Grim spent the next several hours in the office speaking with Jeeves. The history of this world, and the events that regularly happen to restrict its inhabitants, were astounding. Even based on the AI’s somewhat lacking information, such as missing data and events, he was able to put two and two together.
After all, he was raised in a realm just like this.
He stalked back to the CIC in a foul mood, leaving Bag to continue his conversation with the snarky, uptight and proper AI. A name had never fist so well as Jeeves fit it. As he stormed in the doors, everyone else looked at him. Stella immediately picked up on his irritation.
“What is the matter Grim? You seem… dour,” she said, a bit taken aback by the level of irritation that she was seeing him express.
He sat heavily in a chair as the group sat around him. “This place, this universe, is a fucking prison,” he said after a few moments. “This is an artificial universe created separate from the network of the twelve. This place shouldn’t exist, but it does.”
Everyone stared at him like he was out of his mind.
“And… wait other… I don’t even know where to start unpacking that,” Joe admitted.
Tetra shrugged. “Not my problem. Although I am getting new ideas for instant travel… portals… fuck me. Boss, I have to start building stuff at some point or my brain is going to explode.”
“Then go find a lab and start building stuff. Just don’t fuck with anything biological,” Grim grunted back. The crazy inventor was up out of her seat and gone faster than he could blink. “Fuck, are all you intellectual types this crazy?” he wondered aloud.
Trevor shrugged, “We can certainly be eccentric. Well, that’s our usual state of being I suppose,” he admitted calmly, having recovered from the branding ordeal. Grim could still see it poking out from just under the edge of his shirt. “Most inventors are out of their minds; however their scientific prowess is simply off the charts. I can’t tell you how many supers with intellectual abilities have gone mad simply because they couldn’t pursue what their powers were leading them to. In fact, its often why many super scientists go villain.”
“Makes sense in a fucked-up kind of way” Grim admitted.
Joe interrupted, “Can we go back to this multiple universe thing? I’m more than a little concerned here, and I have so, so very many questions.”
“I’m not from this universe. Something went wrong with my portal and poof, here I am. I came here with a literal legion of demons contained within my armor, only to barely survive the transfer and land in the middle of a major fight between your fucking Heroes Guild and the League of Villains,” Grim said, irritated. “Then I come to find out, just a few moments ago, this place is utterly cut off from the System, a multiverse wide governing shit-show that dictates how anyone can live their lives and was more than likely used as a prison for extra-planar entities who have long since escaped. Any more fucking questions?”
“Just a few,” the big spy said. He retreated under the withering glare from Grim. backing off quickly he amended he statement, “Never mind, I’m good.
Grim continued to glare at him. “Good. Now we need to figure out a few things. We are trapped here, for all intents and purposes. That fuck,” he gestured at Trevor, “let all his little evil plant pals out into the sewer. That will cause a much larger issue later on, so I recommend we work on solving that first. Then we can move into actually getting some gear together.”
“Then what? I still need to get back home and report this mess of a fiasco, along with the Republics grand plans for ‘unification’ of the wayward countries,” Joe questioned. “Besides, once you get this little base of yours together, what are you planning on doing?”
Grim had been thinking about that exact question for a while now. This place had no System, so it wasn’t under observation. These super powers that the people on this version of Earth were demonstrating were amazing. And they were not System governed. He had a sneaking suspicion that they were tied both in part to their bodies and to their souls. Stella was a good example of that, as after her conversion her powers had inverted from light and purity to shadow and temptation.
Staying here and studying the people, unlocking the secret to their powers and how to enhance them, could give him a literal army to work with. On the other hand, so much about this place didn’t make sense. Between the powers, the beasts, and the fact that this world was literal magnitudes larger than most standard Earths, the isolation and pockets of existing humanity was worrisome to him. Could with those reasons, and the fact that his allies and remaining family were fighting for their lives, he needed to escape this pace.
Quickly.
“I don’t know yet. There are a few options, but my foremost goal is to get the fuck out of here and back to the war I was fighting,” Grim said, “I’m not too interested in starting a new one here.”
Stella spoke up, “Grim,” she started with a frown, getting his attention with her utter seriousness, “Why don’t you bring your allies and family here? From what you’ve said, and what little I have heard, this whole war isn’t going well for you. But you have a place here, apparently a secret one with plenty of mysteries, that you can use to stage a comeback.”
Grim stared at her. “Are you telling me to retreat here, build an army, tech up, then invade from a literal prison universe? Because if you are that’s a fucking good idea,” he readily admitted. “I need to figure out a way to bridge this universe with the twelve primaries. I am assuming that what ever was imprisoned here tried for a long time before either something released them or they succeeded. I don’t know if I can wait that long.”
Tetra came tearing back into the room in a blur. Grim had never seen her move so fast as she quite literally skidded to a halt in front of the group.
“Boss we got a serious problem,” she panted, “Those plant fucks are tearing into a wall in one of the rooms. We are gonna have issues if they get through. There aren’t any big metal doors to stop them there,” she explained.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Grim stood up. “Rat, grab the imps and station them in front of the tear. Tetra, lead them there, then go build the biggest fucking firebomb you can. We are clearing these goddamn nuisances out of my sewers now,” he raged. “Stella, you, our spy friend, and the little traitor stay here. Be ready to close the doors if we fuck up.”
Stella nodded as Grim followed Rat, the Imps, and Tetra out of the doors. The quartet raced down the hallway, turning one to find themselves in a large laboratory. The back center wall of the lab was made of concrete. Concrete that was being slowly chipped away at by plant claws.
“What the fuck, thought this place was encased in metal?” Rat complained, “This is gonna be super annoying.”
Grim pointed, “Tetra, go build my bomb. I want to flood these tunnels with fire,” he ordered. The cat demon saluted and sped away. He turned back to the crack. Walking up to it, he conjured a Hellfire and neatly deposited it into the crack.
The results were immediate, as screams sounded out from the other side. Whatever these things were they felt pain. They could experienced fear. They were far from mindless, although probably some kind of hive mind they each had individual survival instincts.
He could work with that.
Grim only grunted, dropping another Hellfire bomb into the crack. The screaming that came back through was music to his ears, but that didn’t seem to slow the Rattles in the slightest. In fact, regardless of casualties that seemed to redouble their efforts to get through the wall.
It was a complete an utter turkey shoot.
Each Rattle that stuck its tendrils into the hole to scrape away a bit more concrete was met with balls of Hellfire. Grim was not only racking up the kills, he was soaking up the energy. He could feel his reserves expanding significantly as he murdered his way through the annoyingly determined plant creatures. If Trevor was even remotely accurate on his timeline, those things could have had years to expand in number. There could, potentially, be thousands of them out there.
With a suddenness that left him off balance, they suddenly retreated from the hole. The darkness beyond was filled with flickering shadows interspersed with creatures who burned slowly down to their constituent matter. All too soon the flames themselves went out, plunging everything beyond the hole into pitch darkness.
Everything was silent for several seconds, then a roar shook the room. So deep and loud was the inhumane noise the even Grim as forced to wrap his hands around his helmet to ward off the sound. It stretched on for nearly a minute before falling silent. Then both sides waited.
A slow, rhythmic tapping sounded down the dark tunnels on the other side of the wall, feeding into the room with a slight echo to them. The noise got closer, and closer, causing Grim to swallow in anxiety at just what new horror would attempt to come at them next. Rat slunk back slightly, while even the imps look nervous, shifting their eyes between their master and the source of the noise.
Then, just outside the wall, the noise stopped.
“Hello, hello,” whispered a soft voice, carried into the room only through the fact that it was dead silent. “To the… play things inside of our lab. Greetings. Why don’t you come outside so that we can… talk? Perhaps open a door? Fresh air is… very good for the body you know.”
Grim immediately shook off the influence that tried to get a hold of his mind. Turning, he saw Rat stumble forward towards the opening. “Imps, grab the stupid man and hold him down if you have to, but do not allow him to crawl through that hole,” he ordered, causing the imps to body slam the now hypnotized Rat.
“Hmm… someone seems to have… resistance. Don’t fight it. Become… one with us. Become us,” whispered the voice.
Grim grinned, “How about you go fuck yourself. Virus was it? You should consider a name change to Mulch, its going to be much more accurate in a few minutes.”
A long slow hiss was the response to his insult. “It teases me… us. Insults me… us. How very, very interesting. Inter… esting. No. No you are not… worth the effort. Simply die for us. Become food for us. You will be the last meal before we spread… above and into the sunlight,” it whispered.
That wasn’t good.
“Bag, if Tetra doesn’t get here in the next thirty seconds with that bomb I’m going to need your help creating one,” he sent to the demon residing in his helmet.
Whatever the villain Virus had turned into, it was something that was far beyond the mortality of the common human being. Possibly even a superpower human. Based on the contagiousness of the things outside, they would overwhelm the country above them if he didn’t take the opportunity to stop it now. Because if these things got out, it would very much stop his efforts to breach the dimensional barrier cold. Nothing like a world filled with parasitic plants to put a crimp in your plans.
Grim was about to conjure Hellfire when a massive strike against the wall tore out a section of the concrete. Dust, debris, and chunks of the wall were flung into the room, concealing what was outside in the tunnels for a moment.
But only a moment.
The terrifying amalgamation of man and plant that Grim saw once the dust settled made him want to hurl. He had seen some disgusting, cruel things in his time but nothing like the creature in front of him.
Virus had been a man of dark skin at one point, and what remained of his face and mouth were attached to the side of the monstrous plant creatures head. The one remaining eye spun around lazily as a partial tongue hung from tis mouth, dripple green slime down the side of its body. The main head was a large, six petalled flower with razor sharp teeth on the inside of each petal, perfect for devouring prey. But the body was what disgusted Grim the most.
It was twenty to thirty feet long and covered with pulsating, dripping pustules. The liquid secreting from nearly ever inch of its serpentine like anatomy stank like the dead, decaying corpses that they most likely embodied. The thick, green and yellow viscous like mucus that dropped from those infect pods were most likely what converted and infected the people turned homicidal plant creatures behind it.
Two thick arms wrapped in vines that spouted the pustules and odd, grey flowers every few feet were what it drug itself around on. Grim thought he could see two shriveled legs in the back, higher up on the body. He quickly changed his opinion. This thing wasn’t serpentine… it was damn slug like.
“Ah, the man sees our… magnificence and is struck… speechless,” Virus said, striking a pose. “Our… beauty,” it hissed out over is lolling tongue, the eye spinning around madly in the side of its head.
“I’m gonna vomit,” Rat said from the floor before turning his head sideways and puking all over the floor. Virus had the tenacity to look offended.
“Rude. Rude. The dog creature is… rude!” he snarled, the plant maw opening as vines reached forward to snag the Anubis demon. However, the imps had over plans.
They sprang to their feet, hooked their beefy red arms around one leg each, and hauled Rat straight out of the room and into the hallway beyond. Unfortunately they also dragged him through his own vomit, which the demon complained about loudly off into the distance.
“That… was gross,” the gigantic monstrosity muttered.
Grim chuckled, the effect from under his helm giving it an odd muffled sound. “Have you looked in the mirror lately? You aren’t exactly the picture of health and beauty. No wonder you live in a pitch black sewer,” he said as insultingly as he could. He rolled his neck, feeling a twinge of energy from somewhere, but he ignored it for now.
Virus roared at the insult, the maw opening wide to send spit and gore flying his way. While nearly bursting his eardrums even through the protective coverings of his helmet, he summoned a small ball of Hellfire.
And lobbed it into the open maw in front of him.