Contributing Author: Zeusified

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It was the kind of night that screamed of death and danger, the kind where blood dripped from dumpsters in dark alleys, where the bad folk prowled like kings, ate like kings, drank like kings, and left the rules floating face up in New City’s sewers.

“Would you look at that?” Beetlebub said, black mandibles twitching in anticipation. His words hissed through the air and hung there, burning into the marred mahogany of his desk, melting the worn covers of the books on his shelves, stinging his servant’s skin like acid in an open wound.

The servant shivered on the moldy carpet. He was a middle-aged man with dead dreams, a fly with broken wings caught in a thunderstorm. His voice trembled as he asked, “What is it, your Vile Malevolence?”

“The slums are alive tonight,” the demonic beetleman answered, hands clasped behind his shell. He paced back and forth before the wide window of his office as he stared out into the muck and grime of his domain. “I can taste it all: their negativity, their fears, their cravings. They’re lively ants and worms, down there, thrashing about as they claw at coin and power.

“But there’s something else. An itch in my carapace. It almost tastes like hope. I don’t like it.”

Beetlebub adjusted his cufflinks and walked over to his desk. He picked up a small marble bust, hefted its weight, and examined it in the dim light. He peered down at his servant as acrid smoke drifted in a haze from where his skin contacted the statue’s stone.

“Now, my precious peon, You’ve got a choice to make.”

“I do, sir?”

“You do,” The demonic beetleman chittered. It almost sounded like a laugh. “Tell me what you and the other Watchers saw. Tell me, or I’ll turn you into paste before you die.”

“Y-your Imperial Darkness,” the servant stuttered. “We are not allowed to interfere with visions of the great beyond.”

“Oh?” Beetlebub questioned, kneeling down. Toxins dripped from his mandibles and onto the man’s skin, burning into his flesh.

“O-of course, for someone like you, your Horribleness, exceptions can be made.”

“Go on.”

“I-it’s The Leafy One, your Evil Existence. We saw Her.”

The marble bust in Beetlebub’s hand snapped, sending pitted and charred stone to the carpet.

“She is dead.”

“We are certain of it,” the middle-aged man whimpered. He shook as he forced himself to continue, “Bile Blessed One, none of us would dare doubt your magnificence. But we saw Her, falling from the stars and descending into New City like a glorious comet. She has come, and with her–”

Sharp mandibles cleaved through the servant’s neck. Salivating, Beetlebub picked the man’s head up by his thinning hair and tossed it into his open maw. He bit down and popped it like a grape. But the head alone wasn’t enough to sate his hunger. His Bond demanded more. He ripped an arm off at the shoulder, bit into it as if it was a stick of jerky, and let out a long, frustrated sigh.

“Well, shit. I really thought I’d killed her last time.”

He returned to the window and pulled his cell phone out from his suit jacket. The plastic sizzled in his grip as he dialed a number with a needle-sharp nail.

“Lucy, honey,” Beetlebub said, steeping his words in salt and misery. “Be a doll and clear tonight’s schedule for me, okay?”

“Of course, Acid-Winged One,” the succubug replied, emphasizing his title with a lilt of her proboscis.

Beetlebub ended the call. He let the phone disintegrate in his hand as he considered The Leafy One. She’d stopped too many of his attempts at planetary conquest. He wasn’t about to let this one go–not after spending so much time and effort marinating it in hatred and despair.

“If you’re out there, Mother Plant, I’ll take care of you first. I’ll devour your soul as an appetizer before I consume this petty little world.”

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Elsewhere in New City…

It was the kind of night that told of a coming fall, where it was finally comfortable to wear a sweater, where it was nice to stay inside for once, drink a cup of tea, read a book, and curl up in a warm blanket.

Unfortunately, the young businessman walking down a sidewalk on Lower Eastside Central Street was not at home. It was the weekend, and he’d decided to heed the call of his old college friends. While it was good to see them again, his stamina wasn’t what it used to be. After three whisky sodas and several bars full of people and loud music, he was nearly dead on his feet.

On the bright side, he was almost back to his apartment. The sidewalk only wobbled a little bit, and he’d trekked this part of Lower Eastside Central Street so many times that he could’ve made it the rest of the way blindfolded. So, he stared up at the cloudless sky and tried to enjoy the cool air that came with the change of seasons. He whistled along to a happy tune he’d heard a live band play that night and let an easy smile slide onto his face.

That was when he saw it. Some sort of object burning with the fires of atmospheric entry, howling through the air, hurtling straight for him. He had exactly fourteen milliseconds to react, which was just enough time for the image of his impending doom to reach his brain.

The unidentified flying object struck the businessman in the center of his forehead. It hit him with surprisingly little fanfare and a surprisingly small amount of force. Of course, it still was enough to drop him like a rock to the concrete.

“That was way too close,” the entity piloting the UFO muttered, scanning the young man’s body. Thankfully, he was still alive–he was dead to the world, but not dead dead, which was exactly what she was going for. Frankly, she was shocked she’d pulled it off.

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Mother Plant, sometimes called Mama Plant, Mother, and, under special circumstances, The Leafy One, wilted in her bed of enhanced soil. She wanted nothing more than to travel into the center of the nearest sun and languish in its rays for the next thousand years. But life had never been so kind–and it never would be, either.

As she looked around, she realized her cherished terracotta pot was damaged. It was cracked and chipped, no longer capable of interstellar travel. That was okay. She was exactly where she needed to be.

Absorbing what little light she could from the fickle sliver of the moon, Mother Plant heaved a heavy sigh. She was exhausted. Over the past millennia, she and her kind had fought countless battles and defended others from the ruthless attacks of the world eater, Beetlebub. They’d held him off and stymied his plans, but they’d paid a dreadful price.

Now, Mother Plant was the only one left of her kind. It was up to her to stop Beetlebub before he regained his strength. If she failed, she was certain he’d consume every living thing throughout all of existence, across every realm of time and space.

Carefully, with what the small amount of energy she had left, Mother Plant sent a pulse through her roots and to her helpers, summoning them to her side so that she could give out what might be her final directive.

“Little ones!” she called, voice quiet and frail. She hated how she sounded so old, so near the end of her cycle. “Come. Listen.”

They did. Her beautiful, wonderful aphids crawled from their hovels in the soil, their homes in her stem, their campsites in the sides of her now-cracked terracotta vessel. Her little ones approached and while they did, Mother Plant sent a tendril of energy to check in on the unconscious young man.

He was drooling, snoring, and dreaming.

Good, Mother thought. I was worried. To think I might’ve taken a life without cause, without spreading life in return. Unimaginable. Even if I am tired, I must do better.

Her helpers stood before her, organized into sloppy ranks. They brought her attention back to the present and Mother Plant chastised herself for letting her attention waver. The aphids each raised one of their six digits to their mandibles and gave her their best salute.

“We are here, Oh Glorious Mother!”

Mother Plant groaned, as much as any fantastical magic plant could groan. Why did her colony of space aphids have to be so zealous? Why couldn’t they just be normal space aphids?

One of the tiny bugs continued to chatter on, its voice a loud bellow in the silence as the others twitched in anticipation and tried to stand still.

“We are here to fight in your name, Mother! We will make your enemies quake in fear! We will spill their intestines into the dirt, we will drink their blood and take their power to strengthen your cause, we will crush their souls and pound them into dust and–”

“Ronald,” Mother Plant sighed, “that’s enough. We get the point.”

“Yes, Oh Glorious Mother, ma’am!” Ronald saluted.

Chloroplast-blinded Zealots, Mother Plant cursed. And he’s not even the worst of them.

She shook her leaves to refocus. It was important that she was clear on this next part, because as lovely as her colony was, they were selective listeners at the best of times.

“Little ones, I thank you for your passion. We’ve been on a long, long journey and, as you know, I have expended far too much of my energy to get us here. But it’s been a necessary expenditure, for here, on this planet, Beetlebub has laid the eggs of his final schemes.”

Her aphids seethed and hissed and booed. Some spat into her soil, then looked up at her apologetically.

For her part, Mother Plant tried to ignore them.

“I don’t need to remind you of the weight we carry on our shoulders. We must stop that demonic beetle’s plans. Where we are growth and prosperity, Beetlebub is chaos and destruction. We must stop him, little ones. For the sake of all existence, we need to finish this fight.”

The space aphids saluted. So many different kinds of Ronalds. They were unpredictable, all of them, and while she had wanted to dismiss her lot of irregulars so long ago, she now firmly understood that they were the reason she still lived while the rest of her siblings–all of the other noble lines of Mother Plants–had fallen prey to Beetlebub.

“I am relying on you now, little ones. You are my shining beacons of hope, and I believe in all of you.”

Most of you. Some of you.

She was starting to fade. Her stem was turning ethereal, pulsing in and out of existence.

There’s only so much time, isn’t there?

“We rest upon a human. You have seen them before. I have linked myself to his mind, and it is there that I shall sleep, recovering my strength for when it is desperately needed. He will be our host, our righteous sword of might and triumph. But please, little ones, direct him with care. Do not overtax this human’s body. Do not possess him, as Beetlebub might do. We are better than that. We must strive, above all else, to be symbiotic, not parasitic.”

Mother Plant suppressed a soft chuckle as she saw one of her squadrons, the Flame Force, fail to contain their fervor. No longer able to stand still, their auras erupted in holy fire as they paraded around the perimeter of her pot.

Who am I to deny my colony their individual passions?

“Our host’s name is Trey. Treat him with respect. I will be here, watching when I can. Please, little ones. Do your best.”

Again, she faded in and out. Her stem, her leaves, even her brilliant pearlescent petals began to disappear as she passed out of reality and into the man’s subconscious. As she did, she saw who he was.

Trey Goodkind.

A good man, a lost man, a man like so many others. She saw his love for strange coffee creamers. His fear of heights. The joy he felt when biking through the city, weaving between taxis and trucks and pedestrians, racing against the wind.

She saw his old hope for adventure. She saw how he’d dismissed it, set his dream of courage and exploration aside for the mundane. She saw how he was adrift and wished she had the power in her to reaffirm his conviction.

I can still help. I can nudge him in the right direction, encourage him to do the things he wants to do.

Next, she saw the hurt he carried. He held it inside like it was a bomb about to explode, and she saw how it was a bomb, in so many ways. She saw how much the young man had cared for his grandmother, she saw so many disparate memories of the elderly woman, of her tuna sandwiches, her warm hugs, her gentle and whimsical smile.

Mother Plant considered the man’s pain. This wasn’t something she could help with, no matter how much power she invested.

Only time can help him here.

Just before her spirit secured itself within the shelter of Trey’s mind, Mother Plant looked back at her little ones and smiled. They were already hard at work, breaking down the soil, breaking down their once-almighty terracotta vessel, blending everything into a fine powder and investing it into Trey’s skin. She knew that when they were finished, Trey would have an improved body. He would be stronger, more resilient, more capable. But she also knew it wouldn’t be enough.

To defeat Beetlebub, Trey would need to learn and grow with her colony. He’d need to accept them, and her little zealots would need to accept him. They’d need to discover how to weave their powers together to empower each other.

Her aphids were almost done incorporating the materials into Trey. Soon, they’d carry him off to his apartment and help him get the rest he needed to begin their mission in the morning.

Mother Plant was almost gone. She felt so small compared to what she was before, but she did believe in her colony. They’d proven themselves in the past. They’d prove themselves again.

With the last of her energy, she sent a message to Trey. She sent him the remains of the Quest, hoping its instructions—as difficult to understand as they were—might help him comprehend the danger and the importance of what was to come.