“So. To recap, so we’re all on the same page… The Terrortide is within days. Heralded by a SymbiSubsumed that aims to attack both the supernatural and natural worlds, upsetting the unwritten rules and agreements mutually made by the humans and Subsumed. Your company has tried to disturb one of the Terrorsigns that this ‘Terrorizer’ set up, but in doing that caused mass panic—unease anyways. You all have no resources, no true knowledge of the worlds you live in, outmatched and outgunned…”
“Niles Moses” then proceeded to raise his finger, in a fashion that his balled fist was static as the bony appendage rose at its own, slow pace. “So why keep this one alive? She’s a liability to you after all. With such little chances you have, she actively makes all of it nosedive…”
Calypso didn’t pay the man mind, only seeing him from her peripheral vision and of course hearing his voice echo within his shop of wooden, yet blood-colored walls.
Never mind the fact that every single shadow within this shop was tied into the bug monster girl before her. Apparently, Niles was able to use them, as a sort of magic, as they obeyed his beck and call to the point movement began every time he spoke. Listening for the next command.
Now Calypso knew for sure, while he immediately struck her as someone that would kill if you give him the littlest inch—he absolutely had the means to do so in an instant.
“Did you hear her, you creepo?!”
Calypso turned her head, seeing Gale angling Melissa’s body against the check-out desk’s base, allowing the poor blonde girl to rest upright. Despite being done a few moments after Calypso’s eyes trained on her, of course Gale couldn’t leave her alone. Still holding the girl’s limp hand.
“She told you she’s with us! In fact, everyone is with us! So step off or-or help us, or whatever Mrs. Moses is to you! Which—she scares me and stuff—gonna tell her from experience; you’re terrible for someone like her and should cost her losses.”
It was always so disarming, to see such a beaming young woman being legitimately upset. Her bright eyes tightened and simmering, her full lips stretched into a pout. Her cute nose flaring still, after running her mouth, unable to handle this rage that was building.
But glancing at the shopowner again, Niles continued to smile with his lowered eyes. A grin that showcased light but present fangs of his own… Yet Calypso was a monster, in a stage of her transformation, meant to be some hybrid abomination.
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He was the only human in this conversation.
“Well,” Niles shrugged. “As I said, with all of these factors in play… I can’t quite understand why the sudden change of heart. I can sense it, from the Grim girl that’s on the verge of transformation… She doesn’t want this, deep down. She’s actively fighting the desire…”
He raised his palms, distancing his hands. “I don’t get that much… Interaction with people, to put it diplomatically. I’m just trying to understand what happened.”
Calypso turned her dark eyes back to the bug girl. Her glowing amber irises that swam in pitch blackness looked the pathetic thing up and down.
Her insectoid armor. Her fuzzy claws made of gray hair, bonded upwards by the shadow tendrils. Her slender frame that was exaggerated. Her indigo hair that was a mess still, possibly due to the highspeed flying she did, trying to hunt and hide. And the side of her face that was still healing in real time, causing her normally cordial butterfly eye mask to be smashed at the impact where Gale hit her. Chalk white face was swollen, with black veins embedded in the wound on her cheek.
But the aspect that kept hitting Calypso so hard, a fact that she couldn’t ignore if she tried… This gnat gave up.
There’s no struggle. No tense body language… She has gone limp but clearly still alive. Dejected. Given up.
Calypso sighed, unable to meet her face, looking down at the floor so intensely that she could count the wrinkles in the wood.
“Gale could have ratted you out. She could have told me everything about you, what you said to her… But she didn’t. She only told me that I would empathize on some level. And despite everything, I do. But do not mistake my lapse in vulnerability as weakness. I’m a practical person.”
Calypso gained the courage to raise her head, glaring without anger. But determination.
“Shift back. Reveal yourself to us. You do that, tell me everything, and I’ll forgive you in totality. No strings attached. You can even leave after all of this is over with. Can we do that?”
There was a pregnant pause. It was the gnat’s turn to keep her head down.
“just kill me,” she uttered and only uttered.
Calypso’s brow furrowed, her turn to flare her nostrils. Only to be cut off by Niles before getting to respond.
“See? It would be a self-solving problem~” he cheerfully added. “Besides. I only got the request to help THREE ‘young adult, college-aged’ women. Anything more or less causes me to question what I’m doing with my precious…”
Calypso turned in concerned. Someone like him doesn’t just trail off.
What she saw was Niles stroke his chin with an earnestly shocked expression.
“Well then… That certainly explains everything.”
The shopkeeper twirled his finger in the air, succinctly. And just as quickly, a tendril searched the hip of the gnat, ripping an old paper from her. The tendril swam in the darkness of the shop, fading in and out with only the light of the setting sun causing it to reappear.
Niles was handed the paper, his smug grin returned to his face.
“Seems like our nuisance was privy to how I was going to aid you.”