“Good,” Calypso felt proud and flexed her claws at the gnat to enforce her point. “That means I can scare you to death as well.”
Since this girl’s silly disguise had shades that covered her eyes, all Calypso had to go on were her black eyebrows raised and her lips puckered in stress. “I’m sure you can, and it would be preeeetty quick—Like god, look at your face, it’s scary how much of a natural you are at this--”
The skeletal monster girl’s already twisted expression of malice tightened in response. “Y’know. I think I’d be satisfied of doing it the old fashioned way, at this point.”
“Cal,” Gale sounded genuinely annoyed, which was not only odd for the skeletal monster girl to hear from her, but also hit differently within her chest. “Teaming up. Trying to stop a girl from ruining everything. Play. Nice.”
“…” Calypso didn’t hide or mask the guilt that caved her insides in. “Besides… He’s not dead. Look.”
She pulled back, pointing her bony claw at the limp half-body. “Slight breathing. Haggard and faint, but still there.”
“Well that’s good!” Gale chirped… Before crumpling a bit once she thought more about it. “A-aside him being a no-good-monster and stuff…”
Calypso made sure to use her human hand to pat at Gale’s leg in response.
“Damn girl…” the gnat couldn’t hide her amazement. “You got some eyes… That was before the whole transformation-into-a-creature-of-the-night, or…?”
Calypso immediately trained her sights at the gnat again. Her trailing off, in this instance, wasn’t her usual failed attempts at humor.
So when the skeletal monster girl took in this fly monster girl’s virtually blank expression as she gripped her chin, Calypso figured that something occurred to her.
“Calypso. Question.”
She wanted to bat back that she didn’t give her permission to say her name, but Calypso begrudgingly replied. “Yes…?”
“Did him spazzing out—did it look weird to you?”
Confusion caused Calypso’s nose to scrunch, her brow furrow. “I mean. No different from… It’s a freak out. There’s really no grace in it, you flail about. The only weird part was that it was…”
That detail rattled within her mind, causing the skeletal monster girl’s dark eyes to widen—as far as she could in that state. “…No screams. No sound whatsoever—banging against the desk aside.”
It was odd, seeing the gnat be something other than smug, annoying and unfunny. Here, she was practically still, razor focused and eerily quiet. She was just staring at the fallen Subsumed, stroking her chin.
“…And come to think of it…” Calypso steadily recalled. “His fist—he hit the floor as well. While banging against the desk.”
“…Guys, I like being honest,” Gale began, letting her arms flap to her sides. “I’ve already written off flunking most of this semester—can you dumb down what you’re, like, saying or thinking to your best buddy Gale over here?”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“No, don’t worry, I’m not quite sure what it means either Gale…” Calypso responded, assuring her friend with another gentle pat of the leg… Until the skeletal freak realized how weird that was, retracting said hand with a slight blush brewing in her cheeks.
Thankfully, the gnat sternly rose from where she was squatting, which caused Calypso to gaze up at her. “I need you to destroy this desk, Calypso. Can you do that for me? I can try but I can’t localize like you yet, so it’s all or nothing if I transform.”
“…Hm,” Calypso practically spat, but never less rose to her feet. Using her human hand to signal Gale away, glancing back until she saw her friend a decent amount clear.
The skeletal monster girl balled her claws into a fist, grabbed said sharp fist with her human hand, rushed forward and angled her elbow scythe to wedge the wooden help desk in half with her first stroke. And if the break wasn’t clean, then she would do it again. And again. And again.
Until the massive structure was in two-to-many pieces. Using her enhanced strength to pry the crumbling halves away, slowly but surely.
What was revealed, was but a dark void that was hidden under the wreckage. Despite the lights still being on, it seemed like none of it could make it into this hole in the ground.
And it was less of a hole… And more like a tear within reality. Jagged, rough judging by the edges alone. Calypso kept staring and the more she did… The more unnatural it felt. Was.
“WOOOOAH!” Gale waved her arms in excitement, before clapping her hands together and bringing them towards the chest. “How did you work out that there’d be a super-secret awesome hidden room?!”
“Well, think about it,” the gnat still maintained her suddenly serious demeanor. “So far in this place, and the little that we’ve seen, still… They would’ve had to have a set-up in where, either: 1) what they were doing was in plain sight—and even if you knew what to look for, they were confident in either killing or converting you to maintain the secret… And 2) this. Hidden hideout to operate out of. We know that these fuckers can barely contain themselves and are bullshitters to the extreme. There had to been some hidden cave or level they had access to.”
The gnat then smiled at Calypso. “The thought’s been swirling in my head for a good hour or something. I needed someone outside of my dome to point out the obvious. Seems like a good partnership, huh? I figure things out and you tell me how stupid I am first, yeah?”
The phrasing was different, but the meaning was all too painfully familiar to Calypso. It just made her want Alice to be the one with them, versus this bug.
“If anything, it makes me more wary of you,” Calypso immediately answered, so fast that she didn’t realize she naturally crossed her arms, where her human hand was bleeding still as her cuts were still healing. “Now that I know you have a hundred thoughts swirling in that head that I can’t trust. But no. You are proving your worth here. I’m still of the option of just doing this mission and you fucking off somewhere.”
The gnat responded with a curt “hmph” with a lackadaisical shrug. Was more focused on peering down at this abyss. “The real problem is what to do now… Yeah, lose and whatever, but we’re about to go into a place we have no idea what it’s like and our enemies not only do, but are in high alert… With one of our numbers unable to transform because it’s still day, one that’s half way, and the other that CAN but is supremely shit with offense… Not gonna lie, bit of a pickle—”
“At least I like pickles. This is just some ditch in the ground with monsters hiding in it,” Gale pouted.
“Either way, Subsumed are something we’ve all handled before: dealing with the police that’s going to break their way in with three college students looking into a hole and body parts everywhere, a tad harder to explain.”
“…Y’know, when you’re right, you’re right—” the gnat’s respectable façade broke in front of Calypso’s eyes. “Eer, hand and hand, and we jump in…?”
“I’m just glad and lucky that I found the smartest monster friends I could’ve ever had~” Gale immediately came between Calypso and the gnat’s hands, beaming with a pure smile. Calypso wanted to warn her, about grabbing her monster claw, but the honey-skinned girl just grabbed it without a second thought or hesitation. Calypso knew that the girl didn’t play much of a role so far, but she understood that they needed someone like her regardless.
The girls jumped in, into the dark abyss, fighting the urge to scream or shout—lest they give whatever’s lurking within a point of reference to strike.