Jalen floated and shot down the length of the entire facility, bursting through any walls in his way. At the loading dock, he landed, his eyes darting about. The wide roller door was raised and fitted into its enclosure above. Packaged boxes containing patties and sausages sat in piles, unattended. Most alarming, bits and pieces of meat and papers littered the bare cement floor. Amidst the disarray, a lead came in the shape of a clipboard holding many papers lying on the floor. Drops of blood had splattered across it. But the text on the documents was still legible.
“What’s got you scrambling like a rabbit caught in the sights of a hawk?” Prillon said after joining him. “Bloody bollocks. You almost brought the fucking building down.”
He flipped through the papers fastened on the board, finding the first set to be an itinerary of items to be loaded into each truck. “Do you see any delivery trucks around?”
“Na, the flipping place is abandoned.”
“Exactly. When you deduced what was going on, it all made sense. I think the spawn are doing rounds across the city now, parading in meat delivery trucks.”
Soon he came across rosters for each driver containing the number of deliveries to be made, items to be delivered, contact information, and the full addresses of the locations. It was highly likely that the spawn forwent using the list, but the addresses were a place to start if he wanted to find them. At best, the spawn had a few hours head start, considering how recent their presence here was. That also meant that Jigoku Kumo had passed through these walls recently in order to discharge the spawn on their current mission.
Gritting his teeth at that revelation, he turned to a squad of agents clad in black approaching the dock with their guns primed and pointed. Regrettably, Dynamo’s expertise would be of great help in exterminating the avalanche of spawn destined to descend on the city.
“This is HAVEN,” the lead agent called out. “Put your hands in the air and step out slowly. I repeat, hands in th—”
Another agent placed his hand across the chest of the speaking one, then leaned in and whispered something that Jalen heard clearly. The lead agent’s eyebrows shot up as he gave Jalen a scrutinizing second glance.
“Shit!” the agent exclaimed, letting his rifle swing on its strap as he threaded forward with his hands raised. “Forget everything I previously said. So we, uh, received reports of multiple persons going missing at this plant. Do you have anything to do with it, by chance?”
“No.” He replied, his focus on parsing through the hundreds of addresses spread across the five driver rosters. Meanwhile, his keen hearing picked up the distant hum of rotor blades slicing the air.
“Well, can you let us know what happened if you are privy to the details?” The second agent, a tall man with a short buzz cut, said, letting his eyes take in the messy state of the dock.
Jalen hovered out of the dock opening, causing the agents to gasp and backtrack. Some trembled while most admittedly stood strong with pounding hearts. He gazed up at the dark sky dotted by approaching helicopters. “You already know the answer to your question. If you’re apprehensive of any spawn hiding about, save yourself the worry. They left a long time ago.”
The helicopters had reached by now, circling the premises with their bright spotlights scanning the area. One such light illuminated the agent and him, casting half his visage in a fair gray, which contrasted heavily with his coal-colored skin.
“They won’t do anything to you,” the second agent said, following his line of sight. “And thanks for the heads up.” Next, the agent gestured towards the dock and the team went ahead, guns angled downwards but prepared. “You may not remember, but I’m Cooper. We met not too long ago.” With no flicker of recognition in Jalen’s eyes, Copper clarified. “I was the agent assigned to tail you. Tried to get you to join HAVEN, but you… declined vehemently. My apologies for my partner’s conduct earlier. You’re kind of hard to see at night.”
He gave a curt nod. “Ah, the person who saved me from the corrupt cops. For that, you have my gratitude. Forgive me for not recognizing you earlier. Your hair colour and hairstyle changed.”
“Well, I’m not undercover anymore.” Cooper chuckled. “And please don’t thank me. I think it’s the sergeant and his cohort’s lives I saved that day. Though I heard he ain’t doing too well.”
After a half-shrug, he held out four of the driver’s rosters with the addresses. Despite his aversion to working with HAVEN, he couldn’t deny the slew of resources they had at their disposal.
“What’s this?” Cooper said, glancing through the documents.
“Addresses of places where the spawn might hit. Mostly restaurants. Prime locations if the demon is looking for more husks. Consider it a token of my gratitude.”
The agent’s phone rang. From the voice emitting from the phone, Jalen gathered that a restaurant had already been hit. Cooper walked away with the phone pressed to his ear, complaining that he couldn’t get a knight’s assistance. The caller responded, stating that the Knights of Arixxer were spread too thin. So, to avoid wasting any more time, Jalen gained altitude.
“Wait!” A female voice screamed at the top of her lungs. “Hold on, Jalen!”
Quickly discerning the voice’s owner, he sighed. Dynamo ran across the street into the facility’s premises, her hands waving wildly at him. He could vanish into the night sky and be at an address listed on the fifth roster he kept for himself within minutes. However, he dove towards her.
“That was a shameful act, Jalen!” Dynamo pointed an angry finger as he drew near. “You gave me your… Ah!”
He swooped in, snatched her, and soared into the sky.
“My goodness,” she groaned, taking deep breaths. “You gave me your word. Oh! Don’t you dare drop me.”
“I won’t.” He grinned. “But it’ll be funny if I did.”
She wrapped herself around him, then buried her face in his neck. Who would’ve thought that the formidable Dynamo feared heights? Certainly not him. In any case, he briefed her on the events as best he could, unsure if she was paying any attention as they flew through the sky. Ingrained with keen survival instincts, Prillon hung further back with his veil of invisibility on.
Jalen arrived at the back of a steakhouse where dumpsters were located. Beside the two-story brick building, a vacant truck sat with its trailer door wide open. Bold red stenciled lettering plastered on either side of the trailer read Hermosville meat packaging. It seemed his hypothesis had been right.
“So this is how we are going to do it,” he said, walking back to Dynamo. “You’ll go in through the front. I’ll take the back door because I suspect the bulk of the spawn are situated towards the building’s rear.”
Rather than speak, she stared blankly at him, her expression hidden by the red glaring mask.
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“What?” he inquired.
“Can I make a suggestion?” she asked.
“Sure.”
“Then I suggest we stick together to increase our chances of success. It is a two-story building. Their extermination might prove difficult. Besides, I’ve heard that the demon can create superhuman spawn.”
He had half a mind to remind her how powerful he was. However, thinking strategically, her suggestion was sound. One thing he overlooked in his quest to diminish Jigoku Kumo’s forces to drive her into the open was the tsuchigumo herself. Jigoku Kumo could be anywhere now, including the steakhouse standing before them. It wouldn’t do him any good if he fell into one of her traps again because of his haste and carelessness.
“If you may feel that I overstepped my boundaries, then I apologize.” Dynamo bowed her head down with her hands clasped together.
“It’s alright,” he said. “Don’t hesitate to voice your ideas. You are an experienced superhero, after all. The demon we are up against is very powerful. But that isn’t what scares me. It is her cunning and trickery.” He let his stern gaze fall on her. “If you feel anything strange like you’ve lost control of your body, let me know. If there are any sigils marked in blood on the floor or ceiling, steer clear of that area and notify me.”
She nodded.
Then he returned to the side of the building where the truck was parked, listening closely to the happenings inside. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, yet.
“We’ll be making our own entrance.” He reared his arm back and punched through the brick wall. A crackling boom sounded, plumes of dust rising as bricks rained down.
A bar sat in the right corner of the room with a small lounge area before it. However, both areas were vacant. Dynamo threaded in as usual, with three needles held in one arm while the other rested on the handle of her Katana. He floated in, picking up sounds of movement behind the lounge wall.
To their left was the main entrance, a vintage-style door made of bound timber. Beside the door, a staircase led to the second floor. He found the easy access to the main entrance from the second floor inconvenient if he planned on eliminating all the spawn present. Nevertheless, they used the corridor beside the lounge to gain access to the main dining, which was currently filled with patrons who appeared to be disinterested in the food on their tables.
Of course.
“Welcome to our establishment,” a hostess dressed in a blouse and slacks said when they entered the room. “Do you have a reserv—”
The force of his punch was so intense the hostess’ head exploded, spraying the wall behind in blood and brain matter.
“What have you done?” Dynamo exclaimed.
He grabbed the leg of the hostess’ body before it toppled and threw it at the nearest man seated at a table. The resulting collision bathed the other patrons in red.
“I know what you all are,” he announced. “So why don’t we get this farce over with?”
The men, women, and some children seated by the tables turned to him, their neutral expressions waning and giving way to predatory growls that tore their lips all the way up their ears. Now they looked nothing more than blood lusted animals parading in human skin. They practically tripped over themselves and the furniture as they charged at him.
“My goodness,” Dynamo muttered. With a practiced throw, she released her needles into the approaching crowd.
Initially, nothing too effective occurred as the long needles vanished into the spawn, puncturing several but failing to bring any down. That was until three compact explosions engulfed the spawn, sending a myriad of body parts flying about and discombobulating the rest.
Now he remembered her powers. Dynamo had the ability to manipulate the molecular bonds of inorganic matter, which she used to achieve different effects. His sweeping golden beams, coupled with her exploding needles, made short work of the mindless spawn. Afterward, the main dining room was a grotesque ruin—a scene now common whenever he encountered the spawn.
“How did you know the hostess was one of them?” Dynamo asked.
“She had no beating heart.” He levitated over the bloody mess to a door which led into the kitchen. “None of them did.”
In the brightly lit kitchen, the staff, who were still human, were bound in a corner next to the grills. They spurred into a frenzy when he approached, so he hung back and asked Dynamo to free them. Upon seeing the familiar superhero, an air of relief spread. Jalen chose not to transform, preferring to be at his strongest if they encountered the demon.
“Thank you so much,” the head chef cried as Dynamo freed him.
“God bless you, ma’am,” a middle-aged woman clad in only her underwear said. “I thought I was done for.”
As they shuffled out of the dining room, he let them soak in the carnage, abject horror displayed on their faces, then he warned them to let everyone know about the horrors plaguing the city. Some even attempted to record, and he encouraged them, shooting down Dynamo’s objection.
Frustrated, the Oni mask-wearing superhero said. “Jalen, how are we supposed to evacuate them when we haven’t cleared the top floor? Do we split up or put our raid on hold?”
“No need. Hand them to the cops shaking in their boots outside,” he said.
A police car had parked outside across the street. One officer spoke into his radio, requesting for backup from HAVEN while the other sat in the passenger’s seat with no intentions of approaching the building. The car’s engine hummed idly.
Dynamo followed his instruction, venturing out first to prevent the officers from mowing down the survivors out of fright. Once she gave her instructions, she returned, taking the terrified staff with her.
Soon she returned alone, and they ascended the stairs together. Like before, he killed the spawn in droves before they could even transform, this time aided by a determined Dynamo. It was proving an effortless affair because regardless of how many the spawn were, individually; they were just as squishy as humans, trapped in fragile bags of meat and blood.
However, that changed slightly when they encountered a superhuman spawn. It was a woman with lifeless eyes and arms that glowed blue. The spawn fired two blue concussive blasts from each arm that hissed from the surrounding air becoming superheated. The first blast slammed into him. Dynamo dodged the second continuous stream and retaliated by throwing two perfectly aimed needles at the spawn’s head. With an unnatural upward swing of the arm, the spawn engulfed the needles in its blast, easily melting them and everything else that came in contact with its attack—the brick walls, the ceiling, furniture, metal appliances, and even Jalen who had been taking a continuous stream with his forearm to gauge how potent the attack was.
If he stood still for a few days and lowered his healing to a crawl, the spawn’s blast had enough force and heat to punch a hole through him. Still, the spawn’s attack hurt like hell, almost turning the surface of his skin to molten rock. The spawn, zeroing in on the target who stood still to withstand its attacks, turned its second screaming, superheated beam on him and ignored Dynamo. The veteran superhero seized the moment. She launched forward like a charging tiger, hand on her blade’s handle. The spawn sensed Dynamo and swung its arm backward, the concussive blast of destruction trailing. Dynamo dove under the beam, her Katana—a glistening blade as dark as the night—flashing momentarily. Then she slowly, almost meditatively, returned the blade after wiping it clean to its scabbard as the spawn toppled over, its head parted from its body.
“I must commend you for the assist, Jalen,” Dynamo said, scanning the rest of the wrecked room. “Though I doubt if this was necessary if you raised your hand.”
Jalen walked forward, listening to the erratic breathing of the captives bound in a private room up ahead. The spawn’s blast had missed them by a hair’s breadth. “I wished to see you in action. I’m impressed.”
They freed the humans. As he had done previously, he urged them to share the news of the demon and spawn’s existence, despite Dynamo’s objection. Afterward, some survivors rushed into the hands of waiting paramedics, most choosing to disperse. HAVEN had failed to show up. More alarmingly, the Knights of Arixxer were nowhere to be seen. The demon truly had everyone locked in a frantic scramble, with no reprieve and only mounting problems in sight. The city was crumbling before his eyes.
Jalen folded his hands behind his back and hung his head in deep thought. Arrangements would have to be made if he hoped to avert millions of deaths and a city of ruins caked in blood. All potential avenues pointed to him returning to his universe to make preparations.
“What are you planning?” Dynamo asked. “I find it hard to believe you suddenly care about the masses, given what you said back at the fitness center. Why are you stirring chaos?”
His head tilted to the side, burning eyes levelled at her.
She took a step back, her hand instinctively reaching for her Katana before she forced it to her side.
“This is much bigger than HAVEN’s reputation,” he said. “Dare I say, almost as important as my thirst for revenge against the tsuchigumo? But even I can see the writing on the wall and what’s at stake.” He gazed up at the night sky, begging Jigoku Kumo to manifest. Instead, he witnessed a constellation of stars all too familiar to billions of souls. “I hope you are ready for an all-nighter, Dynamo. The spawn won’t eliminate themselves. Afterward, I will take you to a place just as vast and endless as this universe. It is time you understood what I am.”