“So you’re confident this is where the giantess will be?” Eleen was blatantly floating across the line that the police had taped off.
It’s the biggest crime in the area, and the clerk sent out a blanket request for help from every agency nearby. That includes the police and us as well. Itsy will come, and I’m sure she’ll surprise us both. Drim was back to speaking through his mind, because he could actually be heard, and a rambling man near an active crime scene wasn’t a good look.
He was also hiding around the corner, loitering while doing his best to not look suspicious—not doing a great job at it, but he just looked like a curious bystander at best. Certainly from that distance and angle, he didn’t get as good of a look as his brazen mother. Can you tell me what they’re saying? Or at least get a look inside. I’d like to know the situation in case we need to act.
Uhh, oh I see the clerk, Eleen had to start speaking telepathically herself since she was too far now for Drim to hear. Seems the police aren’t going to do anything for a while. They're waiting for the hostage taker’s demands. The jewelry store is pretty shot up already, maybe adding that rampaging beast won’t cause much more damage… Who am I kidding, the place will be rubble.
And as predicted, the chaos came swooping in with a blaring honk. The floating woman turned around just in time to see police diving out of the way and a monster truck barreling right towards her. In that moment, all logic went away, and she flinched, bracing her arms despite being a ghost. Even after the truck passed right through her with no problems, Eleen stayed clenched up tight for longer than necessary.
But she whirled around again when she heard a crash behind her. Itsy had mowed down the shop’s doors, which were thankfully already broken. The ghost prepared herself to witness carnage, but it never came. In seconds, Itsy drove out of the store as quickly as she came and had averted the crisis in one u-turn.
She had grabbed the clerk, who was now dangling by the scruff of her shirt outside the driver’s side window. All the criminals had been caught in the plow which had a cage close on the front of it, preventing them from escaping—not that they were in any state to move. The police swarmed the truck, but Eleen’s eyes didn’t move, still staring at the store in disbelief.
That was… incredible. I wish you could have seen it. She perfectly maneuvered between every display case, not causing a scratch except some scuffs on the floor. Even as the criminals tried to escape, she corralled them all with only slight adjustments. And she managed to extract the clerk at high speed without causing any harm to her at all.
I can’t believe such a big clumsy woman could have such a delicate touch. She’s come a long way from when she was breaking the door knob to leave the interview room.
So would you say she is performing adequately? Drim got more specific
Uhh, I’d say I’d promote her to Field General tomorrow and have her lead every charge on the front lines.
◆◆◆
“We love you, boss. We’ll follow you forever!” A group of thugs in suits were now kowtowing before a perplexed Kaizu. She was sitting in a large chair at the head of the room, still cleaning the blood off of her daggers. With all of her Curse Marks and showy outfit, she already looked the part.
“What the hell are you all blathering about?” the disconcerted woman normally would have made her escape by now, stowing her blades and retreating to the shadows. But she’d actually been caught by poor timing. The group entered at the exact wrong moment for them to witness her assassinating their former boss.
“That’s how it works in our family,” one of them explained. “Whoever kills the boss becomes the new boss, and we follow them loyally until their death.”
“I have no interest in such nonsense,” Kaizu stood up and prepared to leave. “Since you’re obedient, then stand down as I walk out the front door.”
“I’m afraid we can’t do that,” one of them spoke up when she was about halfway through the room. “If boss doesn’t want to be the boss, then we have to have a new boss!” The group then pounced on her like a pack of ravenous hyenas.
But the woman had been expecting stupidity and was prepared for such an attack. Those who were lunging at her were quickly wrapped up in her chain as she herself jumped and then landed on the bundled pile like a soft cushion. Kaizu then began systematically dismantling this organization one member at a time.
For each thug, she restrained and isolated them from the group and then scanned them with her glove. If they were decent, they lived, and just received a debilitating injury. But if their judgment was less favorable, she acted as their executioner then and there.
“Do you feel anything when she does that?” Eleen asked as she floated next to Drim in the vent that Kaizu had just slinked out of a few minutes ago, watching the carnage unfold beneath them. “I’d imagine that a direct link to your psyche must have some sort of effect, especially if she’s spamming it so frequently.”
Hmm, I guess it is kind of like a little prick in the back of my head, Drim admitted. But I don’t really notice it anymore. Kind of like how I can’t usually tell if Pox is clinging there either. The boy then paused for a moment, worming his hand behind his head in the tight space to make sure the little fluff ball hadn’t actually tagged along for the ride.
Kaizu’s actually come along way, he then noted
“How? She’s always been a ruthless killer,” his mother wasn’t convinced. “I’m surprised she has any room left on her skin for more Curse Marks.”
Well for starters, she can actually hold her own in a group fight like this. Not that long ago, she would have been quickly overwhelmed. And look at her face. She’s not killing them out of uncontrollable bloodlust, desperately trying to get more Curse Marks. No, she’s just trying to complete the job and get out of there safely.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“If you say so,” the ghost could only shrug, happy to sit back and watch the ruthlessness. But it didn’t last much longer, the entire room incapacitated in the blink of an eye.
And about her Curse Marks, Drim felt he needed to add something. Some have been so small that they look like freckles. But lately they’ve started merging together, morphing into more elaborate designs.
To give credence to his words, that very phenomenon happened right in front of their eyes. Several small marks over Kaizu’s left shoulder fused together, becoming scales on a long slithering dragon. Or so they assumed, since they couldn’t see the full thing before she vanished from their sight.
◆◆◆
“Get back here, you little zjik!” Dr. Farian was chasing a Lesser Fiend through the back alleys of a city, his paltry stamina was boosted just barely enough to keep up with the boy full of energy. But the boy hadn’t stolen anything or slighted the doctor in some way. “You’re going to get your shots one way or another! There’s no escape from health!”
‘Needs to work on bedside manner.’ Drim jotted down a note on his performance review.
It only caused Eleen to laugh. “You were just as squeamish around doctors when you were a kid too.”
That’s because all the doctors you hired were evil.
◆◆◆
“For once in my unlife, I’m glad that I’m unable to smell,” Eleen was amused that even her son, who had so much experience with gore and rotting monsters, had to stick his face in his shirt in an attempt to block out the putrid odor. “But are you certain that Kada will be able to defeat such a monster on her own? It seems like a bad matchup.”
Without destroying the terrain? I’m unsure, even Drim had his doubts. But she’s one of the few who can even get close to the damn thing without passing out. Still not really sure how her secondary breathing works, but it means she doesn’t have to use her nose. I think the nearby village would be fine with a whirlpool of dirt if it means getting rid of the stench.
From their treetop perch, they watched Kada square off with the beast down below. The source of the putrid smell was suitably dubbed as a Stinking Dragon. It was a cross between a komodo dragon and a stink bug. But one major difference between standard stink bugs who only exuded their filth upon their death, these constantly poured it out through four vents on their back, making it easy to claim territory as their own because the smell made it uninhabitable.
Kada had tried all sorts of attacks: slicing it with her anchor, hitting it with a few explosions, using the dirt to grab its limbs. But the Stinking Dragon was also stupidly strong and resilient, grown fat and powerful from its many years avoiding hunters.
“Uhp, there she goes, bye bye forest,” Eleen commentated on the girl’s actions, who had stuck her hands in the dirt, and the ground had started to swirl. “Actually, uhh, maybe we should get out of here too, unless we want to get sucked under with the terrain.”
No, not just yet, look closer, Drim’s eyes fixated on the swirls in the dirt. They’d gone from one big cyclone to four smaller drains. Pillars then erupted from the puddles and their spiked tips veered into the monster's back. Each one pierced into one of the putrid, pussing vents, clogging them up and digging into the Stinking Dragon’s flesh.
The beast writhed in agony as its secretions came to a halt, clearly backing up inside the monster. With nowhere to go, its skin started to tear and rupture, but that wasn’t enough to kill it outright. Kada then manipulated the dirt inside of it to swirl around and destroy the beast's innards, similar to how Drim had killed a Hippagon long ago. There was a clear smirk of pride on his face, having taught his pupil well.
But Kada was ill rewarded for her efforts. All remaining stinking sewage that was left in the monster poured out at once. The stench was so vile that it even broke through her breathing defense and caused her to keel over in agony.
Drim spawned a particular perfumous flower and flung it down next to her, something to cut through the odor. But that was all the help he could provide since he wasn’t supposed to be there at all. And the boy had Hand Guy whisk them away before the reek could reach them up high.
◆◆◆
Do, do you really have to get so close and personal for a simple inspection? Drim venomously criticized his mother’s actions, experiencing second-hand embarrassment known only to a child when their parent did something outlandish. He himself was rather far away, leering through the window outside the gym in the bushes. Honestly, if anyone looked like the perverted peeper, it was him.
But Eleen herself was barely a few inches away from Nachi’s butt as she performed squats, examining it closely, intrigued and enraptured. Sorry, I’ve just always found the ways muscles expand and contract rather interesting. And these are a rather exceptional specimen. Did I ever tell you that I originally planned to be an athlete before I got into politics? I was on track to be either a star fencer or a washed-up trainer myself.
Huh, well I actually learned something not horrible about you today, Drim was genuinely surprised and somewhat pleased. But can we get back to the evaluation?
Well, there wasn’t much that Eleen could relay that Drim couldn’t see himself. This was a Lesser’s only gym, and there’d been a request to put a certain obnoxious bodybuilder in her place, one Nachi was eager to oblige. The jackass in question was currently off to the side, bemused and distraught by how much weight Nachi had been able to lift.
◆◆◆
Drim craned his neck to look up at the sky, something Eleen didn’t need to do in order to see the action, but she mimicked it anyways. Practically everyone on the street was following suit, so they didn’t stand out at all as they watched the battle in the air.
Xard was flying high above them, chasing and trying to shoot down some rogue drones that had been dropping EMP bombs around the city. Terrorism was getting more creative these days. There was nothing he could do about repairing the damage done, but he could stop them from doing even more.
They also weren’t the easiest machines to stop. Blasting them out of the sky was simple enough when the redhead could line up the shot, but the drones were firing electric-charged rounds back at him, so he had to actually dodge for once, which made it more difficult to return fire.
Eleen found it entertaining enough, but rather than watch the boy fly around, it was more interesting to her to watch her son performing the evaluation. Drim wasn’t really watching Xard either. Instead, he was watching the drones—specifically, where they landed once they were shot down. Most landed cleanly on rooftops, but others had bits of debris that went every which way.
The woman could practically see her son mentally deducting points for each shard that wasn’t properly accounted for. As the drone’s dwindled in number, Drim started running through the streets, chasing after them from below to get a better angle. And the very last one was sent spiraling down from Xard’s shot.
Drim bolted, trying to get in the alleyway of the impending crash. But once he was in range with the threat looming above, he started walking slowly, looking like he had no idea of the chaos above him. The drone was on a direct collision course to smack him in the head.
But it failed. Just a few moments from impact, Xard swooped down between them, blasting the drone with a ray of energy to reduce it to dust. Before the hero could turn around to check on the person he’d just saved, Drim had vanished—Hand Guy having moved him to a nearby rooftop to observe Xard’s reaction before they moved on to the next review.