CHAPTER 5.11 - WORM
An hour later, a barely noticeable tsunami wave appeared on the horizon. An alarm signal rang throughout the city. People fled to shelters or tried to hide in the nooks and crannies of the suburbs. The heroes of the Protectorate left the city yesterday, taking the Wards with them. New Wave, too, was able to agree on the evacuation, so that Panacea left without even saying goodbye to me. On the Internet, news of the imminent attack of Endbringers on Brockton Bay was already being discussed, but there were no rumors about the mobilization of the Protectorate’s heroes. Apparently, they decided that I myself can handle the disaster. And in general, they were not at all mistaken, although they predicted on the exact opposite result that I wanted.
I sent the teams of Undersiders, Faultline and Trickster, to help with the evacuation of residents. The remnants of the Empire and Coil received an ultimatum: either they help the residents, or I personally kill them before the Endbringers gets to the city. So now I was sitting on the roof of the tallest Brockton Bay building in the center of an almost depopulated city. What is the most ridiculous, the siege from the city was not lifted, in connection with which there were rumors spread by me on the Internet that the Protectorate decided to destroy all the inhabitants of Brockton Bay to the last. After all, they were "undesirable witnesses" of my triumph.
The wave came to the shore, overtook the tanker stuck in the fairway and began to roll on the city, becoming higher and higher. I waited until it almost reached the shore, after which I used telekinesis to lift into the air the whole “bulging” part of the wave, thus completely ceasing its existence. Millions of cubic meters of water swept through the air and scattered as rain poured back into the sea outside the bay. The spectacle was epic. Two dozen video cameras flew at different distances from me, taking pictures of everything that happens. Then, it will be necessary to edit the film to make it similar to a movie that tells the epic about my divine scale feat.
The water in the center of the bay swelled to a hill, and on the surface it appeared - the Endbringer himself, Leviathan. My power said that this was a “wild” symbiote, with no clear owner. Of course, there were certain nuances, but the point was that the owner of the lost living creature was not around. Only the symbiote itself came to fight without its master, which was somewhat more difficult.
While I indulged in philosophical reflections, Leviathan spun on the spot, sending another wave to the city, and then with a supersonic speed rushed to the docks. What? I dashed against him, but did not have time. The Leviathan reached my Tower of the Dark Lord and brought down streams of water, immediately smashing and tearing it up.
“No-oooo !!! My stocks of symbiotes! He ate them !!! What will I eat in the winter? !!”
In anger, I hovered over the place of the mass death of the masks, after which I filled several tentacles with my will and pierced the Leviathan with them. A second later, I almost tore It into pieces. And it was not the damage of the virtual body from pseudo-matter, but the damage to the symbiote itself.
Leviathan screamed in agony, and then suddenly regenerated. I noticed that along one of its tentacles, a stream of some energy flowed into it. The Endbringer tried to throw me into the air with a stream of water, but it only splashed helplessly on my telekinesis protection. I repeated the full of will piercing tentacle attack with the same result. With a small difference being the regeneration was now a little slower. But I stopped attacking wildly and try to think up a decisive attack. So here I need not strength, but accuracy. It is necessary to find the energy center of this creature, and then destroy it. The problem was somewhat complicated by the fact that it was necessary to search for this center in a multidimensional space. The creature was clearly not going to make my life easier, showing its vulnerable points in the three-dimensional layer of reality.
The Leviathan was about to move toward the center of the city, pulling water from the bay towards me, but I thwarted his plans. For a start, I cut off most of the tentacles coming out of it, temporarily violating its water control. The extremities quickly regenerated, but in a couple of seconds I managed to shred the Leviathan into pieces. He continued to regenerate, simultaneously accumulating energy in his body.
Then I felt three human like figures appeared not far from me. Approaching them, I saw the Protectorate’s Triumvirate. Alexandria, Eidolon and Legend hung in the air, watching the Leviathan.
“What, came to see how your little animal destroys the city?” I could not resist the question.
“We came to help in fight with the Leviathan .” The Legend answered in a slightly nervous voice. Apparently, not yet recovered from yesterday's defeat.
“Oh really?” I threw the Leviathan to the side, once again grinding it to pieces. “But I see that the Leviathan is your creation. Look.”
With these words, I pierced Eidolon with a dozen tentacles, aiming at energy centers. He could no longer be called a man, because he had merged too much with the symbiote. Or the symbiote almost consumed him. In my perception, I clearly saw that the symbiote in the body of Eidolon was connected to Leviathan with the coal-black pulsing tentacles. He was the source of the regeneration of this creature. I tore Eidolon apart, but he instantly gathered back and regenerated.
“Stop!” Legend shouted, rushing towards me, but bumping into an insurmountable invisible obstacle.
I struck another blow, this time with one tentacle, aiming at the center of the head. As a human, Eidolon had vulnerabilities that were easier for me to find. I did not try to break his body, but created on the tip of tentacle an area of matter destruction. For a split second, a delicate balance was established between the resistance of Eidolon and me, and then Eidolon's strength increased abruptly, discarding my tentacle. Two more Endbringers appeared next to us: Behemoth and Simurg.
“Well, what did I say? Poke the owner, and his puppets appeared.”
The legend stared in disbelief to the three Endbringers. I focused on the twisted angry face of Eidolon, who had lost his mask. The cameras, hidden in the shreds of darkness, regularly filmed everything that was happening, so it was worthwhile to unleash him for revelations.
“Why did you kill so many heroes, Eidolon? Was it in order to pick up their abilities? After all the killing, you can get their power? So these are all the powers of those you killed?”
Behavior of Leviathan let me to this idea. No wonder it rushed to kill weak heroes. So Its goal was their symbiotes, which It swallowed in a few seconds.
The head of the Triumvirate did not answer me, but only struck in response with rays of light. Alexandria tried to go behind and stab me in the back. I instantly shifted to the side and grabbed them both, holding them in place and surrounding them with waves of flame using Pyrokinesis. Alas, it only slightly covered them. Alexandria did not got a scratch. Her power was still too incomprehensible to me, so it was impossible to break through her force fields.
Legend flew off to the side, radiating waves of anger and frustration. And the Endbringers on the contrary approached me, striving to make potshots at me. Something is starting to strain me. They are very wrong if they think that I will play by their rules.
Unlike the local masks, I knew exactly what symbiotes are and how they work. I had enough time to read all this information from the consciousness of my symbiote. From the point of view of the unsophisticated person, the symbiotes were invulnerable. Their body was completely amorphous and had no internal organs. They could change their shape and easily rebuilt the energy flows inside the body.
All of my previous attempts to injure them, including cases with ordinary masks, were just a means to say "sit down and not rock the boat," rather than an attempt to cause real harm. But now I was going to hit to kill. I do not know what players want to achieve in this instance, but I decided to dispose Eidolon and his mad stray dogs here and now.
When I studied the process of feeding the limbs of the symbiote with my will, I noticed that this process was not as effective as it could be. The fact is that on the mental plane the density of these creatures was too low. Sword is possible to be strengthened if it’s made from metal, but if it is made of cotton, then there will be little sense from it. Therefore, I studied in more detail the substance of which the symbiotes were composed and found out that it can be transformed by increasing the density.
Only this process had a certain pitfall. The personality and abilities of the symbiote were evenly distributed throughout the entire volume of its body, thus, in the process of transformation, all information was erased from the altered matter, which made the embryo a “clean sheet” without abilities and acquired skills. In principle, it would be possible to copy the personality of the symbiote to a new carrier approximately in the middle of the process, when there was still a sufficient amount of the “original” body. But then another circumstance surfaced. The transformation process could not be stopped. So I would have only one chance, and even if it’s successful, my symbiote would be weaker by half. Then, of course, it will be possible to “level up”, but in general, I considered such an operation as risky.
But now I have a unique opportunity to upgrade my symbiote at someone else's expense. The fact was that, although the symbiotes lived on their own, they all remained part of one Entity and could merge back at any moment. The older and more developed the personality of the symbiote, the less it wanted a merge, but the very possibility of strengthening would not suffer from it.
Eidolon’s symbiote was huge. Almost as huge as mine. But the control of the hero over his symbiont was almost zero. That is why these parts are separated from the main body associated with the mask. But they did not fully separate, because they had an imperative order to serve Eidolon.
Now, I was going to start the forced merging of two symbiotes, directing all the absorbed matter into the transformation zone. This way I can completely copy the consciousness of my symbiote to a new carrier, I will have enough time to make sure of the success of this process, and at the end my symbiote will be twice as dense. Solid profit!
The legend flew farther and farther from the battlefield. I think that he would not interfere, and therefore focused on the two remaining members of the Triumvirate. With Alexandria, we have a variety of opportunities. I could not hurt her, but she could not get close to me. With Eidolon, everything was even easier. I pierced him with tentacle, initiated the transformation process at the core of my symbiote, and then inside the tentacles I stretched a thread of altered matter that penetrated into the body of Eidolon and began to “suck” his symbiote from there. The turbulence accompanying the transformation process deprived Eidolon of the remnants of control, and according to the law of communicating vessels, the matter of the symbiote began to be pumped out of the Endbringers.
Those Endbringers, of course, were not overjoyed by such a development of events, and the three of them began to press on me. Holding out one of the tentacles, I grabbed the sword of the Dragon Slayer, which is ten kilometers away, and pulled to me. The sharp blade flew over fast, making a sonic boom, then immediately cut off Simurg's head, and then turned and pierced right through Behemoth. I began to shred the Endbringers into pieces, not allowing them time to regenerate. The sword was a kind of substitute for the loose flesh of the symbiote, and therefore I could strengthen it with my will to such an extent that the bodies of the Endbringers could not offer any resistance.
Seeing that I was holding back the Endbringers, and that Eidolon was hanging in a semi-conscious state, Alexandria redoubled her efforts. She did not threaten me so much as distracting me from monitoring the transformation process of my symbiote. So I decided to apply a new focus. Although I had almost no time to research the abilities of the captured heroes, I could still understand something. And now I, like Eidolon, have created a new ability for myself. In some ways, it resembled the ability of a pusher. This was the area of space where objects acquired acceleration.
I slowed down Alexandria for a moment with telekinesis, and then formed an accelerating field around her. The effect was like a heroine fired from a cannon. No, not even a cannon, but accelerated to near-light speeds. She broke the atmosphere, leaving a corridor out of a vacuum, and swept over the horizon. The blast wave was of such strength that nearby houses crumbled into pieces. Well at least the battle took place in one of the most abandoned parts of the docks. Interestingly, she went into orbit with such speed? Or did she immediately go to deep space?
Further work was already essentially a routine. I controlled the transformation process of the symbiote, lazily waving away the attacks from the Endbringers for one thing. Legend after a few seconds flew away after Alexandria. So no one bothered me. Cameras continued to shoot epic battles, and Eidolon was still hanging in the air, twitching like he’s in a fit of epilepsy.
Ten minutes later, the Endbringers were completely absorbed into the body of their master. A minute later I completely destroyed Eidolon’s symbiote, and his body who no longer able to exist on its own, instantly rotted, falling to the ground as streams of muddy mucus.
Five minutes later, I completed the transformation of my symbiote. For a moment, all my abilities were turned off, and then returned, but in a completely different capacity. If earlier I felt that I was talking to the symbiote, what to do, and then it would do my order, now I felt his tentacles as my own. At the same time, the personality of the symbiote did not disappear anywhere, and it could easily carry out simple tasks, automating my abilities.
Toothy smile spread over my face. This was another manifestation of my closer contact with the symbiote. I wanted to smile, and it understood what I need and formed the already known sequence of visual illusions on my face.
I inspected the finally destroyed docks and breathed heavily. From where I will find new masks? They will never come here again. After I single-handedly thrashed the Three Endbringers, only the Scion could somehow compete with me in this level of strength.
A dot appeared on the horizon, and soon Legend levitated in front of me again.
“How is Alexandria?” I asked.
“I did not find her.”
“Have tried looking in space? You need a larger telescope.”
“Where is Eidolon?” The hero did not support my jokes it seems.
“Over there, somewhere below, lies muddy mucus which all remains of him.” I indicated the remains of a green suit with a tentacle of darkness. “After I killed the Endbringers, Eidolon decided to die from not being able to bear such frustration.”
“I'll post my battle so you can see everything online on internet. And now, do not bring it to sin - go out of here. Otherwise, I will dismember you for consumables for my inhuman experiments.”
Legend hung around a couple of seconds, and then flew away over the horizon. Once again I looked around the neighborhood, and then headed to the city center. It was necessary to cancel the alarm, return the inhabitants to their homes and begin to restore a peaceful life. Since this is my city, it is worth making it the most prosperous city in the world.
Having a dealt with the organizational issues of returning the city to a normal life, I went to the ZBS television studio, where I posted copies of all the videos I had about the destruction of the Endgringers. They promised that a short video will be on the television today, and a documentary film will be ready by tomorrow.
Then I moved to fulfill my promise to build houses. With the use of tele-and pyrokinesis, this was not a problem. For a start, I found a place in the docks near the border with the central region, where the underground communications were almost not destroyed. There I demolished the remains of slums and began the construction of multistoried anthills by using my past experience as the supreme leader of sapient spiders.
I did not have any concrete, but there was enough debris from a third of the city, which I crushed, melted with pyrokinesis, brought to a certain chemical composition, and then gave this mass the desired shape and cooled. In some ways, this process was similar to monolithic construction. But I did not use concrete, which has a lifespan of fifty years, but a mineral rock, which will not fall apart even after a thousand years. Even after ten thousand years descendants will still be able to inhabit it.
Inside the buildings, I conducted plumbing and laid cables for electricity. Of course, there was also the need for interior decoration, but everyone will be engaged in this by himself. Even in the draft version, my accommodation had quite a decent look. It remained only to install plumbing, put an electric stove and you can live it here.
Having set aside a property for fifty thousand tenants, I began to conduct underground utilities, lay roads, build kindergartens, schools, hospitals, shops, and other related infrastructure. By the evening I finished with the construction and went to the governor of the city. He accepted me as his own son and assured me that tomorrow, the construction of the buildings closest to the center, where it is planned to lodge the homeless citizens, will begin to be brought to mind.
Watching the rushing bureaucrats on business, I even felt nostalgia. My spider city looked about the same way when I started ‘building of the next century’. Having considered my duties for today, I went home to sleep.
The next morning, I began by visiting Coil. During the night, he tried at least a hundred options for escape, each of which ended with his death. And I just gave a command to the symbiote to track a given target and destroy him if he crosses the city border.
I again brought the villain to loss of consciousness, but then resuscitated him and began to explore his abilities further. Finally, unable to withstand the abuse of fate, Coil made a mistake, and fell up two on dice.
“Oh! Akella, missed.”
“What?” groaned the tortured Coil.
“This is a two.”
“What?! No!”
“Alas, my friend, but now you have to lose your hand.”
I stretched the telekinetic claw and slowly tore his hand off. Having enjoyed the horror and suffering of the scum, I sewed his hand back and healed.
“If you make another mistake, you will lose your limb forever.” I scolded him. “Ok, enough for today. Rest. And do not try to escape. The more you use your ability, the higher the likelihood that tomorrow you will lose couple of limbs.”
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Getting to the surface, I visited the town hall, and then went to clean the bay. Now Brockton Bay could not be a port city because of the blocked tanker channel. Plus, in the area of the docks, where there actually used to be a port, hundreds of ships were rotting and rusting. I melted part of them into the tower, but it was like a drop in the ocean of junk.
I decided to go around the coast to clean the shore and the bottom of the bay from all metal objects. Symbiote did an excellent job with its responsibilities for automating telekinesis. I just had to help him make decisions in difficult cases, and he did the rest on his own. Half an hour later I “unloaded” an iron cube with a side of almost thirty meters at the docks. It is very robust, especially considering that ships are a kind of metal inflatable balls. In addition to the tanker at the bottom, a pair of supertankers was found at the docks. Yes, and any rusted trash on the shore, too, went to the smelting.
Having made small measurements, I found out that the cube weighs two hundred and fifty thousand tons. Steel cost three hundred bucks per ton, which means this cube gives only seventy-five million dollars. It’s small when compared with the original cost of the ships that are far beyond a billion. But even so, it was still a nice sum, which I left in one piece. Then I'll figure out what to do with it. And in order that this large object would not stand idle, I made a huge statue of myself from metal, imaging me tearing apart three Endbringers with my bare hands. He-he-he.
Satisfying my thirst for glory, I went to check the status of the docks, or to be more precise, the entire northern part of the city. Despite the three cataclysms that have fallen on this territory over the past few days, there are still enough buildings and even unspoilt neighborhoods. Now I carried out an inspection and completely demolished all the buildings that it did not make sense to restore or use further.
Under one of these buildings for demolition, I found a nice basement, where there were two masks. Quickly darting to the docks and unloading the collected building materials, I returned to this place and headed for the entrance to the basement. It seems I found what I needed. With all this mess with the Protectorate and the Endbringers, I lost access to the body of Kid Win, so the study of technology has stalled. But here was the lair of two famous villains, one of whom was a good techie.
“I am horror, flying on the wings of night! I am a bugged final boss in your favorite game. I am a burned light bulb in your electrical circuit. I am the Black Cloak!” I announced my appearance, after which I appeared in the expanding yarns of darkness in the center of a large workshop.
“Aaaa !!!” Uber rushed away, hiding in one of the aisles.
“Which game are you from?” Elite greeted me, skeptically examining my costume.
“Eh, you, darkness. Star Wars, the first episode - "Hidden threat".”
“Aaaa! Exactly, exactly. There was such a dude there. High five!” We hit each other on the palms. “What are you doing here?”
“Elite, I will save you.” Uber ran into the hall carrying on his hands some kind of deadly caliber cannon.
At the entrance to the hall, he faltered on the threshold, and then began to fall. In order not to crash into the floor, he had to drop the weapon, which even without any help from telekinesis fell right into my hands. And all that I was needed was to tweak the probabilities of future events a little.
“And what is this thing?” I asked, turning the techie.
“BFG-9000!” Cheerfully reported Elite. “Only it does not work. Burned power supply after the first test shot.”
“What? Why didn't you tell me?” Uber was outraged, still lying on the floor.
“Well, we had decided that the destructive power of this thing is too big to use it within the city.”
Uber got up and began to pretend to be a bystander, inspecting the ceiling.
“Elite, I have a business for you.” I turned to the techie, putting the cannon on the next table. “I need a sword of light. A Star Wars boss without his lightsaber is not worthy of his throne.”
“Eh …” He sighed heavily. “I've already created one Star Wars sword. And it even worked for five minutes before exploding. So the second one will explode as soon as I try to turn it on. Tested in practice.”
“I can correct this error, I will teach you how to correctly use the force.”
“Really?” Elite looked at me through the eyes of Shrek's cat.
“Of course! Before you is the main expert on the use of parascopic abilities on the whole Earth.” I grabbed my hips and widen out my chest proudly. Oddly enough, this position convinced Elite that I was right. Well, as expected of a geek?
For the next three days, I and Elite fell out of reality. With my abilities, it was very easy to neutralize the lack of sleep, so we spent seventy-two hours in the workshop, where I learned the basics of working with techies, and Elite learned how to train his symbiote. We parted with satisfaction from one other, plus Elite gave me three lightsabers, two of which could be combined into a light spear, the same as Darth Maul.
Getting out under the light of the sun, I went straight to Coil. His ability, already almost completely mastered by me, greatly helped us avoid a couple of ... hundreds of explosions, while I taught Elite to be a normal techie. I should have finally cleaned the city from the villains and the remnants of criminal elements.
The villain greeted me fully armed. He was standing at the table, and in front of him on the table was a kawaii kitten with a dynamite strap attached to him with a radio fuse. The detonator was in the hand.
“If you don't let me go, then I will blow up this kitten.” The fiend made an ultimatum as soon as I entered the room.
“Meow?” The kitten asked and began to sniff the explosives.
Looks like Coil found my weak point. It’s not that I couldn’t save the kitten if I wanted to, but I decided to reward Coil for being creative.
“This is dishonest! You cannot take hostage cute kawaii kittens!” I panicked. “If something bad happens to him, eternity of suffering will await you.”
“Nothing will happen to him if you give me the opportunity to leave the city.”
“But what about the blockade?”
“Blockade opened yesterday morning.”
I waited and ponder about it while scratching my suit covered chin a while for the sake of it, but then the kitten said “Miu?”, posing as a tortured hostage.
“Good. If you give me the hostage, then I will give you an hour to leave the area of my telekinesis. And if you do not go far enough, I will tear you to shreds.”
“Promise not to disturb me?”
“I Promise.”
“Good.”
Coil give me the kawaii charm, and then ran to the exit from the base. Run Forest, run. Scratching the cat behind the ear, I went to look for a new home for him. I cannot settle an animal in my apartment. I go there rarely. Meanwhile, the villain got to the roof of a nearby building, where a helicopter was already waiting for him. Without losing a minute, he jumped into it, and the helicopter flew south, gaining altitude.
An hour later, when I had already played enough with the kitten, fed him and falling asleep in my arms, I remembered Coil. He was by then more than a thousand kilometers away from me. In Boston, he moved from a helicopter to a supersonic aircraft and now heading towards Mexico. He’s still in area of my force, so it was worth punishing the villain. I waited another fifteen minutes to instill hope in his heart, after which with telekinesis said under his ear:
“Coil, I don't want to disappoint you, but you haven't flown far enough. My power is working all over the Earth. To hide from me, you had to at least get to the moon. So ... goodbye.”
With these words, I tore the villain into small pieces, smearing the pilot with blood and the entire cockpit. As I expected, Coil could not foresee his death. His symbiote only influenced events in a certain radius, therefore in his “visions” there were no consequences of my actions.
Well, I dealt with this question. Now I need to learn the abilities of Dina Alcott. And I even know what kind of pretext I use to contact her. The pretext yawned, scratched his ear and fell asleep again. Dina was just at work with her father, so I headed to the governor's office.
“Hello, Herbert. Hi, Dina.” I said hello, entering the governor’s office.
“Good afternoon, Black Cloak. You are gone for three days. We were worried.”
“Business.” I shrugged. “Dina, I brought to you a saved hostage. He needs a new home and good friends.”
“Oh! That's for me? How lovely? Dad, can I keep him to myself?”
“Uh-uh ... of course.” The governor agreed, looking at me.
“And from whom did you save him?” Dina grabbed the kitty and began to squeeze it.
“From Coil. This was his last crime.” The happy smile of the girl for a moment was replaced by an anxious face. “He won't be able to kidnap anymore. By the way, Dina, what is the probability that the kitten will run away from you or get lost within a month?
“Three point, eighty-one hundredth percent. Do not worry, I will care of him.”
“Mister Black Cloak, since we are talking about the villains, it seems that we have a problem.” The governor intervened in our conversation.
“What's the problem?”
“Nine people’s corpses were found in the city. Each of them was killed in a unique way. I'm afraid it might be Slaughterhouse Number Nine. I contacted Tattletale and she confirmed my concerns.”
“Slaughterhouse Number Nine? Were they living under rocks to not know of what happened just fucking three days ago?” I was surprised. “Now I will deal with this issue.”
Saying goodbye, I went outside, flew up to the roof of one of the skyscrapers and tuned in to search for symbiotes within the city. In addition to the already well-known and “licensed” capes from the teams of the Undersiders, Faultline and Trickster, as well as the remnants of the Empire, I found several Rogues. In addition, on the base of the Coil in the deepest dungeon there was an incomprehensible mask, merged with his symbiote. Most of all it was like the manifestation of the power of the werewolf. And most importantly, in the southern part of the city in one of the houses there were members of the Slaughterhouse.
Eleven creatures of varying degrees of humanoids are located in a large basement. Right now they were discussing something with each other. It seems necessary to join their dispute and clarify some points. While I was getting to the place, one of the masks climbed out of the basement, flew into the air, and began to scatter the tentacles of her symbiote throughout the city.
“What did you think of it? Come to me!”
I grabbed the villain that the whole world knew under the name of Shatter Bird, broke her spine, cut off the symbiote tentacles and suppressed power control. In general, the procedure has already been worked out and there were no surprises. When I reached the house I needed, I grabbed a paralyzed victim and went down to the basement.
My appearance was a surprise to all those present.
“Black Cloak?” Jack Slash exclaimed. “How can you be so fast?! I expected you only in the evening!”
“Are you completely stupid?” I asked in response. “You have come to my city like this, despite the all known fact that I single-handedly killed three Endbringers?”
“Are you talking about this funny movie on the Internet, where you fight with the Endbringers?” Jack laughed. “Alas, your trick was revealed. On the same day, the Protectorate declared that it was computer graphics. They even demonstrated a live Eidolon. So your bluff failed.”
“Protectorate? Why they do not calm down? I will fix their brains in near future, and it is better to knock them out completely.” I angrily promised to myself. “I can congratulate you, you're really stupid.” I turned to Jack. “It was not computer graphics. And you bought the lie, conducted by the Protectorate.”
A smile fell off Jack's face. He was twitching to do something, but he discovered that my telekinesis was holding him tightly, not allowing him to move more than a couple of centimeters.
“And now there will be an indicative execution.” I told the crowd. “Please wait a minute before I bring a camera. I need another video with computer graphics, indistinguishable from reality.”
The smile of a bloodthirsty demon spread across my face. Siberian rushed to me, ignoring telekinesis, but I was not so surprised. I can see remote projections. I nourished one of the tentacles with my will, and then pierced the body of Siberia. She immediately burst like a balloon. This time, the faces of those present showed real panic. Siberia again appeared in the room and once again blowed up.
“Don't worry, it didn't hurt her at all.” I commented on this event. “But to him, this is obviously bad”.
A man flew into the basement, with blood from his mouth and ears. It was the mask that created the projection of Siberia. He once again tensed and created her image, which I pierced again. It was not just destruction. The symbiote, which wounded its master in retaliation, suffered from such treatment. The man began to vomit blood and made no more attempts at resistance.
In the meantime, I brought several video cameras from my apartment, hung them around the room and turned them on to record.
“Their batteries are low because I forgot to charge them.” I tell them. “So I’ll be as brief as possible. Well, as gentlemens say, ladies first. Let's start with you.”
I pointed to the Bonesaw trying to resist. She was an innocent blonde girl of about fourteen, who tried to say something, but only muffled softly.
“You are already an adult girl and you should know that if you behave badly, big uncles will come and do something bad to you. Well, you probably watched all these films for adults, where uncles put their stuff in girls. But since you're a minor, I’m using this instead.”
Before the nose of Bonesaw hung one of her spiders. It differed a good set of jagged saws, blades and other tools. I folded it, and then I shoved the spider into the very place, where all the blades opened and began to cut the flesh. The girl resisted, but could not do anything.
“You like to cut people into pieces? So you should like this.”
Five minutes later, only the head and body from Bonesaw remained. Despite this, she was still alive. But I did not drag out the agony and finally defragmented it, dropping the bloody mess down the toilet.
“Next is, you darling. You joined Nine against your will, so your death will be quick.”
In a second, the second girl followed the first.
“Burnscar. You sought refuge in your strength. On fire. Therefore, it is worth helping you to reunite with this element.”
Without the protection of her symbiote, this mask burned in my fire in less than a minute. I poured the ashes to the toilet and turned to ShatterBird.
“You like to break glasses. Have you ever wondered what would happen if you become like glass? Let's check shall we?”
I froze the maniac up to the temperature of absolute zero and smashed her against the wall. After that, I crushed pieces of her body into dust and again washed it down in the toilet.
“Good toilet here - does not clog.”
After examining the rest, I chose the creator of Siberian.
“We will assume that you are a girl too. In a sense. You liked to eat people alive. So let someone eat you too. Here, for example, Crawler.”
I waved my hand, and one human-shaped monster flew into the mouth of another human-shaped monster. There, with telekinesis, I forced Crawler to chew on his lunch, then swallow and digest. Even bones and dental crowns have dissolved in his gastric juice.
I noticed three ugly figures frozen near the wall. These were masks, turned by Bonesaw into a sort of puppets. After this did not shine normal life for them, so I just scattered them into bloody dust and sent after the creator.
“Well, there are three of you left.”
Jack looked at me with bulging eyes, Crawler roared quietly, trying to overpower the telekinesis, and Mannequin stood silently in place, not even moving a millimeter. I chose him as next.
“You have achieved considerable success in transforming your body. Once, you dreamed of spaceflight. But I think you have certain problems with miniaturization. Come on, I'll show you how to do it properly.”
The Mannequin body is folded into a metal ball, which is its standard "compact" form. After that, I squeezed it, crushing metal parts, and squeezing out the organic parts. The pressure grew and grew. Matter shrank, warmed up to enormous temperatures and still shrank. A couple of minutes later, Mannequin remained a sphere the size of a large apple. Nuclear fusion hasn’t begun yet, but it was already close. I took this sphere out of the basement and sent it vertically upwards. At an altitude of a couple of thousand kilometers, I partially loosened control over it, and the stream of hot plasma flew towards the open space. It could even be used as a weapon. Not a single molecule is left from the Mannequin. His whole body went to meet the stars.
“Crawler, all you wanted was to experience pain. Now I will give you an ocean of pain.”
I picked up the huge carcass weighing several tons, and then began to slowly pinch off microscopic pieces of it, which I immediately chased through the pyrokinesis zone, where they burned to the ground. Crawler roared for the first couple of minutes in ecstasy, and then he got worried. His tail, legs, most of his body disappeared. He tried to regenerate, but I blocked his regeneration ability that can create virtual matter. And without such cheating ability, any regeneration stops on the absence of building material.
By the time when only one head remained from Crawler, he was already crying and pleading, but I didn’t stop until the last drop of his body was gone.
“Jack, you’re the last one remaining.” I turned to the permanent member of Slaughterhouse Nine. “You are to blame for the deaths of so many people that just death will not be enough for you. For starters, let's take away your limbs. You will no longer the right for them anyway, and so you can focus on the main thing. We do not need pipe dreams about your salvation, don’t we?”
I amputated Jack's arms and legs and healed the stumps. Now he was just a torso with a head and a cock. We need to come up with something original. Such that all those who will watch this video begin the act of involuntary defecation at the mere thought that I can do the same to them.
But before I could concentrate on the problem, I felt that my soul was literally ripped out of my body.
“Fuuh~ I thought I would be too late to stop you, but I managed!” Told me a satisfied Being. “You haven't spoiled the whole game for us. The existence of Jack is an absolutely necessary element of the main scenario. He cannot be killed.”
“Could you not say that earlier? And why you pulled me out of my body?
I looked at my frozen figure and Jack with wild eyes.
“You won. I mean, I won. You raised such a cool symbiote. This is also a ready-made tool for use in one of the following games. It is not necessary to tell other players that exactly you created this tool. I will hand it to some sucker with a minimum of brains, and I can take bets in the ratio of ten to one.”
While the Being was busy with its rainbow plans, the symbiote plunged into the depths of panic and horror. Looks like this symbiote is also not pleased by this prospect. So, why is it trying to shove dirty tentacles to my soul? What? Do you want to leave your embryo in me, hiding it in a multidimensional fold of space tied to my soul, and give to this symbiote an order to serve me for at least a thousand years? Well then fine. Put aside your son.
Symbiote gave me his son and instantly calmed down. And I felt a note of satisfaction slipping from the symbiote’s side. Apparently, this breeding process allowed the symbiote to accept fate. And the submission of the instrument to the will of the owner is one of the most important characteristics. Again the Being thing used me. Well, at least a piece of symbiote remained with me. I spend very much time while growing it.
“In general, everything turned out pretty well, unless you take into account the fact that you irrevocably destroyed all members of the Slaughterhouse. You will have to become one of the followers of Jack Slash. The possibilities of your symbiote will be enough to replace all the dead. And since you will not be able to play this role, I have to put a bot in your place.”
My body, which I still could see from the side, moved and uttered:
“Do you want to tell me something?”
The power that prevented Jack from speaking disappeared, and he began to sing like a nightingale. In fact, all this chatter was one of the manifestations of the strength of his symbiote. And now he began to brainwash the “bot,” especially since Being turned off my passive protection from external influence. I did not have time to notice when I lost my symbiote. Now I clearly felt that symbiote was attached to a surrogate person in my body.
It was disgusting to look at the subsequent events. Black Cloak believed all the noodles that Jack had placed on his ears, then he healed his arms and legs back and agreed to join the Slaughterhouse. And as a finishing touch agreed with the idea of changing the name and image. So my alter ego became Black Executioner, as they wanted in the Protectorate.
The world went out, and again I was in darkness and emptiness. Only the presence of the Being prevented me from sliding into a complete loss of external sensations.
“In general, I thought about your future fate and came to a disappointing conclusion. Nobody wants to bet against you. Even in this game that only a couple of players agreed to bet your result would not be the best. In general, everything is bad. Therefore, it is worth a little cheating. He-he-he-he.”
The Being laughed maliciously.
“I will not tell you the whole plan yet. So you can better focus on the current task. You are already familiar with the technology of portals and interworld movements. But those portals that you used in the world of demons are too primitive. They act only within one group of worlds. And you will need to learn technology that allows you to move between different Planes, Groups of worlds, Universes, and even Game Servers. Now I will send you to the world where such technology exists. This is the cosmic world, so there are no special restrictions. But remember, I do not need you to conquer the entire galaxy, subvert the current government or destroy all kinds of intelligent beings. This must be a secret operation. I repeat - SECRET! Quietly come, studied and left. The plot is quite well known to you there, so it's not worth breaking it either. No killings of the main characters or anything. Clear? And if you can’t handle it, then you will burn in the Hell forever. I have one booked place there. Instruction is over, take up the job. And as you learn all that is required, I will find you again.”