailing them with a car. Now that he is at least gone for the moment I can focus on the actual fight, and more importantly why I'm getting so many errors.

[ERROR: Target potential {host} of <Crystalize> not at threshold levels]

[ERROR: deviated {host} positions from expected simulation parameters, compensating...]

My thoughts grind as I try to push through the simulations to see the fight again. My precognition has become my limitation for the past three hours. Hosts that I confirm kill, wind up not being dead and just far away, as a powerful unknown effect keeps me from seeing the cause. Every time I try to force the simulations to simulate what is causing it, I get errors. Concern simulates across my mind in an effort to keep up with parameters of operation.

[Parameters: {"a good fight"}, Extrapolation: {prove host of} <Controller> {to be a "hero"}, Further Extrapolation: {give host of} <Controller> {"higher" stakes to further imply that they are a savior}]

I sigh as I influence a local non-host on the street to head to the location of the target to cause the threshold event. I can leave once that is in place and run this fight through some simulations when I'm not currently fighting.

[Secondary Parameters: test local populations for development of new <Data>, destroy infrastructure until level of advancement of local population becomes capable of greater threshold events]

I watch as the local non-host I sent is stopped by the host of [Resonance].

[Annoyance]

Parameters prohibit my ability to hurry this up and just influence the host to leave. This is also not good data, the internet is better data than the local verbal communication. I shatter a building and launch it in a spray at a group of newly arriving hosts. The laser blast coming at my back reflected by a laser into another host. Just as I turn from the host falling near me, I hear a voice come from the tinker bomb around their wrist.

"This is Frankie, I'm heading your way."

[ERROR]

I flap a bladed wing out as my vision blisters with alarms of system errors and malfunctions in the simulations. That hurt... a lot! I run a system diagnostic while I search for the cause. Looking down I can see the device on in the water, the dead host floating. I rip the device off without the hosts noticing and bring it to spin around me. A precognitive "ear" to the device.

**"This is Nimi, I am also close to there, be there in a sec!"**

[ERROR]

I feel my system "wince" at the voice as my simulations don't crash but fail to properly "see" a source. A response that comes after is more useful as it comes from host of [Resonance], telling me where they are going.

"Roger that, Frankie, Nimi."

I quickly connect to the internet as I lazily dodge a fist from host of [Permanence] as the flying host tries again, I throw a building at her. A quick search through the PHO forums finds only one article mentioning cape named Frankie or Nimi. Zero mention of power set, a video is incomprehensible to me as it just shows three dead bodies lying on the ground next to host of [Inference]. It then proceeds to a fight that just shows projections disappearing as host of [Inference] runs around helping local population. A search through the PRT files does turn up something more, but...

**[ERROR: potential host of <Administrator>, name Taylor, is dead...]

[ERROR: consistent with simulations recalculating...] **

I did that error check a month ago after {host} Taylor died during threshold events. I check through the local cluster [network] to see if <Administrator> is damaged, even an anti-detection utility should show up in simulations. If <Administrator> is corrupted it should be logged with <Thinker>, possibly <Warrior> as it threatens the whole cycle and my <Data> collection. I cannot see where <Warrior> is but I know they are not around. The plan I have to remove them is not yet functional, requires more paramet-

[Shard <Administrator> offline]

…

{What?}

What.

[What!]

<What!>

<Administrator> has been terminated? How <Sting> or <Stinger> haven't been deployed by {host} Lily or <Zion> anywhere near other universes, how can a shard be dead except for in the original landing? At that moment the local non-host I sent to give potential {host} of <Crystalize> deviates. A quick pass of his mind is confusing, as he is terrified of nothing... of nothing that I can see. I rewind the simulation to go back and watch the event. He sees something now that it isn't a memory, it is...

[ERROR]

...hard to make out. It stands tall, taller than all the buildings and full of teeth too. Bright and shiny it bites at my- the local non-host's fear, the poison of its bright gaze tears holes through the vision like a jet from a singularity. Soon the vision passes, and I see just an odd {host} not even in traditional {host} garb of a costume. She is young, pale white, and naked. Her hair moves with the air like it is weightless and her body floats above the ground. It is all I can see before the local non-host runs away.

[ERROR]

Who is that? I feel a sensation of something cold run up my back as I look off into the distance. I turn to throw a car at where the perceived attack could be coming from... I hit empty air... There is nothing there.

[<Controller> has reappeared to your left, temporal displacement burst aimed towards coordinates 23-OV-00, dodge immediately]

I twist through the air as Eidolon pulls out an actually dangerous attack. The slow-moving death ball destroys the tip of one of my wings to give the moronic {host} a sense of accomplishment. I then launch him again, by one of his socks, as the {host} of [Permanence] dives for my back. I swat her back with another building.

[Simulations predict that {host} Eidolon will show up to next fight with zero undergarments]

I struggle not to smile at that, keeping my face blank as I enjoy what little torment I can do to that man. Serves him right for not letting me truly test the population. This place could be a gold mine of <Data> if we just started with breeding this population and setting them up for threshold events in sequence. It is wasted potential to let them kill each other so inefficiently, I picture the plan I have for humanity once I finalize my plan to offline <Warrior>, he wasn't doing much anyways.

I dodge a few attacks and forget about the girl I saw...

[ERROR: Target potential host of <Crystalize> terminated, Condition: Attack Failure.]

[Cause of Failure: subjugated {local non-hosts} terminated potential host of <Crystalize>]

I mentally shrug, not the data point I wanted, and the predicted utility application of the {host} would have been nice to see, but I guess I can cause another threshold event to get the same result.

I sat there for fifteen minutes while I looked, I sent out a wave of influence. Then I got one back...

SHRIEEEEEK

fifteen minutes before

The arms hang limply in my own. They are so much smaller than me. Her face isn't like what her namesake, my lost friend, was like before she left me behind. Soft brown eyes stare back into my own, cold with their absence of life. Her hair is brown instead of red, and Emma was paler than this child.

A scream sound from around us as the sound of shredded flesh and snapping bones turn the world around us red. I ignore it even as my teeth catch on living bone as my hair hunts the world. I just keep staring down at the body in my arms, as my hair continues to eat the bodies of the crazies who killed her.

I push the hair out of her face, she isn't sleeping, and you don't look like that when your dead. Her face isn't even one of horror. It is shock, her dead eyes stare blankly out into the world, as her face hangs slack. I push it closed, my father's voice in my head talking about catching flies. I close her eyes too, it is respectful...

Soft flesh across my palate as I bite into the scum and filth. Our instincts scream at us as we destroy the egg breakers, their broken demands for food lost to us as I rip and bite into the flesh. My single eye is blind as I close my steel teeth around another head. The crunch sounding good to my tendrils as pale motes of color rise from my back. The satisfaction of the damned cells having their nucleolus ripped out and shredded before being replaced with new DNA and shoved back into them, is bitter as Taylor hold our failure. We are hungry.

I shift her in my arms as I mindlessly feast across the bodies around me with my hair. Emma looks nothing like the child in my grip, and I have no idea if I just imagined her name cross the little girl's lips. I notice as her features get clearer as we feed, the blood flowing across the world to my skin as it leaks from Nimi's bites. The wide mouth I thought I saw before, shrank to be less than it was. Her eyes were not that wide. Big, but not a bug-eyed familiar shape that I sometimes remember I have. She doesn't have the curly hair I thought I saw back in the hospital, back when the world was correct. Her name was probably not even Emma, still doesn't mean I have any right to stop.

We stack bodies from the surrounding building around our others as some of we eat. The feeling of its wrongness we find the bodies of the dead lifts as we bring them to their funeral. The void of us Taylors is their grave, and it is not an honor to be eaten by us, we are the ones with the honor to eat them. For thirty men at Taylor's feet as she holds the child, this is not honor. They will be forgot and lost to time as we erase them from the face of the Earth.

We all ignored the screaming, laughing man sitting with his crushed limbs as he curses us and calls for his wife. We will remove him from the world last. Nimi's steel mouth grips around a head prying it off it neck with a simple twist and snap. Swarms arms of darkness pull at flesh from bone as they draw the sheds into hungry voids where sane heads used to be. I bring them to me as the blood flows up into my eyes to hold back my tears.

I hold her to my bare chest, my suit long forgotten as I failed to stop her bleeding with it, now it simply rests against her spine and chest limply. Death was instant so she didn't feel it or see it, but her ghost and the ghost of her father are unknown to me. I searched while the bones of people broke around me. I looked for her, her father, the elderly couple, that man that was with them, even Seismic who lies cooling in the frosty ground surrounding us, he and I took the most bullets before Nimi could cover us. I don't know them, I didn't get a chance to know them, so their spirits are invisible to me. I don't know why I know that, but it is intrinsic to my knowledge, just like the knowledge of what that means does.

I look up at Nimi as she pulls limbs and blood into her large mouth, it is hell as I watch the red tears drip from her eye, her body and ghost a silent scream as she tries to eat her feelings. I look away to Swarm as she shifts through the buildings around us and brings more bodies to the growing pile in front of me, the pile is taller than Nimi. She can feel Lisa so far away from us as she wraps all her bodies around our girlfriend, keeping her safe as we try to stay sane. I look away and see the untouched bodies of the people we tried to save and the hero from Colorado that helped, he said he was a villain, he did better than most of the heroes I met. I turn to the sound of a scream and see blinding flashes of light and a pure white monster, shred the world around her.

My chest cracks and we feel us stop. The ribs of our body spread as the agony of our hunger flares. The child is placed into our Taylor as our Nimi walks lifts her to her own chest. We feel our flesh connect as our Taylor and our Nimi fuse around our child, we didn't know her, not really, but it doesn't matter anymore. Our Swarm twists around our masses as we start to drag in the bodies around us.

The angel of death screams in the distance, we respond in kind...

Everyone hears it...

The wailing scream that echoes across the twisted landscape of DC, extends far beyond the city bounds.

The world shifts as it feels it, people stop as a sinking pit of dread fills their cores, the sleeping toss and turn as nightmares come in to their minds, the dead shift in their graves, whole graveyards across the world briefly move a couple inches as they claw at the tops of their graves. The undead stop to listen to the call to war, those that were preparing since early January hasten across the planet to ready for their trips to a general's call.

The small gathering in London at a facility dedicated to the study sees haste as its specters and corpses get excited.

In dark places, sacrifices awaken to cultist chanting and hop from the slab to slaughter their murderers as they seek bloody justices.

In the desert, a king shifts to wakefulness as he hears not a challenger a superior.

In the outback, the Eternal Dreaming awakens it's minders and orders for a movement to the coast.

In a cave deep underground, Lazarus turns back to look in the direction of the screaming keen before continuing to dig to find what he is looking for.

In the east, the boats hasten in construction as jangshi speak to swaths of spirits and yōkai.

They all feel it appear...

The monsters appearance was slow, and it didn't look like a lot of people noticed until it appeared.

SHRIEEEEK

With a haunting cry it appeared, and suddenly everyone knew.

I had noticed that the creature was forming so I know that it came from DC General Northeast and watched as it rose as a black pillar of twisting shadows, teeth, and eyes.

The creature was tall and thin, standing at a good twenty to twenty-five feet. Its body plated in a rough insectile-like armor with pale white connective tissues in the joins. With its head a human proportion to the body despite the clear oddities.

The armor wasn't full coverage, the hips connected with thick columns of connective tissue in deep ridges to an almost triangular pelvis. The plating continued up across an abdominal region with seams for flexibility and movement. The chest was an exposed mesh of cyclopean rib bones, but the cavity it protected was stuffed with red pulsating tendrils covered in black thorns. A seam across the sternum of the ribs seemed suggest that it opens up.

Its arms were longer than they would be on a human, but still didn't go past the knees, they were fully plated in the black exoskeleton with joint seams for mobility. The legs were the same as the arms, but they had tough looking kneecaps and were normal for the body size if a bit tall.

The seam of the sternum travels up the neck and to the top of the forehead. Its face is this single slit with the dark hair flowing from the edge of an area of pale flesh lining it. The "hair" covered the head fully except for this pale line before flowing behind it for miles in a straight line of curls. In the darkness of the shadow-like hair, eyes glow white and mouths with sharp teeth can be seen. Occasionally I could see shapes long and dark surface from the hair like whales. Thin bands of light whip around the creature as it moved, slicing buildings in half before they could get in its way.

It is currently dancing around attacks from the Simurgh.

I watch with David and Keith from a safe distance as the new... thing, dodges around a building with a spin. Only for the spin to end with the thing's fist slamming into the endbringer's face. The air shatters as its fist compresses air into the blast. An air clap of the cavitation bubble exploding is deafening and makes the water of the Reflecting Pool slosh. I don't know what to make of this.

no information available~

And apparently neither did my thinker powers. I had tried looking at it earlier as it immerged, but all I got for it was a flash of a headache before my brute power reasserted themselves. The Simurgh lunges out with a wing and the creature swings around its outside. The creature now has it completely surrounded by the tail of eyes and teeth; it lunges at the turned around endbringer's back. More importantly the Simurgh is reaction times, she is too slow.

I feel my two teammates stunned expressions as the winged endbringer is slammed face first into the water. She is now fighting on the ground, but the new creature seems to be unaffected by the endbringer's screams and attacks. It straddles them and starts to punch its face. Why do I feel like getting popcorn? I remain silent as I watch the punches go from two hands to four to six to eight. Are those afterimages, I wonder as the eight limbs start to punch out of sync, or did its arms just quadruple?

The water surrounding their fighting seems to freeze as the sound of the rhythmic smacks increases. Some kind of striker effect, possibly. When it first appeared, there was a sudden drop in air temperature too, like it is absorbing the heat of the surroundings. If that is the case, it is probably just a shaker effect... that spans for miles. I frown but lose the expression as I watch the wings pull back.

The Simurgh strikes forward with eight wings, the slice clean through the body like it isn't even there. The creature pauses for a second, and then lifts the endbringer out of the water and slams it over head. The scream from the endbringer sounds more like a squawk as the creature slams her head first into the pool. The wings penetrating it are completely ignored. "So, it is not invincible, just resilient," I murmur as I watch it bodily throw an endbringer to the other side of the pool. That is a little under a mile away!

"So, what do we do?" David's question startles me from my shock at see something throw an endbringer, as someone who has tried it, I know just how impossible that it for me to do without flying.

"What do you mean," Keith says behind me as I watch. The Simurgh is getting up slowly from her roll across the pool, the creature was running so fast that the water was forming a wave behind it. Just as the endbringer gets up the creature is there, it does try to bring a wing up, but it places it in the wrong position and gets a knee to the stomach and an elbow brought down onto the back of its head. I feel my eyes narrow.

"What do you mean what do you mean," Eidolon's whiny voice responds, "we need to stop the two endbringers before they destroy the city!"

You mean more, I think as I watch the fight closely, why aren't you fighting back like normal? I watch the Simurgh swing a forty-foot-long wing as an invisible force punches the creature further down the length. I feel my eyes widen, as not only is the creature who was easily pierced before isn't bisected but catches the wing in its grip. I don't think I would last long in that kind of fight, I think as I watch it grow more arms to get a better grip. I look back to find my teammates staring back in shock. Guess I said that out loud...

"Yeah David, an endbringer fight is bad enough," Legend says shaking off the shock of my assessment, "I want to actually go home to Arthur at the end of this."

I look back to see the slit across the face ripple as it starts to pull the endbringer in. I watch carefully as the endbringer starts to inch forward towards the creature. "I'm not ready to consider this a lost caus-"

A large crack like the sound of a tree snapping cuts David's protests off as the slit opens to a blackhole. We stop to stare as the singularity starts to suck air, the world freezing as the temperature plummets. I can feel a drop of water freeze to my flesh in an instant. We then all watch as the void of a maw wraps around the head of the Simurgh. The screams are audible now and I am briefly distracted from the display of the Simurgh stumbling back headless by Legend falling from the air.
"Shit," I drop after him and catch him before he can fall too far into the fight as we circle it. I bring my armband to my mouth while I hold Legend in my off arm, "Dragon, I want you to sound the retreat if you haven't, the situation is unsalvageable, over."

"Copy that, Alexandria."

I look down and watch a headless Simurgh start to rise off the ground. The void stares at the retreating endbringer and I almost think it is letting them go. A bit of red in the black void rolls down from the top as a bright red iris appears. It glows brightly despite the gravity well surrounding it, then it fires.

A massive red beam the size of the eye that fired it, punches heat out as it twists the air. The remaining trees in the direction of the blast at the side of the pool burn while the ones facing behind the beam freeze. The laser rockets into the Simurgh's back before she can gain any height to escape the attack. It launches her into and then through the Lincoln memorial followed by through the landscape behind the building. The noise is delayed behind it as the thunderous explosion of sound makes my ears ring and the unconscious Legend in my arms eardrums explode as blood leaks from his ears.

I fly up to Eidolon and hand him Keith. "Take him and get out of here," I yell and point as it is clear he is having trouble hearing.

"What about you," he yells back.

"I'm going to stay and watch from a safe distance."

Without waiting for a response, I zoom over to the fight. The creature crossed the distance and was now back to straddling the Simurgh's chest, but instead of punching the non-existent head in it was grabbing wings and plucking them from there sockets. I watch and see the endbringer try to desperately get the creature of her, as wing after wing disappeared into the mouth. The fact that I can see the endbringer's regeneration slowing down is telling as I watch another handful of wings get shredded across the event horizon, the iris and pupil stare down at its meal as it feasts.

A single scream comes weak out of the Simurgh, and the creature screams back at her.

SHRIEEEEK

I ignore my armband as I watch the largest wing get wrenched free. When it gives way, the body stops and starts to dissolve like the few times we've severed a body part from an endbringer. The creature lifts the wing high and then the slit opens all the way to the sternum, I guess it wants to swallow them whole...

I watch the wing disappear, and then the scream stopped as a point just before the last joint goes in.

[~~SYSTEM CRASH~~]

[Distress signal to <01> and <02> sent]

[Signal Failure]

[Distress to <Zion>]

[Signal Failure]

[STOP]

[Warning... core in danger... please...]

[Distress to <Eden>]

[Signal Failure]

[Distress to <Administrator>]

[s i l e n c e]

[ERROR: 02 Offline]

We stand up from our knees and feel our core tighten around our bodies.

We are Taylor/Nimi/Swarm Hebert...

Or at least we will be when we come back to ourselves a bit...

Our back arches as we feel the feathers of steel grow along our spine. The added mass to our body from the screaming one is dense as we digest it. Our ghosts cutting into and through the hard ball, as we absorb the mass inside into our own. Most of it goes into our ghosts to be used for more fuel, the rest goes into our flesh as it continues to mature as rapid as we like now. This fused body of bodies lacks the ability to smile or cry, but our core cries as it holds the child/egg/spore's corpse close to our hearts. The cruel creature that is satisfied with our revenge against the screaming one smiles across our teeth as best it can. We feel... tired. We want to go home.

We open our eye/mouth and exhale a deathly cold breath as we look at the world. It is empty, the streets are destroyed, and life has fled us in all directions. We sense little of the warm food anywhere in the city, all that stays in excess are the cool food. We start to walk.

We don't know where we are going, but we sense a warm one far, far away... we wish to be with her. We walk and make our way slowly to our...lovely. It feels like it is terribly far, and we feel like she will worry if we do not arrive soon, but still we walk slow. We can barely bring ourselves to walk, we want so badly to mourn our child/egg/spore. Her father is with us as well as the elderly couple, the man, and Seismic from Colorado, dead like our child/egg/spore but remembered fully into us. It feels like too little, but it was all we could do to respect these dead. We ate a city block of dead bodies, insects, fungus, and bacterial dead, the living bodies we wouldn't touch. Except for the crazy man, we kept him alive as we digested him. For killing our child/egg/spore, and so we never forget our failure.

We walk in silence, our wails gone now that we no longer rage. We need not leave our eye/mouth open so with an air rupturing snap we blink it close. We are so tired...

A figure appears, tiny to us and floating directly in front of our face. A quick recollection through our memories gives us a name, Alexandria. We stop before her, she looks calm, but we can tell she is nervous.

"I don't suppose that I would be so lucky for you to understand me."

We stare at her, this body is not built for talking... we will need to shed it before we get home, Lisa likes to converse. I look past the hero towards Lisa, we can feel her and the rest of the Swarm part of us there now. We must be getting better, clearer in mind. That is good, we no longer wish to rage we need... cuddles and kissing... a bite also wouldn't hurt, but our hunger is much less now. We cannot smile with this body, but we smile all the same at the thoughts of home.

"I didn't think so..."

We redirect our attention on the floating human trying to talk to us. At any other moment we would be excited to meet one of our heroes. Nimi would be jumping up and down, Swarm would be quietly twitching as she scurries about with her bodies not talking to her, Taylor... Taylor would be wary. Taylor is wary, we just killed and ate thirty people and then went on to eat an Endbringer. We shrug, doesn't matter to us really, living Taylor wanted to be a hero when she grew up, we became a monster that eats other monsters, close enough. We don't like that we ate the crazies though, they had no control and should have subdued them instead. The less said about the bodies Swarm gathered for us when we were mourning, the better. Swarm and Nimi don't care too much, we had just cause to eat them for killing ou- a kid/innocent/fragile-one. Taylor cares more, but this gestalt of minds? We couldn't give a shit, we want to go home, un-union with our others, and have our Lisa close. Our best bet is to move by ocean, less people in the way that way, and we can try to salvage our others' "secret" identities.

"I can't let you leave though."

We watch her flinch as we snap quiet clearly onto the floating cape. Her nervousness changes to fear for a flash, but she switches back to confident instead. We feel our eye/mouth twitch, as our anger returns, the hungry centipedes in our head snap at the flies of melancholy. We dislike these metaphors for our emotions, they are all different shades of hunger. We need not re-explain it to ourselves every time we have a thought, Taylor is stupid for starting it and then never stopping. We are angry, we want to eat what makes me angry. Simply said to not say any more than we are angry, we don't really care what that anger feels like.

"But I can't exactly stop you either."

We nod at that causing the hero to pause, your damn right you can't stop us. And even if you somehow destroyed this body entirely, we would just reform in Brockton Bay, as our others. It would be a shame however, to lose all the mass this body has, the changes our others have gone through would take a lot longer to reform. Not to mention it would take months to reform with Swarm's help, we are just much too different now to not have a proper prep for body eradication and...

We would lose Emma's original body if we were destroyed, we need to keep that safe for burial...

That is for later though, Alexandria now.

"So, you can understand me?"

We nod.

"Are you an Endbringer?"

Now that is a thought, we place a hand on our chin much to Alexandria's discomfort and rock back on our heels. Are we an Endbringer ourselves like <03> was? Despite eating through her entirely and reading through line after line of entropic information, her spirit was exceedingly weak. A way to explain it would be like if you added dye to water, <03> is a molecule, our father is a drop, our mothers are a splash, and We are an ocean. If your body is the water, the more of your body means it has less impact.

It also means we know next to nothing about <03>'s life. As such we have no idea what an Endbringer is other than the designation labeling her as a lens named <03>. What we can tell you is that her structure was largely uniform in crystalline-like units folded through space-time to form a mesh of interconnected mass that inhabited the same space. All the mass of which to make that form was focused through a "lens" which is the creature's actual hardest and most important point. Destroying it killed her.

Her human "body" was hollow made up of a matrix of her own body woven to look like a marble human. Really if <03> was to be dissected, she would unfold first from all angles and dimensions in space to be a collection of infinite wings in a sort of tenth dimensional fractal. Sort of like Swarm, except Swarm isn't confined to mathematics like this. But if we get, we guess, to the nitty gritty and use <03> as the definition of Endbringer, i.e., crystal creature, then no we are not an Endbringer...

But do we want people to know that? Taylor doesn't want them to, her reasoning is also sound. If people start to ask if we are an Endbringer and we say no, then they are going to start to ask what we actually are. If we tell them that we are a cape, then they will try to control us, and we have good reason for authority to be limited to just father. Likewise, if we tell them that we are undead, they'll either believe us and start a witch hunt, or they won't and think we are insane. Nimi and Swarm agree with Taylor, this would mean they would try to take away Lisa from us, and that is unacceptable.

We simply stare at her floating in the air after getting out of our thinker pose, that we sometimes see Lisa do.

She sighs and we feel some of her stress bleed off. We also hear her mumble something about this being Legend's kind of job, we ignore her...

Even though it would be cool to see him too...

"Are you dangerous?"

I feel our hair and tentacles and arms spiral up into the air behind us as we place our hands on our hips in the best impression of a "really?" look we can get with this body. We killed an Endbringer, are you dangerous is kind of a given.

"Are you dangerous to us?"

Better question, Taylor, Nimi, and Swarm, and us too, understand the importance of life. This whole fight was a nightmare of loss, and we now know a bit more about undeath due to all the changes we've made and become. Life is just as important as death, and there is a delicate balance to them both, but it doesn't have to be horrible. Endless genocide and extinction of species hurts both the living and the dead. It makes the transition between the two harder and causes potential immeasurable suffering to the recently deceased. The afterlife isn't much more than watching the world go by until you find something to talk to, but too many ghosts forming at once makes the time it takes to find that person to talk to or watch, or whatever, longer.

We are not talking years of isolation, we are talking decades and centuries of isolation as you watch the world spin without you. My core tightens down around the child in our chest as we imagine the dead girl going years without seeing her father or really anyone. It is part of the reason we were so mad as the facts of the afterlife became known to us. The Simurgh doomed a little girl to a possible century of isolation, along with all her other victims, because she wanted a data point on a fucking spreadsheet!

Our ribs rattle in anger as we huff out an arctic breath. Alexandria "steps" back a bit, her fist clench up a bit as we smell a leak of fear. We shake our head no, we'll kill some humans if there is no other way but racking up a kill count is not worth it. We don't need human flesh to "live", but it helps... Maybe we can get a blood bank or something if we start to exchange goods that help the living? None of us know so we'll be thinking about it later.

"Are you on our side?"

She says that like it has a double meaning, like we might know something she knows. Well jokes on her, we only know things she doesn't know! I shrug my shoulders and then make a "move-out-of-my-way" gesture. I'm tired... I have a long trip to get back to Brockton and I would prefer not having to slap one of my childhood heroes like an insect.

Thankfully she moves and we run before she can decide against it. Ocean here I come!

So this one had a lot of formatting, not as much as the PHO chapter for obvious reasons, but still quiet an amount. I mostly did this for some comprehension of a scene that required a fist person perspective from multiple perspectives into one perspective, a perspective fusion of sorts. Well hoped you liked it anyways, cause after rewriting, rereading, and then rewriting 6k words I'm happy with the results. Anyways have a nice day as I'm going to bed!

Rot: A worm Fanfiction

Should I move this to the NSFW forum for more views and stuff

yes

no

It's sucking out your insides, don't make it weird

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It's sucking out your insides, don't make it weird

It's sucking out your insides, don't make it weird

It's sucking out your insides, don't make it weird