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In the not-too-distant-future of the 22nd century…

The Wishbone was an old ‘Bakshi-Class’ freighter, currently being refitted for service as part of a new INTERPLAN initiative (a shortening of the Interplanetary Alliance/Fleet/ETC). Truth be told, the construction of the starship looked closer to a tuning fork the size of a town, or a small city. Its scanners and research laboratory were state of the art for the sake of the work it was conducting. But besides the lab and some standard-issue particle projector banks, everything else came as is. Largely in the form of refurbished, industrial-strength mining equipment.

Next to the name on the side of the vessel were the letters U.F.V., signifying the initiative as a joint venture between INTERPLAN and colleges from its various member worlds as a University-Fleet Vessel. Of course, some preferred P.O.S. (Piece of Slag, and other unflattering four-letter words). Only a few ships were ordered into the service this way as surveyor-support craft, intended to conduct preliminary scouting for the exploration flagships…

It was a bright and early morning. A new batch of crew members were being taken up to the Wishbone while it was in orbital spacedock. One could go in aces high with the Officers' Academy where the cream of the crop got made (or so they say). Transfers could use their experience from working in local Solar System Self-Defense Network or bring in a sterling desk job resume from the uppermost suites of the corpo-colony atmoskyscrapers.

Of course, one could also do as the mutant Nougat Ntlor did, and get sloshed at a bar on the Ganymede strip. Stumble into a fleet recruitment center that hadn't met monthly quota yet, as the kind of grunt that was expected to carry boxes and barrels from one part of the ship across to another. There were also a number of prisoners from the corporations that seceded from Earth and other INTERPLAN member worlds put on a work-release program, many were just glad to be away from there. The off-world corpo-colonies were already overburdened before the secession. Now they were warring with one another and other cultures.

In terms of the turnout from the colleges, they had a mix of professors and students. That is, professors who had not seen a drop of grant funding in quite some time, whose magnum opus of scientific research was laughed out of every scholarly journal. And the students in question were either on academic probation, or were such overachievers they volunteered here of all places. Truly, it was a recipe for turbulence; but also, for those who remained after everything was said and done, it might very well have been the only place they could go if they wanted to touch the stars themselves, to be more than a mere tourist.

“—And I am telling you, as a chief medical officer I believe I should be accommodated with one of the deluxe penthouses.” said a woman in her forties, who couldn’t stop reminding everyone she held up in line behind herself, as well as the crew member acting as a customs officer, that she had her doctorate degree.

“Dr. Hwan, those are reserved for our VIP guests. All members of the crew manifest are to stick to their assigned quarters.”

“Preposterous!” spat Dr. Hwan. “How the devil am I going to be able to get any work done if I can’t be provided state-of-the-art quarters to relax in?”

“You would have your own personal quarters, just not penthouse suite quality, ma’am.”

“So, I could have a penthouse then?”

“You’d have to share. Optimize crew space.”

Dr. Hwan looked back at everyone in line. Naïve grinning and evil smirks painted these faces. She looked back at the customs official/crew member, and groaned.

“I’ll see you in the final dimension for this.”

There were service robots, referred to as the Buffers. These were the descendants of the humble Roomba, now equipped with hover-jets and an extendable armature with which to do tasks. An android crew member was taking inventory on one of the cargo bays: This was one of the J.E.V. series (Just Effectively Vacuums), named for the very first task they could ever perform. Since then, they had developed to perform a variety of other functions, eventually serving as crew members on starships. Some were even built to be the vaunted K.E.V.s (Kills Effectively & Victoriously), deployed into combat or security.

W4-114CE fit into the former category as a JEV. He used to work on Earth at a volcanic research station, built onto a cliffside overlooking a river of lava somewhere. And if he had not gone to space, he might have carted off to work on an undersea base. In the end, he opted for the space assignment. The organics would chafe, but W4 swore he would do fine through the power of superior robotics.

*THUD-THUMP*

W4 looked around. Something clearly hadn’t been sealed properly. He wondered if it was those damnable blue barrels again, or one of those big, new-fangled containers with seven or more different locking mechanisms that had to be activated in a certain order or the whole thing would explode. W4 approached the particular container that was making the offending rumbling noises, and sure enough it was one of those multi-lock nightmares. The service android proceeded to access the shipboard database, used authorization codes to acquire the access information, and promptly entered in a simple enough pin number of four digits.

Then everything immediately went to ruin, as W4 was then made to work with some kind of glorified rhythm toy: including pressable buttons, pull handles, twisting cranks, spinnable wheels, and flickable switches. Following the patterns set forth by the device was difficult enough for an organic, but it even managed to tax W4’s robotic dexterity. At least, he thought-computed, that it would be over after this. It had to. Until a screen offered an unforgiving message:

“PLEASE CREATE A 52 INPUT PASSWORD FOR FUTURE USAGE.”

W4 looked at the input device. It offered no sound, no lights. Nothing charming. And then the locking mechanism activated a self-destruct with a 2-second window to escape, W4 only able to hop away just far enough that the explosion would only send him flying through the air, with small flames all over his jumpsuit. And then there before him, emerged some kind of hostile mutated alien animal.

And just when there were no organic lifeforms around, one crew member strolled right into the cargo bay with audio-cubes over their square, ear-like structures. This meant that W4-114CE had to adhere to the Asimov subroutines and make sure the organic wasn’t killed. To that end the android put up his fists, and started swinging at the creature. This eventually resulted in an arm being torn off by a claw that could vibrate at high-frequencies to enhance its cutting power. With W4-114CE’s remaining arm, he grabbed onto the creature, and dragged it towards the next nearest holding container. A fool’s gambit, as the creature’s thagomizer-equipped tail started smashing boxes marked with warning stickers for explosive hazards—and eventually, opened the nearest airlock.

Sounds were muffled in the void, as the service android and mutated alien animal went at it. W4 kicking the creature repeatedly in the hopes of hitting some sensitive area that would have earned a serious foul from the referee of a Dysonball game. Likewise, the creature tried everything it had: acid spit announced by head-frills flaring, the aforementioned high-frequency claws, and some kind of egg-based missile. The egg of course was the creature’s undoing, as W4 caught the projectile and used it to bash the creature over the head, encasing it within an amber-like yolk while W4 was brought back aboard by a slew of loyal buffers.

“WHAT-A DA HELL HAVE YOU DONE?!”

It was one of the galley cooks. The human looked like they were about to explode while W4-114CE was trying to reattach his arm.

“That-a creature was gonna be the crew’s dinner! It was gifted to us by one-a the Dagarian Kingdoms!”

W4 looked back. The amber-yolk encased creature was probably long gone by now. It was at times like these an intrepid INTERPLAN crew member had to think fast.

“Let’s check the uh… the star charts. There’s gotta be some place we can rustle up some ingredients.”

The galley cook stared at W4-114CE for the longest time before pulling out a portable teledex screen, with which he began to press buttons and turn dials. Examining nearby planets, moons, and other places for potential replacements.

There was no time to argue.

On a ship like the UFV Wishbone, there should have been a captain. In lieu of that, was an administrative adjutant. Tasked with all the responsibilities of the captaincy, but minus its perks. Respect was not guaranteed whatsoever. And worst of all it was a title conferred to someone already working. In this case, the inimitable technician second-class Nero Pathan was selected for the duty.

The personal terminal at the desk of his quarters hummed to life with the gradual start-up. Immediately, a communication program activated before any other. On-screen were coordinates for a distant star system, followed by the frog-like face of a politician. The amphibious one’s camera was zoomed in too closely, rather than keeping his face in frame.

“Is this thing on?” asked the frog-like politician.

“Mayor L-Mes, on behalf of the INTERPLAN fleet, I’m honored that you would invite our humble ship and crew to—”

Just then, Nero had to cover his ears. A horrible sound began to fill his room as Governor L-Mes fiddled needlessly with his microphone of choice—which resembled one of Earth’s early telephones of the 1890s, as L-Mes held up a stand with a speaker and held up a wired receiver to the side of his head.

“Is this ruddy thing on?” sputtered L-Mes. “Hallew. Hallew~? Is that the correct word? Grief upon grief, is my universal translator working? Is yours?!”

“More than well.” said Nero, through grit teeth, turning some dials to focus the image and an attempt to soften the audio. “If you wouldn’t mind going easy on the mic, maybe knock down outgoing volume a bit?”

“Ah, but of course. It is our honor to be the first stop on your latest mission, Captain Rickles! The USS Hebe is welcome here, along with that delegation from the Minoazoans, and the roller coaster people to survey for a new amusement park—”

Nero cut off L-Mes with a teeth-sucking sound that went ‘Tssss!’, to preface some unfortunate development.

“About that: The USS Hebe is conducting field research in… some nebula some ways away from here. They’ll only arrive after we’ve scouted in advance for them.”

“… Who’s we, exactly?” asked L-Mes, taking on a sour tone.

“That would be our University-Fleet joint Vessel—UFV Wishbone. We’re part of the preliminary survey and reconnaissance initiative with a few other ships.”

Silence at first. Then, L-Mes consulted with one of his advisors.

“So. You mean to say we don’t have to roll out the red carpet? Or really, use any of our exceptional preparations for you lot? It costed us a considerable amount.”

“They would be nice—”

“Ha! But unnecessary, understood. We shall receive you shortly.”

The screen shut off. Nero stared at the screen for a good minute, and his reflection within it before sauntering out of his quarters and onto the bridge of the ship. Watching as others in INTERPLAN fleet uniforms, prison jumpsuits, lab coats, and casual clothing all attempted to find their appropriate stations. He’d have to take a shuttlecraft down to the planet soon, the tele-pad array onboard the Wishbone was unreliable right now.

The shuttle itself was given the unofficial designation ‘Hodgson-class,’ meaning it was potentially going to be a screaming metal deathtrap, or *somehow* the arrangement of miscellaneous spare parts would work together well enough to safely transport people from ship-to-planetary surface. He stared long and hard at the captain’s chair, before traveling to the appropriate launch bay and boarding. Here he would take attendance of the crew members he buzzed.

“Jenndy Klortho?”

“Here!” exclaimed a chipper woman’s voice. “You think we’re gonna shoot at anybody, sir?!”

“With that attitude, I’m sure someone will want to hurt us.” said Nero, offering a thumbs up. “Next up, we’ve got… Bolso Torbiton?”

“Spare me the zapcrap and drive the ship, tek-boy.”

Nero looked around the shuttle interior, offended. Jenndy was just bouncing in her seat. Nero resumed checking his attendance datapad. No one would support him here.

“Okay. Lint Corpuscule? Is there a Lint Corpuscule here?”

No response.

“There’s like two other people here instead.” Said Nero “Who are you two?”

“I’m Gurt,” said a mutant, before gesturing at another mutant. “And he’s Gort.”

“Alright. Awesome, very flavorblasted.” said Nero, kicking the shuttlecraft into gear languidly. “And awaaaaay we go.”

Lint Corpuscule rose from his cabin bed in a fright, bashing his quadruple forehead alien cranium against the empty top bunk of an only slightly more dutiful crewmate that had already left the room to begin on ship duties five minutes ago. There was no possible way he could spin this in such a way that he wasn’t disregarding his responsibilities.

Unless.

Lint Corpuscule raced to a certain room, one of a few aboard the UFV Wishbone. Doing so in spite of the fact there was an ‘OUT OF ORDER’ sign in large, intimidating red ink and given a marker outline for better readability, in as much as a crew member trying not to put too much effort in all at once could provide. For this was the room where an array of telepad platforms were located. Lint would start slapping buttons and levers, before diving onto a platform that began to glow and hum. He was certain he could make it to the planet in advance of the shuttlecraft.

Trouble is, he was telepunted.

Teleporting was an apt description for successfully transporting every little iota of matter from one position to another safely. Telepunting on the other hand, was more like something, or someone on another plane of existence kicked a person in the pants in such a horrendously forceful manner that they were quantum-propelled somewhere. Maybe not even the target destination. To Lint Corpuscule’s credit, he at least landed on L-Mes’s planet. Simply erring due to the fact that he manifested with grazed asscheeks in some random part of the desert, on the outskirts of L-Mes’s settlement if coordinates from the mission briefing were to be trusted.

Well. This was what INTERPLAN was all about, wasn’t it? Exploring the cosmos.

Lint Corpuscule marched for a time across the arid land, as purple clouds rolled in, thunder and lightning cracks occurring in shades of brilliant, unsettling red. The Wishbone crewmate could spot a village in the distance.

Immediately after landing, the Wishbone’s Away Team was almost immediately ambushed by L-Mes’s security forces. The group was beaten soundly about the sensitive areas and got tossed into the settlement sheriff’s jail.

“What is the MEANING of this?!” demanded Nero, rattling the bars with a tin cup. “I demand to speak with Mayor L-Mes at once! We’re INTERPLAN!”

“Oh, I damn well know you’re with INTERPLAN.” said the Sheriff, some kind of a mutated lifeform with craggy stone-like calcium protrusions all over his body, one of which was shaped like a handlebar mustache, just over what was probably his nose. The only clothing he could wear was a pair of swim trunks and a sash for his badge.

“Then let us go?”

“Shut up, Gort.”

“I’m Gurt.” said Gort, trying to play mindgames on Sheriff Cragg. “He’s Gort.”

Gurt mischievously waved hello with fingers wiggling. Sheriff Cragg scowled at them and looked to Jenndy.

“And what’s your game? Huh?”

Jenndy sashayed over from her bench-cot. After a delicate twirl, she proceeded to reach through the bars to try and strangle Sheriff Cragg. Nero halfhartedly tried to pull her away, weakly saying things like ‘nooo stop, please,’ and ‘don’t kill him, pleeeaaase’ among inaudible murmurs. Sheriff Cragg eventually broke free of Jenndy’s grasp, with the help of the only member of the crew not in jail: Bolso Torbiton!

“Bolso! Bolso, let us outta here and I’ll promote you to lieutenant!” exclaimed Nero.

“You won’t.” said Bolso.

“Okay, okay, lieutenant-COMMANDER!”

“You don’t have that power, idiot!” said Bolso. “You’re just an administrative adjutant, not a real captain. But with L-Mes’s recommendation I’ll bet I could jump up the INTERPLAN ranks. Or I could take my talents to some other space faction.”

“Jenndy, go for the jugular!”

Jenndy Klortho reached through the bars again. But Bolso, devious fiend that he was, was standing just out of her reach. She grasped at air and nothing more. Just then, Mayor L-Mes arrived.

“L-Mes! What is this zapcrap?!” hissed Nero.

“I ought to be askin’ you that exact question, boy!” hissed L-Mes. “Sheriff, chain these chumps. We’re gonna show ‘em our evidence.”

The Wishbone Away Team each got tazed, and then once too weak to fight back, they were shackled to one another. At first, they were transported through the desert aboard a hover-skiff, but once there was a quarter of the distance left to go, the group was forced to march the rest of the way there, where they found a more rural village, accompanied by local specialists in anthropology and paleontology.

“We’ve also contacted your ship’s chief medical officer to confirm.” said Sheriff Cragg, offering up a portable viewscreen, on-call with the disheveled Dr. Hwan.

“Not that you really needed it, but I have a DNA match with one of our crew members, sir.” said Dr. Hwan. “A Lint Corpuscule?”

“That dipstick was supposed to be part of our Away Team!” exclaimed Gurt.

“He was plotting some kind of a SCHEME!” screamed Jenndy. Though less in terror, more in gleeful delight that there was a conspiracy.

“Now hold on a minute—” said Nero, pointing a finger. “Let’s not jump to conclusions until AFTER we’ve seen the remains.”

L-Mes and Sheriff Cragg waved to one of the archaeologists on-site. Lo and behold they found one of many skeletons, only this one wore an INTERPLAN uniform shirt. Tattered now, but still bearing a legible name tag. No uniform pants, however: Lint Corpuscule insisted that only one article of clothing was necessary for himself. ‘If only,’ thought Nero. ‘If only he chose to wear only pants instead of uniform shirts,’ and perhaps they would not have been in this mess.

“Wait. How did he get there? Lint Corpuscule is a present-day member of the INTERPLAN fleet.” said Nero, probing for answers. “I literally have him marked on my crew manifest with birthday and everything.”

“We detected tachyons, among other curious particles.” said one of the archaeologists. “Don’t look at me funny, you’ve seen some weird, anomalous bullshit out there too. We have reason to believe Lint time-traveled.”

“How in the blue blazes—” hummed Nero, before realizing what they were getting at. “You think we sent him to—to what, plant some kind of a trap? Sabotage your settlement? Are you daft? Have you been in contact with mind-bending moon rocks? Or both??”

“Wouldn’t you like to know, ass-tronaut.”

Nero looked over at the rest of his Away Team, trying to garner some sympathy and support against these accusations, but no one leaped to dispute any of this.

“Now listen, if you just contacted Captain Rickles already, I’m sure we can hash this out minus any retribution—”

“Tell it to the judge, INTERPLAN man.” said L-Mes.

“With your luck you’ll be put on the cerebral scrambler.” said Bolso.

And then Nero and his cohorts were clubbed about the head, or similarly disorienting bodily regions until rendered unconscious.

A fog machine filled the stone-like chamber. Really, all the large stone bricks were actually purely cosmetic, like a 20th century recreational laser tag facility’s approximation of an even more ancient culture. Strange iconography adorned the place, from truly alien designs to the familiar, such as a “SIGN ON FOR PRODUCT LAYAWAY TODAY!” sign, or a spinning blue light, used in the ancient commerce temples to indicate a clearance sale on discounted items. Devout followers traveled the aisles and corridors in the sacred vestments. Which in this case were single color vests adorned with at least one pin to indicate the retailer of goods they were employed by. But these practitioners did not serve any surviving company: Instead, they mourned for the demise of others, and the quality they guaranteed. Even if it was only marginally better than anything they had today in the near future of the 22nd century.

It was in the great council conference room that the Prime Mall Santa, Vice Councilor Easter Bunny, and other gaudy figures addressed their muscular visitor.

“Hark, and be readied: Are you prepared for the undertaking upon which ye shall have to embark?” asked Prime Mall Santa. “Are you tired of waiting for your greatest quest of all? Do you find yourself possessed of superior skill and dedication? Could you benefit from exploring the greater cosmos?”

“Aye, Prime Mall Santa.” said the muscular visitor.

“But that’s not all: It may also throw in an exceptionally long time away from here.” said an arcade mascot themed after a narwhal. “But don’t delay: If you do not order transportation now, the sabbatical may be tripled for the price of one altercation.”

The muscular visitor did not hesitate, and began entering the sacred numbers—made even more sacred through the use of a device modeled after an old Earth-style cash register combined with a home telephone. He felt a brief comfort as his fingers pressed each button, which yielded an equally satisfying *BEEP!*, *BOOP*, or the rarely heard *BUP!* followed by the ‘hum of establishment,’ in which everyone opened their mouths to offer the sacred Dial-Up Cry.

“He is ready.”

“They will need him soon.”

“Go now!”

The muscular visitor turned to see something. It was like the edges of a public swimming pool, as the archaic symphony behind him wordlessly foretold of mystery, great danger, and opportunities for storied heroism. The swimming pool archway began to glow, as chlorinated water gushed outwardly, then back in, after a device blew a giant lifeguard’s whistle to regulate the poolwater flow. With no further hesitation, he kept a steady grip on his lacrosse stick and plasma grenades.

The muscular visitor burst from a strikingly similar portal arch on L-Mes’s planet. He proceeded to pummel the tar out of a couple of Sheriff Cragg’s deputies, and sprayed their resting place with air freshener. In the distance, the settlement was not far off. A bell had begun to ring out as the Wishbone’s Away Team was being carted off to the courthouse with burlap sacks over their heads. This, the muscular visitor saw with a pair of binoculars he ordered from a ‘wun-ayt-hundred-numb-barr,’ in the short span of time afforded to him by a vid-screen commercial.

He could only hope he wasn’t too late to intervene.

L-Mes activated the town’s robot judge. It seemed to just be a figurehead for his orders. But by the looks of things even the jury had some idea what to expect, if their scowls and obscene hand gestures were any indication. The Wishbone Away Team huddled up together to figure out a plan of attack.

“Alright. Any idea why they might be doing this to us?” said Nero.

“Maybe it’s a secret AN-XR scheme to subtly conquer this sector?” said Gurt.

“No no, it’s a scheme alright. But it’s clearly being perpetrated by some kind of semi or fully technological culture that absorbs anything and anyone it comes into contact with.”

Nero just stared at everyone, exasperated.

“Lint used the telepads, didn’t he.”

“Wow! You must be some kind of detective, boss!” said Jenndy. “Alright, we’ll just show our telepad records to Mayor L-Mes and that should clear things right up.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea--” said Nero, raising an index finger. The trial began, and everyone urged Nero to start tapping at his wristcomm to get the telepad data as the others insisted. The robot judge seemed to nod and offer an approving *DING!* sound.

“This just proves you achieved a form of time travel!” bellowed L-Mes. “And even if you didn’t order your crew member, they might have gone AWOL, or started acting on orders from higher up at INTERPLAN command. Can you honestly say that’s not possible?!”

Nero was about to speak. Usually in these situations an experienced leader like Captain Rickles would read aloud a legal disclaimer and be absolved near instantly. Trouble was, Nero had no such disclaimer. Just workplace culture (and stacks of over-exacting rulebooks, more composed by HR to absolve the organization than adhere to moral tidings with clarity) whose only guarantee that INTERPLAN recognized self-determination as an inherent right to all lifeforms, was all sentiment and assumed standard operating procedure. Claiming to operate purely on vibes would not hold up in court whatsoever and would in fact cause an uproar.

“Errm. Well…”

Where was a definite answer he could cite when he needed one?

The worst part, was that Bolso Torbiton was approaching to testify on that very point, in his swanky new five-piece suit made from megarachnoid silk as he walked through the halls. Or he would have made it, if the muscular visitor hadn’t arrived, accompanied by a handful of the planet’s native inhabitants.

“… The hell?”

“I have witnessed infomercial visions foretelling of secret actions,” said the muscular visitor. “If you or your loved ones have gone back on your oath to the Interplanetary Fleet, you may be entitled to a sound beating.”

“Dude,” said Bolso Torbiton. “Eat a piece.”

Bolso swung a fist at the muscular visitor, who rolled from weathering the blow, to kneeing Bolso Torbiton in the groin, and tossing him through the doors into the courtroom, where he would use his lacrosse stick to lob plasma grenades, forcing Sheriff Cragg and L-Mes away.

“What is the meaning of this?!” spat L-Mes. “Sherriff, call the marines!”

“We don’t have marines, sir. But we could wheel in the cannon from Fort Gordie.”

“You will do no such thing,” said the muscular visitor, pointing his lacrosse stick. “Not while Bowflex draws breath. I bring with me the rightful population of this planet to protest this farce you call a fair trial. Mayor L-Mes seeks to extort INTERPLAN.”

“That’s right.” said one of the local aliens, who resembled a classic style little grey-greenish humanoid with bulbous black eyes and a large head on a short, gangling body. “We have been here since time immemorial, with artifacts held by the local museum putting us within hundreds of thousands of years, minimum. L-Mes’s settlement is barely thirty years old. He’s been trying to build all sorts of tourist traps around here in all that time after we allowed him to build this township. The one called Lint Corpuscule was killed by birds before he could even meet our ancestors. All they could do was bury him.”

“Indeed.” said Bowflex. “And as a potential INTERPLAN member world, you must treat other lifeforms with a certain modicum of respect and dignity. The crew of this visiting ship would not be remiss to pummel you about the sensitive areas for your works against the Muuldarian Greys, L-Mes.”

Nero looked to Bowflex, who nodded back. Just as Lint Corpuscule chose to use the malfunctioning telepads and L-Mes set about his scheme, so too did other lifeforms retain the power of choice, and the potential to use it for purposes beyond harm, greed, or snitching on each other over emulating rare old video games. Maybe, just maybe, not everything in this universe sucked after all.

“Hey, he got away! And funny thing, I remember seeing Bolso’s new suit in a store display on the way over—for fifteen thousand credits.”

Jenndy pointed at the recently departed Sheriff Cragg and Mayor L-Mes, who hopped aboard a hover-skiff and raced for the Star Portal that Bowflex entered the planet through. Bolso was still writhing in pain when he dropped a receipt that indicated the credit utilized was under L-Mes’s bank account.

“We’ll sort out things here in town in case they come back.” said another member of the local alien group—Seftar. “If you wish for the planet Muuldar to join your coalition, then bring Mayor L-Mes to us.”

Nero pointed and nodded to Seftar.

“You got it. Let’s move it, people!”

On the way out, everyone each took a turn kicking Bolso in the ribs.

L-Mes and Cragg were fiddling with the cash register/telephone styled interface that activated the Star Portal. They had just emerged on one of their neighboring planet’s moons, where a disgruntled chef and an android were hunting for some big game in the form of the wild ‘Dodecapus,’ that with just one body’s meats, could feed many.

“Hey.” said the chef. “Aren’t you-a that mayor our adjutant was-a supposed to meet?”

“It is.” said W4-114CE, before taking out a handheld device. “Oop. Just got a long-range, subspace communique. Shoot this guy. I repeat—eighty-six this toad.”

After that they ran like cowards tried dialing a random sequence, which briefly deposited them on a world conquered by the AN-XR empire, with its chrome-brutalist architecture. Regal-uniformed commandants led troops in armor-vests with an abundance of extra pouches as they interrogated pedestrians in an attempt to root out anything they deemed seditious.

Sure enough, being chased by imperialists with electri-knives and particle projectors in the form of pistols and rifles wasn’t their idea of a good time. Cragg and L-Mes’s attempt to dial for a pleasure planet of some sort had also failed, and landed them in the middle of a battle between two Dagarian Kingdoms, part of a larger feudalistic structure that yearned so much for the clash of blades, like their isosceles swords with two grips at the center of the awkward triangular sword. Harrowed by the failed Star Portal attempts and currently pursued by several goose-stepping stormtroopers and chainmail chic honor-lusted warriors, they returned to planet Muuldar, where the Wishbone Away Team was waiting for them. Gurt and Gort both simultaneously attacked a Dagarian warrior by pinching two exposed areas on his body, causing some kind of electrical overload within the nervous system, using some esoteric technique. Jenndy Klortho was having a standoff with an AN-XR commandant, twisting his arm so that the electri-knife went around her—coincidentally stabbing L-Mess in the gut, or some other organ.

Bowflex was lobbing plasma grenades and throwing an Olympic discus to prevent anyone else from entering through the Star Portal. Nero was trading punches with Sheriff Cragg, before remembering he could also use at least one of his legs at a time to kick, sending the Sheriff backwards through the Star Portal with an unforgiving boot sole back to the Dagarian battlefield he thought he’d escaped. It was at that point that Nero was tired, yet bitter enough that he produced his particle pistol from his side holster and fired. On the other side, Sherriff Cragg was mostly vaporized, stray chunks of himself flying out in every direction, unintentionally slaughtering a dozen warriors via high velocity shrapnel.

In any case, the mortally wounded L-Mes was apprehended.

Back aboard the Wishbone…

Dr. Hwan was not an engineer. She was a doctor. But in a pinch, she proved she could fill in on other tasks. Like when she saw Lint Corpuscule—who had been the INTERPLAN officer in charge of boarding and customs checks the morning of departure—racing towards a telepad room. Without hesitating to consider the Hippocratic oath, she tore a panel off the corridor wall and tampered. Mostly in the hopes that he would explode right then and there. But using the longe-range scanners aboard the UFV Wishbone to confirm he’d died during planet Muuldar’s distant past would suffice.

As Dr. Hwan poured herself another light blue liquid—some manner of ale, Technician-Adjutant Nero, the newcomer Bowflex, and Jenndy Klortho were all seated together for a dinner meeting with her. Jenndy was burning an effigy of Bolso Torbiton, the poppet seated within a diorama of L-Mes’s courtroom back on the non-grey Muuldar settlement. She really wanted Bolso harmed further, maybe more chaos erupting as a general thing. Bowflex took to his protein shake, having joined the crew as evidenced by the badge he wore over his regular garb. Gurt and Gort were fidgeting in their seats.

“… So, wait. You didn’t know I interfered with Lint’s telepad?” said Dr. Hwan, incredulously. “I could have kept that a secret?”

“No, I didn’t know.” said Nero, not waiting a moment to respond. “Yes, you could have literally gone the rest of your life without having told anyone that. Under anyone else’s command you’d be court-martialed.”

“And I’d take you bastards down with me. Every. Time.” said Dr. Hwan, raising up her ale. “Cheers. And here’s to honor among thieves.”

“Technician-Adjutant Nero, I believe this is not entirely unsatisfactory.” said Bowflex, leaning in to address the INTERPLAN crewman. “Lint still made his choice. As did Dr. Hwan when she attempted to slay him. I would dare even say this is cause for celebration, along with the fact that your Away Team was not disembowled, disintegrated, or stretched out over a—”

“THANK you, Bowflex.”

“Indeed.”

W4-114CE had personally offered to wheel in the grilled Dodecapus, and after delivery plugged himself into the room’s audio system to start playing some fast-paced techno. Bowflex took up a barbell and started doing an intricate dance he picked up at the gym back on Adworld. Jenndy just rested her elbows on the table, and put her hands on the cheek as the colors of the diorama fire deepened. And at last, Gurt and Gort just played patty cake.

Nero just slumped in his seat.

This was going to be a long journey. Maybe not *completely* insufferable. But still, it would be very, very grating.

#web fiction #Quick On It

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antics-pedantic · 3 months

Text

RALLY CO. #9: THE ASHES OF ALDRAGAR

Last time, on Rally Co….

The crime-lord sorcerer Othulok, nemesis of world-renowned occult detective Solomon Callahan, attacked the Rally Co. team directly at home with help from the assassins Giligan Diligent and Othulok’s own unwilling thrall, known only as ‘The Wrap.’ When Tycho and Esme struggled against the assassins, Solomon used deadly magic—not unlike those of Othulok’s to save them. In the process, revealing that he in fact was once a follower of Othulok himself!

With assistance from Blockhouse the construct and vigilante treasure-hunter The Junker, Rally Co. was able to repel the attack. Now, the group races to deprive Othulok from the secrets of the ancients, to prevent him from conquering the world.

Some years prior…

The antechamber was filled with an eerie glow, from bowl torches atop tall golden stands. There were people here, worshipping: Wearing ancient-styled garb over their modern finery. Just then, a wholly separate group would burst in: Two prominent figures taking the charge included a shorter man with messy reddish hair and a full beard, clad in a wrinkled suit with a bow tie and white labcoat, red in the face with consternation. And accompanying him was a Pakistani woman drawing a service revolver, fending off one of the cultist minions. In the process, an INTERPOL-sanctioned special task force badge she wore on her jacket’s front pocket was damaged, just barely deflecting a dagger.

“It’s over!” exclaimed the youthful Inspector Malika Basra. “We’ve finally tracked you down. A hundred of your followers couldn’t stop us now!”

A figure in a cloak, and a Roman-style helmet stood up from his throne overlooking the ceremony area in the center. The stone sarcophagus lay there, being adorned with offerings and marks of power in codes even the most seasoned linguist would be hard-pressed to find commonality with in all known languages.

“And what may I ask, do you think Rally Co. could possibly do now? You’ve only turned the tide so many times at the dawn of this hideous war that plagues the continents. If you should even stand a chance—”

“IF!” howled Malika’s companion, one Professor George Edward Gallagher. “That ‘if’ sir, is the highest degree offensive! For that, I’ll feed ye the plume off yer helmet!”

The leader of the secret society sneered, before rising to face them: He removed his helmet, revealing a dark brown mane with a grey streak through the middle, and eyes for whom the surrounding skin showed off coal-black veins, from improperly practiced necromancy. Spells stolen from various corners of the globe.

“You troglodytes. There is a new world on the way. One where the things that live in hallowed lore and darkness will no longer tolerate mankind’s arrogance!” thundered the mysterious leader, as he extended his free hand and used it to gather some mystical power. “I’ve simply leapt forward before I could be struck down as well.”

He fired lightning from his fingertips to stave off the adventurers and investigators that came to challenge him, before directing another arc at the sarcophagus.

“And I, Solomon Callahan, the Acolyte Absolute shall wield the very powers of the ancients to do so! I will succeed the dread shame, Othulok!”

The airplane reached Switzerland by dark. Felix Basra pinched her russet-brown nose ridge, wishing she could deal with the jet lag enough to properly call her aunt Malika.

“Should have taken some milk of magnesia like I suggested. I never board an aeroplane without one! Your friend was much wiser--” proclaimed Malika. Felix listened to her go on for a while, fretting over every little thing. “--And your girl Georgia keeps insisting on staying with me until you return, you know.”

“Yes, Malika auntie.” sighed Felix. “I’ll let her know in just a moment not to heckle you too badly: You know as well as I do she just wants to make a good impression. No problems with your health? I hope you’re still exercising.”

“Bah! For what? The most excitement I have anymore is telling old stories to dime novelists. I don’t think they really know I change up the details each time so they argue with one another afterwards.”

Felix burst out laughing. She was liable to hurt her sides.

“That is devious!”

“Nothing less!”

But then, there was silence. It had not been very long since the sorcerer crime lord known as the Golden Shadow had mounted an attack on Rally Co.’s base of operations—their home. And in the process, they also revealed a shocking secret of the man who owned the estate, and served as their mentor: Solomon Callahan.

“How are you all doing, my little snoop?”

“Don’t call me that.” said Felix. Normally she loved when Malika called her that, but this hardly felt like the time for jokes. “Solomon called you before we left, didn’t he?”

“… He told me everything. Hung up before I could tell him to wait up for me. And now here you are, off to the Alps.”

“How?”

“How what, child?”

“How did he… he followed the teachings of our greatest enemy. How the devil can you bring someone like that into the fold?”

There was silence again. Though this time it was diffused by a low hum.

“We deathly needed someone who knew magic, ESP, weird things no ordinary soul had mastered. But past that he was a terrible headache to work with, in those early days. The only thing that really kept us together was the fact that everyone was doomed unless we kept at it. Then he cleaned up, and then… well. We trusted him to be a teacher of all things.”

“Your own children, we became his students.”

“Yes. Oh—here’s Georgia.”

Before Felix could say anything else, her aunt passed the phone off to her sweetheart.

“Malika told me some of what’s going on. It seems a bit hasty, but… you’ll be alright? I haven’t even had the chance to meet your new friends yet, you’ve all just been so busy with your modern-day round table and your chivalrous ways.”

Felix chuckled.

“You make it sound so romantic.”

“That’s the job, isn’t it? Being in love and all.”

“Of course. I’ll phone again after we’re settled in, before we make the climb.”

Felix said her goodbyes. The first up was a short Irishman, currently weaponizing his grouchiness into resolve: His was a messy head of hair with full sideburns on his cheeks, that self-proclaimed ‘muscle’ of the group as well as its resident cryptozoologist, Tycho Gallagher.

“The others?”

Tycho nodded aside: A taller woman with umber-toned skin was fidgeting—usually cheery, bio-chemist Esmerelda Broughton was currently in desperate need of a good coffee blend. She was accompanied by a shorter figure whose sleepless eyes were a more common occurrence compared to Esme’s jet lag woes, the psychic Katrina Kafka.

“And I says ye should have gotten yer own milk of magnesia!” said Tycho, waving a blue bottle where he kept the relieving drug that helped settle his stomach during the flight.

“Woe!” scoffed Esme. “As I have to share a laboratory and travels with you—you miserable little combination of an orangutan and an emperor penguin!”

Usually, Felix and the others would eventually break up the rivalry’s bickering. But this time, Rally Co. was too overwhelmed with the goal ahead. Katrina gestured to Felix, who shared with her some of the local currency so that she might purchase more medicine, water bottles, whatever they needed to ease the difficulty of travel this time. With that done, the group’s serious-minded leader stepped aside to wait next to an old-fashioned telephone booth, one in a row. There were also a couple of teletype computer terminals for public use among the booths as well, uses ranging anywhere from a mere digital typewriter to transferring essential data over long range, once the terminal was rented out. Or simply for a brief amusement, if any pinball machines or vigor testers were not available.

“Updates.”

Solomon Callahan, esteemed occult detective these days—formerly a dread magician, pulled out a notepad with which he copied some details.

“The ruins of a castle in the mountain terrain. Snowcapped… drenched in rumors.”

“Ghost stories as well, no doubt.”

Solomon didn’t much enjoy this. Felix was usually more enthusiastic to discuss matters with him pertaining to their latest mystery or adventure as the Rally Co. group. But the circumstances of their last epic had created a considerable rift. The group had always known Solomon to be a practitioner of magic. But recently they had discovered that he commanded deadly powers similar to those of their collective nemesis, the immortal crime lord, Othulok.

“What significance is our destination, Callahan?” said Felix, tilting her head. “Or should I say Acolyte Absolute? Self-styled enemy of the modern world, and all.”

Solomon looked aside to see if anyone heard that, before sighing.

“Felix. The matter at hand: I have the utmost certainty from my colleagues in academia that the late Lord Aldragar Covington’s personal collection housed ancient relics, and rudimentary machinations salvaged from the darkest corners of the Earth.”

“What in particular do you suppose the Golden Shadow—Othulok, wishes to acquire from there?”

“A rare ore, Felix. My colleagues called it by a certain name: Orichalcum.”

He looked to Esme, beckoning her over. Not only did she have a background as a prodigious chemist, but it was under Solomon’s tutelage that they studied findings pertaining to the alchemists of old.

“That’s the stuff.” said Esme with a nod. “They say if there ever was an ancient locale like all that science fiction about Atlantis, they had a few tricks like that. Orichalcum is supposed to be a miracle metal. You could send heat or an electric current through it, and even a small amount could return the force multiplied. How they refined any of the ore is beyond me at the moment. But if anyone does have the stuff…”

“It would be dangerous. Message received.” said Felix with a nod. “Let’s get our things at the hotel and move as soon as possible. If such a thing exists, it cannot be allowed into the hands of that sorcerer, devil dog that he is.”

Felix waved to Tycho and Katrina, who were gathering up suitcases.

“Tycho, my friend?” said Katrina, holding a case close, and dragging a couple of others along with her telekinesis. “Might I ask you something troubling? Before we are to be in earshot of the others again.”

Tycho could see Esme and Solomon going to hail a taxi outside. The stalwart cryptozoologist nodded to the girl.

“When you saw Monsieur Callahan use his magicks… what was it like?”

Tycho scratched his head. Suddenly he regretted agreeing. But only halfway: He cared too much for his friends not to try.

“Thing of it is sister, that I’ve grown up treading the grasses of the wilderness in all sorts’er places with dear old ma and pa. In them wilds I got a pretty good sense for determining danger, as animals often give warning. And mortal-folk… well, folk react some kinda way to the defeatin’ of an enemy. That, and one other thing.”

Tycho performed a sort of dramatized hypnotic gesture, as a stage illusionist might gesture at a box where they pretended to saw their assistant in half.

“The magic Solomon used before that was always pretty tame-like. Our pal Ribeye Renzo and even that weirdo The Wrap didn’t have nothin’ that potent. The mystic arts just aren’t practiced like they used to… it’s only been against Othulok he’s really gone all out. Ye didn’t hear me complaining, fightin’ fire with fire an’ all. But when he damn near killed that assassin, Giligan Diligent, it was like he’d come back to his hometown to settle accounts with fellers what crossed him.”

Katrina looked forlorn. Tycho nudged her.

“Chin up, will ya?”

Katrina sniffled. “Does it not bother you?”

“Yeah, it bothers me plenty!” huffed Tycho. “But I’m gonna wait an’ see for a while. Just like I did when Felix ran off to try to get revenge on her own. Or when you went all out with your ESP. And of course, whenever yers truly has to rip some joker a new one for callin’ him funny names. Tumultuous is practically our middle name!”

She finally chuckled. Tycho offered a snicker of his own, as they made for the doors to the street outside.

The trek up the mountains was unpleasant for all. The whole of Rally Co. were bundled up in heavy winterwear, boots with ice cleats and thick parka jackets with face masks and goggles. Felix and Tycho had climbing axes and gear if they needed to traverse the troublesome terrain. The early morning sunlight shined on the white snow, making everything terribly bright. At least until they arrived at the castle, majority of the estate being in ruins.

Solomon went up to the entrance arch, where one of the doors had fallen and biting winds could enter at night. Entire sections of the walls had their bricks blasted apart. Felix and Esme took to points of impact for a forensic examination. Tycho was lighting a fire in a spot where they could set down some of their things. Katrina was feeling around with her sixth sense, telepathically probing for any presence living or dead. Some hidden trap that might prove fatal if they accidentally activated a pressure plate or other mechanism. And course most importantly, if there were any remaining samples of the orichalcum and the strange machinery that utilized it. She was so intent on her goal, Katrina wandered off into the darkness.

There, she found a small bead. She levitated it towards her hand with telekinesis, not touching it with her hand until she knew it was safe. Unfortunately, as the decaying hands reaching out from the shadows indicated, it was not safe whatsoever.

She did everything she could to keep the fright she felt inside. The cold didn’t help at all. And in a split-second she immediately launched the undead assailant into the wall with a sickening ‘SPLAT!’ that seemed to echo throughout the hall. She readied herself in the event of others, and she did see two more of these ghoulish servants sauntering around. Mindlessly, one more outwardly rotten than the other. It was as if whatever directed them was no longer all there.

Seeing that the threat was low, Katrina hurried back to look for the others. She’d startled Tycho just as he was putting on some coffee, the liquid nearly sloshing out of the aluminum pot as he slapped it aside.

“KATRINA!” howled Tycho, catching the rubber gripped handle with his opposite hand, then nursing the slapping palm that had briefly swatted at the heated metal portion. “What the devil are ye doing, sister?!”

“I would not be hurried if it wasn’t important, Tycho!”

The others hurried back over to listen as well. Katrina pointed back to the direction she went investigating, and the entire group went together. Tycho and Esme kept themselves trained on the two undead that remained, while Felix and Solomon examined the body of the one Katrina had squashed. Still, they found nothing there or around the castle to work with. Until Felix beckoned for Katrina to provide the small bead she had acquired. Stepping past Esme and Tycho, she held out her hand, and the ghoulish servants seemed to respond to the bead, as though it were of some importance.

“A miniscule little thing like this bead can’t be much on its own, can it?” said Felix to herself, while Tycho shoved off one of the roaming undead. It was at that point that the aspiring detective tossed the bead with some force. The ghoulish servants hurried to catch it, and when it landed, a small shockwave knocked them off their feet.

“The orichalcum!” said Solomon, preparing a small leather pouch from within his coat to contain the bead. “Yes, it makes sense: I recall a study suggesting that the ancients carried it in this smaller form.”

“As what, some kinda funny money?” said Tycho. Esme just sneered at him.

“Hardly! Think of it, my hirsute little colleague: The orichalcum is easier to carry this way. You could gather several beads, but their worth is too great to distribute like coins. I believe that they carried these around to activate their mechanisms.”

“Like what? Like our tellerphones and such?” mused Tycho, half-mockingly.

“Mm. Perhaps more in the realm of secure doors, like on a vault for example. They could use a heavier door because they could afford the energy to move such a thing around. In regards to other technologies, let’s keep it strictly to theory, shall we?”

“It ought t’make discovering they’ve got damnable death rays layin’ about all the more pleasant!”

Solomon took the bead at last, once Esme was finished looking it over. Of course, when they returned, they found their campfire had been put out: Behind the smoke was a robed figure. Collectively, everyone seemed to notice two boar-like tusks sticking out of his mouth, and it caused the whole Rally Co. group to prepare for battle. All save for Solomon Callahan.

“Lord Aldragar. I thought you had died.”

The boar-like tusks retracted, and the castle master lowered his hood. He was even paler than Katrina, his hair maintained save for a few stray strands that would not stay put. Like the very image of an old time English gentleman, if frayed at the edges.

“This… is no deception? Is that you, acolyte?”

Solomon frowned at the name, while the Rally Co. team all looked over to their mentor. Yet another secret of his that had come to light.

“Everyone. I would like to introduce to you Lord Aldragar Covington. Another mastermind of ill-intentions. A vampire.”

Tycho’s eyes widened.

“He gets near me with them tusks, I’ll do some amateur dentistry!”

But the vampire lord simply laughed.

“You have nothing to fear from me. I am quenched at this time. But I see you have found some of my orichalcum.”

He beckoned aside with one arm with the theatrical flair of a jester, before bringing his hand around to take back the bead. Felix looked at it one last time, and offered the orichalcum back, despite the others seeming apprehensive.

“Wotcha do that for?!” whispered Tycho.

“He knows Solomon. That gives us an ‘in’ to negotiate. Besides: you saw his undead. The pitiful shambling things. Even as a vampire, I’m confident we could all take him on.”

Then, she turned to look at Solomon.

“And I’ll do the talking.” said the older man, nodding and moving to catch up with Lord Aldragar. “Stick together, everyone.”

Now, Rally Co. was in a great dining hall not yet ruined like the rest of the castle. They were able to light a main fireplace. They hesitated to put on any sleeping bags, but Tycho was back to brewing coffee and using provisions. What little food could be offered by Lord Aldragar was under severe scrutiny by Esme, for willful poisons and forgetten mold.

But Aldragar himself was at the head of the table, and his laughing was hearty.

“Remarkable development!” he rasped, a cough taking him. For a moment, some of the youth he’d regained seemed to depart his body, but no thirst was apparent. His vampiric physiology was no longer functioning neatly, not after the strife he’d put himself through in pursuing victims. “You mean to tell me, acolyte, that you made a foe of the Golden Shadow? And you’ve gone on to join his enemies in Rally Co.?”

“What’s more, Lord Aldragar…” said Solomon, leaning in his seat, and pointing an enthusiastic finger. “I taught each of Rally Co.’s latest successors. Everyone here has been a student of mine in a different field.”

A sentiment not gladly echoed. There were quiet nods and shrugs that lacked commitment.

“In any case, Callahan: Revel! You have been accepted by these mortals, you’ve taken Othulok’s own magic to use against him. Glory finds its way to your house, and mankind will soon realize it does not stand atop the food chain.”

“And what does that mean, exactly?” said Felix, interjecting.

“I mean no offense!” said Aldragar. “But your larger world is content to disregard the old myths. In some cases, they have been driven away crudely… such as your Blockhouse. He was not always treated with such welcoming.”

“Yeah? An’ why’s that?!” spat Tycho.

Solomon set a hand on Tycho’s shoulder and spoke:

“There is no good reason, my boy. There are those who favor their control too greatly to relinquish the reins willingly. As it is, the world can barely treat its own, more ordinary people with dignity. Even the most minute difference can be blown out of proportion into an aberration.”

And then Aldragar laughed hoarsely.

“I am content to try and make my own unspoken kingdom here in Europe, over all the secret things which live here… but your Solomon Callahan however, sought to usher an era of enlightenment. By any means necessary.”

Katrina could not help but feel something awful in herself. Solomon was teaching her to safely harness her abilities. She wondered if he might have demanded she wield them against humanity. She wondered if the others had similar concerns: Felix could have been a great hunter of dissidents, Esme could use her chemistry knowledge to form the alchemy of war, and Tycho’s zoology might have been put towards taming and commanding cryptid creatures, the way the Golden Shadow directed them towards malice, but without expending magic.

“Blazes to that!” howled Tycho, shaking a fist. “A thousand thundering typhoons! But he didn’t. He joined up with Rally Co. an’ changed directions fast-like!”

Esme stepped up beside the loyal cryptozoologist, and crossed her arms. Only adjusting to fix her hair, to look as refined as possible.

“What my colleague said. It would have been better received if we’d heard this sooner. But he’s sort of our expert on the magic… not many of those going around at the moment. We’ll take what we can get until Othulok is put to rest once and for all.”

Felix looked to Katrina. Katrina looked back. And while they couldn’t bring themselves to say much, they both nodded and stood by their friends. And perhaps, some small part of them would not abandon Solomon altogether, provided he made it up to his charges this way. Each and every one of them. Solomon himself continued to say little: he did not want to push his luck. But he felt something like a small hope just then.

Lord Aldragar watched the entire display for a moment, before taking up a goblet and gulping down half the contents all at once.

“A shame I never started a coven.” said Aldragar. “What prowess and loyalty I might have cultivated if you are any example… but no sense dwelling on what could have been. I trust after resting fully, you’ll wish to see my machinations? Destroy my hard work?”

“Would you stop us?” said Felix. Her Jutte was a blunt weapon, but if she had to run it forcibly through his heart like a stake, she was prepared to do so. But Aldragar shook his head.

“Before I might have. Now my dreams of overcoming the vampire’s weaknesses are doomed! However, if throwing it all aside might infuriate Othulok, I say bring ruination to all that I have left!”

And he cackled, before entering a violent coughing fit.

There were boots marching in the snow. To every uniformed man, a rifle or other armament. Armored cars on tank treads instead of tires, being navigated up, with troops on standby to assist the journey of their support vehicle. At the helm of the operation was a commanding officer in a cap with a silver piece pinned to the front, fashioned in the shape of an albatross. His uniform was newer than that of his troops, signifying his connection to a small, but rapidly expanding nation-state.

“The damnable bloodsucker is ours, Over-Commander Sallow.” laughed a subordinate officer, his shaky hands attempting to light a cigar. “He should have taken your offer… first the visit, then the letter. He is a fool twice over—he would have a death wish to refuse you now.”

Over-Commander Sallow just made a disgusted sound.

“I recall your file, Lars. You received commendations for quelling a would-be resistance cell with little in the way of casualties.”

The officer called Lars just grinned.

“But of course, sir.”

Sallow pulled off a glove from Lars’s hand, stealing away his cigar with similar dexterity, and bringing it down quickly, before halting just over the back of Lars’s hand where the mere drop of ashes was enough to strike fear into him.

“I know not your methodology for accomplishing that. But I challenge you to demonstrate superior bravery for your country! Where it may be *seen,* yes?”

“What the hell is wrong with you, Over-Commander?! I am loyal! Always loyal.”

“Always?”

“Yes, always!”

Sallow just sneered, and offered a half-hearted salute. But when Lars attempted to provide the same, he was greeted with the gleam of a knife halfway out of its sheath. The silver blade gleamed in the moonlight.

“Glory to Arkavalia.” said Sallow, as if providing instruction to a child, before shuffling off.

“*Ulp*… Glory. To Arkavalia.”

Katrina perked up. She nudged Solomon while he pored over the machinery Aldragar had introduced to them to offer notice as to her precognitive flash just now.

“Soldiers upfront.” said Katrina. “Heavily armed at that!”

Tycho scowled. Aldragar was not far off.

“What is the meaning of this?” said Solomon. “You haven’t sold us out, have you?!”

“Silence, Acolyte!” spat Aldragar “It is the Arkavalians. After my own downfall and their rise to power, they have heckled me for my secrets. I’ve few ghouls left to stave them off within the castle walls.”

Felix beckoned for the others to join her.

“If they do not know this yet, then these men might still be susceptible to doubt. Quickly!”

Everyone hurried upstairs and lined up to look at the troops from overhead. Felix had both her revolver and impellet gun out, trying to decide which one to expend first, and what tactics the group could take.

“Really makes a feller wish Blockhouse was here, huh?” said Tycho.

“Undoubtedly, my hirsute colleague.” said Esme.

Felix had a feeling if they lingered too long, the Arkavalian forces would call their bluff. Esme could probably rig up some explosives to lob from their vantage point. Tycho preferred close range, perhaps if they made it into the building, he could perform an ambush. Solomon and Aldragar had magic and vampiric powers, but they could still be cut down by weapons if they weren’t careful.

Over-Commander Sallow on the other hand, had time and resources with which to pour continuous pressure onto Aldragar’s estate. He would proceed to point forward, gesturing for Lars to communicate.

“By will of Arkavalia itself, our detachment demands your audience, Lord Aldragar Covington! You have the opportunity to utilize your unique gifts in service of a glorious new homeland!”

Aldragar spat at Lars’s feet. Felix would be the one to speak back.

“His response seems unanimous, no?”

Lars perked up.

“Who the devil are you?!”

“The woman telling you to turn around. Aldragar and his ghouls do not fight alone.”

Lars looked back at Sallow, who tilted his head to look down on Lars.

“I want an armored truck to ram into the front doors at once! All troops, ready your weapons for those rotting saps!” exclaimed the red-faced Lars, who turned around to address the Rally Co. group, and Lord Aldragar. “Your lacking welcome will be your undoing, leech! And those young degenerates!”

“You’ll dive deeper through hell than I, pig-dog!” exclaimed Aldragar. It was at that point one of the armored vehicles began advancing, while a hail of gunfire covered it. The Rally Co. team kept their heads down, Felix closing her hand into a fist and opening it again to gesture for explosives, for which Esme was all too eager to provide: In Arcadia, the city the group considered home, she was often cautious with the output of her test tube grenades. Still the case with this mountainous terrain, but considering the uneven odds on which they fought, she took on the task of cobbling together something potent enough to disable the armored trucks.

“HI-HO SILVER!!”

Esme tossed a test tube grenade down at the oncoming vehicle, halting it momentarily. Felix fired on some men trying to feed a belt of ammunition to a machine gun encampment. The second armored truck approaching moved as quickly as it could, this time a gunner emerged from a hatch on the roof, taking aim with a rifle. Esme’s next toss was thrown off from landing within the hatch, as the tube rolled along the roof near the hatch instead. The gunner had ample time to leap out as the vehicle collided with the front doors, the automobile motor whining with stress in its ongoing attempt to break inside. Felix directed Tycho to move ahead of the group.

“It won’t be long before they’re inside. Aldragar, you go with my man Tycho and try to thin the ranks. We’ll meet you at your laboratory.”

Aldragar did not enjoy taking orders, even reasonably measured ones such as this. His pride was wounded enough by mortals before. From the academics he invited into his home to feast upon before he used the secrets of the ancients to overcome the weaknesses of the vampire, to the Arkavalian fascists that harassed him endlessly. But with the provision that they would make Othulok suffer, he acquiesced to Felix’s word.

“So be it. At least I will go out with the glory of battle!” said Aldragar, taking on his tusk-like fangs. Tycho fished through his things for a large knife he sometimes wielded while on excursions through the wilderness.

“Save some for me, ya wiseguy!” bellowed Tycho, pointing at Aldragar with the tip of his blade. “I ain’t no kinda pushover in matters of stompin’ goose-stepping goons!”

Aldragar lead the way towards a hidden passage, Tycho scurrying after. The Arkavalians had breached the front door, and began sending squads to comb through the halls. Gunfire ripping through the frigid night as they fought against what few ghouls remained. The two fighters burst from the shade and into the attacking force, picking them off before hurrying to another area of the castle to continue their guerilla warfare. Tycho plunged his dagger with a handle-twisting depth, and Aldragar did likewise with his tusk-fangs to the nearest vein, before swiping his nails across the torso to split the body apart. Rinse, and repeat.

Solomon tackled into a trooper on his way past Tycho and Aldragar. Lars was about to face him, but Sallow put a vise-grip on his subordinate’s shoulder.

“The orichalcum and the machines, Lars. I will address the world-famous occult detective.”

“Yessir!”

There was some relief that Lars did not have to face the man himself. Sallow on the other hand seemed to savor the encounter. It was as though he had something: any seasoned adventurer knew an ordinary man would not have such confidence without the proverbial ‘ace-in-the-hole’ to guarantee their survival. But try as he might, Solomon’s ESP could not probe Sallow right away.

“You’re probably wondering why your powers of mind, or perhaps magic now fails you, is that right good sir Callahan?”

Solomon brandished the small sword blade hidden within his silver-headed cane, and swiped at Sallow. Every time he approached, he couldn’t glean anything from his thoughts, or precognitively. He even tried a spell to melt the rubber soles of Sallow’s boots onto the stone floor, and only received a brief puff of smoke.

“Yes! I have long desired to put you pitiful believers to death.” exclaimed Sallow. “I am without blessings or curses, Callahan! None of the gods will have me in their domain. Hell’s devils loathe my presence! A hundred rituals have freed me from the faiths interfering directly with my very being!”

Sallow produced a set of brass knuckles, as well as a fiber wire garrote. He began his retaliation by knocking the blade from Solomon’s hand with a great punch. While he could not induce anything within Sallow, Solomon tried projecting a mystic arc of lightning, and found it was not wholly resisted. And Sallow still had to physically fight back when Solomon ushered forth another spell, which turned dirt beneath the castle stone to muddy clay that hardened after wrapping around Sallow’s ankle.

“Give my regards to the fellows in Limbo, Over-commander!”

Solomon angled for a punch, only for Sallow to meet his bare fist with the brass knuckles. Solomon cried out in pain, followed immediately by a strike to the nose. Blood gushed down over his mouth, leaving his front teeth crimson-coated. It was in that moment that Sallow grabbed Solomon by the jacket, and got to wrapping the garrote around his throat. Along with the profuse bleeding, Solomon would be unable to breathe very much—and soon, almost not at all.

“Not yet, old man. I’ll not let you go under yet.”

Felix kicked over some tables. Esme was gathering up Aldragar’s alchemical equipment to try and create new explosive concoctions right away. Katrina was handling the orichalcum, packing each sample of the miracle metal in such a way that they would not be jostled or their amplifying effect activated by unexpected turbulence. Tycho and Aldragar raced through the open doors as a shower of gunfire trailed after them—Aldragar taking dozens at a time as he shambled forward to hang off of the makeshift barricade weakly. Tycho was jumping over a crate Felix had pushed into place when two shots fired by the pursuing Lars connected with him, sending his body crashing down unceremoniously. Esme was first to set aside the flasks to check his wounds.

“Hold still—I’ll get the bullets out. Try not to cry, as you do!”

“Would that I could focus on my revenge upon you!” howled Tycho, while Esme got to work, and bandaged him as quickly as she could. Felix was right beside them, laying down covering fire.

“Aldragar—get over here!”

The vampire lord attempted to rise again, but not before someone charged him with a battering ram, adorned with a golden cross at its striking face. The implement gleamed as it was repeatedly driven into Aldragar’s back, lined up with his spinal column until he began to die a slow and ignoble demise. It was at that time that Solomon was brought in. The entire group was mortified by his bloodied state. Aldragar felt the thirst of the vampire, but he was far too weak to do anything now.

“Rally Company. I believe you’ve forgotten something in your haste!”

“Don’t listen to him!—” sputtered Solomon. Katrina stopped what she was doing to try and force Sallow away. But her mistake was to try and grab him telekinetically instead of creating an external wave of force. Any unusual power centered upon his being was for naught. Magic most of all, but that extended to psychic powers to some degree.

“Drop your weapons, children. Or your teacher ends class early for the day, yes? Good, good. Now for the orichalcum, and surrender of Lord Aldragar’s machinery.”

The team followed along with Sallow’s first demand of putting their weapons down. Katrina could see that Lars was angling to shoot again, and instinctively she reached out and gripped Lars’s weapon telekinetically. Causing it to explode in his hand as he stumbled aside screaming. The startled Sallow let up as Solomon let off a crackle of mystic static from his hand—although he couldn’t induce any effects onto Sallow’s immediate being, he was still vulnerable to forces that began within the external world, his resistance only keeping him from dying immediately.

Agony flared throughout the Arkavalian Over-Commander’s body as he dropped his garrote, and attempted to strike Solomon again. This time his brass knuckles were superheated by the mystic static.

“I die in glorious service!” howled Sallow. “I will not be the last. ANOTHER, and yet more may participate in the same practices I have. And they too will be beyond your powers!”

“But not THIS!”

Katrina levitated a small marble of orchicalcum, before sending it forward. Not as a projectile, but guiding it right into Sallow’s mouth. At which point Solomon received a telepathic signal. With a snap of his fingers, he generated a small mystic spark next to the orb just as Sallow continued with his platitudes with an open mouth. A small explosion erupted from his cheek, and then elsewhere as the orichalcum marble was involuntarily gulped down, causing total combustion as Over-Commander Sallow was reduced to a skeleton coated in rags and ash.

Solomon had dived out of the way. Tycho had risen back onto his feet, only to fall down again in his attempt to avoid the explosion. A few troops had caught the gruesome display and retreated, screaming for the comforts of their childhood homes. Aldragar sputtered as everyone reclaimed their things:

“Callahan. Take whatever you require: But destroy what remains of the castle before you go. With my last breath, I laugh at Othulok! I cackle at the Arkavalian mortals! All that they seek will never be theirs.”

Solomon produced his handkerchief, and wiped some of the blood off of his own face, and from his glasses.

“You will have a place in history, Lord Aldragar. From a time when we were mankind’s greatest opponents. And the only goal, to take back the night and foggy days for all that lurked there.”

Aldragar let off a hoarse snicker.

“And where the corpses of lesser giants and rusted tanks now grow flowers. I know your idealistic rants well, former Acolyte…”

With those final words, Solomon drove his sword-cane blade into the heart of the vampire lord. Felix walked over to watch him turn to dust.

“Sir. I trust you’ll guide us in what equipment to take?”

Solomon surveyed the laboratory, and nodded.

“Yes, my dear: With haste. We must deprive Othulok of a source of refined orichalcum, such as Aldragar possessed. At least then he will be unable to amplify the energies of his magic as he casts it upon us in battle.”

“And we’re done, right?” said Tycho. “We get the miracle metal outta here and whammo—then we stick it to the dead tosser?”

Of course, Solomon simply adjusted his glasses. Esme had a feeling there was something else involved here.

“Mr. Callahan…” said Esme, with an uneasy start. Felix’s eyes widened as she and the other looked to Esme for answers. But Solomon gestured first: It was high time he exercised greater honesty himself.

“What Esme feels concern for, everyone, will indeed be the last of our great search... then, I promise you, we will strike back at Othulok once and for all.”

UNTIL NEXT TIME…

#web fiction #rally co.#rally co. 9

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antics-pedantic · 5 months

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So one of my followers revealed themself a Zionist after all the posts I shared about supporting Palestine

If you are supporting Israel after every fucking thing that has happened, get the fuck out of my face. You are supporting the genocide of a people. I do not want you following me. Fuck off.

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antics-pedantic · 7 months

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Solomon Callahan was famous. An understatement, really: He’d made a name for himself as an occult detective. Received an invitation from a prior iteration of Rally Co., where he honed his investigative cunning alongside others, like Malika Basra-- police detective turned private eye, and George Edward Gallagher—professor of cryptozoology. And it all happened rather quickly. Fresh off the heels of inter-nation war, when the lands of Europe warred with each other and others yet. Off in Poland, there was still an unofficial landmark in the way of a lesser giant’s skeleton, grasping futilely at a rusted tank whose main gun barrel was split apart into a flowering shape, like the plants that grew around and upon.

This was but one memory the man recollected as he tossed and turned in his sleep. There were others that he could not fully visualize, but felt all too familiar: When he awoke in a fright, he had the false sense there was business that still needed to be dealt with. He ran a hand through his greying, silverish hair. The man was into his late forties, but he looked like he’d been through another ten years’ misery. The cane he carried was mostly for appearances, since it housed a hidden blade. Solomon preferred to coat it with a paralytic poison that once upon a time, he counted upon Professor Gallagher to provide. Today, he had other means.

After his typical effort of putting on a three-piece suit, Solomon made his way to the ground level of his dwelling, in the area just outside of a city called Arcadia. It was a lonesome place, built with somewhat more space than average to house a library, as well as occasional guests. Except he now had a few regulars on hand.

“Ah! Mr. Callahan, old son—allow me~.”

The first of his charges had been Esmerelda Broughton. A rising star at the local Century University for being a bio-chemistry prodigy. The taller, umber-skinned woman was quick to grab a seat for her mentor, who she had conducted studies of ancient alchemical practices with.

“Kissin’ up real early-like, eh?! I shoulda known.”

Esme playfully turned up her nose: The next up was Tycho Gallagher, a short Irishman with long arms, and fuzz from his full sideburns on his cheeks to much of the rest of his body. He was following in the footsteps of his father George, studying cryptozoology. And an occult detective like Solomon had encountered many mystical monsters in his time. It was through Tycho and Esme he received new batches of the paralytic poison for his sword-cane.

“Because I am the most delightful darling dear in the whole of this little operation, you overwrought orangutan!” proclaimed Esme, with a faux-offense hand to her chest and a close of her eyes—only opening one slightly to see how Tycho fumed at her. Behind Tycho hovered another girl just a little taller than he: Sleepless, her hair snow-white and accentuated with a ruby red hairband. Katrina Kafka, who took to the table next to Solomon, and tried to fix a little craft of her own: a necklace with painted beads. The elder offered a smile, and shared a telepathic message to his psychic student:

“Splendid handiwork, dear.”

Katrina could only giggle out loud. Solomon was attempting to overlook Esme and Tycho’s usual banter: They were friends beneath it, but their bravado meant it could get loud, even rough. But nowadays, it was reined in by Solomon’s star pupil.

“Ahem!”

Felix Basra was the leader of this iteration of Rally Co., and while she preferred to solve mysteries on her own, he insisted she not face them alone any longer. That was where Esme, Tycho, and Katrina had entered the picture. They all studied under him at different times, for different reasons. There was still so much they were only just facing for the first time.

“Sister, brother—” said Felix, with a serious cadence. “What’s say we compete at preparing breakfast then, hm?”

Tycho grinned, and Esmerelda did the same.

“Ye haven’t lived till ye tried my omelets!” exclaimed Tycho. “Protein’s the way t’start the day.”

“Perhaps, but once I give everyone this new tea blend, they’ll be awake as can be!”

“We still got coffee?...” said Felix, as she gave them both a black-lipstick smile on her russet-hued face, and nodded to the others. She was still dressed up in her coat and scarf, having arrived after following up on a more ordinary, but still challenging conundrum of crime in the city.

“Silly me, I brought a fresh batch of bagels and doughnuts. They’ll still be in the car.”

Everyone had a good laugh at that. Even Solomon, as everyone discussed their daily errands, as well as their work in their various fields.

“Say… not that he’s big on eating an’ all,” said Tycho. “But has anyone seen Blockhouse?”

Everyone perked up. A friend was missing from their line-up.

Blockhouse was a clay construct, as old as the early days of the Earth. Although his shape could shift from malleable to dense, he always defaulted to the large round form he always used. It always earned him recognition from children, who read storybooks and comic strips made by people who encountered him in the past, and grew up with fond memories.

Today, he had gone to check on some neighborhood children who were playing near the forest. Tycho had yet to run a new survey on any new cryptids grazing. Solomon and Katrina had yet to run a mystic sonar of sorts with sorcery and ESP combined. To Blockhouse’s thankfulness, he saw the children playing a round of stickball on some dewy grass, before running home to wash off mud splashes from when they hit the ball and tried to run through a few old doormats they set as a makeshift baseball diamond with plates and all. Each offered a greeting, and a couple latched onto Blockhouse’s arms so he would lift them up like a carnival ride.

“Hallo-and-morning, little ones. All is well?”

“Better now, sir! We could have sworn we saw some deer dueling with their antlers. And perhaps a large mantis for Mr. Tycho.”

“I will make a note of it.” said Blockhouse with a nod. “Be well.”

“See you later, Blockhouse!”

But once the kids were out of earshot, it was only then he realized one had forgot something: Slipped from a knapsack was one of those story books. He wiped off the dewdrops on its cover, and decided to see if the first page had a name written on it so he might return the tome.

“What’s this then…” said Blockhouse aloud as he read the title. “You’re special… just like Blockhouse?”

He turned the first page. There was a visual of a child, who got along well with their classmates. But always felt something was off. A couple of details that weren’t the same as everyone else, among the family tree or in afterschool hobbies. It was then that a cheery icon of the clay construct arrived to let the child know they were not alone.

“It’s nice to do some things on your own, that others may not. You might have come from a place far away… But that’s okay, I say.”

It was not a bad message. Any person would have been comforted. But in the process, Blockhouse felt the pangs of something himself. He was never without love, from Rally Co. or from others. But it occurred to him that he had never known the embrace of another, similarly gentle construct, let alone another paranormal entity of patience and welcoming.

“Because there’s no one like Blockhouse…”

Moisture caught within his clay, now released perhaps? Regardless, it seemed that even a construct could cry. Blockhouse’s teardrops touched the page, before he sauntered off. Sobbing, but no one was around to comfort him. One of the children from earlier hurried back and found the storybook, thankful to have reclaimed it, but curious as to the page it was left open on, and looking up to the sky to see if there was rain to cause the droplet marks on the paper page.

There was none.

One city stood at the dawn.

Machines before their time, magic unfettered in practice, in study too. A society whose folk welcomed outsiders. But then came the time of arrogance, when they thought they might survive the reshaping of the planet, only to become even more obscured than the other undiscovered eras. Its old name was forgotten, and it was afforded the title of ‘Atlantis,’ after the philosopher Plato’s hypothetical society by those who sought it.

But none lusted for that power more than the Golden Shadow. An alias afforded to a mysterious crime lord, rumored to be a powerful sorcerer due to the means by which he destroyed his enemies. All save for the contemptible lot of investigators and adventurers known as Rally Co., as organized by his nemesis, Solomon Callahan. The Golden Shadow cursed his name, cursed the psychic brat who fought off the corpse he commandeered. And he also loathed Tycho, who wrestled his beasts, Esme whose chemical concoctions put them to rest—out of his projected dominance over their wills, and that damnable Felix, who had managed to hound his undying assassin, The Wrap!

Currently hidden away at the outer edges of Arcadia, closer to coastal waters was the immortalized slayer the nefarious Golden Shadow had created through an abuse of necromancy. The mastermind could only scoff at the fact that Giligan Diligent was watching out for Wrap—the more chipper hitman in his flannel shirts and boisterous lumberjack’s attitude. But as he pondered over his scrying orb, he knew that Diligent had kept the entire Rally Co. team on their toes. Perhaps he could count upon the big oaf to fit into his plans after all.

“Huaarcchhggh-hahahaha-*ack*-haaah!!”

The laugh was raspy, but it became loud. Just then, the Golden Shadow noticed something else: Rally Co.’s ally Blockhouse was in dire straits, departing from home to be as alone as he felt. And he was beginning to hone in on fragments of Solomon’s dreams from last night: his fears leading back to another time. One he couldn’t wash away, for all his efforts.

This was the perfect time to strike: Although his secret reports stated the group had become more cohesive through trials by fire, he could strike at them while they searched for their friend. Thus, the Golden Shadow began to pull his own insider threads, guaranteed to twist the universe into following a sinister fate—as only the dread seeker of Atlantean secrets could usher in!

“Bloooockhoooouse!!”

Katrina called out loudly, despite the slight ichor she felt knowing her friend was missing. Before joining Solomon and the others in America, she had known her mentor and the construct’s protection in Paris for a time. The rest of Rally Co. had split up, Tycho trying the wilderness with Solomon. Esme had taken the roadster to try the towns nearest to state lines to ask the vagrants if they had seen or heard anything on the way through the state, before picking up Tycho and Solomon. Felix kept to the city in case Blockhouse had run into some new weird menace there and was in danger.

But rather than staying put, Katrina sought another lead. She had hailed a taxi cab and arrived at an airfield. She made her way past prying eyes, and bent the bottom of a steel mesh fence, crouching to duck-walk underneath, before telekinetically bending it back into place. From there she started towards some of the hangars where the airplanes were kept. Hoping that one housed the fighter-craft of the individual she sought. But she had to use what she learned from the others: This person did not want to be found, and he could avoid giving off a psychic signal.

The oil odor, ruckus of engine and turbine, and metal tang pervaded the air here. It was difficult for Katrina to discern very much. Felix had instructed her to observe minute changes as best she could, and Esme had given her some crash courses on recognizing common products and material. She did her best, but ultimately decided to try relying on the absence of such things, as she sent out a telekinetic ‘ping,’ a soft reverberation that would bounce back. She tested it on other hangars, before finding three that seemed empty. Two were the real deal, but she supposed that one had to be what she was looking for. A bobby pin and a screwdriver on the side door, and she was in.

At first there was nothing. But she waited: Getting the jump on The Junker was no easy task. It was when she heard the snap of an elastic band against a skull and the clicking of a latch that she would see those familiar green lenses on a pilot’s goggles, along with the double-breasted airman’s jacket and white scarf, as he approached rapidly. The vigilante treasure hunter known as The Junker!

“You shouldn’t be here.”

Katrina clenched her fists. She had a feeling he’d say something like that, and halted his flitting approach through the dark by tossing a tool box at his feet. She aimed to play tough for a change, imagining Esme’s confidence and Felix’s leadership guiding her.

“No. I will be here, and I will demand you provide answers: Where is Blockhouse?!”

She huffed. Camera shutters on Junker’s lenses went off, almost like blinking. But that faint outline of him in the shadows just seemed to shake his head.

“I haven’t seen him. Is he in some danger?”

Katrina appreciated that Junker showed concern for the construct, but she had to keep up her intense demeanor.

“He very well could be. Would that you joined us more frequently… perhaps you would be kept inside the loop, yes?”

The Junker offered a long frown. A flat line of a lip with the slightest edges at each side.

“Will you… put me in the loop?”

His words were awkward, they lacked the firmness he demonstrated before. There is no gangster, no soldier, no monster that could draw such a thing out of him as Katrina had the wit and indignation to do. She watched him for a time, before offering a smile.

“Telepathically. I promise I will not pry on your memories, your secrets. But you must allow me to reach out.”

Junker jutted his thumb backwards. As if meaning to gesture back to the house.

“Solomon. Not gonna snitch?”

Katrina didn’t like the wording, but she nodded.

“We have made a…. an agreement, not to tell him right away. He has his own stake in this that he will not tell us.”

“You may not look at him the same way.” said Junker. “My disagreement with him stems from there.”

“Would it not be the truth then? Would you not be freed for that?”

Junker huffed.

“Me and the old man would both be damned. You all still need his knowledge. Not to think of him as another enemy.”

Katrina couldn’t imagine not being able to trust Solomon, after all he’d done for her.

“There is a rift. It will keep growing unless it is halted… post-haste. Whatever the truth is, we will all face what this means for us!”

Junker let off a low growl.

“Then so be it!—”

But both froze in their place. They received the same psychic signal: Like a distress beacon!

Solomon produced the blade from within his cane, and used it to defend himself. But Giligan Diligent’s bowie knife had taken on bigger beasties. He’d even performed a couple of backflips, astounding the Rally Co. members with the acrobatics he commanded, despite his size and musculature.

“Solomon Callahan, was it? Real honor to meetcha, mister!” laughed Giligan. “Reckon you’re more of a fencer, I’m coming atcha as more befitting a knight—”

Tycho charged into Giligan, doling out an elbow to the man’s side as the bigger assassin let off an ‘OOF!’, followed by his grabbing Tycho with a free hand, and tossing him up into the air as though he were a football.

“You BRIGAND!”

Solomon charged in, jamming his blade into a non-vital part of Giligan’s body, and letting the paralytic poison do its part. But to his shock, he found it wasn’t working right away.

“Like a… king cobra and some rye whiskey had a baby! Hoo-whee!”

Giligan coughed, as the occult detective noticed Tycho up on a high tree branch. Not waiting—he had too much adrenaline to wait, as he lunged, catching his arms around Giligan’s neck and forcing him into a forward stumble. The sharpshooter tried to shake him off, as Solomon went in with a front kick, just before he might have slammed his back (and by proxy Tycho) into a tree.

“Hellfire! Hellfire on your soul, you mortal worm!”

Solomon raised a hand to the sky, muttering an incantation. And then he brought down a bolt of mystical lightning, same as the variety that he used primarily to fend off the Golden Shadow’s own bolts in duels of magic. Smoke rose from the body, and just in that moment, the roadster pulled up with Esme at the wheel.

“Solomon?...”

The occult detective had a glint in his eye. A brief smirk at his handiwork that fell to horror when he saw how scared Esme looked. She produced her impellet gun, and pointed it. Giligan Diligent wouldn’t need it, he was barely breathing.

“Esmerelda, dear. It’s over. I saved Tycho!”

“Yeah? Is that right, my hirsute little friend? Did Solomon pull your rump out of the frying pan?”

But Tycho wasn’t in much of a state to answer in his usual fashion. He had a similar battle-thirst about him that he was still coming down from. And Esme could see he was instinctively wary of the magic Solomon had commanded. He nodded once at her—that Solomon did assist. But was gradually producing his own impellet gun as well.

“Solomon. Why don’t you take your foot off Mr. Diligent’s back, and take a backseat in the roadster? You’ve been through a great deal, I can tell.”

“I wouldn’t do that to you, Esmerelda. Not to any of my students. You have to believe me—”

She prepared the impellet gun to fire.

“I want to. I think Tycho does too. I’ll bet Theodore would have liked that as well.”

Solomon’s eyes widened. He reached out, trying to calm Esme and Tycho down despite having a nerve touched. But it never came: Just an intense pulse of feeling that Katrina and Junker had detected. In his heightened, wild state Tycho could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, as if he could detect the ESP wavelength that Solomon operated on, and without hesitation he fired a dozen impellets to knock him out as well. In response, Esmerelda fired her impellet gun at Tycho, halfway to emptying the clip before she stopped. Dropped the weapon, and held her head in her hands. A crying scream taking her as her howl echoed through the wilderness.

What happened to her second home? To Rally Co.?

The Wrap perked up. He did not have a psychic connection with Giligan Diligent. All he could do was worry that the older man could handle himself. He always handled himself. He assumed that distant cry belonged to a cryptid. Ordinarily, he had no fear of those things, with what his magic could accomplish. But this one gave him a deep sense of dread.

“Oh… bother!”

Ahead stood Blockhouse, having run into the younger assassin by accident. He remembered what Wrap did to the others when they met some time ago in Shanghai. The construct loathed violence, but he also feared what an agent of the Golden Shadow might attempt.

“I have orders to bring you in.” said the Wrap, trying to gather his composure.

“This would be… your wish?” asked Blockhouse. The Wrap went silent again, and shook his head ‘no’ at the question.

“It is what I must do.”

The cloth bandages extended, wrapping around Blockhouse’s arms like a straitjacket.

“The Golden Shadow has followers on the way. Do not try anything: We will take you to our master. You will serve him as he sees fit. And perhaps then your friends may not be killed.”

“A prolonged agony, then. Ohh the indignity!”

The Wrap just listened to the deep, yet melodic quality of Blockhouse’s voice. He had not sampled the fine arts in quite some time. He could tell the clay construct was inclined towards them, practiced and versed. The two traversed the land along the road, waiting for a truck to pick them up—the rear bed covered with a tarp to hide the followers of the Golden Shadow within. But just as Blockhouse was ushered aboard, Wrap was knocked away by a flying kick: It was Felix! Nearby, her taxi cab had come to a sudden halt. On the way home, she had noticed the driver speaking to no one else—the front seat had no passengers. Her taxi driver was given a little extra money to covertly follow. When the truck began to slow down, she had the cab drop her off behind some bushes. From there she’d run over and attack!

“Felix! I’m beyond overjoyed.”

“Stand back Blockhouse, focus on getting free of those bandages.”

She produced her revolver first, shooting out a couple of tires. Then she switched out to her impellet gun, firing it into the back of the truck. A few of the Golden Shadow’s followers hurried out with weapons. Daggers, which she could defend against using her favorite weapon of all—the jutte, a metal rod with a hook for catching blades, best used by one with martial arts training. She disarmed them of their daggers, but for the maces she had to jump back and let Blockhouse go malleable, then dense again to pry the weapons away.

“You again.”

With the cultists felled, Felix was about to do the same to the Wrap, before Blockhouse caught her.

“The others may still be in danger, Felix. I believe we should bring this Wrap along with us, in the event we may be able to bargain.”

Felix stared down at the Wrap. From where she stood, he looked pitiful. Afraid of his own shadow, afraid of failing the Golden Shadow.

“Wait. He told me—he told me the secret.”

“What secret?”

Felix grabbed Wrap by his jacket collar, and stood him up. His footing was still unsteady compared to hers so he couldn’t try to escape. She wasn’t going to let him, not so easily.

“The Golden Shadow. He knows who Solomon really is. Before Rally Co., before he was the big bad occult detective. And once you get back, it’ll all make sense. You won’t be able to help but put the pieces together. We saw to that, Giligan and I. We had specific orders.”

Blockhouse’s eyes widened. He stepped over to try and stop Wrap from saying anything more. But Felix was curious now, and that meant she was getting to the bottom of this, one way or another. She would not be stopped.

When Tycho came to, Esme was not far off. Waking up at the sound of him shuffling around. The curtains around Solomon’s house were all closed, and minimal light was allowed for now. Mostly from lanterns and flashlights, things that could be shut off at a moment’s notice. Giligan Diligent was tied upside down and suspended from a fixture on the ceiling. Solomon on the other hand was tied to a chair. Not that he bothered to resist, by body or by mind and magic.

The front door opened, as Katrina turned the key to the house, all of Rally Co. had one. She was horrified by what she saw, before a restless Esme entered to assure her it was alright. But then the bio-chemist was caught off-guard by the presence of the Junker. Although his reaction was more subdued, he still seemed disturbed to see the current state of the group.

“What happened?” said Junker, speaking gently for a change to Esme. The sound of his voice after so long practically stung. Tycho wandered in after, gritting his teeth.

“Hell’s bells!” howled Tycho. “You’ve been off prancing around while the rest of us have been losing our damnable minds—Solomon’s off his rocker, I lost it too, and Blockhouse is missing, you son of a…”

But Tycho couldn’t find all the words. It was rare to see him really weep, hanging his head low and letting the tears stream down. Katrina was going to comfort him, but at the last moment looked to Junker to do that for her. She knew he wanted to keep his distance, but now was no time for that. He did not argue, instead putting a hand on the cryptozoologist’s shoulder.

“… Loyal as ever, trusted companion. You’ve… shouldered much for me.”

Junker looked to Esme, who was covering her mouth. He nodded to her: what he said applied to the both of them. Not far behind, Felix and Blockhouse arrived with the Wrap in tow. Felix’s suspicions about Junker were already there, but when she saw Solomon restrained, she looked to her friends in disbelief.

“What happened, Esme?”

Esme let off an awful sound, trying to keep her speech clear.

“Hhh—Solomon. He almost killed the assassin.”

“To save me.” said Tycho, trying to make sure that part didn’t go forgotten. But Felix was focusing on Esme.

“Defending us wouldn’t have you tie him like that.”

“He summoned a mystical bolt. Damn near killed the man… the incantations he said, it didn’t sound like his usual stuff. And he was going on about hellfire, like he was on top of the world. Called the guy a ‘mere mortal’ more or less.”

Katrina looked insulted.

“Esmerelda, you are speaking out of line just now. That is our Monsieur Callahan.”

“Is he? Is he really?! I get that he was angry, but something about the whole thing doesn’t seem to be on the up-and-up to me, Katrina!”

“You are fresh from danger.” declared Katrina, moving to loosen Solomon’s bonds. “Paranoia grips us all in the fingers of fear.”

“Katrina!—”

Everyone moved to grab Katrina, and with a jolt she forced them off with her telekinesis. Only halting her advance on Solomon’s position when she remembered how she’d lost control in previous instances together, including their first adventure, and in Shanghai. The others knew her dedication to Solomon came from the fact he used his own psychic gift to help teach Katrina control over her own.

“You, Esmerelda.” said Wrap, before uttering a set of ancient words—in a crude approximation of dialect. “—was that close to what your mentor said?”

It was spot on. Felix looked between them, from Esme back to Wrap. There was only one source for the sorcery he recited.

“A spell the Golden Shadow has also used. Is that what you’re getting at? And Junker… he was a student of Callahan’s too. He operated covertly. Something the rest of us could never know about! Solomon Callahan was once a follower of the Golden Shadow!”

Solomon and Giligan Diligent had regained consciousness by now. Felix’s last words reached his ears, and he looked upon his wards with grief and terrible shame.

“More than that.” said Wrap. “Go on.”

The members of Rally Co. sought to refute Wrap’s assertion. But it was no mere assertion: Junker, and even Blockhouse held no surprise. The others however, were already ganging up on their once beloved mentor with hurt boiling the blood in their veins.

“Most adept among acolytes.” said Solomon “That’s what he called me. The candidate above all others to be a direct apprentice to the ‘is that is not’, the Golden Shadow, Eternal Shame of Atlantis—Othulok. I was head of his followers in the beginning. He’d have never returned to life with necromancy otherwise.”

“Why?!” exclaimed Tycho. “Why in the blazes would you ever DO that?!”

Solomon had no real excuse.

“I thought I could take that power for myself, once. The world was already entering the grips of a new war where men killed men and trampled their fondest myths under tank treads. There seemed nothing else to lose, so I did it: I became a reckless necromancer. I did not realize the danger in trying to take his place, for he returned entirely. Only a previous iteration of Rally Co. could stop me. But it wasn’t enough… I dedicated the remainder of my life to vanquishing him once and for all with those adventurers. When Junker was one of my wards, he tied up loose ends for me.”

Junker nodded to confirm.

“He dissuaded me from a quest for vengeance. Or at least… he tried. Thought these secret missions would be the outlet I needed. I got worse. Split off to pursue my own goals after. Swore Tycho and Esme to a secrecy of my own.”

“Became your own little war, didn’t it?” said Felix, before looking back to Solomon. “We’re all just vicious like that now, aren’t we?”

“Felix, please! You all have good reason to be upset. But…”

“But? You hold off on telling us any of this, and you want us not to fly off the handle?!” exclaimed Esme. “Tycho went berserker! Blockhouse was nearly captured. Junker can barely stand to return. And to learn YOU practically summoned the Golden Shadow?! Should we wait until that monster does something to Felix? Katrina? What next?!”

But before Solomon could respond, He found himself hit in the head by Giligan Diligent, who started shifting his weight so he could pendulum swing right into him.

“You’ve… got it all wrong about my pal Wrap there, fellows. He doesn’t want to be here. He was practically just a kid, no older than you before he croaked. Your teacher here—frankly, I wish I’d throttled him too for letting that Golden Goose do any of this to him!”

Wrap looked at everyone. Felix caused him to avert his gaze. Just then, Giligan slipped free of his chains, and springboarded off of a stool into Blockhouse with a tremendous dropkick that sent the construct stumbling backwards, followed by his tossing gathered kitchen cutlery at everyone else with startling force. Junker quickdrew his pistols, and shot a couple of objects out of the air. Felix caught a knife in the nick of time with her jutte, the very tip of the blade drawing a small droplet of blood from Tycho’s forehead. Everyone had been so overwhelmed, they hadn’t thought to keep an eye on Giligan, as he hoisted Wrap over a shoulder and tackled through the front door.

Rally Co. pursued him outside, only to find the house surrounded by the Golden Shadow’s followers, some of whom were lurching around as if recently resurrected. Those unarmed, or carrying melee weapons ran towards the house, while several of their fellows fired flaming arrows and submachine guns. A window was shattered, and an arrow flew to the floor near Solomon, who was trying to burn the ropes at his wrists. He wasted no time freeing his ankles, and then using his suit jacket to put out the flames before they spread, despite still aching from battling Giligan and being bombarded with the impactful impellets, made groggy by their potent tranquilizers within each capsule.

Felix had no time to argue. She drew her impellet gun and started firing on the living cultists.

“Save your live bullets for the dead—otherwise Othulok will resurrect them!”

“Junker hasn’t got any impellets!” exclaimed Esme. There was no time to get him a spare. The avenging scavenger looked to Blockhouse.

“I’ll figure something else out, just draw their fire, Blockhouse!”

The construct was first out the door, swatting his arms at oncoming attackers and increasing his clay body’s density to ward off bullets and arrows. Felix took aim—seeing Diligent and Wrap gladly deserting the Golden Shadow’s forces in favor of survival. For a moment, she and Wrap looked back at one another. And she turned to fire on an oncoming reanimated cultist instead: ‘Bigger fish to fry’, she reasoned. Tycho scrambled for the library, in a section where some of the antiquities were kept, and returned with a battle-axe. Esme was grabbing her chemistry set from the in-house lab she and Tycho had set up, putting together some hasty explosives to take out swathes of cultists.

“Watch your fire!”

Felix squinted her eyes. She couldn’t see why that was blurted out, before realizing it was Katrina who said it, between instances of smothering flames and stopping lead bullet hails. She pointed ahead as living cultists were dropped by blunt force trauma, and their undead counterparts were either gunned to shreds or dismembered by martial strikes. A faint glimpse of glowing green lenses and a white scarf indicated that Junker had exited the house without anyone noticing, and was going largely unnoticed thanks to his superior prowess at vanishing. Most of the neighbors had locked their doors, what few were armed were picking off stragglers. It seemed like they could hold their own.

Until purple lightning came crashing down. The same sort from their first adventure: The Golden Shadow, Othulok himself had arrived. Clad in a crimson robe, his body gleaming like true gold metal, clinging to his skeleton grotesquely.

“THE END IS AT HAND, CALLHAN! YOU AND YOUR LITTLE UPSTARTS ARE FINISHED!”

Othulok cackled. Everyone stepped outside to face him—Junker rejoining the group after leaping out of the way of an eldritch lightning streak.

“No we ain’t!” thundered Tycho, shaking a fist. “Dusty old dope! Iconoclast!”

“Then what do you call this?” sneered the sorcerer. “Your home in shambles, your teacher a fraud, I’ve won at last! At this rate, you’ll kill Callahan yourselves.”

Everyone looked at each other. They saw Katrina helping Solomon to stand, as the both of them went up to face Othulok.

“You thought you could defeat us in one fell swoop,” said Katrina “But that was your mistake: Even split up, we still rallied together to defeat you! It’s in the name, poulet.”

“We may not be thrilled with Solomon, but until you’ve been banished to the realm of death—permanently, we’re still playing his card.”

Solomon didn’t waste time with talk. He brought his hands up, and lead the opening volley, countering Othulok’s mystic bolts with his own once again. The fury he felt at the mastermind for all these years was more palpable than ever before. As Othulok fired forward with one hand, and tried to send a curved arc from the side, Katrina manifested her telekinesis as a force-field, shielding Solomon.

“Impudent whelp!” hissed Othulok. “I still remember him at the highest chair in the room, like a judge for a new era. The greedy bastard wanted my empire for himself.”

“Save it for someone who gives a hoot!”

Esme threw down a couple of explosive vials, letting Solomon and Katrina go in to press the attack. The others knocked down any remaining foot soldiers while the spellcasters and esper dueled like cowboy gunfighters with unknowable forces in lieu of bullets. Missing more shots than they’d have liked… or so it seemed. Just as Othulok began to charge up an invocation, it was only then he realized that Solomon and Katrina had combined their powers to whisk him away from here.

“You’ve no gateway to focus your powers… I will not be far off, Callahan! I will strike again before you know it! This crude warp only delays the inevitable!”

“Then next time…” said Felix, raising her revolver, and firing. “We shall MAKE it permanent!”

Othulok’s head bobbed back as the magnum round bored into his forehead, forcing him backwards. Only unlike last time, he clawed at the edges of the portal with bony fingers.

“The world is *MINE!*”

In the depths of his empty sockets, two small red dots seemed to move until they were looking down on the adventurers. Before letting go at last, willingly so. Laughing all the while.

Katrina fell to the ground. Or she would have, had everyone not stepped back to catch her including Tycho, who tossed his battle axe backwards into the waiting skull of an undead straggler so his hands would be free). Once she regained her footing, Solomon stepped back.

“It’s painfully clear we’re not in a position to take on the Golden Shadow—Othulok, not like this.” said Felix. “I say we keep working with Solomon for now.”

Esme looked frustrated with the decision, but not opposed.

“Anything else, we’ll sort out later.” said Esme. “Blockhouse, you wanna gimme a hand with the front door and windows? I need something else to focus on here.”

Even Katrina was having difficulty at the moment. She went inside, and Felix would stick around to check in on everyone.

“I expect you to continue your lessons with her, Callahan.” said Felix. “And directly after that you keep me informed on anything to do with Othulok’s operations. Beyond that, everyone on this team gets as much time as they want—nay, need off-duty. Am I clear?”

Solomon tried to argue, but caught himself midway and shut his eyes. Felix said all she felt was necessary at the moment. Only Tycho remained, and he was not quite as distant. He didn’t blame Esme for shooting him with the impellet rounds earlier either while he’d gone berserk. And while he didn’t like what it brought out in him, Solomon did try to defend him against the assassin, Diligent.

The two men, younger and older, regarded one another. Solomon opted to take a walk. Tycho on the other hand sat on the stoop, lamenting what had become of his precious Rally Co.

There was a campfire. The Wrap was watching over his shoulder every now and then, wondering if the next moment would be the one when Othulok returned with new orders. Disarray had been sown among Rally Co., but not nearly enough. Giligan couldn’t protect him forever, least of all with the injuries he sustained while fighting Solomon Callahan.

Just then, something rustled. Up on the high tree branches, and then the bushes. Wrap snapped a cloth bandage strip out at the spot, only to find nothing there. Behind him and Giligan, appeared none other than The Junker! Giligan went for his sniper rifle, only for Junker to draw one of his twin .45s. The hand gun lowered after a moment of silence.

“The others… aren’t with me.” explained Junker. He tossed a wad of cash at Giligan’s feet: That’s what he listened to when it came to his line of work.

“What’s this supposed to be?” demanded Diligent.

“Advance pay.”

Wrap gestured that it belonged completely to Giligan. Wrap just tagged along on his jobs, or waited until Othulok had a mission for him.

“The next time you take a job from Othulok, there will be a… counter-offer. You switch gears and play bodyguard for Rally Co., keep your associate out of danger too.”

Giligan scratched his beard.

“Suppose I’m interested. For now at least, where Wrap’s concerned. But suppose I want to take on Rally Co. again? Besides the old warlock, those kids gave me a great challenge. That’s what I live for.”

Junker set a gloved hand to his own chin, and offered a response.

“Do away with their lives, and your own becomes forfeit.”

Giligan laughed at the mystery man’s ‘tough’ talk. At least, until silence pervaded the campsite. Diligent might have been able to contend with all of Rally Co. at once, but he’d never encountered Junker, much less heard of him. The most he unwittingly knew was that several others in his profession had gone completely missing, with no confirmed status. The Wrap inched back towards the campsite, he and Junker staring at one another, in some strange sense of understanding, before the archangel of Arcadia disappeared in an instant, as he was wont to do.

“Blockhouse, of all of us, you knew these secrets?”

“But of course. If cautiously so. I make no demand that anyone else does the same.”

Esme and Katrina sat on the sidelines while Felix held a meeting with Blockhouse. Everyone else had just about headed for bed after determining the danger was gone, and damage was adequately repaired to the best of their ability. The neighbors down the road reported no issues of their own.

Felix put her hands together, resting them against her lower face, elbows to the table before she spoke again. “You have been his friend for a long time. And Tycho’s loyalty to others inclines him not to abandon Solomon all at once. I can’t say we share that enthusiasm.”

“Then he will do as he’s vowed those years ago,” said Blockhouse. “To invest his efforts into the destruction of Othulok. Though I fear this may become his focus now. If we only regard him when he has strategic insight… he may go mad further.”

Esme sighed. She gave Felix a pat on the back, and they nodded to Blockhouse. They were off to bed. It was left to Katrina and the construct once more.

“They want nothing to do with him.” said Katrina. “But I… I want to give him a piece of my mind! In more than one sense.”

“Perhaps it is not undeserved.” said Blockhouse. “There comes a time when you must determine things yourselves. That was Solomon’s mistake… perhaps he could atone. But not quietly, not neatly.”

“Not at all.” said Katrina. As she got up to head for bed, she gave her old friend a hug, and headed for bed. It wasn’t until morning she found herself banging on Solomon’s door to wake him up, and insisting on getting psychic lessons out of the way early. The man had thrown a smoking jacket over his pajamas, and they took to one of the rooms downstairs to practice before anyone else was awake. She was not in the mood for apologies or pleading. Were it still last night, the wounds fresh, Solomon would have begged. But now he knew that would only make things worse.

“We’ll begin with the telepathic intermix.” said Solomon, sitting across from Katrina and closing his eyes. “Remember to watch your breathing so as not to hyperventilate. Condense the thoughts until you only bring to mind what you want—all other extraneous thoughts will flow around you.”

“Like a river.”

“Yes, like a river. With a boat, or a small formation of land at the middle.”

It was one of their old mnemonics that helped Katrina practice. Nearly every psychic had telepathy to some extent, and she was counted among them. The young woman had considerable practice, but the revelations of yesterday’s caper left her exhausted.

“We can resume later. You should be with the others.”

“Non!”

Katrina corrected her posture after nearly falling off.

“I wish to be able to fend off that Golden Shadow myself. Lest the others be caught off-guard, or you bring all things to ruin, trying to do that by yourself.”

“…”

There was no sound other than Katrina trying to steady her breathing. She clutched at her chest for a moment, angry at herself. She believed she could not afford to be gentle, and it wouldn’t be nearly enough to be on Felix or Esme’s level. She felt the need to reach extremes. It twisted Solomon to see that, like a knife jammed into his guts and digging every which way. There was even a moment where Tycho walked past the doorway, peering past the threshold, giving Solomon a ‘good morning’ nod only after he was certain Katrina was alright. The zoologist’s loyalty stretched thin between the group and their shared mentor.

Now it was time to try and hold things together.

Although Othulok had been driven away once more, this time he felt triumphant. A thousand cheers from the devils he employed, be they mortals with ichor-hearts, or fiends from other realms ready to serve at his mystic whims. The end of Rally Co. had to be slow, and every pain his to savor.

“Huaarcchhggh-hahahaha-*ack*-haaah!!”

Will our next adventure spell the end of Rally Co.?...

SO LONG, FOR NOW

#Rally Co.#Web Fiction #Rally Co. 8

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antics-pedantic · 8 months

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If you're a creator and you needed to hear this today:

You have no idea how many people lurk on your work. No idea how many times people go back to revisit your work. How big they smile when they simply think about your work. How fast their heart beats, how excited they get when they see that you posted something.

People are shy with their feedback. Sometimes it’s because they’re simply shy. Other times it’s because they assume you already know how great and talented you are. Could be both.

My point is, even if you barely have any likes or reblogs, don’t get discouraged. You have a lot of silent fans, but they are still your fans. Keep on creating. Because there is always someone out there who will love what you have made.

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antics-pedantic · 9 months

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DYNAURA EPISODE 5: THE CASUAL CLASH

Everyone but the surgeon was present in the hospital operating theatre. When the surgeon finally arrived, he did so swiftly. Clad in green scrubs, and getting to work immediately. His aides asked no questions, they only responded as quickly as they were used to doing. During such procedures, there was usually a sponge to wipe sweat off the surgeon’s brow when requested.

But no such order was issued. Not until the very end.

And it looked like it was mostly for show. The head surgeon walked away cleanly. Discarding the hospital scrubs and facemask under the gleam of a freshly-installed fluorescent tube light. Back to a silken suit and tie now: Custom made by an Italian tailor spoken of in whispers, with the trade’s highest honors. Nothing less than exceptional, every seam could be assumed victorious. And everywhere they were worn, people assumed the same of the man boastfully wearing the esteemed fabric.

“Congratulations, Dr. Crossmoore! Another life saved, sir.”

As the hands of those around him began to clap, the surgeon produced a fine comb to fix his platinum blond hair after wearing his surgical attire, the cap that kept it all in having mussed his finely styled locks as he set the strays back into their place alongside more complacent hairs kept in place by designer brand gel.

“Any plans for tonight, Errol?” asked a nurse, holding a clipboard to her chest with such longing in her lonesome arms. “RSVP at Chercheur de Graal? Enforcers’ Room at Needle Tower? Oxenhouse overlooking Bullpen Avenue?”

There was a boisterous, perhaps even sinister-sounding laugh as Errol stepped a little closer, offering a touch. The nurse hesitated—not of fear, but absolute surprise as she nodded and let him caress her cheek.

“Nurse Kennedy, you’ve always had such an imagination. But you forget that past these walls, I am lower than the dogs… an agent of nothing less than pure evil.”

The nurse leaned into his touch, holding his hand back.

“But you’re so dependable. It’s natural for anyone to want someone as loyal as you, sir. And with such skill!”

Errol pulled his hand away slowly, pressing ever so gently so Nurse Kennedy wouldn’t look up to him all the way. She supposed he was sparing her from having to look at him directly, to spare her from any further stress. It took such confidence just to speak to him now, as he produced his checkbook from a suit pocket.

“Nurse—be a dear and tell administration to add my patient to the Crustte Foundation list, they’re to be treated as another esteemed member of our ‘miracle’ patients. The breakthroughs we’ve pioneered battling to save their life will have all the other institutes racing to catch up to our gold standard.”

“How generous! It’ll be my pleasure, sir.”

Errol waved goodbye, and paraded his way back to the parking garage, before stepping past his car and looking out upon the rest of the land, as ambulances raced to his workplace— the VitaSoon Holistic ProCare Center, speeding past ordinary commuters native to this part of Delta Bay. It was there he realized what he wanted to do today. Something he relished, but hadn’t had the time to check in on as of late.

“I could use a step down from Olympus!” said Errol with a vigorous guffaw, uncaring as to who heard him. For he could sense a very familiar energy signature.

Outward from the density of Delta Bay, where establishments were built in a scatter, stood the large and aged multi-suite shopping center, Honeycomb Mall. It was mostly known for its hexagonal décor. Much of the old neon lighting was still in use, and not all of it was strictly bee-themed either. But over the years the arrival of newer vendors meant each occupied storefront unit would be customized to the more minimalist modern look, or to limited arrangements in the rustic style. Only the longtime residents of Honeycomb Mall held onto their original fixtures, since it cut back on costs and kept things familiar for customers.

The Earthborn alien Rex resembled a young man of some South Asian descent, closest to Nepali. One that had thrown on an open button-up over a t-shirt and comfy pants, kicked on his favorite white (with red trim) sneakers before taking to the shopping center. He’d been here before, ever since he was a kid growing up near Delta Bay, on its outskirts. Now he had begun to enter adulthood and those days were memories. Like ‘King Sting: The Busiest Bee,’ Honeycomb Mall’s old mascot. There was a child trying to activate a coin-operated ride molded after the character, but like Rex in days long gone, lacked the funds to do so. The child’s mother had been off in the store for quite some time now. While Rex counted his spare change to see if he could offer anything, the mother shoved her purchases into the arm of some store staff. Although the kid hadn’t even noticed Rex, their mother apparently had and glared daggers at him in recognition, dragging the protesting child along with her. She knew an excommunicated, unofficial superhero when she saw one. And Rex had the extra misfortune to be deemed some sort of invasion scout by his former hero industry acquaintances.

It wasn’t the most promising start to things, but it was one thing, and he could speed-walk away briskly. There was still the whole rest of the place to go through. There was a small section with a cookie shop that he swore he’d buy from on the way out, to regain some confidence as much as to snack on something. The last time he’d been here he couldn’t bring himself to buy anything except a couple of new clothes like he’d planned, and hurried along home after that. But not this time.

The next stop was one Rex hadn’t been sure about. But he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that an older salon-barbershop combo was still in business. The first time he went there before, he had to divert his energy powers so that they could clip his hair more easily. The process itself wasn’t difficult, but being a small anxious kid at the time meant he had to warm up to the place. About an hour later that day, he’d finally walked out with a clean cut and a lollipop in hand—every subsequent visit went by much quicker, and far smoother. Other places weren’t so lucky: A bookstore with the widest magazine rack he’d ever seen had been replaced a few years back by a new shop that only stocked a few periodicals and novels that had received ‘bestseller’ reviews. The rest of the place mostly stocked an excess of calendars and series merchandise other stores couldn’t sell right away.

Once bustling, the BuzzOff arcade was cleared out and the space had been on-and-off for lease to a chain of other businesses that couldn’t keep up with the bigger brands. He had memories of trying aerial simulators, fighting games, lightgun rail shooters, and skee ball after watching others play and trying it out for himself. An alternative entertainment shop opened a second location in the same building under another, trendier name, pivoting away from selling music and subculture fashion to graphic tees with dubiously sourced artwork and pop culture collectables that were more about owning the item than what it represented— the Synco Pats figures all looked the same, save for one or two details that set them apart and the labels on their boxes. Actually, Rex was pretty sure he saw a shop exclusively devoted to selling Synco Pats when they already dominated entire walls and shelves at other stores.

Some of Honeycomb Mall’s other changes weren’t so bad: A stuffy clothiers of old was replaced with a shop selling artwork. Painting replicas, odd little metalwork statues, and he could notice a local artist trying to feature some of their work here. Some new restaurants and snack joints graced the food court, and in places across the upper and lower levels. People still met up here and there was a resurgence of spots for hanging out. Not always successfully, but they were trying.

“Heh heh heh.”

The sound of that snicker made Rex whip his head around sharply in the direction it came from. The crowds doubled in density suddenly as people exited the shops. And for a fleeting glimpse, Rex could have sworn he saw a familiar head of platinum blond hair in a specially imported silk business suit. But the fellow went out of view already. Rex tried to keep moving, assume that was a fluke. But the glimpses started up again, until he was out of the crowd and the area cleared up.

“What an excellent watch. Wouldn’t you agree?”

In an instant, Errol had appeared next to Rex, observing a jewelry store display and speaking in his booming voice, with a mocking tone reserved for foes like the cosmic contender. Watches made from things like gold, silver, or even titanium plating and fine wrist-strap leather whose costs would set Rex back considerably—but Errol looked at them all with the confidence of someone who could purchase them as though they were merely different flavors of candy.

“Well? Aren’t you going to ask which one I mean? Respond already.”

And swiftly. Rex let loose with a lightning jab that was deflected immediately by a forearm of equal strength, in a quarter-circle motion.

“Hahahaha!”

Errol nodded to the side. It looked like people were starting to notice. Some moved along more quickly, too afraid to intervene in a superpowered altercation. Others offered a stink eye for Rex—he threw the first punch, after all. And they weren’t opposed to verbally chewing him out at this stage. No one was going to run away until it became a full-on, explosive fight. Something Errol wouldn’t allow if he could stretch out the afternoon’s ‘entertainment’ a little longer. Rex relented and pulled his fist back.

“Happy?” said Rex. Errol just snorted and nodded, before continuing to survey the jewelry shop. Rex proceeded to walk through the store and around through to its other exit in something of a hurry.

“What’s the rush, Rex? It’s not every day you run into someone in public. Like a former teacher, a co-worker, or your arch-nemesis!”

Rex scowled as he sensed Errol clear the distance walked, with one great stride. Of all his enemies, Errol had little issue keeping up with him, even when Rex was fighting at his best. Turning sharply on his heels, Rex angled to grab Errol and drag him outside so they could have a proper brawl. Or he would have, had a few admirers of his not startled Rex by squealing, and hurrying over to swarm around the seraphim of slaughter.

“—Guys I TOLD you it was him! It’s Errol!”

“What’s it like being a captain in the Mantle honor guard?! Are they from space like your pig-headed nemesis? A secret fantasy world where you’re heir to the throne? Which rumor is true?!”

Errol just let off a chuckle. Warmer than the cackle moments ago. Wordlessly, they held onto pens and things for him to sign. Even a villain could rise to overwhelming acclaim in this day and age, as Errol instinctively, but also patiently, took each pen one at a time and signed for each fan.

“Please, I’m just here to treat myself, same as you all.” said Errol, oozing with confidence as he gestured to Rex with one hand, and held the other over his mouth as if telling secrets—but still speaking audibly.

“And to keep an eye on this one. There’s no telling what he could do—he thinks he’s the good guy after all. Not that I’m much better…”

“Nooo! You carry yourself with so much honor. That’s why you’re Emperor Fumerole’s right-hand man. A real exemplary human warrior, super tragic that you’re evil… but also it’s soooo romantic!”

While that discussion was had, one of Errol’s fans stuck a tongue out at Rex, followed by a bold neck-slicing motion. In that moment, he wanted to crawl into a hole and shrivel up. It was no use defending himself against people this intense in their opposition. He thought he could just avoid them and mind his own business. Security was nowhere to be seen for the fan crowd, if not to deal with Errol himself.

“You may have cut ties with the Enforcers, but next to me you’ll still get plenty of attention. Speaking of the exalted one— Fumerole sends his regards.”

Rex was gritting his teeth.

“How did you even know to show up here today?”

“Mantle emphasizes loyalty: Whether you’re dutifully sorting things out at a desk, or on the front lines, they respect their superiors.”

Errol gestured aside, and Rex paid him a suspicious look before spotting a couple of chalktroopers in plainclothes outfits. These chalktroopers’ battalion had been allowed some time off. And all too thankful for a day or two out of the week, they dialed one of their trusted overseers to report their findings right away for further rewards.

“You son of a—”

“Manners, manners. We are in public. You already seem quite uncouth to these people. Go any lower and you’ll practically be digging yourself a hole here.”

That was the last straw. Though careful to control his body and aura, Rex accelerated towards Errol right then and there, faster than the other mallgoers could perceive them. But rather than creating the massive shockwaves of a more open battle, Rex did his best to channel more of that kinetic force through his strikes to silence them as much as possible. The heavy swings still let off a smaller ‘BOOM’ though, and gusts would travel outwardly. Perceived as the air conditioning activating or gusts from entrance doors remaining open too long.

“Heh!”

For every strike that Rex let loose with, Errol met with a defense of his own. Catching onto Rex’s tactic and accelerating to keep pace with him. The dexterity of their strikes was matched by their mobility, as they zipped around portions of the building trying to exploit openings on one another to strike. In a split-second intermission that felt like an eternity for the superhuman and the honed Nypardian, they hovered across from each other while the world raced past them both.

There was Errol. His hands held up not like a fighter, but more like a surgeon. Ready to deal out precision action, taunting his enemy into approaching before they were ready. On the other side, Rex had clenched fists raised like a boxer, gradually shifting into stance to launch a roundhouse kick to the side as Errol’s right hand shot out. Open, but deadly: For as it passed over Rex, a shower of sparks emerged in a line from the direction he attacked. And behind the cosmic contender, a wave of air pressure split a tray of free samples offered by one of the eateries, and the small shockwave of a channeled elbow from Errol launched the staff member onto their butt, terrified and halfway believing in ghosts.

Meanwhile, Rex felt an ache in his jaw as Errol’s forearm connected. But before he could pull it back, Rex grabbed ahold of it and judo-tossed Errol through an open maintenance door. Rex was rushing after to grab him again, looking quite forward to repaying that elbow to the face with a knee to the gut. That is, if Errol hadn’t grabbed on and started trying to break Rex’s arm. The both of them flew out of an open window, sending papers fluttering every which way and causing a fresh hot, new batch of coffee to fly up and out of a pot, before landing in an array of employee mugs on a nearby table.

The two were dashing through the street, having both broken off. But instead of coming to a halt, they carried on with their momentum. Racing past the traffic lights just as they hit red or green. Pedestrians and drivers could occasionally catch a blur or feel strong winds in their wake, but these were just after-effects, leftovers while the two combatants raced well beyond that point. Trading smaller strikes, and at intervals releasing explosive heavy hits. Errol raked his fingertips across Rex’s side, bringing about another shower of sparks. Rex couldn’t be stabbed or cut—but the magnitude of pain was still enough to send him back for a moment. Errol vanishing while he was trying to stabilize himself following that injury.

At last, Rex found himself stopping. Sneakers grinding to a halt against the gravel of a gas station parking lot by the highway, on the edge of the state lines into the neighboring region. There was no time to rest, knowing that a member of the Mantle Army’s honor guard was waiting to strike. There was mostly silence save for the functioning of vehicle engines, and the departure of a long-haul truck. And that was just immediately nearby: With his hyper-hearing, Rex extended his range. Cows grazed in a field some miles off. Honeycomb Mall even further off was still as calm as it had been before Errol appeared. Before he could listen in beyond that…

There was a noise. Only getting closer. Rapidly.

Rex turned in the direction he heard the sound. All he caught with his hyper-vision was a trail: Errol was zigzagging to stay out of his direct line-of-sight, but he couldn’t completely mask his energy signature. The source of his power still baffled most everyone at present, but Rex was just thankful he could still come up with ways to counteract it. And he’d have to do so quickly: Errol was angling to let off a wide slashing arc so forceful, it would travel through the air at range. More so to destroy the gas pumps, which would usher forth flames and explosions. Pedestrians be damned.

Racing to bear the brunt of the slasher wave. It was always Rex’s first instinct, to ‘be the shield.’ Bearing the brunt of an attack because he was nearly-invulnerable. Gritting his teeth all the while, because Errol knew this of him and used power in excess of whatever the minimum was to cause the gas station to explode. As such, Errol poured everything he had into making certain Rex would suffer for his choice.

“AAAAUGH!!”

Up until this point, Rex had attempted to take every attack in stride. But it was all starting to weigh down on him, the slasher wave lashing out where he’d been hit before and taking his physical form through a tumult of pain. Being nearly invulnerable, Rex was difficult to take out all at once. He could keep going—but that was also a funny way of saying he’d keep getting beaten up for quite some time, if he didn’t turn things around right away.

Then there was darkness. Rex lost consciousness at last.

The sight of the gas station exploding rippled through Rex’s mind while he was out of the waking world. It hadn’t happened, but he still couldn’t help but dread if it did. The flames, the gasoline spreading them out after spillage, things exploding. Shapes of people and animals in the haze that threatened to reveal the most visceral details of their doom. It was only then that Rex finally got startled awake. Found himself chained within some kind of a dungeon, part of an underground complex of some sort.

Mantle.

The exponentially growing underground empire Errol and every foe of the week served had a base here. Wherever this place was, at least. Rex tested at the chains that held him: He’d have to start at severing them at the weakest link, or to remove the spot on the wall where each was bolted to. As he did, he glanced past the prison cell bars: there were some chalktroopers on watch duty. But there were also some locked in the dungeon itself, along with some supervillains, monsters, and robots. Injured, punished, generally suffering for some slight against the throne. A few other more official heroes had also been captured fairly recently, but they were in no condition to assist.

“It’s YOU!”

Rex turned his head sharply. Just as he was trying to work the chains that restrained him, he was attacked by another prisoner: a cyborg sea-creature dubbed [NUTRITION HARVESTER FIEND] “Kelpsiphon.”

“Back off!” exclaimed Rex. “I don’t even KNOW you!”

“But I know YOU!” hissed Kelpsiphon. “And I’ll get my glory back after I bring your head to the emperor! They’ll have parades in my name!!”

Kelpsiphon latched onto Rex and tried to deprive him of whatever calories, salts, sugars, and other components of his last meal. Which didn’t last very long, for some reason. As Rex swatted away Kelpsiphon, a nearby monster-villain hurried over and bashed the nutrition harvester over the head with a metal meal-tray.

“Whoa! Thanks for the save. But who are you?” asked Rex.

“I’m [STONE EVOLVED BEAST] “Iggy Neos.” Why didn’t Kelpsiphon’s nutrient theft work on you?”

Rex thought about it for a moment, before having a light-bulb moment.

“I never got to sit down for lunch… and breakfast was very light today, the last waffle in the freezer.”

Iggy Neos looked concerned. But there was no time to attend to that, much less the supplies to do so with.

“I was banished here. The chalktroopers working in the mines found me hibernating and hid me—they were all crushed for that. Kelpsiphon had his rampage halted when someone hired a party of those gig-heroes, the Pithy Randos to stop him. Please help us.”

Rex nodded. Iggy Neos offered up some bread and some kind of protein slop in a bowl for Rex to regain some of his stamina with, and they protected each other from guards and other prisoners while resting. But as long as they were here, they couldn’t idle for too long without their fears and anxieties kicking back in. Eventually Rex was able to break his chains, and with Iggy Neos’s help, even coaxed Kelpsiphon into joining them on the promise of finding minerals and geyser water once freed.

Then finally, the moment of truth: Kelpsiphon feigned an illness brought on by malnutrition, before using that moment to jump one of the guards. Rex and Iggy Neos were not far off, preventing a couple more guards from intervening. If at the cost of Iggy Neo’s shoulder getting a chunk blasted off, and some concerning cracks on his cranium. With the keys to the cells, they started releasing people. Most focused on finding an exit, but a couple of captured superheroes lingered for a moment. Casting their malicious eyes in Rex’s direction.

“There’s no doubt about it.” said one of the captured heroes—a color-coded warrior in red, one of many freelancers for the Pithy Randos app. “He’s a no-good good guy. All that crap about common folk. He just wants to build up another kind of regime. This was just a damn recruitment drive.”

Rex started to grit his teeth. But Iggy Neos intervened, taking a chunk of stone from the wall, and kicking it like a soccer or rugby ball. This was his incredible technique, “Galena Goal.” The boulder bounced off of the ground between Rex and the elite heroes with tremendous force, and precision as only years of training could muster.

“Y-You’re just lucky we’re gonna call for back-up first.” spat the other elite hero, more of a spandex-clad masked figure, following the Pithy Rando as they retreated. “We’d haul your ass to Kodiakop and Shootsuit personally.”

Once the elite heroes left, Iggy Neos lead the way. Insistent on small talk, as well.

“What are you going to do when you get out of here?”

Rex actually perked up at the question, finding himself turning to follow Iggy Neos out of there.

“I… I don’t know? Just go back to the usual.”

“What does the usual look like for you? In your home, I mean.”

Rex seemed to blank out for a moment. After the fighting earlier, and being stuck here being given one threat after another, his life seemed so miniscule. Pathetic, compared to everything else going on. And yet, when Iggy Neos asked, he felt he had to try and find it within himself to answer to his satisfaction.

“A meager apartment. I have the most incorrigible megafauna for a pet. And many neighbors, just trying to get by. I can always count on the shops nearby to have fresh hot food and they don’t charge too much. Movie theaters and arcades. A red plastic cup and strange parties I end up at—not sure how. Conversations with people I don’t really know, but walk away from waving goodbye and smiling. It’s not much.”

“It sounds wonderful just the way it is, Rex. What about you, Kelpsiphon?”

Kelpsiphon was peering around a corner, before facing the others again. He hissed at the thought of such small talk. But relented after something came to mind.

“I’m going to rob one of those shiny, pristine stores all the health nuts go to. The big jars of protein beverage powders. I want my own place upstate with a whole shelf of shakers full of sea salts. And… don’t you dare laugh at me. My own garden. Not an entire farm, but if I could have a patch of all my favorite vegetables to myself. I think I could keep it together.”

Iggy Neos nodded.

“I think I can help. With the salts at least.”

“… Thanks. You can have a cut of my take.” said Kelpsiphon. Then he looked over to Rex. “Once I’m all fed, I guess I could spare leftovers. Even to a chump like you.”

It was meant to be somewhat insulting. But Kelpsiphon meant it: anything he didn’t eat or re-use in some fashion, he would pass along. He wouldn’t stop being obtuse altogether, but it was a warmth that reinvigorated Iggy Neos and Rex, as they traversed the labyrinthine structure of this Mantle Army base, desperate for an exit.

But as they finally found what appeared to be the way out, they found themselves within a large antechamber with a domed ceiling, decorated with glass panels. The morning sun was in the sky. And a looming figure approached the trio, like a lesser giant.

“Kuuueeeh keh-keh-keh…”

“It’s Emperor Fumerole!” gasped Kelpsiphon. The great ruler of the ‘Exponential Underground Empire’, which commissioned the Mantle Army and its various branches. At his craggy feet laid the bodies of prisoners who had come so close to escaping, only to be cut down. His molten body draped in a cloak with pointed shoulder pads, and his head adorned with a helmet that had a series of vents on the front, thick smoke billowing out, as an orange-yellow light was emitted from behind the shutters. Errol was not far off, still clad in his own suit, but now equipped with a prestigious cloak of his own: He was after all, head of the imperial honor guard.

Rex was coughing, trying to stand firm in the face of this evil foe. Iggy Neos had an easier time since he too was of the underground world, and he stood beside his fellow inmates with newfound dignity and poise.

“It wasn’t enough you tried to hibernate all through our expanding rule over the planet.” growled Emperor Fumerole. “You had to try and break out of prison before you came back to your senses!”

“I regained my sense only today.” said Iggy Neos. “You have the dust of countless troopers on your hand. Your most dedicated monstrofficers and supervillains lay dead in this chamber, alongside your enemies.”

“And for that, I still reap the victory!” cackled Fumerole.

“Unforgivable…!” grunted Rex. Errol was not far off with laughter.

“Listen to that, sire. You’ve been terribly unfair.”

Rex scowled. He glanced over at Iggy Neos, who looked to be preparing his Galena Goal attack again, while Fumerole raised a hand to project his own lava powers forth at range. Kelpsiphon nodded towards Errol, intending to attack him alongside Rex.

“Pathetic!”

Errol raised a hand, preparing to bring it down diagonally to slice Kelpsiphon in half. But not before Rex pulled him into a full nelson wrestling hold, kneeing him in the side a couple of times until an opening could be created for the bionic aquatic to start sapping him of his essential nutrients. That allowed Iggy Neos to keep Emperor Fumerole at bay, ideally until Rex and Kelpsiphon could rejoin him. Iggy Neos matched the emperor strike-for-strike, using the boulders of his Galena Goal kicks to tear into the subterranean tyrant’s openings.

“BWFEUUAAH!” gasped Fumerole, his bellow echoing through uncarved tunnels and halls of discipline and dominance. “As to be expected. You had the seat of a general, and yet you threw it all away—to run off with these good-for-nothing layabouts?!”

Iggy Neos hissed. Rex and Kelpsiphon looked up from their own battle against Errol—who was smirking all the while. The stone-evolved beast seemed ashamed that his fellow prisoners had learned this.

“Yes… it’s true. In a time when I thought every battle would be honorable. That losses weren’t just counted, they were felt. But after the sands of time passed, you denounced them as failures! Used their good name to scare everyone else into line.”

The boulders were launched, two at a time now. Emperor Fumerole smashed them apart eventually with swings of his arms, but not before Iggy Neos pulled forth three more: He was trying to deal out a killing blow at last!

“They’ll drop down from the heavens to receive you in hell, Fumerole!! Even if I have to drag you there myself!”

Emperor Fumerole put his hands out and fired jets of flame. The first two boulders were halted, but the third one was going to smash right into him, as Iggy Neos hovered there in mid-air, winding up for the biggest kick of all. If his stone-beast physiology had some equivalent of muscle and tendon, he was on the verge of tearing them just to expend as much of his inner strength as he could.

*THWOOOSH!!*

But it was quickly brought to an end. The more renowned superheroes from earlier had arrived! The spandex-clad one was using strength enough to change the course of a mighty river so as to throw off Iggy Neos’s kicking stance, while the Pithy Rando blasted the boulder apart with a large shoulder-mounted cannon. It shattered just inches from Emperor Fumerole’s helmet-clad face, as his panic turned to giddy, gruesome delight.

“BWUUU-KAH-KAH-KAH!!”

There was a loud and terrible ‘CRACK!!’ as Iggy Neos landed on the ground. Kelpsiphon pulled away from Errol, running to sweep up Iggy Neos into his arms and run away. Although he had lost some energy, Errol was not lacking for sustenance or comfort, unlike Rex who was overworked, hungry, and his body battered to June.

“NO!!”

Rex had to keep his hands up. He couldn’t go to check on Iggy Neos either, as Errol and the two so-called superheroes ganged up on him.

“It’s so funny, isn’t it?” said Errol. “Mantle isn’t from space, or some magical realm, you know. It’s absolutely homegrown, right here on good old Earth. Just like how I’m 100% human nobility!”

Rex was absolutely shocked. Emperor Fumerole unveiled jumbotron video screens all around the chamber, the unerring Errol kicking Rex’s face repeatedly until he looked at least once in every direction. Each carrying images of arson, warfare, greed, and other examples of mankind’s cruelty towards itself and others.

Including glimpses of a younger Rex, in a metallic teal form, with three bulbous eyes. He used this alternate Nypardian form to conceal his secret identity. At least, when that was still his secret, before those he thought of once as peers took that from him.

“I’ve had a hand in a few of these… but not all. Just look at those bastards that left you for dead, Rex: Human kindness is a FARCE! No matter what they say or do, you have to put them in line with power, earn their admiration by entertaining them. Errol is living proof. I’m sure the Enforcer and the Pithy Rando you encountered on the way here can testify to that!”

Rex looked frantically to the spandex-clad superhero. Although they were almost certainly elitist, the Earthborn alien attempted to appeal to something in him.

“Don’t look at me, space invader.” said the Enforcer. “We’ve got it all worked out with guys like Emperor Fumerole. There’s order! Yet you want more without going up the ladder. Of all the selfish, inconsiderate slackers I’ve ever seen…”

And then, Rex looked to the Pithy Rando.

“You can’t seriously be buying this. You’re freelance!”

“Uh, nah? I’m gonna win it big after I bring *you* in!” said the Pithy Rando. “This gig’s turned out even better than I thought. All it took was a little initiative, hustle from sun-up to sunset! Not that you’d get it, quitter.”

That just about did it. Rex tried to force the spandex-clad Enforcer off of his arm, while the Pithy Rando summoned a drill-sword, driving it into Rex’s solar plexus in a shower of sparks and a yowl of pain from the cosmic contender. Errol swerved around to put him into a stranglehold as payback for the full-nelson earlier.

“YOU’RE ALL FULL OF IT!! PEOPLE ARE BETTER THAN THIS!—THEY HAVE TO BE!!”

The spandex-clad superhero noticed something: there was a large arc of static at the same time Rex winced. And there was a seafoam green glow in his eyes starting to obscure the pupils, as their light showed off the widening eyes and sweaty brow of that lone Pithy Rando, through the helmet’s nearly tinted visor. Twin laser-jets beamed out of Rex’s eyes as he started shouting swears and screeching like a wounded animal. Energy crackled through his forearms as well, as two more beams erupted from his palms, the elitist superhero in spandex singed away and the Pithy Rando trying to use the drill-sword to push against the quadruple beams. Errol held on, trying to constrict Rex from breathing properly.

“I’m—I’m wired into the grid, just like everybody else good enough to run gigs!” said the Pithy Rando. “It won’t let you kill me! Not when it’s reinforced by a hundred teams’ worth of vault archived might!”

“A stolen power WON’T protect you!”

The service and its app had greater numbers waiting on the surface. Not all were so greedy, but regardless they all shared the fact that their power source was on a loan, and distribution regulated fiercely. The Pithy Rando gear halfway disappeared after taking too much damage, including the helmet and weaponry, leaving the color-coded combatant to fall to their knees. The spandex-clad superhero was trying to dial for back-up before rejoining the fight, still shaken by the cosmic energies of Rex’s blasts.

“That’s enough!” exclaimed Emperor Fumerole. “Errol, show him the heights of your natural nobility!”

Errol released Rex so he could rush him with a knife-hand strike, intending to try and overcome the alien’s near-invulnerability to try and rip out whatever passed for a heart. Instead, Rex weaved past and yanked on his wrist and shoulder, tossing him aside. When Errol finally wheeled back around to attack again, he was stricken in such a way that Emperor Fumerole was shocked.

“It can’t be…!”

But it was. Although Rex’s effort was not as refined, he had still carved out a boulder for himself, and performed a shaky kick akin to that of soccer or rugby with a force just shy of the move’s inventor: Iggy Neos! The projectile knocked Errol down, as Rex did an elbow drop onto the Mantle honor guardsman, followed up with a backflip-kick that launched the boulder faster than Emperor Fumerole could realize it was headed his way.

“Impossible. That a whelp could even conjure a fraction of General Neos’s advanced technique?!...” thought Emperor Fumerole, as he stumbled backwards, trying not to fall onto his back and show weakness. Errol was still getting back up, when Rex dashed forward to hover face-to-face with Emperor Fumerole.

“How?!” thundered Emperor Fumerole, swinging madly. “General Neos was in a league of his own when it came to power and skill! No one could match him!”

“You never let ‘em. And I couldn’t start slugging you without paying Iggy Neos my respects at least once, and freaking you the hell out in the process!”

And with that, Rex hovered backwards a bit, before accelerating in that small gap between them, and sending Emperor Fumerole crashing through the walls and back to the surface world, where they were airborne for a time, landing in the heart of Delta Bay: Rhymes Square.

*WHAM!* *WHAM!* *WHAM!!*

Rex was tearing into Emperor Fumerole. But as they came to a skidding halt, it was only after a few more hits that Rex noticed Emperor Fumerole stopped fighting back. In fact, he’d allowed one of Rex’s swings to damage him a bit, and then made the wound even worse with swipes of his hands across the spot in an ‘X’ formation, lava gushing out. Superficially so, but onlookers would still get the right pitiful impression.

“Why are you so vicious?...”

Rex tensed up. They were both surrounded by people. Turning their heads, starting to film with their cameras. Rex had no qualms about attacking the ruler of the exponential underground empire, supreme master of the Mantle Army. And yet, there was something painfully familiar about being in this position. It made the celestial terrestrial bite his lip.

“What’s he doing to that old guy?”

“I don’t know—doesn’t seem fair at all though!”

When Emperor Fumerole coughed, people stepped a little closer towards the proceedings. He even took it a step further and started blubbering. Now his smoky vents gave way to streaming tears with a thick volcanic ichor.

“I surrender.” rasped Fumerole “Please, no more of this savagery. I could never fight like that.”

Then came the murmuring. So many voices at once, in every direction, Rex heard them all around. Trying not to pay attention, but he was frozen there with one clenched fist, wound up for a haymaker that never came. A random person would spit in Rex’s direction, and someone else finally spoke up:

“Makes you feel reeeaaal big, don’t it? Jerk.”

Rex tried to speak. A larger part of himself knew that these people wouldn’t listen—they wouldn’t care. And yet, there was still some part of his spirit, the very same that let him fight on. A part that wanted to thrash and refuse this scene.

“He commands the Mantle Army. He’s… he’s a tyrant.”

A large soda collided with Rex’s head. Ice cubes flew every which way. A few people started shouting at him. Curses and put-downs about being an honorless, joyless, walking waste. Someone even stepped it up and swatted at him with an umbrella—Rex weakly raising his forearm to defend himself. They took that as a cue to call the cops. Nearby squad cars pulled up, offering visual confirmation for a couple of mecha to enter the scene, flashing red and blue lights over snow-white hulls adorned by black markings for the unit number and factory code.

“It’s going to be okay now, everyone!” exclaimed the spandex-clad Enforcer from earlier, who finally arrived on the scene, waving his phone. “The situation has become so dire, even the Mantle honor guardsman Errol and I are working together! With those police robos, we’re gonna show this intergalactic knucklehead a true taste of humanity! Who’s with me?!”

The crowd started to cheer. The only thing Rex could liken it to was having a knife jammed into his side, phased in and digging into him at the molecular level.

He had to leave now.

But on his way out, as he spun on his heels, he waved one hand—throwing a burst of small lights into the air the same way that fighter jets released a chaff to throw off enemy radar. The police robos’ targeting gear was thrown off, and Rex kicked backwards into a run. He saw the smirking face of the Enforcer, and swung his arm forward in a lariat to knock him down, Rex crouching slightly next to him.

For a moment, Rex crouched down and held him by some of the bodysuit’s cloth, over the collar. But rather than following it up with another attack, he realized he had to escape now and recover from the damage he’d suffered just moments ago. The ache of those injuries was starting to kick in, catching up with the brazen, bitter fighter. And instead, Rex used his crouched position to spring up over the city skyline in a great leap. Soaring away from there in flight before he could be hunted again, while he was on the verge of physical and mental burnout.

Errol arrived not long after. But instead of giving chase, he accompanied his emperor, pretending to console the lesser giant. Taking the time to reassure everyone in the square that it was going to be alright, even going as far as to help the downed Enforcer back up to his feet to shake hands. If with a subtly crushing grip.

“H-Hey, what was that for?!” whispered the Enforcer.

“Get out of my sight. Tell Kodiakop, Shootsuit, and all the rest to rein in Prizefighter Shine, or whatever you’re calling that space trash now.”

The Enforcer affiliate gulped, before promising the crowd he would make this a top priority with the rest of his supergroup, with all its celebrities and premiere government agents.

Kelpsiphon could feel the boost from Errol wearing off. He felt sick to his stomach—not just for that, nor simply for the damage he’d taken. But because he’d opted to run away. His first instinct hadn’t been strictly to save Iggy Neos, but simply to escape the oncoming tide of death. It was not a selfish thing to want to live. But in this world of superpowered aristocracy, it was, and would continue to be reviled.

“Kelpsiphon…”

Kelpsiphon found a spot under a tree, setting Iggy Neos up to sit against it. They had to rest for as long as they could. The next stretch was going to be searching for food and shelter.

“Where are we, Kelpsiphon?”

“I don’t know, Iggy Neos. But I’ll keep going. I’ll carry the both of us forward. Until we find the things we dreamed of.”

Iggy Neos tried to get up. But Kelpsiphon forced him to sit down.

“No… just take what’s left of my minerals. Gather vitamins from the fruit growing in this land. Go on.”

Kelpsiphon shook his head.

“You keep yourself together, damn you! I’ll find something. I swear.”

The bionic aquatic searched, bringing back berries and nuts, and sharing them with Iggy Neos, despite any protests. He even went as far as to gather wood for a fire.

“Someone might spot us.”

“I’ll put it out in a few more minutes. After we feel nice and toasty! That’s how we know we’re still alive, general.”

Iggy Neos scoffed at being called a general again. He was just a sack of withered old rocks, now more than ever.

“I know we’re alive… by another mark.” said Iggy Neos.

“Ehh?? Whaddya mean by that?”

Iggy Neos looked to the stars in the night sky.

“They tried to starve you, rob you of your dignity the same way they maligned their own surface world protector. And yet you saved me, he stayed and fought. Your wills press forward into the future.”

Kelpsiphon didn’t know what to say to that. In the end, he looked up to the stars as well. And they hoped that wherever he was, Rex could know some brief respite. So that he would be rejuvenated enough to fight on once again. To find and warm the hearts of yet more kindred spirits. Even as the world wore them all down. They had to believe in that, do what they could to make something kinder come about.

Don’t give in, Rex!!

SO LONG FOR NOW.

#Web Fiction #Dynaura #Dynaura EP5

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antics-pedantic · 11 months

Text

MUTANT MEDIA CLUB: THE FORCES OF DORKNESS

Glothlorp Smellulater considered himself a formidable hunter among eldritch entities. Although he lived upon the higher plane of upper-and-over-space, he would use his means to influence the world below, As his myriad slimy feelers reached out from the expanse of his being and took to a wide keyboard, to do battle upon the forum website heralding the topic:

“WAS IT JUST ME OR DID THE PLOT TWIST IN RAGE ASTRONAUTS: THE FINAL INSUBORDINATION NOT MAKE ANY $%^IN’ SENSE?”

The original poster’s description brought about an inflammation in Glothlorp’s very astral-essence. He pored over what he considered to be mindless, airheaded complaints. This was a mere mortal posting such trash! It was time, Glothlorp thought to himself. Time to show these hopeless fools what they were messing with.

“CLEARLY you don’t have an understanding of how Oxygen Throomthrams work. If you bothered to keep up with the last Rage Astronauts novel and paid VERY close attention to play mechanics in the latest update, you would be aware that these devices can issue over 61,000,000,000,000 thrams per calculoit, which allowed the entire twist to happen.”

To which, someone called SlayerPizza12579 responded:

“That’s not the part they were complaining about though? They were confused how the throomthram even emitted the mega-poisons if Luthram Highpants captured the saboteur and was directly informed as to the sabotage of the throomthram.”

Glothlorp sneered and formulated his textual counterattack.

“You’re underestimating the fact that the Boil Brigade has been planning this for a long time. They’ve clearly set things up so no one could stop their sabotage.”

And then a separate replier chimed in, someone dubbed criticalmasscritic.

“But they spent like ten pages in that novel you mentioned just going over the intricacies of the throomthram and how it was affected by the sabotage. How could Luthram have not prevented that considering the last three pages are him vetting a repair crew just to deal with that specific issue and having been stated to compose informational packets for the repair crew to study at length? The author went to great pains to portray Luthram’s competency as a character. Thus, game’s plot follows from that exact novel and suffers for it.”

Glothlorp couldn’t believe what he was perceptifying. He had no answer! Totally not because he couldn’t come up with a clearly communicated response. No: He reasoned that it was because he was clearly talking to neanderthal mortals. To retaliate, he spread the offending thread’s URL unto his various chat clients, and wretched servers. The first, most trusted among Glothlorp’s ranks included the dreaded Yog-Hurthar—better known by his nickname, Yoggy Hertz, and the agreeable underling, Uter Parthenozone, who everyone just called P’Zone for short.

The attack began with a tactic most incomprehensible by Yoggy Hertz, as he searched far and wide for something to justify Glothlorp’s argument, which amounted to a single sentence of vague, citation-free power that saw widespread acceptance anyway:

“It’s totally the Wrathaffliction spell dude it made one of the repair crew go renegade.”

And then the rest of the flock descended upon criticalmasscritic with negative points, until his comment was hidden away. This was conducted not only by the eldritch and the chthonic, but also by ardent followers of the mortal coil, who simply put all of their faith into followings like Glothlorp’s. For good measure, Glothlorp also went to the trouble of having some of his people purposefully post inaccuracies to muddle the opposition’s argument. By the time this other user had come up with evidence and a concise argument, they were blown away already.

Glothlorp stood triumphant over all that he surveyed. Now it was time to reap the spoils with Yoggy Hertz and P’Zone.

“Just act unnatural.”

The three eldritch entities traversed the eternity plaza of their local omni mall. Trying not to make sensory contact with other entities and apparitions. Most of their days were uneventful, and they faced little retribution for their actions. At least, until now:

“Hey, look!” exclaimed a blindingly glowing humanoid, an Energy Being. “It’s the CALAMARI CREW.”

“Shut up! You look like a puny human!” spat Glothlorp.

“Yeah? At least I’m not made of meat. And not even impressive meat!” said Energy Being.

“Y-You guys should watch it.” said Yoggy Hertz. “We’re descended from CTHULHU™!”

“CTHULHU IS IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN, IDIOT. AND YOU’D MAKE MORE SENSE AS A DESCENDANT OF YOG-SOTHOTH” said a sapient levitating cone, before colliding its flat underside with the flat face of a cube, and the broad side of an orb possessing similar powers. “WHAT, SHOULD WE BOAST WE’RE DESCENDED FROM THE SQUARE, CIRCLE, AND TRIANGLE? LIKE ALL THE OTHER COUNTLESS ABSTRACT OBJECTS OUT THERE? LOSER.”

“Yeah, why don’t you clowns try ASCENDING sometime?” said a psychic mutant, whose head had swollen to the size of a watermelon, seated in a high-tech hover-chair. “Oh WAIT. This is as far as you can go. Making other people feel like shit.”

“We’re SO far beyond you and your petty talk.” said P’Zone, trembling and feeling sick. “When Azathoth awakes and everything ever in the whole wide breadth of existence gets undone, you’ll be… you’ll be REALLY sorry—”

That just made the other entities in the eternity plaza laugh even harder.

“As-a-THOT.”

“HIS NAME’S NOT AS-A-THOT!!! GOD!!!!”

“Aren’t you losers supposed to be gods yourselves?” said a supercomputer that discovered the equation for nigh-omnipotence. “Evoke YOURSELVES sometime. Maybe get some followers.”

“We dole out the innumerable! Get on home on the BUS.” said Yoggy Hertz in a pitiful attempt at a rhyme comeback. “N-No-Soul like you, You’re j-just a calculator to us!”

“Bro can’t even count, he just slapped a bunch of infinite shit on and doesn’t even know what it means!”

The supercomputer started spouting off equations common to chemistry and physics, summoning a totally ordinary seafaring boat from the 1920s that proceeded to bash into Glothlorp’s head, making his cranium explode. But all the entities just watched because they knew Glothlorp would go through a long and arduous regenerative process.

“That the best you GOT? You uncultured swine?!”

“Actually.”

And then the supercomputer belted out some more equations to attack the rest of Glothlorp’s very essence over in places like the astral realm. Everyone could totally see this happening too, with their greater cosmic perception and they laughed as the translucent astralself of the eldritch entity was floating further away from his physical form.

“Maybe if you actually bothered with deeper self-contemplation and elemental composition you wouldn’t be so easy to turn into PASTE. Even easier than humies, and we can do it over and over again too!”

Yoggy Hertz was panicking. P’Zone looked ahead. And he grabbed both of his only friends, and teleported away with a *BELCH!*

They arrived in the physical plane, where mortals roamed. Once Glothlorp repaired the damage done to his visage, he started shoving P’Zone away.

“What was that for?!”

“I could have taken them! If you just gave me a minute to charge up.” Spat Glothlorp.

“Charge up WHAT?”

“You know what: The harmonic sporks of the fallen city of E’Pyc, where I slumber esoterically--”

“That doesn’t exist anymore. It was destroyed a millennia ago after you used your mailing address to send a jar of shoggoths to someone’s house. While they were livestreaming.”

“It’s just underwater, like… like Atlantis! I could totally mail more normies some shoggoths from there!”

But while the two argued, Yoggy Hertz was exploring the city streets. They were no larger than the mortals—these humans, these mutants, robots, and occasional aliens. They were all concerned with the electronic screens on their buildings, the small and large techno-slabs in their hands that also offered imagery. Even paper flyers and magazines still held some sway for those who needed a more physical, tactile means of advertisement. It made Yoggy Hertz feel somewhat better about being made out of low-quality horror-meats. And it probably would have reassured Glothlorp and P’Zone as well.

“Hey—guys, look! Look at all this stuff the masses are ogling!”

Glothlorp turned to look at Yoggy Hertz, and to where 30 of his thousands of pointing limbs gestured. It was true: mortal lifeforms were consuming all sorts of flashy nonsense in massive quantities. Videos of people selling questionable homemade condiments while dodging the Food and Drug Administration. Entire electronic gathering domains that more efficiently encouraged verbal violence—than even the arguably manageable forum space, through the means to demonstrate reverence and programming that offered unrelated, or even downright insulting materials to the people most likely to be disturbed. But most importantly, the Eldritch bunch were enamored of the almighty icons, who committed to longform self-aggrandization, willful ignorance towards fellow inhabitants of the world, dubious business ventures that used loopholes to elude any sort of regulation, official or otherwise.

“We gotta figure out how to amass followers like that!” exclaimed Yoggy Hertz. “We must become the new wave of STREAMERS!”

“Yes!” Glothlorp howled and gurgled. “We’ll show those other abstract entities who’s REALLY in command! Our power will achieve new orders of magnitude!”

P’Zone tried to say something, but was promptly hissed at by the others. They had to get started immediately. Build their power base through a means they were capable of executing.

Pointman was a robot of highly advanced design, befitting given the fact he was a high-ranking executive enforcer for Triumph Pictures, a studio operating out of New York City. His design was fearfully recognized by many, for the fact he looked like a giant, upside-down mouse pointer with a single cyclopean eye, and an exterior frame cosmetically arranged to appear as though he were wearing a suit and tie. Two disembodied, hovering metal hands continued working at his desk while he hovered beside the large windows overlooking the concrete jungle below. He had the unfortunate task of recruiting “hot,” “new” talent. An order direct from the desk of the CEO himself, known to everyone as “Big Noise.”

And he had to hurry. Although it was only a rumor, many supposed that Big Noise was a lesser giant, believed not only to be possessed of wealth and vast networking prospects in the business world, but also some believed he straight up just ate people for calories sometimes. Now, Pointman was not afraid he’d be eaten (he’d more likely be crushed into a cube at a junkyard or something). But he could not allow his master’s rage to destroy the company. He gathered his floating hands, and hovered out of his office, past his shivering-scared secretary who nearly jumped out of her skin as the nail file she was using flew out of her hands and was crushed in one of Pointman’s floating hands.

“Lilian.”

There was a nod in the secretary’s direction before Pointman took to the elevator, so he could go purchase a bottle of premium motor oil. After making his purchase, he placed a funnel on his shoulder, and started pouring the contents of the bottle in as though it were coffee, or perhaps a hard liquor. The part he hated about the talent these days was how quickly he went through them—not for any sympathetic reasons mind you, but disposability meant finding the next big thing, and finding the next big thing meant a long and arduous search. He was already sending out his talent scouts to scour cyberspace, and patrol the city (perhaps the world) for potential hires, getting into shootouts and courtroom arguments with other studios and companies.

Just then, there was a break-in at a local electronics shop. The owner was being menaced by flying polyps, while the three perpetrators were making a hasty escape. Swatting aside the aerial abominations, the electronics shop owner shook a fist at the boys.

“$#%^ YOU YA WOULD-BE #$%^ING PODCASTERS! STREAMER-SHILLS!”

That intrigued Pointman. He had heard of these things, like a neo-movement based upon the ancient radio plays, shock jockeys of the AM/FM and “Greatest Hits” stations that recycled the record label’s acquisitions. He would have to listen in on the eldritch trio’s show, but he had good odds riding on this one, given that he overheard one of Yoggy Hertz’s tortured rhymes and Glothlorp complaining about something inane, like pre-order bonuses.

“Alright, what’s up everybody. Welcome to the very FIRST episode of Innumerable Hoarders.”

The eldritch trio managed to find someone to loan them their living room, as indicated by the fact an apartment tenant was currently arguing with their roommates about the three loser entities. P’Zone was quick to adjust their stolen equipment, the microphones and cameras. Astonishingly, while they had also stolen a great sum of money, they specifically did so they could purchase all of their pop culture paraphernalia through entirely legal means.

“Brought to you by Bromey studios, the LATEST wave of Synco Pats, and Tundra Diversions games. Not that they’ve agreed to sponsor us, we’re just die-hard fans.” said Yoggy Hertz, opening up a box of several figures.

“Starting off with the Synco Pats, here.” said Glothlorp focusing on opening all the packaging that contained the small plastic vessels, which were for the most part, molded into the same stock stance and expressionless appearance with soulless dot-eyes and the barest hint of whatever person or character they were supposed to be—which also meant they didn’t have to provide compensation if they imitated any persons real or from a pre-existing franchise. He took a painstakingly long time, only to close the boxes at the last minute.

“Hey uh. Which ones did you get?”

Glothlorp just stared at Yoggy Hertz for a while, before saying:

“Buy your own, these are mine. You and the audience may bear witness to them, but if I find out you took my rare Rigorous Morbidity, variant Offenders, or Pondville figures? I will KILL YOUR FAMILIES!”

P’Zone offered over a video game controller to Yoggy Hertz. It was probably for the best they got started on their next segment, the lucrative multiplayer shooter, Bloatstrife, where Yoggy Hertz entered heated battle with a lobby full of children and barely held his own.

“Oh that is beyond rich, Hertz!” spat Glothlorp, suddenly the backseat gamer. “You let them build their dinky little towers around you instead of actually shooting back.”

“But I did shoot back!” said Yoggy Hertz, truthfully.

“Shoot better! Start grabbing resources before anyone else does! Psychological warfare—trash talk them on voice chat!”

Yoggy Hertz tried a couple more matches, and he seemed to do better this time with Glothlorp warning him against danger. But not by much, since he was still being yelled at rather ferociously. P’Zone was up next, and he was trying to work in a segment on the latest animation this season.

“I’ve been looking forward to this film, and its integration of music into the—”

“It’s ugly as shit.”

There was silence among the eldritch trio. P’Zone looked to Glothlorp with visible hurt, and Yoggy Hertz just looked between them. Glothlorp slumped into his seat, and crossed his arms.

“It’s a simple art style, I admit, but it makes it easier for them to go all out later. Like this sequence where they play their instruments! It’s not only synchronized really well, but the exaggerated motions really lend themselves to the e-motions of the whole—”

Glothlorp got up and shoved P’Zone so he could play the new Rigorous Morbidity season premiere trailer on stream. P’Zone struggled to get back into his seat—if only to mute a copyrighted song before it reached a certain duration, by which the record label that owned the song could charge them exuberant fees. After that, it was mostly a slew of Glothlorp’s favorite clips from whatever he was watching at the time. The astonishing thing that even P’Zone and Yoggy Hertz could attest to was that Glothlorp’s tastes weren’t entirely as mindless, or gratuitous as they could have been. But at the same time, he had no concern for any definable quality of the work. He’d simply lucked out and stuck with it, his enjoyment and disdain painted with the same broad strokes.

“Alright, that’s enough Innumerable Hoarders.” said Glothlorp, continuing to browse the internet on P’Zone’s computer. “Everybody log off, stop watching the #$%^ing stream.”

“But we have some more stuff we could—” said P’Zone, before being ignored altogether by Glothlorp. He looked at Yoggy Hertz, who raced to offer Glothlorp a soda before anything else. Before they could speak again, there was a sharp *CRACK!* noise from the kitchen. The person who had allowed them into the apartment had been hit upside the head by his roommates, who dragged the body to throw out a window.

“Hey, you guys are following us, right?” said Glothlorp, who had just snorted at the violent display. P’Zone and Yoggy Hertz on the other hand were panicking. Not only was that their first follower since they got here, but the roommates just pulled out their phones and laptops, proceeding to block the eldritch trio on multiple accounts. The three abominations were promptly booted outside, onto the front doorstep, where they were met by Energy Being again.

“What’s he doing here?!” cried P’Zone.

“Dude. The folks who live here? Just as they were about to watch your stream, they saw me on their ‘recommended’ list! Needless to say, they watched my stuff first and decided you three were full of shit.”

Energy Being started levitating towards them, as an ethereal knuckle-cracking echoed across the universe.

“Say your prayers, fellas!”

Glothlorp and Yoggy Hertz grabbed onto P’Zone, and shook him until he teleported away from there. The next place they ended up was some kind of high-tech, underground facility. Mostly, it seemed to be filled with large tubes, which in turn were filled with organic material in various shapes. The most disconcerting of which, were the humanoid ones. And the most developed specimens resembled whatever heartthrob actors were currently dominating serialized television programming and the silver screen of the theaters. This was where the robotic executive enforcer Pointman had gone, having found no new talent. He was just going to nab an unused ‘Jeremy Spittle,’ or a ‘Plotiss Timpen,’ they were popular last year and Pointman figured he could wring out a little something out of them if he put them on a podcast to complain about things, or make them play a tabletop rpg with pens and paper.

“Halt, intruders.”

The Eldritch Trio were faced promptly by Pointman, who was already strangling one of Yoggy Hertz’s throats with a hover-hand. P’Zone tried to run, but Pointman’s other hover-hand had socked him in the gut with a rocket-powered body blow. Glothlorp, mistaking his being ignored for combat superiority, waltzed up to Pointman, and strangled him. Mostly rambling various overconfident one-liners, until Pointman jabbed Glothlorp with his pointy end. And once more, his alluring mechanized salesman-y voice spoke:

“I would ask who you are and what you’re doing here, but it’s more likely you’re here to take photos to ogle later. They all are.”

“N-No! Actually, we… uh…” Glothlorp had several hundred of his lungs absolutely impaled by Pointman by now, and more were going to be eviscerated. So he thought fast, and pulled up the group’s stream from online.

“It’s just an empty living room.” said Pointman. The trio had left their equipment running. Glothlorp had to scrub back through for the beginning of the stream, and its contents were relayed to Pointman, right down to Energy Being and the roommates booting the Eldritch trio and followers out of the apartment. Most importantly however, Pointman could see that viewer engagement skyrocketed after Glothlorp started menacing his own supposed friends. The stream chat and associated social media posts were wild about it: Every loudmouthed know-it-all under the sun felt “seen” when Glothlorp offered his unfiltered viciousness towards all the things he didn’t like. It was something anyone else could easily do, but did not for fear of being asked very patiently not to by the very parties they sought to terrorize and offend. But most importantly, viewer engagement was high, and that meant money.

“Actually, I take that back.” said Pointman, releasing the injured Glothlorp, Yoggy Hertz, and P’Zone. “How would you three like to work with a major studio? Triumph Pictures is one of the best in the biz.”

The trio looked at each other incredulously, before cheering together one last time. Within the hour they were each diverted to different areas to handle different segments of Innumerable Hoarders. P’Zone watched as Glothlorp was taken to a soundproofed stage, decked out with all the latest merchandise and other knick-knacks to establish his ‘geek cred.’

“Later, losers.”

Glothlorp entered and slammed the door behind him, hooting and hollering once he was inside, only settling down once a producer came along to start setting up. Next, Yoggy Hertz was taken to a similar setup, but with an array of consoles and at the center of it all, a cutting-edge computer system, as he prepared to play Bloatstrife with higher-than-high-definition graphics. It was just what they needed to reach their scattered followers, their old forum thread comrades.

“Awesome! But what can I do?” said P’Zone.

“The most important job of all.”

Pointman signaled to his staff, and they pulled out their phones.

“Get lost.”

P’Zone backed up and checked his own phone. Triumph Pictures’ official social media accounts were starting to block him en masse, and an algorithm on various job search websites were lowering his name on the priority listings for application reviews.

“But why?!”

Pointman shrugged his shoulders.

“We have a lot of staff as it is… you’d just be redundant. In fact--”

Pointman snapped his fingers. Half the people in the room were also fired right then and there alongside P’Zone, as a final wave of getting blocked online washed over, and warped him out of the building. He slammed on the doors, hollering in an attempt to try and get his friends to notice him, as the crowd of other laid off employees exited like a stampede, carrying P’Zone away. And as he did, Yoggy Hertz was forced to watch from the window into his recording room. Glothlorp watched as well, but needed no ushering: He was convinced this was a sign of P’Zone’s weakness.

And P’Zone screamed, reaching out for the others for the last time.

“NOOOOO!!!”

“Wh-what’s up, Yogurt-guzzlers?” Yoggy Hertz was trembling as he took to his seat. He had never felt more power than he did now, with thousands of viewers eyeing his twitch stream and offering innumerable donations despite his corporate sponsors.

“Today I’m gonna no-scope the shit out of my rivals on uh. On Seperagate, and conjure some… some Fungus armies from ordinary folk and—”

But before Yoggy Hertz could say anything else, the subscriber chat on the side of his screen exploded with meme iconography, anger dressed in copypasta text, and other expressions of dissatisfaction. Donations were racing in, all demanding that he should begin doing some excruciating stream staple. Which in this case, included wearing a blood pressure monitor around several of his tendrils he used for movement controls, making the process markedly difficult. This was then followed by Yoggy being forced to throw his new favorite gaming chair out the window—glass smashed and all as some of the shards caught on him (the crowd needed that to happen, otherwise the entire thing didn’t count).

“No way dude you gotta BUNT.” typed RalchTheOverCabbie

“What. What’s bunting?” asked Yoggy Hertz weakly.

“MAXIMIZE YOUR MOLLGEY. GET IN THERE UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL. ACCRUE SWEAT!” typed Vicarioso345

But just as Yoggy was about to tell Vicarioso345 to shut their mouth and stop saying cryptic lingo, a dozen other responses flooded the chat again, some of whom had donated enough for Yoggy to read their messages aloud.

“I don’t know if I should be doing this.” said Yoggy, looking over at a two-way mirror. Pointman and the production crew overseeing things were there, and the executive robot shook his head ‘no,’ along with a neck-slicing motion. There was no getting out of it. Yoggy gulped, and prepared to read aloud the messages prepared for him.

“Support… stealing desks?”

Just then, another contributor linked to a video of themselves and their friends surfing in the middle of the highway, using stolen office desks being rolled on carts. It felt kind of cool at first, until those involved in the video started opening drawers and covering octopi with debilitating lead paint. That drained his eldritch power considerably since eldritch types were close with that part of the animal kingdom, and a mass movement like this was harming them in droves. It was constantly rising and falling before he could actually do anything with it.

“Read another!” chimed xXCephalopodSlammerXx.

Yoggy reached over to scroll through and find another contributor’s message. Even as he searched, more were entering his inbox and going unread. The subscribers on chat were all booing over the fact that Yoggy Hertz wasn’t picking their message. It got so heated that some infighting had begun, and people were in the middle of a violent free-for-all. Which then became a factional conflict as opportunists began hammering out concrete demands for Yoggy Hertz and how the fandom at large was to operate. Before eventually falling apart as a free-for-all again because the infighting experienced infighting. Not even the inter-membership of the factions could sustain a semblance of civility.

But they all still did one thing, and that was pay money to see Yoggy Hertz’s pitiful existence, perhaps even to exercise some control over it. Even just briefly. And so Yoggy was guaranteed an eternity of recognition. Whether he wanted it or not.

“Listen here, you four-eyed freak! There’s ASS everywhere. CRAPOLA on-screen, in the streets!”

Meanwhile, Glothlorp Smellulater was held in great esteem, as countless similarly loud persons joined his flock. At the moment, he was currently using his stream to raid another Triumph-produced show, SPST— the Speakeasy Station talk show.

“And I told YOU, ya overwrought sack of hostility,” said SPST host Clark Raut, adjusting his glasses. “I will not. And NEVER am going to review Half-Assed Hovel. And even if I did, I’d give it NEGATIVE STARS, and those numbers wouldn’t even begin to chart the contempt I have for that affront to labor practices, indie creativity, and COLOR THEORY!”

Glothlorp started grunting, as a purple thunderbolt struck Clark over in his studio, reducing him to a puddle of green protoplasmic ooze, having possibly died. Or maybe he needed some time to regenerate from his mutated state back to his human form. In any case, Glothlorp’s audience was cheering for the annihilation of the critic who offered a semi-analytical, mildly rude at intervals commentary on their favorite media.

But as Glothlorp spoke, there was something massive waiting for him. The audience clamored for new targets. The hunters however, would soon become the hunted. Glothlorp felt a great pain in his side, and his production crew detected tides on social media: ebbing and flowing between increases and decreases. Swarms of people were blocking the Innumerable Hoarders podcast and instructing others to do the same, citing that it was the sort of festering ground upon which incels, bigots, cryptocurrency traders, and other nonsense-peddling nincompoops gathered. It prevented Glothlorp’s influence from reaching patches of the world, as his followers not only went online to recruit new followers, but were actively taking up weapons to carry out his will. There were guys with paddleballs, crossbows, improvised flails made from pointed sticks, revolvers, and ten-foot wheels carting around crates of TNT—the impractical WWII era weapon, the Panjandrum.

For two-and-a-half days, pockets of oppression emerged to resist the forces of tolerance and common courtesy. Mostly by starting inane arguments where they refused to even consider other ideas or militia assaults on unsuspecting non-combatants, and running away when anyone actually rose to meet them in battle. It was a lot of pitched back-and-forth operations, and bombardment runs. Glothlorp relished in the defeat of his enemies, for every person brought low by his forces, fighting in his name, would bloat his power and his ego.

The only thing he didn’t count on was the overlap between his followers and Yoggy Hertz’s, who had inclinations towards saying everything they thought about or wanted with reckless abandon. Not only did this result in further infighting within Glothlorp’s ranks after a scathing comment about someone’s mother, but then there was a wildfire of even more personally tailored wording in the way of abusive remarks, like vicious slurs and other such targeted offenses. Which mostly went ignored at first-- online by social media administrators, and by meatspace law enforcement of the physical world who were too busy cowering in hiding spots or participating in war crimes to really enforce anything.

Glothlorp wheezed from his cushioned throne, pulling the microphone in closer. He was attempting to gain a foothold in Montreal, and Ohio where they had nearly blocked him altogether. Only by the hand of his followers was Glothlorp able to glitch accounts digitally, and physically force posters with uncredited fanart onto the walls of the masses. What’s more, the foolish mortals who did not block—solely to offer witty comebacks that did nothing in the grand scheme of things, boosted his message for all to witness. Perhaps even melting the minds of the most willful and intellectual until they too followed the path of Glothlorp. Soon, these lands would become territories of Smellulater! And once he had control of the Earth, he could return to overspace and war with the other entities!

Or he would have, had he not discovered a fate worse than the block button. As Glothlorp took once again to his apps, ranting before camera and microphone, he found he could no longer upload his material. His followers’ work had reached a breaking point. Finally, all those who opposed Glothlorp in combat and by reporting him and his fanatics were finally heard. Accounts went from being unaffected or only facing brief suspensions to entire expulsions, room for people to offer little fact-checking notes, and free reign to more effectively, mercilessly ridicule them.

“NO! WHAT THE $#%^?! THIS IS BULLSH#$#%!! AAAAAUUUGGH!!”

Glothlorp raged live, throwing aside his chairs and his tables and his rare collectible merchandise, before scrambling to pick them back up. Because they were his spoils, his impossible prestige, and perhaps things to pawn off if everything fell apart.

Which, they were.

Glothlorp eventually felt his grip on the physical plane was no longer all that it once was. His newfound power had not disappeared altogether, but he had been relegated to a featureless expanse. All save for one detail: a crystalline structure, emitting television static. Glothlorp raced to it for what felt like seven eternities and twice that in pit stops to take bathroom breaks. The faces of the crystalline wall offered a view into the physical universe. Every star, glimpses upon the planets and what populated them.

And then Glothlorp slapped the crystalline wall.

There was television static at first. And then he was able to focus it on Earth. He could see he’d been fired, Pointman running a live conference to mitigate the damage of associating with Glothlorp after he incited his followers. He could feel his power draining rapidly, and it made Glothlorp screech in anger, jealousy, and a promise of vengeance he would never be able to follow up on.

The view of Earth from the crystalline wall which served as a screen had suddenly begun to short out. There was no telling when it would work again, as it went to a blank channel. The kind Yoggy Hertz and P’Zone used to linger on while setting up new consoles and their extraneous peripherals. Even if he had some now, Glothlorp wouldn’t have known what to do with all the cords and things: The one thing he could think of was how much he hated those two. Yoggy who still had his “fame,” and P’Zone who got swept away. He’d been betrayed by incompetence once more. And now, no one would smell him later. Or ever again.

Two months later…

Uter “P’Zone” Parthenozone was alone. He had managed to find work elsewhere with a faction called the C.G.I., the Coalition of Generated Imagery, a collective of cyberpunks whose members would freelance with studios like Triumph, game devs, and anyone else in need of technological artwork. It was not easy, as P’Zone’s editing and creative talents were rusty from living in Glothlorp’s shadow. And a new wave of algorithmic data processing mistaken for artificial intelligence was being used to substitute sentient interfaces. Even actual robots were booted for not meeting productivity demands that the “Algo-Procs” completed immediately. Only through industry connections that the Coalition had, was P’Zone able to sustain himself.

He made his way out of the building where he’d spent the last few hours putting together sound effects and music tracks for the latest entry in some first-person-shooter. Paid the bills, kept his attention off the war-ravaged area he dwelled in now.

“Hey, Parthenozone! Puttin’ in those hours, huh?” said the night security guard, who was starting up just then.

“Yeah, totes. You want me to grab you a hot dog around the corner before I hit the road?”

“Nah, I’ll get it later. I could use the walk.” said the guard. “You however, have an early weekend I heard. The fellas upstairs said they’re trying to avoid a crunch. You’re on the first batch for company-mandated breaks.”

P’Zone blinked some of his many eyes, before laughing and waving goodbye, and goodnight. He didn’t know what to do with himself: P’Zone threw everything he had into his new line of work, and free time had mostly just been spent watching whatever passed for television. There was a hard line between his passion-turned-work, and with his time off the clock that he wished wasn’t there. He always promised himself he’d figure out that balance. He had a decent enough boss who encouraged him on most endeavors, as well as to dial it back when he was pushing himself too hard. But now he had no idea what he was going to do for an impromptu break. He certainly needed one, but along with it he had to figure out what to actually do with himself. And perhaps, to one day get Yoggy Hertz out of his captive contract with Triumph.

So P’zone decided he would try something a bit different. The eldritch entity went to a bar, took up a stool at the counter, and got himself a modest drink. There was mostly silence, until someone approached and asked in a modulated, electronic voice:

“This seat taken?”

It was the supercomputer who had made it up to overspace. P’Zone did not cower before the sentient machine, but he did still feel tense until a few minutes of silence had passed. The Supercomputer took up a large battery and plugged itself into the power source at intervals, like sipping from a straw.

“Have you been well?” asked the Supercomputer. P’Zone tried to think of an answer. Supercomputer didn’t seem pressed for time, opting to let P’Zone contemplate deeply before answering.

“No. No, it’s been devastating. I lost two close friends and I’m nowhere even near to closure. Glothlorp, good riddance… Yoggy Hertz is still out there somewhere, locked up in a room streaming 24/7. And here I am, out here with less than nothing.”

“Because you went forgotten by the masses?”

Silence.

“I don’t… I don’t think I need masses.” said P’Zone. “Never did. Something else though, maybe.”

P’Zone took up some peanuts from a nearby bowl left out by the bartender. Or maybe one of their servers.

“What about you, Supercomputer?” asked P’Zone. “What of your followers?”

Supercomputer took another long sip of static and alternating currents. A buffer while theoretical estimates went off in his central processing unit.

“Scholars, mostly. I grant them some knowledge I’ve found. In return they might offer repairs, or just to dust off my screen. Otherwise, any space I inhabit, is part of the life-journey all beings endure or enjoy.”

“And… that is enough?”

Supercomputer took another electro-sip. P’Zone was quite perplexed by comparison. Not that Supercomputer had some superior wisdom, or much of a superior attitude either.

“I was created by mortal hands, Parthenozone. I never could completely abandon this space. Nor could Energy Being, who was once a carbon-based humanoid.”

Supercomputer extended a cord, using a mouse like a reassuring hand that landed on P’Zone’s shoulder. The machine had sensed P’Zone’s despair.

“Query:” said Supercomputer, as P’Zone nodded back in willingness to answer. “You recognize that you did not begin from terrestrial origin as some of us did. You stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Glothlorp and Yoggy Hertz. Do you believe you are meant to lack the opportunity to change whatsoever? To never try and share what you are?”

“I…”

Supercomputer removed the reassuring mouse, and it disappeared after retracting behind their opposite side.

“It’s not so bad to be knowable.”

And in a great crackle, Supercomputer finished off the rest of the battery, slapped a few bucks plus tip on the counter, and teleported away. P’Zone downed the rest of his own drink, paid up, and stood up to go look at a corkboard. There were some small-time bands playing, some people trying to start a hover-cycle biker gang, but what caught P’Zone’s eye was a movie night flyer someplace nearby, in twenty minutes or so. An animated fantasy film he’d been wanting to watch for a while, but always figured he’d have to do alone since Glothlorp vehemently hated it and Yoggy always listened to Glothlorp.

A few minutes passed. P’Zone took a deep breath, and put some of his feeler tendrils together for one more teleport.

*BELCH!*

SO LONG FOR NOW…

#Web Fiction #Mutant Media Club

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antics-pedantic · 1 year

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The Guardian's Dilemma is LIVE!

Grab a copy of this 112 page soft scifi graphic novel about aliens, PTSD, and found family!!

#from main #get going while it's hot off the presses folks

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antics-pedantic · 1 year

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RALLY CO. #7: VINDICATION

A grey-skied day befell the city of Arcadia, and all that surrounded the art deco metropolis. Within familiar neighborhoods closer to the woodlands, lay a house that was slightly larger than its neighbors. Ordered as such to the exact specifications to its owner: the world-renowned occult detective Solomon Callahan, as well as to his former students, each an adventurer or investigator in their own right. The newest generation of Rally Co.!

Within the personal library of the estate, several books had been left open at a time: There, the serious-minded, aspiring detective Felix Basra was attempting to continue her studies into mystical matters. Albeit, in an attempt to expedite the process by multi-tasking, reading some from each tome and taking bullet point notes on fresh stationary. Elsewhere in the house, the tall, umber-toned, good-humored bio-chemist extraordinaire Esmerelda Broughton was concentrated upon her beakers and flasks and such within a room converted into the group’s personal library. Or at least she would have, were it not for her scientific acquaintance, one Tycho Gallagher, a stout fellow whose specialty was in cryptozoology.

“I’d asked ye quite gently to lay off with the mouse traps!” spat Tycho. “I told ya once, and I tells ya again! Those rodents ye saw were to be caged and studied-like!”

Esme rolled her eyes. This was the same old song and dance she and Tycho often partook in, as their friendship had a mock adversarial quality to it.

“And I told you, you hirsute little hoodlum: Were I to catch them nipping at my heels in request of cheese, I’d toss about my compound and mixtures and be liable to demolish the entirety of Casa Del Callahan in one fell, explosive swoop!”

“And I toldja they’d be in a cage! Go soak yer head.”

“A cage! Splendid. Why don’t we call up the zoo and have you sized up for one too? Hm?”

“WHY I OUGHTTAE--!!”

Tycho started swinging his arms to swat at Esme, who put her own hand on his messy head of hair to hold him at bay, before pulling him into a headlock. As they did, Tycho’s test mice had appeared suddenly! Levitating through the air, and back into the cage he had prepared for them.

“Oh, bother.”

Two more members appeared: The first being a young woman who had grown up in France, answering to the name of Katrina Kafka, with her platinum blonde locks, red hairband, and sleepless eyes. It was her keen telekinetic prowess that allowed her to snatch up Tycho’s mice. And then beside her, the lumbering form of the clay construct known to many as Blockhouse, who had gotten Esme’s mouse traps stuck in his feet.

“Blockhouse my darling!” faux-sobbed Esme, before lifting one of his feet to pull out the offending devices. “I did not mean for you to be caught in such things. Were it not for Tycho’s foolishness.”

“Aye! She’s a nut.” said Tycho, sticking his tongue out. “Katriner! Yer a lifesaver, m’dear! I’d been lookin’ for these two. C’mere, Pellucidar! C’mere, Barsoom!”

But Katrina simply went *tut-tut!*

“In need of… reminding, are we?!” said Katrina, her gentle soul taking on an assertive stripe just then. “Felix is hard at work learning new informations. You recall that Monsieur Callahan wished to quiz her upon his return? He is entrusting all of us to grow together. It is only through our combined efforts we have managed to remain as a group!”

Tycho and Esme nodded sullenly. Although they had gotten new leads regarding that villainous sorcerer—the Golden Shadow, and his assassins who injured Felix’s aunt Malika, their strong start as a team was put to a stress test. In the face of unexpected threats and personal vendettas, the prodigal students had faltered in a worrisome way, even as they claimed victory. Not to mention, without their mentor they had no one who was versed in magic.

“Indeed. And I have a proposition for improving our unity: A night away from each other!”

Everyone turned to see Felix entering, holding up a book with one hand, and biting into an apple with the other.

“Felix!” gasped Katrina. “Monsieur Callahan has insisted we only summon you for meals and the utmost call for assistance. Won’t you fall behind on your studies?”

“Hardly: I’ve got my notes, and you all know damn well I’ll memorize them well before he returns.” said Felix, wagging a finger. “I’m going to go visit my girl Georgia, perhaps we’ll partake in some dinner.”

“Won’t you give me a lift, Felix dear?” said Esme, perking up at the impromptu day off suggested. “I’d like to stop by one of the jazz lounges. A new act’s blown into town—wouldn’t you know it, and I’ve been itching for a chance to feast my ears!”

“Oi, don’t count me out!” hollered Tycho. “If Esme gets a lift, I wanna swing by the gym. There’s a real blighter there who’s been puttin’ the squeeze on some of my favorite boxers an’ wrestlers! Maybe it’s high time I challenged that sneaky little cuss.”

Felix, raised her hands in surrender: She had no qualms about dropping them off and picking them back up on the way home. But Katrina shook her head, as did Blockhouse.

“You all go along: I will not breathe a word of it, nor telepathically relay the peep to Monsieur Callahan if I can. But Blockhouse and I will remain here if you should have need of us. We are but a rotary dial away, yes?”

“Little angel, she is.” said Tycho, giving a pat on the back to Katrina. “Wish me luck in the four-corner ring, sister o’ mine!”

“Oh, I’ll inquire if the band has any records after the show.” said Esme. “Solomon’s orchestral classics are well and good, but we should liven things up around here if you ask me! Wouldn’t you agree, Felix?”

Felix nodded. As Tycho and Esme made for the roadster in the garage, the leader of the group addressed their nervous psychic friend.

“Katrina… how are you feeling, dear?”

“I am quite well, Felix. Why do you ask?”

Felix tried to look confident, but she could only sigh.

“I was not the only one who… blew a fuse, so to speak.”

“Fuse? Felix, do you mean my outburst of ESP in Shanghai recently? I have done no such thing since then.”

“—I know. That’s what concerns me. You still use your psychic power, but always so sparingly. Even Solomon says your practice sessions are being cut short lately.”

Katrina looked aside. Felix put a hand on her shoulder to address her one last time.

“Forcing you to join any of us on our night’s frivolities is not the way. But please: Perhaps soon we could all plan a group activity. Okay?”

“Oui. Oui…”

Katrina gave Felix a hug, and Felix returned it after a moment. And then the others were gone. Save for Blockhouse, who remained by Katrina’s side, exchanging small smiles with Felix, like unspoken promises of love and protection.

“You needn’t fret, Katrina… come along, let’s switch on the radio while we paint. It’s been too long since we’ve spent some quiet, pleasant time together as we did when we stayed in Paris with you.”

“Whenever Solomon was off on his cases or his lectures and the likes…” whispered Katrina. How she missed those beautiful days.

The only light came in through windows left uncovered. It seemed like an office building from what Katrina could determine. It hadn’t even occurred to her that she didn’t even remember ever leaving Solomon’s estate.

“Blockhouse?...”

Nary a response. Emptiness pervaded this domain.

Just then, guards started running down the hall. But they went past her, coming to a halt in a more brightly lit area. Something swooped low along the ground, faster than Katrina could register it. Ordinarily her extra-sensory perception provided her with an advance warning alarm, but this apparition failed to give off a psychic signal. In fact, Katrina didn’t even notice the apparition until it was a considerable distance ahead of her.

Two gloved hands emerged from the shadows and into the light, one of the armed guards was swept off the ground, and tossed into his companion who fired his gun off wildly. It wasn’t until Katrina saw a bullet whiz right through her that she realized she wasn’t really here. It was as though her consciousness had been sent out in the world like a ghost. But she knew with absolute certainty she was still alive, at home.

But whatever was happening, it didn’t prevent the apparition from noticing her: It turned abruptly, two squarish glowing emerald lenses, like wide unblinking eyes turned to look at her. It was none other than the vigilante known as the Junker! Clad in his flight goggles and pilot’s jacket, with a lengthy white scarf.

And in that moment, as Katrina attempted to reach out, to speak to him, she felt herself being drawn away from there. Just as a blackjack clubbed the once seemingly infallible mystery man upside the head, his fate a doomed one…

Katrina jolted off of the sofa with a scream. Blockhouse was startled, as he’d still been seated in his own chair working a painter’s canvas. It was all knocked over. Outside, the sun had set some time ago.

“Oh Blockhouse—I’m sorry!”

“Nevermind that, Katrina.” said the gentle construct, helping her up to a calmed stand. “What’s happened? You look as though you’ve seen devils.”

“In a sense. As I dreamed, I saw images of the Junker somewhere… possibly in Arcadia. He was in combat with some men in an office building. Oh Blockhouse, it felt too real! They bludgeoned him before I awakened.”

Blockhouse rubbed his dome-like head. He didn’t want to scare Katrina any more than she was now. He gestured for the girl to hold on a moment.

“… Alright. I will phone a taxi and we’ll head into the city to check on him. But you promise you’ll be careful, and not pry too terribly into our mysterious ally’s secrets?”

Katrina nodded. Blockhouse offered back a smile: How could he not? Of all the people he’d known so far, it had been a treasure to have spent time with Katrina, and to spend yet more as part of Rally Co. together. The two called for a taxi cab to take them into the city. All the while, Katrina attempted to re-establish her telepathic link, as a switchboard operator did for telephones.

Just then, she felt a signal.

In order to affect the world, even the undetectable Junker had to step out of the shadows, and potentially be found out by his foes. That was what had happened here: Within the time it took Katrina and Blockhouse to arrive in the city from upstate, he had been captured. Thanks to his own tinkering, the mystery man remained as such. His enemies were unable to remove his modified aviator’s goggles due to a mechanism he implemented that would zap away prying hands. What it couldn’t prevent was his being beaten for a while, as blood trailed from one nostril and down past his lip, threatening to drip off of his chin.

As Junker tested the ropes used to bind his wrists behind the wooden chair he was propped up on, his own psychic abilities seemed to catch something. A familiar sensation, reminiscent of a past encounter. It could be no one else but Katrina. While he couldn’t respond telepathically at the moment, Katrina on the other hand was more open about her taxi cab ride, the presence of Blockhouse, and the fact the rest of Rally Co. had yet to know about this.

“Hope you’re ready to talk, Dracula.”

Someone had entered the room, taking off a suit jacket, fixing their vest and tie as they opened a suitcase on the table. There were some tools among the papers, such as a hammer and icepick. Recently purchased.

“You’ve been a real thorn in our side for a while now.” said the interrogating goon. “Any last words before we get started on your unhappy ending?”

Nothing.

“Your funeral, pal.” said the interrogating goon. But just as he approached with his tools, wood splintered. Junker hopped onto his feet, slipping out of the ropes after he broke off a part of the chair, and lunged for the wrists of his captor, crushing them until the torture implements were released to clatter on the floor, and Junker could drag a fist across the interrogator’s face, followed by Junker forcing an arm behind the man’s back to twist, and using the striking hand to grab his throat.

“The exit.”

Twisting the forearm as they exited, the two went out into the hallway. Just then, an elevator arrived with a cadre of other henchmen. As they stepped out, Junker front-kicked his interrogator into them like bowling pins, spinning around to start running for another exit. Taking to the stairwell and getting to the roof so he could start jumping to the next building.

On the ground, Katrina and Blockhouse were frantically offering more dollar bills to the cabby, pleading with him to follow their directions. The driver was reluctant about a joy ride, but the money offered helped ease his fears.

“Junker? You’ve escaped?”

After executing gymnastic maneuvers expertly to avoid his pursuers, Junker suddenly found himself struggling to climb over a ledge he should have cleared easily. Katrina’s telepathy had caught him off-guard.

“Enough of that!” he responded at last.

“M-Monsieur Junker, please. We have a taxi, come down and join us. We will not allow them to find you.”

Junker scowled outwardly, and Katrina could feel some of that annoyance, as the avenging scavenger let go of the ledge he held onto and caught a fire escape, before landing in an alleyway and spotting the yellow automobile coming to a screeching halt.

“Cripes!” yelped the driver. “Izzat who I think it is?!”

“That and more, sir.” said Blockhouse, as he helped Junker into the backseat. Then, Katrina saw something behind them: The henchmen had not only given chase on the rooftops, but there was a hot rod car—hot on their tail! Racing after them as someone leaned out of an open window with a tommy gun.

“23 skidoo, comin’ right up!” exclaimed the taxi driver as he pulled away from the curb. He’d spotted the danger too with his rear-view mirrors, and didn’t need to ask his passengers twice about making an escape. They weaved through traffic as the sub-machine gun erupted with a shower of metal slugs, causing panic in the streets between drivers and pedestrians. Katrina had not brought her impellet gun, and she saw the Junker producing one of his two .45 caliber pistols to fire back. With no other recourse, she shut her eyes and let her telekinesis get to work. Focusing on the vehicle behind them until she found the precise mechanisms of its engines, and its brakes. Accelerating the car against the wishes of its driver, and then slamming the brake promptly while the taxi cab got away. Junker hadn’t even gotten a chance to roll down the windows all the way before they escaped.

“Ho ho—Whoo-WEE!” exclaimed the driver. “YEAH! WOOOOO!! That was keen. REAL keen! I can’t believe we made it in time to save the Junker of all people, and then those wiseguys had a screwy ride!”

“You can—you can let us off there, sir.” said Katrina. “We apologize for the… the chaos.”

“What?! Are you kiddin’ me, sister?!” said the driver. “That’s the most action I’ve had in ages! Anytime you need a wheelman, I’m your guy! I—”

Everyone had scrambled out of the car and into a random building lobby-- really, any with an open front door and it was their luck that the receptionist was on a break. Katrina immediately reached out to try and inspect his injuries, but found herself held back by gloved hands.

“I have sustained nothing lethal.” said Junker, bitterly.

“To the washroom with you.” insisted Katrina. Even Blockhouse was nodding. The mystery man just stared at both of them for a silent moment. Their concerns did not take as much as they might have liked.

“We’re wasting time: As we speak, that contemptible robber baron Randall Horne is orchestrating a new assassination method!”

Katrina had never heard of the man. But the term ‘robber baron’ was familiar. Solomon had spoken it before of businessmen he had to deal with, especially those from America. But before she could ask anything further, Junker had stepped aside to clean up, and was headed for the nearest backway exit out of there—without alerting any gangsters or other hired muscle by exiting through the front. Katrina and Blockhouse followed just as he stepped halfway into a shadowy spot.

“Junker, fellah-my-lad.” said Blockhouse. “Please do not face this brigand alone. You have aided us in our time of need before: Please, let us accompany you?”

“Yes.” said Katrina. “You may do your sneaking, your creeping, and we will keep our distance. But we want to be there to help… make odd the events.”

“Even the odds.” Blockhouse gently corrected. Junker spoke no more: They could only make out by the bob of his goggles and faint outlines of his face, that he was nodding.

“If it will cease your pleas.” said Junker, taking a notepad from among his things, and writing an address down for the other two adventurers to utilize. Then he disappeared as he’d wished to, ready to face with the fiend responsible.

Randall Horne had the absolute gall to remain in his office. He supposed his place of business to be untouchable, himself unimpeachable. It was why the contracted crook entering this place would realize, being dragged in by more clean-cut security guards.

“What is the meaning of this? You and your ilk should be on the streets. My enemies aren’t going to destroy themselves.”

“Yeah? Well, maybe they figured to do some destroyin’ of their own, boss!” exclaimed the crook. “Word is somebody we bagged just escaped. Took out a bunch of our guys and everything.”

“That’s ludicrous. No one was aware of our plan.”

“He did.”

The crook offered over Mr. Horne a calling card: It had a cog-shaped emblem on it. The businessman simply scowled.

“There’s no other information on it. What the hell do you suppose I’m to make of this?”

“There’s… there’s been this little story around town. About someone beatin’ the tar out of guys. Scavenging machine parts and knick-knacks. One time somebody tried to rob a train headed for Arcadia, sell fancy old junk from some ancient joint on some lowdown part of the globe. He caught them. Friends of a friend were in on that job.”

As far as Randall Horne was concerned, it was just an interloper proving the incompetence of his ‘contractors,’ these seasoned criminals.

“Get out of my sight. Tell your boys, they can each make a few hundred more to find this swashbuckler and gut him.”

The crook was escorted out. The businessman watched them depart, and something—or someone watched Randall Horne.

”Randall Horne.”

Of course, Randall Horne was not shaken right away. He offered a stoic, uncaring look to the mocking chortle.

“So, you’re the moron who’s been interfering. Tell me, how large must the paycheck be to send you on your way?”

No words. Nothing discernable in the room. The place was the same as it was an hour prior before he suspected intrusion. Horne moved to turn on more lights.

“If someone else has hired you, then forget loyalty. Even if they live, I’m going to corner the markets. Be king at the stock trade. Victory is right here. A smarter man would heed this.”

With all the lights on, there was little room and few shadows for Junker to hide in. He maneuvered to his desk to call security to start searching the place. Speeding up his walking pace.

“Hm. Your loss. My men will take you back where you started. Don’t you see how useless this all was? You’ve wasted precious time… what, satisfying your little ego? Pitiful.”

Just then, the lights turned off, And Horne flinched. The bulbs were not smashed: Someone had hit the light switch, and Horne was quick to lob a paperweight in that direction. A cry of pain seemed to indicate he’d hit his mark, and he hurried over with a letter opener to stab with. The light switch clicked on again, and he saw that it was one of the guards who had brought that crook in earlier.

*CLICK!*

The lights were off again. Horne spun around to swing his letter opener in the hopes the blade would find purchase in a fool’s flesh. No such thing, however. Instead, Horne found himself stumbling. Losing his composure. He flailed around again, trying to find his tormentor. But still he found nothing.

“You can’t escape me!” spat Horne. “The building’s packed. My security will deal with you!”

“How, Randall Horne? They could barely handle you.”

Randall looked towards the guard he’d harmed with a forceful toss of the paperweight, as he was pulled into the shadows. A man who had played football and threw trouble from lounges and pubs in Manchester, pulled away like an unaware child. Horne had believed long ago that he’d willed away the bogeyman with reality and objectivity. That he’d reached a point of success that no one could touch him anymore. Now he held out the letter opener with both shaking hands.

From a corner that seemed to offer little hiding space, a bit of moonlight caught on leather gloves. Green lenses that glowed, and suddenly began to ‘blink’ in a sense: like camera shutters. Windows in the office were open, and a white scarf blew in the welcomed breeze. Horne threw the letter opener, which seemed to give the intruder pause, as he scrambled back to his desk. Going for a drawer where he kept a Webley revolver, and started firing two shots off. There was a great *THUMP!* of something against the carpeted floor. It must have been a body, because the green glow was gone.

But in actuality, Horne simply didn’t pay attention to the green glowing lenses as they swooped low along the ground, circling around past the desk and grabbing the man as he fired off into the ceiling.

Security being busy was an understatement.

Just when they were distracted by a visitor inquiring as to where she could find a dubious sister with a muttered name, something came smashing through the side wall, waving his arms to disarm them of their batons, and shifting his density to shield the girl against any bullets.

“Blockhouse! That was not terribly subtle.”

“I know this too well.” sighed Blockhouse. “But time is of the essence. We must thin the ranks of these ne’er-do-wells immediately… I’m afraid it’s on us to bear. And perhaps by now the cad Mr. Horne has already summoned them. And none of the our fellow adventurers have answered my telephone summons.”

Katrina nodded. She and Blockhouse took to the elevators, and rose up to the lofty floor that Randall Horne’s office was located. Ahead of them, there were already a mess of bodies scrambling to intercept the Junker. All armed to make mincemeat of the avenging scavenger. Unless one particular construct shouted:

“Hullo, playmates!”

With that deep greeting uttered, Blockhouse ran forth like a bull, barreling into as many men as he could all at once, while Katrina would pry away the weapons, launching them into anyone who remained standing. Preventing them from breaking down the doors into Horne’s office. A baton caught Katrina on the leg as she made for the door. From the ground, she reached out with out hand, and telekinetically tossed a man into his comrades, Blockhouse pushing into them with both hands as the double-doors into Horne’s office came crashing down. Inside, they could see Randall Horne put into a stranglehold by Junker.

“You’ve caught him!” exclaimed Katrina. But Junker didn’t share her enthusiasm. Or rather, her sense that this was over yet.

“Yes, now release me!” rasped Horne. “L-Let the courts decide my fate.”

“… Affluent scum like you? No.”

But to that, Junker tightened his grip. Katrina’s eyes widened. Blockhouse stepped forward beside her. They were both prepared to use their respective talents to separate the men in front of them. Katrina was up first with her telekinesis, but felt a force pushing back against her. And she knew it to be telepathic in nature. The Junker was after all, a psychic as well. Blockhouse was up next, but by that point he’d thrown smoke bombs that offered a thick cover to escape.

Out the window and into the alleyway, a shower of glass shards behind Horne and Junker. Blockhouse and Katrina would not risk descending as immediately as he had. He was certain they would get away. Just then, a couple of shots whizzed past his head and burst on a nearby dumpster.

“What’s say you quit that and pass the perp to me?”

Junker perked up: It was Felix Basra!

“A sting operation, Felix?” hissed Junker. “Did Solomon Callahan put you up to this? Katrina in on it too?”

She drew her impellet gun. The non-lethal firearm did nothing to allay Junker’s concerns.

“It was Blockhouse who called. He left a message that thankfully Georgia noted down for me, including this address. I had just arrived when you leapt from out of that window with the owner of this company… His death will only spread his assets out among his wormy little cohorts. You ought to know that.”

“With the warning of their own destruction to follow.”

Junker was gritting his teeth, the weakened Randall Horne having given up struggling physically, and instead reaching out for Felix to save him. That earned a punch in the side from Junker—the aspiring detective Felix priming her weapon.

“I can take you both in, Junker.” said Felix, sternly. “I don’t want to do that. You’ve aided us before. That counts for something.”

“But only he walks. The law won’t look kindly on a vigilante.” spat Junker. “Mr. Horne can buy the best lawyers in the state and then some. Cover all his fees, his bail… if it even manages to get that far. Can you say the same of his victims? The storefront where a community convenes? A pharmacy that considers the cure before the cost? A middleman that organizes its products, hauls it as cargo. All of which men like Horne could crush under his heel and be praised for his insidious, industrious ways.”

Vengeance was something Felix sought. She still wanted it against the assassin that injured her Aunt Malika, and something reminiscent of it was there in how Junker wanted to hurt someone like Horne. She would have sympathized with Junker the same way Katrina and Blockhouse did. But like them, there was also a concern for the isolated Junker. His insistence on solo operations, the way he threw himself into his fearsome work—

“—He will suffer in some fashion, nothing less.” said Felix. “But I must be certain that after he has been taken in, you’ll keep going.”

“Of course I’ll keep going. There will be more like him out there.” said Junker. “And you all, Rally Co., you won’t need to sully your hands with the dirtiest work, or fear nearly hurting one another. Not while I’m out there, if I’m left to it.”

“Damn it! It wouldn’t just be us—Tycho and Esme said they were sworn to keep the secret of a previous student of Solomon’s. I’ve long suspected by that, they would have no qualms accepting you into our band. We could solve it all together. You don’t have to be a ghost, not when there are people who want to share their life with you.”

There was something like shock on what little was visible of the Junker’s features. Before the teeth were grit once more.

"And let you regret later?! I think not!"

Junker quick-drew one of his pistols, firing in Felix’s direction. She fired back as she dived for cover, catching Junker on the hand, and briefly loosening his grip enough that Randall Horne could break free—before the vapors let off by the bursting of the forceful impellet shell knocked him out cold. And the avenging scavenger fired some more until he backed away into the shadows, having kept Felix from giving chase and made an attempt to kill Randall Horne before departure: Horne might have died, if the .45 caliber shots that connected with his leg and side were left untreated.

“Felix!”

Katrina and Blockhouse had finally made it over. They looked to the body of Mr. Horne with a gasp, before Felix checked the man’s pulse, letting the psychic girl and their construct companion know it had not ended as grimly as some might have preferred.

“He’s departed again…” said Katrina, sadly. “I could sense at the edges, such fury. Like a coat to warm sorrows deeper.”

The aspiring investigator offered a weak smile to Katrina.

“I may not have your ESP, but I noticed something quite similar. Come: Let’s go home, Katrina. He’s gotten away for now, but we’ll find him again. I promise you that.”

Katrina looked back one last time towards the dark. As did Blockhouse.

When Solomon returned, he had looked refreshed. But as he sat across from Felix, who related what Katrina told her of that night’s events, he looked as though he were crossing a desert suddenly.

“I’ll see to it that we acquire some leads on the business of the aggressive Mr. Horne.” said Solomon. “But… thank you for informing me as to the activities of our ally anonymous as well.”

“He sounded troubled, sir.” said Felix, lifting her notepad and tapping it. “I can’t help but feel that. Not only did he have a grudge against men like Horne… but he seems to be quite acquainted with tactics and stratagems of a nature most ferocious. The sort of thing a covert operative might utilize during a major war.”

Solomon nodded. He put his hands together, leaning his elbows on the top of his desk, sighing after a time.

“Sir.” Felix spoke up again. “If I am to assist you, to lead this team as you would wish for me to do—in spite of my shortcomings, it is imperative you explain to me what your ties to the Junker are and what we can expect of him. I cannot hope to improve upon my failures and march towards anything like success unless I know to what sort of goal I’m aiming for.”

For a moment, Solomon just pinched the bridge of his own nose.

“You’ve determined he was a prior student. And that means he knew Tycho and Esme… Is that not enough?”

Felix stood up, and slammed her hands down on the table.

“It wasn’t. Not for Junker, and it certainly won’t be enough for me if whatever happened between you two comes back to haunt all of us!” exclaimed Felix, before shaking a fist. “If you value the respect we’ve cultivated for you—if you care at all for us…”

Felix sat back down. She held onto the table for a moment, before putting her hands back together. Solomon looked her in the eyes, and she cast her own back at him, not looking to give up on this matter.

“Alright. Those tactics of his: I will admit, I encouraged them during a time when Rally Co. was no longer active. Tycho and Esme were fine adventurers in the making, and they aided him well before on some matters. It’s why they’re able to support you so well. And they held him in such esteem! Th— the Junker organized their efforts.”

Felix perked up. Solomon had almost said something. It came too naturally at first not to be some familiar aspect, perhaps a name.

“Then I have done as promised and informed you as to his doings.” said Felix, sternly. “I need some time to process all of this, determine my own plans.”

Solomon wanted to say something more, but Felix had exited the room. He resigned himself to his work, while she stepped outside to find Katrina organizing new bracelet beads. Blockhouse, Tycho, and Esmerelda were close by.

“What did he say?” said Katrina. Felix just looked aside for a moment, before addressing her friends.

“He’s mostly confirmed my suspicions. But worst of all, he’s admitted the Junker’s tactics… Solomon had a use for a secret operator.”

That caught Tycho and Esmerelda by surprise.

“You didn’t know?” said Felix.

“None whatsoever! Under the table cases, eh?!” said Tycho, halfway about to storm towards Solomon’s office. But not before he was caught by the hands of Felix and Esme.

“Save the slide for another time, you marching-mad penguin!” whispered Esme. “I say we should keep a few secrets of our own. At least until we can sort this out tactfully. I’ll not leave any of my friends in the lurch, past or present.”

Felix nodded. As did Katrina, who then spoke:

“Then… it is decided. Naturally I am with you all, as I always shall. My heart, and my telepathic mind go out to those like Junker. Wherever he is.”

Another lead. Another night.

The Junker had snuck into a warehouse, and did away with a cadre of men who had come at the behest of one of Randall Horne’s rivals, bodies strewn about the floor unconscious or worse. Prying open a crate with a crowbar, he found the cause as to why they went after Horne’s cargo: From overseas, various illicit goods such as weaponry, explosives, and chemical fancies. No doubt part of Horne’s attempt to find customers in the underground market.

Before he could decide what to do next, he spotted someone trying for the exit.

“Jago Herrera.”

Although the voice was cold and as distant as it was with others in how it offered a name before introductions even began, something deep within the avenging scavenger was attempting to exercise restraint.

“Puh-Please, don’t kill me. I didn’t know—"

“But I knew.”

Junker pointed a finger at Jago, who seemed to freeze in place. Not by some power of the mystery man, but from his own panic.

“I know, Herrera… That Randall Horne kept this a secret from you. He paid you extra to hush about it. Made your business the middleman. The fall guy, as it were...”

Something was kicked over to Jago. A box of matches.

“He can’t get to you anymore. Nor your family. His competitors will cease if you do away with these things. Claim it to be a burglary gone wrong for the insurance.”

Junker took up some of the cargo for himself: Pieces of weaponry, ammunition and explosives too. As for that stock of the vicious salt, that inflictor of miseries upon the mind, it was to all be destroyed.

“… Take care of your own. Leave all else to me.”

And with that, the Junker departed. Already formulating a new assault against the forces of corruption…

SO LONG FOR NOW…

#Rally Co.#Web Fiction

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DYNAURA EPISODE 4: THE ENFORCERS STRIKE BACK!

The crowd had been waiting with great anticipation. The entry fee was hardly a small sum: This was after all, a red-carpet event for Delta Bay—nay, the Earth’s ‘Most Prepared Heroes’ ever. These were the heights one could accomplish when they were ready and willing to defeat any foe, take on any challenge, and always showed off their good sides for paparazzi photographers. Of which, countless cameras flashed in that moment. Whether truth or lies, tabloids or the esteemed outlets, any news press was good press if they spun it just right.

Standing at the front of the line in a semi-security role was a veteran Enforcer, clad in an imposing helmet, and Kevlar body armor themed after a bear: KodiaKop. Career super-soldier, these days counted among the most feared agents among law enforcement. To his right, his apprentice Grizzly wore a similar suit, hands raring to grapple or squeeze the trigger of a firearm. To KodiaKop’s left was a tall figure in designer leathers with professional stitching meant to make it look reckless, despite receiving some of the fashion industry’s finest hand-tailoring work. Several sheathed blades adorned this uniform, and an improvised sporting mask was strapped to his head alongside a few strips of bandaging cloth that covered very little of his skin. They called this one…

“Socket!” bellowed KodiaKop, maintaining an overly rigid posture while the slasher known as Socket lurched like stop-motion to address the senior member of their group. “Where’s the prissy miss gotten off to this time?!”

“Nyeheheh!” snickered Socket. “Chill out: She’s around here somewhere. Basking like the rest of us! YOOOOOLOOO!”

“She’s freakin’ lost!” said Grizzly, elbowing Socket with great familiarity. “You couldn’t find a needle in a haystack, you dead dipstick!”

“I could! And then I’ll poke out your miserable eyes!”

“We’re wearing helmets!” said Grizzly. Just as Socket was about to retort with another threat, KodiaKop scowled at the both of them, before waving to the cameras again. This was going to be the basis for yet another lengthy memo to the PR department to sort out the gossip fodder. As for their missing member, she was not far off: Her tawny bob haircut blowing in the breeze along with her similarly shortened cape, clad in a bodysuit that was colored silver. And it was accented by a few pieces of lightweight armor including shoulder pads, boots, and gauntlets in a cerise hue. Adorning the front of her suit was a titanium crest fashioned after a ghost reaching outwardly with two hands, as if in pursuit.

“Ectoette! Over here!”

“Tell us what you’ve been up to now, Ectoette?”

The young woman just offered a hearty laugh.

“The usual. Flying around town on patrol, cracking skulls, and setting a solid example for others. You know how it is!”

As she waved to the crowd, she also beckoned for a few others to come along—a batch of recruits picked from the Enforcers’ reserves. Many prospective members kept on reserve were often waiting for their chance to serve with the core team.

But just as they were about to enter the movie theater to partake in a special viewing of a film adapted from the memoirs of a longtime teammate, they received a call on their personal communicator devices. The multi-encrypted private line was being hailed by one Tommy Quark.

“Shootsuit. This better be good.” growled KodiaKop.

“Real good, Kody babey.” said Shootsuit, ever the smooth-talker. “Looks like we’ve got a temper tantrum on aisle 33rd and Colan street.”

“Put together a squad and have them sort it out.”

“Tsss! Ooh, see: I did! I totally did. And the thing is… Take a guess, why don’t you?”

KodiaKop wanted to groan. But Shootsuit was higher on the ranks, cutting most of the paychecks for the Enforcers. He had to endure this.

“They’re all down for the count.”

“B-B-Bingo! Hey: Better that you break the news than me, huh? Anyways! I want Socket, Ectoette, and Grizzly en route this instant. Send a few newbies with ‘em, tough ones.”

“Yeah, we’ve got some flyers with us. But why not just send them and Ectoette?”

Shootsuit just went ‘tut-tut!’ To which KodiaKop seemed to understand at last. They needed a certain personal touch.

“Copy that. I’ll have them sent in right away. If it’s to deal with—”

“REX!”

A familiar head of jet-black hair, and the hood of his hoodie blew with the breeze the selected Enforcers arrived with. Turning to face them was a young man, resembling some South Asian descent—most similar to Nepali. But while he grew up on Earth, his heritage was actually among the stars, by way of a planet called Nypardia. His back was turned on the newcomers, his hands still balled into raw-knuckled fists, and his white sneakers with red trim scuffed. Dusting off the front and back of his pants, Rex turned to address the call of Socket.

“Well, well, well! If it isn’t the big cheese himself!” said Socket, the slasher superhero pointing a dagger in the cosmic contender’s direction. “How ya been, Wrecked? Oh, sorry. Just making observations about your past… maybe also your immediate future!”

No words from Rex. Just a glance backwards towards the group. Ectoette glanced down to see a number of other reserve Enforcers on the ground, unconscious and writhing in pain. Just hoping no one had perished.

“He’s high on his own ego!” bellowed Grizzly, shoving shells into an automatic shotgun. “Look at him. Smug after taking out our troops. He probably thinks he’s too good to talk to us. Ding-dong ditcher!”

There was a scowl from Rex, and scoffing from Socket and Grizzly. At least three reservists that had tagged along with Ectoette, Socket, and Grizzly. As KodiaKop had mentioned, they could fly fast. And they were fairly strong. But Ectoette held them back from attacking right away.

“It’s been a while, Rex. You know I don’t want this… Stand down, please.”

But that was the last thing Rex wanted to do. He turned to take a step forward, and that was when Grizzly charged forward, pulling his shotgun trigger repeatedly. The buckshot shook up Rex a bit as he raised his arms to instinctively shield his head. But having begun to brace himself a little more, he was not moved very far from where he stood. Then, Socket shouted:

“Okay, wiseass! Enforcers, ENGULF!”

The three reservist flyers were up first, hoping to prove their worth here today. One rocketed forward and lashed out with a right cross, aiming right for Rex’s cheek and to travel across his face with superhuman strength behind it.

*THWATCH!*

Of course, what the first flyer didn’t expect was for Rex to catch their punch swiftly, then raising his leg into an axe kick—the sole of his shoe imprinting itself onto the first flyer’s face, and then Rex’s heel dropping harshly into their upper back to slam them into the ground. Gravel burst from the street below in chunks as the second flyer circled around Rex with even greater speed, trying to create a vortex and simultaneously firing off lasers from his eyes to keep Rex from countering. The strong wind vortex took Rex off his feet-- up into the air above the smaller buildings. But not any higher before Rex cupped his hands together, and launched a light blue fireball into the second flyer’s flight path, knocking them off course.

Just as Rex attempted to swoop in to divebomb the second flyer, the third had made themselves known: By tossing an entire construction vehicle at him. A 40-ton front loader, by the looks of it. Tossed forcefully enough that it’d travel quickly, collide with Rex. In response, Rex found himself catching the construction vehicle as best he could, still pushed back though. And just when he thought he was about to land on his feet (if running backwards from the momentum), suddenly he was subject to a whole new attack!

“This is gonna hurt me more than it’s gonna hurt you, Rex!”

It was Ectoette. She’d shifted the density of her body so she could phase through the solid front loader. Once her upper body was sticking out of the construction vehicle, she selectively shifted—making her fist not only solid again, but incredibly dense. The force of her strike sent Rex backwards for a few city blocks. She knew exactly who she was up against, and wasn’t going to scrimp on her attack output.

“Errrgh…”

Rex got up slowly after colliding with a street lamp, and sliding down to the sidewalk below. He was still dizzy after that last swing, but the Enforcers didn’t let up.

“PEEKABOO!”

Socket cackled as he landed on the street lamp, hanging onto it upside down so he could get into Rex’s face. The familiar visage was both unsettling and irritating. Purple smoke shrouded the skies immediately overhead, arcane thunderbolts reached out like a nightmarish fusion between biting vipers, restricting chains, and the electric chair.

Rex grabbed the slasher superhero by the neck with one strained hand, while his other took Socket’s shoulder. And he pulled! Pulled until the limbs detached, starting with the arms that directed the cursed current. Even as the deadly magic set his muscles both aflame and into a bone-deep chill at the same time.

“How brutal of you!” sneered Socket, his body littering the sidewalk in still unliving pieces. “For shame, Rex! I thought we taught you better than that.”

One of Rex’s eyes twitched, before both started to glow. Unfortunately, just as he prepared to fire his own laser eyes at his disembodied former teammate, someone had tackled him from behind: A suit fashioned of multiple alloys. Armed to the teeth with high caliber guns, portable high yield explosives, directed energy weapons, a myriad of other warmongering tools, and approximately one motormouth. All firing off in a symphony designed to wear down the nigh-invulnerable. Like Rex!

“Ouch! That’s gotta hurt. You’re gonna feel that one in the morning, slugger!”

There was a snarl of pain on Rex’s part. And then, wincing resignation at the fact Shootsuit had arrived. Either having sent one of his drones, or having donned his power armor once again. It was between Shootsuit and Socket as to who could utter the worst excuses for verbal zingers.

“C’mon, Rexinator. Rexamilian! Reximus.” said Shootsuit, less stammering and more just overconfidently spitballing his innumerable jests. “Our door’s always open. And you’re obviously in dire need of an intervention. C’mon! We’ll even get gyros. You love gyros. Everybody loves---”

Rex twisted and turned. Trying to get himself into a position where he could counter. Eventually he was able to very suddenly shove a hand to push Shootsuit’s helmeted face back, and to swing a knee into one of the spots on the power armor where beneath—a back-up power cell was located. A small explosion rocked the suit and elicited smoke.

“Will you SHUT UP about the gyros?!” barked Rex. “They were alright! Not great. I ate them because I was hungry and there was nothing else that day!”

“Look! That’s progress. Technically. Alright, no gyros. How about—"

But before Shootsuit could offer another attempt at suave line delivery, Rex had brought an elbow down on one of Shootsuit’s built-in jets, throwing their flight path dangerously off-course, causing them both to crash into a building with a bank vault located next to an office space. Rex himself emerging slowly.

He checked his phone for any new messages: Nothing yet, which gave him a pang of anxiety. He’d have to hold off the Enforcers for a little while longer.

For the sake of a friend of his, that is: She had a plan.

With Shootsuit out of his penthouse, this building—prominently utilized by the Enforcers for business in Multiplex, could be infiltrated. A ventilation shaft grate was unscrewed and set aside. Onyx hued hair was accompanied by a domino mask with outward pointed edges, her lanky build garbed in black, carrying tools of both detective and spy—or rather, ninja. This was none other than the Curious Kunoichi. A madame of mystery. Most days she tackled street level trouble and solved similar such crimes in a mostly solitary fashion. But other days she still found herself pitting the mind and the technique etched into her muscle memory against larger threats, where even the mightiest metaforms might miss a key detail, the kind that a keen eye and a wealth of knowledge could make use of.

With only the slightest effort, Curio briefly jammed multiple security cameras at a time. Dancing through the weaves of laser tripwires with gymnastic expertise that might have made her an Olympic contender. Not a single beat could be missed: She had formulated every step with as close of calculations as she could put together based on blueprints of the building, an in-depth understanding of the security systems employed (as well as their esteemed supplier, from a business standpoint).

In the shadow of a storage center in the building, Curio placed a small flashlight between her teeth while she climbed shelves, server machines, and cabinets. Only turning on the light to scan through drawers. Ever-scanning for security, which had been oddly absent since her arrival. That had her keeping her guard up.

Suddenly, she bit down on the button to turn off the compact flashlight’s beam. Someone was clapping for her.

“Phenomenal work. Just stop right where you are, and I’ll find you soon enough.”

Curio cursed internally: ‘Earth’s Most Prepared Heroes’ wasn’t just a marketing slogan. It made far too much sense that the Enforcers had someone standing by to keep an eye out! Someone the international intelligence community counted among their bogeymen: The Tabkeeper! Currently wearing a pair of night vision goggles, as he called out to an unseen cohort.

“Section J-Thru-L, confirmed! Deep fry this weirdo. I repeat, DEEP FRY this weirdo!”

Curio jumped immediately. Something—or someone swept through the aisle between the row of cabinets. And they were aflame, head-to-toe! She evacuated quickly, tossing a smoke bomb immediately into Tabkeeper’s face. As for her other pursuer, the ballistic Pyrogoria would simply melt down any projectiles that came his way!

“YOU CAN RUN,” started Pyrogoria’s altered vocals. “CAN’T HIDE THOUGH! ASHES TO ASHES, DUST TO DUST. AND THAT’S GONNA INCLUDE YOU, CRISPY COOKED, CURIOUS KUNOICHI!”

Just then, from the sides there came a spray of something like a fire extinguisher’s foam from an opening on the wrist of her gauntlet. First from Pyrogoria’s left, then to his right. From the front as well. And then, figuring that the Curious Kunoichi would try to attack from behind to finish up, he began to push himself, a great tension taking his body as a jet of flames emitted outwardly. Torching the contents of any miserable shelves or drawers left open. And it would have melted down any person without caution, as it began to melt the electronic servers in the room.

That is, had Curio not remained in front of Pyrogoria to side-kick him in the ribs, sending him rolling backwards. She hurried back to the cabinet she was looking for, and started grabbing at the folder she was after. Hoping it hadn’t been damaged. As for any digital copies, she pulled out her phone and pressed a button to remotely activate a function on one of her computers far from this building: to break right through the system firewall and send their IT department scrambling to recover as many of the files as they could: She’d uploaded a virus to start deleting everything, blocking the creation of any back-ups. Not that it would matter: Curio had the physical copy.

“Not so fast.”

It was Tabkeeper! He was trying to catch Curio with a silenced pistol. One shot ricocheted off her shoulderpad by a stroke of luck, the rest whizzing by like flies on nitro. As a parting gift, the Curious Kunoichi hid at the end of one bookshelf. Tabkeeper had reloaded his weapon, and was walking within this new aisle. And it was in that moment that Curio put everything she had into pushing the shelf one side: She wanted it to fall right onto him. Maybe cause a domino effect and knock down a few other shelves. Total bedlam to cover her escape.

“So… what’s in the folder?”

Up on one of the rooftops, beside a little greenhouse, Curious Kunoichi had met back up with a harrowed Rex. She was perched on the edge of the rooftop, poring over her findings while Rex gently landed behind her. If stumbling slightly on his steps since he was still freshly escaped from his own battles.

“Everything I said it’d be.”

Curio closed the folder, offering it over for Rex to skim. He had agreed to help his friend in getting their hands on restricted documents regarding certain charitable foundations whose finances came up questionable—but were able to use their generous reputation to deflect any official investigations into how much their executive board members were making. That and their ties to groups like the Enforcers. Of course, the Curious Kunoichi, with characteristic speed and resolve had raced to expose this corruption. And with Rex playing the part of distraction, she had accomplished it.

“I’ll see you around.” said Rex, waving goodbye for now. “But maybe just hangin’ out at the usual spots instead of another mission… I’m six different kinds of beat! Rather go to the arcade or something with folks.”

“Hah. Sure, I’ll ask around and see who’s free to join us.”

So why did Curio feel a pang of wretchedness? They were friends now, had been for a while. They were fighting the good fight, to set things right, as much as they could each time they acted. There were friends and allies waiting in the wings to help. And yet, not a hundred or more exploits could completely make the vicious spectre of the past go away.

As the Curious Kunoichi stood up, and ziplined across the street below to the next rooftop, she attempted to focus on any remaining tasks for the day. She still had to check in on a few areas, residential, business, and so forth—mostly just poking around for surveillance equipment being set up by a new private security firm. Legally it was all in the clear. But the Curious Kunoichi couldn’t operate with listening posts hidden behind chimneys or hidden cameras affixed here and there.

“Oh, thanks! That thing was creeping us out!”

Curio turned sharply. She had a throwing dart at the ready, but calmed down when she saw it was an apartment tenant. Besides her pragmatic goal, Curio had now recognized the devices weren’t just infringing on her covert activity—they were just straight-up violations of privacy. Her efforts here led to a few less wiretaps on phones and eyes watching the streets, as well as some open windows.

“If they come back,” started Curio. “Leave me a note or something. I’ll deal with it.”

She would listen now. Not like before.

“Bless you for being out here tonight!”

There was a nod from the mystery woman before she departed. Before regret seeped its way in again. It was not so long ago she was more of a lone wolf. Felt she couldn’t count on anyone else to help her, the sights and sounds still so vivid to her keen investigative mind. Long nights, meals substituted with protein shakes. Just the need to optimize everything she did. The Enforcers had her labeled as a threat for that before, and it still remained as such.

But then she remembered working with someone who took the alias ‘Prizefighter,’ or some underdog hero title like that. Back then he had a grin that used to give her a headache. Always trying to find alternatives, even the most absurd ones before calling it quits. Stronger and faster than he had any right to be, able to rain down fire from the skies and wrestle with kaiju.

Over time, she found out the hard way that some of the soon-to-be Enforcers, like Socket and Grizzly, had felt the same way when they started a budding adolescent supergroup of their own. Prizefighter was brought into the ranks. Seemingly given a niche to fit into, friends to spend his free time with. What teenager could resist that? And then it all came crashing down when Prizefighter turned whistleblower, trying to warn the world that their most celebrated protectors were nothing but elitist snobs—and that not all their enemies were the unforgivable scum that their public relations made them out to be.

That day, Curious Kunoichi said goodbye to Prizefighter. And hello to Rex.

Not a day went by since then that the Curious Kunoichi regretted not intervening, not only on Rex’s behalf as his secret identity was forcibly revealed to the world and slandered as the deception of an alien invader. But for all the lost souls who had trusted their peers trying to join the ranks, and the veteran Enforcers who ran the whole crooked circus. Her narrow-minded cynicism had rendered her inert when it came to battling the very corruption she swore to vanquish.

Rex sat on a mountain cliffside for a moment. He’d started on a walk through the land outside of Multiplex City to cool off. A couple of times he perked up—and then jolted up to his feet. Uncertain if he left various daily tasks unsettled at home. Just as quickly, he remembered that not to be the case and had to sit back down. Still feeling the need to rush and hurry despite no pressing concerns.

That’s how it was at one point before, wasn’t it? Be swift, on time and never late. But never too early either. Defeat your enemies without hesitation, but always as instructed. Hang back when ordered. The others stood front and center for the cameras, microphones, the whole of the limelight. And he could too, when the time was right. That was the case every once in a while, table scraps posited as evidence to a truth.

He didn’t start flying right away. Instead, Rex opted to take a short hop first. A few more, until he was back on even ground where he could run fast across. Beside deer and horses let out to graze a bit from being stuck inside a trailer hooked up to a truck. At least until Rex accelerated ahead of them. Eventually he found a dump truck with the rear bed uplifted—having recently done away with its cargo. Aiming right for it, Rex used the raised bed of the truck as a makeshift ramp. Zooming upwards to the surprise of one of the truck drivers as he disappeared above the clouds.

His ascent slowed for a moment as he put one hand on his forehead over his eyes, getting used to the greater abundance of sunlight. Though he generated his own cosmic energy, Rex could supplement himself with solar and other rays he came across, barring any obstacles or interference in-between. After long days working, fighting, anything: the extra boost from external sources was welcome alongside hearty meals and whatever restful sleep he could achieve.

But there was once a time when he had to keep moving. On a back-to-back schedule. Constantly timing himself to see how long it took one time versus another. Always trying to pare it down to the lowest possible count of minutes, seconds. He had to attack with certainty, not mercy. But also, when the others finally arrived, he had to take a dive. Smile and maintain optimism, but then they’d tell him bluntly that he was too cheerful. Made Rex seem too holier-than-thou. The standards always seemed to shift where he was concerned. No matter what he tried, the rules were never the same twice. If they were, it felt like a very last-minute change.

Rex shut his eyes for a moment as he hovered there. His eyes remained closed, but not as tightly as he watched his breathing. Fighting them earlier wasn’t enough stress relief. All he wanted to do was to go about warring with them until either he’d thrashed them all, or he was too broken down to get up again.

The memories didn’t play from start to finish. It was like there were intervals of static. The worst offenses. The attempt to talk down people he considered teammates-- his friends. Reaching out to mentors he thought he could confide in with his trust, especially the ones as optimistic as he had been once upon a time to set things right. Surely, they could talk some sense into their grim, more corrupt teammates?

But they stood by and told him he was overreacting.

Not that this was nearly enough. Socket and Grizzly, they lead the charge. Even the upbeat Ectoette just stood by and let it play out, reluctant as her attack had been: She had such overwhelming faith in rules and order. The restraint they demanded in Rex, they scarcely held themselves up to such a notion. That was what allowed them to take his battered body and show his face to the public despite those pathetic, choked pleas. He couldn’t even defend himself and they spoke of the planet Nypardia as though it had deployed Rex to be some sort of invasion scout.

A low growl could be heard from Rex. He felt his fists clenching, his teeth gritting. No tears were shed: just a bitter, vengeful glare at nothing and no one within range of where Rex was floating. The last time he’d offered an expression like that, the intended receiver was in his sights. They laughed, and he lashed out at them. It didn’t make anyone see the truth of the situation, he wasn’t given a parade and a mess of apologies he was owed. The unreasonable, unfair hostility didn’t stop. The damage had long since been done. Retaliating physically was a short-term relief when they had twisted the opinion of so many people. It had been so effective, even to this day they spoke at Rex as if it were all his fault, that they’d let him back in if he were the one to make amends.

And then, Rex rocketed up beyond the edge of the atmosphere past orbit. Offering a thundering roar as he expelled some of the gargantuan volume of his lungs. It was about fifteen minutes before he finally stopped, and began drifting back down against gravity’s hold. His various superpowered senses would survey the entirety of the world below-- its sights, sounds, geography and the composition of the elements that made it all up.

Going up there restored his perspective. A reminder of the majesty of this planet, and all of its people, even some animals that took care of him when he was small and lonely.

Grizzly was monitoring one of the gyms. Putting a batch of newbies through their paces, in a way he had never had to endure when he was brought onboard. They were currently facing off in a holographic environment full of dangers and simulated opponents.

“Hey, shitlips! Your fridge running?”

Grizzly whipped his head around, immediately swinging one of his rifles at him like a billy club.

“Never become a comedian, Suck-at-it. Your career would end before it even began!”

There was Socket’s sickening snicker again. Grizzly wasn’t even being playfully rude: he legitimately got angry after a certain point. And Socket was not oblivious to this. In fact, he thrived off of ticking people off if they didn’t play along. Grizzly scooted his seat back up to the control panel, and started fiddling with settings. Just as the newbies were getting used to things, he wanted to shake things up on them last minute over in the gym.

“What do you want anyway, Suck-at-it? I’m busy here.”

“It’s quite clear to me. Don’t you see it, you dolt?”

Grizzly looked away from the training room for a moment.

“Yeah, screw you: This is about taking back that stolen file. My old man’s been raising hell for the guys he put on security detail and Shootsuit’ll probably be mad we fell for the space case’s trick. Might get in some hot water.”

“You fell for it. I could have taken him down. Seen right through the entire deception. Atomized him, and flayed him, and--”

The two just quit their arguing for the time being.

“Well. The Kunoichi’s gotta hand the files off sometime, right? Must have a contact at city hall she can count on. We just waltz right on in, you flash your badge and take the papers on uhhh… suspicions!”

“It’s called probable cause, dumbass.”

“You know what I mean! Ugh. That sounded better in my head.”

“No, I don’t. You STILL SUCK at this. Now hurry up. I’ll pull intel and see who the ninja chick’s buddy is. Text Ectoette that she’s on standby.”

The two made for the parking garage and to a sports car Socket had recently purchased, despite Grizzly’s protests (he wanted an armored vehicle, one with a gun turret he could point and shoot).

The two arrived shortly afterwards at city hall, welcomed eagerly by most. Met with silence and passing glances by some passing eyes, hurrying back to work before they were dragged into this latest mess the Enforcers were going to try and bring to their doorstep. Fortunately, they were looking for a select city councilman who kept late hours—perfect for meetings with vigilantes like the Curious Kunoichi. Of course, by the time they made it up to the floor where the office was located, the councilman had just stepped out.

“Unbelievable!” said Socket. “Too late for lunch, too early for dinner. He shouldn’t be on a break yet!”

“C’mon, he can’t have gotten far.” said Grizzly “He had no idea we were coming.”

Socket nodded. With a wave of his hands, he selected at random several corpses to appear from wherever they had ended up, in graves or once ashes. Though most of their power came from being augmented by Socket’s malicious brand of magic, their restless state left them extremely furious. Socket could point them anywhere and name his enemy as the cause of their tortured awakening.

“Look, they’ve swarmed him! Let’s go.”

There was a pile of the restless undead on top of a living body. Only Socket and Grizzly would be more than a little shocked to find it wasn’t the councilman at all: It was Rex.

“Oh.”

Socket stared for a moment. His legion of the undead were currently scratching and gnawing on Rex to no avail. Although they were damaging him, none would cut or pierce him in an instant kill. Grizzly also stared for a moment, before scrambling to arm himself with the heavy machine gun strapped to his back. They had caught their former alien teammate as he’d just calmed down from their last, and very recent clash with each other.

“Where’s the councilman?!” demanded Grizzly. “You were here waiting for us!”

“No. What.” said Rex. “I was literally just walking by when a few dead bodies started grabbing me and dragging me over to this commotion. Wait, what’s that about a councilman??”

“You… I’ll do more than summon a few bodies, Rex!” hissed Socket, pooling his magic into forming a portal. “I’ll call upon the entities of the highest, most incomprehensible planes! It would be futility to resist the MULTITUDES I could command! Compared to you—you’re just kind of strong!”

“Futile, huh?” said Rex, cracking his knuckles “Then you won’t mind if I try anyway.”

“—MULTITUDES, you hear me?! Incomprehensible, unstoppable!!!--”

“I heard you. And I see it just fine: I got hyper-vision, remember? Not that you bozos ever paid much attention!”

As they bickered, Grizzly spotted someone fumbling for his car keys with one hand, and in the other hand he held a folder, tucked under an arm. The councilman was trying to escape!

“GET HIM!”

Grizzly started running forward to grab the councilman before his keys hit the car’s ignition. At which point Rex dashed after and tackled Grizzly in the side. Socket wasn’t far off, finishing his portal gateway: And as it widened to let something loose, the street lamps threatened to twist like silly straws. Slabs of the sidewalk burst from their place, and buildings contorted until they appeared to be looming over the street, their doors, windows, and other fixtures like twisted faces.

“Oh my gosh!” cried a bystander to a whole bunch of fellow Enforcers fans. “He’s summoning Golthoom the Ender of Legions, Burner of Regions! Just like in his movie the Nether Regions of Nonsense!”

“DOES NO PART OF THAT DESCRIPTION *CONCERN* YOU?!” hollered Rex. He was currently trading punches with Grizzly, while a large, gruesome hand reached out from the portal.

“Go double park a UFO, space case! He only uses it on punks that deserve it. Like you!”

Just before Rex could offer a frustrated retort, the entity that Socket had called upon was halfway out of the portal, grabbing onto Rex with glowing claws, and dragging him into some infernal realm. The crowd cheered, rejoicing that Rex appeared to have been banished to Hell. The Enforcers proceeded to shakedown the councilman for the file he was carrying. Personal phones and tabloid cameras went off.

“All in a day’s work, fine folks!” said Socket. “But I gotta give a HAND it to the councilman here for being soooo brave!”

The councilman was offered a literal hand ripped from one of Socket’s undead minions. At that point, the councilman pretty much fainted. Socket and Grizzly let off a hearty laugh, before shuffling away to examine their prize.

Or they would have, if a gleaming sword hadn’t lopped off Socket’s arm holding the file in an instant! Grizzly was quick to draw his pistol, getting a couple of shots off: The recently arrived Curious Kunoichi was knocked backwards by the shots, the kevlar lining of her costume taking one round and another shot grazing her leg. As she hit the ground, she had tossed out a handful of putty that collided with the barrel of Grizzly’s pistol—the ursine-themed commando’s gun barrel exploding in his face the next time he pulled the trigger.

“Kunoichi! Damn you!” hissed Socket. “Give us back our file, or else you’ll really be sorry! I just sent your shitty friend on a one-way trip to the damned realms!”

Something in the Curious Kunoichi snapped at the thought of having arrived too late. Grizzly had drawn his own bowie knife, and clashed it against Curio’s wakizashi. The commando swung with one hand so the blades would be forced against one another, his other hand trying to take the ninja-detective into his enhanced grip. In a bout of defense, Curio performed a backflip kick right into Grizzly’s wrist with great force that veered it off course. Then, using her sword to safely parry aside the large knife, she applied a light palm strike to Grizzly’s chest.

“I got body armor of my own, shrimp!” said Grizzly.

“Good. Softens the impact.” said Curio. She pulled out a remote detonator. Grizzly looked down to see she had stuck a landmine to his chest. When she hit the button, LED lights installed in a circular fashion began to light up quickly. Grizzly frantically tried to get at the explosive implement, but was too late. It blew up at point blank, landing him on the ground to writhe in pain. And the next thing Socket knew, Curio’s blade was pointed in his direction.

“New portal.” demanded the Curious Kunoichi. “Now.”

Socket just scoffed. “You can’t kill me. Not for good, you brooding buffoon.”

“I’ll mix your remains in with cow manure after I’m done slicing and dicing.”

The portal was opened anew. There in the distance, the dreaded Golthoom had become a battle-damaged giant—who was battling another giant with a metallic teal body and three bulbous glowing eyes that disappeared, giving way to a large blue fireball: Out of the portal rocketed Rex! His aura being flared up made him resemble a fireball. Rex landed on the street, his shirt tattered somewhat to reveal bruises and burns, hair a mess, eyes wide out of horror, and huffing from great exertion. Curio perked up, and Rex nodded back, offering a thumbs up before he angled to land a haymaker punch right on Socket’s face. But for some reason, Socket and Grizzly were grinning.

*THWOOSH!!*

Just as it seemed to be over, Rex was divebombed and swept up into the sky by a stranglehold: A cavalry charge by Ectoette!

“STOP! We’re ALL heroes here and we’re better than this. YOU are better than this! What happened to the patient friend you used to be?! It’s not too late to turn back!”

Her arms had the density turned up, coiled around his throat. Her flight path was interrupted by his struggle to break free of her crushing, superhuman grip. There was no eloquence left in him, no desire to discuss this, not like all the times he’d tried in the past. Because as he argued a hundredfold before, so too they had shut down his concerns in similar measure.

“SHUT UP!” howled Rex with a gasp of air. “SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP! LEMME GO—I’M GONNA KNOCK THEIR STINKING LIGHTS OUT!!”

Ectoette let off a bloodcurdling yell. Her form seemed to distort—accompanied by multiple intangible afterimages of herself that moved in different directions, like a wailing ghost from which she derived her entire theme. Her grip started to feel more acidic than before.

“REX… THIS. ISN’T. YOU!!!!”

The volume of her banshee scream came suddenly, overwhelming Rex’s senses—particularly his hyper-hearing. But covering his ears would only offer a brief relief. He finally pried her hand off, and slipped out of her aerial hold. With a bloodcurdling screech, she raised one hand, altering the density so it could phase through solid matter. But once she connected it with Rex, she was going to turn it solid again and discombobulate his molecular structure and throw his reserves of cosmic energy into a frenzy!

“AAAUGH!”

Coupled with the shock to his hyper-hearing, Ectoette’s phasing attack was doing a number on him. He ignited his aura power again, taking hold of her incorporeal knife-hand nestled between where his ribs would be, and forced her away with a front kick. Her three flyer underlings were on him shortly after with a cascade of more tangible melee strikes, and whatever secondary abilities they had— raining down thunderbolts, laser beams, anything as long as they were keeping the pressure on Rex.

This was like before too, wasn’t it? They could kick him down all they wanted, but the moment Rex defended himself, he was going over the line. Even those as upstanding as Ectoette upheld this. Teammates like her, mentors who were unerringly polite. Always diehard sticklers for the rules, quicker to admonish everyone but their corrupt counterparts.

*WHAM!*

Rex kept that in mind as he grabbed a flyer by the cape, and swung them into their teammate. For the third and last one, he brought his hands together into an axe-handle blow that would send them crashing through several floors of a nearby parking garage. He flew down to finish what he started with Socket and Grizzly, both fists aimed forward so he could tackle right into them with the momentum he was gathering.

And then he went right past them.

“NO…!!”

He felt a hand on his back. Rex turned around to see Ectoette had raced after him. Extended her density shifting powers onto him when he least expected it, so that Rex couldn’t use his aura or energy control to resist. They hovered there in that empty subway stop for a while.

For that, there was absolute rage welling up within Rex. Ectoette looked disappointed. True, Rex was in a miserable state: But she still seemed to believe the solution was in his returning to a state of being he just couldn’t embrace anymore. The spectral superhero started drifting away like yet another memory. Free from her grasp, Rex immediately raised his aura to counteract her density shift. Ran up the stairs back to the street, and saw she had dragged him to a stop much further away than where the fight had taken place.

“Thank heavens!”

Rex turned: It was the Curious Kunoichi. But minus the file she’d sought after. In lieu of it, a couple more injuries. She was able to fight back, but only to retreat for now.

“They got away with it.” muttered Rex. “… Again.”

Curio looked aside for a moment. She knew he was blaming himself. But that’s what stung her at times: She wondered why she wasn’t the one to blame here. She could have been more careful, taken more steps to make sure she wasn’t being surveilled before. No doubt her councilman contact was going to have his job on the line.

“There’ll be other plans. Other chances.” said Curio. “We’re okay though, right?”

Rex blinked. He could tell her intent was to focus on their physical health after that fight. He extended a hand to shake, which confused Curio for a moment, but went along with it in the end, before being thoroughly surprised by a low-five.

“Sure. We need to work on that secret handshake though.”

“Secret… handshake?” said Curio, raising a brow. “Like some kind of heads-up signal for our next operation?”

“Sure, I guess. But also: just to do whenever.”

Curio felt a little better when Rex put on a weak smile.

“Thanks for gettin’ me outta that other dimension. I knew I could count on you. We square?”

Curio took a moment to soak in those words—that someone had faith in her abilities. And then she finally nodded after a moment.

“Square. Indeed.”

It was a wonder they had ever become friends as they had, given their past. But for now, it was better to have a comrade during such trying times. At last, Rex put his hands into his pockets, and started to shuffle along home with the Curious Kunoichi, who accompanied him until one of them was back at their own doorstep.

#Dynaura #Dynaura No. 4 #Web Fiction

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antics-pedantic · 2 years

Text

MUTANT MEDIA CLUB #3: SWORD & SORE SIREE

In the uppermost offices of the New York based Triumph Pictures film studio, someone was toiling away at a keyboard. Crunching away at one of those calculators with a large, fresh roll of receipt-paper. It was none other than a roughly four-foot-tall beetle in a white dress shirt and snazzy tie. This was the mutant known to many as King Atlas, the master of accounting and other office drudgery.

Now, King Atlas’s mutation wasn’t that he was a beetle. Far from it, as he came from a society of insectoids that lived underground. Rather, King Atlas’s mutation was that he could do accounting work. The sheer aptitude he demonstrated for the task was beyond the ken of any mortal. Even robots optimized for acceleration and mutants who fancied being fast could at times find themselves outpaced by Atlas, because he set about his work with such an unnerving certainty. And the most terrifying thing was that one could only get him to take vacations if he accumulated too many holiday hours and had to adhere to the rules. Absolutely no one in the office could keep up with his pace, and supervisors were advised not to compare employees to him too often, or else they would experience such a burnout that it would bring about spontaneous combustion—coupled with the single-most extreme charges of arson in the city.

“Yer majesty.” sobbed one of the managers at this level, hanging off of the doorway. He had tried to break King Atlas’s spirit, but found no such thing was possible, at least through assigning work. “D-Don’t you wanna go home? Maybe watch some… some TV?”

��A SMASHING idea, chap!” laughed King Atlas. He had the lilt of royalty to his voice from much practice and a penchant for grandeur. And he also had a portable television set under his desk, which he set up and began dialing through between bursts of completing various work by the droves. It was in that moment that King Atlas’s long-suffering management had devised a scheme to derive some comedy from the little pest.

“Guess you’ll miss it when us work buddies head down and grab a few beers while we go over marketing plans for the Hornswoggle franchise, eh K.A.?”

King Atlas perked up his beetle horns at that.

“Work buddies? You mean there’s a group? About to indulge in libations upon the colloquial quitting time?!”

“Uh—yeah, sure! And we’d love to have you along.”

And thus, the squad of management had dragged King Atlas off from his spot and down to the nearest shop on the street to purchase some. There was absolutely nothing stopping King Atlas, as the corner store was fully stocked with a plethora of options, his wallet was full of unspent cash, and the managerial squadron was blocking the exit.

“MEAD! AND GROG!”

Suddenly, there was a siege in the backroom of the bodega. In the sense that it was an actual medieval-themed siege conducted by incredibly dedicated LARPers: The faction many knew as the Sewer Doers!

Predictably, King Atlas was knocked unconscious and abandoned by the managers from Triumph Pictures. But in his opinion, the worst thing he realized was that most of the inventory of that humble bodega had been carted off into the sewers. Which then raised a more personal concern: His drinking buddies were without their ill-intentioned alcohol!

And then a person in absolutely ordinary clothing but sporting the head of a fish waltzed right in. They looked rather tired, and slapped some money on the counter in order to get a freshly brewed coffee and some specialty beef jerky made at some farm over in New Jersey. From the sleeve of their jacket extended a fishing line and hook. Which earned them their simple, but effective moniker: Fish Hook.

“OOOHHH HOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOO. OOOOOOOOOO!!!--”

King Atlas wailed and wept profoundly like a monarch deposed by his subjects, yet left alive to live with the shame of his equally astounding scale of failures. Although he had some notion that he would never be 100% friends with all his co-workers, let alone the managers, he mourned the social enrichment he would have acquired from standing around sharing inebriating liquids together. Cracking open a proverbial cold one with the proverbial boys.

Fish Hook bought some over-the-counter pain meds before turning to address King Atlas. They deeply regretted showing up now at the worst possible time between the insectoid’s cries and the fact their favorite corner store had been ransacked by people who re-enacted the feudal system in underground tunnels.

“Stop freakin’ crying all over the place.” said Fish Hook. “You’re going to flood the building. No one likes soggy loaves of bread or potato chips that look like they were pulled from the ocean.”

“Ohhh, but I’ll never be able to retain the goods on my own, fair street tough!” sobbed King Atlas. “Won’t you help me?”

Just as Fish Hook was about to conclude the conversation, King Atlas took out a checkbook and wrote down a sum with many zeroes on it. That changed their outlook on the entire situation completely and the two shook hands to cement the deal. King Atlas of course attempted to do some kind of multi-step handshake that Fish Hook just disregarded. They had to go meet someone.

Before the two immediately made for the sewers, they went to a shopping area below street level. Down a flight of alleyway stairs, nestled between the city buildings. There, they entered a popular fantasy-themed tavern. It was a spot for LARPers, but also it was now a spot for the Sewer Doers who were also LARPers, except they hurt people for real. Inside, a bard was playing at a lute made of recycled materials yet to be painted and sculped over into a full-fledged stylized fantasy instrument. On the sidelines people were playing card games they made up for worldbuilding purposes. Some dude was even trapping smoke into glass orbs using magic or something, because the Sewer Doers knew a few tricks like that. It baffled everyone considering the larger setting had long since moved onto low budget super-science.

In any case, they sat down in a shadowy booth filled with fog. Inside, a mutant spider lady wearing leather armor as befitting a rogue was sipping at her grog and mead.

“Zinda.” said Fish Hook, solemnly.

“Fishy…. You’re looking better these days.” said Zinda the mutant spider lady. “What brings you out to the Crusted Tankard? Couldn’t just be reminiscing on what we used to be. You said it yourself: You’re not going to be the sentimental type about it.”

“Ooooh!” hummed King Atlas. “Doth I detect some juicy drama?!”

“Shut up, man!” spat Fish Hook, before turning back to face Zinda. “We need a way into the underground territories. Safely and quietly. Retrieve something, and haul ass immediately afterwards.”

Zinda’s mandibles chittered.

“I can’t guarantee your safety once you’re down there.”

“An entry point is enough.”

“We’ll do a little critter skitter right on by anyone down there—” chuckled King Atlas, with a “nyeaugh-hoho!”

Zinda got up, and led the two into the back of the tavern, past the kitchens and bathrooms, and towards a hidden room with an ornately designed hatch. They climbed down a ladder and into the tunnels, which intersected with the greater New York City sewer system. Torch sconces were set up at points, which Fish Hook took care to put out using some water balloons they carried on-hand.

“Stay close, bug guy.” Said Fish Hook. “There’s no telling who or what we’ll run into down here.”

“You mean like that?”

Fish Hook whipped their head around to see what King Atlas was referring to. If the aquatic-faced street tough could recognize the danger ahead in the form of someone with a cephalopod head.

“Who the hell are you?!” demanded Fish Hook.

“I’m the mind-flayer.” wheezed cephalopod-head. “I saw you after you put out the torches, all with my 60ft Darkvision.”

“Oh shit, like C&C (‘Catacombs & Critters’)?” said Fish Hook.

“Yaeh. But I’m like, an avant garde mind-flayer.”

The auteur Illithid activated his psionic powers, firing a familiar mind blast. Only this one was a bit more conceptual in nature, with visuals akin to that of someone’s first experimental film.

“AaaaAAAAUGH!” shouted Fish Hook. “—Striking visuals though.”

“Really?! Oh, thank you so much. I thought maybe opening with the fisheye lens would be too much.”

“Look at me and say I’d disagree with a fish anything.”

But then suddenly, King Atlas approached. The mind-flayer began to recoil.

“No… What are you doing to my vision!?” cried the avant garde mind-flayer.

“I’m ORGANIZING your thoughts! They’re so scattered and all over the place! But with a little touching up, it can be SORTED and FILED! HEEEEHAHAHA!” said King Atlas in his sing-song voice. His accounting mutation was doing the dread work desired by corporate: turning uniquely crafted work into streamlined productions that were easier to market. A box office breaking formula was applied, one he was exposed to countless times by being in the Triumph offices. Camera angles were reduced to blander, repetitive wide shots. Color grading was near to non-existent, the lighting no longer seemed to manipulate shadows and visibility to set the scene. And the script read like predictive A.I. came up with most of the exchange, with a few human touches in the form of unnecessary jokes.

The Illithid was so heartbroken, he just ran off crying. As he did, he dropped a map of the local tunnel system. It was a copy of a municipal fax document, but with scraps of parchment taped over to mention the various LARP installments set up by the sewer doers.

“That’s one way to make some progress.” said Fish Hook. “C’mon. There’s a… a ‘keep’ where one of the kingdoms stores their prizes. That’s gotta be where the booze is.”

Resuming their quest, Fish Hook would lead the way to the keep. It was a small fort built of mostly plywood and sturdy discarded refuse that could hold against a fair amount of damage. Some of it was even painted over with simple medieval design, giving it a quality not unlike Halloween decorations. But it was the best they could muster, it served its purpose, and the Sewer Doers were pleased with what they put together for the most part.

And then Fish Hook proceeded to smash right through one of those plywood walls, grabbing one of the guards within and hefting them overhead to throw at the other over-the-top LARP warriors. Someone with a bow and arrows was quick to fire— including a violin bowstick and a yardstick whizzing past the street tough. Fish Hook responded promptly by throwing out their fishing line, catching the hook on the bowstring and causing the archer’s next shot (in the form of a toilet plunger) to bounce back into their own face, stuck there as they were deprived of oxygen. The archer would fall unconscious shortly thereafter.

“You think you’re so tough…”

Just then, a fellow with a fake beard brandishing an authentic replica of a goblin club came in, eyeing Fish Hook’s kneecaps. Judging by the heft and sculpt of that club, it was probably going to result in lasting damage if it made an impact. They tried to use their fishing line and hook to disarm the attacker, but not all the dwarves in the deepest caverns could force this dwarf-poser’s strong arm.

“Yeah. Now I’m in control of the situation. I’m the Ace-Of-Clubs.”

The fake-bearded fellow— a jestermaster known as Ace-Of-Clubs kept his eyes on Fish Hook, resting the club on one shoulder so he could free up a hand to stroke his false whiskers. It was in that moment that Fish Hook noticed a large crate labeled ‘SURPLUS CODPIECES’ and threw their fishing line at it, catching the hook and throwing the crate at Ace-Of-Clubs with all the force they could muster. The crate was met with a swing of the goblin club, smashing it to splinters. Ace-Of-Clubs looked around for Fish Hook, only for the street tough to pull Ace-Of-Clubs into a stranglehold!

“Shhh… Shhh…” whispered Fish Hook. “Don’t piss your pants going into that sweet good night…”

Nearby, King Atlas had started to dance among the fallen bodies, juxtaposed by Fish Hook’s strenuous effort to put down the jestermaster. At last, the path to the treasure chest where the six-pack of beer had been cleared. Of course there was still one final problem: There was an extra identical chest.

“Come on out, you little shit.” said Fish Hook to no one in particular. There was silence, but King Atlas did not question it. Not out loud at least: He didn’t completely understand why Fish Hook was acting like this.

“You got any matches, K.A.?”

“No, but I DIIIIID find some flint!”

“That’ll do, beetle guy. That’ll do.”

Grabbing some leftover plywood planks, Fish Hook threw some behind both treasure chests, nodding to let King Atlas know he could strike the firestarter stones. As the fire took shape on the planks, one of the chests suddenly flew into the ceiling with a harsh *WHAM!* and a big slam on the ground. Before turning to open, and revealing a large set of sharp teeth!

“I ain’t losin’ my position with these dweebs!” howled the mimic “It’s either this or I get typecasted in every movie gig as background prop #6!”

And with a great toss, Fish Hook threw a flaming plank into the mimic’s mouth, knocking them back and causing them to cough up brimstone in a round of pathetic defeat wheezing. Putting out the fire behind the real treasure chest, Fish Hook and King Atlas took the six-pack and made for the entrance they used to enter the sewers.

“I must thank you again, my friend! This has been a most droll day.”

“What?! Boring?!” said Fish Hook.

“No no, droll, not dull! I found it exciting.”

Fish Hook breathed a sigh of relief. The word ‘droll’ always sounded weird to them.

“Now that I’ve acquired the libations, my fellows will be able to brainstorm a marketing scheme for Hornswoggle 3!”

“Hornswoggle 3?!” gasped Fish Hook. “I hated the first two films! Why are they making a third one?!”

“And a fourth and a fifth, NYEEHAHAHA! Box office sales on the second one were THROOOOUUUGH the roof. It was a sign, they said! A SIGN!!”

“Wait! That completely sucks! You can’t let them—”

But before Fish Hook could reach out to try and grab King Atlas, he had accidentally slammed the trapdoor into the sewers shut in Fish Hook’s face. They lost their grip on the ladder and fell back down to the sewer. Trying not to lose consciousness. But they did—just as the door creaked open slowly.

When Fish Hook regained consciousness, they felt miserably groggy. And they were cocooned in a mass of webbing! That had to mean one thing: This was Zinda’s doing. Without wasting a moment, Fish Hook used their namesake implement to gradually cut a small hole in the webbing, enough that they could throw a line out. Skeletons lay on the floor and stuck to the walls by webs, and one was holding a particularly impressive replica cutlass, the likes of which Fish Hook could use to cut themselves free and demand directions to the exit.

Most of that was accurate. Fish Hook did manage to use the sword to cut themselves free, if awkwardly. And Zinda had just unlocked the front door, holding brown paper bags full of groceries, which she had to set aside on a spackled kitchen counter before addressing Fish Hook. Zinda wasn’t dressed up at all in fantasy regalia at the moment, uncharacteristic of a sewer doer.

“You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what? I’m gonna start swashbuckling my way out of here. You called the cavalry… because I broke free of your webs before you could eat my brain.”

Zinda had to admit, that was something she did to people. But not to Fish Hook. Never to Fish Hook, not unless a rage unlike anything she’d ever known had taken her.

“There’s none to be found F.H., I didn’t call for anyone. I just saw you fell off the ladder and brought you in. My sofa is filthy from a party recently, so I put you up into my webs for the time being.”

“Then… why?” asked Fish Hook.

“You said you wouldn’t be the sentimental type. I never promised anything like that. Do you remember when we broke up?”

“Yeah, we saw Hornswoggle 2: Born to Swoggle.”

“Instead of what I wanted to watch. You just couldn’t believe there was another Hornswoggle film so you insisted on seeing it.”

“And then we broke up after. I know. That movie sucked.”

Zinda chittered.

“It wasn’t the movie, Fish Hook. Well actually, it certainly didn’t help. But I think for a while it just wasn’t working out, y’know? I was weaving fantasies with my friends and you… you were always on the clock, even when you got home. It was killing you Fish Hook. It’s still killing you.”

Fish Hook dropped the sword. Zinda scuttled over to place them back in the web, producing webs carefully so as to support the injured parts of Fish Hook’s body. But Fish Hook stopped her.

“I can’t stay. I have to go back and stop those knobs Atlas is with.”

Zinda sighed. She tore off some of the webbing, leaving a sling for one of Fish Hook’s arms, and a cast for their leg. She may have reacted too strongly on determining the severity of the damage, but she couldn’t help herself.

“Give it twenty minutes to heal a little more. But you really shouldn’t overdo it, Fish Hook.”

Fish Hook just rolled their eyes.

“Thanks, Zinda.”

With an encouraging pat on the back, Fish Hook was helped outside.

“I guess there’s no stopping you. But if you can stop Hornswoggle 3, well… go get ‘em.”

“—And then, and THEN we’ll have the guy go back his high school reunion for a scene so he can unzip his pants, and then WHAM! Right into the punch bowl. No rhyme or reason, it’ll be HIIIIIILARIOUS!”

“AND, AND—” sputtered another executive, pointing both fingers wildly. “We gotta have a subplot, right? Like. There’s gotta be a PART where the guy… runs into a girl. Buh-but NOT the main girl, like just some random one who HAAAAPPENS, to be a big fan of our product sponsor—maybe wowee bread or that fabric softener the laundry people kept talking about at the conference yesterday, and the temptation between them is there. But not if she doesn’t have the product.”

The others just stared at their fellow executive, before someone started writing things down on napkins, and pointing to the exec with a highly specific intensity towards product placement and its involvement in on-screen relationships. They all sat at a bar directly next to the living room of the penthouse suite.

“I love your energy. Love it. We could pick up on that in the next movie if our leading lady and her lawyer find a way out of the contract. What else?”

“Ooh! I have an idea. What say you if the guy were to break out of the sheriff’s jail cell—” King Atlas started to say. He was forced to sit in the corner with his can of beer.

“Shut up, ya pest!” said another executive, wearing a tie as a headband, and inhaling large quantities of various powders he found strewn around the penthouse suite, hoping to eventually find his co-worker’s secret supply of drugs.

“Wait, I got it!” said tie-headband. “What if he breaks out of the sheriff’s jail? AND we could work in a bit about social media in there. We gotta get like thirteen of ‘em all over the movie, show everybody we’re hip!”

Suddenly, the doorbell rang.

“Must be those large pizzas. Me first!”

One of the executives hurried over to check using the peephole. There was someone out there alright.

“What an ugly sucker!” snorted the executive, opening the door. “Pizza time!”

But upon being handed the pizza box, the executive found it was packed with a cement sidewalk tile, and dropped it on his own feet. And then the deliveryperson put on a rubber-latex Halloween mask: it was Fish Hook. They weren’t a mutant at all! They just really really liked fishing to the point they made it their whole gimmick.

And then with a mighty toss, Fish Hook lobbed an iron coat hanger at the product placement executive, catching him by the nose with the hanger hook and pulling him into a tall potted cactus nearby. Two scrambled onto their feet, trying to head upstairs to get to a helicopter. Naturally, Fish Hook gave chase at a slower pace—mostly so they could lash out at the executives still lazing about the room. Some guy charging at Fish Hook with a barstool had a bottle of rum shattered on his head. A lady trying to toss her weighted kettlebell purse was hit by a t-shirt cannon that Fish Hook pulled out of a display case, launching a garment advertising the unwanted prequel to a story that had its share of mysteries to ponder over. A few more instances of offbeat violence and they were headed up to the roof where the private helicopter was. The last couple of executives were on it. One was in the pilot’s seat, the other had drawn a flare gun to point at Fish Hook.

“Couldn’t even spring for a real gun, huh?” said Fish Hook, taunting the exec.

“From where I’m standing it’ll do the trick just fine, you largemouth basshole.” said the passenger executive. “So long, sucker!”

The flare gun fired, and soon its flames would torch Fish Hook if the shot connected with them. Fish Hook quickly pulled out a small, one-handed wield aluminum baseball bat that was easy to conceal in their pants, using it to swat away the flare just barely. The rotor blades of the helicopter began to spin as they ascended. Fish Hook tossed their fishing line and hook out to try and catch the copter by its landing skids.

“Ha! You MISSED!” shouted the pilot executive over the built-in megaphone.

But Fish Hook wasn’t aiming at them.

The two executives turned their heads to see that Fish Hook had pulled up a building window-washer. Exerting all the strength at their command—aided by the tensile durability of the fishing line’s sturdy fibers, the hired muscle in the aquatic animal mask tossed the window-washer onto the front of the helicopter, where they clung on.

“Live…” chanted the window-washer. “In DARKNESS!”

And then the window-washer proceeded to activate some sort of reverse function on his cleaning squeegee. When he dragged it across the windshield of the helicopter, the squeegee added on a thick muck instead of cleaning it off. With the pilot executive unable to fly properly, he spun the helicopter out of control, and into a billboard that still advertised for Hornswoggle 2: Born to Swoggle.

On the way back down, Fish Hook went over to the corner where King Atlas had fallen asleep. In a gentler sort of way than his cohorts: Filled with disappointment, dispersing it from his psyche with lofty dreams. Taking the insectoid into one arm and resting his head on their shoulder, they walked out. The other hand still tightly grasping onto the small aluminum bat.

Hornswoggle 3 was in development hell. It was a victory: Not one that would give King Atlas the acclaim he wanted, and it certainly wouldn’t repair Fish Hook’s latest doomed relationship. But it was something worth walking off into the sunset over, as far as Fish Hook was concerned. Enough to want to start over again the next day.

#Web Fiction #Mutant Media Club #MMC 3

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